Between Slavery and Freedom: Special Magistrate John Anderson's Journal of St Vincent During the Apprenticeship

Between Slavery and Freedom

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Between Slavery and Freedom Special Magistrate John Anderson's Journal of St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship Edited by Roderick A. McDonald Foreword by Richard S. Dunn

University of the West Indies Press Barbados • Jamaica • Trinidad and Tobago

University of the West Indies Press 1A Aqueduct Flats Mona Kingston 7 Jamaica W I © 2001 by Roderick A. McDonald All rights reserved. Published 2001 Printed in the United States of America 05 04 03 02 01

5 4 3 2 1

CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA McDonald, Roderick A. Between slavery and freedom: special magistrate John Anderson's journal of St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship / Roderick A. McDonald p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 976-640-090-3 1. Anderson, John - Diaries. 2. Slaves - Emancipation - Saint Vincent. 3. Saint Vincent - History. I. Title. F2106.M34 2001

972.9844 - dc.20

Cover illustration: Kingstown, St. Vincent, from Cane Garden Point, by John H. Caddy. Reproduced with the permission of the Barbados Museum and Historical Commission. Set in 10 on 14 pt Plantin Book and cover design by Prodesign Ltd., Red Gal Ring, Kingston, Jamaica.

For Elizabeth M. McDonald

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Contents List of Illustrations List of Maps x Foreword xi Acknowledgments

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PART ONE Introductory Essay PART TWO John Anderson's Journal

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APPENDIXES Appendix 1: An Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of Saint Vincent and its Dependencies (1834) 277 Appendix 2: An Act to repeal certain Clauses, and to alter and amend an Act intituled "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of Saint Vincent and its Dependencies" (1835) 236 Appendix 3: An Act to provide for the general Registration of all slaves belonging to or settled in these Islands [of Saint Vincent and its Dependencies] (1834) 242 Appendix 4: The Population of St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship Appendix 5: St. Vincent Special Magistrates, 1834-1838

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Appendix 6: An Act for establishing a Police for the Regulation of Apprenticed Labourers, and for carrying into effect certain provisions of an Act, intituled, "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of Saint Vincent and its Dependencies" (1834) 249 Appendix 7: A General Scale of Agricultural Labour. To be performed by the effective Apprentices in the Colony of St. Vincent 255 Appendix 8: Kingstown Gaol: Description and Regulations

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Appendix 9: Kingstown House of Correction and Treadmill: Description and Regulations 264

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Appendix 10: Rules and Regulations for the Gaol, Houses of Correction, and other Prisons in the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies 267 Appendix 11: Punishments of Apprentices in St. Vincent (1835-36)

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Appendix 12: An Act to amend the Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies (1838) 272 Appendix 13: An Act to abrogate the Apprenticeship of Praedial Labourers in the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies (1838) 282 Appendix 14: Address of his Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Tyler to the Apprenticed Labourers of St. Vincent upon the Abolition of Apprenticeship in that Colony on the 1st August 1838 255

Bibliography Index 297

289

Illustrations 1. John Anderson silhouette 2 2. Pages from the manuscript of John Anderson's journal 40 3. Kingstown, St. Vincent, from Cane Garden Point 64 4. Fort Charlotte, St. Vincent, from Kingstown 64 5. Kingstown, St. Vincent 65 6. Lieutenant-Governor Tyler's residence, The Cottage, Government House 72 7. A treadmill in operation 72 8. St. George's Cathedral, 1836 73 9. St. George's Cathedral, 2000 73 10. Fort Charlotte 73 11. Slave dance in St. Vincent 89 12. Johnny New-come gets sick 752 13. Ann Greeg requests a dance permit 160 14. An invitation to Joseph Debuke's Quadrille 191 15. Holing a cane piece 206 16. Planting the sugar cane 206 17. Cutting the sugar cane 206 18. A mill yard 207 19. Exterior of a boiling house 207 20. Interior of a boiling house 207 21. Exterior of a distillery 209 22. Interior of a distillery 209 23. Shipping sugar 209

Maps 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

St. Vincent: Physical Features and Settlements 60 St. Vincent, the Grenadines and the West Indies 62 Kingstown, St. Vincent, 1836 70 St. Vincent Judicial Divisions and Districts, 1834 93 St. Vincent Judicial Districts, 1836 94

Foreword

Roderick McDonald's edition of the journal of John Anderson will be heartily welcomed by everyone interested in British Caribbean slavery, and more generally by everyone interested in the slave emancipation process throughout the Americas. Although this journal covers events for only twenty-eight months on the small sugar island of St. Vincent, it tells a story of major significance. Magistrate John Anderson, a Scottish lawyer, came to St. Vincent in 1836 during the brief but crucial limbo period when the black people on this island and on all of the other British Caribbean islands were no longer slaves but were not yet free. His journal gives us a richly detailed picture of irreconcilable forces in strenuous conflict during the mid 1830s, when the former slaves were trying to shape a new society for themselves, while their former masters were determined to preserve the old order as much as possible. In both chronology and character, the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean comes halfway between the abolition of slavery in the northern United States and the abolition of slavery in the southern United States. In the northern United States, where slavery was always marginal, Emancipation took place very gradually and without much drama between 1780 and 1810. In the southern United States, where slavery was fundamental, Emancipation took place very suddenly at the conclusion of a long and bloody civil war with the total defeat of the Confederacy in 1864-1865. In the British sugar islands the proportion of slaves was much higher than in the southern United States, and the small Caribbean planter class was far less self-reliant than the cotton planters in the southern United States. They needed economic and military protection by the home government, and had to accept orders from Westminster. Parliament mandated that slavery would be abolished in the British Caribbean over a period of six years - from 1834 to 1840 - and secured the reluctant compliance of the slave owners by paying

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them £20 million in compensation for the loss of their human property (see Appendix 1). On 1 August 1834 all British Caribbean slave children under the age of six were freed, and all older slaves became "apprenticed labourers" in training for manumission. As apprentices, they were fed, clothed, housed and doctored by their former owners, were required to work forty-five hours a week without pay, but received time off for any additional labour. Non-agricultural workers were to serve a four-year apprenticeship, and fieldhands (or praedials, who constituted nearly 70 percent of the slave population on St. Vincent) were to serve a six-year apprenticeship. In actual fact the Apprenticeship period for praedials ended earlier than originally planned, because the home government decided that all former slaves in St.Vincent and elsewhere in the British Caribbean were to be fully manumitted on 1 August 1838 (see Appendix 13). As Roderick McDonald shows us in his introductory essay, John Anderson was a central player in this emancipation scenario. He arrived in St. Vincent in January 1836, spent the next two and a half years as a special magistrate to adjudicate disputes between the apprentices and their masters, and continued to serve as a magistrate on St. Vincent after the termination of the Apprenticeship until his death in September 1839. His journal, which begins with his departure from Edinburgh in November 1835 and ends abruptly in May 1838, is entirely confined to the Apprenticeship period. To me, the most striking feature of Anderson's journal is his uninhibited and artless racism, which was characteristic of most white travellers to the West Indies during the nineteenth century. Anderson was a well-educated and liberal-minded man, firmly opposed to slavery, but as soon as he saw his first "Blacky" he assumed automatically that "our Sable brethren" were in all respects far inferior to any white person. And he lumped the people he encountered in St. Vincent into four immutable categories, each with distinctive characteristics. (1) African-born blacks: these people were looked down upon by everyone else because they were heathen savages, though they were more malleable than other blacks and could be made to work a little harder. (2) Creole blacks: these people made fun of the Africans and envied the free coloured; they were somewhat less savage than the Africans, but were childishly happy-go-lucky and incurably lazy, superstitious, dishonest and cowardly. (3) The free coloured (mulattoes and quadroons): these people disdained the blacks and were of a slightly higher calibre since they possessed some white blood, but they too were very slothful, in addi-

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tion to being absurdly proud, vain, foppish, improvident and irresponsible. (4) The whites: these people - the former slaveholders - were the only inhabitants of the island with positive characteristics. Anderson found them to be uncultured, to be sure, and he roundly condemned them for keeping coloured concubines and siring adulterated mixed-race children, but in his eyes they were the sole possessors of manly talent and moral fibre on St. Vincent. Given Anderson's prejudices, it is hardly surprising that he was totally opposed to the apprentices' efforts to establish themselves as independent small farmers. Instead he wanted the former slaves on St. Vincent to keep labouring for the white planters as wage workers in their cane fields. Likewise he was totally opposed to the free coloured people's efforts to establish themselves as businessmen and professionals, with the same political voice as white people. Instead he wanted the coloured population to remain permanently subservient to the white master class. In short, Anderson believed (to paraphrase Roderick McDonald on page 10 below) that race and gradations of colour should continue to determine class, wealth and power. Accordingly he sided with the masters against the apprentices in most disputes, and he meted out such severe punishments to those apprentices who resisted white rule that Governor Tyler came to see him as dangerously biased and vindictive and took away some of his policing authority. Here I think is where Anderson's view of the emancipation process has its largest significance. He stands surrogate for a great many other well-meaning Britons and Americans in the nineteenth century who combined antislavery with racism, and who worked to achieve freedom for the blacks - but on exceedingly restrictive terms. Anderson wanted to get rid of slavery in the British Caribbean, but he saw no need for any further change in the social or economic structure of the sugar islands. He had much the same attitude as the emancipationists in the United States in the 1790s who wanted to free the slaves and then either send them back to Africa or keep them as a permanent drudge population without education or political rights or economic advancement. And he can be compared with the northern abolitionists in the United States in the 1860s who wanted to free the slaves in the South but stopped short of granting them land or economic independence (or helping them to come North to get away from their former masters). Since the white agents for emancipation were often of Anderson's mould, the evolution from slavery to full freedom in both the British Caribbean and the

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United States has turned out to be tortuously slow and painful. Indeed the manumission process on St. Vincent and the other British Caribbean islands has taken vastly longer than four years. In some respects the black people on these islands are still living under apprenticeship today - 166 years after the official abolition of slavery by Parliament. Richard S. Dunn McNeil Center for Early American Studies

Acknowledgments These few words of acknowledgment cannot possibly do justice to the extraordinary support and assistance I have received while working on this book. The people and institutions involved with me in the project have displayed not only the consummate professionalism typical of the academic world, but also a generous collegiality that has gratified and inspired me, and benefited my work immeasurably. The Aberdeen University Historic Collections (Special Libraries and Archives), where the manuscript of John Anderson's journal is on deposit, is an exemplary archive - excellent facilities for researchers and an efficient and amiable staff. Colin McLaren, who when the project began was head of Special Collections and university archivist (he subsequently became university librarian before retiring this year), provided steady encouragement as well as a keen eye in helping me decipher Anderson's handwriting. Iain Beavan supplied valuable codicological information, and I am indebted to Myrtle Anderson-Smith, Michelle Gait and Jane Pirie for their assistance and for the wealth of archival knowledge and experience they, along with Colin and Iain, so willingly dispensed. The University of Aberdeen's History Department has also been most supportive: my thanks to Allan Macinnes, Ted Ranson, Douglas Hamilton, Rosemary Tyzack, Marjory Harper, Andrew MacKillop, and all the good folk at Crombie Annexe. Rider University has been uncommonly generous with institutional and financial support. Research Leaves (1990, 1992, 1998), Summer Research Fellowships (1985, 1994, 1998, 2000), and Grants-in-Aid for Research and Scholarship (1987, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999) have helped finance my research and writing. Departmental secretary Marge Raynor and Lisa Fleischer of Educational Support Services have assisted me skilfully, expeditiously, and with more good humour than I probably deserve, while John Lemasney of the Office of Information Technologies patiently helped navigate me through the arcane cyberworld of Zip disks. I appreciate all the

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support given me by my colleagues in the Department of History and on Rider's faculty and staff, and the interest shown in the project by my students, especially those in Caribbean History. The research grant I received in 1992-93 from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation also provided financial support that aided the progress of the study. I am proud to have participated in, and contributed to, the foundation's important mission to increase understanding of the causes, manifestations and control of violence, aggression and dominance. The McNeil (formerly Philadelphia) Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS) at the University of Pennsylvania has been an intellectual bulwark throughout. Its founder and director, Richard Dunn, backed my work from the outset, gave me access to the Center's facilities and provided a forum to present my research. Richard has created a remarkable scholarly community at the McNeil Center, and my study has been profoundly enriched by my contact with its members. I am pleased and honoured that the book is being co-published by the University of Pennsylvania Press as part of the MCEAS-affiliated Early American Studies series edited by Richard, and delighted that he has consented to write the foreword. Editors Bob Lockhart and Jerry Singerman of the University of Pennsylvania Press have just been a pleasure to work with. While conducting research in St. Vincent I had the good fortune to meet Earle Kirby who graciously shared his encyclopedic knowledge of the island and its history, and even took the time to show me around his beautiful country. Adrian Fraser of the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies in St. Vincent has been giving generously of his expertise and encouragement since we first met during my visit to the island. Michael Moet-Wynn, then affiliated with the St. Vincent National Trust, provided rne with copies of maps and illustrations, and genially endured a thorough soaking while accompanying me in a torrential downpour on a search for the ruins of Colonarie House, Anderson's last residence and burial site. Thanks also to my kind host, Miss Paynter of Kingstown Park Guest House, and to Miss George of the St. Vincent Public Library, Ada Johnson of St. Vincent Grammar School, Morrison Baisden and Vivian Child. My research has profited immensely from the expert help of courteous and enthusiastic archivists and librarians at the National Library of Scotland, Scottish Record Office, Queen Mother Library at the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen Public Library, Central Regional Council Archives

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in Stirling, Public Record Office, British Library, St. Vincent's Public Library and Government House Archives, Library of Congress, Library Company of Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, University of Pennsylvania's Van Pelt Library, and Moore Library at Rider University. My thanks also to the Barbados Museum and Historical Society for their permission to reproduce Lieutenant John H. Caddy's aquatints of St. Vincent, to the National Library of Jamaica for reproduction rights to the "Johnny New-come" images, to the Beinecke Lesser Antilles Collection of Burke Library, Hamilton College, for supplying prints from William Clark's Ten Views of Antigua, and, of course, to the Aberdeen University Historic Collections for allowing me to transcribe and publish John Anderson's journal. I had the opportunity to present aspects of my work on Between Slavery and Freedom at two Association of Caribbean Historians Conferences, a Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies Seminar and a University of Aberdeen Department of History Seminar. The ideas and comments of the panelists and audiences there improved the book, which also benefited from the astute guidance I received when publishing findings from my research in articles that appeared in Robert Paquette and Stanley Engerman, eds., The Lesser Antilles in the Age of Revolution (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), and in a volume I edited entitled West Indies Accounts: Essays on the History of the British Caribbean and the Atlantic Economy in Honour of Richard Sheridan (Mona, Jamaica: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1996). I have been remarkably fortunate in the generosity of my friends and colleagues, without whose aid and encouragement I would have faced a heavier task, but achieved poorer results. My sincere thanks then to Roger Abrahams, Nigel Bolland, Edward Cox, Alissandra Cummins, Philip Curtin, Stanley Engerman, Barry Higman, Gad Heuman, Howard Johnson, Woodville Marshall, Sidney Mintz, Robert Paquette, Richard Sheridan, Arnold Sio, and James Walvin. Thanks also to Swithin Wilmot, who shared his own work on the Emancipation era with me and kindly helped track down the "Johnny New-come" images, to Gerry Krieg for his fine cartographic work, to Linda Webster for her usual stellar indexing, and to all the fellows and fellow-travellers of the McNeil Center who have been so extraordinarily supportive over the years. Pansy Benn, the former director of the University of the West Indies Press, first solicited my manuscript then became an invaluable advisor as

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she shepherded it towards publication. Although to my regret Pansy left the Press earlier this year, I have benefited from her continued interest in the project. Joanne Blake and her successor as managing editor at the Press, Shivaun Hearne, as well as the new director, Linda Speth, have evinced characteristic capability and congeniality in bringing the work to completion over the past few months. I am deeply indebted to these exemplars of their profession and to their colleagues at Aqueduct Flats. Lawrenceville, New Jersey June 2000

PART ONE

Figure 1. John Anderson silhouette

Introductory Essay

St. Vincent's unique historical circumstances, especially the presence of an unassimilated, frequently hostile indigenous Carib population, and the protracted Anglo-French imperial struggle for control of the island that preceded its ultimate incorporation into the British colonial system in 1783, delayed the ascendancy of sugar plantation slavery there. By the early nineteenth century, however, sugar production peaked at over 20,000 hogsheads in some years, while the slave population increased dramatically, reaching some 25,000 by 1808, the year the slave trade was abolished, before declining to 22,250 on Emancipation Day, 1 August 1834.1 Like slave emancipation throughout the British Empire, St. Vincent's "Act for the Abolition of Slavery" only freed the slave children then under six years of age.2 The rest of the island's enslaved people were apprenticed to their former owners for a stipulated term - six years for those classified as praedials (fieldhands), four years for non-praedials (domestics, tradespersons and other non-field workers).3 The two-year differential between agricultural and non-agricultural workers was ultimately set aside and the Apprenticeship ended on 1 August 1838.

1. Robert Montgomery Martin, History of the Colonies of the British Empire (London: William Allen and George Routledge, 1843), pp. 54, 59. 2. "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies," House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1835, vol. 50, pp. 378-87. Appendix 1 contains the complete text. 3. With the advent of the Apprenticeship, 15,309 slaves were classified as praedials (fieldhands), 2,793 as non-praedials, with another 1,189 described as "aged, diseased or otherwise non-effective," in addition to 2,959 children under six years of age. House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1835, vol. 50, p. 685. Appendix 4 contains a detailed delineation of the population of St. Vincent, ca. 1834.

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Between Slavery and Freedom

Anticipating that problems would arise as the "Great Experiment" of Emancipation and Apprenticeship unfolded, its architects and administrators in the Colonial Office not only painstakingly delineated its terms - St. Vincent's Abolition Act and its subsequent amendments contained a total of eighty-two clauses - but also appointed to each locale a set of officials charged with overseeing their enactment.4 A Special Magistracy was thus created, that the Colonial Office hoped to staff with "respectable persons wholly unconnected with the colonies," who, since they would be "uninfluenced by the local assemblies, [and] free from local passion," could, according to the colonial secretary, Lord Stanley, secure "the protection of the negro and preservation of the peace."5 Special magistrates would hold "effectual superintendence" over the apprentices, ensuring not only that they worked the requisite number of hours per week for their former owners but also that they received in return the stipulated allocations for their maintenance. The magistrates had "exclusive jurisdiction over all the offences committed, or alleged to have been committed, by any . . . apprenticed labourer, or by his or her employer, in ... their relation to each other, or of the breach, violation or neglect of any of the obligations owed by them to each other," as well as over "any question, matter or thing incident to or arising out of the relations subsisting between . .. apprenticed labourers and the persons . . . entitled to their services."6 More than one hundred men received appointments as special magistrates in the British West Indies, nine of whom saw service in St. Vincent, among them a Scottish lawyer named John Anderson, who arrived on the island in 1836 to take up his post. Over the next two and a half years, Anderson would compile a journal describing in extraordinary detail the operation of the Apprenticeship as St. Vincent charted what proved to be a tumultuous course from slavery to freedom. In 1900 Isabel Anderson published a family memoir entitled An Inverness Lawyer and his Sons, 1796-1878, in which she lovingly chronicled the lives of her uncle, Special Magistrate John Anderson, his father, Peter, and his two

4. See Appendix 1 for the text of St. Vincent's "Act for the Abolition of Slavery," and Appendix 2 for the subsequent alterations and amendments. 5. Excerpted from Lord Stanley's speech to the House of Commons, July 1833, quoted in W. L. Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937), p. 213. 6. St. Vincent Abolition Act, Clauses 28 and 29 (reproduced as Appendix 1).

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brothers, George and Peter (her father). As procurator fiscal of the burgh of Inverness and partner in the law firm of Anderson and Shepperd, Peter Anderson, Sr., occupied a prominent and influential position in the community and, by his niece's description, was the genial and beloved patriarch of a close-knit and well-to-do family that included his wife, Jessie, and daughter, Margaret, as well as the three sons. John, the eldest son, was born on 16 August 1798 and he enjoyed a privileged childhood, receiving seven years of education at a school run by his uncle, Dr. Robert Thomson, in Kensington, London (1805-12), after which he went to the University of Edinburgh where he took classes in Latin (1812-13), Logic and Chemistry (1813-14). He then served a five-year legal apprenticeship in Edinburgh with the firm of Carnegy and Shepperd before qualifying as a lawyer and becoming a Writer to the Signet in 1821.7 Throughout his adolescence and early adulthood, John Anderson travelled extensively in Britain and Ireland and because, according to his niece, "his father never spared any expense to promote his culture and knowledge," he was also able to tour Europe, including two visits to Italy.8 In 1823 Anderson married Elizabeth Mackenzie, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Inverness banker Alexander Mackenzie, and together they had seven children, one of whom died in infancy. By the mid 1820s, Anderson and his family had made their home in Scotland's capital, Edinburgh, where he led the life of a gentleman-scholar. He served as secretary to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries (SSA), pursuing genealogical and antiquarian studies that resulted in a number of essays and publications, and involved him in legal proceedings concerned with establishing rightful titles to Scottish peerages, the most celebrated of which, the Lovat Peerage case, took him frequently to London where he gave testimony before the House of Lords.9 Anderson continued to live and work in Edinburgh until leaving for St. Vincent in November 1835. 7. Isabel Harriet Anderson, An Inverness Lawyer and his Sons, 1796-1878 (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1900). 8. Ibid., p. 64. 9. John Anderson published Historical Account of the Family of the House of Frisel or Fraser, particularly Fraser of Lovat, with Original Correspondence of Simon, Lord Lovat (Edinburgh: Blackwood; London: Cadell, 1825), and Prize Essay on the State of Society and Knowledge in the Highlands of Scotland, particularly in the Northern Counties, at the Period of the Rebellion in 1745, and of their Progress up to the Establishment of the Northern Institution for the Promotion of Science and Literature, in 1825 (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1827), as well as a number of papers in the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. His Prize Essay was favourably reviewed in the Edinburgh Saturday Post (26 January 1828) and praised by his neighbour, Sir Walter Scott.

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Anderson's solid scholarly reputation and the prestige of his secretarial post with the SSA would have ensured his membership in respectable middle-class Edinburgh society, but did not provide financial security: the compensation he received from the SSA and as a result of his genealogical work on peerage cases apparently proved insufficient to the needs of his growing family. Isabel Anderson suggests this, noting the assistance he was receiving at this time from his father-in-law, as does his relocation by 1833 from a rather grand home at 4 Walker Street, where he lived next door to Sir Walter Scott, to a still respectable but less distinguished house at 18 Moray Place.10 Anderson saw the West Indian Special Magistracy as an opportunity to attain "every indulgence which wealth can procure in Britain."11 He thus sought the patronage of the colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg, whom he had known when Glenelg, then Charles Grant, was member of Parliament for Inverness and Fortrose burghs (1811-18) and the county of Inverness (1818-35), and through him secured the posting to St. Vincent where, effective 1 January 1836, the Colonial Office had doubled the island's original complement of special magistrates by making three new appointments. Although he proved willing, in his words, "to make a shift to live" by relocating his family thousands of miles across the Atlantic, he would not likely become rich on a special magistrate's modest salary of £300 per annum, which Glenelg's predecessor Lord Stanley felt most suited those who, unlike Anderson, had other sources of income, such as "officers receiving half-pay in the Army and Navy."12 Only three of his children and a nurse accompanied Anderson and his wife to the West Indies (his two elder sons and eldest daughter stayed in Scotland in the care of members of his family), but Anderson still struggled to maintain the lifestyle he considered appropriate to his station, and not long after his arrival he began casting around for better opportunities. When the St. Vincent legislature created the position of chief police magistrate with the October 1836 passage of a bill to consolidate the island's 10. I. Anderson, An Inverness Lawyer, p. 68. The assistance "Banker" Mackenzie could offer his son-in-law may have been affected by problems he encountered with his employers at the British Linen Bank. As Charles Malcolm points out, the bank forced Mackenzie to resign because he would not curtail his practice of discounting bills "to a degree deemed unsafe." Charles A. Malcolm, The History of the British Linen Bank (Edinburgh: T. & A. Constable, 1950), p. 88. Anderson's own father died in 1823. 11. Anderson journal, p. 153. 12. Anderson journal, p. 153. Lord Stanley's speech to the House of Commons, July 1833, quoted in Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, p. 196.

Introductory Essay

7

police force, Anderson secured appointment to the post from the lieutenantgovernor, George Tyler. A few weeks later Anderson sought Glenelg's help in obtaining the more remunerative posting (at £389.13.4 per annum) "to the Bench at the Bahama Isles" made vacant by the death of the previous appointee, Special Justice Hay of Grenada. Despite a lengthy recitation of his legal qualifications and accomplishments, and a fulsome encomium from William Witham, a Gray's Inn solicitor with whom Anderson had worked on the Lovat Peerage case, Anderson's petition was unsuccessful: Glenelg noted that "I am not able to accede as his legal position wd. not justify me."13 Thwarted on this front, Anderson moved to secure his position as special magistrate, in light of "the probable reduction of Special Magistrates after August 1838." He cited "the anxiety of a family man" and "the inconvenience and Expence of removing a family," to bolster his "request to be continued till the Expiry of the Apprenticeship," then scheduled for 1 August 1840.14 Anderson's increasingly strained relationship with Lieutenant-Governor Tyler (chronicled in his journal, see pp. 192-94 in this volume) doomed his chances for reappointment as police magistrate for Kingstown subsequent to the passage of a revised Police Bill in May 1838, with Glenelg again rejecting Anderson's appeals for his support.15 Anderson did, however, succeed in extending his employment beyond the actual termination of the Apprenticeship on 1 August 1838, since the Colonial Office kept him on as a special magistrate, and subsequently transferred him to the east coast town of Colonarie in Charlotte Parish as stipendiary magistrate for the newly constituted Windward Division, effective 1 May 1839. Anderson and his family settled at Colonarie House, a short distance inland from town, but they were to stay there for just a few months. On the evening of 3 September 1839, Anderson sustained serious injuries falling from his horse. Although only a quarter of a mile from his house, he was unable to summon help, and had to wait until the next morning before being rescued by some men on their way to work and carried home, where his condition steadily 13. John Anderson, Kingstown, St. Vincent, to Lord Glenelg, London, 6 July 1837, CO 260/55, 489-91, St. Vincent, 1837, Correspondence, Original-Secretary of State, Despatches, Public Record Office, London. 14. Anderson to Glenelg, 4 December 1837, CO 260/55, 492. 15. "An Act for the more effectual Administration of Justice in the Office of a Justice of the Peace, and for the Appointment of Police Magistrates and a Constabulary Force in these Islands, 26 May 1838," House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 36, pp. 129-33; Anderson to Glenelg, 31 March 1838, 7 August 1838, CO 260/57, 84 verso-85.

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deteriorated. He died on 21 September and was buried the next day in the grounds of Colonarie House. Anderson's West Indian venture thus ended tragically and abruptly, with his hopes of procuring wealth there unrealized. Informing the governor of the Windward Islands, Sir Evan Murray MacGregor, that Anderson had died "after three weeks intense suffering," Lieutenant-Governor Tyler intimated that "he has left a Widow and Six Children wholly . . . unprovided for." Consequently, he explained, "the Legislature have generously voted the sum of £100 Sterling to enable Mrs. Anderson and Family to return to England," and that "a private subscription was also raised for her benefit." Given "these evidences of poverty, coupled with Mr. Anderson's death having been caused by a fall from his horse whilst in the performance of his public duties," Tyler asked the "Secretary of State for the Colonies to take into his favourable consideration, the granting, to the Widow . . . the sum allowed as passage money to Stipendiary Magistrates on their return to England."16 The Colonial Office sympathized with Mrs. Anderson's "distressed circumstances" and disbursed "£75 to defray [her] expenses home from St. Vincent."17 A few days after her husband's funeral, Elizabeth Anderson returned with her children to Scotland, and the family took up residence in a house in Inverness that she named St. Vincent Cottage and where she lived until her death in 1870. Only a few scattered foundation stones now indicate the site of Colonarie House and its grounds, and John Anderson's grave lies unmarked on land devoted to the cultivation of bananas. When Anderson received his appointment to St. Vincent, the leading citizens of Inverness offered him their congratulations through an address which they published in the local newspaper. They expressed their confidence that he would bring to his responsibilities as special magistrate, "good sense, kind but yet firm demeanour, upright principle, and general as well as professional knowledge," and averred that his "fellow-countrymen and the 16. Tyler to MacGregor, 15 October 1839, CO 260/58, 285-85 verso. 17. R. Vernon Smith to Elizabeth Anderson, 13 February 1840, CO 261/14, Entry Books of Commissions, Instructions, Correspondence, etc., 1824-1842, 361. Elizabeth Anderson's circumstances bear an uncanny resemblance to the predicament that faced the wife of Captain William Gray, a special magistrate in Trinidad. She too was unable to finance her passage back to England after her husband's death until she received £100 from the British Treasury. See William A. Green, British Slave Emancipation: The Sugar Colonies and the Great Experiment, 1830-1865 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 139n.

Introductory Essay

9

newly emancipated population" under his jurisdiction would find him "an active, discriminating, upright and useful magistrate."18 The signatories of this address could have had little direct knowledge of the circumstances Anderson would confront in St. Vincent, but the characteristics they thought he would bring to his work there define quite succinctly the prerequisites and conduct sought in members of the West Indian Special Magistracy. Anderson appeared to be better qualified for the legislative duties of the Special Magistracy than most other appointees. Former military officers, who often subscribed to rather harsh and authoritarian adjudicatory standards, constituted the majority of the over one hundred magistrates serving throughout Britain's West Indian colonies, while those with any formal legal training whatsoever, far less qualified lawyers, were scarce indeed. Anderson had no West Indian connections prior to his appointment, thus no potentiality for bias on that score, and the patronage he enjoyed through Glenelg affiliated him with the antislavery, pro-emancipation position of liberal Whiggism, in opposition to the pro-planter Conservatives. In his personal politics, Anderson resolutely condemned slavery and embraced the "Great Experiment" instituted on 1 August 1834 when the "Act for the Abolition of Slavery" became law. "He were worse than fiend," Anderson opined, "who does not condemn the harrowing recitals of that system by which the Western Isles were - and yet - are supplied with victims for their fields . . . It is the glory of Britain," he continued, "that she struck the manacles from the oppressed, and 'for ever' abolished slavery" (p. 91). Likewise, he supported the principles on which the Apprenticeship had been established and, with reservations, the manner of its operation (passim). And although Anderson's journal referred only to the personal opportunities he saw in his appointment, making no mention of any political or ideological motivation, his background and training augured well for a successful tenure as special magistrate, as did his other personal attainments, his thorough liberal education, his erudition and his literacy. The Colonial Office's best laid plans for the Apprenticeship proved inadequate to the circumstances of the postemancipation British West Indian societies, however, and so did Anderson's performance of his magistrate's duties, notwithstanding the high ratings he gave himself throughout his journal and in his official correspondence. The Apprenticeship years did not 18. I. Anderson, An Inverness Lawyer, pp. 81-82.

10

Between Slavery and Freedom

ease the transition from slavery to freedom; instead, they ushered in a period of turmoil with which neither the British government's legislation nor its personnel could cope satisfactorily. The Apprenticeship legislation's circumscribed compass of labour arbitration gave the magistrates a narrow and specific mandate, leaving them unable to address the more fundamental issues precipitated by the changes Emancipation wrought within societies shaped by slavery, where labour had largely been maintained through coercion, and where race and gradations of colour had determined class, wealth and power. Emancipation took St. Vincent and all the other British colonies throughout the Caribbean into a terra incognita beset by profound problems and bitter tensions: "One of the many errors which have been committed since the granting of the apprenticeship," Lord Harris complained during his tenure as governor of Trinidad, "is the little attention paid to any legislation having for its end, the formation of a society on true, sound, and lasting principles." While not sanguine of the full attainment of such a goal, "much greater progress might have been made." Instead, Harris lamented, "a race has been freed, but a society has not been formed."19 As one of what W. L. Burn styled "midwives" who attended "the pitiful, rending birth-pangs of a new order," Anderson entered an alien world in the midst of dramatic upheaval, as he witnessed the various constituencies of St. Vincent's population locked in a fierce struggle to assert themselves and to define the unknown terrain of postemancipation society in terms most advantageous to them.20 These groups - the male and female apprenticed labourers, both praedial and non-praedial, black and coloured, African and Creole; the free coloured people, both elite and lower class; and the white residents, rural and urban - exhibited tremendous urgency in their contestation with each other, since at least for the Apprenticeship years, the British government had made some commitment to facilitate the transition to freedom.21 Beyond this, Vincentians could do little but speculate and worry about the shape island society would take, although whatever uncertainty 19. Excerpt from a despatch by Lord Harris, dated 19 June 1848, quoted in John Davy, The West Indies, before and since Slave Emancipation (London: W. and F. G. Cash, 1854), p. 311. 20. Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, p. 213. 21. At this time St. Vincent's population numbered approximately 26,300, which included 19,000 apprentices, 3,000 of their children under six years of age freed on 1 August 1834, 3,000 free coloureds, and 1,300 whites. See Appendix 4 for detailed populationstatistics.

Introductory Essay

11

and trepidation the ex-slave majority of the population felt must have been leavened with hope of what freedom would bring.22 Anderson had left the genteel environs of elite Edinburgh society far behind indeed when at noon on 7 January 1836 he "sprang to land" on the "dark and sandy shore" of Calliaqua Bay on St. Vincent's southern coast (p. 61), and entered a world that was even stranger and newer to him than it was to the Vincentians he joined there. Nevertheless, his journal reveals him to be an interested and often perceptive observer of island life. He recorded a wealth of information on disparate topics: he described the operation of governmental institutions, evaluated the condition of the Carib population still resident on the island, and gave vivid depictions of town and rural life, including detailed information on St. Vincent's topography, climate, flora and fauna. Anderson's niece characterized him as a "man of courtly manners and refined, fastidious tastes," and his journal provides ample evidence of his worldliness, experience and learning.23 His excellent education, and his accomplishments as a scholar, researcher, traveller and author, enabled him to cast a shrewd and knowledgeable eye over the intricacies of St. Vincent's natural and social worlds, and to pen a well-organized and lucid portrait that is of enduring interest and a welcome addition to a sparse body of such primary documents. Of particular importance, of course, is the unique window Anderson offered onto the operation of the Apprenticeship. His observations on this topic - the journal's most extensive and most deliberative sections - permeated the narrative and underpinned his presentation of the other materials. 22. Care is necessary, of course, in according meaning to concepts such as "freedom" and "emancipation." Rebecca Scott "counsels careful attention to perspective . . . Emancipation is by definition a liberation," she asserts, "even if the freedom of the former slaves is highly compromised, nonetheless there has been a crucial change in legal and social status." Rebecca J. Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Freedom, 1860-1899 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 282. Relations of production also changed, but continuities in the exploitation of the labouring classes may undermine the applicability of a word like free, as various articles make clear in Mary Turner (ed.), From Chattel Slaves to Wage Slaves: The Dynamics of Labour Bargaining in the Americas (London: James Currey; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995). "The apparent promise of freedom," according to Nigel Holland, "made emancipation a great event for the freed people," but despite its symbolic importance, "emancipation [w]as a prolonged process rather than an overnight event." O. Nigel Holland, "The Politics of Freedom in the British Caribbean," in Frank McGlynn and Seymour Drescher (eds.), The Meaning of Freedom: Economics, Politics and Culture After Slavery (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), p. 114. 23. I. Anderson, An Inverness Lawyer, p. 64.

