began to be liberated about eighteen months ago in the newly-erected
State of Columbia. General Bolivar began the great work himself by
enfranchising his own slaves, to the number of between seven and eight
hundred. But he was not satisfied with this; for believing, as he did,
that to hold persons in slavery at all, was not only morally wrong, but
utterly inconsistent with the character of men fighting for their own
liberty, he brought the subject before the Congress of Venezuela. The
Congress there, after having duly considered it, drew up resolutions
accordingly, which it recommended to the first general Congress of
Columbia, when it should be assembled. This last congress, which met at
the time expected, passed a decree for emancipation on the 19th of July
1821. All slaves, who had assisted, in a military capacity, in achieving
the independence of the republic, were at once declared free. All the
children of slaves, born after the said 19th of July, were to be free in
succession as they attained the eighteenth year of their age. A fund was
established at the same time by a general tax upon property, to pay the
owners of such young slaves the expense of bringing them up to their
eighteenth year, and for putting them afterwards to trades and useful
professions; and the same fund was made applicable to the purchase of
the freedom of adults in each district every year, during the three
national festivals in December, as far as the district-funds would
permit. Care, however, was to be taken to select those of the best
character. It may be proper to observe, that emancipation, as above
explained, has been proceeding regularly, from the 19th of July 1821,
according to the terms of the decree, and also according to the ancient
Spanish code, which still exists, and which is made to go hand in hand
with it. They who attain their eighteenth year are not allowed to go at
large after their liberation, but are put under the charge of special
juntas for a useful education. The adults may have land, if they desire
it, or they may go where they please. The State has lately purchased
freedom for many of the latter, who had a liking to the army. Their
freedom is secured to them whether they remain soldiers or are
discharged. It is particularly agreeable to me to be able to say that
all, who have been hitherto emancipated, have conducted themselves
since that time with propriety. It appears by a letter from Columbia,
dated 17th February 1822, about seven months after emancipation had
commenced, addressed to James Stephen, Esq. of London, and since made
public, "that the slaves were all then _peaceably at work_ throughout
the republic, as well as _the newly enfranchised_ and those originally
free." And it appears from the account of a gentleman of high
consideration just arrived from Columbia, in London, that up to the time
of his departure, they who had been emancipated "were _steady_ and
_industrious_, and that they _had conducted themselves well without a
single exception_." But as this is an experiment which it will yet take
sixteen years to complete, it can only be called to our aid, as far as
the result of it is known. It is, however, an experiment to which, as
far as it has been made, we may appeal with satisfaction: for when we
consider that _eighteen_ months have elapsed, and that _many[13]
thousands_ have been freed since the passing of the decree and the date
of the last accounts from Columbia, the decree cannot but be considered
to have had a sufficient trial.
The seventh class may comprehend the slaves of the Honourable Joshua
Steele, whose emancipation was attempted in Barbadoes between the years
1783 and 1790.
It appears that Mr. Steele lived several years in London. He was
Vice-president of the London Society of Arts, Manufactures, and
Commerce, and a person of talent and erudition. He was the proprietor of
three estates in Barbadoes. His agent there used to send him accounts
annually of his concerns; but these were latterly so ruinous, not only
in a pecuniary point of view, but as they related to what Mr. Steele
called the _destruction_ of his Negroes, that he resolved, though then
at the advanced age of eighty, to go there, and to look into his affairs
himself. Accordingly he embarked, and arrived there early in the year
1780.
Mr. Steele had not been long in Barbadoes, before he saw enough to
convince him that there was something radically wrong in the management
of the slaves there, and he was anxious to try, as well for the sake of
humanity as of his own interest, to effect a change in it. But how was
he to accomplish this[14]? "He considered within himself how difficult
it would be, nay, impossible, for a single proprietor to attempt so
great a novelty as to bring about an alteration of manners and customs
protected by iniquitous laws, and to which the gentlemen of the country
were reconciled as to the best possible for amending the indocile and
intractable ignorance of Negro slaves." It struck him however, among the
expedients which occurred, that he might be able to form a Society,
similar to the one in London, for the purpose of improving the arts,
manufactures, and commerce of Barbadoes; and if so, he "indulged a hope
that by means of it conferences might be introduced on patriotic
subjects, in the course of which new ideas and new opinions might soften
the national bigotry, so far as to admit some discourses on the
possibility of amendment in the mode of governing slaves." Following up
this idea, he brought it at length to bear. A Society was formed, in
consequence, of gentlemen of the island in 1781. The subjects under its
discussion became popular. It printed its first minutes in 1782, which
were very favourably received, and it seemed to bid fair after this to
answer the benevolent views of its founder.
During this time, a space of two years, Mr. Steele had been gaining a
practical knowledge of the West Indian husbandry, and also a practical
knowledge of the temper, disposition, habits, and customs of the slaves.
