West Indies -- Description and travel; West Indies -- Pictorial works
Morally the Haytians are impossible people. Snake worship and
cannibalism, and all the old superstitions of barbaric Africa, still
prevail in the gilded republic. Their religion is frequently but a thin
veneer of polish, worn to cover the arts of fetish worship and human
sacrifice. The lives of the citizens are not respected so much by the
prevailing government as are the political rights of the electorate. The
whole republic is one festering mass of corruption. The officials are as
a rule entirely corrupt, the European church has practically no real
existence, sober “home life” is almost unknown. The men of the place are
as a rule entirely vicious, unlicensed and unprincipled; the women are
unmoral and entirely without culture.
It is a curious place to look upon, this Hayti; but it is a most unsafe
place to travel in. The people of the capital, Port-au-Prince, live in
the midst of a city of fine buildings and garbage-littered streets; the
women parade the white squares in European costumes of Parisian silks
and high-heeled, patent-leather shoes. The men swagger in gaudy,
tinselled uniforms of extravagant design and indifferent workmanship,
trailing tailor-made swords, and jingling heavy South American spurs.
Their manners are entirely without polish, though they swagger with the
air of a crack German cavalry colonel mixed with the braggadocio of a
half-bred Spanish Mexican. The children of the reigning officials and
the sons of the richest merchants are sent to Paris to be educated.
These young people return to Hayti with a deep knowledge of all the
vices of the gay capital, and many trunks filled with gaudy finery
which, probably, have been obtained on credit. The condition of the
people of the black republic is similar to that of any Gold Coast tribe
of negroes with a rich country and a knowledge of the vices of
Europe,--similar, except that whereas the Haytians are all powerful and
independent, the Gold Coast tribe is watched by a strong white
government and kept within the bounds of decency.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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