An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties and Literature of Negroes by Henri Grégoire & Graham Hodges

Author:Henri Grégoire & Graham Hodges [Grégoire, Henri & Hodges, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Democracy, Media Studies, Political Ideologies, Social Science, Political Science
ISBN: 9781315479712
Google: VLQYDQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 32206823
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1996-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Notes

1. Treatise on the political economy and commerce of the colonies.

2. Voyage in Martinico, by Chauvelin, 4to. p. 39, and following.

3. Stedman, vol. I. p. 88, and following.

4. Long, vol. II, p. 416.

5. View of the Spanish colony, in 1802, by Duvallon, 8vo. Paris, 1803, p. 268, and the following. “Let us visit the old woman, who has seen her hundredth year, says some one of the company; and we advanced to the door of a little hut, where an old negress of Senegal appeared, and so decrepitated, that she was bent towards the ground, and obliged to lean against the side of her hut to receive the company assembled at the door: she was also deaf, but her eye was still lively. Every thing around her shewed that she was destitute and wretched. She had scarcely rags enough to cover her nakedness, and had not brands sufficient to give warmth, at a season when the cold is as sensibly felt by the old, and more particularly by those of the black race. We found her occupied in boiling a little water and rice for her supper. For she received not from her master that regular subsistance which her great age and former services required. She was besides, alone and abandoned, her strength exhausted and more indebted to nature than to them. The reader ought to know that independently of her long services, this woman, now in her hundredth year, had formerly nourished, with her milk, two white children, whom she had seen arrive at complete growth, and whom she afterwards accompanied to the tomb; and these were the brothers of one of the masters then present.—The old woman perceived him, and called him by his name, and tutagant him (according to the custom of the negroes of Guinea) with an air of kindness truly affecting, and when, said she, wilt thou repair the roof of my hut? It was almost uncovered, and the rain poured freely. The master raised his eye towards it; it was no higher than the hand could reach; I shall think of this, said he. Thee will think of it, thee always tells me so, but nothing is ever done. Hast thee not thy children (two negroes of the work shop, her grand-children) who could mend the hut; and thee, art thee not their master, and art thee not thyself my son? Come, said she, taking him by the arm, and introducing him into the Cabin, come and see thyself these openings; have pity then, my son, on the old Irrouba, and repair at least that part of the roof which is above my bed, it is all I ask, and the good Being will bless thee. And what was her bed? Alas! three boards grossly connected, and on which was disposed a bundle of parasite plant of the country, named Barbe-Espagnole. The roof of thy hut is almost uncovered, the sleet and the rain beat against thy miserable bed; thy master sees all this, and yet has no compassion for the poor Irrouba.

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