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THE INDUSTRIAL, SOCIAL, AND MORAL CONDITION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THE BRITISH COLONIES, HAYTI, AND IN THE UNITED STATES; AND THE INFLUENCE THEY HAVE EXERTED ON PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN RELATION TO SLAVERY, AND TO THEIR OWN PROSPECTS OF EQUALITY WITH THE WHITES.

Effects of opposition to Colonization on Liberia—Its effects on free colored people—Their social and moral condition—Abolition testimony on the subject—American Missionary Association—Its failure in Canada—Degradation of West India free colored people—American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society—Its testimony on the dismal condition of West India free negroes—London Times on same subject—Mr. Bigelow on same subject—Effect of results in West Indies on Emancipation—Opinion of Southern Planters—Economical failure of West India Emancipation—Ruinous to British Commerce—Similar results in Hayti—Extent of diminution of exports from West Indies resulting from Emancipation—Results favorable to American Planter—Moral condition of Hayti—Later facts in reference to the West Indies—Negro free labor a failure—Necessity of education to render freedom of value—Franklin's opinion confirmed—Colonization essential to promote Emancipation.

We have noticed the social and moral condition of the free colored people, from the days of Franklin, to the projection of colonization. We have also glanced at the main facts in relation to the abolition warfare upon colonization, and its success in paralyzing the enterprise. This subject demands a more extended notice. The most serious injury from this hostility, sustained by the cause of colonization, was the prejudice created, in the minds of the more intelligent free colored men, against emigration to Liberia. The Colonization Society had expressed its belief in the natural equality of the blacks and whites; and that there were a sufficient number of educated, upright, free colored men, in the United States, to establish and sustain a Republic on the coast of Africa, "whose citizens, rising rapidly in the scale of existence, under the stimulants to noble effort by which they would be surrounded, might soon become equal to the people of Europe, or of European origin—so long their masters and oppressors." These were the sentiments of the first Report of the Colonization Society, and often repeated since. Its appeals were made to the moral and intelligent of the free colored people; and, with their co-operation, the success of its scheme was considered certain. But the very persons needed to lead the enterprise, were, mostly, persuaded to reject the proffered aid, and the society was left to prosecute its plans with such materials as offered. In consequence of this opposition, it was greatly embarrassed, and made less progress in its work of African redemption, than it must have done under other circumstances. Had three-fourths of its emigrants been the enlightened, free colored men of the country, a dozen Liberias might now gird the coast of Africa, where but one exists; and the slave trader be entirely excluded from its shores. Doubtless, a wise Providence has governed here, as in other human affairs, and may have permitted this result, to show how speedily even semi-civilized men can be elevated under American Protestant free institutions. The great body of emigrants to Liberia, and nearly all the leading men who have sprung up in the colony, and contributed most to the formation of the Republic, went out from the very midst of slavery; and yet, what encouraging results! It has been a sad mistake to oppose colonization, and thus to retard Africa's redemption!

But how has it fared with the free colored people elsewhere? The answer to this question will be the solution of the inquiry, What has abolitionism accomplished by its hostility to colonization, and what is the condition of the free colored people, whose interests it volunteered to promote, and whose destinies it attempted to control?

The abolitionists themselves shall answer this question. The colored people shall see what kind of commendations their tutors give them, and what the world is to think of them, on the testimony of their particular friends.

The concentration of a colored population in Canada, is the work of American abolitionists. The American Missionary Association, is their organ for the spread of a gospel untainted, it is claimed, by contact with slavery. Out of four stations under its care in Canada, at the opening of 1853, but one school, that of Miss Lyon, remained at its close. All the others were abandoned, and all the missionaries had asked to be released,[49] as we are informed by its Seventh Annual Report, chiefly for the reasons stated in the following extract, page 49:

"The number of missionaries and teachers in Canada, with which the year commenced, has been greatly reduced. Early in the year, Mr. Kirkland wrote to the committee, that the opposition to white missionaries, manifested by the colored people of Canada, had so greatly increased, by the interested misrepresentations of ignorant colored men, pretending to be ministers of the gospel, that he thought his own and his wife's labors, and the funds of the association, could be better employed elsewhere."

