physiology , precisely as in like manner, similar causes produced the
same effects at the Canary Isles.355
From Cuba356 to the Island of St. Yincent the transition is natural.
Here we should still behold the aboriginal Caribs, hut for their expulsion
“ en masse,” in 1796, at a cost of one million sterling, by
English settlers, to the island of Roatan.367 Already, from 1675, the
shipwreck of a Guinea slaver near St. Vincent had infused so much
exotic negro blood into the native stock as to have divided the latter
into black and yellow Caribs. Transplanted again, by Spaniards, to
the main-land of Honduras, these mulatto-Caribs found themselves
in the midst of another population of half-breeds; viz.: the Sambos
of the Musquito shore, formed there, since the 17th century, between
survivors from the wreck of another African slaver and the native
Indian tribes, amid whom, also, European buccaneers had not failed
to bequeath many varieties of white blood. This infiltration of the
essentially-domesticable ^qualities of negro races into the less tame
able Indian (although the Central American approach the Toltecan
rather than the Barbarous358 tribes in social tendencies), has not been
without its good effects in producing a laborious population of mahogany
cutters : whereas, in the everglades of Florida, crosses between
run-away negresses and the truly-barbarous Indian exhibit but incarnate
devils for ferocity and hostility to civilization. Recent events
on the.Panama isthmus359 confirm the deleterious consequences of
such intermixtures, prognosticated five years ago by Berthold See-
man.3® *
“Morton informs us, besides,” wrote Dr. Gosse, alluding to a characteristic
African propensity for aping dominant races,361 “ that the
shipwrecked negroes at St.Yincent {Crania Americana, p. 240) had
at first deformed their heads, in imitation of the Caribs, their masters;
but, so soon as emancipated, they continued it in sign of liberty. This
was already the opinion of Leblond (Voyage aux Antilles, 1767-1802,
855 B e r t h o l e t , “ Gfuanches,” Mémoires de là Société Ethnologique, Paris, 8 yo, 1841 • Part
I, pp. 130-46, 1843; II, pp. 83-111. These intermixtures are unnoticed by P r i c h a r d ,
Nat. Hist, of Man, 1855; I, pp. 272-4; or in II, pp. 590, 638-640.
356 One cannot, of course, within 200 pages, discuss ail the collateral questions bearing
upon the transplantation of races from lands where they were indigenous to countries where
they are not ; but, for an exposition of the present ruined state of the emancipated Antilles,
consult, above all, jg Our West-Indian Colonies Jamaica, by H. B. E y a n s , M. R. 0. S. late
Surgeon superintendent of immigrants, Lucea, Jamaica; London, 8yo, 1865.
357 S q u i e r , Notes on Central America, New York, 8vo, 1855 ; pp. 208, 212-17.
388 M o r t o n , Physical Type of the American Indians ¡—Types of Mankind, pp. 276-80.
859 Wermuth, “ A propos du massacre de Panama;” The American, Paris, I I No 76- 7
June, 1856.
389 Voyage of H. M. S. Herald, 1845-51, London, 8vo, 1863; I, p. 802.
861 Déformations artificielles du Crâne, p. 126.
p. 154).: ‘They felt,’ says he, ‘that this ineffaceable mark would forever
distinguish them from the African race, who were being sold as
slaves in islands inhabited by the whites.’ ”
Heureux le peuple dont I’histoire est ennuyeuse, might not, perhaps,
he applied by Montesquieu to the wretched peoples referred to ; but
fear lest its point should he directed to the above exeerpta compels
me to finish with a clew to the philosophy of these complicated amalgamations.
It is from the pen of one who, as regards American
archaeology in general, and Central American ethnology in particular,
has no rival amidst his many admiring friends at the present hour.362
“Anthropological science has determined the existence of two
laws, of vital importance in their application to men and nations.
“ First. That in all cases where a free amalgamation takes place
between two different stocks, unrestrained by what is sometimes
called prejudice, but which is, in fact, a natural instinct, the result is
the final absolute absorption of one into the other. This absorption
is more rapid as the races or families thus brought in contact approximate
in type, and in proportion as one or the other preponderate in
numbers; that is to say, Nature perpetuates no human hybrids, as,
for instance, a permanent race of mulattoes.
“ Second. That all violations of the natural distinctions of race, or
of those instincts which were designed to perpetuate the superior
races in their purity, invariably entail the most deplorable^results,
affecting the bodies, intellects, and moral perceptions of the nations
who are thus blind to the wise designs of Nature, and unmindful of
her laws. In other words, the offspring of such combinations or
amalgamations are not only generally deficient in physical Constitution,
in intellect, and in moral restraint, but to a degree which often
contrasts unfavorably with any of the original stocks.
“ In no respect are these deficiencies more obvious than in matters
affecting government. We need only point to the anarchical states
of Spanish America to verify the truth of the propositions laid down.
In Central and South America, and Mexico, we find a people not
only demoralized from the unrestrained association of different races,
hut also the superior stocks becoming gradually absorbed into the
lower, and their institutions disappearing under the relative barbarism
of which the latter are the exponents.”
862 S q u i e r , op. cit., pp. 54-8. See, for the same argument, that the present fall of the
Spanish race in America is to be chiefly ascribed to their proclivity (as a dark type) to amalgamate
with any race still darker — I)5H a l l o y (Races Humaines, pp. 44-5). “We meet
indeed,” well says D a v i s , “ with confusion of blood on a great scale, but look in vain for a
new race. Nature asserts her dominion on all hands in a deterioration and degradation, the
fatal and depopulating consequences of which it is appalling to contemplate.” (Crania Bri-
tannica, p. 7, note.)