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ENOUGH OF WAR! 
 
 -«•>> 
 
 THE QUESTION OF 
 
 SLAVERY 
 
 CONCLUSIVELY AND SATISFACTORILY SOLVED, 
 
 AS REGARDS 
 
 HUMANITY AT LARGE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PERMANENT INTERESTS OF PRESENT OWNERS 
 
 BT 
 
 D. JOSE FERRER DE COUTO, I S *t o - 
 // 
 
 Knight of the Order of Santiago; Commander of the Royal American Order a' 
 
 Isabella Cat6lica; Knight of the Oine? of Chariest the III" Honorary Member 
 
 of the Mexican Geographical and {Statistical Society Fellow of the 
 
 Commission of the History of Spanish Infantry, of the Royal 
 
 Academy of Archscology and Geography of Madrid, 
 
 &c, <kc, &c 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 S. HALLET, PRINTER No. 107 FULTON STREET. 
 
 1864. , 
 

 Entered iccording to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 
 
 DON JOSE FERRER DE COUTO, 
 
 "n the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, 
 or the Southern District of New York 
 
 i 
 / 
 
CO 
 
 LO 
 O 
 
 Bancroft Library 
 
 -3 jTo ^ 
 
 PEEFACE.* 
 
 On commencing the perusal of this work the reader 
 should not be startled if he finds therein some doctrines at 
 variance with his own opinions, nor should he be discourag- 
 ed at the multiplicity of details in which it abounds. 
 
 Any subject to be properly and thoroughly comprehended 
 requires to be studied with care and deliberation ; and 
 the question discussed in these pages is of such importance 
 that it is well worthy of- being understood. Let then the 
 reader give his attention to this work, and peruse 
 its pages in a spirit of investigation, and with the impar- 
 tiality of justice. Let him analyze the arguments ; weigh 
 the reasons ; and compare with them his own opinions,. 
 pro and con. Let him beware of being misled by his own 
 passions and by the sophisms resulting from them, though 
 they may appear in the garb of truth ; and lastly, let him 
 subject his deductions to the test of a thorough ratiocina- 
 tion, for by these means, added to the conviction that 
 this work originated in a benevolent desire to restore the 
 shattered interests of the country, and to re-establish 
 therein that peace which is the basis of prosperity in all 
 
 (*) This " Preface" was written before the peace project had been 
 spoken of at all as founded on probability. Circumstances have since 
 occurred which are favorable to that idea, as will be seen in the last 
 chapter of this work ; nevertheless I have decided not to alter a single word 
 in the Preface, for the reason that I wish to retain integral the spontaneous- 
 ness of its inspiration by a generous sentiment, and, because, such as it 
 is, it forms a code of doctrines which is applicable to any other nation un- 
 der similar circumstances. 
 
enlightened nations, he will arrive at a discriminating 
 knowledge of the subject, which may, perhaps, be of 
 service to him. 
 
 " Search the Scriptures," said our Saviour to those who 
 dared to question the authority of his divine mission on 
 earth ; and I will here apply that injunction to human 
 writings also, for I contend that, as society at large is 
 regulated by the knowledge derived from such works, the 
 ignorant have no right to avoid the perusal of what may 
 enlighten their understandings by combating their nar- 
 row opinions, and the learned should not contemn a work 
 which is the result of many years of study and expe- 
 rience. 
 
 This work treats of the great and momentous question 
 which has divided the people of a great nation into two 
 different sections and arrayed them in arms one against 
 the other, viz : the civil status of the Negro in America, 
 a question which for nearly a century has kept the 
 minds of the most humane and preeminent men in a 
 conrtinual state of excitement. It treats of Humanity and 
 of Interest : of Order and of Labor : of Slavery, and in 
 fine, of Freedom in its truest sense. 
 
 / But let not the reader imagine that I intend merely to 
 indulge in fruitless declamation, following the ordinary 
 routine of analysis by which every subject is handled and 
 none decided. No ! after all that has been written and 
 said on these subjects, another book is not needed for 
 such a purpose. My work is not to be the apotheosis of 
 some metaphysical ideas ; its purpose is to expose a very 
 great evil and to point out the most certain remedy. 
 
 I have seen the sectarians of two opposite doctrines exert 
 all their energies and display the most extraordinary 
 activity in favor of their respective causes : I have listened 
 to their speeches, read their publications, studied their 
 works, and consulted their first statesmen personally and 
 by letter ; I have compared both systems and weighed 
 their respective interests in the scales of justice. And by 
 this attention, this spirit of investigation which gave the 
 first impulse to my movements and encouraged my lucu- 
 brations, this eagerness to inquire after truth and to give 
 the feeble support of my approval to those measures which 
 should appear most expedient, I have become convinced 
 
* 
 
 that, as yet, neither of the belligerents have any idea what 
 these measures should be. 
 
 Each party, obstinately adhering to its original creed, 
 persists in supporting it and in endeavoring to force it 
 upon the enemy. " The evil exists " say those of one 
 party "and it must and shall be eradicated, even though 
 it should be necessary to destroy the people who uphold it " 
 " The evil is an institution which is absolutely necessary 
 to our social state " say their opponents, " and we know of 
 no moral sentiment which can rightfully demand from 
 us the sacrifice of even the smallest fraction of that necessary 
 though calamitous institution." 
 
 And in the meanwhile, in numberless places which 
 have hitherto been the centers of industry and prosperity, 
 the shriek of the locomotive has been supplanted by the 
 martial tones of the war-trumpet and the clashing of arms ; 
 while the cannon thunders and its death dealing messen- 
 gers speed on their horrible mission of havoc and desola- 
 tion ; the fields with their plentiful fruits are inundated 
 with blood and magnificent cities fall amid carnage and 
 ruins. 
 
 And it is tbus that an enlightened people consider their 
 interests ! It is thus that a domestic difficulty is being 
 settled by a nation which has hitherto been distinguished 
 for its respect and observance of the laws enacted by its 
 representatives ! It is thus that a question of political 
 law is discussed by a nation which has always led the van 
 in all the liberal ideas which belong to the spirit of modern 
 times, and has been a model and a guide to all others ! 
 And the entire energies of that nation are directed solely 
 to the improvement of engines of war that the contending 
 parties may the more effectually carry on the work of 
 mutual destruction ! And no one, absolutely no one, 
 thinks of seeking out a remedy, which should be both 
 conciliating and effectual, against that fearful scourge 
 which is never perpetual except among barbarians ! 
 
 Oh ! who can tell what divine purpose is being un- 
 folded among the most favored of Grod's creatures by the 
 desolation which now reigns in the Northern countries of 
 the New World. For if we reflect on the habitual clear- 
 ness of mind for which these people have been noted, if 
 we take into consideration their wellknown spirit of ag- 
 grandizement, (which they sometimes carried to a dangerous 
 
'8 
 
 extent), and the circumspection with which they almost 
 invariably proceeded in all home questions, to a Divine 
 purpose alone can we attribute the blindness which has 
 fallen on their eyes, the fury which rages in their breasts, 
 and the blood-thirsty persistency which deprives them of 
 their reasoning faculties. 
 
 But it the downfall of this great, nation has not been 
 decreed by the infinite wisdom of the Almighty ; if it be 
 still possible, by means of a humane and considerate pol- 
 icy, to settle this question decisively and satisfactorily, 
 with due respect to the interests of both parties, then 
 let all who- are interested read this work and ponder well 
 on its contents, for perhaps the remedy proposed in these 
 pages may be found useful. 
 
 In this work will be found the history of the negroes in 
 Africa, before the discovery of America, and from its 
 perusal the reader may perhaps be led to justify the 
 practice of redeeming Africans, and to appreciate the sen- 
 timents of humanity in which it originated. 
 
 The reader will find next a full explanation of the 
 original foundation of the trade in Africans : its progress 
 and development : the laws which related to it, and the 
 alterations made in those laws. In order that these 
 facts may appear in their proper light before the tribunal 
 of history, I take care to demonstrate the practical as well 
 as legal state of the negroes, whether laborers or freemen, 
 in the Spanish colonies .; and in support of these state- 
 ments I bring forward the testimony of all the ancient 
 and modern laws which have existed, in those colonies, 
 and, it may be, in others. 
 
 These details are of the utmost importance as they will 
 enable all persons to understand properly the ideas which 
 are now being discussed on the battle field ; for which 
 reason I dwell on them with extreme minuteness, and also 
 comment on the effects which have resulted from the 
 absolute freedom of the negroes in all the places where it 
 has been unconditionally granted. 
 
 And as this subject has shaken the foundations and 
 threatened the very existence of many countries in the 
 Western hemisphere, it may readily be supposed that I 
 shall not neglect to point out the real causes which have 
 advocated the emancipation of the enslaved negroes, as well 
 as the apparent ones which have effected this emancipation 
 
in some places and which are intended to produce similar 
 results in all parts of the world. 
 
 If the reader does not become wearied by this time, and 
 if the drawing up of this plan does not appear to him 
 entirely unskillful, then let him continue to read and he 
 will find the treaties made with England for the suppres- 
 sion of the redemption, and next, he will see how these 
 treaties have been void and of no effect since they were first 
 drawn up. 
 
 The violation of the respect due to international rela- 
 tions will pain the reader if it does not cause him to blush, 
 when he considers that with regard to this question, deceit 
 and craftiness have taken the place of truth, and an igno- 
 minious law has been substituted for the respect which is 
 mutually due among all civilized nations. 
 
 And next will be seen how insignificant cruisers, leagued 
 against the laws, can set at defiance the fleets of the most 
 powerful nations, and traverse the vast expanse of the 
 ocean without any other protection than their boldness, but 
 incited strongly by the profit held out to them* by the 
 violation of treaties the execution of which has proved 
 utterly impracticable. 
 
 Having come to the end of the first part of this work, 
 which contains the documentary history of that institu- 
 tion whose name is hateful to all because it recalls to mind 
 the odious tyranny and the repugnant barbarism which 
 reigned over the civilized nations before the light of Chris- 
 tianity shone upon them, and which prevails to the present 
 time in the countries where the negroes are redeemed, the 
 reader's attention is particularly called to the next subject, 
 that being the exposition of a scheme which conciliates the 
 extremes that have come into collision. The plan I pro- 
 pose destroys slavery, in its true acceptation, and guaran- 
 tees the organized labor of negroes; it satisfies all moral 
 exigencies and serves to consolidate property; it opens the 
 gates of freedom, by redemption, to the victims of barba- 
 rism, and introduces Christian civilization into those lands 
 into which it has never penetrated; it imposes silence on 
 the philanthropic abolitionists since it deprives them of all 
 reason to continue their clamor; it effectually removes the 
 doubts and apprehensions of the wealthy proprietors, who 
 have, hitherto, refused to adopt a measure which is evi- 
 
• 10 
 
 dently so suitable, and morally, so "unobjectionable, merely 
 because they had no practical knowledge of its workings. 
 
 I am well aware that this project will meet with opposi- 
 tion from two contradictory elements which have ever ap- 
 peared to combat all manner of reform or progress, viz.: 
 custom and doubt} or, in other words, prejudice and mis- 
 trust. 
 
 To attempt to perpetuate and legalize an order of things 
 which, to all appearances, is contrary to the spirit of civili- 
 zation and to the treaties existing among powerful na- 
 tions, at a time when one of these nations is endeavoring 
 to bring about the abolition and final extinction of the 
 system of organized labor of the negroes in America, is an 
 undertaking which certainly appears superior to the com- 
 prehension of an unknown and humble individual. 
 
 And no doubt it will be proclaimed as such, in scorn, 
 by the majority of my readers, who still adhere to 
 obsolete prejudices; but there are others who will un- 
 doubtedly remember that the greatest events and the most 
 important undertakings have originated with names pre- 
 viously unknown to the world. 
 
 To discover if a thing or measure ought to be adopted it 
 is only necessary to ascertain, in the first place, whether it 
 will prove useful, and, in the next place, whether it is 
 just; and this novel project which I desire to introduce is 
 not only useful but of absolute necessity; and is not only 
 remarkable for its justice, but without ,it a total disregard 
 in all questions of social morality and international res- 
 spect would prevail. 
 
 The practice of offering pretexts for the purpose of mis- 
 construeing an agreement, whenever owing to passing 
 events one of the contracting parties wishes to cajole the 
 other, is nothing more than a departure from truth, the 
 infraction of the laws, and the most positive evidence that 
 the agreement which gives rise to such pretexts is not ba- 
 sed upon justice and true morality. 
 
 And, in this question of the negroes, who has not ex- 
 perienced feelings of astonishment, indignation and skep- 
 tical contempt on seeing the inconsistency with which the 
 most accomodating concessions were made to certain inter- 
 national demands, at the very time when an entirely oppo- 
 site course was pursued towards other nations/with re- 
 gard to the identical question. 
 
11 
 
 Even at this time, when the war caused by slavery in 
 the United States has become fully developped, we have 
 all seen in a celebrated document, two different doctrines, 
 which, though they are entirely incompatible in their 
 nature, could have emanated only from the same principle 
 and the same law. 
 
 By this " Proclamation " the institution of slavery was 
 declared totally abolished, as a punishment for rebellion, in 
 such States as should refuse to return to the Union within 
 a given time, while in the others, it was declared perma- 
 nent, as a reward for their loyalty to the Constitution of 
 the Kepublic. 
 
 It is not my purpose to enter, at present, into an 
 analysis of these antithetical measures for the purpose oi 
 submitting their legality to the test of the express and 
 definite provisions of the laws. But, nevertheless, I can 
 not refrain from pointing out their inconsistencies, in 
 order to deduce therefrom, as a positive and undeniable 
 inference, that the cause of the abolitionists is not so in- 
 disputably just as it appears, and that the war is not so 
 justifiable as might be desired in view of the principle in 
 which it originated. 
 
 And, notwithstanding, slavery (if the organized labor 
 of negroes can with truth be named thus), ought not to 
 be tolerated among the enlightened nations of the XIX 
 century, it being contrary to the Divine law, and also, 
 opppsed to the moral progress of mankind. While, on the 
 other hand, humanity ought not to consent, in this era of 
 progress, that a degraded race should continue undisturbed 
 in the possession of vast regions, where their normal con- 
 dition is a state of warfare, and where their victories are 
 celebrated by human sacrifices and cannibalism. 
 
 Let the reader, then, direct his attention to that part 
 of my work which treats of reformatory measures, and 
 should these appear useful, let them not be considered 
 impracticable. Should the obstinacy of any party prove 
 a stumbling block in his way, then let him and all others 
 who desire to render a just tribute to social morality and 
 to their own interests, lift up their voices in defence oi 
 those measures. 
 
 'the experiments which have been made, for the last 
 half century, to suppress the redemption of negroes and to 
 destroy slavery, have invariably produced results contrary 
 
 / 
 
12 
 
 tc the intentions which originated them: a disastrous war 
 in which all principles appear to be under discussion, 
 while not one of them has been defined with sufficient 
 clearness: the prospect of a total dissolution of that Be- 
 public which had hitherto adopted as the basis of its po- 
 litical existence, the famous motto E pluribus unum: the 
 contradictions of the law, and the degrading pretexts which 
 reflect equal discredit on those who apply them as on those 
 who profit by them: all these are appealing to the public 
 to open their eyes and look at things in their proper light; 
 to fix their attention and devote all their faculties to the 
 proper comprehension of the truth with its highest at- 
 tributes; and to subject all these matters to a thorough 
 ratiocination and draw thence the most positive and un- 
 answerable conclusions. 
 
 And should the self love or the irresistible vanity of the 
 extreme parties also rise in opposition against a new code 
 formed on the equitable, conciliating and moral principle 
 which inspires this work: should the people of the United 
 States, i. e., the most violent partisans of both schools, 
 believe that a just and reasonable adjustment of their 
 difficulties is incompatible with the integrality of their 
 exclusive opinions, let these fanatics divest themselves of 
 their passions and open the history of all human strife 
 and contentions, for therein they will learn that the appeal 
 to arms has never solved any social problem of positive 
 transcendency and permanent character. % 
 
 The arguments of force and of arms may oppress, but 
 they cannot convince, and when they are employed against 
 a common idea, universal sentiment or positive interests, 
 {hey cannot be of long duration. Their supremacy is al- 
 most invariably stained with blood; their fruits are de- 
 vastation and misery as long as they last, and their ruin- 
 ous end is an axiom which time has demonstrated and 
 made evident. 
 
 During the first years of a civil war it is difficult, if not 
 impossible, for eifher party to acquire a correct knowledge 
 of its own strength, and to form an approximate estimate 
 of the definite results of the strife. Each one considers 
 itself omnipotent, or at least invincible, as it compares its 
 power with that of the opponent; and, nevertheless, when 
 years have rolled back into the past, and blood has flowed 
 in torrents, and armies are being anihilated, and weariness 
 
13 
 
 commences to appear : when all resources are exhausted, 
 and credit is lost through the extravagance and waste 
 which attend war, and moral order is disturbed by the 
 same cause, and society is losing its healthful customs and 
 adopting others which threaten to destroy all civil liberty 
 and material order in the future, truth ever appears, with 
 sorrowful and remorseful aspect, amongst the shattered 
 remains of a ruined power, and, while fanaticism flees 
 abashed from her presence, concessions of principles and 
 of interest are* made, which are immeasurably greater than 
 those which had formerly been considered unnecessary 
 and humiliating. ^ 
 
 This is the history of all litigation, whether individual 
 or collective: political as well as 'civil. 
 
 At the commencement of a lawsuit no litigant consents 
 to compromise his right for half a dollar less than the 
 amount of his claim ; but in the end there will hardly be 
 found one who would not rather have relinquished his right 
 were it but to secure the half of his claim free of expense. 
 
 Let then all fanatics abandon their contumacy and 
 sophistry, and believe that this question ought to be 
 analyzed and decided according to the practical teachings 
 of pas't events and of those which common sense predicts 
 for the future. 
 
 This is no time for conservative theories when a prudent 
 and equitable reform is demanded by all circumstances : 
 by the barbarism of the negro race, by the spirit of the 
 times, by the morality of public law, by the respect due 
 to legal property, by the duty of re-establishing peace 
 where war now reigns with all its horrors, by the civiliza- 
 tion which a barbarous race can acquire through labor and 
 instruction, and, finally, by all the moral and material 
 interests of the New World and of Africa. 
 
 The attention of the intelligent and of the lovers of 
 justice is particularly called to this work, in which the 
 extremes, against which said reform is directed, are fully 
 expose.d and attested by historical and legal data. They 
 that have ears let them hear, — and they that have eyes 
 let them see, and read with care, for the time spent in 
 the perusal of these pages will be profitably employed in 
 the interest of humanity. 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 The origin of slavery in primitive times. — Its various characters 
 among the heathens. — Its successive features from the first appearance of 
 Christianity in the countries of the negroes, as those countries were 
 successively discovered. — Causes for redeeming* in those countries, and 
 the reasons justifying the forced labor exacted from the redeemed negroes 
 in America. — The existence of cannibalism among the people of that race 
 and among the greater portion of savage nations shown by abundant 
 historical facts and other proofs as regards Asia, Africa, and America, 
 from the most remote times down to the present day. 
 
 The history of slavery has its origin in the history of 
 war, and the history of war in that of the human race. 
 Fur men, ever envious of one another and covetous of their 
 neighbors' goods, have since the days of Cain, by an 
 instinct inherent to our fallen nature, been bent upon 
 their own destruction, warring against each other with all 
 the fury that passion kindles in the humau heart, and kill- 
 ing their captives either through revenge, or from their 
 superstitious belief in a false religion. 
 
 But if the elements of a primitive civilization, in the 
 early days of the world, did not allay the fury of the 
 combatants in war, it at least suggested to them the 
 advantage of sparing the lives of the conquered, in order 
 to benefit themselves by their labor. 
 
 Thus the custom of sacrificing numerous victims captur- 
 ed after a bloody contest, was partially abolished in the 
 nations which successively carried the banner of civiliza- 
 tion in each epoch of the world ; and from that time 
 slavery was established and asserted as a right by all 
 victors. 
 
 (*) It should be noticed that the author uses the word redeem when 
 he alludes to the purchase of negroes in Africa, by the Spaniards. 
 
16 
 
 The use which the nations of antiquity made of this 
 right varied according to the state of their culture, or was 
 adapted to events and circumstances. 
 
 Among the Eastern nations the blood of these unhappy 
 victims was considered an acceptable offering to their lalse 
 gods. The martial spirit of Rome invented amphitheatres 
 where multitudes, thirsting for the sight of bloody scenes, 
 flocked to witness, among other sanguinary exhibitions, 
 the death struggles of a certain number of captives ; 
 whilst liberal Greece, less given to these cruel spectacles, 
 employed her slaves in agricultural labors, mechanical , 
 and industrial occupations, and oftentimes in the cultiva- 
 tion of the fine arts, acquiring them in trade in such 
 numbers, that in a single province, Attica, there were, at 
 one time, no less than four hundred thousand slaves. (1) 
 
 And when we proceed to examine the nations which, at a 
 later period, succeeded those famous empires, though in the 
 dark ages, we find proofs of their influence on the customs 
 of subsequent generations. Among the Scythians, in 
 Italy, and also in France, on the slopes of the Alps, pri- 
 soners were enslaved, sacrificed, and sometimes eaten, as is 
 testified to by very respectable authorities. (2) In Spain, 
 where slavery hact been imposed upon the natives by the 
 Roman legions, eloquent historical reminiscences of which 
 are preserved, this principle was applied in the war against 
 the Saracens, and was continued afterwards for a very 
 long time; fleets of galleys being manned with the Moors 
 that were captured on the coast of the Levant. 
 
 If such was the. common practice among enlight- 
 ened nations, (where the sentiments of charity had been 
 exercised for many centuries, after the preaching of the 
 Gospel in the Christian world, as was the case until the 
 middle of the last century, when Barbary slaves were 
 retained in the Spanish squadron,) what would not hap- 
 pen among those savage nations, where not only the light 
 of the Christian religion*had never shone, but where the 
 missionaries of civilization had never been able to pene- 
 trate a single mile into the interior of the coast where the 
 Negro traffic was carried on ? Alas ! in those lands 
 
 (1) Aristotle's Politics, lib. ii, chap. vii. 
 
 (2) Pliny : Book vii. chap. ii. Oviedo : Ristoria Natural y General de las 
 Indias: 1st Part. lib. v. chap. iii. 
 
17 
 
 where in the darkness of the primitive rudeness of the world, 
 lives a degenerate race, which of itself is incapable of 
 the moral or material improvement to which all the other 
 races of the human species tend, and which opposes to the 
 social intercourse of civilized nations the insurmountable 
 barrier of its ferocity ; in those lands, I repeat, the wild 
 existence of the individual is subject to no other physi- 
 cal or moral law, than that of chance, if there exist any 
 such laws. For as they have not the most remote 
 notions of the social intercourse by which the other nations 
 of the world are connected, and as, unlike other human 
 beings, the activity of their minds and the vigor of their 
 bodies do not incline them to exertions tending to civiliza- 
 tion and improvement, they feel no propensity except for 
 war, a tendency common to all barbarians; and stimulated 
 to frenzy by the sight of blood, they are not withheld from 
 murdering their prisoners by the feeling, unknown to them, 
 of compassion. 
 
 For this reason, no doubt, since it was not the inherent 
 consequences of conquest, all the Negroes who fell into the 
 hands of the Spaniards, Catalans, Mayorquinos, Andalu- 
 cians, and Portuguese, who frequented the coasts of 
 Western Africa from the 13th century down, (i) were in the 
 dark ages considered at once as slaves and lawful prize. 
 And this proceeding became so frequent, and was so 
 thoroughly sanctioned by the moral sentiment of the age, 
 that not only at the court of Henry III., that monarch 
 being in Seville at the time, some magnates presented 
 themselves parading their liveries on the backs of their 
 bondsmen, (2) but many years afterwards, and, of course, 
 before the commencement of the American slave trade, a 
 large number of Portuguese and Spaniards possessed black 
 slaves, especially in the Island of Tercera, in the Canaries, 
 in Lisbon, and in Seville. <3) 
 
 (1) This date will "be distasteful to those who, with their claims of 
 priority, deny what belongs to our navigators in the discovery of those 
 African countries. But with the testimony of Raimundo Lulio, whose 
 knowledge and veracity are admitted by all the world, we may affirm un- 
 hesitatingly what is above stated. 
 
 (2) Ortiz de Zuniga : Anales de Sevilla, lib. xii. Martinez de la Fuente : 
 Compendio de la Kistoria de la India, lib. i. chap. ii. 
 
 (3) Viera: Historia de las Islas. Barros: Asia Fortuguesa : D6cada pri- 
 mera, lib. i. chap. vi. 
 
18 
 
 So indisputably was this the case, and so habitually was 
 si aver y considered by the whites as the natural condition of 
 the Negro, that in 1505, seventeen black slaves were taken 
 to Espanola (now Santo Domingo) by an expedition of 
 Spanish colonists, and five years afterwards, one hundred 
 more were conveyed to that island in the same capa- 
 city ; and be it understood that at that time, no arrange- 
 ment whatever had been made for employing them in^the 
 cultivation of the colonial soil, nor had any idea been 
 formed as to the practicability of any such arrangement. 
 This auxiliary force was introduced into the Spanish island 
 under no legal authority, although it is stated that for 
 every Negro composing the second expedition of 1510 to 
 which I allude, two ducats were exacted from the owner 
 as a tax or import duty on each slave. (1) 
 
 Father Las Casas, — better known for his hatred of the 
 Spaniards than for his real sympathy for the Indians — 
 commenting with bitter censure on the fact of Columbus 
 having enslaved some of them and brought them to 
 Europe, to be sold, on his return from his first voyage, 
 which Indians, be it remembered, were set free by the 
 magnanimous Queen Isabel I — exclaimed in one of his 
 philanthropic bursts of passion : — " As if the Indians 
 were Africans !" (2) 
 
 This exclamation of Las Casas, coupled with his strange 
 morality in relation to the slavery of the Indians, -shows 
 the predominant conviction of the times in regard to the 
 justice with which forced servitude was imposed on the 
 Negroes. 
 
 Besides, it is known that in "Aristotle's Politics" the 
 enslavement of the savage by enlightened nations, is set 
 down as a civilizing, equitable principle of sound moral- 
 ity, (3) and it is known, also, that in the time to which I 
 
 (1) La Sagra. — Historia Politica. — Appendix No. 18. 
 
 (2) Navarrete. — Viajes y Descubrimientos, &c. Vol. i. Introduction, 
 paragraph 57 ; and vol. ii. page 112, 145 & 176. 
 
 (3) Oviedo, chaps, i. v. and vii., commenting on these passages of Aris- 
 totle, in his Historia Natural y General de las Indias, says : M It would 
 seem as though they wished to have it understood that the barbarians are 
 by nature slaves of rational men ; and as war can be made against beasts, 
 so also against those men who by nature are to be subjected." 
 
 As Columbus agreed to a similar philosophy, in which he was so well 
 versed, he hesitated not to bring slaves to Spain, to the number of not less 
 than three hundred Indians from the West Indiea Yhen he returned from 
 
19 
 
 allude, and more particularly among the nations of the 
 Latin race, it was a very common custom to study the 
 philosophers of antiquity, and, above all, Aristotle, on ac- 
 count of the contrast between his philosophy and that of 
 Plato, in deducing relative truths, as well as for his indis- 
 putable merit and the superiority of his reasoning; there- 
 fore, the proceedings of the Spaniards and Portuguese, in 
 relation to enslaving the savages of Western Africa, must 
 have been considered the more natural and justifiable, 
 since the ferocity of those people in all the acts of their 
 lives counselled the measure for the sake of humanity. 
 
 I must here observe, in order that it may be borne in 
 mind by those who may make remarks either in public or 
 in private respecting the contents of this work, that the 
 greater part of the African negroes, from the beginning of 
 the world down to the present day, in the most civilized 
 districts, (if such a state of things may be called civiliza- 
 tion,) have lived devouring one another in bloody, desola- 
 ting wars, as have also the Indians of the new world, with 
 the difference, however, between the two regions, that 
 while in America (in Mexico for example) before its dis- 
 covery by us, a native emperor never desired to subject or 
 reduce to his authority, as he could have done, the hostile 
 nations which surrounded the famous empire of Anahuac, 
 in order that he might always have enemies at hand to 
 fight with, and victims to immolate in the Teocalis, the 
 filthy temples of their bloody gods; (1) so the negroes of 
 
 his first voyage ; which slaves, after being sold by him in the Peninsula, 
 were ordered to be set at liberty by her Catholic Majesty (Pizarro y 
 Orellana: Varones ilustres, cap. vi. &c.) And our D. Alonzo de Ercilla, 
 as wise as he was just in the practice of the soundest morality, not only by 
 what is gathered from his glorious poem, but also from what is known of 
 his public life, so agrees with what is above stated respecting the enslave- 
 ment of the savages in war, that he expresses himself thus in one of his 
 outbursts of sincerity : 
 
 In legitimate warfare, at will 
 
 The victor, (though fought not to be), 
 Is allowed to wound, capture and kill, 
 
 And make bondsmen and slaves of the free. 
 For he who is Master, besides 
 
 Of the lives he has fought for and won, 
 May dispose of their persons likewise, 
 
 Sure that none will condemn what he's done. 
 
 Araucana, canto xxxvii. 
 
 (1) " The barbarous custom of the kings of Mexico is not to be forgot- 
 ten ; after being elected, and before their coronation, they went out to 
 
20 
 
 those miserable countries, where even now the traffic in 
 their bodies and the ransom of their souls is not entirely- 
 suppressed, waged war solely for the object of destroying 
 and eating each other like cannibals, as many of them are. 
 
 To demonstrate the facts which are here stated, I have 
 at hand more than sufficient data, though not somany res- 
 pecting Africa as relating to America, owing to the more 
 particular attention I have paid to the study of the new 
 world than to that of the former continent. Nevertheless, 
 treating of other matters connected with the glories of 
 Spain and the history of its discoveries and conquests, I 
 have consulted many Portuguese historians, and not a few 
 celebrated French, Dutch and English travellers, as well as 
 some from other parts, and the result has been that they all 
 agree with what I have said about the negro, namely, that 
 the more warlike people of the western coast, and of the 
 southwest down to Asia, lived in continued exterminating 
 wars, and indulged in hideous feasts on the flesh of their 
 prisoners. Lest from the omission of quotations it may be 
 thought that the truths I state are interested inventions 
 of mine, I refer the reader to the reliable authority of Juan 
 de Barros, Faria y Sousa, Juan Felix Pereyra, Fernan 
 Lopez, Kuiz de Pina, Damian Goes, and my illustri- 
 ous and distinguished ancestor, Diego de Couto, as to the 
 best national historians ; and also to Mungo Park, 
 Bontekoe, Bernier, Maire, Nicoli, Koberts, Cadamosto, 
 Pyzard and de la Harpe, in the narratives of their differ- 
 ent voyages. 
 
 All of whom agree that there were among the Africans 
 and Ethiopians many nations of cannibals; so that one 
 might have said of them with much justice what Pedro 
 Martir said of the Indians of the New World, when he 
 learned that the feasts of cannibalism were in use there", 
 viz., " the stories of Lestrigon and Polyphemus, who fed 
 upon human flesh, are no longer doubtful. Head! but let 
 
 fight with some hostile province, not for the purpose of exhibiting feats of 
 valor in the presence of their vassals, but to secure a large number of pri- 
 soners in battle to be sacrificed in their honor on the occasion of the cer- 
 emony. So truly was this the case, that Motezuma himself confessed to 
 Hernan Cortes, that he had abstained from subjugating the independent 
 provinces of Mechoacan, Tlascala and Teapeaca, in order to have some 
 place to wage war in whenever there should be a necessity for victims at 
 a new election and coronation." — Acosia, Histories, Natural, lib. vii., chap. 
 xxi. 
 
21 
 
 not your hair stand on end with horror !" (1) And let it 
 not be imagined that these assertions of the fact, that In- 
 dians and Africans in their respective countries sacrifice 
 and eat their own species, are the exaggerated fancies of tra- 
 velers who impose upon the credulity of the vulgar; for 
 though it be true that many narrators of protracted voyages 
 and remote customs invent and state what suits their pur- 
 poses without regard to the truth essential to history, it is 
 not the less certain that not only those who have written 
 accounts of travels, but also the gravest and most truthful 
 historians coincide on this subject; and from these writers 
 I will quote some passages relating to America, to insure 
 a better understanding of what I wish to say. (2) 
 
 Dr. Chanca, the companion of Columbus on his second 
 voyage, I know not whether by appointment of the corpo- 
 ration of Seville, for the purpose of giving an account of 
 his observations, or of his own free will, wrote a letter to 
 said corporation, in which, describing his arrival and landing 
 in the island of Guadalupe, he makes the following state- 
 ment: " The men they (the natives of the island) cap- 
 ture, if alive, are taken to their houses to be butchered, 
 and those who are dead, they eat. They say that the flesh 
 of man is so good that there is nothing equal to it in the 
 world; and so it would seem, for from the bones which we 
 found in these houses, everything that was eatable had 
 been gnawed off, so nothing remained on them but what 
 from its toughness could not be eaten. The neck of a man 
 in process of being cooked was found in one of their 
 houses." (3) 
 
 (1) Letter to Pomponio Laetus. Navarrete : Coleccion de Viajes y clescuhri- 
 mientos. &c, tomo. i. 
 
 (2) Since I have already quoted from La Araucana, on account of the 
 profound learning it contains, I will not deprive my readers of the follow- 
 ing lines with which their author corroborates, in anticipation, the narra- 
 tives written by the historians of the West Indies, even when they appear- 
 ed most extravagant : 
 
 Travelers see many things on their way, 
 
 Which as fables are received, 
 And the greater the marvel, the less that they say, 
 
 The more they'll be believed. 
 And although the doubtful 'tis as well to suppress, 
 
 So that people won't say I lie, 
 I'll tell them true, I found truth on the ground, 
 
 Though 'tis thought it has flown to the sky. 
 
 Canto xxxvi. 
 
 (3) Navarrete — Viajes y descubrimientos, tomo i. 
 
22 
 
 This testimony, from so reliable and competent an au- 
 thority, who was an eye witness, and not merely a narrator 
 from hearsay, ought almost to suffice to confirm the fact, 
 (at least in the present work, in which this question ap- 
 pears to be of secondary consideration), of the existence of 
 cannibalism among the Indians. 
 
 Nevertheless, when I see the odium of the slave trade 
 charged against us, and call to mind the innumerable in- 
 sults which all nations, and especially the English, have in- 
 flicted upon our honor respecting the discovery, conquest 
 and government of the West Indies, apostrophizing us as 
 ►cowards and the oppressors of a simple, pusillanimous and 
 innocent people, I cannot help giving some latitude to the 
 refutation of such deniable denunciations, since I have 
 abundant data for the purpose. With the help of these 
 I will not only establish a doctrine on the subject of the 
 slavery of savage people, according to ancient philosophy ; 
 but will also endeavor to dispel, by a chain of rigorous 
 consequences, the opinions which have been gratuitously 
 advanced, and which have attributed to a natural inhu- 
 manity of Spaniards, what is founded only in the bad faith 
 or the imagination of our rivals. 
 
 In the Historia natural y general de las Indias written 
 by G-onzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, who of all the contem- 
 porary writers of those facts, is perhaps, the most truthful 
 and the most reliable, from his official position and supe- 
 rior knowledge, (1) there are many passages relating to can- 
 nibals and many more that tell of bloody human sacrifices. 
 And as it would be tedious to recount them all, I will give 
 at random those which will suffice to prove the truth of 
 my statements, as follows : 
 
 "There never was a war," (says the writer), "among 
 the Indians of this Island (Santo Domingo), but for one of 
 three causes ; either for contested boundaries and jurisdic- 
 tion, or about the fisheries, or when cannibal Indians from 
 other Islands came to rob." (2) 
 
 To this he adds in the same chapter and passage, that 
 
 (1) He was chronicler of the Indies by royal letters patent: he having 
 been Inspector of the smelting of Gold in Darien ; Governor of the fortress 
 of St. Domingo ; (at that time the head of our colonization in the New 
 World), Governor and Captain General elect of the Province of Cartha- 
 gena in the Indies, &c, &c, &c. 
 
 (2) Part I., Book III., Chapter VI. 
 
 
23 
 
 s 
 
 the Islands of the cannibals were Boriqnen (now Porto 
 Rico), Guadalupe, Dominica, Matinino and Cibugueyra, 
 therefore it appears that nothing further is needed to show 
 that my testimony is supported by that of so great an 
 authority as Oviedo. And as to the sacrifices, chapters 
 III of book V, and IX of book VI may be consulted ; 
 and besides, the preface of book XII wherein he thus 
 depicts the Indians in general : " Because the people of 
 these Indies, although rational and of the same origin as 
 the eight persons within the holy Ark and in company 
 with Noah, have been made irrational and beastly by 
 their idolatry, sacrifices and infernal ceremonies, the 
 devil has had full possession of their souls for centuries/' 
 
 Oviedo did not exaggerate on this point, nor were the 
 Spaniards tyrants, but, on the contraiy, they were com- 
 mendable in reforming the customs of the Indians, whether 
 with their consent or by constraint, forming new settle- 
 men ts of those who led a roving life about the country, 
 and making ordinances of humane policy wherever they 
 took possession. And to show with what reason I assert 
 this opinion, let us hear the testimony of Father Jos6 de 
 Acosta, whose his torical truthfulness admits of no contra- 
 diction, seeing that his work is the result of a legal in- 
 vestigation made at that time in those places by order of 
 the king; speaking of the sacrifices which were executed 
 in Mexico, he describes them as follows: 
 
 " After the sacrificers were arranged in order, all the 
 prisoners of war, who were to be slaughtered in this festi- 
 val, were brought forth well guarded, entirely naked, and 
 made to ascend in single file the long series of steps which 
 lead to the place where six priests awaited them ; as each 
 one arrived in turn, four sacrificers seized him, each by 
 one limb, and threw him on his back on a sharp-pointed 
 stone, where the fifth of these ministers put a halter 
 around his neck, and the sixth (the High Priest) with 
 a long knife ripped open his breast with astonishing 
 dexterity, tearing out the heart with his hands, and, while 
 it was yet reeking with animal heat, held it up to the Sun, 
 to which he offered that smoke and heat, and then turn- 
 ing to the idol, cast it at his face, after which the body of 
 the victim was tossed down the steps of the temple." In 
 this manner all the victims were disposed of one by one, 
 and their bodies being handed over to their respective 
 
24 
 
 owners, by whom they had been captured, were distribut- 
 ed among their friends and companions, and devoured by 
 all wi-th great solemnity; however small the number of 
 victims might be, there never was less than forty or fifty, 
 for they were very expert in taking captives." (]) 
 
 These same accounts, in different words and style, were 
 given before, and have been given since as regards Mexico, 
 by Hernan Cortes, in his famous letters to the Emperor 
 Charles V., by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Lopez de Goma- 
 ra, Antonio de Herrera, D. Antonio de Solis, and by many 
 others whom I cannot now recall to mind. 
 
 But Mexico was not the only part in the Kew World 
 where such abominations were practised under the influ- 
 ence of a civilization which partook of all the iniquities of 
 the most odious heathenism; for the same author, speaking 
 of the Incas of Peru, says: 
 
 t " This Guaynacopa was worshipped as God by his sub- 
 jects during his life — a fact affirmed by the oldest inhabi- 
 tants as having never taken place with his predecessors. 
 When he died, one thousand persons of his household 
 were killed, that they might go to serve him m the other 
 world; and such was their willingness to die, in order to 
 remain in his service, that many who were not among the 
 appointed, offered themselves for that purpose." (2) 
 
 And in another passage which precedes the foregoing 
 description he expresses himself in these terms: 
 
 " Besides this, it was customary in Peru to sacrifice 
 children of from four to six and ten years of age ; chiefly in 
 matters which concerned the Inca; if he were sick, that he 
 might recover his health, and when he was going to war, 
 that he might gain the victory. And when the Tassel, 
 which was the insignia of kings as the sceptre or the crown 
 is with us, was conferred on the new Inca-, two hundred 
 children, of from four to ten years of age, were sacri- 
 ficed — a cruel and inhuman spectacle! The manner of 
 sacrificing these was by strangulation, and they were then 
 buried with some food, certain ceremonies being performed 
 on the occasion; at other times they beheaded the vic- 
 tims, and smeared themselves from ear to ear with the 
 blood. They also sacrificed the virgins who were brought 
 
 (1) Acosta : Historia Moral y Natural de Indias, lib. v., cap. xx. 
 
 (2) Acosta: Historia Moral y Natural de Indias, lib. vi., cap. xxii. 
 
25 
 
 to the Inca from the monas tries of which I have already 
 spoken. A great and general superstition existed among 
 them, which was, that when an Indian of either high or 
 low degree was sick, and his disease was pronounced fatal 
 by the augur, they sacrificed his son to the Sun or to the 
 Viracocha (God), asking him to be satisfied with the 
 offering, and not to require the death of the father. (1) 
 
 The reports of these murders and abominable sacrifices, 
 as well as the conviction that cannibalism existed among 
 those people, became so public and universal, that even 
 the poets, with their fanciful conceptions, were considered 
 truthful historians, so far as this subject was con- 
 cerned. In fact, those who distinguished themselves the 
 most in the poetic line, in writing on the subject of the 
 Indies, viz.: Juan de Castellanos, in his Elegias de Varo- 
 nes ilustres, and Don Alonso Ercilla, in La Araucana, 
 wrote history rather than fiction, as has been proved by 
 comparison of their works with those of the most weighty 
 authors, and by the assurances which both authors gave 
 in advance, and repeated from time to time, that they 
 would not indulge in false inventions. 
 
 In Porto Rico, says Castellanos, the war waged by the 
 Spaniards against the natives originated in the diabolical 
 intentions of the latter to seize a youth from Seville, 
 named Juan Juarez, for the purpose, of course, of eating 
 him — a game of ball being intended to decide to whose lot 
 he should fall. (2) 
 
 Narrating afterwards the expedition of Jorge Espina, 
 Governor of Venezuela, between the rivers Maranon and 
 Orinoco, he treats of a certain nation of Indians, called, 
 Choques, of whom he speaks as follows: 
 
 For besides devouring mankind, 
 
 A horror in which they delight, 
 N In all the serpents they find, 
 
 They indulge to their full appetite. 
 Their children and kindred they eat; 
 
 Their bodies are tombs for the dead ; 
 They eat the worms under their feet, 
 
 And even the hairs off their head."< 3 > 
 
 With a better intonation and a graver style as became 
 
 (1) Acosta : Historia Moral y Natural de Indias, lib. v., cap. xix. 
 
 (2) Part First : Elegia, vi., canto i. 
 
 (3) Segunda Parte : Elegia ii., canto ii. 
 
26 
 
 him who used it, Don Alonso de Ercilla, on describing a 
 great sterility which the lands of Arauco suffered in the 
 year 1554, treats of the same criminal customs in the fol- 
 lowing manner: 
 
 I made a great inquiry, 
 
 Exact within the place ; 
 For human flesh was ate, you see ; 
 
 (Oh ! cruel, frightful case) ; 
 And brothers brothers ate ; 
 
 The thing may look false on its face — 
 But a mother there was, who devouring her son, 
 
 To her entrails returned, from whence he had sprung.U) 
 
 It seems to me, nevertheless, that Ercilla is mis- 
 taken in supposing that this enormous crime was 
 then practised for the first time, for it appears impos- 
 sible that a mother would eat her own child as he 
 says in the last verse, if the custom had not been well 
 established before. I could quote many similar passages 
 of the history of the Indies from various authors who have 
 been in those parts and who related what they had seen, 
 adding, that the jurisprudence of the Indians as to the 
 property of individuals caused them to commit without 
 any compunction, the most cruel act as though it was the 
 most natural thing in the world. And this is confirmed 
 in other verses of Juan de Castellanos, who does not allow 
 me to be as sparing in my quotations as I would wish to 
 be, owing to his witty and very natural eloquence in the 
 present case, saying : — 
 
 A certain chief of this tribe, was 
 In strong terms well reproved, 
 Because with his voracious jaws, 
 He, his good subjects chewed. — 
 Quoth he: " I eat them up because 
 They'' re mine ^ those of another brood 
 I care not for :" Yet, I believe such was 
 His emendation, he ne'er again did have 
 The chance of dining off his nation, (i* 
 
 The author would seem, in the coupling of these verses, 
 to convey the idea that the Spaniards killed the Indian ; 
 which, if it so happened, will not have failed to form an 
 important link in the chain of evidence in the indictment 
 found against us by foreign nations for our barbarous 
 inhumanity. And it must be observed, since we touch 
 
 (1) La Araucana, canto ix. 
 
 (2) Elegia £ Benalcaza : canto viii. 
 
27 
 
 upon this point, not at random as some of our readers 
 might imagine, considering the task as a digression ; that 
 although in the first voyages of our celebrated discoverers 
 of the New World, no foreigners, nor even the subjects of 
 the crown of Aragon, were permitted to go there ; after- 
 wards by virtue of royal letters patent and under the pro- 
 tection of our rights and our honor, the privilege was ex- 
 tended to the people of all the countries of Europe, and of 
 course, turned to advantage by the worst part of each 
 nation. Oviedo seeing this, and jealous of our reputation 
 which already began to be tarnished by those very persons, 
 perhaps, who disgraced it by their acts, said on this 
 account : — 
 
 " And because in the progress of these histories and of 
 these new discoveries some mutinies and riots and ugly 
 deeds have occurred, and may again take place, mixed up 
 with treason and disloyalty and want of constancy on the 
 part of some men who have come hither : believe not, 
 reader, that Spaniards only have committed all these 
 offences, for of all the languages spoken in Christendom 
 there is none which is not represented here : here are found 
 natives of Italy as well as of Germany, of Scotland and 
 England, and also Frenchmen, Hungarians, Poles, Greeks, 
 Portuguese, and people of all the nations in Asia, of 
 Africa and of Europe : some of whom, not having come 
 with the intention of converting the Indians nor of popu- 
 lating the country and remaining in it for any greater 
 length of time than that required for the acquisition of 
 gold and the accumulating of wealth in every possible 
 manner, put aside shame, conscience and truth, apply 
 themselves to every kind of fraud and homicide, and com- 
 mit innumerable depravities." (2) 
 
 After what has been said here in relation to America, 
 which is calculated to show, in comparatively recent times, 
 the existence of cannibal nations, and also the practice^of 
 warfare and of human sacrifices as common institutions ; 
 aside of what may justify the conduct of the Spaniards in 
 their proceedings towards these barbarous nations ; it 
 would not be difficult for me to show the resemblance 
 which exists between the mode of life of the Indians, and 
 
 (2) Historia Natural de las India* : lib. xxiv. capftulo iv. 
 
28 
 
 that of the African Negroes, which is characterized by still 
 greater barbarism and cruelty. 
 
 I have before me various accounts of travelers, whose 
 bloody and immoral pages fill the reader with horror and 
 disgust. 
 
 " Voracity" says one of these writers, " is the ruling 
 passion of the Negroes in their savage state : they subsist 
 upon theft ; they will steal now a chicken, now a cat or a 
 dog, but delight above all, in rats, of which they are pas- 
 sionately fond ; their fires are never idle ; and whenever 
 they find any of these animals either in the woods or in 
 the road, not only dead, but even in a state of complete 
 putrefaction, they eat them without the least reluctance. 
 There are Negroes of the race of Bibis who, in the Colonies 
 have seized children of four years of age, for the purpose 
 of feasting their barbarous stomachs, for, as they them- 
 selves confess, the most delicious morsel for a Bibi is the 
 well-roasted flesh of a child served up hot. They are 
 competent judges on this matter, for in the midst of the 
 continual wars which desolate their country, they have 
 innumerable occasions to feast upon this class of food, as 
 they almost always eat their prisoners. With the object 
 of being able to devour their captives with greater ease, 
 the Bibis and the Montcliiavas file their incisors till they 
 form sharp points ; in both of these races to keep the teeth 
 entirely black is considered the greatest type of perfect 
 beauty, and they attain this end by burning them with 
 lime and staining them with the shells of wild nuts." (1) 
 
 On the coast of Guinea there is also a nation of savasres 
 called the Yolofs, whose native ferocity is not less atro- 
 cious than that of the nations already named. Owing to 
 their custom of eating their prisoners, they naturally 
 imagine that such also is to be their lot when they are sold 
 to the traders ; and if they do not accomplish a successful 
 r#yolt on the passage, as has often happened with the 
 Negroes from the Gfulf of Berrin or the Kalabars, they 
 generally commit suicide by hanging themselves as soon 
 as they have entered on their servitude in the colonies. 
 
 The Congos and Carabalis have the reputation in 
 
 (1) This narrative, which was afterwards transferred almost entire to a 
 small treatise published anonymously subsequently to the abolition of 
 slavery in the French Colonies, belongs to the collection of voyages of La 
 Harpe. 
 
29 
 
 Cuba, among the Negroes of milder customs, of being 
 anthropophagi, or as they more naturally say, man-eaters. 
 
 I questioned one of these miserable beings myself, in 
 Havana, enquiring if it were true that they eat one ano- 
 ther when at war, and on his answering me affirmatively 
 with blood-shot eyes,, as though he were on the point of 
 luxuriating once more in so horrible a feast, I must con- 
 fess I began to doubt the fact of our springing from the 
 same origin. 
 
 Some philanthropists of little reflection and uninformed 
 of the customs of savage nations, have supposed that the 
 traffic which is still carried on with the Negroes in their 
 respective countries is what keeps them in a permanent 
 state of war. I confess that at one time I also held this 
 opinion, though I have never expressed it in writing ; but 
 while studying this question of slavery with the most fer- 
 vent desire to arrive at the truth, I have read all the 
 authors who have written with some truth on the customs 
 of said nations, and have found that they all agreed in 
 representing the Negroes in a permanent state of warfare, 
 long before the traffic was commenced or thought of. 
 
 Neither can it be doubted that they were sacrificers of 
 human victims, although, owing to their not having as 
 clear a notion of the Divinity and of a future life as the 
 Indians had, their sacrifices were less frequent, and were 
 not celebrated with the same solemnities. 
 
 Now at this very time, in this enlightened age and 
 under the immediate vigilance of English philanthropists, 
 who with the greatest coolness have announced the news ; 
 scenes of the most revolting and horrifying character are 
 about to take place in the Western Coast of Africa. Not 
 to detract from the character of these scenes, as they have 
 been described, I will quote a paragraph from the West 
 African Herald, (an English paper, of course) which 
 reads as follows : — 
 
 "His majesty Badahung, King of Dahomey, is preparing 
 to celebrate a grand festivity in honor of Gezo, his prede- 
 cessor. Desirous of eclipsing all previous monarchs in the 
 splendor of the ceremonies with which this object is to 
 be performed, the grandest preparations for the feast have 
 been made by Badahung. He has ordered an immense 
 ditch to be dug which is to contain human blood in suffi- 
 cient quantities to float launches. On this occasion 
 
30 
 
 2,000 persons will be slain. The expedition against 
 Abcokuta has been deferred ; but the king has put his 
 army in the field to make excursions among the weaker 
 tribes; and has already succeeded in making some cap- 
 tures. The young and strong prisoners will be sold, and 
 the old ones beheaded on the day of the feast." 
 
 If the above repugnant and* bloody notice were not of 
 itself sufficient evidence in favor of my assertion, it would 
 at least decide all the points to the investigation of which 
 I am applying myself ; as they are proven not only by the 
 permanent strife in which those Negro nations live, whose 
 ransom it has been attempted to abolish, but also by the 
 inhuman butcheries to which their respective prisoners are 
 doomed. 
 
 It is remarkable what little effect has been produced in 
 those regions by the continued intercourse of the English, 
 their protectors and friends, who know beforehand, and 
 announce to the world, acts of such barbarity, and yet do 
 nothing to prevent their perpetration ; as if the philan- 
 thropy, of which they so much boast, in favor of those 
 unhappy beings would not be more opportunely exercised 
 by preventing the horrible butchery which is announced 
 to take place, than by permitting that the young and 
 strong people, whom the King of Dahomey wishes to sell, 
 should be slain also for the want of purchasers. 
 
 Finally, to close the catalogue of proofs which jus- 
 tify the deportation of savage Negroes, who eat human 
 flesh, to other countries, on account of their being incapa- 
 ble of receiving any manner of culture, whether forced or 
 spontaneous, in their own country, I avail myself of a very 
 curious work which an enlightened friend of mine, D. Joa- 
 quin J. Navarro, Lieutenant of the Koyal Navy, has just 
 published, who speaks as an eye witness of the greater 
 part of what he states. 
 
 Said officer, in Her Catholic Majesty's steamer Vasco 
 Nunez de Balboa, took part in the new and most recent 
 colonization of our Islands in the Gulf of Guinea^ and 
 being given to study and anxious to benefit his country by 
 his labors, he wrote with admirable judgment, unquestion- 
 able truth and great facility, some " Notes on the state of 
 the West Coast of Africa" which the Spanish Government 
 caused to be published at the public expense. 
 
 Although these Notes treat only incidentally of the 
 
31 
 
 customs and social state of the Negroes, it happens, never- 
 theless, that the intercourse with the English and French 
 factories which extend from Cape Verd to the Cape of 
 Good Hope, have not been productive of an atom of civili- 
 zation to their respective nations, they still continue 
 to live in the same manner as they have lived from the 
 first era of the world ;" because those establishments 
 scarcely trouble themselves about anything further than 
 the profits accrueing to them from the ivory, palm-oil, 
 dyewoods and gold which they export from those countries 
 in very great quantities. Thus it is that the Kroumanes, 
 who are the most civilized Negroes and who willingly 
 enter the service of Europeans, offering themselves to the 
 establishments and to the vessels, practice polygamy to an 
 extravagant degree as will be seen by the following 
 paragraph : — 
 
 " A Krouman considers himself independent when he 
 ceases to hire himself out to work, and has twenty or 
 thirty wives at his disposal. At his death, the wives 
 become the property of his son, as a part of his estate ; so 
 that many have their own mothers for wives !" (1) 
 
 Their willingness to serve the Europeans and their com- 
 parative state of civilization is not, however, without 
 danger to the latter ; so at least we must infer from the 
 paragraph with which the said author in the Notes to 
 which I refer, closes his description of that country, 
 saying : — 
 
 " The object of the commander of the steamer was to 
 obtain on this coast of Krou a certain number of indi- 
 viduals of this race, to ship in each of the vessels which 
 composed this naval force, some for ship duty, constant 
 duty in the tops while at sea, and other duties of this 
 class, and also to work on board the tender; but it was 
 impossible to accomplish it, because we made the land on 
 this rocky coast under the worst possible circumstances. 
 It was very dark and rainy, so that certain land marks 
 were not visible. We had very doubtful confidence in the 
 negroes who offered to pilot the vessel; and, finally, the 
 well-founded apprehension that some accident might hap- 
 pen, the consequences of which, always disagreeable, 
 would be still much more so on ah inhospitable coast, 
 
 (1) Navarrete : Apuntes, §c. : Costa de Krou, p. 22. 
 
32 
 
 where far from receiving efficient aid from its inhabitants, 
 we could only expect to be under the necessity of keeping 
 the vessel under military precautions, in order to avoid 
 being plundered." (1) 
 
 Speaking of this race of Kroumans, my friend, the 
 learned author of the Notes which I am now reviewing, 
 also says, " they are possessed by foolish superstitions; 
 they believe in their jusjus, guardian or evil angels, as do 
 all the races who remain in a state of barbarism, and 
 among whom the light of Christianity has not been dif- 
 fused; but they have none of those horrible and bloody 
 customs which are so common among the natives of the 
 bay of Biafa." (2) 
 
 From this declaration, made with such unquestionable 
 sincerity by Mr. Navarro, and confirmed in other parts of 
 his work, we not only see that the light of Christian- 
 ity has not yet been diffused among the Kroumans of 
 Western Africa, who have the most communication with 
 the Europeans, and also that the English established in 
 those parts have taken more care to look after their own 
 material interests than to Christianise the natives, for the 
 purpose of extinguising idolatry, polygamy, and all such 
 abominations, but also we draw as an irrefutable conse- 
 quence what it is attempted to show in this chapter, viz. : 
 that the savage negroes of Western Africa wage war 
 against each other from instinct, and sacrifice one another 
 as will be stated presently. 
 
 " In the interior of Cape Coast," says the above-men- 
 tioned author, "is situated he kingdom of Ashantee, 
 which is one of the most powerful and despotic monarchies 
 in all Africa. Its inhabitants are wrapt in the gloom of 
 the most abject idolatry; they worship sharks and ser- 
 pents, and they add to this, human sacrifices, in all their 
 most horrible details. This remarkable thirst for blood, on 
 the part of the monarch and his people, springs not only 
 from a barbarous desire of vengeance on such enemies as fall 
 into their hands, in legitimate warfare, but also from the be- 
 lief that their deities are conciliated by such sacrifices; 
 that the troubled manes of their departed heroes are thus 
 appeased, and that the victims will be their slaves in the 
 
 (1) Navarrete : Apuntes, §c. : Costa de Krou, p. 22. 
 
 (2) Ibid. Ibid. 
 
33 
 
 life to come. Sometimes they exhume the skulls and 
 other bones of notable men, to wash them with the blood 
 of their victims. The graves are saturated with blood; 
 and., although it is supposed that some of their customs 
 are those which prevailed in Asia in the days of Moses, 
 they are, without doubt, the most cruet savages to be 
 found on the face of the earth in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury." (1) 
 
 I am not aware of the amount of data which will be re- 
 quired to convince the most suspicious credulity that the 
 natural state of African negroes in their own country is of 
 the most degraded character ; but I fully believe that 
 what I have here written will stand the test of the sever- 
 est criticism. The remarks I have made in the present 
 chapter, and those I shall hereafter put forth, will show 
 in an irresistible manner, that the warlike propensity of 
 these negroes has not been increased by the slave trade, 
 neither have their bad customs been modified by the pres- 
 ence in those countries of the English, who turn their at- 
 tention to everything except to the work of civilizing 
 them. 
 
 For which reasons, and because the limits of this work 
 will not allow me to give latitude to further investiga- 
 tions, I will consider as sufficient those already given, in 
 order to pass on to another matter. 
 
 (1) Navarrete : Description of the coast between Gape Palmas and Cape 
 Lopez, pp. 27 and 28. 
 
 / 
 
 \ 
 
i 
 
CHAPTER H, 
 
 Respective condition of the nations of Eastern Europe when discoveries 
 in Africa and Asia were made towards the South and East. — Why the 
 civilization of said countries was not attempted by means of conquest, 
 and why the enslaving of their inhabitants, for the purpose of civilizing 
 them, by cultivating the New World was prefered. — First privileges 
 granted to introduce African slaves in America. — These privileges were 
 obtained by the Flemings and the Genoese, and afterwards by the Portu- 
 guese, the Dutch, the French, and the English, until the famous contract 
 of asiento was made. — Losses suffered in this undertaking by some 
 Spanish companies and private individuals, arising from their humanity. — 
 Beginning of Spanish legislation in reference to black slaves. — Its emi- 
 nently moral and protective character. — Obstacles which were opposed 
 to the introduction of slaves in the New World, and for what object. 
 
 When the Spaniards and Portuguese began to visit the 
 western coast of Africa, the former stimulated by their pri- 
 vate interest, and the latter by a speculative idea, to them 
 of vast importance, they found, as I have already stated, 
 in the countries which extend to the Cape of Grood Hope, 
 previous to the doubling of it by the renowned Vasco de 
 Gama, a multitude of savage nations, intractable and wild, 
 who in many instances punished with death the daring of 
 the intruders. 
 
 This suggested the idea of enslaving those miserable 
 beings, singly or collectively, as opportunity served, and 
 of conveying them to Spain, a custom which prevailed un- 
 til towards the end of the 15th century, when the discov- 
 ery of the New World brought forth material deviations 
 from the course until then pursued. 
 
 (35) 
 
36 
 
 At that period and owing to the spirit of discovery 
 which engrossed the mind of the celebrated Infante Don 
 Enrique of Portugal, after the capture of Ceuta in 
 1415, (1) the Portuguese, by means of their inroads into 
 Africa, and their establishments on the coasts of that 
 continent, ascertained that the native tribes of Negroes 
 were in a perpetual state of barbarous warfare against each 
 other, and that captives could be rescued with great fa- 
 cility from certain death by being exchanged for commo- 
 dities of little value. 
 
 For this reason, and if we bear in mind what were at 
 that period the principles of jurisprudence in regard to 
 prisoners who were not Christians, even when taken in the 
 Peninsula or in the Mediterranean during the subsequent 
 wars against the Turks, we cannot be surprised that 
 Spaniards, as well as Portuguese, should not have felt over 
 scrupulous in making slaves of negroes, especially as they 
 did so with the eminently Christian object of rescuing them 
 frorrrinevitable death. 
 
 Arguing upon the principles of modern philosophy, 
 there is no denying that such proceedings were deserving 
 of the strongest reproof, since it would have been more 
 rational to introduce civilization among the African tribes 
 by means of religion and the support of a moderate mili- 
 tary force, than by subjecting the negroes to slavery and 
 conveying them to distant countries. 
 
 But as it cannot be denied that the spirit which prevail- 
 ed in former ages widely differed from that by which the 
 actions of men were influenced and regulated at other and 
 more recent periods, the exploring nations were satisfied 
 with doing all that circumstances . permitted in favor of 
 these barbarians, which indeed was all that could be ex- 
 pected, considering that they rescued them from inevitable 
 death at the foot of their satanic altars and conveyed them 
 to civilized countries where they acquired a knowledge of 
 their Creator and enjoyed the blessings of social life. <2) 
 
 (1) Freire, Vida del Infante Bon Enrique. Book iii. 
 
 (2) The lack of judgment with which past events are commented on 
 according to the ruling spirit of the time befng, meets with an admirable 
 reproof in the answer of Cato, when he was taken to task at the age of 86 
 for some imaginary transgression in his youth : " It is difficult, said he, 
 to give an account of my actions to men who live in an age which is not 
 mine." 
 
 / 
 
37 
 
 Nor could any more be done at that time, when Spain, 
 not yet entirely liberated from the thraldom of the Cres- 
 cent, had to concentrate her efforts to drive the Mahomet- 
 an legions to the other side of the Straits; and when this sa- 
 cred object had been attained, and the cross had been rais- 
 ed on the tower of la Vela, in Granada, from the depths of 
 a boundless Ocean arose the World which Queen Isabella I. 
 and Columbus had called into existence so that Spain might 
 civilize it without looking towards other conquests. 
 
 On the other hand, no accusation can be brought against 
 
 the Portuguese, seeing that their efforts neither tended to 
 . . "... 
 
 acquire territory, nor to civilize the people in those parts of 
 Africa. The report of the lucrative trade in spices, per- 
 fumes, and precious stones, carried on with the East Indies 
 by the Venitians, who traversed the Mediterranean, the Red 
 Sea, and the desert to reach those lands, had been widely 
 diffused, since the fortunate voyage of Marco Paolo, and 
 thus the minds of the Portuguese navigators were bent ex- 
 clusively on discovering a new and shorter passage to those 
 regions by doubling the coast of Africa towards theEast. (1) 
 
 It is true that the infante Don Enrique, whilst encou- 
 raging this project, did not scorn the acquisition of some 
 territory on the coast of Africa, for the Order of Christ, 
 of which he was Grand Master, (2) but it is not less posi- 
 tive, that first the Moors, opposite the Canary Islands, 
 and afterwards the negroes of the tropical latitudes beyond 
 Sierra Leone, opposed a most determined resistance to the 
 Portuguese who visited them for the aforesaid object. An- 
 tonio Gonzalez and Nuno Tristan, (two valiant youths, 
 who gave the name of Angra de los Caballos (Horses' 
 Cove), to that part of the coast where being pursued 
 by the natives they were saved by the fleetness of their 
 horses) testify to the fact, by their account of the con- 
 test in which both were engaged in 1441 at Cape Blanco, 
 and by the violent death of the latter which took place 
 five years later near the river which to this day bears his 
 name. Also Gonzalo de Suitra, 'killed in the same place 
 by the negroes, Antonio de Nola, Dionisio Fernandez Ca- 
 damasto, and numerous others, who owed their -safety in 
 
 (1) Lopez de Castaneda : Historia del descubrimiento y conquista de la India 
 por los Portugueses, lib. i, cap. i. 
 
 (2) Freire : Vida del Infante D. Enrique, lib. iii. 
 
 J 
 
38 
 
 similar conflicts, to their good fortune, their stout hearts 
 and their strong right arm. (1) 
 
 England at that time was not a maritime power, and 
 had no consuls even in the most important settlements 
 where the business of contracting for slaves was carried on; 
 France was more occupied in invading Navarre and 
 Rosellon, and in defending herself in Italy against the 
 victorious armies of our generals, than in exploring un- 
 known regions, with the object of making the inhabitants 
 participants of civilization and the advantages of com- 
 merce; it is not therefore surprising that no plan for com- 
 bining the efforts of enlightened nations in order to put a 
 stop to the atrocious warfare among the Africans was 
 resolved upon, or that its execution should be contem- 
 plated otherwise than on the small scale conceived by 
 D. Enrique. (2) 
 
 It being universally known that the negroes were kept 
 in a miserable state of perpetual slavery by the Moors on 
 their frontiers/ and by those of their own race, it became 
 evident that the only practicable means of ameliorating 
 their condition was to redeem them, especially such as 
 had been taken captives in war, from that state of barba- 
 rism and wretchedness. In this manner they could be res- 
 cued from the cruelty to which they all would, sooner or 
 later fall victims; and this measure could be adopted 
 with a. strict regard to justice, as the negroes were entire- 
 ly devoid of that moral sentiment from which arises our 
 attachment to our native land and our kindred; and not- 
 withstanding this strange want of feeling which was a 
 characteristic of that wretched people, according to the 
 testimony of reliable authors, all that were taken to Spain 
 were treated with great kindness and gentleness by their 
 masters, (3) that is to say, in accordance with the natural 
 disposition of the Spanish people, who are always humane 
 and generous towards the weak and defenceless. 
 
 (1) Barros : Da Asia Portuguesa\ Decada primera, libro i., cap. v. Mar- 
 tinez de la Puente : Compendia de la Historia de las Indias, lib ii., cap. i. 
 Freire : Vida del Infante D. Enrique, libros iii.. y iv., &c. 
 
 (2) In one of the voyages to Gape Blanco made by Anton Gonzalvez 
 and Nuno Tristan in 1443, they fought with the Moors, as usual, and hav- 
 ing taken 10 prisoners, the moorish chief of that district redeemed them 
 by giving an equal number of their negro slaves in exchange. Barros: 
 Da Asia Portuguesa : Decada primera, libro i. 
 
 (3) Ortiz de Zuniga: Anales de Sevilla : Lib. XII. 
 
 I 
 
39 
 
 The practice of introducing negro slaves into the two 
 kingdoms of the Peninsula, which existed from the com- 
 mencement of the Xlllth century, under the provision of 
 a legislation no wise resembling that of the ancients, and 
 by which the condition of these unhappy beings was pro- 
 tected and guaranteed, now received the sanction of the law 
 in matters of slaves. The discovery of the western hemis- 
 phere ocuijring immediately afterwards, and it having been 
 to a certain degree ascertained that the habits of the in- 
 dians of the New World unfitted them for the arduous 
 labor of agriculture, and more especially so those of the 
 Islands, private interest prompted experiments to be made 
 to test the aptitude of the negroes for this labor, which 
 experiments produced such admirable results, that the re- 
 demption of these unfortunate beings was officially orga- 
 nized and a great number was taken to the new Spanish 
 dominions. 
 
 The first royal privilege, granted in due form for the 
 importation of negroes into the West Indies, was dated 
 1517 (1) ; and Navarrete commenting on this fact in its 
 bearings on the interference of Father Las Casas, in fa- 
 vor of the Indians of the New World, says : " He came to 
 Spain to plead their cause, and in May 1517, arrived at 
 Aranda where the Court was at that time, and where the 
 celebrated Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros lay ill ; for this 
 reason he could not confer with him but went to Valladolid, 
 there to await the arrival of the king, Charles I, who did 
 not reach that city till after the death of the Cardinal. 
 The young prince, then 17 years of age, in a country 
 where he was a stranger, thoroughly ignorant of the 
 Spanish language, and controled by the Flemings who 
 accompanied him, issued at their suggestion many war- 
 rants of apportionment and grants of lands in the Indies 
 and divers licences to carry slaves to those dominions, 
 notwithstanding the existing prohibitions. Las Casas well 
 knew that the way to accomplish his object was to win 
 the good will and follow in the footsteps of these Flemings, 
 in which he succeeded, especially with Mr. de Laxas, 
 Lord Chamberlain and one of the kind's greatest favorites ; 
 but when he saw that his plan would meet with some dif- 
 ficulties owing to the cupidity of the new guests, he chan- 
 
 * S 
 
 (1) La Sagra : Historia Politica : pagina 32 : nota. 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
40 
 
 ed his plan and proposed, among other remedies, that the 
 right of importing slaves should be given to the Spaniards 
 residing in the Indies, so that the Indians might be some- 
 what relieved on the plantations and in the mines. This 
 brought up the question as to how many slaves would be 
 requisite for the four islands: Hispaniola (Santo Domin- 
 go), Fernandina (Cuba), San Juan (Porto Kico), and 
 Jamaica, and information having been demanded from the 
 officials of the department whose seat was at Seville, and 
 whose duty it was to take cognizance of all contracts hav- 
 ing reference to the trade, the answer was that four thou- 
 sand would be required. The Flemings then took advan- 
 tage of their influence to obtain this privilege which they 
 sold to the Genoese for 24,000 ducats, with the condition 
 attached that the king should grant no other privilege for 
 eight years. We therefore "infer from this narrative, the 
 veracity of which cannot be questioned, first: that Las Ca- 
 sas in order to relieve the Indians, established and au- 
 thorized the traffic in negroes for the Islands of the New 
 World, as if they were not rational beings; and secondly: 
 that those who solicited this negotiation and intervened 
 in it, were not Spaniards, but covetous Flemings and traf- 
 ficking Genoese." (1) 
 
 Navarrete in this passage, reflects strongly on Father 
 Las Casas, and not .without a show of reason, though, 
 in my opinion with a total disregard for the justification 
 of the case to be found in the old and new Testaments; 
 for what else but slavery and the transporting of negroes 
 to the territories of the New World could the wise pro- 
 phet Jeremiah have wished to announce when he said: 
 " Like as ye have forsaken me and served strange Gods in 
 your lands, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not 
 yours ?" (2) For which reason, and if we bear in mind the 
 humanity with which the Spaniards and Portuguese pro- 
 ceeded in rescuing the African negroes from slavery and 
 impending death, though benefitting themselves by their 
 labor, I consider Navarrete' s remark, "as if the latter 
 were not rational beings" particularly uncall for. 
 
 Father Las Casas is reasonable in everything but when 
 
 (1) Navarrete : Coleccion de viages y descubrimienlos, etc : Tomo I. Introduc- 
 tion. 
 
 (2) Prophecies of Jeremia : Chapter V ; verse 19. 
 
41 
 
 he speaks of the state of the respective souls of the In- 
 dians and of the negroes, because although by the above 
 quotation, his advice about enslaving the negroes might 
 l)e justified, we can find in the sacred Scriptures, abundant 
 texts that cannot but refer in a certain manner to what 
 happened with the Indians; for besides what St. Luke 
 has anounced in his version of the Gospel when he said in 
 denouncing the Hebrews to convert them to the Lord: 
 " Every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit 
 is hewn down and cast into the fire;" (1) in Exodus, as if 
 foreseeing what would happen to the Indians for their ini- 
 quities, will be found the following: 
 
 "For mine angel shall go before thee unto the Amo- 
 rites, and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaan- 
 ites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will cut 
 th%m off. Thou shalt not bow down to their Gods, nor 
 serve them, nor do after their works; but thou shalt 
 utterly overthrow them and quite break down their images. 
 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the 
 people to whom thou shalt come; and I will make all 
 thine enemies turn their backs unto thee; I will not drive 
 them out from before thee in one year, lest the land 
 should become desolate, and the beasts of the field multi- 
 ply against thee. By little and little I will drive them 
 out from before thee, until thou be increased and inherit 
 the land." (2) 
 
 Navarrete was perfectly correct in stating that the 
 Spaniards were not the first traders between Africa and 
 America, not only at that time but for many years after; 
 for, as I have shown, the first privilege of 1517, for this 
 traffic was granted to some Flemings, who sold it to a 
 company of Genoese; and when the grant expired, owing 
 to the great number of slaves then in the West Indies, it 
 was not renewed for some time, until the penury of the 
 Royal Exchequer, induced Philip II. to make another 
 grant to a Genoese- company, which his successors extend- 
 ed to Gomez Reimel, a Fleming, from 1595 to 1600; with 
 Coutinho brothers to 1609; with Antonio Fernandez de 
 Eloa and Manuel Rodriguez de Lamego, all Portuguese, 
 up to the date of the revolution in Portugal in 1640: 
 
 (1) Chapter III ; verse 9. A 
 
 (2) Exodus: chapter XXIII; verses 23, 24, 27, 29 y 30. 
 
 J 
 
42 
 
 with the Dutchman Coimans to 1692: with the Portuguese 
 company of Guinea to' 1701; with the French company of 
 Guinea to 1712; and finally, in 1750, that famous treaty 
 with England was concluded, which gave the latter a 
 pretext for all its outrages and arbitrary proceedings 
 against our foreign possessions. (1) 
 
 It is true that during some intervals that occurred be- 
 tween the expiration of each successive grant and its renew- 
 al, the contractors at Seville and other Spanish companies, 
 sometimes undertook to provide negroes for our possessions 
 in America, and sometimes the proprietors of plantations 
 were allowed to introduce them free from duty, for once 
 only. , 
 
 But these exceptions, which were not many, only served 
 to prove that the Spaniards were not the best calculated to 
 carry on this commerce on an extensive scale, even through 
 motives of humanity, since we see that in order faithfully 
 to comply with the rules that existed for the good treat- 
 ment and comfort of the negroes in their transportation, 
 which required ample means to satisfy their redemption, 
 to carry the best men from the coast of Guinea, and to 
 bring over also some females, all the enterprizes of the 
 Spaniards became bankrupt before the expiration of the 
 contract, and the contractors at Seville, when they did 
 this business on account of the government, suffered enor- 
 mous losses. (2) 
 
 Nothing else could be expected, if the trade was carried 
 • on in good faith, as we did, in conformity with our natural 
 disposition and love of justice ; for the traffic once es- 
 tablished, the laws were more zealous in protecting the 
 moral interests of the contracted than those of the con- 
 tractors. Thus it was that in 1510, previous to any grant 
 of privileges, when but few negroes had as yet been taken 
 to the West Indies, and those few the property of private 
 individuals, Ferdinand V recommended the respective 
 
 (1) Navarrete -.Collection de viages y descubrimientos : Tomo I, Introduccion. 
 Antunez: Memorias Historicas : Tomo I, pag. 391, y tomo II, pag. 263. 
 Zamora : Legislation Ultramarina : Tomo III, artfculo titulado " Esclavitud 
 y Esclavos." etc. 
 
 (2) It was ordered that one ton should be allowed for every two negroes 
 according to the dimensions of the vessel, and although foreign contract- 
 ors infringed this rule allowing them less space, the Spaniards never de- 
 viated from it nor from that relative to their food. 
 
43 
 
 owners to encourage marriages among their slaves in order 
 to promote a better state of tranquility and order; (1) anl 
 afterwards, by a series of Koyal decrees he not only pro- 
 hibited that those who had licence to trade in Guinea 
 should bring away married negroes without their wives 
 and children, although the latter could be of no use in 
 the Colonies, but he also established as a general rule 
 that one-third of every cargo of negroes intended for the 
 Spanish possessions in the New World, should consist of 
 women. (2) Another guarantee given by our laws to protect 
 the morals of the Spanish Colonies was that concerning the 
 preservation of the integrity of the Christian faith; for 
 which purpose many decrees and Royal ordinances were is- 
 sued, directing that the slaves taken to the West Indies be 
 exclusively from the coast of Cape Verd, Angola, Guinea 
 and the adjacent Islands, of the race called Bozales: this 
 decree was enacted because some unscrupulous contractors 
 and speculators, seeing that the Bozales had advanced in 
 price, rather than to redeem those wretched creatures from 
 an ignominious life and inevitable death, hoping to in- 
 crease their gains, went to the Islands of Sardinia, Ma- 
 yorca and Minorca there to buy at a much lower price the 
 natives of Barbary taken on the coast opposite to Spain, 
 who were mostly mulatoes and negroes, but unfortunately 
 some of whom were whites. 
 
 For this reason, on the 25th of February 1530, a decree 
 was issued prohibiting the taking of white slaves to the 
 Colonies ; another prohibition was promulgated the 19th 
 of December 1531, respecting the natives of Barbary; and 
 on the 1st of May 1543, a law was passed to the same ef- 
 fect relative to all mulatoes coming from the same place 
 -*-" Because (said the law) the negroes who live in that 
 part of the Levant say that they belong to the Moorish 
 or Mahometan caste, and as others would associate with 
 them in a new land where the Catholic faith is now 
 being implanted, it is against our interest to introduce such 
 people/ ;(3) 
 
 (1) La Sagra : Historia Politica. Apendice : No. 89. 
 
 (2) The former is in a Royal Letter Patent dated Feb'y. 1st 1570, and 
 the latter in another of Jan'y. 2d 1586. 
 
 (3) Antuniz : Memorias Mistoricas : tomo I — Recapitulation de las leyes de 
 India, §c. 
 
