Part 5

[Footnote A: In the history of the piratical states of Barbary, printed in 1750, _said to be_ wrote by a person who resided at Algiers, in a public character, at page 265 the author says, "The world exclaims against the Algerines for their cruel treatment of their slaves, and their employing even tortures to convert them to mahometism: but this is a vulgar error, artfully propagated for selfish views. So far are their slaves from being ill used, that they must have committed some very great fault to suffer any punishment. Neither are they forced to work beyond their strength, but rather spared, lest they should fall sick. Some are so pleased with their situation, that they will not purchase their ransom, though they are able." It is the same generally through the Mahometan countries, except in some particular instances, as that of Muley Ishmael, late Emperor of Morocco, who being naturally barbarous, frequently used both his subjects and slaves with cruelty. Yet even under him the usage the slaves met with was, in general, much more tolerable than that of the Negroe slaves in the West Indies. Captain Braithwaite, an author of credit, who accompanied consul general Russel in a congratulatory ambassy to Muley Ishmael's successor, upon his accession to the throne, says, "The situation of the christian slaves in Morocco was not near so bad as represented.--That it was true they were kept at labour by the late Emperor, but not harder than our daily labourers go through.--Masters of ships were never obliged to work, nor such as had but a small matter of money to give the Alcaide.--When sick, they had a religious house appointed for them to go to, where they were well attended: and whatever money in charity was sent them by their friends in Europe, was their own." Braithwaite's revolutions of Morocco. Lady Montague, wife of the English ambassador at Constantinople, in her letters, vol. 3. page 20, writes, "I know you expect I should say something particular of the slaves; and you will imagine me half a Turk, when I do not speak of it with the same horror other christians have done before me; but I cannot forbear applauding the humanity of the Turks to these creatures; they are not ill used; and their slavery, in my opinion, is no worse than servitude all over the world. It is true they have no wages, but they give them yearly cloaths to a higher value than our salaries to our ordinary servants." ]

[Footnote B: W. Moor, p. 30]

[Footnote C: Collection vol. 2. p. 647.]

CHAP. VII.

Montesquieu's sentiments on slavery. Moderation enjoined by the Mosaic law in the punishment of offenders. Morgan Godwyn's account of the contempt and grievous rigour exercised upon the Negroes in his time. Account from Jamaica, relating to the inhuman treatment of them there. Bad effects attendant on slave-keeping, as well to the masters as the slaves. Extracts from several laws relating to Negroes. Richard Baxter's sentiments on slave-keeping.

That celebrated civilian Montesquieu, in his treatise _on the spirit of laws_, on the article of slavery says, "_It is neither useful to the master nor slave; to the slave, because he can do nothing through principle (or virtue); to the master, because he contracts with his slave all sorts of bad habits, insensibly accustoms himself to want all moral virtues; becomes haughty, hasty, hard-hearted, passionate, voluptuous, and cruel_." The lamentable truth of this assertion was quickly verified in the English plantations. When the practice of slave-keeping was introduced, it soon produced its natural effects; it reconciled men, of otherwise good dispositions, to the most hard and cruel measures. It quickly proved, what, under the law of Moses, was apprehended would be the consequence of unmerciful chastisements. Deut. xxv. 2. "_And it shall be if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number; forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed_." And the reason rendered, is out of respect to human nature, viz. "_Lest if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee_." As this effect soon followed the cause, the cruelest measures were adopted, in order to make the most of the poor _wretches_ labour; and in the minds of the masters such an idea was excited of inferiority, in the nature of these their unhappy fellow creatures, that they soon esteemed and treated them as beasts of burden: pretending to doubt, and some of them even presuming to deny, that the efficacy of the death of Christ extended to them. Which is particularly noted in a book, intitled _The Negroes and Indians advocate_, dedicated to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote so long since as in the year 1680, by Morgan Godwyn, thought to be a clergyman of the church of England.[A] The same spirit of sympathy and zeal which stirred up the good Bishop of Chapia to plead with so much energy the kindred cause of the Indians of America, an hundred and fifty years before, was equally operating about a century past on the minds of some of the well disposed of that day; amongst others this worthy clergyman, having been an eye witness of the oppression and cruelty exercised upon the Negro and Indian slaves, endeavoured to raise the attention of those, in whose power it might be to procure them relief; amongst other matters, in his address to the Archbishop, he remarks in substance, "That the people of the island of Barbadoes were not content with exercising the greatest hardness and barbarity upon the Negroes, in making the most of their labour, without any regard to the calls of humanity, but that they had suffered such a slight and undervaluement to prevail in their minds towards these their oppressed fellow creatures, as to discourage any step being taken, whereby they might be made acquainted with the christian religion. That their conduct towards their slaves was such as gave him reason to believe, that either they had suffered a spirit of infidelity, a spirit quite contrary to the nature of the gospel, to prevail in them, or that it must be their established opinion that the Negroes had no more souls than beasts; that hence they concluded them to be neither susceptible of religious impressions, nor fit objects for the redeeming grace of God to operate upon. That under this persuasion, and from a disposition of cruelty, they treated them with far less humanity than they did their cattle; for, says he, they do not starve their horses, which they expect should both carry and credit them on the road; nor pinch the cow, by whose milk they are sustained; which yet, to their eternal shame, is too frequently the lot and condition of those poor people, from whose labour their wealth and livelihood doth wholly arise; not only in their diet, but in their cloathing, and overworking some of them even to death (which is particularly the calamity of the most innocent and laborious) but also in tormenting and whipping them almost, and sometimes quite, to death, upon even small miscarriages. He apprehends it was from this prejudice against the Negroes, that arose those supercilious checks and frowns he frequently met with, when using innocent arguments and persuasions, in the way of his duty as a minister of the gospel, to labour for the convincement and conversion of the Negroes; being repeatedly told, with spiteful scoffings, (even by some esteemed religious) that the Negroes were no more susceptible of receiving benefit, by becoming members of the church, than their dogs and bitches. The usual answer he received, when exhorting their masters to do their duty in that respect, being, _What! these black dogs be made christians! what! they be made like us! with abundance more of the same_. Nevertheless, he remarks that the Negroes were capable, not only of being taught to read and write, &c. but divers of them eminent in the management of business. He declares them to have an equal right with us to the merits of Christ; of which if through neglect or avarice they are deprived, that judgment which was denounced against wicked Ahab, must befal us: _Our life shall go for theirs_. The loss of their souls will be required at our hands, to whom God hath given so blessed an opportunity of being instrumental to their salvation."

