Part 87 (1/2)

5. The master is obliged to sell the remainder of the apprentice's term, whenever the apprentice signifies a wish to buy it. If the parties cannot agree about the price, the special magistrate, in connection with two local magistrates, appraises the latter, and the master is bound to take the amount of the apprais.e.m.e.nt, whatever that is. Instances of apprentices purchasing themselves are quite frequent, not withstanding the term of service is now so short, extending only to August, 1840. The value of an apprentice varies from thirty to one hundred dollars.

PROVISIONS RESPECTING THE APPRENTICE.

1. He has the whole of Sat.u.r.day, and the remnants of the other five days, after giving nine hours to the master.

2. The labor does not begin so early, nor continue so late as during slavery. Instead of half past four or five o'clock the apprentices are called out at six o'clock in the morning. They then work till seven, have an hour for breakfast, again work from eight to twelve, have a respite of two hours, and then work till six o'clock.

3. If an apprentice hires his time from his master as is not unfrequently the case, especially among the non-praedials, he pays a dollar a week, which is two thirds, or at least one half of his earnings.

4. If the apprentice has a complaint to make against his master, he must either make it during his own time, or if he prefers to go to the magistrate during work hours, he must ask his master for a pa.s.s. If his master refuse to give him one, he can then go without it.

5. There is an _unjustifiable inequality_ in the apprentice laws, which was pointed out by one of the special magistrates. The master is punishable only for cruelty or corporeal inflictions, whereas the apprentice is punishable for a variety of offences, such as idleness, stealing, insubordination, insolence, &c. The master may be as insolent and abusive as he chooses to be, and the slave can have no redress.

6. Hard labor, solitary confinement, and the treadmill, are the princ.i.p.al modes of punishment. Shaving the head is sometimes resorted to. A very sever punishment frequently adopted, is requiring the apprentice to make up for the time during which he is confined. If he is committed for ten working days, he must give the master ten successive Sat.u.r.days.

This last regulation is particularly oppressive and palpably unjust. It matters not how slight the offence may have been, it is discretionary with the special magistrate to mulct the apprentice of his Sat.u.r.days.

This provision really would appear to have been made expressly for the purpose of depriving the apprentices of their own time. It is a direct inducement to the master to complain. If the apprentice has been absent from his work but an hour, the magistrate may sentence him to give a whole day in return; consequently the master is encouraged to mark the slightest omission, and to complain of it whether it was unavoidable or not.

THE DESIGN OF THE APPRENTICEs.h.i.+P.--It is a serious question with a portion of the colonists, whether or not the apprentices.h.i.+p was originally designed as a preparation for freedom. This however was the professed object with its advocates, and it was on the strength of this plausible pretension, doubtless, that the measure was carried through.

We believe it is pretty well understood, both in England and the colonies; that it was mainly intended _as an additional compensation to the planters_. The latter complained that the twenty millions of pounds was but a pittance of the value of their slaves, and to drown their cries about robbery and oppression this system of modified slavery was granted to them, that they might, for a term of years, enjoy the toil of the negro without compensation. As a mockery to the hopes of the slaves this system was called an apprentices.h.i.+p, and it was held out to them as a needful preparatory stage for them to pa.s.s through, ere they could rightly appreciate the blessings of entire freedom. It was not wonderful that they should be slow to apprehend the necessity of serving a six years' apprentices.h.i.+p, at a business which they had been all their lives employed in. It is not too much to say that it was a grand cheat--a national imposture at the expense of the poor victims of oppression, whom, with benevolent pretences, it offered up a sacrifice to cupidity and power.

PRACTICAL OPERATION OF THE APPRENTICEs.h.i.+P.--It cannot be denied that this system is in some respects far better than slavery. Many restraints are imposed upon the master, and many important privileges are secured to the apprentice. Being released from the arbitrary power of the master, is regarded by the latter as a vast stride towards entire liberty. We once asked an apprentice; if he thought apprentices.h.i.+p was better than slavery. ”O yes,” said he, ”great deal better, sir; when we was slaves, our masters git mad wid us, and give us _plenty of licks_; but now, thank G.o.d, they can't touch us.” But the actual enjoyment of these advantages by the apprentices depends upon so many contingencies, such as the disposition of the master, and the faithfulness of the special magistrate, that it is left after all exceedingly precarious. A very few observations respecting the special magistrates, will serve to show how liable the apprentice is to suffer wrong without the possibility of obtaining redress. It is evident that this will be the case unless the special magistrates are _entirely independent_. This was foreseen by the English government, and they pretended to provide for it by paying the magistrates' salaries at home. But how inadequate was their provision! The salaries scarcely answer for pocket money in the West Indies. Thus situated, the magistrates are continually exposed to those temptations, which the planters can so artfully present in the shape of sumptuous dinners. They doubtless find it very convenient, when their stinted purses run low, and mutton and wines run high, to do as the New England school master does, ”_board round_;” and consequently the dependence of the magistrate upon the planter is of all things the most deprecated by the apprentice.[A]

[Footnote A: The feelings of apprentices on this point are well ill.u.s.trated by the following anecdote, which was related to us while in the West Indies. The governor of one of the islands, shortly after his arrival, dined with one of the wealthiest proprietors. The next day one of the negroes of the estate said to another, ”De new gubner been _poison'd_.” ”What dat you say?” inquired the other in astonishment, ”De gubner been _poison'd_.” ”Dah, now!--How him poisoned!” ”_Him eat ma.s.sa turtle soup last night_,” said the shrewd negro. The other took his meaning at once; and his sympathy for the governor was turned into concern for himself, when he perceived that the poison was one from which _he_ was likely to suffer more than his excellency.]

