The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus · Chapter 76Part 76
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2. Was the stimulus of wages substituted? No! That was expressly denied. Was the liberty of locomotion granted? No. Was the privilege of gaining a personal interest in the soil extended to them? No. Were the immunities and rights of citizenship secured to them? No. Was the poor favor allowed them of selecting their own business, or of choosing their employer? Not even this? Thus far, then, we see nothing of the milder measures of the apprenticeship. It has indeed opened the prison doors and knocked off the prisoners' chains--but it still keeps them grinding there, as before, and refuses to let them come forth, except occasionally, and then only to be thrust back again. Is it not thus directly calculated to encourage indolence and insubordination?
3. In the next place, this system introduces a third party, to whom the apprentice is encouraged to look for justice, redress, and counsel. Thus he is led to regard his master as his enemy, and all confidence in him is for ever destroyed. But this is not the end of the difficulty. The apprentice carries up complaints against his master. If they gain a favorable hearing he triumphs over him--if they are disregarded, he concludes that the magistrate also is his enemy, and he goes away with a rankling grudge against his master. Thus he is gradually led to assert his own cause, and he learns to contend with his master, to reply insolently, to dispute, quarrel, and--it is well that we cannot add, to fight. At least one thing is the result--a permanent state of alienation, contempt of authority, and hatred. All these are the fruits of the apprenticeship system. They are caused by transferring the power of the master, while the relation continues the same. Nor is this contempt for the master, this alienation and hatred, all the mischief. The unjust decisions of the magistrate, of which the apprentices have such abundant reasons to complain, excite their abhorrence of him, and thus their confidence in the protection of law is weakened or destroyed. Here, then, is contempt for the master, abhorrence of the magistrate, and mistrust of the law--the apprentice regarding all three as leagued together to rob him of his rights. What a combination of circumstances to drive the apprentices to desperation and madness! What a marvel that the outraged negroes have been restrained from bloody rebellions!
Another insurrectionary feature peculiar to the apprenticeship is its making the apprentices free a portion of the time. One fourth of the time is given them every week--just enough to afford them a taste of the sweets of liberty, and render them dissatisfied with their condition. Then the manner in which this time is divided is calculated to irritate. After being a slave nine hours, the apprentice is made a freeman for the remainder of the day; early the next morning the halter is again put on, and he treads the wheel another day. Thus the week wears away until Saturday; which is an entire day of freedom. The negro goes out and works for his master, or any one else, as he pleases, and at night he receives his quarter of a dollar. This is something like freedom, and he begins to have the feelings of a freeman--a lighter heart and more active limbs. He puts his money carefully away at night, and lays himself down to rest his toil-worn body. He awakes on Sabbath morning, and is still free. He puts on his best clothes, goes to church, worships a free God, contemplates a free heaven, sees his free children about him, and his wedded wife; and ere the night again returns, the consciousness that he is a slave is quite lost in the thoughts of liberty which fill his breast, and the associations of freedom which cluster around him. He sleeps again. Monday morning he is startled from his dreams by the old "shell-blow" of slavery, and he arises to endure another week of toil, alternated by the same tantalizing mockeries of freedom. Is not this applying the hot iron to the nerve?
5. But, lastly, the apprenticeship system, as if it would apply the match to this magazine of combustibles, holds out the reward of liberty to every apprentice who shall by any means provoke his master to punish him a second time.
[NOTE.--In a former part of this work--the report of Antigua--we mentioned having received information respecting a number of the apprenticeship islands, viz., Dominica, St. Christopher's, Nevis, Montserrat, Anguilla, and Tortola, from the Wesleyan Missionaries whom we providentially met with at the annual district meeting in Antigua. We designed to give the statements of these men at some length in this connection, but we find that it would swell our report to too great a size. It only remains to say, therefore, in a word, that the same things are generally true of those colonies which have been detailed in the account of Barbadoes. There is the same peaceableness, subordination, industry, and patient suffering on the part of the apprentices, the same inefficiency of the apprenticeship as a preparation for freedom, and the same conviction in the community that the people will, if at all affected by it, be less fit for emancipation in 1840 than they were in 1834. A short call at St. Christopher's confirmed these views in our minds, so far as that island is concerned.
