EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES.
A public meeting was held at Willis's Rooms, London, on Wednesday, Feb. 20th, 1861, to receive a report from E. B. Underhill, Esq., and the Rev. J. T. Brown, the deputation of the Baptist Missionary Society, of their recent visit to the West Indies. Charles Buxton, Esq., M. P., took the chair at twelve o'clock.
The Chairman said it must be remembered that, in the time of slavery, whatever the island produced was exported; the food of the slaves consisting principally of salt fish and yams, their clothes and lodging being of the most wretched description. At the present time, however, the creoles were rapidly rising in their social and physical condition, and appropriated, to a great extent, the productions of the country for their own use. He would not anticipate the report of the deputation, but would simply add that, in his opinion, notwithstanding every discouragement, emancipation had proved itself, beyond all doubt, to be a good thing for Jamaica, not only by producing glorious moral results, but by enormously enhancing the prosperity of the island.
Mr. Underhill said Mr. Brown and himself proceeded towards the close of 1859 to the West Indies. Mr. Brown spent, altogether, about six months in Jamaica, and he (Mr. Underhill) about a year, in that and the other islands of the West Indies; and therefore the statements they were prepared to make were the result of no rapid and cursory view, but of close investigation, followed out to the best of their ability. He would not attempt to make a speech calculated to move their feelings; but, having laid before them some bare facts, he would leave these facts to tell their own tale. He must admit that, at the first show of things, those who maintained that emancipation had failed had something in their favor. There could be no question that, with regard to Jamaica, there had been a very considerable diminution in the exportation of the staple products of the country. The exportation of sugar had, for instance, declined from 1,400,000 cwt. in 1831—three years before the passing of the first Act of Emancipation—to 535,000 cwt. in 1858. The exportation of rum also had declined from 35,000 puncheons in 1833 to 18,000 in 1858. In coffee the reduction was still more manifest, since whereas in 1830 the island exported 22,000,000 lbs., in 1858 it only exported 5,250,000 lbs. He must also admit that upon entering the island of Jamaica, the representations as to its decline struck one as being very truthful. On landing at Kingston, one found a large city, the streets of which were either deep in mud or sand. The whole town appeared sadly neglected, and many large warehouses were wholly unoccupied, whilst beggars and drunkards abounded. The feeling of depression was still further increased upon reading the newspapers, or going into the country. Estates, once flourishing, were desolate and uncultivated, and the buildings in every direction were rapidly falling into decay. But there were one or two circumstances which materially altered the first impression which this state of things produced on the mind. In the first place, while Jamaica, to use a favorite expression, had been ruined, the West Indies generally had prospered. It was a curious fact, for instance, that while the exportation of sugar for three years before emancipation had averaged from all the islands 3,600,000 cwts., in 1858 it amounted to 3,500,000 cwts., being only a diminution of 100,000 cwts., or about 2,000 hogsheads. It was obvious, therefore, that there was some other cause for the decay of Jamaica. Then, with regard to coffee, it must be remembered that Ceylon had thrown an immense quantity of that commodity into the English market. For example, in 1839 Ceylon exported 4,500,000 lbs. of coffee, whereas sixteen years afterwards it actually exported 56,000,000 lbs. (Hear, hear.) That would partly account for the decline of the production of that commodity in Jamaica. With regard to Kingston, also, he learnt that instead of being, as it once was, a kind of central market for the Spanish Main, the merchants of the different ports in South America either stopped at St. Thomas's island, or preferred to trade direct with Europe, which would account largely for the appearance of Kingston. It must also be remembered that the trade in Kingston had changed from being principally wholesale to a retail character, so that while, on the one hand, it had suffered by the diminution of the former, it had gained by the increase of the latter. He would proceed to show what was the condition of the general population in Jamaica. There were 380,000 people in the island, and dependant to a great extent on the cultivation of the land. These people were the slaves of former days, but were now the enfranchised peasantry, and it was only right to consider how emancipation had affected their interests. On this point he could at once say that their position had in every respect immensely improved. It had been said that the negroes were an idle lot of people, who squatted upon the land, and were quite content if they got a pumpkin to eat. But this was quite false. The first thing the negroes did was to leave the estates in great numbers. There were now but few estates on which they resided, and in those cases the planters had treated them as free men, and consequently secured their affections and services. A contrary line of treatment was pursued in the majority of instances, and that, together with want of capital wherewith to pay the wages weekly, had the effect of driving them away. The slaves who thus left the estates were compelled to seek other means of subsistence, but they did not "squat upon the land," as had been alleged—that is, settle upon it without paying rent. The circumstance that nearly every inch of land in Jamaica was owned by some one made such a thing impossible.
