Part 90 (2/2)

Taking leave of Mr. Barclay, we returned to the Plantain Garden River Valley, and called at the Golden Grove, one of the most splendid estates in that magnificent district. This is an estate of two thousand acres; it has five hundred apprentices and one hundred free children. The average annual crop is six hundred hogsheads of sugar. Thomas McCornock, Esq., the attorney of this estate, is the custos, or chief magistrate of the parish, and colonel of the parish militia. There is no man in all the parish of greater consequence, either in fact or in seeming self-estimation, than Thomas McCornock, Esq. He is a Scotchman, as is also Mr. Barclay. The custos received us with as much freedom as the dignity of his numerous offices would admit of. The overseer, (manager,) Mr. Duncan, is an intelligent, active, business man, and on any other estate than Golden Grove, would doubtless be a personage of considerable distinction. He conducted us through the numerous buildings, from the boiling-house to the pig-stye. The princ.i.p.al complaint of the overseer, was that he could not make the people work to any good purpose. They were not at all refractory or disobedient; there was no difficulty in getting them on to the field; but when they were there, they moved without any life or energy. They took no interest in their work, and he was obliged to be watching and scolding them all the time, or else they would do nothing. We had not gone many steps after this observation, before we met with a practical ill.u.s.tration of it. A number of the apprentices had been ordered that morning to cart away some dirt to a particular place. When we approached them, Mr. D. found that one of the ”wains” was standing idle. He inquired of the driver why he was keeping the team idle. The reply was, that there was nothing there for it to do; there were enough other wains to carry away all the dirt. ”Then,” inquired the overseer with an ill-concealed irritation, ”why did not go to some other work?” The overseer then turned to us and said, ”You see, sir, what lazy dogs the apprentices are--this is the way they do every day, if they are not closely watched.” It was not long after this little incident, before the overseer remarked that the apprentices worked very well during their own time, _when they were paid for it_. When we went into the hospital, Mr. D. directed out attention to one fact, which to him was very provoking. A great portion of the patients that come in during the week, unable to work, are in the habit of getting well on Friday evening, so that they can go out on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday; but on Monday morning they are sure to be sick again, then they return to the hospital and remain very poorly till Friday evening, when they get well all at once, and ask permission to go out. The overseer saw into the trick; but he could find no medicine that could cure the negroes of that intermittent sickness. The Antigua planters discovered the remedy for it, and doubtless Mr. D. will make the grand discovery in 1840.

On returning to the ”great house,” we found the custos sitting in state, ready to communicate any official information which might be called for.

He expressed similar sentiments in the main, with those of Mr. Barclay.

He feared for the consequences of complete emanc.i.p.ation; the negroes would to a great extent abandon the sugar cultivation and retire to the woods, there to live in idleness, planting merely yams enough to keep them alive, and in the process of time, retrograding into African barbarism. The attorney did not see how it was possible to prevent this.

When asked whether he expected that such would be the case with the negroes on Golden Grove, he replied that he did not think it would, except with a very few persons. His people had been _so well treated_, and had _so many comforts_, that they would not be at all likely to abandon the estate! [Mark that!] Whose are the people that will desert after 1840? Not Thomas McCornock's, Esq.! _They are too well situated.

Whose_ then will desert? _Mr. Jocken's_, or in other words, those who are ill-treated, who are cruelly driven, whose fences are broken down, and whose provision grounds are exposed to the cattle. They, and they alone, will retire to the woods who can't get food any where else!

The custos thought the apprentices were behaving very ill. On being asked if he had any trouble with his, he said, O, no! his apprentices did quite well, and so did the apprentices generally, in the Plantain Garden River Valley. But in _far off parishes_, he _heard_ that they were very refractory and troublesome.

