JAMAICA--COLOURED MEN.
If in speaking of the negroes I have been in danger of offending
my friends at home, I shall be certain in speaking of the coloured
men to offend my friends in Jamaica. On this subject, though I have
sympathy with them, I have no agreement. They look on themselves as
the ascendant race. I look upon those of colour as being so, or at
any rate as about to become so.
In speaking of my friends in Jamaica, it is not unnatural that I
should allude to the pure-blooded Europeans, or European Creoles--to
those in whose veins there is no admixture of African blood. "Similia
similibus." A man from choice will live with those who are of his own
habits and his own way of thinking. But as regards Jamaica, I believe
that the light of their star is waning, that their ascendency is
over--in short, that their work, if not done, is on the decline.
Ascendency is a disagreeable word to apply to any two different
races whose fate it may be to live together in the same land. It
has been felt to be so in Ireland, when used either with reference
to the Saxon Protestant or Celtic Roman Catholic; and it is so
with reference to those of various shades of colour in Jamaica. But
nevertheless it is the true word. When two rivers come together, the
waters of which do not mix, the one stream will be the stronger--will
over-power the other--will become ascendant And so it is with people
and nations. It may not be pretty-spoken to talk about ascendency;
but sometimes pretty speaking will not answer a man's purpose.
It is almost unnecessary to explain that by coloured men I mean those
who are of a mixed race--of a breed mixed, be it in what proportion
it may, between the white European and the black African. Speaking of
Jamaica, I might almost say between the Anglo-Saxon and the African;
for there remains, I take it, but a small tinge of Spanish blood. Of
the old Indian blood there is, I imagine, hardly a vestige.
Both the white men and the black dislike their coloured neighbours.
It is useless to deny that as a rule such is the case. The white men
now, at this very day, dislike them more in Jamaica than they do in
other parts of the West Indies, because they are constantly driven to
meet them, and are more afraid of them.
In Jamaica one does come in contact with coloured men. They are to
be met at the Governor's table; they sit in the House of Assembly;
they cannot be refused admittance to state parties, or even to
large assemblies; they have forced themselves forward, and must be
recognized as being in the van. Individuals decry them--will not have
them within their doors--affect to despise them. But in effect the
coloured men of Jamaica cannot be despised much longer.
It will be said that we have been wrong if we have ever despised
these coloured people, or indeed, if we have ever despised the
negroes, or any other race. I can hardly think that anything so
natural can be very wrong. Those who are educated and civilized and
powerful will always, in one sense, despise those who are not; and
the most educated and civilized and most powerful will despise those
who are less so. Euphuists may proclaim against such a doctrine; but
experience, I think, teaches us that it is true. If the coloured
people in the West Indies can overtop contempt, it is because they
are acquiring education, civilization, and power. In Jamaica they
are, I hope, in a way to do this.
My theory--for I acknowledge to a theory--is this: that Providence
has sent white men and black men to these regions in order that from
them may spring a race fitted by intellect for civilization; and
fitted also by physical organization for tropical labour. The negro
in his primitive state is not, I think, fitted for the former; and
the European white Creole is certainly not fitted for the latter.
To all such rules there are of course exceptions. In Porto Rico,
for instance, one of the two remaining Spanish colonies in the West
Indies, the Peons, or free peasant labourers, are of mixed Spanish
and Indian blood, without, I believe, any negro element. And there
are occasional negroes whose mental condition would certainly tend to
disprove the former of the two foregoing propositions, were it not
that in such matters exceptional cases prove and disprove nothing.
Englishmen as a rule are stouter than Frenchmen. Were a French
Falstaff and an English Slender brought into a room together, the
above position would be not a whit disproved.
It is probable also that the future race who shall inhabit these
islands may have other elements than the two already named. There
will soon be here--in the teeth of our friends of the Anti-Slavery
Society--thousands from China and Hindostan. The Chinese and the
Coolies--immigrants from India are always called Coolies--greatly
excel the negro in intelligence, and partake, though in a limited
degree, of the negro's physical abilities in a hot climate. And
thus the blood of Asia will be mixed with that of Africa; and the
necessary compound will, by God's infinite wisdom and power, be
formed for these latitudes, as it has been formed for the colder
regions in which the Anglo-Saxon preserves his energy, and works.
