INTRODUCTION.

In treating of the Black and the Mulatto as they appeared to me during my residence among them, I fear that I will be considered by some to judge harshly. Such, however, is not my intention. Brought up under Sir James Brooke Sir James Brooke (1803–1868), the first White Rajah of Sarawak., whose enlarged sympathies could endure no prejudice of race or color, I do not remember ever to have felt any repugnance to my fellow-creatures on account of a difference of complexion.

I have dwelt for over thirty-five years among colored people of various races, and am sensible of no prejudice against them. For twelve years I lived in familiar and kindly intercourse with Haytians of all ranks and shades of color, and the most frequent and not least-honored guests at my table were of the black and colored races.

All who knew me in Hayti know that I had no prejudice of color; and if I place the Haytian in general in an unenviable light, it is from a strong conviction that it is necessary to describe the people as they are, and not as one would wish them to be. The band of black and colored friends who gathered round me during my long residence in Port-au-Prince were not free from many of the faults which I have been obliged to censure in describing these different sections of the population, but they had them in a lesser degree, or, as I was really attached to them, I perhaps saw them in a dimmer light.