One after the other my white companions were led out for execution.
Every moment I expected that my turn would come. Very few showed any
great signs of fear, with the exception of the overseers, who had been
often and often the actual instruments of cruelty towards those who now
had them in their power. I am surprised that the ignorant savage blacks
did not torture them as they had themselves been tortured, before
putting an end to their existence. Perhaps they wished to set an
example of leniency to the civilised whites. They went about the
execution, however, with deliberation, sufficient to make it a very
terrible affair.
They shot the planter dressed as he was taken. When he had fallen,
numbers of the blacks rushed up, and having stripped him, they threw his
body, after inflicting numberless wounds on it, over the precipice. As
his clothes had been injured by the bullets, they proceeded to strip the
next person of his garments, with the exception of his trousers and
shoes, which they allowed him to retain--the latter, at all events,
being of very little use to them. He was one of the overseers, a
fierce, dark, stern man. He looked as if he was incapable of
experiencing any of the softer sympathies of our nature. He was
standing close to me while the planter was being shot, and not one of us
knew who would next be selected for execution. When the men who had
taken out the overseer seized hold of him, he turned deadly pale, and
shrieked out for mercy.
"Don't kill me! don't kill me!" he exclaimed. "I am not fit to die. I
cannot go as I am into another world. Oh, let me live! let me live! I
will toil for you; I will build your cottages; I will till your fields.
Kind Africans! hear me: if I have injured anyone, I will repay him an
hundred-fold. I'll do anything you require of me; but don't, oh, don't
kill me!"
The negro chief smiled at him scornfully, and the others who surrounded
him grinned horribly in his face. "Hi! hi! you mark my back with hot
iron," said one, gripping him by the shoulder; "you take out de mark?"
"You kill my piccaninni!" cried another in a hissing tone in his ear.
"You gib him back, eh? You make him smile in me face 'gain, eh?"
"You take away me young wife!" exclaimed another, in a hoarse voice,
looking him in the face. "Where she gone to now, eh? You give her back
good and fond as she once was--no! You repay a hundred-fold!--you undo
the harm you have done!"
"Wretched man! go meet the Judge whose laws you have outraged; go
encounter the reproachful spirits of those who, in life, you have
irretrievably injured! You are a blot on the world; you must be put out
of it. You must stand before your Almighty Judge, your God. He is a
God of mercy to those who have shown mercy. But have you shown it? No!
Still you must die!"
The latter expressions were, of course, not uttered by the negroes, but
something very similar was said; and amid the shouts and execrations of
the multitude, the wretched man was dragged out, and being shot down, a
hundred weapons were plunged in his yet warm and writhing body ere he
was thrown over the cliff to be food for the fowls of the air, which, in
spite of the firing, had already settled on the body of the planter,
once his superior, now his wretched equal.
The same scene was enacted with several others. In vain they pleaded
for life, in vain they offered rewards--large bribes, freedom to some,
the means of returning to Africa to others who had been brought over.
The negroes laughed all offers to scorn. No promises were believed: too
often had they been made and broken; too exquisitely cruel and barbarous
had been the punishments inflicted on prisoners taken in former
outbreaks, to allow them to lose the gratification of their present
revenge.
Often, as this scene has occurred to my mind, have I thought of what
would be the fate of the planters, and overseers, and other white
residents in the Slave States of the American Union, should the negroes
ever find an opportunity of revolting. What sanguinary massacres would
take place! what havoc and destruction would be the result! Few men
have a better right to speak on the subject than I have. I was born
before that great country called the United States was a nation. When I
could walk, they were part and parcel of England. I have talked with
men who were engaged in active life before the great Washington saw the
light; who fought against the French on the heights of Abraham, under
the hero Wolfe, and aided to win one of the brightest of her jewels for
the British crown. I, therefore, cannot help looking on the Americans
in the light of children--dear relatives; and when I address them, I
speak to them with love and affection. I say to them, take warning from
the scene I have been describing; do not submit to the incubus of
slavery a moment longer than you can avoid it. No sensible man expects
you to throw it off at once; but every right-feeling, right-thinking
man, does expect you to take every means and make every preparation for
its abolition, as soon as that important work can be accomplished. The
only means you have of effecting this object with safety to yourselves,
and with justice to those beings with immortal souls now intrusted by an
inscrutable decree of Providence to your care, is by educating them, by
making them Christians, by preparing them for liberty, by setting them
an example which they may hereafter follow. Teach them to depend on
their own exertions for support--to govern themselves--raise them in the
scale of humanity: treat them as men should men, and not as Christians
so-called treat the hapless sons of Africa. Remember that the British
West India Islands were brought to the verge of ruin, and numberless
families depending on them were ruined, not because the slaves were made
free, but because they were not properly prepared for freedom. Whose
fault was that? Not that of the British Government, not that of the
nation; but of the planters themselves, of the white inhabitants of the
island. They refused to the last to take any steps to Christianise, to
educate, to raise the moral character of the negroes; and of course the
negroes, when no longer under restraint, revelled in the barbarism in
which they had been allowed to remain, with all the vices consequent on
slavery superadded.
