Part 92 (2/2)
Hill:
1. The apprentices.h.i.+p is a most vicious system, full of blunders and absurdities, and directly calculated to set master and slave at war.
2. The complaints against the apprentices are decreasing every month, _except, perhaps, complaints against mothers for absence from work, which he thinks are increasing_. The apprentices.h.i.+p _law_ makes no provision for the free children, and on most of the plantations and estates no allowance is given them, but they are thrown entirely for support on their parents, who are obliged to work the most and best part of their time for their masters unrewarded. The nurseries are broken up, and frequently the mothers are obliged to work in the fields with their infants at their backs, or else to leave them at some distance under the shade of a hedge or tree. Every year is making their condition worse and worse. The number of children is increasing, and yet the mothers are required, after their youngest child has attained the age of a few weeks, to be at work the same number of hours as the men. Very little time is given them to take care of their household. When they are tardy they are brought before the magistrate.
A woman was brought before Mr. Hill a few days before we were there, charged with not being in the field till one hour after the rest of the gang. She had twins, and appeared before him with a child hanging on each arm. What an eloquent defence! He dismissed the complaint.
He mentioned another case, of a woman whose master resided in Spanishtown, but who was hired out by him to some person in the country.
Her child became sick, but her employer refused any a.s.sistance. With it in her arms, she entreated aid of her master. The monster drove her and her dying little one into the street at night, and she sought shelter with Mr. Hill, where her child expired before morning. For such horrid cruelty as this, the apprentices.h.i.+p law provides no remedy. The woman had no claim for the support of her child, on the man who was receiving the wages of her daily toil. That child was not worth a farthing to him, because it was no longer his _chattel_; and while the law gives him power to rob the mother, it has no compulsion to make him support the child.
3. The complaints are generally of the most trivial and frivolous nature. They are mostly against mothers for neglect of duty, and vague charges of insolence. There is no provision in the law to prevent the master from using abusive language to the apprentice; any insult short of a blow, he is free to commit; but the slightest word of incivility, a look, smile, or grin, is punished in the apprentice, even though it were provoked.
4. There is still much flogging by the overseers. Last week a girl came to Mr. H. terribly scarred and ”slashed,” and complained that her master had beaten her. It appeared that this was the _seventh offence_, for neither of which she could obtain a hearing from the special magistrate in her district. While Mr. H. was relating to me this fact, a girl came in with a little babe in her arms. He called my attention to a large bruise near her eye. He said her master knocked her down a few days since, and made that wound by kicking her.
Frequently when complaints of insolence are made, on investigation, it is found that the offence was the result of a quarrel commenced by the master, during which he either cuffed or kicked the offender.
The special magistrates also frequently resort to flogging. Many of them, as has been mentioned already, have been connected with the army or navy, where corporal punishment is practised and flogging is not only in consonance with their feelings and habits, but is a punishment more briefly inflicted and more grateful to the planters, as it does not deprive them of the apprentice's time.
5. Mr. H. says that the apprentices who have purchased their freedom behave well. He has not known one of them to be brought before the police.
6. Many of the special magistrates require much looking after. Their salaries are not sufficient to support them independently. Some of them leave their homes on Monday morning, and make the whole circuit of their district before returning, living and lodging meanwhile, _free of expense_, with the planters. If they are not inclined to listen to the complaints of the apprentices, they soon find that the apprentices are not inclined to make complaints to them, and that they consequently have much more leisure time, and get through their district much easier. Of the sixty magistrates in Jamaica, but few can be said to discharge their duties faithfully. The governor is often required to interfere. A few weeks since he discharged two magistrates for putting iron collars on two women, in direct violation of the law, and then sending him false reports.
7. The negro grounds are often at a great distance, five or six miles, and some of them fifteen miles, from the plantation. Of course much time, which would otherwise be spent in cultivating them, is necessarily consumed in going to them and returning. Yet for all that, and though in many cases the planters have withdrawn the watchmen who used to protect them, and have left them entirely exposed to thieves and cattle, they are generally well cultivated--on the whole, better than during slavery.
