Negros Island

“ Slavery exists in a most ample sense. There are slaves by birth and others by conquest, such as prisoners of war, insolvent debtors, and those seized by piratical expeditions to other islands. A creole friend of mine was one of these last. He had commenced clearing an estate for cane-growing on the Negros coast, when he was seized and carried off to Sulu Island. In a few years he was ransomed and returned to Negros, where be formed one of the finest sugar haciendas and factories in the Colony. ”

“ The characters of negros are not so various as one would imagine they would be, from the difference of the country they are brought from, to the West Indies; as very few of them on their arrival in the islands have the least appearance of having been civilized, or possessed of any endowments but such as are merely natural. [266] For the generality of them, on their first introduction, appear as wild as the brute beasts; are indolent and stupid to a degree, so that they hardly know the use of the most common utensil of husbandry, much less the methods of cultivating the ground. ”

“ The increase of runaway negros also owes its origin, in a great measure, to the impolitic conduct of some of the first English settlers: for, during the neutral state of this island, a number of French and Spaniards had settled themselves on the most fertile parts of the sea-coasts, and had raised to themselves very fine sugar and coffee estates. Among these were some Jesuits, who having sugar plantations on the south-east part of the island, they disposed of the same, together with the negros on them, to some of the English new settlers. ”

“ This practice is truly laughable to white people who see it; but it is a plain indication, that negros have some notion of the immortality of the soul.
The slaves belonging to people in the towns of the English islands, are composed of house servants, tradesmen and porters. The first live much in the same manner as the common servants in England, but do not half as much work, and are subject only to a moderate manual correction, instead of being discharged for their faults, and left a burden on the public ”

“ Negros, with the other islands of the group commonly known as Visayan, forms a province which is under the supervision of a governor who has his headquarters in the island of Cebu, where also the bishop who is the head of the see resides.
“Negros is near enough to Cebu so that the authority of the government could be maintained better there than it could in the more distant islands. When I was there the village of Dumaguete, the chief town and seaport of Negros, contained a stone fort, the most imposing probably of any outside the capital ”

“ The great cordillera which runs through the centre of the Island from north to south forms a sort of natural barrier between the people of Occidental and Oriental Negros. There are trails, but there are no transversal highroads from one coast to the other, and the inhabitants on each side live as separated in their interests, and, to a certain degree, in their habits, as though they were living in different islands. The people on the eastern side have always strongly opposed anything approaching governmental cohesion with the other side. ”

“ Their headquarters are the northern part of Nueva Ecija, the provinces of Principe, Isabela, and Cagayan. To their presence in Isla de Negros the island owed its name. They are dwarfish (4 feet 8 inches being the average stature of the full-grown man) , thin and spindle-legged, have a head like a Negro's, with flattish nose, full lips, and thick frizzled black hair, and possess an extraordinary prehensible power in their toes. They tattoo themselves, and wear very little clothing. ”

“ On the Sea Island, however, where the slaves were and still are more completely isolated than elsewhere in the South, the Negro population approached more closely to the cultural status of the native African. The Sea Islands were taken possession of in the first years of the war by the Federal forces and it was here that people from the North first came in contact with the plantation Negro of the lower South. They immediately became interested in the manners and customs of the Island Negroes, and from them we have the first accurate accounts of their folk-lore and sayings. ”

“ The Negritos were like the pigmy Negroes of Africa. But here and there on the coast of New Guinea, or on the islands off it, were obvious Polynesian settlements of old times, and even on some isolated island a people quite pale skinned and Caucasian in appearance.
The inhabitants of the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, of New Caledonia, and the Fiji archipelago are allied to the Papuans more than to any other stock, but are usually known as Melanesians. ”

“ The reporters labour to keep out of view the dangers which threaten Jamaica from the example and proximity of St. Domingo, and from an increase of the Negro population in the island; and they absurdly argue, that the more the Negro population is increased, the greater will be the security of the West Indies. ”

“ For want, therefore, of such care and attention to the poor negroes, and otherwise oppressed as they are, it is no wonder that the decrease should require 20,000 new negroes annually to fill up the vacant places of the dead.
Even in Barnadoes, notwithstanding those human exceptions which I have mentioned, and others I am acquainted with, which justly make it quoted as a place where slaves meet with the best treatment, and need fewest recruits of any in the West Indies, yet this island requires 1000 negroes annually to keep up the original stock, which is only 80,000. ”

“ The admixture which afterwards took place with the black race imported from Africa, materially contributed to deteriorate the people both physically and morally. Though there is not one single pure negro in the whole island, yet the features of a considerable proportion of the inhabitants denote their African descent. In the population of Punta da Sol, a village on the west side of the island, the negro type is said to be exhibited in its strongest character.91
The dress of the native is extremely simple; a pair of white trowsers, a shirt, and linen jacket, constitute the entire toilette ”

“ We look upon that beautiful island and feel sad that such a paradise should have fallen so low. As a race the negro has little of that internal power that makes for progress—he must be compelled to move on. Some are inclined to look upon him as in the course of degenerating into the savage, but we, on the contrary, believe him to be progressing slowly.
In the islands belonging to European nations the influence of the dominant power is visible in the negro even when he has no trace of white blood. The French, English, or Dutch negro may be recognised by his manners, and even features. ”

