It may be proper to state, that it was urged by our West Indian opponents, that the grievance we have been now considering, may fairly be laid to the charge of the British Parliament, having been sanctioned by a statute passed in the time of George the Second, for the security of the creditor in the mother country. The West Indian legislatures, it was added, were bound not to enact any provision contrary to the laws of England, and were therefore forced to endure this cruel and pernicious law.
It would not be difficult to shew that this charge is not well founded; but it may suffice, for the present, to remark, that, even granting that the effect of the 5th of Geo. 2d was such as is here supposed, yet that Slaves were not for the first time rendered by that law personal property, and liable to be sold separate from the land for the payment of the simple contract debts of the Master. They have always been in that wretched state. Still more it might truly be alleged, that the Legislature of this country was utterly ignorant of the effect of the law on the happiness of the Negroes, and not even a hint was dropped on that subject by any one of the many West Indian Gentlemen in Parliament; and, when the mischievous effects of the statute were explained, Parliament immediately and unanimously consented to the very first proposal which was made for repealing it. We do not find however, that the West Indian legislatures have availed themselves of the acknowledged right of rescinding it, which they now enjoy. Supposing therefore, what is not however the fact, that, in this instance only, the British Parliament and the Colonial legislatures, the former utterly ignorant of all the practical evils resulting to the Slaves from the law in question, the latter having them daily before their eyes, to have been both parties to the wrong; we have at least done our part towards redressing the injury; they have not done theirs.
The universal practice of working under the whip.
The next particular which must be mentioned, is, like all the rest, at once an evidence and an effect of the degraded state of the Negroes. It is that universal and established practice of working them under the whip like cattle.[[30]] And here is it possible for any one not to feel peculiarly shocked at the idea of working females in this method; the consequence of which must unavoidably be, that notwithstanding the immunities which may be allowed in more advanced stages of pregnancy, or even as soon as a woman is known to be in that state, yet that females will in fact be often worked in this mode, at times, and under circumstances, when Nature peculiarly calls for forbearance, tenderness, and support. Let me repeat, that it is not civilization merely, and politeness, as sometimes happens in the case of artificial wants; it is Nature herself, which, in such circumstances, claims some sympathy and indulgence. And is this a time, are these circumstances, in which a female should be urged to her labour by the stroke, or even the crack of the whip? To view the practice in a mere mercenary view, surely if the West Indian Gentlemen had been seriously and earnestly intent on superseding the necessity of purchasing from the Slave market, by rearing Negroes on their own estates, the younger women at least, if employed in field-work at all, would not be worked in this rude and undistinguishing manner, when a single inconsiderate lash of the driver’s whip, intended not as a punishment, but as a quickener, or a memento, may in its consequences, prevent the birth of a future infant. Surely I need not enlarge on this disgusting topic, or enumerate in detail the various evils which must result from so hateful a practice; it’s tendency greatly to lessen, if not almost utterly to extinguish in the Slaves, all honest, I had almost said, all mercenary emulation or competition, all the hopes of obtaining a master’s approbation and confidence; it’s admitting no occasional remissions of labour, afterwards to be compensated by increased exertions; it’s making no allowance for different states of mind or body; but, without inquiry as to these, as the post-horse is to go through his stage, so the Slave under the same impulse is to keep up with his fellows: In short, it’s utter forgetfulness of mind in the human subject, who is thus considered and treated as of an inferior species, as not capable of being worked upon by the ordinary motives of the hope of reward, or even the fear of punishment; as one who, like the vilest of the brute species, has no foresight or recollection, and must therefore be subjected to the same humiliating regimen.
Cruel and indecent public punishments of Slaves.
Another particular, concerning which I am doubtful whether it ought to be noticed chiefly as a cause of the degradation of the Negro race, or as an evidence and effect of that degradation, is the cruel, and, in the case of the female sex, still more the highly indecent punishments inflicted in places of public resort, and in the face of day. Unless the feelings of sympathy towards Blacks, as fellow creatures, or of decency respecting them as of our own species, were not, to so great a degree, extinct, such exhibitions would not be continued, if from no better motive, yet because they would counteract their own effect, when they were the execution of a public sentence, by interesting all beholders in favour of the criminal, and bringing, to use the phrase of our law, the Government into hatred and contempt; or because, when they were punishments ordered by a master or mistress, besides probably producing a riot, they would render those who ordered them the subject of general obloquy. But, regarded as Blacks now are by the bulk of the population, there seems to have been no fear lest public executions, by the most cruel and protracted tortures, should be matter of public scandal. As for the punishments of Owners, when General T. saw the shameless and cruel flogging, on the public parade, of two very decent women, who, while waiting at table where he was visiting, had been ordered by their mistress, in spite of his expostulations, to go with the Jumper (or public Flogger), to receive a dozen, each stroke of which brought flesh from them, we do not find that the incident excited any surprize or attention in any one but the General himself.[[31]] If such could be the treatment sanctioned by public opinion, and general feeling, of decent young women, publicly and in the face of day, what consideration would be likely to be paid to the comforts and feelings of the field Negroes, who are regarded as a far inferior race to the domestics, especially when there are no officious bystanders to witness what may take place.
Let me but ask, what must be the effect necessarily produced on the mind from having been habituated to such scenes as these from early infancy? Can we be surprized to hear that, too often, even the delicacy and tenderness of the female sex is not proof against the natural consequences of daily beholding such spectacles?[[32]] Should we not be almost prepared to find, the particular which I confess has ever most deeply affected my mind as being of all others the most decisive proof of the utter vileness and degradation of the Negro race, |Other signs of degradation.| that utter contempt which too generally prevails of their social and domestic feelings; that they are too commonly regarded as below instruction, below the range of moral precepts and prohibitions, below the sphere of the obligations, duties, restraints, and comforts of conjugal, domestic, and social life.
Hence, doubtless, proceeds their being in some degree regarded, like their fellow brutes, as below the necessity of observing towards others the proper decencies of life, or of having these decencies observed by others towards them. Hence, while Mr. Parke assures us, that in Africa, adultery is not more frequent than in this country, we hear the most respectable Colonists treat the very idea of introducing marriage among the Slaves, in their present state, as perfectly hopeless or ridiculous.
Do we not here find the explanation of that strange phenomenon, formerly mentioned, that while the prevalence and evils of dissoluteness are universally acknowledged, scarcely any one thinks of applying that which has already appeared from experience so safe, so appropriate, and so beneficial a remedy?
Inadequate legal protection.