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William Priest - Travels in the United States of America
Negro slavery, under any modification or form, is prohibited in this state (Massachusetts,) also in New
Hampshire, the province of Maine, and, I believe, in all the New England states.
As to your other queries respecting the negroes, I send you my sentiments, infinitely better expressed by
Jefferson, notwithstanding all that Imlay, Wilberforce, and other authors, have written against his
assertion, viz., that "Negroes are inferiour to the whites, both in the endowments of body
and mind." I am clearly and decidedly of his opinion. A strict attention to this subject, during
three years residence in these states, has convinced me of the truth of every tittle of the following extract
from his Virginia, which I enclose for your perusal, and am, most sincerely,
Yours, &c.
"The first difference that strikes us is colour. Whether the black of the negro reside in the reticular
membrane, between the skin and scarf skin, or in the scarf skin itself; whether it proceed from the colour
of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature,
and is as real as if it's seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is
it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races? Are not the fine mixtures of red
and white, the expression of every passion by a greater or less suffusion of colour in the one, preferable
to that eternal monotony, that immovable veil of black, which covers all the emotions of the other race?
Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites,
declared by their preference to them, as uniformly as is the preference of the oroonowtang for the black
women over those of his own species? The circumstance of superiour beauty is thought worthy attention
in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?
"Beside those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions, proving a difference of
race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands
of the skin; which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration
renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps a difference of structure
in the pulmonary aparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist, (Crawford) has discovered to be the
principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so
much of that fluid from the outer air; or obliged them, in expiration, to part with more of it.
"They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the
slightest amusement, to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the dawn of the
morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventurous; but this may proceed from want of
forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present; when present, they do not go through
it with more coolness and steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after the female; but love
seems with them more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their
griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions which render it doubtful, whether Heaven has given life
to us more in mercy, or in wrath, are less felt and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence
appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to
sleep, when abstracted from their diversions, or unemployed in labour. An animal, whose body is at rest,
and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of
memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory, they are equal to the whites; in reason
much inferiour. As I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing, and comprehending the
investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be
unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with
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