JAMAICA--BLACK MEN.
To an Englishman who has never lived in a slave country, or in a
country in which slavery once prevailed, the negro population is of
course the most striking feature of the West Indies. But the eye soon
becomes accustomed to the black skin and the thick lip, and the ear
to the broken patois which is the nearest approach to English which
the ordinary negro ever makes. When one has been a week among them,
the novelty is all gone. It is only by an exercise of memory and
intellect that one is enabled to think of them as a strange race.
But how strange is the race of Creole negroes--of negroes, that is,
born out of Africa! They have no country of their own, yet have they
not hitherto any country of their adoption; for, whether as slaves
in Cuba, or as free labourers in the British isles, they are in each
case a servile people in a foreign land. They have no language of
their own, nor have they as yet any language of their adoption; for
they speak their broken English as uneducated foreigners always speak
a foreign language. They have no idea of country, and no pride of
race; for even among themselves, the word "nigger" conveys their
worst term of reproach. They have no religion of their own, and can
hardly as yet be said to have, as a people, a religion by adoption;
and yet there is no race which has more strongly developed its own
physical aptitudes and inaptitudes, its own habits, its own tastes,
and its own faults.
The West Indian negro knows nothing of Africa except that it is a
term of reproach. If African immigrants are put to work on the same
estate with him, he will not eat with them, or drink with them,
or walk with them. He will hardly work beside them, and regards
himself as a creature immeasurably the superior of the new comer.
But yet he has made no approach to the civilization of his white
fellow-creature, whom he imitates as a monkey does a man.
Physically he is capable of the hardest bodily work, and that
probably with less bodily pain than men of any other race; but he
is idle, unambitious as to worldly position, sensual, and content
with little. Intellectually, he is apparently capable of but little
sustained effort; but, singularly enough, here he is ambitious. He
burns to be regarded as a scholar, puzzles himself with fine words,
addicts himself to religion for the sake of appearance, and delights
in aping the little graces of civilization. He despises himself
thoroughly, and would probably be content to starve for a month if he
could appear as a white man for a day; but yet he delights in signs
of respect paid to him, black man as he is, and is always thinking of
his own dignity. If you want to win his heart for an hour, call him
a gentleman; but if you want to reduce him to a despairing obedience,
tell him that he is a filthy nigger, assure him that his father
and mother had tails like monkeys, and forbid him to think that
he can have a soul like a white man. Among the West Indies one
may frequently see either course adopted towards them by their
unreasoning ascendant masters.
I do not think that education has as yet done much for the black man
in the Western world. He can always observe, and often read; but he
can seldom reason. I do not mean to assert that he is absolutely
without mental power, as a calf is. He does draw conclusions, but he
carries them only a short way. I think that he seldom understands the
purpose of industry, the object of truth, or the results of honesty.
He is not always idle, perhaps not always false, certainly not always
a thief; but his motives are the fear of immediate punishment, or
hopes of immediate reward. He fears that and hopes that only. Certain
virtues he copies, because they are the virtues of a white man.
The white man is the god present to his eye, and he believes in
him--believes in him with a qualified faith, and imitates him with a
qualified constancy.
And thus I am led to say, and I say it with sorrow enough, that
I distrust the negro's religion. What I mean is this: that in my
opinion they rarely take in and digest the great and simple doctrines
of Christianity, that they should love and fear the Lord their God,
and love their neighbours as themselves.
Those who differ from me--and the number will comprise the whole
clergy of these western realms, and very many beside the clergy--will
ask, among other questions, whether these simple doctrines are obeyed
in England much better than they are in Jamaica. I would reply that
I am not speaking of obedience. The opinion which I venture to give
is, that the very first meaning of the terms does not often reach
the negro's mind, not even the minds of those among them who are
enthusiastically religious. To them religious exercises are in
themselves the good thing desirable. They sing their psalms, and
believe, probably, that good will result; but they do not connect
their psalms with the practice of any virtue. They say their prayers;
but, having said them, have no idea that they should therefore
forgive offences. They hear the commandments and delight in the
responses; but those commandments are not in their hearts connected
with abstinence from adultery or calumny. They delight to go to
church or meeting; they are energetic in singing psalms; they are
constant in the responses; and, which is saying much more for them,
they are wonderfully expert at Scripture texts; but--and I say it
with grief of heart, and with much trembling also at the reproaches
which I shall have to endure--I doubt whether religion does often
reach their minds.
