Absenteeship.
The first is, Absenteeship, particularly of the more affluent Proprietor, who could afford to be liberal, whose presence among his Slaves would naturally produce a sort of parental feeling, and cause him habitually to interest himself in their comfort and improvement; and whose affluence might enable him to carry into effect the plans, whetherin the way of exemption or beneficence, which his liberality should devise.
I have not leisure to point out in detail the various bad consequences which follow from the Owner’s absence; but they will naturally occur to any one who will consider the peculiar circumstances of the West Indian Slaves, in connection with this subject.
But let me point out one consequence which has been less attended to than it deserves to be, the unspeakable loss to the society, of that very class of men, not only in the legislature, but in private life also, who, from their rank and fortune, must in general be supposed to have received the best education, and to possess the most enlarged and liberal minds; who consequently would raise the general standard of morals and manners, whose presence, and the desire of being admitted into whose company, would be a check to dissoluteness; who would not only abound themselves in acts of kindness to the wretched Negroes, but who might make liberality popular, and render, more than it now is, the ill-treatment of Negroes disreputable; for I trust it is already so in no small degree, where it is discovered. Many absentee Proprietors, of large property, even if they do, once or twice intheir lives, visit their estates; yet, while living in the West Indies, they consider themselves not at home, but only on a visit, and on a visit commonly which is not very agreeable to them, and which, therefore, especially when, as often is the case, constrained by œconomical motives, they mean to end, as soon as they have saved enough to enable them to live again in the mother country in ease and affluence. Hence they are too naturally persuaded to adopt the generally prevailing practice as to feeding and clothing, and other particulars; and, however desirous they may be of introducing a more liberal system, they are easily dissuaded from it, knowing that they shall not be able themselves to superintend the actual observance of their own regulations.
As for the far larger class of absentee Proprietors, who reside constantly in the mother country, though I give them all due credit for benevolent intentions, yet they are commonly precluded by their very ignorance of plantation affairs, from interfering with any confidence, or to any good purpose, in the detail of management. How little they are often acquainted with these particulars, I was not even myself aware till lately, when it appeared, that an old West Indian Proprietor,acknowledged by all who know him to be remarkable for the extent and accuracy of his information, and intimately conversant with all the detail of political and commercial œconomy, was wholly ignorant of its being the universal practice to work the Negroes in their field-work under the whip. This is the more remarkable, because the practice is not a partial or an occasional procedure, but the constant and universal mode; because for several years, men in general in this country, though personally unconnected with the West Indies, had been naturally led to turn their attention to the system of negro management.
I doubt not that the absentee Proprietor directs his manager to treat the Slaves with all due kindness and liberality; yet it must not be conceded with equal readiness, that the orders even of these benevolent Absentees will be faithfully executed. For in supposing this to be the case, we suppose a combination of incidents, and an assemblage of qualities, each of which, unconnected with the others, is sufficiently rare; how much more rare, then, must it be, to suppose them all concurring. We must suppose this benevolent Absentee to be affluent also, that he may be able to give effect to his benevolence. Benevolence, I trust and believe, will generally befound in the higher class of Proprietors; but I fear affluence, in proportion to their rank and way of living, is not so common. Again, we have also to suppose the more rare occurrence, not merely of equal but of far superior benevolence, in a man of inferior rank, fortune, connections, and manners, most probably of inferior education also. We must suppose this man of extraordinary benevolence to select for himself the situation of a manager in the West Indies, a somewhat unlikely choice; and that this benevolent owner, and this still more benevolent manager, happen to come together; I repeat it, still more benevolent, because this quality in the owner, though a generous, is a transient effusion, when the mind is in close contact with its object; or we may assign to it the higher character, of the habitual generosity of a just judgment, and a liberal heart. But such a judgment and such a feeling may often be found in a moment of serious reflection, in men, who from various infirmities, are not practically kind and beneficent in all the homely occurrences of daily life; especially under circumstances in which there are many little trials to be borne, and many vexatious obstacles to be surmounted.
