Chapter II: Tour to the Country (1)

Wishing to accomplish the most that our limited time would allow; we separated at Kingston;--the one taking a northwesterly route among the mountainous coffee districts of Port Royal and St. Andrews, and the other going into the parish of St. Thomas in the East.

St. Thomas in the East is said to present the apprenticeship in its most favorable aspects. There is probably no other parish in the island which includes so many fine estates, or has so many liberal-minded planters.[A] A day's easy drive from Kingston, brought us to Morant Bay, where we spent two days, and called on several influential gentlemen, besides visiting the neighboring estate of Belvidere. One gentleman whom we met was Thomas Thomson, Esq., the senior local magistrate of the Parish, next in civil influence to the Custos. His standing may be inferred from the circumstance, (not trifling in Jamaica,) that the Governor, during his tour of the island, spent a night at his house. We breakfasted with Mr. Thomson, and at that time, and subsequently, he showed the utmost readiness in furnishing us with information. He is a Scotchman, has been in the island for thirty-eight years, and has served as a local magistrate for thirty-four. Until very lately, he has been a proprietor of estates; he informed us that he had sold out, but did not mention the reasons. We strongly suspected, from the drift of his conversation, that he sold about the time of abolition, through alarm for the consequences. We early discovered that he was one of the old school tyrants, hostile to the change which _had_ taken place, and dreadfully alarmed in view of that which was yet to come. Although full of the prejudices of an old slaveholder, yet we found him a man of strong native sense and considerable intelligence. He declared it most unreservedly as his opinion, that the negroes would not work after 1810--they were _naturally so indolent_, that they would prefer gaining a livelihood in some easier way than by digging cane holes. He had all the results of the emancipation of 1840 as clearly before his mind, as though he saw them in prophetic vision; he knew the whole process. One portion of the negroes, too lazy to provide food by their own labor, will rob the provision grounds of the few who will remain at work. The latter will endure the wrong as long as they well can, and then they will procure arms and fire upon the marauders; this will give rise to incessant petty conflicts between the lazy and the industrious, and a great destruction of life will ensue. Others will die in vast numbers from starvation; among these will be the superannuated and the young, who cannot support themselves, and whom the planters will not be able to support. Others numerous will perish from disease, chiefly for want of medical attendance, which it will be wholly out of their power to provide. Such is the dismal picture drawn by a late slaveholder, of the consequences of removing the negroes from the tender mercies of oppressors. Happily for all parties, Mr. Thomson is not very likely to establish his claim to the character of a prophet. We were not at all surprised to hear him wind up his prophecies against freedom with a _denunciation of slavery_. He declared that slavery was a wretched system. Man was _naturally a tyrant_. Mr. T. said he had one good thing to say of the negroes, viz., that they were an _exceedingly temperate people_. It was a very unusual thing to see one of them drunk. Slavery, he said, was a system of _horrid cruelties_. He had lately read, in the history of Jamaica, of a planter, in 1763, having a slave's _leg_ cut off, to keep him from running away. He said that dreadful cruelties were perpetrated until the close of slavery, and they were inseparable from slavery. He also spoke of the fears which haunted the slaveholders. He never would live on an estate; and whenever he chanced to stay over night in the country, he always took care to secure his door by bolting and barricading it. At Mr. Thomson's we met Andrew Wright, Esq., the proprietor of a sugar estate called Green Wall, situated some six miles from the bay. He is an intelligent gentleman, of an amiable disposition--has on his estate one hundred and sixty apprentices. He described his people as being in a very peaceable state, and as industrious as he could wish. He said he had no trouble with them, and it was his opinion, that where there is trouble, it must be _owing to bad management_. He anticipated no difficulty after 1840, and was confident that his people would not leave him. He believed that the negroes would not to any great extent abandon the cultivation of sugar after 1840. Mr. T. stated two facts respecting this enlightened planter, which amply account for the good conduct of his apprentices. One was, that he was an exceedingly kind and amiable man. _He had never been known to have a falling out with any man in his life_. Another fact was, that Mr. Wright was the only resident sugar proprietor in all that region of country. He superintends his own estate, while the other large estates are generally left in the hands of unprincipled, mercenary men.

[Footnote A: We have the following testimony of Sir Lionel Smith to the superiority of St. Thomas in the East. It is taken from the Royal Gazette, (Kingston.) May 6, 1837. "His Excellency has said, that in all his tour he was not more highly gratified with any parish than he was with St. Thomas in the East."]

We called on the Wesleyan missionary at Morant Bay, Rev. Mr. Crookes, who has been in Jamaica fifteen years. Mr. C. said, that in many respects there had been a great improvement since the abolition of slavery, but, said he, "I abominate the apprenticeship system. At best, it is only _improved slavery_." The obstacles to religious efforts have been considerably diminished, but the masters were not to be thanked for this; it was owing chiefly to the protection of British law. The apprenticeship, Mr. C. thought, could not be any material preparation for freedom. He was persuaded that it would have been far better policy to have granted entire emancipation at once.

