Part 8

But though this neglect of the religious and moral instruction of the Slaves, so manifestly leading to the master’s immediate interest, may surprize on the first view, the problem will be completely solved on a farther insight into the system of management; and the mischief may be traced, if I mistake not, to a sure source of numerous and most malignant evils. [Sidenote: Degradation of the Negro race.] For the various moral defects of the negro system appear to me often to be almost entirely caused, and always to be extremely augmented, by the Negroes, as a race, being sunk into the lowest state of degradation.

That this was to be naturally expected, will be obvious to every reflecting mind, which considers, that, for many successive generations, the Negroes have not only been an inferior cast, a race of slaves, the slaves too of men enjoying themselves, political freedom, and therefore elevated above them to a still higher point; but that there is a variety of circumstances, not forgetting that most important particular of colour, all tending powerfully to designate, and stamp them, as a peculiar, and that a base and degraded order of beings.

These are considerations of inexpressible importance; for these are they, which, by extinguishing sympathy, render the yoke of African slavery so peculiarly galling, and make it press on the West Indian Slave with such aggravated weight. [Sidenote: West Indian compared with ancient slavery.] Slavery, we know, existed among the ancients; and according to the savage maxims of Pagan warfare,(too strikingly agreeing with the mode of carrying on war which the Slave Trade has produced in Africa), not only the soldiery of an enemy, but the peaceable inhabitants of conquered countries were commonly sold as Slaves. But what an idea does it convey of the abhorred system, which, with coadjutors abler than myself, I have been so long endeavouring to abolish; that, just as in Africa, it has forced Christianity to acknowledge the superior power of Mahometanism, in rooting out the native superstitions, and in instructing and civilizing the inhabitants—so in our possessions in the western Hemisphere, it combines the profession of the christian faith with a description of slavery, in many respects more bitter in its sufferings, than that which the very darkness of Paganism itself could scarcely tolerate.

This is the more grievous to those who duly venerate and love our most pure and excellent form of christian faith, because to have first mitigated the evils of slavery, and at length in a great degree to have abolished the institution itself, have been numbered among the peculiar glories of Christianity;[25] and because, what we deem a corrupted system of Christianity, has produced highly beneficial effects on the negro Slaves of our Roman Catholic neighbours in the same quarter. I cannot now enlarge on this topic; but thus much I must state, that the single particular, that the Slaves among the ancients were in general of the same complexion, features, and form, with their masters, was of itself a consideration of extreme importance. These masters were aware their situation was one, into which they themselves might be reduced by the fortune of war: this circumstance, together with the frequent elevation of Slaves to occupations of the highest confidence and importance, with a prospect, frequently realized, of emerging by emancipation into a state of liberty and comfort, was sufficient to render their condition infinitely preferable to that of our West Indian Slaves.[26] In the case of ancient slavery, instead of there being no place for sympathy, it was often in lively exercise; but even still more, hope was not extinguished; hope, the cordial drop of life, that on which, perhaps, more than on all which rank, and wealth; and power, and prosperity can give, depends the happiness of man. But to the West Indian Slave, on the contrary, his colour, his features, his form, his language, his employment, all tend on the one hand to extinguish sympathy, and on the other to shut him up as it were close and bound in his dreary dungeon, without a ray of light, without a chance of escape, the victim at once of degradation and despair.

Can it be necessary for me, in order to justify myself for dilating on so invidious a topic as that of the degradation of the negro race, to insist on the important effects which this degradation must necessarily produce in all the various particulars of negro treatment? [Sidenote: Important effects of Negro degradation.] Let me not here be misunderstood. The degradation of which I shall speak, and of which, while it continues, I must ever speak in terms of indignation, as of a gross infraction on the just claims of our common species, is not to be regarded as important, only, or chiefly, in the view of its being an outrage on the feelings of the Negroes themselves. If that were all, I might perhaps be charged with over-refining, and with measuring the opinions and feelings of the Slaves by a standard justly applicable only to men of far more enlightened and elevated minds. Though, even in this view, what an idea does it convey to us of their wretched state! How scanty must be their stock of comforts, when their very happiness is to arise from their being insensible to circumstances of humiliation, which all but a brute must understand and feel.

Hitherto it has been deemed one of the most debasing effects of slavery, to render men insensible to the extremity of their own degradation; and it is a new way of considering things to regard this insensibility as an alleviation of their wretchedness. But, alas! this degradation makes itself but too intelligible to the meanest capacity, and the most unfeeling heart. Its effects are such as come home at every turn to the Negroes’ “business and bosoms.”

