During the day we gathered the following information:--
Mr. C. had been a planter for thirty-six years. He has had charge of the estate on which he now resides ten years. He is the attorney for two other large estates a few miles from this, and has under his superintendence, in all, more than a thousand apprenticed laborers. This estate consists of six hundred and sixty-six acres of land, most of which is under cultivation either in cane or provisions, and has on it three hundred apprentices and ninety-two free children. The average amount of sugar raised on it is two hundred hogsheads of a ton each, but this year it will amount to at least two hundred and fifty hogsheads--the largest crop ever taken off since he has been connected with it. He has planted thirty acres additional this year. The island has never been under so good cultivation, and is becoming better every year.
During our walk round the works, and during the day, he spoke several times in general terms of the great blessings of emanc.i.p.ation.
Emanc.i.p.ation is as great a blessing to the master as to the slave.
"Why," exclaimed Mr. C., "it was emanc.i.p.ation to me. I a.s.sure you the first of August brought a great, _great_ relief to me. I felt myself, for the first time, a freeman on that day. You cannot imagine the responsibilities and anxieties which were swept away with the extinction of slavery."
There were many unpleasant and annoying circ.u.mstances attending slavery, which had a most pernicious effect on the master. There was continual jealousy and suspicion between him and those under him. They looked on each other as sworn enemies, and there was kept up a continual system of plotting and counterplotting. Then there was the flogging, which was a matter of course through the island. To strike a slave was as common as to strike a horse--then the punishments were inflicted so unjustly, in innumerable instances, that the poor victims knew no more why they were punished than the dead in their graves. The master would be a little ill--he had taken a cold, perhaps, and felt irritable--something were wrong--his pa.s.sion was up, and away went some poor fellow to the whipping post. The slightest offence at such a moment, though it might have pa.s.sed unnoticed at another time, would meet with the severest punishment. He said he himself had more than once ordered his slaves to be flogged in a pa.s.sion, and after he became cool he would have given guineas not to have done it. Many a night had he been kept awake in thinking of some poor fellow whom he had shut up in the dungeon, and had rejoiced when daylight came. He feared lest the slave might die before morning; either cut his throat or dash his head against the wall in his desperation. He has known such cases to occur.
The apprenticeship will not have so beneficial an effect as he hoped it would, on account of an indisposition on the part of many of the planters to abide by its regulations. The planters generally are doing very little to prepare the apprentices for freedom; but some are doing very much to unprepare them. They are driving the people from them by their conduct.
Mr. C. said he often wished for emanc.i.p.ation. There were several other planters among his acquaintance who had the same feelings, but did not dare express them. Most of the planters, however, were violently opposed. Many of them declared that emanc.i.p.ation could not and should not take place. So obstinate were they, that they would have sworn on the 31st of July, 1831, that emanc.i.p.ation could not happen. _These very men now see and acknowledge the benefits which have resulted from the new system_.
The first of August pa.s.sed off very quietly. The people labored on that day as usual, and had a stranger gone over the island, he would not have suspected any change had taken place. Mr. C. did not expect his people would go to work that day. He told them what the conditions of the new system were, and that after the first of August, they would be required to turn out to work at six o"clock instead of five o"clock as before. At the appointed hour every man was at his post in the field. Not one individual was missing.
The apprentices do more work in the nine hours required by law, than in twelve hours during slavery.
His apprentices are perfectly willing to work for him during their own time. He pays them at the rate of twenty-five cents a day. The people are less quarrelsome than when they were slaves.
About eight o"clock in the evening, Mr. C. invited us to step out into the piazza. Pointing to the houses of the laborers, which were crowded thickly together, and almost concealed by the cocoa-nut and calabash trees around them, he said, "there are probably more than four hundred people in that village. All my own laborers, with their free children, are retired for the night, and with them are many from the neighboring estates." We listened, but all was still, save here and there a low whistle from some of the watchmen. He said that night was a specimen of every night now. But it had not always been so. During slavery these villages were oftentimes a scene of bickering, revelry, and contention.
