Part 14
But the grand excellence of the operating principle of this reform is, that it will stand between the absentee master and his Slaves; and while it will promote the interest of the former, it will secure for the latter the actual enjoyment of the effects of his benevolent intentions. Managers would henceforth be forced to make breeding the prime object of their attention. And every non-resident owner would express himself in terms of an experienced Barbadian proprietor of superior rank and fortune; “That he should consider it as the fault of the manager, if he did not keep up the numbers of his Slaves.” The absent owner would have the best security of which the nature of the case admits for his Slaves being treated with liberality and kindness. The operative principle thus supplied would exactly answer the desired purpose. It would adapt itself to every variety of situation and circumstances. It would penetrate into the interior of every plantation; it would ensure a due quantity of food; it would provide against too rigorous an exaction of labour, and enforce the adoption of those reforms which should be found requisite for increasing the population. Many of the improvements which must at once be introduced are perfectly manifest. But, ingenuity once set at work in this direction, a thousand discoveries will be made, a thousand reforms adopted, and, a manager’s credit and character now depending on the increase of the Negroes, not as hitherto on that of the immediate and clear returns from the estate, the former would henceforth become the great object of his study in the closet, and of his conduct in life and action.
The professional Planter’s work shews the improvements which may be suggested by a single individual of intelligence and experience, living on the spot, and superintending the whole system with an observant eye. What, then, may be expected when the ingenuity and attention of a whole community are set at work in the same direction; to effect the introduction of moral reforms, the settlement of families, the discouragement of adultery; the countenancing, by example as well as precept, among book-keepers or overseers, of morality and decency, the neglect of which, by persons of that class, has been hitherto productive of many injurious consequences.
Let us hear therefore no more of the Slaves invincible habits of profligacy and sensuality, of their not being susceptible of the restraints, obligations, duties, and comforts of the marriage state.
Wonder not that they are now sunk into habits of gross debauchery. Not man alone, but beings in general, throughout the whole range of animated nature, instinctively seek the indulgencies and enjoyments suited to their condition and capacities. Depressed therefore nearly to a level with the brute creation, the negro Slaves instinctively adapt themselves to their level, and are immersed in merely animal pursuits. Hence it is, that those very Negroes, who in Africa are represented as so eminent for truth, so disinterested in kindness, so faithful in the conjugal and domestic relations, so hospitable, so fond of their children, of their parents, of their country, gradually lose all these amiable dispositions with the enjoyments which naturally arise out of them, and become depraved and debased by all that is selfish and mercenary, and deceitful, timid and indolent, and tyrannical. [Sidenote: System of management, how to be reformed.] Would you raise them from this depressed condition, remember the disease is of a moral nature. It admits therefore only of a moral cure. Take away those particulars which degrade and vilify, and thus expel from the system those circumstances which depress the Slaves below the level of domestic life.[42] Endeavour in such ways, and by such instruments, as by experience are found best fitted for the purpose, to impart to them the inestimable blessings of religious instruction and moral improvement and reform, many of them would soon shew the happy effect of these instructions, by a conduct and demeanour manifestly the result of higher principles; for I must once more raise my voice against that gross misconception of the character of the Negroes (an impeachment of the wisdom and goodness of their Creator no less than of our own), which represents them as a race of such natural baseness and brutality as to be incapable of religious impressions and improvements. Encourage marriage and the rearing of children in the only proper way; by settling the Slaves in family life, with their cottage and gardens, and with such other immunities and comforts and distinctions as will make them be respected by others and teach them to respect themselves.
