cuted. One was slowly burnt. The other two were gibbeted alive, to perish by hunger. One of these miserable victims lingered until the eighth day, and the other until the ninth, when death happily put an end to their sufferings. 66 As the evidence of slaves against a white person is inadmissible, except in some cases recently recognized, a white man may murder a negro before a hundred of his fellow-slaves without having any thing to fear from either their interference or their testimony. Sheltered under this revolting security of local despotism, many deeds of darkness, of cruelty, and of death have been perpetrated. "I know as a magistrate,” said the attorney-general of Tobago, cases of extreme cruelty that have passed unpunished for want of slave evidence. It is very common, when they wish to be cruel, to send free persons out of the way. I have known many such cases." chief justice of the same island, Mr. Pigott, states the following fact. "A manager sent all free persons out of the way, and then gave a negro one hundred and fifty lashes. The negro was brought in a state of which he might have died, to us the sitting magistrates. We had no means of proving it. I proposed a bill to admit slave evidence, or to make the accused purge himself on oath. The bill was not approved." The "In Spanish Town, Jamaica, a white man, a monster of cruelty, concealed a female slave in a room, where, with a hot iron, used for burning marks on cattle, he mutilated the poor creature who was so unfortunate as to be in his power. He trusted to the effect of the law, which prevented slaves from giving evidence; but it chanced that a young free man of colour, suspecting what was going forward, peeped through a crevice, and saw the horrid scene. On his evidence, the owner of the slave was convicted and punished." Another fact mentioned by Mr. Mais, is as follows. "A female slave on her return home was met by a free man of colour, who had been out shooting. A little dog which accompanied her barked, and probably might have snapped at the man. This irritated him, and he threatened to shoot the dog. The woman, alarmed for its safety, called "Oh don't shoot him, don't shoot my dog." Upon this the man turned angrily upon her, and said " Not shoot him? I'll shoot you if you say much," and with little ceremony lodged the contents of his piece in her side. This was in the face of day, in the presence of many persons, but who, being slaves, were not qualified to 1078 give testimony on the occasion, and the offender escaped." The narrative which follows is from the pen of a respectable clergyman, the Rev. Stewart William Hanna, curate of St. George's, in Jamaica. It is dated so recently as July 20th, 1830. "A council of protection assembled on Friday the 9th inst. in this parish, to investigate a case of alleged cruelty, in which the overseer of Windsor Castle estate (Mr. William Ogilvy Chapman), was the offending, and a slave belonging to the same property, the aggrieved party. The following is a list of the Magistrates and Vestrymen who composed the council: The Hon. John Bell, Custos. The Rev. M. C. Bolton, Rector. James Shenton, Roger Swire, Thomas P. Rogers, Adam Gray, Esqrs., Magistrates. James Maxwell, Josias Bowyer, George Helps, Francis Guscott, Esqrs., Vestryïnen. "The evidence adduced was substantially as follows: "For some trifling neglect of duty the man had received, by the overseer's direction, a severe, though not an illegal flogging," (that is to say, not more than thirtynine lashes.) "This was on Saturday, June 26th. In a state of great suffering, he proceeded to the nearest magistrate, Mr. Shenton, the proprietor of Dover estate, to complain of the treatment he had received. Mr. S. on inspection, found the man's hinder parts so completely covered with blood, as to prevent his accurately ascertaining the extent of injury sustained. He, however, advised him to return home, as no sufficient cause appeared to call for legal interference. "The poor man, who is a carpenter, followed this advice, and remained in his house until Monday morning, when he proceeded to the work-shop, and endeavoured to resume his work. The gang of carpenters and coopers was shortly afterwards ordered to the beach to ship sugar, but the wretched condition of the sufferer compelled him to remain. About three o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Chapman went into the workshop, and finding him there, demanded why he had not accompanied the gang. The poor man answered, that his wounds had prevented him. This reply, it would seem, exasperated the overseer, for he ordered him to be confined in the stocks forthwith, and placing his hands behind him, with difficulty, though having the assistance of the hot-house doctor, forced a pair of tight handcuffs on his wrists. The very slave assisting, remonstrated against this barbarity, but in vain. Thus mangled and manacled was the wretched negro compelled to remain from four in the afternoon of Monday until seven o'clock on Wednesday morning! On that day Mr. Shenton summoned all the parties to appear before him, and he has stated on oath that the man's hinder parts were in three different places, each of considerable extent, not merely cut' or scored, but in the actual condition of 'raw flesh;' and further, that his hands, from the extreme tightness of the manacles were swollen to twice their ordinary size.' Yet the five last named on the list of members, who composed the Council of Protection, subsequently summoned to investigate the case, have resolved that the matter is unworthy of farther notice, and, accordingly, all hope that the demands of justice may be satisfied is for the present at an end."