9. LA FILLE DE COULEUR.
I.
NOTHING else in the picturesque life of the French colonies of
the Occident impresses the traveller on his first arrival more
than the costumes of the women of color. They surprise the
aesthetic sense agreeably;—they are local and special: you will
see nothing resembling them among the populations of the British
West Indies; they belong to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Désirade,
Marie-Galante, and Cayenne,—in each place differing sufficiently
to make the difference interesting, especially in regard to the
head-dress. That of Martinique is quite Oriental;—more
attractive, although less fantastic than the Cayenne coiffure, or
the pretty drooping mouchoir of Guadeloupe.
These costumes are gradually disappearing, for various reasons,
—the chief reason being of course the changes in the social
condition of the colonies during the last forty years. Probably
the question of health had also something to do with the almost
universal abandonment in Martinique of the primitive
slave dress,—chemise and jupe,—which exposed its wearer to
serious risks of pneumonia; for as far as economical reasons are
concerned, there was no fault to find with it: six francs could
purchase it when money was worth more than it is now. The
douillette, a long trailing dress, one piece from neck to feet,
has taken its place. *
But there was a luxurious variety of the jupe costume which is
disappearing because of its cost; there is no money in the
colonies now for such display:—I refer to the celebrated attire
of the pet slaves and belles affranchies of the old colonial
days. A full costume,—including violet or crimson "petticoat"
of silk or satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery
and lace; "trembling-pins" of gold (zépingue tremblant) to
attach the folds of the brilliant Madras turban; the great
necklace of three or four strings of gold beads bigger than peas
(collier-choux);
the ear-rings, immense but light as egg-shells
(
zanneaux-à-clous or
zanneaux-chenilles); the
bracelets (
portes-bonheur);
the studs (
boutons-à-clous); the brooches, not only
for the turban, but for the chemise, below the folds of the showy
silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,—
would sometimes represent over
five thousand francs expenditure. This gorgeous attire is becoming
less visible every year: it is now rarely worn except on very
solemn occasions,—weddings, baptisms, first communions,
confirmations. The
da (nurse) or "porteuse-de-baptême"
who bears
the baby to church holds it at the baptismal font, and afterwards
carries it from house to house in order that all the friends of
the family may kiss it, is thus attired; but nowadays, unless she
be a professional (for there are professional
das, hired only for
such occasions), she usually borrows the jewellery. If tall, young,
graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin, the effect of her costume
is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin. I saw one young da who,
thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and earthly;—there was
an Oriental something in her appearance difficult to describe,
—something that made you think of the Queen of Sheba going to visit
Solomon. She had brought a merchant's baby, just christened, to
receive the caresses of the family at whose house I was visiting;
and when it came to my turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice
the child: I saw only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange
and purple, bending over it, in an illumination of antique
gold. … What a da! … She represented really the type of that
belle affranchie of other days, against whose fascination special
sumptuary laws were made; romantically she imaged for me the
supernatural god-mothers and Cinderellas of the creole fairy-tales.
For these become transformed in the West Indian
folklore,—adapted to the environment, and to local idealism:—
Cinderella, for example, is changed to a beautiful metisse,
wearing a quadruple
collier-choux,
zépingues tremblants, and all
the ornaments of a da.
* Recalling the impression
of that dazzling
da,
I can even now feel the picturesque justice of the fabulist's
description of Cinderella's creole costume:
Ça té ka baille ou mal
zie!—(it would have given you a pain in your eyes to look at her!)
… Even the every-day Martinique costume is slowly changing.
Year by year the "calendeuses"—the women who paint and fold the
turbans—have less work to do;—the colors of the douiellette
are becoming less vivid;—while more and more young colored
girls are being élevées en chapeau ("brought up in a hat")—i.e.,
dressed and educated like the daughters of the whites. These, it
must be confessed, look far less attractive in the latest Paris
fashion, unless white as the whites themselves: on the other
hand, few white girls could look well in douillette and mouchoir,—not
merely because of color contrast, but because they
have not that amplitude of limb and particular cambering of the
torso peculiar to the half-breed race, with its large bulk and
stature. Attractive as certain coolie women are, I observed that
all who have adopted the Martinique costume look badly in it:
they are too slender of body to wear it to advantage.
Slavery introduced these costumes, even though it probably did
not invent them; and they were necessarily doomed to pass away
with the peculiar social conditions to which they belonged. If
the population clings still to its douillettes, mouchoirs, and foulards,
the fact is largely due to the cheapness of such
attire. A girl can dress very showily indeed for about twenty
francs—shoes excepted;—and thousands never wear shoes. But the
fashion will no doubt have become cheaper and uglier within
another decade.
At the present time, however, the stranger might be sufficiently
impressed by the oddity and brilliancy of these dresses to ask
about their origin,—in which case it
is not likely that he will
obtain any satisfactory answer. After long research I found myself
obliged to give up all hope of being able to outline the history
of Martinique costume,—partly because books and histories are
scanty or defective, and partly because such an undertaking would
require a knowledge possible only to a specialist. I found good
reason, nevertheless, to suppose that these costumes were in the
beginning adopted from certain fashions of provincial France,—that
the respective fashions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne were
patterned after modes still worn in parts of the mother-country.
