The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus · Chapter 74Part 74
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We shall doubtless be thought by some of our readers to glory in our shame. Be it so. We did glory in joining the company which we have just described. On the present occasion we had a fair opportunity of testing the merits of an unmixed negro party, and of determining how far the various excellences of the gentlemen and ladies previously noticed were attributable to the admixture of English blood. We are compelled in candor to say; that the company of blacks did not fall a whit below those of the colored race in any respect. We conversed on the same general topics, which, of course, were introduced where-ever we went. The gentlemen showed an intimate acquaintance with the state of the colony, with the merits of the apprenticeship system, and with the movements of the colonial government. As for Mrs. B., she presided at the table with great ease, dignity, self-possession, and grace. Her occasional remarks, made with genuine modesty, indicated good sense and discrimination. Among other topics of conversation, prejudice was not forgotten. The company were inquisitive as to the extent of it in the United States. We informed them that it appeared to be strongest in those states which held no slaves, that it prevailed among professing Christians, and that it was most manifestly seen in the house of God. We also intimated, in as delicate a manner as possible, that in almost any part of the United States such a table-scene as we then presented would be reprobated and denounced, if indeed it escaped the summary vengeance of the mob. We were highly gratified with their views of the proper way for the colored people to act in respect to prejudice. They said they were persuaded that their policy was to wait patiently for the operation of those influences which were now at work for the removal of prejudice. "Social intercourse," they said, "was not a thing to be gained by pushing." "They could not go to it, but it would come to them." It was for them however, to maintain an upright, dignified course, to be uniformly courteous, to seek the cultivation of their minds, and strive zealously for substantial worth, and by such means, and such alone, they could aid in overcoming prejudice.
Mr. Bourne was a slave until he was twenty-three years old. He was purchased by his father, a free negro, who gave five hundred dollars for him. His mother and four brothers were bought at the same time for the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars. He spoke very kindly of his former master. By industry, honesty, and close attention to business, Mr. B. has now become a wealthy merchant. He owns three stores in Bridgetown, lives in very genteel style in his own house, and is worth from twenty to thirty thousand dollars. He is highly respected by the merchants of Bridgetown for his integrity and business talents. By what means Mr. B. has acquired so much general information, we are at a loss to conjecture. Although we did not ourselves need the evidence of his possessing extraordinary talents, industry, and perseverance, yet we are happy to present our readers with such tangible proofs--proofs which are read in every language, and which pass current in every nation.
The foregoing sketches are sufficient to give a general idea of the colored people of Barbadoes. Perchance we may have taken too great liberties with those whose hospitalities we enjoyed; should this ever fall under their notice, we doubt not they will fully appreciate the motives which have actuated us in making them public. We are only sorry, for their sakes, and especially for that of our cause, that the delineations are so imperfect. That the above specimens are an exact likeness of the mass of colored people we do not pretend; but we do affirm, that they are as true an index to the whole community, as the merchants, physicians, and mechanics of any of our villages are to the entire population. We must say, also, that families of equal merit are by no means rare among the same people. We might mention many names which deservedly rank as high as those we have specified. One of the wealthiest merchants in Bridgetown is a colored gentleman. He has his mercantile agents in England, English clerks in his employ, a branch establishment in the city, and superintends the concerns of an extensive and complicated business with distinguished ability and success. A large portion, of not a majority of the merchants of Bridgetown are colored. Some of the most popular instructors are colored men and ladies, and one of these ranks high as a teacher of the ancient and modern languages. The most efficient and enterprising mechanics of the city, are colored and black men. There is scarcely any line of business which is not either shared or engrossed by colored persons, if we except that of barber. The only barber in Bridgetown is a white man.
