Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies

by Matthew Gregory Lewis

  FEBRUARY 23.

  This morning my picture was drawn by a self-taught genius, a negro Apelles, belonging to Dr. Pope, the minister; and the picture was exactly such as a self-taught genius might be expected to produce. It was a straight hard outline, without shade or perspective: the hair was a large black patch, and the face covered with an uniform layer of flesh-colour, with a red spot in the centre of each cheek. As to likeness, there was not even an attempt to take any. But still, such as they were, there were eyes, nose, and mouth, to be sure. A long red nose supplied the place of my own snub; an enormous pair of whiskers. stretched themselves to the very corner of my mouth; and in place of three hairs and a half, the painter, in the superabundance of his generosity, bestowed upon me a pair of eye-brows more bushy than Dr. Johnson's, and which, being formed in an exact semicircle, made the eyes beneath them state with an expression of the utmost astonishment. The negroes, however, are in the highest admiration of the painter's skill, and consider the portrait as a striking resemblance; for there is a very blue coat with very yellow buttons, and white gaiters and trowsers, and an eyeglass so big and so blue, that it looks as if I had hung a pewter plate about my neck; and a bunch of watch-seals larger than those with which Pope has decorated Belinda's great-greatgrandsire. John Fuller (to whom, jointly with Nicholas, the charge of this inestimable treasure is to be entrusted) could not find words to express his satisfaction at the performance. " Dere massa coat! and dere him chair him sit in! and dere massa seals, all just de very same ting ! just all as one ! And oh! ki! dere massa pye-glass ! " In the midst of his raptures he dropped the picture and fractured the glass. His despair now equalled his former joy ; --" Oh, now what for him do? Such a pity ! Just to break it after it was all done so well! All so pretty !" However, we stuck the broken glass together with wafers, and he carried it off, assuring me, " that when massa gone, he should talk to it every morning, all one as if massa still here." Indeed this "talking to massa " is a favourite amusement among the negroes, and extremely inconvenient: they come to me perpetually with complaints so frivolous, and requests so unreasonablethat I am persuaded they invent them only to have an excuse for " talk to massa; " and when I have given thern a plump refusal, theyy go away perfectly satisfied, and " tank massa for dis here great indulgence of talk.

  There is an Eboe carpenter, named Strap, who was lately sick, and in great danger, and whom I nursed with particular care. he poor fellow thinks that be never can express his gratitude sufficiently ; and whenever he meets me in the public road, or n the streets of Savannah la Mar, he rushes towards the carriage, roars out to the postilion to stop, and if the boy does not obey instantly, he abuses him with all his power; " for why him nostop when him want talk to inassa? "-" But look, Strap, your beast is getting away ! "-" Oh ! damn beast, massa."-" But you should go to your mountain, or you will get no vittle."-" Oh, damn vittle, and damn mountain! me no want vittle, me want talk wid massa;" and then, all that he has got to say is, " Oh massa, massa! God bless you, massa! me quite, quite glad to see you come back, my own massa! " And then he bursts into a roar of laughter so wild and so loud, that the passers-by cannot help stopping to stare and laugh too.

  FEBRUARY 24.

  To-day being a play-day, the gaiety of the negroes was promoted by a distribution of an additional quantity of salt-fish (which forms a most acceptable ingredient in their pepper-pots), and as much rum and sugar as they chose to drink. But there, was also a dinner prepared at the house where the "white people" reside, expressly for the pickaniny-mothers only ; that is, for the women who had children living. I had taken care, when this play day was announced by the head driver, to make him inform the negroes that they were indebted for it entirely to these mothers ; and to show them the more respect, I went to them after dinner myself, and drank their healths. The most respectable blacks on the estate were also assembled in the room ; and I then told them that clothes would wear out, and money would be spent, and that I wished to give them something more lasting than clothes or money. The law only allows them, as a matter of right, every alternate Saturday for themselves, and holidays for three days at Christmas, which, with all Sundays, forms their whole legal time of relaxation. I therefore granted them as a matter of right, and of which no person should deprive them on any account whatever, every Saturday to cultivate their grounds; and in addition to their holidays at Christmas, I gave them for play-days Good-Friday, the second Friday in October, and the second Friday in July. By which means, they will in future have the same number of holidays four times a year, which hitherto they have been allowed only once, i.e . at Christmas. The first is to be called " the royal play-day," in honour of that excellent Princess, the Duchess of York; and the negroes are directed to give three cheers upon the bead driver's announcing "The health of our good lady, H. R. H. the Duchess of York." And I told them, that before my leaving the island, I should hear them drink this health, and should not fail to let Her Royal Highness know that the negroes of Cornwall drank her health every year. This evidently touched the right chord of their vanity, and they all bowed and courtesied down to the very ground, and said, that would do them much high honour. The ninth being my own birthday, the July play-day is to be called " the massa's ;" and that in October is to be in honour of the picaninny-mothers, from whom it is to take its name.