While in Barbadoes, we had repeated interviews with gentlemen who were well acquainted with the adjacent islands, St. Lucia, St. Vincent's, Grenada, &c.; one of whom was a proprietor of a sugar estate in St. Vincent's; and they assured us that there was the same tranquillity reigning in those islands which we saw in Barbadoes. Sir Evan McGregor, who is the governor-general of the windward colonies, and of course thoroughly informed respecting their internal state, gave us the same assurances. From Mr. H., an American gentleman, a merchant of Barbadoes, and formerly of Trinidad, we gathered similar information touching that large and (compared with Barbadoes or Antigua) semi-barbarous island.
We learned enough from these authentic sources to satisfy ourselves that the various degrees of intelligence in the several islands makes very little difference in the actual results of abolition; but that in all the colonies, conciliatory and equitable management has never failed to secure industry and tranquillity.]
KINGSTON.
Having drawn out in detail the results of abolition, and the working of the apprenticeship system in Barbadoes, we shall spare the reader a protracted account of Jamaica; but the importance of that colony, and the fact that greater dissatisfaction on account of the abolition of slavery has prevailed there than in all the other colonies together, demand a careful statement of facts.
On landing in Jamaica, we pushed onward in our appropriate inquiries, scarcely stopping to cast a glance at the towering mountains, with their cloud-wreathed tops, and the valleys where sunshine and shade sleep side by side--at the frowning precipices, made more awful by the impenetrable forest-foliage which shrouds the abysses below, leaving the impression of an ocean depth--at the broad lawns and magnificent savannahs glowing in verdure and sunlight--at the princely estates and palace mansions--at the luxuriant cultivation, and the sublime solitude of primeval forests, where trees of every name, the mahogany, the boxwood, the rosewood, the cedar, the palm, the fern, the bamboo, the cocoa, the breadfruit, the mango, the almond, all grow in wild confusion, interwoven with a dense tangled undergrowth.[A]
[Footnote A: It is less necessary for us to dwell long on Jamaica, than it would otherwise be, since the English gentlemen, Messrs. Sturge and Harvey, spent most of their time in that island, and will, doubtless, publish their investigations, which will, ere long, be accessible to our readers. We had the pleasure of meeting these intelligent philanthropic and pious men in the West Indies, and from the great length of time, and the superior facilities which they enjoyed over us, of gathering a mass of facts in Jamaica, we feel assured that their report will be highly interesting and useful, as well among us as on the other side of the water.]
We were one month in Jamaica. For about a week we remained in Kingston,[B] and called on some of the principal gentlemen, both white and colored. We visited the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, some of the editors, the Baptist and Wesleyan missionaries, and several merchants. We likewise visited the public schools, the house of correction, penitentiary, hospital, and other public institutions. We shall speak briefly of several individuals whom we saw in Kingston, and give some of their statements.
[Footnote B: The chief town of the island, with about forty thousand inhabitants.]
The Hon. Dowel O'Reily; the Attorney-General; is an Irishman, and of one of the influential families. In his own country he was a prominent politician, and a bold advocate of Catholic Emancipation. He is decidedly one of the ablest men in the island, distinguished for that simplicity of manners, and flow of natural benevolence, which are the characteristics of the Irishman. He received his present appointment from the English government about six years ago, and is, by virtue of his office, a member of the council. He declared that the apprenticeship was in no manner preparing the negroes for freedom, but was operating in a contrary way, especially in Jamaica, where it had been made the instrument of greater cruelties in some cases, than slavery itself. Mr. O'Reily is entirely free from prejudice; with all his family rank and official standing, he identifies himself with the colored people as far as his extensive professional engagements will allow. Having early learned this, we were surprised to find him so highly respected by the whites. In our subsequent excursions to the country, the letters of introduction with which he kindly furnished us, to planters and others, were uniformly received with avowals of the profoundest respect for him. It should be observed, that Mr. O'Reily's attachment to the cause of freedom in the colonies, is not a mere partizan feeling assumed in order to be in keeping with the government under which he holds his office. The fact of his being a Roman Catholic must, of itself, acquit him of the suspicion of any strong partiality for the English government. On the other hand, his decided hostility to the apprenticeship--the favorite offspring of British legislation--demonstrates equally his sincerity and independence.
