OJST VdDU -WORSHIP. 653 



West Indian Islands are at the present day free from every trace 

 of the cult, the explanation is ready. The English supplied their 

 colonies with slaves from their forts on the Gold Coast, and the 

 great majority, so great as to comprise almost all the slaves im- 

 ported into the British West Indies, were what were called, in the 

 jargon of the slave trade, Coromantees, a designation which was 

 a corruption of the name of a town called Acromanti, situated 

 some fifteen miles to the east of Cape Coast Castle, and where the 

 first English fort on the Gold Coast was built. These Coromantees, 

 all members of the Tshi-speaking tribes the Ashantis, Denkeras, 

 Akims, Assins, Fantis, etc. were noted for their superior physi- 

 cal strength, and for their ferocity and rebellious disposition. 

 Every slave rebellion in the British West Indies, from the first in 

 Jamaica in 1690 to the last in 1831 in the same island, was a rebel- 

 lion of Coromantees ; and their dangerous character was so well 

 known that other nations did not care to purchase them. The 

 Royal African Company had a treaty with Spain by which it un- 

 dertook to supply the Spanish colonies with Eboe or Ibo slaves from 

 the delta of the Niger, who, though of inferior physique, were pre- 

 ferred on account of their docility; and the French obtained their 

 slaves principally from Whydah, though partly also from Senegal. 

 Hence the great mass of Ardras and Whydahs were shipped to 

 the French West India Islands, and no doubt the snake cull was 

 introduced into Martinique and Guadeloupe as well as into Hayti. 

 All such vodu or " fetich " practices were, however, sternly sup- 

 pressed by the planters, partly because they themselves feared 

 them and had a superstitious belief in their power for evil, but 

 principally because it was by their means that the more restless 

 and uncontrollable slaves instigated their more docile brethren to 

 rebel. There was the religious element at the bottom of every 

 outbreak, and consequently all vodu practices were forbidden 

 under heavy penalties. But such superstitions die hard ; and 

 though we do not now hear of any vodu-worship in Martinique 

 and Guadeloupe, yet it is probable that, if the negroes of those 

 islands had succeeded in achieving their independence, we should 

 find it in as full vigor there as we do now in Hayti. 



At the date of the overthrow of Ardra and Whydah, Louisi- 

 ana was also a French possession, colonized by the French Mis- 

 sissippi Company; so we might reasonably suppose that some 

 Ewe-speaking slaves were introduced there also, though it seems 

 that the colonists obtained a great many from English slave- 

 traders. But in 1809 a large number of French planters with 

 their slaves, who in consequence of the insurrection in Hayti had 

 sought refuge in Cuba, were compelled by the outbreak of war 

 between France and Spain to quit their asylum, and landed in 

 New Orleans. There were about five thousand eight hundred in 