 \ 
 
44 
 
 With the object of keeping the negroes already in the 
 Spanish dominions in an orderly state, after some years of 
 experience as to the qualities of the race or nation from 
 which they came, with the view of guaranteeing the lives 
 and property to the Spaniards who benefitted themselves 
 by their labor, and which were not always secure among 
 such servants, the Kings of Spain prohibited the carrying 
 slaves to the Colonies from the territories where they were 
 most valuable, even if those places were within the limits 
 where the redemption was lawful. 
 
 The first decree in reference to the prohibition was is- 
 sued the 11th of May 1526, immediately after some com- 
 motion caused by the insurrection of the negroes against 
 their masters, and with the remembrance fresh on their 
 minds of similar occurences in Santo Domingo in 1522. 
 In this decree the shipping of crafty negroes (ladinos) was 
 prohibited, without determining any place of embarkation, 
 and merely because being of bad habits (undoubtedly can- 
 nibals) they were not wanted in Spain, and in the Indies 
 they would do m&re harm than good by contaminating the 
 slaves already reclaimed and submissive gentle and obe- 
 dient. Subsequently on the 28th of September 1532, 
 a new law was issued prohibiting that negroes be taken 
 from the Island of Guadalupe, because they were of a 
 passionate, disobedient, turbulent and incorrigible race, 
 and were the cause of all the insurrections and consequent 
 loss of life which had occured among the Christians in 
 Porto Kico and the other Islands. (2) 
 
 By what has been said of the traffic in reference to 
 its origin and continuance while it was carried on by con- 
 tract, the equitable, humane, civilizing, and philanthropic 
 feelings that prevailed among our legislators respecting 
 the redemption and service of the negroes are fully demon- 
 strated. 
 
 Yet, as this is but a slight sketch of the regulations which 
 afterwards became laws in our Colonies, I will put aside 
 all other considerations and enter at once and fully on the 
 exposition and explanation of the laws existing at that 
 period. 
 
 (2) Antuniz : Memorias Historicas : tomo I. — Bacapitulacion de las leyes de 
 Indias, §c. 
 
 / 
 
CHAPTER IH, 
 
 The ideas of the ancient laws in matters of slaves excite public senti- 
 ment against modern slavery. — Radical difference which exists oetween 
 the legislation of the heathens and that of our times respecting said institu- 
 tion. — Manner in which the Spaniards practically exhibited this difference, 
 from the time that they introduced slavery into their colonies. — Religious 
 principles which predominated in the formation of their laws. — Royal 
 letters patent and circular instructions to the Indies dated 31st May, 1789, 
 respecting the education, treatment and occupation of the slaves. — Com- 
 ments made on the preceding document for the purpose of doing away 
 errors of great magnitude. 
 
 The natural abhorrence with which persons possessed of 
 humane feelings, and professing the Christian faith, look 
 upon the fact that slavery is established as a legal institu- 
 tion in our enlightened age, does not proceed so much from 
 the nature of the institution thus condemned, as from the 
 name by> which it is known. For, having learned from 
 the pages of history that slavery, in the darker ages, was 
 a total deprivation of human rights, and that the owners 
 could dispose, at theip caprice, not only of the persons, but 
 also of the lives of their slaves, the mind must evidently 
 revolt at so barbarous a legislation, although the terrible 
 power of life and death may no longer exist. 
 
 And while admitting that " Slavery " is not an appro- 
 priate name for the status of the negroes, for the sole rea- 
 s6n that their labor is compulsory, yet it is the general 
 impresion that, though the owners have no longer the 
 power of taking the lives of their slaves according to their 
 caprice, they may mutilate their limbs, brand them 
 with ignominious marks, inflict cruel punishments on 
 them, destine them to immoral purposes and compel them 
 to labor day and night without relaxation. 
 
 1(45) 
 
.46 
 
 These inductions, which appear logical, and which cer- 
 tainly would be so, had not a great reform taken place, 
 by which they are set at naught, have powerfully contri- 
 buted to the clamorous, though groundless charges, which 
 have been made against us, not only by foreigners, but 
 even by some of our own people. For which reason and in 
 order to enable my readers to form an unbiased j udgment 
 of our proceedings in matters of slavery, I shall insert in 
 the following pages the regulations which have been made 
 concerning the treatment of slaves in our colonies, where 
 they are enforced and scrupulously observed. 
 
 No longer, as in former times, is slavery imposed indis- 
 criminately and as a natural right on the vanquished, to 
 whatever class, condition or race they belonged, whether 
 apostles or sectarians of a sublime doctrine, philosophers 
 cultivating the liberal arts and sciences, or proletarians 
 enured to the hardships of manual or agricultural labor ; 
 neither is it intended to enslave that mysterious excres- 
 cence of the human species which populates a considerable 
 'portion of South Western Africa, and who, neither in 
 their local intercourse, nor when conveyed to the centre of 
 civilization, have given proofs of their capability to con- 
 tribute in the least degree to the universal progress which 
 develops itself in all other human beings with the aid of 
 intellect. 
 
 These wretched beings, who are only capable of imitat- 
 ing what they see, and who never perform any kind of 
 labor except what is taught to them ; — whose mental ca- 
 pacity is confined exclusively to the retentive faculty, al- 
 though, at times, the remarkable aptitude with which 
 some individual, more favored than the rest, perfects him- 
 self in what he has been taught, may appear to proceed 
 from faculties of a higher order ; — those unfortunate be- 
 ings, who have been ranked, by Christianity, among the 
 descendants of Noah, and have been endowed, by the law, 
 with all the rights common to mankind, are not consider- 
 ed as tilings, as were the slaves of Koine, Greece, Gaul and 
 the Northern nations (who had been chieftains and war- 
 riors, and owed the irreparable loss of their rank, power 
 and freedom to chances of war), but live among us under 
 the protection of the laws, with Till the attributes of per- 
 sons, and are treated as suoh, in their civil status, accord- 
 ing to thq codes of laws wherein it is so ordered. 
 
47 
 
 They are not deprived of the sweet ties of kindred, nor 
 are their children torn from them in infancy as was done 
 to slaves in ancient times by the mere command of their 
 masters. They are not exposed to bodily punishment at 
 the caprice of their masters, but solely for proven faults, 
 and, even then, the punishment is always moderate and 
 of such a kind as to prove beneficial. They are not com- 
 pelled to combat with wild beasts or their fellow-slaves in 
 the amphitheatre, nor are they punished with severity for 
 the veriest trifles. There is no danger that their blood will 
 be made to flow to add to the gaieties ot a festival, at the 
 caprice of another Quintius Flaminius, nor will they be 
 hurried to execution in masses of four hundred, to avenge 
 the assassination of one man, although their innocence of 
 the crime was clearly proved. (1) No! Christianity has 
 invaded slavery to abolish that of the people of civilized 
 nations, and to infuse the principle of its holy charity in- 
 . to that of those beings who are rescued from a state of 
 barbarism by universal commerce, to be employed for the 
 general good, and, evidently, for their own benefit. For 
 the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of the Apostles, has 
 spoken to both servants and masters ; and, if he has said 
 to the former : " Servants be obedient to them that are 
 your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trem- 
 blings in singleness of heart, as unto Christ ; not with 
 eye-service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, 
 doing the will of God from the heart ; with good will 
 doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men ; knowing 
 that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall 
 he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free ; " he 
 has also said to the latter : "And ye masters do the same 
 thing unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that 
 your Master is also in heaven ; neither is there respect of 
 persons with him. (2) 
 
 Having contemplated the different aspects of slavery 
 after the triumph of our Holy Religion, it is evident that 
 all its fundamental principles have been changed, and we 
 could almost say, technically, that slavery no longer exists, 
 as will be demonstrated by the regulations already men- 
 tioned ; and I wish, here, to call attention to the fact 
 
 (1) Tacitus : Annal, lib. IX, 43. 
 
 (2) St. Paul's epist. to the Ephesians, vi, 5, 6, 7, 8 and a. 
 
 ) 
 
48 
 
 that, from the commencement of the trade in negroes, no 
 precautions have heen omitted which could possibly be 
 conducive to their welfare ; and this humane policy was 
 pursued, not only with the slaves in our own possessions, 
 where the improvement of their condition was encouraged 
 in every imaginable manner, and freedom was accessible 
 to those who chose to earn it by their industry and hones- 
 ty, but also with those in the neighboring colonies which 
 were established in the course of time. 
 
 In order that my readers may see the truth of this sta- 
 tement, they must know that, in 1680, 1693, 1733, 1740 
 and 1759, a general ordinance was promulgated to the effect 
 that : " all negroes, of both sexes, who should fly from 
 the English and Dutch colonies, and take refuge in the 
 provinces of New Spain, with the intention of embracing 
 the Catholic faith, should at once be declared free, and 
 should not be sold again nor returned to their former mas- 
 ters " (1) ; which ordinance, though infringing the rights 
 of said colonies to a certain extent, was, nevertheless, com- 
 mendable considering the excellent intentions and Christ- 
 ian spirit from which it proceeded. This law was so scru- 
 pulously observed that, when the governor of the Island 
 of Trinidad (then one of our possessions) ordered the res- 
 titution of a mulatto woman who, with six children, had 
 taken refuge there, having escaped from her English own- 
 ers, in the Island of Granada; and a free mulatto, daught- 
 er of said slave and resident of Trinidad, presented a peti- 
 tion interceding for the whole family, and offering to pay 
 their ransom, a decree was issued forbiding the restitu- 
 tion of the fugitives in the most positive and conclusive 
 terms ; this decision being greatly influenced by the fact 
 that the English inflicted severe and inhuman punishments 
 on their slaves in such cases, as was shown in the petition 
 of the mulatto, by which she obtained the freedom of her 
 mother and brethren without paying any compensation to 
 the owners. (2) 
 
 (1) Zamora : Legislation Ultramarina, vol. in, article "Slavery, slaves." 
 
 (2) Ditto, ditto, ditto: However it is necessary to remark here that in the 
 course of time, as the ideas of right became more correct, and the com- 
 munication among neighboring colonies more frequent, agreements were 
 entered into, for the return of fugitive slaves to their owners, stipulating 
 always that they should be punished with moderation, and a garantee 
 was required sufficient to ensure the fulfilment of this humane clause. 
 
49 
 
 Our legislators took the most special pains with the 
 regulations concerning religious matters, and these are 
 expressed with such mildness and charity that they alone 
 would suffice as an evidence of the spirit which predomi- 
 nated in the enactment of these laws. As an example, I 
 will give the words of the fourth Constitution of the dio- 
 cesan Synod of Cuba, which treats of the obligation of 
 masters to see to the religious instruction and baptism of 
 their slaves, that Synod being held in 1680, and approved 
 by a Uoyal decree of August 9, 1682 : 
 
 " God, our Lord, having given to the Bozal negroes, who 
 have been brought to this Island, the blessing of living 
 among Christians, there to enjoy, among other privileges, 
 the rites of holy Baptism; and, as we understand that 
 many owners of slaves have had them in their possession 
 more than two or three years, and have not had them bap- 
 tized, we direct that all those who possess slaves who 
 have not received the waters of Holy Baptism, shall send 
 them to be baptized, within two months, duly instructed in 
 the Christian doctrine; and those who, in future, shall buy 
 slaves from the vessels that arrive, shall teach them said 
 doctrine, with all the care and vigilance which these poor 
 negroes require, and send them 3 within the period of six 
 months, to the parish church, to be baptized, under penal- 
 ty of excommunication to the owners, and a fine of ten 
 ducats, to be applied according to the Royal decree of 
 H. M.; and under the same penalty, after they have bought 
 them, shall give notice to the beneficiary p: iests of the pa- 
 rishes, so that they may be registered by them, and care 
 be taken that, the six months being past, their owners 
 shall have them baptized; and, if they should not be in- 
 structed in the Christian doctrine, we order the priests 
 to personally instruct them, and the owners shall pay 
 said priests a sufficient compensation for such instruc- 
 tion, as a penalty for such omission and neglect; and in 
 order that this may take effect, we order the ecclesiastical 
 judges to compel the owners to pay the stipend which 
 these clergymen may claim, with penalties and censures, 
 for which we give them full power. 
 
 "And because it is our province and that of said minis- 
 ters to teach the Christian faith to the negroes and to 
 ascertain that they are duly instructed therein ; we or- 
 der said clergymen (as it is commanded in one of the 
 
 ) 
 
50 
 
 Constitutions of this Synod) that on every Sunday in the 
 afternoon, they shall ring the church-bell, calling every 
 slave to go and learn the Christian Catechism and prayers, 
 enquiring like vigilant pastors, who are the absent, and 
 compelling their presence together withthat of their mas- 
 ters, it being the duty of both, as faithful Catholic Chris- 
 tians, to endeavor by all possible means, that the slaves 
 be instructed in the Christian Religion, and baptized after 
 being so instructed ; with the observance of which regula- 
 tion we gravely charge the conscience of all concerned."* 1 * 
 
 Although for the object indicated, a few words of the 
 foregoing Constitution would have been sufficient, I have 
 prefered to copy it entire, for the purpose of showing how 
 laws were made for those regions, sofar removed from the 
 vigilance of the metropolis. Thus the laws, royal ordi- 
 nances and regulations, which were written on matters 
 concerning the West Indies, were so constructed as to 
 insure their perfect fulfilment by arousing the interests 
 and stimulating the competition of the different adminis- 
 trative jurisdictions in the discharge of their dulses, be- 
 sides appealing to their consciences. 
 
 An immense number of decrees all equally humane 
 were issued by our monarchs and tribunals, as much in 
 the aforesaid matters, as in all others appertaining to the 
 moral and material existence of the negroes, so that, not 
 only the good treatment of the slave was guaranteed by the 
 law and at the same time by the interest of the proprietor, 
 but also his civilization when compared to the miserable 
 estate of his origin; and even his freedom, under much 
 better conditions, could be held for certain. 
 
 Nevertheless, these ordinances and royal decrees which 
 were issued for so laudable an object did not form a com- 
 plete and uniform body of laws, being interspersed among 
 others incompatible with their tendencies, in the Code of 
 laws of the Indies, and in the collections of general ins- 
 tructions to the viceroys and governors. For which rea- 
 son, and owing to the great importance of the matter, 
 which will become evident when it is considered that the 
 redemption of the negroes had been enormously developed 
 by the privilege which was finally granted to all vessels, 
 
 (1) Zamora : Legislation Ultramarina : vol. Ill, art. " Esclavitud, escla- 
 
 vos. " 
 
■ 51 
 
 national and foreign, to carry on the trade, so that in the 
 French colonies slavery was already regulated by a special 
 ordinance, entitled Code Noir, ll) the piety of king 
 Charles IV, opportunely stimulated by his royal council 
 of the Indies, ordered the compiling of all the statutes 
 relating to the negroes, from wjiich resulted the following : 
 
 Koyal decree and circular letter of instruction to 
 tlie Indies, of May 31s£ 1789, on the Education, Treat- 
 ment and Occupation of Negroes. 
 
 I, the King, &c, In the Leyes de Partida and other 
 Codes of legislation regarding these realms, in the Beco- 
 pilacion de las Indias, in the decrees both general and 
 special, having reference to the administration of my do- 
 minions in America, from the time of their discovery, 
 as also in the ordinances which, after having been exa- 
 mined by my council of the Indies, have been sanctioned 
 with my Royal approbation, a system has been established 
 tending to provide for the usefulness, education of the 
 slaves, and denning their treatment and occupation in a 
 manner conformable with principles and regulations dic- 
 tated by religion, humanity and the good of the State, 
 and compatible with the institution of slavery and the 
 preservation of public tranquillity. 
 
 Nevertheless, considering that all my subjects in Ame- 
 rica who own slaves, cannot without great difficulty ac- 
 quaint themselves sufficiently in all the dispositions of the 
 laws comprised in said compendiums, and that, owing to 
 this difficulty, notwithstanding the orders of my august 
 predecessors respecting the education, welfare and occu- 
 pation of slaves, many proprietors and overseers have in- 
 troduced abuses in direct opposition to the object contem- 
 plated by the existing legislation and other general and 
 special measures taken in the matter ; considering also 
 that the number of slaves in America is likely to be in- 
 creased in consequence of the privilege to carry on the 
 trade which I have granted to my subjects, by article 1 
 of my decree of 28 February last ; and whereas it is my 
 duty to extend my royal protection to this class of the hu- 
 man family, in order to prevent the recurrence of such 
 abuses, and while the laws for this highly important object 
 
 (1) Antunez : Memorias Hist Hcas ; vol. II. 
 
52. 
 
 are being digested and condensed in a General Code, espe- 
 cially adapted to the government of the Indies, I have 
 resolved that, for the present, all owners and possessors of 
 slaves in my dominions shall punctually conform with 
 the following instructions : 
 
 " Chapter I : Education. — Every owner of slaves, of 
 whatever class or condition he may be, shall instruct them 
 in the principles of the Catholic faith and in the fundamen- 
 tal truths, so that they may be baptized within one year of 
 their residence in my dominions. They shall take care that 
 the christian doctrine be explained to them on all feast days 
 of precept, on which days they shall not be allowed to labor 
 either for themselves or for their masters, except in the 
 harvest season, when it is customary to concede permission 
 to that effect. On those days, and on all others when it 
 is obligatory to attend Mass, the owners of plantations shall 
 pay priests to come and celebrate divine service, to ex- 
 plain the christian doctrine and administer the Holy Sacra- 
 ments, at the times appointed by the church, and~at all 
 other times when the slaves may require or demand them; 
 moreover, on every week day after their work is over, they 
 shall recite the Rosary, either in presence of their owner 
 or overseer, with the greatest reverence and devotion." 
 
 "Chapter II : Food and Clothing. — It is obligatory 
 on the >part of owners properly to feed and clothe their 
 slaves, both male and female, which obligation extends 
 also to the children of said slaves, although neither males 
 nor females are considered to afford any compensation for 
 their maintenance whilst under the age of fourteen and 
 twelve, respectively. 
 
 But, as it is impossible to establish any fixed regula- 
 tion with regard to the quantity and quality of the food, 
 and the kind of clothing that must be furnished to them, 
 owing to the variety of climates, and other local peculiari- 
 ties, it is hereby ordered that, with regard to these points, 
 the judges of the respective districts, with the consent of 
 the Corporation, and in the presence of the Attorney Ge- 
 neral, in his capacity of Protector of the slaves, shall in- 
 dicate and determine the quantity, and quality of food, 
 and kind of clothing which shall be furnished to the 
 slaves by their owners, according to their age and sex, 
 
53 
 
 taking as a rule that both food and clothing shall be of 
 the same kind and description as those that, in confor- 
 mity with the customs of the country, are allowed to free 
 laborers; which Eegulation being approved by the District 
 Court, shall be posted monthly in all \h.e towns, on the 
 doors of the Town-houses, and churches, and of the cha- 
 pels belonging to the plantations, so that it may be seen 
 by all, and none plead ignorance." 
 
 "Chapter III: Occupation of . the slaves. — The first, 
 and principal employment of the slaves, shall be agricul- 
 tural and other field labor, and not the occupations of a 
 sedentary life ; and in order that the owners and the State 
 may derive the due advantage from their labors, and that 
 the slaves may perform them properly, the judges of the 
 cities and towns, in the manner prescribed in the foregoing 
 chapter, shall regulate the amount of daily labor of the 
 slaves, in proportion to their age, strength and power, in 
 such a manner, that while their hours of labor last only 
 from sunrise to sunset, two of these hours shall be exclu- 
 sively employed by them in working for their own benefit. 
 The owners and overseers shall not have power to com- 
 pel slaves over 60 or under 17 years of age, to do full 
 work, neither to employ females in labor not conformable 
 to their sex, or where they have to mix with the males; 
 nor shall they be made to work as field hands ; and when- 
 ever they shall be appointed to domestic service, the owners 
 shall contribute a compensation of two ducats annually, 
 as provided in the 8th chapter of the Koyal Decree of 
 February 28th last, which has "been already cited." 
 
 "Chapter IV: Amusements. — On all feast days of 
 obligation, <fn which the owners cannot oblige or permit 
 their slaves to work, after the latter have heard Mass, and 
 received religious instruction, the masters, and in their 
 absence the overseers, shall encourage the slaves to engage 
 in simple and innocent recreation, under their personal 
 supervision, without permitting them to join the slaves of 
 other plantations ;. and the two sexes being kept apart, 
 avoiding drunkenness, and causing the amusement to 
 cease before the call to prayers, at sunset. 
 
 "Chapter V: Dwellings and Sick Boom. — Separate 
 
 1 
 
54 
 
 dwellings shall be provided for each sex, and cohabitation 
 permitted to married couples only. Said dwellings must 
 be comfortable, sufficiently ventilated, and calculated to 
 shelter the occupants from the inclemencies of the wea- 
 ther. The rooms' and cabins shall be furnished with rais- 
 ed beds, blankets^and all the necessary bed-clothing, and 
 separated from each other in such a manner as to afford 
 accommodation for one or two persons only. — Another 
 well-sheltered and comfortable room shall be appropriated 
 to the sick, who shall be supplied by their owner with 
 everything necessary; and in case there be no" accommo- 
 dations on the estate, or by reason of the proximity of a 
 town, they prefer to send them to the hospital, the owner 
 shall pay, for their admission the daily sum designated in 
 Chapter II ; and in the event of the death of the slave, 
 the owner shall pay the burial expenses." 
 
 "Chapter VI : Of the aged and infirm. — The slaves^ 
 who owing to their, advanced age, or by reason of sickness 
 are unable to work — and the same in reference to children 
 and minors of either sex — shall be supported by the owners, 
 the latter not being allowed to liberate them, unless, they 
 shall provide them with sufficient means, according to the 
 judgment of the attorney, to enable them to maintain 
 themselves without further assistance." 
 
 " Chapter VII : Marriages of slaves. — The owners of 
 slaves should avoid all illicit intercourse between the two 
 sexes, by encouraging marriage, without opposing their 
 marriage with the slaves of other owners ; in which case, 
 if the estates should be distant from each other, so that the 
 consorts should not be able to comply with the ends of 
 matrimony, the wife shall follow her husband, being bought 
 by the owner of the latter at a price fixed by two umpires 
 named respectively by the interested parties ; and in case 
 of desagreement, by a third, who shall be judicially ap- 
 pointed. Should the owner of the husband decline to 
 purchase the wife, the owner of the latter shall have the 
 privilege of purchasing the husband." 
 
 "Chapter VIII: Obligations of the slaves, and correc- 
 tional penalties. — It being the duty of the owners of slaves 
 to feed, instruct and employ them in useful labors, 
 
55 
 
 proportionate to their strength and sex, without aban- 
 doning the minors, aged and infirm, it follows, as an 
 obligation on the part of the slaves, to obey and respect 
 their masters and overseers ; to execute the tasks and la- 
 bors assigned to them, according to their ability, and 
 to venerate them as fathers of the family : therefore, he 
 who shall fail in any of these duties, may, and ought to 
 be correctionally punished for the faults he may commit, 
 either at the hands of the owner of the estate or of the 
 overseer, according to the nature of the offence or its gra- 
 vity, by imprisonment, fetters, chains, or the stocks, (in 
 which he must not be put in by the head,) or with lashes, 
 not to exceed twenty-five, and with an instrument that 
 will cause neither serious contusion nor effusion of blood ; 
 which corporeal punishment must not be inflicted on a 
 slave by any other person than by his owner or overseer." 
 
 " Chapter IX : Infliction of greater penalties. — If 
 a slave commits excesses, misdemeanors or crimes against 
 his master, his master's wive or children, overseer or any 
 other person, for the punishment and check of which the 
 penalties specified in the preceding chapter should not be 
 deemed sufficient, the delinquent being apprehended by 
 the owner or overseer of the estate, or by those who may 
 be present at the time of the committal of the outrage, 
 the injured party, or the person representing him, shall 
 give notice to the nearest magistrate, who, in conjunc- 
 tion with the owner (unless the latter should desinterest 
 himself in the charge by abandoning his slave to the course 
 of the law), but in all cases with the co-operation of the 
 attorney general, in his character of protector of the 
 slaves, shall proceed to a full investigation of the case, and 
 sentence the delinquent to surfer the penalty which the 
 law inflicts, according to the gravity of the offense, but 
 in every respect in conformity with the provisions of the 
 law, as would be applied under similar circunstances to 
 free transgressors. And when the owner does not aban- 
 don the slave, and the latter is sentenced to pay damages 
 to a third party, the owner shall be responsible for the 
 same, which will not exclude the penalty which, accord- 
 ing to the gravity of the crime, the slave shall suffer, 
 after the approval of the district court, whether the penal- 
 ty be death or mutilation." 
 
 ] 
 
56 
 » # 
 
 " Chapter X : Transgressions of the owners or over- 
 seers.- — The owner of slaves or overseer of an estate who 
 does not comply with the regulations of this letter of in- 
 struction respecting the education of the slaves, their food, 
 garments, moderation of labor and task, attendance to 
 their innocent amusements, supplying of rooms and infir- 
 maries, or who abandons minors, the aged or invalids 
 unable to work, shall be fined $50 for the first offence; 
 for the second, $100, and for the third, $200; which 
 fine shall be paid by the owner, even in cases where the 
 overseer alone is guilty, and may not have the means 
 to pay; this fine will be distributed in three parts, to 
 the plaintiff, the judge, and the fine-fund, as will be spe- 
 cified'hereafter. And in case the above mentioned fines 
 should not produce the desired effect, and there should be 
 a repetition of the offense, the transgressor will be pro- 
 ceeded against, and greater penalties inflicted, for disobe- 
 dience to my royal commands ; independently of the more 
 stringent measures which may be resorted to, upon proper 
 evidence as to the gravity of the case being submited to 
 me. When the transgressions of owners or overseers be for 
 excess of chastisement, causing grave contusions, effusion 
 of blood or mutilation, besides suffering the same pecu- 
 niary penalties above mentioned, the owner or over- 
 seer shall be proceeded against criminally, according to 
 law, at the instance of the attorney; and the penalty cor- 
 responding to the offense committed shall be inflicted upon 
 the offender in the same maner as if the injured party 
 were free, the slave, if able to work, shall be sold, and 
 the amount applied to the fine fund; and when the slave 
 prove unsaleable, he shall not be returned to the owner or 
 overseer who inflicted the excessive chastisement, but the 
 former will be obliged to pay a daily amount fixed by law, 
 for his maintenance during the natural life of the slave, 
 payable by thirds in advance." 
 
 "Chapter XI :' Of those who abuse slaves. — As the 
 owners and overseers are the only persons who, with the 
 moderation above stated, can punish, a slave correctional-' 
 ly, any other person who is not his owner or overseer shall 
 not abuse, chastise, wound, or kill him, without incurring 
 the penalties established by law against those who commit 
 similar outrages or crimes on free persons; such cases will 
 
57 
 
 be tried and prosecuted at the request of the owner of 
 the slave who may have been abused, chastised, or killed; 
 and, should the owner not take steps to bring the aggress- 
 or to trial, the attorney general, in his character of pro- 
 tector of slaves, will have a right to open the prosecution 
 in the former case, even if there should be no plaintiff." 
 
 "Chapter XII : List of slaves. — The owner of slaves 
 shall, annually, present to the magistrate of the city or 
 town in whose jurisdiction his plantation is situated, a 
 list signed and sworn to, stating the age and sex of each 
 one, so thai; it may be entered by the notary of the corpo- 
 ration, in a book which will be kept specially for this pur- 
 pose, and preserved by the said corporation together with 
 the list presented by the owner ; and the latter, when- 
 ever any of his slaves die or absents himself from his 
 estate, shall, within three days thereafter, notify the court 
 of such death or absence, so that, with the knowledge of 
 the attorney general, the fact may be noted down and all 
 suspicion of a violent death be avoided. And should 
 the owner fail to act upon this requisition, it will be ne- 
 cessary for him to prove either that the slave died from 
 natural causes, or that his absence is not fictitious, in de- 
 fault of which proofs, suitable proceedings will be institut- 
 ed against the owner, at the instance of the attorney ge- 
 neral/' 
 
 " Chapter XIII : The manner of discovering the 
 transgressions of oivners and overseers. — Owing to the 
 distance between the plantations and towns, the difficul- 
 ties which would inevitably result from allowing slaves to 
 absent themselves without a pass from their owners or 
 overseers, on the plea of entering their complaints, and 
 the just provision of the law that slaves shall not be 
 abetted, protected or concealed, it becomes necessary to 
 institute some means, proportionate to the circumstances, 
 by which to acquire a true knowledge of the treatment 
 received by slaves on the plantations; one of these being 
 that the priests who visit the plantations to celebrate 
 Mass and explain the Christian doctrine, shall discover, 
 either from their own observation or from the testimony 
 of the slaves, what are the proceedings of the masters and 
 overseers towards them ; and how far the general in- 
 
 1 
 
5S 
 
 structions are obeyed, so that, information being privately 
 and reservedly given to the attorney general of that sec- 
 tion, city or town, he may take measures to ascertain 
 whether the masters and overseers fail entirely or partial- 
 ly to their respective obligations. This notice or pri- 
 vate information thus given by the priest in virtue of his 
 ministry, or acquired from the complaint of the slaves, 
 does not make the owners responsible for the facts alleged 
 or deprive them of the right of justification, and can only 
 authorize the attorney general to propose to the Court 
 that a member of the corporation, or any other respectable 
 person, be appointed to investigate the charge; and this 
 person, after making the necessary investigation, shall 
 hand his report to the Court, who shall substantiate 
 and decide the case, reporting to the District Court, 
 according to the laws and the letter of instructions, 
 and admitting the right of appeal in those cases in which 
 the right is recognised by law. Besides employing these 
 means, it would be advisable to select, through the ma- 
 gistrates and w T ith the concurrence of the corporation 
 and the approbation of the attorney general, one or 
 more persons of unblemished character, who should be 
 appointed to visit and examine the plantations three times 
 in the year, in order to discover how far the regulations 
 laid down in the tetter of instructions are obeyed, and to 
 report the result of their investigations, so that the attor- 
 ney general being duly notified, and proper evidence of the 
 charges being furnished, the evils may be redressed ; it 
 should moreover be deemed a commendable action in any 
 one to denounce any failing in the fulfilment of the requi- 
 sitions expressed in all or any of the preceding chapters; 
 and the informer should 'be assured that his name will 
 always remain a secret, and that he will receive the part 
 allotted to him out of the fine which has already been 
 mentioned, without any responsibility attaching to him, 
 except in the case where it is fully and notoriously proved 
 that the charge was false a^id malicious. And, finally, it 
 is in like manner declared that the magistrate and the 
 attorney general, in his capacity of protector of the slaves, 
 shall be held accountable, in the Juicio de Residencies, 
 fat any errors of omission or commission into which they 
 may have fallen by neglecting to take the necessary aie i- 
 
59 
 
 sures to insure the desired effect of my Royal intentions 
 as expressed in this letter of instructions/' , 
 
 Chapter XIV: Depository of Fines. — In the cities and 
 villages where the aforesaid regulations are to be enforced 
 and where justices and corporations are composed of Span- 
 iards, there shall be kept in the Town House, a coffer 
 with three keys, one of which shall be in the hands 
 of the Alcalde, and the others in those of the senior ma- 
 gistrate and the Attorney General ; this coffer shall be 
 destined for the reception of the products of the penal 
 fines proceeding from cases defined by this letter of in- 
 struction, and the amount invested according to the direc- 
 tions therein expressed, no authority being given to either 
 party to abstract therefrom one single maravicli for a 
 different purpose or object than the legal disbursements 
 stipulated in said instructions ; such disbursements must 
 be accompanied with a certificate signed by the three 
 key-holders expressing the object and use for which the 
 money has been withdrawn, they being responsible for the 
 funds disposed of for other purposes, in case that for some 
 of these or other reasons the accounts of this department 
 should not be approved by the Intendant of the provinces 
 to whom they must be remitted annually, accompanied by 
 vouchers showing the amount of these fines and their in- 
 vestment with the necessary documents to prove the charges 
 and credits. To the end that all the rules prescribed in 
 this letter of instruction may be duly and punctually 
 obeyed, I annul whatsoever laws, decrees, royal orders, 
 uses and customs, which are opposed to them, and I order 
 my Supreme Council of the Indies, viceroys, &c." 
 
 The above ordinances, forming a protective and hu- 
 mane code, such as was never made by other nations for 
 the most favored of the people, was, as has been said, and 
 was also stated in its preamble, the abridgment and com- 
 pendium of all the rules, laws and dispositions, which 
 were found in all the codes existing at that time. From 
 which it must be inferred, that the treatment and le- 
 gislation observed in regard to the negroes from the time 
 of their importation into the Spanish colonies, did not 
 correspond with their condition of slaves ; far from 'it, 
 these ordinances appeared rather to be made for free co- 
 lonies, subject to reasonable contract ; the more so as the 
 way to freedom was opened by means of industry and 
 
 1 
 
60 
 
 individual capacity, to all those negroes who desired it. 
 So at least we infer from Art. Ill of the aforesaid ordi- 
 nances, which treats of the Occupation of the slaves, where 
 it says that their working hours, each day, shall be from 
 sunrise to sunset, and no more, and that they shall daily 
 have two hours to themselves which time they may 
 employ in manual labor, or some other occupations, the 
 product of which shall be for their own benefit. And 
 this without taking into consideration the hours which, 
 on each feast day, the industrious negroes, without a 
 manifest, or, at least, a scandalous disregard of the pre- 
 cept of sanctifying the Sabbath and feast days, can turn 
 to advantage by devoting themselves to the mechanical 
 pursuits taught by the slaves long established in the colo- 
 nies to those who have more recently arrived ; some by 
 working in the small farms which their masters bestow on 
 the most deserving ; others by raising domestic animals at 
 a small cost which they can afterwards sell at remunera- 
 tive prices in the neighboring estates and towns; by which 
 means a sufficient profit can be made and capital accumu- 
 lated to purchase themselves from slavery whenever, they 
 may desire. 
 
 I have seen a great many of these slaves who have 
 become free through their own exertions, by such means 
 as are here mentioned, and they are favored by the pro- 
 tection of the law on this matter, which accounts for the 
 circumstance of the freedom of no less than one third of 
 the colored population of the island of Cuba, among whom 
 many, are landed proprietors, and slave owners. (1) 
 
 The spirit of the foregoing ordinances which were, as 
 I have already stated, a compendium of all the laws on 
 slavery, promulgated from the time of the discovery of the 
 New World until that date, went so far in its humane 
 precautions that it even guaranted a sufficient provision 
 for all those slaves who should be incapacitated for work. 
 So that in Chapter VI masters are positively forbiden to 
 give freedom to the aged or disabled, unless they at the 
 same time appoint them a sufficient income to cover all 
 their ordinary necessities for the rest of their lives. 
 
 And what shall we say of Chapter VII, in what re- 
 
 (1) At this present time, there is in Havana, in Calle Teniente Rey 
 n. 37, a boarding-house, whose proprietor is a negro woman, a domini- 
 can, who has many slaves in her service. 
 
61 
 
 fers to keeping together those who are united bv the 
 holy ties of matrimony ? The supposed power which 
 some misinformed philanthropists have fancied to exist 
 among propietors, to sell at their option either of the 
 consorts, and keep the other, and which has so inflamed 
 the imagination of romancers and poets, (2) is not more 
 worthy of credit than other falsehoods of similar origin, 
 whose tendencies among the ignorant can be easily im- 
 agined. 
 
 The fact is that not only are the proprietors unable 
 to sell those negroes who are married, without selling 
 both husband and wife, as well as their younger children, 
 so that wherever they go, they go as a family; but, in 
 the case of a marriage between negroes of different es- 
 tates, the owner of the male is obliged to buy the fe- 
 male, except when, by an amicable arrangement between 
 the respective proprietors, the owner of the wife buys the 
 •* husband. 
 
 A great deal has been said about the power of inflict- 
 ing arbitrary punishment on slaves, on. the plantations. 
 Arguing from the unquestionable right of the masters, 
 and even of the overseers, to discover and punish the mi- 
 nor offenses of the negroes, our rivals and accusers have 
 discoursed lengthily on this subject,, with as little reason 
 and judgment as on all other subjects of which we treat. 
 
 On the supposition that proprietors, authorized by the 
 law as guardians and overseers of the idiotic, could mal- 
 treat them at their will, without any more restraint than 
 their own interests in the capital invested in the acqui- 
 sition of slaves, these persons exaggerate in their ar- 
 guments the severity and even the forms of the punish- 
 ments, representing them as frightful and even including 
 among them the scaffold, all with the sinister purpose 
 which explains itself; for, if we keep in view Chap- 
 ter VIII of the beforementioned ordinances, which refers 
 to punishments^ and is so opposed, in spirit and letter, to 
 an act of inhumanity, the injustice of these declaimers be- 
 comes obvious. 
 
 The negroes, in their transgression of lesser degree, such 
 
 (2) Among many of their productions which might he cited, is a come- 
 dv called El Negro sensible, which was well received, particularly in 
 private Theatricals, and which gave me the first negative ideas on the 
 subject which I am now treating. 
 
02 
 
 as intentional absence from work, petty thefts, quarrels 
 from which no grave consequences ensue, disobedience to 
 their masters, etc., etc., could not be taken before a su- 
 preme judge or magistrate, or even punished by impri- 
 sonment, because they would thus find the best way of 
 eluding work. And as impunity would prove an encou- 
 ragement to more serious offenses, leaving aside the confu- 
 sion which would be introduced by a mistaken lenity in 
 punishment, it is palpable that the law ought to concede, 
 as it does concede, to proprietors that advisable permission 
 to punish summarily petty offenses and misdemeanors. 
 
 The whip, it is true, is applied to the number of twenty- 
 five lashes, with great severity, for were the punishment 
 less severe, it would not produce the desired effect on the 
 negroes who may merit it. The stocks for feet and hands 
 is also a common punishment on plantations in our colo- 
 nies; but sometimes whipping is preferable, when the want 
 of rationality of the culprit is considered. But it should** 
 not be believed that the whip and the stocks are always 
 in action, for not only weeks and even months sometimes 
 pass on every plantation without a sign of the slightest 
 castigation; but also if the slave who is to be punished 
 can find a white man to intercede and answer for him, 
 that he will in future comply with his duty, which 
 intercession is never disregarded by any white man, he is 
 pardoned and escapes punishment for that time, until he 
 shall commit another fault, and forever if he amends his 
 conduct. 
 
 Vulgar prejudices, increased by the'mystery of distances 
 and by the images which such an odious name as that of 
 slavery conjures up, have seen fearful scenes of a brutal 
 domination, where in reality there are no other strictures 
 than those necessary for the carrying out of labor under 
 the auspices of evangelical charity. 
 
 There are also ordinances, and not .very mild ones, 
 against the wrongs committed by owners, as can be proved 
 by what is said in Chapter XI. And it must fiot be sup- 
 posed that these laws are merely nominal and are never 
 really applied, owing to the impossibility of the negro's 
 complaining ; for, putting aside the fact that the negroes 
 do make themselves heard with all the persistence which 
 their case may require; they have a protector in the person 
 of the attorney general, whose obligation is to watch over 
 
 I 
 
63 
 
 them, which duty he performs in the manner explained 
 in Chapter XIII. 
 
 In short, if the ordinances which I have cited and com- 
 mented on were not the complement of a constant legisla- 
 tion, although scattered through many different codes and 
 other collections of laws, so long as they are an evidence 
 of the Christian spirit which ruled our monarchs and le- 
 gislators in the matter of slavery, their exposition would 
 prove the crucible in which a proceeding which is directly 
 opposed to slavery would be purified from all the stigmas 
 which have been attached to it, even though they might 
 date from centuries back. 
 
 It is true that the said ordinances suffered some contra- 
 dictions even at the commencement of their promulgation, 
 owing to a petition preferred to His Majesty by some 
 proprietors and farmers of the islands of Cuba and Santo 
 Domingo, and of Caracas and the Continent, from which 
 resulted much lucid information, from very able and re- 
 liable authorities, who, although desiring the suppression 
 of certain articles, ratified all those which referred to the 
 kindness of humane charity with which the negroes should 
 be treated in all the Spanish colonies. 
 
 With this view, and as in the course of time these co- 
 lonies had grown and improved according as they increas- 
 ed in importance, the institution of slavery could not exist 
 without definite rules that shoiild determine its practise 
 by a clear jurisprudence. Those laws by which it was 
 successively governed were formed on the basis of its for- 
 mer regulations, the last of which was that now in force 
 in our possessions of the New World, and which forming 
 an integral part of the government of the Island of Cuba, 
 was issued and promulgated in Havana under date of 
 14th november 1842, in forty-eight articles, which will be 
 inserted in the next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER IV, 
 
 The change which took place in the political circumstances of the New 
 World in the beginning of the XIX century, suggested, many years after- 
 wards, some alteration in the legislation concerning the slaves. Sugges- 
 tions to this effect made to the Spanish government by the interested 
 parties. Scrupulous investigations ordered to be made before these sug- 
 gestions were acted upon. — New ordinances for the regulation of the 
 slaves, issued on the 14th of November, 1842. Extraordinary circumstan- 
 ces demand some strictness in the Island of Cuba. Conspiracy of the 
 negroes against the whites in said Island, plotted and conducted by 
 the English consul : an official record of the process is inserted to prove 
 the truth of the assertion. Exceptional measures then dictated for the 
 regulation of the slaves. They are not practically applied, the authorities 
 being swayed by the impulse of humanity that governed the former laws, 
 which after all, prevailed at that time, and are still in force. 
 
 The ordinances copied in the preceding chapter, which 
 are based upon the most charitable and protecting spirit 
 that exists in the human mind, not only as applied to the 
 slaves coming from a savage country, but likewise to the 
 Spanish colonists, were made at a time when the number 
 of the colored population in our possessions, although 
 large, was not so great in any one place as to create 
 apprehensions of a general insurrection. 
 
 The slave population of Santo Domingo, which was the 
 first among the colonies where slave labor was introduced, 
 increased to such a degree, and the greatness of our colo- 
 nies having suffered much from pirates and sudden attacks- 
 from seditious armed hords, the industrious owners of 
 slaves on the island, apprehending some unforeseen cala- 
 mity, sought for protection from the king, petitioning that 
 certain clauses of this Code of ordinances should be revis- 
 ed and corrected, and others revoked. • 
 
66 
 
 His Majesty, however, did not accede to this request 
 until he had inquired into the causes on which it was 
 founded; and upon a scrupulous examination by the most 
 experienced persons having been made on the subject, such 
 portions of the regulations as were most objectionable 
 and dangerous were modified. 
 
 There were, indeed, many objectionable ordinances 
 which, on annalysis, appeared still more so, not in the 
 light of charity, but in consideration of the character 
 and tendencies of the people for whom they were made. 
 For we must remember that Almighty God, in His in- 
 scrutable wisdom, has made a great difference, of mind 
 and understanding, of wiews and tendencies, in creatures 
 of different races: so that any legislation which might 
 be excellent for a set of men united by common senti- 
 ment, degenerates into a useless and even prejudicial 
 measure when those men for whom it is designed differ 
 widely from each other. 
 
 Besides, when we consider the changes which succes- 
 sively took place in the social and political order of our 
 colonies, the concentration of industrial and laboring for- 
 ces on a given space of ground, when first Santo Do- 
 mingo, and afterwards the colonies on the continent, be- 
 came independent of the crown of Spain ; and more- 
 over, the efforts made by our enemies to wrest from us 
 the little we were able to preserve in the Western World: 
 all these circumstances justified a critical and equitable 
 examination of these laws, and also the change operated 
 in the jurisprudence of the negroes as stated in the pre- 
 ceding regulations, and which resulted in the laws for 
 good government issued in Havana the 14th of November, 
 as will be seen by the following articles : 
 
 1st. Every slave-owner shall instruct his slaves in the 
 principles of the Holy, Roman, Catholic, Apostolic faith; 
 that all those who have not been baptized may be so 
 baptized; and in case of danger of death, such owner shall 
 baptize them, as it is known that, in such urgent cases, 
 any one is authorized to do so. 
 
 2d. The aforesaid instructions shall be imparted at 
 night, after working hours, and immediately afterwards 
 the slave shall recite the Rosary or some other devout 
 prayers. 
 
 3d. On Sundays and feast days of obligation, after 
 
 \ 
 
67 
 
 having complied with theft religious duties, the owners or 
 overseers can employ the slaves for two hours, in cleaning 
 the dwelling and out houses but in no case, for a greater 
 length of time, or in labors of the plantation, except in 
 harvest time or when delay is impossible; on such days, 
 they shall work the same as on week days. 
 
 4th. They shall take care that, when those slaves who 
 are baptized have arrived at the proper age, they receive 
 the sacraments, whenever our Holy Mother the Church 
 ' commands it, and alst) whenever they may require them. 
 
 5th. They shall take the greatest care to make them 
 understand the obedience which they owe to the author- 
 ities, their obligation to reverence the clergy, to respect 
 the whites, to behave well towards each other and to live 
 in harmony with their companions. 
 
 6th. Owners shall give to their slaves in the country 
 at least two or three meals a day, as they may think best; 
 such meals shall be abundant and substantial, and in all 
 respects suitable to men subjected to fatigue and hard la- 
 bor, and must consist daily for each negro of six or eight 
 plantains or their equivalent in sweet potatoes, yams, yu- 
 cas, eight ounces of meat or codfish, four ounces of rice, 
 flour or other nourishing food. (1) 
 
 7th. The owners shall supply them likewise with two 
 suits of clothes a year, in the months of December and 
 May; each suit to consist of a shirt, a pair of pants of 
 nankeen or linen, and one handkerchief; and in December 
 shall be added, one year a flannel shirt, and the next a 
 blanket. 
 
 8th. The newly born and very small children, whose 
 mothers are sent to labor in the field, shall be fed with 
 very light food, such as broth, pap, milk and similar sub- 
 stances, until they are weaned entirely or have finished 
 teething. 
 
 9th. While the mothers are out at work all the child- 
 ren shall remain in a cabin or room, which on every plan- 
 tation should be reserved for them, which shall be under 
 the special care of one female slave or more, as the owner 
 
 (1) The uninformed on this subject must not be alarmed at not seeing 
 bread mentioned as an article of food, for in our colonies it is entirely an 
 article of luxury, and there are many white persons of means who never 
 tasted it. 
 
68 
 
 or overseer shall deem necessary, according to the number 
 of children. 
 
 10th. If the children should fall sick during their early 
 infancy, they shall be nursed at the breasts of their own 
 mothers, who for that purpose shall be exempt from field 
 labor and occupied in domestic duties exclusively. 
 
 11th. Until they attain the age of three years, the 
 children shall have shirts of striped gingham; from three 
 to six, they may be of nankeen; the girls, from six to twelve, 
 shall wear skirts or long chemises, aid the boys, from six 
 to fourteen, trowsers; and after these ages they shall dress 
 like the adults. (1) 
 
 12th. ' In ordinary times slaves shall work nine or ten 
 hours daily, the master arranging these hours as best he 
 may. On the plantations, in harvest time, the working 
 hours shall be sixteen, arranged in such a way that the 
 slaves shall have two hours in the day to rest, and six in 
 the night to sleep. 
 
 13th. On Sundays and feast days of obligation, and in 
 the hours of rest during week days, the slaves shall be al- 
 lowed to employ themselves within the plantation, in me- 
 chanical labors, the product of which shall be for their 
 own benefit, so as to acquire the means to purchase their 
 freedom. 
 
 14th. The owners cannot oblige either male or female . 
 of over sixty years or under seventeen, to do full work, 
 nor to employ slaves of either of these classes in labors 
 not appropriate to their age, sex, strength or constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 15th. Those slaves who, from their advanced age or 
 from sickness, are unable to work, shall be maintained by 
 their owners, who shall not be permitted to give them 
 their freedom in order to get rid of them, unless by provid- 
 ing them, with sufficient means for their support without 
 need of other assistance. 
 
 16th. In every plantation a room shall be reserved for 
 the purpose of keeping the implements of labor, the key 
 of which shall never be entrusted to a slave. 
 
 (1) Our own sense" of decency, and not that of the negro, dictated these 
 measures. They have not the slightest idea of modesty, and no matter 
 what may be their origin, their condition, their age, or state, I have never 
 seen any negro, male or female, who took the least trouble to go dress- 
 ed in a way to denote the slightest shame of exposing any part of the 
 body. 
 
69 
 
 17th. On going out to work, each negro shall be fur- 
 nished with the implements which he needs for the labor 
 of the day; and on going back, they shall be taken from 
 him and put away in the depository. 
 
 18th. No slave shall leave the plantation with any im- 
 plement of labor, and much less with arms of any kind, 
 unless accompanied by his master or overseer, or the fami- 
 ly of either, in which case he may carry his cutlass, and 
 nothing else. 
 
 19th. No slave shall be allowed to visit the slaves of 
 another plantation without an express permission from 
 the owners or overseers of both; and when obliged to go 
 to another plantation or leave their own, they shall take 
 a writen permit from the owner or overseer, with the des- 
 cription of the bearer, the date of the day, month and 
 year, expressing the place to which he is going, and the 
 time at which he must return. 
 
 20th. Any individual, of whatever class, color or con- 
 dition he may be, is authorized to arrest any slave he may 
 find out of the house or lands of his owner, unless he can 
 show the written pass, which he should carry, or which, on 
 being presented, shows that the bearer is not on the route 
 which said pass describes, or whose leave of absence has 
 expired ; he shall conduct said slave to the nearest plan- 
 tation, whose owner shall receive him and keep him se- 
 curely, so as to return him to his owner if he belong to 
 the same district, and if not, to the magistrate, so that the 
 latter may give notice to the interested party, in order 
 that the fugitive slave may be recovered by the person to 
 whom he belongs. 
 
 21st. Owners and overseers shall not receive any re- 
 muneration for any fugitive slaves that they may take into 
 custody or receive according to the foregoing article, that 
 being an obligation to which they are mutually bound to 
 each other, and which tends to their reciprocal advantage. 
 All others who may apprehend fugitive slaves shall be re- 
 munerated by the owner with the amount of four dollars 
 for each one, according to the fugitive slave law. 
 
 22nd. The owner likewise shall be obliged to pay all 
 expenses for food and medical attendance, in case it should 
 have been necessary, and all others, as expressed in the 
 same fugitive slave law. 
 
 23rd. The owners shall permit their glares to recreate 
 
70 
 
 and amuse themselves decorously on holidays, after having 
 complied with, their religious obligations, but without 
 leaving the plantation or joining with slaves of others ; 
 and always in open places and in the full view of their 
 owners, overseers, or their assistants, until sunset or until 
 the bell rings for evening prayer, and no longer. 
 
 24th. Owners and overseers are particularly requested 
 to watch vigilantly that the negroes do not commit excess 
 in drinking, and shall not permit many slaves of other 
 plantations, or men of free condition, to participate in 
 their amusements. 
 
 25th. The owner shall take particular care to construct 
 for unmarried slaves spacious dwellings in a ventilated 
 and dry locality; with separations for each sex, well closed 
 and secured with lock and key, in which a light shall be 
 kept burning all night; and where their means shall per- 
 mit, there shall be separate rooms for each married couple. 
 
 26th. At the hours of retiring for rest (which in long 
 nights shall be at eight o'clock and in the short ones at 
 nine), the roll shall be called and each slave shall answer 
 to his name, so that only the surveyors shall remain out- 
 side; one of whom shall be appointed to take care that the 
 others keep silence and to inform the owner immediately of 
 any disturbance on the part of his companions or of people 
 from other plantations or of any other important ocurrence. 
 
 27th. There shall likewise be on each plantation, a 
 room well closed and secured with a division for each sex, 
 as also two more rooms for contagious diseases, where the 
 slaves who may fall sick, shall be attended in severe cases 
 by physicians, and in slight cases, where domestic remedies 
 are sufficient, by nurses male or female; but always with 
 good medicines, proper food and the greatest cleanliness. 
 
 28 th The sick, where it is possible, shall be placed in 
 separate beds with bedding consisting of a straw mattrass, 
 mat or skin, with a pillow, blanket and sheet, or or boards 
 that shall be sufficiently convenient, but in all cases, raised 
 from the floor. 
 
 29th. The owners shall endeavor to repress all illicit 
 connection between the sexes, encouraging marriages and 
 giving to the married means of living together under the 
 same roof. 
 
 30th. To accomplish this end and that the consorts 
 may fulfill the ends of matrimony, the wife shall follow 
 
the husband whose owner shall buy her at a price stipulat- 
 ed between the two owners, or else by umpires appointed 
 by both sides, or by a third in case of desagreement, and if 
 the owner of the husband should not wish to buy the wife, 
 then her owner shall have the same priviledge as the for- 
 mer, and in case that neither of the owners should wish to 
 make the purchase, then both husband and wife shall be 
 sold together to a third party. 
 
 31st. When the owner of the husband shall buy the 
 wife, he shall buy with her all her children under three 
 years of age, as, according to law, their mothers are obliged 
 to suckle and nurse them until they attain that age. 
 
 32d. The owners may be obliged by the magistrates to 
 sell their slaves, when they have inflicted ou them grave 
 contusions, or commited against them any other excesses 
 contrary to humanity and the rational means with which 
 they ought to be treated. The sale shall be made in these 
 cases, for the price named by umpires or by a magistrate 
 in case one of these should refftse to act, or by a third per- 
 son in case of desagreement, but in case there should be a 
 bjiyer at the price that the owner exacts, then the sale 
 shall be made in his favor. 
 
 33d. When the owners at their own option and for 
 their own convenience desire to sell a slave, they will be at 
 liberty to fix any price they please, according to their es- 
 timate of his value. 
 
 34th. When a slave wishes to purchase his freedom, 
 the owner must not refuse to fix his price, on payment of 
 at least fifty dollars by said slave on account of the same. 
 
 35 th. The slaves whose value has thus been fixed shall not 
 be sold for a higher price than that previously stipulated, 
 and with this condition shall pass from owner to ^purchaser. 
 Nevertheless, if the slave wishes to be sold against the 
 will of his master, without just cause, or should by his 
 bad conduct give cause to be sold, the master may add to 
 said price the amount of the excise duty and the cost of 
 the deed of sale. 
 
 36th. As the benefit of this privilege, is entirely person- 
 al, the children of mothers who enjoy it cannot be partici- 
 pants in it, and they can be sold like any other slave. 
 
 37th. Owners shall give freedom to their slaves as soon 
 as they receive their price as legitimately fixed; which 
 price in case the interested parties do not agree, shall be 
 
72 
 
 named by umpires; one appointed by the owner of the slave 
 or in his absence by a magistrate, another by the attorney 
 general in the name of the slave, and a third by the same 
 magistrate in case of disagreement. 
 
 38th. The slave who shall discover and make known 
 any conspiracy formed by any of his class or by any per- 
 sons of free condition, to disturb the public peace, shall 
 receive his freedom and besides, a reward of five hundred 
 dollars. If the informers should be many and present them- 
 selves in such a way as to show that the last ones did not 
 know that the disclosure had been already made, then all 
 such informers shall receive their freedom, and the reward 
 of five hundred dollars shall be devided among them 
 all, equally. When the information given has reference 
 to a conspiracy of slaves or of free men against the owner, 
 his wife, children, or relations, the overseer or any as- 
 sistant on the estate, owners are recommended to be li- 
 beral with such slaves who have fulfilled the duties of 
 faithful servants, as it is mitch to their advantage to offer 
 an encouragement to loyalty. 
 
 39th. The price of their liberation and the reward al- 
 luded to in the first paragraph of the preceding article, 
 will be taken from the amount resulting from the fines im- 
 posed for the infraction of these regulations, or any others 
 ordered by the government. 
 
 40th. Slaves also shall receive their ' freedom when it 
 shall be granted them in a will or by another legally jus- 
 tified means, proceeding from an honorable and praisewor- 
 thy motive. 
 
 41st. Slaves are obliged to respect and obey their own- 
 ers, overseers, and all other superiors, and to fulfill the 
 tasks set them, and he who shall fail in any of these obli- 
 gations shall be punished by whatever person may be at 
 the head of the plantation, according to the delinquency 
 or excess he may have committed, with imprisonment, 
 fetters, chain or the stocks, in which he shall be con- 
 fined by the feet and never by the head, or with wipp- 
 ing, which must never exceed twenty-five lashes. 
 
 42nd. When a slave shall commit grave transgressions 
 or some crime for which these punishments should not be 
 deemed sufficient, he shall be bound and carried before a 
 magistrate, so that in the presence of his owner, if he 
 should not give him up entirely to justice, or before the 
 
73 
 
 attorney general if he should do so ana will not continue 
 the accusation, he may be proceded against, according to 
 law; but in case the owner should not have given him up, 
 and the slave should be condemned to the payment of 
 damages and costs toward a third party, the owner shall 
 be responsible for the same, which will not exempt the 
 slave from punishment, corporeal or otherwise, according 
 to the offence he has committed. 
 
 43rd. Only owners, overseers or stewards shall be au- 
 thorised to punish the slaves correctionally and with 
 the moderation and under the penalties aforesaid; and 
 any other person who may do so, without the special order 
 of the owner or against his will, or cause him, by so do- 
 ing, any other injury or wrong, shall incur in the penalities 
 established by the laws, the case being opened at the in- 
 stance of the owner, or in his absence by the attorney ge- 
 neral as protector of slaves, if the transgression should 
 not be so great as to affect the public good, or in his offi- 
 cial character, if it should belong to this latter class. 
 
 44th. The owner in charge or the assistants in the 
 plantations who may desobey or infringe any of these rules, 
 shall be fined for the first time from twenty to fifty dol- 
 lars; for the second time, from forty to one hundred, and 
 for the third, from eighty to two hundred, according to 
 the importance of the rule infringed. 
 
 45th. The fines shall be paid by the owner of the plan- 
 tation or any other person who has been guilty of the in- 
 fraction, and in case that he should not be able to do so 
 for want of means, he shall suffer one day's imprisonment 
 for every dollar that he has been fined. 
 
 46th. If the offense of the owners of slaves on plan- 
 tations, should consist in excessive corporal punishment, 
 causing grave contusions, wounds, mutilation, or more 
 serious injury, besides being fined as stated, the person 
 who shall have committed said offense shall be prosecuted 
 criminally, at the instance of the attorney general, or 
 officially, so as to impose on him the penalty due to his 
 misdemeanor; and the owner shall be obliged to sell the 
 slave, if he be still saleable, or to give him his freedom 
 if he should be dis&ble,d, paying him, during his natural 
 life, a daily stipend, wfyich shall be determined by a 
 magistrate, for his food and clothing, payable monthly, 
 in advance. 
 
74 
 
 47th. The fines shall be applied in the following manner: 
 one third of thei* amount shall be given to the magis- 
 trate or any justice who may impose them, and the other 
 two shall be applied to the fund which shall be formed 
 in the political administration of each district, for the 
 cases named in article 38, for which end they shall be paid 
 into the secretary's office of said district, against his re- 
 ceipt. 
 
 48th. The lieutenant governors, magistrates and jus- 
 tices shall see to the punctual observance of these regula- 
 tions, and they shall be responsible for any omission or 
 excess in their carrying out. 
 
 Havanah, etc.", (1) 
 
 Besides the forty-eight preceding articles, the Captain 
 General of Cuba, in accordance with and at the recommen- 
 dation of the Junta de Fomento, issued on the 31st of May 
 1844, (that is to say two years after the promulgation of 
 the preceding ordinances,) other regulations which contain- 
 ed more stringent measures; but this was not done with- 
 out a just cause, for many and very dangerous elements 
 had combined, at that time, to annihilate our authority 
 in those possessions which are still recognized with such 
 glorious titles in the western hemisphere. 
 
 On this point, respecting which several preventive arti- 
 cles in the ordinances of 1842 had already become notor- 
 ious, such as those offering premiums of liberty and a pe- 
 cuniary reward to negroes who should denounce any con- 
 spiracy tending to disturb public order, it is necessary to 
 give some explanation, not only to support with sufficient 
 proofs the charge which I have already preferred against 
 foreign machinations, but also to justify certain appear- 
 ances of cruelty and rigor in the regulations of 1844. I 
 do not like to declaim, nor to give vent to^ angry feelings 
 in a work of such an especial nature as that which I am 
 writing, and which I wish to make acceptable to all; but 
 it would not be proper to allow to pass unnoticed the 
 charges that might be brought against the harshness of 
 our laws, should the motives for such harshness remain 
 . unexplained. 
 
 These are to be seen in several legal papers, relating to 
 a suit, unfortunately notorious, which was formed on the 
 
 (1) Biblioteca de Legislation de Ultramar; article on " Slavery," vol. Ill, 
 page 136, etc. 
 
 I 
 
75 
 
 island of Cuba in 1841, 42 and 43, on account of a vast 
 conspiracy set on foot by the English consul, against the 
 existence not only of our flag, but of the entire white 
 race in the Antilles. And so that, in an ocurrence i f such 
 importance, we may not be led away in the exposition of 
 deeds and the logical deductions to be drawn therefrom, 
 we will leave entire the whole history, such as it was 
 writen by the supreme judge who conducted the cause, 
 as will be seen in the following decision, which presents 
 a clear view of the case: 
 
 Don Francisco Yllas, Captain of cavalry, Judge and 
 Recorder of the Military Commission, etc. * 
 
 "This committee entrusted with the investigation of the 
 alleged complicity of certain foreigners in the conspiracy of 
 the blacks, already discovered, they having been accused by 
 the criminals themselves, at different stages of the impor- 
 tant trial of said case now in progress, and which has been 
 conducted in accordance with our code of procedure in such 
 cases, to-day presents to the court the necessary data to 
 properly appreciate the facts elicited respecting each of the 
 accused, and to pass judgment thereon, with that impar- 
 tial and even-handed justice so emminently its attribute. 
 
 " On giving my opinion on a subject so grave and at 
 the same time of such immense importance to the in- 
 terests of the Metropolis, I may be permitted to trace 
 cursorily the history of the facts which have led to these 
 proceedings, beginning with the appointment of Mr. Da- 
 vid Trumbull to discharge the duties of * H. B. M.'s 
 consulate, in Havana. This fanatical abolitionist had 
 already made known his opinions and principles in a 
 work published in the year 1840, entitled " Travels in the 
 West Indies;" and it is a remarkable fact that, in the 
 communication directed by lord Palmerston to Mr. Acton, 
 on the 17 of March 1842, on complaints being made by 
 our Government against the conduct of the ex-consul, 
 the English minister should say that the book writen by 
 that functionary, and his unequivocal opinion in favor 
 of the liberty of the slaves, recommended him and 
 fitted him for the office which he hel$ in this Island : 
 as if men blinded and inflexible in their principles, of 
 turbulent spirit, and capable of committing any outrage, 
 
- 76 
 
 were" the most fitting to preserve • harmony between two 
 friendly and allied nations. 
 
 "It is therefore not to be wondered at, that with these 
 antecedents, the ex-consul should have arrived at the con- 
 clusion that, in this country, he could preach publicly the 
 . emancipation of slavery, and that, on the other hand, as 
 the political state of the Peninsula, at that time so full of 
 lamentable errors, favored him particularly, he should rush 
 on his dreadful mission without fear, and promote the 
 triumph of his doctrines by converting the most precious 
 of the Antilles into a scene of cruelty and rapine, under the 
 governement of an ignorant and ferocious race. And, tru- 
 ly, gentlemen, if we pause to consider the peculiar circum- 
 stances of our country, the classes which compose its po- 
 pulation, the immense number of slaves, and the means 
 which that man put in play to bring about the insurrec- 
 tion of this terrible mass, we cannot but acknowledge 
 that by a miracle only we have been able to save our- 
 selves from such imminent peril. 
 
 " The government of the Island, notwithstanding the 
 difficulties of its position, caused by the events which had 
 changed the political aspect of the Peninsula, watched 
 very closely the steps of the agents of the ex-consul, and 
 on the 1st of December 1842, it arrested Jose Michel, a 
 free black, whose case was tried in the military commis- 
 sion, before an able and practical attorney general, who, 
 by dint of zeal, activity and efficiency in the discharge of 
 his duties, suceeded in discovering the origin of those 
 evils which we now lament. In fact, in that celebrated 
 suit, it was thoroughly proved by all the means that the 
 law recognizes, that the project of the conspiracy existed, 
 and that its author and principal promoter was Mr. David 
 Trumbull. 
 
 " This is proved by many facts, some of which are pub- 
 licly known. They have been witnessed by the whole 
 Island, and their marked tendencies require no expla- 
 nation. The first step taken by him after his appoint- 
 ment was to embark in the English steamer Venezuela, for 
 .the island of Demerara. He engaged to pay the expen- 
 ses to said island and back of four free negroes named as 
 follows : Jos6 dej Carmen Lamozano, Felix Rodriguez, 
 Jose del Carmen Reitia, and Trinidad Baldemoa, with the 
 assistance of the Emigration Society, at that time esta- 
 
77 
 
 blished in that port, his object being that they should 
 visit the British Islands, and on their return to this coun- 
 try they should give to their countrymen an exalted idea 
 of them. The persons who informed in a legal manner 
 and gave the particular circumstances attending these facts 
 bear a character of veracity entirely reliable, viz: the Span- 
 ish vice-consul at Jamaica, where the travellers made a 
 stay; the vice-consul of the United- States, at the same 
 place; the captain of the steamer that conveyed them thi- 
 ther, through his boatswain; Don Jose Cabalzas, merchant, 
 who was commissioned to furnish them with passports, who 
 however excused himself from doing so; and even the se- 
 cretary of H. B. M.'s consul, Mr. Francis Ross y Coguen, 
 W/ho moreover certified in his deposition the very important 
 circumstance that Trumbull attempted to have these in- 
 dividuals embarked on board of a man-of-war, without 
 passports; and the only reason why he did not do so was 
 because the commander would not receive them; which 
 step, on the part of Trumbull, clearly shows how little he 
 cared to fulfil the requirements of our laws, and how ready 
 he was to infringe them when they offered any obstacle to 
 the accomplishment of his wild and criminal design. These 
 facts are attested to in the indictment and shown in the 
 report of the attorney general. 
 
 " The governor being apprised of the departure of the four 
 emissaries, gave the necessary order for their apprehension 
 on their return to the Island; and thanks to" the vigilance 
 of the authorities of this city, the arrest of the negro La- 
 morano was effected. This Lamorano is a man of under- 
 standing and of extraordinary sagacity, and possessed of 
 intelligence not very common among men of his class. 
 What might not have been the effect produced in this coun- 
 try by the preaching of these negroes, holding forth to the 
 slaves an exalted idea of the advantages enjoyed by the 
 colored poeple in the islands they had just visited? 
 
 "Almost at the same time when that expedition of cons- 
 pirators left Havana, other agents of the ex-consul scoured 
 the Island and prepared, so to speak, the ground on which 
 the travelers were afterwards to conduct their operations. 
 The council should bear in mind the arrival of the mulatto 
 Luis Gigant in this place, about the middle of the year 
 1841; the steps taken by him to engage in the plan of the 
 uprising of the free colored people; the offers he made 
 
78 
 
 * them in tne name of those who sent him, the expectation 
 that he raised in them, as to the ultimate success of the 
 enterprise, a*nd lastly the meetings they held, the opini- 
 ons there discussed, the mandates given to the members to 
 make proselytes in the interior, and to prepare the minds 
 of the slaves for the approaching outbreak and for the ex- 
 termination of their masters, over whose dead bodies they 
 would raise the edifice of their liberty. 
 
 " Bat undoubtedly the efforts of his emissaries appeared 
 very ineffectual to the ex-consul, for in November of the 
 same year, 1841, we find him again in this city endeavour- 
 ing to convince some negroes of the right they had to 
 be free. Information having been received by the Govern- 
 ment, that he had come without a passport from his Ex- 
 cellency the Captain General, warning was given him that 
 he must return to Havana, and that he must not be per- 
 mitted to stop at Cardenas or on any of tj*e plantations 
 which lay on his way, as he intended to do. Don Eugenio 
 Balben, proprietor of the hotel at which he put up, testifies 
 that, during the time he remained there, none but free ne- 
 groes and slaves entered his room: George Becher and Fran- 
 cisco Huerta, known as Adams, (men who, according to the 
 testimonies of the attorney generals Don Ramon Gonzales 
 and Don Mariano Fortun, figured as chiefs and active pro- 
 motors of the conspiracy in this place,) attracted attention 
 by their frequent visits. Guillermo and Susano, slaves of 
 Don Juan Torres, also declare, in fos. 41 and 43, that they 
 were sent for by him to impress it on their minds that they 
 ought to be free, the same as the negroes of Providence; 
 the object of his journey being, as he said, to make himself 
 acquainted with the manner in which they were treated 
 in this province and in the district of Cardenas, which he 
 intended to visit; and that they must have confidence in 
 the means he would furnish them ,to obtain their free- 
 dom. The former of these negroes added that he had 
 told them that an armed force would arrive from Santo 
 Domingo, previous to which some emissaries would 
 come for the purpose of instructing them in what they 
 must do. Let it not be said that these three negroes 
 were not reliable, and may have deposed falsely, for, 
 in addition to the citations of folios 67 and 573, trans- 
 lated by the government interpreter, Don Martin Fort, 
 they agree with the testimony of the free negro Miguel 
 
79 
 
 Michel, who was fully acquainted with all the circumstan- 
 ces. Trumbull himself has furnished some facts which tally- 
 equally with both these declarations, and which can leave 
 no doubt in regard to their truthfulness besides being con- 
 firmed by the papers found in his possession when arrest- 
 ed in Guibara, having reference to these same negroes of 
 Forbs, with whom he had held conferences in this place in 
 the manner we have just seen. 
 
 " Thus it was that this man- commenced his career by 
 spreading the seeds of insurrection until he was most for- 
 tunately checked in his progress by the order which reliev- 
 ed him of his office, an order which, although it disconcert- 
 ed his plans, as shown by the letters from his agents taken 
 from Michel, did not in the least diminish the audacity 
 and energy with which they were conceived and put in exe- 
 ecution. From the Island of Providence, where he went 
 to reside, we were astonished to see him cross over to the 
 port of Gibara in a sloop entirely manned by negroes as if 
 careless to conceal the object of his undertaking. Observe 
 how well his partisans were initiated in all he proposed to 
 do, it being stated in one of the letters found upon Mi- 
 chel, that he had returned to the Island with the deter- 
 mination to revenge himself or die in the attempt. 
 
 " It would seem that he really had come to this resolution, 
 for after having been arrested by order of the Captain Gen- 
 eral, and whilst in charge of an officer to be conveyed 
 from Holguin to Gibara, he failed in the respect due to 
 the authority, and abusing the kindness and forbearance 
 shown to him by his conductor, he forced himself into the 
 plantation La Caridad where he held forth to the negroes 
 the right they had to be free, and wrote threatening let- 
 ters to their owner hoping that fear for his personal safety 
 would compell him to give them their freedom. 
 
 " When the representative of a powerful nation thus en- 
 tices and stimulates ignorant ynen, ever ready to shake olf 
 the yoke of slavery, to deeds of open rebellion ; when the 
 promise of future welfare with the acquisition of honors, 
 and affluence is held out to free negroes, and when the at- 
 tainment of those blessings is represented as easy, what 
 must be the inevitable result of such proceedings ? The 
 numerous cases submitted to its decision have made the 
 answer painfully evident to this committee. The slaves of 
 hundreds of plantations are coalescing and preparing to 
 
80 
 
 rise in rebellion; the free negroes employed in the coun- 
 try are inciting and animating them in their resolutions, 
 and those living in towns are resolving in their meetings 
 the ruin of the country and the extermination of thou- 
 sands of families, who, impressed with gratitude now bless 
 the hand that saved them." 
 
 It has been a source of satisfaction to me to find in the 
 foregoing document a cause of gratitude towards the Eng- 
 lish government, for having removed a consul, who so in- 
 vidiously and unworthily fulfilled his duties in the Island 
 of Cuba. Justice and an unalterable desire of conciliation 
 oblige me to make this acknowledgment, whilst a sincere 
 regard for our national honor, by which the legal proceed- 
 ings in this deplorable affair were influenced, have induced 
 me to insert the preceding document before adverting to 
 the following decree, so that the reasons which dictated its 
 promulgation may be better understood and appreciated. 
 
 " 1st. The owners of slaves destined to agricultural la- 
 bors shall see that they are instructed in the principles and 
 mysteries of our holy religion, by the overseer, the steward, 
 or administrator of each plantation, that they comply with 
 the precepts of the Church, and that they receive the sa- 
 craments when so ordained. 
 
 " 2nd. Said owners, using in all cases the full power 
 granted them by law over their slaves, as the only means 
 to keep them in subordination, shall order that through the 
 said substitutes they shall receive their food, clothing and 
 necessary attendance during sickness : and also, that said 
 slave's shall be punished, when they commit any offence, by 
 whipping or imprisonment to a degree that they may con- 
 sider in accordance with the instructions received from the 
 master; who in no case shall whip the slaves himself, and 
 to whom it is recommended in all punishments to incline 
 rather to clemency than to excessive rigor. 
 
 " 3rd. They shall direct said administrators, overseers, 
 and stewards, first : that every evening after prayers, the 
 doors be closed upon the slaves until day light the next 
 morning, and that a guard be kept going the rounds 
 of the plantation, headed by a white man. Second: that 
 the administrator, overseer or steward, does not leave the 
 plantation, on any day of the year, except on business con- 
 cerning the owner, or by his express permission. Third: 
 that any colored person either free or slave, or any white 
 
81 
 
 man of suspicious appearance who may be found on the 
 plantation without presenting a letter or paper signed by 
 the person by whom he is sent, shall be arrested and sent 
 to the district judge, and the same shall be done to 
 pedlars. Fourth : that the subordinates of the plantation 
 shall vigilantly watch the conduct of the free negroes who 
 are employed on them, and shall be held strictly responsi- 
 ble for their conduct. 
 
 " 4th. They shall order the said administrators, over- 
 seers or stewards, that, in case of any murder or affray 
 or any disturbance showing symptoms of insurrection on 
 the plantation, they shall immediately notify the Captain 
 of the district that he may proceed to make the correspond- 
 ing summary of the case. 
 
 " 5th. They shall be careful to employ none but whites 
 as cartmen, muleteers, or messengers and generally in any 
 capacity in which it is necessary to go beyond the limits 
 of the plantation. 
 
 " 6th. There shall be in each plantation a number of 
 white employees equivalent to one-twentieth of the num- 
 ber of colored laborers. 
 
 For the carrying out of the above regulations, made by 
 the board of protection, sanctioned and issued by the Cap- 
 tain General of the Island of Cuba, the following instruc- 
 tions issued the 31st of May 1844, were ordered to be ob- 
 served : 
 
 "1st. All emancipated negroes on this Island whose term 
 of civil and religious instruction shall have expired and 
 are therefore free, shall be taken care of by the government 
 who shall provide them tlie means of embarking and leav- 
 ing this country in the manner and form that Her Majesty, 
 who shall be informed on the matter, shall direct. (i) 
 
 " 2nd. The number of negroes without trade, property, 
 or the means of subsistence existing in the Island shall be 
 ascertained, and all such shall be held by the courts as 
 vagrants and hurtful to society. 
 
 (1) The word emancipated is applied to all such negroes as are seized 
 at sea or at the time of landing by the forces or agents of the govern- 
 ment. They are placed under the protection of the government, who, to 
 effect their instruction in labor and in christian civilization, places them 
 with persons of laborious habits; these persons, in consideration for the 
 benefit they derive from the labor of said negroes pay a monthly sum into 
 the treasury. 
 
82 
 
 " 3rd. After a given length of time, all tree negroes 
 coming from another country shall be expelled. 
 
 " 4th*. The prohibition of landing negroes either slaves 
 or free, shall be punctually observed. 
 
 " 5th. The local authorities shall keep a strict watch 
 over all negro lessees. 
 
 " 6th. The prohibition to colored people to hold meetings 
 shall be rigorously observed, and any outrage they may 
 commit against the whites shall be severely punished. 
 
 "7th. On no account shall negroes be employed in drug 
 shops, and much less to be allowed to make up even the 
 sim-plest prescription. 
 
 "8th. All taverns in the country, which, according to 
 the investigation and report of the local authorities, are, 
 owing to their localitv or want of means, of no service to 
 the public, shall be suppressed after I have been advised 
 and given my sanction. 
 
 " 9th. The sale of liquors is prohibited in the coun- 
 try, both by the wholesale and retail, and is only al- 
 lowed in towns. 
 
 "10 th. The owners of plantations adjacent \o each other 
 shall be recommended to empk)y clergymen of known vir- 
 tue to instruct their negroes in our Holy Religion as well as 
 in the duties of morality, obedience and submission imposed 
 upon them by society and the laws of the land/' 
 
 For the sake of clearness, and ever with the end of his- 
 torically and legally demonstrating that the civil status of 
 the fiegro in the Spanish possessions of the New World is 
 not that of slavery, which name has been applied to it 
 with so little foresight and suchmotorious injustice, it is 
 necessary to note that the above regulations were transi- 
 tory, and, indeed, that the most objectionable portions of 
 them were never carried into effect. 
 
