Page:Emancipation in the West Indies.djvu/9

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have everywhere become artisans, farmers, freeholders; they have built houses, cleared lands, founded villages; and if any one will take the trouble to examine the answers made to the circular questions asked by the English Government, in 1889 and 1840, he will see that these answers are uniform, and that all the colonial authorities agree that the condition of the black peasantry is equal or superior to that of the richest and happiest peasantry of Europe."

M. Jules Lechevalier, a French writer of some note who had visited all these islands, and the Southern States of America, testified before this commission. He said,[1] "Emancipation has worked MARVELLOUS results for the negro. I can find no other word to express what I think about this. Education. religion, and liberty make a man of the negro, such as nobody would recognize—an entirely new being. For my part I answer. Emancipation is very successful. The respect and attachment of the negroes for the English Government has become a sentiment of religion. Thus a black will not name the king without taking off his hat. If you ask him who is the author of the liberty which he has gained, he will reply. "God and the king." it should be noticed that this witness was unfriendly to the Abolitionists. Mr. Burnley, for forty years a planter in Trinidad, was introduced by his friend De Tocqueville. Said he :[2]

"I confess that the majority of the planters expected disorders; but that was not the opinion of reflecting people. For, setting aside the natural mildness of the negroes, what reasonable ground was there to expect violence from men whose moral and social position was being changed for the better? What caused doubt and anxiety to the intelligent colonists was how to keep up the supply of labor. On this point we confess today, for the most part, that our fears were exaggerated, and we believe that the blacks will work like the whites when they are subjected to the same necessities."

We should do the subject an injustice, were we to omit here the testimony of Mr. Emerson to the same point. We quote from his address on the 1st of August 1843, an admirable essay which, it is much to be regretted is out of print.


"It was the sarcasm of Montesquieu, [3] 'It would not do to suppose that negroes were men, lest it should turn out that whites were not; for the white has for ages done what he could to keep the negro in that hoggish state. It now appears that the negro race is, more than any other, susceptible of rapid civilization. The Emancipation, is observed in the island to have wrought for the negro a benefit as sudden as when a thermometer is brought out of the shade into the sun. It has given him eyes and ears. He is now the principal, if not the only, mechanic in the West Indies, and is, besides, an architect, a physician, a lawyer, a magistrate, an editor, and a valued and increasing political power."[4]

A more recent authority, Mr. Sewell, brings the evidence down to 1860. "I think," says he, (p. 254,) "that the position of the Jamaica peasant, in 1860, is a standing rebuke to those who, wittingly or unwittingly, encourage the vulgar lie that the African cannot possibly be elevated. Very large numbers work as merchants, mechanics, and tradesmen, and not a few of the ex-slaves of Jamaica, or their children, are members of the Legislature, and fill responsible offices under Government. In the As sembly alone, there are seventeen black and colored men, out of a total of forty-seven. The whole people of Jamaica work—I am utterly amazed at the progress they have made."

Anthony Trollope confirms most of these statements, in his flippant and shallow book. "The West Indies, and the Spanish Main."

But we will not leave the matter to rest on authority, however illustrious or abundant; we will bring forward the evidence that this improvement has taken place.

There are three chief tests of civilization: (1.) The security of life; (2.) The security of property, and the value attached to it; (3.) The sanctity of marriage and the position of woman. Now, these three tests can be applied rigorously by means of statistics, and we find them all verified with increasing force in the West Indies.

It is hardly needful to say that in slavery the right of property is constantly violated towards the slave, and often towards the master; while marriage. properly speaking,

  1. ↑ Report. Ist Part pp. 49-62.
  2. ↑ 13d Part p. 38th, Tome 1.
  3. ↑ See Cochin-Tome 11. p. 493, who quotes thus: "Il est impossible que nous supposions que ces gens-là soient des hommes, parceque, si nõus les supposions des hommes, on commencerait à croire que nous ne sommes pas nous-mêmes chrétiens." Esprit des Lois, Lib. XV.
  4. ↑ See Conway's "Dial,” Cincinati, 1861.
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