There was ordinarily in this beginning of the
seventeenth century no Vashti that needed expulsion from the abode of
a plantation Ahasuerus to make room for the African Esther to be
admitted to the chief place within the portals. One great natural
consequence of this was the extension to the relatives or guardians
of the bondswoman so preferred of an amount of favour which, in the
case of the more capable males, completes the parallel we have been
drawing by securing for each of them the precedence and
responsibilities of a Mordecai. The offspring of these natural
alliances came in therefore to cement more intimately the union of
interests which previous relations had generated. Beloved by their
fathers, and in many cases destined by them to a lot superior [245]
to that whereto they were entitled by formal law and social
prescription, these young procreations--Mulattos, as they were
called--were made the objects of special and careful provisions on
the fathers' part. They were, according to the means of their
fathers in the majority of cases, sent for education and training to
European or other superior institutions.
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