laws_, on the article of slavery says, "_It is neither useful to the
master nor slave; to the slave, because he can do nothing through
principle (or virtue); to the master, because he contracts with his
slave all sorts of bad habits, insensibly accustoms himself to want all
moral virtues; becomes haughty, hasty, hard-hearted, passionate,
voluptuous, and cruel_." The lamentable truth of this assertion was
quickly verified in the English plantations. When the practice of
slave-keeping was introduced, it soon produced its natural effects; it
reconciled men, of otherwise good dispositions, to the most hard and
cruel measures. It quickly proved, what, under the law of Moses, was
apprehended would be the consequence of unmerciful chastisements. Deut.
xxv. 2. "_And it shall be if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that
the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face,
according to his fault, by a certain number; forty stripes he may give
him, and not exceed_." And the reason rendered, is out of respect to
human nature, viz. "_Lest if he should exceed, and beat him above these
with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee_." As
this effect soon followed the cause, the cruelest measures were adopted,
in order to make the most of the poor _wretches_ labour; and in the
minds of the masters such an idea was excited of inferiority, in the
nature of these their unhappy fellow creatures, that they soon esteemed
and treated them as beasts of burden: pretending to doubt, and some of
them even presuming to deny, that the efficacy of the death of Christ
extended to them. Which is particularly noted in a book, intitled _The
Negroes and Indians advocate_, dedicated to the then Archbishop of
Canterbury, wrote so long since as in the year 1680, by Morgan Godwyn,
thought to be a clergyman of the church of England.[A] The same spirit
of sympathy and zeal which stirred up the good Bishop of Chapia to plead
with so much energy the kindred cause of the Indians of America, an
hundred and fifty years before, was equally operating about a century
past on the minds of some of the well disposed of that day; amongst
others this worthy clergyman, having been an eye witness of the
oppression and cruelty exercised upon the Negro and Indian slaves,
endeavoured to raise the attention of those, in whose power it might be
to procure them relief; amongst other matters, in his address to the
Archbishop, he remarks in substance, "That the people of the island of
Barbadoes were not content with exercising the greatest hardness and
barbarity upon the Negroes, in making the most of their labour, without
any regard to the calls of humanity, but that they had suffered such a
slight and undervaluement to prevail in their minds towards these their
oppressed fellow creatures, as to discourage any step being taken,
whereby they might be made acquainted with the christian religion. That
their conduct towards their slaves was such as gave him reason to
believe, that either they had suffered a spirit of infidelity, a spirit
quite contrary to the nature of the gospel, to prevail in them, or that
it must be their established opinion that the Negroes had no more souls
than beasts; that hence they concluded them to be neither susceptible of
religious impressions, nor fit objects for the redeeming grace of God to
operate upon. That under this persuasion, and from a disposition of
cruelty, they treated them with far less humanity than they did their
cattle; for, says he, they do not starve their horses, which they expect
should both carry and credit them on the road; nor pinch the cow, by
whose milk they are sustained; which yet, to their eternal shame, is too
frequently the lot and condition of those poor people, from whose labour
their wealth and livelihood doth wholly arise; not only in their diet,
but in their cloathing, and overworking some of them even to death
(which is particularly the calamity of the most innocent and laborious)
but also in tormenting and whipping them almost, and sometimes quite, to
death, upon even small miscarriages. He apprehends it was from this
prejudice against the Negroes, that arose those supercilious checks and
frowns he frequently met with, when using innocent arguments and
persuasions, in the way of his duty as a minister of the gospel, to
labour for the convincement and conversion of the Negroes; being
repeatedly told, with spiteful scoffings, (even by some esteemed
religious) that the Negroes were no more susceptible of receiving
benefit, by becoming members of the church, than their dogs and bitches.
The usual answer he received, when exhorting their masters to do their
duty in that respect, being, _What! these black dogs be made christians!
what! they be made like us! with abundance more of the same_.
Nevertheless, he remarks that the Negroes were capable, not only of
being taught to read and write, &c. but divers of them eminent in the
management of business. He declares them to have an equal right with us
to the merits of Christ; of which if through neglect or avarice they are
deprived, that judgment which was denounced against wicked Ahab, must
befal us: _Our life shall go for theirs_. The loss of their souls will
be required at our hands, to whom God hath given so blessed an
opportunity of being instrumental to their salvation."
