Many
slaves passed from one plantation to another, being sold and resold,
till their bodies were as thick with marks as an obelisk. How different
from the symbols of care in the furrowed face and stooping form of a
free laborer, where the history of a humble home, planted in marriage
and nursed by independent sorrow, is printed by the hand of God!
By this fusion of native races a Creole nation of slaves was slowly
formed and maintained. The old qualities were not lost, but new
qualities resulted from the new conditions. The _bozal_ negro was easily
to be distinguished from the Creole. _Bozal_ is from the Spanish,
meaning _muzzled_, that is, ignorant of the Creole language and not able
to talk.[K] Creole French was created by the negroes, who put into it
very few words of their native dialects, but something of the native
construction, and certain euphonic peculiarities. It is interesting to
trace their love of alliteration and a concord of sounds in this mongrel
French, which became a new colonial language. The bright and sparkling
French appears as if submitted to great heat and just on the point of
running together. There is a great family of African dialects in which
a principal sound, or the chief sound of a leading word, appears in
all the words of a sentence, from no grammatical reason at all, but to
satisfy a sweetish ear. It is like the charming gabble of children, who
love to follow the first key that the tongue strikes.
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