Anthony Trollope - The West Indies and the Spanish Main (Chap. 6) Jamaica - White Men lyrics

Chapter VI Jamaica - White Men It seems to us natural that white men should hold ascendency over those who are black or coloured. Although we have emancipated our own slaves, and done so much to abolish slavery elsewhere, nevertheless we regard the negro as bom to be a servant We do not realize it to ourselves that it is his right to share with us the high places of the world, and that it should be an affitir of individual merit whether we wait on his beck or he on ours. We have never yet brought ourselves so to think, and probably never shall. They still are to us a servile race. Philanthropical abolitionists will no doubt deny the truth of this ; but I have no doubt that the conviction is strong with them — could they an*lyase their own convictions — as it is with others. Where white men and black men are together, the white will order and the black will obey, with an obedience more or less implicit according to the terms on which they stand. When those terms are slavery, the white men order with austerity, and the black obey with alacrity. But such terms have been found to be prejudicial to both. Each is brutalized by the contact. The black man becomes brutal and pa**ive as a beast of burden ; the white man becomes brutal and ferocious as a beast of prey. But there are various other terms on which they may stand as servants and masters. There are those well-understood terms which regulate employment in England and elsewhere, under which the poor man's time is his money, and the rich man's capital his certain means of obtaining labour. As far as we can see, these terms, if properly carried out, are the best which human wisdom can devise for the employment and maintenance of man-kind. Here in England they are not always properly carried out at an occasional spot or two things will run rusty for a while. There are strikes, and there are occasional gluts of labour, very distressing to the poor man ; and occasional gluts of the thing laboured, very embarra**ing to the rich man. But on the whole, seeing that after all the arrangement is only human, here in England it does work pretty well. We intended, no doubt, when we emancipated our slaves in Jamaica, that the affair should work in the same way there. But the terms there at present are as far removed from the English system as they are from the Cuban, and are almost as abhorrent to justice as slavery itself — as abhorrent to justice, though certainly not so abhorrent to mercy and humanity. What would a farmer say in England if his ploughman declined to work, and protested that he preferred going to his master's granary and feeding himself and his children on his master's corn ? "Measter, noa ; I beez a-tired thick day, and dunna mind to do no wark !" Then the poorhouse, my friend, the poorhouse I And hardly that ; starvation first, and nakedness, and all manner of misery. In point of fact, our friend the ploughman must go and work, even though his o'erlaboured bones be tired, as no doubt they often are. He knows it, and does it, and in his way is not discontented. And is not this God's ordinance ? His ordinance in England and elsewhere, but not so, apparently, in Jamaica. There we had a devil's ordinance in those days of slavery ; and having rid ourselves of that, we have still a devil's ordinance of another sort. It is not perhaps very easy for men to change devil's work into heavenly work at once. The ordinance that at present we have existing there is that far niente one of lying in the sun and eating yams — " of eating, not your own yams, you lazy, do-nothing, thieving darkee; but my yams; mine, who am being ruined, root and branch, stock and barrel, house and homestead, wife and bairns, because you won't come and work for me when I offer you due wages ; you thieving, do-nothing, lazy n******g." "Hush !" will say my angry philanthropist " For the sake of humanity, hush ! Will coarse abuse and the calling of names avail anything ? Is he not a man and a brother?" No, my angry philanthropist; while he will not work and will only steal, he is neither the one nor the other, in my estimation. As for his being a brother, that we may say is — 'fudge ; and I will call no professional idler a man.' But the abuse above given is not intended to be looked on as coming out of my own mouth, and I am not, therefore, to be held responsible for the wording of it. It is inserted there — 'with small inverted commas, as you see — to show the language with which our angry white friends in Jamaica speak of the extraordinary condition in which they have found themselves placed. Slowly — with delay that has been awfully ruinous — they now bethink themselves of immigration — immigration from the coast of Africa, immigration from China, Coolie immigrants from Hindostan. When Trinidad and Guiana have helped themselves, then Jamaica bestirs itself. And what then? Then the negroes bestir themselves. "For heaven's sake let us be looked to ! Are we not to