Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 351 of 635 - First - Home
Who Can Venture To Predict The Influence Which May Be
Exercised On The Politics Of The New World By An African Confederation
Of The Free States Of The West Indies, Situated Between Columbia,
North America, And Guatimala?
The fear of this event may act more
powerfully on the minds of many, than the principles of humanity and
justice; but in every island the whites believe that their power is
not to be shaken.
All simultaneous action on the part of the blacks
appears to them impossible; and every change, every concession granted
to the slave population, is regarded as a sign of weakness. The
horrible catastrophe of San Domingo is declared to have been only the
effect of the incapacity of its government. Such are the illusions
which prevail amidst the great mass of the planters of the West
Indies, and which are alike opposed to an amelioration of the
condition of the blacks in Georgia and in the Carolinas. The island of
Cuba, more than any other of the West India Islands, might escape the
common wreck. That island contains 455,000 free men and 160,000
slaves: and there, by prudent and humane measures, the gradual
abolition of slavery might be brought about. Let us not forget that
since San Domingo has become free there are in the whole archipelago
of the West Indies more free negroes and mulattos than slaves. The
whites, and above all, the free men, whose cause it would be easy to
link with that of the whites, take a very rapid numerical increase at
Cuba.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 351 of 635
Words from 95781 to 96042
of 174507
