The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus · Chapter 84Part 84
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. | | | d | | | e | PIMENTO | COFFEE | t | | | r |_____________|__________| o | | | | p | | | | x | | | | REMARKS E | | | s | | s | | d | r | k | s | n | a | s | g | u | e | a | a | o | Y | C | B | P | ________________________________________________________________ 1772| | | 841,558| 1773| | | 779,303| 1774| | | 739,039| 1775| | | 493,981| 1776| | | | 1788| | | 1,035,368| 1789| | | 1,493,282| 1790| | | 1,783,740| 1791| | | 2,299,874| August--Destruction of 1792| | | | Santo Domingo. 1793| 420| 9,108| 3,983,576| 1794| 554|22,153| 4,911,549| 1795| 957|20,451| 6,318,812| 1796| 136| 9,820| 7,203,539| 1797| 328| 2,935| 7,869,133| 1798| 1,181| 8,961| 7,894,306| 1799| 1,766|28,273|11,745,425| Bourbon cane introduced. 1800| 610|12,759|11,116,474| 1801| 648|14,084|13,401,468| 1802| 591| 7,793|17,961,923| 1803| 867|14,875|15,866,291| 1804| 1,417|19,572|22,063,980| 1805| 288| 7,157|21,137,393| Largest sugar crop. 1806| 1,094|19,534|29,298,036| 1807| 525|19,224|26,761,188| March 25th, abolition of 1808| 225| 6,529|29,528,273| African slave trade. 1809|21,022| 1,177|25,586,668| 1810| 4,276|21,163|25,885,285| 1811| 638|22,074|17,460,068| 1812| 598| 7,778|18,481,986| 1813| 1,124|14,361|24,623,572| Storm in October, 1812 1814| 394|10,711|34,045,585| Largest coffee crop. 1815| 844|27,386|27,362,742| 1816| 851|28,047|17,289,393| Storm in October, 1815 1817| 946|15,817|14,793,706| 1818| 941|21,071|25,329,456| 1819| 882|24,500|14,091,983| 1820| 673|12,880|22,127,444| 1821| 1,224|24,827|16,819,761| 1822| 699|18,672|19,773,912| Extreme drought. 1823| 1,894|21,481|20,326,445| Mr. Canning's resolutions 1824| 599|33,306|27,667,239| relative to slavery. 1825| 537|20,979|21,254,656| 1826| 522|16,433|20,352,886| Severe drought in 1824, the previous year. 1827| 3,236|26,691|25,741,520| 1828| 4,003|25,352|22,216,780| 1829| 3,733|48,933|22,234,640| 1830| 5,609|37,925|22,256,950| 1831| 2,844|22,170|14,055,350| 1832| 3,736|27,936|19,815,010| 1833| 7,741|58,581| 9,866,060| Emancipation act passed. 1834| 496|29,301|17,725,731| Seasons favorable. 1835| 1,115|59,033|10,593,018| do. 1836| 227|46,779|13,446,053| do.
The following are the remarks of the editor of the Jamaica Watchman, on the foregoing, in his paper of April 8, 1837:--
A general return of exports from the island for fifty-three years, ending the 31st December last, and purporting to be extracted from the journals of the assembly, has been published, and as usual, the decrease in the crops of the respective years has been attributed to the resolutions passed by the British House of Commons in 1823, and the abolition of slavery in 1833. It is remarkable that in preparing this table, a manifest disposition is evinced to account for the falling off of the crops in certain years anterior, and subsequent to the passing of Mr. Canning's memorable resolution, whilst opposite to the years 1834 and 1835, is written "seasons favorable." In 1813, the sugar crop fell off 8,000 hhds. compared with the previous year, and we are told in reference to this circumstance, that there was a storm in October, 1812. This remark is evidently made to account for the decrease, and perhaps the storm at the close of the previous year was the cause of it. But it is astonishing, and the circumstance is worthy of notice, that whilst the sugar crop fell off nearly 8,000 hhds. the coffee crop increased nearly six millions of pounds. We should have supposed that the coffee trees would have suffered more from the effects of a storm, than the canes. However, the effect was as we have stated it, whatever might have been the cause. In 1814, the largest coffee crop was made. Again, in 1816, there was a decrease in the sugar crop compared with the year immediately preceding it of nearly 25,000 hhds. And here we have the storm of October, 1815, assigned as a reason. The coffee crop in this instance also fell off nearly ten millions of pounds. In 1822, the sugar crop was reduced 23,000 hhds., and the coffee crop increased three millions of pounds. The reason now assigned is an "extreme drought." The celebrated resolutions relative to slavery now appear to begin to exercise their baneful influence on the seasons and the soil of our island. In the year in which they were passed, 1823, 94,900 hogsheads of sugar were made, and twenty millions of pounds of coffee gathered. 1824 came, and the crop, instead of being reduced, was increased from nearly 95,000 hogsheads to upwards of 99,000 hogsheads. The coffee crop was also greater by seven millions of pounds. In 1825, they fall off to 73,860 hogsheads and twenty-one millions. In 1826, the sugar crop rather exceeded that of 1824, but the coffee crop was seven millions less. In 1827, from causes not known to us, for none were assigned, there was a difference of 16,000 hhds. of sugar, and an increase of five millions of pounds of coffee. 