But we are to suppose a manager whose benevolence is of this hardier and firmer kind. It must be a principle ever wakeful and observant; combined with judgment, and improved by experience; the very acquisition of which experience implies the having been long practically conversant with the system. We must suppose also, what is very extraordinary, that this long familiarity with prevailing abuses has not, in any degree, impaired the power to perceive, or the promptitude to redress them. In short, we are to suppose a principle so vigorous as to resist the strongest counteractions, and not only to maintain its existence, but to support a continued activity, under circumstances the most powerfully calculated to impair and destroy it.
But we have not yet done. Besides this extraordinary portion of benevolence, this rare manager must have some other qualities not less uncommon. He must not only have the firmness to dare to be singular, and to expose himself to the imputation of wishing to be thought to have more humanity than his neighbours, a sort of courage the most difficult of all to be found in our days; but, above all, he must resist the consciousness, that in return for all his humane exertions he may be misrepresented to his employer; that,having acquired the character of a visionary schemer, who sends home comparatively small returns, and calls for great expences, he may, in consequence of such representations, be dismissed from his present office, and in vain solicit another. To find such a man, of so much benevolence, combined with so much resolute integrity, must be acknowledged to be no common occurrence. That such a man should be in the precise situation of overseer of a West Indian estate we should still less expect; and that this rare manager should meet with this more than commonly benevolent owner, is a still more curious coincidence. Yet all these expectations must be realized, for an Absentee’s plantation to be regulated as it ought to be, under the present circumstances of the West Indies.
This subject is of such primary practical importance, that I must still be permitted to add one word more. Any man who will consider what his own feelings and temptations would be likely to be, were he the absentee Proprietor of a West Indian estate, will acknowledge the force of my reasoning; and they who may see no reason to suspect themselves, will be precisely those, concerning whom all other men would be apt to entertain the strongest suspicions. Were weourselves West Indian proprietors, we naturally should wish that the income of our estate might be as large, and the outgoings as small as might be; and though in a benevolent, or rather let me call it, a just mind, this wish would be qualified by the understood condition, that the Slaves should be sufficiently provided for; yet, ever allowing most honourable exceptions to the contrary, that which would in general constitute a manager’s recommendation, which would obtain him a character, would be his increasing the clear profits of the estate. All this depends on principles of universal, infallible, and constant operation. It was the case in Mr. Long’s time. He pointed out to the West Indian Proprietors, in the strongest terms, the mischief done by “overseers,[35]whose chief aim it was to raise to themselves a character as able planters, by increasing the produce of the respective estates; this is too frequently attempted, by forcing the Negroes to labour beyond their abilities; of course, they drop off, and if not recruited incessantly, the gentleman steals away, like a rat from a barn in flames, and carries the credit of great plantership, and vast crops in his hand, to obtain advancedwages from some new employer in another district of the island. The Absentees are too often deceived, who measure the condition of their properties by the large remittances sent to them for one or two years, without adverting to the heavy losses sustained in the production of them.”
Let me likewise again remind the benevolent absentee Proprietor to beware lest he is misled by the ambiguities of language. Let him bear in mind that when he receives from his manager in the West Indies, assurances that his Negroes havesufficientsupply of food, and clothing, and medical care; that their work is notundulyhard, nor their treatmentundulyrigorous; thatsufficientregard is paid to their comforts, and their feelings: Let me again remind him, that thissufficiencyis not necessarily estimated by the measure of the claims and wants and feelings of a human being. Of course, I mean to speak only of managers in general. Individuals there are of that class, I doubt not, of a liberality and feeling, which would do honour to any rank. But it must be remembered, that it would be unreasonable to expect them to be exempt from prejudices and feelings, to which they are peculiarly exposed, and which have been so lately proved to prevail in the majorityof a body of men like the Assembly of Barbadoes, greatly superior to them in rank, connections, and fortune. If such a prejudice could shew itself also, and exert its influence in the sight of the world, and in the face of so many opposing considerations, how much more must it not be expected to operate, when there is no bystander to witness its acts, and when indolence, self-interest, habit, example, and various other motives, conspire to give effect to it?
Effect of the pressure of the times.