We were introduced to the Solicitor-General, William Henry Anderson, Esq., of Kingston. Mr. A. is a Scotchman, and has resided to Jamaica for more than six years. We found him the fearless advocate of negro emancipation. He exposed the corruptions and abominations of the apprenticeship without reserve. Mr. A. furnished us with a written statement of his views, respecting the state of the island, the condition of the apprentices, &c., from which we here make a few extracts.
"1. A very material change for the better has taken place in the sentiments of the community since slavery was abolished. Religion and education were formerly opposed as subversive of the security of property; now they are in the most direct manner encouraged as its best support. The value of all kinds of property has risen considerably, and a general sense of security appears to be rapidly pervading the public mind. I have not heard one man assert that it would be an advantage to return to slavery, even were it practicable; and I believe that the public is beginning to see that slave labor is not the cheapest."
"2. The prejudices against color are rapidly vanishing. I do not think there is a respectable man, I mean one who would be regarded as respectable on account of his good sense and weight of character, who would impugn another's conduct for associating with persons of color. So far as my observation goes, those who would formerly have acted on these prejudices, will be ashamed to own that they had entertained them. The distinction of superior acquirements still belongs to the whites, as a body; but that, and character, will shortly be the only distinguishing mark recognized among us."
"3. The apprentices are improving, not, however, in consequence of the apprenticeship, but in spite of it, and in consequence of the great act of abolition!"
"4. I think the negroes might have been emancipated as safely in 1834, as in 1840; and had the emancipation then taken place, they would be found much further in advance in 1840, than they can be after the expiration of the present period of apprenticeship, through which all, both apprentices and masters, are LABORING HEAVILY."
"5. That the negroes will work if moderately compensated, no candid man can doubt. Their endurance for the sake of a very little gain is quite amazing, and they are most desirous to procure for themselves and families as large a share as possible of the comforts and decencies of life. They appear peculiarly to reverence and desire intellectual attainments. They employ, occasionally, children who have been taught in the schools to teach them in their leisure time to read."
"6. I think the partial modifications of slavery have been attended by so much improvement in all that constitutes the welfare and respectability of society, that I cannot doubt the increase of the benefit were a total abolition accomplished of every restriction that has arisen out of the former state of things."
