FEBRUARY 21.
During my excursion to Spanish Town, the complaining negroes of Friendship, who had applied to me for relief, were summoned to Savannah la Mar, before the Council of Protection, and the business thoroughly investigated. Their examination has been sent to me, and they appear to have had a very fair hearing. The journals of the estate were produced;—the book-keepers examined upon oath; and in order to make out a case at all, the chief complainant contradicted himself so grossly, as left no doubt that the whole was a fabrication. They were, therefore, dismissed without relief, but also without punishment, in spite of their gross falsehoods and calumnies; and although they did not gain their object, I make no doubt that they will go on more contentedly for having had attention paid to their complaints. It was indeed evident, that Nelly (the chief complainant) was actuated more by wounded pride than any real feeling of hardship; for what she laid the most stress upon was, the overseer’s turning his back upon her, when she stated herself to be injured, and walking away without giving her any answer.
There are so many pleasing and amusing parts of the character of negroes, that it seems to me scarcely possible not to like them. But when they are once disposed to evil, they seem to set no bounds to the indulgence of their bad passions. A poor girl came into the hospital to-day, who had had some trifling dispute with two of her companions; on which the two friends seized her together, and each fixing her teeth on one of the girl’s hands, bit her so severely, that we greatly fear her losing the use of both of them. I happened also to ask, this morning, to whom a skull had belonged, which I had observed fixed on a pole by the roadside, when returning last from Montego Bay. I was told, that about five years ago a Mr. Dunbar had given some discontent to his negroes in the article of clothing them, although, in other respects, he was by no means a severe master. However, this was sufficient to induce his head driver, who had been brought up in his own house from infancy, to form a plot among his slaves to assassinate him; and he was assisted in this laudable design by two young men from a neighbouring property, who barely knew Mr. Dunbar by sight, had no enmity against him whatever, and only joined in the conspiracy in compliment to their worthy friend the driver. During several months a variety of attempts were made for effecting their purpose; but accident defeated them; till at length they were made certain of his intention to dine out at some distance, and of his being absolutely obliged to return in the evening. An ambuscade was therefore laid to intercept him; and on his passing a clump of trees, the assassins sprang upon him, the driver knocked him from his horse, and in a few moments their clubs despatched him. No one suspected the driver; but in the course of enquiry, his house as well as the other was searched, and not only Mr. Dunbar’s watch was found concealed there, but with it one of his ears, which the villain had carried away, from a negro belief that, as long as the murderer possesses one of the ears of his victim, he will never be haunted by his spectre. The stranger-youths, two of Dunbar’s negroes, and the driver, were tried, confessed the crime, and were all executed; the head of the latter being fixed upon a pole in terrorem. But while the offenders were still in prison, the overseer upon a neighbouring property had occasion to find fault in the field with a woman belonging to a gang hired to perform some particular work; upon which she flew upon him with the greatest fury, grasped him by the throat, cried to her fellows—“Come here! come here! Let us Dunbar him!” and through her strength and the suddenness of her attack had nearly accomplished her purpose, before his own slaves could come to his assistance. This woman was also executed.
This happened about five years ago, when the mountains were in a very rebellious state. Every thing there is at present quiet. But only last year a book-keeper belonging to the next estate to me was found with his skull fractured in one of my own cane-pieces; nor have any enquiries been able to discover the murderer.
FEBRUARY 22.
