18C3.] The Horrors o f San Domingo. 289 Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of men ? "Will ye build you new shrines in the slave-breeder’s den ? Or bow with the children of light, as they call On the Judge of the Earth and the Father of All ?

Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time moves apace, —■ Each day is an age in the life of our race 1 Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in fear From the fast-rising llood that shall girdle the sphere 1

.THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO*

CHAPTER V. pany, to which they were obliged to sell their privileges for one hundred and fif­ INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY— THE ty thousand livres. This great Company SLAVE-TRADE ----AFRICAN TRIBES managed its African business so badly, •— THE CODE NOIR ----TH E M ULAT- that it was withdrawn from their hands TOES. in 1673, and made over as a special in­ terest to a Senegal Company. The trade, It will be necessary for the present in palm-oil, ivory, etc., was principally to omit the story of the settlement and with France, and negro slaves for the growth of the French Colony, and of colonies do not yet appear in numbers the pernicious commercial restrictions to attract attention.* But in 16 79 this which swelled the unhappy heritage of Company engaged with the Crown to the island, in order that we may reach, deliver yearly, for a term of eight in this and a succeeding article, the great years, two thousand negroes, to be dis­ points of interest connected with the tributed among the French Antilles. Negro, his relation to the Colony and This displaced a previous engagement, complicity with its final overthrow. made in 1675, for the delivery of eight The next task essential to our plan hundred negroes. The Company had is to trace the entrance of Negro Sla­ also to furnish as many negroes for the very into the French part of the island, galleys at Marseilles as His Majesty to describe the victims, and the legisla­ should find convenient. And the Crown tion which their case inspired. offered a bounty of thirteen livres per The first French Company which un­ head for every negro, to be paid in dertook a regular trade with the west “ pieces of India.” coast of Africa was an association of This is a famous phrase in the early merchants of Dieppe, without authority annals of the slave-trade. Reckoning or privileges. They settled a little isl­ by “ pieces ” was customary in the and in the Senegal, which was called * Du Tertre, the missionary historian of the St. Louis. This property soon passed Antilles, proudly says, previously to this date into the hands of a more formal associ­ that the Opinion of France in favor of personal ation of Rouen merchants, who carried liberty still shielded a French deck from the on the trade till 1664, the date of the traffic: “ Selon les lois de la France, qui ab- establishment ol the West - India Com- horre la servitude sur toutes les nations du monde, et oil tous les esclaves recouvrent heu- * See Numbers LYI., LVIII., and LIX. of reusement la libertd perdue, sitost qu’ils y this magazine. abordent, et qu’ils en touchent la terre.” VOL. XI. 19 290 The Horrors of San Domingo. [M arch, transaction of business upon the coast ish until it became an Asiento Company, of Africa. Merchandise, provisions, when, during the War of Succession, a and presents to the native princes had Bourbon mounted the throne of Spain. their value thus expressed, as well as It was called Asiento because the Span­ slaves. If the negro merchant asked ish Government let, or farmed by treaty, ten pieces for a slave, the European the privilege of supplying its colonies trader offered his wares divided into with slaves. The two principal articles ten portions, each portion being re­ of this contract, which was to expire in garded as a “ piece,” without counting 1712, related to the number of negroes the parts which made it up. Thus, ten and the rent of the privilege. If the war coarse blankets made one piece, a mus­ continued, the French Company was ket one piece, a keg of powder weigh­ bound to furnish Spain -with thirty-eight ing ten pounds was one, a piece of East- thousand negroes during the ten years India blue calico four pieces, ten cop­ of the contract, but in ease of peace, with per kettles one piece, one piece of forty-eight thousand. Each negro that chintz two pieces, which made the ten the Company could procure was let to it for which the slave was exchangeable: for 33^ piastres, in pieces of India. In and at length he became commercially consequence of this treaty, the ports of known as a “ piece of India.” The Chili and Peru, and those in the South bounty of thirteen livres was computed Sea, from which all other nations were in France upon the wholesale value of excluded, stood open to the French, who the trinkets and notions which were carried into them vast quantities of mer­ used in trade with Africa. chandise besides the slaves, and brought The traffic by pieces is as old as the home great sums in coin and bars. The age of Herodotus ; * it was originally a raw gold and silver alone which they dumb show of goods between two trad­ imported for the year 1709 was reck­ ing parties ignorant of each other’s lan­ oned at thirty millions of livres. guage, but at length it represented a But at the Peace of Utrecht, Louis transaction which the parties should XIV., exhausted by an unprofitable war, have been ashamed to mention. relinquished his asiento to the English, Although this second Senegal Com­ who were eager enough to take it. It pany was protected by the rigid exclu­ was for this advantage that Marlbor­ sion, under pain of tine and confiscation, ough had been really fighting; at least, of all other Frenchmen from the trade, it was the only one of consequence that it soon fell into debt and parted with Blenheim and Malplaquet secured to his its privilege to a third