The old-time garb of the
affranchie—that still worn by the
da
—somewhat recalls dresses worn by the women of Southern France,
more particularly about Montpellier. Perhaps a specialist might
also trace back the evolution of the various creole coiffures to
old forms of head-dresses which still survive among the French
country-fashions of the south and south-west provinces;—but
local taste has so much modified the original style as to leave
it unrecognizable to those who have never studied the subject.
The Martinique fashion of folding and tying the Madras, and of
calendering it, are probably local; and I am assured that the
designs of the curious semi-barbaric jewellery were all invented
in the colony, where the
collier-choux is still manufactured by
local goldsmiths. Purchasers buy one, two, or three
grains, or
beads, at a time, and string them only on obtaining the requisite
number. … This is the sum of all that I was able to learn on
the matter; but in the course of searching various West Indian
authors and historians for information, I found something far
more important than the origin of the
douillette or the
collier-choux:
the facts of that strange struggle between nature and
interest, between love and law, between prejudice and passion,
which forms the evolutional history of the mixed race.
[_]
* The brightly colored
douillettes are classified by the people
according to the designs of the printed
calico:—robe-à-bambou,—robe-à-bouquet,—robe-arc-en-ciel,—robe-à-carreau,—etc.,
according as the pattern is in stripes, flower-designs, "rainbow"
bands of different tints, or plaidings. Ronde-en-ronde means a
stuff printed with disk-patterns, or link-patterns of different
colors,—each joined with the other. A robe of one color only is
called a robe-uni.
The general laws of contrasts observed in the costume require the
silk foulard, or shoulder-kerchief, to make a sharp relief with
the color of the robe, thus:—
Robe.
- Foulard.
Yellow
- Blue.
Dark blue
- Yellow.
Pink
- Green.
Violet
- Bright red.
Red
- Violet.
Chocolate (cacoa)
- Pale blue.
Sky blue
- Pale rose.
These refer, of course, to dominant or ground colors, as there
are usually several tints in the foulard as well as the robe.
The painted Madras should always be bright yellow. According to
popular ideas of good dressing, the different tints of skin
should be relieved by special choice of color in the robe, as
follows:—
Capresse (a clear red skin) should wear
- Pale yellow.
Mulatresse (according to shade)
- Rose.
Blue.
Green.
Negresse
- White.
Scarlet, or any violet color.
[_]
* … "Vouèla
Cendrillon evec yon bel róbe velou grande
lakhè. … Ça té ka bail ou mal ziè.
Li té tini bel
zanneau dans zóreill li, quate-tou-chou, bouoche,
bracelet, tremblant,—toutt sóte bel baggaïe conm
ça." … —[Conte
Cendrillon,—d'après Turiault.]
|
—"There was Cendrillon with a beautiful long trailing robe of
velvet on her! … It was enough to hurt one's eyes to look at
her! She had beautiful rings in her ears, and a collier-choux
of four rows, brooches, tremblants, bracelets,—everything
fine of that sort."—[Story of Cinderella in Turinault's
Creole Grammar.
|
II.
CONSIDERING only the French peasant colonist and the West African
slave as the original factors of that physical evolution visible
in the modern fille-de-couleur,
it would seem incredible;—for
the intercrossing alone could not adequately explain all the
physical results. To understand them fully, it will be necessary
to bear in mind that both of the original races became modified
in their lineage to a surprising degree by conditions of climate
and environment.
The precise time of the first introduction of slaves into
Martinique is not now possible to ascertain,—no record exists on
the subject; but it is probable that the establishment of slavery
was coincident with the settlement of the island. Most likely
the first hundred colonists from St. Christophe, who landed, in
1635, near the bay whereon the city of St. Pierre is now
situated, either brought slaves with them, or else were furnished
with negroes very soon after their arrival. In the time of Père
Dutertre (who visited the colonies in 1640, and printed his
history of the French Antilles at Paris in 1667) slavery was
already a flourishing institution,—the foundation of the whole
social structure. According to the Dominican missionary, the
Africans then in the colony were decidedly repulsive; he
describes the women as "hideous" (hideuses). There is no good
reason to charge Dutertre with prejudice in his pictures of them.
No writer of the century was more keenly sensitive to natural
beauty than the author of that "Voyage aux Antilles" which
inspired Chateaubriand, and which still, after two hundred and
fifty years, delights even those perfectly familiar with the
nature of the places and things spoken of. No other writer and
traveller of the period possessed to a more marked degree that
sense of generous pity which makes the unfortunate appear to us
in an illusive, almost ideal aspect. Nevertheless, he asserts
that the negresses were, as a general rule, revoltingly ugly,—
and, although he had seen many strange sides of human nature
(having been a soldier before becoming a monk), was astonished to
find that miscegenation had already begun. Doubtless the first
black women thus favored, or afflicted, as the case might be,
were of the finer types of negresses; for he notes remarkable
differences among the slaves procured from
different coasts and
various tribes. Still, these were rather differences of ugliness
than aught else: they were all repulsive;—only some were more
repulsive than others.
