De l’influence de l’esclavage sur les mœurs de quelques peuples de l’Amérique méridionale, originair

CHAP. 11: > On the influence of slavery on the morals of some peoples of South America, of Spanish origin.

If I describe the moral effects that slavery has produced in some of the countries of America, formerly subject to Spain, it is not to make known new phenomena; it is to better establish that those I have reported in the preceding chapters are but the results of the causes to which I have attributed them. One cannot deny that idleness, pride, contempt for labor, and the passion for physical enjoyments are vices that characterize the Anglo-Americans of the south and the other possessors of men of the islands and continent of America; but it is not equally agreed that these vices are the results of slavery; according to some persons, they are produced only by the heat of the climate. If the men of the laboring classes ceased to be stimulated by the whip, it is said, they would be as lazy as the masters; they would devote themselves only to the labor that would be rigorously necessary for them to subsist, and they would be content with so little that they would not rise above savages. We shall see presently if experience confirms this assertion.

Of all the colonies formed by the peoples of Europe, there are none whose approach has been more severely forbidden to foreigners than the Spanish colonies [216]. The government of Spain did not limit itself to forbidding its American subjects all exchange of merchandise with nations other than its own; it also forbade them any kind of intellectual commerce. There is no philosophical work published among the peoples we consider the most enlightened whose entry has not been severely forbidden throughout the vast territory that Spain possessed in America. To ensure the execution of this prohibition, they did not rely on the zeal of ordinary customs officers; several tribunals of the inquisition were placed at various points in the country, and these tribunals placed their officers in all the places through which they believed some ray of light might penetrate [217]. Printing was proscribed even in the most populous cities, and the agents of the government themselves renounced the use of this means of multiplying copies of their ordinances, for fear that the use they made of it might contribute to enlightening the population [218].

At the same time that the Spanish government used all its power to plunge or keep its American subjects in the most profound ignorance, beliefs and practices born in barbarous times tended forcefully toward the corruption of morals and the multiplication of crimes. The commerce of indulgences, which formed part of the revenue of the Roman clergy and the government of the mother country, had received the greatest extension [219]. The papal government delivered to the Spanish government, and the latter delivered to commerce in its colonies, five kinds of bulls: the bull for the living, that for the dead, that for dairy and eggs, that of composition, and that of the crusade [220]. Any buyer of the bull for the living, had he killed his father, his mother, and his children, had he been guilty of all the crimes that most outrage humanity, could go find a priest, demand from him a complete absolution, and thus put his conscience at rest [221]. The bull of composition had the marvelous effect of making the unjust holder of another's property the legitimate owner; the thief who, in the midst of a crowd of people, had managed to filch a well-filled purse, had only to go find the merchant of indulgences and deliver to him a small share of his prize, and both became legitimate possessors of the stolen property [222]. It must be added that a malefactor who had committed a crime and who did not believe himself safe in his cavern had only to take refuge in a church to become inviolable [223]. Each of these circumstances having a great influence on morals, it was necessary to take them into account, so as not to attribute to slavery vices or crimes that could have been produced by other causes [224].

The Spanish did not arrive in America, like the English and the Dutch, to cultivate vast forests or swampy lands; they arrived there as conquerors and with the intention of living off a population that had already made progress in cultivation. The men and the lands were divided among the conquerors according to their ranks, and most of the customs of feudal government passed from Spain to America. The new possessors brought there particularly the use of entail, according to which the first-born of a family inherits the landed properties of his father to the exclusion of his brothers and sisters. The population thus found itself divided into two castes, that of the conquerors and that of the conquered peoples: the former could have been distinguished from the latter by their titles, by their wealth, or by the extent of their possessions; but nature had established between them more pronounced distinctions, those that distinguish the two species, and particularly that of color. Since the conquest, a great number of Spaniards have passed to America and settled there: these did not arrive as conquerors, but as belonging to the same family. Individuals of the Ethiopian species were brought there as slaves; they were employed in cultivation and multiplied more or less in some provinces. These diverse races have mixed among themselves, and have produced new ones, each of which has been distinguished by a more or less dark tint.But, although the indigenous peoples were conquered and at first subjected to a very harsh regime, they were not treated as slaves are among the Anglo-Americans, or as slaves are in the European colonies. Even before the colonists had won their independence, the original inhabitants had become almost entirely free; and the number of slaves imported from Africa was very small. We do not know exactly what the proportion is between free persons and slaves in all areas; but it is easy to judge the parts unknown to us by those we know best, by Mexico and by the Spanish Main.

