The freeing of the slaves came in the second quarter of the nineteenth
century. Think of it, not ninety years ago! And a short time before
Matthew Lewis wrote--
“The higher classes are in the utmost alarm at rumours of Wilberforce's
intention to set the negroes entirely free; the next step to which would
be in all probability a general massacre of the whites, and a second
edition of the horrors of St Domingo.”
It must have been with some misgivings then, that the great day dawned
when the slaves were not exactly set free, but made apprentices for a
short time to accustom them to this new-found freedom.
And the apprenticeship seems to have been a ghastly failure. It took
away from the slave the protection of the well-meaning master who could
not afford to spend lavishly upon property, to whose services in a very
short time he would have no right, and it left him entirely at the mercy
of the man who had no conscience, and who simply set out to get as much
as he could out of the slave while he was in his power.
Even England was doubtful as to the effect of her step, and she sent out
certain magistrates who were looked upon with suspicion by the planter,
and only by definitely siding with the white man in all disputes were
they agreeable to the ruling classes. A Dr Madden is one of these, and
his description of life in Jamaica is graphic, though when I read how
he had to part with his little boy, whose life he dared not risk in so
perilous a climate, and then of the long voyage to the other end of the
earth, I see how far those ninety years have taken us.
Lady Nugent, writing about a quarter of a century before, was great
on the deadly climate of Jamaica. She goes to Moneymusk, which then
belonged to a widow, with whom were staying two other ladies, also
widows. “Alas,” writes Lady Nugent, “how often in this country do we
see these unfortunate beings.” (Mrs Sympson of Moneymusk doesn't seem
to have deserved this epithet. The estate was managed by her, and
apparently well managed.) “Women rarely lose their health, but men as
rarely kept theirs.” She doesn't put two and two together, though she
is always referring to poor Jamaica as “this horrid country,” “this
deceitful, dreadful climate.” Certainly the number of deaths among
those around her, presumably her friends, was a little appalling. But
considering that she herself called attention to the way the people
ate--and drank--I don't know why she should have blamed the climate.
Things hadn't improved when Madden came on the scene nearly a
generation later. The amount of drink a gentleman consumed at dinner was
astonishing.
“Half a bottle of Madera or so,” he writes sarcastically, “can never do
a man any harm in a hot climate, and sangaree and brandy and water are
all necessary to keep up his strength, for people of all countries are
the best judges of the mode of living in their own climate.”
This kindly magistrate took too much interest in the slave to have been
quite acceptable to the planter of that day, who seems still to have
regarded the negro as belonging to a lower order of creation and liked
to feel that he--the negro--owed all benefits to the kindly indulgence
of his master.
He attended on one occasion a Baptist chapel in Kingston where the
minister was a negro of the name of Kellick--“A pious, well-behaved,
honest man, who in point of intelligence and the application of
scriptural knowledge to the ordinary duties of his calling and the
business of life, might stand a comparison with many more highly
favoured, by the advantages of their education and standing in society.
I was first induced to attend this man's chapel from motives of
curiosity, not unmixed I fear with feelings of contempt for its black
parson; I confess after I had heard him for a short while expound the
scriptures, and prescribe to his congregation (all of whom were negroes
like himself) on their duties as Christian subjects and members of
society, and then his earnest and humble petition to the Almighty for a
blessing on his little flock, and the hymn which closed the service,
in which the congregation joined in one loud but very far indeed from
discordant strain, I felt, if the pomp and circumstance of religious
worship were wanting here to enlist the senses on the side of devotion,
there were motives in this place, and an influence in the ministry of
this man (however he might have been called to it, or by what forms
fitted for its duties) which were calculated to induce the white man who
came to scoff to remain to pray.”
This of a man who but quite recently must have risen from slavery. He
received from the contributions of his congregation about £100 a year,
which it was understood was for the upkeep of the chapel as well. Madden
thought it very little, but Madden is a nice man with large ideas, and
I feel sure the Rev. Kellick was not only quite satisfied with what he
received, but intensely proud of the position he held. As indeed he had
every right to be. He had come a long, long way by a very thorny path.