That so many of the colored people should have obtained wealth and education is matter of astonishment, when we consider the numerous discouragements with which they have ever been doomed to struggle. The paths of political distinction have been barred against them by an arbitrary denial of the right of suffrage, and consequent ineligibility to office. Thus a large and powerful class of incitements to mental effort, which have been operating continually upon the whites, have never once stirred the sensibilities nor waked the ambition of the colored community. Parents, however wealthy, had no inducement to educate their sons for the learned professions, since no force of talent nor extent of acquirement could hope to break down the granite walls and iron bars which prejudice had erected round the pulpit, the bar, and the bench. From the same cause there was very little encouragement to acquire property, to seek education, to labor for the graces of cultivated manners, or even to aspire to ordinary respectability, since not even the poor favor of social intercourse with the whites, of participating in the civilities and courtesies of every day life, was granted them.
The crushing power of a prevailing licentiousness, has also been added to the other discouragements of the colored people. Why should parents labor to amass wealth enough, and much of course it required, to send their daughters to Europe to receive their educations, if they were to return only to become the victims of an all-whelming concubinism! It is a fact, that in many cases young ladies, who have been sent to England to receive education, have, after accomplishing themselves in all the graces of womanhood, returned to the island to become the concubines of white men. Hitherto this vice has swept over the colored community, gathering its repeated conscriptions of beauty and innocence from the highest as well as the lowest families. Colored ladies have been taught to believe that it was more honorable, and quite as virtuous, to be the kept mistresses of white gentlemen, than the lawfully wedded wives of colored men. We repeat the remark, that the actual progress which the colored people of Barbadoes have made, while laboring under so many depressing influences, should excite our astonishment, and, we add, our admiration too. Our acquaintance with this people was at a very interesting period--just when they were beginning to be relieved from these discouragements, and to feel the regenerating spirit of a new era. It was to us like walking through a garden in the early spring. We could see the young buds of hope, the first bursts of ambition, the early up-shoots of confident aspiration, and occasionally the opening bloom of assurance. The star of hope had risen upon the colored people, and they were beginning to realize that their day had come. The long winter of their woes was melting into "glorious summer." Civil immunities and political privileges were just before them, the learned professions were opening to them, social equality and honorable domestic connections would soon be theirs. Parents were making fresh efforts to establish schools for the children, and to send the choicest of their sons and daughters to England. They rejoiced in the privileges they were securing, and they anticipated with virtuous pride the free access of their children to all the fields of enterprise, all the paths of honest emulation, and all the eminences of distinction.
We remark in conclusion, that the forbearance of the colored people of Barbadoes under their complicated wrongs is worthy of all admiration. Allied, as many of them are, to the first families of the island, and gifted as they are with every susceptibility to feel disgrace, it is a marvel that they have not indignantly cast off the yoke and demanded their political rights. Their wrongs have been unprovoked on their part, and unnatural on the part of those who have inflicted them--in many cases the guilty authors of their being. The patience and endurance of the sufferers under such circumstances are unexampled, except by the conduct of the slaves, who, though still more wronged, were, if possible, still more patient.
We regret to add, that until lately, the colored people of Barbadoes hate been far in the background in the cause of abolition, and even now, the majority of them are either indifferent, or actually hostile to emancipation. They have no fellow feeling with the slave. In fact; they have had prejudices against the negroes no less bitter than those which the whites have exercised toward them. There are many honorable exceptions to this, as has already been shown; but such, we are assured, is the general fact.[A]
[Footnote A: We are here reminded, by the force of contrast, of the noble spirit manifested by the free colored people of our own country. As early as 1817, a numerous body of them in Philadelphia, with the venerable James Forten at their head, pledged themselves to the cause of the slave in the following sublime sentiment, which deserves to be engraver to their glory on the granite of our "everlasting hills"--"Resolved, That we never will separate ourselves voluntarily from the slave population in this country; they are our brethren by the ties of consanguinity, of suffering, and of wrong; and we feel that there is more virtue in suffering privations with them, than enjoying fancied advantages for a season."
We believe that this resolution embodies the feelings and determinations of the free colored people generally in the free states.]
BARBADOES AS IT WAS, AND IS.
