Barbadoes. In ten years, "between 1842 and 1852, increase of sugar exported, is 27,240 hogheads." The Report for 1851, states, "There has been more sugar shipped from this island this year, than in any one year since it has been peopled; and it is a remarkable fact that there will be more laborers' sugar made this year, than previously. By laborers' sugar is meant that raised by the negroes on their own patches of ground, and sent to the proprietor's mill for manufacture." The Report for 1853 announces "vast increase in trade. So far the success of cultivation by free labor is unquestionable." Report for 1858: "A great increase in the value of the exports." "The large proportion of land acquired by the laboring classes furnishes striking evidence of their industry."
Bahamas. In 1851, the Governor reports, "a great and important change for the better," in the condition of the people; which he mainly attributes to "improved education." The rapidity with which these islands are advancing is indicated by the fact that the exports and imports increased in one year, from 1854 to 1855, £102,924 ($498,666.78).
Grenada. Returns in 1851 and 1852, show an increase of trade, amounting to £88,414 ($428,355.83). Report of 1858: "Contentment appears to pervade all classes of the community." "A proprietary body, of considerable magnitude and importance, has already risen from the laboring class." "State of the finances most satisfactory." "A greatly extended surface is covered by sugar cultivation." A considerable increase is noted in the exports of sugar, rum, and cocoa. Some remarks on the want of labor.
Antigua.—Reports for 1858: "Satisfactory evidence is afforded, by the Revenue Returns, of increase of trade and mercantile business, consequent upon the revival of agricultural prosperity." (There had been a depression in consequence of a great fall in the price of sugar in 1847.)
Dominica.—Report for 1853: "The steady maintenance of production is full of promise as to the future." Report for 1857: "The exports show a considerable increase." "Very considerable increase in revenue, and an equally marked improvement in the amount of imports." In the Report for 1858, the Governor speaks of the growing independence of the laborers, manifested "in the small patches of canes, and little wooden mills here and there dotting the plains around."
Guiana.—In 1852, the Governor reports that the fall in the price of sugar, in 1847 and 1848 (owing to the repeal of the tariff), was "so sudden and enormous, as to have almost annihilated the Colony, at that crisis." But he goes on to state that "the revenue is now flourishing, population augmenting, education spreading, crime diminishing, and trade increasing."
Montserrat.—In 1853, the Governor reports "increase of confidence, enterprise, and industry." "The improved and improving state of the community is allowed on all hands." "No island in these seas exhibits a more decisive tendency to social and moral regeneration and improvement. The rural population are quiet, contented, and orderly."
Nevis.—(This is a very small island; about the size of a common New England town.) Report for 1857: "The roads appear as if the greater part of the population had new clothed themselves; and in the harbor, so often deserted, I now count ten ships of considerable burden." "There appears now to be at work an industrious spirit of improvement."
St. Kitts.—Report for 1856: "A larger quantity of sugar is produced now than in the time of slavery" (though on a smaller area). Report for 1858: "The agricultural prospects of the island are most encouraging. Its financial condition continues satisfactory; so do the education returns. Attendance in schools is steadily increasing. Crime is steadily diminishing. In one year, from 1856 to 1857, trade increased £106,233" ($514,642.88).
St. Lucia.—Report for 1853: "At no period of her history, has there been a greater breadth of land under cultivation, than at the present moment." Between the four years ending 1842, and the four years ending 1856, the increase of sugar exported was 1,803,618 pounds.
St. Vincent.—In 1857, the Governor describes "a really sound and healthy state of the Colony at present, and a cheering and promising prospect for the future." He describes the rising villages, the growing number of freeholders and leaseholders, and the steady progressive increase in the value of imports. In one year, from 1856 to 1857, imports and exports increased £156,633 ($758,886.88); and he expressly attributes it to "increased cultivation and prosperity." In 1858, he describes the Colony as "in a most satisfactory state." "Agricultural operations largely extended." "Anticipations of continued progress and prosperity fully realized."
Tobago.—The accounts had been dismal in 1852 and 1853; but an improved financial system was adopted in 1856, the result of which was a Report in 1858 announcing a "marked improvement in the revenue returns." The Governor describes the laborers as "well-behaved and industrious."
Tortola.—This island, under slavery, exported 15,559 cwt. of sugar. Now it exports none at all. But the change is wholly an advantage. It is remarkably well adapted for the raising of stock. "The people, with few exceptions, are owners of cattle, which they dispose of to great advantage." "The laborers appear fully sensible of the advantages of education to their children, and the latter manifest a great desire to benefit by the opportunities offered them."
Trinidad is highly flourishing. In 1852, the crop was the largest ever shipped from the island; and it has been extending since. The whole trade greatly increased since slavery. The Report for 1853 speaks of "marked improvement in the cultivation of the sugar estates." Export of sugar rose from an average of 310,797 cwt. under slavery, to 426,042 cwt. in the seven years ending 1854.