This Mission seems never to have been in a prosperous condition. Passing over to the Eleventh Annual Report, 1857, it is found that the Association had then but one missionary, the Rev. David Hotchkiss, in that field. In relation to his prospects, the Report says:

"It has, however, happened to him, as it frequently did to Paul and his fellow-laborers, that his faithfulness and his success have been the occasion of stirring up certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, so that at one time it was thought by some lookers-on that his life was in danger, and that he might be compelled to leave the scene of his present labors." He had succeeded, however, in gathering a church of 28 members, but "on the 21st of June, the house in which the little church worshiped was burned to the ground. This was undoubtedly the work of an incendiary, as there had been no fire in it for more than two weeks. Threats now were freely used against Mr. Hotchkiss and the church, but he continued his labors, and procured another house, and had it fitted up for worship. On the 24th of August, this also was burned down. They have since had to meet in private houses, and much doubt has been felt relative to ultimate duty. At later dates, however, the opposition was more quiet, and hopes revived. This field is emphatically a hard one, and requires much faith and patience from those who labor there."[50]

On the 30th of August, 1858, Mr. Hotchkiss writes: "My wife's school is in a prosperous condition. She has had nearly forty scholars, and they learn well. There are numbers who can not come to school for want of suitable clothing. They are nearly naked."[51]

On a late occasion it is remarked, that "this society seems to meet with the trouble which accompanies the efforts of other missionary societies in their endeavors to 'to seek and to save that which was lost.' They say they find it 'extremely difficult to win the confidence of the colored people of Canada.'"[52]

But we have a picture of a different kind to present, and one that proves the capacity of the free colored people for improvement—not when running at large and uncared for, but when subjected to wholesome restraint. This is as essential to the progress of the blacks as the whites, while they are in the course of intellectual, moral and industrial training:

"Some years ago the Rev. William King, a slave owner in Louisiana, manumitted his slaves and removed them to Canada. They now, with others, occupy a tract of land at Buxton and the vicinity, called the Elgin Block, where Mr. King is stationed as a Presbyterian missionary.

"A recent general meeting there was attended by Lord Althorp, son of Earl Spencer, and J. W. Probyn, Esq., both members of the British Parliament, who made addresses. The whole educational and moral machinery is worked by the presiding genius of the Rev. W. King, to whom the entire settlement are under felt and acknowledged obligations. He teaches them agriculture and industry. He superintends their education, and preaches on the Lord's day. He regards the experiment as highly successful."[53]

It is not our purpose to multiply testimony on this subject, but simply to afford an index to the condition of the colored people, as described by abolition pens, best known to the public. We turn, therefore, from the British colonies in the North, to her possessions in the Tropics.

West India emancipation, under the guidance of English abolitionists, has always been viewed as the grand experiment, which was to convince the world of the capacity of the colored man to rise, side by side, with the white man. We shall let the friends of the system, and the public documents of the British Government, testify as to its results, both morally and economically. Opening, again, the Seventh Annual Report of the American Missionary Association, page 30, where it speaks of their moral condition, we find it written:

"One of our missionaries, in giving a description of the moral condition of the people of Jamaica, after speaking of the licentiousness which they received as a legacy from those who denied them the pure joys of holy wedlock, and trampled upon and scourged chastity, as if it were a fiend to be driven out from among men—that enduring legacy, which, with its foul, pestilential influence, still blights, like the mildew of death, every thing in society that should be lovely, virtuous, and of good report; and alluding to their intemperance, in which they have followed the example set by the governor in his palace, the bishop in his robes, statesmen and judges, lawyers and doctors, planters and overseers, and even professedly Christian ministers; and the deceit and falsehood which oppression and wrong always engender, says: 'It must not be forgotten that we are following in the wake of the accursed system of slavery—a system that unmakes man, by warring upon his conscience, and crushing his spirit, leaving naught but the shattered wrecks of humanity behind it. If we may but gather up some of these floating fragments, from which the image of God is well nigh effaced, and pilot them safely into that better land, we shall not have labored in vain. But we may hope to do more. The chief fruit of our labors is to be sought in the future, rather than in the present.' It should be remembered, too, (continues the Report,) that there is but a small part of the population yet brought within the reach of the influence of enlightened Christian teachers, while the great mass by whom they are surrounded are but little removed from actual heathenism." Another missionary, page 33, says, it is the opinion of all intelligent Christian men, that "nothing save the furnishing of the people with ample means of education and religious instruction will save them from relapsing into a state of barbarism." And another, page 36, in speaking of certain cases of discipline, for the highest form of crime, under the seventh commandment, says: "There is nothing in public sentiment to save the youth of Jamaica in this respect."