During our stay in Kingston, we called on the American consul, to whom we had a letter from the consul at Antigua. We found him an elderly gentleman, and a true hearted Virginian, both in his generosity and his prejudices in favor of slavery. The consul, Colonel Harrison, is a near relation of General W.H. Harrison, of Ohio. Things, he said, were going ruinously in Jamaica. The English government were mad for abolishing slavery. The negroes of Jamaica were the most degraded and ignorant of all negroes he had ever seen. He had travelled in all our Southern States, and the American negroes, even those of South Carolina and Georgia, were as much superior to the negroes of Jamaica, as Henry Clay was superior to him. He said they were the most ungrateful, faithless set he ever saw; no confidence could be placed in them, and kindness was always requited by insult. He proceeded to relate a fact from which it appeared that the ground on which his grave charges against the negro character rested, was the ill-conduct of one negro woman whom he had hired some time ago to assist his family. The town negroes, he said, were too lazy to work; they loitered and lounged about on the sidewalks all day, jabbering with one another, and keeping up an incessant noise; and they would not suffer a white man to order them in the least. They were rearing their children in perfect idleness and for his part he could not tell what would become of the rising population of blacks. Their parents were too proud to let them work, and they sent them to school all the time. Every afternoon, he said, the streets are thronged with the half-naked little black devils, just broke from the schools, and all singing some noisy tune learned in the infant schools; the burthen of their songs seems to be, "O that will be joyful." These words, said he, are ringing in your ears wherever you go. How aggravating truly such words must be, bursting cheerily from the lips of the little free songsters! "O that will be joyful, joyful, JOYFUL"--and so they ring the changes day after day, ceaseless and untiring. A new song this, well befitting the times and the prospects, but provoking enough to oppressors. The consul denounced he special magistrates; they were an insolent set of fellows, they would fine a white man as quick as they would flog a nigger.[A] If a master called his apprentice "you scoundrel," or, "you huzzy," the magistrate would either fine him for it or reprove him sharply in the presence of the apprentice. This, in the eyes of the veteran Virginian, was intolerable. Outrageous, not to allow a gentleman to call his servant what names he chooses! We were very much edified by the Colonel's exposé of Jamaica manners. We must say, however, that his opinions had much less weight with us after we learned (as we did from the best authority) that he had never been a half dozen miles into the country during a ten year's residence in Kingston.
[Footnote A: We fear there is too little truth in this representation.]
We called on the Rev. Jonathan Edmonson, the superintendent of the Wesleyan missions in Jamaica. Mr. E. has been for many years laboring as a missionary in the West Indies, first in Barbadoes, then in St. Vincent's, Grenada, Trinidad, and Demerara, and lastly in Jamaica. He stated that the planters were doing comparatively nothing to prepare the negroes for freedom. "Their whole object was to get as much sugar out of them as they possibly could."
We received a call from the Rev. Mr. Wooldridge, one of the Independent missionaries. He thinks the conduct of the planters is tending to make the apprentices their bitter enemies. He mentioned one effect of the apprenticeship which had not been pointed out to us before. The system of appraisement, he said, was a premium upon all the bad qualities of the negroes and a tax upon all the good ones. When a person is to be appraised, his virtues and his vices are always inquired into, and they materially influence the estimate of his value. For example, the usual rate of appraisement is a dollar per week for the remainder of the term; but if the apprentice is particularly sober, honest, and industrious, more particularly if he be a pious man, he is valued at the rate of two or three dollars per week. It was consequently for the interest of the master, when an apprentice applied for an appraisement, to portray his virtues, while on the other hand there was an inducement for the apprentice to conceal or actually to renounce his good qualities, and foster the worst vices. Some instances of this kind had fallen under his personal observation.
We called on the Rev. Mr. Gardiner, and on the Rev. Mr. Tinson, two Baptist missionaries in Kingston. On Sabbath we attended service at the church of which Mr. G. is the pastor. It is a very large building, capable of seating two thousand persons. The great mass of the congregation were apprentices. At the time we were present, the chapel was well filled, and the broad surface of black faces was scarcely at all diversified with lighter colors. It was gratifying to witness the neatness of dress, the sobriety of demeanor, the devotional aspect of countenance, the quiet and wakeful attention to the preacher which prevailed. They were mostly rural negroes from the estates adjacent to Kingston.
The Baptists are the most numerous body of Christians in the island. The number of their missionaries now in Jamaica is sixteen, the number of Chapels is thirty-one, and the number of members thirty-two thousand nine hundred and sixty. The increase of members during the year 1836 was three thousand three hundred and forty-four.
At present the missionary field is mostly engrossed by the Baptists and Wesleyans. The Moravians are the next most numerous body. Besides these, there are the clergy of the English Church, with a Bishop, and a few Scotch clergymen. The Baptist missionaries, as a body, have been most distinguished for their opposition to slavery. Their boldness in the midst of suffering and persecutions, their denunciations of oppression, though they did for a time arouse the wrath of oppressors, and cause their chapels to be torn down and themselves to be hunted, imprisoned, and banished, did more probably than any other cause, to hasten the abolition of slavery.
