3907. INDIANS, Civilizing.—
It is evident
that your society has begun at the right end for civilizing the Indians. Habits of industry,
easy subsistence, attachment to property,
are necessary to prepare their minds for
the first elements of science, and afterwards for
moral and religious instruction. To begin with
the last has ever ended either in effecting nothing,
or ingrafting bigotry on ignorance, and
setting them to tomahawking and burning old
women and others as witches, of which we
have seen a commencement among them.—
To James Pemberton. Washington ed. v, 212.
(W.
1807)
