important offices, and is generally considered the _cleverest_ man in the island. He is now a member of the council, and acting attorney for about twenty estates. He remarked that he had always desired emancipation, and had prepared himself for it; but that it had proved a greater blessing than he had expected. His apprentices did as much work as before, and it was done without the application of the whip. He had not had any cases of insubordination, and it was very seldom that he had any complaints to make to the special magistrate. “The apprentices.” said he, “understand the meaning of law, and they regard its authority.” He thought there was no such thing in the island as a _sense of insecurity_, either as respected person or property. Real estate had risen in value.
Col. B. alluded to the expensiveness of slavery, remarking that after all that was expended in purchasing the slaves, it cost the proprietor as much to maintain them, as it would to hire free men. He spoke of the habit of exercising arbitrary power, which being in continual play up to the time of abolition, had become so strong that managers even yet gave way to it, and frequently punished their apprentices, in spite of all penalties. The fines inflicted throughout the island in 1836, upon planters, overseers, and others, for punishing apprentices, amounted to one thousand two hundred dollars. Col. B. said that he found the legal penalty so inadequate, that in his own practice he was obliged to resort to other means to deter his book-keepers and overseers from violence; hence he discharged every man under his control who was known to strike an apprentice. He does not think that the apprenticeship will be a means of preparing the negroes for freedom, nor does he believe that they _need_ any preparation. He should have apprehended no danger, had emancipation taken place in 1834.
At nine o’clock we sat down to breakfast. Our places were assigned at opposite sides of the table, between Col. B. and Mr. C. To an American eye, we presented a singular spectacle. A wealthy planter, a member of the legislative council, sitting at the breakfast table with a colored man, whose mother was a negress of the most unmitigated hue, and who himself showed a head of hair as curly as his mother’s! But this colored guest was treated with all that courtesy and attention to which his intelligence, worth and accomplished manners so justly entitle him.
About noon, we left Edgecome, and drove two miles farther, to Horton–an estate owned by Foster Clarke, Esq., an attorney for twenty-two estates, who is now temporarily residing in England. The intelligent manager of Horton received us and our colored companion, with characteristic hospitality. Like every one else, he told us that the apprenticeship was far better than slavery, though he was looking forward to the still better system, entire freedom.
After we had taken a lunch, Mr. Cummins invited our host to take a seat, with us in his carriage, and we drove across the country to Drax Hall. Drax Hall is the largest estate in the island–consisting of eight hundred acres. The manager of this estate confirmed the testimony of the Barbadian planters in every important particular.
From Drax Hall we returned to Bridgetown, accompanied by our friend Cummins.
CHAPTER II.
TESTIMONY OF SPECIAL MAGISTRATES, POLICE OFFICERS, CLERGYMEN, AND MISSIONARIES.
Next in weight to the testimony of the planters is that of the special magistrates. Being officially connected with the administration of the apprenticeship system, and tire adjudicators in all difficulties between master and servant, their views of the system and of the conduct of the different parties are entitled to special consideration. Our interviews with this class of men were frequent during our stay in the island. We found them uniformly ready to communicate information, and free to express their sentiments.
In Barbadoes there are seven special magistrates, presiding over as many districts, marked A, B, C, &c., which include the whole of the apprentice population, praedial and non-praedial. These districts embrace an average of twelve thousand apprentices–some more and some less. All the complaints and difficulties which arise among that number of apprentices and their masters, overseers and book-keepers, are brought before the single magistrate presiding in the district in which they occur. From the statement of this fact it will appear in the outset either that the special magistrates have an incalculable amount of business to transact, or that the conduct of the apprentices is wonderfully peaceable. But more of this again.
About a week following our first interview with his excellency, Sir Evan McCregor, we received an invitation to dine at Government House with a company of gentlemen. On our arrival at six o’clock, we were conducted into a large antechamber above the dining hall, where we were soon joined by the Solicitor-General, Hon. R.B. Clarke. Dr. Clarke, a physician, Maj. Colthurst, Capt. Hamilton, and Mr. Galloway, special magistrates. The appearance of the Governor about an hour afterwards, was the signal for an adjournment to dinner.
Slavery and emancipation were the engrossing topics during the evening. As our conversation was for the most part general, we were enabled to gather at the same time the opinions of all the persons present. There was, for aught we heard or could see to the contrary, an entire unanimity of sentiment. In the course of the evening we gathered the following facts and testimony:
1. All the company testified to the benefits of abolition. It was affirmed that the island was never in so prosperous a condition as at present.
2. The estates generally are better cultivated than they were during slavery. Said one of the magistrates:
“If, gentlemen, you would see for yourselves the evidences of our successful cultivation, you need but to travel in any part of the country, and view the superabundant crops which are now being taken off; and if you would satisfy yourselves that emancipation has not been ruinous to Barbadoes, only cast your eyes over the land in any direction, and see the flourishing condition both of houses and fields: every thing is starting into new life.”
It as also stated that more work was done during the nine hours required by law, than was done during slavery in twelve or fifteen hours, with all the driving and goading which were then practised.
3. Offences have not increased, but rather lessened. The Solicitor-General remarked, that the comparative state of crime could not be ascertained by a mere reference to statistical records, since previous to emancipation all offences were summarily punished by the planter. Each estate was a little despotism, and the manager took cognizance of all the misdemeanors committed among his slaves –inflicting such punishment as he thought proper. The public knew nothing about the offences of the slaves, unless something very atrocious was committed. But since emancipation has taken place, all offences, however trivial, come to the light and are recorded. He could only give a judgment founded on observation. It was his opinion, that there were fewer petty offences, such as thefts, larcenies, &c., than during slavery. As for serious crime, it was hardly known in the island. The whites enjoy far greater safety of person and property than they did formerly.
Maj. Colthurst, who is an Irishman, remarked, that he had long been a magistrate or justice of the peace in Ireland, and he was certain that at the present ratio of crime in Barbadoes, there would not be as much perpetrated in six years to come, as there is in Ireland among an equal population in six months. For his part, he had never found in any part of the world so peaceable and inoffensive a community.
4. It was the unanimous testimony that there was no disposition among the apprentices to revenge injuries committed against them. _They are not a revengeful people_, but on the contrary are remarkable for forgetting wrongs, particularly when the are succeeded by kindness.
5. The apprentices were described as being generally civil and respectful toward their employers. They were said to manifest more independence of feeling and action than they did when slaves; but were seldom known to be insolent unless grossly insulted or very harshly used.
6. Ample testimony was given to the law-abiding character of the negroes. When the apprenticeship system was first introduced, they did not fully comprehend its provisions, and as they had anticipated entire freedom, they were disappointed and dissatisfied. But in a little while they became reconciled to the operations of the new system, and have since manifested a due subordination to the laws and authorities.
7. There is great desire manifested among them to purchase their freedom. Not a week passes without a number of appraisements. Those who have purchased their freedom have generally conducted well, and in many instances are laboring on the same estates on which they were slaves.
8. There is no difficulty in inducing the apprentices to work on Saturday. They are usually willing to work if proper wages are given them. If they are not needed on the estates, they either work on their own grounds, or on some neighboring estate.
9. The special magistrates were all of the opinion that it would have been entirely safe to have emancipated the slaves of Barbadoes in 1834. They did not believe that any preparation was needed; but that entire emancipation would have been decidedly better than the apprenticeship.
10. The magistrates also stated that the number of complaints brought before them was comparatively small, and it was gradually diminishing. The offences were of a very trivial nature, mostly cases of slight insubordination, such as impertinent replies and disobedience of orders.
11. They stated that they had more trouble with petty overseers and managers and small proprietors than with the entire black population.
12. The special magistrates further testified that wherever the planters have exercised common kindness and humanity, the apprentices have generally conducted peaceably. Whenever there are many complaints from one estate, it is presumable that the manager is a bad man.
13. Real estate is much higher throughout the island than it has been for many years. A magistrate said that he had heard of an estate which had been in market for ten years before abolition and could not find a purchaser. In 1835, the year following abolition, it was sold for one third more than was asked for it two years before.
14. It was stated that there was not a proprietor in the island, whose opinion was of any worth, who would wish to have slavery restored. Those who were mostly bitterly opposed to abolition, have become reconciled, and are satisfied that the change has been beneficial. The Solicitor-General was candid enough to own that he himself was openly opposed to emancipation. He had declared publicly and repeatedly while the measure was pending in Parliament, that abolition would ruin the colonies. But the results had proved so different that he was ashamed of his former forebodings. He had no desire ever to see slavery re-established.
15. The first of August, 1834, was described as a day of remarkable quiet and tranquillity. The Solicitor-General remarked, that there were many fears for the results of that first day of abolition. He said he arose early that morning, and before eight o’clock rode through the most populous part of the island, over an extent of twelve miles. The negroes were all engaged in their work as on other days. A stranger riding through the island, and ignorant of the event which had taken place that morning, would have observed no indications of so extraordinary a change. He returned home satisfied that all would work well.
16. The change in 1840 was spoken of as being associated with the most sanguine expectations. It was thought that there was more danger to be apprehended from the change in 1834. It was stated that there were about fifteen thousand non-praedials, who would then be emancipated in Barbadoes. This will most likely prove the occasion of much excitement and uneasiness, though it is not supposed that any thing serious will arise. The hope was expressed that the legislature would effect the emancipation of the whole population at that time. One of the magistrates informed us that he knew quite a number of planters in his district who were willing to liberate their apprentices immediately, but they were waiting for a general movement. It was thought that this state of feeling was somewhat extensive.
17. The magistrates represented the negroes as naturally confiding and docile, yielding readily to the authority of those who are placed over them. Maj. Colthurst presides over a district of 9,000 apprentices; Capt. Hamilton over a district of 13,000, and Mr. Galloway over the same number. There are but three days in the week devoted to hearing and settling complaints. It is very evident that in so short a time it would be utterly impossible for one man to control and keep in order such a number, unless the subjects were of themselves disposed to be peaceable and submissive. The magistrates informed us that, notwithstanding the extent of their districts, they often did not have more than from a dozen to fifteen complaints in a week.
We were highly gratified with the liberal spirit and the intelligence of the special magistrates. Major Colthurst is a gentleman of far more than ordinary pretensions to refinement and general information. He was in early life a justice of the peace in Ireland, he was afterwards a juror in his Majesty’s service, and withal, has been an extensive traveller. Fifteen years ago he travelled in the United States, and passed through several of the slaveholding states, where he was shocked with the abominations of slavery. He was persuaded that slavery was worse in our country, than it has been for many years in the West Indies. Captain Hamilton was formerly an officer in the British navy. He seems quite devoted to his business, and attached to the interests of the apprentices. Mr. Galloway is a _colored_ gentleman, highly respected for his talents. Mr. G. informed us that _prejudice_ against color was rapidly diminishing–and that the present Governor was doing all in his power to discountenance it.