The custos testified that the negroes were very easily managed. He said he had often thought that he would rather have the charge of six hundred negroes, than of two hundred English sailors. He spoke also of the temperate habits of the negroes. He had been in the island twenty-two years, and he had never seen a negro woman drunk, on the estate. It was very seldom that the men got drunk. There were not more than ten men on Golden Grove, out of a population of five hundred, who were in the habit of occasionally getting intoxicated. He also remarked that the negroes were a remarkable people for their attention to the old and infirm among them; they seldom suffered them to want, if it was in their power to supply them. Among other remarks of the custos, was this sweeping declaration--”_No man in his senses can pretend to defend slavery._”

After spending a day at Golden Grove, we proceeded to the adjacent estate of Amity Hall. On entering the residence of the manager, Mr.

Kirkland, we were most gratefully surprised to find him engaged in family prayers. It was the first time and the last that we heard the voice of prayer in a Jamaican planter's house. We were no less gratefully surprised to see a white lady, to whom we were introduced as Mrs. Kirkland, and several modest and lovely little children. It was the first and the last _family circle_ that we were permitted to see among the planters of that licentious colony. The motley group of colored children--of every age from tender infancy--which we found on other estates, revealed the state of domestic manners among the planters.

Mr. K. regarded the abolition of slavery as a great blessing to the colony; it was true that the apprentices.h.i.+p was a wretchedly bad system, but notwithstanding, things moved smoothly on his estate. He informed us that the negroes on Amity Hall had formerly borne the character of being the _worst gang in the parish_; and when he first came to the estate, he found that half the truth had not been told of them; but they had become remarkably peaceable and subordinate. It was his policy to give them every comfort that he possibly could. Mr. K. made the same declaration, which has been so often repeated in the course of this narrative, i.e., that if any of the estates were abandoned, it would be owing to the harsh treatment of the people. He knew many overseers and book-keepers who were cruel driving men, and he should not be surprised if _they_ lost a part, or all, of their laborers. He made one remark which we had not heard before. There were some estates, he said, which would probably be abandoned, for the same reason that they ought never to have been cultivated, because they require _almost double labor_;--such are the mountainous estates and barren, worn-out properties, which nothing but a system of forced labor could possibly retain in cultivation. But the idea that the negroes generally would leave their comfortable homes, and various privileges on the estates, and retire to the wild woods, he ridiculed as preposterous in the extreme. Mr. K. declared repeatedly that he could not look forward to 1840, but with the most sanguine hopes; he confidently believed that the introduction of complete freedom would be the _regeneration of the island_. He alluded to the memorable declaration of Lord Belmore, (made memorable by the excitement which it caused among the colonists,) in his valedictory address to the a.s.sembly, on the eve of his departure for England.[A] ”Gentlemen,” said he, ”the resources of this n.o.ble island will never be fully developed until slavery is abolished!” For this manly avowal the a.s.sembly ign.o.bly refused him the usual marks of respect and honor at his departure. Mr.

K. expected to see Jamaica become a new world under the enterprise and energies of freedom. There were a few disaffected planters, who would probably remain so, and leave the islands after emanc.i.p.ation. It would be a blessing to the country if such men left it, for as long as they were disaffected, they were the enemies of its prosperity.

[Footnote A: Lord Belmore left the government of Jamaica, a short time before the abolition act pa.s.sed in parliament.]

Mr. K. conducted us through the negro quarters, which are situated on the hill side, nearly a mile from his residence. We went into several of the houses; which were of a better style somewhat than the huts in Antigua and Barbadoes--larger, better finished and furnished. Some few of them had verandahs or porches on one or more sides, after the West India fas.h.i.+on, closed in with _jalousies_. In each of the houses to which we were admitted, there was one apartment fitted up in a very neat manner, with waxed floor, a good bedstead, and snow white coverings, a few good chairs, a mahogany sideboard, ornamented with dishes, decanters, etc.