Company, and country. this in turn was restricted by the for­ The reign of Louis XV. commenced in mation of a Guinea Company, so that it 1715. By letters-patent which he issued soon sold out to a fourth Senegal Com­ on the 16th of January, 1716, he granted pany, which passed in 1709 into the permission to all the merchants in his hands of Ilouen merchants who started kingdom to engage in the African trade, a fifth ; and this too was merged in the provided their ships were fitted out on­ West-India Company which was formed ly in the five ports of Rouen, Rochelle, in 1718. So little did the agriculture of Bordeaux, Nantes, and St. Malo ; nine the islands, overstocked with engagis, articles were specially framed to encour­ justify as yet the slave-traders in the age the trade in slaves, as by the Peace losses and expenses which they incur­ of Utrecht all the South-Sea ports were red. closed to the French, and only their The Guinea Company was bound to own colonies remained. France no lon­ import only one thousand yearly into all ger made great sums of money by the the French Antilles; but it did not flour- trade in slaves, but her colonies began * Melpomene, \ 19G. to thrive and demand a new species of 1863.] The Horrors o f San Domingo. 291 labor. The poor white emigrants were preferred. The Cape-Verde, the South- exhausted and demoralized by an ap­ Sea, the Mississippi or Louisiana, and prenticeship which had all the features the San-Domingo Companies tried their of slavery, and by a climate which will fortunes still. But they were all dis­ not readily permit a white man to be­ placed, and free-trade itself was swal­ come naturalized even when he is free. lowed up, by the union of all the French It is the opinion of some French Antilles under the groat West-India anti-slavery writers that the engages Company of 1716. This was hardly might have tilled the soil of Hayti to done before the Government discovered this day, if they had labored for them­ that the supply of negroes was again selves alone. This is doubtful; the white diminishing, partly because so exten­ man can work in almost every region sive a company could not undertake of the Southern States, but he cannot the peculiar risks and expenses of a raise cotton and sugar upon those scorch­ traffic in slaves. So in the matter of ing plains. It is not essential for the negroes alone trade was once more de­ support of an anti-slavery argument to clared free in 1 741, burdened only with suppose that he can. Ivor is it of any a certain tax upon every slave imported. consequence, so far as the question of At this time the cultivation of sugar free-labor is concerned, either to af­ alone in the principal French islands firm or to deny that the white man can consumed all the slaves who could be raise cot ton in Georgia or sugar in Louis­ procured. The cry for laborers was loud iana. The blacks themselves, bred to and exacting, for the French now made the soil and wonted to its products, will as much sugar as the English, and were organize free-labor there, and not a naturally desirous that more negroes white man need stir his pen or his hoe should surrender the sweets of liberty to solve the problem. to increase its manufacture. In less At first it seems as if the letters-pat- than forty years the average annual ent of Louis XV. were inspired by some export of French sugar had reached new doctrine of free-trade. And he 80,000 hogsheads. In 1 742 it was 122 ,- did cherish the conviction that in the 541 hogsheads, each of 1200 pounds. matter of the slave-trade it was prefer­ The English islands brought into the able to a monopoly; but his motive market for the same year only 65,950 sprang from the powerful competition hogsheads, a decrease which the plant­ of England and Holland, which the ers attributed to the freedom enjoyed Guinea Company faced profitably only by the French of carrying their crops while the War of Succession secured directly to Spanish consumers without to it the asiento. The convention of taking them first to France. But what­ merchants which Louis XIV. called in ever may have been the reason, the Paris, during the year 1701, blamed French were determined to hold and de­ monopolies in the address which it drew velop the commercial advantage which up, and declared freedom of trade to this single product gained for them. The be more beneficial to the State; but English might import as many slaves this was partly because the Guinea and lay fresh acres open to the culture, Company arbitrarily fixed the price but the French sugar was discovered ot slaves too high, and carried too few to be of a superior quality ; that of San to the colonies. Domingo, in particular, was the best in So a free-trade in negroes became at the world. last a national necessity. Various com­ The French planter took his slaves panies, however, continued to hold or to on credit, and sought to discharge his procure trading privileges, as the mer­ debt with the crops which they raised. chants were not restrained from engag­ This increased the consumption of ne­ ing in commerce in such ways as they groes, and he was constantly in debt 292 The Horrors of San Domingo. [March, for fresli ones. To stimulate the pro­ Portuguese coin, introduced by illegal duction of sugar, the Government lifted trade. A Spanish piastre gourde in half the entry-tax from each negro who 1770 was rated at 7|- livres, and some­ was destined for that culture. times was worth 8j livres. A piastre A table which follows shortly will pre­ gourde was a dollar. If we represent sent the exports for 1 7 75 of the six chief this dollar by one hundred cents, we can products of San Domingo, Martinique, approach the value of the French livre, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne. But we because the gourde passed in Fi ance for must say something first about the only 5j livres; that is, a livre had al­ value of the Here. ready fallen to the value of