—Anti-Slavery Reporter, No. 68, p. 419. and If we turn from Jamaica to Barbadoes, we find the same principles in operation; despotism, without any regard to the rights of the slave, every where prevails; when occasions present themselves, the same induration of feelings rarely fails to become apparent. These assertions the following facts, stated by a gentleman of the highest credit, and who visited Barbadoes in the early part of the present year, will most amply illustrate. 1080 only for the whole family, with very little furniture, and they appear to own very little apparel. "I am inclined to believe, that, notwithstanding the dreadful power possessed by the owners and managers of slaves over their poor pitiable fellow-men, this power is not so often exercised in overt acts of violence as might be apprehended; but almost every estate appears to be furnished with a place of confinement, to be used at the will of the master. This usually dismal room is provided generally with a pair of stocks, and a wooden or iron bedstead; the stocks are placed so as to enable the prisoner either to sit or lie on the bedstead. The duration of the confinement is determined by the arbitrary will of the master or overseer. Once, for the negligence of some domestic concern, and an impertinent answer, a slave was confined three days and four nights, and I left him still in confine ment. “Being at home at my lodgings, I was alarmed by the most dreadful howling; and, starting up, I got to the window, in time to see a free black mason, or plasterer, inflicting some severe blows with his fist upon the bosom of a female negro slave, about sixteen or seventeen years old, who, I heard, was his own daughter. This girl had been before serving him and "I was anxious to ascertain how far the another man with mortar, which she carried slaves benefited by the sale of the commo- up a high ladder; and on inquiry, I learnt dities which I was told was grown on the that not being quite so quick as he wished small portions of ground allotted to them in supplying them, one of them descended, near their dwellings; but which, in the and gave her a severe beating, in the mancourse of my visits to different estates, I ner I have just described. I immediately could discover to be only partially the case, ran out of the house to save her from furmany being certainly without this provision. ther suffering, but was agreeably surprised "I was likewise often assured, that the to see a number of individuals apparently market of Bridgetown was thus supplied; with the same intention going towards the and in order to be satisfied, I attended at spot. I thought as a stranger it would be the usual place of sale frequently, and took better for me to allow them to remonstrate pains to inquire of individual slaves offering with the barbarous fellows; but what was either fruits or vegetables, &c. for sale, the horror I felt when I found that their from what estate they came, and was object was not to exclaim against such treatgrievously disappointed to find that they ment of the poor girl, but to tell her that almost all had their mistress with them, to they would not and could not bear such a receive the amount of the sales made; or howling near them. Some of the tenants, what was more common, that the major accompanied by our landlady and several proportion of them were free coloured peo-slaves, were there, and loudly swore at the ple, and consequently small cultivators, and not slaves. "I find upon inquiry, that the produce which a slave may have, is always under the control, and absolutely in the power of the master, if he chooses from any motive to exercise such a power. "I went into many of their huts, which are built of mud and thatch, sometimes of stone and slate; they contain one room girl, telling her they would have no such noise there, as a gentleman, (meaning a friend of mine, who was suffering from great weakness,) was very ill in the next house. "Once happened that I lodged in a house in Bridgetown, and was attracted to the window, whilst dressing in the morning, by piteous and loud cries. On looking out, I saw in a yard below, the mistress of the house, a free woman of colour, caning a female slave about