months before purchased an African lad, who was much attached to his
person, and slept in a passage contiguous to his chamber. On Sunday
night there was an alarm of fire in the plantation, which induced Mr. ——
to go out hastily, and the next morning he missed the lad, who he
supposed intended to follow him in the night, and had mistaken his way.
He sent to his neighbours, and to Mr. C—— among the rest, to inform them
that his African lad had accidently strayed from him; that he could not
speak a word of English, and that possibly he might be found breaking
canes, or taking something else for his support; in which case he
requested that they would not injure him, but return him, and he would
pay any damage he might have committed. A day or two after, the Owner of
the boy was informed, that Mr. C. and H. had killed a Negro in a
neighbouring gully, and buried him there. He went to Mr. C—— to inquire
into the truth of the report, and intended to have the grave opened, to
see whether it was his African lad. _Mr. C—— told him, a Negro had been
killed and buried there; but assured him it was not his, for he knew him
very well, and he need not be at the trouble of opening the grave. Upon
this the Owner went away satisfied._ But receiving further information,
which left no doubt upon his mind that it was his Negro, he returned and
opened the grave, and found it to be so. I was his leading counsel, and
the facts stated in my brief were as follow: That C. and H. being
informed that there was a Negro lurking in the gully, went armed with
muskets, and took several negro men with them. The poor African seeing a
parcel of men coming to attack him, was frightened; he took up a stone
to defend himself, and retreated into a cleft rock, where they could not
easily come at him; they then went for some trash, put it into the
crevice of the rock behind him, and set it on fire; after it had burnt
so as to scorch the poor fellow, he ran into a pool of water near by;
they sent a Negro to bring him out, and he threw the stone at the Negro;
upon which the two white men fired several times at him with the guns
loaded with shot, and the Negroes pelted him with stones. He was at
length dragged out of the pool in a dying condition, for he had not only
received several bruises from the stones, but his breast was so pierced
with the shot, that it was like a cullender. _The white savages ordered
the Negroes to dig a grave, and whilst they were digging it, the poor
creature made signs of begging for water; which was not given to him,
but as soon as the grave was dug, he was thrown into it, and covered
over; and there seems to be some doubt whether he was then quite
dead._—C. and H. deny this; but the Owner assured me that he could prove
it by more than one witness; and I have reason to believe it to be true,
because on the day of trial, C. and H. did not suffer the cause to come
to a hearing, but paid the penalties and the costs of suit, which it is
not supposed they would have done had they been innocent.
I have the honour to be, &c.”
The same transaction, with another far more dreadful murder, in which
there was a deliberate ingenuity of cruelty which almost exceeds belief,
is related, with scarcely any variation as to circumstances, by the
Advocate General, who, as well as the gentleman of whose estate the
criminal was the manager, and who was at the time absent, expressed
their most lively indignation against such horrid cruelty. After so
shocking a recital, lest you should be instinctively urged to be chiefly
affected by the barbarity of this horrid transaction, let me once more
remind you, that it is not in the view of its cruelty that I wish you to
regard the foregoing narrative but in that of the decisive evidence
which it affords of the utter degradation of the negro race.
How striking a proof is afforded of this, in the conduct even of the
Owner of the boy, the prosecutor of the delinquent, a man too, as the
beginning of the story indicates “of kind and liberal feelings.” Can any
thing suggest more strongly, that the protection which the Negro Slave
receives from the laws, is too often to be ascribed rather to a Master’s
care of his property, than to any more generous motive. When he had only
reason to believe that _a_ Negro had been killed, and buried out of the
way, and not that it was his own Slave, he goes away satisfied. Again,
it is a suggestion which the circumstances of the story enforce on us,
that the crowd, which was now collected, instead of being shocked at
such barbarity, were rather abettors of it; and then we hear, the White
Savages, as the Attorney General justly styles them, order the Negroes
who were present to dig a grave for their wretched countryman; they knew
their state too well to refuse, and accordingly we see them immediately
obey the order; yet I confess, that with all my ideas of their sunk and
prostrate spirit, I was myself surprized, under all the circumstances,
by this promptitude of obedience.
