ABSTRACT
Only the southern Confederates are qualified to talk about slavery: that is because they know the Negro; the Yankees of the north, abstract puritans, only know Man, who is an entity. This fine reasoning is still employed: in Houston, in the New Orleans press, and also, since one is always somebody’s Yankee, in ‘French’ Algeria. The newspapers there keep telling us that only the colonists are qualified to talk about the colony: we, the people of mainland France, do not have their experience; we will see the burning land of Africa through their eyes or we will see only fire.
