recurrence, the interposition of a new tribunal of appeal for checking
the master’s authority, and compelling him, by the dread of penalties,
to be more liberal in his allowances of food and rest, and more
abstemious as to labour and punishment; in short, to force him to amend
the Slave’s treatment in future in all the undefinable particulars into
which it ramifies, or even to compensate to the Slave his past ill
usage, would in practice be soon found productive, not only of extreme
discontent, insubordination, and commotions on private properties, but
of the most fatal consequences to the safety of the whole colony. Sunk
as the Slaves at present are, we are assured they do not feel into what
a depth they have been depressed. We are told that they are not shocked,
as we are for them, by the circumstances of a Negro sale, or by the
other degrading particulars of their treatment; the spirit of the man is
extinct, or rather dormant within them. But remember, the first return
of life after a swoon is commonly a convulsion, dangerous at once to the
party himself, and to all around him. Impart to the Slaves the
consciousness of personal rights, and the means of asserting them; give
the Slaves a power of appealing to the laws; and you awaken in them a
sense of the dignity of their nature, you call into life a new set of
most dangerous emotions; of emotions, let me repeat it, beyond measure
dangerous, while you continue the humiliating and ignominious
distinctions to which they now unconsciously submit. When you encourage
your Slave to take account of his rights, and measure them with his
enjoyments: when you thus teach him to reflect on the treatment he is
receiving; to compare his own condition with that of Slaves under other
masters; to deliberate about obtaining redress; and, at last, to resolve
to seek it: when you thus accustom him to think, and feel, and decide,
and act; to be conscious of a wrong; to resent an injury; to go and
relate the story of his ill usage, thus daring to harbour the idea of
bringing his master to punishment and shame: when you even enable him to
achieve this victory; Do you think that he will long endure the wrongs
he now tolerates? It is a remark, if I mistake not, of an ancient
historian, who had the power above all others of placing before his
reader the scene he represents, that in that celebrated instance in
which a whole army, being hemmed in on all sides by the enemy, was
compelled, according to the barbarous practice of ancient warfare, to
submit to the shameful condition of going under a sort of gallows, that
each man was rendered most sensible of his own dishonour, by seeing the
shameful appearance of his comrades in that disgraceful exhibition. And
can you think that, when affection combines with indignation, a Negro
will bear to see the wife of his bosom, or a mother the children of her
rearing, driven through their daily work like the vilest of the brute
creation; and that too when each man can consult with his fellow, when
all they see around them almost are blacks? Above all, but here I
anticipate—when St. Domingo, and the lessons which it inculcates, occur
to the mind.
Surely enough has been said to shew, that there is no alternative, no
practical medium, between keeping the Slaves sunk in their present state
of extreme degradation, an idea for which no one, I trust, will be found
hardy enough to contend, and introducing the milder system of what may
not improperly be termed Patriarchal vassalage (to which the abolition
is an indispensable preliminary) as the state of training and discipline
for a condition in which they may be safely admitted to a still more
advanced enjoyment of personal and civil rights.
[Sidenote: Mr. Burke’s plan respecting the Slave Trade.]
And in this place, where we are considering the different modes which
have been proposed for effecting the abolition of the Slave Trade, it
may be proper to notice another plan of gradual abolition, which has
been often mentioned, though it has never been yet produced. No one can
doubt that attention is justly due to it, when they are told that it
claims the late Mr. Burke as its author. In duty to that great man
himself, as well as to the cause which I am defending, this matter
should be explained. Some years before the abolition of the Slave Trade
had been named in Parliament, Mr. Burke’s attention had been drawn to
that object. His stores of knowledge were so astonishingly ample and
various, that it is difficult to suppose any subject on which his great
mind was not abundantly furnished. But certainly very little was known,
even by men in general well-informed, concerning the nature and effects
of the Slave Trade on the coast, but much more in the interior of
Africa. Nor had we then obtained any of that great mass of information
concerning the West Indian system of management, which was procured
through the authority and influence of Government, and which could no
otherwise have been obtained. Mr. Burke, however, drew up the heads of a
plan for regulating the mode of carrying on the Slave Trade in Africa,
and a system for securing the better treatment of the Slaves in the West
Indies.
