Page:Emancipation in the West Indies.djvu/6

i a eoinb'mation a'j;ainst the authorities. In Trinidavl, one n('L>;i'o was hanj^ed, and a few others sentcncod to hard hibor; in St. Ch.ris- tophcr's, four or five were transported for lifc. In only one coh)ny vai5 martial hiw pro- clainKHl ; nor liave tlicrc since been any .seri- ous outbreaks among the negroes, though, this is the twenty-eighth year of their freedom. Yet, in Jamaica alone, from 1800-32, there had been five insurrections, of which the last, in the winter of lSf)l-;j'J, cost the lives of 500 negroes, and involved a destruction of properly, aniounting to six or seven milhons of dollars. Peace, therefore, was the lirst effect of Freedom. So much for the fears of murder and pil- lage entertained by the colonists. The sce- ond great evil which they feared, was a com- plete cessation of labor, or such irregularity as to derange all the operations of business, in .some colonies, and especially in fiamaiea, this fear has been partly realized : in others, as in Antigua, Barbadoes, the l>ahanias, noth- ing of the kind has occurred. Now as the sanie cause ought always tojiroduee the same elfect, TiKiy we not sus])ect that the diminu- tion of labor in Jamaica and elsewhere, is due to other causes than the emancijiation of the laborer V At any rate, may we not find some other reason for it, than the native idle- ness of the negro, of which Mr. Carlyle and a host of shallowers writes, say so nuich V May it not spring from a feeling which the Anglo-Saxon of all men ought to respect, since he has so much of it, — (•Airdi-huiujer — a desire to own land, and not to be the ser- vant of another man ? A connnitt(!e of the House of Commons iti I S4'2, asserted that tliis was ihe case. They said : "]i;d)or has diminished bccau.se the blacks have devoted themselves to work )nore profit- able for them than field work, and beeaise they have generally been able, especially in the larger colonies, to purcha.se lands without difliculty, to live comfortably, and em-ich tliemselves withoit boinfj; obliired to!>;ive the jtlanters more than three or four days of seven hours in each week. The low price f»f hind, the ill-will of the ])lanters, the harsh- ness of t'iic laws which establish the relation between the laborer , and his employer. — the.^e have been tb'j chief causes of the difli- cult ICS e.x j teriencc! I ."^ To the same cficct, i'l-ancis Ifmcks, Gov- • See "Vliii)'.-! AhoUtlon tie 1/ ]-'.<rloriii;e. Tonic I. ii.404. Wc hiivo tr.in-^hitvil ri-iiiii iIk.- t'rt'iicli, iju'. Iiavisig acc.'iS.-^ to i£i<? l')!ue J'O'jK in ijui-.^iiun. crnor-in-Chicf of the Windward Islands, suid in 1850 ;t "There has been a considerable withdrawal of labor from su<>;ar cultivation, in Jamaica. Among the causes, next to the tenure of land, the in.solvency of the proprie- tors has been the chief. The only wonder is, th.at with such a land tenure as exists in the West Indies, a single laborer remains on the sugar estates." Mr. Sewell, a Canadian "by birth, mnv an American citizen, who visitc(.i Jamaica in 1800, and wd.o has written a book of high value, on the Labor Question in the West indies,:!: speaks in the san;e tone ; ' All the impartial testimony that 1 could ob- tain in Jamaica," he says, "sunnncd up a crushing contradiction to the nni[ualified pre- tension of the ])lanter, that the negro would not work. And when I asked the negro himself, why he j)referred the toil of the mine (eigiit hours in the day and six days in the week) to the comparatively easy labor of the ]iiantation, Isis ex})lanation was very simple — 'lJuckra don't pay.' " Ho it remembered that Mr. Sewell is no abolitionist. But let us see how great is the evil coni- jdaincd of. Certainly if idleness has in- creased in the Diitish colonies, it will show itself by diminished imports and export.s ; for the ibreign and domestic trade of a coun- try is the sure index of its industry. First let us consider the sugar crop alone, in whicii the alleged dnninution has been grcate.st. There is no ddubt that the sugar crop of Ja- intuca, and of several of the other colonies, has nnich decreased since emancipation. lJut it must not be forgotten that this do- crease began so hmg ago as 1S07, and con- tinued steadily until 185o, when it seemed to be chocked, and there is now, we are told, a sliirht i»;ain. We must bear in mind, too, that the negroes in Jamaica have decreased, sitcc 1807, nearly twenty per cent., and that the sugar monopoly, which the colonies cn- joved has been entirely superseded by the modern Kinglish theories of Free Trade, while the phuiters have been nil this time in a state of chroni(; bankrujitcy, far worse than the financial condition of our Southern States. ilemend)ering all these things, we find by the sure evidence of Arithmetic that all the I'iritish sugar colonies produced, during the four la.^t years of slavery, a yearly average of 4 MTTOTl cwt ; in the four years of ap- Scfl Anti-Slnvtr;/ f^taiuhinf (N. V.) Sviir,. 24, IS.'.O, for » rojiurt iif this siiopcli. nsjidt! at I/.iidciii. l^t. t Tlif orifial of b'tcc I^ihcr in the llrili.Ji '(<:( /m/'Vi. nv?;. i: .svuw/. n. v., isoi. p. 26."..