The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus Part 108

Sir LIONEL--Who is the magistrate!

Dr. RAPKY--Mr. Fishbourne.

Sir LIONEL--I am afraid I cannot please you. The question of possession of lands and houses has for the present been settled by the opinion of the Attorney-General, but it is still an undetermined question at law.

There are many persons in the island who are of opinion that the legislature had not so intended; he (Sir Lionel) was at a loss to know what they meant; seeing, however, some members of the a.s.sembly present, perhaps they would be disposed to give some information.

Mr. S.J. DALLAS said, that it was the intention of the legislature that rent should be paid. He thought it fair that 1s. 8d. per day should be offered the people to work five days in the week, they returning one day's labor for the houses and grounds.

Mr. SPECIAL JUSTICE HAMILTON said that complaints had been made to him, that in many instances where the husband and wife lived in the same house, rent had been demanded of both. The laborers had, in consequence, been thrown into a state of consternation and alarm, which accounted for the unsettled state of several properties--a serious bone of contention had in consequence been produced. He held a notice in his hand demanding of a laborer the enormous sum of 10s. per week for house and ground. He had seen other notices in which 6s, 8d. and 5s. had been demanded for the same. He did not consider that the parties issuing those notices had acted with prudence.

Mr. HYSLOP explained--He admitted the charge, but said that the sum was never intended to be exacted.

Sir LIONEL said he was aware of what was going on; he had heard of it.

"It was a policy which ought no longer to be pursued."

We have given the foregoing doc.u.ments, full and ungarbled, that our readers might fairly judge for themselves. We have not picked here a sentence and there a sentence, but let the Governor, the a.s.sembly, the Missionaries, and the press tell their whole story. Let them be read, compared, and weighed.

We might indefinitely prolong our extracts from the West India papers to show, not only in regard to the important island of Jamaica, but Barbados and several other colonies, that the former masters are alone guilty of the non-working of the emanc.i.p.ated, so far as they refuse to work. But we think we have already produced proof enough to establish the following points:--

1. That there was a strong predisposition on the part of the Jamaica planters to defraud their labourers of their wages. They hoped that by yielding, before they were driven quite to the last extremity, by the tide of public sentiment in England, they should escape from all philanthropic interference and surveillance, and be able to bring the faces of their unyoked peasantry to the grindstone of inadequate wages.

2. That the emanc.i.p.ated were not only peaceful in their new freedom, but ready to grant an amnesty of all post abuses, and enter cheerfully into the employ of their former masters for reasonable wages. That in cases where disagreement has arisen as to the rate of daily or weekly wages, the labourers have been ready to engage in task work, to be paid by the piece, and have laboured so efficiently and profitably--proving a strong disposition for industry and the acquisition of property.

3. That in the face of this good disposition of the laborers, the planters have, in many cases, refused to give adequate wages.

4. That in still more numerous cases, including many in which the wages have been apparently liberal, enormous extortion has been practiced upon the laborer, in the form of rent demanded for his hovel and provision patch--20 per annum being demanded for a shanty not worth half that money, and rent being frequently demanded from _every member_ of a family more than should have been taken from the whole.

5. That the negroes are able to look out for their own interest, and have very distinct ideas of their own about the value of money and the worth of their labour, as well as the best methods of bringing their employers to reasonable terms. On this point we might have made a still stronger case by quoting from the Despatch and Standard, which a.s.sert numerous instances in which the labourers have refused to work for wages recommended to them by the Governor, Special Magistrates, or Missionaries, though they offered to work for 3s. 4d., 5s., or a dollar a day. They are shown to be rare bargain-makers and not easily trapped.

6. That the attorneys and managers have deliberately endeavoured to raise a panic, whereby property might be depreciated to their own advantage; showing clearly thereby, that they consider Jamaica property, even with the laborers, irreclaimably free, a desirable investment.

7. That in spite of all their efforts, the great body of the laborers continue industrious, doing more work in the same time than in slavery.

_The testimony to his very important point, of the Governor and House of a.s.sembly, is perfectly conclusive_, as we have already said. A house that represents the very men who, in 1832, burnt the missionary chapels, and defied the British Parliament with the threat, that in case it proceeded to legislate Abolition, Jamaica would attach herself to the United States, now HOPES for the agricultural prosperity of the island!

Indeed no one in Jamaica expresses a doubt on this subject, who does not obviously do so _for the sake of buying land to better advantage_! Were the colony a shade _worse_ off than before Emanc.i.p.ation, either in fact or in the opinion of its landholders, or of any considerable portion of persons acquainted with it, the inevitable consequence would be a depreciation of _real estate_. But what is the fact? said Rev. John Clark, a Jamaica Baptist Missionary, who has visited this country since the first of August, in a letter published in the Journal of Commerce:--

"The Island of Jamaica is not in the deplorable state set forth by your correspondent.--Land is rising in value so rapidly, that what was bought five years ago at 3 dollars per acre, is now selling for 15 dollars; and this in the interior of the Island, in a parish not reckoned the most healthy, and sixteen miles distant from the nearest town. Crops are better than in the days of slavery--extra labour is easily obtained where kindness and justice are exercised towards the people. The hopes of proprietors are great, and larger sums are being offered for estates than were offered previous to August, 1834, when estates, and negroes upon them, were disposed of together."