In company with Mr. Howell, an Independent, and teacher of a school of eighty negro children in Morant Bay, we drove out to Belvidere estate, which is situated about four miles from the bay, in a rich district called the Blue Mountain Valley. The Belvidere is one of the finest estates in the valley. It contains two thousand acres, only four hundred of which are cultivated in sugar; the most of it is woodland. This estate belongs to Count Freeman, an absentee proprietor. We took breakfast with the overseer, or manager, Mr. Briant. Mr. B. stated that there was not so much work done now as there was during slavery. Thinks there is _as much done for the length of time that the apprentices are at work_; but a day and a half every week is lost; neither _are they called out as early in the morning, nor do they work as late at night_. The apprentices work at night very cheerfully for money: but they will not work on Saturday for the common wages--quarter of a dollar. On inquiry of Mr. B. we ascertained that the reason the apprentices did not work on Saturdays was, that they could _make twice or three times as much_ by cultivating their provision grounds, and carrying their produce to market. At _night_ they cannot cultivate their grounds, then they work for their masters "very cheerfully."

The manager stated, that there had been no disturbance with the people of Belvidere since the change. They work well, and conduct themselves peaceably; and he had no fear but that the great body of the negroes would remain on the estate after 1840, and labor as usual. This he thought would be the case on every estate where there _is mild management_. Some, indeed, might leave even such estates to _try their fortunes_ elsewhere, but they would soon discover that they could get no better treatment abroad, and they would then return to their old homes.

While we were at Belvidere, Mr. Howell took us to see a new chapel which the apprentices of that estate have erected since 1834, by their own labor, and at their own expense. The house is thirty feet by forty; composed of the same materials of which the negro huts are built. We were told that the building of this chapel was first suggested by the apprentices, and as soon as permission was obtained, they commenced the preparations for its erection. We record this as a delightful _sign of the times_.

On our return to Morant Bay, we visited the house of correction, situated near the village. This is the only "institution," as a Kingston paper gravely terms it, of the kind in the parish. It is a small, ill-constructed establishment, horribly filthy, more like a receptacle for wild beasts than human beings. There is a treadmill connected with it, made to _accommodate_ fifteen persons at a time. Alternate companies ascend the wheel every fifteen minutes. It was unoccupied when we went in; most of the prisoners being at work on the public roads. Two or three, who happened to be near by, were called in by the keeper, and ordered to mount the wheel, to show us how it worked. It made our blood run cold as we thought of the dreadful suffering that inevitably ensues, when the foot loses the step, and the body hangs against the revolving cylinder.

Leaving the house of correction, we proceeded to the village. In a small open square in the centre of it, we saw a number of the unhappy inmates of the house of correction at work under the direction, we are sorry to say, of our friend Thomas Thomson, Esq. They were chained two and two by heavy chains fastened to iron bands around their necks. On another occasion, we saw the same gang at work in the yard attached to the Independent chapel.

We received a visit, at our lodgings, from the special justice of this district, Major Baines. He was accompanied by Mr. Thomson, who came to introduce him as his friend. We were not left to this recommendation alone, suspicious as it was, to infer the character of this magistrate, for we were advertised previously that he was a "planter's man"--unjust and cruel to the apprentices. Major B. appeared to have been looking through his friend Thomson's prophetic telescope. There was certainly a wonderful coincidence of vision--the same abandonment of labor, the same preying upon provision grounds; the same violence, bloodshed and great loss of life among the negroes themselves! However, the special magistrate appeared to see a little further than the local magistrate, even to the _end_ of the carnage, and to the re-establishment of industry, peace and prosperity. The evil, he was confident, would soon cure itself.

One remark of the special magistrate was worthy a prophet. When asked if he thought there would be any serious disaffection produced among the praedials by the emancipation of the non-praedials in 1838, he said, he thought there would not be, and assigned as the reason, that the praedials knew all about the arrangement, and did not _expect to be free_. That is, the field apprentices knew that the domestics were to be liberated two years sooner than they, and, without inquiring into the grounds, or justice of the arrangement, _they would promptly acquiesce in it_!

What a fine compliment to the patience and forbearance of the mass of the negroes. The majority see the minority emancipated two years before them, and that, too, upon the ground of an odious distinction which makes the domestic more worthy than they who "bear the heat and burthen of the day," in the open field; and yet they submit patiently, because they are told that it is the pleasure of government that it should be so!

The _non-praedials_, too, have their noble traits, as well as the less favored agriculturalists. The special magistrate said that he was then engaged in classifying the apprentices of the different estates in his district. The object of this classification was, to ascertain all those who were non-praedials, that they might be recorded as the subjects of emancipation in 1838. To his astonishment he found numbers of this class who expressed a wish to remain apprentices until 1840. On one estate, six out of eight took this course, on another, twelve out of fourteen, and in some instances, _all_ the non-praedials determined to suffer it out with the rest of their brethren, refusing to accept freedom until with the whole body they could rise up and shout the jubilee of universal disinthrallment. Here is a nobility worthy to compare with the patience of the praedials. In connection with the conduct of the non-praedials, he mentioned the following instance of white brutality and negro magnanimity. A planter, whose negroes he was classifying, brought forward a woman whom he claimed as a praedial. The woman declared that she was a non-praedial, and on investigation it was clearly proved that she had always been a domestic; and consequently entitled to freedom in 1838. After the planter's claim was set aside, the woman said, "_Now_ I will stay with massa, and be his 'prentice for de udder two year."

