68G N E G 
as thofe of Angola; they have alfo a finer and blacker 
fkin ; they are better made ; their features are fofter, and 
their difpofitions are more gentle. The Negroes of Guinea 
are very proper for cultivating the ground, and other la¬ 
borious offices. Thofe of Senegal are not fo ftrong; but 
they are more ingenious, and better adapted for domeftic 
fervices. Father Charlevoix tells us, that the Senegal 
Negroes are the moll handfome, moil docile, and belt 
fuited for domeftic ufes; that the Bambarras are larger, 
but that the Aradas are bed acquainted with the culture 
of the earth.; that the Congos are the fmalleft in fize, and 
excellent fiihers, but that they are much addicted to de- 
fertion ; and that the Creole Negroes, from whatever na¬ 
tions they derive their origin, retain nothing of their pa¬ 
rents but the colour; they are more ingenious, rational, 
and dexterous, but more flothful and debauched, than 
the African Negroes. 
It appears, then, that the exiftence of negroes is con¬ 
fined to thofe parts of the earth where all the neceffary 
circumftances concur in producing a conftant and ex- 
ceflive heat. This heat is fo neceffary, not only to the 
production, but even to the prefervation, of negroes, that 
it has been remarked in our Weft-India iflands, where the 
heat, though great, is not comparable to that of Senegal, 
that the negro-infants are fo liable to be affeCted by im- 
preffions from the air, that the proprietors are obliged to 
keep them, for the firft nine days after birth, in ciofe 
warm chambers. If thefe precautions be negleCied, and 
the children expofed to the air immediately after birth, 
they are likely to be affeCted with a tetanus, or locked- 
jaw, which proves fatal, becaufe it deprives them of the 
power of taking nouriffiment. This precaution is, how¬ 
ever, too often negleCied, as a vaft number of infant- 
negroes Hill periff yearly in the Weft-India iflands of a 
locked-jaw. 
When we confider that the majority of negroes groan 
under the cruelleft flavery, both in their own country 
and in every other where they are to be found in confider- 
able numbers, it can excite no furprife that they are in 
general accufed of being.treacherous, cruel, and vindic¬ 
tive. Such are the caprices of their tyrants at home, that 
they could not preferve their own lives, or the lives of 
their families for any length of time, but by a perpetual 
vigilance, which mud necefiarily degenerate, firft into 
cunning, afterwards into treachery; and it is not con¬ 
ceivable that habits formed in Africa fhould be inftantly 
thrown off in the Weft Indies, where they are the pro¬ 
perty of men whom fome of them muff confider as a diffe¬ 
rent race of beings. 
But the truth is, that the ill qualities of the negroes 
have been greatly exaggerated. Mr. Edwards, in his va¬ 
luable Hiftory of the Weft Indies, allures us that the 
Mandingo negroes difplay Inch gentlenefs of difpofitian 
and demeanour, as would feem the refult of early educa¬ 
tion and difcipline, were it not that, generally fpeaking, 
they are more prone to theft than any of the African tribes. 
It has been fuppoled that this propenfity, among other 
vices, is natural to a ftate of flavery, which degrades and 
corrupts the human mind in a deplorable manner; brtt 
why the Mandingoes fhould have become more vicious in 
this refpeCt than the reft of the natives of Africa in the 
fame condition of life, is a queftion he cannot anfwer. 
Mr. Park has given his teftimony to the amiable character 
of the Mandingo Negroes ; fee the article Africa, vol. i. 
p. 181. and further under the word Mandingo, vol. iv. 
We (hall proceed to mention the charaCteriftic peculiarities 
of fome other varieties of Negroes which are met with 
in the Weft-Indies, taking Mr. Bryan Edwards as our 
guide. 