But I have not leisure to deduce half of the important lessons which we
are taught by the above horrid recital. Let us pass to the circumstance
which is most of all important; because it proves how little we can
expect an identity of sympathies and feelings between the Colonists and
ourselves: that this and several other murders, some of them attended
with circumstances far more shocking, instead of exciting any just
commiseration for the Negro race, had actually worked in a contrary
direction, and that not merely among the populace, but in a majority of
the House of Assembly itself. This is a problem by no means of difficult
solution. It is not that the Barbadian (I say it seriously and with
sincerity) is less humane, in general, than the inhabitants of other
countries; but Negro Slaves are not comprised within the scale of his
humanity; or, to be more accurate, they do not assume, in his estimate
of things, the rate and value of human beings. Hence, the proposition
for punishing a white man capitally for murdering a Slave, appeared to
him a punishment as much disproportionate to the crime, as if, in
compliance with the opinion of some speculator on the rights of the
brute creation, or, of some lover of domestic animals, we were to
propose to execute a man in this country for killing a favourite
pointer.
One of the other murders supplies so striking an illustration of the
nature of this feeling, and of its almost necessary effects in producing
a disposition to injury and insult, that, contrary to my original
intention, I will lay before you a very brief and summary view of the
chief particulars of it.
As a private militiaman was returning home from his duty upon an alarm,
with his musket, and bayonet fixed, over his shoulder, he overtook
several Negroes returning from their daily labour on the road, and among
them, a woman big with child. He began abusing, and threatening to kill
them, if they would not get out of the way. Most of them escaped him;
but he made after the woman, and, without the least provocation on her
part, plunged his bayonet into her, and, as one of the accounts states,
very coolly and deliberately stabbed her several times in the breast.
Providentially it happened, that a very respectable Gentleman, who was
also returning from town, was a witness of the whole transaction. And
now comes the curious part of the story; for, when Mr. H. went to him,
“spoke harshly to him, and said, he ought to be hanged, for he never saw
a more wicked unprovoked murder, and that he would certainly carry him
before a magistrate and that he should be sent to gaol;” the man
replied, “_for what? killing a Negro!_”—Some of the accounts state that
the man was in liquor; but it is clear from the circumstances, that it
was in no such degree as to affect his reason; for neither is this
circumstance mentioned by Mr. H. the eyewitness, nor by the magistrate
before whom Mr. H., having got assistance, immediately brought him, nor
by the President of the Island, before whom, from having no right to
commit him, they next carried him. On the contrary, they state
distinctly, that the murder was committed in the most wanton, malicious
manner, and that he seemed afterwards to be very indifferent about the
crime.
It may seem only candid to state the sequel. The President did commit
him, though aware that it was a stretch of power; the man’s person was
thereby secured, and he remained answerable to the amount both of the
King’s fine, £. 11. 4. _s._ sterling, and of the Negro’s value, for
which he was afterwards arrested by the Owner’s representative, and
which, as she is stated to have been a valuable Slave, who had five or
six children, would be a still larger sum. The man was not worth a
shilling, in possession or expectancy, and therefore, as the President
adds, may possibly be in confinement for life. It is only due to the
President, to add, that in the conclusion of his letter, he expresses
himself in terms of the warmest and most indignant feeling, that the
Assembly should look on such things with cool indifference, and not
provide “that just remedy which has been found productive of no evil in
the still larger island of Jamaica, and which, in every other civilized
community, is provided by the law, both of God and man.”
Let me subjoin one additional remark, that, but for the circumstance of
Mr. H.’s happening to have been at the same time returning from town,
this barbarous murder must have remained unpunished for want of
evidence. It is fair, also, to acknowledge, that the murder above
stated, however horrid, appears (very different, indeed, in that
respect, from another shocking incident, which I suppress) to have been
an act of wanton insult and contempt, rather than of deliberate cruelty;
and to have been precisely such in nature, (though I doubt not, above
the ordinary rate of insults in measure) as I have supposed to proceed
from a low estimate of Negroes, as such. Hence the criminal’s
exclamation, when he was told he deserved to be hanged, and was further
threatened with being committed to gaol. _For what?_ he replied;
_killing a Negro!_—Surely I need not add a word—the fact supplies its
own inference.
