432 



nacing position excited alternately the appre- 

 hension of the opposite parties ; and the gra- 

 dual or instantaneous abolition of slavery has 

 been proclaimed in different regions of Spanish 

 America, less from motives of justice and hu- 

 manity, than to secure the aid of an intrepid 

 race of men, habituated to privation, and fighting 

 for their own cause. I found in the narrative 

 of the voyage of Girolamo Benzoni a curious 

 passage, which proves of how old a date are 

 the apprehensions caused by the increase of the 

 black population. Those fears will cease only 

 where governments shall second by laws the 

 progressive meliorations, which refinement of 

 manners, opinion, and religious sentiment, in- 

 troduce into domestic slavery. " The Negroes," 

 says Benzoni, " multiply so much at St. Do- 

 mingo, that in 1545, when I was in Terra 

 Firma (on the coast of Caraccas), I saw many 

 Spaniards, who had no doubt that the Island 

 would shortly be the property of the blacks *." 

 It was reserved for our age, to see this pre- 



* Vi sono molti Spagnuoli, che tengono per cosa certa, 

 che quest* isola (San Dominico) in breve tempo sara posse- 

 duta da questi Mori di Guinea. (Benzoni, Hist, del Mondo 

 Nuovo, ed. 2da, 1572, p. 65.) The author, who is not very 

 scrupulous in the adoption of statistical facts, believes, that 

 in his time there were at St. Domingo seven thousand fugi- 

 tive Negroes (Moricimaroni), with whom Don Luis Colomb 

 made a treaty of peace and friendship. 



