The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

[Footnote [A]: A fine of sixteen dollars for the first assault, and the liberation of the apprentice after a second.]

[Footnote [B]: Through the complaint of the apprentice to the special magistrate]

Barbadoes was not without its insurrections during slavery. Although not very frequent, they left upon the minds of the white colonists this conviction, (repeatedly expressed to us by planters and others,) that slavery and rebellions are inseparable. The last widely extended insurrection occurred in 1816, in the eastern part of the island. Some of the particulars were given us by a planter who resided to that region, and suffered by it great loss of property. The plot was so cautiously laid, and kept so secret, that no one suspected it. The planter observed that if any one had told him that such a thing was brewing ten minutes before it burst forth, he would not have credited the statement. It began with firing the cane-fields. A signal was given by a man setting fire to a pile of trash on an elevated spot, when instantly the fires broke out in every direction, and in less than a half hour, more than one hundred estates were in flames. The planters and their families, in the utmost alarm, either fled into other parts of the island, or seized their arms and hurriedly mustered in self-defence. Meanwhile the negroes, who had banded themselves in numerous companies, took advantage of the general consternation, proceeded to the deserted mansions of the planters, broke down the doors, battered in the windows, destroyed all the furniture, and carried away the provision stores to their own houses.

These ravages continued for three days, during which, the slaves flocked together in increasing numbers; in one place there were several thousands assembled. Above five hundred of the insurgents were shot down by the militia, before they could be arrested. The destruction of property during the rebellion was loosely estimated at many hundred thousand pounds. The canes on many estates were almost wholly burned; so that extensive properties, which ordinarily yielded from two to three hundred hogsheads, did not make more than fifteen or twenty.

Our informant mentioned two circumstances which he considered remarkable. One was, that the insurgents never touched the property of the estates to which they severally belonged; but went to the neighboring or more distant estates. The other was, that during the whole insurrection the negroes did not make a single attempt to destroy life. On the other hand, the sacrifice of negroes during the rebellion, and subsequent to it, was appalling. It was a long time before the white man's thirst for blood could be satiated.

No general insurrection occurred after this one. However, as late as 1823, the proprietor of Mount Wilton--the noblest estate in the island--was murdered by his slaves in a most horrid manner. A number of men entered his bed-chamber at night. He awoke ere they reached him, and grasped his sword, which always hung by his bed, but it was wrested from his hand, and he was mangled and killed. His death was caused by his cruelties, and especially by his extreme licentiousness. All the females on this estate were made successively the victims of his lust. This, together with his cruelties, so incensed the men, that they determined to murder the wretch. Several of them were publicly executed.

Next to the actual occurrence of rebellions, the fear of them deserves to be enumerated among the evils which slavery entailed upon Barbadoes. The dread of hurricanes to the people of Barbadoes is tolerable in comparison with the irrepressible apprehensions of bloody rebellions. A planter told us that he seldom went to bed without thinking he might be murdered before morning.

But now the whites are satisfied that slavery was the sole instigator of rebellions, and since its removal they have no fear on this score.

Licentiousness was another of the fruits of slavery. It will be difficult to give to the reader a proper conception of the prevalence of this vice in Barbadoes, and of the consequent demoralization. A numerous colored population were both the offspring and the victims of it. On a very moderate calculation, nineteen-twentieths of the present adult colored race are illegitimate. Concubinage was practised among the highest classes. Young merchants and others who were unmarried, on first going to the island, regularly engaged colored females to live with them as housekeepers and mistresses, and it was not unusual for a man to have more than one. The children of these connections usually sat with the mothers at the father's table, though when the gentlemen had company, neither mothers nor children made their appearance. To such conduct no disgrace was attached, nor was any shame felt by either party. We were assured that there are in Bridgetown, colored ladies of "respectability," who, though never married, have large families of children whose different surnames indicate their difference of parentage, but who probably do not know their fathers by any other token. These remarks apply to the towns. The morals of the estates were still more deplorable. The managers and overseers, commonly unmarried, left no female virtue unattempted. Rewards sometimes, but oftener the whip, or the dungeon, gave them the mastery in point of fact, which the laws allowed in theory. To the slaves marriage was scarcely known. They followed the example of the master, and were ready to minister to his lust. The mass of mulatto population grew paler as it multiplied, and catching the refinement along with the tint of civilization, waged a war upon marriage which had well nigh expelled it from the island. Such was Barbadoes under the auspices of slavery.

Although these evils still exist, yet, since the abolition of slavery, there is one symptom of returning purity, the sense of shame. Concubinage is becoming disreputable. The colored females are growing in self-respect, and are beginning to seek regular connections with colored men. They begin to feel (to use the language of one of them) that the light is come, and that they can no longer have the apology of ignorance to plead for their sin. It is the prevailing impression among whites, colored, and blacks, that open licentiousness cannot long survive slavery.