Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves - Thomas Clarkson
But I discover other ways in which Mr. Steele was benefited, as I
advance in the perusal of his writings. It was impossible to overlook
the following passage: "Now," says he (alluding to his new system),
"every species of provisions raised on the plantations, or bought from
the merchants, is charged at the market-price to the copyhold-store, and
discharged by what has been paid on the several accounts of every
individual bond-slave; whereas for all those species heretofore, I never
saw in any plantation-book of my estates any account of what became of
them, or how they were disposed of, nor of their value, other than in
these concise words, _they were given in allowance to the Negroes and
stock_. Every year, for six years past, this great plantation has
bought several hundred bushels of corn, and was scanty in all
ground-provisions, our produce always falling short. This year, 1790,
_since the establishment of copyholders, though several less acres were
planted_ last year in Guinea corn than usual, yet we have been able to
sell _several hundred bushels_ at a high price, and _we have still a
great stock in hand_. I can place this saving to no other account, than
that there is now an exact account kept by all produce being paid as
cash to the bond-slaves; and also as all our watchmen are obliged to pay
for all losses that happen on their watch, they have found it their
interest to look well to their charge; and consequently that we have
had much less stolen from us than before this new government took
place."
Here then we have seen _another considerable source of saving_ to Mr.
Steele, viz. that _he was not obliged to purchase any corn for his
slaves as formerly_. My readers will be able to judge better of this
saving, when I inform them of what has been the wretched policy of many
of our planters in this department of their concerns. Look over their
farming memoranda, and you will see _sugar, sugar, sugar_, in every
page; but you may turn over leaf after leaf, before you will find the
words _provision ground_ for their slaves. By means of this wretched
policy, slaves have often suffered most grievously. Some of them have
been half-starved. Starvation, too, has brought on disorders which have
ultimately terminated in their death. Hence their masters have suffered
losses, besides the expense incurred in buying what they ought to have
raised upon their own estates, and this perhaps at a dear market: and in
this wretched predicament Mr. Steele appears to have been himself when
he first went to the estate. His slaves, he tells us, had been reduced
in number by bad management. Even for six years afterwards he had been
obliged to buy several hundred bushels of corn; but in the year 1790 he
had sold several hundred bushels at a high price, and had still a great
stock on hand. And to what was all this owing? Not to an exact account
kept at the store (for some may have so misunderstood Mr. Steele); for
how could an exact account kept there, have occasioned an increase in
the produce of the earth? but, as Mr. Steele himself says, _to the
establishment of his copyholders_, or to the _alteration of the
condition_ of his slaves. His slaves did not only three times more work
than before, in consequence of the superior industry he had excited
among them, but, by so doing, they were enabled to put the corn into the
earth three times more quickly than before, or they were so much
forwarder in their other work, that they were enabled to sow it at the
critical moment, or so as _to save the season_, and thus secure a full
crop, or a larger crop on a less number of acres, than was before raised
upon a greater. The copyholders, therefore, were the persons who
increased the produce of the earth; but the exact account kept at the
store prevented the produce from being misapplied as formerly. It could
no longer be put down in the general expression of "given in allowances
to the Negroes and the stock;" but it was put down to the copyholder,
and to him only, who received it. Thus Mr. Steele saved the purchase of
a great part of the provisions for his slaves. He had formerly a great
deal to buy for them, but now nothing. On the other hand, he had to
sell; but, as his slaves were made, according to the new system, to
_maintain themselves_, he had now _the whole produce of his estate to_
_dispose of_. The circumstance therefore of having nothing to buy, but
every thing to sell, constituted another source of his profits.
What the other particular profits of Mr. Steele were I can no where
find, neither can I find what were his particular expenses; so as to be
enabled to strike the balance in his favour. Happily, however, Mr.
Steele has done this for us himself, though he has not furnished us with
the items on either side.--He says that "from the year 1773 to 1779 (he
arrived in Barbadoes in 1780), his stock had been so much reduced by ill
management and wasteful economy, that the annual average neat clearance
was little more than _one and a quarter_ per cent. on the purchase. In a
second period of four years, in consequence of the exertion of an honest
and able manager, (though with a further reduction of the stock, and
including the loss from the great hurricane,) the annual average income
was brought to clear _a little above two_ per cent.; but in a third
period of three years from 1784 to 1786 inclusive, _since the new mode
of governing the Negroes_, (besides increasing the stock, and laying out
large sums annually in adding necessary works, and in repairs of the
damages by the great hurricane,) the estate has cleared very nearly
_four and a quarter_ per cent.; that is, its annual average clearance in
each of these three periods, was in this proportion; for every 100 l.
annually cleared in the first period the annual average clearance in the
second period was 158 l. 10s., and in the third period was 345 l.
