The captains, surgeons, &c. who have quitted the African slave-trade, uniformly declare the reason to have been, that they could not conscientiously continue in it: they say, that it is an unnatural, iniquitous, and villainous trade, founded on injustice and treachery; manifestly carried on by oppression and cruelty, and not unfrequently terminating in murder. Capt. Hall says, he quitted it (in opposition to lucrative offers) from a conviction that it was perfectly illegal, and founded in blood.
The Fourth Chapter gives an account of the general estimation and treatment of the slaves in the West-Indies. Dr. Jackson says, that the negroes are generally esteemed a species of inferior beings, whom the right of purchase gives the owner a power of using at his will. T. Woolrich says, he never knew the best master in the West-Indies use his slaves so well, as the worst master his servants in England: that their state is inconceivable—that a sight of a gang would convince more than all words.
Slaves are either Field Slaves, or in or out Door Slaves.
The field-slaves begin their work at break of day. They work in rows, without exception under the whip of drivers, and the weak are made to keep up with the strong. They continue their labour (with two intermissions, half an hour during the morning, and two hours at noon) till sun set. In the intervals they are made to pick grass for the cattle. Cook has known pregnant women worked and flogged a few days before their delivery. Some, however, are a little indulged when in that state. After the month they work with the children on their backs. In the crop-season the labour is of much longer duration[7]. The slaves sometimes work so long that they cannot help sleeping, and then it not unfrequently happens, that their arms are caught in the mill and torn off. They are said to be allowed one day in seven for rest, but this time is necessarily employed in raising food for the other days, and gathering grass for their master’s cattle. The best allowance of food is at Barbadoes, which is a pint of grain for twenty four hours, and half a rotten herring when to be had. When the herrings are unfit for the whites, they are bought up by planters for the slaves. Some allow nine pints of corn a week, and about one pound of salt fish, which is the greatest allowance mentioned in the whole course of the evidence. Some have no provision but what they raise themselves, and they are frequently so fatigued by the labour of the rest of the week, as scarcely to be able to work for their own support on the Sunday. And the land allotted them for this purpose is often at the distance of three miles from their houses; it would, however, be quite ample for their support, were they allowed time sufficient for its cultivation. Sometimes when they have been at the pains of clearing their land, their masters take it for canes, and give them wood land instead of it. This hardship some have so taken to heart as to die. Putrid carcases are burnt; if they were buried, the slaves would dig them up and eat them, which would breed distempers among them. They are sometimes driven by extreme hunger to steal at the hazard of their lives. They are badly clothed; one half of them go almost naked. The slaves in general have no bed or bedding at all. Their houses are built with four poles and thatched. They have little or no property. All the evidence (to whom the question has been proposed) agree in answering, that they never knew or heard of a field-slave ever amassing such a sum, as enabled him to purchase his own freedom. The artificers, such as house carpenters, coopers, masons, the drivers and head slaves, are better off. The owners of women let them out for prostitution, and flog them, if they do not bring home full wages.
The negroes, when whipped, are suspended by the arms, with weights at their feet. They are first whipped with a whip made of cow-skin (which cuts out the flesh, whereas the military whips cut only the skin) and afterwards with ebony bushes (which are more prickly than thorn bushes in this country) in order to let out the congealed blood. Dr. Harrison thinks the whipping too severe to be inflicted on any human being: he could lay two or three fingers into the wounds of a man whipped for not coming when he was called. Many receive from one hundred and fifty to two hundred lashes at a time; and in two or three days this is repeated: they wash the raw parts with pickle; this appears from the convulsions it occasions, more cruel than whipping; but it is done to prevent mortification. After severe whipping, they are worked all day without food, except what their friends may give them out of their own poor pittance. They are returned to their stocks at night, and worked next day as before. This cruel treatment his made many commit suicide. Cook has known fourteen slaves, who, in consequence thereof, ran into the woods and cut their throats together. These severe punishments are frequent. The scars made by whipping last to old age. T. Woolrich has seen their backs one undistinguished mass of lumps, holes, and furrows. They sometimes die of mortification of the wounds. A planter flogged his driver to death, and boasted of having so done.
Under the head of Extraordinary Punishments, (for those already named are reckoned only ordinary), mention is made of iron collars with hooks[8], heavy cattle chains, and a half hundred weight fastened to them, which the negroes are forced to drag after them, when working in the field, suspending by the hands ’till the fingers mortify; flogging with ebony bushes ’till they are forced to go on all fours, unable to get up, being tied up to the branch of a tree, with a heavy weight round the neck, exposed to the noon-day sun—thumb-screws; a man was put on the picket, so long as to occasion a mortification of his foot and hand, on suspicion of robbing his master, a public officer, of a sum of money, which it afterwards appeared, the master had taken himself. Yet the master was privy to the punishment, and the slave had no compensation. He was punished by order of the master, who did not then chuse to make it known that he himself had made use of the money. A girl’s ears were nailed to a post, afterwards torn away, and clipt off close to her head, with a pair of large scissors; besides this, she was unmercifully flogged, and all for—BREAKING A PLATE, OR SPILLING A CUP OF TEA! A negro, impelled by hunger, had stolen part of a turkey, his master caused him to be held down, and, with his own hands, took a hammer and punch and knocked out four of his teeth. The hand is cut off if lifted up against a white man, and the leg for running away. A planter sent for a surgeon to cut off the leg of a negro who had run away. On the surgeon’s refusing to do it, the planter took an iron bar, and broke the leg in pieces, and then the surgeon took it off. This planter did many such acts of cruelty, and all with impunity. The practice of dropping hot lead upon the negroes, is here mentioned. H. Ross saw a young female suspended by her wrists to a tree, swinging to and fro, while her master applied a lighted torch to the different parts of her writhing body. It was notorious that Ruthie tortured so many of his negroes to death, that he was obliged to sell his estate. Another planter, in the same Island[9], destroyed forty slaves out of sixty (in three years) by severity. The rest of the conduct of this infamous wretch was cancelled by the Committee of the House of Commons, as containing circumstances too horrible to be given to the world. We, however, go on to read of knocking on the head and stabbing, of a hot iron forced between the teeth, of a slave thrown into the boiling juice, and killed, of a negro shot and his head cut off. And it appears, that the women, deemed of respectability and rank, not only order and superintend, but sometimes actually inflict with their own hands severe punishments on their slaves.
The offences for which the before-mentioned punishments are inflicted are, not coming into the field in time, not picking a sufficient quantity of grass, not appearing willing to work, when in fact sick and not able; for staying too long on an errand, for not coming immediately when called, for not bringing home (the women) the full weekly sum enjoined by their owners; for running away, and for theft, to which they are often driven by hunger.
Under the head of “Extraordinary Punishments,” some appear to have suffered for running away, or for lifting up a hand against a white man, or for breaking a plate, or spilling a cup of tea, or to extort confession. Others again, in the moments of sudden resentment, and one on a diabolical pretext, which the master held out to the world to conceal his own villainy, and which he knew to be false.