 The ordinary laws, such as they existed before the pro- 
 mulgation of said measures, were prompt in their action 
 and sufficient always, to inflict on criminals with singu- 
 lar lenity the punishment which they deserved. After- 
 wards, the calm which followed that great agitation inspir- 
 ed confidence and restored things to their natural current, 
 so that the expulsion of the emancipated negroes which 
 had been decreed was never enforced; nor were there any 
 complaints or suits instituted against free negroes for va- 
 grancy 
 
83 
 
 » A few months having elapsed after the punishment of 
 the ringleaders, which was slight, indeed, compared with 
 the magnitude of their crime (1) every thing returned to its 
 former state; mild, civilizing, and supremely humane, in 
 conformity 'to the former rules and regulations herein 
 transcribed. And the results corresponding eminently to 
 the pious tendency shown in the spirit of our legislation 
 relative to negroes, became patent in the progressive eman- 
 cipation of slaves, owjng to the advantages they enjoy on 
 the estates of the country, in the domestic labor in the 
 houses of their employers or overseers, or in industrial 
 occupations in the cities. These beneficial results were 
 further secured by the new acts emanating from the autho- 
 rities for the purpose of rendering effective the protec- 
 tion which our legislators had in view on establishing a 
 fundamental rule as regards this institution and in behalf 
 of the weak. ■ 
 
 To demonstrate the proposition set forth as a funda- 
 mental idea in these pages, viz : that the civil state of 
 the negroes in the Spanish colonies is not that of slavery, 
 which name has been erroneously applied to it, and is 
 not conformable to facts, the legal proofs set forth in the 
 preceding chapter as well as in this, would suffice. Never- 
 theless, as unfair reasoning sophistry might say that laws 
 are one thing and their application another, when mate- 
 rial interests are raised above their spirit; in order to dis- 
 pel any doubts and for the purpose of showing the true 
 
 (1) In all countries, sedition and treason are punished with the greatest 
 penalties, and our code, like that of all the nations who properly value the 
 peace of society, punishes these crimes with death; notwithstanding all this 
 only three of the ringleaders were executed on tins occasion; and though it 
 is[to be lamented that among them a mind gifted with poetic talent perished, 
 I refer to Placido, a mulatto who apart from this intellectual privilege 
 possessed no other virtue, for he was quarrelsome, intemperate, dissolute 
 and vicious, whenever an occasion presented, it cannot he denied without 
 injustice and opposition to truth and to our procedings that wonderful cle- 
 mency and extraordinary prudence were displayed in the decision of 
 the court. The crime was, indeed, of the greatest, since it purposed no 
 less than the murdering of all the white people of Cuba first and after- 
 wards of Porto Rico, so that the negroes might then take possession of 
 both Islands. But considering the defective judgment of those who wish- 
 ed to realize such a bloody programme and the facility with which this 
 plot could, without inflicting capital punishment on many of the criminals, 
 the severity of the court was limited to the execution of those three indi- 
 viduals, and the transportation of some two or three dozens of theinost 
 guilty to the Peninsula there to be imprisoned. Our procedings, of cour- 
 se were as usual food for slander, but my statements are essentially true. 
 
84 
 
 state of things such as it will be presented to the views # 
 and understanding of all persons who choose to judge them 
 for themselves, as I have done, I think it expedient to 
 amplify this idea by an impartial statement of the manner 
 in which the compulsory labor of the negroes is carried on 
 in our possessions of the New World, and what are the 
 results of the practice. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The reason why the legislation and proceedings of the Spanish Co- 
 lonies are taken in this work as the type of the legislation and pro- 
 ceedings concerning the slavery of negroes. — How the free people of 
 color live in Cuba and Porto Rico, where slavery exists, and in San- 
 to Domingo where it is abolished. — Domestic service by hire in said coun- 
 tries, both of slave and free servants. — Other classes of service public and 
 private. — The slaves on the plantations. — Character of their services, and 
 comparison with the services of the white people in free nations. — Means 
 which negro slaves have of redeeming themselves from labor in the Span- 
 ish possessions. — Corporeal punishment : its legislation and application. — 
 The punishment inflicted on the negro slaves and that applied to white 
 soldiers and sailors in some of the European nations, especially in Eng- 
 land, compared. — Legal means which delinquent slaves have to escape 
 excessive chastisement. — Trustees for the protection of slaves : their au- 
 thority and its application. — Right of the slaves to change their master 
 for just cause and in accordance with law. — Rules which, in the Spanish 
 possessions, govern in such cases. — Some historical considerations on the 
 wrongs to which the beniflcent institution of negro labor has been sub- 
 jected. 
 
 In the preceding chapters I have intentionally refrained 
 from noticing any law, ordinance or regulation concerning 
 slavery or the treatment of the blacks, in any country 
 where the institution existed or still exists, except such 
 as had reference to the Spanish colonies. For, as we 
 were the first who introduced slavery in the New World, 
 though with such modifications as the progress of civil- 
 ization required, and with the twofold and commenda- 
 ble purpose of redeeming the negro from his barbarous 
 condition, and of relieving the Indians from the labor 
 imposed on them, to which they were neither accustom- 
 ed nor adapted, I think that i^ is with our own laws, 
 and not with those of other nations, that we should res- 
 pond to the universal reprobation with which the social 
 evil is viewed, which has caused and is still causing such 
 violent agitation among civilized nations. 
 
86 
 
 I have equally abstained from alluding to the prac- 
 tical manner in which the abolition of slavery has been 
 attempted in all the colonies, and carried out in some, 
 as this would have led me into a disquisition on the 
 justice and the opportuneness of the efforts which have 
 been made, and moreover, as since the time we began to 
 be considered a great nation (which we certainly were in 
 the sixteenth century) we have been constantly accused 
 of inhumanity. 
 
 It has been proven by an impartial analysis and com- 
 parison that we were not the least distinguished for hu- 
 manity in the laws referring to slavery, and in their 
 practical enforcement, any foreign laws which I might 
 here insert would only tend to establish rivalries, en- 
 courage disputes and recriminations, and produce discus- 
 sions contrary to the spirit of impartiality and modera- 
 tion which presides over this work. 
 
 Such as we have always proved ourselves to be, and 
 in our own light as founders of African slavery in Ame- 
 rica, I desire that we may be considered and judged; 
 taking as a principle that we have organised in a per- 
 manent manner the labor of these agents of universal 
 wealth, and that we have abolished the former odious 
 system of slavery, as is fully shown by the existing re- 
 gulations, which, if duly analized, will be found efficient 
 to serve as a basis for another code of laws to be uni- 
 versally adopted and applied by all nations owning 
 slaves; and if better or more complete regulations can 
 be found among other nations, there is no reason why 
 they should not be adopted, upon the interested parties 
 coming to a general understanding, and agreeing as to 
 the necessity of a general reform. 
 
 Premising this in order to justify our intentional omis- 
 sion, and to give a greater independence to the character 
 of this work, let us boldly enter at once upon the matter 
 which is to be considered in this chapter, viz: the manner 
 in which the laws are interpreted in their practical ap- 
 plication amongst the Spanish proprietors or lessees of 
 the colonial possessions, in regard to the respective rights 
 and duties of themselves and their laborers. 
 
 As in this work, we could not, without being guil- 
 ty of a serious omission, neglect to mention the state 
 of the free negroes, who, in the island of Cuba, amount 
 
87 
 
 to more than one- third of the colored population, in Porto 
 Kico to one-half, and in Santo Domingo the whole, it 
 will be well for me to give at once the result of the obser- 
 vations which I have made during the \ eriod of thirteen 
 years, which I have devoted to a constant study of the 
 subject, passing the time for this purpose in the cities and 
 smaller towns, but more frequently in the country. And 
 in case my testimony should not be sufficient to produce 
 on the public mind the desired effect, I appeal to the tes- 
 timony of all persons who have studied the question im- 
 partially, with the firm conviction that they will corrobo- 
 rate all my statements. 
 
 First of all, it will be necessary to observe that the cus- 
 toms of the free negroes in Cuba and Porto Kico, where 
 slavery exists, and where social discipline is maintained by 
 the restraints of a good government, differ greatly from, . . 
 and are superior to those of Santo Domingo, where an 
 undue political liberty has introduced among the negroes 
 habits of indolence and vagrancy, which are almost incor- 
 rigible. The former beino; accustomed to work ever since 
 their eyes first opened to the light of civilization, whether 
 they be Bozales who have been fraudulently introduced 
 into said islands to be employed in forced labor, and have 
 subsequently been liberated, or Creoles born of free parents, 
 or those who, having been slaves from their birth, and 
 being freed according to the provisions of the law, general- 
 ly exceed the proper bounds of their liberty, labor does not 
 degenerate among them as it does among the negroes of 
 Santo Domingo, and of all other places where slavery has 
 been abolished. 
 
 Owing to the nature of the tropical climate, which is so 
 bountiful as to afford spontaneously the necessary susten- 
 ance to man, and so mild that there is no necessity for any 
 great precautions against intemperature of the weather, 
 the negroes being left entirely to their own will, without 
 check or curb, naturally return to their primitive state and 
 abandon all manner of employment. In the island of Santo 
 Domingo, after its re-annexation to Spain, I ftave seen them 
 lounging the livelong day in their miserable cabins, in 
 which they kept some pieces of raw beef, which they only 
 half cooked for their meals when pressed by hunger, while 
 at a short distance from the door they had a few plantains 
 and yucas growing. Satisfied with these provisions, which 
 
88 
 
 can be procured by a quarter of an hour's labor each week, 
 these miserable creatures look with indifference on the 
 good wages offered to them as an inducement to employ 
 their strength for the benefit of the country, and they in- 
 voke the respect due to their condition as freemen when 
 endeavors have been made to persuade them to improve 
 their condition by working. "With a piece of meat," they 
 answer, "a handful of plantains and a young negress we 
 can live comfortably enough." And, moreover, they do not 
 clothe their bodies more than is absolutely necessary for 
 the sake of common decency, while their children live and 
 grow up in the state of nudity in which they were born, 
 until instinct teaches them to cover themselves, and then, 
 not through any feelings of shame, but solely in imitation 
 of their parents. Such is the life of the free negroes in 
 Santo Domingo, with very few exceptions, and such it will 
 continue to be until this state of vagrancy shall be ended 
 by a good law of immigration, and by the municipal ordi- 
 nances which will naturally be made when our authority 
 shall be firmly established, and other races shall people 
 the island. 
 
 Let it not be said that the sad state of the negroes in 
 this part of the West Indies is an exceptional case which 
 has been caused by the peculiar circumstances to which 
 this already extinct republic has always been subjected; 
 for, although the adjacent republic of Hayti, on the sama 
 territory, has pretensions to a superior state of civilization, 
 all those who have carefully considered the subject well 
 know how ridiculous that fictitious civilization really is, 
 and what constant persuasions and encouragements, from 
 the consuls and other foreign agents, have been necesary to 
 maintain their civil laws, in order to prevent their political 
 existence from degenerating into a state similar to that 
 of the negroes of St. Domingo. In order to confirm 
 ourselves in this opinion, we have only to consider what 
 has happened in the rest of the of the colonies of the West 
 and Lucaya Isles, as well as in the European colonies of 
 the Westerrf Continent, where negro slavery has been 
 violently abolished. I have also visited some of these, and 
 at St. Thomas, for instance, where though not very fertile, 
 there are nevertheless found some excellent lands for 
 the cultivation of the sugar cane and other lucrative 
 productions, not a negro laborer is to be had, except at 
 
89 
 
 very high wages, and then the proprietors by whom they are 
 hired run the risk of being left with the work half done. 
 They prefer to gain their living by the loading and unload- 
 ing of vessels, as being a task less arduous and limited to 
 stated hours, although it is for that very reason a less pro- 
 fitable occupation. There are some who will not even do 
 this, except when they are in actual want of a few reals, 
 prefering, while they last, to live upon cheap fruits and 
 vegetables. 
 
 The freedom of the .negroes in Cuba and Porto Rico is 
 very different, for such a state of things is expressly forbid- 
 den by the laws. In the coiintry, where the sugar ad coffee 
 plantations are the focus of slavery and the inexhaustible 
 sources of wealth, but few free negroes are to be found, 
 either because they cannot procure work by the day on the 
 plantations, or because they do not choose to engage in 
 agricultural employements under the supervision of over- 
 • seers and superintendents. 
 
 I do not mean to say that no free colored families reside 
 in the country, for they certainly do, and some of them 
 own large plantations and negro slaves; this is especially 
 the case in Porto Rico where this class of the population 
 is very numerous in proportion to the extent of territory. 
 But where there are such families labor is not abandoned 
 through indolence, and much less as unnecessary, as all 
 are subject to the police regulations and to the provisions 
 of an excellent government by which vagrancy is prohibi- 
 ted, as I have already stated; for which reason their state 
 of civilization, and consequently their customs are. similar 
 to those of the white population, with whom they live in 
 social intercourse and constant communication. 
 
 But with the exception of this obligation to work, the 
 kind of employment being nevertheless left to their own 
 option, and of the moderate restraint which is imposed on 
 their habits, the free negroes are in every other respect as 
 independent as the whites, and the law protects them in all 
 the civil rights which are common to them and to us. In 
 the cities they are at full liberty to be in the public streets, 
 - even at the most unseasonable hours without further res- 
 trictions than those which public order imposes on all 
 good citizens; they have their tertulias and balls just the 
 same as the whites, and no authourities have ever refused 
 them, without just cause, permission to keep up the danc- 
 
 • 
 
90 
 
 ing, with due decorum, within doors from sunset to sunrise 
 on their particular festivals, whenever such permision has 
 been respectfully solicited. 
 
 Perhaps it will be thougt that free negroes of either sex, 
 who, having no other means of support, engage their servi- 
 ces to a family of whites, are placed upon the same footing 
 and bound to perform the same duties as other servants 
 in countries where slavery never existed. What less could 
 be exacted from a domestic who, besides clothing, food etc, 
 receives liberal wages, and perquisites amounting to as 
 much more ? 
 
 -Yet this is far from being the case with the hired 
 negroes; he who has a situation as cook will refuse even 
 to sweep a parlor or to do the slightest work which does 
 not belong to what he considers his exclusive obligations 
 in the kitchen, even though he may be offered his weight 
 in gold, while the negress who acts, as laundress would not 
 think of going into the kitchen to attend to the fire, in the 
 absence of the cook, even if the house was in danger of 
 being burned dpwn. 
 
 Owing to this state of things, which is unfortunately 
 prevalent in the colonies, that branch of the service is in- 
 sufferable, as no family can be even indifferently served 
 without employing at least three domestics, while the 
 wages and board of each of these amount monthly to no less 
 than twenty-four dollars, v or say, for the three servants, 
 seventy two dollars; which in almost any country would 
 be sufficient to support the family itself. 
 
 In addition to this, let it be considered that, when these 
 servants have fulfilled their obligations, according to their 
 own judgment, though generally not as they ought to have 
 done, they imagine that they are free to go whithersoever 
 they please, and, according to their customs they certainly 
 possess that right, and scarcely ever return to their master's 
 until bed time; now I may venture to say that this class, 
 who are so much pitied by those who know nothing of 
 their life and customs, would not change places with the 
 most favored among the laboring classes in Europe, or even 
 with many persons of the middle classes who are making 
 such an outcry in their favor. 
 
 This description of the domestic service of the free ne- 
 groes applies equally to that of the slaves who are hired 
 out and of those who serve their owners, except in the 
 
91 
 
 • 
 
 matter of going out at their will, for in this respect the 
 latter are subject to certain restrictions, and so are the 
 hired slaves, whenever their owners have so stipulated 
 with the employers. 
 
 Negroes of this class, both male and female, who hire 
 themselves out to such persons, who, having no slaves of 
 their own, are compelled to submit to the inconvenience of 
 this most expensive kind of service, stipulate with their 
 owners that on payment of certain monthly or weekly 
 instalments they shall be free to dispose of their time and 
 labor, so that whatever they may earn over and above that 
 amount shall be exclusively their own. 
 
 Such is the general practice which is carried out more 
 fully, when the slaves on their own account and at 
 their own risk go out as public hackrhen, or as workmen 
 or porters on the docks and in the custom houses; and it 
 can positively be affirmed that those who have followed 
 such employments for two or three years and have not then 
 purchased their freedom, have not chosen to do so for 
 particular reasons, or because actuated by more ambitious 
 views; as by continuing in their occupations for a length 
 of time they can acquire means not only to buy their free- 
 dom but also to procure lands, by the product of which 
 they may live in comfort without having to work much; 
 and in so doing they are generally sucessful, especially in 
 the capitals of both islands, and in other parts of the 
 coast where trade is active. 
 
 Those who follow trades and other profitable business, 
 such as tailors, shoemakers, segar makers etc., of which 
 there are great numbers, and those who apply themselves 
 to music and learn to perform on some instrument, can 
 also speedily acquire means to obtain this freedom, on 
 paying the required amount by instalments as is ordered 
 in the regulations. 
 
 In short, any slave in the large cities, or in domestic 
 service in the small towns, can obtain his freedom in a few 
 years through his own industry and good conduct. 
 
 I cannot say as much of those employed on the plan- 
 tations, for their labor is more valuable and they have 
 fewer "advantages than the others. Their daily tasks never 
 last less than ten hours and they sometimes exceed that 
 when extra labor is required at particular seasons. I can 
 easily believe that they find this labor any thing but 
 
92 
 
 agreable when it is at first imposed upoun them, being 
 accustomed to a life of independence in their native 
 land ; and that it is owing to this that there have 
 been occasional cases of suicide among the bozal negroes 
 recently imported into the islands. This is one of the 
 charges which can justly be made again ts us by civiliza- 
 tion, for it is true that these unfortunate beings when 
 newly arrived, owing to their ignorance of our customs, 
 cannot appeal to the authorities against any ill usage 
 which they may receive at the hands of the overseers 
 charged with superintending their labor. Yet I trust I 
 may be allowed to say that, when that period of acclima- 
 tation has been passed through, there will be found noth- 
 ing inhuman nor even extraordinary in the labor imposed 
 on those negroes, as all our laboring classes are obliged 
 to work at least ten hours daily. 
 
 On this point I disagree entirely with the abolitionist, 
 for, having entered into an impartial and equitable inves- 
 tigation of the respective condition of free and slave field 
 laborers, without taking their feeling into consideration, 
 and looking only on the material side of the question, I 
 have found that the latter are treated no worse than the 
 former, and that to compensate for their privation of the 
 privilege of working or not, at their option, they are. pla- 
 ced beyond the terrible ravages of want which have pro- 
 duced such distress in the freest and most enlightened 
 nations of the Old World. 
 
 I remember the time when, in Castile, farm laborers could 
 only earn ten cents a day, which was all they had to sup- 
 port themselves and those who were dependent on them, 
 most of them having families; to pay the house rent, to 
 procure clothing and to lay by forthe time when they should 
 be out of employment. And, besides, in cases af sickness, 
 which could not but be very frequent in such a wretched 
 state of existence, medicines have to be procured out of 
 that same sorry pittance, though medical attendance could 
 be obtained at the expense of the municipality. 
 
 Those who have lived, as I have, in Simancas or in any 
 other town of the province of Valladolid, in the years 1846 
 and 1848, will not find the slightest exageration in the 
 picture which I have drawn. Those laborers went out to 
 the field to work at daylight, that is, in summer from three 
 to four in the morning, and did not give up work until 
 
93 
 
 sunset, which in those latitudes and at that season is at eigth 
 o'clock if not later. During the course of the day and at 
 meal -times, they rested two alternate hours; and thus 
 there remained to them nine hours out of each twenty 
 four, for rest, consequently they work quite as much as 
 the negroes in harvest time, and no less than the same 
 negroes, all the year round. 
 
 Though the negroes on the plantations cannot obtain 
 their freedom with such ease as the others, they never- 
 theless have opportunities which they can turn to ac- 
 count, especially when they have proved themselves in- 
 telligent, honest and submissive, for then they % are gene- 
 rally separated from the laborers, and employed in do- 
 mestic service by the overseers, or even by the master, 
 in which situation they can easily acquire means to buy 
 their freedom by economizing and saving the gratuities 
 and presents lavished upon them. 
 
 Some of my readers will suppose that very few can 
 obtain their freedom in this manner, as the number of 
 household servants must necessarily be limited. But this 
 argument, which may naturally be set forth by persons 
 unacquainted with the countries to which I refer, can 
 be refuted at once by any one who has any knowledge 
 of the matter, with the demonstration of the unlimited 
 number of servants who are retained on the estates and 
 in the dwellings of their owners, owing to the fact, which 
 has been already mentioned, that no servant is ever em- 
 ployed in more than one particular occupation, nor even 
 in that one in the service of two different persons. When 
 the owner of large estates has a numerous family, and 
 owns plenty of negroes, the number of servants of both 
 sexes who are employed in the household would be con- 
 sidered fabulous, each individual in the family having one 
 exclusively in his service; and, where there are infants to 
 be nursed, the wet-nurses take with them their husbands 
 and little ones, and though these remain in perfect idleness, 
 they are not obliged to return to their labor in the fields 
 so long as they behave themselves properly. 
 
 It is also customary, on the plantations, to teach some 
 trade or bestow a small plot of ground to such negroes as 
 may desire either; and by these means they all have the 
 opportunity to earn, by their extra labor, sufficient to pay 
 the price of their freedom, in instalments, which the pro- 
 
94 
 
 prietors have no right to decline, as has been seen in some 
 articles of the regulations. 
 
 With regard to the punishments, it would be difficult 
 to destroy the prejudices which exist on the matter in 
 those places where this institution is known only theoreti- 
 cally. In order to condemn the punishment of slaves, 
 poets and novelists have spared no extravagance nor mon- 
 strosity in their comedies and dramas, and in narratives 
 of cruelty which are manifestly absurd, as also in novels 
 abounding in impossibilities. 
 
 When a youth, I read some of these calumnious works, 
 which wete expressly designed to inflame the public mind 
 against negro slavery, and I own that at one time I shared 
 the common prejudices; believing that the principles of 
 humanity and justice ought to prevail over all interested 
 motives. At that time when I was as ignorant as the worst 
 among them, I had often inwardly applauded the apos- 
 trophe, as destructive as it was eloquent, which resounded 
 through the world: Preserve the principles, and let the 
 colonies perish. Subsequently, when I had entered the 
 military service, and even long before visiting America, 
 my opinions in this matter were materially modified. 
 
 In any collective body of men formed for the purpose of 
 common labor or any other end, whose members are not 
 taken from the higher elasses of society, but from the ig- 
 norant masses, it would be absurd to apply the ordinary 
 codes of laws for the punishment of crimes and offenses 
 that might be committed; for such application would speed- 
 ily cause the dissolution of said organization, and the jails 
 and prisons would be filled with criminals whose offenses 
 might have been punished in some other manner which 
 would interfere neither with their services nor with their 
 labor. 
 
 It is for this reason that it was customary, until very 
 recently, in the Spanish militia, to punish soldiers who 
 had been guilty of misdemeanors, by making them run the 
 gauntlet or by inflicting from twenty-five to fifty lashes, 
 instead of sending them to prison. For this reason also 
 punishment by the lash was continued in the Portuguese 
 army until 1856, twenty-one years after it had been abol- 
 ished in Spain; and it is perhaps on this account that 
 the English still inflict it with such severity on their sold- 
 iers and sailors, I myself having witnessed the death of an 
 
95 
 
 individual of the auxiliary legion, in the city of Lugo, 
 during the civil war in Spain, who suffered the penalty of 
 eight hundked lashes, to which he had been sentenced, 
 the total number of lashes being inflicted on- his body, 
 although he expired long before the completion of his pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 And if freemen are subjected to this treatment in highly 
 civilized nations, experience having demonstrated that, 
 without such severity, discipline and subordination could 
 not be maintained in their armies, why should it be a mat- 
 ter of wonder that the most humane codes in the world 
 authorize the penalty of lashes, to be applied with moder- 
 ation to negroes when they deserve punishment, knowing 
 that any other mode of correction would be useless, be- 
 cause unintelligible to them in their all but irrational 
 state? 
 
 It is necessary that all discussions with regard to these 
 matters should be governed by moderation, and not by 
 ignorance and intolerance, for these can produce nothing 
 but arguments and discourses which, however plausible 
 they may be, are entirely destitute of reason, and effect no 
 manner of good. Twenty-five lashes, which is the maxi- 
 mum of the punishment permitted by the laws, and ap- 
 plied with an instrument which does riot inflict very se- 
 vere chastisement on the semi-barbarous culprits, are a 
 .very proper and appropriate punishment when it becomes 
 necessary to regulate confused ideas, to eradicate ferocious 
 habits, and to maintain good discipline among the masses 
 of a dangerous part of the population. 
 
 The fact is that the said punishment is rarely inflicted 
 with the severity prescribed by the law; at the same time 
 I do not mean to say that the whip of the overseer does 
 not occasionally fall, with warning eloquence, on the 
 shoulders of the careless, the indolent and the unruly, who 
 disturb the established order by their bad example. It is 
 possible that abuses exist owing to this practice; but, so 
 far as the punishments prescribed by the regulations are 
 concerned, they being more severe and publicly known, it 
 can be positively affirmed that they are never arbitrarily 
 nor causelessly inflicted. 
 
 I once resided for six months on an estate, that of Buena 
 Vista, in the valley of Trinidad, and during that time 
 there were but very few cases in which the penalties pres- 
 
96 
 
 cribed by the regulations were enforced. One of these was 
 that of a runaway slave, who, having escaped punishment 
 through my intervention, again took to flight before the 
 week had elapsed. Having been captured a second time, 
 he again appealed to me to intercede for him; but, al- 
 though I willingly acceded to his request, my intercession 
 was this time disregarded. He received twenty-five lashes, 
 face downward, and for three days had his feet placed 
 in the stocks after working; and, being subjected for some 
 time to extra surveillance, he subsequently became one of 
 the best behaved and most industrious negroes on the es- 
 tate. 
 
 Such is the true character of slavery and its punish- 
 ments in the Spanish colonies, whatever may be said to 
 the contrary by ignorant declaimers and interested aboli- 
 tionists. It has already been seen that the law could not be 
 more protective or humane, for it contains measures to 
 prevent any abuses in the application of the regulations it 
 prescribes. * 
 
 The commendable office of the slave protecting syndics 
 should be fulfilled with all the charitable zeal on which 
 it was founded, and I have reason to believe that it is 
 thus fulfilled, as the negroes always have free access to the 
 superior authorities, to present their complaints in person. 
 
 In the palace at Havana on all the audience days, which 
 are of frequent occurrence, the stairs are always crowded 
 with colored people who personally appear before the 
 Captain General to make known their difficulties. Gen.- 
 eraly speaking, these are mere trifling matters as may be 
 expected from the limited understanding of these indivi- 
 duals; some, however, are just complaints which are im- 
 mediately attended to by the proper authorities, nor is there 
 any lack of petitions or of all sorts of stratagems to obtain 
 money, which are not familiar to the negroes in said con- 
 dition; and this is the case not only at the palace of the 
 Captain General, but also at the Lieutenancies of the Gov- 
 ernment, the inferior courts and the captaincies of the 
 Districts; so that the rights of slaves are everywhere pro- 
 tected by the authorities. 
 
 They have also the right to change their master when 
 they can show sufficient cause why the law should protect 
 them on this point; and if a slave does not wish to leave 
 the country or town wherein he lives, when his master 
 
97 
 
 intends to send him elsewhere, he can claim the right to 
 remain in said place, being upheld therein by the special 
 ordinances. And in order to show the spirit which governs 
 the regulations of that class that have been lately promul- 
 gated in Havana, on which, for their greater efficiency, 
 the respectable corporations had been consulted, L shall 
 here insert the regulations issued by the present Governor 
 and Captain General of the island of Cuba, when hardly 
 two months had elapsed after he was entrusted with that 
 eminent office. 
 
 "Government House and office of the Captain General and 
 delegated Superintendent of Finance of the ever loyal 
 Island of Cuba. 
 
 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 " So as to carry out with due effect the power of enlarge- 
 ment reserved by the civil and Superior Governement in 
 the regulations published by my worthy predecessor on the 
 18th of Septembre last, and bearing in mind what has been 
 proposed by their Excellencies the corporation of this city, 
 and the information given by their Excellencies, the Coun- 
 cil of Administration, I have decreed the following: 
 
 Regulations for the Syndic offices in this city, on the ap- 
 pearance of slaves to prefer complaints against their 
 owners. 
 
 " Article I. — Within twenty-four hours after a slave has 
 appeared to complain of his owner, the latter shall be no- 
 tified,' the day and hour being appointed when he shall 
 appear before the Syndic, which conference must take 
 place within three days after the application of the slave. 
 
 "Art. II. — The nature of the conference requires the per- 
 sonal appearance of the owner, who can only be excused on 
 satisfactory grounds, in which case he must be represented 
 by a duly authorized person. 
 
 " Art. Ill — If no agreement should be arrived at in the 
 conference between the Syndic and the owner, or if the 
 latter should not attend to the second summons, then the 
 former shall institute a demand or act of peace before a 
 competent Judge which shall be presented within eight 
 days after the second summons. 
 
 " Art. IV. — The agreement made between the Syndic and 
 
98 
 
 the owner of the slave, shall be written out in a book kept 
 by the former and signed by both. \ 
 
 u Art. V. — When there should be a just cause for the 
 sale of the slave, he shall not be allowed to return into 
 the power of his master, but shall be placed in the 
 house of some neighbor, considered reliable both by the 
 owner and the Syndic; and if this cannot be done whilst 
 the slave is seeking anew master he shall sleep at night in 
 the judicial depot, and shall not be hired out during the 
 next ensueing ei^ht days. 
 
 " Art. VI. — When the complaints of the slave are not 
 for cruelty, or where the Syndic may judge that he will 
 not be badly treated on account of having entered his com- 
 plaint, then he shall be returned to his owner, with whatever 
 securities the Syndic may think prudent, while his com- 
 plaint is being examined by judicial or extra-judicial acts. 
 
 " Art. VII. — The deposit in general for slaves, or their 
 provisional detention is only intended for males. The 
 women in all cases, and for whatever lenght of time, shall 
 be placed in deposit inthe hospital of St. Francis, or in the 
 Charitable Asylum, and shall be employed in the service 
 of these establishments, where they shall be maintained 
 without the owner having to pay more than two reals 
 for each slave no matter how many days she may have to 
 remain there. This contribution is destined for the super- 
 intendents of said establishments, for their trouble in keep- 
 ing an account of those slaves who are received and dis- 
 charged. 
 
 " Art. VIII. — The deposit or detention can be dispensed 
 with when, a slave on making application for his freedom, 
 pays over into the Royal Treasury, in the Bank of Spain, 
 or in the Saving's Bank, a sum which, in the opinion of the 
 Syndic, may be deemed sufficient for the purpose, and pre- 
 sent the certificate of his deposit; in which case, being 
 provided with a written permit by the Syndic, he can en- 
 gage in some employment while the question of granting 
 him his free papers is pending; his wages being placed in 
 the Savings Bank to be delivered to the proper parties. 
 
 u Art. IX. — With regard to the price of the freedom of 
 a child ye c unborn the usual custom shall be observed, 
 and the owner of the mother can not prevent her suckling 
 and bringing up her child for the length of time determi- 
 ned by the law and the Slave Regulations. Neither can 
 
99 
 
 children under seven years of age be separated from their 
 mothers, by sale or ortherwise, unless it be for the good 
 of the latter, and so ordered by the Syndic or by the Judge. 
 
 "Art. X. — If the slave should present himself wounded, 
 hurt, or sick, in such a way as to require medical assis- 
 tance, he shall be removed to the Hospital of Charity, and, 
 according to the gravity of his case, the Syndic shall make 
 it known to the judge to whose jurisdiction it may belong, 
 so that he may proceed according to law; or else he shall 
 make it known to the owner, at the same time that he 
 summons him to the conference. 
 
 "Art. XI. — The owners of slaves whose price has been 
 fixed, and who employ them in their personal service, owe 
 them the difference between the sum that they actually 
 earn with them, and that which they might earn if they 
 worked on their own account; but this does not prevent 
 the matter being amicably arranged between the master 
 and the slave. 
 
 "Art. XII. — It not being just that an intelligent and 
 well behaved slave who, knowing some trade, should 
 experience greater difficulty injobtaining freedom through 
 his savings, or other legitimate means, than one who is 
 vicious and stupid, because the price of the former is great- 
 er than that of the latter, the appraiser, at the time of 
 fixing the price for his liberation, shall only take into ac- 
 count the age, health and physical aspect of the slave, as 
 also the amount of money expended by the owner in teach- 
 ing him his trade, or what this instruction might reason- 
 ably ajnount to, if he has not already been indemnified by 
 his work. 
 
 "Art. XIII. — When the slave has not given any motive 
 or cause for his owner to sell him, and when such sale is 
 only the result of the free will of the owner, the said slave 
 has a right to request a delay of three days, that he may 
 endeavor to find a new master, a paper to that effect be- 
 ing given to him by tne owner; but, after the three days, 
 his owner is privileged to sell him to whoever he may 
 choose. 
 
 "Art. XIV. — The administrator of the judicial deposit, 
 on hiring out slaves remitted to him by the Syndics, shall 
 impose on all who may hire them, the condition of not 
 taking them outside of the city and its suburbs, as also 
 that they shall not prevent them from going to the office 
 
100 
 
 of the Syndic, with an officer, whenever their presence may 
 be needed. 
 
 "Art. XV. — When a slave shall present himself to com- 
 plain of his master, who belongs to another municipal dis- 
 trict, the Syndic shall notify such master, inviting him to 
 confer with him within the space of eight days, or asking 
 him if he would prefer the slave to be sent to the Syndic 
 of his own jurisdiction, accompanied by a sheriff, at his 
 own cost; on receiving his answer, the Syndic will imme- 
 diately send the slave, and if no answer be made, such 
 slave shall be placed at the disposition of the superior civil 
 government. 
 
 "Art. XVI. — Whenever any Syndic shall have notice of 
 a grave abuse of an owner against his slave, he shall have 
 recourse to the proper authority, so that he may aj>ply an 
 immediate remedy. 
 
 "Art. XVII. — The Syndics are obliged to take personal 
 cognizance of the verbal demands which may be made, 
 and only on account of sickness or urgent occupations can 
 they be replaced by the prefects, who in those cases are 
 obliged to fill their places* 
 
 "Art. XVIII. — The owners of slaves, in all the rela- 
 tions they may have with the Syndics, shall treat them 
 with all the respect and consideration which are due to 
 them as magistrates and as protectors of the slaves; a 
 troublesome duty which they fulfill towards the public in 
 general and the owners in particular. 
 
 "Art. XIX. — The delicate charge which our laws, cus- 
 toms and government confide to the Syndics is essentially 
 one of justice and equity; and for this reason they should 
 inculcate in the slaves maxims of obedience and fidelity to 
 their masters, and in the latter those of humanity, affec- 
 tion and protection towards their slaves. 
 
 "Havana, January 28th, 1863. Domingo Dulce." 
 
 In order to strenghten the arguments and explanations 
 which I have given respecting the nature of this institu- 
 tion, which is so justly condemned on account of the name 
 by which it is called, I could quote many authorities who 
 have preceded me in the investigation of this matter; but, 
 not finding in any of them the spirit of moderation which 
 is necessary to the proper discussion of a subjet of such 
 importance, when the object is to enlighten all parties with- 
 
101 
 
 out offending any; and, moreover, as they cannot be more 
 convincing than the observations which I have made al- 
 ready, I trust that the sound judgment of my readers and 
 their reliance on my sincerity, will excuse me from pro- 
 ducing the evidence which would be required under other 
 circumstances. 
 
 The truth is that when an idea which is not firmly based 
 on justice is set forth by its authors with the desire that 
 it shall become generally prevalent and bear down all op- 
 position, all the resources of the human mind are put in 
 play to give it, in the opinion of the public, the import- 
 ance and authority which it could never attain without 
 artifice. For the better success of this design, the natural 
 ignorance of the majority is taken advantage of, and the 
 humane feelings of all are worked upon when the ques- 
 tion can in any manner affect them; and by keeping these 
 springs in motion perseveringly, it is easy to convert the 
 greatest of iniquities into an universally just necessity. 
 
 We have seen a striking example of this in the general 
 outcry which was raised against the Spaniards for the 
 manner in which they treated the Indians, according to the 
 false accounts with which Father Las Casas, through mo- 
 tives of self-interest, defamed our character. In order to 
 despoil the crown of Spain of all that portion of the con- 
 tinent which we still possessed at the commencement of 
 the present century, as a just recompense for its discovery 
 and civilization at the cost of great sacrifices, there was 
 not a single calumny, among all those made against us by 
 th%t celebrated friar, which was not published and com- 
 mented on in all languages, especially with the object of 
 demonstrating that the barbarous tyranny of the Spaniards 
 had wished to effect the total extermination of the In- 
 dians. , i 
 
 Nevertheless, at the same time that these calumnies 
 were being levelled at us, the most learned sage among the 
 eminent men of this and of the past century, a distin- 
 guished writer whose fame was universal, and who, being 
 a German, and not connected with us in any manner, could 
 not be accused of unjust partiality towards us, was de- 
 monstrating in the clearest manner, based on the most 
 careful observations and the most sofemn evidence, that 
 in Mexico, the number of Indians was far greater in 1S0S 
 than at the time of its discovery, owing to the order estab- 
 
102 
 
 lished by the laws fort heir mode of living, preservation 
 and prosperity, and to the paternal care lavished on them 
 by the Spaniards who ruled them. (1) I am positively cer- 
 tain that, if the illustrious author had prosecuted the same 
 line of studies in the other parts of Spanish America, he 
 would have pronounced the same opinion with regard to ' 
 them, with the exception of the islands wherein the abo- 
 rigines were found in fewer numbers, and the agglomera- 
 tion of the whites and negroes was much greater than in 
 the other parts, owing to which the Indian race ere long 
 disappeared, being amalgamated with the others. But 
 the political tendencies, which had decreed the indepen- 
 dence of Spanish America as a just punishment for our 
 connivance in the independence of British America, would 
 have utterly disregarded any such demonstrations, and 
 would still have continued to indorse the calumnies of 
 Father Las Casas, both in the council and in the pulpit. 
 
 Let no one be surprised, then, at the contradictions 
 which may result between my impartial demonstrations 
 on the slavery of the negroes as it exists at present in the 
 Spanish possessions, which are taken from the existing re- 
 gulations and from the actual practice, which cannot be 
 contradicted, as it is open to the view of all the world, and 
 the never ceasing aspersions to which our ears are so well 
 accustomed, and which have caused such an increase in 
 the number of abolitionists in countries where slavery is 
 unknown, except by false representation. 
 
 God, in bestowing on us the gift of hearing, gave us 
 two organs by which we might hear impartially both sides 
 of every question, and thus be governed in our decisions 
 by a true knowledge of the case, and, above all, by jus- 
 tice. Let the reader, then, listen patiently to the pros 
 and cons of this question, and, moreover, let those who 
 have as yet no suspicion of the purpose of this work, 
 not be startled at the novelty of my opinions whenever 
 they are found to clash with their prejudices. 
 
 (1) Humboldt, Treatise on New Spain, 
 
 » 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The condition of the laboring negroes in America is not that of slavery, 
 which nomenclature has been erroneously applied to it, and is utterly 
 false. — Exertions of the abolitionists to destroy negro labor. — Investiga- 
 tion on the origin of this idea. — There is no truly moral principle prac- 
 tically involved in the prohibition of the redemption of negroes, which is 
 called the slave trade. — The abolition of slavery such as it has hitherto 
 been effected, is opposed to the civilization of the negroes, to the prospe- 
 rity of the Colonies, and to the interests of the whole world. — Origin of 
 the abolitionist idea, its propagation and diffusion in official spheres. — The 
 London Philantropical Society. — Its agents and its organized propaga- 
 tion. — First concession made by Spain to England as to the abolition of 
 slavery : additional articles to the treaty of 5th July 1814. — Spirit of the 
 treaty of September 23, 1817, to abolish the slave trade.— Its effects are 
 contrary to the moral end with which it was apparently made. — Treaty of 
 1835. 
 
 Towards the close of the eighteenth century, as it has 
 been shown, and according to the proofs adduced in the 
 previous chapters, the redemption of the negroes from 
 Africa was humane, civilizing, useful, and even eminent- 
 ly Christian; and their organized labor would have been 
 equitable, protective and beneficent, if, from the com- 
 mencement, it had been divested of the odious name 
 which, with such want of propriety, was applied to it 
 by the arrogance of some, the egotism of others, the va- 
 nity of the majority and the' uniformity which custom 
 had created. 
 
 The Encyclopedists of Europe, confounding facts with 
 words, the positive with the suppositious, reason with 
 s6phistry, order with confusion, liberty with licence, and, 
 in short, subverting all the social ideas on which the 
 great edifice of Christian civilization rests, had even then 
 succeeded in perverting the public mind, in changing the 
 feelings, in distorting justice to suit their purposes, in 
 
104 ' 
 
 perverting the existing law, and inflicting a deep injury 
 on the rights of property, which, at a later day, would 
 cause great losses to well deserving individuals and weal- 
 thy communities. 
 
 Their first expressions were heard in the British par- 
 liament, spoken in the house of commons by the .cele- 
 brated Mr. Pitt, and were afterwards repeated in the 
 French tribune by the eloquent Mirabeau, which pro- 
 duced the atrocities of Hayti, which cost the Republic 
 so many sacrifices, to commerce so many losses, and to 
 humanity so much precious blood. 
 
 When the mind pauses to reflect on that tremendous 
 period of the revolution of ideas which is still progressing, 
 curiosity is quickened by the desire to ascertain the true 
 cause of the one so openly and absolutely proclaimed, as to 
 the abolition of the redemption of the negroes, and the 
 emancipation from all servitude in regard to those who 
 were already redeemed. 
 
 Policy has two great motive powers, without which no- 
 thing could be resolved in its spheres, as by their means 
 States are governed, harmonizing their respective interests. 
 One of these powers is essentially moral, and is symbolized 
 injustice; the other is material, and proceeds from politi- 
 cal economy. With the former only appearances might 
 seem in conflict with the question we are discussing; and 
 the latter must not be accepted, either, as it is presented by 
 private history. I will explain myself, and leave it to the 
 judgment of the reader to draw his own inference. 
 
 The Spanish colonies were at that time of immense ex- 
 tent and wealth; their productions supplied the whole 
 world; and, although smuggling defrauded the treasury of 
 large sums, all the nations of the world contributed to the 
 wealth of the government and of the landed proprietors of 
 the colonies. 
 
 England, France, Portugal and the Dutch had colonies 
 similar to ours and contiguous to them; but, although 
 many of the productions of their soil were similar to those 
 of the Spanish colonies, the quantity was so small, in com- 
 parison, that it would have been absurd to state it in this 
 disertation. 
 
 At this time, the English government encouraged more 
 than ever the idea of raising to the highest degree the 
 productions of that part of the East Indies under their do- 
 
105 
 
 minion; and, as this purpose coincided with that fervent 
 extemporized zeal against the redemption of the negroes, 
 to abolish slavery, many suspected that the question pre- 
 sented with such flattering show of justice and philanthro- 
 py, was but a question of local interest, founded on a 
 - principle of egotism, and this opinion was expressed by 
 several authors in their works. 
 
 In order to argue in this way, it is necessary that we 
 should analyze the case in its moral tendency; not as a 
 question of feelings, without further data than those of 
 the impulse of the moment, but looking to the principles 
 and to the ends with all their advantages and disadvan- 
 tages, which is the manner in which governments argue, 
 and on this rests the justice of the appreciations. 
 
 We have already seen the manner in which the negroes 
 on the coast of Africa lived previous to the time when the 
 interest of the American colonies induced their redemp- 
 tion: vagrants without home or country, with but confused 
 ideas of family ties; strangers to any sort of civilization, 
 and in perpetual strife among the different tribes, sacrifi- 
 cing each other like idolaters, and devouring one another 
 like wild beasts. The practice which, by arousing the cu- 
 pidity of the conquerors, prevented them from sacrificing 
 their captured foes, was an immense benefit to humanity, 
 and a great pecuniary advantage to the colonies; and if 
 this cannot be denied, after the expositions made in this 
 book, and those which are still to be made, it is also posi- 
 tively established as. a fact that the idea, which began to 
 develop itself in the latter part of the eighteenth century, 
 of suppressing the redemption of negroes in Africa, even 
 though it was accompanied by the thought of subsequent- 
 ly abolishing slavery in America, was devoid of any prin- 
 ciple of true morality, and was nothing more than the 
 embodiment of. the theories of visionaries. 
 
 The good and the evil, in this case, are represented by 
 relative ideas, and cannot be taken for their application in 
 an absolute sense. The abolition of slavery is a benefit 
 tha*t no one denies, that no one rejects, and to which the 
 whole civilized world justly aspires. But suppression of 
 redemption where it is carried on to mitigate the effects of 
 a war of extermination, without contriving anything to 
 substitute it, without any agreement among civilized na- 
 tions for the prevention of human sacrifices in Africa, 
 
106 
 
 without establishing in that country some ideas of civili- 
 zation and new customs, is not an idea worthy of the mind 
 of great statesmen, nor of the support of truly generous 
 nations? 
 
 And even the abolition of slavery considered in itself, 
 without reference to the redemption in Africa, is injurious 
 to property, unjust to the owners, and prejudicial to the 
 negroes themselves; and we have full evidence that it has 
 proved -such in all those places where it has been carried 
 out. The products of labor and the wealth of the proprie- 
 tors being relative, as are also the number of the laborers 
 and the means of their maintainance, if the established or- 
 der which maintains the discipline of labor is substituted 
 by individual will, which destroys it, the productive agents 
 naturally decrease without a corresponding diminution in 
 the number of consumers, and far from doing good to the 
 class which it is intended to benefit, it inflicts on it a great 
 injury; and to this fact the English colonies in America 
 have given ample testimony. » 
 
 I have seen multitudes of negroes begging where former- 
 ly public charity had never been called upon; and I have 
 known proprietors of the English West Indies, formerly , 
 wealthy, soliciting situations as overseers on estates in the 
 Spanish possessions. (1) 
 
 England being the first who injured herself in her gene- 
 ral, interests for the purpose of gratifying the feelings of a 
 few, I think there can be no reason to attribute a sinister 
 intention to the idea of Mr. Pitt which was afterwards rea- 
 lized in the sphere" of the government. It first appeared 
 at an opportune time whith the then predominant ideas, 
 and if it was carried to an inconceivable extent, this was due 
 to the philanthropy which it appeared to possess, owing to 
 the distance from the lands where' its disastrous efects 
 were to be felt, and to the inexperience of those who re- 
 ceived and adopted it, without either understanding or 
 investigating the question, and guided only by their phi- 
 lanthropy. 
 
 Such is my opinion, though it may not agree with that 
 of those who seek startling analogies among unforeseen coin- 
 cidences; and I believe, moreover, that the efforts of En- 
 
 (1) One of these was from the island of Trinidad, with whom I was 
 acquainted in 1852, in Trinidad de Cuba, acting in said capacity on the 
 estate of my distinguished friend Mr. Juste German Cantero. 
 
 < 
 
107 
 
 gland to raise the industrial and agricultural products in 
 the East Indies to importance, is the consequence, not the 
 premise, of the ruin of its West Indie Colonies. 
 
 Having touched on this question lightly and with the 
 necessary prudence from the respect which, in my opinion, 
 is due to the intention of others, I shall continue to state 
 the progress made in the public mind which though emi- 
 nently philanthropic was useless, nay, even destructive to 
 the very individuals who were to have been benefited by it 
 according to the belief of its supporters. 
 
 Mr. Pitt, as has been stated, set up the war cry against 
 slavery in the House of Commons in 1788; it resounded 
 subsequently in the French Tribune when the revolution 
 was at its heigth, as it was to be expected, the idea being 
 already evolved and sustained with the authority of its 
 , origin and the unsparing impulse which was given to it; and 
 notwithstanding that the breezes which wafted to America 
 that solemn apostrophe where the harbingers of the carnage 
 and horrors which took place some years afterwards in a 
 part of the French Colonies, in 1807 the British Lords ap- 
 proved the famous law which gave a death blow to the insti- 
 tution and to all the interests in any way connected with it. 
 
 The gigantic triumph of the abolitionist scarcely satis- 
 fied them, its operation being local and limited; for which 
 reason and perseverance being the great agent to arrive at 
 all ends, and organized order its most powerful auxiliary, 
 those fanatical upholders of a wrongly interpreted idea, 
 associated themselves in due form, to labor in every direc- 
 tion and in every way, until they successfully crowned 
 their work as they had conceived and as they still continue 
 to foster it. 
 
 In the midst of the war of independence in Spain, when 
 the war of emancipation had also broken out in South 
 America, a deputy raised his voice in the Cortes at Cadiz 
 to second the labors of the philanthropic society of London. 
 This was a generous outburst of feelings whose intention I 
 do not condemn; but it was imprudent and foolish under 
 the circumstances when our enemies took advantage of all 
 available means, this being not one of the worst, owing to 
 the object to which it referred and the countries which 
 it affected. N 
 
 About that time there was a lull in the storm which 
 raged over our Western possessions and especialy over the 
 
108 
 
 Indies, where the compulsory labor of the negroes had been 
 recognized and declared to be of absolute necessity. But 
 the restoration of the king to the throne of his ancestors 
 which had been usurped by the Emperor Napoleon had 
 been assisted by our English allies, and gratitude imme- 
 diately wrought that, in the question of slavery, which 
 would certainly not have been counselled by strict justice. 
 
 I will not say that the English forced the Spanish go- 
 vernment to adopt the idea of putting an end to the re- 
 demption of Africans to insure the abolition of slavery in 
 America which would naturally have followed had the 
 prohibition been efectually carried out; but it can safely be 
 presumed that in proposing that idea they took advantage 
 of the existing circumstances, and exaggerated the merit 
 of the services rendered by them, for we find the agreement 
 to the prohibition inserted, in an additional article, in the 
 treaty of peace, friendship and alliance made and signed 
 at Madrid, on the 5th of July 1814, by the plenipotentia- 
 ries of Spain and England, and ratified, with the said ad- 
 ditional article, by his Catholic Majesty, on the 28th of 
 August of the same year: that is to say when the war of 
 Independence had just terminated, and when King Fer- 
 dinand, inexperienced in matters of government, began to 
 rule his vast, and at that time, complicated monarchy. 
 
 The additional article, which, in said treaty appears 
 like an exotic plant and is unintelligible, aside from the 
 spirit which dictated it with ulterior views, reads as 
 follows: 
 
 " The sentiments of his Catholic Majesty being entirely 
 the same as those of II. B. Majesty as to the injustice and 
 inhumanity of the slave trade H. Catholic Majesty will 
 take into consideration, with mature deliberation, the 
 means of combining these sentiments with the necessities of 
 his possessions in America. EL Catholic Majesty promises, 
 moreover, to prohibit his subjects engaging in the slave 
 trade, when it may be with the object of providing the Is- 
 lands and possession not belonging to Spain; and also to 
 prevent by regulation and other elicacious means, the pro- 
 tection of the Spanish flag from being afforded to foreigners 
 engaged in said trade whether they be subjects of H. B. 
 M. or of other States or Powers." 
 
 And, as a compensation for this act of compliance, 
 whose interpretation, by the Spaniards well versed in the 
 
109 
 
 matter alluded to, could with difficulty be guessed at, 
 another additional article followed the one above copied, 
 which, to a certain extent, gives us the clue to remove 
 the doubts and mysteries which envelop the former. If 
 we take into account the seditious offices of the English 
 and the material aid which they gave to the revolted 
 provinces of Spanish America, leaving out of the ques- 
 tion the analysis of what motives they may have had 
 to pursue that policy, and looking only to the friendly 
 remonstrances made by the Spanish government towards 
 England, while demanding that the offenses committed 
 by British subjects against our authority should in future 
 be prevented, it will not appear strange that our friends 
 and allies should have taken advantage of our respect- 
 ive situation, and exacted from us, as a reciprocal serv- 
 ice, the above mentioned promise to put an end to the 
 slave trade, in exchange for the promise given by them 
 in the additional article, which is the following: 
 
 "H. B. Majesty being desirous that the evils and dis- 
 cord which unhappily reign in the dominions of H. C. 
 Majesty in America, shall entirely cease, and that his 
 subjects in those provinces shall return to the obedience 
 of their legitimate sovereign, H. B. Majesty binds him- 
 self to adopt the most effective measures to prevent his 
 subjects from furnishing either arms, ammunitions or 
 other articles of war whatever to the rebels of Spanish 
 America." 
 
 The strictness with which this engagement of Great 
 Britain was fulfilled is written with Spanish blood in 
 the history of the American independence. The whole 
 world knows that the arni3 and the most skillful agents 
 to make them useful against our dominions beyond the 
 seas, were sent from England. Sometimes soldiers were 
 openly enlisted, and the action of the English govern- 
 ment to furnish the recruits with war materials and the 
 means of transportation was also publicly known. And 
 in the mean time Spain was not satisfied with having 
 promised to modify and afterwards to abolish the slave 
 trade; but, by new pressures and urgent necessities of her 
 precarious situation, was at last under the necessity of 
 making the first treaty to that effect with England. 
 
 This happened in J 817, when past trials on the one 
 hand, and on the other recent defeats and shameful de- 
 
J 110 
 
 fections, had left the Spanish government without naval 
 means with which to smother the insurrection in the 
 New World. To overcome this difficulty, our shipyards 
 being empty and the arsenals without armament, mea- 
 sures were devised to purchase a squadron of war ves- 
 sels already equipped and ready for sea, in whatever di- 
 rection it might be required; and Russia having been able 
 to furnish us with five ships of 74 guns, and three 40 guns 
 frigates, for the sum of thirteen millions six hundred thou- 
 sand rubles, or three millions four hundred thousand dol- 
 lars, England, no doubt, to relieve Spain from the burden 
 which the new debt would impose upon her, hastened to 
 offer us, in consideration of a concession, four hundrd 
 thousand pounds sterling, or two millions of dollars, as an 
 indemnification for our losses in the abolition of the slave 
 trade, provided we acceded implicitly to her wishes on this 
 point. 
 
 And as, in all the actions of life which can injure an in- 
 dividual or a- community, the evil is in the first step taken, 
 Spain could not avoid, in 1817, the natural consequences 
 of the solemn promise made three years previous, which 
 was the first step, and, worst than all, which has since 
 been successively taken in the question now discussed. 
 
 We made a treaty with England for the abolition of the 
 slave trade, or rather, of the redemption of negroes, on the N 
 23d of September of the above mentioned year; but its 
 terms were not binding nor absolute for all places, until 
 three years afterwards, though, for some, it was to take 
 effect immediately, that is to say, that the first article de- 
 clared the abolition of the slave trade, in all the Spanish 
 dominions, from the 30th of May, 1820, and, after said 
 date, the absolute prohibition of the trade in any part of 
 the coast of Africa; and, by the second article, this trade 
 was allowed to be continued on the whole coast of Africa 
 south of the equator, and by no means to the north of it, 
 until the said 30th of May, 1820. 
 
 This, no doubt, was a concession made to the material 
 interests which were about to be injured, and, as may be 
 seen, was contrary to the moral principles which it was 
 intended to preserve; because, if the object of the aboli- 
 tionists was exclusively the extinction of slavery without 
 its abolition, and if it only affected the redemption of the 
 negroes, the continuation of the trade for three years more 
 
Ill 
 
 to the south of the Equator might so increase the number 
 of slaves of both sexes in our colonies, that, by proper dis- 
 cipline and by means of restrictive regulations against 
 emancipation, the abolition of slavery might have been 
 made forever impossible, as would have been the case in 
 the North American Confederation were it not for the 
 possible results of the present war. 
 
 Due attention should be given to this observation, not 
 only to be able to form a correct estimate of the ends of 
 the English abolitionists, and of the means which they 
 employed to accomplish their purpose, but also to under- 
 stand the question, now under discussion, with a clear and 
 defined idea of humanity and public law. For/ if the ends 
 of the abolitionists were really to abolish slavery by inter- 
 fering with the redemption, trusting for their final suc- 
 cess to the future propagation of their idea, either through 
 the compliance of the nations, such as France displayed 
 with regard to her colonies, in imitation of England, or 
 through the extinction of the colored races In such other 
 places in which the emancipation should not be carried 
 out, the fact is that they were most signally defeated, in 
 both extremes, as the results of their labors were diame- 
 trically opposed to their cherished purposes. 
 
 Thus, for example, in the United States, where, owing 
 to the greater knowledge and experience of the colonists, 
 it was believed that it was more advantageous to perpe- 
 tuate the institution, acclimating and reproducing it with 
 the means existing at the time the treaties were made, 
 without, however, renouncing the redemption, the facili- 
 ties for emancipation, which might formerly have existed 
 in the regulations for slaves, disappeared immediately, and 
 the increase of the negro population, which formed an in- 
 tegral part of property, made it apparent ere long that it 
 would be absolutely impossible to effect the abolition of 
 slavery in those regions without a violent and destructive 
 struggle. 
 
 Such were also the results in the Spanish colonies as 
 soon as the government of the metropolis was convinced 
 that it had already made to philanthropy all the conces- 
 sions which its conscience and its duty demanded. And, 
 in these colonies and in all the other countries which con- 
 tinued to hold slaves, in spite of the treaties made with 
 England to prohibit the slave trade in Africa, the nulity 
 
112 
 
 of these treaties and the impotence of the abolitionists 
 were made manifest by the illegal, but incorrigible conti- 
 nuance of the redemption, through the necessities of agri- 
 culture and the daring of the traders. 
 
 On this point, to which I. have perhaps devoted too 
 much space at this time, I will again occupy myself more 
 minutely, continuing for the present the recital of the con- 
 cession made to England by the colonial nations, and of 
 the law established specially with Spain in the last treaty. 
 
 That of 1817, being as it was the first of these trea- 
 ties, ought to appear entire in this work; but, in order 
 to avoid so many repetitions, I prefer to insert only its 
 fundamental principles, as I intend to give the one which 
 was drawn up afterwards with the corrections and amend- 
 ments which had been counselled by experience during 
 the practice of the first. 
 
 It will easily be understood that England would not 
 cease from her efforts until she had succeeded in obtain- 
 ing from the other nations concessions similar to those 
 which she had attained from us; and it will appear na- 
 tural that she should have continued so persistently to 
 obtrude her philanthropic ideas upon us in order to ob- 
 tain still more advantageous results. 
 
 We were not alone in the attitude which we then 
 took against any further concessions, as the same resis- 
 tance was made by the other States, not even excepting 
 France, as she did not abolish slavery in her colonies 
 until the last revolution, in 1848. Nevertheless, when 
 we were most seriously engaged in our .seven years civil 
 war, and were obliged to solicit the amplification of the 
 treaty of the quadruple alliance, which provided for the 
 presence of auxiliary forces on the Peninsula, to serve 
 as a moral support to the throne of our Queen., England 
 again recurred to us, as the treaty of 1817 was hardly 
 observed at all after the death of our last king, and in 
 a friendly manner urged us to furnish still another prop 
 to her reisrninor idea. 
 
 Whereas many Spaniards have since blamed the gov- 
 ernment of that period for not having repelled this new 
 demand, I hasten to show here that it deserved no such 
 reproaches; for, if some weakness is observed in this con- 
 cession, the evil 'should be traced to its original source, 
 which is nothing less than the second additional article of 
 
113 
 
 the treaty of 1814, or, we could with better reason say, to 
 the misfortunes which befel us during a period of nearly 
 half a century. This ought to be well understood so that 
 ignorant censures may no longer be levelled at the glorious 
 memory of an illustrious and venerable patrician. 
 
 England's demand, which will appear just if we take 
 into consideration the precedents and nature of the ques- 
 tion, was at that time justly acceded to, in consequence of 
 which the treaty now existing for the abolition of the slave 
 trade was agreed upon, which treaty will herein be found 
 entire, from beginning to end, with the accessory diplo- 
 mas. 
 
 " His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great 
 Britain and Ireland, and Her Majesty the Queen Regent 
 of Spain, during the minority of Her Daughter Donna 
 Isabella the second, Queen of Spain, being desirous of ren- 
 dering the means taken for abolishing the inhuman traffic 
 in slaves more effective, have, in order to obtain this im- 
 portant object, resolved to conclude a new Convention, in 
 the spirit of the Treaty contracted between both Powers 
 on the 23rd of September 1817, naming respectively for 
 this as their Plenipotentiaries, to wit: His Britannic Ma- 
 jesty, George Villiers, Esq., his Envoy Extraordinary 
 and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Madrid; and 
 Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Sp'ain, Don Francisco 
 de Paula Martinez de la Rosa, Knight Grand Cross of the 
 Royal and distinguished Spanish order of Charles the Third, 
 of that of Christ of Portugal, and of that of Leopold of Bel- 
 gium, who having duly communicated to each other their 
 respective full powers, and found them in proper form, 
 have agreed upon and concluded the following articles: 
 
 "Article I. — The slave trade is hereby again declared, 
 on the part of Spain, to be henceforward totally and final- 
 ly abolished in all parts of the world. 
 
 "Art. II. — Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain, 
 during the minority of her daughter Donna Isabella the 
 second, hereby engages that immediately after the exchange 
 of the ratifications of the present Treaty, and from time 
 to time afterwards, as it may become needful, Her Majesty 
 will take the most effectual measures for preventing the 
 subjects of Her Catholic Majesty from being concerned and 
 her flag from being used, in carrying on, in any way, the 
 trade in slaves; and especially that, within two months 
 
114 
 
 after the said exchange, she will promulgate throughout 
 the dominions of Her Catholic Majesty a penal law inflict- 
 ing a severe punishment on all those of Her Catholic Ma- 
 jesty's subjects who shall, under any pretext whatsoever, 
 take any part whatever in the traffic in slaves. 
 
 "Art. III. — The captain, master, pilot and crew of a 
 vessel condemned as good prize by virtue of the stipula- 
 tions of this Treaty, shall be severely punished according 
 to the laws of the country of which they are subjects: as 
 also the owners of the said condemned vessel, unless they 
 prove that they had no participation in the enterprise. 
 
 "Art. IV. — In order more completely to prevent all in- 
 fringement of the spirit of the present Treaty, the two 
 High contracting Parties mutually consent that those ships 
 of their Royal Navies respectively, which shall be provided 
 with special instructions for that purpose, as hereinafter 
 mentioned, may visit such merchant vessels of the two 
 Nations as may, upon reasonable grounds, be suspected of 
 being engaged in the traffic in slaves; or of having been 
 fitted out for that purpose, or of having, during the voyage 
 on which they are met by the said cruizers, been engaged 
 in the traffic in slaves, contrary to the provisions of this 
 Treaty; and that such cruizers may detain and send, or 
 carry away such vessels, in order that they may be brought 
 to trial in the manner hereinafter agreed upon. 
 
 " In order to fix the reciprocal right of search in such 
 a manner as shall be adapted to the attainment of the 
 object of this Treaty, and at the same time avoid doubts, 
 disputes and complaints, the said right of search shall 
 be understood in the form and according to the rules 
 following:. 
 
 " Firstly. It shall never be exercised except by ves- 
 sels of war, authorized expressly for that object, accord- 
 ing to the stipulations of this Treaty. 
 
 " Secondly. In no case shall the right of search be 
 exercised with respect to a vessel of the Royal Navy of 
 either of the two Powers, but only as regards merchant 
 vessels. 
 
 " Thirdly. Whenever a merchant vessel is searched 
 by a ship of war, the commander of the - said ship shall, 
 in the act of so doing, exhibit to the commander of the 
 merchant vessel the document by which he is duly au- 
 thorized to that end, and shall deliver to hini -a certifi- 
 
115 
 
 cate, signed by him, stating his rank in the naval ser- 
 vice of his country, and the name of the vessel he com- 
 mands, and which also declares that the only object of 
 the search is to ascertain whether the vessel is employed 
 in the slave traffic, or if it is fitted up for the said traf- 
 fic. When the search is made by an officer of the crui- 
 zer who is not the commander, the said officer shall ex- 
 hibit to the captain of the merchant vessel a copy of 
 the before mentioned special orders, signed by the com- 
 mander of the cruizer, and shall in like manner deliver 
 a certificate signed by him, stating his rank in the Koyal 
 Navy, the name of the commander by whose orders he 
 proceeds to make the search, that of the cruizer in which 
 he sails, and the object of the search, as has been al- 
 ready laid down. If it appears from the search that the 
 papers of the vessel are in regular order, and that it is 
 employed in licit objects, the officer shall enter in the 
 logbook of the vessel that the search has been made in 
 pursuance of tne aforesaid special orders, and the vessel 
 shall be left at liberty to pursue its voyage. The rank of 
 the officer who makes the search must not be less than 
 that of lieutenant of the Royal Navy, unless the command, 
 either by reason of death or other cause, is at the time 
 held hy an officer of inferior rank. 
 
 " Fourthly. The reciprocal right of search and deten- 
 tion shall not be exercised within the Mediterranean sea, 
 or within the seas in Europe lying without the streights 
 of Gibraltar, and which lye to the Northward of the thirty 
 seventh parallel of North latitude, and also within and to 
 the Eastward of the Meridian of longitude twenty degrees 
 west of Greenwich. 
 
 "Art. V. — In order to regulate the mode of carrying the 
 provisions of the preceding article into execution, it is 
 agreed: 
 
 " Firstly. That all ships of the Royal Navies of the 
 two Nations, which shall be hereafter employed to pre- 
 vent the traffic in slaves, shall be furnished by their res- 
 pective Governments with a copy .in the English and 
 Spanish languages, of the present Treaty; of the instruc- 
 tions for cruizers annexed thereto marked A, and of the 
 regulations for the mixed Courts of justice annexed there- 
 to marked B; which annexes respectively shall be con- 
 sidered as integral parts of the Treaty. 
 
116 
 
 u Secondly. That each of the High contracting Par- 
 ties shall, from time to time, communicate to the other 
 the names of the several ships furnished with such in- 
 structions, the force of each and the names of their se- 
 veral commanders; the said commanders ought to hold 
 the rank of captain in the Royal Navy, or at least of 
 lieutenant; it being nevertheless understood that the in- 
 structions originally issued to an officer holding the rank 
 of lieutenant of the Navy, or other superior rank, shall 
 be sufficient, in case of death or temporary absence of the 
 same, to authorize the officer on whom the command of 
 the vessel has devolved, to make the search, although the 
 said officer may not hold the aforesaid rank in the service. 
 
 " Thirdly. That if, at any time, the commander of a 
 cruizer of either of the two Nations shall suspect that any 
 merchant vessels under the escort or convoy of any ship or 
 ships of war of the other Nation carries slaves on board, or 
 has been engaged in the traffic in slaves, or is fitted out 
 for the purpose thereof, the said commander of the cruizer 
 shall communicate his suspicions to the commander of the 
 convoy, who, accompanied by the commander of the crui- 
 zer, shall proceed to the search of the suspected vessel; 
 and in case that the suspicions appear well founded, ac- 
 cording to the tenor of this Treaty, then the said vessel 
 shall be conducted or sent to one of the points where the 
 mixed Courts of justice are stationed, in order that the 
 just sentence may there be pronounced. 
 
 " Fourthly. It is further mutually agreed that the 
 commanders of the ships of the two Royal Navies, respec- 
 tively, who shall be employed on this service shall adhere 
 strictly to the exact tenor of the aforesaid instructions. 
 
 "Art. VI. — As the two preceding articles are entirely 
 reciprocal, the two High contracting Parties engage mu- 
 tually to make good any losses which their respective sub- 
 jects may incur by the arbitrary and illegal detention of 
 their vessels; it being understood that this indemnity shall 
 be borne by the Government whose cruizer shall have been 
 guilty of such arbitrary and illegal detention, and that 
 the visit and detention of vessels specified in the fourth 
 article of this Treaty, shall only be effected by those Bri- 
 tish or Spanish- ships which may form part of the two 
 Royal Navies respectively, and by such of those ships only 
 as are provided with the special instructions annexed to 
 
117 
 
 the present Treaty, in pursuance of the provisions thereof. 
 The indemnification for the damages of which this article 
 treats shall be made within the term of one year, reckon- 
 ing from the day in which the mixed Court of justice pro- 
 nounces its sentence. 
 
 "Art. VII. — In order to bring to adjudication, with as 
 little delay and inconvenience as possible, the vessels which 
 may be detained, according to the tenor of the fourth ar- 
 ticle of this Treaty, there shall be established, as soon as 
 may be practicable, two mixed Courts of justice, formed of 
 an equal number of individuals of the two Nations, and 
 named for this purpose by their respective Sovereigns. 
 These Courts shall reside, the one in a possession belong- 
 ing to His Britannic Majesty, the other within the terri- 
 tories of Her Catholic Majesty; and at the period of the 
 exchange of the ratifications of the present Treaty, the 
 two Governments shall declare, each for its own dominions, 
 in what places these Courts shall respectively reside. 
 
 " But each of the two High contracting Parties reserves 
 to itself the right of changing, at his pleasure, the place 
 of residence of the Court held within its own dominions; 
 provided always that one of the two Courts shall always be 
 held upon the coast of Africa, and the other in one of the 
 colonial possessions of Her Catholic Majesty. 
 
 "These Courts, from which there shall be no appeal, 
 shall judge the causes submitted to them according to tha 
 provisions of the present Treaty, and according to the re- 
 gulations and instructions which are annexed to the pre- 
 sent treaty, and which are considered an integral part 
 thereof. 
 
 "Art. VIII. — It is hereby agreed, between the High 
 contracting Parties, that the mixed Commissions which 
 are at present established, and sitting under the Conven- 
 tion concluded between Great Britain and Spain on the 
 23rd September 1817, shall continue to sit, and shall dur- 
 ing two months, to be reckoned from the exchange of the 
 ratifications of this Treaty, and until the further appoint- 
 ment and definitive establishment of the mixed Courts of 
 justice under the present Treaty, adjudge, without appeal, 
 according to the principles and stipulations of the same, 
 and of the several annexes thereof, the cases of such ves- 
 sels as may be sent or brought before them; and any va- 
 cancies which may occur in such mixed Commissions 
 
118 
 
 shall be filled up in the same manner in which vacancies 
 of the mixed Courts of justice to be established under the 
 provisions of this Treaty are to be supplied. 
 
 Art. IX. — In case the commanding officer of any of the 
 ships of the Koyal Navies of Great Britain and Spain res- 
 pectively, duly commissioned, according to the provisions 
 of the fourth article of this Treaty, shall deviate in any 
 respect from the stipulations of the said Treaty, or from 
 the instructions annexed to it, the Government which 
 shall conceive itself to be wronged thereby, shall be en- 
 titled to demand reparation; and in such case the Go- 
 vernment to which such commanding officer may belong 
 binds itself to cause enquiry to be made into the sub- 
 ject of the complaint, and to inflict upon the said offi- 
 cer a punishment proportioned to any wilful transgres- 
 sion which he may have committed. 
 
 "Art. X. — It is hereby further mutually agreed that 
 every merchant vessel, British or Spanish, which shall 
 be visited by virtue of the present Treaty, may lawfully 
 be detained and sent or brought before the mixed Courts 
 of justice, established in pursuance of the provisions 
 thereof, if in her equipment there shall be found any of 
 the things hereinafter mentioned, namely: 
 
 " 1st. Hatches with open gratings, instead of the close 
 hatches which are usual in merchant vessels. 
 
 "2d. Divisions or bulkheads in the hold or on deck 
 in greater number than are necessary for vessels engaged 
 in lawful trade. 
 
 " 3rd. Spare planks fitted for laying down as a se- 
 cond or slave deck. 
 
 " 4th. Shackles, bolts, or handcuffs. 
 
 " 5th. A larger quantity of water in casks or in tanks 
 than is requisite for the consumption of the crew of the 
 vessel, as a merchant vessel. 
 
 "6 th. An extraordinary number of water casks or 
 of other vessels for holding liquid, unless the master shall 
 produce a certificate from the custom house at the place 
 from which he cleared outwards, stating that a sufficient 
 security had been given by the owners of such vessel, 
 that such extra quantity of casks 1 or of other vessels should 
 only be used to hold palm oil, or for other purposes of 
 lawful commerce. 
 
 "7th. A greater quantity of mess tubs or kids than 
 
119 
 
 are requisite tor the use of the crew of the vessel as a 
 merchant vessel. 
 
 " 8th. A boiler of an unusual size and larger than 
 requisite for the use of the crew of the vessel as a mer- 
 chant vessel, or more than one boiler of the ordinary- 
 size. 
 
 " 9th. An extraordinary quantity either of rice, of 
 the flour of Brazil, of manioc or cassada, commonly call- 
 ed farinha of maize or of Indian corn, beyond what might 
 probably be requisite for the use of the crew; such rice, 
 flour, maize or Indian corn not being entered on the ma- 
 nifest as part of the cargo for trade. 
 
 "Any one or more of these several circumstances, if 
 proved, shall be considered as prima facie evidence of 
 the actual employment of the vessel in the slave trade; 
 and the vessel shall there upon be condemned and declared 
 lawful prize, unless satisfactory evidence, upon the part of 
 the master or owners, shall establish that such vessel was 
 at the time of her detention or capture, employed in some 
 legal pursuit. 
 
 " Art. -XL— -If any of the things specified in the preced- 
 ing article shall be found in any merchant vessel, neither 
 the master nor owner nor any person whatever, interested 
 in her equipment or cargo, shall be entitled to compensa- 
 tion for losses or damages even though the mixed courts 
 of justice should not pronounce any sentence of condem- 
 nation, in consequence of her detention ; but the same 
 tribunal shall be authorized to pay out of the prize fund, 
 if they shall think it in equity required, some sum of 
 money proportionate to the demurrage suffered and accord- 
 ing to the circumstances of the case. 
 
 " Art. XII. — It is hereby agreed between the two high 
 contracting parties that in all cases in which a vessel shall 
 be detained under this treaty by their respective cruizers, 
 as having been engaged in the slave trade, or as having 
 been fitted out for the purposes thereof, and shall conse- 
 quently be adjudged and condemned b^ the mixed courts 
 of justice to be established as aforesaid, the said vessel 
 shall, immediately after its condemnation, be broken up 
 entirely, and shall be sold in separate parts after having 
 been so broken up. 
 
 " Art. XIII. — The negroes, who are found on board of a 
 vessel detained by a cruizer and condemned by the mixed 
 
120 
 
 courts of justice, in conformity with the stipulations of 
 this treaty, shall be placed at the disposition of the go- 
 vernment whose cruizer has made the capture; but on the 
 understanding that not only they shall be immediately 
 put at liberty and kept free — the government to whom 
 they have been delivered guaranteeing the same — but 
 likewise engaging to afford, from time to time and when- 
 ever demanded by the other High contracting Party, the 
 lulleet information as to the state and condition of such 
 negroes with a view of ensuring the due execution of the 
 treaty in this respect. 
 
 " For this purpose the regulations annexed to this treaty 
 sub littera C, as to the treatment of negroes liberated by 
 sentence of the mixed courts of justice, have been drawn 
 up and are declared to form an integral part of this 
 treaty. 
 
 " The two High contracting Parties reserve to them- 
 selves the right to alter or suspend, by common consent 
 and mutual agreement, but not otherwise, the terms and 
 tenor of such regulations. 
 
 " Art. XIV. — The acts or instruments annexed to this 
 treaty and which, it is mutually agreed, shall form an in- 
 tegral part thereof, are as follows : 
 
 " A. Instructions for the ships of the royal navies of 
 both nations, destined to prevent the traffic in slaves. 
 
 "B. [Regulations for the mixed courts of justice, which 
 are to hold their sittings on the coast of Africa, and in 
 one of the colonial possessions of her Catholic Majesty. 
 
 " C. Kegulations as to the treatment of liberated ne- 
 groes. 
 
 " Art. XV. — The present treaty, consisting of fifteen 
 articles, shall be ratified, and the ratifications thereof ex- 
 changed within the space of two months from this date, 
 or sooner if possible. \ 
 
 " In witness whereof the respective plenipotentiaries 
 have signed in duplicate, two originals, English and 
 Spanish, of the present treaty, and have thereunto affixed 
 the seal of their arms. 
 
 " Madrid, this twenty-eighth day of June, in the year 
 one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. — (L. S.) 
 George Villiers." 
 
121 
 
 "ANNEX A 
 
 "TO THE TREATY BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND SPAIN, 
 FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE, OF THE 
 28TH JUNE, 1835. 
 
 " Instructions for the ships of the British and Spanish 
 royal navies employed to prevent the traffic in slaves. 
 
 " Article I. — The commander of any ship belonging to 
 the royal Brtish or Spanish navy which shall be furnished 
 with these instructions, shall have a right to search and 
 detain any British or Spanish merchant vessel, which 
 shall be actually engaged or suspected to be engaged in 
 the slave trade, or to be fitted out for the purposes there- 
 of; or to have been engaged in the traffic in slaves during 
 the voyage in which she may be met with by such ship of 
 the British or Spanish navy; and such commander shall 
 thereupon bring or send such merchant vessel, as soon as 
 possible, for judgment before that one of the two mixed 
 courts of justice established in virtue of the seventh article 
 of the said treaty, which shall be the nearest to the place 
 of detention, or which such commander shall, upon his 
 own responsibility, think can be soonest reached from such 
 place. 
 
 "Art. II. — Whenever a ship of either royal navies, duly 
 authorized as aforesaid, shall meet a merchant vessel liable 
 to be visited under the provisions of said treaty, the search 
 shall be conducted in the mildest manner and with every 
 attention which ought to be observed between allied and 
 friendly nations, and the search shall, in all cases, be made 
 by an officer holding a rank not lower than that of Lieute- 
 nant in the navies of Great Britain and Spain respectively ; 
 or by the officer who, at the time, shall be second in com- 
 mand of the ship by which such search is made. 
 
 "Art. III. — The commander of any ship of the royal 
 navies, duly authorized as aforesaid, who may detain any 
 merchant vessel in pursuance of the tenor of the present 
 instructions, shall leave, on board the vessel so detained, 
 the master, the mate or boatswain, and two or three, at 
 least, of the crew thereof; the whole of the slaves, if any ; 
 and all the cargo; the captor shall, at the time of deten- 
 tion, draw up, in writing, an authentic declaration, which 
 shall exhibit the state in which he found the detained 
 
122 
 
 vessel ; such declaration to be signed by himself and to 
 be given in or sent, together with the captured vessel, to 
 the mixed court of justice before which such vessel shall 
 be carried or sent for adjudication. He shall deliver to the 
 master of the detained vessel a signed certificate of the 
 papers seized on board the same, as well as of the number 
 of slaves found on board at the moment of detention. 
 