6s. 8d." This is the statement given by Mr. Steele, and a most
important one it is; for if we compare what the estate had cleared in
the first, with what it had cleared in the last of these periods, and
have recourse to figures, we shall find that Mr. Steele had _more than
tripled_ the income of it, in consequence of _his new management_,
during his residence in Barbadoes. And this is in fact what he says
himself in words at full length, in his answer to the 17th question
proposed to him by the committee of the Privy-council on the affairs of
the slave trade. "In a plantation," says he, "of 200 slaves in June
1780, consisting of 90 men, 82 women, 56 boys, and 60 girls, though
under the exertions of an able and honest manager, there were only 15
births, and no less than 57 deaths, in three years and three months. An
alteration was made in the mode of governing the slaves. The whips were
taken from all the white servants. All arbitrary punishments were
abolished, and all offences were tried and sentence passed by a Negro
court. In four years and three months after this change of government,
there were 44 births, and only 41 deaths, of which ten deaths were of
superannuated men and women, some above 80 years old. But in the same
interval the annual neat clearance of the estate was _above three times
more than it had been for ten years before!!!_"
Dr. Dickson, the editor of Mr. Steele, mentions these profits also, and
in the same terms, and connects them with an eulogium on Mr. Steele,
which is worthy of our attention. "Mr. Steele," says he, "saw that the
Negroes, like all other human beings, were to be stimulated to permanent
exertion only by a sense of their own interests in providing for their
own wants and those of their offspring. He therefore tried _rewards_,
which immediately roused the most indolent to exertion. His experiments
ended in _regular wages_, which the industry he had excited among his
whole gang enabled him to pay. Here was a natural, efficient, and
profitable reciprocity of interests. His people became contented; his
mind was freed from that perpetual vexation and that load of anxiety,
which are inseparable from the vulgar system, and in little more than
four years the annual neat clearance of his property _was more than
tripled_." Again, in another part of the work, "Mr. Steele's plan may no
doubt receive some improvements, which his great age obliged him to
decline"--"but it is perfect, as far as it goes. _To advance above 300
field-negroes, who had never before moved without the whip, to a state
nearly resembling that of contented, honest and industrious servants,
and, after paying for their labour, to triple in a few years the annual
neat clearance of the estate_,--these, I say, were great achievements
for an aged man in an untried field of improvement, pre-occupied by
inveterate vulgar prejudice. He has indeed accomplished all that was
really doubtful or difficult in the undertaking, and perhaps all that is
at present desirable either for owner or slave; for he has ascertained
as a fact, what was before only known to the learned as a theory, and to
practical men as a paradox, that _the paying of slaves for their labour
does actually produce a very great profit to their owners_."
I have now proved (_as far as the plan[15] of Mr. Steele is concerned_)
my third proposition, or _the probability that emancipation would
promote the interests of those who should adopt it_; but as I know of no
other estate similarly circumstanced with that of Mr. Steele, that is,
where emancipation has been tried, and where a detailed result of it has
been made known, I cannot confirm it by other similar examples. I must
have recourse therefore to some new species of proof. Now it is an old
maxim, as old as the days of Pliny and Columella, and confirmed by Dr.
Adam Smith, and all the modern writers on political economy, that _the
labour of free men is cheaper than the labour of slaves_. If therefore I
should be able to show that this maxim would be true, if applied to all
the operations and demands of West Indian agriculture, I should be able
to establish my proposition on a new ground: for it requires no great
acuteness to infer, that, if it be cheaper to employ free men than
slaves in the cultivation of our islands, emancipation would be a
profitable undertaking there.
I shall show, then, that the old maxim just mentioned is true, when
applied to the case in our own islands, first, by establishing the fact,
that _free men_, people of colour, in the East Indies, are employed in
_precisely the same concerns_ (the cultivation of the cane and the
making of sugar) as the slaves in the West, and that they are employed
_at a cheaper rate_. The testimony of Henry Botham, Esq. will be quite
sufficient for this point. That gentleman resided for some time in the
East Indies, where he became acquainted with the business of a sugar
estate. In the year 1770 he quitted the East for the West. His object
was to settle in the latter part of the world, if it should be found
desirable so to do. For this purpose he visited all the West Indian
islands, both English and French, in about two years. He became during
this time a planter, though he did not continue long in this situation;
and he superintended also Messrs. Bosanquets' and J. Fatio's
sugar-plantation in their partners' absence. Finding at length the
unprofitable way in which the West Indian planters conducted their
concerns, he returned to the East Indies in 1776, and established
sugar-works at Bencoolen on his own account. Being in London in the year
1789, when a committee of privy council was sitting to examine into the
question of the slave trade, he delivered a paper to the board on the
mode of cultivating a sugar plantation in the East Indies; and this
paper being thought of great importance, he was summoned afterwards in
1791 by a committee of the House of Commons to be examined personally
upon it.