As I greatly fear being misunderstood on this subject, I must explain
that I by no means think that religious teaching has been inoperative
for good among the negroes. Were I to express such an opinion, I
should be putting them on the same footing with the slaves in Cuba,
who are left wholly without such teaching, and who, in consequence,
are much nearer the brute creation than their more fortunate
brethren. To have learnt the precepts of Christianity--even though
they be not learnt faithfully--softens the heart and expels its
ferocity. That theft is esteemed a sin; that men and women should
live together under certain laws; that blood should not be shed in
anger; that an oath should be true; that there is one God the Father
who made us, and one Redeemer who would willingly save us--these
doctrines the negro in a general way has learnt, and in them he has
a sort of belief. He has so far progressed that by them he judges of
the conduct of others. What he lacks is a connecting link between
these doctrines and himself--an appreciation of the fact that these
doctrines are intended for his own guidance.
But, though he himself wants the link, circumstances have in some
measure produced it As he judges others, so he fears the judgment of
others; and in this manner Christianity has prevailed with him.
In many respects the negro's phase of humanity differs much from that
which is common to us, and which has been produced by our admixture
of blood and our present extent of civilization. They are more
passionate than the white men, but rarely vindictive, as we are. The
smallest injury excites their eager wrath, but no injury produces
sustained hatred. In the same way, they are seldom grateful, though
often very thankful. They are covetous of notice as is a child or a
dog; but they have little idea of earning continual respect. They
best love him who is most unlike themselves, and they despise the
coloured man who approaches them in breed. When they have once
recognized a man as their master, they will be faithful to him; but
the more they fear that master, the more they will respect him. They
have no care for to-morrow, but they delight in being gaudy for
to-day. Their crimes are those of momentary impulse, as are also
their virtues. They fear death; but if they can lie in the sun
without pain for the hour they will hardly drag themselves to the
hospital, though their disease be mortal. They love their offspring,
but in their rage will ill use them fearfully. They are proud of
them when they are praised, but will sell their daughter's virtue
for a dollar. They are greedy of food, but generally indifferent
as to its quality. They rejoice in finery, and have in many cases
begun to understand the benefit of comparative cleanliness; but they
are rarely tidy. A little makes them happy, and nothing makes them
permanently wretched. On the whole, they laugh and sing and sleep
through life; and if life were all, they would not have so bad a time
of it.
These, I think, are the qualities of the negro. Many of them are in
their way good; but are they not such as we have generally seen in
the lower spheres of life?
Much of this is strongly opposed to the idea of the Creole negro
which has lately become prevalent in England. He has been praised for
his piety, and especially praised for his consistent gratitude to his
benefactors and faithful adherence to his master's interests.
On such subjects our greatest difficulty is perhaps that of avoiding
an opinion formed by exceptional cases. That there are and have been
pious negroes I do not doubt. That many are strongly tinctured with
the language and outward bearing of piety I am well aware. I know
that they love the Bible--love it as the Roman Catholic girl loves
the doll of a Madonna which she dresses with muslin and ribbons. In
a certain sense this is piety, and such piety they often possess.
And I do not deny their family attachments; but it is the attachment
of a dog. We have all had dogs whom we have well used, and have
prided ourselves on their fidelity. We have seen them to be wretched
when they lose us for a moment, and have smiled at their joy when
they again discover us. We have noted their patience as they wait
for food from the hand they know will feed them. We have seen with
delight how their love for us glistens in their eyes. We trust them
with our children as the safest playmates, and teach them in mocking
sport the tricks of humanity. In return for this, the dear brutes
give us all their hearts, but it is not given in gratitude; and they
abstain with all their power from injury and offence, but they do
not abstain from judgment. Let his master ill use his dog ever so
cruelly, yet the animal has no anger against him when the pain is
over. Let a stranger save him from such ill usage, and he has no
thankfulness after the moment. Affection and fidelity are things of
custom with him.
