bodies, and a seventh of slaves, who were led up to the very threshold
of freedom, comprehending altogether not less than between five and six
hundred thousand persons; and I have considered also all the objections
that could be reasonably advanced against them. The result is a belief
on my part, that emancipation is not only _practicable_, but that it is
_practicable without danger_. The slaves, whose cases I have been
considering, were resident in different parts of the world. There must
have been, amongst such a vast number, persons of _all characters_. Some
were liberated, who had been _accustomed to the use of arms_. Others at
a time when the land in which they sojourned was afflicted _with civil
and foreign wars_; others again _suddenly_, and with _all the vicious
habits of slavery upon them_. And yet, under all these disadvantageous
circumstances, I find them all, without exception, _yielding themselves
to the will of their superiors_, so as to be brought by them _with as
much ease and certainty into the form intended for them_, as clay in the
hands of the potter is fashioned to his own model. But, if this be so, I
think I should be chargeable with a want of common sense, were I _to
doubt for a moment_, that emancipation _was not practicable_; and I am
not sure that I should not be exposed to the same charge, were I to
doubt, that emancipation _was practicable without danger_. For I have
not been able to discover (and it is most remarkable) _a single failure_
in any of the cases which have been produced. I have not been able to
discover throughout this vast mass of emancipated persons _a single
instance of bad behaviour_ on their parts, not even of a refusal to
work, or of disobedience to orders. Much less have I seen frightful
commotions, or massacres, or a return of evil for evil, or revenge for
past injuries, even when they had it amply in their power. In fact, the
Negro character is malleable at the European will. There is, as I have
observed before, a singular pliability in the constitutional temper of
the Negroes, and they have besides a quick sense of their own interest,
which influences their conduct. I am convinced, that West India masters
can do what they will with their slaves; and that they may lead them
through any changes they please, and with perfect safety to themselves,
if they will only make them (the slaves) understand that they are to be
benefited thereby.
Having now established, I hope, two of my points, first, that
emancipation is _practicable_, and, secondly, that it is _practicable
without danger_, I proceed to show the probability that _it would be
attended with profit_ to those planters who should be permitted to adopt
it. I return, therefore, to the case of Mr. Steele. I give him the prior
hearing on this new occasion, because I am sure that my readers will be
anxious to learn something more about him; or to know what became of his
plans, or how far such humane endeavours were attended with success. I
shall begin by quoting the following expressions of Mr. Steele. "I have
employed and amused myself," says he, "by introducing _an entire new
mode_ of governing my own slaves, for their happiness, and also _for my
own profit_." It appears, then, that Mr. Steele's new method of
management was _profitable_. Let us now try to make out from his own
account, of what these profits consisted.
Mr. Steele informs us, that his superintendant had obliged him to hire
all his holing at 3 l. currency, or 2 l. 2s. 10d. sterling per
acre. He was very much displeased at these repeated charges; and then it
was, that he put his second question to trial, as I have before related,
viz. whether he could not obtain the labour of his Negroes by voluntary
means, instead of by the old method by violence. He made, therefore, an
attempt to introduce task-work, or labour with an expected premium for
extraordinary efforts, upon his estates. He gave his Negroes therefore a
small pecuniary reward over and above the usual allowances, and the
consequence was, as he himself says, that "the _poorest, feeblest_, and
by character _the most indolent_ Negroes of the whole gang, cheerfully
performed the holing of his land, generally said to be the most
laborious work, for _less than a fourth part_ of the stated price paid
to the undertakers for holing." This experiment I have detailed in
another place. After this he continued the practice of task-work or
premium. He describes the operation of such a system upon the minds of
his Negroes in the following words: "According to the vulgar mode of
governing Negro-slaves, they feel only the desponding fear of punishment
for doing less than they ought, without being sensible that the settled
allowance of food and clothing is given, and should be accepted, as a
reward for doing well, while in task-work the expectation of winning the
reward, and the fear of losing it, have a double operation to exert
their endeavours." Mr. Steele was also benefited again in another point
of view by the new practice which he had introduced. "He was clearly
convinced, that saving time, by doing in one day as much as would
otherwise require three days, was _worth more than double the premium_,
the _timely effects_ on vegetation _being critical_." He found also to
his satisfaction, that "during all the operations under the premium
there were _no disorders, no crowding to the sick-house_, as before."
I have now to make my remarks upon this account. It shows us clearly how
Mr. Steele made a part of his profits. These profits consisted first of
a _saving of expense_ in his husbandry, which saving _was not made by
others_. He had his land holed _at one-fourth_ of the usual rate. Let us
apply this to all the other operations of husbandry, such as weeding,
deep hoeing, &c. in a large farm of nearly eight hundred acres, like
his, and we shall see how considerable the savings would be in one
year. His Negroes again did not counterfeit sickness as before, in order
to be excused from labour, but rather wished to labour in order to
obtain the reward. There was therefore no crowding to the hospitals.
