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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4068-8.txt b/4068-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc22269 --- /dev/null +++ b/4068-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4976 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude +Explained by J. J. Thomas, by J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas + +Author: J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas + +Posting Date: June 13, 2009 [EBook #4068] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: November 1, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST INDIAN FABLES *** + + + + +Produced by Alfred J. Drake. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +FROUDACITY (1889) + +J.J. Thomas + + +WEST INDIAN FABLES BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE + +EXPLAINED BY J. J. THOMAS + + + + +Contents + + +Preface by J.J. Thomas + +BOOK I. + + Introduction: 27-33 + Voyage out: 34-41 + Barbados: 41-44 + St. Vincent: 44-48 + Grenada: 48-50 + +BOOK II. + + Trinidad: 53-55 + Reform in Trinidad: 55-80 + Negro Felicity in the West Indies: 81-110 + +BOOK III. + + Social Revolution: 113-174 + West Indian Confederation: 175-200 + The Negro as a Worker: 201-206 + Religion for Negroes: 207-230 + +BOOK IV. + + Historical Summary or Résumé: 233-261, end + + + + +FROUDACITY + + +PREFACE + +[5] Last year had well advanced towards its middle--in fact it was +already April, 1888--before Mr. Froude's book of travels in the West +Indies became known and generally accessible to readers in those +Colonies. + +My perusal of it in Grenada about the period above mentioned disclosed, +thinly draped with rhetorical flowers, the dark outlines of a scheme to +thwart political aspiration in the Antilles. That project is sought to +be realized by deterring the home authorities from granting an elective +local legislature, however restricted in character, to any of the +Colonies not yet enjoying such an advantage. An argument based on the +composition of the inhabitants of those Colonies is confidently relied +upon to confirm the inexorable mood of Downing Street. + +[6] Over-large and ever-increasing,--so runs the argument,--the African +element in the population of the West Indies is, from its past history +and its actual tendencies, a standing menace to the continuance of +civilization and religion. An immediate catastrophe, social, +political, and moral, would most assuredly be brought about by the +granting of full elective rights to dependencies thus inhabited. +Enlightened statesmanship should at once perceive the immense benefit +that would ultimately result from such refusal of the franchise. The +cardinal recommendation of that refusal is that it would avert +definitively the political domination of the Blacks, which must +inevitably be the outcome of any concession of the modicum of right so +earnestly desired. The exclusion of the Negro vote being inexpedient, +if not impossible, the exercise of electoral powers by the Blacks must +lead to their returning candidates of their own race to the local +legislatures, and that, too, in numbers preponderating according to the +majority of the Negro electors. The Negro legislators thus supreme in +the councils of the Colonies would straightway proceed to pass +vindictive and retaliatory laws against their white fellow- [7] +colonists. For it is only fifty years since the White man and the +Black man stood in the reciprocal relations of master and slave. +Whilst those relations subsisted, the white masters inflicted, and the +black slaves had to endure, the hideous atrocities that are inseparable +from the system of slavery. Since Emancipation, the enormous strides +made in self-advancement by the ex-slaves have only had the effect of +provoking a resentful uneasiness in the bosoms of the ex-masters. The +former bondsmen, on their side, and like their brethren of Hayti, are +eaten up with implacable, blood-thirsty rancour against their former +lords and owners. The annals of Hayti form quite a cabinet of +political and social object lessons which, in the eyes of British +statesmen, should be invaluable in showing the true method of dealing +with Ethiopic subjects of the Crown. The Negro race in Hayti, in order +to obtain and to guard what it calls its freedom, has outraged every +humane instinct and falsified every benevolent hope. The slave-owners +there had not been a whit more cruel than slave-owners in the other +islands. But, in spite of this, how ferocious, how sanguinary, [8] how +relentless against them has the vengeance of the Blacks been in their +hour of mastery! A century has passed away since then, and, +notwithstanding that, the hatred of Whites still rankles in their +souls, and is cherished and yielded to as a national creed and guide of +conduct. Colonial administrators of the mighty British Empire, the +lesson which History has taught and yet continues to teach you in Hayti +as to the best mode of dealing with your Ethiopic colonists lies +patent, blood-stained and terrible before you, and should be taken +definitively to heart. But if you are willing that Civilization and +Religion--in short, all the highest developments of individual and +social life--should at once be swept away by a desolating vandalism of +African birth; if you do not recoil from the blood-guiltiness that +would stain your consciences through the massacre of our +fellow-countrymen in the West Indies, on account of their race, +complexion and enlightenment; finally, if you desire those modern +Hesperides to revert into primeval jungle, horrent lairs wherein the +Blacks, who, but a short while before, had been ostensibly civilized, +shall be revellers, as high-priests and [9] devotees, in orgies of +devil-worship, cannibalism, and obeah--dare to give the franchise to +those West Indian Colonies, and then rue the consequences of your +infatuation!... + +Alas, if the foregoing summary of the ghastly imaginings of Mr. Froude +were true, in what a fool's paradise had the wisest and best amongst us +been living, moving, and having our being! Up to the date of the +suggestion by him as above of the alleged facts and possibilities of +West Indian life, we had believed (even granting the correctness of his +gloomy account of the past and present positions of the two races) that +to no well-thinking West Indian White, whose ancestors may have, +innocently or culpably, participated in the gains as well as the guilt +of slavery, would the remembrance of its palmy days be otherwise than +one of regret. We Negroes, on the other hand, after a lapse of time +extending over nearly two generations, could be indebted only to +precarious tradition or scarcely accessible documents for any knowledge +we might chance upon of the sufferings endured in these Islands of the +West by those of our race who have gone before us. Death, with +undiscriminating hand, had gathered [10] in the human harvest of +masters and slaves alike, according to or out of the normal laws of +nature; while Time had been letting down on the stage of our existence +drop-scene after drop-scene of years, to the number of something like +fifty, which had been curtaining off the tragic incidents of the past +from the peaceful activities of the present. Being thus circumstanced, +thought we, what rational elements of mutual hatred should now continue +to exist in the bosoms of the two races? + +With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, because of our oneness +with its inhabitants in origin and complexion, as a criterion for the +exact forecast of our future conduct under given circumstances, this +appeared to us, looking at actual facts, perversity gone wild in the +manufacture of analogies. The founders of the Black Republic, we had +all along understood, were not in any sense whatever equipped, as Mr. +Froude assures us they were, when starting on their self-governing +career, with the civil and intellectual advantages that had been +transplanted from Europe. On the contrary, we had been taught to +regard them as most unfortunate in the circumstances under which [11] +they so gloriously conquered their merited freedom. We saw them free, +but perfectly illiterate barbarians, impotent to use the intellectual +resources of which their valour had made them possessors, in the shape +of books on the spirit and technical details of a highly developed +national existence. We had learnt also, until this new interpreter of +history had contradicted the accepted record, that the continued +failure of Hayti to realize the dreams of Toussaint was due to the +fatal want of confidence subsisting between the fairer and darker +sections of the inhabitants, which had its sinister and disastrous +origin in the action of the Mulattoes in attempting to secure freedom +for themselves, in conjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice of +their darker-hued kinsmen. Finally, it had been explained to us that +the remembrance of this abnormal treason had been underlying and +perniciously influencing the whole course of Haytian national history. +All this established knowledge we are called upon to throw overboard, +and accept the baseless assertions of this conjuror-up of inconceivable +fables! He calls upon us to believe that, in spite of being free, +educated, progressive, and at peace with [12] all men, we West Indian +Blacks, were we ever to become constitutionally dominant in our native +islands, would emulate in savagery our Haytian fellow-Blacks who, at +the time of retaliating upon their actual masters, were tortured +slaves, bleeding and rendered desperate under the oppressors' lash--and +all this simply and merely because of the sameness of our ancestry and +the colour of our skin! One would have thought that Liberia would have +been a fitter standard of comparison in respect of a coloured +population starting a national life, really and truly equipped with the +requisites and essentials of civilized existence. But such a reference +would have been fatal to Mr. Froude's object: the annals of Liberia +being a persistent refutation of the old pro-slavery prophecies which +our author so feelingly rehearses. + +Let us revert, however, to Grenada and the newly-published "Bow of +Ulysses," which had come into my hands in April, 1888. + +It seemed to me, on reading that book, and deducing therefrom the +foregoing essential summary, that a critic would have little more to +do, in order to effectually exorcise this negrophobic political +hobgoblin, than to appeal to [13] impartial history, as well as to +common sense, in its application to human nature in general, and to the +actual facts of West Indian life in particular. + +History, as against the hard and fast White-master and Black-slave +theory so recklessly invented and confidently built upon by Mr. Froude, +would show incontestably--(a) that for upwards of two hundred years +before the Negro Emancipation, in 1838, there had never existed in one +of those then British Colonies, which had been originally discovered +and settled for Spain by the great Columbus or by his successors, the +Conquistadores, any prohibition whatsoever, on the ground of race or +colour, against the owning of slaves by any free person possessing the +necessary means, and desirous of doing so; (b) that, as a consequence +of this non-restriction, and from causes notoriously historical, +numbers of blacks, half-breeds, and other non-Europeans, besides such +of them as had become possessed of their "property" by inheritance, +availed themselves of this virtual license, and in course of time +constituted a very considerable proportion of the slave-holding section +of those communities; (c) that these [14] dusky plantation-owners +enjoyed and used in every possible sense the identical rights and +privileges which were enjoyed and used by their pure-blooded Caucasian +brother-slaveowners. The above statements are attested by written +documents, oral tradition, and, better still perhaps, by the living +presence in those islands of numerous lineal representatives of those +once opulent and flourishing non-European planter-families. + +Common sense, here stepping in, must, from the above data, deduce some +such conclusions as the following. First that, on the hypothesis that +the slaves who were freed in 1838--full fifty years ago--were all on an +average fifteen years old, those vengeful ex-slaves of to-day will be +all men of sixty-five years of age; and, allowing for the delay in +getting the franchise, somewhat further advanced towards the human +life-term of threescore and ten years. Again, in order to organize and +carry out any scheme of legislative and social retaliation of the kind +set forth in the "Bow of Ulysses," there must be (which unquestionably +there is not) a considerable, well-educated, and very influential +number surviving of those who had actually [15] been in bondage. +Moreover, the vengeance of these people (also assuming the foregoing +nonexistent condition) would have, in case of opportunity, to wreak +itself far more largely and vigorously upon members of their own race +than upon Whites, seeing that the increase of the Blacks, as correctly +represented in the "Bow of Ulysses," is just as rapid as the diminution +of the White population. And therefore, Mr. Froude's +"Danger-to-the-Whites" cry in support of his anti-reform manifesto +would not appear, after all, to be quite so justifiable as he possibly +thinks. + +Feeling keenly that something in the shape of the foregoing programme +might be successfully worked up for a public defence of the maligned +people, I disregarded the bodily and mental obstacles that have beset +and clouded my career during the last twelve years, and cheerfully +undertook the task, stimulated thereto by what I thought weighty +considerations. I saw that no representative of Her Majesty's Ethiopic +West Indian subjects cared to come forward to perform this work in the +more permanent shape that I felt to be not only desirable but essential +for our self-vindication. [16] I also realized the fact that the "Bow +of Ulysses" was not likely to have the same ephemeral existence and +effect as the newspaper and other periodical discussions of its +contents, which had poured from the press in Great Britain, the United +States, and very notably, of course, in all the English Colonies of the +Western Hemisphere. In the West Indian papers the best writers of our +race had written masterly refutations, but it was clear how difficult +the task would be in future to procure and refer to them whenever +occasion should require. Such productions, however, fully satisfied +those qualified men of our people, because they were legitimately +convinced (even as I myself am convinced) that the political destinies +of the people of colour could not run one tittle of risk from anything +that it pleased Mr. Froude to write or say on the subject. But, +meditating further on the question, the reflection forced itself upon +me that, beyond the mere political personages in the circle more +directly addressed by Mr. Froude's volume, there were individuals whose +influence or possible sympathy we could not afford to disregard, or to +esteem lightly. So I deemed it right and a patriotic duty to attempt +[17] the enterprise myself, in obedience to the above stated motives. + +At this point I must pause to express on behalf of the entire coloured +population of the West Indies our most heartfelt acknowledgments to Mr. +C. Salmon for the luminous and effective vindication of us, in his +volume on "West Indian Confederation," against Mr. Froude's libels. +The service thus rendered by Mr. Salmon possesses a double significance +and value in my estimation. In the first place, as being the work of a +European of high position, quite independent of us (who testifies +concerning Negroes, not through having gazed at them from balconies, +decks of steamers, or the seats of moving carriages, but from actual +and long personal intercourse with them, which the internal evidence of +his book plainly proves to have been as sympathetic as it was +familiar), and, secondly, as the work of an individual entirely outside +of our race, it has been gratefully accepted by myself as an incentive +to self-help, on the same more formal and permanent lines, in a matter +so important to the status which we can justly claim as a progressive, +law-abiding, and self-respecting section of Her Majesty's liege +subjects. + +[18] It behoves me now to say a few words respecting this book as a +mere literary production. + +Alexander Pope, who, next to Shakespeare and perhaps Butler, was the +most copious contributor to the current stock of English maxims, says: + + "True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, + As those move easiest who have learnt to dance." + +A whole dozen years of bodily sickness and mental tribulation have not +been conducive to that regularity of practice in composition which +alone can ensure the "true ease" spoken of by the poet; and therefore +is it that my style leaves so much to be desired, and exhibits, +perhaps, still, more to be pardoned. Happily, a quarrel such as ours +with the author of "The English in the West Indies" cannot be finally +or even approximately settled on the score of superior literary +competency, whether of aggressor or defender. I feel free to ignore +whatever verdict might be grounded on a consideration so purely +artificial. There ought to be enough, if not in these pages, at any +rate in whatever else I have heretofore published, that should prove me +not so hopelessly stupid and wanting in [19] self-respect, as would be +implied by my undertaking a contest in artistic phrase-weaving with one +who, even among the foremost of his literary countrymen, is confessedly +a master in that craft. The judges to whom I do submit our case are +those Englishmen and others whose conscience blends with their +judgment, and who determine such questions as this on their essential +rightness which has claim to the first and decisive consideration. For +much that is irregular in the arrangement and sequence of the +subject-matter, some blame fairly attaches to our assailant. The +erratic manner in which lie launches his injurious statements against +the hapless Blacks, even in the course of passages which no more led up +to them than to any other section of mankind, is a very notable feature +of his anti-Negro production. As he frequently repeats, very often +with cynical aggravations, his charges and sinister prophecies against +the sable objects of his aversion, I could see no other course open to +me than to take him up on the points whereto I demurred, exactly how, +when, and where I found them. + +My purpose could not be attained up without direct mention of, or +reference to, certain public [20] employés in the Colonies whose +official conduct has often been the subject of criticism in the public +press of the West Indies. Though fully aware that such criticism has +on many occasions been much more severe than my own strictures, yet, it +being possible that some special responsibility may attach to what I +here reproduce in a more permanent shape, I most cheerfully accept, in +the interests of public justice, any consequence which may result. + +A remark or two concerning the publication of this rejoinder. It has +been hinted to me that the issue of it has been too long delayed to +secure for it any attention in England, owing to the fact that the West +Indies are but little known, and of less interest, to the generality of +English readers. Whilst admitting, as in duty bound, the possible +correctness of this forecast, and regretting the oft-recurring +hindrances which occasioned such frequent and, sometimes, long +suspension of my labour; and noting, too, the additional delay caused +through my unacquaintance with English publishing usages, I must, +notwithstanding, plead guilty to a lurking hope that some small +fraction of Mr. Froude's readers will yet be found, [21] whose interest +in the West Indies will be temporarily revived on behalf of this essay, +owing to its direct bearing on Mr. Froude and his statements relative +to these Islands, contained in his recent book of travels in them. +This I am led to hope will be more particularly the case when it is +borne in mind that the rejoinder has been attempted by a member of that +very same race which he has, with such eloquent recklessness of all +moral considerations, held up to public contempt and disfavour. In +short, I can scarcely permit myself to believe it possible that concern +regarding a popular author, on his being questioned by an adverse +critic of however restricted powers, can be so utterly dead within a +twelvemonth as to be incapable of rekindling. Mr. Froude's "Oceana," +which had been published long before its author voyaged to the West +Indies, in order to treat the Queen's subjects there in the same more +than questionable fashion as that in which he had treated those of the +Southern Hemisphere, had what was in the main a formal rejoinder to its +misrepresentations published only three months ago in this city. I +venture to believe that no serious work in defence of an [22] important +cause or community can lose much, if anything, of its intrinsic value +through some delay in its issue; especially when written in the +vindication of Truth, whose eternal principles are beyond and above the +influence of time and its changes. + +At any rate, this attempt to answer some of Mr. Froude's main +allegations against the people of the West Indies cannot fail to be of +grave importance and lively interest to the inhabitants of those +Colonies. In this opinion I am happy in being able to record the full +concurrence of a numerous and influential body of my fellow-West +Indians, men of various races, but united in detestation of falsehood +and injustice. + +J.J.T. + +LONDON, June, 1889. + + + +BOOK I: INTRODUCTION + +[27] Like the ancient hero, one of whose warlike equipments furnishes +the complementary title of his book, the author of "The English in the +West Indies; or, The Bow of Ulysses," sallied forth from his home to +study, if not cities, at least men (especially black men), and their +manners in the British Antilles. + +James Anthony Froude is, beyond any doubt whatever, a very considerable +figure in modern English literature. It has, however, for some time +ceased to be a question whether his acceptability, to the extent which +it reaches, has not been due rather to the verbal attractiveness than +to the intrinsic value and trustworthiness of his opinions and +teachings. In fact, so far as a judgment can be formed from examined +specimens of his writings, it appears that our [28] author is the +bond-slave of his own phrases. To secure an artistic perfection of +style, he disregards all obstacles, not only those presented by the +requirements of verity, but such as spring from any other kind of +consideration whatsoever. The doubt may safely be entertained whether, +among modern British men of letters, there be one of equal capability +who, in the interest of the happiness of his sentences, so cynically +sacrifices what is due not only to himself as a public instructor, but +also to that public whom he professes to instruct. Yet, as the too +evident plaything of an over-permeable moral constitution, he might set +up some plea in explanation of his ethical vagaries. He might urge, +for instance, that the high culture of which his books are all so +redolent has utterly failed to imbue him with the nil admirari +sentiment, which Horace commends as the sole specific for making men +happy and keeping them so. For, as a matter of fact, and with special +reference to the work we have undertaken to discuss, Mr. Froude, though +cynical in his general utterances regarding Negroes-of the male sex, be +it noted-is, in the main, all extravagance and self-abandonment +whenever he [29] brings an object of his arbitrary likes or dislikes +under discussion. At such times he is no observer, much less +worshipper, of proportion in his delineations. Thorough-paced, +scarcely controllable, his enthusiasm for or against admits no degree +in its expression, save and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's +statement of facts or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings +are enlisted either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of +salt" by all when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So +complete is his self-identification with the sect or individual for the +time being engrossing his sympathy, that even their personal +antipathies are made his own; and the hostile language, often +exaggerated and unjust, in which those antipathies find vent, secures +in his more chastened mode of utterance an exact reproduction none the +less injurious because divested of grossness. + +Of this special phase of self-manifestation a typical instance is +afforded at page 164, under the heading of "Dominica," in a passage +which at once embraces and accentuates the whole spirit and method of +the work. To a eulogium of the professional skill and successful [30] +agricultural enterprise of Dr. Nichol, a medical officer of that +Colony, with whom he became acquainted for the first time during his +short stay there, our author travels out of his way to tack on a +gratuitous and pointless sneer at the educational competency of all the +elected members of the island legislature, among whom, he tells us, the +worthy doctor had often tried in vain to obtain a place. His want of +success, our author informs his readers, was brought about through Dr. +Nichol "being the only man in the Colony of superior attainments." +Persons acquainted with the stormy politics of that lovely little +island do not require to be informed that the bitterest animosity had +for years been raging between Dr. Nichol and some of the elected +members-a fact which our author chose characteristically to regard as +justifying an onslaught by himself on the whole of that section of +which the foes of his new friend formed a prominent part. + +Swayed by the above specified motives, our author also manages to see +much that is, and always has been, invisible to mortal eye, and to fail +to hear what is audible to and remarked upon by every other observer. + +[31] Thus we find him (p. 56) describing the Grenada Carenage as being +surrounded by forest trees, causing its waters to present a violet +tint; whilst every one familiar with that locality knows that there are +no forest trees within two miles of the object which they are so +ingeniously made to colour. Again, and aptly illustrating the +influence of his prejudices on his sense of hearing, we will notice +somewhat more in detail the following assertion respecting the speech +of the gentry of Barbados:-- + +"The language of the Anglo-Barbadians was pure English, the voices +without the smallest transatlantic intonation." + +Now it so happens that no Barbadian born and bred, be he gentle or +simple, can, on opening his lips, avoid the fate of Peter of Galilee +when skulking from the peril of a detected nationality: "Thy speech +bewrayeth thee!" It would, however, be prudent on this point to take +the evidence of other Englishmen, whose testimony is above suspicion, +seeing that they were free from the moral disturbance that affected Mr. +Froude's auditory powers. G. J. Chester, in his "Transatlantic +Sketches" (page 95), deposes as follows-- + +[32] "But worse, far worse than the colour, both of men and women, is +their voice and accent. Well may Coleridge enumerate among the pains +of the West Indies, 'the yawny-drawny way in which men converse.' The +soft, whining drawl is simply intolerable. Resemble the worst Northern +States woman's accent it may in some degree, but it has not a grain of +its vigour. A man tells you, 'if you can speer it, to send a beerer +with a bottle of bare,' and the clergyman excruciates you by praying in +church, 'Speer us, good Lord.' The English pronunciation of A and E is +in most words transposed. Barbados has a considerable number of +provincialisms of dialect. Some of these, as the constant use of +'Mistress' for 'Mrs.,' are interesting as archaisms, or words in use in +the early days of the Colony, and which have never died out of use. +Others are Yankeeisms or vulgarisms; others, again, such as the +expression 'turning cuffums,' i.e. summersets, from cuffums, a species +of fish, seem to be of local origin." + +In a note hereto appended, the author gives a list of English words of +peculiar use and acceptation in Barbados. + +[33] To the same effect writes Anthony Trollope: + +"But if the black people differ from their brethren of the other +islands, so certainly do the white people. One soon learns to know--a +Bim. That is the name in which they themselves delight, and therefore, +though there is a sound of slang about it, I give it here. One +certainly soon learns to know a Bim. The most peculiar distinction is +in his voice. There is always a nasal twang about it, but quite +distinct from the nasality of a Yankee. The Yankee's word rings sharp +through his nose; not so that of the first-class Bim. There is a soft +drawl about it, and the sound is seldom completely formed. The effect +on the ear is the same as that on the hand when a man gives you his to +shake, and instead of shaking yours, holds his own still, &c., &c." +("The West Indies," p. 207). + +From the above and scores of other authoritative testimonies which +might have been cited to the direct contrary of our traveller's tale +under this head, we can plainly perceive that Mr. Froude's love is not +only blind, but adder-deaf as well. We shall now contemplate him under +circumstances where his feelings are quite other than those of a +partisan. + + + +BOOK I: VOYAGE OUT + +[34] That Mr. Froude, despite his professions to the contrary, did not +go out on his explorations unhampered by prejudices, seems clear enough +from the following quotation:-- + +"There was a small black boy among us, evidently of pure blood, for his +hair was wool and his colour black as ink. His parents must have been +well-to-do, for the boy had been to Europe to be educated. The +officers on board and some of the ladies played with him as they would +play with a monkey. He had little more sense than a monkey, perhaps +less, and the gestures of him grinning behind gratings and perching out +his long thin arms between the bars were curiously suggestive of the +original from whom we are told now that all of us came. The worst of +it was that, being lifted above his own people, he had been taught to +despise them. He was spoilt as a black and could not be made into a +white, and this I found afterwards was the invariable and dangerous +consequence whenever a superior negro contrived to raise himself. He +might do well enough himself, but his family feel their blood as +degradation. His [35] children will not marry among their own people, +and not only will no white girl marry a negro, but hardly any dowry can +be large enough to tempt a West Indian white to make a wife of a black +lady. This is one of the most sinister features in the present state +of social life there." + +We may safely assume that the playing of "the officers on board and +some of the ladies" with the boy, "as they would play with a monkey," +is evidently a suggestion of Mr. Froude's own soul, as well as the +resemblance to the simian tribe which he makes out from the frolics of +the lad. Verily, it requires an eye rendered more than microscopic by +prejudice to discern the difference between the gambols of juveniles of +any colour under similar conditions. It is true that it might just be +the difference between the friskings of white lambs and the friskings +of lambs that are not white. That any black pupil should be taught to +despise his own people through being lifted above them by education, +seems a reckless statement, and far from patriotic withal; inasmuch as +the education referred to here was European, and the place from which +it was obtained presumably England. At all events, [36] the difference +among educated black men in deportment towards their unenlightened +fellow-blacks, can be proved to have nothing of that cynicism which +often marks the bearing of Englishmen in an analogous case with regard +to their less favoured countrymen. The statement that a black person +can be "spoilt" for such by education, whilst he cannot be made white, +is one of the silly conceits which the worship of the skin engenders in +ill-conditioned minds. No sympathy should be wasted on the negro +sufferer from mortification at not being able to "change his skin." The +Ethiopian of whatever shade of colour who is not satisfied with being +such was never intended to be more than a mere living figure. Mr. +Froude further confidently states that whilst a superior Negro "might +do well himself," yet "his family feel their blood as a degradation." +If there be some who so feel, they are indeed very much to be pitied; +but their sentiments are not entitled to the serious importance with +which our critic has invested them. But is it at all conceivable that +a people whose sanity has never in any way been questioned would strain +every nerve to secure for their offspring a [37] distinction the +consequence of which to themselves would be a feeling of their own +abasement? The poor Irish peasant who toils and starves to secure for +his eldest son admission into the Catholic priesthood, has a far other +feeling than one of humiliation when contemplating that son eventually +as the spiritual director of a congregation and parish. Similarly, the +laudable ambition which, in the case of a humble Scotch matron, is +expressed in the wish and exertion to see her Jamie or Geordie "wag his +pow in the pou'pit," produces, when realized, salutary effects in the +whole family connection. These effects, which Mr. Froude would +doubtless allow and commend in their case, he finds it creditable to +ignore the very possibility of in the experience of people whose +cuticle is not white. It is, however, but bare justice to say that, as +Negroes are by no means deficient in self-love and the tenderness of +natural affection, such gratifying fulfilment of a family's hopes +exerts an elevating and, in many cases, an ennobling influence on every +one connected with the fortunate household. Nor, from the eminently +sympathetic nature of the African race, are the near friends of a +family [38] unbenefited in a similar way. This is true, and +distinctively human; but, naturally, no apologist of Negro depreciation +would admit the reasonableness of applying to the affairs of Negroes +the principles of common equity, or even of common sense. To sum up +practically our argument on this head, we shall suppose West Indians to +be called upon to imagine that the less distinguished relations +respectively of, say, the late Solicitor-General of Trinidad and the +present Chief Justice of Barbados could be otherwise than legitimately +elated at the conspicuous position won by a member of their own +household. + +Mr. Froude further ventures to declare, in this connection, that the +children of educated coloured folk "will not marry among their own +people." Will he tell us, then, whom the daughters marry, or if they +ever do marry at all, since he asserts, with regard to West Indian +Whites, that "hardly any dowry can be large enough to tempt them to +make a wife of a black lady"? Our author evidently does not feel or +care that the suggestion he here induces is a hideous slander against a +large body of respectable people of whose affairs he is absolutely +ignorant. Full [39] of the "go" imparted to his talk by a +consciousness of absolute license with regard to Negroes, our dignified +narrator makes the parenthetical assertion that no white girl (in the +West Indies) will "marry a Negro." But has he been informed that cases +upon cases have occurred in those Colonies, and in very high +"Anglo-West Indian" families too, where the social degradation of being +married to Negroes has been avoided by the alternative of forming base +private connections even with menials of that race? + +The marrying of a black wife, on the other hand, by a West Indian White +was an event of frequent occurrence at a period in regard to which our +historian seems to be culpably uninformed. In slavery days, when all +planters, black and white alike, were fused in a common solidarity of +interests, the skin-distinction which Mr. Froude so strenuously +advocates, and would fain risk so much to promote, did not, so far as +matrimony was concerned, exist in the degree that it now does. +Self-interest often dictated such unions, especially on the part of +in-coming Whites desiring to strengthen their position and to increase +their influence in [40] the land of their adoption by means of +advantageous Creole marriages. Love, too, sheer uncalculating love, +impelled not a few Whites to enter the hymeneal state with the dusky +captivators of their affections. When rich, the white planter not +seldom paid for such gratification of his laudable impulse by accepting +exclusion from "Society"--and when poor, he incurred almost invariably +his dismissal from employment. Of course, in all cases of the sort the +dispensers of such penalties were actuated by high motives which, +nevertheless, did not stand in the way of their meeting, in the +households of the persons thus obnoxious to punishment, the same or +even a lower class of Ethiopic damsels, under the title of +"housekeeper," on whom they lavished a very plethora of caresses. +Perhaps it may be wrong so to hint it, but, judging from indications in +his own book, our author himself would have been liable in those days +to enthralment by the piquant charms that proved irresistible to so +many of his brother-Europeans. It is almost superfluous to repeat that +the skin-discriminating policy induced as regards the coloured subjects +of the Queen since the [41] abolition of slavery did not, and could +not, operate when coloured and white stood on the same high level as +slave-owners and ruling potentates in the Colonies. Of course, when +the administrative power passed entirely into the hands of British +officials, their colonial compatriots coalesced with them, and found no +loss in being in the good books of the dominant personages. + +In conclusion of our remarks upon the above extracts, it may be stated +that the blending of the races is not a burning question. "It can +keep," as Mr. Bright wittily said with regard to a subject of similar +urgency. Time and Nature might safely be left uninterfered with to +work out whatever social development of this kind is in store for the +world and its inhabitants. + + + +BOOK I: BARBADOS + +[41] Our distinguished voyager visited many of the British West Indies, +landing first at Barbados, his social experience whereof is set forth +in a very agreeable account. Our immediate business, however, is not +with what West Indian hospitality, especially among the well-to-do +classes, can and does accomplish for [42] the entertainment of +visitors, and particularly visitors so eminent as Mr. Froude. We are +concerned with what Mr. Froude has to say concerning our dusky brethren +and sisters in those Colonies. We have, thus, much pleasure in being +able at the outset to extract the following favourable verdict of his +respecting them--premising, at the same time, that the balcony from +which Mr. Froude surveyed the teeming multitude in Bridgetown was that +of a grand hotel at which he had, on invitation, partaken of the +refreshing beverage mentioned in the citation:-- + +"Cocktail over, and walking in the heat of the sun being a thing not to +be thought of, I sat for two hours in the balcony, watching the people, +who were as thick as bees in swarming time. Nine-tenths of them were +pure black. You rarely saw a white face, but still less would you see +a discontented one, imperturbable good humour and self-satisfaction +being written on the features of every one. The women struck me +especially. They were smartly dressed in white calico, scrupulously +clean, and tricked out with ribands and feathers; but their figures +were so good, and they carried themselves so [43] well and gracefully, +that although they might make themselves absurd, they could not look +vulgar. Like the Greek and Etruscan women, they are trained from +childhood to carry weights on their heads. They are thus perfectly +upright, and plant their feet firmly and naturally on the ground. They +might serve for sculptors' models, and are well aware of it." + +Regarding the other sex, Mr. Froude says:-- + +"The men were active enough, driving carts, wheeling barrows, and +selling flying-fish," &c. + +He also speaks with candour of the entire absence of drunkenness and +quarrelling and the agreeable prevalence of good humour and +light-heartedness among them. Some critic might, on reading the above +extract from our author's account of the men, be tempted to ask--"But +what is the meaning of that little word 'enough' occurring therein?" We +should be disposed to hazard a suggestion that Mr. Froude, being +fair-minded and loyal to truth, as far as is compatible with his +sympathy for his hapless "Anglo-West Indians," could not give an +entirely ungrudging testimony in favour of the possible, nay probable, +voters by whose suffrages the supremacy of the Dark [44] Parliament +will be ensured, and the relapse into obeahism, devil-worship, and +children-eating be inaugurated. Nevertheless, Si sic omnia +dixisset--if he had said all things thus! Yes, if Mr. Froude had, +throughout his volume, spoken in this strain, his occasional want of +patience and fairness with regard to our male kindred might have found +condonation in his even more than chivalrous appreciation of our +womankind. But it has been otherwise. So we are forced to try +conclusions with him in the arena of his own selection--unreflecting +spokesman that he is of British colonialism, which, we grieve to learn +through Mr. Froude's pages, has, like the Bourbon family, not only +forgotten nothing, but, unfortunately for its own peace, learnt nothing +also. + + + +BOOK I: ST. VINCENT + +[44] The following are the words in which our traveller embodies the +main motive and purpose of his voyage:-- + +"My own chief desire was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what +they were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking +about...." + +[45] But, alas, with the mercurialism of temperament in which he has +thought proper to indulge when only Negroes and Europeans not of +"Anglo-West Indian" tendencies were concerned, he jauntily threw to the +winds all the scruples and cautious minuteness which were essential to +the proper execution of his project. At Barbados, as we have seen, he +satisfies himself with sitting aloft, at a balcony-window, to +contemplate the movements of the sable throng below, of whose +character, moral and political, he nevertheless professes to have +become a trustworthy delineator. From the above-quoted account of his +impressions of the external traits and deportment of the Ethiopic folk +thus superficially gazed at, our author passes on to an analysis of +their mental and moral idiosyncrasies, and other intimate matters, +which the very silence of the book as to his method of ascertaining +them is a sufficient proof that his knowledge in their regard has not +been acquired directly and at first hand. Nor need we say that the +generally adverse cast of his verdicts on what he had been at no pains +to study for himself points to the "hostileness" of the witnesses whose +[46] testimony alone has formed the basis of his conclusions. +Throughout Mr. Froude's tour in the British Colonies his intercourse +was exclusively with "Anglo-West Indians," whose aversion to the Blacks +he has himself, perhaps they would think indiscreetly, placed on +record. In no instance do we find that he condescended to visit the +abode of any Negro, whether it was the mansion of a gentleman or the +hut of a peasant of that race. The whole tenor of the book indicates +his rigid adherence to this one-sided course, and suggests also that, +as a traveller, Mr. Froude considers maligning on hearsay to be just as +convenient as reporting facts elicited by personal investigation. +Proceed we, however, to strengthen our statement regarding his +definitive abandonment, and that without any apparent reason, of the +plan he had professedly laid down for himself at starting, and failing +which no trustworthy data could have been obtained concerning the +character and disposition of the people about whom he undertakes to +thoroughly enlighten his readers. Speaking of St. Vincent, where he +arrived immediately after leaving Barbados, our author says:-- + +[47] "I did not land, for the time was short, and as a beautiful +picture the island was best seen from the deck. The characteristics of +the people are the same in all the Antilles, and could be studied +elsewhere." + +Now, it is a fact, patent and notorious, that "the characteristics of +the people are" not "the same in all the Antilles." A man of Mr. +Froude's attainments, whose studies have made him familiar with +ethnological facts, must be aware that difference of local surroundings +and influences does, in the course of time, inevitably create +difference of characteristic and deportment. Hence there is in nearly +every Colony a marked dissimilarity of native qualities amongst the +Negro inhabitants, arising not only from the causes above indicated, +but largely also from the great diversity of their African ancestry. +We might as well be told that because the nations of Europe are +generally white and descended from Japhet, they could be studied one by +the light derived from acquaintance with another. We venture to +declare that, unless a common education from youth has been shared by +them, the Hamitic inhabitants of one island have very little in common +with [48] those of another, beyond the dusky skin and woolly hair. In +speech, character, and deportment, a coloured native of Trinidad +differs as much from one of Barbados as a North American black does +from either, in all the above respects. + + + +BOOK I: GRENADA + +[48] In Grenada, the next island he arrived at, our traveller's +procedure with regard to the inhabitants was very similar. There he +landed in the afternoon, drove three or four miles inland to dine at +the house of a "gentleman who was a passing resident," returned in the +dark to his ship, and started for Trinidad. In the course of this +journey back, however, as he sped along in the carriage, Mr. Froude +found opportunity to look into the people's houses along the way, +where, he tells us, he "could see and was astonished to observe signs +of comfort, and even signs of taste--armchairs, sofas, side-boards with +cut-glass upon them, engravings and coloured prints upon the walls." +As a result of this nocturnal examination, à vol d'oiseau, he has +written paragraph upon paragraph about the people's character [49] and +prospects in the island of Grenada. To read the patronizing terms in +which our historian-traveller has seen fit to comment on Grenada and +its people, one would believe that his account is of some +half-civilized, out-of-the-way region under British sway, and inhabited +chiefly by a horde of semi-barbarian ignoramuses of African descent. +If the world had not by this time thoroughly assessed the intrinsic +value of Mr. Froude's utterances, one who knows Grenada might have felt +inclined to resent his causeless depreciation of the intellectual +capacity of its inhabitants; but considering the estimate which has +been pretty generally formed of his historical judgment, Mr. Froude may +be dismissed, as regards Grenada and its people, with a certain degree +of scepticism. Such scepticism, though lost upon himself, is +unquestionably needful to protect his readers from the hallucination +which the author's singular contempt for accuracy is but too liable to +induce. + +Those who know Grenada and its affairs are perfectly familiar with the +fact that all of its chief intellectual business, whether official +(even in the highest degree, such as temporary [50] administration of +the government), legal, commercial, municipal, educational, or +journalistic, has been for years upon years carried on by men of +colour. And what, as a consequence of this fact, has the world ever +heard in disparagement of Grenada throughout this long series of years? +Assuredly not a syllable. On the contrary, she has been the theme of +praise, not only for the admirable foresight with which she avoided the +sugar crisis, so disastrous to her sister islands, but also for the +pluck and persistence shown in sustaining herself through an +agricultural emergency brought about by commercial reverses, whereby +the steady march of her sons in self-advancement was only checked for a +time, but never definitively arrested. In fine, as regards every +branch of civilized employment pursued there, the good people of +Grenada hold their own so well and worthily that any show of patronage, +even from a source more entitled to confidence, would simply be a piece +of obtrusive kindness, not acceptable to any, seeing that it is +required by none. + + + +BOOK II: TRINIDAD / TRINIDAD AND REFORM+ + +[53] Mr. Froude, crossing the ninety miles of the Caribbean Sea lying +between Grenada and Trinidad, lands next morning in Port of Spain, the +chief city of that "splendid colony," as Governor Irving, its worst +ruler, truly calls it in his farewell message to the Legislature. +Regarding Port of Spain in particular, Mr. Froude is positively +exuberant in the display of the peculiar qualities that distinguish +him, and which we have already admitted. Ecstatic praise and +groundless detraction go hand in hand, bewildering to any one not +possessed of the key to the mystery of the art of blowing hot and cold, +which Mr. Froude so startlingly exemplifies. As it is our purpose to +make what he says concerning this Colony the crucial test of his +veracity as a writer of travels, [54] and also of the value of his +judgments respecting men and things, we shall first invite the reader's +attention to the following extracts, with our discussion thereof:-- + +"On landing we found ourselves in a large foreign-looking town, Port of +Spain having been built by French and Spaniards according to their +national tendencies, and especially with a view to the temperature, +which is that of a forcing house, and rarely falls below 80°. The +streets are broad, and are planted with trees for shade, each house +where room permits having a garden of its own, with palms and mangoes +and coffee-plants and creepers. Of sanitary arrangements there seemed +to be none. There is abundance of rain, and the gutters which run down +by the footway are flushed almost every day. But they are all open. +Dirt of every kind lies about freely, to be washed into them or left to +putrify as fate shall direct" (p. 64). + +Lower down, on the same page, our author, luxuriating in his contempt +for exactitude when the character of other folk only is at stake, +continues:--"The town has between thirty and forty thousand people +living in it, and the [55] rain and Johnny crows between them keep off +pestilence." On page 65 we have the following astounding statement +with respect to one of the trees in the garden in front of the house in +which Mr. Froude was sojourning:--"At the gate stood as sentinel a +cabbage palm a hundred feet high." + +The above quotations, in which we have elected to be content with +indicating by typographical differences the points on which attention +should be mostly directed, will suffice, with any one knowing Trinidad, +as examples of Mr. Froude's trustworthiness. But as these are only on +matters of mere detail, involving no question of principle, they are +dismissed without any further comment. It must not be so, however, +with the following remarkable deliverances which occur on page 67 of +his too picturesque work:--"The commonplace intrudes upon the +imaginative. At moments one can fancy that the world is an enchanted +place after all, but then comes generally an absurd awakening. On the +first night of my arrival, before we went to bed, there came an +invitation to me to attend a political meeting which was to be held in +a few days on the Savannah. + +[56] "Trinidad is a purely Crown colony, and has escaped hitherto the +introduction of the election virus. The newspapers and certain busy +gentlemen in Port of Spain had discovered that they were living under a +'degrading tyranny,' and they demanded a constitution. They did not +complain that their affairs had been ill-managed. On the contrary, +they insisted that they were the most prosperous of the West Indian +colonies, and alone had a surplus in their treasury. If this was so, +it seemed to me that they had better let well alone. The population, +all told, was but 170,000, less by thirty thousand than that of +Barbados. They were a mixed and motley assemblage of all races and +colours, busy each with their own affairs, and never hitherto troubling +themselves about politics. But it had pleased the Home Government to +set up the beginning of a constitution again in Jamaica; no one knew +why, but so it was; and Trinidad did not choose to be behindhand. The +official appointments were valuable, and had been hitherto given away +by the Crown. The local popularities very naturally wished to have +them for themselves. This was the [57] reality in the thing, so far as +there was a reality. It was dressed up in the phrases borrowed from +the great English masters of the art, about privileges of manhood, +moral dignity, the elevating influence of the suffrage, &c., intended +for home consumption among the believers in the orthodox radical faith." + +The passages which we have signalized in the above quotation, and which +occur with more elaboration and heedless assurance on a later page, +will produce a feeling of wonder at the hardihood of him who not only +conceived, but penned and dared to publish them as well, against the +gentlemen whom we all know to be foremost in the political agitation at +which Mr. Froude so flippantly sneers. An emphatic denial may be +opposed to his pretence that "they did not complain that their affairs +had been ill-managed." Why, the very gist and kernel of the whole +agitation, set forth in print through long years of iteration, has been +the scandalous mismanagement of the affairs of the Colony--especially +under the baleful administration of Governor Irving. The Augëan +Stable, miscalled by him "The Public Works Department," and whose +officials he coolly [58] fastened upon the financial vitals of that +long-suffering Colony, baffled even the resolute will of a Des Voeux to +cleanse it. Poor Sir Sanford Freeling attempted the cleansing, but +foundered ignominiously almost as soon as he embarked on that Herculean +enterprise. Sir A. E. Havelock, who came after, must be mentioned by +the historian of Trinidad merely as an incarnate accident in the +succession of Governors to whom the destinies of that maltreated Colony +have been successively intrusted since the departure of Sir Arthur +Hamilton Gordon. The present Governor of Trinidad, Sir William +Robinson, is a man of spirit and intelligence, keenly alive to the +grave responsibilities resting on him as a ruler of men and moulder of +men's destinies. Has he, with all his energy, his public spirit and +indisputable devotion to the furtherance of the Colony's interests, +been able to grapple successfully with the giant evil? Has he +effectually gained the ear of our masters in Downing Street regarding +the inefficiency and wastefulness of Governor Irving's pet department? +We presume that his success has been but very partial, for otherwise it +is difficult to conceive the motive for [59] retaining the army of +officials radiating from that office, with the chief under whose +supervision so many architectural and other scandals have for so long +been the order of the day. The Public Works Department is costly +enough to have been a warning to the whole of the West Indies. It is +true that the lavish squandering of the people's money by that +department has been appreciably checked since the advent of the present +head of the Government. The papers no longer team with accounts, nor +is even the humblest aesthetic sense, offended now, as formerly, with +views of unsightly, useless and flimsy erections, the cost of which, on +an average, was five times more than that of good and reputable +structures. + +This, however, has been entirely due to the personal influence of the +Governor. Sir William Robinson, not being the tool, as Sir Henry +Irving owned that he was, of the Director of Public Works, could not be +expected to be his accomplice or screener in the cynical waste of the +public funds. Here, then, is the personal rectitude of a ruler +operating as a safeguard to the people's interests; and we gladly +confess our entire agreement with [60] Mr. Froude on the subject of the +essential qualifications of a Crown Governor. Mr. Froude contends, and +we heartily coincide with him, that a ruler of high training and noble +purposes would, as the embodiment of the administrative authority, be +the very best provision for the government of Colonies constituted as +ours are. But he has also pointed out, and that in no equivocal terms, +that the above are far from having been indispensable qualifications +for the patronage of Downing Street. He has shown that the Colonial +Office is, more often than otherwise, swayed in the appointment of +Colonial Governors by considerations among which the special fitness of +the man appointed holds but a secondary place. On this point we have +much gratification in giving Mr. Froude's own words (p. 91):--"Among +the public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be +found fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty if a sincere +effort be made to find them. Alas! in times past we have sent persons +to rule our Baratarias to whom Sancho Panza was a sage--troublesome +members of Parliament, younger brothers of powerful families, +impecunious peers; favourites, [61] with backstairs influence, for whom +a provision was to be found; colonial clerks bred in the office who had +been obsequious and useful!" Now then, applying these facts to the +political history of Trinidad, with which we are more particularly +concerned at present, what do we find? We find that in the person of +Sir A. H. Gordon (1867-1870) that Colony at length chanced upon a ruler +both competent and eager to advance her interests, not only materially, +but in the nobler respects that give dignity to the existence of a +community. Of course, he was opposed--ably, strenuously, violently, +virulently--but the metal of which the man was composed was only fused +into greater firmness by being subjected to such fiery tests. On +leaving Trinidad, this eminent ruler left as legacies to the Colony he +had loved and worked for so heartily, laws that placed the persons and +belongings of the inhabitants beyond the reach of wanton aggression; +the means by which honest and laborious industry could, through +agriculture, benefit both itself and the general revenue. He also left +an educational system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway +to knowledge, to [62] distinction, and, if the objects of its +beneficence were worthy of the boon, to serviceableness to their native +country. Above all, he left peace among the jarring interests which, +under the badge of Englishman and of Creole, under the badge of +Catholic and under the badge of Protestant, and so many other forms of +sectional divergence, had too long distracted Trinidad. This he had +effected, not by constituting himself a partisan of either section, but +by inquiring with statesmanlike appreciation, and allowing the +legitimate claims of each to a certain scope of influence in the +furtherance of the Colony's welfare. Hence the bitter rivalry of +jarring interests was transformed into harmonious co-operation on all +sides, in advancing the common good of the common country. + +The Colonial Office, knowing little and caring less about that noble +jewel in the British Crown, sent out as successor to so brilliant and +successful an administrator--whom? One Sir James Robert Longden, a +gentleman without initiative, without courage, and, above all, with a +slavish adherence to red-tape and a clerk-like dread of compromising +his berth. Having served for a long series of years in subordinate +posts in [63] minor dependencies, the habit of being impressed and +influenced by colonial magnates grew and gathered strength within him. +Such a ruler, of course, the serpents that had only been "scotched, but +not killed," by the stern procedures of Governor Gordon, could wind +round, beguile, and finally cause to fall. Measure after measure of his +predecessor which he could in any way neutralize in the interests of +the colonial clique, was rendered of none effect. In fact, he was +subservient to the wishes of those who had all long objected to those +measures, but had not dared even to hint their objections to the +beneficent autocrat who had willed and given them effect for the +general welfare. After Governor Longden came Sir Henry Turner Irving, +a personage who brought to Trinidad a reputation for all the vulgar +colonial prejudices which, discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, +in the Governor of a mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. +More than amply did he justify the evil reports with which rumour had +heralded his coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James +Longden, who was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, +Governor Irving threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the +Sugar Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and +whose belief he evidently shared, that sugar-growers alone should be +possessors of the lands of the West Indies. It would be wearisome to +detail the methods by which every act of Sir Arthur Gordon's to benefit +the whole population was cynically and systematically undone by this +his native-hating successor. In short, the policy of reaction which +Sir James Longden began, found in Governor Irving not only a consistent +promoter, but, as it were, a sinister incarnation. It is true that he +could not, at the bidding and on the advice of his planter-friends, +shut up the Crown Lands of the Colony against purchasers of limited +means, because they happened to be mostly natives of colour, but he +could annul the provision by which every Warden in the rural districts, +on the receipt of the statutory fees, had to supply a Government title +on the spot to every one who purchased any acreage of Crown Lands. +Every intending purchaser, therefore, whether living at Toco, +Guayaguayare, Monos, or Icacos, the four extreme points of the Island +of Trinidad, was compelled to go to Port of [65] Spain, forty or fifty +miles distant, through an almost roadless country, to compete at the +Sub-Intendant's auction sales, with every probability of being outbid +in the end, and having his long-deposited money returned to him after +all his pains. Lieutenant-Governor Des Voeux told the Legislature of +Trinidad that the monstrous Excise imposts of the Colony were an +incentive to smuggling, and he thought that the duties, licenses, &c., +should be lowered in the interest of good and equitable government. +Sir Henry Turner Irving, however, besides raising the duties on +spirituous liquors, also enacted that every distillery, however small, +must pay a salary to a Government official stationed within it to +supervise the manufacture of the spirits. This, of course, was the +death-blow to all the minor competition which had so long been +disturbing the peace of mind of the mighty possessors of the great +distilleries. Ahab was thus made glad with the vineyard of Naboth. + +In the matter of official appointments, too, Governor Irving was +consistent in his ostentatious hostility to Creoles in general, and to +coloured Creoles in particular. Of the fifty-six appointments which +that model Governor [66] made in 1876, only seven happened to be +natives and coloured, out of a population in which the latter element +is so preponderant as to excite the fears of Mr. Froude. In +educational matters, though he could not with any show of sense or +decency re-enact the rule which excluded students of illegitimate birth +from the advantages of the Royal College, he could, nevertheless, +pander to the prejudices of himself and his friends by raising the +standard of proficiency while reducing the limit of the age for free +admission to that institution--boys of African descent having shown an +irrepressible persistency in carrying off prizes. + +Every one acquainted with Trinidad politics knows very well the +ineffably low dodges and subterfuges under which the Arima Railway was +prevented from having its terminus in the centre of that town. The +public was promised a saving of Eight Thousand Pounds by their +high-minded Governor for a diversion of the line "by only a few yards" +from the originally projected terminus. In the end it was found out +not only that the terminus of the railway was nearly a whole mile +outside of the town of Arima, but also that Twenty [67] Thousand Pounds +"Miscellaneous" had to be paid up by the good folk of Trinidad, in +addition to gulping down their disappointment at saving no Eight +Thousand Pounds, and having to find by bitter experience, especially in +rainy weather, that their Governor's few yards were just his +characteristic way of putting down yards which he well knew were to be +counted by hundreds. Then, again, we have the so-called San Fernando +Waterworks, an abortion, a scandal for which there is no excuse, as the +head of the Public Works Department went his own way despite the +experience of those who knew better than he, and the protests of those +who would have had to pay. Seventeen Thousand Pounds represent the +amount of debt with which Governor Irving's pet department has saddled +the town of San Fernando for water, which half the inhabitants cannot +get, and which few of the half who do get it dare venture to drink. +Summa fastigia rerum secuti sumus. If in the works that were so +prominent before the public gaze these enormous abuses could flourish, +defiant of protest and opposition, what shall we think of the nooks and +corners of that same squandering department, which of [68] course must +have been mere gnats in the eyes of a Governor who had swallowed so +many monstrous camels! The Governor was callous. Trinidad was a +battening ground for his friends; but she had in her bosom men who were +her friends, and the struggle began, constitutionally of course, which, +under the leadership of the Mayor of San Fernando, has continued up to +now, culminating at last in the Reform movement which Mr. Froude +decries, and which his pupil, Mr. S. H. Gatty, is, from what has +appeared in the Trinidad papers, doing his "level best" to render +abortive. + +Sir Sanford Freeling, by the will and pleasure of Downing Street, was +the next successor, after Governor Irving, to the chief ruler-ship of +Trinidad. Incredible as it may sound, he was a yet more +disadvantageous bargain for the Colony's £4000 a year. A better man in +many respects than his predecessor, he was in many more a much worse +Governor. The personal affability of a man can be known only to those +who come into actual contact with him--the public measures of a ruler +over a community touches it, mediately or immediately, throughout all +its sections. The bad boldness of [69] Governor Irving achieved much +that the people, especially in the outlying districts, could see and +appreciate. For example, he erected Rest-houses all over the remoter +and more sparsely peopled quarters of the Colony, after the manner of +such provisions in Oriental lands. The population who came in contact +with these conveniences, and to whom access to them--for a +consideration--had never been denied, saw with their own eyes tangible +evidence of the Governor's activity, and inferred therefrom a +solicitude on his part for the public welfare. Had they, however, been +given a notion of the bill which had had to be paid for those frail, +though welcome hostelries, they would have stood aghast at the +imbecility, or, if not logically that, the something very much worse, +through which five times the actual worth of these buildings had been +extracted from the Treasury. Sir Sanford Freeling, on the other hand, +while being no screener of jobbery and peculation, had not the strength +of mind whereof jobbers and peculators do stand in dread. In evidence +of that poor ruler's infirmity of purpose, we would only cite the +double fact that, whereas in 1883 he was the first to enter a practical +protest against the housing [70] of the diseased and destitute in the +then newly finished, but most leaky, House of Refuge on the St. Clair +Lands, by having the poor saturated inmates carried off in his presence +to the Colonial Hospital, yet His Excellency was the very man who, in +the very next year, 1884, not only sanctioned the shooting down of +Indian immigrants at their festival, but actually directed the use of +buck-shot for that purpose! Evidently, if these two foregoing +statements are true, Mr. Froude must join us in thinking that a man +whose mind could be warped by external influences from the softest +commiseration for the sufferings of his kind, one year, into being the +cold-blooded deviser of the readiest method for slaughtering unarmed +holiday-makers, the very next year, is not the kind of ruler whom he +and we so cordially desiderate. We have already mentioned above how +ignominious Governor Freeling's failure was in attempting to meddle +with the colossal abuses of the Public Works Department. + +Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock next had the privilege of enjoying the +paradisaic sojourn at Queen's House, St. Ann's, as well as the four +thousand pounds a year attached to the [71] right of occupying that +princely residence. Save as a dandy, however, and the harrier of +subordinate officials, the writer of the annals of Trinidad may well +pass him by. So then it may be seen what, by mere freaks of +Chance--the ruling deity at Downing Street--the administrative +experience of Trinidad had been from the departure of that true king in +Israel,--Sir Arthur Gordon, up to the visit of Mr. Froude. First, a +slave to red-tape, procrastination, and the caprices of pretentious +colonialists; next, a daring schemer, confident of the support of the +then dominant Sugar Interest, and regarding and treating the resources +of the Island as free booty for his friends, sycophants, and +favourites; then, an old woman, garbed in male attire, having an +infirmity of purpose only too prone to be blown about by every wind of +doctrine, alternating helplessly between tenderness and truculence, the +charity of a Fry and the tragic atrocity of Medea. After this dismal +ruler, Trinidad, by the grace of the Colonial Office, was subjected to +the manipulation of an unctuous dandy. This successor of Gordon, of +Elliot, and of Cairns, durst not oppose high-placed official +malfeasants, but [72] was inexorable with regard to minor delinquents. +In the above retrospect we have purposely omitted mentioning such +transient rulers as Mr. Rennie, Sir G. W. Des Voeux, and last, but by +no means least, Sir F. Barlee, a high-minded Governor, whom death so +suddenly and inscrutably snatched away from the good work he had +loyally begun. Every one of the above temporary administrators was a +right good man for a post in which brain power and moral back-bone are +essential qualifications. But the Fates so willed it that Trinidad +should never enjoy the permanent governance of either. In view of the +above facts; in view also of the lessons taught the inhabitants of +Trinidad so frequently, so cruelly, what wonder is there that, failing +of faith in a probability, which stands one against four, of their +getting another worthy ruler when Governor Robinson shall have left +them, they should seek to make hay while the sun shines, by providing +against the contingency of such Governors as they know from bitter +experience that Downing Street would place over their destinies, should +the considerations detailed by Mr. Froude or any other equally [73] +unworthy counsellor supervene? That the leading minds of Trinidad +should believe in an elective legislature is a logical consequence of +the teachings of the past, when the Colony was under the manipulation +of the sort of Governors above mentioned as immediately succeeding Sir +Arthur Gordon. + +This brings us to the motives, the sordid motives, which Mr. Froude, +oblivious of the responsibility of his high literary status, has +permitted himself gratuitously, and we may add scandalously, to impute +to the heads of the Reform movement in Trinidad. It was perfectly +competent that our author should decline, as he did decline, to have +anything to do, even as a spectator, at a meeting with the object of +which he had no sympathy. But our opinion is equally decided that Mr. +Froude has transgressed the bounds of decent political antagonism, nay, +even of common sense, when he presumes to state that it was not for any +other object than the large salaries of the Crown appointments, which +they covet for themselves, that the Reform leaders are contending. +This is not criticism: it is slander. To make culpatory statements +against others, [74] without ability to prove them, is, to say the +least, hazardous; but to make accusations to formulate which the +accuser is forced, not only to ignore facts, but actually to deny them, +is, to our mind, nothing short of rank defamation. + +Mr. Froude is not likely to impress the world (of the West Indies, at +any rate) with the transparently silly, if not intentionally malicious, +ravings which he has indulged in on the subject of Trinidad and its +politics. Here are some of the things which this "champion of +Anglo-West Indians" attempts to force down the throats of his readers. +He would have us believe that Mr. Francis Damian, the Mayor of Port of +Spain, and one of the wealthiest of the native inhabitants of Trinidad, +a man who has retired from an honourable and lucrative legal practice, +and devotes his time, his talents, and his money to the service of his +native country; that Mr. Robert Guppy, the venerable and venerated +Mayor of San Fernando, with his weight of years and his sufficing +competence, and with his long record of self-denying services to the +public; that Mr. George Goodwille, one of the most successful merchants +in the Colonies; that Mr. Conrad [75] F. Stollmeyer, a gentleman +retired, in the evening of his days, on his well-earned ample means, +are open to the above sordid accusation. In short, that those and +such-like individuals who, on account of their private resources and +mental capabilities, as well as the public influence resulting +therefrom, are, by the sheer logic of circumstances, forced to be at +the head of public movements, are actuated by a craving for the few +hundred pounds a year for which there is such a scramble at Downing +Street among the future official grandees of the West Indies! But +granting that this allegation of Mr. Froude's was not as baseless as we +have shown it to be, and that the leaders of the Reform agitation were +impelled by the desire which our author seeks to discredit them with, +what then? Have they who have borne the heat and the burden of the day +in making the Colonies what they are no right to the enjoyment of the +fruits of their labours? The local knowledge, the confidence and +respect of the population, which such men enjoy, and can wield for good +or evil in the community, are these matters of small account in the +efficient government of the Colony? Our author, in [76] specifying the +immunities of his ideal Governor, who is also ours, recommends, amongst +other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose his own +advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that the advisers +so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have rushed from the +destitution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained flesh-pots of the +Colonies. + +At any rate, whatever political fate Mr. Froude may desire for the +Colonies in general, and for Trinidad in particular, it is nevertheless +unquestionable that he and the scheme that he may have for our future +governance, in this year of grace 1888, have both come into view +entirely out of season. The spirit of the times has rendered +impossible any further toleration of the arrogance which is based on +historical self-glorification. The gentlemen of Trinidad, who are +struggling for political enfranchisement, are not likely to heed, +except as a matter for indignant contempt, the obtrusion by our author +of his opinion that "they had best let well alone." On his own +showing, the persons appointed to supreme authority in the Colonies +are, more usually than not, entirely unfit for [77] holding any +responsible position whatever over their fellows. Now, can it be +doubted that less care, less scruple, less consideration, would be +exercised in the choice of the satellites appointed to revolve, in +these far-off latitudes, around the central luminaries? Have we not +found, are we not still finding every day, that the +brain-dizziness--Xenophon calls it kephalalgeia+--induced by sudden +promotion has transformed the abject suppliants at the Downing Street +backstairs into the arrogant defiers of the opinions, and violators of +the rights, of the populations whose subjection to the British Crown +alone could have rendered possible the elevation of such folk and their +impunity in malfeasance? The cup of loyal forbearance reached the +overflowing point since the trickstering days of Governor Irving, and +it is useless now to believe in the possibility of a return of the +leading minds of Trinidad to a tame acquiescence as regards the +probabilities of their government according to the Crown system. Mr. +Froude's own remarks point out definitely enough that a community so +governed is absolutely at the mercy, for good or for evil, of the man +who happens to be invested with [78] the supreme authority. He has +also shown that in our case that supreme authority is very often +disastrously entrusted. Yet has he nothing but sneers for the efforts +of those who strive to be emancipated from liability to such +subjection. Mr. Froude's deftly-worded sarcasms about "degrading +tyranny," "the dignity of manhood," &c., are powerless to alter the +facts. Crown Colony Government--denying, as it does to even the wisest +and most interested in a community cursed with it all participation in +the conduct of their own affairs, while investing irresponsible and +uninterested "birds of passage" (as our author aptly describes them) +with the right of making ducks and drakes of the resources wrung from +the inhabitants--is a degrading tyranny, which the sneers of Mr. Froude +cannot make otherwise. The dignity of manhood, on the other hand, we +are forced to admit, runs scanty chance of recognition by any being, +however masculine his name, who could perpetrate such a literary and +moral scandal as "The Bow of Ulysses." Yet the dignity of manhood +stands venerable there, and whilst the world lasts shall gain for its +possessors the right of record on the roll of [79] those whom the +worthy of the world delight to honour. + +All of a piece, as regards veracity and prudence, is the further +allegation of Mr. Froude's, to the effect that there was never any +agitation for Reform in Trinidad before that which he passes under +review. It is, however, a melancholy fact, which we are ashamed to +state, that Mr. Froude has written characteristically here also, either +through crass ignorance or through deliberate malice. Any respectable, +well-informed inhabitant of Trinidad, who happened not to be an +official "bird of passage," might, on our author's honest inquiry, have +informed him that Trinidad is the land of chronic agitation for Reform. +Mr. Froude might also have been informed that, even forty-five years +ago, that is in 1843, an elective constitution, with all the electoral +districts duly marked out, was formulated and transmitted by the +leading inhabitants of Trinidad to the then Secretary of State for the +Colonies. He might also have learnt that on every occasion that any of +the shady Governors, whom he has so well depicted, manifested any +excess of his undesirable qualities, there has been a movement [80] +among the educated people in behalf of changing their country's +political condition. + +We close this part of our review by reiterating our conviction that, +come what will, the Crown Colony system, as at present managed, is +doomed. Britain may, in deference to the alleged wishes of her +impalpable "Anglo-West Indians"--whose existence rests on the authority +of Mr. Froude alone--deny to Trinidad and other Colonies even the small +modicum prayed for of autonomy, but in doing so the Mother Country will +have to sternly revise her present methods of selecting and appointing +Governors. As to the subordinate lot, they will have to be worth their +salt when there is at the head of the Government a man who is truly +deserving of his. + +NOTES + +53. +It is not clear from the original text exactly where the brief +chapter "Trinidad" ends and where the longer one entitled "Reform in +Trinidad" begins. (The copy indicates that the "Trinidad" chapter ends +at page 54, but the relevant page contains no subheading.) I have, +therefore, chosen to fuse the two chapters since they form a logical +unit. + +77. +Since there is little Greek in this work, I have simply +transliterated it. + + + +BOOK II: NEGRO FELICITY IN THE WEST INDIES + +[81] We come now to the ingenious and novel fashion in which Mr. Froude +carries out his investigations among the black population, and to his +dogmatic conclusions concerning them. He says:-- + +"In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire was to see the +human inhabitants, to learn what they were doing, how they were living, +and what they were thinking about, and this could best be done by +drives about the town and neighbourhood." + +"Drives about the town and neighbourhood," indeed! To learn and be +able to depict with faithful accuracy what people "were doing, how they +were living, and what they were thinking about"--all this being best +done (domestic circumstances, nay, soul-workings and all!) through +fleeting glimpses of shifting [82] panoramas of intelligent human +beings! What a bright notion! We have here the suggestion of a +capacity too superhuman to be accepted on trust, especially when, as in +this case, it is by implication self-arrogated. The modesty of this +thaumaturgic traveller in confining the execution of his detailed +scrutiny of a whole community to the moderate progression of some +conventional vehicle, drawn by some conventional quadruped or the +other, does injustice to powers which, if possessed at all, might have +compassed the same achievement in the swifter transit of an express +train, or, better still perhaps, from the empyrean elevation of a +balloon! Yet is Mr. Froude confident that data professed to be thus +collected would easily pass muster with the readers of his book! A +confidence of this kind is abnormal, and illustrates, we think most +fully, all the special characteristics of the man. With his passion +for repeating, our author tells us in continuation of a strange +rhapsody on Negro felicity:-- + +"Once more, the earth does not contain any peasantry so well off, so +well-cared for, so happy, so sleek and contented, as the sons [83] and +daughters of the emancipated slaves in the English West Indian Islands." + +Again:-- + +"Under the rule of England, in these islands, the two millions of these +brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly contented specimens of +the human race to be found upon the planet.... If happiness be the +satisfaction of every conscious desire, theirs is a condition that +admits of no improvement: were they independent, they might quarrel +among themselves, and the weaker become the bondsmen of the stronger; +under the beneficent despotism of the English Government, which knows +no difference of colour and permits no oppression, they can sleep, +lounge, and laugh away their lives as they please, fearing no danger," +&c. + +Now, then, let us examine for a while this roseate picture of Arcadian +blissfulness said to be enjoyed by British West Indian Negroes in +general, and by the Negroes of Trinidad in particular. "No distinction +of colour" under the British rule, and, better still, absolute +protection of the weaker against the stronger! This latter +consummation especially, [84] Mr. Froude tells us, has been happily +secured "under the beneficent despotism" of the Crown Colony system. +However, let the above vague hyperboles be submitted to the test of +practical experience, and the abstract government analysed in its +concrete relations with the people. + +Unquestionably the actual and direct interposition of the shielding +authority above referred to, between man and man, is the immediate +province of the MAGISTRACY. All other branches of the Government, +having in themselves no coercive power, must, from the supreme +executive downwards, in cases of irreconcilable clashing of interests, +have ultimate recourse to the magisterial jurisdiction. Putting aside, +then, whatever culpable remissness may have been manifested by +magistrates in favour of powerful malfeasants, we would submit that the +fact of stipendiary justices converting the tremendous, far-reaching +powers which they wield into an engine of systematic oppression, ought +to dim by many a shade the glowing lustre of Mr. Froude's encomiums. +Facts, authentic and notorious, might be adduced in hundreds, +especially with respect to [85] the Port of Spain and San Fernando +magistracies (both of which, since the administration of Sir J. R. +Longden, have been exclusively the prizes of briefless English +barristers*), to prove that these gentry, far from being bulwarks to +the weaker as against the stronger, have, in their own persons, been +the direst scourges that the poor, particularly when coloured, have +been afflicted by in aggravation of the difficulties of their lot. +Only typical examples can here be given out of hundreds upon hundreds +which might easily be cited and proved against the incumbents of the +abovementioned chief stipendiary magistracies. One such example was a +matter of everyday discussion at the time of Mr. Froude's visit. The +inhabitants were even backed in their complaints by the Governor, who +had, in response to their cry of distress, forwarded their prayer [86] +to the home authorities for relief from the hard treatment which they +alleged themselves to be suffering at the hands of the then magistrate. +Our allusion here is to the chief town, Port of Spain, the magistracy +of which embraces also the surrounding districts, containing a total +population of between 60,000 and 70,000 souls. Mr. R. D. Mayne filled +this responsible office during the latter years of Sir J. R. Longden's +governorship. He was reputed, soon after his arrival, to have +announced from the bench that in every case he would take the word of a +constable in preference to the testimony of any one else. The +Barbadian rowdies who then formed the major part of the constabulary of +Trinidad, and whose bitter hatred of the older residents had been not +only plainly expressed, but often brutally exemplified, rejoiced in the +opportunity thus afforded for giving effect to their truculent +sentiments. At that time the bulk of the immigrants from Barbados were +habitual offenders whom the Government there had provided with a free +passage to wherever they elected to betake themselves. The more +intelligent of the men flocked to the Trinidad [87] police ranks, into +which they were admitted generally without much inquiry into their +antecedents. On this account they were shunned by the decent +inhabitants, a course which they repaid with savage animosity. +Perjuries the most atrocious and crushing, especially to the +respectable poor, became the order of the day. Hundreds of innocent +persons were committed to gaol and the infamy of convict servitude, +without the possibility of escape from, or even mitigation of, their +ignominious doom. A respectable woman (a native of Barbados, too, who +in the time of the first immigration of the better sort of her +compatriots had made Trinidad her home) was one of the first victims of +this iniquitous state of affairs. + +The class of people to which she belonged was noted as orderly, +industrious and law-abiding, and, being so, it had identified itself +entirely with the natives of the land of its adoption. This fact alone +was sufficient to involve these immigrants in the same lot of +persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and were +carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, on the +occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the woman in +question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of ironing for +her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow in the street +before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud scream, which, on +looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of a boy of some ten +or twelve years of age, who had been violently struck with the fist by +another youth of larger size and evidently his senior in age. The +smaller fellow had laid fast hold of his antagonist by the collar, and +would not let go, despite the blows which, to extricate himself and in +retaliation of the puny buffets of his youthful detainer, he "showered +thick as wintry rain." + +The woman, seeing the posture of affairs, shouted to the combatants to +desist, but to no purpose, rage and absorption in their wrathful +occupation having deafened both to all external sounds. Seized with +pity for the younger lad, who was getting so mercilessly the worst of +it, the woman, hastily throwing a shawl over her shoulders, sprang into +the street and rushed between the juvenile belligerents. Dexterously +extricating the hand of the little fellow from the collar of his +antagonist, she hurried the former [89] into her gateway, shouting out +to him at the same time to fasten the door on the inside. This the +little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this surcease from actual +conflict, short though it was, must have afforded space for the natural +instinct of self-preservation to reassert itself. Hereupon the elder +of the two lads, like a tiger robbed of his prey, sprang furiously to +the gate, and began to use frantic efforts to force an entrance. +Perceiving this, the woman (who meanwhile had not been idle with +earnest dissuasions and remonstrances, which had all proved futile) +pulled the irate youngster back, and interposed her body between him +and the gate, warding him off with her hands every time that he rushed +forward to renew the assault. At length a Barbadian policeman hove in +sight, and was hastily beckoned to by the poor ironer, who, by this +time, had nearly come to the end of her strength. The uniformed "Bim" +was soon on the spot; but, without asking or waiting to hear the cause +of the disturbance, he shouted to the volunteer peacemaker, "I see you +are fighting: you are my prisoner!" Saying this, he clutched the poor +thunderstruck creature by the wrist, and there [90] and then set about +hurrying her off towards the police station. It happened, however, +that the whole affair had occurred in the sight of a gentleman of +well-known integrity. He, seated at a window overlooking the street, +had witnessed the whole squabble, from its beginning in words to its +culmination in blows; so, seeing that the woman was most unjustly +arrested, he went out and explained the circumstances to the guardian +of order. But to no purpose; the poor creature was taken to the +station, accompanied by the gentleman, who most properly volunteered +that neighbourly turn. There she was charged with "obstructing the +policeman in the lawful execution of his duty." She was let out on +bail, and next day appeared to answer the charge. + +Mr. Mayne, the magistrate, presided. The constable told his tale +without any material deviation from the truth, probably confident, from +previous experience, that his accusation was sufficient to secure a +conviction. On the defendant's behalf, the gentleman referred to, who +was well known to the magistrate himself, was called, and he related +the facts as we have above given them. Even Mr. Mayne [91] could see +no proof of the information, and this he confessed in the following +qualified judgment:-- + +"You are indeed very lucky, my good woman, that the constable has +failed to prove his case against you; otherwise you would have been +sent to hard labour, as the ordinance provides, without the option of a +fine. But as the case stands, you must pay a fine of £2"!!! + +Comment on this worse than scandalous decision would be superfluous. + +Another typical case, illustrative of the truth of Mr. Froude's boast +of the eminent fair play, nay, even the stout protection, that Negroes, +and generally, "the weaker," have been wont to receive from British +magistrates, may be related. + +An honest, hard-working couple, living in one of the outlying +districts, cultivated a plot of ground, upon the produce of which they +depended for their livelihood. After a time these worthy folk, on +getting to their holding in the morning, used to find exasperating +evidence of the plunder overnight of their marketable provisions. +Determined to discover the depredator, they concealed themselves [92] +in the garden late one night, and awaited the result. By that means +they succeeded in capturing the thief, a female, who, not suspecting +their presence, had entered the garden, dug out some of the provisions, +and was about to make off with her booty. In spite of desperate +resistance, she was taken to the police station and there duly charged +with larceny. Meanwhile her son, on hearing of his mother's +incarceration, hastened to find her in her cell, and, after briefly +consulting with her, he decided on entering a countercharge of assault +and battery against both her captors. Whether or not this bold +proceeding was prompted by the knowledge that the dispensing of justice +in the magistrate's court was a mere game of cross-purposes, a cynical +disregard of common sense and elementary equity, we cannot say; but the +ultimate result fully justified this abnormal hardihood of filial +championship. + +On the day of the trial, the magistrate heard the evidence on both +sides, the case of larceny having been gone into first. For her +defence, the accused confined herself to simple denials of the +allegations against her, at the [93] same time entertaining the court +with a lachrymose harangue about her rough treatment at the hands of +the accusing parties. Finally, the decision of the magistrate was: +that the prisoner be discharged, and the plundered goods restored to +her; and, as to the countercharge, that the husband and wife be +imprisoned, the former for three and the latter for two months, with +hard labour! When we add that there was, at that time, no Governor or +Chief Justice accessible to the poorer and less intelligent classes, as +is now the case (Sir Henry T. Irving and Sir Joseph Needham having been +respectively superseded by Sir William Robinson and Sir John Gorrie), +one can imagine what scope there was for similar exhibitions of the +protecting energy of British rule. + +As we have already said, during Mr. Froude's sojourn in Trinidad the +"sleek, happy, and contented" people, whose condition "admitted of no +improvement," were yet groaning in bitter sorrow, nay, in absolute +despair, under the crushing weight of such magisterial decisions as +those which I have just recorded. Let me add two more [94] typical +cases which occurred during Mr. Mayne's tenure of office in the island. + +L. B. was a member of one of those brawling sisterhoods that frequently +disturbed the peace of the town of Port of Spain. She had a "pal" or +intimate chum familiarly known as "Lady," who staunchly stood by her in +all the squabbles that occurred with their adversaries. One particular +night, the police were called to a street in the east of the town, in +consequence of an affray between some women of the sort referred to. +Arriving on the spot, they found the fight already over, but a war of +words was still proceeding among the late combatants, of whom the +aforesaid "Lady" was one of the most conspicuous. A list was duly made +out of the parties found so engaged, and it included the name of L. B., +who happened not to be there, or even in Port of Spain at all, she +having some days before gone into the country to spend a little time +with some relatives. The inserting of her name was an inferential +mistake on the part of the police, arising from the presence of "Lady" +at the brawl, she being well known by them to be the inseparable ally +of L. B. on such occasions. + +[95] It was not unnatural that in the obscurity they should have +concluded that the latter was present with her altera ego, when in +reality she was not there. + +The participants in the brawl were charged at the station, and +summonses, including one to L. B., were duly issued. On her return to +Port of Spain a day or two after the occurrence, the wrongly +incriminated woman received from the landlady her key, along with the +magisterial summons that had resulted from the error of the constables. +The day of the trial came on, and L. B. stood before Mr. Mayne, strong +in her innocence, and supported by the sworn testimony of her landlady +as well as of her uncle from the country, with whom and with his family +she had been uninterruptedly staying up to one or two days after the +occurrence in which she had been thus implicated. The evidence of the +old lady, who, like thousands of her advanced age in the Colony, had +never even once had occasion to be present in any court of justice, was +to the following effect: That the defendant, who was a tenant of hers, +had, on a certain morning (naming days before the affray occurred), +[96] come up to her door well dressed, and followed by a porter +carrying her luggage. L. B., she continued, then handed her the key of +the apartment, informing her at the same time that she was going for +some days into the country to her relatives, for a change, and +requesting also that the witness should on no account deliver the key +to any person who should ask for it during her absence. This witness +further deposed to receiving the summons from the police, which she +placed along with the key for delivery to L. B. on the latter's return +home. + +The testimony of the uncle was also decisively corroborative of that of +the preceding witness, as to the absence from Port of Spain of L. B. +during the days embraced in the defence. The alibi was therefore +unquestionably made out, especially as none of the police witnesses +would venture to swear to having actually seen L. B. at the brawl. The +magistrate had no alternative but that of acquiescing in the proof of +her innocence; so he dismissed the charge against the accused, who +stood down from among the rest, radiant with satisfaction. The other +defendants were duly [97] convicted, and sentenced to a term of +imprisonment with hard labour. All this was quite correct; but here +comes matter for consideration with regard to the immaculate +dispensation of justice as vaunted so confidently by Mr. Froude. + +On receiving their sentence the women all stood down from the dock, to +be escorted to prison, except "Lady," who, by the way, had preserved a +rigid silence, while some of the other defendants had voluntarily and, +it may be added, generously protested that L. B. was not present on the +occasion of this particular row. "Lady," whether out of affection or +from a less respectable motive, cried out to the stipendiary justice. +"But, sir, it ain't fair. How is it every time that L. B. and me come +up before you, you either fine or send up the two of us together, and +to-day you are sending me up alone?" Moved either by the logic or the +pathos of this objurgation, the magistrate, turning towards L. B., who +had lingered after her narrow escape to watch the issue of the +proceedings, thus addressed her:--"L. B., upon second thoughts I order +you to the same term of hard labour at the Royal Gaol with the [98] +others." The poor girl, having neither money nor friends intelligent +enough to interfere on her behalf, had to submit, and she underwent the +whole of this iniquitous sentence. + +The last typical case that we shall give illustrates the singular +application by this more than singular judge of the legal maxim caveat +emptor. A free coolie possessed of a donkey resolved to utilize the +animal in carting grass to the market. He therefore called on another +coolie living at some distance from him, whom he knew to own two carts, +a small donkey-cart and an ordinary cart for mule or horse. He +proposed the purchase of the smaller cart, stating his reason for +wishing to have it. The donkey-cart was then shown to the intending +purchaser, who, along with two Creole witnesses brought by him to make +out and attest the receipt on the occasion, found some of the iron +fittings defective, and drew the vendor's attention thereto. He, on +his side, engaged, on receiving the amount agreed to for the cart, to +send it off to the blacksmith for immediate repairs, to be delivered to +the purchaser next morning at the latest. On this understanding the +purchase money was paid down, and the [99] receipt, specifying that the +sum therein mentioned was for a donkey-cart, passed from the vendor to +the purchaser of the little vehicle. Next day at about noon the man +went with his donkey for the cart. Arrived there, his countryman had +the larger of the two carts brought out, and in pretended innocence +said to the purchaser of the donkey-cart, "Here is your cart." On this +a warm dispute arose, which was not abated by the presence and protests +of the two witnesses of the day before, who had hastily been summoned +by the victim to bear out his contention that it was the donkey-cart +and not the larger cart which had been examined, bargained for, +purchased, and promised to be delivered, the day before. + +The matter, on account of the sturdiness of the rascal's denials, had +to be referred to a court of law. The complainant engaged an able +solicitor, who laid the case before Mr. Mayne in all its transparent +simplicity and strength. The defendant, although he had, and as a +matter of fact could have, no means of invalidating the evidence of the +two witnesses, and above all of his receipt with his signature, relied +upon the fact that the cart which he [100] offered was much larger than +the one the complainant had actually bought, and that therefore +complainant would be the gainer by the transaction. Incredible as it +may sound, this view of the case commended itself to the magistrate, +who adopted it in giving his judgment against the complainant. In vain +did the solicitor protest that all the facts of the case were centred +in the desire and intention of the prosecutor to have specifically a +donkey-cart, which was abundantly proved by everything that had come +out in the proceedings. In vain also was his endeavour to show that a +man having only a donkey would be hopelessly embarrassed by having a +cart for it which was entirely intended for animals of much larger +size. The magistrate solemnly reiterated his decision, and wound up by +saying that the victim had lost his case through disregard of the legal +maxim caveat emptor--let the purchaser be careful. The rascally +defendant thus gained his case, and left the court in defiant triumph. + +The four preceding cases are thoroughly significant of the original +method in which thousands of cases were decided by this model +magistrate, to the great detriment, pecuniary, [101] social, and moral, +during more than ten years, of between 60,000 and 70,000 of the +population within the circle of his judicial authority. What shall we +think, therefore, of the fairness of Mr. Froude or his informants, who, +prompt and eager in imputing unworthy motives to gentlemen with +characters above reproach, have yet been so silent with regard to the +flagrant and frequent abuses of more than one of their countrymen by +whom the honour and fair fame of their nation were for years draggled +in the mire, and whose misdeeds were the theme of every tongue and +thousands of newspaper-articles in the West Indian Colonies? + + MR. ARTHUR CHILD, S.J.P. + +We now take San Fernando, the next most important magisterial district +after Port of Spain. At the time of Mr. Froude's visit, and for some +time before, the duties of the magistracy there were discharged by Mr. +Arthur Child, an "English barrister" who, of course, had possessed the +requisite qualification of being hopelessly briefless. For the ideal +justice which Mr. Froude would have Britons believe is meted out to the +weaker classes by their fellow-countrymen [102] in the West Indies, we +may refer the reader to the conduct of the above-named functionary on +the memorable occasion of the slaughter of the coolies under Governor +Freeling, in October, 1884. Mr. Child, as Stipendiary justice, had the +duty of reading the Riot Act to the immigrants, who were marching in +procession to the town of San Fernando, contrary, indeed, to the +Government proclamation which had forbidden it; and he it was who gave +the order to "fire," which resulted fatally to many of the unfortunate +devotees of Hosein. This mandate and its lethal consequences +anticipated by some minutes the similar but far more death-dealing +action of the Chief of Police, who was stationed at another post in the +vicinity of San Fernando. The day after the shooting down of a total +of more than one hundred immigrants, the protecting action of this +magistrate towards the weaker folk under his jurisdiction had a +striking exemplification, to which Mr. Froude is hereby made welcome. +Of course there was a general cry of horror throughout the Colony, and +especially in the San Fernando district, at the fatal outcome of the +proclamation, which had mentioned only "fine" and "imprisonment," [103] +but not Death, as the penalty of disregarding its prohibitions. For +nearly forty years, namely from their very first arrival in the Colony, +the East Indian immigrants had, according to specific agreement with +the Government, invariably been allowed the privilege of celebrating +their annual feast of Hosein, by walking in procession with their +Pagodas through the public roads and streets of the island, without +prohibition or hindrance of any kind from the authorities, save and +except in cases where rival estate pagodas were in danger of getting +into collision on the question of precedence. On such occasions the +police, who always attended the processions, usually gave the lead to +the pagodas of the labourers of estates according to their seniority as +immigrants. + +In no case up to 1884, after thirty odd years' inauguration in the +Colony, was the Hosein festival ever pretended to be any cause of +danger, actual or prospective, to any town or building. On the +contrary, business grew brisker and solidly improved at the approach of +the commemoration, owing to the very considerable sale of +parti-coloured paper, velvet, calico, and similar articles used in the +construction [104] of the pagodas. Governor Freeling, however, was, it +may be presumed, compelled to see danger in an institution which had +had nearly forty years' trial, without a single accident happening to +warrant any sudden interposition of the Government tending to its +suppression. At all events, the only action taken in 1884, in prospect +of their usual festival, was to notify the immigrants by proclamation, +and, it is said, also through authorized agents, that the details of +their fête were not to be conducted in the usual manner; and that their +appearance with pagodas in any public road or any town, without special +license from some competent local authority, would entail the penalty +of so many pounds fine, or imprisonment for so many months with hard +labour. The immigrants, to whom this unexpected change on the part of +the authorities was utterly incomprehensible, both petitioned and sent +deputations to the Governor, offering guarantees for the, if possible, +more secure celebration of the Hosein, and praying His Excellency to +cancel the prohibition as to the use of the roads, inasmuch as it +interfered with the essential part of their religious rite, which was +the "drowning," or casting into [105] the sea, of the pagodas. Having +utterly failed in their efforts with the Governor, the coolies resolved +to carry out their religious duty according to prescriptive forms, +accepting, at the same time, the responsibility in the way of fine or +imprisonment which they would thus inevitably incur. A rumour was also +current at the time that, pursuant to this resolution, the head men of +the various plantations had authorized a general subscription amongst +their countrymen, for meeting the contingency of fines in the police +courts. All these things were the current talk of the population of +San Fernando, in which town the leading immigrants, free as well as +indentured, had begun to raise funds for this purpose. + +All that the public, therefore, expected would have resulted from the +intended infringement of the Proclamation was an enormous influx of +money in the shape of fines into the Colonial Treasury; as no one +doubted the extreme facility which existed for ascertaining exactly, in +the case of persons registered and indentured to specific plantations, +the names and abodes of at least the chief offenders against the +proclamation. Accordingly, on the [106] occurrence of the bloody +catastrophe related above, every one felt that the mere persistence in +marching all unarmed towards the town, without actually attempting to +force their way into it, was exorbitantly visited upon the coolies by a +violent death or a life-long mutilation. This sentiment few were at +any pains to conceal; but as the poorer and more ignorant classes can +be handled with greater impunity than those who are intelligent and +have the means of self-defence, Mr. Justice Child, the very day after +the tragedy, and without waiting for the pro formâ official inquiry +into the tragedy in which he bore so conspicuous a part, actually +caused to be arrested, sat to try and sent to hard labour, persons whom +the police, in obedience to his positive injunctions, had reported to +him as having condemned the shooting down of the immigrants! Those who +were arrested and thus summarily punished had, of course, no means of +self-protection; and as the case is typical of others, as illustrative +of "justice-made law" applied to "subject races" in a British colony, +Mr. Froude is free to accept it, or not, in corroboration of his +unqualified panegyrics. + +[107] + + MR. GROVE HUMPHREY CHAPMAN, S.J.P. + +As Stipendary Magistrate of this self-same San Fernando district, Grove +Humphrey Chapman, Esquire (another English barrister), was the +immediate predecessor of Mr. Child. More humane than Mr. Mayne, his +colleague and contemporary in Port of Spain, this young magistrate +began his career fairly well. But he speedily fell a victim to the +influences immediately surrounding him in his new position. His head, +which later events proved never to have been naturally strong, began to +be turned by the unaccustomed deference which he met with on all hands, +from high and low, official and non-official, and he himself soon +consummated the addling of his brain by persistent practical revolts +against every maxim of the ancient Nazarenes in the matter of +potations. His decisions at the court, therefore, became perfect +emulations of those of Mr. Mayne, as well in perversity as in +harshness, and many in his case also were the appeals for relief made +to the head of the executive by the inhabitants of the district--but of +course in vain. Governor Irving was at this time in office, and the +unfortunate [108] victims of perverse judgments--occasionally +pronounced by this magistrate in his cups--were only poor Negroes, +coolies, or other persons whose worldly circumstances placed them in +the category of the "weaker" in the community. To these classes of +people that excellent ruler unhappily denied--we dare not say his +personal sympathy, but--the official protection which, even through +self-respect, he might have perfunctorily accorded. Bent, however, on +running through the whole gamut of extravagance, Mr. Chapman--by +interpreting official impunity into implying a direct license for the +wildest of his caprices--plunged headlong with ever accelerating speed, +till the deliverance of the Naparimas became the welcome consequence of +his own personal action. On one occasion it was credibly reported in +the Colony that this infatuated dispenser of British justice actually +stretched his official complaisance so far as to permit a lady not only +to be seated near him on the judicial bench, but also to take a +part--loud, boisterous and abusive--in the legal proceedings of the +day. Meanwhile, as the Governor could not be induced to interfere, +things went [109] on from bad to worse, till one day, as above hinted, +the unfortunate magistrate so publicly committed himself as to be +obliged to be borne for temporary refuge to the Lunatic Asylum, whence +he was clandestinely shipped from the Colony on "six months' leave of +absence," never more to resume his official station. + +The removal of two such magistrates as those whose careers we have so +briefly sketched out--Mr. Mayne having died, still a magistrate, since +Mr. Froude's departure--has afforded opportunity for the restoration of +British protecting influence. In the person of Mr. Llewellyn Lewis, as +magistrate of Port of Spain, this opportunity has been secured. He, it +is generally rumoured, strives to justify the expectations of fair play +and even-handed justice which are generally entertained concerning +Englishmen. It is, however, certain that with a Governor so prompt to +hear the cry of the poor as Sir William Robinson has proved himself to +be, and with a Chief Justice so vigilant, fearless, and painstaking as +Sir John Gorrie, the entire magistracy of the Colony must be so +beneficially influenced as to preclude [110] the frequency of appeals +being made to the higher courts, or it may be to the Executive, on +account of scandalously unjust and senseless decisions. + +So long, too, as the names of T. S. Warner, Captain Larcom, and F. H. +Hamblin abide in the grateful remembrance of the entire population, as +ideally upright, just, and impartial dispensers of justice, each in his +own jurisdiction, we can only sigh at the temporal dispensation which +renders practicable the appointment and retention in office of such +administrators of the Law as were Mr. Mayne and Mr. Chapman. The +widespread and irreparable mischiefs wrought by these men still affect +disastrously many an unfortunate household; and the execration by the +weaker in the community of their memory, particularly that of Robert +Dawson Mayne, is only a fitting retribution for their abuse of power. + +NOTES + +85. *A West Indian official superstition professes to believe that a +British barrister must make an exceptionally good colonial S.J.P., +seeing that he is ignorant of everything, save general English law, +that would qualify him for the post! In this, to acquit oneself +tolerably, some acquaintance with the language, customs, and habits of +thought of the population is everywhere else held to be of prime +importance,--native conscientiousness and honesty of purpose being +definitively presupposed. + + + +BOOK III: SOCIAL REVOLUTION + +[113] Never was the Knight of La Mancha more convinced of his imaginary +mission to redress the wrongs of the world than Mr. James Anthony +Froude seems to be of his ability to alter the course of events, +especially those bearing on the destinies of the Negro in the British +West Indies. The doctrinaire style of his utterances, his sublime +indifference as to what Negro opinion and feelings may be, on account +of his revelations, are uniquely charming. In that portion of his book +headed "Social Revolution" our author, with that mixture of frankness +and cynicism which is so dear to the soul of the British esprit fort of +to-day, has challenged a comparison between British Colonial policy on +the [114] one hand, and the Colonial policy of France and Spain on the +other. This he does with an evident recklessness that his approval of +Spain and France involves a definite condemnation of his own country. +However, let us hear him:-- + +"The English West Indies, like other parts of the world, are going +through a silent revolution. Elsewhere the revolution, as we hope, is +a transition state, a new birth; a passing away of what is old and worn +out, that a fresh and healthier order may rise in its place. In the +West Indies the most sanguine of mortals will find it difficult to +entertain any such hope at all." + +As Mr. Froude is speaking dogmatically here of his, or rather our, West +Indies, let us hear him as he proceeds:-- + +"We have been a ruling power there for two hundred and fifty years; the +whites whom we planted as our representatives are drifting into ruin, +and they regard England and England's policy as the principal cause of +it. The blacks whom, in a fit of virtuous benevolence, we emancipated, +do not feel particularly obliged to us. They think, if they think at +all, that they were [115] ill-treated originally, and have received no +more than was due to them." + +Thus far. Now, as to "the whites whom we planted as our +representatives," and who, Mr. Froude avers, are drifting into ruin, we +confess to a total ignorance of their whereabouts in these islands in +this jubilee year of Negro Emancipation. Of the representatives of +Britain immediately before and after Emancipation we happen to know +something, which, on the testimony of Englishmen, Mr. Froude will be +made quite welcome to before our task is ended. With respect to Mr. +Froude's statement as to the ingratitude of the emancipated Blacks, if +it is aimed at the slaves who were actually set free, it is utterly +untrue; for no class of persons, in their humble and artless way, are +more attached to the Queen's majesty, whom they regard as incarnating +in her gracious person the benevolence which Mr. Froude so jauntily +scoffs at. But if our censor's remark under this head is intended for +the present generation of Blacks, it is a pure and simple absurdity. +What are we Negroes of the present day to be grateful for to the US, +personified by Mr. Froude and the Colonial [116] Office exportations? +We really believe, from what we know of Englishmen, that very few +indeed would regard Mr. Froude's reproach otherwise than as a palpable +adding of insult to injury. Obliged to "us," indeed! Why, Mr. Froude, +who speaks of us as dogs and horses, suggests that the same kindliness +of treatment that secures the attachment of those noble brutes would +have the same result in our case. With the same consistency that marks +his utterances throughout his book, he tells his readers "that there is +no original or congenital difference between the capacity of the White +and the Negro races." He adds, too, significantly: "With the same +chances and with the same treatment, I believe that distinguished men +would be produced equally from both races." After this truthful +testimony, which Pelion upon Ossa of evidence has confirmed, does Mr. +Froude, in the fatuity of his skin-pride, believe that educated men, +worthy of the name, would be otherwise than resentful, if not +disgusted, at being shunted out of bread in their own native land, +which their parents' labours and taxes have made desirable, in order to +afford room to blockheads, vulgarians, [117] or worse, imported from +beyond the seas? Does Mr. Froude's scorn of the Negroes' skin extend, +inconsistently on his part, to their intelligence and feelings also? +And if so, what has the Negro to care--if let alone and not wantonly +thwarted in his aspirations? It sounds queer, not to say unnatural and +scandalous, that Englishmen should in these days of light be the +champions of injustice towards their fellow-subjects, not for any +intellectual or moral disqualification, but on the simple account of +the darker skin of those who are to be assailed and thwarted in their +life's career and aspirations. Really, are we to be grateful that the +colour difference should be made the basis and justification of the +dastardly denials of justice, social, intellectual, and moral, which +have characterized the régime of those who Mr. Froude boasts were left +to be the representatives of Britain's morality and fair play? Are the +Negroes under the French flag not intensely French? Are the Negroes +under the Spanish flag not intensely Spanish? Wherefore are they so? +It is because the French and Spanish nations, who are neither of them +inferior in origin or the [118] nobility of the part they have each +played on the historic stage, have had the dignity and sense to +understand the lowness of moral and intellectual consciousness implied +in the subordination of questions of an imperial nature to the +slaveholder's anxiety about the hue of those who are to be benefited or +not in the long run. By Spain and France every loyal and law-abiding +subject of the Mother Country has been a citizen deemed worthy all the +rights, immunities, and privileges flowing from good and creditable +citizenship. Those meriting such distinction were taken into the bosom +of the society which their qualifications recommended them to share, +and no office under the Government has been thought too good or too +elevated for men of their stamp. No wonder, then, that Mr. Froude is +silent regarding the scores of brilliant coloured officials who adorn +the civil service of France and Spain, and whose appointment, in +contrast with what has usually been the case in British Colonies, +reflects an abiding lustre on those countries, and establishes their +right to a foremost place among nations. + +Mr. Froude, in speaking of Chief Justice [119] Reeves, ventures upon a +smart truism which we can discuss for him, but of course not in the +sense in which he has meant it. "Exceptions," our author remarks, "are +supposed proverbially to prove nothing, or to prove the very opposite +of what they appear to prove. When a particular phenomenon occurs +rarely, the probabilities are strong against the recurrence of it." +Now, is it in ignorance, or through disingenuousness, that Mr. Froude +has penned this argument regarding exceptions? Surely, in the vast +area of American life, it is not possible that he could see Frederick +Douglass alone out of the cluster of prominent Black Americans who are +doing the work of their country so worthily and so well in every +official department. Anyhow, Mr. Froude's history of the Emancipation +may here be amended for him by a reminder that, in the British +Colonies, it was not Whites as masters, and Blacks as slaves, who were +affected by that momentous measure. In fact, 1838 found in the British +Colonies very nearly as many Negro and Mulatto slave-owners as there +were white. Well then, these black and yellow planters received their +quota, it may be presumed, of [120] the £20,000,000 sterling indemnity. +They were part and parcel of the proprietary body in the Colonies, and +had to meet the crisis like the rest. They were very wealthy, some of +these Ethiopic accomplices of the oppressors of their own race. Their +sons and daughters were sent, like the white planter's children, across +the Atlantic for a European education. These young folk returned to +their various native Colonies as lawyers and doctors. Many of them +were also wealthy planters. The daughters, of course, became in time +the mothers of the new generation of prominent inhabitants. Now, in +America all this was different. No "nigger," however alabaster fair, +was ever allowed the privileges of common citizenship, let alone the +right to hold property in others. If possessed by a weakness to pass +for white men, as very many of them could easily have contrived to do, +woe unto the poor impostors! They were hunted down from city to city +as few felons would be, and finally done to death--"serve them right!" +being the grim commentary regarding their fate for having sought to +usurp the ineffable privilege of whitemanship! All this, Mr. Froude, +was [121] the rule, the practice, in America, with regard to persons of +colour up to twenty-five years ago. Now, sir, what is the phenomenon +which strikes your vision in that mighty Republic to-day, with regard +to those self-same despised, discountenanced, persecuted and harried +descendants of Ham? We shall tell you of the change that has taken +place in their condition, and also some of the reasons of that +beneficent revolution. + +The Proclamation of Emancipation on January 1st, 1863, was, by +President Lincoln, frankly admitted to have been a war necessity. No +abstract principle of justice or of morals was of primary consideration +in the matter. The saving of the Union at any cost,--that is, the +stern political emergency forced forth the document which was to be the +social salvation of every descendant of Ham in the United States of +America. Close upon the heels of their emancipation, the +enfranchisement of the Negroes was pushed forward by the thorough-going +American statesmen. They had no sentimentality to defer to. The logic +of events--the fact not only of the coloured race being freedmen, but +also of their having been effective [122] comrades on the fields of +battle, where the blood of eager thousands of them had flowed on the +Union side, pointed out too plainly that men with such claims should +also be partners in the resulting triumph. + +Mr. Froude, being so deferential to skin prejudice, will doubtless find +it strange that such a measure as the Civil Rights Bill should have +passed a Congress of Americans. Assuredly with the feeling against the +coloured race which custom and law had engrafted into the very nature +of the vast majority, this was a tremendous call to make on the +national susceptibilities. But it has been exactly this that has +brought out into such vivid contrast the conduct of the British +statesman, loudly professing to be unprejudiced as to colour, and fair +and humane, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the dealings of +the politicians of America, who had, as a matter of fact, sucked in +aversion and contempt towards the Negro together with their mother's +milk. Of course no sane being could expect that feelings so deeply +ingrained and nourished could be rooted out by logic or by any +legislative enactment. But, indeed, it is sublimely creditable to +[123] the American Government that, whatever might be the personal and +private sentiments of its individual members as regards race, palmam +ferat qui meruit--"let him bear the palm who has deserved it"--has been +their motto in dealing generally with the claims of their Ethiopic +fellow-citizens. Hence it is that in only twenty-five years America +can show Negro public officers as thick as blackberries, while Mr. +Froude can mention only Mr. Justice Reeves in FIFTY years as a sample +of the "exceptional" progress under British auspices of a man of +African descent! Verily, if in fifty long years British policy can +recognize only one single exception in a race between which and the +white race there is no original or congenital difference of capacity, +the inference must be that British policy has been not only +systematically, but also too successfully, hostile to the advancement +of the Ethiopians subject thereto; while the "fair field and no favour" +management of the strong-minded Americans has, by its results, +confirmed the culpability of the English policy in its relation to +"subject races." + +The very suggestive section of "the English [124] in the West Indies," +from which we have already given extracts, and which bears the title +"Social Revolution," thus proceeds:-- + +"But it does not follow that what can be done eventually can be done +immediately, and the gulf which divides the colours is no arbitrary +prejudice, but has been opened by the centuries of training and +discipline which have given us the start in the race" (p. 125 [Froude]). + +The reference in the opening clause of the above citation, as to what +is eventually possible not being immediately feasible, is to the +elevation of Blacks to high official posts, such as those occupied by +Judge Reeves in Barbados, and by Mr. F. Douglass in the United States. +We have already disposed by anticipation of the above contention of Mr. +Froude's, by showing that in only twenty-five years America has found +hundreds of eminent Blacks to fill high posts under her government. +Our author's futile mixture of Judge Reeves' exceptional case with that +of Fred. Douglass, which he cunningly singles out from among so many in +the United States, is nothing but a subterfuge, of the same queer and +flimsy description with which the literature of the cause now +championed [125] by his eloquence has made the world only too familiar. +What can Mr. Froude conceive any sane man should see in common between +the action of British and of American statesmanship in the matter now +under discussion? If his utterance on this point is that of a British +spokesman, let him abide by his own verdict against his own case, as +embodied in the words, "the gulf which divides the two COLOURS is no +arbitrary prejudice," which, coupled with his contention that the +elevation of the Blacks is not immediately feasible, discloses the +wideness of divergence between British and American political opinion +on this identical subject. + +Mr. Froude is pathetically eloquent on the colour question. He tells +of the wide gulf between the two colours--we suppose it is as wide as +exists between his white horse and his black horse. Seriously, +however, does not this kind of talk savour only too much of the +slave-pen and the auction-block of the rice-swamp and the cotton-field; +of the sugar-plantation and the driver's lash? In the United States +alone, among all the slave-holding Powers, was the difference of race +and colour invoked openly and boldly to justify all the enormities that +[126] were the natural accompaniments of those "institutions" of the +Past. But is Mr. Froude serious in invoking the ostracizing of +innocent, loyal, and meritorious British subjects on account of their +mere colour? Physical slavery--which was no crime per se, Mr. Froude +tells us--had at least overwhelming brute power, and that silent, +passive force which is even more potential as an auxiliary, viz., +unenlightened public opinion, whose neutrality is too often a positive +support to the empire of wrong. + +But has Mr. Froude, in his present wild propaganda on behalf of +political and, therefore, of social repression, anything analogous to +those two above-specified auxiliaries to rely on? We trow not. Then +why this frantic bluster and shouting forth of indiscreet aspirations +on be half of a minority to whom accomplished facts, when not agreeable +to or manipulated by themselves, are a perpetual grievance, generating +life-long impotent protestations? Presumably there are possibilities +the thoughts of which fascinate our author and his congeners in this, +to our mind, vain campaign in the cause of social retrogression. But, +be the incentives what they may, it might not be amiss on our [127] +part to suggest to those impelled by them that the ignoring of Negro +opinion in their calculations, though not only possible but easily +practised fifty years ago, is a portentous blunder at the present time. +Verbum sapienti. + +Mr. Froude must see that he has set about his Negro-repression campaign +in too blundering a fashion. He evidently expects to be able to throw +dust into the eyes of the intelligent world, juggler-wise, through the +agency of the mighty pronoun US, as representing the entire Anglo-Saxon +race, in his advocacy of the now scarcely intelligible pretensions of a +little coterie of Her Majesty's subjects in the West Indies. These +gentry are hostile, he urges, to the presence of progressive Negroes on +the soil of the tropics! Yet are these self-same Negroes not only +natives, but active improvers and embellishers of that very soil. We +cannot help concluding that this impotent grudge has sprung out of the +additional fact that these identical Negroes constitute also a living +refutation of the sinister predictions ventured upon generally against +their race, with frantic recklessness, even within the last three +decades, by affrighted slave-holders, of whose ravings Mr. Froude's +book is only a [128] diluted echo, out of season and outrageous to the +conscience of modern civilization. + +It is patent, then, that the matters which Mr. Froude has sought to +force up to the dignity of genetic rivalship, has nothing of that +importance about it. His US, between whom and the Negro subjects of +Great Britain the gulf of colour lies, comprises, as he himself owns, +an outnumbered and, as we hope to prove later on, a not over-creditable +little clique of Anglo-Saxon lineage. The real US who have started +ahead of the Negroes, "through the training and discipline of +centuries," are assuredly not anything like "represented" by the few +pretentious incapables who, instead of conquering predominance, as they +who deserve it always do, like men, are whimpering like babies after +dearly coveted but utterly unattainable enjoyments--to be had at the +expense of the interests of the Negroes whom they, rather amusingly, +affect to despise. When Mr. Froude shall have become able to present +for the world's contemplation a question respecting which the +Anglo-Saxon family, in its grand world-wide predominance, and the +African family, in its yet feeble, albeit promising, incipience of +self-adjustment, shall [129] actually be competitors, then, and only +then, will it be time to accept the outlook as serious. But when, as +in the present case, he invokes the whole prestige of the Anglo-Saxon +race in favour of the untenable pretensions of a few blasés of that +race, and that to the social and political detriment of tens of +thousands of black fellow-subjects, it is high time that the common +sense of civilization should laugh him out of court. The US who are +flourishing, or pining, as the case may be, in the British West +Indies--by favour of the Colonial Office on the former hypothesis, or, +on the second, through the misdirection of their own faculties--do not, +and, in the very nature of things, cannot in any race take the lead of +any set of men endowed with virile attributes, the conditions of the +contest being on all sides identical. + +Pass we onward to extract and comment on other passages in this very +engaging section of Mr. Froude's book. On the same page (125) he +says:-- + +"The African Blacks have been free enough for thousands, perhaps for +ten thousands of years, and it has been the absence of restraint which +has prevented them from becoming civilized." + +[130] All this, perhaps, is quite true, and, in the absence of positive +evidence to the contrary of our author's dogmatic assertions, we save +time by allowing him all the benefit he can derive from whatever weight +they might carry. + +"Generation has followed generation, and the children are as like their +fathers as the successive generations of apes." + +To this we can have nothing to object; especially in view of what the +writer goes on to say, and that on his own side of the hedge--somewhat +qualified though his admission may be:--"The whites, it is likely +enough, succeeded one another with the same similarity for a series of +ages." Our speculator grows profoundly philosophic here; and in this +mood thus entertains his readers in a strain which, though deep, we +shall strive to find clear:-- + +"It is now supposed that human race has been on the planet for a +hundred thousand years at least; and the first traces of civilization +cannot be thrown back at furthest beyond six thousand. During all this +time mankind went on treading in the same steps, century after century +making no more advance than the birds and beasts." + +[131] In all this there is nothing that can usefully be taken exception +to; for speculation and conjecture, if plausible and attractive, are +free to revel whenever written documents and the unmistakable +indications of the earth's crust are both entirely at fault. Warming +up with his theme, Mr. Froude gets somewhat ambiguous in the very next +sentence. Says he:-- + +"In Egypt or India or one knows not where, accident or natural +development quickened into life our moral and intellectual faculties; +and these faculties have grown into what we now experience, not in the +freedom in which the modern takes delight, but under the sharp rule of +the strong over the weak, of the wise over the unwise." + +Our author, as we see, begins his above quoted deliverance quite at a +loss with regard to the agency to which the incipience, growth, and +fructification of man's faculties should be attributed. "Accident," +"natural development," he suggests, quickened the human faculties into +the progressive achievements which they have accomplished. But then, +wherefore is this writer so forcible, so confident in his prophecies +regarding Negroes and their future temporal condition [132] and +proceedings, since it is "accident," and "accident" only, that must +determine their fulfilment? Has he so securely bound the fickle +divinity to his service as to be certain of its agency in the +realization of his forecasts? And if so, where then would be the +fortuitousness that is the very essence of occurrences that glide, +undesigned, unexpected, unforeseen, into the domain of Fact, and become +material for History? So far as we feel capable of intelligently +meditating on questions of this inscrutable nature, we are forced to +conclude that since "natural development" could be so regular, so +continuous, and withal so efficient, in the production of the +marvellous results that we daily contemplate, there must be existent +and in operation--as, for instance, in the case of the uniformity +characterizing for ages successive generations of mankind, as above +adduced by our philosopher himself--some controlling LAW, according and +subject to which no check has marred the harmonious progression, or +prevented the consummations that have crowned the normal exercise of +human energy, intellectual as well as physical. + +The sharp rule of the strong over the [133] weak, is the first clause +of the Carlylean-sounding phrase which embodies the requisite +conditions for satisfactory human development. The terms expressive of +these conditions, however, while certainly suggesting and embracing the +beneficent, elevating influence and discipline of European +civilization, such as we know and appreciate it, do not by any means +exclude the domination of Mr. Legree or any other typical man-monster, +whose power over his fellow-creatures is at once a calamity to the +victims and a disgrace to the community tolerating not only its +exercise, but the very possibility of its existence. The sharp rule of +"the wise over the unwise," is the closing section of the +recommendation to ensure man's effective development. Not even savages +hesitate to defer in all their important designs to the sought-for +guidance of superior judgments. But in the case of us West Indian +Blacks, to whom Mr. Froude's doctrine here has a special reference, is +it suggested by him that the bidders for predominance over us on the +purely epidermal, the white skin, ground, are ipso facto the +monopolists of directing wisdom? It surely cannot be so; for Mr. +Froude's own chapters regarding both the [134] nomination by Downing +Street of future Colonial office-holders and the disorganized mental +and moral condition of the indigenous representatives--as he calls +them!--of his country in these climes, preclude the possibility that +the reference regarding the wise can be to them. Now since this is so, +we really cannot see why the pains should have been taken to indite the +above truism, to the truth whereof, under every normal or legitimate +circumstance, the veriest barbarian, by spontaneously resorting to and +cheerfully abiding by it, is among the first to secure practical effect. + +"Our own Anglo-Saxon race," continues our author, "has been capable of +self-government only after a thousand years of civil and spiritual +authority. European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by higher +instincts, may shorten the probation period of the negro. Individual +blacks of exceptional quality, like Frederick Douglass in America, or +the Chief Justice of Barbados, will avail themselves of opportunities +to rise, and the freest opportunity OUGHT TO BE offered them." Here we +are reminded of the dogma laid down by a certain [135] class of +ethnologists, to the effect that intellectuality, when displayed by a +person of mixed European and African blood, must always be assigned to +the European side of the parentage; and in the foregoing citation our +author speaks of two personages undoubtedly belonging to the class +embraced in the above dogma. Three specific objections may, therefore, +be urged against the statements which we have indicated in the above +quotation. First and foremost, neither Judge Reeves nor Mr. Fred +Douglass is a black man, as Mr. Froude inaccurately represents each of +them to be. The former is of mixed blood, to what degree we are not +adepts enough to determine; and the latter, if his portrait and those +who have personally seen him mislead us not, is a decidedly fair man. + +We, of course, do not for a moment imagine that either of those eminent +descendants of Ham cares a jot about the settlement of this question, +which doubtless would appear very trivial to both. But as our author's +crusade is against the Negro--by which we understand the undiluted +African descendant, the pure Negro, as he singularly describes Chief +Justice Reeves--our anxiety is to show that there exist, both [136] in +the West Indies and in the United States, scores of genuine black men +to whom neither of these two distinguished patriots would, for one +instant, hesitate to concede any claim to equality in intellectual and +social excellence. The second exception which we take is, as we have +already shown in a previous page, to the persistent lugging in of +America by Mr. Froude, doubtless to keep his political countrymen in +countenance with regard to the Negro question. We have already pointed +out the futility of this proceeding on our author's part, and suggested +how damaging it might prove to the cause he is striving to uphold. +"Blacks of exceptional quality," like the two gentlemen he has +specially mentioned, "will avail themselves of opportunities to rise." +Most certainly they will, Mr. Froude--but, for the present, only in +America, where those opportunities are really free and open to all. +There no parasitical non-workers are to be found, eager to eat bread, +but in the sweat of other people's brows; no impecunious title-bearers; +no importunate bores, nor other similar characters whom the Government +there would regard it as their duty "to provide for"--by quartering +them on the revenues [137] of Colonial dependencies. But in the +British Crown--or rather "Anglo-West Indian"--governed Colonies, has it +ever been, can it ever be, thus ordered? Our author's description of +the exigencies that compel injustice to be done in order to requite, or +perhaps to secure, Parliamentary support, coupled with his account of +the bitter animus against the coloured race that rankles in the bosom +of his "Englishmen in the West Indies," sufficiently proves the utter +hypocrisy of his recommendation, that the freest opportunities should +be offered to Blacks of the said exceptional order. The very wording +of Mr. Froude's recommendation is disingenuous. It is one stone sped +at two birds, and which, most naturally, has missed them both. + +Mr. Froude knew perfectly well that, twenty-five years before he wrote +his book, America had thrown open the way to public advancement to the +Blacks, as it had been previously free to Whites alone. His use of +"should be offered," instead of "are offered," betrays his +consciousness that, at the time he was writing, the offering of any +opportunities of the kind he suggests was a thing still to be desired +under British jurisdiction. The third objection [138] which we shall +take to Mr. Froude's bracketing of the cases of Mr. Fred Douglass and +of Judge Reeves together, is that, when closely examined, the two cases +can be distinctly seen to be not in any way parallel. The applause +which our author indirectly bids for on behalf of British Colonial +liberality in the instance of Mr. Reeves would be the grossest mockery, +if accorded in any sense other than we shall proceed to show. Fred +Douglass was born and bred a slave in one of the Southern States of the +Union, and regained his freedom by flight from bondage, a grown man, +and, of course, under the circumstances, solitary and destitute. He +reached the North at a period when the prejudice of the Whites against +men of his race was so rampant as to constitute a positive mania. + +The stern and cruelly logical doctrine, that a Negro had no rights +which white men were bound to respect, was in full blast and practical +exemplification. Yet amidst it all, and despite of it all, this gifted +fugitive conquered his way into the Temple of Knowledge, and became +eminent as an orator, a writer, and a lecturer on political and general +subjects. Hailed abroad [139] as a prodigy, and received with +acclamation into the brotherhood of intelligence, abstract justice and +moral congruity demanded that such a man should no longer be subject to +the shame and abasement of social, legal, and political proscription. +The land of his birth proved herself equal to this imperative call of +civilized Duty, regardless of customs and the laws, written as well as +unwritten, which had doomed to life-long degradation every member of +the progeny of Ham. Recognizing in the erewhile bondman a born leader +of men, America, with the unflinching directness that has marked her +course, whether in good or in evil, responded with spontaneous loyalty +to the inspiration of her highest instincts. Shamed into compunction +and remorse at the solid fame and general sympathy secured for himself +by a son of her soil, whom, in the wantonness of pride and power, she +had denied all fostering care (not, indeed, for any conscious offending +on his part, but by reason of a natural peculiarity which she had +decreed penal), America, like a repentant mother, stooped from her +august seat, and giving with enthusiasm both hands to the outcast, she +helped him to stand forward and erect, [140] in the dignity of +untrammeled manhood, making him, at the same time, welcome to a place +of honour amongst the most gifted, the worthiest and most favoured of +her children. + +Chief Justice Reeves, on the other hand, did not enter the world, as +Douglass had done, heir to a lot of intellectual darkness and legalized +social and political proscription. Associated from adolescence with S. +J. Prescod, the greatest leader of popular opinion whom Barbados has +yet produced, Mr. Reeves possessed in his nature the material to +assimilate and reflect in his own principles and conduct the salient +characteristics of his distinguished Mentor. Arrived in England to +study law, he had there the privilege of the personal acquaintance of +Lord Brougham, then one of the Nestors of the great Emancipation +conflict. On returning to his native island, which he did immediately +after his call to the bar, Mr. Reeves sprung at once into the foremost +place, and retained his precedence till his labours and aspirations +were crowned by his obtaining the highest judicial post in that Colony. +For long years before becoming Chief Justice, Mr. Reeves had conquered +for himself the respect and confidence [141] of all Barbadians--even +including the ultra exclusive "Anglo-West-Indians" of Mr. Froude--by +the manful constitutional stand which, sacrificing official place, he +had successfully made against the threatened abrogation of the Charter +of the Colony, which every class and colour of natives cherish and +revere as a most precious, almost sacred, inheritance. The successful +champion of their menaced liberties found clustering around him the +grateful hearts of all his countrymen, who, in their hour of dread at +the danger of their time-honoured constitution, had clung in despair to +him as the only leader capable of heading the struggle and leading the +people, by wise and constitutional guidance, to the victory which they +desired but could not achieve for themselves. + +Sir William Robinson, who was sent out as pacificator, saw and took in +at a glance the whole significance of the condition of affairs, +especially in their relation to Mr. Reeves, and vice versâ. With the +unrivalled pre-eminence and predominant personal influence of the +latter, the Colonial Office had possessed more than ample means of +being perfectly familiar. What, then, could be more natural and +consonant with [142] sound policy than that the then acknowledged, but +officially unattached, head of the people (being an eminent lawyer), +should, on the occurrence of a vacancy in the highest juridical post, +be appointed to co-operate with the supreme head of the Executive? Mr. +Reeves was already the chief of the legal body of the Colony; his +appointment, therefore, as Chief Justice amounted to nothing more than +an official ratification of an accomplished and unalterable fact. Of +course, it was no fault of England's that the eminent culture, +political influence, and unapproached legal status of Mr. Reeves should +have coincided exactly with her political requirements at that crisis, +nor yet that she should have utilized a coincidence which had the +double advantage of securing the permanent services, whilst realizing +at the same time the life's aspiration, of a distinguished British +subject. But that Mr. Froude should be dinning in our ears this case +of benefited self-interest, gaining the amplest reciprocity, both as to +service and serviceableness, with the disinterested spontaneity of +America's elevation of Mr. Douglass, is but another proof of the +obliquity of the moral medium through [143] which he is wont to survey +mankind and their concerns. + +The distinction between the two marvellous careers which we have been +discussing demands, as it is susceptible of, still sharper +accentuation. In the final success of Reeves, it is the man himself +who confronts one in the unique transcendency and victoriousness of +personal merit. On the other hand, a million times the personal merit +of Reeves combined with his own could have availed Douglass absolutely +nothing in the United States, legal and social proscript that he was, +with public opinion generally on the side of the laws and usages +against him. The very little countries of the world are proverbial for +the production of very great men. But, on the other hand, narrowness +of space favours the concentration and coherence of the adverse forces +that might impede, if they fail of utterly thwarting, the success which +may happen to be grudged by those possessing the will and the power for +its obstruction. In Barbados, so far as we have heard, read, and seen +ourselves of the social ins and outs of that little sister-colony, the +operation of the above mentioned [144] influences has been, may still +be, to a certain extent, distinctly appreciable. Although in English +jurisprudence there is no law ordaining the proscription, on the ground +of race or colour, of any eligible candidate for social or political +advancement, yet is it notorious that the ethics and practices of the +"Anglo-West Indians"--who, our author has dared to say, represent the +higher type of Englishmen--have, throughout successive generations, +effectually and of course detrimentally operated, as though by a +positive Medo-Persian edict, in a proscriptive sense. It therefore +demanded extraordinary toughness of constitutional fibre, moral, +mental, and, let us add, physical too, to overcome the obstacles +opposed to the progress of merit, too often by persons in intelligence +below contempt, but, in prosperity and accepted pretension, formidable +indeed to fight against and overcome. We shudder to think of the petty +cabals, the underbred indignities, direct and indirect, which the +present eminent Judge had to watch against, to brush aside, to smile +at, in course of his epic strides towards the highest local pinnacle of +his profession. But [145] with him, as Time has shown, it was all sure +and safe. + +Providence had endowed him with the powers and temperament that break +down, when opportunity offers, every barrier to the progress of the +gifted and strong and brave. That opportunity, in his particular case, +offered itself in the Confederation crisis. Distracted and helpless +"Anglo-West Indians" thronged to him in imploring crowds, praying that +their beloved Charter should be saved by the exertion of his +incomparable abilities. Save and except Dr. Carrington, there was not +a single member of the dominant section in Barbados whom it would not +be absurd to name even as a near second to him whom all hailed as the +Champion of their Liberties. In the contest to be waged the victory +was not, as it never once has been, reserved to the SKIN or pedigree of +the combatants. The above two matters, which in the eyes of the ruling +"Bims" had, throughout long decades of undisturbed security, been +placed before and above all possible considerations, gravitated down to +their inherent insignificance when Intellect and Worth were destined to +fight out the issue. Mr. [146] Reeves, whose possession of the +essential qualifications was admittedly greater than that of every +colleague, stood, therefore, in unquestioned supremacy, lord of the +political situation, with the result above stated. + +To what we have already pointed out regarding the absolute +impossibility of such an opportunity ever presenting itself in America +to Mr. Douglass, in a political sense, we may now add that, whereas, in +Barbados, for the intellectual equipment needed at the crisis, Mr. +Reeves stood quite alone, there could, in the bosom of the Union, even +in respect of the gifts in which Mr. Douglass was most brilliant, be no +"walking over the course" by him. It was in the country and time of +Bancroft, Irving, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, Bryant, Motley, Henry +Clay, Dan Webster, and others of the laureled phalanx which has added +so great and imperishable a lustre to the literature of the English +tongue. + +We proceed here another step, and take up a fresh deliverance of our +author's in reference to the granting of the franchise to the black +population of these Colonies. "It is," says Mr. James Anthony Froude, +who is just as prophetic [147] as his prototypes, the slave-owners of +the last half-century, "it is as certain as anything future can be, +that if we give the negroes as a body the political privileges which we +claim for ourselves, they will use them only to their own injury." The +forepart of the above citation reads very much as if its author wrote +it on the principle of raising a ghost for the mere purpose of laying +it. What visionary, what dreamer of impossible dreams, has ever asked +for the Negroes as a body the same political privileges which are +claimed for themselves by Mr. Froude and others of his countrymen, who +are presumably capable of exercising them? No one in the West Indies +has ever done so silly a thing as to ask for the Negroes as a body that +which has not, as everybody knows, and never will be, conceded to the +people of Great Britain as a body. The demand for Reform in the Crown +Colonies--a demand which our author deliberately misrepresents--is made +neither by nor for the Negro, Mulatto, White, Chinese, nor East Indian. +It is a petition put forward by prominent responsible colonists--the +majority of whom are Whites, and mostly Britons besides. + +[148] Their prayer, in which the whole population in these Colonies +most heartily join, is simply and most reasonably that we, the said +Colonies, being an integral portion of the British Empire, and having, +in intelligence and every form of civilized progress, outgrown the +stage of political tutelage, should be accorded some measure of +emancipation therefrom. And thereby we--White, Black, Mulatto, and all +other inhabitants and tax-payers--shall be able to protect ourselves +against the self-seeking and bold indifference to our interests which +seem to be the most cherished expression of our rulers' official +existence. It may be possible (for he has attempted it), that our new +instructor in Colonial ethics and politics, under the impulsion of +skin-superiority, and also of confidence in the probable success of +experiments successfully tried fifty years before, does really believe +in the sensibleness of separating COLOURS, and representing the wearers +of them as being generally antagonistic to one another in Her Majesty's +West Indian Dominions. How is it then, we may be permitted to ask Mr. +Froude, that no complaint of the sort formulated by him as against the +Blacks has ever been put [149] forward by the thousands of Englishmen, +Scotchmen, Irishmen, and other Europeans who are permanent inhabitants, +proprietors, and tax-payers of these Colonies? The reason is that +Anglo-West Indianism, or rather Colonialism, is the creed of a few +residents sharply divisible into two classes in the West Indies. +Labouring conjointly under race-madness, the first believes that, as +being of the Anglo-Saxon race, they have a right to crow and dominate +in whatever land they chance to find themselves, though in their own +country they or their forefathers had had to be very dumb dogs indeed. +The Colonial Office has for a long time been responsible for the +presence in superior posts of highly salaried gentry of this category, +who have delighted in showing themselves off as the unquestionable +masters of those who supply them with the pay that gives them the +livelihood and position they so ungratefully requite. These fortunate +folk, Mr. Froude avers, are likely to leave our shores in a huff, +bearing off with them the civilizing influences which their presence so +surely guarantees. Go tell to the marines that the seed of Israel +flourishing in the borders of [150] Misraim will abandon their +flourishing district of Goshen through sensitiveness on account of the +idolatry of the devotees of Isis and Osiris! + +The second and less placable class of "Englishmen in the West Indies," +whose final departure our author would have us to believe would +complete the catastrophe to progress in the British Antilles, is very +impalpable indeed. We cannot feel them. We have failed to even see +them. True, Mr. Froude scouts on their behalf the bare notion of their +condescending to meet, on anything like equality, us, whom he and they +pretend (rather anachronistically, at least) to have been their former +slaves, or servants. But where, in the name of Heaven, where are these +sortis de la cuisse de Jupiter, Mr. Froude? If they are invisible, +mourning in impenetrable seclusion over the impossibility of having, as +their fathers had before them, the luxury of living at the Negroes' +expense, shall we Negroes who are in the sunshine of heaven, prepared +to work and win our way, be anywise troubled in our Jubilee by the +drivelling ineptitude which insanely reminds us of the miseries of +those who went before us? We have thus arrived at the cardinal, [151] +essential misrepresentation, out of scores which compose "The Bow of +Ulysses," and upon which its phrases mainly hinge. Semper +eadem--"Always the same"--has been the proud motto of the mightiest +hierarchy that has controlled human action and shaped the destinies of +mankind, no less in material than in ghostly concerns. Yet is a vast +and very beneficial change, due to the imperious spirit of the times, +manifest in the Roman Church. No longer do the stake, the sword, and +the dismal horrors of the interdict figure as instruments for assuring +conformity and submission to her dogmas. She is now content to rest +her claims on herbeneficence in the past, as attested by noble and +imperishable memorials of her solicitude for the poor and the ignorant, +and in proclaiming the gospel without those ghastly coercives to its +acceptance. Surely such a change, however unpalatable to those who +have been compelled to make it, is most welcome to the outside world at +large. "Always the same" is also, or should be, the device of the +discredited herd whose spokesman Mr. Froude is so proud to be. In +nothing has their historical character, as shown in the published +literature of their [152] cause up to 1838, exhibited any sign of +amelioration. It cannot be affected by the spirit and the lessons of +the times. Mendacity and a sort of judicial blindness seem to be the +two most salient characteristics by which are to be distinguished these +implacable foes and would-be robbers of human rights and liberty. But, +gracious heavens! what can tempt mortals to incur this weight of +infamy? Wealth and Power? To be (very improbably) a Croesus or (still +more improbably) a Bonaparte, and to perish at the conventional age, +and of vulgar disease, like both? Turpitudes on the part of sane men, +involving the sacrifice of the priceless attributes of humanity, can be +rendered intelligible by the supreme temporal gains above indicated, +but only if exemption from the common lot of mankind--in the shape of +care, disease, and death--were accompaniments of those prizes. + +In favour of slavery, which has for so many centuries desolated the +African family and blighted its every chance of indigenous progress--of +slavery whose abolition our author so ostentatiously regrets--only one +solitary permanent result, extending in every case over [153] a natural +human life, has been paraded by him as a respectable justification. At +page 246, speaking of Negroes met by him during a stroll which he took +at Mandeville, Jamaica, he tells us:-- + +"The people had black faces; but even they had shaped their manners in +the old English models. The men touched their hats respectfully (as +they eminently did not in Kingston and its environs). The women smiled +and curtsied, and the children looked shy when one spoke to them. The +name of slavery is a horror to us; but there must have been something +human and kindly about it, too, when it left upon the character the +marks of courtesy and good breeding"! + +Alas for Africa and the sufferings of her desolated millions, in view +of so light-hearted an assessment as this! Only think of the ages of +outrage, misery, and slaughter--of the countless hecatombs that Mammon +is hereby absolved from having directly exacted, since the sufficing +expiatory outcome of it all has been only "marks of courtesy and good +breeding"! Marks that are displayed, forsooth, by the survivors of the +ghastly experiences or by [154] their descendants! And yet, granting +the appreciable ethical value of the hat-touching, the smirking and +curtseyings of those Blacks to persons whom they had no reason to +suspect of unfriendliness, or whose white face they may in the white +man's country have greeted with a civility perhaps only prudential, we +fail to discover the necessity of the dreadful agency we have adverted +to, for securing the results on manners which are so warmly commended. +African explorers, from Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley, have all +borne sufficient testimony to the world regarding the natural +friendliness of the Negro in his ancestral home, when not under the +influence of suspicion, anger, or dread. + +It behoves us to repeat (for our detractor is a persistent repeater) +that the cardinal dodge by which Mr. Froude and his few adherents +expect to succeed in obtaining the reversal of the progress of the +coloured population is by misrepresenting the elements, and their real +attitude towards one another, of the sections composing the British +West Indian communities. Everybody knows full well that Englishmen, +Scotchmen, and Irishmen (who are not officials), as [155] well as +Germans, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, and other nationalities, work +in unbroken harmony and, more or less, prosper in these Islands. These +are no cherishers of any vain hankering after a state of things in +which men felt not the infamy of living not only on the unpaid labour, +but at the expense of the sufferings, the blood, and even the life of +their fellow-men. These men, honourable by instinct and of independent +spirit, depend on their own resources for self-advancement in the +world--on their capital either of money in their pockets or of +serviceable brains in their heads, energy in their limbs, and on these +alone, either singly or more or less in combination. These reputable +specimens of manhood have created homes dear to them in these favoured +climes; and they, at any rate, being on the very best terms with all +sections of the community in which their lot is cast, have a common +cause as fellow-sufferers under the régime of Mr. Froude's official +"birds of passage." The agitation in Trinidad tells its own tale. +There is not a single black man--though there should have been +many--among the leaders of the movement for Reform. Nevertheless the +honourable [156] and truthful author of "The English in the West +Indies," in order to invent a plausible pretext for his sinister +labours of love on behalf of the poor pro-slavery survivals, and +despite his knowledge that sturdy Britons are at the head of the +agitation, coolly tells the world that it is a struggle to secure +"negro domination." + +The further allegation of our author respecting the black man is +curious and, of course, dismally prophetic. As the reader may perhaps +recollect, it is to the effect that granting political power to the +Negroes as a body, equal in scope "to that claimed by Us" (i.e., Mr. +Froude and his friends), would certainly result in the use of these +powers by the Negroes to their own injury. And wherefore? If Mr. +Froude professes to believe--what is a fact--that there is "no original +or congenital difference of capacity" between the white and the African +races, where is the consistency of his urging a contention which +implies inferiority in natural shrewdness, as regards their own +affairs, on the part of black men? Does this blower of the two +extremes of temperature in the same breath pretend that the average +British voter is better informed, can see more clearly what is for his +own advantage, [157] is better able to assess the relative merits of +persons to be entrusted with the spending of his taxes, and the general +management of his interests? If Mr. Froude means all this, he is at +issue not only with his own specific declaration to the contrary, but +with facts of overwhelming weight and number showing precisely the +reverse. We have personally had frequent opportunities of coming into +contact, both in and out of England, with natives of Great Britain, not +of the agricultural order alone, but very often of the artisan class, +whose ignorance of the commonest matters was as dense as it was +discreditable to the land of their birth and breeding. Are these +people included (on account of having his favourite sine quâ non of a +fair skin) in the US of this apostle of skin-worship, in the +indefeasible right to political power which is denied to Blacks by +reason, or rather non-reason, of their complexion? + +The fact is, that, judging by his own sentiments and those of his +Anglo-West Indian friends, Mr. Froude calculated on producing an +impression in favour of their discreditable views by purposely keeping +out of sight the numerous European and other sufferers under the yoke +[158] which he sneers at seeing described by its proper appellation of +"a degrading tyranny." The prescriptive unfavourable forecast of our +author respecting political power in the hands of the Blacks may, in +our opinion, be hailed as a warrant for its bestowal by those in whose +power that bestowal may be. As a pro-slavery prophecy, equally dismal +and equally confident with the hundreds that preceded it, this new +vaticination may safely be left to be practically dealt with by the +Race, victimized and maligned, whose real genius and character are +purposely belied by those who expect to be gainers by the process. +Invested with political power, the Negroes, Mr. Froude goes on to +assure his readers, "will slide back into their old condition, and the +chance will be gone of lifting them to the level to which we have no +right to say they are incapable of rising." How touchingly +sympathetic! How transcendently liberal and righteous! But, to speak +the truth, is not this solicitude of our cynical defamer on our behalf, +after all, a useless waste of emotion on his part? Timeo Danaos et +dona ferentes.