The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

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"How long does it take to come here from Mecca?" once asked a native
of an Arab Sheik, who went out hawking some charms in the course of a
religious tour. "Oh, more than a month," answered the unsuspecting
Moslem. "A month!" exclaimed the intended convert. "Yes." "And you
have come all that distance to help us with these things?" "Yes."
"Then you must have paid quite a lot of money for your passage?"
"Quite a lot." "And I dare say, you must have only a little money left
now?" pursued the native. "Oh, yes, that's why I am selling these
potent charms so cheaply, because I wish to raise money to go back
home," confessed the true believer. "But how is that?" queried the
native; "if, as you say, these charms can make a poor man become rich,
how is it that you did not stay in Mecca and use them yourself to
become rich instead of coming all the way here to sell them to get
money?"

As this attitude towards charms, which is typical of the Sherbro
natives, shows that they are not a fetish worshipping people, it can
hardly be supposed that the _nomolis_ are relics of that superstition.
If this were the case, it could easily be suggested by those who wish
to discredit the race that the images might have been made by members
of some foreign race and exported to the "heathen," who are supposed
to delight in "bowing down to wood and stone," a sort of execution to
order. This should be quite possible, because it was recently
discovered that a certain London firm did a thriving business in idols
with China; and it has even been suggested that the _nomolis_ were
imported into Sherbroland from Phoenicia.

But such a contingency being ruled out of court, in view of the
Sherbro native's antipathy to idol worship, we must look for an
explanation of the origin of the _nomoli_ to one other feature in the
customs of Sherbroland. The Sherbros have a custom almost similar to
that of the Timnis, a kindred people. The latter are given to ancestor
worship. At the burial of a Timni, a few stones are placed upon the
grave, and after three days, when the spirit of the deceased is
supposed to have entered into the stones, they are removed to a little
shrine in the porch of the family house. The spirit then becomes a
guardian angel, and offerings are made at the shrine from day to day.
The Sherbros also make use of stones for the reception of the spirits
of their departed ones, but not with a view to ancestor worship. If a
Sherbro happened to die away from home, which is considered a great
calamity, the remains are either exhumed and brought back to the old
familiar scenes, or, if the distance be too great, three stones are
taken to the last resting place and, after three days in the case of a
male, or four days in the case of a female, the spirit is supposed to
have entered the stones, and the latter are brought to the old town
and _buried_.

Is it not possible, then, that the _nomolis_ are real pictures of some
ancient Sherbro men and women, and that these people, dying away from
"home, sweet home," their images, after having supposedly received
their spirits, were interred in the old homeland? I believe the Rev.
Dr. Hayford in his "Ethiopia Unbound" suggests that Ethiopia or
Negrodom was once the mistress of the world; that much-talked-of Egypt
was but a province of hers, and the pharaohs not real kings, but
merely governors sent from the mother country. If this be true, might
it not be that some of these _nomolis_ are sculptures of eminent men
and women, natives of the region now known as Sherbroland, who went to
far-away Egypt as Empire builders, lost their lives in the land of the
sphynx; and, since distance prevented the return of their bodies,
their busts, after receiving their imperishable parts, were brought
back home and buried with due solemnity "under the stately walls of
Troy?"

WALTER L. EDWIN

SIERRA LEONE, WEST AFRICA

DOCUMENTS

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NEGROES OF LOUISIANA

To present a broad view of the Negroes concerned in this and the
subsequent series of documents we have given below accounts appearing
from decade to decade, written by men of different classes and of
various countries. Some received one impression and some another, as
the situation was viewed from different angles. In the mass of
information, however, there is the truth which one may learn for
himself.

CONSIDERATIONS SUR L'ESCLAVAGE; NEGRES LIBRES; MULATRES DE LA
LOUISIANE, 1801

L'esclavage, le plus grand de tous les maux necessaires, soit
relativement a ceux qui l'endurent, soit par rapport a ceux qui
sont contraints d'en employer les victimes, existe dans toute
l'etendue des deux Louisianes. Il ne seroit pas facile de
determiner pendant combien d'annees la partie septentrionale en
aura besoin; mais on peut assurer qu'il doit exister bien des
siecles encore dans le Midi si le Gouvernement veut y encourager
l'agriculture, qui est son unique ressource. Les Negres seuls
peuvent se livrer aux travaux dans ces climats brulans: le Blanc
qui y perit jeune malgre toutes sortes de menegemens, ne feroit
qu s'y montrer s'il etoit oblige d'y cultiver son champ de ses
propres mains. Pour tirer parti de cette colonie, l'on doit donc
proteger l'importation des Negres qui y sont en trop petit
nombre; mais il est en meme temps de l'interet du Gouvernement,
de veiller a ce que les habitans n'y abusent pas du pouvoir que
la loi et droit de propriete leur donnent.

