Volume II Part 60 (1/2)
The Barbadian of November 21, speaks of a ”mega.s.s house” set on fire in this island which the peasantry refused to extinguish, and adds that but half work is performed by the laborer in that parish. ”Those of the adjoining parish,” its says, ”are said to be working satisfactorily.” In a subsequent paper we notice a report from the Chief of Police to the Lieutenant Governor, which speaks favorably of the general working of the negroes, as far as he had been able to ascertain by inquiry into a district comprising one-third of the laborers.
The New York Commercial Advertiser of February 25, has a communication from Amos Townsend, Esq., Cas.h.i.+er of the New Haven Bank; dated New Haven, February 21, 1839, from which we make the following extract. He says he obtained his information from one of the most extensive s.h.i.+pping houses in that city connected with the West India trade.
”A Mr. Jackson, a planter from St. Vincents, has been in this city within a few day, and says that the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves on that island works extremely well; and that his plantation produces more and yields a larger profit than it has ever done before. The emanc.i.p.ated slaves now do in eight hours what was before considered a two-days' task, and he pays the laborers a dollar a day.
Mr. Jackson further states that he, and Mr. Nelson, of Trinidad, with another gentleman from the same islands, have been to Was.h.i.+ngton, and conferred with Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay, _to endeavour to concert some plan to get colored laborers from this country to emigrate to these islands, as there is a great want of hands._ They offer one dollar a day for able bodied hands. The gentlemen at Was.h.i.+ngton were pleased with the idea of thus disposing of the free blacks at the South, and would encourage their efforts to induce that cla.s.s of the colored people to emigrate. Mr. Calhoun remarked that it was the most feasible plan of colonizing the free blacks that had ever been suggested.
This is the amount of my information, and comes in so direct a channel as leaves no room to doubt its correctness. What our southern champions will now say to this direct testimony from their brother planters of the West Indies, of the practicability and safety of immediate emanc.i.p.ation, remains to be seen. Truly yours.”
AMOS TOWNSEND, JUN.
ST. LUCIA.
Saint Lucia.--The Palladium states that affairs are becoming worse every day with the planters. Their properties are left without labourers to work them; their buildings broken into, stores and produce stolen, ground provisions destroyed, stock robbed, and they themselves insulted and laughed at.
On Sat.u.r.day night, the Commissary of Police arrived in town from the third and fourth districts, with some twenty or thirty prisoners, who had been convicted before the Chief Justice of having a.s.saulted the police in the execution of their duty, and sent to gaol.
”It has been deemed necessary to call for military aid with a view of humbling the high and extravagant ideas entertained by the ex-apprentices upon the independence of their present condition; thirty-six men of the first West India regiment, and twelve of the seventy-fourth have been accordingly despatched; the detachment embarked yesterday on board Mr. Muter's schooner, the Louisa, to land at Soufriere, and march into the interior.”
In both the above cases where the military was called out, the provocation was given by the white. And in both cases it was afterwards granted to be needless. Indeed, in the quelling of one of these fact.i.tious rebellions, the prisoners taken were two white men, and one of them a manager.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE
THE ABHORRENCE OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES; OR NO REFUGE FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY
IN
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
NEW YORK PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.
NO. 143 Na.s.sAU STREET.
1839
_Please read and circulate._
The
NEW TESTAMENT AGAINST SLAVERY.
”THE SON OF MAN IS COME TO SEEK AND TO SAVE THAT WHICH WAS LOST.”
Is Jesus Christ in favor of American slavery? In 1776 THOMAS JEFFERSON, supported by a n.o.ble band of patriots and surrounded by the American people, opened his lips in the authoritative declaration: ”We hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT, _that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness._” And from the inmost heart of the mult.i.tudes around, and in a strong and clear voice, broke forth the unanimous and decisive answer: Amen--such truths we do indeed hold to be self-evident. And animated and sustained by a declaration, so inspiring and sublime, they rushed to arms, and as the result of agonizing efforts and dreadful sufferings, achieved under G.o.d the independence of their country. The great truth, whence they derived light and strength to a.s.sert and defend their rights, they made the foundation of their republic. And in the midst of _this republic_, must we prove, that He, who was the Truth, did not contradict ”the truths”
which He Himself, as their Creator, had made self-evident to mankind?
Is Jesus Christ in favor of American slavery? What, according to those laws which make it what it is, is American slavery? In the Statute-Book of South Carolina thus it is written:[A] ”Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be _chattels personal_ in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and a.s.signs, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatever.” The very root of American slavery consists in the a.s.sumption, that _law has reduced men to chattels_. But this a.s.sumption is, and must be, a gross falsehood. Men and cattle are separated from each other by the Creator, immutably, eternally, and by an impa.s.sable gulf. To confound or identify men and cattle must be to _lie_ most wantonly, impudently, and maliciously. And must we prove, that Jesus Christ is not in favor of palpable, monstrous falsehood?
[Footnote A: Stroud's Slave Laws, p. 23.]