I.
Nothing else in the picturesque life of the French colonies of the
Occident impresses the traveller on his first arrival more than the
costumes of the women of color. They surprise the aesthetic sense
agreeably;--they are local and special: you will see nothing resembling
them among the populations of the British West Indies; they belong to
Martinique, Guadeloupe, Désirade, Marie-Galante, and Cayenne,--in
each place differing sufficiently to make the difference interesting,
especially in regard to the head-dress. That of Martinique is quite
Oriental;--more attractive, although less fantastic than the Cayenne
coiffure, or the pretty drooping mouchoir of Guadeloupe.
These costumes are gradually disappearing, for various reasons,--the
chief reason being of course the changes in the social condition of the
colonies during the last forty years. Probably the question of health
had also something to do with the almost universal abandonment in
Martinique of the primitive slave dress,--_chemise_ and _jupe_,--which
exposed its wearer to serious risks of pneumonia; for as far as
economical reasons are concerned, there was no fault to find with it:
six francs could purchase it when money was worth more than it is now.
The douillette, a long trailing dress, one piece from neck to feet, has
taken its place. [35]
[Illustration: THE MARTINIQUE TURBAN, OR MADRAS CALENDE.]
But there was a luxurious variety of the jupe costume which is
disappearing because of its cost; there is no money in the colonies now
for such display:--I refer to the celebrated attire of the pet
slaves and _belles affranchies_ of the old colonial days. A full
costume,--including violet or crimson "petticoat" of silk or
satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery and lace;
"trembling-pins" of gold (_zépingue tremblant_) to attach the folds of
the brilliant Madras turban; the great necklace of three or four strings
of gold beads bigger than peas (_collier-choux_); the ear-rings, immense
but light as egg-shells (_zanneaux-à-clous_ or _zanneaux-chenilles_);
the bracelets (_portes-bonheur_); the studs (_boutons-à-clous_); the
brooches, not only for the turban, but for the chemise, below the
folds of the showy silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,--would sometimes
represent over five thousand francs expenditure. This gorgeous attire is
becoming less visible every year: it is now rarely worn except on very
solemn occasions,--weddings, baptisms, first communions, confirmations.
The _da_ (nurse) or "porteuse-de-baptême" who bears the baby to church
holds it at the baptismal font, and afterwards carries it from house to
house in order that all the friends of the family may kiss it, is thus
attired; but nowadays, unless she be a professional (for there are
professional _das_, hired only for such occasions), she usually borrows
the jewellery. If tall, young, graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin,
the effect of her costume is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin.
I saw one young da who, thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and
earthly;--there was an Oriental something in her appearance difficult to
describe,--something that made you think of the Queen of Sheba going to
visit Solomon. She had brought a merchant's baby, just christened, to
receive the caresses of the family at whose house I was visiting; and
when it came to my turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice the
child: I saw only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange and
purple, bending over it, in an illumination of antique gold.... What
a da!... She represented really the type of that _belle affranchie_ of
other days, against whose fascination special sumptuary laws were
made; romantically she imaged for me the supernatural god-mothers and
Cinderellas of the creole fairy-tales. For these become transformed
in the West Indian folklore,--adapted to the environment, and to local
idealism:--Cinderella, for example, is changed to a beautiful metisse,
wearing a quadruple _collier-choux_, _zépingues tremblants_, and all the
ornaments of a da. [36] Recalling the impression of that dazzling
_da_, I can even now feel the picturesque justice of the fabulist's
description of Cinderella's creole costume: _Ça té ka baille ou mal
zie!_--(it would have given you a pain in your eyes to look at her!)
[Illustration: THE GUADELOUPE HEAD-DRESS.]
... Even the every-day Martinique costume is slowly changing. Year by
year the "calendeuses"--the women who paint and fold the turbans--have
less work to do;--the colors of the _douiellette_ are becoming less
vivid;--while more and more young colored girls are being _élevées en
chapeau_ ("brought up in a hat")--i.e., dressed and educated like the
daughters of the whites. These, it must be confessed, look far less
attractive in the latest Paris fashion, unless white as the whites
themselves: on the other hand, few white girls could look well in
_douillette_ and _mouchoir_,--not merely because of color contrast, but
because they have not that amplitude of limb and particular cambering
of the torso peculiar to the half-breed race, with its large bulk and
stature. Attractive as certain coolie women are, I observed that all
who have adopted the Martinique costume look badly in it: they are too
slender of body to wear it to advantage.
