Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies · Chapter 5Thoughts, &c. (4)
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A sixth class of slaves emancipated in bodies may comprehend those, who began to be liberated about eighteen months ago in the newly-erected State of Columbia. General Bolivar began the great work himself by enfranchising his own slaves, to the number of between seven and eight hundred. But he was not satisfied with this; for believing, as he did, that to hold persons in slavery at all, was not only morally wrong, but utterly inconsistent with the character of men fighting for their own liberty, he brought the subject before the Congress of Venezuela. The Congress there, after having duly considered it, drew up resolutions accordingly, which it recommended to the first general Congress of Columbia, when it should be assembled. This last congress, which met at the time expected, passed a decree for emancipation on the 19th of July 1821. All slaves, who had assisted, in a military capacity, in achieving the independence of the republic, were at once declared free. All the children of slaves, born after the said 19th of July, were to be free in succession as they attained the eighteenth year of their age. A fund was established at the same time by a general tax upon property, to pay the owners of such young slaves the expense of bringing them up to their eighteenth year, and for putting them afterwards to trades and useful professions; and the same fund was made applicable to the purchase of the freedom of adults in each district every year, during the three national festivals in December, as far as the district-funds would permit. Care, however, was to be taken to select those of the best character. It may be proper to observe, that emancipation, as above explained, has been proceeding regularly, from the 19th of July 1821, according to the terms of the decree, and also according to the ancient Spanish code, which still exists, and which is made to go hand in hand with it. They who attain their eighteenth year are not allowed to go at large after their liberation, but are put under the charge of special juntas for a useful education. The adults may have land, if they desire it, or they may go where they please. The State has lately purchased freedom for many of the latter, who had a liking to the army. Their freedom is secured to them whether they remain soldiers or are discharged. It is particularly agreeable to me to be able to say that all, who have been hitherto emancipated, have conducted themselves since that time with propriety. It appears by a letter from Columbia, dated 17th February 1822, about seven months after emancipation had commenced, addressed to James Stephen, Esq. of London, and since made public, "that the slaves were all then peaceably at work throughout the republic, as well as the newly enfranchised and those originally free." And it appears from the account of a gentleman of high consideration just arrived from Columbia, in London, that up to the time of his departure, they who had been emancipated "were steady and industrious, and that they had conducted themselves well without a single exception." But as this is an experiment which it will yet take sixteen years to complete, it can only be called to our aid, as far as the result of it is known. It is, however, an experiment to which, as far as it has been made, we may appeal with satisfaction: for when we consider that eighteen months have elapsed, and that many[13] thousands have been freed since the passing of the decree and the date of the last accounts from Columbia, the decree cannot but be considered to have had a sufficient trial.
The seventh class may comprehend the slaves of the Honourable Joshua Steele, whose emancipation was attempted in Barbadoes between the years 1783 and 1790.
It appears that Mr. Steele lived several years in London. He was Vice-president of the London Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, and a person of talent and erudition. He was the proprietor of three estates in Barbadoes. His agent there used to send him accounts annually of his concerns; but these were latterly so ruinous, not only in a pecuniary point of view, but as they related to what Mr. Steele called the destruction of his Negroes, that he resolved, though then at the advanced age of eighty, to go there, and to look into his affairs himself. Accordingly he embarked, and arrived there early in the year 1780.
Mr. Steele had not been long in Barbadoes, before he saw enough to convince him that there was something radically wrong in the management of the slaves there, and he was anxious to try, as well for the sake of humanity as of his own interest, to effect a change in it. But how was he to accomplish this[14]? "He considered within himself how difficult it would be, nay, impossible, for a single proprietor to attempt so great a novelty as to bring about an alteration of manners and customs protected by iniquitous laws, and to which the gentlemen of the country were reconciled as to the best possible for amending the indocile and intractable ignorance of Negro slaves." It struck him however, among the expedients which occurred, that he might be able to form a Society, similar to the one in London, for the purpose of improving the arts, manufactures, and commerce of Barbadoes; and if so, he "indulged a hope that by means of it conferences might be introduced on patriotic subjects, in the course of which new ideas and new opinions might soften the national bigotry, so far as to admit some discourses on the possibility of amendment in the mode of governing slaves." Following up this idea, he brought it at length to bear. A Society was formed, in consequence, of gentlemen of the island in 1781. The subjects under its discussion became popular. It printed its first minutes in 1782, which were very favourably received, and it seemed to bid fair after this to answer the benevolent views of its founder.