But if, in the way which has been lately stated, the Slaves suffered from absenteeship thirty or forty years ago, for it is so long since Mr. Long remarked the evil, how much must their sufferings have been aggravated in our days, when (this is the second circumstance to which I alluded some time ago) the increased extravagance of the age on the one hand, and the increased price of all articles of consumption on the other, furnish to every man, strong additional inducements for raising his estate to its utmost value? Above all, how powerfully must this principle operate in the case of those whose estates are considerably encumbered with debts? And this, remember, is actually the case of probably nine tenths of all West Indian Proprietors. Here in truth consists the grand obstacle in the way of all those regulations, in the presentsystem, which would call for any additional expenditure in the first instance. Proprietors, whose estates, after paying the interest of their mortgages, leave scarcely enough, in our times of pecuniary difficulty and pressure, for merely decent subsistence, much less sufficient to live upon in the way naturally acceptable to the West Indians, who are, in general, men of liberal and hospitable habits; such Proprietors, so circumstanced, must naturally be endeavouring in every instance to discover the minimum of charge, and the maximum of production. The manager of the estate will not be long in learning this, and his endeavours will be directed to the same objects. The effects of lessening the allowances of the Slaves may not be immediately visible, and he may really conceive that, without injury to them, somewhat may be saved for the master. But I will not pursue this invidious topic into its too obvious consequences. The professional Planter has just sketched a faint outline of some of the effects.[36]
Let me, however, remind all Proprietors who are thus circumstanced, that however inconvenient it may be to them, to increase,for a time, the outgoings, and subtract from the receipts of their estate, to go on as they are now doing, is sure and utter ruin. Will they say, that the course which I recommend, however politic ultimately, yet at the moment, and in their circumstances, deserves no better a name? I must reply, the professionalPlanter will tell them, that the opposite system of working down their gangs of Negroes, and making them good from the Slave market, is murder added to ruin, murder too in its most painful and shocking, because a protracted form.
The topic on which I have just now touched, so lightly, considering its importance, reminds me of another circumstance, which, in various ways, has a most unfavourable tendency on the treatment and happiness of the Slaves; and which, though it has operated powerfully in the West Indies, has never, perhaps, produced such extensive effects as within the last twenty or thirty years. This is, the buying of West Indian property on speculation.|West Indian speculations injurious to the Slaves.|Wherever this is the principle of purchase, it is for the most part connected with the formation of new settlements, and this is in various ways, some of which have been already specified, productive of unspeakable misery to the Negroes employed in forming them.
But besides this probable class of evils, where any one is engaged in planting speculations, there must naturally be a disposition to regard the undertaking as a mercantile transaction, in which the investiture of capitalis to be made as small, and the returns as large as possible; rather than as a landed property, or as (for that is the light in which a West Indian estate ought still more to be considered) as a little sovereignty of a feudal nature, the vassals of which have a claim to their lord’s protection, with whom, therefore, he is instituting a connection of mutual duties, services, and attachments, which is to subsist on both sides through generations yet unborn.
I scarcely need state, that, most commonly, West Indian speculations fail; and in that failure, at whatever number of years it happens, is most probably involved the sale of such of the Slaves as survive, to a new owner. But I must forbear from enlarging on this important topic, and hurry you through what remains of our painful journey. It is a course furnishing, at every moment, numerous and interesting objects: But in the case of the greater part of them, I must be forced to content myself with doing little more than barely pointing them out for your own more deliberate consideration. Other duties now demand my time, and I should be strongly tempted to desist from my undertaking, from the consciousness that in such a brief and hasty progress, I cannot do justice to the greatinterests which are at stake, if I were not deeply impressed with a sense of the importance of stating at this time, though but imperfectly, the real views and principles of the Abolitionists.
To resume my subject. I have now stated the chief vices of the present West Indian system. But before I quit the discussion concerning West Indian abuses,|Admirals and other most respectable witnesses gave evidence of the good treatment of Slaves.|I might appear wanting in justice to the cause, and even in deference towards many gentlemen of high respectability, if I were not to acknowledge, that the condition and treatment of the Negro Slaves were painted in colours which were almost a direct contrast to all which have been here used, by several West Indian Proprietors of great consideration and affluence; and still more by several persons of high rank, who resided for some time in the West Indies, either in a naval and military capacity, or, in some few instances, as governors of islands.
