But the grand excellence of the operating principle of this reform is, that it will stand between the absentee master and his Slaves; and while it will promote the interest of the former, it will secure for the latter the actual enjoyment of the effects of his benevolent intentions. Managers would henceforth be forced to make breeding the prime object of their attention. And every non-resident owner would express himself in terms of an experienced Barbadian proprietor of superior rank and fortune; “That he should consider it as the fault of the manager, if he did not keep up the numbers of his Slaves.” The absent owner would have the best security of which the nature of the case admits for his Slaves being treated with liberality and kindness. The operative principle thus supplied would exactly answer the desired purpose. It would adapt itself to every variety of situation and circumstances. It would penetrate into the interior of every plantation; it would ensure a due quantity of food; it would provide against too rigorous an exaction of labour, and enforce the adoption of those reforms which should be found requisite for increasing the population. Many of the improvements which must at once be introduced are perfectly manifest. But, ingenuity once set at work in this direction, a thousand discoveries will be made, a thousand reforms adopted, and, a manager’s credit and character now depending on the increase of the Negroes, not as hitherto on that of the immediate and clear returns from the estate, the former would henceforth become the great object of his study in the closet, and of his conduct in life and action.
The professional Planter’s work shews the improvements which may be suggested by a single individual of intelligence and experience, living on the spot, and superintending the whole system with an observant eye. What, then, may be expected when the ingenuity and attention of a whole community are set at work in the same direction; to effect the introduction of moral reforms, the settlement of families, the discouragement of adultery; the countenancing, by example as well as precept, among book-keepers or overseers, of morality and decency, the neglect of which, by persons of that class, has been hitherto productive of many injurious consequences.
Let us hear therefore no more of the Slaves invincible habits of profligacy and sensuality, of their not being susceptible of the restraints, obligations, duties, and comforts of the marriage state.
Wonder not that they are now sunk into habits of gross debauchery. Not man alone, but beings in general, throughout the whole range of animated nature, instinctively seek the indulgencies and enjoyments suited to their condition and capacities. Depressed therefore nearly to a level with the brute creation, the negro Slaves instinctively adapt themselves to their level, and are immersed in merely animal pursuits. Hence it is, that those very Negroes, who in Africa are represented as so eminent for truth, so disinterested in kindness, so faithful in the conjugal and domestic relations, so hospitable, so fond of their children, of their parents, of their country, gradually lose all these amiable dispositions with the enjoyments which naturally arise out of them, and become depraved and debased by all that is selfish and mercenary, and deceitful, timid and indolent, and tyrannical. |System of management, how to be reformed.| Would you raise them from this depressed condition, remember the disease is of a moral nature. It admits therefore only of a moral cure. Take away those particulars which degrade and vilify, and thus expel from the system those circumstances which depress the Slaves below the level of domestic life.[[42]] Endeavour in such ways, and by such instruments, as by experience are found best fitted for the purpose, to impart to them the inestimable blessings of religious instruction and moral improvement and reform, many of them would soon shew the happy effect of these instructions, by a conduct and demeanour manifestly the result of higher principles; for I must once more raise my voice against that gross misconception of the character of the Negroes (an impeachment of the wisdom and goodness of their Creator no less than of our own), which represents them as a race of such natural baseness and brutality as to be incapable of religious impressions and improvements. Encourage marriage and the rearing of children in the only proper way; by settling the Slaves in family life, with their cottage and gardens, and with such other immunities and comforts and distinctions as will make them be respected by others and teach them to respect themselves.