M. de Humboldt estimated the total population of the part of the American continent formerly subject to Spain at about fourteen or fifteen million. Of this number, he thought one could count three million white Creoles, two hundred thousand Europeans, and all the rest indigenous peoples, blacks, or mixed-race people [225]. Mexico alone, in 1808, comprised 6,500,000 individuals of the total population; but, in this number, there were very few individuals of Ethiopian origin, and almost no slaves. One could walk through the entire city of Mexico without encountering a black face; the service of no house was ever performed by slaves. In this respect, Mexico already had an immense advantage over the United States [226]. The regions in which the most slaves were found were Caracas and Lima [227]. The province of Venezuela, which the Spanish government designated by the name of the Captaincy General of Caracas, contained, at the same period, according to M. de Humboldt, nearly a million inhabitants, of whom sixty thousand were slaves [228]. Thus, the proportion of enslaved individuals to free persons was a little less than one to sixteen in the provinces where the former were most numerous; it must even be added that the enslaved population was concentrated particularly in the cities. In the provinces of Cumaná and Barcelona, where slaves were numerous compared to Mexico, the entire population amounted to 110,000 inhabitants, and the number of slaves did not exceed 6,000. There was therefore, per slave, a little more than eighteen free persons [229].

In a large part of Spanish America, slaves were employed in herding livestock, or in other light domestic labors. On the other hand, as foodstuffs were generally inexpensive, or were not suitable for export, masters could not make great savings on their slaves' food [230]. The customs and laws of the country were more favorable than in any other to manumissions: it was very common for a master to bequeath freedom to all his slaves by testament [231]. If an enslaved individual had reason to believe he had become an object of antipathy for his possessor, nothing was easier for him than to obtain from the magistrate an order to be sold to another master [232]. Finally, the government had fixed the price at which a slave could buy his freedom; and each individual simply had to find the sum that the law obliged him to give to his master [233]. These circumstances being known, it is a matter of seeing how they influenced the morals of the diverse classes of the population.

One sees, from the preceding, that the divisions by color are those that dominate all others. Individuals of purely European origin, or those in whom the characteristics proper to that race are most pronounced, place themselves in the first rank. None of them, in America, can consider himself in relation to another as a conqueror or as the descendant of an ancient master. There reigns, therefore, in general, among the men of this class, whatever their fortune and birth may be, a very strong sense of equality when they consider one another. If one of the titled men of the country shows an intention to humiliate a man born in the common class, the latter's pride rises up and places him on his level: "Could it be possible," he says to him, "that you believe yourself to be whiter than I? [234]." If a man in poverty is offended by the vanity of one who possesses a great fortune, he instantly puts himself on his level: "Does that rich white man believe himself to be whiter than I?" According to M. de Humboldt, this sense of equality has penetrated all souls: wherever men of color are regarded either as slaves or as freedmen, it is hereditary liberty, it is the intimate conviction of counting among one's ancestors only free men, that constitutes nobility: this spirit is found in Mexico as in Peru, in Caracas as in the island of Cuba [235].

The families who descend from the ancient conquerors, and those who held a distinguished rank in Spain, doubtless claim to form a particular nobility; but these pretensions are generally rejected by all the men of their race. These men have such an idea of their equality, according to Azara, that even if the king had granted letters of nobility to some individuals during the time of Spanish domination, no one would have regarded them as nobles, and they would have obtained neither distinctions nor services more than the others [236]. The result of this spirit of equality was that, in the cities, a white man dared not place himself in the service of another, so much did he fear debasing himself; in the time when the Spanish government still dominated in these regions, even a viceroy could not have found a lackey or a coachman among individuals of purely European origin [237].