* Granting that the first mothers of
mulattoes in the colony were the superior rather than the inferior
physical types,—which would be a perfectly natural supposition,
—still we find their offspring worthy in his eyes of no higher
sentiment than pity. He writes in his chapter entitled "
De la
naissance honteuse des mulastres":
—"They have something of their Father and something of their Mother,
—in the same wise that Mules partake of the qualities of the creatures
that engendered them: for they are neither all white, like the French;
nor all black, like the Negroes, but have a livid tint, which comes of
both." …
To-day, however, the traveller would look in vain for a livid
tint among the descendants of those thus described: in less than
two centuries and a half the physical characteristics of the race
have been totally changed. What most surprises is the rapidity of
the transformation. After the time of Père Labat, Europeans never
could "have mistaken little negro children for monkeys." Nature
had begun to remodel the white, the black, and half-breed
according to environment and climate: the descendant of the early
colonists ceased to resemble his fathers; the creole negro
improved upon his
progenitors;
*
the mulatto began to give
evidence of those qualities of physical and mental power which
were afterwards to render him dangerous to the integrity of the
colony itself. In a temperate climate such a change would have
been so gradual as to escape observation
for a long period;
—in the tropics it was effected with a quickness that astounds
by its revelation of the natural forces at work.
—"Under the sun of the tropics," writes Dr. Rufz, of Martinique,
"the African race, as well as the European, becomes greatly
modified in its reproduction. Either race gives birth to a
totally new being. The Creole African came into existence as did
the Creole white.
And just as the offspring of Europeans who emigrated to the
tropics from different parts of France displayed characteristics
so identical that it was impossible to divine the original race-source,—so
likewise the Creole negro—whether brought into
being by the heavy thick-set Congo, or the long slender black of
Senegambia, or the suppler and more active Mandingo,—appeared so
remodelled, homogeneous, and adapted in such wise to his
environment that it was utterly impossible to discern in his
features anything of his parentage, his original
kindred, his
original source. … The transformation is absolute. All that
In be asserted is: "This is a white Creole; this is a black
Creole";—or, "This is a European white; this is an African
black";—and furthermore, after a certain number of years passed
in the tropics, the enervated and discolored aspect of the European
may create uncertainty, as to his origin. But with very few
exceptions the primitive African, or, as he is termed here, the
"Coast Black" (
le noir de la Cote), can be recognized at
once. …
… "The Creole negro is gracefully shaped, finely proportioned:
his limbs are lithe, his neck long;—his features are more
delicate, his lips less thick, his nose less flattened, than
those of the African;—he has the
Carib's large and melancholy
eye, better adapted to express the emotions. … Rarely can you
discover in him the sombre fury of the African, rarely a
surly and savage mien: he is brave, chatty, boastful. His skin
has not the same tint as his father's,—it has become more
satiny; his hair remains woolly, but it is a finer wool; … all
his outlines are more rounded;—one may perceive that the cellular
tissue predominates, as in cultivated plants, of which the
ligneous and savage fibre has become
transformed." … *
This new and comelier black race naturally won from its masters
a more sympathetic attention than could have been vouchsafed to
its progenitors; and the consequences in Martinique and elsewhere
seemed to have evoked the curinus Article 9 of the Code Noir of
1665,—enacting, first, that free men who should have one or two
children by slave women, as well as the slave-owners permitting
the same, should be each condemned to pay two thousand pounds of
sugar; secondly, that if the violator of the ordinance should be
himself the owner of the mother and father of her children, the
mother and the children should be confiscated for the profit of
the Hospital, and deprived for their lives of the right to
enfranchisement. An exception, however, was made to the effect
that if the father were unmarried at the period of his
concubinage, he could escape the provisions of the penalty by
marrying, "according to the rites of the Church," the female
slave, who would thereby be enfranchised, and her children
"rendered free and legitimate." Probably the legislators did not
imagine that the first portion of the article could prove
inefficacious, or that any violator of the ordinance would seek
to escape
the penalty by those means offered in the provision. The
facts, however, proved the reverse. Miscegenation continued; and
Labat notices two cases of marriage between whites and blacks,—
describing the offspring of one union as "very handsome little
mulattoes." These legitimate unions were certainly exceptional,
—one of them was dissolved by the ridicule cast upon the father;
—but illegitimate unions would seem to have become common within
a very brief time after the passage of the law. At a later day
they were to become customary. The Article 9 was evidently at
fault; and in March, 1724, the Black Code was reinforced by a new
ordinance, of which the sixth provision prohibited marriage as
well as concubinage between the races.
It appears to have had no more effect than the previous law,
even in Martinique, where the state of public morals was better
than in Santo Domingo. The slave race had begun to exercise an
influence never anticipated by legislators. Scarcely a century
had elapsed since the colonization of the island; but in that
time climate and civilization had transfigured the black woman.
