late years, is of great importance; but far too large and difficult to
be here discussed. Still, as the assertion is often made, and as, in the
opinion of some, it may be of great practical influence, a few words
ought to be said on it. That there are fewer individual instances of
cruelty now than formerly, I believe to be true. It is alleged, and I
hope truly, that an improvement has taken place in the education and
manners of the book-keepers, or overseers, who are in immediate and
continual contact with the Slaves; and whose characters and tempers must
therefore have a decisive effect one way or another on the treatment
they receive. But the system continues the same; and it is greatly to be
feared that the increasing pressure of the times has tended in too many
instances to abridge the stock, before but too contracted, of the
Slave’s comforts, and perhaps to increase his labours.
It is worthy also of remark, that the West Indian colonies, and their
inhabitants, are almost always mentioned, by the witnesses before
mentioned, in general terms; and scarcely a hint is given us, that
greater attention is paid to the comforts and feelings of the Slaves in
one island, than in another. Now in the case of one island, and that
next to Jamaica, by far the largest and most populous of them all, we
have had such proof, I had almost used Shakespeare’s expression, such
damning proof, of the low estimate of Negroes, and of the treatment to
which they are liable, as even our opponents themselves must own to be
utterly inconsistent with the accounts of those respectable witnesses of
whom I have before spoken. And indeed in others of the islands we have
the same facts established by individual testimony of the most
respectable sort. Are we not, then, entitled to extend the application
of the instances, and to consider them, such as indeed from their number
also they must be regarded, as fair samples, by no means of the
universal, but of the general condition and treatment of the negro
Slaves?
[Sidenote: Assertion, that Negro Slaves are happier than our Peasantry.]
But another broad and general objection may be urged against the
testimony of the same respectable class of witnesses, that it proves by
far too much. For they tell us not only that the Slaves are in general
treated with liberality and kindness; not only that they are protected
by law equally with white men, in their lives and property; but that
they are in a situation superior to that of the bulk of our English
peasantry: and one most respectable and amiable man, of whose humanity
no one thinks more highly than myself, declared, that they were so happy
that he often wished himself one of them.
Such assertions as these might excite a smile, if the subject were less
serious; but after the review we have taken of the degraded state of
this unfortunate class of our fellow creatures, in all its humiliating
particulars, we cannot but hear, with the greatest pain, assertions,
which, coming from characters so respectable, have but too manifest a
tendency to prolong the duration of those enormous evils. The assertions
can in themselves be only accounted for by the supposition, that they
who made them were utterly ignorant of the particulars of the treatment
and estimation of the Negro race. They may have seen, perhaps, the
domestic Negroes collected at some season of festivity, and thence have
too hastily drawn an inference as to the general situation of the bulk
of the Black population; of that far larger class, which daily works
under the whip, and is subject to all the other particulars which have
been mentioned, of degradation and suffering.
When from the West Indies themselves I have heard the same assertion,
that the negro Slaves are happier than our labouring poor, let me be
forgiven for declaring, that such an opinion, formed not by transient
visitors, but by those to whom a Negro sale, working under the whip,
public and severe floggings of decent females, private punishments, and
all the other sad particulars of negro humiliation are thoroughly known,
has, I own, created in my mind a reflection of a different character. I
have by no means questioned the veracity of those from whom the remark
has fallen, or imputed to them, I say it with sincerity, the smallest
intention to deceive; but I have conceived myself to see in it an
instance of that righteous ordination of the Almighty, by which it ever
happens, that the system of slavery, and the same may be affirmed of
every other gross infringement on the rights and happiness of our fellow
creatures, is far from being so much clear gain, even to those for whose
exclusive advantage it may appear to be instituted. It is not by the
wretched Negro that the whole price is to be paid. Surely it is much,
that the Master’s understanding of the nature and amount of the value of
liberty is so far impaired. Much also is paid in that effect which, ever
since the world began, has ever been produced by slavery on both the
morals and manners of the free part of the community in which it has
prevailed.
It would be really an insult to the understandings and feelings of
members of this free and happy country, to enter into any detailed
comparison between the situation of a British peasant and a West Indian
Slave. It is almost in every particular a perfect contrast; and, for my
own part, when, after asserting, with what correctness we will not just
now question, that the Slaves are better fed, and clothed, and lodged,
than our own peasantry; and when the conclusion has been so confidently
drawn, that therefore they must be happier; the assertion has appeared
to me to supply only another proof, in addition to the many already
furnished, that our opponents in their judgments as well as in their
feelings are apt to reason concerning the Negroes, as well as to act
towards them, as if they were of an inferior species. Were we engaged in
any inquiry concerning the brute creation, to ascertain these
particulars might be to decide the question of their happiness or
misery. But are feeding and clothing, and lodging, the only claims of a
rational and immortal Being? Are the feelings of the heart nothing? Are
the consciousness of independence, and the power of pursuing the
occupation and habits of life which we prefer, nothing? Is the prospect
of happier days, and of an improved situation for ourselves or our
children, nothing? Where also are family endearments, and social
intercourse, and willing services, and grateful returns? Where, above
all, are moral improvement, and the light of religious truth, and the
hope full of immortality?