According to the declaration of one of the special magistrates, "Barbadoes has long been distinguished for its devotion to slavery." There is probably no portion of the globe where slave-holding, slave driving, and slave labor, have been reduced to a more perfect system.
The records of slavery in Barbadoes are stained with bloody atrocities. The planters uniformly spoke of slavery as a system of cruelties; but they expressed themselves in general terms. From colored gentlemen we learned some particulars, a few of which we give. To most of the following facts the narrators were themselves eye witnesses, and all of them happened in their day and were fresh in their memories.
The slaves were not unfrequently worked in the streets of Bridgetown with chains on their wrists and ankles. Flogging on the estates and in the town, were no less public than frequent, and there was an utter shamelessness often in the manner of its infliction. Even women were stripped naked on the sides of the streets, and their backs lacerated with the whip. It was a common practice, when a slave offended a white man, for the master to send for a public whipper, and order him to take the slave before the door of the person offended, and flog him till the latter was satisfied. White females would order their male slaves to be stripped naked in their presence and flogged, while they would look on to see that their orders were faithfully executed. Mr. Prescod mentioned an instance which he himself witnessed near Bridgetown. He had seen an aged female slave, stripped and whipped by her own son, a child of twelve, at the command of the mistress. As the boy was small, the mother was obliged to get down upon her hands and knees, so that the child could inflict the blows on her naked person with a rod. This was done on the public highway, before the mistress's door. Mr. T. well remembered when it was lawful for any man to shoot down his slave, under no greater penalty than twenty-five pounds currency; and he knew of cases in which this had been done. Just after the insurrection in 1816, white men made a regular sport of shooting negroes. Mr. T. mentioned one case. A young man had sworn that he would kill ten negroes before a certain time. When he had shot nine he went to take breakfast with a neighbor, and carried his gun along. The first slave he met on the estate, he accused of being concerned in the rebellion. The negro protested that he was innocent, and begged for mercy. The man told him to be gone, and as he turned to go away, he shot him dead. Having fulfilled his bloody pledge, the young knight ate his breakfast with a relish. Mr. H. said that a planter once, in a time of perfect peace, went to his door and called one of his slaves. The negro made some reply which the master construed into insolence, and in a great rage he swore if he did not come to him immediately he would shoot him. The man replied he hoped massa wan't in earnest. 'I'll show you whether I am in earnest,' said the master, and with that he levelled his rifle, took deliberate aim, and shot the negro on the spot. He died immediately. Though great efforts were made by a few colored men to bring the murderer to punishment, they were all ineffectual. The evidence against him was clear enough, but the influence in his favor was so strong that he finally escaped.
Dungeons were built on all the estates, and they were often abominably filthy, and infested with loathsome and venomous vermin. For slight offences the slaves were thrust into these prisons for several successive nights--being dragged out every morning to work during the day. Various modes of torture were employed upon those who were consigned to the dungeon. There were stocks for their feet, and there were staples in the floor for the ankles and wrists, placed in such a position as to keep the victim stretched out and lying on his face. Mr. H. described one mode which was called the cabin. A narrow board, only wide enough for a man to lie upon, was fixed in an inclined position, and elevated considerably above the ground. The offending slave was made to lay upon this board, and a strong rope or chain, was tied about his neck and fastened to the ceiling. It was so arranged, that if he should fall from the plank, he would inevitably hang by his neck. Lying in this position all night, he was more likely than not to fall asleep, and then there were ninety-nine chances to one that he would roll off his narrow bed and be killed before he could awake, or have time to extricate himself. Peradventure this is the explanation of the anxiety Mr. ---- of ----, used to feel, when he had confined one of his slaves in the dungeon. He stated that he would frequently wake up in the night, was restless, and couldn't sleep, from fear that the prisoner would kill himself before morning.