Again, as in Jamaica commerce rests wholly upon agriculture, _its_ inst.i.tutions can only flourish in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition of the latter.--What then are we to infer from an imposing prospectus which appears in the island papers, commencing thus:--

"Kingston, October 26, 1838

Jamaica Marine, Fire, and Life a.s.surance Company.

Capital 100,000,

In 5000 shares of 20 each.

It has been long a matter of astonishment that, in a community so essentially mercantile as Jamaica, no Company should have been formed for the purpose of effecting Insurance on Life and Property; although it cannot be doubted for an instant, that not only would such an establishment be highly useful to all cla.s.ses of the community, but that it must yield a handsome return to such persons as may be inclined to invest their money in it," &c.

Farther down in the prospectus we are told--"It may here be stated, that the scheme for the formation of this Company has been mentioned to some of the princ.i.p.al Merchants and _Gentlemen of the Country_, and has met with decidedly favourable notice: and it is expected that the shares, a large number of which have been already taken, will be rapidly disposed of."

The same paper, the Morning Journal, from which we make this extract, informs us: Nov. 2d--

"The shares subscribed for yesterday, in the Marine Fire and Life Insurance Company, we understand, amount to the almost unprecedented number of One Thousand Six Hundred, with a number of applicants whose names have not been added to the list."

The Morning Journal of October 20th in remarking upon this project says:--

"Jamaica is now happily a free country; she contains within herself the means of becoming prosperous. Let her sons develope those resources which Lord Belmore with so much truth declared never would be developed _until slavery had ceased_. She has her Banks.--Give her, in addition, her Loan Society, her Marine, Fire, and life a.s.surance Company, and some others that will shortly be proposed, and capital will flow in from other countries--property will acquire a value in the market, that will increase with the increase of wealth, and she will yet be a flouris.h.i.+ng island, and her inhabitants a happy and contented people."

Now men desperately in debt _might_ invite in foreign capital for temporary relief, but, since the _compensation_, this is understood not to be the case with the Jamaica planters; and if they are rus.h.i.+ng into speculation, it must be because they have strong _hope_ of the safety and prosperity of their country--in other words, because they confide in the system of free labor. This one prospectus, coupled with its prompt success, is sufficient to prove the falsehood of all the stories so industriously retailed among us from the Standard and the Despatch. But speculators and large capitalists are not the only men who confide in the success of the "great experiment."

The following editorial notice in the Morning Journal of a recent date speaks volumes:--

SAVINGS BANK.

"We were asked not many days ago how the Savings Bank in this City was getting on. We answered well, very well indeed. By a notification published in our paper of Sat.u.r.day, it will be seen that 1600 has been placed in the hands of the Receiver-General. By the establishment of these Banks, a great deal of the money now locked up, and which yields no return whatever to the possessors, and is liable to be stolen, will be brought into circulation. This circ.u.mstance of itself ought to operate as a powerful inducement to those parishes in which no Banks are yet established to be up and doing. We have got some _five_ or _six_ of them fairly underweigh, as Jack would say, and hope the remainder will speedily trip their anchors and follow."

We believe banks were not known in the West Indies before the 1st of August 1834. Says the Spanishtown Telegraph of May 1st, 1837, "_Banks, Steam-Companies, Rail-Roads, 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!" And it was not till after the 1st of August, 1838, that Jamaica had either savings banks or savings. These inst.i.tutions for the industrious cla.s.ses came only with their manhood. But why came they at all, if Emanc.i.p.ated industry is, or is likely to be, unsuccessful?--In Barbados we notice the same forwardness in founding monied inst.i.tutions. A Bank is there proposed, with a capital of 200,000. More than this, the all absorbing subject in all the West India papers at the present moment is that of the _currency_. Why such anxiety to provide the means of paying for labor which is to become valueless? Why such keenness for a good circulating medium if they are to have nothing to sell? The complaints about the old fas.h.i.+oned coinage we venture to a.s.sort have since the first of August occupied five times as much s.p.a.ce in the colonial papers, we might probably say in each and every one of them, as those of the non-working of the freemen. The inference is irresistible. _The white colonists take it for granted that industry is to thrive_.

