Brazil was visited in 1501 by Amerigo Vespucci.  The account he gives of the dissolute practices of the natives, who certainly had never set eye on a white man, is so plain spoken that it cannot be quoted here in full.  “They are not very jealous,” he says, “and are immoderately libidinous, and the women much more so than the men, so that for decency I omit to tell you the ...  They are so void of affection and cruel that if they be angry with their husbands they ... and they slay an infinite number of creatures by that means....  The greatest sign of friendship which they can show you is that they give you their wives and their daughters” and feel “highly honored” if they are accepted.  “They eat all their enemies whom they kill or capture, as well females as males.”  “Their other barbarous customs are such that expression is too weak for the reality.”

The ineradicable perverseness of some minds is amusingly illustrated by Southey, in his History of Brazil.  After referring to Amerigo Vespucci’s statements regarding the lascivious practices of the aboriginals, he exclaims, in a footnote:  “This is false!  Man has never yet been discovered in such a state of depravity!” What the navigators wrote regarding the cannibalism and cruelty of these savages he accepts as a matter of course; but to doubt their immaculate purity is high treason!  The attitude of the sentimentalists in this matter is not only silly and ridiculous, but positively pathological.  As their number is great, and seems to be growing (under the influence of such writers as Catlin, Helen Hunt Jackson, Brinton, Westermarck, etc.), it is necessary, in the interest of the truth, to paint the Indian as he really was until contact with the whites (missionaries and others) improved him somewhat.[204]

THE NOBLE RED MAN

Beginning with the Californians, their utter lack of moral sense has already been described.  They were no worse than the other Pacific coast tribes in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska.  George Gibbs, the leading authority on the Indians of Western Oregon and Washington, says regarding them (I., 197-200): 

“Prostitution is almost universal.  An Indian, perhaps, will not let his favorite wife, but he looks upon his others, his sisters, daughters, female relatives, and slaves, as a legitimate source of profit....  Cohabitation of unmarried females among their own people brings no disgrace if unaccompanied with child-birth, which they take care to prevent.  This commences at a very early age, perhaps ten or twelve years.”

“Chastity is not considered a virtue by the Chinook women,” says Ross (92),

“and their amorous propensities know no bounds.  All classes, from the highest to the lowest, indulge in coarse sensuality and shameless profligacy.  Even the chief would boast of obtaining a paltry toy or trifle in return for the prostitution of his virgin daughter.”

Lewis and Clarke (1814) found that among the Chinooks, “as, indeed, among all Indians” they became acquainted with on their perilous pioneer trips through the Western wilds, prostitution of females was not considered criminal or improper (439).