CHAPTER III
THE KESWICK DELEGATES—MISS SARAH WALKER—HAYTIAN CANNIBALISM
There were two persons, however, whose arrival by the Port Antonio was looked for with feelings of great expectation by a certain class of people living in this island, and whose ministrations, I fancy, have since resulted in airing certain questions which perhaps required to see daylight. These were two delegates from the Keswick Conference. The latter, I believe, is a yearly gathering of Evangelicals at home, and is attended by nonconformists and a certain section of Low Churchmen. Possibly the preaching which one identifies with this particular school of thought, though it is not one which appeals to me, may be adapted to the black and coloured people who attend the numerous dissenting chapels which are to be found all over the West Indies. Indeed the negro is naturally pious, or, to put it in plain English, superstitious. I believe Professor Huxley has shown that this is invariably the case with savage or undeveloped races. Be it as it may, I am quite willing to concede that whatever agency has been at work to influence these people, who two or three centuries ago were offering up human sacrifices and practising the most hideous and revolting rites in the backwoods of West Africa, to say nothing of their semi-savagery when emancipated in 1834, has been a powerful influence for good. The negro is stupid, but his evolution is going on apace compared with the slow development of many races.
The court-house of Mandeville is visible from my window, and to-day the petty cases of a large surrounding district are being tried. I have enquired what are the offences which generally come before the magistrates on these occasions. I was told from trustworthy sources that murder is most rare amongst the blacks, the cases tried being mostly petty larceny, property, or commercial disputes. Local squabbles are often settled by a clergyman, or dissenting minister, before being brought into court.
I asked if there were many cases of matrimonial ill-treatment or quarrelling, and was met by the reply, “They don’t marry here.” Unfortunately this is largely a fact, and constitutes a great blemish on the character of the Jamaican black. When one hears, however, the question discussed, one can hardly blame a hard-working negro woman (and most of them are that) for refusing to marry if the practical result of marriage, as it affects her, is that sooner or later she will have to keep her husband as well as her children.
Persons who have had experience with these women tell me that the instinct of maternity is the strongest they have—to them childlessness is a reproach. When they do marry they are generally faithful, but the lot which a black woman dreads more than any other is that of being a deserted wife. “Me get tired of him, sah, and he get tired of me,” is a very natural excuse when the parson endeavours to legalise the bond. We know such things as husbands and wives getting tired of each other occur in our own land; the negress voices what many a white woman feels. In considering this subject—for, like the poor, it is ever with you in these parts—one must bear in mind that in slavery times the blacks were herded together like cattle on the estates. Enthusiastic reformers forget that it may take generations to eradicate their hereditary promiscuity of life.
Nobody who sees these women stride along, often walking twenty miles to the nearest market town, with baskets on their heads weighing occasionally upwards of a hundred pounds, could think them lazy, especially when one knows how poor are the weekly returns for their merchandise, which consists chiefly of home-grown yams, sweet potatoes, oranges and bananas.
An American told me he was going to Kingston by the electric tram. Beside him sat a well-dressed negro, wearing a silver watch and chain. A black woman, carrying an enormous basket heavily filled on her head, ran alongside the tram, which had slowed down. The two were talking, the man from the tram, she from the road.
“Is that your wife?” he asked the man in surprise.
“Yes, sah! dat my wife, sah,” replied he.
“You lazy fellow, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” exclaimed the American indignantly. “Why don’t you let your wife ride and you walk?” he further blurted out.
“Please, sah, the women, sah, ’bout here be so kind, sah!” apologetically explained the negro in an injured voice.
This episode sufficiently illustrates the conditions of the division of labour amongst a large proportion of the emancipated Jamaican population. The Moravians have large settlements in the island as well as other dissenting bodies; but where all work together for the spiritual good of the race whom Providence has permitted to flourish and multiply in these islands it would be a work of supererogation for me to criticise their methods.
Speaking from the point of view of a fellow-passenger, one of the delegates sent out by the Keswick Convention was an interesting personality. His writings and undenominational services in South London are, I am told, well-known in nonconformist circles.
He is a tall, white-haired, venerable-looking man, and when I first caught sight of his face at Avonmouth Dock, I was forcibly reminded of a picture of the Pastor Oberlin who figured in one of my favourite story-books, when, as children, we had certain literature set apart for Sundays, other for week-days. I had several conversations with him, and I thought him to be both liberal-minded and sympathetic. He seemed to hold that the most important thing in life was not so much what one believed as what one did.
