A SUMMER
ON
THE BORDERS
OF
THE CARIBBEAN SEA.

BY J. DENNIS HARRIS.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
NEW YORK:
A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER,
No. 145 NASSAU STREET.
1860.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
J. DENNIS HARRIS,
In the clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern
District of New York.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Through the columns of leading journals in New York, St. Louis, and other localities, we have had occasion to acknowledge the fact that the political views which gave rise to the present volume, though comparatively new, have generally met the approval of distinguished statesmen and philanthropists, North and South.[A]

The following note from the venerable Mr. Giddings indicating the proposition, is but one of a large number which we have received from various parts of the country:—

Jefferson, Ohio, July 13, 1859.

My Dear Sir:—I am heartily in favor of Mr. Blair’s plan of furnishing territory in Central America for the use of such of our African brethren as wish to settle in a climate more congenial to the colored race than any that our government possesses.

I hope and trust you may be successful in your efforts.

Very truly,
J. R. GIDDINGS.

J. D. Harris, Esq.

The subjoined, respecting the work itself, is from Mr. William Cullen Bryant, by whom, in addition to Mr. George W. Curtis, a portion of these communications was reviewed:—

Roslyn, Long Island, August 26, 1860.

Dear Sir:—I have looked over with attention the letters you left with me, and return them herewith. It appears to me it will be very well to publish them. Of the Spanish part of the island of San Domingo very little is known—much less than of the French part; and the information you give of the country and its people is valuable and interesting.

I am, Sir,
Respectfully yours,
W. C. BRYANT.

Mr. J. D. Harris.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

The free colored American, of whatever shade, sees that his destiny is linked with slavery. Where his face is a crime he can not hope for justice. In the country which enslaves his race he can never be an acknowledged man. That it is his native country does not help him. The author of this book is an American as much as James Buchanan. He is more so: for the father of Mr. Buchanan was born in Ireland, and the father of Mr. Harris was born in North Carolina. But the one becomes president; the other is officially declared to have no rights which white men are bound to respect.

The intelligent colored man, therefore, as he ponders the unhappy condition of his race among us, perceives that, even if slavery in the Southern States were to be immediately abolished, his condition would be only nominally and legally, not actually, equal to that of the whites. The traditional habit of unquestioned mastery can not be laid aside at will. Prejudice is not amenable to law. There is a terrible logic in the slave system. For the proper and safe subjugation of the slave there must be silence, ignorance, and absolute despotism. But these react upon the master; and the difficulties and dangers of emancipation, as the history of Jamaica shows, are found upon the side of the master and not of the slave. The law might establish a political equality between them, but the old feeling would survive, and would still exclaim with the San Domingo planters when the French Assembly freed the mulattoes in 1791, “We would rather die than share our political rights with a bastard and degenerate race.”

The free colored man, wishing to help himself and his race, may choose one of several methods. If he dare to take the risk, he may try to recover by force the rights of which force only deprives him. But his truest friends among the dominant race will assure him that such a course is mere suicide. In a war of races in this country his own would be exterminated. Or he may say with Geo. T. Downing, “I feel that I am working for the people with whom I am identified in oppression, in securing a business name: I shall strive for my and their elevation, but it will be by a strict and undivided attention to business.” Or he may believe with Jefferson, “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people [the colored] are to be free: nor is it less certain that the two races equally free can not live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn indissoluble lines of distinction between them.”

This latter opinion is shared by many intelligent public men in this country, of whom Francis P. Blain Jr., of Missouri, Senator Doolittle, of Wisconsin, and Senator Bingham, of Michigan, are the most conspicuous. They believe that the emigration of free colored people, protected by the United States, into some region of propitious climate and beyond the taint of prejudice against color, would have the most important practical influence upon the question of emancipation in this country, and of the consequent restoration of the colored race to the respect of the world.

It is not surprising that a docile and amiable people enslaved by nearly half the States,—legally excluded from many of the rest, and everywhere contemned, should believe this, and turn their eyes elsewhere in the fond faith that any land but their own is friendly.

The author of this book is of opinion that under the protection of the United States government a few intelligent and industrious colored families could colonize some spot within the Gulf of Mexico or upon its shores, and there live usefully and respected; while gradually an accurate knowledge of the advantages of such a settlement would be spread among their friends in the United States, and, as they developed their capacities for labor and society, not only attract their free brethren to follow, but enable the well-disposed slaveholders to see an easy and simple solution of the question which so deeply perplexes them, “What should we do with the emancipated slaves?”

But neither Mr. Harris nor his friends, so far as I know, anticipate the final solution of the practical problem of slavery by emigration. They do not contemplate any vast exodus of their race; for they know how slowly even the small results they look for must be achieved, since the first condition is the protection of the American government. Mr. Harris thinks that the island of Hayti or San Domingo, in its eastern or Dominican portion, offers the most promising prospect for such an experiment; and this little book is the record of his own travel and observation upon that island and at other points of the Caribbean sea. It contains a brief and interesting sketch of the insurrection of Toussaint L’Ouverture, a story which incessantly reminds every thoughtful man that slavery everywhere, however seemingly secure, is only a suppressed, not an extinguished, volcano.

I commend the book heartily as sincere and faithful, quite sure that it will command attention not only by its intrinsic interest and merit, but as another silent and eloquent protest against the system which, while it deprives men of human rights, also denies them intellectual capacity. I think we may pardon the author that he does not love the government of his native land. But surely he and all other colored men may congratulate themselves that the party whose principles will presently control that government repeats the words of the Declaration of Independence as its creed of political philosophy.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

New York, September 1st, 1860.

A SUMMER
ON THE BORDERS OF
THE CARIBBEAN SEA.

LETTER I.
Dominican Republic.

FROM NEW YORK TO PUERTO DEL PLATA—SMOOTHNESS OF THE VOYAGE—HAYTI IN THE DISTANCE—DESCRIPTION OF THE STANDING ARMY—UNPARALLELED SCENIC BEAUTY.

“Is John departed, and is Lilburn gone?
Farewell to both, to Lilburn and to John.”
Hudibras.

T was a mild, showery morning on the 19th of May, 1860, that the brig John Butler, on board of which we were, left her dock at New York and anchored off the Jersey Flats. From this point we enjoyed the pleasantest and decidedly most satisfactory view of the great commercial city and its environs. The many white-sailed vessels and finely-painted steamers plying in and out the North and East rivers, and between the bright green undulating slopes of Staten and Long islands, presented a picturesque and animated scene, quite in contrast with the dark walls and stately steeples of the city which arose beyond.

More delightfully refreshing nothing could have been. Altogether, the fine air and characteristic scenes of New York bay amply repaid the inconvenience of remaining all day in sight of the great metropolis, without being jostled in its streets or snuffing the peculiar atmosphere that pervades it.

On the morning of the 20th we sailed out of the bay, passed Sandy Hook, and were at sea. The sky was clear, and the ocean calm. Betwixt the novelty of being at sea for the first time and the dread of that sickness which all landsmen fear, but know to be inevitable, I was kept in a state of moderate excitement which effectually annihilated those sentimental sorrows which one is expected at such times to entertain. The first vessel we met coming in was the Porto Plata, from this city, and owned by a German firm on the corner of Broadway and Wall street, New York. Her cargo, I have since learned, consisted principally of mahogany and hides.

Our mornings were passed mostly in studying the Dominican language, which, as nearly as I can analyze it, is a compound of Spanish, French, English, Congo, and Caribbean—but, of course, principally Spanish. The afternoons were spent in fishing, and catching sea-weed, watching the flying-fish, or in looking simply and silently on the ever-bounding sea, which was in itself an infinite and unwearying source of irrepressible delight. A comparatively quiet sameness characterized the voyage. With bright clouds pencilling the sunset sky, a fresh breeze stiffening the sails, and the ship gliding smoothly over the buoyant waves, the sensations were at times exceedingly exhilarating, and even supremely delicious. But there were no dead calms, no terrific storms. To-day was the pale blue sky above, and the deep blue ocean rolling everywhere around; and to-morrow the sky was equally as fine, and the same dark heaving ocean as boundlessly sublime. Had there been a storm, if only for description’s sake!

But the poetry ceased. We were now in the latitude of the regular trade-winds, with which every man is supposed to be as certainly familiar as he is with a school-book, or the way to church. Where were the winds? Wanting—from the south and east when they should have been from the west, and vice versa. As for their reputed regularity, they were no more regular than a sinner at prayers. Four successive days we averaged about one mile an hour, and this was in the trade-winds! For the honor of all concerned, however, I will say (on the point-blank oath of our captain) that such a thing never occurred before, and, as he expressed it, “mightn’t be again in a thousand years.” I thought of an old man who once went travelling, and when he returned he was asked what he had learned. He said, simply, “I was a fool before, but by travelling I found it out.” The astounding thunderstorms you hear about in the West Indies were all gone before we got here; so were the whirlwinds.

After a sail of twelve days, a long, dim, bluish outline, as of a cloud four hundred miles in length, stood out above the waves. Soon, with a glass, could be distinguished the regularly rising tablelands and lovely green valleys, the dark mountains standing in the background. I was at once agitated with all the anxieties of hope and fear. We were approaching the eventful shores of San Domingo, embracing as it does the Dominican and Haytien republics. But however thrillingly interesting its past history may have been, the practical question was whether the present state of affairs here would not be found unsatisfactory, and the climate hotter and less healthy than was desirable, or whether the luxuriant indications of opulence and ease I now beheld might not prove to be more captivating than expected, and the climate even more delightfully salubrious than I had dared to anticipate. I watched the lingering sunlight, wrapping the clouds, the mountains, and the sky into one glowing and refulgent scene, with all the enthusiasm of which my soul was capable; but the sun went quietly down, and the supper-bell reminded me of a fresh-caught mackerel. The sun and the land will come again to-morrow, but the mackerel disappeared forever.

Morning did come, and with it came the pilot (black). We entered the “port of silver” (Puerto del Plata). The harbor is a poor one; but if there be one thing on earth deserving the epithet “sublime,” it is the surrounding scenery. We anchored, and there awaited the coming of the custom-house officers. The officers came—some white, some colored—and with them Mr. Collins, an American gentleman to whom I was addressed. He received me liberally, invited me to stop with him, promising to show me around the country, introduce me to the General, (black,) and do a variety of other things decidedly un-American, but very gentlemanly indeed.

It was Saturday afternoon when we went ashore, and it so happened there was to be a government proclamation. In due time the drum struck up, and down came the standing army, looking for all the world like a parcel of ragamuffin boys playing militia. I counted them, and I think there were four drummers, two fifers, and two lines of soldiers—thirteen in a line. Some were barefooted, others wore shoes; some of their guns had bayonets, and others none. The manner in which they bore them compared with the foregoing suggestions, and so on to the end of this ridiculous scene. Dominicana has a government—so poets have empires.