On the contrary, great numbers of the old slaves had purchased land, and it was an amazing fact that, at this moment, three-fifths of the cultivated land in Jamaica was the bona fide property of the blacks. (Applause.) He held in his hand a return of one mission congregation, and there were some interesting facts contained in it which he would take the liberty of quoting. In that congregation there were seventy-three heads of families, of whom sixty-two were once slaves, which should be charitably considered when looking at the progress they have made in the arts of civilization and mental culture. It could not be expected that in twenty-one years all the old feelings and passions and moral taints of slavery would be removed from the land. These seventy-three families possessed among them 342 acres of freehold land, and rented an average of two acres each besides. They possessed amongst them seventy horses or mules—a species of property negroes were very anxious to have. Surely these facts proved that they were not "squatters," in the sense in which that word was used. The report of the Hanover Agricultural Society strongly supported him in the conclusions to which he had arrived in reference to the negro population. That report stated that in six districts of the parish, containing four or five thousand people, there were 802 proprietors, holding about 4,200 acres amongst them, which would be about five and a-half acres to each family. He valued the land possessed by the people at 3l. 10s. per acre, which was a much lower estimate than he might fairly put upon it. This would make 1,050,000l. as the price they had paid for the land. But they had not only bought land—they had built houses upon it. The cottages in which they lived during slavery had been destroyed, and he was thankful it was so. The people had built for themselves a better class of houses, at a cost which could not be less than 10l. per house, and he was very glad to say it was very rare to find more than one family in a house. That amounted at least to 600,000l. Their furniture would be very moderately valued at 3l. per house—about half the real value—making an additional 180,000l.; and their carts, horses, mules, pigs, &c., could not be put at less than 50,000l., which was, in fact, much under the mark. The next item was a very interesting one, namely, the value of the sugar-mills, and implements used in the production of sugar. There were 143 sugar-mills in a portion of Hanover alone, and there could not be less than 5,000 in the island of Jamaica. These mills were valued by the Hanover Agricultural Society at 10l. each. Then, as to their clothes, they were as well dressed as the agricultural laborers of England, and every negro had at least one if not two suits. It was not true that the moral and respectable people were gaudily dressed. Upon the whole, the clothes would be cheaply valued at 1l. per head—making 380,000l. Then, and lastly, there were deposits in the savings' banks to the extent of 49,395l. The sum total of all this property, which had been accumulated since the emancipation, was 2,358,000l.—an estimate which he ventured to say was much below the mark. Of course there were some idle and some ragged people among them, as, indeed, there were in every country on the face of the earth. But, at any rate, it would be very unfair to take Kingston as a fair sample of the island. It only numbered 30,000 people out of a population of 380,000, and it would never do to judge of a people by the minority. The annual value of the exports from Jamaica, taking an average of three years, was 1,057,000l., including sugar, rum, coffee, and the other products of the island, but it must not be supposed that the whole of that was grown by white people. It might be purchased and owned by the whites, but the work had been done by black hands, and directed by black heads. He found that each family cultivated some land for itself—say an acre to each family. An acre would produce from 15l. to 50l. worth per annum; he had estimated it at 20l. The entire produce of this island would be 2,500,000l. per annum. Was that an idle people? His calculations were checked in a very interesting way by those of the Hanover Agricultural Society, to which he had previously alluded. That society estimated the average earnings of each family at 30l. per annum. The number of families was 76,000, so that, according to the society, the annual earnings of the negroes in Jamaica amounted to 2,280,000l., a conclusion nearly similar to his own, though he had arrived at it by a totally different process of calculation. Another interesting feature was the decrease which had taken place in the importation of salt fish. In the days of slavery the yam and salt fish constituted the chief food of the people, but now there was a growing taste for fresh meat, and many planters were turning their property into pens for the breeding and fattening of cattle. One black man, who was formerly a slave, but who now carried on the business of butcher in one of the towns, told him that in Christmas week he had killed nine head of cattle, and the returns of his business amounted to 5,000l. a year, though there were two other butchers in the same town. In one town—the town which owed its existence almost entirely to Mr. Knibb—from five to seven head of cattle were slaughtered every week. All these things showed that the people were advancing in their social condition.
