Moving Back to Jamaica

A blog about my Move Back to Jamaica after 20+ years of living in the US. Most of the articles focus on the period from 2005-2009 when the transition was new, and at it's most challenging.

Friday, August 08, 2008

Link to the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911 - "Negroes"

I don't think I need to add too much to this one.

The link is: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12627a.htm

NEGROES

Religion

The negro has a religious nature. His docile, cheerful, and emotional disposition is much influenced by his immediate environment, whether those surroundings be good or evil. Catholic faith and discipline are known to have a wholesome effect on the race. Observing men and judges of courts have remarked on the law-abiding spirit existing in Catholic coloured communities. Some elements of the white man's civilization do not always tend to elevate the morality of the negro. The negro is naturally gregarious, and the dissipations and conditions of city life in many instances corrupt the native simplicity of the younger generation to the sorrow of their more conservative elders. (For a view of religion in these later times among the blacks in the native African home of the race, see AFRICA.) Contrary to a prevalent opinion, the negro, when well grounded in the Catholic faith, is tenacious of it.

In the United States the negroes and their descendants naturally adopted more or less the religion of their masters or former owners. Thus it comes that, outside of Maryland and the Gulf Coast, in a large section of the South comprising former slave states and colonized by English Protestants, the negroes who claim affiliation to any Church are for the most part Baptists and Methodists.
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This link is from the 1911 Encyclopedia, regarding the inhabitants of Jamaica.

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Jamaica,_West_Indies

The population of the island was estimated in 1905 at 806,690. Jamaica is rich in traces of its former Arawak inhabitants. Aboriginal petaloid celts and other implements, flattened skulls and vessels are common, and images are sometimes found in the large limestone caverns of the island. The present inhabitants, of whom only 2% are white, include Maroons, the descendants of the slaves of the Spaniards who fled into the interior when the island was captured by the British; descendants of imported African slaves; mixed race of British and African blood; coolies from India; a few Chinese, and the British officials and white settlers. The Maroons live by themselves and are few in number, while the half-castes enter into trade and sometimes into the professions. The number of white inhabitants other than British is very small. A negro peasant population is encouraged, with a view to its being a support to the industries of the island; but, in many cases a field negro will not work for his employer more than four days a week. He may till his own plot of ground on one of the other days or not, as the spirit moves him, but four days' work a week will keep him easily. He has little or no care for the future. He has probably squatted on someone's land, and has no rent to pay. Clothes he need hardly buy, fuel he needs only for cooking, and food is ready to his hand for the picking. Unfortunately a widespread indulgence in predial larceny is a great hindrance to agriculture as well as to moral progress. But that habits of thrift are being inculcated is shown by the steady increase in the accounts in the government savings banks. That gross superstition is still preva] ent is shown by the cases of obeah or witchcraft that come before the courts from time to time. Another indication of the status of the negro may be found in the fact that more than 60% of the births are illegitimate, a percentage that shows an unfortunate tendency to increase rather than diminish.

6 Comments:

At 8/10/2008 12:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't endorse this man's position or comments, but I am curious to hear what Jamaicans will make of him:

http://tinyurl.com/6rts57

D

 
At 8/10/2008 2:12 PM, Blogger fwade said...

Thanks anonymous for this link.

I just read it -- it's so inflammatory I thought it was a joke. I wonder if he's black?

 
At 8/12/2008 8:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

He says "we blacks" several times in the article, so I would I assume so.

D

 
At 8/15/2008 9:55 AM, Blogger themackdiva said...

Please read this...it is unbelievable!

Google "Another Trendy Catholic Atrocity" Damian Thompson or try pasting this.

This article is unrelated yet in a way related to this article. I read this a few months back and was so hurt by it that I went around talking to myself about it for days after.
The mission what the article speaks of has done so much for the destitute of Jamaica. It is the music of Father Ho lung that has helped him to do wonderful works for the poor.
The attitude and comments of the blogger and his responders make me physically ill...and although it was written in 2007 it may as well have been 1911.

 
At 8/15/2008 10:03 AM, Blogger themackdiva said...

Somehow I could not link this.
Please however google"Another Catholic Atrocity by Damian Thompson.

 
At 8/15/2008 10:12 AM, Blogger themackdiva said...

I just want to clarify that I am not a subscriber to any particular religion...the closest I can use to describe myself is Gnostic Christian...but I cannot stand to see people who do so much good get insulted.

 

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