I am aware that it has been by no means uncommon for such masters as have made the domestic increase their object, to give rewards to mothers for rearing their children. Surely they have forgot, that Nature, I had almost said instinct, would take care of this for them, if they would but pursue the previous course she so manifestly dictates. It is not by a reward to be given at the end of a year or two, that continual attention can be purchased, with all the ten thousand cares and assiduities and kindnesses which both by day and by night the weakness of infancy requires; they are to be bought by a different price; they are to be prompted and repaid by maternal tenderness, by domestic sympathy, and parental interest. Give but to the Slaves a home; let the children be safely born, with a tolerable prospect of happiness; and let the mothers be allowed immunities and indulgencies, especially a little time from field work, morning and evening, to attend to their infants; bring them thus acquainted with conjugal duties and conjugal feelings, with the comforts and emotions of family life, awaken in them the dormant sympathies of domestic affection, and they will soon become creatures of a higher order, for it is in the soil of domestic life that all the charities of our nature spring up and flourish. A new set of feelings will begin to unfold themselves. The Slaves in general will learn to feel the value of a good character, to covet the acquisition and strive for the maintenance of it. They will make it their study to gain a master’s good opinion and confidence. With hope to animate, and gratitude to warm, how soon should we witness willing industry and hearty services. To these would justly be added, for in this imperfect state the addition will doubtless be required, the fear of a master’s displeasure, and the wholesome restraint of punishment for the indolent, and refractory, and vicious. The harshness of their present bondage being transformed into the mildness of patriarchal servitude, they will become capable of still greater blessings, and more ennobling privileges. The Slaves being now admitted to be not incapable of moral obligations, they will surely be acknowledged to be fit for the lower civil functions; and, above all, there will be no pretence for maintaining that grand disqualification, which alone is sufficient to taint their whole condition with the bitterness of degradation and suffering, the utter inadmissibility of their evidence.[43] Thus they would gradually and insensibly be transformed into a native peasantry.
Is it possible to contemplate the change which has been here slightly traced, without emotions of the most lively delight? I will not now indulge myself in the pleasing task of detailing the several steps of this gratifying process; but I must state, that in many of the islands, probably in them all, the quantity of food must be increased; in the articles of clothing, lodging, and medical care, improvements must be adopted; especially the hours of working must be lessened, and wherever it is possible, task-work must be introduced; above all, that degrading practice of working the Slaves under the whip must be abandoned. Think not that it will be enough that females, when clearly pregnant, shall be spared the more laborious duties of field work. No; nor even that all the young women, without exception, shall be no longer worked under the driver’s lash; from which, in the judgment of a most respectable and intelligent planter, innumerable miscarriages happen in the earlier periods of pregnancy. The system of whip-working itself must be entirely exploded, and in its place must be substituted the operation of those principles which are elsewhere found universally sufficient for their object, the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment.
In all these particulars I am but recommending the several reforms enforced with so much more authority by the professional Planter, to whom I have so often referred. All these are preliminary reforms, which must precede, or rather accompany that most efficient and beneficial of all improvements, the combined effect of religious and moral cultivation, with the comforts of being settled in families, and the obligations and duties of conjugal and domestic life. That it may require reflection, attention, and discretion to introduce this happy change, I mean not to deny; it will require also, that a proprietor should make up his mind to some present diminution of income, for the sake of larger ultimate returns. Possibly even some arrangements of law may here become expedient; nor will I even affirm, that in one or two particular islands there may not be instances (though it is with reluctance that one would acknowledge such a case) in which proprietors may have found it their interest hitherto to work down their gangs, and supply vacancies from the Slave market, to whom therefore the new system may be injurious, the rather, because it would of course find their Slaves nearly ground down by the want of necessaries and the excess of labour.
But with such moderate exceptions as must necessarily be anticipated in any change so great, it may be truly affirmed, to be the excellence and glory of the measure we propose, that it is likely almost from the very first to dispense blessings to every individual connected with it, in every step, from the first to the last, throughout the whole of it’s progress.
Often it happens in human affairs, that ends the most beneficial must be obtained by painful and distressing means. Inveterate diseases can rarely be cured without disgusting or painful remedies. But how gratifying is the consideration, that in the present instance, not only is our ultimate point the seat of security and happiness, but the way by which we travel to it is a way of pleasantness and peace. Its effects cannot be produced at once, but we are all the while tending to their complete enjoyment, with an uniform and uninterrupted course. The Slaves will daily grow happier, the planters richer. The whole will be like the progress of vegetation; the effects are not at first perceptible, but the great principle, operating in ten thousand instances, will gradually change the whole face of things, and substitute fertility and beauty in the place of barrenness and desolation.
And all this happy transformation we anticipate, not from carrying into execution the speculations of the most intelligent and able men, but by quitting the ways of injustice and cruelty, and by entering on those happier paths, which, by the gracious ordination of Heaven, are, on the long run, ever found to lead to safety, prosperity, and happiness. It may be right to state one consideration, which may suggest the probability, that even from the first the island stock of Slaves may not be found inadequate to the increasing demands to be made on it.
[Sidenote: Waste of labour wherever slavery prevails.]
