The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1862-07-05

From the same island, in lS49 fifty
three years after emancipation, with al
increase of population, the exports wer.
as follows:
Coffee, Observation-Disclosures. SO60S, $40 lbs
Cotton, Observation-Disclosures. 544,5l6
Indigo .................. none.
All, but" exclaims your negro loving
republicans, this is no true test. The ne.
groes, on ceasing to be slaves, have nat
ural right to take the wbrld easier Have
they not improved morally, socially-are
they not elevated in the scale of humani,
ty,-are they not, in short, improved in
condition and HAPPIER Exactly the
reverse is the case The clean and com.
Portable huts in which the negro was
housed by his careful French master has
rotted down and he now takes refuge in
filthy bamboo huts or caves in the sides
of mountains; instead of the wholesome,
regular food with which he was supplied
by his master, he gorges himself one-half
of the year on the indigenous fruits Of the
island, and the other half starves on the
fish the women fwho are still slaves of the
males) are compelled to catch instead of
decent clothing to wear half the popula-
ton is naked; and instead of attending
regularly the worship of God in Christian
churches, As they were compelled to by
their masters, the religion of the negroes
of IIayti is now that of the Vandoux, or
serpent worship. What that is, is thus
described by Mr. Tnderhill, a missionary
of the London Baptist Missionary Society
The Nandoux,' says Mr. Underhiil.
meet in a retired spot, designated at a
previous meeting. On entering they tax 6
| off their shoes, and bind baout their bodies
handkerchiefs in which n red color pre-.
| dominates. The king is knowing bv the
scarlet band around his head, worn like a
crown, and scarf of same color distin-
cuisines the queen. The object elaboration,
the serpent, is placed on a stand 1t is
then worshipped after which TIE box is
placed on the ground, the queen mounts
, upon it is seized with violent tremblings,
and gives utterance to oracles in response
! to the prayers of the worshippers A dance
closes the ceremony The king puts his
/
him. which is communicated To the circle
! A delirious whirl or dane ensues, heish-
| tened by the free use oftafia The weakes I
/ fall, as if dead, upon the spot. The baclar-
! allan jewellers, always dancing and turning
/ about, are borne away into place ncer at
hand, where sometimes under the triple eX-
/ element Of pronuscaoaS intercourse. drunk
/ enness and darkness, scenes are enacted
enough to make the impossible gods of
Africa itselfgnash their teeth with horror"
The same is exactly true of Jamaica
and the other West India Islands in which
the negroes have been emancipated.-
Without giving the figure in details, it
will be sufficient to state, that the exports
of sugar, coffee, &c, Of Jamaica in 1909,
before emancipation, were SIS, l66, 100;
and IN 1854, some forty yea,s after eman-
cipation, 1861, $50.
AS to their social and moral improve
ment, &c, since their emancipation, we
shall quote but a single testimony, taken
at random from 500 pages equally strong
that might be given from the most reliable
sources. ExGov. Wood, of Ohio, Ga strong
republican, thus wrote from Jamaica in
1858:
Since the blacks have been liberated,
they have become indolent, insoleEt, de-
graded and dishonest. They are a rude,
beastly set of vagabound lying naked about
the streets, as filthy as the Hottentots, and
| believe worse. On getting to the wharf
of Kingston, the first thing the blacks of
both seres, perfcctl, naked, come swarming
about the boat and would dive for small
pieces Of coin that were thrown by the
passengers. On entering the city the stran-
ger is annoyed to death by black beggars
at every step, and you must often show
him your pistol or an uplifed cane to rid
yourself OF their opportunities.
In word, then, tho result of cmancpa-
ton in Hayti, the West Indies, &c has
been, to reduce the productions of those
islands from a surplus of millions of
sugar, coffee, cotton, &c, enough to sup
ply the world, to nothing; to turn the
fair, blooming, fertile fields into dcsolate
wastes; and to reverse the process of
moral and religious improvement, by
which the negro was rapidly rising in the
social scale and becoming a civilized,
christianizcd being, and send him back
ward and downward into worse than his
former heathenism worse, because to all
the vices of his heathenism are superadded
the more poignant vices of the white
man.
And this is the feast to which republi-
canism is inviting this country This is
the condition to which they would reduce
the Southern States cf this Union
Emancipate the negro now, and in ten
years there would not be cotton enough
raised i'll all the Southern States to keep
one New England loom in motion, nor
sugar enough to sweeten the brandy drunk
in moral Boston. Talk of the blight of
the rebellion. An age Of war would not
desolate the South more utterly and
hopelessly than decade Of free negroism.
The lesson of emancipation in every age
and every country inhabited by the white
man is the same that it is a curse to the
land a curse to the negro, and curse to
the white man.
we would not, however be misunder-
stood. Our corollary from the above is
not that slavery is a good thing, and that
it IS bad for negroes to be free. What We
maintain is, that negroes and white men,
on the same soil, cannot live together as
equals without detnment to both. Any
talk, therefore, of emancipation in this
country, unaccompanied by deportation