Slaves not

allowed to traf

fic in the staple of the estate, and why.

fifty vagrants, was lately read by Mr. Brougham in the House of Commons, as affording sufficient evidence of the degraded and oppressed condition of the whole slave population, amounting to three hundred and twenty thousand persons.

Thirdly, there are many laws, which, with a directly opposite view, and in a spirit strikingly characteristic of West India justice, punish slaves, and slaves only, for acts perfectly innocent in their moral nature, though performed by the master's approbation, and presumably by his command.' p. 296.

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This charge is grounded on a restriction found necessary in all the islands to prevent slaves from trafficking in the staple of their master's estates. Accordingly, as Mr. S. mentions, in colonies where the planters cultivate nothing but the sugar-cane, slaves are not restricted from raising 'or possessing any other species of produce than < sugar, molasses, or rum.' p. 299. The principle upon which this restriction is founded, must be so manifest, that it is almost unnecessary to state it. If a negro on a sugar estate were permitted to make canes an article of traffic, with his master's fields lying (as they are) perfectly open to him, it is evident there could be no preventing him from carrying off and selling as many as he pleased. But though forbidden to traffic in them, or to have them in his possession when absent from the property to which he belongs, he is not prevented from raising them for his own use.

Again, when the mill is at work and the manufactory of sugar going on, the negroes upon the

plantation have free permission to go into the boiling-house and take as much syrup out of the boilers as they choose; such is the universal custom*, although it may appear rather strange to an English landlord, who would not readily acquiesce in permitting his dependents to go to the mill and help themselves when his wheat was

Mr. De la Beche notices the same thing: During crop time they eat as many canes as they please, drink as much hot and cold cane-juice as they think proper, not clandestinely, but as a customary privilege, and in spite of all our vigilance carry off a considerable quantity of sugar for themselves, and of canes for their hogs."

"Amid all the gross representations respecting the food of the poor negroes with which the European ear has been deceived, it has not yet," says Mr. Stephen, to my knowledge, been asserted that their ordinary beverage is any thing but water." p. 343. It is not easy to say what would satisfy our author either for meat or drink to the negroes. In the paragraph preceding that last quoted, he recommends to the Jamaica reporters to contemplate the conduct of the Roman Censor, "who thought it not too much for each slave to have every day his bottle of wine,”"implying, as it would seem, that the colonial slaves should also have their bottle of wine each after dinner. That water is the ordinary' beverage of the negroes and of all classes in the torrid zone, there is no denying; nor have I ever yet heard of a better, or of any thing that could be substituted as an 'ordinary' beverage where people are drinking every hour of the day. But, on most plantations, the negroes at work get a daily allowance of rum; and in wet weather it is commonly given twice a day. The cane-juice, besides being used in the plain state, warm and cold, is frequently mixed with bruised ginger and chaw-stick (a pleasant bitter), and let stand till in a state of fermentation. This the negroes call setting liquor for cool drink;' and it makes a finer and richer beverage than the best ginger beer used in this country.

In the same page from which the last quotation is taken, Mr. S. adds," and well would it be for a large majority of the slaves, in some of our islands, if that element (water) in its purity were provided for, or could easily be obtained by them." How they are supplied with water in some of the small islands I do not know; but as respects Jamaica, it may safely be affirmed, that no country in the world is provided with this element in greater abundance or greater purity; and the people at work in the field have a constant supply carried to them. A woman cooks breakfast in the morning for fifteen or twenty of them, carries it out at nine o'clock, and then proceeds to the nearest spring or rivulet for water, which she continues to supply them with through the day.

grinding. Here the case is different; the labourer is the property of the landlord, and is permitted to take whatever he requires to supply his own wants, and he is presumed to have no temptation to take more; but with such an indulgence as this, what would be the consequence to a planter of allowing his slaves to traffic in his produce? briefly this, that they would save him the trouble of selling it. One would think it required great art to bring this forward as a charge of oppression; yet we find even this rising in judgment against the colonists and condemning them; for, says Mr. S. 'what a 'cruel remedy is this, and how revolting to every 'feeling of justice,' &c.

In another part of his work, our author condemns the Act of the Leeward islands for permitting the masters to diminish the allowances of food which it directs to be given, one fifth during crop time, 'merely,' says he, 'because the slaves may ' then derive a little nutrition from the sugar canes, 'by sucking their raw juices.' p. 446. It would be charitable to suppose he did not know that they are not only permitted to suck the raw juices (which however they are very fond of), but to take as much of the boiled juice or syrup, as they please. What proportion of their allowances, where food is provided for them, may be rendered unnecessary during crop time, by the nutrition' which they derive in this way from the

sugar canes I do not know; but I know that on plantations in Jamaica, where the negroes have not only abundance

of other food, but are weekly carrying their surplus plantains, yams, and edoes, to market, or, as I have frequently seen, allowing them to rot upon the trees for want of a market, so strong is their partiality for the boiled cane juice or syrup, that they use a very great quantity of it. It is no uncommon thing, when they gather about the boiling house in the evening, to hear a negro say, as he takes hold of the sugar ladle to fill his calabash, 'this is to be my supper to-night.' Nor should I at all pity the man, of whatever colour, or in whatever station, who had such a supper.

A considerable quantity of Indian corn is raised among the young canes for the use of the plantation stock, and is planted and reaped at all seasons: when ripe, the negroes go through the field with baskets and gather the ears, and it may be worth notice, that on such occasions, to prevent their stealing, every negro is allowed to carry home the full of his basket for his pigs and poultry. Such, at least, is the practice on the estates I am acquainted with.

In Jamaica," says Mr. S. "where there is 'much pasture land, the breeding of horses and mules is a source of agricultural profit to the

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planters: here, therefore, slaves were forbidden 'to own any horse, mare, mule, or gelding; and

heavy penalties were imposed on any planter who might be disposed to encourage the industry of 6 any head slave upon his pen, by permitting him to acquire such property.' p. 300.

If the illiberal cause here assigned for not per

mitting the slaves to own horses had been the true one, it certainly is passing strange that they should not have been forbidden to own cattle also, the rearing of which is so much more profitable than the rearing of horses, which in Jamaica are used only for the road, and not at all for agricultural purposes. It is far more probable, that the law had its origin in an idea that while horses were of less value to the slaves, there was danger in allowing them to possess them, as they might be made a bad use of in carrying communications to a distance in time of insurrection. But whatever was the object contemplated by the law, its continuance in the statute book is now sufficiently absurd, when it is notorious that the slaves on many of the sugar estates keep both horses and cattle not covertly, but going at large in their master's pastures, along with his own stock; and when in fact the young men going to Jamaica as book-keepers, generally purchase their riding horses or ponies from the more wealthy slaves.

In noticing these facts, I cannot help recurring to Mr. Stephen's assertion, that the slavery in our colonies is a service without wages, that the poor negroes work solely for the advantage of their masters, and derive no benefit to themselves from their labours. A West Indian proprietor allots a large portion of his estate to the support of his labourers, allows them time to cultivate it, provides them' with houses and clothing, supplies them with salt provisions to use with their vegetable food, takes care of them in sickness, and supports them in