Madden gives the usual account of the negroes. “Generally speaking, the
negroes of the present day have all the vices of slaves. It cannot be
denied that they are addicted to lying, prone to dissimulation, and
inclined to dishonesty....” Now what else I wonder did they expect of a
slave. But he goes on to say that in the late rebellion--of 1881-32--“In
no instance did the negro swerve from his fidelity to his comrades; in
not a single instance was the name of the real author of that rebellion
disclosed. I venture to intimate that even the rebellious negro has a
sentiment of honour in his breast when he encounters death rather than
betray one of his accomplices. I hazard an opinion that humanity has
its impulses in his heart, when he shelters his fugitive countryman,
and shares his last morsel of bread with him rather than turn the
outlaw from his door, and save himself from the fearful consequences of
harbouring a runaway.”
It seems strange that ninety years ago it had to be explained to the
civilised world that the negro was like other men, capable of great
heights and abominable depths. That a little more than a hundred
years ago, so great was the prejudice against colour that a man whose
grandmother had been a negress was not allowed to be a constable,
could not inherit property beyond the value of £1200 sterling, nor give
evidence in criminal cases.
“It was the fashion,” writes Madden, “to regard him with jealousy and
distrust, as a rebel in disguise, who was to be branded as such on all
plausible occasions.”
But though the laws might prevent a coloured man from inheriting money,
they did not prevent his making it, and when he himself became a slave
owner a very curious state of affairs arose. The danger of slave risings
was always present, and the coloured planters like the white had to have
on their estates “deficiency men,” white men, one for every ten slaves.
But so strong was the feeling on the question of colour that these
men whom their necessities compelled to take service with the sons or
grandsons of slaves, declined to sit at meat with them. The owner had to
have a side table set for himself, while his white servants sat at the
principal one.
And the coloured people came into existence so naturally.
At first, as we have seen, many of the planters for very good reasons
never brought their wives to their estates. Then again, overseers,
book-keepers, and other employees could not afford to marry; they came
to the country, and there were many it was said at the beginning of the
last century who might be in the country over a dozen years without ever
speaking to a white woman. What more natural than that they should form
alliances with the good-looking daughters of the slaves who were under
them. Such connections were looked upon with approval by the owners and
attorneys. A white man was always bothered to take a wife, at least so I
gather from the perusal of old stories of Jamaica.
“Why massa no take him one wife like oder buckras? Dere is little
Daphne would make him one good wife--dere is one Diana--dere is little
Venus--dere is him Mary Magalene, an' dere is him Phoebe.”
Sometimes it was the other way round and he couldn't get a wife, for
if there was a prejudice against a man the word went forth in the slave
quarters, and not a girl would look at him.
Very naturally being Christians did not affect this relationship. No
white man would really marry a dark girl were she beautiful as the
rising dawn. A white lover meant advancement in a coloured girl's world,
and she in her turn often gained great influence over the man who had
chosen her. Indeed the majority of these women were faithful, tender
and loving. They were not always the wisest of housekeepers, I am
afraid--how should they be--and the Great House so managed was apt to
be dirty, untidy, wasteful, slatternly. Its mistress had never seen
anything better, had seldom had a chance to train.
The position grew to be accepted as the best for a coloured girl,
infinitely preferable to that of matrimony with one of her own shade.
There was no loss of caste, indeed the girl gained by being associated
with the white man. It came to be that the man would give a bond to pay
down a certain sum upon his marrying or leaving the island to the girl
he had chosen for his temporary mate, and it not infrequently happened
that this sum was so great that he was virtually unable ever to leave
her. They say that many a coloured man made such a bargain for his
daughter.
But this was in the days when life was easier for the slave, when a
coloured man had some rights, even though no white man would sit at meat
with him or marry his daughter.
It was sometimes very hard on the children of such alliances. Madden
gives a vivid account of a visit he paid to an estate that had belonged
to an uncle of his, and that had been mismanaged and gone to wrack and
ruin.