It is proved by indisputable reasoning, as well as by uniform experience, that where slavery exists, there is always an immense waste of labour; there is a tendency to accomplish, by mere force, all which is elsewhere effected by machinery. How far this has been the case in the West Indies, is pointed out by various authors, and particularly with great ability, and perfect knowledge of the subject, by a late writer.[44]
In order, therefore, to form a just estimate of the means of cultivating the West Indies, after the abolition shall have taken place, we must superadd, to a population gradually increasing, and advancing so much the more rapidly from the removal of the obstacles to breeding, and the positive causes of increase which have been already stated, that great and incalculable increase in the efficiency of the force actually employed, which will be effected by its becoming the immediate and pressing interest of the proprietors to economise in the labour of their Slaves, and to avail themselves of all the means by which labour may be abridged, and the same produce may be raised by fewer hands.
[Sidenote: Immediate abolition preferable to gradual, both in the West Indies and in Africa.]
Allow me also to remark that, now especially, when the planters have had so much time, since the first proposal of abolition, for filling up their gangs, the change is likely to operate more favourably on both sides of the Atlantic, in consequence of it’s being immediate and complete, not gradual in it’s operation. In the West Indies, where there is to be a great change of practical views and objects, a change too which will be very unwillingly adopted, men are far more likely to make up their minds to the new system, and to set about acting upon it with vigour, if it be clearly and decisively necessary, than if there be still some supply, though in a diminished proportion, to be obtained from the Slave market. Supposing them in the first year to fail in their endeavours to obtain a share of the Slaves allowed to be imported, they may hope to be more fortunate in the second. Meanwhile the hope of a resource in the Slave market will prevent their exerting themselves in earnest in establishing the system by which they might secure an internal increase; and thus they might be drawn on from year to year to their own ruin, to the public injury, and to the misery of their unhappy Negroes.
Again, in Africa, were we at once to give up the Slave Trade, the native chiefs and factors, who have hitherto entirely depended on it for their supply of spirits, fire-arms, ammunition, and other European articles, having no resource in their old occupation, would set themselves in earnest to some other mode of employing their domestic Slaves, in order thereby to procure the desired stock of European articles. But were the trade to be abolished by degrees, they, as in the former case, would hope to obtain a share, though it should be a smaller share; and this expectation would be sufficient to prevent their engaging spiritedly in any undertaking of agriculture or commerce.
It may seem to be anticipating an argument which ought to receive a separate consideration; but let me also remark, that our retiring gradually from the trade, would greatly favour the entrance of other nations into the post we had before occupied. It would be utterly impossible for them to find capital or other means sufficient for undertaking the whole of so extensive a commerce; but were we to give it up by degrees, they might possibly be able, by great efforts, to obtain the means of carrying on, part after part, what we should have abandoned.
[Sidenote: Abolitionists falsely deemed inconsistent for not emancipating the West Indian Slaves.]
And here, perhaps, it may be right to answer a strange objection, which our opponents, at a loss, surely, for sound arguments, have urged against us. I may be able also at once to vindicate the Abolitionists from two opposite charges, which have been brought against them. One class of their opponents, in spite of repeated and most positive assurances to the contrary, have imputed to them the design of immediately emancipating the Slaves. Can it be necessary to declare, that the Abolitionists are full as much as any other men convinced, that insanity alone could dictate such a project. On the other hand, by another class of opponents, they have been charged with being unfaithful to their own principles, in not immediately emancipating the Slaves already in the islands, as well as immediately putting a stop to our ravages in Africa. Sometimes it has been argued, that we ourselves prove by our conduct in this instance, that the laws of justice must occasionally concede somewhat to considerations of expediency. That therefore they do but extend a little further than we, the limits of that concession, when they propose that the Slave Trade itself, with all its horrors, should be suffered to continue.
It scarcely would be requisite to expose the sophistry of this argument, if it had not sometimes proceeded from men of understanding, whose use of it however can only be accounted for by the supposition, that they are utterly unacquainted with the circumstances of the case.
Supposing they were themselves to discover an unfortunate human being, who, by long imprisonment and severe treatment, had been driven into a state of utter madness; would either justice or humanity prompt them to grant at once to this unfortunate man the unconstrained enjoyment of his natural liberty? On the contrary, would not these principles rather inculcate the duty of endeavouring by proper medical regimen, by salutary restraint, and if necessary even by the harsher expedient of wholesome discipline, to restore him to his senses, and qualify him for that freedom which he might afterwards enjoy?
