Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies

by Matthew Gregory Lewis

  JANUARY 24.

  This was a day of incessant occupation. I rose at six o'clock and went down to the Bay to settle some business; on return I visited the hospital while breakfast was being got ready; and as soon as it was over, I went down to the negro-houses to hear the whole body of Eboes, lodge a complaint against one of the book-keepers, and to appoint a day for their being heard in his presence. On my return to the house, I found two women belonging to a neighbouring estate, who came to complain of cruel treatment from their overseer, and to request me to inform their trustee how ill they bad been used, and see their injuries redressed. They said, that having been ill in the hospital, and ordered to the field while they were still too weak to work, they had been flogged with much severity (though not beyond the limits of the law) ; and my head driver, who was less scrupulously delicate than myself as to ocular inspection of Juliet's person-(which Juliet, to do her justice, was perfectly ready to submit to in proof of her assertions), told me that the woman bad certainly suffered greatly; the other, whose name was Delia, was but just recovering from a miscarriage, and declared openly that the overseer's conduct had been such, that nothing should have prevented her running away long ago if she could but have had the heart to abandon a child which she bad on the estate. Both were poor feeble-looking creatures, and seemed very unfit subjects for any severe correction. I promised to write to their trustee; and, as they were afraid of being punished on their return home for having thrown themselves on my protection, I wrote a note to the overseer, requesting that the women might remain quite unmolested till the trustee's arrival, which was daily expected ; and, with this note and a present of cocoa-fingers and salt fish, Delia and- Juliet departed, apparently much comforted.

  They were succeeded by no less a personage than Venus her- self- a poor little, sickly, timid soul, who had purchased her freedom from my father by substituting in her place a fine stout wench, who, being Venus's locum tenens , was, by courtesy, called Venus too, though her right name was "Big Joan;" but, by some neglect of the then attorney, Venus had never received any title, and she now came to beg " massa so good as give paper" otherwise she was still, to all intents and purposes, my slave, and I might still have compelled her to work, although, at the same time, her substitute was on the estate. Of course I promised the paper required, and engaged to act the part of a second Vulcan by releasing Venus from my chains : but the paper was not the only thing that Venus wanted; she also wanted a petticoat! She told me that when the presents were distributed on Sunday, the petticoat, which she would otherwise have had, was, of course, " given to the other Venus;" and though, to be sure, she was free now, yet, " when she belonged to massa, she had always worked for him well," and " she was quite as glad to see massa as the other Venus," and, therefore, " ought to have quite as much petticoat." I tried to convince her, that for Venus to wear a petticoat of blue durant, or, indeed, any petticoat at all, would be quite unclassical : but the goddess of beauty stuck to her point, and finally carried off the petticoat.

  Venus had scarcely evacuated the premises when her place was occupied by the minister of Savannah la Mar, with proposals for instructing the negroes in religion ; and the minister, in his turn, was replaced by one of the Sunday-night thieves, who had been caught while in the actual possession of one of my sheep and a great turkey-cock ; and, to make the matter worse, he depredator's name was Hercules! The demi-god had nothing to say in his excuse: he had just received a large allowance of beef :-therefore, hunger had no share in his transgression ; and the committing the offence during the very time that I was giving the negroes a festival, rendered his ingratitude the more flagrant.

  I perfectly well understood that the man was sent to me by my agent, in order to show the absolute necessity of sometimes employing the cart-whip, and to see whether I would suffer the fellow to escape unpunished. But, as this was the first offender who had been brought before me, I took that for a pretext to absolve him: so I lectured him for half an hour with great severity, swore that on the very next offence I would order him to be sold; and that, if he would not do his fair proportion of work without being lashed, he should be sent to work somewhere else; for I would suffer no such worthless fellows on my estate and would not be at the expense of a cart-whip to correct him. Hercules promised most earnestly to behave better in future, and was suffered to depart: but I am told that no good can be, expected of him; that he is perpetually running away; and that he had been absent for five weeks together before my arrival only returned home upon hearing that there was a distribution of beef, rum, and jackets going forward; in return for all which he stole my sheep and my poor great turkey-cock.

  JANUARY 25.

  There was a great dinner and ball for the whole county given to-day at Montego Bay, to which I was invited ; but I begged leave to decline this and all other invitations, being determined to give up my whole time to my negroes during my stay in Jamaica.

  JANUARY 26.

  Every morning my agent regales me with some fresh instance of insubordination : he says nothing plainly, but shakes his head, and evidently gives me to understand that the estate cannot be governed properly without the cart-whip. It seems that this morning the women, one and all, refused to carry away the trash (which is one of the easiest tasks that can be set), and that with- out the slightest pretence: 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 Miss Whaunica flew at his throat, and endeavoured to strangle him: the agent was obliged to be called in, and, at length, this petticoat rebellion was subdued, and every thing went on as usual I have, in consequence, assured the women that, since they will not be managed by fair treatment, I must have recourse to other measures ; and that, it any similar instance of misconduct should take place, I was determined, on my return from Kingston, to sell the most refractory, ship myself immediately for England never return to them and Jamaica more. This threat, at the time, seemed to produce a great effect; all hands were clasped and all voices were raised, imploring me not to leave them, and assuring me that in future they would do their work quietly and willingly. But whether the impression will last beyond the immediate moment is a point greatly to be doubted.