  The poor creatures overflowed with gratitude; and the prospective indulgences which had just been announced gave them such an increase of spirits, that on returning to my own residence, they fell to singing and dancing again with as much violence as if they had been a pack of French furies at the Opera. The favourite song of the night was,

  "Since massa come, we very well off;"

  which words they repeated in chorus, without intermission (dancing all the time), for 'hours together; till, at half-past three, I could endure it no longer, and was obliged to send them word that I wanted to go to bed, and could not sleep till the noise should cease. The idea of my going to bed seemed never to have occurred to them till that moment : but now at once the drums and gumbies were mute; the children left off singing; the women and men left off the dancing ; and they all with one accord fell to kicking, pulling, and thumping about two dozen of their companions, who were lying fast asleep upon the floor. Some of these resisted, some bega fighting, some got up and lay down again ; but at length, by dint of leading, carrying, and rolling, they got them all away. To-day my friend Strap, the Eboe, came up to the house dressed in his best clothes, to show me his seven children ; he marched at their head in all the dignity of paternal pride. he begged me particularly to notice two fine little girls, who were twins. I told him that I had seen them already. "Iss! iss!" he said; "massa see um; but massa no admire um enough yet." Upon which I fell to admiring them. tooth and nail; and the father went away quite proud and satisfied.

  FEBRUARY 25.

  Yesterday it was observed at George's Palin, an estate about four miles off, that the water-mill did not work properly, and it was concluded that the grating was clogged up with rubbish. To clear it away, a negro immediately jumped down into the trench upon a log of wood ; when he felt the log move under him, and, of course, jumped out again with all possible expedition. it was then discovered that the impediment in question proceeded from a larger aligator which had wandered from the morass, and , in the hope of finding his way to the river, had swum up the mill-trench till he found himself stopped by the grating ; and the banks being to high for him to gain them by leaping upwards, and the place of his confinement too narrow to admit of his turning round to go back again, his escape was impossible, and a ball, lodged near his eye, soon put an end to him. I went over to see him this morning ; but I was not contented at merely seeing him, so I begged to have a steak cut off for me, brought it home, and ordered it to be broiled for dinner. One of the negroes happened to see it in the kitchen ; the news spread through the estate like wildfire ; and I had immediately half-a-dozen different deputations, all hoping tha massa would not think of eating the allig
ator, for it was poisonous. however, I was obstinate, and found the taste of the flesh, when broiled with pepper and salt, and assisted by an onion sauce, by no means to be despised ; but the consistence of the meat was disagreeable, being as tough as a piece of eel-skin. Perhaps any body who wishes to eat alligator-steaks in perfection, out to keep them for two or three days before dressing them ; or the animal's age might be in fault, for the fellow was so old that he had scarcely a tooth in his head ; I therefore contented myself with two or three morsels ; but a person who was dining with me ate a whole steak, and pronounced the dish to be a ery good one. The eggs are said to be very palatable ; nor have the negroes who live near the morasses the same objection with those of Cornwall to eating the flesh : it is, however, true that the gall of the alligator, if not extracted carefully, will render the whole animal unfit for food ; and when this gall is reduced to powder, it forms a poison of the most dnagerous nature, as the negroes know but too well.

  FEBRUARY 26.

  I had given the most positive orders that no person whatever should presume to strike a negro, or give him abusive language, or, however great the offence might be, should inflict any punishment, except by the sole direction of the trustee himself. Yet, although I had already discharged one book-keeper on ths account, this evening another of them had a dispute in the boiling-house with an African named Frank, because a pool of water was not removed fast enough ; upon which he called him a rascal, sluiced him with the dirty water, and finally knocked him down with a broom. The African came to me instantly ; four eye-witnesses, who were examined separately, proved the truth of his ill-usage ; and I immediately discharged the bookkeeper, who had contented 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 outweigh five concordant witnesses to the assertion : that if he grounded his claim to being believed merely upon his having white skin, he would find that, on Cornwall estate at least, the claim wwould not be admitted ; and that, as the fact was clearly established, nothing should induce me to retain him on my property, except his finding some means of appeasing the injured negro, and prevailing on him to intercede in his behalf. This was an humiliation to which he could not bring himself to stoop ; and, accordingly, the man has left the estate. Probably, indeed, the attempt at reconciliation would have been unsuccessful ; for when one of his companions asked Frank whether, if Mr. Barker would make him a present, he had not better take it, and beg massa to let him stay, he exclaimed, in the true spirit of a Zanga,-- " No", no, no! me no want present! me no want noting! Me no beg for Mr. Barker ! him go away ! "--I was kept awake the greatest part of the night by the songs and rejoicings of the negroes at their triumph over the offending book-keeper.

  FEBRUARY 27.

  The only horned cattle said to be fit for work in Jamaica are those which have a great deal of black in them. The white are terribly tormented by the insects, and they are weak and sluggish in proportion to the quantity of white. On the contrary, I am told that such a thing as a black horse is not to be found in the island ; those which may be imported black soon change their colour into bay; and colts are said to have been dropped perfectly black, which afterwards grew lighter and lighter till they arrived at being perfectly white.