I know how deep will be the indignation I shall draw upon my head
by this picture of a fellow-creature and a fellow-Christian. Man's
philanthropy would wish to look on all men as walking in a quick path
towards the perfection of civilization. And men are not happy in
their good efforts unless they themselves can see their effects. They
are not content to fight for the well-being of a race, and to think
that the victory shall not come till the victors shall for centuries
have been mingled with the dust. The friend of the negro, when he
puts his shoulder to the wheel, and tries to rescue his black brother
from the degradation of an inferior species, hopes to see his client
rise up at once with all the glories of civilization round his head.
"There; behold my work; how good it is!" That is the reward to
which he looks. But what if the work be not as yet good? What if
it be God's pleasure that more time be required before the work be
good--good in our finite sense of the word--in our sense, which
requires the show of an immediate effect?
After all, what we should desire first, and chiefly--is it not the
truth? It will avail nothing to humanity to call a man a civilized
Christian if the name be not deserved. Philanthropy will gain little
but self-flattery and gratification of its vanity by applying to
those whom it would serve a euphemistic but false nomenclature. God,
for his own purposes--purposes which are already becoming more and
more intelligible to his creatures--has created men of inferior and
superior race. Individually, the state of an Esquimaux is grievous
to an educated mind: but the educated man, taking the world
collectively, knows that it is good that the Esquimaux should be,
should have been made such as he is; knows also, that that state
admits of improvement; but should know also that such cannot be done
by the stroke of a wand--by a speech in Exeter Hall--by the mere
sounds of Gospel truth, beautiful as those sounds are.
We are always in such a hurry; although, as regards the progress of
races, history so plainly tells us how vain such hurry is! At thirty,
a man devotes himself to proselytizing a people; and if the people be
not proselytized when he has reached forty, he retires in disgust. In
early life we have aspirations for the freedom of an ill-used nation;
but in middle life we abandon our protégé to tyranny and the infernal
gods. The process has been too long. The nation should have arisen
free, at once, upon the instant. It is hard for man to work without
hope of seeing that for which he labours.
But to return to our sable friends. The first desire of a man in a
state of civilization is for property. Greed and covetousness are no
doubt vices; but they are the vices which have grown from cognate
virtues. Without a desire for property, man could make no progress.
But the negro has no such desire; no desire strong enough to induce
him to labour for that which he wants. In order that he may eat
to-day and be clothed to-morrow, he will work a little; as for
anything beyond that, he is content to lie in the sun.
Emancipation and the last change in the sugar duties have made land
only too plentiful in Jamaica, and enormous tracts have been thrown
out of cultivation as unprofitable. And it is also only too fertile.
The negro, consequently, has had unbounded facility of squatting,
and has availed himself of it freely. To recede from civilization
and become again savage--as savage as the laws of the community will
permit--has been to his taste. I believe that he would altogether
retrograde if left to himself.
I shall now be asked, having said so much, whether I think that
emancipation was wrong. By no means. I think that emancipation was
clearly right; but I think that we expected far too great and far too
quick a result from emancipation.
These people are a servile race, fitted by nature for the hardest
physical work, and apparently at present fitted for little else. Some
thirty years since they were in a state when such work was their lot;
but their tasks were exacted from them in a condition of bondage
abhorrent to the feelings of the age, and opposed to the religion
which we practised. For us, thinking as we did, slavery was a sin.
From that sin we have cleansed ourselves. But the mere fact of
doing so has not freed us from our difficulties. Nor was it to be
expected that it should. The discontinuance of a sin is always the
commencement of a struggle. Few, probably, will think that Providence
has permitted so great an exodus as that which has taken place from
Africa to the West without having wise results in view. We may fairly
believe that it has been a part of the Creator's scheme for the
population and cultivation of the earth; a part of that scheme which
sent Asiatic hordes into Europe, and formed, by the admixture of
nations, that race to which it is our pride to belong. But that
admixture of blood has taken tens of centuries. Why should we think
that Providence should work more rapidly now in these latter ages?
