The Right Way the Safe Way / Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies, and Elsewhere

by Unknown

JAMAICA AFTER 1846.

Now we are coming upon sad times. It has been stated that the West Indies had the monopoly of sugar in the British market, at an immense cost to the consumers. This had frequently called out remonstrances from the British people; and in 1846 government repealed the tariff, which excluded other countries from competition. The result was a sudden and great fall in the price of sugar. "In 1840, sugar sold in bond at 49s. a cwt. ($11.86.) In 1848, it had sunk to 23s. 5d. ($5.65.") The result was many millions of dollars less in the receipts for their crops; and that was far from being the worst feature in the case. Business in the West Indies had for generations been carried on upon credit; and now credit was gone. The writer in the Edinburgh thus states the case: "The vast capital requisite for the production of sugar had been annually advanced by merchants in London, on the security of the crops. But, of course, when it was known that sugar had fallen so enormously in value, the merchants took fright, and the credit of the planter was gone. He was embarked in transactions on which a vast capital had been laid out, and which required a vast capital to carry them on; and capital he could not obtain." The suffering was dreadful. Thousands of families accustomed to the luxuries of wealth were reduced to poverty, without any of the habits that would have enabled them to bear it bravely. Their cry of distress resounded through the world. Pro-slavery presses in England and America exultingly proclaimed, "Behold the effects of emancipation?" and people without examining the subject, echoed the railing accusation. But one very important circumstance was overlooked; viz., that when this cry of distress arose, slavery had been abolished fourteen years, and the apprenticeship had been abolished ten years. By a little examination they might have ascertained that, previous to the repeal of the tariff, things were going on prosperously in the West Indies; which is sufficiently indicated by the fact that just before the blow came, they had been making an outlay to produce larger crops; a circumstance which rendered the blow all the heavier. Even Jamaica, with all her wretched mismanagement and financial disorders, was beginning to be prosperous, in consequence of emancipation, as we have shown.

Of the fall of property, subsequent to the repeal of the tariff some estimate may be formed from the following item. In 1838, the La Grange estate was sold for £25,000 ($121,125); and in 1840 the Windsor Forest estate sold for £40,000 ($193,800). In 1850, both those estates sold together for £11,000 ($53,295).

Mr. Bigelow, of the New York Evening Post, who visited Jamaica in 1850, says: "It is difficult to exaggerate, and still more difficult to define the poverty and industrial prostration of Jamaica. The natural wealth and spontaneous productiveness of the island are so great, that no one can starve, and yet it seems as if the faculty of accumulation were suspended. The productive power of the soil is running to waste; the finest land in the world may be had almost for the asking; labor receives no compensation; and the product of labor does not seem to know the way to market."

The soil still continued to be owned chiefly by absentees; an unincumbered estate of any size or value was hardly to be found; and since the depreciation of property, it was impossible to borrow money, to any considerable extent, on Jamaica estates.

Mr. Bigelow informs us that "Jamaica imports, annually, 70,000 barrels of flour; 90,000 bushels of corn; 300,000 pounds of tobacco; and 10 or 12,000,000 feet of lumber and sawed stuff. They have magnificent forests, but not a sawmill on the island. Even their bricks they import. They pay extravagant prices for articles, which could be cultivated in Jamaica with the utmost ease and abundance. Butter is 37½ cts. a pound; milk 18¾ cts. a quart; flour from sixteen to eighteen dollars a barrel; etc. Nothing apparently can be more unnatural than for the people of this island, in their present poverty-stricken condition, to be paying such prices for daily food; yet nothing is more inevitable, so long as the land is held in such large quantities, and by absentee landlords. Till recently, such a thing was never known as a small farm of fifty or a hundred acres to be put under culture for profit."

As the planters and their advocates were continually complaining that wages were ruinously high, Mr. Bigelow made it a subject of special inquiry. He says: "To my utter surprise, I learned that the wages of men on the sugar and coffee plantations ranged from eighteen to twenty-four cents a day; and proportionably less for women and children. Out of these wages the laborers have to board themselves. Now, when it is considered that flour is eighteen dollars a barrel, eggs from three to five cents a piece, and ham twenty-five cents a pound, does not this cry of high wages appear absurd? Was the wolf's complaint of the lamb, for muddying the stream below him, more unreasonable? Are wages lower in any quarter of the civilized world? Four-fifths of all the grain consumed in Jamaica is grown in the United States, on fields where labor costs more than four times this price, and where every kind of provision, except fruit, is less expensive. The fact is, the negro cannot live on such wages, unless he ekes them out by stealing, or owns a lot of three or five acres. He is driven by necessity to purchase land and cultivate it for himself. He finds such labor so much better rewarded than that he bestows on the lands of others, that he naturally takes care of his own first, and gives his leisure to the properties of others.

"Of course, it requires no little energy and self-denial for a negro, upon such wages, to lay up enough to purchase a little estate; but if he does get one, he never parts with it, except for a larger or better one. I was greatly surprised to find the number of these colored proprietors already considerably over 100,000, and continually increasing. When one reflects that only sixteen years ago there was scarcely a colored landholder on the island, it is unnecessary to say that this class of the population appreciate the privileges of free labor and a homestead far more correctly than might be expected; more especially when it is borne in mind that seven-tenths of them were born in slavery, and spent many years as bondmen. Their properties average, I should think, about three acres. They have a direct interest in cultivating them economically and intelligently. The practice of planning their own labor, encouraged by the privilege of reaping its rewards, exerts upon them the most important educational influence; the results of which will soon be much more apparent than they now are."

Pro-slavery writers declare that these negro farmers have not raised five pounds of sugar a year for exportation. But does that prove they are lazy? Where butter is 37½ cts. a pound, eggs from three to five cents a piece, onions 12½ cts. a pound, and other provisions at the same rate, they can turn their land to better account, than to enter into competition with sugar makers. When the same system is introduced that Gov. Hincks mentions in Barbadoes, they will doubtless turn their attention to raising sugar canes.

There is much evidence that there is no actual want of labor in Jamaica, though it has doubtless been alienated from the large sugar plantations. Firstly, by the harsh and unjust treatment of many of the planters. Secondly, by the state of bankruptcy in which emancipation found them, and which rendered them unable to pay for work. Thirdly, and probably the strongest cause for all, was the inability of the laborers to hire land on their estates, with any degree of security. Mr. Charles Tappan, of Boston, who visited Jamaica in 1858, says: "The alleged want of labor is a false cry. Where labor is said to be deficient, it can be traced to causes within the planters' control to remove. Of these, insufficient wages, unpunctual payment of the same, or no payment at all, are stated to be the chief." "In conversing with planters, I learned that laborers can easily be obtained for a fair compensation and kind treatment. But it is a fact that the emancipated much prefer to work on their own few acres of land." Mr. S. B. Slack, an old native resident of Jamaica, writes thus to Mr. Tappan in 1858: "With few exceptions the planters now acknowledge that emancipation was a blessing. Some soreness was felt at the commencement; and it was manifested in the injudicious acts of ejecting laborers from the cottages they had occupied since infancy, and destroying their provision-grounds, which led them to purchase freeholds of their own, and thus become independent of their labor on the estates. But if the negroes are as lazy as they are represented, how is it that in the construction of a new road across the island more laborers can be obtained than are required? How is it that the Water Works Company are sure to have competitors for employment? How does it happen that the Railway Company are equally well off for labor? The answer is, because the laborers are liberally and punctually paid; and they are willing to work, when they are sure to obtain the reward."