Will it be credited that the whites who witnessed the smoking plain from the roofs of Cap Français broke into the houses of the mulattoes, and murdered all they could find,—the paralytic old man in his bed, the daughters in the same room, the men in the street,—murdered and ravished during one long day? In this crisis of the colony, suspicion and prejudice of color were stronger than personal alarm. Every action of the whites was piqued by pride of color and the intoxication of caste. These vulgar mulatto-making pale-faces would hazard their safety sooner than grasp the hand of their own half-breeds and arm it with the weapon of unity. Color-blindness was at length the weakness through which violated laws revenged themselves: the French could not perceive which heart was black and which was white.
If Northern statesmen and glib editors of Tory sheets would derive a lesson from San Domingo for the guidance of the people, let them find it in the horrors wrought by the white man's prejudice. It is the key to the history of the island. And it is by means of the black man that God perceives whether the Christianity of Church and State is skin-deep or not. Beneath those oxidated surfaces He has hidden metal for the tools and swords of a republic, and into our hands He puts the needle of the text, "God has made of one blood all nations," to agitate and attract us to our true safety and glory. The black man is the test of the white man's ability to be the citizen of a long-lived republic. It is as if God lighted His lamp and decked His altar behind those bronze doors, and waited for the incense and chant of Liberty to open them and enter His choir, instead of passing by. So long as America hates and degrades the black man, so long will she be deprived of four millions' worth of God. In so much of God a great deal of retribution must be slumbering, if the story of San Domingo was a fact, and not a hideous dream.
NEGRO SOLDIERS.[29]
The native tribes of Africa differ as much in combative propensity and ability for warlike enterprises as in their other traits. The people of Wadai are distinguished for bravery above all their neighbors. The men of Ashantee are great fighters, and have such a contempt for death that they will continue their attacks upon a European intrenchment in spite of appalling losses. A band that is overpowered will fight to the last man; for it is the custom of the kingdom to punish cowardice with death. They are almost the only negroes who will deliver battle in the open field, in regular bodies with closed ranks. In Dahomey war is a passion of the ruler and the people, and the year is divided between fighting and feasting. The king's body-guard of five thousand unmarried women preserves the tradition of bravery, as European regiments preserve their flags. The mild Mandingos become obstinate in fight; they have minstrels who accompany armies to war, and recite the deeds of former heroes; but they are not capable of discipline. On the contrary, the negroes of Fernando Po march and exercise with a great regard to order. In Ashantee and upon the Gold Coast the negroes make use of horn signals in war to transmit orders to a distance; and on the White Nile and in Kaffa drummers are stationed in trees to telegraph commands. Great circumspection is not universal; but the Veis maintain posts, and when they are threatened, a watch is kept night and day. The negroes of Akkra know the value of a ditched intrenchment.
The English praise the negro soldiers whom they have in Sierra Leone for good behavior, temperance, and discipline; and their Jolofs at the Gambia execute complicated manœuvres in a striking way. West-Indian troops have performed many distinguished services, and English officers say that they are as brave as Europeans; but in the heat of a fight they are apt to grow intractable and to behave wildly. The troops which Napoleon used in Calabria, drawn from the French Colonies, emulated the French soldiers, and arrived at great distinction.
D'Escayrac says that the native negro has eminent qualities for the making of a good soldier,—dependence upon a superior, unquestioning confidence in his sagacity, an enthusiastic courage which mounts to great audacity, passiveness, and capacity for waiting.
From this the Congos must be excepted. Large numbers of them deserted General Dessalines in San Domingo, and fled to the mountains, frightened at the daring of the French. Here, if brave, they might have been armed and officered by Spaniards to effect dangerous movements in his rear. But he knew their timidity, and gave himself no trouble about them. There is a genealogy which derives Toussaint from a Congo grandfather, a native prince of renown; but it was probably manufactured for him at the suggestion of his own achievements. The sullen-looking Congo is really gay, rollicking, disposed to idleness, careless and sensual, fatigued by the smallest act of reflection; Toussaint was grave, reticent, forecasting, tenacious, secretive, full of endurance and concentration, rapid and brave in war.[30] What a confident and noble aspect he had, when he left his guard and walked alone to the head of a column of old troops of his who had deserted to Desfourneaux, and were about to deliver their fire! "My children, will you fire upon your father?"—and down went four regiments upon their knees. The white officers tried to bring them under the fire of cannon, but it was too late. Here was a greater risk than Napoleon ran, after landing at Fréjus, on his march upon Paris.
Contempt for death is a universal trait of the native African.[31] The slaveholder says it is in consequence of his affinity to the brute, which does not know how to estimate a danger, and whose nervous organization is too dull to be thrilled and daunted in its presence. It is really in consequence of his single-mindedness: the big necks lift the blood, which is two degrees warmer than a white man's, and drench the brain with an ecstasy of daring. If he can clearly see the probable manner of his death, the blood is up and not down at the sight.[32] The negro's nerves are very susceptible; in cool blood he is easily alarmed at anything unexpected or threatening. His fancy is peopled with odd fears; he shrinks at the prospect of a punishment more grotesque or refined than usual. And when he becomes a Creole negro, his fancy is always shooting timid glances beneath the yoke of Slavery. The negroes and mulattoes at San Domingo looked impassively at hanging, breaking upon the wheel, and quartering; but when the first guillotine was imported and set in action, they and the Creole whites shrank appalled to see the head disappear in the basket. It was too deft and sudden for their taste, and this mode of execution was abandoned for the more hearty and lacerating methods.
When a negro has a motive, his nerves grow firm, his imagination escapes before the rising passion, his contempt for death is not stolidity, but inspiration. In the smouldering surface lies an ember capable of white heat. That makes the negro soldier difficult to hold in hand or to call off. He has no fancy for grim sitting, like the Indian, to die by inches, though he can endure torture with tranquillity. He is too tropical for that; and after the exultation of a fight, in which he has been as savage as he can be, the process of torturing his foes seems tame, and he seldom does it, except by way of close reprisals to prevent the practice in his enemy. The French were invariably more cruel than the negroes.
Southern gentlemen think that the negro is incurably afraid of fire-arms, and too clumsy to use them with effect. It is a great mistake. White men who never touched a gun are equally clumsy and nervous. When the slavers began to furnish the native tribes with condemned muskets in exchange for slaves, many ludicrous scenes occurred. The Senegambians considered that the object was to get as much noise as possible out of the weapon. The people of Akkra planted the stock against their hips, shut both eyes and fired; they would not take aim, because it was their opinion that it brought certain death to see a falling enemy. Other tribes thought a musket was possessed, and at the moment of firing threw it violently away from them. When we consider the quality of the weapons furnished, this action will appear laudable. But as these superstitions disappeared, especially upon the Gold Coast and in Ashantee, negroes have learned to use the musket properly. Among the Gold-Coast negroes are good smiths, who have sometimes even made guns. In the West Indies, the Creole negro has become a sharp-shooter, very formidable on the skirts of woods and in the defiles of the mornes. He learned to deliver volleys with precision, and to use the bayonet with great valor. The old soldiers of Le Clerc and Rochambeau, veterans of the Rhine and Italy, were never known to presume upon negro incapacity to use a musket. The number of their dead and wounded taught them what men who are determined to be free can do with the white man's weapons.