New phenomenon: interior of Africa more civilized than the coast.
And now we are prepared both to admit and to understand a fact, which, though found to take place universally in Africa, is contrary to all former experience. In reviewing the moral history of man, and contemplating his progress from ignorance and barbarism, to the knowledge and comforts of a state of social refinement, it has been almost invariably found, that the sea coasts and the banks of navigable rivers, those districts which from their situation had most intercourse with more polished nations, have been the earliest civilized. In them, civil order, and social improvement, agriculture, industry, and at length the arts and sciences, have first flourished, and they have by degrees extended themselves into more inland regions. But the very reverse is the case in Africa. There, the countries on the coast are in a state of utter ignorance and barbarism, which also are always found to be the greatest where the intercourse with the Europeans has been the longest and mostintimate;—while the interior countries, where not the face of a white man was ever seen, are far more advanced in the comforts and improvements of social life.
This is so extraordinary a phenomenon, and it points out so clearly the pernicious effects of the Slave Trade on the prosperity of Africa, that it deserves the most serious attention. However extraordinary the statement may appear, it is confirmed by the unvarying testimony of all African travellers. Such is the result of the experience of Mr. Parke, who penetrated deep into Africa in one part; such is that of Mr. Winterbottom, who travelled about 200 miles inland in another: and the same extraordinary fact has since received a most striking confirmation, in the accounts, before recited, of the Booshuana and Baroloo nations.
Surely more than enough has been stated, to shew how far the present state of Africa is from furnishing any just grounds for believing that the Africans are incapable of civilization. Our only cause for wonder is, not that on the coast, where all is anarchy and insecurity, the inhabitants should have gradually declined from the state of civilization to which they had attained, and shouldhave at length sunk into a state of profound ignorance and barbarism; for they have long been in circumstances which have been ever found utterly incompatible with the rise and progress of civilization and knowledge; the more just subject of astonishment is, that the kingdoms in the interior should still be found in a condition of so much civil order and improvement, in spite of the pernicious effects of the Slave Trade on their moral and social state. But, through the gracious ordination of Heaven, the political, like the natural body, can exist under severe and harassing disorders. They may materially injure its health and comfort, and yet not utterly destroy it. Thus the evils which the interior countries suffer from the Slave Trade, are great and many; but their effects are not, as they commonly are on the coast, such as to break up the very foundations of society, and destroy the cohesion of its elementary parts. In the interior, the Slave Trade exercises powers of destruction which justly entitle it to the character of one of the greatest scourges of the human race. But it is on the coast that it reaches its full dimensions, and attains to the highest point of its detestable pre-eminence.
But if the foregoing remarks prove plainlythat our Slave dealers have no just grounds for arguing, from the present uncivilized state of the coast, that it is incapable of civilization; surely we cannot but be astonished at the finished assurance, as well as the consummate injustice and cruelty, with which they would charge on the natural constitution and character of the natives of Africa, that very barbarism of which they themselves are the authors; and not only so, but which, after having produced it, they urge on us as a plea for continuing that wretched land under the same dreadful interdict, not only from all the comforts of the civilized state, but from all the charities of life; from all virtue and all happiness; sealing her up for ever in bondage, ignorance, and blood.
You have been detained, I fear, far too long before this melancholy picture; and yet I am almost ashamed of apologizing for prolixity, when I consider what “a world of woes” it is which I have been exhibiting to your view.
Slave Traders’ argument that the Negroes were at home in a worse state of slavery.