the present In the Merovingian times, the right franc, or about nineteen cents. of coining money belonged to many The difference of value between churches and abbeys, — among others, Paris and the colony was the cause to St. Martin de Tours. There were of great embarrassment. Projects for seigniorial and episcopal coins in France establishing an invariable money were till the reign of Philip Augustus, who often discussed, but never attempted. endeavored to reduce all the coin in his All foreign specie ought to have be­ kingdom to a uniform type. But he come merchandise in the colony, and was obliged still to respect the money to have passed according to its title of Tours, although he had acquired the and weight. Exchange of France with old right of coinage that belonged to it. San Domingo was at 66|: that is, <36 So that there was a livre of Paris and livres, 13 sols, 4 deniers tournois were a livre of Tours, called livre tournois: worth a hundred livres in the Antilles. the latter being worth five deniers less Deduct one-third from any sum to find than the livre of Paris. The tendency the sum in livres tournois. of the Crown to absorb all the local Pounds. Livres. moneys of France was not completely ( To France, 160,35.1,834for 61,849,381 successful till the reign of Louis XIV., Sugar, j Abroad) 104,099,81)8 “ 38.703,720 who abolished the Paris livre and made (T o France, 61,991,699 “ 29,421,039 the livre tournois the money of account. Ooflee, j Abroadi 50,058,246 “ 23,757,464 The earliest livre was that of Charle­ (To France, 2,067,498 “ 17,573,733 Indigo, j Abroad, 1,130,638 “ 9,610,423 magne, the silver value of which is j To France, 1,562,027 “ 1,093.419 representable by eighty cents. It stead­ Cacao, j Abroad) 794,275 “ 555,992 ily depreciated, till it was worth in the „ ( To France, 352,216 “ 220,369 reign of Louis XIV. about sixty cents, Koucou,* | Abroadi 153,178 “ 95,8.38 from wliich it fell rapidly to the epoch ( To France, 3,407,157 “ 11,017,892 Cotton, j Abtoadj 102,011 « 055,027 of the Revolution, when its value was only nineteen cents, and the Iranc took This table, with its alluring figures, its place. that seem to glean gratefully after the It is plain from this, that, when livres are spoken of during a period of a hun­ * This was the scarlet dve of the Caribs, dred years, their precise equivalent in which they procured from the red pulpy cov­ ering of the seeds of the Bixa Orellana, by English or American money cannot be simply rubbing their bodies with them. The stated, — still less their market-rela­ seeds, when macerated and fermented, yielded tions to all the necessaries of life. The a paste, which was imported in rolls under the reader can therefore procure, from the name of Orlean, and was used in dyeing. It statistics of these periods only an ap­ ■was also put into chocolate to deepen its color and lend an astringency which was thought to proximative idea of the values of crops be wholesome. Tonic pills were made of it. and the wealth created by their passing The libres of the bark are stronger than those into trade. of hemp. The name Roucou is from the Carib A great deal of the current specie JJrucu. In commerce the dye is also known of the island consisted of Spanish and as Annotto. 1863.] The Horrors o f San Domingo. 203 steps of labor, is the negro’s manifesto gleam of his white belly piloted the sla­ of the French slave-trade. The sur­ ver in his regular track across the At­ prising totals betray the sudden devel­ lantic. What need to revive the ac­ opment of that iniquity under the stim­ counts of the horrors of the middle pas­ ulus of national ambition. The slave sage ? We know from John Newton expresses his misery in the ciphers of and other Englishmen what a current luxury. The single article of sugar, of misei-y swept in the Liverpool sla­ which lent a new nourishment to the vers into the western seas. The story daily food of every country, sweetened of French slave-trading is the same. I the child’s pap, the invalid’s posset, and can find but one difference in favor the drinks of rich and poor, yielded its of the French slaver, that he took the property to medicine, made the nause­ shackles from his cargo after it had ous palatable, grew white and frosted been a day or two at sea. The lust for in curious confections, and by simply procuring the maximum of victims, who coming into use stimulated the trades must be delivered in a minimum of time and inventions of a world, was the and at the least expense, could not dal­ slave’s insinuation of the bitterness of ly with schemes to temper their suffer­ his condition. Out of the eaten came ing, or to make avarice obedient to com­ forth meat, and out of the bitter sweet­ mon sense. It was a transaction inca­ ness. pable of being tempered. One might In 1701, Western San Domingo had as well expect to ameliorate the act 19,000 negroes : in 1777, a moderate es­ of murder. Nay, swift murder would timate gives 300,000, not including 50,- have been affectionate, compared with 000 children under fourteen years of this robbery of life. age, — and in the other French colonial Nor is the consumption of negroes by possessions 500,000. In the year 1785, the sea-voyage the only item suggested sixtv-five slavers brought to San Domin­ by the annual number actually landed. go 21,062 negroes, who were sold for We should have to include all the peo­ 43,236,216 livres ; and 32,990 were ple maimed and killed ixx the predatory landed in the smaller French islands. excursions of native chiefs or Christian In 1786, the value of the negroes im­ kidnappers to procure their cargoes. A ported was estimated at 65,891,395 village was not always surprised with­ livres, and the average price of a ne­ out resistance. The most barbarous gro at that time was 1997 livres. tribes would defend their liberty. AAe But we must recollect that these can never know the numbers slain in figures represent only living