If we compare the American Indians with the natives of Europe, or of Asia,' we shall find, that the superiority displayed by the latter in conducting the operations of agriculture, depends chiefly upon two circumstances— the subjugationamd use of the lower animals, and an acquaintance with the harder and more serviceable me tals. But the people of America had not reduced the lower animals to subjection ; and of the harder and more serviceable metals they were completely ignorant. Hence their agriculture was extremely imperfect, and their power was limited in all its efforts and operations.
In every part of the Old World, man has subjected th irrational creatures to his dominion, and taught them to obey his commands. Not to speak of more civilized nations, the Laplander moves along the ice in a car, drawn by the reindeer; the Tartar pursues his enemies on horseback, and clothes himself with the wool of his flocks ; the Arab travels through the desart on the ca mel, and profits by its docility and strength ; and even the Kainschatkadaie, the rudest perhaps of all the Asi atics, has constrained the clog to labour in his service. In the operations of agriculture, the aid of the inferior animals is peculiarly requisite. It is by means of their assistance, tint the European or Asiatic subdues the hardened soil, and renders it lit to receive the seed which he casts into it. Under his direction the ox ap plies his shoulder to the draught ; and the furrow is made by the exertions of the horse. In the ancient continent, man appears to be the lord of the creation ; he exacts obedience from various tribes of animals, which submit to his authority, and depend for subsistence and protec tion on his bounty or care. In the New World, how ever, reason is so partially improved, and the union of its inhabitants is so incomplete, that the dominion of the human kind has not been established over a single spe cies of the brute creation. All the animals retain their liberty. The savage of America knows how to chase and to kill them ; but not to subdue them to his purposes, to improve their strength, or to multiply their numbers. Nor does this arise altogether from the want of those animals which have been tamed or domesticated in the eastern hemisphere. The cow and the bison are of one species ; (Buffon, Art. Bison.) and the rein-deer of Lap land is not different from that of America. The bear is a native of the western continent, and might have easily been broken and employed to facilitate the operations of its inhabitants.*
The next circumstance which has retarded the im provement of the Americans, by limiting their power, is their ignorance of the harder metals, and especially of iron. Gold and silver may be found almost pure in the beds of rivers, in the clefts of rocks, or on the sides of mountains ; but iron, the most useful of the metals, is never found in its perfect state ; it must be separated from its impurities by artificial and laborious processes, and it must be united with a foreign substance (charcoal) before it acquires that temper which renders it fit for operations of much exertion. When the New World was discovered, its inhabitants were wholly unacquainted with iron ; and indeed with all the metals excepting gold, an inconsiderable quantity of which they picked up and 'used for the embellishment of their persons. The con sequence of this ignorance was, that the simplest opera tion was to them a business of much difficulty and extra ordinary labour. Not less than two months were neces sary in order to cut clown a tree, when no other instru ments were used but hatchets of stone ; this, if we may believe Gumilla, was their own computation, and a year was requisite to hollow a canoe, or to form it into shape. In agricultuoe, their progress was equally slow. The trees with which their forests are crowded are of the hardest wood ; and the shrubs and herbs immediately above the surface of the earth, are so numerous and closely interwoven, that the efforts of a whole tribe are scarcely sufficient to clear a small piece of ground, mark ed out for the purposes of cultivation The rest of the labour is generally left to be performed by the women, who, after stirring the field with poles burnt in the fire, throw the grain into it ; and the fertility of the soil, ra they than the industry of the people, often ,,ceures to them an increase eluai to their wants. Grimiila, iri. I Kt,.
et Lettr•s CUriCUNC•, X ii. I !ICC it is that agriculture, which in in Europe is a work of great labour, is exceedingly impel fee t among the al habitants of America : And hence it is not surprising-, that the rude natives of the %+ est•rn continent, who have not broken the inferior animals to the yoke, and are un acquainted with instruments of iron, should di pend for their subsistence chiefly on hunting mid fishing.