FEBRUARY 4.
The violent gale of wind which persecuted us with so much pertinacity on our leaving the English Channel is supposed to have been the tail of a tremendous hurricane which has utterly laid waste Barbadoes and several other islands. No less than sixteen of the ships which sailed at the same time with us are reported to have perished upon the passage ; so that I ought to consider it at least as a negative piece of good luck to have reached Jamaica myself, " no bones broke, though sore peppered ;" but I am still trembling in uncertainty for the fate of the vessel which is bringing out all my Irish supplies, and the non-arrival of which would be a misfortune to me of serious magnitude. The negroes are so obstinate and so wilful in their general character, that if they do not receive the precise articles to which they have been accustomed, and which they expect as their right, no compensation, however ample, can satisfy them. Thus, at every Christmas it would go near to create a rebellion if they did not receive a certain proportion of salt fish ; but if, in the interveneing months, accident should prevent their receiving their usual allownace of herrings, the giving them salt fish, although double the value, would be considered by them as an act of the grossest injustice.
FEBRUARY 5.
On Saturday about eight in the evening a large centipede dropped from the ceiling upon my dinner-table, and was immediatley cut in tw exact halves by one of the guests. As it isa reported in Jamaica that these reptiles when thus divided will re-unite again, or if separated will reproduce their missing members, and continue to live as stoutly as ever, I put both parts into a plate, under a glass cover. On Sunday they continued to about their prison with considerable agility, although the tail was evidently much more lively and full of motion than the head. On Monday the head was dead, but the tail continued to run about, and evidently endeavoured to make its escape, although it appeared not to know very well how to set about it, nor to be perfectly determined as to which way it wanted to go. On Wednesday at twelve o'clock its vivacity was a little abated, but only a little : the wound was skinned over, and I was waiting anxiously to know whether it would subsist without its numskull till a good old age, or would put forth an entirely spick and span new head and shoulders, when on going to look at the plate on Thursday morning, lo and behold ! the dead head and the living tail had diappeared together. I suppose some of the negro servants had thrown them away through ignorance, but they one and all most stoutly deny having so much as toricbed the plate ; and as a paper case pierced in several places had been substituted for the glass cover, some persons are of opinion that the tail made its escape through one of these air-holes, and carried its head away with it in its forceps. Be this as it may, gone they both are, and I am disappointed beyond measure. I have proclaimed a reward for the bringing me another; but I am told that these reptiles are only found by accident.
FEBRUARY 6.
Mr. Lutford, the proprietor of a considerable estate in the parish if Clarendon, had frequently accused a particular negro of purloining coffee. About six months ago the slave was sent for, and charged with a fresh offence of the same nature, when he confessed having taken a small quantity ; upon which his master ordered him to fix his eyes on a particular cotton-tree, and then, without any further ceremony, shot him through the head. His mistress ws the coroners' natural daughter, and the coroner himself was similarly connected with the custos of Clarendon. In consequence of this family compact no inquest was held, no inquiry was made ; the whole business was allowed to be slurred over, and the murder would have remained unpunished if accident had not brought some rumours respecting it to the governor's ear. An investigation was ordered to take place without delay, but MR. Lutford received sufficient warning to get on ship-board, and escape to America ; and the displacing of the custos of Clarendon for neglecting his official duty was the only means by which the governor could express his abhorrence of the act.
FEBRUARY 8. (Sunday.)
My estate is greatly palgued by a negress named Catalina ; she is either mad or has long pretended to be so : never works, and always steals. About a week befor emy arrival she was found in the trash-house, which ahe had pitched upon as the very fittest place possible for her kitchen ; and there she was sitting, very quietly and comfortably, boiling her pot over an immense fire, and surrounded on all sides by dry canes, inlfammable as tinder. This vagary was of too dangerous a nature to allow of her being linger left in liberty, and she was put into the hospital. But her husband was by no means pleased with her detentin, as he never failed to appropriate to himself a share of her plunder, and when discovered the blame of the robbery was laid upon his wife's insanity. So, while the general joy at my first arrival drew the hospital attendants from their post, he took the opportunity to carry off his wife and conceal her. The consequence was , that this morning complaints poured upon me of gardens robbed by Catalina, who had carried off as much as she could, dug up and destroyed the rest, and had shown as little conscience in providing herself with poultry as in helping herself to vegetables. I immediately despatched on of the negro-govenors with a party in pursuit of her, who succeeded in lodging her once more in the hospital, where she must remain till I can get her sent to the asylum at Kingston, the only hospital for lunatics in the whole island.
FEBRUARY 12.
