Where The Twain Meet

laves suffered horribly it was the custom of the times, and other people suffered as well. Even at the beginning of this century, coming to England from a land where the wo

of the working man or woman. It seemed to me they were slaves in a bitter cold and cheerless country, and as far as

ce wrote a story in which the children, either by means of a magic carpet or a reanimated phoenix, brought ba

eep your slaves?

said the children. I quote from memo

d the Queen. "Don't tell me! Think

maica to be pleased when a slave ship arrived. The news would go round at once, and as the ships were not very big they came to ports that only a coaster visits nowadays. To Kingston, o

ing and the gathering together of his own kind. No one, I think, for one moment thought of the sufferings of the slaves; they grumbled, as men do nowadays because a pig-stye smells. Occasiona

e advocates of slavery always maintained, that through their enslaving they did get a glimpse of better things. An Ashanti woman with her shaven head and a cloth wrapped round her middle, beating fu-fu, is certainly not as far advanced in the social sc

They must have been thankful to come out of their cramped quarters and bask on deck in the sunshine, but they must have feared. One historian has left it on record that the planters who came down to buy had often celeb

old in the public slave market. There used to be a large slave market at Montego Bay, quite close to the water, so that the merchandise might be rowed ashore, and the gentlemen from Success and Contentment and Retr

se a quiet and peaceable slave was more valued than one who had to be kept in restraint. There were shade trees growing round the marketplace, and the sun flickered dow

and this, while it made them dangerous, made them good labourers. The Papams or Whidahs, those who came from the coasts between Accra and all along by Keta and Togoland and Dahomey, "are accounted most docile." The Eboes from Calabar and the swamps round th

rom the Congo and farther south from the coasts of Angola, though counted less robust than the other negroes, were more handy as mech

roes at ￡50 each"-which, Edwards says, was the common price in 1791; boys and girls cost from ￡40 to ￡45, while an infant was worth ￡5. After that they rose in value rapidly, and before Edwards had finished his history in his estimate of the e

es, the disposal of the sickly slaves was often considered a scandal. They were generally bought up by speculators who sometimes tended them, sometimes did not, simply made what they could out of

any day, a band of stalwart black savages clad only in loin cloths, the women, apart with their babies seated on their hips, leading older children by the hand, marching along the white roads, clambering up the steep mountain paths to the estate that was to be their destination, with a white man on horseback following slowly, and one, or two, or three black drivers, according to the number of the new slaves, with whips, old s

ly to some slave accustomed to the plantation, who showed them the ropes, a

he old hands only grasped the words of command, and though they thoroughly understood the u

le, and probably remained a savage after years of plantation labour. To do them justice, I expect these gentlemen from Amity, or Rose Hall, or Good Hope, had about as much idea of the map of Africa as I have of the contour of the Antarctic Continent-less very likely; and that these people were separated as widely by the countries of their birt

e the superior pluck of the Koromantyns, but it also

plying it to the skin which is previously anointed with sweet oil. The application is instantaneous and the pain momentary." So Mr Bryan Edwards but he was in no danger from a branding iron. "Nevertheless, it may be easily supposed that the apparatus must have a frightful appearance to a child. Accordingly, when the first boy, who happened to be one of the Eboes, and the stoutest of the whole, was led forward to rec

of ornament, and many a time do we see white men who have submitted to the more painful operation of tatto

or his slaves, his favourites were pampered, but when it came to a pinch the slaves suffered. There was a terrible famine in Jamaica in the latter half of the eighteenth century; England had decreed that there should be no trade with her revolted colonies, supplies were therefore more restricted than they need have been, and it is recorded that the slaves died by thousands. Again and again we are told how, even in normal

d. Anything might have happened to a slave on one of those estates, and

umbly resentful of their condition-he didn't put it like that-ill-conditioned ruffians he probably called them, and he never knew when the worst might not influence the rest. And they were armed with machetes and knives and hoes and spades, for purposes

and in later times there were the mulattoe

own or yellow girl he naturally objected to his underlings choosing a mode of life which would be a reproach to him, and