Shortly before we left the Bay, our landlady, a colored woman, introduced one of her neighbors, whose conversation afforded us a rare treat. She was a colored lady of good appearance and lady like manners. Supposing from her color that she had been prompted by strong sympathy in our objects to seek an interview with us, we immediately introduced the subject of slavery, stating that as we had a vast number of slaves in our country, we had visited Jamaica to see how the freed people behaved, with the hope that our countrymen might be encouraged to adopt emancipation. "Alack a day!" The tawny madam shook her head, and, with that peculiar creole whine, so expressive of contempt, said, "Can't say any thing for you, sir--they not doing no good now, sir--the negroes an't!"--and on she went abusing the apprentices, and denouncing abolition. No American white lady could speak more disparagingly of the niggers, than did this recreant descendant of the negro race. They did no work, they stole, were insolent, insubordinate, and what not.

She concluded in the following elegiac strain, which did not fail to touch our sympathies. "I can't tell what will become of us after 1840. Our negroes will be taken away from us--we shall find no work to do ourselves--we shall all have to beg, and who shall we beg from? _All will be beggars, and we must starve_!"

Poor Miss L. is one of that unfortunate class who have hitherto gained a meagre support from the stolen hire of a few slaves, and who, after entire emancipation, will be stripped of every thing. This is the class upon whom emancipation will fall most heavily; it will at once cast many out of a situation of ease, into the humiliating dilemma of _laboring or begging_--to the _latter_ of which alternatives, Miss L. seems inclined. Let Miss L. be comforted! It is better to beg than to _steal_.

We proceeded from Morant Bay to Bath, a distance of fourteen miles, where we put up at a neat cottage lodging-house, kept by Miss P., a colored lady. Bath is a picturesque little village, embowered in perpetual green, and lying at the foot of a mountain on one side, and on the other by the margin of a rambling little river. It seems to have accumulated around it and within it, all the verdure and foliage of a tropical clime.

Having a letter of introduction, we called on the special magistrate for that district--George Willis, Esq. As we entered his office, an apprentice was led up in irons by a policeman, and at the same time another man rode up with a letter from the master of the apprentice, directing the magistrate to release him instantly. The facts of this case, as Mr. W. himself explained them to us, will illustrate the careless manner in which the magistrates administer the law. The master had sent his apprentice to a neighboring estate, where there had been some disturbance, to get his clothes, which had been left there. The overseer of the estate finding an intruder on his property, had him handcuffed forthwith, notwithstanding his repeated declarations that his master had sent him. Having handcuffed him, he ordered him to be taken before the special magistrate, Mr. W., who had him confined in the station-house all night. Mr. W., in pursuance of the direction received from the master, ordered the man to be released, but at the same time repeatedly declared to him that the _overseer was not to blame for arresting him_.

After this case was disposed of, Mr. W, turned to us. He said he had a district of thirty miles in extent, including five thousand apprentices; these he visited thrice every month. He stated that there had been a gradual decrease of crime since he came to the district, which was early in 1835. For example, in March, 1837, there were but twenty-four persons punished, and in March, 1835, there were as many punished in a single week. He explained this by saying that the apprentices had become _better acquainted with the requirements of the law_. The chief offence at present was _absconding from labor_.

This magistrate gave us an account of an alarming rebellion which had lately occurred in his district, which we will venture to notice, since it is the only serious disturbance on the part of the negroes, which has taken place in the island, from the beginning of the apprenticeship. About two weeks before, the apprentices on Thornton estate, amounting to about ninety, had refused to work, and fled in a body to the woods, where they still remained. Their complaint, according to our informant, was, that their master had turned the cattle upon their provision grounds, and all their provisions were destroyed, so that they could not live. They, therefore, determined that they would not continue at work, seeing they would be obliged to starve. Mr. W. stated that he had visited the provision grounds, in company with two _disinterested planters_, and he could affirm that the apprentices had _no just cause of complaint_. It was true their fences had been broken down, and their provisions had been somewhat injured, but the fence could be very easily repaired, and there was an _abundance of yams left_ to furnish food for the whole gang for some time to come--those that were destroyed being chiefly young roots which would not have come to maturity for several months. These statements were the substance of a formal report which he had just prepared for the eye of Sir Lionel Smith, and which he was kind enough to read to us. This was a fine report, truly, to come from a special justice. To say nothing of the short time in which the fence might be repaired, those were surely very dainty-mouthed cattle that would consume those roots only which were so small that several months would be requisite for their maturity. The report concluded with a recommendation to his Excellency to take seminary vengeance upon a few of the gang as soon as they could be arrested, since they had set such an example to the surrounding apprentices. He could not see how order and subordination could be preserved in his district unless such a punishment was inflicted as would be a warning to all evil doers. He further suggested the propriety of sending the maroons[A] after them, to hunt them out of their hiding places and bring them to justice.