A few facts might not be uninteresting with reference to the religious condition of the people. In the first place they had built 220 chapels, quite independent of the Established Church, of which he could find no record showing their number. In connection with these chapels there were 53,000 communicants, or about one-eighth of the entire population. This itself was a very gratifying and rather unusual state of things. The number of people regularly attending these chapels was 91,000, or about a fourth part of the population, and the Sunday-schools contained about 22,000 children, or about a third of the children who were capable of attending school. Lastly, they raised every year for religious purposes about 22,000l.
Crime was rare in the West Indies—he meant crime which brought men to the courts of law. He found from the published returns, that the number of men in prison during 1854 was 908, whilst the number in prison at one time in 1858 was only 600. That was not a very considerable number for so large a population. The people were very fond of cutlasses, and there was hardly a man who had not got one, but yet one scarcely ever heard of a cutlass being used to the injury of another man. Men had been known to throw away their cutlasses when they have been quarrelling, lest they should be tempted to use them against each other—a circumstance which showed a great amount of self-control, and accounted for the unfrequency of great crimes. There was a rising feeling in favor of marriage, and an increasing respect for the marriage tie amongst the negroes since the abolition of slavery. True, the feeling was not yet so prevalent as could be wished, but the missionaries were doing all they could to encourage it. The question of education was one of vast importance in relation to the negro. The progress made in the island in this respect had been slight, but from a census taken by one of the missionaries at an interval of twenty-five years, he found that whereas just before freedom only three negroes in 5,000 could be found in one particular district that could read and write, at the next census 1,700 were able to do so. That showed that some progress had been made, but for all that the great want of Jamaica was education. The conclusion he had come to was this, that though emancipation might have occasioned some difficulties to the planters, it had been an unmixed blessing to the people. He did not know a single drawback or qualification that need be made to that statement. Should the planters continue in their present course, they also would reap the advantage in the general peace and security of the country, and in their own increased pecuniary gains. Last of all, he believed the tide in Jamaica was now turned, and that ordinary foresight, prudence, and care might make the island even more prosperous in years to come than it had ever been in the past. He recalled his visit to Jamaica with sincere pleasure. He went with deep trembling, but had come away with a gladdened heart, satisfied—as he trusted the meeting was, after having the facts he had laid before it—that Jamaica had not suffered from emancipation, but that its results, both to the people and to their country, would prove to be of the highest, most blessed, and most advantageous kind. (Applause.)
