XV.3 Another origin of the right of slavery

, par Stewart

I would as soon say that the right of slavery comes from the contempt that one nation conceives for another, based on their difference of customs.

Lopez de Gomara says that “near St. Martha the Spaniards found baskets in which the inhabitants kept comestibles : there were crabs, snails, cicadas, grasshoppers. The victors imputed this as a crime to the vanquished.” [1] The author concedes that it was on this basis that they founded the right to make the Americans slaves of the Spanish, besides the fact that they smoked tobacco, and did not trim their beards the way the Spaniards did.

Familiarity makes men accommodating, reason inclines to humanity ; only prejudices make a person renounce them.