The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1866-05-12
THE CUBANS.
Horrible Generalization among the
NegrOeS--The Slave Trade Still
aetive--Queer stories about the
Intentions of the American Gov
ernnent, &c.

active--Queer stories about the
Intentions of the American Gov
ernment, &c.
have had wild trip among the
coffee and sugar estates i'm the interior,
and have seen with my own eyes, face
to face, the lowest types of humanity /
have ever encountered. had not before
seen anything SO brutal, and worse than
brute-like, as the the mass of negroes on
the more retired Cuban estates. There
are, within twenty miles of this curious
old city of hills, three estates i'm one
neighborhood, numbering among their
inhabitants over thousand slaves above
twelve years of age, in which not a fourth
part Of them have the faintest sense of
any other religion than devil worship.
They are in intellect three degrees above
the beasts of the field. They, or their
immediate parents, were brought from
Africa. Many of them have been land
ed in Cuba within three years certainly
perhaps within one /; for the evidence
that the African slave trade is still active
Oh the Cuban coast stares one in the face
on every side. Peculiar circumstances
Zone of them an implied pledge that
mine was visit personal interest, and
not for mischief-making) opened to me
field which few are permitted to enter,
and, one truth to say, l have no desire
to revisit. The last more than taught
me enough about this class Of negroes.
had present two Interpreters, who
had the key to the character of the Afri-
cans. One of them was the parish priest,
the other an African emdnctpado of
Mohammedan parentage, and man of
more mind than any other pure negro
on either of these large estates. Yet this
man seriously assured me that he did
not believe the wild Americans had
souls. Some oftheir children learn that
there is a god, and that brings them a
little bit OF a soul (alana pequenita), and
that baby soul of theirs grows when they
find out it is wrongto lie and steal, until
at last it is as large as an egg, and can
be seen by angels when it is called to
judgment. li- i''i1 o3-e97i ''ll 7lb23
/ asked the padre what he thought of
the plan of giving these people the right
and the power of electing the men who
were to rule the whites and their pro-
perry. He shook his head mOurnfally
and said that the history of the Spanish
American republics proved that where
ever an unprepared race had obtained
the control of any country, anarchy,
decadence and mutual butcheries had
been the invariable result They begin
by robbing and expelling the whites to
get at their property-if they do not
slaughter OIL the spot. Thus the supe-
rior classes eventually fade out, and
when that prey is exhausted, the dark
bloods turn upon each other. 'That,
said he, has been and is the history of
the American continent, with the excep-
ton of Brazil and the United States, and
it will be the history of Cuba if the
Washington Cabinet carries out its inten-
ton of driving the white race out of the
Antilles"
/ emphasize the last sentence, for 1
know that this opinion is spreading
through all the better classes, as well as
among the negroes, in all these islands,
and it is likely to produce immense
mischief. a
The press of your great commercial
cities ought to nip the error while there
is vet time. The real Africans are too
stupid to care about anything but the
free blacks, and especially those who
can read a little are imbued with the
idea tina, the negroes, and nothing but
the negroes, are the absorbing care and
delight of the American Government.
The padre and a mulatto overseer were
the first to inform me of the visit of
Secretary Seward to st Domingo. This
overseer is a free Ihan of some education,
and he said confidentially that the Head
General of my country had come down
to these seas TO advise all the white men
to leave Cuba and st. Domingo as soon
as they could. i did not contradict him
directly, as wanted to hear him to the
end but could not drain more out of
him than that he and his class were con-
WINGED that our government was very
seriously at work to clear the Antilles