Page:Emancipation in the West Indies.djvu/5
1793, in St. Domingo; naturally, we should expect a greater success than there; what have the results been? Ask this question of the first man you meet and ten to one his answer will be, 'Emancipation in the British Colonies is a failure." Ask him how he knows this, and he will tell you "he has heard so,— everybody say so." Ask him to give you figures and facts for it, and he is silent. He has not, and the American people generally, have not taken the trouble to spend an hour in the examination of a matter far more important to us, than it has ever been to England. But without authority, without investigation, in the very face and eyes of notorious facts, he continues to repeat what is at once a mistake and a slander. And why? Because in this, as in so many other points, public opinion has been under the control of those insolent planters and their commercial allies at the North, from whose tyranny we are now, thank God! fast freeing ourselves. '"It is opinion, not truth," said Sir Walter Raleigh, "that travelleth the world without passport." Forgetting the prejudices which we have learned from slavery, let us take the testimony,—not of planters and slave-drivers; not of vulgar politicians, aiming at the White House, nor of those profound sages, the traders in cotton and sugar,—no, but of figures,—those impartial reporters, who can neither vote nor hold office, nor buy and sell in any market, but whoso silent statement the slaveholder dreads and hates more than all arguments.
Let it be said, first, that emancipation was feared and denounced by most of the white colonists, whose fears were shared to some extent by the British government. No Kentucky Congressman, or New York secessionist cam exceed in terrors or threats the "West India Body of Merchants and Planters" resident in England, during the year 15. These noblemen and gentlemen. interested in the sugar trade, predicted as a consequence of any measure of emancipation, "a commercial crisis unparalleled in the history of the empire;" an extreme danger to the lives and properties of the free persons resident in the colonies;" "confusion and anarchy: whole districts, indeed whole colonies." they said. "might be completely depopulated;" they could see nothing in the law proposed "but confiscation of property, and the prospect of all those calamities which must result from a dissolution of the ties which connect the colonies with the British Empire."[1]
They declared further, that it is not even calculated to advance the comforts and well-being of the negro, that it endangers the continuance of the colonies as dependencies of the British Crown, and utterly destroys the possibility of their productive cultivation;" that it would throw the black population back into a state of barbarism."[2]
These gloomy forebodings have a too familiar sound. How did the event justify them? The colonies are still loyal to the British Crown, as we know to our cost; they are more productive than before emancipation; no such commercial crisis took place; the population instead of diminishing at the rate of 5000 annually, as it had done from 1820 to 1884. is increasing; and the negroes have made extraordinary advances in wealth, civilization, and morality. There has certainly been a decrease in the sugar crop, and there have been many other changes, but of these emancipation has been but in part the cause.
The British Government did not neglect to guard against the imagined dangers. They sent out additional troops, and created a special police; they made careful provision, as was thought, for the supply of labor; and under the name of indemnity, they distributed nearly $100 000 000 among the planters, out of which the laborers' wages could be paid, until the new system had been fairly tested.
The first results of Emancipation astonished every one. In Antigua, where the slaves instantly became their own masters, the public quiet was completely undisturbed. The first of August happened to fall on Friday, and it was wisely resolved by the masters, to give their 30 000 slaves a holiday until Monday, the 4th. These three days were spent by the negroes-first, in prayer and thanksgiving to God for their great deliverance then, in expressions of joy and congratulation among themselves. On Monday, with few exceptions, they returned to their homes, took up the shovel and the hoe again, and have ever since continued to be peaceful citizens. In the other islands there were similar events; scarcely a riot occurred, and not a single white man lost his life. The only sufferers were a few rash negroes, at Trinidad and St. Christopher's, who attempted