The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 58, August, 1862

In this respect American humor has been ill represented. Comic publications have appeared only at rare intervals, and comic journals have soon degenerated into stupidity or coarseness. Yet this has not been for lack of material, but of a proper editorial faculty, and from the want of a habitude or a willingness on the part of those who conceive clever things to note them down and give them out in black and white. When "Vanity Fair" first appeared, we thought we saw in it the germ of a journal which might be an exponent of our national spirit of mirthfulness, and we took occasion to say so briefly. We have not been disappointed. The five volumes which have already been published in weekly numbers have been true to the honest purpose which the conductors proposed to themselves and the public in their prospectus, and are fair representatives of the wit and humor which are in their essence allied to the merriment and the satire of Hawthorne and Lowell, Holmes and Saxe, although, of course, they are not yet developed with like delicacy and brilliance. There is in these pages a vast deal of genuine, hearty fun, and of sharp, stinging sarcasm; there are also hundreds of cleverly drawn and cleanly cut illustrations. Better than these, there is a fearlessness of consequences and of persons, when a wrong is to be combated, an error to be set right. And this Touchstone has been impartial as well as sturdy in his castigation; he has not been blind to the faults of his friends, or slow in bidding them imitate the excellences of his enemies; he had "a whip of scorpions" for the late Administration, when others, whose intuitions were less quick, saw nothing to chastise, and he has not hesitated to rebuke the official misdemeanors of these days, because officers have per contra done other portions of their duties well. According to his creed, a wrong cannot be palliated into a right, but must be reformed thereto; he has no tolerance for that evil whose cure is obvious and possible, and he treats boldly and severely the subjects of which the timid scarcely dare to speak.

It cannot, of course, be claimed for "Vanity Fair" that it is all clever. The brightest wit must say some dull things, and a comic journal can hardly help letting some dreary attempts at mirth slip into its columns. We could point out paragraphs in this serial which are most chaotic and unmeaning, and some, indeed, which fall below its own excellent standard of refinement; but we do not remember ever to have met in its pages a double-entendre or a foulness of speech. We must advise its conductor (who, we may say in passing, is a gentleman whose writings have not infrequently appeared in the "Atlantic") never to allow his paper to descend to the level of the ignoble vulgus; and we are glad that in wishing "Vanity Fair" long life and prosperity we have to censure it only for some slight violations of good taste, not for any offence against modesty or decorum. It deserves admission to the library and the drawing-room.

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1

Herrera says, however, that Las Casas declared them to be legitimately enslaved, the natives of Trinity Island in particular. Schoelcher (Colonies Étrangèrés et Haiti, Tom. II. p. 59) notices that all the royal edicts in favor of the people of America, miserably obeyed as they were, related only to Indians who were supposed to be in a state of peace with Spain; the Caribs were distinctly excepted. It was convenient to call a great many Indians Caribs; numerous tribes who were peaceful enough when let alone, and victims rather than perpetrators of cannibalism, became slaves by scientific adjudication. "These races," said Cardinal Ximenes, "are fit for nothing but labor."

2

Fifth Memoir: Upon the Liberty of the Indians. Llorente, Tom. II. p. 11.

3

Cimarron was Spanish, meaning wild: applied to animals, and subsequently to escaped slaves, who lived by hunting and stealing.

4

"Gimlamo Benzoni, of Milan, who, at the age of twenty-two, visited Terra Firma, took part in some expeditions in 1542 to the coasts of Bordones, Cariaco, and Paria, to carry off the unfortunate natives. He relates with simplicity, and often with a sensibility not common in the historians of that time, the examples of cruelty of which he was a witness. He saw the slaves dragged to New Cadiz, to be marked on the forehead and on the arms, and for the payment of the quint to the officers of the crown. From this port the Indians were sent to the island of Hayti, after having often changed masters, not by way of sale, but because the soldiers played for them at dice."–Humboldt, Personal Narrative, Vol. I. p. 176.

5

Schoelcher, Hayti, Vol. II. p.78. The Arabs introduced the cane, which had been cultivated in the East from the remotest times, into Sicily in the ninth century, whence it found its way into Spain, and was taken to the Canaries: Madeira sent sugar to Antwerp in 1500. See Bridge, Annals of Jamaica, Vol.I. p.594, who, however, makes the mistake of saying that a variety of the sugar-cane was indigenous to the Antilles. See Humboldt, Personal Narrative, Vol. II. p.28, who says that negroes were employed in the cultivation of the sugar-cane in the Canaries from its introduction.

6

Schoelcher, La Traile et son Origine, in Colonies Etrengères, Tom. I. p. 364.

7

Upon the subject of changes in the value of money, and some comparisons between the past and present, see Hallam's Europe, during the Middle Ages, Vol. II. pp. 427–432, and Supplement, p. 406. Dealing in money, banking, bills of exchange, have a very early date in Europe. The Bank of Venice was founded in 1401. Florentines dealt in money as early as 1251, and their system of exchange was in use throughout the North early in the fifteenth century.–McCullagh's Industrial History of Free Nations Vol. II. p. 94.

8

See in Hallam's Supplement to Europe during the Middle Ages, p. l33, and in Motley's Dutch Republic, Vol. I. pp. 32, 33, various causes mentioned for voluntary and compulsory servitude in the early European times. See also Summer's White Slavery, p. 11.

9

Moors, living In Spain as subjects, and nominally Christianized.

10

La Historia sel Mondo Nuovo, Venetia, 1565, Book II. p.65, a duodecimo filled with curious plates representing the habits of the natives and the Spanish dealings with them. Benozi elsewhere has a good deal to say about the cruelty exercised towards the negroes. For a failure to perform a daily stint in the mines, a negro was usually buried up to his chin, and left to be tormented by the insects. Wire whips were used in flogging, and hot pitch was applied to the wounds.

