The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

We asked what they expected to do with the old and infirm, after freedom? They said, "we will support dem--as how dey brought us up when we was pickaninny, and now we come trong, must care for dem." In such a spirit did these apprentices discourse for two hours. They won greatly upon our sympathy and respect. The touching story of their wrongs, the artless unbosoming of their hopes, their forgiving spirit toward their masters, their distinct views of their own rights, their amiable bearing under provocation, their just notions of law, and of a state of freedom--these things were well calculated to excite our admiration for them, and their companions in suffering. Having prayed with the company, and commended them to the grace of God, and the salvation of Jesus Christ, we shook hands with them individually, and separated from them, never more to see them, until we meet at the bar of God.

While one of us was prosecuting the foregoing inquiries in St. Thomas in the East, the other was performing a horse-back tour among the mountains of St. Andrews and Port Royal. We had been invited by Stephen Bourne, Esq., special magistrate for one of the rural districts in those parishes, to spend a week in his family, and accompany him in his official visits to the plantations embraced in his commission--an invitation we were very glad to accept, as it laid open to us at the same time three important sources of information,--the magistrate, the planter, and the apprentice.

The sun was just rising as we left Kingston, and entered the high road. The air, which the day before had been painfully hot and stived, was cool and fresh, and from flowers and spice-trees, on which the dew still lay, went forth a thousand fragrant exhalations. Our course for about six miles, lay over the broad, low plain, which spreads around Kingston, westward to the highlands of St. Andrews, and southward beyond Spanishtown. All along the road, and in various directions in the distance, were seen the residences--uncouthly termed 'pens'--of merchants and gentlemen of wealth, whose business frequently calls them to town. Unlike Barbadoes, the fields here were protected by walls and hedges, with broad gateways and avenues leading to the house. We soon began to meet here and there, at intervals, person going to the market with fruits and provisions. The number continually increased, and at the end of an hour, they could be seen trudging over the fields, and along the by-paths and roads, on every hand. Some had a couple of stunted donkeys yoked to a ricketty cart,--others had mules with pack-saddles--but the many loaded their own heads, instead of the donkeys and mules. Most of them were well dressed, and all civil and respectful in their conduct.

Invigorated by the mountain air, and animated by the novelty and grandeur of the mountain scenery, through which we had passed, we arrived at 'Grecian Regale' in season for an early West Indian breakfast, (8 o'clock.) Mr. Bourne's district is entirely composed of coffee plantations, and embraces three thousand apprentices. The people on coffee plantations are not worked so hard as those employed on sugar estates; but they are more liable to suffer from insufficient food and clothing.

After breakfast we accompanied Mr. Bourne on a visit to the plantations, but there were no complaints either from the master or apprentice, except on one. Here Mr. B. was hailed by a hoary-headed man, sitting at the side of his house. He said that he was lame and sick, and could not work, and complained that his master did not give him any food. All he had to eat was given him by a relative. As the master was not at home, Mr. B. could not attend to the complaint at that time, but promised to write the master about it in the course of the day. He informed us that the aged and disabled were very much neglected under the apprenticeship. When the working days are over, the profit days are over, and how few in any country are willing to support an animal which is past labor? If these complaints are numerous under the new system, when magistrates are all abroad to remedy them, what must it have been during slavery, when master and magistrate were the same!

On one of the plantations we called at the house of an emigrant, of which some hundreds have been imported from different parts of Europe, since emancipation. He had been in the island eighteen months, and was much dissatisfied with his situation. The experiment of importing whites to Jamaica as laborers, has proved disastrous--an unfortunate speculation to all parties, and all parties wish them back again.

We had some conversation with several apprentices, who called on Mr. Bourne for advice and aid. They all thought the apprenticeship very hard, but still, on the whole, liked it better than slavery. They "were killed too bad,"--that was their expression--during slavery--were worked hard and terribly flogged. They were up ever so early and late--went out in the mountains to work, when so cold busha would have to cover himself up on the ground. Had little time to eat, or go to meeting. 'Twas all slash, slash! Now they couldn't be flogged, unless the magistrate said so. Still the busha was very hard to them, and many of the apprentices run away to the woods, they are so badly used.

The next plantation which we visited was Dublin Castle. It lies in a deep valley, quite enclosed by mountains. The present attorney has been in the island nine years, and is attorney for several other properties. In England he was a religious man, and intimately acquainted with the eccentric Irving. For a while after he came out he preached to the slaves, but having taken a black concubine, and treating those under his charge oppressively, he soon obtained a bad character among the blacks, and his meetings were deserted. He is now a most passionate and wicked man, having cast off even the show of religion.

Mr. B. visited Dublin Castle a few weeks since, and spent two days in hearing complaints brought against the manager and book-keeper by the apprentices. He fined the manager, for different acts of oppression, one hundred and eight dollars. The attorney was present during the whole time. Near the close of the second day he requested permission to say a few words, which was granted. He raised his hands and eyes in the most agonized manner, as though passion was writhing within, and burst forth--"O, my God! my God! has it indeed come to this! Am I to be arraigned in this way? Is my conduct to be questioned by these people? Is my authority to be destroyed by the interference of stranger? O, my God!" And he fell back into the arms of his book-keeper, and was carried out of the room in convulsions.

The next morning we started on another excursion, for the purpose of attending the appraisement of an apprentice belonging to Silver Hill, a plantation about ten miles distant from Grecian Regale. We rode but a short distance in the town road, when we struck off into a narrow defile by a mule-path, and pushed into the very heart of the mountains.