"After one or two generations," writes the historian Rufz, "the Africaine,
reformed, refined, beautified in her descendants,
transformed into the creole negress, commenced to exert a
fascination irresistible, capable of winning anything (capable de
tout obtenir)." * Travellers of the eighteenth century were
confounded by the luxury of dress and of jewellery displayed by
swarthy beauties in St. Pierre. It was a public scandal to
European eyes. But the creole negress or mulattress, beginning
to understand her power, sought for higher favors and privileges
than silken robes and necklaces of gold beads: she sought to
obtain, not merely liberty for herself, but
for her parents,
brothers, sisters,—even friends. What successes she achieved
in this regard may be imagined from the serious statement of
creole historians that if human nature had been left untrammelled
to follow its better impulses, slavery would have ceased to exist
a century before the actual period of emancipation! By 1738,
when the white population had reached its maximum
(15,000),
*
and colonial luxury had arrived at its greatest height, the
question of voluntary enfranchisement was becoming very grave.
So omnipotent the charm of half-breed beauty that masters were
becoming the slaves of their slaves. It was not only the creole
negress who had appeared to play a part in this strange drama
which was the triumph of nature over interest and judgment: her
daughters, far more beautiful, had grown up to aid her, and to
form a special class. These women, whose tints of skin rivalled
the colors of ripe fruit, and whose gracefulness—peculiar,
exotic, and irresistible—made them formidable rivals to the
daughters of the dominant race, were no doubt physically superior
to the modern
filles-de-couleur. They were results of a natural
selection which could have taken place in no community otherwise
constituted;—the offspring of the union between the finer types
of both races. But that which only slavery could have rendered
possible began to endanger the integrity of slavery itself: the
institutions upon which the whole social structure rested were
being steadily sapped by the influence of half-breed girls. Some
new, severe, extreme policy was evidently necessary to avert the
already visible peril. Special laws were passed by the Home-Government
to check enfranchisement, to limit its reasons or
motives; and the power of the slave woman was so well
comprehended by the Métropole that an extraordinary enactment was
made against it. It was decreed that whosoever should free a
woman of color would have to pay to the Government
three times
her value as a slave!
Thus heavily weighted, emancipation advanced much more slowly
than before, but it still continued to a considerable extent.
The poorer creole planter or merchant might find it impossible to
obey the impulse of his conscience or of his affection, but among
the richer classes pecuniary considerations could scarcely affect
enfranchisement. The country had grown wealthy; and although the
acquisition of wealth may not evoke generosity in particular
natures, the enrichment of a whole class develops pre-existing
tendencies to kindness, and opens new ways for its exercise.
Later in the eighteenth century, when hospitality had been
cultivated as a gentleman's duty to fantastical extremes,—when
liberality was the rule throughout society,—when a notary
summoned to draw up a deed, or a priest invited to celebrate a
marriage, might receive for fee five thousand francs in gold,—
there were certainly many emancipations. … "Even though
interest and public opinion in the colonies," says a
historian, *
"were adverse to enfranchisement, the private feeling of each man
combated that opinion;—Nature resumed her sway in the secret
places of hearts;—and as local custom permitted a sort of
polygamy, the rich man naturally felt himself bound in honor to
secure the freedom of his own blood. … It was not a rare thing
to see legitimate wives taking care of the natural children of
their husbands,—becoming their godmothers (s'en faire les
marraines)." … Nature seemed to laugh all these laws to scorn,
and the prejudices of race! In vain did the wisdom of
legislators attempt to render the condition of the enfranchised
more humble,—enacting extravagant penalties
for the blow by which
a mulatto might avenge the insult of a white,—prohibiting the
freed from wearing the same dress as their former masters or
mistresses wore;—"the
belles affranchies found, in a costume
whereof the negligence seemed a very inspiration of voluptuousness,
means of evading that social inferiority which the law sought to
impose upon them:—they began to inspire the most violent
jealousies."
*
[_]
* It is
quite possible, however, that the slaves of Dutertre's
time belonged for the most part to the uglier African tribes; and
that later supplies may have been procured from other parts of
the slave coast. Writing half a century later, Père Labat
declares having seen freshly disembarked blacks handsome enough
to inspire an artist:—"J'en ai vu des deux sexes faits à
peindre, et beaux par merveille" (vol. iv. chap, vii,). He adds
that their skin was extremely fine, and of velvety softness;—"le
velours n'est pas plus doux." … Among the 30,000 blacks
yearly shipped to the French colonies, there were doubtless many
representatives of the finer African races.
[_]
* "Leur sueur n'est pas fétide comme celle des nègres de la
Guinée," writes the traveller Dauxion-Lavaysse, in 1813.
[_]
* Dr. E. Rufz: "Études historiques et statistiques sur la
population de la Martinique." St. Pierre: 1850. Vol. i.,
pp. 148-50.
