ABSTRACT
In African Life and Customs (page 22) that remarkable African author, Dr. E. W. Blyden, speaking of Jamaica, says: “Now it is into this region of the globe so hostile to the most vigorous European life that Anglo-Saxon incuriousness has introduced the marriage laws of Europe, with the result that during the last three hundred years very few Europeans, if any, born in those islands have achieved anything like an international reputation. And why ? Their mothers have not observed the regulation period of rest and reserve which African mothers enjoy. They were tired when the children were born, and the children have suffered the same inability. There have been exceptional cases of noted men born in the West Indies sufficiently distinguished to be honoured by their sovereign with the Companionship of the Bath and with Knighthood, but these were men of mixed blood, who were born practically under polygamic conditions, whose mothers enjoyed the necessary period of rest.