In passing through the streets one is compelled to observe the non-progressive appearance of everything around him. There lie the unturned stones, just as they were laid a century ago. The houses are generally built one story high, with conical-shaped roofs, for no other reason than that that is the way this generation found them. Mr. Collins, who is a bachelor, lives in an airy two-story house, with a charming verandah running its whole length, cool and delicious, and surrounded by the sweetest fruit-trees outside of Eden. I found myself perpetually exclaiming, “Oh! what beautiful, bright roses!” what this, and what that, until I felt shamefully convicted of my own enthusiastic ignorance. I need not repeat the traveller’s story, for the certainty of exposure is sure. Look at a wood-cut and say that you have seen Niagara, but don’t read Harper’s picture-books and suppose you have any idea of Haytien floral beauty.[B]

Of course I have not been here long enough to know whether it is a fit place for a man to live in, or for a number to colonize, and I am well aware, when the question of politics comes up, it turns on a very different pivot; but by all that is magnificent, lovely, exquisite, and delicious in its vegetable productions, I do set it down a perfect paradise.

LETTER II.
Dominican Republic.

WANT OF INFORMATION—ONE SIDE OF A QUESTION.

HERE is no school-boy but remembers, when tracing the history of Columbus on his perilous voyage across the sea in search of a new world, how eagerly he watched each favorable indication of bird or sea-weed, and ultimately with what rapture he greeted the joyous cry of land; nor who, looking back through the vista of centuries past, but brings vividly to mind the landing of Columbus, the simplicity of the natives, the cupidity of the Spaniards, and their insatiable thirst for gold. But further than this—further than a knowledge of a few of the most striking outlines of the earlier history of Hayti, or Hispaniola—there is generally known little or nothing; little of the vicissitudes and sanguinary scenes through which the peoples of this island have passed; nothing of the “easily attainable wealth almost in sight of our great commercial cities;” nothing of its sanitary districts peculiarly conducive to longevity. On the contrary, erroneous and exaggerated notions prevail, that because it is not within a given circle of isothermal lines it must necessarily be fit for the habitation only of centipedes, bugbears, land-sharks and lizards. Indeed, it has been well said there is perhaps no portion of the civilized world of which the American people are so uninformed; and, in fact, so anomalous and apparently contradictory to the generally received impression does everything appear, that I almost despair of these papers being regarded as other than humorously paradoxical.

I am standing now on the line of 19° 45´ of north latitude, or but 20° 15´ south of the city of New York, and but 3° of longitude east, a distance not greater, I think, than by river from St. Louis to New Orleans, a distance frequently made by steamers within four days, and a distance which may be travelled over on railroads in the States at the rate of three times a week! Yet there are many persons who, were you to speak to them concerning this portion of the American tropics, you would find, regard it as being somewhere away on the coast of Africa, and the voyage hither long and tediously disagreeable. It is in reality but a small pleasure trip.

This is one side; but the great lesson of the world’s experience is that there are two sides to every question.

THE OTHER SIDE.

On the other hand, it may well be asked, if this be the Eden of the New World, why its flowers should be “born to blush unseen,” and its “gems of purest ray” remain hidden in its hills; or, to speak less classically, why the country should lie so long a comparative terra incognita, producing generations of indolent men and women, excelling only in superstition, idleness, and profound stupidity. In the “Silver Port,” the port in which we entered, vessels get within a quarter of a mile of land; then lighters take the cargo half the remaining distance, and from thence ox-carts convey it to the shore, when a comparatively small outlay of ingenuity, capital, and labor would make it a respectable harbor.

The men generally dress—those that dress at all—in cool white linen, Panama hats, and light gaiter boots. They look nice; but the red-turbaned, often bare-stockinged, loosely-dressed women are shocking.

“Know then this truth, (enough for man to know,)
Virtue alone is happiness below.”

Soon after we arrived, a dark, brown-skinned, and as handsome a looking man as I ever saw, came on board as watchman. For my particular benefit, I suppose, the captain inquired if he had a wife; to which he replied, in broken Spanish, “Two—one is not a plenty.”

A large portion of the cargo of the vessel in which I came consisted of lumber for the erection of a storehouse. The same vessel will be freighted back with timber of a superior quality. Indeed, the shores are lined with yellow-wood and mahogany; but it is not sawed. A gentleman is reported to have built a house in one of the interior towns which would have cost in Northern Ohio about $800, at a cost of $25,000. Inquire why this is so—why this listless inactivity prevails—and you receive the answer, “Well, waat is the use?” or, as Tennyson has it, “Vot’s the hods, so long as you’re ’appy.” The “apathy of despair” has not reached here, but the apathy of stupidity is incurable.

CAUSES OF THE DECLINE OF THE SPANISH COLONY.

I am aware that many persons, among them our finest writers on “Civilization—Its Dependence on Physical Circumstances,” attribute the cause of the island’s decline from its ancient splendor, and the consequent supine indifference of the natives, to the effeminating influences attending all tropical climates; and, without prejudice, I believe such would be very greatly the case in a very large portion of the tropical world; but it is a libel on Hayti and Dominicana. The country is as healthy as Virginia, and, except in its excessive beauty and fertility, resembles much the state of North Carolina. “Nobody dies in Port-au-Platte,” they say; but I should be sorry to find it true. I trace the cause in the country’s history, as I think the following brief glance will show, for much of which I am indebted to W. S. Courtney, Esq., and his essay on “The Gold Fields of St. Domingo.” We will say the civilized history of the country began with the Spaniards in 1492. The inhabitants, at the time of its discovery by Columbus, were a simple-minded, hospitable, and kind-hearted people, the fate (unparalleled suffering) of whom I have no disposition to record. The studious reader of American history will shudder at the bare recollection of the predatory scenes and excessively inhuman and bewildering iniquities of which they fell the victims, and which, if perpetrated now in any part of the world, “would send a thrill of horror to the heart of universal man.” Montgomery, I think it is, expresses their fate touchingly, and in a nut-shell, thus:

“Down to the dust the Carib people passed,
Like autumn foliage withering in the blast;
A whole race sunk beneath the oppressor’s rod,
And left a blank among the works of God!”

The Spanish colonists brought with them, of course, the Spanish language, customs, laws, and religion, which language, customs, and religion prevail to this day. They were exceedingly prosperous through a long series of years. They built palatial residences, cultivated sugar and tobacco farms, erected prodigious warehouses, established assay offices, and worked the mines on a grand but unscientific scale. The mines are supposed to have yielded from twenty-five to thirty millions of dollars per annum, and the exports of sugar and other productions showed a corresponding degree of prosperity.

In about 1630 the island began to decline. The natives had been driven and tortured to the last degree, and the heroic Spaniards began to look around for other countries to conquer, other people to enslave. They discovered Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The most glowing and captivating accounts went forth of the incalculable wealth of those countries in silver and gold, and multitudes abandoned their homes and haciendas and flocked thitherwards, in the hope of realizing wealth untold. Plantations and mines that had been producing immense revenues were abandoned to waste and desolation, and the population of the island was reduced one half from this one cause alone. Meanwhile, the French had established themselves on the western part of the island, and the present Haytien territory was ceded to France in 1773.

The remaining Spaniards introduced African slaves to supply the place of natives, and with this labor they were enabled to recover somewhat of their ancient thrift. Soon after this, the revolt in the French portion of the island occurred, and many of the Spanish slaves left the territory to join the standard of their revolutionary brethren. Besides this, whenever the French royalists drove the revolutionary forces back into the mountains, and cut off their supplies, the latter entered the Spanish territory, helped themselves to what they needed, destroyed the haciendas, carried off cattle and crops, and if they were resisted, as they sometimes were, they slaughtered the Spaniards as they do hogs in Cincinnati, Ohio, set the cities on fire, and left behind a grand but terribly universal ruin.

The history of San Domingo was never completely written, and if it were, would never find a reader. But stand here on these shores, with a rising panorama of half the scenes enacted by these revolting and infuriated slaves, and there is not a planter in the Southern United States, who, for all the wealth Peru, Mexico, and St. Domingo could produce, would be willing to return home and remain there over night.

Finally, Dessalines, that extraordinary prince of cut-throats, entered the Spanish territory, slaughtered the French, laid waste the country for leagues, carried off the remaining slaves, and so bewildered and astounded the Spanish residents that they gathered up what movable wealth they could and left the country, “some for Mexico, some for Peru, while many returned to Spain.”

Such are the principal and to me satisfactory causes which history assigns for the decline of the island’s thrift, which had reached an unparalleled degree of prosperity and an unsurpassed grandeur and magnificence, with a rapidity unrivalled in the annals of the world.

SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.

For the gratification of your many readers, I will continue this homœopathic sketch of the island’s history up to the present time.

In 1821 the Dominican portion (which embraces about three-fifths of the island, but having, I think, not more than one-fourth of its population) declared itself independent of the Spanish crown, but was shortly after subjugated by Boyer, the President of the Haytien Republic. In 1842 a revolution in Hayti caused Boyer to flee, and Riviere assumed the presidency. Two years after, the Dominicans overpowered Riviere, and on the 27th of February, 1844, reëstablished their government, or rather the present government of Dominicana. The main features of their constitution are, that each district or canton choose electors, who meet in preliminary electoral convention, and elect for four years the President and other administrative officers, and a certain number of counsellors, who constitute a congress.

The President, Pedro Santana, is a mixed blood of Spanish and Indian descent, and is emphatically regarded as a most estimable personage. Baez, the former President, is said to be of mixed French and African lineage; in short, there is no difference on account of color.

In 1849, Solouque, the President of Hayti, contrary to the wish of many Haytiens, undertook to conquer the Dominicans, and bring them unwillingly under his despotic sway. He entered the territory with five thousand men, but was met at Las Carreas, and disastrously defeated by General Santana, “with an army of but four hundred men under his command.” This is the truth, or history is a lie.

For this brilliant achievement Santana received the title of “Libertador de la Patria,” and seems to be admired, comparatively speaking, after the manner of our “liberator” and Father of his country. (Bah!)

But a small portion of the Haytiens, as I have before observed, sympathized with President Solouque in his abortive attempt to carry out the “Democratic” policy of territorial expansion. And when General Geffrard was proclaimed President, it is said the populace demanded pledges that he would not pursue the policy of his predecessor in this regard.

“It is not at all probable that any organized attempts of the Haytiens to recover possession of the Dominican territory will ever again be made; so that henceforth there will be no more annoyances of this sort.” Such are the views and opinions of eminent men, who have given this subject some attention;[C] but in the opinion of the writer, as is generally known, the destiny of the island is union;—one in government, wants, and interest, brought about by the introduction of the English language, and by other peaceful and benignant means; such language, wants, and interests to be introduced by the emigration hither of North Americans,—some white, but principally colored. England, France, and many other independent nations of the world, have acknowledged and formed liberal treaties with the weak little Republic, but I hope you do not suppose the government of the United States could be guilty of anything that looks like generosity.

God grant that I may never die in the United States of America!

LETTER III.
Dominican Republic.

CORPUS CHRISTI.