+ The tears of the crocodile are most copious in close +view of the banquet on his prey. This [159] reiterated twaddle of Mr. +Froude, in futile and unseasonable echo of the congenial predictions of +his predecessors in the same line, might be left to receive not only +the answer of his own book to the selfsame talk of the slavers fifty +years ago, but also that of the accumulated refutations which America +has furnished for the last twenty-five years as to the retrograde +tendency so falsely imputed. But, taking it as a serious contention, +we find that it involves a suggestion that the according of electoral +votes to citizens of a certain complexion would, per se and ipso facto, +produce a revulsion and collapse of the entire prevailing organization +and order of a civilized community. + +What talismanic virtue this prophet of evil attributes to a vote in the +hand of a Negro out of Barbados, where for years the black man's vote +has been operating, harmlessly enough, Heaven knows, we cannot imagine. +At all events, as sliding back on the part of a community is a matter +which would require some appreciable time, however brief, let us hope +that the authorities charged "to see that the state receive no +detriment" would be vigilant enough and in time to arrest the evil and +vindicate [160] the efficiency of the civilized methods of +self-preservation. + +Our author concludes by another reference to Chief Justice Reeves: "Let +British authority die away, and the average black nature, such as it +now is, be left free to assert itself, there will be no more negroes +like him in Barbadoes or anywhere." How the dying away of British +authority in a British Colony is to come to pass, Mr. Froude does not +condescend here explicitly to state. But we are left free to infer +from the whole drift of "The English in the West Indies" that it will +come through the exodus en masse said to be threatened by his +"Anglo-West Indians." Mr. Froude sympathetically justifies the disgust +and exasperation of these reputable folk at the presence and progress +of the race for whose freedom and ultimate elevation Britain was so +lavish of the wealth of her noblest intellects, besides paying the +prodigious money-ransom of TWENTY MILLION pounds sterling. With regard +to our author's talk about "the average black nature, such as it now +exists, being left free to assert itself," and the dire consequences +therefrom to result, we can only feel pity at the desperate straits to +[161] which, in his search for a pretext for gratuitous slander, a man +of our author's capacity has been so ignominiously reduced. All we can +say to him with reference to this portion of his violent suppositions +is that "the average black nature, such as it now exists," should NOT, +in a civilized community, be left free to assert itself, any more than +the average white, the average brown, the average red, or indeed any +average colour of human nature whatsoever. As self-defence is the +first law of nature, it has followed that every condition of organized +society, however simple or primitive, is furnished with some recognized +means of self-protection against the free assertion of itself by the +average nature of any of its members. + +Of course, if things should ever turn out according to Mr. Froude's +desperate hypothesis, it may also happen that there will be no more +Negroes like Mr. justice Reeves in Barbados. But the addition of the +words "or anywhere" to the above statement is just another of those +suppressions of the truth which, absolutely futile though they are, +constitute the only means by which the policy he writes to promote can +possibly be made to [162] appear even tolerable. The assertion of our +author, therefore, standing as it actually does, embracing the whole +world, is nothing less than an audacious absurdity, for there stand the +United States, the French and Spanish islands--not to speak of the +Central and South American Republics, Mexico, and Brazil--all thronged +with black, mixed blood, and even half-breed high officials, staring +him and the whole world in the face. + +The above noted suppression of the truth to the detriment of the +obnoxious population recalls a passage wherein the suggestion of what +is not the truth has been resorted to for the same purpose. At page +123 we read: "The disproportion of the two races--always dangerously +large--has increased with ever-gathering velocity since the +emancipation. It is now beyond control on the old lines." The use of +the expletive "dangerously," as suggestive of the truculence of the +people to whom it refers, is critically allowable in view of the main +intention of the author. But what shall we say of the suggestion +contained in the very next sentence, which we have italicized? We are +required by it to understand that in slavery-time the [163] planters +had some organized method, rendered impracticable by the Emancipation, +of checking, for their own personal safety, the growth of the coloured +population. If we, in deference to the superior mental capacity of our +author, admit that self-interest was no irresistible motive for +promoting the growth of the human "property" on which their prosperity +depended, we are yet at liberty to ask what was the nature of the "old +lines" followed for controlling the increase under discussion. Was it +suffocation of the babes by means of sulphur fumes, the use of +beetle-paste, or exposure on the banks of the Caribbean rivers? In the +later case History evidently lost a chance of self-repetition in the +person of some leader like Moses, the Hebra-Egyptian Spartacus, arising +to avenge and deliver his people. + +We now shall note how he proceeds to descant on slavery +itself:--"Slavery," says he, "was a survival from a social order which +had passed away, and slavery could not be continued. IT DOES NOT +FOLLOW THAT per se IT WAS A CRIME. The negroes who were sold to the +dealers in the factories were most of them either slaves already to +worse masters or were servi, servants [164] in the old meaning of the +word, or else criminals, servati or reserved from death. They would +otherwise have been killed, and since the slave trade has been +abolished, are again killed in the too celebrated customs...." + +Slavery, as Mr. Froude and the rest of us are bound to discuss it at +present, is by no means susceptible of the gloss which he has +endeavoured, in the above extract, to put on it. The British nation, +in 1834, had to confront and deal with the only species of slavery +which was then within the cognizance of public morals and practical +politics. Doubtless our author, learned and erudite as he is, would +like to transport us to those patriarchal ages when, under theocratic +decrees, the chosen people were authorized to purchase (not to kidnap) +slaves, and keep them as an everlasting inheritance in their posterity. +The slaves so purchased, we know, became members of the families to +which their lot was attached, and were hedged in from cruel usage by +distinct and salutary regulations. This is the only species of slavery +which--with the addition of the old Germanic self-enslavements and the +generally prevailing ancient custom of pledging one's personal services +[165] in liquidation of indebtedness--can be covered by the singular +verdict of noncriminality which our author has pronounced. He, of +course, knows much better than we do what the condition of slaves was +in Greece as well as in Rome. He knows, too, that the "wild and guilty +phantasy that man could hold property in man," lost nothing of its +guilt or its wildness with the lapse of time and the changes of +circumstances which overtook and affected those reciprocal relations. +Every possibility of deterioration, every circumstance wherein man's +fallen nature could revel in its worst inspirations, reached +culmination at the period when the interference of the world, decreed +by Providence, was rendered imperative by the sufferings of the +bondsmen. It is this crisis of the history of human enslavement that +Mr. Froude must talk about, if he wishes to talk to any purpose on the +subject at all. His scoffs at British "virtuous benevolence," and his +imputation of ingratitude to the Negro in respect of that self-same +benevolence, do not refer to any theocratic, self-contracted, abstract, +or idyllic condition of servitude. They pin his meaning down [166] to +that particular phase when slavery had become not only "the sum," but +the very quintessence, "of all human villainies." + +At its then phase, slavery had culminated into being a menace, +portentous and far encroaching, to not only the moral life but the very +civilization of the higher types of the human family, so debasing and +blighting were its effects on those who came into even tolerating +contact with its details. The indescribable atrocities practised on +the slaves, the deplorable sapping of even respectable principles in +owners of both sexes--all these stood forth in their ineffable +hideousness before the uncorrupted gaze of the moral heroes, sons of +Britain and America, and also of other countries, who, buckling on the +armour of civilization and right, fought for the vindication of them +both, through every stern vicissitude, and won the first grand, +ever-memorable victory of 1838, whereof we so recently celebrated the +welcome Jubilee! Oh! it was a combat of archangels against the legions +that Mammon had banded together and incited to the conflict. But +though it was Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and the rest [167] of that +illustrious host of cultured, lofty-souled, just, merciful, and +beneficent men, who were thus the saviours, as well as the servants, of +society, yet have we seen it possible for an Englishman of to-day to +mouth against their memory the ineptitudes of their long-vanquished +foes, and to flout the consecrated dead in their graves, as the +Boeotian did the living Pericles in the market-place of Athens! + +Why waste words and time on this defamer of his own countrymen, who, on +account of the material gain and the questionable martial glory of the +conquest, eulogizes Warren Hastings, the viceregal plunderer of India, +whilst, in the same breath, he denounces Edmund Burke for upholding the +immutable principles of right and justice! These principles once, and +indubitably now, so precious in their fullest integrity to the normal +British conscience, must henceforth, say Mr. Froude and his +fellow-colonialists, be scored off the moral code of Britain, since +they "do not pay" in tangible pelf, in self-aggrandisement, or in +dazzling prestige. + +The statement that many negroes who were sold to the dealers in the +factories were "slaves [168] already to worse masters" is, in the face +of facts which could not possibly have been unknown to him, a piece of +very daring assertion. But this should excite no wonder, considering +that precise and scrupulous accuracy would be fatal to the +discreditable cause to which he so shamelessly proclaims his adhesion. +As being familiar since early childhood with members of almost every +tribe of Africans (mainly from or arriving by way of the West Coast) +who were brought to our West Indies, we are in a position to contradict +the above assertion of Mr. Froude's, its unfaltering confidence +notwithstanding. We have had the Madingoes, Foulahs, Houssas, Calvers, +Gallahs, Karamenties, Yorubas, Aradas, Cangas, Kroos, Timnehs, Veis, +Eboes, Mokoes, Bibis, and Congoes, as the most numerous and important +of the tribal contribution of Africa to the population of these +Colonies. Now, from what we have intimately learned of these people +(excepting the Congoes, who always appeared to us an inferior tribe to +all the others), we unhesitatingly deny that even three in ten of the +whole number were ever slaves in their own country, in the sense of +having been born under any organized [169] system of servitude. The +authentic records relating to the enslavement of Africans, as a regular +systematized traffic, do not date further back than five centuries ago. +It is true that a great portion of ancient literature and many +monuments bear distinct evidence, all the more impressive because +frequently only casual, that, from the earliest ages, the Africans had +shared, in common with other less civilized peoples, the doom of having +to furnish the menial and servile contingents of the more favoured +sections of the human family. Now, dating from, say, five hundred +years ago, which was long indeed after the disappearance of the old +leading empires of the world, we have (save and except in the case of +Arab incursionists into the Eastern and Northern coasts) no reliable +authority for saying, or even for supposing, that the tribes of the +African interior suffered from the molestations of professional +man-hunters. + +It was the organization of the West Coast slave traffic towards the +close of the sixteenth century, and the extermination of the Caribbean +aborigines by Spain, soon after Columbus had discovered the Western +Continent, which [170] gave cohesion, system, impetus, and +aggressiveness to the trade in African flesh and blood. Then the +factory dealers did not wait at their seaboard mart, as our author +would have us suppose, for the human merchandize to be brought down to +them. The auri sacra fames, the accursed craving for gain, was too +imperious for that. From the Atlantic border to as far inland as their +emissaries could penetrate, their bribes, in every species of +exchangeable commodities, were scattered among the rapacious chiefs on +the river banks; while these latter, incited as well by native ferocity +as by lust of gain, rushed forth to "make war" on their neighbours, and +to kidnap, for sale to the white purchaser, every man, woman, and child +they could capture amidst the nocturnal flames, confusion, tumult, and +terror resulting from their unexpected irruption. That the poor people +thus captured and sold into foreign on age were under worse masters +than those under whom they, on being actually bought and becoming +slaves, were doomed to experience all the atrocities that have thrilled +with horror the conscience of the civilized Christian world, is a +statement of worse than [171] childish absurdity. Every one, except +Mr. Froude and his fellow-apologists for slavery, knows that the +cruelty of savage potentates is summary, uncalculating, and, therefore, +merciful in its ebullitions. A head whisked off, brains dashed out, or +some other short form of savage dispatch, is the preferential method of +destruction. With our author's better masters, there was the long, +dreary vicissitude, beginning from the horrors of the capture, and +ending perhaps years upon years after, in some bush or under the lash +of the driver. The intermediate stages of the starvation life of +hunger, chains, and hideous exposure at the barancoon, the stowing away +like herrings on board the noisome ship, the suffocation, the +deck-sores wrought into the body by the attrition of the bonier parts +of the system against the unyielding wood--all these, says Mr. Froude, +were more tolerable than the swift doing away with life under an +African master! Under such, at all events, the care and comfort +suitable to age were strictly provided for, and cheered the advanced +years of the faithful bondsman. + +After a good deal of talk, having the same logical value, our author, +in his enthusiasm for [172] slavery, delivers himself thus: "For +myself, I would rather be the slave of a Shakespeare or a Burghley, +than the slave of a majority in the House of Commons, or the slave of +my own folly." Of the four above specified alternatives of +enslavement, it is to be regretted that temperament, or what is more +likely, perhaps, self-interest, has driven him to accept the fourth, or +the latter of the two deprecated yokes, his book being an irrefutable +testimony to the fact. For, most assuredly, it has not been at the +prompting of wisdom that a learned man of unquestionably brilliant +talents and some measure of accorded fame could have prostituted those +talents and tarnished that fame by condescending to be the literary +spokesman of the set for whose miserable benefit he recommends the +statesmen of his country to perjure and compromise themselves, +regardless of inevitable consequences, which the value of the sectional +satisfaction to be thereby given would but very poorly compensate. +Possibly a House of Commons majority, whom this dermatophilist +evidently rates far lower than his "Anglo-West Indians," might, if he +were their Slave, have protected their own self- [173] respect by +restraining him from vicariously scandalizing them by his effusions. + +After this curious boast about his preferences as a hypothetic +bondsman, Mr. Froude proceeds gravely to inform his readers that "there +may be authority yet not slavery; a soldier is not a slave, a wife is +not a slave..." and he continues, with a view of utilizing these +platitudes against the obnoxious Negro, by telling us that persons +sustaining the above specified and similar relations "may not live by +their own wills, or emancipate themselves at their own pleasure from +positions in which nature has placed them, or into which they have +themselves voluntarily entered. The negroes of the West Indies are +children, and not yet disobedient children.... If you enforce +self-government upon them when they are not asking for it, you may ... +wilfully drive them back into the condition of their ancestors, from +which the slave-trade was the beginning of their emancipation."! The +words which we have signalized by italics in the above extract could +have been conceived only by a bigot--such an atrocious sentiment being +possible only as the product of mind or morals [174] wrenched +hopelessly out of normal action. All the remainder of this hashing up +of pointless commonplaces has for its double object a suggestio falsi +against us Negroes as a body, and a diverting of attention, as we have +proved before, from the numerous British claimants of Reform, whose +personality Mr. Froude and his friends would keep out of view, provided +their crafty policy has the result of effectually repressing the +hitherto irrepressible, and, as such, to the "Anglo-West Indian," truly +detestable Negro. + +NOTES + +158. +Translation: "I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts." + + + +BOOK III: WEST INDIAN CONFEDERATION + +[175] In heedless formulation of his reasons, if such they should be +termed, for urging tooth and nail the non-according of reform to the +Crown-governed Colonies, our author puts forth this dogmatic +deliverance (p. 123):-- + +"A West Indian self-governing dominion is possible only with a full +Negro vote. If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks. It will +be a rule by the blacks and for the blacks." + +That a constitution for any of our diversely populated Colonies which +may be fit for it is possible only with "a full Negro vote" (to the +extent within the competence of such voting), goes without saying, as +must be the case with every section of the Queen's subjects eligible +for the franchise. The duly qualified Spaniard, [176] Coolie, +Portuguese, or man of any other non-British race, will each thus have a +vote, the same as every Englishman or any other Briton. Why, then, +should the vote of the Negro be so especially a bugbear? It is because +the Negro is the game which our political sportsman is in full chase +of, and determined to hunt down at any cost. Granted, however, for the +sake of argument, that black voters should preponderate at any +election, what then? We are gravely told by this latter-day Balaam +that "If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks," but he does +not say for what purpose. + +His sentence, therefore, may be legitimately constructed in full for +him in the only sense which is applicable to the mutual relations +actually existing between those two directly specified sections of +British subjects who he would fain have the world believe live in a +state of active hostility:--"If the whites are to combine for the +Promotion of the general welfare, as many of the foremost of them have +done before and are doing now, so will the blacks also combine in the +support of such whites, and as staunch auxiliaries equally interested +in the furtherance of the same ameliorative [177] objects." Except in +the sense embodied in the foregoing sentence, we cannot, in these days, +conceive with what intent persons of one section should so specially +combine as to compel combination on the part of persons of any other. +The further statement that a confederation having a full black +voting-power would be a government "by the blacks and for the blacks," +is the logical converse of the now obsolete doctrine of Mr. Froude's +inspirers--"a government by whites should be only for whites." But +this formula, however strenuously insisted on by those who gave it +shape, could never, since even before three decades from the first +introduction of African slaves, be thoroughly put in practice, so +completely had circumstances beyond man's devising or control compelled +the altering of men's minds and methods with regard to the new +interests which had irresistibly forced themselves into importance as +vital items in political arrangements. Nowadays, therefore, that Mr. +Froude should desire to create a state of feeling which had, and could +have had, no existence with regard to the common interests of the +inhabitants for upwards of two full centuries, is [178] evidently an +excess of confidence which can only be truly described as amazing. +But, after all, what does our author mean by the words "a government by +the blacks?" Are we to understand him as suggesting that voting by +black electors would be synonymous with electing black representatives? +If so, he has clearly to learn much more than he has shown that he +lacks, in order to understand and appreciate the vital influences at +work in West Indian affairs. Undoubtedly, being the spokesman of few +who (secretly) avow themselves to be particularly hostile to +Ethiopians, he has done no more than reproduce their sentiments. For, +conscious, as these hankerers after the old "institutions" are, of +being utterly ineligible for the furthering of modern progressive +ideas, they revenge themselves for their supersession on everybody and +everything, save and except their own arrogant stolidity. White +individuals who have part and lot in the various Colonies, with their +hearts and feelings swayed by affections natural to their birth and +earliest associations; and Whites who have come to think the land of +their adoption as dear to themselves as the land of their birth, +entertain no such dread of [179] their fellow-citizens of any other +section, whom they estimate according to intelligence and probity, and +not according to any accident of exterior physique. Every intelligent +black is as shrewd regarding his own interests as our author himself +would be regarding his in the following hypothetical case: Some fine +day, being a youth and a bachelor, he gets wedded, sets up an +establishment, and becomes the owner of a clipper yacht. For his own +service in the above circumstances we give him the credit to believe +that, on the persons specified below applying among others to him for +employment, as chamber-maid and house-servant, and also as hands for +the vessel, he would, in preference to any ordinarily recommended white +applicants, at once engage the two black servant-girls at President +Churchill's in Dominica, the droghermen there as able seamen, and as +cabin-boy the lad amongst them whose precocious marine skill he has so +warmly and justly extolled. It is not because all these persons are +black, but because of the soul-consciousness of the selector, that they +each (were they even blue) had a title to preferential consideration, +his experience and sense of fitness being [180] their most effectual +supporters. Similarly, the Negro voter would elect representatives +whom he knew he could trust for competency in the management of his +affairs, and not persons whose sole recommendation to him would be the +possession of the same kind of skin. Nor, from what we know of matters +in the West Indies, do we believe that any white man of the class we +have eulogized would hesitate to give his warmest suffrage to any black +candidate who he knew would be a fitting representative of his +interests. We could give examples from almost every West Indian island +of white and coloured men who would be indiscriminately chosen as their +candidate by either section. But the enumeration is needless, as the +fact of the existence of such men is too notorious to require proof. + +Mr. Froude states plainly enough (p. 123) that, whereas a whole +thousand years were needed to train and discipline the Anglo-Saxon +race, yet "European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by a higher +instinct, may shorten the probation period of the negro." Let it be +supposed that this period of probation [181] for the Negro should +extend, under such exceptionally favourable circumstances, to any +period less than that which is alleged to have been needed by the +Anglo-Saxon to attain his political manhood--what then are the +prospects held out by Mr. Froude to us and our posterity on our +mastering the training and discipline which he specially recommends for +Blacks? Our author, in view, doubtless, of the rapidity of our onward +progress, and indeed our actual advancement in every respect, thus +answers (pp. 123-4):--"Let a generation or two pass by and carry away +with them the old traditions, and an English governor-general will be +found presiding over a black council, delivering the speeches made for +him by a black prime minister; and how long could this endure? No +English gentleman would consent to occupy so absurd a situation." + +And again, more emphatically, on the same point (p. 285):--"No +Englishman, not even a bankrupt peer, would consent to occupy such +position; the blacks themselves would despise him if he did; and if the +governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how long would such +a connection endure?" + +[182] It is plainly to be seen from the above two extracts that the +political ethics of our author, being based on race and colour +exclusively, would admit of no conceivable chance of real elevation to +any descendant of Africa, who, being Ethiopian, could not possibly +change his skin. The "old traditions" which Mr. Froude supposes to be +carried away by his hypothetical (white) generations who have "passed +by," we readily infer from his language, rendered impossible such +incarnations of political absurdity as those he depicts. But what +should be thought of the sense, if not indeed the sanity, of a grave +political teacher who prescribes "European government" and "European +education" as the specifics to qualify the Negro for political +emancipation, and who, when these qualifications are conspicuously +mastered by the Negro who has undergone the training, refuses him the +prize, because he is a Negro? We see further that, in spite of being +fit for election to council, and even to be prime ministers competent +to indite governors' messages, the pigment under our epidermis dooms us +to eventual disappointment and a life-long condition of contempt. Even +so is it [183] desired by Mr. Froude and his clients, and not without a +spice of piquancy is their opinion that for a white ruler to preside +and rule over and accept the best assistance of coloured men, qualified +as above stated, would be a self-degradation too unspeakable for +toleration by any Englishman--"even a bankrupt peer." Unfortunately +for Mr. Froude, we can point him to page 56 of this his very book, +where, speaking of Grenada and deprecating the notion of its official +abandonment, our author says:-- + +"Otherwise they [Negroes] were quiet fellows, and if the politicians +would only let them alone, they would be perfectly contented, and might +eventually, if wisely managed, come to some good.... Black the island +was, and black it would remain. The conditions were never likely to +arise which would bring back a European population; but a governor who +was a sensible man, who would reside and use his natural influence, +could manage it with perfect ease." + +Here, then, we see that the governor of an entirely black population +may be a sensible man, and yet hold the post. Our author, indeed, +gives the Blacks over whom this sensible governor would hold rule as +being in number [184] just 40,000 souls; and we are therefore bound to +accept the implied suggestion that the dishonour of holding supremacy +over persons of the odious colour begins just as their number begins to +count onward from 40,000! There is quite enough in the above verbal +vagaries of our philosopher to provoke a volume of comment. But we +must pass on to further clauses of this precious paragraph. Mr. +Froude's talent for eating his own words never had a more striking +illustration than here, in his denial of the utility of native +experience as the safest guide a governor could have in the +administration of Colonial affairs. At page 91 he says:--"Among the +public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found +fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty, if a sincere effort +be made to find them." + +A post of honour and difficulty, we and all other persons in the +British dominions had all along understood was regarded as such in the +case of functionaries called upon to contend with adverse forces in the +accomplishment of great ends conceived by their superiors. But we find +that, according to Mr. Froude, all the credit that has hitherto +redounded to those [185] who had succeeded in such tasks has been in +reality nothing more than a gilding over of disgrace, whenever the +exertions of such officials had been put forth amongst persons not +wearing a European epidermis. The extension of British influence and +dominion over regions inhabited by races not white is therefore, on the +part of those who promote it, a perverse opening of arenas for the +humiliation and disgrace of British gentlemen, nay, even of those +titled members of the "black sheep" family--bankrupt peers! As we have +seen, however, ample contradiction and refutation have been +considerately furnished by the same objector in this same volume, as in +his praises of the governor just quoted. + +The cavil of Mr. Froude about English gentlemen reading messages penned +by black prime ministers applies with double force to English +barristers (who are gentlemen by statute) receiving the law from the +lips of black Judges. + +For all that, however, an emergency arose so pressing as to compel even +the colonialism of Barbados to practically and completely refute this +doctrine, by praying for, and submitting with gratitude to, the supreme +headship of a [186] man of the race which our author so finically +depreciates. In addition it may be observed that for a governor to +even consult his prime minister in the matter of preparing his messages +might conceivably be optional, whilst it is obligatory on all +barristers, whether English or otherwise, to defer to the judge's +interpretation of the law in every case--appeal afterwards being the +only remedy. As to the dictum that "the two races are not equal and +will not blend," it is open to the fatal objection that, having himself +proved, with sympathizing pathos, how the West Indies are now well-nigh +denuded of their Anglo-Saxon inhabitants, Mr. Froude would have us also +understand that the miserable remnant who still complainingly inhabit +those islands must, by doing violence to the understanding, be taken as +the whole of the world-pervading Anglo-Saxon family. The Negroes of +the West Indies number a good deal more than two million souls. Does +this suggester of extravagances mean that the prejudices and vain +conceit of the few dozens whom he champions should be made to override +and overbear, in political arrangements, the serious and solid +interests of so many [187] hundreds of thousands? That "the two races +are not equal" is a statement which no sane man would dispute, but +acquiescence in its truth involves also a distinct understanding that +the word race, as applied in the present case by our author, is a +simple accommodation of terms--a fashion of speech having a very +restricted meaning in this serious discussion. + +The Anglo-Saxon race pervades Great Britain, its cradle, and the +Greater Britain extending almost all over the face of the earth, which +is the arena of its activities and marvellous achievements. To tell +us, therefore, as Mr. Froude does, that the handful of malcontents +whose unrespectable grievance he holds up to public sympathy represents +the Anglo-Saxon race, is a grotesque façon de parler. Taking our +author's "Anglo-West Indians" and the people of Ethiopian descent +respectively, it would not be too much to assert, nor in anywise +difficult to prove by facts and figures, that for every competent +individual of the former section in active civilized employments, the +coloured section can put forward at least twenty thoroughly competent +rivals. Yet are these latter the people whom the classic Mr. [188] +Froude wishes to be immolated, root and branch, in all their highest +and dearest interests, in order to secure the maintenance of "old +traditions" which, he tells us, guaranteed for the dominant cuticle the +sacrifice of the happiness of down-trodden thousands! Referring to his +hypothetical confederation with its black officeholders, our author +scornfully asks:-- + +"And how long would this endure?" + +The answer must be that, granting the existence of such a state of +things, its duration would be not more nor less than under white +functionaries. For according to himself (p. 124): "There is no +original or congenital difference of capacity between" the white and +black races, and "with the same chances and the same treatment, ... +distinguished men would be produced equally from both races." + +If, therefore, the black ministers whose hue he so much despises do +possess the training and influence rendering them eligible and securing +their election to the situations we are considering, it must follow +that their tenure of office would be of equal duration with that of +individuals of the white race under the same conditions. Not content +with making himself [189] the mouthpiece of English gentlemen in this +matter, our author, with characteristic hardihood, obtrudes himself +into the same post on behalf of Negroes; saying that, in the event of +even a bankrupt peer accepting the situation of governor-general over +them, "The blacks themselves would despise him"! + +Mr. Froude may pertinently be asked here the source whence he derived +his certainty on this point, inasmuch as it is absolutely at variance +with all that is sensible and natural; for surely it is both foolish +and monstrous to suppose that educated men would infer the degradation +of any one from the fact of such a one consenting to govern and +co-operate with themselves for their own welfare. He further asks on +the same subject:-- + +"And if the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how +long could such a connection endure?" + +Our answer must be the same as with regard to the duration of the black +council and black prime minister carrying out the government under the +same conditions. It must be regretted that no indication in his book, +so far as it professes to deal with facts and with [190] persons not +within the circle of his clients, would justify a belief that its +wanton misstatements have filtrated through a mind entitled to declare, +with the authority of self-consciousness, what a gentleman would or +would not do under given circumstances. + +In reiteration of his favourite doctrine of the antagonism between the +black and white races, our author continues on the same page to say:-- + +"No one, I presume, would advise that the whites of the island should +govern. The relations between the two populations are too embittered, +and equality once established by law, the exclusive privilege of colour +over colour cannot be restored. While slavery continued, the whites +ruled effectively and economically; the blacks are now as they." + +As far as could possibly be endeavoured, every proof has been crowded +into this book in refutation of this favourite allegation of Mr. +Froude's. It is only an idle waste of time to be thus harping on his +colour topic. No one can deserve to govern simply because he is white, +and no one is bound to be subject simply because he is black. The whole +of West [191] Indian history, even after the advent of the +attorney-class, proves this, in spite of the efforts to secure +exclusive white domination at a time when crude political power might +have secured it. + +"The relations between the two populations are too embittered," says +Mr. Froude. No doubt his talk on this point would be true, had any +such skin-dominancy as he contemplates been officially established; but +as at present most officials are appointed (locally at least) according +to their merit, and not to their epidermis, nothing is known of the +embittered relations so constantly dinned into our ears. Whatever +bitterness exists is in the minds of those gentry who would like to be +dominant on the cheap condition of showing a simple bodily accident +erected by themselves into an evidence and proof of superiority. + +"The exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored." +Never in the history of the British West Indies--must we again +state--was there any law or usage establishing superiority in +privileges for any section of the community on account of colour. This +statement of fact is also and again an answer to, and refutation of, +the succeeding allegation [192] that, "While slavery continued, the +whites ruled effectively and economically." It will be yet more +clearly shown in a later part of this essay that during slavery, in +fact for upwards of two centuries after its introduction, the West +Indies were ruled by slave-owners, who happened to be of all colours, +the means of purchasing slaves and having a plantation being the one +exclusive consideration in the case. It is, therefore, contrary to +fact to represent the Whites exclusively as ruling, and the Blacks +indiscriminately as subject. + +He goes on to say, "There are two classes in the community; their +interests are opposite as they are now understood." As regards the +above, Mr. Froude's attention may be called to the fact that +classification in no department of science has ever been based on +colour, but on relative affinity in certain salient qualities. To use +his own figure, no horse or dog is more or less a horse or dog because +it happens to be white or black. No teacher marshals his pupils into +classes according to any outward physical distinction, but according to +intellectual approximation. In like manner there has been wealth for +hundreds of men of Ethiopic origin, [193] and poverty for hundreds of +men of Caucasian origin, and the reverse in both cases. We have, +therefore, had hundreds of black as well as white men who, under +providential dispensation, belonged to the class, rich men; while, on +the other hand, we have had hundreds of white men who, under +providential dispensation, belonged to the class, poor men. Similarly, +in the composition of a free mixed community, we have hundreds of both +races belonging to the class, competent and eligible; and hundreds of +both races belonging to the class, incompetent and ineligible: to both +of which classes all possible colours might belong. It is from the +first mentioned that are selected those who are to bear the rule, to +which the latter class is, in the very nature of things, bound to be +subject. There is no government by reason merely of skins. The +diversity of individual intelligence and circumstances is large enough +to embrace the possibility of even children being, in emergencies, the +most competent influencers of opinion and action. + +But let us analyse this matter for just a while more. The fatal +objection to all Mr. Froude's advocacy of colour-domination is that +[194] it is futile from being morally unreasonable. In view of the +natural and absolute impossibility of reviving the same external +conditions under which the inordinate deference and submission to white +persons were both logically and inevitably engendered and maintained, +his efforts to talk people into a frame of mind favourable to his views +on this subject are but a melancholy waste of well-turned sentences. +Man's estimate of his fellow-man has not and never can have any other +standard, save and except what is the outcome of actual circumstances +influencing his sentiment. In the primitive ages, when the fruits of +the earth formed the absorbing object of attention and interest, the +men most distinguished for successful culture of the soil enjoyed, as a +consequence, a larger share than others of popular admiration and +esteem. Similarly, among nomadic tribes, the hunters whose courage +coped victoriously with the wild and ferocious denizens of the forest +became the idols of those who witnessed and were preserved by such +sylvan exploits. When men came at length to venture in ships over the +trackless deep in pursuit of commerce and its gains, the mariner grew +important in [195] public estimation. The pursuit of commerce and its +gains led naturally to the possession of wealth. This, from the +quasi-omnipotence with which it invests men--enabling them not only to +command the best energies, but also, in many cases, to subvert the very +principles of their fellows--has, in the vast majority of cases, an +overpowering sway on human opinion: a sway that will endure till the +Millennium shall have secured for the righteous alone the sovereignty +of the world. Likewise, as cities were founded and constitutions +established, those who were foremost as defenders of the national +interests, on the field of bodily conflict or in the intellectual +arena, became in the eyes of their contemporaries worthiest of +appreciation--and so on of other circumstances through which particular +personal distinctions created claims to preference. + +In the special case of the Negroes kidnapped out of Africa into foreign +bondage, the crowning item in their assessment of their alien enslavers +was the utter superiority, over their most redoubtable "big men," which +those enslavers displayed. They actually subjugated and put in chains, +like the commonest peasants, native [196] potentates at whose very +names even the warriorhood of their tribes had been wont to blench. +But far surpassing even this in awful effect was the doom meted out to +the bush-handlers, the medicine-men, the rain-compellers, erewhile so +inscrutably potent for working out the bliss or the bale of friend or +enemy. "Lo, from no mountain-top, from no ceiba-hollow in the forest +recesses, has issued any interposing sign, any avenging portent, to +vindicate the Spirit of Darkness so foully outraged in the hitherto +inviolate person of his chosen minister! Verily, even the powers of the +midnight are impotent against these invaders from beyond the mighty +salt-water! Here, huddled together in confused, hopeless misery and +ruin, lie, fettered and prostrate, even priest as well as potentate, +undistinguishable victims of crude, unblenching violence, with its +climax of nefarious sacrilege. We, common mortals, therefore, can hope +for no deliverance from, or even succour in, the woful plight thus +dismally contrived for us all by the fair-skinned race who have now +become our masters." Such was naturally the train of thought that ran +through those forlorn bosoms. The formidable death-dealing guns [197] +of the invaders, the ships which had brought them to the African +shores, and much besides in startling contrast to their own condition +of utter helplessness, the Africans at once interpreted to themselves +as the manifestation and inherent attributes of beings of a higher +order than man. Their skin, too, the difference whereof from their own +had been accentuated by many calamitous incidents, was hit upon as the +reason of so crushing an ascendency. + +White skin therefore became, in those disconsolate eyes, the symbol of +fearful irresistible power: which impression was not at all weakened +afterwards by the ineffable atrocities of the "middle-passage." Backed +ultimately by their absolute and irresponsible masterhood at home over +the deported Blacks, the European abductors could easily render +permanent in the minds of their captives the abject terror struck into +them by the enormities of which they had been the victims. Now, the +impressions we touched upon before bringing forward the case of the +Negro slaves were mainly produced by pleasurable circumstances. But of +a contrary nature and much more deeply graven are those sentiments +which are the outcome of hopeless terror [198] and pain. For whilst +impressions of the former character glide into the consciousness +through accesses no less normal than agreeable, the infusion of fear by +means of bodily suffering is a process too violent to be forgotten by +minds tortured and strained to unnatural tension thereby. Such +tension, oft-recurrent and scarcely endurable, leaves behind it +recollections which are in themselves a source of sadness. But time, +favoured by a succession of pleasurable experiences, is a sovereign +anodyne to remembrances of this poignant class. No wonder, then, from +our foregoing detail of facts, that whiteness of skin was both +redoubted and tremblingly crouched to by Negroes on whom Europeans had +wrought such unspeakable calamities. Time, however, and the action of +circumstances, especially in countries subject to Catholic dominion, +soon began to modify the conditions under which this sentiment of +terror had been maintained, and, with those conditions, the very +sentiment itself. For it was not long in the life of many of the +expatriated Africans before numbers of their own race obtained freedom, +and, eventually, wealth sufficient for purchasing black slaves on their +[199] own account. In other respects, too (outwardly at least), the +prosperous career of such individual Blacks could not fail to induce a +revulsion of thought, whereby the attribution of unapproachable powers +exclusively to the Whites became a matter earnestly reconsidered by the +Africans. Centuries of such reconsideration have produced the natural +result in the West Indies. With the daily competition in intelligence, +refinement, and social and moral distinction, which time and events +have brought about between individuals of the two races, nothing, +surely, has resulted, nor has even been indicated, to re-infuse the +ancient colour-dread into minds which had formerly been forced to +entertain it; and still less to engender it in bosoms to which such a +feeling cannot, in the very nature of things, be an inborn emotion. +Now, can Mr. Froude show us by what process he would be able to infuse +in the soul of an entire population a sentiment which is both unnatural +and beyond compulsion? + +The foregoing remarks roughly apply to preeminence given to outward +distinction, and the conditions under which mainly it impresses and is +accepted by men not yet arrived at the [200] essentially intellectual +stage. In the spiritual domain the conditions have ever been quite +different. A belief in the supernatural being inborn in man, the +professors of knowledge and powers beyond natural attainment were by +common consent accorded a distinct and superior consideration, deemed +proper to the sacredness of their progression. Hence the supremacy of +the priestly caste in every age and country of the world. Potentate as +well as peasant have bowed in reverence before it, as representing and +declaring with authority the counsels of that Being whom all, priest, +potentate and peasant alike, acknowledge and adore, each according to +the measure of his inward illumination. + + + +BOOK III: THE NEGRO AS WORKER + +[201] The laziness, the incurable idleness, of the Negro, was, both +immediately before their emancipation in 1838, and for long years after +that event, the cuckoo-cry of their white detractors. It was laziness, +pure and simple, which hindered the Negro from exhausting himself under +a tropical sun, toiling at starvation wages to ensure for his quondam +master the means of being an idler himself, with the additional luxury +of rolling in easily come-by wealth. Within the last twenty years, +however, the history of the Black Man, both in the West Indies and, +better still, in the United States of America, has been a succession of +achievements which have converted the charge of laziness into a +baseless and absurd calumny. The repetition of the charge referred to +is, in these [202] waning days of the nineteenth century, a discredited +anachronism, which, however, has no deterring features for Mr. Froude. +As the running down of the Negro was his cue, he went in boldly for the +game, with what result we shall presently see. At page 239, our +author, speaking of the Negro garden-farms in Jamaica, says:-- + +"The male proprietors were lounging about smoking. Their wives, as it +was market-day, were tramping into Kingston with their baskets on their +heads. We met them literally in thousands, all merry and +light-hearted, their little ones with little baskets trudging at their +side. Of the lords of the creation we saw, perhaps, one to each +hundred of the women, and he would be riding on mule or donkey, pipe in +mouth and carrying nothing. He would be generally sulky too, while the +ladies, young and old, had a civil word for us, and curtsied under +their loads. Decidedly if there is to be a black constitution I will +give my vote to the women." + +To the above direct imputation of indolence, heartlessness, and +moroseness, Mr. Froude appends the following remarks on other moral +characteristics of certain sable peasants at [203] Mandeville, Jamaica, +given on the authority of a police official, who, our author says, +described them as-- + +"Good-humoured, but not universally honest. They stole cattle, and +would not give evidence against each other. If brought into Court, +they held a pebble in their mouth, being under the impression that when +they were so provided, perjury did not count. Their education was only +skin-deep, and the schools which the Government provided had not +touched their characters at all." + +But how could the education so provided be otherwise than futile when +the administration of its details is entirely in the hands of persons +unsympathizing with and utterly despising the Negro? But of this more +anon and elsewhere. We resume Mr. Froude's evidence respecting the +black peasantry. Our author proceeds to admit, on the same subject, +that his informant's duties (as a police official) "brought him in +contact with the unfavourable specimens." He adds:-- + +"I received a far pleasanter impression from a Moravian minister.... I +was particularly glad to see this gentleman, for of the Moravians [204] +every one had spoken well to me. He was not the least enthusiastic +about his poor black sheep, but he said that if they were not better +than the average English labourer, he did not think them worse. They +were called idle; they would work well enough if they had fair wages +and if the wages were paid regularly; but what could be expected when +women servants had but three shillings a week and found themselves, +when the men had but a shilling a day and the pay was kept in arrear in +order that if they came late to work, or if they came irregularly, it +may be kept back or cut down to what the employer choose to give? +Under such conditions ANY man of ANY colour would prefer to work for +himself if he had a garden, or would be idle if he had none." + +Take, again, the following extract regarding the heroism of the +emigrants to the Canal:-- + +"I walked forward" (on the steamer bound to Jamaica), "after we had +done talking. We had five hundred of the poor creatures on their way +to the Darien pandemonium. The vessel was rolling with a heavy beam +sea. I found the whole mass of them reduced to the condition of the +pigs who used to occupy the fore decks on the Cork and Bristol packets. +They were [205] lying in a confused heap together, helpless, miserable, +without consciousness, apparently, save a sense in each that he was +wretched. Unfortunate brothers-in-law! following the laws of political +economy, and carrying their labour to the dearest market, where, before +a year was out, half of them were to die. They had souls, too, some of +them, and honest and kindly hearts." + +It surely is refreshing to read the revelation of his first learning of +the possession of a soul by a fellow-human being, thus artlessly +described by one who is said to be an ex-parson. But piquancy is Mr. +Froude's strong point, whatever else he may be found wanting in. + +Still, apart from Mr. Froude's direct testimony to the fact that from +year to year, during a long series of years, there has been a +continuous, scarcely ever interrupted emigration of Negroes to the +Spanish mainland, in search of work for a sufficing livelihood for +themselves and their families--and that in the teeth of physical +danger, pestilence, and death--there would be enough indirect +exoneration of the Black Man from that indictment in the wail of Mr. +Froude and his friends regarding the alarming absorption of the lands +of Grenada [206] and Trinidad by sable proprietors. Land cannot be +bought without money, nor can money be possessed except through labour, +and the fact that so many tens of thousand Blacks are now the happy +owners of the soil whereon, in the days so bitterly regretted by our +author, their forefathers' tears, nay, very hearts' blood, had been +caused to flow, ought to silence for ever an accusation, which, were it +even true, would be futile, and, being false, is worse than +disgraceful, coming from the lips of the Eumolpids who would fain +impose a not-to-be-questioned yoke on us poor helots of Ethiopia. It +is said that lying is the vice of slaves; but the ethics of West Indian +would-be mastership assert, on its behalf, that they alone should enjoy +the privilege of resorting to misrepresentation to give colour, if not +solidity, to their pretensions. + + + +BOOK III: RELIGION FOR NEGROES + +[207] Mr. Froude's passing on from matters secular to matters spiritual +and sacred was a transition to be expected in the course of the grave +and complicated discussion which he had volunteered to initiate. It +was, therefore, not without curiosity that his views in the direction +above indicated were sought for and earnestly scrutinized by us. But +worse than in his treatment of purely mundane subjects, his attitude +here is marked by a nonchalant levity which excites our wonder that +even he should have touched upon the spiritual side of his thesis at +all. The idea of the dove sent forth from the ark fluttering over the +heaving swells of the deluge, in vain endeavour to secure a rest for +the soles of its feet, represents not inaptly the unfortunate +predicament of his spirit with regard to a solid [208] faith on which +to repose amid the surges of doubt by which it is so evidently beset. +Yet although this is his obvious plight with regard to a satisfying +belief, he nevertheless undertakes, with characteristic confidence, to +suggest a creed for the moralization of West Indian Negroes. His +language is:-- + +"A religion, at any rate, which will keep the West Indian blacks from +falling back into devil-worship is still to seek. In spite of the +priests, child-murder and cannibalism have re-appeared in Hayti, but +without them things might have been much worse than they are, and the +preservation of white authority and influence in any form at all may be +better than none." + +We discern in the foregoing citation the exercise of a charity that is +unquestionably born of fetish-worship, which, whether it be obeah +generally, or restricted to a mere human skin, can be so powerful an +agent in the formation and retention of beliefs. Hence we see that our +philosopher relies here, in the domain of morals and spiritual ethics, +on a white skin as implicitly as he does on its sovereign potency in +secular politics. The curiousness of the matter lies mainly in its +application to natives [209] of Hayti, of all people in the world. As +a matter of fact we have had our author declaring as follows, in climax +to his oft-repeated predictions about West Indian Negroes degenerating +into the condition of their fellow-Negroes in the "Black Republic" (p. +285):-- + +"Were it worth while, one might draw a picture of an English governor, +with a black parliament and a black ministry, recommending, by advice +of his constitutional ministers, some measure like the Haytian Land +Law." + +Now, as the West Indies degenerating into so many white-folk-detesting +Haytis, under our prophet's dreaded supremacy of the Blacks, is the +burden of his book; and as the Land Law in question distinctly forbids +the owning by any white person of even one inch of the soil of the +Republic, it might, but for the above explanation, have seemed +unaccountable, in view of the implacable distrust, not to say hatred, +which this stern prohibition so clearly discloses, that our author +should, nevertheless, rely on the efficacy of white authority and +influence over Haytians. + +In continuation of his religious suggestions, he goes on to descant +upon slavery in the [210] fashion which we have elsewhere noticed, but +it may still be proper to add a word or two here regarding this +particular disquisition of his. This we are happy in being able to do +under the guidance of an anterior and more reliable exponent of +ecclesiastical as well as secular obedience on the part of all free and +enlightened men in the present epoch of the world's history:-- + + "Dogma and Descent, potential twin + Which erst could rein submissive millions in, + Are now spent forces on the eddying surge + Of Thought enfranchised. Agencies emerge + Unhampered by the incubus of dread + Which cramped men's hearts and clogged their onward tread. + Dynasty, Prescription! spectral in these days + When Science points to Thought its surest ways, + And men who scorn obedience when not free + Demand the logic of Authority! + The day of manhood to the world is here, + And ancient homage waxes faint and drear. + . . . . . . + Vision of rapture! See Salvation's plan + 'Tis serving God through ceaseless toil for man!" + +The lines above quoted are by a West Indian Negro, and explain in very +concise form the attitude of the educated African mind [211] with +reference to the matters they deal with. Mr. Froude is free to +perceive that no special religion patched up from obsolete creeds could +be acceptable to those with whose sentiments the thoughts of the writer +just quoted are in true racial unison. It is preposterous to expect +that the same superstition regarding skin ascendency, which is now so +markedly played out in our Colonies in temporal matters, could have any +weight whatsoever in matters so momentous as morals and religion. But +granting even the possibility of any code of worldly ethics or of +religion being acceptable on the dermal score so strenuously insisted +on by him, it is to be feared that, through sheer respect for the +fitness of things, the intelligent Negro in search of guidance in faith +and morals would fail to recognize in our author a guide, philosopher, +and friend, to be followed without the most painful misgivings. The +Catholic and the Dissenting Churches which have done so much for the +temporal and spiritual advancement of the Negro, in spite of hindrance +and active persecution wherever these were possible, are, so far as is +visible, maintaining their hold on the adhesion of those who belong to +them. + +[212] And it cannot be pretended that, among enlightened Africans as +compared with other enlightened people, there have been more grievous +failings off from the scriptural standard of deportment. Possible it +certainly is that considerations akin to, or even identical with, those +relied upon by Mr. Froude might, on the first reception of Christianity +in their exile, have operated effectually upon the minds of the +children of Africa. At that time the evangelizers whose converts they +so readily became possessed the recommendation of belonging to the +dominant caste. Therefore, with the humility proper to their forlorn +condition, the poor bondsmen requited with intense gratitude such +beneficent interest on their behalf, as a condescension to which people +in their hapless situation could have had no right. But for many long +years, the distinction whether of temporal or of spiritual superiority +has ceased to be the monopoly of any particular class. The master and +employer has for far more than a century and a half been often +represented in the West Indies by some born African or his descendant; +and so also has the teacher and preacher. It is not too much to say +that [213] the behaviour of the liberated slaves throughout the British +Antilles, as well as the deportment of the manumitted four million +slaves of the Southern United States later on, bore glorious testimony +to the humanizing effects which the religion of charity, clutched at +and grasped in fragments, and understood with childlike incompleteness, +had produced within those suffering bosoms. + +Nothing has occurred to call for a remodelling of the ordinary moral +and spiritual machinery for the special behoof of Negroes. Religion, +as understood by the best of men, is purely a matter of feeling and +action between man and man--the doing unto others as we would they +should do unto us; and any creed or any doctrine which directly or +indirectly subverts or even weakens this basis is in itself a danger to +the highest welfare of mankind. The simple conventional faith in God, +in Jesus, and in a future state, however modified nowadays, has still a +vitality which can restrain and ennoble its votaries, provided it be +inculcated and received in a befitting spirit. Our critic, in the +plenitude of his familiarity with such matters, confidently asks:-- + +[214] "Who is now made wretched by the fear of hell?" + +Possibly the belief in the material hell, the decadence of which he +here triumphantly assumes to be so general, may have considerably +diminished; but experience has shown that, with the advance of +refinement, there is a concurrent growth in the intensity of moral +sensibility, whereby the waning terrors of a future material hell are +more than replaced by the agonies of a conscience self-convicted of +wilful violation of the right. The same simple faith has, in its +practical results, been rich in the records of the humble whom it has +exalted; of the poor to whom it has been better than wealth; of the +rich whose stewardship of worldly prosperity it has sanctified; of the +timid whom it has rendered bold; and of the valiant whom it has raised +to a divine heroism--in fine, of miracles of transformation that have +impelled to higher and nobler tendencies and uses the powers and gifts +inherited or acquired by man in his natural state. They who possess +this faith, and cherish it as a priceless possession, may calmly oppose +to the philosophic reasoning against the existence of [215] a Deity and +the rationalness of entreating Him in prayer, the simple and sufficient +declaration, "I believe." Normal-minded men, sensible of the +limitations of human faculties, never aspire to be wise beyond what is +revealed. Whatever might exist beyond the grave is, so far as man and +man in their mutual relations are concerned, not a subject that +discussion can affect or speculation unravel. To believers it cannot +matter whether the Sermon on the Mount embodies or does not embody the +quality of ethics that the esoteric votaries of Mr. Froude's "new +creed" do accept or even can tolerate. Under the old creed man's sense +of duty kindled in sympathy towards his brother, urging him to achieve +by self-sacrifice every possibility of beneficence; hence the old creed +insured an inward joy as well as "the peace which passeth all +understanding." There can be no room for desiring left, when +receptiveness of blessings overflows; and it is the worthiest direction +of human energy to secure for others that fulness of fruition. Is not +Duty the first, the highest item of moral consciousness; and is not +promoting, according to our best ability, the welfare of our fellow +creatures, the first and [216] most urgent call of human duty? Can the +urgency of such responsibility ever cease but with the capacity, on our +own or on our brother's part, to do or be done by respectively? +Contemptuously ignoring his share of this solemn +responsibility--solemn, whether regarded from a religious or a purely +secular point of view--to observe at least the negative obligation +never to wantonly do or even devise any harm to his fellows, or indeed +any sentient creature, our new apostle affords, in his light-hearted +reversal of the prescriptive methods of civilized ethics, a woful +foretaste of the moral results of the "new, not as yet crystallized" +belief, whose trusted instruments of spiritual investigation are the +telescope and mental analysis, in order to satisfy the carpings of +those who so impress the world with their superhuman strong-mindedness. + +The following is a profound reflection presenting, doubtless, quite a +new revelation to an unsophisticated world, which had so long submitted +in reverential tameness to the self-evident impossibility of exploring +the Infinite:-- + +"The tendency of popular thought is against [217] the supernatural in +any shape. Far into space as the telescope can search, deep as +analysis can penetrate into mind and consciousness or the forces which +govern natural things, popular thought finds only uniformity and +connection of cause and effect; no sign anywhere of a personal will +which is influenced by prayer or moral motives." + +How much to be pitied are the gifted esoterics who, in such a quest, +vainly point their telescopes into the star-thronged firmament, and +plunge their reasoning powers into the abyss of consciousness and +such-like mysteries! The commonplace intellect of the author of "Night +Thoughts" was, if we may so speak, awed into an adoring rapture which +forced from him the exclamation (may believers hail it as a dogma!)-- + +"An undevout astronomer is mad!" + +Most probably it was in weak submission to some such sentiment as this +that Isaac Newton nowhere in his writings suggests even the ghost of a +doubt of there being a Great Architect of the Universe as the outcome +of his telescopic explorations into the illimitable heavens. + +[218] It is quite possible, too, that he was, "on insufficient +grounds," perhaps, perfectly satisfied, as a host of other intellectual +mediocrities like himself have been, and even up to now rather +provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and connection of +cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being not only "a +personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as well. In this +connection comes to mind a certain old Book which, whatever damage +Semitic Scholarship and Modern Criticism may succeed in inflicting on +its contents, will always retain for the spiritual guidance of the +world enough and to spare of divine suggestions. With the prescience +which has been the heritage of the inspired in all ages, one of the +writers in that Book, whom we shall now quote, foresaw, no doubt, the +deplorable industry of Mr. Froude and his protégé "popular thought," +whose mouth-piece he has so characteristically constituted himself, and +asks in a tone wherein solemn warning blends with inquiry: "Canst thou +by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty unto +perfection!" The rational among the most loftily endowed of mankind +have grasped [219] the sublime significance of this query, acquiescing +reverently in its scarcely veiled intimation of man's impotence in +presence of the task to which it refers. + +But though Mr. Froude's spiritual plight be such as we have just +allowed him to state it, with regard to an object of faith and a motive +of worship, yet let us hear him, in his anxiety to furbish up a special +Negro creed, setting forth the motive for being in a hurry to +anticipate the "crystallization" of his new belief:-- + +"The new creed, however, not having crystallized as yet into a shape +which can be openly professed, and as without any creed at all the +flesh and the devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old +names, as we maintain the monarchy." + +The allusion to the monarchy seems not a very obvious one, as it +parallels the definitive rejection of a spiritual creed with the +theoretical change of ancient notions regarding a concrete fact. At +any rate we have it that his special religion, when concocted and +disseminated, will have the effect of preventing the flesh and the +devil from having too much power over Negroes. The objection to the +[220] devil's sway seems to us to come with queer grace from one who +owes his celebrity chiefly to the production of works teeming with that +peculiar usage of language of which the Enemy of Souls is credited with +the special fatherhood. + +No, sir, in the name of the Being regarding whose existence you and +your alleged "popular thought" are so painfully in doubt, we protest +against your right, or that of any other created worm, to formulate for +the special behoof of Negroes any sort of artificial creed unbelieved +in by yourself, having the function and effect of detective +"shadowings" of their souls. Away with your criminal suggestion of +toleration of the hideous orgies of heathenism in Hayti for the benefit +of our future morals in the West Indies, when the political supremacy +which you predict and dread and deprecate shall have become an +accomplished fact. Were any special standard of spiritual excellence +required, our race has, in Josiah Henson and Sojourner Truth, sufficing +models for our men and our women respectively. Their ideal of +Christian life, which we take to be the true one, is not to be judged +of with direct reference to the Deity whom we cannot [221] see, +interrogate, or comprehend, but to its practical bearing in and on man, +whom we can see and have cognizance of, not only with our physical +senses, but by the intimations of the divinity which abides within us.* +We can see, feel, and appreciate the virtue of a fellow-mortal who +consecrates himself to the Divine idea through untiring exertion for +the bettering of the condition of the world around him, whose agony he +makes it his duty, only to satisfy his burning desire, to mitigate. +The fact in its ghastly reality lies before us that the majority of +mankind labour and are being crushed under the tremendous trinity of +Ignorance, Vice, and Poverty. + +It is mainly in the succouring of those who thus suffer that the +vitality of the old creed is manifested in the person of its +professors. Under this aspect we behold it moulding men, of all +nations, countries, and tongues, whose virtues have challenged and +should command on its behalf the unquestioning faith and adhesion of +every rational observer. "Evidences of Christianity," "Controversies," +"Exegetical Commentaries," have all proved [222] more or less +futile--as perhaps they ought--with the Science and Modern Criticism +which perverts religion into a matter of dialectics. But there is a +hope for mankind in the fact that Science itself shall have ultimately +to admit the limitations of human inquiry into the details of the +Infinite. Meanwhile it requires no technical proficiency to recognize +the criminality of those who waste their brief threescore and ten years +in abstract speculations, while the tangible, visible, and hideous +soul-destroying trinity of Vice, Ignorance, and Poverty, above +mentioned, are desolating the world in their very sight. There are +possessors of personal virtue, enlightenment, and wealth, who dare +stand neutral with regard to these dire exigencies among their fellows. +And yet they are the logical helpers, as holders of the special +antidote to each of those banes! Infinitely more deserving of +execration are such folk than the callous owner of some specific, who +allows a suffering neighbour to perish for want of it. + +We who believe in the ultimate development of the Christian notion of +duty towards God, as manifested in untiring beneficence to man, cling +to this faith--starting from the [223] beginning of the New Testament +dispensation--because Saul of Tarsus, transformed into Paul the Apostle +through his whole-souled acceptance of this very creed with its +practical responsibilities, has, in his ardent, indefatigable labours +for the enlightenment and elevation of his fellows, left us a lesson +which is an enduring inspiration; because Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, +benefited, in a manner which has borne, and ever will bear, priceless +fruit, enormous sections of the human family, after his definite +submission to the benign yoke of the same old creed; because Vincent de +Paul has, through the identical inspiration, endowed the world with his +everlasting legacy of organized beneficence; because it impelled +Francis Xavier with yearning heart and eager footsteps through +thousands of miles of peril, to proclaim to the darkling millions of +India what he had experienced to be tidings of great joy to himself; +because Matthew Hale, a lawyer, and of first prominence in a pursuit +which materializes the mind and nips its native candour and tenderness, +escaped unblighted, through the saving influence of his faith, +approving himself in the sight of all [224] an ideal judge, even +according to the highest conception; because John Howard, opulent and +free to enjoy his opulence and repose, was drawn thereby throughout the +whole continent of Europe in quest of the hidden miseries that torture +those whom the law has shut out, in dungeons, from the light and +sympathy of the world; because Thomas Clarkson, animated by the spirit +of its teachings, consecrated wealth, luxury, and the quiet of an +entire lifetime on the altar of voluntary sacrifice for the salvation +of an alien people; because Samuel Johnson, shut out from mirthfulness +by disease and suffering, and endowed with an intellectual pride +intolerant of froward ignorance, was, through the chastening power of +that belief, transformed into the cheerful minister and willing slave +of the weaklings whom he gathered into his home, and around whom the +tendrils of his heart had entwined themselves, waxing closer and +stronger in the moisture of his never-failing charity; because Henry +Havelock, a man of the sword, whose duties have never been too +propitious to the cultivation and fostering of the gentler virtues, +lived and died a blameless hero, constrained by that faith to be one of +its most illustrious exemplars; [225] because David Livingstone looms +great and reverend in our mental sight in his devotion to a land and +race embraced in his boundless fellow-feeling, and whose miseries he +has commended to the sympathy of the civilized world in words the +pathos whereof has melted thousands of once obdurate hearts to crave a +share in applying a balm to the "open sore of Africa"--that slave-trade +whose numberless horrors beggar description; and finally--one more +example out of the countless varieties of types that blend into a +unique solidarity in the active manifestation of the Christian life--we +believe because Charles Gordon, the martyr-soldier of Khartoum, in +trusting faith a very child, but in heroism more notable than any mere +man of whom history contains a record, gathered around himself, through +the sublime attractiveness of his faith-directed life, the united +suffrages of all nations, and now enjoys, as the recompense and seal of +his life's labours, an apotheosis in homage to which the heathen of +Africa, the man-hunting Arab, the Egyptian, the Turk, all jostle each +other to blend with the exulting children of Britain who are directly +glorified by his life and history. + +[226] Here, then, are speaking evidences of the believers' grounds. +Verily they are of the kind that are to be seen in our midst, touched, +heard, listened to, respected, beloved--nay, honoured, too, with the +glad worship our inward spirit springs forth to render to goodness so +largely plenished from the Source of all Good. Can Modern Science and +Criticism explain them away, or persuade us of their insufficiency as +incentives to the hearty acceptance of the religion that has received +such glorious, yet simply logical, incarnation in the persons of weak, +erring men who welcomed its responsibilities conjointly with its +teachings, and thereby raised themselves to the spiritual level +pictured to ourselves in our conception of angels who have been given +the Divine charge concerning mankind. Religion for Negroes, indeed! +White priests, forsooth! This sort of arrogance might, possibly, avail +in quarters where the person and pretensions of Mr. Froude could be +impressive and influential--but here, in the momentous concern of man +with Him who "is no respecter of persons," his interference, mentally +disposed as he tells us he is with reference to such a matter, is +nothing less than profane intrusion. + +[227] We will conclude by stating in a few words our notion of the only +agency by which, not Blacks alone, but every race of mankind, might be +uplifted to the moral level which the thousands of examples, of which +we have glanced at but a few, prove so indubitably the capacity of man +to attain--each to a degree limited by the scope of his individual +powers. The priesthood whereof the world stands in such dire need is +not at all the confederacy of augurs which Mr. Froude, perhaps in +recollection of his former profession, so glibly suggests, with an +esoteric creed of their own, "crystallized into shape" for profession +before the public. The day of priestcraft being now numbered with the +things that were, the exploitation of those outside of the sacerdotal +circle is no longer possible. Therefore the religion of mere talk, +however metaphysical and profound; the religion of scenic display, +except such display be symbolic of living and active verities, has lost +whatever of efficacy it may once have possessed, through the very +spirit and tendency of To-day. The reason why those few whom we have +mentioned, and the thousands who cannot possibly be recalled, have, as +[228] typical Christians, impressed themselves on the moral sense and +sympathy of the ages, is simply that they lived the faith which they +professed. Whatever words they may have employed to express their +serious thoughts were never otherwise than, incidentally, a spoken +fragment of their own interior biography. In fine, success must +infallibly attend this special priesthood (whether episcopally +"ordained" or not) of all races, all colours, all tongues whatsoever, +since their lives reflect their teachings and their teachings reflect +their lives. Then, truly, they, "the righteous, shall inherit the +earth," leading mankind along the highest and noblest paths of temporal +existence. Then, of course, the obeah, the cannibalism, the +devil-worship of the whole world, including that of Hayti, which Mr. +Froude predicts will be adopted by us Blacks in the West Indies, shall +no more encumber and scandalize the earth. + +But Mr. Froude should, at the same time, be reminded that cannibalism +and the hideous concomitants which he mentions are, after all, +relatively minor and restricted dangers to man's civilization and moral +soundness. They can [229] neither operate freely nor expand easily. +The paralysis of horrified popular sentiment obstructs their +propagation, and the blight of the death-penalty which hangs over the +heads of their votaries is an additional guarantee of their being kept +within bounds that minimize their perniciousness. But there are more +fatal and further-reaching dangers to public morality and happiness of +which the regenerated current opinion of the future will take prompt +and remedial cognizance. Foremost among these will be the circulation +of malevolent writings whereby the equilibrium of sympathy between good +men of different races is sought to be destroyed, through misleading +appeals to the weaknesses and prejudices of readers; writings in which +the violation of actual truth cannot, save by stark stupidity, be +attributed to innocent error; writings that scoff at humanitarian +feeling and belittle the importance of achievements resulting +therefrom; writings which strike at the root of national manliness, by +eulogizing brute force directed against weaker folk as a fit and +legitimate mode of securing the wishes of a mighty and enlightened +people; writings, in fine, which ignore the divine principle [230] in +man, and implicitly deny the possibility of a Divine Power existing +outside of and above man, thus materializing the mind, and tending to +render the earth a worse hell than it ever could have been with faith +in the supremacy of a beneficent Power. + +NOTES + +221. *"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo."--Ovid. + + + +BOOK IV: HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +[233] Thus far we have dealt with the main questions raised by Mr. +Froude on the lines of his own choosing; lines which demonstrate to the +fullest how unsuited his capacity is for appreciating--still less +grappling with--the political and social issues he has so confidently +undertaken to determine. In vain have we sought throughout his bastard +philosophizing for any phrase giving promise of an adequate treatment +of this important subject. We find paraded ostentatiously enough the +doctrine that in the adjustment of human affairs the possession of a +white skin should be the strongest recommendation. Wonder might fairly +be felt that there is no suggestion of a corresponding advantage being +accorded to the possession of a long nose or of auburn hair. Indeed, +little [234] or no attention that can be deemed serious is given to the +interest of the Blacks, as a large and (out of Africa) no longer +despicable section of the human family, in the great world-problems +which are so visibly preparing and press for definitive solutions. The +intra-African Negro is clearly powerless to struggle successfully +against personal enslavement, annexation, or volunteer forcible +"protection" of his territory. What, we ask, will in the coming ages +be the opinion and attitude of the extra-African millions--ten millions +in the Western Hemisphere--dispersed so widely over the surface of the +globe, apt apprentices in every conceivable department of civilized +culture? Will these men remain for ever too poor, too isolated from one +another for grand racial combinations? Or will the naturally opulent +cradle of their people, too long a prey to violence and unholy greed, +become at length the sacred watchword of a generation willing and able +to conquer or perish under its inspiration? Such large and interesting +questions it was within the province and duty of a famous historian, +laying confident claim to prophetic insight, not to propound alone, but +also definitely to solve. The sacred power [235] of forecast, however, +has been confined to finical pronouncements regarding those for whose +special benefit he has exercised it, and to childish insults of the +Blacks whose doom must be sealed to secure the precious result which is +aimed at. In view of this ill-intentioned omission, we shall offer a +few cursory remarks bearing on, but not attempting to answer, those +grave inquiries concerning the African people. As in our humble +opinion these are questions paramount to all the petty local issues +finically dilated on by the confident prophet of "The Bow of Ulysses," +we will here briefly devote ourselves to its discussion. + +Accepting the theory of human development propounded by our author, let +us apply it to the African race. Except, of course, to intelligences +having a share in the Councils of Eternity, there can be no attainable +knowledge respecting the laws which regulate the growth and progress of +civilization among the races of the earth. That in the existence of the +human family every age has been marked by its own essential +characteristics with regard to manifestations of intellectual life, +however circumscribed, is a proposition too self-evident [236] to +require more than the stating. But investigation beyond such evidence +as we possess concerning the past--whether recorded by man himself in +the written pages of history, or by the Creator on the tablets of +nature--would be worse than futile. We see that in the past different +races have successively come to the front, as prominent actors on the +world's stage. The years of civilized development have dawned in turn +on many sections of the human family, and the Anglo-Saxons, who now +enjoy preeminence, got their turn only after Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, +Greece, Rome, and others had successively held the palm of supremacy. +And since these mighty empires have all passed away, may we not then, +if the past teaches aught, confidently expect that other racial +hegemonies will arise in the future to keep up the ceaseless +progression of temporal existence towards the existence that is +eternal? What is it in the nature of things that will oust the African +race from the right to participate, in times to come, in the high +destinies that have been assigned in times past to so many races that +have not been in anywise superior to us in the qualifications, +physical, moral, and intellectual, [237] that mark out a race for +prominence amongst other races? + +The normal composition of the typical Negro has the testimony of ages +to its essential soundness and nobility. Physically, as an active +labourer, he is capable of the most protracted exertion under climatic +conditions the most exhausting. By the mere strain of his brawn and +sinew he has converted waste tracts of earth into fertile regions of +agricultural bountifulness. On the scenes of strife he has in his +savage state been known to be indomitable save by the stress of +irresistible forces, whether of men or of circumstances. Staunch in his +friendship and tender towards the weak directly under his protection, +the unvitiated African furnishes in himself the combination of native +virtue which in the land of his exile was so prolific of good results +for the welfare of the whole slave-class. But distracted at home by the +sudden irruptions of skulking foes, he has been robbed, both +intellectually and morally, of the immense advantage of Peace, which is +the mother of Progress. Transplanted to alien climes, and through +centuries of desolating trials, this irrepressible race has [238] bated +not one throb of its energy, nor one jot of its heart or hope. In +modern times, after his expatriation into dismal bondage, both Britain +and America have had occasion to see that even in the paralysing +fetters of political and social degradation the right arm of the Ethiop +can be a valuable auxiliary on the field of battle. Britain, in her +conflict with France for supremacy in the West Indies, did not disdain +the aid of the sable arms that struck together with those of Britons +for the trophies that furnished the motives for those epic contests. + +Later on, the unparalleled struggle between the Northern and Southern +States of the American Union put to the test the indestructible fibres +of the Negro's nature, moral as well as physical. The Northern States, +after months of hesitating repugnance, and when taught at last by dire +defeats that colour did not in any way help to victory, at length +sullenly acquiesced in the comradeship, hitherto disdained, of the +eager African contingent. The records of Port Hudson, Vicksburg, +Morris Island, and elsewhere, stand forth in imperishable attestation +of the fact that the distinction of being laurelled during life as +victor, or filling [239] in death a hero's grave, is reserved for no +colour, but for the heart that can dare and the hand that can strike +boldly in a righteous cause. The experience of the Southern +slave-holders, on the other hand, was no less striking and worthy of +admiration. Every man of the twelve seceding States forming the +Southern Confederacy, then fighting desperately for the avowed purpose +of perpetuating slavery, was called into the field, as no available +male arm could be spared from the conflict on their side. Plantation +owner, overseer, and every one in authority, had to be drafted away +from the scene of their usual occupation to the stage whereon the +bloody drama of internecine strife was being enacted. Not only the +plantation, but the home and the household, including the mistress and +her children, had to be left, not unprotected, it is glorious to +observe, but, with confident assurance in their loyalty and good faith, +under the protection of the four million of bondsmen, who, through the +laws and customs of these very States, had been doomed to lifelong +ignorance and exclusion from all moralizing influences. With what +result? The protraction of the conflict on the part of the South would +[240] have been impossible but for the admirable management and +realization of their resources by those benighted slaves. On the other +hand, not one of the thousands of Northern prisoners escaping from the +durance of a Southern captivity ever appealed in vain for the +assistance and protection of a Negro. Clearly the head and heart of +those bondsmen were each in its proper place. The moral effect of +these experiences of the Negroes' sterling qualities was not lost on +either North or South. In the North it effaced from thousands of +repugnant hearts the adverse feelings which had devised and +accomplished so much to the Negro's detriment. In the South--but for +the blunders of the Reconstructionists--it would have considerably +facilitated the final readjustment of affairs between the erewhile +master and slave in their new-born relations of employer and employed. + +Reverting to the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the +States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their +favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy +condition. First, attention must be paid to the patriotic solidarity +existing [241] amongst the bondsmen, a solidarity which, in the case of +those who had been deported in the same ship, had all the sanctity of +blood-relationship. Those who had thus travelled to the "white man's +country" addressed and considered each other as brothers and sisters. +Hence their descendants for many generations upheld, as if +consanguineous, the modes of address and treatment which became +hereditary in families whose originals had travelled in the same ship. +These adopted uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, were so united by common +sympathies, that good or ill befalling any one of them intensely +affected the whole connection. Mutual support commensurate with the +area of their location thus became the order among these people. At +the time of the first deportation of Africans to the West Indies to +replace the aborigines who had been decimated in the mines at Santo +Domingo and in the pearl fisheries of the South Caribbean, the +circumstances of the Spanish settlers in the Antilles were of singular, +even romantic, interest. + +The enthusiasm which overflowed from the crusades and the Moorish wars, +upon the discovery and conquest of America, had occasioned [242] the +peopling of the Western Archipelago by a race of men in whom the daring +of freebooters was strangely blended with a fierce sort of +religiousness. As holders of slaves, these men recognized, and +endeavoured to their best to give effect to, the humane injunctions of +Bishop Las Casas. The Negroes, therefore, male and female, were +promptly presented for admission by baptism into the Catholic Church, +which always had stood open and ready to welcome them. The relations +of god-father and god-mother resulting from these baptismal functions +had a most important bearing on the reciprocal stations of master and +slave. The god-children were, according to ecclesiastical custom, +considered in every sense entitled to all the protection and assistance +which were within the competence of the god-parents, who, in their +turn, received from the former the most absolute submission. It is +easy to see that the planters, as well as those intimately connected +with them, in assuming such obligations with their concomitant +responsibilities, practically entered into bonds which they all +regarded as, if possible, more solemn than the natural ties of secular +parentage. The duty [243] of providing for these dependents usually +took the shape of their being apprenticed to, and trained in the +various arts and vocations that constitute the life of civilization. +In many cases, at the death of their patrons, the bondsmen who were +deemed most worthy were, according to the means of the testator, +provided for in a manner lifting them above the necessity of future +dependence. Manumission, too, either by favour or through purchase, +was allowed the fullest operation. Here then was the active influence +of higher motives than mere greed of gain or the pride of racial power +mellowing the lot and gilding the future prospects of the dwellers in +the tropical house of bondage. + +The next, and even more effectual agency in modifying and harmonizing +the relations between owner and bondspeople was the inevitable +attraction of one race to the other by the sentiment of natural +affection. Out of this sprang living ties far more intimate and +binding on the moral sense than even obligations contracted in +deference to the Church. Natural impulses have often diviner sources +than ecclesiastical mandates. Obedience to the former not seldom +brings down the penalties of the Church; but [244] the culprit finds +solace in the consciousness that the offence might in itself be a +protection from the thunders it has provoked. Under these +circumstances the general body of planters, who were in the main +adventurers of the freest type, were fain to establish connections with +such of the slave-women as attracted their sympathy, through personal +comeliness or aptitude in domestic affairs, or, usually, both combined. +There was ordinarily in this beginning of the seventeenth century no +Vashti that needed expulsion from the abode of a plantation Ahasuerus +to make room for the African Esther to be admitted to the chief place +within the portals. One great natural consequence of this was the +extension to the relatives or guardians of the bondswoman so preferred +of an amount of favour which, in the case of the more capable males, +completes the parallel we have been drawing by securing for each of +them the precedence and responsibilities of a Mordecai. The offspring +of these natural alliances came in therefore to cement more intimately +the union of interests which previous relations had generated. Beloved +by their fathers, and in many cases destined by them to a lot superior +[245] to that whereto they were entitled by formal law and social +prescription, these young procreations--Mulattos, as they were +called--were made the objects of special and careful provisions on the +fathers' part. They were, according to the means of their fathers in +the majority of cases, sent for education and training to European or +other superior institutions. After this course they were either +formally acknowledged by their fathers, or, if that was impracticable, +amply and suitably provided for in a career out of their native colony. +To a reflecting mind there is something that interests, not to say +fascinates, in studying the action and reaction upon one another of +circumstances in the existence of the Mulatto. As a matter of fact, he +had much more to complain of under the slave system than his +pure-blooded African relations. The law, by decreeing that every child +of a freeman and a slave woman must follow the fortune of the womb, +thus making him the property of his mother exclusively, practically +robbed him before his very birth of the nurture and protection of a +father. His reputed father had no obligation to be even aware of his +procreation, and nevertheless [246] --so inscrutable are the ways of +Providence!--the Mulatto was the centre around which clustered the +outraged instincts of nature in rebellion against the desecrating +mandates that prescribed treason to herself. Law and society may +decree; but in our normal humanity there throbs a sentiment which +neutralizes every external impulse contrary to its promptings. + +In meditating on the varied history of the Negro in the United States, +since his first landing on the banks of the James River in 1619 till +the Emancipation Act of President Lincoln in 1865, it is curious to +observe that the elevation of the race, though in a great measure +secured, proceeded from circumstances almost the reverse of those that +operated so favourably in the same direction elsewhere. The men of the +slave-holding States, chiefly Puritans or influenced by Puritanic +surroundings, were not under the ecclesiastical sway which rendered +possible in the West Indies and other Catholic countries the +establishment of the reciprocal bonds of god-parents and god-children. +The self-same causes operated to prevent any large blending of the two +races, inasmuch as the immigrant from Britain who [247] had gone forth +from his country to better his fortune had not left behind him his +attachment to the institutions of the mother-land, among which +marrying, whenever practicable, was one of the most cherished. Above +all, too, as another powerful check at first to such alliances between +the ruling and servile races of the States, there existed the native +idiosyncracy of the Anglo-Saxon. That class of them who had left +Britain were likelier than the more refined of their nation to exhibit +in its crudest and cruellest form the innate jealousy and contempt of +other races that pervades the Anglo-Saxon bosom. It is but a simple +fact that, whenever he condescended thereto, familiarity with even the +loveliest of the subject people was regarded as a mighty self-unbending +for which the object should be correspondingly grateful. So there +could, in the beginning, be no frequent instances of the romantic +chivalry that gilded the quasi-marital relations of the more fervid and +humane members of the Latin stock. + +But this kind of intercourse, which in the earlier generation was +undoubtedly restricted in North America by the checks above adverted +to, and, presumably, also by the mutual unintelligibility [248] in +speech, gradually expanded with the natural increase of the slave +population. The American-born, English-speaking Negro girl, who had in +many cases been the playmate of her owner, was naturally more +intelligible, more accessible, more attractive--and the inevitable +consequence was the extension apace of that intercourse, the offspring +whereof became at length so visibly numerous. + +Among the Romans, the grandest of all colonizers, the individual's +Civis Romanus sum--I am a Roman citizen--was something more than verbal +vapouring; it was a protective talisman--a buckler no less than a +sword. Yet was the possession of this noble and singular privilege no +barrier to Roman citizens meeting on a broad humanitarian level any +alien race, either allied to or under the protection of that +world-famous commonwealth. In the speeches of the foremost orators and +statesmen among the conquerors of the then known world, the allusions +to subject or allied aliens are distinguished by a decorous observance +of the proprieties which should mark any reference to those who had the +dignity of Rome's [249] friendship, or the privilege of her august +protection. Observations, therefore, regarding individuals of rank in +these alien countries had the same sobriety and deference which marked +allusions to born Romans of analogous degree. Such magnanimity, we +grieve to say, is not characteristic of the race which now replaces the +Romans in the colonizing leadership of the world. We read with +feelings akin to despair of the cheap, not to say derogatory, manner in +which, in both Houses of Parliament, native potentates, especially of +non-European countries, are frequently spoken of by the hereditary +aristocracy and the first gentlemen of the British Empire. The inborn +racial contempt thus manifested in quarters where rigid self-control +and decorum should form the very essence of normal deportment, was not +likely, as we have before hinted, to find any mollifying ingredient in +the settlers on the banks of the Mississippi. Therefore should we not +be surprised to find, with regard to many an illicit issue of "down +South," the arrogance of race so overmastering the promptings of nature +as to render not unfrequent at the auction-block the sight of many a +chattel of mixed blood, the offspring [250] of some planter whom +business exigency had forced to this commercial transaction as the +readiest mode of self-release. Yet were the exceptions to this rule +enough to contribute appreciably to the weight and influence of the +mixed race in the North, where education and a fair standing had been +clandestinely secured for their children by parents to whom law and +society had made it impossible to do more, and whom conscience rendered +incapable of stopping at less. + +From this comparative sketch of the history of the slaves in the +States, in the West Indies and countries adjacent, it will be perceived +that in the latter scenes of bondage everything had conspired to render +a fusion of interests between the ruling and the servile classes not +only easy, but inevitable. In the very first generation after their +introduction, the Africans began to press upward, a movement which +every decade has accelerated, in spite of the changes which supervened +as each of the Colonies fell under British sway. Nearly two centuries +had by this time elapsed, and the coloured influence, which had grown +with their wealth, education, numbers, and unity, though [251] +circumscribed by the emancipation of the slaves, and the consequent +depression in fortune of all slave-owners, never was or could be +annihilated. In the Government service there were many for whom the +patronage of god-parents or the sheer influence of their family had +effected an entrance. The prevalence and potency of the influences we +have been dilating upon may be gauged by the fact that personages no +less exalted than Governors of various Colonies--of Trinidad in three +authentic cases--have been sharers in the prevailing usages, in the +matter of standing sponsors (by proxy), and also of relaxing in the +society of some fascinating daughter of the sun from the tension and +wear of official duty. In the three cases just referred to, the most +careful provision was made for the suitable education and starting in +life of the issues. For the god-children of Governors there were +places in the public service, and so from the highest to the lowest the +humanitarian intercourse of the classes was confirmed. + +Consequent on the frequent abandonment of their plantations by many +owners who despaired of being able to get along by paying [252] their +way, an opening was made for the insinuation of Absenteeism into our +agricultural, in short, our economic existence. The powerful sugar +lords, who had invested largely in the cane plantations, were fain to +take over and cultivate the properties which their debtors doggedly +refused to continue working, under pretext of the entire absence, or at +any rate unreliability, of labour. The representatives of those new +transatlantic estate proprietors displaced, but never could replace, +the original cultivators, who were mostly gentlemen as well as +agriculturists. It was from this overseer class that the vituperations +and slanders went forth that soon became stereotyped, concerning the +Negro's incorrigible laziness and want of ambition--those gentry +adjusting the scale of wages, not according to the importance and value +of the labour done, but according to the scornful estimate which they +had formed of the Negro personally. And when the wages were fixed +fairly, they almost invariably sought to indemnify themselves for their +enforced justice by the insulting license of their tongues, addressed +to males and females alike. The influence of such men on local +legislation, in which they [253] had a preponderating share, either as +actual proprietors or as the attorneys of absentees, was not in the +direction of refinement or liberality. Indeed, the kind of laws which +they enacted, especially during the apprenticeship (1834-8), is thus +summarized by one, and him an English officer, who was a visitor in +those agitated days of the Colonies:-- + +"It is demonstrated that the laws which were to come into operation +immediately on expiration of the apprenticeship are of the most +objectionable character, and fully established the fact not only of a +future intention to infringe the rights of the emancipated classes, but +of the actual commencement and extensive progress of a Colonial system +for that purpose. The object of the laws is to circumscribe the market +for free labour--to prohibit the possession or sale of ordinary +articles of produce on sale, the obvious intention of which is to +confine the emancipated classes to a course of agricultural +servitude--to give the employers a monopoly of labour, and to keep down +a free competition for wages--to create new and various modes of +apprenticeship for the purpose of prolonging predial service, together +with many evils of the [254] late system--to introduce unnecessary +restraint and coercion, the design of which is to create a perpetual +surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish a legislative +despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the most vicious +principles of legislation, and in their operation will be found +intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just intentions +of the British Legislature." + +These liberal-souled gentry were, in sooth, Mr. Froude's +"representatives" of Britain, whose traditions steadily followed in +their families, he has so well and sympathetically set forth. + +We thus see that the irritation and rancour seething in the breast of +the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then +also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished and +kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, +certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was +too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own phrase, +people of colour had by that time already "passed the lock-jaw"* stage +(at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped the germ of +their progress in the bud.) In spite of adverse legislation, and in +spite of the scandalous subservience of certain Governors to the +Colonial Legislatures, the Race can point with thankfulness and pride +to the visible records of their success wherever they have permanently +sojourned. + +Primary education of a more general and undiscriminating character, +especially as to race and colour, was secured for the bulk of the West +Indies by voluntary undertakings, and notably through the munificent +provision of Lady Mico, which extended to the whole of the principal +islands. + +Thanks to Lord Harris for introducing, and to Sir Arthur Gordon for +extending to the secondary stage, the public education of Trinidad, +there has been since Emancipation, that is, during the last +thirty-seven years, a more effective bringing together in public +schools of various grades, of children of all races and ranks. Rivals +at home, at school and college, in books as well as on the playground, +they have very frequently gone abroad together to learn the professions +they have selected. In this way there is an intercommunion between all +the [256] intelligent sections of the inhabitants, based on a common +training and the subtle sympathies usually generated in enlightened +breasts by intimate personal knowledge. In mixed communities thus +circumstanced, there is no possibility of maintaining distinctions +based on mere colour, as advocated by Mr. Froude. + +The following brief summary by the Rev. P. H. Doughlin, Rector of St. +Clement's, Trinidad, a brilliant star among the sons of Ham, embodies +this fact in language which, so far as it goes, is as comprehensive as +it is weighty:-- + +"Who could, without seeming to insult the intelligence of men, have +predicted on the day of Emancipation that the Negroes then released +from the blight and withering influence of ten generations of cruel +bondage, so weakened and half-destroyed--so denationalized and +demoralized--so despoiled and naked, would be in the position they are +now? In spite of the proud, supercilious, and dictatorial bearing of +their teachers, in spite of the hampering of unsympathetic, alien +oversight, in spite of the spirit of dependence and servility +engendered by slavery, not only have individual members of the race +entered into all the offices of dignity in [257] Church and State, as +subalterns--as hewers of wood and drawers of water--but they have +attained to the very highest places. Here in the West Indies, and on +the West Coast of Africa, are to be found Surgeons of the Negro Race, +Solicitors, Barristers, Mayors, Councillors, Principals and Founders of +High Schools and Colleges, Editors and Proprietors of Newspapers, +Archdeacons, Bishops, Judges, and Authors--men who not only teach those +immediately around them, but also teach the world. Members of the race +have even been entrusted with the administration of Governments. And +it is not mere commonplace men that the Negro Race has produced. Not +only have the British Universities thought them worthy of their +honorary degrees and conferred them on them, but members of the race +have won these University degrees. A few years back a full-blooded +Negro took the highest degree Oxford has to give to a young man. The +European world is looking with wonder and admiration at the progress +made by the Negro Race--a progress unparalleled in the annals of the +history of any race." + +To this we may add that in the domain [258] of high literature the +Blacks of the United States, for the twenty-five years of social +emancipation, and despite the lingering obstructions of caste +prejudice, have positively achieved wonders. Leaving aside the +writings of men of such high calibre as F. Douglass, Dr. Hyland Garnet, +Prof. Crummell, Prof. E. Blyden, Dr. Tanner, and others, it is +gratifying to be able to chronicle the Ethiopic women of North America +as moving shoulder to shoulder with the men in the highest spheres of +literary activity. Among a brilliant band of these our sisters, +conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out but a +solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and of +giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. The +allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This +lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds +effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. But +it is as a poet that posterity will hail her in the coming ages of our +Race. For pathos, depth of spiritual insight, and magical exercise of +a rare power of self-utterance, it will hardly be questioned that she +has surpassed every competitor [259] among females--white or +black--save and except Elizabeth Barett Browning, with whom the gifted +African stands on much the same plane of poetic excellence. + +The above summary of our past vicissitudes and actual position shows +that there is nothing in our political circumstances to occasion +uneasiness. The miserable skin and race doctrine we have been +discussing does not at all prefigure the destinies at all events of the +West Indies, or determine the motives that will affect them. With the +exception of those belonging to the Southern states of the Union, the +vast body of African descendants now dispersed in various countries of +the Western Hemisphere are at sufficient peace to begin occupying +themselves, according to some fixed programme, about matters of racial +importance. More than ten millions of Africans are scattered over the +wide area indicated, and possess amongst them instances of mental and +other qualifications which render them remarkable among their +fellow-men. But like the essential parts of a complicated albeit +perfect machine, these attainments and qualifications so widely +dispersed await, it is evident, some potential [260] agency to collect +and adjust them into the vast engine essential for executing the true +purposes of the civilized African Race. Already, especially since the +late Emancipation Jubilee, are signs manifest of a desire for +intercommunion and intercomprehension amongst the more distinguished of +our people. With intercourse and unity of purpose will be secured the +means to carry out the obvious duties which are sure to devolve upon +us, especially with reference to the cradle of our Race, which is most +probably destined to be the ultimate resting-place and headquarters of +millions of our posterity. Within the short time that we had to +compass all that we have achieved, there could not have arisen +opportunities for doing more than we have effected. Meanwhile our +present device is: "Work, Hope, and Wait!" + +Finally, it must be borne in mind that the abolition of physical +bondage did not by any means secure all the requisite conditions of "a +fair field and no favour" for the future career of the freedmen. The +remnant of Jacob, on their return from the Captivity, were compelled, +whilst rebuilding their Temple, literally to labour with the working +tool in one hand [261] and the sword for personal defence in the other. +Even so have the conditions, figuratively, presented themselves under +which the Blacks have been obliged to rear the fabric of self-elevation +since 1838, whilst combating ceaselessly the obstacles opposed to the +realizing of their legitimate aspirations. Mental and, in many cases, +material success has been gained, but the machinery for accumulating +and applying the means required for comprehensive racial enterprises is +waiting on Providence, time, and circumstances for its establishment +and successful working. + +NOTES + +254. *"Yo té'ja passé mal machoè"--in metaphorical allusion to new-born +infants who have lived beyond a certain number of days. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of West Indian Fables by James Anthony +Froude Explained by J. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/4068-8.zip b/4068-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..304b90d --- /dev/null +++ b/4068-8.zip diff --git a/4068-h.zip b/4068-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6bc619 --- /dev/null +++ b/4068-h.zip diff --git a/4068-h/4068-h.htm b/4068-h/4068-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8775a7e --- /dev/null +++ b/4068-h/4068-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5636 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of West Indian Fables by J. A. Froude, +by J. J. Thomas +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.intro {font-size: small ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude +Explained by J. J. Thomas, by J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas + +Author: J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas + +Posting Date: June 13, 2009 [EBook #4068] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: November 1, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST INDIAN FABLES *** + + + + +Produced by Alfred J. Drake. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FROUDACITY (1889) +</H3> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +J.J. Thomas +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +WEST INDIAN FABLES <BR>BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +EXPLAINED BY J. J. THOMAS +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Contents +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#preface">Preface</A> by J.J. Thomas +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I. +</H3> + +<H4> + <A HREF="#chap01">Introduction</A>: 27-33<BR> + <A HREF="#chap02">Voyage out</A>: 34-41<BR> + <A HREF="#chap03">Barbados</A>: 41-44<BR> + <A HREF="#chap04">St. Vincent</A>: 44-48<BR> + <A HREF="#chap05">Grenada</A>: 48-50<BR> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK II. +</H3> + +<H4> + <A HREF="#chap06">Trinidad</A>: 53-55<BR> + <A HREF="#chap06">Reform in Trinidad</A>: 55-80<BR> + <A HREF="#chap08">Negro Felicity in the West Indies</A>: 81-110<BR> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK III. +</H3> + +<H4> + <A HREF="#chap09">Social Revolution</A>: 113-174<BR> + <A HREF="#chap10">West Indian Confederation</A>: 175-200<BR> + <A HREF="#chap11">The Negro as a Worker</A>: 201-206<BR> + <A HREF="#chap12">Religion for Negroes</A>: 207-230<BR> +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK IV. +</H3> + +<H4> + <A HREF="#chap13">Historical Summary or Résumé</A>: 233-261, end<BR> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FROUDACITY +</H3> + +<BR> + +<A NAME="preface"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PREFACE +</H3> + +<P> +[5] Last year had well advanced towards its middle—in fact it was +already April, 1888—before Mr. Froude's book of travels in the West +Indies became known and generally accessible to readers in those +Colonies. +</P> + +<P> +My perusal of it in Grenada about the period above mentioned disclosed, +thinly draped with rhetorical flowers, the dark outlines of a scheme to +thwart political aspiration in the Antilles. That project is sought to +be realized by deterring the home authorities from granting an elective +local legislature, however restricted in character, to any of the +Colonies not yet enjoying such an advantage. An argument based on the +composition of the inhabitants of those Colonies is confidently relied +upon to confirm the inexorable mood of Downing Street. +</P> + +<P> +[6] Over-large and ever-increasing,—so runs the argument,—the African +element in the population of the West Indies is, from its past history +and its actual tendencies, a standing menace to the continuance of +civilization and religion. An immediate catastrophe, social, +political, and moral, would most assuredly be brought about by the +granting of full elective rights to dependencies thus inhabited. +Enlightened statesmanship should at once perceive the immense benefit +that would ultimately result from such refusal of the franchise. The +cardinal recommendation of that refusal is that it would avert +definitively the political domination of the Blacks, which must +inevitably be the outcome of any concession of the modicum of right so +earnestly desired. The exclusion of the Negro vote being inexpedient, +if not impossible, the exercise of electoral powers by the Blacks must +lead to their returning candidates of their own race to the local +legislatures, and that, too, in numbers preponderating according to the +majority of the Negro electors. The Negro legislators thus supreme in +the councils of the Colonies would straightway proceed to pass +vindictive and retaliatory laws against their white fellow- [7] +colonists. For it is only fifty years since the White man and the +Black man stood in the reciprocal relations of master and slave. +Whilst those relations subsisted, the white masters inflicted, and the +black slaves had to endure, the hideous atrocities that are inseparable +from the system of slavery. Since Emancipation, the enormous strides +made in self-advancement by the ex-slaves have only had the effect of +provoking a resentful uneasiness in the bosoms of the ex-masters. The +former bondsmen, on their side, and like their brethren of Hayti, are +eaten up with implacable, blood-thirsty rancour against their former +lords and owners. The annals of Hayti form quite a cabinet of +political and social object lessons which, in the eyes of British +statesmen, should be invaluable in showing the true method of dealing +with Ethiopic subjects of the Crown. The Negro race in Hayti, in order +to obtain and to guard what it calls its freedom, has outraged every +humane instinct and falsified every benevolent hope. The slave-owners +there had not been a whit more cruel than slave-owners in the other +islands. But, in spite of this, how ferocious, how sanguinary, [8] how +relentless against them has the vengeance of the Blacks been in their +hour of mastery! A century has passed away since then, and, +notwithstanding that, the hatred of Whites still rankles in their +souls, and is cherished and yielded to as a national creed and guide of +conduct. Colonial administrators of the mighty British Empire, the +lesson which History has taught and yet continues to teach you in Hayti +as to the best mode of dealing with your Ethiopic colonists lies +patent, blood-stained and terrible before you, and should be taken +definitively to heart. But if you are willing that Civilization and +Religion—in short, all the highest developments of individual and +social life—should at once be swept away by a desolating vandalism of +African birth; if you do not recoil from the blood-guiltiness that +would stain your consciences through the massacre of our +fellow-countrymen in the West Indies, on account of their race, +complexion and enlightenment; finally, if you desire those modern +Hesperides to revert into primeval jungle, horrent lairs wherein the +Blacks, who, but a short while before, had been ostensibly civilized, +shall be revellers, as high-priests and [9] devotees, in orgies of +devil-worship, cannibalism, and obeah—dare to give the franchise to +those West Indian Colonies, and then rue the consequences of your +infatuation!... +</P> + +<P> +Alas, if the foregoing summary of the ghastly imaginings of Mr. Froude +were true, in what a fool's paradise had the wisest and best amongst us +been living, moving, and having our being! Up to the date of the +suggestion by him as above of the alleged facts and possibilities of +West Indian life, we had believed (even granting the correctness of his +gloomy account of the past and present positions of the two races) that +to no well-thinking West Indian White, whose ancestors may have, +innocently or culpably, participated in the gains as well as the guilt +of slavery, would the remembrance of its palmy days be otherwise than +one of regret. We Negroes, on the other hand, after a lapse of time +extending over nearly two generations, could be indebted only to +precarious tradition or scarcely accessible documents for any knowledge +we might chance upon of the sufferings endured in these Islands of the +West by those of our race who have gone before us. Death, with +undiscriminating hand, had gathered [10] in the human harvest of +masters and slaves alike, according to or out of the normal laws of +nature; while Time had been letting down on the stage of our existence +drop-scene after drop-scene of years, to the number of something like +fifty, which had been curtaining off the tragic incidents of the past +from the peaceful activities of the present. Being thus circumstanced, +thought we, what rational elements of mutual hatred should now continue +to exist in the bosoms of the two races? +</P> + +<P> +With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, because of our oneness +with its inhabitants in origin and complexion, as a criterion for the +exact forecast of our future conduct under given circumstances, this +appeared to us, looking at actual facts, perversity gone wild in the +manufacture of analogies. The founders of the Black Republic, we had +all along understood, were not in any sense whatever equipped, as Mr. +Froude assures us they were, when starting on their self-governing +career, with the civil and intellectual advantages that had been +transplanted from Europe. On the contrary, we had been taught to +regard them as most unfortunate in the circumstances under which [11] +they so gloriously conquered their merited freedom. We saw them free, +but perfectly illiterate barbarians, impotent to use the intellectual +resources of which their valour had made them possessors, in the shape +of books on the spirit and technical details of a highly developed +national existence. We had learnt also, until this new interpreter of +history had contradicted the accepted record, that the continued +failure of Hayti to realize the dreams of Toussaint was due to the +fatal want of confidence subsisting between the fairer and darker +sections of the inhabitants, which had its sinister and disastrous +origin in the action of the Mulattoes in attempting to secure freedom +for themselves, in conjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice of +their darker-hued kinsmen. Finally, it had been explained to us that +the remembrance of this abnormal treason had been underlying and +perniciously influencing the whole course of Haytian national history. +All this established knowledge we are called upon to throw overboard, +and accept the baseless assertions of this conjuror-up of inconceivable +fables! He calls upon us to believe that, in spite of being free, +educated, progressive, and at peace with [12] all men, we West Indian +Blacks, were we ever to become constitutionally dominant in our native +islands, would emulate in savagery our Haytian fellow-Blacks who, at +the time of retaliating upon their actual masters, were tortured +slaves, bleeding and rendered desperate under the oppressors' lash—and +all this simply and merely because of the sameness of our ancestry and +the colour of our skin! One would have thought that Liberia would have +been a fitter standard of comparison in respect of a coloured +population starting a national life, really and truly equipped with the +requisites and essentials of civilized existence. But such a reference +would have been fatal to Mr. Froude's object: the annals of Liberia +being a persistent refutation of the old pro-slavery prophecies which +our author so feelingly rehearses. +</P> + +<P> +Let us revert, however, to Grenada and the newly-published "Bow of +Ulysses," which had come into my hands in April, 1888. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to me, on reading that book, and deducing therefrom the +foregoing essential summary, that a critic would have little more to +do, in order to effectually exorcise this negrophobic political +hobgoblin, than to appeal to [13] impartial history, as well as to +common sense, in its application to human nature in general, and to the +actual facts of West Indian life in particular. +</P> + +<P> +History, as against the hard and fast White-master and Black-slave +theory so recklessly invented and confidently built upon by Mr. Froude, +would show incontestably—(a) that for upwards of two hundred years +before the Negro Emancipation, in 1838, there had never existed in one +of those then British Colonies, which had been originally discovered +and settled for Spain by the great Columbus or by his successors, the +Conquistadores, any prohibition whatsoever, on the ground of race or +colour, against the owning of slaves by any free person possessing the +necessary means, and desirous of doing so; (b) that, as a consequence +of this non-restriction, and from causes notoriously historical, +numbers of blacks, half-breeds, and other non-Europeans, besides such +of them as had become possessed of their "property" by inheritance, +availed themselves of this virtual license, and in course of time +constituted a very considerable proportion of the slave-holding section +of those communities; (c) that these [14] dusky plantation-owners +enjoyed and used in every possible sense the identical rights and +privileges which were enjoyed and used by their pure-blooded Caucasian +brother-slaveowners. The above statements are attested by written +documents, oral tradition, and, better still perhaps, by the living +presence in those islands of numerous lineal representatives of those +once opulent and flourishing non-European planter-families. +</P> + +<P> +Common sense, here stepping in, must, from the above data, deduce some +such conclusions as the following. First that, on the hypothesis that +the slaves who were freed in 1838—full fifty years ago—were all on an +average fifteen years old, those vengeful ex-slaves of to-day will be +all men of sixty-five years of age; and, allowing for the delay in +getting the franchise, somewhat further advanced towards the human +life-term of threescore and ten years. Again, in order to organize and +carry out any scheme of legislative and social retaliation of the kind +set forth in the "Bow of Ulysses," there must be (which unquestionably +there is not) a considerable, well-educated, and very influential +number surviving of those who had actually [15] been in bondage. +Moreover, the vengeance of these people (also assuming the foregoing +nonexistent condition) would have, in case of opportunity, to wreak +itself far more largely and vigorously upon members of their own race +than upon Whites, seeing that the increase of the Blacks, as correctly +represented in the "Bow of Ulysses," is just as rapid as the diminution +of the White population. And therefore, Mr. Froude's +"Danger-to-the-Whites" cry in support of his anti-reform manifesto +would not appear, after all, to be quite so justifiable as he possibly +thinks. +</P> + +<P> +Feeling keenly that something in the shape of the foregoing programme +might be successfully worked up for a public defence of the maligned +people, I disregarded the bodily and mental obstacles that have beset +and clouded my career during the last twelve years, and cheerfully +undertook the task, stimulated thereto by what I thought weighty +considerations. I saw that no representative of Her Majesty's Ethiopic +West Indian subjects cared to come forward to perform this work in the +more permanent shape that I felt to be not only desirable but essential +for our self-vindication. [16] I also realized the fact that the "Bow +of Ulysses" was not likely to have the same ephemeral existence and +effect as the newspaper and other periodical discussions of its +contents, which had poured from the press in Great Britain, the United +States, and very notably, of course, in all the English Colonies of the +Western Hemisphere. In the West Indian papers the best writers of our +race had written masterly refutations, but it was clear how difficult +the task would be in future to procure and refer to them whenever +occasion should require. Such productions, however, fully satisfied +those qualified men of our people, because they were legitimately +convinced (even as I myself am convinced) that the political destinies +of the people of colour could not run one tittle of risk from anything +that it pleased Mr. Froude to write or say on the subject. But, +meditating further on the question, the reflection forced itself upon +me that, beyond the mere political personages in the circle more +directly addressed by Mr. Froude's volume, there were individuals whose +influence or possible sympathy we could not afford to disregard, or to +esteem lightly. So I deemed it right and a patriotic duty to attempt +[17] the enterprise myself, in obedience to the above stated motives. +</P> + +<P> +At this point I must pause to express on behalf of the entire coloured +population of the West Indies our most heartfelt acknowledgments to Mr. +C. Salmon for the luminous and effective vindication of us, in his +volume on "West Indian Confederation," against Mr. Froude's libels. +The service thus rendered by Mr. Salmon possesses a double significance +and value in my estimation. In the first place, as being the work of a +European of high position, quite independent of us (who testifies +concerning Negroes, not through having gazed at them from balconies, +decks of steamers, or the seats of moving carriages, but from actual +and long personal intercourse with them, which the internal evidence of +his book plainly proves to have been as sympathetic as it was +familiar), and, secondly, as the work of an individual entirely outside +of our race, it has been gratefully accepted by myself as an incentive +to self-help, on the same more formal and permanent lines, in a matter +so important to the status which we can justly claim as a progressive, +law-abiding, and self-respecting section of Her Majesty's liege +subjects. +</P> + +<P> +[18] It behoves me now to say a few words respecting this book as a +mere literary production. +</P> + +<P> +Alexander Pope, who, next to Shakespeare and perhaps Butler, was the +most copious contributor to the current stock of English maxims, says: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance,<BR> + As those move easiest who have learnt to dance."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +A whole dozen years of bodily sickness and mental tribulation have not +been conducive to that regularity of practice in composition which +alone can ensure the "true ease" spoken of by the poet; and therefore +is it that my style leaves so much to be desired, and exhibits, +perhaps, still, more to be pardoned. Happily, a quarrel such as ours +with the author of "The English in the West Indies" cannot be finally +or even approximately settled on the score of superior literary +competency, whether of aggressor or defender. I feel free to ignore +whatever verdict might be grounded on a consideration so purely +artificial. There ought to be enough, if not in these pages, at any +rate in whatever else I have heretofore published, that should prove me +not so hopelessly stupid and wanting in [19] self-respect, as would be +implied by my undertaking a contest in artistic phrase-weaving with one +who, even among the foremost of his literary countrymen, is confessedly +a master in that craft. The judges to whom I do submit our case are +those Englishmen and others whose conscience blends with their +judgment, and who determine such questions as this on their essential +rightness which has claim to the first and decisive consideration. For +much that is irregular in the arrangement and sequence of the +subject-matter, some blame fairly attaches to our assailant. The +erratic manner in which lie launches his injurious statements against +the hapless Blacks, even in the course of passages which no more led up +to them than to any other section of mankind, is a very notable feature +of his anti-Negro production. As he frequently repeats, very often +with cynical aggravations, his charges and sinister prophecies against +the sable objects of his aversion, I could see no other course open to +me than to take him up on the points whereto I demurred, exactly how, +when, and where I found them. +</P> + +<P> +My purpose could not be attained up without direct mention of, or +reference to, certain public [20] employés in the Colonies whose +official conduct has often been the subject of criticism in the public +press of the West Indies. Though fully aware that such criticism has +on many occasions been much more severe than my own strictures, yet, it +being possible that some special responsibility may attach to what I +here reproduce in a more permanent shape, I most cheerfully accept, in +the interests of public justice, any consequence which may result. +</P> + +<P> +A remark or two concerning the publication of this rejoinder. It has +been hinted to me that the issue of it has been too long delayed to +secure for it any attention in England, owing to the fact that the West +Indies are but little known, and of less interest, to the generality of +English readers. Whilst admitting, as in duty bound, the possible +correctness of this forecast, and regretting the oft-recurring +hindrances which occasioned such frequent and, sometimes, long +suspension of my labour; and noting, too, the additional delay caused +through my unacquaintance with English publishing usages, I must, +notwithstanding, plead guilty to a lurking hope that some small +fraction of Mr. Froude's readers will yet be found, [21] whose interest +in the West Indies will be temporarily revived on behalf of this essay, +owing to its direct bearing on Mr. Froude and his statements relative +to these Islands, contained in his recent book of travels in them. +This I am led to hope will be more particularly the case when it is +borne in mind that the rejoinder has been attempted by a member of that +very same race which he has, with such eloquent recklessness of all +moral considerations, held up to public contempt and disfavour. In +short, I can scarcely permit myself to believe it possible that concern +regarding a popular author, on his being questioned by an adverse +critic of however restricted powers, can be so utterly dead within a +twelvemonth as to be incapable of rekindling. Mr. Froude's "Oceana," +which had been published long before its author voyaged to the West +Indies, in order to treat the Queen's subjects there in the same more +than questionable fashion as that in which he had treated those of the +Southern Hemisphere, had what was in the main a formal rejoinder to its +misrepresentations published only three months ago in this city. I +venture to believe that no serious work in defence of an [22] important +cause or community can lose much, if anything, of its intrinsic value +through some delay in its issue; especially when written in the +vindication of Truth, whose eternal principles are beyond and above the +influence of time and its changes. +</P> + +<P> +At any rate, this attempt to answer some of Mr. Froude's main +allegations against the people of the West Indies cannot fail to be of +grave importance and lively interest to the inhabitants of those +Colonies. In this opinion I am happy in being able to record the full +concurrence of a numerous and influential body of my fellow-West +Indians, men of various races, but united in detestation of falsehood +and injustice. +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +J.J.T. +<BR> +LONDON, June, 1889. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I: INTRODUCTION +</H3> + +<P> +[27] Like the ancient hero, one of whose warlike equipments furnishes +the complementary title of his book, the author of "The English in the +West Indies; or, The Bow of Ulysses," sallied forth from his home to +study, if not cities, at least men (especially black men), and their +manners in the British Antilles. +</P> + +<P> +James Anthony Froude is, beyond any doubt whatever, a very considerable +figure in modern English literature. It has, however, for some time +ceased to be a question whether his acceptability, to the extent which +it reaches, has not been due rather to the verbal attractiveness than +to the intrinsic value and trustworthiness of his opinions and +teachings. In fact, so far as a judgment can be formed from examined +specimens of his writings, it appears that our [28] author is the +bond-slave of his own phrases. To secure an artistic perfection of +style, he disregards all obstacles, not only those presented by the +requirements of verity, but such as spring from any other kind of +consideration whatsoever. The doubt may safely be entertained whether, +among modern British men of letters, there be one of equal capability +who, in the interest of the happiness of his sentences, so cynically +sacrifices what is due not only to himself as a public instructor, but +also to that public whom he professes to instruct. Yet, as the too +evident plaything of an over-permeable moral constitution, he might set +up some plea in explanation of his ethical vagaries. He might urge, +for instance, that the high culture of which his books are all so +redolent has utterly failed to imbue him with the nil admirari +sentiment, which Horace commends as the sole specific for making men +happy and keeping them so. For, as a matter of fact, and with special +reference to the work we have undertaken to discuss, Mr. Froude, though +cynical in his general utterances regarding Negroes-of the male sex, be +it noted-is, in the main, all extravagance and self-abandonment +whenever he [29] brings an object of his arbitrary likes or dislikes +under discussion. At such times he is no observer, much less +worshipper, of proportion in his delineations. Thorough-paced, +scarcely controllable, his enthusiasm for or against admits no degree +in its expression, save and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's +statement of facts or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings +are enlisted either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of +salt" by all when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So +complete is his self-identification with the sect or individual for the +time being engrossing his sympathy, that even their personal +antipathies are made his own; and the hostile language, often +exaggerated and unjust, in which those antipathies find vent, secures +in his more chastened mode of utterance an exact reproduction none the +less injurious because divested of grossness. +</P> + +<P> +Of this special phase of self-manifestation a typical instance is +afforded at page 164, under the heading of "Dominica," in a passage +which at once embraces and accentuates the whole spirit and method of +the work. To a eulogium of the professional skill and successful [30] +agricultural enterprise of Dr. Nichol, a medical officer of that +Colony, with whom he became acquainted for the first time during his +short stay there, our author travels out of his way to tack on a +gratuitous and pointless sneer at the educational competency of all the +elected members of the island legislature, among whom, he tells us, the +worthy doctor had often tried in vain to obtain a place. His want of +success, our author informs his readers, was brought about through Dr. +Nichol "being the only man in the Colony of superior attainments." +Persons acquainted with the stormy politics of that lovely little +island do not require to be informed that the bitterest animosity had +for years been raging between Dr. Nichol and some of the elected +members-a fact which our author chose characteristically to regard as +justifying an onslaught by himself on the whole of that section of +which the foes of his new friend formed a prominent part. +</P> + +<P> +Swayed by the above specified motives, our author also manages to see +much that is, and always has been, invisible to mortal eye, and to fail +to hear what is audible to and remarked upon by every other observer. +</P> + +<P> +[31] Thus we find him (p. 56) describing the Grenada Carenage as being +surrounded by forest trees, causing its waters to present a violet +tint; whilst every one familiar with that locality knows that there are +no forest trees within two miles of the object which they are so +ingeniously made to colour. Again, and aptly illustrating the +influence of his prejudices on his sense of hearing, we will notice +somewhat more in detail the following assertion respecting the speech +of the gentry of Barbados:— +</P> + +<P> +"The language of the Anglo-Barbadians was pure English, the voices +without the smallest transatlantic intonation." +</P> + +<P> +Now it so happens that no Barbadian born and bred, be he gentle or +simple, can, on opening his lips, avoid the fate of Peter of Galilee +when skulking from the peril of a detected nationality: "Thy speech +bewrayeth thee!" It would, however, be prudent on this point to take +the evidence of other Englishmen, whose testimony is above suspicion, +seeing that they were free from the moral disturbance that affected Mr. +Froude's auditory powers. G. J. Chester, in his "Transatlantic +Sketches" (page 95), deposes as follows— +</P> + +<P> +[32] "But worse, far worse than the colour, both of men and women, is +their voice and accent. Well may Coleridge enumerate among the pains +of the West Indies, 'the yawny-drawny way in which men converse.' The +soft, whining drawl is simply intolerable. Resemble the worst Northern +States woman's accent it may in some degree, but it has not a grain of +its vigour. A man tells you, 'if you can speer it, to send a beerer +with a bottle of bare,' and the clergyman excruciates you by praying in +church, 'Speer us, good Lord.' The English pronunciation of A and E is +in most words transposed. Barbados has a considerable number of +provincialisms of dialect. Some of these, as the constant use of +'Mistress' for 'Mrs.,' are interesting as archaisms, or words in use in +the early days of the Colony, and which have never died out of use. +Others are Yankeeisms or vulgarisms; others, again, such as the +expression 'turning cuffums,' i.e. summersets, from cuffums, a species +of fish, seem to be of local origin." +</P> + +<P> +In a note hereto appended, the author gives a list of English words of +peculiar use and acceptation in Barbados. +</P> + +<P> +[33] To the same effect writes Anthony Trollope: +</P> + +<P> +"But if the black people differ from their brethren of the other +islands, so certainly do the white people. One soon learns to know—a +Bim. That is the name in which they themselves delight, and therefore, +though there is a sound of slang about it, I give it here. One +certainly soon learns to know a Bim. The most peculiar distinction is +in his voice. There is always a nasal twang about it, but quite +distinct from the nasality of a Yankee. The Yankee's word rings sharp +through his nose; not so that of the first-class Bim. There is a soft +drawl about it, and the sound is seldom completely formed. The effect +on the ear is the same as that on the hand when a man gives you his to +shake, and instead of shaking yours, holds his own still, &c., &c." +("The West Indies," p. 207). +</P> + +<P> +From the above and scores of other authoritative testimonies which +might have been cited to the direct contrary of our traveller's tale +under this head, we can plainly perceive that Mr. Froude's love is not +only blind, but adder-deaf as well. We shall now contemplate him under +circumstances where his feelings are quite other than those of a +partisan. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I: VOYAGE OUT +</H3> + +<P> +[34] That Mr. Froude, despite his professions to the contrary, did not +go out on his explorations unhampered by prejudices, seems clear enough +from the following quotation:— +</P> + +<P> +"There was a small black boy among us, evidently of pure blood, for his +hair was wool and his colour black as ink. His parents must have been +well-to-do, for the boy had been to Europe to be educated. The +officers on board and some of the ladies played with him as they would +play with a monkey. He had little more sense than a monkey, perhaps +less, and the gestures of him grinning behind gratings and perching out +his long thin arms between the bars were curiously suggestive of the +original from whom we are told now that all of us came. The worst of +it was that, being lifted above his own people, he had been taught to +despise them. He was spoilt as a black and could not be made into a +white, and this I found afterwards was the invariable and dangerous +consequence whenever a superior negro contrived to raise himself. He +might do well enough himself, but his family feel their blood as +degradation. His [35] children will not marry among their own people, +and not only will no white girl marry a negro, but hardly any dowry can +be large enough to tempt a West Indian white to make a wife of a black +lady. This is one of the most sinister features in the present state +of social life there." +</P> + +<P> +We may safely assume that the playing of "the officers on board and +some of the ladies" with the boy, "as they would play with a monkey," +is evidently a suggestion of Mr. Froude's own soul, as well as the +resemblance to the simian tribe which he makes out from the frolics of +the lad. Verily, it requires an eye rendered more than microscopic by +prejudice to discern the difference between the gambols of juveniles of +any colour under similar conditions. It is true that it might just be +the difference between the friskings of white lambs and the friskings +of lambs that are not white. That any black pupil should be taught to +despise his own people through being lifted above them by education, +seems a reckless statement, and far from patriotic withal; inasmuch as +the education referred to here was European, and the place from which +it was obtained presumably England. At all events, [36] the difference +among educated black men in deportment towards their unenlightened +fellow-blacks, can be proved to have nothing of that cynicism which +often marks the bearing of Englishmen in an analogous case with regard +to their less favoured countrymen. The statement that a black person +can be "spoilt" for such by education, whilst he cannot be made white, +is one of the silly conceits which the worship of the skin engenders in +ill-conditioned minds. No sympathy should be wasted on the negro +sufferer from mortification at not being able to "change his skin." The +Ethiopian of whatever shade of colour who is not satisfied with being +such was never intended to be more than a mere living figure. Mr. +Froude further confidently states that whilst a superior Negro "might +do well himself," yet "his family feel their blood as a degradation." +If there be some who so feel, they are indeed very much to be pitied; +but their sentiments are not entitled to the serious importance with +which our critic has invested them. But is it at all conceivable that +a people whose sanity has never in any way been questioned would strain +every nerve to secure for their offspring a [37] distinction the +consequence of which to themselves would be a feeling of their own +abasement? The poor Irish peasant who toils and starves to secure for +his eldest son admission into the Catholic priesthood, has a far other +feeling than one of humiliation when contemplating that son eventually +as the spiritual director of a congregation and parish. Similarly, the +laudable ambition which, in the case of a humble Scotch matron, is +expressed in the wish and exertion to see her Jamie or Geordie "wag his +pow in the pou'pit," produces, when realized, salutary effects in the +whole family connection. These effects, which Mr. Froude would +doubtless allow and commend in their case, he finds it creditable to +ignore the very possibility of in the experience of people whose +cuticle is not white. It is, however, but bare justice to say that, as +Negroes are by no means deficient in self-love and the tenderness of +natural affection, such gratifying fulfilment of a family's hopes +exerts an elevating and, in many cases, an ennobling influence on every +one connected with the fortunate household. Nor, from the eminently +sympathetic nature of the African race, are the near friends of a +family [38] unbenefited in a similar way. This is true, and +distinctively human; but, naturally, no apologist of Negro depreciation +would admit the reasonableness of applying to the affairs of Negroes +the principles of common equity, or even of common sense. To sum up +practically our argument on this head, we shall suppose West Indians to +be called upon to imagine that the less distinguished relations +respectively of, say, the late Solicitor-General of Trinidad and the +present Chief Justice of Barbados could be otherwise than legitimately +elated at the conspicuous position won by a member of their own +household. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude further ventures to declare, in this connection, that the +children of educated coloured folk "will not marry among their own +people." Will he tell us, then, whom the daughters marry, or if they +ever do marry at all, since he asserts, with regard to West Indian +Whites, that "hardly any dowry can be large enough to tempt them to +make a wife of a black lady"? Our author evidently does not feel or +care that the suggestion he here induces is a hideous slander against a +large body of respectable people of whose affairs he is absolutely +ignorant. Full [39] of the "go" imparted to his talk by a +consciousness of absolute license with regard to Negroes, our dignified +narrator makes the parenthetical assertion that no white girl (in the +West Indies) will "marry a Negro." But has he been informed that cases +upon cases have occurred in those Colonies, and in very high +"Anglo-West Indian" families too, where the social degradation of being +married to Negroes has been avoided by the alternative of forming base +private connections even with menials of that race? +</P> + +<P> +The marrying of a black wife, on the other hand, by a West Indian White +was an event of frequent occurrence at a period in regard to which our +historian seems to be culpably uninformed. In slavery days, when all +planters, black and white alike, were fused in a common solidarity of +interests, the skin-distinction which Mr. Froude so strenuously +advocates, and would fain risk so much to promote, did not, so far as +matrimony was concerned, exist in the degree that it now does. +Self-interest often dictated such unions, especially on the part of +in-coming Whites desiring to strengthen their position and to increase +their influence in [40] the land of their adoption by means of +advantageous Creole marriages. Love, too, sheer uncalculating love, +impelled not a few Whites to enter the hymeneal state with the dusky +captivators of their affections. When rich, the white planter not +seldom paid for such gratification of his laudable impulse by accepting +exclusion from "Society"—and when poor, he incurred almost invariably +his dismissal from employment. Of course, in all cases of the sort the +dispensers of such penalties were actuated by high motives which, +nevertheless, did not stand in the way of their meeting, in the +households of the persons thus obnoxious to punishment, the same or +even a lower class of Ethiopic damsels, under the title of +"housekeeper," on whom they lavished a very plethora of caresses. +Perhaps it may be wrong so to hint it, but, judging from indications in +his own book, our author himself would have been liable in those days +to enthralment by the piquant charms that proved irresistible to so +many of his brother-Europeans. It is almost superfluous to repeat that +the skin-discriminating policy induced as regards the coloured subjects +of the Queen since the [41] abolition of slavery did not, and could +not, operate when coloured and white stood on the same high level as +slave-owners and ruling potentates in the Colonies. Of course, when +the administrative power passed entirely into the hands of British +officials, their colonial compatriots coalesced with them, and found no +loss in being in the good books of the dominant personages. +</P> + +<P> +In conclusion of our remarks upon the above extracts, it may be stated +that the blending of the races is not a burning question. "It can +keep," as Mr. Bright wittily said with regard to a subject of similar +urgency. Time and Nature might safely be left uninterfered with to +work out whatever social development of this kind is in store for the +world and its inhabitants. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I: BARBADOS +</H3> + +<P> +[41] Our distinguished voyager visited many of the British West Indies, +landing first at Barbados, his social experience whereof is set forth +in a very agreeable account. Our immediate business, however, is not +with what West Indian hospitality, especially among the well-to-do +classes, can and does accomplish for [42] the entertainment of +visitors, and particularly visitors so eminent as Mr. Froude. We are +concerned with what Mr. Froude has to say concerning our dusky brethren +and sisters in those Colonies. We have, thus, much pleasure in being +able at the outset to extract the following favourable verdict of his +respecting them—premising, at the same time, that the balcony from +which Mr. Froude surveyed the teeming multitude in Bridgetown was that +of a grand hotel at which he had, on invitation, partaken of the +refreshing beverage mentioned in the citation:— +</P> + +<P> +"Cocktail over, and walking in the heat of the sun being a thing not to +be thought of, I sat for two hours in the balcony, watching the people, +who were as thick as bees in swarming time. Nine-tenths of them were +pure black. You rarely saw a white face, but still less would you see +a discontented one, imperturbable good humour and self-satisfaction +being written on the features of every one. The women struck me +especially. They were smartly dressed in white calico, scrupulously +clean, and tricked out with ribands and feathers; but their figures +were so good, and they carried themselves so [43] well and gracefully, +that although they might make themselves absurd, they could not look +vulgar. Like the Greek and Etruscan women, they are trained from +childhood to carry weights on their heads. They are thus perfectly +upright, and plant their feet firmly and naturally on the ground. They +might serve for sculptors' models, and are well aware of it." +</P> + +<P> +Regarding the other sex, Mr. Froude says:— +</P> + +<P> +"The men were active enough, driving carts, wheeling barrows, and +selling flying-fish," &c. +</P> + +<P> +He also speaks with candour of the entire absence of drunkenness and +quarrelling and the agreeable prevalence of good humour and +light-heartedness among them. Some critic might, on reading the above +extract from our author's account of the men, be tempted to ask—"But +what is the meaning of that little word 'enough' occurring therein?" We +should be disposed to hazard a suggestion that Mr. Froude, being +fair-minded and loyal to truth, as far as is compatible with his +sympathy for his hapless "Anglo-West Indians," could not give an +entirely ungrudging testimony in favour of the possible, nay probable, +voters by whose suffrages the supremacy of the Dark [44] Parliament +will be ensured, and the relapse into obeahism, devil-worship, and +children-eating be inaugurated. Nevertheless, Si sic omnia +dixisset—if he had said all things thus! Yes, if Mr. Froude had, +throughout his volume, spoken in this strain, his occasional want of +patience and fairness with regard to our male kindred might have found +condonation in his even more than chivalrous appreciation of our +womankind. But it has been otherwise. So we are forced to try +conclusions with him in the arena of his own selection—unreflecting +spokesman that he is of British colonialism, which, we grieve to learn +through Mr. Froude's pages, has, like the Bourbon family, not only +forgotten nothing, but, unfortunately for its own peace, learnt nothing +also. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I: ST. VINCENT +</H3> + +<P> +[44] The following are the words in which our traveller embodies the +main motive and purpose of his voyage:— +</P> + +<P> +"My own chief desire was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what +they were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking +about...." +</P> + +<P> +[45] But, alas, with the mercurialism of temperament in which he has +thought proper to indulge when only Negroes and Europeans not of +"Anglo-West Indian" tendencies were concerned, he jauntily threw to the +winds all the scruples and cautious minuteness which were essential to +the proper execution of his project. At Barbados, as we have seen, he +satisfies himself with sitting aloft, at a balcony-window, to +contemplate the movements of the sable throng below, of whose +character, moral and political, he nevertheless professes to have +become a trustworthy delineator. From the above-quoted account of his +impressions of the external traits and deportment of the Ethiopic folk +thus superficially gazed at, our author passes on to an analysis of +their mental and moral idiosyncrasies, and other intimate matters, +which the very silence of the book as to his method of ascertaining +them is a sufficient proof that his knowledge in their regard has not +been acquired directly and at first hand. Nor need we say that the +generally adverse cast of his verdicts on what he had been at no pains +to study for himself points to the "hostileness" of the witnesses whose +[46] testimony alone has formed the basis of his conclusions. +Throughout Mr. Froude's tour in the British Colonies his intercourse +was exclusively with "Anglo-West Indians," whose aversion to the Blacks +he has himself, perhaps they would think indiscreetly, placed on +record. In no instance do we find that he condescended to visit the +abode of any Negro, whether it was the mansion of a gentleman or the +hut of a peasant of that race. The whole tenor of the book indicates +his rigid adherence to this one-sided course, and suggests also that, +as a traveller, Mr. Froude considers maligning on hearsay to be just as +convenient as reporting facts elicited by personal investigation. +Proceed we, however, to strengthen our statement regarding his +definitive abandonment, and that without any apparent reason, of the +plan he had professedly laid down for himself at starting, and failing +which no trustworthy data could have been obtained concerning the +character and disposition of the people about whom he undertakes to +thoroughly enlighten his readers. Speaking of St. Vincent, where he +arrived immediately after leaving Barbados, our author says:— +</P> + +<P> +[47] "I did not land, for the time was short, and as a beautiful +picture the island was best seen from the deck. The characteristics of +the people are the same in all the Antilles, and could be studied +elsewhere." +</P> + +<P> +Now, it is a fact, patent and notorious, that "the characteristics of +the people are" not "the same in all the Antilles." A man of Mr. +Froude's attainments, whose studies have made him familiar with +ethnological facts, must be aware that difference of local surroundings +and influences does, in the course of time, inevitably create +difference of characteristic and deportment. Hence there is in nearly +every Colony a marked dissimilarity of native qualities amongst the +Negro inhabitants, arising not only from the causes above indicated, +but largely also from the great diversity of their African ancestry. +We might as well be told that because the nations of Europe are +generally white and descended from Japhet, they could be studied one by +the light derived from acquaintance with another. We venture to +declare that, unless a common education from youth has been shared by +them, the Hamitic inhabitants of one island have very little in common +with [48] those of another, beyond the dusky skin and woolly hair. In +speech, character, and deportment, a coloured native of Trinidad +differs as much from one of Barbados as a North American black does +from either, in all the above respects. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I: GRENADA +</H3> + +<P> +[48] In Grenada, the next island he arrived at, our traveller's +procedure with regard to the inhabitants was very similar. There he +landed in the afternoon, drove three or four miles inland to dine at +the house of a "gentleman who was a passing resident," returned in the +dark to his ship, and started for Trinidad. In the course of this +journey back, however, as he sped along in the carriage, Mr. Froude +found opportunity to look into the people's houses along the way, +where, he tells us, he "could see and was astonished to observe signs +of comfort, and even signs of taste—armchairs, sofas, side-boards with +cut-glass upon them, engravings and coloured prints upon the walls." +As a result of this nocturnal examination, à vol d'oiseau, he has +written paragraph upon paragraph about the people's character [49] and +prospects in the island of Grenada. To read the patronizing terms in +which our historian-traveller has seen fit to comment on Grenada and +its people, one would believe that his account is of some +half-civilized, out-of-the-way region under British sway, and inhabited +chiefly by a horde of semi-barbarian ignoramuses of African descent. +If the world had not by this time thoroughly assessed the intrinsic +value of Mr. Froude's utterances, one who knows Grenada might have felt +inclined to resent his causeless depreciation of the intellectual +capacity of its inhabitants; but considering the estimate which has +been pretty generally formed of his historical judgment, Mr. Froude may +be dismissed, as regards Grenada and its people, with a certain degree +of scepticism. Such scepticism, though lost upon himself, is +unquestionably needful to protect his readers from the hallucination +which the author's singular contempt for accuracy is but too liable to +induce. +</P> + +<P> +Those who know Grenada and its affairs are perfectly familiar with the +fact that all of its chief intellectual business, whether official +(even in the highest degree, such as temporary [50] administration of +the government), legal, commercial, municipal, educational, or +journalistic, has been for years upon years carried on by men of +colour. And what, as a consequence of this fact, has the world ever +heard in disparagement of Grenada throughout this long series of years? +Assuredly not a syllable. On the contrary, she has been the theme of +praise, not only for the admirable foresight with which she avoided the +sugar crisis, so disastrous to her sister islands, but also for the +pluck and persistence shown in sustaining herself through an +agricultural emergency brought about by commercial reverses, whereby +the steady march of her sons in self-advancement was only checked for a +time, but never definitively arrested. In fine, as regards every +branch of civilized employment pursued there, the good people of +Grenada hold their own so well and worthily that any show of patronage, +even from a source more entitled to confidence, would simply be a piece +of obtrusive kindness, not acceptable to any, seeing that it is +required by none. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK II: TRINIDAD / TRINIDAD AND REFORM+ +</H3> + +<P> +[53] Mr. Froude, crossing the ninety miles of the Caribbean Sea lying +between Grenada and Trinidad, lands next morning in Port of Spain, the +chief city of that "splendid colony," as Governor Irving, its worst +ruler, truly calls it in his farewell message to the Legislature. +Regarding Port of Spain in particular, Mr. Froude is positively +exuberant in the display of the peculiar qualities that distinguish +him, and which we have already admitted. Ecstatic praise and +groundless detraction go hand in hand, bewildering to any one not +possessed of the key to the mystery of the art of blowing hot and cold, +which Mr. Froude so startlingly exemplifies. As it is our purpose to +make what he says concerning this Colony the crucial test of his +veracity as a writer of travels, [54] and also of the value of his +judgments respecting men and things, we shall first invite the reader's +attention to the following extracts, with our discussion thereof:— +</P> + +<P> +"On landing we found ourselves in a large foreign-looking town, Port of +Spain having been built by French and Spaniards according to their +national tendencies, and especially with a view to the temperature, +which is that of a forcing house, and rarely falls below 80°. The +streets are broad, and are planted with trees for shade, each house +where room permits having a garden of its own, with palms and mangoes +and coffee-plants and creepers. Of sanitary arrangements there seemed +to be none. There is abundance of rain, and the gutters which run down +by the footway are flushed almost every day. But they are all open. +Dirt of every kind lies about freely, to be washed into them or left to +putrify as fate shall direct" (p. 64). +</P> + +<P> +Lower down, on the same page, our author, luxuriating in his contempt +for exactitude when the character of other folk only is at stake, +continues:—"The town has between thirty and forty thousand people +living in it, and the [55] rain and Johnny crows between them keep off +pestilence." On page 65 we have the following astounding statement +with respect to one of the trees in the garden in front of the house in +which Mr. Froude was sojourning:—"At the gate stood as sentinel a +cabbage palm a hundred feet high." +</P> + +<P> +The above quotations, in which we have elected to be content with +indicating by typographical differences the points on which attention +should be mostly directed, will suffice, with any one knowing Trinidad, +as examples of Mr. Froude's trustworthiness. But as these are only on +matters of mere detail, involving no question of principle, they are +dismissed without any further comment. It must not be so, however, +with the following remarkable deliverances which occur on page 67 of +his too picturesque work:—"The commonplace intrudes upon the +imaginative. At moments one can fancy that the world is an enchanted +place after all, but then comes generally an absurd awakening. On the +first night of my arrival, before we went to bed, there came an +invitation to me to attend a political meeting which was to be held in +a few days on the Savannah. +</P> + +<P> +[56] "Trinidad is a purely Crown colony, and has escaped hitherto the +introduction of the election virus. The newspapers and certain busy +gentlemen in Port of Spain had discovered that they were living under a +'degrading tyranny,' and they demanded a constitution. They did not +complain that their affairs had been ill-managed. On the contrary, +they insisted that they were the most prosperous of the West Indian +colonies, and alone had a surplus in their treasury. If this was so, +it seemed to me that they had better let well alone. The population, +all told, was but 170,000, less by thirty thousand than that of +Barbados. They were a mixed and motley assemblage of all races and +colours, busy each with their own affairs, and never hitherto troubling +themselves about politics. But it had pleased the Home Government to +set up the beginning of a constitution again in Jamaica; no one knew +why, but so it was; and Trinidad did not choose to be behindhand. The +official appointments were valuable, and had been hitherto given away +by the Crown. The local popularities very naturally wished to have +them for themselves. This was the [57] reality in the thing, so far as +there was a reality. It was dressed up in the phrases borrowed from +the great English masters of the art, about privileges of manhood, +moral dignity, the elevating influence of the suffrage, &c., intended +for home consumption among the believers in the orthodox radical faith." +</P> + +<P> +The passages which we have signalized in the above quotation, and which +occur with more elaboration and heedless assurance on a later page, +will produce a feeling of wonder at the hardihood of him who not only +conceived, but penned and dared to publish them as well, against the +gentlemen whom we all know to be foremost in the political agitation at +which Mr. Froude so flippantly sneers. An emphatic denial may be +opposed to his pretence that "they did not complain that their affairs +had been ill-managed." Why, the very gist and kernel of the whole +agitation, set forth in print through long years of iteration, has been +the scandalous mismanagement of the affairs of the Colony—especially +under the baleful administration of Governor Irving. The Augëan +Stable, miscalled by him "The Public Works Department," and whose +officials he coolly [58] fastened upon the financial vitals of that +long-suffering Colony, baffled even the resolute will of a Des Voeux to +cleanse it. Poor Sir Sanford Freeling attempted the cleansing, but +foundered ignominiously almost as soon as he embarked on that Herculean +enterprise. Sir A. E. Havelock, who came after, must be mentioned by +the historian of Trinidad merely as an incarnate accident in the +succession of Governors to whom the destinies of that maltreated Colony +have been successively intrusted since the departure of Sir Arthur +Hamilton Gordon. The present Governor of Trinidad, Sir William +Robinson, is a man of spirit and intelligence, keenly alive to the +grave responsibilities resting on him as a ruler of men and moulder of +men's destinies. Has he, with all his energy, his public spirit and +indisputable devotion to the furtherance of the Colony's interests, +been able to grapple successfully with the giant evil? Has he +effectually gained the ear of our masters in Downing Street regarding +the inefficiency and wastefulness of Governor Irving's pet department? +We presume that his success has been but very partial, for otherwise it +is difficult to conceive the motive for [59] retaining the army of +officials radiating from that office, with the chief under whose +supervision so many architectural and other scandals have for so long +been the order of the day. The Public Works Department is costly +enough to have been a warning to the whole of the West Indies. It is +true that the lavish squandering of the people's money by that +department has been appreciably checked since the advent of the present +head of the Government. The papers no longer team with accounts, nor +is even the humblest aesthetic sense, offended now, as formerly, with +views of unsightly, useless and flimsy erections, the cost of which, on +an average, was five times more than that of good and reputable +structures. +</P> + +<P> +This, however, has been entirely due to the personal influence of the +Governor. Sir William Robinson, not being the tool, as Sir Henry +Irving owned that he was, of the Director of Public Works, could not be +expected to be his accomplice or screener in the cynical waste of the +public funds. Here, then, is the personal rectitude of a ruler +operating as a safeguard to the people's interests; and we gladly +confess our entire agreement with [60] Mr. Froude on the subject of the +essential qualifications of a Crown Governor. Mr. Froude contends, and +we heartily coincide with him, that a ruler of high training and noble +purposes would, as the embodiment of the administrative authority, be +the very best provision for the government of Colonies constituted as +ours are. But he has also pointed out, and that in no equivocal terms, +that the above are far from having been indispensable qualifications +for the patronage of Downing Street. He has shown that the Colonial +Office is, more often than otherwise, swayed in the appointment of +Colonial Governors by considerations among which the special fitness of +the man appointed holds but a secondary place. On this point we have +much gratification in giving Mr. Froude's own words (p. 91):—"Among +the public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be +found fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty if a sincere +effort be made to find them. Alas! in times past we have sent persons +to rule our Baratarias to whom Sancho Panza was a sage—troublesome +members of Parliament, younger brothers of powerful families, +impecunious peers; favourites, [61] with backstairs influence, for whom +a provision was to be found; colonial clerks bred in the office who had +been obsequious and useful!" Now then, applying these facts to the +political history of Trinidad, with which we are more particularly +concerned at present, what do we find? We find that in the person of +Sir A. H. Gordon (1867-1870) that Colony at length chanced upon a ruler +both competent and eager to advance her interests, not only materially, +but in the nobler respects that give dignity to the existence of a +community. Of course, he was opposed—ably, strenuously, violently, +virulently—but the metal of which the man was composed was only fused +into greater firmness by being subjected to such fiery tests. On +leaving Trinidad, this eminent ruler left as legacies to the Colony he +had loved and worked for so heartily, laws that placed the persons and +belongings of the inhabitants beyond the reach of wanton aggression; +the means by which honest and laborious industry could, through +agriculture, benefit both itself and the general revenue. He also left +an educational system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway +to knowledge, to [62] distinction, and, if the objects of its +beneficence were worthy of the boon, to serviceableness to their native +country. Above all, he left peace among the jarring interests which, +under the badge of Englishman and of Creole, under the badge of +Catholic and under the badge of Protestant, and so many other forms of +sectional divergence, had too long distracted Trinidad. This he had +effected, not by constituting himself a partisan of either section, but +by inquiring with statesmanlike appreciation, and allowing the +legitimate claims of each to a certain scope of influence in the +furtherance of the Colony's welfare. Hence the bitter rivalry of +jarring interests was transformed into harmonious co-operation on all +sides, in advancing the common good of the common country. +</P> + +<P> +The Colonial Office, knowing little and caring less about that noble +jewel in the British Crown, sent out as successor to so brilliant and +successful an administrator—whom? One Sir James Robert Longden, a +gentleman without initiative, without courage, and, above all, with a +slavish adherence to red-tape and a clerk-like dread of compromising +his berth. Having served for a long series of years in subordinate +posts in [63] minor dependencies, the habit of being impressed and +influenced by colonial magnates grew and gathered strength within him. +Such a ruler, of course, the serpents that had only been "scotched, but +not killed," by the stern procedures of Governor Gordon, could wind +round, beguile, and finally cause to fall. Measure after measure of his +predecessor which he could in any way neutralize in the interests of +the colonial clique, was rendered of none effect. In fact, he was +subservient to the wishes of those who had all long objected to those +measures, but had not dared even to hint their objections to the +beneficent autocrat who had willed and given them effect for the +general welfare. After Governor Longden came Sir Henry Turner Irving, +a personage who brought to Trinidad a reputation for all the vulgar +colonial prejudices which, discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, +in the Governor of a mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. +More than amply did he justify the evil reports with which rumour had +heralded his coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James +Longden, who was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, +Governor Irving threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the +Sugar Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and +whose belief he evidently shared, that sugar-growers alone should be +possessors of the lands of the West Indies. It would be wearisome to +detail the methods by which every act of Sir Arthur Gordon's to benefit +the whole population was cynically and systematically undone by this +his native-hating successor. In short, the policy of reaction which +Sir James Longden began, found in Governor Irving not only a consistent +promoter, but, as it were, a sinister incarnation. It is true that he +could not, at the bidding and on the advice of his planter-friends, +shut up the Crown Lands of the Colony against purchasers of limited +means, because they happened to be mostly natives of colour, but he +could annul the provision by which every Warden in the rural districts, +on the receipt of the statutory fees, had to supply a Government title +on the spot to every one who purchased any acreage of Crown Lands. +Every intending purchaser, therefore, whether living at Toco, +Guayaguayare, Monos, or Icacos, the four extreme points of the Island +of Trinidad, was compelled to go to Port of [65] Spain, forty or fifty +miles distant, through an almost roadless country, to compete at the +Sub-Intendant's auction sales, with every probability of being outbid +in the end, and having his long-deposited money returned to him after +all his pains. Lieutenant-Governor Des Voeux told the Legislature of +Trinidad that the monstrous Excise imposts of the Colony were an +incentive to smuggling, and he thought that the duties, licenses, &c., +should be lowered in the interest of good and equitable government. +Sir Henry Turner Irving, however, besides raising the duties on +spirituous liquors, also enacted that every distillery, however small, +must pay a salary to a Government official stationed within it to +supervise the manufacture of the spirits. This, of course, was the +death-blow to all the minor competition which had so long been +disturbing the peace of mind of the mighty possessors of the great +distilleries. Ahab was thus made glad with the vineyard of Naboth. +</P> + +<P> +In the matter of official appointments, too, Governor Irving was +consistent in his ostentatious hostility to Creoles in general, and to +coloured Creoles in particular. Of the fifty-six appointments which +that model Governor [66] made in 1876, only seven happened to be +natives and coloured, out of a population in which the latter element +is so preponderant as to excite the fears of Mr. Froude. In +educational matters, though he could not with any show of sense or +decency re-enact the rule which excluded students of illegitimate birth +from the advantages of the Royal College, he could, nevertheless, +pander to the prejudices of himself and his friends by raising the +standard of proficiency while reducing the limit of the age for free +admission to that institution—boys of African descent having shown an +irrepressible persistency in carrying off prizes. +</P> + +<P> +Every one acquainted with Trinidad politics knows very well the +ineffably low dodges and subterfuges under which the Arima Railway was +prevented from having its terminus in the centre of that town. The +public was promised a saving of Eight Thousand Pounds by their +high-minded Governor for a diversion of the line "by only a few yards" +from the originally projected terminus. In the end it was found out +not only that the terminus of the railway was nearly a whole mile +outside of the town of Arima, but also that Twenty [67] Thousand Pounds +"Miscellaneous" had to be paid up by the good folk of Trinidad, in +addition to gulping down their disappointment at saving no Eight +Thousand Pounds, and having to find by bitter experience, especially in +rainy weather, that their Governor's few yards were just his +characteristic way of putting down yards which he well knew were to be +counted by hundreds. Then, again, we have the so-called San Fernando +Waterworks, an abortion, a scandal for which there is no excuse, as the +head of the Public Works Department went his own way despite the +experience of those who knew better than he, and the protests of those +who would have had to pay. Seventeen Thousand Pounds represent the +amount of debt with which Governor Irving's pet department has saddled +the town of San Fernando for water, which half the inhabitants cannot +get, and which few of the half who do get it dare venture to drink. +Summa fastigia rerum secuti sumus. If in the works that were so +prominent before the public gaze these enormous abuses could flourish, +defiant of protest and opposition, what shall we think of the nooks and +corners of that same squandering department, which of [68] course must +have been mere gnats in the eyes of a Governor who had swallowed so +many monstrous camels! The Governor was callous. Trinidad was a +battening ground for his friends; but she had in her bosom men who were +her friends, and the struggle began, constitutionally of course, which, +under the leadership of the Mayor of San Fernando, has continued up to +now, culminating at last in the Reform movement which Mr. Froude +decries, and which his pupil, Mr. S. H. Gatty, is, from what has +appeared in the Trinidad papers, doing his "level best" to render +abortive. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Sanford Freeling, by the will and pleasure of Downing Street, was +the next successor, after Governor Irving, to the chief ruler-ship of +Trinidad. Incredible as it may sound, he was a yet more +disadvantageous bargain for the Colony's £4000 a year. A better man in +many respects than his predecessor, he was in many more a much worse +Governor. The personal affability of a man can be known only to those +who come into actual contact with him—the public measures of a ruler +over a community touches it, mediately or immediately, throughout all +its sections. The bad boldness of [69] Governor Irving achieved much +that the people, especially in the outlying districts, could see and +appreciate. For example, he erected Rest-houses all over the remoter +and more sparsely peopled quarters of the Colony, after the manner of +such provisions in Oriental lands. The population who came in contact +with these conveniences, and to whom access to them—for a +consideration—had never been denied, saw with their own eyes tangible +evidence of the Governor's activity, and inferred therefrom a +solicitude on his part for the public welfare. Had they, however, been +given a notion of the bill which had had to be paid for those frail, +though welcome hostelries, they would have stood aghast at the +imbecility, or, if not logically that, the something very much worse, +through which five times the actual worth of these buildings had been +extracted from the Treasury. Sir Sanford Freeling, on the other hand, +while being no screener of jobbery and peculation, had not the strength +of mind whereof jobbers and peculators do stand in dread. In evidence +of that poor ruler's infirmity of purpose, we would only cite the +double fact that, whereas in 1883 he was the first to enter a practical +protest against the housing [70] of the diseased and destitute in the +then newly finished, but most leaky, House of Refuge on the St. Clair +Lands, by having the poor saturated inmates carried off in his presence +to the Colonial Hospital, yet His Excellency was the very man who, in +the very next year, 1884, not only sanctioned the shooting down of +Indian immigrants at their festival, but actually directed the use of +buck-shot for that purpose! Evidently, if these two foregoing +statements are true, Mr. Froude must join us in thinking that a man +whose mind could be warped by external influences from the softest +commiseration for the sufferings of his kind, one year, into being the +cold-blooded deviser of the readiest method for slaughtering unarmed +holiday-makers, the very next year, is not the kind of ruler whom he +and we so cordially desiderate. We have already mentioned above how +ignominious Governor Freeling's failure was in attempting to meddle +with the colossal abuses of the Public Works Department. +</P> + +<P> +Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock next had the privilege of enjoying the +paradisaic sojourn at Queen's House, St. Ann's, as well as the four +thousand pounds a year attached to the [71] right of occupying that +princely residence. Save as a dandy, however, and the harrier of +subordinate officials, the writer of the annals of Trinidad may well +pass him by. So then it may be seen what, by mere freaks of +Chance—the ruling deity at Downing Street—the administrative +experience of Trinidad had been from the departure of that true king in +Israel,—Sir Arthur Gordon, up to the visit of Mr. Froude. First, a +slave to red-tape, procrastination, and the caprices of pretentious +colonialists; next, a daring schemer, confident of the support of the +then dominant Sugar Interest, and regarding and treating the resources +of the Island as free booty for his friends, sycophants, and +favourites; then, an old woman, garbed in male attire, having an +infirmity of purpose only too prone to be blown about by every wind of +doctrine, alternating helplessly between tenderness and truculence, the +charity of a Fry and the tragic atrocity of Medea. After this dismal +ruler, Trinidad, by the grace of the Colonial Office, was subjected to +the manipulation of an unctuous dandy. This successor of Gordon, of +Elliot, and of Cairns, durst not oppose high-placed official +malfeasants, but [72] was inexorable with regard to minor delinquents. +In the above retrospect we have purposely omitted mentioning such +transient rulers as Mr. Rennie, Sir G. W. Des Voeux, and last, but by +no means least, Sir F. Barlee, a high-minded Governor, whom death so +suddenly and inscrutably snatched away from the good work he had +loyally begun. Every one of the above temporary administrators was a +right good man for a post in which brain power and moral back-bone are +essential qualifications. But the Fates so willed it that Trinidad +should never enjoy the permanent governance of either. In view of the +above facts; in view also of the lessons taught the inhabitants of +Trinidad so frequently, so cruelly, what wonder is there that, failing +of faith in a probability, which stands one against four, of their +getting another worthy ruler when Governor Robinson shall have left +them, they should seek to make hay while the sun shines, by providing +against the contingency of such Governors as they know from bitter +experience that Downing Street would place over their destinies, should +the considerations detailed by Mr. Froude or any other equally [73] +unworthy counsellor supervene? That the leading minds of Trinidad +should believe in an elective legislature is a logical consequence of +the teachings of the past, when the Colony was under the manipulation +of the sort of Governors above mentioned as immediately succeeding Sir +Arthur Gordon. +</P> + +<P> +This brings us to the motives, the sordid motives, which Mr. Froude, +oblivious of the responsibility of his high literary status, has +permitted himself gratuitously, and we may add scandalously, to impute +to the heads of the Reform movement in Trinidad. It was perfectly +competent that our author should decline, as he did decline, to have +anything to do, even as a spectator, at a meeting with the object of +which he had no sympathy. But our opinion is equally decided that Mr. +Froude has transgressed the bounds of decent political antagonism, nay, +even of common sense, when he presumes to state that it was not for any +other object than the large salaries of the Crown appointments, which +they covet for themselves, that the Reform leaders are contending. +This is not criticism: it is slander. To make culpatory statements +against others, [74] without ability to prove them, is, to say the +least, hazardous; but to make accusations to formulate which the +accuser is forced, not only to ignore facts, but actually to deny them, +is, to our mind, nothing short of rank defamation. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude is not likely to impress the world (of the West Indies, at +any rate) with the transparently silly, if not intentionally malicious, +ravings which he has indulged in on the subject of Trinidad and its +politics. Here are some of the things which this "champion of +Anglo-West Indians" attempts to force down the throats of his readers. +He would have us believe that Mr. Francis Damian, the Mayor of Port of +Spain, and one of the wealthiest of the native inhabitants of Trinidad, +a man who has retired from an honourable and lucrative legal practice, +and devotes his time, his talents, and his money to the service of his +native country; that Mr. Robert Guppy, the venerable and venerated +Mayor of San Fernando, with his weight of years and his sufficing +competence, and with his long record of self-denying services to the +public; that Mr. George Goodwille, one of the most successful merchants +in the Colonies; that Mr. Conrad [75] F. Stollmeyer, a gentleman +retired, in the evening of his days, on his well-earned ample means, +are open to the above sordid accusation. In short, that those and +such-like individuals who, on account of their private resources and +mental capabilities, as well as the public influence resulting +therefrom, are, by the sheer logic of circumstances, forced to be at +the head of public movements, are actuated by a craving for the few +hundred pounds a year for which there is such a scramble at Downing +Street among the future official grandees of the West Indies! But +granting that this allegation of Mr. Froude's was not as baseless as we +have shown it to be, and that the leaders of the Reform agitation were +impelled by the desire which our author seeks to discredit them with, +what then? Have they who have borne the heat and the burden of the day +in making the Colonies what they are no right to the enjoyment of the +fruits of their labours? The local knowledge, the confidence and +respect of the population, which such men enjoy, and can wield for good +or evil in the community, are these matters of small account in the +efficient government of the Colony? Our author, in [76] specifying the +immunities of his ideal Governor, who is also ours, recommends, amongst +other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose his own +advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that the advisers +so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have rushed from the +destitution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained flesh-pots of the +Colonies. +</P> + +<P> +At any rate, whatever political fate Mr. Froude may desire for the +Colonies in general, and for Trinidad in particular, it is nevertheless +unquestionable that he and the scheme that he may have for our future +governance, in this year of grace 1888, have both come into view +entirely out of season. The spirit of the times has rendered +impossible any further toleration of the arrogance which is based on +historical self-glorification. The gentlemen of Trinidad, who are +struggling for political enfranchisement, are not likely to heed, +except as a matter for indignant contempt, the obtrusion by our author +of his opinion that "they had best let well alone." On his own +showing, the persons appointed to supreme authority in the Colonies +are, more usually than not, entirely unfit for [77] holding any +responsible position whatever over their fellows. Now, can it be +doubted that less care, less scruple, less consideration, would be +exercised in the choice of the satellites appointed to revolve, in +these far-off latitudes, around the central luminaries? Have we not +found, are we not still finding every day, that the +brain-dizziness—Xenophon calls it kephalalgeia+—induced by sudden +promotion has transformed the abject suppliants at the Downing Street +backstairs into the arrogant defiers of the opinions, and violators of +the rights, of the populations whose subjection to the British Crown +alone could have rendered possible the elevation of such folk and their +impunity in malfeasance? The cup of loyal forbearance reached the +overflowing point since the trickstering days of Governor Irving, and +it is useless now to believe in the possibility of a return of the +leading minds of Trinidad to a tame acquiescence as regards the +probabilities of their government according to the Crown system. Mr. +Froude's own remarks point out definitely enough that a community so +governed is absolutely at the mercy, for good or for evil, of the man +who happens to be invested with [78] the supreme authority. He has +also shown that in our case that supreme authority is very often +disastrously entrusted. Yet has he nothing but sneers for the efforts +of those who strive to be emancipated from liability to such +subjection. Mr. Froude's deftly-worded sarcasms about "degrading +tyranny," "the dignity of manhood," &c., are powerless to alter the +facts. Crown Colony Government—denying, as it does to even the wisest +and most interested in a community cursed with it all participation in +the conduct of their own affairs, while investing irresponsible and +uninterested "birds of passage" (as our author aptly describes them) +with the right of making ducks and drakes of the resources wrung from +the inhabitants—is a degrading tyranny, which the sneers of Mr. Froude +cannot make otherwise. The dignity of manhood, on the other hand, we +are forced to admit, runs scanty chance of recognition by any being, +however masculine his name, who could perpetrate such a literary and +moral scandal as "The Bow of Ulysses." Yet the dignity of manhood +stands venerable there, and whilst the world lasts shall gain for its +possessors the right of record on the roll of [79] those whom the +worthy of the world delight to honour. +</P> + +<P> +All of a piece, as regards veracity and prudence, is the further +allegation of Mr. Froude's, to the effect that there was never any +agitation for Reform in Trinidad before that which he passes under +review. It is, however, a melancholy fact, which we are ashamed to +state, that Mr. Froude has written characteristically here also, either +through crass ignorance or through deliberate malice. Any respectable, +well-informed inhabitant of Trinidad, who happened not to be an +official "bird of passage," might, on our author's honest inquiry, have +informed him that Trinidad is the land of chronic agitation for Reform. +Mr. Froude might also have been informed that, even forty-five years +ago, that is in 1843, an elective constitution, with all the electoral +districts duly marked out, was formulated and transmitted by the +leading inhabitants of Trinidad to the then Secretary of State for the +Colonies. He might also have learnt that on every occasion that any of +the shady Governors, whom he has so well depicted, manifested any +excess of his undesirable qualities, there has been a movement [80] +among the educated people in behalf of changing their country's +political condition. +</P> + +<P> +We close this part of our review by reiterating our conviction that, +come what will, the Crown Colony system, as at present managed, is +doomed. Britain may, in deference to the alleged wishes of her +impalpable "Anglo-West Indians"—whose existence rests on the authority +of Mr. Froude alone—deny to Trinidad and other Colonies even the small +modicum prayed for of autonomy, but in doing so the Mother Country will +have to sternly revise her present methods of selecting and appointing +Governors. As to the subordinate lot, they will have to be worth their +salt when there is at the head of the Government a man who is truly +deserving of his. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +NOTES +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +53. +It is not clear from the original text exactly where the brief +chapter "Trinidad" ends and where the longer one entitled "Reform in +Trinidad" begins. (The copy indicates that the "Trinidad" chapter ends +at page 54, but the relevant page contains no subheading.) I have, +therefore, chosen to fuse the two chapters since they form a logical +unit. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +77. +Since there is little Greek in this work, I have simply +transliterated it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK II: NEGRO FELICITY IN THE WEST INDIES +</H3> + +<P> +[81] We come now to the ingenious and novel fashion in which Mr. Froude +carries out his investigations among the black population, and to his +dogmatic conclusions concerning them. He says:— +</P> + +<P> +"In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire was to see the +human inhabitants, to learn what they were doing, how they were living, +and what they were thinking about, and this could best be done by +drives about the town and neighbourhood." +</P> + +<P> +"Drives about the town and neighbourhood," indeed! To learn and be +able to depict with faithful accuracy what people "were doing, how they +were living, and what they were thinking about"—all this being best +done (domestic circumstances, nay, soul-workings and all!) through +fleeting glimpses of shifting [82] panoramas of intelligent human +beings! What a bright notion! We have here the suggestion of a +capacity too superhuman to be accepted on trust, especially when, as in +this case, it is by implication self-arrogated. The modesty of this +thaumaturgic traveller in confining the execution of his detailed +scrutiny of a whole community to the moderate progression of some +conventional vehicle, drawn by some conventional quadruped or the +other, does injustice to powers which, if possessed at all, might have +compassed the same achievement in the swifter transit of an express +train, or, better still perhaps, from the empyrean elevation of a +balloon! Yet is Mr. Froude confident that data professed to be thus +collected would easily pass muster with the readers of his book! A +confidence of this kind is abnormal, and illustrates, we think most +fully, all the special characteristics of the man. With his passion +for repeating, our author tells us in continuation of a strange +rhapsody on Negro felicity:— +</P> + +<P> +"Once more, the earth does not contain any peasantry so well off, so +well-cared for, so happy, so sleek and contented, as the sons [83] and +daughters of the emancipated slaves in the English West Indian Islands." +</P> + +<P> +Again:— +</P> + +<P> +"Under the rule of England, in these islands, the two millions of these +brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly contented specimens of +the human race to be found upon the planet.... If happiness be the +satisfaction of every conscious desire, theirs is a condition that +admits of no improvement: were they independent, they might quarrel +among themselves, and the weaker become the bondsmen of the stronger; +under the beneficent despotism of the English Government, which knows +no difference of colour and permits no oppression, they can sleep, +lounge, and laugh away their lives as they please, fearing no danger," +&c. +</P> + +<P> +Now, then, let us examine for a while this roseate picture of Arcadian +blissfulness said to be enjoyed by British West Indian Negroes in +general, and by the Negroes of Trinidad in particular. "No distinction +of colour" under the British rule, and, better still, absolute +protection of the weaker against the stronger! This latter +consummation especially, [84] Mr. Froude tells us, has been happily +secured "under the beneficent despotism" of the Crown Colony system. +However, let the above vague hyperboles be submitted to the test of +practical experience, and the abstract government analysed in its +concrete relations with the people. +</P> + +<P> +Unquestionably the actual and direct interposition of the shielding +authority above referred to, between man and man, is the immediate +province of the MAGISTRACY. All other branches of the Government, +having in themselves no coercive power, must, from the supreme +executive downwards, in cases of irreconcilable clashing of interests, +have ultimate recourse to the magisterial jurisdiction. Putting aside, +then, whatever culpable remissness may have been manifested by +magistrates in favour of powerful malfeasants, we would submit that the +fact of stipendiary justices converting the tremendous, far-reaching +powers which they wield into an engine of systematic oppression, ought +to dim by many a shade the glowing lustre of Mr. Froude's encomiums. +Facts, authentic and notorious, might be adduced in hundreds, +especially with respect to [85] the Port of Spain and San Fernando +magistracies (both of which, since the administration of Sir J. R. +Longden, have been exclusively the prizes of briefless English +barristers*), to prove that these gentry, far from being bulwarks to +the weaker as against the stronger, have, in their own persons, been +the direst scourges that the poor, particularly when coloured, have +been afflicted by in aggravation of the difficulties of their lot. +Only typical examples can here be given out of hundreds upon hundreds +which might easily be cited and proved against the incumbents of the +abovementioned chief stipendiary magistracies. One such example was a +matter of everyday discussion at the time of Mr. Froude's visit. The +inhabitants were even backed in their complaints by the Governor, who +had, in response to their cry of distress, forwarded their prayer [86] +to the home authorities for relief from the hard treatment which they +alleged themselves to be suffering at the hands of the then magistrate. +Our allusion here is to the chief town, Port of Spain, the magistracy +of which embraces also the surrounding districts, containing a total +population of between 60,000 and 70,000 souls. Mr. R. D. Mayne filled +this responsible office during the latter years of Sir J. R. Longden's +governorship. He was reputed, soon after his arrival, to have +announced from the bench that in every case he would take the word of a +constable in preference to the testimony of any one else. The +Barbadian rowdies who then formed the major part of the constabulary of +Trinidad, and whose bitter hatred of the older residents had been not +only plainly expressed, but often brutally exemplified, rejoiced in the +opportunity thus afforded for giving effect to their truculent +sentiments. At that time the bulk of the immigrants from Barbados were +habitual offenders whom the Government there had provided with a free +passage to wherever they elected to betake themselves. The more +intelligent of the men flocked to the Trinidad [87] police ranks, into +which they were admitted generally without much inquiry into their +antecedents. On this account they were shunned by the decent +inhabitants, a course which they repaid with savage animosity. +Perjuries the most atrocious and crushing, especially to the +respectable poor, became the order of the day. Hundreds of innocent +persons were committed to gaol and the infamy of convict servitude, +without the possibility of escape from, or even mitigation of, their +ignominious doom. A respectable woman (a native of Barbados, too, who +in the time of the first immigration of the better sort of her +compatriots had made Trinidad her home) was one of the first victims of +this iniquitous state of affairs. +</P> + +<P> +The class of people to which she belonged was noted as orderly, +industrious and law-abiding, and, being so, it had identified itself +entirely with the natives of the land of its adoption. This fact alone +was sufficient to involve these immigrants in the same lot of +persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and were +carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, on the +occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the woman in +question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of ironing for +her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow in the street +before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud scream, which, on +looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of a boy of some ten +or twelve years of age, who had been violently struck with the fist by +another youth of larger size and evidently his senior in age. The +smaller fellow had laid fast hold of his antagonist by the collar, and +would not let go, despite the blows which, to extricate himself and in +retaliation of the puny buffets of his youthful detainer, he "showered +thick as wintry rain." +</P> + +<P> +The woman, seeing the posture of affairs, shouted to the combatants to +desist, but to no purpose, rage and absorption in their wrathful +occupation having deafened both to all external sounds. Seized with +pity for the younger lad, who was getting so mercilessly the worst of +it, the woman, hastily throwing a shawl over her shoulders, sprang into +the street and rushed between the juvenile belligerents. Dexterously +extricating the hand of the little fellow from the collar of his +antagonist, she hurried the former [89] into her gateway, shouting out +to him at the same time to fasten the door on the inside. This the +little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this surcease from actual +conflict, short though it was, must have afforded space for the natural +instinct of self-preservation to reassert itself. Hereupon the elder +of the two lads, like a tiger robbed of his prey, sprang furiously to +the gate, and began to use frantic efforts to force an entrance. +Perceiving this, the woman (who meanwhile had not been idle with +earnest dissuasions and remonstrances, which had all proved futile) +pulled the irate youngster back, and interposed her body between him +and the gate, warding him off with her hands every time that he rushed +forward to renew the assault. At length a Barbadian policeman hove in +sight, and was hastily beckoned to by the poor ironer, who, by this +time, had nearly come to the end of her strength. The uniformed "Bim" +was soon on the spot; but, without asking or waiting to hear the cause +of the disturbance, he shouted to the volunteer peacemaker, "I see you +are fighting: you are my prisoner!" Saying this, he clutched the poor +thunderstruck creature by the wrist, and there [90] and then set about +hurrying her off towards the police station. It happened, however, +that the whole affair had occurred in the sight of a gentleman of +well-known integrity. He, seated at a window overlooking the street, +had witnessed the whole squabble, from its beginning in words to its +culmination in blows; so, seeing that the woman was most unjustly +arrested, he went out and explained the circumstances to the guardian +of order. But to no purpose; the poor creature was taken to the +station, accompanied by the gentleman, who most properly volunteered +that neighbourly turn. There she was charged with "obstructing the +policeman in the lawful execution of his duty." She was let out on +bail, and next day appeared to answer the charge. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Mayne, the magistrate, presided. The constable told his tale +without any material deviation from the truth, probably confident, from +previous experience, that his accusation was sufficient to secure a +conviction. On the defendant's behalf, the gentleman referred to, who +was well known to the magistrate himself, was called, and he related +the facts as we have above given them. Even Mr. Mayne [91] could see +no proof of the information, and this he confessed in the following +qualified judgment:— +</P> + +<P> +"You are indeed very lucky, my good woman, that the constable has +failed to prove his case against you; otherwise you would have been +sent to hard labour, as the ordinance provides, without the option of a +fine. But as the case stands, you must pay a fine of £2"!!! +</P> + +<P> +Comment on this worse than scandalous decision would be superfluous. +</P> + +<P> +Another typical case, illustrative of the truth of Mr. Froude's boast +of the eminent fair play, nay, even the stout protection, that Negroes, +and generally, "the weaker," have been wont to receive from British +magistrates, may be related. +</P> + +<P> +An honest, hard-working couple, living in one of the outlying +districts, cultivated a plot of ground, upon the produce of which they +depended for their livelihood. After a time these worthy folk, on +getting to their holding in the morning, used to find exasperating +evidence of the plunder overnight of their marketable provisions. +Determined to discover the depredator, they concealed themselves [92] +in the garden late one night, and awaited the result. By that means +they succeeded in capturing the thief, a female, who, not suspecting +their presence, had entered the garden, dug out some of the provisions, +and was about to make off with her booty. In spite of desperate +resistance, she was taken to the police station and there duly charged +with larceny. Meanwhile her son, on hearing of his mother's +incarceration, hastened to find her in her cell, and, after briefly +consulting with her, he decided on entering a countercharge of assault +and battery against both her captors. Whether or not this bold +proceeding was prompted by the knowledge that the dispensing of justice +in the magistrate's court was a mere game of cross-purposes, a cynical +disregard of common sense and elementary equity, we cannot say; but the +ultimate result fully justified this abnormal hardihood of filial +championship. +</P> + +<P> +On the day of the trial, the magistrate heard the evidence on both +sides, the case of larceny having been gone into first. For her +defence, the accused confined herself to simple denials of the +allegations against her, at the [93] same time entertaining the court +with a lachrymose harangue about her rough treatment at the hands of +the accusing parties. Finally, the decision of the magistrate was: +that the prisoner be discharged, and the plundered goods restored to +her; and, as to the countercharge, that the husband and wife be +imprisoned, the former for three and the latter for two months, with +hard labour! When we add that there was, at that time, no Governor or +Chief Justice accessible to the poorer and less intelligent classes, as +is now the case (Sir Henry T. Irving and Sir Joseph Needham having been +respectively superseded by Sir William Robinson and Sir John Gorrie), +one can imagine what scope there was for similar exhibitions of the +protecting energy of British rule. +</P> + +<P> +As we have already said, during Mr. Froude's sojourn in Trinidad the +"sleek, happy, and contented" people, whose condition "admitted of no +improvement," were yet groaning in bitter sorrow, nay, in absolute +despair, under the crushing weight of such magisterial decisions as +those which I have just recorded. Let me add two more [94] typical +cases which occurred during Mr. Mayne's tenure of office in the island. +</P> + +<P> +L. B. was a member of one of those brawling sisterhoods that frequently +disturbed the peace of the town of Port of Spain. She had a "pal" or +intimate chum familiarly known as "Lady," who staunchly stood by her in +all the squabbles that occurred with their adversaries. One particular +night, the police were called to a street in the east of the town, in +consequence of an affray between some women of the sort referred to. +Arriving on the spot, they found the fight already over, but a war of +words was still proceeding among the late combatants, of whom the +aforesaid "Lady" was one of the most conspicuous. A list was duly made +out of the parties found so engaged, and it included the name of L. B., +who happened not to be there, or even in Port of Spain at all, she +having some days before gone into the country to spend a little time +with some relatives. The inserting of her name was an inferential +mistake on the part of the police, arising from the presence of "Lady" +at the brawl, she being well known by them to be the inseparable ally +of L. B. on such occasions. +</P> + +<P> +[95] It was not unnatural that in the obscurity they should have +concluded that the latter was present with her altera ego, when in +reality she was not there. +</P> + +<P> +The participants in the brawl were charged at the station, and +summonses, including one to L. B., were duly issued. On her return to +Port of Spain a day or two after the occurrence, the wrongly +incriminated woman received from the landlady her key, along with the +magisterial summons that had resulted from the error of the constables. +The day of the trial came on, and L. B. stood before Mr. Mayne, strong +in her innocence, and supported by the sworn testimony of her landlady +as well as of her uncle from the country, with whom and with his family +she had been uninterruptedly staying up to one or two days after the +occurrence in which she had been thus implicated. The evidence of the +old lady, who, like thousands of her advanced age in the Colony, had +never even once had occasion to be present in any court of justice, was +to the following effect: That the defendant, who was a tenant of hers, +had, on a certain morning (naming days before the affray occurred), +[96] come up to her door well dressed, and followed by a porter +carrying her luggage. L. B., she continued, then handed her the key of +the apartment, informing her at the same time that she was going for +some days into the country to her relatives, for a change, and +requesting also that the witness should on no account deliver the key +to any person who should ask for it during her absence. This witness +further deposed to receiving the summons from the police, which she +placed along with the key for delivery to L. B. on the latter's return +home. +</P> + +<P> +The testimony of the uncle was also decisively corroborative of that of +the preceding witness, as to the absence from Port of Spain of L. B. +during the days embraced in the defence. The alibi was therefore +unquestionably made out, especially as none of the police witnesses +would venture to swear to having actually seen L. B. at the brawl. The +magistrate had no alternative but that of acquiescing in the proof of +her innocence; so he dismissed the charge against the accused, who +stood down from among the rest, radiant with satisfaction. The other +defendants were duly [97] convicted, and sentenced to a term of +imprisonment with hard labour. All this was quite correct; but here +comes matter for consideration with regard to the immaculate +dispensation of justice as vaunted so confidently by Mr. Froude. +</P> + +<P> +On receiving their sentence the women all stood down from the dock, to +be escorted to prison, except "Lady," who, by the way, had preserved a +rigid silence, while some of the other defendants had voluntarily and, +it may be added, generously protested that L. B. was not present on the +occasion of this particular row. "Lady," whether out of affection or +from a less respectable motive, cried out to the stipendiary justice. +"But, sir, it ain't fair. How is it every time that L. B. and me come +up before you, you either fine or send up the two of us together, and +to-day you are sending me up alone?" Moved either by the logic or the +pathos of this objurgation, the magistrate, turning towards L. B., who +had lingered after her narrow escape to watch the issue of the +proceedings, thus addressed her:—"L. B., upon second thoughts I order +you to the same term of hard labour at the Royal Gaol with the [98] +others." The poor girl, having neither money nor friends intelligent +enough to interfere on her behalf, had to submit, and she underwent the +whole of this iniquitous sentence. +</P> + +<P> +The last typical case that we shall give illustrates the singular +application by this more than singular judge of the legal maxim caveat +emptor. A free coolie possessed of a donkey resolved to utilize the +animal in carting grass to the market. He therefore called on another +coolie living at some distance from him, whom he knew to own two carts, +a small donkey-cart and an ordinary cart for mule or horse. He +proposed the purchase of the smaller cart, stating his reason for +wishing to have it. The donkey-cart was then shown to the intending +purchaser, who, along with two Creole witnesses brought by him to make +out and attest the receipt on the occasion, found some of the iron +fittings defective, and drew the vendor's attention thereto. He, on +his side, engaged, on receiving the amount agreed to for the cart, to +send it off to the blacksmith for immediate repairs, to be delivered to +the purchaser next morning at the latest. On this understanding the +purchase money was paid down, and the [99] receipt, specifying that the +sum therein mentioned was for a donkey-cart, passed from the vendor to +the purchaser of the little vehicle. Next day at about noon the man +went with his donkey for the cart. Arrived there, his countryman had +the larger of the two carts brought out, and in pretended innocence +said to the purchaser of the donkey-cart, "Here is your cart." On this +a warm dispute arose, which was not abated by the presence and protests +of the two witnesses of the day before, who had hastily been summoned +by the victim to bear out his contention that it was the donkey-cart +and not the larger cart which had been examined, bargained for, +purchased, and promised to be delivered, the day before. +</P> + +<P> +The matter, on account of the sturdiness of the rascal's denials, had +to be referred to a court of law. The complainant engaged an able +solicitor, who laid the case before Mr. Mayne in all its transparent +simplicity and strength. The defendant, although he had, and as a +matter of fact could have, no means of invalidating the evidence of the +two witnesses, and above all of his receipt with his signature, relied +upon the fact that the cart which he [100] offered was much larger than +the one the complainant had actually bought, and that therefore +complainant would be the gainer by the transaction. Incredible as it +may sound, this view of the case commended itself to the magistrate, +who adopted it in giving his judgment against the complainant. In vain +did the solicitor protest that all the facts of the case were centred +in the desire and intention of the prosecutor to have specifically a +donkey-cart, which was abundantly proved by everything that had come +out in the proceedings. In vain also was his endeavour to show that a +man having only a donkey would be hopelessly embarrassed by having a +cart for it which was entirely intended for animals of much larger +size. The magistrate solemnly reiterated his decision, and wound up by +saying that the victim had lost his case through disregard of the legal +maxim caveat emptor—let the purchaser be careful. The rascally +defendant thus gained his case, and left the court in defiant triumph. +</P> + +<P> +The four preceding cases are thoroughly significant of the original +method in which thousands of cases were decided by this model +magistrate, to the great detriment, pecuniary, [101] social, and moral, +during more than ten years, of between 60,000 and 70,000 of the +population within the circle of his judicial authority. What shall we +think, therefore, of the fairness of Mr. Froude or his informants, who, +prompt and eager in imputing unworthy motives to gentlemen with +characters above reproach, have yet been so silent with regard to the +flagrant and frequent abuses of more than one of their countrymen by +whom the honour and fair fame of their nation were for years draggled +in the mire, and whose misdeeds were the theme of every tongue and +thousands of newspaper-articles in the West Indian Colonies? +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + MR. ARTHUR CHILD, S.J.P.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +We now take San Fernando, the next most important magisterial district +after Port of Spain. At the time of Mr. Froude's visit, and for some +time before, the duties of the magistracy there were discharged by Mr. +Arthur Child, an "English barrister" who, of course, had possessed the +requisite qualification of being hopelessly briefless. For the ideal +justice which Mr. Froude would have Britons believe is meted out to the +weaker classes by their fellow-countrymen [102] in the West Indies, we +may refer the reader to the conduct of the above-named functionary on +the memorable occasion of the slaughter of the coolies under Governor +Freeling, in October, 1884. Mr. Child, as Stipendiary justice, had the +duty of reading the Riot Act to the immigrants, who were marching in +procession to the town of San Fernando, contrary, indeed, to the +Government proclamation which had forbidden it; and he it was who gave +the order to "fire," which resulted fatally to many of the unfortunate +devotees of Hosein. This mandate and its lethal consequences +anticipated by some minutes the similar but far more death-dealing +action of the Chief of Police, who was stationed at another post in the +vicinity of San Fernando. The day after the shooting down of a total +of more than one hundred immigrants, the protecting action of this +magistrate towards the weaker folk under his jurisdiction had a +striking exemplification, to which Mr. Froude is hereby made welcome. +Of course there was a general cry of horror throughout the Colony, and +especially in the San Fernando district, at the fatal outcome of the +proclamation, which had mentioned only "fine" and "imprisonment," [103] +but not Death, as the penalty of disregarding its prohibitions. For +nearly forty years, namely from their very first arrival in the Colony, +the East Indian immigrants had, according to specific agreement with +the Government, invariably been allowed the privilege of celebrating +their annual feast of Hosein, by walking in procession with their +Pagodas through the public roads and streets of the island, without +prohibition or hindrance of any kind from the authorities, save and +except in cases where rival estate pagodas were in danger of getting +into collision on the question of precedence. On such occasions the +police, who always attended the processions, usually gave the lead to +the pagodas of the labourers of estates according to their seniority as +immigrants. +</P> + +<P> +In no case up to 1884, after thirty odd years' inauguration in the +Colony, was the Hosein festival ever pretended to be any cause of +danger, actual or prospective, to any town or building. On the +contrary, business grew brisker and solidly improved at the approach of +the commemoration, owing to the very considerable sale of +parti-coloured paper, velvet, calico, and similar articles used in the +construction [104] of the pagodas. Governor Freeling, however, was, it +may be presumed, compelled to see danger in an institution which had +had nearly forty years' trial, without a single accident happening to +warrant any sudden interposition of the Government tending to its +suppression. At all events, the only action taken in 1884, in prospect +of their usual festival, was to notify the immigrants by proclamation, +and, it is said, also through authorized agents, that the details of +their fête were not to be conducted in the usual manner; and that their +appearance with pagodas in any public road or any town, without special +license from some competent local authority, would entail the penalty +of so many pounds fine, or imprisonment for so many months with hard +labour. The immigrants, to whom this unexpected change on the part of +the authorities was utterly incomprehensible, both petitioned and sent +deputations to the Governor, offering guarantees for the, if possible, +more secure celebration of the Hosein, and praying His Excellency to +cancel the prohibition as to the use of the roads, inasmuch as it +interfered with the essential part of their religious rite, which was +the "drowning," or casting into [105] the sea, of the pagodas. Having +utterly failed in their efforts with the Governor, the coolies resolved +to carry out their religious duty according to prescriptive forms, +accepting, at the same time, the responsibility in the way of fine or +imprisonment which they would thus inevitably incur. A rumour was also +current at the time that, pursuant to this resolution, the head men of +the various plantations had authorized a general subscription amongst +their countrymen, for meeting the contingency of fines in the police +courts. All these things were the current talk of the population of +San Fernando, in which town the leading immigrants, free as well as +indentured, had begun to raise funds for this purpose. +</P> + +<P> +All that the public, therefore, expected would have resulted from the +intended infringement of the Proclamation was an enormous influx of +money in the shape of fines into the Colonial Treasury; as no one +doubted the extreme facility which existed for ascertaining exactly, in +the case of persons registered and indentured to specific plantations, +the names and abodes of at least the chief offenders against the +proclamation. Accordingly, on the [106] occurrence of the bloody +catastrophe related above, every one felt that the mere persistence in +marching all unarmed towards the town, without actually attempting to +force their way into it, was exorbitantly visited upon the coolies by a +violent death or a life-long mutilation. This sentiment few were at +any pains to conceal; but as the poorer and more ignorant classes can +be handled with greater impunity than those who are intelligent and +have the means of self-defence, Mr. Justice Child, the very day after +the tragedy, and without waiting for the pro formâ official inquiry +into the tragedy in which he bore so conspicuous a part, actually +caused to be arrested, sat to try and sent to hard labour, persons whom +the police, in obedience to his positive injunctions, had reported to +him as having condemned the shooting down of the immigrants! Those who +were arrested and thus summarily punished had, of course, no means of +self-protection; and as the case is typical of others, as illustrative +of "justice-made law" applied to "subject races" in a British colony, +Mr. Froude is free to accept it, or not, in corroboration of his +unqualified panegyrics. +</P> + +<P> +[107] +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + MR. GROVE HUMPHREY CHAPMAN, S.J.P.<BR> +</P> + +<P> +As Stipendary Magistrate of this self-same San Fernando district, Grove +Humphrey Chapman, Esquire (another English barrister), was the +immediate predecessor of Mr. Child. More humane than Mr. Mayne, his +colleague and contemporary in Port of Spain, this young magistrate +began his career fairly well. But he speedily fell a victim to the +influences immediately surrounding him in his new position. His head, +which later events proved never to have been naturally strong, began to +be turned by the unaccustomed deference which he met with on all hands, +from high and low, official and non-official, and he himself soon +consummated the addling of his brain by persistent practical revolts +against every maxim of the ancient Nazarenes in the matter of +potations. His decisions at the court, therefore, became perfect +emulations of those of Mr. Mayne, as well in perversity as in +harshness, and many in his case also were the appeals for relief made +to the head of the executive by the inhabitants of the district—but of +course in vain. Governor Irving was at this time in office, and the +unfortunate [108] victims of perverse judgments—occasionally +pronounced by this magistrate in his cups—were only poor Negroes, +coolies, or other persons whose worldly circumstances placed them in +the category of the "weaker" in the community. To these classes of +people that excellent ruler unhappily denied—we dare not say his +personal sympathy, but—the official protection which, even through +self-respect, he might have perfunctorily accorded. Bent, however, on +running through the whole gamut of extravagance, Mr. Chapman—by +interpreting official impunity into implying a direct license for the +wildest of his caprices—plunged headlong with ever accelerating speed, +till the deliverance of the Naparimas became the welcome consequence of +his own personal action. On one occasion it was credibly reported in +the Colony that this infatuated dispenser of British justice actually +stretched his official complaisance so far as to permit a lady not only +to be seated near him on the judicial bench, but also to take a +part—loud, boisterous and abusive—in the legal proceedings of the +day. Meanwhile, as the Governor could not be induced to interfere, +things went [109] on from bad to worse, till one day, as above hinted, +the unfortunate magistrate so publicly committed himself as to be +obliged to be borne for temporary refuge to the Lunatic Asylum, whence +he was clandestinely shipped from the Colony on "six months' leave of +absence," never more to resume his official station. +</P> + +<P> +The removal of two such magistrates as those whose careers we have so +briefly sketched out—Mr. Mayne having died, still a magistrate, since +Mr. Froude's departure—has afforded opportunity for the restoration of +British protecting influence. In the person of Mr. Llewellyn Lewis, as +magistrate of Port of Spain, this opportunity has been secured. He, it +is generally rumoured, strives to justify the expectations of fair play +and even-handed justice which are generally entertained concerning +Englishmen. It is, however, certain that with a Governor so prompt to +hear the cry of the poor as Sir William Robinson has proved himself to +be, and with a Chief Justice so vigilant, fearless, and painstaking as +Sir John Gorrie, the entire magistracy of the Colony must be so +beneficially influenced as to preclude [110] the frequency of appeals +being made to the higher courts, or it may be to the Executive, on +account of scandalously unjust and senseless decisions. +</P> + +<P> +So long, too, as the names of T. S. Warner, Captain Larcom, and F. H. +Hamblin abide in the grateful remembrance of the entire population, as +ideally upright, just, and impartial dispensers of justice, each in his +own jurisdiction, we can only sigh at the temporal dispensation which +renders practicable the appointment and retention in office of such +administrators of the Law as were Mr. Mayne and Mr. Chapman. The +widespread and irreparable mischiefs wrought by these men still affect +disastrously many an unfortunate household; and the execration by the +weaker in the community of their memory, particularly that of Robert +Dawson Mayne, is only a fitting retribution for their abuse of power. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +NOTES +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +85. *A West Indian official superstition professes to believe that a +British barrister must make an exceptionally good colonial S.J.P., +seeing that he is ignorant of everything, save general English law, +that would qualify him for the post! In this, to acquit oneself +tolerably, some acquaintance with the language, customs, and habits of +thought of the population is everywhere else held to be of prime +importance,—native conscientiousness and honesty of purpose being +definitively presupposed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK III: SOCIAL REVOLUTION +</H3> + +<P> +[113] Never was the Knight of La Mancha more convinced of his imaginary +mission to redress the wrongs of the world than Mr. James Anthony +Froude seems to be of his ability to alter the course of events, +especially those bearing on the destinies of the Negro in the British +West Indies. The doctrinaire style of his utterances, his sublime +indifference as to what Negro opinion and feelings may be, on account +of his revelations, are uniquely charming. In that portion of his book +headed "Social Revolution" our author, with that mixture of frankness +and cynicism which is so dear to the soul of the British esprit fort of +to-day, has challenged a comparison between British Colonial policy on +the [114] one hand, and the Colonial policy of France and Spain on the +other. This he does with an evident recklessness that his approval of +Spain and France involves a definite condemnation of his own country. +However, let us hear him:— +</P> + +<P> +"The English West Indies, like other parts of the world, are going +through a silent revolution. Elsewhere the revolution, as we hope, is +a transition state, a new birth; a passing away of what is old and worn +out, that a fresh and healthier order may rise in its place. In the +West Indies the most sanguine of mortals will find it difficult to +entertain any such hope at all." +</P> + +<P> +As Mr. Froude is speaking dogmatically here of his, or rather our, West +Indies, let us hear him as he proceeds:— +</P> + +<P> +"We have been a ruling power there for two hundred and fifty years; the +whites whom we planted as our representatives are drifting into ruin, +and they regard England and England's policy as the principal cause of +it. The blacks whom, in a fit of virtuous benevolence, we emancipated, +do not feel particularly obliged to us. They think, if they think at +all, that they were [115] ill-treated originally, and have received no +more than was due to them." +</P> + +<P> +Thus far. Now, as to "the whites whom we planted as our +representatives," and who, Mr. Froude avers, are drifting into ruin, we +confess to a total ignorance of their whereabouts in these islands in +this jubilee year of Negro Emancipation. Of the representatives of +Britain immediately before and after Emancipation we happen to know +something, which, on the testimony of Englishmen, Mr. Froude will be +made quite welcome to before our task is ended. With respect to Mr. +Froude's statement as to the ingratitude of the emancipated Blacks, if +it is aimed at the slaves who were actually set free, it is utterly +untrue; for no class of persons, in their humble and artless way, are +more attached to the Queen's majesty, whom they regard as incarnating +in her gracious person the benevolence which Mr. Froude so jauntily +scoffs at. But if our censor's remark under this head is intended for +the present generation of Blacks, it is a pure and simple absurdity. +What are we Negroes of the present day to be grateful for to the US, +personified by Mr. Froude and the Colonial [116] Office exportations? +We really believe, from what we know of Englishmen, that very few +indeed would regard Mr. Froude's reproach otherwise than as a palpable +adding of insult to injury. Obliged to "us," indeed! Why, Mr. Froude, +who speaks of us as dogs and horses, suggests that the same kindliness +of treatment that secures the attachment of those noble brutes would +have the same result in our case. With the same consistency that marks +his utterances throughout his book, he tells his readers "that there is +no original or congenital difference between the capacity of the White +and the Negro races." He adds, too, significantly: "With the same +chances and with the same treatment, I believe that distinguished men +would be produced equally from both races." After this truthful +testimony, which Pelion upon Ossa of evidence has confirmed, does Mr. +Froude, in the fatuity of his skin-pride, believe that educated men, +worthy of the name, would be otherwise than resentful, if not +disgusted, at being shunted out of bread in their own native land, +which their parents' labours and taxes have made desirable, in order to +afford room to blockheads, vulgarians, [117] or worse, imported from +beyond the seas? Does Mr. Froude's scorn of the Negroes' skin extend, +inconsistently on his part, to their intelligence and feelings also? +And if so, what has the Negro to care—if let alone and not wantonly +thwarted in his aspirations? It sounds queer, not to say unnatural and +scandalous, that Englishmen should in these days of light be the +champions of injustice towards their fellow-subjects, not for any +intellectual or moral disqualification, but on the simple account of +the darker skin of those who are to be assailed and thwarted in their +life's career and aspirations. Really, are we to be grateful that the +colour difference should be made the basis and justification of the +dastardly denials of justice, social, intellectual, and moral, which +have characterized the régime of those who Mr. Froude boasts were left +to be the representatives of Britain's morality and fair play? Are the +Negroes under the French flag not intensely French? Are the Negroes +under the Spanish flag not intensely Spanish? Wherefore are they so? +It is because the French and Spanish nations, who are neither of them +inferior in origin or the [118] nobility of the part they have each +played on the historic stage, have had the dignity and sense to +understand the lowness of moral and intellectual consciousness implied +in the subordination of questions of an imperial nature to the +slaveholder's anxiety about the hue of those who are to be benefited or +not in the long run. By Spain and France every loyal and law-abiding +subject of the Mother Country has been a citizen deemed worthy all the +rights, immunities, and privileges flowing from good and creditable +citizenship. Those meriting such distinction were taken into the bosom +of the society which their qualifications recommended them to share, +and no office under the Government has been thought too good or too +elevated for men of their stamp. No wonder, then, that Mr. Froude is +silent regarding the scores of brilliant coloured officials who adorn +the civil service of France and Spain, and whose appointment, in +contrast with what has usually been the case in British Colonies, +reflects an abiding lustre on those countries, and establishes their +right to a foremost place among nations. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude, in speaking of Chief Justice [119] Reeves, ventures upon a +smart truism which we can discuss for him, but of course not in the +sense in which he has meant it. "Exceptions," our author remarks, "are +supposed proverbially to prove nothing, or to prove the very opposite +of what they appear to prove. When a particular phenomenon occurs +rarely, the probabilities are strong against the recurrence of it." +Now, is it in ignorance, or through disingenuousness, that Mr. Froude +has penned this argument regarding exceptions? Surely, in the vast +area of American life, it is not possible that he could see Frederick +Douglass alone out of the cluster of prominent Black Americans who are +doing the work of their country so worthily and so well in every +official department. Anyhow, Mr. Froude's history of the Emancipation +may here be amended for him by a reminder that, in the British +Colonies, it was not Whites as masters, and Blacks as slaves, who were +affected by that momentous measure. In fact, 1838 found in the British +Colonies very nearly as many Negro and Mulatto slave-owners as there +were white. Well then, these black and yellow planters received their +quota, it may be presumed, of [120] the £20,000,000 sterling indemnity. +They were part and parcel of the proprietary body in the Colonies, and +had to meet the crisis like the rest. They were very wealthy, some of +these Ethiopic accomplices of the oppressors of their own race. Their +sons and daughters were sent, like the white planter's children, across +the Atlantic for a European education. These young folk returned to +their various native Colonies as lawyers and doctors. Many of them +were also wealthy planters. The daughters, of course, became in time +the mothers of the new generation of prominent inhabitants. Now, in +America all this was different. No "nigger," however alabaster fair, +was ever allowed the privileges of common citizenship, let alone the +right to hold property in others. If possessed by a weakness to pass +for white men, as very many of them could easily have contrived to do, +woe unto the poor impostors! They were hunted down from city to city +as few felons would be, and finally done to death—"serve them right!" +being the grim commentary regarding their fate for having sought to +usurp the ineffable privilege of whitemanship! All this, Mr. Froude, +was [121] the rule, the practice, in America, with regard to persons of +colour up to twenty-five years ago. Now, sir, what is the phenomenon +which strikes your vision in that mighty Republic to-day, with regard +to those self-same despised, discountenanced, persecuted and harried +descendants of Ham? We shall tell you of the change that has taken +place in their condition, and also some of the reasons of that +beneficent revolution. +</P> + +<P> +The Proclamation of Emancipation on January 1st, 1863, was, by +President Lincoln, frankly admitted to have been a war necessity. No +abstract principle of justice or of morals was of primary consideration +in the matter. The saving of the Union at any cost,—that is, the +stern political emergency forced forth the document which was to be the +social salvation of every descendant of Ham in the United States of +America. Close upon the heels of their emancipation, the +enfranchisement of the Negroes was pushed forward by the thorough-going +American statesmen. They had no sentimentality to defer to. The logic +of events—the fact not only of the coloured race being freedmen, but +also of their having been effective [122] comrades on the fields of +battle, where the blood of eager thousands of them had flowed on the +Union side, pointed out too plainly that men with such claims should +also be partners in the resulting triumph. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude, being so deferential to skin prejudice, will doubtless find +it strange that such a measure as the Civil Rights Bill should have +passed a Congress of Americans. Assuredly with the feeling against the +coloured race which custom and law had engrafted into the very nature +of the vast majority, this was a tremendous call to make on the +national susceptibilities. But it has been exactly this that has +brought out into such vivid contrast the conduct of the British +statesman, loudly professing to be unprejudiced as to colour, and fair +and humane, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the dealings of +the politicians of America, who had, as a matter of fact, sucked in +aversion and contempt towards the Negro together with their mother's +milk. Of course no sane being could expect that feelings so deeply +ingrained and nourished could be rooted out by logic or by any +legislative enactment. But, indeed, it is sublimely creditable to +[123] the American Government that, whatever might be the personal and +private sentiments of its individual members as regards race, palmam +ferat qui meruit—"let him bear the palm who has deserved it"—has been +their motto in dealing generally with the claims of their Ethiopic +fellow-citizens. Hence it is that in only twenty-five years America +can show Negro public officers as thick as blackberries, while Mr. +Froude can mention only Mr. Justice Reeves in FIFTY years as a sample +of the "exceptional" progress under British auspices of a man of +African descent! Verily, if in fifty long years British policy can +recognize only one single exception in a race between which and the +white race there is no original or congenital difference of capacity, +the inference must be that British policy has been not only +systematically, but also too successfully, hostile to the advancement +of the Ethiopians subject thereto; while the "fair field and no favour" +management of the strong-minded Americans has, by its results, +confirmed the culpability of the English policy in its relation to +"subject races." +</P> + +<P> +The very suggestive section of "the English [124] in the West Indies," +from which we have already given extracts, and which bears the title +"Social Revolution," thus proceeds:— +</P> + +<P> +"But it does not follow that what can be done eventually can be done +immediately, and the gulf which divides the colours is no arbitrary +prejudice, but has been opened by the centuries of training and +discipline which have given us the start in the race" (p. 125 [Froude]). +</P> + +<P> +The reference in the opening clause of the above citation, as to what +is eventually possible not being immediately feasible, is to the +elevation of Blacks to high official posts, such as those occupied by +Judge Reeves in Barbados, and by Mr. F. Douglass in the United States. +We have already disposed by anticipation of the above contention of Mr. +Froude's, by showing that in only twenty-five years America has found +hundreds of eminent Blacks to fill high posts under her government. +Our author's futile mixture of Judge Reeves' exceptional case with that +of Fred. Douglass, which he cunningly singles out from among so many in +the United States, is nothing but a subterfuge, of the same queer and +flimsy description with which the literature of the cause now +championed [125] by his eloquence has made the world only too familiar. +What can Mr. Froude conceive any sane man should see in common between +the action of British and of American statesmanship in the matter now +under discussion? If his utterance on this point is that of a British +spokesman, let him abide by his own verdict against his own case, as +embodied in the words, "the gulf which divides the two COLOURS is no +arbitrary prejudice," which, coupled with his contention that the +elevation of the Blacks is not immediately feasible, discloses the +wideness of divergence between British and American political opinion +on this identical subject. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude is pathetically eloquent on the colour question. He tells +of the wide gulf between the two colours—we suppose it is as wide as +exists between his white horse and his black horse. Seriously, +however, does not this kind of talk savour only too much of the +slave-pen and the auction-block of the rice-swamp and the cotton-field; +of the sugar-plantation and the driver's lash? In the United States +alone, among all the slave-holding Powers, was the difference of race +and colour invoked openly and boldly to justify all the enormities that +[126] were the natural accompaniments of those "institutions" of the +Past. But is Mr. Froude serious in invoking the ostracizing of +innocent, loyal, and meritorious British subjects on account of their +mere colour? Physical slavery—which was no crime per se, Mr. Froude +tells us—had at least overwhelming brute power, and that silent, +passive force which is even more potential as an auxiliary, viz., +unenlightened public opinion, whose neutrality is too often a positive +support to the empire of wrong. +</P> + +<P> +But has Mr. Froude, in his present wild propaganda on behalf of +political and, therefore, of social repression, anything analogous to +those two above-specified auxiliaries to rely on? We trow not. Then +why this frantic bluster and shouting forth of indiscreet aspirations +on be half of a minority to whom accomplished facts, when not agreeable +to or manipulated by themselves, are a perpetual grievance, generating +life-long impotent protestations? Presumably there are possibilities +the thoughts of which fascinate our author and his congeners in this, +to our mind, vain campaign in the cause of social retrogression. But, +be the incentives what they may, it might not be amiss on our [127] +part to suggest to those impelled by them that the ignoring of Negro +opinion in their calculations, though not only possible but easily +practised fifty years ago, is a portentous blunder at the present time. +Verbum sapienti. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude must see that he has set about his Negro-repression campaign +in too blundering a fashion. He evidently expects to be able to throw +dust into the eyes of the intelligent world, juggler-wise, through the +agency of the mighty pronoun US, as representing the entire Anglo-Saxon +race, in his advocacy of the now scarcely intelligible pretensions of a +little coterie of Her Majesty's subjects in the West Indies. These +gentry are hostile, he urges, to the presence of progressive Negroes on +the soil of the tropics! Yet are these self-same Negroes not only +natives, but active improvers and embellishers of that very soil. We +cannot help concluding that this impotent grudge has sprung out of the +additional fact that these identical Negroes constitute also a living +refutation of the sinister predictions ventured upon generally against +their race, with frantic recklessness, even within the last three +decades, by affrighted slave-holders, of whose ravings Mr. Froude's +book is only a [128] diluted echo, out of season and outrageous to the +conscience of modern civilization. +</P> + +<P> +It is patent, then, that the matters which Mr. Froude has sought to +force up to the dignity of genetic rivalship, has nothing of that +importance about it. His US, between whom and the Negro subjects of +Great Britain the gulf of colour lies, comprises, as he himself owns, +an outnumbered and, as we hope to prove later on, a not over-creditable +little clique of Anglo-Saxon lineage. The real US who have started +ahead of the Negroes, "through the training and discipline of +centuries," are assuredly not anything like "represented" by the few +pretentious incapables who, instead of conquering predominance, as they +who deserve it always do, like men, are whimpering like babies after +dearly coveted but utterly unattainable enjoyments—to be had at the +expense of the interests of the Negroes whom they, rather amusingly, +affect to despise. When Mr. Froude shall have become able to present +for the world's contemplation a question respecting which the +Anglo-Saxon family, in its grand world-wide predominance, and the +African family, in its yet feeble, albeit promising, incipience of +self-adjustment, shall [129] actually be competitors, then, and only +then, will it be time to accept the outlook as serious. But when, as +in the present case, he invokes the whole prestige of the Anglo-Saxon +race in favour of the untenable pretensions of a few blasés of that +race, and that to the social and political detriment of tens of +thousands of black fellow-subjects, it is high time that the common +sense of civilization should laugh him out of court. The US who are +flourishing, or pining, as the case may be, in the British West +Indies—by favour of the Colonial Office on the former hypothesis, or, +on the second, through the misdirection of their own faculties—do not, +and, in the very nature of things, cannot in any race take the lead of +any set of men endowed with virile attributes, the conditions of the +contest being on all sides identical. +</P> + +<P> +Pass we onward to extract and comment on other passages in this very +engaging section of Mr. Froude's book. On the same page (125) he +says:— +</P> + +<P> +"The African Blacks have been free enough for thousands, perhaps for +ten thousands of years, and it has been the absence of restraint which +has prevented them from becoming civilized." +</P> + +<P> +[130] All this, perhaps, is quite true, and, in the absence of positive +evidence to the contrary of our author's dogmatic assertions, we save +time by allowing him all the benefit he can derive from whatever weight +they might carry. +</P> + +<P> +"Generation has followed generation, and the children are as like their +fathers as the successive generations of apes." +</P> + +<P> +To this we can have nothing to object; especially in view of what the +writer goes on to say, and that on his own side of the hedge—somewhat +qualified though his admission may be:—"The whites, it is likely +enough, succeeded one another with the same similarity for a series of +ages." Our speculator grows profoundly philosophic here; and in this +mood thus entertains his readers in a strain which, though deep, we +shall strive to find clear:— +</P> + +<P> +"It is now supposed that human race has been on the planet for a +hundred thousand years at least; and the first traces of civilization +cannot be thrown back at furthest beyond six thousand. During all this +time mankind went on treading in the same steps, century after century +making no more advance than the birds and beasts." +</P> + +<P> +[131] In all this there is nothing that can usefully be taken exception +to; for speculation and conjecture, if plausible and attractive, are +free to revel whenever written documents and the unmistakable +indications of the earth's crust are both entirely at fault. Warming +up with his theme, Mr. Froude gets somewhat ambiguous in the very next +sentence. Says he:— +</P> + +<P> +"In Egypt or India or one knows not where, accident or natural +development quickened into life our moral and intellectual faculties; +and these faculties have grown into what we now experience, not in the +freedom in which the modern takes delight, but under the sharp rule of +the strong over the weak, of the wise over the unwise." +</P> + +<P> +Our author, as we see, begins his above quoted deliverance quite at a +loss with regard to the agency to which the incipience, growth, and +fructification of man's faculties should be attributed. "Accident," +"natural development," he suggests, quickened the human faculties into +the progressive achievements which they have accomplished. But then, +wherefore is this writer so forcible, so confident in his prophecies +regarding Negroes and their future temporal condition [132] and +proceedings, since it is "accident," and "accident" only, that must +determine their fulfilment? Has he so securely bound the fickle +divinity to his service as to be certain of its agency in the +realization of his forecasts? And if so, where then would be the +fortuitousness that is the very essence of occurrences that glide, +undesigned, unexpected, unforeseen, into the domain of Fact, and become +material for History? So far as we feel capable of intelligently +meditating on questions of this inscrutable nature, we are forced to +conclude that since "natural development" could be so regular, so +continuous, and withal so efficient, in the production of the +marvellous results that we daily contemplate, there must be existent +and in operation—as, for instance, in the case of the uniformity +characterizing for ages successive generations of mankind, as above +adduced by our philosopher himself—some controlling LAW, according and +subject to which no check has marred the harmonious progression, or +prevented the consummations that have crowned the normal exercise of +human energy, intellectual as well as physical. +</P> + +<P> +The sharp rule of the strong over the [133] weak, is the first clause +of the Carlylean-sounding phrase which embodies the requisite +conditions for satisfactory human development. The terms expressive of +these conditions, however, while certainly suggesting and embracing the +beneficent, elevating influence and discipline of European +civilization, such as we know and appreciate it, do not by any means +exclude the domination of Mr. Legree or any other typical man-monster, +whose power over his fellow-creatures is at once a calamity to the +victims and a disgrace to the community tolerating not only its +exercise, but the very possibility of its existence. The sharp rule of +"the wise over the unwise," is the closing section of the +recommendation to ensure man's effective development. Not even savages +hesitate to defer in all their important designs to the sought-for +guidance of superior judgments. But in the case of us West Indian +Blacks, to whom Mr. Froude's doctrine here has a special reference, is +it suggested by him that the bidders for predominance over us on the +purely epidermal, the white skin, ground, are ipso facto the +monopolists of directing wisdom? It surely cannot be so; for Mr. +Froude's own chapters regarding both the [134] nomination by Downing +Street of future Colonial office-holders and the disorganized mental +and moral condition of the indigenous representatives—as he calls +them!—of his country in these climes, preclude the possibility that +the reference regarding the wise can be to them. Now since this is so, +we really cannot see why the pains should have been taken to indite the +above truism, to the truth whereof, under every normal or legitimate +circumstance, the veriest barbarian, by spontaneously resorting to and +cheerfully abiding by it, is among the first to secure practical effect. +</P> + +<P> +"Our own Anglo-Saxon race," continues our author, "has been capable of +self-government only after a thousand years of civil and spiritual +authority. European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by higher +instincts, may shorten the probation period of the negro. Individual +blacks of exceptional quality, like Frederick Douglass in America, or +the Chief Justice of Barbados, will avail themselves of opportunities +to rise, and the freest opportunity OUGHT TO BE offered them." Here we +are reminded of the dogma laid down by a certain [135] class of +ethnologists, to the effect that intellectuality, when displayed by a +person of mixed European and African blood, must always be assigned to +the European side of the parentage; and in the foregoing citation our +author speaks of two personages undoubtedly belonging to the class +embraced in the above dogma. Three specific objections may, therefore, +be urged against the statements which we have indicated in the above +quotation. First and foremost, neither Judge Reeves nor Mr. Fred +Douglass is a black man, as Mr. Froude inaccurately represents each of +them to be. The former is of mixed blood, to what degree we are not +adepts enough to determine; and the latter, if his portrait and those +who have personally seen him mislead us not, is a decidedly fair man. +</P> + +<P> +We, of course, do not for a moment imagine that either of those eminent +descendants of Ham cares a jot about the settlement of this question, +which doubtless would appear very trivial to both. But as our author's +crusade is against the Negro—by which we understand the undiluted +African descendant, the pure Negro, as he singularly describes Chief +Justice Reeves—our anxiety is to show that there exist, both [136] in +the West Indies and in the United States, scores of genuine black men +to whom neither of these two distinguished patriots would, for one +instant, hesitate to concede any claim to equality in intellectual and +social excellence. The second exception which we take is, as we have +already shown in a previous page, to the persistent lugging in of +America by Mr. Froude, doubtless to keep his political countrymen in +countenance with regard to the Negro question. We have already pointed +out the futility of this proceeding on our author's part, and suggested +how damaging it might prove to the cause he is striving to uphold. +"Blacks of exceptional quality," like the two gentlemen he has +specially mentioned, "will avail themselves of opportunities to rise." +Most certainly they will, Mr. Froude—but, for the present, only in +America, where those opportunities are really free and open to all. +There no parasitical non-workers are to be found, eager to eat bread, +but in the sweat of other people's brows; no impecunious title-bearers; +no importunate bores, nor other similar characters whom the Government +there would regard it as their duty "to provide for"—by quartering +them on the revenues [137] of Colonial dependencies. But in the +British Crown—or rather "Anglo-West Indian"—governed Colonies, has it +ever been, can it ever be, thus ordered? Our author's description of +the exigencies that compel injustice to be done in order to requite, or +perhaps to secure, Parliamentary support, coupled with his account of +the bitter animus against the coloured race that rankles in the bosom +of his "Englishmen in the West Indies," sufficiently proves the utter +hypocrisy of his recommendation, that the freest opportunities should +be offered to Blacks of the said exceptional order. The very wording +of Mr. Froude's recommendation is disingenuous. It is one stone sped +at two birds, and which, most naturally, has missed them both. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude knew perfectly well that, twenty-five years before he wrote +his book, America had thrown open the way to public advancement to the +Blacks, as it had been previously free to Whites alone. His use of +"should be offered," instead of "are offered," betrays his +consciousness that, at the time he was writing, the offering of any +opportunities of the kind he suggests was a thing still to be desired +under British jurisdiction. The third objection [138] which we shall +take to Mr. Froude's bracketing of the cases of Mr. Fred Douglass and +of Judge Reeves together, is that, when closely examined, the two cases +can be distinctly seen to be not in any way parallel. The applause +which our author indirectly bids for on behalf of British Colonial +liberality in the instance of Mr. Reeves would be the grossest mockery, +if accorded in any sense other than we shall proceed to show. Fred +Douglass was born and bred a slave in one of the Southern States of the +Union, and regained his freedom by flight from bondage, a grown man, +and, of course, under the circumstances, solitary and destitute. He +reached the North at a period when the prejudice of the Whites against +men of his race was so rampant as to constitute a positive mania. +</P> + +<P> +The stern and cruelly logical doctrine, that a Negro had no rights +which white men were bound to respect, was in full blast and practical +exemplification. Yet amidst it all, and despite of it all, this gifted +fugitive conquered his way into the Temple of Knowledge, and became +eminent as an orator, a writer, and a lecturer on political and general +subjects. Hailed abroad [139] as a prodigy, and received with +acclamation into the brotherhood of intelligence, abstract justice and +moral congruity demanded that such a man should no longer be subject to +the shame and abasement of social, legal, and political proscription. +The land of his birth proved herself equal to this imperative call of +civilized Duty, regardless of customs and the laws, written as well as +unwritten, which had doomed to life-long degradation every member of +the progeny of Ham. Recognizing in the erewhile bondman a born leader +of men, America, with the unflinching directness that has marked her +course, whether in good or in evil, responded with spontaneous loyalty +to the inspiration of her highest instincts. Shamed into compunction +and remorse at the solid fame and general sympathy secured for himself +by a son of her soil, whom, in the wantonness of pride and power, she +had denied all fostering care (not, indeed, for any conscious offending +on his part, but by reason of a natural peculiarity which she had +decreed penal), America, like a repentant mother, stooped from her +august seat, and giving with enthusiasm both hands to the outcast, she +helped him to stand forward and erect, [140] in the dignity of +untrammeled manhood, making him, at the same time, welcome to a place +of honour amongst the most gifted, the worthiest and most favoured of +her children. +</P> + +<P> +Chief Justice Reeves, on the other hand, did not enter the world, as +Douglass had done, heir to a lot of intellectual darkness and legalized +social and political proscription. Associated from adolescence with S. +J. Prescod, the greatest leader of popular opinion whom Barbados has +yet produced, Mr. Reeves possessed in his nature the material to +assimilate and reflect in his own principles and conduct the salient +characteristics of his distinguished Mentor. Arrived in England to +study law, he had there the privilege of the personal acquaintance of +Lord Brougham, then one of the Nestors of the great Emancipation +conflict. On returning to his native island, which he did immediately +after his call to the bar, Mr. Reeves sprung at once into the foremost +place, and retained his precedence till his labours and aspirations +were crowned by his obtaining the highest judicial post in that Colony. +For long years before becoming Chief Justice, Mr. Reeves had conquered +for himself the respect and confidence [141] of all Barbadians—even +including the ultra exclusive "Anglo-West-Indians" of Mr. Froude—by +the manful constitutional stand which, sacrificing official place, he +had successfully made against the threatened abrogation of the Charter +of the Colony, which every class and colour of natives cherish and +revere as a most precious, almost sacred, inheritance. The successful +champion of their menaced liberties found clustering around him the +grateful hearts of all his countrymen, who, in their hour of dread at +the danger of their time-honoured constitution, had clung in despair to +him as the only leader capable of heading the struggle and leading the +people, by wise and constitutional guidance, to the victory which they +desired but could not achieve for themselves. +</P> + +<P> +Sir William Robinson, who was sent out as pacificator, saw and took in +at a glance the whole significance of the condition of affairs, +especially in their relation to Mr. Reeves, and vice versâ. With the +unrivalled pre-eminence and predominant personal influence of the +latter, the Colonial Office had possessed more than ample means of +being perfectly familiar. What, then, could be more natural and +consonant with [142] sound policy than that the then acknowledged, but +officially unattached, head of the people (being an eminent lawyer), +should, on the occurrence of a vacancy in the highest juridical post, +be appointed to co-operate with the supreme head of the Executive? Mr. +Reeves was already the chief of the legal body of the Colony; his +appointment, therefore, as Chief Justice amounted to nothing more than +an official ratification of an accomplished and unalterable fact. Of +course, it was no fault of England's that the eminent culture, +political influence, and unapproached legal status of Mr. Reeves should +have coincided exactly with her political requirements at that crisis, +nor yet that she should have utilized a coincidence which had the +double advantage of securing the permanent services, whilst realizing +at the same time the life's aspiration, of a distinguished British +subject. But that Mr. Froude should be dinning in our ears this case +of benefited self-interest, gaining the amplest reciprocity, both as to +service and serviceableness, with the disinterested spontaneity of +America's elevation of Mr. Douglass, is but another proof of the +obliquity of the moral medium through [143] which he is wont to survey +mankind and their concerns. +</P> + +<P> +The distinction between the two marvellous careers which we have been +discussing demands, as it is susceptible of, still sharper +accentuation. In the final success of Reeves, it is the man himself +who confronts one in the unique transcendency and victoriousness of +personal merit. On the other hand, a million times the personal merit +of Reeves combined with his own could have availed Douglass absolutely +nothing in the United States, legal and social proscript that he was, +with public opinion generally on the side of the laws and usages +against him. The very little countries of the world are proverbial for +the production of very great men. But, on the other hand, narrowness +of space favours the concentration and coherence of the adverse forces +that might impede, if they fail of utterly thwarting, the success which +may happen to be grudged by those possessing the will and the power for +its obstruction. In Barbados, so far as we have heard, read, and seen +ourselves of the social ins and outs of that little sister-colony, the +operation of the above mentioned [144] influences has been, may still +be, to a certain extent, distinctly appreciable. Although in English +jurisprudence there is no law ordaining the proscription, on the ground +of race or colour, of any eligible candidate for social or political +advancement, yet is it notorious that the ethics and practices of the +"Anglo-West Indians"—who, our author has dared to say, represent the +higher type of Englishmen—have, throughout successive generations, +effectually and of course detrimentally operated, as though by a +positive Medo-Persian edict, in a proscriptive sense. It therefore +demanded extraordinary toughness of constitutional fibre, moral, +mental, and, let us add, physical too, to overcome the obstacles +opposed to the progress of merit, too often by persons in intelligence +below contempt, but, in prosperity and accepted pretension, formidable +indeed to fight against and overcome. We shudder to think of the petty +cabals, the underbred indignities, direct and indirect, which the +present eminent Judge had to watch against, to brush aside, to smile +at, in course of his epic strides towards the highest local pinnacle of +his profession. But [145] with him, as Time has shown, it was all sure +and safe. +</P> + +<P> +Providence had endowed him with the powers and temperament that break +down, when opportunity offers, every barrier to the progress of the +gifted and strong and brave. That opportunity, in his particular case, +offered itself in the Confederation crisis. Distracted and helpless +"Anglo-West Indians" thronged to him in imploring crowds, praying that +their beloved Charter should be saved by the exertion of his +incomparable abilities. Save and except Dr. Carrington, there was not +a single member of the dominant section in Barbados whom it would not +be absurd to name even as a near second to him whom all hailed as the +Champion of their Liberties. In the contest to be waged the victory +was not, as it never once has been, reserved to the SKIN or pedigree of +the combatants. The above two matters, which in the eyes of the ruling +"Bims" had, throughout long decades of undisturbed security, been +placed before and above all possible considerations, gravitated down to +their inherent insignificance when Intellect and Worth were destined to +fight out the issue. Mr. [146] Reeves, whose possession of the +essential qualifications was admittedly greater than that of every +colleague, stood, therefore, in unquestioned supremacy, lord of the +political situation, with the result above stated. +</P> + +<P> +To what we have already pointed out regarding the absolute +impossibility of such an opportunity ever presenting itself in America +to Mr. Douglass, in a political sense, we may now add that, whereas, in +Barbados, for the intellectual equipment needed at the crisis, Mr. +Reeves stood quite alone, there could, in the bosom of the Union, even +in respect of the gifts in which Mr. Douglass was most brilliant, be no +"walking over the course" by him. It was in the country and time of +Bancroft, Irving, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, Bryant, Motley, Henry +Clay, Dan Webster, and others of the laureled phalanx which has added +so great and imperishable a lustre to the literature of the English +tongue. +</P> + +<P> +We proceed here another step, and take up a fresh deliverance of our +author's in reference to the granting of the franchise to the black +population of these Colonies. "It is," says Mr. James Anthony Froude, +who is just as prophetic [147] as his prototypes, the slave-owners of +the last half-century, "it is as certain as anything future can be, +that if we give the negroes as a body the political privileges which we +claim for ourselves, they will use them only to their own injury." The +forepart of the above citation reads very much as if its author wrote +it on the principle of raising a ghost for the mere purpose of laying +it. What visionary, what dreamer of impossible dreams, has ever asked +for the Negroes as a body the same political privileges which are +claimed for themselves by Mr. Froude and others of his countrymen, who +are presumably capable of exercising them? No one in the West Indies +has ever done so silly a thing as to ask for the Negroes as a body that +which has not, as everybody knows, and never will be, conceded to the +people of Great Britain as a body. The demand for Reform in the Crown +Colonies—a demand which our author deliberately misrepresents—is made +neither by nor for the Negro, Mulatto, White, Chinese, nor East Indian. +It is a petition put forward by prominent responsible colonists—the +majority of whom are Whites, and mostly Britons besides. +</P> + +<P> +[148] Their prayer, in which the whole population in these Colonies +most heartily join, is simply and most reasonably that we, the said +Colonies, being an integral portion of the British Empire, and having, +in intelligence and every form of civilized progress, outgrown the +stage of political tutelage, should be accorded some measure of +emancipation therefrom. And thereby we—White, Black, Mulatto, and all +other inhabitants and tax-payers—shall be able to protect ourselves +against the self-seeking and bold indifference to our interests which +seem to be the most cherished expression of our rulers' official +existence. It may be possible (for he has attempted it), that our new +instructor in Colonial ethics and politics, under the impulsion of +skin-superiority, and also of confidence in the probable success of +experiments successfully tried fifty years before, does really believe +in the sensibleness of separating COLOURS, and representing the wearers +of them as being generally antagonistic to one another in Her Majesty's +West Indian Dominions. How is it then, we may be permitted to ask Mr. +Froude, that no complaint of the sort formulated by him as against the +Blacks has ever been put [149] forward by the thousands of Englishmen, +Scotchmen, Irishmen, and other Europeans who are permanent inhabitants, +proprietors, and tax-payers of these Colonies? The reason is that +Anglo-West Indianism, or rather Colonialism, is the creed of a few +residents sharply divisible into two classes in the West Indies. +Labouring conjointly under race-madness, the first believes that, as +being of the Anglo-Saxon race, they have a right to crow and dominate +in whatever land they chance to find themselves, though in their own +country they or their forefathers had had to be very dumb dogs indeed. +The Colonial Office has for a long time been responsible for the +presence in superior posts of highly salaried gentry of this category, +who have delighted in showing themselves off as the unquestionable +masters of those who supply them with the pay that gives them the +livelihood and position they so ungratefully requite. These fortunate +folk, Mr. Froude avers, are likely to leave our shores in a huff, +bearing off with them the civilizing influences which their presence so +surely guarantees. Go tell to the marines that the seed of Israel +flourishing in the borders of [150] Misraim will abandon their +flourishing district of Goshen through sensitiveness on account of the +idolatry of the devotees of Isis and Osiris! +</P> + +<P> +The second and less placable class of "Englishmen in the West Indies," +whose final departure our author would have us to believe would +complete the catastrophe to progress in the British Antilles, is very +impalpable indeed. We cannot feel them. We have failed to even see +them. True, Mr. Froude scouts on their behalf the bare notion of their +condescending to meet, on anything like equality, us, whom he and they +pretend (rather anachronistically, at least) to have been their former +slaves, or servants. But where, in the name of Heaven, where are these +sortis de la cuisse de Jupiter, Mr. Froude? If they are invisible, +mourning in impenetrable seclusion over the impossibility of having, as +their fathers had before them, the luxury of living at the Negroes' +expense, shall we Negroes who are in the sunshine of heaven, prepared +to work and win our way, be anywise troubled in our Jubilee by the +drivelling ineptitude which insanely reminds us of the miseries of +those who went before us? We have thus arrived at the cardinal, [151] +essential misrepresentation, out of scores which compose "The Bow of +Ulysses," and upon which its phrases mainly hinge. Semper +eadem—"Always the same"—has been the proud motto of the mightiest +hierarchy that has controlled human action and shaped the destinies of +mankind, no less in material than in ghostly concerns. Yet is a vast +and very beneficial change, due to the imperious spirit of the times, +manifest in the Roman Church. No longer do the stake, the sword, and +the dismal horrors of the interdict figure as instruments for assuring +conformity and submission to her dogmas. She is now content to rest +her claims on herbeneficence in the past, as attested by noble and +imperishable memorials of her solicitude for the poor and the ignorant, +and in proclaiming the gospel without those ghastly coercives to its +acceptance. Surely such a change, however unpalatable to those who +have been compelled to make it, is most welcome to the outside world at +large. "Always the same" is also, or should be, the device of the +discredited herd whose spokesman Mr. Froude is so proud to be. In +nothing has their historical character, as shown in the published +literature of their [152] cause up to 1838, exhibited any sign of +amelioration. It cannot be affected by the spirit and the lessons of +the times. Mendacity and a sort of judicial blindness seem to be the +two most salient characteristics by which are to be distinguished these +implacable foes and would-be robbers of human rights and liberty. But, +gracious heavens! what can tempt mortals to incur this weight of +infamy? Wealth and Power? To be (very improbably) a Croesus or (still +more improbably) a Bonaparte, and to perish at the conventional age, +and of vulgar disease, like both? Turpitudes on the part of sane men, +involving the sacrifice of the priceless attributes of humanity, can be +rendered intelligible by the supreme temporal gains above indicated, +but only if exemption from the common lot of mankind—in the shape of +care, disease, and death—were accompaniments of those prizes. +</P> + +<P> +In favour of slavery, which has for so many centuries desolated the +African family and blighted its every chance of indigenous progress—of +slavery whose abolition our author so ostentatiously regrets—only one +solitary permanent result, extending in every case over [153] a natural +human life, has been paraded by him as a respectable justification. At +page 246, speaking of Negroes met by him during a stroll which he took +at Mandeville, Jamaica, he tells us:— +</P> + +<P> +"The people had black faces; but even they had shaped their manners in +the old English models. The men touched their hats respectfully (as +they eminently did not in Kingston and its environs). The women smiled +and curtsied, and the children looked shy when one spoke to them. The +name of slavery is a horror to us; but there must have been something +human and kindly about it, too, when it left upon the character the +marks of courtesy and good breeding"! +</P> + +<P> +Alas for Africa and the sufferings of her desolated millions, in view +of so light-hearted an assessment as this! Only think of the ages of +outrage, misery, and slaughter—of the countless hecatombs that Mammon +is hereby absolved from having directly exacted, since the sufficing +expiatory outcome of it all has been only "marks of courtesy and good +breeding"! Marks that are displayed, forsooth, by the survivors of the +ghastly experiences or by [154] their descendants! And yet, granting +the appreciable ethical value of the hat-touching, the smirking and +curtseyings of those Blacks to persons whom they had no reason to +suspect of unfriendliness, or whose white face they may in the white +man's country have greeted with a civility perhaps only prudential, we +fail to discover the necessity of the dreadful agency we have adverted +to, for securing the results on manners which are so warmly commended. +African explorers, from Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley, have all +borne sufficient testimony to the world regarding the natural +friendliness of the Negro in his ancestral home, when not under the +influence of suspicion, anger, or dread. +</P> + +<P> +It behoves us to repeat (for our detractor is a persistent repeater) +that the cardinal dodge by which Mr. Froude and his few adherents +expect to succeed in obtaining the reversal of the progress of the +coloured population is by misrepresenting the elements, and their real +attitude towards one another, of the sections composing the British +West Indian communities. Everybody knows full well that Englishmen, +Scotchmen, and Irishmen (who are not officials), as [155] well as +Germans, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, and other nationalities, work +in unbroken harmony and, more or less, prosper in these Islands. These +are no cherishers of any vain hankering after a state of things in +which men felt not the infamy of living not only on the unpaid labour, +but at the expense of the sufferings, the blood, and even the life of +their fellow-men. These men, honourable by instinct and of independent +spirit, depend on their own resources for self-advancement in the +world—on their capital either of money in their pockets or of +serviceable brains in their heads, energy in their limbs, and on these +alone, either singly or more or less in combination. These reputable +specimens of manhood have created homes dear to them in these favoured +climes; and they, at any rate, being on the very best terms with all +sections of the community in which their lot is cast, have a common +cause as fellow-sufferers under the régime of Mr. Froude's official +"birds of passage." The agitation in Trinidad tells its own tale. +There is not a single black man—though there should have been +many—among the leaders of the movement for Reform. Nevertheless the +honourable [156] and truthful author of "The English in the West +Indies," in order to invent a plausible pretext for his sinister +labours of love on behalf of the poor pro-slavery survivals, and +despite his knowledge that sturdy Britons are at the head of the +agitation, coolly tells the world that it is a struggle to secure +"negro domination." +</P> + +<P> +The further allegation of our author respecting the black man is +curious and, of course, dismally prophetic. As the reader may perhaps +recollect, it is to the effect that granting political power to the +Negroes as a body, equal in scope "to that claimed by Us" (i.e., Mr. +Froude and his friends), would certainly result in the use of these +powers by the Negroes to their own injury. And wherefore? If Mr. +Froude professes to believe—what is a fact—that there is "no original +or congenital difference of capacity" between the white and the African +races, where is the consistency of his urging a contention which +implies inferiority in natural shrewdness, as regards their own +affairs, on the part of black men? Does this blower of the two +extremes of temperature in the same breath pretend that the average +British voter is better informed, can see more clearly what is for his +own advantage, [157] is better able to assess the relative merits of +persons to be entrusted with the spending of his taxes, and the general +management of his interests? If Mr. Froude means all this, he is at +issue not only with his own specific declaration to the contrary, but +with facts of overwhelming weight and number showing precisely the +reverse. We have personally had frequent opportunities of coming into +contact, both in and out of England, with natives of Great Britain, not +of the agricultural order alone, but very often of the artisan class, +whose ignorance of the commonest matters was as dense as it was +discreditable to the land of their birth and breeding. Are these +people included (on account of having his favourite sine quâ non of a +fair skin) in the US of this apostle of skin-worship, in the +indefeasible right to political power which is denied to Blacks by +reason, or rather non-reason, of their complexion? +</P> + +<P> +The fact is, that, judging by his own sentiments and those of his +Anglo-West Indian friends, Mr. Froude calculated on producing an +impression in favour of their discreditable views by purposely keeping +out of sight the numerous European and other sufferers under the yoke +[158] which he sneers at seeing described by its proper appellation of +"a degrading tyranny." The prescriptive unfavourable forecast of our +author respecting political power in the hands of the Blacks may, in +our opinion, be hailed as a warrant for its bestowal by those in whose +power that bestowal may be. As a pro-slavery prophecy, equally dismal +and equally confident with the hundreds that preceded it, this new +vaticination may safely be left to be practically dealt with by the +Race, victimized and maligned, whose real genius and character are +purposely belied by those who expect to be gainers by the process. +Invested with political power, the Negroes, Mr. Froude goes on to +assure his readers, "will slide back into their old condition, and the +chance will be gone of lifting them to the level to which we have no +right to say they are incapable of rising." How touchingly +sympathetic! How transcendently liberal and righteous! But, to speak +the truth, is not this solicitude of our cynical defamer on our behalf, +after all, a useless waste of emotion on his part? Timeo Danaos et +dona ferentes.+ The tears of the crocodile are most copious in close +view of the banquet on his prey. This [159] reiterated twaddle of Mr. +Froude, in futile and unseasonable echo of the congenial predictions of +his predecessors in the same line, might be left to receive not only +the answer of his own book to the selfsame talk of the slavers fifty +years ago, but also that of the accumulated refutations which America +has furnished for the last twenty-five years as to the retrograde +tendency so falsely imputed. But, taking it as a serious contention, +we find that it involves a suggestion that the according of electoral +votes to citizens of a certain complexion would, per se and ipso facto, +produce a revulsion and collapse of the entire prevailing organization +and order of a civilized community. +</P> + +<P> +What talismanic virtue this prophet of evil attributes to a vote in the +hand of a Negro out of Barbados, where for years the black man's vote +has been operating, harmlessly enough, Heaven knows, we cannot imagine. +At all events, as sliding back on the part of a community is a matter +which would require some appreciable time, however brief, let us hope +that the authorities charged "to see that the state receive no +detriment" would be vigilant enough and in time to arrest the evil and +vindicate [160] the efficiency of the civilized methods of +self-preservation. +</P> + +<P> +Our author concludes by another reference to Chief Justice Reeves: "Let +British authority die away, and the average black nature, such as it +now is, be left free to assert itself, there will be no more negroes +like him in Barbadoes or anywhere." How the dying away of British +authority in a British Colony is to come to pass, Mr. Froude does not +condescend here explicitly to state. But we are left free to infer +from the whole drift of "The English in the West Indies" that it will +come through the exodus en masse said to be threatened by his +"Anglo-West Indians." Mr. Froude sympathetically justifies the disgust +and exasperation of these reputable folk at the presence and progress +of the race for whose freedom and ultimate elevation Britain was so +lavish of the wealth of her noblest intellects, besides paying the +prodigious money-ransom of TWENTY MILLION pounds sterling. With regard +to our author's talk about "the average black nature, such as it now +exists, being left free to assert itself," and the dire consequences +therefrom to result, we can only feel pity at the desperate straits to +[161] which, in his search for a pretext for gratuitous slander, a man +of our author's capacity has been so ignominiously reduced. All we can +say to him with reference to this portion of his violent suppositions +is that "the average black nature, such as it now exists," should NOT, +in a civilized community, be left free to assert itself, any more than +the average white, the average brown, the average red, or indeed any +average colour of human nature whatsoever. As self-defence is the +first law of nature, it has followed that every condition of organized +society, however simple or primitive, is furnished with some recognized +means of self-protection against the free assertion of itself by the +average nature of any of its members. +</P> + +<P> +Of course, if things should ever turn out according to Mr. Froude's +desperate hypothesis, it may also happen that there will be no more +Negroes like Mr. justice Reeves in Barbados. But the addition of the +words "or anywhere" to the above statement is just another of those +suppressions of the truth which, absolutely futile though they are, +constitute the only means by which the policy he writes to promote can +possibly be made to [162] appear even tolerable. The assertion of our +author, therefore, standing as it actually does, embracing the whole +world, is nothing less than an audacious absurdity, for there stand the +United States, the French and Spanish islands—not to speak of the +Central and South American Republics, Mexico, and Brazil—all thronged +with black, mixed blood, and even half-breed high officials, staring +him and the whole world in the face. +</P> + +<P> +The above noted suppression of the truth to the detriment of the +obnoxious population recalls a passage wherein the suggestion of what +is not the truth has been resorted to for the same purpose. At page +123 we read: "The disproportion of the two races—always dangerously +large—has increased with ever-gathering velocity since the +emancipation. It is now beyond control on the old lines." The use of +the expletive "dangerously," as suggestive of the truculence of the +people to whom it refers, is critically allowable in view of the main +intention of the author. But what shall we say of the suggestion +contained in the very next sentence, which we have italicized? We are +required by it to understand that in slavery-time the [163] planters +had some organized method, rendered impracticable by the Emancipation, +of checking, for their own personal safety, the growth of the coloured +population. If we, in deference to the superior mental capacity of our +author, admit that self-interest was no irresistible motive for +promoting the growth of the human "property" on which their prosperity +depended, we are yet at liberty to ask what was the nature of the "old +lines" followed for controlling the increase under discussion. Was it +suffocation of the babes by means of sulphur fumes, the use of +beetle-paste, or exposure on the banks of the Caribbean rivers? In the +later case History evidently lost a chance of self-repetition in the +person of some leader like Moses, the Hebra-Egyptian Spartacus, arising +to avenge and deliver his people. +</P> + +<P> +We now shall note how he proceeds to descant on slavery +itself:—"Slavery," says he, "was a survival from a social order which +had passed away, and slavery could not be continued. IT DOES NOT +FOLLOW THAT per se IT WAS A CRIME. The negroes who were sold to the +dealers in the factories were most of them either slaves already to +worse masters or were servi, servants [164] in the old meaning of the +word, or else criminals, servati or reserved from death. They would +otherwise have been killed, and since the slave trade has been +abolished, are again killed in the too celebrated customs...." +</P> + +<P> +Slavery, as Mr. Froude and the rest of us are bound to discuss it at +present, is by no means susceptible of the gloss which he has +endeavoured, in the above extract, to put on it. The British nation, +in 1834, had to confront and deal with the only species of slavery +which was then within the cognizance of public morals and practical +politics. Doubtless our author, learned and erudite as he is, would +like to transport us to those patriarchal ages when, under theocratic +decrees, the chosen people were authorized to purchase (not to kidnap) +slaves, and keep them as an everlasting inheritance in their posterity. +The slaves so purchased, we know, became members of the families to +which their lot was attached, and were hedged in from cruel usage by +distinct and salutary regulations. This is the only species of slavery +which—with the addition of the old Germanic self-enslavements and the +generally prevailing ancient custom of pledging one's personal services +[165] in liquidation of indebtedness—can be covered by the singular +verdict of noncriminality which our author has pronounced. He, of +course, knows much better than we do what the condition of slaves was +in Greece as well as in Rome. He knows, too, that the "wild and guilty +phantasy that man could hold property in man," lost nothing of its +guilt or its wildness with the lapse of time and the changes of +circumstances which overtook and affected those reciprocal relations. +Every possibility of deterioration, every circumstance wherein man's +fallen nature could revel in its worst inspirations, reached +culmination at the period when the interference of the world, decreed +by Providence, was rendered imperative by the sufferings of the +bondsmen. It is this crisis of the history of human enslavement that +Mr. Froude must talk about, if he wishes to talk to any purpose on the +subject at all. His scoffs at British "virtuous benevolence," and his +imputation of ingratitude to the Negro in respect of that self-same +benevolence, do not refer to any theocratic, self-contracted, abstract, +or idyllic condition of servitude. They pin his meaning down [166] to +that particular phase when slavery had become not only "the sum," but +the very quintessence, "of all human villainies." +</P> + +<P> +At its then phase, slavery had culminated into being a menace, +portentous and far encroaching, to not only the moral life but the very +civilization of the higher types of the human family, so debasing and +blighting were its effects on those who came into even tolerating +contact with its details. The indescribable atrocities practised on +the slaves, the deplorable sapping of even respectable principles in +owners of both sexes—all these stood forth in their ineffable +hideousness before the uncorrupted gaze of the moral heroes, sons of +Britain and America, and also of other countries, who, buckling on the +armour of civilization and right, fought for the vindication of them +both, through every stern vicissitude, and won the first grand, +ever-memorable victory of 1838, whereof we so recently celebrated the +welcome Jubilee! Oh! it was a combat of archangels against the legions +that Mammon had banded together and incited to the conflict. But +though it was Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and the rest [167] of that +illustrious host of cultured, lofty-souled, just, merciful, and +beneficent men, who were thus the saviours, as well as the servants, of +society, yet have we seen it possible for an Englishman of to-day to +mouth against their memory the ineptitudes of their long-vanquished +foes, and to flout the consecrated dead in their graves, as the +Boeotian did the living Pericles in the market-place of Athens! +</P> + +<P> +Why waste words and time on this defamer of his own countrymen, who, on +account of the material gain and the questionable martial glory of the +conquest, eulogizes Warren Hastings, the viceregal plunderer of India, +whilst, in the same breath, he denounces Edmund Burke for upholding the +immutable principles of right and justice! These principles once, and +indubitably now, so precious in their fullest integrity to the normal +British conscience, must henceforth, say Mr. Froude and his +fellow-colonialists, be scored off the moral code of Britain, since +they "do not pay" in tangible pelf, in self-aggrandisement, or in +dazzling prestige. +</P> + +<P> +The statement that many negroes who were sold to the dealers in the +factories were "slaves [168] already to worse masters" is, in the face +of facts which could not possibly have been unknown to him, a piece of +very daring assertion. But this should excite no wonder, considering +that precise and scrupulous accuracy would be fatal to the +discreditable cause to which he so shamelessly proclaims his adhesion. +As being familiar since early childhood with members of almost every +tribe of Africans (mainly from or arriving by way of the West Coast) +who were brought to our West Indies, we are in a position to contradict +the above assertion of Mr. Froude's, its unfaltering confidence +notwithstanding. We have had the Madingoes, Foulahs, Houssas, Calvers, +Gallahs, Karamenties, Yorubas, Aradas, Cangas, Kroos, Timnehs, Veis, +Eboes, Mokoes, Bibis, and Congoes, as the most numerous and important +of the tribal contribution of Africa to the population of these +Colonies. Now, from what we have intimately learned of these people +(excepting the Congoes, who always appeared to us an inferior tribe to +all the others), we unhesitatingly deny that even three in ten of the +whole number were ever slaves in their own country, in the sense of +having been born under any organized [169] system of servitude. The +authentic records relating to the enslavement of Africans, as a regular +systematized traffic, do not date further back than five centuries ago. +It is true that a great portion of ancient literature and many +monuments bear distinct evidence, all the more impressive because +frequently only casual, that, from the earliest ages, the Africans had +shared, in common with other less civilized peoples, the doom of having +to furnish the menial and servile contingents of the more favoured +sections of the human family. Now, dating from, say, five hundred +years ago, which was long indeed after the disappearance of the old +leading empires of the world, we have (save and except in the case of +Arab incursionists into the Eastern and Northern coasts) no reliable +authority for saying, or even for supposing, that the tribes of the +African interior suffered from the molestations of professional +man-hunters. +</P> + +<P> +It was the organization of the West Coast slave traffic towards the +close of the sixteenth century, and the extermination of the Caribbean +aborigines by Spain, soon after Columbus had discovered the Western +Continent, which [170] gave cohesion, system, impetus, and +aggressiveness to the trade in African flesh and blood. Then the +factory dealers did not wait at their seaboard mart, as our author +would have us suppose, for the human merchandize to be brought down to +them. The auri sacra fames, the accursed craving for gain, was too +imperious for that. From the Atlantic border to as far inland as their +emissaries could penetrate, their bribes, in every species of +exchangeable commodities, were scattered among the rapacious chiefs on +the river banks; while these latter, incited as well by native ferocity +as by lust of gain, rushed forth to "make war" on their neighbours, and +to kidnap, for sale to the white purchaser, every man, woman, and child +they could capture amidst the nocturnal flames, confusion, tumult, and +terror resulting from their unexpected irruption. That the poor people +thus captured and sold into foreign on age were under worse masters +than those under whom they, on being actually bought and becoming +slaves, were doomed to experience all the atrocities that have thrilled +with horror the conscience of the civilized Christian world, is a +statement of worse than [171] childish absurdity. Every one, except +Mr. Froude and his fellow-apologists for slavery, knows that the +cruelty of savage potentates is summary, uncalculating, and, therefore, +merciful in its ebullitions. A head whisked off, brains dashed out, or +some other short form of savage dispatch, is the preferential method of +destruction. With our author's better masters, there was the long, +dreary vicissitude, beginning from the horrors of the capture, and +ending perhaps years upon years after, in some bush or under the lash +of the driver. The intermediate stages of the starvation life of +hunger, chains, and hideous exposure at the barancoon, the stowing away +like herrings on board the noisome ship, the suffocation, the +deck-sores wrought into the body by the attrition of the bonier parts +of the system against the unyielding wood—all these, says Mr. Froude, +were more tolerable than the swift doing away with life under an +African master! Under such, at all events, the care and comfort +suitable to age were strictly provided for, and cheered the advanced +years of the faithful bondsman. +</P> + +<P> +After a good deal of talk, having the same logical value, our author, +in his enthusiasm for [172] slavery, delivers himself thus: "For +myself, I would rather be the slave of a Shakespeare or a Burghley, +than the slave of a majority in the House of Commons, or the slave of +my own folly." Of the four above specified alternatives of +enslavement, it is to be regretted that temperament, or what is more +likely, perhaps, self-interest, has driven him to accept the fourth, or +the latter of the two deprecated yokes, his book being an irrefutable +testimony to the fact. For, most assuredly, it has not been at the +prompting of wisdom that a learned man of unquestionably brilliant +talents and some measure of accorded fame could have prostituted those +talents and tarnished that fame by condescending to be the literary +spokesman of the set for whose miserable benefit he recommends the +statesmen of his country to perjure and compromise themselves, +regardless of inevitable consequences, which the value of the sectional +satisfaction to be thereby given would but very poorly compensate. +Possibly a House of Commons majority, whom this dermatophilist +evidently rates far lower than his "Anglo-West Indians," might, if he +were their Slave, have protected their own self- [173] respect by +restraining him from vicariously scandalizing them by his effusions. +</P> + +<P> +After this curious boast about his preferences as a hypothetic +bondsman, Mr. Froude proceeds gravely to inform his readers that "there +may be authority yet not slavery; a soldier is not a slave, a wife is +not a slave..." and he continues, with a view of utilizing these +platitudes against the obnoxious Negro, by telling us that persons +sustaining the above specified and similar relations "may not live by +their own wills, or emancipate themselves at their own pleasure from +positions in which nature has placed them, or into which they have +themselves voluntarily entered. The negroes of the West Indies are +children, and not yet disobedient children.... If you enforce +self-government upon them when they are not asking for it, you may ... +wilfully drive them back into the condition of their ancestors, from +which the slave-trade was the beginning of their emancipation."! The +words which we have signalized by italics in the above extract could +have been conceived only by a bigot—such an atrocious sentiment being +possible only as the product of mind or morals [174] wrenched +hopelessly out of normal action. All the remainder of this hashing up +of pointless commonplaces has for its double object a suggestio falsi +against us Negroes as a body, and a diverting of attention, as we have +proved before, from the numerous British claimants of Reform, whose +personality Mr. Froude and his friends would keep out of view, provided +their crafty policy has the result of effectually repressing the +hitherto irrepressible, and, as such, to the "Anglo-West Indian," truly +detestable Negro. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +NOTES +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +158. +Translation: "I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK III: WEST INDIAN CONFEDERATION +</H3> + +<P> +[175] In heedless formulation of his reasons, if such they should be +termed, for urging tooth and nail the non-according of reform to the +Crown-governed Colonies, our author puts forth this dogmatic +deliverance (p. 123):— +</P> + +<P> +"A West Indian self-governing dominion is possible only with a full +Negro vote. If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks. It will +be a rule by the blacks and for the blacks." +</P> + +<P> +That a constitution for any of our diversely populated Colonies which +may be fit for it is possible only with "a full Negro vote" (to the +extent within the competence of such voting), goes without saying, as +must be the case with every section of the Queen's subjects eligible +for the franchise. The duly qualified Spaniard, [176] Coolie, +Portuguese, or man of any other non-British race, will each thus have a +vote, the same as every Englishman or any other Briton. Why, then, +should the vote of the Negro be so especially a bugbear? It is because +the Negro is the game which our political sportsman is in full chase +of, and determined to hunt down at any cost. Granted, however, for the +sake of argument, that black voters should preponderate at any +election, what then? We are gravely told by this latter-day Balaam +that "If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks," but he does +not say for what purpose. +</P> + +<P> +His sentence, therefore, may be legitimately constructed in full for +him in the only sense which is applicable to the mutual relations +actually existing between those two directly specified sections of +British subjects who he would fain have the world believe live in a +state of active hostility:—"If the whites are to combine for the +Promotion of the general welfare, as many of the foremost of them have +done before and are doing now, so will the blacks also combine in the +support of such whites, and as staunch auxiliaries equally interested +in the furtherance of the same ameliorative [177] objects." Except in +the sense embodied in the foregoing sentence, we cannot, in these days, +conceive with what intent persons of one section should so specially +combine as to compel combination on the part of persons of any other. +The further statement that a confederation having a full black +voting-power would be a government "by the blacks and for the blacks," +is the logical converse of the now obsolete doctrine of Mr. Froude's +inspirers—"a government by whites should be only for whites." But +this formula, however strenuously insisted on by those who gave it +shape, could never, since even before three decades from the first +introduction of African slaves, be thoroughly put in practice, so +completely had circumstances beyond man's devising or control compelled +the altering of men's minds and methods with regard to the new +interests which had irresistibly forced themselves into importance as +vital items in political arrangements. Nowadays, therefore, that Mr. +Froude should desire to create a state of feeling which had, and could +have had, no existence with regard to the common interests of the +inhabitants for upwards of two full centuries, is [178] evidently an +excess of confidence which can only be truly described as amazing. +But, after all, what does our author mean by the words "a government by +the blacks?" Are we to understand him as suggesting that voting by +black electors would be synonymous with electing black representatives? +If so, he has clearly to learn much more than he has shown that he +lacks, in order to understand and appreciate the vital influences at +work in West Indian affairs. Undoubtedly, being the spokesman of few +who (secretly) avow themselves to be particularly hostile to +Ethiopians, he has done no more than reproduce their sentiments. For, +conscious, as these hankerers after the old "institutions" are, of +being utterly ineligible for the furthering of modern progressive +ideas, they revenge themselves for their supersession on everybody and +everything, save and except their own arrogant stolidity. White +individuals who have part and lot in the various Colonies, with their +hearts and feelings swayed by affections natural to their birth and +earliest associations; and Whites who have come to think the land of +their adoption as dear to themselves as the land of their birth, +entertain no such dread of [179] their fellow-citizens of any other +section, whom they estimate according to intelligence and probity, and +not according to any accident of exterior physique. Every intelligent +black is as shrewd regarding his own interests as our author himself +would be regarding his in the following hypothetical case: Some fine +day, being a youth and a bachelor, he gets wedded, sets up an +establishment, and becomes the owner of a clipper yacht. For his own +service in the above circumstances we give him the credit to believe +that, on the persons specified below applying among others to him for +employment, as chamber-maid and house-servant, and also as hands for +the vessel, he would, in preference to any ordinarily recommended white +applicants, at once engage the two black servant-girls at President +Churchill's in Dominica, the droghermen there as able seamen, and as +cabin-boy the lad amongst them whose precocious marine skill he has so +warmly and justly extolled. It is not because all these persons are +black, but because of the soul-consciousness of the selector, that they +each (were they even blue) had a title to preferential consideration, +his experience and sense of fitness being [180] their most effectual +supporters. Similarly, the Negro voter would elect representatives +whom he knew he could trust for competency in the management of his +affairs, and not persons whose sole recommendation to him would be the +possession of the same kind of skin. Nor, from what we know of matters +in the West Indies, do we believe that any white man of the class we +have eulogized would hesitate to give his warmest suffrage to any black +candidate who he knew would be a fitting representative of his +interests. We could give examples from almost every West Indian island +of white and coloured men who would be indiscriminately chosen as their +candidate by either section. But the enumeration is needless, as the +fact of the existence of such men is too notorious to require proof. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude states plainly enough (p. 123) that, whereas a whole +thousand years were needed to train and discipline the Anglo-Saxon +race, yet "European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by a higher +instinct, may shorten the probation period of the negro." Let it be +supposed that this period of probation [181] for the Negro should +extend, under such exceptionally favourable circumstances, to any +period less than that which is alleged to have been needed by the +Anglo-Saxon to attain his political manhood—what then are the +prospects held out by Mr. Froude to us and our posterity on our +mastering the training and discipline which he specially recommends for +Blacks? Our author, in view, doubtless, of the rapidity of our onward +progress, and indeed our actual advancement in every respect, thus +answers (pp. 123-4):—"Let a generation or two pass by and carry away +with them the old traditions, and an English governor-general will be +found presiding over a black council, delivering the speeches made for +him by a black prime minister; and how long could this endure? No +English gentleman would consent to occupy so absurd a situation." +</P> + +<P> +And again, more emphatically, on the same point (p. 285):—"No +Englishman, not even a bankrupt peer, would consent to occupy such +position; the blacks themselves would despise him if he did; and if the +governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how long would such +a connection endure?" +</P> + +<P> +[182] It is plainly to be seen from the above two extracts that the +political ethics of our author, being based on race and colour +exclusively, would admit of no conceivable chance of real elevation to +any descendant of Africa, who, being Ethiopian, could not possibly +change his skin. The "old traditions" which Mr. Froude supposes to be +carried away by his hypothetical (white) generations who have "passed +by," we readily infer from his language, rendered impossible such +incarnations of political absurdity as those he depicts. But what +should be thought of the sense, if not indeed the sanity, of a grave +political teacher who prescribes "European government" and "European +education" as the specifics to qualify the Negro for political +emancipation, and who, when these qualifications are conspicuously +mastered by the Negro who has undergone the training, refuses him the +prize, because he is a Negro? We see further that, in spite of being +fit for election to council, and even to be prime ministers competent +to indite governors' messages, the pigment under our epidermis dooms us +to eventual disappointment and a life-long condition of contempt. Even +so is it [183] desired by Mr. Froude and his clients, and not without a +spice of piquancy is their opinion that for a white ruler to preside +and rule over and accept the best assistance of coloured men, qualified +as above stated, would be a self-degradation too unspeakable for +toleration by any Englishman—"even a bankrupt peer." Unfortunately +for Mr. Froude, we can point him to page 56 of this his very book, +where, speaking of Grenada and deprecating the notion of its official +abandonment, our author says:— +</P> + +<P> +"Otherwise they [Negroes] were quiet fellows, and if the politicians +would only let them alone, they would be perfectly contented, and might +eventually, if wisely managed, come to some good.... Black the island +was, and black it would remain. The conditions were never likely to +arise which would bring back a European population; but a governor who +was a sensible man, who would reside and use his natural influence, +could manage it with perfect ease." +</P> + +<P> +Here, then, we see that the governor of an entirely black population +may be a sensible man, and yet hold the post. Our author, indeed, +gives the Blacks over whom this sensible governor would hold rule as +being in number [184] just 40,000 souls; and we are therefore bound to +accept the implied suggestion that the dishonour of holding supremacy +over persons of the odious colour begins just as their number begins to +count onward from 40,000! There is quite enough in the above verbal +vagaries of our philosopher to provoke a volume of comment. But we +must pass on to further clauses of this precious paragraph. Mr. +Froude's talent for eating his own words never had a more striking +illustration than here, in his denial of the utility of native +experience as the safest guide a governor could have in the +administration of Colonial affairs. At page 91 he says:—"Among the +public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found +fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty, if a sincere effort +be made to find them." +</P> + +<P> +A post of honour and difficulty, we and all other persons in the +British dominions had all along understood was regarded as such in the +case of functionaries called upon to contend with adverse forces in the +accomplishment of great ends conceived by their superiors. But we find +that, according to Mr. Froude, all the credit that has hitherto +redounded to those [185] who had succeeded in such tasks has been in +reality nothing more than a gilding over of disgrace, whenever the +exertions of such officials had been put forth amongst persons not +wearing a European epidermis. The extension of British influence and +dominion over regions inhabited by races not white is therefore, on the +part of those who promote it, a perverse opening of arenas for the +humiliation and disgrace of British gentlemen, nay, even of those +titled members of the "black sheep" family—bankrupt peers! As we have +seen, however, ample contradiction and refutation have been +considerately furnished by the same objector in this same volume, as in +his praises of the governor just quoted. +</P> + +<P> +The cavil of Mr. Froude about English gentlemen reading messages penned +by black prime ministers applies with double force to English +barristers (who are gentlemen by statute) receiving the law from the +lips of black Judges. +</P> + +<P> +For all that, however, an emergency arose so pressing as to compel even +the colonialism of Barbados to practically and completely refute this +doctrine, by praying for, and submitting with gratitude to, the supreme +headship of a [186] man of the race which our author so finically +depreciates. In addition it may be observed that for a governor to +even consult his prime minister in the matter of preparing his messages +might conceivably be optional, whilst it is obligatory on all +barristers, whether English or otherwise, to defer to the judge's +interpretation of the law in every case—appeal afterwards being the +only remedy. As to the dictum that "the two races are not equal and +will not blend," it is open to the fatal objection that, having himself +proved, with sympathizing pathos, how the West Indies are now well-nigh +denuded of their Anglo-Saxon inhabitants, Mr. Froude would have us also +understand that the miserable remnant who still complainingly inhabit +those islands must, by doing violence to the understanding, be taken as +the whole of the world-pervading Anglo-Saxon family. The Negroes of +the West Indies number a good deal more than two million souls. Does +this suggester of extravagances mean that the prejudices and vain +conceit of the few dozens whom he champions should be made to override +and overbear, in political arrangements, the serious and solid +interests of so many [187] hundreds of thousands? That "the two races +are not equal" is a statement which no sane man would dispute, but +acquiescence in its truth involves also a distinct understanding that +the word race, as applied in the present case by our author, is a +simple accommodation of terms—a fashion of speech having a very +restricted meaning in this serious discussion. +</P> + +<P> +The Anglo-Saxon race pervades Great Britain, its cradle, and the +Greater Britain extending almost all over the face of the earth, which +is the arena of its activities and marvellous achievements. To tell +us, therefore, as Mr. Froude does, that the handful of malcontents +whose unrespectable grievance he holds up to public sympathy represents +the Anglo-Saxon race, is a grotesque façon de parler. Taking our +author's "Anglo-West Indians" and the people of Ethiopian descent +respectively, it would not be too much to assert, nor in anywise +difficult to prove by facts and figures, that for every competent +individual of the former section in active civilized employments, the +coloured section can put forward at least twenty thoroughly competent +rivals. Yet are these latter the people whom the classic Mr. [188] +Froude wishes to be immolated, root and branch, in all their highest +and dearest interests, in order to secure the maintenance of "old +traditions" which, he tells us, guaranteed for the dominant cuticle the +sacrifice of the happiness of down-trodden thousands! Referring to his +hypothetical confederation with its black officeholders, our author +scornfully asks:— +</P> + +<P> +"And how long would this endure?" +</P> + +<P> +The answer must be that, granting the existence of such a state of +things, its duration would be not more nor less than under white +functionaries. For according to himself (p. 124): "There is no +original or congenital difference of capacity between" the white and +black races, and "with the same chances and the same treatment, ... +distinguished men would be produced equally from both races." +</P> + +<P> +If, therefore, the black ministers whose hue he so much despises do +possess the training and influence rendering them eligible and securing +their election to the situations we are considering, it must follow +that their tenure of office would be of equal duration with that of +individuals of the white race under the same conditions. Not content +with making himself [189] the mouthpiece of English gentlemen in this +matter, our author, with characteristic hardihood, obtrudes himself +into the same post on behalf of Negroes; saying that, in the event of +even a bankrupt peer accepting the situation of governor-general over +them, "The blacks themselves would despise him"! +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Froude may pertinently be asked here the source whence he derived +his certainty on this point, inasmuch as it is absolutely at variance +with all that is sensible and natural; for surely it is both foolish +and monstrous to suppose that educated men would infer the degradation +of any one from the fact of such a one consenting to govern and +co-operate with themselves for their own welfare. He further asks on +the same subject:— +</P> + +<P> +"And if the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how +long could such a connection endure?" +</P> + +<P> +Our answer must be the same as with regard to the duration of the black +council and black prime minister carrying out the government under the +same conditions. It must be regretted that no indication in his book, +so far as it professes to deal with facts and with [190] persons not +within the circle of his clients, would justify a belief that its +wanton misstatements have filtrated through a mind entitled to declare, +with the authority of self-consciousness, what a gentleman would or +would not do under given circumstances. +</P> + +<P> +In reiteration of his favourite doctrine of the antagonism between the +black and white races, our author continues on the same page to say:— +</P> + +<P> +"No one, I presume, would advise that the whites of the island should +govern. The relations between the two populations are too embittered, +and equality once established by law, the exclusive privilege of colour +over colour cannot be restored. While slavery continued, the whites +ruled effectively and economically; the blacks are now as they." +</P> + +<P> +As far as could possibly be endeavoured, every proof has been crowded +into this book in refutation of this favourite allegation of Mr. +Froude's. It is only an idle waste of time to be thus harping on his +colour topic. No one can deserve to govern simply because he is white, +and no one is bound to be subject simply because he is black. The whole +of West [191] Indian history, even after the advent of the +attorney-class, proves this, in spite of the efforts to secure +exclusive white domination at a time when crude political power might +have secured it. +</P> + +<P> +"The relations between the two populations are too embittered," says +Mr. Froude. No doubt his talk on this point would be true, had any +such skin-dominancy as he contemplates been officially established; but +as at present most officials are appointed (locally at least) according +to their merit, and not to their epidermis, nothing is known of the +embittered relations so constantly dinned into our ears. Whatever +bitterness exists is in the minds of those gentry who would like to be +dominant on the cheap condition of showing a simple bodily accident +erected by themselves into an evidence and proof of superiority. +</P> + +<P> +"The exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored." +Never in the history of the British West Indies—must we again +state—was there any law or usage establishing superiority in +privileges for any section of the community on account of colour. This +statement of fact is also and again an answer to, and refutation of, +the succeeding allegation [192] that, "While slavery continued, the +whites ruled effectively and economically." It will be yet more +clearly shown in a later part of this essay that during slavery, in +fact for upwards of two centuries after its introduction, the West +Indies were ruled by slave-owners, who happened to be of all colours, +the means of purchasing slaves and having a plantation being the one +exclusive consideration in the case. It is, therefore, contrary to +fact to represent the Whites exclusively as ruling, and the Blacks +indiscriminately as subject. +</P> + +<P> +He goes on to say, "There are two classes in the community; their +interests are opposite as they are now understood." As regards the +above, Mr. Froude's attention may be called to the fact that +classification in no department of science has ever been based on +colour, but on relative affinity in certain salient qualities. To use +his own figure, no horse or dog is more or less a horse or dog because +it happens to be white or black. No teacher marshals his pupils into +classes according to any outward physical distinction, but according to +intellectual approximation. In like manner there has been wealth for +hundreds of men of Ethiopic origin, [193] and poverty for hundreds of +men of Caucasian origin, and the reverse in both cases. We have, +therefore, had hundreds of black as well as white men who, under +providential dispensation, belonged to the class, rich men; while, on +the other hand, we have had hundreds of white men who, under +providential dispensation, belonged to the class, poor men. Similarly, +in the composition of a free mixed community, we have hundreds of both +races belonging to the class, competent and eligible; and hundreds of +both races belonging to the class, incompetent and ineligible: to both +of which classes all possible colours might belong. It is from the +first mentioned that are selected those who are to bear the rule, to +which the latter class is, in the very nature of things, bound to be +subject. There is no government by reason merely of skins. The +diversity of individual intelligence and circumstances is large enough +to embrace the possibility of even children being, in emergencies, the +most competent influencers of opinion and action. +</P> + +<P> +But let us analyse this matter for just a while more. The fatal +objection to all Mr. Froude's advocacy of colour-domination is that +[194] it is futile from being morally unreasonable. In view of the +natural and absolute impossibility of reviving the same external +conditions under which the inordinate deference and submission to white +persons were both logically and inevitably engendered and maintained, +his efforts to talk people into a frame of mind favourable to his views +on this subject are but a melancholy waste of well-turned sentences. +Man's estimate of his fellow-man has not and never can have any other +standard, save and except what is the outcome of actual circumstances +influencing his sentiment. In the primitive ages, when the fruits of +the earth formed the absorbing object of attention and interest, the +men most distinguished for successful culture of the soil enjoyed, as a +consequence, a larger share than others of popular admiration and +esteem. Similarly, among nomadic tribes, the hunters whose courage +coped victoriously with the wild and ferocious denizens of the forest +became the idols of those who witnessed and were preserved by such +sylvan exploits. When men came at length to venture in ships over the +trackless deep in pursuit of commerce and its gains, the mariner grew +important in [195] public estimation. The pursuit of commerce and its +gains led naturally to the possession of wealth. This, from the +quasi-omnipotence with which it invests men—enabling them not only to +command the best energies, but also, in many cases, to subvert the very +principles of their fellows—has, in the vast majority of cases, an +overpowering sway on human opinion: a sway that will endure till the +Millennium shall have secured for the righteous alone the sovereignty +of the world. Likewise, as cities were founded and constitutions +established, those who were foremost as defenders of the national +interests, on the field of bodily conflict or in the intellectual +arena, became in the eyes of their contemporaries worthiest of +appreciation—and so on of other circumstances through which particular +personal distinctions created claims to preference. +</P> + +<P> +In the special case of the Negroes kidnapped out of Africa into foreign +bondage, the crowning item in their assessment of their alien enslavers +was the utter superiority, over their most redoubtable "big men," which +those enslavers displayed. They actually subjugated and put in chains, +like the commonest peasants, native [196] potentates at whose very +names even the warriorhood of their tribes had been wont to blench. +But far surpassing even this in awful effect was the doom meted out to +the bush-handlers, the medicine-men, the rain-compellers, erewhile so +inscrutably potent for working out the bliss or the bale of friend or +enemy. "Lo, from no mountain-top, from no ceiba-hollow in the forest +recesses, has issued any interposing sign, any avenging portent, to +vindicate the Spirit of Darkness so foully outraged in the hitherto +inviolate person of his chosen minister! Verily, even the powers of the +midnight are impotent against these invaders from beyond the mighty +salt-water! Here, huddled together in confused, hopeless misery and +ruin, lie, fettered and prostrate, even priest as well as potentate, +undistinguishable victims of crude, unblenching violence, with its +climax of nefarious sacrilege. We, common mortals, therefore, can hope +for no deliverance from, or even succour in, the woful plight thus +dismally contrived for us all by the fair-skinned race who have now +become our masters." Such was naturally the train of thought that ran +through those forlorn bosoms. The formidable death-dealing guns [197] +of the invaders, the ships which had brought them to the African +shores, and much besides in startling contrast to their own condition +of utter helplessness, the Africans at once interpreted to themselves +as the manifestation and inherent attributes of beings of a higher +order than man. Their skin, too, the difference whereof from their own +had been accentuated by many calamitous incidents, was hit upon as the +reason of so crushing an ascendency. +</P> + +<P> +White skin therefore became, in those disconsolate eyes, the symbol of +fearful irresistible power: which impression was not at all weakened +afterwards by the ineffable atrocities of the "middle-passage." Backed +ultimately by their absolute and irresponsible masterhood at home over +the deported Blacks, the European abductors could easily render +permanent in the minds of their captives the abject terror struck into +them by the enormities of which they had been the victims. Now, the +impressions we touched upon before bringing forward the case of the +Negro slaves were mainly produced by pleasurable circumstances. But of +a contrary nature and much more deeply graven are those sentiments +which are the outcome of hopeless terror [198] and pain. For whilst +impressions of the former character glide into the consciousness +through accesses no less normal than agreeable, the infusion of fear by +means of bodily suffering is a process too violent to be forgotten by +minds tortured and strained to unnatural tension thereby. Such +tension, oft-recurrent and scarcely endurable, leaves behind it +recollections which are in themselves a source of sadness. But time, +favoured by a succession of pleasurable experiences, is a sovereign +anodyne to remembrances of this poignant class. No wonder, then, from +our foregoing detail of facts, that whiteness of skin was both +redoubted and tremblingly crouched to by Negroes on whom Europeans had +wrought such unspeakable calamities. Time, however, and the action of +circumstances, especially in countries subject to Catholic dominion, +soon began to modify the conditions under which this sentiment of +terror had been maintained, and, with those conditions, the very +sentiment itself. For it was not long in the life of many of the +expatriated Africans before numbers of their own race obtained freedom, +and, eventually, wealth sufficient for purchasing black slaves on their +[199] own account. In other respects, too (outwardly at least), the +prosperous career of such individual Blacks could not fail to induce a +revulsion of thought, whereby the attribution of unapproachable powers +exclusively to the Whites became a matter earnestly reconsidered by the +Africans. Centuries of such reconsideration have produced the natural +result in the West Indies. With the daily competition in intelligence, +refinement, and social and moral distinction, which time and events +have brought about between individuals of the two races, nothing, +surely, has resulted, nor has even been indicated, to re-infuse the +ancient colour-dread into minds which had formerly been forced to +entertain it; and still less to engender it in bosoms to which such a +feeling cannot, in the very nature of things, be an inborn emotion. +Now, can Mr. Froude show us by what process he would be able to infuse +in the soul of an entire population a sentiment which is both unnatural +and beyond compulsion? +</P> + +<P> +The foregoing remarks roughly apply to preeminence given to outward +distinction, and the conditions under which mainly it impresses and is +accepted by men not yet arrived at the [200] essentially intellectual +stage. In the spiritual domain the conditions have ever been quite +different. A belief in the supernatural being inborn in man, the +professors of knowledge and powers beyond natural attainment were by +common consent accorded a distinct and superior consideration, deemed +proper to the sacredness of their progression. Hence the supremacy of +the priestly caste in every age and country of the world. Potentate as +well as peasant have bowed in reverence before it, as representing and +declaring with authority the counsels of that Being whom all, priest, +potentate and peasant alike, acknowledge and adore, each according to +the measure of his inward illumination. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK III: THE NEGRO AS WORKER +</H3> + +<P> +[201] The laziness, the incurable idleness, of the Negro, was, both +immediately before their emancipation in 1838, and for long years after +that event, the cuckoo-cry of their white detractors. It was laziness, +pure and simple, which hindered the Negro from exhausting himself under +a tropical sun, toiling at starvation wages to ensure for his quondam +master the means of being an idler himself, with the additional luxury +of rolling in easily come-by wealth. Within the last twenty years, +however, the history of the Black Man, both in the West Indies and, +better still, in the United States of America, has been a succession of +achievements which have converted the charge of laziness into a +baseless and absurd calumny. The repetition of the charge referred to +is, in these [202] waning days of the nineteenth century, a discredited +anachronism, which, however, has no deterring features for Mr. Froude. +As the running down of the Negro was his cue, he went in boldly for the +game, with what result we shall presently see. At page 239, our +author, speaking of the Negro garden-farms in Jamaica, says:— +</P> + +<P> +"The male proprietors were lounging about smoking. Their wives, as it +was market-day, were tramping into Kingston with their baskets on their +heads. We met them literally in thousands, all merry and +light-hearted, their little ones with little baskets trudging at their +side. Of the lords of the creation we saw, perhaps, one to each +hundred of the women, and he would be riding on mule or donkey, pipe in +mouth and carrying nothing. He would be generally sulky too, while the +ladies, young and old, had a civil word for us, and curtsied under +their loads. Decidedly if there is to be a black constitution I will +give my vote to the women." +</P> + +<P> +To the above direct imputation of indolence, heartlessness, and +moroseness, Mr. Froude appends the following remarks on other moral +characteristics of certain sable peasants at [203] Mandeville, Jamaica, +given on the authority of a police official, who, our author says, +described them as— +</P> + +<P> +"Good-humoured, but not universally honest. They stole cattle, and +would not give evidence against each other. If brought into Court, +they held a pebble in their mouth, being under the impression that when +they were so provided, perjury did not count. Their education was only +skin-deep, and the schools which the Government provided had not +touched their characters at all." +</P> + +<P> +But how could the education so provided be otherwise than futile when +the administration of its details is entirely in the hands of persons +unsympathizing with and utterly despising the Negro? But of this more +anon and elsewhere. We resume Mr. Froude's evidence respecting the +black peasantry. Our author proceeds to admit, on the same subject, +that his informant's duties (as a police official) "brought him in +contact with the unfavourable specimens." He adds:— +</P> + +<P> +"I received a far pleasanter impression from a Moravian minister.... I +was particularly glad to see this gentleman, for of the Moravians [204] +every one had spoken well to me. He was not the least enthusiastic +about his poor black sheep, but he said that if they were not better +than the average English labourer, he did not think them worse. They +were called idle; they would work well enough if they had fair wages +and if the wages were paid regularly; but what could be expected when +women servants had but three shillings a week and found themselves, +when the men had but a shilling a day and the pay was kept in arrear in +order that if they came late to work, or if they came irregularly, it +may be kept back or cut down to what the employer choose to give? +Under such conditions ANY man of ANY colour would prefer to work for +himself if he had a garden, or would be idle if he had none." +</P> + +<P> +Take, again, the following extract regarding the heroism of the +emigrants to the Canal:— +</P> + +<P> +"I walked forward" (on the steamer bound to Jamaica), "after we had +done talking. We had five hundred of the poor creatures on their way +to the Darien pandemonium. The vessel was rolling with a heavy beam +sea. I found the whole mass of them reduced to the condition of the +pigs who used to occupy the fore decks on the Cork and Bristol packets. +They were [205] lying in a confused heap together, helpless, miserable, +without consciousness, apparently, save a sense in each that he was +wretched. Unfortunate brothers-in-law! following the laws of political +economy, and carrying their labour to the dearest market, where, before +a year was out, half of them were to die. They had souls, too, some of +them, and honest and kindly hearts." +</P> + +<P> +It surely is refreshing to read the revelation of his first learning of +the possession of a soul by a fellow-human being, thus artlessly +described by one who is said to be an ex-parson. But piquancy is Mr. +Froude's strong point, whatever else he may be found wanting in. +</P> + +<P> +Still, apart from Mr. Froude's direct testimony to the fact that from +year to year, during a long series of years, there has been a +continuous, scarcely ever interrupted emigration of Negroes to the +Spanish mainland, in search of work for a sufficing livelihood for +themselves and their families—and that in the teeth of physical +danger, pestilence, and death—there would be enough indirect +exoneration of the Black Man from that indictment in the wail of Mr. +Froude and his friends regarding the alarming absorption of the lands +of Grenada [206] and Trinidad by sable proprietors. Land cannot be +bought without money, nor can money be possessed except through labour, +and the fact that so many tens of thousand Blacks are now the happy +owners of the soil whereon, in the days so bitterly regretted by our +author, their forefathers' tears, nay, very hearts' blood, had been +caused to flow, ought to silence for ever an accusation, which, were it +even true, would be futile, and, being false, is worse than +disgraceful, coming from the lips of the Eumolpids who would fain +impose a not-to-be-questioned yoke on us poor helots of Ethiopia. It +is said that lying is the vice of slaves; but the ethics of West Indian +would-be mastership assert, on its behalf, that they alone should enjoy +the privilege of resorting to misrepresentation to give colour, if not +solidity, to their pretensions. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK III: RELIGION FOR NEGROES +</H3> + +<P> +[207] Mr. Froude's passing on from matters secular to matters spiritual +and sacred was a transition to be expected in the course of the grave +and complicated discussion which he had volunteered to initiate. It +was, therefore, not without curiosity that his views in the direction +above indicated were sought for and earnestly scrutinized by us. But +worse than in his treatment of purely mundane subjects, his attitude +here is marked by a nonchalant levity which excites our wonder that +even he should have touched upon the spiritual side of his thesis at +all. The idea of the dove sent forth from the ark fluttering over the +heaving swells of the deluge, in vain endeavour to secure a rest for +the soles of its feet, represents not inaptly the unfortunate +predicament of his spirit with regard to a solid [208] faith on which +to repose amid the surges of doubt by which it is so evidently beset. +Yet although this is his obvious plight with regard to a satisfying +belief, he nevertheless undertakes, with characteristic confidence, to +suggest a creed for the moralization of West Indian Negroes. His +language is:— +</P> + +<P> +"A religion, at any rate, which will keep the West Indian blacks from +falling back into devil-worship is still to seek. In spite of the +priests, child-murder and cannibalism have re-appeared in Hayti, but +without them things might have been much worse than they are, and the +preservation of white authority and influence in any form at all may be +better than none." +</P> + +<P> +We discern in the foregoing citation the exercise of a charity that is +unquestionably born of fetish-worship, which, whether it be obeah +generally, or restricted to a mere human skin, can be so powerful an +agent in the formation and retention of beliefs. Hence we see that our +philosopher relies here, in the domain of morals and spiritual ethics, +on a white skin as implicitly as he does on its sovereign potency in +secular politics. The curiousness of the matter lies mainly in its +application to natives [209] of Hayti, of all people in the world. As +a matter of fact we have had our author declaring as follows, in climax +to his oft-repeated predictions about West Indian Negroes degenerating +into the condition of their fellow-Negroes in the "Black Republic" (p. +285):— +</P> + +<P> +"Were it worth while, one might draw a picture of an English governor, +with a black parliament and a black ministry, recommending, by advice +of his constitutional ministers, some measure like the Haytian Land +Law." +</P> + +<P> +Now, as the West Indies degenerating into so many white-folk-detesting +Haytis, under our prophet's dreaded supremacy of the Blacks, is the +burden of his book; and as the Land Law in question distinctly forbids +the owning by any white person of even one inch of the soil of the +Republic, it might, but for the above explanation, have seemed +unaccountable, in view of the implacable distrust, not to say hatred, +which this stern prohibition so clearly discloses, that our author +should, nevertheless, rely on the efficacy of white authority and +influence over Haytians. +</P> + +<P> +In continuation of his religious suggestions, he goes on to descant +upon slavery in the [210] fashion which we have elsewhere noticed, but +it may still be proper to add a word or two here regarding this +particular disquisition of his. This we are happy in being able to do +under the guidance of an anterior and more reliable exponent of +ecclesiastical as well as secular obedience on the part of all free and +enlightened men in the present epoch of the world's history:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Dogma and Descent, potential twin<BR> + Which erst could rein submissive millions in,<BR> + Are now spent forces on the eddying surge<BR> + Of Thought enfranchised. Agencies emerge<BR> + Unhampered by the incubus of dread<BR> + Which cramped men's hearts and clogged their onward tread.<BR> + Dynasty, Prescription! spectral in these days<BR> + When Science points to Thought its surest ways,<BR> + And men who scorn obedience when not free<BR> + Demand the logic of Authority!<BR> + The day of manhood to the world is here,<BR> + And ancient homage waxes faint and drear.<BR> + . . . . . .<BR> + Vision of rapture! See Salvation's plan<BR> + 'Tis serving God through ceaseless toil for man!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The lines above quoted are by a West Indian Negro, and explain in very +concise form the attitude of the educated African mind [211] with +reference to the matters they deal with. Mr. Froude is free to +perceive that no special religion patched up from obsolete creeds could +be acceptable to those with whose sentiments the thoughts of the writer +just quoted are in true racial unison. It is preposterous to expect +that the same superstition regarding skin ascendency, which is now so +markedly played out in our Colonies in temporal matters, could have any +weight whatsoever in matters so momentous as morals and religion. But +granting even the possibility of any code of worldly ethics or of +religion being acceptable on the dermal score so strenuously insisted +on by him, it is to be feared that, through sheer respect for the +fitness of things, the intelligent Negro in search of guidance in faith +and morals would fail to recognize in our author a guide, philosopher, +and friend, to be followed without the most painful misgivings. The +Catholic and the Dissenting Churches which have done so much for the +temporal and spiritual advancement of the Negro, in spite of hindrance +and active persecution wherever these were possible, are, so far as is +visible, maintaining their hold on the adhesion of those who belong to +them. +</P> + +<P> +[212] And it cannot be pretended that, among enlightened Africans as +compared with other enlightened people, there have been more grievous +failings off from the scriptural standard of deportment. Possible it +certainly is that considerations akin to, or even identical with, those +relied upon by Mr. Froude might, on the first reception of Christianity +in their exile, have operated effectually upon the minds of the +children of Africa. At that time the evangelizers whose converts they +so readily became possessed the recommendation of belonging to the +dominant caste. Therefore, with the humility proper to their forlorn +condition, the poor bondsmen requited with intense gratitude such +beneficent interest on their behalf, as a condescension to which people +in their hapless situation could have had no right. But for many long +years, the distinction whether of temporal or of spiritual superiority +has ceased to be the monopoly of any particular class. The master and +employer has for far more than a century and a half been often +represented in the West Indies by some born African or his descendant; +and so also has the teacher and preacher. It is not too much to say +that [213] the behaviour of the liberated slaves throughout the British +Antilles, as well as the deportment of the manumitted four million +slaves of the Southern United States later on, bore glorious testimony +to the humanizing effects which the religion of charity, clutched at +and grasped in fragments, and understood with childlike incompleteness, +had produced within those suffering bosoms. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing has occurred to call for a remodelling of the ordinary moral +and spiritual machinery for the special behoof of Negroes. Religion, +as understood by the best of men, is purely a matter of feeling and +action between man and man—the doing unto others as we would they +should do unto us; and any creed or any doctrine which directly or +indirectly subverts or even weakens this basis is in itself a danger to +the highest welfare of mankind. The simple conventional faith in God, +in Jesus, and in a future state, however modified nowadays, has still a +vitality which can restrain and ennoble its votaries, provided it be +inculcated and received in a befitting spirit. Our critic, in the +plenitude of his familiarity with such matters, confidently asks:— +</P> + +<P> +[214] "Who is now made wretched by the fear of hell?" +</P> + +<P> +Possibly the belief in the material hell, the decadence of which he +here triumphantly assumes to be so general, may have considerably +diminished; but experience has shown that, with the advance of +refinement, there is a concurrent growth in the intensity of moral +sensibility, whereby the waning terrors of a future material hell are +more than replaced by the agonies of a conscience self-convicted of +wilful violation of the right. The same simple faith has, in its +practical results, been rich in the records of the humble whom it has +exalted; of the poor to whom it has been better than wealth; of the +rich whose stewardship of worldly prosperity it has sanctified; of the +timid whom it has rendered bold; and of the valiant whom it has raised +to a divine heroism—in fine, of miracles of transformation that have +impelled to higher and nobler tendencies and uses the powers and gifts +inherited or acquired by man in his natural state. They who possess +this faith, and cherish it as a priceless possession, may calmly oppose +to the philosophic reasoning against the existence of [215] a Deity and +the rationalness of entreating Him in prayer, the simple and sufficient +declaration, "I believe." Normal-minded men, sensible of the +limitations of human faculties, never aspire to be wise beyond what is +revealed. Whatever might exist beyond the grave is, so far as man and +man in their mutual relations are concerned, not a subject that +discussion can affect or speculation unravel. To believers it cannot +matter whether the Sermon on the Mount embodies or does not embody the +quality of ethics that the esoteric votaries of Mr. Froude's "new +creed" do accept or even can tolerate. Under the old creed man's sense +of duty kindled in sympathy towards his brother, urging him to achieve +by self-sacrifice every possibility of beneficence; hence the old creed +insured an inward joy as well as "the peace which passeth all +understanding." There can be no room for desiring left, when +receptiveness of blessings overflows; and it is the worthiest direction +of human energy to secure for others that fulness of fruition. Is not +Duty the first, the highest item of moral consciousness; and is not +promoting, according to our best ability, the welfare of our fellow +creatures, the first and [216] most urgent call of human duty? Can the +urgency of such responsibility ever cease but with the capacity, on our +own or on our brother's part, to do or be done by respectively? +Contemptuously ignoring his share of this solemn +responsibility—solemn, whether regarded from a religious or a purely +secular point of view—to observe at least the negative obligation +never to wantonly do or even devise any harm to his fellows, or indeed +any sentient creature, our new apostle affords, in his light-hearted +reversal of the prescriptive methods of civilized ethics, a woful +foretaste of the moral results of the "new, not as yet crystallized" +belief, whose trusted instruments of spiritual investigation are the +telescope and mental analysis, in order to satisfy the carpings of +those who so impress the world with their superhuman strong-mindedness. +</P> + +<P> +The following is a profound reflection presenting, doubtless, quite a +new revelation to an unsophisticated world, which had so long submitted +in reverential tameness to the self-evident impossibility of exploring +the Infinite:— +</P> + +<P> +"The tendency of popular thought is against [217] the supernatural in +any shape. Far into space as the telescope can search, deep as +analysis can penetrate into mind and consciousness or the forces which +govern natural things, popular thought finds only uniformity and +connection of cause and effect; no sign anywhere of a personal will +which is influenced by prayer or moral motives." +</P> + +<P> +How much to be pitied are the gifted esoterics who, in such a quest, +vainly point their telescopes into the star-thronged firmament, and +plunge their reasoning powers into the abyss of consciousness and +such-like mysteries! The commonplace intellect of the author of "Night +Thoughts" was, if we may so speak, awed into an adoring rapture which +forced from him the exclamation (may believers hail it as a dogma!)— +</P> + +<P> +"An undevout astronomer is mad!" +</P> + +<P> +Most probably it was in weak submission to some such sentiment as this +that Isaac Newton nowhere in his writings suggests even the ghost of a +doubt of there being a Great Architect of the Universe as the outcome +of his telescopic explorations into the illimitable heavens. +</P> + +<P> +[218] It is quite possible, too, that he was, "on insufficient +grounds," perhaps, perfectly satisfied, as a host of other intellectual +mediocrities like himself have been, and even up to now rather +provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and connection of +cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being not only "a +personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as well. In this +connection comes to mind a certain old Book which, whatever damage +Semitic Scholarship and Modern Criticism may succeed in inflicting on +its contents, will always retain for the spiritual guidance of the +world enough and to spare of divine suggestions. With the prescience +which has been the heritage of the inspired in all ages, one of the +writers in that Book, whom we shall now quote, foresaw, no doubt, the +deplorable industry of Mr. Froude and his protégé "popular thought," +whose mouth-piece he has so characteristically constituted himself, and +asks in a tone wherein solemn warning blends with inquiry: "Canst thou +by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty unto +perfection!" The rational among the most loftily endowed of mankind +have grasped [219] the sublime significance of this query, acquiescing +reverently in its scarcely veiled intimation of man's impotence in +presence of the task to which it refers. +</P> + +<P> +But though Mr. Froude's spiritual plight be such as we have just +allowed him to state it, with regard to an object of faith and a motive +of worship, yet let us hear him, in his anxiety to furbish up a special +Negro creed, setting forth the motive for being in a hurry to +anticipate the "crystallization" of his new belief:— +</P> + +<P> +"The new creed, however, not having crystallized as yet into a shape +which can be openly professed, and as without any creed at all the +flesh and the devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old +names, as we maintain the monarchy." +</P> + +<P> +The allusion to the monarchy seems not a very obvious one, as it +parallels the definitive rejection of a spiritual creed with the +theoretical change of ancient notions regarding a concrete fact. At +any rate we have it that his special religion, when concocted and +disseminated, will have the effect of preventing the flesh and the +devil from having too much power over Negroes. The objection to the +[220] devil's sway seems to us to come with queer grace from one who +owes his celebrity chiefly to the production of works teeming with that +peculiar usage of language of which the Enemy of Souls is credited with +the special fatherhood. +</P> + +<P> +No, sir, in the name of the Being regarding whose existence you and +your alleged "popular thought" are so painfully in doubt, we protest +against your right, or that of any other created worm, to formulate for +the special behoof of Negroes any sort of artificial creed unbelieved +in by yourself, having the function and effect of detective +"shadowings" of their souls. Away with your criminal suggestion of +toleration of the hideous orgies of heathenism in Hayti for the benefit +of our future morals in the West Indies, when the political supremacy +which you predict and dread and deprecate shall have become an +accomplished fact. Were any special standard of spiritual excellence +required, our race has, in Josiah Henson and Sojourner Truth, sufficing +models for our men and our women respectively. Their ideal of +Christian life, which we take to be the true one, is not to be judged +of with direct reference to the Deity whom we cannot [221] see, +interrogate, or comprehend, but to its practical bearing in and on man, +whom we can see and have cognizance of, not only with our physical +senses, but by the intimations of the divinity which abides within us.