With the last clause I have some sympathy. I sometimes feel I could cheerfully see the death penalty inflicted upon whoever was responsible for making Jamaican towns bare of trees, for decreeing that telephone and telegraph wires are of more importance than shade, and for clearing all the country roads so that a tropical sun makes them a purgatory2 for the unfortunate traveller, when Nature herself has arranged so much more wisely.
But that is somehow in another dimension, and I quite realise when white people were so hard on each other as they were a hundred years ago, we could not expect much consideration from them for the men they held in bondage3.
The first negroes were brought to serve and for nothing else. There was some faint talk of making them Christians4 and saving their souls, but I am afraid it was of their untilled cape-pieces the planters were thinking when they crowded down to the reeking5 slave ships. They who believed, if they gave the matter a thought, that any being who died unbaptized went out into outer darkness for eternity—only neither they nor we can grasp eternity—gave no welcome to the men who presently came to teach their slaves. They objected. Well, even in this year of our Lord 1922, I have actually, yes actually heard a woman, who certainly should have known better, declare: “You know, my dear, this teaching of the lower classes is really a great mistake. It lifts them out of their own class.”
In all the mass of literature I have waded6 through about Jamaica I have met no one till I arrived at Matthew Lewis, writing of 1816, who looked at the negro with what we may call modern eyes. The Abolitionists patronised; they had an object in view, a great object, truly, but it was the cause for which they fought. Lewis was much more reasonable and sensible. We can read him as we might read a man of to-day, on the conditions around him. He saw Jamaica as I and people like me see it, and weighed both sides and held the balance true, for he is far less hampered8 by tradition than we might expect.
He landed at Savanna-la-Mar, which lies right upon the sea-shore, a sea-shore on which there is no cliff, and where the boundaries of land and water are by no means clearly defined. A wild tropical storm swept over it while I was there, and I thought of Matthew Lewis as the rain came slanting9 down the wide street, turning the scene into one dreary10 grey whole; sky, sea, land, we could hardly have told one from the other but for the houses that loomed11 up, grey blotches12 on the universal greyness. There were no trees, barely a sign of the riotous13 tropical vegetation, though presently the sun would be out in all his pride, and the whole town would be craving14 for a little shade. But like many English colonists15, the people of Savanna-la-Mar have decided16 that beauty, the beauty of trees and growing things, is not necessary in their town. If you want shade, what about corrugated17 iron?
I don’t know what Savanna-la-Mar was like when Matthew Lewis landed there, but it was celebrating its holidays, the New Year of 1816, when the great gentleman arrived.
“Soon after nine o’clock we reached Savanna-la-Mar, where I found my trustee and a whole cavalcade18 awaiting to conduct me to my estate. He had brought with him a curricle and a pair for myself, a gig for my servant, two black boys upon mules20, and a cart with eight oxen to convey my baggage.”
It took a good deal to move a gentleman with dignity a hundred years ago. Nowadays it would have been: “We’ll send the car for you, and your heavier baggage can come on by mule19 cart. You won’t want it for a day or two, will you?”
And here he gives us the sort of picture to which we have become accustomed in reading about the good old times of slavery.
“Whether the pleasure of the negroes was sincere may be doubted”—a wise man and a human was Matthew Lewis. He really does not see any reason why the slaves should be fond of him or make a fuss over him, “but certainly it”—the welcome—“was the loudest that ever I witnessed; they all talked together, sang, danced, shouted, and in the violence of their gesticulations tumbled over each other and rolled on the ground. Twenty voices at once enquired21 after uncles and aunts and grandfathers and great-grandmothers of mine who had been buried long before I was in existence, and whom I verily believe most of them only knew by tradition. One woman held up her little black child to me, grinning from ear to ear.
“Look, massa, look here! Him nice lilly neger for massa.” Another complained—
“So long since none come see we, massa. Good massa, come at last.”
He rather liked it though.
“All this may be palaver22, but certainly they at least play their parts with such an air of truth and warmth and enthusiasm, that after the cold-hearted and repulsive23 manners of England this contrast is infinitely24 agreeable.”