Shall we allege, in behalf of this poor militiaman, that he was,
probably, half drunk; that he was a low uneducated man; that it was the
exclamation of passion; or that it was suggested by self-preservation or
self-defence? But what shall we say, then, for the Assembly of the
Island? They consist of men of liberal education, and liberal manners;
yet it is grievous to reflect, that their conduct is but too much in the
same spirit as that of this militiaman. Their estimation of a Negro is
much the same. Hence, on its being proposed to inflict a capital
punishment, not on themselves, but on others, for the murder, though
attended with the most horrid circumstances, of a _Negro_, they resent
the suggestion, not by a transient and passionate exclamation, but by a
deliberate and continued opposition of some years; not unguardedly, not
privately, when a man will sometimes hint an opinion he would not avow;
but publicly; in opposition to clear explanation; to powerful influence;
to eloquent enforcement of the principles of justice and humanity; in
opposition, one should have thought, to the natural suggestion of
self-interest, and of regard to their own property, when gravely sitting
in their capacity of Legislators.
Let me again, however, declare most seriously, that it is not so much of
defective, as of misplaced humanity, that I here complain. They had not
been used to think and feel concerning Negroes, as concerning their
fellow creatures; and to consider that their rights, and comforts, and
feelings, were to be protected by the same powerful sanctions. Hence,
when it was proposed to inflict a capital punishment for the murder of a
Black, their sympathy was excited on the wrong side. They felt, but it
was for the offended dignity of a White Man, not for the murdered Negro.
The truth is, a certain _esprit de corps_ was now called into action,
and all the barbarities of which the wretched Negroes might be the
victims, would, in such a temper, and such circumstances (taken, I mean,
in connection with such a proposed punishment) serve rather to inflame
than to mitigate the general fury. Hence, Lord Seaforth, in another
letter, declares, “that though he had received no contradiction of the
horrible facts, yet that nothing had given him so much trouble as to get
to the bottom of these affairs, so horribly absurd were the prejudices
of the people.”
There are no persons, I am persuaded, who will be more shocked by the
above transactions than the West Indian Proprietors themselves, and none
especially more than those of the very island of Barbadoes, in which
these tragedies were acted. They, like other absentee Proprietors, are
most of them, I doubt not, almost utterly ignorant of the real state of
things in the West Indies; and they will read with equal astonishment
and concern, Lord Seaforth’s horrid communication. Let them however
remember, these cannot be styled, as some former relations have unjustly
been, exaggerations of Abolitionists; but, like Governor Parry’s famous
charge against the African Captains, they are the official communication
of the Executive Government laid before the House of Commons.
Let them, therefore, join with me, in seriously considering the
practical conclusions to be drawn from these shocking incidents, and the
remedy which should be applied to such crying evils. Let them not
retort, as has been sometimes done, that instances of monstrous cruelty
have taken place in this country also. It is true, that even in this
land of liberty and humanity, we heard some years ago of an apprentice
being starved to death. We heard more recently of a British Governor of
an African possession, causing the death of a soldier by excessive
punishment. But let us complete the parallel; not only were these crimes
punished by the death of the criminals, but here, in Lord Bacon’s
phrase, “mark the diversity;” it was difficult to prevent the
indignation even of the populace, from anticipating the sentence of the
law. In the West Indies, on the contrary, when you begin to talk of
punishing capitally far more horrible murders, the sympathy, among the
majority of the community, the highest classes excepted, is for the
criminal, not for the wretched and innocent sufferer; and that, not
merely among low illiterate men, in whom such prejudices might be
somewhat less astonishing, but in the House of Assembly of the Island,
the body to which it especially belongs to watch over the rights, and
which naturally gives the tone, and fixes the standard for the opinions
and feelings of the whole community.[34]
Let the absentee Proprietors attend, above all, to this, because it
leads to the most important practical conclusions. I have been assured
privately, (though the information has not yet been laid before