The Rev. J. T. Brown said he rose with a very great deal of pleasure to add a few words to those which his friend and colleague had addressed to the meeting. He concurred in the statements of his colleague as to the social results which had flowed from emancipation; and he could, if he had time, adduce many facts in their corroboration; but there were many doubtless in that meeting who felt, with him, that whilst the social welfare of a people was a good thing, yet that their religious welfare was paramount, and that if they could not have brought good tidings in that respect, they must have come home indeed with a heavy heart. One source of difficulty in judging of the state of Jamaica was the fact that false reports of the land were circulated by disappointed planters, by bigots, by clever writers, and by disheartened missionaries. What the Times newspaper chose to say upon the subject was, to a great extent, matter of indifference, because every one knew what worth to attach to it; but when he saw a statement so utterly untrue as that contained in the "Encyclopædia Britannica,"—he did not impute wilful falsehood to the writer,—he was grieved indeed. That statement was to the effect that, during slavery, the Dissenting ministers possessed great influence over the negro, but that the latter now preferred the Established Church, because it cost him nothing, though, in point of fact, he cared but little for either. This was altogether a misrepresentation. (Great cheering.) One of the last persons who had contributed to this popular error was that clever writer of fiction, Mr. Trollope, who deserved to be described as a writer of fiction, not only as the author of "Barchester Towers" and "Framley Parsonage," but of the book he had published on the West Indies. ("Hear, hear," and laughter.) Whenever persons in Jamaica wished to represent a violent, prejudiced, and obstinate person,—one who judged as hastily of a religious body as Mr. Trollope judged of the Baptists,—who would rather dance with a Jew than pray with a Baptist, when they wished to speak of a person of violent and prejudiced character, looking only at one side of a question, running and jumping through a country,—one, in fact, who was altogether untrustworthy,—they would say of him that he had been "Trollopeing." (Laughter.) That was the name Mr. Trollope had given to such a character in Jamaica. But facts were facts, and, though Mr. Trollope avowed his dislike for statistics, there were some very stubborn ones which stared him in the face. In the first place, the people were orderly in their conduct—well governed and well behaved; persons and property were perfectly safe on the island, and serious crimes were very rare. The marriage tie was respected, and children respected their parents. These were facts which forcibly contrasted with the awful condition of society before the emancipation. Again, the religious statistics of the country spoke loudly in favor of emancipation. They contributed largely towards the expenses of religious worship, and many attended punctually the means of grace. The European Dissenting ministers on the island received 150l. per annum, and the native preachers, of whom there were sixteen, from 100l. to 120l. per annum. There were seventy-seven churches connected with the Baptist body in the island; these included 20,000 communicants and 2,000 anxious inquirers; and although there were at times instances of false profession and cases of backsliding, yet the discipline of the churches was good, and their condition altogether in many respects furnished good examples for Christian congregations at home. He could not forbear also paying a high tribute to the deacons and elders, who, taken upon the whole, were a fine body of Christian disciples, and true helpers of the ministry. He was aware that there was a great deal of mental ignorance in the island, but even in that respect its condition had materially improved since the emancipation. He wished many of the persons now listening to him could have listened to the speeches of some of the Christian negroes at some of their meetings in Jamaica, and have marked the strong common sense and great intelligence which tumbled awkwardly out of their mouths; or could have heard their prayers, where beautiful thoughts and clear and holy aspirations struggled through their broken speech—indications of a mental vigor which only needed cultivation, and which even now commanded respect.
The Rev. William Arthur then moved the following resolution:—
"That this meeting has heard with great pleasure the satisfactory account given by the deputation of the Baptist Missionary Society of the results of emancipation in the West Indies, and Jamaica in particular, and of the progress made by the negro population in civilization, intelligence, and piety, and deem the great Act of Emancipation of 800,000 slaves, an act just and right in itself, as amply vindicated by the success which has attended it."
He felt it to be a real honor to be asked to move this resolution, and he congratulated the Baptist Missionary Society on having sent out so able a deputation to the West Indies. Their report was a most important one, and the more so at this juncture, when the attention of the people of America was anxiously directed to the results of emancipation in the West Indies, and especially in Jamaica. The friends of freedom had reason to be deeply thankful to Mr. Underhill for his careful and comprehensive inquiry into the real state of affairs.
The Rev. Edward Mathews, in seconding the resolution, said that he could testify from his own experience in the State of Ohio that the facts adduced by the deputation would have much influence in America, and help forward the cause of emancipation there.