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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Time Will Act Simultaneously On The Slaves, On The
Relations Between The Islands And The Inhabitants Of The Continent,
And On Events Which Cannot Be Controlled, When They Have Been Waited
For With The Inaction Of Apathy.
Wherever slavery is long established,
the increase of civilization solely has less influence on the
treatment of slaves than many are disposed to admit.
The civilization
of a nation seldom extends to a great number of individuals; and does
not reach those who in the plantations are in immediate contact with
the blacks. I have known very humane proprietors shrink from the
difficulties that arise in the great plantations; they hesitate to
disturb established order, to make innovations, which, if not
simultaneous, not supported by the legislation, or (which would be
more powerful) by public feeling, would fail in their end, and perhaps
aggravate the wretchedness of those whose sufferings they were meant
to alleviate. These considerations retard the good that might be
effected by men animated by the most benevolent intentions, and who
deplore the barbarous institutions which have devolved to them by
inheritance. They well know that to produce an essential change in the
state of the slaves, to lead them progressively to the enjoyment of
liberty, requires a firm will on the part of the local authorities,
the concurrence of wealthy and enlightened citizens, and a general
plan in which all chances of disorder and means of repression are
wisely calculated. Without this community of action and effort
slavery, with its miseries and excesses, will survive as it did in
ancient Rome,* along with elegance of manners, progressive
intelligence, and all the charms of the civilization which its
presence accuses, and which it threatens to destroy, whenever the hour
of vengeance shall arrive.
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