The Right Way the Safe Way: Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies, and Elsewhere
History
The Right Way the Safe Way: Proved by Emancipation in the British West Indies, and Elsewhere
Slavery -- United States; Slavery -- West Indies
flogged, when I was in a passion, and after I was cool I would have
given guineas not to have done it. I believe emancipation will save the
souls of many planters. If it is hard for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of heaven, it is much harder for a planter. I sometimes wonder
at myself, when I think how long I was connected with slavery; but
self-interest and custom blinded me to its enormities. I lately met with
a planter, who, up to the last of July, had maintained that the mother
country could not be so mad as to take a step that would inevitably ruin
her Colonies. Now, he would be the last man to vote for the restoration
of slavery. He even wants to get rid of the apprenticeship, and adopt
immediate, unconditional emancipation, as they did in Antigua. Such
changes of opinion are very common among the planters. I think the
expenses under apprenticeship are about the same as during slavery; but
calculations I have made convince me that under an entirely free
system, I could cultivate this estate for $3,000 a year less than it
formerly cost. I have no doubt the negroes will work, when their freedom
comes in 1840. There may be a little excited, experimenting feeling, for
a short time, but I am confident that things generally will move on
peaceably and prosperously. The slaves were well acquainted with the
efforts made in England for their emancipation. They used to watch the
arrival of every packet with extreme anxiety. If Parliament had refused
to abolish slavery, there would have been a general insurrection. While
there was hope, they waited peaceably for release; but if hope had been
destroyed, slavery would have been buried in blood. The apprenticeship
caused some dissatisfaction among them. They thought they ought to be
entirely free, and they suspected that their masters were deceiving
them. At first, they could not understand the conditions of the new
system; and there was some murmuring among them; but they concluded it
was better to wait six years more for the desired boon, than to lose it
by revolt.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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