negroes. wars which were deliberately under­ A yearly percentage of dead must be taken to stock the holds of slavers. added, to complete the number taken Nor shall we ever know how many vic­ from the coast of Africa. The estimate tims dropped out of the ruthless caravan, was five per cent, to cover the unavoid­ exhausted by thirst and forced marches, able losses incurred in a rapid and on the routes sometimes of three hun­ healthy passage ; but such passages were dred leagues from the interior to the sea. a small proportion of the whole number They were usually divided into files annually made, and the mortality was containing each thirty or forty slaves, irregular. It was sometimes frightful; who were fastened together by poles a long calm was one long agony : as­ of heavy wood, nine feet long, which phyxia, bloody flux, delirium and sui­ terminated in a padlocked fork arouml cide, and epidemics swept between the the neck. AVhen the caravan made a narrow decks, as fatally, but more mer- halt, one end of the pole was unfastened cifully than the kidnappers who tore and dropped upon the ground. AVhen these people from their native fields. it dropped, the slave was anchored ; and The shark was their sexton, and the at night his arm was tied to the end of 294 The Horrors o f San Domingo. [M arch, the pole which he carried, so that a that the census declared five hundred whole file was hobbled during sleep. If thousand slaves ; that is, in twelve years any one became too enfeebled to pre­ the increase had been two hundred serve his place, the brutal keepers trans­ thousand. How many negroes deported ferred him to the swifter voracity of the from Africa do these figures represent! hyena, who scented the wake of the car­ what number who died soon after land­ avan across the waste to the sea’s mar­ ing, too feeble and diseased to become gin, where the shark took up the trail. acclimated! The census of the slaves in San Do­ Here is the prospectus of an expedi­ mingo was annually taken upon the tion to the coast of Guinea in 1782 for capitation-tax which each planter had the purpose of landing seven hundred to pay ; thus the children, and negroes slaves in the Antilles. They were ship­ above forty-five years of ago, escaped ped in two vessels, one of six hundred counting. But in 1789, Schoelelier says tons, the other a small corvette.

Outfit of large vessel, ...... 150,000 livres “ “ c o r v e t t e , ...... 50,000 “ Purchase of 700 negroes at 300 livres per head ...... 210.000 “ Insurance upon the passage at 15 per cent., ...... 61,500 “ “ “ “ premiums at 15 per cent., ...... 9,225 “ Total cost of the passage, ...... 480,725 “ The passage was a very prosperous one: only 35 negroes spoiled, or 5 per cent, of the whole number. The remaining 605 were sold in San Domingo at an average price of 2,000 livres, making . . . 1,330,000 “ Deduct commissions of ships’ officers and correspondents in "West Indies, at 111 per c e n t . , ...... 152,950 “ 1,177,050 “ Deduct expenses in West Indies, ...... 17,050 “ 1,160,000 “ Deduct exchange, freight, and insurance upon return passage of the ves­ sels, 20 per cent.,...... 232,000 “ 928.000 “ Deduct crews' wages for 10 months, reckoning the length of the voyage at 13 months, ...... 55,000 “ 873.000 “ Add value of returned v e sse ls,...... 90,000 “ 903.000 “ Deduct original cost of the w h o l e , ...... 480,725 11 The profit remains, 100 per c e n t . , ...... 482,275 “

Two hundred and seventy-four slavers one birth was reckoned to thirty slaves. entered the ports of San Domingo, from There was always a great preponder­ 1767 to 1774, bringing 79,000 negroes. ance of males, because they could bear One-third of these perished from vari­ the miseries of the passage better than ous causes, including the cold of the the women, and were worth more up­ mountains and the unhealthiness of the on landing. Include also the effects of coffee-plantations, so that only 52,GG7 forced labor, which reduced the aver­ remained. These could not naturally age duration of a slave’s life to fifteen increase, for the mortality was nearly years, and carried off yearly one-fif­ double the number of births, and the teenth of the whole number, and the negroes had few children during the reason for the slaver’s profits and for first years after their arrival. Only his unscrupulous activity become clear. 1863.] The Horrors o f San Domingo. 295 Out of the sugar, thus clarified with thought! A nation can pass through blood, the glittering frosted-work of epochs of the black-death, and recover colonial splendor rose. A few great and improve its average health ; but planters debauched the housekeeping does a people ever completely rally from of the whole island. Beneath were this blackest death of all ? debts, distrust, shiftlessness, the rapaci­ The Guinea trader brought to San ty of imported officials, the discontent Domingo in the course of eighty years of resident planters with the customs representatives of almost every tribe up­ of the mother-country, the indifference on the west coast of Africa and of its of absentees, the cruel rage for mak­ interior for hundreds of miles. Many ing the most and the best sugar in the who were thus brought were known only world, regardless of the costly lives by the names of their obscure neighbor­ which the mills caught and crushed out hoods ; they mingled their shade of col­ with the canes. Truly, it was sweet as or and of savage custom with the blood honey in the mouth, and suddenly be­ of a new Creole nation of slaves. With came bitter as wormwood in the belly. these unwilling emigrants the vast areas Let us glance at the people who were of Africa ran together into the narrow thus violently torn from the climate, plains at the end of a small island; affin­ habits, diet, and customs which created ity and difference were alike obedient their natural and congenial soil, from to the whip of the overseer, whose law their