THE PEOPLE 1G9 



these people in the Spanish colonies, which are so different 

 from those of the blacks in our own country and the French 

 and British islands of the West Indies. The race question 

 is a difficult one to discuss, for, like the taboo, race prejudice 

 is possessed by all, though explicable by none. I cannot 

 tell why the Spanish man of color does not affect the 

 prejudice against the negro which I feel in my own and 

 other countries. I only know that the former is of a differ- 

 ent class. There is some reason for his superiority, how- 

 ever, and perhaps it may be due to the following facts of 

 history -leaned from an old volume of the "English 

 Review." 



As far back as 1834 the free colored inhabitants of 

 Porto Rico were by far more numerous than in any other 

 West Indian island; and this fact alone when we con- 

 sider the ineradicable prejudice attached to color, which 

 has brought such misery and social discomfort over a great 

 part of the world speaks volumes for its people and their 

 government. The whole British West Indies contained, 

 before 1834, not more than eighty thousand free colored 

 inhabitants, in a population of ten times that number ; of 

 these, sixteen thousand were to be found in Trinidad 

 alone, an island which had long been governed by Span- 

 ish laws. Although white blood is in Porto Rico, as every- 

 where else beyond the Atlantic, a patent of nobility, yet 

 the gibaro no more treats with contempt and contumely 

 his inferior in caste than the grandee of old Spain his infe- 

 rior in station. 



But the good treatment of the slaves was the basis upon 

 which the polity of the island formerly rested. Small as 

 was their number, we may safely say that, in every com- 

 munity in which slavery was recognized, it gave a character 

 to the an hole society ; the people in general were licentious, 

 cruel, disorderly, according to the estimate they formed of 

 the lowest class. 



It was while avarice ruled the earlier conquerors of 

 America, and seduced them into practices revolting to 