12

Between Slavery and Freedom

Anderson knew this was an era of enormous historical significance and consequently gave priority to describing its manifestations and reflecting on them, with his vantage point as special magistrate and police magistrate placing his commentary more squarely at the heart of the action than all but a handful of the extant documentation on these years between slavery and freedom.24 In his journal, Anderson claimed to be an objective observer who drew his conclusions about Vincentian society from his time on the island: "I am writing my own experiences, - and not making a book to please any party," he argued in one passage, while elsewhere averring that "I have formed my opinions from actual observation, - not fanciful theories" (pp. 81, 91). Moreover, he denied any prejudice - "I came out unbiassed by any, determined to judge for myself," he claimed, and as "I have no predelictions to gratify - or system to uphold, - I shall accordingly set down, - 'though naught in malice' I trust, - whatever remarks men or manners in any station, may call for, and whilst the impression is yet strong in my mind, regardless of any consideration, - but the truth" (p. 91). Similarly, both in his journal and in the official monthly reports he sent to the lieutenant-governor, he asserted the fair and unbiased performance of his judicial functions. And yet the adjustments he made to his new circumstances, and especially to his duties as a special magistrate, were informed much more profoundly by a personal ideology that evinced thoroughgoing Eurocentrism and anglophilia, and embraced clearly delineated and vigorously asserted racial, class and gender views privileging whiteness, social elites and masculinity. These attitudes, and most prominently his conviction of white racial superiority, pervade the journal, shaping his depictions therein of St. 24. The special magistrates' monthly reports and other official correspondence from the Apprenticeship era survive in the records of the Colonial Office, but only three other special magistrates kept private journals that are extant - R. R. Madden and Frederick White of Jamaica, and John Colthurst of Barbados and St. Vincent. Two of these have been published: Woodville K. Marshall edited The Colthurst Journal: Journal of a Special Magistrate in the Islands of Barbados and St. Vincent, July 1835-September 1838 (Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1977), and Madden's journal, A Twelvemonth's Residence in the West Indies during the Apprenticeship, which Matthew Carey of Philadelphia published in two volumes in 1835. White's diary, which Marshall calls "a fragment, covering the period of August 1834 to February 1835" (The Colthurst Journal, p. ix), is on deposit in the Rhodes House Library, Oxford. British Parliamentary Papers contain information on the operation of Apprenticeship, as do the records of the various metropolitan and colonial government and legislative bodies, with other sources on the period including newspapers and periodical literature from both sides of the Atlantic, and a few accounts written by travellers as well as others who went to the West Indies to report on the "Great Experiment" (see bibliography).

Introductory Essay

13

Vincent society's various constituencies. Thus, while Anderson eulogized the planters as being "stout, manly flesh and blood" (p. 102), he penned numerous sweeping and virulent condemnations of Afro-Vincentians, free and apprenticed. "Negroes are, in sooth, children in every thing but size, - & as such they must be treated" (p. 119), he contended, for example, while expressing his conviction of their "semibarbarous indolent nature" (p. 118), and elsewhere that "the natural bias of the negro . . . inclines him to indolence" (p. 85). "Falsehood, - deceit," he maintained, was a "prominent characteristic of the savage" (p. 118), whom he considered "by nature, a coward" (p. 149), and although "innate hatred to the White man . . . may be disguised," he averred, it "is never eradicated from the Savage breast" (p. 185). Evidence throughout his journal suggests that these racial beliefs did indeed prejudice his attitudes, and moreover they affected his official duties. Thus, his belief that such characteristics as savagery, barbarity, criminality, deceitfulness, indolence and cowardliness were innate to the black and coloured population not only affected his personal interactions with apprentices, his domestic servants, and other Afro-Vincentians with whom he came in contact, but also influenced the judgments he rendered in cases brought before him both as special magistrate and police magistrate. His conviction, for example, that "the race are egregious liars" (p. 119), so influenced him that, he noted, "whenever I observed a delinquent particularly vehement in his, or her, profession of innocence, and evincing strong anxiety to swear to the truth of an assertion . . . my mind almost unconsciously had formed an opposite conclusion, - even before the charge was investigated" (p. 92). He again compromised principles of judicial fairness towards the apprentices when he contended that "the most effectual method of discovering crime, among a gang . . . was, I found, - to mulct the whole, by stopping their free days," and then wait until "some [innocent] party denounced the guilty" (p. 129). Colonial Office documents confirm these propensities: through his years in St. Vincent, Anderson so consistently favoured the interests of the plantocracy and white society over those of the apprentices and the free coloureds, that he can fairly be categorized as a "Buckra Magistrate," the term Governor Sligo of Jamaica used to describe a "partisan of the planters."25 Anderson's predilection for inflicting severe punishments on apprentices whom he had adjudged guilty induced his superiors in the Colonial Office to 25. Quoted in Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, p. 220.

14

Between Slavery and Freedom

seek an explanation, with Governor MacGregor contacting his lieutenantgovernor in St. Vincent on one occasion to inquire why Anderson had sentenced forty-one apprentices to whipping in a single month (October 1837).26 Anderson responded by claiming that the 286 cases he had adjudicated that month as special magistrate, embraced crimes of a very serious nature; theft, housebreaking, & embezzlement. The apprenticed labourers on Arno's Vale Estate, in particular, conducted themselves with great impropriety; and it became necessary to make examples of the guiltiest . . . the entire gangs of Arno's Vale, Struan, and Cane Hall, were brought up, the former twice, the two latter, once, - for indolence, neglect of duty, insubordination, and fighting. The crimes, for which the punishment of whipping was awarded, (as directed by law) were chiefly rioting, larceny, cutting canes, running away, and plunder.27 But his explanation did not satisfy Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, who wrote to MacGregor that "it is difficult to correct or obviate occasional injudicious decisions of a Magistrate, more particularly when the law sanctions their observance." He informed the governor, "I had however considered it expedient to relieve Mr. Special Justice Anderson from that portion of his district of which he complains, and have much pleasure in acquainting your Excellency that Reports made by Mr. Special Justice Poison, whose charge they are now under, are favorable to their general conduct."28 Anderson's superiors in London also indicated their displeasure with his performance: James Spedding of the Colonial Office observed that "Mr. Anderson appears to have a very erroneous estimate of his duty in undertaking to punish as a Special Magistrate apprentices charged with offenses cognisable only by criminal tribunals,"29 and the colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg, himself informed Governor MacGregor that, "from Mr. Anderson's explanatory letter of the 24th of February [1838], it would appear that he has been in

26. MacGregor to Tyler, 14 February 1838, CO 260/56, 105. By way of comparison, between August and December 1835, the average number of punishments by whipping per month was 45 for the entire island. "Return of the Number and Effect of the Returns of Punishments, received by the Governor of St. Vincent from the Special Magistrates, from 1 August 1835 to 31 May 1836," CO 260/54, 182. 27. Anderson to Tyler, 24 February 1838, CO 260/56, 107-107 verso. 28. Tyler to MacGregor, no date, CO 260/56, 105 verso-106. Edwin Poison was special magistrate for the Second District, adjacent to Anderson's Third District. 29. Undated notation signed Jfames] S[pedding], CO 260/56, 100 verso.

Introductory Essay

15

the habit of exercising Summary Jurisdiction as Special Magistrate in cases of theft, housebreaking, & embezzlement'. It is necessary," Glenelg continued, "that he should be reminded that cases of this grave nature do not come within his authority as a Special Magistrate."30 Anderson made no mention of this exchange in his journal, but it reveals that the brand of "justice" to which he subscribed, as exemplified by his provisions to punish "entire gangs" and impose an excessive number of whippings, derived more directly from the brutal regime that characterized slave plantation discipline, than it did from the legislative principles established by the Apprenticeship. Anderson's actions, needless to say, ingratiated him with the planters, but earned him the apprentices' antipathy. Meanwhile, Lieutenant-Governor Tyler's solution of redrawing the boundaries between the second and third districts implies his satisfaction that Special Justice Edwin Poison was performing his duties competently and in line with the official mandate, and this approach, unlike Anderson's, apparently sufficed to relieve the tensions. A few months later, Anderson again revealed his tendencies as a "Buckra Magistrate," which both apprentices and planters alike recognized, when in the aftermath of a free coloured riot in Kingstown, he recorded "the spirit of disaffection spread to the neighbouring estates, & on one estate I was myself threatened by the people, & three of my Policemen going to enforce the execution of a Warrant, - were driven off by the entire Gang." But determined "to show that the functionaries of the law were not to be tamely insulted," Anderson "assembled the Police force, & repairing to the refractory estate, with several gentlemen who kindly volunteered their aid, - I tried the rioters - handed over some to the Court of Grand Sessions of the Peace - sentenced the most culpable others to various degrees of punishment, and (in spite of clamour) safely lodged them in the town Jail" (p. 193). These actions earned Anderson the planters' gratitude and their kudos. The Royal St. Vincent Gazette; and Weekly Advertiser, the newspaper representing the Tory interests embraced by the planters, praised "the police magistrate [Anderson, who] . . . manfully discharged his duty, and after enduring many indignities and running many risks, succeeded in taking into custody the ringleaders on Montrose Estate." Neither Anderson nor the newspaper identified the "several gentlemen who kindly volunteered their aid" (p. 193) and accompanied him to the estate, but these vigilantes 30. Glenelg to MacGregor, 31 May 1838, CO 261/15, 352-53.

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Between Slavery and Freedom

undoubtedly represented the planter class whose views found expression in the Gazette. The fact that the same article furiously excoriated what it perceived as the weakness of Lieutenant-Governor Tyler and his administration in responding to the disturbances, indicates the extent of Anderson's alignment with planter interests as well as an estrangement from the Tyler administration that resulted in the lieutenant-governor refusing to reappoint him as police magistrate for Kingstown in 1838.31 In May 1838 Tyler informed Anderson that since the passage of a revised Police Establishment Act, "repeals the act under which you hold your present situation as Police Magistrate for Kingstown, your duties as such will cease on the 28th [May], when you will confine yourself to those duties imposed upon you as Special Magistrate for the 3rd District."32 Anderson had already written to Lord Glenelg, his patron in the Colonial Office, pressing his claim for the appointment and pointing to his experience: "I have acted as Police Magistrate for Kingstown since October 1836 being the first person who ever did so," he informed Glenelg, and "I have with much labour organized the system." He continued by giving a disparaging assessment of the townspeople as "a community of very mixed character," which again hints at his prejudices, while his acknowledgment that he had "incurred the odium [of] the lawless," no doubt underestimated the constituencies who held him in disfavour in the aftermath of the disturbances associated with the free coloured riot.33 The doubts Tyler expressed about Anderson's competence doomed his chances of reappointrnent: "having appointed Mr. Anderson Police Magistrate for Kingstown in 1836, in addition to his situation of Special Justice," the lieutenant-governor informed Governor MacGregor, "I evinced a desire on my part to serve his interests which feeling would have prompted me to continue him in the same situation under the present Act if in the conscientious discharge of my duty, I had from experience considered him qualified in every aspect to fill so important an office."34 MacGregor concurred with Tyler's assessment, informing Glenelg, "I cannot discover 31. The Royal St. Vincent Gazette; and Weekly Advertiser, 12 April 1838; see also journal annotations, footnote 199. 32. "An Act for the more effectual Administration of Justice in the Office of a Justice of the Peace, and for the Appointment of Police Magistrates and a Constabulary Force, 26 May 1838," House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 36, pp. 129-33; Tyler to Anderson, 24 May 1838, CO 260/57, 85 verso. 33. Anderson to Glenelg, 31 March 1838, CO 260/57, 84 verso. 34. Tyler to MacGregor, 14 August 1838, CO 260/57, 83.

Introductory Essay

17

any grounds upon which the employment of Mr. Anderson as Police Magistrate can be recommended in opposition to the LieutenantGovernor's declaration." Glenelg responded by directing the governor "to acquaint Mr. Anderson that I must decline to interfere with the decision which was formed by the Lt. Governor."35 These developments suggest that Anderson's reputation as a planter partisan adversely affected his career as a magistrate, and shortly after appointing J. G. Nanton as police magistrate for Kingstown, Tyler transferred Anderson to a more remote posting at the town of Colonarie on St. Vincent's eastern coast.36 But only a few months had elapsed before Anderson's prejudices again created a furore. As the Apprenticeship drew to a close, Anderson became increasingly incensed at what he considered "the inflammatory language held forth by pseudo-philanthropists at Public meetings in Britain, on the mischevous character of the apprenticeship . . . as well as in pamphlets, professedly written by parties who had come out to the West Indies to investigate into the working of the system." These he considered "gratuitous & libellous fabrications; extremely well calculated for the meridian of Exeter-Hall; and the sympathies of sugar-loving old spinsters, - but destitute of truth" (p. 198). His indictment, of course, targeted abolitionists like Joseph Sturge, Thomas Harvey, William Lloyd, and John Scoble, who represented the Exeter Hallbased British Anti-Slavery Society and had journeyed to the West Indies in 1836 to investigate the Apprenticeship, after which, along with American abolitionists James Thome and Horace Kimball, they had published extremely critical assessments of the system's operation. Anderson's indictment of them as "intemperate & senseless canters who affected pre-eminently to devote themselves to the Negro's cause," as well as "hawkers of pretended oppression," with "no sympathies for any but the virtuous apprentice!" (p. 199) augured badly for the visit to St. Vincent, a few months later, by another representative from Exeter Hall. Captain Charles Stuart, who identified himself "as being employed in conjunction with others by the And Slavery Society to visit these Colonies for the purpose of enquiring into the working &c. of the free system of labor . . . attended for about two hours, the sitting of [Anderson's] Stipendiary Court" on 1 May 1839: he came away convinced of the magistrate's 35. MacGregor to Glenelg, 4 September 1838, CO 260/57, 80; Glenelg to MacGregor, 26 October 1838, CO 260/57, 81-81 verso. 36. Tyler to MacGregor, 1 June 1838, CO 260/56, 107.

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Between Slavery and Freedom

pro-planter propensities.37 In a letter to Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, Stuart enumerated his criticisms after commenting by way of a preface that Anderson's "demeanor generally seemed to me, to be highly impatient and partial": He seemed to me to deny the right of the labourers, having houses and grounds, to receive and entertain their friends; and to employ whom they please, in assisting to cultivate their grounds, and to carry, or to help carry, their provisions to Market. He seemed to me to sustain the assumed right of the Masters to stop or diminish wages according to their estimate of the work done, while I thought, he as distinctly denied the right of the labourers, similarly to break their contract, when they deem themselves, inadequately or unfairly paid, or otherwise ill treated.38 Anderson, of course, vehemently denied Stuart's accusation of partiality. A lengthy response to Tyler, in which he asked the lieutenant-governor to institute a formal inquiry into the validity of the charges, included his recitation of "the facts" about the proceedings Stuart had witnessed: "of 31 complaints," Anderson noted, "25 were brought home to the servant or laborer, - whilst I fined only three (21/6 currency in all) and either made Contracts between them and their Masters, or where totally unwilling to work . . . ordered them to remove."39 Tyler decided against a formal inquiry (Stuart had left St. Vincent even before Anderson learned of his accusations), but a flurry of correspondence ensued, and eventually reached the desk of the new colonial secretary, the Marquis of Normanby, whose permanent under-secretary, James Stephen, noted that absent such investigation, H. M. Govt. . . . can attribute to [Stuart's] judgement neither more nor less weight, than to the judgement of any other individual, and therefore Lord Normanby perceives no reason for prolonging this correspondence or from drawing from it any inference or presumption unfavourable to the

37. Howard Temperley identifies Stuart as a "fervid but somewhat eccentric abolitionist . . . who played a part in the antislavery movements on both sides of the Atlantic." According to Temperley, "in 1838 he visited the West Indies in company with [John] Scoble," but he was on his own by the time he got to St. Vincent and attended Anderson's court in the early summer of 1839. Temperley, British Antislavery, 1833-1870 (London: Longman, 1972), pp. 13, 195. 38. Stuart to Tyler, 6 May 1839, CO 260/58, 219 verso-220. 39. Anderson to Tyler, 11 May 1839, CO 260/58, 221-22.

Introductory Essay

19

zeal and ability of Mr. Anderson in the discharge of the duties of his office.40 Henry Labouchere, his fellow Colonial Office under-secretary, concurred with this assessment. "I quite agree with you," he informed Stephen, before dismissing Stuart's accusations as "persecution."41 But Anderson would never learn of his exoneration: just a week later, and long before word from the Colonial Office had made its way across the Atlantic, he suffered his fatal accident. By his own lights, of course, Anderson was a conscientious special magistrate (and subsequently stipendiary magistrate) engaged in what Stephen correctly identified as "an arduous and responsible public duty."42 Indeed, his commitment and hard work cannot be questioned: as his journal documents, he scrupulously maintained the punishing schedule of travel and court hearings required of the magistrates. In December 1837 Anderson informed Lord Glenelg: "In the last 23 months, I have adjudicated 5679 cases, (of which 1209 have been Police questions for a space of twelve months [since his appointment as Kingstown's chief police magistrate]); the remainder, 4470 - complaints between labourers, & their Employers."43 Moreover, his official reports to the lieutenant-governor were models of punctuality and presentation that included more information and often evinced considerably more deliberation than those of many of his fellow magistrates.

Each month, the special magistrates had to provide answers to the same set of thirteen questions concerning: 1. the general conduct of the apprentices; 2. the relations between apprentices and employers; 3. the apprentices' willingness to work; 4. the hours of labour required of apprentices; 5. the use of task work; 6. the apprentices' willingness to do additional work for wages; 7. whether estates provided apprentices with the indulgences they had received during slavery; 40. Stephen to Labouchere, 26 August 1839, CO 260/58, 218 verso. 41. Labouchere to Stephen, 27 August 1839, CO 260/58, 218 verso. 42. Stephen to Labouchere, 26 August 1839, CO 260/58, 218 verso. 43. Anderson to Glenelg, 4 December 1837, CO 260/55, 492 verso.

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Between Slavery and Freedom

8. the condition of free children; 9. the apprentices' educational and religious facilities; 10. the apprentices' desire to purchase their freedom; 11. the employment of those who do purchase freedom; 12. the prospects for the sugar crop; 13. additional suggestions and recommendations. Anderson's thoughtful and detailed responses to these questions bespoke his commitment to his job and his industry in its discharge, while providing valuable additional information on the workings of the Apprenticeship. His comments ranged widely, not only embracing themes highlighted in his journal, such as crime and policing, but also targeting problems and abuses that his official duties brought to light. On 30 June 1837, for example, he supplemented his quite detailed responses to the thirteen questions with an extensive deliberation on the work done by apprentices who had purchased full freedom.44 He contended that some apprentices had fallen victim to a scheme designed to exploit their labour, because although "a few ply the isle as hucksters, or jobbers of general work . . . most," he thought, "only exchange one Master for another," using borrowed money "on condition that he will serve the lender as his Employer," for a term "often of longer duration" than the one he left. Anderson indicted rich planters who, he claimed, lured the best hands away from their poorer neighbours, and lamented the "injury . . . done to the Emancipated apprentice himself, by severing him from his relatives, - his home, - and the spot connected with his earliest associations." But his solicitude for the apprentices went only so far. He blamed a racial trait, "love of change," which he considered "a prominent feature in the Negro character," for the scheme's viability.45 Indeed, Anderson's conviction of white racial superiority pervaded his official reports as it did his journal, occasionally in the most egregious manner, such as in his assertion "that the Police force should be composed of Europeans, - not of Blacks," because he considered, "the temper of the latter is too irritable; and they are too disposed to exercise their authority of office in a wanton manner . . . Besides," he averred, "whether it arises from 44. By this time, Anderson reported, "judging by the number of advertisements in the Gazette, - there Exists a strong desire to purchase their time among the apprentices." Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55, 339. He provided additional information in his journal on apprentices purchasing full freedom (pp. 201-3). 45. Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55, 339-40 verso.

Introductory Essay

21

volatility of disposition, - or mental incapacity, -1 never knew a Negro to be capable of perfectly comprehending an order, - or of distinctly delivering a message entrusted to him."46 But as can be seen in his journal, Anderson occasionally succeeded in muting his racial notions and presenting more even-handed analyses; and so too in his monthly reports. On 8 February 1838, for example, he penned an extremely informative assessment of the process undertaken by "apprenticed labourers to avail themselves of the privilege of purchasing their discharge." This time he moved on from the scheme for lending apprentices money to switch employers that he had delineated a few months earlier, to voice his dissatisfaction over the subversion of the procedures for "the bona fide release of an apprentice" who had accumulated sufficient money to secure his release without indebtedness, "where the Employers of such labourers may be unwilling^ - or unable to contract for such release," because the employer and his apprentice could not agree on the latter's value (that is, the value of the labour owed the employer by the apprentice for what remained of his tenure as an apprentice). In these circumstances, Anderson explained, an appraiser arbitrated the dispute, and had seven days to decide on the amount to be paid. The apprentice then would have to pay the stipulated sum immediately, or the proceedings would be invalidated. But Anderson described a ruse designed to stymie apprentices, where "the Chief Justice daily allows the appraisers to retire from Court, (from which they often, are not absent 5 minutes) - and on their return with their valuation, the labourer is called on 'immediately' [the term used in the Act] to pay down his Cash; and, if he is not ready, His Honor quashes the proceedings." Anderson claimed "it too frequently happens, the Planters rigidly exact this enforcement," whereas he felt that "a reasonable period" should be allowed the apprentice who, after all, may have come "from the most remote corner of St. Vincent to Kingstown, where all appraisements are made," to deposit the arbitrated sum. It is an injustice, he concluded, if an apprentice "comes provided with ten doubloons, as the price of freedom, - and he should be valued at twelve, - that because he cannot 'immediately' advance the difference, all his hopes are dashed to the ground."47

46. Anderson Report, 22 September 1837, CO 260/55, 402 verso. This suggestion, however, apparently received short shrift back in London, where the text was anonymously annotated with the comment: "generally speaking the Black Police seem to have done very well considering their circ[umstance]s and the police s[houl]d if possible be Black rather than White." 47. Anderson Report, 8 February 1838, CO 260/56, 294-95.

22

Between Slavery and Freedom

In this instance, Anderson's castigation of the planters and his renunciation of the solidarity between white Vincentians that enabled such trickery to succeed in the first place, evinced a sense of fairness and justice. It also expressed his frustration at a process that implicitly challenged the authority of the special magistrates, since they acted for the apprentices in the selection of appraisers who in reality served only the planters' interests. Other deliberations Anderson included in his monthly reports addressed a source of tension between him and his Colonial Office superiors. Special magistrates, he argued, should be given jurisdiction over petty crimes committed by apprentices against each other, such as breaches of the peace and theft, as well as over "debts of a small amount between apprentices and free persons." He thought that the criminal court system responsible for adjudicating these crimes moved too slowly - for "punishment... to be Effectual among negroes," he contended, "it must be ... prompt" - and sentenced too leniently. Here he offered the example of an apprentice convicted of "purloining, & killing a goat" belonging to another apprentice who "received only a few stripes!" Such a light sentence "completely bewildered" the apprentices with whom he spoke. "Several on neighbouring Estates have asked," he wrote, "what use is it for them to be industrious, when they may be robbed tomorrow, by their worthless associate, who will be only shut up in prison, to eat, sleep, and get fat, and then be disciplined with a slight flogging?"48 He then averred that lenient punishments contributed to high rates of recidivism. He thought that the special magistrates and their courts were best placed to reform this unwieldy and contrary system, but his "respectful . . . urg[ing]" on the issue fell on deaf ears.49 Anderson also emphasized the need to control hucksters through rigorously enforcing the Vagrancy Act, and raised a related issue in which he lent his support to the concerns voiced by island authorities and planters alike over the "contamination" of urban influences corrupting agrarian apprentices. Increasingly, St. Vincent's urban and rural worlds intersected: more and more apprentices travelled back and forth between them, exploiting the easier accessibility of towns occasioned by the termination of slavery, and 48. Anderson Report, 22 September 1837, CO 260/55, 399-402 verso. In another report, Anderson raised the problem of apprentices' "larcenies from the provision grounds of their fellow labourers," arguing that "if an effectual check however, be not given to the misdemeanours among themselves, I fear the more industrious negroes will be deterred in a great measure, from raising vegetables at all." Anderson Report, 15 November 1836, CO 260/55, 264. He also addressed this issue at some length in his journal (p. 147). 49. Anderson Report, 22 September 1837, CO 260/55, 399-402 verso.

Introductory Essay

23

Anderson blamed "the proximity of the Estates in [his] district, to Kingstown, and the facilities of communication with debauched characters thence, as the causes of [the] misdemeanours" among rural apprentices, which he identified as "neglect of duty, indolence and improper work."50 A year later, he was still complaining that "in Town, and on some estates more immediately connected with town, a sulky, insubordinate disposition has been manifested by [the apprentices]."51 In his reports, Anderson also distinguished between the problems he encountered among rural apprentices and their urban counterparts. In February 1836, he recorded few offences on sugar estates, but "his calendar is swelled up by cases from town, where disputes between seamen and their employers are of frequent occurrence," and again the next month intimated that the complaints he adjudicated "are mainly of a class which necessarily enters into police reports of any capital; and where a commercial and agricultural community are included in the return, breaches of the peace must greatly preponderate among the former."52 Anderson's interest in crime and policing prompted him to offer suggestions for reforming another aspect of the judicial system - "punishment for Juvenile offenders." He worried about the corrupting effects of sentencing young people "to the tread-mill, or penal gang," where they "become confirmed in Evil habits, by older criminals." Nor was he satisfied with whipping punishments, because "boys can be whipped; but the young females, aware that they cannot, are often, - not only themselves, the most turbulent of a gang, - but the cause of others committing offences." As a solution, Anderson called for the enforcement of an unused provision of the Emancipation Act - "the erection of a stocks in the market place of Kingstown, and that the culprit should be there exposed to the public gaze, with a label over his breast, designating the crime."53 He also suggested that "apprenticed labourers condemned to the penal gang, should wear a distinguishing dress of opprobrium. Silence," he added, "than which, there is not a greater restraint on the negro, - should be rigidly enforced, and the infraction of it, corporally punished on the spot, by the driver, with a switch."54 Again, although apparently no action resulted from Anderson's recommen50. Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55, 339. 51. Anderson Report, 1 June 1838, CO 260/57, 293. 52. Anderson Reports, 10 February 1836, 1 March 1836, CO 260/54, 90, 105. 53. Anderson Report, 22 September 1837, CO 260/55, 399-402 verso. 54. Anderson Report, 22 September 1837, CO 260/55, 399-402 verso.

24

Between Slavery and Freedom

dations - as suggested by the dismissive annotation of "questionable" that was anonymously appended to his report in London - his reflections do cast light on the tensions and concerns present in Vincentian society during the turbulent years of the Apprenticeship. They also reveal the predilections and preconceptions that Anderson brought to his official duties, while confirming his tendencies towards a "Buckra Magistrate" conception of justice. The need that "some provision be made, to meet the wants of the numerous infantine illegitimate population" in St. Vincent, caused Anderson next to lament the absence of laws "by which a man can be compelled to provide for his bastard children": this resulted in "fathers, - Even in a respectable class, - throwing off all interest in such offspring." He did concede that "the Special Magistrates can hire out the services, in his extra hours, of any apprenticed labourer who does not make adequate provision for his child; But," he pointed out, "the compulsory legislation applies only to praedials, and, it is among the non-praedials that the greatest profligacy exists."55 This analysis echoes Anderson's generally unfavourable treatment of the society and activities of St. Vincent's non-praedial apprentices in his journal, but highlights an issue on which it is silent. Returning to a discussion of the apprentices' children in another report, Anderson supplemented information he provided in his journal concerning birth rates (p. 166). He noted no unprecedented mortality in the cohort of children within his district (although measles had caused some infant deaths), while recording "an increase of the juvenile population, to the number of 56, since the abolition of slavery."56 He also dismissed accusations that apprentices were inattentive to their offspring, where he elaborated on a point made in his journal (p. 166), noting that "it is true that mothers manifest a disinclination to avail themselves of medical advice for 55. Anderson Report, 22 September 1837, CO 260/55, 399-402 verso. 56. Anderson included in his journal a tabulation of population statistics for St. Vincent's apprentices from 1 August 1834 to 31 July 1836 that showed a net increase of 582 in their numbers islandwide (p. 164). In addition to the 56 in Anderson's Third District, the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Districts reported increases of 161, 163, 44, 61 and 97, respectively. During the last twenty years of slavery, St. Vincent's slave population had been declining significantly - the pathological demography typical of British West Indian sugar colonies in that era. Robert Montgomery Martin estimated annual population totals for 1812 as 24,920; 1825, 23,780; 1831, 22,997; and 1834, 22,250; while B. W. Higman tabulated statistics for 1810 as 27,400; 1820, 24,750; 1830, 23,100; and 1834, 22,250. But as Anderson's numbers confirm, in St. Vincent, as elsewhere, Emancipation transformed the demographics of the ex-slave population, which now began to increase naturally. See Martin, History of the Colonies, p. 54; and B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), pp. 68-70.

Introductory Essay

25

their infants, (two instances came under my notice since September,) but this disinclination arises from a preference for their own mode of cure of invalids; from ignorant fondness, not culpable neglect." He concluded by observing that "if [apprentices] evince an injudicious fondness for the[ir children] at one time, they not less exhibit an equally injudicious severity of correction, when these are in fault," which amplified a point he made in his journal (p. 130).57 In a related discussion, Anderson reported that "free Children are supported by their parents [and] medical attendance for which Estates pay 10/ a head to the Doctor, besides giving medicines, are furnished them on either parent giving up 6 of his, or her, days, which at 1/6 per day are worth 9/," but he confirmed that "few avail themselves of the privilege."58 Apprentices, however, were not necessarily averse to undertaking additional work on the estate in exchange for wages. They "frequently sell 20 of the 30 days allowed them out of the 45 working hours in Each week (over & above one day in Each week, & Sundays)," Anderson reported, adding that "the ordinary rate of wages are 1/6 for the first class [field hands], I/ for the second [class], per day."59 Colonial Office records show that in 1836, 4,684 apprentices from 111 St. Vincent estates did extra work for wages, earning a total of £9,038.10.1 currency (£3,916.13.8 sterling). In Anderson's district, 473 apprentices on 12 estates earned £1,127.9.3 currency.60 Anderson's reports also evince increasing disharmony between praedial apprentices and their employers, and chronicle a marked deterioration in 57. Anderson Report, 17 February 1837, CO 260/55, 84-85. 58. Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55, 339 verso. 59. Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55, 339 verso. In his journal, Anderson provided a detailed delineation of the praedial apprentices' work schedule (pp. 138-40). With the advent of full freedom on 1 August 1838, wages for praedial workers were set at "Is. 6d. a day for the first class field-labourers, Is. a day for the second class, and 9d. or 6d. for the old and little people." House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 37, p. 172. 60. General abstract from the Returns of the Special Magistrates of the Colony shewing the number of Apprenticed Laborers who hired themselves to their Employers for Extra Labor during the Year 1836, the Amount of Wages paid to them, & the Quantity of Sugar Manufactured in the Crop of that Year, CO 260/55, 92. This report gives a district by district breakdown of the statistics: in the 1st district, 1,051 apprentices on 20 estates earned £2,316.3.8 and 3,821 hogsheads, 3 tierces and 8 barrels of sugar; in the 2nd district, 1,958 apprentices on 31 estates earned £3,377.5.5 and 3,862 hogsheads of sugar; in the 3rd district, 473 apprentices on 12 estates earned £1,127.9.3 and made hogsheads, 3 tierces and 10 barrels of sugar; in the 4th district, 412 apprentices on 16 estates earned £1,111.15.11 and 1,915 hogsheads, 3 tierces and 160 barrels of sugar;

made made 1,274 made

26

Between Slavery and Freedom

Anderson's relationship with the apprentices, which suggests that they began to challenge his authority upon recognizing his pro-planter leanings. Thus on 10 February 1836, in the first report he submitted as a special magistrate, he recorded that "the offences committed on the estates are exceedingly few." On 1 March he noted "few offenders in the rural part of my charge," and likewise in April, the apprentices were "orderly in their conduct." But by the summer, he was reporting "an increased number of cases . . . [as] the apprentices on several estates have manifested an obstinate indisposition to labour" (June), and then he cited "the whole strong gangs of Arno's Vale and Cane Hall . . . for rebellious conduct, and careless, indolent work" Quly). By September, "the whole gangs of Cane Hall, (132 in No.) and Cane Garden point, (69 in No.), were indicted . . . for cutting canes; an offence," he asserted, "of repeated occurrence of late in my district."61 The apprentices' efforts to resist a work schedule they considered onerous apparently met with some success. In Anderson's discussion of the general scale of labour required of the apprentices, he noted that "the planters have in very few instances exacted the ratio of labour it assigns: They have contented themselves with ordinary diligence on the part of the praedial apprentices; and have only had recourse to the scale, when these have proved indolent, or refractory." Disputes, however, continued: "cane stealing, careless work, and insubordinate conduct" (December), and at year'send "the entire gang of Struan, (40 in number) came before [Anderson] for cutting canes." By early the next year, "a turbulent, indolent spirit [was] widely disseminated" throughout Anderson's district (February 1837); then he cited "the entire gangs of Cane Hall, and Struan Estates, (85 persons in all) . . . for negligence, insubordination, & wanton destruction of canes" (March); and the "turbulent spirit exhibited by the apprenticed labourers on Fountain Estate" after attempts to curb their liquor-making activities (March and May). Hostilities extended through the summer and autumn months, with "a spirit of impatience to all control" (June) and "rebellious in the 5th district, 616 apprentices on 21 estates earned £780.5.10 and made 1,366 hogsheads, 146 tierces and 6 barrels of sugar; in the 6th district, 174 apprentices on 11 estates earned £325.10.0 and made 473 hogsheads, 219 tierces and 126 barrels of sugar. Thus a total of 4,684 apprentices on 111 estates earned £9,038.10.1 and made 12,711 hogsheads, 374 tierces and 310 barrels of sugar. 61. Anderson Reports, 10 February 1836, 1 March 1836, 4 April 1836, 7 June 1836, 13 July 1836, 14 September 1836, CO 260/54, 90, 105, 108, 182, 187, 244.

