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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(* General Lafayette, Whose Name Is Linked
With All That Promises To Contribute To The Liberty Of Man And The
Happiness
Of mankind, conceived, in the year 1785, the project of
purchasing a settlement at Cayenne, and to divide it among
The blacks
by whom it was cultivated and in whose favour the proprietor renounced
for himself and his descendants all benefit whatever. He had
interested in this noble enterprise the priests of the Mission of the
Holy Ghost, who themselves possessed lands in French Guiana. A letter
from Marshal de Castries, dated 6th June, 1785, proves that the
unfortunate Louis XVI, extending his beneficent intentions to the
blacks and free men of colour, had ordered similar experiments to be
made at the expense of Government. M. de Richeprey, who was appointed
by M. de Lafayette to superintend the partition of the lands among the
blacks, died from the effects of the climate at Cayenne.)
The Conquest on the continent of Spanish America and the slave-trade
in the West Indies, in Brazil, and in the southern parts of the United
States, have brought together the most heterogeneous elements of
population. This strange mixture of Indians, whites, negroes,
mestizos, mulattoes and zambos is accompanied by all the perils which
violent and disorderly passion can engender, at those critical periods
when society, shaken to its very foundations, begins a new era. At
those junctures, the odious principle of the Colonial System, that of
security, founded on the hostility of castes, and prepared during
ages, has burst forth with violence.
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