by Alec Waugh
A couple of Negroes seated on their haunches would beat with their wrists and fingers on a taut stretched drum. The dancers would stand facing each other in two long lines. One of them would improvise a song with a refrain to be echoed by the circle of spectators. Their arms raised sideways as though they were playing castanets, their shoulders motionless, they would sway between their knees and navel, in a circular rhythm now fast, now slow. Sometimes they would break the slow rhythm with leaps into the air, with screams, with rushings together, and a beating of their thighs. Occasionally they would throw their arms about each other, and spin round and round. Then once again they would break away, to stand opposite each other, swaying to the music’s beat.
For hours they would dance, the tafia warm in their veins, their senses subjugated by the music, till they had ceased to be themselves, till they had become a pulse in that music’s rhythm, a vehicle through which forces moved. They would dance and dance and dance, their senses reeling, their blood afire, maddened by the music and the dance, till suddenly one of the women could endure the strain no longer. With a wild cry she would break through the circle of spectators and run for the dark shadows. There would be the sound of overtaking footsteps at her back, the sound of hard breathing at her side. There would be the check suddenly of firm hands upon her shoulders and through her reeling senses an ecstasy that made every bone in her body seem to melt.
It is possible indeed that the women were happier in the West Indies than they had been at home. In many African tribes, when a chief died, his wives and slaves were sacrificed at his funeral. One plantation woman stated that on that account she preferred Jamaica. She was a little ashamed of this preference. It was a symptom of degeneracy. ‘Massa, since I come to white man’s country, I love life too much.’
When a child was born, the mother would present it proudly to her master on his next visit to the village. ‘Fine nigger chile to work for Massa.’ He would play with the other children in the garden. Later, when strength came to him, he was employed, under the care of an old woman, in the collecting of green meal for the pigs, and in the weeding of the garden. He looked forward to the day when he would be strong enough to work in the canefields, to clear, hole and plant the ground, and in crop time cut the cane, feed the mills and attend to the manufacture of the sugar.
The month of the sugar crop was a happy period, as happy as the harvest time in the vineyards of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Even the most meagre of the Negroes looked healthy when once the mills were set in action, so constantly were they indulged with the green tops of the cane and the skimmings from the boiling-house. Pigs and poultry fattened upon the refuse. Though everyone was working hard everyone was happy. There was an atmosphere through the whole plantation of health, plenty and busy cheerfulness. This atmosphere was enjoyed equally by the master. He could forget his ill-humour, his impatience, his loneliness, his nostalgia for the country of his birth as he stood by the mills, watching the canes squeezed and pressed between the rollers, till the last drop of juice was wrung from them. With his eyes aglow he would watch the juice run down the lead-lined gutter to the boiling-house, to the great copper clarifiers, to seethe under the heat of the fire a degree or two short of boiling point, till there rose blistering to the surface the white scum, through which the pure, almost transparent liquid would be drawn into the grand copper.
For hours he would stand in the heated room watching the liquor boil, while Negroes swept the rising foam with scummers till the seething residue took on the fine richness of Madeira colouring. When the froth rose in large clean bubbles he would chuckle to himself, knowing that the brew was good, and he would watch the Negroes test the liquid, to decide the hour when it was fit for striking. They would take up with their thumbs a small portion of the hot liquid, drawing it, as the heat diminished, into a thread with their forefingers. Then, when the thread snapped and shrank from the thumb to the suspended finger, they would judge by its length whether the order to strike could be bawled out.
Later, in the curing house, he would watch avidly the thick molasses drip slowly through the spongy plantain stalk into the tank below; soon this golden drained juice would ferment and mellow into the magic potion that for the West Indian planter could cure all griefs and heighten every happiness.