* +We can see, feel, and appreciate the virtue of a fellow-mortal who +consecrates himself to the Divine idea through untiring exertion for +the bettering of the condition of the world around him, whose agony he +makes it his duty, only to satisfy his burning desire, to mitigate. +The fact in its ghastly reality lies before us that the majority of +mankind labour and are being crushed under the tremendous trinity of +Ignorance, Vice, and Poverty. +</P> + +<P> +It is mainly in the succouring of those who thus suffer that the +vitality of the old creed is manifested in the person of its +professors. Under this aspect we behold it moulding men, of all +nations, countries, and tongues, whose virtues have challenged and +should command on its behalf the unquestioning faith and adhesion of +every rational observer. "Evidences of Christianity," "Controversies," +"Exegetical Commentaries," have all proved [222] more or less +futile—as perhaps they ought—with the Science and Modern Criticism +which perverts religion into a matter of dialectics. But there is a +hope for mankind in the fact that Science itself shall have ultimately +to admit the limitations of human inquiry into the details of the +Infinite. Meanwhile it requires no technical proficiency to recognize +the criminality of those who waste their brief threescore and ten years +in abstract speculations, while the tangible, visible, and hideous +soul-destroying trinity of Vice, Ignorance, and Poverty, above +mentioned, are desolating the world in their very sight. There are +possessors of personal virtue, enlightenment, and wealth, who dare +stand neutral with regard to these dire exigencies among their fellows. +And yet they are the logical helpers, as holders of the special +antidote to each of those banes! Infinitely more deserving of +execration are such folk than the callous owner of some specific, who +allows a suffering neighbour to perish for want of it. +</P> + +<P> +We who believe in the ultimate development of the Christian notion of +duty towards God, as manifested in untiring beneficence to man, cling +to this faith—starting from the [223] beginning of the New Testament +dispensation—because Saul of Tarsus, transformed into Paul the Apostle +through his whole-souled acceptance of this very creed with its +practical responsibilities, has, in his ardent, indefatigable labours +for the enlightenment and elevation of his fellows, left us a lesson +which is an enduring inspiration; because Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, +benefited, in a manner which has borne, and ever will bear, priceless +fruit, enormous sections of the human family, after his definite +submission to the benign yoke of the same old creed; because Vincent de +Paul has, through the identical inspiration, endowed the world with his +everlasting legacy of organized beneficence; because it impelled +Francis Xavier with yearning heart and eager footsteps through +thousands of miles of peril, to proclaim to the darkling millions of +India what he had experienced to be tidings of great joy to himself; +because Matthew Hale, a lawyer, and of first prominence in a pursuit +which materializes the mind and nips its native candour and tenderness, +escaped unblighted, through the saving influence of his faith, +approving himself in the sight of all [224] an ideal judge, even +according to the highest conception; because John Howard, opulent and +free to enjoy his opulence and repose, was drawn thereby throughout the +whole continent of Europe in quest of the hidden miseries that torture +those whom the law has shut out, in dungeons, from the light and +sympathy of the world; because Thomas Clarkson, animated by the spirit +of its teachings, consecrated wealth, luxury, and the quiet of an +entire lifetime on the altar of voluntary sacrifice for the salvation +of an alien people; because Samuel Johnson, shut out from mirthfulness +by disease and suffering, and endowed with an intellectual pride +intolerant of froward ignorance, was, through the chastening power of +that belief, transformed into the cheerful minister and willing slave +of the weaklings whom he gathered into his home, and around whom the +tendrils of his heart had entwined themselves, waxing closer and +stronger in the moisture of his never-failing charity; because Henry +Havelock, a man of the sword, whose duties have never been too +propitious to the cultivation and fostering of the gentler virtues, +lived and died a blameless hero, constrained by that faith to be one of +its most illustrious exemplars; [225] because David Livingstone looms +great and reverend in our mental sight in his devotion to a land and +race embraced in his boundless fellow-feeling, and whose miseries he +has commended to the sympathy of the civilized world in words the +pathos whereof has melted thousands of once obdurate hearts to crave a +share in applying a balm to the "open sore of Africa"—that slave-trade +whose numberless horrors beggar description; and finally—one more +example out of the countless varieties of types that blend into a +unique solidarity in the active manifestation of the Christian life—we +believe because Charles Gordon, the martyr-soldier of Khartoum, in +trusting faith a very child, but in heroism more notable than any mere +man of whom history contains a record, gathered around himself, through +the sublime attractiveness of his faith-directed life, the united +suffrages of all nations, and now enjoys, as the recompense and seal of +his life's labours, an apotheosis in homage to which the heathen of +Africa, the man-hunting Arab, the Egyptian, the Turk, all jostle each +other to blend with the exulting children of Britain who are directly +glorified by his life and history. +</P> + +<P> +[226] Here, then, are speaking evidences of the believers' grounds. +Verily they are of the kind that are to be seen in our midst, touched, +heard, listened to, respected, beloved—nay, honoured, too, with the +glad worship our inward spirit springs forth to render to goodness so +largely plenished from the Source of all Good. Can Modern Science and +Criticism explain them away, or persuade us of their insufficiency as +incentives to the hearty acceptance of the religion that has received +such glorious, yet simply logical, incarnation in the persons of weak, +erring men who welcomed its responsibilities conjointly with its +teachings, and thereby raised themselves to the spiritual level +pictured to ourselves in our conception of angels who have been given +the Divine charge concerning mankind. Religion for Negroes, indeed! +White priests, forsooth! This sort of arrogance might, possibly, avail +in quarters where the person and pretensions of Mr. Froude could be +impressive and influential—but here, in the momentous concern of man +with Him who "is no respecter of persons," his interference, mentally +disposed as he tells us he is with reference to such a matter, is +nothing less than profane intrusion. +</P> + +<P> +[227] We will conclude by stating in a few words our notion of the only +agency by which, not Blacks alone, but every race of mankind, might be +uplifted to the moral level which the thousands of examples, of which +we have glanced at but a few, prove so indubitably the capacity of man +to attain—each to a degree limited by the scope of his individual +powers. The priesthood whereof the world stands in such dire need is +not at all the confederacy of augurs which Mr. Froude, perhaps in +recollection of his former profession, so glibly suggests, with an +esoteric creed of their own, "crystallized into shape" for profession +before the public. The day of priestcraft being now numbered with the +things that were, the exploitation of those outside of the sacerdotal +circle is no longer possible. Therefore the religion of mere talk, +however metaphysical and profound; the religion of scenic display, +except such display be symbolic of living and active verities, has lost +whatever of efficacy it may once have possessed, through the very +spirit and tendency of To-day. The reason why those few whom we have +mentioned, and the thousands who cannot possibly be recalled, have, as +[228] typical Christians, impressed themselves on the moral sense and +sympathy of the ages, is simply that they lived the faith which they +professed. Whatever words they may have employed to express their +serious thoughts were never otherwise than, incidentally, a spoken +fragment of their own interior biography. In fine, success must +infallibly attend this special priesthood (whether episcopally +"ordained" or not) of all races, all colours, all tongues whatsoever, +since their lives reflect their teachings and their teachings reflect +their lives. Then, truly, they, "the righteous, shall inherit the +earth," leading mankind along the highest and noblest paths of temporal +existence. Then, of course, the obeah, the cannibalism, the +devil-worship of the whole world, including that of Hayti, which Mr. +Froude predicts will be adopted by us Blacks in the West Indies, shall +no more encumber and scandalize the earth. +</P> + +<P> +But Mr. Froude should, at the same time, be reminded that cannibalism +and the hideous concomitants which he mentions are, after all, +relatively minor and restricted dangers to man's civilization and moral +soundness. They can [229] neither operate freely nor expand easily. +The paralysis of horrified popular sentiment obstructs their +propagation, and the blight of the death-penalty which hangs over the +heads of their votaries is an additional guarantee of their being kept +within bounds that minimize their perniciousness. But there are more +fatal and further-reaching dangers to public morality and happiness of +which the regenerated current opinion of the future will take prompt +and remedial cognizance. Foremost among these will be the circulation +of malevolent writings whereby the equilibrium of sympathy between good +men of different races is sought to be destroyed, through misleading +appeals to the weaknesses and prejudices of readers; writings in which +the violation of actual truth cannot, save by stark stupidity, be +attributed to innocent error; writings that scoff at humanitarian +feeling and belittle the importance of achievements resulting +therefrom; writings which strike at the root of national manliness, by +eulogizing brute force directed against weaker folk as a fit and +legitimate mode of securing the wishes of a mighty and enlightened +people; writings, in fine, which ignore the divine principle [230] in +man, and implicitly deny the possibility of a Divine Power existing +outside of and above man, thus materializing the mind, and tending to +render the earth a worse hell than it ever could have been with faith +in the supremacy of a beneficent Power. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +NOTES +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +221. *"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo."—Ovid. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK IV: HISTORICAL SUMMARY +</H3> + +<P> +[233] Thus far we have dealt with the main questions raised by Mr. +Froude on the lines of his own choosing; lines which demonstrate to the +fullest how unsuited his capacity is for appreciating—still less +grappling with—the political and social issues he has so confidently +undertaken to determine. In vain have we sought throughout his bastard +philosophizing for any phrase giving promise of an adequate treatment +of this important subject. We find paraded ostentatiously enough the +doctrine that in the adjustment of human affairs the possession of a +white skin should be the strongest recommendation. Wonder might fairly +be felt that there is no suggestion of a corresponding advantage being +accorded to the possession of a long nose or of auburn hair. Indeed, +little [234] or no attention that can be deemed serious is given to the +interest of the Blacks, as a large and (out of Africa) no longer +despicable section of the human family, in the great world-problems +which are so visibly preparing and press for definitive solutions. The +intra-African Negro is clearly powerless to struggle successfully +against personal enslavement, annexation, or volunteer forcible +"protection" of his territory. What, we ask, will in the coming ages +be the opinion and attitude of the extra-African millions—ten millions +in the Western Hemisphere—dispersed so widely over the surface of the +globe, apt apprentices in every conceivable department of civilized +culture? Will these men remain for ever too poor, too isolated from one +another for grand racial combinations? Or will the naturally opulent +cradle of their people, too long a prey to violence and unholy greed, +become at length the sacred watchword of a generation willing and able +to conquer or perish under its inspiration? Such large and interesting +questions it was within the province and duty of a famous historian, +laying confident claim to prophetic insight, not to propound alone, but +also definitely to solve. The sacred power [235] of forecast, however, +has been confined to finical pronouncements regarding those for whose +special benefit he has exercised it, and to childish insults of the +Blacks whose doom must be sealed to secure the precious result which is +aimed at. In view of this ill-intentioned omission, we shall offer a +few cursory remarks bearing on, but not attempting to answer, those +grave inquiries concerning the African people. As in our humble +opinion these are questions paramount to all the petty local issues +finically dilated on by the confident prophet of "The Bow of Ulysses," +we will here briefly devote ourselves to its discussion. +</P> + +<P> +Accepting the theory of human development propounded by our author, let +us apply it to the African race. Except, of course, to intelligences +having a share in the Councils of Eternity, there can be no attainable +knowledge respecting the laws which regulate the growth and progress of +civilization among the races of the earth. That in the existence of the +human family every age has been marked by its own essential +characteristics with regard to manifestations of intellectual life, +however circumscribed, is a proposition too self-evident [236] to +require more than the stating. But investigation beyond such evidence +as we possess concerning the past—whether recorded by man himself in +the written pages of history, or by the Creator on the tablets of +nature—would be worse than futile. We see that in the past different +races have successively come to the front, as prominent actors on the +world's stage. The years of civilized development have dawned in turn +on many sections of the human family, and the Anglo-Saxons, who now +enjoy preeminence, got their turn only after Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, +Greece, Rome, and others had successively held the palm of supremacy. +And since these mighty empires have all passed away, may we not then, +if the past teaches aught, confidently expect that other racial +hegemonies will arise in the future to keep up the ceaseless +progression of temporal existence towards the existence that is +eternal? What is it in the nature of things that will oust the African +race from the right to participate, in times to come, in the high +destinies that have been assigned in times past to so many races that +have not been in anywise superior to us in the qualifications, +physical, moral, and intellectual, [237] that mark out a race for +prominence amongst other races? +</P> + +<P> +The normal composition of the typical Negro has the testimony of ages +to its essential soundness and nobility. Physically, as an active +labourer, he is capable of the most protracted exertion under climatic +conditions the most exhausting. By the mere strain of his brawn and +sinew he has converted waste tracts of earth into fertile regions of +agricultural bountifulness. On the scenes of strife he has in his +savage state been known to be indomitable save by the stress of +irresistible forces, whether of men or of circumstances. Staunch in his +friendship and tender towards the weak directly under his protection, +the unvitiated African furnishes in himself the combination of native +virtue which in the land of his exile was so prolific of good results +for the welfare of the whole slave-class. But distracted at home by the +sudden irruptions of skulking foes, he has been robbed, both +intellectually and morally, of the immense advantage of Peace, which is +the mother of Progress. Transplanted to alien climes, and through +centuries of desolating trials, this irrepressible race has [238] bated +not one throb of its energy, nor one jot of its heart or hope. In +modern times, after his expatriation into dismal bondage, both Britain +and America have had occasion to see that even in the paralysing +fetters of political and social degradation the right arm of the Ethiop +can be a valuable auxiliary on the field of battle. Britain, in her +conflict with France for supremacy in the West Indies, did not disdain +the aid of the sable arms that struck together with those of Britons +for the trophies that furnished the motives for those epic contests. +</P> + +<P> +Later on, the unparalleled struggle between the Northern and Southern +States of the American Union put to the test the indestructible fibres +of the Negro's nature, moral as well as physical. The Northern States, +after months of hesitating repugnance, and when taught at last by dire +defeats that colour did not in any way help to victory, at length +sullenly acquiesced in the comradeship, hitherto disdained, of the +eager African contingent. The records of Port Hudson, Vicksburg, +Morris Island, and elsewhere, stand forth in imperishable attestation +of the fact that the distinction of being laurelled during life as +victor, or filling [239] in death a hero's grave, is reserved for no +colour, but for the heart that can dare and the hand that can strike +boldly in a righteous cause. The experience of the Southern +slave-holders, on the other hand, was no less striking and worthy of +admiration. Every man of the twelve seceding States forming the +Southern Confederacy, then fighting desperately for the avowed purpose +of perpetuating slavery, was called into the field, as no available +male arm could be spared from the conflict on their side. Plantation +owner, overseer, and every one in authority, had to be drafted away +from the scene of their usual occupation to the stage whereon the +bloody drama of internecine strife was being enacted. Not only the +plantation, but the home and the household, including the mistress and +her children, had to be left, not unprotected, it is glorious to +observe, but, with confident assurance in their loyalty and good faith, +under the protection of the four million of bondsmen, who, through the +laws and customs of these very States, had been doomed to lifelong +ignorance and exclusion from all moralizing influences. With what +result? The protraction of the conflict on the part of the South would +[240] have been impossible but for the admirable management and +realization of their resources by those benighted slaves. On the other +hand, not one of the thousands of Northern prisoners escaping from the +durance of a Southern captivity ever appealed in vain for the +assistance and protection of a Negro. Clearly the head and heart of +those bondsmen were each in its proper place. The moral effect of +these experiences of the Negroes' sterling qualities was not lost on +either North or South. In the North it effaced from thousands of +repugnant hearts the adverse feelings which had devised and +accomplished so much to the Negro's detriment. In the South—but for +the blunders of the Reconstructionists—it would have considerably +facilitated the final readjustment of affairs between the erewhile +master and slave in their new-born relations of employer and employed. +</P> + +<P> +Reverting to the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the +States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their +favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy +condition. First, attention must be paid to the patriotic solidarity +existing [241] amongst the bondsmen, a solidarity which, in the case of +those who had been deported in the same ship, had all the sanctity of +blood-relationship. Those who had thus travelled to the "white man's +country" addressed and considered each other as brothers and sisters. +Hence their descendants for many generations upheld, as if +consanguineous, the modes of address and treatment which became +hereditary in families whose originals had travelled in the same ship. +These adopted uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, were so united by common +sympathies, that good or ill befalling any one of them intensely +affected the whole connection. Mutual support commensurate with the +area of their location thus became the order among these people. At +the time of the first deportation of Africans to the West Indies to +replace the aborigines who had been decimated in the mines at Santo +Domingo and in the pearl fisheries of the South Caribbean, the +circumstances of the Spanish settlers in the Antilles were of singular, +even romantic, interest. +</P> + +<P> +The enthusiasm which overflowed from the crusades and the Moorish wars, +upon the discovery and conquest of America, had occasioned [242] the +peopling of the Western Archipelago by a race of men in whom the daring +of freebooters was strangely blended with a fierce sort of +religiousness. As holders of slaves, these men recognized, and +endeavoured to their best to give effect to, the humane injunctions of +Bishop Las Casas. The Negroes, therefore, male and female, were +promptly presented for admission by baptism into the Catholic Church, +which always had stood open and ready to welcome them. The relations +of god-father and god-mother resulting from these baptismal functions +had a most important bearing on the reciprocal stations of master and +slave. The god-children were, according to ecclesiastical custom, +considered in every sense entitled to all the protection and assistance +which were within the competence of the god-parents, who, in their +turn, received from the former the most absolute submission. It is +easy to see that the planters, as well as those intimately connected +with them, in assuming such obligations with their concomitant +responsibilities, practically entered into bonds which they all +regarded as, if possible, more solemn than the natural ties of secular +parentage. The duty [243] of providing for these dependents usually +took the shape of their being apprenticed to, and trained in the +various arts and vocations that constitute the life of civilization. +In many cases, at the death of their patrons, the bondsmen who were +deemed most worthy were, according to the means of the testator, +provided for in a manner lifting them above the necessity of future +dependence. Manumission, too, either by favour or through purchase, +was allowed the fullest operation. Here then was the active influence +of higher motives than mere greed of gain or the pride of racial power +mellowing the lot and gilding the future prospects of the dwellers in +the tropical house of bondage. +</P> + +<P> +The next, and even more effectual agency in modifying and harmonizing +the relations between owner and bondspeople was the inevitable +attraction of one race to the other by the sentiment of natural +affection. Out of this sprang living ties far more intimate and +binding on the moral sense than even obligations contracted in +deference to the Church. Natural impulses have often diviner sources +than ecclesiastical mandates. Obedience to the former not seldom +brings down the penalties of the Church; but [244] the culprit finds +solace in the consciousness that the offence might in itself be a +protection from the thunders it has provoked. Under these +circumstances the general body of planters, who were in the main +adventurers of the freest type, were fain to establish connections with +such of the slave-women as attracted their sympathy, through personal +comeliness or aptitude in domestic affairs, or, usually, both combined. +There was ordinarily in this beginning of the seventeenth century no +Vashti that needed expulsion from the abode of a plantation Ahasuerus +to make room for the African Esther to be admitted to the chief place +within the portals. One great natural consequence of this was the +extension to the relatives or guardians of the bondswoman so preferred +of an amount of favour which, in the case of the more capable males, +completes the parallel we have been drawing by securing for each of +them the precedence and responsibilities of a Mordecai. The offspring +of these natural alliances came in therefore to cement more intimately +the union of interests which previous relations had generated. Beloved +by their fathers, and in many cases destined by them to a lot superior +[245] to that whereto they were entitled by formal law and social +prescription, these young procreations—Mulattos, as they were +called—were made the objects of special and careful provisions on the +fathers' part. They were, according to the means of their fathers in +the majority of cases, sent for education and training to European or +other superior institutions. After this course they were either +formally acknowledged by their fathers, or, if that was impracticable, +amply and suitably provided for in a career out of their native colony. +To a reflecting mind there is something that interests, not to say +fascinates, in studying the action and reaction upon one another of +circumstances in the existence of the Mulatto. As a matter of fact, he +had much more to complain of under the slave system than his +pure-blooded African relations. The law, by decreeing that every child +of a freeman and a slave woman must follow the fortune of the womb, +thus making him the property of his mother exclusively, practically +robbed him before his very birth of the nurture and protection of a +father. His reputed father had no obligation to be even aware of his +procreation, and nevertheless [246] —so inscrutable are the ways of +Providence!—the Mulatto was the centre around which clustered the +outraged instincts of nature in rebellion against the desecrating +mandates that prescribed treason to herself. Law and society may +decree; but in our normal humanity there throbs a sentiment which +neutralizes every external impulse contrary to its promptings. +</P> + +<P> +In meditating on the varied history of the Negro in the United States, +since his first landing on the banks of the James River in 1619 till +the Emancipation Act of President Lincoln in 1865, it is curious to +observe that the elevation of the race, though in a great measure +secured, proceeded from circumstances almost the reverse of those that +operated so favourably in the same direction elsewhere. The men of the +slave-holding States, chiefly Puritans or influenced by Puritanic +surroundings, were not under the ecclesiastical sway which rendered +possible in the West Indies and other Catholic countries the +establishment of the reciprocal bonds of god-parents and god-children. +The self-same causes operated to prevent any large blending of the two +races, inasmuch as the immigrant from Britain who [247] had gone forth +from his country to better his fortune had not left behind him his +attachment to the institutions of the mother-land, among which +marrying, whenever practicable, was one of the most cherished. Above +all, too, as another powerful check at first to such alliances between +the ruling and servile races of the States, there existed the native +idiosyncracy of the Anglo-Saxon. That class of them who had left +Britain were likelier than the more refined of their nation to exhibit +in its crudest and cruellest form the innate jealousy and contempt of +other races that pervades the Anglo-Saxon bosom. It is but a simple +fact that, whenever he condescended thereto, familiarity with even the +loveliest of the subject people was regarded as a mighty self-unbending +for which the object should be correspondingly grateful. So there +could, in the beginning, be no frequent instances of the romantic +chivalry that gilded the quasi-marital relations of the more fervid and +humane members of the Latin stock. +</P> + +<P> +But this kind of intercourse, which in the earlier generation was +undoubtedly restricted in North America by the checks above adverted +to, and, presumably, also by the mutual unintelligibility [248] in +speech, gradually expanded with the natural increase of the slave +population. The American-born, English-speaking Negro girl, who had in +many cases been the playmate of her owner, was naturally more +intelligible, more accessible, more attractive—and the inevitable +consequence was the extension apace of that intercourse, the offspring +whereof became at length so visibly numerous. +</P> + +<P> +Among the Romans, the grandest of all colonizers, the individual's +Civis Romanus sum—I am a Roman citizen—was something more than verbal +vapouring; it was a protective talisman—a buckler no less than a +sword. Yet was the possession of this noble and singular privilege no +barrier to Roman citizens meeting on a broad humanitarian level any +alien race, either allied to or under the protection of that +world-famous commonwealth. In the speeches of the foremost orators and +statesmen among the conquerors of the then known world, the allusions +to subject or allied aliens are distinguished by a decorous observance +of the proprieties which should mark any reference to those who had the +dignity of Rome's [249] friendship, or the privilege of her august +protection. Observations, therefore, regarding individuals of rank in +these alien countries had the same sobriety and deference which marked +allusions to born Romans of analogous degree. Such magnanimity, we +grieve to say, is not characteristic of the race which now replaces the +Romans in the colonizing leadership of the world. We read with +feelings akin to despair of the cheap, not to say derogatory, manner in +which, in both Houses of Parliament, native potentates, especially of +non-European countries, are frequently spoken of by the hereditary +aristocracy and the first gentlemen of the British Empire. The inborn +racial contempt thus manifested in quarters where rigid self-control +and decorum should form the very essence of normal deportment, was not +likely, as we have before hinted, to find any mollifying ingredient in +the settlers on the banks of the Mississippi. Therefore should we not +be surprised to find, with regard to many an illicit issue of "down +South," the arrogance of race so overmastering the promptings of nature +as to render not unfrequent at the auction-block the sight of many a +chattel of mixed blood, the offspring [250] of some planter whom +business exigency had forced to this commercial transaction as the +readiest mode of self-release. Yet were the exceptions to this rule +enough to contribute appreciably to the weight and influence of the +mixed race in the North, where education and a fair standing had been +clandestinely secured for their children by parents to whom law and +society had made it impossible to do more, and whom conscience rendered +incapable of stopping at less. +</P> + +<P> +From this comparative sketch of the history of the slaves in the +States, in the West Indies and countries adjacent, it will be perceived +that in the latter scenes of bondage everything had conspired to render +a fusion of interests between the ruling and the servile classes not +only easy, but inevitable. In the very first generation after their +introduction, the Africans began to press upward, a movement which +every decade has accelerated, in spite of the changes which supervened +as each of the Colonies fell under British sway. Nearly two centuries +had by this time elapsed, and the coloured influence, which had grown +with their wealth, education, numbers, and unity, though [251] +circumscribed by the emancipation of the slaves, and the consequent +depression in fortune of all slave-owners, never was or could be +annihilated. In the Government service there were many for whom the +patronage of god-parents or the sheer influence of their family had +effected an entrance. The prevalence and potency of the influences we +have been dilating upon may be gauged by the fact that personages no +less exalted than Governors of various Colonies—of Trinidad in three +authentic cases—have been sharers in the prevailing usages, in the +matter of standing sponsors (by proxy), and also of relaxing in the +society of some fascinating daughter of the sun from the tension and +wear of official duty. In the three cases just referred to, the most +careful provision was made for the suitable education and starting in +life of the issues. For the god-children of Governors there were +places in the public service, and so from the highest to the lowest the +humanitarian intercourse of the classes was confirmed. +</P> + +<P> +Consequent on the frequent abandonment of their plantations by many +owners who despaired of being able to get along by paying [252] their +way, an opening was made for the insinuation of Absenteeism into our +agricultural, in short, our economic existence. The powerful sugar +lords, who had invested largely in the cane plantations, were fain to +take over and cultivate the properties which their debtors doggedly +refused to continue working, under pretext of the entire absence, or at +any rate unreliability, of labour. The representatives of those new +transatlantic estate proprietors displaced, but never could replace, +the original cultivators, who were mostly gentlemen as well as +agriculturists. It was from this overseer class that the vituperations +and slanders went forth that soon became stereotyped, concerning the +Negro's incorrigible laziness and want of ambition—those gentry +adjusting the scale of wages, not according to the importance and value +of the labour done, but according to the scornful estimate which they +had formed of the Negro personally. And when the wages were fixed +fairly, they almost invariably sought to indemnify themselves for their +enforced justice by the insulting license of their tongues, addressed +to males and females alike. The influence of such men on local +legislation, in which they [253] had a preponderating share, either as +actual proprietors or as the attorneys of absentees, was not in the +direction of refinement or liberality. Indeed, the kind of laws which +they enacted, especially during the apprenticeship (1834-8), is thus +summarized by one, and him an English officer, who was a visitor in +those agitated days of the Colonies:— +</P> + +<P> +"It is demonstrated that the laws which were to come into operation +immediately on expiration of the apprenticeship are of the most +objectionable character, and fully established the fact not only of a +future intention to infringe the rights of the emancipated classes, but +of the actual commencement and extensive progress of a Colonial system +for that purpose. The object of the laws is to circumscribe the market +for free labour—to prohibit the possession or sale of ordinary +articles of produce on sale, the obvious intention of which is to +confine the emancipated classes to a course of agricultural +servitude—to give the employers a monopoly of labour, and to keep down +a free competition for wages—to create new and various modes of +apprenticeship for the purpose of prolonging predial service, together +with many evils of the [254] late system—to introduce unnecessary +restraint and coercion, the design of which is to create a perpetual +surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish a legislative +despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the most vicious +principles of legislation, and in their operation will be found +intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just intentions +of the British Legislature." +</P> + +<P> +These liberal-souled gentry were, in sooth, Mr. Froude's +"representatives" of Britain, whose traditions steadily followed in +their families, he has so well and sympathetically set forth. +</P> + +<P> +We thus see that the irritation and rancour seething in the breast of +the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then +also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished and +kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, +certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was +too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own phrase, +people of colour had by that time already "passed the lock-jaw"* stage +(at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped the germ of +their progress in the bud.) In spite of adverse legislation, and in +spite of the scandalous subservience of certain Governors to the +Colonial Legislatures, the Race can point with thankfulness and pride +to the visible records of their success wherever they have permanently +sojourned. +</P> + +<P> +Primary education of a more general and undiscriminating character, +especially as to race and colour, was secured for the bulk of the West +Indies by voluntary undertakings, and notably through the munificent +provision of Lady Mico, which extended to the whole of the principal +islands. +</P> + +<P> +Thanks to Lord Harris for introducing, and to Sir Arthur Gordon for +extending to the secondary stage, the public education of Trinidad, +there has been since Emancipation, that is, during the last +thirty-seven years, a more effective bringing together in public +schools of various grades, of children of all races and ranks. Rivals +at home, at school and college, in books as well as on the playground, +they have very frequently gone abroad together to learn the professions +they have selected. In this way there is an intercommunion between all +the [256] intelligent sections of the inhabitants, based on a common +training and the subtle sympathies usually generated in enlightened +breasts by intimate personal knowledge. In mixed communities thus +circumstanced, there is no possibility of maintaining distinctions +based on mere colour, as advocated by Mr. Froude. +</P> + +<P> +The following brief summary by the Rev. P. H. Doughlin, Rector of St. +Clement's, Trinidad, a brilliant star among the sons of Ham, embodies +this fact in language which, so far as it goes, is as comprehensive as +it is weighty:— +</P> + +<P> +"Who could, without seeming to insult the intelligence of men, have +predicted on the day of Emancipation that the Negroes then released +from the blight and withering influence of ten generations of cruel +bondage, so weakened and half-destroyed—so denationalized and +demoralized—so despoiled and naked, would be in the position they are +now? In spite of the proud, supercilious, and dictatorial bearing of +their teachers, in spite of the hampering of unsympathetic, alien +oversight, in spite of the spirit of dependence and servility +engendered by slavery, not only have individual members of the race +entered into all the offices of dignity in [257] Church and State, as +subalterns—as hewers of wood and drawers of water—but they have +attained to the very highest places. Here in the West Indies, and on +the West Coast of Africa, are to be found Surgeons of the Negro Race, +Solicitors, Barristers, Mayors, Councillors, Principals and Founders of +High Schools and Colleges, Editors and Proprietors of Newspapers, +Archdeacons, Bishops, Judges, and Authors—men who not only teach those +immediately around them, but also teach the world. Members of the race +have even been entrusted with the administration of Governments. And +it is not mere commonplace men that the Negro Race has produced. Not +only have the British Universities thought them worthy of their +honorary degrees and conferred them on them, but members of the race +have won these University degrees. A few years back a full-blooded +Negro took the highest degree Oxford has to give to a young man. The +European world is looking with wonder and admiration at the progress +made by the Negro Race—a progress unparalleled in the annals of the +history of any race." +</P> + +<P> +To this we may add that in the domain [258] of high literature the +Blacks of the United States, for the twenty-five years of social +emancipation, and despite the lingering obstructions of caste +prejudice, have positively achieved wonders. Leaving aside the +writings of men of such high calibre as F. Douglass, Dr. Hyland Garnet, +Prof. Crummell, Prof. E. Blyden, Dr. Tanner, and others, it is +gratifying to be able to chronicle the Ethiopic women of North America +as moving shoulder to shoulder with the men in the highest spheres of +literary activity. Among a brilliant band of these our sisters, +conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out but a +solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and of +giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. The +allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This +lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds +effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. But +it is as a poet that posterity will hail her in the coming ages of our +Race. For pathos, depth of spiritual insight, and magical exercise of +a rare power of self-utterance, it will hardly be questioned that she +has surpassed every competitor [259] among females—white or +black—save and except Elizabeth Barett Browning, with whom the gifted +African stands on much the same plane of poetic excellence. +</P> + +<P> +The above summary of our past vicissitudes and actual position shows +that there is nothing in our political circumstances to occasion +uneasiness. The miserable skin and race doctrine we have been +discussing does not at all prefigure the destinies at all events of the +West Indies, or determine the motives that will affect them. With the +exception of those belonging to the Southern states of the Union, the +vast body of African descendants now dispersed in various countries of +the Western Hemisphere are at sufficient peace to begin occupying +themselves, according to some fixed programme, about matters of racial +importance. More than ten millions of Africans are scattered over the +wide area indicated, and possess amongst them instances of mental and +other qualifications which render them remarkable among their +fellow-men. But like the essential parts of a complicated albeit +perfect machine, these attainments and qualifications so widely +dispersed await, it is evident, some potential [260] agency to collect +and adjust them into the vast engine essential for executing the true +purposes of the civilized African Race. Already, especially since the +late Emancipation Jubilee, are signs manifest of a desire for +intercommunion and intercomprehension amongst the more distinguished of +our people. With intercourse and unity of purpose will be secured the +means to carry out the obvious duties which are sure to devolve upon +us, especially with reference to the cradle of our Race, which is most +probably destined to be the ultimate resting-place and headquarters of +millions of our posterity. Within the short time that we had to +compass all that we have achieved, there could not have arisen +opportunities for doing more than we have effected. Meanwhile our +present device is: "Work, Hope, and Wait!" +</P> + +<P> +Finally, it must be borne in mind that the abolition of physical +bondage did not by any means secure all the requisite conditions of "a +fair field and no favour" for the future career of the freedmen. The +remnant of Jacob, on their return from the Captivity, were compelled, +whilst rebuilding their Temple, literally to labour with the working +tool in one hand [261] and the sword for personal defence in the other. +Even so have the conditions, figuratively, presented themselves under +which the Blacks have been obliged to rear the fabric of self-elevation +since 1838, whilst combating ceaselessly the obstacles opposed to the +realizing of their legitimate aspirations. Mental and, in many cases, +material success has been gained, but the machinery for accumulating +and applying the means required for comprehensive racial enterprises is +waiting on Providence, time, and circumstances for its establishment +and successful working. +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +NOTES +</P> + +<P CLASS="footnote"> +254. *"Yo té'ja passé mal machoè"—in metaphorical allusion to new-born +infants who have lived beyond a certain number of days. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of West Indian Fables by James Anthony +Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas, by J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST INDIAN FABLES *** + +***** This file should be named 4068-h.htm or 4068-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/6/4068/ + +Produced by Alfred J. Drake. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas + +Author: J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas + +Posting Date: June 13, 2009 [EBook #4068] +Release Date: May, 2003 +First Posted: November 1, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WEST INDIAN FABLES *** + + + + +Produced by Alfred J. Drake. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + +FROUDACITY (1889) + +J.J. Thomas + + +WEST INDIAN FABLES BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE + +EXPLAINED BY J. J. THOMAS + + + + +Contents + + +Preface by J.J. Thomas + +BOOK I. + + Introduction: 27-33 + Voyage out: 34-41 + Barbados: 41-44 + St. Vincent: 44-48 + Grenada: 48-50 + +BOOK II. + + Trinidad: 53-55 + Reform in Trinidad: 55-80 + Negro Felicity in the West Indies: 81-110 + +BOOK III. + + Social Revolution: 113-174 + West Indian Confederation: 175-200 + The Negro as a Worker: 201-206 + Religion for Negroes: 207-230 + +BOOK IV. + + Historical Summary or Resume: 233-261, end + + + + +FROUDACITY + + +PREFACE + +[5] Last year had well advanced towards its middle--in fact it was +already April, 1888--before Mr. Froude's book of travels in the West +Indies became known and generally accessible to readers in those +Colonies. + +My perusal of it in Grenada about the period above mentioned disclosed, +thinly draped with rhetorical flowers, the dark outlines of a scheme to +thwart political aspiration in the Antilles. That project is sought to +be realized by deterring the home authorities from granting an elective +local legislature, however restricted in character, to any of the +Colonies not yet enjoying such an advantage. An argument based on the +composition of the inhabitants of those Colonies is confidently relied +upon to confirm the inexorable mood of Downing Street. + +[6] Over-large and ever-increasing,--so runs the argument,--the African +element in the population of the West Indies is, from its past history +and its actual tendencies, a standing menace to the continuance of +civilization and religion. An immediate catastrophe, social, +political, and moral, would most assuredly be brought about by the +granting of full elective rights to dependencies thus inhabited. +Enlightened statesmanship should at once perceive the immense benefit +that would ultimately result from such refusal of the franchise. The +cardinal recommendation of that refusal is that it would avert +definitively the political domination of the Blacks, which must +inevitably be the outcome of any concession of the modicum of right so +earnestly desired. The exclusion of the Negro vote being inexpedient, +if not impossible, the exercise of electoral powers by the Blacks must +lead to their returning candidates of their own race to the local +legislatures, and that, too, in numbers preponderating according to the +majority of the Negro electors. The Negro legislators thus supreme in +the councils of the Colonies would straightway proceed to pass +vindictive and retaliatory laws against their white fellow- [7] +colonists. For it is only fifty years since the White man and the +Black man stood in the reciprocal relations of master and slave. +Whilst those relations subsisted, the white masters inflicted, and the +black slaves had to endure, the hideous atrocities that are inseparable +from the system of slavery. Since Emancipation, the enormous strides +made in self-advancement by the ex-slaves have only had the effect of +provoking a resentful uneasiness in the bosoms of the ex-masters. The +former bondsmen, on their side, and like their brethren of Hayti, are +eaten up with implacable, blood-thirsty rancour against their former +lords and owners. The annals of Hayti form quite a cabinet of +political and social object lessons which, in the eyes of British +statesmen, should be invaluable in showing the true method of dealing +with Ethiopic subjects of the Crown. The Negro race in Hayti, in order +to obtain and to guard what it calls its freedom, has outraged every +humane instinct and falsified every benevolent hope. The slave-owners +there had not been a whit more cruel than slave-owners in the other +islands. But, in spite of this, how ferocious, how sanguinary, [8] how +relentless against them has the vengeance of the Blacks been in their +hour of mastery! A century has passed away since then, and, +notwithstanding that, the hatred of Whites still rankles in their +souls, and is cherished and yielded to as a national creed and guide of +conduct. Colonial administrators of the mighty British Empire, the +lesson which History has taught and yet continues to teach you in Hayti +as to the best mode of dealing with your Ethiopic colonists lies +patent, blood-stained and terrible before you, and should be taken +definitively to heart. But if you are willing that Civilization and +Religion--in short, all the highest developments of individual and +social life--should at once be swept away by a desolating vandalism of +African birth; if you do not recoil from the blood-guiltiness that +would stain your consciences through the massacre of our +fellow-countrymen in the West Indies, on account of their race, +complexion and enlightenment; finally, if you desire those modern +Hesperides to revert into primeval jungle, horrent lairs wherein the +Blacks, who, but a short while before, had been ostensibly civilized, +shall be revellers, as high-priests and [9] devotees, in orgies of +devil-worship, cannibalism, and obeah--dare to give the franchise to +those West Indian Colonies, and then rue the consequences of your +infatuation!... + +Alas, if the foregoing summary of the ghastly imaginings of Mr. Froude +were true, in what a fool's paradise had the wisest and best amongst us +been living, moving, and having our being! Up to the date of the +suggestion by him as above of the alleged facts and possibilities of +West Indian life, we had believed (even granting the correctness of his +gloomy account of the past and present positions of the two races) that +to no well-thinking West Indian White, whose ancestors may have, +innocently or culpably, participated in the gains as well as the guilt +of slavery, would the remembrance of its palmy days be otherwise than +one of regret. We Negroes, on the other hand, after a lapse of time +extending over nearly two generations, could be indebted only to +precarious tradition or scarcely accessible documents for any knowledge +we might chance upon of the sufferings endured in these Islands of the +West by those of our race who have gone before us. Death, with +undiscriminating hand, had gathered [10] in the human harvest of +masters and slaves alike, according to or out of the normal laws of +nature; while Time had been letting down on the stage of our existence +drop-scene after drop-scene of years, to the number of something like +fifty, which had been curtaining off the tragic incidents of the past +from the peaceful activities of the present. Being thus circumstanced, +thought we, what rational elements of mutual hatred should now continue +to exist in the bosoms of the two races? + +With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, because of our oneness +with its inhabitants in origin and complexion, as a criterion for the +exact forecast of our future conduct under given circumstances, this +appeared to us, looking at actual facts, perversity gone wild in the +manufacture of analogies. The founders of the Black Republic, we had +all along understood, were not in any sense whatever equipped, as Mr. +Froude assures us they were, when starting on their self-governing +career, with the civil and intellectual advantages that had been +transplanted from Europe. On the contrary, we had been taught to +regard them as most unfortunate in the circumstances under which [11] +they so gloriously conquered their merited freedom. We saw them free, +but perfectly illiterate barbarians, impotent to use the intellectual +resources of which their valour had made them possessors, in the shape +of books on the spirit and technical details of a highly developed +national existence. We had learnt also, until this new interpreter of +history had contradicted the accepted record, that the continued +failure of Hayti to realize the dreams of Toussaint was due to the +fatal want of confidence subsisting between the fairer and darker +sections of the inhabitants, which had its sinister and disastrous +origin in the action of the Mulattoes in attempting to secure freedom +for themselves, in conjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice of +their darker-hued kinsmen. Finally, it had been explained to us that +the remembrance of this abnormal treason had been underlying and +perniciously influencing the whole course of Haytian national history. +All this established knowledge we are called upon to throw overboard, +and accept the baseless assertions of this conjuror-up of inconceivable +fables! He calls upon us to believe that, in spite of being free, +educated, progressive, and at peace with [12] all men, we West Indian +Blacks, were we ever to become constitutionally dominant in our native +islands, would emulate in savagery our Haytian fellow-Blacks who, at +the time of retaliating upon their actual masters, were tortured +slaves, bleeding and rendered desperate under the oppressors' lash--and +all this simply and merely because of the sameness of our ancestry and +the colour of our skin! One would have thought that Liberia would have +been a fitter standard of comparison in respect of a coloured +population starting a national life, really and truly equipped with the +requisites and essentials of civilized existence. But such a reference +would have been fatal to Mr. Froude's object: the annals of Liberia +being a persistent refutation of the old pro-slavery prophecies which +our author so feelingly rehearses. + +Let us revert, however, to Grenada and the newly-published "Bow of +Ulysses," which had come into my hands in April, 1888. + +It seemed to me, on reading that book, and deducing therefrom the +foregoing essential summary, that a critic would have little more to +do, in order to effectually exorcise this negrophobic political +hobgoblin, than to appeal to [13] impartial history, as well as to +common sense, in its application to human nature in general, and to the +actual facts of West Indian life in particular. + +History, as against the hard and fast White-master and Black-slave +theory so recklessly invented and confidently built upon by Mr. Froude, +would show incontestably--(a) that for upwards of two hundred years +before the Negro Emancipation, in 1838, there had never existed in one +of those then British Colonies, which had been originally discovered +and settled for Spain by the great Columbus or by his successors, the +Conquistadores, any prohibition whatsoever, on the ground of race or +colour, against the owning of slaves by any free person possessing the +necessary means, and desirous of doing so; (b) that, as a consequence +of this non-restriction, and from causes notoriously historical, +numbers of blacks, half-breeds, and other non-Europeans, besides such +of them as had become possessed of their "property" by inheritance, +availed themselves of this virtual license, and in course of time +constituted a very considerable proportion of the slave-holding section +of those communities; (c) that these [14] dusky plantation-owners +enjoyed and used in every possible sense the identical rights and +privileges which were enjoyed and used by their pure-blooded Caucasian +brother-slaveowners. The above statements are attested by written +documents, oral tradition, and, better still perhaps, by the living +presence in those islands of numerous lineal representatives of those +once opulent and flourishing non-European planter-families. + +Common sense, here stepping in, must, from the above data, deduce some +such conclusions as the following. First that, on the hypothesis that +the slaves who were freed in 1838--full fifty years ago--were all on an +average fifteen years old, those vengeful ex-slaves of to-day will be +all men of sixty-five years of age; and, allowing for the delay in +getting the franchise, somewhat further advanced towards the human +life-term of threescore and ten years. Again, in order to organize and +carry out any scheme of legislative and social retaliation of the kind +set forth in the "Bow of Ulysses," there must be (which unquestionably +there is not) a considerable, well-educated, and very influential +number surviving of those who had actually [15] been in bondage. +Moreover, the vengeance of these people (also assuming the foregoing +nonexistent condition) would have, in case of opportunity, to wreak +itself far more largely and vigorously upon members of their own race +than upon Whites, seeing that the increase of the Blacks, as correctly +represented in the "Bow of Ulysses," is just as rapid as the diminution +of the White population. And therefore, Mr. Froude's +"Danger-to-the-Whites" cry in support of his anti-reform manifesto +would not appear, after all, to be quite so justifiable as he possibly +thinks. + +Feeling keenly that something in the shape of the foregoing programme +might be successfully worked up for a public defence of the maligned +people, I disregarded the bodily and mental obstacles that have beset +and clouded my career during the last twelve years, and cheerfully +undertook the task, stimulated thereto by what I thought weighty +considerations. I saw that no representative of Her Majesty's Ethiopic +West Indian subjects cared to come forward to perform this work in the +more permanent shape that I felt to be not only desirable but essential +for our self-vindication. [16] I also realized the fact that the "Bow +of Ulysses" was not likely to have the same ephemeral existence and +effect as the newspaper and other periodical discussions of its +contents, which had poured from the press in Great Britain, the United +States, and very notably, of course, in all the English Colonies of the +Western Hemisphere. In the West Indian papers the best writers of our +race had written masterly refutations, but it was clear how difficult +the task would be in future to procure and refer to them whenever +occasion should require. Such productions, however, fully satisfied +those qualified men of our people, because they were legitimately +convinced (even as I myself am convinced) that the political destinies +of the people of colour could not run one tittle of risk from anything +that it pleased Mr. Froude to write or say on the subject. But, +meditating further on the question, the reflection forced itself upon +me that, beyond the mere political personages in the circle more +directly addressed by Mr. Froude's volume, there were individuals whose +influence or possible sympathy we could not afford to disregard, or to +esteem lightly. So I deemed it right and a patriotic duty to attempt +[17] the enterprise myself, in obedience to the above stated motives. + +At this point I must pause to express on behalf of the entire coloured +population of the West Indies our most heartfelt acknowledgments to Mr. +C. Salmon for the luminous and effective vindication of us, in his +volume on "West Indian Confederation," against Mr. Froude's libels. +The service thus rendered by Mr. Salmon possesses a double significance +and value in my estimation. In the first place, as being the work of a +European of high position, quite independent of us (who testifies +concerning Negroes, not through having gazed at them from balconies, +decks of steamers, or the seats of moving carriages, but from actual +and long personal intercourse with them, which the internal evidence of +his book plainly proves to have been as sympathetic as it was +familiar), and, secondly, as the work of an individual entirely outside +of our race, it has been gratefully accepted by myself as an incentive +to self-help, on the same more formal and permanent lines, in a matter +so important to the status which we can justly claim as a progressive, +law-abiding, and self-respecting section of Her Majesty's liege +subjects. + +[18] It behoves me now to say a few words respecting this book as a +mere literary production. + +Alexander Pope, who, next to Shakespeare and perhaps Butler, was the +most copious contributor to the current stock of English maxims, says: + + "True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, + As those move easiest who have learnt to dance." + +A whole dozen years of bodily sickness and mental tribulation have not +been conducive to that regularity of practice in composition which +alone can ensure the "true ease" spoken of by the poet; and therefore +is it that my style leaves so much to be desired, and exhibits, +perhaps, still, more to be pardoned. Happily, a quarrel such as ours +with the author of "The English in the West Indies" cannot be finally +or even approximately settled on the score of superior literary +competency, whether of aggressor or defender. I feel free to ignore +whatever verdict might be grounded on a consideration so purely +artificial. There ought to be enough, if not in these pages, at any +rate in whatever else I have heretofore published, that should prove me +not so hopelessly stupid and wanting in [19] self-respect, as would be +implied by my undertaking a contest in artistic phrase-weaving with one +who, even among the foremost of his literary countrymen, is confessedly +a master in that craft. The judges to whom I do submit our case are +those Englishmen and others whose conscience blends with their +judgment, and who determine such questions as this on their essential +rightness which has claim to the first and decisive consideration. For +much that is irregular in the arrangement and sequence of the +subject-matter, some blame fairly attaches to our assailant. The +erratic manner in which lie launches his injurious statements against +the hapless Blacks, even in the course of passages which no more led up +to them than to any other section of mankind, is a very notable feature +of his anti-Negro production. As he frequently repeats, very often +with cynical aggravations, his charges and sinister prophecies against +the sable objects of his aversion, I could see no other course open to +me than to take him up on the points whereto I demurred, exactly how, +when, and where I found them. + +My purpose could not be attained up without direct mention of, or +reference to, certain public [20] employes in the Colonies whose +official conduct has often been the subject of criticism in the public +press of the West Indies. Though fully aware that such criticism has +on many occasions been much more severe than my own strictures, yet, it +being possible that some special responsibility may attach to what I +here reproduce in a more permanent shape, I most cheerfully accept, in +the interests of public justice, any consequence which may result. + +A remark or two concerning the publication of this rejoinder. It has +been hinted to me that the issue of it has been too long delayed to +secure for it any attention in England, owing to the fact that the West +Indies are but little known, and of less interest, to the generality of +English readers. Whilst admitting, as in duty bound, the possible +correctness of this forecast, and regretting the oft-recurring +hindrances which occasioned such frequent and, sometimes, long +suspension of my labour; and noting, too, the additional delay caused +through my unacquaintance with English publishing usages, I must, +notwithstanding, plead guilty to a lurking hope that some small +fraction of Mr. Froude's readers will yet be found, [21] whose interest +in the West Indies will be temporarily revived on behalf of this essay, +owing to its direct bearing on Mr. Froude and his statements relative +to these Islands, contained in his recent book of travels in them. +This I am led to hope will be more particularly the case when it is +borne in mind that the rejoinder has been attempted by a member of that +very same race which he has, with such eloquent recklessness of all +moral considerations, held up to public contempt and disfavour. In +short, I can scarcely permit myself to believe it possible that concern +regarding a popular author, on his being questioned by an adverse +critic of however restricted powers, can be so utterly dead within a +twelvemonth as to be incapable of rekindling. Mr. Froude's "Oceana," +which had been published long before its author voyaged to the West +Indies, in order to treat the Queen's subjects there in the same more +than questionable fashion as that in which he had treated those of the +Southern Hemisphere, had what was in the main a formal rejoinder to its +misrepresentations published only three months ago in this city. I +venture to believe that no serious work in defence of an [22] important +cause or community can lose much, if anything, of its intrinsic value +through some delay in its issue; especially when written in the +vindication of Truth, whose eternal principles are beyond and above the +influence of time and its changes. + +At any rate, this attempt to answer some of Mr. Froude's main +allegations against the people of the West Indies cannot fail to be of +grave importance and lively interest to the inhabitants of those +Colonies. In this opinion I am happy in being able to record the full +concurrence of a numerous and influential body of my fellow-West +Indians, men of various races, but united in detestation of falsehood +and injustice. + +J.J.T. + +LONDON, June, 1889. + + + +BOOK I: INTRODUCTION + +[27] Like the ancient hero, one of whose warlike equipments furnishes +the complementary title of his book, the author of "The English in the +West Indies; or, The Bow of Ulysses," sallied forth from his home to +study, if not cities, at least men (especially black men), and their +manners in the British Antilles. + +James Anthony Froude is, beyond any doubt whatever, a very considerable +figure in modern English literature. It has, however, for some time +ceased to be a question whether his acceptability, to the extent which +it reaches, has not been due rather to the verbal attractiveness than +to the intrinsic value and trustworthiness of his opinions and +teachings. In fact, so far as a judgment can be formed from examined +specimens of his writings, it appears that our [28] author is the +bond-slave of his own phrases. To secure an artistic perfection of +style, he disregards all obstacles, not only those presented by the +requirements of verity, but such as spring from any other kind of +consideration whatsoever. The doubt may safely be entertained whether, +among modern British men of letters, there be one of equal capability +who, in the interest of the happiness of his sentences, so cynically +sacrifices what is due not only to himself as a public instructor, but +also to that public whom he professes to instruct. Yet, as the too +evident plaything of an over-permeable moral constitution, he might set +up some plea in explanation of his ethical vagaries. He might urge, +for instance, that the high culture of which his books are all so +redolent has utterly failed to imbue him with the nil admirari +sentiment, which Horace commends as the sole specific for making men +happy and keeping them so. For, as a matter of fact, and with special +reference to the work we have undertaken to discuss, Mr. Froude, though +cynical in his general utterances regarding Negroes-of the male sex, be +it noted-is, in the main, all extravagance and self-abandonment +whenever he [29] brings an object of his arbitrary likes or dislikes +under discussion. At such times he is no observer, much less +worshipper, of proportion in his delineations. Thorough-paced, +scarcely controllable, his enthusiasm for or against admits no degree +in its expression, save and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's +statement of facts or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings +are enlisted either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of +salt" by all when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So +complete is his self-identification with the sect or individual for the +time being engrossing his sympathy, that even their personal +antipathies are made his own; and the hostile language, often +exaggerated and unjust, in which those antipathies find vent, secures +in his more chastened mode of utterance an exact reproduction none the +less injurious because divested of grossness. + +Of this special phase of self-manifestation a typical instance is +afforded at page 164, under the heading of "Dominica," in a passage +which at once embraces and accentuates the whole spirit and method of +the work. To a eulogium of the professional skill and successful [30] +agricultural enterprise of Dr. Nichol, a medical officer of that +Colony, with whom he became acquainted for the first time during his +short stay there, our author travels out of his way to tack on a +gratuitous and pointless sneer at the educational competency of all the +elected members of the island legislature, among whom, he tells us, the +worthy doctor had often tried in vain to obtain a place. His want of +success, our author informs his readers, was brought about through Dr. +Nichol "being the only man in the Colony of superior attainments." +Persons acquainted with the stormy politics of that lovely little +island do not require to be informed that the bitterest animosity had +for years been raging between Dr. Nichol and some of the elected +members-a fact which our author chose characteristically to regard as +justifying an onslaught by himself on the whole of that section of +which the foes of his new friend formed a prominent part. + +Swayed by the above specified motives, our author also manages to see +much that is, and always has been, invisible to mortal eye, and to fail +to hear what is audible to and remarked upon by every other observer. + +[31] Thus we find him (p. 56) describing the Grenada Carenage as being +surrounded by forest trees, causing its waters to present a violet +tint; whilst every one familiar with that locality knows that there are +no forest trees within two miles of the object which they are so +ingeniously made to colour. Again, and aptly illustrating the +influence of his prejudices on his sense of hearing, we will notice +somewhat more in detail the following assertion respecting the speech +of the gentry of Barbados:-- + +"The language of the Anglo-Barbadians was pure English, the voices +without the smallest transatlantic intonation." + +Now it so happens that no Barbadian born and bred, be he gentle or +simple, can, on opening his lips, avoid the fate of Peter of Galilee +when skulking from the peril of a detected nationality: "Thy speech +bewrayeth thee!" It would, however, be prudent on this point to take +the evidence of other Englishmen, whose testimony is above suspicion, +seeing that they were free from the moral disturbance that affected Mr. +Froude's auditory powers. G. J. Chester, in his "Transatlantic +Sketches" (page 95), deposes as follows-- + +[32] "But worse, far worse than the colour, both of men and women, is +their voice and accent. Well may Coleridge enumerate among the pains +of the West Indies, 'the yawny-drawny way in which men converse.' The +soft, whining drawl is simply intolerable. Resemble the worst Northern +States woman's accent it may in some degree, but it has not a grain of +its vigour. A man tells you, 'if you can speer it, to send a beerer +with a bottle of bare,' and the clergyman excruciates you by praying in +church, 'Speer us, good Lord.' The English pronunciation of A and E is +in most words transposed. Barbados has a considerable number of +provincialisms of dialect. Some of these, as the constant use of +'Mistress' for 'Mrs.,' are interesting as archaisms, or words in use in +the early days of the Colony, and which have never died out of use. +Others are Yankeeisms or vulgarisms; others, again, such as the +expression 'turning cuffums,' i.e. summersets, from cuffums, a species +of fish, seem to be of local origin." + +In a note hereto appended, the author gives a list of English words of +peculiar use and acceptation in Barbados. + +[33] To the same effect writes Anthony Trollope: + +"But if the black people differ from their brethren of the other +islands, so certainly do the white people. One soon learns to know--a +Bim. That is the name in which they themselves delight, and therefore, +though there is a sound of slang about it, I give it here. One +certainly soon learns to know a Bim. The most peculiar distinction is +in his voice. There is always a nasal twang about it, but quite +distinct from the nasality of a Yankee. The Yankee's word rings sharp +through his nose; not so that of the first-class Bim. There is a soft +drawl about it, and the sound is seldom completely formed. The effect +on the ear is the same as that on the hand when a man gives you his to +shake, and instead of shaking yours, holds his own still, &c., &c." +("The West Indies," p. 207). + +From the above and scores of other authoritative testimonies which +might have been cited to the direct contrary of our traveller's tale +under this head, we can plainly perceive that Mr. Froude's love is not +only blind, but adder-deaf as well. We shall now contemplate him under +circumstances where his feelings are quite other than those of a +partisan. + + + +BOOK I: VOYAGE OUT + +[34] That Mr. Froude, despite his professions to the contrary, did not +go out on his explorations unhampered by prejudices, seems clear enough +from the following quotation:-- + +"There was a small black boy among us, evidently of pure blood, for his +hair was wool and his colour black as ink. His parents must have been +well-to-do, for the boy had been to Europe to be educated. The +officers on board and some of the ladies played with him as they would +play with a monkey. He had little more sense than a monkey, perhaps +less, and the gestures of him grinning behind gratings and perching out +his long thin arms between the bars were curiously suggestive of the +original from whom we are told now that all of us came. The worst of +it was that, being lifted above his own people, he had been taught to +despise them. He was spoilt as a black and could not be made into a +white, and this I found afterwards was the invariable and dangerous +consequence whenever a superior negro contrived to raise himself. He +might do well enough himself, but his family feel their blood as +degradation. His [35] children will not marry among their own people, +and not only will no white girl marry a negro, but hardly any dowry can +be large enough to tempt a West Indian white to make a wife of a black +lady. This is one of the most sinister features in the present state +of social life there." + +We may safely assume that the playing of "the officers on board and +some of the ladies" with the boy, "as they would play with a monkey," +is evidently a suggestion of Mr. Froude's own soul, as well as the +resemblance to the simian tribe which he makes out from the frolics of +the lad. Verily, it requires an eye rendered more than microscopic by +prejudice to discern the difference between the gambols of juveniles of +any colour under similar conditions. It is true that it might just be +the difference between the friskings of white lambs and the friskings +of lambs that are not white. That any black pupil should be taught to +despise his own people through being lifted above them by education, +seems a reckless statement, and far from patriotic withal; inasmuch as +the education referred to here was European, and the place from which +it was obtained presumably England. At all events, [36] the difference +among educated black men in deportment towards their unenlightened +fellow-blacks, can be proved to have nothing of that cynicism which +often marks the bearing of Englishmen in an analogous case with regard +to their less favoured countrymen. The statement that a black person +can be "spoilt" for such by education, whilst he cannot be made white, +is one of the silly conceits which the worship of the skin engenders in +ill-conditioned minds. No sympathy should be wasted on the negro +sufferer from mortification at not being able to "change his skin." The +Ethiopian of whatever shade of colour who is not satisfied with being +such was never intended to be more than a mere living figure. Mr. +Froude further confidently states that whilst a superior Negro "might +do well himself," yet "his family feel their blood as a degradation." +If there be some who so feel, they are indeed very much to be pitied; +but their sentiments are not entitled to the serious importance with +which our critic has invested them. But is it at all conceivable that +a people whose sanity has never in any way been questioned would strain +every nerve to secure for their offspring a [37] distinction the +consequence of which to themselves would be a feeling of their own +abasement? The poor Irish peasant who toils and starves to secure for +his eldest son admission into the Catholic priesthood, has a far other +feeling than one of humiliation when contemplating that son eventually +as the spiritual director of a congregation and parish. Similarly, the +laudable ambition which, in the case of a humble Scotch matron, is +expressed in the wish and exertion to see her Jamie or Geordie "wag his +pow in the pou'pit," produces, when realized, salutary effects in the +whole family connection. These effects, which Mr. Froude would +doubtless allow and commend in their case, he finds it creditable to +ignore the very possibility of in the experience of people whose +cuticle is not white. It is, however, but bare justice to say that, as +Negroes are by no means deficient in self-love and the tenderness of +natural affection, such gratifying fulfilment of a family's hopes +exerts an elevating and, in many cases, an ennobling influence on every +one connected with the fortunate household. Nor, from the eminently +sympathetic nature of the African race, are the near friends of a +family [38] unbenefited in a similar way. This is true, and +distinctively human; but, naturally, no apologist of Negro depreciation +would admit the reasonableness of applying to the affairs of Negroes +the principles of common equity, or even of common sense. To sum up +practically our argument on this head, we shall suppose West Indians to +be called upon to imagine that the less distinguished relations +respectively of, say, the late Solicitor-General of Trinidad and the +present Chief Justice of Barbados could be otherwise than legitimately +elated at the conspicuous position won by a member of their own +household. + +Mr. Froude further ventures to declare, in this connection, that the +children of educated coloured folk "will not marry among their own +people." Will he tell us, then, whom the daughters marry, or if they +ever do marry at all, since he asserts, with regard to West Indian +Whites, that "hardly any dowry can be large enough to tempt them to +make a wife of a black lady"? Our author evidently does not feel or +care that the suggestion he here induces is a hideous slander against a +large body of respectable people of whose affairs he is absolutely +ignorant. Full [39] of the "go" imparted to his talk by a +consciousness of absolute license with regard to Negroes, our dignified +narrator makes the parenthetical assertion that no white girl (in the +West Indies) will "marry a Negro." But has he been informed that cases +upon cases have occurred in those Colonies, and in very high +"Anglo-West Indian" families too, where the social degradation of being +married to Negroes has been avoided by the alternative of forming base +private connections even with menials of that race? + +The marrying of a black wife, on the other hand, by a West Indian White +was an event of frequent occurrence at a period in regard to which our +historian seems to be culpably uninformed. In slavery days, when all +planters, black and white alike, were fused in a common solidarity of +interests, the skin-distinction which Mr. Froude so strenuously +advocates, and would fain risk so much to promote, did not, so far as +matrimony was concerned, exist in the degree that it now does. +Self-interest often dictated such unions, especially on the part of +in-coming Whites desiring to strengthen their position and to increase +their influence in [40] the land of their adoption by means of +advantageous Creole marriages. Love, too, sheer uncalculating love, +impelled not a few Whites to enter the hymeneal state with the dusky +captivators of their affections. When rich, the white planter not +seldom paid for such gratification of his laudable impulse by accepting +exclusion from "Society"--and when poor, he incurred almost invariably +his dismissal from employment. Of course, in all cases of the sort the +dispensers of such penalties were actuated by high motives which, +nevertheless, did not stand in the way of their meeting, in the +households of the persons thus obnoxious to punishment, the same or +even a lower class of Ethiopic damsels, under the title of +"housekeeper," on whom they lavished a very plethora of caresses. +Perhaps it may be wrong so to hint it, but, judging from indications in +his own book, our author himself would have been liable in those days +to enthralment by the piquant charms that proved irresistible to so +many of his brother-Europeans. It is almost superfluous to repeat that +the skin-discriminating policy induced as regards the coloured subjects +of the Queen since the [41] abolition of slavery did not, and could +not, operate when coloured and white stood on the same high level as +slave-owners and ruling potentates in the Colonies. Of course, when +the administrative power passed entirely into the hands of British +officials, their colonial compatriots coalesced with them, and found no +loss in being in the good books of the dominant personages. + +In conclusion of our remarks upon the above extracts, it may be stated +that the blending of the races is not a burning question. "It can +keep," as Mr. Bright wittily said with regard to a subject of similar +urgency. Time and Nature might safely be left uninterfered with to +work out whatever social development of this kind is in store for the +world and its inhabitants. + + + +BOOK I: BARBADOS + +[41] Our distinguished voyager visited many of the British West Indies, +landing first at Barbados, his social experience whereof is set forth +in a very agreeable account. Our immediate business, however, is not +with what West Indian hospitality, especially among the well-to-do +classes, can and does accomplish for [42] the entertainment of +visitors, and particularly visitors so eminent as Mr. Froude. We are +concerned with what Mr. Froude has to say concerning our dusky brethren +and sisters in those Colonies. We have, thus, much pleasure in being +able at the outset to extract the following favourable verdict of his +respecting them--premising, at the same time, that the balcony from +which Mr. Froude surveyed the teeming multitude in Bridgetown was that +of a grand hotel at which he had, on invitation, partaken of the +refreshing beverage mentioned in the citation:-- + +"Cocktail over, and walking in the heat of the sun being a thing not to +be thought of, I sat for two hours in the balcony, watching the people, +who were as thick as bees in swarming time. Nine-tenths of them were +pure black. You rarely saw a white face, but still less would you see +a discontented one, imperturbable good humour and self-satisfaction +being written on the features of every one. The women struck me +especially. They were smartly dressed in white calico, scrupulously +clean, and tricked out with ribands and feathers; but their figures +were so good, and they carried themselves so [43] well and gracefully, +that although they might make themselves absurd, they could not look +vulgar. Like the Greek and Etruscan women, they are trained from +childhood to carry weights on their heads. They are thus perfectly +upright, and plant their feet firmly and naturally on the ground. They +might serve for sculptors' models, and are well aware of it." + +Regarding the other sex, Mr. Froude says:-- + +"The men were active enough, driving carts, wheeling barrows, and +selling flying-fish," &c. + +He also speaks with candour of the entire absence of drunkenness and +quarrelling and the agreeable prevalence of good humour and +light-heartedness among them. Some critic might, on reading the above +extract from our author's account of the men, be tempted to ask--"But +what is the meaning of that little word 'enough' occurring therein?" We +should be disposed to hazard a suggestion that Mr. Froude, being +fair-minded and loyal to truth, as far as is compatible with his +sympathy for his hapless "Anglo-West Indians," could not give an +entirely ungrudging testimony in favour of the possible, nay probable, +voters by whose suffrages the supremacy of the Dark [44] Parliament +will be ensured, and the relapse into obeahism, devil-worship, and +children-eating be inaugurated. Nevertheless, Si sic omnia +dixisset--if he had said all things thus! Yes, if Mr. Froude had, +throughout his volume, spoken in this strain, his occasional want of +patience and fairness with regard to our male kindred might have found +condonation in his even more than chivalrous appreciation of our +womankind. But it has been otherwise. So we are forced to try +conclusions with him in the arena of his own selection--unreflecting +spokesman that he is of British colonialism, which, we grieve to learn +through Mr. Froude's pages, has, like the Bourbon family, not only +forgotten nothing, but, unfortunately for its own peace, learnt nothing +also. + + + +BOOK I: ST. VINCENT + +[44] The following are the words in which our traveller embodies the +main motive and purpose of his voyage:-- + +"My own chief desire was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what +they were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking +about...." + +[45] But, alas, with the mercurialism of temperament in which he has +thought proper to indulge when only Negroes and Europeans not of +"Anglo-West Indian" tendencies were concerned, he jauntily threw to the +winds all the scruples and cautious minuteness which were essential to +the proper execution of his project. At Barbados, as we have seen, he +satisfies himself with sitting aloft, at a balcony-window, to +contemplate the movements of the sable throng below, of whose +character, moral and political, he nevertheless professes to have +become a trustworthy delineator. From the above-quoted account of his +impressions of the external traits and deportment of the Ethiopic folk +thus superficially gazed at, our author passes on to an analysis of +their mental and moral idiosyncrasies, and other intimate matters, +which the very silence of the book as to his method of ascertaining +them is a sufficient proof that his knowledge in their regard has not +been acquired directly and at first hand. Nor need we say that the +generally adverse cast of his verdicts on what he had been at no pains +to study for himself points to the "hostileness" of the witnesses whose +[46] testimony alone has formed the basis of his conclusions. +Throughout Mr. Froude's tour in the British Colonies his intercourse +was exclusively with "Anglo-West Indians," whose aversion to the Blacks +he has himself, perhaps they would think indiscreetly, placed on +record. In no instance do we find that he condescended to visit the +abode of any Negro, whether it was the mansion of a gentleman or the +hut of a peasant of that race. The whole tenor of the book indicates +his rigid adherence to this one-sided course, and suggests also that, +as a traveller, Mr. Froude considers maligning on hearsay to be just as +convenient as reporting facts elicited by personal investigation. +Proceed we, however, to strengthen our statement regarding his +definitive abandonment, and that without any apparent reason, of the +plan he had professedly laid down for himself at starting, and failing +which no trustworthy data could have been obtained concerning the +character and disposition of the people about whom he undertakes to +thoroughly enlighten his readers. Speaking of St. Vincent, where he +arrived immediately after leaving Barbados, our author says:-- + +[47] "I did not land, for the time was short, and as a beautiful +picture the island was best seen from the deck. The characteristics of +the people are the same in all the Antilles, and could be studied +elsewhere." + +Now, it is a fact, patent and notorious, that "the characteristics of +the people are" not "the same in all the Antilles." A man of Mr. +Froude's attainments, whose studies have made him familiar with +ethnological facts, must be aware that difference of local surroundings +and influences does, in the course of time, inevitably create +difference of characteristic and deportment. Hence there is in nearly +every Colony a marked dissimilarity of native qualities amongst the +Negro inhabitants, arising not only from the causes above indicated, +but largely also from the great diversity of their African ancestry. +We might as well be told that because the nations of Europe are +generally white and descended from Japhet, they could be studied one by +the light derived from acquaintance with another. We venture to +declare that, unless a common education from youth has been shared by +them, the Hamitic inhabitants of one island have very little in common +with [48] those of another, beyond the dusky skin and woolly hair. In +speech, character, and deportment, a coloured native of Trinidad +differs as much from one of Barbados as a North American black does +from either, in all the above respects. + + + +BOOK I: GRENADA + +[48] In Grenada, the next island he arrived at, our traveller's +procedure with regard to the inhabitants was very similar. There he +landed in the afternoon, drove three or four miles inland to dine at +the house of a "gentleman who was a passing resident," returned in the +dark to his ship, and started for Trinidad. In the course of this +journey back, however, as he sped along in the carriage, Mr. Froude +found opportunity to look into the people's houses along the way, +where, he tells us, he "could see and was astonished to observe signs +of comfort, and even signs of taste--armchairs, sofas, side-boards with +cut-glass upon them, engravings and coloured prints upon the walls." +As a result of this nocturnal examination, a vol d'oiseau, he has +written paragraph upon paragraph about the people's character [49] and +prospects in the island of Grenada. To read the patronizing terms in +which our historian-traveller has seen fit to comment on Grenada and +its people, one would believe that his account is of some +half-civilized, out-of-the-way region under British sway, and inhabited +chiefly by a horde of semi-barbarian ignoramuses of African descent. +If the world had not by this time thoroughly assessed the intrinsic +value of Mr. Froude's utterances, one who knows Grenada might have felt +inclined to resent his causeless depreciation of the intellectual +capacity of its inhabitants; but considering the estimate which has +been pretty generally formed of his historical judgment, Mr. Froude may +be dismissed, as regards Grenada and its people, with a certain degree +of scepticism. Such scepticism, though lost upon himself, is +unquestionably needful to protect his readers from the hallucination +which the author's singular contempt for accuracy is but too liable to +induce. + +Those who know Grenada and its affairs are perfectly familiar with the +fact that all of its chief intellectual business, whether official +(even in the highest degree, such as temporary [50] administration of +the government), legal, commercial, municipal, educational, or +journalistic, has been for years upon years carried on by men of +colour. And what, as a consequence of this fact, has the world ever +heard in disparagement of Grenada throughout this long series of years? +Assuredly not a syllable. On the contrary, she has been the theme of +praise, not only for the admirable foresight with which she avoided the +sugar crisis, so disastrous to her sister islands, but also for the +pluck and persistence shown in sustaining herself through an +agricultural emergency brought about by commercial reverses, whereby +the steady march of her sons in self-advancement was only checked for a +time, but never definitively arrested. In fine, as regards every +branch of civilized employment pursued there, the good people of +Grenada hold their own so well and worthily that any show of patronage, +even from a source more entitled to confidence, would simply be a piece +of obtrusive kindness, not acceptable to any, seeing that it is +required by none. + + + +BOOK II: TRINIDAD / TRINIDAD AND REFORM+ + +[53] Mr. Froude, crossing the ninety miles of the Caribbean Sea lying +between Grenada and Trinidad, lands next morning in Port of Spain, the +chief city of that "splendid colony," as Governor Irving, its worst +ruler, truly calls it in his farewell message to the Legislature. +Regarding Port of Spain in particular, Mr. Froude is positively +exuberant in the display of the peculiar qualities that distinguish +him, and which we have already admitted. Ecstatic praise and +groundless detraction go hand in hand, bewildering to any one not +possessed of the key to the mystery of the art of blowing hot and cold, +which Mr. Froude so startlingly exemplifies. As it is our purpose to +make what he says concerning this Colony the crucial test of his +veracity as a writer of travels, [54] and also of the value of his +judgments respecting men and things, we shall first invite the reader's +attention to the following extracts, with our discussion thereof:-- + +"On landing we found ourselves in a large foreign-looking town, Port of +Spain having been built by French and Spaniards according to their +national tendencies, and especially with a view to the temperature, +which is that of a forcing house, and rarely falls below 80 deg.. The +streets are broad, and are planted with trees for shade, each house +where room permits having a garden of its own, with palms and mangoes +and coffee-plants and creepers. Of sanitary arrangements there seemed +to be none. There is abundance of rain, and the gutters which run down +by the footway are flushed almost every day. But they are all open. +Dirt of every kind lies about freely, to be washed into them or left to +putrify as fate shall direct" (p. 64). + +Lower down, on the same page, our author, luxuriating in his contempt +for exactitude when the character of other folk only is at stake, +continues:--"The town has between thirty and forty thousand people +living in it, and the [55] rain and Johnny crows between them keep off +pestilence." On page 65 we have the following astounding statement +with respect to one of the trees in the garden in front of the house in +which Mr. Froude was sojourning:--"At the gate stood as sentinel a +cabbage palm a hundred feet high." + +The above quotations, in which we have elected to be content with +indicating by typographical differences the points on which attention +should be mostly directed, will suffice, with any one knowing Trinidad, +as examples of Mr. Froude's trustworthiness. But as these are only on +matters of mere detail, involving no question of principle, they are +dismissed without any further comment. It must not be so, however, +with the following remarkable deliverances which occur on page 67 of +his too picturesque work:--"The commonplace intrudes upon the +imaginative. At moments one can fancy that the world is an enchanted +place after all, but then comes generally an absurd awakening. On the +first night of my arrival, before we went to bed, there came an +invitation to me to attend a political meeting which was to be held in +a few days on the Savannah. + +[56] "Trinidad is a purely Crown colony, and has escaped hitherto the +introduction of the election virus. The newspapers and certain busy +gentlemen in Port of Spain had discovered that they were living under a +'degrading tyranny,' and they demanded a constitution. They did not +complain that their affairs had been ill-managed. On the contrary, +they insisted that they were the most prosperous of the West Indian +colonies, and alone had a surplus in their treasury. If this was so, +it seemed to me that they had better let well alone. The population, +all told, was but 170,000, less by thirty thousand than that of +Barbados. They were a mixed and motley assemblage of all races and +colours, busy each with their own affairs, and never hitherto troubling +themselves about politics. But it had pleased the Home Government to +set up the beginning of a constitution again in Jamaica; no one knew +why, but so it was; and Trinidad did not choose to be behindhand. The +official appointments were valuable, and had been hitherto given away +by the Crown. The local popularities very naturally wished to have +them for themselves. This was the [57] reality in the thing, so far as +there was a reality. It was dressed up in the phrases borrowed from +the great English masters of the art, about privileges of manhood, +moral dignity, the elevating influence of the suffrage, &c., intended +for home consumption among the believers in the orthodox radical faith." + +The passages which we have signalized in the above quotation, and which +occur with more elaboration and heedless assurance on a later page, +will produce a feeling of wonder at the hardihood of him who not only +conceived, but penned and dared to publish them as well, against the +gentlemen whom we all know to be foremost in the political agitation at +which Mr. Froude so flippantly sneers. An emphatic denial may be +opposed to his pretence that "they did not complain that their affairs +had been ill-managed." Why, the very gist and kernel of the whole +agitation, set forth in print through long years of iteration, has been +the scandalous mismanagement of the affairs of the Colony--especially +under the baleful administration of Governor Irving. The Augean +Stable, miscalled by him "The Public Works Department," and whose +officials he coolly [58] fastened upon the financial vitals of that +long-suffering Colony, baffled even the resolute will of a Des Voeux to +cleanse it. Poor Sir Sanford Freeling attempted the cleansing, but +foundered ignominiously almost as soon as he embarked on that Herculean +enterprise. Sir A. E. Havelock, who came after, must be mentioned by +the historian of Trinidad merely as an incarnate accident in the +succession of Governors to whom the destinies of that maltreated Colony +have been successively intrusted since the departure of Sir Arthur +Hamilton Gordon. The present Governor of Trinidad, Sir William +Robinson, is a man of spirit and intelligence, keenly alive to the +grave responsibilities resting on him as a ruler of men and moulder of +men's destinies. Has he, with all his energy, his public spirit and +indisputable devotion to the furtherance of the Colony's interests, +been able to grapple successfully with the giant evil? Has he +effectually gained the ear of our masters in Downing Street regarding +the inefficiency and wastefulness of Governor Irving's pet department? +We presume that his success has been but very partial, for otherwise it +is difficult to conceive the motive for [59] retaining the army of +officials radiating from that office, with the chief under whose +supervision so many architectural and other scandals have for so long +been the order of the day. The Public Works Department is costly +enough to have been a warning to the whole of the West Indies. It is +true that the lavish squandering of the people's money by that +department has been appreciably checked since the advent of the present +head of the Government. The papers no longer team with accounts, nor +is even the humblest aesthetic sense, offended now, as formerly, with +views of unsightly, useless and flimsy erections, the cost of which, on +an average, was five times more than that of good and reputable +structures. + +This, however, has been entirely due to the personal influence of the +Governor. Sir William Robinson, not being the tool, as Sir Henry +Irving owned that he was, of the Director of Public Works, could not be +expected to be his accomplice or screener in the cynical waste of the +public funds. Here, then, is the personal rectitude of a ruler +operating as a safeguard to the people's interests; and we gladly +confess our entire agreement with [60] Mr. Froude on the subject of the +essential qualifications of a Crown Governor. Mr. Froude contends, and +we heartily coincide with him, that a ruler of high training and noble +purposes would, as the embodiment of the administrative authority, be +the very best provision for the government of Colonies constituted as +ours are. But he has also pointed out, and that in no equivocal terms, +that the above are far from having been indispensable qualifications +for the patronage of Downing Street. He has shown that the Colonial +Office is, more often than otherwise, swayed in the appointment of +Colonial Governors by considerations among which the special fitness of +the man appointed holds but a secondary place. On this point we have +much gratification in giving Mr. Froude's own words (p. 91):--"Among +the public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be +found fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty if a sincere +effort be made to find them. Alas! in times past we have sent persons +to rule our Baratarias to whom Sancho Panza was a sage--troublesome +members of Parliament, younger brothers of powerful families, +impecunious peers; favourites, [61] with backstairs influence, for whom +a provision was to be found; colonial clerks bred in the office who had +been obsequious and useful!" Now then, applying these facts to the +political history of Trinidad, with which we are more particularly +concerned at present, what do we find? We find that in the person of +Sir A. H. Gordon (1867-1870) that Colony at length chanced upon a ruler +both competent and eager to advance her interests, not only materially, +but in the nobler respects that give dignity to the existence of a +community. Of course, he was opposed--ably, strenuously, violently, +virulently--but the metal of which the man was composed was only fused +into greater firmness by being subjected to such fiery tests. On +leaving Trinidad, this eminent ruler left as legacies to the Colony he +had loved and worked for so heartily, laws that placed the persons and +belongings of the inhabitants beyond the reach of wanton aggression; +the means by which honest and laborious industry could, through +agriculture, benefit both itself and the general revenue. He also left +an educational system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway +to knowledge, to [62] distinction, and, if the objects of its +beneficence were worthy of the boon, to serviceableness to their native +country. Above all, he left peace among the jarring interests which, +under the badge of Englishman and of Creole, under the badge of +Catholic and under the badge of Protestant, and so many other forms of +sectional divergence, had too long distracted Trinidad. This he had +effected, not by constituting himself a partisan of either section, but +by inquiring with statesmanlike appreciation, and allowing the +legitimate claims of each to a certain scope of influence in the +furtherance of the Colony's welfare. Hence the bitter rivalry of +jarring interests was transformed into harmonious co-operation on all +sides, in advancing the common good of the common country. + +The Colonial Office, knowing little and caring less about that noble +jewel in the British Crown, sent out as successor to so brilliant and +successful an administrator--whom? One Sir James Robert Longden, a +gentleman without initiative, without courage, and, above all, with a +slavish adherence to red-tape and a clerk-like dread of compromising +his berth. Having served for a long series of years in subordinate +posts in [63] minor dependencies, the habit of being impressed and +influenced by colonial magnates grew and gathered strength within him. +Such a ruler, of course, the serpents that had only been "scotched, but +not killed," by the stern procedures of Governor Gordon, could wind +round, beguile, and finally cause to fall. Measure after measure of his +predecessor which he could in any way neutralize in the interests of +the colonial clique, was rendered of none effect. In fact, he was +subservient to the wishes of those who had all long objected to those +measures, but had not dared even to hint their objections to the +beneficent autocrat who had willed and given them effect for the +general welfare. After Governor Longden came Sir Henry Turner Irving, +a personage who brought to Trinidad a reputation for all the vulgar +colonial prejudices which, discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, +in the Governor of a mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. +More than amply did he justify the evil reports with which rumour had +heralded his coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James +Longden, who was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, +Governor Irving threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the +Sugar Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and +whose belief he evidently shared, that sugar-growers alone should be +possessors of the lands of the West Indies. It would be wearisome to +detail the methods by which every act of Sir Arthur Gordon's to benefit +the whole population was cynically and systematically undone by this +his native-hating successor. In short, the policy of reaction which +Sir James Longden began, found in Governor Irving not only a consistent +promoter, but, as it were, a sinister incarnation. It is true that he +could not, at the bidding and on the advice of his planter-friends, +shut up the Crown Lands of the Colony against purchasers of limited +means, because they happened to be mostly natives of colour, but he +could annul the provision by which every Warden in the rural districts, +on the receipt of the statutory fees, had to supply a Government title +on the spot to every one who purchased any acreage of Crown Lands. +Every intending purchaser, therefore, whether living at Toco, +Guayaguayare, Monos, or Icacos, the four extreme points of the Island +of Trinidad, was compelled to go to Port of [65] Spain, forty or fifty +miles distant, through an almost roadless country, to compete at the +Sub-Intendant's auction sales, with every probability of being outbid +in the end, and having his long-deposited money returned to him after +all his pains. Lieutenant-Governor Des Voeux told the Legislature of +Trinidad that the monstrous Excise imposts of the Colony were an +incentive to smuggling, and he thought that the duties, licenses, &c., +should be lowered in the interest of good and equitable government. +Sir Henry Turner Irving, however, besides raising the duties on +spirituous liquors, also enacted that every distillery, however small, +must pay a salary to a Government official stationed within it to +supervise the manufacture of the spirits. This, of course, was the +death-blow to all the minor competition which had so long been +disturbing the peace of mind of the mighty possessors of the great +distilleries. Ahab was thus made glad with the vineyard of Naboth. + +In the matter of official appointments, too, Governor Irving was +consistent in his ostentatious hostility to Creoles in general, and to +coloured Creoles in particular. Of the fifty-six appointments which +that model Governor [66] made in 1876, only seven happened to be +natives and coloured, out of a population in which the latter element +is so preponderant as to excite the fears of Mr. Froude. In +educational matters, though he could not with any show of sense or +decency re-enact the rule which excluded students of illegitimate birth +from the advantages of the Royal College, he could, nevertheless, +pander to the prejudices of himself and his friends by raising the +standard of proficiency while reducing the limit of the age for free +admission to that institution--boys of African descent having shown an +irrepressible persistency in carrying off prizes. + +Every one acquainted with Trinidad politics knows very well the +ineffably low dodges and subterfuges under which the Arima Railway was +prevented from having its terminus in the centre of that town. The +public was promised a saving of Eight Thousand Pounds by their +high-minded Governor for a diversion of the line "by only a few yards" +from the originally projected terminus. In the end it was found out +not only that the terminus of the railway was nearly a whole mile +outside of the town of Arima, but also that Twenty [67] Thousand Pounds +"Miscellaneous" had to be paid up by the good folk of Trinidad, in +addition to gulping down their disappointment at saving no Eight +Thousand Pounds, and having to find by bitter experience, especially in +rainy weather, that their Governor's few yards were just his +characteristic way of putting down yards which he well knew were to be +counted by hundreds. Then, again, we have the so-called San Fernando +Waterworks, an abortion, a scandal for which there is no excuse, as the +head of the Public Works Department went his own way despite the +experience of those who knew better than he, and the protests of those +who would have had to pay. Seventeen Thousand Pounds represent the +amount of debt with which Governor Irving's pet department has saddled +the town of San Fernando for water, which half the inhabitants cannot +get, and which few of the half who do get it dare venture to drink. +Summa fastigia rerum secuti sumus. If in the works that were so +prominent before the public gaze these enormous abuses could flourish, +defiant of protest and opposition, what shall we think of the nooks and +corners of that same squandering department, which of [68] course must +have been mere gnats in the eyes of a Governor who had swallowed so +many monstrous camels! The Governor was callous. Trinidad was a +battening ground for his friends; but she had in her bosom men who were +her friends, and the struggle began, constitutionally of course, which, +under the leadership of the Mayor of San Fernando, has continued up to +now, culminating at last in the Reform movement which Mr. Froude +decries, and which his pupil, Mr. S. H. Gatty, is, from what has +appeared in the Trinidad papers, doing his "level best" to render +abortive. + +Sir Sanford Freeling, by the will and pleasure of Downing Street, was +the next successor, after Governor Irving, to the chief ruler-ship of +Trinidad. Incredible as it may sound, he was a yet more +disadvantageous bargain for the Colony's L4000 a year. A better man in +many respects than his predecessor, he was in many more a much worse +Governor. The personal affability of a man can be known only to those +who come into actual contact with him--the public measures of a ruler +over a community touches it, mediately or immediately, throughout all +its sections. The bad boldness of [69] Governor Irving achieved much +that the people, especially in the outlying districts, could see and +appreciate. For example, he erected Rest-houses all over the remoter +and more sparsely peopled quarters of the Colony, after the manner of +such provisions in Oriental lands. The population who came in contact +with these conveniences, and to whom access to them--for a +consideration--had never been denied, saw with their own eyes tangible +evidence of the Governor's activity, and inferred therefrom a +solicitude on his part for the public welfare. Had they, however, been +given a notion of the bill which had had to be paid for those frail, +though welcome hostelries, they would have stood aghast at the +imbecility, or, if not logically that, the something very much worse, +through which five times the actual worth of these buildings had been +extracted from the Treasury. Sir Sanford Freeling, on the other hand, +while being no screener of jobbery and peculation, had not the strength +of mind whereof jobbers and peculators do stand in dread. In evidence +of that poor ruler's infirmity of purpose, we would only cite the +double fact that, whereas in 1883 he was the first to enter a practical +protest against the housing [70] of the diseased and destitute in the +then newly finished, but most leaky, House of Refuge on the St. Clair +Lands, by having the poor saturated inmates carried off in his presence +to the Colonial Hospital, yet His Excellency was the very man who, in +the very next year, 1884, not only sanctioned the shooting down of +Indian immigrants at their festival, but actually directed the use of +buck-shot for that purpose! Evidently, if these two foregoing +statements are true, Mr. Froude must join us in thinking that a man +whose mind could be warped by external influences from the softest +commiseration for the sufferings of his kind, one year, into being the +cold-blooded deviser of the readiest method for slaughtering unarmed +holiday-makers, the very next year, is not the kind of ruler whom he +and we so cordially desiderate. We have already mentioned above how +ignominious Governor Freeling's failure was in attempting to meddle +with the colossal abuses of the Public Works Department. + +Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock next had the privilege of enjoying the +paradisaic sojourn at Queen's House, St. Ann's, as well as the four +thousand pounds a year attached to the [71] right of occupying that +princely residence. Save as a dandy, however, and the harrier of +subordinate officials, the writer of the annals of Trinidad may well +pass him by. So then it may be seen what, by mere freaks of +Chance--the ruling deity at Downing Street--the administrative +experience of Trinidad had been from the departure of that true king in +Israel,--Sir Arthur Gordon, up to the visit of Mr. Froude. First, a +slave to red-tape, procrastination, and the caprices of pretentious +colonialists; next, a daring schemer, confident of the support of the +then dominant Sugar Interest, and regarding and treating the resources +of the Island as free booty for his friends, sycophants, and +favourites; then, an old woman, garbed in male attire, having an +infirmity of purpose only too prone to be blown about by every wind of +doctrine, alternating helplessly between tenderness and truculence, the +charity of a Fry and the tragic atrocity of Medea. After this dismal +ruler, Trinidad, by the grace of the Colonial Office, was subjected to +the manipulation of an unctuous dandy. This successor of Gordon, of +Elliot, and of Cairns, durst not oppose high-placed official +malfeasants, but [72] was inexorable with regard to minor delinquents. +In the above retrospect we have purposely omitted mentioning such +transient rulers as Mr. Rennie, Sir G. W. Des Voeux, and last, but by +no means least, Sir F. Barlee, a high-minded Governor, whom death so +suddenly and inscrutably snatched away from the good work he had +loyally begun. Every one of the above temporary administrators was a +right good man for a post in which brain power and moral back-bone are +essential qualifications. But the Fates so willed it that Trinidad +should never enjoy the permanent governance of either. In view of the +above facts; in view also of the lessons taught the inhabitants of +Trinidad so frequently, so cruelly, what wonder is there that, failing +of faith in a probability, which stands one against four, of their +getting another worthy ruler when Governor Robinson shall have left +them, they should seek to make hay while the sun shines, by providing +against the contingency of such Governors as they know from bitter +experience that Downing Street would place over their destinies, should +the considerations detailed by Mr. Froude or any other equally [73] +unworthy counsellor supervene? That the leading minds of Trinidad +should believe in an elective legislature is a logical consequence of +the teachings of the past, when the Colony was under the manipulation +of the sort of Governors above mentioned as immediately succeeding Sir +Arthur Gordon. + +This brings us to the motives, the sordid motives, which Mr. Froude, +oblivious of the responsibility of his high literary status, has +permitted himself gratuitously, and we may add scandalously, to impute +to the heads of the Reform movement in Trinidad. It was perfectly +competent that our author should decline, as he did decline, to have +anything to do, even as a spectator, at a meeting with the object of +which he had no sympathy. But our opinion is equally decided that Mr. +Froude has transgressed the bounds of decent political antagonism, nay, +even of common sense, when he presumes to state that it was not for any +other object than the large salaries of the Crown appointments, which +they covet for themselves, that the Reform leaders are contending. +This is not criticism: it is slander. To make culpatory statements +against others, [74] without ability to prove them, is, to say the +least, hazardous; but to make accusations to formulate which the +accuser is forced, not only to ignore facts, but actually to deny them, +is, to our mind, nothing short of rank defamation. + +Mr. Froude is not likely to impress the world (of the West Indies, at +any rate) with the transparently silly, if not intentionally malicious, +ravings which he has indulged in on the subject of Trinidad and its +politics. Here are some of the things which this "champion of +Anglo-West Indians" attempts to force down the throats of his readers. +He would have us believe that Mr. Francis Damian, the Mayor of Port of +Spain, and one of the wealthiest of the native inhabitants of Trinidad, +a man who has retired from an honourable and lucrative legal practice, +and devotes his time, his talents, and his money to the service of his +native country; that Mr. Robert Guppy, the venerable and venerated +Mayor of San Fernando, with his weight of years and his sufficing +competence, and with his long record of self-denying services to the +public; that Mr. George Goodwille, one of the most successful merchants +in the Colonies; that Mr. Conrad [75] F. Stollmeyer, a gentleman +retired, in the evening of his days, on his well-earned ample means, +are open to the above sordid accusation. In short, that those and +such-like individuals who, on account of their private resources and +mental capabilities, as well as the public influence resulting +therefrom, are, by the sheer logic of circumstances, forced to be at +the head of public movements, are actuated by a craving for the few +hundred pounds a year for which there is such a scramble at Downing +Street among the future official grandees of the West Indies! But +granting that this allegation of Mr. Froude's was not as baseless as we +have shown it to be, and that the leaders of the Reform agitation were +impelled by the desire which our author seeks to discredit them with, +what then? Have they who have borne the heat and the burden of the day +in making the Colonies what they are no right to the enjoyment of the +fruits of their labours? The local knowledge, the confidence and +respect of the population, which such men enjoy, and can wield for good +or evil in the community, are these matters of small account in the +efficient government of the Colony? Our author, in [76] specifying the +immunities of his ideal Governor, who is also ours, recommends, amongst +other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose his own +advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that the advisers +so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have rushed from the +destitution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained flesh-pots of the +Colonies. + +At any rate, whatever political fate Mr. Froude may desire for the +Colonies in general, and for Trinidad in particular, it is nevertheless +unquestionable that he and the scheme that he may have for our future +governance, in this year of grace 1888, have both come into view +entirely out of season. The spirit of the times has rendered +impossible any further toleration of the arrogance which is based on +historical self-glorification. The gentlemen of Trinidad, who are +struggling for political enfranchisement, are not likely to heed, +except as a matter for indignant contempt, the obtrusion by our author +of his opinion that "they had best let well alone." On his own +showing, the persons appointed to supreme authority in the Colonies +are, more usually than not, entirely unfit for [77] holding any +responsible position whatever over their fellows. Now, can it be +doubted that less care, less scruple, less consideration, would be +exercised in the choice of the satellites appointed to revolve, in +these far-off latitudes, around the central luminaries? Have we not +found, are we not still finding every day, that the +brain-dizziness--Xenophon calls it kephalalgeia+--induced by sudden +promotion has transformed the abject suppliants at the Downing Street +backstairs into the arrogant defiers of the opinions, and violators of +the rights, of the populations whose subjection to the British Crown +alone could have rendered possible the elevation of such folk and their +impunity in malfeasance? The cup of loyal forbearance reached the +overflowing point since the trickstering days of Governor Irving, and +it is useless now to believe in the possibility of a return of the +leading minds of Trinidad to a tame acquiescence as regards the +probabilities of their government according to the Crown system. Mr. +Froude's own remarks point out definitely enough that a community so +governed is absolutely at the mercy, for good or for evil, of the man +who happens to be invested with [78] the supreme authority. He has +also shown that in our case that supreme authority is very often +disastrously entrusted. Yet has he nothing but sneers for the efforts +of those who strive to be emancipated from liability to such +subjection. Mr. Froude's deftly-worded sarcasms about "degrading +tyranny," "the dignity of manhood," &c., are powerless to alter the +facts. Crown Colony Government--denying, as it does to even the wisest +and most interested in a community cursed with it all participation in +the conduct of their own affairs, while investing irresponsible and +uninterested "birds of passage" (as our author aptly describes them) +with the right of making ducks and drakes of the resources wrung from +the inhabitants--is a degrading tyranny, which the sneers of Mr. Froude +cannot make otherwise. The dignity of manhood, on the other hand, we +are forced to admit, runs scanty chance of recognition by any being, +however masculine his name, who could perpetrate such a literary and +moral scandal as "The Bow of Ulysses." Yet the dignity of manhood +stands venerable there, and whilst the world lasts shall gain for its +possessors the right of record on the roll of [79] those whom the +worthy of the world delight to honour. + +All of a piece, as regards veracity and prudence, is the further +allegation of Mr. Froude's, to the effect that there was never any +agitation for Reform in Trinidad before that which he passes under +review. It is, however, a melancholy fact, which we are ashamed to +state, that Mr. Froude has written characteristically here also, either +through crass ignorance or through deliberate malice. Any respectable, +well-informed inhabitant of Trinidad, who happened not to be an +official "bird of passage," might, on our author's honest inquiry, have +informed him that Trinidad is the land of chronic agitation for Reform. +Mr. Froude might also have been informed that, even forty-five years +ago, that is in 1843, an elective constitution, with all the electoral +districts duly marked out, was formulated and transmitted by the +leading inhabitants of Trinidad to the then Secretary of State for the +Colonies. He might also have learnt that on every occasion that any of +the shady Governors, whom he has so well depicted, manifested any +excess of his undesirable qualities, there has been a movement [80] +among the educated people in behalf of changing their country's +political condition. + +We close this part of our review by reiterating our conviction that, +come what will, the Crown Colony system, as at present managed, is +doomed. Britain may, in deference to the alleged wishes of her +impalpable "Anglo-West Indians"--whose existence rests on the authority +of Mr. Froude alone--deny to Trinidad and other Colonies even the small +modicum prayed for of autonomy, but in doing so the Mother Country will +have to sternly revise her present methods of selecting and appointing +Governors. As to the subordinate lot, they will have to be worth their +salt when there is at the head of the Government a man who is truly +deserving of his. + +NOTES + +53. +It is not clear from the original text exactly where the brief +chapter "Trinidad" ends and where the longer one entitled "Reform in +Trinidad" begins. (The copy indicates that the "Trinidad" chapter ends +at page 54, but the relevant page contains no subheading.) I have, +therefore, chosen to fuse the two chapters since they form a logical +unit. + +77. +Since there is little Greek in this work, I have simply +transliterated it. + + + +BOOK II: NEGRO FELICITY IN THE WEST INDIES + +[81] We come now to the ingenious and novel fashion in which Mr. Froude +carries out his investigations among the black population, and to his +dogmatic conclusions concerning them. He says:-- + +"In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire was to see the +human inhabitants, to learn what they were doing, how they were living, +and what they were thinking about, and this could best be done by +drives about the town and neighbourhood." + +"Drives about the town and neighbourhood," indeed! To learn and be +able to depict with faithful accuracy what people "were doing, how they +were living, and what they were thinking about"--all this being best +done (domestic circumstances, nay, soul-workings and all!) through +fleeting glimpses of shifting [82] panoramas of intelligent human +beings! What a bright notion! We have here the suggestion of a +capacity too superhuman to be accepted on trust, especially when, as in +this case, it is by implication self-arrogated. The modesty of this +thaumaturgic traveller in confining the execution of his detailed +scrutiny of a whole community to the moderate progression of some +conventional vehicle, drawn by some conventional quadruped or the +other, does injustice to powers which, if possessed at all, might have +compassed the same achievement in the swifter transit of an express +train, or, better still perhaps, from the empyrean elevation of a +balloon! Yet is Mr. Froude confident that data professed to be thus +collected would easily pass muster with the readers of his book! A +confidence of this kind is abnormal, and illustrates, we think most +fully, all the special characteristics of the man. With his passion +for repeating, our author tells us in continuation of a strange +rhapsody on Negro felicity:-- + +"Once more, the earth does not contain any peasantry so well off, so +well-cared for, so happy, so sleek and contented, as the sons [83] and +daughters of the emancipated slaves in the English West Indian Islands." + +Again:-- + +"Under the rule of England, in these islands, the two millions of these +brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly contented specimens of +the human race to be found upon the planet.... If happiness be the +satisfaction of every conscious desire, theirs is a condition that +admits of no improvement: were they independent, they might quarrel +among themselves, and the weaker become the bondsmen of the stronger; +under the beneficent despotism of the English Government, which knows +no difference of colour and permits no oppression, they can sleep, +lounge, and laugh away their lives as they please, fearing no danger," +&c. + +Now, then, let us examine for a while this roseate picture of Arcadian +blissfulness said to be enjoyed by British West Indian Negroes in +general, and by the Negroes of Trinidad in particular. "No distinction +of colour" under the British rule, and, better still, absolute +protection of the weaker against the stronger! This latter +consummation especially, [84] Mr. Froude tells us, has been happily +secured "under the beneficent despotism" of the Crown Colony system. +However, let the above vague hyperboles be submitted to the test of +practical experience, and the abstract government analysed in its +concrete relations with the people. + +Unquestionably the actual and direct interposition of the shielding +authority above referred to, between man and man, is the immediate +province of the MAGISTRACY. All other branches of the Government, +having in themselves no coercive power, must, from the supreme +executive downwards, in cases of irreconcilable clashing of interests, +have ultimate recourse to the magisterial jurisdiction. Putting aside, +then, whatever culpable remissness may have been manifested by +magistrates in favour of powerful malfeasants, we would submit that the +fact of stipendiary justices converting the tremendous, far-reaching +powers which they wield into an engine of systematic oppression, ought +to dim by many a shade the glowing lustre of Mr. Froude's encomiums. +Facts, authentic and notorious, might be adduced in hundreds, +especially with respect to [85] the Port of Spain and San Fernando +magistracies (both of which, since the administration of Sir J. R. +Longden, have been exclusively the prizes of briefless English +barristers*), to prove that these gentry, far from being bulwarks to +the weaker as against the stronger, have, in their own persons, been +the direst scourges that the poor, particularly when coloured, have +been afflicted by in aggravation of the difficulties of their lot. +Only typical examples can here be given out of hundreds upon hundreds +which might easily be cited and proved against the incumbents of the +abovementioned chief stipendiary magistracies. One such example was a +matter of everyday discussion at the time of Mr. Froude's visit. The +inhabitants were even backed in their complaints by the Governor, who +had, in response to their cry of distress, forwarded their prayer [86] +to the home authorities for relief from the hard treatment which they +alleged themselves to be suffering at the hands of the then magistrate. +Our allusion here is to the chief town, Port of Spain, the magistracy +of which embraces also the surrounding districts, containing a total +population of between 60,000 and 70,000 souls. Mr. R. D. Mayne filled +this responsible office during the latter years of Sir J. R. Longden's +governorship. He was reputed, soon after his arrival, to have +announced from the bench that in every case he would take the word of a +constable in preference to the testimony of any one else. The +Barbadian rowdies who then formed the major part of the constabulary of +Trinidad, and whose bitter hatred of the older residents had been not +only plainly expressed, but often brutally exemplified, rejoiced in the +opportunity thus afforded for giving effect to their truculent +sentiments. At that time the bulk of the immigrants from Barbados were +habitual offenders whom the Government there had provided with a free +passage to wherever they elected to betake themselves. The more +intelligent of the men flocked to the Trinidad [87] police ranks, into +which they were admitted generally without much inquiry into their +antecedents. On this account they were shunned by the decent +inhabitants, a course which they repaid with savage animosity. +Perjuries the most atrocious and crushing, especially to the +respectable poor, became the order of the day. Hundreds of innocent +persons were committed to gaol and the infamy of convict servitude, +without the possibility of escape from, or even mitigation of, their +ignominious doom. A respectable woman (a native of Barbados, too, who +in the time of the first immigration of the better sort of her +compatriots had made Trinidad her home) was one of the first victims of +this iniquitous state of affairs. + +The class of people to which she belonged was noted as orderly, +industrious and law-abiding, and, being so, it had identified itself +entirely with the natives of the land of its adoption. This fact alone +was sufficient to involve these immigrants in the same lot of +persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and were +carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, on the +occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the woman in +question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of ironing for +her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow in the street +before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud scream, which, on +looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of a boy of some ten +or twelve years of age, who had been violently struck with the fist by +another youth of larger size and evidently his senior in age. The +smaller fellow had laid fast hold of his antagonist by the collar, and +would not let go, despite the blows which, to extricate himself and in +retaliation of the puny buffets of his youthful detainer, he "showered +thick as wintry rain." + +The woman, seeing the posture of affairs, shouted to the combatants to +desist, but to no purpose, rage and absorption in their wrathful +occupation having deafened both to all external sounds. Seized with +pity for the younger lad, who was getting so mercilessly the worst of +it, the woman, hastily throwing a shawl over her shoulders, sprang into +the street and rushed between the juvenile belligerents. Dexterously +extricating the hand of the little fellow from the collar of his +antagonist, she hurried the former [89] into her gateway, shouting out +to him at the same time to fasten the door on the inside. This the +little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this surcease from actual +conflict, short though it was, must have afforded space for the natural +instinct of self-preservation to reassert itself. Hereupon the elder +of the two lads, like a tiger robbed of his prey, sprang furiously to +the gate, and began to use frantic efforts to force an entrance. +Perceiving this, the woman (who meanwhile had not been idle with +earnest dissuasions and remonstrances, which had all proved futile) +pulled the irate youngster back, and interposed her body between him +and the gate, warding him off with her hands every time that he rushed +forward to renew the assault. At length a Barbadian policeman hove in +sight, and was hastily beckoned to by the poor ironer, who, by this +time, had nearly come to the end of her strength. The uniformed "Bim" +was soon on the spot; but, without asking or waiting to hear the cause +of the disturbance, he shouted to the volunteer peacemaker, "I see you +are fighting: you are my prisoner!" Saying this, he clutched the poor +thunderstruck creature by the wrist, and there [90] and then set about +hurrying her off towards the police station. It happened, however, +that the whole affair had occurred in the sight of a gentleman of +well-known integrity. He, seated at a window overlooking the street, +had witnessed the whole squabble, from its beginning in words to its +culmination in blows; so, seeing that the woman was most unjustly +arrested, he went out and explained the circumstances to the guardian +of order. But to no purpose; the poor creature was taken to the +station, accompanied by the gentleman, who most properly volunteered +that neighbourly turn. There she was charged with "obstructing the +policeman in the lawful execution of his duty." She was let out on +bail, and next day appeared to answer the charge. + +Mr. Mayne, the magistrate, presided. The constable told his tale +without any material deviation from the truth, probably confident, from +previous experience, that his accusation was sufficient to secure a +conviction. On the defendant's behalf, the gentleman referred to, who +was well known to the magistrate himself, was called, and he related +the facts as we have above given them. Even Mr. Mayne [91] could see +no proof of the information, and this he confessed in the following +qualified judgment:-- + +"You are indeed very lucky, my good woman, that the constable has +failed to prove his case against you; otherwise you would have been +sent to hard labour, as the ordinance provides, without the option of a +fine. But as the case stands, you must pay a fine of L2"!!! + +Comment on this worse than scandalous decision would be superfluous. + +Another typical case, illustrative of the truth of Mr. Froude's boast +of the eminent fair play, nay, even the stout protection, that Negroes, +and generally, "the weaker," have been wont to receive from British +magistrates, may be related. + +An honest, hard-working couple, living in one of the outlying +districts, cultivated a plot of ground, upon the produce of which they +depended for their livelihood. After a time these worthy folk, on +getting to their holding in the morning, used to find exasperating +evidence of the plunder overnight of their marketable provisions. +Determined to discover the depredator, they concealed themselves [92] +in the garden late one night, and awaited the result. By that means +they succeeded in capturing the thief, a female, who, not suspecting +their presence, had entered the garden, dug out some of the provisions, +and was about to make off with her booty. In spite of desperate +resistance, she was taken to the police station and there duly charged +with larceny. Meanwhile her son, on hearing of his mother's +incarceration, hastened to find her in her cell, and, after briefly +consulting with her, he decided on entering a countercharge of assault +and battery against both her captors. Whether or not this bold +proceeding was prompted by the knowledge that the dispensing of justice +in the magistrate's court was a mere game of cross-purposes, a cynical +disregard of common sense and elementary equity, we cannot say; but the +ultimate result fully justified this abnormal hardihood of filial +championship. + +On the day of the trial, the magistrate heard the evidence on both +sides, the case of larceny having been gone into first. For her +defence, the accused confined herself to simple denials of the +allegations against her, at the [93] same time entertaining the court +with a lachrymose harangue about her rough treatment at the hands of +the accusing parties. Finally, the decision of the magistrate was: +that the prisoner be discharged, and the plundered goods restored to +her; and, as to the countercharge, that the husband and wife be +imprisoned, the former for three and the latter for two months, with +hard labour! When we add that there was, at that time, no Governor or +Chief Justice accessible to the poorer and less intelligent classes, as +is now the case (Sir Henry T. Irving and Sir Joseph Needham having been +respectively superseded by Sir William Robinson and Sir John Gorrie), +one can imagine what scope there was for similar exhibitions of the +protecting energy of British rule. + +As we have already said, during Mr. Froude's sojourn in Trinidad the +"sleek, happy, and contented" people, whose condition "admitted of no +improvement," were yet groaning in bitter sorrow, nay, in absolute +despair, under the crushing weight of such magisterial decisions as +those which I have just recorded. Let me add two more [94] typical +cases which occurred during Mr. Mayne's tenure of office in the island. + +L. B. was a member of one of those brawling sisterhoods that frequently +disturbed the peace of the town of Port of Spain. She had a "pal" or +intimate chum familiarly known as "Lady," who staunchly stood by her in +all the squabbles that occurred with their adversaries. One particular +night, the police were called to a street in the east of the town, in +consequence of an affray between some women of the sort referred to. +Arriving on the spot, they found the fight already over, but a war of +words was still proceeding among the late combatants, of whom the +aforesaid "Lady" was one of the most conspicuous. A list was duly made +out of the parties found so engaged, and it included the name of L. B., +who happened not to be there, or even in Port of Spain at all, she +having some days before gone into the country to spend a little time +with some relatives. The inserting of her name was an inferential +mistake on the part of the police, arising from the presence of "Lady" +at the brawl, she being well known by them to be the inseparable ally +of L. B. on such occasions. + +[95] It was not unnatural that in the obscurity they should have +concluded that the latter was present with her altera ego, when in +reality she was not there. + +The participants in the brawl were charged at the station, and +summonses, including one to L. B., were duly issued. On her return to +Port of Spain a day or two after the occurrence, the wrongly +incriminated woman received from the landlady her key, along with the +magisterial summons that had resulted from the error of the constables. +The day of the trial came on, and L. B. stood before Mr. Mayne, strong +in her innocence, and supported by the sworn testimony of her landlady +as well as of her uncle from the country, with whom and with his family +she had been uninterruptedly staying up to one or two days after the +occurrence in which she had been thus implicated. The evidence of the +old lady, who, like thousands of her advanced age in the Colony, had +never even once had occasion to be present in any court of justice, was +to the following effect: That the defendant, who was a tenant of hers, +had, on a certain morning (naming days before the affray occurred), +[96] come up to her door well dressed, and followed by a porter +carrying her luggage. L. B., she continued, then handed her the key of +the apartment, informing her at the same time that she was going for +some days into the country to her relatives, for a change, and +requesting also that the witness should on no account deliver the key +to any person who should ask for it during her absence. This witness +further deposed to receiving the summons from the police, which she +placed along with the key for delivery to L. B. on the latter's return +home. + +The testimony of the uncle was also decisively corroborative of that of +the preceding witness, as to the absence from Port of Spain of L. B. +during the days embraced in the defence. The alibi was therefore +unquestionably made out, especially as none of the police witnesses +would venture to swear to having actually seen L. B. at the brawl. The +magistrate had no alternative but that of acquiescing in the proof of +her innocence; so he dismissed the charge against the accused, who +stood down from among the rest, radiant with satisfaction. The other +defendants were duly [97] convicted, and sentenced to a term of +imprisonment with hard labour. All this was quite correct; but here +comes matter for consideration with regard to the immaculate +dispensation of justice as vaunted so confidently by Mr. Froude. + +On receiving their sentence the women all stood down from the dock, to +be escorted to prison, except "Lady," who, by the way, had preserved a +rigid silence, while some of the other defendants had voluntarily and, +it may be added, generously protested that L. B. was not present on the +occasion of this particular row. "Lady," whether out of affection or +from a less respectable motive, cried out to the stipendiary justice. +"But, sir, it ain't fair. How is it every time that L. B. and me come +up before you, you either fine or send up the two of us together, and +to-day you are sending me up alone?" Moved either by the logic or the +pathos of this objurgation, the magistrate, turning towards L. B., who +had lingered after her narrow escape to watch the issue of the +proceedings, thus addressed her:--"L. B., upon second thoughts I order +you to the same term of hard labour at the Royal Gaol with the [98] +others." The poor girl, having neither money nor friends intelligent +enough to interfere on her behalf, had to submit, and she underwent the +whole of this iniquitous sentence. + +The last typical case that we shall give illustrates the singular +application by this more than singular judge of the legal maxim caveat +emptor. A free coolie possessed of a donkey resolved to utilize the +animal in carting grass to the market. He therefore called on another +coolie living at some distance from him, whom he knew to own two carts, +a small donkey-cart and an ordinary cart for mule or horse. He +proposed the purchase of the smaller cart, stating his reason for +wishing to have it. The donkey-cart was then shown to the intending +purchaser, who, along with two Creole witnesses brought by him to make +out and attest the receipt on the occasion, found some of the iron +fittings defective, and drew the vendor's attention thereto. He, on +his side, engaged, on receiving the amount agreed to for the cart, to +send it off to the blacksmith for immediate repairs, to be delivered to +the purchaser next morning at the latest. On this understanding the +purchase money was paid down, and the [99] receipt, specifying that the +sum therein mentioned was for a donkey-cart, passed from the vendor to +the purchaser of the little vehicle. Next day at about noon the man +went with his donkey for the cart. Arrived there, his countryman had +the larger of the two carts brought out, and in pretended innocence +said to the purchaser of the donkey-cart, "Here is your cart." On this +a warm dispute arose, which was not abated by the presence and protests +of the two witnesses of the day before, who had hastily been summoned +by the victim to bear out his contention that it was the donkey-cart +and not the larger cart which had been examined, bargained for, +purchased, and promised to be delivered, the day before. + +The matter, on account of the sturdiness of the rascal's denials, had +to be referred to a court of law. The complainant engaged an able +solicitor, who laid the case before Mr. Mayne in all its transparent +simplicity and strength. The defendant, although he had, and as a +matter of fact could have, no means of invalidating the evidence of the +two witnesses, and above all of his receipt with his signature, relied +upon the fact that the cart which he [100] offered was much larger than +the one the complainant had actually bought, and that therefore +complainant would be the gainer by the transaction. Incredible as it +may sound, this view of the case commended itself to the magistrate, +who adopted it in giving his judgment against the complainant. In vain +did the solicitor protest that all the facts of the case were centred +in the desire and intention of the prosecutor to have specifically a +donkey-cart, which was abundantly proved by everything that had come +out in the proceedings. In vain also was his endeavour to show that a +man having only a donkey would be hopelessly embarrassed by having a +cart for it which was entirely intended for animals of much larger +size. The magistrate solemnly reiterated his decision, and wound up by +saying that the victim had lost his case through disregard of the legal +maxim caveat emptor--let the purchaser be careful. The rascally +defendant thus gained his case, and left the court in defiant triumph. + +The four preceding cases are thoroughly significant of the original +method in which thousands of cases were decided by this model +magistrate, to the great detriment, pecuniary, [101] social, and moral, +during more than ten years, of between 60,000 and 70,000 of the +population within the circle of his judicial authority. What shall we +think, therefore, of the fairness of Mr. Froude or his informants, who, +prompt and eager in imputing unworthy motives to gentlemen with +characters above reproach, have yet been so silent with regard to the +flagrant and frequent abuses of more than one of their countrymen by +whom the honour and fair fame of their nation were for years draggled +in the mire, and whose misdeeds were the theme of every tongue and +thousands of newspaper-articles in the West Indian Colonies? + + MR. ARTHUR CHILD, S.J.P. + +We now take San Fernando, the next most important magisterial district +after Port of Spain. At the time of Mr. Froude's visit, and for some +time before, the duties of the magistracy there were discharged by Mr. +Arthur Child, an "English barrister" who, of course, had possessed the +requisite qualification of being hopelessly briefless. For the ideal +justice which Mr. Froude would have Britons believe is meted out to the +weaker classes by their fellow-countrymen [102] in the West Indies, we +may refer the reader to the conduct of the above-named functionary on +the memorable occasion of the slaughter of the coolies under Governor +Freeling, in October, 1884. Mr. Child, as Stipendiary justice, had the +duty of reading the Riot Act to the immigrants, who were marching in +procession to the town of San Fernando, contrary, indeed, to the +Government proclamation which had forbidden it; and he it was who gave +the order to "fire," which resulted fatally to many of the unfortunate +devotees of Hosein. This mandate and its lethal consequences +anticipated by some minutes the similar but far more death-dealing +action of the Chief of Police, who was stationed at another post in the +vicinity of San Fernando. The day after the shooting down of a total +of more than one hundred immigrants, the protecting action of this +magistrate towards the weaker folk under his jurisdiction had a +striking exemplification, to which Mr. Froude is hereby made welcome. +Of course there was a general cry of horror throughout the Colony, and +especially in the San Fernando district, at the fatal outcome of the +proclamation, which had mentioned only "fine" and "imprisonment," [103] +but not Death, as the penalty of disregarding its prohibitions. For +nearly forty years, namely from their very first arrival in the Colony, +the East Indian immigrants had, according to specific agreement with +the Government, invariably been allowed the privilege of celebrating +their annual feast of Hosein, by walking in procession with their +Pagodas through the public roads and streets of the island, without +prohibition or hindrance of any kind from the authorities, save and +except in cases where rival estate pagodas were in danger of getting +into collision on the question of precedence. On such occasions the +police, who always attended the processions, usually gave the lead to +the pagodas of the labourers of estates according to their seniority as +immigrants. + +In no case up to 1884, after thirty odd years' inauguration in the +Colony, was the Hosein festival ever pretended to be any cause of +danger, actual or prospective, to any town or building. On the +contrary, business grew brisker and solidly improved at the approach of +the commemoration, owing to the very considerable sale of +parti-coloured paper, velvet, calico, and similar articles used in the +construction [104] of the pagodas. Governor Freeling, however, was, it +may be presumed, compelled to see danger in an institution which had +had nearly forty years' trial, without a single accident happening to +warrant any sudden interposition of the Government tending to its +suppression. At all events, the only action taken in 1884, in prospect +of their usual festival, was to notify the immigrants by proclamation, +and, it is said, also through authorized agents, that the details of +their fete were not to be conducted in the usual manner; and that their +appearance with pagodas in any public road or any town, without special +license from some competent local authority, would entail the penalty +of so many pounds fine, or imprisonment for so many months with hard +labour. The immigrants, to whom this unexpected change on the part of +the authorities was utterly incomprehensible, both petitioned and sent +deputations to the Governor, offering guarantees for the, if possible, +more secure celebration of the Hosein, and praying His Excellency to +cancel the prohibition as to the use of the roads, inasmuch as it +interfered with the essential part of their religious rite, which was +the "drowning," or casting into [105] the sea, of the pagodas. Having +utterly failed in their efforts with the Governor, the coolies resolved +to carry out their religious duty according to prescriptive forms, +accepting, at the same time, the responsibility in the way of fine or +imprisonment which they would thus inevitably incur. A rumour was also +current at the time that, pursuant to this resolution, the head men of +the various plantations had authorized a general subscription amongst +their countrymen, for meeting the contingency of fines in the police +courts. All these things were the current talk of the population of +San Fernando, in which town the leading immigrants, free as well as +indentured, had begun to raise funds for this purpose. + +All that the public, therefore, expected would have resulted from the +intended infringement of the Proclamation was an enormous influx of +money in the shape of fines into the Colonial Treasury; as no one +doubted the extreme facility which existed for ascertaining exactly, in +the case of persons registered and indentured to specific plantations, +the names and abodes of at least the chief offenders against the +proclamation. Accordingly, on the [106] occurrence of the bloody +catastrophe related above, every one felt that the mere persistence in +marching all unarmed towards the town, without actually attempting to +force their way into it, was exorbitantly visited upon the coolies by a +violent death or a life-long mutilation. This sentiment few were at +any pains to conceal; but as the poorer and more ignorant classes can +be handled with greater impunity than those who are intelligent and +have the means of self-defence, Mr. Justice Child, the very day after +the tragedy, and without waiting for the pro forma official inquiry +into the tragedy in which he bore so conspicuous a part, actually +caused to be arrested, sat to try and sent to hard labour, persons whom +the police, in obedience to his positive injunctions, had reported to +him as having condemned the shooting down of the immigrants! Those who +were arrested and thus summarily punished had, of course, no means of +self-protection; and as the case is typical of others, as illustrative +of "justice-made law" applied to "subject races" in a British colony, +Mr. Froude is free to accept it, or not, in corroboration of his +unqualified panegyrics. + +[107] + + MR. GROVE HUMPHREY CHAPMAN, S.J.P. + +As Stipendary Magistrate of this self-same San Fernando district, Grove +Humphrey Chapman, Esquire (another English barrister), was the +immediate predecessor of Mr. Child. More humane than Mr. Mayne, his +colleague and contemporary in Port of Spain, this young magistrate +began his career fairly well. But he speedily fell a victim to the +influences immediately surrounding him in his new position. His head, +which later events proved never to have been naturally strong, began to +be turned by the unaccustomed deference which he met with on all hands, +from high and low, official and non-official, and he himself soon +consummated the addling of his brain by persistent practical revolts +against every maxim of the ancient Nazarenes in the matter of +potations. His decisions at the court, therefore, became perfect +emulations of those of Mr. Mayne, as well in perversity as in +harshness, and many in his case also were the appeals for relief made +to the head of the executive by the inhabitants of the district--but of +course in vain. Governor Irving was at this time in office, and the +unfortunate [108] victims of perverse judgments--occasionally +pronounced by this magistrate in his cups--were only poor Negroes, +coolies, or other persons whose worldly circumstances placed them in +the category of the "weaker" in the community. To these classes of +people that excellent ruler unhappily denied--we dare not say his +personal sympathy, but--the official protection which, even through +self-respect, he might have perfunctorily accorded. Bent, however, on +running through the whole gamut of extravagance, Mr. Chapman--by +interpreting official impunity into implying a direct license for the +wildest of his caprices--plunged headlong with ever accelerating speed, +till the deliverance of the Naparimas became the welcome consequence of +his own personal action. On one occasion it was credibly reported in +the Colony that this infatuated dispenser of British justice actually +stretched his official complaisance so far as to permit a lady not only +to be seated near him on the judicial bench, but also to take a +part--loud, boisterous and abusive--in the legal proceedings of the +day. Meanwhile, as the Governor could not be induced to interfere, +things went [109] on from bad to worse, till one day, as above hinted, +the unfortunate magistrate so publicly committed himself as to be +obliged to be borne for temporary refuge to the Lunatic Asylum, whence +he was clandestinely shipped from the Colony on "six months' leave of +absence," never more to resume his official station. + +The removal of two such magistrates as those whose careers we have so +briefly sketched out--Mr. Mayne having died, still a magistrate, since +Mr. Froude's departure--has afforded opportunity for the restoration of +British protecting influence. In the person of Mr. Llewellyn Lewis, as +magistrate of Port of Spain, this opportunity has been secured. He, it +is generally rumoured, strives to justify the expectations of fair play +and even-handed justice which are generally entertained concerning +Englishmen. It is, however, certain that with a Governor so prompt to +hear the cry of the poor as Sir William Robinson has proved himself to +be, and with a Chief Justice so vigilant, fearless, and painstaking as +Sir John Gorrie, the entire magistracy of the Colony must be so +beneficially influenced as to preclude [110] the frequency of appeals +being made to the higher courts, or it may be to the Executive, on +account of scandalously unjust and senseless decisions. + +So long, too, as the names of T. S. Warner, Captain Larcom, and F. H. +Hamblin abide in the grateful remembrance of the entire population, as +ideally upright, just, and impartial dispensers of justice, each in his +own jurisdiction, we can only sigh at the temporal dispensation which +renders practicable the appointment and retention in office of such +administrators of the Law as were Mr. Mayne and Mr. Chapman. The +widespread and irreparable mischiefs wrought by these men still affect +disastrously many an unfortunate household; and the execration by the +weaker in the community of their memory, particularly that of Robert +Dawson Mayne, is only a fitting retribution for their abuse of power. + +NOTES + +85. *A West Indian official superstition professes to believe that a +British barrister must make an exceptionally good colonial S.J.P., +seeing that he is ignorant of everything, save general English law, +that would qualify him for the post! In this, to acquit oneself +tolerably, some acquaintance with the language, customs, and habits of +thought of the population is everywhere else held to be of prime +importance,--native conscientiousness and honesty of purpose being +definitively presupposed. + + + +BOOK III: SOCIAL REVOLUTION + +[113] Never was the Knight of La Mancha more convinced of his imaginary +mission to redress the wrongs of the world than Mr. James Anthony +Froude seems to be of his ability to alter the course of events, +especially those bearing on the destinies of the Negro in the British +West Indies. The doctrinaire style of his utterances, his sublime +indifference as to what Negro opinion and feelings may be, on account +of his revelations, are uniquely charming. In that portion of his book +headed "Social Revolution" our author, with that mixture of frankness +and cynicism which is so dear to the soul of the British esprit fort of +to-day, has challenged a comparison between British Colonial policy on +the [114] one hand, and the Colonial policy of France and Spain on the +other. This he does with an evident recklessness that his approval of +Spain and France involves a definite condemnation of his own country. +However, let us hear him:-- + +"The English West Indies, like other parts of the world, are going +through a silent revolution. Elsewhere the revolution, as we hope, is +a transition state, a new birth; a passing away of what is old and worn +out, that a fresh and healthier order may rise in its place. In the +West Indies the most sanguine of mortals will find it difficult to +entertain any such hope at all." + +As Mr. Froude is speaking dogmatically here of his, or rather our, West +Indies, let us hear him as he proceeds:-- + +"We have been a ruling power there for two hundred and fifty years; the +whites whom we planted as our representatives are drifting into ruin, +and they regard England and England's policy as the principal cause of +it. The blacks whom, in a fit of virtuous benevolence, we emancipated, +do not feel particularly obliged to us. They think, if they think at +all, that they were [115] ill-treated originally, and have received no +more than was due to them." + +Thus far. Now, as to "the whites whom we planted as our +representatives," and who, Mr. Froude avers, are drifting into ruin, we +confess to a total ignorance of their whereabouts in these islands in +this jubilee year of Negro Emancipation. Of the representatives of +Britain immediately before and after Emancipation we happen to know +something, which, on the testimony of Englishmen, Mr. Froude will be +made quite welcome to before our task is ended. With respect to Mr. +Froude's statement as to the ingratitude of the emancipated Blacks, if +it is aimed at the slaves who were actually set free, it is utterly +untrue; for no class of persons, in their humble and artless way, are +more attached to the Queen's majesty, whom they regard as incarnating +in her gracious person the benevolence which Mr. Froude so jauntily +scoffs at. But if our censor's remark under this head is intended for +the present generation of Blacks, it is a pure and simple absurdity. +What are we Negroes of the present day to be grateful for to the US, +personified by Mr. Froude and the Colonial [116] Office exportations? +We really believe, from what we know of Englishmen, that very few +indeed would regard Mr. Froude's reproach otherwise than as a palpable +adding of insult to injury. Obliged to "us," indeed! Why, Mr. Froude, +who speaks of us as dogs and horses, suggests that the same kindliness +of treatment that secures the attachment of those noble brutes would +have the same result in our case. With the same consistency that marks +his utterances throughout his book, he tells his readers "that there is +no original or congenital difference between the capacity of the White +and the Negro races." He adds, too, significantly: "With the same +chances and with the same treatment, I believe that distinguished men +would be produced equally from both races." After this truthful +testimony, which Pelion upon Ossa of evidence has confirmed, does Mr. +Froude, in the fatuity of his skin-pride, believe that educated men, +worthy of the name, would be otherwise than resentful, if not +disgusted, at being shunted out of bread in their own native land, +which their parents' labours and taxes have made desirable, in order to +afford room to blockheads, vulgarians, [117] or worse, imported from +beyond the seas? Does Mr. Froude's scorn of the Negroes' skin extend, +inconsistently on his part, to their intelligence and feelings also? +And if so, what has the Negro to care--if let alone and not wantonly +thwarted in his aspirations? It sounds queer, not to say unnatural and +scandalous, that Englishmen should in these days of light be the +champions of injustice towards their fellow-subjects, not for any +intellectual or moral disqualification, but on the simple account of +the darker skin of those who are to be assailed and thwarted in their +life's career and aspirations. Really, are we to be grateful that the +colour difference should be made the basis and justification of the +dastardly denials of justice, social, intellectual, and moral, which +have characterized the regime of those who Mr. Froude boasts were left +to be the representatives of Britain's morality and fair play? Are the +Negroes under the French flag not intensely French? Are the Negroes +under the Spanish flag not intensely Spanish? Wherefore are they so? +It is because the French and Spanish nations, who are neither of them +inferior in origin or the [118] nobility of the part they have each +played on the historic stage, have had the dignity and sense to +understand the lowness of moral and intellectual consciousness implied +in the subordination of questions of an imperial nature to the +slaveholder's anxiety about the hue of those who are to be benefited or +not in the long run. By Spain and France every loyal and law-abiding +subject of the Mother Country has been a citizen deemed worthy all the +rights, immunities, and privileges flowing from good and creditable +citizenship. Those meriting such distinction were taken into the bosom +of the society which their qualifications recommended them to share, +and no office under the Government has been thought too good or too +elevated for men of their stamp. No wonder, then, that Mr. Froude is +silent regarding the scores of brilliant coloured officials who adorn +the civil service of France and Spain, and whose appointment, in +contrast with what has usually been the case in British Colonies, +reflects an abiding lustre on those countries, and establishes their +right to a foremost place among nations. + +Mr. Froude, in speaking of Chief Justice [119] Reeves, ventures upon a +smart truism which we can discuss for him, but of course not in the +sense in which he has meant it. "Exceptions," our author remarks, "are +supposed proverbially to prove nothing, or to prove the very opposite +of what they appear to prove. When a particular phenomenon occurs +rarely, the probabilities are strong against the recurrence of it." +Now, is it in ignorance, or through disingenuousness, that Mr. Froude +has penned this argument regarding exceptions? Surely, in the vast +area of American life, it is not possible that he could see Frederick +Douglass alone out of the cluster of prominent Black Americans who are +doing the work of their country so worthily and so well in every +official department. Anyhow, Mr. Froude's history of the Emancipation +may here be amended for him by a reminder that, in the British +Colonies, it was not Whites as masters, and Blacks as slaves, who were +affected by that momentous measure. In fact, 1838 found in the British +Colonies very nearly as many Negro and Mulatto slave-owners as there +were white. Well then, these black and yellow planters received their +quota, it may be presumed, of [120] the L20,000,000 sterling indemnity. +They were part and parcel of the proprietary body in the Colonies, and +had to meet the crisis like the rest. They were very wealthy, some of +these Ethiopic accomplices of the oppressors of their own race. Their +sons and daughters were sent, like the white planter's children, across +the Atlantic for a European education. These young folk returned to +their various native Colonies as lawyers and doctors. Many of them +were also wealthy planters. The daughters, of course, became in time +the mothers of the new generation of prominent inhabitants. Now, in +America all this was different. No "nigger," however alabaster fair, +was ever allowed the privileges of common citizenship, let alone the +right to hold property in others. If possessed by a weakness to pass +for white men, as very many of them could easily have contrived to do, +woe unto the poor impostors! They were hunted down from city to city +as few felons would be, and finally done to death--"serve them right!" +being the grim commentary regarding their fate for having sought to +usurp the ineffable privilege of whitemanship! All this, Mr. Froude, +was [121] the rule, the practice, in America, with regard to persons of +colour up to twenty-five years ago. Now, sir, what is the phenomenon +which strikes your vision in that mighty Republic to-day, with regard +to those self-same despised, discountenanced, persecuted and harried +descendants of Ham? We shall tell you of the change that has taken +place in their condition, and also some of the reasons of that +beneficent revolution. + +The Proclamation of Emancipation on January 1st, 1863, was, by +President Lincoln, frankly admitted to have been a war necessity. No +abstract principle of justice or of morals was of primary consideration +in the matter. The saving of the Union at any cost,--that is, the +stern political emergency forced forth the document which was to be the +social salvation of every descendant of Ham in the United States of +America. Close upon the heels of their emancipation, the +enfranchisement of the Negroes was pushed forward by the thorough-going +American statesmen. They had no sentimentality to defer to. The logic +of events--the fact not only of the coloured race being freedmen, but +also of their having been effective [122] comrades on the fields of +battle, where the blood of eager thousands of them had flowed on the +Union side, pointed out too plainly that men with such claims should +also be partners in the resulting triumph. + +Mr. Froude, being so deferential to skin prejudice, will doubtless find +it strange that such a measure as the Civil Rights Bill should have +passed a Congress of Americans. Assuredly with the feeling against the +coloured race which custom and law had engrafted into the very nature +of the vast majority, this was a tremendous call to make on the +national susceptibilities. But it has been exactly this that has +brought out into such vivid contrast the conduct of the British +statesman, loudly professing to be unprejudiced as to colour, and fair +and humane, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the dealings of +the politicians of America, who had, as a matter of fact, sucked in +aversion and contempt towards the Negro together with their mother's +milk. Of course no sane being could expect that feelings so deeply +ingrained and nourished could be rooted out by logic or by any +legislative enactment. But, indeed, it is sublimely creditable to +[123] the American Government that, whatever might be the personal and +private sentiments of its individual members as regards race, palmam +ferat qui meruit--"let him bear the palm who has deserved it"--has been +their motto in dealing generally with the claims of their Ethiopic +fellow-citizens. Hence it is that in only twenty-five years America +can show Negro public officers as thick as blackberries, while Mr. +Froude can mention only Mr. Justice Reeves in FIFTY years as a sample +of the "exceptional" progress under British auspices of a man of +African descent! Verily, if in fifty long years British policy can +recognize only one single exception in a race between which and the +white race there is no original or congenital difference of capacity, +the inference must be that British policy has been not only +systematically, but also too successfully, hostile to the advancement +of the Ethiopians subject thereto; while the "fair field and no favour" +management of the strong-minded Americans has, by its results, +confirmed the culpability of the English policy in its relation to +"subject races." + +The very suggestive section of "the English [124] in the West Indies," +from which we have already given extracts, and which bears the title +"Social Revolution," thus proceeds:-- + +"But it does not follow that what can be done eventually can be done +immediately, and the gulf which divides the colours is no arbitrary +prejudice, but has been opened by the centuries of training and +discipline which have given us the start in the race" (p. 125 [Froude]). + +The reference in the opening clause of the above citation, as to what +is eventually possible not being immediately feasible, is to the +elevation of Blacks to high official posts, such as those occupied by +Judge Reeves in Barbados, and by Mr. F. Douglass in the United States. +We have already disposed by anticipation of the above contention of Mr. +Froude's, by showing that in only twenty-five years America has found +hundreds of eminent Blacks to fill high posts under her government. +Our author's futile mixture of Judge Reeves' exceptional case with that +of Fred. Douglass, which he cunningly singles out from among so many in +the United States, is nothing but a subterfuge, of the same queer and +flimsy description with which the literature of the cause now +championed [125] by his eloquence has made the world only too familiar. +What can Mr. Froude conceive any sane man should see in common between +the action of British and of American statesmanship in the matter now +under discussion? If his utterance on this point is that of a British +spokesman, let him abide by his own verdict against his own case, as +embodied in the words, "the gulf which divides the two COLOURS is no +arbitrary prejudice," which, coupled with his contention that the +elevation of the Blacks is not immediately feasible, discloses the +wideness of divergence between British and American political opinion +on this identical subject. + +Mr. Froude is pathetically eloquent on the colour question. He tells +of the wide gulf between the two colours--we suppose it is as wide as +exists between his white horse and his black horse. Seriously, +however, does not this kind of talk savour only too much of the +slave-pen and the auction-block of the rice-swamp and the cotton-field; +of the sugar-plantation and the driver's lash? In the United States +alone, among all the slave-holding Powers, was the difference of race +and colour invoked openly and boldly to justify all the enormities that +[126] were the natural accompaniments of those "institutions" of the +Past. But is Mr. Froude serious in invoking the ostracizing of +innocent, loyal, and meritorious British subjects on account of their +mere colour? Physical slavery--which was no crime per se, Mr. Froude +tells us--had at least overwhelming brute power, and that silent, +passive force which is even more potential as an auxiliary, viz., +unenlightened public opinion, whose neutrality is too often a positive +support to the empire of wrong. + +But has Mr. Froude, in his present wild propaganda on behalf of +political and, therefore, of social repression, anything analogous to +those two above-specified auxiliaries to rely on? We trow not. Then +why this frantic bluster and shouting forth of indiscreet aspirations +on be half of a minority to whom accomplished facts, when not agreeable +to or manipulated by themselves, are a perpetual grievance, generating +life-long impotent protestations? Presumably there are possibilities +the thoughts of which fascinate our author and his congeners in this, +to our mind, vain campaign in the cause of social retrogression. But, +be the incentives what they may, it might not be amiss on our [127] +part to suggest to those impelled by them that the ignoring of Negro +opinion in their calculations, though not only possible but easily +practised fifty years ago, is a portentous blunder at the present time. +Verbum sapienti. + +Mr. Froude must see that he has set about his Negro-repression campaign +in too blundering a fashion. He evidently expects to be able to throw +dust into the eyes of the intelligent world, juggler-wise, through the +agency of the mighty pronoun US, as representing the entire Anglo-Saxon +race, in his advocacy of the now scarcely intelligible pretensions of a +little coterie of Her Majesty's subjects in the West Indies. These +gentry are hostile, he urges, to the presence of progressive Negroes on +the soil of the tropics! Yet are these self-same Negroes not only +natives, but active improvers and embellishers of that very soil. We +cannot help concluding that this impotent grudge has sprung out of the +additional fact that these identical Negroes constitute also a living +refutation of the sinister predictions ventured upon generally against +their race, with frantic recklessness, even within the last three +decades, by affrighted slave-holders, of whose ravings Mr. Froude's +book is only a [128] diluted echo, out of season and outrageous to the +conscience of modern civilization. + +It is patent, then, that the matters which Mr. Froude has sought to +force up to the dignity of genetic rivalship, has nothing of that +importance about it. His US, between whom and the Negro subjects of +Great Britain the gulf of colour lies, comprises, as he himself owns, +an outnumbered and, as we hope to prove later on, a not over-creditable +little clique of Anglo-Saxon lineage. The real US who have started +ahead of the Negroes, "through the training and discipline of +centuries," are assuredly not anything like "represented" by the few +pretentious incapables who, instead of conquering predominance, as they +who deserve it always do, like men, are whimpering like babies after +dearly coveted but utterly unattainable enjoyments--to be had at the +expense of the interests of the Negroes whom they, rather amusingly, +affect to despise. When Mr. Froude shall have become able to present +for the world's contemplation a question respecting which the +Anglo-Saxon family, in its grand world-wide predominance, and the +African family, in its yet feeble, albeit promising, incipience of +self-adjustment, shall [129] actually be competitors, then, and only +then, will it be time to accept the outlook as serious. But when, as +in the present case, he invokes the whole prestige of the Anglo-Saxon +race in favour of the untenable pretensions of a few blases of that +race, and that to the social and political detriment of tens of +thousands of black fellow-subjects, it is high time that the common +sense of civilization should laugh him out of court. The US who are +flourishing, or pining, as the case may be, in the British West +Indies--by favour of the Colonial Office on the former hypothesis, or, +on the second, through the misdirection of their own faculties--do not, +and, in the very nature of things, cannot in any race take the lead of +any set of men endowed with virile attributes, the conditions of the +contest being on all sides identical. + +Pass we onward to extract and comment on other passages in this very +engaging section of Mr. Froude's book. On the same page (125) he +says:-- + +"The African Blacks have been free enough for thousands, perhaps for +ten thousands of years, and it has been the absence of restraint which +has prevented them from becoming civilized." + +[130] All this, perhaps, is quite true, and, in the absence of positive +evidence to the contrary of our author's dogmatic assertions, we save +time by allowing him all the benefit he can derive from whatever weight +they might carry. + +"Generation has followed generation, and the children are as like their +fathers as the successive generations of apes." + +To this we can have nothing to object; especially in view of what the +writer goes on to say, and that on his own side of the hedge--somewhat +qualified though his admission may be:--"The whites, it is likely +enough, succeeded one another with the same similarity for a series of +ages." Our speculator grows profoundly philosophic here; and in this +mood thus entertains his readers in a strain which, though deep, we +shall strive to find clear:-- + +"It is now supposed that human race has been on the planet for a +hundred thousand years at least; and the first traces of civilization +cannot be thrown back at furthest beyond six thousand. During all this +time mankind went on treading in the same steps, century after century +making no more advance than the birds and beasts." + +[131] In all this there is nothing that can usefully be taken exception +to; for speculation and conjecture, if plausible and attractive, are +free to revel whenever written documents and the unmistakable +indications of the earth's crust are both entirely at fault. Warming +up with his theme, Mr. Froude gets somewhat ambiguous in the very next +sentence. Says he:-- + +"In Egypt or India or one knows not where, accident or natural +development quickened into life our moral and intellectual faculties; +and these faculties have grown into what we now experience, not in the +freedom in which the modern takes delight, but under the sharp rule of +the strong over the weak, of the wise over the unwise." + +Our author, as we see, begins his above quoted deliverance quite at a +loss with regard to the agency to which the incipience, growth, and +fructification of man's faculties should be attributed. "Accident," +"natural development," he suggests, quickened the human faculties into +the progressive achievements which they have accomplished. But then, +wherefore is this writer so forcible, so confident in his prophecies +regarding Negroes and their future temporal condition [132] and +proceedings, since it is "accident," and "accident" only, that must +determine their fulfilment? Has he so securely bound the fickle +divinity to his service as to be certain of its agency in the +realization of his forecasts? And if so, where then would be the +fortuitousness that is the very essence of occurrences that glide, +undesigned, unexpected, unforeseen, into the domain of Fact, and become +material for History? So far as we feel capable of intelligently +meditating on questions of this inscrutable nature, we are forced to +conclude that since "natural development" could be so regular, so +continuous, and withal so efficient, in the production of the +marvellous results that we daily contemplate, there must be existent +and in operation--as, for instance, in the case of the uniformity +characterizing for ages successive generations of mankind, as above +adduced by our philosopher himself--some controlling LAW, according and +subject to which no check has marred the harmonious progression, or +prevented the consummations that have crowned the normal exercise of +human energy, intellectual as well as physical. + +The sharp rule of the strong over the [133] weak, is the first clause +of the Carlylean-sounding phrase which embodies the requisite +conditions for satisfactory human development. The terms expressive of +these conditions, however, while certainly suggesting and embracing the +beneficent, elevating influence and discipline of European +civilization, such as we know and appreciate it, do not by any means +exclude the domination of Mr. Legree or any other typical man-monster, +whose power over his fellow-creatures is at once a calamity to the +victims and a disgrace to the community tolerating not only its +exercise, but the very possibility of its existence. The sharp rule of +"the wise over the unwise," is the closing section of the +recommendation to ensure man's effective development. Not even savages +hesitate to defer in all their important designs to the sought-for +guidance of superior judgments. But in the case of us West Indian +Blacks, to whom Mr. Froude's doctrine here has a special reference, is +it suggested by him that the bidders for predominance over us on the +purely epidermal, the white skin, ground, are ipso facto the +monopolists of directing wisdom? It surely cannot be so; for Mr. +Froude's own chapters regarding both the [134] nomination by Downing +Street of future Colonial office-holders and the disorganized mental +and moral condition of the indigenous representatives--as he calls +them!