be protected from competition ? If labourers be brought here, will not these white people again cultivate their grounds ? Shall we not be driven from our squatting patches ? Shall we not starve ; or, almost worse than that, shall we not again fall under Adam's curse ? Shall we not again be slaves, in reality, if not in name ? Shall we not have to work ?" The negro's idea of emancipation was and is emancipation not from slavery but from work. To lie in the sun and eat breadfruit and yams is his idea of being free. Such freedom as that has not been intended for man in this world ; and I say that Jamaica, as it now exists, is still under a devil's ordinance. One cannot wonder that the white man here should be vituperative in his wrath. First came emancipation. He bore that with manfril courage; for it must be remembered that even in that he had much to bear. The price he got for his slave was nothing as compared with that slave's actual value. And slavery to him was not repugnant as it is to you and me. One's trade is never repugnant to one's feelings. But so much he did bear with manly courage. He could no longer make slave-grown sugar, but he would not at any rate be compelled to compete with those who could. The protective duties would save him there. Then free trade became the fashion, and protective duties on sugar were abolished. I beg it may not be thought that I am an advocate for such protection. The West Indians were, I think, thrown over in a scurvy manner, because they were thrown over by their professed friends. But that was, we all know, the way with Sir Robert Peel. Well, free trade in sugar became the law of the land, and then the Jamaica planter found the burden too heavy for his back. The money which had flown in so freely came in such small driblets that he could make no improvement. Portions of his estate went out of cultivation, and then the negro who should have tilled the remainder squatted on it, and said, "No, ma**a, me no workee to-day." And now, to complete the business, now that Jamaica is at length looking in earnest for immigration — for it has long been looking for immigration with listless dis-earnest— the planter is told that the labour of the black man must be protected. If he be vituperative, who can wonder at it ? To speak the truth, he is somewhat vituperative. The white planter of Jamaica is sore and vituperative and unconvinced. He feels that he has been ill used, and forced to go to the wall ; and that now he is there, he is meanly spoken o^ as though he were a bore and a nuisance — as one of whom the Colonial Office would gladly rid itself if it knew how. In his heart of hearts there dwells a feeling that after all slavery was not so vile an institution — ^that that devil as well as some others has been painted too black. In those old days the work was done, the sugar was made, the workmen were com- fortably housed and fed, and perhaps on his &ther*s estate were kindly treated. At any rate, such is his present memory. The money came in, things went on pleasantly, and he cannot remember that anybody was unhappy. But now — ! Can it be wondered at that in his heart of hearts he should still have a sort of yearn- ing after slavery ? In one sense, at any rate, he has been ill used. The turn in the wheel of Fortune has gone against him, as it went against the hand-loom weavers when machinery became the fashion. Circumstances rather than his own fault have brought him low. Well-disciplined energy in all the periods of his adversity might perhaps have saved him, as it has saved others ; but there has been more against him than against others. As regards him himself, the old-fashioned Jamaica planter, the pure blooded white owner of the soil, I think that his day in Jamaica is done. The glory, I fear, has departed from his house. The hand-loom weavers have been swept into infinite space, and their children now poke the engine fires, or piece threads standing in a factory. The children of the old Jamaica planter must also push their fortunes elsewhere. It is a thousand pities, for he was, I may still say is, the prince of planters — the true aristocrat of the West Indies. He is essentially different as a man from the somewhat purse-proud Barbadian, whose estate of two hundred acres has perhaps changed hands half a dozen times in the last fifly years, or the thoroughly mercantile sugar manufacturer of Guiana. He has so many of the characteristics of an English country gentleman that he does not strike an Englishman as a strange being. He has his pedigree, and his family house, and his domain around him. He shoots and fishes, and some few years since, in the good days, he even kept a pack of hounds. He is in the commission of the peace, and as such has much to do. A planter in Demerara may also be a magistrate, — probably is so ; but the fact does not come forward as a prominent part of his life's history. In Jamaica too there is scope for a country gentle- man. They have their counties and their parishes ; in Barbados they have nothing but