It is no disparagement to the characters of these justly respected men, to affirm, that this was not the stage which they trod to the most advantage. It is due to them however, to say, in general, that they came forward from the impulse of grateful and generous feelings.While in the West Indies, they had been treated with that liberality and kindness which strangers never fail to experience in those hospitable islands. If they visited a country plantation, it was commonly on a scheme of pleasure; every countenance around them was lighted up with cheerfulness and gaiety; they themselves naturally partook of the same feelings, and looked on every object with a good-humoured eye.
But even when a longer residence afforded more ample means of acquiring information, they looked down from an elevation far too high to allow of their having a just perception of the state and circumstances of the poor depressed Negro Slaves. It will not, I trust, be deemed disrespectful treatment of men, towards whom, in common with their countrymen, in general, I feel great respect and gratitude, to say, that they came forward under the influence of strong prejudices. And who needs be told of the wonder-working powers of prejudice, in colouring, adding to, or subtracting from the scene which it contemplates? What can render this more apparent, than that they had come to a conclusion, without touching on the premises on which it must depend. They expressed a decided opinion, that the abolitionmust ruin the Colonies; an opinion which, it is obvious, must necessarily depend on the practicability of keeping up, or increasing, the stock of Slaves; and yet on the latter point they had formed no opinion. In others of their statements, the effects of prejudice were not less visible.
In truth, it scarcely needs be remarked, that these respectable visitors could know very little of the general treatment of the Negroes, of their allowance of food, and ordinary amount of labour, and still less of the temper and disposition of the manager, on which so much must depend. If he were ever so severe, or even ever so cruel, the visit of an Admiral would not be his time for shewing these dispositions. In short, these gentlemen appeared almost utterly unacquainted with those details, an accurate knowledge of which would alone warrant the opinions which they delivered. Such are the conclusions which we should naturally form, from a general knowledge of the circumstances of the case.
But, added to all these, we fortunately obtained access to one of the party, a West Indian gentleman, who resided many years in Jamaica; whose high respectability and ample fortune had not so estranged him fromthe poor despised Negroes, as to prevent his seeing, and pitying their distresses; and who, with a resolute benevolence and integrity, rarely found in these days, dared to come forward and deliver his evidence in behalf of that injured race.
He declared that he had often accompanied Governors and Admirals in their visits to the different plantations. That the estates naturally being those of persons of distinction, were such as must be supposed to be under the best management; and that all possible care would be taken to keep every disgusting object out of sight, that the feelings of those high personages might not be wounded.
Opponents witnesses: Effects of Selection.
There is also a remark which must be made, concerning the evidence of several very respectable West Indian Proprietors, who appeared as witnesses. The West Indian body, it is obvious, would naturally look through the whole range of Proprietors, and call as witnesses those whom they knew to be most affluent and humane. But nothing can possibly be so unreasonable as to suppose, that we are hereby furnished with any fair sample of the general treatment of the Negroes, which, as has been already stated, must necessarily vary according to the temper anddisposition of the owner (and also of their manager,) and still more than on his temper, on his being in affluent or distressed circumstances, on the nature of his views and undertakings. But from this selection of witnesses, which however was perfectly natural, the treatment and the allowances of some peculiarly liberal and affluent proprietors are taken as the treatment and allowances of all masters, in all their several varieties. Indeed, these witnesses themselves were disposed to take for granted, and thence to state, that their own was the general mode of proceeding, partly from the natural repugnance which is felt by men of liberal minds to say any thing which might have the appearance of boasting of their own peculiar liberality; partly, from the real ignorance of one man as to the conduct of another, in all matters of private management.