  FEBRUARY 28.

  Hearing that a manati (the sea-calf) bad been taken at the mouth of the Cabrita River, and was kept alive at the Hope Wharf, I got a sailing-boat and went about eight miles to see the animal. It was suffered to live in the sea, a rope being fastened round it, by which it could be landed at pleasure. It was a male, and a very young one, not more than nine feet in length, whereas they frequently exceed eighteen. The females yield a quart of milk at a time: a gentleman told me that he had tasted it, and could not have distinguished it from the sweetest cow's milk. Unlike the seal, it never comes on shore, although it ventures up rivers in the night to feed on the grass of their banks; but during the day it constantly inhabits the ocean where its chief enemy is the shark, whose attacks it beats off with its tail, the strength of which is prodigious. It was killed this morning, and the gentleman to whom it belonged was obliging enough to send me a part of it : we roasted it for dinner, and, except that its consistence was rather firmer, I should a 6t have known it from veal.

  FEBRUARY 29.

  The wife of an old negro, on the neighbouring 'estate of Anchovy, had lately forsaken him for a younger lover. One night, when she happened to be alone, the incensed husband entered her hut unexpectedly, abused her with all the rage of jealousy, and demanded the clothes to be restored which he had formerly given her. On her refusal, he drew a knife and threatened to cut them off her back ; nor could she persuade him to depart till he had beaten her severely. He had but just left the hut when he encountered his successful rival, who was returning home : a quarrel instantly ensued; and the husband, having the knife still unsheathed in his hand, plunged it into the neck of his antagonist. It pierced the jugular vein--of course the man fell dead on the spot ; and the murderer has been sent to Montego Day, to take his trial.

  MARCH 1. (Friday.)

  One of my house-boys, named Prince, is son to the Duke of Sully; and to-day his Grace came to beg that, when I shouldleave Jamaica, I would direct the boy to be made a tradesman, instead of being sent back to be a common field-negro: but my own shops are not only full at present, but loaded with future engagements., Sully then requested that I would send his son to learn some other trade (a tailor's, for instance) at Savannah la Mar, as had been frequently done in former times ; but this also I was obliged to refuse. I told him, that formerly a master could pay for the apprenticeship of a clever negro boy, and, instead of employing him afterwards on the estate, could content himself with being repaid by a share of the profits ; but that, since the Abolition bad made it impossible for the proprietor of an estate to supply the place of one negro by the purchase of another, it would be unjust to his companions to suffer any one in particular to be withdrawn from service; as in that case two hundred and ninety-nine would have to do the work which is now performed by three hundred ; and, therefore, I could allow my negroes to apply themselves to no trades but such as related to the business of the property, such as carpenters, coopers, smiths, &c. " All true, massa," said Sully ; " all fair and just; and, to be sure, a tailor or a saddler would be of no great use towards planting and getting in your crop; nor-------" He hesitated for a moment, and then added, with a look of doubt, and in a lower voice, " Nor--nor a fiddler either, I suppose, massa ? I began to laugh. " No, indeed, Sully.; nor a fiddler either

  It seems the lad, who is about sixteen, and somewhat stupid, has a passion for playing the fiddle, and, among other trades, had suggested this to his father as one which would be extremely to his taste. We finally settled that, when the plough should be introduced on my estate (which I am very, anxious to accomplish, and substitute the labour of oxen for that of negroes, wherever it can possibly be done), Prince should be instructed in farming business; and, in the meanwhile, should officiate as a pen-keeper to look after the cattle.

  Just now Prince came to me with a request of his own: Massa, please, me want one little coat."-" A little coat! for what?" " Massa, please, for wear when me go down to the Bay." "And why should you wear a little coat when you go to the Bay ? "--" Massa, please, make me look eerie (buckish) when me go abroad." So I assured him that be looked quite eerie enough already ; and that, as I was going away too soon to admit of my seeing him in his little coat, there could not be the slightest occasion for his being a bit eerier than he was. A master in England would probably have been not a little astonished at receiving such a request from one of his groom-boys ; but here one gets quite accustomed to them ; and when they are refused, the petitioners themselves frequently laugh at their own unreasonableness.

  MARCH 2.

  Most of those negroes who are tolerably industrious, breed cattle on my estate, which are their own property, and by the sale of which they obtain considerable sums. T
he pasturage of a steer would amount, in this Muntry, to 12 1 . a-year; but the negroes get grass for their cattle from me without its costing them a farthing; and as they were very desirous that I should purchase the whole, I ordered them to agree among themselves as to what the price should be. It was therefore settled that I should take their entire stock, good and bad indifferently, at the rate of 15 l . a head for every three-year-old beast; and they expressed themselves not only satisfied, but very grateful for my acceptance of their proposal. John Fuller and the beautiful Psyche had each a steer to sell, and they were paid down their 15 l .a-piece instantly, which they carried off with much glee.