  JANUARY 27.

  Another morning with the mill stopped, no liquor in the boiling-house and no work done. The driver brought the most obstinate and insolent of the women to be lectured by me; and I bounced and stormed for half an hour with all my might and main, especially at Whaunica. They, at last, appeared to be very penitent ashamed a themselves, and engaged never to

  behave ill again, if I would but forgive them this present fault Whaunica, in particular, assuring me very earnestly, that I never should have cause to accuse her of " bad manners " again for, in negro dialect, ingratitude is always called " bad manners." My agent declares that they never conducted themselves 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 a week less than they did before my coming upon the estate. This is the more provoking, as, by delaying the conclusion of the crop, the latter part of it may be driven into the rainy season, and then the labour is infinitely more severe both for the slaves and the cattle, and more detrimental to their health.

  The minister of Savannah la Mar has shown me a plan for the religious instruction of the negroes, which was sent to him by the ecclesiastical commissaries at Kingston. It consisted but of two points: against the first (which recommended the slaves being ordered to go to church on a Sunday) I positively declared myself. Sunday is now the absolute property of the negroes for their relaxation, as Saturday is for the cultivation of their grounds ; and I will not suffer a single hour of it to be taken from them for any purpose whatever. If my slaves choose to go to church on Sundays, so much the better but not one of them shall be ordered to do one earthly thing on Sundays, but that which be chooses himself. The se
cond article recommended occasional pastoral visits of the minister to the different estates; and in this respect I promised to give him every facility-although I greatly doubt any good effect being produced by a few short visits, at considerable intervals, on the minds of ignorant creatures, to whom no palpable and immediate benefit is offered. It appears, indeed, to me, that the only means of giving the negroes morality and religion must be through the medium of education, and their being induced to read such books in the minister's absence as may recall to their thoughts what they have heard from him; otherwise, he may talk for an hour, and they will have understood but little-and remember nothing. There is not a single negro among my whole three hundred who can read a line ; and what I suppose to be wanted on West Indian estates is not an importation of missionaries, but of schoolmasters on Dr. Bell's plan, if it could by any means be introduced here with effect. However, in the meanwhile I told the minister that I was perfectly well inclined to have every measure tried that might enlighten the minds of the negroes, provided it did not interfere with their own hours of leisure, and were not compulsory. I mentioned, to him a plan for commencing his instructions under the most favourable auspices, of which he seemed to approve ; during my absence, which may do good and can do no harm ; and, even should it fail to make the negroes religious, will, at least, add another humane inspector to my list.

  JANUARY 28. (Sunday.)

  I shall have enough to do in Jamiaca if I accepted all the offices that are pressed upon me. A large body of negroes from a neighbouring estate came over to Cornwall this morning to complain of hard treatment, various ways, from the overseer and drivers, and to request me to represent their injuries to their trustee here, and their proprietor in England. the charges were so strong, that I am certain that they must be fictious ; however, I listened to their story with patience ; promised that the trustee(whom I was to see in a few days) should know their complaint, and they went away apparently satisfied. then came a runaway negro who wanted to return home, and requested me to write a few lines to his master, to save him from the lash. He was succeeded by a poor creature named Bessie, who, although still a young woman, is exempt from labour, on account of her being afflicted with the cocoa-bay , one of the most horrible of negro diseases. it shows itself in large blotches and swellings, which generally moulder away, by degrees, the joints of the toes and fingers, till they rot and drop off ; sometimes as much as half a foot will go at once. As the disease is communicable by contact, the person so afflicted is necessarily shunned by society ; and this poor woman, who is married to John Fuller, one of the best young men on the estate, and by whom she has had four children (although they'are all dead), has for some time been obliged to live separated from him, lest he should be destroyed by contracting the same complaint. She now came to tell me that she wanted a blanket, " for that the cold killed her of nights," cold being that which negroes dislike most, and from which most of their illnesses arise. Of course she got her blanket ; then she said that she wanted medicine for her complaint. " Had not the doctor seen her ? " " Oh, yes! Dr. Goodwin; but the white doctor could do her no good. She wanted to go to a black doctor, named Ormond, who belonged to a neighbouring gentleman." I told her that if this black doctor understood her particular disease better than others, certainly she should go to him ; but that if he pretended to cure her by charms or spells, or anything but medicine, I should desire his master to cure the black doctor by giving him the punishment proper for such an impostor. Upon this Bessie burst into tears, and said " That Ormond was not an Obeah man, and that she had suffered too much by Obeah men to wish to have any more to do with them. She had made Adam her enemy by betraying him, when he had attempted to poison the former attorney; he had then cursed her, and wished that she might never be hearty again; and from that very time her complaint had, declared itself, and her poor pickaninies had all died away one after another; and she was sure that it was Adam who had done all this mischief by Obeah." Upon this I put myself in a great rage, and asked her " how she could believe that God would suffer a low wicked fellow like Adam to make good people die, merely because he wished them dead.

