JAMAICA--WHITE MEN.
It seems to us natural that white men should hold ascendency over
those who are black or coloured. Although we have emancipated our own
slaves, and done so much to abolish slavery elsewhere, nevertheless
we regard the negro as born to be a servant. We do not realize it
to ourselves that it is his right to share with us the high places
of the world, and that it should be an affair of individual merit
whether we wait on his beck or he on ours. We have never yet brought
ourselves so to think, and probably never shall. They still are to us
a servile race. Philanthropical abolitionists will no doubt deny the
truth of this; but I have no doubt that the conviction is strong with
them--could they analyze their own convictions--as it is with others.
Where white men and black men are together, the white will order
and the black will obey, with an obedience more or less implicit
according to the terms on which they stand. When those terms are
slavery, the white men order with austerity, and the black obey with
alacrity. But such terms have been found to be prejudicial to both.
Each is brutalized by the contact. The black man becomes brutal
and passive as a beast of burden; the white man becomes brutal and
ferocious as a beast of prey.
But there are various other terms on which they may stand as servants
and masters. There are those well-understood terms which regulate
employment in England and elsewhere, under which the poor man's
time is his money, and the rich man's capital his certain means of
obtaining labour. As far as we can see, these terms, if properly
carried out, are the best which human wisdom can devise for the
employment and maintenance of mankind. Here in England they are not
always properly carried out. At an occasional spot or two things will
run rusty for a while. There are strikes, and there are occasional
gluts of labour, very distressing to the poor man; and occasional
gluts of the thing laboured, very embarrassing to the rich man. But
on the whole, seeing that after all the arrangement is only human,
here in England it does work pretty well. We intended, no doubt, when
we emancipated our slaves in Jamaica, that the affair should work in
the same way there.
But the terms there at present are as far removed from the English
system as they are from the Cuban, and are almost as abhorrent to
justice as slavery itself--as abhorrent to justice, though certainly
not so abhorrent to mercy and humanity.
What would a farmer say in England if his ploughman declined to work,
and protested that he preferred going to his master's granary and
feeding himself and his children on his master's corn? "Measter, noa;
I beez a-tired thick day, and dunna mind to do no wark!" Then the
poorhouse, my friend, the poorhouse! And hardly that; starvation
first, and nakedness, and all manner of misery. In point of fact, our
friend the ploughman must go and work, even though his o'erlaboured
bones be tired, as no doubt they often are. He knows it, and does it,
and in his way is not discontented. And is not this God's ordinance?
His ordinance in England and elsewhere, but not so, apparently, in
Jamaica. There we had a devil's ordinance in those days of slavery;
and having rid ourselves of that, we have still a devil's ordinance
of another sort. It is not perhaps very easy for men to change
devil's work into heavenly work at once. The ordinance that at
present we have existing there is that _far niente_ one of lying in
the sun and eating yams--"of eating, not your own yams, you lazy,
do-nothing, thieving darkee; but my yams; mine, who am being ruined,
root and branch, stock and barrel, house and homestead, wife and
bairns, because you won't come and work for me when I offer you due
wages; you thieving, do-nothing, lazy nigger."
"Hush!" will say my angry philanthropist. "For the sake of humanity,
hush! Will coarse abuse and the calling of names avail anything?
Is he not a man and a brother?" No, my angry philanthropist; while
he will not work and will only steal, he is neither the one nor the
other, in my estimation. As for his being a brother, that we may say
is--fudge; and I will call no professional idler a man.
But the abuse above given is not intended to be looked on as coming
out of my own mouth, and I am not, therefore, to be held responsible
for the wording of it. It is inserted there--with small inverted
commas, as you see--to show the language with which our angry white
friends in Jamaica speak of the extraordinary condition in which they
have found themselves placed.
