Volume II Part 43 (2/2)
Having given such an unfavorable description of the ma.s.s of planters, it is but just to add that there are a few honorable exceptions. There are some attorneys and overseers, who if they dared to face the allied powers of oppression, would act a n.o.ble part. But they are trammelled by an overpowering public sentiment, and are induced to fall in very much with the prevailing practices. One of this cla.s.s, an attorney of considerable influence, declined giving us his views in writing, stating that his situation and the state of public sentiment must be his apology. An overseer who was disposed to manifest the most liberal bearing towards his apprentices, and who had directions from the absentee proprietor to that effect, was yet effectually prevented by his attorney, who having several other estates under his charge, was fearful of losing them, if he did not maintain the same severe discipline on all.
The special magistrates are also deeply implicated in causing the difficulties existing under the apprentices.h.i.+p. They are incessantly exposed to multiplied and powerful temptations. The persecution which they are sure to incur by a faithful discharge of their duties, has already been noticed. It would require men of unusual sternness of principle to face so fierce an array. Instead of being _independent_ of the planters, their situation is in every respect totally the reverse.
Instead of having a central office or station-house to hold their courts at, as is the case in Barbadoes, they are required to visit each estate in their districts. They have a circuit from forty to sixty miles to compa.s.s every fortnight, or in some cases three times every month. On these tours they are absolutely dependent upon the hospitality of the planters. None but men of the ”sterner stuff” could escape, (to use the negro's phrase) _being poisoned by ma.s.sa's turtle soup._ The _character_ of the men who are acting as magistrates is thus described by a colonial magistrate of high standing and experience.
”The special magistracy department is filled with the most worthless men, both domestic and imported. It was a necessary qualification of the former to possess no property; hence the most worthless vagabonds on the island were appointed. The latter were worn out officers and dissipated rakes, whom the English government sent off here in order to get rid of them.” As a specimen of the latter kind, this gentleman mentioned one (special Justice Light) who died lately from excessive dissipation. He was constantly drunk, and the only way in which to get him to do any business was to take him on to an estate in the evening so that he might sleep off his intoxication, and then the business was brought before him early the next morning, before he had time to get to his cups.
It is well known that many of the special magistrates are totally unprincipled men, monsters of cruelty, l.u.s.t, and despotism. As a result of natural character in many cases, and of dependence upon planters in many more, the great ma.s.s of the special justices are a disgrace to their office, and to the government which commissioned them. Out of sixty, the number of special justices in Jamaica, there are not more than fifteen, or twenty at farthest, who are not the merest tools of the attorneys and overseers. Their servility was graphically hit off by the apprentice. ”If busha say flog em, he flog em; if busha say send them to the treadmill, he send em.” If an apprentice laughs or sings, and the busha represents it to the magistrate as insolence, he _feels it his duty_ to make an example of the offender!
The following fact will ill.u.s.trate the injustice of the magistrates. It was stated in writing by a missionary. We conceal all names, in compliance with the request of the writer. ”An apprentice belonging to ---- in the ---- was sent to the treadmill by special justice G. He was ordered to go out and count the sheep, as he was able to count higher than some of the field people, although a house servant from his youth--I may say childhood. Instead of bringing in the tally cut upon a piece of board, as usual, he wrote the number eighty upon a piece of paper. When the overseer saw it, he would scarcely believe that any of his people could write, and ordered a piece of coal to be brought and made him write it over again; the next day he turned him into the field, but unable to perform the task (to hoe and weed one hundred coffee roots daily) with those who had been accustomed to field work all their lives, he was tried for neglect of duty, and sentenced to fourteen days on the treadmill!”
We quote the following heart-rending account from the Telegraph, (Spanishtown,) April 28, 1837. It is from a Baptist missionary.
”I see something is doing in England to shorten the apprentices.h.i.+p system. I pray G.o.d it may soon follow its predecessor--slavery, for it is indeed slavery under a less disgusting name. Business lately (December 23) called me to Rodney Hall; and while I was there, a poor old negro was brought in for punishment. I heard the fearful vociferation, 'twenty stripes.' 'Very well; here ----, put this man down.' I felt as I cannot describe; yet I thought, as the supervisor was disposed to be civil, my presence might tend to make the punishment less severe than it usually is--but I was disappointed. I inquired into the crime for which such an old man could be so severely punished, and heard various accounts. I wrote to the magistrate who sentenced him to receive it; and after many days I got the following reply.”
