Froudacity; West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Part 7

From this comparative sketch of the history of the slaves in the States, in the West Indies and countries adjacent, it will be perceived that in the latter scenes of bondage everything had conspired to render a fusion of interests between the ruling and the servile cla.s.ses not only easy, but inevitable. In the very first generation after their introduction, the Africans began to press upward, a movement which every decade has accelerated, in spite of the changes which supervened as each of the Colonies fell under British sway. Nearly two centuries had by this time elapsed, and the coloured influence, which had grown with their wealth, education, numbers, and unity, though [251]

circ.u.mscribed by the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves, and the consequent depression in fortune of all slave-owners, never was or could be annihilated. In the Government service there were many for whom the patronage of G.o.d-parents or the sheer influence of their family had effected an entrance. The prevalence and potency of the influences we have been dilating upon may be gauged by the fact that personages no less exalted than Governors of various Colonies--of Trinidad in three authentic cases--have been sharers in the prevailing usages, in the matter of standing sponsors (by proxy), and also of relaxing in the society of some fascinating daughter of the sun from the tension and wear of official duty. In the three cases just referred to, the most careful provision was made for the suitable education and starting in life of the issues. For the G.o.d-children of Governors there were places in the public service, and so from the highest to the lowest the humanitarian intercourse of the cla.s.ses was confirmed.

Consequent on the frequent abandonment of their plantations by many owners who despaired of being able to get along by paying [252] their way, an opening was made for the insinuation of Absenteeism into our agricultural, in short, our economic existence. The powerful sugar lords, who had invested largely in the cane plantations, were fain to take over and cultivate the properties which their debtors doggedly refused to continue working, under pretext of the entire absence, or at any rate unreliability, of labour. The representatives of those new transatlantic estate proprietors displaced, but never could replace, the original cultivators, who were mostly gentlemen as well as agriculturists. It was from this overseer cla.s.s that the vituperations and slanders went forth that soon became stereotyped, concerning the Negro's incorrigible laziness and want of ambition--those gentry adjusting the scale of wages, not according to the importance and value of the labour done, but according to the scornful estimate which they had formed of the Negro personally. And when the wages were fixed fairly, they almost invariably sought to indemnify themselves for their enforced justice by the insulting license of their tongues, addressed to males and females alike. The influence of such men on local legislation, in which they [253] had a preponderating share, either as actual proprietors or as the attorneys of absentees, was not in the direction of refinement or liberality. Indeed, the kind of laws which they enacted, especially during the apprentices.h.i.+p (1834-8), is thus summarized by one, and him an English officer, who was a visitor in those agitated days of the Colonies:--

"It is demonstrated that the laws which were to come into operation immediately on expiration of the apprentices.h.i.+p are of the most objectionable character, and fully established the fact not only of a future intention to infringe the rights of the emanc.i.p.ated cla.s.ses, but of the actual commencement and extensive progress of a Colonial system for that purpose. The object of the laws is to circ.u.mscribe the market for free labour--to prohibit the possession or sale of ordinary articles of produce on sale, the obvious intention of which is to confine the emanc.i.p.ated cla.s.ses to a course of agricultural servitude--to give the employers a monopoly of labour, and to keep down a free compet.i.tion for wages--to create new and various modes of apprentices.h.i.+p for the purpose of prolonging predial service, together with many evils of the [254] late system--to introduce unnecessary restraint and coercion, the design of which is to create a perpetual surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish a legislative despotism. The several laws pa.s.sed are based upon the most vicious principles of legislation, and in their operation will be found intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just intentions of the British Legislature."

These liberal-souled gentry were, in sooth, Mr. Froude's "representatives" of Britain, whose traditions steadily followed in their families, he has so well and sympathetically set forth.

We thus see that the irritation and rancour seething in the breast of the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished and kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own phrase, people of colour had by that time already "pa.s.sed the lock-jaw"* stage (at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped the germ of their progress in the bud.) In spite of adverse legislation, and in spite of the scandalous subservience of certain Governors to the Colonial Legislatures, the Race can point with thankfulness and pride to the visible records of their success wherever they have permanently sojourned.

Primary education of a more general and undiscriminating character, especially as to race and colour, was secured for the bulk of the West Indies by voluntary undertakings, and notably through the munificent provision of Lady Mico, which extended to the whole of the princ.i.p.al islands.

Thanks to Lord Harris for introducing, and to Sir Arthur Gordon for extending to the secondary stage, the public education of Trinidad, there has been since Emanc.i.p.ation, that is, during the last thirty-seven years, a more effective bringing together in public schools of various grades, of children of all races and ranks. Rivals at home, at school and college, in books as well as on the playground, they have very frequently gone abroad together to learn the professions they have selected. In this way there is an intercommunion between all the [256] intelligent sections of the inhabitants, based on a common training and the subtle sympathies usually generated in enlightened b.r.e.a.s.t.s by intimate personal knowledge. In mixed communities thus circ.u.mstanced, there is no possibility of maintaining distinctions based on mere colour, as advocated by Mr. Froude.