mother-tongues, their native loves ■was profit, and whose method cruelty, and hatreds, from the insignificant, half- in making this strange people grow. barbarous life, which certainly poisoned When a great continent has been not the life-blood of a single Christian, thus ransacked to stock a little farm, though it sweetened not his tea. What the qualities which meet are so various, bitterness has crept into the great heart and present such lively contrasts, that of Mr. Carlyle, which beats to shatter the term African loses all its applica­ the affectations and hypocrisies of a gen­ tion. From the Mandingo, the Foulah, eration, and to summon a civilized world the Jolof, through the Felatahs, the to the worship of righteousness and Eboes, the Mokos, the Feloups, the truth ! Is this a Guinea trader or a Coromantines, the Bissagos, all the sul­ prophet who is angry when Quashes len and degraded tribes of the marshy prefers his pumpkins and millet, reared districts and Islands of the Slave Coast, without the hot guano of the lash, and and inland to the Shangallas, who bor­ who will not accept the reduction of der upon Southwestern Abyssinia, the a bale of cotton or a tierce of sugar, characters are as distinct as the profiles though Church and State be disinfected or the colors. The physical qualities of slavery ? * It is a drop of planter’s of all these peojfie, their capacity for gall which the sham-hater shakes testily labor, their religious tendencies and from his corroded pen. IIow far the inventive skill, their temperaments and effluvia of the slave-ship will be wafted, diets, might be constructed into a slid­ into what strange latitudes of temper­ ing scale, starting with a Mandingo, or ance and sturdy independence, even to a Foulah such as Ira Aldridge, and run­ the privacy of solemn and high-minded ning to earth at length in a Papel. * Latter-Dai/ Pamphlets, No. I. pp. 32, 34; The Mandingoes of the most cultivat­ No. II. pp. 23, 25, 47; No. III. p. 3. “ And ed type seldom found their way to the you, Quashee, mv pumpkin, idle Quashee, I West Indies. But if ever slave became say you must get the Devil sent away from noticeable for liis temperate and labo­ your elbow, my poor dark friend! ” Wc say rious habits, a certain enterprise and amen to that, with the reserved privilege of designating the Devil. “ Ware that Colonial self-subsistence, a cleanly, regular, and Sand-hank! Starboard now, the Nigger Ques­ polished way, perhaps keeping his mas­ tion ! ” Starboard it is! ter’s accounts, or those of his own pri- 296 The Horrors o f San Domingo. [M arch, vate ventures, in Arabic, and mindful warlike upon occasion, but not disposed of liis future, he was found to be a Man- to labor. They have magistrates, and dingo. Their States are on the Sene­ some forms for the administration of gal ; Arabic is not their language, but justice, hut a civilization less developed they are zealous Mohammedans, and than the Mandingo, in consequence of have schools in which the children learn early contact with Christians. It is the Koran. The men are merchants said that the slave-traders taught them and agriculturists; they control the trade to lie and steal, and to sell each other, over a great extent of country, and the w henever they could not supply a suffi­ religion also, for the Koran is among cient number of their neighbors, the the wares they carry, and they impose simple and pastoral Serreres. at once the whole form of their social The Foulahs live upon the elevated condition. These Northern African na­ plateaus of Senegambia and around the tions have been subjected to Arab and sources of the Kio Grande. The Man­ Moorish influence, and they make it dingoes introduced the Koran among plain that great movements have taken them. French writers represent them place in regions which are generally as being capable of sustained labor; they supposed to be sunk in savage quies­ cultivate carefully the millet, wheat, cot­ cence. The Mandingoes, notwithstand­ ton, tobacco, and lentils, and have nu­ ing a shade of yellow in the complex­ merous herds. Their mutton is famous, ion, are still negroes, that is, they are and their oxen are very fat. The Fou­ an aboriginal people, improved by con­ lahs are mild and affable, full of esprit, tact with Islauiism, and capable of self- fond of hunting and music ; they shun development afterwards ; but the Moors brandy, and like sweet drinks. It is not never ruled them, nor mingled with difficult to govern them, as they unite their blood. Their features are Afri­ good sense to quiet manners, and have can, in the popular sense of that word, an instinct for propriety. Their horror without one Semitic trace. Awakened of slavery is so great, that, if one of intelligence beams through frank and them is condemned to be sold, all the pleasing countenances, and lifts, with­ neighbors club together to pay his for­ out effacing, the primitive type. Un­ feit or purchase a ransom ; so that few doubtedly, their ancestors sprang into of them were found in the slave-ships, being on sites where an improved pos­ unless Seized in the fields, or carried off terity reside. But what a history lies from the villages by night. between the Fetichism which is the They have mechanics who work in mental form of African religious senti­ iron and silver,leather and wood; they ment, and the worship of one God with­ build good houses, and live in them out, image or sym bol! cleanly and respectable. The Foulahs In the administration of justice, some show, quite as decidedly as the Mandin­ classes of their criminals are sold into goes, that great passions and interests slavery, and occasionally a Mandingo have given to these parts ot Africa a would he kidnapped. But there are history and developed stocks of men. many Mandingoes who arc still pagans, When the Foulahs are compared with and know nothing of Arabic or com­ the wandering Felatahs, from whom they merce, yet who have the excellences came, who speak the same language and of the dominant tribes: these were wear the same external characters, it found in the gangs of the slave-mer­ will be seen how Nature has yearned chant. for her children in these unknown re­ So were the Jolofs, handsome, black gions, and set herself, for their sakes, as jet, with features more regular than great stints of work, in that motherly the Mandingoes, almost European, ex­ ambition to bring them forward in the cepting the lips : a nonchalant air, very world. Yes, — thought the Guinea 1863.] The Horrors of San Domingo. 