No Englishman, no Anglo-Saxon, could be what he now is but for that
portion of wild and savage energy which has come to him from his
Vandal forefathers. May it not then be fair to suppose that a time
shall come when a race will inhabit those lovely islands, fitted by
nature for their burning sun, in whose blood shall be mixed some
portion of northern energy, and which shall owe its physical powers
to African progenitors,--a race that shall be no more ashamed of the
name of negro than we are of the name of Saxon?
But, in the mean time, what are we to do with our friend, lying as he
now is at his ease under the cotton-tree, and declining to work after
ten o'clock in the morning? "No, tankee, massa, me tired now; me no
want more money." Or perhaps it is, "No; workee no more; money no
'nuff; workee no pay." These are the answers which the suppliant
planter receives when at ten o'clock he begs his negro neighbours to
go a second time into the cane-fields and earn a second shilling, or
implores them to work for him more than four days a week, or solicits
them at Christmas-time to put up with a short ten days' holiday.
His canes are ripe, and his mill should be about; or else they are
foul with weeds, and the hogsheads will be very short if they be not
cleansed. He is anxious enough, for all his world depends upon it.
But what does the negro care? "No; me no more workee now."
The busher (overseer; elide the o and change v into b, and the word
will gradually explain itself)--The busher, who remembers slavery
and former happy days, d----s him for a lazy nigger, and threatens
him with coming starvation, and perhaps with returning monkeydom.
"No, massa; no starve now; God send plenty yam. No more monkey now,
massa." The black man is not in the least angry, though the busher
is. And as for the canes, they remain covered with dirt, and the
return of the estate is but one hundred and thirty hogsheads instead
of one hundred and ninety. Let the English farmer think of that; and
in realizing the full story, he must imagine that the plenteous food
alluded to has been grown on his own ground, and probably planted at
his own expense. The busher was wrong to curse the man, and wrong to
threaten him with the monkey's tail; but it must be admitted that the
position is trying to the temper.
And who can blame the black man? He is free to work, or free to let
it alone. He can live without work and roll in the sun, and suck
oranges and eat bread-fruit; ay, and ride a horse perhaps, and wear a
white waistcoat and plaited shirt on Sundays. Why should he care for
the busher? I will not dig cane-holes for half a crown a day; and why
should I expect him to do so? I can live without it; so can he.
But, nevertheless, it would be very well if we could so contrive that
he should not live without work. It is clearly not Nature's intention
that he should be exempted from the general lot of Adam's children.
We would not have our friend a slave; but we would fain force him to
give the world a fair day's work for his fair day's provender if we
knew how to do so without making him a slave. The fact I take it is,
that there are too many good things in Jamaica for the number who
have to enjoy them. If the competitors were more in number, more
trouble would be necessary in their acquirement.
And now, just at this moment, philanthropy is again busy in England
protecting the Jamaica negro. He is a man and a brother, and shall
we not regard him? Certainly, my philanthropic friend, let us regard
him well. He _is_ a man; and, if you will, a brother; but he is
the very idlest brother with which a hardworking workman was ever
cursed, intent only on getting his mess of pottage without giving
anything in return. His petitions about the labour market, my
excellently-soft-hearted friend, and his desire to be protected from
undue competition are--. Oh, my friend, I cannot tell you how utterly
they are--gammon. He is now eating his yam without work, and in that
privilege he is anxious to be maintained. And you, are you willing to
assist him in his views?
The negro slave was ill treated--ill treated, at any rate, in that he
was a slave; and therefore, by that reaction which prevails in all
human matters, it is now thought necessary to wrap him up in cotton
and put him under a glass case. The wind must not blow on him too
roughly, and the rose-leaves on which he sleeps should not be
ruffled. He has been a slave; therefore now let him be a Sybarite.
His father did an ample share of work; therefore let the son be made
free from his portion in the primeval curse. The friends of the
negro, if they do not actually use such arguments, endeavour to carry
out such a theory.