--of his country in these climes, preclude the possibility that +the reference regarding the wise can be to them. Now since this is so, +we really cannot see why the pains should have been taken to indite the +above truism, to the truth whereof, under every normal or legitimate +circumstance, the veriest barbarian, by spontaneously resorting to and +cheerfully abiding by it, is among the first to secure practical effect. + +"Our own Anglo-Saxon race," continues our author, "has been capable of +self-government only after a thousand years of civil and spiritual +authority. European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by higher +instincts, may shorten the probation period of the negro. Individual +blacks of exceptional quality, like Frederick Douglass in America, or +the Chief Justice of Barbados, will avail themselves of opportunities +to rise, and the freest opportunity OUGHT TO BE offered them." Here we +are reminded of the dogma laid down by a certain [135] class of +ethnologists, to the effect that intellectuality, when displayed by a +person of mixed European and African blood, must always be assigned to +the European side of the parentage; and in the foregoing citation our +author speaks of two personages undoubtedly belonging to the class +embraced in the above dogma. Three specific objections may, therefore, +be urged against the statements which we have indicated in the above +quotation. First and foremost, neither Judge Reeves nor Mr. Fred +Douglass is a black man, as Mr. Froude inaccurately represents each of +them to be. The former is of mixed blood, to what degree we are not +adepts enough to determine; and the latter, if his portrait and those +who have personally seen him mislead us not, is a decidedly fair man. + +We, of course, do not for a moment imagine that either of those eminent +descendants of Ham cares a jot about the settlement of this question, +which doubtless would appear very trivial to both. But as our author's +crusade is against the Negro--by which we understand the undiluted +African descendant, the pure Negro, as he singularly describes Chief +Justice Reeves--our anxiety is to show that there exist, both [136] in +the West Indies and in the United States, scores of genuine black men +to whom neither of these two distinguished patriots would, for one +instant, hesitate to concede any claim to equality in intellectual and +social excellence. The second exception which we take is, as we have +already shown in a previous page, to the persistent lugging in of +America by Mr. Froude, doubtless to keep his political countrymen in +countenance with regard to the Negro question. We have already pointed +out the futility of this proceeding on our author's part, and suggested +how damaging it might prove to the cause he is striving to uphold. +"Blacks of exceptional quality," like the two gentlemen he has +specially mentioned, "will avail themselves of opportunities to rise." +Most certainly they will, Mr. Froude--but, for the present, only in +America, where those opportunities are really free and open to all. +There no parasitical non-workers are to be found, eager to eat bread, +but in the sweat of other people's brows; no impecunious title-bearers; +no importunate bores, nor other similar characters whom the Government +there would regard it as their duty "to provide for"--by quartering +them on the revenues [137] of Colonial dependencies. But in the +British Crown--or rather "Anglo-West Indian"--governed Colonies, has it +ever been, can it ever be, thus ordered? Our author's description of +the exigencies that compel injustice to be done in order to requite, or +perhaps to secure, Parliamentary support, coupled with his account of +the bitter animus against the coloured race that rankles in the bosom +of his "Englishmen in the West Indies," sufficiently proves the utter +hypocrisy of his recommendation, that the freest opportunities should +be offered to Blacks of the said exceptional order. The very wording +of Mr. Froude's recommendation is disingenuous. It is one stone sped +at two birds, and which, most naturally, has missed them both. + +Mr. Froude knew perfectly well that, twenty-five years before he wrote +his book, America had thrown open the way to public advancement to the +Blacks, as it had been previously free to Whites alone. His use of +"should be offered," instead of "are offered," betrays his +consciousness that, at the time he was writing, the offering of any +opportunities of the kind he suggests was a thing still to be desired +under British jurisdiction. The third objection [138] which we shall +take to Mr. Froude's bracketing of the cases of Mr. Fred Douglass and +of Judge Reeves together, is that, when closely examined, the two cases +can be distinctly seen to be not in any way parallel. The applause +which our author indirectly bids for on behalf of British Colonial +liberality in the instance of Mr. Reeves would be the grossest mockery, +if accorded in any sense other than we shall proceed to show. Fred +Douglass was born and bred a slave in one of the Southern States of the +Union, and regained his freedom by flight from bondage, a grown man, +and, of course, under the circumstances, solitary and destitute. He +reached the North at a period when the prejudice of the Whites against +men of his race was so rampant as to constitute a positive mania. + +The stern and cruelly logical doctrine, that a Negro had no rights +which white men were bound to respect, was in full blast and practical +exemplification. Yet amidst it all, and despite of it all, this gifted +fugitive conquered his way into the Temple of Knowledge, and became +eminent as an orator, a writer, and a lecturer on political and general +subjects. Hailed abroad [139] as a prodigy, and received with +acclamation into the brotherhood of intelligence, abstract justice and +moral congruity demanded that such a man should no longer be subject to +the shame and abasement of social, legal, and political proscription. +The land of his birth proved herself equal to this imperative call of +civilized Duty, regardless of customs and the laws, written as well as +unwritten, which had doomed to life-long degradation every member of +the progeny of Ham. Recognizing in the erewhile bondman a born leader +of men, America, with the unflinching directness that has marked her +course, whether in good or in evil, responded with spontaneous loyalty +to the inspiration of her highest instincts. Shamed into compunction +and remorse at the solid fame and general sympathy secured for himself +by a son of her soil, whom, in the wantonness of pride and power, she +had denied all fostering care (not, indeed, for any conscious offending +on his part, but by reason of a natural peculiarity which she had +decreed penal), America, like a repentant mother, stooped from her +august seat, and giving with enthusiasm both hands to the outcast, she +helped him to stand forward and erect, [140] in the dignity of +untrammeled manhood, making him, at the same time, welcome to a place +of honour amongst the most gifted, the worthiest and most favoured of +her children. + +Chief Justice Reeves, on the other hand, did not enter the world, as +Douglass had done, heir to a lot of intellectual darkness and legalized +social and political proscription. Associated from adolescence with S. +J. Prescod, the greatest leader of popular opinion whom Barbados has +yet produced, Mr. Reeves possessed in his nature the material to +assimilate and reflect in his own principles and conduct the salient +characteristics of his distinguished Mentor. Arrived in England to +study law, he had there the privilege of the personal acquaintance of +Lord Brougham, then one of the Nestors of the great Emancipation +conflict. On returning to his native island, which he did immediately +after his call to the bar, Mr. Reeves sprung at once into the foremost +place, and retained his precedence till his labours and aspirations +were crowned by his obtaining the highest judicial post in that Colony. +For long years before becoming Chief Justice, Mr. Reeves had conquered +for himself the respect and confidence [141] of all Barbadians--even +including the ultra exclusive "Anglo-West-Indians" of Mr. Froude--by +the manful constitutional stand which, sacrificing official place, he +had successfully made against the threatened abrogation of the Charter +of the Colony, which every class and colour of natives cherish and +revere as a most precious, almost sacred, inheritance. The successful +champion of their menaced liberties found clustering around him the +grateful hearts of all his countrymen, who, in their hour of dread at +the danger of their time-honoured constitution, had clung in despair to +him as the only leader capable of heading the struggle and leading the +people, by wise and constitutional guidance, to the victory which they +desired but could not achieve for themselves. + +Sir William Robinson, who was sent out as pacificator, saw and took in +at a glance the whole significance of the condition of affairs, +especially in their relation to Mr. Reeves, and vice versa. With the +unrivalled pre-eminence and predominant personal influence of the +latter, the Colonial Office had possessed more than ample means of +being perfectly familiar. What, then, could be more natural and +consonant with [142] sound policy than that the then acknowledged, but +officially unattached, head of the people (being an eminent lawyer), +should, on the occurrence of a vacancy in the highest juridical post, +be appointed to co-operate with the supreme head of the Executive? Mr. +Reeves was already the chief of the legal body of the Colony; his +appointment, therefore, as Chief Justice amounted to nothing more than +an official ratification of an accomplished and unalterable fact. Of +course, it was no fault of England's that the eminent culture, +political influence, and unapproached legal status of Mr. Reeves should +have coincided exactly with her political requirements at that crisis, +nor yet that she should have utilized a coincidence which had the +double advantage of securing the permanent services, whilst realizing +at the same time the life's aspiration, of a distinguished British +subject. But that Mr. Froude should be dinning in our ears this case +of benefited self-interest, gaining the amplest reciprocity, both as to +service and serviceableness, with the disinterested spontaneity of +America's elevation of Mr. Douglass, is but another proof of the +obliquity of the moral medium through [143] which he is wont to survey +mankind and their concerns. + +The distinction between the two marvellous careers which we have been +discussing demands, as it is susceptible of, still sharper +accentuation. In the final success of Reeves, it is the man himself +who confronts one in the unique transcendency and victoriousness of +personal merit. On the other hand, a million times the personal merit +of Reeves combined with his own could have availed Douglass absolutely +nothing in the United States, legal and social proscript that he was, +with public opinion generally on the side of the laws and usages +against him. The very little countries of the world are proverbial for +the production of very great men. But, on the other hand, narrowness +of space favours the concentration and coherence of the adverse forces +that might impede, if they fail of utterly thwarting, the success which +may happen to be grudged by those possessing the will and the power for +its obstruction. In Barbados, so far as we have heard, read, and seen +ourselves of the social ins and outs of that little sister-colony, the +operation of the above mentioned [144] influences has been, may still +be, to a certain extent, distinctly appreciable. Although in English +jurisprudence there is no law ordaining the proscription, on the ground +of race or colour, of any eligible candidate for social or political +advancement, yet is it notorious that the ethics and practices of the +"Anglo-West Indians"--who, our author has dared to say, represent the +higher type of Englishmen--have, throughout successive generations, +effectually and of course detrimentally operated, as though by a +positive Medo-Persian edict, in a proscriptive sense. It therefore +demanded extraordinary toughness of constitutional fibre, moral, +mental, and, let us add, physical too, to overcome the obstacles +opposed to the progress of merit, too often by persons in intelligence +below contempt, but, in prosperity and accepted pretension, formidable +indeed to fight against and overcome. We shudder to think of the petty +cabals, the underbred indignities, direct and indirect, which the +present eminent Judge had to watch against, to brush aside, to smile +at, in course of his epic strides towards the highest local pinnacle of +his profession. But [145] with him, as Time has shown, it was all sure +and safe. + +Providence had endowed him with the powers and temperament that break +down, when opportunity offers, every barrier to the progress of the +gifted and strong and brave. That opportunity, in his particular case, +offered itself in the Confederation crisis. Distracted and helpless +"Anglo-West Indians" thronged to him in imploring crowds, praying that +their beloved Charter should be saved by the exertion of his +incomparable abilities. Save and except Dr. Carrington, there was not +a single member of the dominant section in Barbados whom it would not +be absurd to name even as a near second to him whom all hailed as the +Champion of their Liberties. In the contest to be waged the victory +was not, as it never once has been, reserved to the SKIN or pedigree of +the combatants. The above two matters, which in the eyes of the ruling +"Bims" had, throughout long decades of undisturbed security, been +placed before and above all possible considerations, gravitated down to +their inherent insignificance when Intellect and Worth were destined to +fight out the issue. Mr. [146] Reeves, whose possession of the +essential qualifications was admittedly greater than that of every +colleague, stood, therefore, in unquestioned supremacy, lord of the +political situation, with the result above stated. + +To what we have already pointed out regarding the absolute +impossibility of such an opportunity ever presenting itself in America +to Mr. Douglass, in a political sense, we may now add that, whereas, in +Barbados, for the intellectual equipment needed at the crisis, Mr. +Reeves stood quite alone, there could, in the bosom of the Union, even +in respect of the gifts in which Mr. Douglass was most brilliant, be no +"walking over the course" by him. It was in the country and time of +Bancroft, Irving, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, Bryant, Motley, Henry +Clay, Dan Webster, and others of the laureled phalanx which has added +so great and imperishable a lustre to the literature of the English +tongue. + +We proceed here another step, and take up a fresh deliverance of our +author's in reference to the granting of the franchise to the black +population of these Colonies. "It is," says Mr. James Anthony Froude, +who is just as prophetic [147] as his prototypes, the slave-owners of +the last half-century, "it is as certain as anything future can be, +that if we give the negroes as a body the political privileges which we +claim for ourselves, they will use them only to their own injury." The +forepart of the above citation reads very much as if its author wrote +it on the principle of raising a ghost for the mere purpose of laying +it. What visionary, what dreamer of impossible dreams, has ever asked +for the Negroes as a body the same political privileges which are +claimed for themselves by Mr. Froude and others of his countrymen, who +are presumably capable of exercising them? No one in the West Indies +has ever done so silly a thing as to ask for the Negroes as a body that +which has not, as everybody knows, and never will be, conceded to the +people of Great Britain as a body. The demand for Reform in the Crown +Colonies--a demand which our author deliberately misrepresents--is made +neither by nor for the Negro, Mulatto, White, Chinese, nor East Indian. +It is a petition put forward by prominent responsible colonists--the +majority of whom are Whites, and mostly Britons besides. + +[148] Their prayer, in which the whole population in these Colonies +most heartily join, is simply and most reasonably that we, the said +Colonies, being an integral portion of the British Empire, and having, +in intelligence and every form of civilized progress, outgrown the +stage of political tutelage, should be accorded some measure of +emancipation therefrom. And thereby we--White, Black, Mulatto, and all +other inhabitants and tax-payers--shall be able to protect ourselves +against the self-seeking and bold indifference to our interests which +seem to be the most cherished expression of our rulers' official +existence. It may be possible (for he has attempted it), that our new +instructor in Colonial ethics and politics, under the impulsion of +skin-superiority, and also of confidence in the probable success of +experiments successfully tried fifty years before, does really believe +in the sensibleness of separating COLOURS, and representing the wearers +of them as being generally antagonistic to one another in Her Majesty's +West Indian Dominions. How is it then, we may be permitted to ask Mr. +Froude, that no complaint of the sort formulated by him as against the +Blacks has ever been put [149] forward by the thousands of Englishmen, +Scotchmen, Irishmen, and other Europeans who are permanent inhabitants, +proprietors, and tax-payers of these Colonies? The reason is that +Anglo-West Indianism, or rather Colonialism, is the creed of a few +residents sharply divisible into two classes in the West Indies. +Labouring conjointly under race-madness, the first believes that, as +being of the Anglo-Saxon race, they have a right to crow and dominate +in whatever land they chance to find themselves, though in their own +country they or their forefathers had had to be very dumb dogs indeed. +The Colonial Office has for a long time been responsible for the +presence in superior posts of highly salaried gentry of this category, +who have delighted in showing themselves off as the unquestionable +masters of those who supply them with the pay that gives them the +livelihood and position they so ungratefully requite. These fortunate +folk, Mr. Froude avers, are likely to leave our shores in a huff, +bearing off with them the civilizing influences which their presence so +surely guarantees. Go tell to the marines that the seed of Israel +flourishing in the borders of [150] Misraim will abandon their +flourishing district of Goshen through sensitiveness on account of the +idolatry of the devotees of Isis and Osiris! + +The second and less placable class of "Englishmen in the West Indies," +whose final departure our author would have us to believe would +complete the catastrophe to progress in the British Antilles, is very +impalpable indeed. We cannot feel them. We have failed to even see +them. True, Mr. Froude scouts on their behalf the bare notion of their +condescending to meet, on anything like equality, us, whom he and they +pretend (rather anachronistically, at least) to have been their former +slaves, or servants. But where, in the name of Heaven, where are these +sortis de la cuisse de Jupiter, Mr. Froude? If they are invisible, +mourning in impenetrable seclusion over the impossibility of having, as +their fathers had before them, the luxury of living at the Negroes' +expense, shall we Negroes who are in the sunshine of heaven, prepared +to work and win our way, be anywise troubled in our Jubilee by the +drivelling ineptitude which insanely reminds us of the miseries of +those who went before us? We have thus arrived at the cardinal, [151] +essential misrepresentation, out of scores which compose "The Bow of +Ulysses," and upon which its phrases mainly hinge. Semper +eadem--"Always the same"--has been the proud motto of the mightiest +hierarchy that has controlled human action and shaped the destinies of +mankind, no less in material than in ghostly concerns. Yet is a vast +and very beneficial change, due to the imperious spirit of the times, +manifest in the Roman Church. No longer do the stake, the sword, and +the dismal horrors of the interdict figure as instruments for assuring +conformity and submission to her dogmas. She is now content to rest +her claims on herbeneficence in the past, as attested by noble and +imperishable memorials of her solicitude for the poor and the ignorant, +and in proclaiming the gospel without those ghastly coercives to its +acceptance. Surely such a change, however unpalatable to those who +have been compelled to make it, is most welcome to the outside world at +large. "Always the same" is also, or should be, the device of the +discredited herd whose spokesman Mr. Froude is so proud to be. In +nothing has their historical character, as shown in the published +literature of their [152] cause up to 1838, exhibited any sign of +amelioration. It cannot be affected by the spirit and the lessons of +the times. Mendacity and a sort of judicial blindness seem to be the +two most salient characteristics by which are to be distinguished these +implacable foes and would-be robbers of human rights and liberty. But, +gracious heavens! what can tempt mortals to incur this weight of +infamy? Wealth and Power? To be (very improbably) a Croesus or (still +more improbably) a Bonaparte, and to perish at the conventional age, +and of vulgar disease, like both? Turpitudes on the part of sane men, +involving the sacrifice of the priceless attributes of humanity, can be +rendered intelligible by the supreme temporal gains above indicated, +but only if exemption from the common lot of mankind--in the shape of +care, disease, and death--were accompaniments of those prizes. + +In favour of slavery, which has for so many centuries desolated the +African family and blighted its every chance of indigenous progress--of +slavery whose abolition our author so ostentatiously regrets--only one +solitary permanent result, extending in every case over [153] a natural +human life, has been paraded by him as a respectable justification. At +page 246, speaking of Negroes met by him during a stroll which he took +at Mandeville, Jamaica, he tells us:-- + +"The people had black faces; but even they had shaped their manners in +the old English models. The men touched their hats respectfully (as +they eminently did not in Kingston and its environs). The women smiled +and curtsied, and the children looked shy when one spoke to them. The +name of slavery is a horror to us; but there must have been something +human and kindly about it, too, when it left upon the character the +marks of courtesy and good breeding"! + +Alas for Africa and the sufferings of her desolated millions, in view +of so light-hearted an assessment as this! Only think of the ages of +outrage, misery, and slaughter--of the countless hecatombs that Mammon +is hereby absolved from having directly exacted, since the sufficing +expiatory outcome of it all has been only "marks of courtesy and good +breeding"! Marks that are displayed, forsooth, by the survivors of the +ghastly experiences or by [154] their descendants! And yet, granting +the appreciable ethical value of the hat-touching, the smirking and +curtseyings of those Blacks to persons whom they had no reason to +suspect of unfriendliness, or whose white face they may in the white +man's country have greeted with a civility perhaps only prudential, we +fail to discover the necessity of the dreadful agency we have adverted +to, for securing the results on manners which are so warmly commended. +African explorers, from Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley, have all +borne sufficient testimony to the world regarding the natural +friendliness of the Negro in his ancestral home, when not under the +influence of suspicion, anger, or dread. + +It behoves us to repeat (for our detractor is a persistent repeater) +that the cardinal dodge by which Mr. Froude and his few adherents +expect to succeed in obtaining the reversal of the progress of the +coloured population is by misrepresenting the elements, and their real +attitude towards one another, of the sections composing the British +West Indian communities. Everybody knows full well that Englishmen, +Scotchmen, and Irishmen (who are not officials), as [155] well as +Germans, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, and other nationalities, work +in unbroken harmony and, more or less, prosper in these Islands. These +are no cherishers of any vain hankering after a state of things in +which men felt not the infamy of living not only on the unpaid labour, +but at the expense of the sufferings, the blood, and even the life of +their fellow-men. These men, honourable by instinct and of independent +spirit, depend on their own resources for self-advancement in the +world--on their capital either of money in their pockets or of +serviceable brains in their heads, energy in their limbs, and on these +alone, either singly or more or less in combination. These reputable +specimens of manhood have created homes dear to them in these favoured +climes; and they, at any rate, being on the very best terms with all +sections of the community in which their lot is cast, have a common +cause as fellow-sufferers under the regime of Mr. Froude's official +"birds of passage." The agitation in Trinidad tells its own tale. +There is not a single black man--though there should have been +many--among the leaders of the movement for Reform. Nevertheless the +honourable [156] and truthful author of "The English in the West +Indies," in order to invent a plausible pretext for his sinister +labours of love on behalf of the poor pro-slavery survivals, and +despite his knowledge that sturdy Britons are at the head of the +agitation, coolly tells the world that it is a struggle to secure +"negro domination." + +The further allegation of our author respecting the black man is +curious and, of course, dismally prophetic. As the reader may perhaps +recollect, it is to the effect that granting political power to the +Negroes as a body, equal in scope "to that claimed by Us" (i.e., Mr. +Froude and his friends), would certainly result in the use of these +powers by the Negroes to their own injury. And wherefore? If Mr. +Froude professes to believe--what is a fact--that there is "no original +or congenital difference of capacity" between the white and the African +races, where is the consistency of his urging a contention which +implies inferiority in natural shrewdness, as regards their own +affairs, on the part of black men? Does this blower of the two +extremes of temperature in the same breath pretend that the average +British voter is better informed, can see more clearly what is for his +own advantage, [157] is better able to assess the relative merits of +persons to be entrusted with the spending of his taxes, and the general +management of his interests? If Mr. Froude means all this, he is at +issue not only with his own specific declaration to the contrary, but +with facts of overwhelming weight and number showing precisely the +reverse. We have personally had frequent opportunities of coming into +contact, both in and out of England, with natives of Great Britain, not +of the agricultural order alone, but very often of the artisan class, +whose ignorance of the commonest matters was as dense as it was +discreditable to the land of their birth and breeding. Are these +people included (on account of having his favourite sine qua non of a +fair skin) in the US of this apostle of skin-worship, in the +indefeasible right to political power which is denied to Blacks by +reason, or rather non-reason, of their complexion? + +The fact is, that, judging by his own sentiments and those of his +Anglo-West Indian friends, Mr. Froude calculated on producing an +impression in favour of their discreditable views by purposely keeping +out of sight the numerous European and other sufferers under the yoke +[158] which he sneers at seeing described by its proper appellation of +"a degrading tyranny." The prescriptive unfavourable forecast of our +author respecting political power in the hands of the Blacks may, in +our opinion, be hailed as a warrant for its bestowal by those in whose +power that bestowal may be. As a pro-slavery prophecy, equally dismal +and equally confident with the hundreds that preceded it, this new +vaticination may safely be left to be practically dealt with by the +Race, victimized and maligned, whose real genius and character are +purposely belied by those who expect to be gainers by the process. +Invested with political power, the Negroes, Mr. Froude goes on to +assure his readers, "will slide back into their old condition, and the +chance will be gone of lifting them to the level to which we have no +right to say they are incapable of rising." How touchingly +sympathetic! How transcendently liberal and righteous! But, to speak +the truth, is not this solicitude of our cynical defamer on our behalf, +after all, a useless waste of emotion on his part? Timeo Danaos et +dona ferentes.+ The tears of the crocodile are most copious in close +view of the banquet on his prey. This [159] reiterated twaddle of Mr. +Froude, in futile and unseasonable echo of the congenial predictions of +his predecessors in the same line, might be left to receive not only +the answer of his own book to the selfsame talk of the slavers fifty +years ago, but also that of the accumulated refutations which America +has furnished for the last twenty-five years as to the retrograde +tendency so falsely imputed. But, taking it as a serious contention, +we find that it involves a suggestion that the according of electoral +votes to citizens of a certain complexion would, per se and ipso facto, +produce a revulsion and collapse of the entire prevailing organization +and order of a civilized community. + +What talismanic virtue this prophet of evil attributes to a vote in the +hand of a Negro out of Barbados, where for years the black man's vote +has been operating, harmlessly enough, Heaven knows, we cannot imagine. +At all events, as sliding back on the part of a community is a matter +which would require some appreciable time, however brief, let us hope +that the authorities charged "to see that the state receive no +detriment" would be vigilant enough and in time to arrest the evil and +vindicate [160] the efficiency of the civilized methods of +self-preservation. + +Our author concludes by another reference to Chief Justice Reeves: "Let +British authority die away, and the average black nature, such as it +now is, be left free to assert itself, there will be no more negroes +like him in Barbadoes or anywhere." How the dying away of British +authority in a British Colony is to come to pass, Mr. Froude does not +condescend here explicitly to state. But we are left free to infer +from the whole drift of "The English in the West Indies" that it will +come through the exodus en masse said to be threatened by his +"Anglo-West Indians." Mr. Froude sympathetically justifies the disgust +and exasperation of these reputable folk at the presence and progress +of the race for whose freedom and ultimate elevation Britain was so +lavish of the wealth of her noblest intellects, besides paying the +prodigious money-ransom of TWENTY MILLION pounds sterling. With regard +to our author's talk about "the average black nature, such as it now +exists, being left free to assert itself," and the dire consequences +therefrom to result, we can only feel pity at the desperate straits to +[161] which, in his search for a pretext for gratuitous slander, a man +of our author's capacity has been so ignominiously reduced. All we can +say to him with reference to this portion of his violent suppositions +is that "the average black nature, such as it now exists," should NOT, +in a civilized community, be left free to assert itself, any more than +the average white, the average brown, the average red, or indeed any +average colour of human nature whatsoever. As self-defence is the +first law of nature, it has followed that every condition of organized +society, however simple or primitive, is furnished with some recognized +means of self-protection against the free assertion of itself by the +average nature of any of its members. + +Of course, if things should ever turn out according to Mr. Froude's +desperate hypothesis, it may also happen that there will be no more +Negroes like Mr. justice Reeves in Barbados. But the addition of the +words "or anywhere" to the above statement is just another of those +suppressions of the truth which, absolutely futile though they are, +constitute the only means by which the policy he writes to promote can +possibly be made to [162] appear even tolerable. The assertion of our +author, therefore, standing as it actually does, embracing the whole +world, is nothing less than an audacious absurdity, for there stand the +United States, the French and Spanish islands--not to speak of the +Central and South American Republics, Mexico, and Brazil--all thronged +with black, mixed blood, and even half-breed high officials, staring +him and the whole world in the face. + +The above noted suppression of the truth to the detriment of the +obnoxious population recalls a passage wherein the suggestion of what +is not the truth has been resorted to for the same purpose. At page +123 we read: "The disproportion of the two races--always dangerously +large--has increased with ever-gathering velocity since the +emancipation. It is now beyond control on the old lines." The use of +the expletive "dangerously," as suggestive of the truculence of the +people to whom it refers, is critically allowable in view of the main +intention of the author. But what shall we say of the suggestion +contained in the very next sentence, which we have italicized? We are +required by it to understand that in slavery-time the [163] planters +had some organized method, rendered impracticable by the Emancipation, +of checking, for their own personal safety, the growth of the coloured +population. If we, in deference to the superior mental capacity of our +author, admit that self-interest was no irresistible motive for +promoting the growth of the human "property" on which their prosperity +depended, we are yet at liberty to ask what was the nature of the "old +lines" followed for controlling the increase under discussion. Was it +suffocation of the babes by means of sulphur fumes, the use of +beetle-paste, or exposure on the banks of the Caribbean rivers? In the +later case History evidently lost a chance of self-repetition in the +person of some leader like Moses, the Hebra-Egyptian Spartacus, arising +to avenge and deliver his people. + +We now shall note how he proceeds to descant on slavery +itself:--"Slavery," says he, "was a survival from a social order which +had passed away, and slavery could not be continued. IT DOES NOT +FOLLOW THAT per se IT WAS A CRIME. The negroes who were sold to the +dealers in the factories were most of them either slaves already to +worse masters or were servi, servants [164] in the old meaning of the +word, or else criminals, servati or reserved from death. They would +otherwise have been killed, and since the slave trade has been +abolished, are again killed in the too celebrated customs...." + +Slavery, as Mr. Froude and the rest of us are bound to discuss it at +present, is by no means susceptible of the gloss which he has +endeavoured, in the above extract, to put on it. The British nation, +in 1834, had to confront and deal with the only species of slavery +which was then within the cognizance of public morals and practical +politics. Doubtless our author, learned and erudite as he is, would +like to transport us to those patriarchal ages when, under theocratic +decrees, the chosen people were authorized to purchase (not to kidnap) +slaves, and keep them as an everlasting inheritance in their posterity. +The slaves so purchased, we know, became members of the families to +which their lot was attached, and were hedged in from cruel usage by +distinct and salutary regulations. This is the only species of slavery +which--with the addition of the old Germanic self-enslavements and the +generally prevailing ancient custom of pledging one's personal services +[165] in liquidation of indebtedness--can be covered by the singular +verdict of noncriminality which our author has pronounced. He, of +course, knows much better than we do what the condition of slaves was +in Greece as well as in Rome. He knows, too, that the "wild and guilty +phantasy that man could hold property in man," lost nothing of its +guilt or its wildness with the lapse of time and the changes of +circumstances which overtook and affected those reciprocal relations. +Every possibility of deterioration, every circumstance wherein man's +fallen nature could revel in its worst inspirations, reached +culmination at the period when the interference of the world, decreed +by Providence, was rendered imperative by the sufferings of the +bondsmen. It is this crisis of the history of human enslavement that +Mr. Froude must talk about, if he wishes to talk to any purpose on the +subject at all. His scoffs at British "virtuous benevolence," and his +imputation of ingratitude to the Negro in respect of that self-same +benevolence, do not refer to any theocratic, self-contracted, abstract, +or idyllic condition of servitude. They pin his meaning down [166] to +that particular phase when slavery had become not only "the sum," but +the very quintessence, "of all human villainies." + +At its then phase, slavery had culminated into being a menace, +portentous and far encroaching, to not only the moral life but the very +civilization of the higher types of the human family, so debasing and +blighting were its effects on those who came into even tolerating +contact with its details. The indescribable atrocities practised on +the slaves, the deplorable sapping of even respectable principles in +owners of both sexes--all these stood forth in their ineffable +hideousness before the uncorrupted gaze of the moral heroes, sons of +Britain and America, and also of other countries, who, buckling on the +armour of civilization and right, fought for the vindication of them +both, through every stern vicissitude, and won the first grand, +ever-memorable victory of 1838, whereof we so recently celebrated the +welcome Jubilee! Oh! it was a combat of archangels against the legions +that Mammon had banded together and incited to the conflict. But +though it was Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and the rest [167] of that +illustrious host of cultured, lofty-souled, just, merciful, and +beneficent men, who were thus the saviours, as well as the servants, of +society, yet have we seen it possible for an Englishman of to-day to +mouth against their memory the ineptitudes of their long-vanquished +foes, and to flout the consecrated dead in their graves, as the +Boeotian did the living Pericles in the market-place of Athens! + +Why waste words and time on this defamer of his own countrymen, who, on +account of the material gain and the questionable martial glory of the +conquest, eulogizes Warren Hastings, the viceregal plunderer of India, +whilst, in the same breath, he denounces Edmund Burke for upholding the +immutable principles of right and justice! These principles once, and +indubitably now, so precious in their fullest integrity to the normal +British conscience, must henceforth, say Mr. Froude and his +fellow-colonialists, be scored off the moral code of Britain, since +they "do not pay" in tangible pelf, in self-aggrandisement, or in +dazzling prestige. + +The statement that many negroes who were sold to the dealers in the +factories were "slaves [168] already to worse masters" is, in the face +of facts which could not possibly have been unknown to him, a piece of +very daring assertion. But this should excite no wonder, considering +that precise and scrupulous accuracy would be fatal to the +discreditable cause to which he so shamelessly proclaims his adhesion. +As being familiar since early childhood with members of almost every +tribe of Africans (mainly from or arriving by way of the West Coast) +who were brought to our West Indies, we are in a position to contradict +the above assertion of Mr. Froude's, its unfaltering confidence +notwithstanding. We have had the Madingoes, Foulahs, Houssas, Calvers, +Gallahs, Karamenties, Yorubas, Aradas, Cangas, Kroos, Timnehs, Veis, +Eboes, Mokoes, Bibis, and Congoes, as the most numerous and important +of the tribal contribution of Africa to the population of these +Colonies. Now, from what we have intimately learned of these people +(excepting the Congoes, who always appeared to us an inferior tribe to +all the others), we unhesitatingly deny that even three in ten of the +whole number were ever slaves in their own country, in the sense of +having been born under any organized [169] system of servitude. The +authentic records relating to the enslavement of Africans, as a regular +systematized traffic, do not date further back than five centuries ago. +It is true that a great portion of ancient literature and many +monuments bear distinct evidence, all the more impressive because +frequently only casual, that, from the earliest ages, the Africans had +shared, in common with other less civilized peoples, the doom of having +to furnish the menial and servile contingents of the more favoured +sections of the human family. Now, dating from, say, five hundred +years ago, which was long indeed after the disappearance of the old +leading empires of the world, we have (save and except in the case of +Arab incursionists into the Eastern and Northern coasts) no reliable +authority for saying, or even for supposing, that the tribes of the +African interior suffered from the molestations of professional +man-hunters. + +It was the organization of the West Coast slave traffic towards the +close of the sixteenth century, and the extermination of the Caribbean +aborigines by Spain, soon after Columbus had discovered the Western +Continent, which [170] gave cohesion, system, impetus, and +aggressiveness to the trade in African flesh and blood. Then the +factory dealers did not wait at their seaboard mart, as our author +would have us suppose, for the human merchandize to be brought down to +them. The auri sacra fames, the accursed craving for gain, was too +imperious for that. From the Atlantic border to as far inland as their +emissaries could penetrate, their bribes, in every species of +exchangeable commodities, were scattered among the rapacious chiefs on +the river banks; while these latter, incited as well by native ferocity +as by lust of gain, rushed forth to "make war" on their neighbours, and +to kidnap, for sale to the white purchaser, every man, woman, and child +they could capture amidst the nocturnal flames, confusion, tumult, and +terror resulting from their unexpected irruption. That the poor people +thus captured and sold into foreign on age were under worse masters +than those under whom they, on being actually bought and becoming +slaves, were doomed to experience all the atrocities that have thrilled +with horror the conscience of the civilized Christian world, is a +statement of worse than [171] childish absurdity. Every one, except +Mr. Froude and his fellow-apologists for slavery, knows that the +cruelty of savage potentates is summary, uncalculating, and, therefore, +merciful in its ebullitions. A head whisked off, brains dashed out, or +some other short form of savage dispatch, is the preferential method of +destruction. With our author's better masters, there was the long, +dreary vicissitude, beginning from the horrors of the capture, and +ending perhaps years upon years after, in some bush or under the lash +of the driver. The intermediate stages of the starvation life of +hunger, chains, and hideous exposure at the barancoon, the stowing away +like herrings on board the noisome ship, the suffocation, the +deck-sores wrought into the body by the attrition of the bonier parts +of the system against the unyielding wood--all these, says Mr. Froude, +were more tolerable than the swift doing away with life under an +African master! Under such, at all events, the care and comfort +suitable to age were strictly provided for, and cheered the advanced +years of the faithful bondsman. + +After a good deal of talk, having the same logical value, our author, +in his enthusiasm for [172] slavery, delivers himself thus: "For +myself, I would rather be the slave of a Shakespeare or a Burghley, +than the slave of a majority in the House of Commons, or the slave of +my own folly." Of the four above specified alternatives of +enslavement, it is to be regretted that temperament, or what is more +likely, perhaps, self-interest, has driven him to accept the fourth, or +the latter of the two deprecated yokes, his book being an irrefutable +testimony to the fact. For, most assuredly, it has not been at the +prompting of wisdom that a learned man of unquestionably brilliant +talents and some measure of accorded fame could have prostituted those +talents and tarnished that fame by condescending to be the literary +spokesman of the set for whose miserable benefit he recommends the +statesmen of his country to perjure and compromise themselves, +regardless of inevitable consequences, which the value of the sectional +satisfaction to be thereby given would but very poorly compensate. +Possibly a House of Commons majority, whom this dermatophilist +evidently rates far lower than his "Anglo-West Indians," might, if he +were their Slave, have protected their own self- [173] respect by +restraining him from vicariously scandalizing them by his effusions. + +After this curious boast about his preferences as a hypothetic +bondsman, Mr. Froude proceeds gravely to inform his readers that "there +may be authority yet not slavery; a soldier is not a slave, a wife is +not a slave..." and he continues, with a view of utilizing these +platitudes against the obnoxious Negro, by telling us that persons +sustaining the above specified and similar relations "may not live by +their own wills, or emancipate themselves at their own pleasure from +positions in which nature has placed them, or into which they have +themselves voluntarily entered. The negroes of the West Indies are +children, and not yet disobedient children.... If you enforce +self-government upon them when they are not asking for it, you may ... +wilfully drive them back into the condition of their ancestors, from +which the slave-trade was the beginning of their emancipation."! The +words which we have signalized by italics in the above extract could +have been conceived only by a bigot--such an atrocious sentiment being +possible only as the product of mind or morals [174] wrenched +hopelessly out of normal action. All the remainder of this hashing up +of pointless commonplaces has for its double object a suggestio falsi +against us Negroes as a body, and a diverting of attention, as we have +proved before, from the numerous British claimants of Reform, whose +personality Mr. Froude and his friends would keep out of view, provided +their crafty policy has the result of effectually repressing the +hitherto irrepressible, and, as such, to the "Anglo-West Indian," truly +detestable Negro. + +NOTES + +158. +Translation: "I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts." + + + +BOOK III: WEST INDIAN CONFEDERATION + +[175] In heedless formulation of his reasons, if such they should be +termed, for urging tooth and nail the non-according of reform to the +Crown-governed Colonies, our author puts forth this dogmatic +deliverance (p. 123):-- + +"A West Indian self-governing dominion is possible only with a full +Negro vote. If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks. It will +be a rule by the blacks and for the blacks." + +That a constitution for any of our diversely populated Colonies which +may be fit for it is possible only with "a full Negro vote" (to the +extent within the competence of such voting), goes without saying, as +must be the case with every section of the Queen's subjects eligible +for the franchise. The duly qualified Spaniard, [176] Coolie, +Portuguese, or man of any other non-British race, will each thus have a +vote, the same as every Englishman or any other Briton. Why, then, +should the vote of the Negro be so especially a bugbear? It is because +the Negro is the game which our political sportsman is in full chase +of, and determined to hunt down at any cost. Granted, however, for the +sake of argument, that black voters should preponderate at any +election, what then? We are gravely told by this latter-day Balaam +that "If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks," but he does +not say for what purpose. + +His sentence, therefore, may be legitimately constructed in full for +him in the only sense which is applicable to the mutual relations +actually existing between those two directly specified sections of +British subjects who he would fain have the world believe live in a +state of active hostility:--"If the whites are to combine for the +Promotion of the general welfare, as many of the foremost of them have +done before and are doing now, so will the blacks also combine in the +support of such whites, and as staunch auxiliaries equally interested +in the furtherance of the same ameliorative [177] objects." Except in +the sense embodied in the foregoing sentence, we cannot, in these days, +conceive with what intent persons of one section should so specially +combine as to compel combination on the part of persons of any other. +The further statement that a confederation having a full black +voting-power would be a government "by the blacks and for the blacks," +is the logical converse of the now obsolete doctrine of Mr. Froude's +inspirers--"a government by whites should be only for whites." But +this formula, however strenuously insisted on by those who gave it +shape, could never, since even before three decades from the first +introduction of African slaves, be thoroughly put in practice, so +completely had circumstances beyond man's devising or control compelled +the altering of men's minds and methods with regard to the new +interests which had irresistibly forced themselves into importance as +vital items in political arrangements. Nowadays, therefore, that Mr. +Froude should desire to create a state of feeling which had, and could +have had, no existence with regard to the common interests of the +inhabitants for upwards of two full centuries, is [178] evidently an +excess of confidence which can only be truly described as amazing. +But, after all, what does our author mean by the words "a government by +the blacks?" Are we to understand him as suggesting that voting by +black electors would be synonymous with electing black representatives? +If so, he has clearly to learn much more than he has shown that he +lacks, in order to understand and appreciate the vital influences at +work in West Indian affairs. Undoubtedly, being the spokesman of few +who (secretly) avow themselves to be particularly hostile to +Ethiopians, he has done no more than reproduce their sentiments. For, +conscious, as these hankerers after the old "institutions" are, of +being utterly ineligible for the furthering of modern progressive +ideas, they revenge themselves for their supersession on everybody and +everything, save and except their own arrogant stolidity. White +individuals who have part and lot in the various Colonies, with their +hearts and feelings swayed by affections natural to their birth and +earliest associations; and Whites who have come to think the land of +their adoption as dear to themselves as the land of their birth, +entertain no such dread of [179] their fellow-citizens of any other +section, whom they estimate according to intelligence and probity, and +not according to any accident of exterior physique. Every intelligent +black is as shrewd regarding his own interests as our author himself +would be regarding his in the following hypothetical case: Some fine +day, being a youth and a bachelor, he gets wedded, sets up an +establishment, and becomes the owner of a clipper yacht. For his own +service in the above circumstances we give him the credit to believe +that, on the persons specified below applying among others to him for +employment, as chamber-maid and house-servant, and also as hands for +the vessel, he would, in preference to any ordinarily recommended white +applicants, at once engage the two black servant-girls at President +Churchill's in Dominica, the droghermen there as able seamen, and as +cabin-boy the lad amongst them whose precocious marine skill he has so +warmly and justly extolled. It is not because all these persons are +black, but because of the soul-consciousness of the selector, that they +each (were they even blue) had a title to preferential consideration, +his experience and sense of fitness being [180] their most effectual +supporters. Similarly, the Negro voter would elect representatives +whom he knew he could trust for competency in the management of his +affairs, and not persons whose sole recommendation to him would be the +possession of the same kind of skin. Nor, from what we know of matters +in the West Indies, do we believe that any white man of the class we +have eulogized would hesitate to give his warmest suffrage to any black +candidate who he knew would be a fitting representative of his +interests. We could give examples from almost every West Indian island +of white and coloured men who would be indiscriminately chosen as their +candidate by either section. But the enumeration is needless, as the +fact of the existence of such men is too notorious to require proof. + +Mr. Froude states plainly enough (p. 123) that, whereas a whole +thousand years were needed to train and discipline the Anglo-Saxon +race, yet "European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by a higher +instinct, may shorten the probation period of the negro." Let it be +supposed that this period of probation [181] for the Negro should +extend, under such exceptionally favourable circumstances, to any +period less than that which is alleged to have been needed by the +Anglo-Saxon to attain his political manhood--what then are the +prospects held out by Mr. Froude to us and our posterity on our +mastering the training and discipline which he specially recommends for +Blacks? Our author, in view, doubtless, of the rapidity of our onward +progress, and indeed our actual advancement in every respect, thus +answers (pp. 123-4):--"Let a generation or two pass by and carry away +with them the old traditions, and an English governor-general will be +found presiding over a black council, delivering the speeches made for +him by a black prime minister; and how long could this endure? No +English gentleman would consent to occupy so absurd a situation." + +And again, more emphatically, on the same point (p. 285):--"No +Englishman, not even a bankrupt peer, would consent to occupy such +position; the blacks themselves would despise him if he did; and if the +governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how long would such +a connection endure?" + +[182] It is plainly to be seen from the above two extracts that the +political ethics of our author, being based on race and colour +exclusively, would admit of no conceivable chance of real elevation to +any descendant of Africa, who, being Ethiopian, could not possibly +change his skin. The "old traditions" which Mr. Froude supposes to be +carried away by his hypothetical (white) generations who have "passed +by," we readily infer from his language, rendered impossible such +incarnations of political absurdity as those he depicts. But what +should be thought of the sense, if not indeed the sanity, of a grave +political teacher who prescribes "European government" and "European +education" as the specifics to qualify the Negro for political +emancipation, and who, when these qualifications are conspicuously +mastered by the Negro who has undergone the training, refuses him the +prize, because he is a Negro? We see further that, in spite of being +fit for election to council, and even to be prime ministers competent +to indite governors' messages, the pigment under our epidermis dooms us +to eventual disappointment and a life-long condition of contempt. Even +so is it [183] desired by Mr. Froude and his clients, and not without a +spice of piquancy is their opinion that for a white ruler to preside +and rule over and accept the best assistance of coloured men, qualified +as above stated, would be a self-degradation too unspeakable for +toleration by any Englishman--"even a bankrupt peer." Unfortunately +for Mr. Froude, we can point him to page 56 of this his very book, +where, speaking of Grenada and deprecating the notion of its official +abandonment, our author says:-- + +"Otherwise they [Negroes] were quiet fellows, and if the politicians +would only let them alone, they would be perfectly contented, and might +eventually, if wisely managed, come to some good.... Black the island +was, and black it would remain. The conditions were never likely to +arise which would bring back a European population; but a governor who +was a sensible man, who would reside and use his natural influence, +could manage it with perfect ease." + +Here, then, we see that the governor of an entirely black population +may be a sensible man, and yet hold the post. Our author, indeed, +gives the Blacks over whom this sensible governor would hold rule as +being in number [184] just 40,000 souls; and we are therefore bound to +accept the implied suggestion that the dishonour of holding supremacy +over persons of the odious colour begins just as their number begins to +count onward from 40,000! There is quite enough in the above verbal +vagaries of our philosopher to provoke a volume of comment. But we +must pass on to further clauses of this precious paragraph. Mr. +Froude's talent for eating his own words never had a more striking +illustration than here, in his denial of the utility of native +experience as the safest guide a governor could have in the +administration of Colonial affairs. At page 91 he says:--"Among the +public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found +fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty, if a sincere effort +be made to find them." + +A post of honour and difficulty, we and all other persons in the +British dominions had all along understood was regarded as such in the +case of functionaries called upon to contend with adverse forces in the +accomplishment of great ends conceived by their superiors. But we find +that, according to Mr. Froude, all the credit that has hitherto +redounded to those [185] who had succeeded in such tasks has been in +reality nothing more than a gilding over of disgrace, whenever the +exertions of such officials had been put forth amongst persons not +wearing a European epidermis. The extension of British influence and +dominion over regions inhabited by races not white is therefore, on the +part of those who promote it, a perverse opening of arenas for the +humiliation and disgrace of British gentlemen, nay, even of those +titled members of the "black sheep" family--bankrupt peers! As we have +seen, however, ample contradiction and refutation have been +considerately furnished by the same objector in this same volume, as in +his praises of the governor just quoted. + +The cavil of Mr. Froude about English gentlemen reading messages penned +by black prime ministers applies with double force to English +barristers (who are gentlemen by statute) receiving the law from the +lips of black Judges. + +For all that, however, an emergency arose so pressing as to compel even +the colonialism of Barbados to practically and completely refute this +doctrine, by praying for, and submitting with gratitude to, the supreme +headship of a [186] man of the race which our author so finically +depreciates. In addition it may be observed that for a governor to +even consult his prime minister in the matter of preparing his messages +might conceivably be optional, whilst it is obligatory on all +barristers, whether English or otherwise, to defer to the judge's +interpretation of the law in every case--appeal afterwards being the +only remedy. As to the dictum that "the two races are not equal and +will not blend," it is open to the fatal objection that, having himself +proved, with sympathizing pathos, how the West Indies are now well-nigh +denuded of their Anglo-Saxon inhabitants, Mr. Froude would have us also +understand that the miserable remnant who still complainingly inhabit +those islands must, by doing violence to the understanding, be taken as +the whole of the world-pervading Anglo-Saxon family. The Negroes of +the West Indies number a good deal more than two million souls. Does +this suggester of extravagances mean that the prejudices and vain +conceit of the few dozens whom he champions should be made to override +and overbear, in political arrangements, the serious and solid +interests of so many [187] hundreds of thousands? That "the two races +are not equal" is a statement which no sane man would dispute, but +acquiescence in its truth involves also a distinct understanding that +the word race, as applied in the present case by our author, is a +simple accommodation of terms--a fashion of speech having a very +restricted meaning in this serious discussion. + +The Anglo-Saxon race pervades Great Britain, its cradle, and the +Greater Britain extending almost all over the face of the earth, which +is the arena of its activities and marvellous achievements. To tell +us, therefore, as Mr. Froude does, that the handful of malcontents +whose unrespectable grievance he holds up to public sympathy represents +the Anglo-Saxon race, is a grotesque facon de parler. Taking our +author's "Anglo-West Indians" and the people of Ethiopian descent +respectively, it would not be too much to assert, nor in anywise +difficult to prove by facts and figures, that for every competent +individual of the former section in active civilized employments, the +coloured section can put forward at least twenty thoroughly competent +rivals. Yet are these latter the people whom the classic Mr. [188] +Froude wishes to be immolated, root and branch, in all their highest +and dearest interests, in order to secure the maintenance of "old +traditions" which, he tells us, guaranteed for the dominant cuticle the +sacrifice of the happiness of down-trodden thousands! Referring to his +hypothetical confederation with its black officeholders, our author +scornfully asks:-- + +"And how long would this endure?" + +The answer must be that, granting the existence of such a state of +things, its duration would be not more nor less than under white +functionaries. For according to himself (p. 124): "There is no +original or congenital difference of capacity between" the white and +black races, and "with the same chances and the same treatment, ... +distinguished men would be produced equally from both races." + +If, therefore, the black ministers whose hue he so much despises do +possess the training and influence rendering them eligible and securing +their election to the situations we are considering, it must follow +that their tenure of office would be of equal duration with that of +individuals of the white race under the same conditions. Not content +with making himself [189] the mouthpiece of English gentlemen in this +matter, our author, with characteristic hardihood, obtrudes himself +into the same post on behalf of Negroes; saying that, in the event of +even a bankrupt peer accepting the situation of governor-general over +them, "The blacks themselves would despise him"! + +Mr. Froude may pertinently be asked here the source whence he derived +his certainty on this point, inasmuch as it is absolutely at variance +with all that is sensible and natural; for surely it is both foolish +and monstrous to suppose that educated men would infer the degradation +of any one from the fact of such a one consenting to govern and +co-operate with themselves for their own welfare. He further asks on +the same subject:-- + +"And if the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how +long could such a connection endure?" + +Our answer must be the same as with regard to the duration of the black +council and black prime minister carrying out the government under the +same conditions. It must be regretted that no indication in his book, +so far as it professes to deal with facts and with [190] persons not +within the circle of his clients, would justify a belief that its +wanton misstatements have filtrated through a mind entitled to declare, +with the authority of self-consciousness, what a gentleman would or +would not do under given circumstances. + +In reiteration of his favourite doctrine of the antagonism between the +black and white races, our author continues on the same page to say:-- + +"No one, I presume, would advise that the whites of the island should +govern. The relations between the two populations are too embittered, +and equality once established by law, the exclusive privilege of colour +over colour cannot be restored. While slavery continued, the whites +ruled effectively and economically; the blacks are now as they." + +As far as could possibly be endeavoured, every proof has been crowded +into this book in refutation of this favourite allegation of Mr. +Froude's. It is only an idle waste of time to be thus harping on his +colour topic. No one can deserve to govern simply because he is white, +and no one is bound to be subject simply because he is black. The whole +of West [191] Indian history, even after the advent of the +attorney-class, proves this, in spite of the efforts to secure +exclusive white domination at a time when crude political power might +have secured it. + +"The relations between the two populations are too embittered," says +Mr. Froude. No doubt his talk on this point would be true, had any +such skin-dominancy as he contemplates been officially established; but +as at present most officials are appointed (locally at least) according +to their merit, and not to their epidermis, nothing is known of the +embittered relations so constantly dinned into our ears. Whatever +bitterness exists is in the minds of those gentry who would like to be +dominant on the cheap condition of showing a simple bodily accident +erected by themselves into an evidence and proof of superiority. + +"The exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored." +Never in the history of the British West Indies--must we again +state--was there any law or usage establishing superiority in +privileges for any section of the community on account of colour. This +statement of fact is also and again an answer to, and refutation of, +the succeeding allegation [192] that, "While slavery continued, the +whites ruled effectively and economically." It will be yet more +clearly shown in a later part of this essay that during slavery, in +fact for upwards of two centuries after its introduction, the West +Indies were ruled by slave-owners, who happened to be of all colours, +the means of purchasing slaves and having a plantation being the one +exclusive consideration in the case. It is, therefore, contrary to +fact to represent the Whites exclusively as ruling, and the Blacks +indiscriminately as subject. + +He goes on to say, "There are two classes in the community; their +interests are opposite as they are now understood." As regards the +above, Mr. Froude's attention may be called to the fact that +classification in no department of science has ever been based on +colour, but on relative affinity in certain salient qualities. To use +his own figure, no horse or dog is more or less a horse or dog because +it happens to be white or black. No teacher marshals his pupils into +classes according to any outward physical distinction, but according to +intellectual approximation. In like manner there has been wealth for +hundreds of men of Ethiopic origin, [193] and poverty for hundreds of +men of Caucasian origin, and the reverse in both cases. We have, +therefore, had hundreds of black as well as white men who, under +providential dispensation, belonged to the class, rich men; while, on +the other hand, we have had hundreds of white men who, under +providential dispensation, belonged to the class, poor men. Similarly, +in the composition of a free mixed community, we have hundreds of both +races belonging to the class, competent and eligible; and hundreds of +both races belonging to the class, incompetent and ineligible: to both +of which classes all possible colours might belong. It is from the +first mentioned that are selected those who are to bear the rule, to +which the latter class is, in the very nature of things, bound to be +subject. There is no government by reason merely of skins. The +diversity of individual intelligence and circumstances is large enough +to embrace the possibility of even children being, in emergencies, the +most competent influencers of opinion and action. + +But let us analyse this matter for just a while more. The fatal +objection to all Mr. Froude's advocacy of colour-domination is that +[194] it is futile from being morally unreasonable. In view of the +natural and absolute impossibility of reviving the same external +conditions under which the inordinate deference and submission to white +persons were both logically and inevitably engendered and maintained, +his efforts to talk people into a frame of mind favourable to his views +on this subject are but a melancholy waste of well-turned sentences. +Man's estimate of his fellow-man has not and never can have any other +standard, save and except what is the outcome of actual circumstances +influencing his sentiment. In the primitive ages, when the fruits of +the earth formed the absorbing object of attention and interest, the +men most distinguished for successful culture of the soil enjoyed, as a +consequence, a larger share than others of popular admiration and +esteem. Similarly, among nomadic tribes, the hunters whose courage +coped victoriously with the wild and ferocious denizens of the forest +became the idols of those who witnessed and were preserved by such +sylvan exploits. When men came at length to venture in ships over the +trackless deep in pursuit of commerce and its gains, the mariner grew +important in [195] public estimation. The pursuit of commerce and its +gains led naturally to the possession of wealth. This, from the +quasi-omnipotence with which it invests men--enabling them not only to +command the best energies, but also, in many cases, to subvert the very +principles of their fellows--has, in the vast majority of cases, an +overpowering sway on human opinion: a sway that will endure till the +Millennium shall have secured for the righteous alone the sovereignty +of the world. Likewise, as cities were founded and constitutions +established, those who were foremost as defenders of the national +interests, on the field of bodily conflict or in the intellectual +arena, became in the eyes of their contemporaries worthiest of +appreciation--and so on of other circumstances through which particular +personal distinctions created claims to preference. + +In the special case of the Negroes kidnapped out of Africa into foreign +bondage, the crowning item in their assessment of their alien enslavers +was the utter superiority, over their most redoubtable "big men," which +those enslavers displayed. They actually subjugated and put in chains, +like the commonest peasants, native [196] potentates at whose very +names even the warriorhood of their tribes had been wont to blench. +But far surpassing even this in awful effect was the doom meted out to +the bush-handlers, the medicine-men, the rain-compellers, erewhile so +inscrutably potent for working out the bliss or the bale of friend or +enemy. "Lo, from no mountain-top, from no ceiba-hollow in the forest +recesses, has issued any interposing sign, any avenging portent, to +vindicate the Spirit of Darkness so foully outraged in the hitherto +inviolate person of his chosen minister! Verily, even the powers of the +midnight are impotent against these invaders from beyond the mighty +salt-water! Here, huddled together in confused, hopeless misery and +ruin, lie, fettered and prostrate, even priest as well as potentate, +undistinguishable victims of crude, unblenching violence, with its +climax of nefarious sacrilege. We, common mortals, therefore, can hope +for no deliverance from, or even succour in, the woful plight thus +dismally contrived for us all by the fair-skinned race who have now +become our masters." Such was naturally the train of thought that ran +through those forlorn bosoms. The formidable death-dealing guns [197] +of the invaders, the ships which had brought them to the African +shores, and much besides in startling contrast to their own condition +of utter helplessness, the Africans at once interpreted to themselves +as the manifestation and inherent attributes of beings of a higher +order than man. Their skin, too, the difference whereof from their own +had been accentuated by many calamitous incidents, was hit upon as the +reason of so crushing an ascendency. + +White skin therefore became, in those disconsolate eyes, the symbol of +fearful irresistible power: which impression was not at all weakened +afterwards by the ineffable atrocities of the "middle-passage." Backed +ultimately by their absolute and irresponsible masterhood at home over +the deported Blacks, the European abductors could easily render +permanent in the minds of their captives the abject terror struck into +them by the enormities of which they had been the victims. Now, the +impressions we touched upon before bringing forward the case of the +Negro slaves were mainly produced by pleasurable circumstances. But of +a contrary nature and much more deeply graven are those sentiments +which are the outcome of hopeless terror [198] and pain. For whilst +impressions of the former character glide into the consciousness +through accesses no less normal than agreeable, the infusion of fear by +means of bodily suffering is a process too violent to be forgotten by +minds tortured and strained to unnatural tension thereby. Such +tension, oft-recurrent and scarcely endurable, leaves behind it +recollections which are in themselves a source of sadness. But time, +favoured by a succession of pleasurable experiences, is a sovereign +anodyne to remembrances of this poignant class. No wonder, then, from +our foregoing detail of facts, that whiteness of skin was both +redoubted and tremblingly crouched to by Negroes on whom Europeans had +wrought such unspeakable calamities. Time, however, and the action of +circumstances, especially in countries subject to Catholic dominion, +soon began to modify the conditions under which this sentiment of +terror had been maintained, and, with those conditions, the very +sentiment itself. For it was not long in the life of many of the +expatriated Africans before numbers of their own race obtained freedom, +and, eventually, wealth sufficient for purchasing black slaves on their +[199] own account. In other respects, too (outwardly at least), the +prosperous career of such individual Blacks could not fail to induce a +revulsion of thought, whereby the attribution of unapproachable powers +exclusively to the Whites became a matter earnestly reconsidered by the +Africans. Centuries of such reconsideration have produced the natural +result in the West Indies. With the daily competition in intelligence, +refinement, and social and moral distinction, which time and events +have brought about between individuals of the two races, nothing, +surely, has resulted, nor has even been indicated, to re-infuse the +ancient colour-dread into minds which had formerly been forced to +entertain it; and still less to engender it in bosoms to which such a +feeling cannot, in the very nature of things, be an inborn emotion. +Now, can Mr. Froude show us by what process he would be able to infuse +in the soul of an entire population a sentiment which is both unnatural +and beyond compulsion? + +The foregoing remarks roughly apply to preeminence given to outward +distinction, and the conditions under which mainly it impresses and is +accepted by men not yet arrived at the [200] essentially intellectual +stage. In the spiritual domain the conditions have ever been quite +different. A belief in the supernatural being inborn in man, the +professors of knowledge and powers beyond natural attainment were by +common consent accorded a distinct and superior consideration, deemed +proper to the sacredness of their progression. Hence the supremacy of +the priestly caste in every age and country of the world. Potentate as +well as peasant have bowed in reverence before it, as representing and +declaring with authority the counsels of that Being whom all, priest, +potentate and peasant alike, acknowledge and adore, each according to +the measure of his inward illumination. + + + +BOOK III: THE NEGRO AS WORKER + +[201] The laziness, the incurable idleness, of the Negro, was, both +immediately before their emancipation in 1838, and for long years after +that event, the cuckoo-cry of their white detractors. It was laziness, +pure and simple, which hindered the Negro from exhausting himself under +a tropical sun, toiling at starvation wages to ensure for his quondam +master the means of being an idler himself, with the additional luxury +of rolling in easily come-by wealth. Within the last twenty years, +however, the history of the Black Man, both in the West Indies and, +better still, in the United States of America, has been a succession of +achievements which have converted the charge of laziness into a +baseless and absurd calumny. The repetition of the charge referred to +is, in these [202] waning days of the nineteenth century, a discredited +anachronism, which, however, has no deterring features for Mr. Froude. +As the running down of the Negro was his cue, he went in boldly for the +game, with what result we shall presently see. At page 239, our +author, speaking of the Negro garden-farms in Jamaica, says:-- + +"The male proprietors were lounging about smoking. Their wives, as it +was market-day, were tramping into Kingston with their baskets on their +heads. We met them literally in thousands, all merry and +light-hearted, their little ones with little baskets trudging at their +side. Of the lords of the creation we saw, perhaps, one to each +hundred of the women, and he would be riding on mule or donkey, pipe in +mouth and carrying nothing. He would be generally sulky too, while the +ladies, young and old, had a civil word for us, and curtsied under +their loads. Decidedly if there is to be a black constitution I will +give my vote to the women." + +To the above direct imputation of indolence, heartlessness, and +moroseness, Mr. Froude appends the following remarks on other moral +characteristics of certain sable peasants at [203] Mandeville, Jamaica, +given on the authority of a police official, who, our author says, +described them as-- + +"Good-humoured, but not universally honest. They stole cattle, and +would not give evidence against each other. If brought into Court, +they held a pebble in their mouth, being under the impression that when +they were so provided, perjury did not count. Their education was only +skin-deep, and the schools which the Government provided had not +touched their characters at all." + +But how could the education so provided be otherwise than futile when +the administration of its details is entirely in the hands of persons +unsympathizing with and utterly despising the Negro? But of this more +anon and elsewhere. We resume Mr. Froude's evidence respecting the +black peasantry. Our author proceeds to admit, on the same subject, +that his informant's duties (as a police official) "brought him in +contact with the unfavourable specimens." He adds:-- + +"I received a far pleasanter impression from a Moravian minister.... I +was particularly glad to see this gentleman, for of the Moravians [204] +every one had spoken well to me. He was not the least enthusiastic +about his poor black sheep, but he said that if they were not better +than the average English labourer, he did not think them worse. They +were called idle; they would work well enough if they had fair wages +and if the wages were paid regularly; but what could be expected when +women servants had but three shillings a week and found themselves, +when the men had but a shilling a day and the pay was kept in arrear in +order that if they came late to work, or if they came irregularly, it +may be kept back or cut down to what the employer choose to give? +Under such conditions ANY man of ANY colour would prefer to work for +himself if he had a garden, or would be idle if he had none." + +Take, again, the following extract regarding the heroism of the +emigrants to the Canal:-- + +"I walked forward" (on the steamer bound to Jamaica), "after we had +done talking. We had five hundred of the poor creatures on their way +to the Darien pandemonium. The vessel was rolling with a heavy beam +sea. I found the whole mass of them reduced to the condition of the +pigs who used to occupy the fore decks on the Cork and Bristol packets. +They were [205] lying in a confused heap together, helpless, miserable, +without consciousness, apparently, save a sense in each that he was +wretched. Unfortunate brothers-in-law! following the laws of political +economy, and carrying their labour to the dearest market, where, before +a year was out, half of them were to die. They had souls, too, some of +them, and honest and kindly hearts." + +It surely is refreshing to read the revelation of his first learning of +the possession of a soul by a fellow-human being, thus artlessly +described by one who is said to be an ex-parson. But piquancy is Mr. +Froude's strong point, whatever else he may be found wanting in. + +Still, apart from Mr. Froude's direct testimony to the fact that from +year to year, during a long series of years, there has been a +continuous, scarcely ever interrupted emigration of Negroes to the +Spanish mainland, in search of work for a sufficing livelihood for +themselves and their families--and that in the teeth of physical +danger, pestilence, and death--there would be enough indirect +exoneration of the Black Man from that indictment in the wail of Mr. +Froude and his friends regarding the alarming absorption of the lands +of Grenada [206] and Trinidad by sable proprietors. Land cannot be +bought without money, nor can money be possessed except through labour, +and the fact that so many tens of thousand Blacks are now the happy +owners of the soil whereon, in the days so bitterly regretted by our +author, their forefathers' tears, nay, very hearts' blood, had been +caused to flow, ought to silence for ever an accusation, which, were it +even true, would be futile, and, being false, is worse than +disgraceful, coming from the lips of the Eumolpids who would fain +impose a not-to-be-questioned yoke on us poor helots of Ethiopia. It +is said that lying is the vice of slaves; but the ethics of West Indian +would-be mastership assert, on its behalf, that they alone should enjoy +the privilege of resorting to misrepresentation to give colour, if not +solidity, to their pretensions. + + + +BOOK III: RELIGION FOR NEGROES + +[207] Mr. Froude's passing on from matters secular to matters spiritual +and sacred was a transition to be expected in the course of the grave +and complicated discussion which he had volunteered to initiate. It +was, therefore, not without curiosity that his views in the direction +above indicated were sought for and earnestly scrutinized by us. But +worse than in his treatment of purely mundane subjects, his attitude +here is marked by a nonchalant levity which excites our wonder that +even he should have touched upon the spiritual side of his thesis at +all. The idea of the dove sent forth from the ark fluttering over the +heaving swells of the deluge, in vain endeavour to secure a rest for +the soles of its feet, represents not inaptly the unfortunate +predicament of his spirit with regard to a solid [208] faith on which +to repose amid the surges of doubt by which it is so evidently beset. +Yet although this is his obvious plight with regard to a satisfying +belief, he nevertheless undertakes, with characteristic confidence, to +suggest a creed for the moralization of West Indian Negroes. His +language is:-- + +"A religion, at any rate, which will keep the West Indian blacks from +falling back into devil-worship is still to seek. In spite of the +priests, child-murder and cannibalism have re-appeared in Hayti, but +without them things might have been much worse than they are, and the +preservation of white authority and influence in any form at all may be +better than none." + +We discern in the foregoing citation the exercise of a charity that is +unquestionably born of fetish-worship, which, whether it be obeah +generally, or restricted to a mere human skin, can be so powerful an +agent in the formation and retention of beliefs. Hence we see that our +philosopher relies here, in the domain of morals and spiritual ethics, +on a white skin as implicitly as he does on its sovereign potency in +secular politics. The curiousness of the matter lies mainly in its +application to natives [209] of Hayti, of all people in the world. As +a matter of fact we have had our author declaring as follows, in climax +to his oft-repeated predictions about West Indian Negroes degenerating +into the condition of their fellow-Negroes in the "Black Republic" (p. +285):-- + +"Were it worth while, one might draw a picture of an English governor, +with a black parliament and a black ministry, recommending, by advice +of his constitutional ministers, some measure like the Haytian Land +Law." + +Now, as the West Indies degenerating into so many white-folk-detesting +Haytis, under our prophet's dreaded supremacy of the Blacks, is the +burden of his book; and as the Land Law in question distinctly forbids +the owning by any white person of even one inch of the soil of the +Republic, it might, but for the above explanation, have seemed +unaccountable, in view of the implacable distrust, not to say hatred, +which this stern prohibition so clearly discloses, that our author +should, nevertheless, rely on the efficacy of white authority and +influence over Haytians. + +In continuation of his religious suggestions, he goes on to descant +upon slavery in the [210] fashion which we have elsewhere noticed, but +it may still be proper to add a word or two here regarding this +particular disquisition of his. This we are happy in being able to do +under the guidance of an anterior and more reliable exponent of +ecclesiastical as well as secular obedience on the part of all free and +enlightened men in the present epoch of the world's history:-- + + "Dogma and Descent, potential twin + Which erst could rein submissive millions in, + Are now spent forces on the eddying surge + Of Thought enfranchised. Agencies emerge + Unhampered by the incubus of dread + Which cramped men's hearts and clogged their onward tread. + Dynasty, Prescription! spectral in these days + When Science points to Thought its surest ways, + And men who scorn obedience when not free + Demand the logic of Authority! + The day of manhood to the world is here, + And ancient homage waxes faint and drear. + . . . . . . + Vision of rapture! See Salvation's plan + 'Tis serving God through ceaseless toil for man!" + +The lines above quoted are by a West Indian Negro, and explain in very +concise form the attitude of the educated African mind [211] with +reference to the matters they deal with. Mr. Froude is free to +perceive that no special religion patched up from obsolete creeds could +be acceptable to those with whose sentiments the thoughts of the writer +just quoted are in true racial unison. It is preposterous to expect +that the same superstition regarding skin ascendency, which is now so +markedly played out in our Colonies in temporal matters, could have any +weight whatsoever in matters so momentous as morals and religion. But +granting even the possibility of any code of worldly ethics or of +religion being acceptable on the dermal score so strenuously insisted +on by him, it is to be feared that, through sheer respect for the +fitness of things, the intelligent Negro in search of guidance in faith +and morals would fail to recognize in our author a guide, philosopher, +and friend, to be followed without the most painful misgivings. The +Catholic and the Dissenting Churches which have done so much for the +temporal and spiritual advancement of the Negro, in spite of hindrance +and active persecution wherever these were possible, are, so far as is +visible, maintaining their hold on the adhesion of those who belong to +them. + +[212] And it cannot be pretended that, among enlightened Africans as +compared with other enlightened people, there have been more grievous +failings off from the scriptural standard of deportment. Possible it +certainly is that considerations akin to, or even identical with, those +relied upon by Mr. Froude might, on the first reception of Christianity +in their exile, have operated effectually upon the minds of the +children of Africa. At that time the evangelizers whose converts they +so readily became possessed the recommendation of belonging to the +dominant caste. Therefore, with the humility proper to their forlorn +condition, the poor bondsmen requited with intense gratitude such +beneficent interest on their behalf, as a condescension to which people +in their hapless situation could have had no right. But for many long +years, the distinction whether of temporal or of spiritual superiority +has ceased to be the monopoly of any particular class. The master and +employer has for far more than a century and a half been often +represented in the West Indies by some born African or his descendant; +and so also has the teacher and preacher. It is not too much to say +that [213] the behaviour of the liberated slaves throughout the British +Antilles, as well as the deportment of the manumitted four million +slaves of the Southern United States later on, bore glorious testimony +to the humanizing effects which the religion of charity, clutched at +and grasped in fragments, and understood with childlike incompleteness, +had produced within those suffering bosoms. + +Nothing has occurred to call for a remodelling of the ordinary moral +and spiritual machinery for the special behoof of Negroes. Religion, +as understood by the best of men, is purely a matter of feeling and +action between man and man--the doing unto others as we would they +should do unto us; and any creed or any doctrine which directly or +indirectly subverts or even weakens this basis is in itself a danger to +the highest welfare of mankind. The simple conventional faith in God, +in Jesus, and in a future state, however modified nowadays, has still a +vitality which can restrain and ennoble its votaries, provided it be +inculcated and received in a befitting spirit. Our critic, in the +plenitude of his familiarity with such matters, confidently asks:-- + +[214] "Who is now made wretched by the fear of hell?" + +Possibly the belief in the material hell, the decadence of which he +here triumphantly assumes to be so general, may have considerably +diminished; but experience has shown that, with the advance of +refinement, there is a concurrent growth in the intensity of moral +sensibility, whereby the waning terrors of a future material hell are +more than replaced by the agonies of a conscience self-convicted of +wilful violation of the right. The same simple faith has, in its +practical results, been rich in the records of the humble whom it has +exalted; of the poor to whom it has been better than wealth; of the +rich whose stewardship of worldly prosperity it has sanctified; of the +timid whom it has rendered bold; and of the valiant whom it has raised +to a divine heroism--in fine, of miracles of transformation that have +impelled to higher and nobler tendencies and uses the powers and gifts +inherited or acquired by man in his natural state. They who possess +this faith, and cherish it as a priceless possession, may calmly oppose +to the philosophic reasoning against the existence of [215] a Deity and +the rationalness of entreating Him in prayer, the simple and sufficient +declaration, "I believe." Normal-minded men, sensible of the +limitations of human faculties, never aspire to be wise beyond what is +revealed. Whatever might exist beyond the grave is, so far as man and +man in their mutual relations are concerned, not a subject that +discussion can affect or speculation unravel. To believers it cannot +matter whether the Sermon on the Mount embodies or does not embody the +quality of ethics that the esoteric votaries of Mr. Froude's "new +creed" do accept or even can tolerate. Under the old creed man's sense +of duty kindled in sympathy towards his brother, urging him to achieve +by self-sacrifice every possibility of beneficence; hence the old creed +insured an inward joy as well as "the peace which passeth all +understanding." There can be no room for desiring left, when +receptiveness of blessings overflows; and it is the worthiest direction +of human energy to secure for others that fulness of fruition. Is not +Duty the first, the highest item of moral consciousness; and is not +promoting, according to our best ability, the welfare of our fellow +creatures, the first and [216] most urgent call of human duty? Can the +urgency of such responsibility ever cease but with the capacity, on our +own or on our brother's part, to do or be done by respectively? +Contemptuously ignoring his share of this solemn +responsibility--solemn, whether regarded from a religious or a purely +secular point of view--to observe at least the negative obligation +never to wantonly do or even devise any harm to his fellows, or indeed +any sentient creature, our new apostle affords, in his light-hearted +reversal of the prescriptive methods of civilized ethics, a woful +foretaste of the moral results of the "new, not as yet crystallized" +belief, whose trusted instruments of spiritual investigation are the +telescope and mental analysis, in order to satisfy the carpings of +those who so impress the world with their superhuman strong-mindedness. + +The following is a profound reflection presenting, doubtless, quite a +new revelation to an unsophisticated world, which had so long submitted +in reverential tameness to the self-evident impossibility of exploring +the Infinite:-- + +"The tendency of popular thought is against [217] the supernatural in +any shape. Far into space as the telescope can search, deep as +analysis can penetrate into mind and consciousness or the forces which +govern natural things, popular thought finds only uniformity and +connection of cause and effect; no sign anywhere of a personal will +which is influenced by prayer or moral motives." + +How much to be pitied are the gifted esoterics who, in such a quest, +vainly point their telescopes into the star-thronged firmament, and +plunge their reasoning powers into the abyss of consciousness and +such-like mysteries! The commonplace intellect of the author of "Night +Thoughts" was, if we may so speak, awed into an adoring rapture which +forced from him the exclamation (may believers hail it as a dogma!)-- + +"An undevout astronomer is mad!" + +Most probably it was in weak submission to some such sentiment as this +that Isaac Newton nowhere in his writings suggests even the ghost of a +doubt of there being a Great Architect of the Universe as the outcome +of his telescopic explorations into the illimitable heavens. + +[218] It is quite possible, too, that he was, "on insufficient +grounds," perhaps, perfectly satisfied, as a host of other intellectual +mediocrities like himself have been, and even up to now rather +provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and connection of +cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being not only "a +personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as well. In this +connection comes to mind a certain old Book which, whatever damage +Semitic Scholarship and Modern Criticism may succeed in inflicting on +its contents, will always retain for the spiritual guidance of the +world enough and to spare of divine suggestions. With the prescience +which has been the heritage of the inspired in all ages, one of the +writers in that Book, whom we shall now quote, foresaw, no doubt, the +deplorable industry of Mr. Froude and his protege "popular thought," +whose mouth-piece he has so characteristically constituted himself, and +asks in a tone wherein solemn warning blends with inquiry: "Canst thou +by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty unto +perfection!" The rational among the most loftily endowed of mankind +have grasped [219] the sublime significance of this query, acquiescing +reverently in its scarcely veiled intimation of man's impotence in +presence of the task to which it refers. + +But though Mr. Froude's spiritual plight be such as we have just +allowed him to state it, with regard to an object of faith and a motive +of worship, yet let us hear him, in his anxiety to furbish up a special +Negro creed, setting forth the motive for being in a hurry to +anticipate the "crystallization" of his new belief:-- + +"The new creed, however, not having crystallized as yet into a shape +which can be openly professed, and as without any creed at all the +flesh and the devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old +names, as we maintain the monarchy." + +The allusion to the monarchy seems not a very obvious one, as it +parallels the definitive rejection of a spiritual creed with the +theoretical change of ancient notions regarding a concrete fact. At +any rate we have it that his special religion, when concocted and +disseminated, will have the effect of preventing the flesh and the +devil from having too much power over Negroes. The objection to the +[220] devil's sway seems to us to come with queer grace from one who +owes his celebrity chiefly to the production of works teeming with that +peculiar usage of language of which the Enemy of Souls is credited with +the special fatherhood. + +No, sir, in the name of the Being regarding whose existence you and +your alleged "popular thought" are so painfully in doubt, we protest +against your right, or that of any other created worm, to formulate for +the special behoof of Negroes any sort of artificial creed unbelieved +in by yourself, having the function and effect of detective +"shadowings" of their souls. Away with your criminal suggestion of +toleration of the hideous orgies of heathenism in Hayti for the benefit +of our future morals in the West Indies, when the political supremacy +which you predict and dread and deprecate shall have become an +accomplished fact. Were any special standard of spiritual excellence +required, our race has, in Josiah Henson and Sojourner Truth, sufficing +models for our men and our women respectively. Their ideal of +Christian life, which we take to be the true one, is not to be judged +of with direct reference to the Deity whom we cannot [221] see, +interrogate, or comprehend, but to its practical bearing in and on man, +whom we can see and have cognizance of, not only with our physical +senses, but by the intimations of the divinity which abides within us.* +We can see, feel, and appreciate the virtue of a fellow-mortal who +consecrates himself to the Divine idea through untiring exertion for +the bettering of the condition of the world around him, whose agony he +makes it his duty, only to satisfy his burning desire, to mitigate. +The fact in its ghastly reality lies before us that the majority of +mankind labour and are being crushed under the tremendous trinity of +Ignorance, Vice, and Poverty. + +It is mainly in the succouring of those who thus suffer that the +vitality of the old creed is manifested in the person of its +professors. Under this aspect we behold it moulding men, of all +nations, countries, and tongues, whose virtues have challenged and +should command on its behalf the unquestioning faith and adhesion of +every rational observer. "Evidences of Christianity," "Controversies," +"Exegetical Commentaries," have all proved [222] more or less +futile--as perhaps they ought--with the Science and Modern Criticism +which perverts religion into a matter of dialectics. But there is a +hope for mankind in the fact that Science itself shall have ultimately +to admit the limitations of human inquiry into the details of the +Infinite. Meanwhile it requires no technical proficiency to recognize +the criminality of those who waste their brief threescore and ten years +in abstract speculations, while the tangible, visible, and hideous +soul-destroying trinity of Vice, Ignorance, and Poverty, above +mentioned, are desolating the world in their very sight. There are +possessors of personal virtue, enlightenment, and wealth, who dare +stand neutral with regard to these dire exigencies among their fellows. +And yet they are the logical helpers, as holders of the special +antidote to each of those banes! Infinitely more deserving of +execration are such folk than the callous owner of some specific, who +allows a suffering neighbour to perish for want of it. + +We who believe in the ultimate development of the Christian notion of +duty towards God, as manifested in untiring beneficence to man, cling +to this faith--starting from the [223] beginning of the New Testament +dispensation--because Saul of Tarsus, transformed into Paul the Apostle +through his whole-souled acceptance of this very creed with its +practical responsibilities, has, in his ardent, indefatigable labours +for the enlightenment and elevation of his fellows, left us a lesson +which is an enduring inspiration; because Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, +benefited, in a manner which has borne, and ever will bear, priceless +fruit, enormous sections of the human family, after his definite +submission to the benign yoke of the same old creed; because Vincent de +Paul has, through the identical inspiration, endowed the world with his +everlasting legacy of organized beneficence; because it impelled +Francis Xavier with yearning heart and eager footsteps through +thousands of miles of peril, to proclaim to the darkling millions of +India what he had experienced to be tidings of great joy to himself; +because Matthew Hale, a lawyer, and of first prominence in a pursuit +which materializes the mind and nips its native candour and tenderness, +escaped unblighted, through the saving influence of his faith, +approving himself in the sight of all [224] an ideal judge, even +according to the highest conception; because John Howard, opulent and +free to enjoy his opulence and repose, was drawn thereby throughout the +whole continent of Europe in quest of the hidden miseries that torture +those whom the law has shut out, in dungeons, from the light and +sympathy of the world; because Thomas Clarkson, animated by the spirit +of its teachings, consecrated wealth, luxury, and the quiet of an +entire lifetime on the altar of voluntary sacrifice for the salvation +of an alien people; because Samuel Johnson, shut out from mirthfulness +by disease and suffering, and endowed with an intellectual pride +intolerant of froward ignorance, was, through the chastening power of +that belief, transformed into the cheerful minister and willing slave +of the weaklings whom he gathered into his home, and around whom the +tendrils of his heart had entwined themselves, waxing closer and +stronger in the moisture of his never-failing charity; because Henry +Havelock, a man of the sword, whose duties have never been too +propitious to the cultivation and fostering of the gentler virtues, +lived and died a blameless hero, constrained by that faith to be one of +its most illustrious exemplars; [225] because David Livingstone looms +great and reverend in our mental sight in his devotion to a land and +race embraced in his boundless fellow-feeling, and whose miseries he +has commended to the sympathy of the civilized world in words the +pathos whereof has melted thousands of once obdurate hearts to crave a +share in applying a balm to the "open sore of Africa"--that slave-trade +whose numberless horrors beggar description; and finally--one more +example out of the countless varieties of types that blend into a +unique solidarity in the active manifestation of the Christian life--we +believe because Charles Gordon, the martyr-soldier of Khartoum, in +trusting faith a very child, but in heroism more notable than any mere +man of whom history contains a record, gathered around himself, through +the sublime attractiveness of his faith-directed life, the united +suffrages of all nations, and now enjoys, as the recompense and seal of +his life's labours, an apotheosis in homage to which the heathen of +Africa, the man-hunting Arab, the Egyptian, the Turk, all jostle each +other to blend with the exulting children of Britain who are directly +glorified by his life and history. + +[226] Here, then, are speaking evidences of the believers' grounds. +Verily they are of the kind that are to be seen in our midst, touched, +heard, listened to, respected, beloved--nay, honoured, too, with the +glad worship our inward spirit springs forth to render to goodness so +largely plenished from the Source of all Good. Can Modern Science and +Criticism explain them away, or persuade us of their insufficiency as +incentives to the hearty acceptance of the religion that has received +such glorious, yet simply logical, incarnation in the persons of weak, +erring men who welcomed its responsibilities conjointly with its +teachings, and thereby raised themselves to the spiritual level +pictured to ourselves in our conception of angels who have been given +the Divine charge concerning mankind. Religion for Negroes, indeed! +White priests, forsooth! This sort of arrogance might, possibly, avail +in quarters where the person and pretensions of Mr. Froude could be +impressive and influential--but here, in the momentous concern of man +with Him who "is no respecter of persons," his interference, mentally +disposed as he tells us he is with reference to such a matter, is +nothing less than profane intrusion. + +[227] We will conclude by stating in a few words our notion of the only +agency by which, not Blacks alone, but every race of mankind, might be +uplifted to the moral level which the thousands of examples, of which +we have glanced at but a few, prove so indubitably the capacity of man +to attain--each to a degree limited by the scope of his individual +powers. The priesthood whereof the world stands in such dire need is +not at all the confederacy of augurs which Mr. Froude, perhaps in +recollection of his former profession, so glibly suggests, with an +esoteric creed of their own, "crystallized into shape" for profession +before the public. The day of priestcraft being now numbered with the +things that were, the exploitation of those outside of the sacerdotal +circle is no longer possible. Therefore the religion of mere talk, +however metaphysical and profound; the religion of scenic display, +except such display be symbolic of living and active verities, has lost +whatever of efficacy it may once have possessed, through the very +spirit and tendency of To-day. The reason why those few whom we have +mentioned, and the thousands who cannot possibly be recalled, have, as +[228] typical Christians, impressed themselves on the moral sense and +sympathy of the ages, is simply that they lived the faith which they +professed. Whatever words they may have employed to express their +serious thoughts were never otherwise than, incidentally, a spoken +fragment of their own interior biography. In fine, success must +infallibly attend this special priesthood (whether episcopally +"ordained" or not) of all races, all colours, all tongues whatsoever, +since their lives reflect their teachings and their teachings reflect +their lives. Then, truly, they, "the righteous, shall inherit the +earth," leading mankind along the highest and noblest paths of temporal +existence. Then, of course, the obeah, the cannibalism, the +devil-worship of the whole world, including that of Hayti, which Mr. +Froude predicts will be adopted by us Blacks in the West Indies, shall +no more encumber and scandalize the earth. + +But Mr. Froude should, at the same time, be reminded that cannibalism +and the hideous concomitants which he mentions are, after all, +relatively minor and restricted dangers to man's civilization and moral +soundness. They can [229] neither operate freely nor expand easily. +The paralysis of horrified popular sentiment obstructs their +propagation, and the blight of the death-penalty which hangs over the +heads of their votaries is an additional guarantee of their being kept +within bounds that minimize their perniciousness. But there are more +fatal and further-reaching dangers to public morality and happiness of +which the regenerated current opinion of the future will take prompt +and remedial cognizance. Foremost among these will be the circulation +of malevolent writings whereby the equilibrium of sympathy between good +men of different races is sought to be destroyed, through misleading +appeals to the weaknesses and prejudices of readers; writings in which +the violation of actual truth cannot, save by stark stupidity, be +attributed to innocent error; writings that scoff at humanitarian +feeling and belittle the importance of achievements resulting +therefrom; writings which strike at the root of national manliness, by +eulogizing brute force directed against weaker folk as a fit and +legitimate mode of securing the wishes of a mighty and enlightened +people; writings, in fine, which ignore the divine principle [230] in +man, and implicitly deny the possibility of a Divine Power existing +outside of and above man, thus materializing the mind, and tending to +render the earth a worse hell than it ever could have been with faith +in the supremacy of a beneficent Power. + +NOTES + +221. *"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo."--Ovid. + + + +BOOK IV: HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +[233] Thus far we have dealt with the main questions raised by Mr. +Froude on the lines of his own choosing; lines which demonstrate to the +fullest how unsuited his capacity is for appreciating--still less +grappling with--the political and social issues he has so confidently +undertaken to determine. In vain have we sought throughout his bastard +philosophizing for any phrase giving promise of an adequate treatment +of this important subject. We find paraded ostentatiously enough the +doctrine that in the adjustment of human affairs the possession of a +white skin should be the strongest recommendation. Wonder might fairly +be felt that there is no suggestion of a corresponding advantage being +accorded to the possession of a long nose or of auburn hair. Indeed, +little [234] or no attention that can be deemed serious is given to the +interest of the Blacks, as a large and (out of Africa) no longer +despicable section of the human family, in the great world-problems +which are so visibly preparing and press for definitive solutions. The +intra-African Negro is clearly powerless to struggle successfully +against personal enslavement, annexation, or volunteer forcible +"protection" of his territory. What, we ask, will in the coming ages +be the opinion and attitude of the extra-African millions--ten millions +in the Western Hemisphere--dispersed so widely over the surface of the +globe, apt apprentices in every conceivable department of civilized +culture? Will these men remain for ever too poor, too isolated from one +another for grand racial combinations? Or will the naturally opulent +cradle of their people, too long a prey to violence and unholy greed, +become at length the sacred watchword of a generation willing and able +to conquer or perish under its inspiration? Such large and interesting +questions it was within the province and duty of a famous historian, +laying confident claim to prophetic insight, not to propound alone, but +also definitely to solve. The sacred power [235] of forecast, however, +has been confined to finical pronouncements regarding those for whose +special benefit he has exercised it, and to childish insults of the +Blacks whose doom must be sealed to secure the precious result which is +aimed at. In view of this ill-intentioned omission, we shall offer a +few cursory remarks bearing on, but not attempting to answer, those +grave inquiries concerning the African people. As in our humble +opinion these are questions paramount to all the petty local issues +finically dilated on by the confident prophet of "The Bow of Ulysses," +we will here briefly devote ourselves to its discussion. + +Accepting the theory of human development propounded by our author, let +us apply it to the African race. Except, of course, to intelligences +having a share in the Councils of Eternity, there can be no attainable +knowledge respecting the laws which regulate the growth and progress of +civilization among the races of the earth. That in the existence of the +human family every age has been marked by its own essential +characteristics with regard to manifestations of intellectual life, +however circumscribed, is a proposition too self-evident [236] to +require more than the stating. But investigation beyond such evidence +as we possess concerning the past--whether recorded by man himself in +the written pages of history, or by the Creator on the tablets of +nature--would be worse than futile. We see that in the past different +races have successively come to the front, as prominent actors on the +world's stage. The years of civilized development have dawned in turn +on many sections of the human family, and the Anglo-Saxons, who now +enjoy preeminence, got their turn only after Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, +Greece, Rome, and others had successively held the palm of supremacy. +And since these mighty empires have all passed away, may we not then, +if the past teaches aught, confidently expect that other racial +hegemonies will arise in the future to keep up the ceaseless +progression of temporal existence towards the existence that is +eternal? What is it in the nature of things that will oust the African +race from the right to participate, in times to come, in the high +destinies that have been assigned in times past to so many races that +have not been in anywise superior to us in the qualifications, +physical, moral, and intellectual, [237] that mark out a race for +prominence amongst other races? + +The normal composition of the typical Negro has the testimony of ages +to its essential soundness and nobility. Physically, as an active +labourer, he is capable of the most protracted exertion under climatic +conditions the most exhausting. By the mere strain of his brawn and +sinew he has converted waste tracts of earth into fertile regions of +agricultural bountifulness. On the scenes of strife he has in his +savage state been known to be indomitable save by the stress of +irresistible forces, whether of men or of circumstances. Staunch in his +friendship and tender towards the weak directly under his protection, +the unvitiated African furnishes in himself the combination of native +virtue which in the land of his exile was so prolific of good results +for the welfare of the whole slave-class. But distracted at home by the +sudden irruptions of skulking foes, he has been robbed, both +intellectually and morally, of the immense advantage of Peace, which is +the mother of Progress. Transplanted to alien climes, and through +centuries of desolating trials, this irrepressible race has [238] bated +not one throb of its energy, nor one jot of its heart or hope. In +modern times, after his expatriation into dismal bondage, both Britain +and America have had occasion to see that even in the paralysing +fetters of political and social degradation the right arm of the Ethiop +can be a valuable auxiliary on the field of battle. Britain, in her +conflict with France for supremacy in the West Indies, did not disdain +the aid of the sable arms that struck together with those of Britons +for the trophies that furnished the motives for those epic contests. + +Later on, the unparalleled struggle between the Northern and Southern +States of the American Union put to the test the indestructible fibres +of the Negro's nature, moral as well as physical. The Northern States, +after months of hesitating repugnance, and when taught at last by dire +defeats that colour did not in any way help to victory, at length +sullenly acquiesced in the comradeship, hitherto disdained, of the +eager African contingent. The records of Port Hudson, Vicksburg, +Morris Island, and elsewhere, stand forth in imperishable attestation +of the fact that the distinction of being laurelled during life as +victor, or filling [239] in death a hero's grave, is reserved for no +colour, but for the heart that can dare and the hand that can strike +boldly in a righteous cause. The experience of the Southern +slave-holders, on the other hand, was no less striking and worthy of +admiration. Every man of the twelve seceding States forming the +Southern Confederacy, then fighting desperately for the avowed purpose +of perpetuating slavery, was called into the field, as no available +male arm could be spared from the conflict on their side. Plantation +owner, overseer, and every one in authority, had to be drafted away +from the scene of their usual occupation to the stage whereon the +bloody drama of internecine strife was being enacted. Not only the +plantation, but the home and the household, including the mistress and +her children, had to be left, not unprotected, it is glorious to +observe, but, with confident assurance in their loyalty and good faith, +under the protection of the four million of bondsmen, who, through the +laws and customs of these very States, had been doomed to lifelong +ignorance and exclusion from all moralizing influences. With what +result? The protraction of the conflict on the part of the South would +[240] have been impossible but for the admirable management and +realization of their resources by those benighted slaves. On the other +hand, not one of the thousands of Northern prisoners escaping from the +durance of a Southern captivity ever appealed in vain for the +assistance and protection of a Negro. Clearly the head and heart of +those bondsmen were each in its proper place. The moral effect of +these experiences of the Negroes' sterling qualities was not lost on +either North or South. In the North it effaced from thousands of +repugnant hearts the adverse feelings which had devised and +accomplished so much to the Negro's detriment. In the South--but for +the blunders of the Reconstructionists--it would have considerably +facilitated the final readjustment of affairs between the erewhile +master and slave in their new-born relations of employer and employed. + +Reverting to the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the +States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their +favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy +condition. First, attention must be paid to the patriotic solidarity +existing [241] amongst the bondsmen, a solidarity which, in the case of +those who had been deported in the same ship, had all the sanctity of +blood-relationship. Those who had thus travelled to the "white man's +country" addressed and considered each other as brothers and sisters. +Hence their descendants for many generations upheld, as if +consanguineous, the modes of address and treatment which became +hereditary in families whose originals had travelled in the same ship. +These adopted uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, were so united by common +sympathies, that good or ill befalling any one of them intensely +affected the whole connection. Mutual support commensurate with the +area of their location thus became the order among these people. At +the time of the first deportation of Africans to the West Indies to +replace the aborigines who had been decimated in the mines at Santo +Domingo and in the pearl fisheries of the South Caribbean, the +circumstances of the Spanish settlers in the Antilles were of singular, +even romantic, interest. + +The enthusiasm which overflowed from the crusades and the Moorish wars, +upon the discovery and conquest of America, had occasioned [242] the +peopling of the Western Archipelago by a race of men in whom the daring +of freebooters was strangely blended with a fierce sort of +religiousness. As holders of slaves, these men recognized, and +endeavoured to their best to give effect to, the humane injunctions of +Bishop Las Casas. The Negroes, therefore, male and female, were +promptly presented for admission by baptism into the Catholic Church, +which always had stood open and ready to welcome them. The relations +of god-father and god-mother resulting from these baptismal functions +had a most important bearing on the reciprocal stations of master and +slave. The god-children were, according to ecclesiastical custom, +considered in every sense entitled to all the protection and assistance +which were within the competence of the god-parents, who, in their +turn, received from the former the most absolute submission. It is +easy to see that the planters, as well as those intimately connected +with them, in assuming such obligations with their concomitant +responsibilities, practically entered into bonds which they all +regarded as, if possible, more solemn than the natural ties of secular +parentage. The duty [243] of providing for these dependents usually +took the shape of their being apprenticed to, and trained in the +various arts and vocations that constitute the life of civilization. +In many cases, at the death of their patrons, the bondsmen who were +deemed most worthy were, according to the means of the testator, +provided for in a manner lifting them above the necessity of future +dependence. Manumission, too, either by favour or through purchase, +was allowed the fullest operation. Here then was the active influence +of higher motives than mere greed of gain or the pride of racial power +mellowing the lot and gilding the future prospects of the dwellers in +the tropical house of bondage. + +The next, and even more effectual agency in modifying and harmonizing +the relations between owner and bondspeople was the inevitable +attraction of one race to the other by the sentiment of natural +affection. Out of this sprang living ties far more intimate and +binding on the moral sense than even obligations contracted in +deference to the Church. Natural impulses have often diviner sources +than ecclesiastical mandates. Obedience to the former not seldom +brings down the penalties of the Church; but [244] the culprit finds +solace in the consciousness that the offence might in itself be a +protection from the thunders it has provoked. Under these +circumstances the general body of planters, who were in the main +adventurers of the freest type, were fain to establish connections with +such of the slave-women as attracted their sympathy, through personal +comeliness or aptitude in domestic affairs, or, usually, both combined. +There was ordinarily in this beginning of the seventeenth century no +Vashti that needed expulsion from the abode of a plantation Ahasuerus +to make room for the African Esther to be admitted to the chief place +within the portals. One great natural consequence of this was the +extension to the relatives or guardians of the bondswoman so preferred +of an amount of favour which, in the case of the more capable males, +completes the parallel we have been drawing by securing for each of +them the precedence and responsibilities of a Mordecai. The offspring +of these natural alliances came in therefore to cement more intimately +the union of interests which previous relations had generated. Beloved +by their fathers, and in many cases destined by them to a lot superior +[245] to that whereto they were entitled by formal law and social +prescription, these young procreations--Mulattos, as they were +called--were made the objects of special and careful provisions on the +fathers' part. They were, according to the means of their fathers in +the majority of cases, sent for education and training to European or +other superior institutions. After this course they were either +formally acknowledged by their fathers, or, if that was impracticable, +amply and suitably provided for in a career out of their native colony. +To a reflecting mind there is something that interests, not to say +fascinates, in studying the action and reaction upon one another of +circumstances in the existence of the Mulatto. As a matter of fact, he +had much more to complain of under the slave system than his +pure-blooded African relations. The law, by decreeing that every child +of a freeman and a slave woman must follow the fortune of the womb, +thus making him the property of his mother exclusively, practically +robbed him before his very birth of the nurture and protection of a +father. His reputed father had no obligation to be even aware of his +procreation, and nevertheless [246] --so inscrutable are the ways of +Providence!--the Mulatto was the centre around which clustered the +outraged instincts of nature in rebellion against the desecrating +mandates that prescribed treason to herself. Law and society may +decree; but in our normal humanity there throbs a sentiment which +neutralizes every external impulse contrary to its promptings. + +In meditating on the varied history of the Negro in the United States, +since his first landing on the banks of the James River in 1619 till +the Emancipation Act of President Lincoln in 1865, it is curious to +observe that the elevation of the race, though in a great measure +secured, proceeded from circumstances almost the reverse of those that +operated so favourably in the same direction elsewhere. The men of the +slave-holding States, chiefly Puritans or influenced by Puritanic +surroundings, were not under the ecclesiastical sway which rendered +possible in the West Indies and other Catholic countries the +establishment of the reciprocal bonds of god-parents and god-children. +The self-same causes operated to prevent any large blending of the two +races, inasmuch as the immigrant from Britain who [247] had gone forth +from his country to better his fortune had not left behind him his +attachment to the institutions of the mother-land, among which +marrying, whenever practicable, was one of the most cherished. Above +all, too, as another powerful check at first to such alliances between +the ruling and servile races of the States, there existed the native +idiosyncracy of the Anglo-Saxon. That class of them who had left +Britain were likelier than the more refined of their nation to exhibit +in its crudest and cruellest form the innate jealousy and contempt of +other races that pervades the Anglo-Saxon bosom. It is but a simple +fact that, whenever he condescended thereto, familiarity with even the +loveliest of the subject people was regarded as a mighty self-unbending +for which the object should be correspondingly grateful. So there +could, in the beginning, be no frequent instances of the romantic +chivalry that gilded the quasi-marital relations of the more fervid and +humane members of the Latin stock. + +But this kind of intercourse, which in the earlier generation was +undoubtedly restricted in North America by the checks above adverted +to, and, presumably, also by the mutual unintelligibility [248] in +speech, gradually expanded with the natural increase of the slave +population. The American-born, English-speaking Negro girl, who had in +many cases been the playmate of her owner, was naturally more +intelligible, more accessible, more attractive--and the inevitable +consequence was the extension apace of that intercourse, the offspring +whereof became at length so visibly numerous. + +Among the Romans, the grandest of all colonizers, the individual's +Civis Romanus sum--I am a Roman citizen--was something more than verbal +vapouring; it was a protective talisman--a buckler no less than a +sword. Yet was the possession of this noble and singular privilege no +barrier to Roman citizens meeting on a broad humanitarian level any +alien race, either allied to or under the protection of that +world-famous commonwealth. In the speeches of the foremost orators and +statesmen among the conquerors of the then known world, the allusions +to subject or allied aliens are distinguished by a decorous observance +of the proprieties which should mark any reference to those who had the +dignity of Rome's [249] friendship, or the privilege of her august +protection. Observations, therefore, regarding individuals of rank in +these alien countries had the same sobriety and deference which marked +allusions to born Romans of analogous degree. Such magnanimity, we +grieve to say, is not characteristic of the race which now replaces the +Romans in the colonizing leadership of the world. We read with +feelings akin to despair of the cheap, not to say derogatory, manner in +which, in both Houses of Parliament, native potentates, especially of +non-European countries, are frequently spoken of by the hereditary +aristocracy and the first gentlemen of the British Empire. The inborn +racial contempt thus manifested in quarters where rigid self-control +and decorum should form the very essence of normal deportment, was not +likely, as we have before hinted, to find any mollifying ingredient in +the settlers on the banks of the Mississippi. Therefore should we not +be surprised to find, with regard to many an illicit issue of "down +South," the arrogance of race so overmastering the promptings of nature +as to render not unfrequent at the auction-block the sight of many a +chattel of mixed blood, the offspring [250] of some planter whom +business exigency had forced to this commercial transaction as the +readiest mode of self-release. Yet were the exceptions to this rule +enough to contribute appreciably to the weight and influence of the +mixed race in the North, where education and a fair standing had been +clandestinely secured for their children by parents to whom law and +society had made it impossible to do more, and whom conscience rendered +incapable of stopping at less. + +From this comparative sketch of the history of the slaves in the +States, in the West Indies and countries adjacent, it will be perceived +that in the latter scenes of bondage everything had conspired to render +a fusion of interests between the ruling and the servile classes not +only easy, but inevitable. In the very first generation after their +introduction, the Africans began to press upward, a movement which +every decade has accelerated, in spite of the changes which supervened +as each of the Colonies fell under British sway. Nearly two centuries +had by this time elapsed, and the coloured influence, which had grown +with their wealth, education, numbers, and unity, though [251] +circumscribed by the emancipation of the slaves, and the consequent +depression in fortune of all slave-owners, never was or could be +annihilated. In the Government service there were many for whom the +patronage of god-parents or the sheer influence of their family had +effected an entrance. The prevalence and potency of the influences we +have been dilating upon may be gauged by the fact that personages no +less exalted than Governors of various Colonies--of Trinidad in three +authentic cases--have been sharers in the prevailing usages, in the +matter of standing sponsors (by proxy), and also of relaxing in the +society of some fascinating daughter of the sun from the tension and +wear of official duty. In the three cases just referred to, the most +careful provision was made for the suitable education and starting in +life of the issues. For the god-children of Governors there were +places in the public service, and so from the highest to the lowest the +humanitarian intercourse of the classes was confirmed. + +Consequent on the frequent abandonment of their plantations by many +owners who despaired of being able to get along by paying [252] their +way, an opening was made for the insinuation of Absenteeism into our +agricultural, in short, our economic existence. The powerful sugar +lords, who had invested largely in the cane plantations, were fain to +take over and cultivate the properties which their debtors doggedly +refused to continue working, under pretext of the entire absence, or at +any rate unreliability, of labour. The representatives of those new +transatlantic estate proprietors displaced, but never could replace, +the original cultivators, who were mostly gentlemen as well as +agriculturists. It was from this overseer class that the vituperations +and slanders went forth that soon became stereotyped, concerning the +Negro's incorrigible laziness and want of ambition--those gentry +adjusting the scale of wages, not according to the importance and value +of the labour done, but according to the scornful estimate which they +had formed of the Negro personally. And when the wages were fixed +fairly, they almost invariably sought to indemnify themselves for their +enforced justice by the insulting license of their tongues, addressed +to males and females alike. The influence of such men on local +legislation, in which they [253] had a preponderating share, either as +actual proprietors or as the attorneys of absentees, was not in the +direction of refinement or liberality. Indeed, the kind of laws which +they enacted, especially during the apprenticeship (1834-8), is thus +summarized by one, and him an English officer, who was a visitor in +those agitated days of the Colonies:-- + +"It is demonstrated that the laws which were to come into operation +immediately on expiration of the apprenticeship are of the most +objectionable character, and fully established the fact not only of a +future intention to infringe the rights of the emancipated classes, but +of the actual commencement and extensive progress of a Colonial system +for that purpose. The object of the laws is to circumscribe the market +for free labour--to prohibit the possession or sale of ordinary +articles of produce on sale, the obvious intention of which is to +confine the emancipated classes to a course of agricultural +servitude--to give the employers a monopoly of labour, and to keep down +a free competition for wages--to create new and various modes of +apprenticeship for the purpose of prolonging predial service, together +with many evils of the [254] late system--to introduce unnecessary +restraint and coercion, the design of which is to create a perpetual +surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish a legislative +despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the most vicious +principles of legislation, and in their operation will be found +intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just intentions +of the British Legislature." + +These liberal-souled gentry were, in sooth, Mr. Froude's +"representatives" of Britain, whose traditions steadily followed in +their families, he has so well and sympathetically set forth. + +We thus see that the irritation and rancour seething in the breast of +the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then +also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished and +kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, +certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was +too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own phrase, +people of colour had by that time already "passed the lock-jaw"* stage +(at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped the germ of +their progress in the bud.) In spite of adverse legislation, and in +spite of the scandalous subservience of certain Governors to the +Colonial Legislatures, the Race can point with thankfulness and pride +to the visible records of their success wherever they have permanently +sojourned. + +Primary education of a more general and undiscriminating character, +especially as to race and colour, was secured for the bulk of the West +Indies by voluntary undertakings, and notably through the munificent +provision of Lady Mico, which extended to the whole of the principal +islands. + +Thanks to Lord Harris for introducing, and to Sir Arthur Gordon for +extending to the secondary stage, the public education of Trinidad, +there has been since Emancipation, that is, during the last +thirty-seven years, a more effective bringing together in public +schools of various grades, of children of all races and ranks. Rivals +at home, at school and college, in books as well as on the playground, +they have very frequently gone abroad together to learn the professions +they have selected. In this way there is an intercommunion between all +the [256] intelligent sections of the inhabitants, based on a common +training and the subtle sympathies usually generated in enlightened +breasts by intimate personal knowledge. In mixed communities thus +circumstanced, there is no possibility of maintaining distinctions +based on mere colour, as advocated by Mr. Froude. + +The following brief summary by the Rev. P. H. Doughlin, Rector of St. +Clement's, Trinidad, a brilliant star among the sons of Ham, embodies +this fact in language which, so far as it goes, is as comprehensive as +it is weighty:-- + +"Who could, without seeming to insult the intelligence of men, have +predicted on the day of Emancipation that the Negroes then released +from the blight and withering influence of ten generations of cruel +bondage, so weakened and half-destroyed--so denationalized and +demoralized--so despoiled and naked, would be in the position they are +now? In spite of the proud, supercilious, and dictatorial bearing of +their teachers, in spite of the hampering of unsympathetic, alien +oversight, in spite of the spirit of dependence and servility +engendered by slavery, not only have individual members of the race +entered into all the offices of dignity in [257] Church and State, as +subalterns--as hewers of wood and drawers of water--but they have +attained to the very highest places. Here in the West Indies, and on +the West Coast of Africa, are to be found Surgeons of the Negro Race, +Solicitors, Barristers, Mayors, Councillors, Principals and Founders of +High Schools and Colleges, Editors and Proprietors of Newspapers, +Archdeacons, Bishops, Judges, and Authors--men who not only teach those +immediately around them, but also teach the world. Members of the race +have even been entrusted with the administration of Governments. And +it is not mere commonplace men that the Negro Race has produced. Not +only have the British Universities thought them worthy of their +honorary degrees and conferred them on them, but members of the race +have won these University degrees. A few years back a full-blooded +Negro took the highest degree Oxford has to give to a young man. The +European world is looking with wonder and admiration at the progress +made by the Negro Race--a progress unparalleled in the annals of the +history of any race." + +To this we may add that in the domain [258] of high literature the +Blacks of the United States, for the twenty-five years of social +emancipation, and despite the lingering obstructions of caste +prejudice, have positively achieved wonders. Leaving aside the +writings of men of such high calibre as F. Douglass, Dr. Hyland Garnet, +Prof. Crummell, Prof. E. Blyden, Dr. Tanner, and others, it is +gratifying to be able to chronicle the Ethiopic women of North America +as moving shoulder to shoulder with the men in the highest spheres of +literary activity. Among a brilliant band of these our sisters, +conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out but a +solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and of +giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. The +allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This +lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds +effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. But +it is as a poet that posterity will hail her in the coming ages of our +Race. For pathos, depth of spiritual insight, and magical exercise of +a rare power of self-utterance, it will hardly be questioned that she +has surpassed every competitor [259] among females--white or +black--save and except Elizabeth Barett Browning, with whom the gifted +African stands on much the same plane of poetic excellence. + +The above summary of our past vicissitudes and actual position shows +that there is nothing in our political circumstances to occasion +uneasiness. The miserable skin and race doctrine we have been +discussing does not at all prefigure the destinies at all events of the +West Indies, or determine the motives that will affect them. With the +exception of those belonging to the Southern states of the Union, the +vast body of African descendants now dispersed in various countries of +the Western Hemisphere are at sufficient peace to begin occupying +themselves, according to some fixed programme, about matters of racial +importance. More than ten millions of Africans are scattered over the +wide area indicated, and possess amongst them instances of mental and +other qualifications which render them remarkable among their +fellow-men. But like the essential parts of a complicated albeit +perfect machine, these attainments and qualifications so widely +dispersed await, it is evident, some potential [260] agency to collect +and adjust them into the vast engine essential for executing the true +purposes of the civilized African Race. Already, especially since the +late Emancipation Jubilee, are signs manifest of a desire for +intercommunion and intercomprehension amongst the more distinguished of +our people. With intercourse and unity of purpose will be secured the +means to carry out the obvious duties which are sure to devolve upon +us, especially with reference to the cradle of our Race, which is most +probably destined to be the ultimate resting-place and headquarters of +millions of our posterity. Within the short time that we had to +compass all that we have achieved, there could not have arisen +opportunities for doing more than we have effected. Meanwhile our +present device is: "Work, Hope, and Wait!" + +Finally, it must be borne in mind that the abolition of physical +bondage did not by any means secure all the requisite conditions of "a +fair field and no favour" for the future career of the freedmen. The +remnant of Jacob, on their return from the Captivity, were compelled, +whilst rebuilding their Temple, literally to labour with the working +tool in one hand [261] and the sword for personal defence in the other. +Even so have the conditions, figuratively, presented themselves under +which the Blacks have been obliged to rear the fabric of self-elevation +since 1838, whilst combating ceaselessly the obstacles opposed to the +realizing of their legitimate aspirations. Mental and, in many cases, +material success has been gained, but the machinery for accumulating +and applying the means required for comprehensive racial enterprises is +waiting on Providence, time, and circumstances for its establishment +and successful working. + +NOTES + +254. *"Yo te'ja passe mal machoe"--in metaphorical allusion to new-born +infants who have lived beyond a certain number of days. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of West Indian Fables by James Anthony +Froude Explained by J. 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Thomas + +BOOK I. + +Introduction: 27-33 +Voyage out: 34-41 +Barbados: 41-44 +St. Vincent: 44-48 +Grenada: 48-50 + +BOOK II. + +Trinidad: 53-55 +Reform in Trinidad: 55-80 +Negro Felicity in the West Indies: 81-110 + +BOOK III. + +Social Revolution: 113-174 +West Indian Confederation: 175-200 +The Negro as a Worker: 201-206 +Religion for Negroes: 207-230 + +BOOK IV. + +Historical Summary or Resume: 233-261, end + + + +FROUDACITY + +PREFACE + +[5] Last year had well advanced towards its middle--in fact it was +already April, 1888--before Mr. Froude's book of travels in the West +Indies became known and generally accessible to readers in those +Colonies. + +My perusal of it in Grenada about the period above mentioned +disclosed, thinly draped with rhetorical flowers, the dark outlines +of a scheme to thwart political aspiration in the Antilles. That +project is sought to be realized by deterring the home authorities +from granting an elective local legislature, however restricted in +character, to any of the Colonies not yet enjoying such an advantage. +An argument based on the composition of the inhabitants of those +Colonies is confidently relied upon to confirm the inexorable mood of +Downing Street. + +[6] Over-large and ever-increasing,--so runs the argument,--the +African element in the population of the West Indies is, from its +past history and its actual tendencies, a standing menace to the +continuance of civilization and religion. An immediate catastrophe, +social, political, and moral, would most assuredly be brought about +by the granting of full elective rights to dependencies thus +inhabited. Enlightened statesmanship should at once perceive the +immense benefit that would ultimately result from such refusal of the +franchise. The cardinal recommendation of that refusal is that it +would avert definitively the political domination of the Blacks, +which must inevitably be the outcome of any concession of the modicum +of right so earnestly desired. The exclusion of the Negro vote being +inexpedient, if not impossible, the exercise of electoral powers by +the Blacks must lead to their returning candidates of their own race +to the local legislatures, and that, too, in numbers preponderating +according to the majority of the Negro electors. The Negro +legislators thus supreme in the councils of the Colonies would +straightway proceed to pass vindictive and retaliatory laws against +their white fellow- [7] colonists. For it is only fifty years since +the White man and the Black man stood in the reciprocal relations of +master and slave. Whilst those relations subsisted, the white +masters inflicted, and the black slaves had to endure, the hideous +atrocities that are inseparable from the system of slavery. Since +Emancipation, the enormous strides made in self-advancement by the +ex-slaves have only had the effect of provoking a resentful +uneasiness in the bosoms of the ex-masters. The former bondsmen, on +their side, and like their brethren of Hayti, are eaten up with +implacable, blood-thirsty rancour against their former lords and +owners. The annals of Hayti form quite a cabinet of political and +social object lessons which, in the eyes of British statesmen, should +be invaluable in showing the true method of dealing with Ethiopic +subjects of the Crown. The Negro race in Hayti, in order to obtain +and to guard what it calls its freedom, has outraged every humane +instinct and falsified every benevolent hope. The slave-owners there +had not been a whit more cruel than slave-owners in the other +islands. But, in spite of this, how ferocious, how sanguinary, [8] +how relentless against them has the vengeance of the Blacks been in +their hour of mastery! A century has passed away since then, and, +notwithstanding that, the hatred of Whites still rankles in their +souls, and is cherished and yielded to as a national creed and guide +of conduct. Colonial administrators of the mighty British Empire, +the lesson which History has taught and yet continues to teach you in +Hayti as to the best mode of dealing with your Ethiopic colonists +lies patent, blood-stained and terrible before you, and should be +taken definitively to heart. But if you are willing that +Civilization and Religion--in short, all the highest developments of +individual and social life--should at once be swept away by a +desolating vandalism of African birth; if you do not recoil from the +blood-guiltiness that would stain your consciences through the +massacre of our fellow-countrymen in the West Indies, on account of +their race, complexion and enlightenment; finally, if you desire +those modern Hesperides to revert into primeval jungle, horrent lairs +wherein the Blacks, who, but a short while before, had been +ostensibly civilized, shall be revellers, as high-priests and [9] +devotees, in orgies of devil-worship, cannibalism, and obeah--dare to +give the franchise to those West Indian Colonies, and then rue the +consequences of your infatuation! . . . + +Alas, if the foregoing summary of the ghastly imaginings of Mr. +Froude were true, in what a fool's paradise had the wisest and best +amongst us been living, moving, and having our being! Up to the date +of the suggestion by him as above of the alleged facts and +possibilities of West Indian life, we had believed (even granting the +correctness of his gloomy account of the past and present positions +of the two races) that to no well-thinking West Indian White, whose +ancestors may have, innocently or culpably, participated in the gains +as well as the guilt of slavery, would the remembrance of its palmy +days be otherwise than one of regret. We Negroes, on the other hand, +after a lapse of time extending over nearly two generations, could be +indebted only to precarious tradition or scarcely accessible +documents for any knowledge we might chance upon of the sufferings +endured in these Islands of the West by those of our race who have +gone before us. Death, with undiscriminating hand, had gathered [10] +in the human harvest of masters and slaves alike, according to or out +of the normal laws of nature; while Time had been letting down on the +stage of our existence drop-scene after drop-scene of years, to the +number of something like fifty, which had been curtaining off the +tragic incidents of the past from the peaceful activities of the +present. Being thus circumstanced, thought we, what rational +elements of mutual hatred should now continue to exist in the bosoms +of the two races? + +With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, because of our +oneness with its inhabitants in origin and complexion, as a criterion +for the exact forecast of our future conduct under given +circumstances, this appeared to us, looking at actual facts, +perversity gone wild in the manufacture of analogies. The founders +of the Black Republic, we had all along understood, were not in any +sense whatever equipped, as Mr. Froude assures us they were, when +starting on their self-governing career, with the civil and +intellectual advantages that had been transplanted from Europe. On +the contrary, we had been taught to regard them as most unfortunate +in the circumstances under which [11] they so gloriously conquered +their merited freedom. We saw them free, but perfectly illiterate +barbarians, impotent to use the intellectual resources of which their +valour had made them possessors, in the shape of books on the spirit +and technical details of a highly developed national existence. We +had learnt also, until this new interpreter of history had +contradicted the accepted record, that the continued failure of Hayti +to realize the dreams of Toussaint was due to the fatal want of +confidence subsisting between the fairer and darker sections of the +inhabitants, which had its sinister and disastrous origin in the +action of the Mulattoes in attempting to secure freedom for +themselves, in conjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice of their +darker-hued kinsmen. Finally, it had been explained to us that the +remembrance of this abnormal treason had been underlying and +perniciously influencing the whole course of Haytian national +history. All this established knowledge we are called upon to throw +overboard, and accept the baseless assertions of this conjuror-up of +inconceivable fables! He calls upon us to believe that, in spite of +being free, educated, progressive, and at peace with [12] all men, we +West Indian Blacks, were we ever to become constitutionally dominant +in our native islands, would emulate in savagery our Haytian fellow- +Blacks who, at the time of retaliating upon their actual masters, +were tortured slaves, bleeding and rendered desperate under the +oppressors' lash--and all this simply and merely because of the +sameness of our ancestry and the colour of our skin! One would have +thought that Liberia would have been a fitter standard of comparison +in respect of a coloured population starting a national life, really +and truly equipped with the requisites and essentials of civilized +existence. But such a reference would have been fatal to Mr. +Froude's object: the annals of Liberia being a persistent refutation +of the old pro-slavery prophecies which our author so feelingly +rehearses. + +Let us revert, however, to Grenada and the newly-published "Bow of +Ulysses," which had come into my hands in April, 1888. + +It seemed to me, on reading that book, and deducing therefrom the +foregoing essential summary, that a critic would have little more to +do, in order to effectually exorcise this negrophobic political +hobgoblin, than to appeal to [13] impartial history, as well as to +common sense, in its application to human nature in general, and to +the actual facts of West Indian life in particular. + +History, as against the hard and fast White-master and Black-slave +theory so recklessly invented and confidently built upon by Mr. +Froude, would show incontestably--(a) that for upwards of two hundred +years before the Negro Emancipation, in 1838, there had never existed +in one of those then British Colonies, which had been originally +discovered and settled for Spain by the great Columbus or by his +successors, the Conquistadores, any prohibition whatsoever, on the +ground of race or colour, against the owning of slaves by any free +person possessing the necessary means, and desirous of doing so; (b) +that, as a consequence of this non-restriction, and from causes +notoriously historical, numbers of blacks, half-breeds, and other +non-Europeans, besides such of them as had become possessed of their +"property" by inheritance, availed themselves of this virtual +license, and in course of time constituted a very considerable +proportion of the slave-holding section of those communities; (c) +that these [14] dusky plantation-owners enjoyed and used in every +possible sense the identical rights and privileges which were enjoyed +and used by their pure-blooded Caucasian brother-slaveowners. The +above statements are attested by written documents, oral tradition, +and, better still perhaps, by the living presence in those islands of +numerous lineal representatives of those once opulent and flourishing +non-European planter-families. + +Common sense, here stepping in, must, from the above data, deduce +some such conclusions as the following. First that, on the +hypothesis that the slaves who were freed in 1838--full fifty years +ago--were all on an average fifteen years old, those vengeful ex- +slaves of to-day will be all men of sixty-five years of age; and, +allowing for the delay in getting the franchise, somewhat further +advanced towards the human life-term of threescore and ten years. +Again, in order to organize and carry out any scheme of legislative +and social retaliation of the kind set forth in the "Bow of Ulysses," +there must be (which unquestionably there is not) a considerable, +well-educated, and very influential number surviving of those who had +actually [15] been in bondage. Moreover, the vengeance of these +people (also assuming the foregoing nonexistent condition) would +have, in case of opportunity, to wreak itself far more largely and +vigorously upon members of their own race than upon Whites, seeing +that the increase of the Blacks, as correctly represented in the "Bow +of Ulysses," is just as rapid as the diminution of the White +population. And therefore, Mr. Froude's "Danger-to-the-Whites" cry +in support of his anti-reform manifesto would not appear, after all, +to be quite so justifiable as he possibly thinks. + +Feeling keenly that something in the shape of the foregoing programme +might be successfully worked up for a public defence of the maligned +people, I disregarded the bodily and mental obstacles that have beset +and clouded my career during the last twelve years, and cheerfully +undertook the task, stimulated thereto by what I thought weighty +considerations. I saw that no representative of Her Majesty's +Ethiopic West Indian subjects cared to come forward to perform this +work in the more permanent shape that I felt to be not only desirable +but essential for our self-vindication. [16] I also realized the +fact that the "Bow of Ulysses" was not likely to have the same +ephemeral existence and effect as the newspaper and other periodical +discussions of its contents, which had poured from the press in Great +Britain, the United States, and very notably, of course, in all the +English Colonies of the Western Hemisphere. In the West Indian +papers the best writers of our race had written masterly refutations, +but it was clear how difficult the task would be in future to procure +and refer to them whenever occasion should require. Such +productions, however, fully satisfied those qualified men of our +people, because they were legitimately convinced (even as I myself am +convinced) that the political destinies of the people of colour could +not run one tittle of risk from anything that it pleased Mr. Froude +to write or say on the subject. But, meditating further on the +question, the reflection forced itself upon me that, beyond the mere +political personages in the circle more directly addressed by Mr. +Froude's volume, there were individuals whose influence or possible +sympathy we could not afford to disregard, or to esteem lightly. So +I deemed it right and a patriotic duty to attempt [17] the enterprise +myself, in obedience to the above stated motives. + +At this point I must pause to express on behalf of the entire +coloured population of the West Indies our most heartfelt +acknowledgments to Mr. C. Salmon for the luminous and effective +vindication of us, in his volume on "West Indian Confederation," +against Mr. Froude's libels. The service thus rendered by Mr. Salmon +possesses a double significance and value in my estimation. In the +first place, as being the work of a European of high position, quite +independent of us (who testifies concerning Negroes, not through +having gazed at them from balconies, decks of steamers, or the seats +of moving carriages, but from actual and long personal intercourse +with them, which the internal evidence of his book plainly proves to +have been as sympathetic as it was familiar), and, secondly, as the +work of an individual entirely outside of our race, it has been +gratefully accepted by myself as an incentive to self-help, on the +same more formal and permanent lines, in a matter so important to the +status which we can justly claim as a progressive, law-abiding, and +self-respecting section of Her Majesty's liege subjects. + +[18] It behoves me now to say a few words respecting this book as a +mere literary production. + +Alexander Pope, who, next to Shakespeare and perhaps Butler, was the +most copious contributor to the current stock of English maxims, +says: + + "True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, + As those move easiest who have learnt to dance." + +A whole dozen years of bodily sickness and mental tribulation have +not been conducive to that regularity of practice in composition +which alone can ensure the "true ease" spoken of by the poet; and +therefore is it that my style leaves so much to be desired, and +exhibits, perhaps, still, more to be pardoned. Happily, a quarrel +such as ours with the author of "The English in the West Indies" +cannot be finally or even approximately settled on the score of +superior literary competency, whether of aggressor or defender. I +feel free to ignore whatever verdict might be grounded on a +consideration so purely artificial. There ought to be enough, if not +in these pages, at any rate in whatever else I have heretofore +published, that should prove me not so hopelessly stupid and wanting +in [19] self-respect, as would be implied by my undertaking a contest +in artistic phrase-weaving with one who, even among the foremost of +his literary countrymen, is confessedly a master in that craft. The +judges to whom I do submit our case are those Englishmen and others +whose conscience blends with their judgment, and who determine such +questions as this on their essential rightness which has claim to the +first and decisive consideration. For much that is irregular in the +arrangement and sequence of the subject-matter, some blame fairly +attaches to our assailant. The erratic manner in which lie launches +his injurious statements against the hapless Blacks, even in the +course of passages which no more led up to them than to any other +section of mankind, is a very notable feature of his anti-Negro +production. As he frequently repeats, very often with cynical +aggravations, his charges and sinister prophecies against the sable +objects of his aversion, I could see no other course open to me than +to take him up on the points whereto I demurred, exactly how, when, +and where I found them. + +My purpose could not be attained up without direct mention of, or +reference to, certain public [20] employes in the Colonies whose +official conduct has often been the subject of criticism in the +public press of the West Indies. Though fully aware that such +criticism has on many occasions been much more severe than my own +strictures, yet, it being possible that some special responsibility +may attach to what I here reproduce in a more permanent shape, I most +cheerfully accept, in the interests of public justice, any +consequence which may result. + +A remark or two concerning the publication of this rejoinder. It has +been hinted to me that the issue of it has been too long delayed to +secure for it any attention in England, owing to the fact that the +West Indies are but little known, and of less interest, to the +generality of English readers. Whilst admitting, as in duty bound, +the possible correctness of this forecast, and regretting the oft- +recurring hindrances which occasioned such frequent and, sometimes, +long suspension of my labour; and noting, too, the additional delay +caused through my unacquaintance with English publishing usages, I +must, notwithstanding, plead guilty to a lurking hope that some small +fraction of Mr. Froude's readers will yet be found, [21] whose +interest in the West Indies will be temporarily revived on behalf of +this essay, owing to its direct bearing on Mr. Froude and his +statements relative to these Islands, contained in his recent book of +travels in them. This I am led to hope will be more particularly the +case when it is borne in mind that the rejoinder has been attempted +by a member of that very same race which he has, with such eloquent +recklessness of all moral considerations, held up to public contempt +and disfavour. In short, I can scarcely permit myself to believe it +possible that concern regarding a popular author, on his being +questioned by an adverse critic of however restricted powers, can be +so utterly dead within a twelvemonth as to be incapable of +rekindling. Mr. Froude's "Oceana," which had been published long +before its author voyaged to the West Indies, in order to treat the +Queen's subjects there in the same more than questionable fashion as +that in which he had treated those of the Southern Hemisphere, had +what was in the main a formal rejoinder to its misrepresentations +published only three months ago in this city. I venture to believe +that no serious work in defence of an [22] important cause or +community can lose much, if anything, of its intrinsic value through +some delay in its issue; especially when written in the vindication +of Truth, whose eternal principles are beyond and above the influence +of time and its changes. + +At any rate, this attempt to answer some of Mr. Froude's main +allegations against the people of the West Indies cannot fail to be +of grave importance and lively interest to the inhabitants of those +Colonies. In this opinion I am happy in being able to record the +full concurrence of a numerous and influential body of my fellow-West +Indians, men of various races, but united in detestation of falsehood +and injustice. + +J.J.T. + +LONDON, June, 1889. + + + +BOOK I: INTRODUCTION + +[27] Like the ancient hero, one of whose warlike equipments furnishes +the complementary title of his book, the author of "The English in +the West Indies; or, The Bow of Ulysses," sallied forth from his home +to study, if not cities, at least men (especially black men), and +their manners in the British Antilles. + +James Anthony Froude is, beyond any doubt whatever, a very +considerable figure in modern English literature. It has, however, +for some time ceased to be a question whether his acceptability, to +the extent which it reaches, has not been due rather to the verbal +attractiveness than to the intrinsic value and trustworthiness of his +opinions and teachings. In fact, so far as a judgment can be formed +from examined specimens of his writings, it appears that our [28] +author is the bond-slave of his own phrases. To secure an artistic +perfection of style, he disregards all obstacles, not only those +presented by the requirements of verity, but such as spring from any +other kind of consideration whatsoever. The doubt may safely be +entertained whether, among modern British men of letters, there be +one of equal capability who, in the interest of the happiness of his +sentences, so cynically sacrifices what is due not only to himself as +a public instructor, but also to that public whom he professes to +instruct. Yet, as the too evident plaything of an over-permeable +moral constitution, he might set up some plea in explanation of his +ethical vagaries. He might urge, for instance, that the high culture +of which his books are all so redolent has utterly failed to imbue +him with the nil admirari sentiment, which Horace commends as the +sole specific for making men happy and keeping them so. For, as a +matter of fact, and with special reference to the work we have +undertaken to discuss, Mr. Froude, though cynical in his general +utterances regarding Negroes-of the male sex, be it noted-is, in the +main, all extravagance and self-abandonment whenever he [29] brings +an object of his arbitrary likes or dislikes under discussion. At +such times he is no observer, much less worshipper, of proportion in +his delineations. Thorough-paced, scarcely controllable, his +enthusiasm for or against admits no degree in its expression, save +and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's statement of facts +or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings are enlisted +either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt" by all +when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So complete is his +self-identification with the sect or individual for the time being +engrossing his sympathy, that even their personal antipathies are +made his own; and the hostile language, often exaggerated and unjust, +in which those antipathies find vent, secures in his more chastened +mode of utterance an exact reproduction none the less injurious +because divested of grossness. + +Of this special phase of self-manifestation a typical instance is +afforded at page 164, under the heading of "Dominica," in a passage +which at once embraces and accentuates the whole spirit and method of +the work. To a eulogium of the professional skill and successful +[30] agricultural enterprise of Dr. Nichol, a medical officer of +that Colony, with whom he became acquainted for the first time during +his short stay there, our author travels out of his way to tack on a +gratuitous and pointless sneer at the educational competency of all +the elected members of the island legislature, among whom, he tells +us, the worthy doctor had often tried in vain to obtain a place. His +want of success, our author informs his readers, was brought about +through Dr. Nichol "being the only man in the Colony of superior +attainments." Persons acquainted with the stormy politics of that +lovely little island do not require to be informed that the bitterest +animosity had for years been raging between Dr. Nichol and some of +the elected members-a fact which our author chose characteristically +to regard as justifying an onslaught by himself on the whole of that +section of which the foes of his new friend formed a prominent part. + +Swayed by the above specified motives, our author also manages to see +much that is, and always has been, invisible to mortal eye, and to +fail to hear what is audible to and remarked upon by every other +observer. + +[31] Thus we find him (p. 56) describing the Grenada Carenage as +being surrounded by forest trees, causing its waters to present a +violet tint; whilst every one familiar with that locality knows that +there are no forest trees within two miles of the object which they +are so ingeniously made to colour. Again, and aptly illustrating the +influence of his prejudices on his sense of hearing, we will notice +somewhat more in detail the following assertion respecting the speech +of the gentry of Barbados:-- + +"The language of the Anglo-Barbadians was pure English, the voices +without the smallest transatlantic intonation." + +Now it so happens that no Barbadian born and bred, be he gentle or +simple, can, on opening his lips, avoid the fate of Peter of Galilee +when skulking from the peril of a detected nationality: "Thy speech +bewrayeth thee!" It would, however, be prudent on this point to take +the evidence of other Englishmen, whose testimony is above suspicion, +seeing that they were free from the moral disturbance that affected +Mr. Froude's auditory powers. G. J. Chester, in his +"Transatlantic Sketches" (page 95), deposes as follows- + +[32] "But worse, far worse than the colour, both of men and women, is +their voice and accent. Well may Coleridge enumerate among the pains +of the West Indies, 'the yawny-drawny way in which men converse.' +The soft, whining drawl is simply intolerable. Resemble the worst +Northern States woman's accent it may in some degree, but it has not +a grain of its vigour. A man tells you, 'if you can speer it, to +send a beerer with a bottle of bare,' and the clergyman excruciates +you by praying in church, 'Speer us, good Lord.' The English +pronunciation of A and E is in most words transposed. Barbados has a +considerable number of provincialisms of dialect. Some of these, as +the constant use of 'Mistress' for 'Mrs.,' are interesting as +archaisms, or words in use in the early days of the Colony, and which +have never died out of use. Others are Yankeeisms or vulgarisms; +others, again, such as the expression 'turning cuffums,' i.e. +summersets, from cuffums, a species of fish, seem to be of local +origin." + +In a note hereto appended, the author gives a list of English words +of peculiar use and acceptation in Barbados. + +[33] To the same effect writes Anthony Trollope: + +"But if the black people differ from their brethren of the other +islands, so certainly do the white people. One soon learns to know-- +a Bim. That is the name in which they themselves delight, and +therefore, though there is a sound of slang about it, I give it here. +One certainly soon learns to know a Bim. The most peculiar +distinction is in his voice. There is always a nasal twang about it, +but quite distinct from the nasality of a Yankee. The Yankee's word +rings sharp through his nose; not so that of the first-class Bim. +There is a soft drawl about it, and the sound is seldom completely +formed. The effect on the ear is the same as that on the hand when a +man gives you his to shake, and instead of shaking yours, holds his +own still, &c., &c." ("The West Indies," p. 207). + +From the above and scores of other authoritative testimonies which +might have been cited to the direct contrary of our traveller's tale +under this head, we can plainly perceive that Mr. Froude's love is +not only blind, but adder-deaf as well. We shall now contemplate him +under circumstances where his feelings are quite other than those of +a partisan. + + + +BOOK I: VOYAGE OUT + +[34] That Mr. Froude, despite his professions to the contrary, did +not go out on his explorations unhampered by prejudices, seems clear +enough from the following quotation:-- + +"There was a small black boy among us, evidently of pure blood, for +his hair was wool and his colour black as ink. His parents must have +been well-to-do, for the boy had been to Europe to be educated. The +officers on board and some of the ladies played with him as they +would play with a monkey. He had little more sense than a monkey, +perhaps less, and the gestures of him grinning behind gratings and +perching out his long thin arms between the bars were curiously +suggestive of the original from whom we are told now that all of us +came. The worst of it was that, being lifted above his own people, +he had been taught to despise them. He was spoilt as a black and +could not be made into a white, and this I found afterwards was the +invariable and dangerous consequence whenever a superior negro +contrived to raise himself. He might do well enough himself, but his +family feel their blood as degradation. His [35] children will not +marry among their own people, and not only will no white girl marry a +negro, but hardly any dowry can be large enough to tempt a West +Indian white to make a wife of a black lady. This is one of the most +sinister features in the present state of social life there." + +We may safely assume that the playing of "the officers on board and +some of the ladies" with the boy, "as they would play with a monkey," +is evidently a suggestion of Mr. Froude's own soul, as well as the +resemblance to the simian tribe which he makes out from the frolics +of the lad. Verily, it requires an eye rendered more than +microscopic by prejudice to discern the difference between the +gambols of juveniles of any colour under similar conditions. It is +true that it might just be the difference between the friskings of +white lambs and the friskings of lambs that are not white. That any +black pupil should be taught to despise his own people through being +lifted above them by education, seems a reckless statement, and far +from patriotic withal; inasmuch as the education referred to here was +European, and the place from which it was obtained presumably +England. At all events, [36] the difference among educated black men +in deportment towards their unenlightened fellow-blacks, can be +proved to have nothing of that cynicism which often marks the bearing +of Englishmen in an analogous case with regard to their less favoured +countrymen. The statement that a black person can be "spoilt" for +such by education, whilst he cannot be made white, is one of the +silly conceits which the worship of the skin engenders in ill- +conditioned minds. No sympathy should be wasted on the negro +sufferer from mortification at not being able to "change his skin." +The Ethiopian of whatever shade of colour who is not satisfied with +being such was never intended to be more than a mere living figure. +Mr. Froude further confidently states that whilst a superior Negro +"might do well himself," yet "his family feel their blood as a +degradation." If there be some who so feel, they are indeed very +much to be pitied; but their sentiments are not entitled to the +serious importance with which our critic has invested them. But is +it at all conceivable that a people whose sanity has never in any way +been questioned would strain every nerve to secure for their +offspring a [37] distinction the consequence of which to themselves +would be a feeling of their own abasement? The poor Irish peasant who +toils and starves to secure for his eldest son admission into the +Catholic priesthood, has a far other feeling than one of humiliation +when contemplating that son eventually as the spiritual director of a +congregation and parish. Similarly, the laudable