He went to a lodging-house first, and there he was met by a remarkably25 clean-looking negro lad with water and a towel. Lewis took it for granted that he belonged to the house. The lad waited some time and at last he said:
“Massa not know me; me your slave.”
And here for the first time we find someone who feels uncomfortable at holding another in bondage.
“The sound made me feel a pang26 at the heart,” he writes. And not because the boy was sad. Stirring within the poet was some feeling concerning the rights of man.
“The lad appeared all gaiety and good humour, and his whole countenance27 expressed anxiety to recommend himself to my notice; but the word ‘slave’ seemed to imply that although he did feel pleasure then in serving me, if he had detested28 me he must have served me still. I really felt quite humiliated29 at the moment, and was tempted30 to tell him.
“Do not say that again; say that you are my negro, but do not call yourself my slave.”
And then again, when he was established in the house, which he has left it on record was frightful31 to look at but very clean and comfortable inside, he remarks:
“This morning a little brown girl made her appearance with an orange bough32 to flap away the flies.”
It had been impressed upon him that he courted death if he drank orangeade, if he walked in the morning after ten or went out in the cool of the evening, “be exposed to the dews after sundown” they put it. But he dares to write: “The air too was delicious, the fragrance33 of the sweetwood and other scented34 trees, but above all of the delicious logwood of which most of the fences in Westmoreland are made, composed an atmosphere such that if Satan after promising35 them a buxom36 air embalmed37 with odours, had transported Sin and Death thither38 the charming people must acknowledge their papa’s promise fulfilled.” It reads quaintly39 now. Sin—sin is so much a matter of the standard we set up. If the slave had copied the planter, no master would have considered him anything but a very sinful slave; and death—death is often very, very kindly40.
Lewis enquires41 into the condition of the people. His attorney had written to him regularly of the care he expended42 on the negroes, but he had been away much of his time managing other estates, and had delegated his authority to an overseer who treated the people so harshly that at last they left the estate in a body and threw themselves on the protection of the magistrate43 at Savanna-la-Mar, “and if I had not come myself to Jamaica, in all probability I should never have had the most distant idea how abominably44 the poor creatures had been ill-used.”
Now this marks a distinct advance since the times when the savages45, speaking a jargon46 no one cared to understand, were driven to work with a whip.
Lewis, to the intense surprise of his compeers, objected to the use of the whip.
“I am, indeed, assured by everyone about me, that to manage a West Indian estate without the occasional use of a cart whip, however rarely, is impossible; and they insist upon it that it is absurd in me to call my slaves ill-treated, because when they act grossly wrong they are treated like English soldiers and sailors. All this may be very true; but there is something to me so shocking in the idea of this execrable cart whip that I have positively47 forbidden the use of it on Cornwall; and if the estate must go to rack and ruin without it, to rack and ruin the estate must go.”
But, of course, all men were not as broadminded as Lewis. Bridges, who wrote twelve years later, could never mention a negro without adding some disparaging48 adjective, “the vigilance which African perfidy49 requires.”
“Experience proves that a strange uniformity of barbarism pervades50 them all; and that the only difference lies in the degrees of the same base qualities which mark the negro race throughout.”
“The salutary measures were of little avail in winning over by indulgence, or restraining by terror the impracticable savages of Africa.” Such are a few of the gems51 dispersed52 through his work. He could see no good in a black man, except that his thews and sinews were necessary to the development of the country, and he grudged54 them even that measure of praise.
In the ten years between 1752 and 1762, 71,115 negroes arrived in the island, “forced upon Jamaica by British merchants and English laws,” says he, though when England wanted to stop this inflow and to prohibit the slave trade, the Jamaican planters objected very strongly. They wanted these unwilling55 colonists. But since the majority of them were men, young, strong and lusty, and the Europeans were but a handful, it was necessary they should be ruled with a rod of iron. Bridges probably was right when he says that any relaxation56 was promptly57 attributed to fear. They had to be governed by fear and the people who are governed by fear, are crushed, broken, destroyed. How thoroughly58 destroyed we may see by reading statistics of the increase among the slaves, once the importation from Africa had ceased.