Apres la cruelle experience de Saint-Domingue, qui probablement
aura ouvert les yeux de tous ces philantropes qui ne comptent
pour rien la prosperite des empires, lorsqu'elle semble etre en
contradiction avec ces sentimens d'humanite, dont ils feignent
souvent d'avoir ete doues par la nature; je suis loin d'engager
aucun gouvernement a relacher les liens de l'esclavage: on doit
les laisser subsister dans leur integrite, ou perdre les
colonies. Cependant doivent-ils negliger cette branche
d'administration et s'en rapporter aveuglement aux proprietaires,
qui paroissent avoir un interet direct a menager leurs esclaves?
C'est ce que je suis loin de croire. Les passions agissent trop
fortement sur le coeur des hommes, pour ne pas en restreindre la
vivacite par des reglemens sages; leur interet meme souvent
mal-entendu les aveugle sur leurs propres avantages. L'avarice
crie a l'un que ses esclaves mal vetus et mal nourris, n'en sont
pas moins tenus a lui rendre les services qu'l exige; la colere
conduit l'autre a faire des exemples terribles, sous pretexte
d'effrayer ceux qui seroient tentes de lui manquer; un grand
nombre enfin se croit autorise a s'en servir pour assouvir ses
passions et servir ses passions et servir ses gouts, fussent-ils
meme contraires aux devoirs de la societe et opposes aux
principes religieux. Aux yeux des gouvernans les hommes ne
doivent etre que de grands enfans, dont, en sages precepteurs,
ils dirigent les caprices de maniere a les faire tourner a leur
plus grand bien.

Dans la basse Louisiane les Negres sont tres mal nourris: chacun
ne recoit pas par mois audela, d'un baril de mais en epis, ce qui
ne fait que le tiers d'un baril en grain;[228] encore beaucoup de
proprietaries prelevent-ils quelque chose sur leur ration. Ils
doivent se procurer le suplus de leur nourriture, ainsi que leurs
vetemens, avec le produit de leur travail du dimanche. S'ils ne
le font pas, ils sont exposes a rester nus pendant la saison
rigoureuse. Ceux qui leur fournissent des vetemens, le
contraignent a employer pour eux les jours de repos, jusqu'a ce
qu'ils aient ete rembourses de leurs avances. Pendant tout l'ete,
les Negres ne sont pas vetus. Les parties naturelles sont
uniquement cachees par une piece d'etoffe, qui s'attache a la
ceinture par devant et par derriere, et qui a conserve dans toute
l'Amerique septentrionale habitee par les Francois, le nom de
_braguet_. L'hiver ils ont generalement une chemise et une
couverture de laine, faite en forme de redingotte. Les enfans
restent souvent nus jusqu'a l'age de huit ans, qu'ils commencent
a rendre quelques services.

Un maitre ne doit-il pas a son esclave le vetement et une
nourriture substantielle, a proportion du travail qu'il en exige?
Le jour du repos n'appartient-il pas a tous les hommes, et plus
particulierement a ceux qui sont employes aux penibles travaux de
la campagne? Ce sont des questions qui n'en seroient pas, si
l'avarice, plus forte que l'humanite, ne dominoit presque tous
les hommes, mais sur-tout les habitans des colonies. Que
resulte-t-il cependant de cette avarice mal entendue? les Negres
mal nourris et trop fatigues s'epuisent et ne peuplent pas; de
l'epuisement nait la foiblesse, de la foiblesse le decouragement,
la maladie et la mort. Pour augmenter son revenue le
proprietaire perd donc le capital, sans que son experience le
rende ordinairement plus sage. Je n'ignore pas que les Negres
sont loin de ressembler aux autres hommes; qu'ils ne peuvent etre
conduits ni par la douceur, ni par les sentimens; qu'ils se
moquent de ceux qui les traitent avec bonte; qu'ils tiennent par
la morale a la brute, autant qu'a l'homme par leur constitution
physique; mais ayons au moins pour eux soins que nous avons pour
les quadrupedes, dont nous nous servons: nourrissons-les bien
pour qu'ils travaillent bien, et n'exigeons pas au-dela de leurs
facultes ou de leurs forces.