ambition which, in +the case of a humble Scotch matron, is expressed in the wish and +exertion to see her Jamie or Geordie "wag his pow in the pou'pit," +produces, when realized, salutary effects in the whole family +connection. These effects, which Mr. Froude would doubtless allow +and commend in their case, he finds it creditable to ignore the very +possibility of in the experience of people whose cuticle is not +white. It is, however, but bare justice to say that, as Negroes are +by no means deficient in self-love and the tenderness of natural +affection, such gratifying fulfilment of a family's hopes exerts an +elevating and, in many cases, an ennobling influence on every one +connected with the fortunate household. Nor, from the eminently +sympathetic nature of the African race, are the near friends of a +family [38] unbenefited in a similar way. This is true, and +distinctively human; but, naturally, no apologist of Negro +depreciation would admit the reasonableness of applying to the +affairs of Negroes the principles of common equity, or even of common +sense. To sum up practically our argument on this head, we shall +suppose West Indians to be called upon to imagine that the less +distinguished relations respectively of, say, the late Solicitor- +General of Trinidad and the present Chief Justice of Barbados could +be otherwise than legitimately elated at the conspicuous position won +by a member of their own household. + +Mr. Froude further ventures to declare, in this connection, that the +children of educated coloured folk "will not marry among their own +people." Will he tell us, then, whom the daughters marry, or if they +ever do marry at all, since he asserts, with regard to West Indian +Whites, that "hardly any dowry can be large enough to tempt them to +make a wife of a black lady"? Our author evidently does not feel or +care that the suggestion he here induces is a hideous slander against +a large body of respectable people of whose affairs he is absolutely +ignorant. Full [39] of the "go" imparted to his talk by a +consciousness of absolute license with regard to Negroes, our +dignified narrator makes the parenthetical assertion that no white +girl (in the West Indies) will "marry a Negro." But has he been +informed that cases upon cases have occurred in those Colonies, and +in very high "Anglo-West Indian" families too, where the social +degradation of being married to Negroes has been avoided by the +alternative of forming base private connections even with menials of +that race? + +The marrying of a black wife, on the other hand, by a West Indian +White was an event of frequent occurrence at a period in regard to +which our historian seems to be culpably uninformed. In slavery +days, when all planters, black and white alike, were fused in a +common solidarity of interests, the skin-distinction which Mr. Froude +so strenuously advocates, and would fain risk so much to promote, did +not, so far as matrimony was concerned, exist in the degree that it +now does. Self-interest often dictated such unions, especially on +the part of in-coming Whites desiring to strengthen their position +and to increase their influence in [40] the land of their adoption by +means of advantageous Creole marriages. Love, too, sheer +uncalculating love, impelled not a few Whites to enter the hymeneal +state with the dusky captivators of their affections. When rich, the +white planter not seldom paid for such gratification of his laudable +impulse by accepting exclusion from "Society"--and when poor, he +incurred almost invariably his dismissal from employment. Of course, +in all cases of the sort the dispensers of such penalties were +actuated by high motives which, nevertheless, did not stand in the +way of their meeting, in the households of the persons thus obnoxious +to punishment, the same or even a lower class of Ethiopic damsels, +under the title of "housekeeper," on whom they lavished a very +plethora of caresses. Perhaps it may be wrong so to hint it, but, +judging from indications in his own book, our author himself would +have been liable in those days to enthralment by the piquant charms +that proved irresistible to so many of his brother-Europeans. It is +almost superfluous to repeat that the skin-discriminating policy +induced as regards the coloured subjects of the Queen since the [41] +abolition of slavery did not, and could not, operate when coloured +and white stood on the same high level as slave-owners and ruling +potentates in the Colonies. Of course, when the administrative power +passed entirely into the hands of British officials, their colonial +compatriots coalesced with them, and found no loss in being in the +good books of the dominant personages. + +In conclusion of our remarks upon the above extracts, it may be +stated that the blending of the races is not a burning question. "It +can keep," as Mr. Bright wittily said with regard to a subject of +similar urgency. Time and Nature might safely be left uninterfered +with to work out whatever social development of this kind is in store +for the world and its inhabitants. + + + +BOOK I: BARBADOS + +[41] Our distinguished voyager visited many of the British West +Indies, landing first at Barbados, his social experience whereof is +set forth in a very agreeable account. Our immediate business, +however, is not with what West Indian hospitality, especially among +the well-to-do classes, can and does accomplish for [42] the +entertainment of visitors, and particularly visitors so eminent as +Mr. Froude. We are concerned with what Mr. Froude has to say +concerning our dusky brethren and sisters in those Colonies. We +have, thus, much pleasure in being able at the outset to extract the +following favourable verdict of his respecting them--premising, at +the same time, that the balcony from which Mr. Froude surveyed the +teeming multitude in Bridgetown was that of a grand hotel at which he +had, on invitation, partaken of the refreshing beverage mentioned in +the citation:-- + +"Cocktail over, and walking in the heat of the sun being a thing not +to be thought of, I sat for two hours in the balcony, watching the +people, who were as thick as bees in swarming time. Nine-tenths of +them were pure black. You rarely saw a white face, but still less +would you see a discontented one, imperturbable good humour and self- +satisfaction being written on the features of every one. The women +struck me especially. They were smartly dressed in white calico, +scrupulously clean, and tricked out with ribands and feathers; but +their figures were so good, and they carried themselves so [43] well +and gracefully, that although they might make themselves absurd, they +could not look vulgar. Like the Greek and Etruscan women, they are +trained from childhood to carry weights on their heads. They are +thus perfectly upright, and plant their feet firmly and naturally on +the ground. They might serve for sculptors' models, and are well +aware of it." + +Regarding the other sex, Mr. Froude says:-- + +"The men were active enough, driving carts, wheeling barrows, and +selling flying-fish," &c. + +He also speaks with candour of the entire absence of drunkenness and +quarrelling and the agreeable prevalence of good humour and light- +heartedness among them. Some critic might, on reading the above +extract from our author's account of the men, be tempted to ask--"But +what is the meaning of that little word 'enough' occurring therein?" +We should be disposed to hazard a suggestion that Mr. Froude, being +fair-minded and loyal to truth, as far as is compatible with his +sympathy for his hapless "Anglo-West Indians," could not give an +entirely ungrudging testimony in favour of the possible, nay +probable, voters by whose suffrages the supremacy of the Dark [44] +Parliament will be ensured, and the relapse into obeahism, devil- +worship, and children-eating be inaugurated. Nevertheless, Si sic +omnia dixisset--if he had said all things thus! Yes, if Mr. Froude +had, throughout his volume, spoken in this strain, his occasional +want of patience and fairness with regard to our male kindred might +have found condonation in his even more than chivalrous appreciation +of our womankind. But it has been otherwise. So we are forced to +try conclusions with him in the arena of his own selection-- +unreflecting spokesman that he is of British colonialism, which, we +grieve to learn through Mr. Froude's pages, has, like the Bourbon +family, not only forgotten nothing, but, unfortunately for its own +peace, learnt nothing also. + + + +BOOK I: ST. VINCENT + +[44] The following are the words in which our traveller embodies the +main motive and purpose of his voyage:-- + +"My own chief desire was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what +they were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking +about. . . ." + +[45] But, alas, with the mercurialism of temperament in which he has +thought proper to indulge when only Negroes and Europeans not of +"Anglo-West Indian" tendencies were concerned, he jauntily threw to +the winds all the scruples and cautious minuteness which were +essential to the proper execution of his project. At Barbados, as we +have seen, he satisfies himself with sitting aloft, at a balcony- +window, to contemplate the movements of the sable throng below, of +whose character, moral and political, he nevertheless professes to +have become a trustworthy delineator. From the above-quoted account +of his impressions of the external traits and deportment of the +Ethiopic folk thus superficially gazed at, our author passes on to an +analysis of their mental and moral idiosyncrasies, and other intimate +matters, which the very silence of the book as to his method of +ascertaining them is a sufficient proof that his knowledge in their +regard has not been acquired directly and at first hand. Nor need we +say that the generally adverse cast of his verdicts on what he had +been at no pains to study for himself points to the "hostileness" of +the witnesses whose [46] testimony alone has formed the basis of his +conclusions. Throughout Mr. Froude's tour in the British Colonies +his intercourse was exclusively with "Anglo-West Indians," whose +aversion to the Blacks he has himself, perhaps they would think +indiscreetly, placed on record. In no instance do we find that he +condescended to visit the abode of any Negro, whether it was the +mansion of a gentleman or the hut of a peasant of that race. The +whole tenor of the book indicates his rigid adherence to this one- +sided course, and suggests also that, as a traveller, Mr. Froude +considers maligning on hearsay to be just as convenient as reporting +facts elicited by personal investigation. Proceed we, however, to +strengthen our statement regarding his definitive abandonment, and +that without any apparent reason, of the plan he had professedly laid +down for himself at starting, and failing which no trustworthy data +could have been obtained concerning the character and disposition of +the people about whom he undertakes to thoroughly enlighten his +readers. Speaking of St. Vincent, where he arrived immediately after +leaving Barbados, our author says:-- + +[47] "I did not land, for the time was short, and as a beautiful +picture the island was best seen from the deck. The characteristics +of the people are the same in all the Antilles, and could be studied +elsewhere." + +Now, it is a fact, patent and notorious, that "the characteristics of +the people are" not "the same in all the Antilles." A man of Mr. +Froude's attainments, whose studies have made him familiar with +ethnological facts, must be aware that difference of local +surroundings and influences does, in the course of time, inevitably +create difference of characteristic and deportment. Hence there is +in nearly every Colony a marked dissimilarity of native qualities +amongst the Negro inhabitants, arising not only from the causes above +indicated, but largely also from the great diversity of their African +ancestry. We might as well be told that because the nations of +Europe are generally white and descended from Japhet, they could be +studied one by the light derived from acquaintance with another. We +venture to declare that, unless a common education from youth has +been shared by them, the Hamitic inhabitants of one island have very +little in common with [48] those of another, beyond the dusky skin +and woolly hair. In speech, character, and deportment, a coloured +native of Trinidad differs as much from one of Barbados as a North +American black does from either, in all the above respects. + + + +BOOK I: GRENADA + +[48] In Grenada, the next island he arrived at, our traveller's +procedure with regard to the inhabitants was very similar. There he +landed in the afternoon, drove three or four miles inland to dine at +the house of a "gentleman who was a passing resident," returned in +the dark to his ship, and started for Trinidad. In the course of +this journey back, however, as he sped along in the carriage, Mr. +Froude found opportunity to look into the people's houses along the +way, where, he tells us, he "could see and was astonished to observe +signs of comfort, and even signs of taste--armchairs, sofas, side- +boards with cut-glass upon them, engravings and coloured prints upon +the walls." As a result of this nocturnal examination, a vol +d'oiseau, he has written paragraph upon paragraph about the people's +character [49] and prospects in the island of Grenada. To read the +patronizing terms in which our historian-traveller has seen fit to +comment on Grenada and its people, one would believe that his account +is of some half-civilized, out-of-the-way region under British sway, +and inhabited chiefly by a horde of semi-barbarian ignoramuses of +African descent. If the world had not by this time thoroughly +assessed the intrinsic value of Mr. Froude's utterances, one who +knows Grenada might have felt inclined to resent his causeless +depreciation of the intellectual capacity of its inhabitants; but +considering the estimate which has been pretty generally formed of +his historical judgment, Mr. Froude may be dismissed, as regards +Grenada and its people, with a certain degree of scepticism. Such +scepticism, though lost upon himself, is unquestionably needful to +protect his readers from the hallucination which the author's +singular contempt for accuracy is but too liable to induce. + +Those who know Grenada and its affairs are perfectly familiar with +the fact that all of its chief intellectual business, whether +official (even in the highest degree, such as temporary [50] +administration of the government), legal, commercial, municipal, +educational, or journalistic, has been for years upon years carried +on by men of colour. And what, as a consequence of this fact, has +the world ever heard in disparagement of Grenada throughout this long +series of years? Assuredly not a syllable. On the contrary, she has +been the theme of praise, not only for the admirable foresight with +which she avoided the sugar crisis, so disastrous to her sister +islands, but also for the pluck and persistence shown in sustaining +herself through an agricultural emergency brought about by commercial +reverses, whereby the steady march of her sons in self-advancement +was only checked for a time, but never definitively arrested. In +fine, as regards every branch of civilized employment pursued there, +the good people of Grenada hold their own so well and worthily that +any show of patronage, even from a source more entitled to +confidence, would simply be a piece of obtrusive kindness, not +acceptable to any, seeing that it is required by none. + + + +BOOK II: TRINIDAD / TRINIDAD AND REFORM+ + +[53] Mr. Froude, crossing the ninety miles of the Caribbean Sea lying +between Grenada and Trinidad, lands next morning in Port of Spain, +the chief city of that "splendid colony," as Governor Irving, its +worst ruler, truly calls it in his farewell message to the +Legislature. Regarding Port of Spain in particular, Mr. Froude is +positively exuberant in the display of the peculiar qualities that +distinguish him, and which we have already admitted. Ecstatic praise +and groundless detraction go hand in hand, bewildering to any one not +possessed of the key to the mystery of the art of blowing hot and +cold, which Mr. Froude so startlingly exemplifies. As it is our +purpose to make what he says concerning this Colony the crucial test +of his veracity as a writer of travels, [54] and also of the value of +his judgments respecting men and things, we shall first invite the +reader's attention to the following extracts, with our discussion +thereof:-- + +"On landing we found ourselves in a large foreign-looking town, Port +of Spain having been built by French and Spaniards according to their +national tendencies, and especially with a view to the temperature, +which is that of a forcing house, and rarely falls below 80 degrees. +The streets are broad, and are planted with trees for shade, each house +where room permits having a garden of its own, with palms and mangoes +and coffee-plants and creepers. Of sanitary arrangements there +seemed to be none. There is abundance of rain, and the gutters which +run down by the footway are flushed almost every day. But they are +all open. Dirt of every kind lies about freely, to be washed into +them or left to putrify as fate shall direct" (p. 64). + +Lower down, on the same page, our author, luxuriating in his contempt +for exactitude when the character of other folk only is at stake, +continues:--"The town has between thirty and forty thousand people +living in it, and the [55] rain and Johnny crows between them keep +off pestilence." On page 65 we have the following astounding +statement with respect to one of the trees in the garden in front of +the house in which Mr. Froude was sojourning:--"At the gate stood as +sentinel a cabbage palm a hundred feet high." + +The above quotations, in which we have elected to be content +with indicating by typographical differences the points on which +attention should be mostly directed, will suffice, with any one +knowing Trinidad, as examples of Mr. Froude's trustworthiness. But +as these are only on matters of mere detail, involving no question of +principle, they are dismissed without any further comment. It must +not be so, however, with the following remarkable deliverances which +occur on page 67 of his too picturesque work:--"The commonplace +intrudes upon the imaginative. At moments one can fancy that the +world is an enchanted place after all, but then comes generally an +absurd awakening. On the first night of my arrival, before we went +to bed, there came an invitation to me to attend a political meeting +which was to be held in a few days on the Savannah. + +[56] "Trinidad is a purely Crown colony, and has escaped hitherto the +introduction of the election virus. The newspapers and certain busy +gentlemen in Port of Spain had discovered that they were living under +a 'degrading tyranny,' and they demanded a constitution. They did +not complain that their affairs had been ill-managed. On the +contrary, they insisted that they were the most prosperous of the +West Indian colonies, and alone had a surplus in their treasury. If +this was so, it seemed to me that they had better let well alone. +The population, all told, was but 170,000, less by thirty thousand +than that of Barbados. They were a mixed and motley assemblage of +all races and colours, busy each with their own affairs, and never +hitherto troubling themselves about politics. But it had pleased the +Home Government to set up the beginning of a constitution again in +Jamaica; no one knew why, but so it was; and Trinidad did not choose +to be behindhand. The official appointments were valuable, and had +been hitherto given away by the Crown. The local popularities very +naturally wished to have them for themselves. This was the [57] +reality in the thing, so far as there was a reality. It was dressed +up in the phrases borrowed from the great English masters of the art, +about privileges of manhood, moral dignity, the elevating influence +of the suffrage, &c., intended for home consumption among the +believers in the orthodox radical faith." + +The passages which we have signalized in the above quotation, and +which occur with more elaboration and heedless assurance on a later +page, will produce a feeling of wonder at the hardihood of him who +not only conceived, but penned and dared to publish them as well, +against the gentlemen whom we all know to be foremost in the +political agitation at which Mr. Froude so flippantly sneers. An +emphatic denial may be opposed to his pretence that "they did not +complain that their affairs had been ill-managed." Why, the very +gist and kernel of the whole agitation, set forth in print through +long years of iteration, has been the scandalous mismanagement of the +affairs of the Colony--especially under the baleful administration of +Governor Irving. The Augean Stable, miscalled by him "The Public +Works Department," and whose officials he coolly [58] fastened upon +the financial vitals of that long-suffering Colony, baffled even the +resolute will of a Des Voeux to cleanse it. Poor Sir Sanford +Freeling attempted the cleansing, but foundered ignominiously almost +as soon as he embarked on that Herculean enterprise. Sir A. E. +Havelock, who came after, must be mentioned by the historian of +Trinidad merely as an incarnate accident in the succession of +Governors to whom the destinies of that maltreated Colony have been +successively intrusted since the departure of Sir Arthur Hamilton +Gordon. The present Governor of Trinidad, Sir William Robinson, is a +man of spirit and intelligence, keenly alive to the grave +responsibilities resting on him as a ruler of men and moulder of +men's destinies. Has he, with all his energy, his public spirit and +indisputable devotion to the furtherance of the Colony's interests, +been able to grapple successfully with the giant evil? Has he +effectually gained the ear of our masters in Downing Street regarding +the inefficiency and wastefulness of Governor Irving's pet +department? We presume that his success has been but very partial, +for otherwise it is difficult to conceive the motive for [59] +retaining the army of officials radiating from that office, with the +chief under whose supervision so many architectural and other +scandals have for so long been the order of the day. The Public +Works Department is costly enough to have been a warning to the whole +of the West Indies. It is true that the lavish squandering of the +people's money by that department has been appreciably checked since +the advent of the present head of the Government. The papers no +longer team with accounts, nor is even the humblest aesthetic sense, +offended now, as formerly, with views of unsightly, useless and +flimsy erections, the cost of which, on an average, was five times +more than that of good and reputable structures. + +This, however, has been entirely due to the personal influence of the +Governor. Sir William Robinson, not being the tool, as Sir Henry +Irving owned that he was, of the Director of Public Works, could not +be expected to be his accomplice or screener in the cynical waste of +the public funds. Here, then, is the personal rectitude of a ruler +operating as a safeguard to the people's interests; and we gladly +confess our entire agreement with [60] Mr. Froude on the subject of +the essential qualifications of a Crown Governor. Mr. Froude +contends, and we heartily coincide with him, that a ruler of high +training and noble purposes would, as the embodiment of the +administrative authority, be the very best provision for the +government of Colonies constituted as ours are. But he has also +pointed out, and that in no equivocal terms, that the above are far +from having been indispensable qualifications for the patronage of +Downing Street. He has shown that the Colonial Office is, more often +than otherwise, swayed in the appointment of Colonial Governors by +considerations among which the special fitness of the man appointed +holds but a secondary place. On this point we have much +gratification in giving Mr. Froude's own words (p. 91):--"Among the +public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found +fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty if a sincere +effort be made to find them. Alas! in times past we have sent +persons to rule our Baratarias to whom Sancho Panza was a sage-- +troublesome members of Parliament, younger brothers of powerful +families, impecunious peers; favourites, [61] with backstairs +influence, for whom a provision was to be found; colonial clerks bred +in the office who had been obsequious and useful!" Now then, +applying these facts to the political history of Trinidad, with which +we are more particularly concerned at present, what do we find? We +find that in the person of Sir A. H. Gordon (1867-1870) that Colony +at length chanced upon a ruler both competent and eager to advance +her interests, not only materially, but in the nobler respects that +give dignity to the existence of a community. Of course, he was +opposed--ably, strenuously, violently, virulently--but the metal of +which the man was composed was only fused into greater firmness by +being subjected to such fiery tests. On leaving Trinidad, this +eminent ruler left as legacies to the Colony he had loved and worked +for so heartily, laws that placed the persons and belongings of the +inhabitants beyond the reach of wanton aggression; the means by which +honest and laborious industry could, through agriculture, benefit +both itself and the general revenue. He also left an educational +system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway to +knowledge, to [62] distinction, and, if the objects of its +beneficence were worthy of the boon, to serviceableness to their +native country. Above all, he left peace among the jarring interests +which, under the badge of Englishman and of Creole, under the badge +of Catholic and under the badge of Protestant, and so many other +forms of sectional divergence, had too long distracted Trinidad. +This he had effected, not by constituting himself a partisan of +either section, but by inquiring with statesmanlike appreciation, and +allowing the legitimate claims of each to a certain scope of +influence in the furtherance of the Colony's welfare. Hence the +bitter rivalry of jarring interests was transformed into harmonious +co-operation on all sides, in advancing the common good of the common +country. + +The Colonial Office, knowing little and caring less about that noble +jewel in the British Crown, sent out as successor to so brilliant and +successful an administrator--whom? One Sir James Robert Longden, a +gentleman without initiative, without courage, and, above all, with a +slavish adherence to red-tape and a clerk-like dread of compromising +his berth. Having served for a long series of years in subordinate +posts in [63] minor dependencies, the habit of being impressed and +influenced by colonial magnates grew and gathered strength within +him. Such a ruler, of course, the serpents that had only been +"scotched, but not killed," by the stern procedures of Governor +Gordon, could wind round, beguile, and finally cause to fall. +Measure after measure of his predecessor which he could in any way +neutralize in the interests of the colonial clique, was rendered of +none effect. In fact, he was subservient to the wishes of those who +had all long objected to those measures, but had not dared even to +hint their objections to the beneficent autocrat who had willed and +given them effect for the general welfare. After Governor Longden +came Sir Henry Turner Irving, a personage who brought to Trinidad a +reputation for all the vulgar colonial prejudices which, +discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, in the Governor of a +mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. More than amply did +he justify the evil reports with which rumour had heralded his +coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James Longden, who +was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, Governor Irving +threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the Sugar +Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and whose +belief he evidently shared, that sugar-growers alone should be +possessors of the lands of the West Indies. It would be wearisome to +detail the methods by which every act of Sir Arthur Gordon's to +benefit the whole population was cynically and systematically undone +by this his native-hating successor. In short, the policy of +reaction which Sir James Longden began, found in Governor Irving not +only a consistent promoter, but, as it were, a sinister incarnation. +It is true that he could not, at the bidding and on the advice of his +planter-friends, shut up the Crown Lands of the Colony against +purchasers of limited means, because they happened to be mostly +natives of colour, but he could annul the provision by which every +Warden in the rural districts, on the receipt of the statutory fees, +had to supply a Government title on the spot to every one who +purchased any acreage of Crown Lands. Every intending purchaser, +therefore, whether living at Toco, Guayaguayare, Monos, or Icacos, +the four extreme points of the Island of Trinidad, was compelled to +go to Port of [65] Spain, forty or fifty miles distant, through an +almost roadless country, to compete at the Sub-Intendant's auction +sales, with every probability of being outbid in the end, and having +his long-deposited money returned to him after all his pains. +Lieutenant-Governor Des Voeux told the Legislature of Trinidad that +the monstrous Excise imposts of the Colony were an incentive to +smuggling, and he thought that the duties, licenses, &c., should be +lowered in the interest of good and equitable government. Sir Henry +Turner Irving, however, besides raising the duties on spirituous +liquors, also enacted that every distillery, however small, must pay +a salary to a Government official stationed within it to supervise +the manufacture of the spirits. This, of course, was the death-blow +to all the minor competition which had so long been disturbing the +peace of mind of the mighty possessors of the great distilleries. +Ahab was thus made glad with the vineyard of Naboth. + +In the matter of official appointments, too, Governor Irving was +consistent in his ostentatious hostility to Creoles in general, and +to coloured Creoles in particular. Of the fifty-six appointments +which that model Governor [66] made in 1876, only seven happened to +be natives and coloured, out of a population in which the latter +element is so preponderant as to excite the fears of Mr. Froude. In +educational matters, though he could not with any show of sense or +decency re-enact the rule which excluded students of illegitimate +birth from the advantages of the Royal College, he could, +nevertheless, pander to the prejudices of himself and his friends by +raising the standard of proficiency while reducing the limit of the +age for free admission to that institution--boys of African descent +having shown an irrepressible persistency in carrying off prizes. + +Every one acquainted with Trinidad politics knows very well the +ineffably low dodges and subterfuges under which the Arima Railway +was prevented from having its terminus in the centre of that town. +The public was promised a saving of Eight Thousand Pounds by their +high-minded Governor for a diversion of the line "by only a few +yards" from the originally projected terminus. In the end it was +found out not only that the terminus of the railway was nearly a +whole mile outside of the town of Arima, but also that Twenty [67] +Thousand Pounds "Miscellaneous" had to be paid up by the good folk of +Trinidad, in addition to gulping down their disappointment at saving +no Eight Thousand Pounds, and having to find by bitter experience, +especially in rainy weather, that their Governor's few yards were +just his characteristic way of putting down yards which he well knew +were to be counted by hundreds. Then, again, we have the so-called +San Fernando Waterworks, an abortion, a scandal for which there is no +excuse, as the head of the Public Works Department went his own way +despite the experience of those who knew better than he, and the +protests of those who would have had to pay. Seventeen Thousand +Pounds represent the amount of debt with which Governor Irving's pet +department has saddled the town of San Fernando for water, which half +the inhabitants cannot get, and which few of the half who do get it +dare venture to drink. Summa fastigia rerum secuti sumus. If in the +works that were so prominent before the public gaze these enormous +abuses could flourish, defiant of protest and opposition, what shall +we think of the nooks and corners of that same squandering +department, which of [68] course must have been mere gnats in the +eyes of a Governor who had swallowed so many monstrous camels! The +Governor was callous. Trinidad was a battening ground for his +friends; but she had in her bosom men who were her friends, and the +struggle began, constitutionally of course, which, under the +leadership of the Mayor of San Fernando, has continued up to now, +culminating at last in the Reform movement which Mr. Froude decries, +and which his pupil, Mr. S. H. Gatty, is, from what has appeared in +the Trinidad papers, doing his "level best" to render abortive. + +Sir Sanford Freeling, by the will and pleasure of Downing Street, was +the next successor, after Governor Irving, to the chief ruler-ship of +Trinidad. Incredible as it may sound, he was a yet more +disadvantageous bargain for the Colony's L4000 a year. A better man +in many respects than his predecessor, he was in many more a much +worse Governor. The personal affability of a man can be known only +to those who come into actual contact with him--the public measures +of a ruler over a community touches it, mediately or immediately, +throughout all its sections. The bad boldness of [69] Governor +Irving achieved much that the people, especially in the outlying +districts, could see and appreciate. For example, he erected Rest- +houses all over the remoter and more sparsely peopled quarters of the +Colony, after the manner of such provisions in Oriental lands. The +population who came in contact with these conveniences, and to whom +access to them--for a consideration--had never been denied, saw with +their own eyes tangible evidence of the Governor's activity, and +inferred therefrom a solicitude on his part for the public welfare. +Had they, however, been given a notion of the bill which had had to +be paid for those frail, though welcome hostelries, they would have +stood aghast at the imbecility, or, if not logically that, the +something very much worse, through which five times the actual worth +of these buildings had been extracted from the Treasury. Sir Sanford +Freeling, on the other hand, while being no screener of jobbery and +peculation, had not the strength of mind whereof jobbers and +peculators do stand in dread. In evidence of that poor ruler's +infirmity of purpose, we would only cite the double fact that, +whereas in 1883 he was the first to enter a practical protest against +the housing [70] of the diseased and destitute in the then newly +finished, but most leaky, House of Refuge on the St. Clair Lands, by +having the poor saturated inmates carried off in his presence to the +Colonial Hospital, yet His Excellency was the very man who, in the +very next year, 1884, not only sanctioned the shooting down of Indian +immigrants at their festival, but actually directed the use of buck- +shot for that purpose! Evidently, if these two foregoing statements +are true, Mr. Froude must join us in thinking that a man whose mind +could be warped by external influences from the softest commiseration +for the sufferings of his kind, one year, into being the cold-blooded +deviser of the readiest method for slaughtering unarmed holiday- +makers, the very next year, is not the kind of ruler whom he and we +so cordially desiderate. We have already mentioned above how +ignominious Governor Freeling's failure was in attempting to meddle +with the colossal abuses of the Public Works Department. + +Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock next had the privilege of enjoying the +paradisaic sojourn at Queen's House, St. Ann's, as well as the four +thousand pounds a year attached to the [71] right of occupying that +princely residence. Save as a dandy, however, and the harrier of +subordinate officials, the writer of the annals of Trinidad may well +pass him by. So then it may be seen what, by mere freaks of Chance-- +the ruling deity at Downing Street--the administrative experience of +Trinidad had been from the departure of that true king in Israel,-- +Sir Arthur Gordon, up to the visit of Mr. Froude. First, a slave to +red-tape, procrastination, and the caprices of pretentious +colonialists; next, a daring schemer, confident of the support of the +then dominant Sugar Interest, and regarding and treating the +resources of the Island as free booty for his friends, sycophants, +and favourites; then, an old woman, garbed in male attire, having an +infirmity of purpose only too prone to be blown about by every wind +of doctrine, alternating helplessly between tenderness and +truculence, the charity of a Fry and the tragic atrocity of Medea. +After this dismal ruler, Trinidad, by the grace of the Colonial +Office, was subjected to the manipulation of an unctuous dandy. This +successor of Gordon, of Elliot, and of Cairns, durst not oppose high- +placed official malfeasants, but [72] was inexorable with regard to +minor delinquents. In the above retrospect we have purposely omitted +mentioning such transient rulers as Mr. Rennie, Sir G. W. Des Voeux, +and last, but by no means least, Sir F. Barlee, a high-minded +Governor, whom death so suddenly and inscrutably snatched away from +the good work he had loyally begun. Every one of the above temporary +administrators was a right good man for a post in which brain power +and moral back-bone are essential qualifications. But the Fates so +willed it that Trinidad should never enjoy the permanent governance +of either. In view of the above facts; in view also of the lessons +taught the inhabitants of Trinidad so frequently, so cruelly, what +wonder is there that, failing of faith in a probability, which stands +one against four, of their getting another worthy ruler when Governor +Robinson shall have left them, they should seek to make hay while the +sun shines, by providing against the contingency of such Governors as +they know from bitter experience that Downing Street would place over +their destinies, should the considerations detailed by Mr. Froude or +any other equally [73] unworthy counsellor supervene? That the +leading minds of Trinidad should believe in an elective legislature +is a logical consequence of the teachings of the past, when the +Colony was under the manipulation of the sort of Governors above +mentioned as immediately succeeding Sir Arthur Gordon. + +This brings us to the motives, the sordid motives, which Mr. Froude, +oblivious of the responsibility of his high literary status, has +permitted himself gratuitously, and we may add scandalously, to +impute to the heads of the Reform movement in Trinidad. It was +perfectly competent that our author should decline, as he did +decline, to have anything to do, even as a spectator, at a meeting +with the object of which he had no sympathy. But our opinion is +equally decided that Mr. Froude has transgressed the bounds of decent +political antagonism, nay, even of common sense, when he presumes to +state that it was not for any other object than the large salaries of +the Crown appointments, which they covet for themselves, that the +Reform leaders are contending. This is not criticism: it is slander. +To make culpatory statements against others, [74] without ability to +prove them, is, to say the least, hazardous; but to make accusations +to formulate which the accuser is forced, not only to ignore facts, +but actually to deny them, is, to our mind, nothing short of rank +defamation. + +Mr. Froude is not likely to impress the world (of the West Indies, at +any rate) with the transparently silly, if not intentionally +malicious, ravings which he has indulged in on the subject of +Trinidad and its politics. Here are some of the things which this +"champion of Anglo-West Indians" attempts to force down the throats +of his readers. He would have us believe that Mr. Francis Damian, +the Mayor of Port of Spain, and one of the wealthiest of the native +inhabitants of Trinidad, a man who has retired from an honourable and +lucrative legal practice, and devotes his time, his talents, and his +money to the service of his native country; that Mr. Robert Guppy, +the venerable and venerated Mayor of San Fernando, with his weight of +years and his sufficing competence, and with his long record of self- +denying services to the public; that Mr. George Goodwille, one of the +most successful merchants in the Colonies; that Mr. Conrad [75] F. +Stollmeyer, a gentleman retired, in the evening of his days, on his +well-earned ample means, are open to the above sordid accusation. In +short, that those and such-like individuals who, on account of their +private resources and mental capabilities, as well as the public +influence resulting therefrom, are, by the sheer logic of +circumstances, forced to be at the head of public movements, are +actuated by a craving for the few hundred pounds a year for which +there is such a scramble at Downing Street among the future official +grandees of the West Indies! But granting that this allegation of +Mr. Froude's was not as baseless as we have shown it to be, and that +the leaders of the Reform agitation were impelled by the desire which +our author seeks to discredit them with, what then? Have they who +have borne the heat and the burden of the day in making the Colonies +what they are no right to the enjoyment of the fruits of their +labours? The local knowledge, the confidence and respect of the +population, which such men enjoy, and can wield for good or evil in +the community, are these matters of small account in the efficient +government of the Colony? Our author, in [76] specifying the +immunities of his ideal Governor, who is also ours, recommends, +amongst other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose +his own advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that +the advisers so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have +rushed from the destitution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained +flesh-pots of the Colonies. + +At any rate, whatever political fate Mr. Froude may desire for the +Colonies in general, and for Trinidad in particular, it is +nevertheless unquestionable that he and the scheme that he may have +for our future governance, in this year of grace 1888, have both come +into view entirely out of season. The spirit of the times has +rendered impossible any further toleration of the arrogance which is +based on historical self-glorification. The gentlemen of Trinidad, +who are struggling for political enfranchisement, are not likely to +heed, except as a matter for indignant contempt, the obtrusion by our +author of his opinion that "they had best let well alone." On his +own showing, the persons appointed to supreme authority in the +Colonies are, more usually than not, entirely unfit for [77] holding +any responsible position whatever over their fellows. Now, can it be +doubted that less care, less scruple, less consideration, would be +exercised in the choice of the satellites appointed to revolve, in +these far-off latitudes, around the central luminaries? Have we not +found, are we not still finding every day, that the brain-dizziness-- +Xenophon calls it kephalalgeia+--induced by sudden promotion has +transformed the abject suppliants at the Downing Street backstairs +into the arrogant defiers of the opinions, and violators of the +rights, of the populations whose subjection to the British Crown +alone could have rendered possible the elevation of such folk and +their impunity in malfeasance? The cup of loyal forbearance reached +the overflowing point since the trickstering days of Governor Irving, +and it is useless now to believe in the possibility of a return of +the leading minds of Trinidad to a tame acquiescence as regards the +probabilities of their government according to the Crown system. Mr. +Froude's own remarks point out definitely enough that a community so +governed is absolutely at the mercy, for good or for evil, of the man +who happens to be invested with [78] the supreme authority. He has +also shown that in our case that supreme authority is very often +disastrously entrusted. Yet has he nothing but sneers for the +efforts of those who strive to be emancipated from liability to such +subjection. Mr. Froude's deftly-worded sarcasms about "degrading +tyranny," "the dignity of manhood," &c., are powerless to alter the +facts. Crown Colony Government--denying, as it does to even the +wisest and most interested in a community cursed with it all +participation in the conduct of their own affairs, while investing +irresponsible and uninterested "birds of passage" (as our author +aptly describes them) with the right of making ducks and drakes of +the resources wrung from the inhabitants--is a degrading tyranny, +which the sneers of Mr. Froude cannot make otherwise. The dignity of +manhood, on the other hand, we are forced to admit, runs scanty +chance of recognition by any being, however masculine his name, who +could perpetrate such a literary and moral scandal as "The Bow of +Ulysses." Yet the dignity of manhood stands venerable there, and +whilst the world lasts shall gain for its possessors the right of +record on the roll of [79] those whom the worthy of the world delight +to honour. + +All of a piece, as regards veracity and prudence, is the further +allegation of Mr. Froude's, to the effect that there was never any +agitation for Reform in Trinidad before that which he passes under +review. It is, however, a melancholy fact, which we are ashamed to +state, that Mr. Froude has written characteristically here also, +either through crass ignorance or through deliberate malice. Any +respectable, well-informed inhabitant of Trinidad, who happened not +to be an official "bird of passage," might, on our author's honest +inquiry, have informed him that Trinidad is the land of chronic +agitation for Reform. Mr. Froude might also have been informed that, +even forty-five years ago, that is in 1843, an elective constitution, +with all the electoral districts duly marked out, was formulated and +transmitted by the leading inhabitants of Trinidad to the then +Secretary of State for the Colonies. He might also have learnt that +on every occasion that any of the shady Governors, whom he has so +well depicted, manifested any excess of his undesirable qualities, +there has been a movement [80] among the educated people in behalf of +changing their country's political condition. + +We close this part of our review by reiterating our conviction that, +come what will, the Crown Colony system, as at present managed, is +doomed. Britain may, in deference to the alleged wishes of her +impalpable "Anglo-West Indians"--whose existence rests on the +authority of Mr. Froude alone--deny to Trinidad and other Colonies +even the small modicum prayed for of autonomy, but in doing so the +Mother Country will have to sternly revise her present methods of +selecting and appointing Governors. As to the subordinate lot, they +will have to be worth their salt when there is at the head of the +Government a man who is truly deserving of his. + +NOTES + +53. +It is not clear from the original text exactly where the brief +chapter "Trinidad" ends and where the longer one entitled "Reform in +Trinidad" begins. (The copy indicates that the "Trinidad" chapter +ends at page 54, but the relevant page contains no subheading.) I +have, therefore, chosen to fuse the two chapters since they form a +logical unit. + +77. +Since there is little Greek in this work, I have simply +transliterated it. + + + +BOOK II: NEGRO FELICITY IN THE WEST INDIES + +[81] We come now to the ingenious and novel fashion in which Mr. +Froude carries out his investigations among the black population, and +to his dogmatic conclusions concerning them. He says:-- + +"In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire was to see the +human inhabitants, to learn what they were doing, how they were +living, and what they were thinking about, and this could best be +done by drives about the town and neighbourhood." + +"Drives about the town and neighbourhood," indeed! To learn and be +able to depict with faithful accuracy what people "were doing, how +they were living, and what they were thinking about"--all this being +best done (domestic circumstances, nay, soul-workings and all!) +through fleeting glimpses of shifting [82] panoramas of intelligent +human beings! What a bright notion! We have here the suggestion of +a capacity too superhuman to be accepted on trust, especially when, +as in this case, it is by implication self-arrogated. The modesty of +this thaumaturgic traveller in confining the execution of his +detailed scrutiny of a whole community to the moderate progression of +some conventional vehicle, drawn by some conventional quadruped or +the other, does injustice to powers which, if possessed at all, might +have compassed the same achievement in the swifter transit of an +express train, or, better still perhaps, from the empyrean elevation +of a balloon! Yet is Mr. Froude confident that data professed to be +thus collected would easily pass muster with the readers of his book! +A confidence of this kind is abnormal, and illustrates, we think most +fully, all the special characteristics of the man. With his passion +for repeating, our author tells us in continuation of a strange +rhapsody on Negro felicity:-- + +"Once more, the earth does not contain any peasantry so well off, so +well-cared for, so happy, so sleek and contented, as the sons [83] +and daughters of the emancipated slaves in the English West Indian +Islands." + +Again:-- + +"Under the rule of England, in these islands, the two millions of +these brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly contented +specimens of the human race to be found upon the planet. . . . If +happiness be the satisfaction of every conscious desire, theirs is a +condition that admits of no improvement: were they independent, they +might quarrel among themselves, and the weaker become the bondsmen of +the stronger; under the beneficent despotism of the English +Government, which knows no difference of colour and permits no +oppression, they can sleep, lounge, and laugh away their lives as +they please, fearing no danger," &c. + +Now, then, let us examine for a while this roseate picture of +Arcadian blissfulness said to be enjoyed by British West Indian +Negroes in general, and by the Negroes of Trinidad in particular. +"No distinction of colour" under the British rule, and, better +still, absolute protection of the weaker against the stronger! This +latter consummation especially, [84] Mr. Froude tells us, has been +happily secured "under the beneficent despotism" of the Crown Colony +system. However, let the above vague hyperboles be submitted to the +test of practical experience, and the abstract government analysed in +its concrete relations with the people. + +Unquestionably the actual and direct interposition of the shielding +authority above referred to, between man and man, is the immediate +province of the MAGISTRACY. All other branches of the Government, +having in themselves no coercive power, must, from the supreme +executive downwards, in cases of irreconcilable clashing of +interests, have ultimate recourse to the magisterial jurisdiction. +Putting aside, then, whatever culpable remissness may have been +manifested by magistrates in favour of powerful malfeasants, we would +submit that the fact of stipendiary justices converting the +tremendous, far-reaching powers which they wield into an engine of +systematic oppression, ought to dim by many a shade the glowing +lustre of Mr. Froude's encomiums. Facts, authentic and notorious, +might be adduced in hundreds, especially with respect to [85] the +Port of Spain and San Fernando magistracies (both of which, since the +administration of Sir J. R. Longden, have been exclusively the prizes +of briefless English barristers*), to prove that these gentry, far +from being bulwarks to the weaker as against the stronger, have, in +their own persons, been the direst scourges that the poor, +particularly when coloured, have been afflicted by in aggravation of +the difficulties of their lot. Only typical examples can here be +given out of hundreds upon hundreds which might easily be cited and +proved against the incumbents of the abovementioned chief stipendiary +magistracies. One such example was a matter of everyday discussion +at the time of Mr. Froude's visit. The inhabitants were even backed +in their complaints by the Governor, who had, in response to their +cry of distress, forwarded their prayer [86] to the home authorities +for relief from the hard treatment which they alleged themselves to +be suffering at the hands of the then magistrate. Our allusion here +is to the chief town, Port of Spain, the magistracy of which embraces +also the surrounding districts, containing a total population of +between 60,000 and 70,000 souls. Mr. R. D. Mayne filled this +responsible office during the latter years of Sir J. R. Longden's +governorship. He was reputed, soon after his arrival, to have +announced from the bench that in every case he would take the word of +a constable in preference to the testimony of any one else. The +Barbadian rowdies who then formed the major part of the constabulary +of Trinidad, and whose bitter hatred of the older residents had been +not only plainly expressed, but often brutally exemplified, rejoiced +in the opportunity thus afforded for giving effect to their truculent +sentiments. At that time the bulk of the immigrants from Barbados +were habitual offenders whom the Government there had provided with a +free passage to wherever they elected to betake themselves. The more +intelligent of the men flocked to the Trinidad [87] police ranks, +into which they were admitted generally without much inquiry into +their antecedents. On this account they were shunned by the decent +inhabitants, a course which they repaid with savage animosity. +Perjuries the most atrocious and crushing, especially to the +respectable poor, became the order of the day. Hundreds of innocent +persons were committed to gaol and the infamy of convict servitude, +without the possibility of escape from, or even mitigation of, their +ignominious doom. A respectable woman (a native of Barbados, too, +who in the time of the first immigration of the better sort of her +compatriots had made Trinidad her home) was one of the first victims +of this iniquitous state of affairs. + +The class of people to which she belonged was noted as orderly, +industrious and law-abiding, and, being so, it had identified itself +entirely with the natives of the land of its adoption. This fact +alone was sufficient to involve these immigrants in the same lot of +persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and +were carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, +on the occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the +woman in question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of +ironing for her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow +in the street before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud +scream, which, on looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of +a boy of some ten or twelve years of age, who had been violently +struck with the fist by another youth of larger size and evidently +his senior in age. The smaller fellow had laid fast hold of his +antagonist by the collar, and would not let go, despite the blows +which, to extricate himself and in retaliation of the puny buffets of +his youthful detainer, he "showered thick as wintry rain." + +The woman, seeing the posture of affairs, shouted to the combatants +to desist, but to no purpose, rage and absorption in their wrathful +occupation having deafened both to all external sounds. Seized with +pity for the younger lad, who was getting so mercilessly the worst of +it, the woman, hastily throwing a shawl over her shoulders, sprang +into the street and rushed between the juvenile belligerents. +Dexterously extricating the hand of the little fellow from the collar +of his antagonist, she hurried the former [89] into her gateway, +shouting out to him at the same time to fasten the door on the +inside. This the little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this +surcease from actual conflict, short though it was, must have +afforded space for the natural instinct of self-preservation to +reassert itself. Hereupon the elder of the two lads, like a tiger +robbed of his prey, sprang furiously to the gate, and began to use +frantic efforts to force an entrance. Perceiving this, the woman +(who meanwhile had not been idle with earnest dissuasions and +remonstrances, which had all proved futile) pulled the irate +youngster back, and interposed her body between him and the gate, +warding him off with her hands every time that he rushed forward to +renew the assault. At length a Barbadian policeman hove in sight, +and was hastily beckoned to by the poor ironer, who, by this time, +had nearly come to the end of her strength. The uniformed "Bim" was +soon on the spot; but, without asking or waiting to hear the cause of +the disturbance, he shouted to the volunteer peacemaker, "I see you +are fighting: you are my prisoner!" Saying this, he clutched the +poor thunderstruck creature by the wrist, and there [90] and then set +about hurrying her off towards the police station. It happened, +however, that the whole affair had occurred in the sight of a +gentleman of well-known integrity. He, seated at a window +overlooking the street, had witnessed the whole squabble, from its +beginning in words to its culmination in blows; so, seeing that the +woman was most unjustly arrested, he went out and explained the +circumstances to the guardian of order. But to no purpose; the poor +creature was taken to the station, accompanied by the gentleman, who +most properly volunteered that neighbourly turn. There she was +charged with "obstructing the policeman in the lawful execution of +his duty." She was let out on bail, and next day appeared to answer +the charge. + +Mr. Mayne, the magistrate, presided. The constable told his tale +without any material deviation from the truth, probably confident, +from previous experience, that his accusation was sufficient to +secure a conviction. On the defendant's behalf, the gentleman +referred to, who was well known to the magistrate himself, was +called, and he related the facts as we have above given them. Even +Mr. Mayne [91] could see no proof of the information, and this he +confessed in the following qualified judgment:-- + +"You are indeed very lucky, my good woman, that the constable has +failed to prove his case against you; otherwise you would have been +sent to hard labour, as the ordinance provides, without the option of +a fine. But as the case stands, you must pay a fine of L2"!!! + +Comment on this worse than scandalous decision would be superfluous. + +Another typical case, illustrative of the truth of Mr. Froude's boast +of the eminent fair play, nay, even the stout protection, that +Negroes, and generally, "the weaker," have been wont to receive from +British magistrates, may be related. + +An honest, hard-working couple, living in one of the outlying +districts, cultivated a plot of ground, upon the produce of which +they depended for their livelihood. After a time these worthy folk, +on getting to their holding in the morning, used to find exasperating +evidence of the plunder overnight of their marketable provisions. +Determined to discover the depredator, they concealed themselves +[92] in the garden late one night, and awaited the result. By that +means they succeeded in capturing the thief, a female, who, not +suspecting their presence, had entered the garden, dug out some of +the provisions, and was about to make off with her booty. In spite +of desperate resistance, she was taken to the police station and +there duly charged with larceny. Meanwhile her son, on hearing of +his mother's incarceration, hastened to find her in her cell, and, +after briefly consulting with her, he decided on entering a +countercharge of assault and battery against both her captors. +Whether or not this bold proceeding was prompted by the knowledge +that the dispensing of justice in the magistrate's court was a mere +game of cross-purposes, a cynical disregard of common sense and +elementary equity, we cannot say; but the ultimate result fully +justified this abnormal hardihood of filial championship. + +On the day of the trial, the magistrate heard the evidence on both +sides, the case of larceny having been gone into first. For her +defence, the accused confined herself to simple denials of the +allegations against her, at the [93] same time entertaining the court +with a lachrymose harangue about her rough treatment at the hands of +the accusing parties. Finally, the decision of the magistrate was: +that the prisoner be discharged, and the plundered goods restored to +her; and, as to the countercharge, that the husband and wife be +imprisoned, the former for three and the latter for two months, with +hard labour! When we add that there was, at that time, no Governor +or Chief Justice accessible to the poorer and less intelligent +classes, as is now the case (Sir Henry T. Irving and Sir Joseph +Needham having been respectively superseded by Sir William Robinson +and Sir John Gorrie), one can imagine what scope there was for +similar exhibitions of the protecting energy of British rule. + +As we have already said, during Mr. Froude's sojourn in Trinidad the +"sleek, happy, and contented" people, whose condition "admitted of no +improvement," were yet groaning in bitter sorrow, nay, in absolute +despair, under the crushing weight of such magisterial decisions as +those which I have just recorded. Let me add two more [94] typical +cases which occurred during Mr. Mayne's tenure of office in the +island. + +L. B. was a member of one of those brawling sisterhoods that +frequently disturbed the peace of the town of Port of Spain. She had +a "pal" or intimate chum familiarly known as "Lady," who staunchly +stood by her in all the squabbles that occurred with their +adversaries. One particular night, the police were called to a +street in the east of the town, in consequence of an affray between +some women of the sort referred to. Arriving on the spot, they found +the fight already over, but a war of words was still proceeding among +the late combatants, of whom the aforesaid "Lady" was one of the most +conspicuous. A list was duly made out of the parties found so +engaged, and it included the name of L. B., who happened not to be +there, or even in Port of Spain at all, she having some days before +gone into the country to spend a little time with some relatives. +The inserting of her name was an inferential mistake on the part of +the police, arising from the presence of "Lady" at the brawl, she +being well known by them to be the inseparable ally of L. B. on such +occasions. + +[95] It was not unnatural that in the obscurity they should have +concluded that the latter was present with her altera ego, when in +reality she was not there. + +The participants in the brawl were charged at the station, and +summonses, including one to L. B., were duly issued. On her return +to Port of Spain a day or two after the occurrence, the wrongly +incriminated woman received from the landlady her key, along with the +magisterial summons that had resulted from the error of the +constables. The day of the trial came on, and L. B. stood before Mr. +Mayne, strong in her innocence, and supported by the sworn testimony +of her landlady as well as of her uncle from the country, with whom +and with his family she had been uninterruptedly staying up to one or +two days after the occurrence in which she had been thus implicated. +The evidence of the old lady, who, like thousands of her advanced age +in the Colony, had never even once had occasion to be present in any +court of justice, was to the following effect: That the defendant, +who was a tenant of hers, had, on a certain morning (naming days +before the affray occurred), [96] come up to her door well dressed, +and followed by a porter carrying her luggage. L. B., she continued, +then handed her the key of the apartment, informing her at the same +time that she was going for some days into the country to her +relatives, for a change, and requesting also that the witness should +on no account deliver the key to any person who should ask for it +during her absence. This witness further deposed to receiving the +summons from the police, which she placed along with the key for +delivery to L. B. on the latter's return home. + +The testimony of the uncle was also decisively corroborative of that +of the preceding witness, as to the absence from Port of Spain of L. +B. during the days embraced in the defence. The alibi was therefore +unquestionably made out, especially as none of the police witnesses +would venture to swear to having actually seen L. B. at the brawl. +The magistrate had no alternative but that of acquiescing in the +proof of her innocence; so he dismissed the charge against the +accused, who stood down from among the rest, radiant with +satisfaction. The other defendants were duly [97] convicted, and +sentenced to a term of imprisonment with hard labour. All this was +quite correct; but here comes matter for consideration with regard to +the immaculate dispensation of justice as vaunted so confidently by +Mr. Froude. + +On receiving their sentence the women all stood down from the dock, +to be escorted to prison, except "Lady," who, by the way, had +preserved a rigid silence, while some of the other defendants had +voluntarily and, it may be added, generously protested that L. B. +was not present on the occasion of this particular row. "Lady," +whether out of affection or from a less respectable motive, cried out +to the stipendiary justice. "But, sir, it ain't fair. How is it +every time that L. B. and me come up before you, you either fine or +send up the two of us together, and to-day you are sending me up +alone?" Moved either by the logic or the pathos of this objurgation, +the magistrate, turning towards L. B., who had lingered after her +narrow escape to watch the issue of the proceedings, thus addressed +her:--"L. B., upon second thoughts I order you to the same term of +hard labour at the Royal Gaol with the [98] others." The poor girl, +having neither money nor friends intelligent enough to interfere on +her behalf, had to submit, and she underwent the whole of this +iniquitous sentence. + +The last typical case that we shall give illustrates the singular +application by this more than singular judge of the legal maxim +caveat emptor. A free coolie possessed of a donkey resolved to +utilize the animal in carting grass to the market. He therefore +called on another coolie living at some distance from him, whom he +knew to own two carts, a small donkey-cart and an ordinary cart for +mule or horse. He proposed the purchase of the smaller cart, stating +his reason for wishing to have it. The donkey-cart was then shown to +the intending purchaser, who, along with two Creole witnesses brought +by him to make out and attest the receipt on the occasion, found some +of the iron fittings defective, and drew the vendor's attention +thereto. He, on his side, engaged, on receiving the amount agreed to +for the cart, to send it off to the blacksmith for immediate repairs, +to be delivered to the purchaser next morning at the latest. On this +understanding the purchase money was paid down, and the [99] receipt, +specifying that the sum therein mentioned was for a donkey-cart, +passed from the vendor to the purchaser of the little vehicle. Next +day at about noon the man went with his donkey for the cart. Arrived +there, his countryman had the larger of the two carts brought out, +and in pretended innocence said to the purchaser of the donkey-cart, +"Here is your cart." On this a warm dispute arose, which was not +abated by the presence and protests of the two witnesses of the day +before, who had hastily been summoned by the victim to bear out his +contention that it was the donkey-cart and not the larger cart which +had been examined, bargained for, purchased, and promised to be +delivered, the day before. + +The matter, on account of the sturdiness of the rascal's denials, had +to be referred to a court of law. The complainant engaged an able +solicitor, who laid the case before Mr. Mayne in all its transparent +simplicity and strength. The defendant, although he had, and as a +matter of fact could have, no means of invalidating the evidence of +the two witnesses, and above all of his receipt with his signature, +relied upon the fact that the cart which he [100] offered was much +larger than the one the complainant had actually bought, and that +therefore complainant would be the gainer by the transaction. +Incredible as it may sound, this view of the case commended itself to +the magistrate, who adopted it in giving his judgment against the +complainant. In vain did the solicitor protest that all the facts of +the case were centred in the desire and intention of the prosecutor +to have specifically a donkey-cart, which was abundantly proved by +everything that had come out in the proceedings. In vain also was +his endeavour to show that a man having only a donkey would be +hopelessly embarrassed by having a cart for it which was entirely +intended for animals of much larger size. The magistrate solemnly +reiterated his decision, and wound up by saying that the victim had +lost his case through disregard of the legal maxim caveat emptor--let +the purchaser be careful. The rascally defendant thus gained his +case, and left the court in defiant triumph. + +The four preceding cases are thoroughly significant of the original +method in which thousands of cases were decided by this model +magistrate, to the great detriment, pecuniary, [101] social, and +moral, during more than ten years, of between 60,000 and 70,000 of +the population within the circle of his judicial authority. What +shall we think, therefore, of the fairness of Mr. Froude or his +informants, who, prompt and eager in imputing unworthy motives to +gentlemen with characters above reproach, have yet been so silent +with regard to the flagrant and frequent abuses of more than one of +their countrymen by whom the honour and fair fame of their nation +were for years draggled in the mire, and whose misdeeds were the +theme of every tongue and thousands of newspaper-articles in the West +Indian Colonies? + + MR. ARTHUR CHILD, S.J.P. + +We now take San Fernando, the next most important magisterial +district after Port of Spain. At the time of Mr. Froude's visit, and +for some time before, the duties of the magistracy there were +discharged by Mr. Arthur Child, an "English barrister" who, of +course, had possessed the requisite qualification of being hopelessly +briefless. For the ideal justice which Mr. Froude would have Britons +believe is meted out to the weaker classes by their fellow- +countrymen [102] in the West Indies, we may refer the reader to the +conduct of the above-named functionary on the memorable occasion of +the slaughter of the coolies under Governor Freeling, in October, +1884. Mr. Child, as Stipendiary justice, had the duty of reading the +Riot Act to the immigrants, who were marching in procession to the +town of San Fernando, contrary, indeed, to the Government +proclamation which had forbidden it; and he it was who gave the order +to "fire," which resulted fatally to many of the unfortunate devotees +of Hosein. This mandate and its lethal consequences anticipated by +some minutes the similar but far more death-dealing action of the +Chief of Police, who was stationed at another post in the vicinity of +San Fernando. The day after the shooting down of a total of more +than one hundred immigrants, the protecting action of this magistrate +towards the weaker folk under his jurisdiction had a striking +exemplification, to which Mr. Froude is hereby made welcome. Of +course there was a general cry of horror throughout the Colony, and +especially in the San Fernando district, at the fatal outcome of the +proclamation, which had mentioned only "fine" and "imprisonment," +[103] but not Death, as the penalty of disregarding its prohibitions. +For nearly forty years, namely from their very first arrival in the +Colony, the East Indian immigrants had, according to specific +agreement with the Government, invariably been allowed the privilege +of celebrating their annual feast of Hosein, by walking in procession +with their Pagodas through the public roads and streets of the +island, without prohibition or hindrance of any kind from the +authorities, save and except in cases where rival estate pagodas were +in danger of getting into collision on the question of precedence. +On such occasions the police, who always attended the processions, +usually gave the lead to the pagodas of the labourers of estates +according to their seniority as immigrants. + +In no case up to 1884, after thirty odd years' inauguration in the +Colony, was the Hosein festival ever pretended to be any cause of +danger, actual or prospective, to any town or building. On the +contrary, business grew brisker and solidly improved at the approach +of the commemoration, owing to the very considerable sale of parti- +coloured paper, velvet, calico, and similar articles used in the +construction [104] of the pagodas. Governor Freeling, however, was, +it may be presumed, compelled to see danger in an institution which +had had nearly forty years' trial, without a single accident +happening to warrant any sudden interposition of the Government +tending to its suppression. At all events, the only action taken in +1884, in prospect of their usual festival, was to notify the +immigrants by proclamation, and, it is said, also through authorized +agents, that the details of their fete were not to be conducted in +the usual manner; and that their appearance with pagodas in any +public road or any town, without special license from some competent +local authority, would entail the penalty of so many pounds fine, or +imprisonment for so many months with hard labour. The immigrants, to +whom this unexpected change on the part of the authorities was +utterly incomprehensible, both petitioned and sent deputations to the +Governor, offering guarantees for the, if possible, more secure +celebration of the Hosein, and praying His Excellency to cancel the +prohibition as to the use of the roads, inasmuch as it interfered +with the essential part of their religious rite, which was the +"drowning," or casting into [105] the sea, of the pagodas. Having +utterly failed in their efforts with the Governor, the coolies +resolved to carry out their religious duty according to prescriptive +forms, accepting, at the same time, the responsibility in the way of +fine or imprisonment which they would thus inevitably incur. A +rumour was also current at the time that, pursuant to this +resolution, the head men of the various plantations had authorized a +general subscription amongst their countrymen, for meeting the +contingency of fines in the police courts. All these things were the +current talk of the population of San Fernando, in which town the +leading immigrants, free as well as indentured, had begun to raise +funds for this purpose. + +All that the public, therefore, expected would have resulted from the +intended infringement of the Proclamation was an enormous influx of +money in the shape of fines into the Colonial Treasury; as no one +doubted the extreme facility which existed for ascertaining exactly, +in the case of persons registered and indentured to specific +plantations, the names and abodes of at least the chief offenders +against the proclamation. Accordingly, on the [106] occurrence of +the bloody catastrophe related above, every one felt that the mere +persistence in marching all unarmed towards the town, without +actually attempting to force their way into it, was exorbitantly +visited upon the coolies by a violent death or a life-long +mutilation. This sentiment few were at any pains to conceal; but as +the poorer and more ignorant classes can be handled with greater +impunity than those who are intelligent and have the means of self- +defence, Mr. Justice Child, the very day after the tragedy, and +without waiting for the pro forma official inquiry into the tragedy +in which he bore so conspicuous a part, actually caused to be +arrested, sat to try and sent to hard labour, persons whom the +police, in obedience to his positive injunctions, had reported to him +as having condemned the shooting down of the immigrants! Those who +were arrested and thus summarily punished had, of course, no means of +self-protection; and as the case is typical of others, as +illustrative of "justice-made law" applied to "subject races" in a +British colony, Mr. Froude is free to accept it, or not, in +corroboration of his unqualified panegyrics. + +[107] + + MR. GROVE HUMPHREY CHAPMAN, S.J.P. + +As Stipendary Magistrate of this self-same San Fernando district, +Grove Humphrey Chapman, Esquire (another English barrister), was the +immediate predecessor of Mr. Child. More humane than Mr. Mayne, his +colleague and contemporary in Port of Spain, this young magistrate +began his career fairly well. But he speedily fell a victim to the +influences immediately surrounding him in his new position. His +head, which later events proved never to have been naturally strong, +began to be turned by the unaccustomed deference which he met with on +all hands, from high and low, official and non-official, and he +himself soon consummated the addling of his brain by persistent +practical revolts against every maxim of the ancient Nazarenes in the +matter of potations. His decisions at the court, therefore, became +perfect emulations of those of Mr. Mayne, as well in perversity as in +harshness, and many in his case also were the appeals for relief made +to the head of the executive by the inhabitants of the district--but +of course in vain. Governor Irving was at this time in office, and +the unfortunate [108] victims of perverse judgments--occasionally +pronounced by this magistrate in his cups--were only poor Negroes, +coolies, or other persons whose worldly circumstances placed them in +the category of the "weaker" in the community. To these classes of +people that excellent ruler unhappily denied--we dare not say his +personal sympathy, but--the official protection which, even through +self-respect, he might have perfunctorily accorded. Bent, however, +on running through the whole gamut of extravagance, Mr. Chapman--by +interpreting official impunity into implying a direct license for the +wildest of his caprices--plunged headlong with ever accelerating +speed, till the deliverance of the Naparimas became the welcome +consequence of his own personal action. On one occasion it was +credibly reported in the Colony that this infatuated dispenser of +British justice actually stretched his official complaisance so far +as to permit a lady not only to be seated near him on the judicial +bench, but also to take a part--loud, boisterous and abusive--in the +legal proceedings of the day. Meanwhile, as the Governor could not +be induced to interfere, things went [109] on from bad to worse, till +one day, as above hinted, the unfortunate magistrate so publicly +committed himself as to be obliged to be borne for temporary refuge +to the Lunatic Asylum, whence he was clandestinely shipped from the +Colony on "six months' leave of absence," never more to resume his +official station. + +The removal of two such magistrates as those whose careers we have so +briefly sketched out--Mr. Mayne having died, still a magistrate, +since Mr. Froude's departure--has afforded opportunity for the +restoration of British protecting influence. In the person of Mr. +Llewellyn Lewis, as magistrate of Port of Spain, this opportunity has +been secured. He, it is generally rumoured, strives to justify the +expectations of fair play and even-handed justice which are generally +entertained concerning Englishmen. It is, however, certain that with +a Governor so prompt to hear the cry of the poor as Sir William +Robinson has proved himself to be, and with a Chief Justice so +vigilant, fearless, and painstaking as Sir John Gorrie, the entire +magistracy of the Colony must be so beneficially influenced as to +preclude [110] the frequency of appeals being made to the higher +courts, or it may be to the Executive, on account of scandalously +unjust and senseless decisions. + +So long, too, as the names of T. S. Warner, Captain Larcom, and F. H. +Hamblin abide in the grateful remembrance of the entire population, +as ideally upright, just, and impartial dispensers of justice, each +in his own jurisdiction, we can only sigh at the temporal +dispensation which renders practicable the appointment and retention +in office of such administrators of the Law as were Mr. Mayne and Mr. +Chapman. The widespread and irreparable mischiefs wrought by these +men still affect disastrously many an unfortunate household; and the +execration by the weaker in the community of their memory, +particularly that of Robert Dawson Mayne, is only a fitting +retribution for their abuse of power. + +NOTES + +85. *A West Indian official superstition professes to believe that a +British barrister must make an exceptionally good colonial S.J.P., +seeing that he is ignorant of everything, save general English law, +that would qualify him for the post! In this, to acquit oneself +tolerably, some acquaintance with the language, customs, and habits +of thought of the population is everywhere else held to be of prime +importance,--native conscientiousness and honesty of purpose being +definitively presupposed. + + + +BOOK III: SOCIAL REVOLUTION + +[113] Never was the Knight of La Mancha more convinced of his +imaginary mission to redress the wrongs of the world than Mr. James +Anthony Froude seems to be of his ability to alter the course of +events, especially those bearing on the destinies of the Negro in the +British West Indies. The doctrinaire style of his utterances, his +sublime indifference as to what Negro opinion and feelings may be, on +account of his revelations, are uniquely charming. In that portion +of his book headed "Social Revolution" our author, with that mixture +of frankness and cynicism which is so dear to the soul of the British +esprit fort of to-day, has challenged a comparison between British +Colonial policy on the [114] one hand, and the Colonial policy of +France and Spain on the other. This he does with an evident +recklessness that his approval of Spain and France involves a +definite condemnation of his own country. However, let us hear +him:-- + +"The English West Indies, like other parts of the world, are going +through a silent revolution. Elsewhere the revolution, as we hope, +is a transition state, a new birth; a passing away of what is old and +worn out, that a fresh and healthier order may rise in its place. In +the West Indies the most sanguine of mortals will find it difficult +to entertain any such hope at all." + +As Mr. Froude is speaking dogmatically here of his, or rather our, +West Indies, let us hear him as he proceeds:-- + +"We have been a ruling power there for two hundred and fifty years; +the whites whom we planted as our representatives are drifting into +ruin, and they regard England and England's policy as the principal +cause of it. The blacks whom, in a fit of virtuous benevolence, we +emancipated, do not feel particularly obliged to us. They think, if +they think at all, that they were [115] ill-treated originally, and +have received no more than was due to them." + +Thus far. Now, as to "the whites whom we planted as our +representatives," and who, Mr. Froude avers, are drifting into ruin, +we confess to a total ignorance of their whereabouts in these islands +in this jubilee year of Negro Emancipation. Of the representatives +of Britain immediately before and after Emancipation we happen to +know something, which, on the testimony of Englishmen, Mr. Froude +will be made quite welcome to before our task is ended. With respect +to Mr. Froude's statement as to the ingratitude of the emancipated +Blacks, if it is aimed at the slaves who were actually set free, it +is utterly untrue; for no class of persons, in their humble and +artless way, are more attached to the Queen's majesty, whom they +regard as incarnating in her gracious person the benevolence which +Mr. Froude so jauntily scoffs at. But if our censor's remark under +this head is intended for the present generation of Blacks, it is a +pure and simple absurdity. What are we Negroes of the present day to +be grateful for to the US, personified by Mr. Froude and the Colonial +[116] Office exportations? We really believe, from what we know of +Englishmen, that very few indeed would regard Mr. Froude's reproach +otherwise than as a palpable adding of insult to injury. Obliged to +"us," indeed! Why, Mr. Froude, who speaks of us as dogs and horses, +suggests that the same kindliness of treatment that secures the +attachment of those noble brutes would have the same result in our +case. With the same consistency that marks his utterances throughout +his book, he tells his readers "that there is no original or +congenital difference between the capacity of the White and the Negro +races." He adds, too, significantly: "With the same chances and with +the same treatment, I believe that distinguished men would be +produced equally from both races." After this truthful testimony, +which Pelion upon Ossa of evidence has confirmed, does Mr. Froude, in +the fatuity of his skin-pride, believe that educated men, worthy of +the name, would be otherwise than resentful, if not disgusted, at +being shunted out of bread in their own native land, which their +parents' labours and taxes have made desirable, in order to afford +room to blockheads, vulgarians, [117] or worse, imported from beyond +the seas? Does Mr. Froude's scorn of the Negroes' skin extend, +inconsistently on his part, to their intelligence and feelings also? +And if so, what has the Negro to care--if let alone and not wantonly +thwarted in his aspirations? It sounds queer, not to say unnatural +and scandalous, that Englishmen should in these days of light be the +champions of injustice towards their fellow-subjects, not for any +intellectual or moral disqualification, but on the simple account of +the darker skin of those who are to be assailed and thwarted in their +life's career and aspirations. Really, are we to be grateful that +the colour difference should be made the basis and justification of +the dastardly denials of justice, social, intellectual, and moral, +which have characterized the regime of those who Mr. Froude boasts +were left to be the representatives of Britain's morality and fair +play? Are the Negroes under the French flag not intensely French? +Are the Negroes under the Spanish flag not intensely Spanish? +Wherefore are they so? It is because the French and Spanish nations, +who are neither of them inferior in origin or the [118] nobility of +the part they have each played on the historic stage, have had the +dignity and sense to understand the lowness of moral and intellectual +consciousness implied in the subordination of questions of an +imperial nature to the slaveholder's anxiety about the hue of those +who are to be benefited or not in the long run. By Spain and France +every loyal and law-abiding subject of the Mother Country has been a +citizen deemed worthy all the rights, immunities, and privileges +flowing from good and creditable citizenship. Those meriting such +distinction were taken into the bosom of the society which their +qualifications recommended them to share, and no office under the +Government has been thought too good or too elevated for men of their +stamp. No wonder, then, that Mr. Froude is silent regarding the +scores of brilliant coloured officials who adorn the civil service of +France and Spain, and whose appointment, in contrast with what has +usually been the case in British Colonies, reflects an abiding lustre +on those countries, and establishes their right to a foremost place +among nations. + +Mr. Froude, in speaking of Chief Justice [119] Reeves, ventures upon +a smart truism which we can discuss for him, but of course not in the +sense in which he has meant it. "Exceptions," our author remarks, +"are supposed proverbially to prove nothing, or to prove the very +opposite of what they appear to prove. When a particular phenomenon +occurs rarely, the probabilities are strong against the recurrence of +it." Now, is it in ignorance, or through disingenuousness, that Mr. +Froude has penned this argument regarding exceptions? Surely, in the +vast area of American life, it is not possible that he could see +Frederick Douglass alone out of the cluster of prominent Black +Americans who are doing the work of their country so worthily and so +well in every official department. Anyhow, Mr. Froude's history of +the Emancipation may here be amended for him by a reminder that, in +the British Colonies, it was not Whites as masters, and Blacks as +slaves, who were affected by that momentous measure. In fact, 1838 +found in the British Colonies very nearly as many Negro and Mulatto +slave-owners as there were white. Well then, these black and yellow +planters received their quota, it may be presumed, of [120] the +L20,000,000 sterling indemnity. They were part and parcel of the +proprietary body in the Colonies, and had to meet the crisis like the +rest. They were very wealthy, some of these Ethiopic accomplices of +the oppressors of their own race. Their sons and daughters were +sent, like the white planter's children, across the Atlantic for a +European education. These young folk returned to their various +native Colonies as lawyers and doctors. Many of them were also +wealthy planters. The daughters, of course, became in time the +mothers of the new generation of prominent inhabitants. Now, in +America all this was different. No "nigger," however alabaster fair, +was ever allowed the privileges of common citizenship, let alone the +right to hold property in others. If possessed by a weakness to pass +for white men, as very many of them could easily have contrived to +do, woe unto the poor impostors! They were hunted down from city to +city as few felons would be, and finally done to death--"serve them +right!" being the grim commentary regarding their fate for having +sought to usurp the ineffable privilege of whitemanship! All this, +Mr. Froude, was [121] the rule, the practice, in America, with regard +to persons of colour up to twenty-five years ago. Now, sir, what is +the phenomenon which strikes your vision in that mighty Republic to- +day, with regard to those self-same despised, discountenanced, +persecuted and harried descendants of Ham? We shall tell you of the +change that has taken place in their condition, and also some of the +reasons of that beneficent revolution. + +The Proclamation of Emancipation on January 1st, 1863, was, by +President Lincoln, frankly admitted to have been a war necessity. No +abstract principle of justice or of morals was of primary +consideration in the matter. The saving of the Union at any cost,-- +that is, the stern political emergency forced forth the document +which was to be the social salvation of every descendant of Ham in +the United States of America. Close upon the heels of their +emancipation, the enfranchisement of the Negroes was pushed forward +by the thorough-going American statesmen. They had no sentimentality +to defer to. The logic of events--the fact not only of the coloured +race being freedmen, but also of their having been effective [122] +comrades on the fields of battle, where the blood of eager thousands +of them had flowed on the Union side, pointed out too plainly that +men with such claims should also be partners in the resulting +triumph. + +Mr. Froude, being so deferential to skin prejudice, will doubtless +find it strange that such a measure as the Civil Rights Bill should +have passed a Congress of Americans. Assuredly with the feeling +against the coloured race which custom and law had engrafted into the +very nature of the vast majority, this was a tremendous call to make +on the national susceptibilities. But it has been exactly this that +has brought out into such vivid contrast the conduct of the British +statesman, loudly professing to be unprejudiced as to colour, and +fair and humane, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the +dealings of the politicians of America, who had, as a matter of fact, +sucked in aversion and contempt towards the Negro together with their +mother's milk. Of course no sane being could expect that feelings so +deeply ingrained and nourished could be rooted out by logic or by any +legislative enactment. But, indeed, it is sublimely creditable to +[123] the American Government that, whatever might be the personal +and private sentiments of its individual members as regards race, +palmam ferat qui meruit--"let him bear the palm who has deserved it"- +-has been their motto in dealing generally with the claims of their +Ethiopic fellow-citizens. Hence it is that in only twenty-five years +America can show Negro public officers as thick as blackberries, +while Mr. Froude can mention only Mr. Justice Reeves in FIFTY years +as a sample of the "exceptional" progress under British auspices of a +man of African descent! Verily, if in fifty long years British +policy can recognize only one single exception in a race between +which and the white race there is no original or congenital +difference of capacity, the inference must be that British policy has +been not only systematically, but also too successfully, hostile to +the advancement of the Ethiopians subject thereto; while the "fair +field and no favour" management of the strong-minded Americans has, +by its results, confirmed the culpability of the English policy in +its relation to "subject races." + +The very suggestive section of "the English [124] in the West +Indies," from which we have already given extracts, and which bears +the title "Social Revolution," thus proceeds:-- + +"But it does not follow that what can be done eventually can be done +immediately, and the gulf which divides the colours is no arbitrary +prejudice, but has been opened by the centuries of training and +discipline which have given us the start in the race" (p. 125 +[Froude]). + +The reference in the opening clause of the above citation, as to what +is eventually possible not being immediately feasible, is to the +elevation of Blacks to high official posts, such as those occupied by +Judge Reeves in Barbados, and by Mr. F. Douglass in the United +States. We have already disposed by anticipation of the above +contention of Mr. Froude's, by showing that in only twenty-five years +America has found hundreds of eminent Blacks to fill high posts under +her government. Our author's futile mixture of Judge Reeves' +exceptional case with that of Fred. Douglass, which he cunningly +singles out from among so many in the United States, is nothing but a +subterfuge, of the same queer and flimsy description with which the +literature of the cause now championed [125] by his eloquence has +made the world only too familiar. What can Mr. Froude conceive any +sane man should see in common between the action of British and of +American statesmanship in the matter now under discussion? If his +utterance on this point is that of a British spokesman, let him abide +by his own verdict against his own case, as embodied in the words, +"the gulf which divides the two COLOURS is no arbitrary prejudice," +which, coupled with his contention that the elevation of the Blacks +is not immediately feasible, discloses the wideness of divergence +between British and American political opinion on this identical +subject. + +Mr. Froude is pathetically eloquent on the colour question. He tells +of the wide gulf between the two colours--we suppose it is as wide as +exists between his white horse and his black horse. Seriously, +however, does not this kind of talk savour only too much of the +slave-pen and the auction-block of the rice-swamp and the cotton- +field; of the sugar-plantation and the driver's lash? In the United +States alone, among all the slave-holding Powers, was the difference +of race and colour invoked openly and boldly to justify all the +enormities that [126] were the natural accompaniments of those +"institutions" of the Past. But is Mr. Froude serious in invoking +the ostracizing of innocent, loyal, and meritorious British subjects +on account of their mere colour? Physical slavery--which was no +crime per se, Mr. Froude tells us--had at least overwhelming brute +power, and that silent, passive force which is even more potential as +an auxiliary, viz., unenlightened public opinion, whose neutrality is +too often a positive support to the empire of wrong. + +But has Mr. Froude, in his present wild propaganda on behalf of +political and, therefore, of social repression, anything analogous to +those two above-specified auxiliaries to rely on? We trow not. Then +why this frantic bluster and shouting forth of indiscreet aspirations +on be half of a minority to whom accomplished facts, when not +agreeable to or manipulated by themselves, are a perpetual grievance, +generating life-long impotent protestations? Presumably there are +possibilities the thoughts of which fascinate our author and his +congeners in this, to our mind, vain campaign in the cause of social +retrogression. But, be the incentives what they may, it might not be +amiss on our [127] part to suggest to those impelled by them that the +ignoring of Negro opinion in their calculations, though not only +possible but easily practised fifty years ago, is a portentous +blunder at the present time. Verbum sapienti. + +Mr. Froude must see that he has set about his Negro-repression +campaign in too blundering a fashion. He evidently expects to be +able to throw dust into the eyes of the intelligent world, juggler- +wise, through the agency of the mighty pronoun US, as representing +the entire Anglo-Saxon race, in his advocacy of the now scarcely +intelligible pretensions of a little coterie of Her Majesty's +subjects in the West Indies. These gentry are hostile, he urges, to +the presence of progressive Negroes on the soil of the tropics! Yet +are these self-same Negroes not only natives, but active improvers +and embellishers of that very soil. We cannot help concluding that +this impotent grudge has sprung out of the additional fact that these +identical Negroes constitute also a living refutation of the sinister +predictions ventured upon generally against their race, with frantic +recklessness, even within the last three decades, by affrighted +slave-holders, of whose ravings Mr. Froude's book is only a [128] +diluted echo, out of season and outrageous to the conscience of +modern civilization. + +It is patent, then, that the matters which Mr. Froude has sought to +force up to the dignity of genetic rivalship, has nothing of that +importance about it. His US, between whom and the Negro subjects of +Great Britain the gulf of colour lies, comprises, as he himself owns, +an outnumbered and, as we hope to prove later on, a not over- +creditable little clique of Anglo-Saxon lineage. The real US who +have started ahead of the Negroes, "through the training and +discipline of centuries," are assuredly not anything like +"represented" by the few pretentious incapables who, instead of +conquering predominance, as they who deserve it always do, like men, +are whimpering like babies after dearly coveted but utterly +unattainable enjoyments--to be had at the expense of the interests of +the Negroes whom they, rather amusingly, affect to despise. When Mr. +Froude shall have become able to present for the world's +contemplation a question respecting which the Anglo-Saxon family, in +its grand world-wide predominance, and the African family, in its yet +feeble, albeit promising, incipience of self-adjustment, shall [129] +actually be competitors, then, and only then, will it be time to +accept the outlook as serious. But when, as in the present case, he +invokes the whole prestige of the Anglo-Saxon race in favour of the +untenable pretensions of a few blases of that race, and that to the +social and political detriment of tens of thousands of black fellow- +subjects, it is high time that the common sense of civilization +should laugh him out of court. The US who are flourishing, or +pining, as the case may be, in the British West Indies--by favour of +the Colonial Office on the former hypothesis, or, on the second, +through the misdirection of their own faculties--do not, and, in the +very nature of things, cannot in any race take the lead of any set of +men endowed with virile attributes, the conditions of the contest +being on all sides identical. + +Pass we onward to extract and comment on other passages in this very +engaging section of Mr. Froude's book. On the same page (125) he +says:-- + +"The African Blacks have been free enough for thousands, perhaps for +ten thousands of years, and it has been the absence of restraint +which has prevented them from becoming civilized." + +[130] All this, perhaps, is quite true, and, in the absence of +positive evidence to the contrary of our author's dogmatic +assertions, we save time by allowing him all the benefit he can +derive from whatever weight they might carry. + +"Generation has followed generation, and the children are as like +their fathers as the successive generations of apes." + +To this we can have nothing to object; especially in view of what the +writer goes on to say, and that on his own side of the hedge-- +somewhat qualified though his admission may be:--"The whites, it is +likely enough, succeeded one another with the same similarity for a +series of ages." Our speculator grows profoundly philosophic here; +and in this mood thus entertains his readers in a strain which, +though deep, we shall strive to find clear:-- + +"It is now supposed that human race has been on the planet for a +hundred thousand years at least; and the first traces of civilization +cannot be thrown back at furthest beyond six thousand. During all +this time mankind went on treading in the same steps, century after +century making no more advance than the birds and beasts." + +[131] In all this there is nothing that can usefully be taken +exception to; for speculation and conjecture, if plausible and +attractive, are free to revel whenever written documents and the +unmistakable indications of the earth's crust are both entirely at +fault. Warming up with his theme, Mr. Froude gets somewhat ambiguous +in the very next sentence. Says he:-- + +"In Egypt or India or one knows not where, accident or natural +development quickened into life our moral and intellectual faculties; +and these faculties have grown into what we now experience, not in +the freedom in which the modern takes delight, but under the sharp +rule of the strong over the weak, of the wise over the unwise." + +Our author, as we see, begins his above quoted deliverance quite at a +loss with regard to the agency to which the incipience, growth, and +fructification of man's faculties should be attributed. "Accident," +"natural development," he suggests, quickened the human faculties +into the progressive achievements which they have accomplished. But +then, wherefore is this writer so forcible, so confident in his +prophecies regarding Negroes and their future temporal condition +[132] and proceedings, since it is "accident," and "accident" only, +that must determine their fulfilment? Has he so securely bound the +fickle divinity to his service as to be certain of its agency in the +realization of his forecasts? And if so, where then would be the +fortuitousness that is the very essence of occurrences that glide, +undesigned, unexpected, unforeseen, into the domain of Fact, and +become material for History? So far as we feel capable of +intelligently meditating on questions of this inscrutable nature, we +are forced to conclude that since "natural development" could be so +regular, so continuous, and withal so efficient, in the production of +the marvellous results that we daily contemplate, there must be +existent and in operation--as, for instance, in the case of the +uniformity characterizing for ages successive generations of mankind, +as above adduced by our philosopher himself--some controlling LAW, +according and subject to which no check has marred the harmonious +progression, or prevented the consummations that have crowned the +normal exercise of human energy, intellectual as well as physical. + +The sharp rule of the strong over the [133] weak," is the first +clause of the Carlylean-sounding phrase which embodies the requisite +conditions for satisfactory human development. The terms expressive +of these conditions, however, while certainly suggesting and +embracing the beneficent, elevating influence and discipline of +European civilization, such as we know and appreciate it, do not by +any means exclude the domination of Mr. Legree or any other typical +man-monster, whose power over his fellow-creatures is at once a +calamity to the victims and a disgrace to the community tolerating +not only its exercise, but the very possibility of its existence. +The sharp rule of "the wise over the unwise," is the closing section +of the recommendation to ensure man's effective development. Not +even savages hesitate to defer in all their important designs to the +sought-for guidance of superior judgments. But in the case of us +West Indian Blacks, to whom Mr. Froude's doctrine here has a special +reference, is it suggested by him that the bidders for predominance +over us on the purely epidermal, the white skin, ground, are ipso +facto the monopolists of directing wisdom? It surely cannot be so; +for Mr. Froude's own chapters regarding both the [134] nomination by +Downing Street of future Colonial office-holders and the disorganized +mental and moral condition of the indigenous representatives--as he +calls them!--of his country in these climes, preclude the possibility +that the reference regarding the wise can be to them. Now since this +is so, we really cannot see why the pains should have been taken to +indite the above truism, to the truth whereof, under every normal or +legitimate circumstance, the veriest barbarian, by spontaneously +resorting to and cheerfully abiding by it, is among the first to +secure practical effect. + +"Our own Anglo-Saxon race," continues our author, "has been capable +of self-government only after a thousand years of civil and spiritual +authority. European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by higher +instincts, may shorten the probation period of the negro. Individual +blacks of exceptional quality, like Frederick Douglass in America, or +the Chief Justice of Barbados, will avail themselves of opportunities +to rise, and the freest opportunity OUGHT TO BE offered them." Here +we are reminded of the dogma laid down by a certain [135] class of +ethnologists, to the effect that intellectuality, when displayed by a +person of mixed European and African blood, must always be assigned +to the European side of the parentage; and in the foregoing citation +our author speaks of two personages undoubtedly belonging to the +class embraced in the above dogma. Three specific objections may, +therefore, be urged against the statements which we have indicated in +the above quotation. First and foremost, neither Judge Reeves nor +Mr. Fred Douglass is a black man, as Mr. Froude inaccurately +represents each of them to be. The former is of mixed blood, to what +degree we are not adepts enough to determine; and the latter, if his +portrait and those who have personally seen him mislead us not, is a +decidedly fair man. + +We, of course, do not for a moment imagine that either of those +eminent descendants of Ham cares a jot about the settlement of this +question, which doubtless would appear very trivial to both. But as +our author's crusade is against the Negro--by which we understand the +undiluted African descendant, the pure Negro, as he singularly +describes Chief Justice Reeves--our anxiety is to show that there +exist, both [136] in the West Indies and in the United States, scores +of genuine black men to whom neither of these two distinguished +patriots would, for one instant, hesitate to concede any claim to +equality in intellectual and social excellence. The second exception +which we take is, as we have already shown in a previous page, to the +persistent lugging in of America by Mr. Froude, doubtless to keep his +political countrymen in countenance with regard to the Negro +question. We have already pointed out the futility of this +proceeding on our author's part, and suggested how damaging it might +prove to the cause he is striving to uphold. "Blacks of exceptional +quality," like the two gentlemen he has specially mentioned, "will +avail themselves of opportunities to rise." Most certainly they +will, Mr. Froude--but, for the present, only in America, where those +opportunities are really free and open to all. There no parasitical +non-workers are to be found, eager to eat bread, but in the sweat of +other people's brows; no impecunious title-bearers; no importunate +bores, nor other similar characters whom the Government there would +regard it as their duty "to provide for"--by quartering them on the +revenues [137] of Colonial dependencies. But in the British Crown-- +or rather "Anglo-West Indian"--governed Colonies, has it ever been, +can it ever be, thus ordered? Our author's description of the +exigencies that compel injustice to be done in order to requite, or +perhaps to secure, Parliamentary support, coupled with his account of +the bitter animus against the coloured race that rankles in the bosom +of his "Englishmen in the West Indies," sufficiently proves the utter +hypocrisy of his recommendation, that the freest opportunities should +be offered to Blacks of the said exceptional order. The very wording +of Mr. Froude's recommendation is disingenuous. It is one stone sped +at two birds, and which, most naturally, has missed them both. + +Mr. Froude knew perfectly well that, twenty-five years before he +wrote his book, America had thrown open the way to public advancement +to the Blacks, as it had been previously free to Whites alone. His +use of "should be offered," instead of "are offered," betrays his +consciousness that, at the time he was writing, the offering of any +opportunities of the kind he suggests was a thing still to be desired +under British jurisdiction. The third objection [138] which we +shall take to Mr. Froude's bracketing of the cases of Mr. Fred +Douglass and of Judge Reeves together, is that, when closely +examined, the two cases can be distinctly seen to be not in any way +parallel. The applause which our author indirectly bids for on +behalf of British Colonial liberality in the instance of Mr. Reeves +would be the grossest mockery, if accorded in any sense other than we +shall proceed to show. Fred Douglass was born and bred a slave in +one of the Southern States of the Union, and regained his freedom by +flight from bondage, a grown man, and, of course, under the +circumstances, solitary and destitute. He reached the North at a +period when the prejudice of the Whites against men of his race was +so rampant as to constitute a positive mania. + +The stern and cruelly logical doctrine, that a Negro had no rights +which white men were bound to respect, was in full blast and +practical exemplification. Yet amidst it all, and despite of it all, +this gifted fugitive conquered his way into the Temple of Knowledge, +and became eminent as an orator, a writer, and a lecturer on +political and general subjects. Hailed abroad [139] as a prodigy, +and received with acclamation into the brotherhood of intelligence, +abstract justice and moral congruity demanded that such a man should +no longer be subject to the shame and abasement of social, legal, and +political proscription. The land of his birth proved herself equal +to this imperative call of civilized Duty, regardless of customs and +the laws, written as well as unwritten, which had doomed to life-long +degradation every member of the progeny of Ham. Recognizing in the +erewhile bondman a born leader of men, America, with the unflinching +directness that has marked her course, whether in good or in evil, +responded with spontaneous loyalty to the inspiration of her highest +instincts. Shamed into compunction and remorse at the solid fame and +general sympathy secured for himself by a son of her soil, whom, in +the wantonness of pride and power, she had denied all fostering care +(not, indeed, for any conscious offending on his part, but by reason +of a natural peculiarity which she had decreed penal), America, like +a repentant mother, stooped from her august seat, and giving with +enthusiasm both hands to the outcast, she helped him to stand forward +and erect, [140] in the dignity of untrammeled manhood, making him, +at the same time, welcome to a place of honour amongst the most +gifted, the worthiest and most favoured of her children. + +Chief Justice Reeves, on the other hand, did not enter the world, as +Douglass had done, heir to a lot of intellectual darkness and +legalized social and political proscription. Associated from +adolescence with S. J. Prescod, the greatest leader of popular +opinion whom Barbados has yet produced, Mr. Reeves possessed in his +nature the material to assimilate and reflect in his own principles +and conduct the salient characteristics of his distinguished Mentor. +Arrived in England to study law, he had there the privilege of the +personal acquaintance of Lord Brougham, then one of the Nestors of +the great Emancipation conflict. On returning to his native island, +which he did immediately after his call to the bar, Mr. Reeves sprung +at once into the foremost place, and retained his precedence till his +labours and aspirations were crowned by his obtaining the highest +judicial post in that Colony. For long years before becoming Chief +Justice, Mr. Reeves had conquered for himself the respect and +confidence [141] of all Barbadians--even including the ultra +exclusive "Anglo-West-Indians" of Mr. Froude--by the manful +constitutional stand which, sacrificing official place, he had +successfully made against the threatened abrogation of the Charter of +the Colony, which every class and colour of natives cherish and +revere as a most precious, almost sacred, inheritance. The +successful champion of their menaced liberties found clustering +around him the grateful hearts of all his countrymen, who, in their +hour of dread at the danger of their time-honoured constitution, had +clung in despair to him as the only leader capable of heading the +struggle and leading the people, by wise and constitutional guidance, +to the victory which they desired but could not achieve for +themselves. + +Sir William Robinson, who was sent out as pacificator, saw and took +in at a glance the whole significance of the condition of affairs, +especially in their relation to Mr. Reeves, and vice versa. With the +unrivalled pre-eminence and predominant personal influence of the +latter, the Colonial Office had possessed more than ample means of +being perfectly familiar. What, then, could be more natural and +consonant with [142] sound policy than that the then acknowledged, +but officially unattached, head of the people (being an eminent +lawyer), should, on the occurrence of a vacancy in the highest +juridical post, be appointed to co-operate with the supreme head of +the Executive? Mr. Reeves was already the chief of the legal body of +the Colony; his appointment, therefore, as Chief Justice amounted to +nothing more than an official ratification of an accomplished and +unalterable fact. Of course, it was no fault of England's that the +eminent culture, political influence, and unapproached legal status +of Mr. Reeves should have coincided exactly with her political +requirements at that crisis, nor yet that she should have utilized a +coincidence which had the double advantage of securing the permanent +services, whilst realizing at the same time the life's aspiration, of +a distinguished British subject. But that Mr. Froude should be +dinning in our ears this case of benefited self-interest, gaining the +amplest reciprocity, both as to service and serviceableness, with the +disinterested spontaneity of America's elevation of Mr. Douglass, is +but another proof of the obliquity of the moral medium through [143] +which he is wont to survey mankind and their concerns. + +The distinction between the two marvellous careers which we have been +discussing demands, as it is susceptible of, still sharper +accentuation. In the final success of Reeves, it is the man himself +who confronts one in the unique transcendency and victoriousness of +personal merit. On the other hand, a million times the personal +merit of Reeves combined with his own could have availed Douglass +absolutely nothing in the United States, legal and social proscript +that he was, with public opinion generally on the side of the laws +and usages against him. The very little countries of the world are +proverbial for the production of very great men. But, on the other +hand, narrowness of space favours the concentration and coherence of +the adverse forces that might impede, if they fail of utterly +thwarting, the success which may happen to be grudged by those +possessing the will and the power for its obstruction. In Barbados, +so far as we have heard, read, and seen ourselves of the social ins +and outs of that little sister-colony, the operation of the above +mentioned [144] influences has been, may still be, to a certain +extent, distinctly appreciable. Although in English jurisprudence +there is no law ordaining the proscription, on the ground of race or +colour, of any eligible candidate for social or political +advancement, yet is it notorious that the ethics and practices of the +"Anglo-West Indians"--who, our author has dared to say, represent the +higher type of Englishmen--have, throughout successive generations, +effectually and of course detrimentally operated, as though by a +positive Medo-Persian edict, in a proscriptive sense. It therefore +demanded extraordinary toughness of constitutional fibre, moral, +mental, and, let us add, physical too, to overcome the obstacles +opposed to the progress of merit, too often by persons in +intelligence below contempt, but, in prosperity and accepted +pretension, formidable indeed to fight against and overcome. We +shudder to think of the petty cabals, the underbred indignities, +direct and indirect, which the present eminent Judge had to watch +against, to brush aside, to smile at, in course of his epic strides +towards the highest local pinnacle of his profession. But [145] with +him, as Time has shown, it was all sure and safe. + +Providence had endowed him with the powers and temperament that break +down, when opportunity offers, every barrier to the progress of the +gifted and strong and brave. That opportunity, in his particular +case, offered itself in the Confederation crisis. Distracted and +helpless "Anglo-West Indians" thronged to him in imploring crowds, +praying that their beloved Charter should be saved by the exertion of +his incomparable abilities. Save and except Dr. Carrington, there +was not a single member of the dominant section in Barbados whom it +would not be absurd to name even as a near second to him whom all +hailed as the Champion of their Liberties. In the contest to be +waged the victory was not, as it never once has been, reserved to the +SKIN or pedigree of the combatants. The above two matters, which in +the eyes of the ruling "Bims" had, throughout long decades of +undisturbed security, been placed before and above all possible +considerations, gravitated down to their inherent insignificance when +Intellect and Worth were destined to fight out the issue. Mr. [146] +Reeves, whose possession of the essential qualifications was +admittedly greater than that of every colleague, stood, therefore, in +unquestioned supremacy, lord of the political situation, with the +result above stated. + +To what we have already pointed out regarding the absolute +impossibility of such an opportunity ever presenting itself in +America to Mr. Douglass, in a political sense, we may now add that, +whereas, in Barbados, for the intellectual equipment needed at the +crisis, Mr. Reeves stood quite alone, there could, in the bosom of +the Union, even in respect of the gifts in which Mr. Douglass was +most brilliant, be no "walking over the course" by him. It was in +the country and time of Bancroft, Irving, Whittier, Longfellow, +Holmes, Bryant, Motley, Henry Clay, Dan Webster, and others of the +laureled phalanx which has added so great and imperishable a lustre +to the literature of the English tongue. + +We proceed here another step, and take up a fresh deliverance of our +author's in reference to the granting of the franchise to the black +population of these Colonies. "It is," says Mr. James Anthony +Froude, who is just as prophetic [147] as his prototypes, the slave- +owners of the last half-century, "it is as certain as anything future +can be, that if we give the negroes as a body the political +privileges which we claim for ourselves, they will use them only to +their own injury." The forepart of the above citation reads very +much as if its author wrote it on the principle of raising a ghost +for the mere purpose of laying it. What visionary, what dreamer of +impossible dreams, has ever asked for the Negroes as a body the same +political privileges which are claimed for themselves by Mr. Froude +and others of his countrymen, who are presumably capable of +exercising them? No one in the West Indies has ever done so silly a +thing as to ask for the Negroes as a body that which has not, as +everybody knows, and never will be, conceded to the people of Great +Britain as a body. The demand for Reform in the Crown Colonies--a +demand which our author deliberately misrepresents--is made neither +by nor for the Negro, Mulatto, White, Chinese, nor East Indian. It +is a petition put forward by prominent responsible colonists--the +majority of whom are Whites, and mostly Britons besides. + +[148] Their prayer, in which the whole population in these Colonies +most heartily join, is simply and most reasonably that we, the said +Colonies, being an integral portion of the British Empire, and +having, in intelligence and every form of civilized progress, +outgrown the stage of political tutelage, should be accorded some +measure of emancipation therefrom. And thereby we--White, Black, +Mulatto, and all other inhabitants and tax-payers--shall be able to +protect ourselves against the self-seeking and bold indifference to +our interests which seem to be the most cherished expression of our +rulers' official existence. It may be possible (for he has attempted +it), that our new instructor in Colonial ethics and politics, under +the impulsion of skin-superiority, and also of confidence in the +probable success of experiments successfully tried fifty years +before, does really believe in the sensibleness of separating +COLOURS, and representing the wearers of them as being generally +antagonistic to one another in Her Majesty's West Indian Dominions. +How is it then, we may be permitted to ask Mr. Froude, that no +complaint of the sort formulated by him as against the Blacks has +ever been put [149] forward by the thousands of Englishmen, +Scotchmen, Irishmen, and other Europeans who are permanent +inhabitants, proprietors, and tax-payers of these Colonies? The +reason is that Anglo-West Indianism, or rather Colonialism, is the +creed of a few residents sharply divisible into two classes in the +West Indies. Labouring conjointly under race-madness, the first +believes that, as being of the Anglo-Saxon race, they have a right to +crow and dominate in whatever land they chance to find themselves, +though in their own country they or their forefathers had had to be +very dumb dogs indeed. The Colonial Office has for a long time been +responsible for the presence in superior posts of highly salaried +gentry of this category, who have delighted in showing themselves off +as the unquestionable masters of those who supply them with the pay +that gives them the livelihood and position they so ungratefully +requite. These fortunate folk, Mr. Froude avers, are likely to +leave our shores in a huff, bearing off with them the civilizing +influences which their presence so surely guarantees. Go tell to the +marines that the seed of Israel flourishing in the borders of +[150] Misraim will abandon their flourishing district of Goshen +through sensitiveness on account of the idolatry of the devotees of +Isis and Osiris! + +The second and less placable class of "Englishmen in the West +Indies," whose final departure our author would have us to believe +would complete the catastrophe to progress in the British Antilles, +is very impalpable indeed. We cannot feel them. We have failed to +even see them. True, Mr. Froude scouts on their behalf the bare +notion of their condescending to meet, on anything like equality, us, +whom he and they pretend (rather anachronistically, at least) to have +been their former slaves, or servants. But where, in the name of +Heaven, where are these sortis de la cuisse de Jupiter, Mr. Froude? +If they are invisible, mourning in impenetrable seclusion over the +impossibility of having, as their fathers had before them, the luxury +of living at the Negroes' expense, shall we Negroes who are in the +sunshine of heaven, prepared to work and win our way, be anywise +troubled in our Jubilee by the drivelling ineptitude which insanely +reminds us of the miseries of those who went before us? We have thus +arrived at the cardinal, [151] essential misrepresentation, out of +scores which compose "The Bow of Ulysses," and upon which its phrases +mainly hinge. Semper eadem--"Always the same"--has been the proud +motto of the mightiest hierarchy that has controlled human action and +shaped the destinies of mankind, no less in material than in ghostly +concerns. Yet is a vast and very beneficial change, due to the +imperious spirit of the times, manifest in the Roman Church. No +longer do the stake, the sword, and the dismal horrors of the +interdict figure as instruments for assuring conformity and +submission to her dogmas. She is now content to rest her claims on +herbeneficence in the past, as attested by noble and imperishable +memorials of her solicitude for the poor and the ignorant, and in +proclaiming the gospel without those ghastly coercives to its +acceptance. Surely such a change, however unpalatable to those who +have been compelled to make it, is most welcome to the outside world +at large. "Always the same" is also, or should be, the device of the +discredited herd whose spokesman Mr. Froude is so proud to be. In +nothing has their historical. character, as shown in the published +literature of their [152] cause up to 1838, exhibited any sign of +amelioration. It cannot be affected by the spirit and the lessons of +the times. Mendacity and a sort of judicial blindness seem to be the +two most salient characteristics by which are to be distinguished +these implacable foes and would-be robbers of human rights and +liberty. But, gracious heavens! what can tempt mortals to incur this +weight of infamy? Wealth and Power? To be (very improbably) a +Croesus or (still more improbably) a Bonaparte, and to perish at the +conventional age, and of vulgar disease, like both? Turpitudes on +the part of sane men, involving the sacrifice of the priceless +attributes of humanity, can be rendered intelligible by the supreme +temporal gains above indicated, but only if exemption from the common +lot of mankind--in the shape of care, disease, and death--were +accompaniments of those prizes. + +In favour of slavery, which has for so many centuries desolated the +African family and blighted its every chance of indigenous progress-- +of slavery whose abolition our author so ostentatiously regrets--only +one solitary permanent result, extending in every case over [153] a +natural human life, has been paraded by him as a respectable +justification. At page 246, speaking of Negroes met by him during a +stroll which he took at Mandeville, Jamaica, he tells us:-- + +"The people had black faces; but even they had shaped their manners +in the old English models. The men touched their hats respectfully +(as they eminently did not in Kingston and its environs). The women +smiled and curtsied, and the children looked shy when one spoke to +them. The name of slavery is a horror to us; but there must have +been something human and kindly about it, too, when it left upon the +character the marks of courtesy and good breeding"! + +Alas for Africa and the sufferings of her desolated millions, in view +of so light-hearted an assessment as this! Only think of the ages of +outrage, misery, and slaughter--of the countless hecatombs that +Mammon is hereby absolved from having directly exacted, since the +sufficing expiatory outcome of it all has been only "marks of +courtesy and good breeding"! Marks that are displayed, forsooth, by +the survivors of the ghastly experiences or by [154] their +descendants! And yet, granting the appreciable ethical value of the +hat-touching, the smirking and curtseyings of those Blacks to persons +whom they had no reason to suspect of unfriendliness, or whose white +face they may in the white man's country have greeted with a civility +perhaps only prudential, we fail to discover the necessity of the +dreadful agency we have adverted to, for securing the results on +manners which are so warmly commended. African explorers, from Mungo +Park to Livingstone and Stanley, have all borne sufficient testimony +to the world regarding the natural friendliness of the Negro in his +ancestral home, when not under the influence of suspicion, anger, or +dread. + +It behoves us to repeat (for our detractor is a persistent repeater) +that the cardinal dodge by which Mr. Froude and his few adherents +expect to succeed in obtaining the reversal of the progress of the +coloured population is by misrepresenting the elements, and their +real attitude towards one another, of the sections composing the +British West Indian communities. Everybody knows full well that +Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen (who are not officials), as [155] +well as Germans, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, and other +nationalities, work in unbroken harmony and, more or less, prosper in +these Islands. These are no cherishers of any vain hankering after a +state of things in which men felt not the infamy of living not only +on the unpaid labour, but at the expense of the sufferings, the +blood, and even the life of their fellow-men. These men, honourable +by instinct and of independent spirit, depend on their own resources +for self-advancement in the world--on their capital either of money +in their pockets or of serviceable brains in their heads, energy in +their limbs, and on these alone, either singly or more or less in +combination. These reputable specimens of manhood have created homes +dear to them in these favoured climes; and they, at any rate, being +on the very best terms with all sections of the community in which +their lot is cast, have a common cause as fellow-sufferers under the +regime of Mr. Froude's official "birds of passage." The agitation in +Trinidad tells its own tale. There is not a single black man--though +there should have been many--among the leaders of the movement for +Reform. Nevertheless the honourable [156] and truthful author of +"The English in the West Indies," in order to invent a plausible +pretext for his sinister labours of love on behalf of the poor pro- +slavery survivals, and despite his knowledge that sturdy Britons are +at the head of the agitation, coolly tells the world that it is a +struggle to secure "negro domination." + +The further allegation of our author respecting the black man is +curious and, of course, dismally prophetic. As the reader may +perhaps recollect, it is to the effect that granting political power +to the Negroes as a body, equal in scope "to that claimed by Us" +(i.e., Mr. Froude and his friends), would certainly result in the use +of these powers by the Negroes to their own injury. And wherefore? +If Mr. Froude professes to believe--what is a fact--that there is "no +original or congenital difference of capacity" between the white and +the African races, where is the consistency of his urging a +contention which implies inferiority in natural shrewdness, as +regards their own affairs, on the part of black men? Does this +blower of the two extremes of temperature in the same breath pretend +that the average British voter is better informed, can see more +clearly what is for his own advantage, [157] is better able to +assess the relative merits of persons to be entrusted with the +spending of his taxes, and the general management of his interests? +If Mr. Froude means all this, he is at issue not only with his own +specific declaration to the contrary, but with facts of overwhelming +weight and number showing precisely the reverse. We have personally +had frequent opportunities of coming into contact, both in and out of +England, with natives of Great Britain, not of the agricultural order +alone, but very often of the artisan class, whose ignorance of the +commonest matters was as dense as it was discreditable to the land of +their birth and breeding. Are these people included (on account of +having his favourite sine qua non of a fair skin) in the US of this +apostle of skin-worship, in the indefeasible right to political power +which is denied to Blacks by reason, or rather non-reason, of their +complexion? + +The fact is, that, judging by his own sentiments and those of his +Anglo-West Indian friends, Mr. Froude calculated on producing an +impression in favour of their discreditable views by purposely +keeping out of sight the numerous European and other sufferers under +the yoke [158] which he sneers at seeing described by its proper +appellation of "a degrading tyranny." The prescriptive unfavourable +forecast of our author respecting political power in the hands of the +Blacks may, in our opinion, be hailed as a warrant for its bestowal +by those in whose power that bestowal may be. As a pro-slavery +prophecy, equally dismal and equally confident with the hundreds that +preceded it, this new vaticination may safely be left to be +practically dealt with by the Race, victimized and maligned, whose +real genius and character are purposely belied by those who expect to +be gainers by the process. Invested with political power, the +Negroes, Mr. Froude goes on to assure his readers, "will slide back +into their old condition, and the chance will be gone of lifting them +to the level to which we have no right to say they are incapable of +rising." How touchingly sympathetic! How transcendently liberal and +righteous! But, to speak the truth, is not this solicitude of our +cynical defamer on our behalf, after all, a useless waste of emotion +on his part? Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.+ The tears of the +crocodile are most copious in close view of the banquet on his prey. +This [159] reiterated twaddle of Mr. Froude, in futile and +unseasonable echo of the congenial predictions of his predecessors in +the same line, might be left to receive not only the answer of his +own book to the selfsame talk of the slavers fifty years ago, but +also that of the accumulated refutations which America has furnished +for the last twenty-five years as to the retrograde tendency so +falsely imputed. But, taking it as a serious contention, we find +that it involves a suggestion that the according of electoral votes +to citizens of a certain complexion would, per se and ipso facto, +produce a revulsion and collapse of the entire prevailing +organization and order of a civilized community. + +What talismanic virtue this prophet of evil attributes to a vote in +the hand of a Negro out of Barbados, where for years the black man's +vote has been operating, harmlessly enough, Heaven knows, we cannot +imagine. At all events, as sliding back on the part of a community +is a matter which would require some appreciable time, however brief, +let us hope that the authorities charged "to see that the state +receive no detriment" would be vigilant enough and in time to arrest +the evil and vindicate [160] the efficiency of the civilized methods +of self-preservation. + +Our author concludes by another reference to Chief Justice Reeves: +"Let British authority die away, and the average black nature, such +as it now is, be left free to assert itself, there will be no more +negroes like him in Barbadoes or anywhere." How the dying away of +British authority in a British Colony is to come to pass, Mr. Froude +does not condescend here explicitly to state. But we are left free +to infer from the whole drift of "The English in the West Indies" +that it will come through the exodus en masse said to be threatened +by his "Anglo-West Indians." Mr. Froude sympathetically justifies +the disgust and exasperation of these reputable folk at the presence +and progress of the race for whose freedom and ultimate elevation +Britain was so lavish of the wealth of her noblest intellects, +besides paying the prodigious money-ransom of TWENTY MILLION pounds +sterling. With regard to our author's talk about "the average black +nature, such as it now exists, being left free to assert itself," and +the dire consequences therefrom to result, we can only feel pity at +the desperate straits to [161] which, in his search for a pretext for +gratuitous slander, a man of our author's capacity has been so +ignominiously reduced. All we can say to him with reference to this +portion of his violent suppositions is that "the average black +nature, such as it now exists," should NOT, in a civilized community, +be left free to assert itself, any more than the average white, the +average brown, the average red, or indeed any average colour of human +nature whatsoever. As self-defence is the first law of nature, it +has followed that every condition of organized society, however +simple or primitive, is furnished with some recognized means of self- +protection against the free assertion of itself by the average nature +of any of its members. + +Of course, if things should ever turn out according to Mr. Froude's +desperate hypothesis, it may also happen that there will be no more +Negroes like Mr. justice Reeves in Barbados. But the addition of the +words "or anywhere" to the above statement is just another of those +suppressions of the truth which, absolutely futile though they are, +constitute the only means by which the policy he writes to promote +can possibly be made to [162] appear even tolerable. The assertion +of our author, therefore, standing as it actually does, embracing the +whole world, is nothing less than an audacious absurdity, for there +stand the United States, the French and Spanish islands--not to speak +of the Central and South American Republics, Mexico, and Brazil--all +thronged with black, mixed blood, and even half-breed high officials, +staring him and the whole world in the face. + +The above noted suppression of the truth to the detriment of the +obnoxious population recalls a passage wherein the suggestion of what +is not the truth has been resorted to for the same purpose. At page +123 we read: "The disproportion of the two races--always dangerously +large--has increased with ever-gathering velocity since the +emancipation. It is now beyond control on the old lines." The use +of the expletive "dangerously," as suggestive of the truculence of +the people to whom it refers, is critically allowable in view of the +main intention of the author. But what shall we say of the +suggestion contained in the very next sentence, which we have +italicized? We are required by it to understand that in slavery-time +the [163] planters had some organized method, rendered impracticable +by the Emancipation, of checking, for their own personal safety, the +growth of the coloured population. If we, in deference to the +superior mental capacity of our author, admit that self-interest was +no irresistible motive for promoting the growth of the human +"property" on which their prosperity depended, we are yet at liberty +to ask what was the nature of the "old lines" followed for +controlling the increase under discussion. Was it suffocation of the +babes by means of sulphur fumes, the use of beetle-paste, or exposure +on the banks of the Caribbean rivers? In the later case History +evidently lost a chance of self-repetition in the person of some +leader like Moses, the Hebra-Egyptian Spartacus, arising to avenge +and deliver his people. + +We now shall note how he proceeds to descant on slavery itself:-- +"Slavery," says he, "was a survival from a social order which had +passed away, and slavery could not be continued. IT DOES NOT FOLLOW +THAT per se IT WAS A CRIME. The negroes who were sold to the dealers +in the factories were most of them either slaves already to worse +masters or were servi, servants [164] in the old meaning of the +word, or else criminals, servati or reserved from death. They would +otherwise have been killed, and since the slave trade has been +abolished, are again killed in the too celebrated customs. . . ." + +Slavery, as Mr. Froude and the rest of us are bound to discuss it at +present, is by no means susceptible of the gloss which he has +endeavoured, in the above extract, to put on it. The British nation, +in 1834, had to confront and deal with the only species of slavery +which was then within the cognizance of public morals and practical +politics. Doubtless our author, learned and erudite as he is, would +like to transport us to those patriarchal ages when, under theocratic +decrees, the chosen people were authorized to purchase (not to +kidnap) slaves, and keep them as an everlasting inheritance in their +posterity. The slaves so purchased, we know, became members of the +families to which their lot was attached, and were hedged in from +cruel usage by distinct and salutary regulations. This is the only +species of slavery which--with the addition of the old Germanic self- +enslavements and the generally prevailing ancient custom of pledging +one's personal services [165] in liquidation of indebtedness--can be +covered by the singular verdict of noncriminality which our author +has pronounced. He, of course, knows much better than we do what the +condition of slaves was in Greece as well as in Rome. He knows, too, +that the "wild and guilty phantasy that man could hold property in +man," lost nothing of its guilt or its wildness with the lapse of +time and the changes of circumstances which overtook and affected +those reciprocal relations. Every possibility of deterioration, +every circumstance wherein man's fallen nature could revel in its +worst inspirations, reached culmination at the period when the +interference of the world, decreed by Providence, was rendered +imperative by the sufferings of the bondsmen. It is this crisis of +the history of human enslavement that Mr. Froude must talk about, if +he wishes to talk to any purpose on the subject at all. His scoffs +at British "virtuous benevolence," and his imputation of ingratitude +to the Negro in respect of that self-same benevolence, do not refer +to any theocratic, self-contracted, abstract, or idyllic condition of +servitude. They pin his meaning down [166] to that particular phase +when slavery had become not only "the sum," but the very +quintessence, "of all human villainies." + +At its then phase, slavery had culminated into being a menace, +portentous and far encroaching, to not only the moral life but the +very civilization of the higher types of the human family, so +debasing and blighting were its effects on those who came into even +tolerating contact with its details. The indescribable atrocities +practised on the slaves, the deplorable sapping of even respectable +principles in owners of both sexes--all these stood forth in their +ineffable hideousness before the uncorrupted gaze of the moral +heroes, sons of Britain and America, and also of other countries, +who, buckling on the armour of civilization and right, fought for the +vindication of them both, through every stern vicissitude, and won +the first grand, ever-memorable victory of 1838, whereof we so +recently celebrated the welcome Jubilee! Oh! it was a combat of +archangels against the legions that Mammon had banded together and +incited to the conflict. But though it was Sharp, Clarkson, +Wilberforce, and the rest [167] of that illustrious host of cultured, +lofty-souled, just, merciful, and beneficent men, who were thus the +saviours, as well as the servants, of society, yet have we seen it +possible for an Englishman of to-day to mouth against their memory +the ineptitudes of their long-vanquished foes, and to flout the +consecrated dead in their graves, as the Boeotian did the living +Pericles in the market-place of Athens! + +Why waste words and time on this defamer of his own countrymen, who, +on account of the material gain and the questionable martial glory of +the conquest, eulogizes Warren Hastings, the viceregal plunderer of +India, whilst, in the same breath, he denounces Edmund Burke for +upholding the immutable principles of right and justice! These +principles once, and indubitably now, so precious in their fullest +integrity to the normal British conscience, must henceforth, say Mr. +Froude and his fellow-colonialists, be scored off the moral code of +Britain, since they "do not pay" in tangible pelf, in self- +aggrandisement, or in dazzling prestige. + +The statement that many negroes who were sold to the dealers in the +factories were "slaves [168] already to worse masters" is, in the +face of facts which could not possibly have been unknown to him, a +piece of very daring assertion. But this should excite no wonder, +considering that precise and scrupulous accuracy would be fatal to +the discreditable cause to which he so shamelessly proclaims his +adhesion. As being familiar since early childhood with members of +almost every tribe of Africans (mainly from or arriving by way of the +West Coast) who were brought to our West Indies, we are in a position +to contradict the above assertion of Mr. Froude's, its unfaltering +confidence notwithstanding. We have had the Madingoes, Foulahs, +Houssas, Calvers, Gallahs, Karamenties, Yorubas, Aradas, Cangas, +Kroos, Timnehs, Veis, Eboes, Mokoes, Bibis, and Congoes, as the most +numerous and important of the tribal contribution of Africa to the +population of these Colonies. Now, from what we have intimately +learned of these people (excepting the Congoes, who always appeared +to us an inferior tribe to all the others), we unhesitatingly deny +that even three in ten of the whole number were ever slaves in their +own country, in the sense of having been born under any organized +[169] system of servitude. The authentic records relating to the +enslavement of Africans, as a regular systematized traffic, do not +date further back than five centuries ago. It is true that a great +portion of ancient literature and many monuments bear distinct +evidence, all the more impressive because frequently only casual, +that, from the earliest ages, the Africans had shared, in common with +other less civilized peoples, the doom of having to furnish the +menial and servile contingents of the more favoured sections of the +human family. Now, dating from, say, five hundred years ago, which +was long indeed after the disappearance of the old leading empires of +the world, we have (save and except in the case of Arab incursionists +into the Eastern and Northern coasts) no reliable authority for +saying, or even for supposing, that the tribes of the African +interior suffered from the molestations of professional man-hunters. + +It was the organization of the West Coast slave traffic towards the +close of the sixteenth century, and the extermination of the +Caribbean aborigines by Spain, soon after Columbus had discovered the +Western Continent, which [170] gave cohesion, system, impetus, and +aggressiveness to the trade in African flesh and blood. Then the +factory dealers did not wait at their seaboard mart, as our author +would have us suppose, for the human merchandize to be brought down +to them. The auri sacra fames, the accursed craving for gain, was +too imperious for that. From the Atlantic border to as far inland as +their emissaries could penetrate, their bribes, in every species of +exchangeable commodities, were scattered among the rapacious chiefs +on the river banks; while these latter, incited as well by native +ferocity as by lust of gain, rushed forth to "make war" on their +neighbours, and to kidnap, for sale to the white purchaser, every +man, woman, and child they could capture amidst the nocturnal flames, +confusion, tumult, and terror resulting from their unexpected +irruption. That the poor people thus captured and sold into foreign +on age were under worse masters than those under whom they, on being +actually bought and becoming slaves, were doomed to experience all +the atrocities that have thrilled with horror the conscience of the +civilized Christian world, is a statement of worse than [171] +childish absurdity. Every one, except Mr. Froude and his fellow- +apologists for slavery, knows that the cruelty of savage potentates +is summary, uncalculating, and, therefore, merciful in its +ebullitions. A head whisked off, brains dashed out, or some other +short form of savage dispatch, is the preferential method of +destruction. With our author's better masters, there was the long, +dreary vicissitude, beginning from the horrors of the capture, and +ending perhaps years upon years after, in some bush or under the lash +of the driver. The intermediate stages of the starvation life of +hunger, chains, and hideous exposure at the barancoon, the stowing +away like herrings on board the noisome ship, the suffocation, the +deck-sores wrought into the body by the attrition of the bonier parts +of the system against the unyielding wood--all these, says Mr. +Froude, were more tolerable than the swift doing away with life under +an African master! Under such, at all events, the care and comfort +suitable to age were strictly provided for, and cheered the advanced +years of the faithful bondsman. + +After a good deal of talk, having the same logical value, our author, +in his enthusiasm for [172] slavery, delivers himself thus: "For +myself, I would rather be the slave of a Shakespeare or a Burghley, +than the slave of a majority in the House of Commons, or the slave of +my own folly." Of the four above specified alternatives of +enslavement, it is to be regretted that temperament, or what is more +likely, perhaps, self-interest, has driven him to accept the fourth, +or the latter of the two deprecated yokes, his book being an +irrefutable testimony to the fact. For, most assuredly, it has not +been at the prompting of wisdom that a learned man of unquestionably +brilliant talents and some measure of accorded fame could have +prostituted those talents and tarnished that fame by condescending to +be the literary spokesman of the set for whose miserable benefit he +recommends the statesmen of his country to perjure and compromise +themselves, regardless of inevitable consequences, which the value of +the sectional satisfaction to be thereby given would but very poorly +compensate. Possibly a House of Commons majority, whom this +dermatophilist evidently rates far lower than his "Anglo-West +Indians," might, if he were their Slave, have protected their own +self- [173] respect by restraining him from vicariously scandalizing +them by his effusions. + +After this curious boast about his preferences as a hypothetic +bondsman, Mr. Froude proceeds gravely to inform his readers that +"there may be authority yet not slavery; a soldier is not a slave, a +wife is not a slave. . ." and he continues, with a view of utilizing +these platitudes against the obnoxious Negro, by telling us that +persons sustaining the above specified and similar relations "may not +live by their own wills, or emancipate themselves at their own +pleasure from positions in which nature has placed them, or into +which they have themselves voluntarily entered. The negroes of the +West Indies are children, and not yet disobedient children. . . . If +you enforce self-government upon them when they are not asking for +it, you may . . . wilfully drive them back into the condition of +their ancestors, from which the slave-trade was the beginning of +their emancipation."! The words which we have signalized by italics +in the above extract could have been conceived only by a bigot--such +an atrocious sentiment being possible only as the product of mind or +morals [174] wrenched hopelessly out of normal action. All the +remainder of this hashing up of pointless commonplaces has for its +double object a suggestio falsi against us Negroes as a body, and a +diverting of attention, as we have proved before, from the numerous +British claimants of Reform, whose personality Mr. Froude and his +friends would keep out of view, provided their crafty policy has the +result of effectually repressing the hitherto irrepressible, and, as +such, to the "Anglo-West Indian," truly detestable Negro. + +NOTES + +158. +Translation: "I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts." + + + +BOOK III: WEST INDIAN CONFEDERATION + +[175] In heedless formulation of his reasons, if such they should be +termed, for urging tooth and nail the non-according of reform to the +Crown-governed Colonies, our author puts forth this dogmatic +deliverance (p. 123):-- + +"A West Indian self-governing dominion is possible only with a full +Negro vote. If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks. It +will be a rule by the blacks and for the blacks." + +That a constitution for any of our diversely populated Colonies which +may be fit for it is possible only with "a full Negro vote" (to the +extent within the competence of such voting), goes without saying, as +must be the case with every section of the Queen's subjects eligible +for the franchise. The duly qualified Spaniard, [176] Coolie, +Portuguese, or man of any other non-British race, will each thus have +a vote, the same as every Englishman or any other Briton. Why, then, +should the vote of the Negro be so especially a bugbear? It is +because the Negro is the game which our political sportsman is in +full chase of, and determined to hunt down at any cost. Granted, +however, for the sake of argument, that black voters should +preponderate at any election, what then? We are gravely told by this +latter-day Balaam that "If the whites are to combine, so will the +blacks," but he does not say for what purpose. + +His sentence, therefore, may be legitimately constructed in full for +him in the only sense which is applicable to the mutual relations +actually existing between those two directly specified sections of +British subjects who he would fain have the world believe live in a +state of active hostility:--"If the whites are to combine for the +Promotion of the general welfare, as many of the foremost of them +have done before and are doing now, so will the blacks also combine +in the support of such whites, and as staunch auxiliaries equally +interested in the furtherance of the same ameliorative [177] +objects." Except in the sense embodied in the foregoing sentence, we +cannot, in these days, conceive with what intent persons of one +section should so specially combine as to compel combination on the +part of persons of any other. The further statement that a +confederation having a full black voting-power would be a government +"by the blacks and for the blacks," is the logical converse of the +now obsolete doctrine of Mr. Froude's inspirers--"a government by +whites should be only for whites." But this formula, however +strenuously insisted on by those who gave it shape, could never, +since even before three decades from the first introduction of +African slaves, be thoroughly put in practice, so completely had +circumstances beyond man's devising or control compelled the altering +of men's minds and methods with regard to the new interests which had +irresistibly forced themselves into importance as vital items in +political arrangements. Nowadays, therefore, that Mr. Froude should +desire to create a state of feeling which had, and could have had, no +existence with regard to the common interests of the inhabitants for +upwards of two full centuries, is [178] evidently an excess of +confidence which can only be truly described as amazing. But, after +all, what does our author mean by the words "a government by the +blacks?" Are we to understand him as suggesting that voting by black +electors would be synonymous with electing black representatives? If +so, he has clearly to learn much more than he has shown that he +lacks, in order to understand and appreciate the vital influences at +work in West Indian affairs. Undoubtedly, being the spokesman of few +who (secretly) avow themselves to be particularly hostile to +Ethiopians, he has done no more than reproduce their sentiments. +For, conscious, as these hankerers after the old "institutions" are, +of being utterly ineligible for the furthering of modern progressive +ideas, they revenge themselves for their supersession on everybody +and everything, save and except their own arrogant stolidity. White +individuals who have part and lot in the various Colonies, with their +hearts and feelings swayed by affections natural to their birth and +earliest associations; and Whites who have come to think the land of +their adoption as dear to themselves as the land of their birth, +entertain no such dread of [179] their fellow-citizens of any other +section, whom they estimate according to intelligence and probity, +and not according to any accident of exterior physique. Every +intelligent black is as shrewd regarding his own interests as our +author himself would be regarding his in the following hypothetical +case: Some fine day, being a youth and a bachelor, he gets wedded, +sets up an establishment, and becomes the owner of a clipper yacht. +For his own service in the above circumstances we give him the credit +to believe that, on the persons specified below applying among others +to him for employment, as chamber-maid and house-servant, and also as +hands for the vessel, he would, in preference to any ordinarily +recommended white applicants, at once engage the two black servant- +girls at President Churchill's in Dominica, the droghermen there as +able seamen, and as cabin-boy the lad amongst them whose precocious +marine skill he has so warmly and justly extolled. It is not because +all these persons are black, but because of the soul-consciousness of +the selector, that they each (were they even blue) had a title to +preferential consideration, his experience and sense of fitness being +[180] their most effectual supporters. Similarly, the Negro voter +would elect representatives whom he knew he could trust for +competency in the management of his affairs, and not persons whose +sole recommendation to him would be the possession of the same kind +of skin. Nor, from what we know of matters in the West Indies, do we +believe that any white man of the class we have eulogized would +hesitate to give his warmest suffrage to any black candidate who he +knew would be a fitting representative of his interests. We could +give examples from almost every West Indian island of white and +coloured men who would be indiscriminately chosen as their candidate +by either section. But the enumeration is needless, as the fact of +the existence of such men is too notorious to require proof. + +Mr. Froude states plainly enough (p. 123) that, whereas a whole +thousand years were needed to train and discipline the Anglo-Saxon +race, yet "European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by a higher +instinct, may shorten the probation period of the negro." Let it be +supposed that this period of probation [181] for the Negro should +extend, under such exceptionally favourable circumstances, to any +period less than that which is alleged to have been needed by the +Anglo-Saxon to attain his political manhood--what then are the +prospects held out by Mr. Froude to us and our posterity on our +mastering the training and discipline which he specially recommends +for Blacks? Our author, in view, doubtless, of the rapidity of our +onward progress, and indeed our actual advancement in every respect, +thus answers (pp. 123-4):--"Let a generation or two pass by and carry +away with them the old traditions, and an English governor-general +will be found presiding over a black council, delivering the speeches +made for him by a black prime minister; and how long could this +endure? No English gentleman would consent to occupy so absurd a +situation." + +And again, more emphatically, on the same point (p. 285):--"No +Englishman, not even a bankrupt peer, would consent to occupy such +position; the blacks themselves would despise him if he did; and if +the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how long +would such a connection endure?" + +[182] It is plainly to be seen from the above two extracts that the +political ethics of our author, being based on race and colour +exclusively, would admit of no conceivable chance of real elevation +to any descendant of Africa, who, being Ethiopian, could not possibly +change his skin. The "old traditions" which Mr. Froude supposes to +be carried away by his hypothetical (white) generations who have +"passed by," we readily infer from his language, rendered impossible +such incarnations of political absurdity as those he depicts. But +what should be thought of the sense, if not indeed the sanity, of a +grave political teacher who prescribes "European government" and +"European education" as the specifics to qualify the Negro for +political emancipation, and who, when these qualifications are +conspicuously mastered by the Negro who has undergone the training, +refuses him the prize, because he is a Negro? We see further that, +in spite of being fit for election to council, and even to be prime +ministers competent to indite governors' messages, the pigment under +our epidermis dooms us to eventual disappointment and a life-long +condition of contempt. Even so is it [183] desired by Mr. Froude and +his clients, and not without a spice of piquancy is their opinion +that for a white ruler to preside and rule over and accept the best +assistance of coloured men, qualified as above stated, would be a +self-degradation too unspeakable for toleration by any Englishman-- +"even a bankrupt peer." Unfortunately for Mr. Froude, we can point +him to page 56 of this his very book, where, speaking of Grenada and +deprecating the notion of its official abandonment, our author +says:-- + +"Otherwise they [Negroes] were quiet fellows, and if the politicians +would only let them alone, they would be perfectly contented, and +might eventually, if wisely managed, come to some good. . . . Black +the island was, and black it would remain. The conditions were never +likely to arise which would bring back a European population; but a +governor who was a sensible man, who would reside and use his natural +influence, could manage it with perfect ease." + +Here, then, we see that the governor of an entirely black population +may be a sensible man, and yet hold the post. Our author, indeed, +gives the Blacks over whom this sensible governor would hold rule as +being in number [184] just 40,000 souls; and we are therefore bound +to accept the implied suggestion that the dishonour of holding +supremacy over persons of the odious colour begins just as their +number begins to count onward from 40,000! There is quite enough in +the above verbal vagaries of our philosopher to provoke a volume of +comment. But we must pass on to further clauses of this precious +paragraph. Mr. Froude's talent for eating his own words never had a +more striking illustration than here, in his denial of the utility of +native experience as the safest guide a governor could have in the +administration of Colonial affairs. At page 91 he says:--"Among the +public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found +fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty, if a sincere +effort be made to find them." + +A post of honour and difficulty, we and all other persons in the +British dominions had all along understood was regarded as such in +the case of functionaries called upon to contend with adverse forces +in the accomplishment of great ends conceived by their superiors. +But we find that, according to Mr. Froude, all the credit that has +hitherto redounded to those [185] who had succeeded in such tasks has +been in reality nothing more than a gilding over of disgrace, +whenever the exertions of such officials had been put forth amongst +persons not wearing a European epidermis. The extension of British +influence and dominion over regions inhabited by races not white is +therefore, on the part of those who promote it, a perverse opening of +arenas for the humiliation and disgrace of British gentlemen, nay, +even of those titled members of the "black sheep" family--bankrupt +peers! As we have seen, however, ample contradiction and refutation +have been considerately furnished by the same objector in this same +volume, as in his praises of the governor just quoted. + +The cavil of Mr. Froude about English gentlemen reading messages +penned by black prime ministers applies with double force to English +barristers (who are gentlemen by statute) receiving the law from the +lips of black Judges. + +For all that, however, an emergency arose so pressing as to compel +even the colonialism of Barbados to practically and completely refute +this doctrine, by praying for, and submitting with gratitude to, the +supreme headship of a [186] man of the race which our author so +finically depreciates. In addition it may be observed that for a +governor to even consult his prime minister in the matter of +preparing his messages might conceivably be optional, whilst it is +obligatory on all barristers, whether English or otherwise, to defer +to the judge's interpretation of the law in every case--appeal +afterwards being the only remedy. As to the dictum that "the two +races are not equal and will not blend," it is open to the fatal +objection that, having himself proved, with sympathizing pathos, how +the West Indies are now well-nigh denuded of their Anglo-Saxon +inhabitants, Mr. Froude would have us also understand that the +miserable remnant who still complainingly inhabit those islands must, +by doing violence to the understanding, be taken as the whole of the +world-pervading Anglo-Saxon family. The Negroes of the West Indies +number a good deal more than two million souls. Does this suggester +of extravagances mean that the prejudices and vain conceit of the few +dozens whom he champions should be made to override and overbear, in +political arrangements, the serious and solid interests of so many +[187] hundreds of thousands? That "the two races are not equal" is a +statement which no sane man would dispute, but acquiescence in its +truth involves also a distinct understanding that the word race, as +applied in the present case by our author, is a simple accommodation +of terms--a fashion of speech having a very restricted meaning in +this serious discussion. + +The Anglo-Saxon race pervades Great Britain, its cradle, and the +Greater Britain extending almost all over the face of the earth, +which is the arena of its activities and marvellous achievements. To +tell us, therefore, as Mr. Froude does, that the handful of +malcontents whose unrespectable grievance he holds up to public +sympathy represents the Anglo-Saxon race, is a grotesque facon de +parler. Taking our author's "Anglo-West Indians" and the people of +Ethiopian descent respectively, it would not be too much to assert, +nor in anywise difficult to prove by facts and figures, that for +every competent individual of the former section in active civilized +employments, the coloured section can put forward at least twenty +thoroughly competent rivals. Yet are these latter the people whom +the classic Mr. [188] Froude wishes to be immolated, root and branch, +in all their highest and dearest interests, in order to secure the +maintenance of "old traditions" which, he tells us, guaranteed for +the dominant cuticle the sacrifice of the happiness of down-trodden +thousands! Referring to his hypothetical confederation with its +black officeholders, our author scornfully asks:--- + +"And how long would this endure?" + +The answer must be that, granting the existence of such a state of +things, its duration would be not more nor less than under white +functionaries. For according to himself (p. 124): "There is no +original or congenital difference of capacity between" the white and +black races, and "with the same chances and the same treatment, . . . +distinguished men would be produced equally from both races." + +If, therefore, the black ministers whose hue he so much despises do +possess the training and influence rendering them eligible and +securing their election to the situations we are considering, it must +follow that their tenure of office would be of equal duration with +that of individuals of the white race under the same conditions. Not +content with making himself [189] the mouthpiece of English +gentlemen in this matter, our author, with characteristic hardihood, +obtrudes himself into the same post on behalf of Negroes; saying +that, in the event of even a bankrupt peer accepting the situation of +governor-general over them, "The blacks themselves would despise +him"! + +Mr. Froude may pertinently be asked here the source whence he derived +his certainty on this point, inasmuch as it is absolutely at variance +with all that is sensible and natural; for surely it is both foolish +and monstrous to suppose that educated men would infer the +degradation of any one from the fact of such a one consenting to +govern and co-operate with themselves for their own welfare. He +further asks on the same subject:-- + +"And if the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how +long could such a connection endure?" + +Our answer must be the same as with regard to the duration of the +black council and black prime minister carrying out the government +under the same conditions. It must be regretted that no indication +in his book, so far as it professes to deal with facts and with [190] +persons not within the circle of his clients, would justify a belief +that its wanton misstatements have filtrated through a mind entitled +to declare, with the authority of self-consciousness, what a +gentleman would or would not do under given circumstances. + +In reiteration of his favourite doctrine of the antagonism between +the black and white races, our author continues on the same page to +say:--- + +"No one, I presume, would advise that the whites of the island should +govern. The relations between the two populations are too +embittered, and equality once established by law, the exclusive +privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored. While slavery +continued, the whites ruled effectively and economically; the blacks +are now as they." + +As far as could possibly be endeavoured, every proof has been crowded +into this book in refutation of this favourite allegation of Mr. +Froude's. It is only an idle waste of time to be thus harping on his +colour topic. No one can deserve to govern simply because he is +white, and no one is bound to be subject simply because he is black. +The whole of West [191] Indian history, even after the advent of the +attorney-class, proves this, in spite of the efforts to secure +exclusive white domination at a time when crude political power might +have secured it. + +"The relations between the two populations are too embittered," says +Mr. Froude. No doubt his talk on this point would be true, had any +such skin-dominancy as he contemplates been officially established; +but as at present most officials are appointed (locally at least) +according to their merit, and not to their epidermis, nothing is +known of the embittered relations so constantly dinned into our ears. +Whatever bitterness exists is in the minds of those gentry who would +like to be dominant on the cheap condition of showing a simple bodily +accident erected by themselves into an evidence and proof of +superiority. + +"The exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored." +Never in the history of the British West Indies--must we again state- +-was there any law or usage establishing superiority in privileges +for any section of the community on account of colour. This +statement of fact is also and again an answer to, and refutation of, +the succeeding allegation [192] that, "While slavery continued, the +whites ruled effectively and economically." It will be yet more +clearly shown in a later part of this essay that during slavery, in +fact for upwards of two centuries after its introduction, the West +Indies were ruled by slave-owners, who happened to be of all colours, +the means of purchasing slaves and having a plantation being the one +exclusive consideration in the case. It is, therefore, contrary to +fact to represent the Whites exclusively as ruling, and the Blacks +indiscriminately as subject. + +He goes on to say, "There are two classes in the community; their +interests are opposite as they are now understood." As regards the +above, Mr. Froude's attention may be called to the fact that +classification in no department of science has ever been based on +colour, but on relative affinity in certain salient qualities. To +use his own figure, no horse or dog is more or less a horse or dog +because it happens to be white or black. No teacher marshals his +pupils into classes according to any outward physical distinction, +but according to intellectual approximation. In like manner there +has been wealth for hundreds of men of Ethiopic origin, [193] and +poverty for hundreds of men of Caucasian origin, and the reverse in +both cases. We have, therefore, had hundreds of black as well as +white men who, under providential dispensation, belonged to the +class, rich men; while, on the other hand, we have had hundreds of +white men who, under providential dispensation, belonged to the +class, poor men. Similarly, in the composition of a free mixed +community, we have hundreds of both races belonging to the class, +competent and eligible; and hundreds of both races belonging to the +class, incompetent and ineligible: to both of which classes all +possible colours might belong. It is from the first mentioned that +are selected those who are to bear the rule, to which the latter +class is, in the very nature of things, bound to be subject. There +is no government by reason merely of skins. The diversity of +individual intelligence and circumstances is large enough to embrace +the possibility of even children being, in emergencies, the most +competent influencers of opinion and action. + +But let us analyse this matter for just a while more. The fatal +objection to all Mr. Froude's advocacy of colour-domination is that +[194] it is futile from being morally unreasonable. In view of the +natural and absolute impossibility of reviving the same external +conditions under which the inordinate deference and submission to +white persons were both logically and inevitably engendered and +maintained, his efforts to talk people into a frame of mind +favourable to his views on this subject are but a melancholy waste of +well-turned sentences. Man's estimate of his fellow-man has not and +never can have any other standard, save and except what is the +outcome of actual circumstances influencing his sentiment. In the +primitive ages, when the fruits of the earth formed the absorbing +object of attention and interest, the men most distinguished for +successful culture of the soil enjoyed, as a consequence, a larger +share than others of popular admiration and esteem. Similarly, among +nomadic tribes, the hunters whose courage coped victoriously with the +wild and ferocious denizens of the forest became the idols of those +who witnessed and were preserved by such sylvan exploits. When men +came at length to venture in ships over the trackless deep in pursuit +of commerce and its gains, the mariner grew important in [195] public +estimation. The pursuit of commerce and its gains led naturally to +the possession of wealth. This, from the quasi-omnipotence with +which it invests men--enabling them not only to command the best +energies, but also, in many cases, to subvert the very principles of +their fellows--has, in the vast majority of cases, an overpowering +sway on human opinion: a sway that will endure till the Millennium +shall have secured for the righteous alone the sovereignty of the +world. Likewise, as cities were founded and constitutions +established, those who were foremost as defenders of the national +interests, on the field of bodily conflict or in the intellectual +arena, became in the eyes of their contemporaries worthiest of +appreciation--and so on of other circumstances through which +particular personal distinctions created claims to preference. + +In the special case of the Negroes kidnapped out of Africa into +foreign bondage, the crowning item in their assessment of their alien +enslavers was the utter superiority, over their most redoubtable "big +men," which those enslavers displayed. They actually subjugated and +put in chains, like the commonest peasants, native [196] potentates +at whose very names even the warriorhood of their tribes had been +wont to blench. But far surpassing even this in awful effect was the +doom meted out to the bush-handlers, the medicine-men, the rain- +compellers, erewhile so inscrutably potent for working out the bliss +or the bale of friend or enemy. "Lo, from no mountain-top, from no +ceiba-hollow in the forest recesses, has issued any interposing sign, +any avenging portent, to vindicate the Spirit of Darkness so foully +outraged in the hitherto inviolate person of his chosen minister! +Verily, even the powers of the midnight are impotent against these +invaders from beyond the mighty salt-water! Here, huddled together +in confused, hopeless misery and ruin, lie, fettered and prostrate, +even priest as well as potentate, undistinguishable victims of crude, +unblenching violence, with its climax of nefarious sacrilege. We, +common mortals, therefore, can hope for no deliverance from, or even +succour in, the woful plight thus dismally contrived for us all by +the fair-skinned race who have now become our masters." Such was +naturally the train of thought that ran through those forlorn bosoms. +The formidable death-dealing guns [197] of the invaders, the ships +which had brought them to the African shores, and much besides in +startling contrast to their own condition of utter helplessness, the +Africans at once interpreted to themselves as the manifestation and +inherent attributes of beings of a higher order than man. Their +skin, too, the difference whereof from their own had been accentuated +by many calamitous incidents, was hit upon as the reason of so +crushing an ascendency. + +White skin therefore became, in those disconsolate eyes, the symbol +of fearful irresistible power: which impression was not at all +weakened afterwards by the ineffable atrocities of the "middle- +passage." Backed ultimately by their absolute and irresponsible +masterhood at home over the deported Blacks, the European abductors +could easily render permanent in the minds of their captives the +abject terror struck into them by the enormities of which they had +been the victims. Now, the impressions we touched upon before +bringing forward the case of the Negro slaves were mainly produced by +pleasurable circumstances. But of a contrary nature and much more +deeply graven are those sentiments which are the outcome of hopeless +terror [198] and pain. For whilst impressions of the former +character glide into the consciousness through accesses no less +normal than agreeable, the infusion of fear by means of bodily +suffering is a process too violent to be forgotten by minds tortured +and strained to unnatural tension thereby. Such tension, oft- +recurrent and scarcely endurable, leaves behind it recollections +which are in themselves a source of sadness. But time, favoured by a +succession of pleasurable experiences, is a sovereign anodyne to +remembrances of this poignant class. No wonder, then, from our +foregoing detail of facts, that whiteness of skin was both redoubted +and tremblingly crouched to by Negroes on whom Europeans had wrought +such unspeakable calamities. Time, however, and the action of +circumstances, especially in countries subject to Catholic dominion, +soon began to modify the conditions under which this sentiment of +terror had been maintained, and, with those conditions, the very +sentiment itself. For it was not long in the life of many of the +expatriated Africans before numbers of their own race obtained +freedom, and, eventually, wealth sufficient for purchasing black +slaves on their [199] own account. In other respects, too (outwardly +at least), the prosperous career of such individual Blacks could not +fail to induce a revulsion of thought, whereby the attribution of +unapproachable powers exclusively to the Whites became a matter +earnestly reconsidered by the Africans. Centuries of such +reconsideration have produced the natural result in the West Indies. +With the daily competition in intelligence, refinement, and social +and moral distinction, which time and events have brought about +between individuals of the two races, nothing, surely, has resulted, +nor has even been indicated, to re-infuse the ancient colour-dread +into minds which had formerly been forced to entertain it; and still +less to engender it in bosoms to which such a feeling cannot, in the +very nature of things, be an inborn emotion. Now, can Mr. Froude +show us by what process he would be able to infuse in the soul of an +entire population a sentiment which is both unnatural and beyond +compulsion? + +The foregoing remarks roughly apply to preeminence given to outward +distinction, and the conditions under which mainly it impresses and +is accepted by men not yet arrived at the [200] essentially +intellectual stage. In the spiritual domain the conditions have ever +been quite different. A belief in the supernatural being inborn in +man, the professors of knowledge and powers beyond natural attainment +were by common consent accorded a distinct and superior +consideration, deemed proper to the sacredness of their progression. +Hence the supremacy of the priestly caste in every age and country of +the world. Potentate as well as peasant have bowed in reverence +before it, as representing and declaring with authority the counsels +of that Being whom all, priest, potentate and peasant alike, +acknowledge and adore, each according to the measure of his inward +illumination. + + + +BOOK III: THE NEGRO AS WORKER + +[201] The laziness, the incurable idleness, of the Negro, was, both +immediately before their emancipation in 1838, and for long years +after that event, the cuckoo-cry of their white detractors. It was +laziness, pure and simple, which hindered the Negro from exhausting +himself under a tropical sun, toiling at starvation wages to ensure +for his quondam master the means of being an idler himself, with the +additional luxury of rolling in easily come-by wealth. Within the +last twenty years, however, the history of the Black Man, both in the +West Indies and, better still, in the United States of America, has +been a succession of achievements which have converted the charge of +laziness into a baseless and absurd calumny. The repetition of the +charge referred to is, in these [202] waning days of the nineteenth +century, a discredited anachronism, which, however, has no deterring +features for Mr. Froude. As the running down of the Negro was his +cue, he went in boldly for the game, with what result we shall +presently see. At page 239, our author, speaking of the Negro +garden-farms in Jamaica, says:-- + +"The male proprietors were lounging about smoking. Their wives, as +it was market-day, were tramping into Kingston with their baskets on +their heads. We met them literally in thousands, all merry and +light-hearted, their little ones with little baskets trudging at +their side. Of the lords of the creation we saw, perhaps, one to +each hundred of the women, and he would be riding on mule or donkey, +pipe in mouth and carrying nothing. He would be generally sulky too, +while the ladies, young and old, had a civil word for us, and +curtsied under their loads. Decidedly if there is to be a black +constitution I will give my vote to the women." + +To the above direct imputation of indolence, heartlessness, and +moroseness, Mr. Froude appends the following remarks on other moral +characteristics of certain sable peasants at [203] Mandeville, +Jamaica, given on the authority of a police official, who, our author +says, described them as-- + +"Good-humoured, but not universally honest. They stole cattle, and +would not give evidence against each other. If brought into Court, +they held a pebble in their mouth, being under the impression that +when they were so provided, perjury did not count. Their education +was only skin-deep, and the schools which the Government provided had +not touched their characters at all." + +But how could the education so provided be otherwise than futile when +the administration of its details is entirely in the hands of persons +unsympathizing with and utterly despising the Negro? But of this +more anon and elsewhere. We resume Mr. Froude's evidence respecting +the black peasantry. Our author proceeds to admit, on the same +subject, that his informant's duties (as a police official) "brought +him in contact with the unfavourable specimens." He adds:-- + +"I received a far pleasanter impression from a Moravian minister. . . . +I was particularly glad to see this gentleman, for of the Moravians +[204] every one had spoken well to me. He was not the least +enthusiastic about his poor black sheep, but he said that if they +were not better than the average English labourer, he did not think +them worse. They were called idle; they would work well enough if +they had fair wages and if the wages were paid regularly; but what +could be expected when women servants had but three shillings a week +and found themselves, when the men had but a shilling a day and the +pay was kept in arrear in order that if they came late to work, or if +they came irregularly, it may be kept back or cut down to what the +employer choose to give? Under such conditions ANY man of ANY colour +would prefer to work for himself if he had a garden, or would be idle +if he had none." + +Take, again, the following extract regarding the heroism of the +emigrants to the Canal :-- + +"I walked forward" (on the steamer bound to Jamaica), "after we had +done talking. We had five hundred of the poor creatures on their way +to the Darien pandemonium. The vessel was rolling with a heavy beam +sea. I found the whole mass of them reduced to the condition of the +pigs who used to occupy the fore decks on the Cork and Bristol +packets. They were [205] lying in a confused heap together, +helpless, miserable, without consciousness, apparently, save a sense +in each that he was wretched. Unfortunate brothers-in-law! following +the laws of political economy, and carrying their labour to the +dearest market, where, before a year was out, half of them were to +die. They had souls, too, some of them, and honest and kindly +hearts." + +It surely is refreshing to read the revelation of his first learning +of the possession of a soul by a fellow-human being, thus artlessly +described by one who is said to be an ex-parson. But piquancy is Mr. +Froude's strong point, whatever else he may be found wanting in. + +Still, apart from Mr. Froude's direct testimony to the fact that from +year to year, during a long series of years, there has been a +continuous, scarcely ever interrupted emigration of Negroes to the +Spanish mainland, in search of work for a sufficing livelihood for +themselves and their families--and that in the teeth of physical +danger, pestilence, and death--there would be enough indirect +exoneration of the Black Man from that indictment in the wail of Mr. +Froude and his friends regarding the alarming absorption of the lands +of Grenada [206] and Trinidad by sable proprietors. Land cannot be +bought without money, nor can money be possessed except through +labour, and the fact that so many tens of thousand Blacks are now the +happy owners of the soil whereon, in the days so bitterly regretted +by our author, their forefathers' tears, nay, very hearts' blood, had +been caused to flow, ought to silence for ever an accusation, which, +were it even true, would be futile, and, being false, is worse than +disgraceful, coming from the lips of the Eumolpids who would fain +impose a not-to-be-questioned yoke on us poor helots of Ethiopia. It +is said that lying is the vice of slaves; but the ethics of West +Indian would-be mastership assert, on its behalf, that they alone +should enjoy the privilege of resorting to misrepresentation to give +colour, if not solidity, to their pretensions. + + + +BOOK III: RELIGION FOR NEGROES + +[207] Mr. Froude's passing on from matters secular to matters +spiritual and sacred was a transition to be expected in the course of +the grave and complicated discussion which he had volunteered to +initiate. It was, therefore, not without curiosity that his views in +the direction above indicated were sought for and earnestly +scrutinized by us. But worse than in his treatment of purely mundane +subjects, his attitude here is marked by a nonchalant levity which +excites our wonder that even he should have touched upon the +spiritual side of his thesis at all. The idea of the dove sent forth +from the ark fluttering over the heaving swells of the deluge, in +vain endeavour to secure a rest for the soles of its feet, represents +not inaptly the unfortunate predicament of his spirit with regard to +a solid [208] faith on which to repose amid the surges of doubt by +which it is so evidently beset. Yet although this is his obvious +plight with regard to a satisfying belief, he nevertheless +undertakes, with characteristic confidence, to suggest a creed for +the moralization of West Indian Negroes. His language is :-- + +"A religion, at any rate, which will keep the West Indian blacks from +falling back into devil-worship is still to seek. In spite of the +priests, child-murder and cannibalism have re-appeared in Hayti, but +without them things might have been much worse than they are, and the +preservation of white authority and influence in any form at all may +be better than none." + +We discern in the foregoing citation the exercise of a charity that +is unquestionably born of fetish-worship, which, whether it be obeah +generally, or restricted to a mere human skin, can be so powerful an +agent in the formation and retention of beliefs. Hence we see that +our philosopher relies here, in the domain of morals and spiritual +ethics, on a white skin as implicitly as he does on its sovereign +potency in secular politics. The curiousness of the matter lies +mainly in its application to natives [209] of Hayti, of all people in +the world. As a matter of fact we have had our author declaring as +follows, in climax to his oft-repeated predictions about West Indian +Negroes degenerating into the condition of their fellow-Negroes in +the "Black Republic" (p. 285) :-- + +"Were it worth while, one might draw a picture of an English +governor, with a black parliament and a black ministry, recommending, +by advice of his constitutional ministers, some measure like the +Haytian Land Law." + +Now, as the West Indies degenerating into so many white-folk- +detesting Haytis, under our prophet's dreaded supremacy of the +Blacks, is the burden of his book; and as the Land Law in question +distinctly forbids the owning by any white person of even one inch of +the soil of the Republic, it might, but for the above explanation, +have seemed unaccountable, in view of the implacable distrust, not to +say hatred, which this stern prohibition so clearly discloses, that +our author should, nevertheless, rely on the efficacy of white +authority and influence over Haytians. + +In continuation of his religious suggestions, he goes on to descant +upon slavery in the [210] fashion which we have elsewhere noticed, +but it may still be proper to add a word or two here regarding this +particular disquisition of his. This we are happy in being able to +do under the guidance of an anterior and more reliable exponent of +ecclesiastical as well as secular obedience on the part of all free +and enlightened men in the present epoch of the world's history:-- + + "Dogma and Descent, potential twin + Which erst could rein submissive millions in, + Are now spent forces on the eddying surge + Of Thought enfranchised. Agencies emerge + Unhampered by the incubus of dread + Which cramped men's hearts and clogged their onward tread. + Dynasty, Prescription! spectral in these days + When Science points to Thought its surest ways, + And men who scorn obedience when not free + Demand the logic of Authority! + The day of manhood to the world is here, + And ancient homage waxes faint and drear. + . . . . . . + Vision of rapture! See Salvation's plan + 'Tis serving God through ceaseless toil for man!" + +The lines above quoted are by a West Indian Negro, and explain in +very concise form the attitude of the educated African mind [211] +with reference to the matters they deal with. Mr. Froude is free to +perceive that no special religion patched up from obsolete creeds +could be acceptable to those with whose sentiments the thoughts of +the writer just quoted are in true racial unison. It is preposterous +to expect that the same superstition regarding skin ascendency, which +is now so markedly played out in our Colonies in temporal matters, +could have any weight whatsoever in matters so momentous as morals +and religion. But granting even the possibility of any code of +worldly ethics or of religion being acceptable on the dermal score so +strenuously insisted on by him, it is to be feared that, through +sheer respect for the fitness of things, the intelligent Negro in +search of guidance in faith and morals would fail to recognize in our +author a guide, philosopher, and friend, to be followed without the +most painful misgivings. The Catholic and the Dissenting Churches +which have done so much for the temporal and spiritual advancement of +the Negro, in spite of hindrance and active persecution wherever +these were possible, are, so far as is visible, maintaining their +hold on the adhesion of those who belong to them. + +[212] And it cannot be pretended that, among enlightened Africans as +compared with other enlightened people, there have been more grievous +failings off from the scriptural standard of deportment. Possible it +certainly is that considerations akin to, or even identical with, +those relied upon by Mr. Froude might, on the first reception of +Christianity in their exile, have operated effectually upon the minds +of the children of Africa. At that time the evangelizers whose +converts they so readily became possessed the recommendation of +belonging to the dominant caste. Therefore, with the humility proper +to their forlorn condition, the poor bondsmen requited with intense +gratitude such beneficent interest on their behalf, as a +condescension to which people in their hapless situation could have +had no right. But for many long years, the distinction whether of +temporal or of spiritual superiority has ceased to be the monopoly of +any particular class. The master and employer has for far more than +a century and a half been often represented in the West Indies by +some born African or his descendant; and so also has the teacher and +preacher. It is not too much to say that [213] the behaviour of the +liberated slaves throughout the British Antilles, as well as the +deportment of the manumitted four million slaves of the Southern +United States later on, bore glorious testimony to the humanizing +effects which the religion of charity, clutched at and grasped in +fragments, and understood with childlike incompleteness, had produced +within those suffering bosoms. + +Nothing has occurred to call for a remodelling of the ordinary moral +and spiritual machinery for the special behoof of Negroes. Religion, +as understood by the best of men, is purely a matter of feeling and +action between man and man--the doing unto others as we would they +should do unto us; and any creed or any doctrine which directly or +indirectly subverts or even weakens this basis is in itself a danger +to the highest welfare of mankind. The simple conventional faith in +God, in Jesus, and in a future state, however modified nowadays, has +still a vitality which can restrain and ennoble its votaries, +provided it be inculcated and received in a befitting spirit. Our +critic, in the plenitude of his familiarity with such matters, +confidently asks :-- + +[214] "Who is now made wretched by the fear of hell?" + +Possibly the belief in the material hell, the decadence of which he +here triumphantly assumes to be so general, may have considerably +diminished; but experience has shown that, with the advance of +refinement, there is a concurrent growth in the intensity of moral +sensibility, whereby the waning terrors of a future material hell are +more than replaced by the agonies of a conscience self-convicted of +wilful violation of the right. The same simple faith has, in its +practical results, been rich in the records of the humble whom it has +exalted; of the poor to whom it has been better than wealth; of the +rich whose stewardship of worldly prosperity it has sanctified; of +the timid whom it has rendered bold; and of the valiant whom it has +raised to a divine heroism--in fine, of miracles of transformation +that have impelled to higher and nobler tendencies and uses the +powers and gifts inherited or acquired by man in his natural state. +They who possess this faith, and cherish it as a priceless +possession, may calmly oppose to the philosophic reasoning against +the existence of [215] a Deity and the rationalness of entreating Him +in prayer, the simple and sufficient declaration, "I believe." +Normal-minded men, sensible of the limitations of human faculties, +never aspire to be wise beyond what is revealed. Whatever might +exist beyond the grave is, so far as man and man in their mutual +relations are concerned, not a subject that discussion can affect or +speculation unravel. To believers it cannot matter whether the +Sermon on the Mount embodies or does not embody the quality of ethics +that the esoteric votaries of Mr. Froude's "new creed" do accept or +even can tolerate. Under the old creed man's sense of duty kindled +in sympathy towards his brother, urging him to achieve by self- +sacrifice every possibility of beneficence; hence the old creed +insured an inward joy as well as "the peace which passeth all +understanding." There can be no room for desiring left, when +receptiveness of blessings overflows; and it is the worthiest +direction of human energy to secure for others that fulness of +fruition. Is not Duty the first, the highest item of moral +consciousness; and is not promoting, according to our best ability, +the welfare of our fellow creatures, the first and [216] most urgent +call of human duty? Can the urgency of such responsibility ever +cease but with the capacity, on our own or on our brother's part, to +do or be done by respectively? Contemptuously ignoring his share of +this solemn responsibility--solemn, whether regarded from a religious +or a purely secular point of view--to observe at least the negative +obligation never to wantonly do or even devise any harm to his +fellows, or indeed any sentient creature, our new apostle affords, in +his light-hearted reversal of the prescriptive methods of civilized +ethics, a woful foretaste of the moral results of the "new, not as +yet crystallized" belief, whose trusted instruments of spiritual +investigation are the telescope and mental analysis, in order to +satisfy the carpings of those who so impress the world with their +superhuman strong-mindedness. + +The following is a profound reflection presenting, doubtless, quite a +new revelation to an unsophisticated world, which had so long +submitted in reverential tameness to the self-evident impossibility +of exploring the Infinite:-- + +"The tendency of popular thought is against [217] the supernatural in +any shape. Far into space as the telescope can search, deep as +analysis can penetrate into mind and consciousness or the forces +which govern natural things, popular thought finds only uniformity +and connection of cause and effect; no sign anywhere of a personal +will which is influenced by prayer or moral motives." + +How much to be pitied are the gifted esoterics who, in such a quest, +vainly point their telescopes into the star-thronged firmament, and +plunge their reasoning powers into the abyss of consciousness and +such-like mysteries! The commonplace intellect of the author of +"Night Thoughts" was, if we may so speak, awed into an adoring +rapture which forced from him the exclamation (may believers hail it +as a dogma!)