It was a patriarchal way of life, one which had in those early years, in terms of the general living conditions of the day, a great deal to commend it, and Père Labat can only have been delighted at the prospect of these heathen creatures being converted to the Christian faith. In one of his chapters he instructs how newly arrived slaves should be treated; after explaining how they should be massaged to render their muscles supple, he suggests that they should be put under the charge of an experienced slave who will give them information about the kind of life awaiting them, but that they should not be allowed to eat with these seniors nor sleep in the same room, because these seniors are Christians while they are not; this will make them appreciate that Christians belong to a higher class of mortal.
Père Labat wrote of the slaves with warmth, with affection and with understanding. His account of them is so fresh in spirit, so contemporary in approach that it is difficult to realize that it was written two and a half centuries ago. He recognizes that their religion is often only skin-deep; they enjoy going to church; they enjoy singing hymns; they enjoy the ritual of baptism; but he suspects that if they returned to their own countries they would return to their old faiths. How, he wondered, with their warm, volatile, sensual natures, could they easily appreciate a religion based on justice, mortification, humility, continence, refusal of pleasure, love of one’s enemies and distrust of riches. He recognizes that they are idolatrous, that they are given to sorcery and the use of poisons. He had no illusions about the purity of ‘the noble savage’, but he did not love him any the less on that account. He was disconcerted by the lasciviousness of their dances, in particular the calinda, but he liked to see them happy and hoped that the introduction of the French minuet would prove popular. It did not. He disapproved of their light-hearted acceptance of the delights of venery, yet he could recount with a chuckle an incident when he ordered the whipping of a group of very young people – the eldest was only nine – whom he discovered anticipating the privileges of the married state. The course of discipline had just begun, under the administrations of the cook, when one of the older Negroes intervened. He wished, he said, to present an argument in their defence. Père Labat ordered the cook to stop. ‘Well, and what is it?’ he inquired.
‘Did you not send one of your men to the cooper to learn how to make casks?’
‘Certainly, I did.’
‘Has he brought you any casks yet?’
Père Labat explained that the making of casks required an apprenticeship, that in time the man would learn how to make good casks.
The old Negro laughed. Why did he not apply the same principle to these urchins? Did not the good father want them to marry one day and produce children? They could not produce children unless they had learned how to when they were young, any more than your man can become a cooper and make good casks without serving an apprenticeship. Look at the case of this friend of his beside him; he had no children because he had not learned to make them when he was young. Père Labat was unable to argue him out of his belief that all skills needed to be acquired.
The Negro characteristics that Père Labat detected at the end of the seventeenth century are more applicable than one would expect to the peasants of today. They respect their family, and they respect the old. They respect their masters when their masters deserve respect. They are extremely eloquent when they have a favour to ask or an accusation to repulse. And so, Père Labat adjures his reader, you must listen to them carefully, and to the end, if you want to be liked by them. They will, he says, enumerate at length their good qualities, their industry, their assiduity in your service, the number of their children; then they will enumerate the kindnesses you have shown them, and express the
depth of their gratitude for them. Finally, they will produce their request; and, says Labat, if the request is reasonable, as it usually is, they should be granted it at once. If it cannot be granted, the reasons for the refusal should be given, and they should be sent away with some small token; that is the way to earn their loyalty. When they quarrel among themselves, he advises, listen patiently. Let each party have its say. The cause of trouble is ordinarily trivial. The dispute can usually be healed with a glass of brandy.
He accepts the necessity for firm treatment. But he insists on one point: if you have to flog a man, flog him on the spot. If you are going to pardon him, do that also on the spot. Don’t threaten him, don’t keep him in suspense. If you do, he will brood and may escape into the bush and join the Maroons. Maroons, groups of escaped slaves living in the bush, were to be found in every island. The best way, he counsels, of preventing them from trying to escape is to give them something of their own which they can value – a garden, poultry, pigs; something they will be afraid to lose.