The following brief summary by the Rev. P. H. Doughlin, Rector of St.

Clement's, Trinidad, a brilliant star among the sons of Ham, embodies this fact in language which, so far as it goes, is as comprehensive as it is weighty:--

"Who could, without seeming to insult the intelligence of men, have predicted on the day of Emanc.i.p.ation that the Negroes then released from the blight and withering influence of ten generations of cruel bondage, so weakened and half-destroyed--so denationalized and demoralized--so despoiled and naked, would be in the position they are now? In spite of the proud, supercilious, and dictatorial bearing of their teachers, in spite of the hampering of unsympathetic, alien oversight, in spite of the spirit of dependence and servility engendered by slavery, not only have individual members of the race entered into all the offices of dignity in [257] Church and State, as subalterns--as hewers of wood and drawers of water--but they have attained to the very highest places. Here in the West Indies, and on the West Coast of Africa, are to be found Surgeons of the Negro Race, Solicitors, Barristers, Mayors, Councillors, Princ.i.p.als and Founders of High Schools and Colleges, Editors and Proprietors of Newspapers, Archdeacons, Bishops, Judges, and Authors--men who not only teach those immediately around them, but also teach the world. Members of the race have even been entrusted with the administration of Governments. And it is not mere commonplace men that the Negro Race has produced. Not only have the British Universities thought them worthy of their honorary degrees and conferred them on them, but members of the race have won these University degrees. A few years back a full-blooded Negro took the highest degree Oxford has to give to a young man. The European world is looking with wonder and admiration at the progress made by the Negro Race--a progress unparalleled in the annals of the history of any race."

To this we may add that in the domain [258] of high literature the Blacks of the United States, for the twenty-five years of social emanc.i.p.ation, and despite the lingering obstructions of caste prejudice, have positively achieved wonders. Leaving aside the writings of men of such high calibre as F. Dougla.s.s, Dr. Hyland Garnet, Prof. Crummell, Prof. E. Blyden, Dr. Tanner, and others, it is gratifying to be able to chronicle the Ethiopic women of North America as moving shoulder to shoulder with the men in the highest spheres of literary activity. Among a brilliant band of these our sisters, conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out but a solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and of giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. The allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. But it is as a poet that posterity will hail her in the coming ages of our Race. For pathos, depth of spiritual insight, and magical exercise of a rare power of self-utterance, it will hardly be questioned that she has surpa.s.sed every compet.i.tor [259] among females--white or black--save and except Elizabeth Barett Browning, with whom the gifted African stands on much the same plane of poetic excellence.

The above summary of our past vicissitudes and actual position shows that there is nothing in our political circ.u.mstances to occasion uneasiness. The miserable skin and race doctrine we have been discussing does not at all prefigure the destinies at all events of the West Indies, or determine the motives that will affect them. With the exception of those belonging to the Southern states of the Union, the vast body of African descendants now dispersed in various countries of the Western Hemisphere are at sufficient peace to begin occupying themselves, according to some fixed programme, about matters of racial importance. More than ten millions of Africans are scattered over the wide area indicated, and possess amongst them instances of mental and other qualifications which render them remarkable among their fellow-men. But like the essential parts of a complicated albeit perfect machine, these attainments and qualifications so widely dispersed await, it is evident, some potential [260] agency to collect and adjust them into the vast engine essential for executing the true purposes of the civilized African Race. Already, especially since the late Emanc.i.p.ation Jubilee, are signs manifest of a desire for intercommunion and intercomprehension amongst the more distinguished of our people. With intercourse and unity of purpose will be secured the means to carry out the obvious duties which are sure to devolve upon us, especially with reference to the cradle of our Race, which is most probably destined to be the ultimate resting-place and headquarters of millions of our posterity. Within the short time that we had to compa.s.s all that we have achieved, there could not have arisen opportunities for doing more than we have effected. Meanwhile our present device is: "Work, Hope, and Wait!"

Finally, it must be borne in mind that the abolition of physical bondage did not by any means secure all the requisite conditions of "a fair field and no favour" for the future career of the freedmen. The remnant of Jacob, on their return from the Captivity, were compelled, whilst rebuilding their Temple, literally to labour with the working tool in one hand [261] and the sword for personal defence in the other.

Even so have the conditions, figuratively, presented themselves under which the Blacks have been obliged to rear the fabric of self-elevation since 1838, whilst combating ceaselessly the obstacles opposed to the realizing of their legitimate aspirations. Mental and, in many cases, material success has been gained, but the machinery for acc.u.mulating and applying the means required for comprehensive racial enterprises is waiting on Providence, time, and circ.u.mstances for its establishment and successful working.

NOTES

254. *"Yo te'ja pa.s.se mal machoe"--in metaphorical allusion to new-born infants who have lived beyond a certain number of days.