Schools in Kingston.--We visited the Wolmer free school--the largest and oldest school in the island. The whole number of scholars is five hundred. It is under the charge of Mr. Reid, a venerable Scotchman, of scholarship and piety. All colors are mingled in it promiscuously. We saw the infant school department examined by Mr. R. There were nearly one hundred and fifty children, of every hue, from the jettiest black to the fairest white; they were thoroughly intermingled, and the ready answers ran along the ranks from black to white, from white to brown, from brown to pale, with undistinguished vivacity and accuracy. We were afterwards conducted into the higher department, where lads and misses from nine to fifteen, were instructed in the various branches of academic education. A class of lads, mostly colored, were examined in arithmetic. They wrought several sums in pounds, shillings and pence currency, with wonderful celerity.
Among other things which we witnessed in that school, we shall not soon forget having seen a curly headed negro lad of twelve, examining a class of white young ladies in scientific history.
Some written statements and statistical tables were furnished us by Mr. Reid, which we subjoin..
Kingston, May 13th, 1837
DEAR SIR,--I delayed answering your queries in hopes of being able to give you an accurate list of the number of schools in Kingston, and pupils under tuition, but have not been able completely to accomplish my intention. I shall now answer your queries in the order you propose them. 1st Quest. How long have you been teaching in Jamaica? Ans. Thirty-eight years in Kingston. 2d Q. How long have you been master of Wolmer's free school? A. Twenty-three years. 3d Q. What is the number of colored children now in the school? A. Four hundred and thirty. 4th Q. Was there any opposition to their admission at first? A. Considerable opposition the first year, but none afterwards. 5th Q. Do they learn as readily us the white children? A. As they are more regular in their attendance, they learn better. 6th Q. Are they as easily governed? A. Much easier. 7th Q. What proportion of the school are the children of apprentices? A. Fifty. 8th Q. Do their parents manifest a desire to have them educated? A. In general they do. 9th Q. At what age do the children leave your school? A. Generally between twelve and fourteen. 10th Q What employments do they chiefly engage in upon leaving you? A. The boys go to various mechanic trades, to counting-houses, attorney's offices, clerks to planting attorneys, and others become planters. The, girls seamstresses, mantuamakers, and a considerable proportion tailoresses, in Kingston and throughout Jamaica, as situations offer.
I am, dear sirs, yours respectfully,
E. REID.
The following table will show the average numbers of the respective classes, white and colored, who have attended Wolmer's free school in each year, from 1814 to the present time.
With regard to the comparative intellect of white and colored children, Mr. Reid gives the following valuable statement:
"For the last thirty-eight years I have been employed in this city in the tuition of children of all classes and colors, and have no hesitation in saying that the children of color are equal both in conduct and ability to the white. They have always carried off more than their proportion of prizes, and at one examination, out of seventy prizes awarded, sixty-four were obtained by children of color."
Mr. R. afterwards sent to us the table of the number of schools in Kingston, alluded to in the foregoing communication. We insert it here, as it affords a view of the increase of schools and scholars since the abolition of slavery.
1831.
1832.
1836.
1837.
We also visited the Union school, which has been established for some years in Kingston. All the children connected with it, about one hundred and fifty, are, with two exceptions, black or colored. The school is conducted generally on the Lancasterian plan. We examined several of the boys in arithmetic. We put a variety of questions to them, to be worked out on the slate, and the reasons of the process to be explained as they went along; all which they executed with great expertness. There was a jet black boy, whom we selected for a special trial. We commenced with the simple rules, and went through them one by one, together with the compound rules and Reduction, to Practice, propounding questions and examples in each of them, which were entirely new to him, and to all of them he gave prompt and correct replies. He was only thirteen years old, and we can aver we never saw a boy of that age in any of our common schools, that exhibited a fuller and clearer knowledge of the science of numbers.
In general, our opinion of this school was similar to that already expressed concerning the others. It is supported by the pupils, aided by six hundred dollars granted by the assembly.