It has been generally imagined that the physical constitution
of the black race was proof against the deadly climate of the
West Indies. The truth is that the freshly imported Africans
died of fever by thousands and tens-of-thousands;—the
creole-negro race, now so prolific, represents only the fittest
survivors in the long and terrible struggle of the slave element
to adapt itself to the new environment. Thirty thousand negroes
a year were long needed to supply the French colonies. Between
1700 and 1789 no less than 900,000 slaves were imported by San
Domingo alone;—yet there were less than half that number left in
1789. (See Placide Justin's history of Santo Domingo, p. 147.)
The entire slave population of Barbadoes had to be renewed every
sixteen years, according to estimates: the loss to planters by
deaths of slaves (reckoning the value of a slave at only £20 sterling)
during the same period was £1,600,000 ($8,000,000). (Burck's
"History of European Colonies," vol. ii., p. 141; French edition of 1767.)
[_]
* Rufz: "Études," vol. i., p. 236.
[_]
* I am assured it has now fallen to a figure not exceeding
5000.
[_]
* Rufz: "Études," vol. ii., pp. 311, 312.
[_]
* Rufz: "Études," vol. i., p. 237.
III.
WHAT the legislators of 1685 and 1724 endeavored to correct did
not greatly improve with the abolition of slavery, nor yet with
those political troubles which socially deranged colonial life.
The fille-de-couleur, inheriting the charm of the belle affranchie,
continued to exert a similar influence, and to fulfil
an almost similar destiny. The latitude of morals persisted,—
though with less ostentation: it has latterly contracted under
the pressure of necessity rather than through any other
influences. Certain ethical principles thought essential to
social integrity elsewhere have always been largely relaxed in
the tropics; and—excepting, perhaps, Santo Domingo—the moral
standard in Martinique was not higher than in the other French
colonies. Outward decorum might be to some degree maintained;
but there was no great restraint of any sort upon private lives:
it was not uncommon for a rich man to have many "natural"
families; and almost every individual of means had children of
color. The superficial character of race prejudices was
everywhere manifested by unions, which although never mentioned
in polite converse, were none the less universally known; and the
"irresistible fascination" of the half-breed gave the open lie to
pretended
hate. Nature, in the guise of the
belle affranchie,
had mocked at slave codes;—in the
fille-de-couleur she still
laughed at race pretensions, and ridiculed the fable of physical
degradation. To-day, the situation has not greatly changed; and
with such examples on the part of the cultivated race, what could
be expected from the other? Marriages are rare;—it has been
officially stated that the illegitimate births are sixty per
cent; but seventy-five to eighty per cent would probably be
nearer the truth. It is very common to see in the local papers
such announcements as:
Enfants légitimes, 1 (one birth
announced);
enfants naturels, 25.
In speaking of the fille-de-couleur it is necessary also to
speak of the extraordinary social stratification of the community
to which she belongs. The official statement of 20,000
"colored" to the total population of between 173,000 and 174,000
(in which the number of pure whites is said to have fallen as low
as 5,000) does not at all indicate the real proportion of mixed
blood. Only a small element of unmixed African descent really
exists; yet when a white creole speaks of the gens-de-couleur he
certainly means nothing darker than a mulatto skin. Race
classifications have been locally made by sentiments of political
origin: at least four or five shades of visible color are classed
as negro. There is, however, some natural truth at the bottom of
this classification: where African blood predominates, the
sympathies are likely to be African; and the turning-point is
reached only in the true mulatto, where, allowing the proportions
of mixed blood to be nearly equal, the white would have the
dominant influence in situations more natural than existing
politics. And in speaking of the filles-de-couleur, the local
reference is always to women in whom the predominant element is
white: a white creole, as a general rule, deigns only thus to
distinguish those who are nearly white,—more usually
he refers to the whole class as mulattresses. Those women whom
wealth and education have placed in a social position parallel
with that of the daughters of creole whites are in some cases
allowed to pass for white,—or at the very worst, are only
referred to in a whisper as being
de couleur. (Needless to say,
these are totally beyond the range of the present considerations:
there is nothing to be further said of them except that they can
be classed with the most attractive and refined women of the
entire tropical world.) As there is an almost infinite gradation
from the true black up to the brightest
sang-mêlé, it is
impossible to establish any color-classification recognizable by
the eye alone; and whatever lines of demarcation can be drawn
between castes must be social rather than ethnical. In this
sense we may accept the local Creole definition of
fille-de-couleur
as signifying, not so much a daughter of the race of
visible color, as the half-breed girl destined from her birth to
a career like that of the
belle affranchie of the old regime;—
for the moral cruelties of slavery have survived emancipation.