Slowly--with delay that has been awfully ruinous--they now bethink
themselves of immigration--immigration from the coast of Africa,
immigration from China, Coolie immigrants from Hindostan. When
Trinidad and Guiana have helped themselves, then Jamaica bestirs
itself. And what then? Then the negroes bestir themselves. "For
heaven's sake let us be looked to! Are we not to be protected from
competition? If labourers be brought here, will not these white
people again cultivate their grounds? Shall we not be driven from our
squatting patches? Shall we not starve; or, almost worse than that,
shall we not again fall under Adam's curse? Shall we not again be
slaves, in reality, if not in name? Shall we not have to work?"
The negro's idea of emancipation was and is emancipation not from
slavery but from work. To lie in the sun and eat breadfruit and yams
is his idea of being free. Such freedom as that has not been intended
for man in this world; and I say that Jamaica, as it now exists, is
still under a devil's ordinance.
One cannot wonder that the white man here should be vituperative in
his wrath. First came emancipation. He bore that with manful courage;
for it must be remembered that even in that he had much to bear. The
price he got for his slave was nothing as compared with that slave's
actual value. And slavery to him was not repugnant as it is to you
and me. One's trade is never repugnant to one's feelings. But so much
he did bear with manly courage. He could no longer make slave-grown
sugar, but he would not at any rate be compelled to compete with
those who could. The protective duties would save him there.
Then free trade became the fashion, and protective duties on sugar
were abolished. I beg it may not be thought that I am an advocate
for such protection. The West Indians were, I think, thrown over in
a scurvy manner, because they were thrown over by their professed
friends. But that was, we all know, the way with Sir Robert Peel.
Well, free trade in sugar became the law of the land, and then the
Jamaica planter found the burden too heavy for his back. The money
which had flown in so freely came in such small driblets that he could
make no improvement. Portions of his estate went out of cultivation,
and then the negro who should have tilled the remainder squatted on
it, and said, "No, massa, me no workee to-day."
And now, to complete the business, now that Jamaica is at length
looking in earnest for immigration--for it has long been looking for
immigration with listless dis-earnest--the planter is told that the
labour of the black man must be protected. If he be vituperative, who
can wonder at it? To speak the truth, he is somewhat vituperative.
The white planter of Jamaica is sore and vituperative and
unconvinced. He feels that he has been ill used, and forced to go to
the wall; and that now he is there, he is meanly spoken of, as though
he were a bore and a nuisance--as one of whom the Colonial Office
would gladly rid itself if it knew how. In his heart of hearts
there dwells a feeling that after all slavery was not so vile an
institution--that that devil as well as some others has been painted
too black. In those old days the work was done, the sugar was made,
the workmen were comfortably housed and fed, and perhaps on his
father's estate were kindly treated. At any rate, such is his present
memory. The money came in, things went on pleasantly, and he cannot
remember that anybody was unhappy. But now--! Can it be wondered at
that in his heart of hearts he should still have a sort of yearning
after slavery?
In one sense, at any rate, he has been ill used. The turn in the
wheel of Fortune has gone against him, as it went against the
hand-loom weavers when machinery became the fashion. Circumstances
rather than his own fault have brought him low. Well-disciplined
energy in all the periods of his adversity might perhaps have saved
him, as it has saved others; but there has been more against him than
against others. As regards him himself, the old-fashioned Jamaica
planter, the pure blooded white owner of the soil, I think that his
day in Jamaica is done. The glory, I fear, has departed from his
house. The hand-loom weavers have been swept into infinite space, and
their children now poke the engine fires, or piece threads standing
in a factory. The children of the old Jamaica planter must also push
their fortunes elsewhere.
It is a thousand pities, for he was, I may still say is, the
prince of planters--the true aristocrat of the West Indies. He
is essentially different as a man from the somewhat purse-proud
Barbadian, whose estate of two hundred acres has perhaps changed
hands half a dozen times in the last fifty years, or the thoroughly
mercantile sugar manufacturer of Guiana. He has so many of the
characteristics of an English country gentleman that he does not
strike an Englishman as a strange being. He has his pedigree, and
his family house, and his domain around him. He shoots and fishes,
and some few years since, in the good days, he even kept a pack of
hounds. He is in the commission of the peace, and as such has much to
do. A planter in Demerara may also be a magistrate,--probably is so;
but the fact does not come forward as a prominent part of his life's
history.