It was common for the planters of Barbadoes, like those of Antigua, to declare that the greatest blessing of abolition to them, was that it relieved them from the disagreeable work of flogging the negroes. We had the unsolicited testimony of a planter, that slave mothers frequently poisoned, and otherwise murdered, their young infants, to rid them of a life of slavery. What a horrible comment this upon the cruelties of slavery! Scarce has the mother given birth to her child, when she becomes its murderer. The slave-mother's joy begins, not like that of other mothers, when "a man is born into the world," but when her infant is hurried out of existence, and its first faint cry is hushed in the silence of death! Why this perversion of nature? Ah, that mother knows the agonies, the torments, the wasting woes, of a life of slavery, and by the bowels of a mother's love, and the yearnings of a mother's pity, she resolves that her babe shall never know the same. O, estimate who can, how many groans have gone up from the cane field, from the boiling-house, from around the wind mill, from the bye paths, from the shade of every tree, from the recesses of every dungeon!
Colonel Barrow, of Edgecome estate, declared, that the habit of flogging was so strong among the overseers and book-keepers, that even now they frequently indulge it in the face of penalties and at the risk of forfeiting their place.
The descriptions which the special magistrates give of the lower class of overseers and the managers of the petty estates, furnish data enough for judging of the manner in which they would be likely to act when clothed with arbitrary power. They are "a low order of men," "without education," "trained up to use the whip," "knowing nothing else save the art of flogging," "ready at any time to perjure themselves in any matter where a negro is concerned," &c. Now, may we not ask what but cruelty, the most monstrous, could be expected under a system where such men were constituted law makers, judges, and executioners?
From the foregoing facts, and the still stronger circumstantial evidence, we leave the reader to judge for himself as to the amount of cruelty attendant upon "the reign of terror," in Barbadoes. We must, however, mention one qualification, without which a wrong impression may be made. It has already been remarked that Barbadoes has, more than any other island, reduced slave labor and sugar cultivation to a regular system. This the planters have been compelled to do from the denseness of their population, the smallness of their territory, the fact that the land was all occupied, and still more, because the island, from long continued cultivation, was partly worn out. A prominent feature in their system was, theoretically at least, good bodily treatment of the slaves, good feeding, attention to mothers, to pregnant women, and to children, in order that the estates might always be kept well stocked with good-conditioned negroes. They were considered the best managers, who increased the population of the estates most rapidly, and often premiums were given by the attorneys to such managers. Another feature in the Barbadoes system was to raise sufficient provisions in the island to maintain the slaves, or, in planter's phrase, to feed the stock, without being dependent upon foreign countries. This made the supplies of the slaves more certain and more abundant. From several circumstances in the condition of Barbadoes, it is manifest, that there were fewer motives to cruelty there than existed in other islands. First, the slave population was abundant, then the whole of the island was under cultivation, and again the lands were old and becoming exhausted. Now, if either one of these things had not been true, if the number of slaves had been inadequate to the cultivation, or if vast tracts of land, as in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Demerara, had been uncultivated, or were being brought into cultivation; or, again, if the lands under cultivation had been fresh and fertile, so as to bear pushing, then it is plain that there would have been inducements to hard driving, which, as the case was, did not exist.
Such is a partial view of Barbadoes as it was, touching the matter of cruelty. We say partial, for we have omitted to mention the selling of slaves from one estate to another, whereby families were separated, almost as effectually as though an ocean intervened. We have omitted to notice the transportation of slaves to Trinidad, Berbice, and Demerara, which was made an open traffic until prohibited in 1827, and was afterwards continued with but little abatement by evasions of the law.