It is very remarkable that the very first sentence in this paper
announced the fact at once, that "sugar, better and _cheaper_ than that
in the West Indian islands, was produced _by free men_."
Mr. Botham then explained the simple process of making sugar in the
East. "A proprietor, generally a Dutchman, used to let his estate, say
300 acres or more, with proper buildings upon it, to a Chinese, who
lived upon it and superintended it, and who re-let it to free men in
parcels of 50 or 60 acres on condition that they should plant it in
canes for so much for every pecul, 133 lbs., of sugar produced. This
superintendant hired people from the adjacent villages to take off his
crop. One lot of task-men with their carts and buffaloes cut the canes,
carried them to the mill, and ground them. A second set boiled them, and
a third clayed and basketed them for market at so much per pecul. Thus
the renter knew with certainty what every pecul would cost him, and he
incurred no unnecessary expense; for, when the crop was over, the
task-men returned home. By dividing the labour in this manner, it was
better and cheaper done."
Mr. Botham detailed next the improved method of making sugar in Batavia,
which we have not room to insert here. We may just state, however, that
the persons concerned in it never made spirits on the sugar estates. The
molasses and skimmings were sent for, sale to Batavia, where one
distillery might buy the produce of a hundred estates. Here, again, was
a vast saving, says Mr. Botham, "there was not, as in the West Indies, a
_distillery_ for _each estate_."
He then proceeded to make a comparison between the agricultural system
of the two countries. "The cane was cultivated _to the utmost
perfection_ in Batavia, whereas the culture of it in the West Indies was
but _in its infancy. The hoe was scarcely used_ in the East, whereas it
was almost _the sole implement_ in the West. The _plough was used
instead of it in the East_, as far as it could be done. Young canes
there were kept also often ploughed as a weeding, and the hoe was kept
to weed round the plant when very young; but of this there was little
need, if the land had been sufficiently ploughed. When the cane was
ready to be earthed up, it was done by a _sort of shovel_ made for the
purpose. _Two persons_ with this instrument would earth up more canes in
a day than _ten Negroes_ with hoes. The cane-roots were also _ploughed
up_ in the East, whereas they were _dug up with the severest exertion_
in the West. Many alterations," says Mr. Botham, "are to be made, and
expenses and human labour lessened in the West. _Having experienced the
difference of labourers for profit and labourers from force_, I can
assert, that _the savings by the former are very considerable_."
He then pointed out other defects in the West Indian management, and
their remedies. "I am of opinion," says he, "that the West Indian
planter should for his own interest give more labour to beast and less
to man. A larger portion of his estate ought to be in pasture. When
practicable, canes should be carried to the mill, and cane tops and
grass to the stock, in waggons. The custom of making a hard-worked Negro
get a bundle of grass twice a day should be abolished, and in short a
_total change take place in the miserable management in our West Indian
Islands_. By these means following as near as possible the East Indian
mode, and consolidating the distilleries, I do suppose our sugar-islands
might be better worked than they now are by _two-thirds_ or indeed
_one-half_ of the present force. Let it be considered how much labour is
lost by the persons _overseeing the forced labourer_, which is saved
when he works _for his own profit_. I have stated with the strictest
veracity a plain matter of fact, that sugar estates can _be worked
cheaper by free men than by slaves_[16]."