11

Fifth Memoir: Upon the Liberty of the Indians who have been reduced to the Condition of Slavery; Morente, Tom. II. pp. 34, 35. Sixth Memoir: Upon the Question whether Kings have the Power to alienate their Subjects, their Towns and Jurisdiction, pp. 64 et seq. Letter of Las Casas to Miranda, resident in England with Philip, in 1555.–The Sixth Memoir is a remarkable production. Its closing words are these: "The dignity of a king does not consist in usurping rights of which he is only the administrator. Invested with all the necessary power to govern well and to make his kingdom happy, let him fulfil that fine destiny, and the respect of the people will be his reward."

12

"Ces hommes qui donnent le beau nom de prudence à leur timidité, et dont la discrétion est toujours favorable à l'injustice."–Hilliard d'Aubertueil, Considérations sur l'Ètat Présent de la Colonie Françoise de St. Domingue, 1776.

13

Histoire Générale des Isles de St. Christophe, etc., 1654, par Du Tertre.

14

From a letter by the Jesuit father Le Pers, quoted by Charlevoix, Histoire de St. Domingue, Tom. IV. p. 369. Amsterdam, 1733.

15

Upon the reputed effects of baptism, and some anecdotes connected with the administration of this rite, see Humboldt's Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, London, 1811, Vol. I. p. 165, note.

16

Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amerique, A la Haye, 1724, Tom. V. p. 42. Father Labat is delighted because the Dutch asked him to confess their slaves; and he records that many masters take great pains to have their Catholic slaves say their prayers morning and evening, and approach the sacrament; nor do they undertake to indoctrinate them with Calvinism.

17

A Sermon preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propogation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, at their Anniversary Meeting in the Parish Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, on Friday, February 18, 1731.

18

Oviedo says nothing about this Jeromite proposition, but records the arrival of this priestly commission, (Hist. Ind., Book IV. ch. 3,) and that one object of it was to provide for the Indians,–"buen tractamiento é conserveçion de los indios." He says that all the remedial measures which it undertook increased the misery and loss of the natives. He was not humane. It seemed absurd to him that the Indians should kill themselves on the slightest pretext, or run to the mountains; and he can find no reason for it, except that their chief purpose in life (and one which they had always cherished, before the Christians came among them) was to eat, drink, "folgar, é luxuriar, é idolatrar, é exercer otras muchas suçiedades bestiales."

19

The priests gave him the name of Henri, when they baptized him, long previous to his revolt. He was called Henriquillo by way of Catholic endearment. But the consecrating water could not wash out of his remembrance that his father and grandfather had been burnt alive by order of a Spanish governor. What, indeed, can quench such fires? Yet this dusky Hannibal loved the exercises and pure restraints of the religion which had laid waste his family.

20

Oviedo, Hist. Ind., Book V. ch. 11, who gives the cacique little credit for some of his prohibitions, but on the whole praises him, and, after mentioning that he lived little more than a year from the time of this pacification, and died like a Christian, commends his soul to God. Oviedo hated the Indians, and wrote about colonial affairs coldly and in the Spanish interests.

21

Histoire Politique et Statistique. Par Placide Justin.

22

"The Indies are not for every one! How many heedless persons quit Spain, expecting that in the Indies a dinner costs nothing, and that there is nobody there in want of one; that as they do not drink wine in every house, why, they give it away! Many, Father, have been seen to go to the Indies, and to have returned from them as miserable as when they left their country, having gained from the journey nought but perpetual pains in the arms and legs, which refuse in their treatment to yield to sarsaparilla and palo santo, [lignum vitae,] and which neither quicksilver nor sweats will eject from their constitution." From a Spanish novel by Yanez y Rivera, "Alonzo, el Donado Hablador": "Alonzo, the Talkative Lay-Brother," written in 1624. New York, 1844.

23

Charlevoix, Histoire de St. Domingue, 1733, Tom.I. p.185, who notices the admission of Herrera that the Admiral made a great mistake, since malefactors should not be selected for the founders of republics. No, neither in Virginia nor in any virgin world.

24

Some slips of Mocha fell into the hands of Europeans first by being carried to Batavia. It was then transplanted to Amsterdam in the end of the sixteenth century; and a present of some shrubs was made to Louis XIV., at the Peace of Utrecht. They flourished in his garden, and three shrubs were taken thence and shipped to Martinique in the care of a Captain de Cheu. The voyage was so prolonged that two of them died for want of moisture, and the captain saved the third by devoting to it his own ration of water.

25

Hüne, Geschichte des Sclavenhandels, I. 300.

26

When John's son, Richard, was fitting out a vessel for a voyage into the South Sea, ostensibly to explore, his mother-in-law had the naming of it at his request; and she called it "The Repentance." Sir Richard was puzzled at this; but his mother would give him no other satisfaction "then that repentance was the safest ship we could sayle in to purchase the haven of Heaven." The Queen changed the name to "Daintie."–Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knight, in his Voyage into the South Sea, A. D. 1593.

27

Idea del Valor, etc., Madrid, 1785: An Idea of the Value of the Spanish Island, etc. By A.S. Valverde.

28

McCullagh's Industrial History of Free Nations; the Dutch, Vol. II. p. 51.

29

The History and Present Condition of St. Domingo, by J. Brown, M. D., 1837, p. 40. Even this exception in favor of slave-traders appears afterwards to have been withdrawn; for Charlevoix relates (Histoire de St. Domingue, Tom. III. p. 36) that the Governor of San Domingo got Tortuga away from the French, in 1654, by means of two negroes whom he had purchased cheap from some Dutchmen, and who showed him a path by which he drew up two cannon to command the fort. He was recalled, and beheaded at Seville, because he had bought negroes of foreigners.