Page 485
An.1688
Of the Reports about Cannibals:
As for the common opinion of Anthropophagi, or Man-eaters, I did never meet with any such peo- ple : All Nations or Families in the World, that I have seen or heard of, having some sort of food to live on, either Fruit, Grain, Pulse, or Roots; which grow naturally, or else planted by them ; if not Fish, and Land-Animals besides ; (yea, even the people of New-Holland, had Fish amidst all their penury) would scarce kill a man purposely to eat him. I know not what barbarous Customs may formerly have been in the world: and to sacrifice their Enemies to their Gods, is a thing hath been much talkt of with relation to the Sa-. vages of America: I am a stranger to that also, if it be, or have been customary in any Nation there ; and yet, if they sacrifice their Enemies it is not necessary they should eat them too. After all, I will not be peremptory in the Negative, but I speak as to the compass of my own knowledge,and know some of these Cannibal stories to be faise,and many of them have been disproved since I first went to the West Indies. At that time how barba- rous were the poor Florida Indians accounted ; which now we find to be civil enough? What strange stories have we heard of the Indians, whose Islands where called the Isles of Cannibals? Yet we find that they do Trade very civilly with the French and Spaniards; and have done so with us. I do own that they have formerly endeavoured to destroy our Plantations at Barbadoes, and have since hindred us from settling the Island Santa Lucia, by destroying 2 or 3 Colonies successively of those that were settled there ; and even the Island Tabago has been often annoyed and ravaged by them, when settled by the Dutch, and still lies waste (though a delicate fruitful Island) as being too near the Caribbees on the Continent, who visit it every year. But this was to preserve their own right, by en-