[Footnote A: The maroons are free negroes, inhabiting the mountains of the interior, who were formerly hired by the authorities, or by planters, to hunt up runaway slaves, and return them to their masters. Unfortunately our own country is not without _its_ maroons.]

We chanced to obtain a different version of this affair, which, as it was confirmed by different persons in Bath, both white and colored, who had no connection with each other, we cannot help thinking it the true one.

The apprentices on Thornton, are what is termed a jobbing gang, that is, they are hired out by their master to any planter who may want their services. Jobbing is universally regarded by the negroes as the worst kind of service, for many reasons--principally because it often takes them many miles from their homes, and they are still required to supply themselves with food from their own provision grounds. They are allowed to return home every Friday evening or Saturday, and stay till Monday morning. The owner of the gang in question lately died--to whom it is said they were greatly attached--and they passed into the hands of a Mr. Jocken, the present overseer. Jocken is a notoriously cruel man. It was scarcely a twelvemonth ago, that he was fined one hundred pounds currency, and sentenced to imprisonment for three months in the Kingston jail, _for tying one of his apprentices to a dead ox_, because the animal died while in the care of the apprentice. He also confined a woman in the same pen with a dead sheep, because she suffered the sheep to die. Repeated acts of cruelty have caused Jocken to be regarded as a monster in the community. From a knowledge of his character, the apprentices of Thornton had a strong prejudice against him. One of the earliest acts after he went among them, was to break down their fences, and turn his cattle into their provision grounds. He then ordered them to go to a distant estate to work. This they refused to do, and when he attempted to compel them to go, they left the estate in a body, and went to the woods. This is what is called a _state of open rebellion_, and for this they were to be hunted like beasts, and to suffer such a terrible punishment as would deter all other apprentices from taking a similar step.

This Jocken is the same wretch who wantonly handcuffed the apprentice, who went on to his estate by the direction of his master.

Mr. Willis showed us a letter which he had received that morning from a planter in his district, who had just been trying an experiment in job work, (i.e., paying his people so much for a certain amount of work.) He had made a proposition to one of the head men on the estate, that he would give him a doubloon an acre if he would get ten acres of cane land holed. The man employed a large number of apprentices, and accomplished the job on three successive Saturdays. They worked at the rate of nearly one hundred holes per day for each man, whereas the usual day's work is only seventy-five holes.

Mr. W. bore testimony that the great body of the negroes in his district were very peaceable. There were but a few _incorrigible fellows_, that did all the mischief. When any disturbance took place on an estate, he could generally tell who the individual offenders were. He did not think there would be any serious difficulty after 1840. However, the result he thought would _greatly depend on the conduct of the managers!_

We met in Bath with the proprietor of a coffee estate situated a few miles in the country. He gave a very favorable account of the people on his estate; stating that they were as peaceable and industrious as he could desire, that he had their confidence, and fully expected to retain it after entire emancipation. He anticipated no trouble whatever, and he felt assured, too, that if _the planters would conduct in a proper manner_, emancipation would be a blessing to the whole colony.

We called on the Wesleyan missionary, whom we found the decided friend and advocate of freedom. He scrupled not to declare his sentiments respecting the special magistrate, whom he declared to be a cruel and dishonest man. He seemed to take delight in flogging the apprentices. He had got a whipping machine made and erected in front of the Episcopal church in the village of Bath. It was a frame of a triangular shape, the base of which rested firmly on the ground, and having a perpendicular beam from the base to the apex or angle. To this beam the apprentice's body was lashed, with his face towards the machine, and his arms extended at right angles, and tied by the wrists. The missionary had witnessed the floggings at this machine repeatedly, as it stood but a few steps from his house. Before we reached Bath, the machine had been removed from its conspicuous place and _concealed in the bushes, that the governor might not see it when he visited the village_.

As this missionary had been for several years laboring in the island, and had enjoyed the best opportunities to become extensively acquainted with the negroes, we solicited from him a written answer to a number of inquiries. We make some extracts from his communication.

1. Have the facilities for missionary effort greatly increased since the abolition of slavery?

The opportunities of the apprentices to attend the means of grace are greater than during absolute slavery. They have now one day and a half every week to work for their support, leaving the Sabbath free to worship God.

2. Do you anticipate that these facilities will increase still more after entire freedom?

Yes. The people will then have _six days of their own to labor for their bread_, and will be at liberty to go to the house of God every Sabbath. Under the present system, the magistrate often takes away the Saturday, as a punishment, and then they must either work on the Sabbath or starve.

3. Are the negroes likely to revenge by violence the wrongs which they have suffered, after they obtain their freedom?

_I never heard the idea suggested, nor should I have thought of it had you not made the inquiry._

We called on Mr. Rogers, the teacher of a Mico charity infant school in Bath. Mr. R., his wife and daughter, are all engaged in this work. They have a day school, and evening school three evenings in the week, and Sabbath school twice each Sabbath. The evening schools are for the benefit of the adult apprentices, who manifest the greatest eagerness to learn to read. After working all day, they will come several miles to school, and stay cheerfully till nine o'clock.