[Footnote A: "There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human
mind, which in different places or ages hath had different names; it is,
however, pure, and proceeds from God.--It is deep and inward, confined
to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands
in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what
nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression.
Using ourselves to take ways which appear most easy to us, when
inconsistent with that purity which is without beginning, we thereby set
up a government of our own, and deny obedience to Him whose service is
true liberty. He that has a servant, made so wrongfully, and knows it to
be so, when he treats him otherwise than a free man, when he reaps the
benefit of his labour, without paying him such wages as are reasonably
due to free men for the like service; these things, though done in
calmness, without any shew of disorder, do yet deprave the mind, in like
manner, and with as great certainty, as prevailing cold congeals water.
These steps taken by masters, and their conduct striking the minds of
their children, whilst young, leave less room for that which is good to
work upon them. The customs of their parents, their neighbours, and the
people with whom they converse, working upon their minds, and they from
thence conceiving wrong ideas of things, and modes of conduct, the
entrance into their hearts becomes in a great measure shut up against
the gentle movings of uncreated purity.
"From one age to another the gloom grows thicker and darker, till error
gets established by general opinion; but whoever attends to perfect
goodness, and remains under the melting influence of it, finds a path
unknown to many, and sees the necessity to lean upon the arm of divine
strength, and dwell alone, or with a few in the right, committing their
cause to him who is a refuge to his people. Negroes are our fellow
creatures, and their present condition among us requires our serious
consideration. We know not the time, when those scales, in which
mountains are weighed, may turn. The parent of mankind is gracious, his
care is over his smallest creatures, and a multitude of men escape not
his notice; and though many of them are trodden down and despised, yet
he remembers them. He seeth their affliction, and looketh upon the
spreading increasing exaltation of the oppressor. He turns the channel
of power, humbles the most haughty people, and gives deliverance to the
oppressed, at such periods as are consistent with his infinite justice
and goodness. And wherever gain is preferred to equity, and wrong things
publickly encouraged, to that degree that wickedness takes root and
spreads wide amongst the inhabitants of a country, there is a real cause
for sorrow, to all such whose love to mankind stands on a true
principle, and wisely consider the end and event of things."
Consideration on keeping Negroes, by John Woolman, part 2. p. 50.]
He complains, "That they were suffered to live with their women in no
better way than direct fornication; no care being taken to oblige them
to continue together when married; but that they were suffered at their
will to leave their wives, and take to other women." I shall conclude
this sympathizing clergyman's observations, with an instance he gives,
to shew, "that not only discouragements and scoffs at that time
prevailed in Barbadoes, to establish an opinion that the Negroes were
not capable of religious impressions, but that even violence and great
abuses were used to prevent any thing of the kind taking place. It was
in the case of a poor Negro, who having, at his own request, prevailed
on a clergyman to administer baptism to him, on his return home the
brutish overseer took him to task, giving him to understand, that that
was no sunday's work for those of his complexion; that he had other
business for him, the neglect whereof would cost him an afternoon's
baptism in blood, as he in the morning had received a baptism with
water, (these, says the clergyman, were his own words) which he
accordingly made good; of which the Negro complained to him, and he to
the governor; nevertheless, the poor miserable creature was ever after
so unmercifully treated by that inhuman wretch, the overseer, that, to
avoid his cruelty, betaking himself to the woods, he there perished."
