A SUMMER
ON
THE BORDERS
OF
THE CARIBBEAN SEA.
BY J. DENNIS HARRIS.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
NEW YORK:
A. B. BURDICK, PUBLISHER,
No. 145 NASSAU STREET.
1860.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by
J. DENNIS HARRIS,
In the clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States,
for the Southern District of New York.
ADVERTISEMENT.
Through the columns of leading journals in New York, St. Louis, and
other localities, we have had occasion to acknowledge the fact that the
political views which gave rise to the present volume, though
comparatively new, have generally met the approval of distinguished
statesmen and philanthropists, North and South.[A]
The following note from the venerable Mr. Giddings indicating the
proposition, is but one of a large number which we have received from
various parts of the country:--
_Jefferson, Ohio, July 13, 1859._
MY DEAR SIR:--I am heartily in favor of Mr. Blair’s plan of
furnishing territory in Central America for the use of such of our
African brethren as wish to settle in a climate more congenial to
the colored race than any that our government possesses.
I hope and trust you may be successful in your efforts.
Very truly,
J. D. HARRIS, ESQ. J. R. GIDDINGS.
The subjoined, respecting the work itself, is from Mr. William Cullen
Bryant, by whom, in addition to Mr. George W. Curtis, a portion of these
communications was reviewed:--
_Roslyn, Long Island, August 26, 1860._
DEAR SIR:--I have looked over with attention the letters you left
with me, and return them herewith. It appears to me it will be very
well to publish them. Of the Spanish part of the island of San
Domingo very little is known--much less than of the French part;
and the information you give of the country and its people is
valuable and interesting.
I am, Sir,
Respectfully yours,
W. C. BRYANT.
MR. J. D. HARRIS.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.....vii
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.
LETTER I.
From New York to Puerto de Plata--Smoothness of the Voyage--Hayti in
the Distance--The Custom-House Officers--Description of the Standing
Army--Unparalleled Scenic Beauty.....13-19
LETTER II.
Want of Information--One side of a Question--The other side--Causes of
the decline of the Spanish Colony--Subsequent history.....20-30
LETTER III.
Corpus Christi--The Farm of the Fugitive Slave.....31-35
LETTER IV.
First Ride in the Country--Pastorisa Place.....36-41
LETTER V.
Valley of the Isabella--Customs of the People--A Call for
Dinner.....42-50
LETTER VI.
On the way to Porto Cabello--Antille-Americana--Immigration
Ordinance.....51-61
LETTER VII.
Proposed American Settlement--A Picture of Life--Tomb of the Wesleyan
Missionary.....62-67
LETTER VIII.
Summary of Dominican Staples, Exports, and Products.....68-75
REPUBLIC OF HAYTI
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
LETTER IX.
State of Affairs previous to 1790.....76-83
LETTER X.
Affairs in France--Case of the Mulattoes--Terrible Death of Ogé and
Chavine.....84-92
LETTER XI.
Tragedy of the Revolution--A Chapter of Horrors (which the delicate
reader may, if he pleases, omit).....93-104
LETTER XII.
Tragedy of the Revolution, continued--Rigaud succeeded by
L’Ouverture--L’Ouverture duped by Le Clerc.....105-115
LETTER XIII.
The War Renewed--“Liberty or Death”--Expulsion of the French--Jean
Jacques Dessalines, First Emperor of Hayti--The Aurora of
Peace--Principal Events up to present date--Geffrard on
Education.....116-127
GRAND TURK’S AND CAICOS ISLANDS.
LETTER XIV.
An Island of Salt--Honor to the British Queen--Sir Edward Jordan, of
Jamaica--A Story in Parenthesis--The Poetry of Sailing.....128-137
BRITISH HONDURAS.
LETTER XV.
Off Ruatan--The Sailor’s Love Story--Sovereignty of the Bay
Islands--English _vs._ American View of Central American
Affairs.....138-150
CONCLUSIVE SUMMARY.
LETTER XVI.
Concise Description of the Spanish Main--Dominicana Reviewed--The
magnificent Bay of Samana--Conclusive Summary.....151-160
APPENDIX.
The Anglo-African Empire--Opinions of distinguished Statesmen and
Philanthropists.....161-179
INTRODUCTION.
The free colored American, of whatever shade, sees that his destiny is
linked with slavery. Where his face is a crime he can not hope for
justice. In the country which enslaves his race he can never be an
acknowledged man. That it is his native country does not help him. The
author of this book is an American as much as James Buchanan. He is more
so: for the father of Mr. Buchanan was born in Ireland, and the father
of Mr. Harris was born in North Carolina. But the one becomes president;
the other is officially declared to have no rights which white men are
bound to respect.
The intelligent colored man, therefore, as he ponders the unhappy
condition of his race among us, perceives that, even if slavery in the
Southern States were to be immediately abolished, his condition would be
only nominally and legally, not actually, equal to that of the whites.