The company spoke repeatedly of the _noble act of abolition, by which Great Britain had immortalized her name more than by all the achievements of her armies and navies._
The warmest wishes were expressed for the abolition of slavery in the United States. All said they should rejoice when the descendants of Great Britain should adopt the noble example of their mother country. They hailed the present anti-slavery movements. Said the Solicitor-General, “We were once strangely opposed to the English anti-slavery party, but now we sympathize with you. Since slavery is abolished to our own colonies, and we see the good which results from the measure, we go for abolition throughout the world. Go on, gentlemen, we are with you; _we are all sailing in the same vessel._”
Being kindly invited by Captain Hamilton, during our interview with him at the government house, to call on him and attend his court, we availed ourselves of his invitation a few days afterwards. We left Bridgetown after breakfast, and as it chanced to be Saturday, we had a fine opportunity of seeing the people coming into market. They were strung all along the road for six miles, so closely, that there was scarcely a minute at any time in which we did not pass them. As far as the eye could reach there were files of men and women, moving peaceably forward. From the cross paths leading through the estates, the busy marketers were pouring into the highway. To their heads as usual was committed the safe conveyance of the various commodities. It was amusing to observe the almost infinite diversity of products which loaded them. There were sweet potatoes, yams, eddoes, Guinea and Indian corn, various fruits and berries, vegetables, nuts, cakes, bottled beer and empty bottles, bundles of sugar cane, bundles of fire wood, &c. &c. Here was one woman (the majority were females, as usual with the marketers in these islands) with a small black pig doubled up under her arm. Another girl had a brood of young chickens, with nest, coop, and all, on her head. Further along the road we were specially attracted by a woman who was trudging with an immense turkey elevated on her head. He quite filled the tray; head and tail projecting beyond its bounds. He advanced, as was very proper, head foremost, and it was irresistibly laughable to see him ever and anon stretch out his neck and peep under the tray, as though he would discover by what manner of locomotive it was that he got along so fast while his own legs were tied together.
Of the hundreds whom we past, there were very few who were not well dressed, healthy, and apparently in good spirits. We saw nothing indecorous, heard no vile language, and witnessed no violence.
About four miles from town, we observed on the side of the road a small grove of shade trees. Numbers of the marketers were seated there, or lying in the cool shade with their trays beside them. It seemed to be a sort of rendezvous place, where those going to, and those returning from town, occasionally halt for a time for the purpose of resting, and to tell and hear news concerning the state of the market. And why should not these travelling merchants have an exchange as well as the stationary ones of Bridgetown?
On reaching the station-house, which is about six miles from town, we learned that Saturday was not one of the court days. We accordingly drove to Captain Hamilton’s residence. _He stated that during the week he had only six cases of complaint among the thirteen thousand apprentices embraced in his district._ Saturday is the day set apart for the apprentices to visit him at his house for advice on any points connected with their duties. He had several calls while we were with him. One was from the mother of an apprentice girl who had been committed for injuring the master’s son. She came to inform Captain H. that the girl had been whipped twice contrary to law, before her commitment. Captain H. stated that the girl had said nothing about this at the time of her trial; if she had, she would in all probability have been _set free_, instead of being _committed to prison_. He remarked that he had no question but there were numerous cases of flogging on the estates which never came to light. The sufferers were afraid to inform against their masters, lest they should be treated still worse. The opportunity which he gave them of coming, to him one day in the week for private advice, was the means of exposing many outrages which would otherwise he unheard of: He observed that there were not a few whom he had liberated on account of the cruelty of their masters.
Captain H. stated that the apprentices were much disposed to purchase their freedom. To obtain money to pay for themselves they practice the most severe economy and self-denial in the very few indulgences which the law grants them. They sometimes resort to deception to depreciate their value with the appraisers. He mentioned an instance of a man who lead for many years been an overseer on a large estate. Wishing to purchase himself, and knowing that his master valued him very highly, he permitted his beard to grow; gave his face a wrinkled and haggard appearance, and bound a handkerchief about his head. His clothes were suffered to become ragged and dirty, and he began to feign great weakness in his limbs, and to complain of a “misery all down his back.” He soon appeared marked with all the signs of old age and decrepitude. In this plight, and leaning on a stick, he hobbled up to the station-house one day, and requested to be appraised. He was appraised at L10, which he immediately paid. A short time afterwards, he engaged himself to a proprietor to manage a small estate for L30 per year in cash and his own maintenance, all at once grew vigorous again; and is prospering finely. Many of the masters in turn practice deception to prevent the apprentices from buying themselves, or to make them pay the very highest sum for their freedom. They extol their virtues–they are every thing that is excellent and valuable–their services on the estate are indispensable no one can fill their places. By such misrepresentations they often get an exorbitant price for the remainder of the term–more, sometimes, than they could have obtained for them for life while they were slaves.
From Captain H.’s we returned to the station-house, the keeper of which conducted us over the buildings, and showed us the cells of the prison. The house contains the office and private room of the magistrate, and the guard-room, below, and chambers for the police men above. There are sixteen solitary cells, and two large rooms for those condemned to hard labour–one for females and the other for males. There were at that time seven in the solitary cells, and twenty-four employed in labor on the roads. This is more than usual. The average number is twenty in all. When it is considered that most of the commitments are for trivial offences, and that the district contains thirteen thousand apprentices, certainly we have grounds to conclude that the state of morals in Barbadoes is decidedly superior to that in our own country.
The whole police force for this district is composed of seventeen horsemen, four footmen, a sergeant, and the keeper. It was formerly greater but has been reduced within the past year.
The keeper informed us that he found the apprentices, placed under his care, very easily controlled. They sometimes attempt to escape; but there has been no instance of revolt or insubordination. The island, he said, was peaceable, and were it not for the petty complaints of the overseers, nearly the whole police force might be disbanded. As for insurrection, he laughed at the idea of it. It was feared before abolition, but now no one thought of it. All but two or three of the policemen at this station are black and colored men.
STATION-HOUSE AT DISTRICT A.
Being disappointed in our expectations of witnessing some trials at the station-house in Captain Hamilton’s district (B,) we visited the court in district A, where Major Colthurst presides. Major C. was in the midst of a trial when we entered, and we did not learn fully the nature of the case then pending. We were immediately invited within the bar, whence we had a fair view of all that passed.
There were several complaints made and tried, during our stay. We give a brief account of them, as they will serve as specimens of the cases usually brought before the special magistrates.
I. The first was a complaint made by a colored lady, apparently not more than twenty, against a colored girl–her domestic apprentice. The charge was insolence, and disobedience of orders. The complainant said that the girl was exceedingly insolent–no one could imagine how insolent she had been–it was beyond endurance. She seemed wholly unable to find words enough to express the superlative insolence of her servant. The justice requested her to particularize. Upon this, she brought out several specific charges such as, first, That the girl brought a candle to her one evening, and wiped her greasy fingers on her (the girl’s) gown: second, That one morning she refused to bring some warm water, as commanded, to pour on a piece of flannel, until she had finished some other work that she was doing at the time; third, That the same morning she delayed coming into her chamber as usual to dress her, and when she did come, she sung, and on being told to shut her mouth, she replied that her mouth was her own, and that she would sing when she pleased; and fourth, That she had said in her mistress’s hearing that she would be glad when she was freed. These several charges being sworn to, the girl was sentenced to four days’ solitary confinement, but at the request of her mistress, she was discharged on promise of amendment.
II. The second complaint was against an apprentice-man by his master, for absence from work. He had leave to go to the funeral of his mother, and he did not return until after the time allowed him by his master. The man was sentence to imprisonment.
III. The third complaint was against a woman for singing and making a disturbance in the field. Sentenced to six days’ solitary confinement.
IV. An apprentice was brought up for not doing his work well. He was a mason, and was employed in erecting an arch on one of the public roads. This case excited considerable interest. The apprentice was represented by his master to be a praedial–the master testified on oath that he was registered as a praedial; but in the course of the examination it was proved that he had always been a mason; that he had labored at that trade from his boyhood, and that he knew ‘nothing about the hoe,’ having never worked an hour in the field. This was sufficient to prove that he was a non-praedial, and of course entitled to liberty two years sooner than he would have been as a praedial. As this matter came up incidentally, it enraged the master exceedingly. He fiercely reiterated his charge against the apprentice, who, on his part, averred that he did his work as well as he could. The master manifested the greatest excitement and fury during the trial. At one time, because the apprentice disputed one of his assertions, he raised his clenched fist over him, and threatened, with an oath, to knock him down. The magistrate was obliged to threaten him severely before he would keep quiet.
The defendant was ordered to prison to be tried the next day, time being given to make further inquiries about his being a praedial.
V. The next case was a complaint against an apprentice, for leaving his place in the boiling house without asking permission. It appeared that he had been unwell during the evening, _and at half past ten o’clock at night_, being attacked more severely, he left for a few moments, expecting to return. He, however, was soon taken so ill that the could not go back, but was obliged to lie down on the ground, where he remained until twelve o’clock, when he recovered sufficiently to creep home. His sickness was proved by a fellow apprentice, and indeed his appearance at the bar clearly evinced it. He was punished by several days imprisonment. With no little astonishment in view of such a decision, we inquired of Maj. C. whether the planters had the power to require their people to work as late as half past ten at night. He replied, “Certainly, _the crops must be secured at any rate, and if they are suffering, the people must be pressed the harder_.”[A]
[Footnote A: We learned subsequently from various authentic sources, that the master has _not_ the power to compel his apprentices to labor more than nine hours per day on any condition, except in case of a fire, or some similar emergency. If the call for labor in crop-time was to be set down as an emergency similar to a “fire,” and if in official decisions he took equal latitude, alas for the poor apprentices!]
VI. The last case was a complaint against a man for not keeping up good fires under the boilers. He stoutly denied the charge; said he built as good fires as he could. He kept stuffing in the trash, and if it would not burn he could not help it. He was sentenced to imprisonment.
Maj. C. said that these complaints were a fair specimen of the cases that came up daily, save that there were many more frivolous and ridiculous. By the trials which we witnessed we were painfully impressed with two things:
1st. That the magistrate, with all his regard for the rights and welfare of the apprentices, showed a great and inexcusable partiality for the masters. The patience and consideration with which he heard the complaints of the latter, the levity with which he regarded the defence of the former, the summary manner in which he despatched the cases, and the character of some of his decisions, manifested no small degree of favoritism.
2d That the whole proceedings of the special magistrates’ courts are eminently calculated to perpetuate bad feeling between the masters and apprentices. The court-room is a constant scene of angry dispute between these parties. The master exhausts his store of abuse and violence upon the apprentice, and the apprentice, emboldened by the place, and provoked by the abuse, retorts in language which he would never think of using on the estate, and thus, whatever may be the decision of the magistrate, the parties return home with feelings more embittered than ever.
There were twenty-six persons imprisoned at the station-house, twenty-four were at hard labor, and two were in solitary confinement. The keeper of the prison said, he had no difficulty in managing the prisoners. The keeper is a colored man, and so also is the sergeant and most of the policemen.
We visited one other station-house, in a distant part of the island, situated in the district over which Captain Cuppage presides. We witnessed several trials there which were similar in frivolity and meanness to those detailed above. We were shocked with the mockery of justice, and the indifference to the interests of the negro apparent in the course of the magistrate. It seemed that little more was necessary than for the manager or overseer to make his complaint and swear to it, and the apprentice was forthwith condemned to punishment.