Mr. R. furnished us with a written communication, from which we extract the following.

_Quest._ Are the apprentices desirous of being instructed?

_Ans._ Most assuredly they are; in proof of which I would observe that since our establishment in Bath, the people not only attend the schools regularly, but if they obtain a leaf of a book with letters upon it, that is their _constant companion_. We have found mothers with their sucking babes in their arms, standing night after night in their classes learning the alphabet.

_Q._ Are the negroes grateful for attentions and favors?

_A._ They are; I have met some who have been so much affected by acts of kindness, that they have burst into tears, exclaiming, 'Massa so kind--my heart full.' Their affection to their teachers is very remarkable. On my return lately from Kingston, after a temporary absence, the negroes flocked to our residence and surrounded the chaise, saying, 'We glad to see massa again; we glad to see school massa.' On my way through an estate some time ago, some of the children observed me, and in a transport of joy cried, 'Thank God, massa come again! Bless God de Savior, massa come again!'

Mr. R., said he, casually met with an apprentice whose master had lately died. The man was in the habit of visiting his master's grave every Saturday. He said to Mr. R., "Me go to massa grave, and de water come into me yeye; but me can't help it, massa, _de water will come into me yeye_."

The Wesleyan missionary told us, that two apprentices, an aged man and his daughter, a young woman, had been brought up by their master before the special magistrate who sentenced them to several days confinement in the house of correction at Morant Bay and to dance the treadmill. When the sentence was passed the daughter entreated that she might be allowed to _do her father's part_, as well as her own, on the treadmill, for he was too old to dance the wheel--it would kill him.

From Bath we went into the Plantain Garden River Valley, one of the richest and most beautiful savannahs in the island. It is an extensive plain, from one to three miles wide, and about six miles long. The Plantain Garden River, a small stream, winds through the midst of the valley lengthwise, emptying into the sea. Passing through the valley, we went a few miles south of it to call on Alexander Barclay, Esq., to whom we had a letter of introduction. Mr. Barclay is a prominent member of the assembly, and an attorney for eight estates. He made himself somewhat distinguished a few years ago by writing an octavo volume of five hundred pages in defence of the colonies, i.e., in defence of colonial slavery. It was a reply to Stephen's masterly work against West India slavery, and was considered by the Jamaicans a triumphant vindication of their "peculiar institutions." We went several miles out of our route expressly to have an interview with so zealous and celebrated a champion of slavery. We were received with marked courtesy by Mr. B., who constrained us to spend a day and night with him at his seat at Fairfield. One of the first objects that met our eye in Mr. B.'s dining hall was a splendid piece of silver plate, which was presented to him by the planters of St. Thomas in the East, in consideration of his able defence of colonial slavery. We were favorably impressed with Mr. B.'s intelligence, and somewhat so with his present sentiments respecting slavery. We gathered from him that he had resisted with all his might the anti-slavery measures of the English government, and exerted every power to prevent the introduction of the apprenticeship system. After he saw that slavery would inevitably be abolished, he drew up at length a plan of emancipation according to which the condition of the slave was to be commuted into that of the old English _villein_--he was to be made an appendage to _the soil_ instead of the "chattel personal" of the master, the whip was to be partially abolished, a modicum of wages was to be allowed the slave, and so on. There was to be no fixed period when this system would terminate, but it was to fade gradually and imperceptibly into entire freedom. He presented a copy of his scheme to the then governor, the Earl of Mulgrave, requesting that it might be forwarded to the home government. Mr. B. said that the anti-slavery party in England had acted from the blind impulses of religious fanaticism, and had precipitated to its issue a work which required many years of silent preparation in order to its safe accomplishment. He intimated that the management of abolition ought to have been left with the colonists; they had been the long experienced managers of slavery, and they were the only men qualified to superintend its burial, and give it a decent interment.

He did not think that the apprenticeship afforded any clue to the dark mystery of 1840. Apprenticeship was so inconsiderably different from slavery, that it furnished no more satisfactory data for judging of the results of entire freedom than slavery itself. Neither would he consent to be comforted by the actual results of emancipation in Antigua.

