To an Englishman who has never lived in a slave
country, or in a country in which slavery once prevailed,
the negro population is of course the most striking
feature of the West Indies. But the eye soon becomes
accustomed to the black skin and the thick lip, and the
ear to the broken patois which is the nearest approach to
English which the ordinary negro ever makes. When
one has been a week among them, the novelty is all
gone. It is only by an exercise of memory and intellect that one is enabled to think of them as a strange
race.
But how strange is the race of Creole negroes — of
negroes, that is, born out of Africa. They have no
country of their own, yet have they not hitherto any
country of their adoption ; for, whether as slaves in Cuba,
or as free labourers in the British isles, they are in each
case a servile people in a foreign land. They have no
language of their own, nor have they as yet any language
of their adoption ; for they speak their broken English as
uneducated foreigners always speak a foreign language.
They have no idea of country, and no pride of race ; for
even among themselves, the word *' n******g " conveys their
worst term of reproach. They have no religion of their
owD, and can hardly as yet be said to have, as a people,
a religion by adoption ; and yet there is no race which
has more strongly developed its own physical aptitudes
and inaptitudes, its own habits, its own tastes, and its own
faults.
The West Indian negro knows nothing of Africa ex-
cept that it is a term of reproach. If African immigrants
are put to work on the same estate with him, he will not
eat with them, or drink with them, or walk with them.
He will hardly work beside them, and regards himself as
a creature immeasurably the superior of the new comer.
But yet he has made no approach to the civilization of
his white fellow-creature, whom he imitates as a
monkey does a man.
Physically he is capable of the hardest bodily work,
and that probably with less bodily pain than men of any
other race ; but he is idle, unambitious as to worldly
position, sensual, and content with little. Intellectually,
he is apparently capable of but little sustained effort; but,
singularly enough, here he is ambitious. He bums to be
regarded as a scholar, puzzles himself with fine words,
addicts himself to religion for the sake of appearance,
and delights in aping the little graces of civilization. He
despises himself thoroughly, and would probably be con-
tent to starve for a month if he could appear as a white
man for a day ; but yet he delights in signs of respect
paid to him, black man as he is, and is always thinking
of his own dignity. If you want to win his heart for an
hour, call him a gentleman ; but if you want to reduce
him to a despairing obedience, tell him that he is a
filthy n******g, a**ure him that his father and mother had
tails like monkeys, and forbid him to think that he can
have a soul like a white man. Among the West Indies one may frequently see either course adopted towards
them by their unreasoning ascendant masters.
I do not think that education has as yet done much
for the black man in the Western world. He can always
observe, and often read ; but he can seldom reason. I
do not mean to a**ert that he is absolutely without
mental power, as a calf is. He does draw conclusions,
but he carries them only a short way. I think that he
seldom understands the purpose of industry, the object
of truth, or the results of honesty. He is not always
idle, perhaps not always false, certainly not always a
thief; but his motives are the fear of immediate punish-
ment, or hopes of immediate reward. He fears that
and hopes that only. Certain virtues he copies, because
they are the virtues of a white man. The white man
is the god present to his eye, and he believes in him —
believes in him with a qualified faith, a d imitates him
with a qualified constancy.
And thus I am led to say, and I say it with sorrow
enough, that I distrust the negro's religion. What I
mean is this : that in my opinion they rarely take in
and digest the great and simple doctrines of Christianity,
that they should love and fear the Lord their God, and
love their neighbours as themselves.
Those who differ from me — and the number will
comprise the whole clergy of these western realms, and
very many beside the clergy — will ask, among other
questions, whether these simple doctrines are obeyed in
England much better than they are in Jamaica. I
would reply that I am not speaking of obedience. The
opinion which I venture to give is, that the very first
meaning of the terms does not often reach the negro's
mind, not even the minds of those among them who are
enthusiastically religious. To them religious exercises are in themselves the good thing desirable. They sing
their psalms, and believe, probably, that good will
result ; but they do not connect their psalms with the
practice of any virtue. They say their prayers ; but,
having said them, have no idea that they should there-
fore forgive offences. They hear the commandments and
delight in the responses ; but those commandments are not
in their hearts connected with abstinence from adultery
or calumny. They delight to go to church or meeting ;
they are energetic in singing psalms ; they are constant
in the responses ; and, which is saying much more for
them, they are wonderfully expert at Scripture texts ;
but — and I say it with grief of heart, and with much
trembling also at the reproaches which I shall have to
endure — I doubt whether religion does often reach their
minds.