We never saw a set of men in whose countenances fierce passions of every name were so strongly marked as in the overseers and managers who were assembled at the station-houses. Trained up to use the whip and to tyrannize over the slaves, their grim and evil expression accorded with their hateful occupation.
Through the kindness of a friend in Bridgetown we were favored with an interview with Mr. Jones, the superintendent of the rural police–the whole body of police excepting those stationed in the town. Mr. J. has been connected with the police since its first establishment in 1834. He assured us that there was nothing in the local peculiarities of the island, nor in the character of its population, which forbade immediate emancipation in August, 1834. He had no doubt it would be perfectly safe and decidedly profitable to the colony.
2. The good or bad working of the apprenticeship depends mainly on the conduct of the masters. He was well acquainted with the character and disposition of the negroes throughout the island, and he was ready to say, that if disturbances should arise either before or after 1840, it would be because the people were goaded on to desperation by the planters, and not because they sought disturbance themselves.
3. Mr. J. declared unhesitatingly that crime had not increased since abolition, but rather the contrary.
4. He represented the special magistrates as the friends of the planters. They loved the _dinners_ which they got at the planters’ houses. The apprentices had no sumptuous dinners to give them. The magistrates felt under very little obligation of any kind to assert the cause of the apprentice and secure him justice, while they were under very strong temptations to favor the master.
5. Real estate had increased in value nearly fifty per cent since abolition. There is such entire security of property, and the crops since 1834 have been so flattering, that capitalists from abroad are desirous of investing their funds in estates or merchandise. All are making high calculations for the future.
6. Mr. J. testified that marriages had greatly increased since abolition. He had seen a dozen couples standing at one time on the church floor. There had, he believed, been more marriages within the last three years among the negro population, than have occurred before since the settlement of the island.
We conclude this chapter by subjoining two highly interesting documents from special magistrates. They were kindly furnished us by the authors in pursuance of an order from his excellency the Governor, authorizing the special magistrates to give us any official statements which we might desire. Being made acquainted with these instructions from the Governor, we addressed written queries to Major Colthurst and Captain Hamilton. We insert their replies at length.
COMMUNICATION FROM MAJOR COLTHURST, SPECIAL MAGISTRATE.
The following fourteen questions on the working of the apprenticeship system in this colony were submitted to me on the 30th of March, 1837, requesting answers thereto.
1. What is the number of apprenticed laborers in your district, and what is their character compared with other districts?
The number of apprenticed laborers, of all ages, in my district, in nine thousand four hundred and eighty, spread over two hundred and ninety-seven estates of various descriptions–some very large, and others again very small–much the greater number consisting of small lots in the near neighborhood of Bridgetown. Perhaps my district, in consequence of this minute subdivision of property, and its contact with the town, is the most troublesome district in the island; and the character of the apprentices differs consequently from that in the more rural districts, where not above half the complaints are made. I attribute this to their almost daily intercourse with Bridgetown.
2. What is the state of agriculture in the island?
When the _planters themselves_ admit that general cultivation was _never_ in a better state, and the plantations extremely clean, _it is more than presumptive_ proof that agriculture generally is in a most prosperous condition. The vast crop of canes grown this year proves this fact. Other crops are also luxuriant.
3. Is there any difficulty occasioned by the apprentices refusing to work?
No difficulty whatever has been experienced by the refusal of the apprentices to work. This is done manfully and cheerfully, when they are treated with humanity and consideration by the masters or managers. I have never known an instance to the contrary.
4. Are the apprentices willing to work in their own time?
The apprentices are most willing to work in their own time.
5. What is the number and character of the complaints brought before you–are they increasing or otherwise?
The number of complaints brought before me, during the last quarter, are much fewer than during the corresponding quarter of the last year. Their character is also greatly improved. Nine complaints out of ten made lately to me are for small impertinences or saucy answers, which, considering the former and present position of the parties, is naturally to be expected. The number of such complaints is much diminished.
6. What is the state of crime among the apprentices?
What is usually denominated crime in the old countries, is by no means frequent among the blacks or colored persons. It is amazing how few material breaches of the law occur in so extraordinary a community. Some few cases of crime do occasionally arise;–but when it is considered that the population of this island is nearly as dense as that of any part of China, and wholly uneducated, either by precept or example, this absence of frequent crime excites our wonder, and is highly creditable to the negroes. I sincerely believe there is no such person, of that class called at home an accomplished villain, to be found in the whole island.–Having discharged the duties of a general justice of the peace in Ireland, for above twenty-four years, where crimes of a very aggravated nature were perpetrated almost daily. I cannot help contrasting the situation of that country with this colony, where I do not hesitate to say perfect tranquillity exists.
7. Have the apprentices much respect for law?
It is perhaps, difficult to answer this question satisfactorily, as it has been so short a time since they enjoyed the blessing of equal laws. To appreciate just laws, time, and the experience of the benefit arising from them must be felt. That the apprentices do not, to any material extent, _outrage_ the law, is certain; and hence it may be inferred that they respect it.
8. Do you find a spirit of revenge among the negroes?
From my general knowledge of the negro character in other countries, as well as the study of it here, I do not consider them by any means a revengeful people. Petty dislikes are frequent, but any thing like a deep spirit of revenge for former injuries does not exist, nor is it for one moment to be dreaded.
9. Is there any sense of insecurity arising from emancipation?
Not the most remote feeling of insecurity exists arising from emancipation; far the contrary. All sensible and reasonable men think the prospects before them most cheering, and would not go back to the old system on any account whatever. There are some, however, who croak and forebode evil; but they are few in number, and of no intelligence,–such as are to be found in every community.
10. What is the prospect for 1840?–for 1838?
This question is answered I hope satisfactorily above. On the termination of the two periods no evil is to be reasonably anticipated, with the exception of a few days’ idleness.
11. Are the planters generally satisfied with the apprenticeship, or would they return back to the old system?
The whole body of respectable planters are fully satisfied with the apprenticeship, and would not go back to the old system on any account whatever. A few young managers, whose opinions are utterly worthless, would perhaps have no objection to be put again into their puny authority.
12. Do you think it would have been dangerous for the slaves in this island to have been entirely emancipated in 1834?
I do not think it would have been productive of danger, had the slaves of this island been fully emancipated in 1834; which is proved by what has taken place in another colony.
13. Has emancipation been a decided blessing to this island, or has it been otherwise?
Emancipation has been, under God, the greatest blessing ever conferred upon this island. All good and respectable men fully admit it. This is manifest throughout the whole progress of this mighty change. Whatever may be said of the vast benefit conferred upon the slaves, in right judgment the slave owner was the greatest gainer after all.
14. Are the apprentices disposed to purchase their freedom? How have those conducted themselves who have purchased it?
The apprentices are inclined to purchase their discharge, particularly when misunderstandings occur with their masters. When they obtain their discharge they generally labor in the trades and occupations they were previously accustomed to, and conduct themselves well. The discharged apprentices seldom take to drinking. Indeed the negro and colored population are the most temperate persons I ever knew of their class. The experience of nearly forty years in various public situations, confirms me in this very important fact.
The answers I have had the honor to give to the questions submitted to me, have been given most conscientiously, and to the best of my judgment are a faithful picture of the working of the apprenticeship in this island, as far as relates to the inquiries made.–_John B. Colthurst, Special Justice of the Peace, District A. Rural Division_.
COMMUNICATION FROM CAPT. HAMILTON.
Barbadoes, April 4th, 1837.
Gentlemen,
Presuming that you have kept a copy of the questions[A] you sent me, I shall therefore only send the answers.
[Footnote A: The same interrogatories were propounded to Capt. Hamilton which have been already inserted in Major Colthurst’s communication.]
1. There are at present five thousand nine hundred and thirty male, and six thousand six hundred and eighty-nine female apprentices in my district, (B,) which comprises a part of the parishes of Christ Church and St. George. Their conduct, compared with the neighboring districts, is good.
2. The state of agriculture is very flourishing. Experienced planters acknowledge that it is generally far superior to what it was during slavery.
3. Where the managers are kind and temperate, they have not any trouble with the laborers.
4. The apprentices are generally willing to work for wages in their own time.
5. The average number of complaints tried by me, last year, ending December, was one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two. The average number of apprentices in the district during that time was twelve thousand seven hundred. Offences, generally speaking, are not of any magnitude. They do not increase, but fluctuate according to the season of the year.
6. The state of crime is not so bad by any means as we might have expected among the negroes–just released from such a degrading bondage. Considering the state of ignorance in which they have been kept, and the immoral examples set them by the lower class of whites, it is matter of astonishment that they should behave so well.
7. The apprentices would have a great respect for law, were it not for the erroneous proceedings of the managers, overseers, &c., in taking them before the magistrates for every petty offence, and often abusing the magistrate in the presence of the apprentices, when his decision does not please them. The consequence is, that the apprentices too often get indifferent to law, and have been known to say that they cared not about going to prison, and that they would do just as they did before as soon as they were released.
8. The apprentices in this colony are generally considered a peaceable race. All acts of revenge committed by them originate in jealousy, as, for instance, between husband and wife.
9. Not the slightest sense of insecurity. As a proof of this, property has, since the commencement of the apprenticeship, increased in value considerably–at least one third.
10. The change which will take place in 1838, in my opinion, will occasion a great deal of discontent among those called praedials–which will not subside for some months. They ought to have been all emancipated at the same period. I cannot foresee any bad effects that will ensue from the change in 1840, except those mentioned hereafter.
11. The most prejudiced planters would not return to the old system if they possibly could. They admit that they get more work from the laborers than they formerly did, and they are relieved from a great responsibility.
12. It is my opinion that if entire emancipation had taken place in 1834, no more difficulty would have followed beyond what we may naturally expect in 1810. It will then take two or three months before the emancipated people finally settle themselves. I do not consider the apprentice more fit or better prepared for entire freedom now than he was in 1834.
13. I consider, most undoubtedly, that emancipation has been a decided blessing to the colony.
14. They are much disposed to purchase the remainder of the apprenticeship term. Their conduct after they become free is good.
I hope the foregoing answers and information may be of service to you in your laudable pursuits, for which I wish you every success.
I am, gentlemen, your ob’t serv’t,
_Jos. Hamilton, Special Justice_.
TESTIMONY OF CLERGYMEN AND MISSIONARIES.
There are three religious denominations at the present time in Barbadoes–Episcopalians, Wesleyans, and Moravians. The former have about twenty clergymen, including the bishop and archdeacon. The bishop was absent during our visit, and we did not see him; but as far as we could learn, while in some of his political measures, as a member of the council, he has benefited the colored population, his general influence has been unfavorable to their moral and spiritual welfare. He has discountenanced and defeated several attempts made by his rectors and curates to abolish the odious distinctions of color in their churches.
We were led to form an unfavorable opinion of the Bishop’s course, from observing among the intelligent and well-disposed classes of colored people, the current use of the phrase, “bishop’s man,” and “no bishop’s man,” applied to different rectors and curates. Those that they were averse to, either as pro-slavery or pro-prejudice characters, they usually branded as “bishop’s men,” while those whom they esteemed their friends, they designated as “no bishop’s men.”