The writer in the Edinburgh Review says: "These specific accounts of the several islands are borne out by the statistics and Reports that relate to our West Indies en masse. Lest it should be thought that these extracts are carefully culled, to produce a particular impression, and that if the reader had the whole Reports before him, he would find complaints and lamentations, we may at once say that they appear to us to be fair samples of the views entertained by the Governors, and also by other gentlemen acquainted with the West Indies. The language of complaint is no longer heard. Throughout these Colonies, hope and congratulation seem to have taken the place of irritation and despair. In all cases, the later the Report, the more gratifying it is found to be.
"To men of business, one fact will seem almost enough by itself to show the sound commercial state of these Colonies; viz., that, in the year 1857, the Colonial Bank received bills from the West Indies to the amount of more than £1,300,000 ($6,298,500); and less than £8,000 ($38,760) were returned. Nor was there a single failure in the West India trade, during the severe commercial crisis of that year. Furthermore, coffee, cotton, wool, sugar, rum, and cocoa, are all exported in increasing quantities. The total exports from Great Britain to the West Indies in 1857 were valued at half a million more ($2,422,500) than the average of the preceding ten years."
Mr. C. Buxton made a speech in the British House of Commons, March, 1859, in which he said: "Because labor is free, and trade is free, the West Indies are now rising to a pitch of wealth and happiness unknown before. It would be impossible for me to lay before the House the immense mass of evidence, which demonstrates that fact. I am assured of it by mercantile men, I find it strongly set forth in the Reports from the Governors of the Islands, and in the statistics furnished by the Board of Trade. In the four years between 1853 and 1857, there has been an increase in the exports and imports of the West Indies and Guiana of £4,500,000 ($21,802,500). Considering what mere specks these islands look on the map of America, it is astonishing that their trade to and fro, in the year 1857, should actually amount to £10,735,000 ($52,011,075). It is altogether absurd to suppose this prosperity is owing to the immigration of a few thousand laborers; and in fact the islands which have received no immigrants are quite as flourishing as those that have. Interested parties describe the negroes as barbarous and idle; but I find ample evidence that they are living in a high degree of industry and comfort; though I admit that they somewhat prefer working on freeholds they have purchased, to laboring for hire."
The Edinburgh Review concludes its array of evidence, by saying: "A long and thorough investigation of the case has borne us irresistibly to the conclusion that, merely as a dry question of economy, emancipation has paid; that it was an act of prudence, for which we, as a nation of shopkeepers, need not blush before that golden god, whom we are thought to worship so eagerly. Slavery and monopoly were bearing the West Indies to ruin. Under free labor and free trade they are rising to wealth. They are yearly enriching us more and more with the wealth of their fertile soil. Instead of being the plague of statesmen and the disgrace of England, they are becoming invaluable possessions of the British crown. Never did any deed of any nation show more signally that to do right is the truest prudence, than the great deed of Emancipation."
CHAPTER V. JAMAICA.[6]
I have placed Jamaica in a section by itself, because emancipation has there worked less prosperously than elsewhere, and the reasons for it need some explanation. I have already mentioned causes which were bringing all the West Indies to ruin, previous to emancipation. These operated as powerfully in Jamaica as elsewhere. They were cursed with the same coercive system, which seems ingeniously contrived to make laborers lazy and shiftless, and to array them in the most stubborn opposition to their employers. There was among the white population the same haughty contempt for useful occupations, which inevitably brings extravagance and dissipation in its train. There was the same expensive retinue of attorneys, managers, and bookkeepers, with their mistresses, servants, and horses, to be supported out of the estate. There was the same neglect and fraud, arising from the absence of proprietors; for "nine-tenths of the land in Jamaica was owned by absentees, mostly residing in England." There was the same injudicious system of apportioning the soil into large plantations, to the utter exclusion of small farmers; for slavery always renders the existence of a middling class impossible. There was the same desperate game of borrowing and mortgaging, ending in universal insolvency. Mr. Bigelow, one of the editors of the New York Evening Post, visited Jamaica in 1850, and carefully examined into the state of things. He says: "The island was utterly insolvent the day the Emancipation Bill passed. Nearly every estate was mortgaged for more than it was worth, and was liable for more interest than it could possibly pay. It will not be disputed by any, who are at all informed on the subject, that the whole real estate under culture in Jamaica, in 1832, would not have sold for enough to pay off encumbrances. This fact must have been disclosed sooner or later, even if slavery had been permitted to continue. Bankruptcy was inevitable; and the rapid depreciation of real estate would, of course, have been one of the first fruits of such a catastrophe. The Emancipation Act did not cause, it only precipitated, a result, which was inevitable. It compelled a balance to be struck between the debtors and the creditors, which revealed, rather than begat, the poverty which now no effort can conceal."
The Export Tables show a decrease of sugar, in ten years, ending 1830, of 201,843 hogsheads.