Slavery introduced these costumes, even though it probably did not
invent them; and they were necessarily doomed to pass away with the
peculiar social conditions to which they belonged. If the population
clings still to its _douillettes_, _mouchoirs_, and _foulards_, the fact
is largely due to the cheapness of such attire. A girl can dress very
showily indeed for about twenty francs--shoes excepted;--and thousands
never wear shoes. But the fashion will no doubt have become cheaper and
uglier within another decade.
At the present time, however, the stranger might be sufficiently
impressed by the oddity and brilliancy of these dresses to ask about
their origin,--in which case it is not likely that he will obtain any
satisfactory answer. After long research I found myself obliged to
give up all hope of being able to outline the history of Martinique
costume,--partly because books and histories are scanty or defective,
and partly because such an undertaking would require a knowledge
possible only to a specialist. I found good reason, nevertheless, to
suppose that these costumes were in the beginning adopted from certain
fashions of provincial France,--that the respective fashions of
Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne were patterned after modes
still worn in parts of the mother-country. The old-time garb of the
_affranchie_--that still worn by the _da_--somewhat recalls dresses worn
by the women of Southern France, more particularly about Montpellier.
Perhaps a specialist might also trace back the evolution of the various
creole coiffures to old forms of head-dresses which still survive among
the French country-fashions of the south and south-west provinces;--but
local taste has so much modified the original style as to leave
it unrecognizable to those who have never studied the subject. The
Martinique fashion of folding and tying the Madras, and of calendering
it, are probably local; and I am assured that the designs of the curious
semi-barbaric jewellery were all invented in the colony, where the
_collier-choux_ is still manufactured by local goldsmiths. Purchasers
buy one, two, or three _grains_, or beads, at a time, and string them
only on obtaining the requisite number.... This is the sum of all that I
was able to learn on the matter; but in the course of searching various
West Indian authors and historians for information, I found something
far more important than the origin of the _douillette_ or the
_collier-choux_: the facts of that strange struggle between nature and
interest, between love and law, between prejudice and passion, which
forms the evolutional history of the mixed race.
II.
Considering only the French peasant colonist and the West African slave
as the original factors of that physical evolution visible in the modern
_fille-de-couleur_, it would seem incredible;--for the intercrossing
alone could not adequately explain all the physical results. To
understand them fully, it will be necessary to bear in mind that both
of the original races became modified in their lineage to a surprising
degree by conditions of climate and environment.
[Illustration: YOUNG MULATTRESS.]
[Illustration: PLANTATION COOLIE WOMAN IN MARTINIQUE COSTUME.]
The precise time of the first introduction of slaves into Martinique is
not now possible to ascertain,--no record exists on the subject; but it
is probable that the establishment of slavery was coincident with the
settlement of the island. Most likely the first hundred colonists from
St. Christophe, who landed, in 1635, near the bay whereon the city of
St. Pierre is now situated, either brought slaves with them, or else
were furnished with negroes very soon after their arrival. In the time
of Père Dutertre (who visited the colonies in 1640, and printed his
history of the French Antilles at Paris in 1667) slavery was already a
flourishing institution,--the foundation of the whole social structure.
According to the Dominican missionary, the Africans then in the
colony were decidedly repulsive; he describes the women as "hideous"
(_hideuses_). There is no good reason to charge Dutertre with prejudice
in his pictures of them. No writer of the century was more keenly
sensitive to natural beauty than the author of that "Voyage aux
Antilles" which inspired Chateaubriand, and which still, after two
hundred and fifty years, delights even those perfectly familiar with the
nature of the places and things spoken of. No other writer and traveller
of the period possessed to a more marked degree that sense of generous
pity which makes the unfortunate appear to us in an illusive, almost
ideal aspect. Nevertheless, he asserts that the negresses were, as a
general rule, revoltingly ugly,--and, although he had seen many strange
sides of human nature (having been a soldier before becoming a monk),
was astonished to find that miscegenation had already begun. Doubtless
the first black women thus favored, or afflicted, as the case might
be, were of the finer types of negresses; for he notes remarkable
differences among the slaves procured from different coasts and various
tribes. Still, these were rather differences of ugliness than aught
else: they were all repulsive;--only some were more repulsive than
others. [37] Granting that the first mothers of mulattoes in the colony
were the superior rather than the inferior physical types,--which would
be a perfectly natural supposition,--still we find their offspring
worthy in his eyes of no higher sentiment than pity. He writes in his
chapter entitled "_De la naissance honteuse des mulastres_":
--"They have something of their Father and something of their
Mother,--in the same wise that Mules partake of the qualities of the
creatures that engendered them: for they are neither all white, like the
French; nor all black, like the Negroes, but have a livid tint, which
comes of both."...