This instance is applicable to none but the cruel perpetrator; and yet
it is an instance of what, in a greater or less degree, may frequently
happen, when those poor wretches are left to the will of such brutish
inconsiderate creatures as those overseers often are. This is confirmed
in a _History of Jamaica_, wrote in thirteen letters, about the year
1740, by a person then residing in that island, who writes as follows,
"I shall not now enter upon the question, whether the slavery of the
Negroes be agreeable to the laws of nature or not; though it seems
extremely hard they should be reduced to serve and toil for the benefit
of others, without the least advantage to themselves. Happy Britannia,
where slavery is never known! where liberty and freedom chears every
misfortune. Here (_says the author_) we can boast of no such blessing;
we have at least ten slaves to one freeman. I incline to touch the
hardships which these poor creatures suffer, in the tenderest manner,
from a particular regard which I have to many of their masters, but I
cannot conceal their sad circumstances intirely: the most trivial error
is punished with terrible whipping. I have seen some of them treated in
that cruel manner, for no other reason but to satisfy the brutish
pleasure of an overseer, who has their punishment mostly at his
discretion. I have seen their bodies all in a gore of blood, the skin
torn off their backs with the cruel whip; beaten pepper and salt rubbed
in the wounds, and a large stick of sealing wax dropped leisurely upon
them. It is no wonder, if the horrid pain of such inhuman tortures
incline them to rebel. Most of these slaves are brought from the coast
of Guinea. When they first arrive, it is observed, they are simple and
very innocent creatures; but soon turn to be roguish enough. And when
they come to be whipt, urge the example of the whites for an excuse of
their faults."
These accounts of the deep depravity of mind attendant on the practice
of slavery, verify the truth of Montesquieu's remark of its pernicious
effects. And altho' the same degree of opposition to instructing the
Negroes may not now appear in the islands as formerly, especially since
the Society appointed for propagating the Gospel have possessed a number
of Negroes in one of them; nevertheless the situation of these oppressed
people is yet dreadful, as well to themselves as in its consequence to
their hard task-masters, and their offspring, as must be evident to
every impartial person who is acquainted with the treatment they
generally receive, or with the laws which from time to time have been
made in the colonies, with respect to the Negroes; some of them being
absolutely inconsistent with reason, and shocking to humanity. By the
329th act of the assembly of Barbadoes, page 125, it is enacted,
"That if any Negroe or other slave under punishment by his master, or
his order, for running away, or any other crime or misdemeanors towards
his said master, unfortunately shall suffer in life or member, (which
seldom happens) no person whatsoever shall be liable to any fine
therefore. But if any man shall, _of wantonness, or only of
bloody-mindedness or cruel intention, wilfully kill a Negroe, or other
slave of his own, he shall pay into the public treasury, fifteen pounds
sterling_." Now that the life of a man should be so lightly valued, as
that fifteen pounds should be judged a sufficient indemnification of the
murder of one, even when it is avowedly done _wilfully, wantonly,
cruelly, or of bloody-mindedness_, is a tyranny hardly to be paralleled:
nevertheless human laws cannot make void the righteous law of God, or
prevent the inquisition of that awful judgment day, when, "_at the hand
of every man's brother the life of man shall be required_." By the law
of South Carolina, the person that killeth a Negroe is only subject to a
fine, or twelve months imprisonment. It is the same in most, if not all
the West-Indies. And by an act of the assembly of Virginia, (4 Ann. Ch.
49. sect. 27. p. 227.) after proclamation is issued against slaves,
"that run away and lie out, _it is lawful for any person whatsoever to
kill and destroy such slaves, by such ways and means as he, she, or they
shall think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime for the
same_."--And lest private interest should incline the planter to mercy,
it is provided, "_That every slave so killed, in pursuance of this act,
shall be paid for by the public_."
It was doubtless a like sense of sympathy with that expressed by Morgan
Godwyn before mentioned, for the oppressed Negroes, and like zeal for
the cause of religion, so manifestly trampled upon in the case of the
Negroes, which induced Richard Baxter, an eminent preacher amongst the
Dissenters in the last century, in his _christian directory_, to express
himself as follows, viz. "Do you mark how God hath followed you with
plagues; and may not conscience tell you, that it is for your inhumanity
to the souls and bodies of men?"--"To go as pirates; and catch up poor
Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited life or
liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst
kinds of thievery in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the
common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them and use them as beasts
for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect their
souls, are fitter to be called devils incarnate than christians: It is
an heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them.
Undoubtedly they are presently bound to deliver them, because by right
the man is his own, therefore no man else can have a just title to him."
CHAP. VIII.