In Jamaica too there is scope for a country gentleman. They have
their counties and their parishes; in Barbados they have nothing but
their sugar estates. They have county society, local balls, and local
race-meetings. They have local politics, local quarrels, and strong
old-fashioned local friendships. In all these things one feels
oneself to be much nearer to England in Jamaica than in any other of
the West Indian islands.
All this is beyond measure pleasant, and it is a thousand pities that
it should not last. I fear, however, that it will not last--that,
indeed, it is not now lasting. That dear lady's unwillingness to obey
her lord's behests, when he asked her to call on her brown neighbour,
nay, the very fact of that lord's request, both go to prove that this
is so. The lady felt that her neighbour was cutting the very ground
from under her feet. The lord knew "that old times were changed, old
manners gone." The game was almost up when he found himself compelled
to make such a request.
At present, when the old planter sits on the magisterial bench, a
coloured man sits beside him; one probably on each side of him. At
road sessions he cannot carry out his little project because the
coloured men out-vote him. There is a vacancy for his parish in the
House of Assembly. The old planter scorns the House of Assembly, and
will have nothing to do with it. A coloured man is therefore chosen,
and votes away the white man's taxes; and then things worse and worse
arise. Not only coloured men get into office, but black men also.
What is our old aristocratic planter to do with a negro churchwarden
on one side, and a negro coroner on another? "Fancy what our state
is," a young planter said to me; "I dare not die, for fear I should
be sat upon by a black man!"
I know that it will be thought by many, and probably said by some,
that these are distinctions to which we ought not to allude. But
without alluding to them in one's own mind it is impossible to
understand the state of the country; and without alluding to them in
speech it is impossible to explain the state of the country. The fact
is, that in Jamaica, at the present day, the coloured people do stand
on strong ground, and that they do not so stand with the goodwill
of the old aristocracy of the country. They have forced their way
up, and now loudly protest that they intend to keep it. I think that
they will keep it, and that on the whole it will be well for us
Anglo-Saxons to have created a race capable of living and working in
the climate without inconvenience.
It is singular, however, how little all this is understood in
England. There it is conceived that white men and coloured men, white
ladies and coloured ladies, meet together and amalgamate without
any difference. The Duchess of This and Lord That are very happy
to have at their tables some intelligent dark gentleman, or even a
well-dressed negro, though he may not perhaps be very intelligent.
There is some little excitement in it, some change from the common;
and perhaps also an easy opportunity of practising on a small scale
those philanthropic views which they preach with so much eloquence.
When one hobnobs over a glass of champagne with a dark gentleman, he
is in some sort a man and a brother. But the duchess and the lord
think that because the dark gentleman is to their taste, he must
necessarily be as much to the taste of the neighbours among whom he
has been born and bred; of those who have been accustomed to see him
from his childhood.
There never was a greater mistake. A coloured man may be a fine
prophet in London; but he will be no prophet in Jamaica, which is his
own country; no prophet at any rate among his white neighbours.
I knew a case in which a very intelligent--nay, I believe, a
highly-educated young coloured gentleman, was sent out by certain
excellent philanthropic big-wigs to fill an official situation in
Jamaica. He was a stranger to Jamaica, never having been there
before. Now, when he was so sent out, the home big-wigs alluded
to, intimated to certain other big-wigs in Jamaica that their dark
protégé would be a great acquisition to the society of the place.
I mention this to show the ignorance of those London big-wigs, not
as to the capability of the young gentleman, which probably was not
over-rated, but as to the manners and life of the place. I imagine
that the gentleman has hardly once found himself in that society
which it was supposed he would adorn. The time, however, will
probably come when he and others of the same class will have
sufficient society of their own.
I have said elsewhere that the coloured people in Jamaica have
made their way into society; and in what I now say I may seem to
contradict myself. Into what may perhaps be termed public society
they have made their way. Those who have seen the details of colonial
life will know that there is a public society to which people are
admitted or not admitted, according to their acknowledged rights.