twenty-two, very severely with a small bamboo cane, in a state of elasticity we never see them in this country, and about the size of a black-lead pencil; in which castigation she struck both fore stroke and back stroke on the unprotected shoulders, breast, back, and face of the poor girl, who leaned against a post in the yard to support herself while she received the cuts, (about thirty.) I knew it would be useless to interfere, and therefore only determined, if possible, to learn the cause of such a dreadful flogging. Very opportunely, I met the poor black girl going to market; and asked her what very bad thing she had done, to make her mistress so angry? She replied, "Yes, Massa, I am very sorry, I did indeed break the tea-cup.' Her mistress afterwards allowed to me that this was the cause for which such a flogging was inflicted. I took particular notice of her neck and breast, which were swollen all over in a pitiable manner; and the weals on her neck were nearly or quite the size of my little finger. "I had occasion to pass the greater part of one day on board a vessel lying in the bay; and whilst there, we were boarded by a very comely youth, of good features and engaging manners, who came on some business to the ship. I asked him from whence he came, what his name was, &c.; which questions led him to give the following description of himself: I am,' said he, 'the illegitimate son of Esq. by a coloured woman; I live on his estate, and am his slave.' I was surprised and shocked at the unnatural proceeding of a man keeping his own son as a slave; but much more so when he added, I should certainly have been starved, if it had not been for the compassion of some who knew me.' He shewed me his naked body, cut, scarred, and bruised from the waist upwards in a horrible manner. A creditable person on board the vessel assured me he had known this young man for several years; and that he could assert the dreadful narrative to be correct. I determined to pay a visit to this fellow christian, whose heart had become thus callous by a familiarity with tyranny; but was dissuaded, by an assurance that it would produce no other effect than the increased ill usage of the poor young man. "During my residence in the island, I made the acquaintance of a middle-aged and very respectable man, who assured me that he had given up a very lucrative situation for a small stipend, upon which he now subsists, because he could not consci | 1082 entiously be concerned in slavery; and he added, if I dared, I could relate circumstances which would make every hair you have on your head stand on end; but if I were to do so, and it became known, my name would be held up to odium, and would be made to stink all over the island; and I cannot do without the scanty subsistence that I now get.' He also added, that he had the offer of another very good situation as a manager; but preferred poverty and an easy conscience to this horrible employment. "Upon diligent and repeated inquiry, I found that during all the time I was in the island, the prison was nearly filled with blacks, and contained no white person; and also that no trial in which a slave was plaintiff was instituted; and indeed, that such a thing was never expected to occur, nor did any one seem to conceive it possi| ble.”—Anti-Slavery Reporter, Nos. 68, 69, p. 423, 425, 426. It may, perhaps, be argued by the advocates of slavery, that protectors are appointed by law, to shield the negroes from the inhumanity of their owners or their agents, and who have power to punish the delinquents, whenever their severity exceeds the chastisements allowed by law. We have already seen that slave evidence being inadmissible, the culprit may, by a little contrivance, at all times indulge his passion for revenge, and easily escape detection. But should the mangled slave escape from his brutal torturer, and exhibit his bleeding body to the eye of his official protector, the chances are perhaps more than equal, that his complaint will be deemed frivolous and vexatious, and perhaps he will procure another flogging for daring to complain without sufficient grounds; and it is not improbable that, on his return, he will be deemed worthy of another punishment, for presuming to call the driver's humanity in question. That this condition of the slave is not the creation of fancy, the facts which follow will fully testify. A document appeared in the daily papers, in October, 1823, which Mr. Stephens notices in his "Delineation of Slavery," purporting to be an official noti. fication, by Sir Ralph Woodford, Governor of Trinidad, of his having punished two negro slaves, one with seventy-five, and the other with a hundred lashes, for a complaint against their master, which the governor says he had upon investigation proved to be groundless and he orders these punishments to be inflicted, in the presence of deputations of ten slaves from each of the neighbouring estates, for the express pur In the returns of the Fiscal of Berbice, there are several instances of this kind. Some are ordered to receive fifty lashes, and others seventy-five, for venturing to before him, when they could not appear establish to his satisfaction the truth of their complaints. Among these cases of unfounded or unredressed applications, let the following instance suffice. It is from the plantation Port Moraunt, dated 27th March, 1823. 