Les Negres sont naturellement fourbes, paresseux, voleurs et
cruels; il est inutile d'ajouter qu'ils sont tous dans le coeur
ennemis des Blancs: le serpent cherche a mordre celui qui le
foule aux pieds; l'esclave doit hair son maitre. Mais ce dontil
est difficile de rendre compte, c'est l'aversion et la brutalite
des Noirs libres pour ceux de leur espece. Parviennent-ils a se
procurer des esclaves? ils les traitent avec une barbarie dont
rien ne peut approcher; ils les nourrissent plus mal encore que
ne font les Blancs, et les surchargent de travail: heureusement
leur penchant a la faineantise et a l'ivrognerie, les tient dans
un etat de mediocrite dont ils sortent rarement.

Quoique les Negres libres perdent tres-peu de leur haine pour les
Blancs, ils sont cependant loin d'etre aussi dangereux que les
Mulatres. Ces hommes qui semblent participer aux vices des deux
especes, comme ils out participe a leurs couleurs, sont mechans,
vindicatifs, traitres et egalement ennemis des Noirs qu'ils
meprisent, et des Blancs qu'ils ont en horreur. Cruels jus qu'a
la barbarie envers les premiers, ils sont toujours prets a saisir
l'occasion de tourner leurs bras contre les seconds. Fruits du
libertinage de leurs peres, dont ils recoivent presque tous la
liberte et une education assez soignee, ils sont loin d'en etre
reconnaissans; ils voudroient en etre traites comme des enfans
legitimes, et la difference que l'on met entr'eux les porte a
detester meme les auteurs de leurs jours. On en a vu un grand
nombre, dans le massacre de Saint-Domingue, porter sur eux leurs
mains parricides. Les plus delicats se chargeoient mutuellement
de cette detestable commission. Vas tuer mon pere, se
disoient-ils, je tuerai le tien.

Mais, dira-t-on, le premier droit de la nature est de se racheter
de l'esclavage, comme c'en est un aussi de faire jouir des
bienfaits de la liberte l'etre qui tient de nous l'existence. Ces
verites ne peuvent etre contestees; mais une troisieme qui n'est
pas moins evidente, c'est qu'il est du devoir d'un bon
gouvernement d'assurer par toutes sortes de moyens la vie et la
propriete des peuples qui vivent sous sa domination: or, par-tout
ou il y aura des Negres libres ou des Mulatres, l'une et l'autre
seront chaque jour exposees au plus imminent danger. Un esclave
fuit-il son maitre? c'est chez un Negre libre qu'il va se
refugier. Un vol a-t-il ete commis? si le Negre libre n'en est
point l'auteur, il en est au moins le receleur. Lorsque par la
suite de son travail ou de son economie un esclave peut racheter
sa liberte, qu'il aille en jouir parmi les nations qui voudront
le recevoir, ou qu'il retourne dans son pays, c'est tout ce que
le Gouvernement lui doit. Mais je ne crains pas d'assurer que
toute colonie ou l'on souffrira des Negres libres, sera le
repaire du brigandage et des crimes.

Quant aux hommes de couleur, plus dangereux encore, il seroit
probablement tres-avantageux d'en former des colonies dans
quelques parties inhabitees du continent: cette mesure auroit une
suite doublement utile; elle priveroit les colonies de ces etres
par lesquels elles seront tot ou tard aneanties, et elle
diminueroit ce gout crapuleux des Blancs pour leurs esclaves, qui
est la ruine de la societe et la cause premiere du pen de
population des pays qu'ils habitent.--_Voyage dans Les Deux
Louisianes_, 1801, 1802, and 1803, pp. 408-415, par M. Perrin Du
Lac.

OBSERVATIONS OF BERQUIN DUVALLON ON THE FREED PEOPLE OF COLOUR IN
LOUISIANA IN 1802

The class of free people of colour is composed of negroes and
mulattoes, but chiefly of the last, who have either obtained or
purchased their liberty from their masters, or held it in virtue
of the freedom of their parents. Of these, some residing in the
country, cultivate rice and a little cotton; a great number, men,
women and children collected in the city, are employed in
mechanical arts, and menial offices.