He had also read much and thought much. It may be inferred from his
writings, that three questions especially had employed his mind.
1. Whether he could not do away all arbitrary punishments and yet keep
up discipline among the slaves? 2. Whether he could not carry on the
plantation-work through the stimulus of reward? 3. Whether he could not
change slavery into a condition of a milder name and character, so that
the slaves should be led by degrees to the threshold of liberty, from
whence they might step next, without hazard, into the rank of free men,
if circumstances should permit and encourage such a procedure. Mr.
Steele thought, after mature consideration, that he could accomplish all
these objects, and he resolved to make the experiments gradually upon
his own estates.
At the end of the year 1783 he put the first of these questions to
trial. "I took," says he, "the whips and all power of arbitrary
punishment from all the overseers and their white servants, which
occasioned _my chief overseer to resign_, and I soon dismissed all his
deputies, who _could not bear the loss of their whips_; but at the same
time, that a proper subordination and obedience to lawful orders and
duty should be preserved, I created a _magistracy out of the Negroes_
themselves, and appointed a court or jury of the elder Negroes or
head-men for trial and punishment of all casual offences, (and these
courts were always to be held in my presence, or in that of my new
superintendant,) which court _very soon grew respectable_. Seven of
these men being of the rank of drivers in their different departments,
were also constituted _rulers_, as magistrates over all the gang, and
were charged to see at all times that nothing should go wrong in the
plantations; but that on all necessary occasions they should assemble
and consult together how any such wrong should be immediately rectified;
and I made it known to all the gangs, that the authority of these rulers
should supply the absence or vacancy of an overseer in all cases; they
making daily or occasional reports of all occurrences to the proprietor
or his delegate for his approbation or his orders."
It appears that Mr. Steele was satisfied with this his first step, and
he took no other for some time. At length, in about another year, he
ventured upon the second. He "tried whether he could not obtain the
labour of his Negroes by _voluntary_ means instead of the old method by
violence." On a certain day he offered a pecuniary reward for holing
canes, which is the most laborious operation in West Indian husbandry.
"He offered two-pence half-penny (currency), or about three-halfpence
(sterling), per day, with the usual allowance to holers of a dram with
molasses, to any twenty-five of his Negroes, both men and women, who
would undertake to hole for canes an acre per day, at about 96-1/2 holes
for each Negro to the acre. The whole gang were ready to undertake it;
but only fifty of the volunteers were accepted, and many among them were
those who _on much lighter occasions_ had usually pleaded _infirmity and
inability_: but the ground having been moist, they holed twelve acres
within six days with great ease, having had _an hour_, more or less,
_every evening to spare_, and the like experiment was repeated with the
like success. More experiments with such premiums on weeding and deep
hoeing were made by task-work per acre, and all succeeded in like
manner, their premiums being all punctually paid them in proportion to
their performance. But afterwards some of the same people being put
_without premium_ to weed on a loose cultivated soil in the common
manner, _eighteen_ Negroes did not do as much in a given time as _six_
had performed of the like sort of work a few days before with the
premium of two-pence half-penny." The next year Mr. Steele made similar
experiments. Success attended him again; and from this time task-work,
or the _voluntary_ system, became the general practice of the estate.
Mr. Steele did not proceed to put the third question to trial till the
year 1789. The Society of Arts, which he had instituted in 1781, had
greatly disappointed him. Some of the members, looking back to the
discussions which had taken place on the subject of Slavery, began to
think that they had gone too far as slaveholders in their admissions.
They began to insinuate, "that they had been taken in, under the
specious appearance of promoting the arts, manufactures, and commerce of
Barbadoes, _to promote dangerous designs against its established laws
and customs_." Discussions therefore of this sort became too unpopular
to be continued. It was therefore not till Mr. Steele found, that he had
no hope of assistance from this Society, and that he was obliged to
depend solely upon himself, that he put in force the remainder of his
general plan. He had already (in 1783), as we stated some time ago,
abolished arbitrary punishment and instituted a Negro-magistracy; and
since that time (in 1785) he had adopted the system of _working by the
piece_. But the remaining part of his plan went the length of _altering
the condition_ of the slaves themselves; and it is of this alteration, a
most important one (in 1789), that I am now to speak.
Mr. Steele took the hint for the particular mode of improving the
condition of his slaves, which I am going to describe, from the practice
of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in the days of Villainage, which, he says,
was "the most wise and excellent mode of civilizing savage slaves."
There were in those days three classes of villains. The first or lowest
consisted of villains in gross, who were alienable at pleasure. The
second of villains regardent, who were _adscripti glebae_, or attached
as freehold property to the soil. And the third or last of copyhold
bondmen, who had tenements of land, for which they were bound to pay in
services. The villains first mentioned, or those of the lowest class,
had all these gradations to pass through, from the first into the
second, and from the second into the third, before they could become
free men. This was the model, from which Mr. Steele resolved to borrow,
when he formed his plan for changing the condition of his slaves. Me did
not, however, adopt it throughout, but he chose out of it what he
thought would be most suitable to his purpose, and left the rest. We may
now see what the plan was, when put together, from the following
account.
