Volume II Part 30 (1/2)

After an hour and a half's drive, we reached Colliton estate, where we were engaged to breakfast. We met a hearty welcome from the manager, Samuel Hinkston, Esq. we were soon joined by several gentlemen whom Mr.

H. had invited to take breakfast with us; these were the Rev. Mr.

Gittens, rector of St. Philip's parish, (in which Colliton estate is situated,) and member of the colonial council; Mr. Thomas, an extensive attorney of Barbadoes; and Dr. Bell, a planter of Demerara--then on a visit to the island. We conversed with each of the gentlemen separately, and obtained their individual views respecting emanc.i.p.ation.

Mr. Hinkston has been a planter for thirty-six years, and is highly esteemed throughout the island. The estate which he manages, ranks among the first in the island. It comprises six hundred acres of superior land, has a population of two hundred apprentices, and yields an average crop of one hundred and eighty hogsheads. Together with his long experience and standing as a planter, Mr. H. has been for many years local magistrate for the parish in which he resides. From these circ.u.mstances combined, we are induced to give his opinions on a variety of points.

1. He remarked that the planters were getting along _infinitely_ better under the new system than they ever did under the old. Instead of regretting that the change had taken place, he is looking forward with pleasure to a better change in 1840, and he only regrets that it is not to come sooner.

2. Mr. H. said it was generally conceded that the island was never under better cultivation than at the present time. The crops for this year will exceed the average by several thousand hogsheads. The canes were planted in good season, and well attended to afterwards.

3. Real estate has risen very much since emanc.i.p.ation. Mr. H. stated that he had lately purchased a small sugar estate, for which he was obliged to give several hundred pounds more than it would have cost him before 1834.

4. There is not the least sense of insecurity now. Before emanc.i.p.ation there was much fear of insurrection, but that fear pa.s.sed away with slavery.

5. The prospect for 1840 is good. That people have no fear of ruin after emanc.i.p.ation, is proved by the building of sugar works on estates which never had any before, and which were obliged to cart their canes to neighbouring estates to have them ground and manufactured. There are also numerous improvements making on the larger estates. Mr. H. is preparing to make a new mill and boiling-house on Colliton, and other planters are doing the same. Arrangements are making too in various directions to build new negro villages on a more commodious plan.

6. Mr. H. says he finds his apprentices perfectly ready to work for wages during their own time. Whenever he needs their labor on Sat.u.r.day, he has only to ask them, and they are ready to go to the mill, or field at once. There has not been an instance on Colliton estate in which the apprentices have refused to work, either during the hours required by law, or during their own time. When he does not need their services on Sat.u.r.day, they either hire themselves to other estates or work on their own grounds.

7. Mr. H. was ready to say, both as a planter and a magistrate, that vice and crime generally had decreased, and were still on the decrease.

Petty thefts are the princ.i.p.al offences. He has not had occasion to send a single apprentice to the court of sessions for the last six months.

8. He has no difficulty in managing his people--far less than he did when they were slaves. It is very seldom that he finds it necessary to call in the aid of the special magistrate. Conciliatory treatment is generally sufficient to maintain order and industry among the apprentices.

9. He affirms that the negroes have no disposition to be revengeful. He has never seen any thing like revenge.

10. His people are as far removed from insolence as from vindictiveness.

They have been uniformly civil.

11. His apprentices have more interest in the affairs of the estate, and he puts more confidence in them than he ever did before.

12. He declares that the working of the apprentices.h.i.+p, as also that of entire freedom, depends entirely on the _planters_. If they act with common humanity and reason, there is no fear but that the apprentices will be peaceable.

Mr. Thomas is attorney for fifteen estates, on which there are upwards of two thousand five hundred apprentices. We were informed that he had been distinguished as a _severe disciplinarian_ under the old reign, or in plain terms, had been a _cruel man and a hard driver_; but he was one of those who, since emanc.i.p.ation, have turned about and conformed their mode of treatment to the new system. In reply to our inquiry how the present system was working, he said, ”infinitely better (such was his language) than slavery. I succeed better on all the estates under my charge than I did formerly. I have far less difficulty with the people.

