Considering only the French peasant colonist and the West African slave
as the original factors of that physical evolution visible in the modern
_fille-de-couleur_, it would seem incredible;--for the intercrossing
alone could not adequately explain all the physical results. To
understand them fully, it will be necessary to bear in mind that both of
the original races became modified in their lineage to a surprising
degree by conditions of climate and environment.
The precise time of the first introduction of slaves into Martinique is
not now possible to ascertain,--no record exists on the subject; but it
is probable that the establishment of slavery was coincident with the
settlement of the island. Most likely the first hundred colonists from
St. Christophe, who landed, in 1635, near the bay whereon the city of
St. Pierre is now situated, either brought slaves with them, or else
were furnished with negroes very soon after their arrival. In the time
of Père Dutertre (who visited the colonies in 1640, and printed his
history of the French Antilles at Paris in 1667) slavery was already a
flourishing institution,--the foundation of the whole social structure.
According to the Dominican missionary, the Africans then in the colony
were decidedly repulsive; he describes the women as "hideous"
(_hideuses_). There is no good reason to charge Dutertre with prejudice
in his pictures of them. No writer of the century was more keenly
sensitive to natural beauty than the author of that "Voyage aux
Antilles" which inspired Chateaubriand, and which still, after two
hundred and fifty years, delights even those perfectly familiar with the
nature of the places and things spoken of. No other writer and traveller
of the period possessed to a more marked degree that sense of generous
pity which makes the unfortunate appear to us in an illusive, almost
ideal aspect. Nevertheless, he asserts that the negresses were, as a
general rule, revoltingly ugly,--and, although he had seen many strange
sides of human nature (having been a soldier before becoming a monk),
was astonished to find that miscegenation had already begun. Doubtless
the first black women thus favored, or afflicted, as the case might be,
were of the finer types of negresses; for he notes remarkable
differences among the slaves procured from different coasts and various
tribes. Still, these were rather differences of ugliness than aught
else: they were all repulsive;--only some were more repulsive than
others.[39] Granting that the first mothers of mulattoes in the colony
were the superior rather than the inferior physical types,--which would
be a perfectly natural supposition,--still we find their offspring
worthy in his eyes of no higher sentiment than pity. He writes in his
chapter entitled "_De la naissance honteuse des mulastres_":
--"They have something of their Father and something of their
Mother,--in the same wise that Mules partake of the qualities of the
creatures that engendered them: for they are neither all white, like the
French; nor all black, like the Negroes, but have a livid tint, which
comes of both."...
To-day, however, the traveller would look in vain for a _livid_ tint
among the descendants of those thus described: in less than two
centuries and a half the physical characteristics of the race have been
totally changed. What most surprises is the rapidity of the
transformation. After the time of Père Labat, Europeans never could
"have mistaken little negro children for monkeys." Nature had begun to
remodel the white, the black, and half-breed according to environment
and climate: the descendant of the early colonists ceased to resemble
his fathers; the creole negro improved upon his progenitors;[40] the
mulatto began to give evidence of those qualities of physical and mental
power which were afterwards to render him dangerous to the integrity of
the colony itself. In a temperate climate such a change would have been
so gradual as to escape observation for a long period;--in the tropics
it was effected with a quickness that astounds by its revelation of the
natural forces at work.
--"Under the sun of the tropics," writes Dr. Rufz, of Martinique, "the
African race, as well as the European, becomes greatly modified in its
reproduction. Either race gives birth to a totally new being. The Creole
African came into existence as did the Creole white." And just as the
offspring of Europeans who emigrated to the tropics from different parts
of France displayed characteristics so identical that it was impossible
to divine the original race-source,--so likewise the Creole
negro--whether brought into being by the heavy thick-set Congo, or the
long slender black of Senegambia, or the suppler and more active
Mandingo,--appeared so remodelled, homogeneous, and adapted in such wise
to his environment that it was utterly impossible to discern in his
features anything of his parentage, his original kindred, his original
source.... The transformation is absolute. All that In be asserted is:
"This is a white Creole; this is a black Creole";--or, "This is a
European white; this is an African black";--and furthermore, after a
certain number of years passed in the tropics, the enervated and
discolored aspect of the European may create uncertainty, as to his
origin. But with very few exceptions the primitive African, or, as he is
termed here, the "Coast Black" (_le noir de la Côte_), can be
recognized at once....