One might hear the inmates reveling and shouting till midnight.
Sometimes it would be kept up till morning. Such scenes have much decreased, and instead of the obscene and heathen songs which they used to sing, they are learning hymns from the lips of their children.
The apprentices are more trusty. They are more faithful in work which is given them to do. They take more interest in the prosperity of the estate generally, in seeing that things are kept in order, and that the property is not destroyed.
They are more open-hearted. Formerly they used to shrink before the eyes of the master, and appear afraid to meet him. They would go out of their way to avoid him, and never were willing to talk with him. They never liked to have him visit their houses; they looked on him as a spy, and always expected a reprimand, or perhaps a flogging. Now they look up cheerfully when they meet him, and a visit to their homes is esteemed a favor. Mr. C. has more confidence in his people than he ever had before.
There is less theft than during slavery. This is caused by greater respect for character, and the protection afforded to property by law.
For a slave to steal from his master was never considered wrong, but rather a meritorious act. He who could rob the most without being detected was the best fellow. The blacks in several of the islands have a proverb, that for a thief to steal from a thief makes G.o.d laugh.
The blacks have a great respect for, and even fear of law. Mr. C.
believes no people on earth are more influenced by it. They regard the same punishment, inflicted by a magistrate, much more than when inflicted by their master. Law is a kind of deity to them, and they regard it with great reverence and awe.
There is no insecurity now. Before emanc.i.p.ation there was a continual fear of insurrection. Mr. C. said he had lain down in bed many a night fearing that his throat would be cut before morning. He has started up often from a dream in which he thought his room was filled with armed slaves. But when the abolition bill pa.s.sed, his fears all pa.s.sed away.
He felt a.s.sured there would be no trouble then. The motive to insurrection was taken away. As for the cutting of throats, or insult and violence in any way, he never suspects it. He never thinks of fastening his door at night now. As we were retiring to bed he looked round the room in which we had been sitting, where every thing spoke of serenity and confidence--doors and windows open, and books and plate scattered about on the tables and sideboards. "You see things now," he said, "just as we leave them every night, but you would have seen quite a different scene had you come here a few years ago."
_Mr. C. thinks the slaves of Barbadoes might have been entirely and immediately emanc.i.p.ated as well as those of Antigua._ The results, he doubts not, would have been the same.
He has no fear of disturbance or insubordination in 1840. He has no doubt that the people will work. That there may be a little unsettled, excited, _experimenting_ feeling for a short time, he thinks probable--but feels confident that things generally will move on peaceably and prosperously. He looks with much more anxiety to the emanc.i.p.ation of the non-praedials in 1838.
There is no disposition among the apprentices to revenge their wrongs.
Mr. C. feels the utmost security both of person and property.
The slaves were very much excited by the discussions in England. They were well acquainted, with them, and looked and longed for the result.
They watched every arrival of the packet with great anxiety. The people on his estate often knew its arrival before he did. One of his daughters remarked, that she could see their hopes flashing from their eyes. They manifested, however, no disposition to rebel, waiting in anxious but quiet hope for their release. Yet Mr. C. had no doubt, that if parliament had thrown out the emanc.i.p.ation bill, and all measures had ceased for their relief, there would have been a general insurrection.--While there was hope they remained peaceable, but had hope been destroyed it would have been buried in blood.
There was some dissatisfaction among the blacks with the apprenticeship.
They thought they ought to be entirely free, and that their masters were deceiving them. They could not at first understand the conditions of the new system--there was some murmuring among them, but they thought it better, however, to wait six years for the boon, than to run the risk of losing it altogether by revolt.
The expenses of the apprenticeship are about the same as during slavery.
But under the free system, Mr. C. has no doubt they will be much less.
He has made a calculation of the expenses of cultivating the estate on which he resides for one year during slavery, and what they will probably be for one year under the free system. He finds the latter are less by about $3,000.