From Amity Hall, we drove to Manchioneal, a small village ten miles north of the Plantain Garden River Valley. We had a letter to the special magistrate for that district, R. Chamberlain, Esq., a colored gentleman, and the first magistrate we found in the parish of St. Thomas in the East, who was faithful to the interests of the apprentices. He was a boarder at the public house, where we were directed for lodgings, and as we spent a few days in the village, we had opportunities of obtaining much information from him, as well as of attending some of his courts. Mr. C. had been only five months in the district of Manchioneal, having been removed thither from a distant district. Being a friend of the apprentices, he is hated and persecuted by the planters. He gave us a gloomy picture of the oppressions and cruelties of the planters. Their complaints brought before him are often of the most trivial kind; yet because he does not condemn the apprentices to receive a punishment which the most serious offences alone could justify him in inflicting, they revile and denounce him as unfit for his station. He represents the planters as not having the most distant idea that it is the province of the special magistrate to secure justice to the apprentice; but they regard it as his sole duty to _help them_ in getting from the laborers as much work as whips, and chains, and tread-wheels can extort. His predecessor, in the Manchioneal district, answered perfectly to the planters' _beau ideal_. He ordered a _cat_ to be kept on every estate in his district, to be ready for use as he went around on his weekly visits. Every week he inspected the cats, and when they became too much worn to do good execution, he _condemned_ them, and ordered new ones to be made.

Mr. C. said the most frequent complaints made by the planters are for _insolence_. He gave a few specimens of what were regarded by the planters as serious offences. An overseer will say to his apprentice, ”Work along there faster, you lazy villain, or I'll strike you;” the apprentice will reply, ”You _can't_ strike me now,” and for this he is taken before the magistrate on the complaint of _insolence_. An overseer, in pa.s.sing the gang on the field, will hear them singing; he will order them, in a peremptory tone to stop instantly, and if they continue singing, they are complained of for _insubordination_. An apprentice has been confined to the hospital with disease,--when he gets able to walk, tired of the filthy sick house, he hobbles to his hut, where he may have the attentions of his wife until he gets well. That is called _absconding from labor_! Where the magistrate does not happen to be an independent man, the complaint is sustained, and the poor invalid is sentenced to the treadmill for absenting himself from work. It is easy to conjecture the dreadful consequence. The apprentice, debilitated by sickness, dragged off twenty-five miles on foot to Morant Bay, mounted on the wheel, is unable to keep the step with the stronger ones, slips off and hangs by the wrists, and his flesh is mangled and torn by the wheel.

The apprentices frequently called at our lodgings to complain to Mr. C.

of the hard treatment of their masters. Among the numerous distressing cases which we witnessed, we shall never forget that of a poor little negro boy, of about twelve, who presented himself one afternoon before Mr. C., with a complaint against his master for violently beating him. A gash was cut in his head, and the blood had flowed freely. He fled from his master, and came to Mr. C. for refuge. He belonged to A. Ross, Esq., of Mulatto Run estate. We remembered that we had a letter of introduction to that planter, and we had designed visiting him, but after witnessing this scene, we resolved not to go near a monster who could inflict such a wound, with his own hand, upon a child. We were highly gratified with the kind and sympathizing manner in which Mr. C.

spoke with the unfortunate beings who, in the extremity of their wrongs, ventured to his door.

At the request of the magistrate we accompanied him, on one occasion, to the station-house, where he held a weekly court. We had there a good opportunity to observe the hostile feelings of the planters towards this faithful officer--”faithful among the faithless,” (though we are glad that we cannot quite add, ”_only he_.”)

A number of managers, overseers, and book-keepers, a.s.sembled; some with complaints, and some to have their apprentices cla.s.sified. They all set upon the magistrate like bloodhounds upon a lone stag. They strove together with one accord, to subdue his independent spirit by taunts, jeers, insults, intimidations and bullyings. He was obliged to threaten one of the overseers with arrest, on account of his abusive conduct. We were actually amazed at the intrepidity of the magistrate. We were convinced from what we saw that day, that only the most fearless and conscientious men could be _faithful magistrates_ in Jamaica. Mr. C.

a.s.sured us that he met with similar indignities every time he held his courts, and on most of the estates that he visited. It was in his power to punish them severely, but he chose to use all possible forbearance, so as not to give the planters any grounds of complaint.

