gave the _graundee_ and the mothers a dollar each, and told them, that
for the future they might claim the same sum, in addition to their usual
allowance of clothes and provisions, for every infant which should be
brought to the overseer alive and well on the fourteenth day; and I also
gave each mother a present of a scarlet girdle with a silver medal in
the centre, telling her always to wear it on feasts and holidays, when
it should entitle her to marks of peculiar respect and attention, such
as being one of the first served, and receiving a larger portion than
the rest; that the _first_ fault which she might commit, should be
forgiven on the production of this girdle; and that when she should
have any favour to ask, she should always put it round her waist, and
be assured, that on seeing it, the overseer would allow the wearer to
be entitled to particular indulgence. On every additional child an
additional medal is to be affixed to the belt, and precedence is to
follow the greater number of medals. I expected that this notion of
an order of honour would have been treated as completely fanciful and
romantic; but to my great surprise, my manager told me, that “he never
knew a dollar better bestowed than the one which formed the medal of the
girdle, and that he thought the institution likely to have a very good
effect.”
Immediately after the christening the Eboe drums were produced, and in
defiance of Sunday the negroes had the irreverence to be gay and happy,
while the presents were getting in order for distribution. All the men
got jackets, the women seven yards of stuff each for petticoats, &c.,
and the children as much printed cotton as would make a couple of
frocks. The Creoles were delighted beyond measure when some of the
African male negroes exclaimed, “Tank, massa,” and made a low courtesy
in the confusion of their gratitude. As they were all called to receive
their presents alphabetically in pairs, some of the combinations were
very amusing. We had Punch and Plato, Priam and Pam, Hemp and Hercules,
and Minerva and Moll come together. By twelve they dispersed, and I went
to bed, as usual on these occasions, with a violent headach.
JANUARY 22.
While I was at dinner, a violent uproar was heard below stairs. On
enquiry, it proved to be Cubina, quarrelling with his niece Phillis
(a goodlooking black girl employed about the house), about a broken
pitcher; and as her explanation did not appear satisfactory to him,
he had thought proper to give her a few boxes on the ear. Upon hearing
this, I read him such a lecture upon the baseness of a man’s striking a
woman, and told him with so much severity that his heart must be a bad
one to commit such an offence, that poor Cubina, having never heard a
harsh word from me before, scarcely knew whether he stood upon his head
or his heels. When he afterwards brought my coffee, he expressed his
sorrow for having offended me, and begged my pardon in the most humble
manner. I told him, that to obtain mine, he must first obtain that
of Phillis, and he immediately declared himself ready to make her any
apology that I might dictate. So the girl was called in; and her uncle
going up to her, “I am very sorry, Phillis,” said he, “that I gave way
to high passion, and called you hard names, and struck you: which I
ought not to have done while massa was in the house;” (here I was going
to interrupt him, but he was too clever not to perceive his blunder, and
made haste to add) “nor if he had _not_ been here, nor at all; so I hope
you will have the kindness to forgive me this once, and I never will
strike you again, and so I beg your pardon.” And he then put out his
hand to her in the most frank and hearty manner imaginable; and on
her accepting it, made her three or four of his very lowest and most
graceful bows. I furnished him with a piece of money to give her as a
peace-offering; they left the room thoroughly reconciled, and in five
minutes after they and the rest of the servants were all chattering,
laughing, and singing together, in the most perfect harmony and
good-humour. I suppose, if I had desired an upper servant in England to
make the same submission, he would have preferred quitting my service to
doing what he would have called “humbling himself to an inferior;” or,
if he had found himself compelled to give way, he would have been sulky
with the girl, and found fault with every thing that she did in the
house for a twelvemonth after.
On the other hand, there are some choice ungrateful scoundrels among
the negroes: on the night of their first dance, a couple of sheep
disappeared from the pen, although they could not have been taken
from want of food, as on that very morning there had been an ample
distribution of fresh beef; and last night another sheep and a quantity
of poultry followed them. Yesterday, too, a young rascal of a boy called
“massa Jackey,” who is in the frequent habit of running away for months
at a time, and whom I had distinguished from the cleverness of his
countenance and buffoonery of his manners, came to beg my permission
to go and purchase food with some money which I had just given him,
“because he was almost starving; his parents were dead, he had no
provision-grounds, no allowance, and nobody ever gave him anything.”
Upon this I sent Cubina with the boy to the storekeeper, when it
appeared that he had always received a regular allowance of provisions
twice a week, which he generally sold, as well as his clothes, at the
Bay, for spirits; had received an additional portion only last Friday;
and, into the bargain, during the whole of that week had been fed from
the house. What he could propose to himself by telling a lie which must
be so soon detected, I cannot conceive; but I am assured, that unless a
negro has an interest in telling the truth, he always lies--in order to
keep his tongue in practice.
