A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy LanguageSimson, Walter
History
A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language
Simson, Walter
Romanies; Romanies -- Languages
The forcible introduction of barbarous men into the colonies of
civilized nations, in spite of the cruelties which many of them have
undergone, has greatly improved their condition--their moral and
intellectual nature--at the expense of the melancholy fact of it being
advanced as a reason of justification for that sad anomaly in the
history of our times. The African, it is admitted, was forcibly brought
under the influence of the refinement, religion, and morals of the
whites, whether as a domestic under the same roof, a field labourer, in
the immediate vicinity of the master, or in some other way under his
direct control and example. Not only was he, as it were, forced to
become what he is, but his obedient, light-hearted, and imitative
nature, even under many bodily sufferings, instinctively led him to
enter immediately into the spirit of a new life, presenting to his
barbarous imagination, so destitute of everything above the grossest of
animal wants and propensities, those wonderfully incessant and
complicated employments of a being, appearing to him as almost a god,
when compared with his own savage and unsophisticated nature. The
importations comprised Negroes of many dialects, which were distributed
on arrival in every direction. A large proportion would live singly with
the poorer classes of the colonists, as domestics; two or three would be
the limited number with many others, and the remainder would be disposed
of, in larger or smaller numbers, for the various services necessary in
civilized life. Single domestics would be under the necessity of
learning the language of the master; and, having none speaking their own
dialect to commune with, or only occasionally meeting such,
momentarily, they would soon forget it. When several of different
dialects lived together, they would naturally follow the same course, to
communicate with each other. All these circumstances, with the frequent
changes of masters and companions, and the general influence which the
whites exercised so supremely over them, have had the effect of almost
erasing every trace of the language, customs, and superstitions of
Africa, in parts of the United States of America, in little more than
one generation. The same may especially be said of what pertains to the
religious; for a race of men, in a state of nature, or but slightly
civilized, depending for such instruction on the adjunct of a superior
grade, in the person of a priest, would, on being deprived of such, soon
lose recollection of what had been taught them. Such an instance as to
language, and, I understand, to a great extent as to religion, is to be
found in St. Domingo; French and Spanish being spoken in the parts of
that island which belonged to these countries respectively. Still, such
traces are to be found in Cuba; but, were importations of Africans into
that island to cease, the same result would, in course of time, follow.
From such causes as those stated, the Negroes in the United States have,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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