“Today in Haiti we come to the real crux of the question. At the end of a hundred years of trial, how does the black man govern himself? What progress has he made? Absolutely none.
When he undertakes the task of government, he does so, not with the intent of promoting the public weal, but for the sake of filing his own pocket. His motto is still, “Pluck the fowl, but take care she does not cry out”. Corruption has spread through every portion and every department of the government. Almost all the ills of the country may be traced to their source in tyranny, the ineptitude, and the improbity of those at the helm of state. (…) Can the negro rule himself? Is he congenitally capable? (…) Today, and as matters stands, he certainly cannot rule himself”.
~ Hesketh Prichard, Where Black Rules White – 1900
Songs of our land, ye have followed the stranger,
With power over ocean and desert afar,
Ye have gone with our wanderers through distance and danger, And gladdened their path like a homeguiding star.
With the breath of our mountains in summers long vanished,
And visions that passed like a wave from the sand,
With hope for their country and joy from her banished.
Ye come to us ever, sweet songs of our land. (Francis Brown)
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