Condition of Slave population, and its influence on the family
economy and moral sentiments of the European race.
Such is the influence which slave domestics exercise over the feelings
and comfort of private families, and, we would even add, over the moral
and physical features of the community, that it would be impossible to
give a correct picture of the state of society in Lima without first
cursorily viewing the condition of the slave population in Peru.
In article 152 of the Political Constitution of the Republic of Peru, it
is declared that no one is born a slave in the republic, neither does
any one enter from other countries who is not left free when he treads
on Peruvian soil. Should any Peruvian be found guilty of importing
slaves into the republic for the purposes of traffic, the constitution
declares that he shall be deprived of his rights of citizenship. But the
internal traffic of slaves still continues, though it is confined to
buying and selling such slaves as existed in the country before the war
of independence began, or to such of their offspring as were born before
the year 1820, when Peru was no longer the acknowledged patrimony of
Spaniards. With respect to the mere exterior appearance of negroes born
in Peru of African parents, it is observed that they are influenced by
the bleaching effects which the climate of the Peruvian coast is known
to produce on the ruddy sons of our northern climes who reside for any
length of time in Lima. The native negro therefore is lighter in colour,
and possessed of finer, more expressive, and much more regular features
than the jet-black and lacerated “Bozals” or African-born blacks, on
whose countenance and breast are commonly seen deep and hideous scars
that bespeak at once their more barbarous origin and their foreign
importation.
The orderly discipline of the “Galpon,” or slave-barracks, appears,
from the acknowledgments of the natives themselves, to have been very
creditable to the humanity of the slave-holders in the days of Spanish
sway over them,—a time when slaves are said to have shared in the
felicity of their masters. Leniently dealt with, and in the abundant
fruition of animal gratifications, they felt themselves happy, and forgot
that they were not free.
The patriot legislators have enacted that it is illegal for any master to
apply the whip or scourge, “azote,” in chastising his slave. The ordinary
mode of punishment in the capital is to send the offender for correction
to a “panaderia” or bakehouse, where his labour is increased or mitigated
according to his conduct while there. In most ancient families, who have
yet preserved sufficient fortune to allow them to keep up some retinue,
we find a number of slave attendants whose progenitors served in the
same family of distinction for a long series of years; and thus a mutual
attachment has grown up between the parties, that makes them view each
other with that sort of interest which we observe between masters and
old servants at home. It is not unusual for a master on his death-bed
to reward the fidelity of a faithful slave by granting him his liberty;
and we have witnessed some very touching instances of gratitude shown by
well-educated white women towards those female slaves, or, we might say,
devoted friends, on whose willing services and attention they themselves
often placed their confidence in the hour of sickness or adversity.
These recollections are in our mind associated with those amiable traits
of human nature which unite the great family of mankind; but it must
be observed that from such instances, particularly creditable to the
character of individuals, nothing can be argued in favour of slavery as
such, which never can be otherwise than unjust and unchristian.
Since the triumphs of patriotism first cheered the hopes of the people,
since the very slaves, intoxicated with aguardiente or momentary
enthusiasm, joined aloud in the chants in praise of liberty, numberless
families in the capital have gradually sunk into increasing poverty, of
which a common consequence is, that individuals who can boast of the
purity of their origin, or who, in native phrase, count it no plebeian
privilege to say that their _four quarters_ are Biscayan, now find
themselves reduced to lend out their old domestic slaves on hire as a
means of support; the slaves being obliged to pay a certain moderate
proportion of their daily wages or earnings to their proper owners. A
male slave, when thus hired out in Lima, is understood to pay his owner
one real, or a sixpence, out of his day’s wages or earnings; and women,
when hired out as nurses, are usually paid fifteen dollars a month; of
which they pay four dollars to their proper owners, and the rest they may
do what they please with: others again go out as cooks, or are employed
as laundry-maids, &c.
The few agricultural slaves yet left in the country have usually allotted
to them a _tarea_, or daily task, so light and easy, as far at least as
we have had any opportunity of knowing, that it is soon executed; and
whatever work any one of them does over and above this daily task, he is
paid for as if he were a freeman. Were he indeed to value his personal
freedom, he could thus secure it to himself by fair means, and at the
cost of moderate industry. A few of the more ambitious of this class
have really availed themselves of so good an opportunity to effect
their own emancipation; but in general the slave population in Peru do
not appear solicitous to change their circumstances, nor are they very
conscious of anything abject in their condition. They well know that
they enjoy a degree of liberty which they consider sufficient, and which
they sometimes are pleased to exercise to suit their own convenience:
for example, if you are assisted by a slave, it is not unlikely that,
when least expected, he will tell you it is his desire, and he demands it
as his right, that he be sold or transferred to a purchaser of his own
choice and finding; and, should he once become restive, he is best got
rid of quickly, as until that is the case no more good comes of him. If
the servant should be not a slave, but a dusky freeman of slave descent,
he is so accustomed to self-indulgence, that he must daily have his own
hours of pleasure, whether his master will or not; and, if found fault
with, he replies in the usual ejaculation, “Quien quiere matarse con
trabajar?”—Who would kill himself with toil?
