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 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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