THE great majority of slaves brought to America were from that part of Africa which extends from Sierra Leone to the Congo River, the Guinea Coast. In America, they were distributed over an area reaching from Argentina to New England. About the middle of the eighteenth century the slave trade began to develop very rapidly, and the number of slaves in America grew very fast at the end of the century. The West Indies formed a sort of distributing point whence slaves were procured for New England, Mexico, and the Spanish Main in return for products of those places. In 1780, besides the 1,500,000 whites of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, it was estimated that there were 43,000 negro slaves; Massachusetts had 10,000, Rhode Island, 5000, Connecticut, 6000, and New Hampshire, 4000 slaves.¹

     In New England the slaves were allowed considerable freedom, and were given holidays on certain days for recreation and amusement. One of these days was election day, when the whole community took a holiday and gathered in the towns to vote. These days of relaxation were made the occasion for a pompous and ceremonious parade by the negroes. They decked themselves out in striking or fantastic costumes, and on horseback or on foot accompanied their “governor” through the streets. The parade included an accompaniment of hideous music, and was followed by a dinner and dance in some commodious hall hired for the purpose.² Sometimes, however, the dinner and dance were not preceded by the parade. The central figure in these functions was the “governor,” who was a person of commanding importance. Just who this person was and what the origin of these customs was, writers have left in doubt. It has been said that they were the representatives of the kings of the African tribes; on the other hand, it has been thought that “the negroes, having no voice in political affairs, naturally enough fell into the curious habit of holding elections of their own, after the manner of their white masters;”³ and some have gone so far as to say that the election of a “governor” was an annual performance

in imitation of the annual election of the whites. It has been thought also that these “governors” were elected to preside over the whole body of negroes in the State, but there is no evidence to show that this was so; on the other hand, the evidence does show that their jurisdiction was local rather than over the whole State.

     Without going into the question of whether the negroes really had these so-called inaugural parades before the white people used them,¹ it may be said that these customs of the negroes were a direct survival of their practices in Africa. In their own land they had elective kings or chiefs chosen from among descendants of royal blood, and many practices of a judicial and social nature which bear a strong resemblance to those found among them in America. As time went on these customs were greatly modified, partly by association with different customs, but chiefly through the mere action of time and the failure of fresh arrivals from Africa, until finally the meetings became little more than an opportunity for a good time. The evidence which has been preserved contains some contemporary records, but the great mass of it is recollections recorded long after the events (in some cases over sixty years), and is of little value by itself. These recollections are interesting, however, and aid us with the help of more definite material in forming a picture of the by-gone practices, which began about the middle of the eighteenth century and ceased about the middle of the nineteenth.

     A gravestone stood in the burial ground of Norwich, bearing the following inscription: “In memory of Boston Trowtrow, Governor of the African tribe in this town, who died 1772, aged 66.”³ Another case on record is that of Cuff, who on May 11, 1776, at Hartford, resigned the governorship in the following words: “I, Governor Cuff of the niegro’s in the province of Connecticut, do resign my governmentshipe to John Anderson, niegor man to governor Skene. And I hope that you will obey him as you have done me for this ten years past, when colonel Willis’ niegor dayed I was the next. But being weak and unfit for that office do resign the said governmentshipe to John Anderson.”⁴ The manifesto of the new governor follows: “I, John Anderson, having the honor to be appointed governor over you I will do my uttermost endeavor to serve you.” The appointment of a slave of a British officer on parole in the town led to some uneasiness, and a committee was appointed to investigate.

Their report of the examination of the persons concerned makes it clear that Cuff had been advised by some of the negroes to resign to Anderson, and that he had appointed the latter without an election. On the other hand, Anderson stated that he had told the negroes that if they would elect him governor he would treat them to the amount of twenty dollars, and that he had done it as a matter of sport. Cuff appointed him because some of the negroes declared that they would not have a Tory for governor.