This whip that Lewis abolished was used on all occasions. A man was beaten because he did not work, and women were beaten till the blood flowed, because they suckled their babies during working hours, which extended, be it remembered, from five in the morning till seven at night—by law—with an interval59 of half an hour for breakfast and two hours for the mid-day meal. The women would protest that the little things were hungry and cried, but if the overseer or book-keeper were not kind that was no excuse. Presently there came a law that no slave was to receive more than thirty-nine lashes60 at once. It was time. They are said on occasion to have received more than 500. But there were ways of getting over the new law. There were men who kept within the letter and yet inflicted fiendish punishment. There is a story told of Barbadoes:
Two officers, Major Pitch and Captain Cook, hearing terrible cries, broke open a door and there found a negro girl chained to the floor being flogged by her master. The brute61 got out of their avenging62 hands—I am glad to think there was some pity in that world—but he cried exultingly63 that he had only given her the thirty-nine lashes allowed by the law at one time, and that he had only inflicted this number three times since the beginning of the night, and that he intended to give her the fourth thirty-nine before morning. This was long before Lewis’s time. It was told by Wilberforce, when pleading for the Abolition7 of the Slave Trade.
There were tales enough, of course, of this description and the case against the planters—some of them—was pretty bad. A youth of nineteen was found wandering about the streets of Bridgetown, Barbadoes, by General Tottenham in the year 1780. “He was entirely64 naked, with an iron collar about his neck having five long projecting spikes65. His body both before and behind was covered with wounds. His belly66 and thighs67 were almost cut to pieces with running ulcers68 all over them; and a finger might have been laid in some of the weals. He could not sit down, because his hinder part was mortified69 and he could not lie down on account of the prongs of his collar. He supplicated70 the General for relief, for his master had said as he could not work neither should he eat.”
And the people of Bridgetown did not rise up and slay71 that inhuman72 monster! It took a long while for the West Indian planter to understand that a slave had any rights.
Clarkson tells a tale of a master who wantonly cut the mouth of a child of six months old almost from ear to ear. Times were changing, and he was brought to task for it. But the idea of calling masters to account was entirely novel.
“Guilty,” said the jury, “subject to the opinion of the Court if immoderate correction of a slave by his master be a crime indictable.”
The Court decided it was indictable and fined him ￡1, 5s.!
And yet that judgment73 is a great advance upon the times when the negro, as Mr Francis said in Parliament, was without Government protection and subject to the mere74 caprice of men who were at once the parties, the judges, and the executioners. He instanced an overseer who, having thrown a negro into a copper75 of boiling cane76-juice for a trifling77 offence, was punished merely by the loss of his place, and by being obliged to pay the value of the slave thus done to death. He told of another instance, a girl of fourteen who was dreadfully whipped for coming late to her work. She fell down motionless, and was then dragged along the ground by the legs to the hospital, where she died. The murderer, though tried, was acquitted78 by a jury of his peers, because it was impossible that a master could destroy his own property!
Here is a story told by Mr Pitt at the same time. A passer-by heard the piercing shrieks79 of a woman coming from an outhouse and determined80 to see what was going on. On looking in he saw a girl tied up to a beam by her wrists, she was entirely naked, and was swinging backwards81 and forwards while her owner was standing82 below her with a lighted torch in his hand, which he applied83 to all parts of her body!
On the other hand, Mr Edwards told a story to the Assembly of Jamaica, of how some risen slaves surrounded the house of their mistress, who was in bed with her newborn child beside her. Imagine the poor woman shrinking down amidst the pillows, and round the bed these black savages with wild bloodshot eyes and cruel, grasping hands. The very smell of their naked bodies, their rags stained with blood and rum, would strike terror to her heart. They deliberated in their jargon how they could best put her to death in torment84. But in the end one of them decided to keep her for his mistress. The vile85 broken patois86 they spoke87 made so much intelligible88 to her, and then snatching the child from her protecting arms they killed it with an axe89 before the poor mother’s eyes.
We can sympathise with the man who felt that no torments90 were too great for savages such as these, and with others who were certain that a repetition of such atrocities91 must be guarded against at any cost.
