After purchasing as many as he wants, the planter arranges his slaves in Indian file, proceeds to the warehouses where he purchases his supplies, and each member of the file poises some article or other on his or her head; and thus they march to the plantation, where they are to remain until the expiration of their servitude—never coming to the town, unless accompanying their owner.
These people are very expert in carrying burdens on their heads, and in this way we may account for their erect carriage. At any minute in the day women and children may be seen carrying earthen jars containing molasses or oil, threading the crowded thoroughfares, and bringing their loads safe to their destination—a feat not to be accomplished by those unaccustomed to the practice.
On the principle that sparing the rod spoils the child, (for these people are viewed only as children,) their owners are not at all reserved in the use of this instrument of chastisement; and along with the gangs at labor may the overseer be seen applying it without remorse. As the blow generally falls on the skull, I can see little reason for a preference of this to the method of punishment by lashes on the back in vogue in our Southern States. This, however, is not their only way of punishment. I saw several instances of gross personal abuse. In one case I saw the slave thrown down, and dragged by the waistband over the sharp points of the macadamized street, with nothing to protect his buttocks from laceration except several thicknesses of calico. The poor fellow, apparently aware of its uselessness, made no complaint. This occurred, not in an obscure place—not in the purlieus of the town, but in a public street, where people were constantly passing, and who, if any feeling at all were expressed by them, only laughed at the ludicrousness of the scene. A police-officer stood looking on apathetically, as though the whole affair were a matter of course.
Impelled with a desire to know what Englishmen thought of the apprentice-system, I put the question to every intelligent one that I could get at. In nine cases out of ten my auditor would waive the question by starting some other subject of conversation; but by the employment of a little finesse I generally managed to corner him, when, upon argument and hearing explanations of our system, he would confess that there was but a shade of difference between the two. One candid specimen of the John Bull character, whom I accidentally formed an acquaintance with, (and one, too, who had made the tour of our Southern States from Delaware to Texas—a man of strong mind and superior intelligence, and from the knowledge he possessed of the subject, also a man of observation,) stated that our slaves were better housed than the apprentices under the control of magnanimous and philanthropic Britain! Verily, England should look at home; and, if she can, apologize, and legislate for her factory-system, which heretofore has been the set-off advanced by Americans to her abuse of our slavery-system. Here is the same system, with such a close affinity to ours, that she cannot apologize for or mitigate it, without rendering us justice, and thereby exposing her previous hypocrisy and selfishness.
Strange—strange, very strange—it is, that the philanthropists of the United Kingdom have never taken cognizance of these facts. What a splendid theater Mauritius presents for the Address drawn up by the Ladies of Great Britain and sent to the Ladies of the United States, (which, however, to the honor of our countrywomen be it said, was contemptuously rejected,) and signed by I do not remember how many thousands of the mothers, daughters, and wives of Merry England and her dependencies; which ladies, in a body, had the most disinterested wish for the amelioration of the condition of the black races held in thraldom by their white cotempories, (or, to use the words of Lucy Stone, they had “a fellow-feeling in their bosoms for the oppressed of all nations,” though whether the “fellow” ever found these martyrs I do not know). Here, I repeat, is an excellent field for their Address; though, as to whether it will meet with the same contumelious reception as it did in the “land of the free,” or meet with a reception adequate to its fitness for the city of Port Louis, a trial only can determine. Perhaps the editor of the Thunderer could bring the feasibility of such a proceeding to the notice of those fair reformers through the columns of his widely-circulated journal.
In writing the above description of the apprentice-system, I have not only embodied my own, but the collective convictions of the whole crew of the vessel; and, as two-thirds of them were from Massachusetts, their opinions, if not my own, are worthy of belief: beside, there was no Southerner aboard, to convert us to Southern opinions—not one of us having been reared to the southward of Mason and Dixon’s line; so that no personal interest or feeling sways our description of this evil. Hence I think that our observations are entitled to the regard of those who laud the freedom, philanthropy, and disinterestedness of the government of the British Islands at the expense of our own; and if I can enable but one of them to see and confess the error of his or her ways, I shall consider my labor well repaid. And here I now leave this subject.
I cannot imagine why whalers visit this port in preference to others where they could be much better supplied. To be sure the American consul is resident, and through him they can draw money to the extent of their necessities; but, on the other hand, provisions are excessively dear, and so are all other supplies needful for shipping. Two articles are cheap—liquors and segars; the latter being made from tobacco grown on the island. Instead of being filled, as with us, and enclosed in a wrapper, the natives make them entirely of wrappers. They are very mild, and can be purchased for a song; everybody smokes them and the consumption must be immense. The plug tobacco is of American manufacture, and, from the duty imposed upon it by the government, commands a high price.
Notwithstanding the cheapness of liquors, there is but very little intoxication to be seen amongst the community, although all seem to indulge, more or less, in its use. The favorite drinks are the lighter wines, such as the claret and Vermouth; these are pleasant, but are detrimental to a healthy condition of the bowels, and, therefore, excessive indulgence in them in this climate is purchased at a dear rate.
There is no scarcity of money, most of the exchanges being made in the metallic currency of Great Britain, and as our Scrimshawing, or to use a less outlandish term, our different manufactures from the bone and ivory procured from the whale, were to these people great curiosities, they commanded good prices. It was not unusual to get from twenty to thirty shillings for a bone cane; and jagged knives, used by the pastry cook for filagreeing the edges of his pies and tarts, were eagerly bought up at a pound the pair. Consequently, all our boys who possessed numbers of these articles were well supplied with the rhino. The reason these articles are so eagerly sought for in this port, is that no whalers are fitted out or belong here; neither is there any market for the sale of whale oil—the inhabitants universally burning the oil expressed from the cocoa-nut; and as the cocoa tree is indigenous to the island, and grows in great profusion, it is readily obtainable at a low rate. The captain of the Nauticon, who lost his ship among the Seychelle Islands, is here, and has been importuned over and over again by the merchants of the port, to return to the United States, build and fit a vessel with all necessary accouterments, and bring her here to sail as a colonial whaler belonging to Port Louis. The future must decide as to whether he coincides with them so far as to act out their wishes; but it is easily seen that such a proceeding must necessarily be remunerative, as no sooner has a whaler left the port than she is on the very best sperm whaling-ground in the Indian Ocean, and the prevalence of the trade-winds and general good weather for nine months of the year, render it an eligible cruising ground.
There is an excessive jealousy existing between the French and English residents—the French considering themselves as the rightful owners of the soil, lords to the manor born; whilst the English plume themselves upon the conquest of the island, and consider possession nine points of the law. Little intercourse, apart from their business relations, exists between the two nations, and the same feeling prevails, not only among the residents, but among the sailors of ships belonging to the two countries. Sunday night, generally, is the occasion of broils between them, and these, the police informed me, were the most serious disturbances they had to contend with.