When men began to question the soundness of that logic, which grounded the right to carry off the natives of Africa into slavery, on their state of barbarism and ignorance; and still more, when it was retorted, that,even granting the premises, that the Africans were thus dark and savage; the conclusion of a Christian reasoner ought naturally to be, that it was the duty of more favoured nations to civilize and enlighten, not to oppress and enslave, them; another set of arguments was brought forth; that two-thirds, or perhaps three-fourths, of the Africans were Slaves in their own country; and not only so, but that partly from the cruel and bloody superstitions, partly from the political despotism common in Africa, their state was so wretched at home, (the very worst West Indian slavery, as Mr. Edwards affirms, being infinitely preferable to the very best in Africa) that, independently on any motives of interest, humanity alone would prompt us to transport them from such a condition of misery and degradation, to the comparative Paradise of West Indian servitude.|The assertion answered and refuted.|To all this the reply was obvious, that we had no right to make men happy against their will; and that whatever effect such an argument might have had on us, if urged from African lips, yet that it came before us in a very suspicious shape, when proceeding from those of a West Indian. But since all the above allegations, however unsatisfactory on grounds of justice, must be acknowledged, to have some place in determining the practicaleffect of the Slave Trade, on the happiness of the Africans themselves; it may not be improper to observe, that these assertions also are utterly disproved by Mr. Parke, and by other recent travellers, no less than by the witnesses produced by the Abolitionists.
African Slaves real state.
The slavery of Africa appeared, in truth, to be a species of feudal or rather of patriarchal vassalage. The Slaves could not be sold by their masters but for crimes; not without the form of a trial, nor, in several parts, even without the verdict of a jury. They were described as sitting with their masters, like members of the same family, in primitive simplicity and comfort. “In all the laborious occupations which Mr. Parke describes, both agricultural and manufacturing, the Master and the Slave work together without any distinction of superiority.” It appears also, from a passage in Parke, that Master and Slave stand towards each other in a parental and filial relation: “Have I not served you—” said an African, who had served Parke in the capacity of a domestic Slave, “Have I not served you as if you had been to me a father and a master?” Indeed it was the more ill-advised to make any comparison between the slavery of Africa and of the West Indies, because even the witnesses ofour opponents give much the same account of the condition of the African Slaves.
These remarks ought ever to be borne in mind in all our considerations and reasonings concerning the state of society in Africa. They are sometimes, however, forgotten by the very writers themselves by whom they have been made. Our opponents have availed themselves of the ambiguities of language; and the state of these domestic Slaves, who are styled the bulk of the African population, is spoken of in terms applicable only to the condition of those wretched beings who are destined for the Slave market, and who are waiting in fetters for a purchaser. The existence of this milder species of vassalage may even facilitate the complete civilization of the negro nations, by having familiarized their minds to the gradations of rank, and by having accustomed them to submit to the restraints of social life, and to be controlled by the authority of law and custom.
Opponents argument from the cruelty of the African despots, and particularly from those of the King of Dahomy.
Much use was likewise attempted to be made of the cruelties of some of the African monarchs, and especially of a certain king of Dahomy. “It was mercy to the poor Negroes to rescue them from such barbarities.”But the argument was only a proof of the wretched straits to which our opponents must be reduced, when they called in the aid of such an auxiliary. Yet was this argument urged with a grave face by men of education and intelligence; and it may therefore deserve a serious, though a brief answer. It is probably true that the kingdom of Dahomy had the misfortune to be governed by a cruel tyrant. His invasion of the neighbouring kingdom of Whidah, was attended with a dreadful slaughter; and it may be fact, that, like a celebrated oriental conqueror, Nadir Shah, he thatched his palace with the heads of his prisoners. His cruelties, and still more those of the Dahoman monarchs in general, must however have been excessively exaggerated, since Mr. Devaynes, whose personal knowledge of Dahomy was greater than that of any other person, and who, though not favourably inclined to our cause, delivered his evidence with great frankness and candour, declared that the Dahomans were a very happy people. But, not to insist on the unfairness of attempting to justify the Slave Trade in general, by the cruelties said to be practised in one particular district, which constitutes not perhaps a fiftieth part of the region from which the Slaves are supplied; not to urge,moreover, that, but for the Slave Trade, this whole system of superstition would probably have been ere now at an end; the cruelties of the Dahoman court are the effect of the native superstitions, and it therefore seems very doubtful, whether or not the Slave Trade lessens the number of the victims: while, as the very witness, who dwelt most strongly on this argument, himself allowed; it leaves their place, by having taken off the convicts who would otherwise have been sacrificed, to be supplied by innocent individuals. But, what will you say, when you hear that, as Atkins[12]informs us, the cruelties practised in the invasion of Whidah were committed by him in a war undertaken with a view of punishing the adjacent nation, for having stolen away some of his subjects, for the purpose of selling them for Slaves? Thus, it appears, that to the Slave Trade itself is fairly to be imputed this greatest of all recorded instances of the cruelties of an African warfare, that very instance on which our opponents have relied.