To-day, however, the traveller would look in vain for a _livid_
tint among the descendants of those thus described: in less than two
centuries and a half the physical characteristics of the race have
been totally changed. What most surprises is the rapidity of the
transformation. After the time of Père Labat, Europeans never could
"have mistaken little negro children for monkeys." Nature had begun to
remodel the white, the black, and half-breed according to environment
and climate: the descendant of the early colonists ceased to resemble
his fathers; the creole negro improved upon his progenitors; [38] the
mulatto began to give evidence of those qualities of physical and mental
power which were afterwards to render him dangerous to the integrity of
the colony itself. In a temperate climate such a change would have been
so gradual as to escape observation for a long period;--in the tropics
it was effected with a quickness that astounds by its revelation of the
natural forces at work.
[Illustration: COOLIE HALF-BREED]
--"Under the sun of the tropics," writes Dr. Rufz, of Martinique, "the
African race, as well as the European, becomes greatly modified in its
reproduction. Either race gives birth to a totally new being. The Creole
African came into existence as did the Creole white."
And just as the offspring of Europeans who emigrated to the tropics from
different parts of France displayed characteristics so identical that
it was impossible to divine the original race-source,--so likewise the
Creole negro--whether brought into being by the heavy thick-set Congo,
or the long slender black of Senegambia, or the suppler and more active
Mandingo,--appeared so remodelled, homogeneous, and adapted in such
wise to his environment that it was utterly impossible to discern in his
features anything of his parentage, his original kindred, his original
source.... The transformation is absolute. All that In be asserted
is: "This is a white Creole; this is a black Creole";--or, "This is a
European white; this is an African black";--and furthermore, after
a certain number of years passed in the tropics, the enervated and
discolored aspect of the European may create uncertainty, as to his
origin. But with very few exceptions the primitive African, or, as he is
termed here, the "Coast Black" (_le noir de la Cote_), can be recognized
at once....
[Illustration: COUNTRY-GIRL--PURE NEGRO RACE.]
... "The Creole negro is gracefully shaped, finely proportioned: his
limbs are lithe, his neck long;--his features are more delicate, his
lips less thick, his nose less flattened, than those of the African;--he
has the Carib's large and melancholy eye, better adapted to express
the emotions.... Rarely can you discover in him the sombre fury of the
African, rarely a surly and savage mien: he is brave, chatty, boastful.
His skin has not the same tint as his father's,--it has become more
satiny; his hair remains woolly, but it is a finer wool;... all his
outlines are more rounded;--one may perceive that the cellular tissue
predominates, as in cultivated plants, of which the ligneous and savage
fibre has become transformed."... [39]
This new and comelier black race naturally won from its masters a
more sympathetic attention than could have been vouchsafed to its
progenitors; and the consequences in Martinique and elsewhere seemed to
have evoked the curinus Article 9 of the _Code Noir_ of 1665,--enacting,
first, that free men who should have one or two children by slave
women, as well as the slave-owners permitting the same, should be each
condemned to pay two thousand pounds of sugar; secondly, that if the
violator of the ordinance should be himself the owner of the mother
and father of her children, the mother and the children should be
confiscated for the profit of the Hospital, and deprived for their lives
of the right to enfranchisement. An exception, however, was made to
the effect that if the father were unmarried at the period of his
concubinage, he could escape the provisions of the penalty by marrying,
"according to the rites of the Church," the female slave, who
would thereby be enfranchised, and her children "rendered free and
legitimate." Probably the legislators did not imagine that the first
portion of the article could prove inefficacious, or that any violator
of the ordinance would seek to escape the penalty by those means offered
in the provision. The facts, however, proved the reverse. Miscegenation
continued; and Labat notices two cases of marriage between whites and
blacks,--describing the offspring of one union as "very handsome little
mulattoes." These legitimate unions were certainly exceptional,--one
of them was dissolved by the ridicule cast upon the father;--but
illegitimate unions would seem to have become common within a very brief
time after the passage of the law. At a later day they were to become
customary. The Article 9 was evidently at fault; and in March, 1724,
the Black Code was reinforced by a new ordinance, of which the sixth
provision prohibited marriage as well as concubinage between the races.