The traditional habit of unquestioned mastery can not be laid aside at
will. Prejudice is not amenable to law. There is a terrible logic in the
slave system. For the proper and safe subjugation of the slave there
must be silence, ignorance, and absolute despotism. But these react upon
the master; and the difficulties and dangers of emancipation, as the
history of Jamaica shows, are found upon the side of the master and not
of the slave. The law might establish a political equality between them,
but the old feeling would survive, and would still exclaim with the San
Domingo planters when the French Assembly freed the mulattoes in 1791,
“We would rather die than share our political rights with a bastard and
degenerate race.”
The free colored man, wishing to help himself and his race, may choose
one of several methods. If he dare to take the risk, he may try to
recover by force the rights of which force only deprives him. But his
truest friends among the dominant race will assure him that such a
course is mere suicide. In a war of races in this country his own would
be exterminated. Or he may say with Geo. T. Downing, “I feel that I am
working for the people with whom I am identified in oppression, in
securing a business name: I shall strive for my and their elevation, but
it will be by a strict and undivided attention to business.” Or he may
believe with Jefferson, “Nothing is more certainly written in the book
of fate than that these people [the colored] are to be free: nor is it
less certain that the two races equally free can not live in the same
government. Nature, habit, opinion, have drawn indissoluble lines of
distinction between them.”
This latter opinion is shared by many intelligent public men in this
country, of whom Francis P. Blain Jr., of Missouri, Senator Doolittle,
of Wisconsin, and Senator Bingham, of Michigan, are the most
conspicuous. They believe that the emigration of free colored people,
protected by the United States, into some region of propitious climate
and beyond the taint of prejudice against color, would have the most
important practical influence upon the question of emancipation in this
country, and of the consequent restoration of the colored race to the
respect of the world.
It is not surprising that a docile and amiable people enslaved by nearly
half the States,--legally excluded from many of the rest, and everywhere
contemned, should believe this, and turn their eyes elsewhere in the
fond faith that any land but their own is friendly.
The author of this book is of opinion that under the protection of the
United States government a few intelligent and industrious colored
families could colonize some spot within the Gulf of Mexico or upon its
shores, and there live usefully and respected; while gradually an
accurate knowledge of the advantages of such a settlement would be
spread among their friends in the United States, and, as they developed
their capacities for labor and society, not only attract their free
brethren to follow, but enable the well-disposed slaveholders to see an
easy and simple solution of the question which so deeply perplexes them,
“What should we do with the emancipated slaves?”
But neither Mr. Harris nor his friends, so far as I know, anticipate the
final solution of the practical problem of slavery by emigration. They
do not contemplate any vast exodus of their race; for they know how
slowly even the small results they look for must be achieved, since the
first condition is the protection of the American government. Mr. Harris
thinks that the island of Hayti or San Domingo, in its eastern or
Dominican portion, offers the most promising prospect for such an
experiment; and this little book is the record of his own travel and
observation upon that island and at other points of the Caribbean sea.
It contains a brief and interesting sketch of the insurrection of
Toussaint L’Ouverture, a story which incessantly reminds every
thoughtful man that slavery everywhere, however seemingly secure, is
only a suppressed, not an extinguished, volcano.
I commend the book heartily as sincere and faithful, quite sure that it
will command attention not only by its intrinsic interest and merit, but
as another silent and eloquent protest against the system which, while
it deprives men of human rights, also denies them intellectual capacity.
I think we may pardon the author that he does not love the government of
his native land. But surely he and all other colored men may
congratulate themselves that the party whose principles will presently
control that government repeats the words of the Declaration of
Independence as its creed of political philosophy.
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
NEW YORK, _September 1st, 1860_.
A SUMMER
ON THE BORDERS OF
THE CARIBBEAN SEA.
LETTER I.
Dominican Republic.
FROM NEW YORK TO PUERTO DEL PLATA--SMOOTHNESS OF THE VOYAGE--HAYTI
IN THE DISTANCE--DESCRIPTION OF THE STANDING ARMY--UNPARALLELED
SCENIC BEAUTY.
“Is John departed, and is Lilburn gone?
Farewell to both, to Lilburn and to John.”
Hudibras.
It was a mild, showery morning on the 19th of May, 1860, that the brig
John Butler, on board of which we were, left her dock at New York and
anchored off the Jersey Flats. From this point we enjoyed the
pleasantest and decidedly most satisfactory view of the great commercial
city and its environs. The many white-sailed vessels and finely-painted
steamers plying in and out the North and East rivers, and between the
bright green undulating slopes of Staten and Long islands, presented a
picturesque and animated scene, quite in contrast with the dark walls
and stately steeples of the city which arose beyond.
More delightfully refreshing nothing could have been. Altogether, the
fine air and characteristic scenes of New York bay amply repaid the
inconvenience of remaining all day in sight of the great metropolis,
without being jostled in its streets or snuffing the peculiar atmosphere
that pervades it.
On the morning of the 20th we sailed out of the bay, passed Sandy Hook,
and were at sea. The sky was clear, and the ocean calm. Betwixt the
novelty of being at sea for the first time and the dread of that
sickness which all landsmen fear, but know to be inevitable, I was kept
in a state of moderate excitement which effectually annihilated those
sentimental sorrows which one is expected at such times to entertain.
The first vessel we met coming in was the Porto Plata, from this city,
and owned by a German firm on the corner of Broadway and Wall street,
New York. Her cargo, I have since learned, consisted principally of
mahogany and hides.
