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The trade, domestic and foreign

H >> Henry Charles Carey >> The trade, domestic and foreign




Population gradually diminishes, furnishing another evidence that the
tendency of every thing is adverse to the progress of civilization. In
1841, the island contained a little short of 400,000 persons. In 1844,
the census returns gave about 380,000; and a recent journal states
that of those no less than forty thousand have in the last two years
been carried off by cholera, and that small-pox, which has succeeded
that disease, is now sweeping away thousands whom that disease had
spared. Increase of crime, it adds, keeps pace with the spread of
misery throughout the island.

The following extracts from a Report of a Commission appointed in 1850
to inquire into the state and prosperity of Guiana, are furnished by
Lord Stanley in his second letter to Mr. Gladstone, [London, 1851.]

Of Guiana generally they say--

"'It would be but a melancholy task to dwell upon the misery and ruin
which so alarming a change must have occasioned to the proprietary
body; but your Commissioners feel themselves called upon to notice
the effects which this wholesale abandonment of property has produced
upon the colony at large. Where whole districts are fast relapsing
into bush, and occasional patches of provisions around the huts of
village settlers are all that remain to tell of once flourishing
estates, it is not to be wondered at that the most ordinary marks of
civilization are rapidly disappearing, and that in many districts of
the colony all travelling communication by land will soon become
utterly impracticable.'

"Of the Abary district--

"'Your Commissioners find that the line of road is nearly impassable,
and that a long succession of formerly cultivated estates presents
now a series of pestilent swamps, overrun with bush, and productive
of malignant fevers.'

"Nor are matters," says Lord Stanley, "much better farther south--

"'Proceeding still lower down, your Commissioners find that the
public roads and bridges are in such a condition, that the few
estates still remaining on the upper west bank of Mahaica Creek are
completely cut off, save in the very dry season; and that with regard
to the whole district, unless something be done very shortly,
travelling by land will entirely cease. In such a state of things it
cannot be wondered at that the herdsman has a formidable enemy to
encounter in the jaguar and other beasts of prey, and that the
keeping of cattle is attended with considerable loss, from the
depredations committed by these animals.

"It may be worth noticing," continues Lord Stanley, "that this
district, now overrun with wild beasts of the forest; was formerly
the very garden of the colony. The estates touched one another along
the whole line of the road, leaving no interval of uncleared land.

"The east coast, which is next mentioned by the Commissioners, is
better off. Properties once of immense value had there been bought at
nominal prices, and the one railroad of Guiana passing through that
tract, a comparatively industrious population, composed of former
labourers on the line, enabled the planters still to work these to
some profit. Even of this favoured spot, however, they report that it
'feels most severely the want of continuous labour.' The
Commissioners next visit the east bank of the Demerara river, thus
described:--

"'Proceeding up the east bank of the river Demerary, the generally
prevailing features of ruin and distress are everywhere perceptible.
Roads and bridges almost impassable are fearfully significant
exponents of the condition of the plantations which they traverse;
and Canal No. 3, once covered with plantains and coffee, presents now
a scene of almost total desolation.'

"Crossing to the west side, they find prospects somewhat brighter: 'a
few estates' are still 'keeping up a cultivation worthy of better
times.' But this prosperous neighbourhood is not extensive, and the
next picture presented to our notice is less agreeable:--

"'Ascending the river still higher, your Commissioners learn that the
district between Hobaboe Creek and 'Stricken Heuvel' contained, in
1829, eight sugar and five coffee and plantain estates, and now there
remain but three in sugar and four partially cultivated with
plantains by petty settlers: while the roads, with one or two
exceptions, are in a state of utter abandonment. Here, as on the
opposite bank of the river, hordes of squatters have located
themselves, who avoid all communication with Europeans, and have
seemingly given themselves up altogether to the rude pleasures of a
completely savage life.'

"The west coast of Demerara--the only part of that country which
still remains unvisited--is described as showing _only_ a diminution
of fifty per cent. upon its produce of sugar: and with this fact the
evidence concludes as to one of the three sections into which the
colony is divided. Does Demerara stand alone in its misfortune? Again
hear the report:--

"'If the present state of the county of Demerara affords cause for
deep apprehension, your Commissioners find that Essequebo has
retrograded to a still more alarming extent. In fact, unless a large
and speedy supply of labour be obtained to cultivate the deserted
fields of this once-flourishing district, there is great reason to
fear that it will relapse into total abandonment.'"