”_Logan Castle, Jan. 9, 1836._
Sir--In answer to your note of the 4th instant, I beg leave to state, that ---- ----, an apprentice belonging to ---- ----, was brought before me by Mr. ----, his late overseer, charged upon oath with continual neglect of duty and disobedience of orders as cattle-man, and also for stealing milk--was convicted, and sentenced to receive twenty stripes. So far from the punishment of the offender being severe, he was not ordered one half the number of stripes provided for such cases by the abolition act--if he received more than that number, or if those were inflicted with undue severity, I shall feel happy in making every inquiry amongst the authorities at Rodney Hall inst.i.tution.
I remain, sir, yours, truly,
T.W. JONES, S.M.”
'Rev. J. Clarke, &c., &c.'
From Mr. Clarke's reply, we make the following extract:
”_Jericho, January 19, 1836._
Sir--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th instant.
Respecting the punishment of ---- ----, I still adhere to the opinion I before expressed, that, for an old man of about sixty years of age, the punishment was severe. To see a venerable old man tied as if to be broken on the wheel, and cut to the bone by the lash of an athletic driver--writhing and yelling under the most exquisite torture, were certainly circ.u.mstances sufficiently strong to touch the heart of any one possessed of the smallest degree of common humanity. The usual preparations being made, the old man quietly stripped off his upper garments, and lay down upon the board--he was then tied by his legs, middle, above the elbows, and at each wrist. Mr. ---- then called out to the driver, 'I hope you will do your duty--he is not sent here for nothing.' At the first lash the skin started up; and at the third, the blood began to flow; ere the driver had given ten, the cat was covered with gore; and he stopped to change it for a dry one, which appeared to me somewhat longer than the first. When the poor tortured creature had received sixteen, his violent struggles enabled him to get one of his hands loose, which he put instantly to his back--the driver stopped to retie him, and then proceeded to give the remaining four. The struggles of the poor old man from the first lash bespoke the most extreme torture; and his cries were to me most distressing. 'Oh! oh!
mercy! mercy! mercy! oh! ma.s.sa! ma.s.sa! dat enough--enough! oh, enough! O, ma.s.sa, have pity! O, ma.s.sa! ma.s.sa! dat enough--enough!
Oh, never do de like again--only pity me--forgive me dis once! oh!
pity! mercy! mercy! oh! oh!' were the cries he perpetually uttered.
I shall remember them while I live; and would not for ten thousand worlds have been the cause of producing them. It was some minutes after he was loosed ere he could rise to his feet, and as he attempted to rise, he continued calling out, 'My back! oh! my back!
my back is broken.' A long time he remained half-doubled, the blood flowing round his body; 'I serve my master,' said the aged sufferer, 'at all times; get no Sat.u.r.day, no Sunday; yet this is de way dem use me.'
With such planters, and such magistrates to play into their hands, is it to be wondered at that the apprentices do badly? Enough has been said, we think, to satisfy any candid person as to the _causes of the evils in Jamaica_. If any thing further were needed, we might speak of the peculiar facilities which these men have for perpetrating acts of cruelty and injustice. The major part of the island is exceedingly mountainous, and a large portion of the sugar estates, and most of the coffee plantations, are among the mountains. These estates are scattered over a wide extent of country, and separated by dense forests and mountains, which conceal each plantation from the public view almost as effectually as though it were the only property on the island. The only mode of access to many of the estates in the mountainous districts, is by mule paths winding about, amid fastnesses, precipices, and frightful solitudes.
In those lone retirements, on the mountain top, or in the deep glen by the side of the rocky rivers, the traveller occasionally meets with an estate. Strangers but rarely intrude upon those little domains. They are left to the solitary sway of the overseers dwelling amid their ”gangs,” and undisturbed, save by the weekly visitations of the special magistrates. While the traveller is struck with the facilities for the perpetration of those enormities which must have existed there during slavery; he is painfully impressed also with the numerous opportunities which are still afforded for oppressing the apprentices, particularly where the special magistrates are not honest men.[A]
[Footnote A: From the nature of the case, it must be impossible to know how much actual flogging is perpetrated by the overseers. We might safely conjecture that there must be a vast deal of it that never comes to the light. Such is the decided belief of many of the first men in the island. The planters, say they, flog their apprentices, and then, to prevent their complaining to the magistrate, threaten them with severe punishment, or bribe them to silence by giving them a few s.h.i.+llings. The attorney-general mentioned an instance of the latter policy. A planter got angry with one of his head men, who was a constable, and knocked him down. The man started off to complain to the special magistrate. The master called him back, and told him he need not go to the magistrate--that he was constable, and had a right to fine him himself.
”Well, ma.s.sa,” said the negro, ”I fine you five s.h.i.+llings on de spot.”
The master was glad to get off with that--the magistrate would probably have fined him 5 currency.]
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