Early in Oroonoko, the narrator discusses at length the differences between the African slaves who are brought to Surinam to work on the Europeans' sugar plantations, and the native peoples, with whom the Europeans live at peace. What are these differences? What are we to make of the narrator's repeated likening of the natives to Adam and Eve prior to their fall--what does this imply about the effects, or at least the potential effects, of "civilization"? What are we to make of the narrator's statement that the Europeans befriend rather than enslave the natives both because the natives are "very useful to us" and because "their numbers so far surpass ours"?