Describing another portion of the colony--

"They say of one district, 'unless a fresh supply of labour be very
soon obtained, there is every reason to fear that it will become
completely abandoned.' Of a second, 'speedy immigration alone can
save this island from total ruin.' 'The prostrate condition of this
once beautiful part of the coast,' are the words which begin another
paragraph, describing another tract of country. Of a fourth, 'the
proprietors on this coast seem to be keeping up a hopeless struggle
against approaching ruin. Again, 'the once famous Arabian coast, so
long the boast of the colony, presents now but a mournful picture of
departed prosperity. Here were formerly situated some of the finest
estates in the country, and a large resident body of proprietors
lived in the district, and freely expended their incomes on the spot
whence they derived them.' Once more, the lower part of the coast,
after passing Devonshire Castle to the river Pomeroon, presents a
scene of almost total desolation.' Such is Essequebo!"

"Berbice," says Lord Stanley, "has fared no better: its rural
population amounts to 18,000. Of these, 12,000 have withdrawn from
the estates, and mostly from the neighbourhood of the white man, to
enjoy a savage freedom of ignorance and idleness, beyond the reach of
example and sometimes of control. But, on the condition of the negro
I shall dwell more at length hereafter; at present it is the state of
property with which I have to do. What are the districts which
together form the county of Berbice? The Corentyne coast--the Canje
Creek--East and West banks of the Berbice River--and the West coast,
where, however, cotton was formerly the chief article produced. To
each of these respectively the following passages, quoted in order,
apply:--

"'The abandoned plantations on this coast,[17] which if capital and
labour could be procured, might easily be made very productive, are
either wholly deserted or else appropriated by hordes of squatters,
who of course are unable to keep up at their own expense the public
roads and bridges, and consequently all communication by land between
the Corentyne and New Amsterdam is nearly at an end. The roads are
impassable for horses or carriages, while for foot-passengers they
are extremely dangerous. The number of villagers in this deserted
region must be upward of 2500, and as the country abounds with fish
and game, they have no difficulty in making a subsistence; in fact,
the Corentyne coast is fast relapsing into a state of nature.'

"'Canje Creek was formerly considered a flourishing district of the
county, and numbered on its east bank seven sugar and three coffee
estates, and on its west bank eight estates, of which two were in
sugar and six in coffee, making a total of eighteen plantations. The
coffee cultivation has long since been entirely abandoned, and of the
sugar estates but eight still now remain. They are suffering severely
for want of labour, and being supported principally by African and
Coolie immigrants, it is much to be feared that if the latter leave
and claim their return passages to India, a great part of the
district will become abandoned.'

"'Under present circumstances, so gloomy is the condition of affairs
here,[18] that the two gentlemen whom your Commissioners have
examined with respect to this district, both concur in predicting
"its slow but sure approximation to the condition in which civilized
man first found it.'"

"'A district [19] that in 1829, gave employment to 3635 registered
slaves, but at the present moment there are not more than 600
labourers at work on the few estates still in cultivation, although
it is estimated there are upwards of 2000 people idling in villages
of their own. The roads are in many parts several feet under water,
and perfect swamps; while in some places the bridges are wanting
altogether. In fact, the whole district is fast becoming a total
wilderness, with the exception of the one or two estates which yet
continue to struggle on, and which are hardly accessible now but by
water.'

"'Except in some of the best villages,[20] they care not for back or
front dams to keep off the water; their side-lines are disregarded,
and consequently the drainage is gone; while in many instances the
public road is so completely flooded that canoes have to be used as a
means of transit. The Africans are unhappily following the example of
the Creoles in this district, and buying land, on which they settle
in contented idleness; and your Commissioners cannot view instances
like these without the deepest alarm, for if this pernicious habit of
squatting is allowed to extend to the immigrants also, there is no
hope for the colony.'"

Under these circumstances it is that the London _Times_ furnishes its
readers with the following paragraph,--and as that journal cannot be
regarded as the opponent of the classes which have lately controlled
the legislation of England, we may feel assured that its information
is to be relied upon:--

"Our legislation has been dictated by the presumed necessities of the
African slave. After the Emancipation Act, a large charge was
assessed upon the colony in aid of civil and religious institutions
for the benefit of the enfranchised negro, and it was hoped that
those coloured subjects of the British Crown would soon be
assimilated to their fellow-citizens. From all the information which
has reached us, no less than from the visible probabilities of the
case, _we are constrained to believe that these hopes have been
falsified. The negro has not obtained with his freedom any habits of
industry or morality. His independence is little better than that of
an uncaptured brute_. Having accepted none of the restraints of
civilization, he is amenable to few of its necessities, and the wants
of his nature are so easily satisfied, that at the present rate of
wages he is called upon for nothing but fitful or desultory exertion.
_The blacks_, therefore, _instead of becoming intelligent husbandmen,
have become vagrants and squatters, and it is now apprehended that
with the failure of cultivation in the island will come the failure
of its resources for instructing or controlling its population_. So
imminent does this consummation appear, that memorials have been
signed by classes of colonial society, hitherto standing aloof from
politics, _and not only the bench and the bar, but the bishop,
clergy, and the ministers of all denominations in the island, without
exception, have recorded their conviction that in the absence of
timely relief, the religious and educational institutions of the
island must be abandoned, and the masses of the population retrograde
to barbarism_."