Those again who rely on the assistance of an Indian, (nominally free,
though virtually a slave, working for a mere maintenance and some
trifling gratuity,) reared up from childhood in their own houses and for
their own particular service,—a very customary thing to do,—are commonly,
in the long run, left in the lurch; for, when a good opportunity offers,
away starts the _cerrano_ or mountaineer, whether male or female, for
Guamanga, Guamantanga, or some such mountain home. The Indian girl thus
reared in some private family is commonly very useful until she attains
the age of twelve or fifteen, when she looks out for a mate, with whom
she can fly to the hills, to be happy in a smoky hut, and on a llama-skin
couch; and the shrewd and quick-eyed Indian boy, with head and hands to
conceive and execute, no sooner gets a little insight into good service
or some handicraft, than he meditates upon and watches the opportunity
for escaping to his native home, “mi tierra!” and, sooner or later, he
is sure to effect his object. Yet, notwithstanding this disposition
to desertion, where an Indian does become personally attached to his
employer, which is not often, his fidelity and constancy are allowed to
be unbounded.
The vexations so often caused by the Indians among the class of their
Spanish employers, or white superiors, (who usually expect more from this
oppressed order of citizens than they care to pay for,) gave rise to the
proverbial complaint against the indigenous tribes:
“Mal con ellos; pejor sin ellos,”
Bad with them; worse without them.
The ladies, or females of Spanish blood in Lima, usually become mothers
at too tender an age, and we think it is chiefly on this account that
they are commonly found to be incapable of nursing with impunity; and, if
they persist in attempts at nursing beyond what their constitution can
bear, they are peremptorily warned to desist by the presence of symptoms
that menace a decline or consumption.
Hence most ladies in Lima are under the necessity of employing black and
brown nurses, who are usually slaves either purchased for milk-nurses or
hired out for this purpose.
The skin of the negro appears to be cooler than that of the Indian or
white race, and this may possibly have been the origin of the prevailing
idea already alluded to, that the milk of the negress is more cooling
and refreshing than that of the Indian woman,[6] who, though in other
respects a healthy and proper person, is never considered eligible as a
milk-nurse, when in this character a negress can be procured.
It unfortunately happens, however, that the predilection thus shown
for negresses and those dark women who are nearest allied to the negro
race, frequently exposes the white mother’s child to a series of evils,
such as imperfect nutrition, contamination of blood, and permanent
constitutional injury, all originating in the peculiar circumstances and
individual character of milk-nurses; of whom a single child may have
been so unfortunate as to have had as many as half a dozen, and to have
suffered successively from the blemishes of each. When the young Don,
thus nurtured in the very lap of bondage, comes to be fit for school, he
goes to, and comes from it, in the company of a slave; and the young
Miss, or Niña, who goes out to be educated, is, on her way to and from
her parents’ house, attended by a sort of dueña, or experienced zamba. On
the customary plea, that the evils of life come early enough, children of
gentle blood, especially such as are “rubios,” or fair-complexioned, are
allowed all manner of _gusto_, or indulgence; and in the morning, before
they set out for school, they usually receive a real or medio,—sixpence
or threepence,—either as pocket-money, or as a bribe to be obedient and
to submit to be taught. In this way expensive habits are early acquired,
and mere children made to do what is right and proper from pecuniary
motives, rather than a laudable sense of duty.
Reviewing the effects of a close social union, from infancy upwards,
between white children and their slave companions, who are seldom endowed
with shame or modesty, we are led to remark that, without desiring
to make any insinuations against the natural capacity for moral and
intellectual improvement observable among all the races of mankind, or
wishing in any degree to depreciate the merit of individuals of pure or
mixed African and slave descent, we think it may be truly affirmed, that
even minds of a naturally amiable and delicate bias, when led habitually
to accommodate themselves to the grovelling feelings and propensities of
the more degraded portion of our kind, undergo deterioration by degrees,
and slide into a participation of the qualities of a baser nature, with
which they inevitably amalgamate their own. The proper medium of domestic
intimacy allowable between masters and slaves, may be a nice matter
to determine with precision; but it may be said in general, that in
proportion as this immediate intercourse may meliorate the condition,
and quicken the intelligence, of the slave, it tends to lower the tone
of morality in that society where slavery is tolerated. Thus, we doubt
not, the standard of morals is lowered, and we conceive it may be owing
to this very alloy of character that, until very lately, the sheer
ruffian was seldom met with, even among the lowest of the dark septs in
the voluptuous capital of Peru. Assassinations, it must be owned, have
been rather frequent of late years, and these have been almost always
perpetrated with impunity; but there is reason to believe that the agents
concerned in such atrocious crimes were in many instances not sons of the
soil, but outcasts and fugitives from neighbouring states. Money, not
blood, is what the worst of the dark native vagabonds of the coast are
generally in quest of; and he who does not offer resistance when accosted
by the robber, but, instead of armour, carries a few dollars or a couple
of doubloons for his ransom, may nine times in ten be suffered to escape
with entire personal safety from the midst of the most lawless marauders
and dreaded highwaymen, who are usually no other than renegade slaves.