This constituted a _second source of saving_; for they who were in the
hospitals were maintained by Mr. Steele without earning any thing, while
they who were working in the field left to their master in their work,
when they went home at night, a value equal at least to that which they
had received from him for their day's labour. But there was another
saving of equal importance, which Mr. Steele calls a saving of _time_,
but which he might with more propriety have called a saving of _season_.
This saving of season, he says, was worth _more than double the
premium_; and so it might easily have been. There are soils, every
farmer knows, which are so constituted, that if you miss your day, you
miss your season; and, if you miss your season, you lose probably half
your crop. The saving, therefore, of the season, by having a whole crop
instead of half an one, was _a third source of saving of money_. Now let
us put all these savings together, and they will constitute a great
saving or profit; for as these savings were made by Mr. Steele in
consequence of _his new plan_, and _were therefore not made by others_,
they constituted an _extraordinary_ profit to him; or they added to the
profit, whatever it might have been, which he used to receive from the
estate before his new plan was put in execution.
But I discover other ways in which Mr. Steele was benefited, as I
advance in the perusal of his writings. It was impossible to overlook
the following passage: "Now," says he (alluding to his new system),
"every species of provisions raised on the plantations, or bought from
the merchants, is charged at the market-price to the copyhold-store, and
discharged by what has been paid on the several accounts of every
individual bond-slave; whereas for all those species heretofore, I never
saw in any plantation-book of my estates any account of what became of
them, or how they were disposed of, nor of their value, other than in
these concise words, _they were given in allowance to the Negroes and
stock_. Every year, for six years past, this great plantation has
bought several hundred bushels of corn, and was scanty in all
ground-provisions, our produce always falling short. This year, 1790,
_since the establishment of copyholders, though several less acres were
planted_ last year in Guinea corn than usual, yet we have been able to
sell _several hundred bushels_ at a high price, and _we have still a
great stock in hand_. I can place this saving to no other account, than
that there is now an exact account kept by all produce being paid as
cash to the bond-slaves; and also as all our watchmen are obliged to pay
for all losses that happen on their watch, they have found it their
interest to look well to their charge; and consequently that we have
had much less stolen from us than before this new government took
place."
Here then we have seen _another considerable source of saving_ to Mr.
Steele, viz. that _he was not obliged to purchase any corn for his
slaves as formerly_. My readers will be able to judge better of this
saving, when I inform them of what has been the wretched policy of many
of our planters in this department of their concerns. Look over their
farming memoranda, and you will see _sugar, sugar, sugar_, in every
page; but you may turn over leaf after leaf, before you will find the
words _provision ground_ for their slaves. By means of this wretched
policy, slaves have often suffered most grievously. Some of them have
been half-starved. Starvation, too, has brought on disorders which have
ultimately terminated in their death. Hence their masters have suffered
losses, besides the expense incurred in buying what they ought to have
raised upon their own estates, and this perhaps at a dear market: and in
this wretched predicament Mr. Steele appears to have been himself when
he first went to the estate. His slaves, he tells us, had been reduced
in number by bad management. Even for six years afterwards he had been
obliged to buy several hundred bushels of corn; but in the year 1790 he
had sold several hundred bushels at a high price, and had still a great
stock on hand. And to what was all this owing? Not to an exact account
kept at the store (for some may have so misunderstood Mr. Steele); for
how could an exact account kept there, have occasioned an increase in
the produce of the earth? but, as Mr. Steele himself says, _to the
establishment of his copyholders_, or to the _alteration of the
condition_ of his slaves. His slaves did not only three times more work
than before, in consequence of the superior industry he had excited
among them, but, by so doing, they were enabled to put the corn into the
earth three times more quickly than before, or they were so much
forwarder in their other work, that they were enabled to sow it at the
critical moment, or so as _to save the season_, and thus secure a full
crop, or a larger crop on a less number of acres, than was before raised
upon a greater. The copyholders, therefore, were the persons who
increased the produce of the earth; but the exact account kept at the
store prevented the produce from being misapplied as formerly. It could
no longer be put down in the general expression of "given in allowances
to the Negroes and the stock;" but it was put down to the copyholder,
and to him only, who received it. Thus Mr. Steele saved the purchase of
a great part of the provisions for his slaves. He had formerly a great
deal to buy for them, but now nothing. On the other hand, he had to
sell; but, as his slaves were made, according to the new system, to
_maintain themselves_, he had now _the whole produce of his estate to_
_dispose of_. The circumstance therefore of having nothing to buy, but
every thing to sell, constituted another source of his profits.
