Free Negro Rule [pp. 440-460]

444 FREE NEGRO RULE.
imposed and healthful discipline, enabling him who has been trained
by it, to exercise that needful command over his family and others
which he has first practised upon himself; we imagine the acquisition
of means not only as sufficient to support existence, but to enable
their possessor to live liberally and to gratify other than mere sensual wants; we imagine a continued industry of a nobler kind, the
education of children, the providing of religious instruction'for one's
family, a contribution to various charities, &c., &c.-these are our
notions of ease and independence; but this language, as applied to
the freed negroes of the West Indies and British Guiana, has about
as much meaning as if we should say of a certain animal, that
having, by industry and the diligent use of his faculties, supplied the
wants of nature, he retired in ease, independence, and comfort., to the
enjoyment of that quiet repose which sooner or later is sure.to follow
the efforts of well-directed industry-meaning that a pig having eaten
all the roots and nuts he could find, had gone to wallow in the mire
of his sty. At first, judging the negroes by ourselves, nothing was
more natural than to suppose that, even if they did abandon the
large estates and settle on small plots of ground of their own, they
would at least cultivate more land than was needful for a mere animal support, and that they would,thus acquire some property and be
enabled to educate their children, to provide religious instruction for
their neighborhoods, to support government and police, to secure
medical aid in case of sickness, to build decent towns and cities, and,
in short, to make a general progress in civilization. But unfortunately we are continually reminded that we must not judge negroes,
nor indeed any other savages, by the standard applicable to races
trained for ages in the arts and discipline of civilization. Governor
Light, for a long time a resident in the West Indies, said that lie
was at first glad to see the negroes acquiring property for themselves,
but he afterward confesses that the experience of some years had
made him alter his opinion as to the benefit the purchase of estates
had been to the creoles. "I do not believe now," he writes, " that
such purchases hase tended to the civilization, advancement, or industry of the purchasers."* It is fully proved that these people who
have cut up fine sugar estates into little plots of badly cultivated provision grounds, do not in some cases raise even provisions enough for
their own towns; this is the case in Trinidad for example, where, as
we are told by Lord Harris, although this description of settler has
become very numerous, yet no market can be worse supplied with
fruit and vegetables than Port of Spain, and the population depends
almost entirely on the Main for the larger sort of provisions, such as
yams, plantains, and sweet potatoes.t
The rapidity with which the negroes are becoming possessed of
lands in British Guiana may be seen by the following statement.
According to Mr. Harfield, commissary of population, the first conveyance by transport of such lands was in 1838; in 1844 the num
t Despatch to Earl Grey, Feb'y 21, 1848.
* Despatch to Ear Grey, May 3, 1848.