One species of flattery (or of _Congo-saw_, as we call it here) amused
me much this morning: an old woman who is in the hospital wanted to
express her gratitude for some stewed fish which I had sent her for
supper, and, instead of calling me “massa,” she always said--“Tank him,
_my husband_.”
JANUARY 24.
This was a day of perpetual occupation. I rose at six o’clock, and went
down to the Bay to settle some business; on my return I visited the
hospital while breakfast was getting ready; and as soon as it was over,
I went down to the negro-houses to hear the whole body of Eboes lodge a
complaint against one of the book-keepers, and appoint a day for their
being heard in his presence. On my return to the house, I found two
women belonging to a neighbouring estate, who came to complain of cruel
treatment from their overseer, and to request me to inform their trustee
how ill they had been used, and see their injuries redressed. They said,
that having been ill in the hospital, and ordered to the field while
they were still too weak to work, they had been flogged with much
severity (though not beyond the limits of the law); and my head driver,
who was less scrupulously delicate than myself as to ocular inspection
of Juliet’s person (which Juliet, to do her justice, was perfectly ready
to submit to in proof of her assertions), told me, that the woman had
certainly suffered greatly; the other, whose name was Delia, was
but just recovering from a miscarriage, and declared openly that the
overseer’s conduct had been such, that nothing should have prevented her
running away long ago if she could but have had the heart to abandon
a child which she had on the estate. Both were poor feeble-looking
creatures, and seemed very unfit subjects for any severe correction. I
promised to write to their trustee; and, as they were afraid of being
punished on their return home for having thrown themselves on my
protection, I wrote a note to the overseer, requesting that the women
might remain quite unmolested till the trustee’s arrival, which was
daily expected; and, with this note and a present of cocoa-fingers and
salt fish, Delia and Juliet departed, apparently much comforted.
They were succeeded by no less a personage than _Venus_ herself--a poor,
little, sickly, timid soul, who had purchased her freedom from my
father by substituting in her place a fine stout black wench, who, being
Venus’s _locum tenens_, was, by courtesy, called Venus, too, though her
right name was “Big Joan;” but, by some neglect of the then attorney,
Venus had never received any title, and she now came to beg “massa
so good as give paper;” otherwise she was still, to all intents and
purposes, my slave, and I might still have compelled her to work,
although, at the same time, her substitute was on the estate. Of course,
I promised the paper required, and engaged to act the part of a second
Vulcan by releasing Venus from my chains: but the paper was not the only
thing that Venus wanted; she also wanted a petticoat! She told me, that
when the presents were distributed on Sunday, the petticoat, which she
would otherwise have had, was, of course, “given to the _other_ Venus;”
and though, to be sure, she was free now, yet, “when she belonged to
massa, she had always worked for him well,” and “she was quite as glad
to see massa as the other Venus,” and, therefore, “ought to have quite
as much petticoat.” I tried to convince her, that for Venus to wear a
petticoat of blue durant, or, indeed, any petticoat at all, would be
quite unclassical: the goddess of beauty stuck to her point, and finally
carried off the petticoat.
Venus had scarcely evacuated the premises, when her place was occupied
by the minister of Savannah la Mar, with proposals for instructing the
negroes in religion; and the minister, in his turn, was replaced by one
of the Sunday-night thieves, who had been caught while in the actual
possession of one of my sheep and a great turkey-cock; and, to make the
matter worse, the depredator’s name was Hercules! Hercules, whom Virgil
states to have exercised so much severity on Cacus, when his own oxen
were stolen, was taken up himself for stealing my sheep in Jamaica! The
demi-god had nothing to say in his excuse: he had just received a large
allowance of beef:--therefore, hunger had no share in his transgression;
and the committing the offence during the very time that I was giving
the negroes a festival, rendered his ingratitude the more flagrant.
I perfectly well understood that the man was sent to me by my agent,
in order to show the absolute necessity of sometimes employing the
cart-whip, and to see whether I would suffer the fellow to escape
unpunished. But, as this was the first offender who had been brought
before me, I took that for a pretext to absolve him: so I lectured
him for half an hour with great severity, swore that on the very next
offence I would order him to be sold; and that if he would not do his
fair proportion of work without being lashed, he should be sent to
work somewhere else; for I would suffer no such worthless fellows on my
estate, and would not be at the expense of a cart-whip to correct him.
He promised most earnestly to behave better in future, and Hercules was
suffered to depart: but I am told that no good can be expected of him;
that he is perpetually running away; and that he had been absent for
five weeks together before my arrival, and only returned home upon
hearing that there was a distribution of beef, rum, and jackets going
forward; in return for all which, he stole my sheep and my poor great
turkey-cock.