The archdeacon has already been introduced to the reader. We enjoyed several interviews with him, and were constrained to admire him for his integrity, independence and piety. He spoke in terms of strong condemnation of slavery, and of the apprenticeship system. He was a determined advocate of entire and immediate emancipation, both from principle and policy. He also discountenanced prejudice, both in the church and in the social circle. The first time we had the pleasure of meeting him was at the house of a colored gentleman in Bridgetown where we were breakfasting. He called in incidentally, while we were sitting at table, and exhibited all the familiarity of a frequent visitant.
One of the most worthy and devoted men whom we met in Barbadoes was the Rev. Mr. Cummins, curate of St. Paul’s church, in Bridgetown. The first Sabbath after our arrival at the island we attended his church. It is emphatically a free church. Distinctions of color are nowhere recognized. There is the most complete intermingling of colors throughout the house. In one pew were seen a family of whites, in the next a family of colored people, and in the next perhaps a family of blacks. In the same pews white and colored persons sat side by side. The floor and gallery presented the same promiscuous blending of hues and shades. We sat in a pew with white and colored people. In the pew before and in that behind us the sitting was equally indiscriminate. The audience was kneeling in their morning devotions when we entered, and we were struck with the different colors bowing side by side as we passed down the aisles. There is probably no clergyman in the island who has secured so perfectly the affections of his people as Mr. C. He is of course “no bishop’s man.” He is constantly employed in promoting the spiritual and moral good of his people, of whatever complexion. The annual examination of the Sabbath school connected with St. Paul’s occurred while we were in the island, and we were favored with the privilege of attending it. There were about three hundred pupils present, of all ages, from fifty down to three years. There were all colors–white, tawny, and ebon black. The white children were classed with the colored and black, in utter violation of those principles of classification in vogue throughout the Sabbath schools of our own country. The examination was chiefly conducted by Mr. Cummins. At the close of the examination about fifty of the girls, and among them the daughter of Mr. Cummins, were arranged in front of the altar, with the female teachers in the rear of them, and all united in singing a hymn written for the occasion. Part of the teachers were colored and part white, as were also the scholars, and they stood side by side, mingled promiscuously together. This is altogether the best Sabbath school in the island.
After the exercises were closed, we were introduced, by a colored gentleman who accompanied us to the examination, to Mr. Cummins, the Rev. Mr. Packer, and the Rev. Mr. Rowe, master of the public school in Bridgetown. By request of Mr. C., we accompanied him to his house, where we enjoyed an interview with him and the other gentlemen, just mentioned. Mr. C. informed us that his Sabbath school was commenced in 1833; but was quite small and inefficient until after 1834. It now numbers more than four hundred scholars. Mr. C. spoke of prejudice. It had wonderfully decreased within the last three years. He said he could scarcely credit the testimony of his own senses, when he looked around on the change which had taken place. Many now associate with colored persons, and sit with them in the church, who once would have scorned to be found near them. Mr. C. and the other clergymen stated, that there had been an increase of places of worship and of clergymen since abolition. All the churches are now crowded, and there is a growing demand for more. The negroes manifest an increasing desire for religious instruction. In respect to morals, they represent the people as being greatly improved. They spoke of the general respect which was now paid to the institution of marriage among the negroes, Mr. C. said, he was convinced that the blacks had as much natural talent and capacity for learning as the whites. He does not know any difference. Mr. Pocker, who was formerly rector of St. Thomas’ parish, and has been a public teacher of children of all colors, expressed the same opinion. Mr. Rowe said, that before he took charge of the white school, he was the teacher of one of the free schools for blacks, and he testified that the latter has just as much capacity for acquiring any kind of knowledge, as much inquisitiveness, and ingenuity, as the former.
Accompanied by an intelligent gentleman of Bridgetown, we visited two flourishing schools for colored children, connected with the Episcopal church, and under the care of the Bishop. In the male school, there were one hundred and ninety-five scholars, under the superintendence of one master, who is himself a black man, and was educated and trained up in the same school. He is assisted by several of his scholars, as monitors and teachers. It was, altogether, the best specimen of a well-regulated school which we saw in the West Indies.
The present instructor has had charge of the school two years. It has increased considerably since abolition. Before the first of August, 1834, the whole number of names on the catalogue was a little above one hundred, and the average attendance was seventy-five. The number immediately increased, and new the average attendance is above two hundred. Of this number at least sixty are the children of apprentices.
We visited also the infant school, established but two weeks previous. Mr. S. the teacher, who has been for many years an instructor, says he finds them as apt to learn as any children he ever taught. He said he was surprised to see how soon the instructions of the school-room were carried to the homes of the children, and caught up by their parents.
The very first night after the school closed, in passing through the streets, he heard the children repeating what they had been taught, and the parents learning the songs from their children’s lips Mr. S. has a hundred children already in his school, and additions were making daily. He found among the negro parents much interest in the school.
WESLEYAN MISSIONARIES.
We called on the Rev. Mr. Fidler, the superintendent of the Wesleyan missions in Barbadoes. Mr. F. resides in Bridgetown, and preaches mostly in the chapel in town. He has been in the West Indies twelve years, and in Barbadoes about two years. Mr. F. informed us that there were three Wesleyan missionaries in the island, besides four or five local preachers, one of whom is a black man. There are about one thousand members belonging to their body, the greater part of whom live in town. Two hundred and thirty-five were added during the year 1836, being by far the largest number added in any one year since they began their operations in the island.
A brief review of the history of the Wesleyan Methodists in Barbadoes, will serve to show the great change which has been taking place in public sentiment respecting the labors of missionaries. In the year 1823, not long after the establishment of the Wesleyan church in the island, the chapel in Bridgetown was destroyed by a mob. Not one stone was left upon another. They carried the fragments for miles away from the site, and scattered them about in every direction, so that the chapel might never be rebuilt. Some of the instigators and chief actors in this outrage, were “gentlemen of property and standing,” residents of Bridgetown. The first morning after the outrage began, the mob sought for the Rev. Mr. Shrewsbury, the missionary, threatening his life, and he was obliged to flee precipitately from the island, with his wife. He was hunted like a wild beast, and it is thought that he would have been torn in pieces if he had been found. Not an effort or a movement was made to quell the mob, during their assault upon the chapel. The first men of the island connived at the violence–secretly rejoicing in what they supposed would be the extermination of Methodism from the country. The governor, Sir Henry Ward, utterly refused to interfere, and would not suffer the militia to repair to the spot, though a mere handful of soldiers could have instantaneously routed the whole assemblage.
The occasion of this riot was partly the efforts made by the Wesleyans to instruct the negroes, and still more the circumstance of a letter being written by Mr. Shrewsbury, and published in an English paper, which contained some severe strictures on the morals of the Barbadians. A planter informed us that the riot grew out of a suspicion that Mr. S. was “leagued with the Wilberforce party in England.”
Since the re-establishment of Wesleyanism in this island, it has continued to struggle against the opposition of the Bishop, and most of the clergy, and against the inveterate prejudices of nearly the whole of the white community. The missionaries have been discouraged, and in many instances absolutely prohibited from preaching on the estates. These circumstances have greatly retarded the progress of religious instruction through their means. But this state of things had been very much altered since the abolition of slavery. There are several estates now open to the missionaries. Mr. F. mentioned several places in the country, where he was then purchasing land, and erecting chapels. He also stated, that one man, who aided in pulling down the chapel in 1823, had offered ground for a new chapel, and proffered the free use of a building near by, for religious meetings and a school, till it could be erected.
The Wesleyan chapel in Bridgetown is a spacious building, well filled with worshippers every Sabbath. We attended service there frequently, and observed the same indiscriminate sitting of the various colors, which is described in the account of St. Paul’s church.
The Wesleyan missionaries have stimulated the clergy to greater diligence and faithfulness, and have especially induced them to turn their attention to the negro population more than they did formerly.
There are several local preachers connected with the Wesleyan mission in Barbadoes, who have been actively laboring to promote religion among the apprentices. Two of these are converted soldiers in his Majesty’s service–acting sergeants of the troops stationed in the island. While we were in Barbadoes, these pious men applied for a discharge from the army, intending to devote themselves exclusively to the work of teaching and preaching. Another of the local preachers is a negro man, of considerable talent and exalted piety, highly esteemed among his missionary brethren for his labors of love.
THE MORAVIAN MISSION.
Of the Moravians, we learned but little. Circumstances unavoidably prevented us from visiting any of the stations, and also from calling on any of the missionaries. We were informed that there were three stations in the island, one in Bridgetown, and two in the country, and we learned in general terms, that the few missionaries there were laboring with their characteristic devotedness, assiduity, and self-denial, for the spiritual welfare of the negro population.
CHAPTER III.
COLORED POPULATION.
The colored, or as they were termed previous to abolition, by way of distinction, the free colored population, amount in Barbadoes to nearly thirty thousand. They are composed chiefly of the mixed race, whose paternal connection, though illegitimate, secured to them freedom at their birth, and subsequently the advantages of an education more or less extensive. There are some blacks among them, however, who were free born, or obtained their freedom at an early period, and have since, by great assiduity, attained an honorable standing.
During our stay in Barbadoes, we had many invitations to the houses of colored gentlemen, of which we were glad to avail ourselves whenever it was possible. At an early period after our arrival, we were invited to dine with Thomas Harris, Esq. He politely sent his chaise for us, as he resided about a mile from our residence. At his table, we met two other colored gentlemen, Mr. Thorne of Bridgetown, and Mr. Prescod, a young gentleman of much intelligence and ability. There was also at the table a niece of Mr. Harris, a modest and highly interesting young lady. All the luxuries and delicacies of a tropical clime loaded the board–an epicurean variety of meats, flesh, fowl, and fish–of vegetables, pastries, fruits, and nuts, and that invariable accompaniment of a West India dinner, wine.
The dinner was enlivened by an interesting and well sustained conversation respecting the abolition of slavery, the present state of the colony, and its prospects for the future. Lively discussions were maintained on points where there chanced to be a difference of opinion, and we admired the liberality of the views which were thus elicited. We are certainly prepared to say, and that too without feeling that we draw any invidious distinctions, that in style of conversation, in ingenuity and ability of argument, this company would compare with any company of white gentlemen that we met in the island. In that circle of colored gentlemen, were the keen sallies of wit, the admirable repartee, the satire now severe, now playful, upon the measures of the colonial government, the able exposure of aristocratic intolerance, of plantership chicanery, of plottings and counterplottings in high places–the strictures on the intrigues of the special magistrates and managers, and withal, the just and indignant reprobation of the uniform oppressions which have disabled and crushed the colored people.