It was interesting to hear this evangelistic missioner tell how he had been brought up in the straightest and strictest school of thought, and how he had himself preached and held the most rigid doctrines as to who were to be saved and who were to be eternally damned. But travel, he said, had opened his eyes, and he now saw things from a far wider standpoint. It appears he had held many conversations with advanced and cultivated Hindoos, and he could not bring himself to believe that such beautiful souls and such refined intelligences could be doomed for ever, because they could not accept gospel truths. Personally, I have never been troubled by the teachings of such a harsh creed, but I can imagine the trial it must have been to a man of firm convictions to sever himself for ever from life-long beliefs, which, no doubt, he had preached and expounded time after time. He told me that he was going to hold meetings in different parts of Jamaica for a month. I have since read in the island papers that his sermons have been of the revivalistic order, and that the meetings have been well attended. His colleague, a clergyman of the Church of England, was by no means a persona grata on board ship. His religious views belonged to that exclusive and narrow school of thought in the Church of England, which happily does not find many adherents nowadays. In an extract from a sermon which he preached at Kingston, some weeks after his arrival, I read that he lamented how few people there were who would be saved! In these days of latitudinarianism and toleration there is no reason why peculiarly constituted temperaments should not cling to obsolete and effete doctrines if they like them, but it seems to me, whatever our creed may be, and however much we wish to benefit our fellows, without exercising tact, we shall do more harm than good.
This delegate from Keswick evidently thought his fellow-passengers were in a bad way, for he offered uninviting-looking religious literature to those who conversed with him; but an amusing incident in which he was chief actor quite enlivened the tediousness of the voyage. The charming American lady, of whom I have already spoken, was invited into the smoking-room one stormy afternoon by two gentlemen in order to tell their fortunes by means of palmistry. Probably this zealous clergyman had already mentally decided that she was a brand to be snatched from the burning. Although a non-smoker he confronted her, and with Hibernian eloquence harangued her as to the impropriety of her conduct in entering those precincts sacred to the cult of tobacco. It would perhaps be wiser to draw a veil over the sequel to his somewhat precipitate and uncalled-for interference. Needless to say, his own sex resented it in words which I decline to insert in these pages. At the same time one feels that it would be beneficial and a distinct gain to society at large if some of the well-meaning but indiscreet upholders of exclusive cults would consider the feelings of others and behave to those whose path crosses their own with, at least, that generous toleration and spontaneous kind-heartedness which characterises well-bred men and women of the world. The influence of a high-minded, genial Englishman who is too proud to stoop to meanness of any description, but who does not shun his fellows because their moral status is not up to his own level, is far greater than that of the narrow-minded but “superior” religionist who looks down upon a sinful generation from the pedestal of an assured salvation. It may be that the latter stands ready to reach out a hand to help up his less favoured brethren, that is, from his own standpoint, but often the out-stretched hand is a rough one, the face bending down towards the sinner is uninviting in its cold, harsh expression, and the soul that might have been helped plunges back into the strife of the waters of worldliness preferring them to a joyless, uncongenial sanctity.
These gentlemen sent out by the Keswick Convention have finished their mission, and, in justice to both, I have pleasure in saying that it is evident their meetings have been much appreciated. This very morning I held a long conversation with a lady of mahogany complexion, who spoke rapturously of their preaching in this place. She walked by my side quite half a mile during my matutinal walk before breakfast. Miss Sarah Walker—that was her name—informed me besides that she was unmarried, and lived with an aunt not very distant from Mandeville. I asked what her age might be.
“Thirty-one, mem,” she replied.
“How do you get your living?” I asked, smiling at the pride she evidently felt at being engaged in conversation with a white lady, evidenced by the consciousness of superiority she assumed over her black sisters, who were not so honoured, and who passed on either side of us, listening politely to our conversation.
“I sit in de market, mem, and sell cakes.”
“I think you all seem very well off round here,” I ventured.
“Oh no, mem; there are some very poor people round ’bout,” she assured me.
“But they all have coffee or oranges to sell?” I queried.
