Hayti; or, The black republic.

by Sir Spenser St. John

I was struck by an anecdote told me by a French gentleman at Port-au-Prince: it is a trifle, but it shows the spirit of the Haytian youth. A trader, in very moderate circumstances, sent a half-grown son to be educated in Paris, and as the father had no friends there, he said to my informant, “Will you ask your family to pay my son a little attention?” In consequence, a lady called at the school and took the youth for a walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. Approaching the basins, she said, “I suppose you have none like these in Hayti?” “Oh,” was his reply, “my father has finer ones in his private grounds;” the fact being, that he had nothing there but a bath a few feet square. This miserable pretence is one of the causes of the slow improvement in Hayti; they cannot or they will not see the superiority of foreign countries.

A late Secretary of State was present at a review in Paris, when ten thousand splendid cavalry charged up towards the Emperors of France and Russia. “It is very fine,” he said; “but how much better our Haytian soldiers ride!” Another gentleman, long employed as a representative at a foreign court, returning home, could find nothing better to say to President Geffrard than, “Ah! President, you should send some of our officers to Paris, that their superiority of tenue may be known in Europe.” I wish I could present some photographic illustrations of a Haytian regiment in support of this assertion.

I am, in fact, doubtful whether travel as yet has done much good to the general public, as they see their young men returning from Europe and America, after having witnessed the best of our modern civilisation, who assure them that things are much better managed in Hayti.

Their self-importance may be illustrated by the following anecdote of another ex-Secretary of State. He went with a friend to see the races at Longchamps. They had their cabriolet drawn up at a good spot, when presently an acquaintance of the driver got up on the box-seat to have a better view. “I must tell that man to get down,” said the ex-Minister. “Leave him alone,” answered his French friend. “It is all very well for you, a private individual, to say that; but I, a former Secretary of State, what will the people say to my permitting such familiarity?” and he looked uneasily around, thinking that the eyes of the whole Parisian world were bent on their distinguished visitor. I once saw some boxes addressed thus:—“Les demoiselles ——, enfants de M. ——, ex-Secrétaire d’Etat.”

Of the profound dislike of the genuine coloured Haytian for the whites I will give an instance. We were invited to a school examination given by the Sisters of Cluny, and naturally the official guests were put in the front rank, with the officers of a French gunboat, from which position we assisted at a distribution of prizes, and some little scenes acted by the pupils. The next day a Haytian gentleman, one who was an ornament to his country for his extensive knowledge and legal erudition, made this remark—“When I saw those whites put into the front row, it reminded me of the time when the ancient colonists sat arms akimbo watching the dances of their slaves.” As he said this before a party of white gentlemen, we may imagine what were his utterances before his own countrymen.

Moreau de St. Méry gives a table of the different combinations of colour among the mixed race, amounting to one hundred and twenty, which produce thirteen distinct shades between the pure white and the pure black. Each has a name, the most common of which are: Quateron, white and mulatto; mulatto, white and black; griffe, black and mulatto. These were the original combinations, but constant intermarriages have produced a great variety of colour, even in the same families, some breeding back to their white, others to their black forefathers. It appears as if the lighter shades of mulatto would die out, as many of this class marry Europeans, and leave the country with their children, and the others marry Haytians more or less dark, and the tendency is to breeding back to their black ancestors. There are too few whites settled in the country to arrest this backward movement. In Santo Domingo, however, the stay for a few years (1859-64) of a large Spanish army had a very appreciable effect on the population.

The personal appearance of the coloured Haytians is not striking. Being in general a mixture of rather a plain race in Europe with the plainest in Africa, it is not surprising that the men should be ugly and the women far from handsome. Of course there is a marked distinction between the men who have more dark blood in their veins and those who approach the white; in fact, those who are less than half-European have in general the hair frizzled like a negro’s, the forehead low, the eyes dark in a yellow setting, the nose flat, the mouth large, the teeth perfect, the jaw heavy; whilst as they approach the white type they greatly improve in appearance, until they can scarcely be distinguished from the foreigner, except by the dead colour of the skin and some trifling peculiarities.

Of the women it is more difficult to speak; they are rarely good-looking, never beautiful. As they approach the white type, they have long, rather coarse hair, beautiful teeth, small fleshless hands and feet, delicate forms, and sometimes graceful movements, due apparently to the length of the lower limbs. Their principal defects are their voices, their noses, their skins, and sometimes the inordinate size of the lower jaw. Their voices are harsh, their skins blotchy or of a dirty brown, their noses flat or too fleshy, and the jaw, as I have said, heavy. Occasionally you see a girl decidedly pretty, who would pass in any society, but these are rare. In general they are very plain, particularly when you approach the black type, when the frizzled hair begins to appear.

There is one subject necessary to mention, though it is a delicate one. Like the negroes, the mulattoes have often a decided odour, and this is particularly observable after dancing or any violent exercise which provokes perspiration, and then no amount of eau de cologne or other scents will completely conceal the native perfume. The griffes, however, are decidedly the most subject to this inconvenience, and I met one well-dressed woman who positively tainted the air.

With the exception of those who have been sent abroad, the Haïtiennes have had until lately but few chances of education, and are therefore little to be blamed for their ignorance. This want of instruction, however, has an ill effect, as the time necessarily hangs heavy on their hands, and they can neither give those first teachings to their children which are never forgotten, nor amuse themselves with literature or good music.