CHAPTER XVIII.
Abolition of Negro Slavery—Canning's Resolutions of 1823—Insurrection in Demerara—"Missionary Smith's Case"—Immediate Abolition—Elizabeth Heyrick—O'Connell—Brougham's Celebrated Speech of 1830—Insurrection and Anarchy in Jamaica, in 1832—William Knibb—Parliamentary Inquiry—Buxton—The Apprenticeship Adopted, August, 1833—Result of Complete Emancipation in Antigua—The Apprenticeship Doomed—The Colonies themselves Terminate it, August 1, 1838.
Dickens, in his Martin Chuzzlewit, records, that Miss Charity Pecksniff, being told her side face was much better-looking than the front view, ever after, when visited by her not very numerous suitors, presented her profile to their admiring gaze. The tribute which Great Britain has paid to the genius of Humanity, by her efforts and sacrifices for the abolition of the African Slave Trade and Negro Slavery, is the aspect in which she delights to be contemplated by other nations. The humblest Englishman is proud to reiterate the sentiment, uttered half a century ago by Curran: "I speak in the spirit of our Constitution, which makes Liberty commensurate with and inseparable from our soil; which proclaims, even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon our native earth, that the ground he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter what complexion, incompatible with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted on the altar of slavery: the first moment he touches our sacred soil, the altar and the god sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, that burst around him; and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of Universal Emancipation." The services and victories of Sharpe, Clarkson, Wilberforce, Stephen, Brougham, Macaulay, Buxton, Cropper, Lushington, Gurney, Sturge, O'Connell, Mackintosh, Thompson, Wardlaw, Scoble, and their fellow-laborers, in this department of philanthropy, mitigate the abhorrence with which Christendom views the continued oppressions of millions of British subjects in both hemispheres.
After the abolition of the slave trade, the attention of a few thoughtful and humane persons was turned toward slavery itself, of which the trade was only an incident. Public sentiment was gradually enlisted, till, in 1823, it had become sufficiently aroused to cause the passage, in Parliament, of Mr. Canning's celebrated resolutions, declaring the expediency of adopting decisive measures for meliorating the condition of the slave population in the Colonies, preparatory to their complete emancipation. A ministerial circular was sent to the Colonies, directing the authorities to act upon those resolutions in the future treatment of the slave population. But, as was predicted by those who had studied the genius of Slavery, the resolutions and circular were either contemptuously defied, coolly disregarded, or courteously evaded by the Colonies.
The latter part of the same year, an insurrection broke out in Demerara. The infuriated planters undertook to trace its origin to the religious teachings of a venerable English missionary of most pure and exemplary character, Rev. John Smith. He was seized, and, after resisting some attempts to extort confessions, and going through a trial in which the very semblance of justice was outraged, was convicted, and sentenced to death. In feeble health, he was thrown into a small and loathsome dungeon, where, after several weeks of intense suffering, he died. This attempt to
"——bring back The Hall of Horrors, and the assessor's pen
Recording answers shrieked upon the rack,"
produced a tremendous sensation in England. Early in June, Mr. Brougham introduced into Parliament a motion to censure the Government and Court of Demerara. A debate of surpassing interest followed, in which he supported his motion by two powerful speeches. It was on this occasion that Mr. Wilberforce made his last speech in Parliament. The motion was lost by a small majority.
These proceedings, touching a case of individual outrage, are worthy of special note, because they aroused a spirit in England that would never "down," till the last chain was stricken from the last slave. "The Missionary Smith's Case" became a rallying cry with all the friends of religious freedom, and all the enemies of West India slavery. The measures of the Abolitionists became more bold—their principles commanded a more general concurrence—those who voted against the motion of Mr. Brougham were either excluded from the next Parliament, or obtained their seats with extreme difficulty; and, to quote from the preface to Mr. B.'s speeches, "All men now saw that the warning given in the peroration of the latter, though sounded in vain across the Atlantic Ocean, was echoing with a loudness redoubled with each repetition through the British isles; that it had rung the knell of the system; and that at the fetters of the slave a blow was at length struck, which must, if followed up, make them fall off his limbs forever."
