Note 220 — Chapter XIX

Labat says that the inhabitants of St. Domingo were in the habit of marking the negroes which they bought by burning the skin, and he adds, in his Dominican way, “De sorte qu’un esclave qui auroit été vendu et revendu plusieurs fois paroîtroit à la fin aussi chargé de caracters, que ces obelisques d’Egypt.” This was not practised, as he tells us, in the islands (Martinique and Guadaloupe) and he adds that their negroes, and principally the creole slaves seroient au desespoir qu’on les marquât comme on fait les bœufs et les chevaux. The small islands did not require this practice, but St. Domingo un pais aussi vaste, could not do without it, because the slaves ran away to the mountains.—Nouveau Voyage, &c., tom. vii. p. 260.