The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

2. The apprentices are generally willing to work on the estates on Saturday whenever their labor is needed.

3. The females are very much disposed to abandon field labor. He has great difficulty sometimes in inducing them to take their hoes and go out to the field along with the men; it was the case particularly with the mothers! This he regarded as a sore evil!

4. The free children he represented as being in a wretched condition. Their parents have the entire management of them, an they are utterly opposed to having them employed on the estates. He condemned severely the course taken in a particular instance by the late Governor, Sir Lionel Smith. He took it upon himself to go around the island and advise the parents never to bind their children in any kind of apprenticeship to the planters. He told them that sooner than involve their free children in any way, they ought to "work their own fingers to the stubs." The consequence of this imprudent measure, said our informant, is that the planters have no control over the children born on their estates; and in many instances their parents have sent them away lest their residence on the property should, by some chance, give the planter a claim upon their services. Under the good old system the young children were placed together under the charge of some superannuated women, who were fit for nothing else, and the mothers went into the field to work; now the nursery is broken up, and the mothers spend half of their time "in taking care of their brats."

5. As to the management of the working people, there need not he any more difficulty now then during slavery. If the magistrates, instead of encouraging the apprentices to complain and be insolent, would join their influence to support the authority of the planters, things might go on nearly as smoothly as before.

In company with Rev. Mr. Packer, late Rector of St. Thomas, we rode out to the Belle estate, which is considered one of the finest in the island. Mr. Marshall, the manager, received us cordially. He was selected, with two others, by Sir Lionel Smith, to draw up a scale of labor for general use in the island. There are five hundred acres in the estate, and two hundred and thirty-five apprenticed laborers. The manager stated that every thing was working well on his property. He corroborated the statements made by other planters with retard to the conduct of the apprentices. On one point he said the planters had found themselves greatly disappointed. It was feared that after emancipation the negroes would be very much verse to cultivating cane, as it was supposed that nothing but the whip could induce them to perform that species of labor. But the truth is, they now not only cultivate the estate lands better than they did when under the lash, but also cultivate a third of their half-acre allotments in cane on their own accounts. They would plant the whole in cane if they were not discouraged by the planter, whose principal objection to their doing so is that it would lead to the entire neglect of provision cultivation. The apprentices on Belle estate will make little short of one thousand dollars the present season by their sugar.

Mr. M. stated that he was extensively acquainted with the cultivation of the island, and he knew that it was in a better condition than it had been for many years. There were twenty-four estates under the same attorneyship with the Belle, and they were all in the same prosperous condition.

A short time before we left Barbadoes we received an invitation from Col. Barrow, to breakfast with him at his residence on Edgecome estate--about eight miles from town. Mr. Cummins, a colored gentleman, a merchant of Bridgetown, and agent of Col. B., accompanied us.

The proprietor of Edgecome is a native of Barbadoes, of polished manners and very liberal views. He has travelled extensively, has held many important offices, and is generally considered the cleverest man in the island. He is now a member of the council, and acting attorney for about twenty estates. He remarked that he had always desired emancipation, and had prepared himself for it; but that it had proved a greater blessing than he had expected. His apprentices did as much work as before, and it was done without the application of the whip. He had not had any cases of insubordination, and it was very seldom that he had any complaints to make to the special magistrate. "The apprentices." said he, "understand the meaning of law, and they regard its authority." He thought there was no such thing in the island as a sense of insecurity, either as respected person or property. Real estate had risen in value.

Col. B. alluded to the expensiveness of slavery, remarking that after all that was expended in purchasing the slaves, it cost the proprietor as much to maintain them, as it would to hire free men. He spoke of the habit of exercising arbitrary power, which being in continual play up to the time of abolition, had become so strong that managers even yet gave way to it, and frequently punished their apprentices, in spite of all penalties. The fines inflicted throughout the island in 1836, upon planters, overseers, and others, for punishing apprentices, amounted to one thousand two hundred dollars. Col. B. said that he found the legal penalty so inadequate, that in his own practice he was obliged to resort to other means to deter his book-keepers and overseers from violence; hence he discharged every man under his control who was known to strike an apprentice. He does not think that the apprenticeship will be a means of preparing the negroes for freedom, nor does he believe that they need any preparation. He should have apprehended no danger, had emancipation taken place in 1834.

At nine o'clock we sat down to breakfast. Our places were assigned at opposite sides of the table, between Col. B. and Mr. C. To an American eye, we presented a singular spectacle. A wealthy planter, a member of the legislative council, sitting at the breakfast table with a colored man, whose mother was a negress of the most unmitigated hue, and who himself showed a head of hair as curly as his mother's! But this colored guest was treated with all that courtesy and attention to which his intelligence, worth and accomplished manners so justly entitle him.