Apocalypse 1692

by Ben Hughes

  The principal white worker at Sutton’s was the caretaker. Charged with managing the plantation during Sutton’s frequent absences in Port Royal and Spanish Town, he was responsible for supervising the daily running of the estate. His subordinates were the white overseers, each of which would have been given control of a field gang. Other whites may have included a doctor, and some skilled sugar workers, who toiled alongside similarly skilled slaves, such as the boilers, coopers, carpenters, distillers, and smiths. Judging by contemporary accounts, the caretaker would have been a free man and may have commanded a salary of around £50 per year.88 He would also have been afforded considerable respect, “for he,” as Ligon explained, “is a man that the master may allow sometimes to sit at his own Table, and therefore must be clad accordingly.”89 The overseers may have been free workers or indentured servants while all the other skilled workers would have invariably fallen into the latter category. One example was a certain Gilbert Milroy, a Scottish Covenanter transported to Jamaica in 1685 for refusing to bow to the authority of the Anglican Church. According to Robert Wodrow, author of The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, Milroy “suffered very hard things in Jamaica, after he was sold” at Port Royal.

  His master would have him work on the Lord’s day; this he peremptorily refused. After he had been beat several times, one day his master drew his sword, and had well nigh killed him; but afterwards finding him faithful, conscientious, and very diligent, he altered his way, and made him overseer of all his negroes. The blacks mortally hated him for his fidelity to his master, and made various attempts to murder him. One of them struck him on the head with a long pole, whereby he lay dead for some time, and lost a great deal of blood, so that ever since he was a little paralytic. At another time he was poisoned by another of the negroes, but was saved by timeous application of antidotes. In short he was continually in hazard of his life by those savages. Many of the . . . [transported Scottish Covenanters] died in their bondage, but Gilbert lived till the [Glorious] . . . revolution, and then was liberated, and came safe home to his wife and relations, and when my account was written December 1710, he was alive, a very useful member of the session of Kircowan; in the presbytery of Wigton.90

  Being a transported prisoner, Milroy was not of the usual stock that made up indentured servants, a fact which his master soon realized, promoting him accordingly. Many of the transported Monmouth rebels were also of a better caliber and often did well in the West Indies as illustrated by a letter written by Governor Kendall of Barbados in 1690. “I have not announced the repeal of the Act concerning the Monmouth rebels to the Council and Assembly,” Kendall informed his superiors at Whitehall. “When they arrived, the Lieutenant-Governor received positive orders from King James that their servitude should be fixed by Act at ten years. The planters accordingly bought them, and thinking themselves secure of them during that time, taught them to be boilers, distillers and refiners, and neglected to teach any other as they would otherwise have done.”91 As the first part of Milroy’s account makes clear, conditions for white indentured servants on sugar plantations were harsh. Their diet was poor, their clothing allowance limited, and their housing was squalid. They were subject to a brutal legal code. They were forbidden to marry without their master’s consent; females who fell pregnant were liable to be punished by the extension of their indenture, as were those who were caught attempting to flee. Servants were also subject to frequent physical punishment—whippings were commonplace, as was the use of the stocks, and they were obliged to serve in the militia during periods of conflict, a burden which could occasionally afford an unexpected reversal of fortune.92 In 1673 the Jamaican Council passed a law stating that any individual who fought “manfully and like a true soldier” should be granted his immediate freedom.93

  LIFE AT SUTTON’S was dictated by the rhythms of the fourteen-to-eighteen-month sugar cycle. At the start of the wet season, which ran from June to November, the field workers dug a series of trenches six inches deep and six inches across into which they placed cane cuttings. In a ten-hour day, each slave was expected to dig between sixty and eighty trenches. Lightly covered with soil, the cuttings sprouted at each joint within a month, producing a sea of small plants “like a land of Green Wheat in England . . . high enough to hide a hare.” In the first few months, the cane fields were weeded regularly by the second gang and manured with a mixture of cow dung and cane cuttings. More than disease or insect infestation, rats posed the principal danger. Once gnawed, the entire cane would rot. Some overseers deployed rat-catching gangs, but the only real deterrent was to burn infested fields from the outside in, thus wiping out the entire rodent population.94

