Loss of property may be brought upon the Proprietor of a West India estate in two ways:
First, By introducing a new tone of feeling among the Negroes, and converting good servants into bad.
Secondly, By abstracting such a number of efficient hands from an estate, that the remainder are incompetent to carry on its cultivation in an effective manner, or to render its fixed capital productive.
Section 1.
THE CONVERSION OF GOOD SERVANTS INTO BAD.
If we imagine an estate, with a given number of negroes, to produce three hundred hogsheads of sugar a year, few will be inclined to doubt the disposition of the proprietor to increase its production, if practicable, to three hundred and fifty or four hundred. What are the means, then, to effect this object, without increasing the number of labourers? The proprietor finds himself possessed of a number of people, the development of whose full capability for labour depends upon their treatment. If they are prompted to work with willingness and satisfaction, skill in the various branches of work to be performed speedily displays itself. If thus some of the slaves can be converted from ordinary labourers into good tradesmen, and if those in the field can be taught to use their utmost dexterity in field-cultivation, a much more profitable division of labour than hitherto will be accomplished. Through this improvement there is less expense in superintendence, there is more work procured from the steady government of the negroes without rigorous coercion, and the cultivation is extended generally, from a better and more skilful distribution of the various employments on the estate.
To accomplish this condition of things, the proprietor is induced to grant to the slaves every reasonable indulgence and benefit. He uses a discriminating power, bestowing reward upon the well-deserving, and withholding it from the vicious; and thus holds up a double example to the rest.
On the other hand, the slaves, finding that the master deals out his favour with strict impartiality, are cheered under their labour by the assurance that their exertions will be appreciated, and emulate each other in assiduity and good conduct.
It is perfectly evident, therefore, that it is the first interest of the master to have the minds of his people easy and contented; and that whatever tends to destroy their tranquillity occasions to him inevitable loss of property. He will not then be able to avail himself of that skill and willingness to work above described, and instead of having his three hundred hogsheads increased to four, which he might otherwise have expected from the greater diffusion of intelligence among the rising generation, he will have his produce diminished to two hundred, and rendered still less and less, as discontent spreads and becomes more deeply rooted among his people.
It is one of the worst features of compulsory manumission, that it must inspire this discontent. Is it surprising, therefore, that it should excite such strenuous opposition? The colonists know well, that there is not an instance in our colonies of free negroes working steadily in the field for hire; and that if their people be compulsorily freed, the cultivation of their estates must be superseded. There will no longer be a motive for the master, as at present, to bestow benefits upon the slave; on the contrary, every indulgence granted would only tend to swell that sum which is ultimately to be employed to the master’s injury. The negroes will learn, that benefits must cease to flow to them from their masters: hence the interests of the two, instead of being reciprocal as hitherto, become directly opposed to each other.
It is beyond any effort or precaution of the master, when he can procure no other labourers, to retrieve the injury he thus sustains. His property is placed at the mercy of his own servants. In the practical operation of the measure, his best and most serviceable people will become the first discontented. They will, as a natural result, be directly induced to suppress their skill, zeal, and willingness to work, or in other ways depreciate their personal value.