I have no reason to complain of their conduct. However, I think they will do still better after 1840.”

We made some inquiries of Dr. Bell concerning the results of abolition in Demerara. He gave a decidedly flattering account of the working of the apprentices.h.i.+p system. No fears are entertained that Demerara will be ruined after 1840. On the contrary it will be greatly benefited by emanc.i.p.ation. It is now suffering from a want of laborers, and after 1840 there will be an increased emigration to that colony from the older and less productive colonies. The planters of Demerara are making arrangements for cultivating sugar on a larger scale than ever before.

Estates are selling at very high prices. Every thing indicates the fullest confidence on the part of the planters that the prosperity of the colony will not only be permanent, but progressive.

After breakfast we proceeded to the Society's estate. We were glad to see this estate, as its history is peculiar. In 1726 it was bequeathed by General Coddington to a society in England, called ”The Society for the promotion of Christian Knowledge.” The proceeds of the estate were to be applied to the support of an inst.i.tution in Barbadoes, for educating missionaries of the established order. Some of the provisions of the will were that the estate should always have three hundred slaves upon it; that it should support a school for the education of the negro children who were to be taught a portion of every day until they were twelve years old, when they were to go into the field; and that there should be a chapel built upon it. The negroes belonging to the estate have for upwards of a hundred years been under this kind of instruction.

They have all been taught to read, though in many instances they have forgotten all they learned, having no opportunity to improve after they left school. They enjoy some other comforts peculiar to the Society's estate. They have neat cottages built apart--each on a half-acre lot, which belongs to the apprentice and for the cultivation of which he is a allowed one day out of the five working days. Another peculiarity is, that the men and women work in separate gangs.

At this estate we procured horses to ride to the College. We rode by the chapel and school-house belonging to the Society's estate which are situated on the row of a high hill. From the same hill we caught a view of Coddrington college, which is situated on a low bottom extending from the foot of the rocky cliff on which we stood to the sea sh.o.r.e, a s.p.a.ce of quarter of a mile. It is a long, narrow, ill-constructed edifice.

We called on the princ.i.p.al, Rev. Mr. Jones, who received us very cordially, and conducted us over the buildings and the grounds connected with them. The college is large enough to accommodate a hundred students. It is fitted out with lodging rooms, various professors'

departments, dining hall, chapel, library, and all the appurtenances of a university. The number of student at the close of the last term was _fifteen_.

The professors, two in number, are supported by a fund, consisting of 40,000 sterling, which has in part acc.u.mulated from the revenue of the estate.

The princ.i.p.al spoke favorably of the operation of the apprentices.h.i.+p in Barbadoes, and gave the negroes a decided superiority over the lower cla.s.s of whites. He had seen only one colored beggar since he came to the island, but he was infested with mult.i.tudes of white ones.

It is intended to improve the college buildings as soon as the toil of apprentices on the Society's estate furnishes the requisite means. This robbing of G.o.d's image to promote education is horrible enough, taking the wages of slavery to spread the kingdom of Christ!

On re-ascending the hill, we called at the Society's school. There are usually in attendance about one hundred children, since the abolition of slavery. Near the school-house is the chapel of the estate, a neat building, capable of holding three or four hundred people. Adjacent to the chapel is the burial ground for the negroes belonging to the Society's estate. We noticed several neat tombs, which appeared to have been erected only a short time previous. They were built of brick, and covered over with lime, so as to resemble white marble slabs. On being told that these were erected by the negroes themselves over the bodies of their friends, we could not fail to note so beautiful an evidence of their civilization and humanity. We returned to the Society's estate, where we exchanged our saddles for the phaeton, and proceeded on our eastward tour.