Froudacity; West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas

by J. J. Thomas

[81] We come now to the ingenious and novel fashion in which Mr. Froude carries out his investigations among the black population, and to his dogmatic conclusions concerning them. He says:—

"In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what they were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking about, and this could best be done by drives about the town and neighbourhood."

"Drives about the town and neighbourhood," indeed! To learn and be able to depict with faithful accuracy what people "were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking about"—all this being best done (domestic circumstances, nay, soul-workings and all!) through fleeting glimpses of shifting [82] panoramas of intelligent human beings! What a bright notion! We have here the suggestion of a capacity too superhuman to be accepted on trust, especially when, as in this case, it is by implication self-arrogated. The modesty of this thaumaturgic traveller in confining the execution of his detailed scrutiny of a whole community to the moderate progression of some conventional vehicle, drawn by some conventional quadruped or the other, does injustice to powers which, if possessed at all, might have compassed the same achievement in the swifter transit of an express train, or, better still perhaps, from the empyrean elevation of a balloon! Yet is Mr. Froude confident that data professed to be thus collected would easily pass muster with the readers of his book! A confidence of this kind is abnormal, and illustrates, we think most fully, all the special characteristics of the man. With his passion for repeating, our author tells us in continuation of a strange rhapsody on Negro felicity:—

"Once more, the earth does not contain any peasantry so well off, so well-cared for, so happy, so sleek and contented, as the sons [83] and daughters of the emancipated slaves in the English West Indian Islands."

Again:—

"Under the rule of England, in these islands, the two millions of these brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly contented specimens of the human race to be found upon the planet.... If happiness be the satisfaction of every conscious desire, theirs is a condition that admits of no improvement: were they independent, they might quarrel among themselves, and the weaker become the bondsmen of the stronger; under the beneficent despotism of the English Government, which knows no difference of colour and permits no oppression, they can sleep, lounge, and laugh away their lives as they please, fearing no danger," &c.

Now, then, let us examine for a while this roseate picture of Arcadian blissfulness said to be enjoyed by British West Indian Negroes in general, and by the Negroes of Trinidad in particular. "No distinction of colour" under the British rule, and, better still, absolute protection of the weaker against the stronger! This latter consummation especially, [84] Mr. Froude tells us, has been happily secured "under the beneficent despotism" of the Crown Colony system. However, let the above vague hyperboles be submitted to the test of practical experience, and the abstract government analysed in its concrete relations with the people.

Unquestionably the actual and direct interposition of the shielding authority above referred to, between man and man, is the immediate province of the MAGISTRACY. All other branches of the Government, having in themselves no coercive power, must, from the supreme executive downwards, in cases of irreconcilable clashing of interests, have ultimate recourse to the magisterial jurisdiction. Putting aside, then, whatever culpable remissness may have been manifested by magistrates in favour of powerful malfeasants, we would submit that the fact of stipendiary justices converting the tremendous, far-reaching powers which they wield into an engine of systematic oppression, ought to dim by many a shade the glowing lustre of Mr. Froude's encomiums. Facts, authentic and notorious, might be adduced in hundreds, especially with respect to [85] the Port of Spain and San Fernando magistracies (both of which, since the administration of Sir J. R. Longden, have been exclusively the prizes of briefless English barristers*), to prove that these gentry, far from being bulwarks to the weaker as against the stronger, have, in their own persons, been the direst scourges that the poor, particularly when coloured, have been afflicted by in aggravation of the difficulties of their lot. Only typical examples can here be given out of hundreds upon hundreds which might easily be cited and proved against the incumbents of the abovementioned chief stipendiary magistracies. One such example was a matter of everyday discussion at the time of Mr. Froude's visit. The inhabitants were even backed in their complaints by the Governor, who had, in response to their cry of distress, forwarded their prayer [86] to the home authorities for relief from the hard treatment which they alleged themselves to be suffering at the hands of the then magistrate. Our allusion here is to the chief town, Port of Spain, the magistracy of which embraces also the surrounding districts, containing a total population of between 60,000 and 70,000 souls. Mr. R. D. Mayne filled this responsible office during the latter years of Sir J. R. Longden's governorship. He was reputed, soon after his arrival, to have announced from the bench that in every case he would take the word of a constable in preference to the testimony of any one else. The Barbadian rowdies who then formed the major part of the constabulary of Trinidad, and whose bitter hatred of the older residents had been not only plainly expressed, but often brutally exemplified, rejoiced in the opportunity thus afforded for giving effect to their truculent sentiments. At that time the bulk of the immigrants from Barbados were habitual offenders whom the Government there had provided with a free passage to wherever they elected to betake themselves. The more intelligent of the men flocked to the Trinidad [87] police ranks, into which they were admitted generally without much inquiry into their antecedents. On this account they were shunned by the decent inhabitants, a course which they repaid with savage animosity. Perjuries the most atrocious and crushing, especially to the respectable poor, became the order of the day. Hundreds of innocent persons were committed to gaol and the infamy of convict servitude, without the possibility of escape from, or even mitigation of, their ignominious doom. A respectable woman (a native of Barbados, too, who in the time of the first immigration of the better sort of her compatriots had made Trinidad her home) was one of the first victims of this iniquitous state of affairs.

