The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
They are more open-hearted. Formerly they used to shrink before the eyes
of the master, and appear afraid to meet him. They would go out of their
way to avoid him, and never were willing to talk with him. They never
liked to have him visit their houses; they looked on him as a spy, and
always expected a reprimand, or perhaps a flogging. Now they look up
cheerfully when they meet him, and a visit to their homes is esteemed a
favor. Mr. C. has more confidence in his people than he ever had before.
There is less theft than during slavery. This is caused by greater
respect for character, and the protection afforded to property by law.
For a slave to steal from his master was never considered wrong, but
rather a meritorious act. He who could rob the most without being
detected was the best fellow. The blacks in several of the islands have
a proverb, that for a thief to steal from a thief makes God laugh.
The blacks have a great respect for, and even fear of law. Mr. C.
believes no people on earth are more influenced by it. They regard the
same punishment, inflicted by a magistrate, much more than when
inflicted by their master. Law is a kind of deity to them, and they
regard it with great reverence and awe.
There is no insecurity now. Before emancipation there was a continual
fear of insurrection. Mr. C. said he had lain down in bed many a night
fearing that his throat would be cut before morning. He has started up
often from a dream in which he thought his room was filled with armed
slaves. But when the abolition bill passed, his fears all passed away.
He felt assured there would be no trouble then. The motive to
insurrection was taken away. As for the cutting of throats, or insult
and violence in any way, he never suspects it. He never thinks of
fastening his door at night now. As we were retiring to bed he looked
round the room in which we had been sitting, where every thing spoke of
serenity and confidence--doors and windows open, and books and plate
scattered about on the tables and sideboards. "You see things now," he
said, "just as we leave them every night, but you would have seen quite
a different scene had you come here a few years ago."
_Mr. C. thinks the slaves of Barbadoes might have been entirely and
immediately emancipated as well as those of Antigua._ The results, he
doubts not, would have been the same.
He has no fear of disturbance or insubordination in 1840. He has no
doubt that the people will work. That there may be a little unsettled,
excited, _experimenting_ feeling for a short time, he thinks
probable--but feels confident that things generally will move on
peaceably and prosperously. He looks with much more anxiety to the
emancipation of the non-praedials in 1838.
There is no disposition among the apprentices to revenge their wrongs.
Mr. C. feels the utmost security both of person and property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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