1828, 29, and 30, were pretty nearly alike in sugar and coffee crops, and about equal to 1823. The crops of 1831 fell off from 93 to 88,000 hogsheads of sugar, and from 22 to 14 millions of pounds of coffee. No reason is assigned for this reduction. It was during the continuance of the driving system, and therefore no blame can attach to the managers. In 1832, the crop rose to 91,000 hogsheads of sugar, and nearly twenty millions of pounds of coffee. But 1833 comes, and, with it, fresh troubles for the planters. In that ill-fated year, there was a decrease of 13,000 hogsheads sugar, and of ten millions of pounds of coffee. Its sugar crop was the smallest made, with the exception of that of 1825, since 1793, and its coffee crop since that of 1798. But if this determination be alarming, what must be that of the succeeding years. Can we be blamed, if, in a strain truly lachrymal, we allude to the deductions which have annually been made from the miserable return which 1833 gave to the unfortunate proprietors of estates? What boots it to tell us that we have fingered thousands of pounds sterling, in the shape of compensation: and what consolation is it to know, that a hogshead of sugar will now bring thirty pounds, which, a short time ago, was only worth twelve. Let any unprejudiced individual look at the return now before us, and say whether our prospects are not deplorably dull and obscure. If we take the four years immediately preceding the passing of Mr. Canning's resolutions, say 1819, 20, 21, and 22; we will find the average to be 105,858 hogsheads, and if from this we even deduct one fourth for the time now lost, there will be an average crop of 79,394 hhds., being 7,185 hogsheads mere than the average of 1833, 34, 35, and 36; and no one will deny that this falling off of one tenth, (supposing that the hogsheads made during the last four years are not larger than those of 1819 to 1822) is nearly, if not quite equal to the increase of price, from twelve to thirty pounds, or one hundred and fifty per cent.
It is true some persons may be disposed to take the four years subsequent to the passing of Mr. Canning's resolutions, say 1823, 4, 5, and 6, and compare them with the four years ending 31st December last. Should this be done, it will be found that the average crop of the previous four years is 91,980 hhds., and if from it is deducted one fourth, there will remain 68,985 hhds., whilst the average of the other four years is 72,200 hhds. Such a mode of comparison must, however, be obviously incorrect; because, in the first place, Mr. Canning's resolutions had reduced the crops of those years considerably below the average of the years immediately preceding them, and next, because it would show the advantage to be on the side of freedom in the ratio of seventy-two to sixty-nine, which cannot be correct. Besides, in 1824, there was a severe drought, whereas in 1834 and 35 the seasons are reported as being favorable. Again, it is necessary, in instituting such an inquiry, to go back more than fourteen years; nor is it a valid objection to this to say, that even during that period a number of estates have been thrown out of cultivation, in consequence of being worn out and unprofitable. "Deplorable," however, as is the "falling off in the yearly amounts of our staple productions, which have decreased," gentle reader, according to the despatch, "in an accelerated ratio within the last few years, till in the year 1836, when they do not average one half the returns of former years preceding that of 1823, the year that Mr. Canning's resolutions for the ultimate abolition of slavery in the British colonies passed the House of Commons," still it is a matter of sincere gratification to know, that the sugar planters are better off now than they have been for the last fourteen or fifteen years. With the compensation money a great many of them have been enabled to pay off their English debts, and the remainder very considerably to reduce them, whilst the reduction in the quantity of sugar produced, has occasioned such a rise in the price of that article as will place the former in easy circumstances, and enable the latter entirely to free themselves from the trammels of English mortgagees, and the tender mercies of English mortgagees before the 1st August, 1840, arrives. And ought these parties not to be thankful? Unquestionably they ought. Ingratitude, we are told, is as the sin of witchcraft, and although the table of exports exhibits our fair island as hastening to a state of ruin, and the despatch tells us that "by the united influence of mock philanthropy, religious cant, and humbug," a reformed parliament was forced "to precipitate the slavery spoliation act under the specious pretext of promoting the industry and improving the condition of the manumitted slaves," still we maintain, and the reasonable will agree with us, that we are much better off now than we have been for a long time, and that Jamaica's brightest and happiest days have not yet dawned. Let the croakers remember the remarkable words of the Tory Lord, Belmore, the planter's friend, and be silent--"The resources of this fine island will never be fully developed until slavery ceases." The happiness and prosperity of the inhabitants of Jamaica are not contingent, nor need they be, upon the number of hogsheads of sugar annually exported from her shores.