Congeniality of feeling, habits, views, style and rank--ident.i.ty of country and color--these powerful influences bias the magistrate toward the master, at the same time that the absence of them all, estrange and even repel him from the apprentice. There is still an additional consideration which operates against the unfortunate apprentice. The men selected for magistrates, are mostly officers of the army and navy. To those who are acquainted with the arbitrary habits of military and naval officers, and with the iron despotism which they exercise among the soldiers and sailors,[B] the bare mention of this fact is sufficient to convince them of the unenviable situation of the apprentice. It is at best but a gloomy transfer from the mercies of a slave driver, to the justice of a military magistrate.

[Footnote B: We had a specimen of the stuff special magistrates are made of in sailing from Barbadoes to Jamaica. The vessel was originally an English man-of-war brig, which had been converted into a steamer, and was employed by the English government, in conveying the island mails from Barbadoes to Jamaica--to and fro. She was still under the strict discipline of a man-of-war. The senior officer on board was a lieutenant. This man was one of the veriest savages on earth. His pa.s.sions were in a perpetual storm, at some times higher than at others, occasionally they blew a hurricane. He quarrelled with his officers, and his orders to his men were always uttered in oaths. Scarcely a day pa.s.sed that he did not have some one of his sailors flogged. One night, the cabin boy left the water-can sitting on the cabin floor, instead of putting it on the sideboard, where it usually stood. For this offence the commander ordered him up on deck after midnight, and made the quarter-master flog him. The instrument used in this case, (the regular flogging stick having been _used up_ by previous service,) was the commander's cane--_a heavy knotted club_. The boy held out one hand and received the blows. He howled most piteously, and it was some seconds before he recovered sufficiently from the pain to extend the other.

”_Lay on_,” stormed the commander. Down went the cane a second time. We thought it must have broken every bone in the boy's hand. This was repeated several times, the boy extending each hand alternately, and recoiling at every blow. ”Now lay on to his back,” sternly vociferated the commander--”give it to him--_hard_--_lay on harder_.” The old seaman, who had some mercy in his heart, seemed very loth to lay out his strength on the boy with such a club. The commander became furious--cursed and swore--and again yelled, ”_Give it to him harder, more_--MORE--MORE--there, stop.” ”you infernal villain”--speaking to the quarter-master and using the most horrid oaths--”You infernal villain, if you do not _lay on harder_ the next time I command you, I'll have you put in irons.” The boy limped away, writhing in every joint, and crying piteously, when the commander called at him, ”Silence there, you imp--or I'll give you a second edition.” One of the first things the commander did after we left Barbadoes, was to have a man flogged, and the last order we heard him give as we left the steamer at Kingston, was to put two of the men _in irons_.]

It is not a little remarkable that the apprentices.h.i.+p should be regarded by the planters themselves, as well as by other persons generally throughout the colony, as merely a modified form of slavery. It is common to hear it called 'slavery under a different form,' 'another name for slavery,'--'modified slavery,' 'but little better than slavery.'

Nor is the practical operation of the system upon the _master_ much less exceptionable. It takes out of his hand the power of coercing labor, and provides no other stimulus. Thus it subjects him to the necessity either of resorting to empty threats, which must result only in incessant disputes, or of condescending to persuade and entreat, against which his habits at once rebel, or of complaining to a third party--an alternative more revolting if possible, than the former, since it involves the acknowledgment of a higher power than his own. It sets up over his actions a foreign judge, at whose bar he is alike amenable (in theory) with his apprentice, before whose tribunal he may be dragged at any moment by his apprentice, and from whose lips he may receive the humiliating sentence of punishment in the presence of his apprentice. It introduces between him and his laborers, mutual repellancies and estrangement; it encourages the former to exercise an authority which he would not venture to a.s.sume under a system of perfect freedom; it emboldens the latter to display an insolence which he would not have dreamed of in a state of slavery, and thus begetting in the one, the imperiousness of the slaveholder _without his power_, and in the other, the independence of the freeman _without his immunities_, it perpetuates a scene of angry collision, jealousy and hatred.