their sugar estates. They have county society, local balls, and local race- meetings. They have local politics, local quarrels, and strong old-fashioned local friendships. In all these things one feels oneself to be much nearer to England in Jamaica than in any other of the West Indian islands. All this is beyond measure pleasant, and it is a thousand pities that it should not last I fear, however, that it will not last — that, indeed, it is not now lasting. That dear lady's unwillingness to obey her lord's behests, when he asked her to call on her brown neighbour, nay, the very fact of that lord's request, both go to prove that this is so. The lady felt that her neighbour was cutting the very ground from under her feet. The lord knew ^^ that old times were changed, old manners gone." The game was almost up when he found himself compelled to make such a request At present, when the old planter sits on the magisterial bench, a coloured man sits beside him ; one probably on each side of him. At road sessions he cannot carry out his little project because the coloured men out-vote him. There is a vacancy for his parish in the House of Assem- bly. The old planter scorns the House of Assembly, and will have nothing to do with it. A coloured man is therefore chosen, and votes away the white man's taxes ; and then things worse and worse arise. Not only coloured men get into office, but black men also. What is our old aristocratic planter to do with a negro churchwarden on one side, and a negro coroner on another ? ^^ Fancy what our state is," a young planter said to me ; ^^ I dare not die, for fear I should be sat upon by a black man I" I know that it will be thought by many, and probably said by some, that these are distinctions to which we ought not to allude. But without alluding to them in one's own mind it is impossible to understand the state of the country ; and without alluding to them in speech it is impossible to explain the state of the country. The fact is, that in Jamaica, at the present day, the coloured people do stand on strong ground, and that they do not so stand with the goodwill of the old aristocracy of the country. They have forced their way up, and now loudly protest that they intend to keep it. I think that they will keep it, and that on the whole it will be well for us Anglo-Saxons to have created a race capable of living and working in the climate without inconvenience. It is singular, however, how little all this is under- stood in England. There it is conceived that white men and coloured men, white ladies and coloured ladies, meet together and amalgamate without any difference. The Duchess of This and Lord That are very happy to have at their tables some intelligent dark gentleman, or even a well-dressed negro, though he may not perhaps be very intelligent. There is some little excitement in it, some change from the common; and perhaps also an easy opportunity of practising on a small scale those philan- thropic views which they preach with so much eloquence. When one hobnobs over a gla** of champagne with a dark gentleman, he is in some sort a man and a brother. But the duchess and the lord think that because the dark gentleman is to their taste, he must necessarily be as much to the taste of the neighbours among whom he has been bom and bred ; of those who have been accus- tomed to see him from his childhood. There never was a greater mistake. A coloured man may be a fine prophet in London ; but he will be no prophet in Jamaica, which is his own country ; no pro- phet at any rate among his white neighbours. I knew a case in which a very intelligent — nay, I believe, a highly-educated young coloured gentleman, was sent out by certain excellent philanthropic big-wigs to fill an oflScial situation in Jamaica. He was a stranger to Jamaica, never having been there before. Now, when he was so sent out, the home big-wigs alluded to, intimated to certain other big-wigs in Jamaica that their dark protege would be a great acquisition to the society of the place. I mention this to show the ignorance of those London big-wigs^ not as to the capability of the young gentleman, which probably was not over-rated, but as to the manners and life of the place. I imagine that the gentleman has hardly once found himself in that society which it was supposed he would adorn. The time, however, will probably come when he and others of the same cla** will have sufficient society of their own. I have said elsewhere that the coloured people in Ja- maica have made their way into society ; and in what I now say I may seem to contradict myself. Into what may perhaps be termed public society they have made their way. Those who have seen the details of colonial life will know that there is a public society to which people are admitted or not admitted, according to their acknowledged rights. Governor's parties, public balls, and certain meetings which are semi-official and semi-social, are of this nature. A Governor in Jamaica would, I imagine, not conceive himself to have the power