“ There are many speculations as to the origin of the darker, or black races, who now occupy the northern and central mountainous and little visited regions, and from whom one of the islands, Negros, takes its name. They principally dwell in the wilder part of the provinces of Ilocos South, Pangasinan, Cagayan, and Nueva Ecija. They are of small stature, have somewhat flattened noses, curled hair, are agile, have no other dress than a covering of bark over their genitals, are dexterous hunters, have no fixed dwellings, but [171] sleep wherever sunset finds them. ”

“ A spirited young man, son of the dead man—not daring alone to avenge himself upon the black, who had been reënforced by others of his own color—assembled his kinsmen and friends; besides these [so many joined him that] all the villages of the island were depopulated, in order to fall upon the Negrillos—all eager to enslave the women and children, this being a great source of wealth among those people; they accomplished their purpose, killing many men. This lasted until the matter became known to the royal officials in that region, who pacified them. ”

“ Under all these difficulties which men must suffer from such a misfortune, in an almost uninhabited island (for St. Vincents at that time had very few native Indians) these Africans made a settlement, and have encreased to a very considerable number. — Here is a proof, that negroes will increase even in this climate, when they do not live and labour under circumstances that obstruct population. ”

“ This compels any person selling a cargo there to lay the returns out in some of the produce of the Island, which is consequently the cause of heavy losses to the shippers. The inhabitants are a mixed race of black and white, varying in color from the blackness of charcoal to almost the whiteness of a snow-ball, and hundreds of them have to take hard oaths to satisfy the authorities that they have some black blood running through their veins, which entitles them to the rights of citizenship in the Island. I have seen many red-whiskered fair complexioned men pass themselves off for men of color. ”

“ We can see by the foregoing tables that the free population (black and white) was nearly two thirds of the entire population of the island; and also that, according to the last census given above, the blacks on the island exceeded the white people by many thousands. The balance of power then lay with the free blacks. ”

“ The present population consists of whites, negroes, and yellow-coloured aborigines, who, as speaking a dialect allied to that of Polynesia, seem to belong to the Malay-Polynesian stirps. The present white settlers are English and North Americans; formerly they were chiefly Spanish and Portuguese who traded with the natives. Negro slaves and free blacks have also occasionally visited the island, 578or been left there for good and all. ”

“ The origin of these Negrillos is thought to have been interior India, or citra Gangen, which was called Etyopia; for it was settled by Ethiopian negroes, whence went out the settlers to African Etyopia, as Father Colin proves in detail. Consequently, there being on the mainland of India nations of negroes, and even in Nueva Guinea so many that their first discoverers gave the island that name because of the multitude of these people; and since the distance from those places to these islands and the Philippine archipelago is not great ”

“ There are in Treasury several men and women who, originally bought as slaves from the people of Bouka and Bougainville, now enjoy apparently the same privileges and freedom of action as their fellow islanders. It is sometimes not a matter of much difficulty to single out the slaves amongst a crowd of natives. On one occasion I engaged a canoe of Faro men to take me to a distant part of their island: and very soon after we started I became aware from the cowed and sullen condition of one of the crew that he was a slave. ”

“ Half the population was composed of slaves. To further increase their number, King Christian V of Denmark decreed that natives of Africa be brought across-seas in ships specially engaged in slave traffic. All the European countries that had undertaken to develop the agricultural resources of the West India Islands had found after repeated disasters that only black men were fitted to work in the tropics. Besides tobacco, estates were now planted with sugar cane, sprouts of which were obtained from Tortola, another island of the Virgin group, twenty miles east of St. ”

“ The islands in the gulf of Guinea, with the exception of Fernando Po, have each a capital town of some consequence, and although they produce sufficient supplies for ships that visit them, and carry on a small trade, it is much to be doubted, whether they are not more indebted for their importance to the slave trade than any other source. With respect to Prince's Island and St. Thomas, they are known to be the receptacles for slaves from the coast, from whence they are re-embarked and conveyed away as opportunities offer ”

“ Food is all imported, save for pig and goat flesh. Shade, coolness, refreshing fruit, pleasant sights and sounds, there are none. For those who live on the island, it is the scene of an exile which has to be endured somehow or other, but which drags away with incredible slowness and soul-deadening monotony.
Why does any one live in such a spot? More especially, why should it be tenanted by five or six whites and a couple of hundred Kanakas, when many beautiful and fertile islands cannot show nearly so many of either race ”

“ Even to this number, as the negroes acquire confidence in us, large additions are likely every week to be made. The whole island can be safely farmed as soon as troops can be spared for the purpose of occupation. But not counting the plantations of this island, the number on Port Royal, Ladies', St. Helena, Hilton Head, and the smaller islands, may be estimated at 200 plantations. ”

“ It will easily be seen that the task of tracing these migrations is by no means simple. Canoes, carrying fighting men or immigrants, bent on victory or colonisation, passed continually from one island to another, and each island has probably its own very complicated history. The Maoris of New Zealand, for example, are a Polynesian race, but there are also traces there of a darker people. Absolutely negroid elements are found as far east as the Marquesas. ”

“ Accustomed to the climate, and acquainted with the manner of fighting the Negroes, they offer advice, which is not listened to; nor are any of them employed, but all places of honour or emolument are held by Europeans, who appear to regard the Island as a place to be conquered and divided among the victors, and are consequently viewed by the natives with a jealous eye. ”