Previous  - next

and as happy as the condition of slavery can admit. I myself, as shall
appear in the sequel, managed an estate, where, by those attentions,
the negroes were uncommonly cheerful and healthy, and did more work by
half than by the common mode of treatment they usually do. For want,
therefore, of such care and attention to the poor negroes, and
otherwise oppressed as they are, it is no wonder that the decrease
should require 20,000 new negroes annually to fill up the vacant
places of the dead.

Even in Barbadoes, notwithstanding those humane exceptions which I
have mentioned, and others I am acquainted with, which justly make it
quoted as a place where slaves meet with the best treatment, and need
fewest recruits of any in the West Indies, yet this island requires
1000 negroes annually to keep up the original stock, which is only
80,000. So that the whole term of a negro's life may be said to be
there but sixteen years![T] And yet the climate here is in every
respect the same as that from which they are taken, except in being
more wholesome. Do the British colonies decrease in this manner? And
yet what a prodigious difference is there between an English and West
India climate?

While I was in Montserrat I knew a negro man, named Emanuel Sankey,
who endeavoured to escape from his miserable bondage, by concealing
himself on board of a London ship: but fate did not favour the poor
oppressed man; for, being discovered when the vessel was under sail,
he was delivered up again to his master. This Christian master
immediately pinned the wretch down to the ground at each wrist and
ancle, and then took some sticks of sealing wax, and lighted them, and
droped it all over his back. There was another master who was noted
for cruelty; and I believe he had not a slave but what had been cut,
and had pieces fairly taken out of the flesh: and, after they had been
punished thus, he used to make them get into a long wooden box or case
he had for that purpose, in which he shut them up during pleasure. It
was just about the height and breadth of a man; and the poor wretches
had no room, when in the case, to move.

It was very common in several of the islands, particularly in St.
Kitt's, for the slaves to be branded with the initial letters of their
master's name; and a load of heavy iron hooks hung about their necks.
Indeed on the most trifling occasions they were loaded with chains;
and often instruments of torture were added. The iron muzzle,
thumb-screws, &c. are so well known, as not to need a description, and
were sometimes applied for the slightest faults. I have seen a negro
beaten till some of his bones were broken, for even letting a pot boil
over. Is it surprising that usage like this should drive the poor
creatures to despair, and make them seek a refuge in death from those
evils which render their lives intolerable--while,

"With shudd'ring horror pale, and eyes aghast,

Previous  - next