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William Priest - Travels in the United States of America
the whites. And where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed, it will be right
to make allowances for the difference of condition, of conversation, and of the sphere in which they
move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have
been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society; yet many have been so situate, that
they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to
the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites; some have
been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a
considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best work from abroad. The Indians
with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes, not destitute of merit and design.
They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germe in their
minds, which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory, such as
prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated; but never yet could I
find a black, that had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration[Footnote: "Sleep hab no massa,"
was the answer of a sleepy negro, who was told that his massa called him. - See Edward's History of
Jamaica, 2d Vol.]; never see even an elementary trait of painting, or sculpture. In music they are more
generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune, and time; and they have been found capable
of imagining a small catch[Footnote: "The instrument proper to them is the banjore, which they
brought here from Africa, and which is the origin of the guitar, it's chords being precisely the four lower
chords of that instrument." J - - N.]. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive
run of melody, or of complicated harmony[Footnote: From this circumstance, I conceive our author's
catch was improperly so called.], is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting
touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar
oestrum of the poet: their love is ardent; but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion, or
rather fanaticism, has produced a Phyllis Wheatly; but it could not produce a poet. Ignatius
Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters do more credit to the heart than the
head; supposing them to have been genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points
which would not be easy of investigation. The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first
instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves their inferiority is
not the effect merely of their condition in life.
"The white slaves, among the Romans, were often their rarest artists; they excelled too in science,
insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their masters' children. Epictetus, Terence, and
Phoedrus, were slaves. Whether further observation will, or will not, verify the conjecture, that Nature
has been less bountiful to them, in the endowments of the head, I believe in those of the heart she will be
found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft, with which they have been branded, must be
ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man, in whose favour no laws
of property exist, probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favour of others. When
arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of
right; that without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience.
And it is a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation
of property, were not formed for him, as well as his slave, and whether the slave may not as
justifiably take a little from one who has taken all from him, as he would slay one that would slay
him?
"That a change in the relation in which a man is placed should change his ideas of moral right and wrong,
is neither new, nor confined to the blacks; Homer tells us, it was so 2600 years ago: - 'Jove fixed it
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