The sense of equality observed among the men of this class, when they compare themselves to men of their own kind who possess great fortune or enjoy ancient renown, is far from existing when they compare themselves to the indigenous peoples, to the negroes, or to the mixed-race people. The degree of contempt that falls upon the descendants of conquered or enslaved peoples is less in proportion to the degree of color than in proportion to their origin. The indigenous peoples, who were the first to be exploited, and who are consequently the people upon whom servitude has weighed the longest, are the most despised. Individuals of Ethiopian origin are placed immediately above them; individuals born of the union of a white man and a negress come next; so that, the closer a person is to the race of masters, the less they are debased. The Spanish government once wished to overturn this measure of appreciation; it declared that mulattoes would form the lowest echelon of the social order, but it failed against the force of opinion [238]. At other times, it has granted letters of whiteness to men of color; but its efforts have not had much more success. It was able to confer some favors directly upon individuals of this class; but wherever whites have dominated, they have excluded them from employment [239].

However, whatever the pride of the descendants of Europeans when they compare themselves to individuals of other races, it is far from bearing those characteristics of insolence and harshness that we have observed among the whites of the other colonies, and even among the Anglo-Americans of the north. The indigenous peoples, the blacks, the mulattoes, are not at all excluded from the churches where whites gather; the only distinction that might offend them consists in the privilege enjoyed by the wives of whites, of placing themselves in the church on carpets they have brought there [240]. There is no record that, in theaters, they are relegated to particular places; that their children are excluded from public schools, or that they are subjected to those humiliating and brutal distinctions that we have found among the inhabitants of New York, and even among those of Philadelphia [241].

The contempt for labor is inseparable from the contempt for the laboring classes; one must not, therefore, be surprised that it has shown itself in the Spanish colonies, as in all the others. But it is remarkable, however, that this contempt has manifested itself particularly in the places where slaves have been most numerous, and that it has died out in most of those where labors have been performed by free men. In the city of Caracas, out of a population that Depons estimates at 41,000 or 42,000 inhabitants, there are about 14,000 slaves and about 10,000 or 11,000 whites; the rest of the population is composed of freedmen and a very small number of indigenous people [242]. There, the descendants of Europeans have a profound contempt for labor; they would believe they were debasing themselves if they engaged in any kind of industry [243]. All trades, all mechanical arts are abandoned to the freedmen, who engage in them only with reluctance, and who often prefer begging [244]. The cause of their inactivity or their lack of energy is the same as that which produces the idleness of the whites: the aversion or contempt for industrial occupations [245]. Begging is so common that the number of beggars rises to 2,400 [246].

In the same province, but in places where there appear to be fewer slaves, the Europeans are active and industrious. The inhabitants of Valencia, who all consider themselves to be descended from noble families, even in Spain, disdained all industrial occupation a little more than half a century ago; but a governor having been obliged, to prevent famine, to make labor a law for them, the noble prejudice fell, and from that moment the population became industrious [247]. However, long afterward, men of European origin were seen to withdraw to the countryside, in order to devote themselves to labor with more freedom, and thus to escape the influence of the prejudice that stigmatizes a life of labor, wherever any trace of slavery exists [248]. The population, which in 1801 was only 6,500 people, had already risen to 10,000 by 1810. At this latter date, there was much industry and prosperity in the city; the countryside was well cultivated, and misery had disappeared [249].

On the eastern part of Lake Valencia, and in one of the Aragua valleys, is a village that barely deserved the name of hamlet fifty years ago; the population was then composed of individuals of Biscayan origin, having neither prejudices, nor masters, nor slaves. Twenty-five years later, the hamlet had become a pretty little town of eight thousand souls; three-quarters of the houses were built of masonry and had as much elegance as solidity; industry, activity, in a word, the love of labor, formed the dominant passion of the inhabitants. Numerous plantations of cotton, indigo, coffee, and wheat, intelligently made and carefully maintained, attested to how laborious these men were; these plantations already extended throughout all the Aragua valleys. Whether one entered by Valencia, or arrived by the mountains of San Pedro, which separate them from Caracas, one believed oneself transported to another people, and to a country possessed by the most industrious and agricultural nation.

