After dwelling so long upon the gloomy subject of slavery, it is pleasing to turn to the more cheering prospects of the country under a system of perfect freedom.
It must be allowed that, for a few years previous to emancipation, the Antiguan planters were in a state of great perturbation. They plainly perceived, from the state of affairs, that the thraldom of slavery must be broken—that Britain would no longer allow her children to traffic openly in flesh and blood; and, finally, that they must, whether with a good grace or sullen deportment, give up their right to slaves. Still the change from slavery to freedom was a great revolution, a mighty crisis; and urgent and inevitable as it was, who could tell what would be its results. From this cause, property in Antigua diminished, for some few years, greatly in value; and many estates might have been then purchased for a comparative trifle.
But this depression did not continue long, for no sooner was the deed done, and the chain which bound the negro to his fellow-man irrecoverably snapped asunder, than it was found, even by the most sceptical, that free-labour was decidedly more advantageous to the planter than the old system of slavery. That, in fact, an estate could be worked for less by free labour than it could when so many slaves—including old and young, weak and strong—were obliged to be maintained by the proprietors. Indeed, the truth of this assertion was discovered even before the negroes were free; for no sooner did the planters feel that no effort of theirs could prevent emancipation from taking place, than they commenced to calculate seriously the probable result of the change, and, to their surprise, found, upon mature deliberation, that their expenses would be diminished, and their comforts increased, by the abolition of slavery.[[38]]
The lapse of eight years has proved this to be true; and there is now scarcely one person, if any, in the island of Antigua, who would wish to become again a slaveholder.
Since the period of emancipation, (1834,) Antigua has suffered from many casualties. There were the severe hurricane, and the long and harassing droughts of 1835. In 1836, and part of the following year, the drought returned with increased severity, and blasted, in great measure, the crops. In 1840, the planters had again to contend with a season of dry weather, and yet, under all these disastrous circumstances, the free system has gloriously worked its way; and by producing larger average crops, (as well as other advantages, both as regards exports and imports,) has claimed from all a tribute of praise.
Although there are some few persons who deny that free labour is less expensive than slavery, yet the general voice pronounces it to be a system beneficial to the country. It has been proved to demonstration that estates which, under the old system, were clogged with debts they never could have paid off, have, since emancipation, not only cleared themselves, but put a handsome income into the pockets of the proprietors. Land has also increased greatly in value. Sugar plantations that would scarcely find a purchaser before emancipation, will now command from 10,000l. sterling, while many estates that were abandoned in days of slavery; are now once more in a state of cultivation; and the sugar-cane flourishes in verdant beauty, where for so many years nothing was to be seen but rank and tangled weeds, or scanty herbage.
In days of slavery it required an immense capital to establish a sugar plantation, as well as a large annual expenditure to carry on the affairs of the estate when established. Perhaps a sugar estate had a gang of two hundred slaves upon it, yet out of this large number possibly there might not be more than sixty or seventy efficient negroes, the surplus being composed of helpless old men and women, children and infants, and emaciated and cureless invalids. Still the law obliged the owner to feed, clothe, house, and procure medical attendance for the entire number; and little as their allowance was, yet, in dry seasons in particular, when the crops of yams and other island provisions failed, the maintenance of so many persons was attended with great expense, while at the same time, perhaps, not more than one-third the number were of any use in agricultural employments.
Under the free system, this tie upon the planter is entirely annulled; for he now employs but a sufficient number of labourers to carry on the estate-work, and the negroes support themselves, as well as their old people and children, out of their weekly earnings and the privileges which they still enjoy upon the properties where they are domiciled.
But this diminishment of expense in the cultivation of the sugar-cane is not the only benefit which emancipation has brought to the colony. Setting aside religious principles—which evidently point out the sinfulness of slavery, as it is known among modern nations—there were many, very many circumstances, which tended to render the system obnoxious in the highest degree.
I have already spoken of the immorality practised in the West Indies. It is a topic most harrowing to the feelings, and one that a sensitive mind cannot descant upon. What was the origin of that awful state of society? Slavery! Illicit love was not only countenanced, but actually encouraged upon estates between the white masters and their black slaves, in order that the gang of slaves might be enlarged by such unholy means! In these brighter days of freedom there is, at least, not this inducement to licentiousness in its most hideous form, and consequently, that degraded state of morals which marked the annals of former years, has, in great measure, disappeared.