He remarks on their love of gambling; they play dice with shells; some of them, through watching their masters, have learned how to play cards. This he deplores; they will gamble away their possessions. He regards gambling, dancing and alcohol as their great temptations. He recommends early marriages to curb their warm-blooded natures. They are, he states, nimble thieves, and he regrets that closer observance is not taken of an excellent law that forbids the unauthorized purchase of an article from a Negro. They are great teases, he insists; they are quick to recognize idiosyncrasies, particularly in their masters, which they can ridicule. When the master has a fault, he earns a nickname. Père Labat learned their language so that he could detect their raillery. They are loyal to each other and expert at hiding Maroons who visit them. Small though their cabins are, they are able to build double rooms which defeat inspection. They are equally adroit at concealing their thefts. He is highly amused at the astonishment, the injured innocence they display when their misdemeanour has been discovered. The expression on their face, the tone in their voice, make it hard to believe that they are lying. When they are confronted with those who know their tricks, their final ruse is to attribute the whole unfortunate business to the devil’s handiwork. As the devil is not there to pay for his misdeeds, then, the good priest explains, the slave must act as a replacement.
He speaks of their vanity, of their trick of attempting to prove less intelligent than they really are; of their vindictiveness when their pride has been. hurt. The seventh chapter of the fourth volume of Père Labat’s memoirs might have been written yesterday. If he could return to the Antilles today he would find much to surprise him, but he would feel himself at home and he would be delighted that his old friends, for whose comfort, spiritual and physical, he sincerely strove, had achieved not only their own independence but also a way of life personal to and characteristic of themselves.
Labat had the good fortune to travel in a period of relative international good will. He was once through mistake captured by the Spaniards, and was amused at their surprise at his being so good a Catholic. The ship on one of his trips had two cannon but only one cannonball, which could not be used in action because it was needed to crush mustard for that favourite delicacy, roasted pig (cochon boucanné), a dish that was always served at picnics when everyone pretended to be a buccaneer; where there were no plates, spoons, forks, tablecloths; where a pig replaced the wild boar of d’Ogeron’s day. One must drink frequently, he said. ‘The law compels it, the sauces invite one; few err in this respect.’
Labat appreciated the Creole cuisine. He spoke of the fricasseed iguana with high approbation, comparing the whiteness of its flesh and the delicacy of its flavour with that of chicken. He describes the hunting of the animal. ‘We were attended,’ he said, ‘by a Negro who carried a long rod, at one end of which was a piece of whipcord with a running knot. After beating the bushes for some time, he discovered our game basking in the sun on the dry limb of a tree. Hereupon he began whistling with all his might, to which the iguana was wonderfully attentive, stretching out his neck and turning his head as if to enjoy it more fully. The Negro now approached, still whistling, and advancing his rod gently, began tickling with it the sides and throat of the iguana, who seemed mightily pleased with the operation, for he turned on his back and stretched himself out like a cat before a fire, and at length fairly fell asleep; the Negro then dexterously slipped the noose over his head and with a jerk brought it to the ground, and good sport it afforded to see the creature swell like a turkey-cock to find itself entrapped. We caught others in the same way and kept one of them alive seven or eight days, but it grieved me to the heart to find that it thereby lost much delicious fat.’
The Indians of Cuba were equally adroit in the catching of wild fowl. They would throw calabashes into the ponds which the birds frequented. These calabashes would float upon the water and the birds would become accustomed to them, and would even perch on them. The hunter would then put a calabash on his own head, having first pierced eyeholes in it and a hole to breathe through, so that he could creep into the water, either swimming or walking where the stream was shallow, with his head above the surface. When he at last got among the fowl he would seize one by the feet, drag it under the surface, fasten it to his girdle and proceed to load himself with as many as he could carry away without creating the least alarm or disturbance among the rest.
Greatly though he relished the pleasures of the table, Labat deplored extreme indulgence, which he considered an English weakness. In Barbados, he said approvingly of General Codrington that he was far more sober than were most of his nation as a rule.
Labat suffered from yellow sickness, le mal de Siam, and he was bitten by a snake, the fer-de-lance, which for many years was such a pest in Martinique and St Lucia that the mongoose was introduced to exterminate it. Later the mongoose became a pest itself.