Real estate has increased in value more than thirty per rent. There is greater confidence in the security of property. Instances were related to us of estates that could not be sold at any price before emanc.i.p.ation, that within the last two years have been disposed of at great prices.
The complaints to the magistrates, on the part of the planters, were very numerous at first, but have greatly diminished. They are of the most trivial and even ludicrous character. One of the magistrates says the greater part of the cases that come before him are from old women who cannot get their coffee early enough in the morning! and for offences of equal importance.
Prejudice has much diminished since emanc.i.p.ation. The discussions in England prior to that period had done much to soften it down, but the abolition of slavery has given it its death blow.
Such is a rapid sketch of the various topics touched upon during our interview with Mr. C. and his family.
Before we left the hospitable mansion of Lear"s, we had the pleasure of meeting a company of gentlemen at dinner. With the exception of one, who was provost-marshal, they were merchants of Bridgetown. These gentlemen expressed their full concurrence in the statements of Mr. C., and gave additional testimony equally valuable.
Mr. W., the provost-marshal, stated that he had the supervision of the public jail, and enjoyed the best opportunity of knowing the state of crime, and he was confident that there was a less amount of crime since emanc.i.p.ation than before. He also spoke of the increasing attention which the negroes paid to neatness of dress and personal appearance.
The company broke up about nine o"clock, but not until we had seen ample evidence of the friendly feelings of all the gentlemen toward our object. There was not a single dissenting voice to any of the statements made, or any of the sentiments expressed. This fact shows that the prevailing feeling is in favor of freedom, and that too on the score of policy and self-interest.
Dinner parties are in one sense a very safe pulse in all matters of general interest. They rarely beat faster than the heart of the community. No subject is likely to be introduced amid the festivities of a fashionable circle, until it is fully endorsed by public sentiment.
Through the urgency of Mr. C., we were induced to remain all night.
Early the next morning, he proposed a ride before breakfast to Scotland.
Scotland is the name given to an abrupt, hilly section, in the north of the island. It is about five miles from Mr. C."s, and nine from Bridgetown. In approaching, the prospect bursts suddenly upon the eye, extorting an involuntary exclamation of surprise. After riding for miles, through a country which gradually swells into slight elevations, or sweeps away in rolling plains, covered with cane, yams, potatoes, eddoes, corn, and gra.s.s, alternately, and laid out with the regularity of a garden; after admiring the cultivation, beauty, and skill exhibited on every hand, until almost wearied with viewing the creations of art; the eye at once falls upon a scene in which is crowded all the wildness and abruptness of nature in one of her most freakish moods--a scene which seems to defy the hand of cultivation and the graces of art. We ascended a hill on the border of this section, which afforded us a complete view. To describe it in one sentence, it is an immense basin, from two to three miles in diameter at the top, the edges of which are composed of ragged hills, and the sides and bottom of which are diversified with myriads of little hillocks and corresponding indentations. Here and there is a small sugar estate in the bottom, and cultivation extends some distance up the sides, though this is at considerable risk, for not infrequently, large tracts of soil, covered with cane or provisions, slide down, over-spreading the crops below, and destroying those which they carry with them.
Mr. C. pointed to the opposite side of the basin to a small group of stunted trees, which he said were the last remains of the Barbadoes forests. In the midst of them there is a boiling spring of considerable notoriety.
In another direction, amid the rugged precipices, Mr. C. pointed out the residences of a number of poor white families, whom he described as the most degraded, vicious, and abandoned people in the island--"very far below the negroes." They live promiscuously, are drunken, licentious, and poverty-stricken,--a body of most squalid and miserable human beings.
From the height on which we stood, we could see the ocean nearly around the island, and on our right and left, overlooking the basin below us, rose the two highest points of land of which Barbadoes can boast. The white marl about their naked tops gives them a bleak and desolate appearance, which contrasts gloomily with the verdure of the surrounding cultivation.
