Reflections on the blacks and whites – remarks upon a letter addressed by M. Mazeres, a French ex colonist, to JCL Sismonde de Sismondi, containing observations on the blacks and whites, the civilisation of Africa, the kingdom of Hayti etc. translated from the French of the Baron De Vastey, knight of the royal and military order of St Henry, secretary to the king, member of the privy council etc. (London1817

Description

Comments made by an ennobled African-Haitian (de Vastey) in response to remarks made the colonist Mazeres regarding Africans
‘I will now give my readers a just idea of the candour of Mazeres and the ex colonists, to enable them the better to appreciate the value of their assertions.
“The more we attend to the operations of nature”, says Mazeres, “the more we observe in her works those agreements and harmonies, which [Jacques Henri Bernadin de] St Pierre has made the subject of his charming book. But when facts fail in establishing a correspondence between the external form, and the mental faculties of the Negro, we may perhaps infer it from analogy”.
Can he flatter himself that when he thus cites St Pierre, he can persuade the world that this virtuous man has, in his charming book, confirmed his own stupid and erroneous opinions?
Hear now the wise and generous St Pierre himself, and judge how fairly and appositely Mazeres has cited him:
“While philosophers assign a common origin to all the various species of dogs, others ascribe different origins to man. These last found their opinion upon the varieties of nature and colour in the human species. But neither of these are admitted as specific characteristics by naturalists, who regard the one as an accident, and the other as merely a casual development of form. Difference of species arises from a difference of proportions. Now this characterizes those of dogs. But in the human subject, the proportions are invariable; and the black colour between the tropics is a simple effect of solar heat, which darkens the complexion in proportion as we approach the line (Equator). A circumstance this, which, as we see, is one of the blessings of nature’.
‘After establishing the identity of the blacks and whites, I am next obliged to identify the Africans with the Negroes, and eventually perhaps, even to identify these with the Haytians. As for myself, descended from African stock, I am, I imagine, sufficiently identified with the Africans. I will call upon Mazeres to show, whether the inhabitants of the south of Europe are a distinct species from those of the north? Whether the identity of the French or Japanese, the Spaniards or the Russians, is the same? What wretched sophistry! What childish reasoning! Mazeres doubtless expects by his subterfuges to escape the objections arising from the ancient civilisations of Africa; or as there yet exist nations in Europe, who carry on the odious traffic in human flesh, and as they cannot make slaves of the inhabitants of Egypt or of Morocco, it is of little detriment to the ex colonists to allow these to possess some faculties, and to make out the inhabitants of Senegal, Monomotapa [a medieval kingdom (400-1629) located in southern Africa] and Zanguebar [now known as Tanzania and Kenya] to be a distinct species, which, according to them, are brutes, only to be made slaves of. The enemies of Africa wish to persuade the world that five out of the six thousand years that the world has existed, Africa has always been sunk in barbarism, and that ignorance is essential to the nature of her inhabitants. Have they forgotten that Africa was the cradle of the arts and sciences? If they pretend to forget this, it becomes our duty to remind them of it’.

Details

Reference	Binnsvol024-007
Volume	BINNS VOL. 24
Author	VASTEY (J. L. de Bwon)
Publication year	1817
Pages	42