But Amidst The Cruelties Exercised On The Caribs, It Is Consolatory To Find, That There Existed Some Courageous Men Who Raised The Voice Of Humanity And Justice.

Some of the monks embraced an opinion different from that which they had at first adopted.

In an age when there could be no hope of founding public liberty on civil institutions, an attempt was at least made to defend individual liberty. "That is a most holy law (ley sanctissima)," says Gomara, in 1551, "by which our emperor has prohibited the reducing of the Indians to slavery. It is just that men, who are all born free, should not become the slaves of one another."

During our abode in the Carib missions, we observed with surprise the facility with which young Indians of eighteen years of age, when appointed to the post of alguazil, would harangue the municipality for whole hours in succession. Their tone of voice, their gravity of deportment, the gestures which accompanied their speech, all denoted an intelligent people capable of a high degree of civilization. A Franciscan monk, who knew enough of the Carib language to preach in it occasionally, pointed out to us that the long and harmonious periods which occur in the discourses of the Indians are never confused or obscure. Particular inflexions of the verb indicate beforehand the nature of the object, whether it be animate or inanimate, singular or plural. Little annexed forms (suffixes) mark the gradations of sentiment; and here, as in every language formed by a free development, clearness is the result of that regulating instinct which characterises human intelligence in the various stages of barbarism and cultivation.

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