ETWIXT midnight and daylight this morning I was lying sleeping and dreaming under the halcyon influences of the lingering land breezes, when suddenly a harmonious sound of partly brass and partly string instrumental music rang upon the air. It appeared just as music always does to any one in a semi-transparent slumber—not quite awake nor yet asleep—when, as everybody knows, it is sweet as love. One boom from the cannon, and I stood square on my feet; and, as it is not very remarkable here to see persons dressed in white, the next moment I was out on the verandah.

There went a jolly crowd, promiscuous enough, but apparently as light-hearted and happy as mortals get to be, and which to a slant-browed contriving Yankee is a poser. They had thus early begun to celebrate what is called Corpus Christi, which, according to all fair translation, I should think means Christ’s body. But any thing about it after that I am entirely unable to say. It would seem to require a good deal to understand all the Catholic ceremonies. Talk about their being ignorant! I never expect to learn so much while I live.

All business houses were closed for the day, and Dominican, French, American, and other colors were flying from their respective staffs. Altars were erected in various streets, with numerous candles burning within, and bedecked with parti-colored flags and flowers. They were really prettily and tastefully arranged. In short, it was an American 4th of July, except this: to each of these altars marched the throng of people headed by the priest. The priest said prayers in “Greek.” The people understood, and all knelt down in the street, men, women, and children, but of course principally women.

THE FARM OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE.

A party of us went out to see Mr. Smith, a fugitive slave, whose energy and well-directed enterprise had attracted some attention heretofore. He is not so fine looking a man as I expected to see. He is under five and a half feet in height, limps a little, and is altogether but little in advance, to use a most contemptible Americanism, of his “kind of people” in the States. He speaks no Spanish, and for that matter very little English; but he has a will of his own, and a determination to do something, which gives him an advantage over half a dozen persons who go to school to lose their common sense.

Mr. Smith was a slave in South Carolina; was brought by sea to Key West, and there hired out to work for a Republican government. He and some other of his fellow-slaves, including his wife, took sail-boat, set sail, and after suffering almost incredibly from sea-sickness and want of food, finally reached New Providence, which he had previously learned to be an English colony. He proceeded to declare his intention to become a British subject, and went to work; but wages being low, he concluded to remove to Dominicana and go to farming. He purchased a piece of land near the town of Porto Plata, and with the assistance of his “help-mate,” (which in this country means a wife,) soon cleared the land of its tropical undergrowth, and planted it in corn and potatoes. In breaking up the ground he used a plow, a startling innovation here, but which produced most salutary results. A neighbor of his has since bought one. So great was the yield of Mr. Smith and his wife’s crop that in little more than a year’s time they have a house and forty acres of land all paid for, and a new crop worth over five hundred dollars, which will soon be ready for market.

This may not seem very remarkable to any one who has never seen a sand-hill, nor yet been to Canada; but to me it is a miracle. My object in mentioning this fact, however, is, to state that Mr. Smith also planted a few seeds of Sea-Island cotton, the product of which has been sent to New York and pronounced worth 14c. per pound. Now, there are numbers of colored men recently from the Southern States skilled in, and some who have made small fortunes by, the cultivation of cotton, at perhaps not more than eight or nine cents per pound, when, too, it had to be replanted every year. It produces here without replanting almost indefinitely, but it is safe to say seven years.

The query is this: give half a dozen such men as Smith a cotton-gin ($350), send them out here, and would they not accomplish more for the elevation of the colored race by the successful cultivation of cotton, in eighteen months, than all the mere talkers in as many years?

The meanest thing I have been obliged to do, and the greatest sin I have committed, has been the registering my name as an American citizen. I presented myself to the United States consul (whose son and clerk, by the way, is a mulatto). The nice correspondence of Mr. Marcy was produced, not with any evil intent at all, but just to show what indefinable definitions there are between colored and black and white and negroes as American citizens. I should like to find out how a man knows he is an American citizen! There are members of Congress who can no more tell this than they can tell who are their fathers.

As for Mr. Corwin’s talk about enforcing the laws, he may thank Heaven if he is not yet arrested as a fugitive slave.

Since the above was written, I understand the courts of Virginia have decided that an Octoroon is not a negro. Now, then, if an octoroon is not a negro, is an octoroon a citizen? And if an octoroon is not a negro, is a quadroon a negro?

LETTER IV.
Dominican Republic.

FIRST RIDE IN THE COUNTRY—PASTORISA PLACE.

YANKEE is known by the shortness of his stirrups;” so they say here, and I do not know that the criticism is at all too severe. Except Willis and one or two others, who of the Americans know any thing about riding? The Dominicans are good on horseback. In fact, it is their boast that they can ride or march further in two days than Americans want to go in a week. On the other hand, if “Los Yankees” had this country they would soon fix it so that a man could go over it all before the Dominicans got breakfast. Señor Pastorisa, (of the firm of Pastorisa, Collins & Co., formerly of St. Thomas,) who married a native, is mounted on a cream-colored horse, (cost $300,) and wears behind him a sword in a silver-gilt case. Every male person wears a sword of some kind, even though it prove to be as useless as an old case-knife. It is an old, superannuated, hundred-years-behind-the-age custom; yet in some instances serves as their Court of Appeals. No one disturbs you, and you are expected to be as well behaved; but if not, the difficulty is generally settled at the sword’s point, and there it ends. How magnanimous even is this rude mode of settling disputes when compared to that of the one-sided, blaspheming, defrauding den of thieves called a court of justice in the States! Coming from a land where men kill each other without warning, instead of a sword which I would not know how to use, I buy a pair of holsters for horseman’s pistols, throw them across the saddle, and am ready.

Now there may be no pistols in these holsters, of course, but what is the difference so long as they are supposed to be there? I take it as one of the grand lessons which the world’s history teaches, that men are far more afraid of supposed and imaginary dangers than of those they know to be real. The number of backsliding sinners and snake-story witnesses are innumerable.

We were now at the base of the St. Mark’s mountain, which rises just back of the town of Porto Plata. The so-called road was no road at all. There were little narrow trenches running between the rocks, fit for pack-mules, but scarcely wide enough to allow one’s feet to pass. Up the mountain we came poco á poco. While passing these rocks the sun poured down with an intensity not previously experienced. But I had never been an alderman, and was not fat enough to melt; indeed, it might as well have shone on a pine knot. Ere long the sun hid behind a cloud, the thunder muttered a little, but pretty soon, as if by way of repentance, there came a restorative shower of tears. (Thank Heaven! the nigger question vanquished the sun.) Nothing is so calculated to make a man vain as a mountain shower. You enjoy its ineffable sensations yourself, while below you behold the poor valley fellows sweating in the sun. Or it may be they are drowning wet below, and you basking in the clear sunshine above. Either way, you are bound to rejoice and to look with contempt on the silly ones who make themselves miserable by regretting and whining over things that are in themselves unalterable, and need no change. The wise repine not.

Over the mountain and beside a stream, with limes scattered plentifully around, we stop a moment for refreshment. Lemonade is cheap, one would think; the limes are as free as the water. Had nature furnished the sweetening as well, we should have had a river of lemonade.

Here country settlements begin again, called estancias, which, if you will get a blackboard and a piece of chalk, I will explain. Mark off, say four acres of land, clear it up—let the fruit-trees stand, of course—enclose it, but plant nothing therein. In the centre of this piece erect a shanty. This much is called a conuco. Now go through the woods, say a mile and a half, clear up four acres more and plant tobacco. The next year or two this will be gone to weeds; you then (not knowing the use of a plow) go another half mile, clear up another piece and plant a new crop. The old place has gone to wreck, the new place is in its vigor; but neither is in sight of the house. This together is called an estancia, and I should have said before meant a farm, but it does not mean a farm in English by a good deal.

At this point we leave the “road,” and, under full gallop half the while, take through the wood, guided by a dim path which winds over the hills and down the dales with as careless an indiscrimination as ever road was trodden by a prairie herd. L’Ouverture’s feats or Putnam’s celebrated escape would do to read about, but this was reducing the thing to practice.

Five miles’ gallop over a level plain—thirty miles in all—and we have reached Pastorisa Place: it is a perfect Arcadia.

During leisure moments I shall probably look back to this day’s ride and to these enchanting scenes as one of the “gilt letter” chapters of my life; but at present, after a bath, the rapidity with which fried plantains, pine-apple syrup, and scorched sweet milk will disappear, would do a dyspeptic Northerner good to see!

The property comes by Señora Pastorisa. She is, perhaps, five-and-twenty. Her eyes are as bright and dark as even Lord Byron could have wished them to be. Her complexion is that of a clear ripe orange. The place is extensive, containing say nineteen thousand acres, in a valley five miles wide, fenced in on either side by a spear of mountains, with a limpid stream running through the centre. Mocking-birds enliven every thing; parrots and paroquettes go around in droves, screaming and squawking like a very nuisance. Back of the house is a grove appropriated to honey-bees. They swarm on every log. (There were certainly over one hundred swarms.) Honey is considered of but little value anywhere in the mountains, and is often wasted in the streams, the wax only being preserved. This comes of having pack-mules and goat-paths instead of wagons and wagon-roads.

Señor Pastorisa had informed me before of his desire to quit the town and improve his farm. All he needed was men who understood farming on the American plan. He has a plow, and intends harnessing an ox to-morrow to try the experiment of plowing. Now, it is clear that to plow the ground very successfully he will need at least a yoke of oxen—which he has, all but the yoke. This I would undertake to make, though I never did such a thing in my life, and always had a horror of an ox-yoke, anyway; but lo! there are no tools. So Señor Pastorisa needs hands, but with a very little a priori reasoning it will be seen there are other things needed quite as much. One is a road. There is a natural outlet to the valley—there must be. The stream before the door makes towards the Isabella river. The Isabella empties into the sea, of course.

I forgot to say Señora Pastorisa is “a little tinged”—the handsomest woman in the world.

LETTER V.
Dominican Republic.

VALLEY OF THE ISABELLA—CUSTOMS OF THE NATIVES—CHAPTER ON SNAKES—A CALL FOR DINNER.

“Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime;
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,
And all save the spirit of man is divine?”—Byron.

HERE had been one or two invigorating showers previous to our ride down the valley of the Isabella, and so there remained a great deal of slippery clay along the narrow pathways, which paths lay usually on the very verge of some mountain slope, embankment, or more exciting precipice. To have come off with only one or two bones broken, I should have been perfectly satisfied.

We forded the river with impunity, crossed and recrossed it again, and finally came to as level a bottom plain as wheel ever rolled on. The valley of the Isabella is as handsome as a park.

The river itself is not so large as Longfellow’s “Beautiful River,” but it is much more deserving the name. Apropos, every old homestead has its particular title, such as the “Mocking-Bird,” “Humming-Bird,” “Crebahunda,” and a variety of others for which there is no adequate translation. The legends attending them are frequently the most exquisite.

Considering, therefore, the remarkable history, exquisite legends, and extraordinary traditions of the country, I am bound to say, should there be sufficient emigration in this direction to produce a poet of the Hiawatha school, I should be sorry for the laurels of Mr. Longfellow. There are one or two parts of “Hiawatha,” however, for which I hope to retain a relish.

