Thus from accumulated miseries, some naturally succeeding from the climate and their poor diet, but more from the inordinate cruelty of managers, it must follow that numerous slaves become unfit for work, many from weakness and depression of spirits, and others from extreme labour becoming old before their time. But for all these evils, this plantation despot finds an infallible remedy, which is no other than to put them to death at once: the loss does not affect him but his master, and he is proud of shewing only such negroes as are able to do their task, assuring the owner that they mostly died by [[277]]the venereal disease; and the word of the human carcase-butcher is quite sufficient, as no negro is allowed to give evidence in any case whatever.
“Dictio testimonii non est servo homini.”
Yet should some fair European by accident prove the murder, the delinquent escapes, as I have observed, by paying a fine of £. 50 and the value of the slave, if the owner requires it; and for this price of blood he may slaughter the poor wretches whenever a temporary passion or a habit of cruelty, which is too commonly generated in this situation, prompts his rage.
They have moreover many stratagems to evade the penalty, should even the magistrates be present. I have known it happen when one of these scourges of the human race became tired of a negro, that he has taken him out with him a shooting; and ordering him to discover the game, the first bird that started he has shot the poor man dead upon the spot. This was called an accident, and no farther enquiry was made concerning it. Others have been dispatched by the following method:—A stake being fastened in the middle of an open plain, the slave is chained to it, and exposed to the burning sun, where one jill of water and a single plantain is brought him daily, until he pines to death. But this is not called starving, as his master declares that he neither wanted victuals nor drink until he expired—thus he is honourably acquitted. [[278]]
Another plan of murdering with impunity has often been put in practice. The slave is fastened naked to a tree in the forest, with his arms and legs extended, under pretence of stretching his limbs; but here he is left, and regularly fed, until he is actually stung to death by the musquitoes and other insects—a most infernal punishment, and such as may be with truth ascribed to the instigation of the devil! Drowning them, by kicking them overboard with a weight chained to their legs, is called accidental death. It has been known that by the orders of a woman, negro slaves have been privately burnt to death, miserably chained in a surrounding pile of flaming faggots. As to the breaking out of their teeth, merely for tasting the sugar-cane cultivated by themselves, slitting up their noses, and cutting off their ears, from private pique, these are accounted mere sport, and not worthy to be mentioned.
By such inhuman usage this unhappy race of men are sometimes driven to such a height of desperation, that to finish their days, and be relieved from worse than Egyptian bondage, some even have leaped into the caldrons of boiling sugar, thus at once depriving the tyrant of his crop and of his servant.
From these sketches can it be a matter of surprize, that armies of rebels are assembled in the forest, and at every opportunity thirsting for revenge?
I shall now conclude this dreadful scene by one general [[279]]remark, shewing how far population is affected by this most infamous treatment.
In Surinam there are, upon an average, about 75,000 negro slaves, as I have stated; from which if we subtract children, and superannuated men and women, there will not be found above 50,000 really fit for labour. There are from six to twelve Guinea ships, that import from 250 to 300 slaves each from Africa annually: we may therefore compute the yearly importation at an average of 2,500, necessary to supply and keep complete the above 50,000; so that the annual deaths exceed the births by the number of 2,500, though each man negro has a wife or two if he chuses, which is, upon the mass, just 5 per cent. and consequently proves that the whole race of healthy slaves, consisting of 50,000, are totally extinct once every twenty years.
Truth and justice however oblige me to declare, that the inhuman barbarities I have been just describing are not universal. Compassionate Heaven has ordained some exceptions, as I shall impartially shew, by reversing the picture: not, like some writers who have treated this subject, and carefully concealed the most pleasing touches of goodness and humanity, whilst only the darkest shades have been exposed to the public eye, but by candidly exhibiting both sides with equal justice and precision; and it is indeed with pleasure I can affirm, that the negro slaves on some estates are treated, in my opinion, as men [[280]]ought to be treated; and this mode of conduct might still be more general, by amending the laws, which ought not corruptly to invest human nature with what it is certain to abuse—an authority completely despotic. No master surely ought to be entrusted with the dangerous power of taking away the life of his slaves with impunity; and it ought to be considered an equal crime in the eye of the law to kill a negro or a white man, as it is equally murder in the sight of God.