The _Prospective Review_, (Nov. 1852,) seeing what has happened in the
British colonies, and speaking of the possibility of a similar course
of action on this side of the Atlantic, says--

"We have had experience enough in our own colonies, not to wish to
see the experiment tried elsewhere on a larger scale. It is true that
from some of the smaller islands, where there is a superabundance of
negro population and no room for squatters, the export of sugar has
not been diminished: it is true that in Jamaica and Demerara, the
commercial distress is largely attributable to the folly of the
planters--who doggedly refuse to accommodate themselves to the new
state of things, and to entice the negroes from the back settlements
by a promise of fair wages. But we have no reason to suppose that the
whole tragi-comedy would not be re-enacted in the Slave States of
America, if slavery were summarily abolished by act of Congress
to-morrow. Property among the plantations consists only of land and
negroes: emancipate the negroes--and the planters have no longer any
capital for the cultivation of the land. Put the case of
compensation: though it be difficult to see whence it could come:
there is every probability that the planters of Alabama, accustomed
all their lives to get black labour for nothing, would be as
unwilling to pay for it as their compeers in Jamaica: and there is
plenty of unowned land on which the disbanded gangs might settle and
no one question their right. It is allowed on all hands that the
negroes as a race will not work longer than is necessary to supply
the simplest comforts of life. It would be wonderful were it
otherwise. A people have been degraded and ground down for a century
and a half: systematically kept in ignorance for five generations of
any needs and enjoyments beyond those of the savage: and then it is
made matter of complaint that they will not apply themselves to
labour for their higher comforts and more refined luxuries, of which
they cannot know the value!"

The systematic degradation here referred to is probably quite true as
regards the British Islands, where 660,000 were all that remained of
almost two millions that had been imported; but it is quite a mistake
to suppose it so in regard to this country, in which there are now
found ten persons for every one ever imported, and all advancing by
gradual steps toward civilization and freedom; and yet were the
reviewer discoursing of the conduct of the Spanish settlers of
Hispaniola, he could scarcely speak more disparagingly of them than he
does in regard to a people that alone has so treated the negro race as
to enable it to increase in numbers, and improve in its physical,
moral, and intellectual condition. Had he been more fully informed in
relation to the proceedings in the British colonies, and in these
colonies and states, he could scarcely have ventured to assert that
"the responsibility of having degraded the African race rests upon the
American people,"--the only people among whom they have been improved.
Nevertheless, it is right and proper to give due weight to all
opinions in regard to the existence of an evil, and to all
recommendations in regard to the mode of removal, let them come from
what source they may; and the writer of the article from which this
passage is taken is certainly animated by a somewhat more liberal and
catholic spirit than is found animating many of his countrymen.

That the English system in regard to the emancipation of the negro has
proved a failure is now admitted even by those who most warmly
advocated the measures that have been pursued. "There are many," says
the London _Times_, "who think that, with proper regulations, and
particularly with a system for the self-enfranchisement of slaves, we
might have brought about the entire emancipation of the British West
Indies, with much less injury to the property of the planter and to
the character of the negro than have resulted from the Abolition Act.
Perhaps," it continues, "the warning will not be lost on the
Americans, who may see the necessity of putting things in train for
the ultimate abolition of slavery, and thereby save the sudden shock
which the abolitionists may one day bring on all the institutions of
the Union and the whole fabric of American society."

The Falmouth [Jamaica] _Post_, of December 12, 1852, informs us that,
even now, "in every parish of the island preparations are being made
for the abandonment of properties that were once valuable, but on
which cultivation can no longer be continued." "In Trelawny," it
continues, "many estates have been thrown up during the last two
years, and the exportation to the United States of America, within a
few months, of upward of 80,000 tons of copper, which was used for the
manufacture of sugar and rum, is one of the 'signs of the times,' to
which the attention of the legislature should be seriously directed,
in providing for the future maintenance of our various institutions,
both public and parochial. Unless the salaries of all official
characters are reduced, it will be utterly impossible to carry on the
government of the colony."