“I arrived at the ruined works of Marly after a fatiguing ride of five
hours in the wildest district of St Mary's Mountains,” he writes. “The
dwelling-house was situated on a mountain eminence” (they always are)
“about two hundred feet above the works, the remains of a little garden
that had probably been planted by the old proprietor was still visible
on the only level spot in front of the house, a few fruit trees only
remained, but it seemed from the place that had been enclosed, and was
marked by a long line of scattered stones, the soil that was now covered
with weeds had been formerly laid out in flower plots. In going from
the ruined works to the house, I missed my road amidst the rank verdure
which nearly obliterated every trace of a path; so that I traversed a
considerable part of the property without meeting a human being. The
negro huts at some distance from the house were all uninhabited; the
roofs of them had tumbled in, and had the appearance of being long
unoccupied. The negro boy who accompanied me was very anxious for me to
return to Claremont, and said it was no good to walk about such a place,
buckras all dead, niggers all dead too, no one lived there but duppies
and Obeah men. It was certainly as suitable a place for such folk as one
could well imagine. I proceeded, however, to the house and went through
the ceremony of knocking at the door, but received no answer; the door
was ajar and 1 took the liberty of walking into the house of my old
uncle.
“The room I entered was in keeping with the condition of the exterior,
every plank in the naked room was crumbling to decay. I opened one of
the side doors, and, to my great surprise, I perceived two women as
white as any inhabitants of any southern climates, and tolerably well
clad, standing at an opposite window, evidently alarmed at my intrusion.
I soon explained to them the nature of my visit, and requested
permission to rest for a short time after my fatiguing journey. In a few
minutes two other young females and a very old mulatto woman of a bright
complexion made their appearance from an adjoining room, and what was my
surprise at learning that the two youngest were the natural daughters
of Mr Gordon, the person who purchased the property out of Chancery, the
two others, the daughters of my uncle, Mr Theodosius Lyons, and the old
woman their mother! The eldest of her daughters was about forty years
of age, the other probably a year or two younger; and the resemblance of
one of them to some members of my family was so striking that the moment
her name was mentioned I had no difficulty in recognising her origin.
The poor women were delighted to see a person who called himself a
relation of their father; but with the feeling there was evidently a
good deal of suspicion mingled as to the motives of my visit, and of
apprehensions that I had come there for the purpose of taking possession
of the property; and all I could say to remove this impression was
certainly thrown away, on the old woman at least.
“I do not wonder at it, for they had received nothing but bad treatment
from those who ought to have been kind to them, as well as from
strangers for nearly forty years since the death of their natural
protector, who dying suddenly left them utterly unprovided for. They
were left free, but that was all. One son, however, was not left free;
and that young man was sold with the rest of the movable property of the
estate when it was sold in Chancery. The aged and infirm negroes were
then left on the estate; but a few years ago these poor creatures who
had grown old on the property and had expended the strength of their
young days on its cultivation, and who imagined that they would have
been allowed to have laid their bones where their friends and relatives
were buried, were carried away by the creditors and actually sold for
three or four dollars a head.”
“Who,” Madden asks, “in the face of such circumstances as these will
tell me that slavery in these colonies was productive of no oppression
in recent times, or was the occasion of no injustices?” He dilates on
the undoubted fact that many a West Indian proprietor could not be got
to look upon Jamaica as his home. He wanted to get as much money as he
could out of the estate, and then to retire to his native land. So all
improvements were grudged, “The Great House fell into decay, the roads
were left without any adequate repair, the plantation was cultivated for
its present advantages and without regard for its prospective ones;
and the system of labour exacted from the negroes was productive of
circumstances, which the proprietor considered in combination with the
other discomforts of his situation, were unsuitable to the condition of
a woman of refinement accustomed to the enjoyments of English society.”
He speaks very highly of the coloured mistresses; although he deplores
such connections, and says: “They cannot be defended, but I think the
victims of the state of things which led to them are more deserving of
pity than of reproach. I do not remember to have heard of the fidelity
of anyone of these persons being called into question. In the periods
of their prosperity they know their situation, and demean themselves
accordingly. In their adversity, when death or pecuniary embarrassments
deprive them of the protection they may have had for many years, their
industry and frugality deserve the highest praise.”