Governor's parties, public balls, and certain meetings which are
semi-official and semi-social, are of this nature. A Governor in
Jamaica would, I imagine, not conceive himself to have the power of
excluding coloured people from his table, even if he wished it. But
in Barbados I doubt whether a Governor could, if he wished it, do the
reverse.
So far coloured people in Jamaica have made their footing good; and
they are gradually advancing beyond this. But not the less as a rule
are they disliked by the old white aristocracy of the country; in a
strong degree by the planters themselves, but in a much stronger by
the planters' wives.
So much for my theory as to the races of men in Jamaica, and as to
the social condition of the white and coloured people with reference
to each other. Now I would say a word or two respecting the white man
as he himself is, without reference either to his neighbour or to his
prospects.
A better fellow cannot be found anywhere than a gentleman of Jamaica,
or one with whom it is easier to live on pleasant terms. He is
generally hospitable, affable, and generous; easy to know, and
pleasant when known; not given perhaps to much deep erudition, but
capable of talking with ease on most subjects of conversation; fond
of society, and of pleasure, if you choose to call it so; but not
generally addicted to low pleasures. He is often witty, and has a
sharp side to his tongue if occasion be given him to use it. He is
not generally, I think, a hard-working man. Had he been so, the
country perhaps would not have been in its present condition. But he
is bright and clever, and in spite of all that he has gone through,
he is at all times good-humoured.
No men are fonder of the country to which they belong, or prouder
of the name of Great Britain than these Jamaicans. It has been our
policy--and, as regards our larger colonies, the policy I have no
doubt has been beneficial--to leave our dependencies very much to
themselves; to interfere in the way of governing as little as might
be; and to withdraw as much as possible from any participation in
their internal concerns. This policy is anything but popular with
the white aristocracy of Jamaica. They would fain, if it were
possible, dispense altogether with their legislature, and be governed
altogether from home. In spite of what they have suffered, they
are still willing to trust the statesmen of England, but are most
unwilling to trust the statesmen of Jamaica.
Nothing is more peculiar than the way in which the word "home" is
used in Jamaica, and indeed all through the West Indies, With the
white people, it always signifies England, even though the person
using the word has never been there. I could never trace the use of
the word in Jamaica as applied by white men or white women to the
home in which they lived, not even though that home had been the
dwelling of their fathers as well as of themselves. The word "home"
with them is sacred, and means something holier than a habitation in
the tropics. It refers always to the old country.
In this respect, as in so many others, an Englishman differs greatly
from a Frenchman. Though our English, as a rule, are much more given
to colonize than they are; though we spread ourselves over the face
of the globe, while they have established comparatively but few
settlements in the outer world; nevertheless, when we leave our
country, we almost always do so with some idea, be it ever so vague,
that we shall return to it again, and again make it our home. But the
Frenchman divests himself of any such idea. He also loves France, or
at any rate loves Paris; but his object is to carry his Paris with
him; to make a Paris for himself, whether it be in a sugar island
among the Antilles, or in a trading town upon the Levant.
And in some respects the Frenchman is the wiser man. He never looks
behind him with regret. He does his best to make his new house
comfortable. The spot on which he fixes is his home, and so he
calls it, and so regards it. But with an Englishman in the West
Indies--even with an English Creole--England is always his home.
If the people in Jamaica have any prejudice, it is on the subject of
heat. I suppose they have a general idea that their island is hotter
than England; but they never reduce this to an individual idea
respecting their own habitation.
"Come and dine with me," a man says to you; "I can give you a cool
bed." The invitation at first sounded strange to me, but I soon got
used to it; I soon even liked it, though I found too often that the
promise was not kept. How could it be kept while the quicksilver was
standing at eighty-five in the shade?
And each man boasts that his house is ten degrees cooler than that of
his neighbours; and each man, if you contest the point, has a reason
to prove why it must be so.
But a stranger, at any rate round Kingston, is apt to put the matter
in a different light. One place may be hotter than another, but cool
is a word which he never uses. On the whole, I think that the heat of
Kingston, Jamaica, is more oppressive than that of any other place
among the British West Indies. When one gets down to the Spanish
coast, then, indeed, one can look back even to Kingston with regret.