Griffith Hughes's account of the number of Negroes in Barbadoes. Cannot
keep up their usual number without a yearly recruit. Excessive hardships
wear the Negroes down in a surprising manner. A servitude without a
condition, inconsistent with reason and natural justice. The general
usage the Negroes meet with in the West Indies. Inhuman calculations of
the strength and lives of the Negroes. Dreadful consequences which may
be expected from the cruelty exercised upon this oppressed part of
mankind.
We are told by Griffith Hughes, rector of St. Lucy in Barbadoes, in his
natural history of that island, printed in the year 1750, "That there
were between sixty-five and seventy thousand Negroes, at that time, in
the island, tho' formerly they had a greater number. That in order to
keep up a necessary number, they were obliged to have a yearly supply
from Africa. That the hard labour, and often want of necessaries, which
these unhappy creatures are obliged to undergo, destroy a greater number
than are bred there." He adds, "That the capacities of their minds in
common affairs of life are but little inferior, if at all, to those of
the Europeans. If they fail in some arts, he says, it may be owing more
to their want of education, and the depression of their spirits by
slavery, than to any want of natural abilities." This destruction of the
human species, thro' unnatural hardships, and want of necessary
supplies, in the case of the Negroes, is farther confirmed in _an
account of the European settlements in America_, printed London, 1757,
where it is said, par. 6. chap. 11th, "The Negroes in our colonies
endure a slavery more compleat, and attended with far worse
circumstances, than what any people in their condition suffer in any
other part of the world, or have suffered in any other period of time:
Proofs of this are not wanting. The prodigious waste which we experience
in this unhappy part of our species, is a full and melancholy evidence
of this truth. The island of Barbadoes, (the Negroes upon which do not
amount to eighty thousand) notwithstanding all the means which they use
to increase them by propagation, and that the climate is in every
respect (except that of being more wholesome) exactly resembling the
climate from whence they come; notwithstanding all this, Barbadoes lies
under a necessity of an annual recruit of five thousand slaves, to keep
up the stock at the number I have mentioned. This prodigious failure,
which is at least in the same proportion in all our islands, shews
demonstratively that some uncommon and unsupportable hardship lies upon
the Negroes, which wears them down in such a surprising manner."
In an account of part of North America, published by Thomas Jeffery,
1761, the author, speaking of the usage the Negroes receive in the West
India islands, says, "It is impossible for a human heart to reflect upon
the servitude of these dregs of mankind, without in some measure feeling
for their misery, which ends but with their lives.--Nothing can be more
wretched than the condition of this people. One would imagine, they were
framed to be the disgrace of the human species; banished from their
country, and deprived of that blessing, liberty, on which all other
nations set the greatest value, they are in a measure reduced to the
condition of beasts of burden. In general, a few roots, potatoes
especially, are their food, and two rags, which neither screen them from
the heat of the day, nor the extraordinary coolness of the night, all
their covering; their sleep very short; their labour almost continual;
they receive no wages, but have twenty lashes for the smallest fault."
_A thoughtful_ person, who had an opportunity of observing the miserable
condition of the Negroes in one of our West India islands, writes thus,
"I met with daily exercise to see the treatment which those miserable
wretches met with from their masters; with but few exceptions. They whip
them most unmercifully on small occasions: you will see their bodies all
whealed and scarred; in short, they seem to set no other value on their
lives, than as they cost them so much money; and are restrained from
killing them, when angry, by no worthier consideration, than that they
lose so much. They act as though they did not look upon them as a race
of human creatures, who have reason, and remembrance of misfortunes, but
as beasts; like oxen, who are stubborn, hardy, and senseless, fit for
burdens, and designed to bear them: they won't allow them to have any
claim to human privileges, or scarce indeed to be regarded as the work
of God. Though it was consistent with the justice of our Maker to
pronounce the sentence on our common parent, and through him on all
succeeding generations, _That he and they should eat their bread by the
sweat of their brows_: yet does it not stand recorded by the same
eternal truth, _That the labourer is worthy of his hire?_ It cannot be
allowed, in natural justice, that there should be a servitude without
condition; a cruel, endless servitude. It cannot be reconcileable to
natural justice, that whole nations, nay, whole continents of men,
should be devoted to do the drudgery of life for others, be dragged away
from their attachments of relations and societies, and be made to serve
the appetite and pleasure of a race of men, whose superiority has been
obtained by illegal force."