In connection with this subject, there is one fact of much interest. However strong and exclusive was the prejudice of color a few years since in the schools of Jamaica, we could not, during our stay in that island, learn of more than two or three places of education, and those private ones, from which colored children were excluded, and among the numerous schools in Kingston, there is not one of this kind.
We called on several colored gentlemen of Kingston, from whom we received much valuable information. The colored population are opposed to the apprenticeship, and all the influence which they have, both in the colony and with the home government, (which is not small,) is exerted against it. They are a festering thorn in the sides of the planters, among whom they maintain a fearless espionage, exposing by pen and tongue their iniquitous proceedings. It is to be regretted that their influence in this respect is so sadly weakened by their holding apprentices themselves.
We had repeated invitations to breakfast and dine with colored gentlemen, which we accepted as often as our engagements would permit. On such occasions we generally met a company of gentlemen and ladies of superior social and intellectual accomplishments. We must say, that it is a great self-denial to refrain from a description of some of the animated, and we must add splendid, parties of colored people which we attended. The conversation on these occasions mostly turned on the political and civil disabilities under which the colored population formerly labored, and the various straggles by which they ultimately obtained their rights. The following are a few items of their history. The colored people of Jamaica, though very numerous, and to some extent wealthy and intelligent, were long kept by the white colonists in a state of abject political bondage. Not only were offices withheld from them, and the right of suffrage denied, but they were not even allowed the privilege of an oath in court, in defense of their property or their persons. They might be violently assaulted, their limbs broken, their wives and daughters might be outraged before their eyes by villains having white skins; yet they had no legal redress unless another white man chanced to see the deed. It was not until 1824 that this oppressive enactment was repealed, and the protection of an oath extended to the colored people; nor was it then effected without a long struggle on their part.
Another law, equally worthy of a slaveholding legislature, prohibited any white man, however wealthy, bequeathing, or in any manner giving his colored son or daughter more than £2000 currency, or six thousand dollars. The design of this law was to keep the colored people poor and dependent upon the whites. Further to secure the same object, every effort, both legislative and private, was made to debar them from schools, and sink them in the lowest ignorance. Their young men of talent were glad to get situations as clerks in the stores of white merchants. Their young ladies of beauty and accomplishments were fortune-made if they got a place in the white man's harem. These were the highest stations to which the flower of their youth aspired. The rest sank beneath the discouragements, and grovelled in vice and debasement. If a colored person had any business with a white gentleman, and should call at his house, "he must take off his hat, and wait at the door, and be as polite as a dog."
These insults and oppressions the colored people in Jamaica bore, until they could bear them no longer. By secret correspondence they formed a union throughout the island, for the purpose of resistance. This, however, was not effected for a long time, and while in process, the correspondence was detected, and the most vigorous means were used by the whites to crush the growing conspiracy--for such it was virtually. Persuasions and intimations were used privately, and when these failed, public persecutions were resorted to, under the form of judicial procedures. Among the milder means was the dismission of clerks, agents, &c., from the employ of a white men. As soon as a merchant discovered that his clerk was implicated in the correspondence, he first threatened to discharge him unless he would promise to desert his brethren: if he could not extort this promise, he immediately put his threat in execution. Edward Jordon, Esq., the talented editor of the Watchman, then first clerk in the store of a Mr. Briden, was prominently concerned in the correspondence, and was summarily dismissed.
White men drove their colored sons from their houses, and subjected them to every indignity and suffering, in order to deter them from prosecuting an enterprise which was seen by the terrified oppressors to be fraught with danger to themselves. Then followed more violent measures. Persons suspected of being the projectors of the disaffection, were dragged before incensed judges, and after mock trials, were sentenced to imprisonment in the city jail. Messrs. Jordon and Osborne, (after they had established the Watchman paper,) were both imprisoned; the former twice, for five months each time. At the close of the second term of imprisonment, Mr. Jordon was tried for his life, on the charge of having published seditious matter in the Watchman.