When, after the whole subject had been thoroughly investigated, a motion
for the immediate abolition of the Slave Trade was made in the House of
Commons; Mr. Burke honoured it with his support. He indeed stated, that
he himself had formerly taken up ideas somewhat different, with a view
towards the same end; but he added, expressing himself in that strong
and figurative style which must, methinks, have fixed the matter of his
speech firmly in the memory of all who heard him, that he at once
consigned them to the flames, and willingly adopted our mode of
abolition. I can with truth declare, that in private conversation, he
afterwards expressed to me his concurrence in our plan. It is a little
hard, therefore, that the authority of that great man should now be
pleaded against us. Still harder, that this should be the only use made
of it, that, instead of any attempt to give effect to his intentions,
his plan of abolishing the Slave Trade should be rendered practically
subservient to the continuation of that traffic. In short, that his name
should be used in complete opposition to his example. As to the nature
and effect of his proposed plan, I had the opportunity of perusing it
only hastily, and I have endeavoured, hitherto in vain, once more to
procure a sight of it. It is still however I believe in being, and will
I trust appear in some authentic form.
The plan itself was probably no more than a rough draught, or rather his
first thoughts on a subject, for forming a right judgment on which, a
full and exact knowledge of facts must be particularly necessary. That
on any subject, even the first thoughts of so great a man claim the
highest deference, I willingly allow. But may I not be permitted to
indulge a persuasion, that, from farther information than it was
possible for any man then to possess, concerning the nature and effects
of the Slave Trade in the interior of Africa, into which no traveller of
credit had then penetrated for some centuries, Mr. Burke would have been
convinced of the inefficacy of the regulations he proposed to establish
for the coast. Of his West Indian regulations, I will only say, that
while, unless completely neglected in practice, they would probably have
excited an opposition even more efficient than abolition itself; while
they would have been open from beginning to end to all objections,
grounded on interference with the internal legislation of the colonies;
they would, more than any other plan ever heard of, have been liable to
the objections which I have lately urged against imparting personal
rights and the privilege of complaining to a legal protector, so long as
the Slaves remain in their present condition of extreme degradation.
[Sidenote: Greater efficacy of abolition.]
With this plan for abolishing, as by a strange perversion of terms it is
styled, instead of confirming and perhaps perpetuating, the Slave Trade,
by the gradual operation of colonial statutes, a plan which, though
tried under the most favourable of all circumstances, has absolutely
failed; which has been declared even by West Indian authority itself to
have been proposed for the sake merely of getting rid of the
interference of the British Parliament; which has been clearly proved to
be utterly inefficient as to practical execution, and which, if it could
be executed, would immediately become inconceivably dangerous—With this
measure, founded on principles essentially and unalterably incompatible,
either utterly inefficient or mischievously active, compare the effects
of the measure which we propose, the abolition of the Slave Trade.
The bad effects of the continual introduction of African Slaves are so
manifest as scarcely to need suggesting. The annual infusion into the
West Indian Colonies of a great number of human beings, from a thousand
different parts of the continent, with all their varieties of languages,
and manners, and customs, many of them resenting their wrongs, and
burning with revenge; others deeply feeling their loss of country and
freedom, and the new hardships of their altered state; must have a
natural tendency to keep the whole mass into which they are brought, in
a state of ferment; to prevent the Slaves in general from emerging out
of their state of degradation; and to obstruct, both in them and in
those who are set over them, the growth of those domestic feelings and
habits, and the introduction of those more liberal modes of treatment,
which might otherwise be deemed both safe, and suitable in the case of
Slaves whose characters were known and who were become habituated to
their situation. But the grand evil arising from the continuance of
importations from Africa, is, that till they are discontinued, men will
never apply their minds in earnest to effect the establishment of the
breeding system.
