His parents must have
been well-to-do, for the boy had been to Europe to be educated. The
officers on board and some of the ladies played with him as they
would play with a monkey. He had little more sense than a monkey,
perhaps less, and the gestures of him grinning behind gratings and
perching out his long thin arms between the bars were curiously
suggestive of the original from whom we are told now that all of us
came. The worst of it was that, being lifted above his own people,
he had been taught to despise them. He was spoilt as a black and
could not be made into a white, and this I found afterwards was the
invariable and dangerous consequence whenever a superior negro
contrived to raise himself. He might do well enough himself, but his
family feel their blood as degradation. His [35] children will not
marry among their own people, and not only will no white girl marry a
negro, but hardly any dowry can be large enough to tempt a West
Indian white to make a wife of a black lady. This is one of the most
sinister features in the present state of social life there."
We may safely assume that the playing of "the officers on board and
some of the ladies" with the boy, "as they would play with a monkey,"
is evidently a suggestion of Mr.
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