and have always differed, in a direct and corresponding ratio; the
inhabitants of the cool and healthy regions having at the time of the
discovery systematized forms of government and worship, while the hotter
and less salubrious coasts were occupied by a distinct family of men
unfixed in their abodes, having no social enjoyments, and living on the
natural fruits of the earth. In Central America, therefore, Dr. Smith’s
celebrated essay on “Civilization--its Independence of Physical
Circumstance,” receives a striking illustration, the damp Musquito
coasts having propagated only a rude tribe of men; while San Salvador,
for example, sustains a population highly civilized, and equal in number
to New England.
But I have dwelt at most length on the island of Hayti, because it is a
source of greatest interest to us, and because there is perhaps no
country the intrinsic value of which is so little known; and while I can
see no objection but every thing to encourage by governmental influence
the establishment of a colony in some parts of the Central American
States, neither do I know why it might not be established in the Spanish
territory of Hayti. I have given another gentleman’s views, which are
worth more than my own, as to the vast population the country is capable
of sustaining, and have shown that especially from Porto Cabello west,
to the Bay of Samana east, no finer province could certainly be desired.
That noble bay, as I am informed, has been surveyed heretofore by a
corps of American engineers, who pronounced it the choicest point for a
naval station on the Caribbean coasts. It is also assumed, from the
rapid increase of the coral reefs in the Bahama channels, that this in
time will furnish the only safe channel for California steamers, and
even for larger vessels bound from the Northern States to New Orleans. I
have nothing to do with that, further than to state it as I have it. The
insurance companies will however appreciate this assumption, if we are
to judge from the number of wrecks which have recently occurred between
the Caicos and Florida reefs.
Surrounding the bay of Samana are beds of coal as if on purpose to
supply such steamers; but they now lie unworked, useless, and almost
unknown. Into this bay empties the Yuna river, which takes its rise far
back in the northern and middle range of mountains, and, fed by
innumerable tributaries, winds its course towards this magnificent
harbor through the widest portion of the Royal plains.
“In briefly describing the principal bays of Dominicana,” says Mr.
Courtney, “the first of importance is the far-famed and magnificent bay
of Samana, at the north-eastern end of the island, at the mouth of the
Yuna river. It is about fifty miles from east to west, and varying in
width from fifteen to twenty miles, and of a great depth. The entrance
to it is at the east end, and is about a mile wide, as beyond that is
shoal water, to the south side some little islands and bars appearing
above the surface. An old fort, erected long since on the high bluff on
the north side, a few miles above the mouth and before it widens out,
commands its entrance. The hills and mountains on either side of the bay
rise back from it to a great height, their sides being covered with
beautiful slopes, plateaus, and benches. The coasts are here and there
indented with minor bays and inlets, the most important of which is at
the town of Samana, about twenty-five miles up the bay on the north
side. It is a land-locked harbor and very deep, as are all the inlets.
The view of the bay from either side across to the opposite shores,
covered as it is with swarms of ducks and swans and other water fowl;
and the coasts and hills and mountains covered with flowers and verdure
and fruit, is truly beautiful and sublime, equalling, if not
surpassing, in beauty and magnificence, the Bay of Naples, and is
obviously the key to the Gulf of Mexico.
“Here all the navies of the world could lie at anchor in safety.”
* * * * *
It would be useless for me to give a minute description of each
particular bay in each particular State, thus swelling these pages into
the usual ponderous three-dollar volumes which nobody buys, and so none
read. I am aware that the Bay of Fonseca, and others on the Spanish
Main, are equally deserving, if necessary, to be described. Mr. Wells
has shown this, and also that the interior districts of Honduras are as
rich in silver and gold as any region of which California can boast. I
understand, however, that parties have since been formed on the strength
of Mr. Wells’ report, and thoroughly equipped for mining operations. But
as I am informed, they were not allowed to enter the interior in
consequence of those filibustering propensities which all white
Americans are supposed to possess.
A party organized to work the mines on a small scale in Dominicana has
lately sailed for the island. They will not be interrupted by the
present government, but the durability of that government is, I am
sorry to say, a question which may be agitated, and even settled,
_before I finish writing this book_.
And now I have struck the key note of all I have to say. The most
beautiful countries in the world are the most lamentably ill-governed.
It makes no difference to any one having foreign protection, as to their
personal safety, whether there be revolution or not. This white
Americans and all Englishmen or anybody else have, but the free colored
people of America. They have no protection anywhere.
Now this is a shame and a disgrace to the civilized world. But so it is,
and, as Mr. Douglas would ask, “What are you going to do about it?”