Eighty thousand tons of machinery heretofore used in aid of labour, or
nearly one ton for every four persons on the island, exported within a
few months! The _Bande Noire_ of France pulled down dwelling-houses
and sold the materials, but as they left the machinery used by the
labourers, their operations were less injurious than have been those
of the negroes of Jamaica, the demand for whose labour must diminish
with every step in the progress of the abandonment of land and the
destruction of machinery. Under such circumstances we can feel little
surprise at learning that every thing tends towards barbarism; nor is
it extraordinary that a writer already quoted, and who is not to be
suspected of any pro-slavery tendencies, puts the question, "Is it
enough that they [the Americans] simply loose their chain and turn
them adrift lower," as he is pleased to say, "than they found
them?"[21] It is not enough. They need to be prepared for freedom.
"Immediate emancipation," as he says, "solves only the simplest forms
of the problem."

The land-owner has been ruined and the labourer is fast relapsing into
barbarism, and yet in face of this fact the land-owners of the
Southern States are branded throughout the world as "tyrants" and
"slave-breeders," because they will not follow in the same direction.
It is in face of this great fact that the people of the North are
invited to join in a crusade against their brethren of the South
because they still continue to hold slaves, and that the men of the
South are themselves so frequently urged to assent to immediate and
unconditional emancipation.

In all this there may be much philanthropy, but there is certainly
much error,--and with a view to determine where it lies, as well as to
show what is the true road to emancipation, it is proposed to inquire
what has been, in the various countries of the world, the course by
which men have passed from poverty to wealth, from ignorance and
barbarism to civilization, and from slavery to freedom. That done, we
may next inquire for the causes now operating to prevent the
emancipation of the negro of America and the occupant of "the
sweater's den" in London; and if they can once be ascertained, it will
be then easy to determine what are the measures needful to be adopted
with a view to the establishment of freedom throughout the world.




CHAPTER V.

HOW MAN PASSES FROM POVERTY AND SLAVERY TOWARD WEALTH AND FREEDOM.


The first poor cultivator is surrounded by land unoccupied. _The more
of it at his command the poorer he is._ Compelled to work alone, he is
a slave to his necessities, and he can neither roll nor raise a log
with which to build himself a house. He makes himself a hole in the
ground, which serves in place of one. He cultivates the poor soil of
the hills to obtain a little corn, with which to eke out the supply of
food derived from snaring the game in his neighbourhood. His winter's
supply is deposited in another hole, liable to injury from the water
which filters through the light soil into which alone he can
penetrate. He is in hourly danger of starvation. At length, however,
his sons grow up. They combine their exertions with his, and now
obtain something like an axe and a spade. They can sink deeper into
the soil; and can cut logs, and build something like a house. They
obtain more corn and more game, and they can preserve it better. The
danger of starvation is diminished. Being no longer forced to depend
for fuel upon the decayed wood which was all their father could
command, they are in less danger of perishing from cold in the
elevated ground which, from necessity, they occupy. With the growth of
the family new soils are cultivated, each in succession yielding a
larger return to labour, and they obtain a constantly increasing
supply of the necessaries of life from a surface diminishing in its
ratio to the number to be fed; and thus with every increase in the
return to labour the power of combining their exertions is increased.

If we look now to the solitary settler of the West, even where
provided with both axe and spade, we shall see him obtaining, with
extreme difficulty, the commonest log hut. A neighbour arrives, and
their combined efforts produce a new house with less than half the
labour required for the first. That neighbour brings a horse, and he
makes something like a cart. The product of their labour is now ten
times greater than was that of the first man working by himself. More
neighbours come, and new houses are needed. A "bee" is made, and by
the combined effort of the neighbourhood the third house is completed
in a day; whereas the first cost months, and the second weeks, of far
more severe exertion. These new neighbours have brought ploughs and
horses, and now better soils are cultivated, and the product of labour
is again increased, as is the power to preserve the surplus for
winter's use. The path becomes a road. Exchanges increase. The store
makes its appearance. Labour is rewarded by larger returns, because
aided by better machinery applied to better soils. The town grows up.
Each successive addition to the population brings a consumer and a
producer. The shoemaker desires leather and corn in exchange for his
shoes. The blacksmith requires fuel and food, and the farmer wants
shoes for his horses; and with the increasing facility of exchange
more labour is applied to production, and the reward of labour rises,
producing new desires, and requiring more and larger exchanges. The
road becomes a turnpike, and the wagon and horses are seen upon it.
The town becomes a city, and better soils are cultivated for the
supply of its markets, while the railroad facilitates exchanges with
towns and cities yet more distant. The tendency to union and to
combination of exertion thus grows with the growth of wealth. In a
state of extreme poverty it cannot be developed. The insignificant
tribe of savages that starves on the product of the superficial soil
of hundreds of thousands of acres of land, looks with jealous eye on
every intruder, knowing that each new mouth requiring to be fed tends
to increase the difficulty of obtaining subsistence; whereas the
farmer rejoices in the arrival of the blacksmith and the shoemaker,
because they come to eat on the spot the corn which heretofore he has
carried ten, twenty, or thirty miles to market, to exchange for shoes
for himself and his horses. With each new consumer of his products
that arrives he is enabled more and more to concentrate his action and
his thoughts upon his home, while each new arrival tends to increase
his _power_ of consuming commodities brought from a distance, because
it tends to diminish his _necessity_ for seeking at a distance a
market for the produce of his farm. Give to the poor tribe spades, and
the knowledge how to use them, and the power of association will
begin. The supply of food becoming more abundant, they hail the
arrival of the stranger who brings them knives and clothing to be
exchanged for skins and corn; wealth grows, and the habit of
association--the first step toward civilization--arises.