1084 pose of deterring them from the like | If he has daughters, he dares not defend offences." them against the violations of licentiousness. Should he murmur, the cart-whip is at hand to silence his prosumption; should he complain, custom has rendered the crime so common and familiar, that it would be deemed too frivolous to procure any thing but punishment, and personal resistance is always followed by its attendant, death. Under such a system, where is the negro to find redress? Every eye appears blind to his calamities, and every ear deaf to his complaints. Power uniting itself with despotism, has usurped the place of justice, and to the perceptions of slavery, humanity is an unmeaning word. "Ness states, that he is the driver over the women, and the manager asked him last Sunday, why he did not go to work, and he answered that he had not been ordered to do so, or he would have gore to work, as he did not wish to do any thing without the manager's orders. The manager then offered to flog him; but be made his escape, and came to his honour for redress. The complainant, in this instance, was punished by the acting Fiscal, for having left the estate, and come to town to complain without cause, and when he had been guilty of disobedience of orders and neglect of duty; and the manager was warned of the impropriety and illegality of working the negroes on Sunday." From the preceding facts, and from others of a similar character, many of which are tinged with inhumanity and injustice of a deeper dye, we may fairly ask, what negro under such circumstances will dare to complain of any treatment he may receive? Even the blood flowing from his wounds is sometimes so copious as to prevent the colonial magistrate from ascertaining the extent of the injury sustained, and, as a very natural consequence, he can grant the unhappy negro no redress. But if, on the contrary, no such cause of refusal appears, his complaint is deemed frivolous, and he is sent back, with the mortification of unredressed grievances, to the despotism of an owner or manager, now doubly incensed against him for daring to complain, and perhaps bleeding from the flagellations of colonial justice. The curse of slavery blunts and blasts all the estimable qualities of our common nature; it breaks the dearest connexions with an unfeeling ferocity, which death can hardly exercise; annihilates the social charities of life, exalts negro demoralization into a colonial virtue, and brutalizes human nature by the agonies which it inflicts. If the negro has a wife, he dares not protect her from the driver's lash, from cruel and indecent punishment and exposure, nor from the white man's outrage and brutal appetite. Among the complicated evils to which slavery subjects its victims, that of having the ties of nature burst asunder in their most sensitive links is not the least afflicting. Of a needy slave-bolder involved in debt, the negroes may be seized, separated, and sold to the highest bidder. Wives may be torn from their husbands, or husbands from their wives; parents from their children, or children from their parents; without the hope of either meeting, or hearing of each other's welfare, any more. Who can read the following incidents without feeling compassion for the swarthy sufferer, and indignation at the system which sanctioned the perpetrator of her wrongs. "A master of slaves" (says Mr. Gilgrass, a Methodist Missionary), " who lived near us in Kingston, Jamaica, exercised his barbarities on a Sabbath morning, while we were worshipping God in the chapel; and the cries of the female sufferers have frequently interrupted us in our devotions. But there was no redress for them, or for us. This man wanted money; and one of the female slaves having two fine children, he sold one of them, and the child was torn from her maternal affection. In the agony of her feelings she made a hideous howling, and for that crime was flogged. Soon after he sold her other child. This turned her heart within her, and impelled her into a kind of madness. She howled night and day in the yard; tore her hair; ran up and down the streets and the parade, rending the heavens with her cries, and literally watering the earth with her tears. Her constant cry was, 'Da wicked massa, he sell me children. Will no buckra massa pity Nega? What me do? Me have no child! As she stood before my window, she said, My Massa, (lifting up her hands towards heaven), do, me Massa Minister, pity me? Me heart do so,' (shaking herself violently): me heart do so, because me have no child. Me go a massa house, in massa yard, and in me hut, and me no see em;' and then her cry went up to God. I durst not be seen looking at her." Mr. Bradnack, another missionary, says, "I know an instance of a negro and his wife being sold to different islands, after living together twenty-four years, and raising a family of children." Another case, which falling under the immediate notice of Mr. T. Pennock, was stated by this gentleman at a public meeting, is recorded by Mr. Godwin in the following words. 