 " In the authenticated declaration which the captor is 
 hereby required to malce, as well as in the certificate of 
 the papers seized, he shall insert his own name and sur- 
 name ; the name of the capturing ship ; the latitude and 
 longitude of the place where the detention shall have 
 taken place; and the number of slaves found on board of 
 the vessel at the time of the detention. 
 
 "The officer in charge of the vessel detained shall, at 
 the time of bringing the vessel's papers into the mixed 
 court of justice, deliver into the court a paper signed by 
 himself and verified on oath, stating the changes which 
 have taken place in respect to the vessel, her crew, the 
 slaves, if any, and her cargo, between the period of her 
 detention and the time of delivering in such paper. 
 
 "Art. IV. — The slaves shall not be disembarked until 
 after the vessel shall have arrived at the place of adjudi- 
 cation, in order that, in the event of the vessel not being 
 adjudged legal prize, the loss of the proprietors may be 
 more easily repaired ; and even after the arrival of the 
 slaves at such place, they are not to be landed without the 
 permission of the mixed court of justice. 
 
 " But if urgent reasons arising from the length of the 
 voyage, from the state of health of the slaves, or from any 
 other causes, should require that either the whole or a 
 portion of the negroes should be disembarked before the 
 vessel can arrive at the place at which one of the said 
 courts is established, the commander of the capturing 
 ship may take upon himself the responsibility of so dis- 
 embarking the negroes, provided that the necessity of the 
 disembarkation and the causes thereof, be stated in a cer- 
 tificate in proper form, and provided that this certificate 
 shall be drawn up and entered at the time on the logbook 
 of the detained vessel. 
 
 " The undersigned plenipotentiaries have agreed, in 
 conformity with the fourteenth article of the treaty, signed 
 by them on this day, the twenty-eighth of June, of 1835, 
 
123 
 
 that the present instructions shall be annexed to the said 
 treaty, and be considered an integral part thereof. 
 
 " This day, the twenty-eighth of June, in the year one 
 thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. — (L. S.) George 
 Villiers." 
 
 "ANNEX B 
 
 "to the treaty between great britain and spain, 
 for the abolition of the slave trade of the 
 28th of june, 1835. 
 
 " Regulations for the mixed courts of justice which are to 
 reside on the coast of Africa and in a colonial posses- 
 sion of her Catholic Majesty. 
 
 "Art. I. — The mixed courts of justice to be established 
 under the provisions of the treaty of which these regula- 
 tions are declared to be an integral part, shall be com- 
 posed in the following manner: 
 
 "The two high contracting Parties shall each of them 
 name a judge and an Arbitrator, who ehall be authorized 
 to hear and decide, without appeal, all cases of capture or 
 detention of vessels which, in pursuance of the stipula- 
 tions of the aforesaid treaty, shall be brought before 
 them. 
 
 "The judges and the arbitrators shall, before they enter 
 upon the duties of their office, respectively make oath be- 
 fore the principal magistrate of the place in which such 
 courts respectively shall reside; that they will judge fairly 
 and faithfully ; that they will have no preference either 
 for the claimant or for the captors, and that they will act 
 in all their decisions in pursuance of the stipulations of 
 the aforesaid treaty. 
 
 " There shall be attached to each of such courts a secre- 
 tary or registrar, who shall be appointed by the sovereign 
 in whose territories such court shall reside. 
 
 " Such secretary or registrar shall register all the acts 
 of such court, and shall, before he enters upon his office, 
 make oath before the court to which he is appointed, that 
 he will conduct himself with due respect fqjr its authority, 
 and will act with fidelity and impartiality in all matters 
 relating to his said office. 
 
124 
 
 " The salary of the secretary or registrar of the court to 
 be established on the coast of Africa, shall be paid by his 
 Britannic Majesty, and that of the secretary or registrar of 
 the court to be established in the colonial possessions of 
 Spain shall be paid by her Catholic Majesty. 
 
 " Each of the two governments shall defray half of the 
 aggregate amount of the expenses of such courts. 
 
 " Art. II. — The expenses incurred by the officer charged 
 with the reception, maintenance and care of the detained 
 vessel, slaves and cargo, and with the execution of the 
 sentence ; and all disbursements occasioned by bringing a 
 vessel to adjudication shall, in case of condemnation, be 
 defrayed from the funils arising out of the sale of the 
 vessel, after the vessel shall have been broken up ; of the 
 ship's stores and of such parts of the cargo as shall con- 
 sist of merchandize. And in case the proceeds arising out 
 of this sale shall not prove sufficient to defray such ex- 
 penses, the deficiency shall be made good by the govern- 
 ment of th.e country within whose territories the adjudica- 
 tion shall have taken place. 
 
 " If the detained vessel shall be released, the expenses 
 occasioned by bringing her to adjudication shall be de- 
 frayed by the captors, except in the cases specified and 
 otherwise provided for under article the eleventh of the 
 treaty to which these regulations form an annex, and 
 under article the seventh of these regulations. 
 
 "Art. III. — The mixed courts of justice are to decide 
 upon the legality of the detention of such vessels as the 
 cruizers of either nation shall in pursuance of the said 
 treaty detain. 
 
 " These courts shall judge definitively and without ap- 
 peal, all questions which shall arise out of the capture and 
 detention of such vessels. 
 
 " The proceedings of these courts shall take place as 
 summarily as possible ; and for this purpose the courts 
 are required to decide each case as far as may be practica- 
 ble, within the space of twenty days, to be dated from the 
 day on which the detained vessel shall have been brought 
 into the port where the deciding court shall reside. 
 
 " The final sentence shall not, in any case, be delayed 
 beyond the period of two months, whether on account of 
 the absence of witnesses or for any other cause, except 
 upon the application of any of the parties interested; but 
 
 i 
 
125 
 
 in that case, upon such party or parties giving satisfactory 
 security that they will take upon themselves the expense 
 and risks of the delay, the courts may, at their discretion, 
 grant an additional delay, not exceeding four months. 
 
 " Either party shall be allowed to employ such counsel 
 as he may think fit to assist him in the conduct of his 
 cause. 
 
 "All the acts and essential parts of the proceedings of 
 the said courts shall be written down in the language of 
 the country in which the courts shall respectively reside. 
 
 "Art. IV. — The form of the process or naode of pro- 
 ceeding to judgment shall be as follows : 
 
 " The judges appointed by the two nations respectively 
 shall, in the first place, proceed to examine the papers of 
 the detained vessel, and shall take the depositions of the 
 master or commander, and of two or three at least of the 
 principal individuals on board of such vessel ; and shall 
 also take the declaration on oath of the captor, if it should 
 appear to them necessary to do so in order to judge and 
 to pronounce whether the said vessel has been justly de- 
 tained or not, according to the stipulations of the afore- 
 said treaty ; and in order that, according to this judg- 
 ment, the vessel may be condemned or released. In the 
 event of the two judges not agreeing as to the sentence 
 which they ought to pronounce in any case brought before 
 them, whether with respect to the legality of the deten- 
 tion, or the liability of the vessel to condemnation, or to 
 the indemnification to be allowed, or as to any other ques- 
 tion which may arise out of the said capture, or in case 
 any difference of opinion should arise between them as to 
 the mode of proceeding in the said Court, they shall draw 
 by lot the name of one of the two arbitrators so appointed 
 as aforesaid, which arbitrator, after having considered the 
 proceedings which have taken place, shall consult with 
 the two above mentioned judges on the case, and the final 
 sentence or decision shall be pronounced conformably to 
 the opinion of the majority of the three. 
 
 Art. V. — If the detained vessel shall be restored by the 
 sentence of the court the vessel and the cargo, in the state 
 in which they shall then be found, shall fortwith be given 
 up to the master or to the person who represents him; and 
 such master or other person may, before the same court, 
 claim a valuation of the damages which he may have a 
 
126 
 
 right to demand. ' The captor himself, and in his default 
 his government, shall remain responsible for the damages 
 to which the master of such vessel or the owners, either 
 of the vessel or of her cargo may be pronounced to be en- 
 titled. - 
 
 " The two high contracting parties bind themselves to 
 pay within the term of a year from the date of the sen- 
 tence, the costs and damages which may be awarded by 
 the above named court ; it being mutually understood and 
 agreed that such costs and damages shall be made good 
 by the government of the country of which the captor shall 
 be a subject. 
 
 "Art. VI. — If the detained vessel shall be condemned, 
 she shall be declared lawful prize, together with her cargo, 
 of whatever description it may be, with the exception 'of 
 the slaves who shall have been brought on board for the 
 purposes of commerce, and the said vessel, subject to the 
 regulations in article twelfth of the treaty of this date, 
 shall, as well as her cargo, be sold by public sale for the 
 profit of the two governments, subject to the payment of 
 the expenses hereinafter mentioned. 
 
 " The slaves shall receive from the court a certificate of 
 emancipation, and shall be delivered over to the govern- 
 ment to whom the cruizer which made the capture belongs, 
 to be dealt with according to the regulations and condi- 
 tions contained in tlie Annex to this treaty, sub littera C. 
 
 " Art. VII. — The mixed courts of justice shall also take 
 cognizance of, and shall decide definitively and without 
 appeal, all claims for compensation on account of losses 
 occasioned to vessels and cargoes which shall have been 
 detained under the provisions of this treaty, but which 
 shall not have been condemned as legal prize by the said 
 courts ; and in all cases wherein restitution of such vessels 
 and cargoes shall be decreed, save as mentioned in article 
 eleventh of the treaty to which these regulations form an 
 Annex, and in a subsequent part of these regulations the 
 court shall award to the claimant or claimants, or to his 
 or to their lawful attorney or attornies, for his or their 
 use, a just and complete indemnification for all costs of 
 suit, and for all losses and damages which the owner or 
 owners may have actually sustained by such capture and 
 detention; and it is agreed that the indemnification shall 
 be as follows : 
 
 \ 
 
127 
 
 " First. In case of total losses, 
 
 " The claimant or claimants shall be indemnified: 
 
 "A. For the ship, her tackle, equipment and stores. 
 
 "B. For all freights due and payable. 
 
 "C. For the value of the cargo of merchandise, if any, 
 deducting all charges and expenses payable upon the sale 
 of such cargo, including the commission of sale. 
 
 "D. For all other regular charges in such, case of total 
 loss. 
 
 i 
 
 u Secondly. In all other cases (save as hereinafter men- 
 tioned) not of total loss, the claimant or claimants shall 
 be indemnified: 
 
 "A. i For all special damages and expenses occasioned 
 to the ship by the detention, and for loss of freight, when 
 due or payable. 
 
 U B. For demurrage when due, according to the sche- 
 dule annexed to the present article. 
 
 "C. For any deterioration of the cargo. 
 
 U D. For all premium of insurance on additional risks. 
 
 " The claimant or claimants shall be entitled to interest 
 at the rate of five per cent per annum on the sum award- 
 ed, until such sum is paid by the Government to which 
 the capturing ship belongs. The whole amount of such 
 indemnifications shall be calculated in the money of the 
 country to which the detained vessel belongs, and shall be 
 liquidated at the exchange current at the time of the 
 award. 
 
 " The two High contracting Parties, however, have 
 agreed that if it shall be proved to the satisfaction of the 
 Judges of the two Nations, and without having recourse 
 to the decision of an arbitrator, that the captor has been 
 led into error by the fault of the master or commander of 
 the detained vessel, the detained vessel, in that case, shall 
 not have the right of receiving, for the time of her deten- 
 tion, -the demurrage stipulated by the present article, nor 
 any other compensation for losses, damages or expenses, 
 consequent upon such detention. 
 
128 
 
 " Schedule 
 
 OF DEMURRAGE 
 
 ;, or daily allowance for a 
 
 
 
 vessel of 
 
 100 
 
 tons 
 
 to 120 
 
 inclusive, 5 £s. 
 
 121 
 
 ditto 
 
 to 150 
 
 ditto 6 " 
 
 
 151 
 
 ditto 
 
 to 170 
 
 ditto 8 
 
 ►d 
 
 171 
 
 ditto 
 
 to 200 
 
 ditto s 10 
 
 CD 
 
 201 
 
 ditto 
 
 to 220 
 
 ditto 11 
 
 * Pj 
 
 221 
 
 ditto 
 
 to 250 
 
 ditto 12 
 
 B 
 
 • 
 
 251 
 
 ditto 
 
 to 270 
 
 ditto 14 
 
 271 
 
 ditto 
 
 to 300 
 
 ditto 15 
 
 
 and so on in proportion. 
 
 "Art. VIII. — Neither the Judges, nor the Arbitrators, 
 nor the Secretaries of the mixed Courts of justice, shall 
 demand or receive, from any of the parties concerned in 
 the cases which shall be brought before such Courts, any 
 emolument or gift under any pretext whatsoever, for the 
 performance of the duties which such Judges, Arbitrators 
 and Secretaries have to perform. 
 
 "Art. IX. — The two High contracting Parties have 
 agreed that, in the event of death, sickness, absence on 
 leave, or any other legal impediment, of one or more of the 
 Judges or Arbitrators composing the above mentioned 
 Courts respectively, the post of such Judge and of such 
 Arbitrator shall be supplied ad interim in the following 
 manner: 
 
 "1st. On the part of His Britannic Majesty, and in 
 that Court which shall sit within the possessions of His 
 said Majesty, if the vacancy be that of the British Judge, 
 his place shall be filled by the British Arbitrator, and either 
 in that case or in the case where the vacancy be originally 
 that of the British Arbitrator, the place of such Arbitra- 
 tor shall be filled successively by the Governor or Lieute- 
 nant Governor resident in such possession, by the princi- 
 pal Magistrate of the same, and by the Secretary of the 
 Government; and the said Court, so constituted as above, 
 shall sit and, in all cases brought before them for adjudi- 
 cation, shall proceed to adjudge the same, and to pass sen- 
 tence accordingly. 
 
 " Secondly. On the part of Great Britain, and in that 
 Court which shall sit within the possessions of Her Ca- 
 tholic Majesty, if the vacancy be that of the British Judge, 
 his place shall be filled by the British Arbitrator; and 
 
 ( 
 
129 
 
 either in that case or in the case where the vacancy be 
 originally that of the British Arbitrator, his place shall 
 be filled successively by the British Consul and British 
 Vice Consul, if there be a British Consul or British Vice 
 Consul appointed to, and resident in such possession; and 
 in the case where the vacancy be both of the British 
 Judge and of the British Arbitrator, then the vacancy of 
 the British Judge shall be filled by the British Consul, 
 and that of the British Arbitrator by the British Vice 
 Consul, if there be a British Consul and British Vice Con- 
 sul appointed to, and resident in such possession; and if 
 there shall be no British Consul or British Vice Consul to 
 fill the place of British Arbitrator, then the Spanish Ar- 
 bitrator shall be called in, in those cases in which a Bri- 
 tish Arbitrator, were there any, would be called in; and 
 in case the vacancy be, both of the British Judge and Bri- 
 tish Arbitrator, and there be neither British Consul nor 
 British Vice Consul to fill ad interim the vacancies, then 
 the Spanish Judge and Spanish Arbitrator shall sit, and, 
 in all cases brought before them for adjudication, shall 
 proceed to adjudge the same, and pass sentence accordingly. 
 
 " Thirdly. On the part of Spain, and in that Court 
 which shall sit within the possessions of Her Catholic Ma- 
 jesty, if the vacancy be that of the Spanish Arbitrator, 
 and either in that case or in the case where the vacancy 
 be originally that of the Spanish Judge, his place shall be 
 filled by the Spanish Arbitrator, the place of such Arbi- 
 trator shall be rilled successively by the Governor or Lieu- 
 tenant Governor resident in such possession, by the prin- 
 cipal Magistrate of the same, and by the Secretary of the 
 Government, and the said Court, so constituted as above, 
 shall sit, and, in all cases brought before them for adjudi- 
 cation, shall proceed to adjudge the same, and pass sen- 
 tence accordingly. 
 
 " Fourthly. On the part of Spain and in that Court 
 which shall sit within the possessions of His Britannic 
 Majesty, if the vacancy be that of the Spanish Judge, his 
 place shall be filled by the Spanish Arbitrator, and either 
 in that case or in the case where the vacancy be originally 
 that of the Spanish Arbitrator, his place shall be filled 
 successively by the Spanish Consul and Spanish Vice Con- 
 sul, if there be a Spanish Consul or Spanish Vice Consul 
 appointed to, and resident in such possession; and in the 
 
130 
 
 case where the vacancy be both of the Spanish Judge and 
 of the Spanish Arbitrator, then the vacancy of the Judge 
 shall be filled by the Spanish Consul, and that of the 
 Spanish Arbitrator by the Spanish Vice Consul, if there 
 be a Spanish Consul and Spanish Vice Consul appointed 
 to, and resident in such possession; and in that case in 
 which there be no Spanish Consul or Spanish Vice Consul 
 to fill the place of Spanish Arbitrator, then the British 
 Arbitrator shall be called in, in those cases in which a 
 Spanish Arbitrator, were there any, would be called in; 
 and in case the vacancy be both of the Spanish Judge and 
 Spanish Arbitrator, and there be neither Spanish Consul 
 nor Spanish Vice Consul to fill ad interim the vacancies, 
 then the British Judge and the British Arbitrator shall 
 sit, and, in all cases brought before them for adjudication, 
 shall proceed to adjudge the same, and pass sentence ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 " The Governor or Lieutenant Governor of the settle- 
 ments wherein either of the mixed Courts of justice shall 
 sit, in the event of a vacancy arising either of the Judge 
 or the Arbitrator of the other High contracting Party, 
 shall fortwith give notice of the same to the Governor 
 or Lieutenant Governor of the nearest settlement of such 
 other High contracting Party, in order that such va- 
 cancy may be supplied at the earliest possible period. 
 And each of the High contracting Parties agrees to sup- 
 ply definitively, as soon as possible, the vacancies which 
 may arise in the above mentioned Courts from death or 
 from any other cause whatever. 
 
 " The undersigned Plenipotentiaries have agreed, in 
 conformity with the fourteenth article of the Treaty sign- 
 ed by them on this day the twenty-eighth of June 1835, 
 that the preceding Kegulations, consisting of nine arti- 
 cles, shall be annexed to the said Treaty, and considered 
 as an integral part thereof. 
 
 " This day the twenty-eighth of June in the year 
 one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. — ( L. S. ) 
 George VrLLiEES." 
 
 \ 
 
131 
 
 "ANNEX C. 
 "Begulations for the good treatment of liberated negroes. 
 
 "Art. I. — The object and spirit of these regulations is 
 to secure to negroes liberated by virtue of the stipula- 
 tions of the Treaty to which these regulations form an 
 annex (marked C.) permanent good treatment and a full 
 and complete emancipation, in conformity with the hu- 
 mane intentions of the High contracting Parties. 
 
 "Art. II. — Immediately after sentence of condemnation 
 on a vessel charged with being concerned in illegal slave 
 trade, shall have been passed by the mixed Court of jus- 
 tice established under the Treaty to which these regula- 
 tions form an annex, all negroes who were on board of 
 such vessel and who were brought on board for the pur- 
 pose of traffic, shall be delivered over to the Government 
 to whom belongs the cruizer which made the capture. 
 
 "Art. III. — If the cruizer which made the capture is 
 English, the British Goverment engages that the negroes 
 shall be treated in exact conformity with the laws in force 
 in the British Colonies for the regulation of free appren- 
 ticed negroes. 
 
 "Art. IV. — If the cruizer which made the capture is 
 Spanish, in this case the negroes shall be delivered to the 
 Spanish authorities of the Havanah or of any other point 
 of the Dominions of the Queen of Spain in which the mix- 
 ed Court of justice is established, and the Spanish Govern- 
 ment solemnly engages that they shall be there treated 
 strictly according to the regulations lately promulgated, 
 and now actually in force at the Havanah, with respect 
 to the treatment of emancipated negroes, or according to 
 such regulations as may in future be adopted, and which 
 have and shall always have the humane object of improv- 
 ing and securing honestly and faithfully to the emancipa- 
 ted negroes the enjoyment of their acquired liberty, good 
 treatment, a knowledge of the tenets of tjie Christian re- 
 ligion, their advancement in morality and civilization, and 
 their sufficient instruction in the mechanical arts, in order 
 that the said emancipated negroes may be put in a condi- 
 tion to earn their subsistence, whether as artisans, me- 
 chanics or servants. 
 
 " Art. V. — For the purpose which is explained in 
 article six there shall be kept in the office of the Captain 
 
132 
 
 General or Governor of the part of the dominions of the 
 Queen of Spain where the mixed court of justice resides, 
 a register of all the emancipated negroes, in which shall 
 be entered with scrupulous exactness the names given to 
 the negroes, the names of the vessels in which they were 
 captured, the names of the persons to whose care they 
 have been committed, and any other circumstance likely 
 to contribute to the end in view. 
 
 " Art. VI. — The register to which the preceding article 
 refers will serve to form a general return which the Go- 
 vernor or Captain General of the part of the dominions of 
 the Queen of Spain, where the mixed court of justice re- 
 sides, shall be bound to deliver every six months to the 
 aforesaid mixed commission, in order to show the exist- 
 ence of the negroes emancipated under this treaty, the 
 decease of such as have died, the improvement in their 
 condition, and the progress made in their instruction, both 
 religious and moral, as also in the arts of life. 
 
 " Art. VII. — As the principal object of the treaty, of 
 which the present annex forms an integral part, is no 
 other than that of improving the condition of these un- 
 happy victims of avarice, the high contracting parties, 
 animated with the same sentiments of humanity, agree, 
 that if in future it should appear necessary to adopt new 
 measures for obtaining the said benevolent end, in conse- 
 quence of those laid down in this annex turning out in- 
 efficacious, the said high contracting parties will consult 
 together and agree upon other means better adapted for 
 the complete attainment of the object proposed. 
 
 " Art. VIII. — The undersigned plenipotentiaries have 
 agreed, in conformity with the fourteenth article of the 
 treaty signed by them on this da}', the 28th of June, 
 1835, that this annex, consisting of eight articles, shall 
 be united to the said treaty and be considered an integral 
 part thereof. 
 
 " This day, the twenty-eighth of June, in tne year one 
 thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. — (L. S.) George 
 Vilijers." 
 
 Before entering into an analysis of the spirit and prac- 
 tical consequences of this international compact, I shall 
 here take up the history of the official and extra official 
 labors which the abolitionists continued to pursue in the 
 colonial nations and in the colonies themselves 
 
 \ 
 
CHAPTER Vlt 
 
 The system of apprenticeship instituted by the English in their Colonies 
 by way of experiment as a substitute for slavery. — Character of said sys- 
 tem and its negative results. — Considerations on the political ends which 
 suggested such a system. — Uniform efforts of all the English agents to 
 annihilate the slavery of the negroes in the other Colonies. — This system 
 propagated in France. — The Colonies are officially consulted as to the 
 freedom of the slaves. — Three systems are proposed by the French gov- 
 ernment to its Colonies. — Analysis and judgment of said systems. — Replies 
 of the French Colonies to the consultation of the government. — The Re- 
 public of 1848 decrees the freedom of the slaves. — Operations of the abo- 
 litionists in Spain. — A ship of war manned by negroes is permanently sta- 
 tioned in the harbor of Havana. — The press is set to work. — They succeed 
 in obtaining that the Spanish government should consult the Colonies on 
 some points of abolitionism. — Evident tendencies to make the Island of 
 Cuba a State similar to that of Haiti. — Charges and defences of the facts 
 stated. — Remarkable letter of Lord Howden to Mr. Corbin: some erro- 
 neous statements containing offensive allusions to Spain are rectified. — 
 New steps taken by said minister at Madrid to obtain the unconditional 
 freedom of all the people of color in the Island of Cuba. — Lord Palmer- 
 ston's despatch to Lord Howden on the same subject. — System of diplo- 
 matic and parliamentary recriminations. To introduce disorder in the co- 
 lonial possessions of Spain, the right of search on the estates is proposed. 
 — Important considerations on all these matters. — The .English recom- 
 mend the substitution of the negroes by contracted Chinese. — Reply of 
 the United States to said proposition. 
 
 I have said that the success of the abolitionists in com- 
 mitting all the colonial nations to an agreement for the 
 abolition of the redemption of Africans, was a gigantic 
 
134 
 
 step towards the fulfilment of their aspirations, and such 
 it will undoubtedly appear to all if they will but consider 
 that this agreement, founded as it was on a principle of 
 true humanity, was, from the misapplication of that prin- 
 ciple, destined to produce ulterior consequences of the 
 most transcendental nature, and that, too, at no very dis- 
 tant period. 
 
 Its most immediate result was the complete ruin of the 
 English colonies of the New World, which could not be 
 averted, or even delayed, by the most consummate forecast 
 nor by the most scrupulous care in carrying out the new 
 experiment which was intended to prepare the way for a 
 reasonable freedom. 
 
 The law which abolished slavery contemplated its sub- 
 stitution by an apprenticeship which was to last some 
 years, during which the negroes who were to be eman- 
 cipated remained subject to their former masters as to 
 labor and discipline, and also as to their earnings in their 
 respective trades. And in order that the collective or in- 
 dividual action of those indispensable productive agents 
 of property should not be weakened by the ideas which 
 their new civil state might suggest to them, the aforesaid 
 emancipation law, setting aside all the consideration for 
 the sentiment which had given it birth, and mindful only 
 of the true character of the negroes, yielding rather to 
 the existing state of things than to the fanaticism of 
 absolute theories, confirmed to the masters the right which 
 they formerly had as owners, of inflicting corporeal punish- 
 ment on the apprentices, in the same manner and with as 
 much vigor as though they were slaves. 
 
 Any one might venture to affirm that with a measure 
 of so much foresight, labor would not degenerate in the 
 English colonies until after the expiration of the term of 
 apprenticeship ; nevertheless, such an assertion, though 
 entirely logical and very natural according to all the rules 
 of common sense, would be but a gross and evident his- 
 torical falsehood. For, whether the fundamental spirit of 
 the law had infused itself in the minds of the negroes 
 with more impulsive force than is to be surmised, N or whe- 
 ther by means of the law itself the most fanatical aboli- 
 tionists conveyed the propagation of their doctrines to the 
 colonies, the fact is that the labor of the apprentices be- 
 
 v 
 
135 
 
 came immediately unproductive to their masters, who, 
 seeing themselves burdened with the maintenance and all 
 the other expenses attending the keeping of these miser- 
 able beings, after having been more or less sureptitiously 
 deprived of their property, hastened to get rid of them 
 when scarcely four years had elapsed, willingly relinquish- 
 ing all the favorable provisions of the law, solely with the 
 very justifiable end of not completing their own ruin. 
 
 This brought about the absolute freedom of the negroes 
 in the English colonies, which thenceforward became a 
 bug-bear to the others, on account of the bad ex- 
 ample they set to the negroes who were still slaves, and 
 also from the jealousy which was engendered by the con- 
 trast between their own ruin and the ever increasing pros- 
 perity of the other colonies. 
 
 From these premises, then, I do not hesitate to deduce, 
 nor should any one be astonished at the fact affirmed by 
 so many writers and orators, viz., that England, having 
 effected the ruin of her West Indian possessions, and de- 
 voted her attention to the East Indies, formed the purpose 
 of carrying out the abolition idea by making every ima- 
 ginable effort to extinguish the slavery of the negroes 
 wheresoever it might exist, in order to destroy all compe- 
 tition with her East Indian productions. And if it be 
 true that the policy of that nation originated in this ex- 
 clusive tendency, as a number of events have shown it to 
 be probable, it is evident that England does not deserve 
 the bijtter reproaches lavished upon her, aside from those 
 errors and illegalities which her agents have committed 
 through excess of zeal and from want of knowledge. 
 
 As long as the cosmopolitan idea is confined to the de- 
 sire of some few individuals, and is not a universal senti- 
 ment identified with moral interests, blotting out inter- 
 vening boundaries, giving unity to all languages, and des- 
 troying individual nationalities, it is absurd to condemn a 
 uniform policy maintained by a nation who aims at her 
 own agrandizernent at the expense of others, so long as 
 she does not succeed by unlawful means or by disregard- 
 ing public rights. 
 
 For this reason I, who extenuate the motives of such 
 things as the rest of us would do if we knew how, am 
 more apt to condemn whatever is contrary to the senti- 
 
136 
 
 ment that tries to exalt itself in the minds of all, and for 
 this reason, also, on entering fully and candidly into the 
 analysis of the absolute emancipation of the negroes and 
 of the prevention of their redemption, I will condemn 
 with freedom and energy, and within the bounds of truth, 
 all that is contrary to the moral end which should be the 
 positive and unfeigned rule of the abolitionists. 
 
 From that time it was a permanent rule for all English 
 agents, both diplomatic and consular, in other nations and 
 especially in the colonies, to make every possible effort 
 within the law, of course, to obtain daily some addi- 
 tional concession towards the freedom of the slaves. And 
 in honor of truth it may be said that no idea in the 
 world was ever better served than that of emancipation 
 has been by the agents of England. 
 
 What these agents did both in the colonies and their 
 respective scenes of action to arrive at the desired end, 
 would furnish sufficient matter to fill an endless number 
 of volumes. On the slightest suspicion of the transgres- 
 sion of the treaties by individuals who had nothing to do 
 with the authorities or with the laws, and which were 
 frequently imaginary, they made the most serious charges 
 against the countries. And in the political disturbances 
 which, in the present century, have agitated France and 
 Spain, in the midst of revolutions and of less radical 
 commotion, there was not an insurrection which the 
 agents of Great Britain did not avail themselves to in- 
 culcate the. ideas of emancipation in the minds of the 
 rulers, in the tendencies of the insurgents, or in the minds 
 of the public speakers. 
 
 In France, previous to the revolution of 1848, three men 
 at the height of power, three statesmen of more reputation 
 than circumspection, in short, three ministers of the mon- 
 archy of Louis Philippe, Roussin, Thiers, and G-uizot, had 
 already been made to declare that the emancipation of the 
 slaves in the French colonies was legally decided in the 
 affirmative. And although, in Spain, all the successive 
 governments had maintained their independence within 
 the limits of existing treaties, nevertheless there were not 
 wanting authorities of the first order who, carrying the 
 susceptibility of their character to an extreme highly ho- 
 norable to themselves, but very dangerous to the respect 
 
 \ 
 
137 
 
 due to the authorities and to the established law, not only 
 exercised the vigilance on the coasts as actively and strict- 
 ly as did their predecessors, but, overstepping all proper 
 bounds, made searches pn the plantations, and granted 
 new concessions to the slaves for the purpose of prevent- 
 ing the fraudulent importation of Bozal negroes, and, also, 
 to substitute for forced labor a new system of apprentice- 
 ship. 
 
 And the fact is that the words of those high function- 
 aries of France in the times of Louis Philippe did not 
 constitute an isolated idea, nor simply a mere transitory 
 concession to the sentiments of some orators. When the 
 deputies Passy, Tracy and Tocqueville decided to petition 
 the French parliament for the emancipation of slaves, and 
 successively wrested these declarations from the ministers, 
 the London Anti- Slavery Society had already instituted a 
 branch of their own in Paris, founded entirely on French 
 principles, having as president M. de Broglie, and com- 
 manding the suffrages of said capital and of the cities of 
 Saint-Quentin, Rouen, Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, Bayonne, 
 Toulouse, Lyons and Marseilles. /And by that time, not 
 only was the propagation spreading rapidly in the minds 
 of a people who, though generous, were ignorant of the 
 question which they attempted to solve; but the same in- 
 fection had penetrated even to the official regions, pervert- 
 ing good sense, extinguishing prudence, and putting to 
 flight all ideas which might have favored other and worth- 
 ier interests. 
 
 After these unpremeditated declarations were* succes- 
 sively made by the ministers in the French Chambers, as 
 has already been stated, a plan was officially organized to 
 accomplish the design set forth in said declarations; and 
 the administrative committee of colonial affairs, residing 
 in Paris, resting their claims on this plan, not only pro- 
 posed to the government, in a decisive manner, the aboli- 
 tion of slavery in the French colonies, submitting to its 
 deliberation three different systems, in order that the eman- 
 cipation of the slaves might be carried out in accordance 
 with the plan they might think the most elligible; but 
 they went so far as to petition government to the effect 
 that the councils of the colonies should not be consulted 
 on bo momentous a question. - 
 
 J 
 
138 
 
 This petition deserves our attention as it will enable us 
 to understand to what an extent the abolitionists had suc- 
 ceeded in diffusing their ideas and increasing their im- 
 portance. Fortunately for the French colonies, the colo- 
 nial minister in Paris refused at that time to accede to 
 such an arrogant demand, and the colonial councils and 
 governors, and even a special council in each locality, were 
 separately consulted; though at the same time the impro- 
 per course recommended by the ministers in the Chambers 
 was followed, inasmuch as the colonists were forbidden all 
 discussion of the expediency or inexpediency of negro 
 emancipation, that measure being already a pri7iciple de- 
 cided in the affirmative, and were only allowed the privi- 
 lege of expressing their opinion respecting each of the 
 three different systems which had been planned by the 
 central administrative committee. 
 
 This measure was of great importance, owing to the 
 light which it shed in gubernatorial spheres; and, as its 
 analysis will not be out of place here, but rather appears 
 indispensably necessary for the better acquaintance with 
 the details of the important question which originated it, 
 I will here relate its history, even though it must be in 
 an abridged form. # 
 
 The petition of the central administrative committee on 
 colonial affairs, addressed to the French government 
 through the Minister of Marine, who was also colonial mi- 
 nister, was made on. the 19 th of June, 1840. Three differ- 
 ent systems for liberating the slaves were proposed in said 
 petition, which were as follows: one, of partial and pro- 
 gressive emancipation, which had previously been devised 
 by M. de Tracy, consisting principally in declaring the 
 children of slaves free, and subjecting them, when of fit- 
 ting age, to the jurisdiction of the owners of their mothers; 
 the owners being benefitted by their labor until a certain 
 period, and paying to the adults daily wages, by the sav- 
 ings of which they might successively be enabled to eman- 
 cipate themselves. The colonists whose property might 
 suffer by this system should, according to the by no means 
 equitable idea of its author, be indemnified by a moderate 
 compensation from the public treasury. 
 
 The second system, which emanated from a committee 
 of the Chamber of Deputies, was also intended to effect 
 
 < 
 
139 
 
 a simultaneous emancipation, but by still more violent 
 and less equitable means than those proposed in the first. 
 The State was to take charge of the slaves, thus depriv- 
 ing the colonists of their property, in the name of the 
 public good. The slaves would then be hired out, by the 
 State, to their respective masters, and the proceeds of 
 their labor were to be divided into two portions, one to 
 cover the expenses for the maintenance and other wants 
 of the negroes, and the other to pay to the owners the 
 indemnification due to them by the State. 
 
 By the third system all the slaves were to be imme- 
 diately declared free, and the colonists were to be in- 
 demnified for their loss. But the former were to remain 
 subject to the latter during some years, in the character 
 of apprentices, and the product of their labor was to be 
 the remuneration of the owners for the expenses of appren- 
 ticeship. This was an exact imitation of the method 
 adopted by the English in their colonies, which, as I have 
 already stated, could not be carried into effect in all its 
 parts, on account of the disastrous results which it pro- 
 duced from the very first day of its institution. 
 
 The French government, with far greater compliance 
 than would have been counselled by a serious reflection 
 on the subject and a proper regard for its own interests, 
 did not hesitate to assume the responsability attached to 
 these measures, and adopted them without further delay. 
 To that effect a crrcular was sent to the governors of Mar- 
 tinique, Guadeloupe, Bourbon and Guiane, dated July 18. 
 1840, communicating to them that the council of minis- 
 ters had resolved to order that, in each colony, a special 
 council, presided over by the governor, and composed of 
 the ordonnateur, the local director, the attorney general 
 and the colonial inspector, should be formed, which coun- 
 cil was to report to the government on the* various points 
 found in each of these three systems, and, at the same 
 time, was to state the preparatory measures which, ac- 
 cording to the opinion of its members, might be useful 
 and necessary for the carrying out the legal project, on what- 
 ever system should be preferred. _ 
 
 At the same time another royal decree, bearing fhe same 
 date, was issued to the governors already mentioned, or- 
 
 j 
 
140 
 
 dering them to convene the colonial councils, and place the 
 aforesaid question before them for their deliberation. 
 
 Our readers must naturally suppose that, in a question 
 of such importance, no" arguments would be spared. Those 
 called forth by the circulars were really so numerous and 
 so diffuse that it would be impossible to insert them all 
 in less than two large volumes, it being a singular fact 
 that, without any previous consultation or understanding 
 between the different colonies, their opinions agreed so 
 exactly that they all appeared to have emanated from 
 one and the same colony. 
 
 The reports made were, in general, founded on a propo- 
 sition presented in this form: 
 
 " Can paid labor and the free competition of laborers 
 replace the compulsory labor of negroes in the colonies?" 
 
 This proposition, presented by some of the colonies in 
 the same terms as above written, and by others, although 
 in a different' form, essentially the same in spirit, was 
 unanimously decided in the negative on the following 
 grounds : — The nature of the climate ; the spontaneous 
 vegetation of tropical soil, whereby life can be supported 
 without labor ; the natural tendencies of man not to labor 
 more than is absolutely necessary to support life, when he 
 undergoes a change of country, customs, wants, and, we 
 might even say, of civilization ; and the indifference with 
 which he generally looks upon any other than his native 
 land. t 
 
 To strengthen these arguments the reporters adverted 
 in the first place, as was natural, to the warning held up 
 by the English colonies, which were then known to be 
 ruined ; and then entering into details on each of the sys- 
 tems proposed, they proved the positive spoliation con- 
 tained in the idea of emancipation ; not only by freeing 
 the negroes, but by causing the abandonment of the lands 
 which those agents cultivated and which without them 
 would be unproductive. 
 
 To oppose the first of these systems, the incompati- 
 bility of the freedom of the children, while the mother 
 remained a slave, was brought forward as an idea con- 
 trary to the laws of nature, and, although this argument 
 cannot be classed among those distinguished for their 
 
 \ 
 
141 
 
 soundness and conformity to truth, as, in this system 
 the freedom of the mother was guaranteed so soon as her 
 child should attain the age of discretion, there is no 
 doubt that, at the first glance, it must have appeared of 
 great weight. 
 
 But the opposition of the reporters appeared to be 
 most strenuous against emancipation by the second and 
 the third systems in that part relating to the indemni- 
 fication of the owners with the salary they were required 
 to pay to their laborers, who were neither more nor less 
 than their own slaves. Such an indemnification was not 
 real, owing to its origin, nor was it acceptable, owing to 
 its form ; inasmuch as in both senses it could with justice 
 be declared null. 
 
 In short, after reiterating that the reports from all the 
 colonies coincided in spirit though they differed in their 
 form of expression, some of the councils obeying the 
 order to consider the emancipation project as alj^ady de- 
 cided in principle, whilst others respectfully, but energeti- 
 cally, presented their views against the measure, the argu- 
 ments of the reporters may be summed up in the follow- 
 ing conclusion : 
 
 The problem of paid labor and of the free competi- 
 tion of laborers has no affirmative solution in the actual 
 condition of th^ colonies if we consider their secular 
 organization and their pressing and future interests. 
 
 All transitory systems are bad in their nature, and, 
 when protracted they produce the most destructive re- 
 sults. The social transformation of the colonies could 
 not be effected except by the natural and steady course 
 of things. 
 
 The most thorough examination of the three sys- 
 tems of emancipation which have been submitted to the 
 deliberations of the colonial councils, demonstrates that 
 the time to abolish slavery has not yet arrived. 
 
 The partial or gradual abolition of slavery by a legisla- 
 tive decision gives the colonists a right to a previous in- 
 demnification, which, to be just and equitable, according 
 to the royal ordinance, dated the 24th of April, 1833, 
 which guarantees tfee maintenance of the colonial institu- 
 tions, ought not only to cover the total value of the 
 slaves who are emancipated, but, also, that of the lands 
 which will be ruined for want of culture. 
 
 i 
 
142 
 
 It will be well to state that these reports, so absolutely 
 opposed to the official and extra-official exigencies of the 
 metropolis, did not emanate entirely and exclusively from 
 interested parties; for it would be most notoriously un- 
 just to class, as such, the Governors of the colonies, and 
 the other administrative officials who formed the councils 
 which had been created ad-hoc, as they had no landed 
 property and were not permanent residents in these colo- 
 nies. From the statements it will appear that, what 
 with the inexperience on the one hand which lent itself 
 to an exaggerated sentiment or hidden purpose by clamor- 
 ing for the abolition of slavery, without knowing any- 
 thing about that of the negro further than the ill sound 
 of the word ; and, on the other, the consummate expe- 
 rience in the government and in the administration of the 
 colonies, which opposed the tendencies of these absurd 
 though well intended clamors, there could not but arise 
 an antagonism, which in fact did exist between the rule 
 of the Rome government and the vast interests of the 
 colonies. 
 
 That the council of Ministers saw their error as soon as 
 their minds were enlightened by the colonial reports, can- 
 not be denied, seeing that these clamors had no ulterior 
 results except the damage done in the colonies by the 
 distrust which they engendered for the future. Unfor- 
 tunately, eight years afterwards, the French republic ap- 
 peared with all its wild reforms, and in the name of 
 equality the slavery of the negroes in the colonies was 
 instantaneously abolished, never more to be renewed. This 
 event would be laudable by every sentiment of humanity, if 
 to destroy a work contrary to the dignity of man and the 
 doctrine of Christ, they had not trampled under foot in- 
 terests and rights that were in no manner opposed in their 
 nature to the equity of the reform. But this is not the 
 place for further considerations on a point of so much 
 importance in the task we have undertaken, and therefore 
 we will return to the history of the efforts made by the 
 English abolitionists in the colonial nations. 
 
 In Spain, no less than in France, they labored to en- 
 graft the same ideas, taking advantage with singular 
 ability of the political emigration in 1823, which obliged 
 the most illustrious leaders of the liberal party on the 
 Peninsula to live in England for the space of ten years. 
 
 \ 
 
143 
 
 This circumstance had a remarkable influence in the 
 treaty of 1835, and the effects would have been much 
 greater, if, in the excellent judgment of the Spanish go- 
 vernment, the sterner duties of the public service had. nut 
 out- weighed the impulses of personal gratitude. For 
 which reason the agents of the Anti-slaverv Society, know- 
 ing, that after said treaty, few if any official concessions 
 could be obtained in Spain, had recourse to artifices to de- 
 moralize slavery wherever it was most successful. 
 
 With this end in view the Society, possessing at that 
 time great influence with the English government, * ex- 
 perienced no difficulty in obtaining that a ship-of-the- 
 line of the royal navy, manned by negroes, should be 
 stationed at the port of Havana ; which vessel was, in 
 fact, stationed there, ostensibly for the purpose of receiv- 
 ing the Africans taken from the slavers which might be 
 captured before reaching their destination, but evidently, 
 to serve as a focus and encouragement of insurrection to 
 the slaves of the island of Cuba. 
 
 The next step was the appointment as consul, in Ha- 
 vana, of the dangerous Mr. Turnbull, of whom mention 
 has already been made in the official report, relative to 
 the insurrection plotted by the negroes in Cuba in the 
 year 1840; said functionary being a member of' the Anti- 
 slavery Society, and so fanatical, that he made himself ere 
 long the object of strong remonstrances owing to the cool 
 perseverance with which he acted in his labors of aboli- 
 tion. 
 
 At the same time or shortly after, other individuals 
 belonging to the abolitionist society, presented themselves 
 in Madrid, exciting the philanthrophy of journalists, and 
 working on the general ignorance on colonial affairs, 
 which, owing to the great distance between the countries, 
 are very little known ; and these individuals discharged 
 their commission so fully through one of the said journals, 
 called El Corresponsal, that in articles full of unques- 
 tionable sincerity, although without the least reflection, 
 they went so far as to demand the absolute and immediate 
 emancipation of the slaves. 
 
 By way of precaution, and with the view of support- 
 ing those philanthropic declamations, the London Stan- 
 dard had previously inserted a fictitious exposition, 
 which was attributed to various planters in the island 
 
 i 
 
144 
 
 of Cuba, recommending the repression of the negro traf- 
 fic as contrary to their own interests, from which absurd 
 invention, which, in the opinion of the Corresponsal, was 
 undoubtedly authentic, the abolitionists gained great favor 
 with the unwary and in the sympathy of the aforesaid journal. 
 
 After which, and inasmuch as in the hearts of some ge- 
 nerous and grateful persons, the remembrance of their 
 own emigration or that of beloved friends could not be ef- 
 faced, the Spanish government admitted in good faith and 
 sincerity the remonstrances which, from that time, began 
 to be made, with some asperity, by the English govern- 
 ment, relative to the continuation of the traffic, and even 
 consented to the plan of consulting the Captain General 
 of the island of Cuba, as to the expediency of declaring 
 all the negroes imported into the Island since 1820, free, 
 in accordance with the demand set forth by the English 
 government in a diplomatic despatch. As can be seen, 
 then, the steps taken in Spain by the abolitionists were 
 not less active than those that had been taken in France; 
 and were it not that the discovery of the conspiracy for 
 the insurrection of the negroes in the island of Cuba gave 
 better evidence, than all the arguments that could be pub- 
 lished against emancipation, of the dangers to which the 
 security of our colonies was exposed by a course of indis- 
 creet and even criminal compliance with such importuni- 
 ties, who knows but that, at this day> the most valuable 
 gem of the Antilles, the pearl of the West, the coveted 
 island of Cuba, would have been made another stain on 
 civilization, like the western part of Santo Domingo ? 
 
 What can be established as an undeniable fact is that 
 the abolitionists desired this result, and that, for its ac- 
 complishment, various efforts of a private, and some of 
 an official character, were made; and in order that this 
 charge may not appear a mere supposition, should it not 
 be established by corroborative evidence, I will present 
 such proofs as are in my possession, some of which will be 
 found in the reliable statements already made in this book, 
 and other documents which will subsequently be inserted. 
 
 In the island of Cuba, which, from its exceptional cir- 
 cumstances, for seventy years back, differs completely from 
 the other colonies, the colored people exceed in number and 
 vigor the white population, as can be proved by consult- 
 ing her statistics. 
 
 \ 
 
145 
 
 In 1850, the number of negroes and mulattoes, slaves 
 and free, of the island in question, amounted to more than 
 five hundred thousand, the whole population, both black 
 and white, being a little over nine hundred thousand. 
 Both elements have increased in the same proportion since t 
 that time, so that at present, of the total of one million 
 three hundred thousand inhabitants, which Cuba contains, 
 seven hundred thousand and some hundreds are colored. 
 Add to this difference, which results in favor of the ne- 
 groes, the circumstances of the discrepancy between the 
 number of females and males, and consequently the pro- 
 portional scarcity in the number of children, and the re- 
 sult will augment in a natural and incontestable manner, 
 and in a manifestly dangerous proportion, the material 
 strength of the negroes over the wdiite population. 
 
 If we look upon this precedent, which must have been 
 well known to the English Philanthropic Society which 
 was laboring for the abolition of slavery, and then take 
 into consideration the unmistakeable efforts made officially 
 by the said abolition society and by the English govern- 
 ment, firstly, to persuade Spain to proclaim the freedom 
 of all negroes imported into the island of Cuba since 1820, , 
 and, afterwards, to induce her to adopt the total abolition 
 of slavery, (as will be hereafter demonstrated) we cannot 
 for a moment doubt that the africanization of Cuba would 
 be the natural and logical consequence of those efforts, 
 should they be crowned at last with success, and would, 
 still more inevitably, be the result of a successful insur- 
 rection. 
 
 It would not be right for me to say that the English 
 government took any active part in, or even had the slight- 
 est knowledge of the proceedings of its consul, Mr. Turn- 
 bull, in exciting the negroes of the island of Cuba to an 
 insurrection against the whites; but neither would it be 
 just to doubt the initiative taken by said consul in the 
 conspiracy, since it appears officially in the judicial pro- 
 ceedings. u) And, as he was a member and agent of the 
 
 (1) In another part of this procedure, which I have before me, there is 
 an account which says as follows: "Fiscal conclusion in the trial of the negro 
 Juan Perez Dasnuevp.— This legal procedure arose from the celebrated 
 case which must at present occupy public attention in every country 
 where the news of the momentous event that caused it have reached. Ac- 
 cording to the data acquired in the various investigations in which I am 
 
 J 
 
146 
 
 London Anti-Slavery Society, and owed his position as 
 consul to his ardent zeal and well known works published 
 in that cause, it is evident that to the said society, rather 
 than to his private designs, we must attribute the attempt 
 made by the negroes to exterminate the white population 
 in the most flourishing of our possessions. 
 
 Moreover, and in order that the subject may be better 
 understood, it will be well to add that the British govern- 
 ment refused to recall its consul when the Spanish govern- 
 ment was obliged to request his removal on account of the 
 % 
 
 • 
 
 engaged, and those appearing from the investigations which the .council 
 has just attended to, it is a certain and positive fact that a very consi- 
 derable number of free colored people had been secretly scheming, since 
 the middle of 1811, to incite our slaves to insurrection, to exterminate all 
 the while population, and afterwards to take possession of the Island. 
 But what must most astonish us, what will appear impossible to all per- 
 sons who have a knowledge of this event, is that the consul of a friendly 
 and allied nation, the man who had the confidence of a government that 
 ranks first in European civilization, should prove so false to his trust, and 
 should abuse our friendship to the extent of inciting the rebellion him- 
 self, 'by sending emissaries over the whole Island, to undermine and shake 
 the foundations upon which its well-being and tranquillity are based, and 
 by putting in play all the springs that might contribute to the realization 
 of such a horrible project. The name of Turnbull figures in every part 
 of this great case as the arrogant author of the sad scenes we lament. 
 The extermination of four hundred and nineteen thousand inhabitants, 
 and the ruin and loss of the island of Cuba to the civilized world, seem 
 to agree very well with the principles professed by this man, and with 
 those so basely boasted of by the philanthropic society to which he be- 
 longs; as if we had not sufficient common sense to perceive that the free- 
 dom they wish to bestow on our servants is an evil for them a hundred- 
 fold greater than slavery itself, owing to the ignorance and barbarism in- 
 herent to these unfortunate beings. 
 
 "If the agents of that society, which may well be called the would be 
 destroyer of the white population of the Indies, instead of inciting our 
 slaves to insurrection, would devote their energies to the study of the laws 
 in favor of the slaves, to which one hundred and fifty-three thousand per- 
 sons of color are indebted for the freedom which they now enjoy in the 
 Island, their number, compared with that of free colored persons in the 
 republic of the United States of North America, being in a ratio of more 
 than two to one, according to the relative number of the slaves; if they 
 would consider that these laws allow the negroes to acquire means where- 
 by they can redeem themselves from servitude, which is a privilege that 
 never was enjoyed by the slaves in the Roman republic ; if these agents, 
 I repeat, would devote their attention to this concise and simple legisla- 
 tion, which is replete with doctrines that breathe only true humanity and 
 philanthropy, and which contained a prudent and wise system of emanci- 
 pation, even at the time of their initiation, about the middle of the eight- 
 eenth century; they would undoubtedly be filled with shame at the idea 
 of having brought about the unpleasant occurrences which are now oc- 
 cupying our attention, and filling us all with grief and sorrow, and, per- 
 haps, would abandon at once and forever all thoir deplorable attempts." 
 
 \ 
 
147 
 
 "Sold and impudent declarations publicly made by Mr.Turn- 
 bull against slavery, in the presence of the slaves; and as, 
 simultaneously with this attitude of the British govern- 
 ment, a vessel of the English royal Navy, manned by ne- 
 groes, was stationed at Havana, while its sable crew went 
 continually on shore, clad in showy uniforms, the more 
 effectually to arouse the ambition of their brethren in that 
 city, calumny seized upon this coincidence as a pretext for 
 attributing to the said government a complicity in the 
 acts of its consul, and although this charge may have been 
 unjust, the British government certainly took no steps to 
 clear itself from the imputation. 
 
 It was undoubtedly on this account that this idea 
 spread and became universal, not only at that time and 
 with reference to the island of Cuba, but for many years 
 after, and extending itself to the ordinary labors of the 
 English representatives in the capital of Spain. And let 
 it not be imagined that this suspicion existed only in 
 the minds of Spanish visionaries, accustomed to view 
 political questions through the narrow and hazy prism 
 of their petty interests. No : the idea that England was 
 trying to Africanize the island of Cuba had become gen- 
 erally diffused, and in such a manner that even the 
 names of parties compromised in the question were well 
 known ; and, in Paris, Lord Howden, Minister of Great 
 Britain in Madrid, was, in a friendly manner, requested to 
 give an explanation of his real or supposed machinations, 
 which had been exposed in some of the United States' 
 journals. 
 
 The answer of the noble lord was not long delayed, as 
 it was of the highest importance to him to exonerate him- 
 self from such & charge before the American Union, which 
 had then a pro-slavery administration; and, rightly cal- 
 culating that his answer would be published, he planned 
 it with singular ability, making therein sundry charges 
 and misrepresentations against Spain, with the two-fold 
 object of diverting public attention from his evident cul- 
 pability, and of furnishing to calumny fresh pretexts to 
 continue its attacks against the Spanish administration 
 in the Indies, such being at that time a commonly pre- 
 vailing practice. 
 
 I might here omit the insertion of said answer were 
 it not for the misrepresentations it contains, and the fact 
 
 i 
 
148 
 
 that it was published without any contradiction. Here, 
 then, it will be found exactly as it was published in the 
 year of its date; and my readers will allow me to make 
 some comments on its contents. 
 
 " Paris, November 14, 1853. — My dear Corbin: I have 
 just received your letter of yesterday, and I can assure 
 you it by no means perplexes me. Our long continued 
 friendship authorizes you to put to me all those ques- 
 tions, and I can answer them without failing »in discre- 
 tion or in the perfect discharge of my duties as public 
 functionary; and you have sufficient discernment to know 
 that in this case I am quite as anxious to tell you the 
 truth as you can be that I should do so. 
 
 " I have read the extraordinary statements which you 
 have sent me concerning the desire of England to Afri- 
 canize Cuba, and the arrangements which I have been 
 making in Madrid to that effect. In the most solemn 
 manner which these ridiculous, though wicked inventions 
 will admit, I declare that all that has been reported on 
 the subject is entirely false. I have not the slightest 
 objection to tell you what have been my negotiations 
 with the Spanish Government respecting Cuba, for the 
 last three years, and you will see that there is not the 
 slightest foundation for the rumors which, it appears, 
 have been spread in the United States. 
 
 " First: I have continually remonstrated with respect 
 to the number of slaves which are annually imported 
 into Cuba, and I have always complained of the public 
 manner in which this traffic is carried on, with entire 
 impunity, from the Captain General down to the lowest 
 official, always excepting the excellent general Concha. 
 
 " Second: I have made fruitless efforts to induce the 
 Spanish Government to follow the example of the United 
 States in this particular, i. e. to declare the abominable 
 traffic in human beings a piracy. 
 
 " Third: I have employed my time in diligent endea- 
 vors to obtain, the complete and definite freedom of the 
 negroes illegally detained as slaves since the year 1817, 
 under the name of emancipated negroes, in contravention 
 of the treaties; and I have the satisfaction of being able 
 to say that the Spanish Government has at length listen- 
 ed to the dictates of justice and humanity, and has granted 
 me this favor. 
 
 \ 
 
149 
 
 " Fourth: I have labored to procure the extinction of 
 that intolerant and immoral law which obliges all foreign- 
 ers desirous of establishing themselves in Cuba, to change 
 their religion, upon the strange principle, which was held 
 in no other part of the world, that the fact of a man's 
 proving a renegade to his faith is a sufficient guarantee 
 that he will make a good subject. 
 
 " Besides these official negociations, I have, in a friendly 
 manner, and on several occasions, counselled the reform of 
 the internal system of the Island, that the administration 
 of justice might be improved, and the natives qualified to 
 hold public offices. 
 
 " By this statement you will see that what I have really 
 done, or, rather, attempted to do, is very different from 
 what has been attributed to me in the American papers. 
 When the true state of the case shall be made public, and 
 ignorance and malevolence be put to flight, I trust that 
 your countrymen will give the support of their approval to 
 the reforms for which I have labored, and which are so con- 
 sistent with jour own laws and institutions. 
 
 "In all that I have made known to you with such en- 
 tire frankness, the United States can see nothing but the 
 natural workings of England's avowed and immutable pol- 
 icy in a cause which is so dear to her; and Spain must 
 yet be convinced that, unless she modifies her intolerance 
 and fulfils her agreements, she cannot at the present day 
 expect to be ranked among civilized nations. 
 
 " Believe me, dear Corbin, to be, with the greatest con- 
 sideration, sinoerely yours. — Howden." 
 
 A short time since a Spanish journal published in Lon- 
 don, El Esjianol de Ambos Mundos, said: " The Spanish 
 G-overment has not yet understood the wonderful power of 
 the press, from which so much advantage is drawn by the 
 Governments of England and of the United States." This 
 was expressed by said journal in order to show the effect 
 which can be produced on public opinion by accusations 
 and aspersions when they remain uncontradicted by the 
 parties interested, who, by their silence, naturally appear 
 convicted of their criminality; and there is no doubt that 
 El Espanol de Ambos Mundos pronounced an important 
 truth which is already too well known and acted upon by 
 the enemies of the Spanish nation. 
 
 i 
 
150 
 
 In the first -place, Lord How<jen deliberately wronged 
 and calumniated all the Captain-Generals of the island of 
 Cuba, who preceded general Concha, when it was evident 
 to all the world that not one of them had authorized, with 
 his knowledge or consent, the introduction of bozal negroes, 
 notwithstanding that they were introduced on a large 
 scale before and during the administration of general Con- 
 cha. It would be unfair to the whole body of these offi- 
 cials to make mention of the integrity of any one in parti- 
 cular, in the strict discharge of his duties, and even to de- 
 signate by name those whose premature recall has been 
 attributed, by the ignorant, to their excessive zeal against 
 the slave trade; let us, then, be satisfied with clearing the 
 honor q$ all, knowing that it cannot be assailed with any 
 positive foundation or even with any show of justice. 
 
 The introduction of bozal negroes into the island of Cu- 
 ba, wliich has a ^periphery of two thousand one hundred 
 miles, is carried on precisely in the same manner that slav- 
 ers bear away their cargoes from the coasts of Africa; and 
 the charge of bribery can be laid upon the English cruis- 
 ers guarding those coasts, because they do not succeed in 
 preventing the traffic, with as much reason as upon the 
 Spanish authorities of the Island, because they cannot 
 prevent the introduction of those cargoes, that being a 
 natural and irremediable result of the necessities of agri- 
 culturists, and of the immense profits which are realized 
 by those engaged in the trade. 
 
 The Spanish government, ever zealous in the observance 
 of the letter and spirit of the existing treaties, could not 
 legally do more than it had done, was doing, and still 
 does to prove that those treaties did not exist only in 
 name. If the fitters out of slavers were Spanish subjects 
 alone, there would be no difficulty in declaring them 
 pirates, according to the suggestion of the English Min- 
 ister, and having them hung at the yard-arm, should 
 such a proceeding appear equitable. But, in the first 
 place, the treaties had already established laws and penal- 
 ties for the slave traders and a special tribunal for their 
 trial ; so that, the penalty of hanging recommended by 
 JLord Howden, not being authorized by the treaties ini- 
 tiated by his government, could not be adopted unless a 
 new treaty was drawn up. In the second place, the ma- 
 jority of the traders were of other nations, and Spain did 
 
 \ 
 
not see fit to create international conflicts for every slaver 
 that she might capture. That the noble Lord sought to 
 bring about such international difficulties* may well be 
 imagined, that is, if he did in fact recommend such mea- 
 sures, for the furtherance of his own philanthropic scheme ; 
 but it would be folly to suppose that the impertinent in- 
 terference would be favorably received by the Spanish 
 government, guided as it is by prudence and circumspec- 
 tion in politics and administration. 
 
 The absolute freedom of the emancipated negroes has 
 always been secured in the Spanish possessions, in con- 
 formity with the regulations ; and it is false that, at the 
 date to which Lord Howden alludes, negroes captnred 
 from slavers in 1817 were held to forced service, as no 
 prizes whatever were made until many years after, and 
 certainly none could have been made until 1820, accord- 
 ing to the first treaty. Neither does it seem probable 
 that the English Minister had any reason for inserting the 
 third exposition of his efforts, 'further than from puerile 
 vanity and the desire of appearing to advantage at the 
 expense of the honor of Spain. 
 
 In the Spanish colonies there is positively no law to 
 compel foreigners, established there, to change their reli- 
 gion. The public observance of any other than the Ca- 
 tholic religion is not permitted in Spain, and this law is 
 established in the colonies. Great numbers of Protestants 
 of all the known sects reside in these islands, and their 
 testimony can be appealed to in order that Lord How- 
 den's fourth observation may appear in its true character 
 betore the tribunal of History. Article 66 of the Regu- 
 lations, by which the heathen ChineSe laborers on the 
 island are governed, says : — "The master shall endeavor 
 to teach the dogmas and morality of the true religion to 
 the laborers, but without employing other means than 
 persuasion and conviction ; and should any of them mani- 
 fest a desire to be converted to the Catholic faith, it shall 
 be made known to the priest of that parish that he may 
 take the proper measures to that effect." The impartial 
 reader can compare the tolerance of this article with the 
 accusations which Lord Howden makes against Spain 
 with such a total disregard of truth, and draw thence the 
 logical conclusions which his judgment shall dictate. 
 
 While I am on this subject I will also observe that, in 
 
 J 
 
152 
 
 political and religions matters each nation follows that 
 course which may appear most in accordance with its 
 traditions, its 'most cherished interests, and its peculiar 
 characteristics; and that Lord Howden, in writing to Mr. 
 Corbin, a native of the United States, about the intol- 
 erance of the Spanish laws, only succeeded, though per- 
 haps without being aware of it, in wounding the national 
 vanity of his friend by the evident allusion to the positive 
 defect of the laws of the United States which prohibit 
 foreigners from establishing themselves in the country 
 unless they become naturalized citizens. These two 
 cases, however, are different, since the defect which really 
 exists in the laws of the United States only affects an im- 
 portant point in political rights, whereas that of Spain, if 
 it were indeed what Lord Howden asserts, would strike a 
 mortal blow at the religious faith of those who should 
 submit to its requirements. 
 
 Nevertheless, even if that were the case, such proceed- 
 ings on the part of the Spanish government would not 
 deserve the anathema pronounced on them by Lord How- 
 den, who has gone so far as to declare that Spain is un- 
 worthy of ranking amongst the civilized nations ; because 
 in matters of religious faith such absolute declarations 
 are unseemly, it not being yet clearly defined, or, to avoid 
 blasphemy, I should say rather, it being demonstrable by 
 ample and unimpeachable evidence that, on a point so 
 essential to human existence, that nation which cleaves 
 exclusively to one faith, banishing all that sinful pride 
 which leads the limited minds of mortals to attempt to 
 grasp the Infinite as fully as God alone can comprehend 
 it, is far wiser than, those in which every change in the 
 human mind produces a new creed, while from the infinite 
 variety of these ideas there result as many different reli- 
 gious beliefs as there may be persons who chose to exercise 
 their private judgment upon the spiritual interests of the 
 world and upon the Divine cause of the universe. 
 
 The friendly counsels to which the English Minister re- 
 fers, at the conclusion of his letter, will certainly appear 
 very singular when they are compared with the real facts. 
 
 It is universally known that the great code of laws of 
 the Indies is a monument of equity and wisdom, which, 
 with the exception of the political part concerning modern 
 institutions, has been preserved integral in nearly all the 
 
 v 
 
153 
 
 Spanish American republics, since their independence. It 
 is also known that, according to the same code the high 
 functionaries of the law are required to give an account of 
 their administration when they retire from office, and that 
 they are jield accountable, before the tribunal established 
 according to law, not only for their own actions, but for 
 the faults committed openly and with impunity under 
 their jurisdiction by their subordinates. And it is further- 
 more known that the Spanish government, ever prudently 
 deliberating on the reforms and alterations- counselled by 
 the changes of the times, and adopting all such as would 
 not injure public interests, not only maintained in all their 
 power the most beneficial dispositions of said code of the 
 Indies, but also added new ones thereto whenever they 
 appeared useful and necessary. 
 
 From these incontrovertible facts which are universally 
 known, and which have caused justice to be done to the 
 administration of Spain in her colonies, if not by the peo- 
 ple at large, at least by the most eminent statesmen, we 
 may draw the following conclusion : that the counsels to 
 which Lord Howden refers in his letter to his friend at 
 Paris, were either specially gotten up for effect in the case 
 which obliged him to allude to them, or they were so un- 
 reasonable and exposed so much ignorance on the subjects 
 to which they referred that the Spanish government 
 utterly disregarded them as being useless or pernicious. 
 
 And what shall we say of that absurd and disgraceful 
 counsel, recommending that the natives of the island of 
 Cuba be qualified to hold office and discharge public func- 
 tions ? 
 
 Being in Havana in the year 1852, and having seen a 
 similar charge preferred against the Spanish government 
 in a certain United States journal, I determined to ascer- 
 tain how much truth that charge contained. At that 
 time the island was governed by the ill-fated General 
 Valentine Canedo, and to his authority I had recourse, 
 requesting him, by letter, that direct information might 
 be furnished to me, from all the Lieutenancies of the 
 government, the bureau of the Sub-Inspectors of the 
 array, that of the Commandant General of the navy, 
 the Captaincy General and the central offices, concerning 
 all the employees, in every branch of the administration, 
 who had not been born on the Peninsula. The General 
 
 J 
 
 
154 
 
 willingly granted tins request, so that within the course 
 of two months I found myself in possession of the de- 
 sired data, which were so numerous as to form an ex- 
 ceedingly bulky package. It is true that in these papers 
 were found some names of persons who had been born in 
 Costa Firme and other parts of the Spanish American 
 continent, but it is also a fact that the number of native 
 Cubans who exercised public functions amounted with 
 certainty to over seven hundred. As the fact which I 
 have stated is official, and can be attested by the Lieuten- 
 ancies of the government, to their testimony do I submit 
 the defence of my assertions, and in case that there should 
 be some indolent persons who might prefer still to doubt 
 my words rather than trouble themselves to confront the 
 truth by such means, I will proceed further to recall to 
 their minds that previously to the date above alluded 
 to, Don Jose de la Concha, a native of Costa Firme, had 
 been Governor and Captain General ; the unfortunate 
 Don Narciso Lopez, also a Spanish-American, had been 
 Commandant General of Trinidad de Cuba; the Count 
 of Villanueva, born in Havana, had been Superintendent 
 General of the Public Treasury; the then Brigadier Don 
 Juan de Herrera, also a native Cuban, was Commandant 
 General or Sub-Inspector of Artillery; and a brother of 
 the last mentioned officer, Don Francisco de Paula Mi- 
 chelena, a native Cuban, now living in the Island, retired 
 from the military service, was Lieutenant Governor of 
 Bejucal or of San Cristobal, I do not well remember which, 
 and had also exercised the same functions, about that 
 time, in another jurisdiction of the same department; 
 and I had the honor of being on terms of deferential 
 friendship with Don Matias Letamendi, also a Cuban, 
 who held the post of Lieutenant Governor of Sancto 
 Spiritus, where he displayed great loyalty and ability in 
 the discharge of his duties. General La Vallette, the 
 second in command on the Island, though not a Creole, 
 had nearly all of his relatives in Cuba, where they were 
 born. The Chief Judges were all Cubans, with very 
 rare exceptions; and, for the truth of this, I appeal to 
 the testimony of the oflicial Guide-Book, which would 
 infallibly expose any mis-statement on my ^part; and na- 
 tive Cubans abounded especially in the army and navy, 
 
 v 
 
155 
 
 in which they held all grades, from the highest to the 
 lowest. 
 
 With the aid of these explanations, which are not 
 misplaced here, though they may appear foreign to the 
 principal subject of this work, it will be easy to com- 
 prehend what is the real value of the contents of Lord 
 Howden's letter to his friend Corbin in the judgment of 
 reflecting people. And the intrinsic value of said letter 
 can be more accurately estimated when it becomes known 
 that the charges preferred by the press in the United 
 States' of America, against that representative of Great 
 Britain in the court of Madrid, were not without foun- 
 dation, insomuch as they related to those concealed ten- 
 dencies towards the africanization of Cuba, i. e. the de- 
 livering of the. Island into the power of its African po- 
 pulation, within a period of time which, though inde- 
 finite, would, according to their desires, infallibly come 
 'to pass. " % 
 
 This will be better linderstood if the reader bears in 
 mind the computation, which has already been made in 
 these pages, between the two races which people said Is- 
 land, demonstrating that it would be difficult, nay, even 
 impossible, to bestow unconditional freedom on the ne- 
 groes without causing the violent extermination of the 
 whites, owing to the material preponderance of the former 
 over the latter; and then take into consideration the de- 
 monstration of the efforts made by Lord Howden to ob- 
 tain, from the government of Madrid, a decree of entire 
 and absolute freedom in favor of the negroes of the island 
 of Cuba. 
 
 These efforts were made in the latter part of the year 
 1851, on the* occasion of the unsuccessful Anglo-American 
 expedition against that Island; for, the government of 
 Spain having sent its expressions of gratitude to that of 
 Great Britain, for its friendly offer to prevent, with English 
 ships of war, any further attempts of like nature, the En- 
 glish, persevering in their idea of abolishing slavery, ima- 
 gined that the circumstances were opportune to obtain a 
 definite and favorable decision of the question. 
 
 This design was coincided with by a decree issued at 
 that time in New Granada, abolishing the exiguous re- 
 mains of negro slavery which still existed there, though, 
 in the year 1817, if I recollect aright, and during tb> ^.r 
 
 j 
 
156 
 
 of its political independence, the famous Bolivar had de- , 
 creed that all children born of slaves in those territories 
 which he governed, should be forever free; and, as if there 
 was anything in common between the circumstances of 
 that country and those of the lovely Antille, or as if En- 
 glish diplomacy was not aware of the disparity which 
 Bxisted between a country almost ruined for agriculture 
 dy its never ending civil wars, and a land whose inexhaus- 
 tible productiveness is aided by its uninterrupted peace, 
 the famous Lord Howden, who, two years after, was so so- 
 licitous in putting a wrong construction on the facts pre- 
 sented, when he was questioned as to his participation in 
 the project of Africanizing Cuba, presented a note to the 
 Spanish Government, on the 26th of September, in which 
 the example of New Granada is held up to it to be blindly 
 followed. 
 
 The Government of Madrid answered him with the pru- 
 dence and circumspection demanded by the occasion; and, 
 as it called Lord Howden' s attention to some contradictions 
 which existed between his despatch and those previously 
 sent by the English chancellorship, lord Palmerston, who 
 was his superior in the State department, endeavored, 
 though not without great difficulty, to extricate himself 
 from the muddle into which his blind confidence had 
 placed him, to which effect he sent the following official 
 letter: 
 
 "To Lord Howden, English Ambassador to Madrid. 
 
 "Office of Foreign affairs, October 20, 1851. 
 
 "My Lord: I have received your despatch of the 1st inst., 
 inclosing a note receiv I by you from the marquis of Mi- 
 raflores, in answer to yuars of the 26th of September, which 
 expressed, in the name of H. M., the wish of seeing the 
 Spanish Government imitate the example of New Grana- 
 da, which has proclaimed the total abolition of slavery. 
 
 " With regard to the passage wherein, the marquis of 
 Miraflores declares that the Spanish Government cannot 
 understand how that of H. M. can recommend a measure 
 which would prove fatal to the natives of Cuba, at the 
 same time that it recommends Spain to conciliate their 
 goodwill, I beg your Lordship will make the Marquis ob- 
 serve that the slaves form a considerable and an undeniably 
 important part of the population of Cuba; that any steps 
 
 \ 
 
157 
 
 taken towards the emancipation of these slaves will be in 
 perfect harmony with the recommendation which H. M/s 
 government has made to the effect that measures should 
 be taken to satisfy the natives of Cuba, in order to insure 
 its union with the metropolis. And it is also very evident 
 that if freedom was given to the colored population of 
 Cuba, this fact would create a powerful element of resist- 
 ance against the projects of annexing the Island to the 
 United States, in which country slavery exists. 
 
 "As for the influence which the emancipation of the ne- 
 groes would exert on the interests of the whites who are 
 landed proprietors, it can be affirmed, without fear of con- 
 tradiction, that free labor is less costly than that of the 
 slaves; and it is undeniable that hired laborers would not 
 be such dangerous neighbors to the wealthy classes as are 
 ill-treated and revengeful slaves. Besides, it is a truth 
 inherent to the principles of human nature that the slaves 
 are necessarily more or less ill used; while it is equally 
 evident that the resentment which ill treatment always 
 provokes will be inevitable, whatever may be the efforts to 
 smother it. 
 
 " For these reasons it appears to me that the communi- 
 cation which your Lordship was charged with making, con- 
 cerning the measure adopted by the government of New 
 Granada, does not deserve to be considered contrary to the 
 benevolent sentiments which her Majesty's government 
 expressed with regard to the natives of Cuba. — Palmer- 
 ston." 
 
 From the perusal of this dispatch, which, as will be 
 seen, proves the justice of the charges made by the Ame- 
 rican press against the representative of England in 
 Madrid, even though his efforts to create a chaos in the 
 island of Cuba by the unconditional freedom of five hun- 
 dred thousand negroes were but the official expression of 
 superior instructions, it is easy to perceive that the most 
 difficult questions of the Western hemisphere are treated 
 with levity in Europe, unless we should rather attribute 
 the contents of said dispatch to the desire of reconciling, 
 in any possible manner, the contradiction of the English 
 chancellorship in its antithetical recommendations, in 
 order to present it in the least unfavorable light. 
 
 Be this as it may, and since the consummate skill of 
 the Marquis of Miraflores, aided by the power of justice, 
 
 J 
 
158 
 
 had amicably but energetically repelled the most dangerous 
 suggestions which England had ever made against Cuba, 
 the inextinguishable fanaticism of the English aboli- 
 tionists, which learns nothing from the teachings of prac- 
 tical history but gathers therefrom only what may serve 
 to destroy whatever may stand in the way of its exclusive 
 interests, retired abashed for the moment within the limits 
 of the constituted international laws; not with the pur- 
 pose of remaining silent and inactive for any length of 
 time, but rather to give a fresh impulse and another cha- 
 racter to their projects by turbulent means, in order to 
 see if they would thus prove more efficacious in their 
 definite results. With this end in view, the notes ad- 
 vocating the repression of the slave trade were multiplied 
 and made of daily recurrence, and so were the interpella- 
 tions in both Houses of Parliament, and the most violent 
 and unjust diatribes of the English Ministers against Spain 
 and against the island of Cuba. 
 
 There were occasions when the Spanish government 
 found it necessary to protest energetically against certain 
 offensive censures which were utterly devoid of truth ; 
 but although by taking this attitude the government 
 succeeded in obtaining the apologies which are so easily 
 furnished in such cases by diplomatic courtesy, it could 
 not prevent the English abolitionists from persevering in 
 their shameful efforts against Spain and the Spaniards. 
 
 These noisy clamors, which daily became more ex- 
 aggeratfd, were the prelude to a new combination which 
 was formed in order to force upon Spain, in a novel man- 
 ner, the adoption of measures which would prove ruinous 
 to the negro question. These were nothing less than the 
 establishment of the right of search, to interfere with the 
 slave trade in the plantations of the colonial possessions, 
 in which places such proceedings are forbidden by the 
 laws ; which would not only be the means of discrediting 
 and perverting slavery, and of destroying the interior 
 order by which that institution is supported, but would 
 also convert the proprietors into bitter enemies of the 
 government which should in such a manner disregard 
 their laws, annul their claims to the obedience of the 
 laborers and the respect of the public, and attack in so 
 dangerous a manner their lawful interests. 
 
 This, as will readily be perceived, was another attempt 
 
 \ 
 
159 
 
 to introduce into the colonies, under a different form, the 
 disorder and confusion which would have been caused by 
 the absolute freedom of the negroes when it was proposed 
 by Lord Palmerston through Lord Iiowden ; but, as the 
 English had already reason to suppose that this proposi- 
 tion would be repelled with all the power that the Spanish 
 government might boast, instead of proceeding personally 
 and directly in the matter, they tried to compromise 
 therein some other governments. 
 
 This plot was being concerted at the time when the 
 war with Morocco was bringing into notice the moral and 
 material progress of Spain ; and as this progress had be- 
 come apparent to all the world, from the facility with 
 which fifty thousand men, completely armed and equipped, 
 had been thrown into Africa, without any neglect or even 
 any weakening of the defences in the Peninsula and abroad; 
 as well as from the abundance of specie with which the 
 government attended to all the ordinary and extraordinary 
 expenses, and to the payment of a debt which, though de- 
 ferred without difficulty until that time, was suddenly and 
 urgently claimed by the creditor, which was the English 
 government. The French government, or, perhaps, the 
 Emperor himself, thought the time had come for Spain 
 to resume her former rank among the great powers. 
 This was proposed by the Imperial government, the nation 
 most interested in the matter taking no part therein ; and 
 then it was that it occurred to the English Chancellor to 
 propose to France and the United States the establishment 
 of the right of search on the plantations of Cuba, the in- 
 crease of the number of cruisers in the waters surrounding 
 said Island, and the adoption of a plan of emigration, in 
 China, which had been drawn up by the consular agents 
 of the nations interested in the question in concert with 
 the authorities of that vast and remote empire. 
 