Surely it would be a waste of time to prove to you in detail, that, throughout all nature, but especially in the human species, in proportion as any being is considered as possessing a higher or a lower place in the scale of existence, in that same proportion shall we be disposed to consider him as entitled to a larger share of our kind consideration; in short, in the same proportion will sympathy be awakened in his behalf, and sympathy is the great author and cherisher of every benevolent emotion. In that same proportion shall we be inclined to reflect on his situation, to spare his feelings, to multiply his comforts; in short, to pour, even though with a cautious hand, some drops of comfort into a cup, which, at best, must be but bitter, and of which, wherever sympathy is in exercise, we feel that we ourselves might have been fated to drink. Whatever, therefore, tends to depress that wretched class of our fellow creatures, beneath that low level which in any case they are doomed to occupy, tends compendiously and infallibly to the counteraction of every thing good, and the aggravation of every thing evil, in their unhappy lot.

Let it not then be thought, that in the odious recital which will follow, I am influenced by any invidious or ungenerous feelings towards the colonial Proprietors. I have a solemn duty to discharge, and however painful the task, however invidious, however liable to misconstruction, I must not shrink from it. It may be enough, I hope, to touch on the chief humiliating particulars.

[Sidenote: Instances of degradation.]

And, first, comes in that most degrading spectacle of a negro sale.

[Sidenote: A negro sale.]

Mr. Edwards himself acknowledges with frankness and liberality, that “there is something extremely shocking to a humane and cultivated mind, in the idea of beholding a numerous body of our unfortunate fellow creatures in captivity and exile, exposed naked to public view, and sold like a herd of cattle.”[27] But the account given of one of those sales by a late traveller, in his highly instructive and interesting work,[28] will convey a more precise idea of the scene:—“The poor Africans, says he, who were to be sold, were exposed naked, in a large empty building like an open barn. Those who came with intention to purchase, minutely inspected them; handled them, made them jump, and stamp with their feet, and throw out their arms and their legs; turned them about; looked into their mouths; and, according to the usual rules of traffic with respect to cattle, examined them; and made them show themselves in a variety ways, to try if they were sound and healthy. All this was distressful and humiliating; but a wound still more severe was inflicted on the feelings, by some of the purchasers selecting only such as their judgment led them to prefer, regardless of the bonds of nature and affection.”

“The husband was taken from the wife, children separated from their parents, and the lover torn from his mistress.”

“In one part of the building was seen a wife clinging to her husband. Here was a sister hanging upon the neck of her brother. There stood two brothers enfolded in each others arms, mutually bewailing their threatened separation. In other parts were friends, relatives, and companions, praying to be sold to the same master, using signs to signify that they would be content with slavery, might they but toil together.”

“Silent tears, deep sighs, and heavy lamentations, bespoke the universal suffering of these poor Blacks. Never was the scene more distressful. Among these unhappy, degraded Africans, scarcely was there an unclouded countenance.”

To the honour of the Legislature of Jamaica, the consolidated Slave Act, which passed in 1788, contained a proviso, which Mr. Edwards himself subsequently endeavored to carry into more complete effect, that, as far as possible, there should be no separation of the different branches of the same family. I might remark that such a law, from the very nature of the case, would be very imperfectly executed. But even where no such humane condition has been prescribed, let me observe, that it is not so much to my present purpose to notice the violence done to the domestic and social feelings of the Slaves, as to point out the tendency which the whole scene must have, to degrade and vilify the wretched beings in the eyes of the spectators.

[Sidenote: Sales of Negroes for Owners’ debts.]

It is another particular in the situation of these poor creatures, which should here be noticed; that they are personal estate, or moveable property, and that hence they are liable to be seized and sold for their Owner’s debts. This operates the more unfavourably towards them, because, in the West Indies, there is always a more rapid change of property than in any other country; and never has there been more speculation, never more general difficulty and distress, consequently never more seizures and sales, than during the last twenty or thirty years.