Physically, the typical fille-de-couleur may certainly be
classed, as white creole writers have not hesitated to class her,
with the "most beautiful women of the human
race." *
She has inherited not only the finer bodily characteristics of either
parent race, but a something else belonging originally to
neither, and created by special climatic and physical
conditions,—a grace, a suppleness of form, a delicacy of
extremities (so that all the lines described by the bending of
limbs or fingers are parts of
clean curves), a satiny smoothness
and fruit-tint of skin,—solely West Indian. … Morally, of course,
it is much more difficult to describe her; and whatever may safely
be said refers rather to the fille-de-couleur of the past than of
the present half-century. The race is now in a period of transition:
public education and political changes are modifying the type, and
it is impossible to guess the ultimate consequence, because it is
impossible to safely predict what new influences may yet be
brought to affect its social development. Before the present era
of colonial decadence, the character of the fille-de-couleur was
not what it is now. Even when totally uneducated, she had a
peculiar charm,—that charm of childishness which has power to
win sympathy from the rudest natures. One could not but feel
attracted towards this naïf being, docile as an infant, and as
easily pleased or as easily pained,—artless in her goodnesses as
in her faults, to all outward appearance;—willing to give her
youth, her beauty, her caresses to some one in exchange for the
promise to love her,—perhaps also to care for a mother, or a
younger brother. Her astonishing capacity for being delighted
with trifles, her pretty vanities and pretty follies, her sudden
veerings of mood from laughter to tears,—like the sudden
rainbursts and sunbursts of her own passionate climate: these
touched, drew, won, and tyrannized. Yet such easily created joys
and pains did not really indicate any deep reserve of feeling:
rather a superficial sensitiveness only,—like the
zhèbe-m'amisé,
or
zhèbe-manmzelle, whose leaves close at the touch of a hair.
Such human manifestations, nevertheless, are apt to attract more
in proportion as they are more visible,—in proportion as the
soul-current, being less profound, flows more audibly. But no
hasty observation could have revealed the whole character of the
fille-de-couleur to the stranger, equally charmed and surprised:
the creole comprehended her better, and probably treated her
with even
more real kindness. The truth was that centuries of
deprivation of natural rights and hopes had given to her race
—itself fathered by passion unrestrained and mothered by subjection
unlimited—an inherent scepticism in the duration of love, and a
marvellous capacity for accepting the destiny of abandonment as
one accepts the natural and the inevitable. And that desire to
please—which in the fille-de-couleur seemed to prevail above all
other motives of action (maternal affection excepted)—could
have appeared absolutely natural only to those who never
reflected that even sentiment had been artificially cultivated by
slavery.
She asked for so little,—accepted a gift with such childish
pleasure,—submitted so unresistingly to the will of the man who
promised to love her. She bore him children—such beautiful
children!—whom he rarely acknowledged, and was never asked to
legitimatize;—and she did not ask perpetual affection
notwithstanding,—regarded the relation as a necessarily
temporary one, to be sooner or later dissolved by the marriage of
her children's father. If deceived in all things,—if absolutely
ill-treated and left destitute, she did not lose faith in human
nature: she seemed a born optimist, believing most men good;—she
would make a home for another and serve him better than any
slave. … "Née de l'amour," says a creole writer, "la fille-de-couleur
vit d'amour, de rires, et d'oublis." … *
Then came the general colonial crash! … You cannot see its
results without feeling touched by them. Everywhere the weird
beauty, the immense melancholy of tropic ruin. Magnificent
terraces, once golden with cane, now abandoned to weeds and
serpents;—deserted plantation-homes, with trees rooted in the
apartments and pushing up through the place of the roofs;—grass-grown
alleys ravined by rains;—fruit-trees strangled by lianas;
—here and there the stem of some splendid palmiste, brutally
decapitated, naked as a mast;—petty frail growths of banana-trees
or of bamboo slowly taking the place of century-old forest
giants destroyed to make charcoal. But beauty enough remains to
tell what the sensual paradise of the old days must have been,
when sugar was selling at 52.
And the fille-de-couleur has also changed. She is much less
humble and submissive,—somewhat more exacting: she comprehends
better the moral injustice of her position. The almost extreme
physical refinement and delicacy, bequeathed to her by the
freedwomen of the old regime, are passing away: like a
conservatory plant deprived of its shelter, she is returning to
a more primitive condition,—hardening and growing perhaps less
comely as well as less helpless. She perceives also in a vague
way the peril of her race: the creole white, her lover and
protector, is emigrating;—the domination of the black becomes
more and more probable. Furthermore, with the continual increase
of the difficulty of living, and the growing pressure of
population, social cruelties and hatreds have been developed such
as her ancestors never knew. She is still loved; but it is
alleged that she rarely loves the white, no matter how large the
sacrifices made for her sake, and she no longer enjoys that
reputation of fidelity accorded to her class in other years.
Probably the truth is that the fille-de-couleur never had at any
time capacity to bestow that quality of affection imagined
or exacted as a right. Her moral side is still half savage: her
feelings are still those of a child. If she does not love the
white man according to his unreasonable desire, it is certain at
least that she loves him as well as he deserves. Her alleged
demoralization is more apparent than real;—she is changing from
an artificial to a very natural being, and revealing more and
more in her sufferings the true character of the luxurious
social condition that brought her into existence. As a general
rule, even while questioning her fidelity, the creole freely
confesses her kindness of heart, and grants her capable of
extreme generosity and devotedness to strangers or to children
whom she has an opportunity to care for. Indeed, her natural
kindness is so strikingly in contrast with the harder and subtler
character of the men of color that one might almost feel tempted
to doubt if she belong to the same race. Said a creole once, in
my hearing:—"The gens-de-couleur are just like the
tourlouroux:
*
one must pick out the females and leave the males alone."