I shall now show, that the old maxim, which has been mentioned, is true,
when applied to the case of our West Indian islands, by establishing a
fact of a very different kind, viz. that the slaves in the West Indies
do much more work in a given time when _they work for themselves_, than
when _they work for their masters_. But how, it will be said, do you
prove, by establishing this fact, that it would be cheaper for our
planters to employ free men than slaves? I answer thus: I maintain that,
_while the slaves are working for themselves_, they are to be
considered, indeed that they are, _bona fide, free labourers_. In the
first place, they never have a driver with them on any of these
occasions; and, in the second place, _having all their earnings to
themselves_, they have that stimulus within them to excite industry,
which is only known _to free men_. What is it, I ask, which gives birth
to industry in any part of the world, seeing that labour is not
agreeable to man, but the stimulus arising from the hope of gain? What
makes an English labourer do more work in the day than a slave, but the
stimulus arising from the knowledge, that what he earns is _for himself
and not for another_? What, again, makes an English labourer do much
more work _by the piece_ than by _the day_, but the stimulus arising
from the knowledge that he may gain more by the former than by the
latter mode of work? Just so is the West Indian slave situated, when _he
is working for himself_, that is, when he knows _that what he earns is
for his own use_. He has then all the stimulus of a free man, and he is,
therefore, _during such work_ (though unhappily no longer) really, and
in effect, and to all intents and purposes, as much _a free labourer_ as
any person in any part of the globe. But if he be a free man, while he
is working for himself, and if in that capacity he does twice or thrice
more work than when he works for his master, it follows, that it would
be cheaper for his master to employ him as a free labourer, or that the
labour of free men in the West Indies would be cheaper than the labour
of slaves.
That West Indian slaves, when they work for themselves, do much more in
a given time than when they work for their masters, is a fact so
notorious in the West Indies, that no one who has been there would deny
it. Look at Long's History of Jamaica, The Privy Council Report,
Gaisford's Essay on the good Effects of the Abolition of the Slave
Trade, and other books. Let us hear also what Dr. Dickson, the editor
of Mr. Steele, and who resided so many years in Barbadoes, says on this
subject, for what he says is so admirably expressed that I cannot help
quoting it. "The planters," says he, "do not take the right way to make
human beings put forth their strength. They apply main force where they
should apply moral motives, and punishments alone where rewards should
be judiciously intermixed. They first beslave their poor people with
their cursed whip, and then stand and wonder at the tremour of their
nerves, and the laxity of their muscles. And yet, strange to tell,
_those very men affirm, and affirm truly_, that a slave will do more
work for himself _in an afternoon_ than he can be made to do for his
owner _in a whole day or more_!" And did not the whole Assembly of
Grenada, as we collect from the famous speech of Mr. Pitt on the Slave
Trade in 1791, affirm the same thing? "He (Mr. Pitt) would show," he
said, "the futility of the argument of his honourable friend. He (his
honourable friend) had himself admitted, that it was in the power of the
colonies to correct the various abuses by which the Negro population was
restrained. But they could not do this without _improving the condition
of their slaves_, without making them _approximate towards the rank of
citizens_, without giving them _some little interest in their labour_,
which would occasion them to work _with the energy of men_. But now the
Assembly of Grenada had themselves stated, that, _though_ the _Negroes
were allowed the afternoon of only one day in every week, they would do
as much work in that afternoon when employed for their own benefit, as
in the whole day when employed in their masters' service_. Now after
this confession the House might burn all his calculations relative to
the Negro population; for if this population had not quite reached the
desirable state which he had pointed out, this confession had proved
that further supplies were not wanted. A Negro, _if he worked for
himself, could do double work_. By an improvement then in the mode of
labour, the work in the islands could be doubled. But if so, what would
become of the argument of his honourable friend? for then only half the
number of the present labourers were necessary."
But the fact, that the slaves in the West Indies do much more work for
themselves in a given time than when they work for their masters, may be
established almost arithmetically, if we will take the trouble of
calculating from authentic documents which present themselves on the
subject. It is surprising, when we look into the evidence examined by
the House of Commons on the subject of the Slave Trade, to find how
little a West Indian slave really does, when he works for his master;
and this is confessed equally by the witnesses on both sides of the
question. One of them (Mr. Francklyn) says, that a labouring man could
not get his bread in Europe if he worked no harder than a Negro.
Another (Mr. Tobin), that no Negro works like a day-labourer in
England. Another (Sir John Dalling), that the general work of Negroes is
not to be called labour. A fourth (Dr. Jackson), that an English
labourer does three times as much work as a Negro in the West Indies.