From the painful contemplation of all this outrage and wrong, the mind is relieved by turning to the present state of the colony. It cannot be denied that much oppression grows out of the apprenticeship system, both from its essential nature, and from the want of virtuous principle and independence in the men who administer it. Yet it is certainly true that there has been a very great diminution in the amount of actual cruelty. The total abolition of flogging on the estates, the prohibition to use the dungeons, and depriving the masters, managers, overseers and drivers, of the right to punish in any case, or in any way whatever, leave no room for doubt on this subject. It is true, that the laws are often violated, but this can only take place in cases of excessive passion, and it is not likely to be a very frequent occurrence. The penalty of the law is so heavy,[A] and the chances of detection[B] are so great, that in all ordinary circumstances they will be a sufficient security against the violence of the master. On the other hand, the special magistrates themselves seldom use the whip, but resort to other modes of punishment less cruel and degrading. Besides, it is manifest that if they did use the whip and were ever so cruelly disposed, it would be physically impossible for them to inflict as much suffering as the drivers could during slavery; on account of the vast numbers over whom they preside. We learned from the apprentices themselves, by conversing with them, that their condition, in respect to treatment, is incomparably better than it was during slavery. We were satisfied from our observations and inquiries, that the planters, at least the more extensive and enlightened ones, conduct their estates on different principles from those formerly followed. Before the abolition of slavery, they regarded the whip as absolutely necessary to the cultivation of sugar, and hence they uniformly used it, and loudly deprecated its abolition as being their certain ruin. But since the whip has been abolished, and the planters have found that the negroes continue, nevertheless, industrious and subordinate, they have changed their measures, partly from necessity, and partly from policy, have adopted a conciliatory course.
[Footnote A: A fine of sixteen dollars for the first assault, and the liberation of the apprentice after a second.]
[Footnote B: Through the complaint of the apprentice to the special magistrate]
Barbadoes was not without its insurrections during slavery. Although not very frequent, they left upon the minds of the white colonists this conviction, (repeatedly expressed to us by planters and others,) that slavery and rebellions are inseparable. The last widely extended insurrection occurred in 1816, in the eastern part of the island. Some of the particulars were given us by a planter who resided to that region, and suffered by it great loss of property. The plot was so cautiously laid, and kept so secret, that no one suspected it. The planter observed that if any one had told him that such a thing was brewing ten minutes before it burst forth, he would not have credited the statement. It began with firing the cane-fields. A signal was given by a man setting fire to a pile of trash on an elevated spot, when instantly the fires broke out in every direction, and in less than a half hour, more than one hundred estates were in flames. The planters and their families, in the utmost alarm, either fled into other parts of the island, or seized their arms and hurriedly mustered in self-defence. Meanwhile the negroes, who had banded themselves in numerous companies, took advantage of the general consternation, proceeded to the deserted mansions of the planters, broke down the doors, battered in the windows, destroyed all the furniture, and carried away the provision stores to their own houses.
These ravages continued for three days, during which, the slaves flocked together in increasing numbers; in one place there were several thousands assembled. Above five hundred of the insurgents were shot down by the militia, before they could be arrested. The destruction of property during the rebellion was loosely estimated at many hundred thousand pounds. The canes on many estates were almost wholly burned; so that extensive properties, which ordinarily yielded from two to three hundred hogsheads, did not make more than fifteen or twenty.
Our informant mentioned two circumstances which he considered remarkable. One was, that the insurgents never touched the property of the estates to which they severally belonged; but went to the neighboring or more distant estates. The other was, that during the whole insurrection the negroes did not make a single attempt to destroy life. On the other hand, the sacrifice of negroes during the rebellion, and subsequent to it, was appalling. It was a long time before the white man's thirst for blood could be satiated.
No general insurrection occurred after this one. However, as late as 1823, the proprietor of Mount Wilton--the noblest estate in the island--was murdered by his slaves in a most horrid manner. A number of men entered his bed-chamber at night. He awoke ere they reached him, and grasped his sword, which always hung by his bed, but it was wrested from his hand, and he was mangled and killed. His death was caused by his cruelties, and especially by his extreme licentiousness. All the females on this estate were made successively the victims of his lust. This, together with his cruelties, so incensed the men, that they determined to murder the wretch. Several of them were publicly executed.
