Address to the Ethnological Society of London : delivered at the anniversary meeting on the 25th May, 1844 / [Richard King].

  • Richard King
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address to the Ethnological Society of London : delivered at the anniversary meeting on the 25th May, 1844 / [Richard King]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    India and its borders, and of the Eastern Archipelago and Indian Ocean; the Aborigines under Foreign rule at 16,000 in America, 60,000,000 in Africa,-200,000,000 in Asia, and a small but interesting remnant of ancient European bar¬ barism existing in Lapland. Vast, then, is the labour which the Ethnological Society of London has undertaken. Important and interesting varieties of the coloured races have, on various occasions, visited England; and yet, with one or two exceptions, we have been left altogether unac¬ quainted with their natural history. In the years 1496 and 1527, American Indians were presented at the respective courts of Henry VII. and VIII. In 1594, the Indian Chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, who saved Captain Smith, w*as pre¬ sented to Queen Elizabeth. In 1599, South-American Indians were brought home by Raleigh. In the eighteenth century there arrived from America, Occum, a convert to Chris¬ tianity, the elder Brant, and the Georgia and Mohawk Chiefs. From New South-Wales, Benelong; from the Pelew Islands, Prince Le Boo; from Tahiti, Ornai; and from Africa, the Negro, Somerset, who was released from slavery by Granville Sharpe. In the present century, the visits of interesting speci¬ mens of humanity have been very numerous. In 1839 it was estimated that there were, in London alone, at least 300, from all parts of the world; from which may be inferred the probable amount in Great Britain and Ireland. They find their way here as sailors; and are, for the most part, from India and the islands in the Pacific. I am not aware of any account, in a natural-historical point of view, having been given of these people. With the exception, per¬ haps, of a wretchedly-executed portrait of one or more of them, not even a trace of these visitors’ characters has been preserved; and, to mention the first case only, there are even doubts as to whether they were Red Men or Esquimaux. The Americans, as a Government as well as a people, have ever taken advantage of the opportunities offered to them; and the portraits of the great warrior and native Red Men have now a national value. No such records exist of those Red Men who may be termed British. These losses are,
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