  She did not know ; she knew nothing about God ; had never heard of any such

  .

  Being, nor of any other world." I told her that God was a

  great personage, " who lived up yonder above the blue, in a place full of pleasures and free from pains, where Adam and wicked people could not come; that her pickaninies were not dead for ever, but were only gone up to live with God, who was good, and would take care of them for her; and that if she were good, when she died she too would go up to God above the blue, and see all her four pickaninies again." The idea seemed so new and so agreeable to the poor creature, that she clapped her hands together and began laughing for joy; so I said to her everything that I could imagine likely to remove her prejudice : told her that I should make it a crime even so much as to mention the word Obeah on the estate; and that if any negro from that time forward should be proved to have accused another of Obeahing him, or of telling another that he had been Obeahed, he should forfeit his share of the next present of salt fish which I meant soon to distribute among the slaves, and should never receive any favour from me in future ; so I gave Bessie a piece money, and she seemed to go away in better spirits than she came.

  This Adam of whom she complained is a most dangerous fellow; he has been long suspected of being connected with Obeah men , and is the terror of all his companions with whom he lives in a constant state of warfare. He is a creole, born on my own property and has several sisters, who have obtained their freedom, and are in every respect creditable and praiseworthy ; and to one of them I consider myself particularly indebted, as she was the means of saving poor Richard's life when the tyranny of the overseer had brought him almost to the brink of the grave. But this brother is in everything the very reverse of his sisters. There is no doubt of his having (as Bessie stated) infused poison into the water-jars through spite against the late superintendent. I t was in this fellow's hut that the old Obeah man was found concealed, whom my attorney seized and transported last year. he is, unfortunately, clever and plausible ; and I am told that the mischief which he has already done, by working upon the folly and superstition 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 sessions. I cannot sell him, for nobody would buy him, nor except hi, 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 re-taking and his maintenance in the workhouse. In short, I know not what I can do with him.

  There are certainly many excellent qualities in the negro character ; their worst faults appear to be this prejudice respecting obeah, and the facility with which they are frequently induced to poison to the right hand and to the left. A neighbouring gentleman, as, I hear, has now three negroes in prison (all domestics, and one of them grown grey in his service) for poisoning him with corrosive sublimate; his brother was actually killed by similar means; yet I am assured that both of them were reckoned men of great humanity. Another agent, who appears to be in high favour with the negroes whom he now governs, was obliged to quit an estate, from the frequent attempts to poison him; and a person against whom there is no sort of charge alleged for tyranny, after being brought to the doors of death by a cup of coffee, only escaped a second time by his civility in giving the beverage prepared for himself to two young book-keepers, to both of whom it proved fatal. It indeed came out afterwards, that this crime was also effected by the abominable belief in Obeah: the woman who mixed the draught bad no idea of its being poison ; but she had received the deleterious ingredients from an Obeah man, as " a charm to make her massa good to her:" by which the negroes mean, the compelling a person to give another everything for which that other may ask him.

  Next to this vile trick of poisoning people (arising, doub
tless, in a great measure from their total want of religion and their ignorance of a future state, which makes them dread no punishment hereafter for themselves, and look with but little respect on human life in others), the greatest drawback upon one's comfort in a Jamaica existence seems to me to be the being obliged to live perpetually in public. Certainly, if a man was desirous of leading a life of vice here, be must have set himself totally above shame, for be may depend upon everything done by him being seen and known. The houses are absolutely transparent - the walls are nothing but windows, and all the doors stand wide, open. No servants are in waiting to announce arrivals: visitors, negroes, dogs, cats, poultry, all walk in and out, and up and down your rooms, without the slightest ceremony.

  JANUARY 29.

  I find that Bessie's black doctor is really nothing more than a professor of medicine as to this particular disease ; and I have ordered her to be sent to him in the mountains immediately.

  Several gentlemen of the of the country dined with me to-day. We had at dinner a land-tortoise and a barbecued pig, two of the best and richest dishes that I ever tasted, the latter, in particular, it was dressed in the true maroon fashion, being placed on a barbecue (a frame of wicker-work, through whose interstices the steam can ascend), filled with peppers and spices of the highest flavour, wrapped in plantain leaves, and then buried in a hole filled with hot stones, by whose vapour it is baked, no particle of the juice being thus suffered to evaporate. I have eaten several other good Jamaica dishes, but none so excellent as this, a large portion of which was transferred to the most infirm patients in the hospital. Perhaps an English physician would have felt every hair of his wig bristle upon his head with astonishment at bearing me this morning ask a woman in a fever, bow her bark and her barbecued pig had agreed with her. But with negroes, I find that feeding the sick upon stewed fish and pork, highly seasoned, produces the very best effects possible.