Introductory Essay

27

spirit" (August), before culminating in October with the developments discussed above that brought Anderson's judicial activities under Colonial Office scrutiny - the 286 cases and 41 whipping sentences he reported after "the entire gangs of Arno's Vale, Struan, and Cane Hall, were brought up . . . for indolence, neglect of duty, insubordination, and fighting . . . rioting, larceny, cutting canes, running away, and plunder." The favourable account Lieutenant-Governor Tyler received concerning the apprentices' conduct after he had relieved Anderson of jurisdiction over the affected estates suggests that the special magistrate's conduct and his relations with the praedial workers had indeed contributed to the crisis.62 Anderson's reports were also revealing for what they did not contain: sustained or serious criticism of any whites involved with the Apprenticeship. Except for his two comments about questionable planter conduct vis-a-vis apprentices purchasing their full freedom, Anderson found no cause to register any misgivings about the actions and activities of ex-slaveowners or their agents in their dealings with the apprentices in their employ. Anderson, of course, identified philosophically with the interests of the white employers, both planters and non-planters, who sought to maintain their control over labour and land. He held fast to his conviction that largescale sugar production should dominate St. Vincent's postemancipation economy, with the ex-slaves functioning as a cheap, tractable and disciplined workforce of free wage labourers within the plantation system, or supporting it, and he legislated accordingly. In his reports, as in his accompanying judicial decisions, he discountenanced any alternative visions advanced by the apprentices, consistently construing such responses in negative and unsympathetic terms. The lengthy embellishments Anderson conscientiously incorporated into his monthly reports provide fascinating and most enlightening complements to his private writings. Taken together, Anderson's journal and his official correspondence offer as detailed and informative a portrait of the Apprenticeship as exists for the British West Indies; they also confirm just how pitiful and excruciatingly rending these birth pangs of freedom were.

62. Anderson Reports, 20 December 1836, 3 January 1837, 10 February 1837, 14 March 1837, 31 March 1837, 16 May 1837, 22 June 1837, 2 August 1837, CO 260/55, 26, 264, 270, 279, 289, 296, 309, 317, 322, 379; Anderson to Tyler, 24 February 1838, CO 260/56, 107-107 verso; Tyler to MacGregor, no date, CO 260/56, 105 verso-106.

28

Between Slavery and Freedom

Anderson encountered heightened levels of social conflict in St. Vincent as anxiety increased within the island's various constituencies over issues of status, labour demarcation, and acceptable modes of conduct and interaction. Racially based hostilities, which of course had their genesis in the era of slavery, emerged in starker relief during the Apprenticeship years: the negrophobic attitudes of white Vincentians became more virulent, accompanied by apparently intensifying rivalries between and within the communities of free coloureds, praedial and non-praedial apprentices. Anderson explained how status-consciousness and attentiveness to rank assumed unprecedented importance as Vincentians from all social strata jockeyed for position in the island's new free society. With the free coloured population, for example, Emancipation threatened to eliminate what status, albeit precarious and marginal, they derived from being free, and Anderson's journal provides evidence of strenuous efforts on the part of some free coloureds to maintain exclusivity by differentiating between the Afro-Vincentians who had been free prior to 1 August 1838, and those whom the British government would free on that date. Anderson's observations emphasized the concerted actions of free coloureds, and their community of interest, as they confronted the changes wrought by Emancipation and the Apprenticeship. It is telling that in 1836 for the first time a newspaper, the St. Vincent Chronicle., and Public Gazette, "was started by, the Coloured population; as the organ of 'their order'" (p. 175). Anderson identified its political affiliations as Tory, although its editor, John Wilson Adams, was eulogized in his 1838 obituary as having "distinguished himself by his long and zealous efforts to effect the emancipation of the negroes. Like Wilberforce, he died just as his labors were crowned with success."63 The Chronicle's support of emancipation (from a Tory perspective!) obviously indicated divisions within the ranks of the free coloureds vis-a-vis their affinity or hostility to the apprentices, and Anderson's emphasis on the latter in his journal, particularly in its more mean-spirited manifestations, most likely derived from his personal disdain for St. Vincent's free coloureds. Full emancipation would, however, obliterate the free coloureds as a class, and Anderson's journal sheds light on their various responses in anticipation of this eventuality. Anderson's observations also reveal that, throughout the Apprenticeship, ex-slaves had an acute awareness of, and reacted to, the transformation of 63. From Barbadian, 9 September 1838, excerpted in Mies National Register, 20 October 1838, p. 118.

Introductory Essay

29

St. Vincent society. Their actions and attitudes towards each other, and towards the rest of the island's population, show their adeptness at manipulating the changing circumstances. Although whites and some free coloureds wanted to perpetuate the dominance they had enjoyed during slavery, ex-slaves took advantage of the changes wrought by the Apprenticeship to challenge the existing structures of power and social relations. Indeed, Anderson describes how, even within their ranks, contending groups of apprentices struggled to contest or reassert hierarchies that had been established in their communities during slavery. Three factors - labour assignment, colour and ethnicity - divided the apprentices. Anderson described the cleavages between praedials and nonpraedials, blacks and coloureds, and Creoles and Africans, respectively: these categories, of course, overlapped considerably, since non-praedials, for example, were more likely to be coloured, and were almost invariably Creole. Moreover, in differentiating the terms of apprenticeship between agricultural and non-agricultural workers, the Emancipation Act had reinforced a division between fieldhands and domestics that dated from slavery, and through which some domestics from the group traditionally viewed by the planters and by themselves as an elite, apparently claimed superiority and derived status. Anderson documented a tendency among non-praedials to emulate free coloureds while distancing themselves from the praedial apprentices, which he suggested became more pronounced as the Apprenticeship neared its conclusion. Meanwhile he showed how domestics began to renegotiate their relationship to their white employers by challenging the relations of power in ways that would have been much more problematic a few years earlier during slavery. Thus, struggles to attain and secure social status characterized the Apprenticeship era, particularly among the free coloureds and non-praedial apprentices who saw Emancipation threatening their claims to rank. But as Anderson chronicled, even the white community, whose position in Vincentian society seemed more secure, manifested heightened awareness about their social standing and increasing status anxiety during these interstitial years between slavery and freedom, as they united in their desire to maintain the superiority and exclusivity of their class. Energetic efforts by free coloureds, whites, and some non-praedial apprentices advanced their respective claims to position in free St. Vincent, but the circumstances praedial apprentices faced were different, as were their responses. Many praedials saw advantages in establishing a society that

30

Between Slavery and Freedom

was independent and set off in important ways from the rest of the island's population. Praedials therefore directed their actions and activities to counter planter aspirations for keeping them as wage-hands on the sugar estates, and to advance their own interests in establishing a self-determined and autonomous society and economy. The praedials' strategies to achieve independence can be discerned in Anderson's frequent carpings about what he considered their recalcitrant attitudes concerning the work required of them for their former owners, as well as their refusal to apprentice their children, and their determination to secure rights, and devote free time, to the homes, villages and provision grounds they had occupied since slavery, but over which the planters retained title. During the Apprenticeship, therefore, praedials concentrated on constructing the society they wanted to occupy in freedom: they wanted to minimize their involvement in the plantation system and base their postemancipation world on the social and economic systems they had constructed in slavery. The houses, gardens and grounds where, as slaves, they had developed an independent economy, now became the focus of a smallholding peasant economy that apprentices hoped would guarantee their autonomy when full freedom came. Anderson's chronicle gives ample evidence of the praedials' strenuous efforts to secure the land and property they considered theirs, and to work there after meeting their forty-five hours per week obligation as apprentices. Legal title to this property, however, remained with the planters, whose attempts to thwart the apprentices' aspirations when freedom came, by making continued occupation of houses and grounds conditional on the workers' willingness to remain at work on the estate, would be contested for years after. Anderson, however, detected and documented the early manifestations of this conflict. He also chronicled the blossoming of social life among praedials as the apprentices exercised their new-found control over free time to indulge their interests in family, community, religion, recreation and leisure, assigning these pursuits priority over demands on their labour that they considered unjustified, or opportunities for work in a system they despised. Anderson's journal thus shows how, rather than facilitating a smooth transition from slavery to freedom, the Apprenticeship experiment may well have exacerbated the crisis that accompanied Emancipation, as the goals of praedial apprentices to reject the plantation system as best they could in favour of developing an independent society and economy ran counter to those of white planters, who wanted to maintain control over

Introductory Essay

31

land and labour. And whereas loss of labour threatened the plantation system, the aspirations of free coloureds and some segments of the apprentice community, particularly among the non-praedials, challenged white hegemony. Anderson therefore not only bore witness to the difficult and painful birth of a free society in St. Vincent, but his observations also anticipated the ordeal that would characterize it through its infancy. Emancipation had not eradicated, but rather had transformed, the social tensions and conflicts created by slavery. The Apprenticeship provided the initial forum for their expression, and was the harbinger of a struggle that would continue in freedom. As special magistrate, Anderson exercised legislative responsibility over a wide variety of conflicts and contentions arising from disputes between employers and apprentices. With the Abolition Act, of course, ex-slaveowners lost the prerogative that they had assumed during slavery to adjudicate on behaviour they discountenanced in their workers. Not only could the ex-slaveowners no longer respond unilaterally to dissatisfaction over issues that ran the gamut from work performance to social conduct, but they were specifically enjoined from punishing any "apprenticed labourer for any offence by him committed, or alleged to have been committed, by the whipping, beating or imprisonment of his person, or by any other personal or other correction or punishment whatever": this responsibility came under the mandate given Anderson and his fellow magistrates.64 In rural St. Vincent, the jurisdiction of the special magistrates replaced planter justice: magistrates visited each estate within their judicial district at least once a fortnight, and convened courts to hear and adjudicate on the complaints brought before them by both apprentices and planters. The Abolition Act, and the accompanying "Act for Establishing a Police for the Regulation of Apprenticed Labourers," which both codified the obligations of the two parties and specified the consequences of any contravention, guided the decisions at these proceedings.65 Since the provisions of the Abolition Act likewise pertained to urban apprentices, special magistrates also held court in towns within their jurisdiction to rule on grievances between apprentices 64. St. Vincent Abolition Act, Clause 30 (reproduced as Appendix 1). 65. "An Act for establishing a Police for the Regulation of Apprenticed Labourers, and for carrying into effect certain provisions of an Act, intituled, 'An Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of Saint Vincent and its Dependencies, in consideration of Compensation, and for promoting the Industry and good conduct of the Manumitted Slaves,'" passed on 23 June 1834, a month and a half after the passage of the Abolition Act. It is reproduced as Appendix 6.

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Between Slavery and Freedom

living there and those entitled to their labour. The magistrates' responsibilities were, however, limited to disputes between apprentices and employers: they had no jurisdiction over crime. On the other hand, as chief police magistrate for Kingstown, Anderson assumed the responsibility of administering criminal codes undergoing profound transformation in response to the changes wrought by Emancipation. His journal's emphasis on these duties, while obviously reflecting his particular legal interests, also indicated the centrality of issues concerning crime and social control to the reformulation of Vincentian society after slavery. Before Emancipation, of course, relatively little crime fell within the compass of the formal legal structure. In the last five years of slavery, the number of convicted prisoners held steady at some 300 people (female and male, slave and free, black, coloured and white), out of a total island population of about 26,550.66 Crimes committed by rural and plantation slaves did not normally reach the courts, despite the fact that, as Charles Shephard noted, "the government of the slave population, is chiefly under the control of the Magistrates, except in specified cases; two Justices sit in rotation at the Court House in Kingstown, twice each month, to hear and determine all petty offences; the punishments of slaves are regulated by a Slave Act, and recently, since the establishment of a treadmill, by the laws regulating the same."67 Rather, as sugar planter Hay McDowell Grant observed, slaves guilty of crimes, if detected, were usually punished by the owners or managers of the estates on which they lived. Questioned before the House of Commons about "the state of crime in St. Vincent's" since Emancipation, Grant responded to Sir Benjamin Hawes, MP: "I should think it has rather increased; I do not think the actual amount of crime has increased, but that it is more taken notice of." And when Hawes asked: "There is more detection, more police?" Grant answered: "Perhaps more; the crimes which were before punished on the estate, are now brought forward to public view."68 Apart from those charged with the most serious crimes, such as rebellion or murder, the only slaves likely to have fallen foul of St. Vincent's formal legal system with any regularity would have been the small number living in the island's urban areas, especially in Kingstown.69 Since their residence and activities placed them 66. Martin, History of the Colonies, pp. 54-55. 67. Charles Shephard, An Historical Account of the Island of St. Vincent (London: W. Nicol, 1831), p. 199. 68. House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1842, vol. 13, p. 29. 69. Of the 22,250 slaves in St. Vincent in 1834, only 2,793 (12.5 percent) were not engaged

Introductory Essay

33

in close physical proximity to the police and the courts, their alleged offences would have come more readily to the attention of the authorities. But crime now fell squarely within the purview of the proliferation of laws, personnel and institutions that accompanied Emancipation, the highest priority of which was to control apprentices and free coloureds. Some of the richest material in Anderson's journal detailed his extensive involvement in these affairs. Before 1834, most slaves accused even of serious crimes such as assault and theft would, if held responsible, have been punished by their owners. During the Apprenticeship, criminal courts heard these cases, a circumstance that would indeed, as Grant testified, have "brought forward to public view" more crimes. And, of course, they came to Anderson's attention in his capacity as police magistrate. New definitions of crime and criminality, with accompanying mechanisms for the identification and punishment of transgressions, had been instituted with, or followed fast on the heels of, the abolition of slavery. Many apprentices found themselves ensnared by laws recently instituted to control the newly freed population.70 Small wonder then, that by 1836 the number of prisoners on the island (1,265) was over four times the annual pre-emancipation average, the increase coming primarily from the ranks of the apprentices, as whole areas of their lives were, in effect, criminalized.71 The island's various constituencies, of course, did not uniformly feel the effects of the redefinition of criminality during the Apprenticeship, nor the accompanying overhaul of the mechanisms for prosecuting and punishing crime. While free coloureds and apprentices bore the brunt of the changes, white Vincentians felt little impact. Moreover, Anderson documented a clear urban/rural division that evinced marked differences in how the activiin the cultivation and processing of sugar, or in other agrarian activities, if capable of work. These non-praedials, however, did not all live in town. Indeed, many of them would have been employed as domestics in the great houses of the sugar estates, and as servants in other rural residences occupied by whites. A much smaller number - perhaps no more than 1,000 or 1,500 - would have been town-based. These would have included most of the 382 slaves "employed on wharfs, shipping or other vocations," and the 212 non-praedial tradesmen, as well as those of the island's 2,199 domestic slaves who were attached to the households of the urban white population, and some proportion of the nearly 2,000 slaves classified as "aged, diseased or otherwise non-effective." (House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1835, vol. 50, p. 685.) St. Vincent's population statistics are tabulated in Appendix 4. 70. In 1833, and again in 1838, for example, the St. Vincent legislature passed acts for the "Punishment of Idle and Disorderly Persons, Rogues and Vagabonds," House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 36, p. 450. 71. Martin, History of the Colonies, p. 55.

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Between Slavery and Freedom

ties of town-based apprentices were criminalized, as compared to those of their counterparts working on the island's estates, plantations and pens. Disparities between the urban and rural contexts reveal the priorities and values that guided the authorities' reconceptualization of crime. The codification of laws pertaining to agrarian apprentices were driven by different imperatives from those instituted to control town-based apprentices, whose patterns of residence and labour were so dissimilar to their rural counterparts. Moreover, disparities in the offences and crimes which were reported and investigated reveal how the locale - town as opposed to country - of the apprentices' continued (albeit altered) servitude, shaped their actions and responses. Hence, both the authorities' aspirations and the alleged perpetrators' attitudes caused different crimes to predominate in these different milieux.72 Crimes allegedly committed by rural apprentices had caught Anderson's attention as he carried out his duties as special magistrate on the sugar estates under his charge. Although the Abolition Act specifically delimited his adjudicatory power to disputes between apprentices and employers over the terms of their reciprocal obligations, Anderson's journal and his monthly reports make clear that he frequently overstepped these boundaries by judging cases during his special magistrate's hearings, involving allegations of offences such as theft, housebreaking and embezzlement, that he should have referred to the criminal courts. As previously discussed, Anderson was sanctioned by his superiors for overstepping the line between work-related issues legitimately within his purview and criminal activities outwith it, but his observations on the latter category nevertheless provide important information, and complement the analysis of the urban scene that he derived from his unique perspective as Kingstown's chief police magistrate. As analysed above, Anderson included in his monthly magistrate's returns a catalogue of crimes - "theft," "housebreaking," "embezzlement," "rioting," "larceny," "cutting canes," "purloining, & killing a goat," "plunder," "the cutting down of their employers canes," "larcenies from the provision grounds of their fellow labourers," "cane stealing," "wanton 72. The aspirations of the authorities, of course, would not necessarily have been undifferentiated since they had to incorporate the not always identical interests of metropolitan authorities, island authorities, and various social groups and classes, as well as the actual or potential victims, and even the perpetrators of crimes. In the context of the Apprenticeship in St. Vincent, however, legal codes pertaining to the apprentices responded primarily to the interests of the former slaveowners - the white planter and merchant elite.

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35

destruction of canes," - that he reported were prevalent among rural-based apprentices. His journal offered a reiteration and expansion of his observations on rural criminality which suggested that, whereas theft predominated among offences against private property in the urban setting, in the countryside attacks on private property blamed on apprentices were more frequently destructive - sabotaging cane-fields, or arson, for example - than acquisitive. Within St. Vincent's urban context, offences against private property and threats to the public peace, in the form of brawls, drunkenness and the like, characterized apprentices' criminality, and distinguished them from their rural counterparts based primarily on sugar estates. Moreover, rural criminality was frequently considered, and indeed punished, as a group or gang phenomenon, while crime and its prosecution in the urban context targeted individual perpetrators. The urban and rural worlds did, of course, intersect, as increased numbers of apprentices travelled back and forth between them, exploiting the more ready accessibility of towns occasioned by the termination of slavery. During the Apprenticeship, Anderson joined planters and island authorities alike in voicing increasing concern about the "contamination" of agrarian apprentices corrupted by urban influences. But in the realm of crime and criminality, differences between the urban and rural contexts outweighed continuities. Soon after Anderson's arrival he began to complain about the "numerous breaches of the peace" plaguing Kingstown that the town's undermanned constabulary could not effectively deter.73 Recognizing that an ineffective police force could jeopardize the white minority's control over St. Vincent's non-white freed people and apprentices, the island assembly quickly passed legislation giving special magistrates the power to act as town constables and, on Lieutenant-Governor Tyler's recommendation, consolidated the police into a more efficient unit and appointed Anderson in 1836 to the newly created post of chief police magistrate. As reflected in his journal, the window this appointment gave Anderson onto crime and criminality, especially within the urban context, increased his preoccupation with these issues, while his monthly special magistrate's reports attest to the frequency with which he confronted criminal conduct in arbitrating between the former slaves and the former slaveowners. Anderson differentiated among both crimes and criminals. He stressed the distinction between the urban and rural settings, and classed criminals 73. Anderson journal, p. 80.

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within four basic categories: rural apprentices, urban apprentices, the urban free coloured population, and whites. Neither he nor the other authorities expressed much interest in white criminality which, of course, they rarely perceived as threatening the hegemony enjoyed by whites on the island. Only if such conduct had the potential of inspiring a like response among the island's non-white population would it receive much comment or criticism. Other white criminality planters abusing or cheating apprentices, for example - did not preoccupy island authorities in the way that the criminality of non-whites, free and apprenticed, did. Most of St. Vincent's free coloured population lived in Kingstown during the Apprenticeship. These four years witnessed a steady growth in the numbers of free non-whites, with their children and the children of apprentices augmenting the ranks, along with ex-slaves who had succeeded in terminating their obligations as apprentices early. And as the free non-white population grew, so too did its urban concentration. The correlation that white authorities made between these developments and threats to their conception of public order resulted in heightened legislative and police activity targeting Kingstown's non-white residents that culminated in the passage of the 1836 Police Bill. As police magistrate, Anderson had an ideal vantage point from which to conclude that the free coloureds felt victimized by these developments. Since the act abolishing slavery and the accompanying legislation establishing a police force already stipulated the procedures for regulating the conduct of apprentices, it was control of what the apprentices would soon become - free people of colour - that now received legislative priority: the Police Bill was anticipating full freedom in its efforts to circumscribe the activities of the non-white population. White Vincentians felt increasingly threatened by the free non-white urban population, and responded by criminalizing activities that had previously been minor annoyances, and rigorously punishing contraventions. In so doing, they were moving to establish control over what they regarded as an essentially monolithic and undifferentiated segment of island society, two years before full freedom would swell its numbers dramatically. While slave laws controlled the masses of St. Vincent's non-whites, whites could afford to disregard the petty nuisances of the free coloured population, but demographic and legislative changes compelled whites to re-evaluate the dimensions of their control over the affairs of the island. Not only was the growth (and, more importantly, the

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37

impending massive growth) of the free coloured population threatening the status quo, but also their activities were "infecting" the rural apprentices. Anderson's journal described the trepidations of white Vincentians as a growing fraternity of Kingstown's black and coloured residents, apprenticed and free, discountenanced their authority, preyed on their private property, disregarded their laws, disturbed their peace, and flouted their standards of morality and behaviour. Recognizing that the end of the Apprenticeship would likely exacerbate their plight, whites called on the magistrates for increased vigilance, harsher laws and stiffer penalties, a response with which Anderson sympathized and which explains why at this time his fellow magistrate in St. Vincent, John Colthurst, heard "every day of the necessity of establishments of police, and the passing of vagrant and other severe restraining acts."74 White authorities seemingly no longer felt confident of their ability to maintain control over Vincentian society while recognizing a distinction between free and apprenticed that, after all, full freedom would be eliminating within months. Instead, Anderson documented a legislative and judicial record that evinced an implacable and increasingly undifferentiated posture towards the island's non-whites. As legislation governing their activities increased, more free coloureds fell foul of the law, and their contraventions received more zealous prosecution and more severe punishment at the hands of magistrates like Anderson. But these Draconian measures could not be instituted with impunity. Free coloured opposition escalated dramatically, culminating with a riot in March 1838 that signalled the Apprenticeship era's most severe challenge to the island authorities' conceptions of law and order. Anderson's detailed chronicle expressed his outrage at the disturbance, while unrepentantly describing his pivotal role in the events that led up to it. That free coloureds, and not apprentices, organized the most concerted and coherent open resistance to the white establishment during the Apprenticeship in no way suggests that the ex-slaves were accepting the continued oppression under which they lived and worked. It does, however, indicate how changes wrought by Emancipation, and anticipated with full freedom, transformed the social construction of crime and control in St. Vincent's urban milieu, and polarized Kingstown's various constituencies. Anderson also witnessed first hand the involvement of apprentices in urban crime: the selections from his "Journal of Cases" that he transcribed 74. Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 206.

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into his journal indicate the principal concerns whites felt about criminality among urban apprentices, and the priorities they set in controlling it.75 The impact of theft on the island's commerce particularly troubled him; he not only lamented its prevalence at the docks and aboard ships, but also worried about its organizational sophistication, offering as evidence the resourcefulness of the perpetrators, and the existence of complex, efficient fencing operations to facilitate the disposal of stolen goods that he suggested was cementing bonds between apprentices and free coloureds precisely of the kind most feared by whites. And full freedom, whites argued, would only increase the threat to their wealth and property (they, of course, owned most of both on the island), and they sought protection. Hence a Barbadian newspaper reported from St. Vincent on Saturday, 31 March 1838, that a petition was presented to the Legislature from the inhabitants of Kingstown for a more effective Police, the present being reduced to a serjeant and three men, for both day and night duty. The petitioners mention that stores of merchants had been broken open, and plundered to a great extent - and they expect, very naturally, that such disorders will increase, when the non-praedials become free.76 As with depredations against commerce, Anderson noted how thefts occurring within their households particularly annoyed white town dwellers, and he accused apprentices employed as domestics of a propensity for this crime. Meanwhile apprentices who threatened public order also troubled the white community, and Anderson monitored them with increasing rigour. In the urban context, heightened police control sought to cement white hegemony by eliminating the possibility of rebellion, protecting private property, instilling white values of morality and behaviour, maintaining the public peace, and inculcating the non-white community with sober and industrious work habits. During the Apprenticeship a proliferation of laws addressed these issues. Severe criminal penalties and grim prison conditions complemented this legislative activity. As chief police magistrate, Anderson showed no compunction in imposing harsh punishments on transgressors. Those he incarcerated in St. Vincent's jails had to endure brutal conditions - meagre rations, unsanitary and uncomfortable accommodations, and a strict and rigorous regimen. 75. Anderson journal, pp. 95-96. 76. Barbadian, 31 March 1838, p. 2.

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Hay McDowell Grant erred when he told a House of Commons committee in 1842, "I do not think the actual amount of crime has increased" in St. Vincent.77 During the Apprenticeship, a proliferation of legislation had combined with increased law enforcement, policing and prosecution to swell the island's crime statistics and prison inmate population. Apprentices, both urban and rural, along with the free non-white community, were the principal targets as tougher criminal codes were being more stringently applied. The rationale, of course, was the desire of the authorities and, by extension, the white elite, to continue controlling these "lower orders" after the abolition of slavery. Exploiting their power to legislate, whites tried to pre-empt challenges to their dominance in island affairs and create, among non-whites, a tractable, disciplined labour force and a docile, subservient community. But the history of St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship, and after full freedom, testifies to the inadequacy of this strategy for social control. The single-volume manuscript of Anderson's journal is on deposit in the Aberdeen University Historic Collections (Special Libraries and Archives), Aberdeen, Scotland, where it was accessioned during the long and distinguished tenure as university librarian (1896-1926) of Anderson's nephew (and Isabel Anderson's brother), Peter J. Anderson (1852-1926). Woodville Marshall, who in 1977 observed that "no scholar seems to have consulted Anderson's journal," characterized it as "a very rough draft."78 But notwithstanding serious problems with its legibility, the manuscript is fluent and coherent, with Anderson displaying an eminently competent if somewhat pedantic prose style. Anderson finished the first draft of his manuscript between the time of his arrival in St. Vincent (7 January 1836) and 8 May 1838, when it abruptly ends with the words "The (Take in paper apart 'May 8th.' P 134.)" (p. 213). At this point he had completely filled his notebook and was gluing in a piece of paper that continued his thoughts, beginning with the words "May 8th The" (a tear on the page indicates where this now-lost insert had been attached). No doubt Anderson then resumed his journal in a second volume, but unfortunately there is no trace of this document, which would have carried his story through the termination of the Apprenticeship into the early months of full freedom. 77. House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1842, vol. 13, p. 29. 78. Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, pp. ix-x.

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Through the first 116 pages of the journal, Anderson worked from notes to recount his voyage to St. Vincent and the first months he spent there. Thus, for example, "my notes" (p. 105) enabled him to recall the events of 28 February 1836 and, up to March 1837, the document can best be characterized as a journal that Anderson used to analyse and reflect on the Vincentian scene. Thereafter, the document doubled as a contemplative journal, penned, like the earlier section, during numerous sittings as his busy schedule permitted, and a daily diary of events, but the former emphasis remained dominant. In March 1837 he interrupts his description of St. Vincent's flora and fauna to record a conversation about sickness with "a servant who entered, (just as I conclude this sentence, -)" (p. 171), and he proceeds to a discussion of the yellow fever quarantine in place "At the moment I am writing (4th March [1837])" (p. 171). Diary entries dated April to August 1837 dominate the next few pages (pp. 172-80), though not to the exclusion of retrospection, followed by a renewed emphasis on the latter (pp. 180-211) interspersed by occasional diary notations. Anderson had completed this final analytic section by 30 April 1838 (p. 211) when his manuscript concludes with two diary entries (30 April and 4 May) and breaks off at the enigmatic "The" on 8 May. Both the journal and diary components draw their vitality and immediacy from Anderson having written them in the heat of this extraordinarily Figure 2. Pages from the manuscript of John Anderson's journal.

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charged historical moment. No more than a few days or weeks ever separated him from the objects of his scrutiny. Subsequently, he made numerous undated revisions and editorial changes to the text (which indeed are largely responsible for the clutter and confusion of its format), apparently in preparation for its publication (in anticipation of which he provided a title, sub-titles and an epigraph at the beginning of his journal [p. 55]). But even these later emendations must have been completed in the sixteen months before his death in September 1839, and they function to fine-tune and clarify the manuscript rather than introduce further retrospection influenced by time's passage. Anderson wrote his journal in a very modest notebook measuring height 23.3 centimetres, width 18.5 centimetres, with a cover of olive green cloth on boards and 140 pages of unwatermarked, unruled paper. He glued numerous insertions into the volume during its compilation and subsequent editing, all of which, save the very last, are still in place. These range from newspaper clippings and printed government documents to miscellaneous handwritten communications and the scraps of paper he used to pen additional observations. The manuscript, catalogued as MS. 602, remains in remarkably good overall condition over 160 years after its compilation. Anderson was an accomplished linguist with a command of French, Italian and Spanish, as well as Latin and Greek. He had read widely across many disciplines, ancient and modern, and his scholarly background brought a critical and analytic sharpness to his perceptions that complemented his eclectic inclinations, resulting in thoughtful discussions on a wide range of themes. He proved to be an acute and interested observer of the world around him, who predictably had familiarized himself with his West Indian destination by reading the two most important studies of St. Vincent then in print, Charles Shephard's Historical Account of St. Vincent and Mrs. Carmichael's Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the White, Coloured) and Negro Population of the West Indies.79 Throughout the manuscript he makes frequent comments and assessments on these two authors' perspectives. Indeed the "impressions of the community in which he worked," prompted Marshall to observe that such material in Anderson's journal might "be regarded as an attempt to update Mrs. A. Carmichael's

79. Shephard, Historical Account of St. Vincent; A. C. Carmichael, Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the White, Coloured, and Negro Population of the West Indies, 2 vols. (London: Whittaker, Treacher and Co., 1833).

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portrait of St. Vincent society in the 1820s."80 Anderson was familiar with other works on the British Caribbean: his journal cites Henry Nelson Coleridge's Six Months in the West Indies, and Michael Scott's then-popular fiction, Tom Cringle's Log, as well as George Richardson Porter, who had authored studies of sugar cane cultivation and tropical agriculture.81 Anderson confirms his niece Isabel's description of him as a man of "culture and knowledge," by the easy familiarity he displays in his journal with an extensive range of literary figures, from the classical to the contemporary, both major and minor.82 He quotes from the Bible and from luminaries like Euripides, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and Gray, as well as the leading Romantics, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Byron. He also cites lesser lights, such as William Collins and Alain Rene Le Sage, along with some Scottish writers - the poets John Leyden and Thomas Campbell, and the novelists Susan Ferrier and his erstwhile Edinburgh neighbour, Sir Walter Scott. Anderson had also apparently read widely in the genre of travel writing: he uses a quotation from Alphonse de Lamartine's Souvenirs, impressions, pensees et paysages pendant un voyage en orient as an epigraph to his journal, and mentions elsewhere the "modern travellers' book[s]" that he has consulted.83 The knowledge he gleaned from such literature, along with his own considerable experience as a traveller, informed his description of his sojourn in the West Indies, and enabled him to draw intriguing comparisons with other places and peoples. Among the miscellaneous other materials to which he refers are memoirs, medical science and criminology.84 Throughout the journal, he applied his broadbased knowledge and catholic interests to explore topics that criss-cross

80. Marshall, The Cohhurst Journal, p. x. 81. Henry Nelson Coleridge, Six Months in the West Indies in 1825 (New York: G. & C. Carvill, & E. Bliss, & E. White, 1826); Michael Scott, Tom Cringle's Log (1833; reprint, London: Walter Scott, 1887); George Richardson Porter, The Nature and the Properties of the Sugar Cane (Philadelphia: Carey and Lea, 1830), and The Tropical Agriculturalist (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1833). 82. I. Anderson, An Inverness Lawyer, p. 64. 83. Alphonse de Lamartine, Souvenirs, impressions, pensees et paysages pendant un voyage en orient, 1832-1833, ou notes d'un voyageur (1835; reprint, Paris: Pagnerre, V. Lecou, Furne et Cie, 1854), p. 121; Anderson journal, p. 84. 84. Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall, Posthumous memoirs of his own time (London: R. Bentley, 1836); Francois Raymond, Histoire de I'elephantiasis (Lausanne: F. Grasset, 1767); Patrick Colquhoun, A treatise on the police of the metropolis [London] explaining the various crimes and misdemeanours which at present are felt as a pressure on the community; and suggesting remedies for their prevention (London: C. Dilly, 1796, 1796, 1796, 1797 and 1797; and London: J. Mawman, 1800 and 1806).

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the sciences, humanities and arts. Anderson's erudition and the various interests it reflected, of course, influenced his activities in St. Vincent, and these in turn shaped his journal, as did his clear grasp of contemporary politics, especially concerning issues related to Emancipation and the Apprenticeship. Meanwhile his scholarly aptitudes and accomplishments the "diligence, candour and discrimination, the great and essential requisites in historical elucidation," that an Edinburgh Saturday Post reviewer observed he brought to his earlier research, and his reputation, according to the Inverness Courier, "for talent and research" - influenced his observations and directed his inquiries, while facilitating both their organization and their cogent transmission in written format.85 Anderson began the fifty-five-thousand-word journal with his departure from Scotland and a description of the seven-week voyage to St. Vincent that combined comments about shipboard life, the weather and the ocean, with reminiscences of home (pp. 55-61). On arriving in St. Vincent, his first observations praised the island's natural beauty but drew unfavourable comparisons between its towns and those of Europe (pp. 61-63), while his earliest depictions of Vincentian society and its activities conveyed a tone of wonderment and novelty (pp. 63-66). An emphasis on their exoticism characterized his initial descriptions of Afro-Vincentians - washerwomen, grooms, work-gangs and children - but these also evince an unwavering conviction in white racial superiority, that would become increasingly strident during his years on the island (pp. 65-67). Anderson then discussed his efforts to find a place to live (p. 67), lamenting the difficulty of hiring servants and disparaging their quality in an unfavourable comparison with British domestics (pp. 67-69). Anderson proceeded to pen a detailed description of Kingstown's major buildings and sites (pp. 69-75), followed by a sketch of the town's weekly Saturday market that included reflections on the quality and availability of fresh provisions (pp. 75-76). Anderson explained the layout of Kingstown's thoroughfares and made suggestions for improvements (p. 76), before moving beyond the town's boundaries with his description of the countryside that discussed its topography, flora and fauna (pp. 76-77). Then he concluded a detailed catalogue of St. Vincent's insects, birds and plants (pp. 77-79), with an evaluation (again unfavourable in comparison to Britain) of its edible fruits and vegetables (pp. 79-80). 85. Cited in I. Anderson, An Inverness Lawyer, pp. 72-73.