The year 1830 was memorable for a great advance in the principles of the Abolitionists, and the influence they exerted on public opinion. The doctrine of immediate as opposed to gradual abolition, had been set forth in a well-reasoned pamphlet, published anonymously, in 1824, which was afterward found to have been written by Elizabeth Heyrick, of Leicester. It now became the watchword of the Anti-Slavery Societies, their publications and orators. The anniversary meeting of the metropolitan association in this year was addressed by some of the most distinguished men in the kingdom. It was on this occasion that Daniel O'Connell uttered the noble and comprehensive sentiment—"I am for speedy, immediate abolition. I care not what caste, creed, or color, Slavery may assume. I am for its total, its instant abolition. Whether it be personal or political, mental or corporeal, intellectual or spiritual, I am for its immediate abolition. I enter into no compromise with Slavery; I am for justice, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God."
In July of the same year, Mr. Brougham introduced his motion in the Commons, just before the dissolution, pledging the House to take the subject of Abolition into consideration early the next session. His speech in its support, and which essentially contributed to his election for Yorkshire a few weeks afterward, as the successor of Wilberforce, contains the oft-cited passage: "I trust that at length the time is come when Parliament will no longer bear to be told that slave-owners are the best lawgivers on Slavery; no longer allow an appeal from the British public to such communities as those in which the Smiths and the Grimsdalls are persecuted to death for teaching the gospel to the negroes; and the Mosses holden in affectionate respect for torture and murder: no longer suffer our voice to roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights—talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right—I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding, or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a crime! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes—the same throughout the world—the same in all times—such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth, and knowledge; to another, all unutterable woes: such as it is at this day. It is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy, that man can hold property in man! In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations: the Covenants of the Almighty, whether the Old Covenant or the New, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer, who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for by one shameful compact you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet, despite of law and of treaty, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass? Not, assuredly, by Parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the planters beware—let their Assemblies beware—let the Government at home beware—let the Parliament beware! The same country is once more awake—awake to the condition of negro slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave trade; and, if it shall descend again, they on whom its crash may fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them; but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God!"
The French revolution of 1830, the turning out of the Wellington and the coming in of the Grey Ministry, and the protracted contest for Parliamentary reform, absorbed a large share of the public attention for the next eighteen months. Meanwhile, the Abolitionists, taking advantage of the liberal tendencies of the times, gathered strength by agitating the country through numerous publications and addresses, from some of the most able pens and eloquent tongues in the kingdom.
In 1831-2, an outbreak in Jamaica inflamed the already excited mind of England to an unusual pitch. An attempt to deprive some of the negroes of their wonted Christmas holidays, conspired with a report that Parliament had abolished slavery, to provoke a revolt. The masters fled, the troops interfered and slaughtered a large number of the insurgents, leaving the courts to put to death a few hundred in a more leisurely way. Not content with this, the planters glutted their vengeance by pulling down several chapels of the Baptist and Independent missionaries—forbidding meetings for religious worship in which slaves participated—driving some of the ministers to the mountains, and hunting them like beasts of prey—throwing others into prison—whilst a more fortunate few escaped to England. Among the latter was the Rev. William Knibb, a Baptist preacher of heroic courage, commanding person and vigorous eloquence. Arriving in the mother country in June, 1832, he perambulated the island, and in conjunction with the more learned and brilliant George Thompson, now member of Parliament, who was then employed as an Anti-Slavery lecturer, stirred the national heart to its core.
Parliament was not idle. In May, of this year, the West Indian interest in the House of Lords procured the appointment of a committee of inquiry into the state of the islands. It was mainly composed of opponents of Abolition. The friends of liberty in the Commons, alarmed at this hostile proceeding, obtained, through their leader, Mr. T. Fowell Buxton, a committee to consider the expediency of abolishing slavery in the islands. Mr. Buxton was chairman of the committee. These two committees were in session when the exiled Jamaica missionaries arrived. They were examined as witnesses, with some sixty others, representing both sides of the question—the inquiry extending through nearly three months. The result was, an overwhelming case against slavery. Both parties now girded themselves for the contest. The Ministry of Earl Grey had recently carried the Reform bill. It was a favorable moment for the friends of freedom to strike. Early in the session of 1833, Mr. Buxton was about to bring forward a motion for the immediate abolition of slavery, when Mr. Stanley, the Colonial Secretary, superseded him, by pledging ministers to introduce a measure, without delay, which "should be safe and satisfactory to all parties."
