William Howitt - Colonization and Christianity

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The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation has been retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been corrected.

COLONIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY.

A
POPULAR HISTORY
OF THE
TREATMENT OF THE NATIVES
BY THE EUROPEANS
IN ALL THEIR COLONIES.
BY
WILLIAM HOWITT.

LONDON:
LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS.
1838.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY MANNING AND SMITHSON,
IVY-LANE, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

The object of this volume is to lay open to the public the most extensive and extraordinary system of crime which the world ever witnessed. It is a system which has been in full operation for more than three hundred years, and continues yet in unabating activity of evil. The apathy which has hitherto existed in England upon this subject has proceeded in a great measure from want of knowledge. National injustice towards particular tribes, or particular individuals, has excited the most lively feeling, and the most energetic exertions for its redress,but the whole wide field of unchristian operations in which this country, more than any other, is engaged, has never yet been laid in a clear and comprehensive view before the public mind. It is no part of the present volume to suggest particular plans of remedy. The first business is to make known the nature and the extent of the evil,that once perceived, in this great country there will not want either heads to plan or hands to accomplish all that is due to the rights of others, or the honour and interest of England.

West End Cottage, Esher,
June 8th, 1838.

COLONIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY.

Christianity has now been in the world upwards of One Thousand Eight Hundred Years . For more than a thousand years the European nations have arrogated to themselves the title of Christian ! some of their monarchs, those of most Sacred and most Christian Kings ! We have long laid to our souls the flattering unction that we are a civilized and a Christian people. We talk of all other nations in all other quarters of the world, as savages, barbarians, uncivilized. We talk of the ravages of the Huns, the irruptions of the Goths; of the terrible desolations of Timour, or Zenghis Khan. We talk of Alaric and Attila, the sweeping carnage of Mahomet, or the cool cruelties of more modern Tippoos and Alies. We shudder at the war-cries of naked Indians, and the ghastly feasts of Cannibals; and bless our souls that we are redeemed from all these things, and made models of beneficence, and lights of God in the earth!

It is high time that we looked a little more rigidly into our pretences. It is high time that we examined, on the evidence of facts, whether we are quite so refined, quite so civilized, quite so Christian as we have assumed to be. It is high time that we look boldly into the real state of the question, and learn actually, whether the mighty distance between our goodness and the moral depravity of other people really exists. Whether, in fact, we are Christian at all!

Have bloodshed and cruelty then ceased in Europe? After a thousand years of acquaintance with the most merciful and the most heavenly of religions, do the national characters of the Europeans reflect the beauty and holiness of that religion? Are we distinguished by our peace, as the followers of the Prince of Peace? Are we renowned for our eagerness to seek and save, as the followers of the universal Saviour? Are our annals redolent of the delightful love and fellowship which one would naturally think must, after a thousand years, distinguish those who pride themselves on being the peculiar and adopted children of Him who said, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another? These are very natural, but nevertheless, very awkward questions. If ever there was a quarter of the globe distinguished by its quarrels, its jealousies, its everlasting wars and bloodshed, it is Europe. Since these soi-disant Christian nations have risen into any degree of strength, what single evidence of Christianity have they, as nations, exhibited? Eternal warfare!is that Christianity? Yet that is the history of Christian Europe. The most subtle or absurd pretences to seize upon each others possessions,the contempt of all faith in treaties,the basest policy,the most scandalous profligacy of public morals,the most abominable international laws!are they Christianity? And yet they are the history of Europe. Nations of men selling themselves to do murder, that ruthless kings might ravish each others crownsnations of men, standing with jealous eyes on the perpetual watch against each other, with arms in their hands, oaths in their mouths, and curses in their hearts;are those Christian? Yet there is not a man acquainted with the history of Europe that will even attempt to deny that that is the history of Europe. For what are all our international boundaries; our lines of demarcation; our frontier fortresses and sentinels; our martello towers, and guard-ships; our walled and gated cities; our bastions and batteries; and our jealous passports? These are all barefaced and glaring testimonies that our pretence of Christianity is a mere assumption; that after upwards of a thousand years of the boasted possession of Christianity, Europe has not yet learned to govern itself by its plainest precepts; and that her children have no claim to, or reliance in that spirit of love which casteth out all fear. It is very well to vaunt the title of Christian one to anotherevery nation knows in its own soul, it is a hollow pretence. While it boasts of the Christian name, it dare not for a moment throw itself upon a Christian faith in its neighbour. No! centuries of the most unremitted hatred,blood poured over every plain of Europe, and sprinkled on its very mountain tops, cry out too dreadfully, that it is a dismal cheat. Wars, the most savage and unprovoked; oppressions, the most desperate; tyrannies, the most ruthless; massacres, the most horrible; death-fires, and tortures the most exquisite, perpetuated one on another for the faith, and in the very name of God; dungeons and inquisitions; the blood of the Vaudois, and the flaming homes of the Covenanters are all in their memories, and give the lie to their professions. No! Poland rent in sunder; the iron heel of Austria on the prostrate neck of Italy; and invasions and aggressions without end, make Christian nations laugh with a hollow mockery in their hearts, in the very midst of their solemn professions of the Christian virtue and faith.