p>The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 53, March, 1862 / A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
THE FRUITS OF FREE LABOR IN THE SMALLER ISLANDS OF THE BRITISH WEST INDIES
The emancipation of an enslaved race seems, at first thought, a most uncertain and perilous undertaking. To do away with inherited and constantly strengthening tendencies toward irresponsibility and idleness,—to substitute the pleasure of activity or the distant good from industry for the very palpable influence of compulsion,—to implant forethought and alertness and ingenuity, where, before, labor was stolid and sulky and unthinking,—to confer the habit of self-dependence and the courage for unknown tasks on a people timid, childish, and dependent,—to teach self-control in place of the custom of control by masters, or by caprice and passion,—in a word, to make a free man out of a born slave,—appears at first sight the most difficult task which any legislator or reformer could ever attempt.
Leaving out of view all possible moral changes which might be induced by time and patient labor on such a being, we should say beforehand that at least economically—that is, regarding the production for the wants of the world by the freed man—the experiment of emancipation would prove, in all probability, a failure. We put it to the reader. Suppose that you, an Anglo-American, not born a slave, had by some misfortune been captured fifteen years since by an Algerine pirate, and during those years, under the fear of lash and bayonet, had been vigorously adding to the commodities of the world in the production of cotton. At length, in some moment of Algerine sentiment for human rights, you are set free by the government, and are enabled to possess a little farm of your own in the African mountains. What would probably be your views as to the economic duty of adding to that great benefaction to the human race, the production of cotton? What would be your personal sentiments toward cotton and all species of labor connected therewith? How, especially, would you be apt to view the estate where you had spent so many agreeable years, and the master for whom you had produced so much without reward? Fancy an effort on his part to hire you,—possibly even at lower wages than other laborers receive, in view of your many obligations to him!
It is barely possible that you might prefer even the small farm,—where you were producing nothing but “pumpkin” for the world, to increasing the exports of Algeria on the old property, under the same master and at half-wages. For some years at least, the world’s production would not probably be greatly assisted by you. A certain degree of idleness would have a charm for a time, even to an Anglo-American, after such an experience.
What shall we say, then, of an inferior race, slave-born, ignorant, and undisciplined by moral influences, placed suddenly in such new and strange circumstances? Could we reasonably expect that they would at once labor under freedom as they did under slavery? Could we demand that the properties which had been sprinkled with the sweat of their unrequited toil for so many years, which possibly had witnessed their sufferings under nameless wrongs, where the tone even of the now labor-paying landlord must have something of the old ring of the slave-master,—that these should be cultivated as eagerly as their own little farms by freed men? Especially could we ask it, if the masters undertook to exercise their old sway over political economy, and paid less wages than the market-rate, and even these with irregularity? Should we be rightfully shocked, if the products of these large estates even entirely failed through want of labor? What else could we expect?
Suppose, still further, as years went by, the former masters, all the wealthy and powerful classes of society, united in discouraging the improvement and opposing the general education of this, the lowest and poorest class. What would be the almost certain result?
If we should hear that such an emancipation was an economic failure, we should not be in the least surprised. If we were told that the freed men would not work on the old estates,—that the products were falling off,—that the emancipated slaves were not willing to work at all,—that they were idle, and were growing constantly more ignorant and corrupt in morals, and useless to the world,—we should sigh, but say,—“It is the natural retribution for injustice. These are the harvests of slavery.”
But if—contrary to our expectation—the results of this emancipation were entirely different: if the freed man produced more than the slave,—if he was more industrious, more active, more laborious and self-dependent,—if he even labored for his former master for hire,—if the latter confessed that the hire of the free man was cheaper than the ownership of the slave,—if tables of export and import showed that he added far more to the wealth of the world than ever before,—if the increasing price of land proved the efficiency of his industry,—if independent freeholds were created in large numbers since emancipation,—if additional churches and schools made evident the improvement of character and the desire of advancement: we should be obliged to say that there was but one explanation of this most happy and unexpected improvement, namely,—that the human soul, by virtue of its very nature and capacities, is somehow adapted to freedom, so that the most imbruted and degraded is better and more useful, when he cares and labors for himself, than when another utterly controls him.
That the negro will not work, unless he is forced to, is the strong and almost invincible objection in the minds of multitudes of persons to emancipation.
What, then, are the facts bearing on this important point? We propose, under the guidance of candid observers and travellers, such as Schomburg, Breen, Cochin, Burnley, and, best of all, Sewell, briefly to examine a field where the experiment has been fairly tried, namely, the smaller islands of the British West Indies. A full examination of the larger island, Jamaica,—would of itself demand an entire article, or even a volume.
The remark is often repeated by West Indian travellers, that no sweeping conclusions on economical points can ever be true of the West Indies as a whole,—that each island is distinct from the others, and to be judged on principles which apply to itself alone. This important fact must be borne in mind by the reader, in examining the question of the results of emancipation in the West Indies.
In Barbadoes the governing peculiarities are the dense population to the area, and the great numbers of the laboring class. The number to the square mile is greater than in China, averaging eight hundred. This fact alone placed a much greater power in the masters’ hands after emancipation, as the competition of labor must be so much more severe than with a more sparse population.
With something of the perversity induced by slavery, the planters maintained a species of land-tenure among their freed slaves which could not but have a disastrous effect.
In the first years succeeding the act of emancipation, the tenant worked for twenty per cent. below the market-rate of wages, and his service was considered equivalent to the rent. Now he possesses a house and a land-allotment on an estate for which he pays a stipulated rent; but, as a condition of renting, he must give a certain number of days’ work at certain wages, generally from one-sixth to one-third lower than the market-rate. The usual wages are twenty-four cents a day; by this system of tenancy-at-will, the freed negro in Barbadoes must labor for twenty cents.
What would be the natural results of such a system? Can we wonder at such facts as Mr. Sewell quotes from a Tobago paper, in which the writer “deplores the perverse selfishness of the laborers,” (i.e. in buying farms of their own,) and complains that “the laborers have large patches of land under cultivation, and hire help at higher wages than the estates can afford to pay,” and otherwise oppress their former benefactors? The remedy which the aggrieved correspondent suggests is the immediate importation of Coolies.
The truth is, however, that, owing to the crowded population of Barbadoes, the planters have had everything in their own hands, much more than in other islands. In Trinidad or British Guiana the negroes were not obliged by competition to submit to the obnoxious tenure; and they soon found, where land was so cheap, that a path to independence lay open before them in working their own little properties. The planters became more stubborn and more rigid, and the result was in many cases the absolute abandonment of large estates for want of labor.
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