After we had fully gratified ourselves with viewing the miniature representation of old Scotia, we descended again into the road, and returned to Lear"s. We pa.s.sed numbers of men and women going towards town with loads of various kinds of provisions on their heads. Some were black, and others were white--of the same cla.s.s whose huts had just been shown us amid the hills and ravines of Scotland. We observed that the latter were barefoot, and carried their loads on their heads precisely like the former. As we pa.s.sed these busy pedestrians, the blacks almost uniformly courtesied or spoke; but the whites did not appear to notice us. Mr. C inquired whether we were not struck with this difference in the conduct of the two people, remarking that he had always observed it.
It is very seldom, said he, that I meet a negro who does not speak to me politely; but this cla.s.s of whites either pa.s.s along without looking up, or cast a half-vacant, rude stare into one"s face, without opening their mouths. Yet this people, he added, veriest raggam.u.f.fins that they are, despise the negroes, and consider it quite degrading to put themselves on term of equity with them. They will beg of blacks more provident and industrious than themselves, or they will steal their poultry and rob their provision grounds at night; but they would disdain to a.s.sociate with them. Doubtless these _sans culottes_ swell in their dangling rags with the haughty consciousness that they possess _white skins_. What proud reflections they must have, as they pursue their barefoot way, thinking on their high lineage, and running back through the long list of their ill.u.s.trious ancestry whose notable badge was a _white skin_! No wonder they cannot stop to bow to the pa.s.sing stranger. These sprouts of the Caucasian race are known among the Barbadians by the rather ungracious name of _Red Shanks_. They are considered the pest of the island, and are far more troublesome to the police, in proportion to their members, than the apprentices. They are estimated at about eight thousand.
The origin of this population we learned was the following: It has long been a law in Barbadoes, that each proprietor should provide a white man for every sixty slaves in his possession, and give him an acre of land, a house, and arms requisite for defence of the island in case of insurrection. This caused an importation of poor whites from Ireland and England, and their number has been gradually increasing until the present time.
During our stay of nearly two days with Mr. C., there was nothing to which he so often alluded as to the security from danger which was now enjoyed by the planters. As he sat in his parlor, surrounded by his affectionate family, the sense of personal and domestic security appeared to be a luxury to him. He repeatedly expressed himself substantially thus: "During the existence of slavery, how often have I retired to bed _fearing_ _that I should have my throat cut before morning_, but _now_ the danger is all over."
We took leave of Lear"s, after a protracted visit, not without a pressing invitation from Mr. C. to call again.
SECOND VISIT TO LEAR"S.
The following week, on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, we received a note from Mr.
C., inviting us to spend the Sabbath at Lear"s, where we might attend service at a neighboring chapel, and see a congregation composed chiefly of apprentices. On our arrival, we received a welcome from the residents, which rea.s.sured us of their sympathy in our object. We joined the family circle around the centre table, and spent the evening in free conversation on the subject of slavery.
During the evening Mr. C. stated, that he had lately met with a planter who, for some years previous to emanc.i.p.ation, and indeed up to the very event, maintained that it was utterly impossible for such a thing ever to take place. The mother country, he said, could not be so mad as to take a step which must inevitably ruin the colonies. _Now_, said Mr. C., this planter would be one of the last in the island to vote for a restoration of slavery; nay, he even wishes to have the apprenticeship terminated at once, and entire freedom given to the people. Such changes as this were very common.
Mr. C. remarked that during slavery, if the negro ventured to express an opinion about any point of management, he was met at once with a reprimand. If one should say, "I think such a course would he best," or, "Such a field of cane is fit for cutting," the reply would be, "_Think_!
you have no right to think any thing about it. _Do as I bid you_." Mr.
C. confessed frankly, that he had often used such language himself. Yet at the same time that he affected such contempt for the opinions of the slaves, he used to go around secretly among the negro houses at night to overhear their conversation, and ascertain their views. Sometimes he received very valuable suggestions from them, which he was glad to avail himself of, though he was careful not to acknowledge their origin.