  The canes reached their full height of eight feet within twelve months. Two to six months later, the leaves turned from green to “a deep Popinjay,” indicating the canes were ripe for harvesting. Typically, this occurred from January to May, an intensely busy period. Woken two hours before dawn by the shrill blast of a conch shell or hollowed animal horn or plantation bell, the Great Gang would cut the canes with “hand bills” three to six inches from the surface of the soil. “At [this] time,” Ligon remarked, “they divide the tops from the Canes, which they do with the same bills, at one stroak; and then holding the Canes by the upper end, they strip off all the blades . . . which . . . are bound up in faggots . . . put into carts and carried home” for animal fodder. At noon, a further blast from the overseers indicated that the slaves were to stop for lunch. At two o’clock the work recommenced. The field slaves would not rest again until after dark.95

  Once cut, the canes were carried to the millhouse, or ingenio, by mules. There, each was fed between triple brass and steel rollers powered by windmill, horse or cattle, or water wheel, as was the case at Sutton’s. “A Negre puts in the Canes on one side,” Ligon explained, “and the rollers draw them through to the other . . . where another Negre stands . . . receives them; and returns them back on the other side of the middle roller which draws the other way. . . . The Canes having past to and again . . . young Negre Girles . . . carry them away.”96 The process was a risky one. “If a Mill-feeder be catch’t by the finger,” Edward Littleton, a member of the Barbadian plantocracy and a contemporary of Sutton’s, explained in a 1689 publication entitled The Groans of the Plantations, “his whole body is drawn in, and he is squeez’d to pieces.”97

  The dark-brown juice that issued forth when the canes were crushed was collected in a trough running beneath the rollers. Channeled into a pipe, it ran downhill to the boiling house where it was collected in a cistern. From there the juice was transferred to the largest of a series of four or five giant copper kettles suspended above a furnace fueled by the discarded cane cuttings. These boiling coppers, among the most valuable items in any planters’ inventory, were used in descending order of size. In Bybrook, for example, they held 180, 120, 80, and 30 gallons, respectively. It was the job of the boiler, the most valued slave on the plantation, to ladle the juice into the first copper, skim off the impurities that arose, and transfer the remaining liquid into the next copper. The smaller the copper, the hotter the fire burning beneath it. As the juice progressed from one to the next, it reduced and purified, growing increasingly viscous and ever darker in color. In the final copper, known as the “tach,” the boiler “tempered” the liquid with a few drops of lemon or lime juice to promote granulation. When the juice was deemed sufficiently tempered, a judgment perfected with experience, it was transferred to a cooling cistern. Boiling was even more hazardous than crushing the canes. “If a Boyler get any part into the scolding sugar,” Littleton explained, “it sticks like Glew, or Birdlime, and ’tis hard to save either Limb or Life.” The dangers were heightened by the need for haste. Once cut, the canes had to be crushed within a few hours to ensure the sugar content did not deteriorate, while the juice, once extracted, had to be boiled swiftly to avoid fermentation. During harvest time the slaves were required to work around the clock. Straw fires were lit in the
mill and boiling houses to enable them to continue through the hours of darkness, while the overseers had to remain ever vigilant to ensure their charges did not doze off.98

