THE KESWICK DELEGATES—MISS SARAH WALKER—HAYTIAN CANNIBALISM
There were two persons, however, whose arrival by the _Port Antonio_
was looked for with feelings of great expectation by a certain class of
people living in this island, and whose ministrations, I fancy, have
since resulted in airing certain questions which perhaps required to
see daylight. These were two delegates from the Keswick Conference. The
latter, I believe, is a yearly gathering of Evangelicals at home, and
is attended by nonconformists and a certain section of Low Churchmen.
Possibly the preaching which one identifies with this particular school
of thought, though it is not one which appeals to me, may be adapted to
the black and coloured people who attend the numerous dissenting chapels
which are to be found all over the West Indies. Indeed the negro is
naturally pious, or, to put it in plain English, superstitious. I believe
Professor Huxley has shown that this is invariably the case with savage
or undeveloped races. Be it as it may, I am quite willing to concede that
whatever agency has been at work to influence these people, who two or
three centuries ago were offering up human sacrifices and practising
the most hideous and revolting rites in the backwoods of West Africa, to
say nothing of their semi-savagery when emancipated in 1834, has been a
powerful influence for good. The negro is stupid, but his evolution is
going on apace compared with the slow development of many races.
The court-house of Mandeville is visible from my window, and to-day
the petty cases of a large surrounding district are being tried. I
have enquired what are the offences which generally come before the
magistrates on these occasions. I was told from trustworthy sources
that murder is most rare amongst the blacks, the cases tried being
mostly petty larceny, property, or commercial disputes. Local squabbles
are often settled by a clergyman, or dissenting minister, before being
brought into court.
I asked if there were many cases of matrimonial ill-treatment or
quarrelling, and was met by the reply, “They don’t marry here.”
Unfortunately this is largely a fact, and constitutes a great blemish
on the character of the Jamaican black. When one hears, however, the
question discussed, one can hardly blame a hard-working negro woman (and
most of them are that) for refusing to marry if the practical result of
marriage, as it affects her, is that sooner or later she will have to
keep her husband as well as her children.
Persons who have had experience with these women tell me that the
instinct of maternity is the strongest they have—to them childlessness
is a reproach. When they do marry they are generally faithful, but the
lot which a black woman dreads more than any other is that of being a
deserted wife. “Me get tired of him, sah, and he get tired of me,” is a
very natural excuse when the parson endeavours to legalise the bond. We
know such things as husbands and wives getting tired of each other occur
in our own land; the negress voices what many a white woman feels. In
considering this subject—for, like the poor, it is ever with you in these
parts—one must bear in mind that in slavery times the blacks were herded
together like cattle on the estates. Enthusiastic reformers forget that
it may take generations to eradicate their hereditary promiscuity of life.
Nobody who sees these women stride along, often walking twenty miles
to the nearest market town, with baskets on their heads weighing
occasionally upwards of a hundred pounds, could think them lazy,
especially when one knows how poor are the weekly returns for their
merchandise, which consists chiefly of home-grown yams, sweet potatoes,
oranges and bananas.
An American told me he was going to Kingston by the electric tram.
Beside him sat a well-dressed negro, wearing a silver watch and chain. A
black woman, carrying an enormous basket heavily filled on her head, ran
alongside the tram, which had slowed down. The two were talking, the man
from the tram, she from the road.
“Is that your wife?” he asked the man in surprise.
“Yes, sah! dat my wife, sah,” replied he.
“You lazy fellow, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” exclaimed the
American indignantly. “Why don’t you let your wife ride and you walk?” he
further blurted out.
“Please, sah, the women, sah, ’bout here be so kind, sah!”
apologetically explained the negro in an injured voice.
This episode sufficiently illustrates the conditions of the division of
labour amongst a large proportion of the emancipated Jamaican population.
The Moravians have large settlements in the island as well as other
dissenting bodies; but where all work together for the spiritual good of
the race whom Providence has permitted to flourish and multiply in these
islands it would be a work of supererogation for me to criticise their
methods.
Speaking from the point of view of a fellow-passenger, one of the
delegates sent out by the Keswick Convention was an interesting
personality. His writings and undenominational services in South London
are, I am told, well-known in nonconformist circles.
He is a tall, white-haired, venerable-looking man, and when I first
caught sight of his face at Avonmouth Dock, I was forcibly reminded
of a picture of the Pastor Oberlin who figured in one of my favourite
story-books, when, as children, we had certain literature set apart for
Sundays, other for week-days. I had several conversations with him, and I
thought him to be both liberal-minded and sympathetic. He seemed to hold
that the most important thing in life was not so much what one believed
as what one did.
