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There are always honourable exceptions in any general racial condemnation, and, heaven knows, the white people of the north have not made such a success of their own civilization that they can afford any extravagance of phrase. But it is not too much to say that in general character the descendants of the Negro slaves in the British Empire are a thriftless and dissolute lot. It is an unexpected development from the simple, woolly-headed, golden-hearted Bible-reading old darky that was held up as an example to European subscribers – the good old Uncle Tom who was to grow in the air of freedom into an educated, prudent and pious family man and citizen. The sugar plantations have been ruined or mechanized, and the Negroes, instead of following the example of the indentured coolies and becoming small proprietors, working long hours in the country, drift to the intermittent employment of the towns. They have proved quite unfit for retail trade: they are clumsy mechanics, a superstitious and excitable riff-raff hanging round the rum shops and staring listlessly at the Chinese, Madeiran and East Indian immigrants, who outstrip them in every branch of life. In Liberia, where they have been put in political power, they have erected a rigid racial bar between the immigrant and the aboriginal Negroes, and have introduced a system of forced labour more onerous than the slavery from which they were themselves freed. (en) |
