for - quote / critique - The Indians are today where civilized man then was

quote / critique - The Indians are today where civilized man then was - Andrew Carnegie - The Gospel of Wealth - Carnegie starts off his essay with this statement, that is meant to contrast how far industrial mass production has progressed society compared to the the rate of progress before it - It is an unfortunate choice of comparison as it is tainted with the mass genocide brought about by Carnegie's colonialist ancestors - Human civilization progressed in nonuniform spurts, with some parts of the world advancing greater than other parts at different times of human history

—Ronald Reagan

i love how Robinson Crusoe is such a running bit through throughout the entire story. also interesting word choice of "superstitious" on betteredge here right considering all he's been telling jennings about how he believes their experiment (which struck me as rather scientific) to be hocus pocus/trickery. the typical demarcation of superstition as part of an Indian worldview is now blurred

It's interesting to compare Ezra's test with clairvoyance here considering the people who use that sort of magic are the Indians. Ezra himself mentioned earlier that one of his parents was born in the colonies, and Franklin describes his appearance as being striking and causing him to stand out. I wonder if this is a case of a sort of "respectable" othered person, or if its only the case that Ezra is a good guy in the book because he's half English.

Interesting meta comment because at least personally no, they haven't. While the current theory is that Rachel has stolen her own diamond, it's clear the Indians are still somehow involved. I wonder if this is meant to throw the audience off by making us think we have the answer already, or to show how Betteredge isn't as good of a detective as he thinks he is

Seems to be more of a competition with the Spanish rather than satisfying God.