It would, however, be gross injustice to my cause, not to mention one instance, in which the effect of this mode of proceeding, in conveying, quite unintentionally I doubt not, a very exaggerated idea of the allowances and comforts of Slaves, was established by indisputable proof.[37]The Agent for theIsland of Jamaica, a gentleman truly respectable and well-informed, with some other coadjutors of equal respectability, when questioned by the Privy Council as to the provisions allowed to the Slaves, stated; that the common allowance of herrings, which are used for the Slaves as a seasoning of their vegetable food, was from twenty to twenty-five barrels of herrings annually, to every one hundred Slaves. Now, taking an average of five years of peace immediately after a long war, from 1783 to 1787, the whole number of Slaves in the island being estimated at about 230,000, and the field Slaves, according to the usual calculation, as seven-eighths of the whole number, the barrels of herrings consumed ought to have been near 46,000 barrels. But the accounts of imports shew, that the average quantity of herrings, and all other cured fish, annually imported during the five years, not for the Negroes alone, but for all the inhabitants of the island, amounted to not half the quantity, to but 21,089 barrels. Surely this circumstance powerfully confirms the supposition, which, on our reasoning from what we know of the manner of selecting and bringing forward witnesses, would be suggested to our minds.
It is curious likewise to observe concerning both those most respectable witnesses who were formerly mentioned, and concerning several justly respected members of the West Indian body who delivered their testimony, that their evidence covers a considerable extent both of time and space, and yet they make no distinction whatever as to periods and places. In every island, equally, during the whole period of their acquaintance with the West Indies, the Slaves were treated as well as possible. Now the West Indians themselves tell us, that the treatment of Negroes has been exceedingly improved within the last twenty or thirty years: if this be so, there were at least defects in the system formerly; yet in speaking of that former period, no such hint is given; but the treatment is stated to have been uniformly excellent. These declarations are manifestly incompatible.
The question itself, whether the treatment has or has not improved of late years, is of great importance; but far too large and difficult to be here discussed. Still, as the assertion is often made, and as, in the opinion of some, it may be of great practical influence, a few words ought to be said on it. That there are fewer individual instances of crueltynow than formerly, I believe to be true. It is alleged, and I hope truly, that an improvement has taken place in the education and manners of the book-keepers, or overseers, who are in immediate and continual contact with the Slaves; and whose characters and tempers must therefore have a decisive effect one way or another on the treatment they receive. But the system continues the same; and it is greatly to be feared that the increasing pressure of the times has tended in too many instances to abridge the stock, before but too contracted, of the Slave’s comforts, and perhaps to increase his labours.
It is worthy also of remark, that the West Indian colonies, and their inhabitants, are almost always mentioned, by the witnesses before mentioned, in general terms; and scarcely a hint is given us, that greater attention is paid to the comforts and feelings of the Slaves in one island, than in another. Now in the case of one island, and that next to Jamaica, by far the largest and most populous of them all, we have had such proof, I had almost used Shakespeare’s expression, such damning proof, of the low estimate of Negroes, and of the treatment to which they are liable, as even our opponents themselves must own to be utterly inconsistent with theaccounts of those respectable witnesses of whom I have before spoken. And indeed in others of the islands we have the same facts established by individual testimony of the most respectable sort. Are we not, then, entitled to extend the application of the instances, and to consider them, such as indeed from their number also they must be regarded, as fair samples, by no means of the universal, but of the general condition and treatment of the negro Slaves?
Assertion, that Negro Slaves are happier than our Peasantry.
But another broad and general objection may be urged against the testimony of the same respectable class of witnesses, that it proves by far too much. For they tell us not only that the Slaves are in general treated with liberality and kindness; not only that they are protected by law equally with white men, in their lives and property; but that they are in a situation superior to that of the bulk of our English peasantry: and one most respectable and amiable man, of whose humanity no one thinks more highly than myself, declared, that they were so happy that he often wished himself one of them.
Such assertions as these might excite a smile, if the subject were less serious; but after the review we have taken of the degradedstate of this unfortunate class of our fellow creatures, in all its humiliating particulars, we cannot but hear, with the greatest pain, assertions, which, coming from characters so respectable, have but too manifest a tendency to prolong the duration of those enormous evils. The assertions can in themselves be only accounted for by the supposition, that they who made them were utterly ignorant of the particulars of the treatment and estimation of the Negro race. They may have seen, perhaps, the domestic Negroes collected at some season of festivity, and thence have too hastily drawn an inference as to the general situation of the bulk of the Black population; of that far larger class, which daily works under the whip, and is subject to all the other particulars which have been mentioned, of degradation and suffering.