"all in fine muslin lace, &c., with wreaths of flowers in their hats. What ruin for these worse than thoughtless, young

in Jamaica is the man who manages the estate for an absentee owner) "whether a cle

was a fr

in my serv

n my service; I beg

at Cornwall? Of what us

a pause, added in a lower voice, 'It is the custom, sir,

Nugent, and putting all these little stories together, we get a complete pict

s with walls of swish or of wattle, and were very often surrounded by a wall, for if the owner valued his privacy so did the dweller in the village, and presently around them grew up a grove of trees planted by the negro sometimes by design, sometimes by accident; there

e that in my eyes did not badly need cleaning up. There is no reason why the houses should not be delightful, but they are not. In those old days, the days long before Lewis, they were a danger, of course. Of sanitation there was none. Even now about a peasant's house in Jamaica there is often an unpleasant smell from the rotting waste that is scattered around; then it must have been much worse, but what could you expect, when the masters themselves regarded bad smells and rotting waste as all in the day's

e, "on the mountain," which meant the rougher and more stony hill ground at a distance from the Great House. Accordin

newly-imported slaves, and that the Creoles, those born in the colony, were contented enough. They had many wrongs, but undoubtedly they loved the place of their birth, and felt deeply being sent away or sold.

n poor buc

't turn poor

their position from a different view-

ashion as the cattle on the next page. The Worthy Park book I found specially interesting. It was an old brown leather-covered book, 18 inches long by 1 fo

e was an absentee owner, and there is no record in the book of his ever having visited his estate. George Doubt was the superintendent, and lived at the Great House; but whether it was he who made those first entries, there is no means of knowing. He certainly did not make them al

nd every quarter returns were made to the Vestry of the Parish. This, I think, because a tax of 6d. a head had to be paid

the overseer got ￡200 a year, and of course his board and lodging; the surgeon got ￡140 per annum; the book-keeper and distiller ￡50 per annum, and the ordinary book-keepers ￡30 per annum each. It was no catch to be a book-keeper in those days. As a rule he had nothing to do with books, but h

e of cold coffee, two herrings, and a couple of boiled plantains stuck on a fork. It do

before the cattle, and are desc

d belonging to, Worthy Park Plant

340 and sometimes rises to 360 names. There were 6 Carpenters, numbering among them Mulatto Aleck, and 2 learning; there were 2 Sawyers, 1 Joiner and Cabinet Maker, 1 Blacksmith, Mulatto John, 1 Maso

ain man, is Able. Further on there is a steer named Why Not? Waller, the Head boiler, is sickly, and Johnston, a field-labourer, is subject to "Fitts." Dryden is Able, but Elderly. Punch and Bacchus are Elderly and Weakly, which seems wrong somehow, and Ishmael is Infirm and a Runaway. Italy is Able, Spa

her hip, Chloe is Weakly and Worthless. Little Benebah is Runaway and Worthless, Strumpet is Able, a Runaway-could one expect much from a woman called by such a name?-and that Whore was also Runaway and Worthless seems but a confirmation of the old saying about giving a dog a bad name and hanging him. But Lady, too, is Runaway; perhaps she was sickly and not equal to the work they expected of her. We may judge that

rvant man, and the next time the list was pre

er did not do so b

y. Sicily, old and weakly, cuts grass for the stables; Abbas Moll, Invalid, "Sores," washes the bags. I hope they weren't used for anything important. Olive is blind, and no less than thirteen are "superunuated," while twenty-eight, among them Behaviour, F

he titles I don't know. They were all marked "Able" when they were bought, but in 1789 the men are reduced to thirteen, and Toby, who was a Mason, is now old and infirm; England, a sawyer, is old and infirm; Roger, a field negro, is now "li

r entry against Fidelia-"Died, reduced by lying in the bushes." Why did Fid

ome Minute, and from being a carpenter has become a watchman, which means he is good for nothing else. Joan's Cudjoe, the Head sawyer, has against him "Rheumatism," and Darby, the Head Driver, formerly Able, is now "Ruptur'd." Guy's Quashie and Creole Scotland are now both elderly. Pool and Waller the Boilers are sent to the field sometimes, a bitter c

one hand, is now "Able and Ill-dispos'd," and no mention is made

t to Bone ach," a long list which makes us feel for the weary men and w

all there are many little pat

oor little Patty! Her mother's two next children are presumably black, as their colour is not mentioned, which it would have been had they had any white blood in their veins; and presently poor Dolly is a field-labourer again, fallen from her high estate. For in Jamaica the house-servant ranks high in the social scale. That is why, I think, that the house-servants in Jamaica ge

er never counted. In a record of forty births on Worthy Park never once is he mentioned. The births are put down on one side of the page as "Increase of the Negroes," and the baby is only mentio

ways are mentioned, or the fact that a certain runaway "C?sar" or "Arabella" is "brought home." And, perhaps, in the whole pitiful

proach. I don't like him, and I don't think the negroes could have liked

of labour has begun. It gave me great satisfaction to find that Congo Betty, who in the beginning was entered as "Able but a Runaway," in 1789 ran away for good, apparently, for when the book closed she had not returned,

s a gregarious animal, and, I suppose, these poor things, skulking in the woods and mountains, missed their fellows, and so they dared the stocks and the lock-up and the stripes, which were sure to be their portion when they did come back. Lady came back once, for in June 1788 she had a baby

y obliged, so that we find they were old and useless when they should have been in their prime. A slave had no proper stimulus to labour.

