Part 79 (1/2)

During the day we gathered the following information:--

Mr. C. had been a planter for thirty-six years. He has had charge of the estate on which he now resides ten years. He is the attorney for two other large estates a few miles from this, and has under his superintendence, in all, more than a thousand apprenticed laborers. This estate consists of six hundred and sixty-six acres of land, most of which is under cultivation either in cane or provisions, and has on it three hundred apprentices and ninety-two free children. The average amount of sugar raised on it is two hundred hogsheads of a ton each, but this year it will amount to at least two hundred and fifty hogsheads--the largest crop ever taken off since he has been connected with it. He has planted thirty acres additional this year. The island has never been under so good cultivation, and is becoming better every year.

During our walk round the works, and during the day, he spoke several times in general terms of the great blessings of emanc.i.p.ation.

Emanc.i.p.ation is as great a blessing to the master as to the slave.

”Why,” exclaimed Mr. C., ”it was emanc.i.p.ation to me. I a.s.sure you the first of August brought a great, _great_ relief to me. I felt myself, for the first time, a freeman on that day. You cannot imagine the responsibilities and anxieties which were swept away with the extinction of slavery.”

There were many unpleasant and annoying circ.u.mstances attending slavery, which had a most pernicious effect on the master. There was continual jealousy and suspicion between him and those under him. They looked on each other as sworn enemies, and there was kept up a continual system of plotting and counterplotting. Then there was the flogging, which was a matter of course through the island. To strike a slave was as common as to strike a horse--then the punishments were inflicted so unjustly, in innumerable instances, that the poor victims knew no more why they were punished than the dead in their graves. The master would be a little ill--he had taken a cold, perhaps, and felt irritable--something were wrong--his pa.s.sion was up, and away went some poor fellow to the whipping post. The slightest offence at such a moment, though it might have pa.s.sed unnoticed at another time, would meet with the severest punishment. He said he himself had more than once ordered his slaves to be flogged in a pa.s.sion, and after he became cool he would have given guineas not to have done it. Many a night had he been kept awake in thinking of some poor fellow whom he had shut up in the dungeon, and had rejoiced when daylight came. He feared lest the slave might die before morning; either cut his throat or dash his head against the wall in his desperation. He has known such cases to occur.

The apprentices.h.i.+p will not have so beneficial an effect as he hoped it would, on account of an indisposition on the part of many of the planters to abide by its regulations. The planters generally are doing very little to prepare the apprentices for freedom; but some are doing very much to unprepare them. They are driving the people from them by their conduct.

Mr. C. said he often wished for emanc.i.p.ation. There were several other planters among his acquaintance who had the same feelings, but did not dare express them. Most of the planters, however, were violently opposed. Many of them declared that emanc.i.p.ation could not and should not take place. So obstinate were they, that they would have sworn on the 31st of July, 1831, that emanc.i.p.ation could not happen. _These very men now see and acknowledge the benefits which have resulted from the new system_.

The first of August pa.s.sed off very quietly. The people labored on that day as usual, and had a stranger gone over the island, he would not have suspected any change had taken place. Mr. C. did not expect his people would go to work that day. He told them what the conditions of the new system were, and that after the first of August, they would be required to turn out to work at six o'clock instead of five o'clock as before. At the appointed hour every man was at his post in the field. Not one individual was missing.

The apprentices do more work in the nine hours required by law, than in twelve hours during slavery.

His apprentices are perfectly willing to work for him during their own time. He pays them at the rate of twenty-five cents a day. The people are less quarrelsome than when they were slaves.

About eight o'clock in the evening, Mr. C. invited us to step out into the piazza. Pointing to the houses of the laborers, which were crowded thickly together, and almost concealed by the cocoa-nut and calabash trees around them, he said, ”there are probably more than four hundred people in that village. All my own laborers, with their free children, are retired for the night, and with them are many from the neighboring estates.” We listened, but all was still, save here and there a low whistle from some of the watchmen. He said that night was a specimen of every night now. But it had not always been so. During slavery these villages were oftentimes a scene of bickering, revelry, and contention.

One might hear the inmates reveling and shouting till midnight.

Sometimes it would be kept up till morning. Such scenes have much decreased, and instead of the obscene and heathen songs which they used to sing, they are learning hymns from the lips of their children.

The apprentices are more trusty. They are more faithful in work which is given them to do. They take more interest in the prosperity of the estate generally, in seeing that things are kept in order, and that the property is not destroyed.

They are more open-hearted. Formerly they used to shrink before the eyes of the master, and appear afraid to meet him. They would go out of their way to avoid him, and never were willing to talk with him. They never liked to have him visit their houses; they looked on him as a spy, and always expected a reprimand, or perhaps a flogging. Now they look up cheerfully when they meet him, and a visit to their homes is esteemed a favor. Mr. C. has more confidence in his people than he ever had before.

There is less theft than during slavery. This is caused by greater respect for character, and the protection afforded to property by law.

For a slave to steal from his master was never considered wrong, but rather a meritorious act. He who could rob the most without being detected was the best fellow. The blacks in several of the islands have a proverb, that for a thief to steal from a thief makes G.o.d laugh.

The blacks have a great respect for, and even fear of law. Mr. C.

believes no people on earth are more influenced by it. They regard the same punishment, inflicted by a magistrate, much more than when inflicted by their master. Law is a kind of deity to them, and they regard it with great reverence and awe.

There is no insecurity now. Before emanc.i.p.ation there was a continual fear of insurrection. Mr. C. said he had lain down in bed many a night fearing that his throat would be cut before morning. He has started up often from a dream in which he thought his room was filled with armed slaves. But when the abolition bill pa.s.sed, his fears all pa.s.sed away.

He felt a.s.sured there would be no trouble then. The motive to insurrection was taken away. As for the cutting of throats, or insult and violence in any way, he never suspects it. He never thinks of fastening his door at night now. As we were retiring to bed he looked round the room in which we had been sitting, where every thing spoke of serenity and confidence--doors and windows open, and books and plate scattered about on the tables and sideboards. ”You see things now,” he said, ”just as we leave them every night, but you would have seen quite a different scene had you come here a few years ago.”

_Mr. C. thinks the slaves of Barbadoes might have been entirely and immediately emanc.i.p.ated as well as those of Antigua._ The results, he doubts not, would have been the same.

He has no fear of disturbance or insubordination in 1840. He has no doubt that the people will work. That there may be a little unsettled, excited, _experimenting_ feeling for a short time, he thinks probable--but feels confident that things generally will move on peaceably and prosperously. He looks with much more anxiety to the emanc.i.p.ation of the non-praedials in 1838.

There is no disposition among the apprentices to revenge their wrongs.

Mr. C. feels the utmost security both of person and property.

The slaves were very much excited by the discussions in England. They were well acquainted, with them, and looked and longed for the result.

They watched every arrival of the packet with great anxiety. The people on his estate often knew its arrival before he did. One of his daughters remarked, that she could see their hopes flas.h.i.+ng from their eyes. They manifested, however, no disposition to rebel, waiting in anxious but quiet hope for their release. Yet Mr. C. had no doubt, that if parliament had thrown out the emanc.i.p.ation bill, and all measures had ceased for their relief, there would have been a general insurrection.--While there was hope they remained peaceable, but had hope been destroyed it would have been buried in blood.

There was some dissatisfaction among the blacks with the apprentices.h.i.+p.

They thought they ought to be entirely free, and that their masters were deceiving them. They could not at first understand the conditions of the new system--there was some murmuring among them, but they thought it better, however, to wait six years for the boon, than to run the risk of losing it altogether by revolt.