It is indeed a merciful ordination of the Supreme Being, that men are
often able to accommodate themselves in some degree to their situation,
and to suffer less from it than we might suppose. We may therefore
sometimes be apt to imagine our fellow creatures more miserable than
they really are, because we should be extremely miserable in their
situation; but this does not alter the essential nature of things, and
annihilate the distinctions between happiness and misery.
But besides that in the negro Slave’s condition there are but too many
glaring unambiguous causes of positive suffering, many of those sources
of enjoyment which are commonly open to the poor and the ignorant, are
here excluded. It has justly been observed, as an instance of the
goodness of the great Creator of all things, that though he has provided
the world with but a scanty portion of those more curious substances, or
more refined luxuries, which are never necessary to happiness, and which
often serve only to gratify vanity; the articles which are really
necessary for the comfort and well-being of man, are either supplied
every where with inexhaustible profusion, or are at least of no
difficult attainment. By a like gracious ordination, he has likewise
rendered the enjoyments which are most substantially and permanently
gratifying, universally accessible; the domestic affections, the social
pleasures, the tender emotions, the sweets of hope, and recollection,
religious hopes and consolations. All these are gratifications which
virtuous poverty often enjoys in large measure, which wealth cannot
purchase, nor greatness secure.
But in the Negro’s cup few indeed of these cordial drops are to be
found; while there are too many other ingredients which even to a negro
palate must be unconquerably bitter. We are not, however, here left to
infer their actual feelings, from considering what our own would be in
their situation. We learn, from the professional Planter, how their
spirits sink within them on their first acquaintance with the cart-whip
system, and with what caution a provident manager will inure them to the
discipline and treatment to which they are hereafter to be subjected. We
have heard from others, of negro mothers lamenting the wretched prospect
of their offspring.
[Sidenote: Decisive proof that Slaves state unhappy.]
But there is one decisive proof, that even custom does not render the
Slaves insensible to the evils of their condition. It sometimes happens,
rarely if ever I am assured to common field Slaves, but sometimes to
domestics and artificers, that by the sale of the little productions and
stock which they are allowed to raise, they may annually lay by a little
peculium, which, it is due to the masters to declare, is never invaded.
When the savings of many years have, at length, accumulated to a
considerable amount, how do they dispose of it? With this sum, for which
they have been struggling during the whole course of their lives, they
go to their masters, and buy their freedom. By the sacrifice of their
last shilling, they purchase their release from that situation which the
West Indians would persuade us is a condition of superior comfort. Or,
if they think that the little which is left of their own lives is not
worth redeeming, they will purchase the freedom of a son, or a brother,
or a sister; thus affording at once a proof of the value they set on
freedom, and of their disinterestedness and social affection.
It ought likewise to be observed, that they who thus buy their freedom,
are likely, from the habits of industry which the very circumstance of
their acquiring so much property implies them to have had, to have
smarted less than the general mass of Slaves under the whip of the
driver. And what is it that they thus purchase at so high a rate? Is it
really freedom? The consideration, the security, equal rights, equal
laws, and all the other blessings which the word liberty conveys to our
minds? No: but degradation and insecurity; the admission into a class of
beings whose inadequate protection, by the law and the public force of
the community, is not in some measure compensated by the interest which
their owner feels in the preservation of his property. They are still of
the inferior cast, and must for ever continue of it—a set of beings, as
Mr. Edwards himself informs us, “wretched in themselves and useless to
the Public. These unhappy people are a burthen and a reproach to
society. It very frequently happens that the lowest white person,
considering himself as greatly superior to the richest and best educated
free man of colour, will disdain to associate with a person of the
latter description.”[38] “No wonder that, as it is added, their spirits
seem to sink under the consciousness of their condition. They are
continually liable to be injured and insulted with impunity, from the
inadmissibility of their evidence; so that in this respect they seem to
be placed on a worse footing than the enslaved Negroes, who have masters
that are interested in their protection, and who, if their Slaves are
maltreated, have a right to recover damages by an action on the
case.”[39]
Yet this wretched and degraded state, the lowest, one would have
conceived, and least desirable, of all human conditions, is eagerly
coveted, is bought with the earnings of a whole life, by the Negro
Slave. And shall we then be told that the situation of the latter is a
situation of comfort, a situation superior to that of our British
peasantry! Nor is it merely that the Slaves themselves desire their
freedom, over-rating perhaps the evils of their actual state, and
ignorant of what may be really conducive to their happiness. I would not
so calumniate the West Indians, as to impute to them that they mock
these poor people with a real evil, under the name of an imaginary good;
yet we find masters remunerating long and faithful services by the gift
of freedom, as their best reward; nay, more, we have seen the laws of
the islands hold out the same boon as the most valuable recompence of
the most distinguished public merits.