Our mornings were passed mostly in studying the Dominican language,
which, as nearly as I can analyze it, is a compound of Spanish, French,
English, Congo, and Caribbean--but, of course, principally Spanish. The
afternoons were spent in fishing, and catching sea-weed, watching the
flying-fish, or in looking simply and silently on the ever-bounding sea,
which was in itself an infinite and unwearying source of irrepressible
delight. A comparatively quiet sameness characterized the voyage. With
bright clouds pencilling the sunset sky, a fresh breeze stiffening the
sails, and the ship gliding smoothly over the buoyant waves, the
sensations were at times exceedingly exhilarating, and even supremely
delicious. But there were no dead calms, no terrific storms. To-day was
the pale blue sky above, and the deep blue ocean rolling everywhere
around; and to-morrow the sky was equally as fine, and the same dark
heaving ocean as boundlessly sublime. Had there been a storm, if only
for description’s sake!
But the poetry ceased. We were now in the latitude of the regular
trade-winds, with which every man is supposed to be as certainly
familiar as he is with a school-book, or the way to church. Where were
the winds? Wanting--from the south and east when they should have been
from the west, and _vice versa_. As for their reputed regularity, they
were no more regular than a sinner at prayers. Four successive days we
averaged about one mile an hour, and this was in the trade-winds! For
the honor of all concerned, however, I will say (on the point-blank oath
of our captain) that such a thing never occurred before, and, as he
expressed it, “mightn’t be again in a thousand years.” I thought of an
old man who once went travelling, and when he returned he was asked what
he had learned. He said, simply, “I was a fool before, but by travelling
I found it out.” The astounding thunderstorms you hear about in the West
Indies were all gone before we got here; so were the whirlwinds.
After a sail of twelve days, a long, dim, bluish outline, as of a cloud
four hundred miles in length, stood out above the waves. Soon, with a
glass, could be distinguished the regularly rising tablelands and lovely
green valleys, the dark mountains standing in the background. I was at
once agitated with all the anxieties of hope and fear. We were
approaching the eventful shores of San Domingo, embracing as it does the
Dominican and Haytien republics. But however thrillingly interesting its
past history may have been, the _practical_ question was whether the
present state of affairs here would not be found unsatisfactory, and the
climate hotter and less healthy than was desirable, or whether the
luxuriant indications of opulence and ease I now beheld might not prove
to be more captivating than expected, and the climate even more
delightfully salubrious than I had dared to anticipate. I watched the
lingering sunlight, wrapping the clouds, the mountains, and the sky into
one glowing and refulgent scene, with all the enthusiasm of which my
soul was capable; but the sun went quietly down, and the supper-bell
reminded me of a fresh-caught mackerel. The sun and the land will come
again to-morrow, but the mackerel disappeared forever.
Morning did come, and with it came the pilot (black). We entered the
“port of silver” (Puerto del Plata). The harbor is a poor one; but if
there be one thing on earth deserving the epithet “sublime,” it is the
surrounding scenery. We anchored, and there awaited the coming of the
custom-house officers. The officers came--some white, some colored--and
with them Mr. Collins, an American gentleman to whom I was addressed. He
received me liberally, invited me to stop with him, promising to show me
around the country, introduce me to the General, (black,) and do a
variety of other things decidedly un-American, but very gentlemanly
indeed.
It was Saturday afternoon when we went ashore, and it so happened there
was to be a government proclamation. In due time the drum struck up, and
down came the standing army, looking for all the world like a parcel of
ragamuffin boys playing militia. I counted them, and I think there were
four drummers, two fifers, and two lines of soldiers--thirteen in a
line. Some were barefooted, others wore shoes; some of their guns had
bayonets, and others none. The manner in which they bore them compared
with the foregoing suggestions, and so on to the end of this ridiculous
scene. Dominicana has a government--so poets have empires.
In passing through the streets one is compelled to observe the
non-progressive appearance of everything around him. There lie the
unturned stones, just as they were laid a century ago. The houses are
generally built one story high, with conical-shaped roofs, for no other
reason than that that is the way this generation found them. Mr.
Collins, who is a bachelor, lives in an airy two-story house, with a
charming verandah running its whole length, cool and delicious, and
surrounded by the sweetest fruit-trees outside of Eden. I found myself
perpetually exclaiming, “Oh! what beautiful, bright roses!” what this,
and what that, until I felt shamefully convicted of my own enthusiastic
ignorance. I need not repeat the traveller’s story, for the certainty
of exposure is sure. Look at a wood-cut and say that you have seen
Niagara, but don’t read Harper’s picture-books and suppose you have any
idea of Haytien floral beauty.[B]
Of course I have not been here long enough to know whether it is a fit
place for a man to live in, or for a number to colonize, and I am well
aware, when the question of politics comes up, it turns on a very
different pivot; but by all that is magnificent, lovely, exquisite, and
delicious in its vegetable productions, I do set it down a perfect
paradise.
LETTER II.
Dominican Republic.
WANT OF INFORMATION--ONE SIDE OF A QUESTION.