-- + +"An undevout astronomer is mad!" + +Most probably it was in weak submission to some such sentiment as +this that Isaac Newton nowhere in his writings suggests even the +ghost of a doubt of there being a Great Architect of the Universe as +the outcome of his telescopic explorations into the illimitable +heavens. + +[218] It is quite possible, too, that he was, "on insufficient +grounds," perhaps, perfectly satisfied, as a host of other +intellectual mediocrities like himself have been, and even up to now +rather provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and +connection of cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being +not only "a personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as +well. In this connection comes to mind a certain old Book which, +whatever damage Semitic Scholarship and Modern Criticism may succeed +in inflicting on its contents, will always retain for the spiritual +guidance of the world enough and to spare of divine suggestions. +With the prescience which has been the heritage of the inspired in +all ages, one of the writers in that Book, whom we shall now quote, +foresaw, no doubt, the deplorable industry of Mr. Froude and his +protege "popular thought," whose mouth-piece he has so +characteristically constituted himself, and asks in a tone wherein +solemn warning blends with inquiry: "Canst thou by searching find out +God; canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection!" The rational +among the most loftily endowed of mankind have grasped [219] the +sublime significance of this query, acquiescing reverently in its +scarcely veiled intimation of man's impotence in presence of the task +to which it refers. + +But though Mr. Froude's spiritual plight be such as we have just +allowed him to state it, with regard to an object of faith and a +motive of worship, yet let us hear him, in his anxiety to furbish up +a special Negro creed, setting forth the motive for being in a hurry +to anticipate the "crystallization" of his new belief :-- + +"The new creed, however, not having crystallized as yet into a shape +which can be openly professed, and as without any creed at all the +flesh and the devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old +names, as we maintain the monarchy." + +The allusion to the monarchy seems not a very obvious one, as it +parallels the definitive rejection of a spiritual creed with the +theoretical change of ancient notions regarding a concrete fact. At +any rate we have it that his special religion, when concocted and +disseminated, will have the effect of preventing the flesh and the +devil from having too much power over Negroes. The objection to the +[220] devil's sway seems to us to come with queer grace from one who +owes his celebrity chiefly to the production of works teeming with +that peculiar usage of language of which the Enemy of Souls is +credited with the special fatherhood. + +No, sir, in the name of the Being regarding whose existence you and +your alleged "popular thought" are so painfully in doubt, we protest +against your right, or that of any other created worm, to formulate +for the special behoof of Negroes any sort of artificial creed +unbelieved in by yourself, having the function and effect of +detective "shadowings" of their souls. Away with your criminal +suggestion of toleration of the hideous orgies of heathenism in Hayti +for the benefit of our future morals in the West Indies, when the +political supremacy which you predict and dread and deprecate shall +have become an accomplished fact. Were any special standard of +spiritual excellence required, our race has, in Josiah Henson and +Sojourner Truth, sufficing models for our men and our women +respectively. Their ideal of Christian life, which we take to be the +true one, is not to be judged of with direct reference to the Deity +whom we cannot [221] see, interrogate, or comprehend, but to its +practical bearing in and on man, whom we can see and have cognizance +of, not only with our physical senses, but by the intimations of the +divinity which abides within us.* We can see, feel, and appreciate +the virtue of a fellow-mortal who consecrates himself to the Divine +idea through untiring exertion for the bettering of the condition of +the world around him, whose agony he makes it his duty, only to +satisfy his burning desire, to mitigate. The fact in its ghastly +reality lies before us that the majority of mankind labour and are +being crushed under the tremendous trinity of Ignorance, Vice, and +Poverty. + +It is mainly in the succouring of those who thus suffer that the +vitality of the old creed is manifested in the person of its +professors. Under this aspect we behold it moulding men, of all +nations, countries, and tongues, whose virtues have challenged and +should command on its behalf the unquestioning faith and adhesion of +every rational observer. "Evidences of Christianity," +"Controversies," "Exegetical Commentaries," have all proved [222] +more or less futile--as perhaps they ought--with the Science and +Modern Criticism which perverts religion into a matter of dialectics. +But there is a hope for mankind in the fact that Science itself shall +have ultimately to admit the limitations of human inquiry into the +details of the Infinite. Meanwhile it requires no technical +proficiency to recognize the criminality of those who waste their +brief threescore and ten years in abstract speculations, while the +tangible, visible, and hideous soul-destroying trinity of Vice, +Ignorance, and Poverty, above mentioned, are desolating the world in +their very sight. There are possessors of personal virtue, +enlightenment, and wealth, who dare stand neutral with regard to +these dire exigencies among their fellows. And yet they are the +logical helpers, as holders of the special antidote to each of those +banes! Infinitely more deserving of execration are such folk than +the callous owner of some specific, who allows a suffering neighbour +to perish for want of it. + +We who believe in the ultimate development of the Christian notion of +duty towards God, as manifested in untiring beneficence to man, cling +to this faith--starting from the [223] beginning of the New Testament +dispensation--because Saul of Tarsus, transformed into Paul the +Apostle through his whole-souled acceptance of this very creed with +its practical responsibilities, has, in his ardent, indefatigable +labours for the enlightenment and elevation of his fellows, left us a +lesson which is an enduring inspiration; because Augustine, Bishop of +Hippo, benefited, in a manner which has borne, and ever will bear, +priceless fruit, enormous sections of the human family, after his +definite submission to the benign yoke of the same old creed; because +Vincent de Paul has, through the identical inspiration, endowed the +world with his everlasting legacy of organized beneficence; because +it impelled Francis Xavier with yearning heart and eager footsteps +through thousands of miles of peril, to proclaim to the darkling +millions of India what he had experienced to be tidings of great joy +to himself; because Matthew Hale, a lawyer, and of first prominence +in a pursuit which materializes the mind and nips its native candour +and tenderness, escaped unblighted, through the saving influence of +his faith, approving himself in the sight of all [224] an ideal +judge, even according to the highest conception; because John Howard, +opulent and free to enjoy his opulence and repose, was drawn thereby +throughout the whole continent of Europe in quest of the hidden +miseries that torture those whom the law has shut out, in dungeons, +from the light and sympathy of the world; because Thomas Clarkson, +animated by the spirit of its teachings, consecrated wealth, luxury, +and the quiet of an entire lifetime on the altar of voluntary +sacrifice for the salvation of an alien people; because Samuel +Johnson, shut out from mirthfulness by disease and suffering, and +endowed with an intellectual pride intolerant of froward ignorance, +was, through the chastening power of that belief, transformed into +the cheerful minister and willing slave of the weaklings whom he +gathered into his home, and around whom the tendrils of his heart had +entwined themselves, waxing closer and stronger in the moisture of +his never-failing charity; because Henry Havelock, a man of the +sword, whose duties have never been too propitious to the cultivation +and fostering of the gentler virtues, lived and died a blameless +hero, constrained by that faith to be one of its most illustrious +exemplars; [225] because David Livingstone looms great and reverend +in our mental sight in his devotion to a land and race embraced in +his boundless fellow-feeling, and whose miseries he has commended to +the sympathy of the civilized world in words the pathos whereof has +melted thousands of once obdurate hearts to crave a share in applying +a balm to the "open sore of Africa"--that slave-trade whose +numberless horrors beggar description; and finally--one more example +out of the countless varieties of types that blend into a unique +solidarity in the active manifestation of the Christian life--we +believe because Charles Gordon, the martyr-soldier of Khartoum, in +trusting faith a very child, but in heroism more notable than any +mere man of whom history contains a record, gathered around himself, +through the sublime attractiveness of his faith-directed life, the +united suffrages of all nations, and now enjoys, as the recompense +and seal of his life's labours, an apotheosis in homage to which the +heathen of Africa, the man-hunting Arab, the Egyptian, the Turk, all +jostle each other to blend with the exulting children of Britain who +are directly glorified by his life and history. + +[226] Here, then, are speaking evidences of the believers' grounds. +Verily they are of the kind that are to be seen in our midst, +touched, heard, listened to, respected, beloved--nay, honoured, too, +with the glad worship our inward spirit springs forth to render to +goodness so largely plenished from the Source of all Good. Can +Modern Science and Criticism explain them away, or persuade us of +their insufficiency as incentives to the hearty acceptance of the +religion that has received such glorious, yet simply logical, +incarnation in the persons of weak, erring men who welcomed its +responsibilities conjointly with its teachings, and thereby raised +themselves to the spiritual level pictured to ourselves in our +conception of angels who have been given the Divine charge concerning +mankind. Religion for Negroes, indeed! White priests, forsooth! +This sort of arrogance might, possibly, avail in quarters where the +person and pretensions of Mr. Froude could be impressive and +influential--but here, in the momentous concern of man with Him who +"is no respecter of persons," his interference, mentally disposed as +he tells us he is with reference to such a matter, is nothing less +than profane intrusion. + +[227] We will conclude by stating in a few words our notion of the +only agency by which, not Blacks alone, but every race of mankind, +might be uplifted to the moral level which the thousands of examples, +of which we have glanced at but a few, prove so indubitably the +capacity of man to attain--each to a degree limited by the scope of +his individual powers. The priesthood whereof the world stands in +such dire need is not at all the confederacy of augurs which Mr. +Froude, perhaps in recollection of his former profession, so glibly +suggests, with an esoteric creed of their own, "crystallized into +shape" for profession before the public. The day of priestcraft +being now numbered with the things that were, the exploitation of +those outside of the sacerdotal circle is no longer possible. +Therefore the religion of mere talk, however metaphysical and +profound; the religion of scenic display, except such display be +symbolic of living and active verities, has lost whatever of efficacy +it may once have possessed, through the very spirit and tendency of +To-day. The reason why those few whom we have mentioned, and the +thousands who cannot possibly be recalled, have, as [228] typical +Christians, impressed themselves on the moral sense and sympathy of +the ages, is simply that they lived the faith which they professed. +Whatever words they may have employed to express their serious +thoughts were never otherwise than, incidentally, a spoken fragment +of their own interior biography. In fine, success must infallibly +attend this special priesthood (whether episcopally "ordained" or +not) of all races, all colours, all tongues whatsoever, since their +lives reflect their teachings and their teachings reflect their +lives. Then, truly, they, "the righteous, shall inherit the earth," +leading mankind along the highest and noblest paths of temporal +existence. Then, of course, the obeah, the cannibalism, the devil- +worship of the whole world, including that of Hayti, which Mr. Froude +predicts will be adopted by us Blacks in the West Indies, shall no +more encumber and scandalize the earth. + +But Mr. Froude should, at the same time, be reminded that cannibalism +and the hideous concomitants which he mentions are, after all, +relatively minor and restricted dangers to man's civilization and +moral soundness. They can [229] neither operate freely nor expand +easily. The paralysis of horrified popular sentiment obstructs their +propagation, and the blight of the death-penalty which hangs over the +heads of their votaries is an additional guarantee of their being +kept within bounds that minimize their perniciousness. But there are +more fatal and further-reaching dangers to public morality and +happiness of which the regenerated current opinion of the future will +take prompt and remedial cognizance. Foremost among these will be the +circulation of malevolent writings whereby the equilibrium of +sympathy between good men of different races is sought to be +destroyed, through misleading appeals to the weaknesses and +prejudices of readers; writings in which the violation of actual +truth cannot, save by stark stupidity, be attributed to innocent +error; writings that scoff at humanitarian feeling and belittle the +importance of achievements resulting therefrom; writings which strike +at the root of national manliness, by eulogizing brute force directed +against weaker folk as a fit and legitimate mode of securing the +wishes of a mighty and enlightened people; writings, in fine, which +ignore the divine principle [230] in man, and implicitly deny the +possibility of a Divine Power existing outside of and above man, thus +materializing the mind, and tending to render the earth a worse hell +than it ever could have been with faith in the supremacy of a +beneficent Power. + +NOTES + +221. *"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo."--Ovid. + + + +BOOK IV: HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +[233] Thus far we have dealt with the main questions raised by Mr. +Froude on the lines of his own choosing; lines which demonstrate to +the fullest how unsuited his capacity is for appreciating--still less +grappling with--the political and social issues he has so confidently +undertaken to determine. In vain have we sought throughout his +bastard philosophizing for any phrase giving promise of an adequate +treatment of this important subject. We find paraded ostentatiously +enough the doctrine that in the adjustment of human affairs the +possession of a white skin should be the strongest recommendation. +Wonder might fairly be felt that there is no suggestion of a +corresponding advantage being accorded to the possession of a long +nose or of auburn hair. Indeed, little [234] or no attention that +can be deemed serious is given to the interest of the Blacks, as a +large and (out of Africa) no longer despicable section of the human +family, in the great world-problems which are so visibly preparing +and press for definitive solutions. The intra-African Negro is +clearly powerless to struggle successfully against personal +enslavement, annexation, or volunteer forcible "protection" of his +territory. What, we ask, will in the coming ages be the opinion and +attitude of the extra-African millions--ten millions in the Western +Hemisphere--dispersed so widely over the surface of the globe, apt +apprentices in every conceivable department of civilized culture? +Will these men remain for ever too poor, too isolated from one +another for grand racial combinations? Or will the naturally opulent +cradle of their people, too long a prey to violence and unholy greed, +become at length the sacred watchword of a generation willing and +able to conquer or perish under its inspiration? Such large and +interesting questions it was within the province and duty of a famous +historian, laying confident claim to prophetic insight, not to +propound alone, but also definitely to solve. The sacred power [235] +of forecast, however, has been confined to finical pronouncements +regarding those for whose special benefit he has exercised it, and to +childish insults of the Blacks whose doom must be sealed to secure +the precious result which is aimed at. In view of this ill- +intentioned omission, we shall offer a few cursory remarks bearing +on, but not attempting to answer, those grave inquiries concerning +the African people. As in our humble opinion these are questions +paramount to all the petty local issues finically dilated on by the +confident prophet of "The Bow of Ulysses," we will here briefly +devote ourselves to its discussion. + +Accepting the theory of human development propounded by our author, +let us apply it to the African race. Except, of course, to +intelligences having a share in the Councils of Eternity, there can +be no attainable knowledge respecting the laws which regulate the +growth and progress of civilization among the races of the earth. +That in the existence of the human family every age has been marked +by its own essential characteristics with regard to manifestations of +intellectual life, however circumscribed, is a proposition too self- +evident [236] to require more than the stating. But investigation +beyond such evidence as we possess concerning the past--whether +recorded by man himself in the written pages of history, or by the +Creator on the tablets of nature--would be worse than futile. We see +that in the past different races have successively come to the front, +as prominent actors on the world's stage. The years of civilized +development have dawned in turn on many sections of the human family, +and the Anglo-Saxons, who now enjoy preeminence, got their turn only +after Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, and others had +successively held the palm of supremacy. And since these mighty +empires have all passed away, may we not then, if the past teaches +aught, confidently expect that other racial hegemonies will arise in +the future to keep up the ceaseless progression of temporal existence +towards the existence that is eternal? What is it in the nature of +things that will oust the African race from the right to participate, +in times to come, in the high destinies that have been assigned in +times past to so many races that have not been in anywise superior to +us in the qualifications, physical, moral, and intellectual, [237] +that mark out a race for prominence amongst other races? + +The normal composition of the typical Negro has the testimony of ages +to its essential soundness and nobility. Physically, as an active +labourer, he is capable of the most protracted exertion under +climatic conditions the most exhausting. By the mere strain of his +brawn and sinew he has converted waste tracts of earth into fertile +regions of agricultural bountifulness. On the scenes of strife he +has in his savage state been known to be indomitable save by the +stress of irresistible forces, whether of men or of circumstances. +Staunch in his friendship and tender towards the weak directly under +his protection, the unvitiated African furnishes in himself the +combination of native virtue which in the land of his exile was so +prolific of good results for the welfare of the whole slave-class. +But distracted at home by the sudden irruptions of skulking foes, he +has been robbed, both intellectually and morally, of the immense +advantage of Peace, which is the mother of Progress. Transplanted to +alien climes, and through centuries of desolating trials, this +irrepressible race has [238] bated not one throb of its energy, nor +one jot of its heart or hope. In modern times, after his +expatriation into dismal bondage, both Britain and America have had +occasion to see that even in the paralysing fetters of political and +social degradation the right arm of the Ethiop can be a valuable +auxiliary on the field of battle. Britain, in her conflict with +France for supremacy in the West Indies, did not disdain the aid of +the sable arms that struck together with those of Britons for the +trophies that furnished the motives for those epic contests. + +Later on, the unparalleled struggle between the Northern and Southern +States of the American Union put to the test the indestructible +fibres of the Negro's nature, moral as well as physical. The +Northern States, after months of hesitating repugnance, and when +taught at last by dire defeats that colour did not in any way help to +victory, at length sullenly acquiesced in the comradeship, hitherto +disdained, of the eager African contingent. The records of Port +Hudson, Vicksburg, Morris Island, and elsewhere, stand forth in +imperishable attestation of the fact that the distinction of being +laurelled during life as victor, or filling [239] in death a hero's +grave, is reserved for no colour, but for the heart that can dare and +the hand that can strike boldly in a righteous cause. The experience +of the Southern slave-holders, on the other hand, was no less +striking and worthy of admiration. Every man of the twelve seceding +States forming the Southern Confederacy, then fighting desperately +for the avowed purpose of perpetuating slavery, was called into the +field, as no available male arm could be spared from the conflict on +their side. Plantation owner, overseer, and every one in authority, +had to be drafted away from the scene of their usual occupation to +the stage whereon the bloody drama of internecine strife was being +enacted. Not only the plantation, but the home and the household, +including the mistress and her children, had to be left, not +unprotected, it is glorious to observe, but, with confident assurance +in their loyalty and good faith, under the protection of the four +million of bondsmen, who, through the laws and customs of these very +States, had been doomed to lifelong ignorance and exclusion from all +moralizing influences. With what result? The protraction of the +conflict on the part of the South would [240] have been impossible +but for the admirable management and realization of their resources +by those benighted slaves. On the other hand, not one of the +thousands of Northern prisoners escaping from the durance of a +Southern captivity ever appealed in vain for the assistance and +protection of a Negro. Clearly the head and heart of those bondsmen +were each in its proper place. The moral effect of these experiences +of the Negroes' sterling qualities was not lost on either North or +South. In the North it effaced from thousands of repugnant hearts +the adverse feelings which had devised and accomplished so much to +the Negro's detriment. In the South--but for the blunders of the +Reconstructionists--it would have considerably facilitated the final +readjustment of affairs between the erewhile master and slave in +their new-born relations of employer and employed. + +Reverting to the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the +States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their +favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy +condition. First, attention must be paid to the patriotic solidarity +existing [241] amongst the bondsmen, a solidarity which, in the case +of those who had been deported in the same ship, had all the sanctity +of blood-relationship. Those who had thus travelled to the "white +man's country" addressed and considered each other as brothers and +sisters. Hence their descendants for many generations upheld, as if +consanguineous, the modes of address and treatment which became +hereditary in families whose originals had travelled in the same +ship. These adopted uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, were so united +by common sympathies, that good or ill befalling any one of them +intensely affected the whole connection. Mutual support commensurate +with the area of their location thus became the order among these +people. At the time of the first deportation of Africans to the West +Indies to replace the aborigines who had been decimated in the mines +at Santo Domingo and in the pearl fisheries of the South Caribbean, +the circumstances of the Spanish settlers in the Antilles were of +singular, even romantic, interest. + +The enthusiasm which overflowed from the crusades and the Moorish +wars, upon the discovery and conquest of America, had occasioned +[242] the peopling of the Western Archipelago by a race of men in +whom the daring of freebooters was strangely blended with a fierce +sort of religiousness. As holders of slaves, these men recognized, +and endeavoured to their best to give effect to, the humane +injunctions of Bishop Las Casas. The Negroes, therefore, male and +female, were promptly presented for admission by baptism into the +Catholic Church, which always had stood open and ready to welcome +them. The relations of god-father and god-mother resulting from +these baptismal functions had a most important bearing on the +reciprocal stations of master and slave. The god-children were, +according to ecclesiastical custom, considered in every sense +entitled to all the protection and assistance which were within the +competence of the god-parents, who, in their turn, received from the +former the most absolute submission. It is easy to see that the +planters, as well as those intimately connected with them, in +assuming such obligations with their concomitant responsibilities, +practically entered into bonds which they all regarded as, if +possible, more solemn than the natural ties of secular parentage. +The duty [243] of providing for these dependents usually took the +shape of their being apprenticed to, and trained in the various arts +and vocations that constitute the life of civilization. In many +cases, at the death of their patrons, the bondsmen who were deemed +most worthy were, according to the means of the testator, provided +for in a manner lifting them above the necessity of future +dependence. Manumission, too, either by favour or through purchase, +was allowed the fullest operation. Here then was the active +influence of higher motives than mere greed of gain or the pride of +racial power mellowing the lot and gilding the future prospects of +the dwellers in the tropical house of bondage. + +The next, and even more effectual agency in modifying and harmonizing +the relations between owner and bondspeople was the inevitable +attraction of one race to the other by the sentiment of natural +affection. Out of this sprang living ties far more intimate and +binding on the moral sense than even obligations contracted in +deference to the Church. Natural impulses have often diviner sources +than ecclesiastical mandates. Obedience to the former not seldom +brings down the penalties of the Church; but [244] the culprit finds +solace in the consciousness that the offence might in itself be a +protection from the thunders it has provoked. Under these +circumstances the general body of planters, who were in the main +adventurers of the freest type, were fain to establish connections +with such of the slave-women as attracted their sympathy, through +personal comeliness or aptitude in domestic affairs, or, usually, +both combined. There was ordinarily in this beginning of the +seventeenth century no Vashti that needed expulsion from the abode of +a plantation Ahasuerus to make room for the African Esther to be +admitted to the chief place within the portals. One great natural +consequence of this was the extension to the relatives or guardians +of the bondswoman so preferred of an amount of favour which, in the +case of the more capable males, completes the parallel we have been +drawing by securing for each of them the precedence and +responsibilities of a Mordecai. The offspring of these natural +alliances came in therefore to cement more intimately the union of +interests which previous relations had generated. Beloved by their +fathers, and in many cases destined by them to a lot superior [245] +to that whereto they were entitled by formal law and social +prescription, these young procreations--Mulattos, as they were +called--were made the objects of special and careful provisions on +the fathers' part. They were, according to the means of their +fathers in the majority of cases, sent for education and training to +European or other superior institutions. After this course they were +either formally acknowledged by their fathers, or, if that was +impracticable, amply and suitably provided for in a career out of +their native colony. To a reflecting mind there is something that +interests, not to say fascinates, in studying the action and reaction +upon one another of circumstances in the existence of the Mulatto. +As a matter of fact, he had much more to complain of under the slave +system than his pure-blooded African relations. The law, by +decreeing that every child of a freeman and a slave woman must follow +the fortune of the womb, thus making him the property of his mother +exclusively, practically robbed him before his very birth of the +nurture and protection of a father. His reputed father had no +obligation to be even aware of his procreation, and nevertheless +[246] --so inscrutable are the ways of Providence!--the Mulatto was +the centre around which clustered the outraged instincts of nature in +rebellion against the desecrating mandates that prescribed treason to +herself. Law and society may decree; but in our normal humanity +there throbs a sentiment which neutralizes every external impulse +contrary to its promptings. + +In meditating on the varied history of the Negro in the United +States, since his first landing on the banks of the James River in +1619 till the Emancipation Act of President Lincoln in 1865, it is +curious to observe that the elevation of the race, though in a great +measure secured, proceeded from circumstances almost the reverse of +those that operated so favourably in the same direction elsewhere. +The men of the slave-holding States, chiefly Puritans or influenced +by Puritanic surroundings, were not under the ecclesiastical sway +which rendered possible in the West Indies and other Catholic +countries the establishment of the reciprocal bonds of god-parents +and god-children. The self-same causes operated to prevent any large +blending of the two races, inasmuch as the immigrant from Britain who +[247] had gone forth from his country to better his fortune had not +left behind him his attachment to the institutions of the mother- +land, among which marrying, whenever practicable, was one of the most +cherished. Above all, too, as another powerful check at first to +such alliances between the ruling and servile races of the States, +there existed the native idiosyncracy of the Anglo-Saxon. That class +of them who had left Britain were likelier than the more refined of +their nation to exhibit in its crudest and cruellest form the innate +jealousy and contempt of other races that pervades the Anglo-Saxon +bosom. It is but a simple fact that, whenever he condescended +thereto, familiarity with even the loveliest of the subject people +was regarded as a mighty self-unbending for which the object should +be correspondingly grateful. So there could, in the beginning, be no +frequent instances of the romantic chivalry that gilded the quasi- +marital relations of the more fervid and humane members of the Latin +stock. + +But this kind of intercourse, which in the earlier generation was +undoubtedly restricted in North America by the checks above adverted +to, and, presumably, also by the mutual unintelligibility [248] in +speech, gradually expanded with the natural increase of the slave +population. The American-born, English-speaking Negro girl, who had +in many cases been the playmate of her owner, was naturally more +intelligible, more accessible, more attractive--and the inevitable +consequence was the extension apace of that intercourse, the +offspring whereof became at length so visibly numerous. + +Among the Romans, the grandest of all colonizers, the individual's +Civis Romanus sum--I am a Roman citizen--was something more than +verbal vapouring; it was a protective talisman--a buckler no less +than a sword. Yet was the possession of this noble and singular +privilege no barrier to Roman citizens meeting on a broad +humanitarian level any alien race, either allied to or under the +protection of that world-famous commonwealth. In the speeches of the +foremost orators and statesmen among the conquerors of the then known +world, the allusions to subject or allied aliens are distinguished by +a decorous observance of the proprieties which should mark any +reference to those who had the dignity of Rome's [249] friendship, or +the privilege of her august protection. Observations, therefore, +regarding individuals of rank in these alien countries had the same +sobriety and deference which marked allusions to born Romans of +analogous degree. Such magnanimity, we grieve to say, is not +characteristic of the race which now replaces the Romans in the +colonizing leadership of the world. We read with feelings akin to +despair of the cheap, not to say derogatory, manner in which, in both +Houses of Parliament, native potentates, especially of non-European +countries, are frequently spoken of by the hereditary aristocracy and +the first gentlemen of the British Empire. The inborn racial +contempt thus manifested in quarters where rigid self-control and +decorum should form the very essence of normal deportment, was not +likely, as we have before hinted, to find any mollifying ingredient +in the settlers on the banks of the Mississippi. Therefore should we +not be surprised to find, with regard to many an illicit issue of +"down South," the arrogance of race so overmastering the promptings +of nature as to render not unfrequent at the auction-block the sight +of many a chattel of mixed blood, the offspring [250] of some planter +whom business exigency had forced to this commercial transaction as +the readiest mode of self-release. Yet were the exceptions to this +rule enough to contribute appreciably to the weight and influence of +the mixed race in the North, where education and a fair standing had +been clandestinely secured for their children by parents to whom law +and society had made it impossible to do more, and whom conscience +rendered incapable of stopping at less. + +From this comparative sketch of the history of the slaves in the +States, in the West Indies and countries adjacent, it will be +perceived that in the latter scenes of bondage everything had +conspired to render a fusion of interests between the ruling and the +servile classes not only easy, but inevitable. In the very first +generation after their introduction, the Africans began to press +upward, a movement which every decade has accelerated, in spite of +the changes which supervened as each of the Colonies fell under +British sway. Nearly two centuries had by this time elapsed, and the +coloured influence, which had grown with their wealth, education, +numbers, and unity, though [251] circumscribed by the emancipation of +the slaves, and the consequent depression in fortune of all slave- +owners, never was or could be annihilated. In the Government service +there were many for whom the patronage of god-parents or the sheer +influence of their family had effected an entrance. The prevalence +and potency of the influences we have been dilating upon may be +gauged by the fact that personages no less exalted than Governors of +various Colonies--of Trinidad in three authentic cases--have been +sharers in the prevailing usages, in the matter of standing sponsors +(by proxy), and also of relaxing in the society of some fascinating +daughter of the sun from the tension and wear of official duty. In +the three cases just referred to, the most careful provision was made +for the suitable education and starting in life of the issues. For +the god-children of Governors there were places in the public +service, and so from the highest to the lowest the humanitarian +intercourse of the classes was confirmed. + +Consequent on the frequent abandonment of their plantations by many +owners who despaired of being able to get along by paying [252] their +way, an opening was made for the insinuation of Absenteeism into our +agricultural, in short, our economic existence. The powerful sugar +lords, who had invested largely in the cane plantations, were fain to +take over and cultivate the properties which their debtors doggedly +refused to continue working, under pretext of the entire absence, or +at any rate unreliability, of labour. The representatives of those +new transatlantic estate proprietors displaced, but never could +replace, the original cultivators, who were mostly gentlemen as well +as agriculturists. It was from this overseer class that the +vituperations and slanders went forth that soon became stereotyped, +concerning the Negro's incorrigible laziness and want of ambition-- +those gentry adjusting the scale of wages, not according to the +importance and value of the labour done, but according to the +scornful estimate which they had formed of the Negro personally. And +when the wages were fixed fairly, they almost invariably sought to +indemnify themselves for their enforced justice by the insulting +license of their tongues, addressed to males and females alike. The +influence of such men on local legislation, in which they [253] had a +preponderating share, either as actual proprietors or as the +attorneys of absentees, was not in the direction of refinement or +liberality. Indeed, the kind of laws which they enacted, especially +during the apprenticeship (1834-8), is thus summarized by one, and +him an English officer, who was a visitor in those agitated days of +the Colonies:-- + +"It is demonstrated that the laws which were to come into operation +immediately on expiration of the apprenticeship are of the most +objectionable character, and fully established the fact not only of a +future intention to infringe the rights of the emancipated classes, +but of the actual commencement and extensive progress of a Colonial +system for that purpose. The object of the laws is to circumscribe +the market for free labour--to prohibit the possession or sale of +ordinary articles of produce on sale, the obvious intention of which +is to confine the emancipated classes to a course of agricultural +servitude--to give the employers a monopoly of labour, and to keep +down a free competition for wages--to create new and various modes of +apprenticeship for the purpose of prolonging predial service, +together with many evils of the [254] late system--to introduce +unnecessary restraint and coercion, the design of which is to create +a perpetual surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish +a legislative despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the +most vicious principles of legislation, and in their operation will +be found intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just +intentions of the British Legislature." + +These liberal-souled gentry were, in sooth, Mr. Froude's +"representatives" of Britain, whose traditions steadily followed in +their families, he has so well and sympathetically set forth. + +We thus see that the irritation and rancour seething in the breast of +the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then +also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished +and kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, +certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was +too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own +phrase, people of colour had by that time already "passed the lock- +jaw"* stage (at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped +the germ of their progress in the bud.) In spite of adverse +legislation, and in spite of the scandalous subservience of certain +Governors to the Colonial Legislatures, the Race can point with +thankfulness and pride to the visible records of their success +wherever they have permanently sojourned. + +Primary education of a more general and undiscriminating character, +especially as to race and colour, was secured for the bulk of the +West Indies by voluntary undertakings, and notably through the +munificent provision of Lady Mico, which extended to the whole of the +principal islands. + +Thanks to Lord Harris for introducing, and to Sir Arthur Gordon for +extending to the secondary stage, the public education of Trinidad, +there has been since Emancipation, that is, during the last thirty- +seven years, a more effective bringing together in public schools of +various grades, of children of all races and ranks. Rivals at home, +at school and college, in books as well as on the playground, they +have very frequently gone abroad together to learn the professions +they have selected. In this way there is an intercommunion between +all the [256] intelligent sections of the inhabitants, based on a +common training and the subtle sympathies usually generated in +enlightened breasts by intimate personal knowledge. In mixed +communities thus circumstanced, there is no possibility of +maintaining distinctions based on mere colour, as advocated by Mr. +Froude. + +The following brief summary by the Rev. P. H. Doughlin, Rector of St. +Clement's, Trinidad, a brilliant star among the sons of Ham, embodies +this fact in language which, so far as it goes, is as comprehensive +as it is weighty:-- + +"Who could, without seeming to insult the intelligence of men, have +predicted on the day of Emancipation that the Negroes then released +from the blight and withering influence of ten generations of cruel +bondage, so weakened and half-destroyed--so denationalized and +demoralized--so despoiled and naked, would be in the position they +are now? In spite of the proud, supercilious, and dictatorial +bearing of their teachers, in spite of the hampering of +unsympathetic, alien oversight, in spite of the spirit of dependence +and servility engendered by slavery, not only have individual members +of the race entered into all the offices of dignity in [257] Church +and State, as subalterns--as hewers of wood and drawers of water--but +they have attained to the very highest places. Here in the West +Indies, and on the West Coast of Africa, are to be found Surgeons of +the Negro Race, Solicitors, Barristers, Mayors, Councillors, +Principals and Founders of High Schools and Colleges, Editors and +Proprietors of Newspapers, Archdeacons, Bishops, Judges, and Authors- +-men who not only teach those immediately around them, but also teach +the world. Members of the race have even been entrusted with the +administration of Governments. And it is not mere commonplace men +that the Negro Race has produced. Not only have the British +Universities thought them worthy of their honorary degrees and +conferred them on them, but members of the race have won these +University degrees. A few years back a full-blooded Negro took the +highest degree Oxford has to give to a young man. The European world +is looking with wonder and admiration at the progress made by the +Negro Race--a progress unparalleled in the annals of the history of +any race." + +To this we may add that in the domain [258] of high literature the +Blacks of the United States, for the twenty-five years of social +emancipation, and despite the lingering obstructions of caste +prejudice, have positively achieved wonders. Leaving aside the +writings of men of such high calibre as F. Douglass, Dr. Hyland +Garnet, Prof. Crummell, Prof. E. Blyden, Dr. Tanner, and others, it +is gratifying to be able to chronicle the Ethiopic women of North +America as moving shoulder to shoulder with the men in the highest +spheres of literary activity. Among a brilliant band of these our +sisters, conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out +but a solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and +of giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. +The allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This +lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds +effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. +But it is as a poet that posterity will hail her in the coming ages +of our Race. For pathos, depth of spiritual insight, and magical +exercise of a rare power of self-utterance, it will hardly be +questioned that she has surpassed every competitor [259] among +females--white or black--save and except Elizabeth Barett Browning, +with whom the gifted African stands on much the same plane of poetic +excellence. + +The above summary of our past vicissitudes and actual position shows +that there is nothing in our political circumstances to occasion +uneasiness. The miserable skin and race doctrine we have been +discussing does not at all prefigure the destinies at all events of +the West Indies, or determine the motives that will affect them. +With the exception of those belonging to the Southern states of the +Union, the vast body of African descendants now dispersed in various +countries of the Western Hemisphere are at sufficient peace to begin +occupying themselves, according to some fixed programme, about +matters of racial importance. More than ten millions of Africans are +scattered over the wide area indicated, and possess amongst them +instances of mental and other qualifications which render them +remarkable among their fellow-men. But like the essential parts of a +complicated albeit perfect machine, these attainments and +qualifications so widely dispersed await, it is evident, some +potential [260] agency to collect and adjust them into the vast +engine essential for executing the true purposes of the civilized +African Race. Already, especially since the late Emancipation +Jubilee, are signs manifest of a desire for intercommunion and +intercomprehension amongst the more distinguished of our people. +With intercourse and unity of purpose will be secured the means to +carry out the obvious duties which are sure to devolve upon us, +especially with reference to the cradle of our Race, which is most +probably destined to be the ultimate resting-place and headquarters +of millions of our posterity. Within the short time that we had to +compass all that we have achieved, there could not have arisen +opportunities for doing more than we have effected. Meanwhile our +present device is: "Work, Hope, and Wait!" + +Finally, it must be borne in mind that the abolition of physical +bondage did not by any means secure all the requisite conditions of +"a fair field and no favour" for the future career of the freedmen. +The remnant of Jacob, on their return from the Captivity, were +compelled, whilst rebuilding their Temple, literally to labour with +the working tool in one hand [261] and the sword for personal defence +in the other. Even so have the conditions, figuratively, presented +themselves under which the Blacks have been obliged to rear the +fabric of self-elevation since 1838, whilst combating ceaselessly the +obstacles opposed to the realizing of their legitimate aspirations. +Mental and, in many cases, material success has been gained, but the +machinery for accumulating and applying the means required for +comprehensive racial enterprises is waiting on Providence, time, and +circumstances for its establishment and successful working. + +NOTES + +254. *"Yo te'ja passe mal machoe"--in metaphorical allusion to new- +born infants who have lived beyond a certain number of days. + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Froudacity, by J. J. 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Thomas + +BOOK I. + +Introduction: 27-33 +Voyage out: 34-41 +Barbados: 41-44 +St. Vincent: 44-48 +Grenada: 48-50 + +BOOK II. + +Trinidad: 53-55 +Reform in Trinidad: 55-80 +Negro Felicity in the West Indies: 81-110 + +BOOK III. + +Social Revolution: 113-174 +West Indian Confederation: 175-200 +The Negro as a Worker: 201-206 +Religion for Negroes: 207-230 + +BOOK IV. + +Historical Summary or Résumé: 233-261, end + + + +FROUDACITY + +PREFACE + +[5] Last year had well advanced towards its middle--in fact it was +already April, 1888--before Mr. Froude's book of travels in the West +Indies became known and generally accessible to readers in those +Colonies. + +My perusal of it in Grenada about the period above mentioned +disclosed, thinly draped with rhetorical flowers, the dark outlines +of a scheme to thwart political aspiration in the Antilles. That +project is sought to be realized by deterring the home authorities +from granting an elective local legislature, however restricted in +character, to any of the Colonies not yet enjoying such an advantage. +An argument based on the composition of the inhabitants of those +Colonies is confidently relied upon to confirm the inexorable mood of +Downing Street. + +[6] Over-large and ever-increasing,--so runs the argument,--the +African element in the population of the West Indies is, from its +past history and its actual tendencies, a standing menace to the +continuance of civilization and religion. An immediate catastrophe, +social, political, and moral, would most assuredly be brought about +by the granting of full elective rights to dependencies thus +inhabited. Enlightened statesmanship should at once perceive the +immense benefit that would ultimately result from such refusal of the +franchise. The cardinal recommendation of that refusal is that it +would avert definitively the political domination of the Blacks, +which must inevitably be the outcome of any concession of the modicum +of right so earnestly desired. The exclusion of the Negro vote being +inexpedient, if not impossible, the exercise of electoral powers by +the Blacks must lead to their returning candidates of their own race +to the local legislatures, and that, too, in numbers preponderating +according to the majority of the Negro electors. The Negro +legislators thus supreme in the councils of the Colonies would +straightway proceed to pass vindictive and retaliatory laws against +their white fellow- [7] colonists. For it is only fifty years since +the White man and the Black man stood in the reciprocal relations of +master and slave. Whilst those relations subsisted, the white +masters inflicted, and the black slaves had to endure, the hideous +atrocities that are inseparable from the system of slavery. Since +Emancipation, the enormous strides made in self-advancement by the +ex-slaves have only had the effect of provoking a resentful +uneasiness in the bosoms of the ex-masters. The former bondsmen, on +their side, and like their brethren of Hayti, are eaten up with +implacable, blood-thirsty rancour against their former lords and +owners. The annals of Hayti form quite a cabinet of political and +social object lessons which, in the eyes of British statesmen, should +be invaluable in showing the true method of dealing with Ethiopic +subjects of the Crown. The Negro race in Hayti, in order to obtain +and to guard what it calls its freedom, has outraged every humane +instinct and falsified every benevolent hope. The slave-owners there +had not been a whit more cruel than slave-owners in the other +islands. But, in spite of this, how ferocious, how sanguinary, [8] +how relentless against them has the vengeance of the Blacks been in +their hour of mastery! A century has passed away since then, and, +notwithstanding that, the hatred of Whites still rankles in their +souls, and is cherished and yielded to as a national creed and guide +of conduct. Colonial administrators of the mighty British Empire, +the lesson which History has taught and yet continues to teach you in +Hayti as to the best mode of dealing with your Ethiopic colonists +lies patent, blood-stained and terrible before you, and should be +taken definitively to heart. But if you are willing that +Civilization and Religion--in short, all the highest developments of +individual and social life--should at once be swept away by a +desolating vandalism of African birth; if you do not recoil from the +blood-guiltiness that would stain your consciences through the +massacre of our fellow-countrymen in the West Indies, on account of +their race, complexion and enlightenment; finally, if you desire +those modern Hesperides to revert into primeval jungle, horrent lairs +wherein the Blacks, who, but a short while before, had been +ostensibly civilized, shall be revellers, as high-priests and [9] +devotees, in orgies of devil-worship, cannibalism, and obeah--dare to +give the franchise to those West Indian Colonies, and then rue the +consequences of your infatuation! . . . + +Alas, if the foregoing summary of the ghastly imaginings of Mr. +Froude were true, in what a fool's paradise had the wisest and best +amongst us been living, moving, and having our being! Up to the date +of the suggestion by him as above of the alleged facts and +possibilities of West Indian life, we had believed (even granting the +correctness of his gloomy account of the past and present positions +of the two races) that to no well-thinking West Indian White, whose +ancestors may have, innocently or culpably, participated in the gains +as well as the guilt of slavery, would the remembrance of its palmy +days be otherwise than one of regret. We Negroes, on the other hand, +after a lapse of time extending over nearly two generations, could be +indebted only to precarious tradition or scarcely accessible +documents for any knowledge we might chance upon of the sufferings +endured in these Islands of the West by those of our race who have +gone before us. Death, with undiscriminating hand, had gathered [10] +in the human harvest of masters and slaves alike, according to or out +of the normal laws of nature; while Time had been letting down on the +stage of our existence drop-scene after drop-scene of years, to the +number of something like fifty, which had been curtaining off the +tragic incidents of the past from the peaceful activities of the +present. Being thus circumstanced, thought we, what rational +elements of mutual hatred should now continue to exist in the bosoms +of the two races? + +With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, because of our +oneness with its inhabitants in origin and complexion, as a criterion +for the exact forecast of our future conduct under given +circumstances, this appeared to us, looking at actual facts, +perversity gone wild in the manufacture of analogies. The founders +of the Black Republic, we had all along understood, were not in any +sense whatever equipped, as Mr. Froude assures us they were, when +starting on their self-governing career, with the civil and +intellectual advantages that had been transplanted from Europe. On +the contrary, we had been taught to regard them as most unfortunate +in the circumstances under which [11] they so gloriously conquered +their merited freedom. We saw them free, but perfectly illiterate +barbarians, impotent to use the intellectual resources of which their +valour had made them possessors, in the shape of books on the spirit +and technical details of a highly developed national existence. We +had learnt also, until this new interpreter of history had +contradicted the accepted record, that the continued failure of Hayti +to realize the dreams of Toussaint was due to the fatal want of +confidence subsisting between the fairer and darker sections of the +inhabitants, which had its sinister and disastrous origin in the +action of the Mulattoes in attempting to secure freedom for +themselves, in conjunction with the Whites, at the sacrifice of their +darker-hued kinsmen. Finally, it had been explained to us that the +remembrance of this abnormal treason had been underlying and +perniciously influencing the whole course of Haytian national +history. All this established knowledge we are called upon to throw +overboard, and accept the baseless assertions of this conjuror-up of +inconceivable fables! He calls upon us to believe that, in spite of +being free, educated, progressive, and at peace with [12] all men, we +West Indian Blacks, were we ever to become constitutionally dominant +in our native islands, would emulate in savagery our Haytian fellow- +Blacks who, at the time of retaliating upon their actual masters, +were tortured slaves, bleeding and rendered desperate under the +oppressors' lash--and all this simply and merely because of the +sameness of our ancestry and the colour of our skin! One would have +thought that Liberia would have been a fitter standard of comparison +in respect of a coloured population starting a national life, really +and truly equipped with the requisites and essentials of civilized +existence. But such a reference would have been fatal to Mr. +Froude's object: the annals of Liberia being a persistent refutation +of the old pro-slavery prophecies which our author so feelingly +rehearses. + +Let us revert, however, to Grenada and the newly-published "Bow of +Ulysses," which had come into my hands in April, 1888. + +It seemed to me, on reading that book, and deducing therefrom the +foregoing essential summary, that a critic would have little more to +do, in order to effectually exorcise this negrophobic political +hobgoblin, than to appeal to [13] impartial history, as well as to +common sense, in its application to human nature in general, and to +the actual facts of West Indian life in particular. + +History, as against the hard and fast White-master and Black-slave +theory so recklessly invented and confidently built upon by Mr. +Froude, would show incontestably--(a) that for upwards of two hundred +years before the Negro Emancipation, in 1838, there had never existed +in one of those then British Colonies, which had been originally +discovered and settled for Spain by the great Columbus or by his +successors, the Conquistadores, any prohibition whatsoever, on the +ground of race or colour, against the owning of slaves by any free +person possessing the necessary means, and desirous of doing so; (b) +that, as a consequence of this non-restriction, and from causes +notoriously historical, numbers of blacks, half-breeds, and other +non-Europeans, besides such of them as had become possessed of their +"property" by inheritance, availed themselves of this virtual +license, and in course of time constituted a very considerable +proportion of the slave-holding section of those communities; (c) +that these [14] dusky plantation-owners enjoyed and used in every +possible sense the identical rights and privileges which were enjoyed +and used by their pure-blooded Caucasian brother-slaveowners. The +above statements are attested by written documents, oral tradition, +and, better still perhaps, by the living presence in those islands of +numerous lineal representatives of those once opulent and flourishing +non-European planter-families. + +Common sense, here stepping in, must, from the above data, deduce +some such conclusions as the following. First that, on the +hypothesis that the slaves who were freed in 1838--full fifty years +ago--were all on an average fifteen years old, those vengeful ex- +slaves of to-day will be all men of sixty-five years of age; and, +allowing for the delay in getting the franchise, somewhat further +advanced towards the human life-term of threescore and ten years. +Again, in order to organize and carry out any scheme of legislative +and social retaliation of the kind set forth in the "Bow of Ulysses," +there must be (which unquestionably there is not) a considerable, +well-educated, and very influential number surviving of those who had +actually [15] been in bondage. Moreover, the vengeance of these +people (also assuming the foregoing nonexistent condition) would +have, in case of opportunity, to wreak itself far more largely and +vigorously upon members of their own race than upon Whites, seeing +that the increase of the Blacks, as correctly represented in the "Bow +of Ulysses," is just as rapid as the diminution of the White +population. And therefore, Mr. Froude's "Danger-to-the-Whites" cry +in support of his anti-reform manifesto would not appear, after all, +to be quite so justifiable as he possibly thinks. + +Feeling keenly that something in the shape of the foregoing programme +might be successfully worked up for a public defence of the maligned +people, I disregarded the bodily and mental obstacles that have beset +and clouded my career during the last twelve years, and cheerfully +undertook the task, stimulated thereto by what I thought weighty +considerations. I saw that no representative of Her Majesty's +Ethiopic West Indian subjects cared to come forward to perform this +work in the more permanent shape that I felt to be not only desirable +but essential for our self-vindication. [16] I also realized the +fact that the "Bow of Ulysses" was not likely to have the same +ephemeral existence and effect as the newspaper and other periodical +discussions of its contents, which had poured from the press in Great +Britain, the United States, and very notably, of course, in all the +English Colonies of the Western Hemisphere. In the West Indian +papers the best writers of our race had written masterly refutations, +but it was clear how difficult the task would be in future to procure +and refer to them whenever occasion should require. Such +productions, however, fully satisfied those qualified men of our +people, because they were legitimately convinced (even as I myself am +convinced) that the political destinies of the people of colour could +not run one tittle of risk from anything that it pleased Mr. Froude +to write or say on the subject. But, meditating further on the +question, the reflection forced itself upon me that, beyond the mere +political personages in the circle more directly addressed by Mr. +Froude's volume, there were individuals whose influence or possible +sympathy we could not afford to disregard, or to esteem lightly. So +I deemed it right and a patriotic duty to attempt [17] the enterprise +myself, in obedience to the above stated motives. + +At this point I must pause to express on behalf of the entire +coloured population of the West Indies our most heartfelt +acknowledgments to Mr. C. Salmon for the luminous and effective +vindication of us, in his volume on "West Indian Confederation," +against Mr. Froude's libels. The service thus rendered by Mr. Salmon +possesses a double significance and value in my estimation. In the +first place, as being the work of a European of high position, quite +independent of us (who testifies concerning Negroes, not through +having gazed at them from balconies, decks of steamers, or the seats +of moving carriages, but from actual and long personal intercourse +with them, which the internal evidence of his book plainly proves to +have been as sympathetic as it was familiar), and, secondly, as the +work of an individual entirely outside of our race, it has been +gratefully accepted by myself as an incentive to self-help, on the +same more formal and permanent lines, in a matter so important to the +status which we can justly claim as a progressive, law-abiding, and +self-respecting section of Her Majesty's liege subjects. + +[18] It behoves me now to say a few words respecting this book as a +mere literary production. + +Alexander Pope, who, next to Shakespeare and perhaps Butler, was the +most copious contributor to the current stock of English maxims, +says: + + "True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, + As those move easiest who have learnt to dance." + +A whole dozen years of bodily sickness and mental tribulation have +not been conducive to that regularity of practice in composition +which alone can ensure the "true ease" spoken of by the poet; and +therefore is it that my style leaves so much to be desired, and +exhibits, perhaps, still, more to be pardoned. Happily, a quarrel +such as ours with the author of "The English in the West Indies" +cannot be finally or even approximately settled on the score of +superior literary competency, whether of aggressor or defender. I +feel free to ignore whatever verdict might be grounded on a +consideration so purely artificial. There ought to be enough, if not +in these pages, at any rate in whatever else I have heretofore +published, that should prove me not so hopelessly stupid and wanting +in [19] self-respect, as would be implied by my undertaking a contest +in artistic phrase-weaving with one who, even among the foremost of +his literary countrymen, is confessedly a master in that craft. The +judges to whom I do submit our case are those Englishmen and others +whose conscience blends with their judgment, and who determine such +questions as this on their essential rightness which has claim to the +first and decisive consideration. For much that is irregular in the +arrangement and sequence of the subject-matter, some blame fairly +attaches to our assailant. The erratic manner in which lie launches +his injurious statements against the hapless Blacks, even in the +course of passages which no more led up to them than to any other +section of mankind, is a very notable feature of his anti-Negro +production. As he frequently repeats, very often with cynical +aggravations, his charges and sinister prophecies against the sable +objects of his aversion, I could see no other course open to me than +to take him up on the points whereto I demurred, exactly how, when, +and where I found them. + +My purpose could not be attained up without direct mention of, or +reference to, certain public [20] employés in the Colonies whose +official conduct has often been the subject of criticism in the +public press of the West Indies. Though fully aware that such +criticism has on many occasions been much more severe than my own +strictures, yet, it being possible that some special responsibility +may attach to what I here reproduce in a more permanent shape, I most +cheerfully accept, in the interests of public justice, any +consequence which may result. + +A remark or two concerning the publication of this rejoinder. It has +been hinted to me that the issue of it has been too long delayed to +secure for it any attention in England, owing to the fact that the +West Indies are but little known, and of less interest, to the +generality of English readers. Whilst admitting, as in duty bound, +the possible correctness of this forecast, and regretting the oft- +recurring hindrances which occasioned such frequent and, sometimes, +long suspension of my labour; and noting, too, the additional delay +caused through my unacquaintance with English publishing usages, I +must, notwithstanding, plead guilty to a lurking hope that some small +fraction of Mr. Froude's readers will yet be found, [21] whose +interest in the West Indies will be temporarily revived on behalf of +this essay, owing to its direct bearing on Mr. Froude and his +statements relative to these Islands, contained in his recent book of +travels in them. This I am led to hope will be more particularly the +case when it is borne in mind that the rejoinder has been attempted +by a member of that very same race which he has, with such eloquent +recklessness of all moral considerations, held up to public contempt +and disfavour. In short, I can scarcely permit myself to believe it +possible that concern regarding a popular author, on his being +questioned by an adverse critic of however restricted powers, can be +so utterly dead within a twelvemonth as to be incapable of +rekindling. Mr. Froude's "Oceana," which had been published long +before its author voyaged to the West Indies, in order to treat the +Queen's subjects there in the same more than questionable fashion as +that in which he had treated those of the Southern Hemisphere, had +what was in the main a formal rejoinder to its misrepresentations +published only three months ago in this city. I venture to believe +that no serious work in defence of an [22] important cause or +community can lose much, if anything, of its intrinsic value through +some delay in its issue; especially when written in the vindication +of Truth, whose eternal principles are beyond and above the influence +of time and its changes. + +At any rate, this attempt to answer some of Mr. Froude's main +allegations against the people of the West Indies cannot fail to be +of grave importance and lively interest to the inhabitants of those +Colonies. In this opinion I am happy in being able to record the +full concurrence of a numerous and influential body of my fellow-West +Indians, men of various races, but united in detestation of falsehood +and injustice. + +J.J.T. + +LONDON, June, 1889. + + + +BOOK I: INTRODUCTION + +[27] Like the ancient hero, one of whose warlike equipments furnishes +the complementary title of his book, the author of "The English in +the West Indies; or, The Bow of Ulysses," sallied forth from his home +to study, if not cities, at least men (especially black men), and +their manners in the British Antilles. + +James Anthony Froude is, beyond any doubt whatever, a very +considerable figure in modern English literature. It has, however, +for some time ceased to be a question whether his acceptability, to +the extent which it reaches, has not been due rather to the verbal +attractiveness than to the intrinsic value and trustworthiness of his +opinions and teachings. In fact, so far as a judgment can be formed +from examined specimens of his writings, it appears that our [28] +author is the bond-slave of his own phrases. To secure an artistic +perfection of style, he disregards all obstacles, not only those +presented by the requirements of verity, but such as spring from any +other kind of consideration whatsoever. The doubt may safely be +entertained whether, among modern British men of letters, there be +one of equal capability who, in the interest of the happiness of his +sentences, so cynically sacrifices what is due not only to himself as +a public instructor, but also to that public whom he professes to +instruct. Yet, as the too evident plaything of an over-permeable +moral constitution, he might set up some plea in explanation of his +ethical vagaries. He might urge, for instance, that the high culture +of which his books are all so redolent has utterly failed to imbue +him with the nil admirari sentiment, which Horace commends as the +sole specific for making men happy and keeping them so. For, as a +matter of fact, and with special reference to the work we have +undertaken to discuss, Mr. Froude, though cynical in his general +utterances regarding Negroes-of the male sex, be it noted-is, in the +main, all extravagance and self-abandonment whenever he [29] brings +an object of his arbitrary likes or dislikes under discussion. At +such times he is no observer, much less worshipper, of proportion in +his delineations. Thorough-paced, scarcely controllable, his +enthusiasm for or against admits no degree in its expression, save +and except the superlative. Hence Mr. Froude's statement of facts +or description of phenomena, whenever his feelings are enlisted +either way, must be taken with the proverbial "grain of salt" by all +when enjoying the luxury of perusing his books. So complete is his +self-identification with the sect or individual for the time being +engrossing his sympathy, that even their personal antipathies are +made his own; and the hostile language, often exaggerated and unjust, +in which those antipathies find vent, secures in his more chastened +mode of utterance an exact reproduction none the less injurious +because divested of grossness. + +Of this special phase of self-manifestation a typical instance is +afforded at page 164, under the heading of "Dominica," in a passage +which at once embraces and accentuates the whole spirit and method of +the work. To a eulogium of the professional skill and successful +[30] agricultural enterprise of Dr. Nichol, a medical officer of +that Colony, with whom he became acquainted for the first time during +his short stay there, our author travels out of his way to tack on a +gratuitous and pointless sneer at the educational competency of all +the elected members of the island legislature, among whom, he tells +us, the worthy doctor had often tried in vain to obtain a place. His +want of success, our author informs his readers, was brought about +through Dr. Nichol "being the only man in the Colony of superior +attainments." Persons acquainted with the stormy politics of that +lovely little island do not require to be informed that the bitterest +animosity had for years been raging between Dr. Nichol and some of +the elected members-a fact which our author chose characteristically +to regard as justifying an onslaught by himself on the whole of that +section of which the foes of his new friend formed a prominent part. + +Swayed by the above specified motives, our author also manages to see +much that is, and always has been, invisible to mortal eye, and to +fail to hear what is audible to and remarked upon by every other +observer. + +[31] Thus we find him (p. 56) describing the Grenada Carenage as +being surrounded by forest trees, causing its waters to present a +violet tint; whilst every one familiar with that locality knows that +there are no forest trees within two miles of the object which they +are so ingeniously made to colour. Again, and aptly illustrating the +influence of his prejudices on his sense of hearing, we will notice +somewhat more in detail the following assertion respecting the speech +of the gentry of Barbados:-- + +"The language of the Anglo-Barbadians was pure English, the voices +without the smallest transatlantic intonation." + +Now it so happens that no Barbadian born and bred, be he gentle or +simple, can, on opening his lips, avoid the fate of Peter of Galilee +when skulking from the peril of a detected nationality: "Thy speech +bewrayeth thee!" It would, however, be prudent on this point to take +the evidence of other Englishmen, whose testimony is above suspicion, +seeing that they were free from the moral disturbance that affected +Mr. Froude's auditory powers. G. J. Chester, in his +"Transatlantic Sketches" (page 95), deposes as follows- + +[32] "But worse, far worse than the colour, both of men and women, is +their voice and accent. Well may Coleridge enumerate among the pains +of the West Indies, 'the yawny-drawny way in which men converse.' +The soft, whining drawl is simply intolerable. Resemble the worst +Northern States woman's accent it may in some degree, but it has not +a grain of its vigour. A man tells you, 'if you can speer it, to +send a beerer with a bottle of bare,' and the clergyman excruciates +you by praying in church, 'Speer us, good Lord.' The English +pronunciation of A and E is in most words transposed. Barbados has a +considerable number of provincialisms of dialect. Some of these, as +the constant use of 'Mistress' for 'Mrs.,' are interesting as +archaisms, or words in use in the early days of the Colony, and which +have never died out of use. Others are Yankeeisms or vulgarisms; +others, again, such as the expression 'turning cuffums,' i.e. +summersets, from cuffums, a species of fish, seem to be of local +origin." + +In a note hereto appended, the author gives a list of English words +of peculiar use and acceptation in Barbados. + +[33] To the same effect writes Anthony Trollope: + +"But if the black people differ from their brethren of the other +islands, so certainly do the white people. One soon learns to know-- +a Bim. That is the name in which they themselves delight, and +therefore, though there is a sound of slang about it, I give it here. +One certainly soon learns to know a Bim. The most peculiar +distinction is in his voice. There is always a nasal twang about it, +but quite distinct from the nasality of a Yankee. The Yankee's word +rings sharp through his nose; not so that of the first-class Bim. +There is a soft drawl about it, and the sound is seldom completely +formed. The effect on the ear is the same as that on the hand when a +man gives you his to shake, and instead of shaking yours, holds his +own still, &c., &c." ("The West Indies," p. 207). + +From the above and scores of other authoritative testimonies which +might have been cited to the direct contrary of our traveller's tale +under this head, we can plainly perceive that Mr. Froude's love is +not only blind, but adder-deaf as well. We shall now contemplate him +under circumstances where his feelings are quite other than those of +a partisan. + + + +BOOK I: VOYAGE OUT + +[34] That Mr. Froude, despite his professions to the contrary, did +not go out on his explorations unhampered by prejudices, seems clear +enough from the following quotation:-- + +"There was a small black boy among us, evidently of pure blood, for +his hair was wool and his colour black as ink. His parents must have +been well-to-do, for the boy had been to Europe to be educated. The +officers on board and some of the ladies played with him as they +would play with a monkey. He had little more sense than a monkey, +perhaps less, and the gestures of him grinning behind gratings and +perching out his long thin arms between the bars were curiously +suggestive of the original from whom we are told now that all of us +came. The worst of it was that, being lifted above his own people, +he had been taught to despise them. He was spoilt as a black and +could not be made into a white, and this I found afterwards was the +invariable and dangerous consequence whenever a superior negro +contrived to raise himself. He might do well enough himself, but his +family feel their blood as degradation. His [35] children will not +marry among their own people, and not only will no white girl marry a +negro, but hardly any dowry can be large enough to tempt a West +Indian white to make a wife of a black lady. This is one of the most +sinister features in the present state of social life there." + +We may safely assume that the playing of "the officers on board and +some of the ladies" with the boy, "as they would play with a monkey," +is evidently a suggestion of Mr. Froude's own soul, as well as the +resemblance to the simian tribe which he makes out from the frolics +of the lad. Verily, it requires an eye rendered more than +microscopic by prejudice to discern the difference between the +gambols of juveniles of any colour under similar conditions. It is +true that it might just be the difference between the friskings of +white lambs and the friskings of lambs that are not white. That any +black pupil should be taught to despise his own people through being +lifted above them by education, seems a reckless statement, and far +from patriotic withal; inasmuch as the education referred to here was +European, and the place from which it was obtained presumably +England. At all events, [36] the difference among educated black men +in deportment towards their unenlightened fellow-blacks, can be +proved to have nothing of that cynicism which often marks the bearing +of Englishmen in an analogous case with regard to their less favoured +countrymen. The statement that a black person can be "spoilt" for +such by education, whilst he cannot be made white, is one of the +silly conceits which the worship of the skin engenders in ill- +conditioned minds. No sympathy should be wasted on the negro +sufferer from mortification at not being able to "change his skin." +The Ethiopian of whatever shade of colour who is not satisfied with +being such was never intended to be more than a mere living figure. +Mr. Froude further confidently states that whilst a superior Negro +"might do well himself," yet "his family feel their blood as a +degradation." If there be some who so feel, they are indeed very +much to be pitied; but their sentiments are not entitled to the +serious importance with which our critic has invested them. But is +it at all conceivable that a people whose sanity has never in any way +been questioned would strain every nerve to secure for their +offspring a [37] distinction the consequence of which to themselves +would be a feeling of their own abasement? The poor Irish peasant who +toils and starves to secure for his eldest son admission into the +Catholic priesthood, has a far other feeling than one of humiliation +when contemplating that son eventually as the spiritual director of a +congregation and parish. Similarly, the laudable ambition which, in +the case of a humble Scotch matron, is expressed in the wish and +exertion to see her Jamie or Geordie "wag his pow in the pou'pit," +produces, when realized, salutary effects in the whole family +connection. These effects, which Mr. Froude would doubtless allow +and commend in their case, he finds it creditable to ignore the very +possibility of in the experience of people whose cuticle is not +white. It is, however, but bare justice to say that, as Negroes are +by no means deficient in self-love and the tenderness of natural +affection, such gratifying fulfilment of a family's hopes exerts an +elevating and, in many cases, an ennobling influence on every one +connected with the fortunate household. Nor, from the eminently +sympathetic nature of the African race, are the near friends of a +family [38] unbenefited in a similar way. This is true, and +distinctively human; but, naturally, no apologist of Negro +depreciation would admit the reasonableness of applying to the +affairs of Negroes the principles of common equity, or even of common +sense. To sum up practically our argument on this head, we shall +suppose West Indians to be called upon to imagine that the less +distinguished relations respectively of, say, the late Solicitor- +General of Trinidad and the present Chief Justice of Barbados could +be otherwise than legitimately elated at the conspicuous position won +by a member of their own household. + +Mr. Froude further ventures to declare, in this connection, that the +children of educated coloured folk "will not marry among their own +people." Will he tell us, then, whom the daughters marry, or if they +ever do marry at all, since he asserts, with regard to West Indian +Whites, that "hardly any dowry can be large enough to tempt them to +make a wife of a black lady"? Our author evidently does not feel or +care that the suggestion he here induces is a hideous slander against +a large body of respectable people of whose affairs he is absolutely +ignorant. Full [39] of the "go" imparted to his talk by a +consciousness of absolute license with regard to Negroes, our +dignified narrator makes the parenthetical assertion that no white +girl (in the West Indies) will "marry a Negro." But has he been +informed that cases upon cases have occurred in those Colonies, and +in very high "Anglo-West Indian" families too, where the social +degradation of being married to Negroes has been avoided by the +alternative of forming base private connections even with menials of +that race? + +The marrying of a black wife, on the other hand, by a West Indian +White was an event of frequent occurrence at a period in regard to +which our historian seems to be culpably uninformed. In slavery +days, when all planters, black and white alike, were fused in a +common solidarity of interests, the skin-distinction which Mr. Froude +so strenuously advocates, and would fain risk so much to promote, did +not, so far as matrimony was concerned, exist in the degree that it +now does. Self-interest often dictated such unions, especially on +the part of in-coming Whites desiring to strengthen their position +and to increase their influence in [40] the land of their adoption by +means of advantageous Creole marriages. Love, too, sheer +uncalculating love, impelled not a few Whites to enter the hymeneal +state with the dusky captivators of their affections. When rich, the +white planter not seldom paid for such gratification of his laudable +impulse by accepting exclusion from "Society"--and when poor, he +incurred almost invariably his dismissal from employment. Of course, +in all cases of the sort the dispensers of such penalties were +actuated by high motives which, nevertheless, did not stand in the +way of their meeting, in the households of the persons thus obnoxious +to punishment, the same or even a lower class of Ethiopic damsels, +under the title of "housekeeper," on whom they lavished a very +plethora of caresses. Perhaps it may be wrong so to hint it, but, +judging from indications in his own book, our author himself would +have been liable in those days to enthralment by the piquant charms +that proved irresistible to so many of his brother-Europeans. It is +almost superfluous to repeat that the skin-discriminating policy +induced as regards the coloured subjects of the Queen since the [41] +abolition of slavery did not, and could not, operate when coloured +and white stood on the same high level as slave-owners and ruling +potentates in the Colonies. Of course, when the administrative power +passed entirely into the hands of British officials, their colonial +compatriots coalesced with them, and found no loss in being in the +good books of the dominant personages. + +In conclusion of our remarks upon the above extracts, it may be +stated that the blending of the races is not a burning question. "It +can keep," as Mr. Bright wittily said with regard to a subject of +similar urgency. Time and Nature might safely be left uninterfered +with to work out whatever social development of this kind is in store +for the world and its inhabitants. + + + +BOOK I: BARBADOS + +[41] Our distinguished voyager visited many of the British West +Indies, landing first at Barbados, his social experience whereof is +set forth in a very agreeable account. Our immediate business, +however, is not with what West Indian hospitality, especially among +the well-to-do classes, can and does accomplish for [42] the +entertainment of visitors, and particularly visitors so eminent as +Mr. Froude. We are concerned with what Mr. Froude has to say +concerning our dusky brethren and sisters in those Colonies. We +have, thus, much pleasure in being able at the outset to extract the +following favourable verdict of his respecting them--premising, at +the same time, that the balcony from which Mr. Froude surveyed the +teeming multitude in Bridgetown was that of a grand hotel at which he +had, on invitation, partaken of the refreshing beverage mentioned in +the citation:-- + +"Cocktail over, and walking in the heat of the sun being a thing not +to be thought of, I sat for two hours in the balcony, watching the +people, who were as thick as bees in swarming time. Nine-tenths of +them were pure black. You rarely saw a white face, but still less +would you see a discontented one, imperturbable good humour and self- +satisfaction being written on the features of every one. The women +struck me especially. They were smartly dressed in white calico, +scrupulously clean, and tricked out with ribands and feathers; but +their figures were so good, and they carried themselves so [43] well +and gracefully, that although they might make themselves absurd, they +could not look vulgar. Like the Greek and Etruscan women, they are +trained from childhood to carry weights on their heads. They are +thus perfectly upright, and plant their feet firmly and naturally on +the ground. They might serve for sculptors' models, and are well +aware of it." + +Regarding the other sex, Mr. Froude says:-- + +"The men were active enough, driving carts, wheeling barrows, and +selling flying-fish," &c. + +He also speaks with candour of the entire absence of drunkenness and +quarrelling and the agreeable prevalence of good humour and light- +heartedness among them. Some critic might, on reading the above +extract from our author's account of the men, be tempted to ask--"But +what is the meaning of that little word 'enough' occurring therein?" +We should be disposed to hazard a suggestion that Mr. Froude, being +fair-minded and loyal to truth, as far as is compatible with his +sympathy for his hapless "Anglo-West Indians," could not give an +entirely ungrudging testimony in favour of the possible, nay +probable, voters by whose suffrages the supremacy of the Dark [44] +Parliament will be ensured, and the relapse into obeahism, devil- +worship, and children-eating be inaugurated. Nevertheless, Si sic +omnia dixisset--if he had said all things thus! Yes, if Mr. Froude +had, throughout his volume, spoken in this strain, his occasional +want of patience and fairness with regard to our male kindred might +have found condonation in his even more than chivalrous appreciation +of our womankind. But it has been otherwise. So we are forced to +try conclusions with him in the arena of his own selection-- +unreflecting spokesman that he is of British colonialism, which, we +grieve to learn through Mr. Froude's pages, has, like the Bourbon +family, not only forgotten nothing, but, unfortunately for its own +peace, learnt nothing also. + + + +BOOK I: ST. VINCENT + +[44] The following are the words in which our traveller embodies the +main motive and purpose of his voyage:-- + +"My own chief desire was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what +they were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking +about. . . ." + +[45] But, alas, with the mercurialism of temperament in which he has +thought proper to indulge when only Negroes and Europeans not of +"Anglo-West Indian" tendencies were concerned, he jauntily threw to +the winds all the scruples and cautious minuteness which were +essential to the proper execution of his project. At Barbados, as we +have seen, he satisfies himself with sitting aloft, at a balcony- +window, to contemplate the movements of the sable throng below, of +whose character, moral and political, he nevertheless professes to +have become a trustworthy delineator. From the above-quoted account +of his impressions of the external traits and deportment of the +Ethiopic folk thus superficially gazed at, our author passes on to an +analysis of their mental and moral idiosyncrasies, and other intimate +matters, which the very silence of the book as to his method of +ascertaining them is a sufficient proof that his knowledge in their +regard has not been acquired directly and at first hand. Nor need we +say that the generally adverse cast of his verdicts on what he had +been at no pains to study for himself points to the "hostileness" of +the witnesses whose [46] testimony alone has formed the basis of his +conclusions. Throughout Mr. Froude's tour in the British Colonies +his intercourse was exclusively with "Anglo-West Indians," whose +aversion to the Blacks he has himself, perhaps they would think +indiscreetly, placed on record. In no instance do we find that he +condescended to visit the abode of any Negro, whether it was the +mansion of a gentleman or the hut of a peasant of that race. The +whole tenor of the book indicates his rigid adherence to this one- +sided course, and suggests also that, as a traveller, Mr. Froude +considers maligning on hearsay to be just as convenient as reporting +facts elicited by personal investigation. Proceed we, however, to +strengthen our statement regarding his definitive abandonment, and +that without any apparent reason, of the plan he had professedly laid +down for himself at starting, and failing which no trustworthy data +could have been obtained concerning the character and disposition of +the people about whom he undertakes to thoroughly enlighten his +readers. Speaking of St. Vincent, where he arrived immediately after +leaving Barbados, our author says:-- + +[47] "I did not land, for the time was short, and as a beautiful +picture the island was best seen from the deck. The characteristics +of the people are the same in all the Antilles, and could be studied +elsewhere." + +Now, it is a fact, patent and notorious, that "the characteristics of +the people are" not "the same in all the Antilles." A man of Mr. +Froude's attainments, whose studies have made him familiar with +ethnological facts, must be aware that difference of local +surroundings and influences does, in the course of time, inevitably +create difference of characteristic and deportment. Hence there is +in nearly every Colony a marked dissimilarity of native qualities +amongst the Negro inhabitants, arising not only from the causes above +indicated, but largely also from the great diversity of their African +ancestry. We might as well be told that because the nations of +Europe are generally white and descended from Japhet, they could be +studied one by the light derived from acquaintance with another. We +venture to declare that, unless a common education from youth has +been shared by them, the Hamitic inhabitants of one island have very +little in common with [48] those of another, beyond the dusky skin +and woolly hair. In speech, character, and deportment, a coloured +native of Trinidad differs as much from one of Barbados as a North +American black does from either, in all the above respects. + + + +BOOK I: GRENADA + +[48] In Grenada, the next island he arrived at, our traveller's +procedure with regard to the inhabitants was very similar. There he +landed in the afternoon, drove three or four miles inland to dine at +the house of a "gentleman who was a passing resident," returned in +the dark to his ship, and started for Trinidad. In the course of +this journey back, however, as he sped along in the carriage, Mr. +Froude found opportunity to look into the people's houses along the +way, where, he tells us, he "could see and was astonished to observe +signs of comfort, and even signs of taste--armchairs, sofas, side- +boards with cut-glass upon them, engravings and coloured prints upon +the walls." As a result of this nocturnal examination, à vol +d'oiseau, he has written paragraph upon paragraph about the people's +character [49] and prospects in the island of Grenada. To read the +patronizing terms in which our historian-traveller has seen fit to +comment on Grenada and its people, one would believe that his account +is of some half-civilized, out-of-the-way region under British sway, +and inhabited chiefly by a horde of semi-barbarian ignoramuses of +African descent. If the world had not by this time thoroughly +assessed the intrinsic value of Mr. Froude's utterances, one who +knows Grenada might have felt inclined to resent his causeless +depreciation of the intellectual capacity of its inhabitants; but +considering the estimate which has been pretty generally formed of +his historical judgment, Mr. Froude may be dismissed, as regards +Grenada and its people, with a certain degree of scepticism. Such +scepticism, though lost upon himself, is unquestionably needful to +protect his readers from the hallucination which the author's +singular contempt for accuracy is but too liable to induce. + +Those who know Grenada and its affairs are perfectly familiar with +the fact that all of its chief intellectual business, whether +official (even in the highest degree, such as temporary [50] +administration of the government), legal, commercial, municipal, +educational, or journalistic, has been for years upon years carried +on by men of colour. And what, as a consequence of this fact, has +the world ever heard in disparagement of Grenada throughout this long +series of years? Assuredly not a syllable. On the contrary, she has +been the theme of praise, not only for the admirable foresight with +which she avoided the sugar crisis, so disastrous to her sister +islands, but also for the pluck and persistence shown in sustaining +herself through an agricultural emergency brought about by commercial +reverses, whereby the steady march of her sons in self-advancement +was only checked for a time, but never definitively arrested. In +fine, as regards every branch of civilized employment pursued there, +the good people of Grenada hold their own so well and worthily that +any show of patronage, even from a source more entitled to +confidence, would simply be a piece of obtrusive kindness, not +acceptable to any, seeing that it is required by none. + + + +BOOK II: TRINIDAD / TRINIDAD AND REFORM+ + +[53] Mr. Froude, crossing the ninety miles of the Caribbean Sea lying +between Grenada and Trinidad, lands next morning in Port of Spain, +the chief city of that "splendid colony," as Governor Irving, its +worst ruler, truly calls it in his farewell message to the +Legislature. Regarding Port of Spain in particular, Mr. Froude is +positively exuberant in the display of the peculiar qualities that +distinguish him, and which we have already admitted. Ecstatic praise +and groundless detraction go hand in hand, bewildering to any one not +possessed of the key to the mystery of the art of blowing hot and +cold, which Mr. Froude so startlingly exemplifies. As it is our +purpose to make what he says concerning this Colony the crucial test +of his veracity as a writer of travels, [54] and also of the value of +his judgments respecting men and things, we shall first invite the +reader's attention to the following extracts, with our discussion +thereof:-- + +"On landing we found ourselves in a large foreign-looking town, Port +of Spain having been built by French and Spaniards according to their +national tendencies, and especially with a view to the temperature, +which is that of a forcing house, and rarely falls below 80°. The +streets are broad, and are planted with trees for shade, each house +where room permits having a garden of its own, with palms and mangoes +and coffee-plants and creepers. Of sanitary arrangements there +seemed to be none. There is abundance of rain, and the gutters which +run down by the footway are flushed almost every day. But they are +all open. Dirt of every kind lies about freely, to be washed into +them or left to putrify as fate shall direct" (p. 64). + +Lower down, on the same page, our author, luxuriating in his contempt +for exactitude when the character of other folk only is at stake, +continues:--"The town has between thirty and forty thousand people +living in it, and the [55] rain and Johnny crows between them keep +off pestilence." On page 65 we have the following astounding +statement with respect to one of the trees in the garden in front of +the house in which Mr. Froude was sojourning:--"At the gate stood as +sentinel a cabbage palm a hundred feet high." + +The above quotations, in which we have elected to be content +with indicating by typographical differences the points on which +attention should be mostly directed, will suffice, with any one +knowing Trinidad, as examples of Mr. Froude's trustworthiness. But +as these are only on matters of mere detail, involving no question of +principle, they are dismissed without any further comment. It must +not be so, however, with the following remarkable deliverances which +occur on page 67 of his too picturesque work:--"The commonplace +intrudes upon the imaginative. At moments one can fancy that the +world is an enchanted place after all, but then comes generally an +absurd awakening. On the first night of my arrival, before we went +to bed, there came an invitation to me to attend a political meeting +which was to be held in a few days on the Savannah. + +[56] "Trinidad is a purely Crown colony, and has escaped hitherto the +introduction of the election virus. The newspapers and certain busy +gentlemen in Port of Spain had discovered that they were living under +a 'degrading tyranny,' and they demanded a constitution. They did +not complain that their affairs had been ill-managed. On the +contrary, they insisted that they were the most prosperous of the +West Indian colonies, and alone had a surplus in their treasury. If +this was so, it seemed to me that they had better let well alone. +The population, all told, was but 170,000, less by thirty thousand +than that of Barbados. They were a mixed and motley assemblage of +all races and colours, busy each with their own affairs, and never +hitherto troubling themselves about politics. But it had pleased the +Home Government to set up the beginning of a constitution again in +Jamaica; no one knew why, but so it was; and Trinidad did not choose +to be behindhand. The official appointments were valuable, and had +been hitherto given away by the Crown. The local popularities very +naturally wished to have them for themselves. This was the [57] +reality in the thing, so far as there was a reality. It was dressed +up in the phrases borrowed from the great English masters of the art, +about privileges of manhood, moral dignity, the elevating influence +of the suffrage, &c., intended for home consumption among the +believers in the orthodox radical faith." + +The passages which we have signalized in the above quotation, and +which occur with more elaboration and heedless assurance on a later +page, will produce a feeling of wonder at the hardihood of him who +not only conceived, but penned and dared to publish them as well, +against the gentlemen whom we all know to be foremost in the +political agitation at which Mr. Froude so flippantly sneers. An +emphatic denial may be opposed to his pretence that "they did not +complain that their affairs had been ill-managed." Why, the very +gist and kernel of the whole agitation, set forth in print through +long years of iteration, has been the scandalous mismanagement of the +affairs of the Colony--especially under the baleful administration of +Governor Irving. The Augëan Stable, miscalled by him "The Public +Works Department," and whose officials he coolly [58] fastened upon +the financial vitals of that long-suffering Colony, baffled even the +resolute will of a Des Voeux to cleanse it. Poor Sir Sanford +Freeling attempted the cleansing, but foundered ignominiously almost +as soon as he embarked on that Herculean enterprise. Sir A. E. +Havelock, who came after, must be mentioned by the historian of +Trinidad merely as an incarnate accident in the succession of +Governors to whom the destinies of that maltreated Colony have been +successively intrusted since the departure of Sir Arthur Hamilton +Gordon. The present Governor of Trinidad, Sir William Robinson, is a +man of spirit and intelligence, keenly alive to the grave +responsibilities resting on him as a ruler of men and moulder of +men's destinies. Has he, with all his energy, his public spirit and +indisputable devotion to the furtherance of the Colony's interests, +been able to grapple successfully with the giant evil? Has he +effectually gained the ear of our masters in Downing Street regarding +the inefficiency and wastefulness of Governor Irving's pet +department? We presume that his success has been but very partial, +for otherwise it is difficult to conceive the motive for [59] +retaining the army of officials radiating from that office, with the +chief under whose supervision so many architectural and other +scandals have for so long been the order of the day. The Public +Works Department is costly enough to have been a warning to the whole +of the West Indies. It is true that the lavish squandering of the +people's money by that department has been appreciably checked since +the advent of the present head of the Government. The papers no +longer team with accounts, nor is even the humblest aesthetic sense, +offended now, as formerly, with views of unsightly, useless and +flimsy erections, the cost of which, on an average, was five times +more than that of good and reputable structures. + +This, however, has been entirely due to the personal influence of the +Governor. Sir William Robinson, not being the tool, as Sir Henry +Irving owned that he was, of the Director of Public Works, could not +be expected to be his accomplice or screener in the cynical waste of +the public funds. Here, then, is the personal rectitude of a ruler +operating as a safeguard to the people's interests; and we gladly +confess our entire agreement with [60] Mr. Froude on the subject of +the essential qualifications of a Crown Governor. Mr. Froude +contends, and we heartily coincide with him, that a ruler of high +training and noble purposes would, as the embodiment of the +administrative authority, be the very best provision for the +government of Colonies constituted as ours are. But he has also +pointed out, and that in no equivocal terms, that the above are far +from having been indispensable qualifications for the patronage of +Downing Street. He has shown that the Colonial Office is, more often +than otherwise, swayed in the appointment of Colonial Governors by +considerations among which the special fitness of the man appointed +holds but a secondary place. On this point we have much +gratification in giving Mr. Froude's own words (p. 91):--"Among the +public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found +fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty if a sincere +effort be made to find them. Alas! in times past we have sent +persons to rule our Baratarias to whom Sancho Panza was a sage-- +troublesome members of Parliament, younger brothers of powerful +families, impecunious peers; favourites, [61] with backstairs +influence, for whom a provision was to be found; colonial clerks bred +in the office who had been obsequious and useful!" Now then, +applying these facts to the political history of Trinidad, with which +we are more particularly concerned at present, what do we find? We +find that in the person of Sir A. H. Gordon (1867-1870) that Colony +at length chanced upon a ruler both competent and eager to advance +her interests, not only materially, but in the nobler respects that +give dignity to the existence of a community. Of course, he was +opposed--ably, strenuously, violently, virulently--but the metal of +which the man was composed was only fused into greater firmness by +being subjected to such fiery tests. On leaving Trinidad, this +eminent ruler left as legacies to the Colony he had loved and worked +for so heartily, laws that placed the persons and belongings of the +inhabitants beyond the reach of wanton aggression; the means by which +honest and laborious industry could, through agriculture, benefit +both itself and the general revenue. He also left an educational +system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway to +knowledge, to [62] distinction, and, if the objects of its +beneficence were worthy of the boon, to serviceableness to their +native country. Above all, he left peace among the jarring interests +which, under the badge of Englishman and of Creole, under the badge +of Catholic and under the badge of Protestant, and so many other +forms of sectional divergence, had too long distracted Trinidad. +This he had effected, not by constituting himself a partisan of +either section, but by inquiring with statesmanlike appreciation, and +allowing the legitimate claims of each to a certain scope of +influence in the furtherance of the Colony's welfare. Hence the +bitter rivalry of jarring interests was transformed into harmonious +co-operation on all sides, in advancing the common good of the common +country. + +The Colonial Office, knowing little and caring less about that noble +jewel in the British Crown, sent out as successor to so brilliant and +successful an administrator--whom? One Sir James Robert Longden, a +gentleman without initiative, without courage, and, above all, with a +slavish adherence to red-tape and a clerk-like dread of compromising +his berth. Having served for a long series of years in subordinate +posts in [63] minor dependencies, the habit of being impressed and +influenced by colonial magnates grew and gathered strength within +him. Such a ruler, of course, the serpents that had only been +"scotched, but not killed," by the stern procedures of Governor +Gordon, could wind round, beguile, and finally cause to fall. +Measure after measure of his predecessor which he could in any way +neutralize in the interests of the colonial clique, was rendered of +none effect. In fact, he was subservient to the wishes of those who +had all long objected to those measures, but had not dared even to +hint their objections to the beneficent autocrat who had willed and +given them effect for the general welfare. After Governor Longden +came Sir Henry Turner Irving, a personage who brought to Trinidad a +reputation for all the vulgar colonial prejudices which, +discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, in the Governor of a +mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. More than amply did +he justify the evil reports with which rumour had heralded his +coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James Longden, who +was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, Governor Irving +threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the Sugar +Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and whose +belief he evidently shared, that sugar-growers alone should be +possessors of the lands of the West Indies. It would be wearisome to +detail the methods by which every act of Sir Arthur Gordon's to +benefit the whole population was cynically and systematically undone +by this his native-hating successor. In short, the policy of +reaction which Sir James Longden began, found in Governor Irving not +only a consistent promoter, but, as it were, a sinister incarnation. +It is true that he could not, at the bidding and on the advice of his +planter-friends, shut up the Crown Lands of the Colony against +purchasers of limited means, because they happened to be mostly +natives of colour, but he could annul the provision by which every +Warden in the rural districts, on the receipt of the statutory fees, +had to supply a Government title on the spot to every one who +purchased any acreage of Crown Lands. Every intending purchaser, +therefore, whether living at Toco, Guayaguayare, Monos, or Icacos, +the four extreme points of the Island of Trinidad, was compelled to +go to Port of [65] Spain, forty or fifty miles distant, through an +almost roadless country, to compete at the Sub-Intendant's auction +sales, with every probability of being outbid in the end, and having +his long-deposited money returned to him after all his pains. +Lieutenant-Governor Des Voeux told the Legislature of Trinidad that +the monstrous Excise imposts of the Colony were an incentive to +smuggling, and he thought that the duties, licenses, &c., should be +lowered in the interest of good and equitable government. Sir Henry +Turner Irving, however, besides raising the duties on spirituous +liquors, also enacted that every distillery, however small, must pay +a salary to a Government official stationed within it to supervise +the manufacture of the spirits. This, of course, was the death-blow +to all the minor competition which had so long been disturbing the +peace of mind of the mighty possessors of the great distilleries. +Ahab was thus made glad with the vineyard of Naboth. + +In the matter of official appointments, too, Governor Irving was +consistent in his ostentatious hostility to Creoles in general, and +to coloured Creoles in particular. Of the fifty-six appointments +which that model Governor [66] made in 1876, only seven happened to +be natives and coloured, out of a population in which the latter +element is so preponderant as to excite the fears of Mr. Froude. In +educational matters, though he could not with any show of sense or +decency re-enact the rule which excluded students of illegitimate +birth from the advantages of the Royal College, he could, +nevertheless, pander to the prejudices of himself and his friends by +raising the standard of proficiency while reducing the limit of the +age for free admission to that institution--boys of African descent +having shown an irrepressible persistency in carrying off prizes. + +Every one acquainted with Trinidad politics knows very well the +ineffably low dodges and subterfuges under which the Arima Railway +was prevented from having its terminus in the centre of that town. +The public was promised a saving of Eight Thousand Pounds by their +high-minded Governor for a diversion of the line "by only a few +yards" from the originally projected terminus. In the end it was +found out not only that the terminus of the railway was nearly a +whole mile outside of the town of Arima, but also that Twenty [67] +Thousand Pounds "Miscellaneous" had to be paid up by the good folk of +Trinidad, in addition to gulping down their disappointment at saving +no Eight Thousand Pounds, and having to find by bitter experience, +especially in rainy weather, that their Governor's few yards were +just his characteristic way of putting down yards which he well knew +were to be counted by hundreds. Then, again, we have the so-called +San Fernando Waterworks, an abortion, a scandal for which there is no +excuse, as the head of the Public Works Department went his own way +despite the experience of those who knew better than he, and the +protests of those who would have had to pay. Seventeen Thousand +Pounds represent the amount of debt with which Governor Irving's pet +department has saddled the town of San Fernando for water, which half +the inhabitants cannot get, and which few of the half who do get it +dare venture to drink. Summa fastigia rerum secuti sumus. If in the +works that were so prominent before the public gaze these enormous +abuses could flourish, defiant of protest and opposition, what shall +we think of the nooks and corners of that same squandering +department, which of [68] course must have been mere gnats in the +eyes of a Governor who had swallowed so many monstrous camels! The +Governor was callous. Trinidad was a battening ground for his +friends; but she had in her bosom men who were her friends, and the +struggle began, constitutionally of course, which, under the +leadership of the Mayor of San Fernando, has continued up to now, +culminating at last in the Reform movement which Mr. Froude decries, +and which his pupil, Mr. S. H. Gatty, is, from what has appeared in +the Trinidad papers, doing his "level best" to render abortive. + +Sir Sanford Freeling, by the will and pleasure of Downing Street, was +the next successor, after Governor Irving, to the chief ruler-ship of +Trinidad. Incredible as it may sound, he was a yet more +disadvantageous bargain for the Colony's £4000 a year. A better man +in many respects than his predecessor, he was in many more a much +worse Governor. The personal affability of a man can be known only +to those who come into actual contact with him--the public measures +of a ruler over a community touches it, mediately or immediately, +throughout all its sections. The bad boldness of [69] Governor +Irving achieved much that the people, especially in the outlying +districts, could see and appreciate. For example, he erected Rest- +houses all over the remoter and more sparsely peopled quarters of the +Colony, after the manner of such provisions in Oriental lands. The +population who came in contact with these conveniences, and to whom +access to them--for a consideration--had never been denied, saw with +their own eyes tangible evidence of the Governor's activity, and +inferred therefrom a solicitude on his part for the public welfare. +Had they, however, been given a notion of the bill which had had to +be paid for those frail, though welcome hostelries, they would have +stood aghast at the imbecility, or, if not logically that, the +something very much worse, through which five times the actual worth +of these buildings had been extracted from the Treasury. Sir Sanford +Freeling, on the other hand, while being no screener of jobbery and +peculation, had not the strength of mind whereof jobbers and +peculators do stand in dread. In evidence of that poor ruler's +infirmity of purpose, we would only cite the double fact that, +whereas in 1883 he was the first to enter a practical protest against +the housing [70] of the diseased and destitute in the then newly +finished, but most leaky, House of Refuge on the St. Clair Lands, by +having the poor saturated inmates carried off in his presence to the +Colonial Hospital, yet His Excellency was the very man who, in the +very next year, 1884, not only sanctioned the shooting down of Indian +immigrants at their festival, but actually directed the use of buck- +shot for that purpose! Evidently, if these two foregoing statements +are true, Mr. Froude must join us in thinking that a man whose mind +could be warped by external influences from the softest commiseration +for the sufferings of his kind, one year, into being the cold-blooded +deviser of the readiest method for slaughtering unarmed holiday- +makers, the very next year, is not the kind of ruler whom he and we +so cordially desiderate. We have already mentioned above how +ignominious Governor Freeling's failure was in attempting to meddle +with the colossal abuses of the Public Works Department. + +Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock next had the privilege of enjoying the +paradisaic sojourn at Queen's House, St. Ann's, as well as the four +thousand pounds a year attached to the [71] right of occupying that +princely residence. Save as a dandy, however, and the harrier of +subordinate officials, the writer of the annals of Trinidad may well +pass him by. So then it may be seen what, by mere freaks of Chance-- +the ruling deity at Downing Street--the administrative experience of +Trinidad had been from the departure of that true king in Israel,-- +Sir Arthur Gordon, up to the visit of Mr. Froude. First, a slave to +red-tape, procrastination, and the caprices of pretentious +colonialists; next, a daring schemer, confident of the support of the +then dominant Sugar Interest, and regarding and treating the +resources of the Island as free booty for his friends, sycophants, +and favourites; then, an old woman, garbed in male attire, having an +infirmity of purpose only too prone to be blown about by every wind +of doctrine, alternating helplessly between tenderness and +truculence, the charity of a Fry and the tragic atrocity of Medea. +After this dismal ruler, Trinidad, by the grace of the Colonial +Office, was subjected to the manipulation of an unctuous dandy. This +successor of Gordon, of Elliot, and of Cairns, durst not oppose high- +placed official malfeasants, but [72] was inexorable with regard to +minor delinquents. In the above retrospect we have purposely omitted +mentioning such transient rulers as Mr. Rennie, Sir G. W. Des Voeux, +and last, but by no means least, Sir F. Barlee, a high-minded +Governor, whom death so suddenly and inscrutably snatched away from +the good work he had loyally begun. Every one of the above temporary +administrators was a right good man for a post in which brain power +and moral back-bone are essential qualifications. But the Fates so +willed it that Trinidad should never enjoy the permanent governance +of either. In view of the above facts; in view also of the lessons +taught the inhabitants of Trinidad so frequently, so cruelly, what +wonder is there that, failing of faith in a probability, which stands +one against four, of their getting another worthy ruler when Governor +Robinson shall have left them, they should seek to make hay while the +sun shines, by providing against the contingency of such Governors as +they know from bitter experience that Downing Street would place over +their destinies, should the considerations detailed by Mr. Froude or +any other equally [73] unworthy counsellor supervene? That the +leading minds of Trinidad should believe in an elective legislature +is a logical consequence of the teachings of the past, when the +Colony was under the manipulation of the sort of Governors above +mentioned as immediately succeeding Sir Arthur Gordon. + +This brings us to the motives, the sordid motives, which Mr. Froude, +oblivious of the responsibility of his high literary status, has +permitted himself gratuitously, and we may add scandalously, to +impute to the heads of the Reform movement in Trinidad. It was +perfectly competent that our author should decline, as he did +decline, to have anything to do, even as a spectator, at a meeting +with the object of which he had no sympathy. But our opinion is +equally decided that Mr. Froude has transgressed the bounds of decent +political antagonism, nay, even of common sense, when he presumes to +state that it was not for any other object than the large salaries of +the Crown appointments, which they covet for themselves, that the +Reform leaders are contending. This is not criticism: it is slander. +To make culpatory statements against others, [74] without ability to +prove them, is, to say the least, hazardous; but to make accusations +to formulate which the accuser is forced, not only to ignore facts, +but actually to deny them, is, to our mind, nothing short of rank +defamation. + +Mr. Froude is not likely to impress the world (of the West Indies, at +any rate) with the transparently silly, if not intentionally +malicious, ravings which he has indulged in on the subject of +Trinidad and its politics. Here are some of the things which this +"champion of Anglo-West Indians" attempts to force down the throats +of his readers. He would have us believe that Mr. Francis Damian, +the Mayor of Port of Spain, and one of the wealthiest of the native +inhabitants of Trinidad, a man who has retired from an honourable and +lucrative legal practice, and devotes his time, his talents, and his +money to the service of his native country; that Mr. Robert Guppy, +the venerable and venerated Mayor of San Fernando, with his weight of +years and his sufficing competence, and with his long record of self- +denying services to the public; that Mr. George Goodwille, one of the +most successful merchants in the Colonies; that Mr. Conrad [75] F. +Stollmeyer, a gentleman retired, in the evening of his days, on his +well-earned ample means, are open to the above sordid accusation. In +short, that those and such-like individuals who, on account of their +private resources and mental capabilities, as well as the public +influence resulting therefrom, are, by the sheer logic of +circumstances, forced to be at the head of public movements, are +actuated by a craving for the few hundred pounds a year for which +there is such a scramble at Downing Street among the future official +grandees of the West Indies! But granting that this allegation of +Mr. Froude's was not as baseless as we have shown it to be, and that +the leaders of the Reform agitation were impelled by the desire which +our author seeks to discredit them with, what then? Have they who +have borne the heat and the burden of the day in making the Colonies +what they are no right to the enjoyment of the fruits of their +labours? The local knowledge, the confidence and respect of the +population, which such men enjoy, and can wield for good or evil in +the community, are these matters of small account in the efficient +government of the Colony? Our author, in [76] specifying the +immunities of his ideal Governor, who is also ours, recommends, +amongst other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose +his own advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that +the advisers so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have +rushed from the destitution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained +flesh-pots of the Colonies. + +At any rate, whatever political fate Mr. Froude may desire for the +Colonies in general, and for Trinidad in particular, it is +nevertheless unquestionable that he and the scheme that he may have +for our future governance, in this year of grace 1888, have both come +into view entirely out of season. The spirit of the times has +rendered impossible any further toleration of the arrogance which is +based on historical self-glorification. The gentlemen of Trinidad, +who are struggling for political enfranchisement, are not likely to +heed, except as a matter for indignant contempt, the obtrusion by our +author of his opinion that "they had best let well alone." On his +own showing, the persons appointed to supreme authority in the +Colonies are, more usually than not, entirely unfit for [77] holding +any responsible position whatever over their fellows. Now, can it be +doubted that less care, less scruple, less consideration, would be +exercised in the choice of the satellites appointed to revolve, in +these far-off latitudes, around the central luminaries? Have we not +found, are we not still finding every day, that the brain-dizziness-- +Xenophon calls it kephalalgeia+--induced by sudden promotion has +transformed the abject suppliants at the Downing Street backstairs +into the arrogant defiers of the opinions, and violators of the +rights, of the populations whose subjection to the British Crown +alone could have rendered possible the elevation of such folk and +their impunity in malfeasance? The cup of loyal forbearance reached +the overflowing point since the trickstering days of Governor Irving, +and it is useless now to believe in the possibility of a return of +the leading minds of Trinidad to a tame acquiescence as regards the +probabilities of their government according to the Crown system. Mr. +Froude's own remarks point out definitely enough that a community so +governed is absolutely at the mercy, for good or for evil, of the man +who happens to be invested with [78] the supreme authority. He has +also shown that in our case that supreme authority is very often +disastrously entrusted. Yet has he nothing but sneers for the +efforts of those who strive to be emancipated from liability to such +subjection. Mr. Froude's deftly-worded sarcasms about "degrading +tyranny," "the dignity of manhood," &c., are powerless to alter the +facts. Crown Colony Government--denying, as it does to even the +wisest and most interested in a community cursed with it all +participation in the conduct of their own affairs, while investing +irresponsible and uninterested "birds of passage" (as our author +aptly describes them) with the right of making ducks and drakes of +the resources wrung from the inhabitants--is a degrading tyranny, +which the sneers of Mr. Froude cannot make otherwise. The dignity of +manhood, on the other hand, we are forced to admit, runs scanty +chance of recognition by any being, however masculine his name, who +could perpetrate such a literary and moral scandal as "The Bow of +Ulysses." Yet the dignity of manhood stands venerable there, and +whilst the world lasts shall gain for its possessors the right of +record on the roll of [79] those whom the worthy of the world delight +to honour. + +All of a piece, as regards veracity and prudence, is the further +allegation of Mr. Froude's, to the effect that there was never any +agitation for Reform in Trinidad before that which he passes under +review. It is, however, a melancholy fact, which we are ashamed to +state, that Mr. Froude has written characteristically here also, +either through crass ignorance or through deliberate malice. Any +respectable, well-informed inhabitant of Trinidad, who happened not +to be an official "bird of passage," might, on our author's honest +inquiry, have informed him that Trinidad is the land of chronic +agitation for Reform. Mr. Froude might also have been informed that, +even forty-five years ago, that is in 1843, an elective constitution, +with all the electoral districts duly marked out, was formulated and +transmitted by the leading inhabitants of Trinidad to the then +Secretary of State for the Colonies. He might also have learnt that +on every occasion that any of the shady Governors, whom he has so +well depicted, manifested any excess of his undesirable qualities, +there has been a movement [80] among the educated people in behalf of +changing their country's political condition. + +We close this part of our review by reiterating our conviction that, +come what will, the Crown Colony system, as at present managed, is +doomed. Britain may, in deference to the alleged wishes of her +impalpable "Anglo-West Indians"--whose existence rests on the +authority of Mr. Froude alone--deny to Trinidad and other Colonies +even the small modicum prayed for of autonomy, but in doing so the +Mother Country will have to sternly revise her present methods of +selecting and appointing Governors. As to the subordinate lot, they +will have to be worth their salt when there is at the head of the +Government a man who is truly deserving of his. + +NOTES + +53. +It is not clear from the original text exactly where the brief +chapter "Trinidad" ends and where the longer one entitled "Reform in +Trinidad" begins. (The copy indicates that the "Trinidad" chapter +ends at page 54, but the relevant page contains no subheading.) I +have, therefore, chosen to fuse the two chapters since they form a +logical unit. + +77. +Since there is little Greek in this work, I have simply +transliterated it. + + + +BOOK II: NEGRO FELICITY IN THE WEST INDIES + +[81] We come now to the ingenious and novel fashion in which Mr. +Froude carries out his investigations among the black population, and +to his dogmatic conclusions concerning them. He says:-- + +"In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire was to see the +human inhabitants, to learn what they were doing, how they were +living, and what they were thinking about, and this could best be +done by drives about the town and neighbourhood." + +"Drives about the town and neighbourhood," indeed! To learn and be +able to depict with faithful accuracy what people "were doing, how +they were living, and what they were thinking about"--all this being +best done (domestic circumstances, nay, soul-workings and all!) +through fleeting glimpses of shifting [82] panoramas of intelligent +human beings! What a bright notion! We have here the suggestion of +a capacity too superhuman to be accepted on trust, especially when, +as in this case, it is by implication self-arrogated. The modesty of +this thaumaturgic traveller in confining the execution of his +detailed scrutiny of a whole community to the moderate progression of +some conventional vehicle, drawn by some conventional quadruped or +the other, does injustice to powers which, if possessed at all, might +have compassed the same achievement in the swifter transit of an +express train, or, better still perhaps, from the empyrean elevation +of a balloon! Yet is Mr. Froude confident that data professed to be +thus collected would easily pass muster with the readers of his book! +A confidence of this kind is abnormal, and illustrates, we think most +fully, all the special characteristics of the man. With his passion +for repeating, our author tells us in continuation of a strange +rhapsody on Negro felicity:-- + +"Once more, the earth does not contain any peasantry so well off, so +well-cared for, so happy, so sleek and contented, as the sons [83] +and daughters of the emancipated slaves in the English West Indian +Islands." + +Again:-- + +"Under the rule of England, in these islands, the two millions of +these brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly contented +specimens of the human race to be found upon the planet. . . . If +happiness be the satisfaction of every conscious desire, theirs is a +condition that admits of no improvement: were they independent, they +might quarrel among themselves, and the weaker become the bondsmen of +the stronger; under the beneficent despotism of the English +Government, which knows no difference of colour and permits no +oppression, they can sleep, lounge, and laugh away their lives as +they please, fearing no danger," &c. + +Now, then, let us examine for a while this roseate picture of +Arcadian blissfulness said to be enjoyed by British West Indian +Negroes in general, and by the Negroes of Trinidad in particular. +"No distinction of colour" under the British rule, and, better +still, absolute protection of the weaker against the stronger! This +latter consummation especially, [84] Mr. Froude tells us, has been +happily secured "under the beneficent despotism" of the Crown Colony +system. However, let the above vague hyperboles be submitted to the +test of practical experience, and the abstract government analysed in +its concrete relations with the people. + +Unquestionably the actual and direct interposition of the shielding +authority above referred to, between man and man, is the immediate +province of the MAGISTRACY. All other branches of the Government, +having in themselves no coercive power, must, from the supreme +executive downwards, in cases of irreconcilable clashing of +interests, have ultimate recourse to the magisterial jurisdiction. +Putting aside, then, whatever culpable remissness may have been +manifested by magistrates in favour of powerful malfeasants, we would +submit that the fact of stipendiary justices converting the +tremendous, far-reaching powers which they wield into an engine of +systematic oppression, ought to dim by many a shade the glowing +lustre of Mr. Froude's encomiums. Facts, authentic and notorious, +might be adduced in hundreds, especially with respect to [85] the +Port of Spain and San Fernando magistracies (both of which, since the +administration of Sir J. R. Longden, have been exclusively the prizes +of briefless English barristers*), to prove that these gentry, far +from being bulwarks to the weaker as against the stronger, have, in +their own persons, been the direst scourges that the poor, +particularly when coloured, have been afflicted by in aggravation of +the difficulties of their lot. Only typical examples can here be +given out of hundreds upon hundreds which might easily be cited and +proved against the incumbents of the abovementioned chief stipendiary +magistracies. One such example was a matter of everyday discussion +at the time of Mr. Froude's visit. The inhabitants were even backed +in their complaints by the Governor, who had, in response to their +cry of distress, forwarded their prayer [86] to the home authorities +for relief from the hard treatment which they alleged themselves to +be suffering at the hands of the then magistrate. Our allusion here +is to the chief town, Port of Spain, the magistracy of which embraces +also the surrounding districts, containing a total population of +between 60,000 and 70,000 souls. Mr. R. D. Mayne filled this +responsible office during the latter years of Sir J. R. Longden's +governorship. He was reputed, soon after his arrival, to have +announced from the bench that in every case he would take the word of +a constable in preference to the testimony of any one else. The +Barbadian rowdies who then formed the major part of the constabulary +of Trinidad, and whose bitter hatred of the older residents had been +not only plainly expressed, but often brutally exemplified, rejoiced +in the opportunity thus afforded for giving effect to their truculent +sentiments. At that time the bulk of the immigrants from Barbados +were habitual offenders whom the Government there had provided with a +free passage to wherever they elected to betake themselves. The more +intelligent of the men flocked to the Trinidad [87] police ranks, +into which they were admitted generally without much inquiry into +their antecedents. On this account they were shunned by the decent +inhabitants, a course which they repaid with savage animosity. +Perjuries the most atrocious and crushing, especially to the +respectable poor, became the order of the day. Hundreds of innocent +persons were committed to gaol and the infamy of convict servitude, +without the possibility of escape from, or even mitigation of, their +ignominious doom. A respectable woman (a native of Barbados, too, +who in the time of the first immigration of the better sort of her +compatriots had made Trinidad her home) was one of the first victims +of this iniquitous state of affairs. + +The class of people to which she belonged was noted as orderly, +industrious and law-abiding, and, being so, it had identified itself +entirely with the natives of the land of its adoption. This fact +alone was sufficient to involve these immigrants in the same lot of +persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and +were carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, +on the occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the +woman in question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of +ironing for her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow +in the street before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud +scream, which, on looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of +a boy of some ten or twelve years of age, who had been violently +struck with the fist by another youth of larger size and evidently +his senior in age. The smaller fellow had laid fast hold of his +antagonist by the collar, and would not let go, despite the blows +which, to extricate himself and in retaliation of the puny buffets of +his youthful detainer, he "showered thick as wintry rain." + +The woman, seeing the posture of affairs, shouted to the combatants +to desist, but to no purpose, rage and absorption in their wrathful +occupation having deafened both to all external sounds. Seized with +pity for the younger lad, who was getting so mercilessly the worst of +it, the woman, hastily throwing a shawl over her shoulders, sprang +into the street and rushed between the juvenile belligerents. +Dexterously extricating the hand of the little fellow from the collar +of his antagonist, she hurried the former [89] into her gateway, +shouting out to him at the same time to fasten the door on the +inside. This the little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this +surcease from actual conflict, short though it was, must have +afforded space for the natural instinct of self-preservation to +reassert itself. Hereupon the elder of the two lads, like a tiger +robbed of his prey, sprang furiously to the gate, and began to use +frantic efforts to force an entrance. Perceiving this, the woman +(who meanwhile had not been idle with earnest dissuasions and +remonstrances, which had all proved futile) pulled the irate +youngster back, and interposed her body between him and the gate, +warding him off with her hands every time that he rushed forward to +renew the assault. At length a Barbadian policeman hove in sight, +and was hastily beckoned to by the poor ironer, who, by this time, +had nearly come to the end of her strength. The uniformed "Bim" was +soon on the spot; but, without asking or waiting to hear the cause of +the disturbance, he shouted to the volunteer peacemaker, "I see you +are fighting: you are my prisoner!" Saying this, he clutched the +poor thunderstruck creature by the wrist, and there [90] and then set +about hurrying her off towards the police station. It happened, +however, that the whole affair had occurred in the sight of a +gentleman of well-known integrity. He, seated at a window +overlooking the street, had witnessed the whole squabble, from its +beginning in words to its culmination in blows; so, seeing that the +woman was most unjustly arrested, he went out and explained the +circumstances to the guardian of order. But to no purpose; the poor +creature was taken to the station, accompanied by the gentleman, who +most properly volunteered that neighbourly turn. There she was +charged with "obstructing the policeman in the lawful execution of +his duty." She was let out on bail, and next day appeared to answer +the charge. + +Mr. Mayne, the magistrate, presided. The constable told his tale +without any material deviation from the truth, probably confident, +from previous experience, that his accusation was sufficient to +secure a conviction. On the defendant's behalf, the gentleman +referred to, who was well known to the magistrate himself, was +called, and he related the facts as we have above given them. Even +Mr. Mayne [91] could see no proof of the information, and this he +confessed in the following qualified judgment:-- + +"You are indeed very lucky, my good woman, that the constable has +failed to prove his case against you; otherwise you would have been +sent to hard labour, as the ordinance provides, without the option of +a fine. But as the case stands, you must pay a fine of £2"!!! + +Comment on this worse than scandalous decision would be superfluous. + +Another typical case, illustrative of the truth of Mr. Froude's boast +of the eminent fair play, nay, even the stout protection, that +Negroes, and generally, "the weaker," have been wont to receive from +British magistrates, may be related. + +An honest, hard-working couple, living in one of the outlying +districts, cultivated a plot of ground, upon the produce of which +they depended for their livelihood. After a time these worthy folk, +on getting to their holding in the morning, used to find exasperating +evidence of the plunder overnight of their marketable provisions. +Determined to discover the depredator, they concealed themselves +[92] in the garden late one night, and awaited the result. By that +means they succeeded in capturing the thief, a female, who, not +suspecting their presence, had entered the garden, dug out some of +the provisions, and was about to make off with her booty. In spite +of desperate resistance, she was taken to the police station and +there duly charged with larceny. Meanwhile her son, on hearing of +his mother's incarceration, hastened to find her in her cell, and, +after briefly consulting with her, he decided on entering a +countercharge of assault and battery against both her captors. +Whether or not this bold proceeding was prompted by the knowledge +that the dispensing of justice in the magistrate's court was a mere +game of cross-purposes, a cynical disregard of common sense and +elementary equity, we cannot say; but the ultimate result fully +justified this abnormal hardihood of filial championship. + +On the day of the trial, the magistrate heard the evidence on both +sides, the case of larceny having been gone into first. For her +defence, the accused confined herself to simple denials of the +allegations against her, at the [93] same time entertaining the court +with a lachrymose harangue about her rough treatment at the hands of +the accusing parties. Finally, the decision of the magistrate was: +that the prisoner be discharged, and the plundered goods restored to +her; and, as to the countercharge, that the husband and wife be +imprisoned, the former for three and the latter for two months, with +hard labour! When we add that there was, at that time, no Governor +or Chief Justice accessible to the poorer and less intelligent +classes, as is now the case (Sir Henry T. Irving and Sir Joseph +Needham having been respectively superseded by Sir William Robinson +and Sir John Gorrie), one can imagine what scope there was for +similar exhibitions of the protecting energy of British rule. + +As we have already said, during Mr. Froude's sojourn in Trinidad the +"sleek, happy, and contented" people, whose condition "admitted of no +improvement," were yet groaning in bitter sorrow, nay, in absolute +despair, under the crushing weight of such magisterial decisions as +those which I have just recorded. Let me add two more [94] typical +cases which occurred during Mr. Mayne's tenure of office in the +island. + +L. B. was a member of one of those brawling sisterhoods that +frequently disturbed the peace of the town of Port of Spain. She had +a "pal" or intimate chum familiarly known as "Lady," who staunchly +stood by her in all the squabbles that occurred with their +adversaries. One particular night, the police were called to a +street in the east of the town, in consequence of an affray between +some women of the sort referred to. Arriving on the spot, they found +the fight already over, but a war of words was still proceeding among +the late combatants, of whom the aforesaid "Lady" was one of the most +conspicuous. A list was duly made out of the parties found so +engaged, and it included the name of L. B., who happened not to be +there, or even in Port of Spain at all, she having some days before +gone into the country to spend a little time with some relatives. +The inserting of her name was an inferential mistake on the part of +the police, arising from the presence of "Lady" at the brawl, she +being well known by them to be the inseparable ally of L. B. on such +occasions. + +[95] It was not unnatural that in the obscurity they should have +concluded that the latter was present with her altera ego, when in +reality she was not there. + +The participants in the brawl were charged at the station, and +summonses, including one to L. B., were duly issued. On her return +to Port of Spain a day or two after the occurrence, the wrongly +incriminated woman received from the landlady her key, along with the +magisterial summons that had resulted from the error of the +constables. The day of the trial came on, and L. B. stood before Mr. +Mayne, strong in her innocence, and supported by the sworn testimony +of her landlady as well as of her uncle from the country, with whom +and with his family she had been uninterruptedly staying up to one or +two days after the occurrence in which she had been thus implicated. +The evidence of the old lady, who, like thousands of her advanced age +in the Colony, had never even once had occasion to be present in any +court of justice, was to the following effect: That the defendant, +who was a tenant of hers, had, on a certain morning (naming days +before the affray occurred), [96] come up to her door well dressed, +and followed by a porter carrying her luggage. L. B., she continued, +then handed her the key of the apartment, informing her at the same +time that she was going for some days into the country to her +relatives, for a change, and requesting also that the witness should +on no account deliver the key to any person who should ask for it +during her absence. This witness further deposed to receiving the +summons from the police, which she placed along with the key for +delivery to L. B. on the latter's return home. + +The testimony of the uncle was also decisively corroborative of that +of the preceding witness, as to the absence from Port of Spain of L. +B. during the days embraced in the defence. The alibi was therefore +unquestionably made out, especially as none of the police witnesses +would venture to swear to having actually seen L. B. at the brawl. +The magistrate had no alternative but that of acquiescing in the +proof of her innocence; so he dismissed the charge against the +accused, who stood down from among the rest, radiant with +satisfaction. The other defendants were duly [97] convicted, and +sentenced to a term of imprisonment with hard labour. All this was +quite correct; but here comes matter for consideration with regard to +the immaculate dispensation of justice as vaunted so confidently by +Mr. Froude. + +On receiving their sentence the women all stood down from the dock, +to be escorted to prison, except "Lady," who, by the way, had +preserved a rigid silence, while some of the other defendants had +voluntarily and, it may be added, generously protested that L. B. +was not present on the occasion of this particular row. "Lady," +whether out of affection or from a less respectable motive, cried out +to the stipendiary justice. "But, sir, it ain't fair. How is it +every time that L. B. and me come up before you, you either fine or +send up the two of us together, and to-day you are sending me up +alone?" Moved either by the logic or the pathos of this objurgation, +the magistrate, turning towards L. B., who had lingered after her +narrow escape to watch the issue of the proceedings, thus addressed +her:--"L. B., upon second thoughts I order you to the same term of +hard labour at the Royal Gaol with the [98] others." The poor girl, +having neither money nor friends intelligent enough to interfere on +her behalf, had to submit, and she underwent the whole of this +iniquitous sentence. + +The last typical case that we shall give illustrates the singular +application by this more than singular judge of the legal maxim +caveat emptor. A free coolie possessed of a donkey resolved to +utilize the animal in carting grass to the market. He therefore +called on another coolie living at some distance from him, whom he +knew to own two carts, a small donkey-cart and an ordinary cart for +mule or horse. He proposed the purchase of the smaller cart, stating +his reason for wishing to have it. The donkey-cart was then shown to +the intending purchaser, who, along with two Creole witnesses brought +by him to make out and attest the receipt on the occasion, found some +of the iron fittings defective, and drew the vendor's attention +thereto. He, on his side, engaged, on receiving the amount agreed to +for the cart, to send it off to the blacksmith for immediate repairs, +to be delivered to the purchaser next morning at the latest. On this +understanding the purchase money was paid down, and the [99] receipt, +specifying that the sum therein mentioned was for a donkey-cart, +passed from the vendor to the purchaser of the little vehicle. Next +day at about noon the man went with his donkey for the cart. Arrived +there, his countryman had the larger of the two carts brought out, +and in pretended innocence said to the purchaser of the donkey-cart, +"Here is your cart." On this a warm dispute arose, which was not +abated by the presence and protests of the two witnesses of the day +before, who had hastily been summoned by the victim to bear out his +contention that it was the donkey-cart and not the larger cart which +had been examined, bargained for, purchased, and promised to be +delivered, the day before. + +The matter, on account of the sturdiness of the rascal's denials, had +to be referred to a court of law. The complainant engaged an able +solicitor, who laid the case before Mr. Mayne in all its transparent +simplicity and strength. The defendant, although he had, and as a +matter of fact could have, no means of invalidating the evidence of +the two witnesses, and above all of his receipt with his signature, +relied upon the fact that the cart which he [100] offered was much +larger than the one the complainant had actually bought, and that +therefore complainant would be the gainer by the transaction. +Incredible as it may sound, this view of the case commended itself to +the magistrate, who adopted it in giving his judgment against the +complainant. In vain did the solicitor protest that all the facts of +the case were centred in the desire and intention of the prosecutor +to have specifically a donkey-cart, which was abundantly proved by +everything that had come out in the proceedings. In vain also was +his endeavour to show that a man having only a donkey would be +hopelessly embarrassed by having a cart for it which was entirely +intended for animals of much larger size. The magistrate solemnly +reiterated his decision, and wound up by saying that the victim had +lost his case through disregard of the legal maxim caveat emptor--let +the purchaser be careful. The rascally defendant thus gained his +case, and left the court in defiant triumph. + +The four preceding cases are thoroughly significant of the original +method in which thousands of cases were decided by this model +magistrate, to the great detriment, pecuniary, [101] social, and +moral, during more than ten years, of between 60,000 and 70,000 of +the population within the circle of his judicial authority. What +shall we think, therefore, of the fairness of Mr. Froude or his +informants, who, prompt and eager in imputing unworthy motives to +gentlemen with characters above reproach, have yet been so silent +with regard to the flagrant and frequent abuses of more than one of +their countrymen by whom the honour and fair fame of their nation +were for years draggled in the mire, and whose misdeeds were the +theme of every tongue and thousands of newspaper-articles in the West +Indian Colonies? + + MR. ARTHUR CHILD, S.J.P. + +We now take San Fernando, the next most important magisterial +district after Port of Spain. At the time of Mr. Froude's visit, and +for some time before, the duties of the magistracy there were +discharged by Mr. Arthur Child, an "English barrister" who, of +course, had possessed the requisite qualification of being hopelessly +briefless. For the ideal justice which Mr. Froude would have Britons +believe is meted out to the weaker classes by their fellow- +countrymen [102] in the West Indies, we may refer the reader to the +conduct of the above-named functionary on the memorable occasion of +the slaughter of the coolies under Governor Freeling, in October, +1884. Mr. Child, as Stipendiary justice, had the duty of reading the +Riot Act to the immigrants, who were marching in procession to the +town of San Fernando, contrary, indeed, to the Government +proclamation which had forbidden it; and he it was who gave the order +to "fire," which resulted fatally to many of the unfortunate devotees +of Hosein. This mandate and its lethal consequences anticipated by +some minutes the similar but far more death-dealing action of the +Chief of Police, who was stationed at another post in the vicinity of +San Fernando. The day after the shooting down of a total of more +than one hundred immigrants, the protecting action of this magistrate +towards the weaker folk under his jurisdiction had a striking +exemplification, to which Mr. Froude is hereby made welcome. Of +course there was a general cry of horror throughout the Colony, and +especially in the San Fernando district, at the