It was interesting to hear this evangelistic missioner tell how he had
been brought up in the straightest and strictest school of thought, and
how he had himself preached and held the most rigid doctrines as to
who were to be saved and who were to be eternally damned. But travel,
he said, had opened his eyes, and he now saw things from a far wider
standpoint. It appears he had held many conversations with advanced and
cultivated Hindoos, and he could not bring himself to believe that such
beautiful souls and such refined intelligences could be doomed for ever,
because they could not accept gospel truths. Personally, I have never
been troubled by the teachings of such a harsh creed, but I can imagine
the trial it must have been to a man of firm convictions to sever himself
for ever from life-long beliefs, which, no doubt, he had preached and
expounded time after time. He told me that he was going to hold meetings
in different parts of Jamaica for a month. I have since read in the
island papers that his sermons have been of the revivalistic order, and
that the meetings have been well attended. His colleague, a clergyman
of the Church of England, was by no means a _persona grata_ on board
ship. His religious views belonged to that exclusive and narrow school
of thought in the Church of England, which happily does not find many
adherents nowadays. In an extract from a sermon which he preached at
Kingston, some weeks after his arrival, I read that he lamented how few
people there were who would be saved! In these days of latitudinarianism
and toleration there is no reason why peculiarly constituted temperaments
should not cling to obsolete and effete doctrines if they like them, but
it seems to me, whatever our creed may be, and however much we wish to
benefit our fellows, without exercising tact, we shall do more harm than
good.
This delegate from Keswick evidently thought his fellow-passengers were
in a bad way, for he offered uninviting-looking religious literature
to those who conversed with him; but an amusing incident in which he
was chief actor quite enlivened the tediousness of the voyage. The
charming American lady, of whom I have already spoken, was invited into
the smoking-room one stormy afternoon by two gentlemen in order to tell
their fortunes by means of palmistry. Probably this zealous clergyman
had already mentally decided that she was a brand to be snatched from
the burning. Although a non-smoker he confronted her, and with Hibernian
eloquence harangued her as to the impropriety of her conduct in entering
those precincts sacred to the cult of tobacco. It would perhaps be
wiser to draw a veil over the sequel to his somewhat precipitate and
uncalled-for interference. Needless to say, his own sex resented it in
words which I decline to insert in these pages. At the same time one
feels that it would be beneficial and a distinct gain to society at
large if some of the well-meaning but indiscreet upholders of exclusive
cults would consider the feelings of others and behave to those whose
path crosses their own with, at least, that generous toleration and
spontaneous kind-heartedness which characterises well-bred men and women
of the world. The influence of a high-minded, genial Englishman who is
too proud to stoop to meanness of any description, but who does not shun
his fellows because their moral status is not up to his own level, is
far greater than that of the narrow-minded but “superior” religionist
who looks down upon a sinful generation from the pedestal of an assured
salvation. It may be that the latter stands ready to reach out a hand to
help up his less favoured brethren, that is, from his own standpoint,
but often the out-stretched hand is a rough one, the face bending down
towards the sinner is uninviting in its cold, harsh expression, and the
soul that might have been helped plunges back into the strife of the
waters of worldliness preferring them to a joyless, uncongenial sanctity.
These gentlemen sent out by the Keswick Convention have finished their
mission, and, in justice to both, I have pleasure in saying that it is
evident their meetings have been much appreciated. This very morning I
held a long conversation with a lady of mahogany complexion, who spoke
rapturously of their preaching in this place. She walked by my side
quite half a mile during my matutinal walk before breakfast. Miss Sarah
Walker—that was her name—informed me besides that she was unmarried, and
lived with an aunt not very distant from Mandeville. I asked what her age
might be.
“Thirty-one, mem,” she replied.
“How do you get your living?” I asked, smiling at the pride she evidently
felt at being engaged in conversation with a white lady, evidenced by the
consciousness of superiority she assumed over her black sisters, who were
not so honoured, and who passed on either side of us, listening politely
to our conversation.
“I sit in de market, mem, and sell cakes.”
“I think you all seem very well off round here,” I ventured.
“Oh no, mem; there are some very poor people round ’bout,” she assured me.
“But they all have coffee or oranges to sell?” I queried.