On my former visit to Jamaica I found on my estate a poor woman nearly one hundred years old, and stone blind. She was too infirm to walk, but two young negroes brought her on their backs to the steps of my house, in order, as she said, that she might at least touch massa, although she could not see him. When she kissed my hand, " that was enough," she said ; "now me hab once kiss a massa's hand, me willing to die tomorrow, me no care." She had a woman appropriated to her servic, and was shown the greatest care and attention ; however, she did not live many months after my departure. There was aso a mulatto about thirty years of age, named Bob, who had been almost deprived of the use of is limbs by the horrible cocoa-bay, and had never done the least work since he was fifteen. He was so gentle and humble, and so fearful, from the consciousnss of his total inability of soliciting my notice, that I could not help pitying the poor fellow ; and whenever he came in my way I always sought to encourage him by little presents, and other trifling marks of favour. His thus unexpectedly meeting with distinguishing kindness where he expected to be treated as a worthless incumbrance, made a strong impression on his mind. Soon afte my departure his malady assumed a more active appearance, but during the last stages of its progress the only fear which he expressed was, that he should not live till Christmas, when my return was expected to a certainty. In the meanwhile he endeavoured to find out a means of being of some little use to me, although his weak constitution would not allow of his being of much. Some of his relations being in opulent circumstances, they furnished him with a horse, for he was too weak to walk for more than a few minutes at a time, and mounted upon this, he passed all his time in traversing the estate, watching the corn that it might not be stolen, warning the pen-keepers if any of the cattle had found their way into the cane-pieces, and doing many other such little pieces of service to the property ; so that, as the negores said, " if he had been a white man he might have been taken for an overseer." At length Christmas arrived. It was known that I was on the sea ; Bob, too, was still allive ; but still there was nothing to be heard of me. His perpetual question to all who came to visit him was " How was the wind?" and he was constantly praying to the wind and the ocean to bring massa's vessel soon to Savannah la Mar, that he might but see him once more, and thank him, before he died. At length I landed ; and when on the day of my arrival on my estate I expressed my surprise at the non-appearance of several of the negroes who had appeared to be most attached to me, and I had expected to find most in forward in greeting me, I was told that a messenger had been sent to call them, and that their absence was occasioned by their attendance at poor Bob's funeral. Several of his relations who nursed him on his death-bed, have assured me that the last audible words which he uttered were, " No n
ews of massa yet?"
FEBRUARY 14.
I think that I really may now venture to hope that my plans for the management of my estate have succeeded beyond even my most sanguine expectations. I have now passed three weeks with my negroes, the doors of my house open all day long, and, full liberty allowed to every person to come and speak to me without witnesses or restraint; yet not one man or woman has come to me with a single complaint. On the contrary, all my inquiries have been answered by an assurance, that during the two years of my absence my regulations have been adhered to most implicitly, and that, " except for the pleasure of seeing massa," there was no difference. Many of them have come to tell me instances of kincluess which they have received from one or other of their superintendents ; others to describe some severe fit of illness in which they must have died but for the care taken of them in the hospital ; some, wko were weakly and low-spirited upon my former visit, to show me how much they are improved in health, and tell me " how they keep up heart now, because since massa come upon the property nobody put upon them, and all go well;" and some who had formerly complained of one trifle or other, withdraw their complaints, and say that they want no charge, and are willing to be employed in any way that might be thought most for the good of the estate. Although I have now at least seen every one of them, and have ; conversed with numbers, I have not yet been able to find one person who had so much as even an imaginary grievance to lay before me. Yet I find that it has been found necessary to punish with the I h, although only in a very few instances ; but then t
his only took place on the commission of absolute crimes, and in cases where its necessity and justice were so universally felt, not only by others, but by the sufferes themsleves, that instead of complaining, they seem only to be afraid of their offence coming to my knowledge: to prevent which, they affect to be more satisfied and happy that all the rest ; and now when I see a mouth grinning from ear to ear with more than ordinary expansion of jaw, I never fail to find an inquiry, that its proprietor is one of those who have been punished during my absence. I then take care to give them an opportunity of making a complaint, if they should have any to make ; none is uttered : " everything has gone perfectly well, and just as it ought to have done." Upon this I drop a slight hint of the offence in question, and instantly away goes the grin, and down falls the negor to kiss my feet, confess his fault, and " beg msaa forgib, and them never do so bad thing more to fret massa, and them beg massa pardon, hard, quite hard!" But not one of them has denied the justice of his superintendant, complained of undue severity on the part of his superintendents.
On the other hand, although the lash has thus been in a manner utterly abolished, except in cases where a much severer punishement would have been inflicted by the police, and although they are aware if this unwillingness to chastise, my trustee acknowledged that during my absence the negroes have been wueit and tractable, and have not only laboured as well as they used to do, but have done much more work than the negroes on an adjoining property, where the number is considerably larger, and where, moreover, a considerable sum is paid for hired assistance. Having now waited three weeks to see how they would conduct themselves, and found no cause for dissatisfaction since the neglect of the watchmen to guard the cattle (and which they one and all attribute to their joy at seeing me again), I thought it time distribute the presents which I had brought for them from England.