He visited Barbados, and his description of his visit to an island that was likely to prove hostile at any moment, as it had so often in the past, is a proof of his own broad-mindedness. He was able to see many merits in the English way of life. He was impressed by the good manners of the English officials and the excellence of the French they spoke. He was also impressed by the prosperity of the island: the large, clean streets of Bridgetown, the strong, well-built houses with glass windows, the shops and stores that contained goods from every quarter of the globe; there were goldsmiths, jewellers, clockmakers. He attributes this general air of opulence to the trade that Barbados could carry on with the American colonies. He had been told that the climate was unhealthy, but he could detect no sign of this in the complexions of the colonists, particularly in those of the women. Children ran about like ants. He was impressed too with the rich furnishing of the houses. The plantations were, he noticed, smaller than the ones in the French islands, because, he assumed, the island being smaller had to accommodate a large number of inhabitants, and land was scarce and expensive, but the houses were even larger and better built than those in the town – an English trait, though he did not recognize it as such, the Englishman setting chief store by his ‘country seat’, while the Frenchman devotes himself to his ‘hôtel’ in Paris, Lyons or Bordeaux. These plantation houses were approached by broad avenues lined with tamarinds and orange trees. The good taste of the planters was as remarkable as their riches. There was so much silverware that he thought the French marine would be better employed plundering this island than attempting to intercept the galleons of the Spanish treasure fleet. He regrets that a plan to capture the island was abandoned because its commander felt that his first duty was to search for treasure. But patience, the good father says; what has been deferred is not necessarily lost.
He took as close an inventory of the defences and resources of the island as if he had been preparing an intelligence summary for the authorities in Martinique. Perhaps he was. He attended a military parade. The troops were well armed and well turned out, with drums and bugles.
The officers wore tight-fitting scarlet jackets, heavily braided with gold, and white-plumed helmets – a most inappropriate uniform for the climate; the aristocrats served in the cavalry, and the minor artisans and shopkeepers in the infantry. It appeared to Labat that the infantry were little more than servants for the cavalry. He estimated that some five thousand men were under arms, but he did not consider that this would be a very formidable force in time of crisis, as a great number of the infantry were bondmen and Irishmen shipped out against their will for periods of five to seven years under harsh masters who, at the expiry of their sentence, usually found some excuse for prolonging their durance. These men would probably welcome an invader, as would the slaves. Labat considered that Barbados would be an easy prey; French troops under the tuition of Vauban were masters of siege operations, but here there would be no need of their expertise because Barbados had neither a fortified city nor a citadel. The vulnerability of Barbados was never, however, to be tested. It did not need fortifications, since it had the protection of the trade wind. When the French in Martinique in 1781 planned an attack upon Barbados, they had to abandon the attempt, and sailed for St Kitts instead.
It is usual for the nationals of a colonizing power to consider that the natives of other powers’ colonies receive worse treatment than their own. Labat was no exception. He did not consider that the Barbadians treated their slaves well, underfeeding them but allowing them a free day on Saturdays, when they could work in their own gardens for their own profit. A slave was treated less well than a horse, partly, Labat considered, because slaves were much cheaper in Barbados than they were in Martinique, the Barbadians having more opportunities of benefiting from the privateers. He points out that the English clergy gave them no instruction and did not baptize them, that they were treated like beasts, that they were allowed as many wives as they liked, whom they could change at will, provided they produced plenty of children, worked hard and kept in health. Their masters overworked them, thrashing them on the least excuse. Whether they were worked harder in the British islands is debatable. But they certainly worked hard. Lady Nugent, writing of Jamaica in 1800, said that during the sugar harvest the slaves worked for twelve hours a day over a boiling cauldron; and that they so often fell asleep and got their hands caught in the mills that a man was kept standing by with a hatchet so as to release the slave by cutting off his arm.