297 trader, — these skilful Foulahs arc Na­ his whole physiognomy, in spite of his ture’s best gifts to man. beard, was completely negro-like.” * Their pure African origin is, how­ But if Ira Aldridge’s exaggerated ever, still a contested point. Many style of acting points to an African ori­ ethnologists are unwilling to attribute gin, would it not be better, if some of so much capacity to a native negro our distinguished actors, who are pre­ tribe. B'Eichthal objects, that “ a pre­ sumptively white before the foot-lights, tended negro people, pastoral, nomadic, took out free-papers at once? We warlike, propagating a religious faith, have seen Macbeth and Othello so to say nothing of the difference in phys­ “ created ” by the Caucasian models of ical characteristics, offers an anomaly the stage, that but one line of Sliak- which nothing can explain. It would speare remained in our memory, and force us to attribute to the black race, narrowly escaped the lips, — “ Out, hy­ whether for good or for evil, acts and perbolical fiend! ” traits that are foreign to its nature. It is not unlikely that the Felatab To cite only one striking example, let was mixed with Moorish or Kabylic me recall that Job Ben Salomon, the blood to make the Foulah. If so, it African, who in the last century was proves the important fact, that, when carried to America and thence to Eng­ the good qualities of the negro are land, and was admired by all who knew crossed with a more advanced race, him for the loftiness of his character, the product will be marked with intel­ the energy of his religious fanaticism, ligence, mobility, spirit ual traits, and an and the extent of his intelligence, — organizing capacity. Felatah blood has this Ben Salomon, who has been cited mixed with white blood in the Antil­ as a model of that which the negro race les; the Jolof and the Eboe have yield­ could produce, did not belong to that ed primitive affections and excellences race ; be was a FoultA.” * to a new mulatto breed. This great D’Eichtlial develops at great length question of the civilizable qualities of his theory, that the Foulahs are descend­ a race cannot be decided by quoting ed from some Eastern people of strong famous isolated cases belonging to pure Malay characters, who found their way breeds, but only by observing and com­ to their present site through Madagas­ paring the average quality of the pure car, along the coast, to Cordofan, Bar- or mixed. four, and Ilaoussa. They are bronzed, When we approach the Slave Coast or copper-colored, or like polished ma­ itself, strong contrasts in appearance hogany,— the red predominating over and culture are observable among the the black. Their forms are tall and slim, inhabitants ; they are all negroes, but with small hands and feet, thin curved in different social conditions, more or noses, long hair braided into several less liable to injury from the presence queues, and an erect profile. Certain of the slaver, and yielding different tem­ negro traits do not exist in them. peraments and qualities to colonial life. Burmeister, who saw Ira Aldridge, The beautiful and fertile amphitheatre the Foulah actor, play in Macbeth, called W hidah, in North latitude (F, with Othello, and his other famous parts, Bahomey just behind it, is populous with saw nothing negro about him, except a superior race. Where did it come the length of his arm, the shrillness of from ? The area which it occupies has his voice in excitement, the terrible an­ only about fifty miles of coast and less imality of the murder - scenes, and his than thirty of interior; its people are tendency to exaggerate. “ The bright- as industrious and thrifty as any on the colored nails were very evident, and * Tlic Comparative Anatomy anrl Physiology * Memoires tie la Sucietc Ethnologique, Tom. o f the African Negro, by Hermann Burmeis­ I. Ptie 2, p. 147. ter. 208 The Horrors of San Domingo. [M arch, face of tlie earth. They never rais­ gambled away more conveniently : the ed sugar and indigo with enthusiasm, markets exposed for sale monthly one but at home their activity would have thousand human beings, taken from interpreted to Mr. Carlyle a soul above the inferior tribes of the coast. The pumpkins. They cultivated every square whole administration of justice of these foot of ground \ip to the threshold of superior tribes was overthrown by the their dwellings; the sides of ditches, advent of the European, who taught hedges, and inclosures were planted them to punish theft, adultery, and oth­ with melons and vegetables, and the er crimes by putting up the criminal for roads between the villages shrank to sale. foot-paths in the effort to save land for The Whidah people were Fetich-wor­ planting. On the day when a crop was shippers ; so were the inhabitants of harvested, another was sown. Benin. But the latter had the singu­ Their little State was divided into larity of refusing to sell a criminal, ad­ twenty-six provinces or counties, ruled judged to slavery, to the foreign slave- by hereditary lords. The King was traders, unless it was a woman. They simply the most important one of these. procured, however, a great many slaves Here were institutions which would have from the interior for the Portuguese deserved the epithet patriarchal, save and French. The Benin people dealt for the absence of overseers and the in