But now came the most puzzling business of the day. About four years
ago, two Eboes, called Pickle and Edward, were rivals, after being
intimate friends: Pickle (who is an excellent faithful negro, but not
very wise) was the successful candidate; and, of course, the friendship
was interrupted, till Edward married the sister of the disputed fair
one. From this time the brothers-in-law lived in perfect harmony
together; but, during the first festival given on my arrival, Pickle’s
house was broken open, and robbed of all his clothes, &c. The thief was
sought for, but in vain. On Monday last I found Pickle in the hospital,
complaining of a pain in his side; and the blood, which had been taken
from him, gave reason to apprehend a pleurisy arising from cold; but, as
the disorder had been taken in its earliest stage, nothing dangerous
was expected. The fever abated; the medicines performed their offices
properly; still the man’s spirits and strength appeared to decline, and
he persisted in saying that he was not better, and should never do
well. At length, to-day, he got out of his sick bed, came to the house,
attended by the whole body of drivers, and accused his brother-in-law
of having been the stealer of his goods. I asked, “Had Edward been seen
near his house? Had any of his effects been seen in Edward’s possession?
Did Edward refuse to suffer his hut to be searched?” No. Edward, who was
present, pressed for the most strict scrutiny, and asserted his perfect
ignorance; nor could the accuser advance any grounds for the charge,
except his belief of Edward’s guilt. “Why did he think so?” After
much beating about the bush, at length out came the real _causa
doloris_--“Edward had _Obeahed_ him!” He had accused Edward of breaking
open his house, and had begged him to help him to his goods again; and
“Edward had gone at midnight into the bush” (i. e. the wood), and “had
gathered the plant whangra, which he had boiled in an iron pot, by
a fire of leaves, over which he went pufij puffie!” and said the
sautee-sautee; and then had cut the whangra root into four pieces, three
to bury at the plantation gates, and one to burn; and to each of these
three pieces he gave the name of a Christian, one of which was Daniel,
and Edward had said, that this would help him to find his goods; but
instead of that, he had immediately felt this pain in his side, and
therefore he was sure that, instead of using Obeah to find his goods,
Edward had used it to kill himself. “And were these all his reasons?” I
enquired. “No; when he married, Edward was very angry at the loss of
his mistress, and had said that they never would live well and happily
together; and they never _had_ lived happily and well together.”
This last argument quite got the better of my gravity. By parity of
reasoning, I thought that almost every married couple in Great Britain
must be under the influence of Obeah! I endeavoured to convince the
fellow of his folly and injustice, especially as the person accused was
the identical man who had detected the Obeah priest harboured in one
of my negro huts last year, had seized him with his own hands, and
delivered him up to my agent, who had prosecuted and transported him. It
was, therefore, improbable in the highest degree, that he should be an
Obeah man himself; and all the bystanders, black and white, joined me in
ridiculing Pickle for complaints so improbable and childish. But anger,
argument, and irony were all ineffectual. I offered to christen him, and
expel black Obeah by white, but in vain; the fellow persisted in saying,
that “he had a pain in his side, and, _therefore_, Edward must have
given it to him;” and he went back to his hospital, shaking his head all
the way, sullen and unconvinced. He is a young strong negro, perfectly
well disposed, and doing his due portion of work willingly; and it
will be truly provoking to lose him by the influence of this foolish
prejudice.
JANUARY 25.
I sent for Edward, had him alone with me for above two hours, and
pressed him most earnestly to confide in me. I gave him a dollar to
convince him of my good-will towards him; assured him that whatever
he might tell me should remain a secret between us; said, that I was
certain of his not having used any poison, or done any thing really
mischievous; but as I suspected him of having played some monkey-tricks
or other, which, however harmless in themselves, had evidently operated
dangerously upon Pickle’s imagination, I begged him to tell me precisely
what had passed, in order that I might counteract its baleful effects.
In reply, Edward swore to me most solemnly, “by the great God Almighty,
who lives above the clouds,” that he never had used any such practices:
that he had never gone into the wood to gather whangra; and that he had
considered Pickle, from the moment of his own marriage, as his brother,
and had always, till then, loved him as such. His eyes filled with tears
while he protested that he should be as sorry for Pickle’s death as if
it were himself; and he complained bitterly of having the ill name of
an Obeah man given to him, which made him feared and shunned by his
companions, and entirely without cause. But he said that he was certain
that Pickle would never have suspected him of such a crime, if a third
person had not put it into his head. There is a negro on my estate
called Adam, who has been long and strongly suspected of having
connections with Obeah men. When Edward was quite young, he was under
this fellow’s superintendence, and he now assured me, that Adam had
not only endeavoured to draw him into similar practices, but had even
pressed him very earnestly to lay a magical egg under the door of a
book-keeper whose conduct had been obnoxious. Edward had positively
refused: from that moment his superintendent, from being his protector,
had become his enemy, had shown him spite upon every occasion; and he it
was, he had no doubt, who, for the purpose of injuring him, had put this
foolish notion into Pickle’s head.