The Slaves brought to the coast for sale would be massacred in case of abolition.
But an argument for the continuance of the Slave Trade has been grounded on the massacre, which would otherwise take place, of the Slaves which had been brought down to the coast for sale. This slaughter, however, even granting it to be well founded, ought, in all fairness, to be charged to the account of the Slave Trade, which had created the demand for these wretched victims. At any rate it would only happen once; for the Slave hunters would cease to catch and bring down for sale this species of game, when it was known there could no longer be any demand for it. But in truth, as the supposition is utterly contrary to common sense, so it is abundantly contradicted by experience;|The assertion positively contradicted by opponents partisans.|for it clearly appears from Mr. Parke, as well as from the testimony of other witnesses, that Slaves, when brought down to the coast for sale, are set to work for their own maintenance, or for their master’s emolument, either when there is no demand for them, or when the price offered for them is deemed inadequate to their value. It further appears that, even at this time, “It sometimes happens, when no ships are on the coast, that a humane and considerate master incorporates his purchased Slaves among his domestics; and their offspring, at least, if notthe parents, become entitled to all the privileges of the native class.”[13]
Middle passage.
On the middle passage but little shall be said; but we must not pass from Africa to the West Indies, without some few observations.
When the public attention was first called to this branch of the subject, it was alleged, and with considerable plausibility, that self-interest alone would be a sufficient security against abuses; for not only was the owner of the Slave ship interested in having the Slaves brought to the port of sale in the best possible condition; but the master, officers, and surgeons of the ships had all a similar interest, their profits being made to depend, in a considerable degree, on the average value of the cargo. To this argument from self-interest, it must be confessed, that more weight was justly due in this part of the case, than in any other; because the interest was nearer, and more direct, and was not counteractedby any interest of an opposite nature; yet even here it was proved but too decisively, that, as in other cases, nature was too hard for reason, the passions too powerful for interest. The habit of viewing, and treating these wretched beings as mere articles of merchandize, had so blinded the judgment, and hardened the heart, as to produce a course of treatment highly injurious to the interest of the owners and officers of Slave ships, and at the same time abounding in almost every circumstance that could aggravate the miseries of the Slaves. When the condition therefore and treatment of the Negroes on shipboard were first laid open, the indignation of the House of Commons was excited so strongly, that though the Session of Parliament had nearly closed, a Bill was immediately brought in and passed, with a view to mitigate their sufferings, during even the short period for which, it was then conceived, the existence of the Slave Trade could be tolerated. Human ingenuity had almost been exhausted in contriving expedients for crowding the greatest possible number of bodies into a given space; and when the smallpox, the flux, or any other epidemic, broke out among them, the scene was horrible beyond description. Even where there was no such peculiar aggravation, the sufferings of the poor wretches were such as exhausted allpowers of description. Accordingly, the average mortality on board the Slave ships was very considerable. Often, during a voyage of a few weeks, so many perished, that if in any country the same rate of mortality should prevail, the whole population would be swept away in a single year. The survivors also were landed in such a diseased state, that four and a half per cent. of the whole number imported were estimated to die in the short interval between the arrival of the ship and the sale of the cargo, probably not more than a fortnight; and, after the Slaves had passed into the hands of the planters, the numbers which perished from the effects of the voyage were allowed to be very considerable[14].
A Bill for mitigating these evils was proposed by that justly respected member of the House of Commons, Sir William Dolben, and, after great opposition, was passed into a law. That law has since been from time to time renewed and amended, prescribing certain conditions and regulations, with a view to the health and comfort of the Slaves. For want of some effectual means of enforcing this law, many of its provisions have not, it is supposed,been carried into strict execution. Still its primary object has been attained, and the evils, arising from crowding great numbers into too small a space, have been considerably mitigated. Much good has likewise been done by turning the attention of the Slave dealers to the subject, and by convincing them that parsimony is not always œconomy.