[Footnote A: "There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places or ages hath had different names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God.--It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression. Using ourselves to take ways which appear most easy to us, when inconsistent with that purity which is without beginning, we thereby set up a government of our own, and deny obedience to Him whose service is true liberty. He that has a servant, made so wrongfully, and knows it to be so, when he treats him otherwise than a free man, when he reaps the benefit of his labour, without paying him such wages as are reasonably due to free men for the like service; these things, though done in calmness, without any shew of disorder, do yet deprave the mind, in like manner, and with as great certainty, as prevailing cold congeals water. These steps taken by masters, and their conduct striking the minds of their children, whilst young, leave less room for that which is good to work upon them. The customs of their parents, their neighbours, and the people with whom they converse, working upon their minds, and they from thence conceiving wrong ideas of things, and modes of conduct, the entrance into their hearts becomes in a great measure shut up against the gentle movings of uncreated purity.

"From one age to another the gloom grows thicker and darker, till error gets established by general opinion; but whoever attends to perfect goodness, and remains under the melting influence of it, finds a path unknown to many, and sees the necessity to lean upon the arm of divine strength, and dwell alone, or with a few in the right, committing their cause to him who is a refuge to his people. Negroes are our fellow creatures, and their present condition among us requires our serious consideration. We know not the time, when those scales, in which mountains are weighed, may turn. The parent of mankind is gracious, his care is over his smallest creatures, and a multitude of men escape not his notice; and though many of them are trodden down and despised, yet he remembers them. He seeth their affliction, and looketh upon the spreading increasing exaltation of the oppressor. He turns the channel of power, humbles the most haughty people, and gives deliverance to the oppressed, at such periods as are consistent with his infinite justice and goodness. And wherever gain is preferred to equity, and wrong things publickly encouraged, to that degree that wickedness takes root and spreads wide amongst the inhabitants of a country, there is a real cause for sorrow, to all such whose love to mankind stands on a true principle, and wisely consider the end and event of things." Consideration on keeping Negroes, by John Woolman, part 2. p. 50.]