And so by a law passed in the West Indies in 1722, “any Negro or other slave withdrawing himself from his master for the term of six months, or any slave who was absent and did not return within that time every such person should suffer death.”
And coming back, of course, he might suffer a good deal. So that the unfortunate slave was ever between the devil and the deep sea. But slowly as we read the records, we can see the status of first the coloured man, and then the black man improving. In the beginning these Africans who up till the Abolition of the Slave Trade could speak but little English, and always spoke to each other in their own tongues, were simply dumb beasts of burden, necessary for the improvement of the colony, even as a certain number of horses and cattle and other stock were necessary. Always they were treated as inferior beings, even when they were desperately92 feared. Gossipy Lady Nugent talks of them as one would an intelligent, rather lovable dog or horse, and spares a little pity for their hard lot.
“The mill is turned by water,” she writes about a visit to a sugar estate, “and the cane being put in on one side, comes out in a moment on the other, quite like dry pith, so rapidly is all the juice expressed, passing between two cylinders93 turning round the contrary ways. You then see the juice running through a great gutter94, which conveys it to the boiling house. There are always four negroes stuffing in the canes95, while others are employed continually in bringing in great bundles of them.... At each cauldron in the boiling house was a man with a large skimmer upon a long pole, constantly stirring the sugar and throwing it from one cauldron to another. The man at the last cauldron called out continually to those below attending the fire to throw on more trash, etc., for if the heat relaxes in the least, all the sugar in the cauldron is spoiled.... I asked the overseer how often his people were relieved. He said every twelve hours; but how dreadful to think of their standing twelve hours over a boiling cauldron, and doing the same thing.” (A woman before her time was Lady Nugent.) “And he owned to me that sometimes they did fall asleep and get their poor fingers into the mill; and he showed me a hatchet96 that was always ready to sever97 the whole limb, as the only means of saving the poor sufferer’s life. I would not have a sugar estate for the whole world!”
This perhaps explains why in the slave books the slaves seem to be so often lame98 in a hand, or with only one hand. And yet there was no possibility of refusing the work. They must do it.
Lady Nugent pitied, Matthew Lewis tried to remedy, the evils. He was particularly kindly, and was hated by the planters as making dangerous innovations in the management of an estate, and allowing much more latitude99 than others were inclined to think wise. They probably said he had not to live in the island; he would go back to England and allow them to reap what he had sown. But he certainly reaped for a time himself; his overseers could get no work done, and on one occasion after his arrival the women refused to carry away the trash, “one of the easiest tasks that could be set. In consequence the mill was obliged to be stopped; and when the driver on that station insisted on their doing their duty, a little fierce young devil of a lass, Whaunica, flew at his throat and endeavoured to strangle him.”
And again we find him writing: “Another morning with the mill stopped, no liquor in the boiling house, and no work done.” The whole estate was suffering from a bad attack of what the negroes call “bad manners,” that is ingratitude100, for if ever a man tried to help them, Lewis did.
“My agent declares,” he goes on, “that they never conducted so ill before; that they worked cheerfully and properly till my arrival, but now they think that I shall protect them against all punishment, and have made regularly ten hogsheads of sugar less than they did before my coming upon the estate.”
He appears to have been a man of means, and in that he was an exception. I am sure that nearly all the planters felt they needed every penny their estates would produce, many were already deeply dipped, and few and far between were those who could afford to try experiments in the cause of right. But Lewis persevered101, and I am glad to think that in the end he was no loser, his negroes worked, and his estates did pay.
He actually on one occasion dismissed a bookkeeper for having ill-treated a negro, and took the evidence of four negroes against the denial of the accused—and this in a time when a negro’s evidence was inadmissible!
“I immediately discharged the book-keeper, who contented103 himself with simply denying the blow having been given by him; but I told him that I could not possibly allow his single unsupported denial to outweigh104 concordant witnesses to the assertation: and if he grounded his claim to being believed merely upon his having a white skin, on Cornwall estate at least that claim would not be admitted; and that as the fact was clearly established nothing should induce me to retain him upon my property except his finding some means of appeasing105 the injured negro, and prevailing106 on him to intercede107 on his behalf.”
