Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Maroon Negroes, Born In
Africa (Bozales), Are Easily Taken; For The Greater Number, In The
Vain Hope Of Finding Their Native Land, March Day And Night In The
Direction Of The East.
When taken they are so exhausted by fatigue and
hunger that they are only saved by giving them, during several days,
very small quantities of soup.
The creole maroon negroes conceal
themselves by day in the woods and steal provisions during the night.
Till 1790, the right of taking the fugitive negroes belonged only to
the Alcalde mayor provincial, an hereditary office in the family of
the Count de Bareto. At present any of the inhabitants can seize the
maroons and the proprietor of the slave pays four piastres per head,
besides the food. If the name of the master is not known, the
Consulado employs the maroon negro in the public works. This
man-hunting, which, at Hayti and Jamaica, has given so much fatal
celebrity to the dogs of Cuba, was carried on in the most cruel manner
before the regulation which I have mentioned above.); it was proposed
to augment the number of negresses on the sugar estates, to direct
more attention to the education of children, to diminish the
introduction of African negroes, to bring white planters from the
Canaries, and Indian planters from Mexico, to establish country
schools with the view of improving the manners of the lower class, and
to mitigate slavery in an indirect way. These propositions had not the
desired effect. The junta opposed every system of immigration, and the
majority of the proprietors, indulging their old illusions of
security, would not restrain the slave-trade when the high price of
the produce gave a hope of extraordinary profit. It would, however, be
unjust not to acknowledge in this struggle between private interests
and the views of wise policy, the desires and the principles
manifested by some inhabitants of the island of Cuba, either in their
own name or in the name of some rich and powerful corporations. "The
humanity of our legislation," says M. d'Arango nobly,* in a memoir
written in 1796 (* Informe sobre negros fugitives (de 9 de Junio de
1769), par Don Francisco de Arango y Pareno, Oidor honorario y syndico
del Consulado.), "grants the slave four rights (quatro consuelos)
which somewhat assuage his sufferings and which have always been
refused him by a foreign policy. These rights are, the choice of a
master less severe* (* The right of buscar amo. When a slave has found
a new master who will purchase him, he may quit the master of whom he
has to complain; such is the sense and spirit of a law, beneficent,
though often eluded, as are all the laws that protect the slaves. In
the hope of enjoying the privilege of buscar amo, the blacks often
address to the travellers they meet, a question, which in civilized
Europe, where a vote or an opinion is sometimes sold, is more
equivocally expressed; Quiere Vm comprarme?
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