The missions of this Association, in Jamaica, differ scarcely a shade from those among the actual heathen. On this point, the Report, near its close, says:

"For most of the adult population of Jamaica, the unhappy victims of long years of oppression and degradation, our missionaries have great fear. Yet for even these there may be hope, even though with trembling. But it is around the youth of the island that their brightest hopes and anticipations cluster; from them they expect to gather their principal sheaves for the great Lord of the harvest."

The American Missionary, a monthly paper, and organ of this Association, for July, 1855, has the following quotation from the letters of the missionaries, recently received. It is given, as abolition testimony, in further confirmation of the moral condition of the colored people of Jamaica:

"From the number of churches and chapels in the island, Jamaica ought certainly to be called a Christian land. The people may be called a church-going people. There are chapels and places of worship enough, at least in this part of the island, to supply the people if every station of our mission were given up. And there is no lack of ministers and preachers. As far as I am acquainted, almost the entire adult population profess to have a hope of eternal life, and I think the larger part are connected with churches. In view of such facts some have been led to say, 'The spiritual condition of the population is very satisfactory.' But there is another class of facts that is perfectly astounding. With all this array of the externals of religion, one broad, deep wave of moral death rolls over the land. A man may be a drunkard, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker, a profane man, a fornicator, an adulterer, and such like—and be known to be such—and go to chapel, and hold up his head there, and feel no disgrace from these things, because they are so common as to create a public sentiment in his favor. He may go to the communion table, and cherish a hope of heaven, and not have his hope disturbed. I might tell of persons guilty of some, if not all, these things, ministering in holy things."

What motives can prompt the American Missionary Association to cast such imputations upon the missions of the English and Scotch Churches, in Jamaica, we leave to be determined by the parties interested. Few, indeed, will believe that the English and Scotch Churches would, for a moment, tolerate such a condition of things, in their mission stations, as is here represented.

Next we turn to the Annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 1853, which discourses thus, in its own language, and in quotations which it indorses:[54]

"The friends of emancipation in the United States have been disappointed in some respects at the results in the West Indies, because they expected too much. A nation of slaves can not at once be converted into a nation of intelligent, industrious, and moral freemen.".... "It is not too much, even now, to say of the people of Jamaica,.... their condition is exceedingly degraded, their morals woefully corrupt. But this must, by no means, be understood to be of universal application. With respect to those who have been brought under a healthful educational and religious influence, it is not true. But as respects the great mass, whose humanity has been ground out of them by cruel oppression—whom no good Samaritan hand has yet reached—how could it be otherwise? We wish to turn the tables; to supplant oppression by righteousness, insult by compassion and brotherly kindness, hatred and contempt by love and winning meekness, till we allure these wretched ones to the hope and enjoyment of manhood and virtue."[55].... "The means of education and religious instruction are better enjoyed, although but little appreciated and improved by the great mass of the people. It is also true, that the moral sense of the people is becoming somewhat enlightened..... But while this is true, yet their moral condition is very far from being what it ought to be..... It is exceedingly dark and distressing. Licentiousness prevails to a most alarming extent among the people..... The almost universal prevalence of intemperance is another prolific source of the moral darkness and degradation of the people. The great mass, among all classes of the inhabitants, from the governor in his palace to the peasant in his hut—from the bishop in his gown to the beggar in his rags—are all slaves to their cups."[56]

This is the language of American abolitionists, going out under the sanction of their Annual Reports. Lest it may be considered as too highly colored, we add the following from the London Times, of near the same date. In speaking of the results of emancipation, in Jamaica, it says:

"The negro has not acquired, with his freedom, any habits of industry or morality. His independence is but little better than that of an uncaptured brute. Having accepted few 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 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 retrogade to barbarism."

One of the editors of the New York Evening Post, Mr. Bigelow, a few years since, spent a winter in Jamaica, and continues to watch, with anxious solicitude, as an anti-slavery man, the developments taking place among its colored population. In reviewing the returns published by the Jamaica House of Assembly, in 1853, in reference to the ruinous decline in the agriculture of the island, and stating the enormous quantity of lands thrown out of cultivation, since 1848, the Post says:

"This decline has been going on from year to year, daily becoming more alarming, until at length the island has reached what would appear to be the last profound of distress and misery,.... when thousands of people do not know, when they rise in the morning, whence or in what manner they are to procure bread for the day."