I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of such eminent persons as have
proposed to acknowledge the independence of these governments, form
treaties therewith, and even to purchase territory and provide the means
whereby a settlement could be established. I have rather much cause to
believe the new government (that is to be) will give the subject earnest
consideration. Nothing could be more just, and, as I believe, wise or
popular. I know that such a measure would not be opposed by the people
of the tropics, for there are many who entertain progressive ideas, and
who have sympathies in common with Americans, who, the moment a
protected settlement were established, would flock thither from the
neighboring States and islands, and immediately swell the number of the
original emigrants. I say I know this, because so many have said so,
among whom could be mentioned English and American families, white and
colored. But it pains me to say, the truth is, unless this protection
could be given, or unless a sufficient number could emigrate (which they
are not able to do) to protect themselves, none of these States seem to
be in a sufficiently reliable condition to prevent such a movement from
being a matter of great risk.
I have shown, I think, which was the object of this visit, what might be
accomplished provided the government should provide means, never so
small, towards the furtherance of such a movement.
It is the only way by which a colony to any extent could be permanently
established, which would give tone and stability to the government
there, and turn the important commerce of the tropics in this direction.
There are now probably ten European vessels in the harbor of Spanish
America, but especially of Dominicana, where there is one belonging to
the United States, although the latter is the natural market, from which
they receive entirely their flour and salted pork. (Merchants of
Cincinnati will appreciate this.)
I presume it would be difficult to find an American merchant in any of
the Spanish States, who had not succeeded in making a fortune by the
great advantages of trade in mahogany, dye-woods, hides, and tobacco,
almost immediately after commencing business, but who has not as
invariably lost it, in whole or in part, by the depression of currency
in consequence of the momentary revolutions.
How grandly would both these and _those_ States “loom up in the eyes of
the world,” if, abandoning that policy which makes them the
indiscriminate oppressors of the weak, the American people should set
themselves at work through their new administration, to secure by this
means the commerce of those countries; give them peace, and forever wipe
out the stain which Walker has cast upon the very name of all who boast
themselves citizens of this republic. Such a measure would in some
degree recompense the colored race for the services they have rendered
to the government, the fruits of which they have not been permitted to
enjoy; would make this great nation less obnoxious to the weak; lay the
foundation of a future empire; and cause those lovely regions to bloom
with industry and skill as they now bloom with eternal verdure.
END.
APPENDIX.
(FROM THE ANGLO-AFRICAN MAGAZINE.)
The Anglo-African Empire.
“Do these things mean nothing? What the tender and poetic youth
dreams to-day and conjures up with inarticulate speech, is
to-morrow the vociferated result of public opinion, and the day
after is the charter of nations.”--_Phillips._
The stars of the tropics are the guiding stars of the age. The sympathy
of the world is with the South, and the tendencies of things are
southward. The controlling influence of the great commercial staple of
our Southern States, the growing demand for the productions of the
tropics, the discovery of gold toward the torrid zone, and a consequent
want of labor in that direction, indicate firmly the force of these
assertions. Other causes, apparently indirect or yet apparently opposed,
such as the disappearance of slavery from Maine to Maryland, and the
rapidity with which the slaves are hurried further south, might be
cited on the one hand; and on the other the filibustering propensities
of Southern fire-eaters as the unerring and immutable laws of destiny,
guided by an all-wise and overruling Providence. “The coral zoöphite
does not know that while it builds itself a house it also creates an
island for the world;” and the master, as he pays the passage of his
slave from the more Northern slave States to New Mexico, is but the rude
agent of a superior power, urging him to more inviting fields for
enterprise, and for his higher and more responsible duties as a freeman.
Reforms do not go backwards, nor filibustering northwards, and “nothing
is more certain than that the slaves are to be free;” but the problem as
to what position they are to sustain as freemen is but little thought
of, and, of course, less understood. It is true some suggestions have
been offered on this subject, foremost among which stands that of Mr.
Helper, as the most absurd and ridiculous. It did not occur to Mr.
Helper, when he suggested the broad idea of chartering all the vessels
lying around loose for the huddling together of the blacks after
emancipation and shipping them off to Africa,--it did not occur to him
that they were men, and might not wish to go; at least it did not occur
to him that they were _men_. So I make the suggestion for his benefit,
and for the benefit of those who may come after him, this being a
question not to be settled by arbitrary means, but by means which shall
meet the approbation of all parties concerned, nor yet forgetting that
at the head of these parties stands Him whose name is not to be
mentioned without reverence.