During this time, a space of two years, Mr. Steele had been gaining a practical knowledge of the West Indian husbandry, and also a practical knowledge of the temper, disposition, habits, and customs of the slaves. He had also read much and thought much. It may be inferred from his writings, that three questions especially had employed his mind. 1. Whether he could not do away all arbitrary punishments and yet keep up discipline among the slaves? 2. Whether he could not carry on the plantation-work through the stimulus of reward? 3. Whether he could not change slavery into a condition of a milder name and character, so that the slaves should be led by degrees to the threshold of liberty, from whence they might step next, without hazard, into the rank of free men, if circumstances should permit and encourage such a procedure. Mr. Steele thought, after mature consideration, that he could accomplish all these objects, and he resolved to make the experiments gradually upon his own estates.
At the end of the year 1783 he put the first of these questions to trial. "I took," says he, "the whips and all power of arbitrary punishment from all the overseers and their white servants, which occasioned my chief overseer to resign, and I soon dismissed all his deputies, who could not bear the loss of their whips; but at the same time, that a proper subordination and obedience to lawful orders and duty should be preserved, I created a magistracy out of the Negroes themselves, and appointed a court or jury of the elder Negroes or head-men for trial and punishment of all casual offences, (and these courts were always to be held in my presence, or in that of my new superintendant,) which court very soon grew respectable. Seven of these men being of the rank of drivers in their different departments, were also constituted rulers, as magistrates over all the gang, and were charged to see at all times that nothing should go wrong in the plantations; but that on all necessary occasions they should assemble and consult together how any such wrong should be immediately rectified; and I made it known to all the gangs, that the authority of these rulers should supply the absence or vacancy of an overseer in all cases; they making daily or occasional reports of all occurrences to the proprietor or his delegate for his approbation or his orders."
It appears that Mr. Steele was satisfied with this his first step, and he took no other for some time. At length, in about another year, he ventured upon the second. He "tried whether he could not obtain the labour of his Negroes by voluntary means instead of the old method by violence." On a certain day he offered a pecuniary reward for holing canes, which is the most laborious operation in West Indian husbandry. "He offered two-pence half-penny (currency), or about three-halfpence (sterling), per day, with the usual allowance to holers of a dram with molasses, to any twenty-five of his Negroes, both men and women, who would undertake to hole for canes an acre per day, at about 96-1/2 holes for each Negro to the acre. The whole gang were ready to undertake it; but only fifty of the volunteers were accepted, and many among them were those who on much lighter occasions had usually pleaded infirmity and inability: but the ground having been moist, they holed twelve acres within six days with great ease, having had an hour, more or less, every evening to spare, and the like experiment was repeated with the like success. More experiments with such premiums on weeding and deep hoeing were made by task-work per acre, and all succeeded in like manner, their premiums being all punctually paid them in proportion to their performance. But afterwards some of the same people being put without premium to weed on a loose cultivated soil in the common manner, eighteen Negroes did not do as much in a given time as six had performed of the like sort of work a few days before with the premium of two-pence half-penny." The next year Mr. Steele made similar experiments. Success attended him again; and from this time task-work, or the voluntary system, became the general practice of the estate. Mr. Steele did not proceed to put the third question to trial till the year 1789. The Society of Arts, which he had instituted in 1781, had greatly disappointed him. Some of the members, looking back to the discussions which had taken place on the subject of Slavery, began to think that they had gone too far as slaveholders in their admissions. They began to insinuate, "that they had been taken in, under the specious appearance of promoting the arts, manufactures, and commerce of Barbadoes, to promote dangerous designs against its established laws and customs." Discussions therefore of this sort became too unpopular to be continued. It was therefore not till Mr. Steele found, that he had no hope of assistance from this Society, and that he was obliged to depend solely upon himself, that he put in force the remainder of his general plan. He had already (in 1783), as we stated some time ago, abolished arbitrary punishment and instituted a Negro-magistracy; and since that time (in 1785) he had adopted the system of working by the piece. But the remaining part of his plan went the length of altering the condition of the slaves themselves; and it is of this alteration, a most important one (in 1789), that I am now to speak.