  The sugar was left to cool for twelve hours after boiling, then packed into earthenware pots and stored in the curing house. Each pot had a hole in the bottom which allowed the molasses to drain out onto a earthenware pan known as a drip. The pots were left draining for a month before the contents were knocked out. The top and bottom ends were then removed for reboiling, while the central two-thirds, which was now golden-brown muscovado, was broken up and spread out to dry in the sun. Packed into hogsheads for transfer to Port Royal, it would be stored at the quayside warehouses awaiting shipment to England there to be further refined to create clayed or white sugar. The molasses was transferred to the plantation’s still. Mixed with a solution of inferior cane juice and skimmings from the boiling coppers, it was left to ferment for a week, before being boiled and condensed into a rough rum. Known locally as kill-devil, the drink was typically mixed with water, lime juice, sugar, and nutmeg to make punch. Again, the process was not without risk. “We lost an excellent Negro,” Ligon recalled, “who bringing a Jar of this Spirit, from the Still-house . . . in the night . . . brought the candle somewhat nearer than he ought . . . the spirit being stirr’d by that motion, flew out, and got hold of the flame of the Candle, and so set all on fire, and burnt the poor Negro to death.”99

  When not required to work by the dictates of the sugar cycle, plantation slaves were afforded some free time, typically on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Most spent their “leisure” time working private allotments at the plantation slave village.100 A community of wooden shacks facing onto a central path to one side of the cane fields, the village was typically built in direct line of sight of the great house, thus allowing the master to keep an eye on his slaves from his shaded terrace. Slave dwellings excavated at Seville estate in northern Jamaica measured four by six meters and were divided into two or more rooms: a living space and one or more areas for sleeping. The floors were lined with limestone cobbles, and the walls were constructed of a series of upright posts, between which wattle-and-daub was smeared to keep out the weather. The whole was covered by a thatch of interlocking palm fronds.101 Slaves had few possessions. “They allow ’em neither coate, hatt, shirt, stockins or shoos,” John Taylor noted, “only they allow to every man a linen arsclout or a paire of breaches, and to the women only an arsclout or line petticoat.” Taylor, a visitor in the late 1680s, thought this only fair. “They deserve no better,” he explained, “since they differ only from bruite beast only by their shape and speech.”102 Sloane added, “generally” each slave also had “a Mat to lie on, a Pot of Earth to boil their Victuals in . . . and a Calabash or two for Cups and Spoons.”103 Others used the red clay abundant in Jamaica to fashion pots and plates which they baked in the fire.104

  Some slaves lived in family units. Polygamy, a widespread practice in West Africa, was commonly permitted by the planters who rewarded the hard-working or loyal with wives.105 This Sloane noted, “is what keeps their plantations chiefly in good order.” The masters “buy Wives in proportion to their Men, lest the Men should wander to neighbouring Plantations, and neglect to serve them.”106 Other houses were occupied exclusively by groups of young males or young females. Slaves were commonly allotted provision grounds to grow crops to supplement their rations. Sometimes these would have been in the same area as the village, but on other plantations the provision grounds were several miles away. On Sundays, their day of rest, or on the occasional feast days of Christmas, Whit Sunday, or the Crop Over Festival, the slaves tended to their yams, cassava, plantains, potatoes, and peppers.107 Slave owners encouraged their charges to grow their own produce. As well as freeing them from the need to purchase extra supplies, the use of the provision grounds had a profound psychological effect on the slaves which lessened the possibility of their rising in revolt. By giving his charges a stake in the “society” of the plantation, albeit a very poor and insignificant one, the slave owner was encouraging them not to rebel. If they did so, they would lose even this small privilege.108

  Slaves used the food grown at the provision grounds to add to their rations. Typically, this consisted of salt mackerel, occasionally supplemented by beans or flour in emergencies and the odd piece of salt beef or pork allowed them when a barrel was spoiled.109 Rum was occasionally given to the slaves for good behavior. “Also,” Taylor noted, “when a bullock or the like dies in the plantation, the carrion carcass . . . is given them, on which they will feed as hertyly as a plowman on bacon.”110 Another occasional source of protein were the rats roasted when the cane fields were burned to free them of infestation. As the vermin fed almost exclusively on the cane, the meat was sweet and highly regarded by blacks and whites alike.111 Some slaves even had some livestock of their own: a pig or two or some chickens, which they acquired as presents from their masters or through trade at Sunday markets. These were commonplace throughout Jamaica and provided a means of social and economic interaction between slaves from different plantations and with the island’s poorest whites. Surplus food, tools, and various craft items, such as necklaces, rings, horns, and drums, were bartered or occasionally exchanged for currency which the slaves used to purchase livestock or other goods.112