Should these remarks be read by any citizens of the American Slave
States, I trust that they will remember what Old Jack says to them. He
has reason to wish them well, to love them, for he has received much
kindness at the hands of many of their fellow-countrymen; and he repeats
that they have the power in their own hands to remove for ever from off
them the stigma which now attaches to their name. He does not urge them
to do it in consequence of any pressure from without--not at the beck
and call of foreigners, but from their own sense of justice; because
they are convinced that they are doing their duty to God and man; and
lastly, that they will be much better served by educated, responsible
freemen, than by slaves groaning in bondage, and working only from
compulsion. [See Note.]
But avast! I cry. I have been driving a long way from the scene I was
describing. The negroes I have been mentioning were men who had been
slaves, and had made themselves free, and we see the way they treated
the whites whom they had got into their power. They were, it must be
granted, savages, barbarians, heathens. Their people, who had been
captured as rebels, had been treated by their white Christian conquerors
with every refinement of cruelty which the malice of man could invent:
they had been slain with the most agonising tortures; and yet these
savages, disdaining such an example, merely shot their prisoners,
killing them without inflicting an unnecessary pang. I cannot say that
at the time, however, I thought that they were otherwise than a most
barbarous set.
One after the other my companions were led out and shot, and treated as
their predecessors. One, a sturdy Englishman, who had not been long in
the country, it seemed, broke loose, and knocked down several of his
guards. He fought long and bravely with them. Had he been able to get
hold of a weapon, he would, I believe, have cut his way out from among
them. As it was, his fists served him in good stead; and he had already
very nearly cleared himself a path, when a shot from pistol struck him
on the knee, and brought him to the ground. Still he struggled bravely;
but the negroes, throwing themselves on him, completely overpowered him,
and he was at once dragged up to the place of execution. Before he had
time to look around, or to offer up a prayer to Heaven, a dozen bullets
had pierced his body, and he who was but lately so full of life and
strength was a pallid corpse! I scarcely like to describe the dreadful
scene. Even now I often shudder as I think of it. I have seen men shot
down in battle--I have beheld numbers struggling in the raging sea,
which was about to prove their grave; but I never saw men in full health
and strength waiting for their coming death without the means of
struggling for life--I have never seen men deprived of life in so cool
and deliberate a way--I have never so surely expected to be deprived
myself of life.
Our numbers had now been dreadfully thinned; the captain, and I, and
three others only remained alive. One of those had become a raving
maniac, his mind had given way under the horror of death; but now he
feared nothing; he laughed the murderers to scorn; with shouts of
derision on his lips he was shot down. The next man was seized: calmly
he walked to the spot, and he likewise fell. Will it be the captain
next, or I, or the only other remaining prisoner? The latter was
seized: he looked up to the bright blue sky; to the green woods, waving
with rich tropical luxuriance of foliage; to the dark faces of the
surrounding multitude; and then at us two, his companions in misfortune;
and I shall never forget the look of anguish and terror I saw there
depicted. He saw no help, no chance of escape; in another instant he
also was numbered with the dead. Then, indeed, my heart sank within me,
for I expected to be like those who were to mortal eyes mere clods of
earth. But instead of seizing me, they approached the captain. Before,
however, they could lay their hands on him, his bonds seemed as if by
superhuman strength to be torn asunder, and up he sprung to do battle
for life! The negroes literally sprung back as they saw him with
amazement, and on he bounded towards their chief. No one tried to stop
him, and in another instant he had thrown his powerful well-knit limbs
so completely around him, that the negro, tall and strong as he was, was
entirely unable to help himself.
