Where the Twain Meet

by Mary Gaunt

“The higher classes are in the utmost alarm at rumours of Wilberforce's intention to set the negroes entirely free; the next step to which would be in all probability a general massacre of the whites, and a second edition of the horrors of St Domingo.”

It must have been with some misgivings then, that the great day dawned when the slaves were not exactly set free, but made apprentices for a short time to accustom them to this new-found freedom.

And the apprenticeship seems to have been a ghastly failure. It took away from the slave the protection of the well-meaning master who could not afford to spend lavishly upon property, to whose services in a very short time he would have no right, and it left him entirely at the mercy of the man who had no conscience, and who simply set out to get as much as he could out of the slave while he was in his power.

Even England was doubtful as to the effect of her step, and she sent out certain magistrates who were looked upon with suspicion by the planter, and only by definitely siding with the white man in all disputes were they agreeable to the ruling classes. A Dr Madden is one of these, and his description of life in Jamaica is graphic, though when I read how he had to part with his little boy, whose life he dared not risk in so perilous a climate, and then of the long voyage to the other end of the earth, I see how far those ninety years have taken us.

Lady Nugent, writing about a quarter of a century before, was great on the deadly climate of Jamaica. She goes to Moneymusk, which then belonged to a widow, with whom were staying two other ladies, also widows. “Alas,” writes Lady Nugent, “how often in this country do we see these unfortunate beings.” (Mrs Sympson of Moneymusk doesn't seem to have deserved this epithet. The estate was managed by her, and apparently well managed.) “Women rarely lose their health, but men as rarely kept theirs.” She doesn't put two and two together, though she is always referring to poor Jamaica as “this horrid country,” “this deceitful, dreadful climate.” Certainly the number of deaths among those around her, presumably her friends, was a little appalling. But considering that she herself called attention to the way the people ate—and drank—I don't know why she should have blamed the climate.

Things hadn't improved when Madden came on the scene nearly a generation later. The amount of drink a gentleman consumed at dinner was astonishing.

“Half a bottle of Madera or so,” he writes sarcastically, “can never do a man any harm in a hot climate, and sangaree and brandy and water are all necessary to keep up his strength, for people of all countries are the best judges of the mode of living in their own climate.”

This kindly magistrate took too much interest in the slave to have been quite acceptable to the planter of that day, who seems still to have regarded the negro as belonging to a lower order of creation and liked to feel that he—the negro—owed all benefits to the kindly indulgence of his master.

He attended on one occasion a Baptist chapel in Kingston where the minister was a negro of the name of Kellick—“A pious, well-behaved, honest man, who in point of intelligence and the application of scriptural knowledge to the ordinary duties of his calling and the business of life, might stand a comparison with many more highly favoured, by the advantages of their education and standing in society. I was first induced to attend this man's chapel from motives of curiosity, not unmixed I fear with feelings of contempt for its black parson; I confess after I had heard him for a short while expound the scriptures, and prescribe to his congregation (all of whom were negroes like himself) on their duties as Christian subjects and members of society, and then his earnest and humble petition to the Almighty for a blessing on his little flock, and the hymn which closed the service, in which the congregation joined in one loud but very far indeed from discordant strain, I felt, if the pomp and circumstance of religious worship were wanting here to enlist the senses on the side of devotion, there were motives in this place, and an influence in the ministry of this man (however he might have been called to it, or by what forms fitted for its duties) which were calculated to induce the white man who came to scoff to remain to pray.”

This of a man who but quite recently must have risen from slavery. He received from the contributions of his congregation about £100 a year, which it was understood was for the upkeep of the chapel as well. Madden thought it very little, but Madden is a nice man with large ideas, and I feel sure the Rev. Kellick was not only quite satisfied with what he received, but intensely proud of the position he held. As indeed he had every right to be. He had come a long, long way by a very thorny path.