There is no school-boy but remembers, when tracing the history of
Columbus on his perilous voyage across the sea in search of a new world,
how eagerly he watched each favorable indication of bird or sea-weed,
and ultimately with what rapture he greeted the joyous cry of land; nor
who, looking back through the vista of centuries past, but brings
vividly to mind the landing of Columbus, the simplicity of the natives,
the cupidity of the Spaniards, and their insatiable thirst for gold. But
further than this--further than a knowledge of a few of the most
striking outlines of the earlier history of Hayti, or Hispaniola--there
is generally known little or nothing; little of the vicissitudes and
sanguinary scenes through which the peoples of this island have passed;
nothing of the “easily attainable wealth almost in sight of our great
commercial cities;” nothing of its sanitary districts peculiarly
conducive to longevity. On the contrary, erroneous and exaggerated
notions prevail, that because it is not within a given circle of
isothermal lines it must necessarily be fit for the habitation only of
centipedes, bugbears, land-sharks and lizards. Indeed, it has been well
said there is perhaps no portion of the civilized world of which the
American people are so uninformed; and, in fact, so anomalous and
apparently contradictory to the generally received impression does
everything appear, that I almost despair of these papers being regarded
as other than humorously paradoxical.
I am standing now on the line of 19° 45´ of north latitude, or but 20°
15´ south of the city of New York, and but 3° of longitude east, a
distance not greater, I think, than by river from St. Louis to New
Orleans, a distance frequently made by steamers within four days, and a
distance which may be travelled over on railroads in the States at the
rate of three times a week! Yet there are many persons who, were you to
speak to them concerning this portion of the American tropics, you would
find, regard it as being somewhere away on the coast of Africa, and the
voyage hither long and tediously disagreeable. It is in reality but a
small pleasure trip.
This is one side; but the great lesson of the world’s experience is
that there are two sides to every question.
THE OTHER SIDE.
On the other hand, it may well be asked, if this be the Eden of the New
World, why its flowers should be “born to blush unseen,” and its “gems
of purest ray” remain hidden in its hills; or, to speak less
classically, why the country should lie so long a comparative _terra
incognita_, producing generations of indolent men and women, excelling
only in superstition, idleness, and profound stupidity. In the “Silver
Port,” the port in which we entered, vessels get within a quarter of a
mile of land; then lighters take the cargo half the remaining distance,
and from thence ox-carts convey it to the shore, when a comparatively
small outlay of ingenuity, capital, and labor would make it a
respectable harbor.
The men generally dress--those that dress at all--in cool white linen,
Panama hats, and light gaiter boots. They look nice; but the
red-turbaned, often bare-stockinged, loosely-dressed women are shocking.
“Know then this truth, (enough for man to know,)
Virtue alone is happiness below.”
Soon after we arrived, a dark, brown-skinned, and as handsome a looking
man as I ever saw, came on board as watchman. For my particular benefit,
I suppose, the captain inquired if he had a wife; to which he replied,
in broken Spanish, “Two--one is not a plenty.”
A large portion of the cargo of the vessel in which I came consisted of
lumber for the erection of a storehouse. The same vessel will be
freighted back with timber of a superior quality. Indeed, the shores are
lined with yellow-wood and mahogany; _but it is not sawed_. A gentleman
is reported to have built a house in one of the interior towns which
would have cost in Northern Ohio about $800, at a cost of $25,000.
Inquire why this is so--why this listless inactivity prevails--and you
receive the answer, “Well, waat is the use?” or, as Tennyson has it,
“Vot’s the hods, so long as you’re ’appy.” The “apathy of despair” has
not reached here, but the apathy of stupidity is incurable.
CAUSES OF THE DECLINE OF THE SPANISH COLONY.
I am aware that many persons, among them our finest writers on
“Civilization--Its Dependence on Physical Circumstances,” attribute the
cause of the island’s decline from its ancient splendor, and the
consequent supine indifference of the natives, to the effeminating
influences attending all tropical climates; and, without prejudice, I
believe such would be very greatly the case in a very large portion of
the tropical world; but it is a libel on Hayti and Dominicana. The
country is as healthy as Virginia, and, except in its excessive beauty
and fertility, resembles much the state of North Carolina. “Nobody dies
in Port-au-Platte,” they say; but I should be sorry to find it true. I
trace the cause in the country’s history, as I think the following brief
glance will show, for much of which I am indebted to W. S. Courtney,
Esq., and his essay on “The Gold Fields of St. Domingo.” We will say the
civilized history of the country began with the Spaniards in 1492. The
inhabitants, at the time of its discovery by Columbus, were a
simple-minded, hospitable, and kind-hearted people, the fate
(unparalleled suffering) of whom I have no disposition to record. The
studious reader of American history will shudder at the bare
recollection of the predatory scenes and excessively inhuman and
bewildering iniquities of which they fell the victims, and which, if
perpetrated now in any part of the world, “would send a thrill of horror
to the heart of universal man.” Montgomery, I think it is, expresses
their fate touchingly, and in a nut-shell, thus:
“Down to the dust the Carib people passed,
Like autumn foliage withering in the blast;
A whole race sunk beneath the oppressor’s rod,
And left a blank among the works of God!”