     From these two documents it is probable that there was a governor in Norwich and Hartford at the same time, for Cuff says that he has been governor for ten years, and succeeded another man on death. In the next place it appears that Cuff resigned on the very day of so-called “election,” so that it is clear that he did not know of any cause why there should be an election on that day. The cause of his resignation was his feebleness and the desire of many for a younger man, who could give them more fun. If there was no election in 1776, there was none the year before, and Cuff, who had been elected in 1766, was expected to hold his office until death.

     In Derby, Tobias Bassett, the grandson of an African prince, was governor, and his son after him; 1 the latter “was of the very finest physical mould, being over six feet tall and admirably proportioned. He was, besides, ready of speech and considered quite witty.” In Seymour, “Juba served a number of years, and his sons, Nelson and Wilson, were likewise honored, Wilson . . . being the last governor, a few years before our late Civil War.”²

     To proceed now to the secondary evidence: Professor Fowler says the negroes “had their holidays and amusements; they would statedly or occasionally appoint a king, who was decorated with some of the emblems of royalty. One of these kings the present writer recollects to have seen. He had the appropriate name of Cæsar, and held his court on the west side of the town.”³ “The person they selected for the office in question was usually one of much note among themselves, of imposing presence, strength, firmness and volubility, who was quick to decide, ready to command, and able to flog. If he was inclined to be a little arbitrary, belonged to a master of distinction, and was ready to pay freely for diversions these were circumstances in his favor. . . . The precise sphere of his power we cannot ascertain. Probably it embraced matters and things in general among the blacks, morals, manners, and ceremonies;”⁴

“it kept the blacks in good order, while it at the same time innocently gratified their fondness for enjoyment.”¹ In their courts they decided cases “generally with a leaning towards severity,” whipping being a common punishment.²

     The last cases show the presence of the element of heredity in the elections, and establish the probability that the elections were not annual, and were of an African derivation. We have the names of five governors at Hartford, and the likelihood that there were governors at Huntington, Middletown, Wallingford, and Farmington, besides those mentioned herein.³ There is evidence that the institution was present in Massachusetts and New Hampshire;⁴ in Rhode Island, where the negro population was densest, it was closely observed. Not long after the Revolution the negro population began to decrease, owing to the removal of slaves to the South, and the lack of fresh importations caused the institution to die out; indeed, the circumstances in the case of Cuff show that it was even then on the wane; the customs attendant upon it lasted longest where the negro population was largest and communication with the West Indies most direct, namely, in New Haven and Rhode Island.

     The two attendant circumstances which observers never failed to recall were the “election” parade and ball. They could not have failed to impress people in those times. “His parade days were marked by much that was showy, and by some things that were ludicrous. A troop of blacks, sometimes an hundred in number, marching sometimes two and two on foot, sometimes mounted in true military style and dress on horseback, escorted him through the streets. After marching to their content, they would retire to some large room which they would engage for the purpose, for refreshments and deliberation. This was all done with the greatest regard for ceremony.”⁵ This function occurred annually; but it was

this which at Hartford led people to suppose that the election was annual, because the arrival of many outsiders there on the annual election day made a fitting occasion for the parade and dance over which the governor presided.

     How easy it was to confuse the election and the parade and ball, can be seen from the record in French’s Journal:¹ “The next day the negroes, according to annual custom, elected a governor for themselves, when John Anderson, Gov. Skene’s black man, was chosen; at night he gave a supper and ball to a number of his electors, who were very merry and danced till about three o’clock in the morning.” French was one of the Ticonderoga prisoners at Hartford, and his record shows that the gathering and ball of the negroes was known in the locality as “annual election,” although it is clear that there was neither a forecasted nor actual election at the time.

