The freeing of the slaves came in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Think of it, not ninety years ago! And a short time before Matthew Lewis wrote—
“The higher classes are in the utmost alarm at rumours of Wilberforce’s intention to set the negroes entirely free; the next step to which would be in all probability a general massacre of the whites, and a second edition of the horrors of St Domingo.”
It must have been with some misgivings then, that the great day dawned when the slaves were not exactly set free, but made apprentices for a short time to accustom them to this new-found freedom.
And the apprenticeship seems to have been a ghastly failure. It took away from the slave the protection of the well-meaning master who could not afford to spend lavishly upon property, to whose services in a very short time he would have no right, and it left him entirely at the mercy of the man who had no conscience, and who simply set out to get as much as he could out of the slave while he was in his power.
Even England was doubtful as to the effect of her step, and she sent out certain magistrates who were looked upon with suspicion by the planter, and only by definitely siding with the white man in all disputes were they agreeable to the ruling classes. A Dr Madden is one of these, and his description of life in Jamaica is graphic, though when I read how he had to part with his little boy, whose life he dared not risk in so perilous a climate, and then of the long voyage to the other end of the earth, I see how far those ninety years have taken us.
Lady Nugent, writing about a quarter of a century before, was great on the deadly climate of Jamaica. She goes to Moneymusk, which then belonged to a widow, with whom were staying two other ladies, also widows. “Alas,” writes Lady Nugent, “how often in this country do we see these unfortunate beings.” (Mrs Sympson of Moneymusk doesn’t seem to have deserved this epithet. The estate was managed by her, and apparently well managed.) “Women rarely lose their health, but men as rarely kept theirs.” She doesn’t put two and two together, though she is always referring to poor Jamaica as “this horrid country,” “this deceitful, dreadful climate.” Certainly the number of deaths among those around her, presumably her friends, was a little appalling. But considering that she herself called attention to the way the people ate—and drank—I don’t know why she should have blamed the climate.
Things hadn’t improved when Madden came on the scene nearly a generation later. The amount of drink a gentleman consumed at dinner was astonishing.
“Half a bottle of Madera or so,” he writes sarcastically, “can never do a man any harm in a hot climate, and sangaree and brandy and water are all necessary to keep up his strength, for people of all countries are the best judges of the mode of living in their own climate.”
This kindly magistrate took too much interest in the slave to have been quite acceptable to the planter of that day, who seems still to have regarded the negro as belonging to a lower order of creation and liked to feel that he—the negro—owed all benefits to the kindly indulgence of his master.
He attended on one occasion a Baptist chapel in Kingston where the minister was a negro of the name of Kellick—“A pious, well-behaved, honest man, who in point of intelligence and the application of scriptural knowledge to the ordinary duties of his calling and the business of life, might stand a comparison with many more highly favoured, by the advantages of their education and standing in society. I was first induced to attend this man’s chapel from motives of curiosity, not unmixed I fear with feelings of contempt for its black parson; I confess after I had heard him for a short while expound the scriptures, and prescribe to his congregation (all of whom were negroes like himself) on their duties as Christian subjects and members of society, and then his earnest and humble petition to the Almighty for a blessing on his little flock, and the hymn which closed the service, in which the congregation joined in one loud but very far indeed from discordant strain, I felt, if the pomp and circumstance of religious worship were wanting here to enlist the senses on the side of devotion, there were motives in this place, and an influence in the ministry of this man (however he might have been called to it, or by what forms fitted for its duties) which were calculated to induce the white man who came to scoff to remain to pray.”
This of a man who but quite recently must have risen from slavery. He received from the contributions of his congregation about ￡100 a year, which it was understood was for the upkeep of the chapel as well. Madden thought it very little, but Madden is a nice man with large ideas, and I feel sure the Rev. Kellick was not only quite satisfied with what he received, but intensely proud of the position he held. As indeed he had every right to be. He had come a long, long way by a very thorny path.
Madden gives the usual account of the negroes. “Generally speaking, the negroes of the present day have all the vices of slaves. It cannot be denied that they are addicted to lying, prone to dissimulation, and inclined to dishonesty....” Now what else I wonder did they expect of a slave. But he goes on to say that in the late rebellion—of 1881-32—“In no instance did the negro swerve from his fidelity to his comrades; in not a single instance was the name of the real author of that rebellion disclosed. I venture to intimate that even the rebellious negro has a sentiment of honour in his breast when he encounters death rather than betray one of his accomplices. I hazard an opinion that humanity has its impulses in his heart, when he shelters his fugitive countryman, and shares his last morsel of bread with him rather than turn the outlaw from his door, and save himself from the fearful consequences of harbouring a runaway.”