died of "Worm fever," of "Locked Jaw," "of Fever and Sore Throat," "of Cold and Sore Throat," and Little Prince was drowned. One of the men named Dick has my sincerest sympathy. He is bought from Brailsford as "Able," a couple of years later he is "sickly," th

nford." He had been bought on the 5th of the same month, and he waited hopelessly, or perhaps hoping, nineteen days, and then he ended it, because for a slave there

essy were "manu-mized," and Mulatto Nelly is sent away. Perhaps the father desired to cut off from his little daughters all slave influence, even that of their mother; for I p

oons, five cups and saucers, fifteen wine-glasses, four tumblers, and one wine decanter. In the overseer's room he had a mahogany bed and a small mahogany bed, and, of course, a feather bed-every room except the hall had one of these luxuries. In August in Jama

ing-hall was the thing! They sat there and drank rum punch till-well, till it didn

ry," at Worthy Park, I think the feather

ilver stamp L.P. He had a "Sett of Gold Weights and Scales"-I presume for weighing gold, and not made of the precious metal, though where they

in contrast to the paucity of everything else. There were eleven fine pillow-cases, one pair of Osnaburg sheets, two pillow-cases of the same stuff, two fine tablecloths, to be used on gala days I expect, and seven Osnaburg tablecloths. But the

one, Arthur McKenzie, who is not otherwise mentioned, remarks in a thin straggling hand: "N.B.-By the sundries found in and about the works, the written acco

eets), "Tablecloaths & Butter, Candles, and send 3/4 of the Soap sent to the Great House for the Works;

he Great House. There were "9 Earthen Dishes and 6 shallow plates, 1 Tureen, 8 Pewter dishes and only 3 new knives and 3 new forks, 3 old knives and four useless," so it rather looks as if once th

d Axes, Bullet Moulds, Old Bayonets, Negro Hatts and Iron Crows." The Herring Store did not contain herrings, at least when the inventory was taken, but had four large empty oil jars, half a barrel of t

and check from London, and salt beef and pork and herrings, to say nothing of tallow and candles and soap from Cork. That they should need to bring fish to an island where the sea teems with it, and beef

etising stuff they seem to have eaten. In one year the Diana brought out 15 barrels of beef and 70 barrels of herrings, 4 firkins of butter and 6 kegs of tallow; yet they bought 2 1/2 barrels of beef from Kingston, 2 kegs of tallow and 5 firkins of butter. That they should have boug

suppose, were stems of plantains, as 500 plantains would not have gone far. Worthy Park had a "mountain" like many other estates, for often the cattle are entered as having died of "Poverty and Meagreness on the mountain," or as falling into the sink hole

"hatt," but the principal men and women got a little more. Lucretia serving at the Great House once got 12 yards of Osnaburg,

rprised at an European's bashfulness, who perhaps turns his head aside at the sight.... Their Masters give them a kind of petticoat, but they do not care to wear

man or woman works of his own free will in the glare of the tropical sun. On the Gold Coast I have heard the people going out into the fields long before daylight, but I have never seen men or women working hard during the midday hours. This is only common sense, and possibly much of the sickness that decimated the slaves was due to this cause. Th

nd anybody might father a woman's child. But considering all things I think they grumbled unreasonably. No wild animals increase rapidly in captivity, but in five years there were forty children born on Worthy Park, that is nearly 23 per thousand-not so very bad considering that the rate for London in th

h day they had no hope of the newborn babies. It was, had she

ier time. Their children were slaves like the others, but it was the custom not to put them to field work; the boys they made artisans and the girls

, "is always called 'Miss Polly

n the returns for the last quarter 1791 are sent in to the Vestry there is quite a new departure. The "White People" are headed by Pose Price, Esq., and the Rev. John Venicomb bracketed together as having arrived on the 1st December, and we immediately imagine the son of

es were very great. Not only was there the upkeep of these people, but they were always buying new negroes and in addition to that quite

hat against the 510 tons of sugar and 301 puncheons of rum which Mr Fred Clarke gives me as the returns from the same estate in the year of our Lord 1920. Of course to compare exactly, I should hav

undred and thirty years hence, some writer will read of 1921 with as much w