Taking leave of Mr. Barclay, we returned to the Plantain Garden River Valley, and called at the Golden Grove, one of the most splendid estates in that magnificent district. This is an estate of two thousand acres; it has five hundred apprentices and one hundred free children. The average annual crop is six hundred hogsheads of sugar. Thomas McCornock, Esq., the attorney of this estate, is the custos, or chief magistrate of the parish, and colonel of the parish militia. There is no man in all the parish of greater consequence, either in fact or in seeming self-estimation, than Thomas McCornock, Esq. He is a Scotchman, as is also Mr. Barclay. The custos received us with as much freedom as the dignity of his numerous offices would admit of. The overseer, (manager,) Mr. Duncan, is an intelligent, active, business man, and on any other estate than Golden Grove, would doubtless be a personage of considerable distinction. He conducted us through the numerous buildings, from the boiling-house to the pig-stye. The principal complaint of the overseer, was that he could not make the people work to any good purpose. They were not at all refractory or disobedient; there was no difficulty in getting them on to the field; but when they were there, they moved without any life or energy. They took no interest in their work, and he was obliged to be watching and scolding them all the time, or else they would do nothing. We had not gone many steps after this observation, before we met with a practical illustration of it. A number of the apprentices had been ordered that morning to cart away some dirt to a particular place. When we approached them, Mr. D. found that one of the "wains" was standing idle. He inquired of the driver why he was keeping the team idle. The reply was, that there was nothing there for it to do; there were enough other wains to carry away all the dirt. "Then," inquired the overseer with an ill-concealed irritation, "why did not go to some other work?" The overseer then turned to us and said, "You see, sir, what lazy dogs the apprentices are--this is the way they do every day, if they are not closely watched." It was not long after this little incident, before the overseer remarked that the apprentices worked very well during their own time, _when they were paid for it_. When we went into the hospital, Mr. D. directed out attention to one fact, which to him was very provoking. A great portion of the patients that come in during the week, unable to work, are in the habit of getting well on Friday evening, so that they can go out on Saturday and Sunday; but on Monday morning they are sure to be sick again, then they return to the hospital and remain very poorly till Friday evening, when they get well all at once, and ask permission to go out. The overseer saw into the trick; but he could find no medicine that could cure the negroes of that intermittent sickness. The Antigua planters discovered the remedy for it, and doubtless Mr. D. will make the grand discovery in 1840.

On returning to the "great house," we found the custos sitting in state, ready to communicate any official information which might be called for. He expressed similar sentiments in the main, with those of Mr. Barclay. He feared for the consequences of complete emancipation; the negroes would to a great extent abandon the sugar cultivation and retire to the woods, there to live in idleness, planting merely yams enough to keep them alive, and in the process of time, retrograding into African barbarism. The attorney did not see how it was possible to prevent this. When asked whether he expected that such would be the case with the negroes on Golden Grove, he replied that he did not think it would, except with a very few persons. His people had been _so well treated_, and had _so many comforts_, that they would not be at all likely to abandon the estate! [Mark that!] Whose are the people that will desert after 1840? Not Thomas McCornock's, Esq.! _They are too well situated. Whose_ then will desert? _Mr. Jocken's_, or in other words, those who are ill-treated, who are cruelly driven, whose fences are broken down, and whose provision grounds are exposed to the cattle. They, and they alone, will retire to the woods who can't get food any where else!

The custos thought the apprentices were behaving very ill. On being asked if he had any trouble with his, he said, O, no! his apprentices did quite well, and so did the apprentices generally, in the Plantain Garden River Valley. But in _far off parishes_, he _heard_ that they were very refractory and troublesome.

The custos testified that the negroes were very easily managed. He said he had often thought that he would rather have the charge of six hundred negroes, than of two hundred English sailors. He spoke also of the temperate habits of the negroes. He had been in the island twenty-two years, and he had never seen a negro woman drunk, on the estate. It was very seldom that the men got drunk. There were not more than ten men on Golden Grove, out of a population of five hundred, who were in the habit of occasionally getting intoxicated. He also remarked that the negroes were a remarkable people for their attention to the old and infirm among them; they seldom suffered them to want, if it was in their power to supply them. Among other remarks of the custos, was this sweeping declaration--"_No man in his senses can pretend to defend slavery._"

After spending a day at Golden Grove, we proceeded to the adjacent estate of Amity Hall. On entering the residence of the manager, Mr. Kirkland, we were most gratefully surprised to find him engaged in family prayers. It was the first time and the last that we heard the voice of prayer in a Jamaican planter's house. We were no less gratefully surprised to see a white lady, to whom we were introduced as Mrs. Kirkland, and several modest and lovely little children. It was the first and the last _family circle_ that we were permitted to see among the planters of that licentious colony. The motley group of colored children--of every age from tender infancy--which we found on other estates, revealed the state of domestic manners among the planters.