I cannot therefore but consider the earnestness of the Slaves to
purchase, at so dear a rate, their admission into a class of beings,
which, whether we judge from what we know of the circumstances of their
situation, or from the accounts given of it by all intelligent writers
(by none more than by Mr. Edwards himself), we should conceive the most
unprotected, ineligible and miserable condition of human existence in
any civilized society, as a most decisive proof of the wretchedness of
the state of slavery. From the very nature of the case, it is probable,
in some of the instances, we know, that they who have thus purchased
their freedom have been the Slaves of Masters of affluence, under whom
the treatment must have been as mild and liberal, and the situation as
comfortable, as the condition of a West Indian Slave is capable of being
rendered. It therefore seems fairly to indicate that there are
particulars in the situation and circumstances of a West Indian Slave in
general, as such, which prove a source of great practical suffering; and
perhaps it is a proof of the degree in which the Slaves are conscious of
their own degradation. But it also well deserves to be noted, that we
never find any, either of those Slaves who have bought their freedom, or
of the free Negroes or coloured men, of whom there are above a thousand
in many of the smaller islands, and in Jamaica several thousands,
desiring to be again admitted into the condition of slavery.
We know that in the middle ages it was not uncommon for poor men of free
condition voluntarily to become vassals, that, in an age in which person
and property were very imperfectly secure, they might obtain a master’s
protection; but the vassalage of the middle ages was not the slavery of
the West Indies. In spite of all the evils therefore and degradation,
incident to the state of Blacks who have no owner to protect them from
injuries and insults, there never yet was, surely there never will be,
an instance of an emancipated Negro returning to resume the yoke of
slavery, notwithstanding all the security and all the comforts which we
are assured this situation carries in its train. May not also the state
and circumstances of this class account for the numerous defects and
vices which are laid to their charge? Their indolence is particularly
noticed, and their never engaging in field-work is mentioned as
discreditable to them: but can we wonder that none will subject
themselves to the driver’s lash, who are not absolutely forced to submit
to such a degradation.[40]
On the whole, therefore, notwithstanding the favourable representation
made of the condition and treatment of the negro Slaves by persons of
high rank and acknowledged respectability; if you will seriously weigh
the amount of the various vices of the West Indian system which have
been here enumerated, you will be ready almost with certainty to
conclude; that, under circumstances so extremely unfavourable to the
multiplication of our species, the West Indian Slaves must annually and
rapidly decrease in number. [Sidenote: First Proposition proved.] This,
it will be remembered, was the first of the three propositions which I
undertook to prove on the question concerning the keeping up of the
Black population without importations from Africa.
[Sidenote: Second Proposition.]
The second proposition was, that notwithstanding all the grievous abuses
of the West Indian system, the decrease of the Slaves was on the whole
very inconsiderable, if there were any decrease at all.
When the Slave Trade became first the subject of public discussion, His
Majesty’s ministers sent to the legislative and executive bodies of the
different West Indian Islands, a number of queries, the answers to which
contained a vast body of information on the various particulars of the
colonial system. A great addition was made to this stock of information,
by examining various persons of intelligence and experience in West
Indian affairs. The whole was compiled into one bulky Report, and laid
before both Houses of Parliament.
This Report contains the account of the population, both white and
black, slave and free, of our several West Indian islands, as received
from their respective governors. We are there furnished with the
actually existing number of the Slaves in Jamaica, [Sidenote: Jamaica
Slaves Population.] which alone contained as many as all the other
islands put together, at several different periods; the first, at the
distance of almost a century; the last, in the year 1787; together with
the number of Slaves imported annually, during the whole period. In
order to judge whether the Black population was in an improving or
declining state, the whole term was divided into four periods:
The 1st beginning with 1698 and ending with 1730.
The 2d ......... from 1730 to ............ 1755.
The 3d ......... from 1755 to ............ 1768.
The 4th ......... from 1768 to ............ 1787.
