Digitale Ausgabe

The seventh volume of Humboldt’s PersonalNarrative of his travels in Spanish America,which has recently appeared, is chiefly devotedto an examination of the statistics and geo-graphy of Cuba and the West Indies. Thequestion of negro slavery is one of the objectsof his investigation, and the views of this cele-brated philosopher respecting it, are in a highdegree interesting. They are marked with thesame accuracy and minuteness of detail, by thesame comprehensive thought, elevated wisdom,and severe impartiality, which distinguish hisother writings. I had observed, says he, “thecondition of the blacks in countries where thelaws, the religion, and the national habits, tendto soften their fate; yet I preserved, on quittingAmerica, the same horror of slavery which Ihad felt in Europe. It is in vain, that writersof ability, in order to veil barbarous institutions,by ingenious fictions of language, have inventedthe terms of negro peasants of the West Indies,black vassalage, and patriarchal protection: itis to profane the noble qualities of the mindand the imagination, to exculpate, by illusorycomparisons, or captious sophisms, excessesthat afflict humanity, and for which they pre-pare violent commotions. Do they think theyhave acquired the right of dispensing withcommiseration, by comparing the state of theblacks with that of the serfs of the middle ages,and with that state of oppression under whichsome classes still groan in the north and eastof Europe? Those comparisons, those artificesof language, that disdainful impatience, withwhich even a hope of the gradual abolition ofslavery is repulsed as chimerical, are uselessarms in the times in which we live. The greatrevolutions which the continent of Americaand the archipelago of the West Indies haveundergone, since the commencement of thenineteenth century, have acted upon the ideasand the public reason, even in countries whereslavery exists and begins to be modified. Manywise men, deeply interested in the tranquillityof the sugar and slave islands, feel that, by aliberal agreement of the proprietors, and bymeasures taken by those who know the locali- |Spaltenumbruch| ties, they might emerge from a state of crisisand uneasiness, of which indolence and obsti-nacy will augment the danger.”

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“If the legislation of the West Indies andthe state of the men of colour does not shortlyundergo a salutary change; if the legislationcontinues to discuss instead of acting, the poli-tical preponderance will pass into the hands ofthose who have strength to labour, the will tobe free, and the courage to endure long priva-tions. This sanguinary catastrophe will takeplace as a necessary consequence of circum-stances, without the intervention of the freeblacks of Hayti, and without their abandoningthe system of insulation, which they havehitherto followed. Who would venture to pre-dict the influence which may be exerted by‘an African confederation of the free states ofthe West Indies, placed between Colombia,North America and Guatimala, on the politicsof the new world?’ The fear of this event mayact more powerfully on the minds of many, thanthe principles of humanity and justice; but inevery island, the whites believe that their poweris not to be shaken. All simultaneous actionon the part of the blacks appears to them im-possible; and every change, every concessiongranted to the black population, a sign of weak-ness. Nothing presses: the horrible catastropheof Saint Domingo was only the effect of the ina-bility of governors. Such are the illusions thatprevail amidst the great mass of the proprietorsand planters of the West Indies, and which arealike opposed to an amelioration of the state ofthe blacks in Georgia and in the Carolinas.”

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“Slavery is no doubt the greatest of all theevils that afflict humanity, whether we considerthe slave torn from his family in his nativecountry, and thrown into the hold of a slaveship, or as making part of a flock of black men,parked on the soil of the West Indies; but forindividuals there are degrees of suffering andprivation. “What a distance between a slave whoserves in the house of a rich man at the Havan-na or Kingston, or who works for himself,giving his master but a daily retribution, and aslave attached to a sugar estate. The threatswhich are used to correct an obstinate negro,develope this scale of human privations. The calessero is menaced with the cafetal, so theslave who works at the cafetal is menaced withthe sugar fabric. The black who has a wife,who inhabits a separate hut, who, affectionate asare the Africans for the most part, finds, afterhis labour, that some care is taken of himamidst his indigent family, has a fate not to becompared with that of the insulated slave lostin the mass. This diversity of condition escapes |Spaltenumbruch| those who have not had the spectacle of theWest Indies before their eyes. The progressiveamelioration of the state even of the captivecaste, explains that in the island of Cuba theluxury of their masters and the possibility ofgain by their work, have drawn more thaneighty thousand slaves towards the towns; andhow the manumission of them, favoured bythe wisdom of the laws, is become so active asto have produced, fixing on the present period,(1827) more than 130,000 free men of colour.It is in discussing the individual position of eachclass, in recompensing, by the decreasing scaleof privations, the intelligence, the love of labour,and the domestic virtues, that the colonial ad-ministration will find the means of amelioratingthe fate of the blacks. Philanthropy does notconsist in giving ‘a little more salt fish andsome strokes of the whip less;’ a real ame-lioration of the captive caste, ought to extendover the whole moral and physical position ofman. The impulse might have been given bythose European governments, which have thesentiment of human dignity, and who knowthat whatever is unjust, bears with it a germ ofdestruction; but this impulse, it is afflicting toadd, will be powerless, if the union of the pro-prietors of the colonial assemblies or legis-latures, fail to adopt the same views, and to actby a well concerted plan, of which the ultimateobject is the cessation of slavery in the WestIndies. Till then it will be in vain to registerthe strokes of the whip, diminish the numberthat can be inflicted at any one time; requirethe presence of witnesses, and name protectorsof the slaves; all these regulations, dictatedby the most benevolent intentions, are easilyeluded; the loneliness of the plantations renderstheir execution impossible. They support asystem of domestic inquisition incompatiblewith what is called in the colonies, the acquiredrights. The state of slavery cannot be alto-gether peaceably ameliorated, but by the simul-taneous action of free men, (white and colour-ed,) who inhabit the West Indies; by colonialassemblies and legislators; by the influence ofthose who, enjoying a great moral considera-tion among their countrymen, and acquaintedwith the locality, know how to vary the meansof amelioration according to the manners, thehabits and the position of every island. “In preparing this task, which ought tocomprehend at the same time, a great part ofthe archipelago of the West Indies, it is usefulto cast a retrospective look on the events bywhich the freedom of a considerable part ofthe human race was obtained in Europe, inthe middle ages. In order to ameliorate with-out commotion, new institutions must be madeto issue from those which the barbarism of cen-turies has consecrated. It will one day be dif- |146| |Spaltenumbruch| ficult to believe that till 1826, there existed nolaw in the great Antilles to prevent selling in-fants, and separating them from their parents,and to prohibit the degrading custom of mark-ing the negroes with a hot iron, merely thatthe human cattle might be more easily recog-nised. Enact laws to take away the possibili-ty of a barbarous outrage; fix in every sugarestate, the relation between the least numberof negresses, and that of the cultivating ne-groes; grant liberty to every slave who hasserved fifteen years, and to every negress whohas reared four or five children, set them freeon the condition of working a certain numberof days for the profit of the plantation; givethe slaves a part of the nett produce, to inte-rest them in the increase of agricultural riches,fix a sum on the budget of the public expensedestined for the ransom of slaves, and the ame-lioration of their fate; such are the most ur-gent objects of colonial legislation.” (To be continued.)

