JAMAICA.
Jamaica, the chief of the British West India Islands, was discovered by
Columbus on his second voyage, in May, 1494, and was taken from Spain
by the English in May, 1655, during the reign of Oliver Cromwell. It
thus became an appendage to the British crown, after it had been in the
possession of Spain for one hundred and forty-six years. The number of
slaves on the Island at this time was about fifteen hundred.
Morgan, a notorious pirate and buccaneer, was knighted and made
governor of the Island in 1670. Lord Vaughan succeeded Morgan, and
under his administration the African Company was formed, and the
slave-trade legalized; Africans were imported in large numbers, and the
development of the natural resources of Jamaica greatly increased the
wealth of the planters.
The number of slaves annually imported into the Island amounted to
sixteen thousand,[42] so that within thirty years the slave population
had increased from ninety-nine thousand to upwards of two hundred
thousand, whilst the total numerical strength of the whites did not
exceed sixteen thousand.
From this time down to the year 1832, it presented a succession of
wars, usurpations, crimes, misery, and vice; nor in this desert of
human wretchedness is there one green spot on which the mind of a
philanthropist would love to dwell; all is one revolting scene of
infamy, bloodshed, and unmitigated woe; of insecure peace and open
disturbance; of the abuse of power, and of the reaction of misery
against oppression. In 1832 an insurrection of the slaves occurred,
by which the lives of seven hundred slaves were sacrificed, and an
expense, including property destroyed, of one hundred and sixty-two
thousand pounds sterling.
The total importation of slaves from the conquest of the Island by the
English to 1805, amounted to eight hundred and fifty thousand, and this
added to forty thousand brought by the Spaniards, made an aggregate of
eight hundred and ninety thousand, exclusive of all births, in three
hundred years. The influence which the system of slavery spread over
the community in Jamaica and the rest of the British West Indies, was
not less demoralizing than in Hayti and the other islands.
Crimes which in European countries would have been considered and
treated as a wanton insult to society at large, did not exclude the
parties from the pale of respectable society, or generally operate to
their disadvantage among the female portion of the community.
The reckless destroyers of female innocence and happiness united in
the dance, mingled in public entertainments, and were admitted at the
social board, and were on terms of intimacy with the younger branches
of families.[43]
The intermediate colors between the whites[44] and pure blacks, were
denominated as follows: A Sambo is the offspring of a mulatto woman by
a black man; a mulatto is the child of a black woman and white man; a
quadroon is the offspring of a mulatto by a white man, and a mestee
is that of a quadroon woman by a white man. The offspring of a female
mestee by a white man being above the third in lineal descent from the
Negro ancestor, was white, in the estimation of the law, and enjoyed
all the privileges and immunities of Her Majesty’s white subjects; but
all the rest, whether mulattoes, quadroons, or mestees, were considered
by the law as mulattoes or persons of color.
Although the people of Jamaica represented to the home government that
the slaves were satisfied and happy, and would not accept their freedom
were it offered them, a revolt of the blacks took place in 1832.
More than fifty thousand were engaged in this effort to obtain the
long-wished-for boon.
The man with whom the insurrection originated,--Samuel Sharp,--was
a slave, and a member of the Baptist Church in Montego Bay. He was
born in slavery, but he had never felt anything of the bitterness of
slavery. He was born in a family that treated him indulgently; he was
a pet, and was brought up as the playmate of the juvenile members of
the family, and had opportunities of learning to read and for mental
cultivation, to which very few of his fellow-slaves had access; and
Sharp, above all this, was possessed of a mind worthy of any man, and
of oratorical powers of no common order.
Sharp determined to free himself and his fellow-slaves. I do not know
whether he was himself deceived, or whether he knowingly deceived
his fellow-conspirators; but he persuaded a large number of them to
believe that the British government had made them free, and that their
owners were keeping them in slavery, in opposition to the wishes of
the authorities in England. It so happened, that, just at that time,
the planters themselves were pursuing a course which favored Sharp’s
proceedings directly. They were holding meetings through the length and
breadth of the Island, protesting against the interference of the home
government with their property, passing very inflammatory resolutions,
and threatening that they would transfer their allegiance to the United
States, in order that they might perpetuate their interest in their
slaves.
The insurrection was suppressed, and about two thousand of the slaves
were put to death. This effort of the bondmen to free themselves,
gave a new impetus to the agitation of the abolition movement, which
had already begun under the auspices of Buxton, Allen, Brougham, and
George Thompson, the successors of Clarkson, Wilberforce, Sharp, and
Macaulay; and the work went bravely on. Elizabeth Heyrick, feeling that
the emancipation of the slave could never be effected by gradual means,
raised the cry of “Immediate emancipation.” She wrote: “Immediate
emancipation is the object to be aimed at; it is more wise and
rational, more politic and safe, as well as more just and humane, than
gradual emancipation. The interests, moral and political, temporal and
eternal, of all parties concerned, will be best promoted by immediate
emancipation.”