In the year 1789 he erected his plantations into _manors_. It appears
that the Governor of Barbadoes had the power by charter, with the
consent of the majority of the council, of dividing the island into
manors, lordships, and precincts, and of making freeholders; and though
this had not yet been done, Mr. Steele hoped, as a member of council, to
have influence sufficient to get his own practice legalized in time.
Presuming upon this, he registered in the _manor_-book all his adult
male slaves as _copyholders_. He then gave to these separate tenements
of lands, which they were to occupy, and upon which they were to raise
whatever they might think most advantageous to their support. These
tenements consisted of half an acre of plantable and productive land to
each adult, a quantity supposed to be sufficient with industry to
furnish him and his family with provision and clothing. The tenements
were made descendible to the heirs of the occupiers or copyholders, that
is, to their children _on the plantations_; for no part of the
succession was to go out of the plantations to the issue of any foreign
wife, and, in case of no such heir, they were to fall in to the lord to
be re-granted according to his discretion. It was also inscribed that
any one of the copyholders, who would not perform his services to the
manor (the refractory and others), was to forfeit his tenement and his
privileged rank, and to go back to villain in gross and to be subject to
corporal punishment as before. "Thus," says Mr. Steele, "we run no risk
whatever in making the experiment by giving such copyhold-tenements to
all our well-deserving Negroes, and to all in general, when they appear
to be worthy of that favour."
Matters having been adjusted so far, Mr. Steele introduced the practice
of _rent_ and _wages_. He put an annual rent upon each tenement, which
he valued at so many days' labour. He set a rent also upon personal
service, as due by the copyholder to his master in his former quality of
slave, seeing that his master or predecessor had purchased a property in
him, and this be valued in the same manner. He then added the two rents
together, making so many days' work altogether, and estimated them in
the current money of the time. Having done this, he fixed a daily wages
or pay to be received by the copyholders for the work which they were to
do. They were to work 260 days in the year for him, and to have 48
besides Sundays for themselves. He reduced these days' work also to
current money. These wages he fixed at such a rate, that "they should be
more than equivalent to the rent of their copyholds and the rent of
their personal services when put together, in order to hold out to them
an evident and profitable incentive to their industry." It appears that
the rent of the tenement, half an acre, was fixed at the rate of 9 l.
currency, or between forty and fifty shillings sterling per acre, and
the wages for a man belonging to the first gang at 7-1/2d. currency
or 6d. sterling per day. As to the rent for the personal services, it
is not mentioned.
With respect to labour and things connected with it, Mr. Steele entered
the following among the local laws in the _court-roll_ of the tenants
and tenements. The copyholders were not to work for other masters
without the leave of the lord. They were to work ten hours per day. If
they worked over and above that time, they were to be paid for every
hour a tenth part of their daily wages, and they were also to forfeit a
tenth for every hour they were absent or deficient in the work of the
day. All sorts of work, however, were to be reduced, as far as it could
be done by observation and estimation, to equitable task-work. Hoes were
to be furnished to the copyholders in the first instance; but they were
to renew them, when worn out, at their own expense. The other tools were
to be lent them, but to be returned to the storekeeper at night, or to
be paid for in default of so doing. Mr. Steele was to continue the
hospital and medical attendance at his own expense as before.
Mr. Steele, having now rent to receive and wages to pay, was obliged to
settle a new mode of accounting between the plantation and the
labourers. "He brought, therefore, all the minor crops of the
plantation, such as corn, grain of all sorts, yams, eddoes, besides rum
and molasses, into a regular cash account by weight and measure, which
he charged to the copyhold-storekeeper at market prices of the current
time, and the storekeeper paid them at the same prices to such of the
copyholders as called for them in part of wages, in whose option it was
to take either cash or goods, according to their earnings, to answer all
their wants. Rice, salt, salt fish, barrelled pork, Cork butter, flour,
bread, biscuit, candles, tobacco and pipes, and all species of clothing,
were provided and furnished from the store at the lowest market prices.
An account of what was paid for daily subsistence, and of what stood in
their arrears to answer the rents of their lands, the fines and
forfeitures for delinquencies, their head-levy and all other casual
demands, was accurately kept in columns with great simplicity, and in
books, which checked each other."
Such was the plan of Mr. Steele, and I have the pleasure of being able
to announce, that the result of it was _highly satisfactory to himself_.