When there is inattention to them, it is caused either by some planters hiring them during their own time, or because their master permits his cattle to trespa.s.s on them, and the people feel an insecurity. When you find a kind planter, in whom the apprentices have confidence, there you will find beautiful gardens. In not a few instances, where the overseer is particularly harsh and cruel, the negroes have thrown up their old grounds, and taken new ones on other plantations, where the overseer is better liked, or gone into the depths of the mountain forests, where no human foot has been before them, and there cleared up small plats. This was also done to some extent during slavery. Many of the people, against whom the planters are declaiming as lazy and worthless, have rich grounds of which those planters little dream.
8. There is no feeling of insecurity, either of life or property. One may travel through the whole island without the least fear of violence.
If there is any danger, it is from the _emigrants_, who have been guilty of several outrages. So far from the planters fearing violence from the apprentices, when an a.s.sault or theft is committed, they refer it, almost as a matter of course, to some one else. A few weeks ago one of the island mails was robbed. As soon as it became known, it was at once said, ”Some of those villanous emigrants did it,” and so indeed it proved.
People in the country, in the midst of the mountains, where the whites are few and isolated, sleep with their doors and windows open, without a thought of being molested. In the towns there are no watchmen, and but a small police, and yet the streets are quiet and property safe.
9. The apprentices understand the great provisions of the new system, such as the number of hours they must work for their master, and that their masters have no right to flog them, &c., but its details are inexplicable mysteries. The masters have done much injury by deceiving them on points of which they were ignorant.
10. The apprentices almost to a man are ready to work for wages during their own time. When the overseer is severe towards them, they prefer working on other plantations, even for less wages, as is very natural.
11. Almost all the evils of the apprentices.h.i.+p arise from the obstinacy and oppressive conduct of the overseers. They are constantly taking advantage of the defects of the system, which are many, and while they demand to the last grain's weight ”the pound of flesh,” they are utterly unwilling to yield the requirements which the law makes of them. Where you find an overseer endeavoring in every way to overreach the apprentices, taking away the privileges which they enjoyed during slavery, and exacting from them the utmost minute and mite of labor, there you will find abundant complaints both against the master and the apprentice. And the reverse. The cruel overseers are complaining of idleness, insubordination, and ruin, while the kind master is moving on peaceably and prosperously.
12. The domestic apprentices have either one day, or fifty cents cash, each week, as an allowance for food and clothing. This is quite insufficient. Many of the females seem obliged to resort to theft or to prost.i.tution to obtain a support. Two girls were brought before Mr. Hill while we were with him, charged with neglect of duty and night-walking.
One of them said her allowance was too small, and she must get food in some other way or starve.
13. The apprentices on many plantations have been deprived of several privileges which they enjoyed under the old system. Nurseries have been abolished, water-carriers have been taken away, keeping stock is restricted, if not entirely forbidden, watchmen are no longer provided to guard the negro grounds, &c.--petty aggressions in our eyes, perhaps, but severe to them. Another instance is still more hard. By the custom of slavery, women who had reared up seven children were permitted to ”sit down,” as it was termed; that is, were not obliged to go into the field to work. Now no such distinction is made, but all are driven into the field.
14. One reason why the crops were smaller in 1835 and 1836 than in former years, was, that the planters in the preceding seasons, either fearful that the negroes would not take off the crops after emanc.i.p.ation, and acting on their baseless predictions instead of facts, or determined to make the results of emanc.i.p.ation appear as disastrous as possible, neglected to put in the usual amount of cane, and to clean the coffee fields. As they refused to sow, of course they could not reap.
15. The complaints against the apprentices generally are becoming fewer every week, but the complaints against the masters are increasing both in number and severity. One reason of this is, that the apprentices, on the one hand, are becoming better acquainted with the new system, and therefore better able to avoid a violation of its provisions, and are also learning that they cannot violate these provisions with impunity; and, on the other hand, they are gaining courage to complain against their masters, to whom they have hitherto been subjected by a fear created by the whips and dungeons, and nameless tortures of slavery.
Another reason is, that the masters, as the term of the apprentices.h.i.+p shortens, and the end of their authority approaches nearer, are pressing their poor victims harder and harder, determined to extort from them all they can, before complete emanc.i.p.ation rescues them for ever from their grasp.
While we were in conversation with Mr. Hill, Mr. Ramsay, one of the special magistrates for this parish, called in. He is a native of Jamaica, and has been educated under all the influences of West India society, but has held fast his integrity, and is considered the firm friend of the apprentices. He confirmed every fact and opinion which Mr.
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