Next to the actual occurrence of rebellions, the fear of them deserves to be enumerated among the evils which slavery entailed upon Barbadoes. The dread of hurricanes to the people of Barbadoes is tolerable in comparison with the irrepressible apprehensions of bloody rebellions. A planter told us that he seldom went to bed without thinking he might be murdered before morning.
But now the whites are satisfied that slavery was the sole instigator of rebellions, and since its removal they have no fear on this score.
Licentiousness was another of the fruits of slavery. It will be difficult to give to the reader a proper conception of the prevalence of this vice in Barbadoes, and of the consequent demoralization. A numerous colored population were both the offspring and the victims of it. On a very moderate calculation, nineteen-twentieths of the present adult colored race are illegitimate. Concubinage was practised among the highest classes. Young merchants and others who were unmarried, on first going to the island, regularly engaged colored females to live with them as housekeepers and mistresses, and it was not unusual for a man to have more than one. The children of these connections usually sat with the mothers at the father's table, though when the gentlemen had company, neither mothers nor children made their appearance. To such conduct no disgrace was attached, nor was any shame felt by either party. We were assured that there are in Bridgetown, colored ladies of "respectability," who, though never married, have large families of children whose different surnames indicate their difference of parentage, but who probably do not know their fathers by any other token. These remarks apply to the towns. The morals of the estates were still more deplorable. The managers and overseers, commonly unmarried, left no female virtue unattempted. Rewards sometimes, but oftener the whip, or the dungeon, gave them the mastery in point of fact, which the laws allowed in theory. To the slaves marriage was scarcely known. They followed the example of the master, and were ready to minister to his lust. The mass of mulatto population grew paler as it multiplied, and catching the refinement along with the tint of civilization, waged a war upon marriage which had well nigh expelled it from the island. Such was Barbadoes under the auspices of slavery.
Although these evils still exist, yet, since the abolition of slavery, there is one symptom of returning purity, the sense of shame. Concubinage is becoming disreputable. The colored females are growing in self-respect, and are beginning to seek regular connections with colored men. They begin to feel (to use the language of one of them) that the light is come, and that they can no longer have the apology of ignorance to plead for their sin. It is the prevailing impression among whites, colored, and blacks, that open licentiousness cannot long survive slavery.
Prejudice was another of the concomitants of slavery. Barbadoes was proverbial for it. As far as was practicable, the colored people were excluded from all business connections; though merchants were compelled to make clerks of them for want of better, that is, whiter, ones. Colored merchants of wealth were shut out of the merchants' exchange, though possessed of untarnished integrity, while white men were admitted as subscribers without regard to character. It was not a little remarkable that the rooms occupied as the merchants' exchange were rented from a colored gentleman, or more properly, a negro;[A] who, though himself a merchant of extensive business at home and abroad, and occupying the floor below with a store, was not suffered to set his foot within them. This merchant, it will be remembered, is educating a son for a learned profession at the university of Edinburgh. Colored gentlemen were not allowed to become members of literary associations, nor subscribers to the town libraries. Social intercourse was utterly interdicted. To visit the houses of such men as we have already mentioned in a previous chapter, and especially to sit down at their tables, would have been a loss of caste; although the gentry were at the same time living with colored concubines. But most of all did this wicked prejudice delight to display itself in the churches. Originally, we believe, the despised color was confined to the galleries, afterwards it was admitted to the seats under the galleries, and ultimately it was allowed to extend to the body pews below the cross aisle. If perchance one of the proscribed class should ignorantly stray beyond these precincts, and take a seat above the cross aisle, he was instantly, if not forcibly, removed. Every opportunity was maliciously seized to taunt the colored people with their complexion. A gentleman of the highest worth stated that several years ago he applied to the proper officer for a license to be married. The license was accordingly made out and handed to him. It was expressed in the following insulting style: "T---- H----, F.M., is licensed to marry H---- L----, F.C.W." The initials F.M. stood for free mulatto, and F.C.W. for free colored woman! The gentleman took his knife and cut out the initials; and was then threatened with a prosecution for forging his license.