On the contrary it sounds like he noted the improvement in their living conditions, from savages to civilized. And there’s no statement there that claims they are not human.
Savages?
OK, how about this chestnut?
"We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Law in nature tells us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude. Freedom only injures the slave. The innate stamp of inferiority is beyond the reach of change. You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables him to be."-- Jefferson Davis, March 1861
Who was Jeff Davis to decide what was a savage and what was civilized?