But many of the sufferings of these wretched beings are of a sort, for which no legislative regulations can provide a remedy. Several of them, indeed, arise necessarily out of their peculiar circumstances, as connected with their condition on shipboard. It is necessary to the safety of the vessel, to secure the men by chains and fetters. It is necessary to confine them below during the night, and, in very stormy weather, during the day also. Often it happens that, even with the numbers still allowed to be taken, especially when some of those epidemic diseases prevail, which, though less frequent than formerly, will yet occasionally happen; and when men of different countries and languages, or of opposite tempers, are linked together; such scenes of misery take place as are too nauseous for description.[15]Still,in rough weather, their limbs must often be excoriated by lying on the boards; still they will often be wounded by the fetters:[16]still food and exercise will be deemed necessary to present the animal in good condition at the place of sale: still some of them will loath their food, and be averse to exercise, from the joint effect perhaps of sea-sickness and mental uneasiness; and still while in this state they will probably be charged with sulkiness; and eating, and dancing in their fetters will be enforced by stripes: still the high netting will be necessary, that standing precaution of an African ship against acts of suicide: but, more than all, still must the diseases of the mind remain entire, nay, they may perhaps increase in force, from the attention being less called off by the urgency of bodily suffering; the anguish of husbands torn from their wives, wives from their husbands, and parents from theirchildren; the pangs arising from the consideration, that they are separated for ever from their country, their friends, their relatives, and connections, remain the same. In short, they have the same painful recollection of the past, and the same dreadful forebodings of the future; while they are still among strangers, whose appearance, language, and manners are new to them, and every surrounding object is such as must naturally inspire terror. In short, till we can legislate for the mind; till by an Act of Parliament we can regulate the affections of the heart, or, rather, till we can extinguish the feelings of nature; till we can completely unman and brutalize these wretched beings, in order to qualify them for being treated like brutes; the sufferings of the Slaves, during the middle passage, must still remain extreme. The stings of a wounded conscience man cannot inflict; but nearly all which man can do to make his fellow creatures miserable, without defeating his purpose by putting a speedy end to their existence, will still be here effected; and it will still continue true, that never can so much misery be found condensed into so small a space, as in a Slave ship during the middle passage.
But this part of the subject should not be quitted without the mention of one circumstance,which justly leads to a very important inference as to other parts of the case. When Parliament entered into the investigation of the situation and treatment of the Slaves, during the middle passage; notwithstanding the decisive proofs, adduced, and fatally confirmed by the dreadful mortality, of the miseries which the Slaves endured on shipboard, the Slave Traders themselves gave a directly opposite account; maintained that the Slaves were even luxuriously accommodated, and, above all, that they had abundant room, even when there was not near space sufficient for them to lie on their backs.[17]They added likewise, that at that very period the trade hung by a thread, and that the proposed limitation as to numbers, if carried into a law, would infallibly and utterly ruin it. The agent for the West Indies joined in their opposition, and predicted the mischief which would follow. The limitation was adopted; and scarcely had a year elapsed, before we heard from the West Indies, from the Assembly of Jamaica itself, of the benefits which the measure was likely to produce, on account of the gross abuses which had before notoriously prevailed, fatal alike to the health of the Slaves and the interest of the planters. Many years have now elapsed, and it is at length universally acknowledged,that the measure has eminently contributed to the interest of every one of the parties concerned.[18]May we not infer, that probably, in other parts of this question, the parties do not always judge very accurately with respect to their real interests; and that the prospect of immediate advantage may cause them to be insensible to a greater but more distant benefit.
Grand allegation of West Indians, that the stock of Slaves cannot be kept up without importations.
But against all, which justice and humanity could bring forward against the Slave Trade, it was still to be urged, that the continuance of it was necessary to the existence of our West Indian colonies. To put the argument in more specific form, it was objected, that the stock of Slaves then actually in the West Indies could not be maintained by natural generation, without being recruited from time to time by importations from Africa, and therefore, that the abolition of the Slave Trade would produce the sure, though gradual, ruin of our colonies, with all those effects on the wealth and strength of the mother country which must follow from the loss of so valuable a member of the empire.