On a subsequent day we accompanied Mr. C. in one of his estate visits.

As it was late in the afternoon, he called at but one estate, the name of which was Williamsfield. Mr. Gordon, the overseer of Williamsfield, is among the fairest specimens of planters. He has naturally a generous disposition, which, like that of Mr. Kirkland, has out-lived the witherings of slavery.

He informed us that his people worked as well under the apprentices.h.i.+p system, as ever they did during slavery; and he had every encouragement that they would do still better after they were completely free. He was satisfied that he should be able to conduct his estate at much less expense after 1840; he thought that fifty men would do as much then as a hundred do now. We may add here a similar remark of Mr. Kirkland--that forty freemen would accomplish as much as eighty slaves. Mr. Gordon hires his people on Sat.u.r.days, and he expressed his astonishment at the increased vigor with which they worked when they were to receive wages.

He pointedly condemned the driving system which was resorted to by many of the planters. They foolishly endeavored to keep up the coercion of slavery, _and they had the special magistrates incessantly flogging the apprentices_. The planters also not unfrequently take away the provision grounds from their apprentices, and in every way oppress and hara.s.s them.

In the course of the conversation Mr. G. accidentally struck upon a fresh vein of facts, respecting the SLAVERY OF BOOK-KEEPERS,[A] _under the old system_. The book-keepers, said Mr. G., were the complete slaves of the overseers, who acted like despots on the estates. They were mostly young men from England, and not unfrequently had considerable refinement; but ignorant of the treatment which book-keepers had to submit to, and allured by the prospect of becoming wealthy by planters.h.i.+p, they came to Jamaica and entered as candidates. They soon discovered the cruel bondage in which they were involved. The overseers domineered over them, and stormed at them as violently as though they were the most abject slaves. They were allowed no privileges such as their former habits impelled them to seek. If they played a flute in the hearing of the overseer, they were commanded to be silent instantly. If they dared to put a gold ring on their finger, even that trifling pretension to gentility was detected and disallowed by the jealous overseer. (These things were specified by Mr. G. himself.) They were seldom permitted to a.s.sociate with the overseers as equals. The only thing which reconciled the book-keepers to this abject state, was the reflection that they might one day _possibly_ become overseers themselves, and then they could exercise the same authority over others.

In addition to this degradation, the book-keepers suffered great hards.h.i.+ps. Every morning (during slavery) they were obliged to be in the field before day; they had to be there as soon as the slaves, in order to call the roll, and mark absentees, if any. Often Mr. G. and the other gentleman had gone to the field, when it was so dark that they could not see to call the roll, and the negroes have all lain down on their hoes, and slept till the light broke. Sometimes there would be a thick dew on the ground, and the air was so cold and damp, that they would be completely chilled. When they were s.h.i.+vering on the ground, the negroes would often lend them their blankets, saying, ”Poor _busha pickaninny_ sent out here from England to die.” Mr. Gordon said that his const.i.tution had been permanently injured by such exposure. Many young men, he said, had doubtless been killed by it. During crop time, the book-keepers had to be up every night till twelve o'clock, and every other night _all night_, superintending the work in the boiling-house, and at the mill. They did not have rest even on the Sabbath; they must have the mill put about (set to the wind so as to grind) by sunset every Sabbath. Often the mills were in the wind before four o'clock, on Sabbath afternoon. They knew of slaves being flogged for not being on the spot by sunset, though it was known that they had been to meeting.

Mr. G. said that he had a young friend who came from England with him, and acted as book-keeper. His labors and exposures were so intolerable, that he had often said to Mr. G., confidentially, _that if the slaves should rise in rebellion, he would most cheerfully join them_! Said Mr.

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