I know it will be said that there have been no signs of a mixture
of breed between the negro and the Coolie, and the negro and the
Chinese. The instances hitherto are, I am aware, but rare; but then
the immigration of these classes is as yet but recent; and custom
is necessary, and a language commonly understood, and habits, which
the similitude of position will also make common, before such races
will amalgamate. That they will amalgamate if brought together, all
history teaches us. The Anglo-Saxon and the negro have done so, and
in two hundred years have produced a population which is said to
amount to a fifth of that of the whole island of Jamaica, and which
probably amounts to much more. Two hundred years with us is a long
time; but it is not so in the world's history. From 1660 to 1860 A.D.
is a vast lapse of years; but how little is the lapse from the year
1660 to the year 1860, dating from the creation of the world; or
rather, how small appears such lapse to us! In how many pages is its
history written? and yet God's races were spreading themselves over
the earth then as now.
Men are in such a hurry. They can hardly believe that that will come
to pass of which they have evidence that it will not come to pass in
their own days.
But then comes the question, whether the mulatto is more capable of
being educated than the negro, and more able to work under a hot sun
than the Englishman; whether he does not rather lose the physical
power of the one, and the intellectual power of the other. There are
those in Jamaica who have known them long, and who think that as a
race they have deteriorated both in mind and body. I am not prepared
to deny this. They probably have deteriorated in mind and body; and
nevertheless my theory may be right. Nay, I will go further and say
that such deterioration on both sides is necessary to the correctness
of my theory.
In what compound are we to look for the full strength of each
component part? Should punch be as strong as brandy, or as sweet as
sugar? Neither the one nor the other. But in order to be good and
efficient punch, it should partake duly of the strength of the spirit
and of the sweetness of the saccharine--according to the skill and
will of the gnostic fabricator, who in mixing knows his own purposes.
So has it even been also in the admixture of races. The same amount
of physical power is not required for all climates, nor the same
amount of mental energy.
But the mulatto, though he has deteriorated from the black man in one
respect, and from the white in another, does also excel the black man
in one respect, and also excel the white in another. As a rule, he
cannot work as a negro can. He could not probably endure to labour in
the cane-fields for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, as is done
by the Cuban slave; but he can work safely under a tropical sun, and
can in the day go through a fair day's work. He is not liable to
yellow fever, as is the white man, and enjoys as valid a protection
from the effects of heat as the heat of these regions requires.
Nor, as far as we yet know, have Galileos, Shakespeares, or Napoleons
been produced among the mulattos. Few may probably have been produced
who are able even to form an accurate judgment as to the genius of
such men as these. But that the mulatto race partakes largely of the
intelligence and ambition of their white forefathers, it is I think
useless, and moreover wicked, to deny; wicked, because the denial
arises from an unjust desire to close against them the door of
promotion.
Let any stranger go through the shops and stores of Kingston, and
see how many of them are either owned or worked by men of colour;
let him go into the House of Assembly, and see how large a proportion
of their debates is carried on by men of colour. I don't think much
of the parliamentary excellence of these debates, as I shall have to
explain by-and-by; but the coloured men at any rate hold their own
against their white colleagues. How large a portion of the public
service is carried on by them; how well they thrive, though the
prejudices of both white and black are so strong against them!
I just now spoke of these coloured men as mulattos. I did so because
I was then anxious to refer to the exact and equal division of
black and white blood. Of course it is understood that the mulatto,
technically so called, is the child of parents one of whom is all
white and the other all black; and to judge exactly of the mixed
race, one should judge, probably, from such an equal division. But
no such distinction can be effectually maintained in speaking, or
even in thinking of these people. The various gradations of coloured
blood range from all but perfect white to all but perfect black; and
the dispositions and capabilities are equally various. In the lower
orders, among those who are nearest to the African stock, no attempts
I imagine are made to preserve an exact line. One is at first
inclined to think that the slightest infusion of white blood may
be traced in the complexion and hair, and heard in the voice; but
when the matter is closely regarded one often finds it difficult to
express an opinion even to oneself. Colour is frequently not the
safest guide. To an inquirer really endeavouring to separate the
races--should so thankless a task ever be attempted--the speech, I
think, and the intelligence would afford the sources of information
on which most reliance could be placed.