Mr. K. regarded the abolition of slavery as a great blessing to the colony; it was true that the apprenticeship was a wretchedly bad system, but notwithstanding, things moved smoothly on his estate. He informed us that the negroes on Amity Hall had formerly borne the character of being the _worst gang in the parish_; and when he first came to the estate, he found that half the truth had not been told of them; but they had become remarkably peaceable and subordinate. It was his policy to give them every comfort that he possibly could. Mr. K. made the same declaration, which has been so often repeated in the course of this narrative, i.e., that if any of the estates were abandoned, it would be owing to the harsh treatment of the people. He knew many overseers and book-keepers who were cruel driving men, and he should not be surprised if _they_ lost a part, or all, of their laborers. He made one remark which we had not heard before. There were some estates, he said, which would probably be abandoned, for the same reason that they ought never to have been cultivated, because they require _almost double labor_;--such are the mountainous estates and barren, worn-out properties, which nothing but a system of forced labor could possibly retain in cultivation. But the idea that the negroes generally would leave their comfortable homes, and various privileges on the estates, and retire to the wild woods, he ridiculed as preposterous in the extreme. Mr. K. declared repeatedly that he could not look forward to 1840, but with the most sanguine hopes; he confidently believed that the introduction of complete freedom would be the _regeneration of the island_. He alluded to the memorable declaration of Lord Belmore, (made memorable by the excitement which it caused among the colonists,) in his valedictory address to the assembly, on the eve of his departure for England.[A] "Gentlemen," said he, "the resources of this noble island will never be fully developed until slavery is abolished!" For this manly avowal the assembly ignobly refused him the usual marks of respect and honor at his departure. Mr. K. expected to see Jamaica become a new world under the enterprise and energies of freedom. There were a few disaffected planters, who would probably remain so, and leave the islands after emancipation. It would be a blessing to the country if such men left it, for as long as they were disaffected, they were the enemies of its prosperity.

[Footnote A: Lord Belmore left the government of Jamaica, a short time before the abolition act passed in parliament.]

Mr. K. conducted us through the negro quarters, which are situated on the hill side, nearly a mile from his residence. We went into several of the houses; which were of a better style somewhat than the huts in Antigua and Barbadoes--larger, better finished and furnished. Some few of them had verandahs or porches on one or more sides, after the West India fashion, closed in with _jalousies_. In each of the houses to which we were admitted, there was one apartment fitted up in a very neat manner, with waxed floor, a good bedstead, and snow white coverings, a few good chairs, a mahogany sideboard, ornamented with dishes, decanters, etc.

From Amity Hall, we drove to Manchioneal, a small village ten miles north of the Plantain Garden River Valley. We had a letter to the special magistrate for that district, R. Chamberlain, Esq., a colored gentleman, and the first magistrate we found in the parish of St. Thomas in the East, who was faithful to the interests of the apprentices. He was a boarder at the public house, where we were directed for lodgings, and as we spent a few days in the village, we had opportunities of obtaining much information from him, as well as of attending some of his courts. Mr. C. had been only five months in the district of Manchioneal, having been removed thither from a distant district. Being a friend of the apprentices, he is hated and persecuted by the planters. He gave us a gloomy picture of the oppressions and cruelties of the planters. Their complaints brought before him are often of the most trivial kind; yet because he does not condemn the apprentices to receive a punishment which the most serious offences alone could justify him in inflicting, they revile and denounce him as unfit for his station. He represents the planters as not having the most distant idea that it is the province of the special magistrate to secure justice to the apprentice; but they regard it as his sole duty to _help them_ in getting from the laborers as much work as whips, and chains, and tread-wheels can extort. His predecessor, in the Manchioneal district, answered perfectly to the planters' _beau ideal_. He ordered a _cat_ to be kept on every estate in his district, to be ready for use as he went around on his weekly visits. Every week he inspected the cats, and when they became too much worn to do good execution, he _condemned_ them, and ordered new ones to be made.

Mr. C. said the most frequent complaints made by the planters are for _insolence_. He gave a few specimens of what were regarded by the planters as serious offences. An overseer will say to his apprentice, "Work along there faster, you lazy villain, or I'll strike you;" the apprentice will reply, "You _can't_ strike me now," and for this he is taken before the magistrate on the complaint of _insolence_. An overseer, in passing the gang on the field, will hear them singing; he will order them, in a peremptory tone to stop instantly, and if they continue singing, they are complained of for _insubordination_. An apprentice has been confined to the hospital with disease,--when he gets able to walk, tired of the filthy sick house, he hobbles to his hut, where he may have the attentions of his wife until he gets well. That is called _absconding from labor_! Where the magistrate does not happen to be an independent man, the complaint is sustained, and the poor invalid is sentenced to the treadmill for absenting himself from work. It is easy to conjecture the dreadful consequence. The apprentice, debilitated by sickness, dragged off twenty-five miles on foot to Morant Bay, mounted on the wheel, is unable to keep the step with the stronger ones, slips off and hangs by the wrists, and his flesh is mangled and torn by the wheel.

The apprentices frequently called at our lodgings to complain to Mr. C. of the hard treatment of their masters. Among the numerous distressing cases which we witnessed, we shall never forget that of a poor little negro boy, of about twelve, who presented himself one afternoon before Mr. C., with a complaint against his master for violently beating him. A gash was cut in his head, and the blood had flowed freely. He fled from his master, and came to Mr. C. for refuge. He belonged to A. Ross, Esq., of Mulatto Run estate. We remembered that we had a letter of introduction to that planter, and we had designed visiting him, but after witnessing this scene, we resolved not to go near a monster who could inflict such a wound, with his own hand, upon a child. We were highly gratified with the kind and sympathizing manner in which Mr. C. spoke with the unfortunate beings who, in the extremity of their wrongs, ventured to his door.

At the request of the magistrate we accompanied him, on one occasion, to the station-house, where he held a weekly court. We had there a good opportunity to observe the hostile feelings of the planters towards this faithful officer--"faithful among the faithless," (though we are glad that we cannot quite add, "_only he_.")

