MULATTOS. 



209 



always a feeling of inferiority in the company of 

 white men, if these white men are wealthy and 

 powerful. This inferiority of rank is not so 

 much felt by white persons in the low T er walks of 

 life, and these are more easily led to become 

 familiar with individuals of their own colour 

 who are in wealthy circumstances. Still the 

 inferiority which the mulatto feels is more that 

 which is produced by poverty than that which 

 his colour has caused, for he will be equally re- 

 spectful to a person of his own cast who may 

 happen to be rich. * The degraded state of the 

 people of colour in the "British colonies is most 

 lamentable, t In Brazil, even the trifling regu- 

 lations which exist against them remain unat- 

 tended to. A mulatto enters into holy orders 

 or is appointed a magistrate, his papers stating 

 him to be a white man, but his appearance 

 plainly denoting the contrary. In conversing 

 on one occasion with a man of colour who was 

 in my service, I asked him if a certain Capitam- 



* The term of Senhor or Senkora is made use of to all free 

 persons, whites, mulattos, and blacks, and in speaking to a 

 freeman of whatever class or colour the manner of address is 

 the same. Dr. Pinckard says, in his " Notes on the West- 

 Indies," " the title of Mrs. seems to be reserved solely for 

 the ladies from Europe, and the white Creoles, and to form 

 a distinction between them and the women of colour of all 

 classes and descriptions." 



f I refer the reader to Edwards' History of the West- 

 Indies, vol. ii. 



vol, 11. r 



