Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/382

346 that they are all bad and unworthy of consideration. If a whole nation were to be declared criminal and corrupt because of the presence of a few criminals and unscrupulous men among its citizens, which of the nations of the world would enjoy the reputation of respectability? For amongst all nationalities, in every class of men assembled in society, there will be found good and bad men, and thieves and assassins in the midst of honest and honorable men. Let us then judge every one according to his merits and refrain from the injustice of holding a whole country responsible for the shortcomings of a few of its citizens!

Sympathy, or even mere impartiality, has seldom inspired those who have written about Haiti. On the contrary, they seem to take a special pleasure in repeating one after the other the same slanders and the same horrible fictions. In this manner they have almost succeeded in producing the impression abroad that the Haitians are cannibals and that human flesh is accounted a delicacy amongst them. Before confuting all the ridiculous and extraordinary stories told by St. John, Pritchard, and others, I will here recall the authentic fact that the island which is now called Haiti is the only one in the West Indies where cannibalism has never prevailed. Before Columbus's arrival the first inhabitants of the island lived in constant dread of the neighboring islanders, the Caribs, who were anthropophagous; and the latter never succeeded in settling at Quisqueya. When the blacks took the place of the Indians whom the Spanish rapacity had exterminated, cannibalism did not take root in Saint-Domingue; only one tribe, says Moreau de St. Méry, were anthropophagous: the