The class of people to which she belonged was noted as orderly, industrious and law-abiding, and, being so, it had identified itself entirely with the natives of the land of its adoption. This fact alone was sufficient to involve these immigrants in the same lot of persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and were carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, on the occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the woman in question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of ironing for her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow in the street before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud scream, which, on looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of a boy of some ten or twelve years of age, who had been violently struck with the fist by another youth of larger size and evidently his senior in age. The smaller fellow had laid fast hold of his antagonist by the collar, and would not let go, despite the blows which, to extricate himself and in retaliation of the puny buffets of his youthful detainer, he "showered thick as wintry rain."

The woman, seeing the posture of affairs, shouted to the combatants to desist, but to no purpose, rage and absorption in their wrathful occupation having deafened both to all external sounds. Seized with pity for the younger lad, who was getting so mercilessly the worst of it, the woman, hastily throwing a shawl over her shoulders, sprang into the street and rushed between the juvenile belligerents. Dexterously extricating the hand of the little fellow from the collar of his antagonist, she hurried the former [89] into her gateway, shouting out to him at the same time to fasten the door on the inside. This the little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this surcease from actual conflict, short though it was, must have afforded space for the natural instinct of self-preservation to reassert itself. Hereupon the elder of the two lads, like a tiger robbed of his prey, sprang furiously to the gate, and began to use frantic efforts to force an entrance. Perceiving this, the woman (who meanwhile had not been idle with earnest dissuasions and remonstrances, which had all proved futile) pulled the irate youngster back, and interposed her body between him and the gate, warding him off with her hands every time that he rushed forward to renew the assault. At length a Barbadian policeman hove in sight, and was hastily beckoned to by the poor ironer, who, by this time, had nearly come to the end of her strength. The uniformed "Bim" was soon on the spot; but, without asking or waiting to hear the cause of the disturbance, he shouted to the volunteer peacemaker, "I see you are fighting: you are my prisoner!" Saying this, he clutched the poor thunderstruck creature by the wrist, and there [90] and then set about hurrying her off towards the police station. It happened, however, that the whole affair had occurred in the sight of a gentleman of well-known integrity. He, seated at a window overlooking the street, had witnessed the whole squabble, from its beginning in words to its culmination in blows; so, seeing that the woman was most unjustly arrested, he went out and explained the circumstances to the guardian of order. But to no purpose; the poor creature was taken to the station, accompanied by the gentleman, who most properly volunteered that neighbourly turn. There she was charged with "obstructing the policeman in the lawful execution of his duty." She was let out on bail, and next day appeared to answer the charge.