“For Negligence they are usually whipt by the Overseers with Lancewood Switches till they be bloody, and several of the Switches broken, being first tied up by their Hands in the Mill Houses. Beating with Manati Straps is thought too cruel, and therefore prohibited by the Customs of the Country. The Cicatrices are visible on their skins for ever after, and a slave, the more he have of those, is the less valu'd.” So that was why it was prohibited to beat them with Manati Straps, for they do not otherwise appear to have been over-tender.
“After they are whip'd till they are Raw some put on their Skins Pepper and Salt to make them smart; at other times their Masters will drop melted Wax on their Skins and use several very exquisite Torments. These Punishments are sometimes merited by the Blacks, who are a very perverse Generation of People” (I remember that Miriam, my first waiting-maid, who wore her wool standing out in a series of little tails like a surprised night-mare, always considered the table laid when she had put on the carving knife, even though we proposed to eat eggs), “and though they appear Harsh” (harsh is hardly the term I should have used), “yet are scarcely equal to some of their Crimes and inferior to what punishments other European nations inflict on their slaves in the East Indies.”
And we are left wondering what on earth the other nations could have done.
But there was one safeguard, a feeble one it is true, but still in some cases I dare say it was efficacious.
“There are many Negros sold to the Spaniards,” he says, “who are either brought lately from Guinea, or bad Servants or Mutinous in Plantations. They are sold to very good profit; but if they have many Cicatrices or Scars on them, the marks of their severe Corrections, they are not very saleable. The English got in return Cacao, Sarsaparilla, Pearls, Emeralds, Cochineal, Hides, &c.”
So the thought of the pearls and emeralds they might be worth, perhaps saved many a poor slave from the cruel treatment that otherwise might have been his.
“I saw in this harbour (Port Royal),” says Sloane on one occasion, “a ship come from the Guineas loaded with blacks to sell. The Ship was very nasty with so many people on board.”
“When a Guinea ship comes near to Jamaica with Blacks to sell,” he goes on, “there is great care taken that the Negros should be shaved, trim'd, and their bodies and hair anointed all over with Palm Oil which adds great beauty to them. The Planters chose their Negros by their look and by the country from which they come. The Blacks from the East Indies” (what a cruel long way to come in a slave ship) “are fed on Flesh and Fish at home, and therefore are not coveted, because troublesome to nourish, and those from Angola run away from their Masters, and fancy on their deaths they are going home again, which is no lucriferous experiment, for on hard usage they kill themselves.” No wonder, poor things, no wonder. And such were the times that kindly Hans Sloane merely remarks it is “no lucriferous experiment.”
He also remarks that the negroes and Indians used to bathe themselves in fair water every day as “often as conveniently they can.” Which really sounds as if their masters did not.
And he tells of treasure ships too, does Hans Sloane, treasure ships such as we have dreamed of when we were young. He tells us of Sir William Phipps who wrote an account of the first finding of the great Plate ship wrecked to the north-east of Hispaniola. He went with one Rogers master of a small ship to Porto Plata, and there they discharged three guns to get the Spaniards to trade. They came down, they were forbidden to trade with the English, I believe, and the English sold them “small Babies,” “and Searges,” and they got in exchange hides and jerked hogs taken by the hunters there. Meanwhile Rogers had his heart set on the wreck and was making enquiries about it. He actually went looking for it and discovered it by means of a “Sea Feather growing on the planks of the Ship lying under the water.” Back he came with the good news, and Sir William Phipps joined him with another ship, and they set to work in businesslike fashion to possess themselves of that silver. The ship was a Spanish galleon, lost about the year 1659, bound to Spain, and it was near thirty years later that these Merchant Venturers turned it to good account. Their two ships were laden with trade goods in case they failed to find the ship, but having found it they set to work to clear away the coral and lapis astroites which had grown over it, “and they took up silver as the Weather and their Divers held out, some days more and some days less. The small Ship went near, the great one rode afar off.” And they actually took out in bullion £22, 196, “30, 326 of which were Sows,” says Sloane, “and great Bars, 336.” But it must have been pleasant standing on the deck of that small ship watching the sea-worn gold and silver that belonged of right to the Spaniards dumped on the planks. So the Venturers found it, for they stayed until the crews were short of provisions and they had brought up 26 tons of silver. Then a sloop from Bermuda came to their aid with foodstuffs, but the secret was out, and while the foodless ships sailed away for home laden with their booty that sloop went back to Bermuda and talked, and many sloops and divers were sent down and a vast quantity more of plate and money was taken up, so that when the second fleet came from England most of what was left of that rich find was dispersed among people who certainly had as good a right to it as the first comers.