When from the West Indies themselves I have heard the same assertion, that the negro Slaves are happier than our labouring poor, let me be forgiven for declaring, that such an opinion, formed not by transient visitors, but by those to whom a Negro sale, working under the whip, public and severe floggings of decent females, private punishments, and all the other sad particulars of negro humiliationare thoroughly known, has, I own, created in my mind a reflection of a different character. I have by no means questioned the veracity of those from whom the remark has fallen, or imputed to them, I say it with sincerity, the smallest intention to deceive; but I have conceived myself to see in it an instance of that righteous ordination of the Almighty, by which it ever happens, that the system of slavery, and the same may be affirmed of every other gross infringement on the rights and happiness of our fellow creatures, is far from being so much clear gain, even to those for whose exclusive advantage it may appear to be instituted. It is not by the wretched Negro that the whole price is to be paid. Surely it is much, that the Master’s understanding of the nature and amount of the value of liberty is so far impaired. Much also is paid in that effect which, ever since the world began, has ever been produced by slavery on both the morals and manners of the free part of the community in which it has prevailed.
It would be really an insult to the understandings and feelings of members of this free and happy country, to enter into any detailed comparison between the situation of a British peasant and a West Indian Slave.It is almost in every particular a perfect contrast; and, for my own part, when, after asserting, with what correctness we will not just now question, that the Slaves are better fed, and clothed, and lodged, than our own peasantry; and when the conclusion has been so confidently drawn, that therefore they must be happier; the assertion has appeared to me to supply only another proof, in addition to the many already furnished, that our opponents in their judgments as well as in their feelings are apt to reason concerning the Negroes, as well as to act towards them, as if they were of an inferior species. Were we engaged in any inquiry concerning the brute creation, to ascertain these particulars might be to decide the question of their happiness or misery. But are feeding and clothing, and lodging, the only claims of a rational and immortal Being? Are the feelings of the heart nothing? Are the consciousness of independence, and the power of pursuing the occupation and habits of life which we prefer, nothing? Is the prospect of happier days, and of an improved situation for ourselves or our children, nothing? Where also are family endearments, and social intercourse, and willing services, and grateful returns? Where, above all, are moral improvement, and the light of religious truth, and the hope full of immortality?
It is indeed a merciful ordination of the Supreme Being, that men are often able to accommodate themselves in some degree to their situation, and to suffer less from it than we might suppose. We may therefore sometimes be apt to imagine our fellow creatures more miserable than they really are, because we should be extremely miserable in their situation; but this does not alter the essential nature of things, and annihilate the distinctions between happiness and misery.
But besides that in the negro Slave’s condition there are but too many glaring unambiguous causes of positive suffering, many of those sources of enjoyment which are commonly open to the poor and the ignorant, are here excluded. It has justly been observed, as an instance of the goodness of the great Creator of all things, that though he has provided the world with but a scanty portion of those more curious substances, or more refined luxuries, which are never necessary to happiness, and which often serve only to gratify vanity; the articles which are really necessary for the comfort and well-being of man, are either supplied every where with inexhaustible profusion, or are at least of no difficult attainment. By a like gracious ordination, he has likewise rendered the enjoyments which aremost substantially and permanently gratifying, universally accessible; the domestic affections, the social pleasures, the tender emotions, the sweets of hope, and recollection, religious hopes and consolations. All these are gratifications which virtuous poverty often enjoys in large measure, which wealth cannot purchase, nor greatness secure.
But in the Negro’s cup few indeed of these cordial drops are to be found; while there are too many other ingredients which even to a negro palate must be unconquerably bitter. We are not, however, here left to infer their actual feelings, from considering what our own would be in their situation. We learn, from the professional Planter, how their spirits sink within them on their first acquaintance with the cart-whip system, and with what caution a provident manager will inure them to the discipline and treatment to which they are hereafter to be subjected. We have heard from others, of negro mothers lamenting the wretched prospect of their offspring.
Decisive proof that Slaves state unhappy.