During many years the Moravians have been established upon the neighbouring estate of Mesopotamia. As the ecclesiastical commissaries had said so much to me respecting the great appetite of the negroes for religious instruction, I was desirous of learning what progress had been made in this quarter, and this morning I went over to see one of the teachers. He told me, that he and his wife had jointly used their best efforts to produce a sense of religion in the minds of the slaves; that they were all permitted to attend his morning and evening lectures, if they chose it; but that he could not say that they showed any great avidity on the subject. It seems that there are at least three hundred negroes on the estate; the number of believers has rather increased than diminished, to be sure, but still in a very small proportion. When this gentleman arrived, there were not more than forty baptised persons: he has been here upwards of five years, and still the number of persons “belonging to his church” (as he expressed it) does not exceed fifty. Of these, seldom more than ten or a dozen attend his lectures at a time. As to the remaining two hundred and fifty, they take no more notice of his lectures or his exhortations, than if there were no such person on the property, are only very civil to him when they see him, and go on in their own old way, without suffering him to interfere in any shape. By the overseer of Greenwich’s express desire, the Moravian has, however, agreed to give up an hour every day for the religious instruction of the negro children on that property: and I should certainly request him to extend his labours to Cornwall, if I did not think it right to give the Church of England clergymen full room for a trial of their intended periodical visitations; which would not be the case, if the negroes were to be interfered with by the professors of any other communion: otherwise I am myself ready to give free ingress and egress upon my several estates to the teachers of any Christian sect whatever, the Methodists always excepted, and “Miss Peg, who faints at the sound of an organ.”
For my own part, I have no hope of any material benefit arising from these religious visitations made at quarterly intervals. It seems to me as nugatory as if a man were to sow a field with horse-hair, and expect a crop of colts.
FEBRUARY 23.
This morning my picture was drawn by a self-taught genius, a negro Apelles, belonging to Dr. Pope, the minister; and the picture was exactly such as a self-taught genius might be expected to produce. It was a straight hard outline, without shade or perspective; the hair was a large black patch, and the face covered with an uniform layer of flesh-colour, with a red spot in the centre of each cheek. As to likeness, there was not even an attempt to take any. But still, such as they were, there were eyes, nose, and mouth, to be sure. A long red nose supplied the place of my own snub; an enormous pair of whiskers stretched themselves to the very corner of my mouth; and in place of three hairs and a half, the painter, in the superabundance of his generosity, bestowed upon me a pair of eye-brows more bushy than Dr. Johnson’s, and which, being formed in an exact semicircle, made the eyes beneath them stare with an expression of the utmost astonishment. The negroes, however, are in the highest admiration of the painter’s skill, and consider the portrait as a striking resemblance; for there is a very blue coat with very yellow buttons, and white gaiters and trow-sers, and an eye-glass so big and so blue, that it looks as if I had hung a pewter plate about my neck; and a bunch of watch-seals larger than those with which Pope has decorated Belinda’s great great grandsire. John Fuller (to whom, jointly with Nicholas, the charge of this inestimable treasure is to be entrusted) could not find words to express his satisfaction at the performance. “Dere massa coat! and dere him chair him sit in! and dere massa seals, all just de very same ting! just all as one! And oh! ki! dere massa pye-glass!” In the midst of his raptures he dropped the picture, and fractured the frame-glass. His despair now equalled his former joy;—“Oh, now what for him do? Such a pity! Just to break it after it was all done so well! All so pretty!” However, we stuck the broken glass together with wafers, and he carried it off, assuring me, “that when massa gone, he should talk to it every morning, all one as if massa still here.” Indeed, this “talking to massa” is a favourite amusement among the negroes, and extremely inconvenient: they come to me perpetually with complaints so frivolous, and requests so unreasonable, that I am persuaded they invent them only to have an excuse for “talk to massa;” and when I have given them a plump refusal, they go away perfectly satisfied, and “tank massa for dis here great indulgence of talk.”
There is an Eboe carpenter named Strap, who was lately sick and in great danger, and whom I nursed with particular care. The poor fellow thinks that he never can express his gratitude sufficiently; and whenever he meets me in the public road, or in the streets of Savannah la Mar, he rushes towards the carriage, roars out to the postilion to stop, and if the boy does not obey instantly, he abuses him with all his power; “for why him no stop when him want talk to massa?”—“But look, Strap, your beast is getting away!”—“Oh! damn beast, massa.”—“But you should go to your mountain, or you will get no vittle.”—“Oh, damn vittle, and damn mountain! me no want vittle, me want talk wid massa;” and then, all that he has got to say is, “Oh massa, massa! God bless you, massa! me quite, quite glad to see you come back, my own massa!” And then he bursts into a roar of laughter so wild and so loud, that the passers-by cannot help stopping to stare and laugh too.