When slaves have the power to enforce their freedom from their owners by such a process as that of appraisement, those who are of bad character are comparatively rewarded, while those who are really meritorious are punished.
Thus, on the same estate, a disorderly and unprofitable slave may be readily parted with by his master for fifty pounds, whilst another, a steady, intelligent, and assiduous slave, might, for these good qualities, be worth three hundred. Yet, disproportionate as are the characters and consequent value of the two, the desire for freedom will operate with both; but how strikingly unequal are the terms upon which they are to obtain the same reward. To the one who is profligate and undeserving the obstacle is trivial. On the contrary, the meritorious slave, applying to his master to know the amount of his ransom, finds it magnified above that of his fellow sixfold. He cannot fail to be struck with the largeness of the amount, and the time requisite to raise it. Such an obvious departure from the principles of common equity, as this, must engender discontent, and prompt the meritorious individual to seek for the cause of this difference in value. He will conceive it gross injustice, that a bad character, who has always disregarded his master’s interests, should quickly get his freedom, whilst he himself, who has constantly studied those interests, must wait for it through a course of years lengthened in exact proportion to the value of his services.
When the measure fairly begins to work, the grievance is greatly aggravated.
It is intended, that a proportion of the capital sunk in the lands and buildings of each estate shall be added to the value of each slave.
Earl Bathurst, in his despatch to Sir Benjamin D’Urban, of the 25th February, 1826, says:—
“If, in the process of time, it should be unfortunately found, that the slaves thus manumitted altogether abandon their owners, and refuse to work as free persons, the owner not having the means, by reason of the Abolition Act, to supply the loss of his slaves, and not being able to engage any free labourer for his sugar-plantations, the price which must then be assigned to the loss of each slave must have a direct reference to that state in which the plantation will be placed by the progressive reduction of the means of cultivating it.”
Under this plan it will be the deserving slaves who will have to pay for the lands and buildings.
The higher the personal value of the slave, the greater is his relative utility to the plantation, and the greater must be the recompense awarded to the proprietor for superseded cultivation. The relative utility of a negro of bad character may thus be estimated at not more than ten pounds, while that of a trustworthy individual may rise so high as one hundred and fifty. In both these cases, the respective sums have to be added to the slave’s personal value, before his master can be said to have received an equivalent for his liberation. If the personal value of a slave of bad character be estimated at 50l., the compensation of 10l. for his relative utility to the plantation being added, will make a sum of 60l. only, as the price of his manumission. If the personal value of the skilful and zealous slave be estimated at 300l., the equivalent of 150l. for his relative utility to the plantation being added, will require as much as 450l. to be raised for the purchase of his manumission.
Here the impediment is increased from six to eight fold.
But there is yet further injustice. Not only are different descriptions of cultivation carried on in the colonies, but the same species of cultivation may greatly vary on estates contiguous to each other, from difference of soil, or other local circumstances. Accordingly as those circumstances are more or less favourable, in a corresponding proportion will be the value of the slave, and the appraisers will be called upon to adjust this value, thus varying in different districts of the same colony.