During my absence I had ordered a new and additional hospital to be built, intented entirely for the use of lying-in women, nursing mothers, and cases of a serious nature, for which purpose it is to be provided with every possible comfort ; while the old hosptial is to be reserved for those who have little or nothing the matter with them, but who obstinately insist upon their being too ill to work, in defiance of the opinion of all their medical attendants. The new hospital is not quite finished ; but wishing to connect it as much as possible with pleasurable associations, I took occasion of the distribution of presents to open it for the first time. Accordingly, the negroes were summoned to the new hospital this morning ; the rooms were sprinkled with Madeira for good luck, and the toast of " Health to the new hospital, and shame to the old lazy house! " was drunk by the trustee, the doctoresses, the governors, &c., and received by the whole assembly of negroes with loud cheering ; after which every man received a blue jacket lined with flannel, every woman a flaming red stuff petticoat, and every child a frock of white cotton. They then fell to dancing and singing, and drinking rum and sugar, which occupations they have kept up till a much later hour than would be at all approved of by the bench of bishops; for it is now Sunday morning, and they are still dancing and singing louder than ever.
FEBRUARY 15. (Sunday.)
To-day divine service was performed at Savannah la Ma for the first time these five weeks. The rector has been indisposed lately with the lumbago: he has no curate ; and thus during five whole weeks there was a total cessation of public worship. I had told several of my female acquaintance that it was long since they had been to church, that I was afraid of their forgetting all about it, and that if there should be no service for a week longer I should think it my duty to come and hear them say their Catechism myself. Luckily the rector recovered, and saved me the trouble; but the long privation of public prayer did not seem to have annoyed them, and I have seldom witnessed a more meagre congregation. I cannot discover that the negroes have any external forms of worship, nor any priests in Jamaica, unless their Obeah-men should be considered as such; but still I cannot think that they ought to be considered as totally devoid of all natural religion. There is no phrase so common on their tips as " God bless"you! " and " God preserve you! " and " God will bless you wherever you go ! " phrases which they pronounce with every appearance of sincerity, and as if they came from the very bottom of their hearts. "God-A'mity! God-A'mity!" is their constant exclamation in pain and in sorrow. This proves their belief in a Supreme Being. But they have even got a step further : for they also allow the existnece of an evil principle. From their language they appear to believe that hell is a place of torment, and that the devil reigns there ; and surely they could not be afraid of duppies (or ghosts) without some idea of a future state ; and indeed, nothing is more firmly impressed upon the mind of the Africans, than that after death they shall go back to Africa and pass an eternity in revelling and feasting with their ancestors.
The, proprietor of a neighbouring estate lately used all his influence to persuade his foster-sister to be christened, but it was all in vain ; she bad imbibed strong African prejudices from her mother, and frankly declared that she found nothing in the Christian system so alluring to her taste as the post-obit balls and banquets promised by the religion of Africa. I confess that this prejudice appears to me to be so strongly rooted, that I am sadly afraid the efforts of the curates who are expected to be sent out by the Bishop of London will avail but little ; and that the rewards after death which Christianity offers will be outweighed by the pleasures of eating fat hog, drinking raw rum, and dancing for centuries to the jam-jam and kitty-katty.
FEBRUARY 16.
On my arrival I found that idle rogue Nato, as usual, an inmate of the hospital, where he regularly passes at least nine months out of the twelve. He was with infinite difficulty per- suaded at the end of a fortnight to employ himself about the carriage-horses for a couple of days; but on the third he re- turned to the hospital, although the medical attendants, one and all, declared nothing to be the matter with him, and the doctors even refused to insert his name in the sick-list. Still he persisted in declaring himseld to be too ill to do a single stroke of work : so on Thursday I put him into one of the sick-rooms by himself, and desired him to get well with the doors locked, which he would find to the full as easy as with the doors open ; at the same time assuring him that he should never come out till he should be sufficiently recovered to cut canes in the field. He held good all Friday; but Saturday being a holiday, he declared huself to be in a perfect state of health, and desired to b
e re- leased. However, I was determined to make him suffer a little his lying and obstinacy, and would not suffer the doors to be opened for him till this morning, when he quitted the hospital, saluted on all sides by loud huzzas in congratulation of his amended health, and which followed him during his whole progress to the cane-piece. I was informed that a lad named Epsom, who used to be perpetually running away, had been stationary for the last two years. So on Wednesday last, as he happened to come in my way, I gave him all proper commendation for having got rid of his bad habits; and to make the praise better worth his having, I added a maccarony: he was gratified in the extreme, thanked me a thousand times, promised most solemnly never to behave ill again, and ran away that very night. However, he returned on Saturday morning, and was brought to me all rags, tears, and penitence, wondering " how he could have had such bad manners as to make massa fret."
Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies Page 18