To the examination of this objection, let me intreat your most serious attention; for on it, in fact, the whole argument turns, so far as policy is in question. For my ownpart I hesitate not to say, that, let the apparent temptation of profit be what it may, it never can be the real interest of any nation to be unjust and inhuman; to suppose the contrary, would be almost to arraign the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty, as it would undoubtedly be, to admit a principle directly at war with his revealed will. Nor can I forbear taking occasion to congratulate my country, that in the discussions on this subject, the greatest of her statesmen, both dead and living, even those who have differed almost on every other question, have declared their concurrent assent to that grand and aweful truth,that the principles of justice are immutable in their nature, and universal in their application; the duty at once, and the interest, of nations, no less than of individuals.
Fully impressed with the force of these sentiments, I could not believe that the prosperity of the West Indies must necessarily be built on a foundation of injustice and cruelty; neither could I understand why, in the West Indies alone, the Negroes could not even keep up their numbers. The contrary supposition is in truth refuted, not only by its being a contradiction of the great Law of Nature, but by its being contrary to the universal experience of all other countries.|Presumptive arguments to the contrary, furnished by experience.|For elsewhere, even under the most unfavourablecircumstances, not merely the human species, but specifically the Negro race, had been found to increase; indeed Negroes were said to be by nature peculiarly prolific. The climate of the West Indies is similar to that of Africa.|In Africa|Why then should the same race of beings gradually diminish in the former country, which in the latter have so increased and multiplied, as for two centuries to bear the continual drain of their population to the opposite side of the Atlantic. On examining whether in fact the negro race has kept up its numbers in other foreign countries, we find that it has increased, and sometimes rapidly, even where the influence of the climate might be justly supposed to be highly unfavourable.
In the United States of America, Negro Slaves increase.
The climate of the United States of America is far from being well suited to the negro constitution, which, we are assured, is so little patient of cold, as even in the West Indies to suffer from it[19]. The cold in America is often very severe in the winter, even inthe southern states; and the peculiar nature of the employment of great numbers of the Slaves who work on the rice plantations, must operate very unfavourably on their health; yet the Negro Slaves are universally acknowledged to have so rapidly increased in that country, that, according to the last census of the American population, without taking into the account any importations, the Negroes had increased so much in the ten years last preceding the augmentation, that, advancing at the same rate, their numbers would be doubled in about twenty-four years.
Slaves increase, in Bencoolen.
Again, in Bencoolen, which has been accounted one of the most unhealthy climates on earth, the Negro Slaves had increased[20].
But, lest the decrease in our Islands should be supposed to arise out of some peculiarity of the West Indian climate,|Slaves increase, in the West Indies themselves.|even in the West Indies themselves undoubted instances of negro increase can be adduced. The crew of a Slave ship had been wrecked on the unsettled island of St. Vincents, about the beginning of the 18th century. They had every difficulty to contend with, were wholly unprovided with necessaries, and were obliged to maintain a constant war with the nativeCharaibs; yet they had soon multiplied exceedingly.
The Maroons increase.
Even in the island of Jamaica itself, the Maroons, the descendants of the Negro Slaves, who, when the island was originally captured, made their escape into the mountains, and ever afterwards lived the life of savages; the Maroons, who were acknowledged by the West Indians themselves to be, under peculiar circumstances, so unfavourable to the maintenance of their numbers, that their decrease would furnish no fair argument for the general impossibility of keeping up the stock, were found by actual enumeration to have nearly doubled their numbers in the period between 1749 and 1782.
The Domestic Negroes increase.
The Free Blacks and Mulattoes increase.
In the same island of Jamaica, the domestic Slaves were said by Long to increase rapidly. The free Blacks and the Mulattoes, it was allowed by Mr. Long, increased. Several particular instances were adduced of gangs of Slaves having been kept up, and even having increased, without importations; and one of the most eminent of the medical men in Jamaica, who had under his care no less than 4,000 Negroes, stated, that there was a very considerable increase of Negroes on the properties of that island, particularly in the parish in which he resided, one of the largestin Jamaica. All these instances certainly afforded a strong presumptive proof, that the stock of Slaves in the islands might be kept up, and might even increase without continual importations.
