CHAPTER XVI.

SLAVERY IN SOUTH AMERICA.

THE slave-trade was kept open by the Brazilian Government to a very late period. The number of negroes and persons of mixed blood within the territory is estimated as bearing the proportion of five to one of the white population. All of these are not slaves; the bond being estimated as only two-fifths of the whole. The number of free negroes, mulattoes, &c., is hence very considerable. There is probably no state in the world where there is less "prejudice of color" than in Brazil, though a slaveholding state. At court, in the army, in the haunts of business, everywhere may be found freely mingling together persons of every hue. The free negroes are frequently the owners of numbers of slaves, and are reported to be the most cruel masters. The slaves generally are kindly treated by, and are attached to their masters, though destitute in a great measure of the sense of gratitude. They are "indolent, thoughtless, and licentious," but not rebellious.'

New Grenada, with all other Spanish provinces, inherited negro slavery. The numbers were never very great, nor have they increased as in the United States; while the mixed and copper-colored constitute nearly

For these facts, I rely principally on Wilkes's Exploring Expedition, vol. i, pp. 36, 56–68, 89, and Brazil and La Plata, by C. S. Stewart, U. S. N. In Brazil, as in other slaveholding states, there seem to be no beggars.

one-third of the entire population. The negroes were estimated, in 1853, at only 80,000, which is scarcely onethirtieth. In 1821, just after the Revolution, a law was passed by the Republic of Colombia, for the gradual manumission of slaves, and all born after that date were declared free at the age of eighteen. By a law of 1851, slavery was entirely abolished in New Grenada, by giving liberty to all who remained slaves, on the 1st of January, 1852, provision being made for the payment of the owners. The results of this emancipation have been the same with similar efforts elsewhere. The negroes, as a class, are idle, immoral, vicious, preferring to beg and steal rather than work. The destruction and desolation in some of the finest agricultural districts, consequent upon the Act of 1821, are described as deplorable in the extreme. The want and destitution of the poorer classes are pitiable. "Their morals can sink no lower, and their religion can raise them no higher."

Slavery exists in other portions of South America. In Chili and Peru there seem to be but few negroes. In the latter the slaves are treated with great kindness. It is no unusual sight to see a mistress and her slave kneel

'Memoir on the Physical and Political Geography of New Grenada, by General De Mosquera, ex-President of the same.

2 New Grenada, by Isaac F. Holton, pp. 173, 269, 527, 533. I am indebted for some of the facts stated, to letters from Col. King and Judge Bowlin, late ministers of the United States to New Grenada. The latter says, "The universally admitted characteristics of the negro, when unrestrained, of indigence, improvidence, and indolence,-are strikingly exemplified in New Grenada, where every avenue is equally open to him as to the white man, to elevate his condition; yet, if he does not recede, he certainly makes no advance in the progress to a higher civilization." Living on tropical fruits, and indulging in intoxicating drinks, he adds, "He generally goes in a state of nudity; and when he does not, he merely wears a coarse shirt, or a shirt and pantaloons made of coarse cotton." "Take them all in all, they are a miserable race, encumbering the earth, whose vicious qualities civilization seems only to develop more strongly."

ing in a cathedral, side by side, on the same piece of cloth.1

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The negroes in La Plata are more numerous. modore Stewart saw more than one thousand negro washerwomen at one time on the shores of the river. In the late Revolution the negroes were offered their liberty, without compensation to their masters, on condition of enlisting as soldiers for the war. Many availed themselves of this privilege."

'Wilkes's Exp. Exp. vol. i, 257 ; vol. ix, Races of Man, by Dr. Picker.

ing.

2 Brazil and La Plata, by C. S. Stewart.

CHAPTER XVII.

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.

NEGRO slavery continues to exist in fifteen of the United States of America. In Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, attempts have been made to bring about emancipation by the State governments; it being admitted by all that the Federal Government has no power to interfere with or seek to regulate the institution within the States. In 1787, the first abolition society was formed, since which time they have greatly increased, their object being to bring to bear upon the slaveholding States the powerful public sentiment of the other States; to bring into action the powers of Congress, wherever legitimately to be exercised, against the continuance of the institution, and thus indirectly to effect what could not be done directly. The infatuated zeal of many fanatics has carried them farther, and induced them to endeavor, by incendiary publications and agents, to excite insurrections among the slaves, and in other ways to force the masters to consent to their emancipation. In later years, some of the more excited have inveighed against the Constitution of the United States, as a "league with hell," because its provisions limited the powers of the general government on this subject. In fact, the history of abolitionism in the United States has been the history of fanaticism everywhere, whose later deeds are not even shadowed forth in its earlier years; and with whom obstacles and impediments, the more insurmountable they are in fact,

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but feed the flame of zeal, and more effectually dethrone the reason. This class of abolitionists, however, have ever been comparatively few in number; while those who sympathize with the objects above-mentioned (the legitimate use of means to extinguish slavery), have ever been, in the non-slaveholding States, numerous and respectable. The points of conflict in our national assemblies, upon which difficulties have arisen between the advocates of these doctrines and their opponents, are based upon the question, what powers were given by the Constitution to Congress, and at what time and in what way they could be exercised? Such have been the questions as to the admission of new States into the Union, where slavery was recognized; the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and in the forts. and arsenals, and other public property belonging to the United States, and situated within the slaveholding States; the prohibition of slavery within the territories of the United States, before their application for admission as States, and the regulation of the domestic slavetrade between the slaveholding States.

It is not my purpose to extend this sketch, by giving the history of the conflicts upon each of these questions. They have threatened, seriously, the existence of the government. Suffice it to say, that the right of each State to regulate for itself its domestic relations, so far as this question is concerned, seems now to be acknowledged by the statesmen of the country; and that, hence, the existence of slavery in a State is no ground for rejecting its admission into the Union. The slave-trade in the District of Columbia has been properly abolished; and slavery therein, and in the public forts, &c., is left, as required by good faith, to abide the fate of the institution in the adjacent States by which they were ceded. The right to prohibit slavery in the territories of the United States has been denied by the Supreme Court, in