While this scene was enacting I remember seeing another tall negro with
a few followers coming along the causeway. When I saw what the captain
had done, remembering also that my bonds could be easily slackened, I
cast them off, and sprang after him; and so sudden were my movements,
that before any of the astonished blacks could stop me, I had clung to
the legs of the black chief as tightly as I ever clung to a
top-gallant-yard in a gale of wind. The chief and his followers were so
much taken by surprise, that no one knew what to say or how to act. The
awe with which the captain had inspired them, and the supernatural mode,
as it seemed, by which he had freed himself from his bonds, and freed me
also, made them afraid of approaching lest he should destroy them or the
chief.
The captain saw his advantage, and was not a man to lose it. His life
depended on his resolution. The horror he must have felt at the scene
just enacted made him resolve not to throw a chance away. As he held
the chief in his vice-like grasp, with his arms pinioned down, he looked
him fully in the face and laughed long and loudly.
"You thought to kill me, did you?" he exclaimed--"you thought that you
could deprive me of life as easily as you did those miserable men you
have just destroyed--me, a man who never injured you or yours; who has
never wronged one of the sons of Africa. Ay, I can say that with a
clear conscience. Often have I benefited them, often have I saved them
from injury; and perhaps even here there are some who know me, and know
that I speak the truth."
"One is here who can prove all he says to be true," exclaimed a tall
negro, stepping forward from among the crowd. He was the very man I had
remarked approaching the spot along the causeway.
"My friends, hear me," he exclaimed. "We have already satisfied our
just vengeance, and do not let us destroy the innocent with the guilty.
Some years ago a ship from Africa, laden with the children of her
fruitful soil torn cruelly from their homes, struck on a coral-reef. A
heavy sea dashed over the devoted vessel. Land was in sight, but yet
far-off, blue and indistinct. The white crew had many boats. They
launched them and pulled away with heartless indifference, leaving three
hundred human beings, men, women, and helpless children, to almost
certain destruction. Night came on. Oh, what a night of horrors! Many
died, some from terror; many were drowned, manacled as they lay in the
noisome hold. When the morning broke a sail appeared in sight. She
approached the spot. Some of the negroes who had broken loose made
signs to notify that human beings were still alive on board. The storm
had much abated; a boat was lowered and came close to the wreck. When
they saw that no white men were on board, did they pull away and leave
us to our fate? No; they hailed us as fellow-creatures, and told us to
calm our alarms, and that they would do their best to save us. I was
there--a slave--I who had been a chief in my own country! I asked how
many the boat would hold, and as many, about a dozen, I allowed to enter
her at a time. Another boat from the ship soon came to our assistance,
and one remained uninjured on board the wreck. We launched her, and
many of the Africans being able to paddle, helped to carry her people to
the ship. Thus all who remained alive on board the wreck were saved.
The ship sailed from the spot and approached the land. I asked the
brave captain how he would dispose of us. Some of the people believed
that he would carry us into a port, and there sell us as slaves. He
looked at me hard. `I am no slave-dealer,' he exclaimed. `Men have
called me what they deem worse, but that matters not. I should obtain a
large price for you all, and steep my soul in as black a sin as ever
stained our human nature. No; I will land you on yonder coast, far from
the habitations of men. There fruit, and roots, and numberless
productions of kind Nature will amply supply you with food. There you
may be free. I cannot take you back to your own country. I have no
other means of helping you.' The generous captain was as good as his
word--we were landed in safety ere the sun set; and more than that, he
supplied us with such food as he could spare to strengthen us for our
journey inland to the spot he advised us to seek, where we might remain
in safety. Yes, my friends; there is the man who did this noble deed--
there is the man whom you were, in your blindness, about so cruelly to
slay!"
While the stranger was speaking, I recognised in him the tall negro who
had come on board the brig, on my first voyage, with the mysterious old
man, whom I supposed to be Captain Ralph. As soon as he stepped forward
I felt almost certain that our lives would be spared; but still I did
not let go the chief's legs. He did not often get them so thoroughly
pinched, I suspect.