But all farther importations being at length stopped, the Slave market
now no longer holding forth any resource, the necessity for keeping up
the stock would at once become palpable and urgent. All ideas of supply
from without, being utterly cut off, it would immediately become the
grand, constant, and incessant concern of every prudent man, both
proprietor and manager, to attend, in the first instance, to the
preservation and increase of his Negroes. Whatever may have been the
case in the instance of men at once both liberal and opulent, the mass
of owners have, practically at least, gone upon the system of working
out their Slaves in a few years, and recruiting their gangs with
imported Africans. The abolition would give the death-blow to this
system. The opposite system, with all its charities, would force itself
on the dullest intellects, on the most contracted or unfeeling heart.
Ruin would stare a man in the face, if he did not conform to it. The
sense of interest so much talked of, would not as heretofore, be a
remote, feeble, or even a dubious impulse; but a call so pressing, loud,
and clear, that its voice would be irresistible.
But the grand excellence of the operating principle of this reform is,
that it will stand between the absentee master and his Slaves; and while
it will promote the interest of the former, it will secure for the
latter the actual enjoyment of the effects of his benevolent intentions.
Managers would henceforth be forced to make breeding the prime object of
their attention. And every non-resident owner would express himself in
terms of an experienced Barbadian proprietor of superior rank and
fortune; “That he should consider it as the fault of the manager, if he
did not keep up the numbers of his Slaves.” The absent owner would have
the best security of which the nature of the case admits for his Slaves
being treated with liberality and kindness. The operative principle thus
supplied would exactly answer the desired purpose. It would adapt itself
to every variety of situation and circumstances. It would penetrate into
the interior of every plantation; it would ensure a due quantity of
food; it would provide against too rigorous an exaction of labour, and
enforce the adoption of those reforms which should be found requisite
for increasing the population. Many of the improvements which must at
once be introduced are perfectly manifest. But, ingenuity once set at
work in this direction, a thousand discoveries will be made, a thousand
reforms adopted, and, a manager’s credit and character now depending on
the increase of the Negroes, not as hitherto on that of the immediate
and clear returns from the estate, the former would henceforth become
the great object of his study in the closet, and of his conduct in life
and action.
The professional Planter’s work shews the improvements which may be
suggested by a single individual of intelligence and experience, living
on the spot, and superintending the whole system with an observant eye.
What, then, may be expected when the ingenuity and attention of a whole
community are set at work in the same direction; to effect the
introduction of moral reforms, the settlement of families, the
discouragement of adultery; the countenancing, by example as well as
precept, among book-keepers or overseers, of morality and decency, the
neglect of which, by persons of that class, has been hitherto productive
of many injurious consequences.
Let us hear therefore no more of the Slaves invincible habits of
profligacy and sensuality, of their not being susceptible of the
restraints, obligations, duties, and comforts of the marriage state.
Wonder not that they are now sunk into habits of gross debauchery. Not
man alone, but beings in general, throughout the whole range of animated
nature, instinctively seek the indulgencies and enjoyments suited to
their condition and capacities. Depressed therefore nearly to a level
with the brute creation, the negro Slaves instinctively adapt themselves
to their level, and are immersed in merely animal pursuits. Hence it is,
that those very Negroes, who in Africa are represented as so eminent for
truth, so disinterested in kindness, so faithful in the conjugal and
domestic relations, so hospitable, so fond of their children, of their
parents, of their country, gradually lose all these amiable dispositions
with the enjoyments which naturally arise out of them, and become
depraved and debased by all that is selfish and mercenary, and
deceitful, timid and indolent, and tyrannical. [Sidenote: System of
management, how to be reformed.] Would you raise them from this
depressed condition, remember the disease is of a moral nature. It
admits therefore only of a moral cure. Take away those particulars which
degrade and vilify, and thus expel from the system those circumstances
which depress the Slaves below the level of domestic life.[42] Endeavour
in such ways, and by such instruments, as by experience are found best
fitted for the purpose, to impart to them the inestimable blessings of
religious instruction and moral improvement and reform, many of them
would soon shew the happy effect of these instructions, by a conduct and
demeanour manifestly the result of higher principles; for I must once
more raise my voice against that gross misconception of the character of
the Negroes (an impeachment of the wisdom and goodness of their Creator
no less than of our own), which represents them as a race of such
natural baseness and brutality as to be incapable of religious
impressions and improvements. Encourage marriage and the rearing of
children in the only proper way; by settling the Slaves in family life,
with their cottage and gardens, and with such other immunities and
comforts and distinctions as will make them be respected by others and
teach them to respect themselves.