But the distinction between the white and the coloured men is much
more closely looked into. And those are the unfortunate among the
latter who are tempted, by the closeness of their relationship to
Europe, to deny their African parentage. Many do, if not by lip,
at any rate by deed, stoutly make such denial; not by lip, for the
subject is much too sore for speech, but by every wile by which a
white quadroon can seek to deny his ancestry! Such denial is never
allowed. The crisp hair, the sallow skin, the known family history,
the thick lip of the old remembered granddam, a certain languor in
the eye; all or some, or perhaps but one of these tells the tale. But
the tale is told, and the life-struggle is made always, and always in
vain.
This evil--for it is an evil--arises mainly from the white man's
jealousy. He who seeks to pass for other than he is makes a low
attempt; all attempts at falsehood must of necessity be low. But
I doubt whether such energy of repudiation be not equally low. Why
not allow the claim; or seem to allow it, if practicable? "White
art thou, my friend? Be a white man if thou wilt, or rather if
thou canst. All we require of thee is that there remains no negro
ignorance, no negro cunning, no negro apathy of brain. Forbear those
vain attempts to wash out that hair of thine, and make it lank and
damp. We will not regard at all, that little wave in thy locks; not
even that lisp in thy tongue. But struggle, my friend, to be open
in thy speech. Any wave there we cannot but regard. Speak out the
thought that is in thee; for if thy thoughts lisp negrowards, our
verdict must be against thee." Is it not thus that we should accept
their little efforts?
But we do not accept them so. In lieu thereof, we admit no claim that
can by any evidence be rejected; and, worse than that, we impute
the stigma of black blood where there is no evidence to support
such imputation. "A nice fellow, Jones; eh? very intelligent, and
well mannered," some stranger says, who knows nothing of Jones's
antecedents. "Yes, indeed," answers Smith, of Jamaica; "a very decent
sort of fellow. They do say that he's coloured; of course you know
that." The next time you see Jones, you observe him closely, and
can find no trace of the Ethiop. But should he presently descant on
purity of blood, and the insupportable impudence of the coloured
people, then, and not till then, you would begin to doubt.
But these are evils which beset merely the point of juncture between
the two races. With nine-tenths of those of mixed breed no attempts
at concealment are by any means possible; and by them, of course,
no such attempts are made. They take their lot as it is, and I think
that on the whole they make the most of it. They of course are
jealous of the assumed ascendency of the white men, and affect to
show, sometimes not in the most efficacious manner, that they are
his equal in external graces as in internal capacities. They are
imperious to the black men, and determined on that side to exhibit
and use their superiority. At this we can hardly be surprised. If we
cannot set them a better lesson than we do, we can hardly expect the
benefit which should arise from better teaching.
But the great point to be settled is this: whether this race of
mulattos, quadroons, mustes, and what not, are capable of managing
matters for themselves; of undertaking the higher walks of life; of
living, in short, as an independent people with a proper share of
masterdom; and not necessarily as a servile people, as hewers of wood
and drawers of water? If not, it will fare badly for Jamaica, and
will probably also fare badly in coming years for the rest of the
West Indies. Whether other immigration be allowed or no, of one kind
of immigration the supply into Jamaica is becoming less and less.
Few European white men now turn thither in quest of fortune. Few
Anglo-Saxon adventurers now seek her shores as the future home of
their adoption. The white man has been there, and has left his mark.
The Creole children of these Europeans of course remain, but their
numbers are no longer increased by new comers.
But I think there is no doubt that they are fit--these coloured
people, to undertake the higher as well as lower paths of human
labour. Indeed, they do undertake them, and thrive well in them now,
much to the disgust of the so-esteemed ascendant class. They do make
money, and enjoy it. They practise as statesmen, as lawyers, and
as doctors in the colony; and, though they have not as yet shone
brightly as divines in our English Church, such deficiency may be
attributed more to the jealousy of the parsons of that Church than to
their own incapacity.
There are, they say, seventy thousand coloured people in the island,
and not more than fifteen thousand white people. As the former
increase in intelligence, it is not to be supposed that they will
submit to the latter. Nor are they at all inclined to submission.
But they have still an up-hill battle before them. They are by no
means humble in their gait, and their want of meekness sets their
white neighbours against them. They are always proclaiming by their
voice and look that they are as good as the white man; but they are
always showing by their voice and look, also, that they know that
this is a false boast.
And then they are by no means popular with the negro. A negro, as
a rule, will not serve a mulatto when he can serve a European or
a white Creole. He thinks that the mulatto is too near akin to
himself to be worthy of any respect. In his passion he calls him a
nigger--and protests that he is not, and never will be like buckra
man.
