Where the Twain Meet

by Mary Gaunt

Madden gives the usual account of the negroes. “Generally speaking, the negroes of the present day have all the vices of slaves. It cannot be denied that they are addicted to lying, prone to dissimulation, and inclined to dishonesty....” Now what else I wonder did they expect of a slave. But he goes on to say that in the late rebellion—of 1881-32—“In no instance did the negro swerve from his fidelity to his comrades; in not a single instance was the name of the real author of that rebellion disclosed. I venture to intimate that even the rebellious negro has a sentiment of honour in his breast when he encounters death rather than betray one of his accomplices. I hazard an opinion that humanity has its impulses in his heart, when he shelters his fugitive countryman, and shares his last morsel of bread with him rather than turn the outlaw from his door, and save himself from the fearful consequences of harbouring a runaway.”

It seems strange that ninety years ago it had to be explained to the civilised world that the negro was like other men, capable of great heights and abominable depths. That a little more than a hundred years ago, so great was the prejudice against colour that a man whose grandmother had been a negress was not allowed to be a constable, could not inherit property beyond the value of £1200 sterling, nor give evidence in criminal cases.

“It was the fashion,” writes Madden, “to regard him with jealousy and distrust, as a rebel in disguise, who was to be branded as such on all plausible occasions.”

But though the laws might prevent a coloured man from inheriting money, they did not prevent his making it, and when he himself became a slave owner a very curious state of affairs arose. The danger of slave risings was always present, and the coloured planters like the white had to have on their estates “deficiency men,” white men, one for every ten slaves. But so strong was the feeling on the question of colour that these men whom their necessities compelled to take service with the sons or grandsons of slaves, declined to sit at meat with them. The owner had to have a side table set for himself, while his white servants sat at the principal one.

And the coloured people came into existence so naturally.

At first, as we have seen, many of the planters for very good reasons never brought their wives to their estates. Then again, overseers, book-keepers, and other employees could not afford to marry; they came to the country, and there were many it was said at the beginning of the last century who might be in the country over a dozen years without ever speaking to a white woman. What more natural than that they should form alliances with the good-looking daughters of the slaves who were under them. Such connections were looked upon with approval by the owners and attorneys. A white man was always bothered to take a wife, at least so I gather from the perusal of old stories of Jamaica.

“Why massa no take him one wife like oder buckras? Dere is little Daphne would make him one good wife—dere is one Diana—dere is little Venus—dere is him Mary Magalene, an' dere is him Phoebe.”

Sometimes it was the other way round and he couldn't get a wife, for if there was a prejudice against a man the word went forth in the slave quarters, and not a girl would look at him.

Very naturally being Christians did not affect this relationship. No white man would really marry a dark girl were she beautiful as the rising dawn. A white lover meant advancement in a coloured girl's world, and she in her turn often gained great influence over the man who had chosen her. Indeed the majority of these women were faithful, tender and loving. They were not always the wisest of housekeepers, I am afraid—how should they be—and the Great House so managed was apt to be dirty, untidy, wasteful, slatternly. Its mistress had never seen anything better, had seldom had a chance to train.

The position grew to be accepted as the best for a coloured girl, infinitely preferable to that of matrimony with one of her own shade. There was no loss of caste, indeed the girl gained by being associated with the white man. It came to be that the man would give a bond to pay down a certain sum upon his marrying or leaving the island to the girl he had chosen for his temporary mate, and it not infrequently happened that this sum was so great that he was virtually unable ever to leave her. They say that many a coloured man made such a bargain for his daughter.