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To the foregoing we add the remarks of the editor of the "Spanishtown Telegraph," on the present state of the colony, made in his paper of May 9, 1837:--
"When it was understood that the island of Jamaica and the other British West Indian colonies were to undergo the blessed transition from slavery to freedom, it was the hourly cry of the pro-slavery party and press, that the ruin of Jamaica would, as a natural consequence, follow liberty! Commerce, said they, will cease; hordes of barbarians will come upon us and drive us from our own properties; agriculture will be completely paralyzed; and Jamaica, in the space of a few short months, will be seen buried in ashes--irretrievably ruined. Such were the awful predictions of an unjust, illiberal faction!! Such the first fruits that were to follow the incomparable blessings of liberty! The staple productions of the island, it was vainly surmised, could never be cultivated without the name of slavery; rebellions, massacres, starvation, rapine and bloodshed, danced through the columns of the liberty-hating papers, in mazes of metaphorical confusion. In short, the name of freedom was, according to their assertions, directly calculated to overthrow our beautiful island, and involve it in one mass of ruin, unequalled in the annals of history!! But what has been the result? All their fearful forebodings and horrible predictions have been entirely disproved, and instead of liberty proving a curse, she has, on the contrary, unfolded her banners, and, ere long, is likely to reign triumphant in our land. Banks, steam companies, railroads, charity schools, etc., seem all to have remained dormant until the time arrived when Jamaica was to be enveloped in smoke! No man thought of hazarding his capital in an extensive banking establishment until Jamaica's ruin, by the introduction of freedom, had been accomplished!! No person was found possessed of sufficient energy to speak of navigation companies in Jamaica's brightest days of slavery; but now that ruin stares every one in the face--now that we have no longer the power to treat out peasantry as we please, they have taken it into their heads to establish so excellent an undertaking. Railroads were not dreamt of until darling slavery had (in a great measure) departed, and now, when we thought of throwing up our estates, and flying from the dangers of emancipation, the best projects are being set on foot, and what is worst, are likely to succeed! This is the way that our Jamaica folks, no doubt, reason with themselves. But the reasons for the delay which have taken place in the establishment of all these valuable undertakings, are too evident to require elucidation. We behold the Despatch and Chronicle, asserting the ruin of our island; the overthrow of all order and society; and with the knowledge of all this, they speak of the profits likely to result from steam navigation, banking establishments, and railroads! What in the name of conscience, can be the use of steam-vessels when Jamaica's ruin is so fast approaching? What are the planters and merchants to ship in steamers when the apprentices will not work, and there is nothing doing? How is the bank expected to advance money to the planters, when their total destruction has been accomplished by the abolition of slavery? What, in the name of reason, can be the use of railroads, when commerce and agriculture have been nipped in the bud, by that baneful weed, Freedom? Let the unjust panderers of discord, the haters of liberty, answer. Let them consider what has all this time retarded the development of Jamaica's resources, and they will find that it was slavery; yes, it was its very name which prevented the idea of undertakings such as are being brought about. Had it not been for the introduction of freedom in our land; had the cruel monster, Slavery, not partially disappeared, when would we have seen banks, steamers, or railroads? No man thought of hazarding his capital in the days of slavery, but now that a new era has burst upon us, a complete change has taken possession of the hearts of all just men, and they think of improving the blessing of freedom by the introduction of other things which must ever prove beneficial to the country.