The houses and cultivation along our way are in keeping with the estancias before described. The men are comparatively neat in appearance, find them where you will. The women are frequently good-looking, but seldom spirited. The prevailing question seems to be, How low in the neck can their dresses be worn? and the answer is, Very low indeed! White Swiss is worn as dress, and when seen on a handsome woman is like Balm of Gilead to the wounded eye. The wife does not usually eat at the table with her husband. She sees that his baths are ready, and at times even that his horse is fed, and at meal-times either takes her plate on her lap or awaits the second table. This is not from want of respect on the part of either; it is their stupid custom. Should “los Americanos” ever run a stage-coach up this valley, and two or three of these fellows have to climb on top for the sake of giving one lady an inside seat, they will comprehend somewhat better for whose convenience the world was made.

June 14th.—Señor Pastorisa fell ill to-day, and is now lying in a hammock. This gives me an opportunity to extol the hammock, which is too excellent a thing to pass unnoticed. It consists mainly of a net-work of grass, netted something like a seine, twice the length of a person or more, and fastened at the ends with cords sufficiently strong to hold the weight of any one. These cords are tied to the limb of a tree or the rafters of a house, and there you swing as happy as any baby ever rocked in a tree-top. It is sufficiently light to be carried in saddle-bag, and is altogether indispensable.

The señor’s fever is also my excuse for pencilling down notes more minutely than I otherwise should. I can, of course, give you a description of but few things singly. The palm-tree ought to be one. This remarkable tree grows without a limb, smooth and regular as a barber-pole, from forty to sixty feet high. At this point it turns suddenly green, and puts out two or three shoots. Around these grow its berries, which are used for fattening pork. Each of these shoots furnishes monthly a rare peel or skin, which is used for covering houses, for packing tobacco, and for making bath-tubs, trays, and other articles of household furniture. The body of the tree is used for weather-boarding. It rives like a lath, the inside being pithy, somewhat like an elder. Its leaves are twelve feet long, and bend over as gracefully as an arch. In the centre of the top springs out a single blade, like the staff of a parasol. This was made (one would think) for mocking-birds to dance on. The most useful tree in the world, its usefulness is excelled by its own beauty.

The valley of the Isabella is a grove of palms.

One cannot but remark how preposterous are the snake stories which the vulgar relate respecting the West Indies and tropics generally. The world does not contain another thing so brazenly destitute of the least common sense. In all this rambling through the woods, over the hills, and along the streams, the most harmful thing I have seen is a honey-bee—not even a dead garter-snake!

While on board a vessel off the coast one day, a sailor threw overboard a hook and line, and in the course of time caught a young shark. It was as wicked a little thing as I ever saw, and strong as a new-born giant. The sailor struck it over the head with a stick, when it snapped the hook and flounced around the vessel. In short, he killed it, and proceeded to dress it for breakfast.

“Going to eat a shark?” I inquired.

“Why not?”

“Good heavens! I thought they were the worst things in the world.”

“You eat duck,” said he; “what’s nastier than a duck? Shark’s clean—swims in a clean sea.”

I afterwards tasted a piece: it was coarse, and the idea that its mother might some day eat me, made the thing disgusting; but it learned me a lesson I shall not very soon forget. An Irishman is afraid to go to America on account of its frogs; a Frenchman makes a dish of them. One man eats rats, and another cats.

Now, to suppose there were no reptiles whatever in the country, or none peculiar to its bays and inlets, would be simply absurd; and when we get to the coast, I should be sorry to miss seeing some lazy old crocodile sunning in the sand. Should it have seven heads, however, I shall very likely catch it, and send it straight to Barnum; but if not, why, as Banks would the Union, let the snaky thing slide.

Your “Allergater in de brake” song may do for the Southern States, with their rhythmetical-and-stolen-from-the-African-coast slaves; but to apply it to this country would disgrace the most idiotic “What-is-it” ever imported. Of naturally wild quadruped animals there is not so much as a squirrel. Birds are without number.

Stanley is himself again! One and a half hours’ ride, two fords of the river, (rising,) and we are at the mouth of the famous Isabella. The river is here, but the town of Isabella has passed away forever. The delta is covered with mahogany timbers; two schooners stand out in the distance awaiting to transport them to Europe; and with these exceptions—and with these alone, unless it be the absence of the Indians—were Columbus to arrive here again to-day, he would not find a particle more of improvement than was found here over three centuries and a half ago. A boat load of oarsmen coming down the river, the captain leading in a song, and all hands joining in the chorus; a splash is heard on the other side of the water, as if broken by a fish or clumsy sea-turtle; but except these sounds a death-like stillness pervades the entire valley.

To get a better view, you must cross the promontory (the northernmost point of the island) to where Columbus first landed. From thence you see the Haytien frontier stretching away in the dim blue distance, and the scene is enchantment.

Over the rocks we go, led on by a Spaniard on a little bay mule, that climbs over the cliffs with an agility creditable even for a mountain goat. The señor’s horse falters. One misstep, and they both go to eternity!

We are on the beach. My zeal to commemorate the landing of Columbus by gathering a few tiny tinted shells reconciles the señor to sit in the sun and hold my horse for a minute; but I have no doubt he had rather see me as expert at gathering peas or picking up potatoes. “Ah! H.,” says he, “leave off writing books and gathering shells; get married, and come to farming.” So I will—all but the married.

But you will want to know what, after all, is the matter with the port. It is shallow. Vessels of a hundred tons burthen cannot get within as many rods of a harbor. In fact, the only question is, why a man of Columbus’ sense ever stopped there at all. It is not worth the pen and ink it would take to describe it.

CALLED AT THE FIRST HOUSE FOR DINNER.

“Come, let the fatted calf be slain,” was complied with to the very letter, except that in this instance it happened to be a goat. Nevertheless, it was worth the return of any prodigal son.

The largest “señorita” had a dress to make up. It was a piece of light blue delaine, and to her, no doubt, was “superb.” She left off assisting the old patriarch in dressing the goat, walked to the pitcher, took the cocoanut dipper, and filled her mouth with water until her cheeks swelled out like a porpoise’s. She then deliberately spirted it into her hands; and this was her mode of washing! She then spreads out her dry-goods, admires them a while, folds them up again, and lays them aside.

The four, and even six year old, running about the place, were as innocent of even a shirt as any son of Adam at his coming into the world.

We look out into the open, slab-sided kitchen, and see old and young sitting around on the dirt floor, enjoying a meal of fresh goat, winter squash, and plantain stewed together.

Our dinner is over; we bid these folks good-bye, and pronounce them the happiest set of miserably contented mortals the sun ever shone upon. Man needs excitement; he prays for ease.

We return to Pastorisa Place to spend the Sabbath. Two or three days of rest, and we start fresh again for Porto Cabello.

So ends the week—one at least in my life for which it was worth the trouble to have lived.

LETTER VI.
Dominican Republic.

ON THE WAY TO PORTO CABELLO—ANTILLE-AMERICANA—EMIGRATION ORDINANCE.

“Here in my arms as happy you shall be,
As halcyon brooding on a winter sea.”
—Dryden.

HEN the saffron sunlight lingers on the fleecy edges of these mountain clouds, there is a singular solemnity and peculiar fascination about them which can not be likened to any thing earthly. More than any thing else, the resemblance is that of a dark mourning-gown, lined with white satin and trimmed with silver tassels.

This reminds me that the sign of mourning here is somewhat novel. It is that of a spotless white kerchief worn on the head—a thing rarely seen, however, for the reason that people in this district rarely die except from sheer old age. There is near us an old man (black) whose entire grey hair and bodily appearance indicate his being at least eighty. His father died only a year ago, and for some time before the aged sire’s death it is said that fires had to be kindled for him to sleep by, in order to generate sufficient heat to keep his thin, chilly blood in circulation. His age was beyond his own knowledge.

But the great object of life here seems to be that of eating. The first thing in the morning after leaving your hammock, you are furnished with a dish of aromatic coffee, strong and excellent as a beverage, and as little like the ordinary stuff you get at hotels as pure rich cream is like chalk and water. Bah! think of your dish-water slops, made of parched peas, and supposed to be West India coffee! Oh! nation of Barnums and egregious dupes!

Where circumstances allow it, not an hour in the day passes without something being brought in to be eaten. “This is an alligator pear—must be eaten with salt and pepper.” Now it is honey, pine-apple, mango, orange, banana, and even a joint of sugar-cane—anything to be eating. You are then expected to eat as hearty a dinner as ought to satisfy a man for a week. Ride a mile and a half and you are asked if you are not hungry. You reply, “No, indeed.” Cross the next stream, and “Are you not thirsty?” is asked. Say “No, indeed” again if you like, and you will be very lucky not to hear your admirable self inelegantly compared to some kind of a goat.

The climate of these mountains seems to be that of perpetual spring, 88° Fahrenheit being the warmest day we have had so far. I understand, however, that in September the heat is much more oppressive because there are more calms, but never so intolerable as in the changeable latitudes. Sunstroke! You might venture the reputation of half a dozen “speakers” (a trade which is had in the States for the picking of it up) that such a thing as sunstroke would not be felt here until the world has wheeled as many years backward as it has forward.

We are trotting along on the way to Porto Cabello. I have given you a description of these valleys before, but passing a grove of rose-apples just now, (a fruit highly prized in the West Indies simply for its flavor, the tree being much like that of a lime, and the fruit hollow, something like a May-apple, lustrous as an orange, and flavored precisely as a rose is perfumed,) I could but reflect that if another Eve were to be placed in an earthly garden I should pray that it might be somewhere among the hills of New England, for, doubtless, then she would meet temptation with a masterly resistance; but if placed in such a garden as might be made in this country,—with all the sins of the world before her I fear she would be tempted over again a thousand times.

Stop a moment on an elevated point of a homestead called “Crebehunda;” behold the grand valleys stretching away between the mountain chains until lost in the green-blue sea which the glass shows in the distance. Dodging under branches, going sometimes head-first through the eternal verdure which, if possible, grows even more luxuriant, in this way we ultimately reach Porto Cabello, a place which proves to be, as previously understood, the grandest point for a port of entry on the whole northern coast of the island.

These old Spaniards are all the time saying to me,

“My son, you never look pert.”

“Perfectly happy, uncle,” I reply.

“Look long time away—studying.”

“Nothing, uncle—only an American.”

“Only an American? Well, what do they different from other people?”

“Lay out towns one day, and build them the next; own lands, and improve them.”

Now, this is genuine American talk; whether it will be American practice remains to be seen.

Porto Cabello is now used to some extent as a point of export; but the only reason why it is not used more extensively is, that between this and the valley there is a hill to be crossed, which could be made respectable as a highway by six sturdy hands in as many days. The country is ripening for immigration. Mr. James Redpath, a talented English-American, and a most acute observer, recently traversed a portion of the Haytien territory, and came to the conclusion that the entire island was capable of sustaining 20,000,000 people. There is not upon it probably one million, and of these the greater portion are in Hayti. The Dominican territory, by far the most extensive and desirable, does not contain much over one-fourth of a million, all told.

I say the country is ripening for immigration. The Pike’s Peak fever will ere long be exhausted. Then there is, probably, no more promising field for enterprise than this in the entire new world. Most any point could be made to flourish by the opening of good roads. With Porto Cabello this is peculiarly so. Santiago is the principal interior town. It is the proper place for, and was the former capital. It is situated on the river Yaque, which courses La Vega Real, (the Royal Plains,) and contains about 12,000 inhabitants. The trade of Porto Plata is kept alive mainly from this source; but the mountainous road between them, over which nothing can be transported except by piecemeal on horseback, has been well-nigh the ruin of them both. Porto Cabello is sixteen miles west of Porto Plata. It shuns the St. Mark’s mountain, and it is fair to suppose that, could communication once be established between this and Santiago, and were there the least facilities here for shipping produce, the trade of the interior would inevitably flow in this direction. As to the shipping interest, it was that which first turned our attention hither; for Porto Plata being an unsafe harbor for the winter, vessels had been known to make this port for safety. There are nine feet of water on the shallowest bar, and this once over there are two quiet bays, in either of which a merchantman could ride without an anchor.

There will be an American settlement up this valley,—the nucleus where I now stand, and this their port of entry. Such a settlement would meet the encouragement of Señor Pastorisa, and, as I have reason to believe, of the natives generally. They have no labor-saving machines, which is, beyond all question, what the country most needs. Think of a community like this getting on without a plow, a cotton-gin, a saw-mill, or anything of the kind. It is, verily, astounding. There is, of course—and it is certainly natural enough—a lingering prejudice against white Americans. This may or may not be overcome; but the natural question is, Are colored men in America competent to infuse the spirit of enterprise which the country demands? Let the common-sense working-men answer. My experience with your “leading” would-be-white-imitating upstarts is conclusive.

The route—and a cheap one—is from New York to Porto Plata. Agricultural implements are admitted duty free. I send herewith an important communication, showing the disposition of the government towards immigration. It is easy to see that (if carried into effect) it will mark a new epoch in the country’s history.

But before this question is taken into the debating rooms—that is, the pulpits—for discussion, it ought to be understood. If people read Homer’s poetic descriptions of imaginary scenery, and come here expecting to find them realized, they will be fully as much disappointed as they deserve. There are times when the clouds rise slowly over the mountain height, with a blazing sun at their backs, when the skies glow with a splendor transcending all conception; yet it is not at all likely they will see these mountains “go bobbing ’round,” or “nodding,” to suit the convenience of anybody. Must mountains necessarily rest their exalted heads against the bosom of the sky, as if holding constant tête-à-tête communion with the stars? If so, there are no mountains here—nothing but potatoe-ridges. Nor will they be blindly dazzled by the excessive resplendence of the sun or moon; nor will the moon make silver out of anything upon which it may happen to shine. Moonshine is moonshine, I suppose, the world over. American poets, however, may be read with impunity.

“This is the land where the citron scents the gale;
Where dwells the orange in the golden vale;
Where softer zephyrs fan the azure skies;
Where myrtles grow, and prouder laurels rise.”

IMMIGRATION ORDINANCE.

The following is a translated copy of an important official paper published in San Domingo city, June 9th, and proclaimed in Porto Plata, June 28, 1860:

“Antonio Abad Alfare, General of Division, Vice President of the Republic, and entrusted with the executive power, looking at the necessity which exists for facilitating the execution of the laws concerning immigration, defining the manner of making effective the measures which the government may take for their observance, the council of Ministers having heard, has come to issue the following ordinance:

“Art. 1. That there be constituted a Board of Immigration in each capital of a province, and in the qualified ports of Samana and Puerto Plata. These shall be composed of four members named by His Excellency, among those most friendly to the progress of the country, of the Governor of the provincial capital, or the Commandant-at-Arms in the communes, who shall be the president of them. Their secretaries shall also be of said commission.

“Art. 2. These Boards shall meet at the seat of government in the provincial capital, and in the communes of Puerto Plata and Samana, at the Commandant-at-Arms. For their internal ordering and the more ready fulfilment of that which is assigned them, they shall regulate that which they have to do according to utility, first submitting it for approval to the Minister of the Interior.

“Art. 3. The functions of the Board are: First, to learn the easiest and cheapest way of bringing immigrants to the country, always communicating everything to the President through the Minister of the Interior. Second, to employ all means leading to the result that there shall only come as immigrants the agricultural class, or those following some craft, profession, or useful form of labor; to get information of lands belonging to the nation most suitable for health and fertility; to have them prepared to furnish to farmers who may not have been able to agree with private individuals under the terms of their contracts; to assign them lodgings and sustenance after their arrival, during a period to be agreed on, and to look after them with all the attention and care which it shall be possible to display; to supply them with tools and other articles of use which it may be decided to furnish to them, and with the first stock of seed-corn for their sowing, taking care that everything be of the best quality; to take care that those who agree with private persons shall be under a contract which insures the fulfilment of that which has been agreed with them; to attend to all things which can give credit to this department as well within as without the Republic.

“Art. 4. The Board shall appoint agents for the furnishing of victuals to those who shall be needy, taking care that in every thing there be exactness, order, and good faith.

“Art. 5. All accounts of expenses which may actually be incurred must be examined and approved by the Board, and submitted to the inspection of the Minister of the Interior.

“Art. 6. The office of member of the Board is honorary, and without pay, and they shall perform their functions two years. Those who perform with zeal and patriotism their trust, will be entitled to the esteem and consideration of their fellow-citizens.

“Art. 7. The present ordinance will be promptly executed by the Ministers of the Interior, Police, and Agriculture.

“Given at St. Domingo City, the capital of the Republic, the 4th day of June, 1860, and the 17th year of independence.

“A. Alfau.

“Countersigned, the Minister Secretary of State, in the departments of justice and education, charged with those of the interior, police, and agriculture.

“Jacinto de Castro.”

LETTER VII.
Dominican Republic.

PROPOSED AMERICAN SETTLEMENT—PICTURE OF LIFE—TOMB OF THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY.

“Thy promises are like Adonis’ garden—
That one day bloomed, and fruitful were the next.”
—King Henry VI.

HAVE scarcely time to inform you of an American settlement really begun. It is near the sea, not far from Porto Plata, on a large commonality or tract of land embracing about twelve square miles, (not twelve miles square,) having a water power running full length. The land being in common is considered of the first importance, for by this means a small outlay of capital—say one hundred dollars—secures to the settler the grazing advantage of the whole tract, where not otherwise in use. This idea was suggested by an eminent gentleman of St. Louis, and has been the custom of early settlements in Spanish colonies for centuries past. It will of course be subdivided whenever desired, each man taking the part he had originally improved. The principal settlers are from Massachusetts, one of whom, a Mr. Treadwell, (colored,) designs establishing a manual-labor school. Another, a Mr. Locke, (white,) who came out for his health, has actually secured a mill site, erected a small shanty, and cleared from twelve to twenty acres of land, as preparatory steps towards building a saw-mill. How happy will be the effect of such enterprise on a non-progressive people you have probably anticipated from what I have previously observed.

The manual-labor school is, without question, the only mode of infusing a tone of morality in the country, or giving a foothold to the Protestant religion. This has been tried. About twenty years ago a society of Wesleyan Methodists established a mission in the town of Porto Plata. The church still lives, and is, by foreigners, comparatively well attended; but they have not converted a single Catholic by preaching from that day to this. The reason is, the Catholics will not go to hear them. Yet, for the benefits of an education, about one hundred and fifty children were sent regularly to school, and there, by the “infidel” teachings of the Wesleyans, they soon learned to distrust the ceremonies of their mother church. Unfortunately, about two years since this school was discontinued, and, having succeeded in weaning the people from positive Catholicism without yet embracing the Protestant religion, it seems to have left them with a general belief in every thing, which is, as I take it, the nearest point to a belief in nothing.

The country around Porto Plata is owned almost entirely by the Catholic church, being leased, through the government, at reasonable rates to such persons as desire to settle thereupon; but by establishing a school at a distance of seven miles, as above indicated, it would be entirely free from all such influences. An English missionary is soon to come over from one of the neighboring islands to give the location his personal inspection.

The sea view is divine. Along the shallow edges the rippling waves appear brightly green—greener than the trees—while beyond this, where the water deepens, the hue is a pearly purple—purer purple than a grape. In fact, the earth does not contain a comparison for the tranquil beauty of this transparent sea. Some hours ago I thought to sketch it for you, lest it should prove, like so many other things, too fine to last; but so it continued hour after hour, and until the sun nestled in its very heart.

So much for the future settlement. It may be called “Excelsior,” but at present I will call it “Crebahunda.”

This cool morning air nearly chills me. You take a bath and retire to bed at night with only a thin linen sheet spread over you. In the morning you are chilled, and resolve to sleep hereafter under more covering; but, of course, when night comes again you do not need any more.

Not a morning, my dear H., do I look upon these fields of living green but that I think of you and your daily routine of office duties. I take a seat beneath one of these forbidden-fruit trees while the land breeze is freighting the valley with perfume, the sun just peeping over the hills, and the white mists, beautiful as a bridal veil, slowly rising up the mountain green; now listening to the voice of a favorite mock-bird, and then to the softer cooings of a mourning-dove. A strange-looking little hummy perches on the first dead limb before me. Parrots squawk, and a dozen blackbirds chime one chorus, while other varieties chirp and trill. The whole scene is Elysian. Then along comes a sparrow-hawk, and choo-ee! choo-ee! choo-ee! off they all go, helter-skelter.

Of whom is this a picture? You are toiling away, arranging rude manuscripts, at times almost discouraged, but still toiling on in your close, hot rooms—and this for the good of your race. Well, Heaven grant they may thank you for it, and save you from crying at last, “Choo-ee! choo-ee!” But, ah!—even worse than that—I am afraid the sparrow-hawks will catch you! With me, the end of every thing is that of the birds—a melancholy aggravation. I have been entranced by these morning scenes but a passing short while, and will soon be compelled to leave them and take a lonely ride to the coast, thence to depart for a season. I therefore stuff my saddle-bags with oranges and cinnamon-apples, as I think this is wiser than weeping.

An absence of precisely four weeks, and we are once again in sight of Porto Plata. “The moon is up, and yet it is not night.” Some kind of a holiday being at hand, men, women, and children are riding to and fro up and down the streets on donkeys, mules, and ponies of every description. The scene is truly picturesque. I could but remark to my friend the Protestant exhorter, the grandeur of the evening, to which he replied, “A man that could find fault with this climate would find fault with Paradise.” I do not believe him, however, for whether the day and night trips along the coast have been too much for me or not, I have certainly got the chill-fever.

This morning, July 7th, I visited the tomb of the Wesleyan missionary to whose labors here I have before referred. The following inscription will furnish the data to such of your readers as are interested in the history of such missions:

IN MEMORY
OF THE
R E V. W M. T O W E R,
WHO WAS BORN AT HORNCASTLE, LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND, ON
THE 12TH FEBRUARY, 1811, AND ENTERED UPON
THE MISSIONARY WORK OF EVANGELIZING
THIS ISLAND IN
1838.
HE LABORED ON THIS STATION FOURTEEN YEARS AND A HALF.
HE WAS BELOVED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM; AND
DIED ON THE 25TH OF AUGUST,
1853,
UNIVERSALLY REGRETTED.

LETTER VIII.
Dominican Republic.

SUMMARY OF STAPLES, EXPORTS, AND PRODUCTS.

CAME across a copy of Rousseau this morning,” said an American scholar, whom we had met before; and he added, “I should not have been more surprised had I seen it drop out of the clear sky.”

There are but very few books in Dominicana of any kind, and no reliable statistics. The government on the south side of the island appoints custom-house officers on the north side, allowing them little or nothing for their services. The consequence is, these officers pay themselves out of the import duties, and hence few returns are accurately made.

In the essay on the “Gold Fields of St. Domingo,”[D] to which I have previously referred, I find the following summary of staples, exports, and products, which, while it is but little more than the reader will have already gathered, may serve at least to confirm what has been said:

“The chief products of the Dominican part of the island are now mahogany, tobacco, indigo, sugar, hides, bees-wax, cocoa-nuts, oranges, lemons, some coffee and some fustic, satin and many other kinds of wood; but the trade in those articles now is not very considerable. There is a vast quantity of mahogany in the territory, standing in groves on the mountains and the plains, and scattered over the valleys and along the rivers and streams. The best mahogany in the West Indies grows on this island. Some of these groves and trees are truly magnificent, growing straight and to a great height. The best is now found inland, as it has been nearly all already stripped off the coasts and cut away from near the mouths of the principal rivers and around the bays, where it was more accessible and of easier and cheaper carriage to market. It has been extensively used for building purposes by the inhabitants of the cities, more especially by those of the interior, the lumber now used in the coast cities being carried thither from the States, and exchanged for mahogany and other products. It is only of late years that the best mahogany cuts have begun to come to market, as heretofore they were carried to Europe, where they brought a better price.

“Tobacco is now one of the principal exports. But little of it, however, finds its way to this market. There is a large quantity of it raised by the residents on the Spanish part of the island, particularly about Santiago, on the Royal Plains, and in the neighborhood of Maccrere. It is brought down in bales or ceroons on mules to Port Platte, and shipped on board Dutch bottoms to Holland and the Germanic states. There is also some cultivated about St. Domingo City and around the Bay of Samana. But the cultivation and traffic in this commodity compared with what it might be, were those fertile plains and rich savannahs settled by an industrious and enterprising people, is scarcely as a drop to the bucket. There are regions in the territory where tobacco can be grown equal to the best Havana brands, and, on account of the fecundity of the soil, with even much less labor.

“There are still some good sugar plantations in the Dominican territory, chiefly about St. Domingo City and to the west as far as Azua, but they are ‘few and far between.’ The best sugar is now produced in the region about Azua and Manuel, and is of a very superior quality. The country people cultivate and manufacture, each on his own account, and, in his small way, pack it in ceroons and carry it down to the coast on mules. Indeed, the term ‘cultivate’ is not appropriately used in this connection, as the cane grows up wild and spontaneously from season to season, and from year to year in many places, and the inhabitants have nothing whatever to do but cut and grind it in wooden mills and boil day after day. The writer is not informed that they use the sugar-mills in use in other sugar-growing countries in their operations. It is easy to conceive what a source of incalculable wealth the culture of this staple there would become, if in the hands of a skilful and enterprising population.

“The trade in hides, compared with other products, is quite important, which arises from the fact that a majority of the population pursue grazing for a livelihood, and the rapidity with which stock increases and the little care required in preserving it. Owing to the heat and abundant oxygen which the atmosphere contains, the flesh of the beef, unless properly salted and cured, keeps but a day or two, so that the inhabitants are obliged to kill almost every other day. This now keeps up and supplies the traffic. Perhaps three-fifths of the population of the interior country and towns are now engaged in grazing.

“Compared also with other staples, the trade in bees-wax is considerable. The island producing the greatest quantity and variety of flowering plants, shrubs, and trees, bees exist there in incalculable and immense swarms. The prairies of the West in June furnish no parallel to the flowers that perpetually unfold on these mountains, plains, and valleys. The writer has been informed by a gentleman who recently visited Dominica [Dominicana], that so strong and rank was the odor from the flowers in passing over the Royal Plains, that it so jaded his olfactories as to cause his head to ache, and almost made him sick. The swarms build in the rocks, in the trees and logs, under the branches, and even on the ground. Those who pursue this branch of business collect the deposits in tubs, wash out the honey in the brooks by squeezing the combs, and afterwards melt the wax into cakes, or run it into vessels preparatory to carrying it to market. Those engaged in this vocation are chiefly women. The trade in this article, however, bears no proportion to its production and abundance. They have recently begun to save some of the honey, and a small quantity of it has found its way to this market. The reason why it has not been hitherto saved is owing to the great cost of vessels to collect it in, as wooden-ware of all kinds has to be taken there from the States.

“There are some exports of cocoa-nuts, oranges, lemons, limes, and other fruit, all of which are both cultivated and grow wild in vast abundance on the island, and are not excelled by any in the Antilles, or on the Spanish main. The labor necessary to collect them, prepare them for shipment, and carry them to the ports is not there. From this cause, indeed, the whole Spanish end of the island languishes in sloth, and its transcendent wealth goes year after year incontinently to waste.

“There is some coffee, which grows wild in abundance through the island and on the mountains, and is collected and shipped. After the abandonment of the coffee plantations, the trees continued to grow thick on them, and finally spread into the woods and on to the mountains, where they now grow wild in great quantities. Lacking the proper culture, its quality is not the best, but the climate and soil is capable of producing it unexcelled by any in Porto Rico or any of the West Indies or Brazil. The writer is informed, however, that there are a few coffee plantations under culture about St. Domingo City. The labor of cultivating coffee and sugar in Dominica [Dominicana], with all the modern appliances of civilization, would be absolutely insignificant compared with the rich returns it would bring the planter.

“In addition to the staples and exports above-mentioned, the island produces a vast number of other valuable commodities, among which we may make notable mention of its lumber and different varieties of valuable wood other than mahogany. The pitch or yellow pine grows in vast abundance at the head of the streams and on the mountains, dark and apparently impenetrable forests of which cover their sides and tops. This lumber, with very little expenditure of labor and capital, could be brought down the streams during their rises almost any month in the year, to the principal cities. When the reader is made acquainted with the stubborn fact that all the lumber used on the north side of the island, except the little mahogany that is sawed there and at and about St. Domingo City, is carried there at great cost from the States, and sold at a price fabulous to our lumber-dealers here, he will measurably comprehend the undeveloped resources of Dominica [Dominicana] in that interest alone. Pine lumber sells at Port Platte for $60 per thousand feet. It has then to be carried back to Santiago, Moco, and La Vega on mules, where it sells for $100 per thousand, while those mountains and the banks of their streams stand thickly clothed with it, in its majestic and sublime abundance! There is but one saw-mill on the Spanish end of the island near St. Domingo City, and that not now in operation. They saw by hand a little mahogany at a cost of 80 cents a cut, ten feet long; and when an individual wishes to build a house at Santiago, Moco, La Vega, Cotuy, or any of the interior towns, he has to begin to collect his lumber a year beforehand!... In consequence of this scarcity and cost of lumber, those of smaller means build their floors of brick and flags, and roof their houses with the same material or with the leaf of the palm-tree. Besides the pine, there is the oak, the fustic and satin woods, compache, and an indefinite variety of others. Some of the hardest and most durable vegetable fibre in the world is to be found on the island.”

It may appear somewhat strange to the reader that mahogany should be used for building purposes, but so it is. The art of veneering is but little known, house furniture consisting generally of solid mahogany.

LETTER IX.
Republic of Hayti.

HISTORICAL SKETCH—GENERAL DESCRIPTION PREVIOUS TO 1790.

“Think not that prodigies must rule a state—
That great revulsions spring from something great.”

HAVE given you Dominicana as a garden of poetry and the home of legendary song. Well, Hayti is a land of historical facts, and the field of unparalleled glory. Consulting one day with Mr. Redpath, the talented author of the series of letters to which I have previously referred, he suggested the impossibility of any one forming even a comparatively correct opinion respecting affairs in Hayti, without being guided by a sketch of the country’s previous history. Confessedly, therefore, much as his letters were appreciated by the readers of the Tribune he had not done the Haytiens simple justice. Since nothing could be so highly interesting, be it mine and the Anglo-African’s to undertake what the Tribune and its correspondent failed to supply. The following compilation will be taken from Rainsford’s, St. Domingo, and Edwards’ and Coke’s histories of the West Indies, but principally, and when not otherwise marked, from Coke.

There is nothing low or cowardly in the history of Hayti. Notwithstanding their conquests on the main land, the Spaniards were wont to regard it as the parent colony and capital of their American possessions. The buccaneers of Tortuga, however much they may have suffered or have been feared, can not be said to have ever been really conquered. In fact, by whomsoever settled, the country has shown one uninterrupted record of pride and independence. I regard this as an honor to begin with.

The history of Hayti begins with the buccaneers, a company of French, English, and Germans, driven from their homes in the neighboring islands by the haughty arrogance of the Spaniards, in 1629. These men, collected on the shores of Tortuga, vowed mutual fidelity and protection to each other, but eternal vengeance against their persecutors. How well they kept their word has passed into a proverb.

In 1665 the court of Versailles, observing a beautiful country of which some of its subjects had taken an actual though accidental possession, took the fugitive colony under its protection. It was not difficult for the French government to see that the island was in value equal to an empire, and it was therefore determined to enhance its interests with all possible speed. The first care was to select a governor who should be equal to the difficult task of humanizing men who had become barbarians; which important task was committed to D’Ogerton, a gentleman of Anjou.

Hitherto not a single female resided in the settlement, to supply which deficiency was the governor’s first care. With this view he sent immediately to France, and many women of reputable character were induced to embark. From this time the prosperity of the colony fairly begins.

The personal fame of D’Ogerton drew many who had suffered persecution at home to flee for safety to an asylum which his lenient measures had established in Hayti, among whom was one Gobin, a Calvinist, who, upon his arrival, (1680,) erected a house on the Cape, and prevailed on others to join him in his retreat. Time added to their numbers, and the conveniences of the situation justified their choice. As the lands became cleared and the value of its commodious bay became known, both inhabitants and shipping resorted to the spot, and raised the town of Cape François to a degree of elegance, wealth, and commercial importance which in 1790 scarcely any city in the West Indies could presume to rival.

Considered in itself, the situation of the town is not to be commended. It stands at the foot of a very high mountain which prevents the inhabitants from enjoying the land breezes, which are not only delicious but absolutely necessary to health. It also obstructs the rays of the sun, causing them to be reflected in such a manner as to render the heat at times almost insupportable. On one side of the town, however, is an extensive plain, containing, perhaps, without any exception, some of the finest lands in the world. The air is temperate, though the days and nights are constantly cool. In short, it is another Eden. “Happy the mortal who first taught the French to settle on this delicious spot.”