I am aware that it has been by no means uncommon for such masters as have made the domestic increase their object, to give rewards to mothers for rearing their children. Surely they have forgot, that Nature, I had almost said instinct, would take care of this for them, if they would but pursue the previous course she so manifestly dictates. It is not by a reward to be given at the end of a year or two, that continual attention can be purchased, with all the ten thousand cares and assiduities and kindnesses which both by day and by night the weakness of infancy requires; they are to be bought by a different price; they are to be prompted and repaid by maternal tenderness, by domestic sympathy, and parental interest. Give but to the Slaves a home; let the children be safely born, with a tolerable prospect of happiness; and let the mothers be allowed immunities and indulgencies, especially a little time from field work, morning and evening, to attend to their infants; bring them thus acquainted with conjugal duties and conjugal feelings, with the comforts and emotions of family life, awaken in them the dormant sympathies of domestic affection, and they will soon become creatures of a higher order, for it is in the soil of domestic life that all the charities of our nature spring up and flourish. A new set of feelings will begin to unfold themselves. The Slaves in general will learn to feel the value of a good character, to covet the acquisition and strive for the maintenance of it. They will make it their study to gain a master’s good opinion and confidence. With hope to animate, and gratitude to warm, how soon should we witness willing industry and hearty services. To these would justly be added, for in this imperfect state the addition will doubtless be required, the fear of a master’s displeasure, and the wholesome restraint of punishment for the indolent, and refractory, and vicious. The harshness of their present bondage being transformed into the mildness of patriarchal servitude, they will become capable of still greater blessings, and more ennobling privileges. The Slaves being now admitted to be not incapable of moral obligations, they will surely be acknowledged to be fit for the lower civil functions; and, above all, there will be no pretence for maintaining that grand disqualification, which alone is sufficient to taint their whole condition with the bitterness of degradation and suffering, the utter inadmissibility of their evidence.[[43]] Thus they would gradually and insensibly be transformed into a native peasantry.
Is it possible to contemplate the change which has been here slightly traced, without emotions of the most lively delight? I will not now indulge myself in the pleasing task of detailing the several steps of this gratifying process; but I must state, that in many of the islands, probably in them all, the quantity of food must be increased; in the articles of clothing, lodging, and medical care, improvements must be adopted; especially the hours of working must be lessened, and wherever it is possible, task-work must be introduced; above all, that degrading practice of working the Slaves under the whip must be abandoned. Think not that it will be enough that females, when clearly pregnant, shall be spared the more laborious duties of field work. No; nor even that all the young women, without exception, shall be no longer worked under the driver’s lash; from which, in the judgment of a most respectable and intelligent planter, innumerable miscarriages happen in the earlier periods of pregnancy. The system of whip-working itself must be entirely exploded, and in its place must be substituted the operation of those principles which are elsewhere found universally sufficient for their object, the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment.
In all these particulars I am but recommending the several reforms enforced with so much more authority by the professional Planter, to whom I have so often referred. All these are preliminary reforms, which must precede, or rather accompany that most efficient and beneficial of all improvements, the combined effect of religious and moral cultivation, with the comforts of being settled in families, and the obligations and duties of conjugal and domestic life. That it may require reflection, attention, and discretion to introduce this happy change, I mean not to deny; it will require also, that a proprietor should make up his mind to some present diminution of income, for the sake of larger ultimate returns. Possibly even some arrangements of law may here become expedient; nor will I even affirm, that in one or two particular islands there may not be instances (though it is with reluctance that one would acknowledge such a case) in which proprietors may have found it their interest hitherto to work down their gangs, and supply vacancies from the Slave market, to whom therefore the new system may be injurious, the rather, because it would of course find their Slaves nearly ground down by the want of necessaries and the excess of labour.
But with such moderate exceptions as must necessarily be anticipated in any change so great, it may be truly affirmed, to be the excellence and glory of the measure we propose, that it is likely almost from the very first to dispense blessings to every individual connected with it, in every step, from the first to the last, throughout the whole of it’s progress.
Often it happens in human affairs, that ends the most beneficial must be obtained by painful and distressing means. Inveterate diseases can rarely be cured without disgusting or painful remedies. But how gratifying is the consideration, that in the present instance, not only is our ultimate point the seat of security and happiness, but the way by which we travel to it is a way of pleasantness and peace. Its effects cannot be produced at once, but we are all the while tending to their complete enjoyment, with an uniform and uninterrupted course. The Slaves will daily grow happier, the planters richer. The whole will be like the progress of vegetation; the effects are not at first perceptible, but the great principle, operating in ten thousand instances, will gradually change the whole face of things, and substitute fertility and beauty in the place of barrenness and desolation.
And all this happy transformation we anticipate, not from carrying into execution the speculations of the most intelligent and able men, but by quitting the ways of injustice and cruelty, and by entering on those happier paths, which, by the gracious ordination of Heaven, are, on the long run, ever found to lead to safety, prosperity, and happiness. It may be right to state one consideration, which may suggest the probability, that even from the first the island stock of Slaves may not be found inadequate to the increasing demands to be made on it.