And we had the satisfaction to find, from those unexceptionable
documents, that,
In the first period, the excess of deaths above the births, of
Slaves, or their annual decrease, was 3½ p’c^t
In the 2d period, it was 2½
In the 3d period, it was lessened to 1¾
And in the 4th, from 1768 to 1788, it was not more than 1
Now, it is manifest, that if the ratio of decrease had been continually
lessening, as appears on the very face of the account, and if, during
the whole of the last period of twenty years, the annual loss had been
but 1 per cent., having been 1¾ per cent. during the former immediately
preceding period of thirteen years, that loss would be somewhat more
than 1 per cent. at the beginning of the last period, and somewhat less
than 1 per cent. towards the end of it. But even this loss of 1 per
cent. was itself accounted for, by an extraordinary series of hurricanes
and consequent famines, from which it was stated that fifteen thousand
Slaves lost their lives; and still more, the 1 per cent. included the
loss on all the Africans who were imported during that period. This,
which is termed the loss in the seasoning, has been estimated by high
West Indian authorities, to be, including the loss in the harbour,
between 1–4th and 1–3d of the whole number imported; by some it has been
rated still higher. This mortality was supposed to be in a considerable
degree occasioned by the Slaves having been commonly landed in a highly
diseased state, owing in a great measure, as was supposed, to crowding,
and other evils on shipboard: And the Assembly and Council of Jamaica
estimated that 1½ per cent. of all the Africans imported died in the
short period, probably not above a fortnight, between the ship’s
entrance into port and the day of sale. Adding together the whole loss
fairly to be ascribed to these various causes of mortality, of which all
depending on the voyage would obviously cease with the importations,
they would more than account for the whole 1 per cent. lost during the
last period; and we should be warranted in concluding, that the whole
number of Slaves in Jamaica were at length actually on the increase.
It will add to your confidence in the conclusion which so clearly
results from the above calculations, to know that they were carefully
drawn by that great and able minister before referred to, among whose
extraordinary powers, peculiar clearness and accuracy in calculation was
universally acknowledged to possess an eminent place. Indeed this result
ought not to surprize us, for we were assured by Mr. Long, many years
before, “that upon most of the old settled estates in the island of
Jamaica, the number of births and deaths every year is pretty equal,
except any malignant disorder happens.”
[Sidenote: Barbadoes Slaves’ Population.]
Calculating on the same principles, and from West Indian accounts, it
appeared that in Barbadoes also, the annual loss of Slaves has been of
late under 1 per cent. Indeed if the loss had been so small in Jamaica,
it probably was not greater in most of the other islands, into which, in
general, the importations had been less considerable, and in which, from
their several circumstances, the population was likely to be, to say the
least, full as well kept up as in Jamaica itself. [Sidenote: Second
Proposition proved.] Thus the second proposition was established, that,
notwithstanding the general prevalence of so many and great abuses, the
annual decrease was very inconsiderable.
[Sidenote: Third Proposition.]
The third proposition, that therefore an increase might in future be
expected, must doubtless rest on the basis of probable inference; but in
a case like this, in which an appeal is made to a principle of sure and
unerring operation, as established by universal experience, we may hold
our conclusion almost with the certainty of absolute demonstration. If
the many existing abuses would account for a great annual decrease, yet
there had been no decrease at all, or a very small one; it clearly
follows, that if the prevailing abuses could be done away, or even
considerably mitigated, we might anticipate in future a great and rapid
annual increase.
[Sidenote: Opponents most powerful objections.]
Our chief opponents of abolition in Parliament objected neither to the
premises on which our reasonings concerning the West Indian population
were grounded, nor to the conclusions which we drew from them. They
acknowledged, as has been already stated, to the utmost extent, the
guilt and cruelty of the Slave Trade. But they urged, that it would be
fair to give the West Indians time for the completing of their gangs of
Slaves, and for the subsiding of their prejudices; and as they warmed in
argument, advancing in their positions, they contended, that from the
facilities afforded by the local circumstances of the islands for
smuggling, it would be found impracticable to abolish the Slave Trade
without the aid of such regulations as could only be enacted by the West
Indian Legislatures themselves. They trusted, however, the time would
ere long arrive, when, by the general consent of all parties, this
hateful traffic might be abandoned. A respite till the remainder of the
century was alone asked, a period of eight years, and on the 1st of
January 1801, the reign of justice and humanity was to commence, and a
new and happier day was to begin to dawn on the wretched Negroes.
Meanwhile, no new settlements were to be formed, a limited number of
Slaves only was to be annually imported; and other regulations and
measures were to be adopted, with a view to the general abolition of the
Trade in human beings.
Time would fail me, were I to attempt to lay before you in detail the
various discussions which subsequently took place. It may be enough to
state, that the Abolitionists apprehended, that if Parliament,
acknowledging the foul injustice and cruelty of the African Slave Trade,
should suffer it to continue for several years on any such weak and
vague grounds as those of not shocking the prejudices, and acting
contrary to the wishes of the West Indian proprietors, and on such other
pleas as were urged by our opponents, when it had been distinctly proved
by the greatest political authorities, who, differing on most other
subjects, entirely concurred on this, that the measure so far from being
ultimately injurious to the West Indians, would substantially and
permanently promote their interests, it would be in vain that we should
flatter ourselves that any determination to abolish the Slave Trade at
the end of eight years would ever be adhered to.