... "The Creole negro is gracefully shaped, finely proportioned: his
limbs are lithe, his neck long;--his features are more delicate, his
lips less thick, his nose less flattened, than those of the African;--he
has the Carib's large and melancholy eye, better adapted to express the
emotions.... Rarely can you discover in him the sombre fury of the
African, rarely a surly and savage mien: he is brave, chatty, boastful.
His skin has not the same tint as his father's,--it has become more
satiny; his hair remains woolly, but it is a finer wool... all his
outlines are more rounded;--one may perceive that the cellular tissue
predominates, as in cultivated plants, of which the ligneous and savage
fibre has become transformed."...[41]
This new and comelier black race naturally won from its masters a more
sympathetic attention than could have been vouchsafed to its
progenitors; and the consequences in Martinique and elsewhere seemed to
have evoked the curious Article 9 of the _Code Noir_ of 1665,--enacting,
first, that free men who should have one or two children by slave women,
as well as the slave-owners permitting the same, should be each
condemned to pay two thousand pounds of sugar; secondly, that if the
violator of the ordinance should be himself the owner of the mother and
father of her children, the mother and the children should be
confiscated for the profit of the Hospital, and deprived for their lives
of the right to enfranchisement. An exception, however, was made to the
effect that if the father were unmarried at the period of his
concubinage, he could escape the provisions of the penalty by marrying,
"according to the rites of the Church," the female slave, who would
thereby be enfranchised, and her children "rendered free and
legitimate." Probably the legislators did not imagine that the first
portion of the article could prove inefficacious, or that any violator
of the ordinance would seek to escape the penalty by those means offered
in the provision. The facts, however, proved the reverse. Miscegenation
continued; and Labat notices two cases of marriage between whites and
blacks,--describing the offspring of one union as "very handsome little
mulattoes." These legitimate unions were certainly exceptional,--one of
them was dissolved by the ridicule cast upon the father;--but
illegitimate unions would seem to have become common within a very brief
time after the passage of the law. At a later day they were to become
customary. The Article 9 was evidently at fault; and in March, 1724, the
Black Code was reinforced by a new ordinance, of which the sixth
provision prohibited marriage as well as concubinage between the races.
It appears to have had no more effect than the previous law, even in
Martinique, where the state of public morals was better than in Santo
Domingo. The slave race had begun to exercise an influence never
anticipated by legislators. Scarcely a century had elapsed since the
colonization of the island; but in that time climate and civilization
had transfigured the black woman. "After one or two generations," writes
the historian Rufz, "the _Africaine_, reformed, refined, beautified in
her descendants, transformed into the creole negress, commenced to exert
a fascination irresistible, capable of winning anything (_capable de
tout obtenir_)."[42] Travellers of the eighteenth century were
confounded by the luxury of dress and of jewellry displayed by swarthy
beauties in St. Pierre. It was a public scandal to European eyes. But
the creole negress or mulattress, beginning to understand her power,
sought for higher favors and privileges than silken robes and necklaces
of gold beads: she sought to obtain, not merely liberty for herself, but
for her parents, brothers, sisters,--even friends. What successes she
achieved in this regard may be imagined from the serious statement of
creole historians that if human nature had been left untrammelled to
follow its better impulses, slavery would have ceased to exist a century
before the actual period of emancipation! By 1738, when the white
population had reached its maximum (15,000),[43] and colonial luxury had
arrived at its greatest height, the question of voluntary
enfranchisement was becoming very grave. So omnipotent the charm of
half-breed beauty that masters were becoming the slaves of their slaves.