 Of course, all the publicity which such a proposition 
 demanded was given to it, with what object may be di- 
 vined, and on this head the Spanish paper, published in 
 London, which we have already quoted, made the follow- 
 ing remarks : 
 
 " It is now high time that the Spanish government 
 should seriously take this question into consideration, and 
 refuse to allow any further trifling with its fame and that 
 of the Spanish nation. In order to accomplish this it is 
 
 l 
 
160 
 
 necessary that Spain should thoroughly understand what 
 is now transpiring, and that she should possess a perfect 
 knowledge of all the secret springs which move the pup- 
 pets in this show. Here Lord John Kussell issues official 
 notes, becomes excited and thunders forth his denuncia- 
 tions, not because his personal repose of mind is disturbed 
 by the commerce in slaves, but because he is obliged to 
 obey the wishes, the caprices, and even the extravagancies 
 of influential persons, in order to retain his political po- 
 sition. 
 
 "These persons are, in turn, influenced by the employees 
 of the different societies, which, being exposed to extinc- 
 tion from want of occupation, are obliged to get up some 
 commotions in the world if they desire the continuance of 
 their subscriptions, without which there would be no 
 salaries for the secretaries, the employees, the reporters, 
 and the rest of that innumerable hungry tribe who live in 
 this country at the expense of certain manias and follies 
 of the public. This is the secret cause of the outcry 
 made here concerning the slave trade." 
 
 And afterwards, while reflecting on the apparent rea- 
 sons on which the government of the United States 
 founded its then natural desire to escape from seconding 
 those propositions before the Spanish government, which 
 apparent reasons formed another chapter of charges and 
 recriminations ^against the authorities of the island of 
 Cuba, this paper continued to treat the matter in the 
 following words : 
 
 " As for the United States — what can be more accepta- 
 ble for them than the amiable complicity and voluntary 
 blindness of England, who allows them the undisturbed 
 enjoyment of the abundant profits accruing from the slave 
 trade, while she throws all the responsibility and all the 
 odium upon Spain ? 
 
 " To put an end to this interesting game, it is only ne- 
 cessary that Spain should display a little frankness and 
 energy. Let her government commission its agents in 
 New York to discover the operations of all the slavers fit- 
 ted out in that port ; let it, through its representative at 
 Washington^ unceasingly* demand the detention of such 
 vessels ; let it publish in the Madrid Gazette, the official 
 notes in which such demands may be made ; and the 
 world will not delay in casting the odium and responsibil- 
 
 v 
 
161 
 
 ity of the traffic on those who are really to blame. If the 
 Spanish government will not act thu$, Lord John Russell 
 and the President of the United States will continue to 
 play the game of shuttlecock with its reputation, that 
 being an amusement which suits their interests and costs 
 them but little, though it does incalculable damage to 
 Spain." 
 
 It appears to me that these reasonings of the Espanol 
 de Ambos Mundos were not far from right in their manner 
 of sifting the question, nor were they devoid of justice. At 
 the time that they appeared in answer to the charges pre- 
 ferred against Spain by the governments of England and of 
 the United States, the latter had succeeded in freeing 
 their vessels from the right of search, to which they had 
 been ignominiously subjected by the treaties then m force, 
 still no one can pretend to affirm — no one with any show 
 of truth — can even simply state that the United States ships 
 were not engaged in the slave trade. Just about that 
 time an American slaver was caught in frag ant i 9 and her 
 captain was hung, in consequence of the excitement and 
 antagonism which had already commenced to appear, with 
 all the symptoms of an approaching civil war between the 
 two great sections of .that Republic, which are now en- 
 gaged in the work of mutual destruction, and not because 
 such punishment was customary in such cases ; for, on the 
 contrary, it is well known to those who are experienced in 
 matters pertaining to the traffic, that, before this war broke 
 out, four-fifths of the vessels engaged in the slave trade 
 were Anglo- American, and that these slavers were fitted 
 out and prepared in the ports of the Union without any 
 attempts at secresy, and with full confidence in the suc- 
 cess of their expeditions. 
 
 It was doubtless for this reason that the Federal gov- 
 ernment definitely and absolutely rejected the plan of 
 introducing coolies into the States where negro labor was an 
 institution. This government also said : "In the United 
 States, where slavery exists, these heathen Chinese would 
 demoralize the temperate, pacific and contented negroes, 
 among whom there are great numbers who are sincere 
 Christians. " 
 
 Such is the history of England's efforts to abolish slave- 
 ry in the principal countries where it existed and where 
 N it still flourishes. In the narration of these facts I have 
 
 i 
 
162 - 
 
 confined myself simply to those relating to the French and 
 Spanish Colonies, omitting all mention of Brazil and the 
 United States, "because of the former I have but few data 
 in my possession, and because it would now be extremely 
 impolitic, in speaking of the latter, to enter into details 
 which would scandalize the world, and, doubly so, to pub- 
 lish them in a work which is based on conciliatory prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 Having ended this explanatory narration of facts which 
 are supported by authentic documents, it is now time that 
 we should analyze the effects produced on humanity and 
 Civilization by the absolute freedom of the negroes in those 
 countries where slavery has been abolished ; on the public 
 regard for international law, by the treaties which tend to 
 the destruction of the right of redemption ; and on the 
 future of Africa in its moral and material interests, by the 
 philanthropic labors of the Society in London. 
 
 v 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I 
 
 Remarks on the unskillful manner in which the treaties that prohibit 
 the redemption of the negroes were drawn up. — The prohibition of the 
 redeemption is opposed to the abolition of slavery : this proposition de- 
 monstrated. — The treaties now in force in these matters are also opposed 
 to the liberal tendencies and ideas of progress which may havS originated 
 them. — Historic results produced by this prohibition in countries peo- 
 pled by negroes. — The bloody and already famous scenes in Dahomey. 
 — Disastrous effects of said treaties in the slave holding countries which 
 have emancipated their laborers. — The English Colonies. — The French 
 Colonies. — The Republic of Haiti. — Moral and material state of the Span- 
 ish possessions. — In the countries where the institution of slavery exists, 
 the number of slaves has increased since the redemption was prohibited. 
 — The blame which on this account has been laid upon the authorities of 
 those countries might be attributed, for the same causes and with great- 
 er reason, to the English cruisers. — The blame, however, belongs exclu- 
 sively to the treaties on this matter now in force. 
 
 Many times, upon consulting the data and bringing to 
 mind the events which are to substantiate my views in 
 this chapter, my conviction has been confirmed that the" 
 ideas of the most eminent men, when treating of facts 
 bearing upon their own reputation, possess but little 
 depth, if indeed they are not characterized by total want 
 of force. And this conviction, which the vanity of men 
 who have obtained no political prominence will not admit, 
 and which a churlish wisdom would call unjustifiable, 
 since I am myself open to the charge, can be justified, not 
 alone by reference to the tempestuous and never properly 
 understood question of slavery, but also to almost all ques- 
 tions of international polity in which it has been necessary 
 to harmonize conflicting interests and views. 
 
 Consult the diplomatic history of peace and war ; the 
 substrata of offensive and defensive alliances, and the trea- 
 
 j 
 
164 
 
 ties which have ended wars, bearing carefully in mind the 
 various interests brought to light by the contest, and 
 nought will be found but ephemeral settlements ; adjust- 
 ments without positive results ; flaws, unnoticed at the 
 time, but leaving the door open for inevitable discord 
 sooner or later, and affording pretexts for renewing the 
 clash of arms, or for interminable disputes among law- 
 makers. 
 
 " Great men," said a deep thinker, " are like great 
 mountains, they grow smaller the nearer we approach to 
 them," and I assert that in the management ef human af- 
 fairs our intelligence is so limited, and our strength so un- 
 equal to the task, it may well happen that great mountains 
 may form an exception to the rule, but not so with great 
 men. 
 
 And this rule, the truth of which the generality of pub- 
 lic transactions will easily demonstrate, becomes infallible 
 when applied to slavery, for the most illustrious statesmen 
 of the civilized world have in vain sought for the best 
 method of treating it, and their efforts seem to have been 
 only instrumental in increasing the chaos. This is evi- 
 dent in the present status of the negro, whose condition 
 they have tried to ameliorate, as well in Africa as in the 
 Colonies ; in the laws concerning the rights of nations, as 
 they exist to-day between all governments ; in the indus- 
 trial standing of those countries where the system of 
 enforced labor once prevailed, but has been abolished ; and 
 in the arena where this vexed question, which both science 
 and empiricism have handled so much and so fruitlessly, is 
 now seeking a solution in blood. 
 
 The extremely limited intelligence with which God has 
 endowed the negro, that, being of the human species, he 
 might not be confounded with the lower animals, will in- 
 evitably render futile all efforts of the kind hitherto made 
 in his behalf. Neither distinguished statesmen nor philan- 
 thropical societies, nor elaborate treaties, are of any avail, 
 and so far have only resulted in bringing about the present 
 deplorable state of affairs, and if persisted in will end in 
 the subversion of order and the substitution of confusion ; 
 the well-being of a life of industry will be replaced by the 
 license of an enervating and demoralizing indolence, the 
 fruitfulness of honorable toil by the ruin of great territo- 
 ries, the respect due to international rights by vainglorious 
 
 v 
 
165 
 
 boastings and the bitter taunts of unjustifiable recrimina- 
 tion, the peaceful interchange of the necessaries and luxu- 
 ries of life, by the divided interests of separate sections of 
 a great nation, the views entertained by the one being an- 
 tagonistical to and incompatible with the material wants 
 of the other, and finally instead of peace, that inestimable 
 boon which the genius of the age demands, the world will 
 witness with abhorrence the recurrence of exterminating 
 and cruel wars, only equaled by those which characterized 
 the barbarous ages. 
 
 God forbid that I should deny the good intent of the . 
 efforts which have been the cause of so much disorder. 
 Slavery ! that barbarous institution, offspring of the prim- 
 itive ages, criminal compromise between human liberty and 
 an imperative necessity for labor, foul emission of that 
 false policy which has been the accompaniment of conquest 
 and invasion since the time of G-od's chosen people. 
 Slavery, whose name became repugnant to the hearing, 
 even where in reality it existed but in name, as soon 
 as the idea of emancipation had reached its apogee in the 
 course of the world's changes. 
 
 But it was said, they traffic in human flesh in Africa, 
 and in America a part of the human family exists in a 
 state of perpetual slavery. And this obtains and is prac- 
 tised legally among people with whom we are forced to 
 commune, and the right so to do is guaranteed by existing 
 codes in free nations ! 
 
 Naturally enough, this ultraism prompted, no doubt, by 
 true charity and unquestionable faith, took root among 
 the masses and became the subject of fiery discussions. 
 But although this occurred among the multitude whose 
 manifestations are always passionate, and whose arguments 
 are seldom if ever well digested, and notwithstanding the 
 seeming injustice of opposing a pagan institution, even 
 though *it existed only in name, yet a careful analysis of 
 the subject-should have been resorted to as the only means 
 of regulating these extravagant notions, so as not to ex- 
 ceed the bounds of the revolutionary spirit which had 
 commenced to cry out against negro labor. 
 
 . That the majority should protest against and demand 
 the abolition of slavery, since under that name the re- 
 demption of the African race from barbarism, their civili- 
 zation, and even their absolute eventual emancipation by 
 
 j 
 
166 
 
 means of labor, had been established, was but natural and 
 praiseworthy, emanating, as it did, from a liberal people, 
 ignorant though they were of the true merits of the case. 
 But, that statesmen allowing themselves to be led by the 
 horde, should endorse their errors, through sinful ignorance; 
 that those invested with high powers and entrusted with 
 the administration of justice, should attempt to solve by 
 the criterion of public sentiment, and that alone, one of the 
 most intricate questions which humanity could possibly sub- 
 mit to the judgment of the most privileged understandings; 
 finally, that governments, supposed to be the abodes of 
 greatest prudence and wisdom should unanimously agree 
 upon a policy without the precedent of experiment, lay 
 claim to infallibility and persevere in their folly after so 
 many years of an experience with results contrary to their 
 decision, is most wonderful, and suffices to form a chapter 
 of terrible accusations against the authors and abettors 
 thereof, when we reflect upon the endless heartburnings 
 which their course is producing in the world. 
 
 I am ignorant of the course of 9 procedure usual in 
 matters of universal import when presented to govern- 
 ments for adjudication, but were one to judge of it by 
 what has taken place respecting this matter of negro 
 slavery, he would most probably be led to suppose that 
 the private opinions of Ministers had alone been con- 
 sulted, now enveloped in the haze of erroneous theories, 
 and again clearly indicating the object arrived at. But, 
 although I confess to this ignorance, never having been 
 officially connected with the subject, I think myself 
 capable of pointing out the course most likely to succeed, 
 if I am not blinded by self conceit. 
 
 And I say this because the question referred to being 
 in itself intricate and difficult to handle, even when shorn 
 of the material interests liable to suffer in its solution, 
 and confined to the principle which gave it birth, the first 
 point which naturally suggests itself is to inquire if the 
 demands of public opinion, in the shape presented to us, 
 would be conducive to the desired end. 
 
 The prohibition of the slave trade and the abolition of 
 slavery are by no means one and' the same. I am even of 
 the opinion that the first renders the other impossible ; 
 and I also believe that the truly humanitarian intent of 
 the philanthropical , people who clamored against the in- 
 
 v 
 
167 
 
 stitution of enforced negro labor, on account of the name 
 it bore, had in view the abolition of said system rather 
 than the prevention of the redemption. 
 
 The prohibition of the slave trade being agreed upon 
 without reference to the abolition of slavery, resulted in 
 perpetuating the latter in the territories where it had but 
 a precarious existence before, because the involuntary ser- 
 vitude of the blacks having been recognized as of im- 
 perative necessity wherever experience had established it, 
 legislators at once commenced to draw the reins tighter 
 and to deprive the industrious slave of the right which he 
 before possessed to better his condition or ransom himself, 
 while the cupidity of their masters prompted them to 
 seek means for their reproduction by marriage. All, how- 
 ever, with the evident and very natural object of pre- 
 venting a scarcity of labor on their plantations. 
 
 In addition to this inferred wrong against natural 
 rights, the prohibition of the slave trade and the disposi- 
 tion to perpetuate servitude through the raising of negroes 
 born in that condition without aspirations to better them- 
 selves in the countries where these means were adopted, 
 all kinds of intellectual instruction was prohibited. And 
 as physiology and phrenology both induced the supposi- 
 tion that cultivation would have its effect upon the race 
 and improve its intellectual capacity, in the course of one 
 or more generations, legislators actuated more by self-in- 
 terest than regard for the poor unfortunates, forbid them 
 all intellectual food as though it were poison, in order 
 that their offspring might not be superior to their an- 
 cestors when with their savage tribes in Africa or Asia. 
 
 By this course, which moreover did not prevent the im- 
 portation of slaves into said countries when it was thought 
 they were needed, and which we might almost say con- 
 tinued without interruption worthy of note from the time 
 the treaties were made against the slave trade until the 
 war commenced in the Southern part of the United 
 States, the philanthropy of the abolitionists miscarried 
 even while confining itself within the limits of the com- 
 pact, for many slave owners finding traffic in slaves more 
 profitable than working their plantations, without giving 
 up however, the latter, devoted themselves to the raising 
 and sale of negroes upon a grand scale ; carrying' them 
 frequently in vessels freighted on purpose, and with all 
 
 ; 
 
168 
 
 the requirements of legal commerce from one State to 
 another. 
 
 To sum up, if the prohibition of the traffic in negroes 
 in Africa was done with the view of doing away with 
 slavery and of putting an end to the loathsome dealing in 
 human flesh, its most immediate results were directly the 
 opposite of those intended, since slavery was strengthened 
 where before individual labor was allowed, and the trade 
 in negroes which up to this time had been confined to 
 African prisoners, not only increased to the scandal of 
 public rights between Africa and America, but it also in- 
 creased and was made legal under the very treaties which 
 were intended to put an end to it. 
 
 This really happened in the United States, that is, in 
 the most liberal country in the world, if we are to take 
 into consideration the provisions of its republican and 
 democratic constitution, and therefore it is not strange 
 that among a people who could not, owing to the evident 
 spirit of their laws, conscientiously oppose the freeing of 
 such industrious slaves as might be able to acquire it as 
 the fruit of their labor and good conduct, should attempt 
 to take advantage of the weak' points in the treaties which 
 prohibited the slave trade, and carry it on in violation of 
 the authorities. 
 
 And this course, according to them, was the more praise- 
 worthy, as by this means legislation concerning the negro 
 was enabled to preserve its liberal and protective features 
 intact, without presenting the loathsome spectacle of 
 human breeding pens for public sale, and without the 
 transgression of the law concerning the slave trade being 
 considered as of much moment either, since they knew 
 that their action, although illegal, prevented the slaughter 
 of these unfortunates, and by civilizing them, made them 
 useful to mankind and themselves. 
 
 But laying these considerations aside and confining our- 
 selves to the object of the present chapter, which is to 
 show that all the concerted plans and international com- 
 pacts made to abolish slavery, have brought about, when 
 put in practice, the reverse of what was intended, which 
 was, the moral improvement of the African race by means 
 of liberty, and the prosperity of the colonies under a sys- 
 tem of free labor, let us proceed to prove our position by 
 means of such data as seem to be the most appropriate 
 
 v 
 
% 169 
 
 among those at hand. Should we succeed, the ravings of 
 fanatical sects will be discredited, and by proving clearly 
 the want of foresight of celebrated statesmen, the arrogant 
 pretensions of human judgment to infallibility will receive 
 one more reproof. 
 
 We have already said that the prohibition of the slave 
 trade, without the abolition of slavery, rivited the chains 
 of the latter in some places, and nowhere was it carried 
 out effectually as a law ; and to corroborate both asser- 
 tions, I appeal to the laws of the slave States of the 
 Anglo-American republic on the one hand, and on the 
 other to the extraordinary increase of the colored popula- 
 tion in the Spanish possessions, from the year 1835 up to 
 this date, in which time it has doubled. This is a noto- 
 rious fact, and figures in all the statistical reports which 
 have been published during said interval, by which it is 
 also seen, that said increase is equally divided between the 
 slave and free population, and that nearly all of the former 
 are imported, particularly in the island of Cuba. 
 
 As I do not intend to repel the charge which the aboli- 
 tionists make against Spain on this account, nor much 
 more to attempt to vindicate the Spanish authorities from 
 that of having connived thereat, there can be no reason 
 for concealing the truth. i 
 
 Existing laws in the slave States tend to corroborate 
 my assertions concerning slaveiy and the traffic in blacks 
 in the United States, but lest some of my readers should 
 believe that these laws are more honored in the breach 
 than in the observance, which is the case in other places, 
 I may be permitted to make some extracts from a letter, 
 dated Boston, August 21, 1860, and published in the 
 London Morning Post. It says as follows : 
 
 " Present occurrences prove that those who clamor for 
 the restoration of the traffic in African slaves, are not 
 actuated by mere caprice, but that the state of public 
 opinion in America upon this subject, is such, that were 
 the laws against the trade to be abolished, the measure 
 would be received with great favor by not a small number 
 of our business men. Restore it to the position it occu- 
 pied in the beginning of the present century, and in three 
 months, or even sooner, there would be five hundred 
 American vessels engaged in it. Thirty years ago, public 
 opinion would have sufficed to prevent this, but said 
 
 ; 
 
170 
 
 opinion has changed very much since 1850. This is due 
 to the efforts of' the abolitionists, for, they having directed 
 formidable attacks against slavery, its defenders were 
 forced to bring to bear arguments which proved to be in- 
 controvertible, and convincing not only to themselves, but 
 uwi ortunately to others also, showing that the institution 
 was in itself a very good one, from which it naturally fol- 
 lowed that to reopen the trade would be both useful and 
 proper. 
 
 " Logically, this cannot be contested, for there is no 
 argument in favor of slavery which is not equally favor- 
 able to the slave trade. Moreover, does not the coasting 
 trade in slaves' exist ? If an inhabitant of Virginia can 
 legally send five hundred negroes to Texas, and if the 
 cargo finds protection under the American flag, backed up 
 by the cannon of the republic, why may not Texans be 
 allowed to fit out a ship, send her to Africa, and obtain 
 there five hundred chattels for fifty thousand dollars, in- 
 stead of paying Virginia, at least, six hundred thousand 
 dollars for them ? 
 
 " I know merchants who would willingly contract, the 
 law allowing it, to land five hundred Africans in Texas, 
 #t the rate of one hundred dollars each, and who would 
 carry on the business with the same regularity with which 
 they transport, to-day, white emigrants from Germany or 
 Ireland to New York or Boston. To-day a Virginia 
 negro is considered cheap at twelve hundred dollars, and a 
 very likely woman is sometimes sold as high as twenty- 
 five hundred dollars." 
 
 And now that we cannot doubt the practical results of 
 legislation, nor justifiably deny the part which it had in 
 preventing the redemption of Africans, or more properly 
 speaking, of African prisoners, let us proceed to the con- 
 sideration of what took place in Africa, in consequence of 
 the prohibition, brought about by existing treaties, through 
 the persistent initiative of England, and the blind suff-. 
 ranee of other nations. 
 
 It is proper to call to mind at this juncture what has 
 been said in former chapters, respecting the status of the 
 negro in his mother country. That uncivilized, pagan 
 and barbarous state which is in some places that of can- 
 nabalism, and in all, most ferocious and bloody, looking 
 as they do upon war as their ordinary avocation, and 
 
 v 
 
171 
 
 slaughtering their prisoners by thousands, before colonial 
 nations invented a system for their redemption, and again 
 doing so since the slave trade has been stopped. 
 
 We must also recollect the changes eminently favorable 
 to humanity which took place in the conduct of these 
 savages, as soon as their cupidity caused them to treat 
 their captives with less ferocity, and also the transition 
 which these poor unfortunates experienced from an abject 
 and miserable life to one of Christian civilization, through 
 the instrumentality of a system of moderate labor, as laid 
 down in the regulations for their government. 
 
 In view of all this, it cannot be wondered at that we 
 should take into account the evil caused by the prohibi- 
 tion of said system of redemption in those countries where 
 it formally existed, nor that we should demonstrate be- 
 yond a peradventure and by the most horrible examples 
 which history can produce, the fact that such evil was 
 caused thereby. 
 
 I have before me a short treatise, published in France, 
 at the time the emancipation of the slaves was then the 
 order of the day. The authorship was shared by two 
 travellers, perfectly well informed concerning the state of 
 the negro, both in Africa and in the colonies, and whose 
 opinions were entirely unbiassed, as is evident from the 
 independent stand which they take. In fact upon reading 
 it studiously and thoughtfully, one might at times readily 
 imagine it to be the production of the London Anti- 
 slavery Society, and at others that of some slaveholder of 
 Bourbon or Martinique. 
 
 In this brochure, entitled, " Physiology of the Negro," 
 there is mentioned an occurrence more criminal in those 
 who quietly witnessed it, than in the ferocious actors 
 themselves,, and since any narative would not do justice to 
 the account given by said travellers, I submit it to my 
 readers in their own words : 
 
 " One of the terrible consequences of the prohibition of 
 the slave trade, was the dreadful massacre of five hundred 
 prisoners of war, which took place in Madagascar, a short 
 time before the death of Kadama. 
 
 " The King of the Ovas sent from his capital Zannana- 
 rivoce, at present Emyrna, a great army to subdue the 
 negroes of Betanima, savage hords who had refused to 
 recognize his authority. The two forces met and fought 
 
 j 
 
172 
 
 with fury ; the number of dead and wounded on both 
 sides being very great ; but at last the Betanimans were 
 defeated and left 500 captives in the hands of the con- 
 querors, who were taken to the coast contiguous to Tama- 
 tava, to be sold, as the natives of the interior had no 
 knowledge of the law which prohibited the slave trade. 
 
 " The orders of King Radama were decisive, viz., that 
 at all hazards the prisoners should be sold ; and great 
 was the joy of the chiefs of the army, when from the 
 highest peak of the Ancaves they beheld three vessels 
 riding at anchor in the roads, which according to informa- 
 tion communicated by the peaceable inhabitants, had 
 come for the purpose of buying slaves. 
 
 "The prisoners were not long in reaching the coast ; but 
 great was the disappointment of their conductors when 
 they found that one of the vessels was an English sloop- 
 of-war, whose duty it was to enforce the law both on the 
 coast of Madagascar and Bourbon. 
 
 " Notwithstanding this, the chiefs proposed, to the cap- 
 tains, the sale of their captives at the moderate price of 
 twenty dollars a head — an offer which was of course de- 
 clined. The price was then gradually lowered to fifteen, 
 ten, and lastly to five dollars, but without any result, as 
 t^ie price had nothing to do with the law, which would 
 in fact have been violated by any bargain whatever the 
 amount might be. At last the Ova warriors offered to 
 deliver their prisoners to the Europeans for the paltry sum 
 f of one dollar a head, which was again refused. 
 
 " The delirium of rage then succeeded to the anxiety 
 for gain ; they fell upon their defenceless captives, and 
 the five hundred Betanimans were inhumanly butchered 
 on the beach of Tamatava, without any interference being 
 attempted by the captains to prevent this act of un- 
 paralleled ferocity. 
 
 " The captains should have bought the slaves, embarked 
 them, and carried them to some distant part of the island 
 far from their enemies. Humanity, which is so often in- 
 voked, demanded this transgression of the law. 'Those 
 negroes would have been bought, it is true ; but by giving 
 them their freedom of which they would have been but 
 temporarily deprived in order to save their lives, the vio- 
 lation of the law ceased. What 1 was it in accordance 
 with the principles of humanity to coolly witness such 
 
 v 
 
173 
 
 terrible butchery, when three English vessels were pro- 
 vided with the means of preventing it ? 
 
 " We leave it to the philanthropic abolitionists to solve 
 this problem." 
 
 I fancy I see a smile of incredulity on the lips of those 
 who, having no knowledge of facts in relation to the 
 negroes, will look upon this dreadful narrative as an absurd 
 and impertinent invention. And I even suspect that it 
 will be disbelieved by other persons, who, though better 
 informed are suspicious of the exaggerations of both ten- 
 dencies, the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery, if in addition 
 to it there were not more certain and undeniable evidence 
 of horrors no less terrible, taken from an English journal. 
 
 In a previous chapter I have alluded to the barbarous 
 instincts of the King of Dahomey ; that stupid sover- 
 eign of a land of ferocious customs, who, to celebrate 
 some festivity, actually floated his canoes through a 
 lake of human blood. My readers have also seen that on 
 ordering an attack to be made against the inhabitants of 
 the neighboring country for that sinister purpose, this 
 blood-thirsty villain had resolved, if possible, to sell the 
 young and vigorous captives, or to sacrifice them with the 
 rest if no opportunity of selling them presented itself. 
 
 From the detailed accounts, published by the English, 
 who had commercial relations with that barbarian, these 
 facts became known to the civilized nations in time to 
 prevent, if they would, that butchery ; and it would be 
 but natural that, upon hearing such news, the Government 
 of Great Britain, the then zealous initiator of benevolent 
 intentions in behalf of the negroes, should hasten to pre- 
 vent by every means in its power the butchery which was 
 contemplated ; and which was what all expected would 
 be done, especially as the cruisers of the English royal 
 navy frequent that neighborhood more particularly. The 
 reader, then, may imagine our surprise when some months 
 afterwards the democratic journal of Madrid, La Dis- 
 cusion, in its number of 30th of May, 1861, said as 
 follows : 
 
 " We copy from an English newspaper the following 
 news showing the horrible state in which the negroes in 
 Africa live. 
 
 " The wholesale murder has taken place in Dahomey, 
 notwithstanding all our philanthropic entreaties. Two 
 
 ; 
 
174 
 
 thousand men and as many women and children have 
 fallen victims to the cruelty of those rulers, as is the cus- 
 tom in that country, on the death of a King of Daho- 
 mey." 
 
 " This barbarous custom is founded on the popular be- 
 lief that a sovereign ought to be served beyond the grave 
 by an adequate number of his subjects; and as in para- 
 dise he continues to be king, he would consider himself' 
 humiliated if he had but a small retinue of attendants. 
 The veneration in which he is held while living, cannot be 
 compared with even that professed for the most despotic 
 and theocratic monarchs of Asia. 
 
 " The principal personages cannot approach him with- 
 out bowing their heads to the ground, and licking the dust 
 as a proof of their humility. He is believed to be free 
 from the ordinary passions and necessities of human kind, 
 and in Dahomey it is considered criminal to say that the 
 king eats, drinks, sleeps, or performs any other function 
 proper to ordinary mortals. The human victims go 
 willingly to death, as they believe they gain paradise in 
 this way, although they do not expect better treatment 
 there than they received in this world. Mahometanism 
 is the basis of this superstition, and the Dahomians 
 usually carry amulets with short sentences from the Koran 
 inscribed upon them. 
 
 "What is most singular is, that the ferocious people are 
 generally polite and even courteous, when the demon of 
 war does not possess them. When this is the case their 
 ferocity knows no bounds, and the women vie with the 
 men in their cruelty. The King of Dahomey has a re- 
 giment of aniazons who surpass in blood-thirstiness all 
 the rest of his soldiers. 
 
 " The tutelar divinity of Dahomey is said to be a tiger ! 
 It is high time that European intervention should put an 
 end to such atrocities. That country is worthy of a better 
 fate. Few of the adjoining districts can surpass it in 
 fertility. It is situated on the slave coast, with Ashantee 
 on the west, and extends forty miles to the G-ulf of 
 Guinea. It produces pine apples, melons, oranges, sweet 
 potatoes, and many other tropical fruits. Indigo is 
 abundant, and tobacco grows well. A kind of indigenous 
 cotton also grows here which is not- of very inferior qual- 
 ity, notwithstanding the want of culture. 
 
 v 
 
175 
 
 a 
 
 It is more difficult, we know, to eradicate a barbarous 
 custom when it is founded on an innate superstition, than 
 when it is merely the result of tyranny in the rulers ; but 
 humanity requires us to destroy, if possible, the source 
 of so many horrors ; and the country, in a commercial 
 point of view, well deserves our attention and our aid. (1; 
 
 ( I) Owing to the exaggerations in which travellers are apt to indulge, 
 I have often feared to he mistaken in my judgments and comments upon 
 the affairs of Africa, and have therefore hesitated in accepting their ac- 
 counts whenever they referred to such terrible acts. For. this reason, 
 which is worthy of the consideration of every just and upright mind, I 
 have omitted to insert in this book some narratives of facts which are 
 still more revolting and horrifying than those which appear in it. In 
 order that such as appear in this work may not excite incredulity from 
 the terrible nature of the facts which they expose, I think it well to in- 
 sert in this place in the form of a note, the following letter of a Spanish 
 missionary, recently published in La Revista Catolica of Barcelona, and 
 La Verdad Catolica of Havana. The missionary, writer of this letter, is 
 personally known in both the cities named ; and from the encomiums 
 made of his virtues by the Catalan paper, and the information I have per- 
 sonally obtained respecting him, in the island of Cuba recently (Septem- 
 ber 1, 1863), after having completed this work, I do not hesitate impli- 
 citly to believe the entire contents of his said letter, and to vouch for its 
 veracity. Here, then, is the document alluded to, which on many ac- 
 counts is very remarkable : 
 
 " Whydah, 14th February, 1863.— My dear Fathers and Friends:— My 
 heart is witness that I have not missed a single opportunity to write to 
 you since my departure from Europe, thus performing the most pleasant 
 of duties. You must have noticed that none of my letters have as yet 
 been dated from my mission house at Dahomey, having all been sent from 
 various points of the coast of Africa, which during my lengthy travels I 
 have been obliged to visit a great many times. During the four-and-a- 
 half months of my transit from Vigo, in Galicia, to Whydah, in Africa, I 
 have suffered greatly, especially as I had to pass most of the time on 
 board of an ill-conditioned vessel, and upon the open ocean. In the 
 midst of the many trials which are unavoidable in such a voyage as 
 mine, some moments of peace and real happiness were not denied to me; 
 but after all, these troubles came upon me when I was upon the ocean, 
 or in some place where I was completely a stranger. Now, however, 
 when, thanks to the Lord, I find myself in my own house and in the com- 
 pany of my missionary brethren ; now that I am in the midst of the 
 negroes of Dohomey, for whose sakes I have so often encountered danger 
 of death ; now it is that 1 write with exceeding gladness, my heart being 
 filled with the sweetest emotions that I have experienced in a long time. 
 
 " It is now about three weeks since I disembarked with my com- 
 panions, in Whydah, after having been driven hither and thither on the 
 coast without being able to arrive at our destination. It would be need- 
 less as well as wasting time to describe the satisfaction which we all felt 
 on arriving at the mission and meeting again our African companions; 
 suffice it to say that an embrace was our only salutation, for being mute 
 with joy, we were unnble to utter a single word. Supposing that what 
 will most interest you after hearing of my health will be the usages and 
 customs of the country, I take pleasure in giving you an account of what 
 passes iu this uncivilized city. In the first place, our king reigns over a 
 
 ; 
 
176 
 
 I have not the courage to comment upon that dreadful 
 narrative, for fear of offending those who furnished it, after 
 knowingly allowing the scenes announced in it to take 
 place. Humanity demanded some preventive measures 
 to avoid the slaughter of so many human beings; and 
 it cannot be conceived in conformity to what order of 
 
 million of subjects, and exercises over them the most absolute and des- 
 potic power. He sells them in great numbers, either to slave traders, or 
 to the wealthy negroes of the country, who also treats them like slaves. 
 He has a considerable number of troops, amongst which are more than 
 six thousand women, armed with daggers, swords and clubs, which is his 
 most formidable batallion, and consequently, employed as the King's 
 body guard. The King eDgages in war twice a year, and only yesterday, 
 all the men in the kingdom were snmmoned to fight, without more ado, 
 against another king, whom they will despoil of his troops and wealth, 
 and who, no doubt, will be sold with the rest of the prisoners. When the 
 King returns from the war with five or six thousand prisoners, he retains 
 the majority to sell them, and the rest he will have beheaded or cut to 
 pieces, and offered as a sacrifice to his idols. When the King receives a 
 visit from some person of rank, he orders all the people to assemble in 
 some public square and arrange themselves in the form of an amphi- 
 theatre, and there, in the presence of his visitor, he has three or four 
 hundred prisoners beheaded ; this ceremony is repeated twice a year in 
 the feasts called festival of the customs. The King's palace is covered with 
 skulls and human heads ; the hall in which he gives audience is paved 
 with human bones, and even his throne is raised upon the heads of the 
 four kings who were his principal enemies, conquered by him in his capri- 
 cious wars. When any one wishes to speak to the King, he receives him 
 seated upon his magical and diabolical throne, having the executioner at 
 his side with the axe (dcstral) on his shoulder, and the block (tallado) at 
 his feet, and at the slightest signal from the King the head of the peti- 
 tioner is made to fall. It is impossible for me to enumerate all the 
 cruelties of the King; nevertheless, I must not forget to mention one 
 with respect to the women. The King has six hundred wives whom he 
 has chosen from his own kingdom, or whom he has reserved for himself 
 from the prisoners of war taken from other kings. Upon the death of the 
 King all these women will take their own lives by poison or the dagger, 
 believing that they will resuscitate and live with the King in the other 
 world. This horrible ceremony was performed a short while since upon 
 the death of the father of the present King. The name of the late King 
 was Guezo; the present one is Grer6, and believes he is a son of the gods. 
 When the King returns from the war he will bring more than two thou- 
 sand women prisoners of war; he will confine them in a house which he 
 has had constructed for the purpose, and all the men who are in want of 
 a wife can go and buy one of them for the sum of forty pesetas, which is 
 the fixed price of each one. But what is most singular is, that the King 
 gives them the woman he chooses, while the poor fellows who buy them 
 are not allowed to speak to or even to see them until they have payed 
 down the price. However, they are at liberty to kill them if they do not 
 suit them, and to buy others under the same conditions. It often hap- 
 pens that a boy buys an old woman, or an old man finds that he has pur- 
 chased a child, and sometimes a man's purchase turns out to be his own 
 mother, daughter or sister. My countrywomen can here learn to be 
 grateful for the blessing of being born in a civilized country, and of 
 
 v 
 
177 
 
 ideas this demand was delayed at that time, when two 
 years afterwards, and according to the information given 
 us, a short time since, by all the periodicals of the world, 
 the government of England, assuming the garbe of civi- 
 lized humanity, took possession, according to law, of those 
 territories where such abominations were perpetrated. 
 
 knowing the sweet name of the Virgin Mary, which is entirely unknown 
 to these barbarians. 
 
 "In this very city where I reside, and about three hundred feet from 
 the chamber in which I write, is the house of the gods of these stupid and 
 miserable savages. Do you wish to know what kind of a building this is, 
 and what are their gods 1 I will tell you, though with sorrow and the 
 fear of horrifying you. The house is similar to a sentry box, with two 
 doors, about nine feet high and three feet square, built of clay and 
 thatched with the leaves of the cocoa nut tree ; the gods who inhabit this 
 temple are serpents ! 
 
 "I went into this house yesterday and found twelve enormous serpents 
 within, thicker than my arm, and proportionately long, and of the color 
 of the salamander. They are very tame, and go about the city at plea- 
 sure. The sight of them caused me such a loathing that I was not able 
 to eat my dinner. These are the principal gods of our unfortunate 
 negroes. . . . 
 
 "In walking through tho city I often stumble over some of these mon- 
 sters, which are harmless so long as they are unmolested. If one of them 
 should stray, after dark, about the citj 7 , and not be able to find its way 
 home, it is the duty of every one to return it to its habitation, which they do 
 by reverently carrying it in a basket or even in the hands, at a slow and 
 majestic pace, to the palace from which it had inadvertently strayed. 
 This palace hut is called the House of' the Serpents. I must add that 
 whenever any of the negroes of Whydah meet with any of these serpents 
 about the streets, they bow down or even prostrate themselves at full 
 length and cover their heads with dust, while the disgusting reptile crawls 
 past in triumph. 
 
 " This is not the only spectacle which we are obliged to witness every 
 time that we have to walk through the city, from curiosity or necessity, 
 for whenever we go out we can hardly take a step without coming in con- 
 tact with some of the stupid gods of Dahomey, which, in order to avoid 
 giving them the appellation of gods, I will henceforth call fetiches, that 
 being the name given to them by the hapless people of Dahomey, while 
 the priests of the country are called fetishers. Well, as I said, 
 whenever we walk out, we cannot take a step without encountering a 
 number of fetiches of a thousand different kinds and forms. You will be 
 astonished when I tell you that, besides the serpents, which are the great 
 fetiches, there are any quantity of other lesser ones, such as the crocodile, 
 the red owl, the bat, the ant, which are all fetiches, as are also some par- 
 ticular kinds of trees unknown in Europe, and small mounds of clay, of a 
 pyramidal form, on the top of which the negroes place small gourds full 
 of palm oil, docorating the other parts with the feathers of several kinds 
 of birds of prey, which abound in Whydah. I confess, I rarely go out 
 for a walk, for it is really disgusting to go about these streets, where 
 your nostrils are continually assailed by the stench arising from innumer- 
 able puddles, where all the refuse of the city is thrown, emitting a fetid 
 miasma, which, together with the equatorial sun of Whydah, would be 
 enough to kill any one who should often venture into it. Everything in 
 
 J 
 
178 
 
 s 
 
 Now, in the interval between the two opposite circum- 
 stances, viz.: the toleration with which the slaughter 
 was allowed, (in accordance without doubt of the princi- 
 ple of non-intervention applied to the savages), and the 
 violence afterwards exercised when there was no longer 
 any fear of a similar occurrence, another Spanish period- 
 
 these streets excites loathing and abhorrence. More than twenty-four 
 thousand negroes go about the city entirely naked, or with a small piece 
 of cloth about half the size of a pocket handkerchief as their only 
 covering. An infinite number of children of both sexes spring up like 
 ants in every direction, and go about entirely naked, until the age of 
 twelve and fourteen. This is a spectacle which strikes any one with 
 amazement at first, but you soon get used to it, and seek for some new 
 absurdities, which are never wanting in this country; in fact, I proceed 
 on my way through the streets, and here I see a simple little tree, well 
 taken care of and enclosed in a little house made of the trunks of trees. 
 I ask what is the meaning of this, and am told that it is a god. I go on 
 and see thousands of enormous and hideous bats, which are flying around 
 a tree, and which confound and deafen me with their diabolical screams. 
 I ask what that is, and receive for answer that they are gods. On my 
 right hand there is a small mound of earth, sprinkled with palm oil, de- 
 corated with feathers and a number of little plates full of the blood of 
 chickens and many other absurd and disgusting ingredients ; on my left 
 hand I see a hen nailed to the door of a hut by the wings or by the legs, 
 the blood flowing from nostrils, bill, eyes and ears, which has been suffer- 
 ing this torture for three days. I am on the point of asking what this 
 signifies, but abstain from doing so, knowing well what the answer will 
 be — a sacrifice offered to the gods, to obtain something or other, such as 
 the death of such a one, or the blindness of another one, &c. I 
 wish to proceed, but cannot; I am no longer able to resist the effect of 
 these stupid, disgusting and heartrending spectacles. I hardly dare to 
 say more, or to relate to you any more of the cruelties and filthiness of 
 the country. I fear I have already wearied you; nevertheless, I hare 
 still much more to tell, and that of a more horrible nature than anything 
 I have yet related. 
 
 " To divert your thoughts, I will relate an anecdote. You have already 
 heard me say that visits are not made here, as in Europe, in person or 
 by means of visiting cards ; persons of high rank pay their visits or carry 
 on a conversation with their canes or staffs. Whenever the governor has 
 anything to say to us, he sends his servant who carries his cane with the 
 greatest respect ; on his arriving at our house, one of us goes out immedi- 
 ately to meet him ; the servant, after making a profound reverence,, pre- 
 sents the staff, which we respectfully take in our hands — then, while 
 we both bow our heads down, the servant delivers the message with which 
 he has been chai'ged by his master, we return him the staff, and after 
 making another reverence to the very ground, the servant retires. The 
 staff represents the owner, and each person has his. I have one in 
 the shape of a salamander. Well, one day the servant of Zerogan, the gov- 
 ernor, appeared, and after the customary ceremonies, he presented 
 the staff to us and warned us on the part of Zerogan not to go out of k,he 
 house during the following thirty nights, if we did not wish to expose our- 
 salves to the insults of the people. In fact, the governor had good reason 
 to warn us, as that very night such an awful uproar commenced through- 
 out the city that we, although in the house, could not bat treinhle at the 
 
 v 
 
179 
 
 ical, La Correspondencia, copied from an English pa- 
 per the following information: 
 
 "The members of the London African Society had an 
 interview, some time since, with Lord Palmerston, to 
 present a petition asking for a subsidy for the king of 
 Dahomey, who has abolished the hunting of slaves. The 
 
 sound of their infernal ceremonies. The cause of this excitement was tha 
 a child had just been born who had the misfortune to come into the world 
 with teeth, and in consequence was to be offered as a sacrifice to the god 
 of the toothed ones. The whole city was assembled en masse before the 
 house of the victim, with a thousand musical instruments of the most bar- 
 barous and ridiculous kinds which can be imagined. They commenced 
 the ceremony by singing the most diabolical songs, after which they be- 
 came intoxicated with the brandy which they make themselves, and then 
 the feticher or priest took the child, and heading this immense crowd, di- 
 rected his steps towards a lake which is about half a league from the city ; 
 all followed, and, leaping, yelling, and twisting their bodies into the most 
 dreadful contortions, as though they were possessed, they arrived at the 
 lake in about three hours and a half, and here all the horrors of their cere- 
 monies were again renewed with such fiendish joy that it made our hair 
 stand on end, though we were at a distance of half a league from them. 
 At last, after having repeatedly stabbed the child, they threw it into the 
 lake of crocodiles, to which the victim belonged, having been born with 
 teeth. The infant was drowned after its sufferings were prolonged as long 
 as possible, and then the crowd retired, yelling and dancing like a band 
 of infernal imps, which they kept up every night for a whole month. 
 
 "I have visited the whole coast of Africa, and can assure you that 
 1 never witnessed such barbarous customs nor such fiendish usages in any 
 other place. It is perfectly horrible! I might speak of many other 
 cruelties witnessed by lis, but I dare not, nor do I feel myself equal to the 
 task. I am going to breakfast, as I hear the bell summoning me, and 
 perhaps, afterwards I may have the courage to relate things which 
 you have never read or heard of. 
 
 " I have breakfasted, and now I shall proceed. Besides all I have told 
 you, we usually find a gourd full of palm oil and blood, whenever four 
 roads cross each other ; when three only cross, there is a mat with a dy- 
 ing hen upon it ; when only two roads cross, the negroes place some other 
 filthy thing upon it, as for example, a small mound of mud covered with 
 feathers, which they take good care to sprinkle with blood every day, and 
 all this is done by the counsel of their oracles to obtain some revenge, 
 or the misfortuneof a neighbor, and also to give thanks to their gods for 
 the blessings they think they have received. 
 
 " This is not all, and it seems as nothing to me compared to the other 
 barbarities which frequently happen in this country, governed by a tyrant 
 who is surely inspired by Satan himself. 
 
 " One of our brethren belonging to this Mission, having gone on a visit 
 to the capital some months since, spent some three months there, at 
 the expiration of which he returned in very ill health, not so much on ac- 
 count of the inconveniences sufi'ered in travelling by land, without roads 
 or paths whatever, without a horse or any kind of carriage, being always 
 carried on the shoulders of the negroes of the country, in a species of lit- 
 ter called hamaquc, or palanquin, ofwvhich I intend to speak hereafter, if I 
 do not forget to do so, as from the filthy and barbarous state of the 
 country. 
 
180 
 
 authors of this petition said that, to obtain this subsidy 
 without drawing from the treasury, the reduction of the 
 squadron on the coasts of Africa would suffice. They 
 also propose to send a minister plenipotentiary to the 
 king of Dahomey." 
 
 From which facts some captious persons have suspect- 
 
 " Our* brother in question, being obliged to walk out every day, was 
 compelled to witness the most horrible spectacles ; oftentimes, on passing 
 in the streets, he would find it closed up by heaps of hundreds of human 
 heads ; at other times he would go to the public square, and on a long 
 rope, or on the tops and branches of trees, he would find dozens of men 
 hung by the neck, by the arm, or by the feet, in the most horrible torture, 
 bleeding from the mouth, nose, ears and eyes, some dead, others expiring, 
 and others recently hung ; while they had the consolation of seeing them- 
 selves surrounded by many thousands of men, (or rather ferocious beasts,) 
 who were mocking and laughing at them. Another day he was invited by 
 the king to witness the bravery of his amazons in a sham fight. He was 
 conducted to an immense field, surrounded by three or four high and mas- 
 sive walls, formed of branches of trees covered with enormous and very 
 sharp thorns; all the female warriors of the, king, numbering six or seven 
 thousand, ranged themselves in battle array, and at a simple sign from 
 the king they charged on the wall and scaled this formidable barrier, 
 before which, perhaps, our bravest European troops would recoil, if in- 
 stead of having a dress of heavy cloth and leather, &c, they were in a 
 state of nudity, as are our valorous female warriors of Dahomey. They 
 leaped over the barrier, I repeat, and the blood streamed from all parts of 
 their bodies. I now ask: Why does the barbarous king make them per- 
 form such an abominable feat 1 Because he wishes to please our compan- 
 ions of the Mission. Why do these inimitable female warriors labor so 
 willingly and with such intrepidity 1 To please the king. Does this hap- 
 pen many times during the year 7 As many times as the king receives a 
 visit* from a white man, besides the three days in which all these sacrifices 
 take place every year, to solemnize the feasts of the customs ; it is no 
 uncommon occurrence to see six, twelve, or twenty negroes drowned by 
 order of the king, and the decapitation of a man who displeases the king 
 is a thing seen every day. 
 
 " At the distance of three hundred paces from our house we have* the 
 magnificent Temple of the Bats. It consists of eight trees of an extraor- 
 dinary height and luxuriant foliage, upon whose branches rest millions of 
 these animals, which are as large as the young pigeons of our country, and 
 who, with the tremendous battles which they have among themselves and 
 the infernal cry which said battles produce, annoy and distract any one 
 who is not accustomed to such a din. 
 
 " This is also the case with the Crow gods, which they have by the mil- 
 lion. The money of this country is a species of small sea shell, one thou- 
 sand of which make one hard dollar ; the people require no other money ; 
 each shell is called a busa, and a shilling is cailed a galina. This very 
 day I have to pay the governor of the city the duty for shipping my little 
 negroes, which duty amounts to one hundred and forty thousand busas, 
 which have to be counted one by ope— who can have the patience to do 
 this 1 I now have twelve women counting them, with two persons of the 
 Mission watching them. 
 
 " I shall say something respecting certain customs of the negroes ; but 
 can only touch lightly on the subject, as I am very tired and in great 
 haste: 
 
181 
 
 ed that the fertility and spontaneous vegetation of the 
 country of Dahomey had awakened in England, for some 
 time back, the idea of acting as it has done; that is, to 
 take forcible possession of it; and, in order to justify 
 such a proceeding before other nations, nothing could be 
 better than, coolly, to allow those awful butcheries to be 
 
 11 Revenge of the Negroes of Gabon. — Peter offends Paul, robs him, for ex- 
 ample, of a wife. Paul wishes to revenge himself on Peter, but if Peter is 
 stronger than Paul, Paul goes out and robs or kills a child or a wife of 
 Antonio, who is stronger than Peter, and then Antonio tears out the eyes 
 of Peter or buries him alive, and Paul and Antonio thereafter remain at 
 peace with each other. I do not know if a single reading will suffice to 
 make this understood. 
 
 " Funerals. — When a negro dies he is buried with all he has in his house ; 
 one has recently died who was buried with fifty high-crowned hats . . 
 
 "Weddings. — Each negro has as many wives as he can support, and 
 when he dies, his sons are married to the wives of their fathers. 
 
 " The. man does nothing, the wife only works, and she alone has the 
 privilege of carrying the parcels and the loads. 
 
 " Births. — When a male or female child is born with any defect, it is 
 immediately killed by the parents. 
 
 "Marriage Contracts. — When a negro wishes to marry, he is obliged to 
 supply the bride with hog's lard to dress her hair, and besides this, gives 
 her a cat before they get married. What do you think of that 1 
 
 "If I were not in such haste, I could relate a great deal more, but as I 
 suppose you are already tired, (and with reason), I will conclude with an 
 anecdote which, though it has its serious side, has also something amusing, 
 so here you have it : One day I asked a negro if he believed in the Son of 
 God. He answered me that he did, and added, that all the negroes be- 
 lieved it also. Whyl I asked him; and the good man held forth in the 
 following jargon : ' Two negroes, named Baynagn and Ndulnaca, went on a 
 journey ; which having been prolonged more than they had anticipated, 
 their provisions failed them, hunger followed, causing the companions to 
 fight, when one of them tore the eyes out of the other , upon this the 
 Son of God, who was mending his drawers in Pleaven, by chance looked 
 downwards, and by so doing pricked his finger with the needle, he in a 
 moment took out of his pocket a small pot of onguent, when seeing the 
 negro who had just lost his eyes, and moved with compassion, he threw 
 him down the whole pot of onguent, with which the negroes now-a-days 
 cure all diseases without any diminution of the onguent.' 
 
 " Another : At a quarter of a league from our house, it happened that 
 a woman was eating a fish in the presence of her slaves ; it so happened 
 that a bone stuck in the old woman's throat; she laid the blame on her 
 slave, saying that he had bewitched the fish, in consequence thereof, she 
 tied him up and confined him in a hovel leaving him to starve to death. 
 What do you think of that ? 
 
 " Still another : While I was in Gabon, it happened that a missionary fa- 
 ther having gone to bathe at a very short distance from the place where I 
 also was bathing in the sea, a negro passed near him, and as he had only 
 his head out of the water as he was swimming, the nesro imagined that it 
 was a monstrous fish which they call bugari, he therefore set up a cry 
 that more people might come, and cried out incessantly in a very loud 
 voice . Yo-6-go-lo, go-go, go-go, which means — Come, a monster, come, come, 
 On hearing this all the people ©f the neighboring tribe came ; some with 
 
 J 
 
182 
 
 committed, and, afterwards, give them publicity in all 
 the languages in the world. 
 
 Be this as it may, the result which, with evident con- 
 tradiction, has followed the suppression of the redemp- 
 tion of prisoners on the African coast, has been the re- 
 turn of the negroes to the state of barbarism and fero- 
 city which characterized that race from centuries back. 
 It must not be supposed that these are the only data 
 on which I can base my assertions, for I have selected 
 them from among many others equally important, that 
 they may serve as specimens of the spirit which charac- 
 terizes them all. 
 
 It has then, so far, been unquestionably demonstrated 
 that the prohibition of the redemption of negroes has 
 served only to perpetuate slavery, and to aggravate it in 
 such places where the treaties have been neutralized by 
 the reproduction of slaves for the market, and that it 
 has also made the condition of African prisoners much 
 worse wherever said treaties made by England with the 
 slave holding nations have by chance produced their effects 
 on the African coast. Having demonstrated these facts, 
 let us proceed to consider what has happened in the colo- 
 nies. 
 
 This new point of investigation has two phases, viz. : 
 that of the colonies in which the prohibition of the re- 
 demption was the preamble to abolish slavery, and that of 
 the other countries where slavery was confirmed with new 
 ordinances, to avoid the disastrous results of the prohibi- 
 tion of the redemption. 
 
 clubs, others with irons, with guns, or with bows, &c., &c. ; but, in the 
 meantime, while the negro who had given the alarm had gone to call the 
 rest of the people, the missionary came out of the water and put on his 
 cassock, and was walking quietly on the beach, the people came out with 
 tremendous yells, and the missionary, seeing that they were all looking to- 
 wards the place where he had been bathing, and that it was him who they 
 sought, went towards them and told them smiling : 'It is I, it is I ;' and 
 the astonished negroes went away saying, ' Mintsse, minisse,' that is, the 
 Minister, the minister. 
 
 " As I am very much occupied, and almost every day have an attack of 
 fever, I cannot, without much trouble, write many letters, I therefore pray 
 my Reverend Fathers to show this letter to my friends of Vich, Tarrasa, 
 Viladran, S. Felio, Garriga, &c, &c. Do not write to me until further 
 notice, for this very day, within six hours, I embark for Europe, but I do 
 not know where I shall stop, whether at Fernando Po, TeneriiFe, or 
 Paris. 
 
 " Brrtolomeo M. Sarra, Missionary:" 
 
 V 
 
183 
 
 The first of these phases ougnt to be subdivided into 
 two distinct cases, viz: that of those colonies in which 
 slaveowners were deprived of their absolute authority and 
 rendered dependent on the free labor of the negroes, and 
 that of those other regions in which the slaves were sud- 
 denly transformed into masters, through a violent and san- 
 guinary metamorphosis. 
 
 Leaving aside the second phase, to be analyzed after- 
 wards, we will consider the two points of the first, sepa- 
 rately. 
 
 I have often heard, and I regret that I have not at hand 
 the proofs which could demonstrate it incontrovertibly. 
 that Jamaica, before the abolition of slavery, had about 
 twenty thousand inhabitants; and I know also, from re- 
 peated verbal information, that said population has dege- 
 nerated to such an extent, since the freedom of the negroes, 
 that at present it has hardly a sixth part of that number. 
 
 If any mistake be found in the numbers given, let it be 
 considered unintentional; since the rapid and extraordi- 
 nary decrease of the population of that Island is so true 
 that no one would dare to deny it, being evident to all the 
 world. 
 
 The same can he said of all the other English posses- 
 sions in this part of the Ocean, which have degenerated 
 more or less, according to the relative importance of each; 
 and if the same general decrease cannot be shown in the 
 French colonies, although the decrease has evidently been 
 considerable in these also, it is because the time has not 
 yet arrived for such disastrous results. 
 
 In either of these territories where the negroes have ob- 
 tained their emancipation from forced labor, being left to 
 their will to work or not, it may be that the life of these 
 miserable creatures has been bettered in indolence, even if 
 they are compelled to resort to public charity to be pre- 
 served from perishing from hunger; but it can also be as- 
 serted that their condition has become worse in every res- 
 pect, for, from having been orderly and civilized, its pre- 
 sent tendencies are towards the isolation of each individual 
 and the abandonment of all social trammels and other re- 
 quirements of civilization. 
 
 We could easily give any number of data to prove the 
 disastrous results of the absolute freedom bestowed upon 
 the negroes in the New World, and some have already been 
 
 ; 
 
184 
 
 given in the chapter that treats of the respective condition 
 of the free negroes and slaves in said colonies But as, in 
 the opinion of the abolitionists, the greatest advantage, 
 not only to individuals, but to the country, results from 
 the greater amount of freedom and independence, I believe 
 that the best answer to this supposition will be a detailed 
 and careful comparison on this matter in the republic of 
 Hayti. For this purpose, that I may not be suspected of 
 partiality, I shall make use of a work which was written 
 on abolitionist principles, in an excellent article from El 
 Siglo, an enlightened newspaper published in.Havanna. 
 
 All the world is aware that the island known by the 
 name of Hayti and also by that of Santo Domingo, and 
 sometimes as La Espanola, is divided into two parts: the 
 Western section, or Hayti proper, and what was until very 
 recently the republic of Santo Domingo. It ranks next to 
 Cuba in sine, and is considered the most fertile of the West 
 Indian Islands. The whole length of the island is four 
 hundred and six mites, and its greatest breadth is one hun- 
 dred and sixty- three. Twenty-seven thousand six hundred 
 and ninety square miles have been measured, of which ten 
 thousand and ninety-one belong to Hayti, and the rest to 
 the Dominican section. 
 
 It. is very difficult to ascertain with any degree of cer- 
 tainty the exact population of Hayti, as no definite sta- 
 tistics exist; but it is calculated to be about six hun- 
 dred thousand. The climate, the natural productions and 
 the fertility of the land cannot be surpassed in any other 
 country in the world. Gold, silver, platina, copper, iron, 
 quicksilver, tin, sulphur, saltpetre, jasper, marble, etc., are 
 among its mineral productions. The gold mines have been 
 abandoned for some time .past, as well as all occupa- 
 tions requiring laborious industry. The climate is warm, 
 but the sea breezes make it generally agreable, even 
 during the heat of summer time. The vegetation is un- 
 surpassably rich and exhuberant. 
 
 " It is extremely difficult," says a traveller, " to give 
 any adequate idea of the magnificent beauty of the scene- 
 ry of this island to those who are unacquainted with the 
 richeness and variety of the tropical landscapes. The 
 island rises up in the midst of a sea of crystal, clothed 
 with a vegetation of unsurpassed luxuriance and splend- 
 or of every variety, from the stately and graceful palm- 
 
 v 
 
185 
 
 tree and the majestic mahogany, to the brillant flowers 
 which seem to have stolen their colors, from the sun, 
 which gives them life. Birds of plumage as varied and 
 beautiful as the colors of the rainbow, dart about the 
 dark green foliage of the groves; and scarlet tinted flam- 
 ingos adorn the shores. Fishes of many kinds and varied 
 colors glide in the water, which is so transparent and pure 
 that they can easily be distinguished at the depth of sev- 
 eral fathoms. 
 
 " Turn your eyes wherever you will, on the sea or on 
 land, and the most brillant colors will always be reflected. 
 Nature, here, appears like a most beautiful queen adorned 
 for a festival. 
 
 " In the island of Santo Domingo are found, combined 
 with the tropical beauties, some of the loveliest landscapes 
 in the world. The broad and fertile plains are covered 
 with groves of orange and lime-trees and the coifee plant; 
 spiral columns of smoke indicate the site of some invisi- 
 ble habitation; clusters of mango-trees, apparently grow- 
 ing in the waters, rise up gradually into sight, giving warn- 
 ing of some spot dangerous to navigation. There are no 
 steep promontories as on our northern coasts: all the an- 
 gles are delicatly finished off ; all the outlines of the scene- 
 ry are undulating and graceful." 
 
 To the beauty, so artistically delineated in the passages 
 just copied, are added all the productions that could pos- 
 sibly be wished for. The mountains are covered with pine 
 woods* enormous mahoganies, fustic, oak, acana, guiacum, 
 quebrahacha, cinnamon, capa, laurel, spiraea, cavina, cedar, 
 ebony, sabine, carey, and a thousand other precious woods. 
 All the tropical fruits grow there spontaneously and in 
 great abundance, including plantains, yams, corn, maize, 
 pine-apples, melons, grapes, etc., as well as the agricultural 
 products: coffee, cocao, sugar, indigo, cotton and tobacco. 
 
 It is a crime to permit. the inexhaustible resources of a 
 country so visibly blessed by its creator, to be left uncared 
 for, without an effort to give them the developpement of 
 which they are susceptible. In 1790, Hayti had reached a 
 high state of prosperity, and was a colony the population 
 of which amounted to five hundred thousand, of which 
 thiriy-eight thousand three hundred and sixty were white, 
 four hundred and twenty-three thousand two hundred and 
 seventy were colored slaves, and twenty-eight thousand 
 
 j 
 
186 
 
 three hundred and seventy were free negroes. In said year 
 the French revolution broke out; and in 1793 the reforms 
 were decreed, which, in the name of fraternity, have led to 
 the results which the island of Hayti now presents to the 
 world after a lapse of seventy years. 
 
 " If the present inhabitants of that island had any ca- 
 pacity to govern themselves," says, with sufficient funda- 
 tion the periodical of Havanna to which I have already 
 alluded, "had they any inherent or natural ability, or ener- 
 gy, they undoubtedly would have shown it during all that 
 time. In a country whose natural resources and fertility 
 cannot be doubted, this result would have been certain/' 
 
 In cultivation, the island had risen to as high a rank 
 and reached to as great mercantile prosperity as any coun- 
 try among those most favored by nature and art. It was 
 delivered into the hands of its new masters as a terrestial 
 paradise already cultivated; and all they had to do was to 
 preserve it in the same state,, and follow in the path of 
 prosperity inaugurated under such good auspices. But 
 some statistical data will prove more clearly than words 
 how much the island has retrograded, and how fallacious 
 were all the hopes that had been entertained respecting 
 the industry of those inhabitants when left to their own 
 resources. 
 
 In 1790 the value of the exports from Hayti amounted 
 to twenty-seven million eight hundred and twenty-eight 
 thousand Spanish dollars, the principal products being as 
 follows: 
 
 Sugar, 163,405,220 lbs.; coffee, 68,151,180 lbs.; cotton, 
 6,286,126 lbs.; indigo, 930,016 lbs. 
 
 In 1826, nearly thirty years after the emancipation, these 
 figures had dwindled down thus: sugar, 32,864 lbs.; coffee, 
 32,189,784 lbs.; cotton, 504,516 lbs., and indigo, none. 
 
 Sugar is no longer exported, coffee and lagwood being 
 the articles of most importance. The sugar cane is gather- 
 ed from the old plantations that have been abandoned by 
 the Europeans, or from the mountains; and of the two ar- 
 ticles that are still exported, one grows wild, and the other 
 has only to be cut and carried to the marked, as its growth 
 is spontaneous. 
 
 It is thus evident that all cultivation has disappeared, 
 and that the only profitable articles are those which grow 
 spontaneously and independent of any culture. 
 
 v 
 
187 
 
 In 1849, the last certain date that the statistics furnish 
 us with, and nearly sixty years after the emancipation, the 
 exportation of the above mentioned articles was as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Sugar, none; coffee, 30,608,343 lbs.; cotton, 504,516 lbs.; 
 and indigo, none. (1) 
 
 It is impossible to say exactly what the insignificant ex- 
 portations from Hayti amount to at present. The chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer of that country, in a speech made 
 by him some months ago, in the Senate, calculated them 
 to amount to 2,573,000 Spanish dollars; and it is to be 
 supposed, not without fundation, from what has some- 
 times happened, that this figure is double the real value of 
 the articles exported. 
 
 A modern traveller says that he was not able to find 
 any commercial statistics' in Hayti ; (2) and therefore the figu- 
 res given by the minister are merely conjectural. 
 
 But, even admitting them to be correct, what a sad 
 spectacle does it not present of the commercial ruin of that 
 country! In 1790 the exportations amounted to about 
 twenty-eight millions of dollars, and now the most exage- 
 rated official manifestations hardly make them exceed two 
 millions and a half ! 
 
 The same author whom we have quoted, a radical abo- 
 litionist, sent by the Baptist Missionary Society of Lon- 
 don, to the colonies, with a philanthropic purpose that 
 we can guess at, says further on: " This country has made 
 no progress whatever since the emancipation. The inhab- 
 itants partially subsist on the. production of the wild cof- 
 fee plant, the remains of the agriculture in the time of the 
 French. Properly speaking, there are no plantations here 
 like those of the English in Jamaica, or of the Spaniards 
 in Cuba. Hayti is the most beautiful and most fertile of 
 the West India Islands. It has more mountains than 
 Cuba and is more extensive than Jamaica. In no other 
 place can the coffee plant be produced to such perfection 
 as it is here, as it specially requires a mountanous soil; 
 but the indolence of the negroes has been the ruin of these 
 plantations, that were at one time so flourishing. They 
 only gather the coffee from the wild plant; the cultivation 
 
 fl) Commercial Relations of the United States, vol. I, p. 561. 
 
 (2) Underhill, The West Indies; their moral and social condition. 
 
 J 
 
188 
 
 of the sugar cane has been entirely abandoned, and the 
 island that once provided Europe with half of what it con- 
 sumed of this article, is now obliged to provide its neces- 
 sary wants in Jamaica and the United States." 
 
 Full of the abolitionist spirit which brought him to the 
 New World, the aforementioned author sometimes at- 
 tempts to lessen the fact of the decay of the republic of 
 Hayti in favor of the negroes ; but as the real state of the 
 country cannot but become evident, from his truthful 
 statements, let us hear what he says in describing his im- 
 pressions in his travels to Port-au-Prince : 
 
 " We passed," he says, " through a number of deserted 
 plantations, on which the buildings were in ruins ; the 
 machinery destroyed, the boilers broken and strewn about 
 the road. If it were not for the law, which prohibits the 
 exportation of any metals, these fragments of tbe former 
 opulence of Hayti would have long since been sold to 
 foreign speculators. During this long excursion we only 
 saw one machine grinding cane, to extract the juice from 
 which tafia, a species of rum, is made, with which the in- 
 habitants of Hayti become intoxicated. This machine 
 was impelled by a quantity of water that had been brought 
 from a great distance through an aqueduct. With the 
 exception of a few plantain trees, and some small plots 
 of land, sown with corn around the huts, there was no 
 sign of the surprising fertility of these magnificent plains. 
 
 " At the time when it was occupied by the French, be- 
 fore the revolution of 1793, thousands of hogsheads of 
 sugar were made ; and now not a single one is produced/ 
 
 . . . All is ruin and desolation. The pastures are 
 all destroyed, and the lands formerly so luxuriant with 
 the sugar cane, are now barren and overrun with weeds. 
 
 u The hydraulic works constructed for irrigation, which 
 cost immense sums, are nothing but heaps of ruins. The 
 plough is an agricultural implement, the recollection of 
 which has been lost among that people, although it is so 
 perfectly adapted to its extensive fields and fruitful soil. 
 
 u A country that can produce so many articles for ex- 
 portation, and consequently for the enrichment of its in- 
 habitants, which, besides sugar and coffee, can produce 
 cotton, tobacco, cocoa, spices, all kinds of tropical and 
 some European fruits, lies uncultivated, lifeless and deso- 
 late. Only small quantities of logwood are exported ; of 
 
 k 
 
189 
 
 ebony, mahogany, and other precious woods, none ; as the 
 axe of the wood cutter is never employed, except it is for 
 local uses. The present inhabitants despise labor, and 
 the majority are content with the spontaneous produc- 
 tions of the woods." 
 
 The aforesaid Underbill, and Mr. Webley, also a mis- 
 sionary, have likewise written on the condition of the 
 Haytiens. Leaving aside the Christian practices which 
 the more civilized negroes of said country profess in their 
 religious worship, they declare that the majority profess 
 the religion of Vandoux, i. e., the worship of the serpent ; 
 which is an African superstition, and which no longer 
 leaves a doubt of the retrocession of the negroes to their 
 original state of barbarism. 
 
 This religious ceremony is described by both travellers 
 in the same manner, differing but little in the wording as 
 follows : 
 
 " On entering the selected spot, they take off their 
 shoes, and tie a handkerchief, in which red is the pre- 
 dominant color, around their waists. The king is recog- 
 nized by the scarlet band which encircles his forehead like 
 a crown, and a scarf of the same color distinguishes the 
 queen. The serpent is placed upon a platform, where 
 certain savage adoration is paid to it, commencing with 
 the following chorus : « 
 
 " Eh ! Eh ! Bomba, hen ! hen ! — canga tafia te — 
 cangamourne de le — canga de ki li — canga li." 
 
 " The song ended, as well as the successive gesticula- 
 tions, which are numerous and very strange, the serpent 
 is placed in a box, upon which the queen climbs, and 
 forces herself into a violent trembling fit, pronouncing 
 oracles in answer to the prayers of the worshipers. 
 
 " Then the king lays his hand on the box which con- 
 tains the idol, and is suddenly seized with the same 
 trembling that the queen experienced, which is next com- 
 municated to the entire circle, so that they all shake as if 
 possessed by fiends. A wild dance follows these exercises, 
 after which tafia is drunk in abundance until the weaker 
 ones fall apparently lifeless on the spot. The dissolute 
 bacchanals continue to enact such scenes as decency for- 
 bids us to describe, and which would even cause the 
 heathen gods, if such gods had ever existed, to shudder 
 with horror." 
 
 j 
 
190 
 
 What a horrible scene of barbarism does this present ! 
 Moreover, let it be borne in mind, though we have to re- 
 peat it once more, that the preceding lines were written 
 by English abolitionists. . 
 
 The following has also been written on the moral ideas 
 of the Haytians, and published in the London Missionary 
 Herald : 
 
 "Almost all of the negroes of that republic are Van- 
 doux. They practice sorceries and mysticisms, and are 
 extraordinary adepts in poisoning, the person whom they 
 select as a victim very rarely escaping from their fiendish 
 arts. From this the practice of oberism or sorcery ap- 
 pears to be as general in Hayti as it is in the interior of 
 Africa." 
 
 What more is required to show that the negroes being 
 emancipated from all civilizing laws through their inde- 
 pendence, have returned to their original savage state ? 
 Commerce and its products have ceased in this island 
 since it became independent, and its inhabitants' have 
 gone back to Afiican heathenism. 
 
 Are additional proofs still required of the evils caused 
 to humanity and to the civilization of those unhappy 
 beings by the supreme means of freedom which was em- 
 ployed to better their condition ? 
 
 What a striking contrast there is between the soil and 
 inhabitants of Hayti and those of Cuba ? And neverthe- 
 less, at the present time, in the latter, where everything 
 bears the mark of social progress, including the charac- 
 ters of the negroes who live there, slavery exists (since 
 that is the name applied to the institution of organized 
 labor, in which there are but few traces of slavery, justly 
 so called); while in Hayti, where the negroes have not 
 only accomplished their civil emancipation but also enjoy 
 political independence and self government, very soon 
 there will not remain a single vestige of the civilization of 
 the industrious people to whom these fertile lands once 
 belonged. 
 
 And to give to these comparisons a better coloring in 
 the minds of the politicians of good faith, and to the 
 logical deductions which thinking men may draw from 
 them, it is proper to say that the population of Hayti has 
 not diminished owing to its independence, but has rather 
 increased about one-fifth of what it was when it annihi- 
 
 v 
 
191 
 
 lated the whites who had been their masters ; which fact 
 makes the extraordinary decrease of their agricultural 
 production the more censurable. And the island of Cuba, 
 whose entire population scarcely amounted to two hun- 
 dred thousand souls when Hayti made herself indepen- 
 dent, that is to say, in the latter part of the eighteenth 
 century, has since then multiplied in the proportion of 
 seven to one, or in the same proportion as that of the 
 English colonies has decreased since the emancipation of 
 the slaves. 
 
 Adding to these figures the consideration of the actual 
 state of the revenues of both colonies, it will be seen, that 
 whilst those of England and France are retained only as 
 stratgetic points, and their administrations and small gar- 
 risons respectively are maintained by allowances from the 
 public treasury ; while the exports of Jamaica which, 
 thirty years ago, were estimated at ninety thousand tons, 
 and five years ago, were reduced to only nineteen thou- 
 sand; and whilst in the French colonies, after the fall of 
 the Republic of 1848, the redemption of negroes was sub- 
 stituted by a voluntary contract, very similar to the slave 
 trade, and which, though by a strange tolerance of the 
 English government, was considered legal, was, neverthe- 
 less, the cause of bloody scenes, as in the case of the bark 
 Regina Cceli, and of international difficulties, as in the 
 case of the Charles et Georges; the Island of Porto Rico 
 covers all her official obligations with ease, and the Island 
 of Cuba, after maintaining on a war footing twenty-five 
 thousand soldiers and thirty vessels of the Royal Navy as 
 an ordinary garrison, after paying an organized adminis- 
 tration which would almost govern a kingdom, and also 
 paying the Spanish diplomatic and consular corps residing 
 in the New World, remits annually to the treasury of ,the 
 Metropolis over two millions of dollars as the overplus of 
 her colonies, or pays with this amount, which is sometimes 
 duplicated, extraordinary expenses such as were incurred 
 by the re-incorporation of St. Domingo, its sustenance 
 and improvement, and by the expensive expedition to 
 Mexico. ' 
 
 In order that these data may not be used as an argu- 
 ment against . slavery, by supposing that this amount is 
 obtained by the excessive labor exacted from the slaves 
 and by the heavy contributions imposed upon property, I 
 
 j 
 
192 
 
 will add, that it is derived without much effort from the 
 Custom-house duties, which are eminently liberal., with 
 the exception of a few articles; and that, besides what has 
 already been shown by the insertion of the code of laws in 
 force for the good government of the slaves, and what has 
 been said respecting the constant and the ever humane 
 and protecting acts of the local authorities, there is not a 
 single negro slave in the island of Cuba who, after having 
 acquired the first notions of the work which he has to 
 perform and of his civil status, is willing to return to his 
 native country with his freedom. 
 
 Let the abolitionists hear this again, once for all, and 
 draw their own deductions in good faith ; and let them 
 not persist in their absurd idea of knowing the wants of 
 the negroes better than they do themselves. 
 
 ^nese details relative to the Spanish colonies serve ad- 
 mirably to analyze the second phase presented to the ob- 
 servation of men of good faith by this question, such as it 
 has been established by the abolitionists. 
 
 I have already stated, and I now repeat, that in honor 
 of truth I will not attempt to deny or even to express any 
 doubt that the introduction of Bozal negroes is carried on 
 in said colonies in spite of the treaties extant. Otherwise, 
 as the practice of breeding slaves for the market has not 
 been established in the colonies as it has been in the 
 southern states of the Anglo-American republic, it would 
 be impossible to account for the extraordinary increase o 
 the colored population, and still more impossible that 
 there should be in Cuba, at present, three times the 
 number of slaves that it contained in 1835, when the 
 carrying out of the treaties for the suppression of the slave 
 trade had been agreed on definitely. 
 
 From these facts, which speak so eloquently of the in- 
 efficiency of said treaties, daily and hourly opportunities 
 have been sought to attribute this non-fulfilment to the 
 bad faith of the authorities charged with their execution. 
 
 The English, who are the most directly interested in 
 the prohibition of the redemption, who have more numer- 
 ous means of publicity, and whose political customs are 
 better adapted to the purpose, have accused the said au- 
 thorities in every known form, and, in some cases, in a 
 manner not becoming international respect, without ex- 
 cluding the government in Madrid, which has sometimes 
 
 v 
 
193 
 
 been the object of rude attacks in parliament and in all 
 the newspapers of England. And Spain and her public 
 men, who attached but little importance to such freedom 
 of speech, occasionally vouchsafing only such notice as was 
 required to repel some offensive phrase, or some notoriously 
 false and calumnious assertions, seeing that the English 
 believe that clandestine redemption can be repressed with 
 such facility, and that they accuse the Spanish authorities 
 of fostering it, have finally commenced to suspect that 
 this conviction and this suspicion emanate from the fact 
 that the English themselves are addicted to the practices 
 which they attribute to others. 
 
 To arrive at this conclusion, we have but to reflect that 
 England has numerous vessels of her royal navy stationed 
 on the entire coast of Africa, commanding an uninter- 
 rupted chain of strategic points which are in her posses- 
 sion, and that said vessels are commissioned solely and 
 exclusively to prevent the redemption of Africans wher- 
 ever it may be effected. 
 
 The logical and impartial inference which can be drawn 
 from these facts just stated, is? either that the English 
 cruisers accept bribes from #he redeemers of negroes in the 
 districts where the trade is carried on, as they have ac- 
 cused the Spanish authorities of doing, in which case 
 they should not be allowed to escape unpunished, or else 
 that the redeemers, being stimulated by the great profits 
 accruing to them from their enterprise, evade the vigilence 
 of the English in Africa with # the same dexterity with 
 • which they elude that of the Spaniards in the New 
 World. 
 
 The execution of the existing treaties being equally en- 
 trusted to the English and the Spaniards, to the former in 
 Africa and to the latter in America, how can it be ex- 
 pected that those who can pass the lines of the former 
 with impunity should not be equally successful in evading 
 those of the latter ? 
 
 It must be confessed that this argument is unanswer- 
 able, the more so as the points where the redemption is 
 effected, though numerous and at long distances from each 
 other, are perfectly well known and are constantly watched 
 by the English cruisers. If their vigilance was exercised 
 only out in the open sea, in the vast expanse of the ocean, 
 it would then be an easy matter for the traders to avoid 
 
 j 
 
194 
 
 them by navigating by different parallels, and in, that case 
 there would be some justice in throwing all the responsi- 
 bility on the Spanish authorities, their vigilance being 
 confined to the coasts of their respective districts. But as 
 this is far from being the case, and as both on the coast 
 of Africa and in the Spanish West Indies, there are cer- 
 tain localities, well known to traders, where the slavers 
 evade, in like manner, the operations of the authorities, 
 and destroy the spirit of the treaties, it must be confessed 
 that the responsibility lies upon the English, at least as 
 fully as upon the Spaniards ; and that those absurd 
 charges and offensive recriminations, so unjustly made 
 by the former against the latter, might on the same 
 grounds be directed by the latter against the former. 
 