The views of these gentlemen with regard to the present state of the island, we found to differ in some respects from those of the planters and special magistrates. They seemed to regard both those classes of men with suspicion. The planters they represented as being still, at least the mass of them, under the influence of the strong habits of tyrannizing and cruelty which they formed during slavery. The prohibitions and penalties of the law are not sufficient to prevent occasional and even frequent outbreakings of violence, so that the negroes even yet suffer much of the rigor of slavery. In regard to the special magistrates, they allege that they are greatly controlled by the planters. They associate with the planters, dine with the planters, lounge on the planters’ sofas, and marry the planters daughters. Such intimacies as these, the gentlemen very plausibly argued, could not exist without strongly biasing the magistrate towards the planters, and rendering it almost impossible for them to administer equal justice to the poor apprentice, who, unfortunately, had no sumptuous dinners to give them, no luxurious sofas to offer them, nor dowered daughters to present in marriage.
The gentlemen testified to the industry and subordination of the apprentices. They had improved the general cultivation of the island, and they were reaping for their masters greater crops than they did while slaves. The whole company united in saying that many blessings had already resulted from the abolition of slavery–imperfect as that abolition was. Real estate had advanced in value at least one third. The fear of insurrection had been removed; invasions of property, such as occurred during slavery, the firing of cane-fields, the demolition of houses, &c., were no longer apprehended. Marriage was spreading among the apprentices, and the general morals of the whole community, high and low, white, colored, and black, were rapidly improving.
At ten o’clock we took leave of Mr. Harris and his interesting friends. We retired with feelings of pride and gratification that we had been privileged to join a company which, though wearing the badge of a proscribed race, displayed in happy combination, the treasures of genuine intelligence, and the graces of accomplished manners. We were happy to meet in that social circle a son of New England, and a graduate of one of her universities. Mr. H. went to the West Indies a few months after the abolition of slavery. He took with him all the prejudices common to our country, as well as a determined hostility to abolition principles and measures. A brief observation of the astonishing results of abolition in those islands, effectually disarmed him of the latter, and made him the decided and zealous advocate of immediate emancipation. He established himself in business in Barbados, where he has been living the greater part of the time since he left his native country. His _prejudices_ did not long survive his abandonment of anti-abolition sentiments. We rejoiced to find him on the occasion above referred to, moving in the circle of colored society, with all the freedom of a familiar guest, and prepared most cordially to unite with us in the wish that all our prejudiced countrymen could witness similar exhibitions. The gentleman at whose table we had the pleasure to dine, was _born a slave_, and remained such until he was seventeen years of age. After obtaining his freedom, he engaged as a clerk in a mercantile establishment, and soon attracted attention by his business talents. About the same period he warmly espoused the cause of the free colored people, who were doubly crushed under a load of civil and political impositions, and a still heavier one of prejudice. He soon made himself conspicuous by his manly defence of the rights of his brethren against the encroachments of the public authorities, and incurred the marked displeasure of several influential characters. After a protracted struggle for the civil immunities of the colored people, during which he repeatedly came into collision with public men, and was often arraigned before the public tribunals; finding his labors ineffectual, he left the island and went to England. He spent some time there and in France, moving on a footing of honorable equality among the distinguished abolitionists of those countries. There, amid the free influences and the generous sympathies which welcomed and surrounded him,–his whole character ripened in those manly graces and accomplishments which now so eminently distinguish him.
Since his return to Barbadoes, Mr. H. has not taken so public a part in political controversies as he did formerly, but is by no means indifferent to passing events. There is not, we venture to say, within the colony, a keener or more sagacious observer of its institutions, its public men and their measures.
When witnessing the exhibitions of his manly spirit, and listening to his eloquent and glowing narratives of his struggles against the political oppressions which ground to the dust himself and his brethren, we could scarcely credit the fact that he was himself born and reared to manhood–A SLAVE.
BREAKFAST AT MR. THORNE’S.
By invitation we took breakfast with Mr. Joseph Thorne, whom we met at Mr. Harris’s. Mr. T. resides in Bridgetown. In the parlor, we met two colored gentlemen–the Rev. Mr. Hamilton, a local Wesleyan preacher, and Mr. Cummins, a merchant of Bridgetown, mentioned in a previous chapter. We were struck with the scientific appearance of Mr. Thorne’s parlor. On one side was a large library of religious, historical and literary works, the selection of which displayed no small taste and judgment. On the opposite side of the room was a fine cabinet of minerals and shells. In one corner stood a number of curious relics of the aboriginal Caribs, such as bows and arrows, etc., together with interesting fossil remains. On the tops of the book-cases and mineral stand, were birds of rare species, procured from the South American Continent. The centre table was ornamented with shells, specimens of petrifactions, and elegantly bound books. The remainder of the furniture of the room was costly and elegant. Before breakfast two of Mr. Thorne’s children, little boys of six and four, stepped in to salute the company. They were of a bright yellow, with slightly curled hair. When they had shaken hands with each of the company, they withdrew from the parlor and were seen no more. Their manners and demeanor indicated the teachings of an admirable mother, and we were not a little curious to see the lady of whose taste and delicate sense of propriety we had witnessed so attractive a specimen in her children. At the breakfast table we were introduced to Mrs. Thorne, and we soon discovered from her dignified air, from the chaste and elevated style of her conversation, from her intelligence, modesty and refinement, that we were in the presence of a highly accomplished lady. The conversation was chiefly on subjects connected with our mission. All spoke with great gratitude of the downfall of slavery. It was not the slaves alone that were interested in that event. Political oppression, prejudice, and licentiousness had combined greatly to degrade the colored community, but these evils were now gradually lessening, and would soon wholly disappear after the final extinction of slavery–the parent of them all.
Several facts were stated to show the great rise in the value of real estate since 1834. In one instance a gentleman bought a sugar estate for nineteen thousand pounds sterling, and the very next year, after taking off a crop from which he realized a profit of three thousand pounds sterling, he sold the estate for thirty thousand pounds sterling. It has frequently happened within two years that persons wishing to purchase estates would inquire the price of particular properties, and would hesitate to give what was demanded. Probably soon after they would return to close the bargain, and find that the price was increased by several hundreds of pounds; they would go away again, reluctant to purchase, and return a third time, when they would find the price again raised, and would finally be glad to buy at almost any price. It was very difficult to purchase sugar estates now, whereas previous to the abolition of slavery, they were, like the slaves, a drug in the market.
Mr. Joseph Thorne is a gentleman of forty-five, of a dark mulatto complexion, with the negro features and hair. _He was born a slave_, and remained so until about twenty years of age. This fact we learned from the manager of the Belle estate, on which Mr. T. was born and raised a slave. It was an interesting coincidence, that on the occasion of our visit to the Belle estate we were indebted to Mr. Thorne, the former _property_ of that estate, for his horse and chaise, which he politely proffered to us. Mr. T. employs much of his time in laboring among the colored people in town, and among the apprentices on the estates, in the capacity of _lay-preacher_. In this way he renders himself very useful. Being very competent, both by piety and talents, for the work, and possessing more perhaps than any missionary, the confidence of the planters, he is admitted to many estates, to lecture the apprentices on religious and moral duties. Mr. T. is a member of the Episcopal church.
BREAKFAST AT MR. PRESCOD’S
We next had the pleasure of breakfasting with Mr. Prescod. Our esteemed friend, Mr. Harris, was of the company. Mr. P. is a young man, but lately married. His wife and himself were both liberally educated in England. He was the late editor of the New Times, a weekly paper established since the abolition of slavery and devoted chiefly to the interests of the colored community. It was the first periodical and the only one which advocated the rights of the colored people, and this it did with the utmost fearlessness and independence. It boldly exposed oppression, whether emanating from the government house or originating in the colonial assembly. The measures of all parties, and the conduct of every public man, were subject to its scrutiny, and when occasion required, to its stern rebuke. Mr. P. exhibits a thorough acquaintance with the politics of the country, and with the position of the various parties. He is familiar with the spirit and operations of the white gentry–far more so, it would seem; than many of his brethren who have been repeatedly deceived by their professions of increasing liberality, and their show of extending civil immunities, which after all proved to be practical nullities, and as such were denounced by Mr. P. at the outset. A few years ago the colored people mildly petitioned the legislature for a removal of their disabilities. Their remonstrance was too reasonable to be wholly disregarded. Something must he done which would at least bear the semblance of favoring the object of the petitioners. Accordingly the obnoxious clauses were repealed, and the colored people were admitted to the polls. But the qualification was made three times greater than that required of white citizens. This virtually nullified the extension of privilege, and actually confirmed the disabilities of which it was a pretended abrogation. The colored people, in their credulity, hailed the apparent enfranchisement, and had a public rejoicing in the occasion. But the delusion could not escape the discrimination of Mr. P. He detected it at once, and exposed it, and incurred the displeasure of the credulous people of color by refusing to participate in their premature rejoicings. He soon succeeded however in convincing his brethren that the new provision was a mockery of their wrongs, and that the assembly had only added insult to past injuries. Mr. P. now urged the colored people to be patient, as the great changes which were working in the colony must bring to them all the rights of which they had been so cruelly deprived. On the subject of prejudice he spoke just as a man of keen sensibilities and manly spirit might be expected to speak, who had himself been its victim. He was accustomed to being flouted, scorned and condemned by those whom he could not but regard as his interiors both in native talents and education. He had submitted to be forever debarred from offices which were filled by men far less worthy except in the single qualification of a _white skin_, which however was paramount to all other virtues and acquirements! He had seen himself and his accomplished wife excluded from the society of whites, though keenly conscious of their capacity to move and shine in the most elevated social circles. After all this, it may readily be conceived how Mr. P. would speak of prejudice. But while he spoke bitterly of the past, he was inspired with buoyancy of hope as he cast his eye to the future. He was confident that prejudice would disappear. It had already diminished very much, and it would ere long be wholly exterminated.
Mr. P. gave a sprightly picture of the industry of the negroes. It was common, he said, to hear them called lazy, but this was not true. That they often appeared to be indolent, especially those about the town, was true; but it was either because they had no work to do, or were asked to work without reasonable wages. He had often been amused at their conduct, when solicited to do small jobs–such as carrying baggage, loading of unloading a vessel, or the like. If offered a very small compensation, as was generally the case at first, they would stretch themselves on the ground, and with a sleepy look, and lazy tone, would say, “O, I can’t do it, sir.” Sometimes the applicants would turn away at once, thinking that they were unwilling to work, and cursing “the lazy devils;” but occasionally they would try the efficacy of offering a larger compensation, when instantly the negroes would spring to their feet, and the lounging inert mass would appear all activity.
We are very willing to hold up Mr. P as a specimen of what colored people generally may become with proper cultivation, or to use the language of one of their own number,[A] “with free minds and space to rise.”
[Footnote A: Thomas C. Brown, who renounced colonization, returned from a disastrous and almost fatal expedition to Liberia, and afterwards went to the West Indies, in quest of a free country.]
We have purposely refrained from speaking of Mrs. P., lest any thing we should be willing to say respecting her, might seem to be adulation. However, having alluded to her, we will say that it has seldom fallen to our lot to meet with her superior.
BREAKFAST AT MR. LONDON BOURNE’S.