Although perhaps capable of a double meaning, his words were not
lightly uttered;—he referred to the curious but indubitable
fact that the character of the colored woman appears in many
respects far superior to that of the colored man. In order to
understand this, one must bear in mind the difference in the
colonial history of both sexes; and a citation from General
Romanet,
†
who visited Martinique at the end of the last century,
offers a clue to the mystery. Speaking of the tax upon
enfranchisement, he writes:—
—"The governor appointed by the sovereign delivers the certificates
of liberty,—on payment by the master of
a sum usually equivalent to
the value of the subject. Public interest frequently justifies him
in making the price of the slave proportionate to the desire or the
interest manifested by the master. It can be readily understood that
the tax upon the liberty of the women ought to be higher than that of
the men: the latter unfortunates having no greater advantage than that
of being useful;—the former know how to please: they have those
rights and privileges which the whole world allows to their sex;
they know how to make even the fetters of slavery serve them for
adornments. They may be seen placing upon their proud tyrants
the same chains worn by themselves, and making them kiss the
marks left thereby: the master becomes the slave, and purchases
another's liberty only to lose his own,"
Long before the time of General Romanet, the colored male slave
might win liberty as the guerdon of bravery in fighting against
foreign invasion, or might purchase it by extraordinary economy,
while working as a mechanic on extra time for his own account (he
always refused to labor with negroes); but in either case his
success depended upon the possession and exercise of qualities
the reverse of amiable. On the other hand, the bondwoman won
manumission chiefly through her power to excite affection. In the
survival and perpetuation of the fittest of both sexes these
widely different characteristics would obtain more and more
definition with successive generations.
I find in the "Bulletin des Actes Administratifs de la
Martinique" for 1831 (No. 41) a list of slaves to whom liberty
was accorded pour services rendus à leurs maîtres. Out of the
sixty-nine enfranchisements recorded under this head, there are
only two names of male adults to be found,—one an old man of
sixty;—the other, called Laurencin, the betrayer of a
conspiracy. The rest are young girls, or young mothers and
children;—plenty of those
singular and pretty names in vogue among
the creole population,—Acélie, Avrillette, Mélie, Robertine,
Célianne, Francillette, Adée, Catharinette, Sidollie, Céline,
Coraline;—and the ages given are from sixteen to twenty-one, with few
exceptions. Yet these liberties were asked for and granted at a
time when Louis Philippe had abolished the tax on manumissions. …
The same "Bulletin" contains a list of liberties granted to colored
men,
pour service accompli dans la milice, only!
Most of the French West Indian writers whose works I was able to
obtain and examine speak severely of the hommes-de-couleur as a
class,—in some instances the historian writes with a very
violence of hatred. As far back as the commencement of the
eighteenth century, Labat, who, with all his personal oddities,
was undoubtedly a fine judge of men, declared:—"The mulattoes
are as a general rule well made, of good stature, vigorous,
strong, adroit, industrious, and daring (hardis) beyond all
conception. They have much vivacity, but are given to their
pleasures, fickle, proud, deceitful (cachés), wicked, and capable
of the greatest crimes." A San Domingo historian, far more
prejudiced than Père Labat, speaks of them "as physically
superior, though morally inferior to the whites": he wrote at a
time when the race had given to the world the two best swordsmen
it has yet perhaps seen,—Saint-Georges and Jean-Louis.
Commenting on the judgment of Père Labat, the historian Borde
observes:—"The wickedness spoken of by Père Labat doubtless
relates to their political passions only; for the women of color
are, beyond any question, the best and sweetest persons in the
world—à coup sûr, les meilleures et les plus douces personnes
qu'il y ait au monde."—("Histoire de l'Ile de la
Trinidad," par M. Pierre Gustave Louis Borde, vol. i., p. 222.)
The same author, speaking of their goodness of heart, generosity
to strangers and the sick says "they are born Sisters
of Charity";—and he is not the only historian who has expressed
such admiration of their moral qualities. What I myself saw
during the epidemic of 1887-88 at Martinique convinced me that
these eulogies of the women of color are not extravagant. On the
other hand, the existing creole opinion of the men of color is
much less favorable than even that expressed by Père Labat.
Political events and passions have, perhaps, rendered a just
estimate of their qualities difficult. The history of the
hommes-de-couleur in all the French colonies has been the same;—
distrusted by the whites, who feared their aspirations to social
equality, distrusted even more by the blacks (who still hate them
secretly, although ruled by them), the mulattoes became an
Ishmaelitish clan, inimical to both races, and dreaded of both.
In Martinique it was attempted, with some success, to manage
them by according freedom to all who would serve in the militia
for a certain period with credit. At no time was it found
possible to compel them to work with blacks; and they formed the
whole class of skilled city workmen and mechanics for a century
prior to emancipation.
… To-day it cannot be truly said of the fille-de-couleur that
her existence is made up of "love, laughter, and forgettings."