 The truth is, that the evil does not lie in the proceed- 
 ing of the English cruisers, nor of the Spanish authorities, 
 but in the spirit of the absurd treaties which are charac- 
 terized in every respect by their short-sightedness, illegal- 
 ity and immorality. They were intended to improve the 
 condition of the negroes in Africa, whereas, never until 
 the date of the enforcement of the treaty, and from that 
 time to this, had there been perpetrated there such bloody 
 and revolting scenes, which have even compelled the 
 English to commit an act of possession which looks like 
 violent spoliation in a friendly land. It was intended also 
 to destroy slavery in America by the prohibition of re- 
 demption, and slavery has on the contrary been perpetu- 
 ated, and has increased in an extraordinary manner. It 
 was attempted to foster colonial wealth by means of free < 
 labor, by giving absolute freedom to the negroes, and 
 with it encouragement to work for wages, and these 
 recovering their natural instincts through their civil 
 freedom, have abandoned labor and have ruined the co- 
 lonies where these desolating experiments were attempted. 
 And finally, international law, reviled and scoffed at as it 
 has been, with or without cause, in the sense which the 
 declaimers against the clandestine traffic have adopted, 
 has proved with still greater force what has resulted from 
 former evidence that the treaties are absurd, being im- 
 practicable, if we are to believe the result of thirty years 
 of continual experiments, and of innumerable and useless 
 precautions, and that being absurd from the fact that 
 they are impracticable, they cannot be considered legally 
 binding. 
 
 v 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Mutiny of the negroes on board the Ship Regina Ccelis and bloody des- 
 truction of the whites who composed the crew. — Repugnant demonstra- 
 tions of joy exhibited in the British parliament on the occasion of that 
 butchery. — Attempts made by the British government on the petition of 
 its Colonies to renew the redemption of negroes under another name. — 
 The same thing attempted by the French government. — Case of the Ship 
 Charles et Georges captured by Portuguese cruisers. — International conflict 
 it produced between France and Portugal. — The attitude taken by Eng- 
 land in consequence of this conflict. — Imperial ordinance of Napoleon III 
 ordering the suspension of the new form of the redemption of negroes, and 
 announcing his treaty for obtaining Chinese in the English possessions in 
 the East. — Detailed analysis of the regulations by which these laborers 
 are governed in the Island of Cuba. — Their civil condition is the same as 
 that of the negro slaves, and it is even worse in some respects. — Remark- 
 able inconsistency which results between the idea of abolishing the re- 
 demption of negroes and stimulating the servitude of the Chinese. — Com- 
 ments on these inconsistencies to show their true phases to public opi- 
 nion. 
 
 I have referred in a former chapter to two events, the 
 relation of which should not be omitted, because one of 
 them shows the lengths to which an idea may be carried 
 in opposition to the theories which gave rise to it, and 
 the other affords additional proof of the deplorable state 
 to which public rights were reduced by the abolition of 
 the slave trade, and shows also the pretended efforts of di- 
 plomacy ostensibly in favor of colonial interests, but in 
 reality to establish the traffic under another system of 
 laws. 
 
 The first of these incidents was both repugnant and 
 blood-thirsty, and although it can by no means 'be attri- 
 buted to the machinations of the fanatical abolitionists of 
 the London society, since it took place entirely beyond 
 the limits of their influence, still upon its immediate re- 
 sults being made manifest, they laid themselves open to 
 the severest censure on account of their inhuman readiness 
 to applaud it. 
 
 J 
 
196 
 
 This occurrence was nothing less than a mutiny of ne- 
 groes who had been contracted for the French colonies, in 
 conformity to a new plan pursued by way of experiment 
 by the emperor Napoleon III., which mutiny took place 
 on board the French merchant ship " Kegina Coeli." 
 Owing either to the carelessness or the humanity of the 
 captain of the vessel, or perhaps to a combination of both, 
 the crew was surprised and attacked by the negroes on 
 board, who were being conveyed to the colonies as free 
 laborers, not by their own will, but by the rapacity of 
 their captors, who had sold them for that purpose. The 
 attack was as disastrous as it was sudden, so that one in- 
 dividual only succeeded in escaping the general massacre. 
 The case was too horrible not to produce very great ex- 
 citement, and naturally aroused in behalf of the victims 
 that interest which in all similar catastrophies is felt by 
 every humane heart. This occurrence was the more to be 
 lamented, inasmuch as instead of emanating from a mani- 
 fest transgression of the law, as would otherwise have been 
 the case, it occurred on board of a vessel legally authorized 
 by the nation to which it belonged, without any hindrance 
 from other nations, to save from certain death those 
 who, in return for the charity exercised towards them, 
 thus barbarously treated their generous preservers. 
 
 There was, however, one exception to the universal 
 feeling on the subject, which was the more strange and 
 surprising, as it was publicly expressed in the British 
 Parliament by one of the most illustrious orators of that 
 distinguished assembly. , 
 
 I shall .not be the one to proclaim in this place the name 
 of that great philanthropist, lest the just indignation 
 which the fact will arouse in all well organized minds 
 should convert that name into an object of public execra- 
 tion, but I will not refrain from saying that it was enrolled 
 in the Anti-Slavery Society; and that though this society 
 was founded by an impulse of exaggerated love of human- 
 ity, against all that can oifend the spirit of Christianity, 
 the sentiment expressed by the orator, lamenting that a 
 single individual of the crew of the French ship should 
 have escaped from being butchered by the negroes, could 
 not be more opposed to that philanthropy so much cried 
 up by the society, nor more disgraceful to the principles 
 by which it is fictitiously governed. 
 
 V 
 
197 
 
 • The second case was still more heinous, and mani- 
 fested itself under circumstances even more discreditable 
 to international law, at least according to appearances. 
 
 As soon as the political passions were quieted among 
 the French populace, after the revolution of 3848, the em- 
 pire examined into the spirit of republican legislation, and 
 finding that the abolition of slavery was already decreed 
 and converted into an accomplished fact, and that in its 
 natural consequences it was in a fair way to ruin the col- 
 onies, it not only made regulations against the vagrancy 
 of the negroes with others intended to encourage labor, but, 
 besides, with the tacit approbation of the English govern- 
 ment, an experiment was made of the aforesaid system of 
 free labor in Africa, by opening the doors of emigration, 
 which had the character of being voluntary, in order to 
 restore to the colonies their former prosperity. 
 
 This experiment was not wanting in precedent, it hav- 
 ing been tried by the English themselves on a former oc- 
 casion ; and let it not be thought that I make this 
 statement at random, I do it with the official evidence 
 before me with which the Anti-Slavery Society remon- 
 strated against the attempt. 
 
 This system originated in 1841, when, on the 15th of 
 February, an expedition consisting of three vessels sailed 
 from the Thames, under the orders of Mr. Barclay, bound 
 to Sierra Leone. This gentleman was a member of the 
 legislative assembly of Jamaica," and had gone to the 
 English metropolis expressly to make known the absolute 
 necessity of negro laborers in the colonies, and to point 
 out the only way in which that necessity could be supplied, 
 which was neither more nor less than the former redemp- 
 tion, under the appearance of voluntary emigration. A 
 great inducement which undoubtedly Amoved the British 
 government to accede to the request of the colony, was 
 undoubtedly the vexation felt in England on account of 
 the necessity of buying in Hayti the coffee needed for 
 home consumption, which had hitherto been supplied ex- 
 clusively from English possessions. For although it had 
 been attempted to remove the annoyance by exacting that 
 all vessels carrying coffee to British ports should touch at 
 Cape Town, that measure did not destroy the fact of her 
 having to provide herself with colonial products in foreign 
 lands, while she herself had colonies equally fit for their 
 culture. 
 
 J 
 
198 
 
 \ 
 
 Mr. Barclay's expedition undoubtedly produced the de- # 
 sired results in Jamaica, and I believe it gave rise to the 
 custom of making similar expeditions to the rest of the 
 English West" India Islands, which, however, were under- 
 taken with certain precautions so as not to scandalize the 
 world. The truth is, that the re-engagement of laborers 
 took a definite form, and that to insure the success of this 
 contract, written instructions were given in the letter and 
 spirit of which the actual practice of the system of re- 
 demption was made apparent In said instructions, the 
 contracts under this new system were notified that, as the 
 negroes were unacquainted with the value of money, they 
 should provide themselves with such articles as might be 
 fancied by the natives, such as — powder, tobacco, rum, 
 Manchester plaids, caps, laguli, and »a few firearms. 
 
 " To engage laborers," said these instructions, "it is 
 indispensable that the negroes should receive in advance 
 the value of a months' labor in different articles, accord- 
 ing to the amount which has been agreed upon to reward 
 the labor of each man ; said reward to consist in general 
 of a quarter of a keg .of gunpowder, ten manillas of to- 
 bacco, and a bottle of- rum, or else a piece of Manchester 
 plaid, ten manillas of tobacco and a bottle of rum. 
 
 "From these amounts any one can calculate the exact 
 proportions required to procure any number of laborers, say, 
 for instance, to engage forty negroes it will be necessary to 
 be supplied with twenty'muskets, twenty-one kegs of pow- 
 der, twenty gallons of rum, eighty pounds of tobacco, and 
 four pieces of Manchester plaids." , 
 
 If we take into consideration the amounts of these ar- 
 ticles which are more than sufficient to remunerate th$ 
 monthly labSr of forty negro apprentices, we will see that 
 their punctual payment would prove highly burdensome 
 to the contractors, consequently we can well imagine that, 
 as far as their salary is concerned, the condition of these 
 negro laborers must have been similar to that of their 
 predecessors under the new regulations issued and promul- 
 gated in the English colonies, which, after slavery was 
 abolished, were not so liberal as they had formerly been. 
 And we are further strengthened in this supposition by 
 finding in the aforesaid instructions a recommendation to 
 the effect that the chiefs of the tribes from which the la- 
 borers are procured, shall be propitiated by presents of 
 
 V 
 
199 
 
 some value, which, of course, are to consist of the articles 
 above mentioned ; and as we have reason to suppose that 
 only the power of the chiefs, and not the will of the ne- 
 groes themselves, is consulted in the contract, it appears 
 highly improbable that the contractors should fulfil their 
 part of the agreement when they have secured their labors 
 ers, in their respective countries, where the customs-, the 
 wants, and the laws are so different from those of Africa. 
 
 It will appear natural to all that the London philan- 
 thropic society should have made a great outcry on hear- 
 ing of Mr. Barclay's expedition and its results, but it 
 would have been difficult to guess at the attitude which 
 would be taken in that matter by Lord John Eussell, at 
 that time president of the council of ministers. This cele- 
 brated disclaimer who, in parliament, has so often directed 
 unmerited reproof against the Spanish government, at the 
 instigation of the Anti-Slavery Society; this man, famous 
 as a philanthropist for his speeches, for which, whenever 
 they allude to forced labor in the colonies,, present him 
 to the world as the chief defender of the negroes, not only 
 granted Mr. Barclay's petition and authorized the redemp- 
 tion in Sierra Leone, limiting, however, the term of slavery 
 of the negroes there redeemed to fourteen years, but he 
 also insulted the Anti- Slavery Society by refusing to 
 communicate with it personally, but referred them to his 
 secretary, Mr. Vernon Smith, in a few brief lines which 
 were openly contemptuous, and treated only on general 
 topics. (1) 
 
 This precedent being established, and it being besides a 
 well known fact that the negroes seized from slavers, at 
 sea, by the English cruisers, are not returned to their 
 country, as would seem just and natural, but are taken to 
 the English colonies for a certain number of years to work, 
 under the name of apprentices, but, in reality, as slaves, 
 it is not to be wondered at that the Government of Great 
 Britain should agree so well with that of the Emperor 
 Napoleon III. and tolerate the redemption of negroes, 
 disguised under the name of emigration, in the manner 
 in which it had been practiced by the French. < 
 
 (1) My late esteemed friend, Don Mariano Torrente preceded me in in- 
 vestigating; this matter, and I have formed the above statements on his 
 works winch treat of the Island of Cuba, and also on some explanations 
 offered by Lord John Russell in the English Parliament. 
 
 J 
 
200 
 
 This new system having been put into practice with 
 great advantage to the French colonies, which owed to it 
 .their continued prosperity after slavery was abolished, 
 although they did suffer some severe losses, the Portuguese 
 men-of-war stationed on the coast of Africa, being de- 
 termined to defend the treaties in force against the re- 
 demption, seized, a French vessel, the Charles et Georges, 
 which was engaged in shipping a cargo of the so-called 
 free laborers. And on the said vessel being taken into 
 the port of Lisbon as a legal prize, and 'its seizure and 
 detention being approved by the Portuguese courts, the 
 French Government, becoming at once acquainted with 
 the facts of the case, and without any right further than 
 that of its unquestionable power, claimed the absolute 
 control of the trial of the cause, and imperatively de- 
 manded from Portugal that the captured vessel should be 
 immediately released. 
 
 It was said at that time that this occurrence was a 
 crafty and . underhanded stroke instigated by the Anti- 
 slavery Society, and sustained by the influence which 
 Great Britain possessed with the court of Portugal ; and 
 though it is possible that this charge may have been un- 
 founded, it will appear very natural in the eyes of the 
 public, when it is taken into consideration that said 
 Society had remonstrated very strongly with the English 
 Government against the tacit concession which ' it made to 
 the French authorities with regard to the practice oi 
 engaging negro laborers, and that the London ministerial 
 papers were the most energetic defenders of the immunity 
 of the Portuguese courts and of their executive decision 
 against the, captured vessel to which we have alluded. 
 
 Be it as it may, and much as the Ministers of King 
 Pedro V. may have endeavored, in all good faith, to main- 
 tain the authority of their courts, the persistency with 
 which they refused to release the vessel became a matter 
 of wonder to the world, as, not only were the required 
 papers relative to the expedition found in good order, but 
 there was also on board an official agent of the French 
 Government charged with the direction of the operations. 
 
 Nevertheless, the serious nature of the case became ap- 
 parent from the diplomatic notes which were exchanged 
 between France and Portugal, some characterized by their 
 harshness, while others were offensive to the dignity oi 
 
 V 
 
201 
 
 the respective Governments, and also from the fact that 
 the former sent two ships-of-the-line, fully armed and 
 equipped, to the capital of the latter, with strict execu- 
 tive orders, it being a noticeable fact that while the French 
 Government took up this position all the London official 
 journals unanimously advised Portugal not to yield, not- 
 withstanding that the Government of Great Britain had 
 volunteered to act as a peaceful me'diator between the two 
 nations. 
 
 Whether or not the Anti-slavery Society of London had 
 anything to do with the aforesaid events, as was justly 
 suspected, the fact is that the results were- extremely 
 favorable to its views — thanks to the political circum- 
 stances which strengthened for the time being the official 
 union of France and England. For the latter, ever skil- 
 ful in taking advantage of any opportunity which might 
 be propitious to her interests, and having also at the time 
 undertaken the settlement of the Italian question, with 
 all its public changes, and its absolute tendencies, still 
 unknown^ thought it opportune to recommend to her ally 
 (with all due precaution against offending her dignity), 
 the abandonment of her successful undertaking for obtain- 
 ing laborers on the African coast, and offered her in ex- 
 change a great number of them from the East Indies. 
 And France, who by having limited the work of said 
 laborers to the space of four years for some, and for others 
 to six, found that her colonies were not much benefitted 
 by the new system, declared herself willing to make a 
 sacrifice of so little moment, knowing that it would be 
 the means of giving her in time the right of demanding 
 more abundant and valuable acquisitions. 
 
 It is for this reason, according to my understanding, 
 that the mind of Napoleon III. underwent a complete 
 change with regard to the labor of the negroes and the 
 colonial requirements, which change was proclaimed to 
 the public when it was least expected, in the following re- 
 markable document : 
 
 " Fontainbleau, 1st of July, 1861 :— Mr. le Ministre— 
 Since the emancipation of slavery, our colonies have en- 
 deavored to obtain laborers from the coasts of Africa, by 
 ransom agd by means of the contract of engagement 
 which secures a compensation to the negroes for their 
 labor. These contracts are made good for five or six 
 
 ; 
 
202 
 
 years, after which time the laborers are to be taken back 
 gratuitously to their country, unless they should prefer to 
 remain in the colony, in which case they will be allowed 
 to reside there in the same manner as the other inhabit- 
 ants. 
 
 " It must be observed that this species of engagement 
 differs entirely from the slave trade, for in fact, while the 
 one has slavery in view, the other on the contrary leads 
 them to freedom. When the negro is once engaged as a 
 laborer he is free and is not subject to any other obliga- 
 tion than those contained in his contract. 
 
 '•' Nevertheless, doubts have arisen with regard to the 
 results which these engagements may have in African 
 countries, and the question has been asked whether the 
 price of the ransom does not constitute a premium in 
 favor of slavery. 
 
 " In 1859 I had already ordered that all engagements 
 should cease on the eastern coast of Africa, where any 
 difficulty, might have arisen. Later, I restricted still 
 more these operations; and, lastly, I have expressed the 
 wish that all the questions which the African emigration 
 should give rise to, may be carefully examined. 
 
 " This day I have signed a treaty with her Majesty the 
 Queen of Great Britain, in which her Britannic Majesty 
 consents to authorize the engagement of laborers for our 
 colonies, from her possessions in the East Indies, under 
 the same conditions which are laid down for the English 
 colonies. 
 
 " We will then find all the free laborers which we will 
 need, in the East Indies, in the French possessions in 
 Africa, and in the countries where slavery still exists. 
 Under these circumstances I wish the traffic of Africans 
 by means of the ransom to be entirely discontinued by 
 the French traders, said change to take place from the 
 day on which the treaty made with her Britannic Majesty 
 shall be carried into effect, and to continue in force all the 
 time of the duration of said treaty. 
 
 * " If this treaty should be suspended, the ransom of 
 Africans shall not be recommenced except under special 
 authorization, and then only if it is found to be indispen- 
 sable, and if there are no difficulties in the way # 
 
 " You will therefore take the necessary measures to 
 carry this resolution into effect by the 1st of July, 1862, 
 
 V 
 
203 
 
 " and all negroes who have been ransomed on the coast of 
 Africa after this date shall be prohibited entering the 
 
 colonies. 
 
 " Napoleon." 
 
 From the recent triumph which the emancipators of 
 the blacks have obtained, we naturally come upon a new 
 question, which it is- necessary to analyze in order to dis- 
 cover whether the love of humanity or purely interested . 
 and selfish stubborness keeps a large number of slave 
 owners in constant alarm, and causes an exterminating 
 strife between two incompatible ideas, all on account of 
 the black race. 
 
 The question to which I refer is that of the importation 
 of Chinese laborers into the American colonies, in which 
 project the English Government took very decided initia- 
 tary steps with the end of promoting it as a substitute for 
 negro labor, as has been proved by numerous documents 
 inserted in this work. 
 
 And since the abolition of one system and the 'adoption 
 of the other exhibit an inconsistency which cannot be 
 favorably explained, with due regard for the humane prin- 
 ciples which counselled the liberation of the negroes ; let 
 us -compare both institutions in their respective legisla- 
 tion, and see whether justice, as it is understood by the 
 scrupulous English philantropists, is a strongly marked 
 ieature of the new idea, or whether it is merely a question 
 of words serving as a basis for their violent attacks upon 
 the former. 
 
 It is on this point I wish particularly to call the atten- 
 tion of my readers, since the argument will be facilitated 
 by the remarkable data which it furnishes for the better 
 understanding of the subject. The ransom of the negroes 
 is not submitted to voluntarily by the ransomed indivi- 
 duals themselves, but is the consequence of right of co- 
 ercion which is exercised over them by other negroes ; 
 while that of the Chinese on the contrary, has nothing 
 compulsory about it, since it depends entirely on their 
 own will whether they submit themselves to it or not. 
 There is, however, a vast dissimilarity in this comparison, 
 a dissimilarity which does not depend on the interest ot 
 the ransomers, but on the civil state of the respective 
 countries where the negroes are bought, and those where 
 the Chinese are contracted for. 
 
 J 
 
204 
 
 ■ 
 
 If philanthrophy could establish in the former the 
 civilization Which exists in the latter, it could then with 
 reason interrupt the redemption of Africans, and do away 
 with the material disparity which exists between the two 
 systems ; but as it is at present, humanly speaking, im- 
 possible to place the Civil state of those countries on a 
 level, it is evident that the philanthropy which persist- 
 ently interferes with the redemption of the negroes, and 
 remains an impassive spectator of the revolting scenes of 
 barbarity, such as the sacrifice of five hundred human 
 beings on the coast of Madagascar, and the slaughter of 
 two thousand in Dahomey, is absurd and even criminal in 
 the eyes of the world, especially as at the same time it 
 encourages the servitude of the Cninese under the same 
 conditions and for the same labor, as will be presently 
 demonstrated. 
 
 The personal interest of the contractors being the chief 
 object in both systems, and the benefit of the colonies 
 being only a secondary consideration, the engagement of 
 the Chinese naturally degenerated into a system similar 
 in every respect to the redemption of negroes — the ordi- 
 nances for their introduction into the island of Cuba, for 
 instance, being similar to those which existed for the in- 
 troduction of Africans before the prohibition of the re- 
 demption — the regulations existing for the labor and 
 management of the laborers under both of these institu- 
 tions, as an integral part of the estates, being nearly 
 alike. 
 
 For this reason the second article of the Regulations for 
 the introduction of Chinese laborers decrees that every im- 
 porter must have a consignee in the island of Cuba, who 
 must be a well known and wealthy proprietor to be a re- 
 sponsible agent, this being also exacted in the respective 
 epochs of the Contracting Company and of the private 
 contractors who purchased the privilege of taking negroes 
 to the Indies. And as it is further expressed in the fif- 
 teenth article of the same Regulations that said consignee 
 shall deposit fifty dollars in the Spanish Bank of Havana 
 for every Chinaman that is consigned to him, within 
 twenty-four hours after the arrival of the vessel which 
 brings them, it is evident that said deposit, although it 
 is refunded, increases the expenses of the contracting 
 parties, and consequently burdens still more the civil state 
 
 V 
 
205 
 
 of the Chinese in the countries where they are employed. 
 
 It is true, and it would be wrong to omit to mention 
 the fact, that the Chinese go to the colonies as day 
 laborers only, and that but for a limited period, while the 
 negroes receive no remuneration for their labor further 
 than the necessary provision for their material wants and 
 their moral instruction, but at the same time this differ- 
 ence is counterbalanced by the fact that the Engagement 
 into which the Chinese enter is not always so profitable to 
 them as would appear from the contract, this being the 
 result, not of any omission or evasion on the part of the 
 contractors, but of the regulations themselves, and the 
 clauses which they contain. 
 
 The slowness or delay in the work of the journeymen, 
 which are so many hours lost to the legitimate interests 
 of the proprietors, is compensated by making a discount 
 from their salary in proportion to the time lost ; any 
 breach of discipline committed by the Chinamen on the 
 plantations is also punished by fines, which imperceptibly, 
 but none the less certainly, diminish their wages, which 
 are extremely small, so that the majority of these laborers 
 are placed in precisely the same situation as the majority 
 of the negroes — that is to say, that at the expiration of 
 their contract the Chinese are in a state of complete des- 
 titution, without any resource but the renewal of their 
 contract, thus being subjected to perpetual labor, in the 
 same manner that the law perpetuates the servitude of 
 the negroes who are incapable of obtaining their freedom 
 through the means placed within the reach of the indus- 
 trious and orderly by their owners. 
 
 The better to understand all the minor details in the 
 comparison which I have made between these two systems, 
 it will be necessary to bear in mind that the proprietors 
 give small plots of land to the negroes on their planta- 
 tions, that they may cultivate them for their, own benefit, 
 on feast days or during their hours of relaxation, except- 
 ing in harvest time, during which they have but little 
 spare time ; or else they have them instructed in some 
 profitable trade or employment, so that the industrious 
 and intelligent may have the chance of obtaining their 
 freedom ; from which fact we see that though the negroes 
 are not paid for their labor by any settled wages, unlike 
 'the Chinese, who are contracted for stated sums, they 
 
206 
 
 nevertheless receive a voluntary remuneration, which has 
 been established by the true philanthropy of the owners, 
 and which has been sanctioned, by time, until it has be- 
 come to be considered almost in the light of a legal obli- 
 gation. Having called attention to this point with the 
 purpose of making my comparison perfectly intelligible, I 
 will here, with the reader's permission, append such arti- 
 cles of the Kegulations for the Chinese laborers as may 
 serve to corroborate the above statement. 
 
 The sixth article will, of itself, suffice to illustrate some 
 points. I will, therefore, produce it, in its own words : 
 
 " Every contract shall contain the following particulars : 
 First, the age, sex and birthplace of the Chinese laborers 
 who shall be engaged. Second, the length of time that 
 the contract is to last. Third, the salary and the quan- 
 tity and quality of the food and clothing which they are 
 to receive. Fourth, the obligation of the masters to give 
 them medical assistance during their illness. Fifth, whe- 
 ther the salary is to be discontinued in case of the ill- 
 ness of the laborer, when said illness does not originate in 
 his work, or whether the continuation of the wages is to 
 be left at the option of the owner. Sixth, the number of 
 hours which the laborers will be obliged to work, deter- 
 mining whether the owner shall have the right to increase 
 them, in some days, so long as »he compensates for this 
 increase by a corresponding decrease in others. Seventh, 
 the obligation of the contracted laborer to indemnify 
 the owner the hours of labor which he loses through his 
 own fault." 
 
 Then follows article seventh, from which the civil state 
 of the voluntary Chinese laborers has every appearance of 
 being perpetual and forced, since it is extremely difficult 
 for any of these laborers to save a sum sufficient to enable 
 them to return to their native country, as they receive 
 very small wages, which are further diminished by the 
 circumstances mentioned in the former article. And in 
 order to show what good reason I have for thus expressing 
 myself, I here copy from article seventh, word for word : 
 
 " In every contract made with the Chinese it is an 
 essential condition which ought to be expressed in an ad- 
 ditional clause, that, after the expiration of the term ol 
 the contract, the Chinese laborers shall not be permitted 
 to remain in the island of Cuba unless they enter anew 
 
 V 
 
207 
 
 into a contract of the same nature, in the condition in 
 which they were before, either as apprentices or journey- 
 men under the supervision of a master, or else as field 
 laborers or domestic servants, recommended by their mas- 
 ters; in default of which they shall be compelled to leave 
 the island, at their own expense, within two months of 
 the expiration of the contract." 
 
 After reading these 'regulations we cannot but see what 
 course the Chinese are compelled to take$ as it must be a 
 difficult matter for -them to return to their own country 
 owing to the immense distance and the interrupted com- 
 munications. For although the aforesaid article does not 
 stipulate to what particular place such laborers shall go 
 when their contract has expired, it is natural that they 
 should be unwilling to venture into any strange country, 
 of whose laws and customs they are entirely ignorant, per- 
 haps to endure the same fate/ or to expose themselves to 
 the hardships which they have experienced in the island. 
 
 The eighth clause of article sixth identifies the con- 
 tracted Chinese with the negro slaves in such a manner 
 that both systems of labor are considered one and the 
 same thing by the owners and overseers of the planta- 
 tions, and in the workshops where they are employed. 
 The sixth clause and several articles of this regulation, 
 which will be inserted here, may be used to combat this 
 assertion, but I insist that, from their very spirit, it will 
 be easy to corroborate the declarations which I have made 
 with regard to the similarity of the civil status of the 
 Chinese and negro laborers. 
 
 The sixth clause, in fact, expresses that in every con- 
 tract made with the Chinese it will be necessary to state 
 the number of hours he is to work, daily ; and also if 
 the master is to have the privilege of increasing the num- 
 ber of working hours when he may deem it necessary, 
 compensating said increase by a proportionate decrease 
 whenever it may be practicable. My readers will under- 
 stand that as the contractors are immediately interested 
 in the matter, they naturally endeavor to draw up the 
 contracts in such a manner that the greatest possible ad- 
 vantage may accrue to the proprietors, and this is the 
 more natural as the contracting of these Chinese origin- 
 ated in the necessity of procuring laborers to substitute 
 the negroes, or to make up for any deficiency in the num- 
 
 J 
 
208 
 
 ber of the latter, and it would be useless and unprofitable 
 to engage them under other conditions. For this reason 
 the clauses concerning the hours of labor are drawn up in 
 the contracts in ambiguous terms, generally specifying 
 only that the hours of labor shall be arranged according 
 to the custom prevailing with other laborers. Thus it is 
 that article fifty- fourth of the Regulations for the in- 
 troduction of Chinese in the island of Cuba, says as fol- 
 lows : 4 
 
 "When it is expressed in the contract that the master 
 is to have the right of distributing, in the manner most 
 conducive to his interests, the number of working hours 
 agreed upon with the laborer according to what is pre- 
 scribed in the sixth clause of article seventh, it is under- 
 stood that said right is limited in such manner that the 
 laborer " can never be compelled to work over fifteen hours 
 a day, and is always entitled to at least six hours of un- 
 interrupted rest, either by night or by day." This article, 
 although it is not exactly ambiguous, proves most unmis- 
 takeably that the masters can, at their option, establish 
 the distribution of the hours of labor, according to their 
 own interests, and that the Chinese, with but a slight 
 difference, are obliged to do the maximum of labor which 
 is imposed on the negroes, according to article twelfth, in 
 the regulations which have already been inserted in this 
 work. 
 
 And this identity will be still more apparent even, if 
 we allow that the hours of labor are distributed in a man- 
 ner favorable to the Chinese, if we take into consideration 
 what is expressed in the fifty-third article of the Slave 
 Regulations; as the former assigns twelve hours -daily 
 as the average term of labor to the contracted Chinese, 
 while in the latter, ten hours' work only can be exacted 
 from the negroes, except during the harvest season or in 
 case of urgent necessity. 
 
 When the contractors make over the Chinese to private 
 individuals it is very evident that the latter have to pay a 
 sum which will cover the expenses of the contractors, i. e., 
 the advances made to the Chinese in their country to in- 
 duce them to enter into the engagement; the commissions 
 paid to the agencies there established for this enterprize ; 
 the consular fees ; the expenses of the fitting out of each 
 ship in its outward and homeward voyage, and of the 
 
 V 
 
209 
 
 maintainance, clothing and attendance on the Chinese dur- 
 ing the passage; the expenses of the consignees, who must 
 be residents in Havana, according to the regulations ; the 
 deposit of fifty dollars to be made in advance to the 
 Spanish Bank of said city for each emigrant ; the per- 
 centage which shall accrue from the capital invested in all 
 the undertakings; and lastly, the profits calculated to 
 stimulate the carrying on of the enterprize. 
 
 From these antecedents we cannot but, come to the con- 
 clusion that the Chinese are sold to the proprietors of the 
 plantations and workshops by thai parties who contract 
 them as free laborers, in the identical manner that negroes 
 are sold to these same proprietors by the traders who re- 
 deem them as slaves. And even supposing that the price 
 of the Chinese differ much from that of the negroes, this does 
 not do away with the positive fact that the Chinese are 
 sold and that they have greater difficulty in obtaining 
 their freedom than the negroes, as we will presently de- 
 monstrate. 
 
 - In fact, the sale is legalized by the twenty-third article 
 of the Regulations concerning the Chinese, which says : — 
 " Those who introduce Chinese laborers will have the pri- 
 vilege of transferring them to other contractors, to land- 
 holders or any o^her individual, under whatever conditions 
 they may deem proper, provided those persons pledge 
 themselves to fulfil the contract made with said laborers, 
 and to observe these regulations. The cessionaries of the 
 Chinese will hold the same power, under the same condi- 
 tions ; but if the stipulations expressed in the original 
 contracts are altered, then the said transfer will be 
 null and void." By which transmission of authority from 
 one cessionary to another it is evident that the Chinese 
 are legally sold in the island of Cuba in the same manner 
 as the negroes, and without any restrictions. 
 
 That the Asiatics in the Spanish possessions may not 
 oppose themselves to the workings of their disguised ser- 
 vitude, article thirty-fourth, of the Regulations, says as fol- 
 lows: " The laborers, be it understood, on signing or agree- 
 ing to the contracts with those who contract them., thereby 
 lose all civil rights which are not consistent with the fulfil- 
 ment of the obligations which they have contracted, unless 
 it be some right expressly mentioned in the regula- 
 tions." This article alone is sufficient to sum up the com- 
 
J 
 
 210 
 
 parison which is now being drawn to prove that the phi- 
 lanthropy which labors for the introduction of Chinese 
 in the colonies so as to destroy slavery, is entirely misdi- 
 rected ; but there are others which still further prove the 
 opinion here expressed, as they refer to the children born 
 in this condition. 
 
 The civil freedom of the Chinese laborers being a fact, 
 according to the name of this institution, it would be na- 
 tural that the law should not interfere with the children 
 born on the Island of Cuba during their mothers' servi- 
 tude, excepting to project and sustain them in their help- 
 lessness during the first years of their life. This would 
 appear from article thirty-six, which says: " Laborers can 
 exercise their parental authority over their children, and 
 their marital powers over their wives so long as they are 
 consistent with the legal condition of the said children 
 and wives." 
 
 But, in order to show what that legal condition is which 
 limits parental authority, article thirty-seventh follows 
 immediately, with these words: " The children of laborers, 
 born during the term of the contract of their mothers, 
 shall remain in the same condition as their mothers so 
 long as said contract lasts; but on attaining the age of 
 eighteen years they shall be entirely frfee, even though 
 their mothers may still be contracted. 
 
 " The minor children, which the women may have at the 
 time of entering into the contract, shall remain subject to 
 the condition which the mothers may agree upon with the 
 contractors. But if no stipulations are made beforehand, 
 then the children will be entirely free; and shall be fed, 
 lodged and clothed by the owners of their mothers, on the 
 same conditions as those established for the latter, until 
 they have accomplished their twelfth year." , 
 
 Now, after carefully analyzing all that comprises the 
 former chapter, we arrive at the conclusion that the law 
 gives us to understand that the contract of an Asiatic la- 
 borer can last over eighteen years, that period having been 
 assigned for declaring free the children of contracted fe- 
 males who may be born in the Island of Cuba during the 
 servitude of their mothers, even should these continue in 
 the condition of laborers; and this estimate does not refer 
 to the number of years stipulated in the original contract, 
 as none is ever made for a term of over eight or ten 
 
 V 
 
211 
 
 years, and many for a lesser'period, but is founded on the 
 supposition that the condition of these labors is perpetu- 
 ated from the moment that they enter the island, since it 
 is impossible for them to leave it at their own expense. 
 
 We can also draw another and more important conclusion, 
 which is the most conclusive proof that the state of the 
 Chinese laborers is assimilated to that of the negro slaves, 
 viz : that the master takes possession of an individual 
 over whom he has no natural right, and whom he cannot 
 claim as his property, but by the laws of servitude, even 
 though his authority over him be limited to a certain pe- 
 riod. 
 
 We see also that, although the law declares these indi- 
 viduals to be free on arriving at the age of eighteen years, 
 their freedom is merely nominal, as it is further decreed 
 that all Chinese who are not contracted shall be expelled 
 from the island of Cuba, within two months of their free- 
 dom, so that the so-called freedmen, not wishing to be so- 
 journers out of their* native land, have no option but to 
 return to the state in which they lived when minors, ac- 
 cording to the condition of their respective mothers, which 
 cannot be other than that of servitude. 
 
 And now, in order to prove with what truth I have said 
 that the redemption of the Chinese from their servitude, 
 by their savings and by the fruit of their labor, is impos- 
 sible or at least very difficult, I must call attention to ar- 
 ticle forty- third of said regulations, which says as follows: 
 " Every laborer will have the right to liberate himself from 
 the dominion of his master, by payiug in advance, in ready 
 money, first: the amount paid for him; second: the amount 
 which the laborer may owe his master as an indemn'ifica- 
 tion for loss of labor or any other cause; third: the high- 
 est value which, in the judgment of the appraiser, the 
 services of the laborer has apquired since he entered into 
 the service of his master; fourth: the amount of damages 
 which may result to the master from the difficulty to re- 
 place him by another. The laborer cannot avail himself 
 of this right during harvest time, nor at any other time 
 when urgent work is required on feast days." 
 
 After the remarks and commentaries which have been 
 made, the perusal of said article will convince any impar- 
 tial mind that the law has designed to identify the two 
 races of laborers, that the ostensible differences should not 
 
212 
 
 create any very serious obstacles to the regulations of the 
 plantations nor to the interests of the landlords. And, as 
 in matters which solely depended on a name, and nothing 
 more, that assimilation would have been absolutely impos- 
 sible; yet the law made it appear more easy for the negro 
 slaves to acquire their freedom, than for the contracted 
 Chinese to emancipate themselves from compulsory labor. 
 
 To accomplish this end there were, no doubt, as many 
 obstacles raised against the latter as there were facilities 
 granted to the former; and while the orderly and intelli- 
 gent negroes are paying the price of their emancipation, 
 by instalments, no right being left to the owner to raise 
 the original value of the slave, or to retain him in bond- 
 age after the conditions of his emancipation are fulfilled, 
 whether it be or not the busy season, all which conditions 
 are inserted in the rules and ordinances which have been 
 copied entire in this work; the most laborious and for- 
 tunate Chinese could only cease to be compulsory laborers 
 by the voluntary generosity of their employers, who would 
 be willing to liberate them and to give them, besides, their 
 passage back to China. 
 
 A real and positive difference of much importance in 
 the regulations exists between the condition of the negro 
 slaves and the Chinese laborers, viz: that which relates to 
 corporeal punishments, which are prohibited, as a general 
 rule in the said regulations," to be inflicted on them. 
 
 This difference arises rather from the fundamental cir- 
 cumstances of the education of each class when they ar- 
 rive in the island of Cuba than from their civil state. The 
 Chinese springing from an enlightened society in their 
 own way, and belonging to one of the great historical 
 branches of the human family, among whom some think 
 the art of printing had its birth, and that artillery was 
 first invented as a pious modification of war, not as a des- 
 tructive element which has been given to its use now-a- 
 days by nations who suppose themselves infinitely more 
 civilized; that race among whom philosophy and jurispru- 
 dence had already made so much progress in the remote 
 times of Confucio, and where, at the present day, the arts 
 exhibit themselves so wonderfully advanced, it would not 
 have been just to establish them among us on the same 
 footing as the negroes, who are born and live in a savage 
 state until their redemption opens to them the doors of a 
 
213 
 
 civilization of which it is necessary to teach them the first 
 rudiments. 
 
 The English themselves, on abolishing slavery in their 
 colonies in a decided and definite manner, allowed the 
 punishment by lashes to remain in their regulations of 
 those who, from that time, were called apprentices; based, 
 no doubt, on the facts just stated of their absolute want 
 of culture and limited understanding. To act otherwise 
 in a question so much discussed, would be as much as to 
 condemn in parents the natural jurisdiction which makes 
 them inflict corporeal punishment upon their children, 
 Without injuring them, of course; which is the way that 
 the negroes are punished according, to the regulations. 
 
 And yet, as in the same race all the individuals differ so 
 much from one another, there are cases, and this is well 
 known by all who are acquainted with the island of Cuba, in 
 which corporeal punishment is inflicted on the Chinese, 
 without the interference of the authorities, provided the 
 punishment does not go beyond the limits of humanity 
 which govern the negroes. This is done in the presence 
 of everybody, and is blamed by no one, because the delin- 
 quency which causes the punishment is also made public, 
 though it may have been committed privately. 
 
 Moreover, the regulations which prohibit the corporeal 
 punishment of the Chinese for ordinary faults do not ab- 
 solutely exclude them from correction; on the contrary, it 
 is recommended for grave cases, and to be done with so- 
 lemnity, the well behaved being obliged to witness the 
 punishment of the r bad. as may be read in the following 
 article: 
 
 " 78. — In case of insubordination or resistance by force 
 to the orders of their superiors, on the part of the la- 
 borers collectively, the owner shall have the right to 
 use force also to subdue them; giving immediate infor- 
 mation to the delegate protector, that he may, should 
 the gravity of the case require it, direct that the cul- 
 prits be punished in presence of the other laborers." 
 
 This rule, as is evident, cannot mean anything else but 
 corporeal punishment by summary procedings, and not such 
 as are customary to the administration of justice in con- 
 formity with the existing laws; as in that case the dele- 
 gate protecfor coulcl not, impose it, nor could the delin- 
 quents be punished in the. presence of the other laborers, 
 except in case they were sentenced to death. 
 
214 
 
 In short, analyzing the jurisdiction and the state of be- 
 ing of the new institution of the contracted Chinese, it 
 proves to be the same as that of the redeemed negroes, to 
 labor in a conditional or temporal servitude, with slight 
 modifications which do not exist in fact, but simply in 
 name. And this being the case, as is evinced by the print- 
 ed regulations which are officially circulated, and is prac- 
 tically carried out in the island of Cuba, in presence of 
 both natives and foreigners, (the British government and 
 the London Anti-Slavery Society may easily know the 
 fact, and they do know it, and care nothing about it), we 
 shall come to the conclusion which has already been arriv- 
 ed at in this chapter, viz: that the persistent persecution 
 set up against the redemption of the negroes is an absurd- 
 ity founded in human pride, which having been started 
 through error, will not now confess they are wrong 
 
 How, otherwise, could this pertinent tendency against 
 the redemption of negroes keep in constant action thou- 
 sands of intellects fitted for other and much better and 
 useful occupations, however insignificant they might be; 
 by the advice emanating from those very persons, and al- 
 ways reproduced in favor of Chinese immigration, whose 
 regulations they do not ignore, and whose practices they 
 know? 
 
 To give another turn to this question it would be neces- 
 sary to suppose that they are influenced by cunning; the 
 labor of the Chinese not being as productive as that of 
 the negroes, and degenerate so much in field labor as to 
 become almost useless; for which reason some people have 
 suspected that what they aim at is only to equalize all the 
 colonies which Europe has in the New World, improving 
 those which at present produce little or nothing, at the 
 expense of those which are at the height of their prosper- 
 ity. 
 
 I am not the one to give countenance to this unchari- 
 table idea; prefering to attribute this palpable contradic- 
 tion, which results from all that has been said, rather to 
 a compromise entered into with rooted prejudices and with 
 the exigencies resulting from them. 
 
 For the rest, it may well be considered that if the Chi- 
 nese voluntarily accept of servitude, being civilized people 
 who have a vast knowledge of natural* rights and the gen- 
 eral notions of civil rights, which are within the reach of 
 
 V 
 
215 
 
 all, it is very probable that the negroes would not reject it 
 if in a state of civilization as forward as that of their co- 
 leagues in the colonial labor, they could understand it pre- 
 viously to and at the time of their voluntary contract. 
 
 For this reason I think that all attempts which tend to 
 prohibit the redemption and civilization of the negroes, 
 are at least as bad as those which tend to the propagation 
 of an immigration which constitutes a real servitude to 
 the Chinese, because, as to the former, it perpetuates their 
 abominable state and renders them of no service to the 
 civilization of the world, as they can only acquire it through 
 forced labor; and the latter, because a people who are poor, 
 perhaps, but already civilized, are degraded in foreign 
 lands. 
 
 Let all thinking men of the nations interested weigh the 
 subjeet I have just analyzed, and let them become accus- 
 tomed to listen to the truth free from artful dissimulation, 
 for I still have much to say to them. 
 
CHAPTER X* 
 
 Calamities which the perverseness of the Abolitionists has occasioned 
 in the world. — Civil war of the United States. — Origin and history of the 
 revolt of the South. — Insurrection at Harper's Ferry. — Death of John 
 Bown. — Excitement and blasphemies which it called forth in the North, 
 and in the slave States. — Fruitless efforts to maintain peace. — Municipal 
 elections. — Parliamentary commotions. — The election of Lincoln renders 
 war inevitable. — Proclamations of the Executive abolishing slavery in the 
 rebellious States and respecting it in the others. — The constitutional 
 legality of said proclamations analyzed. — Their negative results towards 
 the re-establisment of the Union. — Remarkable documents as to its con- 
 tradictory sense. — Aspect taken by the civil war after the issuing of the 
 said proclamations. — Calamities brought down on the people, on the Na- 
 tional Treasury, and on the public credit. 
 
 If the treaties now in force for the prohibition of the 
 redemption of Africans, and the unceasing labors of those 
 who desire to abolish the system of labor imposed upon 
 said negroes by civilization, had been productive of no 
 other evils than the decline of the colonies, the moral and 
 physical degradation of Hayti, the indignity of having ci- 
 vil equality applied to an inferior race, in our midst, the 
 continual violation of public law, besides all the interna- 
 tional outrages to which they gave rise, and even the 
 slaughter of wretched African captives by barbarians of 
 their own race, who sacrifice their prisoners when unable 
 to sell them, then we might even tolerate that fatal per- 
 sistency of purpose which has proved the author and un- 
 wearied promoter of so much discord and has caused the 
 ruin of so many communities. 
 
 But, in addition to the serious results which I have just- 
 mentioned, each of which is in itself of sufficient signifi- 
 cance to silence sentiment and restore to reason her legi- 
 timate ascendency, another, an immense, terrific and irre- 
 
217 
 
 parable calamity has been the consequence of that bane- 
 ful fanaticism: the battlefield has been chosen as the bar 
 at which to discuss the question which has arisen between 
 mistaken philanthropy and the most important interests, 
 and the thunder of cannon is heard while the voice of 
 reason and philosophy is hushed. 
 
 In one of the most flourishing countries in the world, 
 human blood now flows in torrents in a doubtful and am- 
 biguous cause, which, whatever be the manner in which 
 it may finally be settled, cannot have any but absolutely 
 negative results; and this will appear evident to all if they 
 will take into consideration the spirit in which the war has 
 been conducted on both sides. 1 repeat, the cause will be 
 defeated in any* event, for, if the abolition sentiment 
 triumphs, the future freedom of the negroes will prove 
 worse than their present state of servitude, as has been 
 the case in all parts of the world; and if, on the contrary, 
 slavery is perpetuated by force of arms, it is highly prob- 
 able that this institution will then be restored to its ori- 
 ginal form, that it may be less exposed to the attacks of 
 modern interference. 
 
 I mean that, if the abolitionists* triumph, the advent of 
 peace will prove fatal to the South section of the great Ame- 
 rican federation ; and, if they are defeated, Christianity and 
 its civilizing influences will be made to recede eighteen and 
 a half centuries. This is the present state of the question, 
 and such will inevitably be its termination, if the obsti- 
 nacy of the one party and the rancor of the other do not, 
 for the common weal, adopt a different policy. 
 
 Twelve years have already elapsed since this antagonism 
 began to assume a threatening aspect in the United States 
 of North America, and this I do not affirm at random, for 
 the antagonism already existed, though in a pacific form, 
 for a very long time, owing to the difference in the local 
 institutions and the counter tendencies of opposite inter- 
 ests. 
 
 In„, one of those slave States which are now defending 
 their cause with the greatest ardor, tumultuous meetings, 
 fiery discourses and propositions of disunion had already 
 been presented to the consideration of impartial observers, 
 whereby they were enabled to predict with certainty and 
 without any great mental effort what was so soon to come 
 to pass, if the impending evil were not averted. 
 
218 
 
 In fact, two years after, the disruption of the Union 
 was foretold, and even the time when the catastrophe 
 was to take place was designated; (1) and, in spite of this 
 natural conjecture which was expressed by an obscure 
 ' individual, and which was undoubtedly held by some 
 few politicians who, unlike the generality of their class, 
 were not blinded by their own private interests, the in- 
 difference of some, the fanaticism of others, perhaps the 
 crafty machinations of foreigners, and the impertinent 
 self-conceit of the majority, resulted in the confusion in 
 which we all now find ourselves. 
 
 Because, while the Northern States were making power- 
 ful efforts to overcome the Southern States in the Halls 
 of Congress, this being a terrible threat against the man- 
 orial property of the wealthy planters, while the South- 
 ern States, knowing the danger which threatened their 
 legitimate interests, were speaking of the disruption of 
 the Union as the only means of saving themselves; while 
 any one possessed of common sense could foresee what 
 was about to happen; and the future filled all loyal 
 minds with horror, the philanthropic abolition societies 
 did not scruple openbf.to make known their exertions in 
 their dicourses, making new exactions from all nations 
 and preaching their doctrines, with the greatest solemnity, 
 in places where the greatest harm would naturally ensue. 
 
 While the scenes which were plotted in darkness and 
 terminated in bloodshed, were being enacted at Harper's 
 Ferry, to be followed ere long by a far greater and more 
 terrible drama, the efforts to increase the number of 
 cruisers of the nations interested in the prohibition of the 
 slave trade were redoubled, and the most vehement and 
 injurious words were uttered by an English Minister in 
 Parliament against slavery and against all nations which 
 maintained the institution of organized labor. And as 
 the South had been exasperated to an iuconceivable extent 
 by all these causes combined, each of which would in 
 itself have sufficed to bring about the dreaded and already 
 inevitable disruption, in a case where prudence should 
 have been consulted, passion, upheld by legality, held its 
 
 (1)1 here refer to several publications of mine on the American ques- 
 tion, in all of which will be found that, in 1851, I foretold that in ten 
 years the great collision between the North and South would take place, 
 resulting in the political separation of the two sections. 
 
 » 
 
219 
 
 sway ; and where the expulsion or imprisonment of some 
 turbulent individuals would have sufficed, the life of an 
 aged man was unhesitatingly aud wantonly sacrificed. A 
 lamentable circumstance by which false philanthropy was 
 enabled to influence the feelings of truly benevolent per- 
 sons, _and which was solemnized by excited multitudes 
 with funeral pomp and sacrilegious comparisons ! 
 
 A periodical of New York, La Cronica, in its issue of 
 the 9th of December, 1859, contains the following: 
 
 " The Consequences of the Death of Brown. 
 
 " Our readers are already aware that on the 2d instant, 
 John Brown, the unfortunate leader of the insurrection at 
 Harper's Ferry, suffered the penalty of deatk by hanging. 
 We think it expedient to say something upon the effects 
 which have been produced in all the country, and more 
 especially in the Northern States, by the severe penalty 
 imposed upon a man who personified, as it were, the polit- 
 ical ideas and social aspirations of a great portion of the 
 Union. And we think it all the more opportune, as 
 society at large has agreed not to consider this as an 
 isolated and unimportant act, but rather as one of those 
 events of great political significance, which serves to for- 
 ward a cause in one day more than it would otherwise 
 have been forwarded in several years unmarked by such 
 extraordinary occurrences. 
 
 " Hardly had the telegraph announced the death of 
 Brown to all the cities of the North, than public demon- 
 strations of sorrow and even indignation be2;an to be 
 evinced on all sides. In this city some of the churches 
 were kept open from ten to twelve (the hour of execution) 
 with the -purpose of celebrating solemn religious services 
 for the soul of Brown. Sermons were preached in which 
 comparisons were repeatedly drawn between Brown and 
 the apostle and martyr St. Stephen, and God was fervently 
 prayed to cause the death of this new martyr to redound 
 in favor of the slaves. In Philadelphia, Boston, Man- 
 chester, Syracuse, etc., etc., meetings were held, in which 
 some Protestant ministers and distinguished men pro- 
 nounced discourses upon the events of the day. The 
 bells of the City Hall, and of several churches were tolled 
 for the space of two hours. In both assemblies of the 
 Legislature in Massachusetts it was resolved not to 
 
220 
 
 hold the session upon that day, and it. can be said that 
 all the North unanimously agreed in solemnly protesting 
 against the death of the man whom they qualified as a 
 martyr to liberty, and against the conduct of Mr. Wise, 
 Governor of Virginia, whom a Boston orator styled the 
 modern Pontius Pilate. 
 
 IC The cry of indignation sent forth by the North, has 
 loudly resounded in the South, adding fresh motives for 
 the excitement of the inhabitants who can no longer re- 
 strain the rage with which they are inspired by what they 
 call the aggression against their legitimate rights. As 
 usual, they have already threatened to dissolve the Confe- 
 deration, peremptorily informing the North that the time 
 of the dreaded crisis has arrived ; that the fate of the 
 Union hangs, so to say, upon a single thread, and that 
 to prevent its breaking, the co-operation of all the different 
 parties in the Union, both in the North and in the South, 
 is needed. 
 
 " The North, on its part, is cognizant of the imminence 
 of the danger, and seems to be disposed now, as upon 
 other occasions, to make new concessions, in order to save 
 that Union from which is derived the* strength of both 
 sections of the country. The most sensible portion of this 
 population prudently endeavors to calm the irritation of 
 the Southern slaveholders ; hence the fact that a meeting 
 has been called in this city, at which it may be publicly , 
 declared that the inhabitants of the North sympathise 
 with those of the South in the present circumstances, and > 
 that they openly condemn the conduct of John Brown 
 and his accomplices, as well as the dangerous theories 
 which some persons are endeavoring to inculcate in the 
 minds of the populace. All this shows that the danger * 
 has been acknowledged, and that efforts will be made to 
 'avert it ; but moderate men have to battle at every step 
 against the inconsiderate tendencies of the abolitionists, 
 who, being attacked in the person of John Brown, and 
 threatened, for the future, by the Southern publications, 
 are anxious to revenge the outrage already suffered, and 
 to avoid any others that may be attempted. In the • 
 meantime, exasperation and rancor are ever on the in- 
 crease, the spirit of sectionalism is daily more and more 
 aroused, and as the idea of an approaching political dis- 
 ruption becomes more and more familiar the greater also 
 is the probability of its taking place. 
 
 V 
 
221 
 
 " The far-seeing prudence and good, sense of a portion 
 of the Northern people, will, no doubt, greatly contribute 
 to the lulling of the storm ; but, can such an anamalous 
 situation be indefinitely prolonged ? Will a remedy be 
 at length found for so strong and threatening an antagon- 
 ism ? This is the , great problem, upon the solution oi 
 which depends, the existence of this Bepublic." 
 
 It is very rarely that we find expressed, in so brief apd 
 lucid a manner, the preamble to such extraordinary and 
 transcendental events as have since come to pa^ss,' and 
 which were foreseen and pointed out in the preceding 
 article. 
 
 The solution of the problem was only deferred long 
 enough to enable the minds already divided, and respec- 
 tively confirmed in their antithetical opinions, to form 
 their plans of action, in order to meet on the field of 
 battle. 
 
 And what else could be expected when sophistry had 
 made every effort to stifle the voice of reason, before which 
 the immense interests which had been called in question 
 might plead their legitimate rights ? 
 
 At the time when La CVonica, of New Y.ork, expressed 
 itself in the above mentioned terms, in all the territories 
 in which property was menaced, the most violent passions 
 were laboring towards the accomplishment of disruption. 
 And that these passions may be better estimated by their 
 own demonstrations, as they really were, rather than 
 through a defective description, my readers will allow me 
 toinsert a few paragraphs from several speeches made by 
 the Governors in the South before the Legislative assem- 
 blies of their respective States, relative to the events 
 which had occurred .until the death of Brown, and to those 
 which were preparing to follow. 
 
 In Virginia, within the jurisdiction of which the insur- 
 rectionists of Harper's Ferry were sentenced, Mr. Wise, who 
 was called by the Northerners the modern Pontius Pilate, 
 because as Governor of the State he punctually and faith- 
 fully fulfilled the painful duty, which the general interests, 
 of the people imposed upon him, was the one who most 
 energetically set forth the difficult state of affairs during 
 those awful moments. His message gave a detailed ac- 
 . count of all the facts relative to the insurrection ; and in 
 speaking of the fanaticism which swaved.the abolitionists, 
 
222 
 
 he said that it was hy it that the judgment of a consider- 
 able portion of the inhabitants of the Republic had been 
 perverted, to such an extent that it became the basis of 
 their religion, of their political principles, of their ad- 
 ministration of justice, of their public and private actions, 
 and, in fine, of their whole existence , this fanaticism 
 being the result of the education of thr^e successive gener- 
 ations. 
 
 He then went on to say* " It the majority does not cease 
 violating the good faith sworn to the Confederation, dis- 
 turbing our peace, destroying our lives and our property, 
 and depriving us of the protection to which we have a 
 right, by perverting the form and opposing the manner 
 in which the Union should be preserved, we must resort 
 to arms. The question is so essential, that we ought not 
 to leave it endangered any longer. We cannot allow 
 outrages similar to that at Harper's Ferry without suffer- 
 ring a fate worse than death, as citizens, and the dishonor 
 of perishing, as a State. 
 
 "It cannot be denied that we have a great many good 
 and sincere friends in the States where there is no slavery, 
 but the conservative elements are passive, while those of 
 the fanatics are active, and whilst the former are decreas- 
 ing the latter are daily increasing in number and in 
 strength. 
 
 " We must depend solely upon ourselves: we must fight 
 tor peace, we must arm and organize ourselves, we must 
 demand that each State shall declare its intentions, for 
 the future, with respect to slavery, and what the Consti- 
 tution and the laws of the United States in general and 
 of each State in particular, have established for its pro- 
 tection in our federal relations; and we must, proceed in 
 
 accordance to the answer given. We are now in arms 
 
 Let us defend our position or else abandon it at once. 
 Let us act at once and endeavor to effect a definite ar- 
 rangement. No more temporization with the Constitution. 
 No more compromises. The rest of the convicted insur- 
 gents are sentenced and shall be executed, unless the 
 General Assembly resolve to the contrary." 
 
 The same spirit of resistance and disunion was evident 
 in the speech of the Governor of South Carolina: of that 
 State which many years previously had taken the initia- 
 tive for the disruption which has now taken place. 
 
 \ 
 
223 
 
 • 
 
 " In order to be prepared for any emergency/' he said, 
 " I would recommend you to adopt at once such measures, 
 as in your opinion, may be neccessary in order to procure 
 that the Southern States may act in concert for the defense 
 of our institutions, should they be endangered at any time 
 by our government departments falling into the hands of 
 the enemy. The election of a Black Republican President, 
 will decide the question of our security in the Union; and 
 even though the forms of the Constitution should be 
 observed, its vital principle will nevertheless be extinguish- 
 ed, and the South will have to consent to occupy an 
 inferior and degrading position, or it will have to seek a 
 new safeguard for the future. Let South Carolina make 
 all possible efforts to obtain the co-operation of the South- 
 ern States in this movement which is evidently of such 
 vital importance; let her sacrifice everything except prin- 
 ciple, for this purpose, and prepare herself to oppose a 
 determined resistance at all events; without for a moment 
 forgetting that she* is a sovereign State which of her own 
 free will entered into relations with the Federal Union, 
 and has an unquestionable right to resume her independent 
 position in the family of nations." 
 
 And, finally, that we may not have to waste time in 
 examining other local manifestations when a single in- 
 stance will serve fully as well to show the universal spirit 
 which prevailed in the South, let the reader give his at- 
 tention to the statement of an American traveller, given 
 in the New York Express, after a lour through nearly all 
 the Southern States. > 
 
 "The more I hear and see in these parts, the greater 
 becomes my dismay respecting our future, and the fear 
 that we shall not be able to avoid what would be the great- 
 est possible calamity for our country. I have just met 
 with a strong conservative, one of the most strenuous par- 
 tizans of the Union, who holds high position in the 
 country, and has just arrived from New Orleans, via 
 Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, stopping at Mont- 
 gomery and Columbus where the Legislature is congregat- 
 ed. He tells me that in the entire route he has not met 
 with a single individual who is not in favor of the im- 
 mediate separation of the two great sections of the Kepublic 
 and the formation of a separate Confederacy among the 
 slave States; that all efforts to argue on the subject with 
 
224 
 
 • 
 
 the inhabitants are useless, as they turn a deaf ear to all 
 reasoning or argument, and that for the first time, he 
 almost despairs of a peaceable arrangement of the matter 
 The excitement here is very great, and if perchance we 
 succeed in passing this crisis in safety, it will be due only 
 to the prudence and the immense efforts of the moderate 
 and conservative party. As a proof of«the effects produced 
 here by this state of affairs I must tell you that the present 
 value of landed property is only thirty-two per cent of 
 what it was six months since, and this is only in anticipa- 
 tion of coming events." 
 
 Not only was this alarm and this settled and universal 
 antagonism constantly increased by the demonstrations at 
 Harper's Ferry, the meetings in the Northern States, the 
 untiring efforts of foreign diplomacy and, in fact, all the 
 elements that have been pointed out as raging previous 
 to and since the death of Brown, but fresh fuel was added 
 to the flame by the publication of an abolitionist work. 
 Whether this book was written with premeditated inten- 
 tions of provocation we know not, but this w& can posi- 
 tively affirm: that it helped to bring about the dissolution 
 of the Union; for the author taking advantage of the great 
 excitement among the enemies of slavery, either acting on 
 his honest conviction, as we should like to believe in honor 
 of the press, or with the purpose of rapidly making a 
 fortune, as was conjectured by some, in which case he 
 certainly succeeded, not only described the servitude of 
 the negroes as being the worst institution to be found in 
 ancient or modern history but he also succeeded^in having 
 an official motion made by the representatives of both 
 Houses at Washington, recomencling the work to the 
 attention-of the -public, in the same manner as if it had 
 contained the sacred words of a new Evangelist. 
 
 For this reason, on the 5th of December 1859, when 
 the Congress for 1860 had not yet been legally constituted, 
 Mr. Clark, a zealous representative of the slave States, 
 entirely devoted to the Federal Constitution, presented a 
 proposal tl\at all the Representatives who had made the 
 motion in favor of Mr. Helper's book should, for that act, 
 be excluded from eligibility to office. As was to be 
 expected from the spirit which pervaded that assembly, 
 owing to the events which were at that time taking place 
 in the Republic, this proposal produced the contrary ef- 
 
 \ 
 
225 t ,, 
 
 feet, which soon became seriously evident at the presiden- 
 tial election which followed. 
 
 The provocative sentiment of the abolitionists who, in 
 the exclusiveness of their doubtful exigencies, aimed a 
 death-blow at the material and immense interests of vast 
 territories, was by no means universal in the North, being 
 in a positive minority in some of the States. The State 
 of New York, for example, wishing to be free from any re- 
 sponsibility of the coming events which now plainly ap- 
 peared inevitable, organized those sympathising meetings 
 alluded to in La Cronica, in the article herein inserted ; 
 and afterwards, in order to give a fuller proof of its atti- 
 tude, in the election of its rulers which was to take place 
 about that time, by nominating Mr. Fernando Wood, the 
 greatest friend in the North to the institutions of the 
 South, and carried his election by an immense majority of 
 votes. 
 
 In fact, the returns of this election prove that it could 
 not have been more adverse to the abolitionists, nor more 
 favorable towards an amicable adjustment between the 
 two opposite tendencies which were on the point of rush- 
 ing to arms. For, as Mr. Wood had, on account of his 
 energetic and enterprising character, a great many ene- 
 mies as well as friends, the cause of the sympathizers in 
 that election was divided into two parts, each one having 
 a different candidate ; whereas that of the abolitionists 
 was united in the unanimous vote for one single indivi- 
 dual. Notwithstanding all this Mr. Wood obtained thirty 
 thousand and ninety-four votes. His colleague in opi- 
 nions, though his opponent in the aspirations for office, 
 obtained twenty-six thousand eight hundred and thirty- 
 three, and Mr. Opdyke, the abolitionist candidate, only 
 succeeded in securing twenty-one thousand eight hundred 
 and eighteen. Thus, it is evident that the conservative 
 party in the State of New York had a majority of over 
 two- thirds. 
 
 But all these conciliatory demonstrations, all the efforts 
 of a better judgment which condemned with great jus- 
 tice, e yery thing in which an aggressive and ruling idea 
 served as an obstacle to peace, were defeated in the final re- 
 sults; because, as Mr. Wise correctly said in his message to 
 the Legislature of Virginia, the conservative elements are 
 passive, whilst those of the agitators are constantly kept 
 in motion by the impulse of their fanaticism. 
 
226 
 
 In short, the election of Mr. Lincoln as President of the 
 Republic, was the signal for the commencement of a war 
 of extermination between the two sections ; for the South 
 having been accustomed to have the ascendancy in the 
 administration, had not the patience to suffer, even in 
 anticipation, its first electoral defeat, but considered it in 
 the light of an official summing up of all the former 
 aggressions, from the time of Brown's insurrection, and 
 hastened to take up arms against ify demanding a separa- 
 tion ; and the North through its imprudence being now 
 obliged to make war in order to maintain the integrality 
 of the federal Constitution according to the laws in force 
 in all the States, instead of appeasing the excitement and 
 dissipating the alarm of its antagonists by means of con- 
 ciliatory measures that should above all have respected 
 the interests which had been threatened, it continued to 
 attack these interests in their basis, at first only occasion- 
 ally and unofficially, though always under the influence of 
 abolitionist tendencies, but afterwards with the full sanc- 
 tion of the Government, thus destroying every chance of 
 a peaceable arrangement. 
 
 The 22d of September, 1862, will always stand as one 
 of the most calamitous days in the annals of the great 
 federal Republic ; for although the events of that day had 
 been foreseen and did not surprise any one, owing to the 
 symptoms which always precede any important measure, 
 its official character, nevertheless, produced the effect 
 which was to be expected, closing the doors on all legiti- 
 mate adjustments between the two ideas which were being 
 sustained with such fury by force of arms. 
 
 It is useless to disguise the fact that the proclamation 
 issued by President Lincoln on the 22d of September, 
 1862, against the clavery of the negroes, or rather, we 
 should say, against the legitimate property of the rebel- 
 lious provinces (for the slaves of the other States, which, 
 were faithful to the federal Constitution, were not in- 
 cluded in the said proclamation), instead of suppressing 
 the rebellion, as the author, with evident inexperience, had 
 intended, was the means of infusing into it additional 
 vigor. But before we go on with our comments, it will 
 be well here to insert the aforesaid documents. 
 
 The first says thus : 
 
227 
 
 "Washington, September 22, 1862. 
 
 " I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States 
 of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the army and 
 navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that here- 
 after, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the 
 object of practically restoring the constitutional relation 
 between the United States and the people thereof in 
 which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or 
 disturbed ; that it is my purpose, upon the next meeting 
 of Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a prac- 
 tical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free accept- 
 ance or rejection of all the slave States, so-called, the peo- 
 ple whereof may not then be in rebellion against the 
 United States, and which States may then have volun- 
 tarily adopted or thereafter may voluntarily adopt the 
 immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their 
 respective limits ; and that the efforts to colonize persons 
 of African descent, with their consent, upon the continent 
 or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the 
 governments existing there, will be continued ; that on 
 the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one 
 thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held 
 as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a 
 State, the people ivhereof shall then be in rebellion against 
 the United States, shall be thenceforward and forever 
 free, and the executive government of the United States, 
 including the military and naval authority thereof, will 
 recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and 
 will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of 
 them, in any efforts they may make for their actual free- 
 dom ; that the Executive will, on the first day of January 
 aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts 
 of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively 
 shall then be in rebellion against the United States ; and 
 the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on 
 that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of 
 the United States bv members chosen thereto at elections 
 wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State 
 shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong 
 countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence 
 that such State and the people thereof have not been in 
 rebellion against the United States. 
 
 " That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress, 
 
228 
 
 entitled i An act to make an additional Article of War/ 
 approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words 
 and figures following : 
 
 " Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represen- 
 tatives of the United States of America in Congress 
 assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promul- 
 gated as an additional article of war for the government oi 
 the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and 
 observed as such : 
 
 " Article. — All officers or persons in the military or 
 naval service of the United States are prohibited from 
 employing any of the forces under their respective com- 
 mands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service 
 or labor who may have escaped from any persons to whom 
 such service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officei 
 who shall be found guilty by a court martial of violating 
 this article shall be dismissed from the service. 
 
 Section 2. — And be it further enacted, That this act 
 shall take effect from and after its passage. 
 
 " Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled 
 ? An Act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and 
 rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and 
 for other purposes/ approved July 17, 1862, and which 
 sections are in the words and figure following : 
 
 " Sec. 9. — And be it further enacted, That all slaves of 
 persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against 
 the Government of the United States, or who shall in any 
 way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such per- 
 sons and taking refuge within the lines of the army, and 
 all slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them 
 and coming under the control of the Government of the 
 United States, and all slaves of such persons found on (or 
 being within) any place occupied by rebel forces and after- 
 wards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall 
 be deemed captures of wau, and shall be forever free of 
 their servitude, and not again held as slaves. 
 
 " Sec. 10. — And be it further enacted, That no slave 
 escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of 
 Columbia, from any of the States, shall be delivered up, 
 or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except 
 for crime or some offence against the laws, unless the per- 
 son claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the 
 person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is 
 
229 
 
 alleged to "be due is his lawful owner, and has not been in 
 arms against the United States in the present rebellion, 
 nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto ; and no 
 person engaged in the military or naval service of the 
 United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume 
 to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the 
 service cS labor of any other person, or surrender up any 
 such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed 
 from the service. 
 
 ^"And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons 
 engaged in the military and naval service of the United 
 States to observe, obey and enforce within their respective 
 spheres of service the act and sections above recited. 
 
 " And the Executive will in due time recommend that 
 all citizens of the United States who shall have remained 
 loyal thereto throughout the rebellion shall (upon the 
 restoration of the constitutional relation between the 
 United States and their respective States and people, if 
 the relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be 
 compensated for all losses by the acts of the United States, 
 including the loss of slaves. 
 
 "In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and 
 caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 
 
 "ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 " Done at the city of Washington, this twenty-second 
 day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
 eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the independence of 
 the United States the eighty- seventh. 
 "By the President : 
 
 " WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 
 
 " Secretary of State." 
 
 After this proclamation, the first day of the following 
 year arrived, and as the promise had been given in a 
 solemn manner, and the rebellion, instead of ceasing as 
 had been hoped, had increased in extent and power, en- 
 dangering the constitutional existence of the loyal States, 
 in order not to undo what had already been done in its 
 aggressive procedures, the supreme magistrate of the 
 nation issued his second proclamation, in the following 
 terms : 
 
 " Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in 
 the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 
 
 j 
 
230 
 
 sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of 
 the United States, containing, among other things, the 
 following, to wit : 
 
 " That on the first day of January, in the year of our 
 Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all per- 
 sons held as slaves within any State or designated part of 
 a State, the people whereof shall then be ingrebellion 
 against the United States, shall be then, thenceforth and 
 forever free, and the Executive Government of the United 
 States, including the military and naval authority thereof, 
 will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, 
 and will do no act or acts to repress such persons or any 
 of them in any eifort they may make for their actual free- 
 dom. 
 
 " That the Executive will, on the first day of January 
 aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts 
 of States, if any, in which the people therein respectively 
 shall then be in rebellion against the United States ; and 
 the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that 
 day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the 
 United States by members chosen thereto at elections 
 wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State 
 shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong 
 countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence 
 that such State and the people thereof a*e not then in 
 rebellion against the United States. 
 
 " Now, therefore, I Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
 United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as 
 Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United 
 States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the au- 
 thority and government of the United States, and as a fit 
 and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, 
 do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord 
 one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accord- 
 ance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for 
 the full period of one hundred days from the day of the 
 first above mentioned order, and designate as the States 
 and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively 
 are this day in rebellion against the United States the 
 following, to wit : 
 
 " Arkansas. 
 
 " Texas. 
 
 " Louisiana — except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plac- 
 
 v 
 
231 
 
 quemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, 
 St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre 
 Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin 
 and Orleans, including the city of New 
 Orleans. 
 " Mississippi. 
 " Alabama. 
 " Florida. 
 " Georgia. 
 " South Carolina. 
 u North Carolina and 
 
 " Virginia—except the forty- eight counties, designated 
 as West Virginia, and also the counties of 
 Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Eliza- 
 beth City, York, Princess Ann and Nor- 
 folk, including the cities of Norfolk and 
 Portsmouth, and which excepted parts are, 
 for the present, left precisely as if this pro- 
 clamation were not issued. 
 " And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose afore- 
 said, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves 
 within said designated States and parts of States are and 
 henceforward shall be free ; and that the Executive Gov- 
 ernment of the United States, including the military and 
 naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the 
 freedom of said persons. 
 
 " And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to 
 be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary 
 self-defence ; and I recommend to them that in all cases, 
 when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. 
 " And I further declare and make known that Such 
 persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the 
 armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, 
 positions, stations and other places, and to man vessels of 
 all sorts in said service. 
 
 " And upon this, sincerely believed to be an act of jus- 
 tice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military neces- 
 sity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and 
 the gracious favor of Almighty God. 
 
 " In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and 
 caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 
 
 "Done at the city of Washington, this first Vlay of 
 January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight 
 
232 
 
 hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the 
 United States of America the eighty-seventh. 
 
 "ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ; 
 
 " By the President : 
 
 "WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 
 
 " Secretary of State." 
 
 The importance which these documents have towards 
 the end which I propose to myself in writing this work, 
 obliges me to carefully analyse them in their legal founda- 
 tions, and in all the points of real transcendency which 
 are therein contained or which may result from them. And 
 since it was for the sake of the inviolability of the federal 
 Constitution that they were issued, let us examine how 
 far they are in conformity with the law which they in- 
 voke. 
 
 The political federation of several sovereign States, for 
 such is the real nature of the Union constituted among 
 the thirteen States which declared their independence of 
 England, and those which, afterwards, joined the said Fe- 
 deration, does not destroy nor injure the special laws of 
 each, as these are absolutely independent of the Constitu- 
 tion which serves to bind them together, guaranteeing: their 
 respective rights. This principle gains two-fold strength 
 when it is considered that all attacks made against the in- 
 stitution of slavery in the slave States, which is protected 
 by their respective constitutions, are not only attempts 
 against the integrality of that bond which regulates the 
 harmony of the Federation, but also aim a deadly blow at 
 the interests of said slave States. In this estimation, the 
 measure proclaimed by the executive of the Republic, on 
 the 22d of September, 1862, and confirmed on the 1st of 
 January, 1863, which was adopted to punish the attempt 
 made against -the federal Constitution by those who pro- 
 claimed themselves independent of it, is, to say the least, 
 as unconstitutional as the very act which it attempts to 
 punish, and therefore lacks the moral strength which would 
 be necessary to render it a salutary measure. 
 
 The suppositions that it is an act of justice, authorized 
 by the Constitution as a military necessity, will not be 
 held by any reasonable mind, since, with this act, the ma- 
 terial strength of the federal army was not increased, nor 
 was that of the secessionists diminished; the situation of 
 
 \ 
 
233 
 
 the ranks in the former was not bettered, and the resources 
 of war of the latter were not destroyed. Such measures 
 as a military necessity might constitutionally authorize, 
 might have been instituted, such as, for instance, the en- 
 rolment of negroes as soldiers, wherever the authority of 
 the President could be enforced, a war tax levied upon the 
 property which these negroes represent, or their removal 
 to other posts, according as expediency might demand for 
 the furtherance of military operations. 
 
 And since it was with no such intentions that these 
 proclamations were issued, their tendencies ought to be 
 considered purely political, «and, consequently, contrary to 
 the federal Constitution, in defense of which they were 
 dictated. 
 
 With equal and even more forcible arguments might 
 this measure be censured, in a legal point, showing incon- 
 sistencies in each of its phases, and an unlawful proce- 
 dure in the whole. However, as this is not a part of my 
 design, let me proceed at once to consider its effects. 
 
 What were the intentions of the Federal Government , 
 upon issuing the first proclamation? 
 
 This question brings up a thousand others, which have 
 been decided by actual events in the most unsatisfactory 
 manner. 
 
 Some people believed that the South would become dis- 
 couraged by the proclamation; as if the history of the 
 world had ever presented a single case where a rebellion 
 has been put down by a mere threat which could not pos- 
 sibly be carried out! On the contrary, it merely gave an 
 additional proof, to the wealthy planters of the South, of 
 the pernicious influence which the abolitionists exercised 
 over the executive power of the Republic; and, as this 
 dangerous influence destroyed, in the South, all desires and 
 even all hopes of a constitutional reconciliation, the said 
 document served only to strenthen them in their spirit of 
 disunion and in their determination to organize a still 
 greater resistance. For this reason the operations of the 
 war, from that time, took a still more disastrous aspect, 
 the army of the South having been reinforced in such a 
 manner as to enable them to make powerful invasions into 
 the North, and to make protracted defenses in their forti- 
 fications as well as on the battlefield; for this reason the 
 flattering expectations which had been entertained by those 
 
234 
 
 who hoped, in good faith and with feelings of fraternity, 
 for the submission of the South, have since then been 
 utterly abandoned, notwithstanding the brilliant triumphs 
 achieved in Pennsylvania by the Northern army. 
 
 These proclamations did not even serve to satisfy public 
 opinion among the Federals, for I have already shown that 
 the majority of these were not abolitionists. 
 
 Thus it was that, on the appearance of the first procla- 
 mation, so much was said against the government, in al- 
 most all the papers in the Union, that in similar circum- 
 stances the sentiments of opposite factions have rarely 
 agreed so unanimously; and this was owing to the fact 
 that the proclamation which abolished slavery in those 
 regions where its power did not reach, allowed it to exist 
 where it might have been enforced; thus the conservatives 
 attacked it as radical; the radicals condemned it as con- 
 servative, and everybody considered it imprudent and use- 
 less, with the exception of a few interested officials. 
 
 Even if, as some have suspected, and I believe, these 
 proclamations had been issued with an international poli- 
 tical end, they would still appear unreasonable, since they 
 did not resolve anything in decided terms, and consequent- 
 ly were not admitted as useful by the government of Great 
 Britain, as they might otherwise have been. And the 
 opinion which has been expressed as to the intention of 
 the said proclamation, viz.: the prevention of the national 
 recognition of the South by the European powers, by 
 flattering England through its abolitionist' exigencies, is 
 not founded upon slight grounds, being confirmed by the 
 English ministry, that is to say, by a dispatch of Lord 
 Kussell to tlie representative of that nation at Washing- 
 ton, which is written in the following terms: 
 
 " EARL RUSSELL TO LORD LYONS. 
 