After what has been said in this chapter to try the patience and irritate the nerves of the prejudiced, if there should be such among our readers, they will doubtless deem it quite intolerable to be introduced, not as hitherto to a family in whose faces the lineaments and the complexion of the white man are discernible, relieving the ebon hue, but to a household of genuine unadulterated negroes. We cordially accepted an invitation to breakfast with Mr. London Bourne. If the reader’s horror of amalgamation does not allow him to join us at the table, perhaps he will consent to retire to the parlor, whence, without fear of contamination, he may safely view us through the folding doors, and note down our several positions around the board. At the head of the table presides, with much dignity, Mrs. Bourne; at the end opposite, sits Mr. Bourne–both of the glossiest jet; the thick matted hair of Mr. B. slightly frosted with age. He has an affable, open countenance, in which the radiance of an amiable spirit, and the lustre of a sprightly intellect, happily commingle, and illuminate the sable covering. On either hand of Mr. B. _we_ sit, occupying the posts of honor. On the right and left of Mrs. B., and at the opposite corners from us, sit two other guests, one a colored merchant, and the other a young son-in-law of Mr. B., whose face is the very double extract of blackness; for which his intelligence, the splendor of his dress, and the elegance of his manners, can make to be sure but slight atonement! The middle seats are filled on the one side by an unmarried daughter of Mr. B., and on the other side by a promising son of eleven, who is to start on the morrow for Edinburgh, where he is to remain until he has received the honors of Scotland’s far famed university.
We shall doubtless be thought by some of our readers to glory in our shame. Be it so. We _did_ glory in joining the company which we have just described. On the present occasion we had a fair opportunity of testing the merits of an unmixed negro party, and of determining how far the various excellences of the gentlemen and ladies previously noticed were attributable to the admixture of English blood. We are compelled in candor to say; that the company of blacks did not fall a whit below those of the colored race in any respect. We conversed on the same general topics, which, of course, were introduced where-ever we went. The gentlemen showed an intimate acquaintance with the state of the colony, with the merits of the apprenticeship system, and with the movements of the colonial government. As for Mrs. B., she presided at the table with great ease, dignity, self-possession, and grace. Her occasional remarks, made with genuine modesty, indicated good sense and discrimination. Among other topics of conversation, prejudice was not forgotten. The company were inquisitive as to the extent of it in the United States. We informed them that it appeared to be strongest in those states which held no slaves, that it prevailed among professing Christians, and that it was most manifestly seen in the house of God. We also intimated, in as delicate a manner as possible, that in almost any part of the United States such a table-scene as we then presented would be reprobated and denounced, if indeed it escaped the summary vengeance of the mob. We were highly gratified with their views of the proper way for the colored people to act in respect to prejudice. They said they were persuaded that their policy was to wait patiently for the operation of those influences which were now at work for the removal of prejudice. “_Social intercourse_,” they said, “was not a thing to be gained by _pushing_.” “They could not go to it, but it would come to them.” It was for them however, to maintain an upright, dignified course, to be uniformly courteous, to seek the cultivation of their minds, and strive zealously for substantial worth, and by such means, and such alone, they could aid in overcoming prejudice.
Mr. Bourne was a slave until he was twenty-three years old. He was purchased by his father, a free negro, who gave five hundred dollars for him. His mother and four brothers were bought at the same time for the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars. He spoke very kindly of his former master. By industry, honesty, and close attention to business, Mr. B. has now become a wealthy merchant. He owns three stores in Bridgetown, lives in very genteel style in his own house, and is worth from twenty to thirty thousand dollars. He is highly respected by the merchants of Bridgetown for his integrity and business talents. By what means Mr. B. has acquired so much general information, we are at a loss to conjecture. Although we did not ourselves need the evidence of his possessing extraordinary talents, industry, and perseverance, yet we are happy to present our readers with such tangible proofs–proofs which are read in every language, and which pass current in every nation.
The foregoing sketches are sufficient to give a general idea of the colored people of Barbadoes. Perchance we may have taken too great liberties with those whose hospitalities we enjoyed; should this ever fall under their notice, we doubt not they will fully appreciate the motives which have actuated us in making them public. We are only sorry, for their sakes, and especially for that of our cause, that the delineations are so imperfect. That the above specimens are an exact likeness of the mass of colored people we do not pretend; but we do affirm, that they are as true an index to the whole community, as the merchants, physicians, and mechanics of any of our villages are to the entire population. We must say, also, that families of equal merit are by no means rare among the same people. We might mention many names which deservedly rank as high as those we have specified. One of the wealthiest merchants in Bridgetown is a colored gentleman. He has his mercantile agents in England, English clerks in his employ, a branch establishment in the city, and superintends the concerns of an extensive and complicated business with distinguished ability and success. A large portion, of not a majority of the merchants of Bridgetown are colored. Some of the most popular instructors are colored men and ladies, and one of these ranks high as a teacher of the ancient and modern languages. The most efficient and enterprising mechanics of the city, are colored and black men. There is scarcely any line of business which is not either shared or engrossed by colored persons, if we except that of _barber_. _The only barber in Bridgetown is a white man._
That so many of the colored people should have obtained wealth and education is matter of astonishment, when we consider the numerous discouragements with which they have ever been doomed to struggle. The paths of political distinction have been barred against them by an arbitrary denial of the right of suffrage, and consequent ineligibility to office. Thus a large and powerful class of incitements to mental effort, which have been operating continually upon the whites, have never once stirred the sensibilities nor waked the ambition of the colored community. Parents, however wealthy, had no inducement to educate their sons for the learned professions, since no force of talent nor extent of acquirement could hope to break down the granite walls and iron bars which prejudice had erected round the pulpit, the bar, and the bench. From the same cause there was very little encouragement to acquire property, to seek education, to labor for the graces of cultivated manners, or even to aspire to ordinary respectability, since not even the poor favor of social intercourse with the whites, of participating in the civilities and courtesies of every day life, was granted them.
The crushing power of a prevailing licentiousness, has also been added to the other discouragements of the colored people. Why should parents labor to amass wealth enough, and much of course it required, to send their daughters to Europe to receive their educations, if they were to return only to become the victims of an all-whelming concubinism! It is a fact, that in many cases young ladies, who have been sent to England to receive education, have, after accomplishing themselves in all the graces of womanhood, returned to the island to become the concubines of white men. Hitherto this vice has swept over the colored community, gathering its repeated conscriptions of beauty and innocence from the highest as well as the lowest families. Colored ladies have been taught to believe that it was more honorable, and quite as virtuous, to be the kept mistresses of _white gentlemen_, than the lawfully wedded wives of _colored men_. We repeat the remark, that the actual progress which the colored people of Barbadoes have made, while laboring under so many depressing influences, should excite our astonishment, and, we add, our admiration too. Our acquaintance with this people was at a very interesting period–just when they were beginning to be relieved from these discouragements, and to feel the regenerating spirit of a new era. It was to us like walking through a garden in the early spring. We could see the young buds of hope, the first bursts of ambition, the early up-shoots of confident aspiration, and occasionally the opening bloom of assurance. The star of hope had risen upon the colored people, and they were beginning to realize that _their_ day had come. The long winter of their woes was melting into “glorious summer.” Civil immunities and political privileges were just before them, the learned professions were opening to them, social equality and honorable domestic connections would soon be theirs. Parents were making fresh efforts to establish schools for the children, and to send the choicest of their sons and daughters to England. They rejoiced in the privileges they were securing, and they anticipated with virtuous pride the free access of their children to all the fields of enterprise, all the paths of honest emulation, and all the eminences of distinction.
We remark in conclusion, that the forbearance of the colored people of Barbadoes under their complicated wrongs is worthy of all admiration. Allied, as many of them are, to the first families of the island, and gifted as they are with every susceptibility to feel disgrace, it is a marvel that they have not indignantly cast off the yoke and demanded their political rights. Their wrongs have been unprovoked on their part, and unnatural on the part of those who have inflicted them–in many cases the guilty authors of their being. The patience and endurance of the sufferers under such circumstances are unexampled, except by the conduct of the slaves, who, though still more wronged, were, if possible, still more patient.
We regret to add, that until lately, the colored people of Barbadoes hate been far in the background in the cause of abolition, and even now, the majority of them are either indifferent, or actually hostile to emancipation. They have no fellow feeling with the slave. In fact; they have had prejudices against the negroes no less bitter than those which the whites have exercised toward them. There are many honorable exceptions to this, as has already been shown; but such, we are assured, is the general fact.[A]
[Footnote A: We are here reminded, by the force of contrast, of the noble spirit manifested by the free colored people of our own country. As early as 1817, a numerous body of them in Philadelphia, with the venerable James Forten at their head, pledged themselves to the cause of the slave in the following sublime sentiment, which deserves to be engraver to their glory on the granite of our “everlasting hills”–“Resolved, That we never will separate ourselves voluntarily from the slave population in this country; they are our brethren by the ties of consanguinity, of suffering, and of wrong; and we feel that there is more virtue in suffering privations with them, than enjoying _fancied_ advantages for a season.”
We believe that this resolution embodies the feelings and determinations of the free colored people generally in the free states.]
CHAPTER IV.
BARBADOES AS IT WAS, AND IS.
According to the declaration of one of the special magistrates, “Barbadoes has long been distinguished for its devotion to slavery.” There is probably no portion of the globe where slave-holding, slave driving, and slave labor, have been reduced to a more perfect system.
The records of slavery in Barbadoes are stained with bloody atrocities. The planters uniformly spoke of slavery as a system of cruelties; but they expressed themselves in general terms. From colored gentlemen we learned some particulars, a few of which we give. To most of the following facts the narrators were themselves eye witnesses, and all of them happened in their day and were fresh in their memories.
The slaves were not unfrequently worked in the streets of Bridgetown with chains on their wrists and ankles. Flogging on the estates and in the town, were no less public than frequent, and there was an utter shamelessness often in the manner of its infliction. Even women were stripped naked on the sides of the streets, and their backs lacerated with the whip. It was a common practice, when a slave offended a white man, for the master to send for a public whipper, and order him to take the slave before the door of the person offended, and flog him till the latter was satisfied. White females would order their male slaves to be stripped naked in their presence and flogged, while they would look on to see that their orders were faithfully executed. Mr. Prescod mentioned an instance which he himself witnessed near Bridgetown. He had seen an aged female slave, stripped and whipped by her own son, a child of twelve, at the command of the mistress. As the boy was small, the mother was obliged to get down upon her hands and knees, so that the child could inflict the blows on her naked person with a rod. This was done on the public highway, before the mistress’s door. Mr. T. well remembered when it was lawful for any man to shoot down his slave, under no greater penalty than twenty-five pounds currency; and he knew of cases in which this had been done. Just after the insurrection in 1816, white men made a regular sport of shooting negroes. Mr. T. mentioned one case. A young man had sworn that he would kill ten negroes before a certain time. When he had shot nine he went to take breakfast with a neighbor, and carried his gun along. The first slave he met on the estate, he accused of being concerned in the rebellion. The negro protested that he was innocent, and begged for mercy. The man told him to be gone, and as he turned to go away, he shot him dead. Having fulfilled his bloody pledge, the young knight ate his breakfast with a relish. Mr. H. said that a planter once, in a time of perfect peace, went to his door and called one of his slaves. The negro made some reply which the master construed into insolence, and in a great rage he swore if he did not come to him immediately he would shoot him. The man replied he hoped massa wan’t in earnest. ‘I’ll show you whether I am in earnest,’ said the master, and with that he levelled his rifle, took deliberate aim, and shot the negro on the spot. He died immediately. Though great efforts were made by a few colored men to bring the murderer to punishment, they were all ineffectual. The evidence against him was clear enough, but the influence in his favor was so strong that he finally escaped.