The little tribe is, however, compelled to occupy the higher lands.
The lower ones are a mass of dense forests and dreary swamps, while at
the foot of the hill runs a river, fordable but for a certain period
of the year. On the hillside, distant a few miles, is another tribe;
but communication between them is difficult, because, the river bottom
being yet uncleared, roads cannot be made, and bridges are as yet
unthought of. Population and wealth, however, continue to increase,
and the lower lands come gradually into cultivation, yielding larger
returns to labour, and enabling the tribe to obtain larger supplies of
food with less exertion, and to spare labour to be employed for other
purposes. Roads are made in the direction of the river bank.
Population increases more rapidly because of the increased supplies of
food and the increased power of preserving it, and wealth grows still
more rapidly. The river bank at length is reached, and some of the
best lands are now cleared. Population grows again, and a new element
of wealth is seen in the form of a bridge; and now the two little
communities are enabled to communicate more freely with each other.
One rejoices in the possession of a wheelwright, while the other has a
windmill. One wants carts, and the other has corn to grind. One has
cloth to spare, while the other has more leather than is needed for
its purpose. Exchanges increase, and the little town grows because of
the increased amount of trade. Wealth grows still more rapidly,
because of new modes of combining labour, by which that of all is
rendered more productive. Roads are now made in the direction of other
communities, and the work is performed rapidly, because the exertions
of the two are now combined, and because the machinery used is more
efficient. One after another disappear forests and swamps that have
occupied the fertile lands, separating ten, twenty, fifty, or five
hundred communities, which now are brought into connection with each
other; and with each step labour becomes more and more productive, and
is rewarded with better food, clothing, and shelter. Famine and
disease disappear, life is prolonged, population is increased, and
therewith the tendency to that combination of exertion among the
individuals composing these communities, which is the distinguishing
characteristic of civilization in all nations and in all periods of
the world. With further increase of population and wealth, the desires
of man, and his ability to gratify them, both increase. The nation,
thus formed, has more corn than it needs; but it has no cotton, and
its supply of wool is insufficient. The neighbouring nation has cotton
and wool, and needs corn. They are still divided, however, by broad
forests, deep swamps, and rapid rivers. Population increases, and the
great forests and swamps disappear, giving place to rich farms,
through which broad roads are made, with immense bridges, enabling the
merchant to transport his wool and his cotton to exchange with his
now-rich neighbours for their surplus corn or sugar. Nations now
combine their exertions, and wealth grows with still increased
rapidity, facilitating the drainage of marshes, and thus bringing into
activity the richest soils; while coal-mines cheaply furnish the fuel
for converting limestone into lime, and iron ore into axes and spades,
and into rails for the new roads needed for transporting to market the
vast products of the fertile soils now in use, and to bring back the
large supplies of sugar, tea, coffee, and the thousand other products
of distant lands with which intercourse now exists. At each step
population and wealth and happiness and prosperity take a new bound;
and men realize with difficulty the fact that the country, which now
affords to tens of millions all the necessaries, comforts,
conveniences, and luxuries of life, is the same that, when the
superabundant land was occupied by tens of thousands only, gave to
that limited number scanty supplies of the worst food; so scanty that
famines were frequent and sometimes so severe that starvation was
followed in its wake by pestilence, which, at brief intervals, swept
from the earth the population of the little and scattered settlements,
among which the people were forced to divide themselves when they
cultivated only the poor soils of the hills.

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