Upon enquiry it appeared, that on the very morning succeeding Pickle’s
entering the hospital, this suspected man had gone there also, on
pretence of sickness, and had remained there to watch the invalid;
although it was so evident that nothing was the matter with him, that
the doctor had frequently ordered him to the field, but the man had
always found means for evading the order. The first thing that we now
did was to turn him out of the sick-house, neck and heels; I then
took Edward with me to Pickle’s bedside, where the former told his
brother-in-law, that if he had ever done any thing to offend him, he
heartily begged his pardon; that he swore by the Almighty God that
he had never been in the bush to hurt him, nor any where else; on the
contrary, that he had always loved him, and wished him well; and that he
now begged him to be friends with him again, to forget and forgive all
former quarrels, and to accept the hand which he offered him in all
sincerity. The sick man also confessed, that he had always loved Edward
as his brother, had “eaten and drunk with him for many years with
perfect good-will,” and that it was his ingratitude for such affection
which vexed him more than any thing. On this I told him, that I insisted
upon their being good friends for the future, and that I should never
hear the word Obeah, or any such nonsense, mentioned on my estate,
on pain of my extreme displeasure. I promised that, as soon as Pickle
should be quite recovered, I would buy for him exactly a set of such
things as had been stolen from him; that Edward should bring them to his
house, to show that he had rather give him things than take them away;
and I then desired to see them shake hands. They did so, with much
apparent cordiality; Edward then went back to his work; and this
evening, when I sent him a dish from my table, Pickle desired the
servant to tell me, that he had hardly any fever, and felt “_quite so
so_,” which, in the negro dialect, means “a great deal better.” I begin,
therefore, to hope that we shall save the foolish fellow’s life at last,
which, at one time, appeared to be in great jeopardy.
There was a great dinner and ball for the whole county given to-day at
Montego Bay, to which I was invited; but I begged leave to decline this
and all other invitations, being determined to give up my whole time to
my negroes during my stay in Jamaica.
JANUARY 26.
Every morning my agent regales me with some fresh instance of
insubordination: he says nothing plainly, but shakes his head, and
evidently gives me to understand, that the estate cannot be governed
properly without the cart-whip. It seems that this morning, the women,
one and all, refused to carry away the _trash_ (which is one of the
easiest tasks that can be set), and that without the slightest pretence:
in consequence, the mill was obliged to be stopped; and when the driver
on that station insisted on their doing their duty, a little fierce
young devil of a Miss Whaunica flew at his throat, and endeavoured to
strangle him: the agent was obliged to be called in, and, at length,
this petticoat rebellion was subdued, and every thing went on as usual.
I have, in consequence, assured the women, that since they will not be
managed by fair treatment, I must have recourse to other measures; and
that, if any similar instance of misconduct should take place, I was
determined, on my return from Kingston, to sell the most refractory,
ship myself immediately for England, and never return to them and
Jamaica more. This threat, at the time, seemed to produce a great
effect; all hands were clasped, and all voices were raised, imploring me
not to leave them, and assuring me, that in future they would do their
work quietly and willingly. But whether the impression will last beyond
the immediate moment is a point greatly to be doubted.
JANUARY 27.
Another morning, with the mill stopped, no liquor in the boiling-house,
and no work done. The driver brought the most obstinate and insolent of
the women to be lectured by me; and I bounced and stormed for half
an hour with all my might and main, especially at Whaunica, whose
ingratitude was peculiar; as she is the wife of Edward, the Eboe, whom
I had been protecting against the charge of theft and Obeahism, and had
shown him more than usual kindness. They, at last, appeared to be very
penitent and ashamed of themselves, and engaged never to behave ill
again, if I would but forgive them this present fault; Whaunica, in
particular, assuring me very earnestly, that I never should have cause
to accuse her of “bad manners” again; for, in negro dialect, ingratitude
is always called “bad manners.” My agent declares, that they never
conducted themselves so ill before; that they worked cheerfully and
properly till my arrival; but now they think that I shall protect them
against all punishment, and have made regularly ten hogsheads of sugar
a week less than they did before my coming upon the estate. This is the
more provoking, as, by delaying the conclusion of the crop, the latter
part of it may be driven into the rainy season, and then the labour
is infinitely more severe both for the slaves and the cattle, and more
detrimental to their health.