ABSTRACT

I shall divide this people into two classes, the native, or Creole blacks, and the imported, or Africans; but, before I come to speak of those who inhabit Jamaica, I shall beg to premise some remarks upon the Negroes in general found on that part of the African continent, called Guiney, or Negro-land. The particulars wherein they differ most essentially from the Whites are, first, in respect to their bodies, viz. the dark membrane which communicates that black colour to their skins [a], which does not alter by transportation into other climates, 4and which they never lose, except by such diseases, or casualties, as destroy the texture of it; for example, the leprosy, and accidents of burning or scalding. Negroes have been introduced into the North American colonies near 150 years. The winters, especially at New York and New England, are more severe than in Europe. Yet the Blacks born here, so the third and Fourth generation, are not at all different in colour from those Negroes who are brought directly from Africa; whence it may be concluded very properly, that Negroes, or their posterity, do not change colour, though they continue ever so long in a cold climate.