 "Foreign Office, January 17, 1863. 
 
 " My Lord — The proclamation of the President of the 
 United States, enclosed in your lordship's despatch of the 
 2d inst., appears to be of a very strange nature. 
 
 " It professes to emancipate all slaves in places where 
 the United States authorities cannot exercise any juris- 
 diction nor make emancipation a reality; but it does not 
 decree emancipation of slaves in any, States or parts of 
 States occupied by federal troops, and subject to United 
 
235 
 
 States jurisdiction, and where, therefore, emancipation, if 
 decreed, might have been carried into effect. 
 
 "It would seem to follow that in the border States, and 
 also in New Orleans, a slave owner may recover his fugi- 
 tive slave by the ordinary process of law, but that in the 
 ten States in which the proclamation decrees emancipa- 
 tion, a fugitive slave arrested by legal warrant may resist, 
 and his resistance, if successful, is to be upheld and aided 
 by the United States authorities and the United States 
 armed forces. 
 
 " The proclamation, therefore, makes slavery at once 
 legal and illegal, and makes slaves either punishable for 
 running away from their masters, or entitled to be sup- 
 ported and encouraged in so doing, according to the local- 
 ity of the plantation to which they belong, and the loyalty 
 of the State in which they may happen to be. 
 
 " There seems to be no declaration of a principle ad- 
 verse to slavery in this proclamation. It is a measure of 
 war, and a measure of war of a very questionable kind. 
 
 "As President Lincoln has twice appealed to the judg- 
 ment of mankind in his proclamation, I venture to say I 
 do not think it can or ought to satisfy the friends of abo- 
 lition, who look for total and impartial freedom for the 
 slave, and not for vengeance on the slave owner. 
 
 " I am, etc. Russell." 
 
 In order to demonstrate how unanimous were the sen- 
 timents entertained by everybody with respect to the in- 
 consistency contained in the proclamations, and exposed 
 in the foregoing dispatch of Lord John Russell, I ought 
 to mention that one of the most eminent men in the 
 South, universally renowned for his great talents and 
 public character, said in answer to various consultations 
 of mine upon the subject, what I here copy: 
 
 "As to the antagonism manifested between the South- 
 ern and Northern States, allow me to observe that slavery 
 has nothing whatever to do with the disagreements which 
 have given place to the furious contest resulting from it. 
 
 " It is well known that the rapid progress made in the 
 Northern States, in their population and industry, are due 
 only to the extraordinary ingress of foreigners, who are 
 attracted to its soil by the advantages afforded by its po- 
 litical institutions and the prospects afforded by its bound- 
 
236 
 
 less territories. Nevertheless, while these States were 
 thus increasing in power and influence in the councils of 
 the nation, they also began to unfold a tendency to oppress 
 the weaker States, and to monopolize, exclusively, the ad- 
 vantages accrueing from the federal mechanism, entirely 
 disregarding the interests and rights of the latter, while 
 their arrogance and oppression ever increased, until the 
 abuses and exactions arising from them became so intol- 
 erable, that the only resource left to the Southern States 
 was to revolt against them, claiming a separation from, 
 and. an independence of, a Union which denied them an 
 equal participation in the common advantages. 
 
 " The violence done to the federal Constitution by the 
 Northern States is what has sundered the links which 
 bound them to the South. Let it not be said that the 
 slave question is at all involved in the gigantic struggle 
 carried on between the South and the North. 
 
 "As a proof against this supposition, see how the South 
 willingly sacrifices slavery and slaves, rather than submit 
 to the Northern yoke, when the latter guarantees both to 
 them, in case of their submission; whilst the North, which 
 is so ready to liberate the slaves who are not in their do- 
 minion, encourages with the prospect of continued slavery 
 the loyalty of the States where the federal authority still 
 prevails." 
 
 I think that the illustrious republican, whose name I 
 withhold, very much against my will, as I am not author- 
 ized to publish it, is mistaken in his idea that the slave 
 question is not connected with the war, as this idea might 
 be triumphantly combated with what has already been 
 said relative to the mechanism of the Federation, by which 
 each State makes its own laws, independent of the rest, 
 and with facts and antecedents which are publicly and 
 universally known. Perhaps, since the issuing of the 
 proclamations, which, instead of reconciling, have been 
 the means of further disuniting the two sections, which 
 were engaged in a furious struggle owing to the slave 
 question, the South has decided to give to their cause a 
 force and an aspect quite foreign to the original question ; 
 as was correctly exjDlained by Lord Lyons to Lord Eussell 
 in a despatch dated Washington the 13 th of January, 
 saying: " The emancipation proclamation has disgusted 
 many, has made still more doubtful the possibility of any 
 
237 
 
 other result to the war, whenever it may end, than sepa- 
 ration." It is evident that we cannot avoid the slave 
 question if we wish to bring up the antecedents of the 
 war, or to establish the foundation of a solid, just and 
 lasting peace. 
 
 For the rest, I may add that the aforesaid letter was 
 written in Havana on the 25th of January 1863, that is 
 to say, eight days after the despatch of Lord John Russell 
 to the English Minister at Washington; and, consequent- 
 ly, the ideas expressed in one could not have been copied 
 from the other, unless we might suppose a suspicious un- 
 derstanding to exist between the most influential persons 
 of the South and the Government of Great Britain. 
 
 If some regard be had to these explanations, which 
 justify the responsibility attributed to the abolitionists, 
 of being the promoters of the civil war which is destroy- 
 ing this nation, and also a brief analysis of the great dis- 
 asters suffered by this same nation in all its public phases, 
 since the unfortunate insurrection at Harper's Ferry, the 
 great statesmen and potentates of the world will have to 
 be very careful to ultimately resolve .the negro question 
 with deeper reflection and greater caution than they have 
 yet employed. 
 
 Upon this very ground, now the bloody theater of the 
 most horrible tragedy ever presented to the political world 
 with the attributes of war, I am analyzing this question, 
 the fatal legacy bequeathed to the New World by civili- 
 zation, I know not whether through the obstinate philan- 
 thropy of a celebrated friar, now almost deified in the es- 
 timation of the unthinking, who undertook to secure the 
 indolent repose of the Indians at the cost of the slavery 
 of the negroes; or on account of the climate in the tropics 
 of the Western hemisphere, which renders the cultivation 
 of the soil impossible to any laboring agents less robust 
 than the Africans. I am hardly able to enter more cir- 
 cumstancially into this analysis, although I am not natur- 
 ally faint hearted; and were I to give the results of the 
 analysis with mathematical exactness, they would un- 
 doubtedly overwhelm the mind of the reader, and cause 
 him to shun the sight of these lines with horror. 
 
 It is undoubtedly for this cause, which is in itself justi- 
 fiable owing to the respect due to public sentiment, even 
 though it may be prejudicial to historical exactness, that 
 
238 
 
 all writers who have wished briefly to demonstrate the in- 
 juries caused -by this great question, have touched upon 
 the subject very lightly and with faint coloring. It is also 
 for this reason that I, concealing all violent emotions in 
 order not to transmit them to others, will avail myself, 
 firstly, of other expositions which are certainly worthy of 
 credit, coming, as we will presently show, from interested 
 parties; after which I will, with the promised circumspec- 
 tion, give some numerical data which I have myself col- 
 lected. 
 
 " THE AWFUL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. WHO ARE 
 
 RESPONSIBLE? 
 
 " Three years ago this country was the envy of the 
 world. Thirty millions of people of all classes, condi- 
 tions, religions and nativities were living happily together 
 under the freest government upon the face of the earth. 
 The poor and the oppressed of all nations found a refuge 
 upon our shores. Our flag was known and respected in 
 every land and on every sea. Our commerce bore to dis- 
 tant climes the products of our soil and of our manufac- 
 tures, and brought us in exchange all the comforts and 
 luxuries we could desire. To be an American citizen was 
 so great an honor that even the aristocrats of Europe 
 showed us especial favors and treated our representatives 
 with distinguished consideration. We had just sent France 
 her Emperor, and Italy her Liberator, after having receiv- 
 ed and protected these illustrious exiles. The future King 
 of England had visited us to see for himself the supreme 
 greatness and happiness of a free people under a govern- 
 ment of their own choice. Peace, contentment and pros- 
 perity at home — admiration, envy and honor abroad — in 
 these words is pictured the condition of the United States 
 three years ago. 
 
 " To-day one half the country is in rebellion against the 
 government. Three hundred thousand American soldiers 
 are arrayed against each other around the national capital. 
 The loyal armies are destroying public and private pro- 
 perty at the South, and the rebel armies are invading and 
 devastating the North. The flames of burning towns and 
 villages are answered by the red glare of burning ships. 
 Our commerce is almost totally destroyed, and what is 
 left of it has abandoned our flag and sought safety beneath 
 
239 
 
 the British ensign. Rebel" pirates infest the seas, ravage 
 our coasts and dare to enter our harbors. Fifty millions 
 of dollars worth of property was destroyed or captured in 
 Maryland and Pennsylvania last week, and our losses 
 elsewhere are double that sum. Thousands of brethren 
 who lived in amity and peace three years ago have' since 
 been slain by fratricidal hanfls and now sleep beneath the 
 sod. The national currency has depreciated until gold is 
 at an enormous premium. The necessaries of life com- 
 mand extravagant prices. Our manufactures have ceased 
 almost entirely in some sections of the country, and in 
 others are kept in feverish activity only by the demands 
 of the war. In one of our largest cities business is sus- 
 pended that the citizens may arm to meet the rebel inva- 
 sion. Peculation, embezzlement and corruption are riot- 
 ing in official circles. A few hundred of men without 
 souls are becoming amazingly rich, while the masses of the 
 people suffer. Our statesmen have degenerated into scheme- 
 ing, thieving politicians. The national debt, already large, 
 is daily and hourly increased by war expenditures, and 
 knavish hands are diligently engaged in robbing the Trea- 
 sury in a thousand ways. Such is the awful condition of 
 the Republic. Who are responsible? 
 
 " Thirty years ago a few fanatics began the agitation 
 about the negro. It is now a matter of history that, if 
 this agitation had not occurred, slavery would have died a 
 natural death in most of the Southern States, as it did in 
 New York, New Jersey and elsewhere. These fanatics 
 came originally from New England. It was believed in 
 olden times that Boston and its vicinity was under the 
 curse of God for its Puritanical persecutions. With this 
 curse the New England fanatics have infected the nation. 
 After preparing the way by tracts, lectures and sermons, 
 the abolition faction dragged the negro into politics. The 
 Southern slaveholders resented this attempt to deprive 
 them of their property. The extremists of both sections 
 joined hands in the infamous work of dividing and des- 
 troying the country. Through its successive stages, like 
 some foul disease, this abolition conspiracy against the 
 Union can be traced by the impartial historian. All sorts 
 of remedies were attempted; but all failed, because they 
 were merely temporary and did not aim at the extermina- 
 tion of the disorder. The great men of the nation passed 
 
240 
 
 away, uttering fearful warnings of impending danger. At 
 last the crisis came. A set of unscrupulous politicians 
 gave the abolitionists the opportunity they desired, and a 
 sectional party seized the reins of government. Groaded 
 to madness by the inflammatory appeals of Southern fire- 
 eaters, one slave State after another left the Union. The 
 abolitionists encouraged and applauded this movement and 
 trampled under foot all proposals for reunion. Awed by 
 'the patriotic outburst of the people when Sumter was at- 
 tacked, the fanatics at first acquiesced in the war for the 
 Union; but, having control of the government, they soon 
 managed to transform the contest into a war against 
 slavery. Led on by Sumner, Wade, Wilson, Chandler, 
 Greely, Cheever, Garrison, Wendell Phillips and other 
 such madmen, the abolitionists rejected all means of con- 
 ciliation and endeavored to crush out every spark of Union 
 sentiment at the South. Their threats, speeches, resolu- 
 tions and acts of Congress at last culminated in emanci- 
 pation proclamations. The Constitution of the United 
 States was torn to tatters. The South was united, and 
 the North divided. Our best generals were removed be- 
 cause they would not subscribe to the abolition creed. Vic- 
 tory then left our banners and perched upon the rebel 
 standard. The war is no longer a war to subdue the se- 
 cessionists or to annihilate the slaveholders, but a bitter 
 struggle for the existence of the nation. For all this the 
 abolitionists are responsible. Their leaders still walk in 
 high places and fill their pockets from the national Trea- 
 sury, and their journals are still supported by official pa- 
 tronage and government contracts; but the end of these 
 things is at hand. Cowed by the infernal storm they have 
 raised, these fanatics now cry out for help against the re- 
 bel invasion, and preach that the duty of the hour is to 
 forget the past and save the country. This delusive call 
 has been heard once too often. The duty of the hour is 
 to remember and to punish. First, let the rebels be de- 
 feated and driven back, and then, without hesitation or 
 delay, let those Northern abolition traitors, who are res- 
 ponsible for the rebellion and for the success it has achiev- 
 ed, be held to a strict and final account." 
 
 Thus did one of the most widely circulated papers in 
 the United States, the New York Herald, express itself 
 a short time ago, when* the result of the sanguinary en- 
 
241 
 
 counter which took place in Pennsylvania, in July 1863, 
 between the belligerent armies, had not yet transpired. 
 With the exception of the references to political parties, 
 the same could have been said by all the other papers in 
 the Republic, since such is the true state of affairs, in 
 whatever manner it may be related. 
 
 And now, entering into some details which the Herald 
 purposely omitted, I can further add, with official data, 
 that the "war in the United States, at the aforesaid 
 date, had already cost the Republic a loss of nearly 
 six hundred thousand men, who died on the battle 
 field and in the hospitals, to which number, which is tru- 
 ly awful when we consider that it consists of the flower of 
 the land, the youths, who are most needed for the repro- 
 duction of future generations and the requirements of 
 labor, we must add two hundred thousand men who have 
 been totally disabled by wounds. 
 
 Well then: estimating the population of both sections 
 of the former Confederation at thirty millions, without 
 taking into account the floating population, separating 
 one half, which are females, and dividing the other half 
 into three equal parts, the result' will be five millions 
 of men between the ages of twenty and forty, which are 
 the best years of life; and, moreover, supposing that, from 
 the beginning of July, from which time the computation is 
 made, until March 1864, which will complete the third year 
 of the war, two hundred thousand men will have been killed 
 and disabled, that is to say, in three years a decrease of a 
 million of men, it will become evident that in so short 
 a period the war has destroyed twenty per cent of the best 
 citizens. Add to this the decrease in the population from 
 the fact that foreigners no longer come here to be natural- 
 ized, and many of those who had already settled here 
 have repented the step and left the country, as also from 
 the natural diminution of births, the number of widows 
 being already very great, and this fifth part, of relative 
 losses, may be considered as positive losses so soon as the 
 estimates shall be completed. 
 
 As man is the originator of all prosperity, from the 
 estimates made of the population, it would be easy to 
 deduct, in a proportionate scale, the damage to public and 
 private wealth, if it were not that the immense devasta- 
 
242 
 *■ 
 tions of the war do not allow us to form any correct 
 estimate. , 
 
 In the North American Republic the wealth would have 
 decreased one fifth, at the same rate as the working popu- 
 lation, for the want of these last in the productive labors; 
 if it were not that to the million of men killed and dis- 
 abled, we ought to add another million, at least, of men 
 employed in the war and who consequently cannot work. 
 That is to say, the productive forces of the country have 
 lost, in the space of three years, forty per cent of their 
 original importance, there having been no standing mili- 
 tary force before the war, and the army being now entirely 
 composed of the working classes. Besides this, let us add 
 the cities which are in ruins, the ships laden with mer- 
 chandize which have been burned at sea by the privateers^ 
 the railroads and magnificent bridges which have been 
 destroyed through the stratagetic necessity of the bellige- 
 rent armies, the enormous quantities of the agricultural 
 produce which have been destroyed in order to prevent 
 their falling into the hands of the invaders, and all the 
 accumulation of horrors and extermination brought on by 
 war, and then we will see how bitterly humanity may 
 lament over the ruins of a fertile land and of a civilized 
 nation, the short-sightedness of some statesmen and the 
 infamous exactions made by the philanthropical ideas of 
 a criminally fanatical sect. 
 
 From the slight sketch which I have just drawn, (slight 
 indeed in comparison with reality), no one will wonder 
 that the official revenues of the Government treasury at 
 Washington should have decreased in an incredible man- 
 ner. And as when the war is aggressive it cannot be 
 maintained without money, though it is very different 
 when it is in the defensive, for then privations and valor 
 vie with each other with strange emulation, which effects 
 wonders, it will not appear surprising, but on the contrary 
 very natural that the country which until within three 
 years enjoyed unexampled prosperity, should now find it- 
 self on the brink of absolute discredit. 
 
 The debt of the Federal Government amounted to se- 
 venty six millions and ftne hundred thousand dollars, on 
 the 7th of March 1861, a date to be deplored by all human 
 sentiment, not on account of Lincoln's election as Presi- 
 dent of the Republic having then take place, but because 
 
 \ 
 
243 
 
 it is analogous with the rupture between the North and 
 South of the Confederation in the midst of the clash of 
 arms. From that date until the 30th of June 1863, which 
 is the termination of the fiscal year acording to the laws 
 of the United States, that debt was increased to one 
 thousand two hundred millions 6f dollars, making it six- 
 teen times greater than it was before; and as the estimates 
 of expenditures as well, as the receipts for taxation and 
 other sources have been pretty well conjectured for the 
 present year, the minimum of the federal debt at the end 
 of this fiscal year can be ascertained in a positive manner, 
 to 'be no less than two thousand two hundred millions, or 
 twenty nine times greater than when the war broke out. 
 From these figures, which represent a great part of the entire 
 wealth of the country, arose, as might well be expected, 
 the discredit of the Government funds, and although the 
 paper money which represents them, has fluctuated from 
 eighteen to seventy-two per cent discount on the value of 
 gold, it may now be said, to have settle down to about 
 half or a little more of its nominal value, which is what 
 the official credit of the United States now represents in 
 its home and foreign commerce. 
 
 I will end this chapter by repeating to my readers the 
 opinion which I have emitted and will sustain, that the 
 principal cause of this devastation is the negro question 
 and that all others are only secondary. 
 
 On the 22nd of September 1862, when the civil war in 
 North America, had lasted a year and a hal£ the paper mo- 
 ney of the Federal Government was at two per cent dis- 
 count for gold. The first proclamation of Mr. Lincoln 
 against slavery was published on that day, and from that 
 time until January 1863, which was when the second 
 proclamation was published, the paper money suffered an 
 extraordinary depreciation of forty two per cent ! 
 
 / 
 
 > 
 
\ 
 
 « 
 
 \ 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 Anarchy begins to manifest itself in the Northen States. — Political 
 parties into which the federals are divided, and the principles that each 
 profess. — Brief sketch of their respective political history. — Their charac- 
 ters in the present war. — Dangerous changes produced by the war on the 
 public customs of the country. — Supremacy of the military over the po- 
 litical institutions of the Republic. — Famous outrage of General Burnside 
 against Representative Vallandigham. — Commotion produced by the deed 
 in all the States. — Demonstrations in favor of peace made by the democrats 
 to check the progress of military despotism. — Famous meeting in New 
 York on the 18th of May 1863.— Attitude of the Governor of the State in 
 favor of said meeting. — Demonstrations in opposition by the dominant 
 party. — Means of which the government avails itself to annul the combi- 
 nations of the partisans of peace. — New treaty with England concerning 
 the negroes. — The invasion of Maryland and Pensylvania by the confeder- 
 ates coincides with all that has been said. — The exasperation of the 
 political parties of the North in presence of the common danger. — Triumphs 
 of the federals in the war. — Republican meeting in opposition to the 
 democrats. — Some emisaries of the London Abolitionists take part in these 
 irritating demonstrations. — The conscription of three hundred thousand 
 men. — Reasons why it was decreed, and manner in which the interested 
 parties explain it. — Riot in New York. — Horror's of anarchy. — Horrible 
 persecution and murder of negroes as a natural result of so many 
 aberrations. 
 
 As if sufficient disgrace and confusion had not already 
 been brought upon the moral and physical elements of the 
 world by this question, into the mysterious intricacies ot 
 which I dare not at times penetrate, wondering if it has not 
 been providentially so ordained, to perplex our minds, con- 
 fuse our judgment, involve truth in darkness when it ought 
 to shine with the greatest splendor, and in fact, to turn light 
 into shadow, harmony into discord, peace into strife, and 
 public prosperity into ruins. I repeat, as if these dreadr 
 fill mistakes, the correction of which has been submitted 
 to the logic of arms, thus robbing human reason of one 
 of its highest attributes, had not been sufficiently calami- 
 
246 
 
 tous, another evil still more disastrous than any of the 
 preceding, worse than war, and infinitely greater than any 
 scourge which God has inflicted upon his creatures since 
 the deluge, anarchy with all its horrors has lifted its 
 head, in these regions of North America, eager for exter- 
 mination, and originating in the same cause — the negro 
 question. . . . 
 
 Titus Libius said some centuries ago: — "Nulla 
 magna civitas dinquiescere potest" — no popular city can 
 long preserve its tranquility/" 
 
 For this cause Rome perished, and Carthage was anni- 
 hilated ; Tyre and Sydon disappeared from the face of 
 the earth ; Greece fell into insignificance, and of Sparta 
 scarcely a recollection remains in history. For this cause 
 the people of Israel became Deicides, lost the homes of 
 their fathers, and were scattered as wanderers among the 
 nations of the world ; they have lost their original faith, 
 and shall never be reunited as a nation. Also, for the 
 same cause, in modern times, the importance of the em- 
 poriums of commerce— the Levant, Pisa, Geneva and 
 Venice, lost their glory, and from the summit of greatness 
 fell into slavery. And scientific Portugal and conquering 
 Spain, who distributed empires east and west, bounded by 
 conventional lines, were in their turn dismembered and 
 almost divided ; for such in this world is the natural law 
 of things among nations as well as among individuals. 
 But, although the same was to be expected, some say, in 
 this gigantic Republic of North America, because ambi- 
 tious and eager to extend its dominions it wished to re- 
 new the times of Atila on this continent, invading, like 
 the Scythians, nations of other races towards the South, 
 who differ from them in their customs and their laws, 
 still no one could have imagined that the hour of desola- 
 tion had already arrived, nor could the most experienced 
 persons conceive the idea of such a dreadful chaos, though 
 they may have anticipated the approach of a local disrup- 
 tion which was liable to be brought about on account of 
 the negroes. 
 
 I might here iake up the relation of the calamities 
 which the abolitionists have brought upon magnificent 
 centres of prosperity and upon this great nation, in direct 
 
 1 ' 
 
 (1) Lib. Eod. 
 
 V 
 
247 
 
 opposition to the sentiment by w]jich they are actuated, 
 but I will not offend my readers by supposing that they 
 have already consigned to oblivion the facts already ad- 
 vanced, which undoubtedly are vividly impressed in their 
 memory. Having premised this explanation I shall pro- 
 ceed to give the history of new misfortunes which suc- 
 ceeded those already mentioned, and venture on prophe- 
 cies of future and greater calamities if peace does not 
 speedily heal , the dangerous wounds which threaten to 
 destroy the existence of the social body, and prevent its 
 complete dissolution. 
 
 And as such a narration would not be comprehensive 
 without some illustrative digressions, the reader will per- 
 mit me to explain several antecedents of the new phase of 
 this momentous question, in order that he may know to 
 whom to attribute the responsibility of the events that 
 are now transpiring, and draw correct inferences there- 
 from. 
 
 The Federal Kepublic has been divided for a long time 
 into two parties, each one being composed of various 
 opinions, which were also subdivided among themselves ; 
 and it is said that this difference of opinion is necessary 
 to secure the perfect harmony of the system. One is 
 called the Kadical Kepublican, and is opposed to slavery ; 
 the other is the Democratic party, which has reasonably 
 conservative tendencies, and to the latter belonged all the 
 political men of the slave States. 
 
 For many years the Democratic party controlled the 
 Administration, selecting at will, the Presidents of the 
 Republic, and having always a majority in both Houses of 
 Congress in their interest. Foreseeing that the time 
 might come when the official preponderance would be 
 transferred to the other party, as it did not depend upon 
 material but upon purely political interests, which are 
 proverbially unstable,* the Southern States, following up 
 the absorbing ideas of the Democratic party, conquered 
 Texas, carrying slavery into it, attacked Cuba with the 
 intention of annexing that island, because slavery existed 
 there also ; gained over the good will of a portion of the 
 Mexican people who were anxious to be identified with 
 the United States, and even desirous of giving up to them 
 some of their large territories ; and lastly, attempted by 
 a clever but badly executed stroke, to implant their power 
 
248 
 
 in Central America, in order that their supremacy might 
 remain unimpeached and that their control over the ad- 
 ministrative power might be perpetuated. 
 
 This project, as was to be expected, failed in its greater 
 part and brought upon the Republic open censure and 
 international enmities; which were more or less concealed. 
 And as the conscience of honorable people ever condemns 
 the calculations of aggressive ambition when it affects the 
 fame of a country, especially if said combinations prove 
 unsuccessful, the Eepublican party had at length the 
 prospect of seizing the executive power as a matter ol 
 conscience, in order to put a limit to the aggressive ten- 
 dencies which caused so much harm to the external credit 
 of the country. 
 
 I will not say that insidious counsels were permitted to 
 regulate the course of the new Administration, for as 
 human nature is ever inclined to extremes it rarely uses 
 prudent foresight in the most important and difficult 
 circumstances ; but it can truly be assured that while the 
 electoral triumph of the Republicans favored the tenden- 
 cies of foreign abolitionists, their proceedings also con- 
 tributed in an immense degree towards the expansion of 
 the principles they advocated, and to the fears of all true 
 Americans. 
 
 Had prudence presided over the acts ot the new Ad- 
 ministration, nothing would have been easier than to 
 establish itself favorably in public opinion and consolidate 
 its power, disapproving the external enterprises for which 
 the Democratic party had obtained so much disfavor. 
 But whether the electoral triumphs elated the Republi- 
 cans more than was reasonable, or whether some secret 
 enemies wished to give the death blow to the Republic by 
 encouraging its anti-slavery tendencies, the fact is that 
 menacing demonstrations were immediately made against 
 the defeated party, and that from them resulted not only 
 civil war, but the most inveterate hatred between the two 
 factions, while all peaceable and loyal Republicans sided 
 with the Democrats. 
 
 These feelings of inveterate aversion were neverthless 
 suppressed for a long time, for the safety of the Republic 
 within the bounds of the Federal Constitution was the 
 common aim of both parties. But the war which com- 
 menced with a fury which could not possibly have been 
 
 \ 
 
249 
 
 foreseen, (for according to theories which have now proved 
 falacious, the greatest amount of public liberties produce 
 a proportionally sound civilization which makes itself 
 known by its humanizing instincts), the war, I repeat, 
 which was commenced in such a cruel manner was carried 
 on with unceasing vigor until it became intolerable to 
 humanity and to policy. • 
 
 In the preceding chapter, in statistics which overwhelm 
 the mind with horror, there are corroborative proofs of 
 this truth, although they are not the only ones that exist 
 in official documents and in private accounts which will 
 some day figure in history. 
 
 When it is said that during three years of civil war, one 
 million of men perished, besides more than a hundred 
 generals on both sides, (1) when it is known that defence- 
 less cities have been reduced to ruins, not because they 
 resisted the invaders, for such was not the case, but be- 
 cause they belonged to the enemy ; when it\is read, with 
 scandal to all moral sentiment, that »the conquerors 
 'stamped the wives and daughters of the vanquished with 
 the seal of prostitution, in their private acts of brutality, 
 and in their proclamations which they issued at the sound 
 of the beating drums/ 2 when the names of those tyrants 
 who, disgracing the noble insignia of military authority, 
 took the life of peaceful citizens in reprisals, and admitted 
 substitutes for execution, drowning in blood the holiest 
 family affections, are brought to light and held up to 
 universal execration ; when all this is circumstantially 
 published and true Americans blush at the degrading 
 
 (1) According to the data taken from the archives at Washington, be- 
 fore the invasion and the great battle fought in Pennsylvania iii July, 
 1863, the federal army had lost, since the commencement of the war, 
 thirty-seven generals killed in battle, or who died from wounds therin re- 
 ceived. In the subsequent engagements, eight more generals, also of the 
 North, have been killed. Supposing the Confederate army to have 
 suffered equal losses since the beginning of the war, and that by the 
 completion of the third year others will have been killed, I do not think 
 the computation of one hundred generals, killed in battle, will appear 
 exaggerated. 
 
 "D»" 
 
 (2) Not long since, in September of 1868, an enactment for the enrol- 
 ment of soldiers was published in Arkansas, in the following form : 
 
 No compromise with the rebels ! No quarter for the bushwhackers ! 
 Desolation shall tread in the steps of treason wheresoever the regiment 
 may march. Up to the work of death ! Wat Willis, of Louisiana, wants 
 one hundred men who can live on half rations, and are willing to die be- 
 fore pay day ! , . . 
 
 * 
 
f 
 
 250 
 
 charges which they know cannot be denied, then it will be 
 seen that we had reason in denouncing the military spirit 
 which has been fostered by this war, and to call the civil 
 war of the United States of America an intolerable evil to 
 humanity. (1 
 
 And that it is not less intolerable from a political point 
 of view in a country that has ever been jealous of its 
 liberties, cannot be denied, when we remember the history 
 of all republican nations and observe the course of events 
 under a philosophical aspect. 
 
 I can speak from experience, for I have seen in the 
 United States of North America, individual free-will 
 which heretofore has been so perfectly unrestrained and 
 so absolutely independent of any other, repressed bf the 
 narrow limits of military ordinances. I have seen the 
 strict enforcement of the principle of passive obedience to 
 the voice of command, which however indispensable it 
 may be to maintain discipline in armies, is extremely dan- 
 gerous to the liberty of nations. I have seen manufacto- 
 ries converted into barracks ; workshops into parks of 
 artillery; public squares and markets into encampments, 
 and the most elegant private residences into guard rooms, 
 with full consent of the owners. From these transforma- 
 tions in a society which was once pacific, essentially labo- 
 rious and industrious, where an army was not to be found 
 on this side of the frontiers, and even there in very insig- 
 nificant proportions, it may be that no real and positive 
 dangers will redound against the institutions, whether the 
 war be protracted or whether it be terminated before the 
 end of the fourth year. But besides the facts which I 
 have already enumerated, each of which is in itself a polit- 
 ical threat, while combined they constitute an eviL which 
 cannot but have terrible consequences. I have seen the 
 organs of public opinion demanding that their oponents 
 shall be silenced — here, where the liberty of the press has 
 been free from any restraint. ... , 
 
 Military glory, that dazzling delusion which serves to 
 conceal the real horrors of war, and derives its lustre from 
 the blood of its victims ; the scourge of mankind, be- 
 
 (1) The author of this book was born in Spain when the civil war broke 
 out between the liberals and royalists in 1820; and having entered 
 the military profession in 1835, he enlisted in the Queen's troops and 
 made a campaign of five years. 
 
 V 
 
251 
 
 qneathed to us by Cain, the opposer of science and pro- 
 gress, and the mortal foe of Christianity — military glory, 
 I repeat, is now rapidly invading, at the sound of drums, 
 the noble hearts of free men, to reduce them to the condi- 
 tion of slaves. I have also seen in the most populous 
 cities of the United States, ovations such as were offered 
 to Caesar made to generals who had been but moderately 
 successful. McClellan has been, and will always be con- 
 sidered of transcendental importance for the political good 
 of the Eepublic only, because he has ably commanded the 
 military hosts. Meade, who a short time since was 
 scarcely known, except in his brigade, has already been 
 openly designated for the presidency ; not because he has 
 distinguished himself as a legislator or proved himself an 
 excellent Republican, but because he has triumphed over 
 his enemies in a tremendous battle, on three successive 
 days. 
 
 And thus, considering men and things in relation to 
 1 this danger, which has altered the appearance of so many 
 great cities preparatory to their destruction by tyranny, it 
 will not be wondered at that when the despotism of camps 
 openly proclaimed itself and endeavored to subdue the 
 spirit of the citizens, the one being represented in the 
 memorable outrage by General Burn side, and the other in 
 the eloquent words of Senator Vallandigham, (1) when he 
 
 (1) In order that these facts may he known with more accuracy with- 
 out accumulating them in the body of this work, I will here insert the 
 narration of the case, as it was given by La Cronica de Nueva York in the 
 following paragraphs ; 
 
 " Public attention is now concentrated upon an event of considerable 
 importance, the result of which it is impossible to foresee, although 
 almost all our cotemporaries are of opinion that it may welt be the cause 
 of civil war in the North itself. It is known that General Burnside alter 
 being recalled from the chief command of the army of the Potomac, was 
 appointed Commanding General of the State of Ohio, where he soon made 
 himself notorious for the rigor of his measures. One of them was a defi-. 
 nite prohibition to write, speak or express any ideas contrary to the course 
 taken by the Government or the acts of the abolitionists, under penalty of 
 transportation, imprisonment or death, according to the circumstances of 
 the case. 
 
 " A representative of Ohio, Mr. Clement L. Vallandigham, a strong dem- 
 ocrat, one of the most strenuous champions of the peace faction, and a 
 candidate for the office of governor of his native state, delivered a speech 
 at Mount Vernon, on the 30th of April, attacking with the greatest ve- 
 hemence the acts of General Burnside, qualifying them as arbitrary and 
 impolitic. This was violating with premeditation, the above order, ami 
 said General, exercising his authority, ordered the arrest of the offender, 
 
252 
 
 spoke in favor of the peace of the Republic, the most far 
 seeing men (I will not say the best, for fear of giving 
 offence to the less clear sighted), rose up at once and unan- 
 imously joined in protesting against that outrage, as a 
 forerunner of greater ones, being as it was a declaration of 
 military despotism, the legitimate consequence of war, the 
 logic of camps and the inevitable result of an authority 
 constituted upon the principle of blind obedience. While 
 this was happening, after two dreadful years of exter- 
 minating gloom, during which any word in favor of peace 
 would have been useless, and not one among the contend- 
 ing parties had as yet dared to utter it, with what glorious 
 satisfaction did I consider on my own grounds, the prac- 
 tical unfolding of the budding idea which had controlled 
 me for some time past, which I emitted in conferences oi 
 almost a public character, defending it from incredulous 
 prejudices, presenting it to the consideration of men oi 
 power among the belligerents, and discussing its basis in 
 private conferences. 
 
 Oh ! then I would not have exchanged, for all the 
 wealth in the world, the happy anticipation of the real- 
 ization of my hopes ; because, as a heavenly reward, 
 ward, the words of the prophet, " How beautiful upon the 
 mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, 
 that publisheth peace ; that bringeth good tidings of 
 good, that publisheth salvation," (1) resounded in my ears. 
 
 And then, considering that the manifestation of a por- 
 tion of the public sentiment was practicable, I also be- 
 lieved that sooner or later we should certainly see the 
 fulfilment of the prophecy, " And they shall beat their 
 swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning 
 
 which was surreptitiously carried into effect on the morning of the 5th 
 instant, Mr. Vallandigham being at the time in his house at Dayton. No 
 sooner did the friends of the prisoner become aware of it thah they 
 gathered en masse, made an attack, and endeavored to carry him off from 
 the midst of the troops but were unsuccessful, and Mr. Vallandigham was 
 conducted to Cincinatti as a criminal. The inhabitants of Dayton then 
 rose up in revolt, cut the telegraph wires, set fire to the office of the aboli- 
 tionist paper of that city and other buildings, the value of which is calcu- 
 lated to be 040,000, and destroyed the railroad bridge of Xenia. General 
 Burnside, on his part, sent troops to Cincinnati and Columbus, declaring 
 the counties of Dayton and Montgomery in a state of siege, by which 
 measures, together with the arrest of thirty of the ringleaders, peace was 
 at last re-established." 
 
 (1.) Isaiah, chap, lii., ver. 7. 
 
253 
 
 hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
 neither shall they learn war any more." (1) 
 
 But let us return to the narration of facts, interrupted 
 by this digression caused by my own enthusiasm, which, I 
 am sure, the reader will understand and excuse; the outrage 
 made by Burnside, was the forerunner of serious tumults 
 which were then inaugurated on a small scale, and which 
 broke out later with unmistakable symptoms of social dis- 
 solution, productive, nevertheless, of inestimable good, 
 by making the idea of peace prevail unanimously in the 
 different sentiments which had been variously held by the 
 people, for want of some cause which should harmonize 
 them, that cause being presented by the above mentioned 
 outrage. For in most of the Northern States distant from 
 the seat of war, and especially in that of New York, which 
 being the most populous, is also the most influential in 
 the course of events, large meetings of the democratic 
 party were organized, not so much to protest against the 
 oppressions of General Burnside, as to demand peace at 
 all hazards. 
 
 The meeting which was held in the city of New York, 
 on the 18th, of May, 1863, is of immense importance for 
 the cause which is vindicated in this book ; but as a min- 
 ute narration of its features would be foreign to the ends 
 to which the present chapter leads, I shall confine myself 
 for the present to stating that more than thirty thousand 
 citizens were present, who adopted the following reso- 
 lutions : 
 
 " Resolved, That the electors and people of the State of 
 New York, who have hitherto professed the name and 
 held to the principles known as democratic, desire to de- 
 clare their unalterable attachment as well to those truths 
 as to the constitution and amendments thereto, forming 
 the supreme law of the land; that they regard obedience 
 to the constitution as alike the duty of the citizen and the 
 magistrate, and regard such obedience as the only means 
 of perpetuating the Union, and by it the only hope of re- 
 storing the same. 
 
 " Resolved, That the sovereignty of the States and the 
 sovereignty of the people, as laid down in the Virginia and 
 Kentucky resolutions, of which Jefferson and Madison 
 
 (1.) Isaiah, chap, ii., ver. 4. 
 
254 
 
 were the authors, are the fundamental principles of the 
 democratic party; that they are the vital essence of the 
 constitution, pervading every line and provision of that 
 instrument, and to deny them would reduce our political 
 federative system to anarchy or despotism. (Cheers.) 
 
 " Kesolved, That under the constitution there is no pow- 
 er in the Federal Government to coerce the States, or any 
 number of them, byt military force. If power of coersion 
 exists at all, it is a legal power and not military. That 
 the democratic party, if true to its own time honored 
 principles, cannot sustain a war against sovereign States ; 
 that we believe it to be the duty of the party to proclaim 
 these sentiments boldly, that the people may feel there is 
 at least one political organization which will deal honestly, 
 independently and truthfully with them. 
 
 " Kesolved, That the war, in its inception and further 
 continuance, being contrary to the constitution, must ne- 
 cessarily fast consume all the elements of union; and hence, 
 that our duty as citizens, our obligations as men, and our 
 relations to our common father, alike demand that an end 
 should be put to what is repugnant to the law, abhorrent 
 to the humanity and civilization of this enlightened era, 
 and inconsistent with the benignant spirit of morality and 
 religion. (Cheers.) 
 
 " Eesolved, That attempts to do away with the provisions 
 of the constitution, which point out the mode in which all 
 crimes are to ■■ be punished, are high-handed violations of 
 the sworn duties of our rulers, and that the participants 
 in such a policy are guilty of aiming a blow at the very 
 life of the supreme law. 
 
 " Kesolved, That the claim of dictatorial and unlimited 
 power, under the pretext of military necessity, and the 
 trial of citizens not in the land or naval forces, or in the 
 militia in actual service, by courts martial, are monstrous 
 in theory and execrable in practice. (Applause.) That 
 it is equivalent to an entire abrogation of the constitution 
 and the erection in its place of a military despotism. 
 
 " Kesolved, That. the dogma of unlimited submission to 
 the executive branch of the government is unworthy an 
 American citizen, and inconsistent with the principles of 
 constitutional liberty, — (cheers,) — that such a concession 
 is rather suited to the dark and sullen era of feudal despot- 
 ism than to a time when the rights of man are regarded 
 
255 
 
 even "by monarchs, and we attribute this exhibition of ab- 
 ject servility as dictated Joy a spirit of fanaticism bent on 
 effecting its object even at the sacrifice of personal liberty. 
 (Hurrah.) 
 
 " Resolved, That we should be unworthy of the name 
 of American citizens of this free and independent State, 
 claiming the first rank among the sovereign components of 
 the American Confederacy, if we did not protest against 
 the cowardly, despotic, inhuman and accursed act which 
 has consigned to banishment the noble tribune of the peo- 
 ple — the Hon. Clement L. Vallandigham — (Cheers, the 
 audience again rising in the utmost enthusiasm, l Three 
 cheers for Vallandigham/ and • Three groans for Burn- 
 side/) — we protest against it in the name of liberty, in 
 the name of humanity, and in the name of Washington. 
 We hope the people of Ohio will have the opportunity of 
 passing condemnation of this act by the election of Mr. 
 Vallandigham as the next governor of the State. (Cheers.) 
 
 " Resolveci, That thus believing-, there can be no reliable 
 security to persons or property pending this war, and that 
 by its continuance the government itself will be utterly 
 and irrovocably subverted, and that the South as well as 
 the North must alike crumble into general ruin and devas- 
 tation, we recommend, in the name of the oeople, that 
 there be a suspension of hostilities between the contending 
 armies of the divided sections of our country, and that a 
 convention of the States composing tne Confederate States, 
 and a separate convention of the States still adhering to 
 Union, be held to finally settle and determine in what 
 manner and by what mode the contending sections shall 
 be reconciled, and appealing to the Ruler of all for the 
 rectitude of our intentions, we implore those in authority 
 to listen to the voice of reason, of patriotism, and of jus- 
 tice. (Cheers.) 
 
 "Resolved, That to the end that our principles thus 
 publicly avowed may be practically carried out, and that 
 a State authority emanating directly from the people may 
 exist, to call any future conventions of the peace demo- 
 cracy, if it shall become expedient or necessary, and dis- 
 claiming any intention to distract the democratic organi- 
 zation in this State so long as it shall reflect the sentiments 
 of the masses, the following named gentlemen, representing 
 each Congressional district, are appointed as a State Com- 
 
256 
 
 mittee for that purpose, with full power fo take such ac- 
 tion in behalf of the success of our principles as may seem 
 to them just and proper." 
 
 In this meeting were read a great many letters of ad- 
 herence, written by persons of distinction belonging to the 
 democratic party, but among them all none were so sig- 
 nificant as that of the Governor of the State, Horatio 
 Seymour, addressed to a previous meeting held in Albany, 
 not only on account of the official position of that gen- 
 tleman, but for the energetic and menacing frankness 
 with which it was written, as the reader can judge for 
 himself : z 
 
 " Executive Department, May 16, 1863. 
 
 " I cannot attend the meeting at the Capitol this even- 
 ing, but I wish to state my opinion in regard to the ar- 
 rest of Mr. Vallandigham. It is an act which has brought 
 dishonor upon our country. It is full of danger to 
 our persons and our homes. It bears upon its front a 
 conscious violation of law and justice. Acting upon the 
 evidence of detailed informers, shrinking from the light of 
 day, in the darkness of night, armed men violated the 
 home of an American citizen and furtively bore him away 
 to military trial, conducted without those safeguards 
 known in the proceedings of our judicial tribunals. The 
 transaction involves a series of offences against our most 
 sacred rights. It interfered with the freedom of speech ; 
 violated our rights to be secure in our homes against un- 
 reasonable searches and seizures ; it pronounced sentence 
 without trial, save, one which was a mockery, which in- 
 sulted as well as wronged. The perpetrators now seek to 
 impose punishment, not for an offense against law, but for 
 the disregard of an invalid order, put forth in utter 
 disregard of the principles of civil liberty. If this proceed- 
 ing is approved by the government and sanctioned by the 
 people, it is not merely a step towards revolution — it is 
 revolution ; it will not only lead to military despotism — 
 it establishes military despotism. In this aspect it must 
 be accepted, or in this aspect rejected. If it is upheld, our 
 liberties are overthrown, the safety of our persons, security 
 of our property will hereafter depend upon the arbitrary 
 will of such military rulers as may be placed over us, 
 while our constitutional guarantees will be broken down. 
 Even now the Governors and Courts of some of our West- 
 
257 
 
 em States have sunk into insignificance before the despotic 
 powers claimed and exercised by military men who have 
 been sent into their borders. It is a fearful thing to in- 
 crease the danger which now overhangs us by treating the 
 law, the judiciary and the State authorities with contempt. 
 The people of this country now wait with the deepest 
 anxiety the decisions of the administration upon these 
 acts. Having given it a generous support in the conduct 
 of the war, we pause to see what kind of government it is 
 for which we are asked to pour out our blood and our 
 treasure. The action of the administration will determine 
 in the minds of more than one-half of the people of the 
 loyal States whether this war is waged to put down the 
 rebellion at the South or to destroy free institutions 
 at the North. 'We look for its decision with most solemn 
 solicitude. " Horatio Seymour." 
 
 The great excitement and commotion with which the 
 democratic party inaugurated the most significant of its 
 political evolutions, against military despotism engendered 
 by war, and then in favor of peace, as a natural conse- 
 quence, caused the republicans to display equal activity 
 in opposing their adversaries, by pursuing a contrary 
 course. And, as the existence of this last party depends 
 entirely on the principle of the abolition of slavery, it im- 
 mediately . hastened, through official, though indirect 
 means, to promote the adoption of most violent measures 
 against the South, by means of new international treaties 
 which should be binding on the entire Republic; in which 
 manner the republicans would not only effectually destroy 
 the pacific manifestations of their adversaries, but, by 
 rendering the basis, until then existing, for a decorous 
 adjustment between the North and South impossible, they 
 would make themselves all powerful in authority with the 
 resources of war. 
 
 Owing to this, the London Telegraph announced to all 
 the world, on the 2d of June, that a project was being dis- 
 cussed in both Houses, to demand for the Royal Navy the 
 right of search under the flags of all nations on the coasts 
 of Madagascar; and for this reason also, ten days after, 
 this same ministerial organ, becoming the interpreter of 
 Lord Palmerston, added: that a treaty had just been sign- 
 ed, between the United States and Great Britain, to es- 
 tablish mutually between the two nations the aforesaid 
 
258 
 
 right; from which it appears that the radical party of the 
 federals had divested their immunity of its haughtiness, 
 with the double object of placing an obstacle in the way 
 of any peace project which should be proposed by the op- 
 posite party, and of preventing the Southern States from 
 being acknowledged as a belligerent nation by the Euro- 
 pean powers. 
 
 Such was the state of things when some defeats suffered 
 by the fe4eral troops on the Potomac, and the urgent ne- 
 cessity for provisions and other resources which those of 
 Lee's command were suffering, induced this general to 
 make a powerful invasion into the Northern States; this 
 he actually effected, resolutely and victoriously marching, 
 with over one hundred thousand men, through Maryland 
 and Pennsylvania, putting Philadelphia in peril and me- 
 nacing the Capitol. 
 
 This event gave hopes to a great many, and filled the 
 majorities with serious apprehensions, spreading universal 
 alarm, which, although in some was but apparent, was vis- 
 ibly manifest to all. The fate of the Eepublic depended 
 on the issue of a battle; and, as in situations of extreme 
 danger, the least favored party never fail to reap advan- 
 tages, the democratic party, owing to the ill success which 
 had attended the efforts of a favorite of the radicals, made 
 tumultuous demonstrations in favor of a renowned gene- 
 ral, by whom they were to effect a reaction in the confi- 
 dence of the government. And then, weighing the dan- 
 ger of the country and invoking a remedy as of extreme 
 necessity, the opponents of the radical administration were 
 not content with demanding in a menacing tone such 
 measures as should contribute to their party aims, but, 
 placing themselves on strategic grounds, in order to ac- 
 commodate their position to subsequent results, they also 
 gave vent to menaces, which they determined to carry out 
 as soon as the common enemy should be repulsed. 
 
 " Let us rout and defeat the rebels first," said the New 
 York Herald in an article which has been inserted, in 
 chapter X, "and then, without delay, let us exact a rigid 
 and final account from the abolitionist traitors of the 
 North, who are answerable for the rebellion and the 
 triumps it obtained." 
 
 An officer who was then scarcely known, and who was 
 chosen at a venture from among the subaltern generals, to 
 
259 
 
 take the chief command against the invading army, dis- 
 played the activity whbh is so important in military ope- 
 rations, and caused a terrible dissappointment to Lee; he 
 sacrificed many victims to his country, it is true, but he 
 also gave three days of victory to the iederal army. Over 
 an extension of thirty-three miles, are still heaped the bo- 
 dies of those killed on the celebration of the anniversary 
 of the national independence, and in that bloody field, 
 which stretches to an almost boundless expanse, where not 
 a tree has been left to lift its sheltering branches, every 
 one having been uprooted by the iron which was belched 
 forth from three hundred cannons of immense calibre, in- 
 consolable mothers wander about, instinctively gathering 
 up pieces of human flesh with the purpose of carrying 
 home the remains of their sons! 
 
 The success of that dreadful day greatly encouraged the 
 republicans. Who knows but what the democrats did not 
 hope for adverse results, so as to overwhelm their enemies 
 and make peace with the South! 
 
 But, happening as it did, the abolitionists had 'their 
 meetings also, and the churches .were profaned by having 
 the exclusiveness of parties and the passions of men dis- 
 cussed in them. 
 
 I have myself been a witness of this. How many sar- 
 casms have been uttered there against the meetings held 
 by the partizans of peace, how often has the epithet of 
 traitor been hurled at them! And with what unparalled 
 arrogance did they proclaim the unconditional submission 
 of the South as obtainable solely through a war of exter- 
 mination! Whilst these opinions were being developed, 
 I can do no less than confess that my eyes have often di- 
 lated with wonder on looking on the place in which we 
 were, as the subjects discussed by these clergymen were 
 entirely inappropriate to the sanctity of a church. 
 
 There were no exaggerations that were not proclaimed, 
 no folies that were not committed. In a church of Jersey 
 City, I heard a venerable man, with white and flowing 
 hair, his face showing the marks of more than seventy 
 years, dressed as if for a feast, finish his discourse, after 
 several jokes, with a very objectionable song. The au- 
 dience applauded the wittiest parts, as if they were in a 
 theatre, and when he concluded the last stanza, the air 
 
260 
 
 was rent with bravos, hurrahs, thunderings of canes, 
 whistling and obstreperous bursts of laughter. 
 
 The sinister intentions of a disguised enmity was also 
 heard in another church, under friendly appearances. The 
 English abolitionists did not fail to take their places 
 wherever the idea was discussed of inundating with blood 
 the property which was founded on the labor of the negrees. 
 And that I may convince my readers that I am not mis- 
 taken, let them see what the New York Herald of the 7th 
 of July 1863 says, in giving the details of one of these 
 meetings. 
 
 " On. Sunday evening the Broadway Tabernacle (Rev. 
 Dr. Thompson's) was well filled, to listen to an address 
 upon English sympathy with anti-slavery in the United 
 States, by Rev. Dr. Massie, of London, who comes as the 
 representative of four thousand British ministers, with 
 their protest against recognizing the slaveholders' confede- 
 racy, and their appeal for emancipation. Dr. Thompson 
 briefly introduced Dr. Massie, who proceeded in a lengthy 
 discourse to establish the sovereignty of God, the brother- 
 hood of man, and the designs of Providence in making 
 America the home of liberty, religion, and learning. He 
 said he was ashamed that only four thousand British minis- 
 ters signed the paper sympathizing with the United States 
 in its conflict with slavery ; but he affirmed that thousands 
 withheld their signatures from misrepresentation, acting 
 under the conviction that the American war had nothing 
 to do with slavery. He showed that the interests of Eng- 
 land and America were identical, and pointed out the diffi- 
 culties under which the British people labored, .among 
 which was ignorance of the geography of the United 
 States. Ministers had actually asked him to explain the 
 difference between the terms " republican " and " demo- 
 crat." He had addressed large^audiences in Scotland and 
 England, especially in Lancashire, and although some of 
 the audience were working men, who had just come from 
 the dockyards where piratical ships were being constructed, 
 and hissed anti-slavery sentiments, not one accepted the 
 challenge to defend the cause of the South. The vast ma- 
 jority of the people of England were in favor of the North, 
 and earnestly looked for the abolition of slavery. Dr. Mas- 
 sie gave a detailed account of the great conference held in 
 Manchester, where an address was adopted expressive of 
 
261 
 
 sympathy with the cause of the emancipation of the slave, 
 which he read. It congratulated the United States on the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the ex- 
 tinction of the slave trade, and the issuing of the Presi- 
 dent's proclamation. 
 
 " In conclusion, the address deprecated any retrograde 
 action in reference to emancipation. Dr. Massie said he 
 came to this country to plead the cause of justice to the 
 negro citizen of the United States, and also as the friend 
 of the slaveholder, that he might be delivered from the 
 curse of power. He wished to gain the co-operation of 
 America with England in diffusing the principles of the 
 religion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 " After prayer the congregation was dismissed." 
 
 In short, and since the recent triumphs of the Federal 
 arms, encouraged freedom of speech, all the accusations 
 and threats which had been heard in the Democratic peace 
 meetings against the other party were now flung back at 
 them word for word. 
 
 From all this ill- disguised and ill-repressed anger, it was 
 easy to guess the true state of their minds, and to forsee 
 the disturbances which would break out on the first ap- 
 pearance of any real or imaginary offence. And as the 
 spirit of evil is never idle, when not restrained with a 
 strong hand, a prudent measure of a national character was 
 taken as a pretext to fan into flames the destructive fire 
 which had so long been smouldering within the Republic. 
 
 The arms of the French empire had just triumphed over 
 the Republic of Mexico ; re-establishing order in the inte- 
 rior by a new form of politics, well known to be a saving 
 policy among the Latin race, though making the na- 
 tional independence very problematical. This European 
 intervention introduced in the New World for the first 
 time since its pressnt nations became independent, so con- 
 trary to the famous Monroe doctrine, which is the creed of 
 the Americans, and so contrary also to its official practices 
 in respect to the countries of the other continent, did not 
 have the best effect on the Federal administration, nor was 
 it possible to let it pass unnoticed. (1) And as simulta- 
 
 (1) The American Government was so much on its guard with respect 
 
 to the European intervention in Mexico, that in order to preserve its ac- 
 
 ions free from all casualties, it took special care not to compromise itself 
 
 \n other interventions, not even through diplomatic measures. The min- 
 
262 
 
 neously with this intervention more direct, if not greater 
 evils were threatened, (for the Emperor Napoleon did not 
 disguise his intentions of recognizing the Confederacy of the 
 South, and in England both Houses, and the other centres 
 of public opinion, were making strenuous efforts to do 
 likewise,) it was necessary for the Government at Wash- 
 
 istry of the other nations would have wished to take this strategic position 
 by surprise, in order to form a precedent ; and for this end, France, 
 Spain and England, when they signed the compact, called upon the Uni- 
 ted States to join them, saying it was a matter of great importance to the 
 Republic of the North. The compromise was evaded in Washington, as 
 was to be expected ; and afterwards the conflict with Poland having com- 
 menced, in a seemingly generous spirit which, it was said, sympathized 
 with all liberal ideas, France, on her account, again invited the United 
 States to join in strengthening with her powerful adhesion, the message 
 agreed upon with England and Austria, to be sent to St. Petersburgh. 
 The answer of the Federal Government is a model of its kind and says as 
 follows : 
 
 "Washington, May 11, 1863. — M. Mercier has read to me and at my re- 
 quest has 'left me a copy of a dispatch, dated April 23, which he has re- 
 ceived from M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and which refers to the important 
 events now taking place in Poland and engaging the serious attention of 
 the principal States of Western Europe. M. Mercier at the same time 
 has communicated to me a copy of a dispatch relative to the same events, 
 which has been addressed by M. Drouyn de Lhuys to the Embassador ©f 
 France at St. Petersburg. 
 
 "By the first of these documents we learn that the step taken by the 
 Cabinet of Paris with a view to exercising a moral influence upon his 
 Majesty the Emperor of Russia, has received the approbation and the 
 concurrence of the Cabinets of Vienna and London, and that the Emperor 
 of the French, appreciating the value of our traditional sympathy for 
 Poland on the one hand, and our ancient friendship for Russia on the 
 other, would be happy to obtain the co-operation of the Government of 
 the United States in this important question. 
 
 "Having taken counsel with the President, I am now able to communi- 
 cate to you our views on this subject, for the information of M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys. 
 
 "The American Government is deeply sensible of this proof of the friend- 
 ship of the Emperor of the French in asking its co-operatio» upon a 
 subject doubly important in its relations to order and to humanity. It 
 has been no less favorably impressed with the sentiments which the Em- 
 peror Napoleon has expressed in so delicate a manner at St. Petersburg, 
 and with the appeal which he has made to the noblest of human sympa- 
 thies. The enlightened and humane character of the Emperor of Russia, 
 which has recently shown itself in the liberation of so large a number of 
 serfs in his domains, gives us the assurance that this appeal will be 
 accepted, and that it will meet at St. Petersburg with all the good will 
 compatible with the general well-being of the vast States which the Em- 
 peror of Russia governs with so much wisdom and moderation. 
 
 "Nevertheless, notwithstanding the so favorable reception which we 
 are disposed to give to the suggestion of the Emperor of the French, the 
 American Government finds an insurmountable difficulty in associating 
 itself, by any active co-operation, with the Cabinets of Paris, London and 
 Vienna, as it requested. 
 
263 
 
 ington either to neglect by a criminal indifference the im- 
 portance of these events, or to take a decided attitude in 
 the midst of its civil troubles, to prevent the consuma- 
 tion of the one and to remedy the effects of the other. 
 Choosing the second extreme, as was natural, and taking 
 advantage of those movements of sublime enthusiasm, in 
 
 " Having founded our institutions upon the rights of man, the founders 
 of our Republic have always been regarded as political reformers, and it 
 soon became evident that the revolutionists of all countries counted upon 
 the effective sympathy of the United States, if not upon their active 
 assistance and protection. Our noble Constitution had hardly been estab- 
 lished when it became indispensable for the Government of the United 
 States to examine to what degree it was compatible with our security and 
 well-being to interfere in the political affairs of foreign States, whether by 
 an alliance or any concerted action with other Powers, or otherwise. An 
 urgent appeal of this kind was addressed to us with regard to France. 
 This appeal was sanctioned by and acquired new strength from the treaty 
 of alliance and mutual defence which then existed, and without which, it 
 must be confessed to the honor of France, our sovereignty and independ- 
 ence would not have been so promptly secured. 
 
 " This appeal touched so profoundly the heart of the American people, 
 that it was only the deference felt for the Father of his Country, then at 
 the apogee of his moral greatness, that compelled it to declare that, in 
 view of the condition of the Republic, of the character of its constituent 
 parts, and especially the nature of its- exceptional Constitution, the 
 American people must confine itself to advancing the cause of progress 
 in the world by exercising at home a wise power of self-government, bat 
 keeping aloof from all foreign alliance, intervention, or interference. 
 
 " It is true that Washington believed that a time w r ould come when, our 
 institutions being firmly consolidated and working harmoniously, we 
 might safely take part in the' deliberations of foreign Powers, to the 
 general advantage of all nations. Since that time many occasions have 
 arisen for departing from a rule which, at the first glance, might seem to 
 be an inevitable cause of isolation. One was an invitation to join the 
 Congress of the Spanish States of America, then just liberated. Another 
 was the urgent appeal of Hungary to aid her in the recovery of her 
 ancient and illustrious independence. Still another, the project to gua- 
 rantee Cuba to Spain, conjointly with France and Great Britain. More 
 recently, the invitation to co-operate with Spain, France and Great Bri- 
 tain in Mexico ; and later still, the proposition of some of the Spanish 
 American States to establish an international council for the Republican 
 States of this continent. All these suggestions were, in succession, declined 
 by our Government, and this decision w r as each time approved by the judg- 
 ment of the American people. Our policy of non-intervention, however 
 rigorous and absolute it may appear to others, has thus become a tradi- 
 tional policy, which ought not to be abandoned, except upon urgent 
 occasions of a manifest necessity. It would be still less wise to deviate 
 from it when a local, though we hope transitory insurrection deprives mia- 
 Government of the advice of one part of the American people, to which 
 so grave a deviation from the established policy would be far from being 
 indifferent. 
 
 " The President does not doubt a moment that the Emperor Napoleon 
 will see a proof of the deference for him and the French people as weH 
 as a desire to co-operate for the maintenance of peace and the progress of 
 
264 
 
 which the triumphs of Meade, the fall of Vicksburg, the 
 precarious state of Port Hudson, which at last surrender- 
 ed to the heseigers, and the taking of some forts outside 
 of Charleston, were "being celebrated, the Federal Govern- 
 ment ordered and commenced to carry out a draft of three 
 hundred thousand men. The occasion was propitious it 
 cannot be denied, if on the part of the opposing faction a 
 pretext had not been made to deminish the preponderance 
 acquired in so short a time by the Republicans, and if the 
 economical necessities of the administration had not in- 
 troduced into the official decree which I have just cited, 
 some clauses, contrary to the perfect equality of all the 
 citizens. For in fact, if Mr. Lincoln believed one hundred 
 and fifty thousand men, added to three hundred" thousand 
 who are now under arms, would be sufficient to continue a 
 series of the recent triumphs until the submission of the 
 Southern States to the Federal Constitution was effected, 
 and to be well prepared against the internal complications, 
 he also calculated that this mass of consuming and un- 
 productive people, enlisted under a certain character of 
 perpetuity would need, for their maintainance, equipment, 
 and armament, much greater sums than those existing, or 
 likely to exist, in the public treasury. 
 
 humanity in Europe, in this fidelity to our traditional policy, the observ- 
 ance of which has contributed to our security, and, we hope, also to the 
 interests of humanity." 
 
 I think that in the document which has just been inserted there is less 
 of sincerity than of political tact, because the principle of non-interven- 
 tion, so much applauded in theory and trampled upon in practice, has 
 been as little binding on the Americans, when it has been to their in- 
 terests to infringe it, as on the European nations who have endeavored to 
 propagate it the most eagerly. In the Mexican question, against the re- 
 sults of which, the Ministry of Washington, in its diplomatic notes has 
 prepared itself, there is a recent case which shows the justice of these re- 
 marks; I allude to the case of Anton Lizardo, the official documents of 
 which are well known; and as to Europe which displays so many scruples 
 about other interventions, on account of the supposed sancity of that 
 false prii ciple, how can it logically reconcile this idea with the war in 
 the East, the war in Italy, a»d its present attitude towards Russia on 
 account of the revolt of Poland 1 Leaving aside all these considerations 
 and giving our whole attention to the case which now occupies us, there 
 is no doubt, that the answer of American diplomacy to the French Min- 
 istry was given in anticipation of the events which have transpired, nor 
 is it foreign to the object which has occasioned this note ; so that if the 
 war of the French in Mexico degenerates into a permanent intervention 
 in the interior policy of the country, which can no longer be doubted, 
 the Federal Republic, on account of its antecedents and doctrines is in a 
 position to take an active part in the affairs. 
 
265 
 
 For this reason, doubling the number of men needed, 
 in his order for the draft, he said, that all citizens who 
 should wish to commute their personal service, could do 
 so by paying three hundred dollars, with which sums the 
 Government would procure substitutes. 
 
 As I have already stated, the Democrats only awaited a 
 favorable opportunity to overthrow, by a single stroke, all 
 the advantages of their adversaries, and although we can- 
 not affirm that they took this opportunity to instil into 
 the minds of the people the spirit of opposition which im- 
 mediately broke out against the draft, still it is very evi- 
 dent that the rioters participated in the designs of the 
 Democrats. \ 
 
 This resistance - was organized upon two foundations, 
 both equally dangerous to social order ; one arose from 
 the eternal question of the poor versus the rich ; the other 
 was of a purely political nature, and pronounced itself 
 against the original cause of the war. 
 
 On the former point the rioters expressed themselves in 
 these terms : If the country is really in need of re-inforce- 
 ments, let us have the draft, we have nothing to say against 
 that, but must the entine burden of military service be 
 borne by the poor alone ? What is meant by making 
 only those who have not three hundred dollars where- 
 with to redeem themselves become soldiers ? Let there 
 be no distinctions made between free citizens, and let the 
 laws be carried out without the slightest restraint on indi- 
 vidual liberty. Whoever can procure a substitute with 
 his own money may do so, and none will complain ; but 
 let the Government beware of assuming the power of con- 
 trolling our actions and our will, establishing arbitrary 
 quotas, and setting a price on men's lives. 
 
 And then, from the other point of this tumultous clamor 
 they proceeded in this strain : Enough of war ! All the 
 negroes in the world are not worth one drop of the blood 
 which is being spilt for them. This struggle is carried on 
 not in the cause of humanity, but for base interests, and 
 we must at once and forever rid ourselves of those who 
 thus despoil us. Death to the Abolitionists ! Death to 
 the niggers, and destruction to everything that opposes 
 the establishment of peace, the first and greatest necessity 
 of a free and industrious people ! 
 . The events which immediately followed these demon- 
 
266 
 
 strations oppress memory and fill the imagination with 
 horror. Bloodshed, fire and desolation rapidly spread 
 through the city and reigned supreme, meeting with little 
 resistance, and much to satisfy their cravings. Charitable 
 institutions, public buildings, private residences, churches, 
 stores, and manufactories, all were invaded by the mob, 
 sacked and reduced to cinders. The offices of the Aboli- 
 tion periodicals, arid the dwellings of the most prominent 
 Kepublicans were attacked with frightful impetuosity, a 
 few owing their safety solely to the extensive preparations 
 for defense made before the attack. 
 
 And the negroes, those unfortunate beings, the innocent 
 and even unconscious cause of the civil war and so many 
 disorders, who are well satisfied with their mode of life, and 
 never ask to be raised to a higher state/not even those who 
 are free and have received an education adapted to their 
 faculties, and who know the civil condition in which the 
 rest are kept ; the negroes, I repeat, whom everybody tries 
 to mould into white men, and who are raised to that con- 
 dition by some, through a philanthropy which has now de- 
 generated into a malignant pertinacity to overthrow the 
 peace of 4;he world, the laws of nature and even the happi- 
 ness of their proteges : and by o'thers, from a sanguinary 
 rancor, which drags them from their agricultural labors 
 to send them to the war ; the latter in their severity, in 
 order to insure them against the contagion of a disastrous 
 and criminal emancipation : the former in their anarchial 
 paroxysms, against the authorized ordinances : the unfor- 
 tunate negroes, I repeat, were hunted down in New York 
 as if they had been wild beasts, they were beaten to death 
 like mad dogs, and thrown into the flames, or hung alive, 
 on the lamp- posts, to be tortured or thrown into the sea 
 with feet and hands bound, to make their death more pain- 
 ful. 
 
 During those dreadful days of death and desolation, in 
 which they saw the flames devour their homes, their wives 
 and children, without any signs which might denote a ces- 
 sation of these horrors, perhaps even without a thought of 
 a better life, they, who were free in the North, would have 
 willingly exchanged places with the slaves of the South, if 
 only their peaceful labors were not interrupted by the ma- 
 lignant echoes of abolitionism, which ever effects the de- 
 struction of whatever it intends to make subservient to its 
 
267 
 
 philanthropic dreams or the hidden avarice of its specula- 
 tions ! e * * • 
 
 Such is the summing up of the evils brought upon this 
 world by the fatal idea which, though sprung from Heaven- 
 born charity, was perverted by interest, that most success- 
 ful of Satan's works. Anarchy has not ceased to reign, 
 for the draft had to be suspended in order to put an end to 
 the devastation ; and the principle of authority, with dif- 
 ficulty restored with the presence of forty thousand soldiers 
 in a State where the law has heretofore been self-support- 
 ing, was rent by the hands of the incendiaries, perhaps 
 overthrown forever ; for evils are easily renewed if the ele- 
 ments which caused them are again put in motion by 
 wrongly interpreted measures or by any malignant sugges- 
 tion. 
 
 And in the meantime, commerce flees terrified from one 
 of its greatest and most lucrative centres, and all the in- 
 dustrial pursuits which do not depend on the war, will soon 
 cease because the funds are being carried into other coun- 
 tries where they may rest on a security which is no longer 
 to be found here. 
 
 Add to all this accumulation of calamities, the fate of 
 the unhappy negroes, at sea, when the vessels that bear 
 them are closely pursued and the captains that command 
 them are devoid of conscience. I have heard of a great 
 many of these cases, so dreadful that I will not relate 
 them, but will say only that the death of at least four hun- 
 dred negroes was caused solely that about fifty white sai- 
 lors might not be obliged to go to Sierra Leone ! 
 
 And are things to continue in such a state much longer ? 
 Is this the way that the most important labors of philan- 
 thropy are to be carried out ? Is public right to go on in 
 this manner, is the peace of the world to be held so cheaply, 
 and is it thus that whole nations shall be allowed to des- 
 troy themselves ? 
 
 Oh ! this cannot be, unless the mighty powers of the 
 earth are inspired by the Evil One I 
 
CHAPTER XIL 
 
 The necessity of making peace, and on what basis it should be made.— - 
 Obstacles which the question presents on account of the international 
 rights in reference to the negroes. — Various combinations which are an- 
 nounced for the purpose of putting an end to the war. — They are analized 
 and the results are unfavorable. — The peace cannot be solid and lasting 
 unless the existing treaties on the redemption are revised. — With this 
 fundamental improvement the peace would be indestructible between 
 the North and the South.— Project of a treaty to arrive. at that object. 
 — The great question whether the two sections should unite or separate 
 politically at the time of making peace.— Authoritative opinions which 
 have been given and still exist in favor of and against both objects 
 or ends. ► 
 
 From all that has been said in the preceding chapters, 
 an incontestible, absolute and urgent truth results, namely: 
 that it is necessary to make peace in such a manner as 
 shall be acceptable to all. 
 
 This proposition, however simple it may appear in its 
 form, is, in fact, exceedingly complicated, when we con- 
 sider the history of slavery, the existence of the interna- 
 tional treaties, and the motives which have caused the 
 war. 
 
 The end which I will aim at in this important part of 
 my work, and to which I will devote my entire energies, is: 
 To grant to the negroes a new civil state, almost superior 
 to their natural comprehension, which shall differ entirely 
 from the condition in which they have lived, for three and 
 a half centuries, among civilized nations, and from the 
 barbarous and untutored existence which they lead in 
 their own country. To satisfy the all pervading senti- 
 ment of holy charity proceeding from the Christian reli- 
 gion which was given to the world when the blood of the 
 Savior was shed on Calvary ^ which, was defended by the 
 
270 
 
 martyrs, and has finally spread throughout the world, the 
 idea of human liberty. To insure safety and respect to 
 the interests of labor, which has made vast territories of 
 waste lands productive to commerce, and has raised above 
 the horrors of paganism eighteen nations of civilized peo- 
 ple. In fact, to unite in the bond of unity two jarring 
 tendencies, which now seek their mutual destruction, 
 either by re-establishing a constitution which has been 
 overthrown by the exaggerations of both parties, or else 
 by recognizing two distinct nations, which once formed 
 but one, without in any manner lessening their original 
 greatness. 
 
 As I shall have to contend with inveterate prejudices, 
 secular abuses, erroneous ideas, with apparent injustice, 
 with fraudulent interests, with local views of an unfriendly 
 character, with arrogant pretensions, with exclusive ten- 
 dencies, deep rancor, and perhaps also with the vanity of 
 some wealthy parties, who, having settled on some other 
 plan less important, will not be willing to replace it by a 
 tetter one which is not of their own contrivance. My 
 task is as arduous as the ability with which I undertake 
 it is limited. 
 
 But I have justice, which is the infallible result of abso- 
 lute truth for my beacon in my moral speculations ; and 
 although I am aware that evil passions and wicked in- 
 terests generally prevail over it, still I believe that by 
 being equitable and having truth for a base, everything 
 that depends upon the will of man is possible. 
 
 " Truth," said a philosopher, "is the motive power of 
 modern nations to which the- dominion of the world has 
 been promised ; and if for the love of country we have 
 seen a nation of heroes rise, from the love of truth which 
 is greater and more sublime still, the civilization of the 
 whole human race will at last be seen to emanate." a) 
 
 And as to the present question, the truth is, that while 
 the arrangements that may be made to settle it keep the 
 doors of scandal open to selfishness, and to legitimate in-, 
 terests, founded fears ; whilst in the name of humanity 
 and within the law, which neither emanates from justice 
 nor has been founded upon the principles of true charity, 
 the civilization which is maintained by labor is menaced ; 
 
 (1) Aim6 Martin: Education des meres.de/amille. Lib. 1, chap. xii. 
 
271 
 
 as long as odious exceptions are made in the divine sen- 
 tence which condemns all men equally to live by the sweat 
 of their brow, and this, not for the purpose of improving 
 in a civil sense a degraded race, but to perpetuate its 
 ignorance by excluding it from all intercourse ; as long as 
 in said arrangement, I repeat, the interests created within 
 the limits of social morality, of common advantage and 
 practical history by all the nations by them affected, are 
 not kept in view, the peace which may therefrom result 
 will not rest upon a solid foundation, and the clashing of 
 arms will still continue. 
 
 In order that peace may be a fact, it is necessary that 
 the treaties should also be facts, and this will not be the 
 case as long as one of the contracting parties can be in- 
 jured, and whilst by an equivocal interpretation of the 
 law there are means of eluding its fulfilment. 
 
 Let us not deceive nor attempt to fortify ourselves with 
 absurdities, to maintain, with vain pride, an agreement 
 which is not only imperfect but full of defects. It is now 
 forty-five years since 1818, that the philanthropy of the 
 abolitionists began to obtain legal concessions against the 
 redemption of the negroes, and since that time the re- 
 demption of the negroes has not only failed to be extin- 
 guished but it has prospered ; the prohibition far from re- 
 alizing the idea of its efficiency, has clearly demonstrated 
 the manner in which it could be frustrated, openly and 
 secretly, by the very nations by which it has been pro- 
 claimed. Add to this the desasters which this fatal agree- 
 ment has produced ; the lands it has ruined, the blood it 
 has caused to be shed, instead of the fruitful sweat which 
 it desired to spare, and the frightful chaos with which it 
 threatens the world ; and after that no one will hesitate to 
 abandon the path which has been followed during those 
 forty-five years ; or we shall be obliged to proclaim frankly 
 that the pertinacity of the abolitionists is an infamous 
 conspiracy against the property of the nations who, in be- 
 half of true humanity, avail themselves of the labor of 
 the negroes. 
 
 If, as an ancient philosopher very well said, " even 
 idiots are taught by experience," (1) and if it is true, besides, 
 
 that circumstances occur every day which may make us 
 
 (1) Titus Livious; Hist. lib. xxii. 
 
 a 
 
272 
 
 modify the most rooted opinions,*' as a modern statesman 
 has also stated, (1) for experience presents itself to the sight 
 bespattered with blood and pregnant with horrors, and 
 the necessity of a radical transformation of the treaties 
 oannot be more urgent, owing to the circumstances which 
 have occurred and are notorious, it is clear that the re- 
 petition of the evil which it has caused up to this time 
 and which threatens so many others for the future; could 
 not be attributed to stupidity but to malice ; it would 
 not be attributed to the offuscation of some ignorant 
 minds, but as a preconcerted plan of miscreants against 
 society. 
 
 But the fact is, that with the present civilization, how- 
 ever much it may tend to the deification of interest by 
 the natural effects of rationalism, the idea of slavery is 
 not only in opposition to human liberty but is looked upon 
 as an anachronism in the nineteenth century. 
 
 But as after a conscientious and rigorous analysis on 
 the character and origin of this institution and on its pre- 
 sent application, sufficient explanations have been given 
 to show, by exact comparisons, that at present the nomen- 
 clature only is preserved, with the want of foresight, of 
 charity and good judgment ; labor being the law of God 
 for all men, and that by its means only the negroes can 
 liberate themselves from the ignominious state in which 
 they live in their own native country, it is high time to 
 give to each thing its precise interpretation and true name 
 in behalf of the peace of the world, and in favor of the 
 same civilization which we all proclaim and all desire. 
 
 If this be done, a conciliatory plan may be frankly 
 adopted by all the nations interested in this question, 
 which besides would have the advantage of stability ; be- 
 cause by assimilating it to common right, without injuring 
 this or any other country, but rather favoring all, would 
 close to litigation the smallest opening. 
 
 I would explain my views at once, just as I have con- 
 ceived them, on the basis of justice, looking to the quiet 
 of nations, were reports of peace which deserve to be com- 
 mented upon in circulation. They have no official char- 
 acter, but, to a certain extent, they are probable ; and as 
 
 (1) Llorente, Spanish Minister of Finance, Parliamentary speech in the 
 Cortes, April 5, 1853. 
 
273 
 
 the people are getting tired of the war, though this cannot 
 be suspected from what is going on in the battle-field, it- 
 might so happen, in consequence of a revolution of public 
 sentiment, or by some peremptory necessity of high policy, 
 that upon the said basis the arms should at once fall from 
 the hands of the combatants; resulting therefrom that an 
 armistice rather than a peace would be concluded; because 
 by leaving the former causes of the war in existence, their 
 effects would again reproduce themselves sooner or later. 
 
 One of said reports, and I have seen several of a similar 
 nature, coinciding in date, place of writing and spirit, is 
 found in a recent letter from Paris, written by a person 
 who is generally well informed, which, following in the 
 wake of the European diplomacy in this question, and 
 having reference to the evolutions of the representatives of 
 the two American sections at that Court, said as follows: 
 " The possibility of a speedy arrangement between the 
 Northern and the Southern States is again spoken of. It 
 appears that the Southern States propose the abolition oj 
 the slave trade, and accept the arbitral intervention ,of 
 Franqe for the adoption of the measure to be used in the 
 meantime, in order not to affect too suddenly the rights of 
 the slave owners." 
 
