"If, according to an opinion of Aristotle and of Cicero, only the finding or discovering of some art either liberal or mechanical, or of some stone, plant, or other thing which may be of service to men commands their praise, ... of what glory are they not worthy who discovered a World in which are found such innumerable grandeurs and riches? ... Nor is the benefit of this same discovery of less, but of much greater value to that same New World itself; for, in addition to the light of the faith which we gave to its inhabitants, of which I shall peak later, we have also raised them up into social and political life, we have banished their barbarism, changed their wild customs into humane ones, and brought to them many useful and necessary things from our own land; we have taught them the real cultivation of the soil, how to build houses, to live in towns, to read, to write, and many other arts to which they were formerly toatlly alien."
-- Juan de Solorzano Pereyra, Politica Indiana (Madrid, 1776). I. cap. viii, par 6-7.
"The French exceed in industry, economy, and the arts of conciliating the affections of mankind....This people have a country where more is to be affected by managing [the Indians] than by cultivating the ground; where a pedling commerce, that requires constant motion, flourishes more than agriculture or a regular traffic; where they have difficulties which keep them aler by struggling with them and where their obedience to a wise government serves them for personal wisdom."
-- Edmund Burke, An Account of European Settlements in America (London, 1767). II, 27, 56.
Sir William Strachey articulated the imperial goal of England in Historie and Travell:
"We shall by degrees chaung their barbarous natures, make them ashamed... of their savage nakedness, informe them of the true god, and of the waie to salvation, and fynally teach them obedience to the kings Majestie and to his Governours in those parts." (1612).
[Hakluyt Soc, Pubs., 2nd Ser., CIII], 91.
The Virginia Council's position on warfare with the Indians, in response to the London Company's recommendation:
"Wheras we are advised by you to observe rules of Justice with these barberous and perfidious enemies, wee hold nothinge injuste, that may tend to theire ruine... Strategems were ever allowed against all enemies , but with these neither fayre Warr nor good quarter is ever to be held, nor is there other hope of theire subversione, who ever may informe you to the Contrarie" They called for a "perpetuall warre without peace or truce."
Va. Co. Recs, IV, 221-222.
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