How dared he! In Jamaica!
“This was a humiliation108 to which he could not bring himself to stoop; and accordingly the man has left the estate. I was kept awake the greater part of the night by the songs and rejoicings of the negroes at their triumph over the offending bookkeeper.” And this man had only sluiced109 a slave with dirty water, called him a rascal110, and knocked him down with a broom because he did not clear away some spilled water fast enough! No wonder the planters felt this newcomer was attempting dangerous innovations.
“It is extraordinary,” writes Lady Nugent, more than ten years earlier, “to witness the immediate102 effect that the climate” (always the climate) “and habit of living in this country have upon the minds and manners of Europeans, particularly the lower orders. In the upper ranks they become indolent and inactive, regardless of everything but eating and drinking and indulging themselves, are almost entirely under the dominion111 of their mulatto favourites. In the lower orders they are the same, with the addition of conceit112 and tyranny, considering the negroes as creatures formed entirely to administer to their ease, and to be subject to their caprice, and I have found much difficulty to persuade those great people and superior beings, our white domestics, that the blacks are human beings or have souls. I allude113 more particularly to our German and our other upper men servants.”
I am afraid there were a good many people like Lady Nugent’s German and other upper men servants.
But Lewis himself had very clear ideas as to the sort of people he was trying to help. He knew you could not expect either saints or wise men from men brought up as they had been, though the life might occasionally evolve a philosopher.
“To do the negroes justice,” he writes, “it is a doubt whether they are the greatest thieves or liars114, and the quantity of sugar which they purloin115 during the crop and dispose of at the Bay is enormous.”
And he tells another lovely story of how he was taken in and his kindness imposed upon. There was a black watchman, old and sick, to whom he regularly sent soup, and then he discovered that the old scamp had hired a girl, and had a child by her, and for this accommodation he paid ￡30 a year to a brown man in the mountains!
“I hope this fact will convince the African reporter,” he writes, “that it is possible for some ‘of these oppressed race of human beings,’ ‘of these our most unfortunate fellow-creatures,’ to enjoy at least some of the blessings116 of civilised society. And I doubt whether even Mr Wilberforce himself, with all his benevolence117, would not allow a negro to be quite rich enough, who can afford to pay ￡30 a year for the hire of a kept mistress.”
A nice humour of his own has Lewis. He comes down to us pleasantly through the years. He gives us many little illuminating118 stories about the slaves and their ways. Already there were growing up among them many little differences. For instance, a pure bred negro might not aspire119 to the hand of a lady with some of the blood of the ruling class in her veins120. One day he asked Cubina, his body-servant, the nice boy whom he had first met on his arrival, why he did not marry Mary Wiggins, a most beautiful brown girl, and they can be beautiful.
“Oh, massa,” said Cubina, shocked, “him sambo!”—that is, the child of a mulatto and a negro. But this did not always hold good.
He tells another story of a slave of his named Nicholas, a mulatto. Nicholas was the son of a white man, who on his deathbed charged his nephew and heir to purchase the freedom of this natural child. The nephew promised, and Matthew Lewis the master had agreed. Nothing was wanting except to find a substitute. But a substitute, once the slave trade had stopped, was very difficult to find. Before he was found, the nephew had broken his neck, and his estate had gone to a distant heir. Poor Nicholas’s freedom was once more put off. Lewis says he liked the man so much he was strongly tempted to set him at liberty at once.
“But,” he adds very naturally, “if I began that way there would be no stopping.”
“Another,” says Lewis, “was building a house for a superannuated121 wife—for they have so much decency122 to call their tender attachments123 by a conjugal124 name.” Which is merely to say that even the mulattoes continued African customs here in Jamaica.