The vast improvements that are every day being effected in this island, and throughout the other colonies, stamp the assertions of the pro-slavery party as the vilest falsehoods. They glory in the introduction of banks, steam-vessels, and railroads; with the knowledge (as they would have us believe) that the island is fast verging into destruction. They speak of the utility and success of railroads, when, according to their showing, there is no produce to be sent to market, when agriculture has been paralyzed, and Jamaica swept to destruction."
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The following copious extracts from a speech of Lord Brougham, on the workings of the apprenticeship, and on the immediate emancipation substituted therefor in Antigua and the Bermudas, are specially commended to the notice of the reader. The speech was delivered in the House of Lords, Feb. 20, 1838. We take it from the published report of the speech in the London Times, of Feb. 25:--
I now must approach that subject which has some time excited almost universal anxiety. Allow me, however, first to remind your lordships--because that goes to the root of the evil--allow me first to remind you of the anxiety that existed previous to the Emancipation Act which was passed in January, 1833, coming into operation in August, 1834. My lords, there was much to apprehend from the character of the masters of the slaves. I know the nature of man. * * * * I know that he who has abused power clings to it with a yet more convulsive grasp. I know his revenge against those who have been rescued from his tyrannous fangs; I know that he never forgives those whom he has injured, whether white or black. I have never yet met with an unforgiving enemy, except in the person of one of whose injustice I had a right to complain. On the part of the slaves, my lords, I was not without anxiety; for I know the corrupt nature of the degrading system under which they groaned. * * * * It was, therefore, I confess, my lords, with some anxiety that I looked forward to the 1st of August, 1834; and I yielded, though reluctantly, to the plan of an intermediate state before what was called the full enjoyment of freedom--the transition condition of indentured apprenticeship.
The first of August arrived--that day so confidently and joyously anticipated by the poor slaves, and so sorely dreaded by their hard taskmasters--and if ever there was a picture interesting to look upon--if ever there was a passage in the history of a people redounding to their eternal honor--if ever there was a complete refutation of all the scandalous calumnies which had been heaped upon them for ages, as if in justification of the wrongs which we had done them--(Hear, hear)--that picture and that passage are to be found in the uniform and unvarying history of that people throughout the whole of the West India islands. Instead of the fires of rebellion, lit by a feeling of lawless revenge and resistance to oppression, the whole of those islands were, like an Arabian scene, illuminated by the light of contentment, joy, peace, and good-will towards all men. No civilized people, after gaining an unexpected victory, could have shown more delicacy and forbearance than was exhibited by the slaves at the great moral consummation which they had attained. There was not a look or a gesture which could gall the eyes of their masters. Not a sound escaped from negro lips which could wound the ears of the most feverish planter in the islands. All was joy, mutual congratulation, and hope.
This peaceful joy, this delicacy towards the feelings of others, was all that was to be seen, heard, or felt, on that occasion, throughout the West India islands.
It was held that the day of emancipation would be one of riot and debauchery, and that even the lives of the planters would be endangered. So far from this proving the case, the whole of the negro population kept it as a most sacred festival, and in this light I am convinced it will ever be viewed.
In one island, where the bounty of nature seems to provoke the appetite to indulgence, and to scatter with a profuse hand all the means of excitement, I state the fact when I say not one drunken negro was found during the whole of the day. No less than 800,000 slaves were liberated in that one day, and their peaceful festivity was disturbed only on one estate, in one parish, by an irregularity which three or four persons sufficed to put down.