But the conclusion resulting from so much and such diversified experience was established also by positive and decisive proof. The assertion, that the stock of Slaves actually in the islands could not be maintained without continual importations, received an unanswerable refutation, especially from Mr. Pitt, whose superior powers of reasoning, as well as of eloquence, were never more powerfully displayed than in the debate of that memorable night when this subject was under discussion, and whose positions were clearly deduced from the very documents and accounts which had been supplied by the islands themselves.
Importance of the question, concerning the keeping up of the stock of Slaves without Importations.
Here, undoubtedly, lies the main stress of the case, so far as policy is concerned. On the determination of this question must obviously rest all the assertions which have been so industriously circulated, and all the apprehensions which have so generally prevailed, that the immediate abolition would prove ruinous to our West Indian Colonies. Even in 1792, much less in the present day, scarcely any man will deny, that if the stockof Slaves can be kept up, the abolition will, in various ways, be highly beneficial to the islands.
Proof that Slave Trade not needed for maintaining the present stock of Slaves.
It was proved then, first, That the abuses and the obstructions to the natural increase, which too generally prevail, were sufficient to account for a rapidly decreasing population, and even to lead us to expect it.
Secondly, That the decrease, which really was considerable a century ago, had been gradually diminishing; till at length there was good reason to believe it had entirely ceased, and that the population fully maintains itself.
Thirdly, That, therefore, if the great and numerous abuses which now prevail should be materially mitigated, we might confidently anticipate a great and rapid increase in future.
These three propositions being made out, it follows of course, that the only substantial objection to the abolition, on the grounds of policy, is completely done away.|Proof of existing abuses unfavourable to increase.|To the proof, therefore, of these propositions respectively, let me beg your most serious attention. And now, in establishing the first of them, it becomes my duty to point out the various abuses of the colonial system, sofar as they have any natural tendency to keep down the population below its proper level. I am well aware that I am here about to tread on very tender ground. I know that it is imputed to the Abolitionists, that they have endeavoured to excite an unjust clamour against the Colonists by tales of cruelty, which, if not utterly false, or, at least, grossly exaggerated, were, however, individual and rare instances. They have been represented as the rule, it is said, not as the exception, and as fixing a general stigma on all colonial proprietors.
That on a subject naturally calculated to call forth powerfully the feelings of every humane mind, zeal may have carried some of our advocates too far, and made them not sufficiently discriminate between particular cases of ill-treatment, and the general system of management, I will not deny. Yet I might, perhaps, retort the accusation, and object, in my turn, that our opponents have not in general acknowledged even the particular cases of cruelty, and joined with us in reprobating them; but that the facts themselves have been denied, as if it were really the common cause of the Colonists, in which all were to stand or fall together.
Yet, surely, any one who considers how great, even in men of rank and education,have ever been the abuses of absolute power; who recollects, besides, that in the West Indies, Slaves of inferior value are of very low price, and consequently, that any man who possesses a horse in this country might possess a Slave in that, would be sure that individual instances of cruelty must frequently occur. Let any one who should be inclined to pause on this position, consider how that noble animal, the horse, is too often treated in the face of day, in the very streets of the capital of this civilized country. But for myself I can truly declare, that I cannot be justly charged with having insisted on particular cases of West Indian cruelty. On the contrary, I have uniformly abstained from whatever could provoke or irritate the Colonists, as far as was possibly consistent with justice to the cause. I have sometimes even doubted whether the cause may not have suffered from my abstinence.
But, in justice to my own character, let me declare, that I have observed this line of conduct, not merely from interested motives, that our opponents might not be heated into still stronger opposition, but from feelings of a more generous nature. I have borne in mind, that the present generation of West Indian proprietors are not the first settlers of the colonies, or the first maintainersof the Slave Trade; excepting, however, the formers of the new settlements, which, alas! have been made to a prodigious extent within the last sixteen years. The older proprietors inherited their estates as we in Britain inherited ours; and must we not expect them to be naturally tinctured with the prejudices arising out of their circumstances and situations, since it is almost as difficult to be exempted from the operation of these in the moral world, as for natural productions not to possess the peculiar qualities and flavour of their climate and soil.