I am aware that it has been by no means uncommon for such masters as
have made the domestic increase their object, to give rewards to mothers
for rearing their children. Surely they have forgot, that Nature, I had
almost said instinct, would take care of this for them, if they would
but pursue the previous course she so manifestly dictates. It is not by
a reward to be given at the end of a year or two, that continual
attention can be purchased, with all the ten thousand cares and
assiduities and kindnesses which both by day and by night the weakness
of infancy requires; they are to be bought by a different price; they
are to be prompted and repaid by maternal tenderness, by domestic
sympathy, and parental interest. Give but to the Slaves a home; let the
children be safely born, with a tolerable prospect of happiness; and let
the mothers be allowed immunities and indulgencies, especially a little
time from field work, morning and evening, to attend to their infants;
bring them thus acquainted with conjugal duties and conjugal feelings,
with the comforts and emotions of family life, awaken in them the
dormant sympathies of domestic affection, and they will soon become
creatures of a higher order, for it is in the soil of domestic life that
all the charities of our nature spring up and flourish. A new set of
feelings will begin to unfold themselves. The Slaves in general will
learn to feel the value of a good character, to covet the acquisition
and strive for the maintenance of it. They will make it their study to
gain a master’s good opinion and confidence. With hope to animate, and
gratitude to warm, how soon should we witness willing industry and
hearty services. To these would justly be added, for in this imperfect
state the addition will doubtless be required, the fear of a master’s
displeasure, and the wholesome restraint of punishment for the indolent,
and refractory, and vicious. The harshness of their present bondage
being transformed into the mildness of patriarchal servitude, they will
become capable of still greater blessings, and more ennobling
privileges. The Slaves being now admitted to be not incapable of moral
obligations, they will surely be acknowledged to be fit for the lower
civil functions; and, above all, there will be no pretence for
maintaining that grand disqualification, which alone is sufficient to
taint their whole condition with the bitterness of degradation and
suffering, the utter inadmissibility of their evidence.[43] Thus they
would gradually and insensibly be transformed into a native peasantry.
Is it possible to contemplate the change which has been here slightly
traced, without emotions of the most lively delight? I will not now
indulge myself in the pleasing task of detailing the several steps of
this gratifying process; but I must state, that in many of the islands,
probably in them all, the quantity of food must be increased; in the
articles of clothing, lodging, and medical care, improvements must be
adopted; especially the hours of working must be lessened, and wherever
it is possible, task-work must be introduced; above all, that degrading
practice of working the Slaves under the whip must be abandoned. Think
not that it will be enough that females, when clearly pregnant, shall be
spared the more laborious duties of field work. No; nor even that all
the young women, without exception, shall be no longer worked under the
driver’s lash; from which, in the judgment of a most respectable and
intelligent planter, innumerable miscarriages happen in the earlier
periods of pregnancy. The system of whip-working itself must be entirely
exploded, and in its place must be substituted the operation of those
principles which are elsewhere found universally sufficient for their
object, the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment.
In all these particulars I am but recommending the several reforms
enforced with so much more authority by the professional Planter, to
whom I have so often referred. All these are preliminary reforms, which
must precede, or rather accompany that most efficient and beneficial of
all improvements, the combined effect of religious and moral
cultivation, with the comforts of being settled in families, and the
obligations and duties of conjugal and domestic life. That it may
require reflection, attention, and discretion to introduce this happy
change, I mean not to deny; it will require also, that a proprietor
should make up his mind to some present diminution of income, for the
sake of larger ultimate returns. Possibly even some arrangements of law
may here become expedient; nor will I even affirm, that in one or two
particular islands there may not be instances (though it is with
reluctance that one would acknowledge such a case) in which proprietors
may have found it their interest hitherto to work down their gangs, and
supply vacancies from the Slave market, to whom therefore the new system
may be injurious, the rather, because it would of course find their
Slaves nearly ground down by the want of necessaries and the excess of
labour.