In the year 1788, when only the first and second part of it had been
reduced to practice, he spoke of it thus:--"A plantation," says he, "of
between seven and eight hundred acres has been governed by fixed laws
and a Negro-court _for about five years with great success_. In this
plantation no overseer or white servant is allowed to lift his hand
against a Negro, nor can he arbitrarily order a punishment. Fixed laws
and a court or jury of their peers _keep all in order_ without the ill
effect of sudden and intemperate passions." And in the year 1790, about
a year after the last part of his plan had been put to trial, he says in
a letter to Dr. Dickson, "My copyholders have succeeded beyond my
expectation." This was his last letter to that gentleman, for he died in
the beginning of the next year. Mr. Steele went over to Barbadoes, as I
have said before, in the year 1780, and he was then in the eightieth
year of his age. He began his humane and glorious work in 1783, and he
finished it in 1789. It took him, therefore, six years to bring his
Negroes to the state of vassalage described, or to that state from
whence he was sure that they might be transferred without danger in no
distant time, to the rank of freemen, if it should be thought desirable.
He lived one year afterwards to witness the success of his labours. He
had accomplished, therefore, all he wished, and he died in the year
1791, in the ninety-first year of his age.
It may be proper now, and indeed useful to the cause which I advocate,
to stop for a moment, just to observe the similarity of sentiment of two
great men, quite unknown to each other; one of whom (Mr. Steele) was
concerned in preparing Negro-slaves for freedom, and the other
(Toussaint) in devising the best mode of managing them after they had
been suddenly made free.
It appears, first, that they were both agreed in this point, viz. that
the _first step_ to be taken in either case, was _the total abolition of
arbitrary punishment_.
It appears, secondly, that they were nevertheless both agreed again as
to the necessity of punishing delinquents, but that they adopted
different ways of bringing them to justice. Toussaint referred them to
_magistrates_, but Mr. Steele _to a Negro-court_. I should prefer the
latter expedient; first, because a Negro-court may be always at hand,
whereas magistrates may live at a distance from the plantations, and not
be always at home. Secondly, because the holding of a Negro-court would
give consequence to those Negroes who should compose it, not only in
their own eyes but in the eyes of others; and every thing, that might
elevate the Black character, would be useful to those who were _on the
road to emancipation_; and, lastly, because there must be some thing
satisfactory and consoling to the accused to be tried by their peers.
It appears, thirdly, that both of them were agreed again in the
principle of making the Negroes, in either case, _adscripti glebae_; or
attached to the soil, though they might differ as to the length of time
of such ascription.
And it appears, lastly, that they were agreed in another, and this the
only remaining point, viz. on the necessity of holding out a stimulus to
either, so as to excite in them a very superior spirit of industry to
any they had known before. They resorted, however to different means to
effect this. Toussaint gave the labourers one _fourth_ of the produce
of the land; deducting board and clothing. Mr. Steele, on the other
hand, gave them _daily wages_. I do not know which to prefer; but the
plan of Mr. Steele is most consonant to the English practice.
But to return. It is possible that some objector may rise up here as
before, and say that even the case, which I have now detailed, is not,
strictly speaking, analogous to that which we have in contemplation, and
may argue thus:--"The case of Mr. Steele is not a complete precedent,
because his slaves were never _fully_ emancipated. He had brought them
only to _the threshold_ of liberty, but no further. They were only
_copyholders_, but _not free men_." To this I reply, first, That Mr.
Steele _accomplished all that he ever aimed at_. I have his own words
for saying, that so long as the present iniquitous slave-laws, and the
distinction of colour, should exist, it would be imprudent to go
further. I reply again, That the partisans of emancipation would be
happy indeed, if they could see the day when our West Indian slaves
should arrive at the rank and condition of the copyholders of Mr.
Steele. They wish for no other freedom than that which is _compatible
with the joint interest of the master and the slave_. At the same time
they must maintain, that the copyholders of Mr. Steele had been brought
so near to the condition of free men, that a removal from one into the
other, after a certain time, seemed more like a thing of course than a
matter to be attended either with difficulty or danger: for
unquestionably their moral character must have been improved. If they
had ceased for seven years to feel themselves degraded by arbitrary
punishment, they must have acquired some little independence of mind. If
they had been paid for their labour, they must have acquired something
like a spirit of industry. If they had been made to pay rent for their
cottage and land, and to maintain themselves, they must have been made
to _look beforehand_, to _think for themselves and families from day to
day_, and to _provide against the future_, all which operations of the
mind are the characteristics only of free men. The case, therefore, of
Mr. Steele is most important and precious: for it shows us, first, that
the emancipation, which we seek, is a thing which _may be effected_. The
plan of Mr. Steele was put in force in _a British_ Island, and that,
which was done in one British Island, may under similar circumstances
_be done again in the same, as well as in another_. It shows us, again,
_how_ this emancipation may be brought about. The process is so clearly
detailed, that any one may follow it. It is also a case for
encouragement, inasmuch as it was attended with success.