The doctrine of immediate emancipation was taken up by the friends of
the Negro everywhere, and Brougham, in Parliament, said:--
“Tell me not of rights; talk not of the property of the planter in
his slaves. I deny the right; I acknowledge not the property. The
principles, the feelings, of our common nature, rise in rebellion
against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart,
the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws
that sanction such a claim.”
John Philpot Curran followed, in one of the finest speeches ever made
in behalf of the rights of man. Said he,--
“I speak in the spirit of the British Law, which makes liberty
commensurate with, and inseparable from, the British soil; which
proclaims, even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets
his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is
holy, and consecrated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. No
matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter
what complexion, incompatible with freedom, an Indian or an African
sun may have burnt upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his
liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he
may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; the first moment he
touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together
in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells
beyond the measure of his chains, that burst from around him, and he
stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible
genius of universal emancipation.”
The name and labors of Granville Sharp have been overshadowed by those
of other men, who reaped in the full, bright sunshine of success the
harvest of popular admiration for the results of a philanthropic
policy, of which Granville Sharp was the seed-sower. Zachary, Macaulay,
Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Buxton are regarded as the leaders of the
great movement that emancipated the slaves of Great Britain. Burke and
Wilkes are remembered as the enlightened advocates of the Independence
of America; and these great names throw a shadow over the Clerk in the
Ordnance, who, with high-souled integrity, resigned his place, and
gave up a calling that was his only profession and livelihood, rather
than serve a government that waged a fratricidal war, and who, in
defiance of the opinions of the Solicitor and Attorney-General, and of
the Lord Chief-Justice, opposed by all the lawyers, and forsaken even
by his own professional advisers, undertook to search the indices of
a law library, to wade through an immense mass of dry and repulsive
literature, and to make extracts from all the most important Acts of
Parliament as he went along; until, at the very time that slaves were
being sold by auction in Liverpool and London, and when he could not
find a single lawyer who agreed with his opinion, he boldly exclaimed,
“God be thanked! there is nothing in any English law or statute that
can justify the enslaving of others.”
Granville Sharp, in his boyhood a linen-draper’s apprentice, and
afterwards a clerk in the Ordnance Department of England, one day,
in the surgery of his brother, saw a negro named Jonathan Strong,
lame, unable to work, almost blind, very ill, and turned adrift in the
streets of London, by his master, a lawyer in Barbadoes. The assistance
of Granville Sharp, and of his brother William, the surgeon, restored
Jonathan Strong to health, and obtained for him a situation. Two years
afterwards, the Barbadoes lawyer recognized his slave, strong, healthy,
and valuable, serving as a footman behind a lady’s carriage, and he
arrested the negro, and put him in prison, until there should be an
opportunity to ship him for the West Indies.
Mr. Sharp appealed to the Lord Mayor, who, although he decided that he
was incompetent to deal with the legal question of the black’s freedom,
released Strong, because there was no offence charged against him.
And then--it was in 1767--now more than a hundred years ago--then began
the protracted movement in England in favor of the slave. The master
of Jonathan Strong immediately commenced an action against Granville
Sharp, to recover possession of his negro, of whom he said he had been
robbed: and Sharp drew up the result of his study of the question, in a
plain, clear, and manly statement, which, after having been circulated
some time in manuscript, was printed in 1769, and was headed, “On the
injustice of tolerating slavery in England.”
It produced such an effect on the opinion of the public, that the
lawyer abandoned his proceedings. Other cases soon tested the earnest
philanthropy of the slaves’ friend. The wife of one Styles was seized
and sent to Barbadoes. Sharp compelled the aggressor to bring the
woman back. In 1776, Thomas Lewis was kidnapped and shipped for
Jamaica. Sharp found him chained to the mainmast of a ship at Spithead,
and by a writ of _habeas corpus_ brought him before Lord Mansfield, the
very judge whose opinion had been most strongly expressed in opposition
to that entertained by Granville Sharp on the subject of slavery.
Lord Mansfield discharged the negro, because no evidence was adduced
to show that he was ever nominally the property of the man who claimed
him; but the great question of liberty or slavery remained as undecided
as before. At this time the slave-trade was carried on openly in the
streets of London, Bristol, and Liverpool.
Negro slavery was enforced by merchants, supported by lawyers, and
upheld by judges; and that a clerk in a public office, without personal
influence, and armed, only with integrity and moral courage, should,
under such circumstances, assert, and, in the end, should prove, that
the slave who sets his foot on British ground becomes at that instant
free, is one of the most striking incidents in modern history.
