Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/51

 I know but little about the African Slave trade, though from my reading a number of very good and authoritative books on the subject, I am about as familiar with it as if I had been thus engaged myself. Early in the 60's my father was the American Consul General to the city of Havana, Cuba, and while there I not only saw and visited the African and coolie slavers in the harbor, but for two years had the opportunity of studying the treatment of the slaves on the island by their masters. The barracoons were a familiar sight to my eyes, and I have seen many a slave whipped both by the owner or by the government overseer. At Cape Haytien in Hayti, a year or so later I had the opportunity of studying what negro life was in a negro city—a city of Spanish and French building, but at that time, in its highly dilapidated condition, in the hands of the blacks who had previously gained it through an insurrection against their masters. During the Civil War I was in the South and have lived in a number of the Southern States of the United States since. I was a young warrant officer part of the time then, and in the service of the Federal Government. In fact, for forty years I have studied the African negro in America, in every situation ever occupied by a (45)