It does not even serve for the master the unworthy purpose for which it was mainly devised, viz., that of an additional compensation. The apprentices.h.i.+p is estimated to be more expensive than a system of free labor would be. It is but little less expensive than slavery, and freedom it is confidently expected will be considerably less. So it would seem that this system burthens the master with much of the perplexity, the ignominy and the expensiveness of slavery, while it denies him its power. Such is the apprentices.h.i.+p system. A splendid imposition!--which cheats the planter of his gains, cheats the British nation of its money, and robs the world of what else might have been a glorious example of immediate and entire emanc.i.p.ation.

THE APPRENTICEs.h.i.+P IS NO PREPARATION FOR FREEDOM.--Indeed, as far as it can be, it is an actual _disqualification_. The testimony on this subject is ample. We rarely met a planter, who was disposed to maintain that the apprentices.h.i.+p was preparing the negroes for freedom. They generally admitted that the people were no better prepared for freedom now, than they were in 1834; and some of them did not hesitate to say that the sole use to which they and their brother planters turned the system, was to get _as much work out of the apprentices while it lasted, as possible_. Clergymen and missionaries, declared that the apprentices.h.i.+p was no preparation for freedom. If it were a preparation at all, it would most probably be so in a religious and educational point of view. We should expect to find the masters, if laboring at all to prepare their apprentices for freedom, doing so chiefly by encouraging missionaries and teachers to come to their estates, and by aiding in the erection of chapels and school-houses. But the missionaries declare that they meet with little more direct encouragement now, than they did during slavery.

The special magistrates also testify that the apprentices.h.i.+p is no preparation for freedom. On this subject they are very explicit.

The colored people bear the same testimony. Not a few, too, affirm, that the tendency of the apprentices.h.i.+p is to unfit the negroes for freedom, and avow it as their firm persuasion, that the people will be less prepared for liberty at the end of the apprentices.h.i.+p, than they were at its commencement. And it is not without reason that they thus speak.

They say, first, that the bickerings and disputes to which the system gives rise between the master and the apprentice, and the arraigning of each other before the special magistrate, are directly calculated to alienate the parties. The effect of these contentions, kept up for six years, will be to implant _deep mutual hostility_; and the parties will be a hundred fold more irreconcilable than they were on the abolition of slavery. Again, they argue that the apprentices.h.i.+p system is calculated to make the negroes regard _law as their foe_, and thus it unfits them for freedom. They reason thus--the apprentice looks to the magistrate as his judge, his avenger, his protector; he knows nothing of either law or justice except as he sees them exemplified in the decisions of the magistrate. When, therefore, the magistrate sentences him to punishment, when he knows he was the injured party, he will become disgusted with the very name of justice, and esteem law his greatest enemy.

The neglect of the planters to use the apprentices.h.i.+p as a preparation for freedom, warrants us in the conclusion, that they do not think any preparation necessary. But we are not confined to doubtful inferences on this point. They testify positively--and not only planters, but all other cla.s.ses of men likewise--that the slaves of Barbadoes were fit for entire freedom in 1834, and that they might have been emanc.i.p.ated then with perfect safety. Whatever may have been the sentiment of the Barbadians relative to the necessity of preparation before the experiment was made, it is clear that now they have no confidence either in the necessity or the practicability of preparatory schemes.

But we cannot close our remarks upon the apprentices.h.i.+p system without noticing one good end which it has undesignedly accomplished, i.e., _the ill.u.s.tration of the good disposition of the colored people_. We firmly believe that if the friends of emanc.i.p.ation had wished to disprove all that has ever been said about the ferocity and revengefulness of the negroes, and at the same time to demonstrate that they possess, in a pre-eminent degree, those other qualities which render them the fit subjects of liberty and law, they could not have done it more triumphantly than it has been done by the apprentices.h.i.+p. _How_ this has been done may be shown by pointing out several respects in which the apprentices.h.i.+p has been calculated to try the negro character most severely, and to develop all that was fiery and rebellious in it.

1. The apprentices.h.i.+p removed that strong arm of slavery and subst.i.tuted no adequate force. The arbitrary power of the master, which awed the slave into submission, was annihilated. The whip which was held over the slave, and compelled a kind of subordination--brutal, indeed, but effectual--was abolished. Here in the outset the reins were given to the long-oppressed, but now aspiring ma.s.s. No adequate force was subst.i.tuted, because it was the intent of the new system to govern by milder means. This was well, but what were the milder means which were to take the place of brute force?

2. Was the stimulus of wages subst.i.tuted? No! That was expressly denied.

Was the liberty of locomotion granted? No. Was the privilege of gaining a personal interest in the soil extended to them? No. Were the immunities and rights of citizens.h.i.+p secured to them? No. Was the poor favor allowed them of selecting their own business, or of choosing their employer? Not even this? Thus far, then, we see nothing of the milder measures of the apprentices.h.i.+p. It has indeed opened the prison doors and knocked off the prisoners' chains--but it still keeps them grinding there, as before, and refuses to let them come forth, except occasionally, and then only to be thrust back again. Is it not thus directly calculated to encourage indolence and insubordination?