of ex- cluding coloured people from his table, even if he wished it. But in Barbados I doubt whether a Governor could, if he wished it, do the reverse. So far coloured people in Jamaica have made their footing good ; and they are gradually advancing beyond this. But not the less as a rule are they disliked by the old white aristocracy of the country ; in a strong degree by the planters themselves, but in a much stronger by the planters' wives. So much for my theory as to the races of men in Jamaica, and as to the social condition of the white and coloured people with reference to each other. Now I would say a word or two respecting the white man as he himself is, without reference either to his neighbour or to his prospects. A better fellow cannot be found anywhere than a gentleman of Jamaica, or one with whom it is easier to live on pleasant terms. He is generally hospitable, af* fable, and generous ; easy to know, and pleasant when known ; not given perhaps to much deep erudition, but capable of talking with ease on most subjects of conver- sation ; fond of society, and of pleasure, if you choose to call it so ; but not generally addicted to low pleasures. He is often witty, and has a sharp side to his tongue if occasion be given him to use it. He is not generally, I think, a hard-working man. Had he been so, the coun- try perhaps would not have been in its present condition. But he is bright and clever, and in spite of all that he has gone through, he is at all times good-humoured. No men are fonder of the country to which they belong, or prouder of the name of Great Britain than these Ja- maicans. It has been our policy — and, as regards our larger colonies, the policy I have no doubt has been beneficial — to leave our dependencies very much to them- selves ; to interfere in the way of governing as little as might be ; and to withdraw as much as possible from any participation in their internal concerns. This policy is anything but popular with the white aristocracy of Jamaica. They would fain, if it were possible, dispense altogether with their legislature, and be governed alto- gether from home. In spite of what they have suffered, they are still willing to trust the statesmen of England, but are most unwilling to trust the statesmen of Jamaica. Nothing is more peculiar than the way in which the word ^ home " is used in Jamaica, and indeed all through the West Indies, With the white people, it always signifies England, even though the person using the word has never been there, I could never trace the use of the word in Jamaica as applied by white men or white women to the home in which they lived, not even though that home had been the dwelling of their fathers as well as of themselves. The word *' home" with them is sacred, and means something holier than a habitation in the tropics. It refers always to the old country. In this respect, as in so many others, an Englishman differs greatly from a Frenchman. Though our English, as a rule, are much more given to colonize than they are; though we spread ourselves over the face of the globe, while they have established comparatively but few settlements in the outer world ; nevertheless, when we leave our country, we almost always do so with some idea, be It ever so vague, that we shall return to it again, and again make it our home. But the Frenchman divests himself of any such idea. He also loves France, or at any rate loves Paris ; but his object is to carry his Paris with him ; to make a Paris for himself, whether it be in a sugar island among the Antilles, or in a trading town upon the Levant And in some respects the Frenchman is the wiser man. He never looks behind him with regret. He does his best to make his new house comfortable. The spot on which he fixes is his home, and so he calls it, and so regards it But with an Englishman in the West Indies — even with an English Creole — England is always his home. If the people in Jamaica have any prejudice, it is on the subject of heat I suppose they have a general idea that their island is hotter than England ; but they never reduce this to an individual idea respecting their own habitation. " Come and dine with me/' a man says to you ;" I can give you a cool bed/' The invitation at first sounded strange to me, but I soon got used to it ; I soon even liked it, though I found too often that the promise was not kept How could it be kept while the quicksilver was standing at eighty-five in the shade ? And each man boasts that his house is ten degrees cooler than that of his neighbours ; and each man^ if you contest the point, has a reason to prove why it must be so. But a stranger, at any rate round Kingston, is apt to put the matter in a different light. One place may be hotter than another, but cool is a word which he never uses. On the whole, I think that the heat of Kingston, Jamaica, is more oppressive than that of any other place among the British West Indies. When one gets down to the Spanish coast, then, indeed, one can look back even to Kingston with regret.