Dungeons were built on all the estates, and they were often abominably filthy, and infested with loathsome and venomous vermin. For slight offences the slaves were thrust into these prisons for several successive nights–being dragged out every morning to work during the day. Various modes of torture were employed upon those who were consigned to the dungeon. There were stocks for their feet, and there were staples in the floor for the ankles and wrists, placed in such a position as to keep the victim stretched out and lying on his face. Mr. H. described one mode which was called the _cabin_. A narrow board, only wide enough for a man to lie upon, was fixed in an inclined position, and elevated considerably above the ground. The offending slave was made to lay upon this board, and a strong rope or chain, was tied about his neck and fastened to the ceiling. It was so arranged, that if he should fall from the plank, he would inevitably hang by his neck. Lying in this position all night, he was more likely than not to fall asleep, and then there were ninety-nine chances to one that he would roll off his narrow bed and be killed before he could awake, or have time to extricate himself. Peradventure this is the explanation of the anxiety Mr. —- of —-, used to feel, when he had confined one of his slaves in the dungeon. He stated that he would frequently wake up in the night, was restless, and couldn’t sleep, from fear that the prisoner would _kill himself_ before morning.
It was common for the planters of Barbadoes, like those of Antigua, to declare that the greatest blessing of abolition to them, was that it relieved them from the disagreeable work of flogging the negroes. We had the unsolicited testimony of a planter, that slave mothers frequently poisoned, and otherwise murdered, their young infants, to rid them of a life of slavery. What a horrible comment this upon the cruelties of slavery! Scarce has the mother given birth to her child, when she becomes its murderer. The slave-mother’s joy begins, not like that of other mothers, when “a man is born into the world,” but when her infant is hurried out of existence, and its first faint cry is hushed in the silence of death! Why this perversion of nature? Ah, that mother knows the agonies, the torments, the wasting woes, of a life of slavery, and by the bowels of a mother’s love, and the yearnings of a mother’s pity, she resolves that her babe shall never know the same. O, estimate who can, how many groans have gone up from the cane field, from the boiling-house, from around the wind mill, from the bye paths, from the shade of every tree, from the recesses of every dungeon!
Colonel Barrow, of Edgecome estate, declared, that the habit of flogging was so strong among the overseers and book-keepers, that even now they frequently indulge it in the face of penalties and at the risk of forfeiting their place.
The descriptions which the special magistrates give of the lower class of overseers and the managers of the petty estates, furnish data enough for judging of the manner in which they would be likely to act when clothed with arbitrary power. They are “a low order of men,” “without education,” “trained up to use the whip,” “knowing nothing else save the art of flogging,” “ready at any time to perjure themselves in any matter where a negro is concerned,” &c. Now, may we not ask what but cruelty, the most monstrous, could be expected under a system where _such men_ were constituted law makers, judges, and executioners?
From the foregoing facts, and the still stronger circumstantial evidence, we leave the reader to judge for himself as to the amount of cruelty attendant upon “the reign of terror,” in Barbadoes. We must, however, mention one qualification, without which a wrong impression may be made. It has already been remarked that Barbadoes has, more than any other island, reduced slave labor and sugar cultivation to a regular system. This the planters have been compelled to do from the denseness of their population, the smallness of their territory, the fact that the land was all occupied, and still more, because the island, from long continued cultivation, was partly worn out. A prominent feature in their system was, theoretically at least, good bodily treatment of the slaves, good feeding, attention to mothers, to pregnant women, and to children, in order that the estates might always be kept _well stocked with good-conditioned negroes_. They were considered the best managers, who increased the population of the estates most rapidly, and often premiums were given by the attorneys to such managers. Another feature in the Barbadoes system was to raise sufficient provisions in the island to maintain the slaves, or, in planter’s phrase, to _feed the stock_, without being dependent upon foreign countries. This made the supplies of the slaves more certain and more abundant. From several circumstances in the condition of Barbadoes, it is manifest, that there were fewer motives to cruelty there than existed in other islands. First, the slave population was abundant, then the whole of the island was under cultivation, and again the lands were old and becoming exhausted. Now, if either one of these things had not been true, if the number of slaves had been inadequate to the cultivation, or if vast tracts of land, as in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Demerara, had been uncultivated, or were being brought into cultivation; or, again, if the lands under cultivation had been fresh and fertile, so as to bear _pushing_, then it is plain that there would have been inducements to hard driving, which, as the case was, did not exist.
Such is a partial view of Barbadoes as it _was_, touching the matter of cruelty. We say partial, for we have omitted to mention the selling of slaves from one estate to another, whereby families were separated, almost as effectually as though an ocean intervened. We have omitted to notice the transportation of slaves to Trinidad, Berbice, and Demerara, which was made an open traffic until prohibited in 1827, and was afterwards continued with but little abatement by evasions of the law.
From the painful contemplation of all this outrage and wrong, the mind is relieved by turning to the present state of the colony. It cannot be denied that much oppression grows out of the apprenticeship system, both from its essential nature, and from the want of virtuous principle and independence in the men who administer it. Yet it is certainly true that there has been a very great diminution in the amount of actual cruelty. The total abolition of flogging on the estates, the prohibition to use the dungeons, and depriving the masters, managers, overseers and drivers, of the right to punish in any case, or in any way whatever, leave no room for doubt on this subject. It is true, that the laws are often violated, but this can only take place in cases of excessive passion, and it is not likely to be a very frequent occurrence. The penalty of the law is so heavy,[A] and the chances of detection[B] are so great, that in all ordinary circumstances they will be a sufficient security against the violence of the master. On the other hand, the special magistrates themselves seldom use the whip, but resort to other modes of punishment less cruel and degrading. Besides, it is manifest that if they did use the whip and were ever so cruelly disposed, it would be physically impossible for them to inflict as much suffering as the drivers could during slavery; on account of the vast numbers over whom they preside. We learned from the apprentices themselves, by conversing with them, that their condition, in respect to treatment, is incomparably better than it was during slavery. We were satisfied from our observations and inquiries, that the planters, at least the more extensive and enlightened ones, conduct their estates on different principles from those formerly followed. Before the abolition of slavery, they regarded the _whip_ as absolutely necessary to the cultivation of sugar, and hence they uniformly used it, and loudly deprecated its abolition as being _their_ certain ruin. But since the whip has been abolished, and the planters have found that the negroes continue, nevertheless, industrious and subordinate, they have changed their measures, partly from necessity, and partly from policy, have adopted a conciliatory course.
[Footnote A: A fine of sixteen dollars for the first assault, and the liberation of the apprentice after a second.]
[Footnote B: Through the complaint of the apprentice to the special magistrate]
Barbadoes was not without its insurrections during slavery. Although not very frequent, they left upon the minds of the white colonists this conviction, (repeatedly expressed to us by planters and others,) that _slavery and rebellions are inseparable_. The last widely extended insurrection occurred in 1816, in the eastern part of the island. Some of the particulars were given us by a planter who resided to that region, and suffered by it great loss of property. The plot was so cautiously laid, and kept so secret, that no one suspected it. The planter observed that if any one had told him that such a thing was brewing _ten minutes_ before it burst forth, he would not have credited the statement. It began with firing the cane-fields. A signal was given by a man setting fire to a pile of trash on an elevated spot, when instantly the fires broke out in every direction, and in less than a half hour, more than one hundred estates were in flames. The planters and their families, in the utmost alarm, either fled into other parts of the island, or seized their arms and hurriedly mustered in self-defence. Meanwhile the negroes, who had banded themselves in numerous companies, took advantage of the general consternation, proceeded to the deserted mansions of the planters, broke down the doors, battered in the windows, destroyed all the furniture, and carried away the provision stores to their own houses.
These ravages continued for three days, during which, the slaves flocked together in increasing numbers; in one place there were several thousands assembled. Above five hundred of the insurgents were shot down by the militia, before they could be arrested. The destruction of property during the rebellion was loosely estimated at many hundred thousand pounds. The canes on many estates were almost wholly burned; so that extensive properties, which ordinarily yielded from two to three hundred hogsheads, did not make more than fifteen or twenty.
Our informant mentioned two circumstances which he considered remarkable. One was, that the insurgents never touched the property of the estates to which they severally belonged; but went to the neighboring or more distant estates. The other was, that during the whole insurrection the negroes did not make a single attempt to destroy life. On the other hand, the sacrifice of negroes during the rebellion, and subsequent to it, was appalling. It was a long time before the white man’s thirst for blood could be satiated.
No general insurrection occurred after this one. However, as late as 1823, the proprietor of Mount Wilton–the noblest estate in the island–was murdered by his slaves in a most horrid manner. A number of men entered his bed-chamber at night. He awoke ere they reached him, and grasped his sword, which always hung by his bed, but it was wrested from his hand, and he was mangled and killed. His death was caused by his _cruelties_, and especially by his _extreme licentiousness_. All the females on this estate were made successively the victims of his lust. This, together with his cruelties, so incensed the men, that they determined to murder the wretch. Several of them were publicly executed.
Next to the actual occurrence of rebellions, _the fear of them_ deserves to be enumerated among the evils which slavery entailed upon Barbadoes. The dread of hurricanes to the people of Barbadoes is tolerable in comparison with the irrepressible apprehensions of bloody rebellions. A planter told us that he seldom went to bed without thinking he might be murdered before morning.
But now the whites are satisfied that slavery was the sole instigator of rebellions, and since its removal they have no fear on this score.
_Licentiousness_ was another of the fruits of slavery. It will be difficult to give to the reader a proper conception of the prevalence of this vice in Barbadoes, and of the consequent demoralization. A numerous colored population were both the offspring and the victims of it. On a very moderate calculation, nineteen-twentieths of the present adult colored race are illegitimate. Concubinage was practised among the highest classes. Young merchants and others who were unmarried, on first going to the island, regularly engaged colored females to live with them as housekeepers and mistresses, and it was not unusual for a man to have more than one. The children of these connections usually sat with the mothers at the father’s table, though when the gentlemen had company, neither mothers nor children made their appearance. To such conduct no disgrace was attached, nor was any shame felt by either party. We were assured that there are in Bridgetown, colored ladies of “respectability,” who, though never married, have large families of children whose different surnames indicate their difference of parentage, but who probably do not know their fathers by any other token. These remarks apply to the towns. The morals of the estates were still more deplorable. The managers and overseers, commonly unmarried, left no female virtue unattempted. Rewards sometimes, but oftener the whip, or the dungeon, gave them the mastery in point of fact, which the laws allowed in theory. To the slaves marriage was scarcely known. They followed the example of the master, and were ready to minister to his lust. The mass of mulatto population grew paler as it multiplied, and catching the refinement along with the tint of civilization, waged a war upon marriage which had well nigh expelled it from the island. Such was Barbadoes under the auspices of slavery.