He complains, "That they were suffered to live with their women in no better way than direct fornication; no care being taken to oblige them to continue together when married; but that they were suffered at their will to leave their wives, and take to other women." I shall conclude this sympathizing clergyman's observations, with an instance he gives, to shew, "that not only discouragements and scoffs at that time prevailed in Barbadoes, to establish an opinion that the Negroes were not capable of religious impressions, but that even violence and great abuses were used to prevent any thing of the kind taking place. It was in the case of a poor Negro, who having, at his own request, prevailed on a clergyman to administer baptism to him, on his return home the brutish overseer took him to task, giving him to understand, that that was no sunday's work for those of his complexion; that he had other business for him, the neglect whereof would cost him an afternoon's baptism in blood, as he in the morning had received a baptism with water, (these, says the clergyman, were his own words) which he accordingly made good; of which the Negro complained to him, and he to the governor; nevertheless, the poor miserable creature was ever after so unmercifully treated by that inhuman wretch, the overseer, that, to avoid his cruelty, betaking himself to the woods, he there perished." This instance is applicable to none but the cruel perpetrator; and yet it is an instance of what, in a greater or less degree, may frequently happen, when those poor wretches are left to the will of such brutish inconsiderate creatures as those overseers often are. This is confirmed in a _History of Jamaica_, wrote in thirteen letters, about the year 1740, by a person then residing in that island, who writes as follows, "I shall not now enter upon the question, whether the slavery of the Negroes be agreeable to the laws of nature or not; though it seems extremely hard they should be reduced to serve and toil for the benefit of others, without the least advantage to themselves. Happy Britannia, where slavery is never known! where liberty and freedom chears every misfortune. Here (_says the author_) we can boast of no such blessing; we have at least ten slaves to one freeman. I incline to touch the hardships which these poor creatures suffer, in the tenderest manner, from a particular regard which I have to many of their masters, but I cannot conceal their sad circumstances intirely: the most trivial error is punished with terrible whipping. I have seen some of them treated in that cruel manner, for no other reason but to satisfy the brutish pleasure of an overseer, who has their punishment mostly at his discretion. I have seen their bodies all in a gore of blood, the skin torn off their backs with the cruel whip; beaten pepper and salt rubbed in the wounds, and a large stick of sealing wax dropped leisurely upon them. It is no wonder, if the horrid pain of such inhuman tortures incline them to rebel. Most of these slaves are brought from the coast of Guinea. When they first arrive, it is observed, they are simple and very innocent creatures; but soon turn to be roguish enough. And when they come to be whipt, urge the example of the whites for an excuse of their faults."

These accounts of the deep depravity of mind attendant on the practice of slavery, verify the truth of Montesquieu's remark of its pernicious effects. And altho' the same degree of opposition to instructing the Negroes may not now appear in the islands as formerly, especially since the Society appointed for propagating the Gospel have possessed a number of Negroes in one of them; nevertheless the situation of these oppressed people is yet dreadful, as well to themselves as in its consequence to their hard task-masters, and their offspring, as must be evident to every impartial person who is acquainted with the treatment they generally receive, or with the laws which from time to time have been made in the colonies, with respect to the Negroes; some of them being absolutely inconsistent with reason, and shocking to humanity. By the 329th act of the assembly of Barbadoes, page 125, it is enacted,

"That if any Negroe or other slave under punishment by his master, or his order, for running away, or any other crime or misdemeanors towards his said master, unfortunately shall suffer in life or member, (which seldom happens) no person whatsoever shall be liable to any fine therefore. But if any man shall, _of wantonness, or only of bloody-mindedness or cruel intention, wilfully kill a Negroe, or other slave of his own, he shall pay into the public treasury, fifteen pounds sterling_." Now that the life of a man should be so lightly valued, as that fifteen pounds should be judged a sufficient indemnification of the murder of one, even when it is avowedly done _wilfully, wantonly, cruelly, or of bloody-mindedness_, is a tyranny hardly to be paralleled: nevertheless human laws cannot make void the righteous law of God, or prevent the inquisition of that awful judgment day, when, "_at the hand of every man's brother the life of man shall be required_." By the law of South Carolina, the person that killeth a Negroe is only subject to a fine, or twelve months imprisonment. It is the same in most, if not all the West-Indies. And by an act of the assembly of Virginia, (4 Ann. Ch. 49. sect. 27. p. 227.) after proclamation is issued against slaves, "that run away and lie out, _it is lawful for any person whatsoever to kill and destroy such slaves, by such ways and means as he, she, or they shall think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime for the same_."--And lest private interest should incline the planter to mercy, it is provided, "_That every slave so killed, in pursuance of this act, shall be paid for by the public_."

It was doubtless a like sense of sympathy with that expressed by Morgan Godwyn before mentioned, for the oppressed Negroes, and like zeal for the cause of religion, so manifestly trampled upon in the case of the Negroes, which induced Richard Baxter, an eminent preacher amongst the Dissenters in the last century, in his _christian directory_, to express himself as follows, viz. "Do you mark how God hath followed you with plagues; and may not conscience tell you, that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies of men?"--"To go as pirates; and catch up poor Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty, and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of thievery in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the common enemies of mankind; and they that buy them and use them as beasts for their mere commodity, and betray, or destroy, or neglect their souls, are fitter to be called devils incarnate than christians: It is an heinous sin to buy them, unless it be in charity to deliver them. Undoubtedly they are presently bound to deliver them, because by right the man is his own, therefore no man else can have a just title to him."

