“The colonial settlers endeavor by every means to persuade their slaves that they are happy. The slaves obstinately hold to the contrary opinion.
Whom should we believe” Why are their looks and recollections constantly turned toward their country? Whence arise these bitter regrets at being far from home, and this disgust with life? Why are they so cheerful when they attend the funeral of their companions in misery, whom death has freed from bondage without the whites being able to prevent it? Whence this consoling tradition that their happiness in dying shall be to return to their native land? Whence originate these frequent suicides to hasten their return? If Bryan Edwards has thought fit to deny that this opinion is common among the Negroes he is contradicted by a number of authors, among others by this countryman Hans Sloane, who was certainly well acquainted with the colonies, and by Othello, the Negro Author.”
“One could fill thick walls with the recitals of the crimes by which the slaves have been victimized. When partisans of slavery find they cannot deny this, they fall back on the argument that this was the past but nothing of this kind has recently sullied the records of the colonies.” “But who are those who are biting and mad, other than those individuals who are devoured by greed, who trample under foot, in both hemispheres, all human and divine laws, and have dragged unfortunate slaves from Africa, to oppress them in America?
- So it is true that the thirst for gold and for power turns men into wild beasts, corrupts their reason, and destroys all moral feeling. If circumstances force them to be just, they boast of those acts that are prompted by necessity, as though they were good deeds.
Colonists! If you had been dragged from your hearths, to undergo the fate of the slave, what would you say then? What would you do?
"On the Cultural Achievements of Negros" - Henri Gregoire
Grégoire, H. (1996). On the Cultural Achievements of Negroes.
-Yogabrofessor
Add comment
Comments