Effects Of Emancipation In Hayti

The followiag facts are chiefly frora Jay'a Inquiry. Hayti has been an independent republic since 1801 - a period of 40 years - a period of 6ufficient length to show all the consequences of emancrpation. The slaves were all dec!ared freo by tho French Commissioners in 1793. The same year tho British tended in the Island and kept possession ef part of it till 1793, when they finally left it. Notwithstanding the continual destructive war waged with the English from 1793 to '98, the negroos kept quielly at work on the plantations. That they were notidle, may be wferred from the fact, that in 1801 - seven years ufter emancipation - the exporta from St. Domingo were, of sugar, 18,535,182 Ibs: coffee, 43,420,270 Ibs: cotton, 2,480,S40 lbs. In 1802, a French army Innded in St. Domingo, fcr the purpose of reducing its inhabitants to slavery, and a most destructive and desolatmg war ensued. The French were compelled to leave the Island in December, 1803. So fierce was the war, that a historian deciares that during a part of the time, neither age, sex nor condition were spared; that desolation could hardly be conceived more complete than prevailod in 1804 and 1805, over all thosc parts of the colony, which had been formerly covered with plantations; and so complete was the extinction of sugar cultivation in particular, that for a time not an ounce of that articlc was procurable. The population of the Island in 1824 was 935,000, and now doubtless exceeda a million. The Now York Commercial Advertiser, in 1834, represented the inhabitants as idle and worthless - the fields run to waste, and the plantations barren from indolence, and the same etory has been repeated yearly ev er since by eome of the papers of that city. The Rev. Simon Clough, D. D., L. L. D. publisheda pamphlet in 1834, sttting forth, that at that time "there was not ONE sugar, coffee or cotton plantation on the Islar.d, although they exported about 5,000,000 lbs of inferior coffee, which grew wild, and was picked up by the inhabitants off the ground, wherc it feil after it became ripe." Strange t is that people sliould put forth such statements, when all the facts within their reach must convicl them of error, if not falsehood. In 1833, the year before this pamphlet was published, the coffee exported from Hayti to the United States alone, amounted to 11,784,835 lbgt. In the same year, the importsinto this country from this Island in which we were told there was not one cotton, sugar, or coffee plantation, exceeded in value our imports in the same periodj from either Prussia, Sweden and NorA-ay - Denmark and tlie Danish West Indies - Ireland and Scotland - Holland - Belgium - Dutch EaBt Indies - British West Indies - Spain - Portugal - all Italy - Turkey and the Levant - or any oue "Republic of South America. The amount of articles, exported from Hayti, in 1332, is thus estirnatcd in McCullock'a Dictionary of Commerce. Coffee, 50,000,000 lbs. Cotton, 1,500,000 Tobacco, 500,000 4( Cocoa, 500,000 " Dyewood, 5,000,090 " Tortoise shell, 12,000 " Mahogar.y, 6,000.000 feet. Hides, 80,000 Sügar, (in 1826) 32,864 lbs. The Haytiens imported from Great Britain alone, in 1831, 6,828,576 yards of cotten manufactures, being about 6 yards to each nhabitant, or 30 yds. to each family. This does not look much like going nakcd for want of clothes. Neither does it appear that they go hungry for want of food. Admiral Charles Fleming testified before the British House of Commons, in 1832, that "their victuals were very superior to those in Jamaica, consisting chiefly of meat; caule being very cheap. The highest contract beef in Hayti was 2d. - in Jamaica it was l2d. He saw no marks of destitution any where. The country 8eemed improving, and trado increasing. - A regular port was established. The negroes of Hayti are certainly richer, and happier, and in a better condition than any he bad ever seen eisewhere. They were all working in the fields when he was there. He rode very much. Tne Haytiens appeared to him the happiest, best fed, and mostcomfortable negroes he had ever seen; better off oven than in the Caraccas: infinitely better off iban in Jamaica; there was no coraparison bstween them. He saw a sugar estáte near Cape Haytien which was large, calculated to make 300 hogsheads of sugar. It was wrought by blacks, all free. It was extremeJy weil cultivated in beautiful order, and as vvell managed as any estáte he had eeen in the West [ndies." Mr. Robert Southerland testified ot the same time. He eays, "1 have 8een the peasantry in the highlande of Scotland, where I was brought up, and I declare that tho r.e- jroes in St. Domingo ore comparatively as nuch superior to them in comfort, as it is- - - - ■ I I.U possible for one man to be over another. A traveller, whose journal was pubüshed in London in 18S1, speaking of Port au Prince, saya: "Beir.g aware that the city had very recently euffered greatly by fire, { expected to see an unsightly waste of ruin and decay, but tha lots are rebuilt, and many a 6plendid and 6ubstantial cdifice, eurpassing any to be seen in the city of Kingston in Jamaica, lias arisen as the fust fruits of thesecurity which property enjoys, by the recoge mzed independence of Hayti." Speaking of a range of hills near the city he says: "At present they are covered wita a thousand small eettlements appropriated to coffee, and provisions, and fruits, and veg. etables, in which the advantages of irrigatioa presented by the frequent springs, bursting from the mountain ravines, have been diligently attended to in the agricultural econorny. The water is trenched over the 6urfaco of each projecting irregularity of the ridge; and height above height, the cottage of tha humble cultivator is seen; or the subctantial country seat of the Haytien merchant, with its bathe, bowers and terraced gardens havo been erected." Do travellers give a more flattering account than this of the Carolinas or of Virgin. ia? Do they not rather dweil upon their barren 6oi!, and exhausted resources, their igaorant negroes, and the filthy and; ill coastructed huts which they inhábil? It appears by the treasury reporte that ia 1637, the value of our imporls from Hayti was $1,440,856, while during the same time, the value of our exports to Hayti. amounted to $1,011,931. Out of 62 countrie8 men. lioned in the report of ihe Secretary of the Treasury, therewerebut 17 from which we imported more than frorn Hayti. These facts demónstrate conclusively, that the negroes, when lelt to theraselves, cangovern, feed clolhe, and take care of themselves-in all respecta: they have a just ides of the] value of the fbieseings which ]iberty brings, and that they can sustain theraselves as on independent people amoog thenations of the earth.