Jasmin Thoumazeau was born in Africa, 1714, and sold at St. Domingo, 1736. Having obtained his freedom, he returned to his native country, and married a negro girl of the Gold Coast. In 1756, he established a hospital for poor negroes and mulattoes. During more than forty years, he and his wife devoted their time and fortune to the comfort of such invalids as sought their protection. The Philadelphian Society, at the Cape, and the Agricultural Society of Paris, decreed medals to this worthy and benevolent man.
Louis Desrouleaux was the slave of M. Pinsum, a captain in the negro trade, who resided at St. Domingo. The master having amassed great riches, went to reside in France, where circumstances combined to ruin him. Depressed in fortune and spirits, he returned to St. Domingo; but those who had formerly been proud of his friendship, now avoided him. Louis heard of his misfortunes and immediately went to see him. The scales were now turned; the negro was rich, and the white man poor. The generous fellow offered every assistance, but advised M. Pinsum by all means to return to France, where he would not be pained by the sight of ungrateful men. "But I cannot gain a living there," replied the white man. "Will the annual revenue of fifteen thousand francs be sufficient?" asked Louis. The Frenchman's eyes filled with tears. The negro signed the contract, and the pension was regularly paid, till the death of Louis Desrouleaux, in 1774.
Benoit of Palermo, also named Benoit of Santo Fratello, sometimes called The Holy Black, was a negro, and the son of a female slave. Roccho Pirro, author of the Sicilia Sacra, eulogizes him thus: "Nigro quidem corpore sed candore animi præclarisimus quem miraculis Deus contestatum esse voluit."
"His body was black, but it pleased God to testify by miracles the whiteness of his soul." He died at Palermo, in 1589, where his tomb and memory are much revered. A few years ago, it was said the Pope was about to authorize his canonization. Whether he is yet registered as a saint in the Calendar, I know not; but many writers agree that he was a saint indeed—eminent for his virtues, which he practised in meekness and silence, desiring no witness but his God.
The moral character of Toussaint L'Ouverture is even more worthy of admiration than his intellectual acuteness. What can be more beautiful than his unchanging gratitude to his benefactor, his warm attachment to his family, his high-minded sacrifice of personal feeling to the public good? He was a hero in the sublimest sense of the word. Yet he had no white blood in his veins—he was all negro.
The following description of a slave-market at Brazil is from the pen of Doctor Walsh: "The men were generally less interesting objects than the women; their countenances and hues were very varied, according to the part of the African coast from which they came; some were soot-black, having a certain ferocity of aspect that indicated strong and fierce passions, like men who were darkly brooding over some deep-felt wrongs, and meditating revenge. When any one was ordered, he came forward with a sullen indifference, threw his arms over his head, stamped with his feet, shouted to show the soundness of his lungs, ran up and down the room, and was treated exactly like a horse put through his paces at a repository; and when done, he was whipped to his stall.
"Many of them were lying stretched on the bare boards; and among the rest, mothers with young children at their breasts, of which they seemed passionately fond. They were all doomed to remain on the spot, like sheep in a pen, till they were sold; they have no apartment to retire to, no bed to repose on, no covering to protect them; they sit naked all day, and lie naked all night, on the bare boards, or benches, where we saw them exhibited.
"Among the objects that attracted my attention in this place were some young boys, who seemed to have formed a society together. I observed several times in passing by, that the same little group was collected near a barred window; they seemed very fond of each other, and their kindly feelings were never interrupted by peevishness; indeed, the temperament
of a negro child is generally so sound, that he is not affected by those little morbid sensations, which are the frequent cause of crossness and ill-temper in our children. I do not remember that I ever saw a young black fretful, or out of humor; certainly never displaying those ferocious fits of petty passion, in which the superior nature of infant whites indulges. I sometimes brought cakes and fruit in my pocket, and handed them in to the group. It was quite delightful to observe the generous and disinterested manner in which they distributed them. There was no scrambling with one another; no selfish reservation to themselves. The child to whom I happened to give them, took them so gently, looked so thankfully, and distributed them so generously, that I could not help thinking that God had compensated their dusky hue, by a more than usual human portion of amiable qualities."
Several negroes in Jamaica were to be hung. One of them was offered his life, if he would hang the others; he preferred death. A negro slave who was ordered to do it, asked time to prepare; he went into his cabin, chopped off his right hand with an axe, and then came back, saying he was ready.