A vocabulary as scanty as that of the most barbarous Africans

The civilization of many African nations is much superior to that of the aborigines of Europe, during the ages which preceeded the conquests made by the Goths and Swedes in the north, and by the Romans in the southern part. The old Finnish inhabitants of Scandinavia had long, as it has been proved by the learned investigations of Rühs, the religion of fetishes, and a vocabulary as scanty as that of the most barbarous Africans. They had lived from ages immemorial without laws, or government, or social union; every individual in all things the supreme arbiter of his own actions; and they displayed as little capability of emerging from the squalid sloth of their rude and merely animal existence. When conquered by a people of Indo-German origin, who brought with them from the East the rudiments of mental culture, the emerged more slowly from their pristine barbarism than many of the native African nations have since done.

Wilson Armistead: A tribute for the Negro; being a vindication of the moral, intellectual, and religious capabilities of the Coloured portion of Mankind; with particular reference to the African race. 1848