Introduction. 
T HERE is only one country in the Western World where the Black 
and the man of color are undisputed lords ; where the White is in¬ 
debted for the liberty to live to the race which with us is enslaved; where 
neither laws, nor prejudices, nor historical memories, press cruelly on 
persons of African descent; where the people whom America degrades 
and drives from her are rulers, judges, and generals; men of extended 
commercial relations, authors, artists, and legislators; where the'insolent 
question, so often asked with us, “What would become of the Negro 
if Slavery were abolished 1 ” is answered by the fact of an independent 
Nationality of immovable stability, and a Government inspired with the 
spirit of progress. The name of this country is Hayti. To Americans 
it presents an important and interesting study in whatever light regarded, 
—whether viewed, as the publicists of Europe regard the Union, as a new 
political experiment; or historically, as the home of a coming raco, to bo 
composed, like the English, by the mingling of various bloods ; or philo¬ 
sophically, for the purpose of learning lessons for our own national 
guidance and instruction from the sanguinary chronicles of its wars of 
Independence. But it is to the friend of the Black, and, above all, to 
the enslaved and persecuted races in America, that Hayti presents the 
most important problem; to both it has a higher than a merely specula¬ 
tive interest; for to the philanthropist it suggests the thought of a duty 
to be performed, and to the proscribed it offers a home and a distinctive 
Nationality. 
First interested in Hayti by the rare eloquence of Wendell Phillips, 
I sailed for Cape Haytian in January, 1859, for the purpose 
of describing the country and its people. During my voyage to the 
Island, a Revolution was successfully accomplished; an Emperor was 
banished, and ft President installed. A new historical era had opened. 
