Untitled - African American History

SLAVERY IN SOUTH AMERICA. CCV11
one-third of the entire population. The negroes were es-
timated, in 1853, at only 80,000, which is scarcely onethirtieth.
In 1821, just after the Eevolution, a law was
passed by the Republic of Colombia, for the gradual
manumission of slaves, and all born after that date were
declared free at the age of eighteen. By a law of 1851,
slavery was entirely abolished in New Grenada, by
giving liberty to all who remained slaves, on the 1st of
January, 1852, provision being made" for the payment
of the owners. 1 The results of this emancipation have
been the same with similar efforts elsewhere. The ne-
groes, as a class, are idle, immoral, vicious, preferring to
beg and steal rather than work. The destruction and
desolation in some of the finest agricultural districts,
consequent upon the Act of 1821, are described as deplorable
in the extreme. The want and destitution of
the poorer classes are
"
pitiable. Their morals can sink
no lower, and their religion can raise them no higher." 3
Slavery exists in other portions of South America. In
Chili and Peru there seem to be but few negroes. In
the latter the slaves are treated with great kindness. It
is no unusual sight to see a mistress and her slave kneel-
1
Memoir on the Physical and Political Geography of New Grenada,
by General De Mosquera, ex-President of the same.
2 New Grenada, by Isaac F. Holton, pp. 173, 269, 527, 533. I am
indebted for some of the facts stated, to letters from Col. King and Judge
Bowlin, late ministers of the United States to New Grenada. The latter
says, " The universally admitted characteristics of the negro, when un-
restrained, of indigence, improvidence, and indolence, are strikingly
exemplified in New Grenada, where every avenue is equally open to
him as to the white man, to elevate his condition ; yet,
if he does not
recede, he certainly makes no advance in the progress to a higher civili-
zation." Living on tropical fruits, and indulging in intoxicating drinks,
he adds, "He generally goes in a state of nudity: and when he does not,
he merely wears a coarse shirt, or a shirt and pantaloons made of coarse
cotton." "Take them all in all, they are a miserable race, encumber-
ing the earth, whose vicious qualities civilization seems only to develop
more strongly."