The horrors of the Negro slavery existing in our West Indian islands /

by Anonymous

After examining with the utmost attention the account to which Governor Prevost refers (and which is inserted at page 39), it does not appear that a single fine or forfeiture has been recovered, nor a single prosecution commenced against defaulters, during the SEVENTEEN YEARS that the act has been, not to say in force, for that would be ridiculous, but in existence. Of convictions there is indeed a considerable number, but, with the exception of two, they are all convictions of Negroes. Of these two, one is for the murder of a Negro: but the record which states the conviction, states also that the convict was pardoned by Governor Johnstone. The murderer was a soldier in the 68th regiment. The other case is that of a man who was fined thirty pounds currency for ill-treating a Slave, the property of Doctor Fellan. No other particulars are mentioned respecting this singular trial and conviction. The signs of life, therefore, which have been shewn by this act, as far as regards the protection of Negro Slaves, must be admitted to be very equivocal.

Governor Prevost refers Earl Camden to a letter from the Rev. John Audain, Rector of St. George’s, as explaining “why the clauses 3 and 4 are not carried into effect.” Mr. Audain’s letter, however, throws little light on the subject. He can furnish no returns of marriages, because (he says) “a very few even of the free coloured people marry, and not one Slave since I have been here. Why they do not, I readily conceive, particularly the Slaves. Their owners do not exhort them to it, and they shew no dispositions themselves to alter that mode of cohabitation which they have been accustomed to.” P. 40.

It appears then, that the 3rd and 4th clauses of this boasted act are as nugatory as the 7th: “they are not,” says Governor Prevost, “carried into effect[15].” And yet if the reader will turn back to page [20], he will find that these clauses are introduced by a preamble of peculiar solemnity. They are enacted with the professed view of “improving the morals and advancing the temporal and eternal happiness of the Slaves.” What is this but impious mockery? Have they been executed? No. Has a single penalty been enforced for their non-execution? No. Surely, after this discovery, it is impossible that such mere mummery of legislation should continue to impose on the good sense of the people of Great Britain. They will see that the difference between Barbadoes, and the other islands, is in fact merely nominal: and that the same lamentable deficiency of legal protection, the same system of unqualified oppression, characterizes Negro bondage throughout the whole extent of our West Indian possessions.

Before the pamphlet closes, it will be proper to devote a few pages to the consideration of a long Report of the Assembly of Jamaica which forms a part of these papers.

The picture given in that Report of the situation of the West Indian islands is in the highest degree discouraging; but it is represented by the reporters as less gloomy than the truth. “A faithful detail,” it is said, p. [26], “would have the appearance of a frightful caricature; and unless speedy and efficacious measures are adopted for giving permanent relief, by a radical change of measures, we must suppose that the West Indian islands are doomed to perish as useless appendages to the British empire.” Credit is represented to be at an end; the planters, generally, to be labouring under the pressure of accumulating debt; and the greatest distress to pervade all classes of the community. Admitting the fidelity of this representation, a question will still arise respecting the causes which have produced so unfavourable a state of things. The Report affirms, that it has chiefly been produced by the enormous duties imposed on West Indian produce; by the competition of East Indian sugars; and by the attempts made to abolish the Slave trade.

The two first points would lead to very lengthened details, and are foreign from the design of this pamphlet. It may be observed, however, in general, that notwithstanding the labour employed by the reporters to prove that the additional duties imposed on West Indian produce fall not on the consumer, as in every other instance, but on the grower, no peculiarity appears to exist in the case under consideration, which exempts it from the operation of the general rule; a rule which is familiar to the merest sciolist in political economy. The protecting duties imposed on East India sugar appear also to be sufficiently high to exclude them from competition with West Indian sugar in the British market. A part of the East Indian sugar, it is true, is consumed in this country; but it is a small part, the demand for it being confined to a few individuals, who are willing to pay a high price for sugar rather than wound their consciences, by using what is procured through the oppression of their brethren: the rest is exported.

The attempts made to abolish the Slave trade operate, it is said, to the disadvantage of the island, by increasing the danger of insurrection among the Slaves[16], and by discouraging the hope of a permanent supply of labourers. West Indian property, it is added, is thus so greatly diminished in its value, that merchants will no longer advance money upon it; and without an advance of money, the plantations cannot be carried on with advantage.

The Report, however, overlooks the effect produced on the value of property in the old islands by the extended cultivation of Trinidad and Dutch Guiana. But is not the great and growing rivalry of these colonies a far more formidable evil than that of the East Indies? Why then have they so much insisted on the latter, while the former, though much more obvious and much more mischievous, is passed over in silence? Is it that the reporters have a sympathy with the owners of Slaves, which even self-interest cannot overcome; and that they dread the precedent of cultivating sugar by free men, as is done in Bengal? They must feel that it would have been greatly to the advantage of the old islands, had they consented to an abolition of the Slave trade fourteen years ago, before the fertile plains of Guiana had yet been brought into cultivation by the enormous amount of British capital, which has been transferred thither.

The reporters labour to keep out of view the dangers which threaten Jamaica from the example and proximity of St. Domingo, and from an increase of the Negro population in the island; and they absurdly argue, that the more the Negro population is increased, the greater will be the security of the West Indies. As to the plea so strongly urged, of danger, even from discussing the question of abolition in the British Parliament, it is rendered almost ridiculous by the circumstance, that the debates which have taken place on that subject are regularly published, at great length, in the official newspapers of Jamaica; and that even the present Report, in which the question of abolition is largely discussed, has been inserted, by authority of the Assembly, in the Royal Gazette of that island.

The reporters are greatly displeased that they should be thought not to know their own interests, and what is most likely to promote them. This however is an imputation which they share in common with a great part of mankind, and which particularly attaches to all who, like them, are engaged in gambling speculations. The West Indian party, it will be remembered, vehemently opposed the bills for regulating the Middle Passage, and yet they have since confessed, that those bills have been productive of great benefit to their concerns: and had they not been so infatuated as to oppose, fourteen years ago, unfortunately with more effect, the abolition of the Slave trade, they would have been saved the ruinous competition of Dutch Guiana; and they would have had at this moment the almost exclusive possession of the sugar-market of Europe.