To answer your last, wherein you desire me to send you the exact state of
negro slavery in this country, is a task to which I am unequal.
You will conceive the great difficulty of obliging you in this request,
when you are informed, that on this subject each individual state has it's
own laws. The only point in which they are unanimous, is to prohibit their
importation, either from the Coast of Africa, or the West Indies. I can
only inform you in general terms, that in the _southern states_ there
is little alteration in the negro code since the revolution; of course the
laws are nearly the same as in the British West India islands. In the
_middle states_, though negro slavery is allowed, their situation has
been considerably meliorated, by a variety of laws in their favour, some
tending to their gradual emancipation, others to render their servitude
less irksome, &c.
Societies are formed in several of the large towns to enforce these
lenient laws, and to purchase the freedom of a few of the most deserving
slaves. The quakers, beside liberating all their negroes, have contributed
liberally towards the funds these societies have established, for carrying
their benevolent intentions into effect. In consequence of these measures,
there are a number of free negroes in Philadelphia, whose situation is
very comfortable. A handsome episcopalian church has been built for their
use, and one of the most respectable negroes ordained, who performs all
the duties of his office with great solemnity and fervour of devotion,
assisted occasionally by his white brethren; and there are also two
schools, where the children of people of colour are educated gratis; one
supported by the quakers, the other by the abolition society.
Negro slavery, under any modification or form, is prohibited in this state
(Massachusetts,) also in New Hampshire, the province of Maine, and, _I
believe_, in all the _New England states_.
As to your other queries respecting the negroes, I send you my sentiments,
infinitely better expressed by Jefferson, notwithstanding all that Imlay,
Wilberforce, and other authors, have written against his assertion, viz.,
that "Negroes are _inferiour_ to the whites, both in the endowments of
_body_ and _mind_." I am clearly and decidedly of his opinion. A strict
attention to this subject, during three years residence in these states,
has convinced me of the truth of every tittle of the following extract
from his Virginia, which I enclose for your perusal, and am, most
sincerely,
Yours, &c.
"The first difference that strikes us is colour. Whether the black of the
negro reside in the reticular membrane, between the skin and scarf skin,
or in the scarf skin itself; whether it proceed from the colour of the
blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the
difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if it's seat and cause
were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it
not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races?
Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expression of every
passion by a greater or less suffusion of colour in the one, preferable to
that eternal monotony, that immovable veil of black, which covers all the
emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant
symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by
their preference to them, as uniformly as is the preference of the
oroonowtang for the black women over those of his own species? The
circumstance of superiour beauty is thought worthy attention in the
propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in
that of man?
"Beside those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical
distinctions, proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the
face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of
the skin; which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This
greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and
less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps a difference of structure in the
pulmonary aparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist, (Crawford) has
discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled
them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid
from the outer air; or obliged them, in expiration, to part with more of
it.
"They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the
day, will be induced by the slightest amusement, to sit up till midnight,
or later, though knowing he must be out with the dawn of the morning. They
are at least as brave, and more adventurous; but this may proceed from
want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be
present; when present, they do not go through it with more coolness and
steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after the female; but
love seems with them more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture
of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless
afflictions which render it doubtful, whether Heaven has given life to us
more in mercy, or in wrath, are less felt and sooner forgotten with them.
In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than
reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep, when
abstracted from their diversions, or unemployed in labour. An animal,
whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep
of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and
imagination, it appears to me that in memory, they are equal to the
whites; in reason much inferiour. As I think one could scarcely be found
capable of tracing, and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and
that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be
unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider
them here, on the same stage with the whites. And where the facts are not
apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed, it will be right to make
allowances for the difference of condition, of conversation, and of the
sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and
born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to
their own homes, and their own society; yet many have been so situate,
that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their
masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that
circumstance have always been associated with the whites; some have been
liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and
sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before
their eyes samples of the best work from abroad. The Indians with no
advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes, not
destitute of merit and design. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or
a country, so as to prove the existence of a germe in their minds, which
only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most
sublime oratory, such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their
imagination glowing and elevated; but never yet could I find a black, that
had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration[Footnote: "Sleep
hab no massa," was the answer of a sleepy negro, who was told that his
massa called him.--See Edward's History of Jamaica, 2d Vol.]; never see
even an elementary trait of painting, or sculpture. In music they are more
generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune, and time;
and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch[Footnote: "The
instrument proper to them is the _banjore_, which they brought here
from Africa, and which is the origin of the guitar, it's chords being
precisely the four lower chords of that instrument." J---- N.]. Whether
they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody,
or of complicated harmony[Footnote: From this circumstance, I conceive our
author's _catch_ was improperly so called.], is yet to be proved.
Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among
the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the
peculiar oestrum of the poet: their love is ardent; but it kindles the
senses only, not the imagination. Religion, or rather fanaticism,
has produced a _Phyllis Wheatly_; but it could not produce a poet.
Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his
letters do more credit to the heart than the head; supposing them to have
been genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points
which would not be easy of investigation. The improvement of the blacks in
body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has
been observed by every one, and proves their inferiority is not the effect
merely of their condition in life.
"The white slaves, among the Romans, were often their rarest artists; they
excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to
their masters' children. Epictetus, Terence, and Phoedrus, were slaves.
Whether further observation will, or will not, verify the conjecture, that
Nature has been less bountiful to them, in the endowments of the head, I
believe in those of the heart she will be found to have done them justice.
That disposition to theft, with which they have been branded, must be
ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense.
The man, in whose favour no laws of property exist, probably feels himself
less bound to respect those made in favour of others. When arguing for
ourselves, we lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must
give a reciprocation of right; that without this, they are mere arbitrary
rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience. And it is a
problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious precepts
against the violation of property, were not formed for _him_, as well
as his slave, and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little
from one who has taken _all_ from him, as he would slay one that
would slay him?
"That a change in the relation in which a man is placed should change his
ideas of moral right and wrong, is neither new, nor confined to the
blacks; Homer tells us, it was so 2600 years ago:--'Jove fixed it certain,
that whatever day makes a man a slave, takes half his worth away.' But the
slaves Homer speaks of were whites.
"But to return to the blacks. Notwithstanding this consideration, which
must weaken their respect for the laws of property, we find among them
numerous instances of the most rigid integrity; and as many as among their
better instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken
fidelity.
"The opinion that they are inferiour in the faculties of reason and
imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a general
conclusion requires many observations, even where the subject may be
submitted to the anatomical knife, to optical glasses, to analysis by fire
or solvents: how much more, then, when it is a faculty, not a substance,
we are examining; where it eludes the research of all the senses; where
the conditions of it's existence are various, and variously combined;
where the effects of those which are present or absent bid defiance to
calculation; let me add too, in a circumstance where our conclusions would
degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings, which
their Creator may perhaps have given them! To our reproach it must be
said, though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races
of black and red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of
natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the
blacks[Footnote: Where Jefferson makes use of the word _Black_, in
this extract, it is rigidly confined to the _Negroes_ originally from
the coast of Africa, or their descendants.], whether originally a distinct
race, or made so by time and circumstances, are inferiour to the whites in
the endowments both of body and mind."
* * * * *
_Boston, December 29th, 1796._