     Considerable search has failed to reveal any very satisfactory material relating to these institutions in the South. The laws repressing meetings of negroes appear to have been severe.² The following account of an African “wizard” in Georgia is interesting and important, but the fact that he is said to have operated “many years ago” may detract somewhat from its value. An old Guinea negro, a horse-trainer and hanger-on of sporting contests, “claimed to be a conjurer, professing to have derived the art from the Indians after his arrival in this country from Africa.” The only use he made of this valuable accomplishment was “in controlling riotous gatherings” of negroes, and “in causing runaway slaves to return, foretelling the time they would appear and give themselves up.” He would get the master and overseers to pardon their erring slaves.³ This shows a powerful control in this man over his fellows, and one that could be put to good use if properly directed. The basis of his power undoubtedly lay in some combination in the mores of the negroes themselves. Traces of this individual power seem to be present in the Gabriel revolt in Virginia in 1800, and in the Nat Turner revolt at a later date. It is not to be supposed that the negroes would have submitted to a form of conjuration derived from Indians. The great prosperity of the South came after the period of active importation of slaves, so that in recent times there was not

a large number of negroes with the practices of Africa fresh in their minds.¹

     In Brazil and the West Indies the slave trade lasted longer than it did in New England, especially in Brazil and Cuba, where the introduction of negroes from Africa did not cease until after the middle of the nineteenth century. There is an abundance of contemporary evidence showing the condition of the negroes in these colonies, and the government, in Cuba at least, legally recognized and made use of their African customs as a part of the local police and as a means of controlling the negro population. “The different nations are marked out in the Colonies both by the master and the slaves. Each tribe or people has a king elected out of their number, whom they rag out with much savage grandeur on the holidays on which they are permitted to meet. At these courtly festivals (usually held every Sunday and feast day) numbers of free and enslaved negroes assemble to do homage with a sort of grave merriment; one would doubt whether it was done in ridicule or memory of their former condition.”²

     The fantastic parades took place in all parts of Cuba, in the towns and cities and on the plantations. The favorite times for the parades were Carnival and El dia de los reyes, or twelfth day. This is a description of El dia de los reyes at Guïnes in 1844: “Almost unlimited liberty was given to the negroes. Each tribe, having elected its king and queen, paraded the streets with a flag, having its name and the words Viva Isabella, with the arms of Spain, painted on it. Their majesties were dressed in the extreme of the fashion, and were very ceremoniously waited on by the ladies and gentlemen of the court, one of the ladies holding an umbrella over the head of the queen. They bore their honors with that dignity which the negroes love so much to assume.”³ Three of these tribes paraded at Guïnes, and an athletic negro in fantastic dress accompanied the procession, performing a wild dance and all sorts of contortions.⁴ Here is one at Havana in 1856: the negroes were free by law until four o’clock in the morning; they decked themselves out in the oddest kinds of costumes and paraded the streets, screeching out the songs of their nations to the music of rattles, tin pans, and tambourines; one had “a genuine costume of a king of the Middle Ages, a very proper red,

close coat, velvet vest and a magnificent gilt paper crown. This negro, who was enormously tall, and had a tolerably good-looking head, gave his hand gravely to a sort of feminine blackamoor who represented some queen or other. He walked with a deliberate, majestic step, never laughed, and seemed to be reflecting deeply on the grandeur of his mission to this world.”¹

     After the parade the negroes proceeded to their hall. These reunions on Sundays and festivals were called Cabildos, and were known under the distinctive name of the tribe, Cabildo de Arara, Cabildo de Congo, Cabildo de Lucumi.² The laws gave the slaves certain hours and parts of certain days for amusement and recreation, and they gathered in these halls to enjoy themselves in their own way and to practice their customs. One custom followed upon another, and when a large body was gathered together some system of control was necessary and they inevitably fell back on their own devices. “In the houses which face the rampart, to the right and left of the main gate of Havana, the negroes assemble to dance Sundays and feast days. Each different nation has its Cabildo or chapter; the meeting is attended by a frightful uproar. Old and young, man and woman, even the spectators follow the movements of the dance. Without, the sounds of the tamtam, of the bamboula, the noise of the kettles, animate those who have been unable to find a place in the dance ball. The mirth of these poor slaves is very open; there are few disputes among them. A master readily gives permission to his negroes to gather at the cabildo, unless they are inclined to be wild.”³ Frederika, Brewer spent some time in Cuba in 1851. She was curious to learn about the negroes, and she wrote of them and the island in a sympathetic way. She visited several of their cabildos at Havana. She learned that many of the slaves had been princes and chiefs, and that their fellow tribesmen on the plantations showed them great respect and obedience.⁴ The cabildo of the Lucum is was

