Chapter 1: Some General Considerations

Though commerce be subject to some great revolutions, it may occur that certain physical causes, the character of the soil or the climate, could set its nature forever. Today we conduct the Indies commerce only by means of the money we send there. The Romans (a) every year carried about fifty million sesterces there. That money, like ours today, was converted into merchandise which they brought back to the west. All the peoples who have traded with the Indies have ever borne metals there and have brought merchandise back.

It is nature itself which produces this effect. The Indians have their arts [crafts], which are adapted to their way of life. Our luxury could not know how to be theirs, nor our needs be their needs. Their climate neither demands of them nor allows to them almost any of the things which come from us. In large measure, they go about nude. The clothing which they have is suitably furnished them by the country. And their religion, which has so much sway over metals, which are the signs of value and for which they give the merchandise which their frugality and the nature of their country procure for them in great abundance. The ancient authors who have spoken to us about the Indies depict them for us (b) just as we see them today, with respect to police, manners, and morals. The Indies have been, the Indies will be what they are now. And in every era, they who will trade in the Indies will carry money there and will bring none back.

Chapter 2: About Africa's Peoples

Most of the peoples about the coasts of Africa are savage or barbarian. I believe that derives greatly from the fact that some countries nearly uninhabitable separate the small countries which may be inhabited. They are without industry. They have no arts. They have a profusion of precious metals which they take straight from nature's hands. All policed peoples, therefore, are in position to trade with them advantageously. They may cause them to esteem highly things of no value and receive a most high price for them.