Mr. Stanley brought out the Government plan of abolition, on the 14th of May, 1833. Good, genial, and unsuspecting Mr. Buxton now wished he had kept the work in his own hands. Stanley's bill bore the stereotyped ministerial stamp. It was a compromise between what justice demanded and what oppression would grant. It immediately emancipated all slaves under six years of age; and subjected house servants to an apprenticeship of four years, and agricultural servants of six years, to their former masters; and gave to the latter a compensation of £20,000,000. At the end of the apprenticeship, the negroes were to be completely free.
Leading Abolitionists denounced the scheme, compelled ministers to reduce the period of apprenticeship from twelve (as first proposed) to four and six years, protested against compensation; but, fearful of losing the boon, the majority finally yielded their opposition. In Parliament, the measure was discussed to its dregs; the friends of immediate Abolition striving to remedy its defects—the West India interest contesting every clause and comma with heroic pertinacity. After vast rhetorical displays on all sides, with much patience and philanthropy on one, and a good deal of bad temper and bad ethics, mingled with prophecies of bankruptcy and bloodshed on the other, the bill became a law on the 28th day of August, 1833. Mr. O'Connell voted against it, on the two grounds, that it did not give immediate freedom to the slaves, whilst it gave compensation to the masters.
In its actual workings, the apprenticeship realized most of the objections made to it by the Abolitionists, and few of the horrible forebodings of their opponents. The instant transition of 800,000 slaves into quasi freemen was not attended by any disorder whatever. And during the four years which the ill-contrived scheme lasted, not a drop of blood was shed; crimes of all grades diminished; vagrancy seldom showed its head; property was respected; the adults banished many of those domestic vices incident to a state of slavery; the children filled the schools; and this class of West India society rose in the scale of civilization and morals. And even after the forts were dismantled, and the troops sent away to prevent an insurrection among the whites of Canada, the Anglo-Saxons in the Caribbean Isles slept on quiet pillows.
But, though a heaven-wide remove from slavery, the apprenticeship was not a paradise to the parties. The dissonance was inherent in the nature of the plan. Looking to harmonious results, it gave the planters too much power, or too little; the negroes too much liberty, or too little. The consequence was, interminable disputes between masters and apprentices; between planters and special justices; between the Home Government and the Colonial authorities. The majority of the justices, who had the chief agency in executing the Abolition act, endeavored to do it in its humane spirit. But too many of them could not withstand the seductive wit and wine of a class, whose chivalry and hospitality are proverbial wherever unpaid labor has shed its liberalizing influences.