The Spanish colonists brought with them, of course, the Spanish
language, customs, laws, and religion, which language, customs, and
religion prevail to this day. They were exceedingly prosperous through a
long series of years. They built palatial residences, cultivated sugar
and tobacco farms, erected prodigious warehouses, established assay
offices, and worked the mines on a grand but unscientific scale. The
mines are supposed to have yielded from twenty-five to thirty millions
of dollars per annum, and the exports of sugar and other productions
showed a corresponding degree of prosperity.
In about 1630 the island began to decline. The natives had been driven
and tortured to the last degree, and the heroic Spaniards began to look
around for other countries to conquer, other people to enslave. They
discovered Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. The most glowing and captivating
accounts went forth of the incalculable wealth of those countries in
silver and gold, and multitudes abandoned their homes and haciendas and
flocked thitherwards, in the hope of realizing wealth untold.
Plantations and mines that had been producing immense revenues were
abandoned to waste and desolation, and the population of the island was
reduced one half from this one cause alone. Meanwhile, the French had
established themselves on the western part of the island, and the
present Haytien territory was ceded to France in 1773.
The remaining Spaniards introduced African slaves to supply the place of
natives, and with this labor they were enabled to recover somewhat of
their ancient thrift. Soon after this, the revolt in the French portion
of the island occurred, and many of the Spanish slaves left the
territory to join the standard of their revolutionary brethren. Besides
this, whenever the French royalists drove the revolutionary forces back
into the mountains, and cut off their supplies, the latter entered the
Spanish territory, helped themselves to what they needed, destroyed the
haciendas, carried off cattle and crops, and if they were resisted, as
they sometimes were, they slaughtered the Spaniards as they do hogs in
Cincinnati, Ohio, set the cities on fire, and left behind a grand but
terribly universal ruin.
The history of San Domingo was never completely written, and if it were,
would never find a reader. But stand here on these shores, with a rising
panorama of half the scenes enacted by these revolting and infuriated
slaves, and there is not a planter in the Southern United States, who,
for all the wealth Peru, Mexico, and St. Domingo could produce, would be
willing to return home and remain there over night.
Finally, Dessalines, that extraordinary prince of cut-throats, entered
the Spanish territory, slaughtered the French, laid waste the country
for leagues, carried off the remaining slaves, and so bewildered and
astounded the Spanish residents that they gathered up what movable
wealth they could and left the country, “some for Mexico, some for Peru,
while many returned to Spain.”
Such are the principal and to me satisfactory causes which history
assigns for the decline of the island’s thrift, which had reached an
unparalleled degree of prosperity and an unsurpassed grandeur and
magnificence, with a rapidity unrivalled in the annals of the world.
SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.
For the gratification of your many readers, I will continue this
homœopathic sketch of the island’s history up to the present time.
In 1821 the Dominican portion (which embraces about three-fifths of the
island, but having, I think, not more than one-fourth of its population)
declared itself independent of the Spanish crown, but was shortly after
subjugated by Boyer, the President of the Haytien Republic. In 1842 a
revolution in Hayti caused Boyer to flee, and Riviere assumed the
presidency. Two years after, the Dominicans overpowered Riviere, and on
the 27th of February, 1844, reëstablished their government, or rather
the present government of Dominicana. The main features of their
constitution are, that each district or canton choose electors, who meet
in preliminary electoral convention, and elect for four years the
President and other administrative officers, and a certain number of
counsellors, who constitute a congress.
The President, Pedro Santana, is a mixed blood of Spanish and Indian
descent, and is emphatically regarded as a most estimable personage.
Baez, the former President, is said to be of mixed French and African
lineage; in short, there is no difference on account of color.
In 1849, Solouque, the President of Hayti, contrary to the wish of many
Haytiens, undertook to conquer the Dominicans, and bring them
unwillingly under his despotic sway. He entered the territory with five
thousand men, but was met at Las Carreas, and disastrously defeated by
General Santana, “with an army of but four hundred men under his
command.” This is the truth, or history is a lie.
For this brilliant achievement Santana received the title of “Libertador
de la Patria,” and seems to be admired, comparatively speaking, after
the manner of our “liberator” and Father of his country. (Bah!)
But a small portion of the Haytiens, as I have before observed,
sympathized with President Solouque in his abortive attempt to carry out
the “Democratic” policy of territorial expansion. And when General
Geffrard was proclaimed President, it is said the populace demanded
pledges that he would not pursue the policy of his predecessor in this
regard.
“It is not at all probable that any organized attempts of the Haytiens
to recover possession of the Dominican territory will ever again be
made; so that henceforth there will be no more annoyances of this sort.”
Such are the views and opinions of eminent men, who have given this
subject some attention;[C] but in the opinion of the writer, as is
generally known, the destiny of the island is union;--one in government,
wants, and interest, brought about by the introduction of the English
language, and by other peaceful and benignant means; such language,
wants, and interests to be introduced by the emigration hither of North
Americans,--some white, but principally colored. England, France, and
many other independent nations of the world, have acknowledged and
formed liberal treaties with the weak little Republic, but I hope you do
not suppose the government of the United States could be _guilty_ of
anything that looks like generosity.
