The West Indies and the Spanish Main. Anthony Trollope

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СКАЧАТЬ Society—thousands from China and Hindostan. The Chinese and the Coolies—immigrants from India are always called Coolies—greatly excel the negro in intelligence, and partake, though in a limited degree, of the negro's physical abilities in a hot climate. And thus the blood of Asia will be mixed with that of Africa; and the necessary compound will, by God's infinite wisdom and power, be formed for these latitudes, as it has been formed for the colder regions in which the Anglo-Saxon preserves his energy, and works.

      I know it will be said that there have been no signs of a mixture of breed between the negro and the Coolie, and the negro and the Chinese. The instances hitherto are, I am aware, but rare; but then the immigration of these classes is as yet but recent; and custom is necessary, and a language commonly understood, and habits, which the similitude of position will also make common, before such races will amalgamate. That they will amalgamate if brought together, all history teaches us. The Anglo-Saxon and the negro have done so, and in two hundred years have produced a population which is said to amount to a fifth of that of the whole island of Jamaica, and which probably amounts to much more. Two hundred years with us is a long time; but it is not so in the world's history. From 1660 to 1860 A.D. is a vast lapse of years; but how little is the lapse from the year 1660 to the year 1860, dating from the creation of the world; or rather, how small appears such lapse to us! In how many pages is its history written? and yet God's races were spreading themselves over the earth then as now.

      Men are in such a hurry. They can hardly believe that that will come to pass of which they have evidence that it will not come to pass in their own days.

      But then comes the question, whether the mulatto is more capable of being educated than the negro, and more able to work under a hot sun than the Englishman; whether he does not rather lose the physical power of the one, and the intellectual power of the other. There are those in Jamaica who have known them long, and who think that as a race they have deteriorated both in mind and body. I am not prepared to deny this. They probably have deteriorated in mind and body; and nevertheless my theory may be right. Nay, I will go further and say that such deterioration on both sides is necessary to the correctness of my theory.

      In what compound are we to look for the full strength of each component part? Should punch be as strong as brandy, or as sweet as sugar? Neither the one nor the other. But in order to be good and efficient punch, it should partake duly of the strength of the spirit and of the sweetness of the saccharine—according to the skill and will of the gnostic fabricator, who in mixing knows his own purposes. So has it even been also in the admixture of races. The same amount of physical power is not required for all climates, nor the same amount of mental energy.

      But the mulatto, though he has deteriorated from the black man in one respect, and from the white in another, does also excel the black man in one respect, and also excel the white in another. As a rule, he cannot work as a negro can. He could not probably endure to labour in the cane-fields for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, as is done by the Cuban slave; but he can work safely under a tropical sun, and can in the day go through a fair day's work. He is not liable to yellow fever, as is the white man, and enjoys as valid a protection from the effects of heat as the heat of these regions requires.

      Nor, as far as we yet know, have Galileos, Shakespeares, or Napoleons been produced among the mulattos. Few may probably have been produced who are able even to form an accurate judgment as to the genius of such men as these. But that the mulatto race partakes largely of the intelligence and ambition of their white forefathers, it is I think useless, and moreover wicked, to deny; wicked, because the denial arises from an unjust desire to close against them the door of promotion.

      Let any stranger go through the shops and stores of Kingston, and see how many of them are either owned or worked by men of colour; let him go into the House of Assembly, and see how large a proportion of their debates is carried on by men of colour. I don't think much of the parliamentary excellence of these debates, as I shall have to explain by-and-by; but the coloured men at any rate hold their own against their white colleagues. How large a portion of the public service is carried on by them; how well they thrive, though the prejudices of both white and black are so strong against them!

      I just now spoke of these coloured men as mulattos. I did so because I was then anxious to refer to the exact and equal division of black and white blood. Of course it is understood that the mulatto, technically so called, is the child of parents one of whom is all white and the other all black; and to judge exactly of the mixed race, one should judge, probably, from such an equal division. But no such distinction can be effectually maintained in speaking, or even in thinking of these people. The various gradations of coloured blood range from all but perfect white to all but perfect black; and the dispositions and capabilities are equally various. In the lower orders, among those who are nearest to the African stock, no attempts I imagine are made to preserve an exact line. One is at first inclined to think that the slightest infusion of white blood may be traced in the complexion and hair, and heard in the voice; but when the matter is closely regarded one often finds it difficult to express an opinion even to oneself. Colour is frequently not the safest guide. To an inquirer really endeavouring to separate the races—should so thankless a task ever be attempted—the speech, I think, and the intelligence would afford the sources of information on which most reliance could be placed.

      But the distinction between the white and the coloured men is much more closely looked into. And those are the unfortunate among the latter who are tempted, by the closeness of their relationship to Europe, to deny their African parentage. Many do, if not by lip, at any rate by deed, stoutly make such denial; not by lip, for the subject is much too sore for speech, but by every wile by which a white quadroon can seek to deny his ancestry! Such denial is never allowed. The crisp hair, the sallow skin, the known family history, the thick lip of the old remembered granddam, a certain languor in the eye; all or some, or perhaps but one of these tells the tale. But the tale is told, and the life-struggle is made always, and always in vain.

      This evil—for it is an evil—arises mainly from the white man's jealousy. He who seeks to pass for other than he is makes a low attempt; all attempts at falsehood must of necessity be low. But I doubt whether such energy of repudiation be not equally low. Why not allow the claim; or seem to allow it, if practicable? "White art thou, my friend? Be a white man if thou wilt, or rather if thou canst. All we require of thee is that there remains no negro ignorance, no negro cunning, no negro apathy of brain. Forbear those vain attempts to wash out that hair of thine, and make it lank and damp. We will not regard at all, that little wave in thy locks; not even that lisp in thy tongue. But struggle, my friend, to be open in thy speech. Any wave there we cannot but regard. Speak out the thought that is in thee; for if thy thoughts lisp negrowards, our verdict must be against thee." Is it not thus that we should accept their little efforts?

      But we do not accept them so. In lieu thereof, we admit no claim that can by any evidence be rejected; and, worse than that, we impute the stigma of black blood where there is no evidence to support such imputation. "A nice fellow, Jones; eh? very intelligent, and well mannered," some stranger says, who knows nothing of Jones's antecedents. "Yes, indeed," answers Smith, of Jamaica; "a very decent sort of fellow. They do say that he's coloured; of course you know that." The next time you see Jones, you observe him closely, and can find no trace of the Ethiop. But should he presently descant on purity of blood, and the insupportable impudence of the coloured people, then, and not till then, you would begin to doubt.

      But these are evils which beset merely the point of juncture between the two races. With nine-tenths of those of mixed breed no attempts at concealment are by any means possible; and by them, of course, no such attempts are made. They take their lot as it is, and I think that on the whole they make the most of it. They of course are jealous of the assumed ascendency of the white men, and affect to show, sometimes not in the most efficacious manner, that they are his equal in external graces as in internal capacities. They are imperious to the black men, and determined on that side to exhibit and use their superiority. At this we can hardly be surprised. If we cannot set them a better lesson than we do, we СКАЧАТЬ