held in a room large enough for one hundred people. At one end there was a throne with a canopy over it, and on the wall above a large crown was painted. The throne contained seats for the king and queen, and in front the customary dancing went on, to the sound of drums, gourds filled with stones, and beating of sticks,—all of which made a very great din. The cabildo was governed by one or two queens, but the cabildo elected its king, who managed the financial affairs of the tribe and had a secretary and master of ceremonies for assistants. Here too there was a very conspicuous figure in fantastic dress, before whom all made way, who with many contortions danced up to welcome such visitors as were allowed to enter. The Cabildo de Congo had two very fine-looking queens.¹

     In Matanzas, on Sunday afternoons, flags on high staffs pointed out the places about town where the negroes gathered to indulge in their national dances. The meetings were under the protection of the civil authorities. Good order generally prevailed; they were governed by a king and queen, who had great influence and could stop the vicious habits of their subjects. “Complaints made to him of the idle or vicious habits of any particular individual, not infrequently through his remonstrances, correct the evil.”²

     In Cuba the practice of African customs undoubtedly began early in the eighteenth century at least; so that with the great increase of African negroes due to the removal of restrictions on the slave trade at the end of the century, it became necessary to regulate the cabildos. The number of the negroes had grown to such an extent that it seemed dangerous to allow them to gather in large masses without any restraint, and they used these meetings, too, for practising some forms of fetishism and mourning for dead which were at variance with the attempts being made to Christianize them. The use of drink at the cabildos was another evil that had to be forbidden, as it seemed beyond the power of the chiefs.

     These regulations first appeared in the Bando de buen gobierno of Captain-General Luis de las Casas, in 1792. The frequency of elaborate street parades was very much restricted, and also visits to the houses of the chiefs. The Spanish local police officers and magistrates were ordered to communicate the prohibitions of the law to the chiefs, with strict orders to execute them, and heavy fines were placed upon offenders. Dances after the fashion of Africa were allowed on feast days only, from ten to twelve, and from three in the afternoon to eight at night.³

     The greatest danger connected with these gatherings was in the presence of free negroes, and heavier fines were placed on infractions by them. These regulations sufficed for the period between 1792 and 1820, but in the stormy period which began at that time it became customary to greatly restrict the freedom of the slaves in this respect, although it is probable that the negroes in the cities always enjoyed more latitude in this matter than their fellows in the country. However, in the legislation of 1842 and 1843, when it was the purpose of the government to improve the condition of the slaves, special attention was given to this point, and masters in the country were required to allow their slaves to have “el baile conocido con el hombre de tambor,” on feast days at customary hours, under the care of the Mayorales.¹

     In St. Lucia, as late as 1844, the negroes had “societies” for dancing, which once had a political character; each society had three kings and three queens, who were elected by the suffrages of the members. The first or senior king and queen appeared only on solemn occasions. Any member guilty of improper conduct was

ensured at the meetings by the king. The attendance of the women was more regular than that of the men.¹

     In Brazil “the negroes brought their languages and usages, which were found as original as on the coast of Africa.”² The patriarchal feeling remained very strong. The tribes seemed to be families, considering the prince as the father; the tie never died. “These princes are frequently seen sitting on a stone in the street, surrounded by a crowd who come to them for judgment. At the corner of the Travessa de S. Antonio is a stone or post, for many years the throne of an African prince from Angola. . . The natives of Congo elect a king among themselves, to whose decrees they submit in a similar manner.”³

     The coffee carriers are reported to have been extremely well organized. They were mostly Minas from the Benin region. They had a system by clubbing together of buying the freedom of any one of their number who was highly respected. “There is now a Mina black in Rio remarkable for his height, who is called ‘the Prince,’ being in fact of the blood royal of his native country. It is said his subjects in Rio once freed him by their toil.”⁴