But, speaking generally, for the absentees I feel above all other proprietors; many of them born and educated in the mother country, and therefore possessing all the principles, sympathies, and feelings which belong to our state of society. They are most of them ignorant of the real state of things in the colonies; they naturally give credit to the accounts which they receive from their agents and correspondents. They often, I doubt not, in some cases I know, they send over orders to their managers to treat their Slaves with the utmost humanity and liberality. There are among them, men who consider the Slaves whom they inherit, as a family of unfortunate men, with whose protection and comfort Providence has charged them, andwhose well-being they are therefore bound, by the highest obligations, to promote.
Far therefore be it from me to throw out a general reproach against the whole West Indian body. In this case indeed, as in others of a similar nature, the more the general mass is liable to any taint, the more to be found exempt from it, is honourable. Surely those proprietors whose own consciences acquit them of all inhumanity, nay more, whose general conduct bears testimony to their kind and liberal feelings towards these unfortunate dependants, ought rather to aid our endeavours to reform the existing abuses, than to strive, by interposing their character, to shield them from the view, and, by so doing, to promote their continuance.
Let the West Indians of more enlarged and generous minds join me rather in examining into the vices of the existing system, more especially into those which have hitherto obstructed the increase of the Negro population. But to lay before you the various proofs which could be adduced of those abuses, would require a volume, and that not a small one. Want of time, therefore, will compel me to take a very cursory viewof this very important part of my subject. I must content myself with specifying the chief abuses, referring generally for the proofs of them, to authentic, but too often voluminous documents.
It might alone however be sufficient, to establish the positions for which I shall contend, to refer you to a recent and most valuable publication, the work of a professional planter. The author was from the first an active and able opponent of the Abolitionists. But being a man of truth and candour, he has at once furnished a strong argument in support of their cause, and an invaluable service to his brethren, the planters, by not only stating the prevalent vices of the existing system, but by relating the remedies of them, which he himself applied, and the reforms by which, however inadequate, he acquired, in a few years, a large fortune, while at the end of that time, he had the satisfaction to see the number of his Slaves rapidly and greatly increased.
Actuated by motives at once benevolent and patriotic, desirous of mitigating the sufferings of the Negroes, and of directing the planters to those judicious and salutary reforms which would be found in the end tohave been not more humane than politic, he addressed publicly his West Indian brethren, by whom, both from his general character for understanding and experience, he was naturally much respected, and among whom he was entitled to the more credit for having been among the foremost to repel the attack of the Abolitionists. But it was impossible to address the planters publicly, without his work being at the same time read by the friends of abolition. He must be on his guard therefore, lest he should afford a triumph to the latter by laying open the various evils of the West Indian system in their full extent. He had obviously a most difficult task to perform; and it is no more than justice to say that few men ever performed a difficult task with more ability. It is impossible, however, to peruse his work without perceiving in every page that he felt extremely embarrassed, by wishing to suggest the most salutary remedies without letting the world know too much of the disease. He writes like a man who on the one hand is conscious that he is prescribing to a patient who is very liable to take offence, and who wishes on the other not to disparage the reputation of the system of management which had been pursued by the former practitioner. Hence he rather hints a fault, and hesitatesdislike, than speaks out plainly. We ought to bear in mind the author’s peculiar situation, and its effects, during our perusal of his work, or we shall form a very inadequate idea of the real strength of the various abuses, from the soft colouring with which he paints them.
The increase a subordinate object of attention.
And here I ought to commence with stating, as a grand and universally operative cause why the numbers of the Slaves did not increase more rapidly, that their increase was not made in general a primary object of attention. Here also there were individual instances of a contrary sort, but still the position is generally true. The dependance for keeping up the stock of Slaves was placed not on the increase to be obtained by births, but on the power of purchasing from time to time from the Slave market. This was abundantly proved by positive evidence; nay, even by the express declaration of the managers and overseers themselves; but it was established perhaps still more decisively, by its being almost invariably found that the most intelligent West Indians, who were the most fully acquainted with every other particular of the system, were commonly utterly ignorant of all that related to this important topic. On this head, their minds were amere blank, wholly unfurnished with any of those particulars with which they must have been familiar, had the increase of their Negroes been any great object of their care. Even medical men, though perfect adepts in all which regarded planting, appeared quite at a loss, when questions were asked of them connected with the breeding and rearing of children.
