The Coromantine negroes were especial objects of suspicion, on account
of their quarrelsome and incendiary temper. Such powerful and capable
men ought to have valued more highly the privileges of their position;
but they could never quite conquer their prejudices, and were
continually interpreting the excellent constitutional motto, _Vera pro
gratis_, into, _Liberty instead of sugar!_ An English physician of the
last century, James Grainger by name, wrote a poem in four books upon
the "Sugar-Cane," published in 1764. Perhaps it would be more correct to
say that he exhibited a dose; but the production yields the following
lines which show that the Coromantine of Jamaica was no better than his
brother of San Domingo:--
"Yet, if thine own, thy children's life, be dear,
Buy not a Cormantee, though healthy, young,
Of breed too generous for the servile field:
They, born to freedom in their native land,
Choose death before dishonorable bonds;
Or, fired with vengeance, at the midnight hour
Sudden they seize thine unsuspecting watch,
And thine own poniard bury in thy breast."
All these kinds of negroes, and many others whom it would be tedious to
mention, differing in intelligence and capability, were alike in the
vividness of their Fetich-worship and the feebleness of their spiritual
sentiments.[H] They brought over the local superstitions, the grotesque
or revolting habits, the twilight exaggerations of their great pagan
fatherland, into a practical paganism, which struck at their rights, and
violated their natural affections, with no more pretence of religious
than of temporal consolation, and only capable of substituting one
Fetich for another.
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