God grant that I may never die in the United States of America!
LETTER III.
Dominican Republic.
CORPUS CHRISTI.
Betwixt midnight and daylight this morning I was lying sleeping and
dreaming under the halcyon influences of the lingering land breezes,
when suddenly a harmonious sound of partly brass and partly string
instrumental music rang upon the air. It appeared just as music always
does to any one in a semi-transparent slumber--not quite awake nor yet
asleep--when, as everybody knows, it is sweet as love. One boom from the
cannon, and I stood square on my feet; and, as it is not very remarkable
here to see persons dressed in white, the next moment I was out on the
verandah.
There went a jolly crowd, promiscuous enough, but apparently as
light-hearted and happy as mortals get to be, and which to a
slant-browed contriving Yankee is a poser. They had thus early begun to
celebrate what is called _Corpus Christi_, which, according to all fair
translation, I should think means Christ’s body. But any thing about it
after that I am entirely unable to say. It would seem to require a good
deal to understand all the Catholic ceremonies. Talk about their being
ignorant! I never expect to learn so much while I live.
All business houses were closed for the day, and Dominican, French,
American, and other colors were flying from their respective staffs.
Altars were erected in various streets, with numerous candles burning
within, and bedecked with parti-colored flags and flowers. They were
really prettily and tastefully arranged. In short, it was an American
4th of July, except this: to each of these altars marched the throng of
people headed by the priest. The priest said prayers in “Greek.” The
people _understood_, and all knelt down in the street, men, women, and
children, but of course principally women.
THE FARM OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE.
A party of us went out to see Mr. Smith, a fugitive slave, whose energy
and well-directed enterprise had attracted some attention heretofore. He
is not so fine looking a man as I expected to see. He is under five and
a half feet in height, limps a little, and is altogether but little in
advance, to use a most contemptible Americanism, of his “kind of people”
in the States. He speaks no Spanish, and for that matter very little
English; but he has a will of his own, and a determination to do
something, which gives him an advantage over half a dozen persons who go
to school to lose their common sense.
Mr. Smith was a slave in South Carolina; was brought by sea to Key West,
and there hired out to work for a Republican government. He and some
other of his fellow-slaves, including his wife, took sail-boat, set
sail, and after suffering almost incredibly from sea-sickness and want
of food, finally reached New Providence, which he had previously learned
to be an English colony. He proceeded to declare his intention to become
a British subject, and went to work; but wages being low, he concluded
to remove to Dominicana and go to farming. He purchased a piece of land
near the town of Porto Plata, and with the assistance of his
“help-mate,” (which in this country means a wife,) soon cleared the land
of its tropical undergrowth, and planted it in corn and potatoes. In
breaking up the ground he used a plow, a startling innovation here, but
which produced most salutary results. A neighbor of his has since bought
one. So great was the yield of Mr. Smith and his wife’s crop that in
little more than a year’s time they have a house and forty acres of land
all paid for, and a new crop worth over five hundred dollars, which will
soon be ready for market.
This may not seem very remarkable to any one who has never seen a
sand-hill, nor yet been to Canada; but to me it is a miracle. My object
in mentioning this fact, however, is, to state that Mr. Smith also
planted a few seeds of Sea-Island cotton, the product of which has been
sent to New York and pronounced worth 14c. per pound. Now, there are
numbers of colored men recently from the Southern States skilled in, and
some who have made small fortunes by, the cultivation of cotton, at
perhaps not more than eight or nine cents per pound, when, too, it had
to be replanted every year. It produces here without replanting almost
indefinitely, but it is safe to say seven years.
The query is this: give half a dozen such men as Smith a cotton-gin
($350), send them out here, and would they not accomplish more for the
elevation of the colored race by the successful cultivation of cotton,
in eighteen months, than all the mere talkers in as many years?
The meanest thing I have been obliged to do, and the greatest sin I
have committed, has been the registering my name as an American citizen.
I presented myself to the United States consul (whose son and clerk, by
the way, is a mulatto). The nice correspondence of Mr. Marcy was
produced, not with any evil intent at all, but just to show what
indefinable definitions there are between colored and black and white
and negroes as American citizens. I should like to find out how a man
_knows_ he is an American citizen! There are members of Congress who can
no more tell this than they can tell who are their fathers.
As for Mr. Corwin’s talk about enforcing the laws, he may thank Heaven
if he is not yet arrested as a fugitive slave.
* * * * *
Since the above was written, I understand the courts of Virginia have
decided that an Octoroon is not a negro. Now, then, if an octoroon is
not a _negro_, is an octoroon a citizen? And if an octoroon is not a
negro, is a quadroon a negro?
LETTER IV.
Dominican Republic.
FIRST RIDE IN THE COUNTRY--PASTORISA PLACE.
“A Yankee is known by the shortness of his stirrups;” so they say here,
and I do not know that the criticism is at all too severe. Except Willis
and one or two others, who of the Americans know any thing about riding?
