PLANTER AND MERCHANT 45 



of purgatory, to the United States, where he settled 

 in Pennsylvania. Baron de WimpfTen's lack of success 

 no doubt colored his impressions of the country to some 

 extent, but after making due allowance on this score, 

 we find in his letters, beyond a doubt, an essentially 

 true picture of Santo Domingan society and plantation 

 life at the very time and place with which our story is 

 most intimately concerned. A sketch of the picture 

 which the Baron has drawn, though in brief outline, 

 will enable us better to understand the real condition of 



f 



affairs. 



The prevailing taste in Santo Domingo, according 

 to this observer, was creolian tinctured with boucan, or 

 with the characteristics of the buccaneers. White so- 

 ciety on the island was divided into governmental or 

 town officials, merchants, and planters, the several 

 classes having their own interests, which were often con- 

 flicting. The planters were concerned only with ne- 

 groes, their sugar, their cotton or their coffee, and could 

 talk of nothing else; values were reckoned in negroes, 

 or in sugar, for which slaves were commonly exchanged. 

 The laxity of morals, the absence of schools, and the 

 total lack of books were patent on every hand. After 

 sunset dancing was the chief form of amusement in the 

 towns, and handsome mulattoes were the acknowledged 

 Bacchantes of the island. It was from this class that 

 housekeepers were usually chosen by the greater part of 

 the unmarried whites. They had "some skill," said 

 Baron de Wimp ff en, "in the management of a family, 

 sufficient honesty to attach themselves invariably to one 

 man, and great goodness of heart. More than one 

 European, abandoned by his selfish brethren, has found 

 in them all the solicitude of the most tender, the most 

 constant, the most generous humanity, without being in- 