It may be proper to remark that the late refusal of the Jamaica legislature to fulfil its appropriate functions has no connection with the working of freedom, any further than it may have been a struggle to get rid in some measure of the surveillance of the mother country in order to coerce the labourer so far as possible by vagrant laws, &c. The immediate pretext was the pa.s.sing of a law by the imperial Parliament for the regulation of prisons, which the House of a.s.sembly declared a violation of that principle of their charter which forbids the mother-country to lay a tax on them without their consent, in as much as it authorized a crown officer to impose a fine, in a certain case, of 20. A large majority considered this an infringement of their prerogatives, and among them were some members who have n.o.bly stood up for the slave in times of danger. The remarks of Mr. Osborn especially, on this subject, (he is the full blooded, slave-born, African man to whom we have already referred) are worthy of consideration in several points of view. Although he had always been a staunch advocate of the home government on the floor of the a.s.sembly are now contended for the rights of the Jamaica legislature with arguments which to us republicans are certainly quite forcible. In a speech of some length, which appears very creditable to him throughout, he said--

"Government could not be acting fair towards them to a.s.sume that the ma.s.s of the people of this island would remain in the state of political indifference to which poverty and slavery had reduced them. They were now free, every man to rise as rapidly as he could; and the day was not very distant when it would be demonstrated by the change of representatives that would be seen in that house. It did appear to him, that under the pretext of extending the privileges of freemen to the ma.s.s of the people of this country, the government was about to deprive them of those privileges, by curtailing the power of the representative a.s.sembly of those very people. He could not bring himself to admit, with any regard for truth, that the late apprentices could now be oppressed; they were quite alive to their own interests, and were now capable of taking care of themselves. So long as labor was marketable, so long they could resist oppression, while on the other hand, the proprietor, for his own interest's sake, would be compelled to deal fairly with them."

Though it is evidently all important that the same public opinion which has wrested the whip from the master should continue to watch his proceedings as an employer of freemen, there is much truth in the speech of this black representative and alderman of Kingston. The brutalized and reckless attorneys and managers, _may_ possibly succeed in driving the negroes from the estates by exorbitant rent and low wages. They _may_ succeed in their effort to buy in property at half its value. But when they have effected that, they will be totally dependent for the profits of their ill-gotten gains upon the _free laboring people_. They may produce what they call idleness now, and a great deal of vexation and suffering. But land is plenty, and the laborers, if thrust from the estates, will take it up, and become still more independent. Reasonable wages they will be able to command, and for such they are willing to labor. The few thousand whites of Jamaica will never be able to establish slavery, or any thing like it, over its 300,000 blacks.

Already they are fain to swallow their prejudice against color. Mr.

Jordon, member for Kingston and "free n.i.g.g.e.r," was listened to with respect. Nay more, his argument was copied into the "Protest" which the legislature proudly flung back in the face of Parliament, along with the abolition of the apprentices.h.i.+p, in return for Lord Glenelg's Bill. Let all in the United States read and ponder it who a.s.sert that "the two races cannot live together on term of equality."

Legislative independence of Jamaica has ever been the pride of her English conquerors. They have received with joy the colored fellow colonists into an equal partic.i.p.ation of their valued liberty, and they were prepared to rejoice at the extension of the const.i.tution to the emanc.i.p.ated blacks. But the British Government, by a great fault, if not a crime, has, at the moment when all should have been free, torn from the lately ascendant cla.s.s, the privileges which were their birthright, another cla.s.s, now the equals of the former, the rights they had long and fortunately struggled for, and from the emanc.i.p.ated blacks the rights which they fondly expected to enjoy with their personal freedom.

The boon of earlier freedom will not compensate this most numerous part of our population for the injustice and wrong done to the whole Jamaica people.

The doc.u.ments already adduced are confined almost exclusively to Jamaica. We will refer briefly to one of the other colonies. The next in importance is

BARBADOS

Here has been played nearly the same game in regard to wages, and with the same results. We are now furnished with advices from the island down to the 19th of December 1838. At the latter date the panic making papers had tapered down their complainings to a very faint whisper, and withal expressing more hope than fears. As the fruit of what they had already done we are told by one of them, _the Barbadian_, that the unfavourable news carried home by the packets after the emanc.i.p.ation had served to raise the price of sugar in England, which object being accomplished, it is hoped that they will intermit the manufacture of such news. The first and most important doc.u.ment, and indeed of itself sufficient to save the trouble of giving more, is the comparison of crime during two and a half months of freedom, and the corresponding two and a half months of slavery or apprentices.h.i.+p last year, submitted to the legislature at the opening of its session in the latter part of October. Here it is. We hope it will be held up before every slave holder.

From the Barbadian of Dec. 1.

Barbados.--Comparative Table, exhibiting the number of Complaints preferred against the Apprentice population of this Colony, in the months of August, September and to the 15th of October, 1838; together with the Complaints charged against Free Labourers of the same Colony, during the months of August, September and to the 15th of October, 1838.

The former compiled from the Monthly Journals of the Special Justice of the Peace and the latter from the Returns of the Local Magistracy transmitted to his excellency the Governor

APPRENTICEs.h.i.+P.

Total of Complaints vs. Apprentices from the 1st to 31st August 1837. 1708 Ditto from the 1st to 30th September 1464 Ditto from the 1st to 15th October 574

Grand Total 3746

Total number of Apprentices punished from the 1st to 31st August 1608 Ditto from 1st to 31st September 1321 Ditto from the 1st to 15th October 561