The 1st of August 1834, the day when the slaves passed from slavery to a
position of apprenticeship, was looked forward to in Jamaica with dread
on the part of the whites, and, says Madden, with extravagant hopes by
the blacks. But it passed. The servile race made one little step upward,
and not a single riot occurred in the island, “not a single man, woman
or child was butchered to make a negro holiday.” As a matter of fact,
the negroes went to church.
“I visited three of the sectarian chapels on the 1st of August,” says
Madden, “during the morning, mid-day, and evening services; and I was
greatly gratified at the pains that were taken to make the negroes
sensible of the nature of the change that had taken place in their
condition, and the great benefits they had to show their gratitude for,
under Him Who had brought them out of bondage, to their benefactors both
at home and in England, who expected of them to be good Christians, good
citizens, and good servants.”
He does indeed recall one little incident. A drunken sailor was
tormented by some small black boys. They threw stones at him, and as
he reeled after them they scampered away, shouting most lustily to each
other.
“What for you run away? We all free now. Buckra can't catch we. Hurra
for fuss of Augus! hi! hi! fuss of Augus! hurra for fuss of Augus!”
On that night, too, there was a grand ball given by the black and brown
people, to which the General and his Staff were invited. “Miss Quashaba,
belonging to Mr C., led off with Mr Cupid, belonging to Mr M., while Mrs
Juno, belonging to Mr P., received the blacks and buckras.”
It took a long while to shake off the shackles.
Besides, we must never forget there was a kindly side to slavery. Many
of the white people took a great interest in their slaves, and at the
slave balls many a slave girl was decked out in her mistress's jewels.
Indeed, there was much competition among the ladies as to whose
waiting-maid should make the best show.
They received instruction, too, these slaves, and sometimes the
instruction given was extraordinary enough. Madden tells how on one
occasion a girl was brought before him to give evidence against a fellow
apprentice. He asked if she knew the nature of an oath, and her mistress
was a little hurt that a girl of seventeen, who had been in her charge
for so long, should be asked such a question. Nevertheless, he
persisted in asking the question, and the girl replied, to the no
small discomfiture of her mistress and the surprise of the crowded
Court--“Massa, if me swear false my belly would burst, my face would be
scratched, and my fingers would drop off!” And Madden dismissed the case
for want of better testimony, though really, I think, if the girl feared
such unpleasant things would happen to her if she lied, he might have
trusted her to tell the truth. But that, I am aware, is a very modern
view.
Slavery was abolished for good and all in 1838. The intention,
when Madden came to the island, was to abolish it in 1840, but
the apprenticeship which was substituted seems to have been very
unsatisfactory, and I have read books by Quaker and Baptist missionaries
which are full of the suffering of the freed slaves under these
conditions. Up till 1734 the owners had the right to punish their slaves
by mutilation, which, of course, often meant death, but though it was
abolished, there are many ways, as we have seen, of making the life of
a slave unbearable. If the apprentice did not please his master he sent
him to the nearest workhouse, and many are the ghastly tales of the
tired men and women worked in the tread-mill. It takes a long, long
while for mercy and pity and kindly friendliness to make its way.
Madden shows us too a side of slavery which I confess had not struck me.
“The law, as it now stands,” he writes, “does permit the father to hold
his own son in bondage, and the son to demand the wages of slavery
from his own mother, and to claim the services of his own sister as his
bondswoman. These horrors are not merely possible contingencies that may
be heard of occasionally; they are actual occurrences, two of which came
before me within the last three months.
“A Jew of this town had a young mulatto man taken up for refusing to pay
wages. It turned out that these wages were demanded from his own son,
his child by one of his negro slaves.... I most reluctantly fixed for
that obdurate father the wages of a son's slavery, but in amount the
lowest sum I had ever ordered.”