magic and the ordeal; they believed auction-block. The men worked in the in apparitions, and filled up their cabins field, the women spun at home. Two with idols to such an extent as nearly markets were held every four days in to eject the family. two convenient places, which were fre­ The slaves of the river Calabar and quented by five or six thousand traders, the Gaboon were drawn from very in­ livery article for sale had its appro­ ferior races, who lived in a state of mu­ priate place, and the traffic was con­ tual warfare for the purpose of furnish­ ducted without tumult or fraud. A ing each other to the trader. They kid­ judge and four inspectors went up and napped men in the interior, and their down to hear and settle grievances. expeditions sometimes went so far that The women had their stalls, at which the exhausted victims occasioned the they sold articles of their own manu­ slaver a loss of sixty per cent, upon facture from cotton or wood, plates, his voyage. The toughest of these peo­ wooden cups, red and blue paper, salt, ple were the Eboes ; the most degraded cardamom-seeds, palm-oil, and calabash­ were the Papels and Bissagos. es. The Congo negro was more intelli­ How did it happen that such a thrifty gent than these; he understood some­ little kingdom learned the shiftlessness thing of agriculture and the keeping of slave - trailing ? Early navigators of cattle. He made Tombo wine and discovered that they had one passion, some kinds of native cloth. The wrom- that of gaming. This was sedulously en worked in the fields with their chil­ cultivated by the French and Portu­ dren slung to their backs. The Congo guese who had colonies at stake. A temperament near the coast was mild Whidah man, after losing all his money and even, like the climate ; but there and merchandise, would play for his dwelt in the mountains the Auziko and wife and children, and finally for him­ N’teka, who were cannibals. The Con- self. A slave-trader was always ready goes in Cuba had the reputation of to purchase him and his interesting fam­ being stupid, sensual, and brutal; but ily from the successful gamester, who, these'African names have always been in turn, often took passage in the same applied without much discrimination. vessel. In this way Whidah learned to The slavers collected great varieties procure slaves for itself, who could be of negroes along the coasts of Loango 1863.] The Horrors o f San Domingo. 299 anil Benguela; some of them were tall, ing refuse negroes and furbishing them well-made, and vigorous, others were up for the market. The French traders stunted and incapable. They were all thought it merit to deceive a Jew ; but pagans, accustomed to Fetich- and ser­ the latter feigned to be abjectly help­ pent-worship, very superstitious, with­ less, in order to enjoy this refitting out manliness and dignity, stupid and branch of the business. unimpressible. The Coromantine negroes were espe­ The Benguela women learned the cial objects of suspicion, on account of panel game from the Portuguese. This their quarrelsome and incendiary tem­ is an ugly habit of enticing men to such per. Such powerful and capable men a point of complicity, that an indignant ought to have valued more highly the husband, and a close calculator, can ap­ privileges of their position ; but they pear suddenly and denounce the vic­ could never quite conquer their preju­ tim. Many a slave was furnished in dices, and were continually interpret­ this way. — But we restrain the pen ing the excellent constitutional motto, from tracing the villanous and savage Vera pro gratis, into, Liberty instead of methods, suggested by violence or fraud sugar ! An English physician of the or lust, to keep those decks well stock­ last century, James Grainger by name, ed over which the lilies of France droop­ wrote a poem in four books upon the ed with immunity. “ Sugar-Cane,” published in 1704. Per­ All these negroes differed much in haps it would be more correct to say their sensitiveness to the condition of that he exhibited a dose; but the pro­ slavery. Many of them suffered silent­ duction yields the following lines which ly, and soon disappeared, killed by la­ show that the Coromantine of Jamaica bor and homesickness. Others commit­ was no better than his brother of San ted suicide, in the belief that their spir­ Domingo : — its would return to the native scenes. It was not uncommon for a whole fam­ “ Yet, if thine own, thy children's life, he dear, Buy not a Cormantee, though healthy, young, ily to attempt to reinhabit their old Of breed too generous for the servile field: cabin in this way. The planters attrib­ They, born to freedom in their native land, uted these expensive deeds of manu­ Chopse death before dishonorable bonds ; mission to a depraved taste or mania; Or, fired with vengeance, at the midnight but we do not know that they laid hour Greek under contribution for a term, Sudden they seize thine unsuspecting watch, And thine own poniard bury in thy breast.” as Dr. Cartwright did, who applied the word drapetomania to the malady of All these kinds of negroes, and many the American fugitive. Many negroes others whom it would be tedious to men­ sought relief in a marooning life ; but tion, differing in intelligence and capa­ their number was not so great as we bility, were alike in the vividness of might expect. After two or three days’ their Fetich-worship and the feebleness experience, hunger and exposure drove of their spiritual sentiments.