We must examine, more closely, the economical results of emancipation, in the West Indies, before we can judge of the effects, upon the trade and commerce of the world, which would result from general emancipation in the United States. We do this, not to afford an argument in behalf of the perpetuation of slavery, because its abolition might injuriously affect the interests of trade and commerce; but because the whole of these results have long been well known to the American planter, and serve as conclusive arguments, with him, against emancipation. He believes that, in tropical cultivation, African free labor is worthless; that the liberation of the slaves in this country, must, necessarily, be followed with results similar to what has occurred in the West Indies; and, for this reason, as well as on account of the profitable character of slavery, he refuses to give freedom to his slaves. We repeat, we do not cite the fact of the failure, economically, of free labor in Jamaica, as an argument for the perpetuation of slavery. Not at all. We allude to the fact, only to show that emancipation has greatly reduced the commerce of the colonies, and that the logic of this result militates against the colored man's prospects of advancement in the scale of political and social equality. But to the facts:

The British planters, up to 1806, had received from the slave traders an uninterrupted supply of laborers, and had rapidly extended their cultivation as commerce increased its demands for their products. Let us take the results in Jamaica as an example of the whole of the British West India islands. She had increased her exports of sugar from a yearly average of 123,979,000 lbs. in 1772-3, to 234,700,000 lbs. in 1805-6. No diminution of exports had occurred, as has been asserted by some anti-slavery writers, before the prohibition of the slave trade. The increase was progressive and undisturbed, except so far as affected by seasons, more or less favorable. But no sooner was her supply of slaves cut off, by the act of 1806, which took effect in 1808, than the exports of Jamaica began to diminish, until her sugar had fallen off from 1822 to 1832, to an annual average of 131,129,000 lbs., or nearly to what they had been sixty years before. It was not until 1833 that the Emancipation Act was passed; so that this decline in the exports of Jamaica, took place under all the rigors of West India slavery. The exports of rum, coffee, and cotton, were diminished in nearly the same ratio.

To arrest this ruinous decline in the commercial prosperity of the islands, emancipation was adopted in 1833 and perfected in 1838. This policy was pursued under the plea, that free labor is doubly as productive as slave labor; and, that the negroes, liberated, would labor twice as well as when enslaved. But what was the result? Ten years after final emancipation was effected, the exports of sugar from Jamaica were only 67,539,200 lbs. a year, instead of 234,700,000 lbs., as in 1805-6. The exports of coffee, during the same year, were reduced to 5,684,921 lbs., instead of 23,625,377 lbs., as in 1805-6; and the extinction of the cultivation of cotton, for export, had become almost complete, though in 1800, it had nearly equaled that of the United States. These are no fancy sketches, drawn for effect, but sober realities, attested by the public documents of the British government.[57] The Jamaica negro, ignorant and destitute of forethought, disappointed the English philanthropists.

In Hayti, emancipation had been productive of results, fully as disastrous to its commerce, as it had been to that of Jamaica. There was an almost total abandonment of the production of sugar, soon after freedom was declared. This took place in 1793. In 1790 the island exported 163,318,810 lbs. of sugar. But in 1801 its export was reduced to 18,534,112 lbs., in 1818, to 5,443,765 lbs., and in 1825 to 2,020 lbs.;[58] since which time its export has nearly ceased. Indeed, it is asserted, that, "at this moment there is not one pound of sugar exported from the island, and all that is used is imported from the United States."[59]

The exports of coffee, from Hayti, in 1790, were 76,835,219 lbs.; and of cotton, 7,004,274 lbs. But the exports of the former article, in 1801, were reduced to 43,420,270 lbs., and the latter to 474,118 lbs.[60] The exports of coffee have varied, annually, since that period, from thirty to forty million pounds; and the cotton exported has rarely much exceeded one million pounds.[61] At present, "with the exception of Gonaives, there is not a pound of cotton produced, and only a very limited quanity there, barely sufficient for consumption; and instead of exporting indigo, as formerly, they import all they use from the United States."[62]

According to the authorities before cited, the deficit of free labor tropical cultivation, as compared with that of slave labor, while sustained by the slave trade, including the British West Indies and Hayti, stands as follows:—a startling result, truly, to those who expected emancipation to work well for commerce, and supersede the necessity of employing slave labor: