INSTINCTS of RACES:
i
J. C. NOTT, M. D.,
Professor of Surgery, Medical College, Mobile, Ala.
JSlcprinteir tront tfje "Xetu ©cleans ^metrical ani Surgical journal
NEW ORLEANS:
Published by L. Graham, Book and Job Printer,
Library of
Emory University
181±35
FEB 4 1948
INSTINCTS OF RACES.
"FREE NEGROIS,\r, or the Results of Emancipation 111 the North, and AVest fndia Islands,
with Statistics of the Decay of Commerce—Idleness of the Negro—His return to Savagisin,
and the effect of Emancipation on the Farming, Mechanical and Laboring Classes." Second
Edition, revised and enlarged. Van Evrie, Horton & Co., No. 162 Nassau Street, New York,
1863.
THE above is the title page of an elaborate and interesting pam¬
phlet from which I propose to borrow largely in the conclusion
of the present essay, as it well illustrates the instinctive dislike of
the negro race to agricultural labor, the point which it is my object to
elucidate. The collection of facts is ample and saves me much labor.
As this pamphlet was intended especially to illustrate a single
point, I shall preface the copious extracts to be given, by some gen¬
eral remarks on the Civil and Physical History of Races, in order to
show that the practical results of Emancipation are nothing more
nor less than the fulfillment of natural laws, long since demonstrated
by the science of Ethnology.
I
2
Instincts of Races.
Man (genus homo), has, by common consent, been placed by
naturalists at the head of the animal kingdom, and although he has
the means of protecting himself to a great extent, by clothing, fire,
and houses, from extremes of heat and cold, he cannot abstract him¬
self wholly from those climatic influences which modify the species
of other genera.
The genus Equus contains six species, the Horse, A.ss, Hemione,
Zebra, Quagga and Onager, all natives of the eastern continent. *Each
of these is generally supposed to have sprung from one original pair,
and the same law of descent is applied to the Felines, the Canidse
and species of other genera.
The natural history of Man has been the great stumbling-block to
zoologists-—-some contending that all the Races of Men, are but
varieties springing from one original pair (Adam and Eve) ; while
others contend that the Races are of diverse origin, and were created,
like the species of other genera, in different divisions of the earth,
forming parts of separate Zoological Provinces.
This subject is one of great interest both to the Naturalist and
Theologian, but has little practical bearing on the points here to be
discussed, and will therefore be left aside.
It is curious to see the perfect parallel which the genus Cams (Dog)
runs with that of Man. The dawn of history finds the uttermost
parts of the earth covered with different races of men, and every
where, these human types have been associated with one or more
races of dogs equally distinct from each other.
In order that the reader may clearly understand the meaning at¬
tached to certain terms for which there will be frequent use, I will
quote the following definitions from the celebrated Dr. Prichard's
work on the " Physical History of Man," as he is considered a
standard authority:
" The meaning attached to the term Species, in natural history, is
very definite and intelligible. It includes only the following con¬
ditions, viz : separate origin and distinctness of race, evinced by a
constant transmission of some characteristic peculiarity of organization.
A race of animals or of plants marked by any peculiar character
which it has constantly displayed, is termed a species ; and two races
are considered specifically different, if they are distinguished from
each other by some characteristic which the one cannot be supposed
to have acquired, or the other to have lost, through any known
Instincts of Races.
3
operation of physical causes ; for we are hence led to conclude, that
tribes thus distinguished, have not descended from the same original
stock.
"Varieties, in natural history, are such diversities in individuals
and their progeny as are observed to take place within the limits of
species.
" Permanent Varieties are those, which once having taken place,
continue to be propagated in the breed in perpetuity. The fact of
their origination must be known by observation or inference, since, the
proof of this fact being defective, it is more philosophical to consider
characters which are perpetually inherited as specific or original.
The term, permanent variety, would otherwise express the meaning
which properly belongs to species. The properties of species are
two, viz : original difference of characters, and the perpetuity of
their transmission, of which the latter can only belong to permanent
varieties.
" The instances are so many, in which it is doubtful whether a
particular tribe is to be considered as a distinct species, or only as a
variety of some other tribe, that it has been found, by naturalists,
convenient to have a designation applicable to either case."
According to the above criteria, it must be conceded, that we have
no means beyond its history, of distinguishing between a species
and permanent variety. A reference to the chapter on Hybridity
in "Types of Mankind" will show that prolificacy inter se is no test
of common origin of two animals, and laying aside the teaching of
Holy Writ, the Naturalist knows of no conclusive argument in proof
of the unity of the human family ; or of the various Canine races,
which stand on precisely the same ground zoologically.
The wonderful discovery of Champollion, by which the hieroglyphic
inscriptions on the ancient monuments of Egypt have been de-
cyphered, has thrown an entirely new light upon the physical history
of man. The absurd arguments drawn from false analogies in the
animal kingdom, respecting changes of type from physical causes,
and the thousand and one " well authenticated" examples of white
men transformed into Hindoos, Negroes, and other races, have all
passed away like the " baseless fabric of a vision" and left us to
wonder that men of sense could have been so deluded.
It ps now demonstrated from the monuments of Nineveh and
Egypt, that the races of the genus homo, and those of the family of
4
Instincts or Races.
tlie Canid<e (Dogs), were as distinct in type 3500 years ago as they
now are, and that no causes in operation from that date to the pre¬
sent, have been able to change one form into another. On those
monuments, cotemporary with Moses, and Joseph, and Abraham, are
to be seen by thousands the faithful portraits of Egyptians, Berbers,
Abyssinians, Nubians, Negroes, Arabs, Jews, Mongols and Assyrians,
presenting the same lineaments which those races around the Medi¬
terranean preserve to the present day. In like manner are preserved
portraits of the Canines. The Mastiff is beautifully portrayed by
Layard in his work on Nineveh, The Greyhound, Turnspit, Coach-
dog, Hound, other varieties of domestic clog, together with the Wolf,
Jackal, Hyena and Fox on the monuments of Egypt. The Bulldog
is well represented in Rome, and most of the dogs now known in
Europe were familiar to Greeks and Romans. When America was
discovered, the Indians were found in possession of several new
races of dogs. The Dingo was found in Australia, and so with all
-newly discovered countries.
In Europe and Asia, as well as northern Africa, which were oc¬
cupied by the highest races of men, the types of men, through in¬
cessant wars, commerce and migrations have been greatly blended
and confused. So with their companions, the dogs—-these have been
intermixed, until no doubt many original types have been lost, and
an endless variety of curs appear in their stead.
The question then, as to the existence, and permanence of races,
types, species, or permanent varieties, call them what you please, is
no longer an open one. Forms that have been permanent for sev¬
eral thousand years, must remain so at least during the life time of a
nation. It is true, there is a school of Naturalists among whom are
numbered the great names of Lamarck, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire,
Darwin and others, which advocates the development theory, and con¬
tend not only that one type may be transformed into another, but
that man himself is nothing more than a developed worm ; but this
school requires millions of years to carry out the changes by infini-
tismal steps of progression. With such theories, or refinements of
science, our present investigation has no connection, as the Freed-
men's Bureau will not have vitality enough to see the negro expeii-
ment through many hundred generations, and to direct the imper¬
fect plans of Providence.
Instincts of Hacks.
It being conceded then that the Races of Men, and of Canines, if
not distinct species, are at least permanent varieties, we propose next
to inquire whether the phisique of each race has not a kindred moral
inseparable from* it; and whether the organic structure can be
changed without altering its functions?*
Is it not a law of nature, that every permanent animal form, call it
by what name you like, carries with its physical type a moral of its
own, which cannot be obliterated, changed, or transferred to another^
so long as the physique stands ? Can any reflecting man doubt that
the instincts of the Bulldog, Greyhound, Pointer, or Hound, are in¬
separable from his anatomical structure ; or believe that one can be
educated to perform the duties of another ? These races of dogs,
all over the globe, where the climate permits them to live and pros¬
per, so long as the blood is kept pure, remain substantially the same
in moral and physique. A Bulldog is a Bulldog, a Greyhound a Grey¬
hound, from generation to generation, and from the St. Lawrence to
Cape Horn.
Why is it that dog-fanciers lay so much stress on pure blood?
Does not an impure cross destroy the value of a stock, and its reliabil¬
ity for breeding purposes ? An English breeder will not touch a
horse or dog that has a drop of impure blood; because he knows
that the stain cannot be washed out in many generations—the im¬
pure cross will crop out eight or ten generations after, or later, as
many examples prove. So adhesive is the stain, that a mare of Lord
Derby that had a colt by a Zebra, when bred afteiwards for several suc¬
cessive years to thorough bred horses, had every colt more or less
striped like the Zebra, which had been the father of the first colt
only. The Greyhound has little sense of smell and pursues his game
by sight and speed. The Hound on the contrary depends on smell
and endurance. The Bulldog is useless for hunting purposes. The
Pointer, Terrier, Shepherd's dog, each has its peculiar instincts and
uses. These qualities are retained so long as the race is kept pure,
and when two are crossed, an intermediate type is produced partak¬
ing of the physique and moral of both parents.
Do not the same general laws which govern the rest of the animal
kingdom apply with equal force to Man ? Has not the Almighty
! •
♦The English language wants precise terms to suit my purpose. By physique, is meant
physical or anatomical structure. By moral we mean all those functions of the nervous system
which bring animals la relaton with the external world, as instinct, reason and intellect
Instincts of Races.
placed his stamp, intellectual and physical, upon the races of men
just as strongly as he has upon the species or varieties of other
genera ? We have already stated, what the works of Champollion,
Rosellini, Lepsius, and other hieroglyphic scholars, so fully prove,
that the same races of men have been living around the1" Mediter¬
ranean for 3500 years. Since the literature of China and India have
been laid open to us, we have the evidence that Mongol, Malay and
Hindoo types are quite as old. America was found at its discovery
covered with millions of red men of great antiquity. Australia and
Oceanica have also fheir races of men and animals unlike all others.
The permanence of these human types, I repeat, is no longer a point
of dispute; so long as the physical causes which have for ages been
acting on them, remain unchanged, they remain indellible.
It being conceded, then, that the physique of the Races of men is
permanent through ages past and to come, the next question to be
examined is the permanence of the moral which has accompanied
each type in by-gone ages. If man is to be judged by analogies
drawn from the animal kingdom, it would require little argument to
settle the question in the affirmative. Every species, whether of the
Equidce, the Canidce, the Felines, or other, has its own anatomical
structure—its own physiological laws—its own instincts and mode
of thought. The moral is quite as characteristic as the physique.
The Indo-European Races have, through wars, commerce, and mi¬
grations, been so blended, that old types have, to a great extent,
been lost, and few permanent varieties can be identified in Europe,
beyond Jews and Gipsies, and even these are far from being pure.
When, however, we leave these migrating Races, the law of nature
stands out in bold relief. Place beside each other an Arab, Egypt¬
ian, Anglo-Saxon, Negro, Hottentot, Mongul, Malay, Australian, and
American Indian, and you have human types as old, as distinct, as
permanent in physique and moral, as the canines and other species.
No one will deny that the animals nearest in the scale to man, as
apes, dogs, and the elephant, are endowed with a degree of intelli¬
gence above mere instinct; nor is it less true that man to a great
extent is a creature of instinct. If Races were guided by reason
alone, each one would not possess the individuality which now char¬
acterizes it. The instincts, not only of Races, but of individuals, or,
as a phrenologist would say, the bumps, drive reason aside or override
it in the great majority of mankind. One man, generally, reasons
Instincts of Races.
7
well about the conduct of another, and can give very good advice,
while violating the precepts he lays down. The first law of nature is
self-preservation, which exerts a controlling influence all through
life. Within an hbur after a child is born, it instinctively sucks —
it soon cfies to make wants known. These and other animal in¬
stincts precede the first rudiments of mind, for whose action the
senses have, as yet, furnished no materials.
Self-love and self-preservation are the ruling instincts of every
animal, and drive even the most untutored races to desire immor¬
tality; and, with the hope of attaining it, they seek to propitiate good
spirits and evil spirits. It is not the love of the Lord, nor of virtue,
that keeps most men in the "narrow path," but the fear of the devil
and annihilation. If a little brimstone were not burnt under peo¬
ple's noses once a week at least, the devil would be most likely to
drag the mass into the "broad road that leadeth to destruction."
The constant tendency of a child, is to self-glorification and self-
aggrandizement— he is the hero of his own story, and appropriates
to his own use everything he lays hands on. The organs of self-es¬
teem and acquisitiveness are predominent and precede the moral sense.
An honest, truth-telling child is rather an anomaly in nature, and a
thing to be marvelled at.
Now these instincts, which have their groundwork in the law of
self-preservation (like the wolf's love of mutton), exhibit themselves
in the forms of ambition and dishonesty, and hold on to the great
majority of mankind, in some degree or form, from the cradle to the
grave. So true is this, that it has become a proverb that " an honest
man is the noblest work of God.'i That these frailties belong to man,
the Bible teaches from Genesis to Revelations. General Washington,
General Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, as much as we admire and vene¬
rate them, cannot be called intellects of the very first rank. They
were moral giants, and particularly defective in the organs of self-
esteem and acquisitiveness. They were remarkable as christians,
which they could not have been, had they been endowed with a
silverspoon bump, like another distinguished individual. Even reli¬
gion but imperfectly corrects these bad instincts of man, though it
often corrects bad acquired habits, such as intemperance, swearing,
the use of tobacco ; but ambition, " that sin by which the angels
fell," the love of money, the tricks of trade, the corruptions of poli¬
tics, the animal passions, are rarely rooted out till all becomes " vanity
,8 Instincts of Hacks.
and vexation," as with Solomon in his old age. There are few men ,
who would not prefer a good endorser to the fair promises of most
pious neighbors.
So much for poor human nature in the abstract. Let us now look
a little into the Instinct* of Baces, the point I wish particufarly to il¬
lustrate.
Suppose we should place a hundred children of each race, Anglo-
Saxons, Monguls, Malays and Negroes, upon separate islands, and
c&use them to be reared, without any instruction, by deaf-mutes, to
adult age, what would be the inevitable result? Does any one
doubt, that like Greyhounds, Pointers, Bulldogs and Hounds, each
would follow out its natural instincts ? Each race would form its
language, its mode of thought, and, in time, would work out a social
organization peculiar to itself. Nay, more, what has been the result in
our country of educating Whites, Blacks and Indians at the same
schools? Have the instincts of the Indian or Negro been changed?
The full blooded Indian has invariably wandered off to the forest and
resumed the habits of his race. He is essentially a wild animal by
nature, untamable, unimitative, uncivilizable. The Negro, on the
contrary, is imitative, social, easily domesticated, and, as long as-kept in
subordination to a higher race, will ape to a certain extent its manners
and customs. But the Negro rises only to a certain point of imita¬
tion — his intellect permits no approach to civilization but that of
imitation, and, as soon as the race is thrown back upon itself and
separated from the whites, as in the West Indies, it becomes savage.
The instincts of race are strongly illustrated in the Chinese. They
have had their civil wars, and so cajled revolutions, for thousands of
years, but these all result in mere change of rulers. A revolution
there is like a pebble dropped in the ocean — not a dimple is left be¬
hind. The same form of government, the same mode of thought,
the same social organization, has remained stationary for ages, while
Europe has been changing like a chameleon, from the mongrel char¬
acter of its population and progressive sprit. The semi-civilization
of China and India and the savagistn of the red men of America,
have remained stereotyped for ages, while the Gipsies have been
pitching their tents in the four quarters of the globe, resisting all
climates, and all moral influences which philanthropy could bring to
bear on them. No human power can change the fiat of the Almighty.
He brought the races of men and animals into existence. He gave
Instincts of Races.
a
tlietn moral and physical laws, and all the powers of the Freedmen's
Bureau, or " gates of hell cannot prevail against them."
The Caucasian races have been the only truly progressive races of
history. They have the largest heads, the highest instincts, the most
a
comprehensive intellects have, in all ages, stood ahead of all others
in civilization and have had no competitors in literature, art and
science.
It would seem that "reason, the proud prerogative of man," is to
a great extent subservient to the instincts of races. In all depart¬
ments of knowledge into which speculation can enter, human reason
runs wild. In religion, mental and moral philosophy, the science of
government, law, political economy, etc., the attainment of absolute
or fixed laws is hopeless. The world consequently makes compara¬
tively little progress in morals, and vice simply changes its form.
What is fashion'able in one age, is not in another.
The only real progress made by mankind, is in the exact sciences,
as Chemistry, Botany, Astronomy, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy,
Mechanics, etc., which is almost Godlike, and in this the Negro, Indian,
and other inferior races, take no part whaterer. It is humiliating to
look on the infirmities even of genius. Lord Bacon in morals was
beneath contempt. Napoleon, Alexander, Csesar, Frederick the
Great, wese only great highway robbers, who trampled morals, reli¬
gion and everything under foot to attain their ends.
How can any thoughtful American doubt the overruling influence
of instinct in races ? Can more conclusive facts be asked, than those
presented to our view every day by the Whites, Negroes and Indians
in our midst?
Yesterday I clipped from a newspaper the following extract, which
tells, not only the melancholy story of one tribe of the red men, but
is a picture of the doom that awaits them all.
Remnant of an Unfortunate Tribe.— A dispatch to the St. Louis
Democrat says :
St. Joseph, March 28.—A small band of Winnebago Indians have
been encamped a few miles from this city during the winter, earning
a living by cutting wood and hunting. Some time ago they received
notice to decamp and join their red brethren in the Indian country.
To day they came into the city and employed counsel to prepare a
petition to the Government for the privilege of remaining here and
engaging in civil pursuits. This is the last remnant of this once
powerful tribe. They are broken in spirit, and say they have made
10
Instincts or Races.
their last hunt, have finished their journey, and beg the privilege of
resting here until they die. Their petition -will be forwarded to
Washington, strongly endorsed by our citizens.
In like manner, I have seen daily around Mobile for thirty years,
the remnant of the once numerous Choctaws, living in bar!? tents, as
degraded as wild beasts, and gradually dwindling* away in spite of
the best directed efforts that humanity can bring to bear on them.
To my mind, the foregoing conclusions with regard to the various
instincts and intellectual characters of races- are so self-evident, that
I feel as if a labored argument on the subject would be an insult to-
the understanding of the reader. A few centuries, or even fifty years
ago, before the various Freedmen's Bureaux had fairly commenced
their destruction of Indians and Negroes, an array of facts and argu¬
ments might, with, propriety, have been called for ; but the colonial
history of Spain, France and England, as well as the history of mis-
i
sions in Asia, Africa and Oeeanica, tell the tale of- Races,
The discussion, thus far, interests more particularly the naturalist
and moral philosopher, but the practical end to which I have been
aiming, is the question of Negro labor at the South, on which hangs the
future prosperity of the Cotton States and the destiny of the Negro
race. We see the remark quoted ever}* day that history (of the
white race) repeats itself, and there is no greater truism 5#but is the
same law applicable to the Negro race ? In my letter to General
Ho-ward, I asserted that the Negro is, by instinct, opposed to agricul¬
tural labor, and ivill not till the soil for wages, an assertion which is
proven by the history of the race in and out of Africa.
The negro tribes have had undisturbed possession of the immense
continent of Africa for thousands of years, except that portion north
of the desert of Sahara — bordering the Nile and the Mediterranean ;
and yet the black population, georgraphers tell us, does not reach
100,000,000, while China and India with vastly less territory have re¬
spectively 400,000,000 and 200,000,000. Why this enormous dif¬
ference? It is simply because the negro is not an agricultural race,
while the Chinese and Hindoos are intensely agricultural. China
and India are gardens from one extreme to the other, and all the
food that can be made, is made out of the soil. There is reason, to
believe that those countries reached their maximum of population a
thousand or two years ago, and could not increase because the soil
could feed no more. In like manner, the black population of Africa
Instincts of Hacks.
11
probably reached, its maximum quite as far back, not because the
agricultural resources of the country were exhausted, but because the
people will not cultivate cereals at all, and depend on the natural
products of the country, such as yarns, cocoa-nuts, plantains, bananas,
etc. Naftire provides on that continent food enough for seventy or
eighty millions, and beyond this, there can be no more population, as
there is no food for more.
So too, with the American Indian — he depended upon the scanty
products of the chase, to the exclusion of agriculture, and had pro¬
bably reached his maximum of population at the time the continent
was discovered by Columbus.
North America in a few centuries will have a population of more
than 1,000,000,000, and Africa might have the same, if the negro could
be driven to agricultural labor.
The same inertness which characterizes the Negro physically
characterizes him intellectually. No Negro ever invented an al¬
phabet ; and from the Great Desert to the Cape of Good Hope, no
ruined temple, no crumbling monument,' no work of art, no relic of
science, no fragment of recorded history, point to any spot in this
wide expanse as the cradle or grave of civilization.
The Negro has no excuse, but that of race, for the want of agricul¬
ture, art pid science; for he has been, from the time of Moses to
the present day, in constant intercourse with Egypt, the great
granary of antiquity and fountain, from which the civilization of
Palestine, Assyria, and Greece flowed. So much for the history of
the Negro in his native land; let us now follow him into other coun¬
tries.
When the late civil war broke out in the United States, there were
4,000,000 negroes in the country, about 500,000 of whom were free.
The slave portion was not only the best cared for, most comfort¬
able, contented, and increasing laboring population in the world, but
was more intelligent, more moral, more christianized, more useful
in the progress of civilization than this race had ever been in its
native or in foreign lands, in freedom. These facts are fully borne out
by all statistics, and will not be controverted by any unprejudiced
mind.
What, on the other hand, was the condition of the 500,000 of the
freedmen ? The professional philanthropists had done everything in
their power to educate, to humanize, to stimulate them to mental
12
Instincts of Races,
and physical activity, but all without result. No one can call the
name of a full blooded negro in this country that has ever reached
mediocrity in intellect—not one has made a discovery in science,
an invention in the mechanic arts, written or spoken a line that has
been preserved in print. "Worse than all this, they have utterly
abandoned all agricultural labor, for which they are well suited, and
are either dying' from the effects of indolence or occupied about
towns as boot blacks, scavengers, waiters in hotels and steam¬
boats, and other positions subordinate to the whites. I have never
known a free negro family in the United States to settle on a farm
and till the soil successfully from year to year. He will sometimes,
driven by dire necessity, cultivate a little garden spot to avoid star¬
vation, but his immediate wants are poorly supplied, and he never
accumulates property by agriculture.
What has been the history of the colony of Liberia, on which so
much sentiment, so much thought, so much energy, and so much
money have been spent ? Missionaries and school-masters have done
their best; and at the end of half a century, the experiment has prov¬
ed such a dead failure, that it is now talked of as a dream of mis¬
directed philanthrophy.
Knowing that authentic portraits of races, addressed to the sense
of sight would be much more satisfactory to the reade# than any
written description, a short time since, I "wrote to Messrs. J. B. Lip-
pincott & Co., Philadelphia, publishers of Nott and Gliddon's " Types
of Mankind," requesting them to send me copies of several plates
used in that work. They very obligingly sent the four which will be
found below, and which came to hand since the foregoing part of
this essay was written. Instead of giving them somewhat as a
postscript, I might have worked them into the text to greater ad¬
vantage, but I am writing against time to oblige the Editors who are
now waiting for my copy.
*
These drawings, which all date back to about the same epoch, viz:
1500 years before Christ, are taken from the great works of Cham-
pollion, Rosellini, Lepsius, and Belzoni, and are perfectly authen¬
ticated portraits of races of men at that date. It is equally Gertain
that these and all the other races that lived around the Mediterranean,
live there still, and have preserved their types without change for
3300 years. Nor is it less certain that these various races, Egyptians,
Nubians, Arabs, Negroes, Tartars, JeAvs, Assyrians, and others, may
Instincts of Races.
18
be traced distinctly one or two thousand years farther back; but on
this I will not insist as the chronology of Egypt is not accurately de¬
termined, for monuments earlier than 1500 years, B. C. This date
too, it should be remembered, is placed in the 18th Egyptian dy¬
nasty; and' the reader may well believe that these dynasties occupied a
long vista of time. Lepsius, the best authority we have, places the
epoch of Menes, the first of the Pharaohs, at 3893, B. C. !!!
The first drawing given below, is a very curious and interesting
one, as it not only proves the diversity of races 3300 years before
Christ, but the fact that the ancient Egyptians had the same ma¬
terial and used it much as we do for the classification of mankind.
There are on the monuments several similar tableaux, but we shall
select the celebrated scene from the tomb of one of the Pharaohs,
seti maneptha i (generally called "'Belzoni's tomb," at Thebes) of the
XlXth dynasty, about 1500 B. C. The Egytian god Horus, is seen
conducting to the King sixteen personages in four groups, and each
group of four representing a distinct type of the human famjjy, as
known to the Egyptians of that day. The above figures, which may
be seen colored, in plates on a folio scale in the great works of Bel-
zoni, Champollion, Rossellini, Lepsius and others, are copied for con¬
venience from the smaller work of Champollion Eigeac. They dis¬
play the Rot, Namu, Nashu and Tamheu, as the hieroglyphic in¬
scription terms them, or in plain English the red (Egyptian)—the
yellow, the black, and the white races, antedating the epoch of Moses.*
* For full details see " Types of Mankind," pp. 84-5 6
u
Instincts of Hacks.
The following group is traced upon a faithful reduction by Cheru¬
bim. It represents a double file of Negroes and Nubians, bound and
driven before the chariot of Rameses the II, at Aboosimbel.
In the original, the Nubians are painted of a dark cinnamon
color, and the negroes black, showing that these two races presented
the exact physical types then that they do in our day, dft the banks
of the Nile.
Next below, we given two unmistakable portraits ; the one a negro,
the other an Asiatic, selected from a well drawn group of nine, in the
act of being smitten by King Seti I, at Karnac. No one can fail to
recognize the Negro and Semitic types, which also date about 1500
Instincts of Races.
15
The last drawing, given below, equally weE authenticated as the
others, is one of the many proofs that negro slavery existed in Egypt
more than three thousand years ago! An Egyptian scribe, colored red
(the color of Egyptians) is seen registering the black slaves, of whom
males, females and children are represented. The latter with the
little tufts of wool upon their heads, whEe a leopard's skin around
the first negro's loins, is grotesquely twisted so as to make the
animal's tail belong to its human wearer.
In connection with this scene, which is taken from a monument at
Thebes, Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, an established authority, remarks :
"It is evident that both white and black slaves were employed as
servants ; they attended on guests when invited to the house o^heir
master ; and from their being in the famEies of priests, as well as of
the mEitary chiefs, we may infer that they were purchased with
money, and that the right of possessing slaves, was not confined to
those who had taken them in war. The traffic in slaves was tolerated
by the Egyptians, and it is reasonable to suppose, that many persons
were engaged, as at present, in bringing them to Egypt for public sale,
independent of those who were sent as part of the tribute, and who
were probably, at first, the property of the monarch ; nor did any
16
Instincts of Races.
difficulty occur to the Ishmaelites in the purchase of Joseph from his
brethren, nor in his subsequent sale to Potiphar on arriving in
Egypt."
We might thus go on and add numberless portraits of negro Races ;
represented on the Egyptian monuments as slaves, prisoners of war,
as fugitives, or slain in large battle scenes, etc., all proving that as
far back as the XVII dynasty, B. C. 1600, they existed as distant na¬
tions, above Egypt. The same profusion of portraits of the other
races, above alluded to, are also seen on the monuments, equally
faithfully portrayed.
The limits of our essay will not permit additional examples or ar¬
guments on the permanency of human types ; but it would be useless
to attempt further argument with one who doubts, even after these
few well authenticated facts. Nor, if it be admitted that the physical
type, instincts, habits and intellect of the Negro have been the same
for three thousand years, is it anything short of cruelty and folly for
the Freedmen's Bureau to attempt to change this work of the Al¬
mighty. ? " Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his
spots," is the language of Scripture, and proclaims a physical law
over which man has no control.
I have given some reasons for the opinion that the Negro is, by
instinct, opposed to agricultural labor, and that this instinct can never
be overcome except in slavery. As it saves me much trouble in col¬
lecting facts, I will conclude in my next with copious extracts, illus¬
trative of his agricultural history, from the pamphlet at the head of
our article.
I am aware that very flattering' accounts are coming in Rom all
quarters, lo the effect, that the Negroes are working well, and that a
largJ^crop of cotton in 1866 will be the result. At forty to fifty
cents per pound for cotton, it is possible that the Negro may, for a
time, be stimulated to some degree of industry, but I am perfectly
willing to stake what little reputation I may have upon the assertion,
that the Negro must fail as an agriculturalist, that the race will be
gradually exterminated in this country, that they will deteriorate
morally and intellectually, and that we must look to other sources of
labor to produce the great staples of the Gulf States.
Instincts of Hacks.
17
The object has been to show from the physical and civil history of
mankind, that the unadulterated Races, such as the Whites, the Ne¬
groes, the Mongols, and American Indians are "Permanent Varieties,'"
possessing moral and physical traits which are unchangeable from
any known causes, so long as the race is kept pure, to say the least,
during the lifetime of a nation — that each type has its peculiar in¬
stincts and adaptations, which cannot be obliterated by climate or
Freedmen's Bureaux—and that governments can never legislate
wisely, without giving due consideration to these important facts.
That the White men, Indians and Negroes, now on the continent^
of America, will preserve their respective types, like Bulldogs, Grey¬
hounds, and Foxhounds, if the blood is not mixed, no sane man can
doubt. The instincts always have, and always will, follow the types,
and when a superior race is adulterated by an inferior, it never fails
to produce a worthless mongrel.
The leading object of this essay was to prove that the negro is in¬
stinctively opposed to agricultural labor, and the remainder of it will
be taken up almost exclusively with extracts from the pamphlet al¬
luded to at the beginning, on " Free Negroism."
It may be objected that "such kind of stuff" does not properly
find a place in a scientific journal; but, on the other hand, it must
be remembered that man's civil history is a part of his natural his¬
tory, and that a faithful picture of a race cannot be drawn without
including with the physical the moral and intellectual history, habits,
actions, etc. This subject is not one for mere idle speculation and
curious scientific research—it is one of immense practical interest
to the people of the United States at this time, and it our duty calm¬
ly to enquire what is to be the future of the white and black races
of this continent.
The teachings of Ethnology have been fully vindicated imthe his¬
tory of the American Indians, and it requires no prophetic visiofi to
see that our country is destined soon to complete the sad story of
negro slavery and negro emancipation, so well elucidated by the
experience of the West India Islands.
Dr. Franklin was the leader, backed by a number of the best and
wisest men of Pennsylvania, of a benevolent association in Philadel¬
phia, whose object was to "form a plan for the promotion of industry,
intelligence and morality among the free blacks."
Its utter failure is shown in the report of another benevolent as¬
sociation, \\z., the "Boston Prison-discipline Society," forty-seven
3
IS
Instincts of Backs.
years after, in its first annual report, in 1826, which shows by sta¬
tistics, that from one-third to one-half of the convicts in the prisons
at the North were free blacks and mulattoes, though the colored
population formed but a small portion of the whole. This report
says, " The first cause existing in society, of the frequency and in¬
crease of crime, is the degraded character of the colored population.
The facts which are gathered from the Penitentiaries, show how great
a proportion of the convicts are colored, even in those States "where
the colored population is small, and prove most strikingly the con¬
nection between ignorance and vice." The report might have added,
that all efforts at educating the negroes to any useful extent, in
Africa and America, had failed, and there has been no improvement
in their prison or almshouse statistics from the time of the first
emancipation act in Pennsylvania to the present day.
The Colonization Society, which was put in operation by some of
our ablest and most patriotic men, is but an outgrowth of this eman¬
cipation failure.
It became evident that the idle and vicious negro population were
becoming an incubus on our society, and that the attempt to improve
their morals and habits of industry was hopeless. It was moreover
evident that there was an antagonism of races unfriendly to the pro¬
gress of the blacks while among us ; and it was therefore thought
best to send them back to Africa, where their native clime "liberty,
equality and fraternity," together with the fostering care of philan¬
thropic societies, missionaries, etc., would all combine to give them
such advantages as no infant colony ever had before. But what has
been the result ? Let the utter failure of Liberia tell the tale. So
signal had been the failure of abolitionism in benefiting either the
blacks or the whites, that the progress of its party was stayed for a
time, until, as Mr. Seward tells us, they at last had reared "a gener¬
ation educated to hate slavery." They cried, but no one listened.
They expostulated, but the public heeded them not. The freed ne¬
groes of the North were a standing monument to the folly of aboli¬
tionism. They had not progressed, or shown themselves active, en¬
terprising members of society. They would black boots, whitewash,
and do other menial offices, and they would hold conventions and
pass ridiculous resolutions, hut as for clearing up lands and settling
themselves in independent circumstances, they would not. In 1852 Ger-
rit Smith, who has done more for freed blacks than any other man,
for he gave all who would accept them, free homes, on his lands.
instincts of rapes.
19
complained in a letter to Governor Hunt "that the most of
them preferred to vol, both physically and morally, in cities, rather
than become farmers or mechanics in the country." -His own exper¬
iment with them resulted in signal failure. Even Horace Greely, in
a moment of apparent forgetfulness, declared in the Tribune, Sep¬
tember 22d, 1855, that "nine-tenths of the free blacks have no idea
of setting themselves to work except as the hirelings or servitors of
white men; no idea of building a church or other serious enterprise,
except through beggary of the whites. As a class, the blacks are in¬
dolent, improvident, servile and licentious."
The free colored population before the war were — in New Eng¬
land, 23,021; in New Y )rk, 50,000; in the little State of Maryland,
84,000 !; in Pennsylvania, 46,000. Altogether the free colored pop¬
ulation of the United States was about half a million; and how, let
us ask, were they employed? No where regularly in agricultural
labor!
We quote from the pamphlet under review: "When emancipa¬
tion took place in Jamaica, in 1834, it was loudly heralded that free
labor in the West Indies would soon render " slavery " entirely un¬
profitable in the United States. Mr. Birney encouraged his followers
with this hope, and William Lloyd Garrison even made the confident
prediction that the * American slave system must inevitably perish
from starvation.' George Thompson, the English abolitionist, >vho
came over to this country about that time to fan the flame of anti-
Southern agitation, declared that ' soon all slave-labor cotton would
be repudiated by the English manufacturers.' The labor of free ne¬
groes was to accomplish all this, for it was presumed that freedom
would give an impetus to production, and that the enterprise and in¬
dustry of the freed black men would soon far outstrip the resources
of those countries where " the unprofitable and expensive system of
slave-labor" was still adhered to. The millenium was thus, in.1833,
but just a step ahead of the abolitionists. They had almost clutch¬
ed the El Dorado of negro perfection. But alas! for their confident
anticipations and positive predictions. In six years the answer came,
and it was as follows: In 1800 the West Indies exported 17,000,000
lb. of cotton, and the United States 17,789,803 lb. They were thus
at this time about equally productive. In 1840 the West Indies ex¬
ported only 866,157 lb. of cotton, while the United States exported
743,941,061 lb.! Instead, therefore, of the "American system dying
of starvation," as Garrison predicted, or of the British spinners re-
20
Instincts of Hacks.
fusing to use 'slave-grown' cotton, England went right,011 manufac¬
turing 'slave-grown' cotton, while her "philanthropists," to keep up
the delusion, began to talk about raising cotton in Africa, by free ne¬
gro labor there, and they have kept on talking about it, and all the
while using the productions of " slave labor."
The history of Hayti is but a repetition of the same tale. This
island, one of the most fertile spots on the globe, contains 27,000
square miles. It is difficult to arrive at the exact population, as
negroes nowhere keep statistics, but it was known in 1790, under the
French government, to contain about half a million; and, according
to the best estimates, there has been little or no increase in the last
seventy-five years. About 38,000 of the population under the
French regime were whites.
Hayti was in high tide of prosperity at the time of the revolution^
which terminated in the act of emancipation, in 1793. Every one is
familiar with her relapse, under black rule, into African barbarism;
and the following statistics will speak for themselves, as to the in¬
stinctive horror of the negro for agricultural labor.
In 1790 the value of the exports from Hayti was $27,828,000, the
principal productions being as follows:
Sugar.... 163,405,220 lb.
Coffee 68,151,180 *'
Cotton. . .! 6,286,126 "
Indigo 930,016 "
In 1849, the latest date of which we have any reliable statistics,
and sixty years after emancipation, the exports of the above named
articles were as follows:
Sugar None.
Coffee • 30,608,343 lb.
Cotton 544,516 "
Indigo None.
As negroes keep no statistics, it is impossible to ascertain with ac¬
curacy the present value of the exports, but, from the best informa¬
tion attainable, it can reach little beyond $1,000,000; though Mr.
Sumner places it, in one of his speeches, at about $2,500,000.
Mr. Underhill, on the spot, could get no statistics.
" In order to show the present condition of Hayti more fully, we.
quote from a work just published in London, entitled The West In-
Instincts of Racks.
21
dies — their Moral and'Social Condition. The author, Mr. E. B. Un¬
derbill, was sent out by the Baptist Missionary Society of London,
and is an abolitionist of the deepest dye. While finding all the ex¬
cuses he can for the decay of the island, he is forced to own the
truth. He describes his journey to Port au Prince as follows:
' We passed by many or through many abandoned plantations, the
buildings in ruin, the sugar-mills decayed, and the iron pans strewing
the roadside, cracked and broken. But for the law that forbids, on pain
of confiscation, the export of all metals, they would long ago have
been sold to foreign merchants.
' Only once in this long ride did we come upon a mill in use; it
was grinding canes, in order to manufacture the syrup from which
tafia is made, a kind of inferior rum, the intoxicating drink of the
country. The mill was worked by a large over-shot or water-wheel,
the water being brought by an aqueduct from a very considerable
distance. With the exception of a few banana-gardens, or small
patches of maize round the cottages, nowhere did this magnificent
and fertile plain show signs of cultivation.
'In the time of the French occupation before the revolution of
1793, thousands of hogsheads of sugar were produced; now, not one.
All is decay and desolation. The pastures are deserted, and the
prickly pear covers the land once laughing with the bright hues of
the sugar-cane.
'The hydraulic works, erected at vast expense for irrigation, have
crumbled to dust. The plow is an unknown implement of culture, al¬
though so eminently adapted to the great plains and deep soil of
Hayti.
' A country so capable of producing for export, and therefore for
the enrichment of its people—besides sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco,
the cacao-bean, spices, every tropical fruit, and many of the fruits of
Europe -—lies uncultivated, unoccupied, and desolate. Its rich mines
are neither explored nor worked; and its beautiful woods rot in the
soil where they grow. A little logwood is exported, but ebony, ma¬
hogany, and the finest building timber rarely fall before the wood¬
man's axe, and then only for local use. The present inhabitants
despise all servile labor, and are, for the most part, content with the
spontaneous productions of the soil and forest.'' "
Jamaica affords but a repetition of the same story. It contains
4,000,000 acres, and is the largest and most valuable of the British
West India Islands. The census of 1861 gives the following figures:
whites, 13,816; mulattoes, .81,065; negroes, 346,374. The whole
number of persons who can read is set down at 80,724, and 50,726
;as able to read and write. It will be seen from this that over 300,-
000 can neither read nor write. Education is evidently confined to
the whites and mulattoes. In the holy name of Sumner, what has
the evangelical "Freedmen's Bureau" been doing! Why have not
these darkies been whitewashed ?
22
Instincts of Ji.\< ;;s.
Agriculture, the useful arts and education always go hand in hand.
No people that refuses to labor in agriculture, commerce and the
mechanic arts, can be driven to education.
In 1805 the products of Jamaica were as follows:
Sugar 150,352 hhds.
Rum. 46,837 punch.
Pimento 1,041,540 ft*.
Coffee 17,961,923 "
The very year after the act of gradual emancipation, which was in
1833, the products of the island began to diminish. The decrease
went on steadily, until the following are the returns for the year
1856;
Sugar 25,920 hhds.
Rum 14,470 punch.
Pimento 6,848,622 lb.
Coffee 3,328,147 lb.
The only crop that had increased was that of pimento, or allspice.
As the plantations were abandoned, they became overrun with this
tree, and the negro women and children picked the berries, as our
Indians do blackberries, without the trouble of cultivation.
The coffee tree, to a certain extent, is like the pimento, and grows
wild in many places. Hence the production of coffee has not fallen
off in the same proportion as that of sugar, which can be produced
only by careful and laborious cultivation. Tbe coffee crop, however,
in 1813, before the overthrow of slave labor, was 34,045,5851b., but
the average crop of the past ten years has not been over 5,000,000 lb.;
while the sugar crop had fallen in 1853 as low as 20,000 hhds.; and
were it not for the small white population in Jamaica, as in Hayti,
there would not be a single hogshead of sugar produced!
" The rapidity with which estates have been abandoned in Jamaica,
and the decrease in the taxable property of the island, is also as¬
tounding. The movable and immovable property of Jamaica was
once estimated at £50,000,000, or nearly $250,000,000. In 1850 the
assessed valuation had fallen to £11,500,000. In 1851 it was reduced
to £9,500,000, and Mr. Westmoreland, in a speech in the Jamaica
House of Assembly, stated it was believed that the falling off would
be £2,000,000 more in 1852. From a report made to the House of
Assembly of the number and extent of the plantations abandoned
during the years 1848, '49, '50, '51 and '52, we gather the following
facts:
Sugar-estates abandoned, 128
" " partially abandoned, 71
Coffee-plantations abandoned,. 96
" " partially abandoned, 66
Instincts of Backs.
23
" The total number of acres thus thrown out of cultivation in five
years was 391,187 1 This is only a sample, for the same process lias
been going on ever since emancipation. In the five years immedi¬
ately succeeding emancipation, the abandoned estates stood as
follows:
Sugar-estates, 140 168,082 acres.
Coffee-plantations, 465 188,400 "
"These plantations employed 49,383laborers, whose industry was,
therefore, at once lost to the world, and the articles they had raised
were just so much substracted from consumption. The price of these
articles, sugar and coffee, was increased on account of the diminished
production, and that increased cost represented the tax which the
world paid for the privilege of allowing Sambo to loll in idleness.
The Cyclopaedia of Commerce says, 'that the negro israyndly receding
into a savage state, and that unless there is a large and immediate
supply of immigrants, all society will come to a speedy end, and the
island become a second Hayti.'
" Such, then, is the condition of Jamaica, as stated in an impartial
work. Let us hear now what the London Times candidly owns up
to. It says:
' There is no blinking the truth. Years of bitter experience, years
of hope deferred, of self-devotion unrequited, of prayers unanswer¬
ed, of sufferings derided, of insults unresented, of contumely pa¬
tiently endured, have convinced us of the truth. It must be spoken
out loudly and energetically, despite the wild mocking-; of ' howling
cant.' The freed West India slave will not till the soil for wages; the
free son of the ex-slave is as obstinate as his sire. He will not cul¬
tivate lands which he has not bought for his own. Yams, mangoes
and plantains —these satisfy his wants; he cares not for yours. Cot¬
ton, sugar, coffee and tobacco he cares but little for. And what mat¬
ters it to him that the Englishman has sunk his thousands and tens
of thousands on mills, machinery and plants, which now totter on
the languishing estate that for years has only returned him beggary
and debt ? He eats his yams and sniggers at ' Buckra.' We know
not why this should be, but so it is. The negro has been bought
with a price—the price of English taxation and English toil. He
has been redeemed from bondage by the sweat and travail of some mil¬
lions of hard-working Englishmen. Twenty millions of pounds ster¬
ling— one hundred millions of dollars—have been distilled from the
brains and muscles of the free English laborer, of every degree, to
fashion the West India negro into a ' free, independent laborer/
' Free and independent' enough he has become, God knows, but
laborer he is not; and, so far as we can see, never will be. He will
sing hymns and quote texts, but honest, steady industry he not only
detests but despises.'
" Such is the testimony of the London Times—such the universal
evidence of every candid individual. How different is this picture
from that predicted by the abolitionists. The Rev. Dr. Channing,
the Dr. Cheever of that day, made the following prophecy in 1833,
as the result of emancipation:
24
Instincts of Hacks,
' The planters, in general, would suffer little, if at all, from eman¬
cipation. This change would make them richer, rather than poorer.
One would think, indeed, from the common language on the subject,
that the negroes were to be annihilated by being set free; that the
whole labor of the South was to be destroyed by a single blow. But
the colored man, when freed, will not vanish" from the soil. He will
stand there with the same muscles as before, only strung anew by
liberty; with the same limbs to toil, and with stronger motives to toil
than before. He will work from hope, not fear; will work for him¬
self, not for others; and unless all the principles of human nature
are reversed under a black skin, he will work better than before. We
believe that agriculture will revive, our worn-out soils will be renew¬
ed, and the whole country assume a brighter aspect under free labor.'
"Ex-Governor Wood, of Ohio, who paid a visit to Jamaica in
1853, and who is no friend to 'slavery,' says:
' Since the blacks have been liberated, they have become indolent,
insolent, degraded and dishonest. They are a rude, beastly set of
vagabonds, lying naked about the streets, as filthy as the Hottentots,
and I believe worse. On getting to the wharf of Kingston, the first
thing, the blacks of both sexes, perfectly naked, come swarming about
the boat, and would dive for small pieces of coin that were thrown
by the passengers. On entering the city, the stranger is annoyed to
death by black beggars at every step, and you must often show him
your pistol or an uplifted cane, to rid yourself of their importuni¬
ties.'
" Sewell, in his work on the Ordeal of Free Labor, in which he de¬
fends emancipation, and pleads for still more extended privileges to
the blacks, says of Kingston:
' There is not a house in decent repair; not a wharf in good order;
no pavement, no sidewalk, no drainages, and scanty water; no light.
There is nothing like work done. Wreck and ruin, destitution and
neglect. The inhabitants, taken en masse, are steeped to the eyelids
in immorality. The population shows unnatural decrease. Illegiti¬
macy exceeds legitimacy. Nothing is replaced that time destroys.
If a brick tumbles from a house to the street, it remains there. If a
spout is loosened by the wind, it hangs by a thread till it falls; if
furniture is accidently broken, the idea of having it mended is not
entertained. A God-forsaken place, without life or energy, old, dila¬
pidated, sickly, filthy, cast away from the anchorage of sound moral¬
ity, of reason and of common sense. Yet this wretched hulk is the
capital of an island the most fertile in the world. It is blessed with
a climate the most glorious ; it lies rotting in the shadow of moun¬
tains that can be cultivated from summit to base with every product
of tropic and temperate region. It is the mistress of a harbor
wherein a thousand line of battle ships can ride safely at anchor.'
"We might fill a volume with such quotations, showing the steady
decline of the Island. But it is well to note the moral condition of
the negro. The American Missionary Association is the strongest
kind of abolition testimony in regard to the moral condition of the
negroes. The American Missionary, a monthly paper, and organ of
the Association, for July, 1855, has the following quotation from the
letters of one of the missionaries:
Instincts or Races..
25
c A man here may be a drunkard, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker, a profane
man, a fornicator, an adulterer, and each like —and be known to be such
— and go to, chapel and hold up his head there, and feel no disgrace from
these things, because they are so common as to. create a public senti¬
ment in his favor. He may go to the communion-table, and cherish
a hope of heaven, and not have his hope disturbed. I might tell of
persons, guilty of some, if not all of these things, ministering in
holy things.'
" The report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society,
for 1853, p. 170, says of the negroes:
"Their moral condition is very far from being what it ought to be.
It is exceedingly dark and distressing. Licentiousness prewils to a
most alarm ing! extent among the people^ ******** *
The almost universal prevalence of intemperance is another prolific
source of the moral darkness and degredation of the people. The
great mass among all classes of the inhabitants, from the governor
in his palace to the peasant in his hut—-from the bishop in his gown
to the beggar in his rags—-are all slaves to their cups."
" So much for " freedom " elevating the blacks. It is complained
that the marriage relation is not always regarded where "slavery "
exists, but it would seem from this statement, that " slavery " had
done more for the moral improvement of the negro, in this respect,
than he was at all disposed to do for himself."
Such is the melancholy history of Hayti and Jamaica, the two
grandest islands of the Antilles, and such is. the history of all the
rest where emancipation has been imposed. Here might we close
the picture, had not Trinidad and Barbadoes been held up by des¬
perate abolitionists, as evidence of the success of emancipation.
