those must always suffer- who have been deriving the greatest advantage from the previously existing state of things. Among disinterested persons, who have given the subject their attention, I suspect there is little doubt, but that the intermediate is destined to be the dominant race of this island; or rather that, in no very long time, it will be the only race. In amount of native qualities, these people are the best of the island. The men The men are fine looking, and more muscular than the whites; and the women, especially the brown, and yellow varieties, are much more beautiful and vivacious than those of purely English origin. These physical capabilities, which they inherit from their black ancestors, combining with the European intellect which they have received from their white progenitors, contribute to give them a force of character, equal at least, to that of the English Creole. In short, amalgamation appears to be to the negro a sort of purifying process, by which the more soft and feeble qualities of his nature are carried off to give place to those of more refinement and force. It is still not unusual in the northern states, to hear color spoken of as intended by nature as a barrier to intercourse between the white and black race, and to hear amalgamation represented as an outrage. That it is an outrage against northern prejudice, there is no doubt. I confess myself one of those who do not like to touch the skin of a negro. But when any of the laws of nature are outraged, in this respect, I believe she generally marks down her resentment, by some feebleness or organic imperfection in the result. Now the result of amalgamation between the whites and blacks is the manifest improvement of the negro race. This improvement is shown in many ways, and particularly in the superior business qualifications of the intermediate race over the blacks. The agency of this race, in Jamaica, has been by no means contemptible in the cause of abolition. These people were the enemy within the camp of slavery, during the long course of years, that the abolitionists were assaulting it from without. So far as I can learn, it was not the pure blacks, but the mulattoes and brown men, such men as Jorden and Osborn, the present editors of the "Morning Journal,” . who organized those combinations, and kept up that system of agitations, which resulted in the abrogation of all the civil disabilities of the free colored population of Jamaica, in 1831. Jorden was one of the chief of those. In 1829, he was turned out of a large commercial house in Kingston, in which he was a clerk, on the ground that he was a leading agitator. He then commenced the publication of a newspaper, and for an agitation article published in this, he was charged with high treason, and tried for his life, but acquitted. His newspaper, however, was suppressed. He now issued a circular, adverting to the extent of the combinations formed among the colored people, and threatening that unless all civil restrictions were at once removed from the free colored population, they would proclaim immediate freedom to their own slaves, and shout havoc until the streets of Kingston should run with blood. The Jamaica assembly shortly after this removed the restrictions. Mr. Jorden has now grown rather respectable and conservative. The name of his paper has been recently changed from the "Watchman" to the "Morning Journal." He is at present a member of the assembly, and advocates, in his seat and in his paper, the leading measures for the relief of the planter, particularly the Immigration Act. Men who can make themselves felt as Mr. Jorden has done, it is impossible to despise. Such men have done much towards breaking down the pride of caste in Jamaica. I say pride of caste, for that personal antipathy to color, so strong in New England, is unknown to the people of the West Indies. A few days after my arrival from Havana, I met a young man from Demarara, whom I understood to be the son of a planter. He had been in New England about a year. After remarking to me, that the colored population of that colony had been fast rising in wealth and respectability, since the abolition, that prejudice against color was declining, and that many white merchants and clerks -excluded from the first class of the colony the planters and officials, were intermarrying with the more wealthy colored people, the young man confessed with some appearance of shame and regret, that his own prejudice against color had become altogether too weak, sometime before his departure from Demarara ; — "And I thank God," he gravely proceeded, " for my timely visit to New England; it has enabled me to imbibe the 31 VOL. IV. NO. II. northern prejudice against color, which I think will be of great service to me on my return." Falstaff, I recollect, calls hostess Quickly "a thing to thank God on," and there are no doubt other instances on record of persons who have been thankful for small favors. But whether our New England prejudice against color ought to be regarded as a blessing or not, the West Indians generally will hardly be able to obtain it, like this young man, by a protracted residence amongst us; and