The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-09-09
IRISH NEGROES.
They Live in the Queer Little West
Indian Island Of Montserrat.
From New York sun Letter.

] indian Island of nOntserrat.
From New York sun Letter.
81 suppose that hardly any inhabited
island Of the West Indies is less known to
] the world than Montserrat. Two Ameri-
/ can and two British steamers touch there
/ every month, but there are rarely any
/ passengers going or coming If 10 were
( noo for the labels we sometimes see on
/ lime Juice bottles. p IRE MOutserrat Lime
/ juice we should hardly ever hear of the
/ place IL Is the great lime Juice producer
] OF the world; and as no British ship is
/ allowed TO leave port without a supply Of
/ lime Juice for the sailors, the business is
| large one. IL is pretty nearly in the
Z heart OF the tropics, being in latitude l6'
~ north. II Is tiny place, only p miles
/ long and s broad in its largest parts, and
containing less than 80 square miles
/ with a population of 10000. When
| landed I made the lG3d white person on
| the island; there were 1872 before | ar
/ rived all the others being colored.
! small as it is, Montserrat has had a
/ checkered existence. Columbus himself
/ discovered it in l4O3, but after that the
/ island lay undis Iurbed by the whites for
| nearly two centuries. The English col
/ onized it and the French captured it /,
/ then it was restored 10 the English and
/ again captured by the French, and in
| English and they have had it ever since.
! Like our own country IL has a president,
| but he is appointed by the crown and is
subordinate to the governor of neighbor-
ing Antigua. His salary is 81 600 year,
which is lot of money in Plymouth, the
capital town. Over in Jamaica every
thing was in the past; they show strau-
ger not so much what they have, as what
they have had so 1t was a relief TO find
that Montserrat is living in the present.
The little island is doing as well now as it
ever did, perhaps better, because IL de-
ponds not upon sugar, but upon lines. l
tell you these little things about the island
so that you will know what sort of a place
l was going to.
II will Just add that the center of the
island is mountain rising several thou
sand feet high, and that its reputed floral
treasures were what attracted me to
MOntserrat. On the sea level in those
ATTITUDES you find only the fora of hot
| countries; but on the mountains you find
the fora of all climates.
when we approached Plymouth one of
the first things l saw was long stone
wall half way up the HILL surmounted, as
l thought, by row OF cannon balls at ir
regular intervals But as we drew nearer
| l found that my supposed cannon balls
were the heads of colored gentlemen who
! stood on the ground behind, watching our
! arrival A dilapidated wooden pier
| reached out thirty or forty feet into the
water, and soon the greater part of the
! 1,400 inhabitants OF the town were there
to see US land. Our first effort TO throw
line ashore was failure and the sailor
who threw it made some uncompliment-
| airy remarks. This brought a reply from
! the man on shore who was supposed to
catch it-a coal-black negro of great size.
"Oh, phwat are We givin' usP' the
black man shouted. BE Jasus, how can
| l catch the loiue when l can't rache it2'
"There were shouts of derision from
! the crowd, and every word spoken was in
as rich an Irish brogue as one could hear
! in New York or Kilkenny The brogue
would have been a pleasant reminder Of
! home If its coming from crowd of West
India negroes had not givenit an uncanny
| sound.
'Why, those fellows talk like black
| Irishmen,' said to the captain of the
! schooner.
"'lrishr he replied. They're as Irish
as Billy-be-dam. Nine-tenths of the dar-
kies on this island are of Irish descent
! They say they're the only Irish darkies
in the world
ut was not till l was settled in the
Red Lion Hotel in Plymouth that solved
the mystery of these Irish negroes. Many
years ago company of Irish Quakers
!
rat, and went into the lime-iuice business
extensively. They imported great
many Irish laborers and large proper
ton of these men were unable to resist
the attractions Of the native women, and
married and settled down there. Their
| children of course, were half Irish and
half negro, but the Irish blood was the
stronger, and the negro characteristics
had to give way before it, The original
Irishmen have been dead and gone for
years. but their descendants have repeo-
pied the island, and the brogue end other
Irish characteristics remain.
The physical results of this union of the
two races are often startling. Some of
the Irish negroes are almost as white as
you and /, and others are coal black.
There's no telling what may happen in a
Montserrat family. One baby is a typi-
cal African. and the next is q fair little
thing with straight red hair. 1t is not
only in Montserrat either that such
things happen. ! know white man on
one of the other islands, a man of wealth
and refinement without the slightest
sign Of any black blood in him, whose
father also was perfectly white and well
educated This man married a beautiful
American girl, and there was mourning
in the family when in due time there was
born to them a child as black as the ace
| of spades The man knew what it meant,
and he had TO explain that there had been
a trace Of black blood in his grandfather,
! which had lain dormant through two gen
rations, but had thus made itself pain
| fully manifest in the third The child
was hurried on to America to be reared
and educated, and is here now, and four
or five perfectly white children were born
| TO the couple afterWard.