It appears to have had no more effect than the previous law, even in
Martinique, where the state of public morals was better than in Santo
Domingo. The slave race had begun to exercise an influence never
anticipated by legislators. Scarcely a century had elapsed since the
colonization of the island; but in that time climate and civilization
had transfigured the black woman. "After one or two generations," writes
the historian Rufz, "the _Africaine_, reformed, refined, beautified in
her descendants, transformed into the creole negress, commenced to exert
a fascination irresistible, capable of winning anything (_capable
de tout obtenir_)." [40] Travellers of the eighteenth century were
confounded by the luxury of dress and of jewellery displayed by swarthy
beauties in St. Pierre. It was a public scandal to European eyes. But
the creole negress or mulattress, beginning to understand her power,
sought for higher favors and privileges than silken robes and necklaces
of gold beads: she sought to obtain, not merely liberty for herself, but
for her parents, brothers, sisters,--even friends. What successes she
achieved in this regard may be imagined from the serious statement of
creole historians that if human nature had been left untrammelled to
follow its better impulses, slavery would have ceased to exist a century
before the actual period of emancipation! By 1738, when the white
population had reached its maximum (15,000), [41] and colonial
luxury had arrived at its greatest height, the question of voluntary
enfranchisement was becoming very grave. So omnipotent the charm of
half-breed beauty that masters were becoming the slaves of their slaves.
It was not only the creole _negress_ who had appeared to play a part
in this strange drama which was the triumph of nature over interest and
judgment: her daughters, far more beautiful, had grown up to aid her,
and to form a special class. These women, whose tints of skin rivalled
the colors of ripe fruit, and whose gracefulness--peculiar, exotic,
and irresistible--made them formidable rivals to the daughters of
the dominant race, were no doubt physically superior to the modern
_filles-de-couleur_. They were results of a natural selection which
could have taken place in no community otherwise constituted;--the
offspring of the union between the finer types of both races. But that
which only slavery could have rendered possible began to endanger the
integrity of slavery itself: the institutions upon which the whole
social structure rested were being steadily sapped by the influence
of half-breed girls. Some new, severe, extreme policy was evidently
necessary to avert the already visible peril. Special laws were passed
by the Home-Government to check enfranchisement, to limit its reasons
or motives; and the power of the slave woman was so well comprehended
by the Métropole that an extraordinary enactment was made against it.
It was decreed that whosoever should free a woman of color would have to
pay to the Government _three times her value as a slave!_
Thus heavily weighted, emancipation advanced much more slowly than
before, but it still continued to a considerable extent. The poorer
creole planter or merchant might find it impossible to obey the impulse
of his conscience or of his affection, but among the richer classes
pecuniary considerations could scarcely affect enfranchisement. The
country had grown wealthy; and although the acquisition of wealth may
not evoke generosity in particular natures, the enrichment of a whole
class develops pre-existing tendencies to kindness, and opens new ways
for its exercise. Later in the eighteenth century, when hospitality had
been cultivated as a gentleman's duty to fantastical extremes,--when
liberality was the rule throughout society,--when a notary summoned
to draw up a deed, or a priest invited to celebrate a marriage, might
receive for fee five thousand francs in gold,--there were certainly
many emancipations.... "Even though interest and public opinion in the
colonies," says a historian, [42] "were adverse to enfranchisement, the
private feeling of each man combated that opinion;--Nature resumed her
sway in the secret places of hearts;--and as local custom permitted a
sort of polygamy, the rich man naturally felt himself bound in honor to
secure the freedom of his own blood.... It was not a rare thing to
see legitimate wives taking care of the natural children of their
husbands,--becoming their godmothers (_s'en faire les marraines_)."...
Nature seemed to laugh all these laws to scorn, and the prejudices
of race! In vain did the wisdom of legislators attempt to render
the condition of the enfranchised more humble,--enacting extravagant
penalties for the blow by which a mulatto might avenge the insult of
a white,--prohibiting the freed from wearing the same dress as their
former masters or mistresses wore;--"the _belles affranchies_ found,
in a costume whereof the negligence seemed a very inspiration of
voluptuousness, means of evading that social inferiority which the law
sought to impose upon them:--they began to inspire the most violent
jealousies." [43]
III.