What the other particular profits of Mr. Steele were I can no where
find, neither can I find what were his particular expenses; so as to be
enabled to strike the balance in his favour. Happily, however, Mr.
Steele has done this for us himself, though he has not furnished us with
the items on either side.--He says that "from the year 1773 to 1779 (he
arrived in Barbadoes in 1780), his stock had been so much reduced by ill
management and wasteful economy, that the annual average neat clearance
was little more than _one and a quarter_ per cent. on the purchase. In a
second period of four years, in consequence of the exertion of an honest
and able manager, (though with a further reduction of the stock, and
including the loss from the great hurricane,) the annual average income
was brought to clear _a little above two_ per cent.; but in a third
period of three years from 1784 to 1786 inclusive, _since the new mode
of governing the Negroes_, (besides increasing the stock, and laying out
large sums annually in adding necessary works, and in repairs of the
damages by the great hurricane,) the estate has cleared very nearly
_four and a quarter_ per cent.; that is, its annual average clearance in
each of these three periods, was in this proportion; for every 100 l.
annually cleared in the first period the annual average clearance in the
second period was 158 l. 10s., and in the third period was 345 l.
6s. 8d." This is the statement given by Mr. Steele, and a most
important one it is; for if we compare what the estate had cleared in
the first, with what it had cleared in the last of these periods, and
have recourse to figures, we shall find that Mr. Steele had _more than
tripled_ the income of it, in consequence of _his new management_,
during his residence in Barbadoes. And this is in fact what he says
himself in words at full length, in his answer to the 17th question
proposed to him by the committee of the Privy-council on the affairs of
the slave trade. "In a plantation," says he, "of 200 slaves in June
1780, consisting of 90 men, 82 women, 56 boys, and 60 girls, though
under the exertions of an able and honest manager, there were only 15
births, and no less than 57 deaths, in three years and three months. An
alteration was made in the mode of governing the slaves. The whips were
taken from all the white servants. All arbitrary punishments were
abolished, and all offences were tried and sentence passed by a Negro
court. In four years and three months after this change of government,
there were 44 births, and only 41 deaths, of which ten deaths were of
superannuated men and women, some above 80 years old. But in the same
interval the annual neat clearance of the estate was _above three times
more than it had been for ten years before!!!_"
Dr. Dickson, the editor of Mr. Steele, mentions these profits also, and
in the same terms, and connects them with an eulogium on Mr. Steele,
which is worthy of our attention. "Mr. Steele," says he, "saw that the
Negroes, like all other human beings, were to be stimulated to permanent
exertion only by a sense of their own interests in providing for their
own wants and those of their offspring. He therefore tried _rewards_,
which immediately roused the most indolent to exertion. His experiments
ended in _regular wages_, which the industry he had excited among his
whole gang enabled him to pay. Here was a natural, efficient, and
profitable reciprocity of interests. His people became contented; his
mind was freed from that perpetual vexation and that load of anxiety,
which are inseparable from the vulgar system, and in little more than
four years the annual neat clearance of his property _was more than
tripled_." Again, in another part of the work, "Mr. Steele's plan may no
doubt receive some improvements, which his great age obliged him to
decline"--"but it is perfect, as far as it goes. _To advance above 300
field-negroes, who had never before moved without the whip, to a state
nearly resembling that of contented, honest and industrious servants,
and, after paying for their labour, to triple in a few years the annual
neat clearance of the estate_,--these, I say, were great achievements
for an aged man in an untried field of improvement, pre-occupied by
inveterate vulgar prejudice. He has indeed accomplished all that was
really doubtful or difficult in the undertaking, and perhaps all that is
at present desirable either for owner or slave; for he has ascertained
as a fact, what was before only known to the learned as a theory, and to
practical men as a paradox, that _the paying of slaves for their labour
does actually produce a very great profit to their owners_."
I have now proved (_as far as the plan[15] of Mr. Steele is concerned_)
my third proposition, or _the probability that emancipation would
promote the interests of those who should adopt it_; but as I know of no
other estate similarly circumstanced with that of Mr. Steele, that is,
where emancipation has been tried, and where a detailed result of it has
been made known, I cannot confirm it by other similar examples. I must
have recourse therefore to some new species of proof. Now it is an old
maxim, as old as the days of Pliny and Columella, and confirmed by Dr.
Adam Smith, and all the modern writers on political economy, that _the
labour of free men is cheaper than the labour of slaves_. If therefore I
should be able to show that this maxim would be true, if applied to all
the operations and demands of West Indian agriculture, I should be able
to establish my proposition on a new ground: for it requires no great
acuteness to infer, that, if it be cheaper to employ free men than
slaves in the cultivation of our islands, emancipation would be a
profitable undertaking there.