Mr. Steele took the hint for the particular mode of improving the condition of his slaves, which I am going to describe, from the practice of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in the days of Villainage, which, he says, was "the most wise and excellent mode of civilizing savage slaves." There were in those days three classes of villains. The first or lowest consisted of villains in gross, who were alienable at pleasure. The second of villains regardent, who were adscripti glebae, or attached as freehold property to the soil. And the third or last of copyhold bondmen, who had tenements of land, for which they were bound to pay in services. The villains first mentioned, or those of the lowest class, had all these gradations to pass through, from the first into the second, and from the second into the third, before they could become free men. This was the model, from which Mr. Steele resolved to borrow, when he formed his plan for changing the condition of his slaves. Me did not, however, adopt it throughout, but he chose out of it what he thought would be most suitable to his purpose, and left the rest. We may now see what the plan was, when put together, from the following account.
In the year 1789 he erected his plantations into manors. It appears that the Governor of Barbadoes had the power by charter, with the consent of the majority of the council, of dividing the island into manors, lordships, and precincts, and of making freeholders; and though this had not yet been done, Mr. Steele hoped, as a member of council, to have influence sufficient to get his own practice legalized in time. Presuming upon this, he registered in the manor-book all his adult male slaves as copyholders. He then gave to these separate tenements of lands, which they were to occupy, and upon which they were to raise whatever they might think most advantageous to their support. These tenements consisted of half an acre of plantable and productive land to each adult, a quantity supposed to be sufficient with industry to furnish him and his family with provision and clothing. The tenements were made descendible to the heirs of the occupiers or copyholders, that is, to their children on the plantations; for no part of the succession was to go out of the plantations to the issue of any foreign wife, and, in case of no such heir, they were to fall in to the lord to be re-granted according to his discretion. It was also inscribed that any one of the copyholders, who would not perform his services to the manor (the refractory and others), was to forfeit his tenement and his privileged rank, and to go back to villain in gross and to be subject to corporal punishment as before. "Thus," says Mr. Steele, "we run no risk whatever in making the experiment by giving such copyhold-tenements to all our well-deserving Negroes, and to all in general, when they appear to be worthy of that favour."
Matters having been adjusted so far, Mr. Steele introduced the practice of rent and wages. He put an annual rent upon each tenement, which he valued at so many days' labour. He set a rent also upon personal service, as due by the copyholder to his master in his former quality of slave, seeing that his master or predecessor had purchased a property in him, and this be valued in the same manner. He then added the two rents together, making so many days' work altogether, and estimated them in the current money of the time. Having done this, he fixed a daily wages or pay to be received by the copyholders for the work which they were to do. They were to work 260 days in the year for him, and to have 48 besides Sundays for themselves. He reduced these days' work also to current money. These wages he fixed at such a rate, that "they should be more than equivalent to the rent of their copyholds and the rent of their personal services when put together, in order to hold out to them an evident and profitable incentive to their industry." It appears that the rent of the tenement, half an acre, was fixed at the rate of 9l. currency, or between forty and fifty shillings sterling per acre, and the wages for a man belonging to the first gang at 7-1/2d. currency or 6d. sterling per day. As to the rent for the personal services, it is not mentioned.
With respect to labour and things connected with it, Mr. Steele entered the following among the local laws in the court-roll of the tenants and tenements. The copyholders were not to work for other masters without the leave of the lord. They were to work ten hours per day. If they worked over and above that time, they were to be paid for every hour a tenth part of their daily wages, and they were also to forfeit a tenth for every hour they were absent or deficient in the work of the day. All sorts of work, however, were to be reduced, as far as it could be done by observation and estimation, to equitable task-work. Hoes were to be furnished to the copyholders in the first instance; but they were to renew them, when worn out, at their own expense. The other tools were to be lent them, but to be returned to the storekeeper at night, or to be paid for in default of so doing. Mr. Steele was to continue the hospital and medical attendance at his own expense as before.
Mr. Steele, having now rent to receive and wages to pay, was obliged to settle a new mode of accounting between the plantation and the labourers. "He brought, therefore, all the minor crops of the plantation, such as corn, grain of all sorts, yams, eddoes, besides rum and molasses, into a regular cash account by weight and measure, which he charged to the copyhold-storekeeper at market prices of the current time, and the storekeeper paid them at the same prices to such of the copyholders as called for them in part of wages, in whose option it was to take either cash or goods, according to their earnings, to answer all their wants. Rice, salt, salt fish, barrelled pork, Cork butter, flour, bread, biscuit, candles, tobacco and pipes, and all species of clothing, were provided and furnished from the store at the lowest market prices. An account of what was paid for daily subsistence, and of what stood in their arrears to answer the rents of their lands, the fines and forfeitures for delinquencies, their head-levy and all other casual demands, was accurately kept in columns with great simplicity, and in books, which checked each other."