What the legislators of 1685 and 1724 endeavored to correct did not
greatly improve with the abolition of slavery, nor yet with those
political troubles which socially deranged colonial life. The
_fille-de-couleur_, inheriting the charm of the belle _affranchie_,
continued to exert a similar influence, and to fulfil an almost
similar destiny. The latitude of morals persisted,--though with less
ostentation: it has latterly contracted under the pressure of necessity
rather than through any other influences. Certain ethical principles
thought essential to social integrity elsewhere have always been largely
relaxed in the tropics; and--excepting, perhaps, Santo Domingo--the
moral standard in Martinique was not higher than in the other French
coloniei. Outward decorum might be to some degree maintained; but
there was no great restraint of any sort upon private lives: it was
not uncommon for a rich man to have many "natural" families; and
almost every individual of means had children of color. The superficial
character of race prejudices was everywhere manifested by unions,
which although never mentioned in polite converse, were none the less
universally known; and the "irresistible fascination" of the half-breed
gave the open lie to pretended hate. Nature, in the guise of the _belle
affranchie_, had mocked at slave codes;--in the _fille-de-couleur_ she
still laughed at race pretensions, and ridiculed the fable of physical
degradation. To-day, the situation has not greatly changed; and with
such examples on the part of the cultivated race, what could be expected
from the other? Marriages are rare;--it has been officially stated that
the illegitimate births are sixty per cent; but seventy-five to eighty
per cent would probably be nearer the truth. It is very common to see
in the local papers such announcements as: _Enfants légitimes_, 1 (one
birth announced); _enfants naturels_, 25.
In speaking of the _fille-de-couleur_ it is necessary also to speak of
the extraordinary social stratification of the community to which
she belongs. The official statement of 20,000 "colored" to the total
population of between 173,000 and 174,000 (in which the number of pure
whites is said to have fallen as low as 5,000) does not at all indicate
the real proportion of mixed blood. Only a small element of unmixed
African descent really exists; yet when a white creole speaks of the
_gens-de-couleur_ he certainly means nothing darker than a mulatto skin.
Race classifications have been locally made by sentiments of political
origin: at least four or five shades of visible color are classed as
negro. There is, however, some natural truth at the bottom of this
classification: where African blood predominates, the sympathies are
likely to be African; and the turning-point is reached only in the true
mulatto, where, allowing the proportions of mixed blood to be nearly
equal, the white would have the dominant influence in situations
more natural than existing politics. And in speaking of the
_filles-de-couleur_, the local reference is always to women in whom the
predominant element is white: a white creole, as a general rule, deigns
only thus to distinguish those who are nearly white,--more usually he
refers to the whole class as mulattresses. Those women whom wealth and
education have placed in a social position parallel with that of
the daughters of creole whites are in some cases allowed to pass for
white,--or at the very worst, are only referred to in a whisper as being
_de couleur_. (Needless to say, these are totally beyond the range of
the present considerations: there is nothing to be further said of them
except that they can be classed with the most attractive and refined
women of the entire tropical world.) As there is an almost infinite
gradation from the true black up to the brightest _sang-mêlé_, it is
impossible to establish any color-classification recognizable by the
eye alone; and whatever lines of demarcation can be drawn between castes
must be social rather than ethnical. In this sense we may accept the
local Creole definition of _fille-de-couleur_ as signifying, not so much
a daughter of the race of visible color, as the half-breed girl destined
from her birth to a career like that of the _belle affranchie_ of
the old regime;--for the moral cruelties of slavery have survived
emancipation.
Physically, the typical _fille-de-couleur_ may certainly be classed,
as white creole writers have not hesitated to class her, with the "most
beautiful women of the human race." [44] She has inherited not only the
finer bodily characteristics of either parent race, but a something else
belonging originally to neither, and created by special climatic and
physical conditions,--a grace, a suppleness of form, a delicacy of
extremities (so that all the lines described by the bending of limbs or
fingers are parts of clean curves), a satiny smoothness and fruit-tint
of skin,--solely West Indian.... Morally, of course, it is much more
difficult to describe her; and whatever may safely be said refers rather
to the fille-de-couleur of the past than of the present half-century.
The race is now in a period of transition: public education and
political changes are modifying the type, and it is impossible to guess
the ultimate consequence, because it is impossible to safely predict
what new influences may yet be brought to affect its social development.