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His disparaging appraisal of Kingstown's police force provided evidence of social unrest (pp. 80-81), and was followed by a disdainful assessment of free and apprenticed Afro-Vincentians (pp. 81-83). Anderson then criticized the standards of housing among the apprentices, discussed their occupants' predilection for privacy, and described furnishings found in the dwellings (pp. 83-84). After explaining the apprentices' dietary habits (p. 84), Anderson again felt the need to draw unfavourable comparisons between the circumstances and qualities of Vincentian apprentices and those of British workers, a theme driven by the racial attitudes that Anderson reiterated throughout his journal (pp. 84-85). He concluded by indicting the apprentices' work habits and their aversion to plantation labour (pp. 85-87). Next, Anderson considered some of the terms of the Apprenticeship, including clothing allotments, which incorporated a comparison of working garb with the "best" clothes apprentices supplied for themselves (pp. 87-88), as well as the apprentices' work schedule (p. 88), their allocations of provisions and provision grounds (pp. 89-90), and their use of free time (p. 90). He then deliberated on the propriety and effectiveness of the Apprenticeship legislation, where he claimed impartiality that combined an unwavering opposition to slavery with a deep scepticism towards what he considered the sentimentalism imbuing liberal philanthropic efforts on behalf of the apprentices (pp. 90-91). Anderson next sought to dismiss the burgeoning attendance of apprentices at Methodist chapels as primarily a function of superstition and ignorance combined with hypocrisy and cant (pp. 91-92). Two entries from Anderson's "Journal of Cases," as well as some general observations on court proceedings, documented the involvement of apprentices in illegal activities and the judicial consequences (pp. 95-97), which he followed with an extensive analysis of St. Vincent's free coloured population - their activities and their relations with the apprentices and white Vincentians, as well as the attitudes, qualities, abilities and cost of the domestics in their ranks (pp. 97-101). Anderson's subsequent criticism of the propensity of St. Vincent's white men for keeping coloured mistresses disparaged the women, while worrying about how the practice debased white society (pp. 101-2). He concluded with a favourable assessment of the white population (p. 102). An amateur dramatic performance by white Vincentians and the ensuing tensions with the free coloureds next caught Anderson's attention (p. 102), before he considered how politics divided the white community

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(pp. 102-3), and how interest in the sugar economy dominated their social intercourse to the exclusion of intellectual pursuits (pp. 103-4). He then criticized white women for their predilection to gossip (p. 104). Anderson shifted focus with a consideration of thefts perpetrated by apprentices (pp. 104-5), followed by the description of an overseer's reckless punishment that caused a child's death (p. 105). He then explained how apprentices had sabotaged the sugar crop on some estates by setting fire to the cane pieces, and how the authorities had responded (pp. 105-6), before discussing more generally the attitudes of the apprentices to labouring on the estates, and to the houses and provision grounds there, to which they felt they should have clear title (p. 106). Anderson set down some principles he thought would keep the apprentices working within the sugar economy after full freedom, emphasizing the importance of compulsory education for their children (pp. 106-8), and gluing into his journal the printed copy of an education act adopted by the St. Vincent House of Assembly on 17 March 1836 (pp. 108-110). Anderson next gave some advice for people travelling from Britain to take up residence in the West Indies, which included considerations of the appropriate furniture, housewares and clothing, medical and health issues, hygiene and diet, and he discussed the problems he had encountered in engaging tradesmen and servants (pp. 110-12). His description of island housing included their layout, construction and fittings, as well as costs for their rental, compared with the charges incurred for the alternative accommodations available in taverns and hostelries (pp. 112-13). He then compared his daily regimen, his meals and his activities, with the lifestyles of other white residents (pp. 113-14), which led into an extended consideration of the quality, availability, price and consumption of fresh provisions, that juxtaposed his experiences with those of that earlier chronicler of island life, Mrs. Carmichael (pp. 114-16). The social activities of white Vincentians caught Anderson's attention: he discussed their dinners, dances, balls and picnics, contrasting them with the fetes held by free coloureds and apprentices, before describing a criminal act that had taken place at one such fete (pp. 116-17). He followed a general accusation of improvidence among free coloureds by lamenting the particular problems he confronted as a result of being dependent on domestic servants for purchasing goods and provisions (pp. 117-18). This led Anderson to ponder the character of Afro-Vincentians, where his catalogue of the shortcomings he perceived, their adverse effect on labour, and his

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misgivings for the future, again betrayed his deep-seated conviction of white racial superiority (pp. 118-19). Anderson next attempted to explain the complexities of St. Vincent currency, noting the apprentices' familiarity with the coinage and their facility in manipulating its intricacies (pp. 119-21). He followed with a description of island patois, and what he felt was the apprentices' propensity for heated discussions with each other, and he concluded with an examination of familial relations among Afro-Vincentians (pp. 121-22). A discussion of the St. Vincent legislature's expenditure on highway construction offered Anderson the opportunity to describe and criticize the condition of the island's roads, and to present depictions of island scenery drawn from his journeys along them (pp. 122-23). He then considered the limited transportation options available to whites if they intended to retain their dignity, and discussed the logistics of owning, feeding and riding horses (pp. 123-24). Good Friday of 1836 found Anderson in a melancholy and contemplative mood as he reminisced about Scotland and his family there (p. 124), while his description of free and apprenticed Afro-Vincentians at Easter Sunday service criticized their preference for being well-dressed because, in his opinion, they were placing themselves above their station (pp. 124-25). He then poked fun at the incongruity of classical names among the apprentices (p. 125), after which he discussed their rhetorical abilities (p. 125). Anderson indulged his historical interests by interviewing elderly ex-slaves about life and conditions on the island in the early years of British rule, and especially about the Carib revolts of the 1790s (pp. 125-27). He then described the present condition of St. Vincent's Caribs (p. 127), before presenting a lengthy and detailed analysis of the decisive battle in 1796 between the British and the Caribs that resulted in the death of the Carib chief, Chatoyer, and the deportation of thousands of his followers (pp. 127-28). Anderson returned to the topic of crime, where he expressed his conviction of the apprentices' propensity for criminal activity, and his strategies for investigation and detection (pp. 128-29), and then he gave examples to support his belief in the violent tendencies of apprentices (pp. 129-30). He next touched on family relationships within the apprentice community, bemoaning the tendency of parents to keep their children at home rather than introduce them to estate labour (p. 130). Anderson described the apprentices' end of harvest ("crop-over") celebrations in great detail, including discussion of dress, music, dance and song

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(pp. 131-32), and then characterized how they spoke and interacted with each other and with the white community (p. 132). In the subsequent section, Anderson explored Afro-Vincentian music further, before indicting the apprentices' general demeanour, which he considered languid and indolent (pp. 132-33). Some personal reflections on how Anderson was adjusting to life in St. Vincent, where he found the climate debilitating and the work onerous, led him into a consideration of his duties as a special magistrate (p. 133). He delineated St. Vincent's judicial districts, providing detailed population statistics (p. 134), to supplement which he glued into the journal a printed record giving the breakdown of the £20,000,000 compensation paid British West Indian slaveowners after Emancipation (p. 135). He then described the proceedings over which the magistrates presided (p. 136), again inserting an annotated printed record of "Regulations for the internal discipline of the Houses of Correction for Apprenticed Labourers," to supplement this discussion (pp. 136-38). His consideration of the labour requirements of the apprentices also included two printed "Scales of Labour" glued into the journal (pp. 138-40). Reflections on St. Vincent's weather led Anderson back to descriptions of harvest-time on the sugar estate and the activities of the apprentices (pp. 140-41). He then digressed into a discussion of natural phenomena, especially insect life and reptiles, followed by comments on storms, the weather, temperature and relative salubriousness of town and countryside, as compared to the smaller islands of the Grenadines, south of St. Vincent, where he had spent some time (pp. 141-42). Anderson attacked the brutalizing effects of plantation life on whites, especially on the young immigrants who, he felt, resorted too readily to concubinage with female apprentices, before levelling a more general indictment at "this tyrant custom," which he blamed on St. Vincent's slave past (pp. 142-43). He proceeded to a consideration of absenteeism, and how Britain was perceived from the perspectives of both Afro-Vincentians and whites (p. 143). He then examined the activities of overseers, attorneys and managers (pp. 143-44), presenting a bleak picture of the stark and rude conditions common to rural life among white planters and their agents bare or poorly furnished dwellings, unpleasant smells emanating from the sugar mills, and difficulties with disciplining domestics, the effects of which, he contended, operated even more banefully on any white women resident there (pp. 144-45). He then complained about St. Vincent's limited social

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life, but did acknowledge the civility he had encountered and the hospitality he had enjoyed (p. 145). After miscellaneous comments on the effects of hot summer weather (p. 146), Anderson analysed the apprentices' reluctance to work their provision grounds (p. 146), and then drew a comparison between the attitudes of African-born and Creole apprentices, before discussing more generally the relations between black, coloured and white Vincentians (pp. 146-47). Crime again caught Anderson's attention as he discussed the plundering of provision grounds. He blamed these acts on apprentices who refused to work their own grounds, and this led him to a broader accusation that apprentices were giving preference to leisure activities over their labour responsibilities (pp. 147-48). He went on to describe the shebeens the apprentices frequented, and told the story of a wild party held at one such establishment (p. 148). Anderson next explored the spirit world of the apprentices in a section on "jumbee" (pp. 148-49), before again presenting the circumstances of a crime allegedly committed by an apprentice woman who stood accused of stealing clothing and jewellery, and then extending his examination by cataloguing the types of crimes he thought apprentices either favoured or eschewed (p. 149). Anderson described the sanctity of the Sabbath in St. Vincent, the good church attendance by all constituencies of Vincentian society, and the appeal and activities of the various religious denominations (pp. 149-51). He mentioned the demise of penal road gangs (p. 151), and then considered the high incidence of fever, and its consequences (pp. 151-53). He next lamented the inadequate efforts to bring public improvements to the island (p. 153), which he blamed on the petty politics and divisions prevalent in white society (p. 153), then expressed frustration that his personal fortunes were not advancing satisfactorily (pp. 153-54). He described the courthouse in Kingstown and scenes from an elegant ball it hosted in early 1837 (p. 154), before detailing the legal proceedings held there, followed by an extended but rather disparaging assessment of the island's legal establishment (pp. 154-56). The practice of obeah among Afro-Vincentians received lengthy examination (pp. 156-57), with discussion of its illegality leading Anderson back to further reflections on crime and policing. He explained the provisions of St. Vincent's 1836 Police Bill, noted his appointment as chief police magistrate in Kingstown, and delineated the duties this entailed (pp. 157-58). He next provided additional information on the social tensions that prevailed

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between the black and coloured populations, before discussing the effects of the Police Bill on free coloured shopkeepers and tavern-owners (p. 158). Then Anderson presented a caustic assessment of various aspects of free coloured society, suggesting that the end of slavery had adversely affected their activities and increased their anxieties (pp. 158-60). Anderson mused briefly on his reasons for keeping a journal (p. 160), before describing another criminal case involving theft perpetrated by an apprentice (pp. 160-61). He then discussed parent-child relationships among the apprentices within the context of another case involving child abuse (p. 161). Christmas 1836 passed quietly - no riots and little celebration, according to Anderson (p. 161), who attended a dance at Government House early in the New Year (p. 161). The journal next chronicled some of Anderson's travels around St. Vincent. His visit to a settlement of Caribs on the windward coast gave him the opportunity to describe their demeanour, houses, occupations, and other aspects of their society (p. 162), after which he marvelled at the beauty of island scenery (pp. 163-65). He returned to the theme of parentchild relationships among the apprentices, before examining rising birth rates within the ex-slave community (p. 165). He discussed the quality of the island's newspapers (p. 165), as a preface to gluing into his journal both a table taken from one of these publications that gave population statistics for free children from 1834 to 1836 (p. 164), and an accompanying despatch from St. Vincent's lieutenant-governor analysing the data and considering their implications (pp. 165-67). Anderson next reiterated his condemnation of miscegenation, examining the prevalence with which white men kept non-white mistresses, and complaining of the effects on white society, as well as the consequent increase in the number of free coloureds (pp. 167-68). He then presented another acerbic assessment of the free coloured community (p. 168). The travel narrative resumed with Anderson's description of a visit to St. Vincent's volcano, Soufriere Mountain, that included observations on planters and their estates, the villages and highways, the weather, scenes from nature, and miscellaneous related events (pp. 168-69). He proceeded to another consideration of the local plant, animal and marine life, that concluded with a note on how the island's Caribs had used poisonous plants in warfare (pp. 170-71). Anderson's transcription of his conversation with a sick domestic servant introduced a discussion of the ailments afflicting apprentices and he

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explained how he derived his conviction of the apprentices' propensity for malingering from observations he made both at work and at home (pp. 171-72). He commented on the apprentices' aversion to rain and cold weather and speculated on their attitudes to personal hygiene (p. 172), prior to a discussion of the appearance of smallpox that had caused island authorities to institute quarantine laws (p. 172). Anderson then analysed various other diseases that were then prevalent among apprentices - yaws, elephantiasis, ulcerated feet, dirt-eating and leprosy - theorizing on their causes and describing treatments (pp. 172-73). The next journal entry, dated April 1837, began with an account of the pursuit of a ship suspected of transporting slaves (pp. 173-74). Anderson next described the island's three weekly newspapers (two published by whites, one by free coloureds) chiding them, especially the free coloured Chronicle, for the quality of the materials they printed (pp. 174-75). He then explained the operation of St. Vincent's House of Assembly and directed a humorous lampoon at the tediousness of their proceedings (pp. 175-76). His critique of local government continued, with suggestions for reform and renewed complaints about the prevalence of divisive party spirit among white Vincentians (pp. 176-77). He then turned his attention to the island militia, mocking their pretensions and questioning their preparedness, while again proposing remedial measures (pp. 177-78). He concluded with an indictment of the propensity among island officials for dressing in uniform, and expressed his relief that magistrates were exempt from this practice (p. 178). Frustrated with town life and banal conversation, Anderson embarked on another tour of St. Vincent, where he reflected again on the island's wildlife and scenery (pp. 178-79). He next recounted the damage suffered by St. Vincent and its neighbour, Barbados, as the consequence of a hurricane on 26 July 1837 (p. 179), then marked Princess Victoria's eighteenth birthday, the death of her uncle, King William IV, and her accession to the throne (pp. 179-80). More accounts followed of adverse weather and outbreaks of fever (p. 180). Efforts in Britain to curtail the Apprenticeship prompted Anderson to reflect on its operation and more generally on the terms of Emancipation (pp. 180-83), which he defended by juxtaposing what he considered the improved circumstances of the apprentices to a catalogue of atrocities perpetrated on slaves before 1834 (pp. 183-84). He proceeded to condemn the decision of the British government to employ black troops in the West India

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Regiments by drawing on his racially based conviction of black inferiority, instancing a recent revolt of black recruits in Trinidad, and giving credence to rumours criticizing black soldiers in Barbados (pp. 184-85). He interjected a description of Africa as languishing in savagery and slavery, before averring the unsuitability of black policemen in the West Indies (pp. 185-86). Accompanied by his wife and children, Anderson made another trip to Soufriere, the details of which he chronicled, including descriptions of black boatmen, a Carib settlement to the northeast of the island, and an apprentice's response to viewing the volcano (pp. 186-88). He concluded with the report of an accident on the mountain (pp. 188-89). When a fever epidemic struck St. Vincent in early 1838, Anderson speculated on its causes (p. 189). He next indicted the apprentices for holding frequent parties and dances, and described a case that came before his court after the police raided a fete, where they found evidence of prostitution and arrested the participants for wearing clothes and consuming refreshments stolen from their employers. Anderson transcribed and glued into his journal an invitation card to this particular event (pp. 189-91). He next reiterated his dissatisfaction with his domestic servants (p. 191), before presenting a lengthy description of a free coloured riot in Kingstown in March 1838, that discussed its causes and his role in what was the most significant disturbance in St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship era. He detailed the course of events, examining the implications and consequences of the riot for the island's various constituencies (pp. 191-93). Anderson returned to a consideration of the Apprenticeship legislation in light of the continued efforts in Britain to curtail it, criticizing the provisions that distinguished praedial from non-praedial apprentices (pp. 193-95), and inserting into the journal copies of official correspondence from London on the topic (pp. 195-97). He continued by recounting problems that had arisen in his district vis-a-vis the assignation of praedial and non-praedial status (pp. 197-98). Anderson indicted liberal critics of the Apprenticeship as misinformed provocateurs from Britain's antislavery lobby, claiming that his position on the question steered a moderate course between these liberals and unreconciled pro-slavery advocates (pp. 198-99). He provided examples of the Apprenticeship's accomplishments and counselled against its curtailment, while suggesting that any remaining problems were confined to Jamaica (pp. 199-200). Again, Anderson expressed dissatisfaction at the apprentices'

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reluctance to fulfil their labour obligations (pp. 200-201), and he concluded by predicting that the Apprenticeship would in fact end on 1 August 1838 (p. 201). Anderson next remarked on the efforts of some apprentices to purchase their full freedom early, and he supported his speculation that they were motivated by status considerations through reference to the relations between the free coloured and apprenticed communities (pp. 201-3). He then transcribed an apprentices' song that referred to Queen Adelaide's role in ending slavery, and their hopes for freedom (p. 203). A record of a sugar plantation's daily operation during harvest followed, with Anderson describing the journey to the estate, discussing the fieldgangs' labour schedule, and portraying the apprentices at work and in their own pursuits (pp. 203-5). He then depicted the planter's world, considering his relations with, and responsibilities to, the apprentices (p. 205), after which he explained both the layout of the plantation's buildings and the sugar-making process (pp. 205-10). He next presented views of the canefields, and provided information on sugar cultivation and on the gang system employed in the sugar mill (p. 210), before relating how he joined the planter for a drink at sundown and then rode home (pp. 210-11). An anecdote describing a fight between a whale and a shark (p. 211) preceded the journal entry for 30 April 1838, which Anderson wrote on learning that the Apprenticeship would be terminated on 1 August. He described the apprentices as indifferent to this news, before again intimating his misgivings about their ability or willingness to labour, which included a particularly caustic assessment of the condition of the apprentices' free children (pp. 211-12). He cited inadequate schooling, looked at some of the local responses to the problem, and included some remedial suggestions of his own, such as introducing the children to agricultural labour as well as to formal education (pp. 212-13). Anderson ended his journal with the description of a severe storm that hit St. Vincent on 4 May 1838, and of the damage it had caused (p. 213).

PART TWO

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John Anderson, Special Justice, St. Vincent. Title. A Magistrate's Recollections, or St. Vincent, in 1836.

Journal. "To travel, is to sum up a whole existence in a few years." De Lamartine.1 Journal, etc. Recollections. A sea voyage has been often described; but there is a pleasure in lingering over past scenes - (especially to a traveller, - ) few can resist the temptation of indulging in. Having been appointed Special Justice at St. Vincent, {in the West Indies}2 I left Edinburgh, on the 3d of November 1835, and after some pleasant days spent with kind friends {Mr. William Couper and his lady at Glasgow} in the Western Metropolis, embarked at Port Glasgow, on board off [sic] the brig "Richard Brown," Captain Dunlop, Master, on thursday, 19th [November 1835] at noon, with Mrs. Anderson, three young children & a nursery maid. In committing ourselves with our infant charge to the protection of the Almighty, - we had to endure the pang of separating from their elder brothers, and sister, who were left with their relations, to receive that education, which they could not obtain abroad.3 1. "Voyager, c'est resumer une longue vie en pen d'annees; c'est un des plus forts exercices que I'homme puisse donner a son cceur comme a sa pensee." ("To travel, is to sum up a whole existence in a few years; it is one of the most powerful exertions to which man can subject his heart or his mind.") Alphonse de Lamartine, Souvenirs, impressions, pensees et paysages pendant un voyage en orient, 1832-1833, ou notes d'un voyageur (1835; reprint, Paris: Pagnerre, V. Lecou, Furne et Cie, 1854), p. 121. 2. Words, phrases and sentences enclosed thus \. . .} were deleted from the manuscript by Anderson. Since deletions were usually made by one or more strokes of the pen, they are still legible, and those that are informative or interesting have been incorporated into the transcript. 3. Anderson and his wife were accompanied by their three youngest children, Margaret, Francis and George. Anderson's two elder sons, Peter and Alexander, remained in Inverness in

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We were awoke at an early hour of the morning of the 21st [November 1835], by the cry of the mate, that "a brig was bearing down right a head of us"! In a moment, the Captain was on deck, - and issuing his orders. A confused bustle of footsteps, - rattling of cordage, - and voices in loud contention, somewhat alarmed the sleepy inmates of the cabin. When it had ceased, we learnt, that the {brig} "Buckingham," bound for Grenada, (which had sailed from the same port, an hour before us,) - had dragged her anchors, - and driven during the gale, must inevitably have clashed upon our vessel, had {not Captain Dunlop} we not slipped our cable {just as she was striking} & stood about for Greenock. Here, our Captain went ashore to procure a new one & anchor; {whilst a steam boat was dispatched to our first anchorage in Gourock bay, to pick up the anchor we had parted with} which in the course of the forenoon he effected. The weather had been both stormy, & rainy from our coming on board; and it was Monday morning [23 November 1835], before we could quit Rothsay bay. About noon, our pilot took his leave off the Lesser of the Cumry isles; and we steered for the Craig of Aisla [sic]: But the gale now freshened from the Southward, veering from point to point; - and we passed an anxious night, as tack upon tack, was made between the light house of Pladda, in the isle of Arran, {and that of Corsell on the Galloway coast} and the Ayrshire coast. The crew were greatly fatigued, - and glad were all, when by daylight of the 24th [November 1835] the anchor was let down in Lamlash bay, - after scudding before the wind, under bare poles, for many a knot. I counted upwards of 45 sail sheltered in the same haven. Wednesday, 25th November [1835]. The Jolly boat being sent for fresh water, to the islet, called "Holy isle," to the South of the bay, - I embraced the opportunity to wile away an hour, by a shot at the rabbit, with which it abounds. Both this, and the greater island, are the property of the Hamilton family, who occasionally visit these distant quarters of their domains. Partial excursions on Arran greatly pleased me: The appearance of the people is highly respectable; - but their houses still admit of minuter attention to cleanliness, & propriety. Between Loch Ranza on the N. Eastern the care of his mother and brother George, while his eldest daughter, Mary, also stayed in Inverness, but with his brother Peter, who had married Agnes Grant earlier that year. A seventh child, also named Alexander, had died in infancy in 1829. Biographical information on Anderson and his family can be found in Isabel H. Anderson, An Inverness Lawyer and his Sons, 1796-1878 (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1900), which also contains the silhouette of John Anderson that is reproduced here as Figure 1.

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Coast, & Brodick Bay, which I had formerly visited, - several interesting scenes occur, worthy of the tourist's notice. [Monday] 30th [November 1835]. The cheerful song and tramp of the sailors, as they heaved the capstain, indicated a termination to our tedious confinement, - and a favourable breeze springing up, we cleared outwards, at 2 P.M. Ailsa Craig was left behind at dusk; and by the same hour, on Tuesday, the 1st of December [1835], - we entered Saint George's Channel. Wednesday, 2d [December 1835]. During the night, a smart gale from N.W. accelerated our progress; the lights on the Calf of Man, were seen glimmering in the distance; and on ascending on deck, before breakfast, the undulating peaks of Caernarvon, on the Welsh coast, - and the Wicklow mountains on the opposite shore, stood prominent in all the splendour of morn. Adverse gales, accompanied by rain, again damped our hopes: We beat between Bardsey isle and Arcklow, all day & night, as well as Thursday [3rd December 1835]; when as four bells announced the welcome tidings of dinner, the compass rounded to the Northward; - at 8 o'C, the breeze was steady & clear, Tuskar Light N.W. 1/2 N. distant 15 miles. The moon shed its unclouded lustre on the waste of waters; and their crested billows lashing in foamy wreaths over the decks, set in motion such articles in the cabin, as had not been properly clewed down. Friday, 4th Deer. [1835]: - Our course held good: By midday we were within 20 leagues of the Scilly isles. The inexperienced voyager might now learn that he was breasting the broad Atlantic. Column upon column rose the surge, - and rolling in majestic course, in long & sinuoy [sic] piles of feathery white, poured, as if to devour the illfated bark; - when suddenly she would disappear into the boiling abyss - and again upheaved, stride with swanlike grace over the retreating waves. {No other craft was in sight, and ocean & sky blended together.} For the two following days, we struggled against squalls, & a severe head sea. - The Brig laboured excessively, - and shipped a deal of water. Once, she was struck so severely, as to be completely submerged, - with a shock which vibrated through every timber, from stem to stern. It was a sublime, but terrific object, to behold the recoiling elasticity with which she sprang upwards; - losing as the price of her freedom, - her staysails, & halyards. Heavy trunks which had stood former attacks, now dashed from their fastenings; No time was lost in seeing the anchors secured; - topsail double reefed, - mainsail furled, {and the foresail reefed} & everything "made snug".

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Across the dreaded Bay of Biscay, we encountered, in place of storm & hurricane, - balmy, agreable [sic] weather, tempered by light winds. On the 11th [December 1835] a squall carried away the Main Top Gallant mast, and the {Starboard} foretopmast studding sail Boom. These disasters were speedily repaired; and as we receded from the Wintery blast, fresh objects arose to mark the diversity of the scenes we had left, from those we were entering upon: Not the least striking, was the dazzling brilliancy, which the sun - {one unclouded blaze of living light,} shed on the vast amphitheatre: {It seemed, as if the circling belt around, were a mass of the brightest, and most delicate silver, streaked into yet more radiant lustre, where the distant, bubbles of the advancing tide, threw their snowy ridges into contrast to the nearer, and blue toned waves. And then at nightfall, - what harmonious blending of the saphire [sic] sky, and the mellowed vista of water!} Leaning over the ship's bulwarks, {at nightfall, again,} the spray might be seen tossing and circling in phosphoric jets of mimic flame, like so many stars; {amid the darkness!} Entrancing as all this was, I looked in vain for the many coloured, bolder, & richer dyes, which emblazon the course of a Northern sunset. Such of our party, - and they had been but few, - who had suffered from sickness, - now reappeared on deck; the children romped about: The deadlights which had hitherto closed our cabin windows were removed, and everything gave token we were approaching a Tropical Clime. On the 10th [December 1835] when about 300 miles W. from Madeira, we spoke a brig homebound, & took the opportunity to forward letters to our Scottish friends. - Sunday, the 20th [December 1835] was one of the most delightful days that can be conceived although {the sun shone with a force, which for the first time, began to be oppressive - } somewhat overpowering. Suddenly, showery, variable weather succeeded; A heavy squall with vivid thunder, lightning, & rain, contrasted Monday [21 December 1835] with its predecessor; - the sails were obliged to be clued down, and the ship allowed to run before the wind: It literally blew a hurricane: The blast swelling from the distant horizon, drove the densely charged clouds before it, till they burst with a hissing stream, and united as it were, in one chaotic {mass of} mist, the firmament and the waves. The growl of the thunder, which continued at intervals during the night, - could be heard in our berths, above the heavy beating of the rain, and the tramp of the seamen executing orders; whilst from time to time, a flash of lightning would glare through the skylight of the cabin. We experienced a succession of these stormy attacks, till

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Thursday the 24th [December 1835] when the wind & rain drew off, and we passed the Tropic of Cancer. None of the fooleries usually enacted on the like occasion, were put in force; and the visit of the Sea God, & his spouse, was gladly dispensed with. 25th [December 1835] Christmas Day. With the thermometer in the cabin at 70°, an unclouded sky, - and tranquil sea, - we were reminded of the contrast which the same hour probably presented at home, in fields covered with ice & snow, and an atmosphere of cutting frost! According to our reckoning, we were still 1700 miles from our destination; - & whilst some of our Company toasted the healths of their friends there, - we did not forget the many kind, & dear connexions, we had left behind us. A week of alternate calms, - light, or contrary winds, had now elapsed since the parallel was passed, - where the trade wind usually commences: till the 27th [December 1835] we failed to meet in with it; when in Lai. 20. 16 N. Long. 34. 23. W. all canvass was set; the bellying breeze swept merrily out; - and reclining under the awning which shaded the quarter deck, - every one resigned himself to the grateful influence of the climate. The serenity of the night invited us no less to linger, hour after hour, contemplating the unclouded loveliness of the Moon & heavenly bodies, - the beauties of which, if possible, encreased on us, - as we advanced to the South. Friday, 1st January 1836. Warm, - glowing in light, rose the New Year: How many thoughts of home, - of changed destinies, awoke on our minds! The novelty of our situation was every moment recalled to us: Numbers of flying fish shot past; dolphins fled before their rapacious foe the shark - & porpoises played their uncouth gambols; Evening came, and with it, - a scene that I often afterwards mused over with the same intenseness of delight, - but never yet saw depicted either by pencil, or by pen; - the sapphired tinted glow of fading day visible, - yet opposed to the clear influence of the Moon & stars, flickering over a boundless & calm expanse of sea. At such a moment we appreciate the affecting reflections of Humboldt, - that as we pass from one hemisphere to another, we feel an indescribable sensation in beholding those constellations which we have known in youth, progressively sink, & finally disappear: {The leading ones familiar to me from my boyhood now declined, - & they brought to remembrance the distance which separated me from the objects of my affection.} & as the humbled traveller may be permitted to follow in the steps of even the most intellectual, - I could not but desire to realize some portion of his gratification, when for the first time, "The Cross of the South" met his gaze: - I was led

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Map 1: St. Vincent: Physical Features and Settlements

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to hope it might now be visible, at a late, or rather early hour; & I left my cot for the purpose of beholding it, on the dawn of the 5th [January 1836]. Eleven days of charming sailing, - Gliding along at the rate of from 120 to 180 miles per day, - brought us within reach of Barbadoes, - which appeared at first, like a mist on the sea. The "Booby bird" lighting on the cordage betokened our approach to shore: Its highest point, - styled "Scotland," - gradually cleared forth; and running down by night, we on the morning of the 7th [January 1836] came in sight of the Pitons or conical rocks of St. Lucia, and the green hills of St. Vincent, - seven weeks from our embarkation, and 38 days from our leaving Lamlash. As the clouds rising under the sun's influence, swept from the base of the rugged sea coast, glimpses of fairy scenes far removed, were ever & anon presented; objects new, varying, and romantic, - attracted the eye, and charmed the senses: Nature seemed to have put forth features undreamt of before, and the mind was kept in a whirlwind of astonished, & delighted rapture. No European could pen the Emotions excited by the first glance of this Windward Coast of beauty. As they become more distinct, - from time to time - we eagerly gazed on the luxuriant cane crops, - overtopped by occasional dwelling houses, or windmills of dazzling white, - and the beach lined with the tall Cocoa nut tree, - the familiar accompaniment of Tropical Climes. By 12 o'C. we anchored in the Bay of Calliaqua; and dashing our boat through the surf, which lashes its dark and sandy shore, - sprang to land.4 My first view of St. Vincent scenery was well calculated to afford gratification. From the windows of the hospitable villa which we made our temporary home, - I gazed over the bay of Calliaqua, - and its bright blue waves, dotted with canoes & shipping; - the insulated Fort Duvernette, - and the serrated ridge of the distant islands of Becquia, & the Grenadines. 5 Contrasted with the lovely serenity of these objects, rose the bold - & majestic sweep of rocky barrier to the northward, - cloud capt; - at one point darkened; at another revelling in light, in the luxurious wantonness of scenic mystery {glowing} under a Torrid sky. - The Fort - Gibraltar in miniature is perched on the summit of a solitary rock, - and defends the entrance to 4. Calliaqua, which is located some three miles south-west of St. Vincent's capital, Kingstown, has a fine harbour. The extensive, protected beach of Calliaqua or Tyrrel's Bay is eminently suitable for landing and shipping passengers and cargo. Fifteen years before Anderson's arrival, the ship carrying Mrs. Carmichael, author of Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the White, Coloured, and Negro Population of the West Indies, 2 vols. (London: Whittaker, Treacher & Co., 1833), dropped anchor in the same bay. (See Map 1.) 5. Map 2 shows the location of Bequia and the other Grenadines.

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Map 2: St. Vincent, the Grenadines and the West Indies

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the harbour across whose mouth run two dangerous ridges of coral reef.6 Thro' the narrow channel between it & the mainland, an English frigate once threaded its tortuous course in pursuit of a French privateer. When {first} fortified the artificers were obliged to sling the cannon by means of rope from the opposite shore. In warping up the first gun, it stuck fast; and remained poised in midair, without the possibility of being moved. At this critical juncture, a Jack who happened to be a spectator, offered for a glass of grog, to remove the impediment: The mixture was speedily forthcoming; the hardy tar swarmed up the rope, and unwormed its entire length, cooly whistling as he descended in his perilous task; - which safely accomplished, - no further impediment remained to the passage of the remaining cannon. As a town, Calliaqua does not deserve mention; its gloomy, and straggling houses chill an European; - but its Locale, & the ride between it and Kingston [sic], partake strongly of the features of Italian landscape. The first coup d'oeil of the latter town, bay, shipping & garrison of Fort Charlotte from Sion Hill is exquisitely beautiful; - & wd. form an admirable groupe for the pencil - relieved and set off, as it is, under all the gorgeous brilliancy of Tropical sun, by the deep blue of the sea on one hand, & the dark foliage of the trees, & lively verdure of the vallies which branch into the recesses of the mountain background on the other.7 Long after did the emerald tints of this vivid & matchless verdure recur to my thoughts. Kingston [sic] at a distance is a picturesque little capital, - resembling in its shingled roofs, divers coloured walls & green Venetian or latticed windows, - of Switzerland, or the Italian Alps. Galleries in some quarters, - & the absence of chimneys, remind the spectator he has left the fogs and sea coal of Europe. Much of its romantick effect is lost on a near approach; but it wd. be unjust to institute a comparison between its streets, as a Metropolis, and those of even a third rate County town in England. In numbers, many exceed its population, - at present between 4000 & 5000. We must remember that the balmy nature of the climate leads to the dispensing with many 6. Fort Duvernette was built on a tiny island to the south of Young or Young's Island. These islands are positioned at the eastern extremity of Calliaqua Bay. (See Map 1.) 7. The aquatints Kingstown, St. Vincent's, from Cane Garden Point, and Fort Charlotte, St. Vincent's, from Kingston [sic] which are reproduced as Figures 3 and 4, and show the views first afforded Anderson of Kingstown, Kingstown Bay and Fort Charlotte, were drawn by Lieutenant John H. Caddy during his residence in St. Vincent in the mid 1830s and published in an album entitled Scenery of the Windward and Leeward Islands (London: Ackermann & Co., 1836). Figure 5, a line drawing entitled Kingstmvn, St. Vincent, gives a similar view of the town to Figure 3, and was included as the frontispiece to Charles Shephard, An Historical Account of the Island of St. Vincent (London: W. Nicol, 1831).