unless the professors at Cambridge, by a union of talent, shall discover some chemico-metaphysical process, by which it can be condensed into moral ice, in order that it may be turned, as in this case it no doubt would be, into an article of trade, I see not how they are to be supplied. In the mean time, pride of caste is rapidly melting away, in Jamaica. Whites and colored people dine at the same table, and sit in the same pew. Their children mingle together at school. The professional men plead at the same bar,* and meet at the same bedside. They legislate together, and last, but not least, marriage between whites and colored people, heretofore confined to the Jews of the island, who are much despised by the other creoles, is now beginning to invade the ranks of the "better class." The week before our arrival, a worthy young white man, the son of a highly respectable wholesale merchant of Kingston, married a colored girl, and the circumstance excited but little remark in the place. This rapid destruction of caste could not have taken place, unless the balance of moral power had begun to turn in favor of the colored race. Were they comparatively few and feeble, no force, while there is pride in man, could effect such a change. But the colored people of Jamaica are said to possess an advantage in point of numbers, of ten to one, † over the whites. Their best people are, in native powers, equal to the best of the whites. They are rapidly acquiring a great accession to their moral force through the public schools. They are gaining wealth in business. They are beginning to occupy places of trust and profit. The more * A young man, whom I understood to be something lighter than a mulatto, was admitted to the Kingston bar a few months ago. + According to Mr. Barclay, they are 14 to 1. ambitious, even of the peasantry, are beginning to buy piecemeal parcels of land, thrown out of cultivation, thus breaking up estates into small freeholds. And as the peasant can live without the planter, as the produce is likely still to diminish, and the market to decline from competition and the planter consequently to become still poorer than he is this state of things is likely to continue. Not only this, they have a large interior tract of uncultivated land to fall back on, the same which for more than a century sheltered the Maroons, but which they, as freedom gives them strength, will make a far more permanent retreat by cultivation. They have scattered throughout the land such men as Hill, Jorden, and Prescod, men of sufficient practical ability and a burning jealousy of their rights. They have obtained political equality; and they will not rest, until all the ancient barriers and landmarks are swept away from the island. Nothing short of despotism, in a great disparity of moral force, can preserve the arrangement in society of caste over caste, like distinct layers of inanimate matter. In a country as free as Jamaica now is, the elements of population must run into a mass, and combine not arbitrarily, but according to their natural affinity, and the rulers and the ruled must be of the same material. While this change is going on, it is almost a matter of course, that there should be a decline of commercial prosperity. The evil disease, which has just been extirpated, must necessarily be followed by a temporary prostration of strength, before full health returns. But when the confusion consequent to great change shall cease, and when all the white blood of the island shall be absorbed, then, for the first time since her discovery, shall Jamaica possess a population worthy of herself. It will not be a population of heterogeneous races and imperfect organs, one race furnishing the head, and the other the hand; - one with the capacity to acquire, and the other to enjoy the good things of life; one scorning, and the other fearing; - mutually cankering and corroding each other's best qualities by a forced and unwholesome contact; but the two races by blending shall not only throw off or absorb the injurious effects of this *About one third part of the island has never been under cultivation. Much of this land, formerly planted, has become forfeited. contact, but also supply each other's characteristic deficiences, and present in combination qualities, both moral and physical, far better adapted to the climate, than either possessed separately. We know not how far the adverse influence of climate may be counteracted by a thorough union of races such as this; it seems however but fair to conclude, that they will then form a community somewhat inferior perhaps in enterprise and force of character, to the people of the northern temperate latitudes, but certainly not in moral and social qualities: and when their character shall be perfectly established, and all their energies developed by freedom, it may not be unreasonable to hope, that in a union of practical, moral, and intellectual powers, these Anglo-Africans will surpass every other people of the tropics. THE MOTHER'S GRIEF. I STAND within my garden fair And in that spot a lonely mound, The wind sighs sadly, and the sun That buried form the truest one, The rest its mockeries. |