The situation of Port au Prince, to which place the seat of government has been transferred, seems to have been unfortunately selected. It is low and marshy, and the air is impregnated with noxious vapors, rendering it extremely unwholesome. To this day it is commonly regarded as the graveyard of American seamen. In 1790 it had also reached an eminent degree of prosperity, and contained 14,754 inhabitants, of whom 2,754 were white, 4,000 free people of color, and the remainder slaves. So, also, near Port au Prince is a fertile plain called Cul de Sac. The mountains surrounding it possess a grateful soil, and are cultivated even to their summits. The value of such lands is at present from ten to twenty dollars per acre.

The town of St. Mark’s, near which the last body of colored emigrants from America have settled, is somewhat more advantageously situated. It lies on the northern shore of the bay, on the point of an obtuse angle formed by the margin of the rocks and waves. Hills encircle it in the form of a crescent, the points of which unite with the sea, and, while they afford it shelter, leave it open to the breezes of the ocean, which become the springs of health.

The land which the French had brought under cultivation previous to the revolution was devoted mostly to the cultivation of sugar, coffee, indigo, and chocolate. It is said that Hayti alone produced as much sugar at this time as all the British West Indies united. The prodigious productions of little more than two million acres of land were as follows: brown sugar, 93,773,300 lbs.; white sugar, 47,516,351 lbs.; cotton, 7,004,274 lbs.; indigo, 758,628 lbs. But great as this product may appear, it by no means gives the entire amount, the quantity of tanned hides, spirits, &c., being equally immense.

Immorality and irreligion everywhere prevailed, worse even than at present, if we are to judge from a poem written about that time. The West Indies would seem to be peculiarly conducive to this species of iniquity:

“For piety, that richest, sweetest grant,
Of purest love blest super-lunar plant,
Is here neglected for inferior good,
Torn from the roots, or blasted in the bud.
Soft indolence her downy couch displays,
And lulls her victims in inglorious ease,
While guilty passions to their foul embrace
Seduce the daughters of the swarthy race.”

This brings us to the consideration of the all-important subject called in America the “negro question,” but which is, nevertheless, the immortal question of the rights of man.

The inhabitants of Hayti consisted of 540,000 souls, and were divided into three distinct classes—the whites, the slaves, and the mulattoes and free blacks. The term mulatto comprehended all shades between whites and negroes. The whites conducted themselves as if born to command, and the blacks, awed into submission, yielded obedience to their imperious mandates, while the mulattoes were despised by both parties.

The freedom they enjoyed was rather nominal than real. On reaching a state of manhood each became liable to serve in a military establishment, the office of which was to arrest runaway slaves, protect travellers on the public roads, and, in short, to “mount a three years’ guard on the public tranquillity.” To complete their degradation, they were utterly disqualified from holding any office or place of public trust. No mulatto durst assume the surname of his father; and to prevent the revenge which such flagrant and contemptible injustice could hardly fail to excite, the law had enacted that if a free man of color presumed to strike a white man, his right arm should be cut off. In fact, they were not much above the condition of the free blacks in the United States. “On comparing the situation of these two classes of men”—the slaves and the nominally free—says Coke, “it is difficult to say which was the most degraded. The social difference was, without doubt, very great, but in the aggregate must have been about the same.”

Such was the state of affairs previous to 1790. What they have been subsequently remains to be seen. The whip of terror never yet made a friend. It may prevent men from being avowed enemies for a while, but it usually makes a deeper impression upon the heart than upon the skin. The heart is nearest the seat of recollection, and will stimulate to revenge for a long time after the wound has been inflicted, as the reader of the following pages will abundantly attest.

“Time the Avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands and eyes and heart, and crave of thee a gift.”

LETTER X.
Republic of Hayti.

AFFAIRS IN FRANCE—THE CASE OF THE MULATTOES—TERRIBLE FATE OF OGÉ AND CHAVINE.

T was towards the close of the year 1788 that the revolutionary spirit which had been fermenting among the French people from the conclusion of the American war first manifested itself in the mother country; and although that extraordinary event convulsed the empire in every part, in no place was the shock so great as in Hayti.

The mulattoes, notwithstanding their oppression and degradation, it should have been observed, were permitted to enjoy property, including slaves, to any amount, and many of them had actually acquired considerable estates. By these means the most wealthy had sent their children to France for education, just as many are now sent to Oberlin, in which place they supported them in no small degree of grandeur.

It happened about this time that a considerable number of these mulattoes were in Paris, among whom was Vincent Ogé. This young man entered into the political questions relative to the people of color, which were then violently agitated, and became influenced with a conflict of passions at the wrongs which he and his degraded countrymen were apparently destined to endure. His reputed father was a white planter, of some degree of eminence and respectability, but he had been dead for years. Ogé was about 30 years of age; his abilities were far from being contemptible, but they were not equal to his ambition, nor sufficient to conduct him through that enterprise in which he soon after engaged. Supported in Paris in a state of affluence, he found no difficulty in associating with La Fayette, Gregorie, and Brissot, from whom he learned the prevailing notion of equality, and into the spirit of which he incautiously entered with all the enthusiasm and ardor natural to the youthful mind when irritated by unmerited injuries; and he determined to avenge his wrongs.

Induced to believe that all the mulattoes of Hayti were actuated by the same high-minded principle, he sacrificed his fortune, prepared for hostilities, and sailed to join his brethren in Hayti.

What was Ogé’s disappointment when, after evading the vigilance of the police and secretly succeeding in reaching these shores, he found no party prepared to receive him, or willing to take up arms in their own defence! It probably might have been said of him also, “His heart is seared.”

About two hundred were at length prevailed upon to rally around his standard; and with this inadequate force he proceeded to declare his intentions, and actually dispatched a note to the governor to that effect.

In his military arrangements his two brothers were to act under him, with one Mark Chavine, as lieutenants. Ogé and his brothers were humane in their dispositions, and averse to the shedding of blood; but with Chavine the case was totally different.

Ferocious, sanguinary, and courageous, he began his career with acts of violence which it was impossible for Ogé to prevent.

Finally the brothers of Ogé joined Chavine in his petty depredations. White men were murdered as accident threw them in their way. The mulattoes, when they could not be induced to join them, were treated with every species of indignity; and one man in particular, who excused himself from joining them on account of his family, was murdered, together with his wife and six children.

The inhabitants of Cape François, alarmed at these outrages which they imagined to be committed by a far more formidable body of revolters than really existed, immediately took measures for their suppression.

A detachment of regular troops invested the mulatto camp, which, after making an ineffectual resistance in which many were killed, was entirely broken up. The whole troop dispersed. Ogé and his officers took refuge in the Spanish part of the island. The principal part of their ammunition and military stores immediately fell into the hands of the victors.

The triumphs of the whites over the vanquished insurgents were such that they proceeded from victory to insult. The lower orders especially discovered such pointed animosity against the mulattoes at large that they became seriously alarmed for their personal safety, and many regretted not having joined the now vanquished party.

Urged by fatal necessity many resorted to arms, so that several camps were formed in different parts of the colony far more formidable than that of Ogé. At this time Rigaud, the mulatto general, makes his appearance, declaring that no peace would be permanent “until one class of people had exterminated the other.”

In the midst of these commotions which presaged an approaching tempest, Peynier, the governor, resigned his office in favor of general Blanchelande. The first step of the latter was directed towards the unfortunate Ogé. The demand made on the Spanish governor for his arrest was peremptory and decisive. Twenty of Ogés followers, including one of his brothers, were speedily hung; but a severer fate awaited Ogé and Chavine. They were condemned to be broken alive, and were actually left to perish in that terrible condition on the wheel.

Chavine, the hardy lieutenant, met his destiny with that undaunted firmness which had marked his life. He bore the extremity of his torture with an invincible resolution, without betraying the least symptom of fear, and without uttering a groan at his excruciating sufferings.

With Ogé the case was widely different. When sentence was passed upon him his fortitude abandoned him altogether. He wept; he solicited mercy in terms of the most abject humility; but in the end he was hurried to execution, and left to expire in the most horrid agonies.

Previous to this the National Assembly in France, which had originally declared “That all men are born free, and continue free and equal as to their rights,” had to contradict this in order to pacify the planters, and to declare it was not their intention to interfere with the local institutions of the colonies.

It so happened, however, that with this decree they also transmitted to the governor a chapter of instructions, one of the articles of which expressed this sentiment: “That every person of the age of twenty-five and upwards, possessing property or having resided two years in the colony and paid taxes, should be permitted to vote in the formation of the colonial assembly.” It was like the Dred Scott decision of the United States, for the question immediately arose whether the term “every person” included the mulattoes.

It was just at this time that intelligence of the tragical death of Ogé, who had been previously well known in Paris, reached that city. The public mind was instantly inflamed against the planters almost to madness, and for some time those in the city were unable to appear in public, either to apologize for their brethren or defend themselves. To keep alive that resentment which had been awakened, a tragedy was founded on the dying agonies of Ogé, and the theatres of Paris conveyed the tidings of his exit to all classes of people.

Brissot and Gregorie, two well-known reformers, availing themselves of this auspicious moment, brought the case of the mulattoes before the National Assembly.

This was early in May, 1791. The eloquence displayed by Gregorie on this occasion was most marvellous, enforced by such facts as a state of slavery and degradation rarely fails to produce, and the whole finished by an affecting recital of the death of Ogé.

Amid the ardor with which he pleaded the cause of the mulattoes, a few persons attempted to stem the torrent by predicting the ruin of the colonies. “Perish the colonies,” exclaimed Robespierre in reply, “rather than sacrifice one iota of our principles.” The sentiment was reiterated amid the applauses of an enthusiastic Senate, and the National Assembly, on the 15th day of May, decreed that the people of color born of free parents should thenceforth have all the rights of French citizens; that they should have votes in the choice of representatives, and be eligible to seats both in the parochial and colonial assemblies.

The colonial representatives no sooner heard that these decisive steps were taken than they declared their office useless, and resolved to decline any further attempts to preserve the colonies.

The colonists who resided in the mother country heard the decree with indignation and amazement. But in the island, as soon as it became known, the planters sunk into a state of torpor, and appeared for a moment as if petrified into statues. All local feuds between the whites were immediately suspended, and all animosities swallowed up by what appeared to them an evil of unparalleled magnitude. The civic oath was treated with contempt; tumult succeeded subordination; proposals were made to hoist the British colors; and resolutions crowded on resolutions to renounce at once all connection with a country that had placed the rights of the mulattoes on an equal footing with their own.

The mulattoes, who became criminal from their color, were obliged to flee in every direction. Their homes afforded them no protection. They were threatened with shooting in the street; and thus menaced by destruction, they began to arm in every direction.