These continual sales, often commonly by auction, not only of recently imported, but of homeborn and long-settled Negroes, are productive of the most acute sufferings to the Slaves, by tearing open, in the Africans, the old wounds, which might after many years have closed, and by forcing them once more from their homes, their families, and connections, when they had perhaps taken root in their West Indian soil, and multiplied their domestic and social holdings. These transplantations, besides, greatly tend to lessen the little disposition which the Slaves, circumstanced as they are, naturally feel, to endeavour to gain a good character, and obtain a master’s confidence, in the hope that they and their families may possess a place in his esteem. There is an object which it is obvious will operate most severely in the case of the most industrious and best-conditioned Slaves. In proportion as they are of this character, they are likely to have multiplied their domestic and friendly relations, and in and about their dwelling-places to have collected such little comforts as have been within their reach, and as have tended to cause home to present, even to them, an idea of consolation and refreshment. But all of them have some home, all have some relatives and acquaintances. From all these they are hurried away, often necessarily separated from the closest of all connections. They are sent, probably, to form new settlements, when, perhaps, past the prime of life, and to encounter hardships, and endure labours, to which their bodily strength is scarcely equal.[29] At least they have to form a new home, new connections, new attachments; and, when the best of their days have now been spent in vain, how must the spirits, even of the well disposed, sink within them, under the consciousness that they have to recommend themselves to a new master, when, from the mere decay of their bodily powers, they cannot hope, by the alacrity and vigour of their services, to obtain any considerable share of notice or esteem; or when, if at an earlier period of life, they are discouraged from attempting it, by the probability, that ere long they may again be transferred to a new owner.

But I wish you not so much to keep in view the deep wounds which the happiness of the Slaves must sustain from these frequent sales. It is to my present purpose to consider their effect in accustoming men to disregard their comforts and feelings. It is impossible but that such incidents must tend powerfully, and in various ways, to vilify and degrade the Blacks in the general estimation, and hence to produce an habitual disregard to their comforts and feelings.

It may be proper to state, that it was urged by our West Indian opponents, that the grievance we have been now considering, may fairly be laid to the charge of the British Parliament, having been sanctioned by a statute passed in the time of George the Second, for the security of the creditor in the mother country. The West Indian legislatures, it was added, were bound not to enact any provision contrary to the laws of England, and were therefore forced to endure this cruel and pernicious law.

It would not be difficult to shew that this charge is not well founded; but it may suffice, for the present, to remark, that, even granting that the effect of the 5th of Geo. 2d was such as is here supposed, yet that Slaves were not for the first time rendered by that law personal property, and liable to be sold separate from the land for the payment of the simple contract debts of the Master. They have always been in that wretched state. Still more it might truly be alleged, that the Legislature of this country was utterly ignorant of the effect of the law on the happiness of the Negroes, and not even a hint was dropped on that subject by any one of the many West Indian Gentlemen in Parliament; and, when the mischievous effects of the statute were explained, Parliament immediately and unanimously consented to the very first proposal which was made for repealing it. We do not find however, that the West Indian legislatures have availed themselves of the acknowledged right of rescinding it, which they now enjoy. Supposing therefore, what is not however the fact, that, in this instance only, the British Parliament and the Colonial legislatures, the former utterly ignorant of all the practical evils resulting to the Slaves from the law in question, the latter having them daily before their eyes, to have been both parties to the wrong; we have at least done our part towards redressing the injury; they have not done theirs.

[Sidenote: The universal practice of working under the whip.]

The next particular which must be mentioned, is, like all the rest, at once an evidence and an effect of the degraded state of the Negroes. It is that universal and established practice of working them under the whip like cattle.[30] And here is it possible for any one not to feel peculiarly shocked at the idea of working females in this method; the consequence of which must unavoidably be, that notwithstanding the immunities which may be allowed in more advanced stages of pregnancy, or even as soon as a woman is known to be in that state, yet that females will in fact be often worked in this mode, at times, and under circumstances, when Nature peculiarly calls for forbearance, tenderness, and support. Let me repeat, that it is not civilization merely, and politeness, as sometimes happens in the case of artificial wants; it is Nature herself, which, in such circumstances, claims some sympathy and indulgence. And is this a time, are these circumstances, in which a female should be urged to her labour by the stroke, or even the crack of the whip? To view the practice in a mere mercenary view, surely if the West Indian Gentlemen had been seriously and earnestly intent on superseding the necessity of purchasing from the Slave market, by rearing Negroes on their own estates, the younger women at least, if employed in field-work at all, would not be worked in this rude and undistinguishing manner, when a single inconsiderate lash of the driver’s whip, intended not as a punishment, but as a quickener, or a memento, may in its consequences, prevent the birth of a future infant. Surely I need not enlarge on this disgusting topic, or enumerate in detail the various evils which must result from so hateful a practice; it’s tendency greatly to lessen, if not almost utterly to extinguish in the Slaves, all honest, I had almost said, all mercenary emulation or competition, all the hopes of obtaining a master’s approbation and confidence; it’s admitting no occasional remissions of labour, afterwards to be compensated by increased exertions; it’s making no allowance for different states of mind or body; but, without inquiry as to these, as the post-horse is to go through his stage, so the Slave under the same impulse is to keep up with his fellows: In short, it’s utter forgetfulness of _mind_ in the human subject, who is thus considered and treated as of an inferior species, as not capable of being worked upon by the ordinary motives of the hope of reward, or even the fear of punishment; as one who, like the vilest of the brute species, has no foresight or recollection, and must therefore be subjected to the same humiliating regimen.