The Dominicans are good on horseback. In fact, it is their boast that
they can ride or march further in two days than Americans want to go in
a week. On the other hand, if “Los Yankees” had this country they would
soon fix it so that a man could go over it all before the Dominicans got
breakfast. Señor Pastorisa, (of the firm of Pastorisa, Collins & Co.,
formerly of St. Thomas,) who married a native, is mounted on a
cream-colored horse, (cost $300,) and wears behind him a sword in a
silver-gilt case. Every male person wears a sword of some kind, even
though it prove to be as useless as an old case-knife. It is an old,
superannuated, hundred-years-behind-the-age custom; yet in some
instances serves as their Court of Appeals. No one disturbs you, and you
are expected to be as well behaved; but if not, the difficulty is
generally settled at the sword’s point, and there it ends. How
magnanimous even is this rude mode of settling disputes when compared to
that of the one-sided, blaspheming, defrauding den of thieves called a
court of justice in the States! Coming from a land where men kill each
other without warning, instead of a sword which I would not know how to
use, I buy a pair of holsters for horseman’s pistols, throw them across
the saddle, and am ready.
Now there may be no pistols in these holsters, of course, but what is
the difference so long as they are supposed to be there? I take it as
one of the grand lessons which the world’s history teaches, that men are
far more afraid of supposed and imaginary dangers than of those they
know to be real. The number of backsliding sinners and snake-story
witnesses are innumerable.
We were now at the base of the St. Mark’s mountain, which rises just
back of the town of Porto Plata. The so-called road was no road at all.
There were little narrow trenches running between the rocks, fit for
pack-mules, but scarcely wide enough to allow one’s feet to pass. Up
the mountain we came _poco á poco_. While passing these rocks the sun
poured down with an intensity not previously experienced. But I had
never been an alderman, and was not fat enough to melt; indeed, it might
as well have shone on a pine knot. Ere long the sun hid behind a cloud,
the thunder muttered a little, but pretty soon, as if by way of
repentance, there came a restorative shower of tears. (Thank Heaven! the
_nigger_ question vanquished the sun.) Nothing is so calculated to make
a man vain as a mountain shower. You enjoy its ineffable sensations
yourself, while below you behold the poor valley fellows sweating in the
sun. Or it may be they are drowning wet below, and you basking in the
clear sunshine above. Either way, you are bound to rejoice and to look
with contempt on the silly ones who make themselves miserable by
regretting and whining over things that are in themselves unalterable,
and need no change. The wise repine not.
Over the mountain and beside a stream, with limes scattered plentifully
around, we stop a moment for refreshment. Lemonade is cheap, one would
think; the limes are as free as the water. Had nature furnished the
sweetening as well, we should have had a river of lemonade.
Here country settlements begin again, called _estancias_, which, if you
will get a blackboard and a piece of chalk, I will explain. Mark off,
say four acres of land, clear it up--let the fruit-trees stand, of
course--enclose it, but plant nothing therein. In the centre of this
piece erect a shanty. This much is called a _conuco_. Now go through the
woods, say a mile and a half, clear up four acres more and plant
tobacco. The next year or two this will be gone to weeds; you then (not
knowing the use of a plow) go another half mile, clear up another piece
and plant a new crop. The old place has gone to wreck, the new place is
in its vigor; but neither is in sight of the house. This together is
called an _estancia_, and I should have said before meant a farm, but it
does not mean a farm in English by a good deal.
At this point we leave the “road,” and, under full gallop half the
while, take through the wood, guided by a dim path which winds over the
hills and down the dales with as careless an indiscrimination as ever
road was trodden by a prairie herd. L’Ouverture’s feats or Putnam’s
celebrated escape would do to read about, but this was reducing the
thing to practice.
Five miles’ gallop over a level plain--thirty miles in all--and we have
reached Pastorisa Place: it is a perfect Arcadia.
During leisure moments I shall probably look back to this day’s ride and
to these enchanting scenes as one of the “gilt letter” chapters of my
life; but at present, after a bath, the rapidity with which fried
plantains, pine-apple syrup, and scorched sweet milk will disappear,
would do a dyspeptic Northerner good to see!
The property comes by Señora Pastorisa. She is, perhaps,
five-and-twenty. Her eyes are as bright and dark as even Lord Byron
could have wished them to be. Her complexion is that of a clear ripe
orange. The place is extensive, containing say nineteen thousand acres,
in a valley five miles wide, fenced in on either side by a spear of
mountains, with a limpid stream running through the centre.
Mocking-birds enliven every thing; parrots and paroquettes go around in
droves, screaming and squawking like a very nuisance. Back of the house
is a grove appropriated to honey-bees. They swarm on every log. (There
were certainly over one hundred swarms.) Honey is considered of but
little value anywhere in the mountains, and is often wasted in the
streams, the wax only being preserved. This comes of having pack-mules
and goat-paths instead of wagons and wagon-roads.
Señor Pastorisa had informed me before of his desire to quit the town
and improve his farm. All he needed was men who understood farming on
the American plan. He has a plow, and intends harnessing an ox to-morrow
to try the experiment of plowing. Now, it is clear that to plow the
ground very successfully he will need at least a yoke of oxen--which he
has, all but the yoke. This I would undertake to make, though I never
did such a thing in my life, and always had a horror of an ox-yoke,
anyway; but lo! there are no tools. So Señor Pastorisa needs hands, but
with a very little _a priori_ reasoning it will be seen there are other
things needed quite as much. One is a road. There is a natural outlet to
the valley--there must be. The stream before the door makes towards the
Isabella river. The Isabella empties into the sea, of course.