I shall show, then, that the old maxim just mentioned is true, when
applied to the case in our own islands, first, by establishing the fact,
that _free men_, people of colour, in the East Indies, are employed in
_precisely the same concerns_ (the cultivation of the cane and the
making of sugar) as the slaves in the West, and that they are employed
_at a cheaper rate_. The testimony of Henry Botham, Esq. will be quite
sufficient for this point. That gentleman resided for some time in the
East Indies, where he became acquainted with the business of a sugar
estate. In the year 1770 he quitted the East for the West. His object
was to settle in the latter part of the world, if it should be found
desirable so to do. For this purpose he visited all the West Indian
islands, both English and French, in about two years. He became during
this time a planter, though he did not continue long in this situation;
and he superintended also Messrs. Bosanquets' and J. Fatio's
sugar-plantation in their partners' absence. Finding at length the
unprofitable way in which the West Indian planters conducted their
concerns, he returned to the East Indies in 1776, and established
sugar-works at Bencoolen on his own account. Being in London in the year
1789, when a committee of privy council was sitting to examine into the
question of the slave trade, he delivered a paper to the board on the
mode of cultivating a sugar plantation in the East Indies; and this
paper being thought of great importance, he was summoned afterwards in
1791 by a committee of the House of Commons to be examined personally
upon it.
It is very remarkable that the very first sentence in this paper
announced the fact at once, that "sugar, better and _cheaper_ than that
in the West Indian islands, was produced _by free men_."
Mr. Botham then explained the simple process of making sugar in the
East. "A proprietor, generally a Dutchman, used to let his estate, say
300 acres or more, with proper buildings upon it, to a Chinese, who
lived upon it and superintended it, and who re-let it to free men in
parcels of 50 or 60 acres on condition that they should plant it in
canes for so much for every pecul, 133 lbs., of sugar produced. This
superintendant hired people from the adjacent villages to take off his
crop. One lot of task-men with their carts and buffaloes cut the canes,
carried them to the mill, and ground them. A second set boiled them, and
a third clayed and basketed them for market at so much per pecul. Thus
the renter knew with certainty what every pecul would cost him, and he
incurred no unnecessary expense; for, when the crop was over, the
task-men returned home. By dividing the labour in this manner, it was
better and cheaper done."
Mr. Botham detailed next the improved method of making sugar in Batavia,
which we have not room to insert here. We may just state, however, that
the persons concerned in it never made spirits on the sugar estates. The
molasses and skimmings were sent for, sale to Batavia, where one
distillery might buy the produce of a hundred estates. Here, again, was
a vast saving, says Mr. Botham, "there was not, as in the West Indies, a
_distillery_ for _each estate_."
He then proceeded to make a comparison between the agricultural system
of the two countries. "The cane was cultivated _to the utmost
perfection_ in Batavia, whereas the culture of it in the West Indies was
but _in its infancy. The hoe was scarcely used_ in the East, whereas it
was almost _the sole implement_ in the West. The _plough was used
instead of it in the East_, as far as it could be done. Young canes
there were kept also often ploughed as a weeding, and the hoe was kept
to weed round the plant when very young; but of this there was little
need, if the land had been sufficiently ploughed. When the cane was
ready to be earthed up, it was done by a _sort of shovel_ made for the
purpose. _Two persons_ with this instrument would earth up more canes in
a day than _ten Negroes_ with hoes. The cane-roots were also _ploughed
up_ in the East, whereas they were _dug up with the severest exertion_
in the West. Many alterations," says Mr. Botham, "are to be made, and
expenses and human labour lessened in the West. _Having experienced the
difference of labourers for profit and labourers from force_, I can
assert, that _the savings by the former are very considerable_."
He then pointed out other defects in the West Indian management, and
their remedies. "I am of opinion," says he, "that the West Indian
planter should for his own interest give more labour to beast and less
to man. A larger portion of his estate ought to be in pasture. When
practicable, canes should be carried to the mill, and cane tops and
grass to the stock, in waggons. The custom of making a hard-worked Negro
get a bundle of grass twice a day should be abolished, and in short a
_total change take place in the miserable management in our West Indian
Islands_. By these means following as near as possible the East Indian
mode, and consolidating the distilleries, I do suppose our sugar-islands
might be better worked than they now are by _two-thirds_ or indeed
_one-half_ of the present force. Let it be considered how much labour is
lost by the persons _overseeing the forced labourer_, which is saved
when he works _for his own profit_. I have stated with the strictest
veracity a plain matter of fact, that sugar estates can _be worked
cheaper by free men than by slaves_[16]."