Well, my lords, baffled in their expectations that the first of August would prove a day of disturbance--baffled also in the expectation that no voluntary labor would be done--we were then told by the "practical men," to look forward to a later period. We have done so, and what have we seen? Why, that from the time voluntary labor began, there was no want of men to work for hire, and that there was no difficulty in getting those who as apprentices had to give the planters certain hours of work, to extend, upon emergency, their period of labor, by hiring out their services for wages to strangers. I have the authority of my noble friend behind me, (the Marquis of Sligo,) who very particularly, inquired into the matter, when I state that on nine estates out of ten there was no difficulty in obtaining as much work as the owners had occasion for, on the payment of wages. How does all this contrast with the predictions of the "practical men?" "Oh," said they, in 1833, "it is idle talking; the cart-whip must be used--without that stimulant no negro will work--the nature of the negro is idle and indolent, and without the thought of the cartwhip is before his eyes he falls asleep--put the cartwhip aside and no labor will be done." Has this proved the case? No, my lords, it has not; and while every abundance of voluntary labor has been found, in no one instance has the stimulus of the cartwhip been found wanting. The apprentices work well without the whip, and wages have been found quite as good a stimulus as the scourge even to negro industry. "Oh, but" it is said, "this may do in cotton planting and cotton picking, and indigo making; but the cane will cease to grow, the operation of hoeing will be known no more, boiling will cease to be practised, and sugar-making will terminate entirely." Many, I know, were appalled by these reasonings, and the hopes of many were dissipated by these confident predictions of these so-deemed experienced men. But how stands the case now? My lords, let these experienced men, come forth with their experience. I will plant mine against it, and you will find he will talk no more of his experience when I tell him--tell him, too, without fear of contradiction--that during the year which followed the first of August, 1834, twice as much sugar per hour, and of a better quality as compared with the preceding years, was stored throughout the sugar districts; and that one man, a large planter, has expressly avowed, that with twenty freemen he could do more work than with a hundred slaves or fifty indentured apprentices. (Hear, hear.) But Antigua!--what has happened there? There has not been even the system of indentured apprentices. In Antigua and the Bermudas, as would have been the case at Montserrat if the upper house had not thrown out the bill which was prepared by the planters themselves, there had been no preparatory step. In Antigua and the Bermudas, since the first of August, 1834, not a slave or indentured apprentice was to be found. Well, had idleness reigned there--had indolence supplanted work--had there been any deficiency of crop? No. On the contrary, there had been an increase, and not a diminution of crop. (Hear.) But, then, it was said that quiet could not be expected after slavery in its most complete and abject form had so long reigned paramount, and that any sudden emancipation must endanger the peace of the islands. The experience of the first of August at once scattered to the winds that most fallacious prophecy. Then it was said, only wait till Christmas, for that is a period when, by all who have any practical knowledge of the negro character, a rebellion on their part is most to be apprehended. We did wait for this dreaded Christmas; and what was the result? I will go for it to Antigua, for it is the strongest case, there being there no indentured apprentices--no preparatory state--no transition--the chains being at once knocked off, and the negroes made at once free. For the first time within the last thirty years, at the Christmas of the year 1834, martial law was not proclaimed in the island of Antigua. You talk of facts--here is one. You talk of experience--here it is. And with these facts and this experience before us, I call on those soi-disant men of experience--those men who scoffed at us--who laughed to scorn at what they called our visionary, theoretical schemes--schemes that never could be carried into effect without rebellion and the loss of the colonies--I say, my lords, I call on these experienced men to come forward, and, if they can, deny one single iota of the statement I am now making. Let those who thought that with the use of those phrases, "a planter of Jamaica" "the West India interest," "residence in Jamaica and its experience," they could make our balance kick the beam--let them, I say, hear what I tell, for it is but the fact--that when the chains were knocked off there was not a single breach of the peace committed either on the day itself, or on the Christmas festival which followed.