She has aims in life,—the bettering of her condition, the higher
education of her children, whom she hopes to free from the curse
of prejudice. She still clings to the white, because through him
she may hope to improve her position. Under other conditions
she might even hope to effect some sort of reconciliation between
the races. But the gulf has become so much widened within the
last forty years, that no rapprochement now appears possible;
and it is perhaps too late even to restore the lost prosperity of
the colony by any legislative or commercial reforms. The
universal creole belief is summed up in the daily-repeated cry:
"C'est un pays perdu!"
Yearly the number of failures increase;
and more whites emigrate;—and with every bankruptcy or departure
some fille-de-couleur is left almost destitute, to begin life over
again. Many a one has been rich and poor several times in succession;
—one day her property is seized for debt;—perhaps on the morrow she
finds some one able and willing to give her a home again, …
Whatever comes, she does not die for grief, this daughter of the
sun: she pours out her pain in song, like a bird, Here is one of
her little improvisations,—a song very popular in both
Martinique and Guadeloupe, though originally composed in the
latter colony:—
—"Good-bye Madras!
Good-bye foulard!
Good-bye pretty calicoes!
Good-bye collier-choux!
That ship
Which is there on the buoy,
It is taking
My doudoux away.
|
—"Adiéu Madras!
Adiéu foulard!
Adiéu dézinde!
Adiéu collier-choux!
Batiment-là
Qui sou labouè-là,
Li ka mennein
Doudoux-à-moin allé.
|
—"Very good-day,—
Monsieur the Consignee.
I come
To make one little petition.
My doudoux
Is going away.
Alas! I pray you
Delay his going."
|
—"Bien le-bonjou',
Missié le Consignataire.
Moin ka vini
Fai yon ti pétition;
Doudoux-à-moin
Y ka pati,—
T'enprie, hélas!
Rétàdé li."
|
[He answers kindly in French: the békés are always kind to these
gentle children.]
—"My dear child,
It is too late.
The bills of lading
Are already signed;
The ship
Is already on the buoy.
In an hour from now
They will be getting her [under way."
|
—"Ma chère enfant
Il est trop tard,
Les connaissements
Sont déjà signés,
Est déjà sur la bouée;
Dans une heure d'ici,
Ils vont appareiller."
|
—"When the foulards came. …
I always had some;
When the Madras-kerchiefs came,
I always had some;
When the printed calicoes came,
I always had some.
… That second officer—
Is such a kind man!
|
—"Foulard rivé,
Moin té toujou tini;
Madras rivé,
Moin té toujou tini;
Dézindes rivé,
Moin té toujou tini.
—Capitaine sougonde
C'est yon bon gàçon!
|
"Everybody has
Somebody to love;
Everybody has
Somebody to pet;
Every body has
A sweetheart of her own.
I am the only one
Who cannot have that,—I!"
|
"Toutt moune tini
Yon moune yo aimé;
Toutt moune tini
Yon moune yo chéri;
Toutt moune tini
Yon doudoux à yo.
Jusse moin tou sèle
Pa tini ça—moin!"
|
… On the eve of the Fête Dieu, or Corpus Christi festival, in
all these Catholic countries, the city streets are hung with
banners and decorated with festoons and with palm branches; and
great altars are erected at various points along the route of the
procession, to serve as resting-places for the Host. These are
called reposoirs; in creole patois, "reposouè Bon-Dié." Each
wealthy man lends something to help to make them attractive,—
rich plate, dainty crystal, bronzes, paintings, beautiful models
of ships or steamers, curiosities from remote parts of the
world. … The procession over, the altar is stripped, the
valuables are returned to their owners: all the splendor
disappears. … And the spectacle of that evanescent
magnificence, repeated year by year, suggested to this proverb-loving
people a similitude for the unstable fortune of the
fille-de-couleur:—Fortune milatresse c'est reposouè Bon-Dié.
(The luck of the mulattress is the resting-place of the Good-God).
[_]
* La race de sang-mêlé, issue des blancs et des noirs, est
éminement civilizable. Comme types physiques, elle fournit
dans beaucoup d'individus, dans ses femmes en général, les plus
beaux specimens de la race humaine.—"Le Préjugé de Race aux
Antilles Françaises." Par G. Souquet-Basiège. St. Pierre,
Martinique: 1883. pp. 661-62.
[_]
* Turiault: "Étude sur le langage Créole de la Martinique."
Brest: 1874. … On page 136 he cites the following pretty verses
in speaking of the fille-de-couleur:—
L'Amour prit soin de la former
Tendre, naïve, et caressante,
Faite pour plaire, encore plus pour aimer.
Portant tous les traits précieux
Du caractère d'une amante,
Le plaisir sur sa bouche et l'amour dans ses yeux.
[_]
* A sort of land-crab;—the female is selected for food, and,
properly cooked, makes a delicious dish;—the male is almost
worthless.
[_]
† "Voyage à la Martinique," Par J. R., Général de Brigade.
Paris: An, XII., 1804. Page 106.