The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863. Various
which is a necessary result of the easy acquisition of land,' The more candid are willing to say, as I heard a gentleman of their class observe: 'We do not complain of the negroes; they have done as well for themselves perhaps as any people would. But just because they are doing so well for themselves, they cannot be depended on to do well for us.' Hence the call for immigrant laborers; a just and reasonable call, if only the immigration is conducted with that rigid and conscientious care for the comfort of the immigrants for which Mr. Sewell gives the government of Trinidad credit, and if it is really voluntary. The fear that it will injure the negro, or that he dreads it, is wholly baseless. The negroes have remained utterly indifferent to the whole agitation of the subject, and are on perfectly amiable terms with the few coolies already introduced. Indeed it will be rather for their interest, as a negro remarked to Mr. Underhill, by giving them a better sale for their produce. The coolies now in the island appear to have done well. And the danger of overcrowding the population on a land teeming with tropical plenty, whose area of 6,400 square miles is occupied by but 441,000 inhabitants, is not a very imminent one, from any number within the means of the colony to introduce. And on the ability to procure foreign labor very much depends the hope of reviving the planting prosperity of Jamaica on a sounder basis, and in such a degree as is compatible with the substantial good of the whole population. It is true the population, relieved from the dreadful waste of slavery, is increasing. The census of 1844 showed a population of 377,433. That of 1861 showed one of 441,264, an increase of 63,831 in seventeen years. The immigration of coolies during that time has been between 18,000 and 20,000; the decrease of the whites, 3,000. The net increase by immigration then has been at the most 17,000, leaving 47,000 as the natural increase, or 12 per cent., in seventeen years. This is what remains after two terrible visitations of cholera, and one of small pox, all within eleven years, which together are computed to have swept off 40,000 persons. The increase would doubtless be much greater but for the loose living and careless habits of the negroes, and their almost entire destitution of medical attendance. There are now, it appears, but fifty qualified practitioners in the island, with no hopes of reinforcement.
The results of this census were very gratifying, and very unexpected. Such scanty means are there, ordinarily, of knowing the true condition of the country, that it was a prevailing impression that the population was decreasing. Had slavery continued, the present population would probably have been about 275,000. The difference of 165,000 in favor of freedom tells its own story. But the present necessities of the estates call for a more speedy augmentation of the laboring force than is furnished by natural increase alone.
I have omitted to mention in its proper place one gratifying sign that those minor industries which make so large a part of the prosperity of the wealthiest free communities, but which are neglected by the coarse labor of slaves, and have been particularly despised by the Jamaica planters, are now coming up in the island. Hitherto, sugar, rum, and coffee have been the all in all of prosperity to Jamaicans. But in 1838, the pimento export was 2,708,640 pounds; in 1858, 9,465,261 pounds. In 1838 the export of logwood was 8,432 cwt.; of fustic, 2,126 cwt.; of mahogany, 1,936 feet; of cocoanuts, 0; of honey, 0. In 1859, the export of logwood was 14,006 cwt.; of fustic, 2,329 cwt.; of mahogany, 35,000 feet; of cocoanuts, 712,913; of honey, 6,954 pounds. The ginger export has diminished from 1,834,120 pounds in 1841, to 709,620 pounds in 1858. This increase in the lesser articles of trade shows a brisker circulation in the capillaries of the social system, a sure token of reviving health. Indeed, before the writer left the island, that dreary uncertainty how affairs were turning, which prevailed for the first half of his stay, had given way to the returning cheerfulness arising from the feeling that Jamaica had touched bottom, and that henceforward, however slowly, her prospects were brightening. This cheerful feeling displays itself in a late report of Governor Darling to the Home Government, some paragraphs of which follow, quoted from Mr. Underhill's book, from which the writer has derived so large a part of the facts that he has had to take at second hand, and which he is glad again to commend as kindly, impartial, and full of carefully gathered and exactly appreciated information. His conjectural estimates of property, however, are exceptionable, as decidedly too high.
Governor Darling, himself a planter, says:
'The proportion of those who are settling themselves industriously on their holdings, and rapidly rising in the social scale, while commanding the respect of all classes of the community, and some of whom are, to a limited extent, themselves the employers of hired labor, paid for either in money or in kind, is, I am happy to think, not only steadily increasing, but at the present moment is far more extensive than was anticipated by those who are cognizant of all that took place in the colony in the earlier days of negro freedom.
'There can be no doubt, in fact, that an independent, respectable, and, I believe, trustworthy middle class is rapidly forming.... If the real object of emancipation was to place the freedman in such a position that he might work out his own advancement in the social scale, and prove his capacity for the full and rational enjoyment of personal independence, secured by constitutional liberty, Jamaica will afford more instances, even in proportion to its large population, of such gratifying results, than any land in which African slavery once existed.
'Jamaica, at this moment, presents, I believe, at once the strongest proof of the complete success of the great measure of emancipation, as relates to the capacity of the emancipated race for freedom, and the most unfortunate instance of a descent in the scale of agricultural and commercial importance as a colonial community.'
Governor Darling's words suggest the exact reason why Jamaica may be looked upon either as the most fortunate or the most unfortunate of the emancipated colonies. All depends upon the point of view. If the largest amount of individual well-being and the most favorable conditions of gaining independence and self-respect constitute a community fortunate, then Jamaica stands at the head of her island sisters. If immense wealth, centred in a few, constitutes a community fortunate, then Barbados is at the head. In Barbados the wealth of the planters is greater, in Jamaica the condition of the laborers is better. The late Mr. Sewell remarked to the writer that the common people in Jamaica had a more manly and self-respecting look than in any of the smaller islands which he had visited. It is much to be lamented that the divorce between the proprietary and the laboring interest was so complete in this island, and the consequent industrial anarchy so great. But even this was better than the depressed condition in which the peasantry of the smaller islands are kept by the hold that the planters have upon them. Manhood is a better crop than either sugar or coffee, and in the long run brings all other things with it. The article in the March number of the Atlantic Monthly for 1862, shows, in brief compass, what inestimable benefits have followed in the smaller islands from conferring the boon of personal freedom, even with so stringent a social dependence remaining. In Jamaica, freedom has been more complete, and the recoil of the social elements from each other more violent. The disaffection of the governing class has also been greater, and Freedom has been left to take care of herself.11 But though thwarted and frowned upon, she is at the last justified of her children. Mr. Sewell has most happily hit the whole truth in a few lines: 'The crop' (of freedom), he says, 'appears in patches, even as it was sown, forcing itself here and there through the ruins of the fabric which disfigures still the political complexion of the island, and sorely cramps the energies of its people.' Governor Darling's words show how rapidly the crop, thus negligently sown, is forcing itself into prosperous and prevailing growth.
ABIJAH WITHERPEE'S RETREAT
For many years Abijah Witherpee had kept, in East Hampton, the largest country store for miles around, and by more than ordinary shrewdness had accumulated a snug little fortune, and with it the reputation among the country folk of being an immensely rich man. It is no trifle, as every one knows, in a small village, to be accounted its richest man, but that was the least of Abijah's honors. It appears by record that Abijah maintained the responsible—and, since Squire Adams has been gathered to his fathers, the solitary—dignity of justice of the peace in and for the county of which East Hampton formed a highly respectable portion. It was not the mere flourish of 'Esq.' at the end of the great man's name—it was the essence of the great man himself. It found him, as he was proud to think, an ordinary, commonplace individual. The good people of East Hampton saw what it had made him, and trembled. And well they might, where justice herself, in the person of the magistrate, stood in
A gradual change is, indeed, observable, but as yet, it is only an incipient one.