A number of managers, overseers, and book-keepers, assembled; some with complaints, and some to have their apprentices classified. They all set upon the magistrate like bloodhounds upon a lone stag. They strove together with one accord, to subdue his independent spirit by taunts, jeers, insults, intimidations and bullyings. He was obliged to threaten one of the overseers with arrest, on account of his abusive conduct. We were actually amazed at the intrepidity of the magistrate. We were convinced from what we saw that day, that only the most fearless and conscientious men could be _faithful magistrates_ in Jamaica. Mr. C. assured us that he met with similar indignities every time he held his courts, and on most of the estates that he visited. It was in his power to punish them severely, but he chose to use all possible forbearance, so as not to give the planters any grounds of complaint.

On a subsequent day we accompanied Mr. C. in one of his estate visits. As it was late in the afternoon, he called at but one estate, the name of which was Williamsfield. Mr. Gordon, the overseer of Williamsfield, is among the fairest specimens of planters. He has naturally a generous disposition, which, like that of Mr. Kirkland, has out-lived the witherings of slavery.

He informed us that his people worked as well under the apprenticeship system, as ever they did during slavery; and he had every encouragement that they would do still better after they were completely free. He was satisfied that he should be able to conduct his estate at much less expense after 1840; he thought that fifty men would do as much then as a hundred do now. We may add here a similar remark of Mr. Kirkland--that forty freemen would accomplish as much as eighty slaves. Mr. Gordon hires his people on Saturdays, and he expressed his astonishment at the increased vigor with which they worked when they were to receive wages. He pointedly condemned the driving system which was resorted to by many of the planters. They foolishly endeavored to keep up the coercion of slavery, _and they had the special magistrates incessantly flogging the apprentices_. The planters also not unfrequently take away the provision grounds from their apprentices, and in every way oppress and harass them.

In the course of the conversation Mr. G. accidentally struck upon a fresh vein of facts, respecting the SLAVERY OF BOOK-KEEPERS,[A] _under the old system_. The book-keepers, said Mr. G., were the complete slaves of the overseers, who acted like despots on the estates. They were mostly young men from England, and not unfrequently had considerable refinement; but ignorant of the treatment which book-keepers had to submit to, and allured by the prospect of becoming wealthy by plantership, they came to Jamaica and entered as candidates. They soon discovered the cruel bondage in which they were involved. The overseers domineered over them, and stormed at them as violently as though they were the most abject slaves. They were allowed no privileges such as their former habits impelled them to seek. If they played a flute in the hearing of the overseer, they were commanded to be silent instantly. If they dared to put a gold ring on their finger, even that trifling pretension to gentility was detected and disallowed by the jealous overseer. (These things were specified by Mr. G. himself.) They were seldom permitted to associate with the overseers as equals. The only thing which reconciled the book-keepers to this abject state, was the reflection that they might one day _possibly_ become overseers themselves, and then they could exercise the same authority over others. In addition to this degradation, the book-keepers suffered great hardships. Every morning (during slavery) they were obliged to be in the field before day; they had to be there as soon as the slaves, in order to call the roll, and mark absentees, if any. Often Mr. G. and the other gentleman had gone to the field, when it was so dark that they could not see to call the roll, and the negroes have all lain down on their hoes, and slept till the light broke. Sometimes there would be a thick dew on the ground, and the air was so cold and damp, that they would be completely chilled. When they were shivering on the ground, the negroes would often lend them their blankets, saying, "Poor _busha pickaninny_ sent out here from England to die." Mr. Gordon said that his constitution had been permanently injured by such exposure. Many young men, he said, had doubtless been killed by it. During crop time, the book-keepers had to be up every night till twelve o'clock, and every other night _all night_, superintending the work in the boiling-house, and at the mill. They did not have rest even on the Sabbath; they must have the mill put about (set to the wind so as to grind) by sunset every Sabbath. Often the mills were in the wind before four o'clock, on Sabbath afternoon. They knew of slaves being flogged for not being on the spot by sunset, though it was known that they had been to meeting. Mr. G. said that he had a young friend who came from England with him, and acted as book-keeper. His labors and exposures were so intolerable, that he had often said to Mr. G., confidentially, _that if the slaves should rise in rebellion, he would most cheerfully join them_! Said Mr. G., _there was great rejoicing_ among the book-keepers in August 1834! _The abolition of slavery was_ EMANCIPATION TO THE BOOK-KEEPERS.

[Footnote A: The book-keepers are subordinate overseers and drivers; they are generally young white men, who after serving a course of years in a sort of apprenticeship, are promoted to managers of estates.]

No complaints were brought before Mr. Chamberlain. Mr. Gordon pleasantly remarked when we arrived, that he had some cases which he should have presented if the magistrate had come a little earlier, but he presumed he should forget them before his next visit. When we left Williamsfield, Mr. C. informed us that during five months there had been but two cases of complaint on that estate--and but _a single instance of punishment._ Such are the results where there is a good manager and a good special magistrate.