Such was the plan of Mr. Steele, and I have the pleasure of being able to announce, that the result of it was highly satisfactory to himself. In the year 1788, when only the first and second part of it had been reduced to practice, he spoke of it thus:—"A plantation," says he, "of between seven and eight hundred acres has been governed by fixed laws and a Negro-court for about five years with great success. In this plantation no overseer or white servant is allowed to lift his hand against a Negro, nor can he arbitrarily order a punishment. Fixed laws and a court or jury of their peers keep all in order without the ill effect of sudden and intemperate passions." And in the year 1790, about a year after the last part of his plan had been put to trial, he says in a letter to Dr. Dickson, "My copyholders have succeeded beyond my expectation." This was his last letter to that gentleman, for he died in the beginning of the next year. Mr. Steele went over to Barbadoes, as I have said before, in the year 1780, and he was then in the eightieth year of his age. He began his humane and glorious work in 1783, and he finished it in 1789. It took him, therefore, six years to bring his Negroes to the state of vassalage described, or to that state from whence he was sure that they might be transferred without danger in no distant time, to the rank of freemen, if it should be thought desirable. He lived one year afterwards to witness the success of his labours. He had accomplished, therefore, all he wished, and he died in the year 1791, in the ninety-first year of his age.
It may be proper now, and indeed useful to the cause which I advocate, to stop for a moment, just to observe the similarity of sentiment of two great men, quite unknown to each other; one of whom (Mr. Steele) was concerned in preparing Negro-slaves for freedom, and the other (Toussaint) in devising the best mode of managing them after they had been suddenly made free.
It appears, first, that they were both agreed in this point, viz. that the first step to be taken in either case, was the total abolition of arbitrary punishment.
It appears, secondly, that they were nevertheless both agreed again as to the necessity of punishing delinquents, but that they adopted different ways of bringing them to justice. Toussaint referred them to magistrates, but Mr. Steele to a Negro-court. I should prefer the latter expedient; first, because a Negro-court may be always at hand, whereas magistrates may live at a distance from the plantations, and not be always at home. Secondly, because the holding of a Negro-court would give consequence to those Negroes who should compose it, not only in their own eyes but in the eyes of others; and every thing, that might elevate the Black character, would be useful to those who were on the road to emancipation; and, lastly, because there must be some thing satisfactory and consoling to the accused to be tried by their peers.
It appears, thirdly, that both of them were agreed again in the principle of making the Negroes, in either case, adscripti glebae; or attached to the soil, though they might differ as to the length of time of such ascription.
And it appears, lastly, that they were agreed in another, and this the only remaining point, viz. on the necessity of holding out a stimulus to either, so as to excite in them a very superior spirit of industry to any they had known before. They resorted, however to different means to effect this. Toussaint gave the labourers one fourth of the produce of the land; deducting board and clothing. Mr. Steele, on the other hand, gave them daily wages. I do not know which to prefer; but the plan of Mr. Steele is most consonant to the English practice.
But to return. It is possible that some objector may rise up here as before, and say that even the case, which I have now detailed, is not, strictly speaking, analogous to that which we have in contemplation, and may argue thus:—"The case of Mr. Steele is not a complete precedent, because his slaves were never fully emancipated. He had brought them only to the threshold of liberty, but no further. They were only copyholders, but not free men." To this I reply, first, That Mr. Steele accomplished all that he ever aimed at. I have his own words for saying, that so long as the present iniquitous slave-laws, and the distinction of colour, should exist, it would be imprudent to go further. I reply again, That the partisans of emancipation would be happy indeed, if they could see the day when our West Indian slaves should arrive at the rank and condition of the copyholders of Mr. Steele. They wish for no other freedom than that which is compatible with the joint interest of the master and the slave. At the same time they must maintain, that the copyholders of Mr. Steele had been brought so near to the condition of free men, that a removal from one into the other, after a certain time, seemed more like a thing of course than a matter to be attended either with difficulty or danger: for unquestionably their moral character must have been improved. If they had ceased for seven years to feel themselves degraded by arbitrary punishment, they must have acquired some little independence of mind. If they had been paid for their labour, they must have acquired something like a spirit of industry. If they had been made to pay rent for their cottage and land, and to maintain themselves, they must have been made to look beforehand, to think for themselves and families from day to day, and to provide against the future, all which operations of the mind are the characteristics only of free men. The case, therefore, of Mr. Steele is most important and precious: for it shows us, first, that the emancipation, which we seek, is a thing which may be effected. The plan of Mr. Steele was put in force in a British Island, and that, which was done in one British Island, may under similar circumstances be done again in the same, as well as in another. It shows us, again, how this emancipation may be brought about. The process is so clearly detailed, that any one may follow it. It is also a case for encouragement, inasmuch as it was attended with success.