  Sundays were for rest and socializing. “Then those pore slaves leave off work and repaire to their houses,” Taylor recorded, “where they . . . make a great fier, and with a kitt (made of a gourd or calabash with one twine string) play, sing and daunce according to their country fashion, making themselves all mirth, men and women together in a confused manner; after they have thus sported as long as they thinck fit, they lay themselves naked on the ground all round their fier, the whole family together in a confused manner to sleep.” On other occasions, slaves from different plantations would gather in “great companys . . . [to] feast, dance, and sing (or rather howle like beasts) in a anticque manner, as if they were madd.”113 Ligon wrote of slaves’ wrestling matches, while Sloane described their music and dance.114 “The Negroes are much given to Venery,” the doctor began,

  and although hard wrought, will at nights, or on Feast days Dance and Sing; their Songs are all bawdy, and leading that way. They have several sorts of instruments in imitation of Lutes, made of small Gourds fitted with Necks, strung with Horse hairs, or the peeled stalks of climbing Plants or Withs. These instruments are sometimes made of hollow’d Timber covered with Parchment or other Skin wetted, having a Bow for its Neck, the Strings ty’d longer or shorter, as they would alter their sounds. . . . They have likewise in their Dances Rattles ty’d to their Legs and Wrists, and in their Hands, with which they make a noise, keeping time with one who makes a sound answering it on the mouth of an empty Gourd or Jar with his Hand. Their Dances consist in great activity and strength of Body, and keeping time, if it can be. They very often tie Cow Tails to their Rumps, and add such other odd things to their Bodies in several places, as gives them a very extraordinary appearance.115

  Another much-mentioned custom was the slaves’ habit of celebrating funerals. These often paralleled West African ritual and were typically led by an obeah man. Part doctor, part spiritual leader, these figures were believed to have magical powers.116 “When . . . slaves die,” Taylor recorded,

  they make a great adoe at their burials, for haveing caryed them to the grave in a verey mournfull manner, all both men and women which accompany the corpse sing and howle in a sorrowfull manner in their own language, ’till being come to the grave, into which they gently put the corpse, and with it casadar bread, roasted fowles, sugar, rum, tobacco, and pipes with fier to light his pipe withal, and this they doe (as they say and follishly imagine) in order to sustaine him in his journey beyond these plesant hills in their own country, whither they say he is now goeing to live at rest. After this they fill up the grave, and eat and drinck theron, singing in their own language verey dolefully, desiring the dead corpse (by cise
ing the grave) to acquaint their father, mother, husband and other relations of their present condition and slavery, as he passeth thro’ their country towards the plesant mountains.117

  The whites believed the brutality inherent in chattel slavery was entirely necessary. They held that it was the only means they had of keeping their charges under control and lessening the threat of rebellion. “The unhappy condition of the Negro leads him naturally to detest us,” explained Nicolas Lejeune, a French planter and slave owner of Santo Domingo.

  It is only force and violence that restrains him; he is bound to harbour an implacable hatred in his heart, and if he does not visit upon us all the hurt of which he is capable it is only because his readiness to do so is chained down by terror; so, if we do not make his chains as proportionate to the dangers that we run with him, if we let loose this hatred from the present state in which it is stifled, what can prevent him from attempting to break the chains? The bird locked in his cage profits from the slightest negligence to escape. I dare to say that our negroes lack only sufficient courage or resolution to buy their freedom with the blood of their masters. Just one step can enlighten them about what they have the power to undertake. . . . It is not the fear and equity of the law that forbids the slave from stabbing his master, it is the consciousness of absolute power that he has over his person. Remove this bit, and he will dare everything.118