     The negroes of Jamaica had gatherings of tribes on the plantations, each with its king and queen dressed in hideous attire, at which dancing was the most noticeable feature. In the towns the processions were headed by a tall, athletic man with hideous headdress, surmounted by a pair of ox horns and boar tusks. He was called John Cornu, from a celebrated African character, carried a large wooden sword, and executed many evolutions and freaks.⁵

     In most of the French West Indies the slave population was too small to afford good opportunities for observation, and they ceased to receive large numbers of Africans at an early date. The famous Père Labat visited many of the smaller islands and Haiti about the year 1700, and has given us many examples of African customs surviving in the islands.⁶ They kept up their idolatrous religious practices,

had obiism, sorcerers, poisoners, funeral festivals, and showed great reverence or fear for old men. Dancing was their favorite exercise; one of these dances, called the Calenda, the father states, came from Guinea, and was accompanied with a furious racket of tambours and bamboulas; it was thought to be very indecent, and, because the negroes were likely to become intoxicated and lead to revolts, the authorities forbade it, without complete success, however. The Congo dance was less objectionable. The men exacted a great show of respect from their families. “I have often taken pleasure in watching a negro carpenter at Guadaloupe when he eat his meals. His wife and children gathered around him, and served him with as much respect as the best drilled domestics serve their masters; and if it was a fete day or Sunday, his sons-in-law and daughters did not fail to be present, and bring him some small gifts. They formed a circle about him, and conversed with him while he was eating. When he had finished, his pipe was brought to him, and then he bade them eat. They paid him their reverences, and passed into another room, where they all eat together with their mother. I reproached him sometimes for his gravity, and cited to him the example of the governor, who eat every day with his wife; to which he replied that the governor was not the wiser for it; that he supposed the whites had their reasons, but they also had theirs; and that if one would observe how proud and disobedient the white women were to their husbands, it would be admitted that the negroes who kept them always in respect and submission, are wiser and more experienced than the whites in this matter.”¹ The father says that the negroes were often very eloquent, and that they all spent much time in ridiculing the whites and their customs.

     A letter of the governor of Martinique in 1753² speaks of the parades and processions of the negroes in the island, which afforded means of amusement and disorder. The negroes were decked out with a great deal of ostentation, many were armed with wooden weapons, and they seemed to be under a remarkable discipline. “Several others dressed in very rich garments represented the king, the queen, and all. the royal family, up to the grand officers of the crown.” The thought that there were 18,000 negroes in the island, thus trained and disciplined and only needing a leader, made the governor feel uneasy, and he took the first chance he had to forbid the processions. But the slaves then gathered in secret, and it was necessary to resort to severe punishment to enforce the law.³

     The most remarkable instances of the survival of African political

institutions are to be found in Haiti. The new inventions and processes introduced into the making of sugar by Père Labat in the first two decades of the eighteenth century had made this industry very profitable, and the French soon turned their attention to their foothold in Haiti, ultimately getting a recognition of their claims to the western part of the island of Santo Domingo from the king of Spain. After the middle of the century the march of its prosperity was very rapid, negroes were introduced very fast, and at the outbreak of the French Revolution it was one of the richest colonial possessions on the globe.

     Side by side with the development of the island had proceeded a rapid increase in the number and wealth of the people of mixed blood, who chiefly occupied the southern part of the colony. In 1789 the population has been estimated at from 571,708¹ to 614,429;² there were between 509,642¹ and 434,529² slaves, 27,000 to 40,000 people of free color, and 35,000 to 40,000 whites. The great mass of the mulatto people lived in the south and the adjacent parts of the west department, that is, in the region about Port au Prince; the mountainous north, with the interlying department of the west, had the greatest percentage of negro population. In 1805 the population was reported to be 480,000 blacks, 20,000 colored or mulatto, and 1000 whites;³ the republic of the south had 261,000, and the kingdom of the north had 240,000 souls;⁴ of the two higher classes of population, including the old freemen and administrative, judicial, and military officers of government, and the soldiers, sailors, artisans, domestics, and laborers in the town and ports, the south had 120,000, but the north had only 50,000;⁵ the remainder were cultivators of the land held under a strict regime to till the soil.