The negroes complain that the coloured men are sly and cunning; that
they cannot be trusted as masters; that they tyrannize, bully, and
deceive; in short, that they have their own negro faults. There may,
doubtless, be some truth in this. They have still a portion of their
lesson to learn; perhaps the greater portion. I affirm merely that
the lesson is being learned. A race of people with its good and ill
qualities is not formed in a couple of centuries.
And if it be fated that the Anglo-Saxon race in these islands is to
yield place to another people, and to abandon its ground, having
done its appointed work, surely such a decree should be no cause of
sorrow. To have done their appointed work, and done it well,--should
not this be enough for any men?
But there are they who protest that such ideas as these with
reference to this semi-African people are unpatriotic; are unworthy
of an Englishman, who should foster the ascendency of his own race
and his own country. Such men will have it as an axiom, that when an
Englishman has been master once, he should be master always: that
his dominion should not give way to strange hands, or his ascendency
yield itself to strange races. It is unpatriotic, forsooth, to
suggest that these tawny children of the sun should get the better of
their British lords, and rule the roast themselves!
Even were it so--should it even be granted that such an idea is
unpatriotic, one would then be driven back to ask whether patriotism
be a virtue. It is at any rate a virtue in consequence only of the
finite aspirations of mankind. To love the universe which God has
made, were man capable of such love, would be a loftier attribute
than any feeling for one's own country. The Gentile was as dear as
the Jew; the Samaritans as much prized as they of Galilee, or as the
children of Judah.
The present position and prospects of the children of Great Britain
are sufficiently noble, and sufficiently extended. One need not
begrudge to others their limited share in the population and
government of the world's welfare. While so large a part of North
America and Australia remain still savage--waiting the white man's
foot--waiting, in fact, for the foot of the Englishman, there can
be no reason why we should doom our children to swelter and grow
pale within the tropics. A certain work has been ours to do there,
a certain amount of remaining work it is still probably our lot to
complete. But when that is done; when civilization, commerce, and
education shall have been spread; when sufficient of our blood shall
have been infused into the veins of those children of the sun; then,
I think, we may be ready, without stain to our patriotism, to take
off our hats and bid farewell to the West Indies.
And be it remembered that I am here speaking of the general
ascendancy, not of the political power of these coloured races.
It may be that after all we shall still have to send out some
white Governor with a white aide-de-camp and a white private
secretary--some three or four unfortunate white men to support
the dignity of the throne of Queen Victoria's great-grandchild's
grandchild. Such may be, or may not be. To my thinking, it would be
more for our honour that it should not be so. If the honour, glory,
and well-being of the child be dear to the parents, Great Britain
should surely be more proud of the United States than of any of her
colonies. We Britishers have a noble mission. The word I know is
unpopular, for it has been foully misused; but it is in itself a good
word, and none other will supply its place. We have a noble mission,
but we are never content with it. It is not enough for us to beget
nations, civilize countries, and instruct in truth and knowledge the
dominant races of the coming ages. All this will not suffice unless
also we can maintain a king over them! What is it to us, or even to
them, who may be their king or ruler--or, to speak with a nearer
approach to sense, from what source they be governed--so long as they
be happy, prosperous, and good? And yet there are men mad enough to
regret the United States! Many men are mad enough to look forward
with anything but composure to the inevitable, happily inevitable
day, when Australia shall follow in the same path.
We have risen so high that we may almost boast to have placed
ourselves above national glory. The welfare of the coming world is
now the proper care of the Anglo-Saxon race.
The coloured people, I have said, have made their way into society in
Jamaica. That is, they have made a certain degree of impression on
the millstone; which will therefore soon be perforated through and
through, and then crumble to pieces like pumice-stone. Nay, they have
been or are judges, attorneys-general, prime ministers, leaders of
the opposition, and what not. The men have so far made their way. The
difficulty now is with the women.
And in high questions of society here is always the stumbling-block.
All manners of men can get themselves into a room together without
difficulty, and can behave themselves with moderate forbearance to
each other when in it. But there are points on which ladies are
harder than steel, stiffer than their brocaded silks, more obdurate
than whalebone.
"He wishes me to meet Mrs. So-and-So," a lady said to me, speaking of
her husband, "because Mr. So-and-So is a very respectable good sort
of man. I have no objection whatever to Mr. So-and-So; but if I begin
with her, I know there will be no end."