And it was not always the whites who were the unkind and grasping
masters. A free 'black' came before him on one occasion, claiming the
services of a runaway slave and her four children.
She had been absent for many months, and in support of his claim the
plaintiff adduced the fact that she was his sister, the daughter of his
own mother, and that both mother and daughter had been bequeathed to
him, and the mother had died in slavery. The astonished magistrate
puts it on record that he could hardly believe his own ears. Only,
unfortunately, there was no manner of doubt as to the legality of his
claim.
But Madden was something of a Solomon. He told the woman she must
prepare to go back, they were all slaves, or at least apprentices except
the youngest, who was not six years of age, but he would defer giving
his decision for a couple of days, so that as many of the coloured
population of Kingston as possible might be afforded the opportunity of
witnessing the event. The claimant in vain protested that he was quite
willing to receive back his slaves without any such public ceremony, but
the magistrate was adamant. He assured the claimant that no pains would
be spared to give the decision in his favour all the solemnity which the
utmost publicity could give it. There was such a buzz of approval in
the Court that the master was in little doubt as to what would happen
a couple of days later, so he said he thought of giving the woman her
liberty, or at any rate allowing her to buy it at a very low rate, but
the children he would have, and no price would induce him to relinquish
his claim to them. The poor mother looked the picture of despair. He
should have them, declared the just magistrate; it should be out of the
power of any human being in Jamaica for the future to dispute his claim
or to call in question the title by which he had held his own mother in
slavery till the day of her death. The Court was with the magistrate
and against the black slave-holder, for at last he said in a low tone
he would give his sister her freedom, and Madden promptly drew up the
manumission paper. But when the black man read it over he refused to
sign. Madden made a dramatic scene of it. He knew he had the sympathy of
the Court for the woman.
“I was in the act of tearing up the document when the audible groans of
his own people induced him again to take the paper. I allowed myself to
be persuaded to let him have it--the paper was in his hand--humanity did
not guide it but shame did--he signed the paper, and never was there a
manumission performed with so bad a grace.”
The man still claimed the children, but he had to deal with not only a
very kindly man, but a very wise one, whose heart was full of pity for
the poor mother, who evidently had no faith in the kindliness of her
brother. The two little boys, mulattoes of seven and eight--the oldest
the man had already--clung terrified to their mother, and the magistrate
had them and the complainant placed before the bench “to prevent any
sudden disappearance.” Then, with the wisdom of the serpent, he began
to praise this man's generosity, “to extol his humanity and to put his
heart on the best of terms with itself,” and finally he got the freedom
of those two little children. Clever, kind, Dr Madden!
In contrast to this black man he tells the story of a Mr Anderson, from
whom he desired to buy the freedom of a slave, an Arabic scholar, a man
who had come from the hinterland of the Guinea Coast, from Timbuctoo,
was well born, and had had such an education as that town afforded.
Madden hoped to raise the money by public subscription, for he could not
afford it himself, for this was a very exceptional man, worth over £300.
“Say no more,” said his master at once. The man had been a good servant
to him--a faithful and a good negro--and he would take no money for
him--he would give him his liberty!
“I pressed him to name any reasonable sum for his release but he
positively refused to receive one farthing in the way of indemnity for
the loss of that man's services!”
It is refreshing to read such a story.
How much slavery was liked we may judge from the fact that even now with
freedom within a few years of them--six at the very most--many a slave
was anxious to purchase his freedom from the apprenticeship system. He
had to apply to the special justice, and he called upon the master to
appoint a local magistrate, and the two magistrates meeting, named a
third, who must also be a local magistrate, two for the master and
one for the slave; and then according to the age, sex, health, and
occupation of the slave in question they decided his value. The amount
to be adjudicated was left entirely to the discretion of the magistrates
without reference to any scale of valuation, and in some instances the
valuation rose to £170 “a sum which no negro certainly has sold for for
many a long year in Jamaica,” says Madden.