fatal outcome of the +proclamation, which had mentioned only "fine" and "imprisonment," +[103] but not Death, as the penalty of disregarding its prohibitions. +For nearly forty years, namely from their very first arrival in the +Colony, the East Indian immigrants had, according to specific +agreement with the Government, invariably been allowed the privilege +of celebrating their annual feast of Hosein, by walking in procession +with their Pagodas through the public roads and streets of the +island, without prohibition or hindrance of any kind from the +authorities, save and except in cases where rival estate pagodas were +in danger of getting into collision on the question of precedence. +On such occasions the police, who always attended the processions, +usually gave the lead to the pagodas of the labourers of estates +according to their seniority as immigrants. + +In no case up to 1884, after thirty odd years' inauguration in the +Colony, was the Hosein festival ever pretended to be any cause of +danger, actual or prospective, to any town or building. On the +contrary, business grew brisker and solidly improved at the approach +of the commemoration, owing to the very considerable sale of parti- +coloured paper, velvet, calico, and similar articles used in the +construction [104] of the pagodas. Governor Freeling, however, was, +it may be presumed, compelled to see danger in an institution which +had had nearly forty years' trial, without a single accident +happening to warrant any sudden interposition of the Government +tending to its suppression. At all events, the only action taken in +1884, in prospect of their usual festival, was to notify the +immigrants by proclamation, and, it is said, also through authorized +agents, that the details of their fête were not to be conducted in +the usual manner; and that their appearance with pagodas in any +public road or any town, without special license from some competent +local authority, would entail the penalty of so many pounds fine, or +imprisonment for so many months with hard labour. The immigrants, to +whom this unexpected change on the part of the authorities was +utterly incomprehensible, both petitioned and sent deputations to the +Governor, offering guarantees for the, if possible, more secure +celebration of the Hosein, and praying His Excellency to cancel the +prohibition as to the use of the roads, inasmuch as it interfered +with the essential part of their religious rite, which was the +"drowning," or casting into [105] the sea, of the pagodas. Having +utterly failed in their efforts with the Governor, the coolies +resolved to carry out their religious duty according to prescriptive +forms, accepting, at the same time, the responsibility in the way of +fine or imprisonment which they would thus inevitably incur. A +rumour was also current at the time that, pursuant to this +resolution, the head men of the various plantations had authorized a +general subscription amongst their countrymen, for meeting the +contingency of fines in the police courts. All these things were the +current talk of the population of San Fernando, in which town the +leading immigrants, free as well as indentured, had begun to raise +funds for this purpose. + +All that the public, therefore, expected would have resulted from the +intended infringement of the Proclamation was an enormous influx of +money in the shape of fines into the Colonial Treasury; as no one +doubted the extreme facility which existed for ascertaining exactly, +in the case of persons registered and indentured to specific +plantations, the names and abodes of at least the chief offenders +against the proclamation. Accordingly, on the [106] occurrence of +the bloody catastrophe related above, every one felt that the mere +persistence in marching all unarmed towards the town, without +actually attempting to force their way into it, was exorbitantly +visited upon the coolies by a violent death or a life-long +mutilation. This sentiment few were at any pains to conceal; but as +the poorer and more ignorant classes can be handled with greater +impunity than those who are intelligent and have the means of self- +defence, Mr. Justice Child, the very day after the tragedy, and +without waiting for the pro formâ official inquiry into the tragedy +in which he bore so conspicuous a part, actually caused to be +arrested, sat to try and sent to hard labour, persons whom the +police, in obedience to his positive injunctions, had reported to him +as having condemned the shooting down of the immigrants! Those who +were arrested and thus summarily punished had, of course, no means of +self-protection; and as the case is typical of others, as +illustrative of "justice-made law" applied to "subject races" in a +British colony, Mr. Froude is free to accept it, or not, in +corroboration of his unqualified panegyrics. + +[107] + + MR. GROVE HUMPHREY CHAPMAN, S.J.P. + +As Stipendary Magistrate of this self-same San Fernando district, +Grove Humphrey Chapman, Esquire (another English barrister), was the +immediate predecessor of Mr. Child. More humane than Mr. Mayne, his +colleague and contemporary in Port of Spain, this young magistrate +began his career fairly well. But he speedily fell a victim to the +influences immediately surrounding him in his new position. His +head, which later events proved never to have been naturally strong, +began to be turned by the unaccustomed deference which he met with on +all hands, from high and low, official and non-official, and he +himself soon consummated the addling of his brain by persistent +practical revolts against every maxim of the ancient Nazarenes in the +matter of potations. His decisions at the court, therefore, became +perfect emulations of those of Mr. Mayne, as well in perversity as in +harshness, and many in his case also were the appeals for relief made +to the head of the executive by the inhabitants of the district--but +of course in vain. Governor Irving was at this time in office, and +the unfortunate [108] victims of perverse judgments--occasionally +pronounced by this magistrate in his cups--were only poor Negroes, +coolies, or other persons whose worldly circumstances placed them in +the category of the "weaker" in the community. To these classes of +people that excellent ruler unhappily denied--we dare not say his +personal sympathy, but--the official protection which, even through +self-respect, he might have perfunctorily accorded. Bent, however, +on running through the whole gamut of extravagance, Mr. Chapman--by +interpreting official impunity into implying a direct license for the +wildest of his caprices--plunged headlong with ever accelerating +speed, till the deliverance of the Naparimas became the welcome +consequence of his own personal action. On one occasion it was +credibly reported in the Colony that this infatuated dispenser of +British justice actually stretched his official complaisance so far +as to permit a lady not only to be seated near him on the judicial +bench, but also to take a part--loud, boisterous and abusive--in the +legal proceedings of the day. Meanwhile, as the Governor could not +be induced to interfere, things went [109] on from bad to worse, till +one day, as above hinted, the unfortunate magistrate so publicly +committed himself as to be obliged to be borne for temporary refuge +to the Lunatic Asylum, whence he was clandestinely shipped from the +Colony on "six months' leave of absence," never more to resume his +official station. + +The removal of two such magistrates as those whose careers we have so +briefly sketched out--Mr. Mayne having died, still a magistrate, +since Mr. Froude's departure--has afforded opportunity for the +restoration of British protecting influence. In the person of Mr. +Llewellyn Lewis, as magistrate of Port of Spain, this opportunity has +been secured. He, it is generally rumoured, strives to justify the +expectations of fair play and even-handed justice which are generally +entertained concerning Englishmen. It is, however, certain that with +a Governor so prompt to hear the cry of the poor as Sir William +Robinson has proved himself to be, and with a Chief Justice so +vigilant, fearless, and painstaking as Sir John Gorrie, the entire +magistracy of the Colony must be so beneficially influenced as to +preclude [110] the frequency of appeals being made to the higher +courts, or it may be to the Executive, on account of scandalously +unjust and senseless decisions. + +So long, too, as the names of T. S. Warner, Captain Larcom, and F. H. +Hamblin abide in the grateful remembrance of the entire population, +as ideally upright, just, and impartial dispensers of justice, each +in his own jurisdiction, we can only sigh at the temporal +dispensation which renders practicable the appointment and retention +in office of such administrators of the Law as were Mr. Mayne and Mr. +Chapman. The widespread and irreparable mischiefs wrought by these +men still affect disastrously many an unfortunate household; and the +execration by the weaker in the community of their memory, +particularly that of Robert Dawson Mayne, is only a fitting +retribution for their abuse of power. + +NOTES + +85. *A West Indian official superstition professes to believe that a +British barrister must make an exceptionally good colonial S.J.P., +seeing that he is ignorant of everything, save general English law, +that would qualify him for the post! In this, to acquit oneself +tolerably, some acquaintance with the language, customs, and habits +of thought of the population is everywhere else held to be of prime +importance,--native conscientiousness and honesty of purpose being +definitively presupposed. + + + +BOOK III: SOCIAL REVOLUTION + +[113] Never was the Knight of La Mancha more convinced of his +imaginary mission to redress the wrongs of the world than Mr. James +Anthony Froude seems to be of his ability to alter the course of +events, especially those bearing on the destinies of the Negro in the +British West Indies. The doctrinaire style of his utterances, his +sublime indifference as to what Negro opinion and feelings may be, on +account of his revelations, are uniquely charming. In that portion +of his book headed "Social Revolution" our author, with that mixture +of frankness and cynicism which is so dear to the soul of the British +esprit fort of to-day, has challenged a comparison between British +Colonial policy on the [114] one hand, and the Colonial policy of +France and Spain on the other. This he does with an evident +recklessness that his approval of Spain and France involves a +definite condemnation of his own country. However, let us hear +him:-- + +"The English West Indies, like other parts of the world, are going +through a silent revolution. Elsewhere the revolution, as we hope, +is a transition state, a new birth; a passing away of what is old and +worn out, that a fresh and healthier order may rise in its place. In +the West Indies the most sanguine of mortals will find it difficult +to entertain any such hope at all." + +As Mr. Froude is speaking dogmatically here of his, or rather our, +West Indies, let us hear him as he proceeds:-- + +"We have been a ruling power there for two hundred and fifty years; +the whites whom we planted as our representatives are drifting into +ruin, and they regard England and England's policy as the principal +cause of it. The blacks whom, in a fit of virtuous benevolence, we +emancipated, do not feel particularly obliged to us. They think, if +they think at all, that they were [115] ill-treated originally, and +have received no more than was due to them." + +Thus far. Now, as to "the whites whom we planted as our +representatives," and who, Mr. Froude avers, are drifting into ruin, +we confess to a total ignorance of their whereabouts in these islands +in this jubilee year of Negro Emancipation. Of the representatives +of Britain immediately before and after Emancipation we happen to +know something, which, on the testimony of Englishmen, Mr. Froude +will be made quite welcome to before our task is ended. With respect +to Mr. Froude's statement as to the ingratitude of the emancipated +Blacks, if it is aimed at the slaves who were actually set free, it +is utterly untrue; for no class of persons, in their humble and +artless way, are more attached to the Queen's majesty, whom they +regard as incarnating in her gracious person the benevolence which +Mr. Froude so jauntily scoffs at. But if our censor's remark under +this head is intended for the present generation of Blacks, it is a +pure and simple absurdity. What are we Negroes of the present day to +be grateful for to the US, personified by Mr. Froude and the Colonial +[116] Office exportations? We really believe, from what we know of +Englishmen, that very few indeed would regard Mr. Froude's reproach +otherwise than as a palpable adding of insult to injury. Obliged to +"us," indeed! Why, Mr. Froude, who speaks of us as dogs and horses, +suggests that the same kindliness of treatment that secures the +attachment of those noble brutes would have the same result in our +case. With the same consistency that marks his utterances throughout +his book, he tells his readers "that there is no original or +congenital difference between the capacity of the White and the Negro +races." He adds, too, significantly: "With the same chances and with +the same treatment, I believe that distinguished men would be +produced equally from both races." After this truthful testimony, +which Pelion upon Ossa of evidence has confirmed, does Mr. Froude, in +the fatuity of his skin-pride, believe that educated men, worthy of +the name, would be otherwise than resentful, if not disgusted, at +being shunted out of bread in their own native land, which their +parents' labours and taxes have made desirable, in order to afford +room to blockheads, vulgarians, [117] or worse, imported from beyond +the seas? Does Mr. Froude's scorn of the Negroes' skin extend, +inconsistently on his part, to their intelligence and feelings also? +And if so, what has the Negro to care--if let alone and not wantonly +thwarted in his aspirations? It sounds queer, not to say unnatural +and scandalous, that Englishmen should in these days of light be the +champions of injustice towards their fellow-subjects, not for any +intellectual or moral disqualification, but on the simple account of +the darker skin of those who are to be assailed and thwarted in their +life's career and aspirations. Really, are we to be grateful that +the colour difference should be made the basis and justification of +the dastardly denials of justice, social, intellectual, and moral, +which have characterized the régime of those who Mr. Froude boasts +were left to be the representatives of Britain's morality and fair +play? Are the Negroes under the French flag not intensely French? +Are the Negroes under the Spanish flag not intensely Spanish? +Wherefore are they so? It is because the French and Spanish nations, +who are neither of them inferior in origin or the [118] nobility of +the part they have each played on the historic stage, have had the +dignity and sense to understand the lowness of moral and intellectual +consciousness implied in the subordination of questions of an +imperial nature to the slaveholder's anxiety about the hue of those +who are to be benefited or not in the long run. By Spain and France +every loyal and law-abiding subject of the Mother Country has been a +citizen deemed worthy all the rights, immunities, and privileges +flowing from good and creditable citizenship. Those meriting such +distinction were taken into the bosom of the society which their +qualifications recommended them to share, and no office under the +Government has been thought too good or too elevated for men of their +stamp. No wonder, then, that Mr. Froude is silent regarding the +scores of brilliant coloured officials who adorn the civil service of +France and Spain, and whose appointment, in contrast with what has +usually been the case in British Colonies, reflects an abiding lustre +on those countries, and establishes their right to a foremost place +among nations. + +Mr. Froude, in speaking of Chief Justice [119] Reeves, ventures upon +a smart truism which we can discuss for him, but of course not in the +sense in which he has meant it. "Exceptions," our author remarks, +"are supposed proverbially to prove nothing, or to prove the very +opposite of what they appear to prove. When a particular phenomenon +occurs rarely, the probabilities are strong against the recurrence of +it." Now, is it in ignorance, or through disingenuousness, that Mr. +Froude has penned this argument regarding exceptions? Surely, in the +vast area of American life, it is not possible that he could see +Frederick Douglass alone out of the cluster of prominent Black +Americans who are doing the work of their country so worthily and so +well in every official department. Anyhow, Mr. Froude's history of +the Emancipation may here be amended for him by a reminder that, in +the British Colonies, it was not Whites as masters, and Blacks as +slaves, who were affected by that momentous measure. In fact, 1838 +found in the British Colonies very nearly as many Negro and Mulatto +slave-owners as there were white. Well then, these black and yellow +planters received their quota, it may be presumed, of [120] the +£20,000,000 sterling indemnity. They were part and parcel of the +proprietary body in the Colonies, and had to meet the crisis like the +rest. They were very wealthy, some of these Ethiopic accomplices of +the oppressors of their own race. Their sons and daughters were +sent, like the white planter's children, across the Atlantic for a +European education. These young folk returned to their various +native Colonies as lawyers and doctors. Many of them were also +wealthy planters. The daughters, of course, became in time the +mothers of the new generation of prominent inhabitants. Now, in +America all this was different. No "nigger," however alabaster fair, +was ever allowed the privileges of common citizenship, let alone the +right to hold property in others. If possessed by a weakness to pass +for white men, as very many of them could easily have contrived to +do, woe unto the poor impostors! They were hunted down from city to +city as few felons would be, and finally done to death--"serve them +right!" being the grim commentary regarding their fate for having +sought to usurp the ineffable privilege of whitemanship! All this, +Mr. Froude, was [121] the rule, the practice, in America, with regard +to persons of colour up to twenty-five years ago. Now, sir, what is +the phenomenon which strikes your vision in that mighty Republic to- +day, with regard to those self-same despised, discountenanced, +persecuted and harried descendants of Ham? We shall tell you of the +change that has taken place in their condition, and also some of the +reasons of that beneficent revolution. + +The Proclamation of Emancipation on January 1st, 1863, was, by +President Lincoln, frankly admitted to have been a war necessity. No +abstract principle of justice or of morals was of primary +consideration in the matter. The saving of the Union at any cost,-- +that is, the stern political emergency forced forth the document +which was to be the social salvation of every descendant of Ham in +the United States of America. Close upon the heels of their +emancipation, the enfranchisement of the Negroes was pushed forward +by the thorough-going American statesmen. They had no sentimentality +to defer to. The logic of events--the fact not only of the coloured +race being freedmen, but also of their having been effective [122] +comrades on the fields of battle, where the blood of eager thousands +of them had flowed on the Union side, pointed out too plainly that +men with such claims should also be partners in the resulting +triumph. + +Mr. Froude, being so deferential to skin prejudice, will doubtless +find it strange that such a measure as the Civil Rights Bill should +have passed a Congress of Americans. Assuredly with the feeling +against the coloured race which custom and law had engrafted into the +very nature of the vast majority, this was a tremendous call to make +on the national susceptibilities. But it has been exactly this that +has brought out into such vivid contrast the conduct of the British +statesman, loudly professing to be unprejudiced as to colour, and +fair and humane, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the +dealings of the politicians of America, who had, as a matter of fact, +sucked in aversion and contempt towards the Negro together with their +mother's milk. Of course no sane being could expect that feelings so +deeply ingrained and nourished could be rooted out by logic or by any +legislative enactment. But, indeed, it is sublimely creditable to +[123] the American Government that, whatever might be the personal +and private sentiments of its individual members as regards race, +palmam ferat qui meruit--"let him bear the palm who has deserved it"- +-has been their motto in dealing generally with the claims of their +Ethiopic fellow-citizens. Hence it is that in only twenty-five years +America can show Negro public officers as thick as blackberries, +while Mr. Froude can mention only Mr. Justice Reeves in FIFTY years +as a sample of the "exceptional" progress under British auspices of a +man of African descent! Verily, if in fifty long years British +policy can recognize only one single exception in a race between +which and the white race there is no original or congenital +difference of capacity, the inference must be that British policy has +been not only systematically, but also too successfully, hostile to +the advancement of the Ethiopians subject thereto; while the "fair +field and no favour" management of the strong-minded Americans has, +by its results, confirmed the culpability of the English policy in +its relation to "subject races." + +The very suggestive section of "the English [124] in the West +Indies," from which we have already given extracts, and which bears +the title "Social Revolution," thus proceeds:-- + +"But it does not follow that what can be done eventually can be done +immediately, and the gulf which divides the colours is no arbitrary +prejudice, but has been opened by the centuries of training and +discipline which have given us the start in the race" (p. 125 +[Froude]). + +The reference in the opening clause of the above citation, as to what +is eventually possible not being immediately feasible, is to the +elevation of Blacks to high official posts, such as those occupied by +Judge Reeves in Barbados, and by Mr. F. Douglass in the United +States. We have already disposed by anticipation of the above +contention of Mr. Froude's, by showing that in only twenty-five years +America has found hundreds of eminent Blacks to fill high posts under +her government. Our author's futile mixture of Judge Reeves' +exceptional case with that of Fred. Douglass, which he cunningly +singles out from among so many in the United States, is nothing but a +subterfuge, of the same queer and flimsy description with which the +literature of the cause now championed [125] by his eloquence has +made the world only too familiar. What can Mr. Froude conceive any +sane man should see in common between the action of British and of +American statesmanship in the matter now under discussion? If his +utterance on this point is that of a British spokesman, let him abide +by his own verdict against his own case, as embodied in the words, +"the gulf which divides the two COLOURS is no arbitrary prejudice," +which, coupled with his contention that the elevation of the Blacks +is not immediately feasible, discloses the wideness of divergence +between British and American political opinion on this identical +subject. + +Mr. Froude is pathetically eloquent on the colour question. He tells +of the wide gulf between the two colours--we suppose it is as wide as +exists between his white horse and his black horse. Seriously, +however, does not this kind of talk savour only too much of the +slave-pen and the auction-block of the rice-swamp and the cotton- +field; of the sugar-plantation and the driver's lash? In the United +States alone, among all the slave-holding Powers, was the difference +of race and colour invoked openly and boldly to justify all the +enormities that [126] were the natural accompaniments of those +"institutions" of the Past. But is Mr. Froude serious in invoking +the ostracizing of innocent, loyal, and meritorious British subjects +on account of their mere colour? Physical slavery--which was no +crime per se, Mr. Froude tells us--had at least overwhelming brute +power, and that silent, passive force which is even more potential as +an auxiliary, viz., unenlightened public opinion, whose neutrality is +too often a positive support to the empire of wrong. + +But has Mr. Froude, in his present wild propaganda on behalf of +political and, therefore, of social repression, anything analogous to +those two above-specified auxiliaries to rely on? We trow not. Then +why this frantic bluster and shouting forth of indiscreet aspirations +on be half of a minority to whom accomplished facts, when not +agreeable to or manipulated by themselves, are a perpetual grievance, +generating life-long impotent protestations? Presumably there are +possibilities the thoughts of which fascinate our author and his +congeners in this, to our mind, vain campaign in the cause of social +retrogression. But, be the incentives what they may, it might not be +amiss on our [127] part to suggest to those impelled by them that the +ignoring of Negro opinion in their calculations, though not only +possible but easily practised fifty years ago, is a portentous +blunder at the present time. Verbum sapienti. + +Mr. Froude must see that he has set about his Negro-repression +campaign in too blundering a fashion. He evidently expects to be +able to throw dust into the eyes of the intelligent world, juggler- +wise, through the agency of the mighty pronoun US, as representing +the entire Anglo-Saxon race, in his advocacy of the now scarcely +intelligible pretensions of a little coterie of Her Majesty's +subjects in the West Indies. These gentry are hostile, he urges, to +the presence of progressive Negroes on the soil of the tropics! Yet +are these self-same Negroes not only natives, but active improvers +and embellishers of that very soil. We cannot help concluding that +this impotent grudge has sprung out of the additional fact that these +identical Negroes constitute also a living refutation of the sinister +predictions ventured upon generally against their race, with frantic +recklessness, even within the last three decades, by affrighted +slave-holders, of whose ravings Mr. Froude's book is only a [128] +diluted echo, out of season and outrageous to the conscience of +modern civilization. + +It is patent, then, that the matters which Mr. Froude has sought to +force up to the dignity of genetic rivalship, has nothing of that +importance about it. His US, between whom and the Negro subjects of +Great Britain the gulf of colour lies, comprises, as he himself owns, +an outnumbered and, as we hope to prove later on, a not over- +creditable little clique of Anglo-Saxon lineage. The real US who +have started ahead of the Negroes, "through the training and +discipline of centuries," are assuredly not anything like +"represented" by the few pretentious incapables who, instead of +conquering predominance, as they who deserve it always do, like men, +are whimpering like babies after dearly coveted but utterly +unattainable enjoyments--to be had at the expense of the interests of +the Negroes whom they, rather amusingly, affect to despise. When Mr. +Froude shall have become able to present for the world's +contemplation a question respecting which the Anglo-Saxon family, in +its grand world-wide predominance, and the African family, in its yet +feeble, albeit promising, incipience of self-adjustment, shall [129] +actually be competitors, then, and only then, will it be time to +accept the outlook as serious. But when, as in the present case, he +invokes the whole prestige of the Anglo-Saxon race in favour of the +untenable pretensions of a few blasés of that race, and that to the +social and political detriment of tens of thousands of black fellow- +subjects, it is high time that the common sense of civilization +should laugh him out of court. The US who are flourishing, or +pining, as the case may be, in the British West Indies--by favour of +the Colonial Office on the former hypothesis, or, on the second, +through the misdirection of their own faculties--do not, and, in the +very nature of things, cannot in any race take the lead of any set of +men endowed with virile attributes, the conditions of the contest +being on all sides identical. + +Pass we onward to extract and comment on other passages in this very +engaging section of Mr. Froude's book. On the same page (125) he +says:-- + +"The African Blacks have been free enough for thousands, perhaps for +ten thousands of years, and it has been the absence of restraint +which has prevented them from becoming civilized." + +[130] All this, perhaps, is quite true, and, in the absence of +positive evidence to the contrary of our author's dogmatic +assertions, we save time by allowing him all the benefit he can +derive from whatever weight they might carry. + +"Generation has followed generation, and the children are as like +their fathers as the successive generations of apes." + +To this we can have nothing to object; especially in view of what the +writer goes on to say, and that on his own side of the hedge-- +somewhat qualified though his admission may be:--"The whites, it is +likely enough, succeeded one another with the same similarity for a +series of ages." Our speculator grows profoundly philosophic here; +and in this mood thus entertains his readers in a strain which, +though deep, we shall strive to find clear:-- + +"It is now supposed that human race has been on the planet for a +hundred thousand years at least; and the first traces of civilization +cannot be thrown back at furthest beyond six thousand. During all +this time mankind went on treading in the same steps, century after +century making no more advance than the birds and beasts." + +[131] In all this there is nothing that can usefully be taken +exception to; for speculation and conjecture, if plausible and +attractive, are free to revel whenever written documents and the +unmistakable indications of the earth's crust are both entirely at +fault. Warming up with his theme, Mr. Froude gets somewhat ambiguous +in the very next sentence. Says he:-- + +"In Egypt or India or one knows not where, accident or natural +development quickened into life our moral and intellectual faculties; +and these faculties have grown into what we now experience, not in +the freedom in which the modern takes delight, but under the sharp +rule of the strong over the weak, of the wise over the unwise." + +Our author, as we see, begins his above quoted deliverance quite at a +loss with regard to the agency to which the incipience, growth, and +fructification of man's faculties should be attributed. "Accident," +"natural development," he suggests, quickened the human faculties +into the progressive achievements which they have accomplished. But +then, wherefore is this writer so forcible, so confident in his +prophecies regarding Negroes and their future temporal condition +[132] and proceedings, since it is "accident," and "accident" only, +that must determine their fulfilment? Has he so securely bound the +fickle divinity to his service as to be certain of its agency in the +realization of his forecasts? And if so, where then would be the +fortuitousness that is the very essence of occurrences that glide, +undesigned, unexpected, unforeseen, into the domain of Fact, and +become material for History? So far as we feel capable of +intelligently meditating on questions of this inscrutable nature, we +are forced to conclude that since "natural development" could be so +regular, so continuous, and withal so efficient, in the production of +the marvellous results that we daily contemplate, there must be +existent and in operation--as, for instance, in the case of the +uniformity characterizing for ages successive generations of mankind, +as above adduced by our philosopher himself--some controlling LAW, +according and subject to which no check has marred the harmonious +progression, or prevented the consummations that have crowned the +normal exercise of human energy, intellectual as well as physical. + +The sharp rule of the strong over the [133] weak," is the first +clause of the Carlylean-sounding phrase which embodies the requisite +conditions for satisfactory human development. The terms expressive +of these conditions, however, while certainly suggesting and +embracing the beneficent, elevating influence and discipline of +European civilization, such as we know and appreciate it, do not by +any means exclude the domination of Mr. Legree or any other typical +man-monster, whose power over his fellow-creatures is at once a +calamity to the victims and a disgrace to the community tolerating +not only its exercise, but the very possibility of its existence. +The sharp rule of "the wise over the unwise," is the closing section +of the recommendation to ensure man's effective development. Not +even savages hesitate to defer in all their important designs to the +sought-for guidance of superior judgments. But in the case of us +West Indian Blacks, to whom Mr. Froude's doctrine here has a special +reference, is it suggested by him that the bidders for predominance +over us on the purely epidermal, the white skin, ground, are ipso +facto the monopolists of directing wisdom? It surely cannot be so; +for Mr. Froude's own chapters regarding both the [134] nomination by +Downing Street of future Colonial office-holders and the disorganized +mental and moral condition of the indigenous representatives--as he +calls them!--of his country in these climes, preclude the possibility +that the reference regarding the wise can be to them. Now since this +is so, we really cannot see why the pains should have been taken to +indite the above truism, to the truth whereof, under every normal or +legitimate circumstance, the veriest barbarian, by spontaneously +resorting to and cheerfully abiding by it, is among the first to +secure practical effect. + +"Our own Anglo-Saxon race," continues our author, "has been capable +of self-government only after a thousand years of civil and spiritual +authority. European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by higher +instincts, may shorten the probation period of the negro. Individual +blacks of exceptional quality, like Frederick Douglass in America, or +the Chief Justice of Barbados, will avail themselves of opportunities +to rise, and the freest opportunity OUGHT TO BE offered them." Here +we are reminded of the dogma laid down by a certain [135] class of +ethnologists, to the effect that intellectuality, when displayed by a +person of mixed European and African blood, must always be assigned +to the European side of the parentage; and in the foregoing citation +our author speaks of two personages undoubtedly belonging to the +class embraced in the above dogma. Three specific objections may, +therefore, be urged against the statements which we have indicated in +the above quotation. First and foremost, neither Judge Reeves nor +Mr. Fred Douglass is a black man, as Mr. Froude inaccurately +represents each of them to be. The former is of mixed blood, to what +degree we are not adepts enough to determine; and the latter, if his +portrait and those who have personally seen him mislead us not, is a +decidedly fair man. + +We, of course, do not for a moment imagine that either of those +eminent descendants of Ham cares a jot about the settlement of this +question, which doubtless would appear very trivial to both. But as +our author's crusade is against the Negro--by which we understand the +undiluted African descendant, the pure Negro, as he singularly +describes Chief Justice Reeves--our anxiety is to show that there +exist, both [136] in the West Indies and in the United States, scores +of genuine black men to whom neither of these two distinguished +patriots would, for one instant, hesitate to concede any claim to +equality in intellectual and social excellence. The second exception +which we take is, as we have already shown in a previous page, to the +persistent lugging in of America by Mr. Froude, doubtless to keep his +political countrymen in countenance with regard to the Negro +question. We have already pointed out the futility of this +proceeding on our author's part, and suggested how damaging it might +prove to the cause he is striving to uphold. "Blacks of exceptional +quality," like the two gentlemen he has specially mentioned, "will +avail themselves of opportunities to rise." Most certainly they +will, Mr. Froude--but, for the present, only in America, where those +opportunities are really free and open to all. There no parasitical +non-workers are to be found, eager to eat bread, but in the sweat of +other people's brows; no impecunious title-bearers; no importunate +bores, nor other similar characters whom the Government there would +regard it as their duty "to provide for"--by quartering them on the +revenues [137] of Colonial dependencies. But in the British Crown-- +or rather "Anglo-West Indian"--governed Colonies, has it ever been, +can it ever be, thus ordered? Our author's description of the +exigencies that compel injustice to be done in order to requite, or +perhaps to secure, Parliamentary support, coupled with his account of +the bitter animus against the coloured race that rankles in the bosom +of his "Englishmen in the West Indies," sufficiently proves the utter +hypocrisy of his recommendation, that the freest opportunities should +be offered to Blacks of the said exceptional order. The very wording +of Mr. Froude's recommendation is disingenuous. It is one stone sped +at two birds, and which, most naturally, has missed them both. + +Mr. Froude knew perfectly well that, twenty-five years before he +wrote his book, America had thrown open the way to public advancement +to the Blacks, as it had been previously free to Whites alone. His +use of "should be offered," instead of "are offered," betrays his +consciousness that, at the time he was writing, the offering of any +opportunities of the kind he suggests was a thing still to be desired +under British jurisdiction. The third objection [138] which we +shall take to Mr. Froude's bracketing of the cases of Mr. Fred +Douglass and of Judge Reeves together, is that, when closely +examined, the two cases can be distinctly seen to be not in any way +parallel. The applause which our author indirectly bids for on +behalf of British Colonial liberality in the instance of Mr. Reeves +would be the grossest mockery, if accorded in any sense other than we +shall proceed to show. Fred Douglass was born and bred a slave in +one of the Southern States of the Union, and regained his freedom by +flight from bondage, a grown man, and, of course, under the +circumstances, solitary and destitute. He reached the North at a +period when the prejudice of the Whites against men of his race was +so rampant as to constitute a positive mania. + +The stern and cruelly logical doctrine, that a Negro had no rights +which white men were bound to respect, was in full blast and +practical exemplification. Yet amidst it all, and despite of it all, +this gifted fugitive conquered his way into the Temple of Knowledge, +and became eminent as an orator, a writer, and a lecturer on +political and general subjects. Hailed abroad [139] as a prodigy, +and received with acclamation into the brotherhood of intelligence, +abstract justice and moral congruity demanded that such a man should +no longer be subject to the shame and abasement of social, legal, and +political proscription. The land of his birth proved herself equal +to this imperative call of civilized Duty, regardless of customs and +the laws, written as well as unwritten, which had doomed to life-long +degradation every member of the progeny of Ham. Recognizing in the +erewhile bondman a born leader of men, America, with the unflinching +directness that has marked her course, whether in good or in evil, +responded with spontaneous loyalty to the inspiration of her highest +instincts. Shamed into compunction and remorse at the solid fame and +general sympathy secured for himself by a son of her soil, whom, in +the wantonness of pride and power, she had denied all fostering care +(not, indeed, for any conscious offending on his part, but by reason +of a natural peculiarity which she had decreed penal), America, like +a repentant mother, stooped from her august seat, and giving with +enthusiasm both hands to the outcast, she helped him to stand forward +and erect, [140] in the dignity of untrammeled manhood, making him, +at the same time, welcome to a place of honour amongst the most +gifted, the worthiest and most favoured of her children. + +Chief Justice Reeves, on the other hand, did not enter the world, as +Douglass had done, heir to a lot of intellectual darkness and +legalized social and political proscription. Associated from +adolescence with S. J. Prescod, the greatest leader of popular +opinion whom Barbados has yet produced, Mr. Reeves possessed in his +nature the material to assimilate and reflect in his own principles +and conduct the salient characteristics of his distinguished Mentor. +Arrived in England to study law, he had there the privilege of the +personal acquaintance of Lord Brougham, then one of the Nestors of +the great Emancipation conflict. On returning to his native island, +which he did immediately after his call to the bar, Mr. Reeves sprung +at once into the foremost place, and retained his precedence till his +labours and aspirations were crowned by his obtaining the highest +judicial post in that Colony. For long years before becoming Chief +Justice, Mr. Reeves had conquered for himself the respect and +confidence [141] of all Barbadians--even including the ultra +exclusive "Anglo-West-Indians" of Mr. Froude--by the manful +constitutional stand which, sacrificing official place, he had +successfully made against the threatened abrogation of the Charter of +the Colony, which every class and colour of natives cherish and +revere as a most precious, almost sacred, inheritance. The +successful champion of their menaced liberties found clustering +around him the grateful hearts of all his countrymen, who, in their +hour of dread at the danger of their time-honoured constitution, had +clung in despair to him as the only leader capable of heading the +struggle and leading the people, by wise and constitutional guidance, +to the victory which they desired but could not achieve for +themselves. + +Sir William Robinson, who was sent out as pacificator, saw and took +in at a glance the whole significance of the condition of affairs, +especially in their relation to Mr. Reeves, and vice versâ. With the +unrivalled pre-eminence and predominant personal influence of the +latter, the Colonial Office had possessed more than ample means of +being perfectly familiar. What, then, could be more natural and +consonant with [142] sound policy than that the then acknowledged, +but officially unattached, head of the people (being an eminent +lawyer), should, on the occurrence of a vacancy in the highest +juridical post, be appointed to co-operate with the supreme head of +the Executive? Mr. Reeves was already the chief of the legal body of +the Colony; his appointment, therefore, as Chief Justice amounted to +nothing more than an official ratification of an accomplished and +unalterable fact. Of course, it was no fault of England's that the +eminent culture, political influence, and unapproached legal status +of Mr. Reeves should have coincided exactly with her political +requirements at that crisis, nor yet that she should have utilized a +coincidence which had the double advantage of securing the permanent +services, whilst realizing at the same time the life's aspiration, of +a distinguished British subject. But that Mr. Froude should be +dinning in our ears this case of benefited self-interest, gaining the +amplest reciprocity, both as to service and serviceableness, with the +disinterested spontaneity of America's elevation of Mr. Douglass, is +but another proof of the obliquity of the moral medium through [143] +which he is wont to survey mankind and their concerns. + +The distinction between the two marvellous careers which we have been +discussing demands, as it is susceptible of, still sharper +accentuation. In the final success of Reeves, it is the man himself +who confronts one in the unique transcendency and victoriousness of +personal merit. On the other hand, a million times the personal +merit of Reeves combined with his own could have availed Douglass +absolutely nothing in the United States, legal and social proscript +that he was, with public opinion generally on the side of the laws +and usages against him. The very little countries of the world are +proverbial for the production of very great men. But, on the other +hand, narrowness of space favours the concentration and coherence of +the adverse forces that might impede, if they fail of utterly +thwarting, the success which may happen to be grudged by those +possessing the will and the power for its obstruction. In Barbados, +so far as we have heard, read, and seen ourselves of the social ins +and outs of that little sister-colony, the operation of the above +mentioned [144] influences has been, may still be, to a certain +extent, distinctly appreciable. Although in English jurisprudence +there is no law ordaining the proscription, on the ground of race or +colour, of any eligible candidate for social or political +advancement, yet is it notorious that the ethics and practices of the +"Anglo-West Indians"--who, our author has dared to say, represent the +higher type of Englishmen--have, throughout successive generations, +effectually and of course detrimentally operated, as though by a +positive Medo-Persian edict, in a proscriptive sense. It therefore +demanded extraordinary toughness of constitutional fibre, moral, +mental, and, let us add, physical too, to overcome the obstacles +opposed to the progress of merit, too often by persons in +intelligence below contempt, but, in prosperity and accepted +pretension, formidable indeed to fight against and overcome. We +shudder to think of the petty cabals, the underbred indignities, +direct and indirect, which the present eminent Judge had to watch +against, to brush aside, to smile at, in course of his epic strides +towards the highest local pinnacle of his profession. But [145] with +him, as Time has shown, it was all sure and safe. + +Providence had endowed him with the powers and temperament that break +down, when opportunity offers, every barrier to the progress of the +gifted and strong and brave. That opportunity, in his particular +case, offered itself in the Confederation crisis. Distracted and +helpless "Anglo-West Indians" thronged to him in imploring crowds, +praying that their beloved Charter should be saved by the exertion of +his incomparable abilities. Save and except Dr. Carrington, there +was not a single member of the dominant section in Barbados whom it +would not be absurd to name even as a near second to him whom all +hailed as the Champion of their Liberties. In the contest to be +waged the victory was not, as it never once has been, reserved to the +SKIN or pedigree of the combatants. The above two matters, which in +the eyes of the ruling "Bims" had, throughout long decades of +undisturbed security, been placed before and above all possible +considerations, gravitated down to their inherent insignificance when +Intellect and Worth were destined to fight out the issue. Mr. [146] +Reeves, whose possession of the essential qualifications was +admittedly greater than that of every colleague, stood, therefore, in +unquestioned supremacy, lord of the political situation, with the +result above stated. + +To what we have already pointed out regarding the absolute +impossibility of such an opportunity ever presenting itself in +America to Mr. Douglass, in a political sense, we may now add that, +whereas, in Barbados, for the intellectual equipment needed at the +crisis, Mr. Reeves stood quite alone, there could, in the bosom of +the Union, even in respect of the gifts in which Mr. Douglass was +most brilliant, be no "walking over the course" by him. It was in +the country and time of Bancroft, Irving, Whittier, Longfellow, +Holmes, Bryant, Motley, Henry Clay, Dan Webster, and others of the +laureled phalanx which has added so great and imperishable a lustre +to the literature of the English tongue. + +We proceed here another step, and take up a fresh deliverance of our +author's in reference to the granting of the franchise to the black +population of these Colonies. "It is," says Mr. James Anthony +Froude, who is just as prophetic [147] as his prototypes, the slave- +owners of the last half-century, "it is as certain as anything future +can be, that if we give the negroes as a body the political +privileges which we claim for ourselves, they will use them only to +their own injury." The forepart of the above citation reads very +much as if its author wrote it on the principle of raising a ghost +for the mere purpose of laying it. What visionary, what dreamer of +impossible dreams, has ever asked for the Negroes as a body the same +political privileges which are claimed for themselves by Mr. Froude +and others of his countrymen, who are presumably capable of +exercising them? No one in the West Indies has ever done so silly a +thing as to ask for the Negroes as a body that which has not, as +everybody knows, and never will be, conceded to the people of Great +Britain as a body. The demand for Reform in the Crown Colonies--a +demand which our author deliberately misrepresents--is made neither +by nor for the Negro, Mulatto, White, Chinese, nor East Indian. It +is a petition put forward by prominent responsible colonists--the +majority of whom are Whites, and mostly Britons besides. + +[148] Their prayer, in which the whole population in these Colonies +most heartily join, is simply and most reasonably that we, the said +Colonies, being an integral portion of the British Empire, and +having, in intelligence and every form of civilized progress, +outgrown the stage of political tutelage, should be accorded some +measure of emancipation therefrom. And thereby we--White, Black, +Mulatto, and all other inhabitants and tax-payers--shall be able to +protect ourselves against the self-seeking and bold indifference to +our interests which seem to be the most cherished expression of our +rulers' official existence. It may be possible (for he has attempted +it), that our new instructor in Colonial ethics and politics, under +the impulsion of skin-superiority, and also of confidence in the +probable success of experiments successfully tried fifty years +before, does really believe in the sensibleness of separating +COLOURS, and representing the wearers of them as being generally +antagonistic to one another in Her Majesty's West Indian Dominions. +How is it then, we may be permitted to ask Mr. Froude, that no +complaint of the sort formulated by him as against the Blacks has +ever been put [149] forward by the thousands of Englishmen, +Scotchmen, Irishmen, and other Europeans who are permanent +inhabitants, proprietors, and tax-payers of these Colonies? The +reason is that Anglo-West Indianism, or rather Colonialism, is the +creed of a few residents sharply divisible into two classes in the +West Indies. Labouring conjointly under race-madness, the first +believes that, as being of the Anglo-Saxon race, they have a right to +crow and dominate in whatever land they chance to find themselves, +though in their own country they or their forefathers had had to be +very dumb dogs indeed. The Colonial Office has for a long time been +responsible for the presence in superior posts of highly salaried +gentry of this category, who have delighted in showing themselves off +as the unquestionable masters of those who supply them with the pay +that gives them the livelihood and position they so ungratefully +requite. These fortunate folk, Mr. Froude avers, are likely to +leave our shores in a huff, bearing off with them the civilizing +influences which their presence so surely guarantees. Go tell to the +marines that the seed of Israel flourishing in the borders of +[150] Misraim will abandon their flourishing district of Goshen +through sensitiveness on account of the idolatry of the devotees of +Isis and Osiris! + +The second and less placable class of "Englishmen in the West +Indies," whose final departure our author would have us to believe +would complete the catastrophe to progress in the British Antilles, +is very impalpable indeed. We cannot feel them. We have failed to +even see them. True, Mr. Froude scouts on their behalf the bare +notion of their condescending to meet, on anything like equality, us, +whom he and they pretend (rather anachronistically, at least) to have +been their former slaves, or servants. But where, in the name of +Heaven, where are these sortis de la cuisse de Jupiter, Mr. Froude? +If they are invisible, mourning in impenetrable seclusion over the +impossibility of having, as their fathers had before them, the luxury +of living at the Negroes' expense, shall we Negroes who are in the +sunshine of heaven, prepared to work and win our way, be anywise +troubled in our Jubilee by the drivelling ineptitude which insanely +reminds us of the miseries of those who went before us? We have thus +arrived at the cardinal, [151] essential misrepresentation, out of +scores which compose "The Bow of Ulysses," and upon which its phrases +mainly hinge. Semper eadem--"Always the same"--has been the proud +motto of the mightiest hierarchy that has controlled human action and +shaped the destinies of mankind, no less in material than in ghostly +concerns. Yet is a vast and very beneficial change, due to the +imperious spirit of the times, manifest in the Roman Church. No +longer do the stake, the sword, and the dismal horrors of the +interdict figure as instruments for assuring conformity and +submission to her dogmas. She is now content to rest her claims on +herbeneficence in the past, as attested by noble and imperishable +memorials of her solicitude for the poor and the ignorant, and in +proclaiming the gospel without those ghastly coercives to its +acceptance. Surely such a change, however unpalatable to those who +have been compelled to make it, is most welcome to the outside world +at large. "Always the same" is also, or should be, the device of the +discredited herd whose spokesman Mr. Froude is so proud to be. In +nothing has their historical. character, as shown in the published +literature of their [152] cause up to 1838, exhibited any sign of +amelioration. It cannot be affected by the spirit and the lessons of +the times. Mendacity and a sort of judicial blindness seem to be the +two most salient characteristics by which are to be distinguished +these implacable foes and would-be robbers of human rights and +liberty. But, gracious heavens! what can tempt mortals to incur this +weight of infamy? Wealth and Power? To be (very improbably) a +Croesus or (still more improbably) a Bonaparte, and to perish at the +conventional age, and of vulgar disease, like both? Turpitudes on +the part of sane men, involving the sacrifice of the priceless +attributes of humanity, can be rendered intelligible by the supreme +temporal gains above indicated, but only if exemption from the common +lot of mankind--in the shape of care, disease, and death--were +accompaniments of those prizes. + +In favour of slavery, which has for so many centuries desolated the +African family and blighted its every chance of indigenous progress-- +of slavery whose abolition our author so ostentatiously regrets--only +one solitary permanent result, extending in every case over [153] a +natural human life, has been paraded by him as a respectable +justification. At page 246, speaking of Negroes met by him during a +stroll which he took at Mandeville, Jamaica, he tells us:-- + +"The people had black faces; but even they had shaped their manners +in the old English models. The men touched their hats respectfully +(as they eminently did not in Kingston and its environs). The women +smiled and curtsied, and the children looked shy when one spoke to +them. The name of slavery is a horror to us; but there must have +been something human and kindly about it, too, when it left upon the +character the marks of courtesy and good breeding"! + +Alas for Africa and the sufferings of her desolated millions, in view +of so light-hearted an assessment as this! Only think of the ages of +outrage, misery, and slaughter--of the countless hecatombs that +Mammon is hereby absolved from having directly exacted, since the +sufficing expiatory outcome of it all has been only "marks of +courtesy and good breeding"! Marks that are displayed, forsooth, by +the survivors of the ghastly experiences or by [154] their +descendants! And yet, granting the appreciable ethical value of the +hat-touching, the smirking and curtseyings of those Blacks to persons +whom they had no reason to suspect of unfriendliness, or whose white +face they may in the white man's country have greeted with a civility +perhaps only prudential, we fail to discover the necessity of the +dreadful agency we have adverted to, for securing the results on +manners which are so warmly commended. African explorers, from Mungo +Park to Livingstone and Stanley, have all borne sufficient testimony +to the world regarding the natural friendliness of the Negro in his +ancestral home, when not under the influence of suspicion, anger, or +dread. + +It behoves us to repeat (for our detractor is a persistent repeater) +that the cardinal dodge by which Mr. Froude and his few adherents +expect to succeed in obtaining the reversal of the progress of the +coloured population is by misrepresenting the elements, and their +real attitude towards one another, of the sections composing the +British West Indian communities. Everybody knows full well that +Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen (who are not officials), as [155] +well as Germans, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, and other +nationalities, work in unbroken harmony and, more or less, prosper in +these Islands. These are no cherishers of any vain hankering after a +state of things in which men felt not the infamy of living not only +on the unpaid labour, but at the expense of the sufferings, the +blood, and even the life of their fellow-men. These men, honourable +by instinct and of independent spirit, depend on their own resources +for self-advancement in the world--on their capital either of money +in their pockets or of serviceable brains in their heads, energy in +their limbs, and on these alone, either singly or more or less in +combination. These reputable specimens of manhood have created homes +dear to them in these favoured climes; and they, at any rate, being +on the very best terms with all sections of the community in which +their lot is cast, have a common cause as fellow-sufferers under the +régime of Mr. Froude's official "birds of passage." The agitation in +Trinidad tells its own tale. There is not a single black man--though +there should have been many--among the leaders of the movement for +Reform. Nevertheless the honourable [156] and truthful author of +"The English in the West Indies," in order to invent a plausible +pretext for his sinister labours of love on behalf of the poor pro- +slavery survivals, and despite his knowledge that sturdy Britons are +at the head of the agitation, coolly tells the world that it is a +struggle to secure "negro domination." + +The further allegation of our author respecting the black man is +curious and, of course, dismally prophetic. As the reader may +perhaps recollect, it is to the effect that granting political power +to the Negroes as a body, equal in scope "to that claimed by Us" +(i.e., Mr. Froude and his friends), would certainly result in the use +of these powers by the Negroes to their own injury. And wherefore? +If Mr. Froude professes to believe--what is a fact--that there is "no +original or congenital difference of capacity" between the white and +the African races, where is the consistency of his urging a +contention which implies inferiority in natural shrewdness, as +regards their own affairs, on the part of black men? Does this +blower of the two extremes of temperature in the same breath pretend +that the average British voter is better informed, can see more +clearly what is for his own advantage, [157] is better able to +assess the relative merits of persons to be entrusted with the +spending of his taxes, and the general management of his interests? +If Mr. Froude means all this, he is at issue not only with his own +specific declaration to the contrary, but with facts of overwhelming +weight and number showing precisely the reverse. We have personally +had frequent opportunities of coming into contact, both in and out of +England, with natives of Great Britain, not of the agricultural order +alone, but very often of the artisan class, whose ignorance of the +commonest matters was as dense as it was discreditable to the land of +their birth and breeding. Are these people included (on account of +having his favourite sine quâ non of a fair skin) in the US of this +apostle of skin-worship, in the indefeasible right to political power +which is denied to Blacks by reason, or rather non-reason, of their +complexion? + +The fact is, that, judging by his own sentiments and those of his +Anglo-West Indian friends, Mr. Froude calculated on producing an +impression in favour of their discreditable views by purposely +keeping out of sight the numerous European and other sufferers under +the yoke [158] which he sneers at seeing described by its proper +appellation of "a degrading tyranny." The prescriptive unfavourable +forecast of our author respecting political power in the hands of the +Blacks may, in our opinion, be hailed as a warrant for its bestowal +by those in whose power that bestowal may be. As a pro-slavery +prophecy, equally dismal and equally confident with the hundreds that +preceded it, this new vaticination may safely be left to be +practically dealt with by the Race, victimized and maligned, whose +real genius and character are purposely belied by those who expect to +be gainers by the process. Invested with political power, the +Negroes, Mr. Froude goes on to assure his readers, "will slide back +into their old condition, and the chance will be gone of lifting them +to the level to which we have no right to say they are incapable of +rising." How touchingly sympathetic! How transcendently liberal and +righteous! But, to speak the truth, is not this solicitude of our +cynical defamer on our behalf, after all, a useless waste of emotion +on his part? Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.+ The tears of the +crocodile are most copious in close view of the banquet on his prey. +This [159] reiterated twaddle of Mr. Froude, in futile and +unseasonable echo of the congenial predictions of his predecessors in +the same line, might be left to receive not only the answer of his +own book to the selfsame talk of the slavers fifty years ago, but +also that of the accumulated refutations which America has furnished +for the last twenty-five years as to the retrograde tendency so +falsely imputed. But, taking it as a serious contention, we find +that it involves a suggestion that the according of electoral votes +to citizens of a certain complexion would, per se and ipso facto, +produce a revulsion and collapse of the entire prevailing +organization and order of a civilized community. + +What talismanic virtue this prophet of evil attributes to a vote in +the hand of a Negro out of Barbados, where for years the black man's +vote has been operating, harmlessly enough, Heaven knows, we cannot +imagine. At all events, as sliding back on the part of a community +is a matter which would require some appreciable time, however brief, +let us hope that the authorities charged "to see that the state +receive no detriment" would be vigilant enough and in time to arrest +the evil and vindicate [160] the efficiency of the civilized methods +of self-preservation. + +Our author concludes by another reference to Chief Justice Reeves: +"Let British authority die away, and the average black nature, such +as it now is, be left free to assert itself, there will be no more +negroes like him in Barbadoes or anywhere." How the dying away of +British authority in a British Colony is to come to pass, Mr. Froude +does not condescend here explicitly to state. But we are left free +to infer from the whole drift of "The English in the West Indies" +that it will come through the exodus en masse said to be threatened +by his "Anglo-West Indians." Mr. Froude sympathetically justifies +the disgust and exasperation of these reputable folk at the presence +and progress of the race for whose freedom and ultimate elevation +Britain was so lavish of the wealth of her noblest intellects, +besides paying the prodigious money-ransom of TWENTY MILLION pounds +sterling. With regard to our author's talk about "the average black +nature, such as it now exists, being left free to assert itself," and +the dire consequences therefrom to result, we can only feel pity at +the desperate straits to [161] which, in his search for a pretext for +gratuitous slander, a man of our author's capacity has been so +ignominiously reduced. All we can say to him with reference to this +portion of his violent suppositions is that "the average black +nature, such as it now exists," should NOT, in a civilized community, +be left free to assert itself, any more than the average white, the +average brown, the average red, or indeed any average colour of human +nature whatsoever. As self-defence is the first law of nature, it +has followed that every condition of organized society, however +simple or primitive, is furnished with some recognized means of self- +protection against the free assertion of itself by the average nature +of any of its members. + +Of course, if things should ever turn out according to Mr. Froude's +desperate hypothesis, it may also happen that there will be no more +Negroes like Mr. justice Reeves in Barbados. But the addition of the +words "or anywhere" to the above statement is just another of those +suppressions of the truth which, absolutely futile though they are, +constitute the only means by which the policy he writes to promote +can possibly be made to [162] appear even tolerable. The assertion +of our author, therefore, standing as it actually does, embracing the +whole world, is nothing less than an audacious absurdity, for there +stand the United States, the French and Spanish islands--not to speak +of the Central and South American Republics, Mexico, and Brazil--all +thronged with black, mixed blood, and even half-breed high officials, +staring him and the whole world in the face. + +The above noted suppression of the truth to the detriment of the +obnoxious population recalls a passage wherein the suggestion of what +is not the truth has been resorted to for the same purpose. At page +123 we read: "The disproportion of the two races--always dangerously +large--has increased with ever-gathering velocity since the +emancipation. It is now beyond control on the old lines." The use +of the expletive "dangerously," as suggestive of the truculence of +the people to whom it refers, is critically allowable in view of the +main intention of the author. But what shall we say of the +suggestion contained in the very next sentence, which we have +italicized? We are required by it to understand that in slavery-time +the [163] planters had some organized method, rendered impracticable +by the Emancipation, of checking, for their own personal safety, the +growth of the coloured population. If we, in deference to the +superior mental capacity of our author, admit that self-interest was +no irresistible motive for promoting the growth of the human +"property" on which their prosperity depended, we are yet at liberty +to ask what was the nature of the "old lines" followed for +controlling the increase under discussion. Was it suffocation of the +babes by means of sulphur fumes, the use of beetle-paste, or exposure +on the banks of the Caribbean rivers? In the later case History +evidently lost a chance of self-repetition in the person of some +leader like Moses, the Hebra-Egyptian Spartacus, arising to avenge +and deliver his people. + +We now shall note how he proceeds to descant on slavery itself:-- +"Slavery," says he, "was a survival from a social order which had +passed away, and slavery could not be continued. IT DOES NOT FOLLOW +THAT per se IT WAS A CRIME. The negroes who were sold to the dealers +in the factories were most of them either slaves already to worse +masters or were servi, servants [164] in the old meaning of the +word, or else criminals, servati or reserved from death. They would +otherwise have been killed, and since the slave trade has been +abolished, are again killed in the too celebrated customs. . . ." + +Slavery, as Mr. Froude and the rest of us are bound to discuss it at +present, is by no means susceptible of the gloss which he has +endeavoured, in the above extract, to put on it. The British nation, +in 1834, had to confront and deal with the only species of slavery +which was then within the cognizance of public morals and practical +politics. Doubtless our author, learned and erudite as he is, would +like to transport us to those patriarchal ages when, under theocratic +decrees, the chosen people were authorized to purchase (not to +kidnap) slaves, and keep them as an everlasting inheritance in their +posterity. The slaves so purchased, we know, became members of the +families to which their lot was attached, and were hedged in from +cruel usage by distinct and salutary regulations. This is the only +species of slavery which--with the addition of the old Germanic self- +enslavements and the generally prevailing ancient custom of pledging +one's personal services [165] in liquidation of indebtedness--can be +covered by the singular verdict of noncriminality which our author +has pronounced. He, of course, knows much better than we do what the +condition of slaves was in Greece as well as in Rome. He knows, too, +that the "wild and guilty phantasy that man could hold property in +man," lost nothing of its guilt or its wildness with the lapse of +time and the changes of circumstances which overtook and affected +those reciprocal relations. Every possibility of deterioration, +every circumstance wherein man's fallen nature could revel in its +worst inspirations, reached culmination at the period when the +interference of the world, decreed by Providence, was rendered +imperative by the sufferings of the bondsmen. It is this crisis of +the history of human enslavement that Mr. Froude must talk about, if +he wishes to talk to any purpose on the subject at all. His scoffs +at British "virtuous benevolence," and his imputation of ingratitude +to the Negro in respect of that self-same benevolence, do not refer +to any theocratic, self-contracted, abstract, or idyllic condition of +servitude. They pin his meaning down [166] to that particular phase +when slavery had become not only "the sum," but the very +quintessence, "of all human villainies." + +At its then phase, slavery had culminated into being a menace, +portentous and far encroaching, to not only the moral life but the +very civilization of the higher types of the human family, so +debasing and blighting were its effects on those who came into even +tolerating contact with its details. The indescribable atrocities +practised on the slaves, the deplorable sapping of even respectable +principles in owners of both sexes--all these stood forth in their +ineffable hideousness before the uncorrupted gaze of the moral +heroes, sons of Britain and America, and also of other countries, +who, buckling on the armour of civilization and right, fought for the +vindication of them both, through every stern vicissitude, and won +the first grand, ever-memorable victory of 1838, whereof we so +recently celebrated the welcome Jubilee! Oh! it was a combat of +archangels against the legions that Mammon had banded together and +incited to the conflict. But though it was Sharp, Clarkson, +Wilberforce, and the rest [167] of that illustrious host of cultured, +lofty-souled, just, merciful, and beneficent men, who were thus the +saviours, as well as the servants, of society, yet have we seen it +possible for an Englishman of to-day to mouth against their memory +the ineptitudes of their long-vanquished foes, and to flout the +consecrated dead in their graves, as the Boeotian did the living +Pericles in the market-place of Athens! + +Why waste words and time on this defamer of his own countrymen, who, +on account of the material gain and the questionable martial glory of +the conquest, eulogizes Warren Hastings, the viceregal plunderer of +India, whilst, in the same breath, he denounces Edmund Burke for +upholding the immutable principles of right and justice! These +principles once, and indubitably now, so precious in their fullest +integrity to the normal British conscience, must henceforth, say Mr. +Froude and his fellow-colonialists, be scored off the moral code of +Britain, since they "do not pay" in tangible pelf, in self- +aggrandisement, or in dazzling prestige. + +The statement that many negroes who were sold to the dealers in the +factories were "slaves [168] already to worse masters" is, in the +face of facts which could not possibly have been unknown to him, a +piece of very daring assertion. But this should excite no wonder, +considering that precise and scrupulous accuracy would be fatal to +the discreditable cause to which he so shamelessly proclaims his +adhesion. As being familiar since early childhood with members of +almost every tribe of Africans (mainly from or arriving by way of the +West Coast) who were brought to our West Indies, we are in a position +to contradict the above assertion of Mr. Froude's, its unfaltering +confidence notwithstanding. We have had the Madingoes, Foulahs, +Houssas, Calvers, Gallahs, Karamenties, Yorubas, Aradas, Cangas, +Kroos, Timnehs, Veis, Eboes, Mokoes, Bibis, and Congoes, as the most +numerous and important of the tribal contribution of Africa to the +population of these Colonies. Now, from what we have intimately +learned of these people (excepting the Congoes, who always appeared +to us an inferior tribe to all the others), we unhesitatingly deny +that even three in ten of the whole number were ever slaves in their +own country, in the sense of having been born under any organized +[169] system of servitude. The authentic records relating to the +enslavement of Africans, as a regular systematized traffic, do not +date further back than five centuries ago. It is true that a great +portion of ancient literature and many monuments bear distinct +evidence, all the more impressive because frequently only casual, +that, from the earliest ages, the Africans had shared, in common with +other less civilized peoples, the doom of having to furnish the +menial and servile contingents of the more favoured sections of the +human family. Now, dating from, say, five hundred years ago, which +was long indeed after the disappearance of the old leading empires of +the world, we have (save and except in the case of Arab incursionists +into the Eastern and Northern coasts) no reliable authority for +saying, or even for supposing, that the tribes of the African +interior suffered from the molestations of professional man-hunters. + +It was the organization of the West Coast slave traffic towards the +close of the sixteenth century, and the extermination of the +Caribbean aborigines by Spain, soon after Columbus had discovered the +Western Continent, which [170] gave cohesion, system, impetus, and +aggressiveness to the trade in African flesh and blood. Then the +factory dealers did not wait at their seaboard mart, as our author +would have us suppose, for the human merchandize to be brought down +to them. The auri sacra fames, the accursed craving for gain, was +too imperious for that. From the Atlantic border to as far inland as +their emissaries could penetrate, their bribes, in every species of +exchangeable commodities, were scattered among the rapacious chiefs +on the river banks; while these latter, incited as well by native +ferocity as by lust of gain, rushed forth to "make war" on their +neighbours, and to kidnap, for sale to the white purchaser, every +man, woman, and child they could capture amidst the nocturnal flames, +confusion, tumult, and terror resulting from their unexpected +irruption. That the poor people thus captured and sold into foreign +on age were under worse masters than those under whom they, on being +actually bought and becoming slaves, were doomed to experience all +the atrocities that have thrilled with horror the conscience of the +civilized Christian world, is a statement of worse than [171] +childish absurdity. Every one, except Mr. Froude and his fellow- +apologists for slavery, knows that the cruelty of savage potentates +is summary, uncalculating, and, therefore, merciful in its +ebullitions. A head whisked off, brains dashed out, or some other +short form of savage dispatch, is the preferential method of +destruction. With our author's better masters, there was the long, +dreary vicissitude, beginning from the horrors of the capture, and +ending perhaps years upon years after, in some bush or under the lash +of the driver. The intermediate stages of the starvation life of +hunger, chains, and hideous exposure at the barancoon, the stowing +away like herrings on board the noisome ship, the suffocation, the +deck-sores wrought into the body by the attrition of the bonier parts +of the system against the unyielding wood--all these, says Mr. +Froude, were more tolerable than the swift doing away with life under +an African master! Under such, at all events, the care and comfort +suitable to age were strictly provided for, and cheered the advanced +years of the faithful bondsman. + +After a good deal of talk, having the same logical value, our author, +in his enthusiasm for [172] slavery, delivers himself thus: "For +myself, I would rather be the slave of a Shakespeare or a Burghley, +than the slave of a majority in the House of Commons, or the slave of +my own folly." Of the four above specified alternatives of +enslavement, it is to be regretted that temperament, or what is more +likely, perhaps, self-interest, has driven him to accept the fourth, +or the latter of the two deprecated yokes, his book being an +irrefutable testimony to the fact. For, most assuredly, it has not +been at the prompting of wisdom that a learned man of unquestionably +brilliant talents and some measure of accorded fame could have +prostituted those talents and tarnished that fame by condescending to +be the literary spokesman of the set for whose miserable benefit he +recommends the statesmen of his country to perjure and compromise +themselves, regardless of inevitable consequences, which the value of +the sectional satisfaction to be thereby given would but very poorly +compensate. Possibly a House of Commons majority, whom this +dermatophilist evidently rates far lower than his "Anglo-West +Indians," might, if he were their Slave, have protected their own +self- [173] respect by restraining him from vicariously scandalizing +them by his effusions. + +After this curious boast about his preferences as a hypothetic +bondsman, Mr. Froude proceeds gravely to inform his readers that +"there may be authority yet not slavery; a soldier is not a slave, a +wife is not a slave. . ." and he continues, with a view of utilizing +these platitudes against the obnoxious Negro, by telling us that +persons sustaining the above specified and similar relations "may not +live by their own wills, or emancipate themselves at their own +pleasure from positions in which nature has placed them, or into +which they have themselves voluntarily entered. The negroes of the +West Indies are children, and not yet disobedient children. . . . If +you enforce self-government upon them when they are not asking for +it, you may . . . wilfully drive them back into the condition of +their ancestors, from which the slave-trade was the beginning of +their emancipation."! The words which we have signalized by italics +in the above extract could have been conceived only by a bigot--such +an atrocious sentiment being possible only as the product of mind or +morals [174] wrenched hopelessly out of normal action. All the +remainder of this hashing up of pointless commonplaces has for its +double object a suggestio falsi against us Negroes as a body, and a +diverting of attention, as we have proved before, from the numerous +British claimants of Reform, whose personality Mr. Froude and his +friends would keep out of view, provided their crafty policy has the +result of effectually repressing the hitherto irrepressible, and, as +such, to the "Anglo-West Indian," truly detestable Negro. + +NOTES + +158. +Translation: "I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts." + + + +BOOK III: WEST INDIAN CONFEDERATION + +[175] In heedless formulation of his reasons, if such they should be +termed, for urging tooth and nail the non-according of reform to the +Crown-governed Colonies, our author puts forth this dogmatic +deliverance (p. 123):-- + +"A West Indian self-governing dominion is possible only with a full +Negro vote. If the whites are to combine, so will the blacks. It +will be a rule by the blacks and for the blacks." + +That a constitution for any of our diversely populated Colonies which +may be fit for it is possible only with "a full Negro vote" (to the +extent within the competence of such voting), goes without saying, as +must be the case with every section of the Queen's subjects eligible +for the franchise. The duly qualified Spaniard, [176] Coolie, +Portuguese, or man of any other non-British race, will each thus have +a vote, the same as every Englishman or any other Briton. Why, then, +should the vote of the Negro be so especially a bugbear? It is +because the Negro is the game which our political sportsman is in +full chase of, and determined to hunt down at any cost. Granted, +however, for the sake of argument, that black voters should +preponderate at any election, what then? We are gravely told by this +latter-day Balaam that "If the whites are to combine, so will the +blacks," but he does not say for what purpose. + +His sentence, therefore, may be legitimately constructed in full for +him in the only sense which is applicable to the mutual relations +actually existing between those two directly specified sections of +British subjects who he would fain have the world believe live in a +state of active hostility:--"If the whites are to combine for the +Promotion of the general welfare, as many of the foremost of them +have done before and are doing now, so will the blacks also combine +in the support of such whites, and as staunch auxiliaries equally +interested in the furtherance of the same ameliorative [177] +objects." Except in the sense embodied in the foregoing sentence, we +cannot, in these days, conceive with what intent persons of one +section should so specially combine as to compel combination on the +part of persons of any other. The further statement that a +confederation having a full black voting-power would be a government +"by the blacks and for the blacks," is the logical converse of the +now obsolete doctrine of Mr. Froude's inspirers--"a government by +whites should be only for whites." But this formula, however +strenuously insisted on by those who gave it shape, could never, +since even before three decades from the first introduction of +African slaves, be thoroughly put in practice, so completely had +circumstances beyond man's devising or control compelled the altering +of men's minds and methods with regard to the new interests which had +irresistibly forced themselves into importance as vital items in +political arrangements. Nowadays, therefore, that Mr. Froude should +desire to create a state of feeling which had, and could have had, no +existence with regard to the common interests of the inhabitants for +upwards of two full centuries, is [178] evidently an excess of +confidence which can only be truly described as amazing. But, after +all, what does our author mean by the words "a government by the +blacks?" Are we to understand him as suggesting that voting by black +electors would be synonymous with electing black representatives? If +so, he has clearly to learn much more than he has shown that he +lacks, in order to understand and appreciate the vital influences at +work in West Indian affairs. Undoubtedly, being the spokesman of few +who (secretly) avow themselves to be particularly hostile to +Ethiopians, he has done no more than reproduce their sentiments. +For, conscious, as these hankerers after the old "institutions" are, +of being utterly ineligible for the furthering of modern progressive +ideas, they revenge themselves for their supersession on everybody +and everything, save and except their own arrogant stolidity. White +individuals who have part and lot in the various Colonies, with their +hearts and feelings swayed by affections natural to their birth and +earliest associations; and Whites who have come to think the land of +their adoption as dear to themselves as the land of their birth, +entertain no such dread of [179] their fellow-citizens of any other +section, whom they estimate according to intelligence and probity, +and not according to any accident of exterior physique. Every +intelligent black is as shrewd regarding his own interests as our +author himself would be regarding his in the following hypothetical +case: Some fine day, being a youth and a bachelor, he gets wedded, +sets up an establishment, and becomes the owner of a clipper yacht. +For his own service in the above circumstances we give him the credit +to believe that, on the persons specified below applying among others +to him for employment, as chamber-maid and house-servant, and also as +hands for the vessel, he would, in preference to any ordinarily +recommended white applicants, at once engage the two black servant- +girls at President Churchill's in Dominica, the droghermen there as +able seamen, and as cabin-boy the lad amongst them whose precocious +marine skill he has so warmly and justly extolled. It is not because +all these persons are black, but because of the soul-consciousness of +the selector, that they each (were they even blue) had a title to +preferential consideration, his experience and sense of fitness being +[180] their most effectual supporters. Similarly, the Negro voter +would elect representatives whom he knew he could trust for +competency in the management of his affairs, and not persons whose +sole recommendation to him would be the possession of the same kind +of skin. Nor, from what we know of matters in the West Indies, do we +believe that any white man of the class we have eulogized would +hesitate to give his warmest suffrage to any black candidate who he +knew would be a fitting representative of his interests. We could +give examples from almost every West Indian island of white and +coloured men who would be indiscriminately chosen as their candidate +by either section. But the enumeration is needless, as the fact of +the existence of such men is too notorious to require proof. + +Mr. Froude states plainly enough (p. 123) that, whereas a whole +thousand years were needed to train and discipline the Anglo-Saxon +race, yet "European government, European instruction, continued +steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by a higher +instinct, may shorten the probation period of the negro." Let it be +supposed that this period of probation [181] for the Negro should +extend, under such exceptionally favourable circumstances, to any +period less than that which is alleged to have been needed by the +Anglo-Saxon to attain his political manhood--what then are the +prospects held out by Mr. Froude to us and our posterity on our +mastering the training and discipline which he specially recommends +for Blacks? Our author, in view, doubtless, of the rapidity of our +onward progress, and indeed our actual advancement in every respect, +thus answers (pp. 123-4):--"Let a generation or two pass by and carry +away with them the old traditions, and an English governor-general +will be found presiding over a black council, delivering the speeches +made for him by a black prime minister; and how long could this +endure? No English gentleman would consent to occupy so absurd a +situation." + +And again, more emphatically, on the same point (p. 285):--"No +Englishman, not even a bankrupt peer, would consent to occupy such +position; the blacks themselves would despise him if he did; and if +the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how long +would such a connection endure?" + +[182] It is plainly to be seen from the above two extracts that the +political ethics of our author, being based on race and colour +exclusively, would admit of no conceivable chance of real elevation +to any descendant of Africa, who, being Ethiopian, could not possibly +change his skin. The "old traditions" which Mr. Froude supposes to +be carried away by his hypothetical (white) generations who have +"passed by," we readily infer from his language, rendered impossible +such incarnations of political absurdity as those he depicts. But +what should be thought of the sense, if not indeed the sanity, of a +grave political teacher who prescribes "European government" and +"European education" as the specifics to qualify the Negro for +political emancipation, and who, when these qualifications are +conspicuously mastered by the Negro who has undergone the training, +refuses him the prize, because he is a Negro? We see further that, +in spite of being fit for election to council, and even to be prime +ministers competent to indite governors' messages, the pigment under +our epidermis dooms us to eventual disappointment and a life-long +condition of contempt. Even so is it [183] desired by Mr. Froude and +his clients, and not without a spice of piquancy is their opinion +that for a white ruler to preside and rule over and accept the best +assistance of coloured men, qualified as above stated, would be a +self-degradation too unspeakable for toleration by any Englishman-- +"even a bankrupt peer." Unfortunately for Mr. Froude, we can point +him to page 56 of this his very book, where, speaking of Grenada and +deprecating the notion of its official abandonment, our author +says:-- + +"Otherwise they [Negroes] were quiet fellows, and if the politicians +would only let them alone, they would be perfectly contented, and +might eventually, if wisely managed, come to some good. . . . Black +the island was, and black it would remain. The conditions were never +likely to arise which would bring back a European population; but a +governor who was a sensible man, who would reside and use his natural +influence, could manage it with perfect ease." + +Here, then, we see that the governor of an entirely black population +may be a sensible man, and yet hold the post. Our author, indeed, +gives the Blacks over whom this sensible governor would hold rule as +being in number [184] just 40,000 souls; and we are therefore bound +to accept the implied suggestion that the dishonour of holding +supremacy over persons of the odious colour begins just as their +number begins to count onward from 40,000! There is quite enough in +the above verbal vagaries of our philosopher to provoke a volume of +comment. But we must pass on to further clauses of this precious +paragraph. Mr. Froude's talent for eating his own words never had a +more striking illustration than here, in his denial of the utility of +native experience as the safest guide a governor could have in the +administration of Colonial affairs. At page 91 he says:--"Among the +public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found +fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty, if a sincere +effort be made to find them." + +A post of honour and difficulty, we and all other persons in the +British dominions had all along understood was regarded as such in +the case of functionaries called upon to contend with adverse forces +in the accomplishment of great ends conceived by their superiors. +But we find that, according to Mr. Froude, all the credit that has +hitherto redounded to those [185] who had succeeded in such tasks has +been in reality nothing more than a gilding over of disgrace, +whenever the exertions of such officials had been put forth amongst +persons not wearing a European epidermis. The extension of British +influence and dominion over regions inhabited by races not white is +therefore, on the part of those who promote it, a perverse opening of +arenas for the humiliation and disgrace of British gentlemen, nay, +even of those titled members of the "black sheep" family--bankrupt +peers! As we have seen, however, ample contradiction and refutation +have been considerately furnished by the same objector in this same +volume, as in his praises of the governor just quoted. + +The cavil of Mr. Froude about English gentlemen reading messages +penned by black prime ministers applies with double force to English +barristers (who are gentlemen by statute) receiving the law from the +lips of black Judges. + +For all that, however, an emergency arose so pressing as to compel +even the colonialism of Barbados to practically and completely refute +this doctrine, by praying for, and submitting with gratitude to, the +supreme headship of a [186] man of the race which our author so +finically depreciates. In addition it may be observed that for a +governor to even consult his prime minister in the matter of +preparing his messages might conceivably be optional, whilst it is +obligatory on all barristers, whether English or otherwise, to defer +to the judge's interpretation of the law in every case--appeal +afterwards being the only remedy. As to the dictum that "the two +races are not equal and will not blend," it is open to the fatal +objection that, having himself proved, with sympathizing pathos, how +the West Indies are now well-nigh denuded of their Anglo-Saxon +inhabitants, Mr. Froude would have us also understand that the +miserable remnant who still complainingly inhabit those islands must, +by doing violence to the understanding, be taken as the whole of the +world-pervading Anglo-Saxon family. The Negroes of the West Indies +number a good deal more than two million souls. Does this suggester +of extravagances mean that the prejudices and vain conceit of the few +dozens whom he champions should be made to override and overbear, in +political arrangements, the serious and solid interests of so many +[187] hundreds of thousands? That "the two races are not equal" is a +statement which no sane man would dispute, but acquiescence in its +truth involves also a distinct understanding that the word race, as +applied in the present case by our author, is a simple accommodation +of terms--a fashion of speech having a very restricted meaning in +this serious discussion. + +The Anglo-Saxon race pervades Great Britain, its cradle, and the +Greater Britain extending almost all over the face of the earth, +which is the arena of its activities and marvellous achievements. To +tell us, therefore, as Mr. Froude does, that the handful of +malcontents whose unrespectable grievance he holds up to public +sympathy represents the Anglo-Saxon race, is a grotesque façon de +parler. Taking our author's "Anglo-West Indians" and the people of +Ethiopian descent respectively, it would not be too much to assert, +nor in anywise difficult to prove by facts and figures, that for +every competent individual of the former section in active civilized +employments, the coloured section can put forward at least twenty +thoroughly competent rivals. Yet are these latter the people whom +the classic Mr. [188] Froude wishes to be immolated, root and branch, +in all their highest and dearest interests, in order to secure the +maintenance of "old traditions" which, he tells us, guaranteed for +the dominant cuticle the sacrifice of the happiness of down-trodden +thousands! Referring to his hypothetical confederation with its +black officeholders, our author scornfully asks:--- + +"And how long would this endure?" + +The answer must be that, granting the existence of such a state of +things, its duration would be not more nor less than under white +functionaries. For according to himself (p. 124): "There is no +original or congenital difference of capacity between" the white and +black races, and "with the same chances and the same treatment, . . . +distinguished men would be produced equally from both races." + +If, therefore, the black ministers whose hue he so much despises do +possess the training and influence rendering them eligible and +securing their election to the situations we are considering, it must +follow that their tenure of office would be of equal duration with +that of individuals of the white race under the same conditions. Not +content with making himself [189] the mouthpiece of English +gentlemen in this matter, our author, with characteristic hardihood, +obtrudes himself into the same post on behalf of Negroes; saying +that, in the event of even a bankrupt peer accepting the situation of +governor-general over them, "The blacks themselves would despise +him"! + +Mr. Froude may pertinently be asked here the source whence he derived +his certainty on this point, inasmuch as it is absolutely at variance +with all that is sensible and natural; for surely it is both foolish +and monstrous to suppose that educated men would infer the +degradation of any one from the fact of such a one consenting to +govern and co-operate with themselves for their own welfare. He +further asks on the same subject:-- + +"And if the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how +long could such a connection endure?" + +Our answer must be the same as with regard to the duration of the +black council and black prime minister carrying out the government +under the same conditions. It must be regretted that no indication +in his book, so far as it professes to deal with facts and with [190] +persons not within the circle of his clients, would justify a belief +that its wanton misstatements have filtrated through a mind entitled +to declare, with the authority of self-consciousness, what a +gentleman would or would not do under given circumstances. + +In reiteration of his favourite doctrine of the antagonism between +the black and white races, our author continues on the same page to +say:--- + +"No one, I presume, would advise that the whites of the island should +govern. The relations between the two populations are too +embittered, and equality once established by law, the exclusive +privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored. While slavery +continued, the whites ruled effectively and economically; the blacks +are now as they." + +As far as could possibly be endeavoured, every proof has been crowded +into this book in refutation of this favourite allegation of Mr. +Froude's. It is only an idle waste of time to be thus harping on his +colour topic. No one can deserve to govern simply because he is +white, and no one is bound to be subject simply because he is black. +The whole of West [191] Indian history, even after the advent of the +attorney-class, proves this, in spite of the efforts to secure +exclusive white domination at a time when crude political power might +have secured it. + +"The relations between the two populations are too embittered," says +Mr. Froude. No doubt his talk on this point would be true, had any +such skin-dominancy as he contemplates been officially established; +but as at present most officials are appointed (locally at least) +according to their merit, and not to their epidermis, nothing is +known of the embittered relations so constantly dinned into our ears. +Whatever bitterness exists is in the minds of those gentry who would +like to be dominant on the cheap condition of showing a simple bodily +accident erected by themselves into an evidence and proof of +superiority. + +"The exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored." +Never in the history of the British West Indies--must we again state- +-was there any law or usage establishing superiority in privileges +for any section of the community on account of colour. This +statement of fact is also and again an answer to, and refutation of, +the succeeding allegation [192] that, "While slavery continued, the +whites ruled effectively and economically." It will be yet more +clearly shown in a later part of this essay that during slavery, in +fact for upwards of two centuries after its introduction, the West +Indies were ruled by slave-owners, who happened to be of all colours, +the means of purchasing slaves and having a plantation being the one +exclusive consideration in the case. It is, therefore, contrary to +fact to represent the Whites exclusively as ruling, and the Blacks +indiscriminately as subject. + +He goes on to say, "There are two classes in the community; their +interests are opposite as they are now understood." As regards the +above, Mr. Froude's attention may be called to the fact that +classification in no department of science has ever been based on +colour, but on relative affinity in certain salient qualities. To +use his own figure, no horse or dog is more or less a horse or dog +because it happens to be white or black. No teacher marshals his +pupils into classes according to any outward physical distinction, +but according to intellectual approximation. In like manner there +has been wealth for hundreds of men of Ethiopic origin, [193] and +poverty for hundreds of men of Caucasian origin, and the reverse in +both cases. We have, therefore, had hundreds of black as well as +white men who, under providential dispensation, belonged to the +class, rich men; while, on the other hand, we have had hundreds of +white men who, under providential dispensation, belonged to the +class, poor men. Similarly, in the composition of a free mixed +community, we have hundreds of both races belonging to the class, +competent and eligible; and hundreds of both races belonging to the +class, incompetent and ineligible: to both of which classes all +possible colours might belong. It is from the first mentioned that +are selected those who are to bear the rule, to which the latter +class is, in the very nature of things, bound to be subject. There +is no government by reason merely of skins. The diversity of +individual intelligence and circumstances is large enough to embrace +the possibility of even children being, in emergencies, the most +competent influencers of opinion and action. + +But let us analyse this matter for just a while more. The fatal +objection to all Mr. Froude's advocacy of colour-domination is that +[194] it is futile from being morally unreasonable. In view of the +natural and absolute impossibility of reviving the same external +conditions under which the inordinate deference and submission to +white persons were both logically and inevitably engendered and +maintained, his efforts to talk people into a frame of mind +favourable to his views on this subject are but a melancholy waste of +well-turned sentences. Man's estimate of his fellow-man has not and +never can have any other standard, save and except what is the +outcome of actual circumstances influencing his sentiment. In the +primitive ages, when the fruits of the earth formed the absorbing +object of attention and interest, the men most distinguished for +successful culture of the soil enjoyed, as a consequence, a larger +share than others of popular admiration and esteem. Similarly, among +nomadic tribes, the hunters whose courage coped victoriously with the +wild and ferocious denizens of the forest became the idols of those +who witnessed and were preserved by such sylvan exploits. When men +came at length to venture in ships over the trackless deep in pursuit +of commerce and its gains, the mariner grew important in [195] public +estimation. The pursuit of commerce and its gains led naturally to +the possession of wealth. This, from the quasi-omnipotence with +which it invests men--enabling them not only to command the best +energies, but also, in many cases, to subvert the very principles of +their fellows--has, in the vast majority of cases, an overpowering +sway on human opinion: a sway that will endure till the Millennium +shall have secured for the righteous alone the sovereignty of the +world. Likewise, as cities were founded and constitutions +established, those who were foremost as defenders of the national +interests, on the field of bodily conflict or in the intellectual +arena, became in the eyes of their contemporaries worthiest of +appreciation--and so on of other circumstances through which +particular personal distinctions created claims to preference. + +In the special case of the Negroes kidnapped out of Africa into +foreign bondage, the crowning item in their assessment of their alien +enslavers was the utter superiority, over their most redoubtable "big +men," which those enslavers displayed. They actually subjugated and +put in chains, like the commonest peasants, native [196] potentates +at whose very names even the warriorhood of their tribes had been +wont to blench. But far surpassing even this in awful effect was the +doom meted out to the bush-handlers, the medicine-men, the rain- +compellers, erewhile so inscrutably potent for working out the bliss +or the bale of friend or enemy. "Lo, from no mountain-top, from no +ceiba-hollow in the forest recesses, has issued any interposing sign, +any avenging portent, to vindicate the Spirit of Darkness so foully +outraged in the hitherto inviolate person of his chosen minister! +Verily, even the powers of the midnight are impotent against these +invaders from beyond the mighty salt-water! Here, huddled together +in confused, hopeless misery and ruin, lie, fettered and prostrate, +even priest as well as potentate, undistinguishable victims of crude, +unblenching violence, with its climax of nefarious sacrilege. We, +common mortals, therefore, can hope for no deliverance from, or even +succour in, the woful plight thus dismally contrived for us all by +the fair-skinned race who have now become our masters." Such was +naturally the train of thought that ran through those forlorn bosoms. +The formidable death-dealing guns [197] of the invaders, the ships +which had brought them to the African shores, and much besides in +startling contrast to their own condition of utter helplessness, the +Africans at once interpreted to themselves as the manifestation and +inherent attributes of beings of a higher order than man. Their +skin, too, the difference whereof from their own had been accentuated +by many calamitous incidents, was hit upon as the reason of so +crushing an ascendency. + +White skin therefore became, in those disconsolate eyes, the symbol +of fearful irresistible power: which impression was not at all +weakened afterwards by the ineffable atrocities of the "middle- +passage." Backed ultimately by their absolute and irresponsible +masterhood at home over the deported Blacks, the European abductors +could easily render permanent in the minds of their captives the +abject terror struck into them by the enormities of which they had +been the victims. Now, the impressions we touched upon before +bringing forward the case of the Negro slaves were mainly produced by +pleasurable circumstances. But of a contrary nature and much more +deeply graven are those sentiments which are the outcome of hopeless +terror [198] and pain. For whilst impressions of the former +character glide into the consciousness through accesses no less +normal than agreeable, the infusion of fear by means of bodily +suffering is a process too violent to be forgotten by minds tortured +and strained to unnatural tension thereby. Such tension, oft- +recurrent and scarcely endurable, leaves behind it recollections +which are in themselves a source of sadness. But time, favoured by a +succession of pleasurable experiences, is a sovereign anodyne to +remembrances of this poignant class. No wonder, then, from our +foregoing detail of facts, that whiteness of skin was both redoubted +and tremblingly crouched to by Negroes on whom Europeans had wrought +such unspeakable calamities. Time, however, and the action of +circumstances, especially in countries subject to Catholic dominion, +soon began to modify the conditions under which this sentiment of +terror had been maintained, and, with those conditions, the very +sentiment itself. For it was not long in the life of many of the +expatriated Africans before numbers of their own race obtained +freedom, and, eventually, wealth sufficient for purchasing black +slaves on their [199] own account. In other respects, too (outwardly +at least), the prosperous career of such individual Blacks could not +fail to induce a revulsion of thought, whereby the attribution of +unapproachable powers exclusively to the Whites became a matter +earnestly reconsidered by the Africans. Centuries of such +reconsideration have produced the natural result in the West Indies. +With the daily competition in intelligence, refinement, and social +and moral distinction, which time and events have brought about +between individuals of the two races, nothing, surely, has resulted, +nor has even been indicated, to re-infuse the ancient colour-dread +into minds which had formerly been forced to entertain it; and still +less to engender it in bosoms to which such a feeling cannot, in the +very nature of things, be an inborn emotion. Now, can Mr. Froude +show us by what process he would be able to infuse in the soul of an +entire population a sentiment which is both unnatural and beyond +compulsion? + +The foregoing remarks roughly apply to preeminence given to outward +distinction, and the conditions under which mainly it impresses and +is accepted by men not yet arrived at the [200] essentially +intellectual stage. In the spiritual domain the conditions have ever +been quite different. A belief in the supernatural being inborn in +man, the professors of knowledge and powers beyond natural attainment +were by common consent accorded a distinct and superior +consideration, deemed proper to the sacredness of their progression. +Hence the supremacy of the priestly caste in every age and country of +the world. Potentate as well as peasant have bowed in reverence +before it, as representing and declaring with authority the counsels +of that Being whom all, priest, potentate and peasant alike, +acknowledge and adore, each according to the measure of his inward +illumination. + + + +BOOK III: THE NEGRO AS WORKER + +[201] The laziness, the incurable idleness, of the Negro, was, both +immediately before their emancipation in 1838, and for long years +after that event, the cuckoo-cry of their white detractors. It was +laziness, pure and simple, which hindered the Negro from exhausting +himself under a tropical sun, toiling at starvation wages to ensure +for his quondam master the means of being an idler himself, with the +additional luxury of rolling in easily come-by wealth. Within the +last twenty years, however, the history of the Black Man, both in the +West Indies and, better still, in the United States of America, has +been a succession of achievements which have converted the charge of +laziness into a baseless and absurd calumny. The repetition of the +charge referred to is, in these [202] waning days of the nineteenth +century, a discredited anachronism, which, however, has no deterring +features for Mr. Froude. As the running down of the Negro was his +cue, he went in boldly for the game, with what result we shall +presently see. At page 239, our author, speaking of the Negro +garden-farms in Jamaica, says:-- + +"The male proprietors were lounging about smoking. Their wives, as +it was market-day, were tramping into Kingston with their baskets on +their heads. We met them literally in thousands, all merry and +light-hearted, their little ones with little baskets trudging at +their side. Of the lords of the creation we saw, perhaps, one to +each hundred of the women, and he would be riding on mule or donkey, +pipe in mouth and carrying nothing. He would be generally sulky too, +while the ladies, young and old, had a civil word for us, and +curtsied under their loads. Decidedly if there is to be a black +constitution I will give my vote to the women." + +To the above direct imputation of indolence, heartlessness, and +moroseness, Mr. Froude appends the following remarks on other moral +characteristics of certain sable peasants at [203] Mandeville, +Jamaica, given on the authority of a police official, who, our author +says, described them as-- + +"Good-humoured, but not universally honest. They stole cattle, and +would not give evidence against each other. If brought into Court, +they held a pebble in their mouth, being under the impression that +when they were so provided, perjury did not count. Their education +was only skin-deep, and the schools which the Government provided had +not touched their characters at all." + +But how could the education so provided be otherwise than futile when +the administration of its details is entirely in the hands of persons +unsympathizing with and utterly despising the Negro? But of this +more anon and elsewhere. We resume Mr. Froude's evidence respecting +the black peasantry. Our author proceeds to admit, on the same +subject, that his informant's duties (as a police official) "brought +him in contact with the unfavourable specimens." He adds:-- + +"I received a far pleasanter impression from a Moravian minister. . . . +I was particularly glad to see this gentleman, for of the Moravians +[204] every one had spoken well to me. He was not the least +enthusiastic about his poor black sheep, but he said that if they +were not better than the average English labourer, he did not think +them worse. They were called idle; they would work well enough if +they had fair wages and if the wages were paid regularly; but what +could be expected when women servants had but three shillings a week +and found themselves, when the men had but a shilling a day and the +pay was kept in arrear in order that if they came late to work, or if +they came irregularly, it may be kept back or cut down to what the +employer choose to give? Under such conditions ANY man of ANY colour +would prefer to work for himself if he had a garden, or would be idle +if he had none." + +Take, again, the following extract regarding the heroism of the +emigrants to the Canal :-- + +"I walked forward" (on the steamer bound to Jamaica), "after we had +done talking. We had five hundred of the poor creatures on their way +to the Darien pandemonium. The vessel was rolling with a heavy beam +sea. I found the whole mass of them reduced to the condition of the +pigs who used to occupy the fore decks on the Cork and Bristol +packets. They were [205] lying in a confused heap together, +helpless, miserable, without consciousness, apparently, save a sense +in each that he was wretched. Unfortunate brothers-in-law! following +the laws of political economy, and carrying their labour to the +dearest market, where, before a year was out, half of them were to +die. They had souls, too, some of them, and honest and kindly +hearts." + +It surely is refreshing to read the revelation of his first learning +of the possession of a soul by a fellow-human being, thus artlessly +described by one who is said to be an ex-parson. But piquancy is Mr. +Froude's strong point, whatever else he may be found wanting in. + +Still, apart from Mr. Froude's direct testimony to the fact that from +year to year, during a long series of years, there has been a +continuous, scarcely ever interrupted emigration of Negroes to the +Spanish mainland, in search of work for a sufficing livelihood for +themselves and their families--and that in the teeth of physical +danger, pestilence, and death--there would be enough indirect +exoneration of the Black Man from that indictment in the wail of Mr. +Froude and his friends regarding the alarming absorption of the lands +of Grenada [206] and Trinidad by sable proprietors. Land cannot be +bought without money, nor can money be possessed except through +labour, and the fact that so many tens of thousand Blacks are now the +happy owners of the soil whereon, in the days so bitterly regretted +by our author, their forefathers' tears, nay, very hearts' blood, had +been caused to flow, ought to silence for ever an accusation, which, +were it even true, would be futile, and, being false, is worse than +disgraceful, coming from the lips of the Eumolpids who would fain +impose a not-to-be-questioned yoke on us poor helots of Ethiopia. It +is said that lying is the vice of slaves; but the ethics of West +Indian would-be mastership assert, on its behalf, that they alone +should enjoy the privilege of resorting to misrepresentation to give +colour, if not solidity, to their pretensions. + + + +BOOK III: RELIGION FOR NEGROES + +[207] Mr. Froude's passing on from matters secular to matters +spiritual and sacred was a transition to be expected in the course of +the grave and complicated discussion which he had volunteered to +initiate. It was, therefore, not without curiosity that his views in +the direction above indicated were sought for and earnestly +scrutinized by us. But worse than in his treatment of purely mundane +subjects, his attitude here is marked by a nonchalant levity which +excites our wonder that even he should have touched upon the +spiritual side of his thesis at all. The idea of the dove sent forth +from the ark fluttering over the heaving swells of the deluge, in +vain endeavour to secure a rest for the soles of its feet, represents +not inaptly the unfortunate predicament of his spirit with regard to +a solid [208] faith on which to repose amid the surges of doubt by +which it is so evidently beset. Yet although this is his obvious +plight with regard to a satisfying belief, he nevertheless +undertakes, with characteristic confidence, to suggest a creed for +the moralization of West Indian Negroes. His language is :-- + +"A religion, at any rate, which will keep the West Indian blacks from +falling back into devil-worship is still to seek. In spite of the +priests, child-murder and cannibalism have re-appeared in Hayti, but +without them things might have been much worse than they are, and the +preservation of white authority and influence in any form at all may +be better than none." + +We discern in the foregoing citation the exercise of a charity that +is unquestionably born of fetish-worship, which, whether it be obeah +generally, or restricted to a mere human skin, can be so powerful an +agent in the formation and retention of beliefs. Hence we see that +our philosopher relies here, in the domain of morals and spiritual +ethics, on a white skin as implicitly as he does on its sovereign +potency in secular politics. The curiousness of the matter lies +mainly in its application to natives [209] of Hayti, of all people in +the world. As a matter of fact we have had our author declaring as +follows, in climax to his oft-repeated predictions about West Indian +Negroes degenerating into the condition of their fellow-Negroes in +the "Black Republic" (p. 285) :-- + +"Were it worth while, one might draw a picture of an English +governor, with a black parliament and a black ministry, recommending, +by advice of his constitutional ministers, some measure like the +Haytian Land Law." + +Now, as the West Indies degenerating into so many white-folk- +detesting Haytis, under our prophet's dreaded supremacy of the +Blacks, is the burden of his book; and as the Land Law in question +distinctly forbids the owning by any white person of even one inch of +the soil of the Republic, it might, but for the above explanation, +have seemed unaccountable, in view of the implacable distrust, not to +say hatred, which this stern prohibition so clearly discloses, that +our author should, nevertheless, rely on the efficacy of white +authority and influence over Haytians. + +In continuation of his religious suggestions, he goes on to descant +upon slavery in the [210] fashion which we have elsewhere noticed, +but it may still be proper to add a word or two here regarding this +particular disquisition of his. This we are happy in being able to +do under the guidance of an anterior and more reliable exponent of +ecclesiastical as well as secular obedience on the part of all free +and enlightened men in the present epoch of the world's history:-- + + "Dogma and Descent, potential twin + Which erst could rein submissive millions in, + Are now spent forces on the eddying surge + Of Thought enfranchised. Agencies emerge + Unhampered by the incubus of dread + Which cramped men's hearts and clogged their onward tread. + Dynasty, Prescription! spectral in these days + When Science points to Thought its surest ways, + And men who scorn obedience when not free + Demand the logic of Authority! + The day of manhood to the world is here, + And ancient homage waxes faint and drear. + . . . . . . + Vision of rapture! See Salvation's plan + 'Tis serving God through ceaseless toil for man!" + +The lines above quoted are by a West Indian Negro, and explain in +very concise form the attitude of the educated African mind [211] +with reference to the matters they deal with. Mr. Froude is free to +perceive that no special religion patched up from obsolete creeds +could be acceptable to those with whose sentiments the thoughts of +the writer just quoted are in true racial unison. It is preposterous +to expect that the same superstition regarding skin ascendency, which +is now so markedly played out in our Colonies in temporal matters, +could have any weight whatsoever in matters so momentous as morals +and religion. But granting even the possibility of any code of +worldly ethics or of religion being acceptable on the dermal score so +strenuously insisted on by him, it is to be feared that, through +sheer respect for the fitness of things, the intelligent Negro in +search of guidance in faith and morals would fail to recognize in our +author a guide, philosopher, and friend, to be followed without the +most painful misgivings. The Catholic and the Dissenting Churches +which have done so much for the temporal and spiritual advancement of +the Negro, in spite of hindrance and active persecution wherever +these were possible, are, so far as is visible, maintaining their +hold on the adhesion of those who belong to them. + +[212] And it cannot be pretended that, among enlightened Africans as +compared with other enlightened people, there have been more grievous +failings off from the scriptural standard of deportment. Possible it +certainly is that considerations akin to, or even identical with, +those relied upon by Mr. Froude might, on the first reception of +Christianity in their exile, have operated effectually upon the minds +of the children of Africa. At that time the evangelizers whose +converts they so readily became possessed the recommendation of +belonging to the dominant caste. Therefore, with the humility proper +to their forlorn condition, the poor bondsmen requited with intense +gratitude such beneficent interest on their behalf, as a +condescension to which people in their hapless situation could have +had no right. But for many long years, the distinction whether of +temporal or of spiritual superiority has ceased to be the monopoly of +any particular class. The master and employer has for far more than +a century and a half been often represented in the West Indies by +some born African or his descendant; and so also has the teacher and +preacher. It is not too much to say that [213] the behaviour of the +liberated slaves throughout the British Antilles, as well as the +deportment of the manumitted four million slaves of the Southern +United States later on, bore glorious testimony to the humanizing +effects which the religion of charity, clutched at and grasped in +fragments, and understood with childlike incompleteness, had produced +within those suffering bosoms. + +Nothing has occurred to call for a remodelling of the ordinary moral +and spiritual machinery for the special behoof of Negroes. Religion, +as understood by the best of men, is purely a matter of feeling and +action between man and man--the doing unto others as we would they +should do unto us; and any creed or any doctrine which directly or +indirectly subverts or even weakens this basis is in itself a danger +to the highest welfare of mankind. The simple conventional faith in +God, in Jesus, and in a future state, however modified nowadays, has +still a vitality which can restrain and ennoble its votaries, +provided it be inculcated and received in a befitting spirit. Our +critic, in the plenitude of his familiarity with such matters, +confidently asks :-- + +[214] "Who is now made wretched by the fear of hell?" + +Possibly the belief in the material hell, the decadence of which he +here triumphantly assumes to be so general, may have considerably +diminished; but experience has shown that, with the advance of +refinement, there is a concurrent growth in the intensity of moral +sensibility, whereby the waning terrors of a future material hell are +more than replaced by the agonies of a conscience self-convicted of +wilful violation of the right. The same simple faith has, in its +practical results, been rich in the records of the humble whom it has +exalted; of the poor to whom it has been better than wealth; of the +rich whose stewardship of worldly prosperity it has sanctified; of +the timid whom it has rendered bold; and of the valiant whom it has +raised to a divine heroism--in fine, of miracles of transformation +that have impelled to higher and nobler tendencies and uses the +powers and gifts inherited or acquired by man in his natural state. +They who possess this faith, and cherish it as a priceless +possession, may calmly oppose to the philosophic reasoning against +the existence of [215] a Deity and the rationalness of entreating Him +in prayer, the simple and sufficient declaration, "I believe." +Normal-minded men, sensible of the limitations of human faculties, +never aspire to be wise beyond what is revealed. Whatever might +exist beyond the grave is, so far as man and man in their mutual +relations are concerned, not a subject that discussion can affect or +speculation unravel. To believers it cannot matter whether the +Sermon on the Mount embodies or does not embody the quality of ethics +that the esoteric votaries of Mr. Froude's "new creed" do accept or +even can tolerate. Under the old creed man's sense of duty kindled +in sympathy towards his brother, urging him to achieve by self- +sacrifice every possibility of beneficence; hence the old creed +insured an inward joy as well as "the peace which passeth all +understanding." There can be no room for desiring left, when +receptiveness of blessings overflows; and it is the worthiest +direction of human energy to secure for others that fulness of +fruition. Is not Duty the first, the highest item of moral +consciousness; and is not promoting, according to our best ability, +the welfare of our fellow creatures, the first and [216] most urgent +call of human duty? Can the urgency of such responsibility ever +cease but with the capacity, on our own or on our brother's part, to +do or be done by respectively? Contemptuously ignoring his share of +this solemn responsibility--solemn, whether regarded from a religious +or a purely secular point of view--to observe at least the negative +obligation never to wantonly do or even devise any harm to his +fellows, or indeed any sentient creature, our new apostle affords, in +his light-hearted reversal of the prescriptive methods of civilized +ethics, a woful foretaste of the moral results of the "new, not as +yet crystallized" belief, whose trusted instruments of spiritual +investigation are the telescope and mental analysis, in order to +satisfy the carpings of those who so impress the world with their +superhuman strong-mindedness. + +The following is a profound reflection presenting, doubtless, quite a +new revelation to an unsophisticated world, which had so long +submitted in reverential tameness to the self-evident impossibility +of exploring the Infinite:-- + +"The tendency of popular thought is against [217] the supernatural in +any shape. Far into space as the telescope can search, deep as +analysis can penetrate into mind and consciousness or the forces +which govern natural things, popular thought finds only uniformity +and connection of cause and effect; no sign anywhere of a personal +will which is influenced by prayer or moral motives." + +How much to be pitied are the gifted esoterics who, in such a quest, +vainly point their telescopes into the star-thronged firmament, and +plunge their reasoning powers into the abyss of consciousness and +such-like mysteries! The commonplace intellect of the author of +"Night Thoughts" was, if we may so speak, awed into an adoring +rapture which forced from him the exclamation (may believers hail it +as a dogma!)-- + +"An undevout astronomer is mad!" + +Most probably it was in weak submission to some such sentiment as +this that Isaac Newton nowhere in his writings suggests even the +ghost of a doubt of there being a Great Architect of the Universe as +the outcome of his telescopic explorations into the illimitable +heavens. + +[218] It is quite possible, too, that he was, "on insufficient +grounds," perhaps, perfectly satisfied, as a host of other +intellectual mediocrities like himself have been, and even up to now +rather provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and +connection of cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being +not only "a personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as +well. In this connection comes to mind a certain old Book which, +whatever damage Semitic Scholarship and Modern Criticism may succeed +in inflicting on its contents, will always retain for the spiritual +guidance of the world enough and to spare of divine suggestions. +With the prescience which has been the heritage of the inspired in +all ages, one of the writers in that Book, whom we shall now quote, +foresaw, no doubt, the deplorable industry of Mr. Froude and his +protégé "popular thought," whose mouth-piece he has so +characteristically constituted himself, and asks in a tone wherein +solemn warning blends with inquiry: "Canst thou by searching find out +God; canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection!" The rational +among the most loftily endowed of mankind have grasped [219] the +sublime significance of this query, acquiescing reverently in its +scarcely veiled intimation of man's impotence in presence of the task +to which it refers. + +But though Mr. Froude's spiritual plight be such as we have just +allowed him to state it, with regard to an object of faith and a +motive of worship, yet let us hear him, in his anxiety to furbish up +a special Negro creed, setting forth the motive for being in a hurry +to anticipate the "crystallization" of his new belief :-- + +"The new creed, however, not having crystallized as yet into a shape +which can be openly professed, and as without any creed at all the +flesh and the devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old +names, as we maintain the monarchy." + +The allusion to the monarchy seems not a very obvious one, as it +parallels the definitive rejection of a spiritual creed with the +theoretical change of ancient notions regarding a concrete fact. At +any rate we have it that his special religion, when concocted and +disseminated, will have the effect of preventing the flesh and the +devil from having too much power over Negroes. The objection to the +[220] devil's sway seems to us to come with queer grace from one who +owes his celebrity chiefly to the production of works teeming with +that peculiar usage of language of which the Enemy of Souls is +credited with the special fatherhood. + +No, sir, in the name of the Being regarding whose existence you and +your alleged "popular thought" are so painfully in doubt, we protest +against your right, or that of any other created worm, to formulate +for the special behoof of Negroes any sort of artificial creed +unbelieved in by yourself, having the function and effect of +detective "shadowings" of their souls. Away with your criminal +suggestion of toleration of the hideous orgies of heathenism in Hayti +for the benefit of our future morals in the West Indies, when the +political supremacy which you predict and dread and deprecate shall +have become an accomplished fact. Were any special standard of +spiritual excellence required, our race has, in Josiah Henson and +Sojourner Truth, sufficing models for our men and our women +respectively. Their ideal of Christian life, which we take to be the +true one, is not to be judged of with direct reference to the Deity +whom we cannot [221] see, interrogate, or comprehend, but to its +practical bearing in and on man, whom we can see and have cognizance +of, not only with our physical senses, but by the intimations of the +divinity which abides within us.* We can see, feel, and appreciate +the virtue of a fellow-mortal who consecrates himself to the Divine +idea through untiring exertion for the bettering of the condition of +the world around him, whose agony he makes it his duty, only to +satisfy his burning desire, to mitigate. The fact in its ghastly +reality lies before us that the majority of mankind labour and are +being crushed under the tremendous trinity of Ignorance, Vice, and +Poverty. + +It is mainly in the succouring of those who thus suffer that the +vitality of the old creed is manifested in the person of its +professors. Under this aspect we behold it moulding men, of all +nations, countries, and tongues, whose virtues have challenged and +should command on its behalf the unquestioning faith and adhesion of +every rational observer. "Evidences of Christianity," +"Controversies," "Exegetical Commentaries," have all proved [222] +more or less futile--as perhaps they ought--with the Science and +Modern Criticism which perverts religion into a matter of dialectics. +But there is a hope for mankind in the fact that Science itself shall +have ultimately to admit the limitations of human inquiry into the +details of the Infinite. Meanwhile it requires no technical +proficiency to recognize the criminality of those who waste their +brief threescore and ten years in abstract speculations, while the +tangible, visible, and hideous soul-destroying trinity of Vice, +Ignorance, and Poverty, above mentioned, are desolating the world in +their very sight. There are possessors of personal virtue, +enlightenment, and wealth, who dare stand neutral with regard to +these dire exigencies among their fellows. And yet they are the +logical helpers, as holders of the special antidote to each of those +banes! Infinitely more deserving of execration are such folk than +the callous owner of some specific, who allows a suffering neighbour +to perish for want of it. + +We who believe in the ultimate development of the Christian notion of +duty towards God, as manifested in untiring beneficence to man, cling +to this faith--starting from the [223] beginning of the New Testament +dispensation--because Saul of Tarsus, transformed into Paul the +Apostle through his whole-souled acceptance of this very creed with +its practical responsibilities, has, in his ardent, indefatigable +labours for the enlightenment and elevation of his fellows, left us a +lesson which is an enduring inspiration; because Augustine, Bishop of +Hippo, benefited, in a manner which has borne, and ever will bear, +priceless fruit, enormous sections of the human family, after his +definite submission to the benign yoke of the same old creed; because +Vincent de Paul has, through the identical inspiration, endowed the +world with his everlasting legacy of organized beneficence; because +it impelled Francis Xavier with yearning heart and eager footsteps +through thousands of miles of peril, to proclaim to the darkling +millions of India what he had experienced to be tidings of great joy +to himself; because Matthew Hale, a lawyer, and of first prominence +in a pursuit which materializes the mind and nips its native candour +and tenderness, escaped unblighted, through the saving influence of +his faith, approving himself in the sight of all [224] an ideal +judge, even according to the highest conception; because John Howard, +opulent and free to enjoy his opulence and repose, was drawn thereby +throughout the whole continent of Europe in quest of the hidden +miseries that torture those whom the law has shut out, in dungeons, +from the light and sympathy of the world; because Thomas Clarkson, +animated by the spirit of its teachings, consecrated wealth, luxury, +and the quiet of an entire lifetime on the altar of voluntary +sacrifice for the salvation of an alien people; because Samuel +Johnson, shut out from mirthfulness by disease and suffering, and +endowed with an intellectual pride intolerant of froward ignorance, +was, through the chastening power of that belief, transformed into +the cheerful minister and willing slave of the weaklings whom he +gathered into his home, and around whom the tendrils of his heart had +entwined themselves, waxing closer and stronger in the moisture of +his never-failing charity; because Henry Havelock, a man of the +sword, whose duties have never been too propitious to the cultivation +and fostering of the gentler virtues, lived and died a blameless +hero, constrained by that faith to be one of its most illustrious +exemplars; [225] because David Livingstone looms great and reverend +in our mental sight in his devotion to a land and race embraced in +his boundless fellow-feeling, and whose miseries he has commended to +the sympathy of the civilized world in words the pathos whereof has +melted thousands of once obdurate hearts to crave a share in applying +a balm to the "open sore of Africa"--that slave-trade whose +numberless horrors beggar description; and finally--one more example +out of the countless varieties of types that blend into a unique +solidarity in the active manifestation of the Christian life--we +believe because Charles Gordon, the martyr-soldier of Khartoum, in +trusting faith a very child, but in heroism more notable than any +mere man of whom history contains a record, gathered around himself, +through the sublime attractiveness of his faith-directed life, the +united suffrages of all nations, and now enjoys, as the recompense +and seal of his life's labours, an apotheosis in homage to which the +heathen of Africa, the man-hunting Arab, the Egyptian, the Turk, all +jostle each other to blend with the exulting children of Britain who +are directly glorified by his life and history. + +[226] Here, then, are speaking evidences of the believers' grounds. +Verily they are of the kind that are to be seen in our midst, +touched, heard, listened to, respected, beloved--nay, honoured, too, +with the glad worship our inward spirit springs forth to render to +goodness so largely plenished from the Source of all Good. Can +Modern Science and Criticism explain them away, or persuade us of +their insufficiency as incentives to the hearty acceptance of the +religion that has received such glorious, yet simply logical, +incarnation in the persons of weak, erring men who welcomed its +responsibilities conjointly with its teachings, and thereby raised +themselves to the spiritual level pictured to ourselves in our +conception of angels who have been given the Divine charge concerning +mankind. Religion for Negroes, indeed! White priests, forsooth! +This sort of arrogance might, possibly, avail in quarters where the +person and pretensions of Mr. Froude could be impressive and +influential--but here, in the momentous concern of man with Him who +"is no respecter of persons," his interference, mentally disposed as +he tells us he is with reference to such a matter, is nothing less +than profane intrusion. + +[227] We will conclude by stating in a few words our notion of the +only agency by which, not Blacks alone, but every race of mankind, +might be uplifted to the moral level which the thousands of examples, +of which we have glanced at but a few, prove so indubitably the +capacity of man to attain--each to a degree limited by the scope of +his individual powers. The priesthood whereof the world stands in +such dire need is not at all the confederacy of augurs which Mr. +Froude, perhaps in recollection of his former profession, so glibly +suggests, with an esoteric creed of their own, "crystallized into +shape" for profession before the public. The day of priestcraft +being now numbered with the things that were, the exploitation of +those outside of the sacerdotal circle is no longer possible. +Therefore the religion of mere talk, however metaphysical and +profound; the religion of scenic display, except such display be +symbolic of living and active verities, has lost whatever of efficacy +it may once have possessed, through the very spirit and tendency of +To-day. The reason why those few whom we have mentioned, and the +thousands who cannot possibly be recalled, have, as [228] typical +Christians, impressed themselves on the moral sense and sympathy of +the ages, is simply that they lived the faith which they professed. +Whatever words they may have employed to express their serious +thoughts were never otherwise than, incidentally, a spoken fragment +of their own interior biography. In fine, success must infallibly +attend this special priesthood (whether episcopally "ordained" or +not) of all races, all colours, all tongues whatsoever, since their +lives reflect their teachings and their teachings reflect their +lives. Then, truly, they, "the righteous, shall inherit the earth," +leading mankind along the highest and noblest paths of temporal +existence. Then, of course, the obeah, the cannibalism, the devil- +worship of the whole world, including that of Hayti, which Mr. Froude +predicts will be adopted by us Blacks in the West Indies, shall no +more encumber and scandalize the earth. + +But Mr. Froude should, at the same time, be reminded that cannibalism +and the hideous concomitants which he mentions are, after all, +relatively minor and restricted dangers to man's civilization and +moral soundness. They can [229] neither operate freely nor expand +easily. The paralysis of horrified popular sentiment obstructs their +propagation, and the blight of the death-penalty which hangs over the +heads of their votaries is an additional guarantee of their being +kept within bounds that minimize their perniciousness. But there are +more fatal and further-reaching dangers to public morality and +happiness of which the regenerated current opinion of the future will +take prompt and remedial cognizance. Foremost among these will be the +circulation of malevolent writings whereby the equilibrium of +sympathy between good men of different races is sought to be +destroyed, through misleading appeals to the weaknesses and +prejudices of readers; writings in which the violation of actual +truth cannot, save by stark stupidity, be attributed to innocent +error; writings that scoff at humanitarian feeling and belittle the +importance of achievements resulting therefrom; writings which strike +at the root of national manliness, by eulogizing brute force directed +against weaker folk as a fit and legitimate mode of securing the +wishes of a mighty and enlightened people; writings, in fine, which +ignore the divine principle [230] in man, and implicitly deny the +possibility of a Divine Power existing outside of and above man, thus +materializing the mind, and tending to render the earth a worse hell +than it ever could have been with faith in the supremacy of a +beneficent Power. + +NOTES + +221. *"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo."--Ovid. + + + +BOOK IV: HISTORICAL SUMMARY + +[233] Thus far we have dealt with the main questions raised by Mr. +Froude on the lines of his own choosing; lines which demonstrate to +the fullest how unsuited his capacity is for appreciating--still less +grappling with--the political and social issues he has so confidently +undertaken to determine. In vain have we sought throughout his +bastard philosophizing for any phrase giving promise of an adequate +treatment of this important subject. We find paraded ostentatiously +enough the doctrine that in the adjustment of human affairs the +possession of a white skin should be the strongest recommendation. +Wonder might fairly be felt that there is no suggestion of a +corresponding advantage being accorded to the possession of a long +nose or of auburn hair. Indeed, little [234] or no attention that +can be deemed serious is given to the interest of the Blacks, as a +large and (out of Africa) no longer despicable section of the human +family, in the great world-problems which are so visibly preparing +and press for definitive solutions. The intra-African Negro is +clearly powerless to struggle successfully against personal +enslavement, annexation, or volunteer forcible "protection" of his +territory. What, we ask, will in the coming ages be the opinion and +attitude of the extra-African millions--ten millions in the Western +Hemisphere--dispersed so widely over the surface of the globe, apt +apprentices in every conceivable department of civilized culture? +Will these men remain for ever too poor, too isolated from one +another for grand racial combinations? Or will the naturally opulent +cradle of their people, too long a prey to violence and unholy greed, +become at length the sacred watchword of a generation willing and +able to conquer or perish under its inspiration? Such large and +interesting questions it was within the province and duty of a famous +historian, laying confident claim to prophetic insight, not to +propound alone, but also definitely to solve. The sacred power [235] +of forecast, however, has been confined to finical pronouncements +regarding those for whose special benefit he has exercised it, and to +childish insults of the Blacks whose doom must be sealed to secure +the precious result which is aimed at. In view of this ill- +intentioned omission, we shall offer a few cursory remarks bearing +on, but not attempting to answer, those grave inquiries concerning +the African people. As in our humble opinion these are questions +paramount to all the petty local issues finically dilated on by the +confident prophet of "The Bow of Ulysses," we will here briefly +devote ourselves to its discussion. + +Accepting the theory of human development propounded by our author, +let us apply it to the African race. Except, of course, to +intelligences having a share in the Councils of Eternity, there can +be no attainable knowledge respecting the laws which regulate the +growth and progress of civilization among the races of the earth. +That in the existence of the human family every age has been marked +by its own essential characteristics with regard to manifestations of +intellectual life, however circumscribed, is a proposition too self- +evident [236] to require more than the stating. But investigation +beyond such evidence as we possess concerning the past--whether +recorded by man himself in the written pages of history, or by the +Creator on the tablets of nature--would be worse than futile. We see +that in the past different races have successively come to the front, +as prominent actors on the world's stage. The years of civilized +development have dawned in turn on many sections of the human family, +and the Anglo-Saxons, who now enjoy preeminence, got their turn only +after Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, and others had +successively held the palm of supremacy. And since these mighty +empires have all passed away, may we not then, if the past teaches +aught, confidently expect that other racial hegemonies will arise in +the future to keep up the ceaseless progression of temporal existence +towards the existence that is eternal? What is it in the nature of +things that will oust the African race from the right to participate, +in times to come, in the high destinies that have been assigned in +times past to so many races that have not been in anywise superior to +us in the qualifications, physical, moral, and intellectual, [237] +that mark out a race for prominence amongst other races? + +The normal composition of the typical Negro has the testimony of ages +to its essential soundness and nobility. Physically, as an active +labourer, he is capable of the most protracted exertion under +climatic conditions the most exhausting. By the mere strain of his +brawn and sinew he has converted waste tracts of earth into fertile +regions of agricultural bountifulness. On the scenes of strife he +has in his savage state been known to be indomitable save by the +stress of irresistible forces, whether of men or of circumstances. +Staunch in his friendship and tender towards the weak directly under +his protection, the unvitiated African furnishes in himself the +combination of native virtue which in the land of his exile was so +prolific of good results for the welfare of the whole slave-class. +But distracted at home by the sudden irruptions of skulking foes, he +has been robbed, both intellectually and morally, of the immense +advantage of Peace, which is the mother of Progress. Transplanted to +alien climes, and through centuries of desolating trials, this +irrepressible race has [238] bated not one throb of its energy, nor +one jot of its heart or hope. In modern times, after his +expatriation into dismal bondage, both Britain and America have had +occasion to see that even in the paralysing fetters of political and +social degradation the right arm of the Ethiop can be a valuable +auxiliary on the field of battle. Britain, in her conflict with +France for supremacy in the West Indies, did not disdain the aid of +the sable arms that struck together with those of Britons for the +trophies that furnished the motives for those epic contests. + +Later on, the unparalleled struggle between the Northern and Southern +States of the American Union put to the test the indestructible +fibres of the Negro's nature, moral as well as physical. The +Northern States, after months of hesitating repugnance, and when +taught at last by dire defeats that colour did not in any way help to +victory, at length sullenly acquiesced in the comradeship, hitherto +disdained, of the eager African contingent. The records of Port +Hudson, Vicksburg, Morris Island, and elsewhere, stand forth in +imperishable attestation of the fact that the distinction of being +laurelled during life as victor, or filling [239] in death a hero's +grave, is reserved for no colour, but for the heart that can dare and +the hand that can strike boldly in a righteous cause. The experience +of the Southern slave-holders, on the other hand, was no less +striking and worthy of admiration. Every man of the twelve seceding +States forming the Southern Confederacy, then fighting desperately +for the avowed purpose of perpetuating slavery, was called into the +field, as no available male arm could be spared from the conflict on +their side. Plantation owner, overseer, and every one in authority, +had to be drafted away from the scene of their usual occupation to +the stage whereon the bloody drama of internecine strife was being +enacted. Not only the plantation, but the home and the household, +including the mistress and her children, had to be left, not +unprotected, it is glorious to observe, but, with confident assurance +in their loyalty and good faith, under the protection of the four +million of bondsmen, who, through the laws and customs of these very +States, had been doomed to lifelong ignorance and exclusion from all +moralizing influences. With what result? The protraction of the +conflict on the part of the South would [240] have been impossible +but for the admirable management and realization of their resources +by those benighted slaves. On the other hand, not one of the +thousands of Northern prisoners escaping from the durance of a +Southern captivity ever appealed in vain for the assistance and +protection of a Negro. Clearly the head and heart of those bondsmen +were each in its proper place. The moral effect of these experiences +of the Negroes' sterling qualities was not lost on either North or +South. In the North it effaced from thousands of repugnant hearts +the adverse feelings which had devised and accomplished so much to +the Negro's detriment. In the South--but for the blunders of the +Reconstructionists--it would have considerably facilitated the final +readjustment of affairs between the erewhile master and slave in +their new-born relations of employer and employed. + +Reverting to the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the +States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their +favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy +condition. First, attention must be paid to the patriotic solidarity +existing [241] amongst the bondsmen, a solidarity which, in the case +of those who had been deported in the same ship, had all the sanctity +of blood-relationship. Those who had thus travelled to the "white +man's country" addressed and considered each other as brothers and +sisters. Hence their descendants for many generations upheld, as if +consanguineous, the modes of address and treatment which became +hereditary in families whose originals had travelled in the same +ship. These adopted uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, were so united +by common sympathies, that good or ill befalling any one of them +intensely affected the whole connection. Mutual support commensurate +with the area of their location thus became the order among these +people. At the time of the first deportation of Africans to the West +Indies to replace the aborigines who had been decimated in the mines +at Santo Domingo and in the pearl fisheries of the South Caribbean, +the circumstances of the Spanish settlers in the Antilles were of +singular, even romantic, interest. + +The enthusiasm which overflowed from the crusades and the Moorish +wars, upon the discovery and conquest of America, had occasioned +[242] the peopling of the Western Archipelago by a race of men in +whom the daring of freebooters was strangely blended with a fierce +sort of religiousness. As holders of slaves, these men recognized, +and endeavoured to their best to give effect to, the humane +injunctions of Bishop Las Casas. The Negroes, therefore, male and +female, were promptly presented for admission by baptism into the +Catholic Church, which always had stood open and ready to welcome +them. The relations of god-father and god-mother resulting from +these baptismal functions had a most important bearing on the +reciprocal stations of master and slave. The god-children were, +according to ecclesiastical custom, considered in every sense +entitled to all the protection and assistance which were within the +competence of the god-parents, who, in their turn, received from the +former the most absolute submission. It is easy to see that the +planters, as well as those intimately connected with them, in +assuming such obligations with their concomitant responsibilities, +practically entered into bonds which they all regarded as, if +possible, more solemn than the natural ties of secular parentage. +The duty [243] of providing for these dependents usually took the +shape of their being apprenticed to, and trained in the various arts +and vocations that constitute the life of civilization. In many +cases, at the death of their patrons, the bondsmen who were deemed +most worthy were, according to the means of the testator, provided +for in a manner lifting them above the necessity of future +dependence. Manumission, too, either by favour or through purchase, +was allowed the fullest operation. Here then was the active +influence of higher motives than mere greed of gain or the pride of +racial power mellowing the lot and gilding the future prospects of +the dwellers in the tropical house of bondage. + +The next, and even more effectual agency in modifying and harmonizing +the relations between owner and bondspeople was the inevitable +attraction of one race to the other by the sentiment of natural +affection. Out of this sprang living ties far more intimate and +binding on the moral sense than even obligations contracted in +deference to the Church. Natural impulses have often diviner sources +than ecclesiastical mandates. Obedience to the former not seldom +brings down the penalties of the Church; but [244] the culprit finds +solace in the consciousness that the offence might in itself be a +protection from the thunders it has provoked. Under these +circumstances the general body of planters, who were in the main +adventurers of the freest type, were fain to establish connections +with such of the slave-women as attracted their sympathy, through +personal comeliness or aptitude in domestic affairs, or, usually, +both combined. There was ordinarily in this beginning of the +seventeenth century no Vashti that needed expulsion from the abode of +a plantation Ahasuerus to make room for the African Esther to be +admitted to the chief place within the portals. One great natural +consequence of this was the extension to the relatives or guardians +of the bondswoman so preferred of an amount of favour which, in the +case of the more capable males, completes the parallel we have been +drawing by securing for each of them the precedence and +responsibilities of a Mordecai. The offspring of these natural +alliances came in therefore to cement more intimately the union of +interests which previous relations had generated. Beloved by their +fathers, and in many cases destined by them to a lot superior [245] +to that whereto they were entitled by formal law and social +prescription, these young procreations--Mulattos, as they were +called--were made the objects of special and careful provisions on +the fathers' part. They were, according to the means of their +fathers in the majority of cases, sent for education and training to +European or other superior institutions. After this course they were +either formally acknowledged by their fathers, or, if that was +impracticable, amply and suitably provided for in a career out of +their native colony. To a reflecting mind there is something that +interests, not to say fascinates, in studying the action and reaction +upon one another of circumstances in the existence of the Mulatto. +As a matter of fact, he had much more to complain of under the slave +system than his pure-blooded African relations. The law, by +decreeing that every child of a freeman and a slave woman must follow +the fortune of the womb, thus making him the property of his mother +exclusively, practically robbed him before his very birth of the +nurture and protection of a father. His reputed father had no +obligation to be even aware of his procreation, and nevertheless +[246] --so inscrutable are the ways of Providence!--the Mulatto was +the centre around which clustered the outraged instincts of nature in +rebellion against the desecrating mandates that prescribed treason to +herself. Law and society may decree; but in our normal humanity +there throbs a sentiment which neutralizes every external impulse +contrary to its promptings. + +In meditating on the varied history of the Negro in the United +States, since his first landing on the banks of the James River in +1619 till the Emancipation Act of President Lincoln in 1865, it is +curious to observe that the elevation of the race, though in a great +measure secured, proceeded from circumstances almost the reverse of +those that operated so favourably in the same direction elsewhere. +The men of the slave-holding States, chiefly Puritans or influenced +by Puritanic surroundings, were not under the ecclesiastical sway +which rendered possible in the West Indies and other Catholic +countries the establishment of the reciprocal bonds of god-parents +and god-children. The self-same causes operated to prevent any large +blending of the two races, inasmuch as the immigrant from Britain who +[247] had gone forth from his country to better his fortune had not +left behind him his attachment to the institutions of the mother- +land, among which marrying, whenever practicable, was one of the most +cherished. Above all, too, as another powerful check at first to +such alliances between the ruling and servile races of the States, +there existed the native idiosyncracy of the Anglo-Saxon. That class +of them who had left Britain were likelier than the more refined of +their nation to exhibit in its crudest and cruellest form the innate +jealousy and contempt of other races that pervades the Anglo-Saxon +bosom. It is but a simple fact that, whenever he condescended +thereto, familiarity with even the loveliest of the subject people +was regarded as a mighty self-unbending for which the object should +be correspondingly grateful. So there could, in the beginning, be no +frequent instances of the romantic chivalry that gilded the quasi- +marital relations of the more fervid and humane members of the Latin +stock. + +But this kind of intercourse, which in the earlier generation was +undoubtedly restricted in North America by the checks above adverted +to, and, presumably, also by the mutual unintelligibility [248] in +speech, gradually expanded with the natural increase of the slave +population. The American-born, English-speaking Negro girl, who had +in many cases been the playmate of her owner, was naturally more +intelligible, more accessible, more attractive--and the inevitable +consequence was the extension apace of that intercourse, the +offspring whereof became at length so visibly numerous. + +Among the Romans, the grandest of all colonizers, the individual's +Civis Romanus sum--I am a Roman citizen--was something more than +verbal vapouring; it was a protective talisman--a buckler no less +than a sword. Yet was the possession of this noble and singular +privilege no barrier to Roman citizens meeting on a broad +humanitarian level any alien race, either allied to or under the +protection of that world-famous commonwealth. In the speeches of the +foremost orators and statesmen among the conquerors of the then known +world, the allusions to subject or allied aliens are distinguished by +a decorous observance of the proprieties which should mark any +reference to those who had the dignity of Rome's [249] friendship, or +the privilege of her august protection. Observations, therefore, +regarding individuals of rank in these alien countries had the same +sobriety and deference which marked allusions to born Romans of +analogous degree. Such magnanimity, we grieve to say, is not +characteristic of the race which now replaces the Romans in the +colonizing leadership of the world. We read with feelings akin to +despair of the cheap, not to say derogatory, manner in which, in both +Houses of Parliament, native potentates, especially of non-European +countries, are frequently spoken of by the hereditary aristocracy and +the first gentlemen of the British Empire. The inborn racial +contempt thus manifested in quarters where rigid self-control and +decorum should form the very essence of normal deportment, was not +likely, as we have before hinted, to find any mollifying ingredient +in the settlers on the banks of the Mississippi. Therefore should we +not be surprised to find, with regard to many an illicit issue of +"down South," the arrogance of race so overmastering the promptings +of nature as to render not unfrequent at the auction-block the sight +of many a chattel of mixed blood, the offspring [250] of some planter +whom business exigency had forced to this commercial transaction as +the readiest mode of self-release. Yet were the exceptions to this +rule enough to contribute appreciably to the weight and influence of +the mixed race in the North, where education and a fair standing had +been clandestinely secured for their children by parents to whom law +and society had made it impossible to do more, and whom conscience +rendered incapable of stopping at less. + +From this comparative sketch of the history of the slaves in the +States, in the West Indies and countries adjacent, it will be +perceived that in the latter scenes of bondage everything had +conspired to render a fusion of interests between the ruling and the +servile classes not only easy, but inevitable. In the very first +generation after their introduction, the Africans began to press +upward, a movement which every decade has accelerated, in spite of +the changes which supervened as each of the Colonies fell under +British sway. Nearly two centuries had by this time elapsed, and the +coloured influence, which had grown with their wealth, education, +numbers, and unity, though [251] circumscribed by the emancipation of +the slaves, and the consequent depression in fortune of all slave- +owners, never was or could be annihilated. In the Government service +there were many for whom the patronage of god-parents or the sheer +influence of their family had effected an entrance. The prevalence +and potency of the influences we have been dilating upon may be +gauged by the fact that personages no less exalted than Governors of +various Colonies--of Trinidad in three authentic cases--have been +sharers in the prevailing usages, in the matter of standing sponsors +(by proxy), and also of relaxing in the society of some fascinating +daughter of the sun from the tension and wear of official duty. In +the three cases just referred to, the most careful provision was made +for the suitable education and starting in life of the issues. For +the god-children of Governors there were places in the public +service, and so from the highest to the lowest the humanitarian +intercourse of the classes was confirmed. + +Consequent on the frequent abandonment of their plantations by many +owners who despaired of being able to get along by paying [252] their +way, an opening was made for the insinuation of Absenteeism into our +agricultural, in short, our economic existence. The powerful sugar +lords, who had invested largely in the cane plantations, were fain to +take over and cultivate the properties which their debtors doggedly +refused to continue working, under pretext of the entire absence, or +at any rate unreliability, of labour. The representatives of those +new transatlantic estate proprietors displaced, but never could +replace, the original cultivators, who were mostly gentlemen as well +as agriculturists. It was from this overseer class that the +vituperations and slanders went forth that soon became stereotyped, +concerning the Negro's incorrigible laziness and want of ambition-- +those gentry adjusting the scale of wages, not according to the +importance and value of the labour done, but according to the +scornful estimate which they had formed of the Negro personally. And +when the wages were fixed fairly, they almost invariably sought to +indemnify themselves for their enforced justice by the insulting +license of their tongues, addressed to males and females alike. The +influence of such men on local legislation, in which they [253] had a +preponderating share, either as actual proprietors or as the +attorneys of absentees, was not in the direction of refinement or +liberality. Indeed, the kind of laws which they enacted, especially +during the apprenticeship (1834-8), is thus summarized by one, and +him an English officer, who was a visitor in those agitated days of +the Colonies:-- + +"It is demonstrated that the laws which were to come into operation +immediately on expiration of the apprenticeship are of the most +objectionable character, and fully established the fact not only of a +future intention to infringe the rights of the emancipated classes, +but of the actual commencement and extensive progress of a Colonial +system for that purpose. The object of the laws is to circumscribe +the market for free labour--to prohibit the possession or sale of +ordinary articles of produce on sale, the obvious intention of which +is to confine the emancipated classes to a course of agricultural +servitude--to give the employers a monopoly of labour, and to keep +down a free competition for wages--to create new and various modes of +apprenticeship for the purpose of prolonging predial service, +together with many evils of the [254] late system--to introduce +unnecessary restraint and coercion, the design of which is to create +a perpetual surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish +a legislative despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the +most vicious principles of legislation, and in their operation will +be found intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just +intentions of the British Legislature." + +These liberal-souled gentry were, in sooth, Mr. Froude's +"representatives" of Britain, whose traditions steadily followed in +their families, he has so well and sympathetically set forth. + +We thus see that the irritation and rancour seething in the breast of +the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then +also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished +and kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, +certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was +too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own +phrase, people of colour had by that time already "passed the lock- +jaw"* stage (at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped +the germ of their progress in the bud.) In spite of adverse +legislation, and in spite of the scandalous subservience of certain +Governors to the Colonial Legislatures, the Race can point with +thankfulness and pride to the visible records of their success +wherever they have permanently sojourned. + +Primary education of a more general and undiscriminating character, +especially as to race and colour, was secured for the bulk of the +West Indies by voluntary undertakings, and notably through the +munificent provision of Lady Mico, which extended to the whole of the +principal islands. + +Thanks to Lord Harris for introducing, and to Sir Arthur Gordon for +extending to the secondary stage, the public education of Trinidad, +there has been since Emancipation, that is, during the last thirty- +seven years, a more effective bringing together in public schools of +various grades, of children of all races and ranks. Rivals at home, +at school and college, in books as well as on the playground, they +have very frequently gone abroad together to learn the professions +they have selected. In this way there is an intercommunion between +all the [256] intelligent sections of the inhabitants, based on a +common training and the subtle sympathies usually generated in +enlightened breasts by intimate personal knowledge. In mixed +communities thus circumstanced, there is no possibility of +maintaining distinctions based on mere colour, as advocated by Mr. +Froude. + +The following brief summary by the Rev. P. H. Doughlin, Rector of St. +Clement's, Trinidad, a brilliant star among the sons of Ham, embodies +this fact in language which, so far as it goes, is as comprehensive +as it is weighty:-- + +"Who could, without seeming to insult the intelligence of men, have +predicted on the day of Emancipation that the Negroes then released +from the blight and withering influence of ten generations of cruel +bondage, so weakened and half-destroyed--so denationalized and +demoralized--so despoiled and naked, would be in the position they +are now? In spite of the proud, supercilious, and dictatorial +bearing of their teachers, in spite of the hampering of +unsympathetic, alien oversight, in spite of the spirit of dependence +and servility engendered by slavery, not only have individual members +of the race entered into all the offices of dignity in [257] Church +and State, as subalterns--as hewers of wood and drawers of water--but +they have attained to the very highest places. Here in the West +Indies, and on the West Coast of Africa, are to be found Surgeons of +the Negro Race, Solicitors, Barristers, Mayors, Councillors, +Principals and Founders of High Schools and Colleges, Editors and +Proprietors of Newspapers, Archdeacons, Bishops, Judges, and Authors- +-men who not only teach those immediately around them, but also teach +the world. Members of the race have even been entrusted with the +administration of Governments. And it is not mere commonplace men +that the Negro Race has produced. Not only have the British +Universities thought them worthy of their honorary degrees and +conferred them on them, but members of the race have won these +University degrees. A few years back a full-blooded Negro took the +highest degree Oxford has to give to a young man. The European world +is looking with wonder and admiration at the progress made by the +Negro Race--a progress unparalleled in the annals of the history of +any race." + +To this we may add that in the domain [258] of high literature the +Blacks of the United States, for the twenty-five years of social +emancipation, and despite the lingering obstructions of caste +prejudice, have positively achieved wonders. Leaving aside the +writings of men of such high calibre as F. Douglass, Dr. Hyland +Garnet, Prof. Crummell, Prof. E. Blyden, Dr. Tanner, and others, it +is gratifying to be able to chronicle the Ethiopic women of North +America as moving shoulder to shoulder with the men in the highest +spheres of literary activity. Among a brilliant band of these our +sisters, conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out +but a solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and +of giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. +The allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This +lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds +effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. +But it is as a poet that posterity will hail her in the coming ages +of our Race. For pathos, depth of spiritual insight, and magical +exercise of a rare power of self-utterance, it will hardly be +questioned that she has surpassed every competitor [259] among +females--white or black--save and except Elizabeth Barett Browning, +with whom the gifted African stands on much the same plane of poetic +excellence. + +The above summary of our past vicissitudes and actual position shows +that there is nothing in our political circumstances to occasion +uneasiness. The miserable skin and race doctrine we have been +discussing does not at all prefigure the destinies at all events of +the West Indies, or determine the motives that will affect them. +With the exception of those belonging to the Southern states of the +Union, the vast body of African descendants now dispersed in various +countries of the Western Hemisphere are at sufficient peace to begin +occupying themselves, according to some fixed programme, about +matters of racial importance. More than ten millions of Africans are +scattered over the wide area indicated, and possess amongst them +instances of mental and other qualifications which render them +remarkable among their fellow-men. But like the essential parts of a +complicated albeit perfect machine, these attainments and +qualifications so widely dispersed await, it is evident, some +potential [260] agency to collect and adjust them into the vast +engine essential for executing the true purposes of the civilized +African Race. Already, especially since the late Emancipation +Jubilee, are signs manifest of a desire for intercommunion and +intercomprehension amongst the more distinguished of our people. +With intercourse and unity of purpose will be secured the means to +carry out the obvious duties which are sure to devolve upon us, +especially with reference to the cradle of our Race, which is most +probably destined to be the ultimate resting-place and headquarters +of millions of our posterity. Within the short time that we had to +compass all that we have achieved, there could not have arisen +opportunities for doing more than we have effected. Meanwhile our +present device is: "Work, Hope, and Wait!" + +Finally, it must be borne in mind that the abolition of physical +bondage did not by any means secure all the requisite conditions of +"a fair field and no favour" for the future career of the freedmen. +The remnant of Jacob, on their return from the Captivity, were +compelled, whilst rebuilding their Temple, literally to labour with +the working tool in one hand [261] and the sword for personal defence +in the other. Even so have the conditions, figuratively, presented +themselves under which the Blacks have been obliged to rear the +fabric of self-elevation since 1838, whilst combating ceaselessly the +obstacles opposed to the realizing of their legitimate aspirations. +Mental and, in many cases, material success has been gained, but the +machinery for accumulating and applying the means required for +comprehensive racial enterprises is waiting on Providence, time, and +circumstances for its establishment and successful working. + +NOTES + +254. *"Yo té'ja passé mal machoè"--in metaphorical allusion to new- +born infants who have lived beyond a certain number of days. + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Froudacity, by J. J. Thomas + diff --git a/old/8frdc10.zip b/old/8frdc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4711247 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8frdc10.zip |