It seems strange that ninety years ago it had to be explained to the civilised world that the negro was like other men, capable of great heights and abominable depths. That a little more than a hundred years ago, so great was the prejudice against colour that a man whose grandmother had been a negress was not allowed to be a constable, could not inherit property beyond the value of ￡1200 sterling, nor give evidence in criminal cases.
“It was the fashion,” writes Madden, “to regard him with jealousy and distrust, as a rebel in disguise, who was to be branded as such on all plausible occasions.”
But though the laws might prevent a coloured man from inheriting money, they did not prevent his making it, and when he himself became a slave owner a very curious state of affairs arose. The danger of slave risings was always present, and the coloured planters like the white had to have on their estates “deficiency men,” white men, one for every ten slaves. But so strong was the feeling on the question of colour that these men whom their necessities compelled to take service with the sons or grandsons of slaves, declined to sit at meat with them. The owner had to have a side table set for himself, while his white servants sat at the principal one.
And the coloured people came into existence so naturally.
At first, as we have seen, many of the planters for very good reasons never brought their wives to their estates. Then again, overseers, book-keepers, and other employees could not afford to marry; they came to the country, and there were many it was said at the beginning of the last century who might be in the country over a dozen years without ever speaking to a white woman. What more natural than that they should form alliances with the good-looking daughters of the slaves who were under them. Such connections were looked upon with approval by the owners and attorneys. A white man was always bothered to take a wife, at least so I gather from the perusal of old stories of Jamaica.
“Why massa no take him one wife like oder buckras? Dere is little Daphne would make him one good wife—dere is one Diana—dere is little Venus—dere is him Mary Magalene, an’ dere is him Phoebe.”
Sometimes it was the other way round and he couldn’t get a wife, for if there was a prejudice against a man the word went forth in the slave quarters, and not a girl would look at him.
Very naturally being Christians did not affect this relationship. No white man would really marry a dark girl were she beautiful as the rising dawn. A white lover meant advancement in a coloured girl’s world, and she in her turn often gained great influence over the man who had chosen her. Indeed the majority of these women were faithful, tender and loving. They were not always the wisest of housekeepers, I am afraid—how should they be—and the Great House so managed was apt to be dirty, untidy, wasteful, slatternly. Its mistress had never seen anything better, had seldom had a chance to train.
The position grew to be accepted as the best for a coloured girl, infinitely preferable to that of matrimony with one of her own shade. There was no loss of caste, indeed the girl gained by being associated with the white man. It came to be that the man would give a bond to pay down a certain sum upon his marrying or leaving the island to the girl he had chosen for his temporary mate, and it not infrequently happened that this sum was so great that he was virtually unable ever to leave her. They say that many a coloured man made such a bargain for his daughter.
But this was in the days when life was easier for the slave, when a coloured man had some rights, even though no white man would sit at meat with him or marry his daughter.
It was sometimes very hard on the children of such alliances. Madden gives a vivid account of a visit he paid to an estate that had belonged to an uncle of his, and that had been mismanaged and gone to wrack and ruin.
“I arrived at the ruined works of Marly after a fatiguing ride of five hours in the wildest district of St Mary’s Mountains,” he writes. “The dwelling-house was situated on a mountain eminence” (they always are) “about two hundred feet above the works, the remains of a little garden that had probably been planted by the old proprietor was still visible on the only level spot in front of the house, a few fruit trees only remained, but it seemed from the place that had been enclosed, and was marked by a long line of scattered stones, the soil that was now covered with weeds had been formerly laid out in flower plots. In going from the ruined works to the house, I missed my road amidst the rank verdure which nearly obliterated every trace of a path; so that I traversed a considerable part of the property without meeting a human being. The negro huts at some distance from the house were all uninhabited; the roofs of them had tumbled in, and had the appearance of being long unoccupied. The negro boy who accompanied me was very anxious for me to return to Claremont, and said it was no good to walk about such a place, buckras all dead, niggers all dead too, no one lived there but duppies and Obeah men. It was certainly as suitable a place for such folk as one could well imagine. I proceeded, however, to the house and went through the ceremony of knocking at the door, but received no answer; the door was ajar and 1 took the liberty of walking into the house of my old uncle.
