Part 69 (2/2)

10. The right of suffrage, and eligibility to office are subject to no restrictions, save the single one of property, which is the same with all colors. The property qualification, however, is so great, as effectually to exclude the whole agricultural negro population for many years.

11th. _The main constabulary force is composed of emanc.i.p.ated negroes, living on the estates_. One or two trust-worthy men on each estate are empowered with the authority of constables in relation to the people on the same estate, and much reliance is placed upon these men, to preserve order and to bring offenders to trial.

12th. A body of police has been established, whose duty it is to arrest all disorderly or riotous persons, to repair to the estates in case of trouble, and co-operate with the constables, in arraigning all persons charged with the violation of law.

13th. The punishment for slight offences, such as stealing sugar-canes from the field, is confinement in the house of correction, or being sentenced to the tread-mill, for any period from three days to three months. The punishment for burglary, and other high offences, is solitary confinement in chains, or transportation for life to Botany Bay.

Such are the main features in the statutes, regulating the freedom of the emanc.i.p.ated population of Antigua. It will be seen that there is no enactment which materially modifies, or unduly restrains, the liberty of the subject. There are no secret reservations or postscript provisoes, which nullify the boon of freedom. Not only is slavery utterly abolished, but all its appendages are scattered to the winds; and a system of impartial laws secures justice to all, of every color and condition.

The measure of success which has crowned the experiment of emanc.i.p.ation in Antigua--an experiment tried under so many adverse circ.u.mstances, and with comparatively few local advantages--is highly encouraging to slaveholders in our country. It must be evident that the balance of advantages between the situation of Antigua and that of the South, _is decidedly in favor of the latter_. The South has her resident proprietors, her resources of wealth, talent, and enterprise, and her preponderance of white population; she also enjoys a regularity of seasons, but rarely disturbed by desolating droughts, a bracing climate, which imparts energy and activity to her laboring population, and comparatively numerous wants to stimulate and press the laborer up to the _working mark_; she has close by her side the example of a free country, whose superior progress in internal improvements, wealth, the arts and sciences, morals and religion, all ocular demonstration to her of her own wretched policy, and a moving appeal in favor of abolition; and above all, site has the opportunity of choosing her own mode, and of ensuring all the blessings of a _voluntary and peaceable manumission_, while the energies, the resources, the sympathies, and the prayers of the North, stand pledged to her a.s.sistance.

CHAPTER III.

FACTS AND TESTIMONY.

We have reserved the ma.s.s of facts and testimony, bearing immediately upon slavery in America, in order that we might present them together in a condensed furor, under distinct heads. These heads, it will be perceived, consist chiefly of propositions which are warmly contested in our country. Will the reader examine these principles in the light of facts? Will the candid of our countrymen--whatever opinions they may hitherto hate entertained on this subject--hear the concurrent testimony of numerous planters, legislators, lawyers, physicians, and merchants, who have until three years past been wedded to slavery by birth, education, prejudice, a.s.sociations, and supposed interest, but who have since been divorced from all connection with the system?

In most cases we shall give the names, the stations, and business of our witnesses; in a few instances, in which we were requested to withhold the name, we shall state such circ.u.mstances as will serve to show the standing and competency of the individuals. If the reader should find in what follows, very little testimony unfavorable to emanc.i.p.ation, he may know the reason to be, that little was to be gleaned from any part of Antigua. Indeed, we may say that, with very few exceptions, the sentiments here recorded as coming from individuals, are really the sentiments of the whole community. There is no such thing known in Antigua as an _opposing, disaffected party_. So complete and thorough has been the change in public opinion, that it would be now _disreputable_ to speak against emanc.i.p.ation.

FIRST PROPOSITION.--The transition from slavery to freedom is represented as a greet revolution, by which a prodigious change was effected in _the condition of the negroes_.

In conversation with us, the planters often spoke of the greatness and suddenness of the change. Said Mr. Barnard, of Green Castle estate, ”The transition from slavery to freedom, was like pa.s.sing suddenly out of a dark dungeon into the light of the sun.”

R.B. Eldridge, Esq., a member of the a.s.sembly, remarked, that, ”There never had been in the history of the world so great and instantaneous a change in the condition of so large a body of people.”

The Honorable Nicholas Nugent, speaker of the house of a.s.sembly, and proprietor, said, ”There never was so sudden a transition from one state to another, by so large a body of people. When the clock began to strike the hour of twelve on the last night of July, 1834, the negroes of Antigua were _slaves_--when it ceased they were all _freemen!_ It was a stupendous change,” he said, ”and it was one of the sublimest spectacles ever witnessed, to see the subjects of the change engaged at the very moment it occurred, in wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d.”

These, and very many similar ones, were the spontaneous expressions of men _who had long contended against the change_ of which they spoke.

It is exceedingly difficult to make slaveholders see that there is any material difference between slavery and freedom; but when they have once renounced slavery, they _will magnify this distinction_ more than any other cla.s.s of men.

SECOND PROPOSITION.--Emanc.i.p.ation in Antigua was the result of political and pecuniary considerations merely.

Abolition was seen to be inevitable, and there were but two courses left to the colonists--to adopt the apprentices.h.i.+p system, or immediate emanc.i.p.ation. Motives of convenience led them to choose the latter.

Considerations of general philanthropy, of human rights, and of the sinfulness of slavery, were scarcely so much as thought of.

Some time previous to the abolition of slavery, a meeting of the influential men of the island was called in St. John's, to memorialize parliament against the measure of abolition. When the meeting convened, the Hon. Samuel O. Baijer, who had been the champion of the opposition, was called upon to propose a plan of procedure. To the consternation of the pro-slavery meeting, their leader arose and spoke to the following effect:--”Gentlemen, my previous sentiments on this subject are well known to you all; be not surprised to learn that they have undergone an entire change, I have not altered my views without mature deliberation.

I have been making calculations with regard to the probable results of emanc.i.p.ation, and _I have ascertained beyond a doubt, that I can cultivate my estate at least one third cheaper by free labor than by slave labor_.” After Mr. B. had finished his remarks, Mr. S. Shands, member of a.s.sembly, and a wealthy proprietor, observed that he entertained precisely the same views with those just expressed; but he thought that the honorable gentleman had been unwise in uttering them in so public a manner; ”for,” said he, ”should these sentiments reach the ear of parliament, as coming from us, _it might induce them to withhold the compensation_.”

Col. Edwards, member of the a.s.sembly, then arose and said, that he had long been opposed to slavery, but he had not _dared to avow his sentiments_.

As might be supposed, the meeting adjourned without effecting the object for which it was convened.

When the question came before the colonial a.s.sembly, similar discussions ensued, and finally the bill for immediate emanc.i.p.ation pa.s.sed both bodies _unanimously_. It was an evidence of the spirit of selfish expediency, which prompted the whole procedure, that they clogged the emanc.i.p.ation bill with the proviso that a certain governmental tax on exports, called the four and a half per cent tax[A], should be repealed.

Thus clogged, the bill was sent home for sanction, but it was rejected by parliament, and sent back with instructions, that before it could receive his majesty's seal, it must appear wholly unenc.u.mbered with extraneous provisoes. This was a great disappointment to the legislature, and it so chagrined them that very many actually withdrew their support from the bill for emanc.i.p.ation, which pa.s.sed finally in the a.s.sembly only by the casting vote of the speaker.

[Footnote A: We subjoin the following brief history of the four and a half per cent. tax, which we procured from the speaker of the a.s.sembly.

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