Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1846-05-14

John Randolph, regarded 1t as one OF his most
distinguishing honors, that there was Indian
blood circulating in his veins. Our population
of about twenty millions doubles in about TWEEN
ty-three years. In the territories of the United
States there now exist but little over three hum
dred thousand Indians. And they are rapidly
diminishing, by the two causes of death and
intemperance. They NEST all inevitably soon
perish, or be merged in the Caucasian food,
which is with such ~resistIess pillows rolling over
the land.
And various causes are rapidly diminishing
the genuine negro race, Whatever repugnance
may be manifest in reference to legalized mat
rimony, the crowds of m~uIattoes which throng
the streets of all our principal cities, prove that
there is not so strong an objection to unlawful
concubinage. In the large towns of the North
and the South, the skin is rapidly losing its col
or, aud the ebony hue becomes more and more
faint, from commingling with the white mans
blood. Many a slave at the South serves "A mas
ter bIacker than himself Many are the yeLIOw
boys and ycLIow girls, now advertised as the most
valuable of slaves. Many a Southern coach
man looks with complacency upon his white
hands, and boasts to his feIlow-slaves that his
master is his father. And it is by no means an
unhcard of case in Southern courts, for a slave
to demand his liberty on the ground that he is a
white man. These white men are the ones who
may eventually head the armies for avenging
oppression, and vindicate their rights in a deluge
of blood. The question to be solved in this
country, is not whether negro slavery shall be
perpetuated, for there may soon be but few ne
grocs in our land. But can those increasing
tens Of thousands repose in quiet bondage, whose
pride is reused by the consciousness that the
white mans blood courses in their veins; and
in whose character is combined the energy Of the
master, with the sense of wrong which burns in
the bosom Of the slayel Will the son and the
brother of the white man long submit to this
mcrciIess degradation? lie must ally himself
in vengeance, with that colored race whose blood
intermingled with his own, dooms him to infamy.
Humbolt, in his celebrated treatise upon the
mi1ed races, states that four generations of in
termarriage with the whites entirely obliterates
all traces of negro blood, We have first the
mulatto, then the qnarteroon, then the %quinter-
Don, after which not the slightest difference can
be perceived. These are the influences and the
grades through which the African is loosing his
native color, and becoming transformed into the
white man. A little observation and reflection
will convince any mind, that this process is adj
vancing far more rapidly than is generally i'm
agined. In intermarriage with the Indian, all
traces of Indian descent are lost in the third, and
often in the second generation.
In South America, this transforming process
is advancing with astonishing rapidly. The
FrenUhman and the Spaniard appear to have no
repugnance to intermarriage with the colored
race and all over that agitated, semi-ciyilized
continent, the European, the Indian and the ne
gro freely intermingle. And when they shall
become weary of anarchy and war, and a stable
government shall be established, and all the re-
inements of intellectual and Christian life shall
adorn the valleys of the Amazon and the sides
of the CordilIeras, there will doubtless appear
there physically a noble race. 1t would seem
that a miracle, only, can prevent that in a few
generations North and South America shall be
inhabited by a homogeneous people-the Indian,
the negro and the white man being all blended
together into forms of erect and manly beauty.
The colonization of Africa is e%ffecting the
same results on that continent, which the colo
~nization of this country has effected here. 1t
is but about fifty years since the English took
possession of the Cape Colony, on the southern
extremity of Africa. Then the Hottentet ma
ton dwelling there consisted Of two hundred
thousand persons-now it is extinct, Many
other once powerful tribes have persisted, or with
broken and dying numbers have ~retreated into
the interior. And the Cafire nation, formerly
irresistible in all that region, is melting like
snow before a July sun, or rather like the Nara
gansetts or the Peduots before the c%olonIsts of
New England. The flag of Victoria now waves
over a territory, at the Cape Of Good Hope, as
extensive as four times the territory of the whole
island of Great Britain,
The majority of the tribes Of Eastern Africa
do not belong to what is usually called the Ne
gro race. They are of bright brown complex
ion, tall, handsome, vigorous, with weIl-deveIop-
ed foreheads, and of the usual physical organiza-
ton of the Caucasian or most enlightened race.
The Wambungo tribe, who reside little in the
interior of the eastern coast, is said to be com
posed of the handsomcst people on the face of
the earth. Their complexion is so fair, and
their features so formed, that they are spoken of
by the Arab and Portuguese travellers as white
nations.