Although these evils still exist, yet, since the abolition of slavery, there is one symptom of returning purity, the _sense of shame_. Concubinage is becoming disreputable. The colored females are growing in self-respect, and are beginning to seek regular connections with colored men. They begin to feel (to use the language of one of them) that the _light is come_, and that they can no longer have the apology of ignorance to plead for their sin. It is the prevailing impression among whites, colored, and blacks, that open licentiousness cannot long survive slavery.
_Prejudice_ was another of the concomitants of slavery. Barbadoes was proverbial for it. As far as was practicable, the colored people were excluded from all business connections; though merchants were compelled to make clerks of them for want of better, that is, _whiter_, ones. Colored merchants of wealth were shut out of the merchants’ exchange, though possessed of untarnished integrity, while white men were admitted as subscribers without regard to character. It was not a little remarkable that the rooms occupied as the merchants’ exchange were rented from a colored gentleman, or more properly, a _negro_;[A] who, though himself a merchant of extensive business at home and abroad, and occupying the floor below with a store, was not suffered to set his foot within them. This merchant, it will be remembered, is educating a son for a learned profession at the university of Edinburgh. Colored gentlemen were not allowed to become members of literary associations, nor subscribers to the town libraries. Social intercourse was utterly interdicted. To visit the houses of such men as we have already mentioned in a previous chapter, and especially to sit down at their tables, would have been a loss of caste; although the gentry were at the same time living with colored concubines. But most of all did this wicked prejudice delight to display itself in the churches. Originally, we believe, the despised color was confined to the galleries, afterwards it was admitted to the seats under the galleries, and ultimately it was allowed to extend to the body pews below the cross aisle. If perchance one of the proscribed class should ignorantly stray beyond these precincts, and take a seat above the cross aisle, he was instantly, if not forcibly, removed. Every opportunity was maliciously seized to taunt the colored people with their complexion. A gentleman of the highest worth stated that several years ago he applied to the proper officer for a license to be married. The license was accordingly made out and handed to him. It was expressed in the following insulting style: “T—- H—-, F.M., is licensed to marry H—- L—-, F.C.W.” The initials F.M. stood for _free mulatto_, and F.C.W. for _free colored woman_! The gentleman took his knife and cut out the initials; and was then threatened with a prosecution for forging his license.
[Footnote A: Mr. London Bourne, the merchant mentioned in the previous chapter.]
It must be admitted that this cruel feeling still exists in Barbadoes. Prejudice is the last viper of the slavery-gendered brood that dies. But it is evidently growing weaker. This the reader will infer from several facts already stated. The colored people themselves are indulging sanguine hopes that prejudice will shortly die away. They could discover a bending on the part of the whites, and an apparent readiness to concede much of the ground hitherto withheld. They informed us that they had received intimations that they might be admitted as subscribers to the merchants’ exchange if they would apply; but they were in no hurry to make the advances themselves. They felt assured that not only business equality, but social equality, would soon be theirs, and were waiting patiently for the course of events to bring them. They have too much self-respect to sue for the consideration of their white neighbors, or to accept it as a condescension and favor, when by a little patience they might obtain it on more honorable terms. It will doubtless be found in Barbadoes, as it has been in other countries–and perchance to the mortification of some lordlings–that freedom is a mighty leveller of human distinctions. The pyramid of pride and prejudice which slavery had upreared there, must soon crumble in the dust.
_Indolence and inefficiency among the whites_, was another prominent feature in slaveholding Barbadoes. Enterprise, public and personal, has long been a stranger to the island. Internal improvements, such as the laying and repairing of roads, the erection of bridges, building wharves, piers, &c., were either wholly neglected, or conducted in such a listless manner as to be a burlesque on the name of business. It was a standing task, requiring the combined energy of the island, to repair the damages of one hurricane before another came. The following circumstance was told us, by one of the shrewdest observers of men and things with whom we met in Barbadoes. On the southeastern coast of the island there is a low point running far out into the sea, endangering all vessels navigated by persons not well acquainted with the island. Many vessels have been wrecked upon it in the attempt to make Bridgetown from the windward. From time immemorial, it has been in contemplation to erect a light-house on that point. Every time a vessel has been wrecked, the whole island has been agog for a light-house. Public meetings were called, and eloquent speeches made, and resolutions passed, to proceed to the work forthwith. Bills were introduced into the assembly, long speeches made, and appropriations voted commensurate with the stupendous undertaking. There the matter ended, and the excitement died away, only to be revived by another wreck, when a similar scene would ensue. The light-house is not built to this day. In personal activity, the Barbadians are as sadly deficient as in public spirit. London is said to have scores of wealthy merchants who have never been beyond its limits, nor once snuffed the country air. Bridgetown, we should think, is in this respect as deserving of the name _Little London_ as Barbadoes is of the title “Little England,” which it proudly assumes. We were credibly informed that there were merchants in Bridgetown who had never been off the island in their lives, nor more than five or six miles into the country. The sum total of their locomotion might be said to be, turning softly to one side of their chairs, and then softly to the other. Having no personal cares to harass them, and no political questions to agitate them–having no extended speculations to push, and no public enterprises to prosecute, (save occasionally when a wreck on the southern point throws them into a ferment,) the lives of the higher classes seem a perfect blank, as it regards every thing manly. Their thoughts are chiefly occupied with sensual pleasure, anticipated or enjoyed. The centre of existence to them is the _dinner-table_.
“They eat and drink and sleep, and then– Eat and drink and sleep again.”
That the abolition of slavery has laid the foundation for a reform in this respect, there can be no doubt. The indolence and inefficiency of the white community has grown out of slavery. It is the legitimate offspring of oppression everywhere–one of the burning curses which it never fails to visit upon its supporters. It may be seriously doubted, however, whether in Barbadoes this evil will terminate with its cause. There is there such a superabundance of the laboring population, that for a long time to come, labor must be very cheap, and the habitually indolent will doubtless prefer employing others to work for them, than to work themselves. If, therefore, we should not see an active spirit of enterprise at once kindling among the Barbadians, _if the light-house should not be build for a quarter of a century to come_, it need not excite our astonishment.
We heard not a little concerning the expected distress of those white families whose property consisted chiefly of slaves. There were many such families, who have hitherto lived respectably and independently by hiring out their slaves. After 1840, these will be deprived of all their property, and will have no means of support whatever. As they will consider it degrading to work, and still more so to beg, they will be thrown into extremely embarrassing circumstances. It is thought that many of this class will leave the country, and seek a home where they will not be ashamed to work for their subsistence. We were forcibly reminded of the oft alleged objection to emancipation in the United States, that it would impoverish many excellent families in the South, and drive delicate females to the distaff and the wash-tub, whose hands have never been used to any thing–_rougher than the cowhide_. Much sympathy has been awakened in the North by such appeals, and vast numbers have been led by them to conclude that it is better for millions of slaves to famish in eternal bondage, than that a few white families, here and there scattered over the South, should be reduced to the humiliation of _working_.
_Hostility to emancipation_ prevailed in Barbadoes. That island has always been peculiarly attached to slavery. From the beginning of the anti-slavery agitations in England, the Barbadians distinguished themselves by their inveterate opposition. As the grand result approximated they increased their resistance. They appealed, remonstrated, begged, threatened, deprecated, and imprecated. They continually protested that abolition would ruin the colony–that the negroes could never be brought to work–especially to raise sugar–without the whip. They both besought and demanded of the English that they should cease their interference with their private affairs and personal property.
Again and again they informed them that they were wholly disqualified, by their distance from the colonies, and their ignorance of the subject, to do any thing respecting it, and they were entreated to leave the whole matter with the colonies, who alone could judge as to the best time and manner of moving, or whether it was proper to move at all.
We were assured that there was not a single planter in Barbadoes who was known to be in favor of abolition, before it took place; if, however, there had been one such, he would not have dared to avow his sentiments. The anti-slavery party in England were detested; no epithets were too vile for them–no curses too bitter. It was a Barbadian lady who once exclaimed in a public company in England, “O, I wish we had Wilberforce in the West Indies, I would be one of the very first to tear his heart out!” If such a felon wish could escape the lips of a female, and that too amid the awing influence of English society, what may we conclude were the feelings of planters and drivers on the island!
The opposition was maintained even after the abolition of slavery; and there was no colony, save Jamaica, with which the English government had so much trouble in arranging the provisions and conditions under which abolition was to take place.
From statements already made, the reader will see how great a change has come over the feelings of the planters.
He has followed us through this and the preceding chapters, he has seen tranquillity taking the place of insurrections, a sense of security succeeding to gloomy forbodings, and public order supplanting mob law; he has seen subordination to authority, peacefulness, industry, and increasing morality, characterizing the negro population; he has seen property rising in value, crime lessening, expenses of labor diminishing, the whole island blooming with unexampled cultivation, and waving with crops unprecedented in the memory of its inhabitants; above all, he has seen licentiousness decreasing, prejudice fading away, marriage extending, education spreading, and religion preparing to multiply her churches and missionaries over the land.
_These_ are the blessing of abolition–_begun_ only, and but partially realized as yet, but promising a rich maturity in time to come, after the work of freedom shall have been completed.
CHAPTER V.
THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM.
The nature of the apprenticeship system may be learned form the following abstract of its provisions, relative to the three parties chiefly concerned in its operation–the special magistrate, the master, and the apprentice.
PROVISIONS RESPECTING THE SPECIAL MAGISTRATES.
1. They must be disconnected with planters and plantership, that they may be independent of all colonial parties and interests whatever.
2. The special magistrates adjudicate only in cases where the master and apprentice are parties. Offences committed by apprentices against any person not connected with the estates on which they live, come under the cognizance of the local magistrates or of higher courts.
3. The special justices sit three days in the week at their offices, where all complaints are carried, both by the master and apprentice. The magistrates do not go the estate, either to try or to punish offenders. Besides, the three days the magistrates are required to be at home every Saturday, (that being the day on which the apprentices are disengaged,) to give friendly advice and instruction on points of law and personal rights to all apprentices who may call.
PROVISIONS RESPECTING THE MASTER.
1. The master is allowed the gratuitous labor of the apprentice for forty-five hours each week. The several islands were permitted by the English government to make such a division of this time as local circumstances might seem to require. In some islands, as for instance in St. Christopher’s and Tortola, it is spread over six days of the week in proportions of seven and a half hours per day, thus leaving the apprentice mere shreds of time in which he can accomplish nothing for himself. In Barbadoes, the forty-five hours is confined within five days, in portions of nine hours per day.
2. The allowances of food continue the same as during slavery, excepting that now the master may give, instead of the allowance, a third of an acre to each apprentice, but then he must also grant an additional day every week for the cultivation of this land.
3. The master has no power whatever to punish. A planter observed, “if I command my butler to stand for half an hour on the parlor floor, and it can be proved that I designed it as a punishment, I may be fined for it.” The penalty for the first offence (punishing an apprentice) is a fine of five pounds currency, or sixteen dollars, and imprisonment if the punishment was cruel. For a second offence the apprentice is set free.
Masters frequently do punish their apprentices _in despite of all