As a rule, according to Madden, the value of a slave did not run so
high. He says, in all eighty apprentices obtained their freedom
before him either by valuation or by mutual agreement, and the average
valuation was £25. It does not seem much for the services of a man, even
if it were only for four years. In one instance, a tradesman was valued
at £80, but as a rule the price ranged between £16 and £35. Madden says
he attended a great many slave sales, and has never seen a negro sell
for more than £30.
When slaves were condemned to death for any offences, it was
extraordinary the value their masters put upon them. At first £40 was
considered ample indemnity, but it rose, till at last £180 sterling
was asked from the public funds for indemnity for a slave condemned to
death.
“This indemnity,” says Madden, “ought to be abolished, it is a bonus on
negro executions,” And he cites a case in which an owner received £605
for his executed slaves, “however little he might have desired to
have profited by such means, while for as many living negroes when
the compensation is paid, he will receive from the British Government
probably about £240.”
Peace did not come with the apprenticeship. The planters seem to have
resented it immensely, and feeling ran high. Their first act was to take
from the negroes all those allowances and customary gratuities which
were not literally specified in the new law. They were free--well, they
should see what freedom was like.
Then after the 1st of August, according to Madden, there were various
outrages committed not by the negroes but by the whites upon the blacks,
and it was exceedingly hard to get a conviction.
“A planter,” he writes, “has been indicted for shooting at an old woman,
and after wounding her severely, discharging the second barrel at her,
but fortunately without effect. The grand jury ignored the bill.
“Another gentleman was indicted for an outrage on a sick negro woman. The
grand jury ignored the bill.
“Another planter was indicted for the murder of his negro by shooting
him, and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment.
“Another gentleman, an overseer, was committed to jail a few weeks ago
for the murder of a boy, by shooting at a number of negroes assembled in
a hut in the act of singing hymns. He has not yet been tried, but from
the exertions making for him I have no expectation he will be convicted.
“Another gentleman was tried... for causing one of his negroes to be
severely torn by dogs, for going without permission to bury his wife,
who had been dead three days, and who had been refused sufficient time
to prepare her coffin.
“The strenuous exertions of the Chief Justice obtained a conviction. He
was fined £100.
“But in the majority of cases convictions are not to be expected.”
How strangely it reads in these days.
Before he closes his book he goes on to analyse the price of slaves, and
arrives at the conclusion that the average price of all the slaves that
have been imported into the West Indies may be estimated at about £40
sterling.
All the sorrow, all the woe, all the long drawn-out suffering, and yet
each individual for his life might be counted as worth £40 sterling!
I have found no chronicler who describes the actual freeing in the same
graphic way as Madden told us of the apprenticeship. I think we may be
sorry for both sides.
We must pity the helpless black man who had been accustomed to guidance
all his days, adrift in a land where he owned nothing, and had not the
faintest idea either of the value of his services or the cost of his
own upkeep. We may pity the planters who had to work their estates with
labour in such an uncomfortable state of unrest.
For five and twenty years a sort of ominous peace reigned. Neither the
planters nor their whilom slaves were content. There seems to have been
a sort of feeling among the whites which is best represented as--“Well,
you've got your freedom! Now are you as well off as when as slaves we
took care of you!” And very often I am afraid they took care their black
helots should not be as well off.
Not that the coloured people did not advance. They did. But their
advancement was a threat. In the streets of untidy Kingston the coloured
and black people met and grumbled and discussed local politics at all
the street corners, the very conventicles where they went to pray were
hotbeds of discontent. It is no good saying they were ungrateful. They
were not. They had rights, but it always takes a long time to make those
who will suffer in the conferring of a great benefit understand that in
spite of their discomfort that benefit the good of the greater number,
must be conferred. I can quite understand the black people vaguely
wanting the rights they did not understand, to land, to better pay, to
education, and the white people saying--“What are we to do for service?
These people are clods. They cannot appreciate such privileges. Why make
a fuss about them?”
A planter would say--“That man!” in tones of scorn, “why, I remember him
a little yellow piccaninny, the son of my black mammy, and there he is
in a high collar and tall hat in the Assembly, laying down the law to
his betters. Damned impudence! In my father's time his back would soon
have made acquaintance with the 'cat,' That would straighten him out!”
