Taxes on slaves, stock, and land Usual allowance for Christmas cheer Hired gangs to dig cane-holes, at 78. per acre For ten young heifers, at £17 each 66 • Equal to 5,590 days of labour of able negroes, at 2s. per day" 614 days' labour of second gang, at 1s. 8d. a day" 582 5 10 51 3 4 The last two items are not easily understood, but, I presume, they are average estimates of the customary expenses for jobbers. The other charges which I have not taken notice of, are chiefly for lumber, staves, wharfage, and, under any management, would be indispensable. Now this property, I repeat, is one of the best managed in the island; and, perhaps, the chief reason that it is so, is, that it is not in debt. But yet, what returns can bear up against such expenses? What would be thought of a farm in England, not exceeding nine hundred acres, a third of which is planted in its staple produce, the salaries of the managers of which alone is nearly £1000 currency? This £1000 a year would go a long way in paying wages to the labourers, at the ordinary price of jobbed labour in this island-a maccaroni or a shilling sterling a day, which is about £15. 10s. sterling a year. Of the 300 negroes on the estate, I will suppose one-half capable of earning wages at that rate; the sum total of one year's wages would then amount to £2,325 sterling, for a more effective gang than is generally to be found among a similar number of negroes. The saving in the salaries and supplies that are necessary under the present system would amply pay the wages of the free labourers; and one-third more of serviceable labour, at least, might be obtained from the paid labourer, than is now to be got from his unpaid toil. But the planters say the negroes will not work for wages: I can only say, that my experience is altogether opposite to theirs on this point. Hitherto, the apprentices have not only cheerfully worked for wages, in the few instances in which it has been paid to them, but wherever they have been well treated, they have even been satisfied with moderate wages. Night-work, I am aware, they will not do, as they have done it heretofore, for any wages; neither is it desirable that they should. On the property of a gentleman who is one of the, most humane owners in the island, I visited the works during crop time one morning, at a very early hour. The men, who were scumming the sugar when I entered, I observed, appeared worn out with fatigue and watching. They had then been at work twenty-four hours without intermission, day and night; it was then five o'clock in the morning: they had gone to work at the same hour on the preceding day, and were to continue at labour till seven o'clock in the evening of that day,-in all, making thirty-eight hours of constant la bour. Now, labour like this the negroes never will be got to perform again-it is needless to expect it. It is not just to infer, because they will not undertake immoderate labour, they will not perform that which is reasonable. In this case I have just mentioned, when I remonstrated with the book-keeper, who was superin- ^. tending the labour of the negroes, I was told that they preferred having a long spell and being done with it.. My own opinion was, that no man would prefer thirtyeight hours of continuous labour, who could obtain any reasonable time of intermission. I was told, some of the others who kept spell were for a shorter period: these were the coopers and carpenters; they had been only kept up all night, but at sunrise were again expected to be at their ordinary employments. But then, it will be said, this extra labour is only exacted in crop time, or while the mill is about; but it so happens, that the mill is about nine months out of the twelve on many plantations. In the preceding instances, the proprietor knew nothing of the harassing service exacted from his apprentices. The aim and end of all my observations and animadversions on this system, are to induce the proprietors to abandon the present mode of managing their estates; to substitute wages for supplies; to trust to free labour only for the cultivation of their estates; to make tenants of their labourers; and to allot small farms to the more independent and well-conducted persons of the coloured and of the negro population. Under any circumstances, the cultivation of sugar in all probability will decrease; but with the changes proposed, and a firm but conciliating system of policy on the part of the government and its subordinate agents, I entertain sanguine expectations of the revival of prosperity in this colony; and even as things are, with only the hope of these changes for preserving the actual tranquillity of the country, the value of property since this day twelvemonth, (the brief period of my experience,) I would say, has been enhanced nearly in a twofold measure. My opinion is, that the negroes are qualified for complete and immediate freedom; and the attempt to keep them from it, for the term proposed by the new law, I greatly fear will lead to occurrences which no one can contemplate with unconcern. I am, my dear Sir, R. R. M. LETTER XXXV. WORKING OF THE APPRENTICESHIP SYSTEM IN JAMAICA. To MONS. JULIEN, MY DEAR Sir, Kingston, Nov. 6, 1834. The failure of the apprenticeship system would be to be regretted on no account more than for the unfa vourable inference respecting the real abolition of slavery, that would be unfairly drawn from the unsuccessful operation of this partial measure. The enemies to emancipation would argue that the conduct of the negroes was the cause of its failure, that slaves who could not be half-liberated with success could never be wholly emancipated with safety. Such notions as these, if the apprenticeship system should unfortunately fail in our colonies, would do harm to the cause of liberty in your colonies. My object in now addressing you, is to put you in possession of the progress and prospects of the new system in this colony; and by pointing out the difficulties it has had to encounter, I hope to indicate evils which the friends to the abolition of slavery in your country will be induced to avoid in any remedial measure for the slave they may propose or sanction. The old slave-law in our colonies had undergone repeated modifications and improvements; but its ancient savagery could not be considered as effectually softened down till the year 1788. We are told by Mr. Brydges, "The early laws constructed to restrain the unexampled atrocities of the negroes were rigid and inclement: so great were their depravity of nature and deformity of mind, as to give colour to the prevailing belief in a natural inferiority of intellect, so that the colonists considered it to be a crime of no greater moral magnitude to kill a negro than to destroy a monkey, however rare their interest in them as valuable property rendered such a test of conscience." I presume the clergy of your country have written on the subject of slavery, and have also descanted on "the natural depravity" and mental deformity that caused the construction of rigid and inclement laws, and led the civilized white men of your colonies to think no more of killing a negro than of destroying a monkey. I, therefore, perhaps, ought to apologize for troubling you with the Rev. Mr. Brydges' pleasing, and, I dare say, very accurate account of the early spirit of colonial jurisprudence. In 1748, an attempt was made to mitigate the barbarity of the penal code of this colony: hitherto the power was in the hands of the owners of punishing their slaves to the extent of mutilation, and, consequently, of death; for no limb, I apprehend, could be mutilated without endangering life. When the measure was discussed in the House of Assembly, which proposed putting these capital punishments in the hands of the magistracy, the tables of the house groaned under the weight of petitions and remonstrances against the infraction of the right and privileges of the planters; and the admirable historian to whose enlightened views I am indebted on many occasions, lays me under a farther obligation for the information, that "it is not at all surprising that even this humane relaxation of the nerves of discipline was viewed with such trembling anxiety, or that the meditated indulgence was smothered beneath a pile of petitions, which loaded the table of the legislature.” In 1831 the late slave law was enacted. The condition of the slave was not in any way effectually improved by it. In some things, I think he was put in a worse condition than the preceding law had placed him. In both, however, ample pains were taken to remove the barbarous punishment that disgraced former enactments; and in the last, to secure for the negro in courts of law the advantages of legal protection. But when the crime amounted to resistance of authority, or tyranny, or insult, or injury to the majesty of a white man, the advantage I speak of was wholly nominal. In 1512, in consequence of the reiterated complaints of the Dominican missionaries of the cruelties exercised by the Spanish on the Indians, a measure was prepared for the melioration of their condition, very similar to our late one in the colonies. The Spanish government sent out a number of gentlemen called visitors or intendants, whose office was quite analogous to that of the special magistrates in our islands, to protect the natives from oppression. Without the consent of the intendants, the Indians could not be punished. |