But one feels that the joke has almost been carried too far when one
is told that it is necessary to protect the labour market in Jamaica,
and save the negro from the dangers of competition. No immigration of
labourers into that happy country should be allowed, lest the rate of
wages be lowered, and the unfortunate labourer be made more dependent
on his master! But if the unfortunate labourers could be made to
work, say four days a week, and on an average eight hours a day,
would not that in itself be an advantage? In our happy England, men
are not slaves; but the competition of the labour market forces upon
them long days of continual labour. In our own country, ten hours of
toil, repeated six days a week, for the majority of us will barely
produce the necessaries of life. It is quite right that we should
love the negroes; but I cannot understand that we ought to love them
better than ourselves.
But with the most sensible of those who are now endeavouring to
prevent immigration into Jamaica the argument has been, not the
protection of the Jamaica negro, but the probability of ill usage to
the immigrating African. In the first place, it is impossible not
to observe the absurdity of acting on petitions from the negroes of
Jamaica on such a pretence as this. Does any one truly imagine that
the black men in Jamaica are so anxious for the welfare of their
cousins in Africa, that they feel themselves bound to come forward
and express their anxiety to the English Houses of Parliament? Of
course nobody believes it. Of course it is perfectly understood that
those petitions are got up by far other persons, and with by far
other views; and that not one negro in fifty of those who sign them
understands anything whatever about the matter, or has any wish or
any solicitude on such a subject.
Lord Brougham mentions it as a matter of congratulation, that so
large a proportion of the signatures should be written by the
subscribers themselves--that there should be so few marksmen; but is
it a matter of congratulation that this power of signing their names
should be used for so false a purpose?
And then comes the question as to these immigrants themselves. Though
it is not natural to suppose that their future fellow-labourers in
Jamaica should be very anxious about them, such anxiety on the part
of others is natural. In the first place, it is for the government to
look to them; and then, lest the government should neglect its duty,
it is for such men as Lord Brougham to look to the government. That
Lord Brougham should to the last be anxious for the welfare of the
African is what all men would expect and all desire; but we would
not wish to confide even to him the power of absolutely consummating
the ruin of the Jamaica planter. Is it the fact that labourers
immigrating to the West Indies have been ill treated, whether they be
Portuguese from Madeira, Coolies from India, Africans from the
Western Coast, or Chinese? In Jamaica, unfortunately, their number is
as yet but scanty, but in British Guiana they are numerous. I think I
may venture to say that no labourers in any country are so cared for,
so closely protected, so certainly saved from the usual wants and
sorrows incident to the labouring classes. And this is equally so in
Jamaica as far as the system has gone. What would be the usage of
the African introduced by voluntary contribution may be seen in the
usage of him who has been brought into the country from captured
slave-ships. Their clothing, their food, their house accommodation,
their hospital treatment, their amount of work and obligatory period
of working with one master--all these matters are under government
surveillance; and the planter who has allotted to him the privilege
of employing such labour becomes almost as much subject to government
inspection as though his estate were government property.
It is said that an obligatory period of labour amounts to slavery,
even though the contract shall have been entered into by the labourer
of his own free will. I will not take on myself to deny this, as I
might find it difficult to define the term slavery; but if this be
so, English apprentices are slaves, and so are indentured clerks; so
are hired agricultural servants in many parts of England and Wales;
and so, certainly, are all our soldiers and sailors.
But in the ordinary acceptation of the word slavery, that acceptation
which comes home to us all, whether we can define it or no, men
subject to such contracts are not slaves.
There is much that is prepossessing in the ordinary good humour of
the negro; and much also that is picturesque in his tastes. I soon
learned to think the women pretty, in spite of their twisted locks
of wool; and to like the ring of their laughter, though it is not
exactly silver-sounding. They are very rarely surly when spoken to;
and their replies, though they seldom are absolutely witty, contain,
either in the sound or in the sense, something that amounts to
drollery. The unpractised ear has great difficulty in understanding
them, and I have sometimes thought that this indistinctness has
created the fun which I have seemed to relish. The tone and look
are humorous; and the words, which are hardly heard, and are not
understood, get credit for humour also.
Nothing about them is more astonishing than the dress of the women.