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Figure 3. Kingstown, St. Vincent, from Cane Garden Point, as Anderson first saw it. (Reproduced with the permission of the Barbados Museum and Historical Commission.)

Figure 4. Fort Charlotte, St. Vincent, from Kingstown. (Reproduced with the permission of the Barbados Museum and Historical Commission.)

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Figure 5. Kingstown, St. Vincent.

domestic appendages essentially requisite in Britain; - and perhaps this may account for the partially clothed {semi-nudity} persons of the negroes not striking the new comer with the same disgust as they wd. do there. Yet certainly the blacks & browns one meets raise ideas of wonder: all is so novel: features, - landscape, - customs, - sky - everything attracts the stranger. The good natured countenances of the negroes, as they grin their salutations on the road; the groupes of horsemen in white jackets, - broad brimmed hats, & umbrellas over head, - each with his black attendant on foot, slowly plodding their way, - or the steeds left under a shed, or tied to a tree, whilst the owners pay a visit, - with the curious groupes of mottley [sic] retainers who have them in charge, some with clothes on, - others in deshabille; - cane fields dispersed throughout the landscape, - trees too & shrubs - novel in name & in appearance; - the soursop, - mango, - plantain, - cocoa-nut, Belle of the night, - mimosa, - otaheite gooseberry, - and beautiful clematuses, - give ample scope for mental soliloquy, - or pictorial representation. Then again at mealtime, how striking is the attendance of a little valet waving a branch of sago or other shrub, - to drive off the flies & insects! & the appearance at breakfast - as at dinner, - of finger glasses, each with its cool water, & lime leaf! Not less remarkable is the display on a tiny sideboard, of rummers, wine glasses, and the goodly materials for making "sangaree", "punch" & "swizzle"; - or if you despise these, - there also stand bottles of prime old Madeira! wrapped in canvass covers saturated with

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water. This sideboard is never divested of its ornaments; night & day see it the glory of a Creole hall. - Other scenes will however arise; happiness is relative; the mind will find it despite of externals; but so far as the charms of the domestic circle, the dear seat of the affections contribute to it, - he who treads these Western shores, will soon be reminded he has parted with them, to be a denizen of a land, where discomfort & luxury; where desolation & hospitality, oddly assort, (assert their ill assorted reign. The crazy wooden houses, and} The badly paved, or metaled dirty streets, where broken bottles, - hoops of iron, & other rubbish lie huddled before the doors; the mean appearance of the low roofed stores, and huckster shops; the defaced, & mouldering houses; the naked appearance of the planked, uncovered floors & walls of even the best and inhabited tenements; whether in town or country, the scanty & illkept furniture; - the rarely seen objects of books or musical instruments; - the barefooted, shirted menials; bring in painful contrast to the recollection, all the harmonised comforts of home! word, sacred even here; - where the Planters would fain have no abiding spot, - but still yearn at some distant day for that "home" they recognize only over the blue Atlantick.8 Feebly does the glowing sky, - and broad matchless bright sea, - sparkling wherever the eye roams, - or the ai breathing of jessamine & ponch-pong at nightfall & impregnated with an enervating luxury of existence, - while the moon {swims aloft in a mellowness of splendour unknown in northern latitudes,} looks down in beatick [sic] repose - or the hospitable welcome, - or the glass cased lights which illumine the hall, - & the numerous attendants who wait on the festive board, - compensate for what is left behind; - we are far from our Fatherland. On his way to Kingston [sic] the newly arrived as he fords the Greathead's River (for the occasional impetuosity of the torrent renders bridges out of the question) - is introduced to the spectacle of African skins disincumbered [sic] of dress from the waist upwards, & their nether garment tucked to their knees. They are washerwomen: - with their piccanies by their sides in puris naturalibus, - singing and chattering with the garrulity of monkeys, ever and anon disclosing their ivory teeth, they are busily employed in their vocation, - rather a singular one to an European eye. After repeatedly plunging the foul linen into the stream, - they lay on a 8. Shephard made similar observations about Kingstown, referring to the "small wooden houses, which, however convenient they may be for the lower classes, give an air of poverty and inferiority" (Historical Account of St. Vincent, p. 6).

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stratum of soap, tumbling them at the same time with all their might upon the stones around, & finally close by a sharp application of a flattened stick or board.9 This operation undergone - the hapless trowsers, - waistcoats, (or whatever they may chance to be, -) are spread out on the bushes to dry. They subsequently receive a due allowance of blue starch and are fit for use! It was on this excursion, I first saw "a gang" of negroes at work, - and heard with feelings I cannot pretend to record - a word indiscriminately applied to my fellow Creatures - hitherto designative of the refuse of humanity. A stranger's primary anxiety on arriving in a new country, is of course, to pitch his tent. But two Houses presented themselves as suitable to our wants. As we rode to view them we were every where greeted by the Negroes with exclamation of "How do Massa." "How do Misses." in a tone of joyous merriment; and this salutation they rarely forego. One mansion occupied the summit of the ridge I have before spoken of, as rich in so varied a prospect; the tenement nevertheless was large, gloomy, & solitary, & by no means calculated to win a Freshman's eye:10 The other, somewhat lower down - proved our choice: It stood on a knoll between the town, and Dorsetshire Hill, one of the peaked chain which, terminating in the lofty "Mount Saint Andrew", - encompasses the capital.11 Among the small cluster of trees by which it was embosomed, - we could reckon the almond, mango, - bread fruit, - tamarind, - silk cotton, - nutmeg, etc. Provided with a dwelling, servants were next requisite; these offered {presented themselves} in sufficient numbers; but it requires {some aid} skill to select them {with Judgement}; since each individual will only perform, or engage to perform rather, - his or her allotted sphere of domestic duty; for once out of 9. Black washerwomen thoughout the Caribbean practised similar laundering techniques to those witnessed by Anderson. In West India Customs and Manners (London: W. Richardson, 1793), for example, J. B. Moreton described how at riverside washing places in Jamaica, slave women "take of beating and rubbing the clothes with stones and stumps of grass to save the expense of soap," a process he claimed wore clothes out "amazing fast" (p. 220). In Domestic Manners, Mrs. Carmichael observed women in St. Vincent similarly employed, noting how "the linen is dipped in the river, and soap rubbed upon it while it is laid over a stone, after which it is beat with a flat heavy piece of wood made for that purpose, and lastly the article is dashed upwards and downwards upon the stone, with which the operation concludes" (vol. 1, p. 22). 10. This house was probably located either on Richmond Hill, or further up Sion Hill from the location of Sion Lodge, the house Anderson ultimately chose. 11. Sion Lodge, the house in which Anderson lived for the next two and a half years, is a commodious residence to the southwest of downtown Kingstown. The building is still standing and presently houses a religious institution.

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your sight, - they remember no more their engagement; and hence a West India mansion is crowded with a set of retainers, almost - & in many cases, - positively useless, - who address & speak of each other most formally, - as "Mr" or "Miss" so and so! The mother of coloured children even wd. be offended were she to be called Mrs; - "Miss, - if you please, Sir." Then, the total absence of bells, or knockers, makes the interior at times a scene of Babel confusion; some it is true supply the defect by whistles, - but the remedy is noways to be commended and the cat-calls, - or the stentorian roar of the Master of a house reverberate momentarily thro' the shingled passages. The waste of time between an order & its execution, is dreadful; the value of an hour seems attended to in the field, - but not in the house; domestics find some pride on occasions of ceremony in exhibiting their master's plate or china to advantage but they give themselves little concern for their preservation, - & see them damaged or broken with indifference. For the work they do, the wages of servants are exorbitant: True they engage to find their cloathing, & victuals, and retire to their own homes at nightfall, unless specially engaged to sleep on their master's premises; where they repose on the bare boards; so that one only indemnifies their services. Nevertheless, they contrive with great adroitness, to make your larder or table pay toll to their wants, - and altho' I cannot say they steal openly, - or hand out bottles of wine barefacedly from the dining room, (as they are represented to have formerly done - ) it is matter of notoriety, they pick up from your board to such an extent, as to leave any call on their earnings for their support, unnecessary. As some counterpoise, my information leads me to beleive [sic], - that the hand of reform has been at work in even the Augean {stable of} menage of Black, & Coloured domestics. The reduced condition of the country; - & the great extent of absenteeism, has compelled such proprietors as remain, - & the managers of others, - to lessen their establishments; and Quashie, - driven by necessity, - to put his hand to many more contrivances for a living, than he formerly wd. have condescended to; in English phrasaelogy [sic], to undertake service, - as a domestic of all work. - One thing forcibly impressed itself upon me; & this was, the total impossibility of getting all this array of waiting men & women to work with any regularity & system. Every one wd. {have their own way} do what was good in his own eyes; - they wd. answer you back in a way unknown at home; (the women curtsying however, when they presented anything {as directed} wanted, -) no two agreed; & their tongues were going in incessant strife. An Englishman might naturally exclaim, - "Why not be ruler in your

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own house, - dismiss them". Very well; a new set are engaged; & the same routine of instructing, and squabbling, has to be endured, - till the vexed & ill obeyed Stranger frets himself into a fever, - or resigns himself in apathy, to a system of things he despairs ever of amending. The result if I mistake not, will be, that when the apprenticeship is terminated, such proprietors as value repose, & order, will have recourse to European labour; for a good English servant would prove a treasure here. The details of husbandry too, will daily become more European also: the spade & the plough are already in partial & successful use. Experienced Creoles both white, & brown, have expressed themselves to the same effect. These however, are details which result from some experience; the objects which strike the eye alone, - the Lions of a place, - demand the first record. Descending by a villainous, rugged road, I entered Kingstown by the usual narrow lane, - into the Back, - (or more lordly one of Granby) Street; for the purpose of paying my respects at Government Office.12 This, the only macadamized one in the place & affords a tolerable promenade. The Brick Building destined by the Colony to the use of the Governor, is untenanted, except by a Serjeants' guard of infantry who go thro' the farce of mounting sentinels, the same as if the representative of Majesty, really possessed it.13 (Written in 1836. It is now the residence of the Chief Constable.)14 He, meanwhile is ensconced in domestic quiet at the Cottage, - a literal realization of the name, - situated in the once far famed; but now neglected Botanic Garden - an easy mile from town; - and the whitewashed house is allowed to fall into total ruin.15 12. Three streets ran parallel to the bay and were intersected by seven others and by three rivers which they bridged. As shown on the map of Kingstown (Map 3), which is taken from "A Plan of the Town of Kingstown in the Island of St. Vincent," drawn in 1835 by George Punnett, Bay Street skirted the shoreline, Granby Street (stretches of which were called Halifax Street, Grenville Street and Tyrrell Street) was furthest inland, with Middle Street (also called Long Lane in stretches) lying between them. Sharpe Street was the westernmost intersecting street, followed by James Street, Egmont Street, Hillsboro' Street, Bedford Street, Melville Street and Higginson Street. Much of the same street configuration and nomenclature, and not a few of the buildings Anderson described, make up present-day downtown Kingstown. My thanks to Michael Moet-Wynne of the St. Vincent National Trust for providing me with a photocopy of Punnett's map. 13. For the location of this building, and others in Kingstown to which Anderson refers, see Map 3. 14. Parenthetical footnote appended when Anderson revised the manuscript - precise date unknown. 15. Figure 6 is an 1832 print of "The Cottage," the residence of Sir George Tyler, lieutenant-governor of St. Vincent during Anderson's years on the island. The Botanic Gardens were, of course, famous as the destination of the breadfruit plants transported from the South Pacific by Captain William Bligh. My thanks to Michael Moet-Wynne of the St. Vincent National Trust for making a copy of this print available to me.

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Map 3: Kingstown, St. Vincent, 1836

A very narrow compass from Government's office, - embraces all that Kingstown offers to gratify curiosity; tho' the wags assert that the straggling tenements which spring off beside, - hillward, - are to a 'Mudian's eye, precious as Rotten Row to a Cockney's. Touching these said Mudian's that comical fellow Tom Cringle, in his log, gives "as a lucid and distinct description of a community, that all the men when they speak, or are spoken to, shut one eye, and spit."16 In front of Govt. House is the court House; a 16. "The 'Mudian [Bermudan] women . . . are pleasant and beautiful; but all the men, when they speak, or are spoken to, shut one eye and spit; - a lucid and distinct description of

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handsome stone structure with large & commodious apartments for the Legislative Bodies in the Upper storey. Behind, are the jail, - cage, - cells for solitary confinement, & treadmill.17 These are respectably conducted by a community." Michael Scott, Tom Cringle's Log (1833; reprint, London: Walter Scott, 1887), p. 53. 17. At the end of the Apprenticeship, Robert Sutherland, inspector of prisons, conducted a detailed inspection of Kingstown Jail, the House of Correction and the Treadmill. His "Report on Prisons" was included in the "Papers on the Condition of the Labouring Population of St. Vincent," House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 37, pp. 703-11. Appendix 8 contains Sutherland's description of Kingstown Jail and a copy of the jail's regulations, while in Appendix 9, Sutherland describes the Kingstown House of Correction and the Treadmill. Sutherland noted that "An Act for building a Cage, and for establishing a Police in the Town of Kingstown, 22nd September 1821," resulted in the construction of the island's first House of Correction. Two additional Houses of Correction, one to Windward at Colonarie in Charlotte Parish, and the other to Leeward at Barrouallie, St. Patrick Parish, were built during the Apprenticeship. The Kingstown Treadmill came about through "An Act for the establishment and regulation of a Treadmill in Kingstown, 7 December 1827," while "An Act for the Regulation of the Treadmill in Kingstown, 12th January 1830," placed it "under the direction of the judges and magistrates of the island, and the town-wardens of Kingstown; and the keeper of the cage, or his assistant, shall superintend the punishment of the prisoners sentenced to labour thereon; and he shall receive a salary of 150 1. currency per annum" (p. 703). Sutherland recorded that he "visited the House of Correction [in Kingstown] many times, and always found it dirty; there is a privy off each ward; the smell was very offensive" (p. 707). Treadmills constructed at the Colonarie and Barrouallie Houses of Correction were governed by the rules regulating their Kingstown counterpart. Figure 7 is an illustration taken from an 1837 abolitionist tract depicting a treadmill in operation in Jamaica. Such a scene would undoubtedly have been replicated at the Kingstown Treadmill, which Sutherland described as "constructed in England; length 10 feet, diameter 3 feet 7 inches, depth of tread 5 inches, requires some repairs; machinery to grind corn or oats attached; straps on the bar for wrists" (p. 706). When he "saw it at work; its motion was regular, it revolved four times a minute" (p. 707). Sutherland reported, however, that the Colonarie Treadmill (which Anderson, p. 169, indicates was actually located in Georgetown) was "badly constructed; is out of order; a lever and weights regulate its rate; they do not answer the purpose" (p. 705), while the Barrouallie Treadmill was similarly "in bad order; gudgeon loose, has a heavy side; has a lever and weight to regulate its motion; was constructed in the island" (p. 710). In their description of The West Indies in 1837; being the journal of a visit to Antigua, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbados, and Jamaica; undertaken for the purpose of ascertaining the actual condition of the negro population of those islands (1838; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1968), abolitionists Joseph Sturge and Thomas Harvey provide gruesome testimony on the operation of the treadmill during the Apprenticeship (pp. 203-6). The horrific scenes Sturge and Harvey witnessed occurred at a treadmill in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, but circumstances likely differed little at the Kingstown treadmill. They described the treadmill as "a cylinder about eight feet in diameter, with broad steps. The handrail above it has eight pair of straps fastened to it, with which the wrists of the prisoners are always secured. The board under the rail descends perpendicularly, and not in a sloping direction, towards the mill, and does not, therefore, afford them the slightest protection when they lose the step and hang by the wrists. In that case," they continued, "the sharp steps of the mill, which project twelve or fifteen inches from the cylinder, must revolve against the bodies and legs of the prisoners with torturing effect . . . Every step is stained with blood." When Sturge and Harvey asked an attendant "whether the prisoners on the treadwheel were flogged. He replied that it was necessary 'to touch them up' -- women as well as men" (p. 204).

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Figure 6. Lieutenant-Governor Tyler's residence, The Cottage, Government House.

Figure 7. A treadmill in operation.

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Figure 8. St. George's Cathedral, 1836.

Figure 9. St. George's Cathedral, 2000.

Figure 10. Fort Charlotte.

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a sailor, and superintendent.18 It wd. be to the credit of those who had the erection of the parish church somewhat beyond the Court House, - could as much be said in its favor. Externally, it has no pretensions to beauty; - its interior is large and cool, - (& that is its best commendation) - but its toute ensemble is altogether disproportionate to the enormous sums lavished on it, - amounting, as I have been told, to £20, & £30,000 Sterling! - and it is still unfinished; for it periodically receives the renovating touches of architectural zeal.19 The Methodist Chapel fronts the Cathedral, - a dull, wooden tenement: The Minister's House however, - looks comfortable enough.20 At the extremity of the town, on the way to New Edinburgh, - & on the right of the main road, or back street, which we are still traversing, - is the Parade Ground;21 once a grassy spot where the beau monde were used to assemble of an evening - and where the military are still occasionally drilled, - but now stript of its verdure, - dusty & brown, - from the visitation of a newly imported species of vermin, called the Mole Cricket.22 In appearance, this destructive little creature, which has even found its way into the cane fields, - bears a striking resemblance to the first mentd. animal, & the bat. The Market Place, which lies in front of the Court, has likewise been robbed of 18. Andrew Parie was superintendent of the Kingstown House of Correction from 1825 through the end of the Apprenticeship. Parie supplemented his superintendent's salary of £150 currency with posts as town overseer and superintendent of Kingstown's water-tanks, pipes and streets, for which he was paid £200 currency per annum. John Bates was in charge of Kingstown jail for the last year of the Apprenticeship at a salary of £100 currency. (Sutherland, "Report on Prisons," pp. 705 and 707.) Noting that, in 1838, Parie "paid to Mr. Young, his assistant, one dollar, or 4s. 2d. sterling weekly, and gives clothes occasionally; as there is no accommodation whatever," Inspector of Prisons Robert Sutherland observed that "it seems impossible a trustworthy person would accept the office" (p. 707). 19. St. George's Cathedral was situated in extensive church grounds off Grenville Street in west-central Kingstown, and was consecrated on 6 September 1820. (The previous building on that site, dating from 1720, was destroyed by a hurricane in 1780.) Shephard also commented on the construction costs, which he calculated at "upwards of forty-seven thousand pounds, currency, of which the Government contributed five thousand pounds sterling, out of the purchase money of the Carib lands" {Historical Account of St. Vincent, p. 6). As originally constructed, the Georgian building had a domed steeple: the dome, however, was blown off in a hurricane in 1898. For additional information, see 100th Anniversary: Diocese of the Windward Islands (Kingstown: Reliance Press, 1977). Figure 8 depicts the church as Anderson would have seen it, and Figure 9 as it looks today. 20. The chapel was (and still is) located across Grenville Street from St. George's Cathedral. (See Map 3.) 21. The Parade Ground was located on Bentinck Square. (See Map 3.) 22. The Alole-Cricket (Gryllotalpd), known on the island as the Ground Puppy, is a member of the cricket family whose shallow burrowing (hence the appellation mole) destroys grass roots.

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its sod, by its ravages. On a Saturday, - now that Sunday trafficking is abolished - (the fancied dangers of effecting which, by the bye, - have turned out illusory - like many other reforms dreaded by the terrorists)23 - the scene here is at once novel & amusing: The negroes of both sexes, are then arrayed in all their finery; and may be met in crowds with wooden trays upon their heads, laden with fruit & vegetables, on their way to this general rendezvous, where the screamy, - incessant fire of their Patois, beggars description. Long, Long indeed will it be, before this gibberish becomes intelligible to European ears. As a market, that of St. Vincent, falls immeasurably behind any of the other islands. Fish, of diverse sorts, and of fine quality, may ordinarily be had; but butcher meat, or any of the commonest appendages of a European stall - is a great rarity & very dear. Game is unknown (the ramier or wild pidgeon when in season excepted); Consequently, when neither fresh flesh nor fish are forthcoming, a man is here often put to his shifts for a dinner, unless he can digest cured Newfoundland cod, - yams, - and as a bonne boiiche, - salted pork. They may talk of Turtle at a civic feast, - but it is a scarce dish, & difficult of 23. The Market Place was located between Grenville and Bay Streets, and Bedford and Hillsboro' Streets (see Map 3). Clause 14 of the Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of St Vincent and its Dependencies . . . "enacted, that from and after the 1st day of August 1834, no person whosoever shall on Sunday expose for sale in any market or other place, or in any shop or other place, any goods, wares or merchandise, or provisions" (see Appendix 1 for the full text of the Act). The dangers of effecting the abolition of Sunday markets, to which Anderson alluded, was in part based on the vigorous protest organized by Antiguan slaves in 1831 when that island's authorities sought to ban Sunday trading. As Barry Caspar has pointed out, however, this agitation resulted from the fact that not only had the legislature unilaterally prohibited Sunday markets, but also they had done so "without granting another market day by law." David Barry Caspar, "Slavery, Amelioration, and Sunday Markets in Antigua, 1823-1831," Slavery and Abolition 9, no. 1 (May 1988): 1. When it outlawed Sunday trading, of course, the Abolition Act in St. Vincent mandated that another "day in each week shall be given to every praedial labourer." Hence Saturday replaced Sunday as market day, and the many apprentices involved in marketing either as producers, retailers, or consumers, proved quite amenable to making the change, although they did seek time off other than Saturdays (with the obvious preference being for Fridays) to ready themselves for market. During the Apprenticeship, therefore, as well as Sundays which were set aside for religious observance, praedials were not required to work for their employers on Saturdays, and were entitled to an additional thirty free days per year. At the end of the Apprenticeship, the ex-slaves demonstrated how important it was for them to secure time for their independent marketing activities, when, as Woodville Marshall notes, "they wanted to extend the Apprenticeship practice by which all apprentices received one full working day every fortnight as free time." Indeed, the ex-slaves wanted to limit their responsibilities for sugar plantation labour to a "four-day week [which] would provide them with a full Friday to prepare for the Saturday market." Woodville Marshall, "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands," in David Richardson (ed.), Abolition and Its Aftermath: The Historical Context (London: Frank Cass, 1985), p. 219.

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attainment for love or money, (in St. Vincent} either to Windward, or Leeward; (so indolent have the fishermen become.} Thanks to the extreme kindness of a worthy family, we had not to annalyse [sic] the comforts encounter the motley assorted inmates, - of a West Indian Tavern - nor to trust ourselves to the tender mercies of that very civil landlady Miss Kate Fleming; But I had to visit a gentleman at her "Royal" hostelrie, on returning from my first tour around town, consequently, - diverged from the back across the middle street; - one of the three parallel ones, which six other lines of building intersect. Being there, I delivered some letters for commercial friends in the Bay Street; which obtains its appellation from being built along the edge of the sea beach. It is the emporium of Colonial trade; and it were to be wished, that the residents in the other parts, wd. take a hint from it and construct similarly covered galleries to protect the passenger from showers, or heat. People might then be tempted to take the air, which at present they appear to shun. The Back street, could be made into an elegant one, by a few rows of trees, and jets d'eaux on either side; - of which there need be no lack, as the town is plentifully supplied with water. Another obvious improvement, wd. be the extension of the house roofs; these are so sharp, & narrow, as to be blemishes in the general plan of the place; and last, not least, - all houses for the future, should be built of stone, or brick, in place of wood, & the decayed edifices be pulled down. A ride to Fort Charlotte, on the summit of Berkshire hill to leeward of the town, well repays the trouble.24 Immediately beneath the perpendicular rock, lies the dark blue sea, - and, from the covered gallery of the Officers quarters, the eye is carried over an expanse alike unique, and varied. Nor was I less gratified by a visit to the delicious valley of Bucament, - on the same coast, soon after my arrival. So lonely, & majestic are the uplands over which we rode, - {for there is no mode of Conveyance but on horseback,} I could almost have fancied myself again in the recesses of my native Highlands. True, I would there miss the luxuriant verdure, - the cloudless sky - & majestic trees of the Tropics, - but I shd. have in return the rosy heath, unpeopled by Jiggers, - betes rouges - and sandflies; - the brawling,

24. Located at the northwestern extremity of Kingstown Bay and elevated some 600 feet above sea level, Fort Charlotte, which was named for the wife of George III, provided a commanding defence for the capital. The fort was under construction in 1773 and completed by the first decade of the nineteenth century. Shephard noted that "it contains barracks for six hundred men, and has thirty-four pieces of artillery" (Historical Account of St. Vincent, p. 5). Figure 10 is an illustration of Fort Charlotte taken from Shephard (p. 4).

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clear burns, so grateful to the sportsman in the heated glens at summer time, - and the darkened pines of forgotten age, breasting the mountain slopes. Subsequent rambles but confirmed this favourable impression. Out a point leading from Pembroke to Hope Estate is a combination of mountain scenery which may stand comparison with any even of Switzerland.25 Peak on peak, are piled, and thrown up in the most fantastic forms: - (and with it again Greig's Ridge on the Windward Coast, & where the Grand & petit Bonhomme are seen towering aloft into the skies:)26 - noble woods wave on every rugged brow; the ridges of the valley teeming with verdant fields, and divided by hedges, or stately Galba trees, - ascend in graceful succession; and a river sweeps onwards to the sea, turning many sugar mills in its course. The rugged passes present ample range to the botanist; where innumerable species of the vegetable kingdom waste unknown in [violent] contrast to the absolute barrenness of the isle in this respect. Would the admirer of nature gratify his passion to the extreme, let him sweep the leeward shore in a canoe, or paragua - . There he will behold her revelling in each alternate form: The wild, - the majestic, - the lovely, - succeed each other in light, in shade so ever varied, - as to make enumeration hopeless. In the beetling cliffs of volcanic stone matted with trailing shrubs and parasite plants of luxuriant growth which overhang his bark he will recognize the throes of fearful convulsion which gave birth to these Tropical isles; and in peaceful repose between [them] and the untrod wooded uplands, - his eye will be delighted by the irregular sections of cane fields, - the proprietors houses, and the works of the several Estates. He may chance to get a ducking from the sprite who guards "Old [Woman's] Point"27 as he rounds that famed scene of traditionary legend, - but what of that [. . .]28 which pours down his floodgate of life & enjoyment. It was with difficulty I could at first compose my thoughts at nightfall, when engaged in conversation, owing to the piercing buzz of the cricket,: Its monotonous, shrill cry, was peculiarly grating to the ear; & time alone reconciled me to the annoyance. The crapaud or frog, - is another animal 25. The locations to which Anderson is referring above lie three to four miles northwest of Kingstown on the island's leeward side. 26. Greiggs Ridge (the location of a Carib settlement), Grand Bonhomme and Petit Bonhomme lie some six to eight miles north-northeast of Kingstown, and can be located on Map 1. 27. The point at the northwestern extremity of Kingstown, above which Fort Charlotte stands. 28. One or two words are missing from the journal at this point.

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whose screams curdle the blood; nor is the shock shock less vexatious;29 It reminds one of the incessant ticking of a loud time piece; or a saw in motion. Even the lizard joins in the discordant concert; with the guinea bird worst of all! Add to these the hideous bray of the donkeys in an Estates' [sic] pens, - breaking the drowsy ear of night, & an unfortunate's repose, - and the catalogue is complete! Yet time reconciles one to the whole - even to the oblivion of their existence. Every European lands with an innate dread of mosquitoes. These mischevous [sic] insects realize in some of the Islands, all the horrors we read of, - robbing the unhappy visitant not only of rest, but often throwing him into a fever. In Demerara and Berbice, such effects are by no means uncommon; but as I speak only of my knowledge I must say, - to use a homely phrase, - "their bark is worse than their bite, - " and their drone, as they spin in gyrations round one's head, more distressing, than their actual sting. Not that the latter is to be laughed at; if patiently borne, or instantly bathed in diluted lime juice, or vinegar, - the wound soon cures; but if irritated by rubbing, or scratched by the nail, - it will become a sore of a very annoying kind & difficult to heal. I speak feelingly on this score, for I was laid up for weeks from such a mischance. We landed in St. Vincent's, at a favourable, & cool period; - and although the children in particular, paid the penalty of newcomers, - I can safely add, - the mosquitoes were by no means so large, or so troublesome, as I had found them some years before at Florence and Rome. The firefly is justly an object of curiosity: At sunset, - ( - which is instantly succeeded by darkness, - for twilight there is none, - ) every bush seems lit up with innumerable jets of flame emitted in vivid sparks, as the fly directs its course: The most exquisitely watered diamond wd. sink into insignificance beside the burning rays {brilliant hues} of this insect. That beautiful little creature, - the humming bird, - came in also for a share of our earliest admiration. So diminutive were some specimens, I could scarcely give credence to my senses, that it was not a bee I was watching, as rapidly darting forth, it fluttered from flower to flower, and sipping the saccharine moisture, - reflected in a thousand radiant hues, its brilliant and ever changing plumage. Novel, & striking as are the objects which present themselves, - The neatness which an Englishman is accustomed to, in the parterres & 29. Dr. Earle Kirby of the St. Vincent National Trust suggests that the shock shock is "likely to be our 'wood-cock' - a large green long-horned grasshopper - not very common now" (personal communication, 27 July 1992).

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precincts of his home - finds no place here. Even in Gentlemen's houses, the domestic fowls are often seen wandering unmolested over lobby & hall; - and at feeding time, most heterogeneous is the biped and quadruped "gathering" round a planter's door. In the hedges, - (for the most part composed of the Hibiscus - Evergreen Galba -) a rose of deep red colour but without smell - a stray convolvulous, - or Barbadoes pride - the poinciana pulchenima, - elegantly styled by th Negroes "Doodle-doo," - may be seen; - these apart - the innumerable shrubs and graceful flowers, which lend beauty and fragrance to the landscapes of Merry England exist not, - or if they do, - are disregarded, and such a thing as a well kept garden, would be a wonder. Yet with these, - and the drooping petals of the snowy amaryllis, - combined, - what richness of effect might be realized! Wherever we turn, however, we have occasion to admire the magnificent foliage with which Nature adorns this interesting isle. The graceful Palmetto, or Mountain Cabbage, - (dreca oleracea) waves its feathery arms, - amid the cocoa nut, - the mango - and the grateful shade of the silk cotton tree. While the Locust - the grugroo30 - & the white cedar add majesty to the defiles of mountain range - more especially when relieved by that singular one, the wild trumpet tree. Various as are the fruits, - I could not see that their culture was attended to, - with any care, or skill. They sell high; - and altho' I would divest myself of prejudice, - I cannot say that their flavour, or delicacy, are any way equal to those reared in a garden or orchard in Britain, but "orchard" enters not into the Creole vocabulary. It is the fashion to commend what is foreign; yet with due submission to Western epicures, - even their shaddock, - pomegranate, and mango, - are coarse, pitchy flavoured, - grating to the taste: Give me our own strawberry, cherry, - peach and gooseberry, - and I resign all Tropical luxuries. The Pine Apple is the only fruit worth masticating: Avocado or alligator pears - considered dainties by some I never could relish; "Subaltern's butter" is the name bestowed on their marrowy pulp. Oranges I have tasted very good; but they were mostly from Grenada, - which is a finer isle for fruits than St. Vincent, where not many years since, a blight ruined the greater part of the trees. The sour-sop & bell apple - are both wholesome & agreable [sic]. - As for the vegetables, - plantains, yams, tanias, - ochroes - sweet potatoes, - etc., few who are not regularly Creolized, relish them: It is long before one can bring oneself to touch them 30. Dr. Kirby identifies the grugroo as "a very thorny palm - Acrocomia aculeata" (personal communication, 27 July 1992).

