Inducements to the Colored People of the United States to Emigrate to British GuianaHildreth, Richard
History
Inducements to the Colored People of the United States to Emigrate to British Guiana
Hildreth, Richard
African Americans -- Colonization; Guyana
"That a consideration of the present state of the colony, with its
limited number of agricultural laborers, leads this meeting to the
irresistible conclusion that unless immediate immigration on a large
scale takes place, the exportable produce of the Colony already
diminished to an alarming extent, will yet further decrease."
Mr. Rose then proceeded to address the meeting, and in the course of
his speech, when alluding to the causes of the decreased production of
British Guiana and the rate of wages, he observed--
"Eight or nine dollars per month, is the common rate, but it is the
custom to estimate the day's labor by the old tariff, 7 1-2 hours,
and it is well known that an industrious man can in that time perform
considerably more than double the quantity of labor laid down by that
tariff. I have myself paid to a man cutting canes, 1 1-2 dollars for
work that did not occupy him more than eight hours. When we take it
into consideration that the laborer is provided with a house and
medical attendance, it is clear that he can support himself for a week
by one day's labor, and with this in our knowledge, can we wonder that
his labor and industry are unsteady?" Mr. Rose, in another part of his
speech, speaking of the decrease that had taken place in the number
of laborers on most estates since the Emancipation, observed, "of
those who have left estates, some have purchased land, paying for it
sometimes as much as £200 sterling."
The Hon. D. C. Cameron, also a member of the Colonial Legislature and
proprietor of several estates, moved the second resolution which was
of similar import to the first, and the following is an extract from
the able and temperate address he delivered. "But I have pleasure in
bearing my humble testimony that the cause of decrease in our crops has
not proceeded from that which was most dreaded, the insubordination of
the freemen of 1838, but from causes which operate in every country
where the soil is rich and the laborers few. Many of our peasantry
have already amassed funds which have enabled them to purchase land of
their own, and are industriously improving it for their own benefit.
They are no longer hired servants; they are owners of houses and lands
which yield them sufficient to supply their wants, and as yet their
ambition extends no further. But the misfortune is, that although
they maintain themselves and families by their industry in this way,
they are unprofitable to the colony. They produce no taxable articles
either for this or the home market. I for one do not complain of this
system;--but on the contrary, believe it will be beneficial to society
in the end, and wait its progress. Hence the necessity for immigration
to fill up the blank occasioned by the independence and comfort of our
former servants. In this colony, sir, every laboring man of ordinary
capacity may, in a few years, become proprietor of land sufficient to
supply all his wants, by laboring upon it for thirty hours in the week.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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