* They them back, if they were not caught be­ fore. The number of permanent ma­ * Sometimes Fetichism furnished a legend roons did not reach a thousand. which Catholicism, in its best estate, would not despise. Here is one that belongs to the But a few tribes were so turbulent Akwapim country, which lies north of Akkra, and sullen that the planter avoided buy­ and is tributary to Ashantee. “ They say that ing them, unless his need of field-hands Odomankama created all things. He created was very urgent. He was obliged to the earth, the trees, stones, and men. He be circumspect, however; for the trad­ showed men what they ought to eat, and also said to them, ‘ Whenever anybody does any­ ers knew how to jockey a man with a thing that is lovely, think about it, and do it sick, disabled, or impracticable negro. also, only do not let your eye grow red ’ (that The Jews made a good business of buy­ is, inflamed, lustful). When He had finished soo The Horrors of San Domingo. [March, brought over the local superstitious, up to the frantic climax of a barbarous the grotesque or revolting habits, the chant, better than to hear the noises in twilight exaggerations of their great a church. lie admired the pomp, but pagan fatherland, into a practical pa­ was continually stealing away to re­ ganism, which struck at their rights, new the shadowy recollection of some and violated their natural affections, heathen rite. What elevating influ­ with no more pretence of religious than ence could there be in the Colonial of temporal consolation, and only capa­ Church for these children of Nature, ble of substituting one Fetich for an­ who were annually reinforcing Church other. The delighted negroes went to and Colony at a frightful pace with mass as to their favorite Calenda; the heathenism ? Twenty or thirty tribes tawdry garments and detestable drone of pagans were imported at the rate of the priest, whose only Catholicism of twenty thousand living heads per was his indiscriminate viciousness, ap­ annum, turned loose and mixed to­ peared to them a superior sorcery; the gether, Avith a sense of original wrong Host was a great Gree-gree ; the mutter­ and continual cruelty rankling amid ed liturgy was a palaver with the spir­ their crude and wild emotions, and priz­ its ; music, incense, and gilding charmed ed especially for their alleged deficien­ them for a while away from the barba­ cy of soul, and animal ability to per­ rous ritual of their midnight serpent- form unwholesome labor. Slavery nev­ worship. The priests were white men, er wore so black a face. The only re­ for the negroes thought that black bap­ fining element was the admixture of tism would not stick ; but they were superior tribes, a piece of good-fortune fortune-hunters, like the rest of the col­ for the colony, which the planter en­ ony, m ere agents of the official will, deavored as far as possible to miss by and seekers of their pleasures in the distributing the fresh cargoes according huts of the negro-quarter.* The curates to their native characters. A fresh declared that the innate stupidity of Eboe was put under the tutelage of a the African baffled all their efforts to naturalized Eboe, a Jolof with a Jolof, instil a truth or rectify an error. The and so on : their depressed and un­ secret practice of serpent-worship was healthy condition upon landing, and punishable, as the stolen gatherings for their ignorance of the Creole dialect, dancing were, because it unfitted them rendered this expedient.* for the next day’s toil, and excited no­ But these distinctions could not be tions of vengeance in their minds. But preserved upon such a limited area and the curates declined the trouble of amid these jostling tribes. People of a teaching them the difference in spirit­ dozen latitudes swarmed in the cabins ual association between the wafer in a * On the other hand, an elaborate Manvel box and the snake in a hamper. On des Habitmis de St. Dominrjue cautions the the whole, the negro loved to thump planters on this point: “ Carefully avoid aban­ his sheepskin drum, and work himself doning the now negroes to the discretion of the old ones, who are often very glad to plav the creation, Tie left men and went to heaven ; the part of hosts for the sake of suc h valets, to and when He went, the Fetiches came hither whom they make over the rudest part of their from the mountains and the sea. Now, touch­ day’s work. This produces disgust and re­ ing these Fetiches, as well as departed spirits, pugnance in the new-comers, who cannot yet they are not

A LONDON SUBURB.

One of our English summers looks, also the homo-like atmosphere, the in the retrospect, as if it had been household element, which is of too in­ patched with more frequent sunshine tangible a character to be let even with than the sky of England ordinarily af­ the most thoroughly furnished lodging- fords ; but I believe that it may be on­ house. A friend had given us his sub­ ly a moral effect, — a “ light that never urban residence, with all its conven­ was on sea nor land,” — caused bv our iences, elegancies, and snuggeries, — its having found a particularly delightful drawing-rooms and library, still warm abode iu the neighborhood of London. and bright with the recollection of the In order to enjoy it, however, I was genial presences that wo had known compelled to solve the problem of liv­ there,— its closets, chambers, kitchen, ing in two places at once, -— an impos­ and even its wine-cellar, if we could sibility which I so far accomplished as have availed ourselves of so dear and to vanish, at frequent Intervals, out of delicate a trust, •— its lawn and cozy men’s sight and knowledge on one side garden-nooks, and whatever else makes of England, and take my place in a up the multitudinous idea of an English circle of familiar faces on the other, so home, — he had transferred it all to us, quietly that I seemed to have been pilgrims and dusty wayfarers, that we there all along. It was the easier to might rest and take our ease during his get accustomed to our new residence, summer’s absence on the Continent. because it was not only rich in all the We had long been dwelling in tents, material properties of a home, hut had as it were, and morally shivering by Copyright of Atlantic Magazine Archive is the property of Atlantic Monthly Group LLC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.