The mulattoes are in general vain and insolent, perfidious and
debauched, much giving to lying, and great cowards. They have an
inveterate hatred against the whites, the authors of their
existence, and primitive benefactors. It is the policy of the
Spanish government to cherish this antipathy; but nothing is to
be feared from them. There is a proportion of six whites to one
man of colour, which, with their natural pusillanimity, is a
sufficient restraint.

The mulatto women have not all the faults of the men. But they
are full of vanity, and very libertine; money will always buy
their caresses. They are not without personal charms; good
shapes, polished and elastic skins. They live in open concubinage
with the whites; but to this they are incited more by money than
any attachment. After all we love those best, and are most happy
in the intercourse of those, with whom we can be the most
familiar and unconstrained. These girls, therefore, only affect a
fondness for the whites; their hearts are with men of their own
colour.

They are, however, not wanting in discernment, penetration,
finesse; in this light they are superior to many of the white
girls in the lower classes of society, girls so impenetrably
dull, that like that of Balsac's village, they are too stupid to
be deceived by a man of breeding, gallantry and wit.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NEGRO SLAVE

We come now to the class of negro slaves, the most numerous but
least fortunate of all. The negro Creoles of the country, or born
in some other European colony, and sent hither, are the most
active, the most intelligent, and the least subject to chronic
distempers; but they are also the most indolent, vicious and
debauched.

Those who come from Guinea are less expert in domestic service,
and the mechanical arts, less intelligent, and oftener victims of
violent sickness or grief (particularly in the early part of
their transportation) but more robust, more laborious, more
adapted to the labours of the field, less deceitful and libertine
than the others. Such are the discriminative characteristics of
each, and as to the rest, there is a strong relation between
their moral and physical character.

Negroes are a species of beings whom nature seems to have
intended for slavery; their pliancy of temper, patience under
injury, and innate passiveness, all concur to justify this
position; unlike the savages or aborigines of America, who could
never be brought to servile controul.

This colony of Louisiana, offers a philosophic and instructive
spectacle on this subject, from which I shall make a number of
deductions. If nature had imparted the same instinct to negroes
that she has to savages, it is certain that, instead of
subjecting themselves mechanically to the eternal labours of the
field, and the discipline of an imperious task-master, they
would abandon those places (to which they are not chained), and
gaining the woods, encamp themselves in the interior of the
country; in this imitating the savages, or aborigines, who sooner
than live in the vicinity of the whites, retire at their
approach.

Is it the uncertainty of a subsistence in this new mode of life,
that deters them from undertaking it? They have never any
solicitude for their future support. Is it the fear of being
pursued and overtaken that is an obstacle to the project?
Ignorant as they are, they cannot but know that, protected by
almost impenetrable woods, and formidable in numbers, they might
set at defiance a handful of whites. Does the apprehension of
being combated by the Indians damp their enterprize? Such a
chimera could never affright them, since the Indians roving in
detached parties, would be the first to flee; nay, they would
probably court their union, there having been instances of
negroes finding an asylum among them, but after a lapse of time,
unworthy to enjoy freedom, the fugitives have returned to their
plantation, like a dog, who, having escaped from his kennel,
returns to it by an instinct of submission. To multiply
comparisons, as the ox resigns himself to his yoke, so the negro
bends to his burden.

Their defect in instinct is apparent. Could the Indians be ever
brought to that state of slavery which the negroes bear without
repining; every method hitherto practiced to deprive them of
their liberty, has been ineffectual.

But it is not so with the negroes. In their own country, or
abroad, if they have ever discovered a desire to emerge from
slavery this flame as resembled a meteor which appears only for a
moment. And even, the scenes, which have been witnessed in the
French colonies, and, particularly, the island of Saint
Domingo,[229] serve to corroborate and support my theory. It is
undeniable that the negroes of that colony have never ceased to
be slaves. Before their insurrection they were the slaves of the
legitimate masters; in the early part of the revolution they were
slaves to the French commissioners and mulattoes; and afterwards
they became subject to the nod of negroes like themselves. We do
not alter the substance of a thing by changing the name.