“Yes, mem; but all de summer dey get so little for der coffee, only trepence or twopence a pound, and only one and trepence for a large barrel of oranges, bery little indeed.” I had already learnt that agents from the United Fruit Company buy up all the produce of the smaller cultivators in this district.
“They are so poor, mem, dey can’t pay de taxes,” she proceeded to inform me.
“What happens then?” I enquired.
“Den dey goes to prison, mem, or sometimes get time given dem to make up what dey can’t pay.”
“I suppose you have to pay rent too,” I suggested.
“No, mem; we live in our own house and only pay taxes, twelve shillings and twopence ebbery year, six and a penny ebbery six munts; we go up and pay it at de Court House.”
I elicited from her that she and her family had always lived in Jamaica, that once or twice she had been to Kingston, but what amused me most was her conversation upon dress.
“Bery good stuff, mem,” said she, pointing to the gown which scarcely covered her knees. “I gave one and trepence a yard, and it cost four shillins for making. Last year it was Sunday frock, but when it wast it swinked up.”
“I see! You like a smart frock for Sundays?” I volunteered, having learnt that the first day of the week is special frock competition day amongst the negresses. This woman was very superior to some I met in my morning walks, who generally said, “Good morning, missus.” Probably she had at one time been a domestic servant and had learnt to say “mem” for “ma’am.”
“Oh yes, mem, dat’s our pride; we all dress ’spectable on Sunday to go to church. Work ebbery day, but live for Sunday.” She looked radiant at the mere thought of it.
On my return I was told that the desire to cut a fine figure every Sabbath day is the key to the labour question in Jamaica.
The negroes can live on yams, which grow in their gardens and require no trouble to cultivate, but they must work to buy the dresses good enough to wear on Sunday. On week-days they go barefoot. On Sunday they screw themselves into tight-fitting garments and into new, squeaking boots, which, if the way be long, they take off, and put on just before going into church or chapel. To be dressed smartly and go to church once a week is the highest aim of the black’s life.
The fact that any white woman can ride or walk in any part of the island, either by day or by night, in perfect safety, is in itself testimony of the highest worth to the civilising agencies at work, let them be Moravian, Wesleyan, Roman or Anglican. The black under British rule is not an unworthy subject of the Empire; but left to himself, and to the workings of his own sweet will, he might perhaps revert to a state of savagery. One has only to consider the condition of the island of Hayti to see the probability of such a contingency.
I had read Chevalier St John’s book on “The Black Republic,” in which he mentions the cannibalistic habits of these islanders, before I left home. On two separate occasions I have since been told that the killing and eating of small children is quite a common thing, although still denied by better-class Haytians. Each of my informers were officers of ships bound for Haytian ports. There they had seen human flesh exposed for sale in the public markets. The buyers of this horrible commodity significantly ask for “salt pork.” One man told me he had been taken by a Haytian of the better class to a spot at night, within forty yards of a grove, where children were being sacrificed according to the Voodhoo rites, which their ancestors practised centuries ago in the forest fastnesses of Western Africa. It was at the risk of his life. He had been unable to see the horrid rites which take place before the child was actually tomahawked, but he heard its shrieks when tortured. Great mystery surrounds the Voodhoo worship, and never, so far, has an European been known to be present at the ceremonies which take place before a human sacrifice. My informer told me that instead of dreading this fate for their children, the mothers were proud that their particular offspring should be chosen for the sacrifice.
In connection with the Haytian Voodhoo worship, I was lent an old French manuscript by an American. It had been written about one hundred and fifty years ago, and professed to be the confessions under compulsion of a Haytian negress as to the practice of the most degrading and loathsome black magic which then prevailed in the island. Whether this continues at present I am unable to say, but they still have the custom of smearing the blood of freshly-killed infants over the bodies of childless women to make them bear children. Every savage race, doubtless, at one particular stage of its development dabbled in mystic and bloody rites, just as every land, where prehistoric traces of man’s existence have been found, has had its Stone Age, its kitchen-middens, etc. There is a wonderful similarity in the doings in their infancy of the world’s different races, just in the same way as all children, black, brown, and white, learn to walk before they run; but to my mind it is an interesting study to see what two hundred years more or less of that which we call civilisation has produced upon a race very low down upon the evolutionary ladder. Possibly the Tierra del Fuegans and the Mincopies of the Andamans are upon the lowest rung, but I do not think an anthropologist would put the negroid races much higher up.