“Yes, mem; but all de summer dey get so little for der coffee, only
trepence or twopence a pound, and only one and trepence for a large
barrel of oranges, bery little indeed.” I had already learnt that agents
from the United Fruit Company buy up all the produce of the smaller
cultivators in this district.
“They are so poor, mem, dey can’t pay de taxes,” she proceeded to inform
me.
“What happens then?” I enquired.
“Den dey goes to prison, mem, or sometimes get time given dem to make up
what dey can’t pay.”
“I suppose you have to pay rent too,” I suggested.
“No, mem; we live in our own house and only pay taxes, twelve shillings
and twopence ebbery year, six and a penny ebbery six munts; we go up and
pay it at de Court House.”
I elicited from her that she and her family had always lived in Jamaica,
that once or twice she had been to Kingston, but what amused me most was
her conversation upon dress.
“Bery good stuff, mem,” said she, pointing to the gown which scarcely
covered her knees. “I gave one and trepence a yard, and it cost four
shillins for making. Last year it was Sunday frock, but when it wast it
swinked up.”
“I see! You like a smart frock for Sundays?” I volunteered, having learnt
that the first day of the week is special frock competition day amongst
the negresses. This woman was very superior to some I met in my morning
walks, who generally said, “Good morning, missus.” Probably she had at
one time been a domestic servant and had learnt to say “mem” for “ma’am.”
“Oh yes, mem, dat’s our pride; we all dress ’spectable on Sunday to go to
church. Work ebbery day, but _live for Sunday_.” She looked radiant at
the mere thought of it.
On my return I was told that the desire to cut a fine figure every
Sabbath day is the key to the labour question in Jamaica.
The negroes can live on yams, which grow in their gardens and require no
trouble to cultivate, but they must work to buy the dresses good enough
to wear on Sunday. On week-days they go barefoot. On Sunday they screw
themselves into tight-fitting garments and into new, squeaking boots,
which, if the way be long, they take off, and put on just before going
into church or chapel. To be dressed smartly and go to church once a week
is the highest aim of the black’s life.
The fact that any white woman can ride or walk in any part of the island,
either by day or by night, in perfect safety, is in itself testimony
of the highest worth to the civilising agencies at work, let them be
Moravian, Wesleyan, Roman or Anglican. The black under British rule is
not an unworthy subject of the Empire; but left to himself, and to the
workings of his own sweet will, he might perhaps revert to a state of
savagery. One has only to consider the condition of the island of Hayti
to see the probability of such a contingency.
I had read Chevalier St John’s book on “The Black Republic,” in which
he mentions the cannibalistic habits of these islanders, before I left
home. On two separate occasions I have since been told that the killing
and eating of small children is quite a common thing, although still
denied by better-class Haytians. Each of my informers were officers of
ships bound for Haytian ports. There they had seen human flesh exposed
for sale in the public markets. The buyers of this horrible commodity
significantly ask for “salt pork.” One man told me he had been taken by
a Haytian of the better class to a spot at night, within forty yards of
a grove, where children were being sacrificed according to the Voodhoo
rites, which their ancestors practised centuries ago in the forest
fastnesses of Western Africa. It was at the risk of his life. He had
been unable to see the horrid rites which take place before the child
was actually tomahawked, but he heard its shrieks when tortured. Great
mystery surrounds the Voodhoo worship, and never, so far, has an European
been known to be present at the ceremonies which take place before a
human sacrifice. My informer told me that instead of dreading this
fate for their children, the mothers were proud that their particular
offspring should be chosen for the sacrifice.
In connection with the Haytian Voodhoo worship, I was lent an old French
manuscript by an American. It had been written about one hundred and
fifty years ago, and professed to be the confessions under compulsion of
a Haytian negress as to the practice of the most degrading and loathsome
black magic which then prevailed in the island. Whether this continues at
present I am unable to say, but they still have the custom of smearing
the blood of freshly-killed infants over the bodies of childless women to
make them bear children. Every savage race, doubtless, at one particular
stage of its development dabbled in mystic and bloody rites, just as
every land, where prehistoric traces of man’s existence have been found,
has had its Stone Age, its kitchen-middens, etc. There is a wonderful
similarity in the doings in their infancy of the world’s different races,
just in the same way as all children, black, brown, and white, learn to
walk before they run; but to my mind it is an interesting study to see
what two hundred years more or less of that which we call civilisation
has produced upon a race very low down upon the evolutionary ladder.
Possibly the Tierra del Fuegans and the Mincopies of the Andamans are
upon the lowest rung, but I do not think an anthropologist would put the
negroid races much higher up.