There was a law against slaves holding stock of any sort, and of course at first they did not, but gradually men who had to go out into the wilder parts of the mountains to grow their provisions, acquired live stock as well, and they held it not only on Lewis’s estate, but on other men’s. Lewis bought all the cattle which the industrious125 ones bred, good, bad, and indifferent, at an all-round price of ￡15 a head, and he never charged them for pasturage. Truly patriarchal in his rule was he. He believed that the slaves, taken all in all, had a fairly good time, and he was a man of letters, a man who had travelled, and whose opinion is worth considering.
“As far as I can judge,” he writes in the inflated126 style of the time of George III. of blessed memory, “if I were now standing on the banks of Lethe with a goblet127 of the waters of oblivion in my hand and were asked whether I chose to enter life as an English labourer or a Jamaican negro, I should have no hesitation128 in preferring the latter.” Doubtless he was quite right. His saying it only proves to me what a ghastly time the English labourer must have had at the beginning of the last century.
There is another aspect of slavery that we don’t often realise, but he brings it before us clearly. At the present day if we wish to get rid of a bad servant, or even one we dislike, all we have to do is to pay him and dismiss him, and we are quit of him and his evil ways; but it wasn’t so easy to get rid of a slave. He had a man named Adam, a Creole, who had a bad reputation as an Obeah man.
“There is no doubt of his having infused poison into the water-jars through spite against the late superintendent129. He is unfortunately clever and plausible130, and I am told that the mischief131 that he has already done by working upon the folly132 and superstition133 of his fellows is incalculable. Yet I cannot get rid of him. The law will not suffer any negro to be shipped off the island until he shall have been convicted of felony at the session. I cannot sell him, for nobody would buy him, nor even accept him if I would offer them so dangerous a present. If he were to go away the law would seize him and bring him back to me, and I should be obliged to pay heavily for his retaking and his maintenance in the workhouse. In short, I know not what to do with him.”
The habit of murdering the superintendents134 and “bushas” who had done them an injury, sometimes a very trivial injury, was one that had always to be taken into account, and a negro who had no personal grudge53 against the doomed135 man could always be relied upon to help a friend. Such were the strained relations between the white and black. A Mr Dunbar was set upon and murdered by his driver, helped by two young men who barely knew the planter by sight, and they could have had no possible grudge against him except that of colour. Again and again they had missed their chance by the merest accident, but one night as he was riding home from a dinner party at Montego Bay they rushed out from behind a clump136 of trees, pulled him down from his horse and clubbed him to death. No one suspected the driver, but a curious superstition gave him away. Naturally, all the houses of the slaves were searched, and in the driver’s Mr Dunbar’s watch and one of his ears was found. The watch might have been arrived at by barter137, but the ear had been kept by the murderer from a negro belief that so long as the murderer possesses one of the ears of his victim he will never be haunted by his spectre.
It would be monotonous138 to put down the number of murders I have come across in my search for old tales of Jamaica. A book-keeper was discovered in one of the cane-pieces of Cornwall with his skull139 fractured, but the murderer was never discovered; and innumerable were the book-keepers and overseers who were poisoned by the women they trusted. Often the woman who mixed the draught140 had no idea of its being poison. She received the ingredients from the Obeah man as a charm to “make her massa good to her,” by which, says Lewis, “the negroes mean the compelling a person to give another everything for which that other may ask him.”
It was always feud141, feud, feud. Reading the slave books, we see how much of this bitterness must have been engendered142. In crop time the slaves often had to labour all night, and frequently on Sundays they were in the cane-pieces instead of being allowed to go to their ground, and if they had not time to grow their provisions it is hardly likely these hard taskmasters made good the loss.
“Great evil arises,” writes someone in the Rose Hall estate book, possibly the Attorney in charge, “to the Negroes and stock from carting canes at night. An Overseer who arranges his work with judgment will always have abundance of canes in the mill yard by commencing to carry early in the morning. It is therefore my desire that no canes are to be brought from the field after Sunset.”
Judging by this book, sometimes the mills started after 7 p.m. on Sunday night and ran continuously till the following Saturday night or Sunday morning without intermission or rest for anyone, white or black. How bitter might be the black man thus worked remorselessly, even though the white man was himself driven by a higher power.
