TESTIMONY OF MAGISTRATES IN 1837.
William H. Anderson, Esq., Solicitor General, made a written statement, from which I extract the following: "A very material change for the better has taken place in the sentiments of the community, since slavery was abolished. Religion and education were formerly opposed, as subversive of the security of property; now, they are encouraged, in the most direct manner, as its best support. Many proprietors give land for schools and chapels; also subscriptions to a large amount. Had the negroes been entirely emancipated in 1834, they would have been much further advanced in 1840, than they can be at the end of the apprenticeship, through which both masters and servants are laboring heavily. That the negroes will work, if moderately compensated, no candid man can doubt. Their endurance for the sake of a very little gain is quite amazing; and they are very desirous to procure for themselves and families as large a share as possible of the comforts and decencies of life. I have not heard one man assert that it would be an advantage to return to slavery, even if it were practicable; and I believe the public begin to be convinced that slave labor is not the cheapest. In my opinion, the negroes are very acute in their perceptions of justice and injustice. They fully appreciate the benefits of equitable legislation, and would unreservedly submit to it, where they felt confidence in the purity of its administration. They are ardently attached to the British government, and would be so to the Colonial, were it to indicate any purposes of kindness or protection toward them; but hitherto the enactments with reference to them have been almost wholly coercive. They are very desirous for education and religious instruction; no man who has attended to the matter can gainsay that. Marriage was formerly unknown among them. Their masters considered them as so many brutes for labor and increase, and I fear they came to regard themselves so. But now concubinage is becoming quite disreputable, and many are marrying those with whom they formerly lived in that relation. The partial modification of slavery has been attended with so much improvement in all that constitutes the welfare and respectability of society, that I cannot doubt there would be an increase of the benefits, if there were a total abolition of all the old restrictions."
"Cheney Hamilton, Esq., one of the Special Magistrates for Port Royal, said there were three thousand apprentices in his district. They were as quiet and industrious as they ever were, and were always willing to work in their own time for wages. The district was never under better cultivation. The masters were doing nothing for the education of the apprentices. Their only object seemed to be to get as much work out of them as possible. The complaints brought before him mostly originated with the planters and were of a trivial nature, such as petty thefts and absence from work. He said if we would compare the complaints brought by overseers and apprentices against each other, we should see for ourselves which party was the most peaceable and law-abiding. Real estate is more valuable than before emancipation. Property is more secure, and capitalists, consequently, more ready to invest their funds."
From the written testimony of E. B. Lyon, Esq., Special Justice, I extract the following: "The estates of the Blue Mountain Valley, over which I preside, contain 4,227 apprentices. When I assumed the duties of a special magistrate, they were the most disorderly on the island. They were almost desperate from disappointment in finding their trammels under the new law nearly as burdensome as under the old, and their condition in many respects much more intolerable. But they submitted, in many instances, with the most extraordinary patience, to evils which were the more onerous, because inflicted under the affected sanction of a law, whose advent they expected would have been attended with a train of blessings. I succeeded in making satisfactory arrangements between the masters and apprentices; and no peasantry, in the most favored country on the globe, can have been more irreproachable in morals and conduct, than the majority of apprentices in that district, since the beginning of 1835. It has been my pleasant duty to report to the Governor, month after month, improvement in their manners and condition, and a greater amount of work than during slavery. That proprietors have confidence in the future is evinced by the expensive repair of buildings on various estates, the enlargement of works, and the high prices given for land, which would scarcely have commanded a purchaser at any price, during slavery. In my district, the apprentices are invariably willing to work on the estates for hire, during their own time. In no community in the world, is crime less prevalent. The offences brought before me are mostly of a trivial description; such as turning out late, or answering impatiently. In fact, the majority of apprentices on estates have quietly performed their duty and respected the laws. The apprenticeship has, I fear, retarded the rapidity with which civilization should have advanced, and sown the seeds of a feeling even more bitter than that which slavery had engendered."