In some instances, even the colonial statutes have been framed on the same principles, and an annual poll-tax has been laid on Negro Slaves from their earliest infancy.
It is not however, that I impute even to the managers, much less to the proprietors of West Indian estates, that they entered into any grave and minute comparison between the breeding system on the one hand, and the working down and buying system on the other, and that they deliberately gave the preference to the latter as the most economical, in the full view of all its horrid consequences; but the truth is, that under all the circumstances of the West Indian colonies, it was perfectly natural that the buying rather than the breeding system should be pursued; nay, reasoning from experience, I had almost said, it was scarcely possible that the case shouldbe otherwise, for it was a mode of proceeding which resulted from causes of sure and universal operation. Mr. Hume has clearly proved the truth of this position, in his celebrated Essay on the populousness of ancient nations; and he himself, after stating why the buying system had been preferred among the ancients, applies the reasoning to our Trans-Atlantic colonies, and speaks of the confirmation which his doctrine receives, from the maxims of our planters, as a known and acknowledged fact.[21]From the operation of similar causes, buying rather than breeding Slaves became the general policy, among the nations of antiquity; and hence it will infallibly continue the general policy in the West Indies, so long as a Slave market remains open for a purchaser’s supply.
Will not they, who might hesitate to adopt this position, be disposed at least to deem it probable, when they hear, that, notwithstanding all the steps which have been taken, for so many years, towards the abolition of the Slave Trade; even yet, the price of women Slaves continues, as it has always been, inferior to that of men. This is the more curious, because our opponents have uniformlyalleged their not having a due proportion of females, as a primary cause of their not keeping up their numbers. It is obvious, that this is a cause which could, at the utmost, only exist among the imported Africans, and that there would be the usual proportion of males and females among the Slaves born in the islands, which, in all but the new settlements, constitute beyond all comparison the bulk of the Black population. What then can shew more clearly, that the planters do not, even yet, set themselves in earnest to produce an increase by breeding, than that, under an exaggerated impression of the effects of importing a too small proportion of females, and with a probability, at least, of abolition before their eyes, they suffer it to continue the interest of the Slave merchant, in preference to bring over males.
Vices of the West Indian system:—Insufficient feeding.
I must begin my enumeration of the abuses of the West Indian system, by mentioninginsufficient feeding. It must be granted, indeed, that in this particular, the Slaves are very differently circumstanced in different islands. In the larger island of Jamaica, for instance, and in Dominica, wherein the Slaves can be chiefly fed by provisions produced on the estate, their quantity of food is far more ample than in those islands where the landis so valuable, that little or none of it can be spared for this service; where also the droughts are so frequent and great, that the Negroes own provision grounds furnish but a very precarious and scanty supply. It might be sufficient to mention, that the allowance of provisions alleged to have been commonly given to the working Slaves, in most of the Leeward Islands, was not above half the quantity which, by an act of Assembly, lately passed in Jamaica, was required to be given to such runaway Slaves as, having been taken up, were lodged in prison till they could be returned to their masters. A prison allowance is not meant to be such as will pamper the body; yet double the food given in the former case to the working Negroes, was prescribed for a Slave in prison, who had nothing to do. I might also mention that acknowledged truth, that during the five or six months of crop time, when the labour is the most severe, the Slaves uniformly become much stouter and fatter, from the nourishment derived from the cane juice.
But as time will not allow me to prove the point completely, let me abstain from an imperfect enumeration of arguments, and satisfy myself with affirming, that I am fully warranted by the very respectable authorityjust now alluded to, in placing insufficient feeding among the general vices of the West Indian system; though in Jamaica, and in some of the other islands, the lands allotted to the Slaves for raising their food is sufficient, had they but time enough for working it.[22]I willonly remark farther, that in America, where the Slaves increase so rapidly, the quantity of food allowed to the Negroes was vastly greater than the largest West Indian allowance.