The governor beheld this commotion with palsied solicitude. He foresaw the evils that must burst upon the colony, without having it in his power to apply either a preventive or a remedy.

But a far more awful mine, surcharged with combustibles, and destined to appall all parties, was at that moment on the very eve of an explosion.

LETTER XI.
Republic of Hayti.

A CHAPTER OF HORRORS (WHICH THE DELICATE READER MAY, IF HE CHOOSES, OMIT).

“Out breaks at once the far-resounding cry—
The standard of revolt is raised on high.”

MONG the various transactions which had taken place, both in the island and in France, little or no attention had been paid to the condition of the slaves. It is true an abolition society had been early established in Paris, called the “Friends of the Blacks,” (Amis des noirs). Their sufferings had also been used to give energy to a harangue, or to enforce the necessity of general reformation, but their situation was passed over by the legislative assemblies as a subject that admitted of no redress.

These, sensible of their condition, numbers, and powers, resolved, amid the general confusion, to assert their freedom and legislate for themselves. They had learned from the contentions of both their white and colored masters that violence was necessary to prosperity. Such measures they adopted; and no sooner adopted than they were carried into effect.

It was early on the morning of August 23, 1791, that a confused report began to circulate through the capital that the negroes were not only in a state of insurrection, but that they were consuming with fire what the sword had spared. A report so serious could not fail to spread the greatest alarm. It was credited by the timid, despised by the fearless, but was deeply interesting to all. Pretty soon the arrival of a few half-breathless fugitives confirmed the melancholy news; they had just escaped from the scene of desolation and carnage, and hastened to the town to beg protection and to communicate the fatal particulars. From these white fugitives (the scale had turned) it was learned that the insurrection was begun by the slaves on a plantation not more than nine miles from Cape François.

There, it appeared, in the dead of night, they had assembled together and massacred every branch of their master’s family that fell in their way. From thence they proceeded to the next plantation, where they acted in the same manner, and augmented their number with the slaves whom the murder of their master had apparently liberated. And so on they went, from plantation to plantation, recruiting their forces in proportion to the murders they committed, and extending their desolations as their numbers increased.

From the plantation of M. Flaville they carried off the wife and three daughters, and three daughters of the attorney, after murdering him before their faces. In many cases the white women were rescued from death with the most horrid intentions, and were actually compelled to suffer violation on the mangled bodies of their dead husbands, friends, or brothers, to whom they had been clinging for protection.

The return of daylight, for which those who had escaped the sword anxiously waited, to show them the full extent of their danger, was anticipated by the flames that now began to kindle in every direction. This was the work of but a single half night. The shrieks of the inhabitants and the spreading of the conflagration, occasionally intercepted by columns of smoke which had begun to ascend, formed the mournful spectacle which appeared through a vast extent of country when the day began to dawn.

It was now obvious that the insurrection was general and that the measures of the revolted slaves had been skilfully preconcerted, on which account the revolt became more dangerous. The blacks on the plantation of M. Gallifet had been treated with such remarkable tenderness that their happiness became proverbial. These, it was presumed, would retain their fidelity. So M. Odelac, the agent of the plantation, and member of the General Assembly, determined to visit them at the head of a few soldiers, and to lead them against the insurgents. When he got there he found they had not only raised the ensign of rebellion, but had actually erected for their standard THE BODY OF A WHITE INFANT, which they had impaled on a stake. So much for happy negroes and contented slaves! Retreat was impossible. M. Odelac himself was soon surrounded and murdered without mercy, his companions sharing the same fate—all except two or three, who escaped by instant flight only to add their tale to the list of woes.

The governor proceeded immediately to put the towns in a proper state of defence; and all the inhabitants were, without distinction, called upon to labor at the fortifications. Messengers were despatched to all the remotest places, both by sea and land, to which any communication was open, to apprise the people of their danger, and to give them timely notice to prepare for the defence. Through the promptitude with which the whites acted, a chain of posts was instantly established and several camps were formed.

But the revolt was now found to be even greater than imagined. The slaves, as if impelled by one common instinct, seemed to catch the contagion without any visible communication. Danger became every day more and more imminent, so much so that an embargo was laid on all the shipping, to secure the inhabitants a retreat in case of the last extremity. Among the different camps which had been formed by the whites were one at Grande Riviere and another at Dondon. Both of these were attacked by a body of negroes and mulattoes, and a long and bloody contest ensued. In the end the whites were routed and compelled to take refuge in the Spanish dominions. Throughout the succeeding night carnage and conflagration went hand in hand, the latter of which became more terrible from the glare which it cast on the surrounding darkness. Nothing remained to counteract the ravages of the insurgents but the shrieks and tears of the suffering fugitives, and these were usually permitted to plead in vain.

The instances of barbarity which followed are too horrible for description; nor should we be induced to transcribe any portion of them, were it not that many persons regard such statements as mere assertions unless accompanied by a record of the unhappy facts. The recital of a few, however, will set all doubts forever at rest.

“They seized,” says Edwards, “a Mr. Blenan, an officer of the police, and, having nailed him alive to one of the gates of his plantation, chopped off his limbs one by one with an axe.”

“A poor man named Robert, a carpenter, by endeavoring to conceal himself from the notice of the rebels, was discovered in his hiding-place, and the negroes declared that he should die in the way of his occupation; accordingly they laid him between two boards, and deliberately sawed him asunder.”

“All the white and even the mulatto children whose fathers had not joined in the revolt were murdered without exception, frequently before their eyes, or while clinging to the bosoms of their mothers. Young women of all ranks were first violated by whole troops of barbarians, and then, generally, put to death. Some of them, indeed, were reserved for the gratification of the lust of the leaders, and others had their eyes scooped out with a knife.”

“In the parish of Timbe, at a place called the Great Ravine, a venerable planter, the father of two beautiful young ladies, was tied down by the savage ringleader of a band, who ravished the eldest daughter in his presence, and delivered over the youngest to one of his followers. Their passions being satisfied, they slaughtered both the father and the daughters.”

“M. Cardineau, a planter of Grande Riviere, had two natural sons by a black woman. He had manumitted them in their infancy, and treated them with great tenderness. They both joined the revolt; and when their father endeavored to divert them from their purpose by soothing language and pecuniary offers, they took his money, and then stabbed him to the heart.”

Amid the worst of these scenes Mr. Edwards records that solitary and affecting instance wherein a soft-hearted slave saved the lives of his master and family by sending them adrift on the river by moonlight.[E] This is generally admitted to have been the Washington of Hayti, Toussaint L’Ouverture.

At this time, also, the mulatto chiefs, actuated by different motives, not only refused to adopt such horrid measures, but particularly declared their only intention in taking up arms was to support the decree of the 15th of May, which had acknowledged their rights, of which the whites had been endeavoring to deprive them, and proposed to lay down their arms provided the whites acknowledged them as equals.

The white inhabitants gladly availed themselves of an overture which, though it pressed hard on their ambition, afforded a prospect for deliverance from impending danger. A truce immediately took place, which they denominated a concordat. An act of oblivion was passed on both sides over all that had passed, the whites admitting in all its force the decree giving equality to the mulattoes. The sentence passed upon Ogé and the execution of it the concordat declared to be infamous, and to be “held in everlasting execration.” So much for Ogé.

Both parties now appeared to be equally satisfied, and a mutual confidence took place. Nothing remained but to induce the mulattoes to join the whites in the reduction of the negroes, now in a most formidable state of insurrection. To this the mulattoes consented. New troops were introduced from France. The whites were elated, and perfect tranquillity stood for a moment on the very tiptoe of anticipation.

But the great lesson of the revolution was speedily to be learned. The hurricane of terror which was yet to overcome them was at that moment on the Atlantic, and hastening with fatal impetuosity towards these uncertain shores.

UNION.

It was early in the month of September that intelligence reached France of the reception which the decree of the 15th of May had met with in Hayti. The tumult and horrid massacres which we have noticed were represented in their most affecting colors. Consequences more dreadful were still anticipated. The resolution of the whites never to allow the operation of the ill-fated decree was represented as immovable; and serious apprehensions were entertained for the loss of the colony.

The mercantile towns grew alarmed for the safety of their capitals, and petitions and remonstrances were poured in upon the National Assembly from every interested quarter for the repeal of that decree which they plainly foresaw must involve the colony in all the horrors of civil war, and increase those heaps of ashes which had already deformed its once beautiful plains.

The National Assembly, now on the eve of dissolution, listened with astonishment to the effects of a decree which, by acknowledging the rights of the mulattoes, it was expected would cover them with glory. The tide of popular opinion had begun to ebb; the members of the Assembly fluctuated in indecision; the friends of the planters seized each favorable moment to press their point, and actually procured a repeal of the decree at the same moment that it had become a medium of peace in Hayti.

At length the news reached these unhappy shores. The infatuated whites resolved to support the repeal, which would leave the mulattoes at their mercy. A sullen silence prevailed among the latter, interrupted at first by occasional murmurings and execrations, and finally exploding in a frenzy which produced the most diabolical excesses yet on record.

Rigaud’s original motto was again revived, and each party seemed to aim at the extermination of the other. The mulattoes made a desperate attempt to capture Port au Prince, but the European troops lately arrived defeated them with considerable loss. They nevertheless set fire to the city, which lighted up a conflagration in which more than a third part of it was reduced to ashes.

Driven from Port au Prince, by the light of those flames which they had kindled, the mulattoes established themselves at La Croix Bouquets in considerable force, in which port they maintained themselves with more than equal address. At last, finding themselves and the revolted slaves engaged in a common cause, they contrived to unite their forces, and with this view drew to their body the swarms that resided in Cul de Sac. Augmented with these undisciplined myriads they risked a general engagement, in which two thousand blacks were left dead on the field; about fifty mulattoes were killed, and some taken prisoners. The loss of the whites was carefully concealed, but is supposed to have been equally as destructive.

The furious whites seized a mulatto chief whom they had taken prisoner, and, to their everlasting infamy, upon him they determined to wreak their vengeance. They placed him in a cart, driving large spike nails through his feet into the boards on which they rested to prevent his escape, and to show their dexterity in torture. In this miserable condition he was conducted through the streets, and exposed to the insults of those who mocked his sufferings. He was then liberated from this partial crucifixion to suffer a new mode of torment. His bones were then broken in pieces, and finally he was cast alive into the fire, where he expired. So much for the whites.

The mulattoes, irritated to madness at the inhumanity with which one of their leaders had been treated, only awaited an opportunity to avenge his wrongs. Unfortunately, an opportunity soon occurred. In the neighborhood of Jerimie, M. Sejourne and his wife were seized. The lady was materially enciente. Her husband was first murdered before her eyes. They then ripped open her body, took out the infant and gave it to the hogs; after which they cut off her husband’s head and entombed it in her bowels. “Such were the first displays of vengeance and retaliation, and such were the scenes that closed the year 1791.”

“A law there is of ancient fame,
By nature’s self in every land implanted,
Lex Talionis is its latin name;
But if an English term be wanted,
Give our next neighbor but a pat,
He’ll give you back as good and tell you—tit for tat!”