But the Dominicans have to keep a large standing army, which takes most of their young men, and are always in an unsettled state, which greatly hinders the commercial and agricultural growth of the country.
Both Hayti and Santo Domingo will doubtless, at no distant day, fall into the hands of some more civilized nation or nations, for both are on the decline, especially as regards self-defence. Both are to-day at the mercy of nearly all other nations, and some day the “Doctor” will go in to look after the “Sick man.”
CHAPTER XXX. INTRODUCTION OF BLACKS INTO THE AMERICAN COLONIES.
Simultaneously with the landing of the Pilgrims from the Mayflower, on Plymouth Rock, December 22d, 1620, a clumsy-looking brig, old and dirty, with paint nearly obliterated from every part, slowly sailed up the James River, and landed at Jamestown. The short, stout, fleshy appearance of the men in charge of the vessel, and the five empty sour-crout barrels which lay on deck, told plainly in what country the navigators belonged.
Even at that early day they had with them their “native beverage,” which, though not like the lager of the present time, was a drink over which they smoked and talked of “Farderland,” and traded for the negroes they brought. The settlers of Jamestown, and indeed, all Virginia at that time, were mainly cavaliers, gentlemen-adventurers, aspiring to live by their wits and other men’s labor. Few of the pioneers cherished any earnest liking for downright persistent muscular exertion, yet some exertion was urgently required to clear away the heavy forest which all but covered the soil of the infant colony, and to grow the tobacco which easily became the staple export by means of which nearly everything required by its people but food was to be paid for in England.
The landing of the twenty slaves from the Dutch brig was the signal for all sorts of adventurers to embark in the same nefarious traffic. Worn-out and unseaworthy European ships, brigs, barks, schooners, and indeed, everything else that could float, no matter how unsafe, were brought into requisition to supply the demand for means of transportation in the new commerce.
Thousands of persons incarcerated in the prisons of the old world were liberated upon condition that they would man these slave-trading vessels. The discharged convicts were used in the slave factories on the African coast, and even the marauding expeditions sent out from the slave ships in search of victims were mainly made up of this vile off-cast and scum of the prison population of England, France, Germany, Spain, and Portugal. So great was the increase of this traffic, that in a short time the importation in a single year amounted to forty thousand slaves.
The immense growth of the slave population in the Southern States, soon caused politicians to take sides for or against the institution. This, however, did not manifest itself to any very great extent, until the struggle for National Independence was over, and the people, North and South, began to look at their interests connected with each section of the country.