I forgot to say Señora Pastorisa is “a little tinged”--the handsomest
woman in the world.
LETTER V.
Dominican Republic.
VALLEY OF THE ISABELLA--CUSTOMS OF THE NATIVES--CHAPTER ON SNAKES--A
CALL FOR DINNER.
“Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime;
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,
And all save the spirit of man is divine?”--BYRON.
There had been one or two invigorating showers previous to our ride down
the valley of the Isabella, and so there remained a great deal of
slippery clay along the narrow pathways, which paths lay usually on the
very verge of some mountain slope, embankment, or more exciting
precipice. To have come off with only one or two bones broken, I should
have been perfectly satisfied.
We forded the river with impunity, crossed and recrossed it again, and
finally came to as level a bottom plain as wheel ever rolled on. The
valley of the Isabella is as handsome as a park.
The river itself is not so large as Longfellow’s “Beautiful River,” but
it is much more deserving the name. Apropos, every old homestead has its
particular title, such as the “Mocking-Bird,” “Humming-Bird,”
“Crebahunda,” and a variety of others for which there is no adequate
translation. The legends attending them are frequently the most
exquisite.
Considering, therefore, the remarkable history, exquisite legends, and
extraordinary traditions of the country, I am bound to say, should there
be sufficient emigration in this direction to produce a poet of the
Hiawatha school, I should be sorry for the laurels of Mr. Longfellow.
There are one or two parts of “Hiawatha,” however, for which I hope to
retain a relish.
The houses and cultivation along our way are in keeping with the
_estancias_ before described. The men are comparatively neat in
appearance, find them where you will. The women are frequently
good-looking, but seldom spirited. The prevailing question seems to be,
How low in the neck can their dresses be worn? and the answer is, Very
low indeed! White Swiss is worn as dress, and when seen on a handsome
woman is like Balm of Gilead to the wounded eye. The wife does not
usually eat at the table with her husband. She sees that his baths are
ready, and at times even that his horse is fed, and at meal-times either
takes her plate on her lap or awaits the second table. This is not from
want of respect on the part of either; it is their stupid custom. Should
“los Americanos” ever run a stage-coach up this valley, and two or three
of these fellows have to climb on top for the sake of giving one lady an
inside seat, they will comprehend somewhat better for whose convenience
the world was made.
_June 14th._--Señor Pastorisa fell ill to-day, and is now lying in a
hammock. This gives me an opportunity to extol the hammock, which is too
excellent a thing to pass unnoticed. It consists mainly of a net-work of
grass, netted something like a seine, twice the length of a person or
more, and fastened at the ends with cords sufficiently strong to hold
the weight of any one. These cords are tied to the limb of a tree or the
rafters of a house, and there you swing as happy as any baby ever rocked
in a tree-top. It is sufficiently light to be carried in saddle-bag, and
is altogether indispensable.
The señor’s fever is also my excuse for pencilling down notes more
minutely than I otherwise should. I can, of course, give you a
description of but few things singly. The palm-tree ought to be one.
This remarkable tree grows without a limb, smooth and regular as a
barber-pole, from forty to sixty feet high. At this point it turns
suddenly green, and puts out two or three shoots. Around these grow its
berries, which are used for fattening pork. Each of these shoots
furnishes monthly a rare peel or skin, which is used for covering
houses, for packing tobacco, and for making bath-tubs, trays, and other
articles of household furniture. The body of the tree is used for
weather-boarding. It rives like a lath, the inside being pithy, somewhat
like an elder. Its leaves are twelve feet long, and bend over as
gracefully as an arch. In the centre of the top springs out a single
blade, like the staff of a parasol. This was made (one would think) for
mocking-birds to dance on. The most useful tree in the world, its
usefulness is excelled by its own beauty.
The valley of the Isabella is a grove of palms.
* * * * *
One cannot but remark how preposterous are the snake stories which the
vulgar relate respecting the West Indies and tropics generally. The
world does not contain another thing so brazenly destitute of the least
common sense. In all this rambling through the woods, over the hills,
and along the streams, the most harmful thing I have seen is a
honey-bee--not even a dead garter-snake!
While on board a vessel off the coast one day, a sailor threw overboard
a hook and line, and in the course of time caught a young shark. It was
as wicked a little thing as I ever saw, and strong as a new-born giant.
The sailor struck it over the head with a stick, when it snapped the
hook and flounced around the vessel. In short, he killed it, and
proceeded to dress it for breakfast.
“Going to eat a shark?” I inquired.
“Why not?”
“Good heavens! I thought they were the worst things in the world.”
“You eat duck,” said he; “what’s nastier than a duck? Shark’s
clean--swims in a clean sea.”
I afterwards tasted a piece: it was coarse, and the idea that its mother
might some day eat me, made the thing disgusting; but it learned me a
lesson I shall not very soon forget. An Irishman is afraid to go to
America on account of its frogs; a Frenchman makes a dish of them. One
man eats rats, and another cats.