     The mulattoes occupied a decidedly inferior position in the colony compared to that held by the whites, laboring under political and social disabilities, and, at the beginning of the revolution, when it became apparent that the whites, who, for various reasons, were divided among themselves, would not allow them to receive the benefits granted by the National Assembly, they revolted. Two weeks later, August 22, 1791, the revolts amongst the blacks at the north began. There was probably no concerted action between the two outbreaks,⁶ the mulattoes struck for equality, the blacks for liberty.

     For many years there had been bands of runaway negroes in the mountains under their chiefs. The earliest known of these chiefs

was Polydor in 1724; he was succeeded by Macandal, of whom the negroes seemed to stand in superstitious dread:¹ The great chief of these maroons at the time of the revolts was Jean Français, and he was followed by another black called Biassou. One of their agents said to the French commissioner, “I am the subject of three kings of the king of Congo, master of all the blacks; of the king of France, who represents my father, and of the king of Spain, who represents my mother. If I passed into the service of the republic, I would perhaps be brought to make war against my brothers, the subjects of these three kings to whom I have promised fidelity.”²

     Toussaint when he fled from his plantation joined this band, where he was known as “the doctor of the armies of the king,”³ and soon became aid to Jean Français and Biassou. Upon the death or withdrawal of the other chiefs, Toussaint rose to the chief command. He soon acquired complete control over the blacks, not only in military matters but an absolute dominance over politics and social organization;⁴ “the soldiers regarded him as a superior being, and the cultivators prostrated themselves before him as before a divinity. All his generals trembled before him (Dessalines did not dare to look in his face), and all the world trembled before his generals.”⁵ Toussaint passed into the north, and in an astonishingly short time the whole district was under his control, the negroes began to return to work on the plantations, and security was in sight. The English who held Mole St. Nicolas made some overtures to Toussaint, but he quickly gave them to understand that he would be no dupe of theirs. A reconciliation was brought about between Toussaint and the French, recognizing the freedom of the blacks, but provisions were made for confining the black population to the estates and compelling them to till the soil.

     The mulattoes of the south under Rigaud still refused to submit. If the whites and negroes had settled their differences, it left the mulattoes in the same relative situation as before the outbreak. There was no bond of sincerity uniting the whites and mulattoes, nor the mulattoes and the negroes.⁶ There was a universal prevalence

of distrust. Toussaint was now a general of the French army. Whether Napoleon really intended to violate this agreement has not been shown, but his colonial scheme required the presence of a large force in the island. Upon the arrival of these forces, Toussaint told his officers that the French were coming to reënslave them, and that resistance to the last must be made.¹ Shortly afterwards Toussaint was seized and sent to France and imprisoned, where he soon died from old age, melancholy (which is singularly characteristic of the proud spirits of African chieftains when placed in captivity), and the change to a severer climate.

     Toussaint was succeeded by the black, Dessalines, in 1802, who declared himself emperor. Dessalines, like Toussaint and his lieutenant Christophe, was noted in his days of slavery for his severity toward his fellow slaves and for the discipline which he exercised over them. He had other characteristics of African chieftains. “There were seasons when he broke through his natural sullenness, and showed himself open, affable, and even generous. His vanity was excessive, and manifested itself in singular perversities. He was delighted with embroidery and ornaments. At times he appeared to his subjects clothed in magnificent decorations, and upon other occasions his costume was plain even to meanness. A ridiculous propensity of the black emperor was displayed in his desire to manifest himself to his subjects as an accomplished dancer. . . . His courage in the field was that of the headlong fury of the tiger. The events which conducted him to his high elevation all had their origin in the terror, and perhaps confidence, inspired by his determined fierceness. . . . For the slightest causes both blacks and mulattoes were put to death without mercy and without the forms of trial.”² The population prostrated themselves before him.³

     On the 1st of January, 1804, the blacks and mulattoes united to issue the declaration of independence of Haiti; the act was signed by Dessalines, the black general-in-chief, by Christophe, his black lieutenant, by Pétion, the leader of the mulattoes, and by many others. The mulattoes and negroes seem to have agreed that the expulsion of the white man was necessary to the peace of the island.