A study of the “Runaways” interspersed143 up and down the pages among the other entries shows us very clearly the position of the unfortunate slave, even though no word is said against him. C?sar on Rose Hall ran away again and again, and we feel great pity for C?sar because possibly he could not stand this appalling144 labour. He returned on the 6th July for the last time, and on the 21st of the same month among “Decrease of negroes” is a simple note “By C?sar died.” Poor C?sar! What agonies did he suffer during that long, long fortnight.
I went to Rose Hall once, a great four-storied stone building, approached by flights of steps built on arches. Its empty window-places, from which the glass has long since gone, look out over the blue Caribbean, its floors, where they are not worm-eaten, are of the most gorgeous polished mahogany, and the walls of the principal rooms are panelled with the like beautiful polished wood. It is empty, forlorn, the glory has departed, it is haunted, they say, and there is a blood stain that will not wash out on the floor. Of Mrs Palmer, who owned it last, very unsavoury tales are told. She is said to have murdered more than one husband and lived with her own slaves, doing away with her paramour when she tired of him. No old planter in the whole island had a worse reputation than this woman, who was murdered as late as 1833 by a lover who saw his influence waning145. Rose Hall was a “bad estate.” It was notorious for the ill-treatment of its slaves. Underneath146 the Great House, reached by a flight of stone steps, are rooms dark and airless, where the unfortunates who in any way transgressed147 were caged. The walls are of heavy stone, and the only means by which air and light are admitted are by narrow slits148 in those walls, and they only give into another underground room. It was a ghastly and horrible place in which to confine anyone, let alone these children of the sun. I said this to a friend who told me of another estate on which a cruel master, when any slave offended him, had him shut up in a room—a dungeon149 he called it—which looked through iron bars on his dining-room. And there he kept the offender150 without food, and rejoiced he should be within sight and smell of the lavish151 plenty of the planter’s table. Like a barbarian152 of old, the cruel master took pleasure in the thought of another’s suffering. The narrator went on to say that on one occasion a slave was so shut up and the master went away taking with him the keys, and as no one could get in the unfortunate starved to death. This may be perfectly153 true, for it seems to me there is no particular form of torture to which the slaves have not been subjected at one time or another; reading between the lines of the Rose Hall book, one of the latest slave books, you can see this. Never till I read up the annals of Jamaica did I so thoroughly realise the meaning of man’s inhumanity to man, and I suppose the lot of the Jamaican slave was the lot of slaves all the world over. But we must remember too that there were certain compensations.
As Lewis has shown, it was impossible in later times to get rid of an objectionable slave, and the slave when he was old and ill was by the kind master protected and cared for, and the women who had borne many children were exempt154 from all work. They were supposed to have no anxieties about the future, that should be their master’s care. At its best, slavery supplied no stimulus155 to industry; at its worst—well, no words are bad enough for slavery at its worst.
In the Worthy156 Park slave book there is frequent mention made of a slave always referred to as Creole Cuba’s Cuffee, who seems to have been unmanageable. At any rate he was always in trouble, and at last he was sent to Spring Gardens, where were others also difficult to deal with. It was not till I read in Lewis’s book the evil reputation of an estate called Spring Gardens, about that time, that I knew how dreadful was their fate. Lewis quotes the owner as the cruellest proprietor157 that ever disgraced Jamaica. It was his practice when a negro was sick unto death, to order him to be carried to a distant gully among the mountains on his estate, there to be cast out and left to die, and the “John Crows” would clear away his bones. He also instructed the men who carried the unfortunate to the gully to strip him before they left him, telling them to be careful not only to bring back his frock, but the very board on which he had been carried. On one occasion a poor creature while being removed, screamed out that he was not dead yet, and implored158 them not to leave him to perish in the gully. His master cared nothing and ordered the funeral to proceed, but the bearers were less hard hearted and they brought the sick man back secretly to the negro village and nursed him till he recovered, when he was smuggled159 off the estate to Kingston. Apparently160 he found means to support himself there for one day, his late master on turning a corner came face to face with the man whose bones he thought had long ago been picked clean by the “John Crows.” He immediately seized him and claimed him as his slave, and ordered the men who were with him to drag him to his house. But the slave made one more bid for freedom. He shrieked161 and cried out his woes162, and I am glad to say that in Kingston the spirit of fair play held good. The crowd that gathered were so excited by the tale that Mr Bedward was glad to save himself from being torn to pieces, fled from Kingston, and never again dared to claim that slave risen from the dead.