Befare the present era of colonial decadence, the character of the
fille-de-couleur was not what it is now. Even when totally uneducated,
she had a peculiar charm,--that charm of childishness which has power to
win sympathy from the rudest natures. One could not but feel attracted
towards this naïf being, docile as an infant, and as easily pleased or
as easily pained,--artless in her goodnesses as in her faults, to all
outward appearance;--willing to give her youth, her beauty, her caresses
to some one in exchange for the promise to love her,--perhaps also to
care for a mother, or a younger brother. Her astonishing capacity for
being delighted with trifles, her pretty vanities and pretty follies,
her sudden veerings of mood from laughter to tears,--like the sudden
rainbursts and sunbursts of her own passionate climate: these touched,
drew, won, and tyrannized. Yet such easily created joys and pains did
not really indicate any deep reserve of feeling: rather a superficial
sensitiveness only,--like the _zhèbe-m'amisé_, or _zhèbe-manmzelle_,
whose leaves close at the touch of a hair. Such human manifestations,
nevertheless, are apt to attract more in proportion as they are more
visible,--in proportion as the soul-current, being less profound, flows
more audibly. But no hasty observation could have revealed the whole
character of the fille-de-couleur to the stranger, equally charmed and
surprised: the creole comprehended her better, and probably treated
her with even more real kindness. The truth was that centuries of
deprivation of natural rights and hopes had given to her race--itself
fathered by passion unrestrained and mothered by subjection
unlimited--an inherent scepticism in the duration of love, and a
marvellous capacity for accepting the destiny of abandonment as one
accepts the natural and the inevitable. And that desire to please--which
in the fille-de-couleur seemed to prevail above all other motives of
action (maternal affection excepted)--could have appeared absolutely
natural only to those who never reflected that even sentiment had been
artificially cultivated by slavery.
She asked for so little,--accepted a gift with such childish
pleasure,--submitted so unresistingly to the will of the man
who promised to love her. She bore him children--such beautiful
children!--whom he rarely acknowledged, and was never asked
to legitimatize;--and she did not ask perpetual affection
notwithstanding,--regarded the relation as a necessarily temporary
one, to be sooner or later dissolved by the marriage of her children's
father. If deceived in all things,--if absolutely ill-treated and left
destitute, she did not lose faith in human nature: she seemed a born
optimist, believing most men good;--she would make a home for another
and serve him better than any slave.... "_Née de l'amour_," says
a creole writer, "_la fille-de-couleur vit d'amour, de rires, et
d'oublis_."... [45]
[Illustration: CAPRESSE.]
Then came the general colonial crash!... You cannot see its results
without feeling touched by them. Everywhere the weird beauty, the
immense melancholy of tropic ruin. Magnificent terraces, once
golden with cane, now abandoned to weeds and serpents;--deserted
plantation-homes, with trees rooted in the apartments and pushing
up through the place of the roofs;--grass-grown alleys ravined by
rains;--fruit-trees strangled by lianas;--here and there the stem of
some splendid palmiste, brutally decapitated, naked as a mast;--petty
frail growths of banana-trees or of bamboo slowly taking the place of
century-old forest giants destroyed to make charcoal. But beauty enough
remains to tell what the sensual paradise of the old days must have
been, when sugar was selling at 52.
And the fille-de-couleur has also changed. She is much less humble and
submissive,--somewhat more exacting: she comprehends better the moral
injustice of her position. The almost extreme physical refinement and
delicacy, bequeathed to her by the freedwomen of the old regime, are
passing away: like a conservatory plant deprived of its shelter, she is
returning to a more primitive condition,--hardening and growing perhaps
less comely as well as less helpless. She perceives also in a vague way
the peril of her race: the creole white, her lover and protector, is
emigrating;--the domination of the black becomes more and more probable.
Furthermore, with the continual increase of the difficulty of living,
and the growing pressure of population, social cruelties and hatreds
have been developed such as her ancestors never knew. She is still
loved; but it is alleged that she rarely loves the white, no matter how
large the sacrifices made for her sake, and she no longer enjoys that
reputation of fidelity accorded to her class in other years. Probably
the truth is that the fille-de-couleur never had at any time capacity
to bestow that quality of affection imagined or exacted as a right.
Her moral side is still half savage: her feelings are still those of a
child. If she does not love the white man according to his unreasonable
desire, it is certain at least that she loves him as well as he
deserves. Her alleged demoralization is more apparent than real;--she is
changing from an artificial to a very natural being, and revealing more
and more in her sufferings the true character of the luxurious social
condition that brought her into existence. As a general rule, even while
questioning her fidelity, the creole freely confesses her kindness of
heart, and grants her capable of extreme generosity and devotedness
to strangers or to children whom she has an opportunity to care for.
