396 



humboldt's cuba. 



lulled in the land that gave it birth, and a free black 

 population^jnstead of disturbing the repose of the 

 neighboring islands, has made some progress towards 

 a suavity of manners, and the establishment of good 

 civil institutions. 1 



Haiti is surrounded by Cuba, Porto Rico, and 

 Jamaica, with a population of 370,000 white and 

 885,000 blacks, while she contains 900,000 blacks 

 and mulattoes, who have freed themselves by their 

 own will, and the good fortune of their arms. These 

 negroes, engaged much more in the cultivation of 

 alimenticious plants than of colonial staples, increase 

 with a rapidity that is exceeded only by the popu- 

 lation of the United States. "Will the tranquillity 

 which the Spanish and English islands have enjoyed, 

 during the twenty-six years that have passed since 



1 How sad to contemplate, in the present debased condition of the 

 Haitian blacks, the failure of these noble and humane hopes. Yet 

 the erroneous social theories upon which they are based, have been 

 extended by the governments of Europe over many of the islands 

 of the Antilles, and Cuba, and Porto Rico alone remain, unab- 

 sorbed in the black abyss of barbarism, whose waves have rolled 

 over the other West Indian isles, extinguishing the lights of 

 their civilisation, and the hopes of their humanity. We may here 

 read the instructive lesson, that the principles upon which a social 

 organism is based, cannot be violently changed without destroying 

 its vital principle, and bringing desolation and death to the tempo- 

 ral and spiritual interests of its members. 



