under them are placed post-holders, a principal part of whose business it is to keep the negroes from resorting to the Indians, and also to attend the distribution of the presents which are given to the latter by the British government; of which, as was noticed with reprehension by Lord Goderich, rum formed a part.
It does not appear[1] that anything has been done by government for their moral or religious improvement, excepting the grant in 1831, by Sir B. D'Urban, of a piece of land at Point Bartica, where a small establishment was then founded by the Church Missionary Society. The Moravian Mission on the Courantin was given up in 1817; and it does not appear that any other Protestant Society has attended to these Indians.
In 1831, Lord Goderich writes,[2] "I have not heard of any effort to convert the Indians of British Guiana to Christianity, or to impart to them the arts of social life."
It should be observed that no injunctions to communicate either are given in the instructions for the "Protectors of Indians," or in those for the post-holders; and two of the articles of the latter, (Art. 14 and Art. 15,) tend directly to sanction and encourage immorality. All reports agree in stating that these tribes have been almost wholly neglected, are retrograding, and are without provision for their moral or civil advancement; and with due allowance for the extenuating remarks on the poor account to which they turned their lands, when they had them, and the gifts (baneful gifts some of them) which have been distributed, and on the advantage of living under British laws, we must still concur in the sentiment of Lord Goderich, as expressed in the same letter, upon a reference as to sentence of death passed upon a native Indian for the murder of another. "It is a serious consideration that we have subjected these tribes to the penalties of a code of which they unavoidably live in profound ignorance; they have not even that conjectural knowledge of its provisions which would be suggested by the precepts of religion, if they had even received the most elementary instruction in the Christian faith. They are brought into acquaintance with civilised life not to partake its blessings, but only to feel the severity of its penal sanctions.
"A debt is due to the aboriginal inhabitants of British Guiana of a very different kind from that which the inhabitants of Christendom may, in a certain sense, be said to owe in general to other barbarous tribes. The whole territory which has been occupied by