Indeed, her natural kindness is so strikingly in contrast with the
harder and subtler character of the men of color that one might almost
feel tempted to doubt if she belong to the same race. Said a
creole once, in my hearing:--"The gens-de-couleur are just like the
_tourtouroux_: [46] one must pick out the females and leave the males
alone." Although perhaps capable of a double meaning, his words were not
lightly uttered;--he referred to the curious but indubitable fact that
the character of the colored woman appears in many respects far superior
to that of the colored man. In order to understand this, one must bear
in mind the difference in the colonial history of both sexes; and a
citation from General Romanet, [47] who visited Martinique at the end of
the last century, offers a clue to the mystery. Speaking of the tax upon
enfranchisement, he writes:--
--"The governor appointed by the sovereign delivers the certificates of
liberty,--on payment by the master of a sum usually equivalent to the
value of the subject. Public interest frequently justifies him in making
the price of the slave proportionate to the desire or the interest
manifested by the master. It can be readily understood that the tax upon
the liberty of the women ought to be higher than that of the men: the
latter unfortunates having no greater advantage than that of being
useful;--the former know how to please: they have those rights and
privileges which the whole world allows to their sex; they know how to
make even the fetters of slavery serve them for adornments. They may
be seen placing upon their proud tyrants the same chains worn by
themselves, and making them kiss the marks left thereby: the master
becomes the slave, and purchases another's liberty only to lose his
own."
Long before the time of General Romanet, the colored male slave might
win liberty as the guerdon of bravery in fighting against foreign
invasion, or might purchase it by extraordinary economy, while working
as a mechanic on extra time for his own account (he always refused to
labor with negroes); but in either case his success depended upon the
possession and exercise of qualities the reverse of amiable. On the
other hand, the bondwoman won manumission chiefly through her power to
excite affection. In the survival and perpetuation of the fittest of
both sexes these widely different characteristics would obtain more and
more definition with successive generations.
I find in the "Bulletin des Actes Administratifs de la Martinique"
for 1831 (No. 41) a list of slaves to whom liberty was accorded _pour
services rendus à leurs maîtres_. Out of the sixty-nine enfranchisements
recorded under this head, there are only two names of male adults to
be found,--one an old man of sixty;--the other, called Laurencin, the
betrayer of a conspiracy. The rest are young girls, or young mothers and
children;--plenty of those singular and pretty names in vogue among
the creole population,--Acélie, Avrillette, Mélie, Robertine, Célianne,
Francillette, Adée, Catharinette, Sidollie, Céline, Coraline;--and the
ages given are from sixteen to twenty-one, with few exceptions. Yet
these liberties were asked for and granted at a time when Louis Philippe
had abolished the tax on manumissions.... The same "Bulletin" contains a
list of liberties granted to colored men, _pour service accompli dans la
milice_, only!
Most of the French West Indian writers whose works I was able to obtain
and examine speak severely of the _hommes-de-couleur_ as a class,--in
some instances the historian writes with a very violence of hatred. As
far back as the commencement of the eighteenth century, Labat, who,
with all his personal oddities, was undoubtedly a fine judge of men,
declared:--"The mulattoes are as a general rule well made, of good
stature, vigorous, strong, adroit, industrious, and daring (_hardis_)
beyond all conception. They have much vivacity, but are given to their
pleasures, fickle, proud, deceitful (_cachés_), wicked, and capable of
the greatest crimes." A San Domingo historian, far more prejudiced
than Père Labat, speaks of them "as physically superior, though morally
inferior to the whites": he wrote at a time when the race had given to
the world the two best swordsmen it has yet perhaps seen,--Saint-Georges
and Jean-Louis.
Commenting on the judgment of Père Labat, the historian Borde
observes:--"The wickedness spoken of by Père Labat doubtless relates to
their political passions only; for the women of color are, beyond any
question, the best and sweetest persons in the world--_à coup sûr,
les meilleures et les plus douces personnes qu'il y ait au
monde_."--("Histoire de l'Ile de la Trinidad," par M. Pierre Gustave
Louis Borde, vol. i., p. 222.) The same author, speaking of their
goodness of heart, generosity to strangers and the sick says "they are
born Sisters of Charity";--and he is not the only historian who has
expressed such admiration of their moral qualities. What I myself saw
during the epidemic of 1887-88 at Martinique convinced me that these
eulogies of the women of color are not extravagant. On the other hand,
the existing creole opinion of the men of color is much less favorable
than even that expressed by Père Labat. Political events and passions
have, perhaps, rendered a just estimate of their qualities difficult.