Again we take their own evidence, as we have in all we have said
about the West Indies, to disprove their one-sided assertions.
Mr. Underhill says: "Three years after emancipation in 1841,
the condition of the island was deplorable; the laborers had, for the
most part, abandoned the estates and taken possession of plots of
vacant lands, especially in the vicinity of the towns, without pur¬
chase or lawful right. Yagrancy had become an alarming habit of
great numbers." In short, he tells us that every thing went on here
as in Hayti and Jamaica.
" With the help of Vagrant Acts and other legislative enactments,
somewhat like order was established; and the introduction of Coolie
labor has enabled Trinidad to recover from the state of poverty into
which it has been plunged. The island, however, has been compel¬
led to burden itself with a debt of $725,000, on account of the ex¬
penses of the Coolie slave-trade, which is disguised under the name
of apprenticeship.
"According to Lord Harris, one-fourth of the entire negro popu¬
lation of Trinidad, in 1850, were living in idleness. Estates were-
wholly abandoned, and poverty stalked abroad. The Coolie labor
4
26
Instincts of Races.
arrested this downward tendency. Between 1847 and 1856, 47,739
Coolies were introduced into the West India possessions of Great
Britain, the greater portion going to Trinidad and Guiana. These
47,739 protests against the idleness of the negro, have about
doubled the production of sugar in Trinidad-—raising it from 20,000
to 40,000 hogsheads. But no thanks to the negro for this. It is
none of his doings. Mr. Underbill declares that not one-fourth of
the persons employed on the estates are negroes. Hence this in¬
crease in the sugar production of Trinidad is no evidence of the
benefit of emancipation, but just the reverse.
" The case of Barbadoes is still more emphatic, though the abo¬
litionists are never tired of referring to that island as the proof pos¬
itive of the success of 'free negro labor.' How, what is Barbadoes?
Well, it is a small island, about large enough for a good-sized water¬
melon patch. It is about 21 miles long by 14 wide, and contains
100,000 acres of land, all told. It has 150,000 inhabitants, and is
more thickly settled than China. There is not an acre of wild or
unimproved land; not room, as Trollope says, 'for a pic-nic.' This
land is monopolized by the whites; and, Under a rigid system of va¬
grant laws, the black is compelled to work. If an idle negro is seen,
he is set to work, at wages, or else compelled to drag a ball and
chain on the highways. Mr. Trollope says: ' When emancipation
came, there was no squatting ground for the poor Barbadian. He
had still to work and make sugar—-work quite as hard as he had
done while yet a slave. He had to do that or to starve. Conse¬
quently, labor has been abundant in this island only.' Now, how
this ' capsizes' all the stuff the anti-slaveryites tell us about Barba¬
does ! Not long since there appeared in the Independent, of this
city, an article glorifying emancipation as it had affected Barbadoes.
Gov. Hinks, of that island, published a letter in proof of it, and in
it occurs this remarkable admission \
' In Barbadoes, I have explained already that wages have ranged
from 1(M. to Is. per task, and that rate prevails generally# In addi¬
tion to these wages, a small allotment of land is usually given, but
on a most uncertain tenure. The laborer may be ejected at any
time on a few days' notice, and he is subjected to penalties for not
working on the estate.' "
The author very properly remarks: " The negroes have simply
changed masters, and are now in a worse condition than under the
old system."
Now, by way of contrast, let us see what Mr. Underhill says about
Havana, the port of a slave-labor island:
" It is the busiest and most prosperous of all the cities of the An¬
tilles. Its harbor is one of the finest in the world, and is crowded
with shipping. Its wharves and warehouses are piled with merchan¬
dise, and the general aspect is one of great commercial activity. Its
exports nearly reach the annual value of nine millions sterling
($45,000,000), and the customs furnish an annual tribute to the
mother country over and above the cost of government and military
occupation. Eight thousand ships annually resort to the harbor of
Cuba."
Instincts of Races.
27
" Evidently Mr. Underhill had got into a new world. He saw it,
and was struck with the contrast it presented to the dilapidated re¬
gion he had just left. In order to show the contrast between the
progress of Cuba, and the decline of Jamaica, it is only necessary to
give a few statistics. The value of the exports of Jamaica, in 1809,
were greater than those of Cuba in 1826, and a comparison of the
two islands gives the following:
Jamaica, in 1809, $15,166,000
Cuba, in 1826,.. 13,809,388
Jamaica, in 1854, 4,480,661
Cuba, in 1854, 31,683,731
" What a picture is this of free negroism! What can the aboli¬
tionist, who prates of free negroes laboring, say to these facts and
figures? Cuba has been just as steadily advancing as Jamaica has
beeii retrograding.
" The productiveness of Cuba is most astonishing. Her exports
are more per head than those of any other country on the face of tho
globe. Her export and import trade for 1859 was as follows :*
Exports for 1859 $57,455,185
Imports for 1859 43,465,185
Showing an excess of exports over imports of $13,989,506
"Now, the population of Cuba is only about one million and a
half, all told, black and white. Upon analyzing the above figures,
then, it will be seen that the exports of Cuba amount to about $40
per head for each man, woman and child on the island! At the
same time it should be noted that this great production is not all
exchanged for articles imported, but there is a net income or surplus
of exports over imports of $13,989,506.
" This net surplus of Wealth amounts to $9.32 cents for each man,
woman and child in Cuba. No other country in the world can pre¬
sent such a picture of prosperity, and yet Cuba is by no means as
productive as she might be. Through a mistaken policy, or suppos¬
ed kindness to the negro, manumissions are easily procured, and
freed negroes are multiplying so rapidly that her welfare will, ere
long, be very seriously impaired, unless the evil be checked."
I might thus go on and fill a volume with such evidence from anti-
slavery authorities, but it could add nothing to the strength of the
argument, and I fear that I have already wearied the patience of the
Medical reader, who does not look, in a Journal of Medical Science,
for material of this description; but I could not otherwise illustrate
the leading point in view, viz., the instinctive disinclination of the negro
to agricultural labor.
In a preceding part of this article, I have given the faithfiil por-*
traits of negroes from the ancient monuments of Egypt, dating back
1500 years B. C., and it would be an easy matter to add many more,
with facts in abundance, to carry the existence of negro races one or
two thousand years further back. The negro then has remained for
* Balanza general del Commercio de la Isla de Cuba en 1859. Habana : 1861.
28
Instincts of Races.
at least 3500 years what God made him, and Exeter Halls and
Freedmen's Bureaux cannot change his type. His black skin, woolly
head, anatomical structure, small brain, inferior intellect, and instinc¬
tive dislike to, agricultural labor, have characterized the race through
this long lapse of time, and will continue to do so, until the Creator,
in his wisdom,, shah order- otherwise.,
I have none: but the kindest feeling towards the Freedmen, and
have perhaps done them as many real kindnesses as any member of
the Freedmen's Bureau ; but I shall continue to oppose all utopian
ideas and schemes, which, must end in anything but benefit to. them..