Now how are these expressions to be reconciled with the common notions
in England of Negro labour? for "to work like a Negro" is a common
phrase, which is understood to convey the meaning, that the labour of
the Negroes is the most severe and intolerable that is known. One of the
witnesses, however, just mentioned explains the matter. "The hardship,"
says he, "of Negro field-labour is more in the _mode_ than in the
_quantity_ done. The slave, seeing no end of his labour, stands over the
work, and only throws the hoe to avoid the lash. He appears to work
without actually working." The truth is, that a Negro, having no
interest in his work while working for his master, will work only while
the whip is upon him. I can no where make out the clear net annual
earnings of a field Negro on a sugar plantation to come up to 8 l.
sterling. Now what does he earn in the course of a year when he is
working for himself? I dare not repeat what some of the witnesses for
the planters stated to the House of Commons, when representing the
enviable condition of the slaves in the West Indies; for this would be
to make him earn more for himself _in one day_ than for his master _in a
week_. Let us take then the lowest sum mentioned in the Book of
Evidence. This is stated to be 14d. sterling per week; and 14d.
sterling per week would make 3 l. sterling per year. But how many days
in the week does he work when he makes such annual earnings? The most
time, which any of the witnesses gives to a field slave for his own
private concerns, is every Sunday, and also every Saturday afternoon in
the week, besides three holidays in the year. But this is far from being
the general account. Many of them say that he has only Sunday to
himself; and others, that even Sunday is occasionally trespassed upon by
his master. It appears, also, that even where the afternoon is given
him, it is only out of crop-time. Now let us take into the account the
time lost by slaves in going backwards and forwards to their
provision-grounds; for though some of these are described as being only
a stone's throw from their huts, others are described as being one,
and two, and three, and even four miles off; and let us take into the
account also, that Sunday is, by the confession of all, the Negro market
day, on which alone they can dispose of their own produce, and that the
market itself may be from one to ten or fifteen miles from their homes,
and that they who go there cannot be working in their gardens at the
same time, and we shall find that there cannot be on an average more
than a clear three quarters of a day in the week, which they can call
their own, and in which they can work for themselves. But call it a
whole day, if you please, and you will find that the slave does for
himself in this one day more than a third of what he does for his master
in six, or that he works _more than three times harder_ when _he works
for himself_ than when _he works for his master_.
I have now shown, first by the evidence of Mr. Botham, and secondly by
the fact of Negroes earning more in a given time when they work in their
own gardens, than when they work in their master's service, that the old
maxim "of _its being cheaper to employ free men than slaves_," is true,
when applied to the _operations and demands of West Indian agriculture_.
But if it be cheaper to employ free men than slaves in the West Indies,
then they, who should emancipate their Negroes there, would _promote
their interest by so doing_. "But hold!" says an objector, "we allow
that their successors would be benefited, but not the _emancipators
themselves_. These would have a great sacrifice to make. Their slaves
are worth so much money at this moment; but they would lose all this
value, if they were to set them free." I reply, and indeed I have all
along affirmed, that it is not proposed to emancipate the slaves _at
once_, but to prepare them for emancipation _in a course of years_. Mr.
Steele did not make his slaves _entirely free_. They were _copyhold-bond
slaves_. They were still _his freehold property_: and they would, if he
had lived, have continued so for many years. They therefore, who should
emancipate, would lose nothing of the value of their slaves, so long as
they brought them only to the door of liberty, but did not allow them to
pass through it. But suppose they were to allow them to pass through it
and thus admit them to freedom, they would lose nothing by so doing; for
they would not admit them to freedom till _after a certain period of
years, during which_ I contend that the _value of every individual
slave_ would have been _reimbursed_ to them from _the increased income
of their estates_. Mr. Steele, as we have seen, _more than tripled_ the
value of his income during his experiment: I believe that he more than
quadrupled it; for he says, that he more than tripled it _besides
increasing his stock_, and _laying out large sums annually in adding
necessary works_, and _in repairs of the damage by the great hurricane_.
Suppose then a West India estate to yield at this moment a nett income
of 500 l. per annum, this income would be increased, according to Mr.
Steele's experience, to somewhere about 1700 l. per annum. Would not,
then, the surplus beyond the original 500 l., viz. 1200 l. per annum,
be sufficient to reimburse the proprietor in a few years for the value
of every slave which he had when he began his plan of emancipation? But
he would be reimbursed again, that is, (twice over on the whole for
every individual slave,) from a new source, viz. _the improved value of
his land_. It is a fact well known in the United States, that a certain
quantity of land, or farm, in full cultivation by free men, will fetch
twice more money than the same quantity of land, similarly
circumstanced, in full cultivation by slaves. Let us suppose now that
the slaves at present on any West Indian plantation are worth about as
much as the land with the buildings upon it, to which they are attached,
and that the land with the buildings upon it would rise to double its
former value when cultivated by free men, it follows that the land and
buildings alone would be worth as much then, that is, when worked by
free labourers, as the land, buildings, and slaves together are worth at
the present time.