Parliament, and therefore I cannot speak with certainty) that Lord
Seaforth has at length been able to carry his point, and to prevail on
the Assembly as well as the Council, to make the murder of a Slave a
capital offence. In my view of the above transactions, this is a matter
of small importance. It will not, I trust, appear uncandid; but I must
frankly declare, that had the Assembly originally consented to Lord
Seaforth’s recommendation and made the murder of a Slave a capital
crime, I should not have admitted it as any proof of their feeling for
the Negroes with any tenderness of sensibility. It would only have shewn
that there was no apparent want of common humanity, and therefore have
belonged to that class of actions, from the performance of which no man
arrogates to himself praise, though to be defective in them we consider
as blameworthy. For, might we not fairly have questioned whether the
members might not be influenced, not so much by motives of benevolence,
as by deference for their Governor, by a regard for their character, by
a respect for the feelings, call them, if you will, the prejudices, of
the more liberal few among their own community; or even by the
apprehensions of the effects which their refusal might produce in
forwarding the abolition of the Slave Trade? Surely, however, the
rejection of the proposition shews, that they not only do not themselves
regard the Negroes as entitled to the consideration and treatment due to
a _human being_, considered as such, but that they cannot even persuade
themselves that he will be regarded as entitled to them by the world in
general.
Supposing, therefore, that Lord Seaforth’s law has passed, and even
supposing (what it is far too much to suppose, considering the extreme
difficulty, or rather impossibility of obtaining legal proof, if a
murderer would be tolerably cautious) that it does prevent absolute
murders; yet how wide a range is still left for the exercise of the
worst of passions? To this case surely we may justly apply the maxim,
and the important lesson which it inculcates may well excuse a trite
quotation, “_Quid leges sine moribus?_” Will such a law, passed contrary
to the real wishes, feelings, and judgment, deliberately entertained and
repeatedly avowed for many years, change the real estimation of a Black
man in the Barbadian scale of being? Or will not rather the contrariety
between the law and the feelings of men, be likely to stir up a spirit
of indignation and hatred towards the Blacks, which must be productive
of innumerable injuries and insults towards the Negro race; while, Black
evidence not being admissible, they may be almost always injured and
insulted with impunity?
This _esprit de corps_ naturally results from the relative circumstances
of Blacks and Whites in a West Indian community; and it is the more
operative and pernicious, because with pride, itself a passion
sufficiently regardless of the claims and comforts of others, another
principle still more pernicious associates itself but too naturally; a
principle of fear, arising out of the consciousness of the immense
disproportion in number between the Blacks and the Whites. This fear
again but too surely gives rise to hatred; and what may not be expected
from the effects of an _esprit de corps_ made up of such powerful
ingredients? It is not that they who are actuated by it are conscious of
these several feelings; but they are not on that account less real or
less efficient. This _esprit de corps_ which has long prevailed, was
many years ago nearly proving fatal to the life of a most honourable,
upright, and resolute Judge, who, in the discharge of his public
function, dared to act as duty and conscience prescribed to him. But
among the inferior orders of Whites especially, this spirit has been
naturally called forth of late years into more lively exercise, by the
very efforts which have been made to ameliorate the condition of the
Negro race.
I have detained you very long on this topic: but I have dwelt the more
largely on the vileness and degradation of the Negro race, because it
appears to me to be the grand master vice of the colonial system. If
duly considered, and traced into its almost infallible operations, it
will establish the prevalence of all the other evils which have been
specified; for it is of a nature so subtle and powerful, as to extend
its effects into every branch of negro management; and wherever its
influence does extend, it has a natural and sure tendency to lessen the
enjoyments of the Slaves, and to aggravate their sufferings. If all the
various other causes which operate unfavourably on the condition and
treatment of the Slaves could be done away, it contains within itself
the pregnant source of numerous, most important, and, so long as it
continues, incurable mischiefs.