The history of the _hommes-de-couleur_ in all the French colonies has
been the same;--distrusted by the whites, who feared their aspirations
to social equality, distrusted even more by the blacks (who still
hate them secretly, although ruled by them), the mulattoes became an
Ishmaelitish clan, inimical to both races, and dreaded of both. In
Martinique it was attempted, with some success, to manage them by
according freedom to all who would serve in the militia for a certain
period with credit. At no time was it found possible to compel them
to work with blacks; and they formed the whole class of skilled city
workmen and mechanics for a century prior to emancipation.
... To-day it cannot be truly said of the _fille-de-couleur_ that her
existence is made up of "love, laughter, and forgettings." She has aims
in life,--the bettering of her condition, the higher education of her
children, whom she hopes to free from the curse of prejudice. She still
clings to the white, because through him she may hope to improve her
position. Under other conditions she might even hope to effect some sort
of reconciliation between the races. But the gulf has become so much
widened within the last forty years, that no rapprochement now appears
possible; and it is perhaps too late even to restore the lost prosperity
of the colony by any legislative or commercial reforms. The universal
creole belief is summed up in the daily-repeated cry: "_C'est un
pays perdu!_" Yearly the number of failures increase; and more whites
emigrate;--and with every bankruptcy or departure some fille-de-couleur
is left almost destitute, to begin life over again. Many a one has been
rich and poor several times in succession;--one day her property is
seized for debt;--perhaps on the morrow she finds some one able and
willing to give her a home again,... Whatever comes, she does not die
for grief, this daughter of the sun: she pours out her pain in song,
like a bird, Here is one of her little improvisations,--a song very
popular in both Martinique and Guadeloupe, though originally composed in
the latter colony:--
--"Good-bye Madras!
Good-bye foulard!
Good-bye pretty calicoes!
Good-bye collier-choux!
That ship
Which is there on the buoy,
It is taking
My doudoux away.
--"Adiéu Madras!
Adiéu foulard!
Adiéu dézinde!
Adiéu collier-choux!
Batiment-là
Qui sou labouè-là,
Li ka mennein
Doudoux-à-moin allé.
--"Very good-day,--
Monsieur the Consignee.
I come
To make one little petition.
My doudoux
Is going away.
Alas! I pray you
Delay his going"
--"Bien le-bonjou',
Missié le Consignataire.
Moin ka vini
Fai yon ti pétition;
Doudoux-à-moin
Y ka pati,--T'enprie, hélas!
Rétàdé li."
[He answers kindly in French: the _békés_ are always kind to these
gentle children.]
--"My dear child,
It is too late.
The bills of lading
Are already signed;
The ship
Is already on the buoy.
In an hour from now
They will be getting her under way."
--"Ma chère enfant
Il est trop tard,
Les connaissements
Sont déjà signés,
Est déjà sur la bouée;
Dans une heure d'ici,
Ils vont appareiller."
--"When the foulards came....
I always had some;
When the Madras-kerchiefs came,
I always had some;
When the printed calicoes came,
I always had some.
... That second officer--Is such a kind man!
--"Foulard rivé,
Moin té toujou tini;
Madras rivé,
Moin té toujou tini;
Dézindes rivé,
Moin té toujou tini.--Capitaine sougonde
C'est yon bon gàçon!
"Everybody has"
Somebody to love;
Everybody has
Somebody to pet;
Every body has
A sweetheart of her own.
I am the only one
Who cannot have that,--I!"
"Toutt moune tini
Yon moune yo aimé;
Toutt moune tini
Yon moune yo chéri;
Toutt moune tini
Yon doudoux à yo.
Jusse moin tou sèle
Pa tini ça--moin!"
... On the eve of the _Fête Dieu_, or Corpus Christi festival, in all
these Catholic countries, the city streets are hung with banners and
decorated with festoons and with palm branches; and great altars are
erected at various points along the route of the procession, to serve
as resting-places for the Host. These are called _reposoirs_; in creole
patois, "_reposouè Bon-Dié_." Each wealthy man lends something to
help to make them attractive,--rich plate, dainty crystal, bronzes,
paintings, beautiful models of ships or steamers, curiosities from
remote parts of the world.... The procession over, the altar is
stripped, the valuables are returned to their owners: all the splendor
disappears.... And the spectacle of that evanescent magnificence,
repeated year by year, suggested to this proverb-loving people a
similitude for the unstable fortune of the fille-de-couleur:--_Fortune
milatresse c'est reposouè Bon-Dié_. (The luck of the mulattress is the
resting-place of the Good-God).