Every true friend of the Union, residing on the island, must feel an interest in the above subject, regardless of any other consideration than that of national polity. Have the blacks become self-sustaining? and will they ever, in a state of freedom, resupply the products which comprised the staples formerly of the old planters? These are questions of importance, and not unworthy of the consideration of grave political economists.
That the blacks of the island have not been self-sustaining will not be pretended, neither can it be denied that they have been generally industrious and inclined to work. But industry alone is not sufficient, nor work available, except these command adequate compensation.
Have the blacks innately the elements of industry and enterprise? Compare them with any other people, and note their adaptation. Do they not make good “day laborers”? Are they not good field hands? Do they not make good domestics? Are they not good house servants? Do they not readily “turn their hands” to anything or kind of work they may find to do? Trained, they make good body servants, house servants, or laundresses, waiters, chamber and dining-room servants, cooks, nurses, drivers, horse “tenders,” and, indeed, fill as well, and better, many of the domestic occupations than any other race. And with unrestricted facilities for learning, will it be denied that they are as susceptible of the mechanical occupations or trades as they are of the domestic? Will it be denied that a people easily domesticated are susceptible of the higher attainments? The slaveholder, long since, cautioned against “giving a nigger an inch, lest he should take an ell.”
If permitted, I will continue this subject in a series of equally short articles, so as not to intrude on your columns.
II.
This subject must now he examined in the light of political economy, and, for reasons stated in a previous article, treated tersely in every sentence, and, therefore, will not be condemned by the absence of elaboration and extensive proof.
America was discovered in 1492—then peopled only by the original inhabitants, or Indians, as afterwards called. No part of the country was found in a state of cultivation, and no industrial enterprise was carried on, either foreign or domestic. Not even in the West Indies—prolific with spices, gums, dye-woods, and fruits—was there any trade carried on among or by the natives. These people were put to labor by the foreigners; but, owing to their former habits of hunting, fishing, and want of physical exercise, they sank beneath the weight of toil, fast dying off, till their mortality, in time, from this cause alone, reached the frightful figure of two and a half millions. (See Ramsay’s History.)
The whites were put to labor, and their fate was no better—which requires no figures, as all are familiar with the history and career of Thomas Gates and associates at one time; John Smith and associates, as colonists in the South, at another; how, not farther than Virginia,—at most, North Carolina,—they “died like sheep,” to the destruction of the settlements, in attempting to do the work required to improve for civilized life. Neither whites, as foreigners, nor Indians, as natives, were adequate to the task of performing the labor necessary to their advent in the New World.
So early as 1502—but ten years after Columbus landed—“the Spaniards commenced bringing a few negroes from Africa to work the soil.” (See Ramsay’s History.) In 1515, but thirteen years afterwards, and twenty-three from the discovery of America, Carolus V., King of Spain, granted letters patent to import annually into the colonies of Cuba, Ispaniola (Hayti), Jamaica, and Porto Rico, four thousand Africans as slaves—people contracted with to “emigrate” to these new colonies, as the French, under Louis Napoleon, attempted, in 1858, to decoy native Africans, under the pretext of emigrating to the colonies, into French slavery, then reject international interference, on the ground that they obtained them by “voluntary emigration.”