Well, my lords, beaten from these two positions, where did the experienced men retreat to under what flimsy pretext did they next undertake to disparage the poor negro race? Had I not seen it in print, and been otherwise informed of the fact, I could not have believed it possible that from any reasonable man any such absurdity could issue. They actually held out this last fear, which, like the others, was fated to be dissipated by the fact. "Wait only," said they, "till the anniversary of the first of August, and then you will see what the negro character is, and how little these indentured apprentices are fit to be entrusted with freedom." Was there ever such an absurdity uttered, as if my lords, the man who could meet with firm tranquillity and peaceful thankfulness the event itself, was likely to be raised to rebellion and rioting by the recollection of it a year afterwards. My lords, in considering this matter, I ask you, then, to be guided by your own experience, and nothing else; profit by it, my lords, and turn it to your own account; for it, according to that book which all of us must revere, teaches even the most foolish of a foolish race. I do not ask you to adopt as your own the experience of others; you have as much as you can desire of your own, and by no other test do I wish or desire to be judged. But I think my task may be said to be done. I think I have proved my case, for I have shown that the negro can work without the stimulant of the whip; I have shown that he can labor for hire without any other motive than that of industry to inspire him. I have demonstrated that all over the West Indies, even when fatigued with working the allotted hours for the profit of his master, he can work again for wages for him who chooses to hire him and has wherewithal to pay him; I have also most distinctly shown that the experience of Antigua and the Bermudas is demonstrative to show that without any state of preparation, without any indenture of apprenticeship at all, he is fit to be intrusted with his freedom, and will work voluntarily as a free laborer for hire. But I have also demonstrated from the same experience, and by reference to the same state of facts, that a more quiet, inoffensive, peaceable, innocent people, is not to be found on the face of this earth than the negro--not in their own unhappy country, but after they have been removed from it and enslaved in your Christian land, made the victim of the barbarizing demon of civilized powers, and has all this character, if it were possible to corrupt it, and his feelings, if it were possible to pervert them, attempted to be corrupted and perverted by Christian and civilized men, and that in this state, with all incentives to misdemeanor poured around him, and all the temptation to misconduct which the arts and artifices and examples of civilized man can give hovering over him--that after this transition is made from slavery to apprenticeship, and from slavery to absolute freedom, a negro's spirit has been found to rival the unbroken tranquillity of the Caribbean Seas. (Cheers.) This was not the state of things we expected, my lords; and in proof that it was not so, I have but to refer you to the statute book itself. On what ground did you enact the intermediate state of indenture apprenticeship, and on what arguments did you justify it? You felt and acknowledged that the negro had a right to be free, and that you had no right to detain him in bondage. Every one admitted this, but in the prevailing ignorance of their character it was apprehended that they could not be made free at once, and that time was requisite to train the negro to receive the boon it was intended bestowing upon him.
This was the delusion which prevailed, and which was stated in the preamble of the statute--the same delusion which had made the men on one side state and the other to believe that it was necessary to pay the slave-owners for the loss it was supposed they would sustain. But it was found to be a baseless fear, and the only result of the phantom so conjured up was a payment of twenty millions to the conjurors. (Hear, and a laugh.) Now, I maintain that had we known what we now know of the character of the negroes, neither would this compensation have been given to the slave-owners, nor we have been guilty of proposing to keep the negro in slavery five years, after we were decided that he had a right to his freedom. The noble and learned lord here proceeded to contend that up to the present time the slave-owners, so far from being sufferers, had been gainers by the abolition of slavery and the enactment of the system of apprenticeship, and that consequently up to the present moment nothing had occurred to entitle them to a claim upon the compensation allotted by parliament. The slave-owners might be said to have pocketed the seven millions without having the least claim to them, and therefore, in considering the proposition he was about to make, parliament should bear in mind that the slave proprietors were, if anything, the debtors to the nation. The money had, in fact, been paid to them by mistake, and, were the transaction one between man and man, an action for its recovery might lie. But the slave-owners alleged that if the apprenticeship were now done away there would be a loss, and that to meet that loss they had a right to the money. For argument's sake he would suppose this to be true, and that there would be loss; but would it not be fair that the money should be lodged in the hands of a third party, with authority to pay back at the expiration of the two years whatever rateable sum the master could prove himself to have lost? His firm belief was, that no loss could arise; but, desirous to meet the planter at every point, he should have no objection to make terms with him. Let him, then, pay the money into court, as it were, and at the end of two years he should be fully indemnified for any loss he might prove. He called upon their lordships to look to Antigua and the Bermudas for proof that the free negro worked well, and that no loss was occasioned to the planters or their property by the granting of emancipation. But it was said that there was a difference between the cases of Antigua and other colonies, such as Jamaica, and it was urged that while the negroes of the former, from the smallness and barrenness of the place, would be forced into work, that in the latter they would run away, and take refuge in the woods. Now, he asked, why should the negro run away from his work, on being made free, more than during the continuance of his apprenticeship? Why, again, should it be supposed that on the 1st of August, 1840, the emancipated negroes should have less inclination to betake themselves to the woods than in 1838? If there was a risk of the slaves running to the woods in 1838, that risk would be increased and not diminished during the intermediate period up to 1840, by the treatment they were receiving from their masters, and the deferring of their hopes.