The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
I can prove the _safety_ of immediate Emancipation by history. In St.
Domingo in 1793 six hundred thousand slaves were set free in a white
population of forty-two thousand. That Island "marched as by enchantment
towards its ancient splendor", cultivation prospered, every day produced
perceptible proofs of its progress, and the negroes all continued
quietly to work on the different plantations, until in 1802, France
determined to reduce these liberated slaves again to bondage. It was at
_this time_ that all those dreadful scenes of cruelty occurred, which we
so often _unjustly_ hear spoken of, as the effects of Abolition. They
were occasioned _not_ by Emancipation, but by the base attempt to fasten
the chains of slavery on the limbs of liberated slaves.
In Guadaloupe eighty-five thousand slaves were freed in a white
population of thirteen thousand. The same prosperous effects followed
manumission here, that had attended it in Hayti, every thing was quiet
until Buonaparte sent out a fleet to reduce these negroes again to
slavery, and in 1802 this institution was re-established in that Island.
In 1834, when Great Britain determined to liberate the slaves in her
West India colonies, and proposed the apprenticeship system; the
planters of Bermuda and Antigua, after having joined the other planters
in their representations of the bloody consequences of Emancipation, in
order if possible to hold back the hand which was offering the boon of
freedom to the poor negro; as soon as they found such falsehoods were
utterly disregarded, and Abolition must take place, came forward
voluntarily, and asked for the compensation which was due to them,
saying, _they preferred immediate emancipation_, and were not afraid of
any insurrection. And how is it with these islands now? They are
decidedly more prosperous than any of those in which the apprenticeship
system was adopted, and England is now trying to abolish that system, so
fully convinced is she that immediate Emancipation is the _safest_ and
the best plan.
And why not try it in the Southern States, if it _never_ has occasioned
rebellion; if _not a drop of blood_ has ever been shed in consequence of
it, though it has been so often tried, why should we suppose it would
produce such disastrous consequences now? "Be not deceived then, God is
not mocked," by such false excuses for not doing justly and loving
mercy. There is nothing to fear from immediate Emancipation, but _every
thing_ from the continuance of slavery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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