“The room I entered was in keeping with the condition of the exterior, every plank in the naked room was crumbling to decay. I opened one of the side doors, and, to my great surprise, I perceived two women as white as any inhabitants of any southern climates, and tolerably well clad, standing at an opposite window, evidently alarmed at my intrusion. I soon explained to them the nature of my visit, and requested permission to rest for a short time after my fatiguing journey. In a few minutes two other young females and a very old mulatto woman of a bright complexion made their appearance from an adjoining room, and what was my surprise at learning that the two youngest were the natural daughters of Mr Gordon, the person who purchased the property out of Chancery, the two others, the daughters of my uncle, Mr Theodosius Lyons, and the old woman their mother! The eldest of her daughters was about forty years of age, the other probably a year or two younger; and the resemblance of one of them to some members of my family was so striking that the moment her name was mentioned I had no difficulty in recognising her origin. The poor women were delighted to see a person who called himself a relation of their father; but with the feeling there was evidently a good deal of suspicion mingled as to the motives of my visit, and of apprehensions that I had come there for the purpose of taking possession of the property; and all I could say to remove this impression was certainly thrown away, on the old woman at least.
“I do not wonder at it, for they had received nothing but bad treatment from those who ought to have been kind to them, as well as from strangers for nearly forty years since the death of their natural protector, who dying suddenly left them utterly unprovided for. They were left free, but that was all. One son, however, was not left free; and that young man was sold with the rest of the movable property of the estate when it was sold in Chancery. The aged and infirm negroes were then left on the estate; but a few years ago these poor creatures who had grown old on the property and had expended the strength of their young days on its cultivation, and who imagined that they would have been allowed to have laid their bones where their friends and relatives were buried, were carried away by the creditors and actually sold for three or four dollars a head.”
“Who,” Madden asks, “in the face of such circumstances as these will tell me that slavery in these colonies was productive of no oppression in recent times, or was the occasion of no injustices?” He dilates on the undoubted fact that many a West Indian proprietor could not be got to look upon Jamaica as his home. He wanted to get as much money as he could out of the estate, and then to retire to his native land. So all improvements were grudged, “The Great House fell into decay, the roads were left without any adequate repair, the plantation was cultivated for its present advantages and without regard for its prospective ones; and the system of labour exacted from the negroes was productive of circumstances, which the proprietor considered in combination with the other discomforts of his situation, were unsuitable to the condition of a woman of refinement accustomed to the enjoyments of English society.”
He speaks very highly of the coloured mistresses; although he deplores such connections, and says: “They cannot be defended, but I think the victims of the state of things which led to them are more deserving of pity than of reproach. I do not remember to have heard of the fidelity of anyone of these persons being called into question. In the periods of their prosperity they know their situation, and demean themselves accordingly. In their adversity, when death or pecuniary embarrassments deprive them of the protection they may have had for many years, their industry and frugality deserve the highest praise.”
The 1st of August 1834, the day when the slaves passed from slavery to a position of apprenticeship, was looked forward to in Jamaica with dread on the part of the whites, and, says Madden, with extravagant hopes by the blacks. But it passed. The servile race made one little step upward, and not a single riot occurred in the island, “not a single man, woman or child was butchered to make a negro holiday.” As a matter of fact, the negroes went to church.
“I visited three of the sectarian chapels on the 1st of August,” says Madden, “during the morning, mid-day, and evening services; and I was greatly gratified at the pains that were taken to make the negroes sensible of the nature of the change that had taken place in their condition, and the great benefits they had to show their gratitude for, under Him Who had brought them out of bondage, to their benefactors both at home and in England, who expected of them to be good Christians, good citizens, and good servants.”
He does indeed recall one little incident. A drunken sailor was tormented by some small black boys. They threw stones at him, and as he reeled after them they scampered away, shouting most lustily to each other.
“What for you run away? We all free now. Buckra can’t catch we. Hurra for fuss of Augus! hi! hi! fuss of Augus! hurra for fuss of Augus!”
On that night, too, there was a grand ball given by the black and brown people, to which the General and his Staff were invited. “Miss Quashaba, belonging to Mr C., led off with Mr Cupid, belonging to Mr M., while Mrs Juno, belonging to Mr P., received the blacks and buckras.”
It took a long while to shake off the shackles.
Besides, we must never forget there was a kindly side to slavery. Many of the white people took a great interest in their slaves, and at the slave balls many a slave girl was decked out in her mistress’s jewels. Indeed, there was much competition among the ladies as to whose waiting-maid should make the best show.
They received instruction, too, these slaves, and sometimes the instruction given was extraordinary enough. Madden tells how on one occasion a girl was brought befo............