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with any appetite. Still pumpkins, and breadfruit are palateable enough when combined with eggs, sugar & milk, & make very good fritters. I had read so much of the admirable police in Kingstown, that I was rather astonished in entering on my Judicial duties, to find numerous breaches of the peace brought before me, against apprenticed Labourers, where the parties, - sometimes of both sexes, - had been allowed to fight out their dispute, without let or hindrance by this so famed force.31 These disgusting exhibitions were often attended by crowds, who never interfered between the disputants, or sought to get them punished! At this time the Constabulary force consisted of only six Policemen and a Chief Constable; four additional ones being added to the Stipendiary Magistracy, for the capital, on the commencement of the apprenticeship.32 These latter being prohibited interfering with Freemen in their broils, had to confine their care to 31. Anderson's reference to the "famed force" would, in part, have been based on the description provided by Charles Shephard, who noted (c. 1830) that "the Police of the Island has been greatly improved in late years, and especially in the town of Kingstown." The constabulary, he explained, "is regulated by three Town Wardens who are annually appointed," while "an Act authorizing the appointment of a Chief Constable, with very extensive powers, has added materially to the apprehension of offenders" (Shephard, Historical Account of St. Vincent, p. 203). In 1829, Shephard recorded, the chief constable received a salary of £300 currency, while "Three extra constables" were budgeted at an additional £300 currency (Appendix XIV, p. xxxvi). "The lower class of persons . . . principally seafaring persons [who were] little interested in maintaining good order and regularity of conduct," along with "the cheapness of rum, and the numerous retailers of it, [which] contribute not a little to dissolute habits" (p. 204) seem to have kept the police busy in Shephard's time, while Anderson's complaints suggest that the advent of the Apprenticeship may have exacerbated the problems of control confronting the constabulary. In Anderson's first monthly report to LieutenantGovernor Tyler, dated 10 February 1836, he stated that "his calendar is swelled up by cases from the town [Kingstown], where disputes between seamen [apprentices] and their employers are of frequent occurrence," while the following month he intimated his regret at the high number of cases on his docket, indicating that "they are mainly of a class which necessarily enters into the police reports of any capital [where] breaches of the peace . . . greatly preponderate" (Anderson Reports, 10 February 1836 and 1 March 1836, "Reports upon the general conduct of the apprentices - submitted monthly by the Stipendiary Magistrates," CO 260/54, St. Vincent, 1838, Correspondence, Original - Secretary of State, Despatches, Public Record Office, London). These circumstances continued to plague Anderson, since over a year later he was still lamenting the activities of the "debauched characters" in Kingstown (Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55). 32. Thus by 1836, the police presence in Kingstown was considerably larger than it had been when Charles Shephard described it a few years previously (see footnote 31). The most recent increase came with the beginning of the Apprenticeship when Clauses 18 and 19 of "An Act for establishing a Police for the Regulation of Apprenticed Labourers," passed on 23 June 1834 (and reproduced as Appendix 6) created a police force of one sergeant and four policemen under the direct supervision of the special magistrate that supplemented the constabulary already in place. For a full discussion of the operation of Kingstown's police establishment and the related issues of crime and policing there, see Roderick A. McDonald, "Urban Crime and Social Control in St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship," in R. McDonald (ed.), West Indies

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the Labourers, - and were too few in number, to do so with effect. At the first Court of Great Sessions, after my arrival, {I mentioned the subject to his Honor, the Chief Justice, - } an act was passed, empowering the Stipendiary corps to act as town Constables, jointly with these last, and latterly the Legislature passed a bill consolidating the whole into one force:33 But of this hereafter: - I shd. be doing a great injustice, were I not here, to bear witness to the general respectful demeanour, - and propriety of conduct, and attire, - evinced by the labouring population at the Courts held for enquiring into their grievances, - particularly in town.34 Instances of their appearing in unbecoming dress, - or semi-clothed, - were rare; but children still run about naked as they were born; the few adults who did the like were commonly women, old, - & ignorant; - and I question, if there can be on earth, so perfectly hideous a spectacle, as one of these beldames exhibiting her bare, and wrinkled breasts! As for the coloured people, their shew was absurd, - considering that most of them carried all their wealth upon their shoulders: Females of this class have even excused themselves to me for not obeying a Summons, on the score they were unprovided with a suitable gown, - or had mislaid their silk stockings, and satin pumps!! And here, I must observe, - as I am writing my own experiences, - and not making a book to please any party, - that I was greatly disappointed with the appearance of the Negro population. - Neither men, nor women, realized the pictures I had been drawn in travellers' pages, of their symmetry, muscular power, or the like: This was a truth early forced upon my mind; - nor have I, - with few exceptions, had Cause to dissent from it. Even the younger part of the female sex, in spite of their upright carriage (a carriage acquired by mounting all bundles, and goods upon their heads,) so much disclose of the African, - as in their coarser features to detract from the milder graces which civilization may partially have begun. Not that it Accounts: Essays on the History of the British Caribbean and the Atlantic Economy in Honour of Richard Sheridan (Mona, Jamaica: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1996), pp. 319-42. 33. Anderson is referring to "An Act to repeal certain Clauses of Acts, and to provide a Salary for a Police Magistrate, and to consolidate the Police of Kingstown, and of the Third Division of this Island of St. Vincent." In May 1838 this Act was repealed, and replaced by "An Act for the more effectual Administration of Justice in the Office of a Justice of the Peace, and for the Appointment of Police Magistrates and a Constabulary Force in these Islands." House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 36, pp. 459-60. 34. In addition to his duties as a special magistrate, which required him to convene a Court of Petty Sessions every Saturday for hearing disputes between apprentices and employers (see footnote 52), Anderson had also been appointed chief police magistrate in Kingstown, where he was obliged to hold Court three days a week (see footnote 148).

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can be said illusage is the cause of this physical inferiority. Whatever may have been the wrongs of the slave in remote periods of the accursed traffic in human flesh, - (and I have heard of attrocities [sic] in this island alone, enough to make the blood boil - ) the apprenticed labourer cannot complain of any want which is not readily supplied. He has now, by law, a continuation of the same supplies of food, clothing, {houseroom,} medicine (and no cost or luxury essential for the invalid is spared, -) & medical attendance, as well as lodging, - as prior to the apprenticeship, custom, or the Colonial Legislature accorded to him;35 and if the providing of these essentials without further care or trouble - (for which the mass of mankind are making a daily struggle,) - be conducive to the development of both corporeal, and mental energy, - certainly the aspect of the black Creolized inhabitants is a poor illustration! Once for all - "Creole means a native of a West 35. Although St. Vincent's Abolition Act (reproduced as Appendix 1, with amendments in Appendix 2) did indeed stipulate the provisions with which employers were obliged to supply their apprentices, thus purportedly guaranteeing workers their basic needs in terms of food, clothing, shelter and medical care, Anderson's observations about the material welfare of the apprentices are altogether too sanguine. His assertion that "no cost or luxury essential for the invalid is spared" in providing apprentices with medical care is clearly an exaggeration, and his implication that the minimal food, shelter and clothing allowances were adequate seems either callous or naive, while his statement that the apprentice "has now, by law, a continuation of the same supplies . . . as prior to the apprenticeship, custom . . . accorded to him" is erroneous. As Woodville Marshall has demonstrated, among "specific policies designed to check and offset labour loss, [one of] the chief weapons [planters] employed [was] the exercise of discretionary power over the granting of customary allowances." Marshall, "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands," p. 206; see also Swithin Wilmot, "Not 'Full Free': The Ex-Slaves and the Apprenticeship System in Jamaica, 1834-1838," Jamaica Journal 17, no. 3 (August-October 1984): 8. Hence perquisites customarily allowed or distributed to slaves by, or on behalf of, the planters, such as supplementary allocations of food and clothing, the convenience of water carriers for the field gangs, the use of field cooks to prepare workers' food, Christmas presents and holiday gifts, discretionary systems of rewards and punishments, and labour exemptions (accorded, for example, to women who either were pregnant or nursing, or had large families, and to nurses and midwives), were, in Marshall's words, "equated . . . with money wages" (p. 209) by planters during the Apprenticeship. As a consequence, many such allowances, established by custom during slavery, were withdrawn after 1834, or parleyed by planters into additional work, or control over the labour force, a circumstance that antagonized and continued to anger apprentices and their supporters throughout the four years of the system. Responding in his official monthly report of 30 June 1837 to the question: "Are any indulgencies withheld which it was usual during Slavery for the estate to supply?" Anderson informed Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, "I know not the extent of these during Slavery: at present Indulgencies are never withheld except when the labourers conduct themselves amiss." Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55, 339 verso. It was not until the last few months of the Apprenticeship that legislation was introduced to restore to the apprentices the customary allowances they had received as slaves. Thus Clause 3 of "An Act to amend the Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies" (reproduced as Appendix 12), that was passed in April 1838, mandated the return to apprentices of all the

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India Colony, whether he be white, black or of the coloured population." (Mrs Carmichael.)36 It is derived from the Spanish word "Criollo - " El hijo de Padres Europeos nascido [sic] en America.37 Every negro has his "house", - an appellative expressive of the roof which shelters him, - as the "Great House," - or residence of the Proprietor, is of that where the latter encamps. All terms are however relative. When West Indians talk in Britain, of the comfortable cottages of their praedials, - and how superior they are in domestic comforts to a peasant at home, allowances must be made for the comparison.38 It is very true, the negro labourer has his abode, - but it would be questionable, if more wretched dwellings to outward appearance, are to be found, except in Ireland or the remotest corners of the Scottish Highlands? Built of wood, - generally elevated on slight pillars, a foot or two from the earth to prevent the entrance of insects & rain, - and thatched with {migass or} "mz5/z," - ( - dry leaves stripped off the cane,) without form or design, - more ungainly objects can scarce be imagined, one here & there, white washed, releives [sic] the general gloom. As they are always huddled into a cluster, or village, they resemble so many bee hives; and I cannot present a better description of their allowances and perquisites they had received as slaves. (House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1837-38, vol. 6, pp. 299-309.) 36. Carmichael, Domestic Manners, vol. 1, p. 17. 37. This sentence translates as, "The child of European parents born in America." 38. Anderson is referring here to one of the central pro-slavery arguments brought to the abolition debate that had raged in Britain throughout the early nineteenth century. Planters and other representatives of West Indian interests, who tied the plantation economy's prosperity to its continued dependence on slave labour, sought to defuse criticism of slavery by drawing a comparison between the lot of slaves and that of wage earners and peasants in Britain. Slaves, they claimed, enjoyed better conditions of life and labour - for example, lower labour expectations, and better food, clothing, housing and medical care - than British peasants or workers. This debate continued into the Apprenticeship, although the terms were somewhat altered since some planters were now apparently prepared to concede that the apprentices' conditions of life and labour were on a par with those of the British peasantry, and hence at the end of the Apprenticeship, they should be paid wages comparable to the pittance received by their agrarian counterparts in the home country. In the journal that chronicled his terms of office as a special magistrate in Barbados (1835-38) and St. Vincent (1838), Major John Bowen Colthurst noted "that a field apprentice [in St. Vincent] is considerably better off upon estates under the direction of respectable managers than the fixed labourers on farms in Ireland upon the Truck System, or on payments in money wages." He went on to observe that "the situation of the poor Irish labourer should be no guide upon the question of fixing a rate of wages for the free negro, though some planters have hinted as much . . . because the returns from a well managed sugar estate beat either the English or Irish returns by some six or eight percent," a circumstance, he implied, that should benefit workers and planters alike. See Woodville K. Marshall (ed.), The Colthurst Journal: Journal of a Special Magistrate in the Islands of Barbados and St. Vincent, July 1835-September 1838 (Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1977), p. 162.

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appearance, than to make reference to the plate of an African town, in any modern travellers' book.39 The "trash"., (which is put to the purpose of fuel, and fodder - as well as thatch -) is broad, & excellently adapted for the covering of Cottages; - but in place of being neatly woven & plaited, - it is heaped together in a mass, exactly as if it were thrown on with a pitch fork. Under all this exterior misery, - the interior often presents many domestic articles, not only of use, but of luxury. There is a hall, - & next to it a chamber. The negro is jealously averse to "Buckra" curiosity; and carefully shrouds these up, when at work, by closing his door, & windows, - (if he has a plurality - ) as he wishes to preserve the reputation of extreme poverty.40 Still, opportunities are not wanting to the gratification of one's eyes. Among these appendages I have known instances of a mahogany sideboard; - glass shades to a candle - as of a bedstead, matrass [sic] & pillows, ~ & neat crockery.41 Nor is their cuisine amiss: "Negro, or pepper-pot, - " is a sort of Meg Merillies42 compound into which enter various vegetables and ingredients; - callilou, - tanias, salt fish, breadfruit, okroes, etc.43 Their repasts are irregular; Supper is the great meal; and "tum-tum" or boiled plantain a standard dish: And the party who is so far advanced in the knowledge of life, 39. Throughout the British Caribbean during the era of slavery, slaves assumed primary responsibility for the construction and spatial layout of their houses. Thus, the typically thatched, wattle-and-daub houses were irregularly clustered within a general area, among fruit trees, gardens, and pens for small livestock such as pigs and chickens, with family organization being a principal determinant of their location. Thus family members often constructed their houses adjacent to each other, creating residential compounds or enclaves inhabited by kin. Aldiough slaves used local materials to build their houses, they derived many of their construction practices from Africa, and the comments of an anonymous contributor to a Jamaican journal, who noted that "the groundwork of all Negro habitations in Jamaica was as in Sierra Leone, the Negro huts of Africa," is equally applicable to the other sugar islands, such as St. Vincent. Anon., "Notes in Defence of the British Colonies," Jamaica Journal 2, no. 1 (1818). As Anderson's comments confirm, these patterns persisted into the Apprenticeship. 40. The apprentices' attitudes towards their houses emerged during slavery. Throughout the British West Indies, sugar plantation slaves developed territorial and proprietary attitudes towards their houses, and although possessing no legal rights to the privacy and sanctity of their homes, sought and generally managed to maintain the sequestration of the village from the estates' white inhabitants. Mrs. Carmichael noted how on St. Vincent sugar estates, "all the houses have locks to their doors, which are made of wood by the negroes, and fasten very securely," while adding that "many, however, supply themselves with padlocks besides" (Domestic Manners, vol. 1, p. 129). Such use of home-made wooden locks, keys and bolts to secure their houses in their absence, provides clear evidence of slaves' proprietorship, since these devices not only protected possessions against theft, but also affirmed ownership and dominion over what they secured. For an analysis of slave housing in the British Caribbean, see Roderick A. McDonald, The Economy and Material Culture of Slaves: Goods and Chattels on the Sugar Plantations of Jamaica and Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993), chapter 3.

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as to relish these comforts, - is content to live in a wigwam with all the betisses of his forefathers! {In the town of Kingstown, domestic servants who hire their own apartments, have very generally many shewy} The fact is, that neither the British peasant, nor the Creole negro could adopt the habits, or style of living of the other. Give the former all the allowances of the latter, and he would repel them with disgust. But grant him a spot whereon he may securely build his pretty cottage, and have his garden, and he would soon change the aspect of even these smiling vales. If European labour is to be brought to bear on future circumstances, and should it (as I have little fear, - some slight departments offieldwork excepted, - it will) succeed, then the vile huts of the present labourers will disappear, & new edifices will supply their place. - The natural bias of the negro so inclines him to indolence, and with the bulk of them, labour - agricultural {field} labour in particular, - is so interwoven in their minds, from past recollections, with disgrace, &

41. Fifteen years previously, Mrs. Carmichael claimed that the houses of "good industrious" slaves in St. Vincent possessed cupboards displaying plates, cups and saucers, tables, benches and chairs, boxes for clothes, and sideboards holding tumblers and wine glasses, but asserted disingenuously that "a common field negro, although he can afford all this, has not in general reached that stage of civilization that engenders the desire of possessing such articles" (Domestic Manners, vol. 1, pp. 129-30). Dr. Collins, whose Practical Rules for the Management and Medical Treatment of Negro Slaves, in the Sugar Colonies, by a Professional Planter (1811; reprint, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), drew from his experiences as a sugar planter in St. Vincent, provided a less idyllic, and probably more generally accurate description both of the overall inadequacy of slave housing and the sparsity of their furnishings (pp. 115-26). Similarly, the well-furnished apprentices' houses Anderson describes would most likely have been the homes of privileged apprentices - drivers, tradesmen, and the like - rather than those of ordinary field hands. 42. Meg Merrilies (Anderson misspelled the name) is a Gipsy character in Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering who is depicted at one point as tending "a black cauldron that was boiling on a fire on the floor, and, lifting the lid, an odour was diffused through the vault, which, if the vapours of a witch's cauldron could in aught be trusted, promised better things than the hell-broth which such vessels are usually supposed to contain. It was in fact the savour of a goodly stew, composed of fowls, hares, partridges, and moorgame, boiled in a large mess with potatoes, onions, and leeks, and from the size of the cauldron, appeared to be prepared for halfa-dozen people at least." The April 1817 issue of Blackwood's Magazine noted that "Potage a la Meg Merrilies de Derncleugh," had been included in the cookbook, Almanack des Gourmands. See Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering (1814; reprint, London: J. M. Dent, 1964), p. 330. The multi-ingredient soup or stew that Anderson was describing in his analogy to Scott is the stillpopular island dish of pepper-pot. 43. Callalou refers to any of a variety of tropical plants indigenous to the region, including Xanthosoma hastifolium (the arum family), whose green leaves are used in stews and soups. Tanias are plants also indigenous to the islands, especially the taro (Colocasia esctilenta) and Xanthosoma sagittifolium, that are cultivated for their edible farinaceous roots. Okra is a tall plant (Hibiscus esculentas), native to West Africa, whose edible, green seed-pods are eaten as a vegetable, as well as being a common ingredient in stews, soups and gumbo.

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slavery, - that it is by no means unlikely a great proportion of the working class, will at the termination of the apprenticeship, be destitute; - because, they will be so heedless, or so ignorant, as to compel proprietors & agents to have recourse to other sources; - till driven by hunger, they may offer their services, & find the market provided for! The consequences to the poor Creatures themselves, it is easy to foresee. Again, not a few of them are impressed with the wild belief that "when freedom comes," - (as they style it, - ) Our Gracious Sovereign is to make them a present of their huts, and provision grounds, & that they will have nothing thereafter to do, but "to sit down saftly," - in blissful idleness!44 Between these extreme classes, there will be found good, & industrious labourers (especially among trades44. During slavery, planters in St. Vincent, as in most British West Indian colonies, allocated gardens and provision grounds to slaves and expected them to supply themselves with most of the food they consumed (see footnote 48). Even before Emancipation, slaves managed to exercise proprietorial prerogatives over these grounds which were often allocated by family or household and became, along with their homes, the centre of independent economic and social activities. Cultivating the same land for years and often through generations, individual slaves and slave families not only provided for themselves, and, perhaps, developed a peasantstyle economy based on the sale of provisions produced in excess of subsistence needs, but also, in the words of one Jamaican planter, came to consider "their houses, their provision grounds, their gardens and orchards . . . as much their own property as their Master does his Estate." Testimony of John Blackburn, Report from the Committee on the Commercial State of the West India Colonies (London: House of Commons, 1807), p. 43. After 1834, the efforts of many praedial apprentices were increasingly directed towards the development of an independent peasant economy based on the residences and lands they had long occupied and worked. Hence, far from being content, in Anderson's disparaging terms, "'to sit down saftly,' - in blissful idleness" in their houses and grounds, many apprentices strove energetically to use the time they had free from obligations on the sugar estates, to assert their independence as smallholders on land they had long considered their property, and which they hoped would permit them significant or even complete autonomy from the sugar plantation system when full freedom came. Allied to the apprentices' proprietorial attitudes towards their houses and grounds, was their understanding of the meaning and terms of Emancipation, which many understood to include a provision to compensate them for their years of enslavement, and for their unremunerated work during the Apprenticeship, by granting them their land and their homes gratis. Hence, just as some slaves at the inception of the Apprenticeship mistakenly felt that the system had been set up by planters to cheat them of the full freedom accorded them by the the king and Parliament in Britain (a circumstance which indeed caused considerable unrest in many colonies in 1834), so too apprentices throughout the British Caribbean, again mistakenly, subscribed to the belief (or gave credence to the rumours) that legislation giving them their provision grounds and dwellings had been passed or was pending in Britain, but that planters opposed to the measure were concealing information about it. At the conclusion of the Apprenticeship in Grenada, for example, the workers on Samaritan Estate who "would not surrender their houses and grounds because these had been 'given them by the Queen'" (Marshall, "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands," p. 219), were exhibiting sentiments similar to those held by the St. Vincent apprentices Anderson was writing about, as was the case on Montpelier Estate, St. James Parish, Jamaica,

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men) willing to earn their subsistence; but it remains to be seen, if their numbers are sufficiently great to counterbalance the necessity of bringing in foreign aid? All employers are obliged to furnish each labourer above 12 years old, male and female, - annually, with 6 yards of osnaburghs, - a hat, - or cap; six yards of Pennistons (i.e. rough blue cloth.) or 3 yards of six fourths wide cloth; & half that quantity for every labourer under 12; or clothing of equivalent value.45 These materials Quashie uses in the field; and mean enough animals both he & his helpmate are there, - but on his Saturdays, and other free days, they are discarded with contempt; and he appears clad, as well as any European, in white or stripped trowsers, - vest; - jacket of like fabric, or of Cloth; - straw, or white hat. They are very fond of bedecking the latter with crape, if they have lost a friend, or God Father, or God Mother. The women again ( - I speak of Gala days - only, be it remembered - ) array themselves in gowns of white, or gaudy prints; - with shewy handkerchiefs on which they expend large sums, bound round their heads, something in the style of the Bavarian girls who sell brooms on the London streets. Almost every one has gold ear-rings of massy, rude workmanship; and necklaces of tasteless, vulgar beads. Shoes or Stockings do not enter into the where plantation attorney Thomas McNeil observed that, when full freedom came in 1838, the entire work force "most obstinately refuse paying any rent whatever, either in money or labour; they still entertain the idea that the Queen is about to send out a law to give them title to their houses, gardens and provision lands." Quoted in B. W. Higman, " 'To Begin the World Again': Responses to Emancipation at Friendship and Greenwich Estate, Jamaica," Paper presented at the Twenty-second Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, 1-7 April 1990, St. Augustine, Trinidad, p. 11. In both instances, apprentices were defiantly rejecting planter attempts to assert control over "their" property, but in St. Vincent as elsewhere, of course, legal title remained with the planters who, often with the assistance of the colonies' police and judicial authorities, were able to thwart the apprentices' aspirations, and make continued occupation of houses and access to grounds conditional on the workers' willingness to remain at work on the estates. Thus the observations made here by Anderson in 1836 not only reveal the apprentices' perceptions of property rights and their hopes for independence (as well, indeed, as their distrust of the planters and their faith - unfortunately misplaced - in the benevolence and fairness of the British government who, after all, had compensated planters handsomely when slavery ended), but also provide an intimation of a central source of conflict that would accompany the end of the Apprenticeship. 45. Osnaburg is coarse hard-wearing linen (and also later used to describe a cotton equivalent) named for the town of Osnabriick, Germany, where it was first produced, while penistone is a rough heavy woollen cloth that similarly took its name from the place of its original manufacture - Penistone in Yorkshire, England. Six fourths wide cloth refers to fabrics that measure 54 inches, or six-fourths of a yard in width. Clause 19 of the St. Vincent Abolition Act (reproduced as Appendix 1) contains a full description of the clothing employers were required to provide the apprentices.

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Catalogue of fineries, or necessaries, either of men, or women, a few Beaux or Belles excepted!46 To understand what I mean by "free days," I may here observe, that in St. Vincent, as in the other islands, since the 1st August 1834, - no praedial apprenticed labourer, whether attached, or not, to the soil, is bound to labour more than 45 hours in the whole, in any one week. Sunday marketing being abolished, no labourer (with the exception of domestics, watchmen, mariners, & handymen - ) can now be compelled to work on Sundays, except in cases of necessity; - To this holyday of rest, - the Colonial Legislature has added one day in each week to each praedial, with eleven days, - (and by a subsequent statute, - nineteen days in addition to the eleven, - ) over and above the one day in each week, & Sundays throughout the year for the Cultivation of his provision Grounds. Thus, every praedial has to himselfAll Sundays in the year I day in each week (which custom has made Saturday) I1 days previously, and now 19 additional ones in all

=52 = 52 = 30 =134 free days exempt from toil.47

46. Even during slavery, the acquisition of "best clothing," only to be worn when not at work on the plantation, was of particular importance to slaves in the British West Indies, and purchase of such goods was one of the principal areas of expenditure by those who accumulated any cash. These clothes clearly incorporated European and African fashions, as well as peculiarly creole adaptations, but struck contemporary white commentators as being ludicrous parodies and caricatures of fashions, and incongruous or clashing styles. See, for example, Anon., "Characteristic Traits of the Creolian and African Negroes in Jamaica," Columbian Magazine; or, Monthly Miscellany 3 Qune 1797): 7; John Stewart, A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica (1823; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), p. 271; and, for an analysis of slave clothing, McDonald, Economy and Material Culture, chapter 3. Although Anderson's uncanny echo of these commentators' observations, in his disdainful and dismissive description of "gaudy," "rude," "tasteless," and "vulgar" styles, similarly failed to recognize the syncretic creolization process at work, it nevertheless confirms how clothing habits and styles that originated in the era of slavery persisted through the Apprenticeship. The clothing styles depicted in a drawing (ca. 1810) by A. Brunias, entitled "A Negro Festival Drawn from Nature in the Island of St. Vincent" (reproduced as Figure 11), would have resembled some of the more elegant of the apprentices' fashions seen by Anderson, and clearly show the influence of creolization. 47. The Abolition Act of 1 August 1834, allocated the praedial apprentices "eleven days . . . over and above the one day allowed in each week and Sundays" (see Clause 15 in Appendix 1), while Clause 2 of an amendment to the act, passed a year later (and reproduced as Appendix 2), "enacted, that 19 days in addition to the 11, be allowed to each praedial labourer during the continuance of his apprenticeship term."

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Figure 11. Slave dance in St. Vincent.

Now, praedials are supplied, partly by food, partly by cultivation of grounds set apart for provisions. The extent of these is almost unbounded in St. Vincent from the great surface of mountain land; but besides these provision grounds, each negro has a plot of land in the vicinity of his cottage, for a garden; - but few are attentive to its appearance or alive to its value. Moreover every one has 40 feet of a cane piece which has been reaped, for raising yams. 48 48. During slavery, planters provided slaves with little food. Aside from the meagre protein ration of salt fish or meat distributed at the planters' expense, slaves were expected to provide themselves with most of their food through the cultivation of the gardens around their houses as well as in the provision grounds allocated them at the periphery of the plantation and in the mountain and scrublands unsuitable for sugar cultivation. As developed by slaves, however, the provision ground system went beyond providing subsistence needs and became the basis of a peasant-style economy in which slaves worked for themselves raising produce, generating a surplus which they marketed on the island (and which, incidentally, supplied the island with virtually all of its fresh produce), and keeping the accrued profits. Thus, even during slavery, the participants in the provision ground system were able to exert considerable proprietorial rights over their crops, the land on which they were cultivated, and the money they accumulated. After Emancipation, the apprentices showed that they preferred to build on the independent economic systems they had developed as slaves in their provision grounds, rather than continue to labour in the cane fields, and much of the tension that arose between planters and ex-slaves during and after the Apprenticeship, derived from conflicting aspirations vis-a-vis the disposal of labour and access to land.

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It often happens, there may not be lands proper for the growth of provisions or these may be unproductive; - in such case the employer of the apprentice must weekly supply him with four quarts of wheat flour, or of farina, or of the flour or meal of Guinea or Indian corn, or 20 pounds of yams or potatoes; and every apprentice below the age of ten years, with one half the above mentioned allowance in each week, delivered to the mother or nurse of such infant. Every praedial has in either case, two pounds of salted fish in every week besides.49 It is obvious the labourer has thus much time on his hands. He who is prudent, makes a contract with his Master, for his extra hours, with the concurrence of the Special Justice, - and may thereby realize a valuable consideration.50 He who is indolently disposed, spends his time in exhibiting his finery at a Negro ball to the expences whereof all the guests contribute, and to attend which, they will travel incalculable distances. Working thus only 9 hours of 5 days out of the seven for his {Master} employer, - and having his Saturdays & 30 days to boot to himself, - it requires no depths of political wisdom to define the reasons which enable the Creole husbandman to appear so superior in attire, to his fellow of the same class in Europe; - where with infinitely greater burdens, few, or no privileges, - and little leisure, - they compose a harder wrought, more industrious community. The simple nature of his diet - moreover, consisting mainly of vegetables; - and the almost nominal exertion required in the culture of these, under a Tropical Sun, - afford facilities for indulgence, such as no Northern peasant can aspire to. And here by the way, I cannot appreciate the reasons which induced the Legislature to draw a line of distinction between the non-praedial and the

49. Clauses 15, 16, 17 and 18 of the St. Vincent Abolition Act (see Appendix 1) delineate the employers' obligations for feeding the apprentices in their charge. 50. It is clear that although apprentices may have been willing to sell some of their labour to the sugar estates, particularly during harvest, they were determined to maintain control over their free time, and to dispose of it in ways that best suited their economic and social aspirations. Hence, the peasant-style economy developed on the provision grounds and at Saturday market normally took precedence over the planters' desires for extra labour, while apprentices were also often willing to forego additional pay for fieldwork in order to pursue social and leisure activities, and again may have spurned such work to register their opposition to the Apprenticeship and to their continued obligations to the planters. In any case, as Woodville Marshall observes, apprentices "accorded a low priority to plantation agriculture" in the disposition of their free time, a circumstance that ran counter to the planters' wishes to control as much of this time (at as little cost as possible) as they felt they needed for the succesful cultivation of the sugar crop (Marshall, "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands," p. 212). In Anderson's observations on this topic, he generally subscribed to the planter view that time not sold by the apprentices to the planter was time wasted.

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praedial apprentice as regards their Emancipation from servitude. The former are to throw off their shackles in August 1838; the latter not till two years thereafter. We cannot anticipate events, but here are fruitful germs for murmurs, {insubordination} and chagrin. Should it be said I have imbibed erroneous impressions, I can only reply to such friends, as may do me the favor of glancing over these pages, - I have formed my opinions from actual observation, - not fanciful theories. Previous to quitting Scotland, - I read authors on either side of the West Indian question; - and I came out unbiassed [sic] by any, determined to judge for myself. As I have no predelictions [sic] to gratify - or system to uphold, - I shall accordingly set down, - "though naught in malice" I trust, - whatever remarks men or manners in any station, may call for, and whilst the impression is yet strong on my mind, regardless of any consideration, but the truth. He were worse than fiend, who does not condemn the harrowing recitals of that system by which the Western Isles were - and yet - are supplied with victims for their fields: The evil consequences are hourly rued both by Master & Servant; for thraldom entails a curse on both. It is the glory of Britain that she struck the manacles from the oppressed, and "for ever" abolished slavery throughout her dominions; but coinciding to the fullest extent, in that unparalleled act of magnanimity, & Justice, - I cannot so far shut my eyes, in a personal enquiry into the condition of the labouring class, as not to perceive, that much illdirected philanthropy has been wasted on our Sable brethren, - and much lack-a-daisy, mawkish sentiment evaporated on their wrongs, which had more creditably been expended nearer home upon those who have weightier claims. In fact, the negro has been dealt with in extremes: He has been decried as a mere beast of burden, - or he has been elevated into a scale beyond that assigned him by Providence. Examples of their temporal comforts have been already given; more may arise in the sequel. With respect to Spirituals, they of St. Vincents', have long had the ministrations of Methodist missions; - and if cant phrases, and lip homage, were to be taken as evidences of Christian principles working on the heart, the negroes here might stand honourably distinguished. In saying so, I mean no offence to the present pastors in communion with that body; as everything I have heard, is creditable to their zealous, blameless conduct; - but as their predecessors have conveyed to the majority of the Blacks, all the scriptural information which they possess, - it is no ways unfair to suppose, they are only uttering what they have been taught, and imitating their

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instructors, in the familiar appeals they make to the sacred name of the Deity; - and the unseasonable readiness with which they assent to every order, however trivial, - by interjections of "please Gad" - "the Lard willing". I have known the first used as a reply by a sick domestic when asked if she wd. take some medicine? & by a groom when directed to water his horses. Every action of our lives the Believer knows, is dependant [sic] on the will of Heaven, - but he may question the good taste, - if not the propriety of such ejaculations? "Oh my Fader!" "My Gad - armighty!" - exclaims the {appce.} male, or female, accused of any delinquency, turning up the huge, goggle eyes at the sametime [sic], in earnest entreaty, - "/'// Kiss the Book, massa! me neber, - neber, - so help me Gad, did such a ting."51 At first I was struck with the earnestness of these appeals; and could not but beleive [sic], that parties so obtesting their Maker, were wrongfully accused. Experience wrought a sorrowful conviction of the contrary; and whenever I observed a delinquent particularly vehement in his, or her, profession of innocence, and evincing strong anxiety to swear to the truth of an assertion - (which of course they were not allowed to do) my mind almost unconsciously had formed an opposite conclusion, - even before the charge was investigated; and as the result shewed - in most instances, correctly. I select from numberless examples, two which present themselves at random, in my Journal of Cases brought before me, as Special Justice.52 51. In Domestic Manners, Mrs. Carmichael discussed at length the efforts of the Methodist missionaries (while at the same time lamenting the absence of Anglican missionaries) during slavery. While critical of the direction of the Methodists' efforts, Carmichael acknowledged their pervasiveness within the slave community. Her descriptions of religiosity echo those of Anderson, such as, for example, when she reproached the "hypocrites [who] had learnt at chapel to groan, turn up their eyes, and indeed, as well as all St. Vincent negroes, to say 'please God' at every sentence" (vol. 1, p. 228). Special Magistrate John Colthurst also noted that "there is another little trait that you cannot fail to notice, which is when a negro is ordered to do the least thing, he always says, 'yes massa, please God,' or 'I will do so and so, please God'" (Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 85). 52. Clauses 28 through 52 of the St. Vincent Abolition Act (reproduced as Appendix 1) outlined the jurisdiction of the special magistrates "for ensuring the effectual superintendence of the . . . apprenticed labourers" (Clause 28), and empowered them to "exercise and enjoy a sole and exclusive jurisdiction over ... all offences committed, or alleged to have been committed, by any . . . apprenticed labourer, or by his employer, in such their relation to each other" (Clause 29), while "An Act for establishing a Police for the Regulation of the Apprenticed Labourers ..." (reproduced as Appendix 6), provided special magistrates with detailed instructions on the performance of their duties. The Act drew judicial boundaries and mandated that the special magistrates for each reside therein. Each special magistrate was required to convene a court and hear complaints every Saturday, "or oftener, if necessary" (Clause 6), to keep a journal, and to adjudicate on the complaints before him, as well as visit each estate within his division at least once every two weeks. (See Appendix 5, and Maps 4 and 5, for a delineation of the boundaries of St. Vincent's judicial districts.)