[Sidenote: Cruel and indecent public punishments of Slaves.]

Another particular, concerning which I am doubtful whether it ought to be noticed chiefly as a cause of the degradation of the Negro race, or as an evidence and effect of that degradation, is the cruel, and, in the case of the female sex, still more the highly indecent punishments inflicted in places of public resort, and in the face of day. Unless the feelings of sympathy towards Blacks, as fellow creatures, or of decency respecting them as of our own species, were not, to so great a degree, extinct, such exhibitions would not be continued, if from no better motive, yet because they would counteract their own effect, when they were the execution of a public sentence, by interesting all beholders in favour of the criminal, and bringing, to use the phrase of our law, the Government into hatred and contempt; or because, when they were punishments ordered by a master or mistress, besides probably producing a riot, they would render those who ordered them the subject of general obloquy. But, regarded as Blacks now are by the bulk of the population, there seems to have been no fear lest public executions, by the most cruel and protracted tortures, should be matter of public scandal. As for the punishments of Owners, when General T. saw the shameless and cruel flogging, on the public parade, of two very decent women, who, while waiting at table where he was visiting, had been ordered by their mistress, in spite of his expostulations, to go with the Jumper (or public Flogger), to receive a dozen, each stroke of which brought flesh from them, we do not find that the incident excited any surprize or attention in any one but the General himself.[31] If such could be the treatment sanctioned by public opinion, and general feeling, of decent young women, publicly and in the face of day, what consideration would be likely to be paid to the comforts and feelings of the field Negroes, who are regarded as a far inferior race to the domestics, especially when there are no officious bystanders to witness what may take place.

Let me but ask, what must be the effect necessarily produced on the mind from having been habituated to such scenes as these from early infancy? Can we be surprized to hear that, too often, even the delicacy and tenderness of the female sex is not proof against the natural consequences of daily beholding such spectacles?[32] Should we not be almost prepared to find, the particular which I confess has ever most deeply affected my mind as being of all others the most decisive proof of the utter vileness and degradation of the Negro race, [Sidenote: Other signs of degradation.] that utter contempt which too generally prevails of their social and domestic feelings; that they are too commonly regarded as below instruction, below the range of moral precepts and prohibitions, below the sphere of the obligations, duties, restraints, and comforts of conjugal, domestic, and social life.

Hence, doubtless, proceeds their being in some degree regarded, like their fellow brutes, as below the necessity of observing towards others the proper decencies of life, or of having these decencies observed by others towards them. Hence, while Mr. Parke assures us, that in Africa, adultery is not more frequent than in this country, we hear the most respectable Colonists treat the very idea of introducing marriage among the Slaves, in their present state, as perfectly hopeless or ridiculous.

Do we not here find the explanation of that strange phenomenon, formerly mentioned, that while the prevalence and evils of dissoluteness are universally acknowledged, scarcely any one thinks of applying that which has already appeared from experience so safe, so appropriate, and so beneficial a remedy?

[Sidenote: Inadequate legal protection.]

But it is time to pass to another most important particular, which, like those already mentioned, is at once both cause and effect, both an evidence and a consequence of degradation—the inadequate protection afforded to the Slaves by the laws.

Here again let me not be misunderstood. It is not the matter of my present complaint, that, from the inadequate penalties annexed to the ill-treatment of Negro Slaves, and that still more from the evidence of black and coloured men not being admissible, they are subject to the restraints of civilized society, without being partakers of its benefits. Much might be said, much has been said, to prove how insufficiently they are secured by the laws against injuries and insults. On the other hand, considerable stress, too has sometimes been laid on the mildness of the penalties where the offences of Slaves were to be punished, and still more on the laws which have from time to time been passed for the protection of Slaves. The former assertion might be but too effectually disproved, by appealing to various passages in the Colonial statute book; and, where admitted, the lenity might be traced to a cause less generous than disinterested humanity. It might have been suggested to one of the most powerful of our colonial opponents, who urged that capital executions of Slaves had taken place in very few instances, that they might naturally be expected to be more rare, and punishments in general more lenient, where men’s own property would suffer from severity.