But there is one decisive proof, that even custom does not render the Slaves insensible to the evils of their condition. It sometimes happens, rarely if ever I am assured to common field Slaves, but sometimes to domesticsand artificers, that by the sale of the little productions and stock which they are allowed to raise, they may annually lay by a little peculium, which, it is due to the masters to declare, is never invaded. When the savings of many years have, at length, accumulated to a considerable amount, how do they dispose of it? With this sum, for which they have been struggling during the whole course of their lives, they go to their masters, and buy their freedom. By the sacrifice of their last shilling, they purchase their release from that situation which the West Indians would persuade us is a condition of superior comfort. Or, if they think that the little which is left of their own lives is not worth redeeming, they will purchase the freedom of a son, or a brother, or a sister; thus affording at once a proof of the value they set on freedom, and of their disinterestedness and social affection.
It ought likewise to be observed, that they who thus buy their freedom, are likely, from the habits of industry which the very circumstance of their acquiring so much property implies them to have had, to have smarted less than the general mass of Slaves under the whip of the driver. And what is it that they thus purchase at so higha rate? Is it really freedom? The consideration, the security, equal rights, equal laws, and all the other blessings which the word liberty conveys to our minds? No: but degradation and insecurity; the admission into a class of beings whose inadequate protection, by the law and the public force of the community, is not in some measure compensated by the interest which their owner feels in the preservation of his property. They are still of the inferior cast, and must for ever continue of it—a set of beings, as Mr. Edwards himself informs us, “wretched in themselves and useless to the Public. These unhappy people are a burthen and a reproach to society. It very frequently happens that the lowest white person, considering himself as greatly superior to the richest and best educated free man of colour, will disdain to associate with a person of the latter description.”[38]“No wonder that, as it is added, their spirits seem to sink under the consciousness of their condition. They are continually liable to be injured and insulted with impunity, from the inadmissibility of their evidence; so that in this respect they seem to be placed on a worse footing than the enslaved Negroes, who have masters that are interested in their protection, and who,if their Slaves are maltreated, have a right to recover damages by an action on the case.”[39]
Yet this wretched and degraded state, the lowest, one would have conceived, and least desirable, of all human conditions, is eagerly coveted, is bought with the earnings of a whole life, by the Negro Slave. And shall we then be told that the situation of the latter is a situation of comfort, a situation superior to that of our British peasantry! Nor is it merely that the Slaves themselves desire their freedom, over-rating perhaps the evils of their actual state, and ignorant of what may be really conducive to their happiness. I would not so calumniate the West Indians, as to impute to them that they mock these poor people with a real evil, under the name of an imaginary good; yet we find masters remunerating long and faithful services by the gift of freedom, as their best reward; nay, more, we have seen the laws of the islands hold out the same boon as the most valuable recompence of the most distinguished public merits.
I cannot therefore but consider the earnestness of the Slaves to purchase, at so dear a rate, their admission into a class of beings,which, whether we judge from what we know of the circumstances of their situation, or from the accounts given of it by all intelligent writers (by none more than by Mr. Edwards himself), we should conceive the most unprotected, ineligible and miserable condition of human existence in any civilized society, as a most decisive proof of the wretchedness of the state of slavery. From the very nature of the case, it is probable, in some of the instances, we know, that they who have thus purchased their freedom have been the Slaves of Masters of affluence, under whom the treatment must have been as mild and liberal, and the situation as comfortable, as the condition of a West Indian Slave is capable of being rendered. It therefore seems fairly to indicate that there are particulars in the situation and circumstances of a West Indian Slave in general, as such, which prove a source of great practical suffering; and perhaps it is a proof of the degree in which the Slaves are conscious of their own degradation. But it also well deserves to be noted, that we never find any, either of those Slaves who have bought their freedom, or of the free Negroes or coloured men, of whom there are above a thousand in many of the smaller islands, and in Jamaica several thousands, desiring to be again admitted into the condition of slavery.