Whence comes the colored people’s instinctive horror of colonization in
Africa? Colonizationists say they can not account for it, since Africa
is their fatherland. But if this were any argument, I could account for
it by the simple affirmation that it is not their fatherland. The truth
is, “Time has shown that the causes which have produced races never to
improve Africa, but to abandon it, and give their vigor and derive their
strength from other climes, is not to be reversed by the best efforts of
the best men.” Besides this, charity begins at home. Allowing that the
colonizationists, by sending a few handfuls of colored men to Africa,
may plant the germ of civilization there, that the seed may spread or
the fire may flame until the whole continent becomes illuminated with
Christian love, and her sons stand forth regenerated and redeemed from
the dark superstition that enthralled them. Then what? It is a great
deal, and a great deal more than we can hope for, and a hero is he who
will sacrifice his life in making the attempt to bring about such a
magnificent result; but in doing this very little will be accomplished
for the millions who remain, increasing, on this continent.
Nevertheless, there is a growing disposition among colored men of
thought to abandon that policy which teaches them to cling to the skirts
of the white people for support, and to emigrate to Africa, Hayti, or
wherever else they may expect to better their condition; and it is
encouraging to know that the time is at hand when men can speak their
convictions on this subject without being made the victims of illiterate
abuse and indiscriminate denunciation, all of which is the natural
result of more general information, and which will lead to the discovery
at last of what is to be the final purpose of American slavery--the
destiny of the colored race after slavery shall be abolished.
The history of Hayti and Jamaica, and of the American tropics generally,
indicates the propagation of the colored race, exclusive of whites or
blacks. (This is simply calling things by their right names, for which
the compiler of these facts expects to be made the most popular writer
of the age, of being highly flattered, infinitely abused, feared,
hated, and all that attends the discovery of truth generally.)
Throughout the West Indies, with the single exception of Cuba, the
whites have been unable to keep up their numbers, and in that instance
only by a recent flood of immigration on a large scale from Europe. The
colored race, on the contrary, is perfectly well adapted to this region,
and luxuriates in it; and it is only through their agency that some
small portion of the torrid zone has been brought within the circle of
civilized industry. I have said their history would prove this.
When discovered by the Spaniards these islands were inhabited by a
colored people not unlike our Indians. Their homes were invaded; they
were reduced to a state of miserable vassalage, and the proud Caucasian
stalked about, the conquerer of every spot of earth his avarice or
cupidity desired. The natives, unable to endure the persecutions to
which they were subjected, withered and fell like the autumn leaves, and
Africa became the hunting-ground of the slave pirate for hardier and
more enduring slaves.
Africa became their hunting-ground, and quiet villagers were startled in
the dead of night to behold their huts in flames, and to hear the
shrieks of their fellow-men and fellow-women, who were being torn away
from their native homes as victims for the slave-ship, there to suffer
all the tortures of the yoke and the branding-iron, and finally to be
landed, if at all, on the American coast, with no other prospect than
that of a life-bondage spread out before them. This state of wickedness
continued, so far as England was concerned, until its glaring outrages
challenged the attention of the British realm, and until the Parliament
of England passed an act declaring all British subjects should be
free;--“An act of legislation which, for justice and magnanimity, stands
unrivalled in the annals of the world, and which will be the glory of
England and the admiration of posterity when her proudest military and
naval achievements shall have faded from the recollection of mankind;”
an act of legislation which restored the liberties of eight hundred
thousand of our fellow-men, _and left them in possession of superior
claims and circumstances to those from which they had been originally
removed_, (because, undoubtedly, the chances of any free man are better
upon this continent than in Africa.)
Then came a series of American slanders: “Jamaica was ruined;” “the
negro unfit for freedom;” and the downfall of prosperity and the loss of
trade were everywhere said to be inevitable.
But the negro and his descendants are proof against slander and against
the New York Herald, which terms are soon to be synonymous. Jamaica was
not ruined: but, while these complaints were raised against her
population, 40,000 land patents, varying from ten to one hundred acres
each, were being taken up in a single year! Lands having been provided
and schools introduced, happiness began to smile, prosperity reäppeared,
and the whole country was redeemed from what had been a field of terror
to what promises to become the very garden of the Western world.
This is said to be an axiom of political philosophy upon which it is
safe to rely: _For any people to maintain their rights, they must
constitute an essential part of the ruling element of the country in
which they live._ The whites of the tropics are but few in number. They
have heretofore sustained themselves by their superior wealth and
intelligence. But, as fast as the colored people rise in this respect,
their white rulers are pushed aside to make way for officers of their
own race. This is perfectly natural. When a colony of Norwegians come
over from Norway and settle a county in Wisconsin, do they elect a
yankee to represent them? Norwegians elect Norwegians, Germans elect
Germans, and colored men elect colored men, whenever they have the
opportunity.
Even now a large majority of the subordinate officers of Jamaica, I
understand, are colored men. The Parliament is about equally divided,
and the Attorney-General and Emigration Agent-General are colored men;
and it is fair to assume, within a few years of the date of this paper,
there will not be a single white man throughout the West Indies
occupying a position within the gift of the people.