"Probably not," I said; "when you once commence, you will doubtless
have to go on--in the good path." I confess that the last words were
said _sotto voce_. On that occasion the courage was wanting in me to
speak out my mind. The lady was very pretty, and I could not endure
to be among the unfavoured ones.
"That is just what I have said to Mr. ----; but he never thinks about
such things; he is so very imprudent. If I ask Mrs. So-and-So here,
how can I keep out Mrs. Such-a-One? They are both very respectable,
no doubt; but what were their grandmothers?"
Ah! if we were to think of their grandmothers, it would doubtless be
a dark subject. But what, O lady, of their grandchildren? That may
be the most important, and also most interesting side from whence to
view the family.
"These people marry now," another lady said to me--a lady not old
exactly, but old enough to allude to such a subject; and in the tone
of her voice I thought I could catch an idea that she conceived them
in doing so to be trenching on the privileges of their superiors.
"But their mothers and grandmothers never thought of looking to that
at all. Are we to associate with the children of such women, and
teach our daughters that vice is not to be shunned?"
Ah! dear lady--not old, but sufficiently old--this statement of yours
is only too true. Their mothers and grandmothers did not think much
of matrimony--had but little opportunity of thinking much of it.
But with whom did the fault chiefly lie? These very people of whom
we are speaking, would they not be your cousins but for the lack of
matrimony? Your uncle, your father, your cousins, your grandfather,
nay, your very brother, are they not the true criminals in this
matter--they who have lived in this unhallowed state with women of a
lower race? For the sinners themselves of either sex I would not ask
_your_ pardon; but you might forgive the children's children.
The life of coloured women in Jamaica some years since was certainly
too often immoral. They themselves were frequently illegitimate,
and they were not unwilling that their children should be so also.
To such a one it was preferable to be a white man's mistress than
the wife of such as herself; and it did not bring on them the same
disgrace, this kind of life, as it does on women in England, or even,
I may say, on women in Europe, nor the same bitter punishment. Their
master, though he might be stern enough and a tyrant, as the owner of
slaves living on his own little principality might probably be, was
kinder to her than to the other females around her, and in a rough
sort of way was true to her. He did not turn her out of the house,
and she found it to be promotion to be the mother of his children
and the upper servant in his establishment. And in those days,
days still so near to us, the coloured woman was a slave herself,
unless specially manumitted either in her own generation or in that
immediately above her. It is from such alliances as these that the
coloured race of Jamaica has sprung.
But all this, if one cannot already boast that it is changed, is
quickly changing. Matrimony is in vogue, and the coloured women know
their rights, and are inclined to claim them.
Of course among them, as among us at home, and among all people,
there are various ranks. There are but few white labourers in
Jamaica, and but few negroes who are not labourers. But the coloured
people are to be found in all ranks, from that of the Prime
Minister--for they have a Prime Minister in Jamaica--down to the
worker in the cane-fields. Among their women many are now highly
educated, for they send their children to English schools. Perhaps if
I were to say fashionably educated, I might be more strictly correct
They love dearly to shine; to run over the piano with quick and loud
fingers; to dance with skill, which they all do, for they have good
figures and correct ears; to know and display the little tricks and
graces of English ladies--such tricks and graces as are to be learned
between fifteen and seventeen at Ealing, Clapham, and Homsey.
But the coloured girls of a class below these--perhaps I should say
two classes below them--are the most amusing specimens of Jamaica
ladies. I endeavoured to introduce my readers to one at Port Antonio.
They cannot be called pretty, for the upper part of the face almost
always recedes; but they have good figures and well-turned limbs.
They are singularly free from _mauvaise honte_, and yet they are not
impertinent or ill-mannered. They are gracious enough with the pale
faces when treated graciously, but they can show a very high spirit
if they fancy that any slight is shown to them. They delight to talk
contemptuously of niggers. Those people are dirty niggers, and nasty
niggers, and mere niggers. I have heard this done by one whom I had
absolutely taken for a negro, and who was not using loud abusive
language, but gently speaking of an inferior class.
With these, as indeed with coloured people of a higher grade, the
great difficulty is with their language. They cannot acquire the
natural English pronunciation. As far as I remember, I have never
heard but two negroes who spoke unbroken English; and the lower
classes of the coloured people, though they are not equally
deficient, are still very incapable of plain English articulation.
The "th" is to them, as to foreigners, an insuperable difficulty.
Even Josephine, it may be remembered, was hardly perfect in this
respect.