CHAP. VIII.

Griffith Hughes's account of the number of Negroes in Barbadoes. Cannot keep up their usual number without a yearly recruit. Excessive hardships wear the Negroes down in a surprising manner. A servitude without a condition, inconsistent with reason and natural justice. The general usage the Negroes meet with in the West Indies. Inhuman calculations of the strength and lives of the Negroes. Dreadful consequences which may be expected from the cruelty exercised upon this oppressed part of mankind.

We are told by Griffith Hughes, rector of St. Lucy in Barbadoes, in his natural history of that island, printed in the year 1750, "That there were between sixty-five and seventy thousand Negroes, at that time, in the island, tho' formerly they had a greater number. That in order to keep up a necessary number, they were obliged to have a yearly supply from Africa. That the hard labour, and often want of necessaries, which these unhappy creatures are obliged to undergo, destroy a greater number than are bred there." He adds, "That the capacities of their minds in common affairs of life are but little inferior, if at all, to those of the Europeans. If they fail in some arts, he says, it may be owing more to their want of education, and the depression of their spirits by slavery, than to any want of natural abilities." This destruction of the human species, thro' unnatural hardships, and want of necessary supplies, in the case of the Negroes, is farther confirmed in _an account of the European settlements in America_, printed London, 1757, where it is said, par. 6. chap. 11th, "The Negroes in our colonies endure a slavery more compleat, and attended with far worse circumstances, than what any people in their condition suffer in any other part of the world, or have suffered in any other period of time: Proofs of this are not wanting. The prodigious waste which we experience in this unhappy part of our species, is a full and melancholy evidence of this truth. The island of Barbadoes, (the Negroes upon which do not amount to eighty thousand) notwithstanding all the means which they use to increase them by propagation, and that the climate is in every respect (except that of being more wholesome) exactly resembling the climate from whence they come; notwithstanding all this, Barbadoes lies under a necessity of an annual recruit of five thousand slaves, to keep up the stock at the number I have mentioned. This prodigious failure, which is at least in the same proportion in all our islands, shews demonstratively that some uncommon and unsupportable hardship lies upon the Negroes, which wears them down in such a surprising manner."

In an account of part of North America, published by Thomas Jeffery, 1761, the author, speaking of the usage the Negroes receive in the West India islands, says, "It is impossible for a human heart to reflect upon the servitude of these dregs of mankind, without in some measure feeling for their misery, which ends but with their lives.--Nothing can be more wretched than the condition of this people. One would imagine, they were framed to be the disgrace of the human species; banished from their country, and deprived of that blessing, liberty, on which all other nations set the greatest value, they are in a measure reduced to the condition of beasts of burden. In general, a few roots, potatoes especially, are their food, and two rags, which neither screen them from the heat of the day, nor the extraordinary coolness of the night, all their covering; their sleep very short; their labour almost continual; they receive no wages, but have twenty lashes for the smallest fault." _A thoughtful_ person, who had an opportunity of observing the miserable condition of the Negroes in one of our West India islands, writes thus, "I met with daily exercise to see the treatment which those miserable wretches met with from their masters; with but few exceptions. They whip them most unmercifully on small occasions: you will see their bodies all whealed and scarred; in short, they seem to set no other value on their lives, than as they cost them so much money; and are restrained from killing them, when angry, by no worthier consideration, than that they lose so much. They act as though they did not look upon them as a race of human creatures, who have reason, and remembrance of misfortunes, but as beasts; like oxen, who are stubborn, hardy, and senseless, fit for burdens, and designed to bear them: they won't allow them to have any claim to human privileges, or scarce indeed to be regarded as the work of God. Though it was consistent with the justice of our Maker to pronounce the sentence on our common parent, and through him on all succeeding generations, _That he and they should eat their bread by the sweat of their brows_: yet does it not stand recorded by the same eternal truth, _That the labourer is worthy of his hire?_ It cannot be allowed, in natural justice, that there should be a servitude without condition; a cruel, endless servitude. It cannot be reconcileable to natural justice, that whole nations, nay, whole continents of men, should be devoted to do the drudgery of life for others, be dragged away from their attachments of relations and societies, and be made to serve the appetite and pleasure of a race of men, whose superiority has been obtained by illegal force."