Antigua and the Bermudas discarded the apprenticeship, and adopted complete abolition, the Act giving to the Colonies the alternative. Experience justified the wisdom of their choice. They reaped all the good fruits of the apprenticeship, and none of the bad. Messrs. Thome and Kimball, of this country, visited Antigua, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, in 1837. From their admirable "Six Months Tour," I quote the following description of the "immediate" conversion to men, of 30,000 slaves of Antigua, on the 1st of August, 1834:
"For some time previous to the 1st of August, forebodings of disaster lowered over the island. The day was fixed! Thirty thousand degraded human beings were to be brought forth from the dungeon of slavery, and 'turned loose on the community,' and this was to be done 'in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye!' Gloomy apprehensions were entertained by many of the planters. Some timorous families did not go to bed on the night of the 31st of July; fear drove sleep from their eyes, and they awaited with fluttering pulse the hour of midnight, fearing lest the same bell which sounded the jubilee of the slaves might toll the death-knell of the masters. Several American vessels which had lain for weeks in the harbor weighed anchor on the 31st of July, and made their escape, through actual fear that the island would be destroyed on the following day. * * * The Wesleyans kept 'watch night' in all their chapels on the night of the 31st. At St. John's, the spacious building was filled with the candidates for liberty. All was animation and eagerness. A mighty chorus of voices swelled the song of expectation and joy, and, as they united in prayer, the voice of the leader was drowned in universal acclamations of thanksgiving, and praise, and blessing, and honor, and glory to God, who had come down for their deliverance. In such exercises the evening was spent until the hour of twelve approached. The missionary then proposed that, when the clock on the cathedral should begin to strike, the whole congregation should fall upon their knees, and receive the boon of freedom in silence. Accordingly, as the loud bell tolled its first note, the immense assembly fell prostrate on their knees. All was silence, save the quivering half-stifled breath of the struggling spirit. The slow notes of the clock fell upon the multitude; peal on peal, peal on peal, rolled over the prostrate throng, in tones of angels' voices, thrilling among the desolate chords and weary heart-strings. Scarce had the clock sounded its last note, when the lightning flashed vividly around, and a loud peal of thunder roared along the sky—God's pillar of fire and trump of jubilee! A moment of profoundest silence passed—then came the burst—they broke forth in prayer; they shouted, they sung, 'Glory,' 'alleluia;' they clapped their hands, leaped up, fell down, clasped each other in their free arms, cried, laughed, went to and fro, tossing upward their unfettered hands; but high above the whole there was a mighty sound, which ever and anon swelled up; it was the utterings in broken negro dialect of gratitude to God."
The experiment of immediate abolition in Antigua and the Bermudas, and of the apprenticeship in the other Colonies, has established the following facts: That, while melioration is a great improvement on chattel slavery, yet immediate and complete emancipation is far preferable: That either change is safe to the person and property of the master: That, for either, it is rather the master than the slave who needs preparation.
Considerations of principle, uniting with a mass of facts showing the superiority of immediate emancipation over the apprenticeship, induced the Abolitionists of England, in 1836-7, to take a final stand for the complete disenthralment of the negro. A numerous Convention of delegates met in London, in November, 1837; resolved that the apprenticeship should cease on or before the first of August, 1838; memorialized the Government against its continuance; and, through a deputation, waited on the Colonial Secretary, to enforce their appeal. They were coldly, not to say contemptuously, treated by Lord Glenelg. After selecting a Central Committee, to watch the Ministry and Parliament, the delegates went home to agitate the country. Thompson, Wardlaw, Smeal, and their coadjutors, aroused Scotland; whilst Sturge, Buxton, Scoble, and their friends, shook England. In the course of the fall and winter, petitions poured into Parliament in unprecedented numbers, whilst seven hundred thousand women presented their prayer to the Queen in behalf of her oppressed female subjects in the Western isles.
Parliament began to move. On the 20th of February, 1838, Lord Brougham, in presenting a petition from Glasgow and vicinity, signed by upwards of 100,000 persons, moved a series of resolutions for the speedy termination of the apprenticeship, supporting them by a speech worthy of his brightest fame, and whose immediate publication produced a deep impression upon the country. I cannot forbear quoting the closing paragraph of the peroration.
Said Lord Brougham:
"So now the fullness of time is come for at length discharging our duty to the African captive. I have demonstrated to you that everything is ordered—every previous step taken—all safe, by experience shown to be all safe, for the long-desired consummation. The time has come, the trial has been made, the hour is striking: you have no longer a pretext for hesitation, or faltering, or delay. The slave has shown, by four years' blameless behavior and devotion to the pursuits of peaceful industry, that he is as fit for his freedom as any English peasant—aye, or any lord whom I now address. I demand his rights; I demand his liberty without stint. In the name of justice and of law, in the name of reason, in the name of God, who has given you no right to work injustice, I demand that your brother be no longer trampled upon as your slave! I make my appeal to the Commons, who represent the free people of England, and I require at their hands the performance of that condition for which they paid so enormous a price—that condition which all their constituents are in breathless anxiety to see fulfilled! I appeal to this House. Hereditary judges of the first tribunal in the world, to you I appeal for justice! Patrons of all the arts that humanize mankind, under your protection I place humanity herself! To the merciful Sovereign of a free people, I call aloud for mercy to the hundreds of thousands for whom half a million of her Christian sisters have cried aloud; I ask that their cry may not have risen in vain. But first I turn my eye to the Throne of all Justice, and devoutly humbling myself before Him who is of purer eyes than to behold such vast iniquities, I implore that the curse hovering over the head of the unjust and oppressor be averted from us—that your hearts may be turned to mercy—and that over all the earth His will may at length be done."
