There are now in Canada about 35,000 fugitive slaves; and no
people have ever entered upon the possession of freedom under more
embarrassing circumstances. They were born in chains. The iron yoke
had galled their necks. Their backs had felt the keen lash. In their
flight they were pursued by hungry blood-hounds and more hungry
marshals.--Naked, broken in spirit, impoverished and uneducated, they
reached a cold, ungenial clime. But they were free! And those 35,000
escaped slaves are rapidly improving in wealth, intelligence, and in
every social virtue. In the town of Buxton 130 families reside who own
a body of 9,000 acres of land. The fugitive slaves of Canada West now
own 25,000 acres of land. Were they not prepared for freedom?
Immediate emancipation worked admirably in the British West Indies. The
masters were not murdered by the emancipated slaves, as was predicted,
but good order reigned everywhere. The liberated people have been
rapidly improving in intelligence and wealth.--The terrible wrongs and
miseries of slavery are no more. Rev. Mr. Richardson, a missionary in
Jamaica, speaking of the moral condition of those islands, says:
"Marriage is much more common than formerly, and the blessings of
the family and social relations are much more extensively enjoyed.
The Sabbath is also more generally observed. The means of education
and religious instruction are better enjoyed, although but little
appreciated and improved by the great mass of the people. It is
also true, that the moral sense of the people is becoming somewhat
enlightened. But while this is true, yet their moral condition is very
far from being what it ought to be.
"Our brightest hopes and fondest anticipations must and will centre
around the YOUTH of this island. I see the hand of Providence steadily
urging onward, with resistless might, the car of Progress. Gaunt
Prejudice and grim Superstition gradually give way; Darkness and Error
recede before the sunlight of Truth; and even the demon of Lust and
the giant Intemperance (twin brothers in Satan's family) are bereft of
their power, and chained for a season. I see intelligence, purity, and
piety supplanting ignorance, licentiousness, and irreligion, and this
moral waste becoming transformed until it blooms and flourishes as the
garden of God."
"Immediate emancipation?" exclaims a fearful friend, "that will never
do! Murder, amalgamation, and many other evils will be inevitable
consequences of such a measure. Let us colonize the slaves. Send them
back to their own country." To these objections it may be answered,
1. Colored men are not more inclined to murder than are white men.
Africans have the same natural dispositions which distinguish other
races.
2. Many masters have emancipated their slaves, and thereby secured
their undying affection. Liberated slaves have never turned with bloody
hands upon their liberators.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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