The circumftances which diftinguifli the Koromantyn 
or Gold-Coaft Negroes from all others, are firmnefs both 
of body and mind ; a fer-ocioufnels of difpofition ; but 
withal, activity, courage, and a ftubbornnefs, or what an 
ancient Roman would have deemed an elevation of foul, 
which prompts them to enterprifes of difficulty and dan- 
R O. 
ger, and enables them to meet death, in its mod: horrid 
fliape, with fortitude or indifference. They fometimes 
take to labour with great promptitude and alacrity, and 
have conftitutions well adapted for it; for many of them 
have undoubtedly been (laves in Africa. But, as the 
Gold-Coaft is inhabited by various tribes which are en¬ 
gaged in perpetual warfare and hoftility with each other, 
there cannot be a doubt that many of the captives taken 
in battle, and fold in the European fettlements, were of 
free condition in their native country, and perhaps the 
owners of (laves themfelves. It is not wonderful that 
fuch men fhould endeavour, even by means the moft def- 
perate, to regain the freedom of which they have been 
deprived. One cannot furely but lament, that a people 
thus naturally intrepid, fhould be funk into fo deplorable 
a ftate of barbarity and fuperftition ; and that their fpirits 
fhould ever be broken down by the yoke of flavery. What¬ 
ever may be alleged concerning their ferocioufnefs and 
implacability in their prefent notions of right and wrong, 
they poflefs qualities which are capable of, and well de- 
ferve, cultivation and improvement. 
Very different from the Koromantyns, are the negroes 
imported from the Bight of Benin, and known in the 
Weft-Indies by the name of Eboes. So great is their 
conftitutional timidity and defpondency of mind, as to 
occaflon them very frequently to feek, in a voluntary 
death, a refuge from their own melancholy reflections. 
They require therefore the gentled and mildeft treatment 
to reconcile them to their fituation ; but, if their confi¬ 
dence be once obtained, they manifeft as great fidelity, 
affection, and gratitude, as can reafonably be expeCted 
from men in a ftate of flavery. The females of this na¬ 
tion are better labourers than the men, probably from 
having been more hardly treated in Africa. 
The natives of Whidah, who, in the Weft-Indies, are 
generally called Papaws, are unqueftionably the moft do¬ 
cile and beft-difpofed flaves that are imported from any 
part of Africa. Without the-fierce and favage manners 
of the Koromantyn negroes, they are alfo happily exempt 
from the timid and defponding temper of the Eboes. The 
cheerful acquiefcence with which thefe people apply to 
the labours of the field, and their conftitutional aptitude 
for fuch employment, arife, without doubt, from the great 
attention paid to agriculture in their native country. 
Bofman lpeaks with rapture of the improved ftate of the 
foil, the number of villages, and the induftry, riches, and 
obliging manners, of the natives. He obferves, however, 
that they are much greater thieves than thofe of the Gold- 
Coaft; and very unlike them in another refpeCt, namely, 
in the dread of pain, and the apprenenfion of death. 
They are, fays he, fo very apprehenfive of death, that they 
are unwilling to hear it mentioned, for fear that alone 
fhould haften their end; and no man dares to fpeak of 
death in the prefence of the king, or any great man, un¬ 
der the penalty of flittering it himfelf, as a punifliment for 
his prefumption. He relates, further, that they are ad¬ 
dicted to gaming beyond any people of Africa. All thefe 
propenfities are obfervable in the character of the Papaws 
in a ltate of flavery in the Weft-Indies. That punifliment 
which excites the Koromantyn to rebel, and drives the 
Ebo to fuicide, is received by the Papaws as the chaftife- 
ment of legal authority, to which it is their duty to fub- 
mit patiently. The cafe feems to be, that the generality 
of thefe people are in a ftate of abfolute flavery in Africa, 
and, having been habituated to a life of labour, they fub- 
mit to a change of fituation with little reluCtance. 
Having recited fuch obfervations as occurred to him on 
contemplating the various tribes of negroes from each 
other, Mr. Edwards thus eftimates their general character, 
influenced as they are by circumftances Which foon efface 
the native and original impreffons which diftinguifli one 
nation from another when newly imported into the Weft 
Indies. “ Notwithftanding what has been related of the 
firmnefs and courage of the natives of the Gold-Coaft, it 
is certain that the negroes in general in our iflands (fuch_ 