A retired merchant of Philadelphia, a man of large thought and liberal
views, having an experience of fifteen or twenty years’ residence in
Hayti, in reply to certain letters asking for information and advice
respecting the subject now under consideration, published a pamphlet in
which he says: “There is a long view as well as a short view to be taken
of every great question which bears upon human progress; but we are
often unable or unwilling to take the former, until some time after a
question is settled.
“‘Manifest destiny’ has been, for some years, a familiar and accepted
phrase in the mouths of our politicians, and each class suggests a plan
for carrying it out in accordance with its own specific interests, or
some preconceived theory. The pro-slavery adventurer may yet gain a
footing in Central America, but it will not be to establish slavery.
Slavery once abolished, has never been reëstablished in the same place,
in America, except in one instance--that of the smaller French colonies,
now again free. The vain effort to reënslave St. Domingo cost the French
forty thousand men. The free negro, that nothing else can arouse, will
fight against the replacement of the yoke which he has once thrown off;
and the number of these in Central America is sufficient to prove a
stumbling-block if not a barrier to its return. To reëstablish slavery
permanently, where it has once been abolished, is to swim against the
great moral current of the age.
“We can acknowledge to-day that the persecution of the Puritans by Laud
and his predecessors, only intended, as it was, to produce conformity to
the Church, really produced New England. And we can now see that the
obstinacy of George the Third was as much a cause of the Declaration of
Independence, at the time it was made, as the perseverance of John
Adams,--the one being the necessary counterpart of the other, the two
together forming the entire implement which clipped the tie. Now if we
can make the above admissions in respect to these, the two greatest
settled questions of modern times, without excusing either persecution
or obstinacy in wrong, but keeping steadily in view that every man is
responsible for the motives which govern his conduct, be the result of
that conduct what it may, why should we not begin to look at this, the
third great question of the same class, still _un_settled, from the same
point of view?
“_If, then, I were asked what was probably the final purpose of negro
slavery, I should answer--To furnish the basis of a free population for
the tropics of America._
“I believe that the Anglo-Americans, with the Africans, whom a part of
the former now hold in bondage, will one day unite to form this race for
the tropics, with or without combination with the races already there.
But whether the African quota of it shall be transferred thither by
convulsive or organized movements--or be gradually thinned out from
their present abode, as from a great nursery, by directed but
spontaneous transition--or retire, by degrees, with the ‘poor whites,’
before the peaceful encroachments of robust Northern labor, it would be
useless now to conjecture. It is enough now to know that labor, like
capital, goes in the end to the place where it is most wanted; and that
labor, free from the destructive element of caste, has been, and still
is, the great desideratum of the tropics, as it is of all other places
which do not already possess it. I have already spoken of the presumed
ability of the Southern States to spare this kind of labor. Should
there, however, prove to be any part of the Union where the climate or
the culture really requires the labor of the black man, then there he
will remain, and eventually be absorbed by the dominant race; and from
that point the complexion of our population will begin to shade off into
that of the dark belt of Anglo-Africans, which will then extend across
the northern tropics.
“I know that most of our Northern people, while they demand, in the
strongest terms, all the rights of man for the negro or mulatto, are
unable to eradicate from their minds a deeply-grounded prejudice against
his person. In spite of themselves, they shrink from the thought of an
amalgamation such as the foregoing observations imply. But these friends
are not aware how quickly this prejudice begins to melt away as soon as
one has entered any part of the tropics where the African race is in the
ascendant, or where people of colored blood have attained to such social
consideration as to make themselves respected. I suppose no Northern
man ever forgets the occasion when, for the first time, he arrives at
such a place, and the colored merchant to whom he is addressed comes
forward, with the self-possession which attends self-respect, and offers
him his hand. He begins to be healed of his prejudice from that hour.”
I am also aware that the notion prevails generally in the United States
that the mulatto has no vitality of race; that after three or four
generations he dies out. This idea, I believe, finds its strongest
advocates among the slaveholders and the readers of De Bow’s “Review,”
and possibly it may be correct when applied to the colder latitudes; but
I have no reason to think it is so in or near the tropics. Moreau de St.
Mery, in his minute “Description of the French part of St. Domingo,”
says, with respect to the vitality of the mulatto, which term includes
all persons of color, however slight, of mixed European and African
descent: “Of all the combinations of white and black, the mulatto unites
the most physical advantages. It is he who derives the strongest
constitution from these crossings of race, and who is the best suited to
the climate of St. Domingo. To the strength and soberness of the negro
he adds the grace of form and intelligence of the whites, and of all
the human beings of St. Domingo he is the longest lived.... I have
already said they are well made and very intelligent; but they are as
much given to idleness and love of repose as the negro.”