Lewis tells too of a man who was tried in Kingston for cruel treatment of a sambo woman slave. She had no friends to support her cause, nor any other evidence to prove her assertions than the apparent truth of her statement, and the marks of having been branded in five different places. Her master was actually sentenced to six months imprisonment163, and the slave was given her freedom as compensation for her sufferings.
Thus we see slowly through the years the position of the slave improving.
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1
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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purgatory
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| n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的 | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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blotches
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| n.（皮肤上的）红斑，疹块( blotch的名词复数 )；大滴 [大片]（墨水或颜色的）污渍 | |
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riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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cavalcade
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| n.车队等的行列 | |
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mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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palaver
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| adj.壮丽堂皇的；n.废话，空话 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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30
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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31
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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33
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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34
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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35
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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buxom
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| adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的 | |
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embalmed
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| adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
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38
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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40
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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41
enquires
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| 打听( enquire的第三人称单数 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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42
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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43
magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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44
abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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45
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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46
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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47
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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48
disparaging
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| adj.轻蔑的，毁谤的v.轻视( disparage的现在分词 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
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49
perfidy
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| n.背信弃义，不忠贞 | |
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50
pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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51
gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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52
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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53
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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54
grudged
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| 怀恨（grudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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55
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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56
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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57
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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58
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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59
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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60
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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61
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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62
avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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63
exultingly
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| 兴高采烈地，得意地 | |
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64
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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65
spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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66
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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67
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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68
ulcers
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| n.溃疡( ulcer的名词复数 )；腐烂物；道德败坏；腐败 | |
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69
mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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70
supplicated
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| v.祈求，哀求，恳求( supplicate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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72
inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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73
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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74
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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75
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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76
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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77
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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78
acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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79
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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80
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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81
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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82
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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83
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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84
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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85
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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86
patois
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| n.方言；混合语 | |
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87
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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88
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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89
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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90
torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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91
atrocities
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| n.邪恶，暴行( atrocity的名词复数 )；滔天大罪 | |
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92
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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93
cylinders
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| n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物 | |
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94
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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95
canes
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| n.（某些植物，如竹或甘蔗的）茎( cane的名词复数 )；（用于制作家具等的）竹竿；竹杖 | |
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96
hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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97
sever
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| v.切开，割开；断绝，中断 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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99
latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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100
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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101
persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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102
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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103
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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104
outweigh
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| vt.比...更重，...更重要 | |
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105
appeasing
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的现在分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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106
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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107
intercede
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| vi.仲裁，说情 | |
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108
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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109
sluiced
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| v.冲洗( sluice的过去式和过去分词 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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110
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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111
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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112
conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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113
allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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114
liars
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| 说谎者( liar的名词复数 ) | |
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115
purloin
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| v.偷窃 | |
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116
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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117
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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118
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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119
aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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120
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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superannuated
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| adj.老朽的，退休的；v.因落后于时代而废除，勒令退学 | |
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122
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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123
attachments
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| n.（用电子邮件发送的）附件( attachment的名词复数 )；附着；连接；附属物 | |
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conjugal
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| adj.婚姻的，婚姻性的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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inflated
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| adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨 | |
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127
goblet
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| n.高脚酒杯 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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129
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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134
superintendents
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| 警长( superintendent的名词复数 )； （大楼的）管理人； 监管人； （美国）警察局长 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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barter
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| n.物物交换，以货易货，实物交易 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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140
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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feud
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| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
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engendered
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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144
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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transgressed
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| v.超越( transgress的过去式和过去分词 )；越过；违反；违背 | |
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slits
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| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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149
dungeon
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| n.地牢，土牢 | |
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150
offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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151
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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153
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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157
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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158
implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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159
smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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160
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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161
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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162
woes
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| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
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163
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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