Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/236

Rh this earthly paradise. When he has obtained it, it is his pleasure to rest and enjoy himself as much as possible, and to labour as little. And why should he labour? That ambition, that lust of knowing and subduing the world, spiritually or physically, with which the Creator has endowed the Caucasian race, does not belong to him. He, on the contrary, is endowed with the power of carefree enjoyment, a gay temperament, and the ability for measured songs and dances. The climate under which he is born is propitious to the latter gifts, and opposed to the former.

Even in trade the negro evinces his bias towards the individuality of his own little world, and his disinclination or inability for association. Instead of one great trading house in sugar and coffee, the negroes open twenty small shops, where each one for himself sells sugar and coffee, without any connection with the rest.

In consequence of this tendency they do not like to work for the larger planters, and require from such extravagant wages. If they cannot obtain as much as they desire, they prefer not working at all. They can do without it; their wants are few, and the beautiful earth feeds them with small labour.

Hence it happens that all the great plantations in Jamaica have declined, and their owners are ruined. The greater number of the large plantations may now be purchased at very low prices. I have heard, nevertheless, of two great planters in Jamaica, the one an Englishman, the other a Spaniard, who have had no cause to complain, and who have always been able to obtain as much negro-labour as they required; but I presume they did not require much, and that they were on good terms with the negroes.

And why should not labour be made cheerful to a cheerful people? The negroes themselves seem, by their songs in the sugar-mill at night, to show the way and the