Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1888-01-19
aaENEsRogs OF TUE WOODS.
The Life Led by the Africans OF Dutch 6uisns
How They Obtained Their Freedom
A Strange peOnIs

SAIduEc itopic.
Some native African, were taken Il
Panama while ago TO Join the thous
ands of lsborers ON the canal. These ne.
groes, says The New York Sun. became
involved early last month Ill a row with
other canal diggers, and, after a fight
with knives and stones, many OF the black
men ran OFF into the woods. The Pana.
ma newspapers say thai they threw away
their clothing, abandoned themselves
completely to barbarian and lawiessness,
and at last accounts the government had
sent force to repress this outbreak of
African savagery.
These negroes evidently prefer the
rude enloyments of Africa and the lives
of comparative idleness they led there 20
handling picks and shovels in the great
ditch. They will hardly he permitted to
found savage community ON the 18TH
mus, but if. they were removed about
eighteen hundred miles down the Allan.
tic coast they would find oougenial socie-
ty in the forests of Dutch Guiana, where
thousands OF their own race have repro
duced in the western hemis phere the Gus.
toms and characteristics of savage
/ Africa.
/ VI Ebbu ilhp VI puuNn America
may be found in Dutch Guiana thenames
of number of savage tribes inhabiting
the wooded and hilly upands OF the in.
terror. Among them the Auken, Sara
macoa, Bekoe, and Bonis are full blooded
negroes, many of whose ancestors were
| brought TO America nearly two centuries
| ago in slave-ships to labor on the coast
! plantations of their Dutch masters.
| Terribly maltreated in the early days of
the colony many OF them took refuge in
the almost inaccessible solltudes OF the
! forests. Now and then they found means
to tempt their friends still in bondage to
join them in the mountain valleys. The
bondsmen played a sorry joke on their
masters in 1872, when Admiral Cassard
attacked the Dutch settlement and hun.
dreds OF slaves were hurried into the in
terror for ooncealment. Peace soon
came, but there we're few negroes TO re-
| turn TO the coast, for they preferred wild
life with their friends near the head
waters of tho rivers OF Guiana to drudg-
ing their lives away on coffee and tobac-
| co plastations. So the numbers OF self
| released Africans gradually Increased,
and there their decendents have lived
ever since, rs distinct from the Indians
around them as from the whites of the
coast. They have, apparently not grown
i'll numbers for many years, bat there now
are about eight thousand Of them. and they
are known as the negroes of the woods,
Their story is perhaps unique in the
history of human migration. IL is story
of wild savages transported across a wide
sea TO new world where they regaIned
control of their persons and activities
and reproduced amid new surroundings
the habitations and customs of their ma
tive country. Dim tradition alone has
family preserved the memory OF their
fatherland, but none the less have they
turned bit of tropical America into u
semblance of the negroes native home,
jet black in color, prognathous and
thick hpped they have preserved the pure
negro type, have shown little aptitude
for i'm prov sment, and are very low in
the social scale. Like many an African
missionary, who has fruitlessly toied his
life away, the Moravian brethren have la
bored for years among the negroes Of the
woods with little apparent result. In oil
essentials they live to-day like those ne
groes on the west coast of Africa, who
have had considerable contact with the
white race.
Their rectangular huts of wood and
thatch built along the water courses, are
almost exact counterparis OF those That
are found on tho lower Congo aud among
some tribes of the Ogowe river. Like
the great Pahouin tribe OF the French
Congo, they divide their huts by thin par
titions into two apartments, one OF
which they use for sleeping and the other
for culinary purposes. Like many Afri-
can tribes, they twist their wool into
many little braide, wear arm and leg or
naments OF copper, brass and iron, and
adorn their uecks with strings of beads
or the teeth of wild animals. Like the
equatorial African, they tattoo their bod
les without the adjunct OF color, which is
not uncommon among the Indians, bat is
practiced in Africa by only q few tribes,
like the Pahouin. In their villages they
are generally naked, and they wear cot
ton coverings only when they visit the
white settlements, where their scant at
tire Of ornaments and paint would not
be tolerated. They have abandoned thsir
native custom of sleeping on the ground
for the Indian hammock, which they
weave out Of fbers.
White men rarely visit these Africans
of the forests, chiefly, perhaps. because
their streams, which, flowing TO the sea,
are the only highways int the interior,
are very difficut of ascent. The negroes
dislike to mirgle with tho whites, and
they never leave their savage homes ex
cept when the need OF rum and ammuni-
ton drives them TO the settlements. Then
the lazy men, who usually engage in no
toll except f.bing and the chase, cut
down few trees, skillfuily fashion the
trunks into canoes, and float them down
the creeks aud rivers TO sell them TO the
towns. Often still they make little RATS
of valuable yerieties of timber, and in
vest the proceeds in powder and ball,
beads, and bad liquor. Tonka beans also
exc out their trade resources.
These four groups OF blacks, Ike kin
dred tribes in Africa, are ruled by king
let's and aome of them take their names
from chiefs who led them IN the wars the
Dutch long waged upon their escaped
slaves, only with the result Of driving
them further into the woods. They live
rvkf oh ha