The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

"4. I think the negroes might have been emancipated as safely in 1834, as in 1840; and had the emancipation then taken place, they would be found much further in advance in 1840, than they can be after the expiration of the present period of apprenticeship, through which all, both apprentices and masters, are LABORING HEAVILY."

"5. That the negroes will work if moderately compensated, no candid man can doubt. Their endurance for the sake of a very little gain is quite amazing, and they are most desirous to procure for themselves and families as large a share as possible of the comforts and decencies of life. They appear peculiarly to reverence and desire intellectual attainments. They employ, occasionally, children who have been taught in the schools to teach them in their leisure time to read."

"6. I think the partial modifications of slavery have been attended by so much improvement in all that constitutes the welfare and respectability of society, that I cannot doubt the increase of the benefit were a total abolition accomplished of every restriction that has arisen out of the former state of things."

During our stay in Kingston, we called on the American consul, to whom we had a letter from the consul at Antigua. We found him an elderly gentleman, and a true hearted Virginian, both in his generosity and his prejudices in favor of slavery. The consul, Colonel Harrison, is a near relation of General W.H. Harrison, of Ohio. Things, he said, were going ruinously in Jamaica. The English government were mad for abolishing slavery. The negroes of Jamaica were the most degraded and ignorant of all negroes he had ever seen. He had travelled in all our Southern States, and the American negroes, even those of South Carolina and Georgia, were as much superior to the negroes of Jamaica, as Henry Clay was superior to him. He said they were the most ungrateful, faithless set he ever saw; no confidence could be placed in them, and kindness was always requited by insult. He proceeded to relate a fact from which it appeared that the ground on which his grave charges against the negro character rested, was the ill-conduct of one negro woman whom he had hired some time ago to assist his family. The town negroes, he said, were too lazy to work; they loitered and lounged about on the sidewalks all day, jabbering with one another, and keeping up an incessant noise; and they would not suffer a white man to order them in the least. They were rearing their children in perfect idleness and for his part he could not tell what would become of the rising population of blacks. Their parents were too proud to let them work, and they sent them to school all the time. Every afternoon, he said, the streets are thronged with the half-naked little black devils, just broke from the schools, and all singing some noisy tune learned in the infant schools; the burthen of their songs seems to be, "O that will be joyful." These words, said he, are ringing in your ears wherever you go. How aggravating truly such words must be, bursting cheerily from the lips of the little free songsters! "O that will be joyful, joyful, JOYFUL"--and so they ring the changes day after day, ceaseless and untiring. A new song this, well befitting the times and the prospects, but provoking enough to oppressors. The consul denounced he special magistrates; they were an insolent set of fellows, they would fine a white man as quick as they would flog a nigger.[[A]] If a master called his apprentice "you scoundrel," or, "you huzzy," the magistrate would either fine him for it or reprove him sharply in the presence of the apprentice. This, in the eyes of the veteran Virginian, was intolerable. Outrageous, not to allow a gentleman to call his servant what names he chooses! We were very much edified by the Colonel's exposé of Jamaica manners. We must say, however, that his opinions had much less weight with us after we learned (as we did from the best authority) that he had never been a half dozen miles into the country during a ten year's residence in Kingston.

[Footnote [A]: We fear there is too little truth in this representation.]

We called on the Rev. Jonathan Edmonson, the superintendent of the Wesleyan missions in Jamaica. Mr. E. has been for many years laboring as a missionary in the West Indies, first in Barbadoes, then in St. Vincent's, Grenada, Trinidad, and Demerara, and lastly in Jamaica. He stated that the planters were doing comparatively nothing to prepare the negroes for freedom. "Their whole object was to get as much sugar out of them as they possibly could."

We received a call from the Rev. Mr. Wooldridge, one of the Independent missionaries. He thinks the conduct of the planters is tending to make the apprentices their bitter enemies. He mentioned one effect of the apprenticeship which had not been pointed out to us before. The system of appraisement, he said, was a premium upon all the bad qualities of the negroes and a tax upon all the good ones. When a person is to be appraised, his virtues and his vices are always inquired into, and they materially influence the estimate of his value. For example, the usual rate of appraisement is a dollar per week for the remainder of the term; but if the apprentice is particularly sober, honest, and industrious, more particularly if he be a pious man, he is valued at the rate of two or three dollars per week. It was consequently for the interest of the master, when an apprentice applied for an appraisement, to portray his virtues, while on the other hand there was an inducement for the apprentice to conceal or actually to renounce his good qualities, and foster the worst vices. Some instances of this kind had fallen under his personal observation.

We called on the Rev. Mr. Gardiner, and on the Rev. Mr. Tinson, two Baptist missionaries in Kingston. On Sabbath we attended service at the church of which Mr. G. is the pastor. It is a very large building, capable of seating two thousand persons. The great mass of the congregation were apprentices. At the time we were present, the chapel was well filled, and the broad surface of black faces was scarcely at all diversified with lighter colors. It was gratifying to witness the neatness of dress, the sobriety of demeanor, the devotional aspect of countenance, the quiet and wakeful attention to the preacher which prevailed. They were mostly rural negroes from the estates adjacent to Kingston.

The Baptists are the most numerous body of Christians in the island. The number of their missionaries now in Jamaica is sixteen, the number of Chapels is thirty-one, and the number of members thirty-two thousand nine hundred and sixty. The increase of members during the year 1836 was three thousand three hundred and forty-four.

At present the missionary field is mostly engrossed by the Baptists and Wesleyans. The Moravians are the next most numerous body. Besides these, there are the clergy of the English Church, with a Bishop, and a few Scotch clergymen. The Baptist missionaries, as a body, have been most distinguished for their opposition to slavery. Their boldness in the midst of suffering and persecutions, their denunciations of oppression, though they did for a time arouse the wrath of oppressors, and cause their chapels to be torn down and themselves to be hunted, imprisoned, and banished, did more probably than any other cause, to hasten the abolition of slavery.