An opportunity for bringing the conflicting opinions to an issue soon
occurred. A negro named James Somerset had been taken to England and
left there by his master, who afterwards wished to send him back to
Jamaica. Sharp found counsel to defend the negro, and Lord Mansfield
intimated that the case was one of such general concern, that he should
take the opinions of all the judges upon it. The case was adjourned
and readjourned, and was carried over from term to term; but at length
Lord Mansfield declared the court to be clearly of opinion that “the
claim of slavery never can be supported in England; that the power
claimed never was in use in England nor acknowledged by law; and
that, therefore, the man James Somerset, must be discharged.” By this
judgment, the slave-trade in England was effectually abolished.
History affords no nobler picture than that of Granville Sharp.
Standing alone, opposed to the opinions of the ablest lawyers, and the
most rooted prejudices and customs of the times; fighting unassisted
the most memorable battle for the constitution of his country, and for
the liberties of British subjects, and by his single exertions gaining
a most memorable victory.
On the 1st of August, 1838, eight hundred thousand African bondmen were
made fully and unconditionally free; an act of legislation the most
magnanimous and sublime in the annals of British history. Although the
enemies of emancipation had predicted that murder and pillage would
follow such an act, the conduct of the freed people was everything that
the most ardent friends of the Negro could wish.
On the evening of the day preceding that which witnessed the actual
bestowment of the inestimable boon on the apprentices of Jamaica,
the towns and missionary stations throughout the Island were crowded
with people especially interested in the event, and who, filling the
different places of worship, remained in some instances performing
different acts of devotion until the day of liberty dawned, when they
saluted it with the most joyous acclamations. Others, before and
after similar services, dispersed themselves in different directions
throughout the town and villages, singing the national anthem and
devotional hymns, occasionally rending the air with their acclamations
of “Freedom’s come! We’re free, we’re free; our wives and our children
are free!”
The conduct of the newly-emancipated peasantry everywhere, would have
done credit to Christians of the most civilized country in the world.
Their behavior was modest, unassuming, civil, and obliging to each
other as members of one harmonious family.
Many of the original stock of slaves had been imported from amongst the
Mandingoes, and Foulahs, from the banks of the Senegal, the Gambia,
and the Rio Grande, the most refined and intellectual of the African
tribes; and from the Congoes of Upper and Lower Guinea, the most
inferior of the African race. The latter class brought with them all
the vices and superstitions of their native land, and these had been
cultivated in Jamaica.
The worst of these superstitious ideas was obeism, a species of
witchcraft employed to revenge injuries, or as a protection against
theft and murder, and in favor for gaining the love of the opposite
sex. It consisted in placing a spell or charm near the cottage of
the individual intended to be brought under its influence, or when
designed to prevent the depredations of thieves, in some conspicuous
part of the house, or on a tree; it was signified by a calabash or
gourd, containing among other ingredients, a combination of different
colored rags, cats’ teeth, parrots’ feathers, toads’ feet, egg-shells,
fish-bones, snakes’ teeth, and lizards’ tails.[45]
Terror immediately seized upon the individual who beheld it, and
either by resigning himself to despair, or by the secret communication
of poison, in most cases death was the inevitable consequence. Similar
to the influence of this superstition was that of their solemn curses
pronounced upon thieves, but which would be too tedious to detail here.
All of the Negro physicians of the olden times professed to have the
gift of obeism, and were feared far more than they were loved.
Dreams and visions constituted fundamental articles of their religious
creed. Some supernatural revelations were regarded as indispensable
to qualify for admission to the full privileges of their community.
Candidates were required, indeed, to dream a certain number of dreams
before they were received to membership, the subjects of which were
given them by their teachers.
The meetings of this fraternity were frequently prolonged through
nearly half the night. The ministers enjoined on their followers the
duty of fasting one or two days in the week, and encouraged a weekly
meeting at each other’s houses, alternately, to drink “hot water”
out of white tea-cups (the whole of the tea-table paraphernalia
corresponding), which they designated by the absurd and inappropriate
epithet of “breaking the peace.” To such a deplorable extent did
they carry these superstitious practices, and such was the degree of
ignorance on the part of both minister and people, that, in the absence
of better information as to what was to be sung in their religious
assemblies, they were in the habit of singing the childish story of
“The house that Jack built.”
The missionaries, and especially the Baptists, who had been laboring
against great disadvantages before the abolition of slavery, now that
the curse was out of the way, did a noble work for the freed people.
The erection of chapels all through the Island soon changed the moral
and social condition of the blacks, as well as gave them a right idea
of Christian duty.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] “Jamaica, Past and Present.” Phillippo.
[43] Phillippo.
[44] Phillippo.
[45] “Jamaica, Past and Present.” Phillippo.