 The other report, though not directly from Paris, is of 
 very great importance, infinitely more than the other; and 
 it has already been so considered by every respectable or- 
 gan of public opinion/ having been published in the 
 papers and greatly discussed; and it is even stated that on 
 its account the Federal Government will change its in- 
 terior policy. 
 
 It is nothing less than a letter from Washington, pub- 
 lished in the Herald, making revelations of great import- 
 ance on the policy of England and France as to the two 
 beligerant sections of the United States. My readers will 
 allow me to insert it entire in this place, in order that with 
 more knowledge of the matter they may be the better able 
 to judge the commentaries which I shall write after it. 
 
 " Washington, July 24, 1863. 
 
 " The movement under the leadership of Mr. Seward, 
 
 having for its object the offer of liberal concessions to the 
 
 insurgents and the ending of the present war, has received 
 
 * an impetus from the news which has just reached us from 
 
274 
 
 our foreign ministers in London and Paris. It is now ad- 
 mitted by the most sanguine members of the administra- 
 tion that never were our foreign affairs in so menacing a 
 state. England — so the official advices indicate — has de- 
 termined to furnish the South with an iron-clad navy, 
 including ships, guns and seamen. It is equally certain 
 that the emperor of France has made up his mind defin- 
 itely to interfere in our domestic affairs. It is true that 
 at the date of the last advices from abroad the impression 
 was general in Furope that Lee would defeat Meade's 
 army, Washington be captured, and Baltimore and Phila- 
 delphia seized, while the Northern States seemed apathetic 
 and indisposed to continue the war; but this condition of 
 things only finally determined the English and French 
 governments to pursue a policy which they had all along 
 been prepared to pursue, and which comported with their 
 interests and sympathies. 
 
 " The changed condition of affairs due to the fall of 
 Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and the rebel defeat at 
 Gettysburg will not, it is believed by the most sagacious 
 of the friends of the administration, alter the character of 
 the action which France and England have finally deter- 
 mined to adopt. The appearance of a fleet of French 
 vessels at New Orleans, to protect the interests of the Cre- 
 ole population at that point, and the sailing of a very 
 large iron-clad fleet from the English ports, are certain to 
 take place. Indeed, it is understood here that the real 
 peril to the North will come when it is apparent to the 
 Emperor Napoleon and the British Cabinet that there is 
 a strong probability of the overthrow of the South as a 
 military power. 
 
 " So long as the contest was an even one, they could 
 afford to be neutral and let the matter be fought out; but 
 the moment there is a danger of the North overpowering 
 the South, then intervention will be tried to compel a 
 separation upon which both England ' and France are de- 
 termined — England to cripple the power of this great- re- 
 public, and France to preserve her dominion in Mexico. 
 There is no doubt that if the North and South were to 
 come together, France would immediately be compelled to 
 relinquish her hold upon Mexico, and this Louis Napoleon 
 is determined shall not happen. Hence, it is argued, he 
 will take time by the forelock, aid the South against the 
 
275 
 
 North, earn a title to its gratitude, and thus retain his hold 
 upon Mexico, and pursue his schemes in Central America. 
 England also is aware that should the Union be restored, 
 it will find both North and South embittered against her 
 and ready for war. It is a matter of certainty — and the 
 English understand it well — that the American Republic 
 will follow the example of the old Roman Republic, which 
 always embarked upon a foreign war after a civil convul- 
 sion so as to induce a unity of national spirit. 
 
 " With these indications before them, and with the 
 unofficial dispatches of our ministers and consuls abroad, 
 Mr. Seward and the President are convinced that this is 
 the most critical time, so far as regards our relations with 
 foreign Powers, that we have had since the commencement 
 of the war. We cannot afford to permit England to de- 
 stroy our commerce, nor allow France to pursue her 
 designs on New Orleans. This state of affairs made the 
 President and Secretary of State anxious to settle up our 
 present quarrel. They see very clearly the straits ^f Jeff. 
 Davis and the rebel government — indeed, their absolute 
 despair — as is shown by the call for a levy en masse of the 
 fighting population of the whole South; and they believe 
 that proper measures taken now would restore the Union 
 and put an end to the present unhappy war. From what 
 I hear I am inclined to believe that measures are now on 
 foot looking to this end, and that it is not impossible that 
 we may see a sudden change of parties in the United 
 States within the next month — that Governor Seymour, 
 Vallandigham, and the odds and ends of the democratic 
 party, and the conservative republicans, may be found to be 
 warm supporters of President Lincoln and his able Secre- 
 tary of State; while the republican presses and orators — 
 the Sumners, Phillipses, Wilsons, Wades, Chandlers, with 
 the Tribune, Times, Past, and all the agency of the radi- 
 cals, will be brought to bear in an opposition party 
 against the reunion that will be proposed by the Presi- 
 dent. Of course the whole shoddy interest in the war, 
 and the enormous sums interested in the moving of arm- 
 ies, will be bitterly opposed to any adjustment. But the 
 prospect of peace North and South, will, it is believed, 
 rally the bulk of the people of the North to the standard 
 of the administration, provided it will decide upon some 
 such course. 
 
276 
 
 u 
 
 The letter of the Solicitor General (Whiting), assert- 
 ing that the administration must continue in its negro 
 policy, no matter what emergency arises, is understood to 
 be the occasion of that gentleman being sent abroad. His 
 letter was a move on the part of the radicals to commit 
 the government unofficially to the negro policy. His 
 being set aside at this time is an indication that different 
 counsels are beginning to prevail in the White House, and 
 there is a hope that the whole abolition gang will soon be 
 thrown out. 
 
 " Of course, reunion at this stage of the war will in- 
 volve the necessity of the administration changing its 
 abolition policy. The prograiiune is, that the Territories, 
 as decided in the recent Congress, shall remain free for- 
 ever, thus preventing the extension of slavery. Slaves 
 freed by the march of the armies will remain free. Mis- 
 souri is to become a free State, as she has chosen to be, 
 and Maryland and Delaware may also be free if they 
 should so decide. But the other slave States are to re- 
 tain such of their slaves as will be under the actual con- 
 trol of the masters at the end of the war. Mr. Seward 
 argues that slavery has received a blow in this country 
 from which it can never recover, and that it would be bet- 
 ter to leave the natural causes at work to end it than to 
 convert the South into a desert by depriving it of its la- 
 boring population. It is understood that this plan will 
 not suit the radicals, and the embarassment of Mr. Lin- 
 coln now is, not to bring about a reunion so much as to 
 know what to do with this party in case he should consent 
 to a peace. The situation is a perplexing one, and will 
 call out all the sagacity and administrative ability of the 
 people in power." 
 
 This book is not written with so transitory a character 
 that it will lose its importance before its doctrines be ac- 
 cepted in councils ; or another, that like this, shall dispel 
 all the ulterior difficulties to establish a permanent agree- 
 ment on the question of the negroes, shall be found. I 
 make this statement, in order that an intention of exclu- 
 siveness opposed to all other arrangements, such as might 
 control any spirit less philosophical, may not be attributed 
 to my arguments. 
 
 I have known by experience these many years, and by 
 
277 
 
 the lessons of the world I have constantly known, that he 
 who does everything by his own suggestions is more dar- 
 ing than wise. This being premised, let us enter upon 
 the analysis of the data which we have just inserted. 
 
 The first says, " That the Southern States propose the 
 abolition of the slave trade, and that they accept the arbi- 
 tration of France for the arrangement of the measures to 
 be adopted in the meantime, in order not to affect too 
 suddenly the rights of slave owners." And it seems to me 
 that this assertion in its true sense is susceptible of two 
 interpretations, the one absurd, and the other unlikely. 
 Because, if the abolition of the slave trade is taken as 
 meaning the abolition of the importation of Bozales, the 
 Southern States cannot propose the abolition of that 
 which is already legally abolished by all the international 
 treaties, and this is the sense in which the proposition has 
 appeared to me to be absurd; and if the object referred to 
 is not to traffic with the Creole negroes born in the United 
 States, and in the condition of slaves, which is a private 
 business that greatly facilitates agricultural labor in the 
 districts that are short of hands for its labors, this would 
 be the same as to limit property, contrary to all right, 
 both in its extension as in its speculations, for which rea- 
 son I think it unlikely. 
 
 What is sought, therefore, is not to abolish the trade, 
 but to pursue it with efficient results ; stipulating, no 
 doubt, extraordinary compromises in new arrangements to 
 be made. Unless by calculations hitherto unknown, the 
 means have been found in the Southern States to lay aside 
 slavery, which is the only agent of labor which constitutes 
 its wealth. In such a case the report we are analyzing 
 should be interpreted differently, and then the arbitration 
 of France would come in play. 
 
 If it is not so, as it certainly cannot be, admitting the 
 prohibition of the clandestine trade to be still in force, 
 there must result from the new international compromises 
 which the Confederacy may contract, one of two things, 
 viz : that in order to comply scrupulously with her en- 
 gagements she should infringe upon the rights of territo- 
 rial property with abuses and other tyrannical and danger- 
 ous encroachments ; or else leave things in the same state 
 as they are now, with no other advantage than an addi- 
 tional protocol, offering the same inducements as hereto- 
 
278 
 
 fore to the cupidity of traders and an inexhaustible fund 
 of dissatisfaction and recrimination to the governments. 
 
 In the first case there would happen to the land owners in 
 the Southern States what happened a few years since to 
 those of Brazil ; and, indeed, with still more disastrous 
 consequences, considering the necessity to replace upon the 
 estates the great losses of hands caused by the war, and by 
 the abolitionist proclamations of the Federal Government. 
 That is to say, that supposing that the Confederate Go- 
 vernment should act in the same manner as the Brazilians, 
 banishing at once from the country, in a tyrannical man- 
 ner and without the least trial, all those suspected to be 
 carrying on or to have carried on the same trade, and en- 
 couraging denunciations to the prejudice of morality and 
 at the expense of the public treasury, (since forty, dollars 
 were offered for each bozal negro of any expedition who 
 might be discovered, even after the individual had reached 
 the States in which he then constitutes a property until 
 then inviolate,) the Southern planters would see their 
 estates irretrievably ruined, as many of the estates of the 
 Brazilian planters have been ; and what now is an abun- 
 dant supply for local consumption and exportation, they 
 would have to obtain to-morrow at the expense of great 
 
 crifices in other more happy countries. 
 
 In the second instance, that is, in case of making a pro- 
 formulary protocol, entrusting its execution to the cruisers, 
 with more or less good faith, which is the most that any 
 Government of a productive country who does not wish 
 knowingly to ruin the interests of its subjects can do, to 
 serve foreign intrusions, the question would remain in its 
 present state : and sooner or later, when it would suit the 
 views of another more powerful nation to create a crisis 
 such as are only settled by arms, viz : some insulting 
 words implying supposed or real bad faith in the fulfill- 
 ment of existing treaties against the slave trade ; half a 
 dozen inconsiderate and notoriously aggressive notes; two or 
 three cases of outrages on the flag upon the high seas, for 
 which the odious right of search offers so many opportuni- 
 ties, and which until now the Anglo-Americans have re- 
 jected with much propriety, but to which they now seem 
 to have acceded, with less regard to honor than thirst for 
 revenge : all these means together, or any one of them 
 separately would suffice to break the peace that might now 
 
279 
 
 be made upon such foundations, and oblige them to enter 
 into a war infinitely more dangerous than the one now car- 
 ried on. 
 
 For the Confederate States not to run upon this rock 
 it would be necessary that the required supply of hands on 
 the plantations should not have been so much dimin- 
 ished by the war, which still continues to destroy them ; 
 this is in the supposition that in the normal state of things 
 the Creole negroes are in sufficient number to fill the com- 
 plement of laborers indispensable in the entire Republic. 
 
 Besides, the question of negro labor is no longer a ques- 
 tion of locality, but a general one, which if settled here to- 
 day without sufficient solidity, may, to-morrow, after hav- 
 ing produced so much injury to the commerce of the 
 world, spring up in another place with a more alarming 
 character and greater danger to all. 
 
 To comment on the second report of peace, I should 
 have to repeat much of what the first suggested to me, as 
 both in their hypothetic conditions leave the important 
 question of which we treat pending on a definite treaty. 
 
 I will not take into account those exaggerated interna- 
 tional dangers to which the Washington letter alludes, as 
 we have no facts sufficiently significant, aside from the 
 proclamation of the Empire in Mexico, to warrant them to 
 be of such gigantic proportions as the said letter represents 
 them. This is not to say that they are not true to some 
 extent, and that the belligerent parties of North America 
 should not measure and weigh well their ulterior resolu- 
 tions of war in accordance thereof. x 
 
 Confining ourselves therefore to the basis contained in 
 said document to bring about a peace, I will frankly say 
 that they are not acceptable by the Southern States, un- 
 less driven to it by despair, and in order to give this opi- 
 nion more comprehensiveness in the minds of others, I beg 
 to be allowed to view the question according to the analy- 
 sis of the said basis. 
 
 "That the Territories shall forever remain free, as sanc- 
 tioned by the Federal Congress, avoiding in this nlannei 
 the propagation of Slavery." Here we have a precept 
 which, if it does not affect the States, at least renders use- 
 less, unless large tracts of land which aspire to become mem- 
 bers of the Union, and which by being deprived of the 
 means of labor, coerces liberty in its most legitimate desires. 
 
280 
 
 If those Territories can exist and progress in proportion 
 to their geographical extent and their natural wealth, 
 without the aid of foreign hands, there is no reason why 
 those impediments against the importation of laboring 
 people into them should he recommended ; as it is clear 
 that no one seeks what he does not require, nor do labor- 
 ers go where they cannot be employed. But on the other 
 hand if the said Territories require, and this is the fact, 
 a great impulse of material strength for their development, 
 is it not lamentable that their present well-being and their 
 future prosperity should be sacrificed to a noble, but evi- 
 dently mistaken sentiment ? 
 
 The same holds good with regard to the States of Mis- 
 souri, Maryland, and Delaware, whatever may have been 
 the resolutions which exceptional circumstances have made 
 them adopt under the pressure of events : and on extend- 
 ing these considerations to the countries that have availed 
 themselves of the labor of the negroes as slave countries, 
 be it understood that I hold the same opinions towards the 
 rest of the world, as no laboring negroes should be taken 
 forcibly and by redemption where they were not needed. 
 
 In any case, their usefulness or convenience can be esti- 
 mated by no one better than by each country within itselt, 
 and subservient, of course, to the political and economical 
 views of its own administration ; without taking into ac- 
 count foreign interest, so long as no injury is done, within 
 the laws of nature which are binding to all the world. 
 
 The Washington letter further says : " that the remain- 
 ing States where there are slaves, shall retain those they 
 may have at the termination of the war ; and as if 
 human nature in its combinations which tend to evil, 
 knew not how to express the satisfaction it feels at its own 
 success"; Mr. Seward adds, that slavery has received in 
 this country a blow from which it will never recover ; and 
 it is therefore better to leave to natural causes the comple- 
 tion of the work of emancipation, than to convert the 
 country into a desert, by depriving it of the laboring pop- 
 ulation. According to this, the Southern States will, on 
 the termination of the war, retain the slaves which may 
 remain to them ; and this they did not require that any 
 one should tell them, as it is for their own interests to do 
 so. As to the emancipation of those whom the soldiers of 
 the North have taken to a military life, or to any other 
 
281 
 
 worl as free people, it would not do to consent to their 
 reins ^jtenieut in their former condition, without very great 
 danger to property, as' based upon morality and discipline. 
 Add to the number thus rendered useless for labor, those 
 who have perished in the field, who are many, and we shall 
 not only arrive at the confirmation of this promise, but it 
 will prove the truth of the fatal prediction of Mr. Seward, 
 admitting that he has really made it, if in the treaties of 
 peace a remedy is not provided. 
 
 This being so, we shall always have to come to the ne- 
 necessity of making peace in a manner that will satisfy 
 the interests of all : let each side sacrifice to the good 
 faith of its wishes and to the moral of public law a reason- 
 able amount of its aspirations ; and let the statesmen 
 prove that they are worthy of the name, not by the posi- 
 tion they occupy, but by the consistency of their acts. 
 
 To arrive at this point, which is the climax of my aspi- 
 ration, and which is the conclusive evidence of the question 
 we are discussing, some with arms and others with argu- 
 ments, it is necessary also that some one should take the 
 initiatory step to establish a preliminary agreement, upon 
 which the operations of war could be suspended. 
 
 If those international fears expressed in the Washington 
 letter were true, we can readily understand how difficult 
 it would be to trust for peace to a previous revision of the 
 existing treaties respecting what is called slavery, because 
 the two most powerful nations among all those who would 
 have to consent to the revision, being interested in the con- 
 tinuance of the war, it is not likely that they would agree 
 to so very important a measure, if peace should be the 
 necessary result. 
 
 For that reason, therefore, and as if in reality such an 
 unlikely international conspiracy existed, I think that the 
 Federal States and the Southern Confederacy, who are 
 now belligerents, should commit its solution to themselves 
 alone, suspending at once the effects of all contracts made 
 by either party to the prejudice of the other, and absolute- 
 ly resisting all foreign exactions of similar character. 
 
 This fundamental resolution once taken, I also think it 
 indispensable to enter upon the path of moral promises 
 and real indemnifications ; and then, to strengthen what 
 now may be agreed upon, with due regard to local rights 
 and to the justice due all parties, I am fully of the opinion 
 
282 
 
 that the government of the United States, if the Union is 
 re-established, or the true governments which may result 
 from the peace, if the independence of the South should 
 be consummated, should formally- and absolutely compro- 
 mise themselves to urge upon all the interested nations the 
 propriety of revising said treaties relative to the negroes, 
 that there may be a true, solid, reasonable and moral com- 
 pact of positive execution agreed upon, that will not be 
 opposed to the spirit of Christian civilization, and be pro- 
 pitious to the interests of all. 
 
 Without imagining that I have discovered the right 
 method to accomplish this purpose, but with the commend- 
 able pretension of having approached it as near as possi- 
 ble, I consider that it will be easy to realize the views con- 
 tained in both documents, and having already sufficiently 
 shown the necessity of framing them, I shall now proceed 
 to explain the first, such as I have conceived it is. 
 
 The basis of a peace independent of the international 
 treaty by which the present jurisprudence respecting the 
 negroes is to be altered, should rest upon the following 
 three principles : 
 
 First. — To recognize on both sides the liberty of action 
 to individuals and to localities, each to regulate their 
 interests in conformity to their respective requirements. 
 In this wise the States that now have the institution of 
 compulsory labor by the negroes, would have the right to 
 abolish it, if they should think it proper, either collective- 
 ly or individually ; and those States who do not make use 
 of the compulsory labor of the negroes, as well as the Ter- 
 ritories, might establish it with the' same freedom, if their 
 views, their customs and their natural laws and policy 
 counseled it. 
 
 The morality of this principle will be better understood 
 when the project of the treaty which is to substitute all 
 those which have been hitherto made by the interested na- 
 tions in reference to the negroes ; because in said project 
 the civil condition of the laboring negro is modified, with- 
 out the slightest prejudice to social order or the discipline 
 of the labor, and this change is made acceptable in all its 
 parts, even to the most exquisite moral susceptibility. 
 
 Second. — Should the Union be re-established, the Fede- 
 ral Government would have to raise funds to indemnify, 
 on a proportional and equitable scale, the planters whose 
 
283 
 
 negroes may have been emancipated by the troops of the 
 North or escaped by their connivance ; but if the indepen- 
 dence of the South should be consolidated, it will be the duty 
 of the Confederate Government or to each particular State 
 to settle this matter with absolute independence of the 
 Northern States ; and always bearing in mind the sacri- 
 fices imposed by the war on the general mass of the citi- 
 zens. 
 
 This second principle which might be dispensed with, 
 taking the question of slavery in the abstract, is not so im- 
 portant but as it might be connected with the material re- 
 establishment of the plantations by the acquisition of other 
 laboring negroes. And as it is not probable that any 
 planter will be willing to deprive himself of his own to sup- 
 ply the wants of another, it may be anticipated that the 
 third principle on which the basis of peace must rest, con- 
 sists in rejecting all foreign proposition which may tend to 
 strengthen the existing treaties against the redemption of 
 African negroes : since the revision is the point to which 
 all Northern and Southern efforts must be concentrated in 
 an entirely opposed sense to that which until now has 
 with such ill success prevailed for the last forty-five years. 
 
 The question of limits and the natural regulations of 
 political relations between the two republics, if in reality 
 there are to be two, or the particular relations between the 
 States if the Union is restored, would also be essential mat- 
 ter for some of the articles of the treaty which might be 
 proposed. But as the character of these local matters are 
 unconnected with the general intention of this book re- 
 specting the negroes, I do not think it necessary, but rather 
 out of place to enter into details for a definite settlement, 
 when the better knowledge of the Americans, looking to 
 their own interest and to their own rights might advanta- 
 geously replace the greatest combinations which might be 
 proposed here. 
 
 I say the same thing with respect to the main question 
 as to there being one or two nations constituted by means 
 of the peace ; for being a foreigner and absolutely impar- 
 tial to either aspirations, it would be out of place to ex- 
 press my wish or even to give my advice. 
 
 This fact, however, will not prevent me from discussing 
 the possibility of adopting without difficulty either of the 
 two resolutions ; and to the analysis of so delicate a matter 
 
284 
 
 I shall devote myself, not from a vain desire of handling it, 
 but because they also are contributive to the ends of this 
 book. 
 
 I have, before now, stated that there are international 
 dangers in the separation, which would already have been 
 made evident, if there was any truth in the disclosure of 
 the Washington letter. According to these disclosures 
 and by reason of the greatness imparted to a country by 
 the number of its inhabitants and the extent of its terri- 
 tory, it may easily be suspected that the marked tenden- 
 cies of the Southern States to constitute their national in- 
 dependence is incompatible with peace. But those dan- 
 gers and the diminution which would result from the dis- 
 memberment of both sections would be more apparent than 
 real, when we consider that the greatness of nations is 
 shown rather by the affinity of their internal elements with 
 their international relations, than by the numerical scale of 
 their inhabitants and the number of square miles. 
 
 Let us suppose that in the anxiety of preserving the 
 Union, the sacred fire of independence would be but par- 
 tially extinguished in the heart of the Southern States, 
 and that from this cause their efforts would be multiplied 
 to perpetuate themselves in power, with great detriment 
 to the policy of the North ; or that its antagonism to the 
 men of that section who might constitutionally remain in 
 power, would weaken the acts of the Administration, ap- 
 pearing always as a dangerous threat. In "this case, which 
 is more than probable, there is no doubt that the restora- 
 tion of the Union would be a calamity, since while making 
 a show of strength it would really possess none, owing to 
 the absence of harmony between its elements ; and it is 
 evident that this being the case, it would be better for the 
 nation to be divided into two administrative nationalities, 
 each being the arbiter of its own laws, but united for its 
 common existence by indissoluble treaties of offensive and 
 defensive alliance and commercial relations. 
 
 The idiosyncrasy of the respective interest of both the 
 North and the South would admirably contribute to this 
 solution ; the complexion of their political and economi- 
 cal laws and their geographical conditions. But I must 
 add that the considerations expressed in favor of said solu- 
 tion are not absolute, inasmuch as there exist others 
 equally possible which recommend above all things the re- 
 
285 
 
 establishment of the federal greatness in a conciliatory 
 and permanent manner. 
 
 Considerations on both plans have already been sug- 
 gested to the minds of all thinking men both in the North 
 and in the South ; so that the exclusivism against a de- 
 corous and useful settlement cannot be apprehended on 
 laying the foundations for peace, there being many re- 
 spectable statesmen in the South who advocate the resto- 
 ration of the Union, and in the North those who favor 
 the consolidation of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 Among the former the venerable Mr. Johnson deserves 
 special mention, whose letter, addressed to a New York 
 paper on the 13th of May, 1863, will always hold a con- 
 spicuous place in the history of the efforts made by true 
 patriotism in favor of the re-establishment of peace on the 
 basis of the old' Constitution of the Republic. At the 
 same time, as well as previously and subsequently, many 
 . others expressed the same opinion, as did also Guthries, 
 WickilfTes, Jones, Kodney, Bates, Rives, Sumner, Kuffin, 
 Morehead, and so many other enlightened patriots of the 
 Confederation who spoke and wrote upon the excellence 
 of the Federal Union with a view to its restoration. 
 
 There are also many in the North who have spoken and 
 written in favor of separation, especially in those large 
 meetings which not long since have taken place for the 
 purpose of putting an end to the war. The three cheers 
 addressed to Jefferson Davis by the Democrats of New 
 York at the opening of the great meeting in Union square 
 still harmoniously ring in my ears ; and not because the 
 political symbol which that name represents is more or 
 less sympathetic to me, but because such a demonstration 
 in favor of the President of the Southern Confederacy, 
 made in the most powerful State of the North gives an 
 idea of the conciliatory tendencies which exist in the entire 
 Republic. 
 
 In order that such an idea should spread to all its ex- 
 tent, giving an immense force to my opinions relative to 
 peace, it would be necessary to insert entire the speeches 
 made at that meeting. I will not do so, that I may not 
 deviate too much from the object to which these investi- 
 gations lead me ; nevertheless, I will not omit some pas- 
 sages which are to the purpose, and which, of themselves, 
 are very significant. 
 
286 
 
 The honor of that meeting is due to Dr. Bradford, al- 
 though another gentleman no less competent, citizen Din- 
 ning, presided over it ; as after the latter had introduced 
 the former, as the expounder of the principles of the 
 party who had called the meeting, the said Doctor not 
 only established those principles on all the constitutional 
 theories consigned by the most eminent men from Washing- 
 ton- down to the present day, but demonstrated in an legal, 
 and I may almost say in an absolute manner, that the 
 war was being carried on contrary to all law, according to 
 the Constitution of the Republic : 
 
 "No independent State at any period of the world ever 
 voluntarily relinquished sovereign power, much less created 
 a master and conferred upon him the absolute authority to 
 coerce it or to subjugate it. Chief Justice Dana, in the 
 Massachusetts Convention for the ratification of the Con- 
 stitution, saitl that c the Federal Government springs out 
 of and can alone be brought into existence by the State 
 Governments : demolish the latter and there is an end of 
 the former/ (Cheers.) The Union was founded on the 
 great principles of mutual protection, mutual interest, 
 and equal rights in whatever concerns- our persons, privi- 
 leges and property. The least discrimination in the Con- 
 stitution in favor of or against the enjoyment of any one 
 of these would have been fatal to its adoption, and so 
 long as the principles upon' which it was adopted shall be 
 preserved, not only by the parties to it, but by the Go- 
 vernment created by it, so long can the Union exist and 
 no longer. As was truly said by a distinguished gentle- 
 man of this State, ' Successful coercion is as much revo- 
 lution as successful secession/ " (Cheers.) 
 
 He afterwards spoke of the qualification of each of the 
 parties into which the republic is divided respecting the 
 war ; and to explain it, set down the following propo- 
 sition : 
 
 " HOW CAN DEMOCRATS SUSTAIN THIS WAR ? 
 
 " Having thus thown that it is the duty of the demo- 
 cratic party to return to its own principles and to reiterate 
 them; that the chief of them is, that the States are sover- 
 eign and independent, and that the general government is 
 feeble and dependent, and has not, therefore, military 
 power by which to coerce the States into compliance 
 
287 
 
 against their own idea of law, right and justice, we declare 
 that, admitting that the power exists, its exercise in incon- 
 sistent with union. If civil war is inconsistent with fed- 
 erative union, so is union inconsistent with war. 
 
 " But suppose none of these objections existed to the 
 present war, how can the democratic party sustain it ? Its 
 objects are not left to supposition. They have been pro- 
 claimed by the President, by the action of the late Con- 
 gress, and by the practice of the army itself. It is not to 
 sustain or to restore the Federal Union, but to destroy and 
 uproot the domestic institution of States, to destroy pri- 
 vate property, and to subvert the form and theory of the 
 Federal Government itself. (Cheers.) 
 
 " To support the war is to support the policies of the 
 war. This proposition is too plain to be disputed; from 
 it there is no escape. To support the war is to support 
 confiscation — not by the Courts under the Constitution, 
 but by acts of Congress contrary to the constitution; eman- 
 cipation and arbitrary arrests, not by any lawful author- 
 ity, but by the monstrous and frightful usurpations of the 
 President — (hisses) — subjugation not to bring the South 
 back into the Union, but to reduce it to the condition of 
 Territories and convert it into one vast San Domingo. 
 These are the policies of the war, and if the war should be 
 successful these policies will be accomplished. 
 
 " The professed democrat, therefore, who is .deliberately 
 for the war, is not a democrat in fact, but an abolitionist 
 of the most radical, violent and destructive kind. It is 
 useless for a person to say that he is for the war for one 
 set of purposes, when the war is not prosecuted for any of 
 those purposes, but for the opposite and antagonistic pur- 
 poses. This is to stultify himself. The abolitionists do 
 not care on what pretences or professions people support 
 the war; they only ask that they will support it on some 
 pretence; for, the policies of the war being fixed, support 
 of it, on whatever pretence, enures to the aid of those pol- 
 iticians just as certainly and effectively as support of it on 
 the positive ground of these policies. How can democrats 
 endorse such a war ? How can the democratic party as a 
 party sustain such a war ? By endorsing the war we of 
 necessity endorse the policy of those who prosecute it in 
 chief command. To support the former, and at the same 
 time oppose the latter, is an absurdity. To do the one we 
 
288 
 
 necessarily do the other. The President's emancipation 
 proclamation and the war go hand in hand together. It 
 is pusillanimous to carp at the moral .pigmies of the crisis 
 while we cringe to its*giant. This war is the curse of the 
 age in which we live. (Cheers.) Without it we would 
 have retained all the liberties now lost. Without wai 
 there had been no abridgment of liberty of person, or 
 speech, of the press, or onerous taxes to pay, or issuance 
 of negro proclamations. True, these are not necessarily 
 concomitants of war, but only so when it is managed by 
 negro philanthropists. (Hisses.) They have had the 
 management of it thus far, and will continue so to manage 
 it as long as it lasts. This war has been the pretext for 
 all the wrongs against which the democratic party protest, 
 and the c war power/ the instrument of their accomplish- 
 ment. (Cries of l peace, peace/ and cheers, the people 
 rising in a body, waving hats, handkerchiefs, &c, &c") 
 
 After which, setting forth his theories in regard to peace, 
 with great applause from the meeting, he said : 
 
 " Then if the democracy would work a reformation they 
 must strike at the cause of the evil. The continuance of 
 the war will be fatal to our liberties. Suppose that this 
 war be continned for two years more by the assistance of 
 democrats, would there be a vestige of civil liberty left ? 
 Of what use would democratic victories be then ? It 
 would be out of the power of any party to restore the gov- 
 ernment to the old order of things. But in that event we 
 could get no victories. The whole legitimate and usurped 
 power of the government, wielded by the unscrupulous 
 demagogues who now control it, would be more than a 
 match for any political combination that might be formed 
 against them. The only road to democratic victories is 
 through peace. Why should politicians fear that a peace 
 party may prove unpopular. If the war has damned the 
 republican party, is it not logical" to suppose that a peace 
 policy might prosper the opposition. (Cheers.) Do the 
 people love war more than peace ? (No ! no !) Do they 
 prefer the hardships of the camp, the dangers of the battle 
 field, the onus of taxation, to the comforts, the pleasures, 
 the prosperity of peaceful homes ? (No ! no !) But this 
 matter is beyond the control of politicians. The great 
 body of the people are tired of the war, and demand peace 
 
289 
 
 on the basis of existing facts, and politicians cannot 
 change their views in this respect. If the men who now 
 occupy the position of leaders do not see and recognize 
 this fact, they will be forced to give place to men who do 
 see it. The people have been traded and trucked about 
 so much during the war, by old political hacks, that they 
 have become suspicious and restive, and refuse to be sold 
 any more. 
 
 "Again, in addition to these irresistible and sufficient 
 reasons why the democratic party should declare for peace, 
 is the palpable common sense and hard-headed fact that 
 the war cannot succeed. We have been beaten. We 
 cannot conquer the South. (Tremendous cheering.) A 
 glance at all history would have told this before it was 
 undertaken, had we read it aright. No purely agricul- 
 tural people in a state of revolt, contending for their do- 
 mestic rights, have ever yet been subjugated ; and no 
 revolted people who have been able to maintain an inde- 
 pendent government for a twelvemonth have been con- 
 quered or put down. The last twelvemonth has united 
 the South, and though we had twice our power they could 
 successfully resist us. As invaders we are impotent. To 
 equalize the chances of war the invaders should possess 
 ten times the power, and every advantage of position. 
 That is not the case. All the power of the then col- 
 ossal Spanish Empire under Charle V., and the succsed- 
 ding Phillips, failed to conquer two or three miserable 
 Dutch provinces, almost Lilliputian in extent (Cries 
 of ' bravo !') Even petty and contiguous Portugal expel- 
 led victoriously from its soil all the hosts of the same still 
 greaterPower. Not in vain stands recorded in more an- 
 cient history the imperishable record of Marathon ; and in 
 our own day we have seen the miserable Mexican rabble 
 soldiery driving the best disciplined ^rmy of Europe from 
 their soil, because the latter were invaders. 
 
 " Grod did not intend that v r e should succeed in this 
 war. Had he intended it he would not have placed in 
 command a Lincoln — (groans for several minutes, and 
 cries of c Boo ! boo ! boo V) — with such coadjutors as a 
 Butler or a Burnside. (Renewed groans and hisses, and 
 cheers for Vailandigham.) We will not compare these 
 men to a Davis or a Lee, or a Stonewall Jackson. It is 
 not necessary. Mind, character and capacity will always 
 
290 
 
 evince, declare and maintain their superiority. These 
 qualities will triumph sooner or later, it matters not how 
 far greater the physical resources in the hands of the op- 
 posite qualities. The Roman Commonwealth, in spite oi 
 territory, population, armies and resources, was destroyed 
 from wanting any mind by which the mind of Cassar could 
 be balanced and encountered. Holland was lost to Spain 
 when the Prince of Orange and Prince Manrico were su- 
 perior to all the viceroys and the captains the mothei 
 country could oppose to them. The South American 
 dependencies were gone when she had no opponent of Bol- 
 ivar. The civil wars of France, after every kind of trial 
 and of vicissitude, all closed in the pre-eminence of Henry 
 IV., in head and heart the master of his epoch. The Car- 
 lists had not any match for Espartero. The Sardinian? 
 had not any equal of Radetsky. The same lesson is im- 
 pressed on us by the collision of Washington and George 
 III.; of Charles I. and Cromwell. It is true that history 
 need not repeat itself, and that events are neither bound 
 by theories or precedents. 
 
 " In this connection, we must refer to the ludicrous at- 
 tempts that are made upon every military reverse to 
 attribute the result to every other than the true cause. 
 (Ha ! ha !) When a battle is fought it is generally lost, 
 and then come the reasons. Sometimes the commanding 
 general has omitted to obey the orders of his superiors, or 
 an obedience to their orders was the cause ; or, again, he 
 has moved too slow, or has not been properly supported — 
 now he has had an inferior force, then an adverse position; 
 and, in turn, all the various causes to which military de- 
 feats are attributable are served up to the credulous peo- 
 ple. We never hear the truth. (Cry of ( Never/) If any 
 know it none dare tell it. The hand of God is lifted 
 against us\ His illimitable power overturns all our de- 
 signs and subverts all our plans. (Cry of [ We want 
 peace/") 
 
 Finally, it cannot oe aeniea that there are in the Noith 
 many and very powerful partisans of peace, even at the 
 cost of separation from the South; and that among the 
 Confederates there are also many who entertain the opin- 
 ion, on fundamental principles, that the Union be re-es- 
 tablished. 
 
291 
 
 These precedents being given, and the basis on which a 
 decorous arrangement might be commenced between the 
 two sections being stated, I shall terminate these remarks 
 with the project of the general treaty which, in my opin- 
 ion, would re-establish the good international relations 
 throughout the world respecting the question of the 
 negroes. 
 
CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 Features which the international treaties should have in order that they 
 may be inviolate. — It ia shown that these features do not exist in the trea- 
 ties which have been made for the prohibition of the redemption. — General 
 summary of all the propositions demonstrated in this work. — Doctrines 
 which result from them, and natural applications indicated by the same. 
 — Project of a general treaty to restore public right in the matter relating 
 to negroes, satisfying true morality, protecting all interests created since 
 the discovery of America and improving civilization in African soil. — 
 Considerations which arise out of the said project of treaty. — End of the 
 work. 
 
 To maintain the inviolability of any international com- 
 pact, whether it be founded on abstract ideas, or affects 
 the material interests of the contracting parties, it is ne- 
 cessary that the experience of all the time which has 
 elapsed since its ratification should produce the absolute 
 conviction of its usefulness ; or that the legitimate bene- 
 fits which one of the contracting parties obtains from it, 
 be of such importance as will oblige it to oppose all man- 
 ner of reforms instigated by the other parties. 
 
 Such conditions, it is clear, do not exist, nor have they 
 existed for forty years back, in the treaties concerning the 
 question of slaves, whatever be the standing point from 
 which they are examined. For having first ruined the 
 British colonies in the Western hemisphere, and subse- 
 quently all the others where slavery was abolished, with- 
 out improving in the least the condition of the free labor- 
 ers. The stipulations concerning the negroes in their re- 
 spective countries, the vain gratification of some theories 
 already proved fallacious, can no longer overrule the elo- 
 quence of facts, nor is it possible that the idea of human 
 infalibility, of itself so arrogant, should perpetuate the er- 
 
294 
 
 rors of some statesmen, regardless of social morality, the 
 interests of the world, and the peace of those countries. 
 
 In the preceding chapters I have endeavored to solve 
 the various propositions of great importance to the pur- 
 poses which have urged me to this work ; and to the phil- 
 anthropic task, sustained by my perseverance, I think I 
 have succeeded in establishing, on immutable principles, 
 a sound basis for an equitable settlement of the negro ques- 
 tion, with the following data : 
 
 First. — The historical demonstration of the savage, de- 
 solate state of the Africans, before the discovery of 
 America. 
 
 Second. — The historical demonstration of the great 
 modification produced in their unhappy state, by the in- 
 troduction of the redemption, without .increasing their 
 warlike spirit, which had always been, and still is, their 
 natural propensity, in common with all barbarous nations. 
 
 Third. — The historical, philosophical and legal demon- 
 stration that the civil state of the negroes in the colonies 
 is not that of slavery, which name has been erroneously 
 applied to it, and is in all respects false. 
 
 Fourth. — The legal demonstration that the Chinese 
 contracts to provide laborers for the colonies, place those 
 individuals in the same position as the negroes whom they 
 are intended to substitute, with but very few conditions 
 in their favor, which are scarcely ever fulfilled, whilst 
 many that are against them are strictly enforced and car- 
 ried out, are calculated to perpetuate their state of servi- 
 tude and bondage. A more glaring inconsistency with the 
 views of the English philanthrophists, can hardly be im- 
 agined, who recommended the acquisition of Chinese for 
 the purpose of enslaving them, though a civilized and 
 peaceable people ; whilst they prohibit the redemption of 
 the blacks and oppose the organization of their labor, 
 though through the former they are liberated. 
 
 Fifth. — The practical and evident demonstration that 
 the freedom of the negroes has ruined great productive 
 districts, by affecting the social condition of said individu- 
 als ; and that the organized labor, which is improperly 
 called slavery, is the source of prosperity in the districts 
 where it exists, and keeps the negroes who constitute it, in 
 a real state of civilization. 
 
 Sixth. — The demonstrations, in various shapes, that the 
 
295 
 
 code of international laws with, which, it has "been agreed to 
 abolish the redemption, is- demoralized and perverted in a 
 manner which reflects little credit on the foresight of the 
 great statesmen by whom it has been framed ; constituting 
 all civilized nations as persecutors of each other, by means 
 of their cruisers ; authorizing the humiliating and degrad- 
 ing right of search, so opposed to the dignity of the flags, 
 so exposed to great abuses, and so liable to bring about 
 ruptures ; whilst showing their absolute inefficiency to 
 carry out the purpose for which they are intended. 
 
 Seventh. — Another demonstration, also general, with ac- 
 curate estimates showing that the disastrous war which is 
 now carried on in North America has been caused by the 
 evidently mistaken turn which nations have given to the 
 negro question, willing to ruin immense interests solely be- 
 cause of certain ill sounding, words. 
 
 Eighth and last. — An exposition of the symptoms of 
 anarchy which has shown itself in the principal cities of 
 the Federal Kepublic, where the grossest outrages were 
 committed against free negroes, and a demonstration of the 
 dangers to that Kepublic, resulting from the continuance 
 of the war, or from the re-establishment of peace if founded 
 on the former laws in reference to slavery, which dangers 
 will not only be converted into positive and disastrous 
 realities, but will be common to all the colonies where 
 there are negroes to destroy them, unless the nations, who 
 are so deeply interested in the question, and who suffer 
 themselves to be borne away by the turbid current of false 
 philanthropy, do not at once resist its incessant exigencies 
 with that energy which is recommendea by the sad expe- 
 rience of the last forty-five years. 
 
 Having premised these demonstrations, which, consider- 
 ed as facts, not as theories, form a regular, perfect, clear 
 and convincing body of documents, we can now enter at 
 once into the exposition of the project of treaty, or rather, 
 general agreement which it would be advisable for all na- 
 tions to adopt who have an interest in the civilization of 
 the world, and who for its sake have been wandering in 
 their resolutions respecting the negroes ; for the purpose 
 of establishing a jurisprudence which shall be as harmon- 
 izing as the intention which guides them in their specula- 
 tions, and as useful to the moral and material interests of 
 said nations and of the negroes themselves, as is demanded 
 by necessity and counselled by experience. 
 
296 
 
 A two-fold humanitarian sentiment counselled the re* 
 demption of the negroes when the New World was discov- 
 ered ; although the transfer of these individuals to the 
 plantations established in America at the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century was not altogether equitable. By the 
 practice established by said sentiment, many thousands 
 of unfortunate beings were benefitted. The Indians, not 
 having the power of endurance to bear all the new obliga- 
 tions imposed upon them by the civilization introduced 
 by their conquerors, were relieved of the most ardu- 
 ous tasks, these being laid upon the negroes; and these 
 Africans, being always engaged in an inhuman and canni- 
 bal warfare in their own country, would have perished in 
 their fiendish sacrifices had not the system of redemption 
 been established. In the course of time, with the desire 
 to perfect the basis of our civilization, another equally 
 humane sentiment, which sprang from an exaggerated 
 levelling principle, advised the abandonment of those 
 speculations of three centuries back, which were based on 
 the principles of charity and of the salvation of man by 
 means of labor. The realization of this new sentiment 
 also produced its natural fruits; and whereas those of the 
 former were to economize human blood, until then lav- 
 ished without stint in horrible hed-tombs, and the im- 
 provement of immense districts, which by the mysterious 
 providence of God had until then been unprofitable to the 
 civilized world; those of the latter, in opposition to the 
 former, restored things to their former state, which proved 
 detrimental to the negroes both in America and Africa, 
 and sowed among the whites the seeds of so much discord 
 and devastation, that the mind cannot dwell on them 
 without horror and dismay. 
 
 This being stated not at random but on the demonstra- 
 tions already made, it will now be necessary to reconcile 
 the extreme opinions, in order that they may all meet up- 
 on a common centre, to realize the generous idea from 
 which both sprung. And as the initiation of any good 
 measure is the patrimony of none, individuals and com- 
 munities having the right to take it whenever experience 
 justifies their resolutions, the United States of America, 
 now since they are under the necessity of settling their 
 difficulties in a general treaty respecting the institution of 
 compulsory labor, or any other nation more or less inter- 
 
297 
 
 ested in the question, should hasten to adopt the project 
 which I here propose, in order to make it available to all ; 
 not absolutely, as it is written here, for I make no preten- 
 sions to infallibility, nor do I imagine that it is perfect 
 either in the whole or in its details ; but such as it eman- 
 ates from the fundamental idea by which it was inspired, 
 and with such improvements as others, better versed in 
 social morals and public rights, may judge proper and 
 efficient. 
 
 And since, as a preamble to said project, I have already 
 said enough for the readers of good faith and all sensible 
 people to know and sustain the basis on which mine rests, 
 it is now time that I should give it without further delay 
 or other arguments, in the following terms : 
 
 Article 1. — Experience having demonstrated in an un- 
 questionable manner that the institution of compulsory 
 labor of the negroes, which is called slavery, is eminently 
 christian and civilizing, with the exception of the errors 
 of its nomenclature, which is of pagan origin and should 
 disappear forever from among enlightened nations, as 
 also those vices or abuses of said institution which, to a 
 certain extent, justify the exertions made for many years 
 to abolish it, the Powers who have signed this common 
 pact agree, willingly and with perfect harmony, in declar- 
 ing the institution of organized labor of the negroes to be 
 legal in all nations, states, colonies, provinces, territories, 
 districts, or plantations which may require it, or desire to 
 use it; the effects of this declaration being subject only and 
 exclusively to the administrative authority of the respective 
 localities which may avail themselves of it, or to the su- 
 preme authority of the countries or states respectively, 
 in accordance with the political organization of said 
 localities. 
 
 Art. 2. — It being contrary to the common law of na- 
 tions for any Power to exert any authority or influence, 
 to which it has no recognized right, which shall in any 
 manner interfere with the individual liberty, the customs, 
 or the laws of an independent nation which has not soli- 
 cited from it such direction or interference, the subscribing 
 Powers recognize, collectively and individually, the right 
 of the others to establish/in their political and mercantile 
 relations with other independent Powers, such rules and 
 proceedings as they may deem most expedient, provided 
 
298 
 
 always, that the lawful interests of civilized nations be 
 not thereby injured. The subscribing Powers having also 
 agreed in declaring that the prohibition of the redemption 
 of negroes on the African coasts was the result of a griev- 
 ous error, said redemption being, in fact, a truly humane 
 and merciful system which affords the only means of intro- 
 ducing the light of christian civilization in those unhappy 
 countries where darkness has so long reigned, the aforesaid 
 Powers also declare that the negroes of Africa, Asia and 
 Oceanica, shall be at full liberty to sell their slaves to the 
 contractors who may desire to redeem them ; and all the 
 free individuals of the places above mentioned shall enjoy 
 the privilege of placing themselves, and all such persons 
 of their families as may be dependent on them, under the 
 system of organized labor, such as it will be explained in 
 the following articles. 
 
 Art. 3. — Whereas the falsity of the present nomencla- 
 ture applied to the institution of the organized labor of 
 the negroes, will become evident to all by a comparison 
 between any treatise of ancient law, and the regulations of 
 the present times, or those which have ruled in any of the 
 colonies wherein such labor has been practiced from the 
 discovery of America down to the present day, the sub- 
 scribing nations agree to prohibit, and do hereby forbid 
 that in future the laboring negroes be called slaves; and 
 they agree also in declaring that the so-called slave trade 
 is nothing more nor less than the redemption of slaves and 
 prisoners, who, from the moment that they are saved by 
 this merciful and humane measure, enter at once into a 
 state of civilization far superior to their former free con- 
 dition, before they lost it through the tyranny of their 
 rulers or their conquerors. s 
 
 On this account, the negroes destined to labor, as the 
 foundation of the civilization they are to acquire, shall be 
 designated by the name of redeemed laborers; and so it 
 shall be written in all documents of cession or transmis- 
 sion, which hitherto have been denominated inheritance 
 and sale ; in the requisitions of cimmarones (runaway 
 slaves,) whose name shall hereafter be fugitives ; in the 
 citations and summonses of the Courts*, and in all the 
 legal acts in which the preservation of the former no- 
 menclature might be offensive to humanity, or render 
 the effects of this treaty inefficient. 
 
 / 
 
 
299 
 
 Art. 4. — The redemption of negroes will be carried on 
 in those districts where it was formerly done, without re- 
 strictions or hindrance which may result to the injury of 
 the redeemers of good faith, whether they belong to a 
 known company or carry on the undertaking on their own 
 account. Of course in such districts of said localities as 
 shall have been organized into a state of civilization, so 
 that the redemption should be contrary to its local legis- 
 lature, it shall be considered illegal to' re-establish in the 
 same the former customs of desolation and tyranny ; and 
 in such cases, (which will not be likely to occur, as the 
 interests of the speculators would suffice to keep them 
 away from such places, when it would be so much easier 
 to obtain their laborers at other points,) the interested 
 nations might establish an absolute or relative prohibition, 
 as might seem best in agreement with the native authori- 
 ties of the said districts, and under the vigilance of all 
 the Consuls. The Consuls shall also see to the enforce- 
 ment of the regulations which shall be established for the 
 internal order of the contracting vessels, which regula- 
 tions shall stipulate the number of negroes that each ves- 
 sel may carry, according to its tonnage, and the econo- 
 mical and medical attendance which shall be given to the 
 negroes during the passage from their country to the port 
 to which the vessel is consigned. 
 
 Art. 5. — In order that selfish personal interest may in 
 no case interfere with the eminently Christian end which 
 the contracting nations propose to obtain in declaring the 
 redemption of negroes to be free, and taking into account 
 at the same time the meritorious act which the masters 
 perform in educating, by means of labor and in behalf of 
 the civilization of the world, people who are so notoriously 
 ignorant and in many places cannibals, the redemption is 
 to be made in the countries of the negroes under the fol- 
 lowing conditions : — / 
 
 First. — That the new civil state of the redeemed negroes 
 be permanent, until by means of instalments, or by pay- 
 ing the whole amount at once, they shall refund to their 
 employers the price of their redemption, in the sam« 
 amount which the redeemers shall have received and no 
 more ; as the instruction which the negroes have acquired 
 to be useful to themselves and to societv in the future, is 
 to be considered compensated by the return of their labor 
 
300 
 
 until they shall have emancipated themselves from it. 
 With the perpetuity of forced labor until the laborer shall 
 restore the amount of his redemption, not only does the 
 master recover the capital invested to acquire said laborer 
 without any interest, but having the certainty of redeem- 
 ing another, without additional disbursements, in exchange 
 for the one who emancipates himself, he will not inhumanly 
 overwork him, as he might be inclined to do if it was in- 
 tended to liberate the laborers unconditionally after a 
 certain number of years. And bearing in mind that the 
 civilization of the Africans could not be effected, for the 
 purposes which will be mentioned hereafter, unless they 
 continue in this state for a certain number of years, even 
 if by their ,good fortune they could emancipate themselves 
 before the expiration of that time ; and considering also 
 that the frequent renovation of laborers on the plantations 
 might, cause to the owners great losses, both on account 
 of the dangers to which the negroes are exposed by the 
 change of climate, and for the loss of labor incurred by 
 the first rudiments of their instruction, it will be optional 
 with the master to consent or not to the emancipation of 
 his laborers, before the expiration of ten years from the 
 time of their redemption. 
 
 Second.-r-The emancipated negroes shall not be able to 
 exact, as an absolute right, the privilege of remaining in 
 the country wherein they have served ; this right shall 
 always be subservient to the political or administrative 
 locall authorities of said territories. But they will have 
 the right to be conveyed back to their native land, at the 
 expense of the respective Governments, and on the condi- 
 tions which will be hereinafter mentioned ; and this right 
 shall not be limited nor deferred on any account, unless it 
 be by war, declared epidemic, absolute impossibility 
 through temporary want of means, or other unforeseen 
 cause. 
 
 Third. — The negroes shall submit to the work imposed 
 upon them in conformity to the regulations established to 
 that effect in the countries to which they shall go ; but 
 the labor shall not last more than twelve hours each day, 
 with the corresponding time of rest, in ordinary times, 
 and sixteen hours during the harvest or other urgent work 
 in which it is customary to reduce the hours of rest to 
 one- third of the astronomical day. They will also be 
 
 / 
 
 
301 
 
 subject to the penalties established in the special ordinan- 
 ces of their institution for the offenses therein specified, 
 and, in conformity with common right, shall be subject to 
 the penal laws of the country for all transgressions which 
 do not come under that head. Bancroft Library 
 
 Fourth. — Considering that the white laborers of civilized 
 nations work at least as many hours as are fixed for the 
 redeemed negroes, for a trifling remuneration, which hardly 
 suffices to supply the most urgent necessaries of life, as 
 with it they have to support themselves and their families, 
 pay house rent, clothing, and the expenses of sickness, 
 besides laying aside wherewith to provide for their sustain- 
 ance when they are out of employment, which in field 
 work frequently occurs in the winter season, and taking 
 into consideration also that the redeemed negroes are ex- 
 empt from similar straits, because their masters, besides 
 advancing a large capital for their moral and material 
 improvement, furnish them with lodging and clothing, 
 support their families, take care of their wives and chil- 
 dren, attend them in their sickness ; and, in iine, provide 
 for all their wants. The said negroes during all the time 
 that they remain in the institution of organized labor 
 shall not ueceive any wages for their services. But con- 
 sidering also that the institution is to be truly charitable 
 and useful for the civilization of the negroes — firstly, in 
 the countries wherein the labor is organized, and subse- 
 quently in their native lands, as will be stated hereafter; 
 considering also that the return of the price of their re- 
 demption, besides being just to the masters, will be a sti- 
 mulus to the negroes, and an encouragement to their in- 
 dustry and love of mechanical labors; and as, without 
 said return, the negro could not emancipate himself, both 
 the masters and the local authorities shall endeavor to fa- 
 cilitate to the redeemed laborers the means of acquiring 
 the price of their emancipation; the former by teaching 
 them some profitable employement in the extra hours of 
 rest, when the work is limited to twelve hours per day, or 
 by giving them plots of land, wherein to raise vegetables 
 or live stock, the proceeds of which shall be their own 
 property; and the latter by establishing municipal mea- 
 sures to raise a redemption fund destined to the efficient 
 assistance of the well behaved and notoriously industrious 
 negroes. For the same reasons which were given for fix- 
 
902 
 
 ing the minimum of the time of the forced labor of ne- 
 groes at ten years, the laborers will not be allowed to he- 
 gin to ransom themselves until after five years' service; 
 but, in order to facilitate the ransoming, after the lapse of 
 said five years, the negroes shall be at liberty to begin to 
 deposit in a savings bank, which may be established in 
 each estate, with the intervention of the local syndic, any 
 sum they may be able to spare, however small or large it 
 may be, from the first day of their redemption until the 
 ransom is allowed them; which ransom they can pay in 
 instalments of twenty-five dollars. From the many facil- 
 ities offered for self-emancipation, it will be very evident 
 that those who, at a certain time, have not emancipated 
 themselves from forced labor, by returning the amount of 
 their redemption money, are not competent to enter the 
 condition of free laborers, owing to some organic defect in 
 their nature. 
 
 Art. 6. — With the view of making the redemption use- 
 ful, not only to the negroes whom an inhuman pratice sa- 
 crifices to the barbarity of their own rulers, if the charity 
 of the enlightened nations did not come to their rescue, 
 but also to the lands where they may live as forced labor- 
 ers, and those they may inhabit after being emancipated, 
 in all the plantations where there are redeemed negroes, 
 certain alternate hours shall be fixed on feast days, to give 
 them oral instruction, both civil and religious, suitable to 
 their capacity and nature. Said instruction shall refer 
 more particularly to the principles of social morality em- 
 bodied in the Christian religion, each nation according to 
 their catholic or protestant faith, as all those who may 
 sign this compact agree in the common spirit of the Holy 
 Gospel. And, as there are, besides the laborers of the 
 plantations, others, destined to domestic service, or to the 
 trades in which their respective masters are engaged, the 
 authorities of each country will see that the masters of 
 the said workmen oblige them to attend church, even be- 
 fore they know the language; making them understand 
 the principles of religion and the meaning of the ceremo- 
 nies which they see performed in the church they attend. 
 
 Art. 7. — It being a commendable purpose and an esen- 
 tially moral duty of the contracting nations to modify the 
 ignominious state of men in a savage state in the districts 
 where the redemption is carried on, they take upon them- 
 
303 
 
 selves, now and forever, while it shall be necessary, the 
 obligation of forming civilizing establishments, by way of 
 experiment, on the borders of the said districts. With 
 this end, and taking into consideration the situation of the 
 respective colonies, and also the geographical interests of 
 the possessions which each civilized country may have con- 
 tiguous to the country of the negroes, all the aforesaid 
 nations will agree for the purpose of designating the dis- 
 tricts where the experiment of each shall be made. This 
 fundamental operation being carried out with the most 
 perfect harmony between said contracting parties, each 
 one will take to the district which it intends to civilize a 
 sufficient number of laborers already emancipated from 
 forced labor; endeavoring that the sexes shall be in equal 
 number, or, at least, that one third shall be female; which 
 laborers, after laying out the locality of the colony to be 
 established and settled, under the scientific direction of 
 their protectors, will endeavor to draw to them, by means 
 of commerce and a prudent behavior, the friendship of 
 the inhabitants of the vicinity who may frequent the co- 
 lony. In order that this experiment may not be useless, 
 much care and a special knowledge of the land selected 
 will be needed; endeavoring to have them near the more 
 quiet and less warlike tribes, and prefering the localities 
 which offer natural means of communication with the in- 
 terior of the country, such as navigable rivers, open val- 
 leys, easily accessible mountains, and, above all, a healthy 
 climate and commodious harbors. The civilizing colonies 
 being thus founded in the countries of the negroes, in 
 such a manner that their redemption by labor may pro- 
 duce the fruit which the civilized world must expect, and 
 which no doubt it has all this time wished in vain to reap 
 from the absolute prohibition of the redemption, we shall 
 arrive at last, sooner or later, at the desired end, which is to 
 open to commerce and to social intercourse with the world, 
 that race which now gives rise to serious physiological 
 doubts, owing to their continued state of barbarism; and 
 the most susceptible philanthropy, if it be in good faith, 
 will find nothing to object to, and much to applaud, iu 
 the new attitude of the subscribing parties to this com- 
 pact. 
 
 Art. 8. — As the discipline and good order, as well as 
 the material existence of said colonies, might frequently 
 
304 
 
 by endangered if left unguarded, each nation or people 
 which have founded such settlements, according to the 
 preceding article, shall keep a naval station to protect their 
 respective colonies, and shall take an active part in the ad- 
 ministration of the colonial government, should they deem 
 it proper, if all the contracting parties agree to it. As 
 the cruisers will be utterly useless when this treaty is es- 
 tablished as an international law, it-will be easy to estab- 
 lish said stations without additional expenses to the res- 
 pective nations. - In the event of war between any of the 
 contracting nations, the said colonies will be considered 
 neutral ground, and their naval stations, on proving that 
 they are such, will be exempt from all armed aggression, 
 even should those respectively belonging to the belligerent 
 parties happen to meet. The nations which thus protect 
 the colonies shall furthermore send to them religious mis- 
 sions, to strengthen and encourage the Christian faith 
 among the negroes who have acquired it during their term 
 of forced labor. 
 
 Art. 9. — Both for the purpose of confining the colored 
 population within the limits of the political and economical 
 views of the respective Governments, and to encourage 
 and extend civilization in Africa, it will be the right of 
 said Governments to continue sending periodically on their 
 own account to the civilizing colonies the negroes eman- 
 cipated from forced labor in their respective jurisdictions. 
 And in order that this may not be burdensome to the 
 public revenue, said Governments may establish and col- 
 lect a moderate contribution, not to exceed eight dollars, 
 for each redeemed negro that shall enter their dominions, 
 to form a fund to defray the expenses of those voyages, 
 and all the charitable demands which will naturally arise, 
 wherever use shall be made of the institution of forced 
 labor of the negroes in exchange for their redemption. 
 
 Art. 10. — Each country shall be free in accordance with 
 its customs, its laws and organization, to make the regu- 
 lations by which the negroes are to be governed in their 
 labor ; submitting them, however, to the rules already 
 established in this project of a general treaty, which are 
 binding upon all. As the object which is aimed at in this 
 compact is eminently Christian and civilizing, it would 
 be absurd to suppose that any of the contracting parties 
 will so far abuse its authority as to make said ordinances 
 
305 
 
 contrary to the humane spirit of enlightened nations, 
 therefore the discipline and penalties which are to be im- 
 posed on the negroes will also be left to the conscience of 
 each people, respectively. 
 
 Experience has already shown that the change of name, 
 and the prospect of an absolute freedom, more » or less re- 
 mote, in places where their gradual emancipation has been 
 attempted, has suddenly inspired the negroes with ex- 
 aggerated ideas respecting their future rights, making 
 them at once arrogant and presumptuous, and unfitting 
 them for all systematic labor. For this reason, and be- 
 cause the re-establishment of justice and truth in the 
 name of the institution and in the objects of the redemp- 
 tion can in nowise alter or diminish the gratitude and 
 obedience which the negroes owe to their benefactors, nor 
 their obligations as to labor, the local authorities of the 
 places where said institution exists, as well as the owners 
 of estates and all masters in general, will have the right 
 to avail themselves of all the rigor authorized by this 
 compact and by the local municipal ordinances, to remove 
 and repress the effects of that false interpretation of their 
 new civil state, among the negroes who hitherto have been 
 called slaves, and shall hereafter be called redeemed 
 laborers, in conformity to what has been expressed in 
 article 3. 
 
 Art. 11. — The children which may be born to the 
 negroes, in the countries where the institution of organized 
 labor exists, will remain in the same condition as their 
 mothers, and in all respects subject to the effects of this 
 compact. Marriage shall be indissoluble, and the children 
 shall not be separated from their parents against their 
 will before the males have attained fourteen years and 
 the females twelve. .When the mother emancipates her- 
 self from forced labor, her children under four years will 
 also be emancipated without any compensation, provided 
 that their mother takes them with her, whether to the 
 civilizing colony or to her new residence, if she is allowed 
 to remain in the place where she was civilized. The 
 emancipation of the minors may be effected at any time, 
 after they have attained the age above stated, of fourteen 
 and twelve years, provided they pay their master an 
 amount equal to the average cost of the redemption of an 
 African, and shall set out for the civilizing colony in the 
 
306 
 
 same manner as the other emancipated negroes. No dis- 
 position is made at present as to the freedom of unborn 
 children, as the unreflecting might expect, because the 
 knowledge of the human heart and of the workings of self- 
 interest shows plainly that such a measure would involve, 
 perhaps irremediably, in some places, serious dangers for 
 the mothers when pregnant, as well as for the infants 
 during their period of nursing and before they are in a fit 
 state to do service. 
 
 If, owing to some extraordinary cause, either of the Go- 
 vernments should be unable to send to the model colony 
 the laborers emancipated from forced labor in their juris- 
 diction, it shall, in lieu thereof, adopt the necessary mea- 
 sures, which are to be previously consigned in the local 
 regulations, in order that said emancipated negroes shall 
 not live in idleness, but work by the day or establish some 
 known and useful business. Vagrancy and idleness must 
 be absolutely proscribed from all countries which are to be 
 the schools of civilization for the redeemed laborers, who 
 will, in their turn, convey to their native land the ideas 
 and habits of labor, as a commencement and end of their 
 future state, which will be infinitely superior to their pre- 
 sent condition. 
 
 I think that the points on which I have touched will 
 prove sufficient to lay as foundation, as good faith is to 
 preside over the treaties which are proposed. The in- 
 terests of moral civilization are herein consulted, as slavery 
 legally and virtually disappears, and the labor imposed on 
 the negroes through their redemption is easily redeemable, 
 as the price of self-emancipation is greatly reduced by the 
 increased facility of procuring other laborers, and the 
 masters and overseers can place great facilities for that 
 object within reach of the honest and industrious negroes. 
 The material interests of the lands which indispensably 
 require the labor of the negroes are likewise secured — the 
 act of emancipation being in no manner prejudicial to 
 the necessities of labor, as the free and uninterrupted re- 
 demption will always supply an abundance of laborers 
 from Africa, to take the place of those who emancipate 
 themselves ; and the remuneration which the masters re- 
 ceive from the emancipated laborers will enable them to 
 procure others. 
 
 The idea of establishing civilizing colonies, which has 
 
307 
 
 been proved practicable by the model colony in Liberia, 
 would, of itself, suffice to incline the Governments in- 
 terested, to favor the speedy realization of the idea herein 
 set forth. From the creation of the world, down to the 
 present day, the countries where the redemption is carried 
 on have not taken a single step towards civilization ; 
 therefore, if the moral end which humanity proposes to 
 itself is the perfection of all the human race, we cannot 
 see why any opposition should be offered to the realization 
 of this generous idea in those unfortunate countries. 
 
 This project of treaty presents still another phase by 
 which it will specially recommend itself to the nations : it 
 is useful to all parties, it interferes with no one's rights ; 
 on the contrary, it protects and encourages the interests 
 of all ; and, furthermore, as there is no reason nor induce- 
 ment to violate its strict execution, it will re-establish, in 
 this branch of public law, the dignity and inviolability of 
 which it now needs ; and will secure peace where it has 
 been perturbed, and where it is now imperilled by the 
 negro question. 
 
 It lacks an essential condition, and that is — sufficient 
 importance in the author to secure for it a favorable re- 
 ception ; but God frequently makes use of insignificant 
 instruments to accomplish great works ; and, although I 
 am not so presumptuous as to imagine that I am one of 
 the favored ones chosen to work a radical transformation 
 in the human mind with regard to these matters, who can 
 tell how far my counsel may not be productive of good if 
 it is received in a kindly spirit and honored with a careful 
 consideration ? 
 
 The End. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Page, 
 
 Chapter T. — The origin of de slavery in primitive times. — Its various 
 characters among t!ie heathens. — Its successive features from the 
 first appearance of Christianity in the countries of the negroes, as 
 those countries were successively discovered. — Cause for redeeming 
 in those countries, and the reason justifying the forced labor exact- 
 ed from the redeemed negroes in America. — The existence of can- 
 nibalism among the people of that race and among the greater 
 portion of savage nations shown by abundant historical facts and 
 other proofs as regards Asia, Africa and America, from the most 
 remote times down to the present day 
 
 Chapter II. — Respective condition of the nations of Eastern Europe 
 when discoveries in Africa and Asia were made towards the South 
 and East. — Why the civilization of said countries was not atempted 
 by means of conquest, and why the enslaving of their inhabitants, 
 for the purpose of civilizing them, by cultivating the New "World, 
 was peferred. — First privileges granted to introduce african slaves 
 into America. — These privileges were obtained by the Flemish and 
 the Genoese, anda fterwards by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the 
 French, and the English, until the famous contract of Asiento was 
 ma le. — Losses suffered in this undertaking by some Spanish com- 
 panies and private individuals, arising from ttieir humanity. — 
 Beginning of Spanish legislation in reference to black slaves. — Its 
 eminently moral and protective character. — Obstacles which were 
 opposed to the introduction of slaves in the New World, and for 
 what object 35 
 
 Chapter III. — The ideas of the ancient laws in matter of slaves excite 
 puclic sentiment against modern slavery. — Radical difference which 
 exist between the legislation of the heathens and that of our times 
 respecting said institution. — Manner in which the Spaniards practi- 
 cally exhibited this difference, from the time that they introduced 
 slavery into their colonies. — Religious principles which predominat- 
 ed in the formation of their laws. — Royal letters patent and cir- 
 cular instructions to the Indies dated 31st May, 1789, respecting 
 the education, treatment and occupation of the slaves. — Comments 
 made on the preceding document for the purpose of doing away 
 errors of great magnitude 45 
 
 Chapter IV. — The change which took place in the political circums- 
 tances of the New World in the beginning of the XIX century, sug- 
 gested, many years afterwards, some alteration in the legislation 
 concerning the slaves. — Suggestions to this effect made to the 
 Spanish government by the interested parties. — Scrupulous investi- 
 gations ordered to be made before these suggestions were acted 
 upon. — New ordinances for the regulation of the slaves, issued on 
 

 310 
 
 Page. 
 the 14th of November, 1842, — Extraordinary circumstances demand 
 some strictness in the Island of Cuba. — Conspiracy of the negroes 
 against the whites in said Island, plotted and conducted by the 
 English consul : an official record of the process is inserted to prove 
 the truth of the assertion. — Excepcional measures then dictated 
 for the regulation of the slaves — They are not practically applied, 
 the authorities being swayed by the impulse of humanity that gov- 
 erned the former laws, which after all, prevailed at that time, and 
 are still in force 65 
 
 Chapter V. — The reason why the legislation and proceeding of the 
 Spanish Colonies are taken in this work as the type of the legisla- 
 tion and proceedings concerning the slavery of negroes. — How the 
 free people of color live in Cuba and Porto Rico, where slavery 
 exists, and in Santo Domingo where it is abolished. — Domestic 
 service by hire in said countries, both of slave and free servants. — 
 Other clases of service public and private. — The slaves on the plan- 
 tations. — Character of their services, and comparison with the ser- 
 vices of the white people in free nations. — Means which negro slaves 
 have of redeeming themselves from labor in the Spanish possessions. 
 — Corporeal punishments: its legislation and application. — The 
 punishment inflicted to the negro slaves and that applied to white 
 soldiers and sailors in some of the Euiopean nations, especially in 
 England, compared. — Legal means which delinquent slaves have to 
 escape excessive chatisement. — Trustees for the protection of slaves: 
 their authority and its application. — Right of the slaves to change 
 their master for just cause and in accordance with law. — Rules 
 which, in the Spanish possessions, govern in such cases. — Some 
 historical considerations on the wrongs to which the beneficent 
 institution of negro labor has been subjected 85 
 
 Chapter VI. — The condition of the laboring negroes in America is 
 not that of slavery, which nomenclature has been erroneously ap- . 
 
 plied to it, and is utterly false. — Exertions of the abolitionists to 
 destroy negro labor. — Investigation on the origin of this idea. — 
 There is no truly moral principle practically involved in the prohi- 
 bition of the redemption of negroes, which is called the slave trade. 
 — The abolition of slavery such as it has hitherto been effected, is 
 opposed to the civilization of the negroes, to the prosperity of the 
 Colonies, and to the interests of the whole world. — Origin of the 
 abolitionist idea, its propagation and diffusion in official spheres. — 
 The London Philanthropical Society. — Its agents and its organized 
 propagation. — First concession made by Spain to England as to the 
 abolition of slavery : additional articles to the treaty of 5th July 
 1814.— Spirit of the treaty of September 23, 1817, to abolish the 
 slave trade.— Its effects are contrary to the moral end with which 
 it was apparently made. — Treaty of 1835 103 
 
 Chapter VII. — The system of apprenticeship instituted by the En- 
 glish in their Colonies by way of experiment as a substitute for 
 slavery. — Character of said system and its negative results. — Consi- 
 derations on the political ends which suggested such a system. — 
 Uniform efforts of all the English agents to annihilate the slavery 
 of negroes in the other Colonies. — This system propagated in France. 
 — The Colonies are officially consulted as to the freedom of the ' 
 
 slaves. — Three systems are proposed by the French government to 
 tis Colonies. — Analysis and judgment of said systems. — Replies of 
 the French Colonies to the consultation of the government. — The 
 Republic of 1848 decrees the freedom of the slaves. — Operation of 
 the abolitionists in Spain. — A ship of war manned by negroes is 
 permanently stationed in the harbor of Havana. — The press is set 
 
311 
 
 Page. 
 
 to work. — They succeed in obtaining that the Spanish government 
 should consult the Colonies on some points of abolitionism. — Evi- 
 dent tendencies to make the Island of Cuba a State similar to that 
 of Hati. — Charges and defences of the facts stated. — Remarkable 
 letter of Lord Howden to Mr. Corbin : some erroneous statements 
 containing offensive allusions to Spain are rectified. — New steps 
 taken by said minister at Madrid to obtain the unconditional free- 
 dom of all the people of color in the Island of Cuba. — Lord Pal- 
 merston's dispatch to Lord Howden on the same subject. — System 
 of diplomatic and parliamentary recriminations. — To introduce dis- 
 order in the colonial possessions of Spain, the right of search on 
 the estates is proposed. — Important considerations on all these mat- 
 ters. — The English recommend the substitution of the negroes by 
 contracted Chinese. — Reply of the United States to said proposition. 133 
 
 Chapter VIII. — Remarks on the unskillful manner in which the trea- 
 ties that prohihed the redemption of the negroes were drawn up. — 
 The prohibition of the redemption is opposed to the abolition of 
 slavery : this proposition demonstrated. — The treaties now in force 
 in these matters are also opposed to the liberal tendencies and 
 ideas of progress which may have originated them. — Historic re- 
 sults produced by this prohibition in countries peopled by negroes. 
 — The bloody and already famous scenes in Dahomey. — Disastrous 
 effects of said treaties in the slave holding countries which have 
 emancipated their laborers. — The English Colonies. — The French 
 Colonies. The Republic of Haiti. — Moral and material state of the 
 Spanish possessions. — In the countries where the institution of 
 slavery exists, the number of slaves has increased since the redemp- 
 tion was prohibited. — The blame which on this account has been 
 laid upon the authorities of those countries might be attributed, 
 for the same cause and with greater reason, to the English cruisers. 
 The blame, however, belongs exclusively to the treaties on this 
 matter now in force 163 
 
 Chapter IX. — Mutiny of the negroes on board the Ship Regina Ccelis 
 and bloody destruction of the whites who composed the crew. — 
 Repugnant demonstrations of joy exhibited in the British parlia- 
 ment on the occasion of that butchery. — Attempts made by the 
 British government on the petition of its Colonies to renew the re- 
 demption of negroes under another name. — The same thing at- 
 tempted by the French government. — Case of the Ship Charles et 
 Georges captured by Portuguese cruisers. — International conflict it 
 produced between France and Portugal. — The attitude taken by 
 England in consequence of this conflict. — Imperial ordinance of 
 Napoleon III ordering the suspension of the new form of the redemp- ■ 
 tion of negroes, and announcing his treaty for obtaining Chinese in 
 the English possessions in the East. — Detailed analysis of the re- 
 gulations by which these laborers are governed in the Island of 
 Cuba. — Their civil condition is the same as that of the negro slaves, 
 and it is even worse in some respects. — Remarkable inconsistency 
 which results between the idea of abolishing the redemption of 
 negroes and stimulating the servitude of the Chinese. — Comments 
 on these inconsistencies to show their true phases to public opi- 
 nion "*i 195 
 
 Chapter X, — Calamities which the perverseness of the Abolitionists 
 has occasioned in the world. — Civil war of the United States. — 
 Origin and history of the revolt of the South. — Insurrection at 
 Harper's Ferry. — Death of John Brown. — Excitement and blasphe- 
 mies which it called forth in the North, and in the slave States. — 
 Fruitless efforts to maintain peace. — Municipal elections. — Parlia- 
 
■ 
 
 312 
 
 Page 
 
 mentary commotions. — The election of Lincoln renders war inevit- 
 able. — Proclamations of the Executive abolishing slavery in the 
 rebellious States and respecting it in the others. — The consti- 
 tutional legality of said proclamations analyzed. — Their negative 
 results towards the re-establisment of the Union. — Remarkable do- 
 cuments as to its contradictory sense. — Aspect taken by the civil 
 war after the issuing of the said proclamations. — Calamities 
 brought down on the people, -on the National Treasury, and on the 
 public credit 216 
 
 Chapter XI. — Anarchy begins to manifest itself in the Northen 
 States. — Political parties into which the federals are divided, and 
 the principles that each profess. — Brief sketch of their respective 
 political history. — Their characters in the present war. — Dangerous 
 changes produced by the war on the public customs of the country. 
 — Supremacy of the military over the political institutions of the 
 Republic. — Famous outrage of General Burnsido against Represen- 
 tative Vallandigham. — Commotion produced by the deed in all the 
 States. — Demonstrations in favor of peace made by the democrats 
 to check the progress of military despotism. — Famous meeting in 
 New York on the 18th of May 1863.— Attitude of the Governor of 
 the State in favor of said meeting. — Demonstrations in opposition 
 by the dominant party. — Means of which the government avails 
 itself to annul the combinations of the partisans of peace. — New 
 treaty with England concerning the negroes. — The invasion of 
 Maryland and Pensylvania by the confederates coincides with all 
 that has been said. — The exasperation of the political parties of ' 
 the North in presence of the common danger. — Triumphs of the 
 federals in the war. — Republican meeting in opposition to the 
 democrats. — Some emisaries of the London Abolitionists take part 
 in these irritating demonstrations. — The conscription of three 
 hundred thousand men. — Reasons why it was decreed, and manner 
 in which the interested parties explain it. — Riot in New York. — 
 Horrors of anarchy. — Horrible persecution and murder of negroes 
 as a natural result of so many aberrations 245 
 
 Chapter XII. — The necessity of making peace, and on what basis it 
 should be made. — Obstacles which the question presents on ac- 
 count of the international rights in reference to the negroes. — 
 Various combinations which are announced for the purpose of put- 
 ting an. end to the war. — They are analized and the results are un- 
 favorable. — The peace cannot be solid and lasting unless the exist- 
 ing treaties on the redemption are revised. — With this fundamental 
 improvement the peace would be indestructible between the North 
 and the South. — Project of a treaty to arrive at that object. — 
 The great question whether the two sections should unite or sepa- 
 rate politically at the time of making peace. — Authoritative opin- 
 ions which have been given and still exist in favor of and against 
 both objects or ends 299 
 
 Chapter XIII. — Features which the international treaties should 
 have in order that they may be inviolate. — It is shown that these 
 features do not exist in the treaties which have been made for the 
 prohibition of the redemption. — General summary of all the propo- 
 sitions demonstrated in this work. — Doctrines which result from 
 them, and natural applications indicated by the same. — Project of 
 a general treaty to restore public right in the matter relating to ne- 
 groes, satisfying true morality, protecting all interests created since 
 the discovery of America and improving civilization in African 
 soil. — Considerations which arise out of the said project of treaty. 293 
 
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