.116 QUADROONS. [CHAP. XXV1J. 



Creoles have less depth of character, and are less 

 striving and ambitious than the New Englanders, it 

 must be no slight source of happiness to the former 

 to be so content with present advantages. They 

 seem to feel, far more than the Anglo-Saxons, that 

 if riches be worth the winning, they are also worth 

 enjoying. 



The quadroons, or the offspring of the whites and 

 mulattos, sat in an upper tier of boxes appropriated 

 to them. When they are rich, they hold a peculiar 

 and very equivocal position in society. As children, 

 they have often been sent to Paris for their edu 

 cation, and, being as capable of improvement as any 

 whites, return with refined manners, and not unfre- 

 quently with more cultivated minds than the ma 

 jority of those from whose society they are shut out. 

 By the tyranny of caste they are driven, therefore, 

 to form among themselves a select and exclusive set. 

 Among other stories illustrating their social relation 

 to the whites, we were told that a young man of the 

 dominant race fell in love with a beautiful quadroon 

 girl, who was so light-coloured as to be scarcely dis 

 tinguishable from one of pure breed. He found 

 that, in order to render the marriage legal, he was 

 required to swear that he himself had negro blood 

 in his veins, and, that he might conscientiously take 

 the oath, he let some of the blood of his betrothed 

 into his veins with a lancet. The romance of this 

 tale was however greatly diminished, although I fear 

 that my inclination to believe in its truth was 

 equally enhanced, when the additional circumstance 

 was related, that the young lady was rich. 



