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sea; but neither does this, nor the fact that he and his posterity might be brown or yellow, invalidate our general argument: we know that Ham settled in Egypt; and there is every reason to suppose that his brethren and their posterity, would show but little favor to him and his posterity; but would very soon avail themselves of all the real and supposed privileges that the curse, denounced upon Ham and his posterity, gives them; and would expel them from the rich lands of the Nile into the southern and less desirable sections of Africa.
To substantiate these scriptural facts respecting the origin of the negro, permit me to give you a tradition which I found among the Seminole Indians in Florida, as follows: “When the great spirit had created the earth and all its animals, he concluded to make man, who should be lord and master of the whole. But as the first man he made was black, and not being well pleased with him, he proceeded to make a second, whom he made red; but not being satisfied with the improvement, he created a third—and him he made white, with whom he was well pleased. The great spirit then presented to these men three boxes—the first of which contained books, the second bows and arrows, and the third hoes and axes. And as the white man was the great spirit’s favorite, he had the first choice; and he selected the box of books. The red man was allowed the second choice—who took the bows and arrows: and the negro had to take the hoes and axes; and now, say these Indians, the white man lives by books, the red man by hunting, and the black man by labor—and such they believe to be the will of the Great Spirit—hence the reason why these Indians never would receive teachers and missionaries among them. And there has recently been discovered a nation of negroes in central Africa, holding the same tradition; both traditions acknowledging the superiority of the white man over the other two, as well as the inferiority of the black to the red.
We will now advance a physiological argument in support of what has already been said, containing the reason for the color of the negro.
There is every reason to believe that an additional curse was inflicted on the earth by the flood, and that very great changes must have been produced in the physiology of the earth—in her climate and atmosphere. God did curse the ground when Adam sinned: and from the fearful increase of crime, both in quantity and quality, he found it necessary to increase and extend the curse, in such a man-