Sir Hans Sloane, in the introduction to his natural history of Jamaica,
in the account he gives of the treatment the Negroes met with there,
speaking of the punishments inflicted on them, says, page 56. "For
rebellion, the punishment is burning them, by nailing them down to the
ground with crooked sticks on every limb, and then applying the fire, by
degrees, from the feet and hands, burning them gradually up to the head,
whereby _their pains are extravagant_. For crimes of a less nature,
gelding or chopping off half the foot with an axe.--For negligence, they
are usually whipped by the overseers with lance-wood switches.--After
they are whipped till they are raw, some put on their skins pepper and
salt, to make them smart; at other times, their masters will drop melted
wax on their skins, and use several _very exquisite torments_." In that
island, the owners of the Negroe slaves set aside to each a parcel of
ground, and allow them half a day at the latter end of the week, which,
with the day appointed by the divine injunction to be a day of rest and
service to God, and which ought to be kept as such, is the only time
allowed them to manure their ground. This, with a few herrings, or other
salt fish, is what is given for their support. Their allowance for
cloathing in the island, is seldom more than six yards of oznabrigs each
year. And in the more northern colonies, where the piercing westerly
winds are long and sensibly felt, these poor Africans suffer much for
want of sufficient cloathing; indeed some have none till they are able
to pay for it by their labour. The time that the Negroes work in the
West Indies, is from day-break till noon; then again from two o'clock
till dark (during which time, they are attended by overseers, who
severely scourge those who appear to them dilatory); and before they are
suffered to go to their quarters, they have still something to do, as
collecting herbage for the horses, gathering fuel for the boilers, &c.
so that it is often past twelve before they can get home, when they have
scarce time to grind and boil their Indian corn; whereby, if their food
was not prepared the evening before, it sometimes happens that they are
called again to labour before they can satisfy their hunger. And here no
delay or excuse will avail; for if they are not in the field immediately
upon the usual notice, they must expect to feel the overseer's lash. In
crop time (which lasts many months) they are obliged, by turns, to work
most of the night in the boiling house. Thus their owners, from a desire
of making the greatest gain by the labour of their slaves, lay heavy
burdens on them, and yet feed and cloath them very sparingly, and some
scarce feed or cloath them at all; so that the poor creatures are
obliged to shift for their living in the best manner they can, which
occasions their being often killed in the neighbouring lands, stealing
potatoes, or other food, to satisfy their hunger. And if they take any
thing from the plantation they belong to, though under such pressing
want, their owners will correct them severely for taking a little of
what they have so hardly laboured for; whilst many of themselves riot in
the greatest luxury and excess. It is matter of astonishment how a
people, who, as a nation, are looked upon as generous and humane, and so
much value themselves for their uncommon sense of the benefit of
liberty, can live in the practice of such extreme oppression and
inhumanity, without seeing the inconsistency of such conduct, and
feeling great remorse. Nor is it less amazing to hear these men calmly
making calculations about the strength and lives of their fellow men. In
Jamaica, if six in ten of the new imported Negroes survive the
seasoning, it is looked upon as a gaining purchase. And in most of the
other plantations, if the Negroes live eight or nine years, their labour
is reckoned a sufficient compensation for their cost. If calculations of
this sort were made upon the strength and labour of beasts of burden, it
would not appear so strange; but even then, a merciful man would
certainly use his beast with more mercy than is usually shewn to the
poor Negroes. Will not the groans, the dying groans, of this deeply
afflicted and oppressed people reach heaven? and when the cup of
iniquity is full, must not the inevitable consequence be, the pouring
forth of the judgments of God upon their oppressors? But alas! is it not
too manifest that this oppression has already long been the object of
the divine displeasure? For what heavier judgment, what greater
calamity, can befal any people, than to become subject to that hardness
of heart, that forgetfulness of God, and insensibility to every
religious impression, as well as that general depravation of manners,
which so much prevails in these colonies, in proportion as they have
more or less enriched themselves at the expence of the blood and bondage
of the Negroes.