     In 1805 a constitution was drawn up and accepted by both mulattoes and negroes, placing all power in the hands of the emperor. The severity with which Dessalines enforced the laws soon began to turn many against him. The mulattoes did not wish at any price to

submit to the domination of the negroes, part of whom, being natives of Africa, had preserved their savage mores.¹ Dessalines started to suppress this revolt of the mulattoes led by Pétion, but was killed in ambush in October, 1806.

     A new constitution was drawn up in 1806, providing for the election of a president for life; the presidency was offered to Christophe,² the next of the great black chiefs after Dessalines, but the office was too much burdened with limitation of power to suit him, and he withdrew into the north, leaving Petion to set up his republic. In the north a new constitution was drafted, establishing the kingdom of Haiti, and Christophe was declared the first king, with the title of Henry I., 1811. A former constitution drawn up in 1807 had made the president hold for life, with right to appoint his successor. It was now declared advisable to erect an hereditary throne and provide for the reëstablishment of customs, morals, and religion. The constitution provided for hereditary succession to the crown in the family of Christophe, through the direct male line, in failure of which it was to pass into the family of the prince next related to the king’s family, or the oldest in dignity. It provided for a royal family, a regency, a grand council, and a privy council, officers, ministers, oaths, etc. All power was centred in the hands of the king. In the south the separation of powers was the basis of the government.³

     Some writers have thought that this was purely an act of grandiloquence and mimicry on the part of Christophe, but it is truer to say that in it he was actuated by a clear insight into the needs and peculiarities of the people with whom he had to deal. There is nothing in the constitution which did not have its companion in Africa, where the organization of society was truly despotic, with elective-hereditary chiefs, royal families, polygamic marriages, councils, and regencies. But, undoubtedly, the form in which these things were put into writing was influenced very much by the language and systems which were known in Europe. Toussaint, Dessalines, and Christophe had ministers and others in their employ who were men educated in France.

     But we have now to consider that which was the foundation of this

system, which at once marks the insight of Toussaint and Christophe, and the African origin of their government. This is the system of agriculture. This system was adopted at the time of the reconciliation between the French and the blacks, under the advice of Toussaint. Some writers have called it an attempt to establish feudalism in the island, and the system does have a resemblance to it, but it also has many points of similarity with the organization of society in many African tribes. There was a division of the population into military and civil or laboring classes, the latter including both free and slave laborers. The territory was parcelled out to chiefs or lords, and the laborers were bound to the soil, which they were compelled to work under a rigorous system of inspection; for their support a part of the produce was set aside, the rest going to the chiefs, and for the support of the king or general government and the army. The army was kept under stern discipline, which made it possible to arm the free men and laborers; the women did a large part of the agricultural labor. Under Toussaint the administration of this labor system was committed to Dessalines, who carried it out with the utmost rigor, and it was afterward followed by Christophe in the same manner. The latter went so far as to import 4000 negroes from Africa, which he took means to bind to his person and form into a national guard, for patrolling the country.¹ These regulations brought back for a time a large part of the prosperity which the island had enjoyed.

     The comparison of their lot with the easier and more indolent life of the south brought dissatisfaction into the ranks of Christophe’s people, so that at his death Boyer, the president of the south, was able to assert his sway over the whole island. The following quotation is taken from the book of Dr. Brown, who spent the year 1833-34 in the island, and whose work shows many marks of care and accuracy:—