"One sees," says Depons, "throughout the entire fifteen-league extent, east and west, that these valleys occupy, nothing but artistically irrigated colonial commodities, water mills, and superb buildings to serve in the manufacture and preparation of these same commodities. It must be added that all the most arduous labors, such as planting, weeding, and harvesting, are performed by free workers paid by the day; that the indigenous peoples themselves are laborious; that prosperity, cleanliness, and good morals reign everywhere, and that one encounters almost no slaves there [250]."

One finds, in the same regions, other towns where activity and industry likewise reign. In Vittoria, a town populated by 7,800 individuals, of people of all colors, everyone works without distinction [251]. In Carora, only ten degrees from the equator, a population of 6,200 inhabitants, situated on a barren soil, devotes itself entirely to industry, without distinction of castes or colors [252]. In Mérida, at eight degrees eight minutes north, out of a population of 11,500 individuals, no class disdains labor, and the prosperity that reigns in the town leaves no unfortunate people to be seen [253].

Men of European origin do not, therefore, have here for labor and industry the contempt that we have found in them in all countries where numerous slaves exist. Nor do they have for blacks or for men of color the same contempt, since they consent to mix with them and to participate in the same labors [254]. This phenomenon is all the more worthy of observation as the contrast it presents is more striking; the Dutch and the English, so industrious in their native country, all despise labor and become idle upon moving to a country where a great number of slaves exist; the Spanish, who on the contrary have the reputation of being idle in their own country, become laborious upon moving to a country where there are few or no slaves. The temperature of the climate cannot explain the activity of the ones or the idleness of the others; for the sun that heats the Aragua valleys is no less ardent than the one that shines on the Cape of Good Hope. At the same time that the inhabitants of these regions, who are of European origin, have less aversion to labor than those of the English and Dutch colonies, one observes that they have more intelligence. "The truth," says Depons, "is that the Creoles of the Spanish Main have a quick, penetrating mind, and are more capable of application than the Creoles of our colonies [255]."

There is a passion particular to the dominant castes, which was long preserved among the Spanish-Americans, and which probably has not died out since they conquered their independence: it is an excessive love of ranks and offices; to command or to govern is the passion of the descendants or affiliates of all conquerors, even when, in other respects, they have adopted the morals of civilized nations. It must be added, however, that this passion is not at all exclusive of the labors required by the needs of society, and that, consequently, it is less harmful in this country than it is in many others. "One sometimes sees," says M. de Humboldt, "these militia officers in full uniform and decorated with the royal order of Charles III, seated gravely in their shops, devoting themselves to the smallest details of selling merchandise; a mixture of ostentation and simplicity of manners, which astonishes the European traveler [256]."

None of the travelers who have visited these regions says he has remarked among the inhabitants that passion for physical enjoyments that we have observed among the possessors of men, whatever the places and epochs in which they have lived. Nor has one observed among them that immorality in the union of the sexes that we have found among most of the masters of the colonies. Depons assures, it is true, that in one of the cities where the most slaves exist, the white women often have for rivals the women of color, and that discord manifests itself within a great number of households; but he has attributed this lack of harmony between spouses to causes foreign to slavery. He says nothing, above all, that could lead one to suspect that there exists any analogy between the morals of this country and those of Surinam or Jamaica [257].

The slaves being few in number, they inspire no fear in the masters; from which it follows that their possessors do not believe it in their interest to brutify them, to keep them in a continual state of terror, and to mark them with a burning iron to recognize them [258]. From this it also results that one is not obliged to make laws that infringe upon the security of all, in order to guarantee to a few masters what they call their properties.

