CHAPTER XIV.

THE EFFECTS OF ABOLITION.

My intention was to have examined minutely the effects of abolition upon Hayti and the British West Indies, to have followed the history of the transition, to have noted the tendency and gradual return to barbarism, of a race rescued from that condition only by slavery, and to have sought in the character of the negro for the reasons of this decline; but the extent of this prefatory sketch forbids so minute a detail. It is unquestionably true, that from the ancient kingdom of Meroe, in which, centuries before Christ, the experiment of a negro government of a nation far advanced in civilization, was attended with retrogradation and final extinction, down to the latest abolition in the West Indies, however varying the circumstances, however cautious and wise the provisions, the result has been uniformly and invariably disastrous to every element of civilization. The fact is admitted; the difference of opinion exists only as to

causes.

"From 1804 downwards, the history of the unfortunate island (Hayti), has been little or nothing else than the history of rapine-one black rising up to contest the sovereignty with another, and filling the island with scenes of confusion and misery, which go far to prove the theory of those who maintain that the negro race is by natural incapacity unfitted for self-government.” Such is the testimony of an intelligent Englishman, who

visited St. Domingo in 1849, and whose prejudices are all in favor of the negro race.' The statistics of the commerce of the islands show a continual retrocession. Every visitor, whatever be his opinions as to negro capacity, notes and admits the evidences of decay in every mark of advancement and civilization, and today the mock empire of Hayti, the subject of ridicule and regret, is but a transfer of an African despotism from Ethiopia to the West Indies."

The history of Hayti and its present condition show the results of an abolition effected by insurrection and revolution. In these causes, the abolitionists of England and France found reasons for all the savage barbarity, the miserable idleness, the continual outbreaks, the ruined cities, the abandoned agriculture, in short, for the dark mantle of heathenism which settled upon this once beautiful and fertile island. A peaceable emancipation, with proper guards against the natural outbreaks of too sudden liberty, with judicious provision for educating and training the rising generation, whose spirits had never been crushed by the galling chains of slavery: this was the true philosophy and philanthropy, and from such a course, results very different from those witnessed in Hayti, were confidently predicted and sincerely anticipated. As we have seen, Great Britain took the first steps in this new experiment. A gradual emancipation, during which an apprentice system and ample educational privileges were provided, was the result of the best statesmanship and philanthropy of the wisest and best of the nations of the Old World.

Its

1 Impressions and Experiences of the West Indies and North America, in 1849, by Robert Baird, A.M., 82.

2 Franklin's Present State of Hayti; Levavasseur's Esclavage de la race noire, 22, et seq.

3 Colonies Etrangères, by Schoelcher, vol. ii, pp. 171-320, gives a minute history of this period; pp. 321-331, give the excuses of the abolitionists.

first fruits differed so widely from prophecy, that new causes had to be sought to explain the result. These were found in this tardy system of gradual emancipation. Immediate and unconditional manumission was the only panacea. We have seen how soon it followed. The world knows its results, and none are more ready to acknowledge the utter failure of the entire scheme, than the enlightened statesmen and patriots of England. This is not attributable to their want of statesmanship or foresight. The whole secret of the failure was their utter ignorance of the negro character. The same legislation for a body of oppressed Saxons or Celts, would have been productive of blessings commensurate with the sacrifices made. But for the negro, they labored not only in vain but to his injury.

There is but one testimony as to the present condition of the British West Indies. "Magnas inter opes inops," is the lamentable condition of them all, and "daily they are sinking deeper and deeper into the utter helplessness of abject want." Taking Jamaica, the largest and most visited, as a standard (ex uno, disce omnes): "Shipping has deserted her ports; her magnificent plantations of sugar and coffee are running to weeds; her private dwellings are falling to decay; the comforts and luxuries. which belong to industrial prosperity have been cut off, one by one, from her inhabitants; and the day is at hand when there will be none left to represent the wealth, intelligence, and hospitality, for which the Jamaica planter was once so distinguished."

The condition of the Colonies has been frequently the subject of investigation by committees of the British Parliament; and huge volumes are filled with the evi

'Bigelow's Notes on Jamaica (1850); The West Indies and North America, by Robert Baird (1849); The State and Prospects of Jamaica, by Dr. King; Colonies Etrangères, by Schoelcher; Gurney, on the West Indies; Cassagnac, Voyage aux Antilles; Negromania, by Campbell, and opinions of Knox, Franklin, and others, cited by him.

dence taken before such commissions. Legislative palliatives and cures have been exhausted in seeking to restore prosperity to these rich dependents of the crown. Despairing of ever infusing industry and thrift, where nature implanted idleness and improvidence, resort has been and is now being had to the introduction of Coolies from East India, to supply the labor necessary for an island amply supplied, could it be brought into requisition; and even a modified resumption of the importation from Africa meets with favor from British statesmen, substituting (nominally, as it must be) voluntary for involuntary emigration.

Not alone in material wealth has been the decline of these once flourishing colonies. The condition of the negroes physically, intellectually, and morally, keeps pace with this downward tendency. Their numbers are annually decreasing from disease, the result of uncleanliness, and from want, the result of improvidence. Increase of crime is proportionate with the spread of misery. Chapels and schools are abandoned, and faithful teachers and missionaries have returned in despair to Europe.1

If the reports of travellers and the local newspapers can be relied on, these islands have not yet reached the lowest depth of degradation and misery to which they are doomed. Every year but adds to the desolation, physical and moral."

The other British possessions upon which the decree

'See Reports of Missionaries, made in 1849, quoted by Dr. King, p. 111; The Slave-Trade, Foreign and Domestic, by Carey, p. 27.

2 See numerous quotations, in Mr. Carey's work, pp. 25-35; also an instructive statement, by the West India Association of Glasgow, made April 14th, 1853; and found in New York Herald, May 31, 1853. From the official documents attached, it appears that from 1832 to 1847, 605 sugar and coffee plantations, containing 356,432 acres of land, and affording employment to 49,383 laborers, had been entirely abandoned. From 1848 to 1853, 513 more, containing 391,187 acres, were totally or partially abandoned.

of emancipation took effect, have experienced the same results. A graphic account of Guiana is given in the report of a commission, appointed in 1850, to inquire into its state and prosperity. "The most ordinary marks of civilization are fast disappearing," and the prediction is made of "its slow but sure approximation to the condition in which civilized men first found it.""

In Southern Africa the effects have been equally disastrous. Though the British residents at the Cape keep up a flourishing trade, the agricultural interests have suffered for want of laborers, and the farms have run to waste. The same effects followed the Emancipation Act at Mauritius, and Coolies have been introduced to supply the place of former laborers. The free blacks everywhere were idle, unreliable, vicious, and thievish.3

The same results have followed the experiments of abolition made in the West Indies by other European nations. In the Danish colonies, where the slaves were well treated, the free negroes are described as living in "the greatest poverty, filth, and wretchedness." The prosperity of the island is in the same degree diminished.

We shall see hereafter that the results in South America, Mexico, and Central America, exhibit a negro population in the same abject condition."

'Lord Stanley's Letters to Mr. Gladstone.

2 United States Japan Expedition, i, pp. 99-101, 103; The Cape and the Kaffirs, by Harriet Ward.

3 United States Japan Expedition, 103, 109.

4 Cor. of N. Y. Herald, Nov. 9th, 1855; Brougham's Colonial Policy, Bk. IV, Sect. 1.

5 Dunn's Sketches of Guatemala.