     “A distinction is recognized by law between the class of laborers and that of proprietors; and the regulations established by Toussaint and Dessalines for the prosperity of agriculture, and to make a just division of its avails, are still preserved in the laws of the country under the denomination of the code rurale. But the aristocratical principle which makes such invidious distinctions, and enables the proprietors to compel the laborer attached to the soil of his plantation to perform a daily task and receive one fourth of the harvest as the reward of his season’s toil, has been discovered to be uncongenial with the institution of a republic based upon the maxim that all men are equal. Thus ‘the toe of the peasant comes near the heel of the courtier,’ and it is found impossible to enforce regulations against

it without a restoration of such arbitrary despotism as that experienced under the sway of Christophe. The negroes are thus permitted to roam at large, legally independent of each other, and invested with the full enjoyment of their beloved indolence. An exception to this is said to exist within two districts in the north of the island, those namely of Grande Rivière and Port de Pai. The commanding generals of these arrondissements are black chieftains once attached to the service of Christophe, and convinced by the results which they saw acquired by his rigid severity toward the lower classes of the population, that no means are so effectual as absolute compulsion to induce the negroes to labor, they still continue the policy of their royal master, and make coercion the basis of their measures for the prosperity of the districts under their command. Delinquent laborers, vagrants, and petty offenders are in these two arrondissements seized and punished by scourging instead of imprisonment; and this severer punishment is found to produce much greater effects than incarceration, which has in it no terrors to the black. In consequence of this more summary government, the condition of things in these two districts is deemed to a great extent better than that which exists in other parts of the country. . . . Upon these working days the negroes are prohibited from assembling to amuse themselves by dancing or any mode of festivity,—such seasons of merriment being exclusively confined to the religious feasts or national anniversaries established by the rules of the church or the laws of the republic. The dances introduced from Africa are still in vogue, and upon Sundays and fête days the monotonous, thumping sound of the bamboula is heard in all directions. . . . With this characteristic orchestra a ring is formed in the open air, and the voluptuous African dances commence with shrill, drawling outcries, the sound of which is more plaintive than exhilarating or lively. . . .

     “In no other country perhaps is there such entire absence of all enormous crimes among the population. . . . The unexampled security of a traveller among the population of the interior is almost incredible, for he may journey from one end of the island to the other . . . without the least danger of violence or of any interruption whatever. . . . Almost the only prevalent crime is petty theft. . . . As is the case with all barbarous nations, the females are compelled to perform most of the labor. Those of the country employ themselves in cultivating the soil, while the men spend their time in traversing the country on horseback, in drinking, smoking, and other habits equally unprofitable. The females of the towns perform all the retail traffic of the country.”¹

     One great difficulty in dealing with this question lies in the fact that observers did not know just what they were describing. A chief is called indiscriminately, governor, king, marshal, or fetishman. But what their material does make certain is that the negroes did keep their mores and practised them whenever they were allowed to do so, and that such practice was usually attended with beneficial results. Of course, the incompleteness of our data does not permit us to affirm that Toussaint, Dessalines, and Christophe were princes of royal blood, but it is very probable that they were. A striking instance of the effect of an election upon the conduct of a negro chief is seen in the example of Soulouque, president and emperor of Haiti.¹

     Soulouque was a negro born in Haiti, of the Mandingo tribe. He became a general under several mulatto presidents. In the anarchy which followed the fall of Boyer, he was elected president by the mulattoes because he was old, could not read or write, and it was thought he would be a weak president and an easy tool. Upon becoming president he developed an exceedingly strong will and began to attach the negroes to himself. This did not suit the mulattoes, and a series of conspiracies was begun. Soulouque, although his antecedents were all with the mulatto party, retaliated by executions and massacres in true African style. In spite of his failure to conquer the Dominican Republic, he was allowed to proclaim himself emperor in 1849, with the will of the people apparently in his favor and by unanimous consent of the legislature. He proceeded at once to form a numerous court, a military and a civilian class, and to proclaim his right to rule as he pleased at any time he saw fit. The marvellous extent of the power of these kings and emperors leaves no room for doubt that it was based upon something more than mere personal excellence. According to African customs it might not always happen that the successor of a chief was chosen from among his kin. A chief might be selected, on account of his ability or prowess, from outside the royal line, but he of course succeeded to all the prerogatives of the office.

     In Cuba, Brazil, and the United States the absence of opportunity to engage in war and the comparatively confined life that the negroes led left them small latitude for the exercise of their customs, which was confined to the regulation of the morals of the people.

WEST HAVEN, CONN.