Joh n Anderson's Jou mal

Map 4: St. Vincent Judicial Divisions and Districts, 1834

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Map 5: St. Vincent Judicial Districts, 1836

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J. - apprentice Labourer on F- Estate, was charged with having stolen a pet kid, the property of H. F. Esqr. on a certain day, Between the hours of 2 & 3 oC. P.M. This lad invoked the most frightful curses on his head if he had committed the theft, - and though repeatedly cautioned, & offered forgiveness by his master, if he would confess, - persisted in his denial. "Robert, appce. Labourer to Mr R. sworn - depones, saw the boy Joseph take the kid from his Master's yard; said the witness must not tell. Mr R. missed it, & asked witness where it was? He told him: - Has not seen it since, J- took it away in the direction of M- pasture. He knows it was 2 o'C. when taken, because the bell rung at the time." "Peter H- constable, sworn, depones took the prisoner up on Sunday. Told him the nature of the charge against him, - & he said in reply, - he did take the goat; & said, if witness would follow him, he would produce the goat at M- Estate. They went - asked the watchman if he had seen the goat pass, - but he had not." Another witness swore, - that in her hearing, the accused said, - "I may as well tell the truth, / did take the kid." When this fellow saw that the evidence had turned the tables, he received his punishment with all deference; & by the bye I never heard a negro grumble after he had been convicted; nor ever manifest to a white man by gesture, or language that they cherished revenge. If he did the feeling evaporates quickly; it is a momentary, - not a settled purpose, of his mind. Not so however is his demeanour to his fellows, or a coloured person. J- & A- apprentice seamen to Messrs. T-, were accused of plundering the drogher in which they were serving, of sugar. This a crime of daily occurrence; & one, in which the Black, & Coloured hands are so expert under the eye of even the most attentive skipper, as to occasion the destruction of property to an immense amount. Nor is the quantity of cane cut, and carried off from estates, an evil of less magnitude. A manager may see the labours, & anxieties of a season, greatly parallysed [sic], & with little hope of discovering the depredators, - (for there is a species of freemasonry among Negroes whenever "Buckra" is concerned). These have their scouts in Kingstown who receive the stolen wares whether canes, sugar, melasses [sic], cotton, iron, etc. - ; and these again, dispose of them to hucksters, of all colours, who, running the hazard of severe penalties, ply their vocation round the Country districts.53 - With the view of checking the guilty, the 53. Hucksters, also known as higglers, were ubiquitous in the British West Indies during the slavery and Apprenticeship eras. Slaves, and latterly apprentices, joined members of the free coloured community in participating in this segment of the island's economy, where they played an intermediary role in marketing the colonies' fresh produce, most of which had been

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Legislature in June 1836, made it imperative on retailers of syrup and sugar, to provide themselves with licenses. Of these men, one in particular, had recourse to the usual shifts, to try, and blind my eyes to his conduct; offering to Kiss the Bible, etc. I made the complainant call his witnesses. "P-, appce. seaman, sworn, - sawj.- open a cask of sugar yesterday on board the C. - He took out a small bagfull, & gave it to another Negro. A. took out a small boxfull also." "Henry, appce. Labr. to Mr D. - saw Both of the accused take sugar yesterday." On another occasion, a voluntary witness came forward to swear, - that a coloured man accused of a breach of the peace, had never uttered the words imputed to him, - but the accused with great honesty admitted he had abused the complainant, - pleading drunkenness as an excuse.54 raised by the slave/praedial apprentice population. Hucksters, an occupation which was dominated by women, attended the weekly markets as vendors of the goods of those slaves/apprentices who either did not want to make the trip to market, or did not intend to spend their day there as retailers, and who thus reverted to trading with the hucksters. Journeying throughout the countryside, hucksters bartered for, or purchased, produce, manufactures and, perhaps, stolen goods, from slaves/apprentices who, in order to be rid of the work of transporting and selling the goods themselves, would accept less for them than the hucksters would ultimately receive, while on market day, hucksters bought the produce of slaves/apprentices who, although willing to transport their goods to town, were ready to give up some margin of profit so that they could put their time there to other uses. A late-eighteenth-century description of Jamaican huckstering, albeit a jaundiced one, shows the scope of this activity as it would have functioned during slavery and the Apprenticeship in St. Vincent: Higglers In the towns there is a species of occupation very agreeable to the indolent and desultory disposition of the negroes. They are sent abroad by their owners, to work out as it is called, for which liberty they are obliged to pay a certain rate per week or month . . . Turned loose on the community, they are guilty of every kind of fraud and forestalling, to make up their respective allotments. They are the receivers and venders of stolen goods and occasionally thieves themselves; the most honest part of their employment being to monopolize roots, greens, fruit, and other edibles, which they purchase from country negroes, and retail at exorbitant prices. Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine 2 (April 1797): 702. See also Lorna Simmonds, "Slave Higglering in Jamaica, 1780-1834," Jamaica Journal 20, no. 1 (February -April 1987): 31-38; and McDonald, Economy and Material Culture, pp. 29-30. 54. In dealing with criminal cases such as described here, Anderson was going beyond his jurisdiction as a special magistrate, and he would ultimately be sanctioned for these actions. In a letter to Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, dated 24 February 1838, Anderson tried to justify the high number of punishments he meted out the previous October by noting that the cases, which involved three estates in his division, Arno's Vale, Struan and Cane Hall, "embraced crimes of a very serious nature; theft, housebreaking, & embezzlement," and explaining that "the crimes, for which the punishment of whipping was awarded . . . were chiefly rioting, larceny, cutting canes, running away, and plunder" (CO 260/56). Anderson's superiors responded peremptorily to his explanation. Sir Evan Murray MacGregor, governor of

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So much for Negro asservation, and regard to veracity! Their cunning is not a whit less remarkable; -1 speak not at present of their address in framing a story, - but skill to excite compassion. In gesticulation, they will out Herod even an Italian. - A field apprentice was brought up for an assault upon a fellow labourer: He came up to the table, - (contrary to his countrymen's general practice) with no other clothing, than a coarse bamboo cloth wrapped around him,55 - a perfect, untutored Savage, to all appearance, not worth a shilling. No sooner was Judgt. pronounced, - (which his wretchedness perhaps mitigated, - ) than he made his exit, & lo! in the course of a few minutes, in stalks my friend, an altered being, clad in a clean checque shirt, and white duck trowsers! To dismiss the subject till a future moment of leisure, in one word, - if we wd. make the Blacks worthy of freedom, we must eradicate these evil propensities by sound moral & religious instruction. Having said so much of the black, - a few words may not be amiss touching the coloured population; be they samboes, mulattoes, - mustees, cabres, - mustiphini, or quadroons, - or the thousand & one other nomenclatures by which the tincture of their skin and grade distinguishes them. A word on these: The child of a white & negro, is a mulatto; of a white & mulatoo [sic], a quadroon; the progeny of a quadroon - & white make the mustee, - & the mustee & white again, - the mustafini race. Further designation there is none: They are "white-washed.'" The exclusive barriers which at one Barbados and the Windward Islands, informed the Colonial Office that Anderson "appears to have a very erroneous estimate of his duty in undertaking to punish as special magistrate apprentices charged with offenses cognisable only by criminal tribunes," to which he received a reply observing that "it would appear that [Anderson] has been in the habit of exercising a summary jurisdiction in cases of 'theft, housebreaking, and embezzlement,'" and pointing out that "it is necessary that he should be reminded that cases of this grave nature do not come within his authority as a special magistrate but are cognisable only by the ordinary Criminal Tribunals." MacGregor to Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg, 30 March 1838; and J. M. Spedding, Colonial Office, to MacGregor, 31 May 1838, CO 260/56.) As a result, Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, while intimating that "it is difficult to correct or obviate occasional injudicious decisions of a Magistrate, more particularly when the law sanctions their observance," reported to MacGregor that he "considered it expedient on the 1st January [1838] to relieve Mr. Special Justice Anderson from that portion of his District which included the disorganized estates of which he complains, and have much pleasure in acquainting your Excellency that Reports made by Mr. Special Justice Poison [of the Second District located to the east of Anderson's Third District], whose charge they are now under, are favourable as to their general conduct." Tyler to MacGregor, 14 February 1838, CO 260/56. 55. Ashton Warner, a St. Vincent slave who escaped to London in 1830, noted that for clothing, each slave received "in the year, six yards of blue stuff called bamboo, and six yards of brown." See "Ashton Warner's Account of Slavery," in N. E. Cameron (ed.), The Evolution of the Negro, vol. 2 (1929-1934; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970), p. 74.

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time the whites drew between all these and themselves have very properly been relaxed; and although they do not mingle with them in society; - nor any European lady make an intimate of a Coloured female - the men hesitate not to hold intercourse with their fellows in the daily business of life; and with the fair field of honourable competition alike before them, let us augur "God speed." Many of the Coloured Inhabitants of St. Vincent are possessed of wealth, - a few are deservedly in offices of trust as Managers, & confidential clerks: In their highest ranks, - are persons of great respectability, who by their example, discountenance the too prevalent immorality of living in concubinage. As a caste, - nevertheless, I should say that their young men are foppish, vain, & arrogant, even to presumption, and like the Black over the Black, - both sexes excessively rigorous in their deportment towards their negro dependants [sic]. To hear some coloured people talk, one wd. scarcely imagine they allowed poor Sable skin to possess claims to our common humanity! A favorite complt. agt. their black Apprentices was, not being treated with proper respect. The antipathy of Black & Brown is mutual; nothing displeases Mungo more, than to have a Brown - or one of his own colour, as a Master; and no one plays the petty tyrant more vexatiously, than he, who has himself been in servitude.56 - Even his respect for "Buckra"57 graduates according to the scale he holds in rank - "Brown man hab no country - only neger & buckra hab" is a caustic negro maxim. "He is a wise man who knows his own father," may well be added. And I have observed, that something of this ancient leaven mingles even between Brown & Brown. "Who is that" have I often asked of a mulatto, - and his answer invariably was, - "Oh! it is only a Coloured man!" Yet this coloured population, in the mass, unable to read or write, affect an equality they are not allowed, - and wd. be unable to support if they were, - with Europeans. As domestics, many Colonists give a decided preference to the Coloured, over the Black.58 Which is the best - will remain a problem, some little time 56. Throughout his journal, Anderson had a propensity to use sobriquets (many of them pejorative) such as "Sable skin" and "Mungo" in identifying St. Vincent's black community, and likewise with the island's coloured population. 57. A term commonly used by the non-white population of the British West Indies to describe white people. The word is probably derived from mbakara, the Calabar word for white man. 58. Such attitudes were a direct legacy of slavery. In the Britsh West Indies, the racially mixed, or "coloured" progeny of the interracial sexual relations that were so common between female slaves and white planters, overseers and bookkeepers on the sugar estates, were not assigned to fieldwork. Rather, they entered the ranks of the estates' domestics, tradesmen and other "privileged" slaves, with these occupations progressively becoming disproportionately "coloured" segments of the slave workforce. As a result, not only did whites develop a

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longer; for it will be solved when European servants come out in sufficient numbers. Bad is the best, St. Vincent servants being proverbially troublesome. I have tried both; - I have seen both in other houses; - and {with the exception of perhaps an occasional Brown Upper servant - (I make the exception with pleasure - )} they seem much upon a par. Both are excessively indolent, - equally passionate, wasteful, - intriguing, - & indifferent to instruction, {grudging any, - even the slightest labour but what they thought sufficient themselves} The coloured perhaps the most so, ever ready with a retort in their nasal Creole drawl in the way of excuse for themselves; and both, - though in the main trustworthy as respects plate, money, or other Valuables - cannot be depended on should the temptation of a half emptied bottle of wine, porter, - piece of meat, - shewy ribbon, or the like, come in their way: and in so committing these petty larcenies they do not conceive themselves to be guilty of a crime! Well, venial trespasses it maybe observed, - they are: - not less however, the germs of deeper crimes.59 Wherever Brown & Black domestics are servants in the same mansion, the former are sure to assume supremacy, and to have constant complaints agt. their negro fellows. With the pride of a superior race, they exact, and always receive from them the distinguishing "Mr" and "Miss" before their Christian name; - "Sir" and "Ma-am" when addressed, - but I never heard a Coloured servant so speak of a Black. Nay, a Coloured servant will often insist on having a black to serve him again in the meaner departments of his duty! In manners they exceed the average run of negroes; as among these again, a more polished, and politer set are to be found in tradesmen, & domestics, than in field labourers. Outdoor employment as such, is thought so degrading and indeed has heretofore been rendered so, by the practice of turning a disobedient slave into the field, whenever one committed a fault, as a punishment it is no wonder the peasant's manners are boorish, or that he shews repugnance to continue as an agriculturalist a career he has been taught to despise!60 It has been said very truly, that the condition of one of preference for coloured, as opposed to black, house servants, but privilege within the slave population was increasingly identified with, and predicated on, colour. 59. Mrs. Carmichael made similar observations about the shortcomings of black and coloured servants (Domestic Manners, vol. 1, p. 20). 60. Anderson was, of course, referring to slave gang labour, and not to a range of other agricultural activities, such as provision ground cultivation, and adequately compensated estate work, which fieldhands, even as slaves and then as apprentices, carried out energetically. In developing a peasant-style economy on their provision grounds, and supplying St. Vincent with most of its fresh produce at market, slaves, just as they would as apprentices, did indeed apply themselves assiduously to agricultural work. In this case, however, they derived not only mone-

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these servants is little short of a sinecure for the house servant will do little but wait at table; the cook, but cook, etc. These duties may be heavy enough in a large establishment at home; here they are a bagatelle, - where entertainments are rare, & the owners generally dine en famille. And apropos, their numbers. We shall suppose a very small domestic charge. First comes the head man or butler: next a little boy to assist him, & run errands! Then, a cook of either sex; - a housemaid; and a washerwoman. A groom may occasionally be got combined, with the manservant. To these, Creole retainers are added a Scottish nurse; and whatever other writers have said, as to the unprofitableness of a European assistant, we found our's [sic] most useful;61 for parents cannot too carefully guard their offspring against the tricks, evil habits, - and language, of the native Nurses and servants, with whom, even when narrowily [sic] watched, they are more or less thrown in contact from the unrestrained freedom with which domestics are permitted access to a House open at all quarters, as those here are. All these retainers must be watched, to a degree that is painful - nay, wd. be felt to be mean at home if one wishes not to be cheated outright; more especially he who has the distribution of your horse's provinder otherwise he will purloin the same, - & never rub down the unfortunate animal. Your headman markets for you and if well, one need not grudge a trifle being occasionally overcharged; but once sent on a message you never can reckon when he may re-appear. Where the servants sleep in the apartments attached for their use, they often do you the favor of introducing, as noways troublesome, their son, daughter, or other relation, - who nevertheless will never assist in anything. Luckily you give no beds; the floor suffices. Apropos their wages: A head servant receives 8 or 10 Dollars a month, - value in Sterling money £1.14.8, and £2.3.4: a cook, - 5 or 6$ £1.1.8 & £1.67. The same is given to a washerwoman, - and housemaid; - A groom receives from £1.6/ Sterling to tary gain from their toil, but also the satisfaction of participating in a self-motivated, independently organized work regime that they could conduct and share with their family, and which was a far cry from the field-gang labour they were coerced to perform both as slaves and apprentices. As Lord Brougham asserted in his eloquent indictment of the Apprenticeship, "die industry of the Negro is undeniable, and that it is constant and productive in proportion as he is die director of its application and the master of its recompense." Lord Brougham's Speech in the House of Lords, on Tuesday, the 20th of February, 1838, for the Immediate Emancipation of the Negro Apprentices (London: James Ridgway and Sons, 1838), p. 24. For more on the independent economic activities of slaves see McDonald, Economy and Material Culture; and Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan (eds.), The Slaves' Economy: Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas (London: Frank Cass, 1991). 61. A nursery maid had accompanied the Anderson family on their voyage from Scotland.

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£131. per month; with a Boy you may get off for 2 dollars, or so. In a twelvemonth, a family are thus at great expense for services which are very inefficiently performed after all. These excessive terms are occasioned by the servant, who is mostly an appce., being obliged to pay rent to his owner out of his wages; thus if he earns 10$ he probably pays 6$ to him and finds himself on the other 4; & so on in proportion.62 I am aware that I touch on delicate ground, when I make the ladies pass muster. Setting aside all objections on the score of morality, or expediency, - (for the practice is utterly indefensible on either) - the terms, on which Coloured females have been content to live with White men, necessarily tend to degrade and retard Society. {They of course have no pretensions to the society of the Ladies, however respectable} To be the mistress, or housekeeper, of an European - for the words are synonymous, - is a higher object of ambition, than to be the wife of one of their own Class; and it is a melancholy reflection, when one sees the crowds of gaudily attired Mulatto women with costly gewgaws, & jewels, in so poor, and trivial a place as Kingstown, that the resource by which the majority acquire their flaunting gear - is prostitution. One is astonished on a ride along the streets, to see the quantities of good furniture, - glass, & other ornaments exposed to view, by the open windows, where this coloured population are languidly lolling away their inanimate existence. So long as a Brown girl is faithful to her Master, she blushes not to go abroad as if she were his lawful consort; - it is only when she falls from this high estate, - that any degradation ensues. But it cannot be attended with any poignant feelings of shame, in a country, where the daughter or wife may daily encounter the issue of her father's or husband's prior connection, and even the mother herself, - and that without repugnance! This is no hypothetical case, as all who have lived in the West Indies, must know. How debased becomes the mind of man when thus shut out from the influence of refined female charms! The ordinary apology for 62. In his journal, Special Magistrate John Colthurst indicated how this system of self-hire was a legacy of slavery, by describing the "thousands of the middle and lower order of West Indians, particularly small traders [who had] provided . . . for their widows and children by leaving them . . . the services of ten, a dozen, or more slaves." Colthurst explained how the beneficiaries of these bequests "hired out those slaves, sometimes to [the slaves] themselves, at other times to employers," in return for "a considerable monthly or weekly sum," and pointed out that the practice had persisted throughout the duration of the Apprenticeship. Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 211. For an excellent examination of the self-hire system in the British Caribbean during slavery and the Apprenticeship, see Howard Johnson, The Bahamas from Slavery to Servitude, 1783-1933 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), pp. 33-46.

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the practice I have alluded to, - is, that an overseer, or manager is in a great measure deprived of European, or Creole Ladies society; that he must have some one to look after his domestic establishment - that no white woman will do so, - and that he is too poor to marry one, even if she did. Doubtless she will not, while the present practice obtains; no respectable female will so degrade herself; but surely if the party can afford to support a tribe of brown urchins {around his door} & their dam, he could with more honor to himself, present an equal in public, as the acknowledged partner of his fortunes? and to be plain with these Gentlemen, - I never saw one of their Housekeepers, whose personal appearance did even the least credit to their good taste so far as looks or manners went. Whatever others may, I never could perceive anything to commend in the dress, or movements, of the indolent, proud & ignorant, race of coloured females. Discoursing in this way on black, brown, & white, -1 have great pleasure in recalling to mind, the clear, healthy appearance of the Planters, & other residents who first came off to us, - and the very gentlemanly deportment of those citizens with whom I was made acquainted. None of the parboiled, liver touched apologies of humanity we are wont to see pointed out at home, as West Indian Nabobs, were they, - but stout, manly flesh and blood! Most eloquent chronicles of the salubrity of their romantic country! Hie ver assiduum, atque alienis mensibus astas.63 Kingstown was dull enough for many months after our arrival. A play got up by a set of amateur performers, whose exertions were meritorious, & deserved greater encouragement than always fell to their lot, formed the solitary exception. This corps dramatique were composed of civilians in public employ, - Officers of the Garrison,64 and gentlemen of property in the Vicinity. An attempt had previously been made by young coloured Creoles to set on foot a similar line of amusements, but proved abortive; and the more successful essai of their white brethren, occasioned a coolness which withheld the patronage of the rich Mulattos from the infant stage. The former so far resented the treatment, as to refuse to play with coloured assistants. Circumscribed indeed, as the sphere of action is, - party spirit {if I may credit divides} operates its baneful effects "in this Garden of the Antilles", 63. The quotation is from Virgil's Georgics (2, 149), and translates as "here is everlasting spring, and summer in months that are not her own." 64. According to Shephard, in 1830, "the Garrison for the protection of the Island [comprised] . . . one wing of a regiment, with a few artillery men." Historical Account of St. Vincent, p. 17.

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to a degree {of caustic jealousy} unknown in the Mother Country.65 A stranger, who is not cognisant of the points of difference, may most innocently, & inadvertently commit himself by Commending in conversation the good qualities, or praising the system of management of a third person; and vexatiously irksome to one accustomed to the freedom & bonhommie of social home circles, - is the restraint which selfdefence imposes in the narrowed topics of Colonial intercourse; where every word is watched, perhaps to be misconstrued; and - as has been frequently the case, - tortured into the pretext for a duel - some years ago, in this isle, the too common termination of a feast! Most of the men you meet have been "out", in their day. Proprietors of St. Vincent have always borne an impress of more refined manners than is generally attached to the West Indian character, - and many of them are gentlemen of education & polished mind; but whether it be, that local circumstances operate to the exclusion of all others - or that they have no leisure for the cultivation of aught but their estates, - & limit the alphabet to 5 letters, S - U - G - A - R - , - (the Alpha & Omega of Creole husbandmen) - one certainly hears little or nothing of scientific or literary discussion, - or of the numerous, & delightful themes, on which in European reunions, - men of the most opposite modes of thinking, engage with mutual satisfaction. It used to be wittily observed by a learned Botanist 65. Here and elsewhere in his journal, Anderson emphasized the extent to which St. Vincent's white population inhabited a remarkably factional political world constructed on prevailing metropolitan political divisions that were exacerbated both by the circumscribed sphere of operation - a small white ruling elite operating within the context of a little colony and the political monopoly that elite sought to maintain over the non-white majority. Tory sentiment, most clearly expressed in criticism of the abolition of slavery, the Apprenticeship, and efforts on the part of the British government to advance or protect the interests of the apprentice population, prevailed within the planter class, and brought it into conflict with the Whig positions subscribed to by Britain's colonial officials on the island, and their sympathizers. Hence, of the island's two white-controlled newspapers (see footnote 178), the Tory publication was consistently critical of Colonial Office policy and of Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, while its Whig competitor, which was in Anderson's words "decidedly liberal in its principles" (p. 174), championed the Tyler administration. Although Anderson subscribed to the Whig principles of his patron, Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg, his political philosophy was not particularly Liberal. Indeed, by the spring of 1838, Anderson had become the darling of the Tory press in the aftermath of a riot initiated by Kingstown's free coloured community. On 12 April 1838, the Royal St. Vincent Gazette; and Weekly Advertiser excoriated what it saw as Tyler's pusillanimity, while praising the way that Anderson "manfully discharged his duty" in quelling "the alarming insubordination of the Apprentices," and arresting and punishing "six of the ringleaders" (p. 4). Anderson himself was critical of Tyler's actions in this instance, a circumstance that no doubt endeared him as much to the lieutenant-governor's planter critics as had the swift retribution he visited on "rebellious" apprentices, while the incident no doubt contributed to the increasing estrangement between Anderson and Tyler. (See also footnote 199.)

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since deceased, "that were beef stakes [sic], and apple pies ready dressed, to grow on the trees, they wd. be cut down to make room for cane plants." So much for the Lords of the Creation. {With the ladies, (begging their pardon) matters are even worse: Their mental acquirements are far below the par of the gentlemen: Gossip and twaddle, seem the staple resources of their coteries; - Satirical allusions to a third party no unusual amusement -} but on reviewing this sentence after long residence, & minuter observation, - I cannot do better than let a female herself speak - "the ladies are too generally found distinguished for that listlessness, & meagerness of conversation which arise from an uninformed mind."66 Unprincipled & intriguing parasites of their own sex, - too readily admitted to their privacy, infuse the poison of their calamnies [sic] in the ears of their listeners, from them to be disseminated throughout the community. And generally with Creoles of both sexes, - some good natured allusion to "a friend," - Sugar making; the movements pro et con (as the speaker inclines with, or against the ruling powers) at Government House; - a drogher lost; - when I just arrived, - the visit long looked for, but not paid, - of the Bishop from Barbadoes, - (he did come towards the end of May [1836]) - were the staple subjects. Perhaps, some daring pillage of an estate schooner is the theme? The following anecdote illustrative of the dexterity with which this system is carried on, was narrated by an actor, - to a manager of my acquaintance; - and may compete in rivalry with any of Colquhoun's Police sketches of a robbery on the Thames.67 Captain C.-, had a cask of brandy entrusted to his care for a particular property, with especial instructions for its safe delivery. To prevent the possibility of his men attacking it, he had it wrapped in a sail cloth, - upon which he lay down himself on the deck. In this situation, he fell asleep, - the cunning rogues watching their opportunity, gently bored a hole thro the sail, & wood, & drew off about a gallon; - filling the vacant space up with water, & carefully closing the aperture. When the brandy was delivered, the Captain begged the Clerk of the works to have the cask weighed, - & all was found correct. On his return, being suddenly taken ill, he expressed a strong desire for a little warm punch, - but he had not the ingredients, as he made 66. Carmichael, Domestic Manners, vol 1, p. 39. 67. Between 1796 and 1806, Patrick Colquhoun (1745-1820) published seven editions of A treatise on the police of the metropolis [London] explaining the various crimes and misdemeanours which at present are felt as a pressure on the community; and suggesting remedies for their prevention (London: C. Dilly, 1796, 1796, 1796, 1797 and 1797; and London: J. Mawman, 1800 and 1806).

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a rule never to carry spirits among his sea stores. One of the men then said, - that if he wd. forgive him for having a little, - he wd. get a glass made; and having received benefit from the potion, he asked the sailor how he came by it? He, to his astonishment, narrated the trick which had been played off on himself. Butter, - salt fish, - all estate stores butflour,- the same party stated, as easily attainable. The former the depredators suck off, (after starting a hoop of the keg containing it,) by introducing a quill & then letting it run; and into the fish barrel they pour salt water, which swells up the fish, exposed to the heat of a strong sun; still further, to destroy all traces of their guilt, they contrive when landing their cargo, to ship a sea. Thereupon they repair to the manager - inform him, that the hoghshead [sic] has been accidentally wet, - & recommend an immediate distribution of its contents among the labourers to prevent total loss if kept on hand. The strategem too frequently succeeds. "A change comes over the spirit of my dreams:"68 - I find by my notes, that on Sunday evening the 28th February [1836], we had a smart shock of an earthquake; and a few days after, a distressing incident occurred, which beguiled the usual monotonous subjects of Conversation. A child on a Leeward estate, who had baffled all attempts to prevent his running away, was directed by the Overseer, to be tied up by another boy to one of the blind cattle, till he could be properly secured. Whether from recklessness of the consequences, or pique agt. the supposed culprit, the lad took upon him, to fasten the poor thing to two wild ponies: These darted off, & sad to narrate, tore the unfortunate victim a mangled corpse along! While I write this paragraph, the guilty party is committed to prison, - but the Overseer keeps concealed (it is said) till it can be ascertained if bail will be taken for his appearance at the Grand Sessions? (He ultimately got away from the Colony.) [Parenthetical statement inserted by Anderson during revision date unknown.] Incendiarism suddenly appeared to be given way to by the apprentices, on an Estate (Fairhall) a few miles to windward of town. The exertions of the Magistrate failed to discover the perpetrators: A number of negro huts were burnt down on the 6th March [1836]; His Excellency the Lieut. Governor repaired to the spot, - several Labourers were arrested, & committed to prison; still the crime encreased, & on Sunday, the 13th [March 68. Anderson is paraphrasing a line from Lord Byron's The Dream, "A change came o'er the spirit of my dream."

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1836], six additional houses were set on fire on the same property; and a young person was scorched. On the 10th of May [1836], in consequence of another fireraising on the same property, the Lieut. Governor's proclamation of 200$ reward was issued for the apprehension of the perpetrators, but without success; and repeated subsequent fires baffled the Executive. At that very juncture, an intelligent clergyman {who has done much to improve the agriculture, - as well as the mental faculties of the islanders, - (the Revd. Thomas Alexr. Browne,69 -)} was addressing a series of letters to the Editor of the St. Vincent Gazette; - in one of which he fondly expressed his hope, that the encreasing number of marriages {in his parish} was a favourable omen of the confidence likely to be generated in the minds of the Colonists towards the new order of affairs, since it shewed a latent attachment in the negro to the property on which he resides, & an intention to remain there; for otherwise he would not encumber himself with ties from which he cannot legally be released, & must continue to support under a state of freedom. The same feeling was evident from the more than usual anxiety to obtain good residences. Here was hypothesis and fact diametrically opposed! It has been conjectured, (adds this writer {ThB.}) that this sentiment was produced by the rumour (to which I have previously alluded) of the intention on the part of His Majesty's Governt. to secure to the Labourers after the apprenticeship, their cottages, & grounds. If so, - is it revenge on being disabused of this false prepossession, - that has led them to commence the outrageous invasion of property, by incendiarism?70 More imperious then is the necessity for the adoption of measures - and that promptly - by which a correct sense of right & wrong, may be inculcated, - into the minds of the rising generation

69. Browne was the proprietor of St Vincent's largest sugar estate, Grand Sable, located in Charlotte Parish. In 1829 Grand Sable's 1,600 acres was almost double the acreage of the island's next largest plantation, John Roche Dusent's Union Estate, also in Charlotte Parish, which measured 818 acres. The 674 slaves on Grand Sable that year exceeded by more than 100 Union Estate's slave population of 563, although the 525,390 Ib. of sugar made on Grand Sable was exceeded by thirteen other St. Vincent estates, including Union Estate whose 780,800 Ib. was the second largest crop made that year. Sir Alexander McKenzie's Turama Estate led the island in production with 406 slaves making 806,964 Ib. of sugar on a plantation of 600 acres. (See Shephard, Historical Account of St. Vincent, Appendix VI.) Browne was also one of the thirty-six locally commissioned special justices whose appointments to assist the special magistrates lasted through the first year of the Apprenticeship. (Appendix 5 contains a list of all of St. Vincent's special magistrates.) 70. See footnote 44 for an analysis of the proprietorial attitudes held by apprentices towards their provision grounds.

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at least, - along with industrious habits: The mental and corporeal faculties must be jointly attended to; - A knowledge of the Scriptures, - reading & writing, must go hand in hand with a knowledge of agriculture; - the negro is not to be allowed to imagine, that no higher things are expected of him, than mere animal exertion in the field, - or manual labour as a domestic, (which many who have right to his services would assume): He must be qualified, - even in spite of self, - for the duties of a freeman, - & the safe enjoyment of that freedom, both as respects his own person, & others. This is to be effected by moral, & religious education; - by sound, & correct principles being instilled along with active & orderly pursuits; thro' the medium of chapels & schoolhouses, & the establishment of schools on a General and systematic plan throughout the colony; so will more enlarged views, and higher motives to action, accompany an advance in temporal comforts. It remains to be seen how far the suggestions of the Noble Secretary for the Colonies {(Lord Glenelg)} for enforcing these ends, - (and in such an anomolous state of Society force work must be excusable, - ) by the compulsory attendance of Children at school, are to be acted on? {by the local legislature?} That compulsory labour, & compulsory education, will generate fresh wants, {food for the mind, - etc.} - a taste for reading; and minister attention to personal, and domestic conveniencies [sic], by rendering the negro dependant [sic] on these, as essentials of life, - we might suppose the progress of society in all ages wd. warrant? Nothing short of such general, & simultaneous movement, jointly cooperated in by the Government, - the House of Assembly, - Council, - proprietors, - religious bodies, - all in short, who feel for the urgency of the case, will, in the apprehension of long established residents, bring about such a preparation, in the limited period yet to run, as may enable the Labourer to enter on unlimited liberty, with safety; - & fit the mass of the people for successfully encountering the ordeal which awaits on the termination of the apprenticeship. A Lady*, *Mrs Carmichael West Indies. II. 248.9. 255. who will not be accused of partiality to the friends of Emancipation, - thus states her opinion: "I do not think any person of cool judgement, & especially anyone who has had colonial experience, will ever expect much to be done in the instruction of the elder negroes, beyond what might be effected by personal exhortation, & explanation given familiarly, & in a great measure delivered in their own patois., upon the simple doctrines of the Bible; but with the young, much might be done, & the sooner some proper system be set on foot, the

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better."71 - "Religious party spirit must be crushed, if good is to be done; & the only power I would ask, is, that the Master be allowed to compel every child in health, to attend the school, instituted by law, as well on Sunday, as during the week".72 Yet so singularly constituted a mind has the negro, even the "good negro", - (such as it is understood in the West Indies, - ) "industrious, civil; with some sense of his own dignity, - but seldom proof against occasional deceits & theft, to an extent that would ruin the character of a servant at home;"73 - that men who have spent their lives in the Colonies, have told me, they do not conceive their experience warrants them even yet, in saying, how the race may requite by their future conduct, the enormous exertions made on their behalf! - After such testimony, I forbear for the present further remark; closing with the report of the Committee of the Colonial legislature, appointed to consider the propositions of Governt. for the establishment of schools, & the general extension of education, - which was adopted by the House of Assembly, (17th March 1836). "The joint Committee of the Council and Assembly, to whom has been referred the consideration of Lord Glenelg's dispatch, of 25th November 1835, with its enclosures, on the subject of establishing Schools for the labouring population of this Island, beg leave to submit the following report: That they view with the greatest satisfaction the laudable efforts made by Lord Glenelg, in conjunction with the other members of his Majesty's Government, and the ready co-operation of the Imperial Parliament, in adopting measures for promoting, on liberal and comprehensive principles, the moral and religious improvement of the labouring population in the British Colonies. The subject appears to them naturally to divide itself into three distinct heads - attendance - time - and money. On the first subject - attendance at Schools - your Committee regret to observe that they have reason to conclude that no continuous or voluntary 71. Carmichael, Domestic Manners, vol. 2, p. 248. 72. Carmichael, Domestic Manners, vol. 2, p. 255. Responding in his official monthly report of 30 June 1837 to the question: "What facilities does your district supply for education? . . . Is the attendance at ... the Schools equal to the accommodation?" Anderson informed Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, "Kingstown contains a charity school respectably attended; and an infant school is in progress of erection." Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55, 339 verso. 73. Paraphrased from Carmichael, Domestic Manners, vol. 2, p. 31.