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We can never enough praise the wisdom ofthe legislation in the new republics of SpanishAmerica, which, since their birth, has beenseriously occupied with the total extinction ofslavery. That vast portion of the earth has,in this respect, an immense advantage overthe southern part of the United States, wherethe whites, during the struggle with England,established liberty for their own profit, andwhere the slave population, to the number ofone million, six hundred thousand, augmentsstill more rapidly than the white. If civiliza-tion, instead of extending itself, were to changeits place; if, after great and deplorable con-vulsions in Europe, America, between CapeHatteras and the Missouri, become the princi-pal seat of the light of Christianity, what aspectacle would that centre of civilization of-fer, where, in the sanctuary of liberty, wecould attend a sale of negroes after death, andhear the sobbings of parents, who are sepa-rated from their children! Let us hope thatthe generous principles which have so longanimated the legislatures in the northern partsof the United States, will extend, by degrees,towards the south, and towards those westernregions, where, by the effect of an imprudentand fatal law, slavery and its iniquities havepassed the chain of the Alleghany, and thebanks of the Mississippi: let us hope that theforce of public opinion, the progress of know-ledge, the softening of manners, the legislationof the new continental republics, and the greatand happy event of the recognition of Haytiby the French government, will exert, eitherby motives of prudence and fear, or by morenoble and disinterested sentiments, a happyinfluence on the amelioration of the state ofthe blacks in the rest of the West Indies, inthe Carolinas, Guyana and Brazil. *****On the solution of this problem, depends, inthe West Indies only, and excluding the repub-lic of Hayti, the security of 875,000 free men,(whites and men of colour,) and the softeningthe fate of 1,150,000 slaves. We have demon- |Spaltenumbruch| strated that this can never be obtained bypeaceful means, without the concurrence ofthe local authorities, either colonial assemblies,or meetings of proprietors, designated by lessdreaded names by the parent state. The di-rect influence of the authorities is indispens-able, and it is a fatal error, to believe that wemay leave it to time to act. Yes, time willact simultaneously on the slaves, on the rela-tions between the islands and the inhabitantson the continent, and on events which cannotbe controverted, when they have been waitedfor in the inaction of apathy. Wherever sla-very is long established, the increase of civili-zation has less influence on the treatment ofslaves, than many are disposed to admit. Thecivilization of a nation seldom extends to agreat number of individuals; and does notattain those, who, in the fabrics, are in imme-diate contact with the blacks. I have knownvery humane proprietors shrink from the diffi-culties that arise on the great plantations; theyhesitate to disturb the established order, tomake innovations, which, if not simultaneous,not sustained by the legislature, or, whichwould be a more powerful means, by thegeneral will, would fail in their end, and per-haps aggravate the wretchedness of those,whose fate they were meant to soften. Thesetimid considerations stop the good that mightbe done by men who have the most benevolentintentions, and who deplore the barbarousinstitutions, of which they have received thesad inheritance. Acquainted with the localcircumstances, they know that, to produce anessential change in the state of the slaves, tolead them progressively to the enjoyment ofliberty, requires a firm will in the local authori-ties, the concurrence of wealthy and enlighten-ed citizens, and a general plan, in which all thechances of disorder, and the means of repres-sion, are calculated. Without this communityof actions and efforts, slavery, with its painsand excesses, will maintain itself as it did inancient Rome, in the midst of elegance ofmanners, the boasted progress of knowledge,and all the charm of civilization, which itspresence condemns, and which it menaces tooverwhelm, when the time of vengeance ar-rives. Civilization, or the slow decline of na-tions, only prepares the mind for future events;but, to produce great changes in the socialstate, requires a coincidence of events, ofwhich the epoch cannot be calculated beforehand. In slave countries, where long habittends to legitimate institutions the most con-trary to justice, we must count on the influenceof knowledge, intellectual improvement, andthe softening of manners, only inasmuch asthey accelerate the impulse given by govern-ments, and facilitate the execution of measures |Spaltenumbruch| once adopted. Without the directing of gov-ernments and of legislatures, a peaceablechange is not to be hoped for. Above all,the danger becomes imminent, when a generalinquietude pervades the public mind, andwhen, in the midst of political discussions,which agitate neighbouring nations, the faultsand duties of governments have been discern-ed: the calm can then only spring from anauthority, which, in the noble sentiments ofits force and its right, knows how to directevents in opening itself the career of amelior-ation.