I Then Divided The
Inhabitants Of Those Islands Into Three Classes - The White, The
Black, And The Colored, Taking A Nomenclature Which I Found There
Prevailing.
By colored men I alluded to mulattoes, and all those of
mixed European and African blood.
The word "colored," in the
States, seems to apply to the whole negro race, whether full-blooded
or half-blooded. I allude to this now because I wish to explain
that, in speaking of what I conceive to be the intellectual
inferiority of the negro race, I allude to those of pure negro
descent - or of descent so nearly pure as to make the negro element
manifestly predominant. In the West Indies, where I had more
opportunity of studying the subject, I always believed myself able
to tell a negro from a colored man. Indeed, the classes are to a
great degree distinct there, the greater portion of the retail trade
of the country being in the hands of the colored people. But in the
States I have been able to make no such distinction. One sees
generally neither the rich yellow of the West Indian mulatto nor the
deep oily black of the West Indian negro. The prevailing hue is a
dry, dingy brown - almost dusty in its dryness. I have observed but
little difference made between the negro and the half-caste - and no
difference in the actual treatment. I have never met in American
society any man or woman in whose veins there can have been presumed
to be any taint of African blood.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 101 of 531
Words from 26814 to 27072
of 142339