But with such moderate exceptions as must necessarily be anticipated in
any change so great, it may be truly affirmed, to be the excellence and
glory of the measure we propose, that it is likely almost from the very
first to dispense blessings to every individual connected with it, in
every step, from the first to the last, throughout the whole of it’s
progress.
Often it happens in human affairs, that ends the most beneficial must be
obtained by painful and distressing means. Inveterate diseases can
rarely be cured without disgusting or painful remedies. But how
gratifying is the consideration, that in the present instance, not only
is our ultimate point the seat of security and happiness, but the way by
which we travel to it is a way of pleasantness and peace. Its effects
cannot be produced at once, but we are all the while tending to their
complete enjoyment, with an uniform and uninterrupted course. The Slaves
will daily grow happier, the planters richer. The whole will be like the
progress of vegetation; the effects are not at first perceptible, but
the great principle, operating in ten thousand instances, will gradually
change the whole face of things, and substitute fertility and beauty in
the place of barrenness and desolation.
And all this happy transformation we anticipate, not from carrying into
execution the speculations of the most intelligent and able men, but by
quitting the ways of injustice and cruelty, and by entering on those
happier paths, which, by the gracious ordination of Heaven, are, on the
long run, ever found to lead to safety, prosperity, and happiness. It
may be right to state one consideration, which may suggest the
probability, that even from the first the island stock of Slaves may not
be found inadequate to the increasing demands to be made on it.
[Sidenote: Waste of labour wherever slavery prevails.]
It is proved by indisputable reasoning, as well as by uniform
experience, that where slavery exists, there is always an immense waste
of labour; there is a tendency to accomplish, by mere force, all which
is elsewhere effected by machinery. How far this has been the case in
the West Indies, is pointed out by various authors, and particularly
with great ability, and perfect knowledge of the subject, by a late
writer.[44]
In order, therefore, to form a just estimate of the means of cultivating
the West Indies, after the abolition shall have taken place, we must
superadd, to a population gradually increasing, and advancing so much
the more rapidly from the removal of the obstacles to breeding, and the
positive causes of increase which have been already stated, that great
and incalculable increase in the efficiency of the force actually
employed, which will be effected by its becoming the immediate and
pressing interest of the proprietors to economise in the labour of their
Slaves, and to avail themselves of all the means by which labour may be
abridged, and the same produce may be raised by fewer hands.
[Sidenote: Immediate abolition preferable to gradual, both in the West
Indies and in Africa.]
Allow me also to remark that, now especially, when the planters have had
so much time, since the first proposal of abolition, for filling up
their gangs, the change is likely to operate more favourably on both
sides of the Atlantic, in consequence of it’s being immediate and
complete, not gradual in it’s operation. In the West Indies, where there
is to be a great change of practical views and objects, a change too
which will be very unwillingly adopted, men are far more likely to make
up their minds to the new system, and to set about acting upon it with
vigour, if it be clearly and decisively necessary, than if there be
still some supply, though in a diminished proportion, to be obtained
from the Slave market. Supposing them in the first year to fail in their
endeavours to obtain a share of the Slaves allowed to be imported, they
may hope to be more fortunate in the second. Meanwhile the hope of a
resource in the Slave market will prevent their exerting themselves in
earnest in establishing the system by which they might secure an
internal increase; and thus they might be drawn on from year to year to
their own ruin, to the public injury, and to the misery of their unhappy
Negroes.
Again, in Africa, were we at once to give up the Slave Trade, the native
chiefs and factors, who have hitherto entirely depended on it for their
supply of spirits, fire-arms, ammunition, and other European articles,
having no resource in their old occupation, would set themselves in
earnest to some other mode of employing their domestic Slaves, in order
thereby to procure the desired stock of European articles. But were the
trade to be abolished by degrees, they, as in the former case, would
hope to obtain a share, though it should be a smaller share; and this
expectation would be sufficient to prevent their engaging spiritedly in
any undertaking of agriculture or commerce.