Let me, therefore, once more conjure the West Indian Proprietors to give
their due weight to all the foregoing facts and considerations; to
observe how low a point in the scale of being is now allotted to the
Negro race; and to estimate duly the effects on their treatment, and
comforts, and feelings, which must necessarily result from such vileness
and degradation. I cannot quit this head without once more assuring
them, that it is unspeakably painful to me to appear to be charging the
bulk of the resident White population of the West Indies with having too
low an estimate of the Negroes as a race, and of the consideration and
comforts which are due to them. But the nature of my undertaking renders
it my duty to state facts, such as I really believe them to be. If I
have fallen into any error, I shall be most willing to correct it, and
shall be sincerely thankful to any one who will set me right. But I will
frankly own, also, to the resident West Indians, that, judged at the bar
of equity and candour, we in this country are more in fault than they in
that. Of them it can only be said, that causes of powerful, and, where
great numbers of human beings are concerned, of almost infallible
operation, have produced their natural effects. We have no such excuse
to allege. We have not been familiarized by habit, or misled by
interest, or prejudice, or party spirit, into contemplating without
pain, a system from which, at first, both they and we must have shrunk
back with horror. We cannot allege, that all the consequences, greatly
as they are to be deplored, are not such as we might have anticipated
with ease, or rather might have predicted with certainty, reasoning from
the acknowledged principles both of speculation and experience. Could we
not have foretold what would necessarily be the consequences of a system
of slavery continued for centuries, where the Slaves, as in the West
Indies, were to be of a peculiar race and colour, and under all the
other circumstances of the African Negroes? We cannot, at least, plead a
prejudice in favour of slavery, in consequence of having long been
habituated to its evils. Surely if those who have lived all their lives
in Great Britain, are tainted with such a prejudice, they are of all men
inexcusable. I repeat it, therefore, we are more criminal than the West
Indians, for having suffered such a system to gain an establishment, and
to grow to its present size; and we shall be still a thousand times more
criminal than they, if, with our eyes at length opened to its evils, we
suffer it to continue unreformed.
But though from these considerations, as well as others which have been
formerly mentioned, it has been with deep reluctance that I have dwelt
on these invidious topics, would it be consistent not only with humanity
and justice, but even with common fairness and truth, that transactions
like those which have been here stated, when communicated from the
highest authority; and, for the instruction and guidance of the British
Legislature, laid before the House of Commons, should be suppressed,
from any motives of personal delicacy; or if noticed, that just
conclusions should not be drawn from them? I am almost fearful that I am
wanting to the claims of duty, in not detailing the particulars of a far
more horrible narrative, which has also been laid before Parliament. For
duties too serious, and even interests too high, for the admission of
such an inferior principle as delicacy, are here in question. If such a
system must still exist, surely it ought only to be with our fullest
knowledge, the result of our most deliberate consideration; not because
we are unacquainted with its horrors, from our having instinctively
turned away our eyes from objects too painful to be beheld.
Consider if these enormities are too shocking to be seen and heard, what
are they to be felt and suffered? When we are thoroughly acquainted with
the abuses of the West Indian system, we may, perhaps, be able to
mitigate, if we cannot cure them. If policy and interest are still to be
admitted as a plea for injustice and cruelty, let us at least not take
for granted, as if it were a self-evident truth, what I never can myself
believe, that injustice and cruelty must forward the views of policy and
interest. Let us scrutinize the evils point by point, and be sure of
each individual particular of them which we leave in being, that on
grounds of policy and interest it is indispensable. If we are to
tolerate such enormous evils, let it be at least by weight and measure;
let us deal them out, grain by grain, as absolute necessity shall
require; and not in a wholesale way, give our sanction to such a mass of
miseries, because the close inspection and scrupulous examination of
them shock our delicacy, and wound our humanity. Let us remember what
was beautifully said of this last virtue by one, than whom none
possessed a larger share; “True humanity consists not in a squeamish
ear. It consists not in starting or shrinking at such tales as these,
but in a disposition of heart to relieve misery. True humanity
appertains rather to the mind than to the nerves, and prompts men to use
real and active endeavours to execute the actions which it suggests.”
To this long catalogue of the vices of the West Indian system, there
remain yet to be added two others, which tend powerfully to aggravate
almost all its various evils.