"I have yet more to tell you," continued the tall negro. "The noble
deed which that brave man had done was discovered by some of his white
countrymen, and he was persecuted by them, and compelled to fly for his
life, and for long to become a wanderer over the face of the ocean.
They drove him to take to a course of life which they themselves
condemned; and had they captured him, they would have made it plea for
his destruction."
The harangue which the negro made was even longer than I have given, and
the language was perhaps somewhat more suited to the comprehension of
his hearers. The effect, at all events, was most satisfactory.
Enthusiastic shouts of applause burst from every side; and the chief, in
words and by looks not to be mistaken, assured the captain that both his
and my life would be preserved, and only begged that he would have the
goodness not to squeeze him so tightly.
On this the captain released him, and the negroes rushing forward,
lifted him up on their shoulders, and bore him in triumph round their
village. The boys, not to be outdone by their elders, got hold of me as
soon as I had let go the chief's legs, and lifting me up in the same
way, followed the captain. Tom-toms were beat, and horns sounded, and
cymbals were clashed, and men, and women, and children shrieked and
shouted at the top of their voices, and never was heard a wilder outcry
and hubbub than that with which we were welcomed as we passed through
the rebel village. It was far pleasanter than being shot, I thought.
The truth is, that so great and sudden was the change in our position,
that I could scarcely collect my ideas and convince myself of its
reality. Everything seemed like a dream, both past and present. Still
I felt that my life was spared. I tried to be serious, and to be
thankful for the mercy shown me; but I am conscious that I succeeded
very ill, and allowed my mind to be entirely occupied with the scene
going forward before my eyes.
While we were being thus paraded about the village, the women were
engaged in preparing a feast, of which we were invited to partake; and I
know that, however excited had been my feelings, I had not lost my
appetite.
"Captain," said I, holding the leg of a roasted monkey in my fist, while
he was munching away at a stewed snake, or lizard, or some creeping
thing or other, "this is pleasanter than feeding the crows down below
there. I want, sir, to beg the chief's pardon for pinching his legs so
tight. I hope that he was not offended." I spoke in a very different
tone to that in which I had ever before addressed my captain. The truth
was, I felt and acted almost as if I were tipsy.
The captain looked at me somewhat sternly. "Be more serious, Jack," he
answered; "we should be thankful to Heaven that we are not as those
unhappy men are. We have both been mercifully preserved. Restrain your
feelings, lad; you'll have much to go through before you are out of the
fire."
I do not remember much more about the feast. The negroes ate, and
drank, and laughed, and then got up and danced and sang as merrily as if
they had not just been the principal actors in a terrific tragedy.
Before the feast was over, our old acquaintance the tall negro came up
to the captain, and sat himself down by his side.
"Prepare to leave this at a moment's notice," said he in a low tone of
voice. "These people's tempers may change again as rapidly against you
as they have lately turned in your favour. They believed what I told
them of your generosity; but as there is no one here to corroborate the
account, they might as easily be taught to discredit it."
"Thanks, my friend," answered the captain, grasping the negro's hand.
"Thanks, Michael; you have indeed repaid any debt you might have thought
you owed me. I'll follow your advice, and shall be ready to start
whenever you give the sign."
"Directly it is dark, then, we must away, you and your young follower
there," answered the tall negro, whom the captain addressed as Michael.
"I have another reason for wishing to be off. This work they have been
about will certainly bring the military up here; and though they might
hold the place against an army if they knew how, none of them can be
depended on. Now, if you remain here, our friends would expect you to
fight for them; and if you were captured by the white men, you would to
a certainty be treated as a rebel."
"Your arguments are quite strong enough, Michael, to make me wish to be
off," answered the captain, laughing. I did not hear the remainder of
the conversation.
The young negroes who had carried me about on their shoulders continued
to treat me very kindly, and brought me all sorts of things to eat, till
really I could not stuff in a mouthful more. They were much amused by
examining my hands, and face, and clothes, for many of them till that
day had never seen a white boy. They had been born up in the
mountainous district, where we then were, and where no white person had
ever ventured to come.
At last the negro Michael called the captain and me, and in the hearing
of the people, pointing to a hut, told us that it was to be our home.
