The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

There were many unpleasant and annoying circumstances attending slavery, which had a most pernicious effect on the master. There was continual jealousy and suspicion between him and those under him. They looked on each other as sworn enemies, and there was kept up a continual system of plotting and counterplotting. Then there was the flogging, which was a matter of course through the island. To strike a slave was as common as to strike a horse--then the punishments were inflicted so unjustly, in innumerable instances, that the poor victims knew no more why they were punished than the dead in their graves. The master would be a little ill--he had taken a cold, perhaps, and felt irritable--something were wrong--his passion was up, and away went some poor fellow to the whipping post. The slightest offence at such a moment, though it might have passed unnoticed at another time, would meet with the severest punishment. He said he himself had more than once ordered his slaves to be flogged in a passion, and after he became cool he would have given guineas not to have done it. Many a night had he been kept awake in thinking of some poor fellow whom he had shut up in the dungeon, and had rejoiced when daylight came. He feared lest the slave might die before morning; either cut his throat or dash his head against the wall in his desperation. He has known such cases to occur.

The apprenticeship will not have so beneficial an effect as he hoped it would, on account of an indisposition on the part of many of the planters to abide by its regulations. The planters generally are doing very little to prepare the apprentices for freedom; but some are doing very much to unprepare them. They are driving the people from them by their conduct.

Mr. C. said he often wished for emancipation. There were several other planters among his acquaintance who had the same feelings, but did not dare express them. Most of the planters, however, were violently opposed. Many of them declared that emancipation could not and should not take place. So obstinate were they, that they would have sworn on the 31st of July, 1831, that emancipation could not happen. These very men now see and acknowledge the benefits which have resulted from the new system.

The first of August passed off very quietly. The people labored on that day as usual, and had a stranger gone over the island, he would not have suspected any change had taken place. Mr. C. did not expect his people would go to work that day. He told them what the conditions of the new system were, and that after the first of August, they would be required to turn out to work at six o'clock instead of five o'clock as before. At the appointed hour every man was at his post in the field. Not one individual was missing.

The apprentices do more work in the nine hours required by law, than in twelve hours during slavery.

His apprentices are perfectly willing to work for him during their own time. He pays them at the rate of twenty-five cents a day. The people are less quarrelsome than when they were slaves.

About eight o'clock in the evening, Mr. C. invited us to step out into the piazza. Pointing to the houses of the laborers, which were crowded thickly together, and almost concealed by the cocoa-nut and calabash trees around them, he said, "there are probably more than four hundred people in that village. All my own laborers, with their free children, are retired for the night, and with them are many from the neighboring estates." We listened, but all was still, save here and there a low whistle from some of the watchmen. He said that night was a specimen of every night now. But it had not always been so. During slavery these villages were oftentimes a scene of bickering, revelry, and contention. One might hear the inmates reveling and shouting till midnight. Sometimes it would be kept up till morning. Such scenes have much decreased, and instead of the obscene and heathen songs which they used to sing, they are learning hymns from the lips of their children.

The apprentices are more trusty. They are more faithful in work which is given them to do. They take more interest in the prosperity of the estate generally, in seeing that things are kept in order, and that the property is not destroyed.

They are more open-hearted. Formerly they used to shrink before the eyes of the master, and appear afraid to meet him. They would go out of their way to avoid him, and never were willing to talk with him. They never liked to have him visit their houses; they looked on him as a spy, and always expected a reprimand, or perhaps a flogging. Now they look up cheerfully when they meet him, and a visit to their homes is esteemed a favor. Mr. C. has more confidence in his people than he ever had before.

There is less theft than during slavery. This is caused by greater respect for character, and the protection afforded to property by law. For a slave to steal from his master was never considered wrong, but rather a meritorious act. He who could rob the most without being detected was the best fellow. The blacks in several of the islands have a proverb, that for a thief to steal from a thief makes God laugh.