It is impossible to deny to them considerable taste and great power
of adaptation. In England, among our housemaids and even haymakers,
crinoline, false flowers, long waists, and flowing sleeves have
become common; but they do not wear their finery as though they were
at home in it. There is generally with them, when in their Sunday
best, something of the hog in armour. With the negro woman there is
nothing of this. In the first place she is never shame-faced. Then
she has very frequently a good figure, and having it, she knows how
to make the best of it. She has a natural skill in dress, and will
be seen with a boddice fitted to her as though it had been made and
laced in Paris.
Their costumes on fête days and Sundays are perfectly marvellous.
They are by no means contented with coloured calicoes; but shine in
muslin and light silks at heaven only knows how much a yard. They
wear their dresses of an enormous fulness. One may see of a Sunday
evening three ladies occupying a whole street by the breadth of
their garments, who on the preceding day were scrubbing pots and
carrying weights about the town on their heads. And they will walk
in full-dress too as though they had been used to go in such attire
from their youth up. They rejoice most in white--in white muslin
with coloured sashes; in light-brown boots, pink gloves, parasols,
and broad-brimmed straw hats with deep veils and glittering bugles.
The hat and the veil, however, are mistakes. If the negro woman
thoroughly understood effect, she would wear no head-dress but the
coloured handkerchief, which is hers by right of national custom.
Some of their efforts after dignity of costume are ineffably
ludicrous. One Sunday evening, far away in the country, as I was
riding with a gentleman, the proprietor of the estate around us, I
saw a young girl walking home from church. She was arrayed from head
to foot in virgin white. Her gloves were on, and her parasol was up.
Her hat also was white, and so was the lace, and so were the bugles
which adorned it. She walked with a stately dignity that was worthy
of such a costume, and worthy also of higher grandeur; for behind her
walked an attendant nymph, carrying the beauty's prayer-book--on her
head. A negro woman carries every burden on her head, from a tub of
water weighing a hundredweight down to a bottle of physic.
When we came up to her, she turned towards us and curtsied. She
curtsied, for she recognized her 'massa;' but she curtsied with great
dignity, for she recognized also her own finery. The girl behind with
the prayer-book made the ordinary obeisance, crooking her leg up at
the knee, and then standing upright quicker than thought.
"Who on earth is that princess?" said I.
"They are two sisters who both work at my mill," said my friend.
"Next Sunday they will change places. Polly will have the parasol
and the hat, and Jenny will carry the prayer-book on her head behind
her."
I was in a shoemaker's shop at St. Thomas, buying a pair of boots,
when a negro entered quickly and in a loud voice said he wanted a
pair of pumps. He was a labouring man fresh from his labour. He had
on an old hat--what in Ireland men would call a caubeen; he was
in his shirt-sleeves, and was barefooted. As the only shopman was
looking for my boots, he was not attended to at the moment.
"Want a pair of pumps--directerly," he roared out in a very
dictatorial voice.
"Sit down for a moment," said the shopman, "and I will attend to
you."
He did sit down, but did so in the oddest fashion. He dropped himself
suddenly into a chair, and at the same moment rapidly raised his legs
from the ground; and as he did so fastened his hands across them just
below his knees, so as to keep his feet suspended from his arms. This
he contrived to do in such a manner that the moment his body reached
the chair his feet left the ground. I looked on in amazement,
thinking he was mad.
"Give I a bit of carpet," he screamed out; still holding up his feet,
but with much difficulty.
"Yes, yes," said the shopman, still searching for the boots.
"Give I a bit of carpet directerly," he again exclaimed. The seat
of the chair was very narrow, and the back was straight, and the
position was not easy, as my reader will ascertain if he attempt it.
He was half-choked with anger and discomfort.
The shopman gave him the bit of carpet. Most men and women will
remember that such bits of carpet are common in shoemakers' shops.
They are supplied, I believe, in order that they who are delicate
should not soil their stockings on the floor.
The gentleman in search of the pumps had seen that people of dignity
were supplied with such luxuries, and resolved to have his value for
his money; but as he had on neither shoes nor stockings, the little
bit of carpet was hardly necessary for his material comfort.