The whole population having had plenty of work for the last few days,
retired to their huts, and left us in quiet. As may be supposed,
neither the captain nor I ventured to sleep, though, for my part, I
would very gladly have done so. We waited for some time with no little
anxiety. It was at last relieved by the appearance of Michael.
"Come," he whispered, "follow me. I could only ask seamen to take the
path by which I must lead you." He glided out, and we stepped after
him.
There was no moon, but the stars shone forth brightly, and gave us
sufficient light to see what was near at hand. Michael led the way
close to the spot where our companions had been murdered in the morning.
On a sudden he disappeared, and I thought that he had fallen over the
precipice. A pang shot through me. But no, he had merely begun to
descend by a narrow path cut in the rock. It was indeed both narrow and
steep. Sometimes we had to drop down several feet to a ledge below.
There were probably holes in the rock by which people might ascend, but
it was too dark to see them. Often we had to press along with our
breasts to the precipice, holding on to its rugged sides, and with our
backs over a yawning gulf. I would rather, however, have been on the
topsail-yard-arm in the heaviest gale that ever blew: with a good honest
rope in my hand, than where I then was. But darkness prevented our
seeing half its terrors. More than once I thought that I should have
gone over; but the captain, whose steps I closely followed, supported me
with his powerful arm, and brought me along in safety. He did not utter
a word, and his breath often came fast, as if he was undergoing great
physical exertion, and was well aware of our perilous position. I know
that my knees trembled beneath me when Michael told us that we had
reached the bottom.
"We have gained some miles by this path towards the sea," said he, "and
escaped the risk of being observed. Few even of the people up there
know the path, and fewer still would venture to descend by it. Now, let
us on; we have many miles to go before morning."
I need not describe our night's journey. For several hours we walked,
and often ran on, without stopping even a moment to rest. It is
extraordinary what people can do when they are pressed by circumstances.
We had not accomplished many miles when the moon arose, and shed her
light over the strangely wild and beautiful scene, her beams glancing
through the tall trees and the numberless creepers which decked their
branches. Suddenly Michael stopped, and then pressing us back without
speaking, conducted us into a thicket composed of prickly pear, cacti,
and other strangely-shaped shrubs. Scarcely had he done so when the
tramp of men and the sound of horses' feet were heard coming through a
rocky defile ahead of us, and soon afterwards a body of cavalry passed
along, their helmets and shining arms playing in the moonbeams. They
were immediately followed by a regiment of infantry, less showy but more
useful in the style of warfare in which they were likely to engage. It
would scarcely be believed, at the present day, that several troops of
dragoons were stationed at that time at Kingston, to do what it would be
difficult to say, as they were totally unfit for mountain warfare, and
would scarcely have been of much use to repel invasion. We remained
silent and concealed as they passed. I concluded that Michael or the
captain had good reasons not to wish to encounter them. They were
going, of course, to attack the rebels; but I understood afterwards that
they obtained but a very slight success, and had to return without in
any way contributing to put a stop to the outbreak. That was not done
till some time afterwards, when, by a general amnesty, and a guarantee
being given for their safety, the Maroons were induced to break up their
confederacy, and return within the pale of civilisation.
When daylight came we concealed ourselves in a thick wood, where I could
not help feeling terribly alarmed lest some snake or other noxious
reptile should injure us while we slept; but Michael assured me that I
need not fear, and that he would watch that no harm should happen to us.
Thus for three nights and a portion of one day we travelled on, till
once more the bright blue waters of the ocean gladdened our sight. From
a hill we climbed we looked down into a sheltered bay, and there lay
calmly at anchor a schooner, which we recognised as the one which had
been sent away from the brig under command of Mr Gale.
We were not long in descending the hill, and hailing her from the shore.
Here Michael parted from us, under the plea that he had business which
would detain him longer in that part of the island. The schooner's boat
took us off, and we were soon on board. Mr Gale had heard rumours of
the attack on the planter's house, and that every one had been murdered,
and he was truly glad to see his captain safe; while my kind friend
Peter assured me that he was not a little pleased to find that I had not
lost the number of my mess.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note. The above was written before the late American Civil War, which
emancipated the slaves of the Southern States.