Nature may be modified but cannot be essentially changed. It is
not possible to impart to the dog the habits of the wolf, nor to
the ape those of the sheep. This position cannot be refuted.
Sophistry may for a while delude, but the mind reposes upon the
stability of truth.

From this digression let us return to the examination of the
negro slave of Louisiana. He has the faults of a slave. He is
lazy, libertine, and given to lying, but not incorrigibly wicked.
His labour is not severe, unless it be at the rolling of sugars,
an interval of from two to three months, when the number of
labourers is not proportionate to the labour; then he works both
by day and night. It must be allowed that forty negroes rolling a
hundred and twenty thousand weight of sugar, and as many
hogsheads of syrup, in the short space of two cold, foggy, rainy
months (November and December) under all the difficulties and
embarrassments resulting from the season, the shortness of the
days, and the length of the nights, cannot but labour severely;
abridged of their sleep, they scarce retire to rest during the
whole period. It is true they are then fed more plentifully, but
their toils are nevertheless excessive. [230] In the country
where there are not those resources that distinguished the
Antilles, nor its spontaneous supplies, such as bananas, yams,
sweet potatoes, &c. the food of the negroes is less abundant.

The fixed ration of each negro a month is a barrel of maize not
pounded; indian corn being the only grain of the colony which can
assure an unfailing subsistence to the slaves. The rice, beans
and potatoes cultivated here, would not supply a quarter of them
with food. Some masters, more humane than others, add to the
ration a little salt.

The negro, during his hours of respite from labour, is busied in
pounding his corn; he has afterwards to bake it with what wood he
can procure himself. Both in summer and winter, he must be in the
fields at the first dawn of day. He carries his sorry pittance of
a breakfast with him, which he eats on the spot; he is, however,
scarce allowed time to digest it. His labour is suspended from
noon till two, when he dines, or rather makes a supplement to his
former meal. At two his labour re-commences, and he prosecutes it
till dark, sometimes visited by his master, but always exposed
to the menaces, blows and scourges either of a white overseer, or
a black driver.

The good negro, during the hours of respite allowed him, is not
idle. He is busy cultivating the little lot of ground granted
him, while his wife (if he has one) is preparing food for him and
their children. For it is observable that in this colony, the
children of the slaves are not nourished by their masters, as
they are at the Antilles; their parents are charged with them,
and allowed half a ration more for every child, commencing from
the epoch when it is weaned.

Retired at night to their huts, after having made a frugal meal,
they forget their labors in the arms of their mistresses. But
those who cannot obtain women (for there is a great disproportion
between the numbers of the two sexes) traverse the woods in
search of adventures, and often encounter those of an unpleasant
nature. They frequently meet a patrole of the whites, who tie
them up and flog them, and then send them home.

They are very fond of tobacco; they both smoke and chew it with
great relish.

Nothing can be more simple than the burial of a slave; he is put
into the plainest coffin, knocked together by a carpenter of his
own colour, and carried unattended by mourners to the
neighbouring grave-field. The most absolute democracy, however,
reigns there; the planter and slave, confounded with one another,
rot in conjunction. _Under ground precedency is all a jest!_

"Imperial Caesar dead, and turned to clay,
"May stop some hole to keep the wind away!"--Pope.

Death is not so terrible in aspect to these negroes as to the
whites. In fact death itself is not so formidable to any man as
the pageantry with which it is set forth. It is not death that is
so terrible, but the cries of mothers, wives and children, the
visits of astonished and afflicted friends, pale and blubbering
servants, a dark room set round with burning tapers, our beds
surrounded with physicians and divines. These, and not death
itself, affright the minds of the beholders, and make that appear
so dreadful with which armies, who have an opportunity of being
thoroughly acquainted and often seeing him without any of these
black and dismal disguises, converse familiarly, and meet with
mirth and gaiety.

The only cloathing of a slave is a simple woollen garment; it is
given to them at the beginning of winter. And will it be
believed, that the master, to indemnify himself for this
expense, retrenches half an hour from his negro's hours of
respite, during the short days of the rigorous season!

Their ordinary food is indian corn, or rice and beans, boiled in
water, without fat or salt. To them nothing comes amiss. They
will devour greedily racoon, opossum, squirrels, wood-rats, and
even the crocodile; leaving to the white people the roebuck and
rabbit, which they sell them when they kill those animals.

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