And both coloured and white would be bitterer for the recollection.
I think there was a certain fear among the whites of the growing power
among the blacks. A desire to keep the subject race in its place.
Naturally, most naturally. I am sure had I lived in those times I should
have sided with them, for a black man, ignorant and aggrieved, and armed
with a hoe or a machete can be a very unpleasant opponent.
The brooding discontent grew and grew, fomented, said the white people
by men of the half-blood like George William Gordon, men of some
standing and education, and at last on the 11th October 1865, at Morant
Bay in the east of the island, the place where the people from Nevis
had settled in the seventeenth century, the smouldering discontent burst
into flame. The blacks rose, overwhelmed the volunteers by sheer numbers
and slew not only all the white magistrates assembled in the Courthouse,
but among them a black man who was much respected among the white people
and had risen to be a magistrate.
The tale of rebellion seems always the same. The assailed have feared
and feared, and yet when the moment comes, are taken by surprise. It was
so now. Twenty-two civilians were killed, thirty-four wounded and nearly
all the public buildings in Morant Bay were burnt down. Edward John Eyre
was Governor of Jamaica at the time.
In Australia Eyre had been a great man. Wonderfully he had explored
desolate lands; he was Protector to the Aborigines, and counted a man
who was just to colour. But Jamaica broke him.
The whites fled before the blacks in the first rush, as it has ever
been. There were women and children crouching in the wet jungle at
night, fearing for their lives, and because of those who feared, and
those who were dead, the whites gathered themselves together, proclaimed
martial law, and took ample--nay, bloody--vengeance. But martial law
was not proclaimed in Kingston, and because it was not proclaimed there,
Gordon, who had been born a slave, the son of his master, and had risen
to a place in the Assembly, was taken out of Kingston, and after a hasty
trial hanged by martial law as instigator of the rebellion on, it
is said, very scanty evidence. Under that same law 439 coloured men
suffered death--354 by sentence of the court-martial, and the others
shot by those employed in putting down the rebellion, soldiers, sailors,
and our old friends the Maroons. And after martial law ceased, 147 more
were put to death, while everywhere negro houses went up in flames.
In truth they put down that rebellion with a heavy hand, for the white
man feared the black, who outnumbered him fifty to one.
There was a storm over it in England. But it was all very well for the
people there, safe in their easy-chairs, to judge those who had quenched
the negro rebellion. Everyone of them would probably have been on the
side of Eyre had they been in Jamaica in the month of October 1865.
Many, doubtless, mourned Gordon, the champion of the black man, put to
death on such insufficient evidence. His looks may belie him, but he
does not look a philanthropist. All the white people on the island
crowded to bid Eyre farewell when he and his family left Kingston,
for they regarded the prompt measures he had taken as having saved the
country from all the horrors of a black insurrection. And in speaking of
“black” here I mean simply mob rule, the condition of affairs that must
needs prevail when the ignorant get the upper hand. Pity is forgotten,
riot and flame and bloodshed prevail. And from this Eyre undoubtedly
saved Jamaica.
Punch took his side and had a cartoon in which the shade of Palmerston
reproaches Disraeli, and says that he would never have abandoned Eyre.
“Ye savages thirsting for bloodshed and plunder,
Ye miscreants burning for rapine and prey;
By the fear of the lash and the gallows kept under
Henceforth, who shall venture to stand in your way?
Run riot, ravage, kill without pity,
Let any man how he molest you beware;
Beholding how hard the Jamaica Committee
To ruin are trying to hunt gallant Eyre,”
wrote _Punch_, and it represents the feeling of a large section of the
community, a section to which I know I should have belonged. _Punch_
does not enter into the question as to why there should be “savages
thirsting for bloodshed and plunder,” and “miscreants burning for rapine
and prey.” Those were not the question of the moment. They are questions
for all time.
We think now, we are all agreed, black and white, that there must be no
bloodshed and plunder, and there must be no section of the community to
whom such a state of things shall seem desirable.