We know that in the middle ages it was not uncommon for poor men of free condition voluntarily to become vassals, that, in an age in which person and property were very imperfectly secure, they might obtain a master’s protection; but the vassalage of the middle ages was not the slavery of the West Indies. In spite of all the evils therefore and degradation, incident to the state of Blacks who have no owner to protect them from injuries and insults, there never yet was, surely there never will be, an instance of an emancipated Negro returning to resume the yoke of slavery, notwithstanding all the security and all the comforts which we are assured this situation carries in its train. May not also the state and circumstances of this class account for the numerous defects and vices which are laid to their charge? Their indolence is particularly noticed, and their never engaging in field-work is mentioned as discreditable to them: but can we wonder that none will subject themselves to the driver’s lash, who are not absolutely forced to submit to such a degradation.[40]
On the whole, therefore, notwithstanding the favourable representation made of the condition and treatment of the negro Slaves by persons of high rank and acknowledged respectability; if you will seriously weigh the amount of the various vices of the West Indian system which have been here enumerated, you will be ready almost with certainty to conclude; that, under circumstances so extremely unfavourable to the multiplication of our species, the West Indian Slaves must annually and rapidly decrease in number.|First Proposition proved.|This, it will be remembered, was the first of the three propositions which I undertook to prove on the question concerning the keeping up of the Black population without importations from Africa.
Second Proposition.
The second proposition was, that notwithstanding all the grievous abuses of the West Indian system, the decrease of the Slaves was on the whole very inconsiderable, if there were any decrease at all.
When the Slave Trade became first the subject of public discussion, His Majesty’s ministers sent to the legislative and executive bodies of the different West Indian Islands, a number of queries, the answers to which contained a vast body of information on the various particulars of the colonial system. A great addition was made to this stock of information, by examining various persons of intelligence and experience in West Indian affairs. The whole was compiled into one bulky Report, and laid before both Houses of Parliament.
This Report contains the account of the population, both white and black, slave and free, of our several West Indian islands, as received from their respective governors. We are there furnished with the actually existing number of the Slaves in Jamaica,|Jamaica Slaves Population.|which alone contained as many as all the other islands put together, at several different periods; the first, at the distance of almost a century; the last, in the year 1787; together with the number of Slaves imported annually, during the whole period. In order to judge whether the Black population was in an improving or declining state, the whole term was divided into four periods:
And we had the satisfaction to find, from those unexceptionable documents, that,
Now, it is manifest, that if the ratio of decrease had been continually lessening, as appears on the very face of the account, and if, during the whole of the last period of twenty years, the annual loss had been but 1 per cent., having been 1¾ per cent. during the former immediately preceding period of thirteen years, that loss would be somewhat more than 1 per cent. at the beginning of the last period, and somewhat less than 1 per cent. towards the end of it. But even this loss of 1 per cent. was itself accounted for, by an extraordinary series of hurricanes and consequent famines, from which it was stated that fifteen thousand Slaves lost their lives; and still more, the 1 per cent. included the loss on all the Africans who were imported during that period. This, which is termed the loss in the seasoning, has been estimated by high West Indian authorities, to be, including theloss in the harbour, between 1–4th and 1–3d of the whole number imported; by some it has been rated still higher. This mortality was supposed to be in a considerable degree occasioned by the Slaves having been commonly landed in a highly diseased state, owing in a great measure, as was supposed, to crowding, and other evils on shipboard: And the Assembly and Council of Jamaica estimated that 1½ per cent. of all the Africans imported died in the short period, probably not above a fortnight, between the ship’s entrance into port and the day of sale. Adding together the whole loss fairly to be ascribed to these various causes of mortality, of which all depending on the voyage would obviously cease with the importations, they would more than account for the whole 1 per cent. lost during the last period; and we should be warranted in concluding, that the whole number of Slaves in Jamaica were at length actually on the increase.
It will add to your confidence in the conclusion which so clearly results from the above calculations, to know that they were carefully drawn by that great and able minister before referred to, among whose extraordinary powers, peculiar clearness and accuracy in calculation was universally acknowledged to possessan eminent place. Indeed this result ought not to surprize us, for we were assured by Mr. Long, many years before, “that upon most of the old settled estates in the island of Jamaica, the number of births and deaths every year is pretty equal, except any malignant disorder happens.”