That the African negro is an inferior variety of the human race, is, I think, now generally admitted, and his distinguishing characteristics are such as peculiarly mark him out for the situation which he occupies among us; and those are no less marked in their original country than as we have daily occasion to observe them. The most remarkable is their indifference to personal liberty. In this they have followed their instincts, since we have any knowledge of their continent, by enslaving each other; but, contrary to the experience of every other race, the possession of slaves has no material effect in raising the character, and promoting the civilization, of the master. Another trait is the want of domestic affections, and insensibility to the ties of kindred. In the travels of the Landers, after speaking of a single exception, in the person of a woman who betrayed some transient emotion in passing by the country from which she had been torn as a slave, the author adds:—" that Africans, generally speaking, betray the most perfect indifference on losing their liberty and being deprived of their relatives, while love of country is equally a stranger to their breasts, as social tenderness or domestic affection." " Marriage is celebrated by the natives as unconcernedly as possible; a man thinks as little of taking a wife as of cutting an ear of corn; affection is altogether out of the question."
--From "Chancellor Harper's Memoir on Slavery, Part 2," De Bow's Review, IX (November, 1850), pg. 618.
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