It was not only the creole _negress_ who had appeared to play a part in
this strange drama which was the triumph of nature over interest and
judgment: her daughters, far more beautiful, had grown up to aid her,
and to form a special class. These women, whose tints of skin rivalled
the colors of ripe fruit, and whose gracefulness--peculiar, exotic, and
irresistible--made them formidable rivals to the daughters of the
dominant race, were no doubt physically superior to the modern
_filles-de-couleur_. They were results of a natural selection which
could have taken place in no community otherwise constituted;--the
offspring of the union between the finer types of both races. But that
which only slavery could have rendered possible began to endanger the
integrity of slavery itself: the institutions upon which the whole
social structure rested were being steadily sapped by the influence of
half-breed girls. Some new, severe, extreme policy was evidently
necessary to avert the already visible peril. Special laws were passed
by the Home-Government to check enfranchisement, to limit its reasons or
motives; and the power of the slave woman was so well comprehended by
the Métropole that an extraordinary enactment was made against it. It
was decreed that whosoever should free a woman of color would have to
pay to the Government _three times her value as a slave!_
Thus heavily weighted, emancipation advanced much more slowly than
before, but it still continued to a considerable extent. The poorer
creole planter or merchant might find it impossible to obey the impulse
of his conscience or of his affection, but among the richer classes
pecuniary considerations could scarcely affect enfranchisement. The
country had grown wealthy; and although the acquisition of wealth may
not evoke generosity in particular natures, the enrichment of a whole
class develops pre-existing tendencies to kindness, and opens new ways
for its exercise. Later in the eighteenth century, when hospitality had
been cultivated as a gentleman's duty to fantastical extremes,--when
liberality was the rule throughout society,--when a notary summoned to
draw up a deed, or a priest invited to celebrate a marriage, might
receive for fee five thousand francs in gold,--there were certainly many
emancipations.... "Even though interest and public opinion in the
colonies," says a historian,[44] "were adverse to enfranchisement, the
private feeling of each man combated that opinion;--Nature resumed her
sway in the secret places of hearts;--and as local custom permitted a
sort of polygamy, the rich man naturally felt himself bound in honor to
secure the freedom of his own blood.... It was not a rare thing to see
legitimate wives taking care of the natural children of their
husbands,--becoming their godmothers (_s'en faire les marraines_)."...
Nature seemed to laugh all these laws to scorn, and the prejudices of
race! In vain did the wisdom of legislators attempt to render the
condition of the enfranchised more humble,--enacting extravagant
penalties for the blow by which a mulatto might avenge the insult of a
white,--prohibiting the freed from wearing the same dress as their
former masters or mistresses wore;--"the _belles affranchies_ found, in
a costume whereof the negligence seemed a very inspiration of
voluptuousness, means of evading that social inferiority which the law
sought to impose upon them:--they began to inspire the most violent
jealousies."[45]
[Footnote 39: It is quite possible, however, that the slaves of
Dutertre's time belonged for the most part to the uglier African tribes;
and that later supplies may have been procured from other parts of the
slave coast. Writing half a century later, Père Labat declares having
seen freshly disembarked blacks handsome enough to inspire an
artist:--"_J'en ai vu des deux sexes faits à peindre, et beaux par
merveille_" (vol. iv. chap, vii,). He adds that their skin was extremely
fine, and of velvety softness;--"_le velours n'est pas plus doux_."...
Among the 30,000 blacks yearly shipped to the French colonies, there
were doubtless many representatives of the finer African races.]
[Footnote 40: "Leur sueur n'est pas fétide comme celle des nègres de
la Guinée," writes the traveller Dauxion-Lavaysse, in 1813.]
[Footnote 41: Dr. E. Rufz: "Études historiques et statistiques sur la
population de la Martinique." St. Pierre: 1850. Vol. I, pp. 148-50.
It has been generally imagined that the physical constitution of the
black race was proof against the deadly climate of the West Indies. The
truth is that the freshly imported Africans died of fever by thousands
and tens-of-thousands;--the creole-negro race, now so prolific,
represents only the fittest survivors in the long and terrible struggle
of the slave element to adapt itself to the new environment. Thirty
thousand negroes a year were long needed to supply the French colonies.
Between 1700 and 1789 no less than 900,000 slaves were imported by San
Domingo alone;--yet there were less than half that number left in 1789.
(See Placide Justin's history of Santo Domingo, p. 147.) The entire
slave population of Barbadoes had to be renewed every sixteen years,
according to estimates: the loss to planters by deaths of slaves
(reckoning the value of a slave at only £20 sterling) during the same
period was £1,600,000 ($8,000,000). (Burck's "History of European
Colonies," vol. II., p. 141; French edition of 1767.)]
[Footnote 42: Rufz: "Études," vol. I., p. 236.]
[Footnote 43: I am assured it has now fallen to a figure not exceeding
5000.]
[Footnote 44: Rufz: "Études," vol. II., pp. 311, 312.]
[Footnote 45: Rufz: "Études," vol. I., p. 237.]