Columbus called the Island of St. Domingo “The Paradise of God.” The beauty of its valleys, the wildness of its mountains, the tropical luxuriance of its plains, confirm his opinion. But the Spaniards who followed him cared not for beauty or fruitfulness; they were hungrier then than now for gold, and plunged into the bosom of the beautiful island for that: a million of the simple natives was sacrificed without mercy or care, to discover and dig the yellow metal. Las Casas only was moved to pity, and he said, “Might not the grosser and hardier African be made to take these burdens, and spare this destruction of the mild Indians?” To steal, to seduce, and to buy negroes from the African coasts, and to sell them to this island, soon became a great and profitable traffic, yielding large returns to the Lisbon merchants. Kings and emperors participated in it, and bishops did not always condemn. Three hundred slave ships, every year, spread robbery, conflagration, and carnage along the African coasts.[1] Eighty thousand creatures, torn from their homes, crowded their holds, and were carried to market. “The laws and usages of Africa forbade this,” but those of Europe did not.[2] As early as the year 1503, the importation of men from Guinea began, blessed by the Pope, encouraged by the State. At that time, too, it was no disgrace, and not rare to sell white slaves;[3] but they were poor creatures apt, too soon, to break down. The true sources of wealth in the island were found to be in the fruitful earth, not in the unexplored mines, and after the settlement of the western part by the Buccaneers, and the supremacy over it of France, emigration became the rage. It was found to be profitable—plantations were opened; the cry of “Sugar!” was heard; thirty per cent. profit seduced capital; the importation of black slaves was stimulated.[4] In the year 1790, their numbers had come to be 480,000, while that of the whites was some 35,000, and of the free people of color, about 25,000. All these 480,000 were worked to purpose. They were not there to seek their own good, but to raise sugar and coffee for others—and they were made to do it. So the island exported, in 1788, some 5,000,000 pounds sterling[5] worth of these things, and the mercantile world was exultant. None asked if the _men_ of St. Domingo were steadily advancing in intellect, and conscience, and strength, and manhood. Who demanded schools? Who built hospitals? Who thanked God for a new idea in St. Domingo? Literature and the Arts were unknown and unheeded; not these, but “Sugar! sugar! more sugar!” was always heard. The returns per negro were greater in St. Domingo than in Jamaica, owing to one or both of these causes: 1st, that the land was more fruitful; or, 2d, that the men were harder worked.