I have now considered no less than six cases of slaves emancipated in bodies, and a seventh of slaves, who were led up to the very threshold of freedom, comprehending altogether not less than between five and six hundred thousand persons; and I have considered also all the objections that could be reasonably advanced against them. The result is a belief on my part, that emancipation is not only practicable, but that it is practicable without danger. The slaves, whose cases I have been considering, were resident in different parts of the world. There must have been, amongst such a vast number, persons of all characters. Some were liberated, who had been accustomed to the use of arms. Others at a time when the land in which they sojourned was afflicted with civil and foreign wars; others again suddenly, and with all the vicious habits of slavery upon them. And yet, under all these disadvantageous circumstances, I find them all, without exception, yielding themselves to the will of their superiors, so as to be brought by them with as much ease and certainty into the form intended for them, as clay in the hands of the potter is fashioned to his own model. But, if this be so, I think I should be chargeable with a want of common sense, were I to doubt for a moment, that emancipation was not practicable; and I am not sure that I should not be exposed to the same charge, were I to doubt, that emancipation was practicable without danger. For I have not been able to discover (and it is most remarkable) a single failure in any of the cases which have been produced. I have not been able to discover throughout this vast mass of emancipated persons a single instance of bad behaviour on their parts, not even of a refusal to work, or of disobedience to orders. Much less have I seen frightful commotions, or massacres, or a return of evil for evil, or revenge for past injuries, even when they had it amply in their power. In fact, the Negro character is malleable at the European will. There is, as I have observed before, a singular pliability in the constitutional temper of the Negroes, and they have besides a quick sense of their own interest, which influences their conduct. I am convinced, that West India masters can do what they will with their slaves; and that they may lead them through any changes they please, and with perfect safety to themselves, if they will only make them (the slaves) understand that they are to be benefited thereby.
Having now established, I hope, two of my points, first, that emancipation is practicable, and, secondly, that it is practicable without danger, I proceed to show the probability that it would be attended with profit to those planters who should be permitted to adopt it. I return, therefore, to the case of Mr. Steele. I give him the prior hearing on this new occasion, because I am sure that my readers will be anxious to learn something more about him; or to know what became of his plans, or how far such humane endeavours were attended with success. I shall begin by quoting the following expressions of Mr. Steele. "I have employed and amused myself," says he, "by introducing an entire new mode of governing my own slaves, for their happiness, and also for my own profit." It appears, then, that Mr. Steele's new method of management was profitable. Let us now try to make out from his own account, of what these profits consisted.
Mr. Steele informs us, that his superintendant had obliged him to hire all his holing at 3l. currency, or 2l. 2s. 10d. sterling per acre. He was very much displeased at these repeated charges; and then it was, that he put his second question to trial, as I have before related, viz. whether he could not obtain the labour of his Negroes by voluntary means, instead of by the old method by violence. He made, therefore, an attempt to introduce task-work, or labour with an expected premium for extraordinary efforts, upon his estates. He gave his Negroes therefore a small pecuniary reward over and above the usual allowances, and the consequence was, as he himself says, that "the poorest, feeblest, and by character the most indolent Negroes of the whole gang, cheerfully performed the holing of his land, generally said to be the most laborious work, for less than a fourth part of the stated price paid to the undertakers for holing." This experiment I have detailed in another place. After this he continued the practice of task-work or premium. He describes the operation of such a system upon the minds of his Negroes in the following words: "According to the vulgar mode of governing Negro-slaves, they feel only the desponding fear of punishment for doing less than they ought, without being sensible that the settled allowance of food and clothing is given, and should be accepted, as a reward for doing well, while in task-work the expectation of winning the reward, and the fear of losing it, have a double operation to exert their endeavours." Mr. Steele was also benefited again in another point of view by the new practice which he had introduced. "He was clearly convinced, that saving time, by doing in one day as much as would otherwise require three days, was worth more than double the premium, the timely effects on vegetation being critical." He found also to his satisfaction, that "during all the operations under the premium there were no disorders, no crowding to the sick-house, as before."