異類之不一樣的成功啟示錄 第195期:非白人混血兒的地位

They lived the much easier life of working in the "house."

她們在房子里工作,

They were the ones most likely to be freed.

享受安逸的生活。

So many mulatto mistresses were left substantial fortunes in the wills of white property owners

她們是那些最像擁有自由的人,所以在很多白人財產(chǎn)擁有者的遺囑中,都會留給她們大量的財富，

that the Jamaican legislature once passed a law capping bequests at two thousand pounds which, at the time, was an enormous sum.

以致當時的牙買加立法機關(guān)通過了一部法律。規(guī)定遺產(chǎn)的上限不得超過2000英鎊。(在當時這個可是一大筆錢)。

"When a European arrives in the West Indies and gets settled or set down for any length of time,

一個18世紀的觀察家寫道：“當一個歐洲人來到西印度群島,定居或者要在那里生活一段時間時,

he finds it necessary to provide himself with a housekeeper or mistress," one eighteenth century observer wrote.

他就會發(fā)現(xiàn)必須要找個家庭主婦或者情人。

"The choice he has an opportunity of making is various, a black, a tawney, a mulatto, or a mestee, one of which can be purchased for a hundred or a hundred and fifty sterling...

他有很多選擇,黑人、黃種人、黑白混血女人、或是梅斯蒂混血女人,這些都只需要100到150英鎊就能買到。

If a young progeny of colored children is brought forth, these are emancipated,

如果那些非白人的小孩出生,他們是不受約束的。”

and mostly sent by their fathers who can afford it at the age of three or four years to be educated in England."

當他們3、4歲時,通常都會被他們那些有能力支付費用的父親們送到英國接受教育。

This is the world Daisy's grandfather John was born into.

這就是戴西偉大祖父出生的世界。

He was one generation removed from a slave ship, living in a country best described as an African penal colony,

是從奴隸船上下來的一代人,生活在一個被描述作為非洲人刑罰聚居地的國家。

and he was a free man with every benefit of education.

他是個自由人,由于受過教育的益處,

He married another mulatto, a woman who was half European and half Arawak, which is the Indian tribe indigenous to Jamaica, and had seven children.

他娶了一個有一半歐洲血統(tǒng)和一半牙買加印第安土族部落阿拉瓦血統(tǒng)的混血兒,他們有7個孩子。

"These people, the colors, had a lot of status," the Jamaican sociologist Orlando Patterson says.

“這些非白人混血兒很有地位，”牙買加社會學家奧蘭多·帕特森說,

"By 1826, they had full civil liberties. In fact, they achieved full civil liberties at the same time as the Jews do in Jamaica.

“在1826年,他們擁有完全的公民自由。實際上,在牙買加他們跟猶太人一樣擁有完全的公民自由。

They could vote. Do anything a white person could do, and this is within the context of what was still a slave society.

他們有選舉權(quán)，在那個還是奴隸社會的背景下,他們能做白人所能做的一切。”