Since the triumphs of patriotism first cheered the hopes of the people, since the very slaves, intoxicated with aguardiente or momentary enthusiasm, joined aloud in the chants in praise of liberty, numberless families in the capital have gradually sunk into increasing poverty, of which a common consequence is, that individuals who can boast of the purity of their origin, or who, in native phrase, count it no plebeian privilege to say that their four quarters are Biscayan, now find themselves reduced to lend out their old domestic slaves on hire as a means of support; the slaves being obliged to pay a certain moderate proportion of their daily wages or earnings to their proper owners. A male slave, when thus hired out in Lima, is understood to pay his owner one real, or a sixpence, out of his day’s wages or earnings; and women, when hired out as nurses, are usually paid fifteen dollars a month; of which they pay four dollars to their proper owners, and the rest they may do what they please with: others again go out as cooks, or are employed as laundry-maids, &c.
The few agricultural slaves yet left in the country have usually allotted to them a tarea, or daily task, so light and easy, as far at least as we have had any opportunity of knowing, that it is soon executed; and whatever work any one of them does over and above this daily task, he is paid for as if he were a freeman. Were he indeed to value his personal freedom, he could thus secure it to himself by fair means, and at the cost of moderate industry. A few of the more ambitious of this class have really availed themselves of so good an opportunity to effect their own emancipation; but in general the slave population in Peru do not appear solicitous to change their circumstances, nor are they very conscious of anything abject in their condition. They well know that they enjoy a degree of liberty which they consider sufficient, and which they sometimes are pleased to exercise to suit their own convenience: for example, if you are assisted by a slave, it is not unlikely that, when least expected, he will tell you it is his desire, and he demands it as his right, that he be sold or transferred to a purchaser of his own choice and finding; and, should he once become restive, he is best got rid of quickly, as until that is the case no more good comes of him. If the servant should be not a slave, but a dusky freeman of slave descent, he is so accustomed to self-indulgence, that he must daily have his own hours of pleasure, whether his master will or not; and, if found fault with, he replies in the usual ejaculation, “Quien quiere matarse con trabajar?”—Who would kill himself with toil?
Those again who rely on the assistance of an Indian, (nominally free, though virtually a slave, working for a mere maintenance and some trifling gratuity,) reared up from childhood in their own houses and for their own particular service—a very customary thing to do—are commonly, in the long run, left in the lurch; for, when a good opportunity offers, away starts the cerrano or mountaineer, whether male or female, for Guamanga, Guamantanga, or some such mountain home. The Indian girl thus reared in some private family is commonly very useful until she attains the age of twelve or fifteen, when she looks out for a mate, with whom she can fly to the hills, to be happy in a smoky hut, and on a llama-skin couch; and the shrewd and quick-eyed Indian boy, with head and hands to conceive and execute, no sooner gets a little insight into good service or some handicraft, than he meditates upon and watches the opportunity for escaping to his native home, “mi tierra!” and, sooner or later, he is sure to effect his object. Yet, notwithstanding this disposition to desertion, where an Indian does become personally attached to his employer, which is not often, his fidelity and constancy are allowed to be unbounded.
The vexations so often caused by the Indians among the class of their Spanish employers, or white superiors, (who usually expect more from this oppressed order of citizens than they care to pay for,) gave rise to the proverbial complaint against the indigenous tribes:
“Mal con ellos; pejor sin ellos,”
Bad with them; worse without them.
The ladies, or females of Spanish blood in Lima, usually become mothers at too tender an age, and we think it is chiefly on this account that they are commonly found to be incapable of nursing with impunity; and, if they persist in attempts at nursing beyond what their constitution can bear, they are peremptorily warned to desist by the presence of symptoms that menace a decline or consumption.
Hence most ladies in Lima are under the necessity of employing black and brown nurses, who are usually slaves either purchased for milk-nurses or hired out for this purpose.
The skin of the negro appears to be cooler than that of the Indian or white race, and this may possibly have been the origin of the prevailing idea already alluded to, that the milk of the negress is more cooling and refreshing than that of the Indian woman,[6] who, though in other respects a healthy and proper person, is never considered eligible as a milk-nurse, when in this character a negress can be procured.
It unfortunately happens, however, that the predilection thus shown for negresses and those dark women who are nearest allied to the negro race, frequently exposes the white mother’s child to a series of evils, such as imperfect nutrition, contamination of blood, and permanent constitutional injury, all originating in the peculiar circumstances and individual character of milk-nurses; of whom a single child may have been so unfortunate as to have had as many as half a dozen, and to have suffered successively from the blemishes of each. When the young Don, thus nurtured in the very lap of bondage, comes to be fit for school, he goes to, and comes from it, in the company of a slave; and the young Miss, or Niña, who goes out to be educated, is, on her way to and from her parents’ house, attended by a sort of dueña, or experienced zamba. On the customary plea, that the evils of life come early enough, children of gentle blood, especially such as are “rubios,” or fair-complexioned, are allowed all manner of gusto, or indulgence; and in the morning, before they set out for school, they usually receive a real or medio—sixpence or threepence—either as pocket-money, or as a bribe to be obedient and to submit to be taught. In this way expensive habits are early acquired, and mere children made to do what is right and proper from pecuniary motives, rather than a laudable sense of duty.
Reviewing the effects of a close social union, from infancy upwards, between white children and their slave companions, who are seldom endowed with shame or modesty, we are led to remark that, without desiring to make any insinuations against the natural capacity for moral and intellectual improvement observable among all the races of mankind, or wishing in any degree to depreciate the merit of individuals of pure or mixed African and slave descent, we think it may be truly affirmed, that even minds of a naturally amiable and delicate bias, when led habitually to accommodate themselves to the grovelling feelings and propensities of the more degraded portion of our kind, undergo deterioration by degrees, and slide into a participation of the qualities of a baser nature, with which they inevitably amalgamate their own. The proper medium of domestic intimacy allowable between masters and slaves, may be a nice matter to determine with precision; but it may be said in general, that in proportion as this immediate intercourse may meliorate the condition, and quicken the intelligence, of the slave, it tends to lower the tone of morality in that society where slavery is tolerated. Thus, we doubt not, the standard of morals is lowered, and we conceive it may be owing to this very alloy of character that, until very lately, the sheer ruffian was seldom met with, even among the lowest of the dark septs in the voluptuous capital of Peru. Assassinations, it must be owned, have been rather frequent of late years, and these have been almost always perpetrated with impunity; but there is reason to believe that the agents concerned in such atrocious crimes were in many instances not sons of the soil, but outcasts and fugitives from neighbouring states. Money, not blood, is what the worst of the dark native vagabonds of the coast are generally in quest of; and he who does not offer resistance when accosted by the robber, but, instead of armour, carries a few dollars or a couple of doubloons for his ransom, may nine times in ten be suffered to escape with entire personal safety from the midst of the most lawless marauders and dreaded highwaymen, who are usually no other than renegade slaves.
CHAPTER VI.