But, although these circumstances tend to make the lot of the slaves less miserable, those among them who are attached to plantations have much to suffer from the poverty, avarice, or cruelty of their masters. One of the effects that slavery has produced in the Spanish colonies, as in all the others, has been to keep or plunge the slave-owners into misery. Many of them often have for lodging, with their numerous family, only a miserable apartment that does not shelter them from the rain, and they sleep on hides for lack of beds. Others are so overwhelmed with debts that the interest they pay on them to their creditors absorbs the greater part of their revenues [259]. They must therefore economize as much as they can on the expenses of their house, and on those of their slaves.On plantations, the owner's house, placed on a mound fifteen to twenty toises high, is surrounded by the negroes' huts. Those who are married are assigned a small plot of land to cultivate, and they use Saturdays and Sundays for this, the only days of the week they can dispose of. With the land and time granted to them, they must provide for their own subsistence and that of their family. According to Depons, the owners, with a few exceptions, leave their slaves covered in rags, and give them no other food than what they cultivate themselves on the plots of land allotted to them. They do not trouble themselves whether the harvest was good or bad, whether the weather was favorable or contrary; so much the worse for the slave if it has failed. The subsistence of those employed in the service of the house is no better assured than that of the others; the rations distributed to them in the morning for the whole day can barely suffice for breakfast. They have no other clothes than those called livery, because they adorn themselves with them when they follow their masters; but as soon as they return, they take them off and remain naked, or else they cover themselves with a few miserable rags. The masters, for the rest, boast of their happiness, says M. de Humboldt, just as in the north of Europe the lords are pleased to boast of the ease of the peasants attached to the glebe [260].

It does not appear that the masters have their slaves led to the fields by individuals armed with whips as is practiced in the other colonies; but there are sometimes among them men who treat them in a very cruel manner. The small number they possess is not a reason for them to be more humane.

"At Cariaco itself," says M. de Humboldt, "a few weeks before my arrival in the province, a planter who possessed only eight negroes caused six of them to perish by flogging them in the most barbarous manner. This act of cruelty had been preceded, in the same year, by another whose circumstances were equally frightening [261]."

A Spanish traveler assures, however, that one does not find, in these regions, those atrocious punishments that are claimed to be necessary to keep the population in submission; he says that the lot of the slaves differs in no way from that of the poor whites, and that it is even better; that they are well dressed and well fed; that, in their illnesses, they are cared for by the masters' own wives; that the men are allowed to marry Indian women, so that their children are born free; that several refuse the freedom offered to them, and will accept it only at the death of their master; finally, that his own would accept it only by force [262].

These testimonies seem at first contradictory, and yet it is easy to reconcile them. The first two travelers speak of a province where commodities suitable for export are cultivated, and where they are obtained only by arduous labor; the third speaks of a province where the raising of livestock is the main occupation. I have already observed elsewhere that the Bedouin Arabs often treat their slaves as members of their families, especially when they show themselves to be intelligent. Two facts suffice, moreover, to characterize the difference that existed between the slavery established in the Spanish colonies and that of the Dutch colonies; in the latter, the magistrates, at the request of the masters, had a leg cut off the slave accused of wanting to flee; in the former, a magistrate freed slaves who justly complained of having been treated with cruelty by their masters, in fits of anger. It must be added that in the first the magistrate was a slave-owner, while in the second the magistrate possessed none [263].

Thus, although the Spanish colonies were subject to the yoke of the inquisition, although the introduction of any work that might have expanded the ideas or reformed the morals of the population had been severely forbidden there; although no foreigner was admitted to settle there, and although the indulgences and asylums granted to criminals tended to multiply vices and crimes there, the morals of the population were infinitely superior to those of all the other peoples of the islands or the continent of America, among whom numerous slaves existed.

From this results a consequence that deserves to be observed, which is that neither the existence of newspapers, nor the free introduction of all philosophical works, nor communications with foreigners, nor even the influence of religion, can neutralize the influence of slavery; all these causes, so powerful among peoples where slavery no longer exists, have existed relative to the English and Dutch colonies, and they have never produced any effect there [264].