3.Fresh Atrocities in Berbice.
Berbice has been one of the colonies which has boasted the most of its humanity, but which, to say the least, has been notlessdistinguished for its cruelties than the other colonies. Its Memorial to the Privy Council, in 1827, was loud in professions of tenderness for the feelings of the slaves, notwithstanding the recency of those reports of its Fiscal which filled this country with horror. (See Reporters, Nos. 5 and 16.) Later reports from this colony continue, as may be seen in the Anti-Slavery Reporter, No. 43, to be marked by the same disgusting characters of brutal ferocity and of callous indifference to negro comfort as the former. And an occurrence, which has taken place there so recently as November last, will plainly shew how little amendment in the state of the slaves in that colony has been derived from the Order in Council.
A colonist, of the name of Gallez, who is himself of mixed blood, was the proprietor of a large body of slaves. He had prevailed on these slaves to agree, though most reluctantly, to accompany him to a wood-cutting establishment, called Catherinasburgh, which he formed in the interior about sixty or seventy miles up the Canye river, and far removed, therefore, from other plantations. The situation, however, was healthy, provision-grounds were abundant, and the water was of the finest kind. Mr. Gallez had also shewn a wish to procure religious instruction for his slaves, and to introduce marriage among them. His extraction created a sympathy with them; and he is said to have lived among them as a father. This is the account of one who does not altogether judge by the colonial standard of paternity. He erected good houses for them; allotted them fertile grounds; and as he conducted his wood-cutting in the way of moderate task, they had time to labour for themselves, and were living in abundance. They seem almost to have realized the picture drawn by Dr. Pinkard, of the Profit plantation inhistime, though, unhappily, they now share the fate of the Profit negroes.—Mr. Gallez had embarked in some speculations which involved him in pecuniary difficulties, and by an order of the Court of Justice, his slaves were placed under sequestration, and a certain portion of them, (not the whole together, and along with the plantation, but a part of them,) was marked out for sale in November last. No previous inquiry seems to have been made into their circumstances, in order to avoid dissevering the ties of kindred and affection. But a peremptory mandate required that they should quit their houses, their fields, their connexions, and appear at New Amsterdam on the specified day to be exposed to sale, in lots, to the best bidder. When this mandate, which was wholly unexpected by them, was communicated to the slaves, by the officers of the Court, who went to seizeand bring to sale their destined victims, the whole gang, amounting to upwards of two hundred, retired into the almost impenetrable woods which surround the plantation; so that the seizure became impossible. When the officers returned to town, and reported the circumstance, the affair was magnified into a serious insurrection, which, if unsubdued, would spread fire and sword through the colony; and the cry arose for prompt military execution on the daring rebels, and for the arrest and punishment of Mr. Gallez himself, who, it was then remembered to his disadvantage, had been favourable to religious instruction, to marriage, and other reforms; and who, it was therefore assumed as a matter of course, must, like the murdered missionary Smith, have been the fomenter of the insurrection. Urgent application was made for a military detachment to be immediately sent to avert the danger, and this course would, probably, have been pursued, had not the Governor been led to see the propriety of first trying the effect of civil interference. Accordingly, the Fiscal, the Protector of slaves, and some others, were sent to the spot in order to induce their quiet submission. These gentlemen accordingly proceeded to Catherinasburgh; and on their arrival, the whole of the slaves readily appeared before them. It was explained to them that the debts of their master had led to the order of Court for taking a portion of them from the rest, and from their houses and grounds, and selling them; and that the law, they must be aware, could not be resisted without bringing ruin on themselves and their families. The slaves ably and feelingly stated their case. They pointed to the superior comforts they possessed over those living on the sugar and coffee estates below. They pleaded also their services to the colony in rooting out a maroon town some time back, for which medals had been bestowed on them by the Government. All this was admitted, but it was urged in reply, that their master was the real author of the evil, by having made them over to his creditors, and no remedy could now be applied. After some farther discussion, the poor creatures agreed to submit to their fate; and, in three or four days, they were embarked on board boats, and carried to the place of sale. The parting scene would beggar description. Those who were doomed to the hammer and to be scattered over the colony, as well as those who remained, were equally loud and vociferous in their wailing, so that even the whites, who were present, felt the infection of their grief.
What a picture of slavery in its best state! We trust we shall have the official details of this transaction, laid on the table of Parliament. In the mean time, is it irrelevant to remark, that the atrocity, in this case, is the result, not of individual oppression, but of the iniquity of the colonial law, and that, in a colony where his Majesty, by his ministers, is the sole legislator; and into which these ministers have recently introduced what is called an improved slave code? The present slave law of Berbice has emanated from the Crown, and yet, under that law, with all its professed designs of amelioration and protection, we here see the wretched, helpless, and degraded state in which it has still left the subjects of the King;—beasts of the field, chattels, bereft of every civil and social, and even domestic, right; and though endowed with the faculties and capacities, and heirs to the common destiniesof men, yet depressed, by the very law which ought to protect them, to the level of the brutes that perish. Is not such legislation a mockery of the very name of law? Or can such legislation be considered as a redemption of the solemn pledge given by his Majesty’s Government and Parliament in 1823? And what hope can we indulge, that in colonies having legislatures of their own, we shall witness any other than a delusive shew of improvement, while such examples as these are furnished in colonies directly governed by the Crown itself? We would entreat our readers to look at Berbice as it stands painted, not in our statements, but in the simple and unsophisticated details of its own Fiscal, (see Reporter, No. 5, and No. 16) and again of its Protector, even in the last year, (see No. 43,) and, combining these details with the transaction of which we have now given a brief account, to say whether such a state of things can be endured? We call especially on the ministers of the Crown to look calmly at these facts, and to say, whether they are not responsible, if not for the existence, at least for the continuance for a single day longer, of such tremendous evils?
The occurrences in Berbice are only inferior in atrocity to the horrors of the Mauritius. And wherein does the state of slavery of Berbice differ from that of our other West India colonies, but in our having happily obtained thence those details which are carefully withheld from us in almost every other case? Let us obtain similar details from the other colonies, and we shall find them to exhibit the same state of legal oppression, the same affecting accumulation of individual misery as exists in Berbice. Mr. Dwarris, indeed, vaunts loudly of improvement in the colonies. Improvement! The pretence to it, in the face of such facts, is an insult to common sense; and the improvement, we fear, is to be found mainly, if not solely, in the increased obtuseness and callousness of feeling, which those must acquire who are the hourly spectators and actors in this grand theatre of crime.