1086 It is not, however, intended, from the gross violations of justice and humanity that have been adduced, to insinuate that all slave proprietors are guilty of these flagrant outrages. Many are mild and humane in their dispositions, and under their control there can be no doubt that the negroes enjoy every comfort which their degraded situation will allow. With others, however, the case is quite the reverse; and all must perceive, that the brutal outrages committed by one portion of the community, under the sanctions of colonial law, might with equal facility be committed by all. Where humanity prevails, it is to the man, and not to the system of slavery, that the negro is indebted for his exemption from hunger and stripes. "A few years ago it was enacted, that it should not be legal to transport once established slaves from one island to another; and a gentleman owner, finding it advisable We know in our own country, from daily to do so before the act came in force, the observation, although equal laws are enremoval of great part of his live stock joyed by all, that brutality and violence are was the consequence. He had a female too frequently exercised towards the deslave, a Methodist, and highly valuable to fenceless and unprotected. No provocahim (and not the less so for being the mo- tion seems needful to call passion into opether of eight or nine children), whose hus- ration, or to incite wanton caprice to indulge band, also of our connexion, was the pro- in outrage. What then may not be experty of another resident on the island, pected in our colonies, where scenes of where I happened to be at the time. Their human misery have blunted the feelings of masters not agreeing on a sale, separation | humanity, where custom gives a sanction ensued, and I went to the beach to be an to every barbarity, where passion finds a eye-witness of their behaviour in the greatest more powerful excitement, and wantonness pang of all. One by one the man kissed revels in every excess? Against the sallies his children with the firmness of a hero, of these unholy inmates of the human and, blessing them, gave as his last words breast the voice of justice and humanity is -(oh! will it be believed, and have no in- too feeble to be heard, and even the more fluence upon our veneration for the negro?) commanding eloquence of interest will 'Farewell! Be honest, and obedient to sometimes plead in vain. In paroxysms of your master! At length he had to take rage, an Englishman will kill his horse, his leave of his wife: there he stood (I have dog, or other favourite animal, and in fits him in my mind's eye at this moment), of drunkenness, or other species of tempofive or six yards from the mother of his rary madness, injure the members of his children, unable to move, speak, or do any family in defiance of the laws. In the thing but gaze, and still to gaze, on the ob- West-Indies, therefore, where negro life is ject of his long affection, soon to cross the estimated like that of a horse or cow, and blue wave for ever from his aching sight. held too cheap at its highest value, it cannot The fire of his eyes alone gave indication be supposed that even pecuniary interest of the passion within, until, after some mi- will at all times present a sufficient barrier nutes' standing thus, he fell senseless on the to protect the victims of oppressive violence. sand, as if suddenly struck down by the hand of the Almighty. Nature could do no more; the blood gushed from his nostrils and mouth, as if rushing from the terrors of the conflict within; and amid the confusion occasioned by the circumstance the vessel bore off his family for ever from the island! After some days he recovered, and came to ask advice of me! What could an Englishman do in such a case? I felt the blood boiling within me, but I conquered, I brow-beat my own manhood, and gave him the humblest advice I could afford." If the system of slavery had been a mixture of good and evil, an amendment of what is amiss might have been placed within the reach of hope. But when we view it as evil, only evil, and that continually, nothing but its annihilation can destroy its turpitude. Too long has this more than cannibal monster held the Africans in tortures and in chains, devouring generation after generation like a wide-wasting pestilence, and transferring to the living the miseries which can no longer pursue the dead. Against the injustice and lacerations |