The West Indian Slaves are in a state which calls for a course of treatment founded on similar principles. It would be the grossest violation and the merest mockery of justice and humanity, to emancipate them at once, in their present unhappy condition. God forbid (with most serious reverence I use the expression) that we should not desire to impart to the Negro Slaves the blessings of freedom. No man, I believe, estimates liberty more highly, or loves it better, than myself. True liberty, of course, I mean, the child of reason and law, the parent of order and happiness; such liberty, as that, of which they must be dull indeed who do not understand the nature and feel the value, who have lived in the enjoyment of the blessings which it dispenses under the form of a British Constitution; while they have beheld also its perfect contrast, both in nature and effects, in the wild licentiousness of a neighbouring kingdom.
It is indeed a “plant of celestial growth,” but the soil and climate must be prepared for its reception, or it will not bring forth its proper fruits. These are fruits, alas! which our poor degraded Negro Slaves are as yet incapable of enjoying. To grant it to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters ruin, but their own. A certain previous course of discipline is necessary. They must be trained and educated for this most perfect state of manly maturity; and, by a singular felicity of coincidence, the stoppage of all further importations from Africa, with all the consequences which it introduces in its train, is the very shortest and safest path by which the Slaves can travel to the enjoyment of true liberty.
[Sidenote: Other objections to Abolition.]
Besides the great argument urged by the opponents of the abolition, that of not being able to maintain their stock of Slaves at its present number and force, without importation from Africa, a position which, I trust, has been now most satisfactorily refuted by decisive appeals both to speculation and experience; other allegations also were made concerning the injurious consequences of the abolition, and of these it may now be proper to take a brief review.
It should however be borne in mind, that they all depend on the determination of the great question concerning the keeping up of the population, except so far only as the African Slave Trade is in question; and, with the exception before made, of persons connected with places whence this bloody traffic is carried on (now, to the honour of the kingdom, but two, London and Liverpool), none have been found such steady advocates for the Slave Trade, as to contend for its continuance merely for it’s own sake.
The opponents of abolition, and especially some of our great colonial antagonists, have confidently stated, that our measure would effect the speedy destruction of our West Indian colonies; and that in consequence of the loss of national capital which we should sustain, and from our no longer importing the productions of our Western colonies, the abolition would bring down utter ruin on the commercial, manufacturing, maritime, and financial interests of the empire.
[Sidenote: Abolition injurious to our Commerce, Manufactures, &c., &c.]
I am far from denying the political, commercial, and financial advantages we have derived from the West Indies, or the benefit resulting to us, as a maritime nation, from the distant situation of those possessions. Still it is impossible to admit the principles of calculation, any more than the reasoning, of our opponents, when they state the whole loss which the public will sustain by the abolition of the Slave Trade.
They commonly begin by putting down as loss, very nearly the whole value of our exports to Africa, together with that of all the ships and sailors employed in that branch of commerce. They enlarge much also on the evils resulting from the suddenness of the shock, by so large a share of the national capital, as well as of our ships and seamen, being all at once thrown out of employment; they then pass over to the West Indies, and sum up the value of the West Indian estates of all kinds belonging to British subjects, with their buildings, Negroes, and other stock. To these they add the value of all the exports and imports, to and from the West Indies; with all the revenue derived from them, and the shipping and sailors which they employ; and then they tell us, that, adding the value of all these various articles together, we shall find the amount of our loss.
With respect to the African branch of the foregoing statement, all who believe with me, that the Africans are not incapable of civilization, and that when the fatal barrier shall be broken down, which along the whole western frontier has shut out all the improvements to be derived from a bloodless intercourse with more polished nations, they may gradually advance to a state of social order, comfort, and abundance; all who entertain hopes like these, will anticipate the immense amount of the commercial transactions which Britons in future times may carry on with that vast continent; and surely our descendants will, at the same time, wonder that their forefathers, on principles even of mere commercial gain, could be blind to the advantages to be derived from diffusing our manufactures through a region which constitutes almost a third part of the habitable globe.
Even our opponents themselves will acknowledge, that the suddenness of the shock is alone to be regarded. The objection on this ground was quite satisfactorily, though briefly refuted, in the concise statement formerly referred to. It appears, that, even before the abolition of that large part of the Slave Trade which consisted in supplying foreigners, and the French and Dutch conquered settlements with Slaves; the capital employed in the Slave Trade was but about one thirty-fifth part of the whole of our capital employed in foreign trade; and it was very truly affirmed, that “very few changes ever take place in the political arrangements of the state, or in its measures of commercial œconomy, which are not attended with a much greater shifting of capital, than the abolition of the Slave Trade, however sudden, could have effected in the periods of its greatest prosperity.”