Ensuring First Peoples are not last citizens (Part II)…

ROBERT H. Schomburgk’s language in ‘Twelve Views in the Interior of Guiana’ is both pitiful and supportive of its First Peoples, made clear in the very first paragraph of the book’s preface:

“It is needless for me here to repeat how I have become acquainted with much that is sublime and beautiful in the interior of Guiana, and how I have delighted in the opportunities afforded me of studying the character of that untutored being, the Indian, who is known to the inhabitants of the Coast, from the examples there seen, only as a miserable and depraved being, just civilised enough to adopt European vices, and not her virtues.”

The 73 pages of this oversized book offer readers, page-by-page, with illustrations, a better understanding of British Guiana back in 1840, when the publication attracted an elite readership of 360 persons (209 in BG) and including top-notch British and European personalities, all listed therein.

It also includes the original 1840 Map of British Guiana, also drawn by Schomburgk to plot his route.

The dozen intrinsically carved and painted illustrations are of sites Schomburgk felt would best reflect how different life in Guyana’s interior looked back then, and the intrinsic relationship between the Indians and their surroundings.

The sites illustrated (with latitudinal and longitudinal locations) are:
1: Cumuti (or Taquiare Rock) on the River Essequibo
2: Ataraipu (or The Devil’s Rock)
3: Pirara and Lake Amucu (the site of El Dorado)
4: Pure-Piapa (a real Basalic column in Guiana)
5: Roraima (a remarkable range of Sandstone Mountains in Guiana)
6: Purumama (the Great Fall of the River Parima)
7: Junction of the Kundanama with the Paramu
8: Esmeralda on the Orinoco
9: Brazilian Port San Gabriel (on The Rio Negro)
10: Itabu and Christmas Cataracts (on the River Berbice)
11: Watu Tikaba (a Wapisiana village)
12: Caribi Village, Annai (near the River Rupununi)

Schomburgk’s notes were sharpened on both trips (before and after Slavery) by the way the Indians were treated.

The writer notes on Page 73 (the penultimate page) of the book:
“It is scarcely necessary to observe that a subject so replete with interest as the present state of the original inhabitants of Guiana deserves more attention than the philanthropic public of Great Britain has hitherto afforded it. The indifference with which they have been treated seems almost unaccountable, and I must ascribe it to ignorance, for it is hardly possible that the religious portion of Great Britain should be aware that a race of men exists, who have not only been dispossessed of their territory by Europeans, but have been wholly neglected, and are without provision for their moral or civil advancement, although their lands are now occupied by British subjects who have never made them any compensation, and export to the Mother Country to the annual amount of three million; and import, in British manufacturers, upwards of two million sterling.”

It’s clear that Schomburgk felt that the Indians were owed not only respect, but also compensation (today called Reparations).

He continues: “The present history of these Aborigines appears to be the finale of a tragical drama, for a whole race of men is wasting away under adverse circumstances. Heartless, however, is the assertion, unworthy of our enlightened age that the indigenous race of the New World is incapable of elevation, and that no power, whether emanating from Christians, princes or philosophers, can arrest its gloomy progress towards certain destruction. Such an unfeeling and impious idea could not have originated with anyone who had lived among them, or who had studied their character. I speak from experience when I assert that the Indian is capable of progressive improvement, and that the establishment of social order, European arts, and Christian morals among them is possible.

“It is unreasonable to expect that men, accustomed to roaming and unfettered life, and unacquainted with our artificial wants should at once abandon their wandering habits and adopt a mode of living diametrically opposite to their long-established customs, and who but too frequently, where they have been brought into contact with civilisation, have not partaken of its blessings, but merely felt its curse.

“The obligations of moral duty, and for obvious reasons, sound policy, ought to direct those who profit by the soil to which the Indians have an undisputable right, to contribute in some degree to their religious and moral instruction. But if it is to be attempted to palliate the neglect which they have received, by the assertion that the capacities and capabilities of the Aborigines render them insensible to improvement, I, at once, as a contradiction to this error, adduce to the example of the three natives who accompanied me in 1839 to England, and after a sojourn of nine months, returned last July to their homes…”

And his final paragraph: “Great Britain has been invested with wealth and power, and there are many bright examples where these have been used to spread the knowledge of the true God and civilisation among barbarous tribes. The moment appears to have arrived when a similar boon will be bestowed upon the hitherto neglected natives one of her most magnificent colonies. Already has Her Majesty’s Government resolved to secure to such as acknowledge British sovereignty, and live within her boundaries, the rights of human beings – personal liberty, and protection against foreign aggression and enslavement; and the friends of the poor Indians hail this as a certain proof that British influence and philanthropy will also promote among them the diffusion of Gospel truths, the improvement of moral habits, and the spread of civilisation: And although the first chapel erected to the worship of the true God in the interior of Guiana is now abandoned in consequence of Brazilian aggression and intolerance, the time may yet be approaching when its walls will again resound with hymns in praise of Him who is Almighty.”
Fast-forward 182 years to today