On the 29th of March, Sir George Strickland brought forward a motion in the Commons, for the termination of the apprenticeship on the 1st of August following. Ministers resisted, and it was lost. While the motion was pending, two large anti-slavery conventions met in London, and soon afterwards five thronged meetings were held in Exeter Hall, in whose proceedings Brougham, Buxton, O'Connell, and other distinguished men, played a prominent part. The obstinate course of the Cabinet had not only exasperated public opinion at home, but had produced a feverish excitement amongst the apprentices in the Colonies.
In the midst of this furious contest, whose issue was shrouded in darkness, light suddenly broke in from an unexpected quarter. Lo! a ministerial dispatch, dated the very day after the November convention met, appeared in the West India newspapers, addressed to the Colonial Governors, in which Lord Glenelg informed them that agitation had again commenced, and would no doubt go on as before, and urging them to impress on the Legislatures the necessity of doing for themselves, and in season, what the people of England were seeking to compel the Parliament to do for them. Thus the Cabinet, while presenting a bold front at home, was saving its life by indirectly and secretly doing the work Abolitionists were forcing it to perform.
Simultaneously with the arrival in England of the journals containing copies of the dispatch, came the news, that the two small islands of Montserrat and Nevis had yielded to the ministerial solicitation, and resolved to emancipate their apprentices on the 1st of August. Other small islands soon copied their example. Barbadoes, with her 83,000 apprentices, followed in the train. Then came Jamaica, with her 330,000. This settled the question. Other Colonies now gave way, and ministers pledged themselves that all should be completed by the appointed day. It was done—the Cabinet averted an inglorious defeat—the planters escaped a hurricane of violence in a dark night of negro insurrection—and, on the first day of August, 1838, the friends of emancipation assembled in all parts of the Empire, to render thanksgiving to God for the final overthrow of British negro slavery.
The great work of 1834 and 1838, which we have hastily scanned, was accomplished by the People, and not by the Government; by the Democracy, as distinguished from the Aristocracy—the latter moving only when impelled by the former. Of political parties, the large share of Abolitionists came from the liberals. Of religious sects, the most active were the Friends, the Baptists, and the Independents. The cry occasionally heard in this country, that the abolition of West India Slavery was intended to be an indirect blow at American republicanism, is the shallow cant of owlish ignorance or demagogical hypocrisy. The Englishmen who bore a prominent part in the Abolition cause, generally admire our free institutions, and are now efficient laborers in those reforms which aim to cripple the power of the privileged orders, to prevent class legislation, and to secure the equal rights of the masses of their countrymen.
The conduct of the emancipated negroes during the last ten years has justified the eulogium pronounced upon them by Lord Brougham, in the last of the two quotations from him. The magistrate has driven out the overseer; the school has taken the place of the whipping-post; the press has supplanted the tread-mill. It is said that the large landed estates are diminishing in value; that the quantity of sugar, coffee, and rum, annually produced, decreases; that the negroes are reluctant to labor upon these large properties, preferring to set up little shops, or work at trades, or cultivate small grounds on their own account. In the mass of conflicting testimony, it is difficult to get at the precise facts. I presume that, to a large extent, these reports are true. Monopolies in the flesh of man, and in the soil he tills, are at war with Nature and with God. If they have been long continued, a change will produce some bitter fruits. But they will be the growth of the evil rather than the remedy. The tropics belong to the colored race. The Saxon must abandon the West Indies. His huge landed estates must inevitably continue to diminish in value till they are broken up into small freeholds, each being cultivated by its individual owner. Such a consummation will be deprecated only by those who believe that the chief end of poor men, in hot climates, is to work as day-laborers, on small wages, for bloated capitalists, in the production of large quantities of cotton, coffee, sugar, and rum.