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attendance could be depended on as affecting the time allotted to the apprentices for their own use. All attempts of this kind, however promising the auspices under which they have commenced, having gradually but successively failed, the only certain mode of obtaining the attendance of the scholars, your Committee suggests must be the result of Legislative enactments, rendering such attendance, under certain provisions, compulsory and continuous. With regard to the second subject - time - your Committee cannot, in reference to the younger classes of the apprentices, feel themselves justified in proposing to allot the time under the present law, and due from the apprentice to the employer, to the purposes of attending schools, without some regulation for returning an equivalent of labour, so as to compensate those entitled to their services for the time so employed. - The only mode, as your Committee conceive, in which this can be effected, will be by a law obliging all apprentices, under 12 years of age, to attend the school in their district for two days in each week, and binding the whole apprentices, on the several estates, to work for each employer 15 of the extra days now allotted them in each year. But if this regulation should not meet the views of his Majesty's Government, your Committee cannot recommend that more than one day in each week, and that the apprentices [sic] own day, should be set apart for attendance on such Schools, though they are of the opinion, from the limited duration of the apprenticeship, the shorter period would be insufficient for the purposes of instruction. With regard to children born since 1 August, 1828, and consequently exempted from apprenticeship, your Committee propose that they should attend such Schools, at such times and places as are appointed for the instruction of the younger apprentices, on the properties to which their parents or guardians are attached, provided that all that have attained the age of seven years, in consideration of receiving the allowances granted to apprentices, comprising food, clothing, medical attendance, and other advantages, shall labour, according to their age and vocation, for the employer of such parent or guardian, for the remaining four days in the week; as the Committee are of the opinion that timely instruction in husbandry will constitute a most essential part of their education. With reference to the third subject - money - your Committee lament to represent that injury and losses sustained by the hurricane of 1831, and subsequent unfavourable seasons, together with the great abstraction of labour under the present system, render their means quite inadequate to

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make suitable provision for education, on liberal and comprehensive principles, unless aided by some additional fund to assist their present very limited means. They beg leave to suggest that the sale of crown land in this Island would be a measure beneficial to the interests and security of the Colony; and they humbly conceive that his Majesty's Ministers will permit the proceeds of the same to be applied in aid of the Colonial funds, in order to enable the Legislature to make such annual provisions as the exigencies of the case may require."74 To pass to less grave, but still important matters. - I met with such discordant information when on the eve of quitting Europe, as to the proper arrangements to be made for our future establishment, and I suffered so in consequence, - that I cannot do better than warn such of my friends as may think of a Western trip, a little on these topics. First, then I would seriously advise any family contemplating a residence of some duration, to take out with them, furniture suitable for the fitting up of a hall or parlour, - and second, or withdrawing room: The quantity requisite in Britain, is not called for; but a sideboard, of solid materials; - a dozen of strong, cane bottomed chairs; - and a good dining table will be wanted for the Hall: An ottoman, or sofa, with corresponding table, - & a set of chairs, - cannot be dispensed with in the drawing room, if it is to be used; any other little luxuries must be left to the party's taste; - these are essentials. All one's candlesticks must be fitted with glass shades to resist the sudden gusts of wind; & the chairs, etc. should be of mahogany. It is the only wood which resists vermin; and the seats of the chairs are recommended to be of cane as coolest & best adapted to the Climate. With these, the newcomer shd. in the next place bring a few kitchen articles, - (for few are required; - ) these ought to be two or three iron pots, - a spit, - skewers - gridiron, - dripping pan, - & fish kettle. Th kitchen is always apart from the dwelling; there is no grate used; in the chimney is a stripe of brick work, or stone, - (sometimes with a grating of iron fastened therein) on which the firewood is placed, & from which the black cooks have their own ways of turning out a dinner. Your's [sic] they will not follow; so you may spare the trial. Beds, - Bed & table linen, I need hardly say, are of vital importance: In fact, the want of these will be more missed, than even tables, or Chairs. One good hair mattrass is all that is required for each bed; feather beds are use74. Anderson glued this printed record into his journal.

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less, - pillows - may be used. Each bed must be fitted up with mosquito Curtains, (and those made to slide, on the principle of purse strings, are best adapted for keeping out the insects): which may be shaped in the island. But let no one trust to the tradesmen, - {for the most part Coloured, - } in the new Country. Shd. the stranger happen to locate at a distance from a town, they are not to be had; but if there be his home, - and he place himself in their hands, - they will cause him daily to rue his heedless trust; - in one word, they will pillage him without mercy, and without shame, and they will take weeks to perform, what they will promise to execute in a trice. To constitute himself independent in all senses, let him to the preceeding [sic] articles, - add, plate, crockery, crystal, China, - and a good wardrobe of light clothing; taking care to wear flannel over the chest, which will be found a most sovereign preventive against colds, and the evil consequences of sudden drafts. Many have their jackets, & coats made of Merino, instead of Cloth: I have tried both; & tho' somewhat heavier, - give preference to the latter, as handsomer, & more durable withal. For Ladies dresses, white, - & fancy coloured muslins, are in request; but it is adviseable not to have them too recherchees [sic] in style, as the negro mode of washing in cold water ruins what is not simple and easily got up; besides they smooth them over with an iron tipped in tallow grease, and starch them like Buckram! I may add - that to preserve silk from seaair, & mildew, - it must be packed in tin cases hermetically sealed. It is the Doctor's province to prescribe where regimen is sought for. A few plain words from one of the uninitiated may not however be amiss. On the voyage then, I kept myself free from all apprehension of danger from the change of Climate; - (the evils of which, are in common parlance, greatly exaggerated, - ) occasionally took a doze of Epsom salts, or Leidlitz powers, - and had a bucket or two of cold sea water poured over me, every morning after passing the Tropic. When landed, I never rode out unnecessarily in the sun; - but when I was obliged to do so, thought no more of it. I wd. advise a newcomer always to use an umbrella: I had a touch of fever from not doing so. With respect to liquids, to which one is driven more than in England, to supply the incessant exhaustion from perspiration, the less they are quaffed between breakfast, & dinner, the better; - when malt liquor, cider, - & wine are drunk. Madeira & claret are the favourities. Pale ale, or table beer, is very common, & agrees with most people. Many months after our arrival, I never saw rum, even at any gentleman's side table; the common drink when one was thirsty, was water slightly tinged by brandy; & on a call in the forenoon, wine - or wine & water were

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offered, as in Britain, mixed in a tumbler half full of water of which the wine forms the other. Everyone has heard of West Indian "Sangaree" a compound of wine, sugar, nutmeg & lime juice or peeling. Snake drink, or "mobee," is an agreable [sic] beverage resembling light ginger beer. Tamarind juice makes another; - cool and refreshing at the same time. But the Pine-apple -, & above all the granadillo, affords the materials for the most delicious draught. Of fruits, I eat sparingly, - not from fear, - but as having little relish for them. Another object of importance, which must contribute more or less to one's health, was the careful inspection of our house, every morning, to see that all the rooms were properly cleaned, & ventilated. This it was no easy task at first to effect; - for the servants looked upon the employt. as derogatory to their dignity, & the province of a drudge alone; the man servant whose duty it was to brush down the hall, and drawing room, - doing so with a dolce far niente insouissance,15 which wd. have amused Betty at home. Fresh air they could not comprehend, as they always complained of its being cold, & their own habitations appear never to know its influence - nor the aid of soap & water. I am convinced from experience, that were greater attention paid to these particulars - West Indian mansions would swarm less than they do, with cockroaches, musquitoes, & such like Vermin, - and a clean approach wd. be more agreeable to the eye, than one defiled by pigs, - ducks, guinea-birds, and other "Stock." A word on these edifices; - they are built of wood (internally unadorned by paint, or tracery, - ) and roofed with shingles - of the same material, resembling slates in size, painted blue or red. - They never exceed two stories in height, - and are rarely of more than one; - the basement on which they are erected being of stonework, & containing the cellars. In the centre is the hall, or dining room, from which doors communicate with the sleeping apartments which again open on the outer pavement. I often wondered that this last was not more frequently protected by a Gallery; the apprehension of hurricanes is pleaded as an excuse. A few, superior in taste, & design boast also an entrance lobby, & drawing room. Yet no two are alike: Glass windows are not universal; a shutter secured by hooks, is often the only preventive agt. rain; or it may be, a Jalousied frame apologises for the regular conductors of light. Hence if a shower comes on, you have only the alternative of sitting in 75. "Unconcerned pleasure of idleness." A common expression among Italians, paraphrased from a quotation, "quel dolce mestier di non far niente," in Carlo Goldini, La Metempsicosi (II, iii), that translates as "that agreeable pursuit of doing nothing," to which Anderson added a misspelling of the word insouciance.

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total darkness, or being deluged with wet in every room. For their accommodation, the rents of such houses are exorbitant (very often £90 & £100 Sterling) as they are little better than good barns, the rafters being generally exposed, and the side frame work equally open to view. Let a family man betake himself as quickly as he can to their shelter, notwithstanding; for dearly as he may pay for them, - the cost is nothing to the Joes he will expend for even a few hours rest at a Tavern, where mine hostess, - not host - wrings with the most complacent smiles of her coppered coloured face, the pockets of her visitants.76 - And let him commence forthwith, the salubrious practice of rising with gun fire ( - from 1st April to 30th September at 5 o'Clock; - from 1st Octr. to 31st March at 1/2 p. 5 or 6;) going to bed, when the same noisy herald records "the knell of departing day",77 namely, at 8 P.M. We soon got into this universal habit, - repairing on the moment to the bath, and then breakfasting at 8 A.M. The very feel of the air (if I may so speak) well rewards this exertion. One must try it, to know the delightful sensations of a Tropical morning. With Creoles, breakfast is a substantial meal - ; salt fish, yams, cured pork, pickled tongue, ham, peppers, guinea birds, Johnny cakes,78 & ranged alongside being eggs, toast, loaf, - & the customary tea & Coffee. And in olden times, a capacious glass rummer,79 was placed by the lady of the mansion (where there was one and by the housekeeper where there was not - ) on the sideboard, - filled with stiff sangaree, - whilst another flanked it, redolent of arrack, or cashew punch,80 - for the guests, - either as a crowner to the present repast, or by way of a "meridian" when the sun was at its height. To a Cockney, such a load might appear alarming; - but I had not to serve a noviciate to what is mountain fare in my own land. Yet health will be best studied by a Johnie Newcome81 avoiding the salt, & savoury titbits: They impede digestion, and greatly encrease the desire for liquids. The dinner hour is now so late in 76. The journal of Special Magistrate John Colthurst confirms Anderson's observations about the expense of accommodations at inns and hostelries in the West Indies. Colthurst noted that his bill for nine days' lodging at an inn in Bridgetown, the capital of the neighbouring island of Barbados, "would even have astonished the Governor of the colony," and lamented "the effect produced upon my poor purse." Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 154. 77. A paraphrase by Anderson of a line from Thomas Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day." 78. Flat cakes or biscuits. 79. A large drinking glass. 80. Arrack is a strong alcoholic drink made from distilled molasses. Cashew punch is a fermented drink made from the fruit of the cashew tree. 81. "Johnie Newcome" was the nickname given to emigrants from Britain newly arrived in the West Indies. (See footnote 135.)

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St. Vincent (half past 6 - 7 - and even 8 o'C.), that the constitution must be impaired - hurried away as one is, from table to bed, with an overloaded stomach; and riding home - the only method of travelling - in the dews of night, takes away all the pleasure of a party. Planters, & men of business, in excuse, plead the necessity of getting thro' their work by daylight; and they rely on lunch accordingly; - making dinner a subordinate pastime, except on grand occasions. Time was, aged residents tell me, - when the hour of 4 o'C. was the good old rule, - & a ride in the evg. to the Country, or parade ground, followed. Alas! for the glories gone by! No more the curvetings of beau, or belle, on their well caparisoned steeds, meet the eye on the dust covered Parade! That mart of ogle & smile has lost its attractions! Like a few others, who had not such weighty claims to plead, - we when alone, took an early dinner, & then a ride, or short walk in the cool of the evening till dusk, prepared us for our tea which we relished then more than in Britain. But this we were subsequently forced to forego as much from the feverish rest it occasioned, as from the excessive scarcity of milk, at all times dear (1/6 currency a bottle - 8d Sterling); often, - unattainable. Analogous to the extravagant rents, - & high charges of tradesmen, - the prices of provisions demand a place. There is a clerk of the market, - & there are butchers in Kingstown; - but so miserably are the public supplied, these functionaries might as well not be; for the little meat which is exhibited, is either purchased up for a select few, - or is of such price, & quality, no one will look at it. Mrs Carmichael narrates, that she was 18 months in the Colony before she even saw, or heard of a bit of fresh beef;82 & I have been told that when a sheep was to be killed public intimation was made to ensure customers; Things now are not quite so bad, - but they still require amendment. The mention of this lady's name reminds me I have not a fitter opportunity of bearing testimony to the general accuracy of her statements. From the important revolution in the social condition of the labouring classes, & the absorbtion [sic] of the liberated Blacks into the general mass, her sketches present memorials of departed, rather than of existing manners; since many priveleges [sic] formerly accorded to the negro, - & many customs thence arising, exist no longer; - but "the lights & shadows" of Creole life, still find in her a faithful Chronicler; and allowing for a few overdrawn pictures of negro comforts, and Planters [sic] humanity, - her book is an addition to our information on West Indian topics. 82. Carmichael, Domestic Manners, vol. 1, p. 50.

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To dilate then on the vulgar, but necessary one of good living. But for the soups, - which, (especially the piscatory ones) are capital, - no one can even count on a substantial meal, - except his diet be fish, - constantly fish, unless he is a manager, or have himself an estate. In that case, sheep and cattle, are at his door, in the pastures, without price. With him too a guest may refresh the inner man with that chef d'oeuvre83 of West Indian cookery, & epicurism, - turtle; crowned with a glass of old & tried Madeira. Whether this animal be eaten in greatest perfection at an alderman's board, or a planter's "great house", - I leave to those more learned in Appician84 [sic] secrets to decide. S. T. Coleridge has given his veto for the place of its nativity.85 To return however: If one does not just want a friend to "eat fish," or as we wd. say at home "take pot luck" - and has no such stores to draw upon, - why he betakes him, or dispatches rather, his homme d'affaires., the better, to select for him, (shd. he have a party to dinner) from the market place; and these are the rates at which he must pull his purse strings, - provided be it spoken, the market happens to present them, - & that the ruling scribe thereof has not been bespoken for other, & more favored customers. For poultry, which is a great rarity {greater scarcity than in Barbados, where turkies, ducks, etc. are always to be had} one pays: For a Turkey

3 & 4 Dollars and at times even as high as 9 Dolls. Ducks per pair 2 dollars sometimes 3 Guinea Birds 2 Dolls, per pair Fowls per pair 107 [Currency] Pigeons per pair 20/ [Currency] For Butcher Meat, the charge is: Beef- per Ib. from 21 to 2/6 [Currency]

Mutton, - a small shoulder of 4 Ibs weight {7/6 8/6} 9/ Currency A fat sheep a doubloon A pig A pair of rabbits 107- [Currency]

Sterling = 137. & 1774 = £1.197.= 8/8 Stg. & 137. = 8/8 Stg. = 4/4 = 8/8; = lOd Stg. - 1/ld Stg. = = = =

3/8 Sterling £3.9.4 Sterling 14/- Sterling 4/4 Stg.

& be it known, St. Vincent Beef is so tough, it is only fit to be thrown into soup. 83. "Masterpiece." 84. Apician, adj, derived from Apicius, an epicure and gourmet in Tiberian Rome in the first century AD, connoting an expensive and luxurious diet. 85. Anderson may be referring here to Coleridge's poem, Songs of the Pixies, about invisibly small beings who, according to Devonshire legend, lived at the Pixies' Parlour on a hillside near the River Otter: "Where young-eyed Loves have hid their turtle nest."

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My curiosity, I own, had been excited by Mrs Carmichael's description of a great Creole dinner, where the tables groaned under the load of dishes stuck in at random, wherever a vacant spot allowed, ponderous to such a degree as to make one apprehensive of an immediate overturn. I never was fortunate enough to see this relic of the olden times, - or else, West Indians manage matters better now. The feast went on much as feasts do at home; at some tables we were present at, - with all the attention the most critical could desire, - and the servants dressed, & drilled to the exact performance of their parts. This is no slight praise, - for the melange of domestics, of all sizes, & colours, - some with {long} coats and some in jackets; - some with shoes, & some without, - combined to the long interlude between the courses, require both address, & patience, to amalgamate into system.86 A select dancing party given by the Gentlemen of the amateur corps dramatique, on the 22d March [1836], to which we were invited, afforded us the first opportunity of seeing the fashionables of the island in any number. His Excellency the Lieut. Governor,87 - his staff, - & many officers of the 65 regiment (then in Garrison,) were present; & the redcoats added to the liveliness of the scene; - but the fair Creoles could not in my eyes compete with the display of beauty which such an occasion, wd. call forth at home; nor did I see that unweaned passion for the dance, that lively animation and abandonment to its influence, manifested by them, either then, or subsequently, which Tourists love to assign as their prominent characteristic. No genuine Creole girl, ever came under my view, who either in person, tournure, or accomplishments could enter the lists with the daughters of Albion. The sprinkling of black attendants' faces wherever they could get a peep of the dancers, formed an amusing contrast to the white dresses of the ladies, dovetailing groupes (to use a heraldic expression) like squares upon a draught Board. "A maroon" (or picknick party); and a ball at Fort Charlotte, in the followg. month, infused a little further life into the otherwise monotonous insipidity of Colonial existence. Both the black, and coloured population, have their own dances, where they appear in most extravagant colours, and get things up in a style, - of glitter at least, - superior to the white assemblies. Those of the Upper Coloured Classes I have been assured; are very very handsome, and from the distinction they draw between themselves and "Niggers", - receive the nomenclature of "dignity balls". - The spirit of frolic often leads young 86. Carmichaelj Domestic Manners, vol. 1, pp. 33-40. 87. Sir George Tyler.

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Europeans to attend them. Among the complaints preferred before me one day, was one by an apprentice against a fellow Labr.; - that the other had insulted him by cutting in before him at a quadrille party, when he was pirouetting; he, the accused being at the time, clad in a fine linen shirt over his trowsers, (by way of shewing it off) with a sword bound round his waist, - and exhibiting to the admiring fair ones, how Captain —, of the Fort, was wont to sacrifice to the Graces! The sword turned out to have been abstracted from a Police Constable; and unwilling as I was to mar the poor fellow's recollections of his applauded feat, - the rigid statute of the Colony, forbidding any appce. to have arms in his possession under severe penalties left me no alternative, - but to order the tonsure to his wooly head, & a Dance to other movements {at the Tread} in the Cage, - that he might know the difference between his own property, and that of the dark guardian of the public peace.88 A very slight intercourse with either the black, or coloured population, suffices to make known, their improvident habits, & utter disregard of money. - If they set their minds upon an article, cost what it may, - they will have it; and rigidly indeed, do the sellers exact from the buyers in this diminutive spot. I would not involve in this sweeping charge, the upper Branches of the mercantile community who keep stores: There are among them, gentlemen of the highest sense of honor, every way worthy supporters of that noble character, - the British merchant. - In the inferior grades however, - and in the shopkeepers, & hucksters who exist by retail (and a very mean expedient of huckstering by their servants is resorted to, even by those who rank themselves as ladies') - the percentage on everything is excessive; in one word, it may be truly said, that for every shilling English, which you might possibly expend at home - the same purchase will here stand you in the ratio of a Dollar (4/4 Sterling) to the shilling; & by the way, a West Indian "store" is one of the dirtiest, darkest, uninviting dens imaginable; redolent of every smell under Heaven, yet where every thing from a needle to an anchor may be purchased. A great drawback on housekeeping too, is the necessity of laying in a cargo of such eatables (- salt ones of course, -) & drinkables, as a man requires in the season, (the former of which may probably go wrong in his cellars), - in place of being able to purchase from 88. Anderson, in his capacity as police magistrate for Kingstown, sentenced the offender to confinement within the town's House of Correction, the regulations for which required that inmates' heads be shaved (see Appendix 9 for a complete list of House of Correction Regulations), and punishment on the treadmill. (See also footnote 113.)

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time to time, any little nicety you might fancy were you in your Father Land. Some will have it, that your domestics have acquired these spendthrift notions from the excessive facility, with which they, when slaves, were provided in every thing they sought for, - when the Palmy days of sugar Planters were as yet in their glory. Be that as it may, - they shew very little concern to save either the White man's pocket, - or attend to his interest. The more you give - the more will they exact; a benefit conferred meets with no corresponding return; and the Negro on whom you have lavished attention in sickness, - pecuniary aid when in want, - or advice in distress, will be the very first to turn against you; {or do you an injury. - } "Good Massa, - good nigger," - is a favourite axiom of Blacky's, - but not quite so true as one of Euclid's; and admitting a Black bosom may heave with as generous throes as a White man's, - the evidence of this conviction is very rarely demonstrated. I long puzzled myself to account for this indifference in cases where they were not only, not illused, - but even had more than ordinary indulgences conceded to them; and the conclusion I came to, was; that the fault lay in their semibarbarous indolent nature, - not in any actual feeling of hatred, or ill will: Both Coloured, and Black of the lower grades, have yet to be formed to a healthier frame of mind, than has ever been attempted; falsehood, - deceit, - that prominent characteristic of the savage when he comes to be studied, - must be eradicated; the simple, but sublime truth "of loving his neighbour as himself, - " involving all the relative charities & sympathies of Society - in its compass, must form the superstructure, with the knowledge of his Creator, of all future exertions for the Labouring population of the Western Islands. For the present generation, the attempt at enlightenment will I fear, be nugatory; but a rich harvest may be reaped in the race springing up, - provided the Legislature & individuals of influence play their parts with earnestness. As yet, these remain motionless; and probably the third generation have to come on the stage ere the West Indies will possess an enlightened, & industrious peasantry. National traits are exhibited in very simple circumstances: One may every day see the somniferous, & improvident ones of the Creoles. For instance, a woman has a nice turbaned handkerchief on her head; - or a shewy gown which has been washed, hung up to dry. We will suppose a gust of wind to carry off both the one, & the other. The natural impulse of the owner naturally wd. be, one might imagine, to run after, & pick up her finery? - But no, - my Black, or Brown Venus indolently regards their flight; - yawns; - and seeing they are perhaps a little soiled, or torn in their career, gives herself no further

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concern, and allows them rot on the ground! This woman, it may happen, has not another spare frock, - yet will she toil on, content with its abominations, till fortune enables her to pick up a few "dogs", or "dallars,"89 to purchase a new one, rather than exert herself to preserve what she was already mistress of! You may give a man in like manner, a pair of good shoes: He will perhaps wear them the next ensuing Sunday at Church, then kick them into a bush and forget what has become of them. Cast off clothes of their Masters' or Mistress' however good, they instantly dispose of as too mean for their own wear. I never saw any domestics of either sex, whose memories were not singularly treacherous unless kept in constant activity. The same lesson has to be given daily; they mislay, & break your furniture; throw spoons and knives into the dust pan, - or out of the windows; - and then for the life of them cannot tell what they have made of them! As to the misnamed "grooms", - these fellows steal, & sell the food meant for your horses, - ride these at night, - cast saddles & bridles about in most admired disorder; & with respect to cleaning the same, - unless personally stood over, and directed, - that would be too great an exertion to look for: They rarely apply anything to its proper purpose; if a lady's richest piece of dress were in the way, they wd. rub the table with it, were they to have mislaid the ordinary implement. To crown all, the race are egregious liars. Fond as they are of shewy clothes, they never have the sense to repair, - to make "the auld look, maist as guid as new."90 In fact the negro character is one of anomalies: good, & bad qualities are found in such extraordinary juxta-position, that he who only seeks to realize some favourite hypothesis, or, to build a system - will, if he be honest, - own his labours to be insurmountable. Negroes are, in sooth, children in every thing but size, - & as such they must be treated: Accustomed to have every want supplied, & every wish anticipated they are, with few exceptions, incapable of Judging for themselves - or grappling with the future. The mention of St. Vincent Currency, has reminded me of the petty annoyances which this most troublesome of all monies, causes to a New Comer: The names are bad enough; but as if that did not suffice, - your Servants seem to have a delight in making the perplexities infinitely more embarassing [sic]. Take the case of your wishing to pay away 8/6 currency for example. You give a dollar to your servant, which is equivalent to 10/ of local value, & bid him or her discharge the debt. The order is easier given, 89. See below (pp. 119-21) for Anderson's explanation of St. Vincent's currency. 90. Translates as "the old look almost as good as new."

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than understood, or pretended to be: Shillings are a denomination of coin unknown to Creole ears; To arrive at the exact conclusion, your Caesar Augustus, - Scipio, - or if of the gentler sex, - Clotilda, Juliet, (or other equally romantic sounding name) will tell you, you must reduce, and give to them the following delectable pieces of legal tender, - for they don't know what 8/6 means! viz. First,

l

/2 a dollar 2-10 dog pieces, each at 1/3 1 Bitt 2 Dogs

= 51. Currency = 2/6 = 9 = 3_ 8/6.

and in this roundabout way is the amount found!! But not content with this, they will change the sums again: If a shilling is wanted; - at one time it is a bitt and a stampee, - and anon! five dogs, and half a bitt! One bitt be it noted, is equal to 4 stampees, or 6 dogs. The Cut money has been for sometime called in;91 and by the way, when it was, I was informed, that one black, - (himself a slave at the time & the owner of several slaves in turn, -) {brought as much of this coin to be exchanged, as filled a smart cart!} 91. In 1818 Sir Charles Brisbane, then governor of St. Vincent, assigned a value in island currency to coins in circulation in the island, the Spanish doubloon and Portuguese Johannes or joe, being the only gold coins then in use, with the latter, at that time, more common. The island practice of cutting or mutilating the joes so as to discourage their exportation to other colonies, however, caused such deterioration of the coins that the St. Vincent government, at considerable expense, had to call them in, and reimburse the people who tendered them. Subsequent efforts to regulate the island's monetary system culminated in a proclamation that took effect on 1 January 1835, whereby Lieutenant-Governor Tyler affixed a value in St. Vincent currency to the variety of foreign coins in circulation, particularly those from Spain, Spanish America and Portugal, while declaring that others would no longer be legal tender. See Shephard, Historical Account of St. Vincent, pp. 15-16, and House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1835, vol. 50, pp. 160-61. St. Vincent Coinage, 1836 1 dog = 1 !/2 d currency 1 stampee = 2Vtd currency 1 bitt = 9d currency 1 dollar = 10 shillings currency 2 dollars = £1 currency 6 dogs = 4 stampees 1 doubloon = 1 6 dollars 1 joe = 8 dollars £1 currency = 8/8d sterling £100 sterling = £230 10/13 currency £1 sterling = £2.6.1 % currency

= 80 dogs = 8/8d sterling = 1 bit = £8 currency = £4 currency

= 4/4d sterling = 9d currency = £3.9.4 sterling = £1.14.8 sterling

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borrowed a stout mule to carry his store to town; of so much coin was he master! all his treasure was the fruit of his industrious cultivation of his provision grounds - to which was superadded most likely, - a little successful usury. This man was repeatedly offered his freedom, & as often refused to accept of it, saying he was perfectly contented with his condition - & he was at last manumitted by his owner's family in consideration of his faithful services. The gold & silver coins of the Republics of Spanish America, form the current circulation; - for British money is speedily bought up, & remitted to Europe. Doubloons are each equivalent to 16 Dolls, or £8. Currency; A Joe is of half that amount. The dollar being in Sterling Value, 4 shillings & 4d. gives £230 10/13, as the currency value of £100. Each dollar again, is composed of 80 black dogs, copper money, - or Colonial silver pieces proportioned into 4ths, 8ths, and 16ths of that total. The long, nasal-trumpeted whine (where a is always substituted for o) in which the Creole both black, & coloured spins out the word "dal-lar," - will not readily be forgotten by any one whose ears have rung with that or the equally mellifluous "sta-am-pa." European children unfortunately acquire this drawl under every caution to provide against it - & a serious drawback it is to their future advancement. The best educated of the coloured classes speak a Patois, - better than the negroes, - still bad enough for sensitive ears. It is however, when two parties are "cursing" each other, (as they term it) that this "Eligant" phrasaelogy [sic] (so Pat wd. say) - shines to greatest advantage. Very little gives rise to a "curse"; oddly enough such as one sable applying to another the epithet of "black nigger;" but above all, any allusion to one's mother. Almost any thing may be said of the Father, or supposed Male Progenitor, - but of the Mother, - there is the rub! and this insensibility to the Father's character, I have heard explained by a planter, on the ratio, that as he probably has no exclusive right to the title, the less he was spoken of, the better. - To shew the repugnance to allude to one's mother; -1 have known a genteel coloured man, complain to me officially {of a domestic having been taken} of a Miss —; - & when asked who she was? turn wroath and pretend ignorance: On enquiry, I found Miss —, was his own Parent! Servants will leave their work, - negroes their provision grounds, when liable to interruption, to go elsewhere, & have a hearty "curse" at each other. I often wondered that our "philanthropists," {Buxtons, et hoc omne genus}92 never 92. Anderson is taking a term from Horace's Satires (1, 2, 2) "et hoc omne genus," whose translation, "all that class of men" is generally used contemptuously, as is the case here where Anderson is disparaging the efforts of the British abolitionist Thomas Powell Buxton and others who were critical of the Apprenticeship.

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had the necessity of eradicating this frightful vice, pointed out by their missionary friends. Upwards of £30,000 Currency have been voted by the Legislature within the last 10 years for public roads. A sum of £1800 currency, or about £800 Sterling, was expended in the year 1835 for the repair of these by contract, yet it wd. be questionable if more execrable ones are to be found in His Majesty's dominions than in the island of St. Vincent? Huge stones encumber the most frequented spots, - no one minds them; & yet way-wardens whose special duty it is to watch over the interests and safety of the public have not scrupled in the face of facts, to represent these thoroughfares as in perfect repair! Their excessive sameness worries one: Living in town, you have the choice of but two directions. From the capital leeward, the western and north track, - (for it deserves no better name, - ) now ascending lofty hills, & piercing their precipitous slopes; - now coursing the indented sweep of some romantick bay, - or lost in the streams which deluge the mountain passes, - with no adventitious aids for their passage, - makes a circuit to Morne Ronde of 24 miles: Thus far, may a horseman go; & in sooth, a good eye, & firm seat will he require in some spots even by day; but by moonlight, - the giddy interest of his situation is encreased, with overhanging mountains above, - a chafed ocean beneath. Many who account themselves crack equestrains in England, who wd. take the highest five barred gate, - or heaviest fence, - would feel their nerves somewhat tried, were they, for the first time bade to guide a Creole Bucephalus over the towering ridges, which a valued medical practitioner now no more was wont to gallop without concern almost daily! As I have said, at Morne Ronde it stops. For the intervening space of five leagues, over a very broken, & unequal surface, to Owia, in the N. Eastern extremity of the colony, there is no means of land intercourse - no pathway even. Proceeding from Kingstown Southward, again, for the Windward or Eastern Coast, the road climbs the shoulder of Sion Hill, the opposite horn of Kingstown Bay, to Fort Charlotte; - it is of moderate width; & rugged with debris hurled from the mountain by the torrents of rain which every now & then oversweep each quarter; & in the winter months render the roads, one coagulated pottage of mud into which yr. horse sinks to the girths. A mile or two further on it improves; and indeed, in Local phrasaelogy [sic], is considered a good "carriage" road, till within 8 miles of its termination at Owia, a total distance of 32 miles; winding in general by the acclivities of the sea coast. The roar of the waves, - the boundless expanse of watery horizon - & the workers of some solitary sugar estate scat-

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tered at random, - here in a secluded cove; - there on a rocky ridge; - themselves built of a dull dark stone, - & attainable only by fording the rivers which inundate the valleys - inspire a feeling of inexpressible melancholy. Often as I traversed this route, the same sensations predominated. An exception to the general badness of the highways, must be made in favor of the Charib Country in Charlotte Parish, on the Windward Coast, which is a fine level vale; and admits of being traversed by wheels. It is to be hoped the job system so long the fashion with everything here, will remove the stigma which now attaches to the rest of the Colony: A new road act was passed in Sepr. 1836 which does away the repairs by contract & retores [sic] the duty to the several estates thro' which they pass, but at one half the sum formerly allowed in payt. of such repairs. Talking of wheeled vehicles, - His Excellency, the Lieut. Governor - (Captain Tyler R.N.) and one other gentleman in town, were possessed of a carriage and phaeton; - and there were two gigs in Kingstown moreover, when we arrived; but except for a lounge along the back street, any vehicle must be next to useless. Riding on horseback is the legitimate, and constant mode of travelling for everyone here males & females. A servant is previously sent on with a light straw-basket (commonly of Carib manufacture) containing a change of attire; - or else, the little foot page who runs at your side, (supporting himself by your horse's tail) - to hold and attend to your steed, - bears the same aloft on his head. Every one rides - from the humblest overseer, to the most dashing merchant, or Planter. To be pointed at as a "walking buckra" - (as the negroes wd. be the first to do) implies disgrace, - and worse than poverty. This universal rule obtains not from a principle of pride, - (for the turn out wd. often shock a knowing eye - ) but of necessity; - physical debility under a Tropical sun, soon rendering the European, unequal to the task of walking, were it safe to do so - for any distance. Even on horseback, the pace is always a walk, or amble; and seven or 8 miles a good journey at one stretch. Twenty or 30 miles in a Day wd. be somewhat of a feat; & tho' English faces may smile at this snail allowance, - I assure them it is something to brag of in this land of insects, and heat. The Horses are either Creoles, - English, or most commonly, - from the American Coast. The food of every one is six bundles or 50 Ib of guinea grass - daily and Corn at the owners' option. As animals eat most in this climate by night, the grass contractor (who is generally an estate negro,) brings the same from his provision ground in the evg. so, that 4 Bundles may be consumed before morning, - the rest early on the follg. day. Each Bundle of guinea grass varies from 1 to 2 stampees, or from

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1 to 2d. English, and on estates near town a handsome profit is derived by Mungo, whose labours in his grass plot often unfit him for the duties he owes his employer in the cane field. No horse could bear to carry a crupper on the saddle, or he wd. be severely galled; hence a back girth is attached in a very comical, but useful style, to supply its place. 1st April 1836. Good Friday. The Return of this solemn fast, reminds me that last year it was spent with our dear children far away; and that after Divine service, we had a short excursion to the romantick base of the Pentland Hills. How over the wide sea between us, rises every well remembered feature! and localities often gazed on with indifference, when present, now "by distance made more sweet"93 - awaken thoughts; "that lie too deep for tears"!94 In some such moment, did the lamented Leyden pen his "lanthe". "The scenes of former life return, ere sunk beneath the morning star, we left our parent climes afar, immured in mortal forms to mourn."95 On Easter Sunday, the Church which holds from 1500 to 2000 persons, was most respectably filled. - I never indeed, at home, beheld a more orderly congregation, and not less than 136 communicants came to the altar. But seven years before, as a (most respectable} lady informed me, she was one of four females who alone did so. {The change is striking.} It would be unjust to criticise the motives which operate on the majority of those who thus crowd at the festivals: - (for Easter Sunday & Christmas day are in one sense, gala days with the Coloured people: - ) charity bids us hope all things: Were it however the mere desire of exhibiting a new dress, it is some93. Anderson is quoting a line from William Collins, The Passions, "In notes by distance made more sweet." 94. This quotation is from William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality (Canto II), "To me the meanest flower that blows can give/Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 95. This quotation is from Scottish Muse, An Ode. To lanthe, by the Scottish poet, John Leyden (1775-1811). Ah! sure, as Hindu legends tell, When music's tones the bosom swell, The scenes of former life return; Ere, sunk beneath the morning star, We left our parent climes afar, Immur'd in mortal forms to mourn. See John Leyden, The Poetical Remains of the late Dr. John Leyden, with Memoirs of his Life, by The Rev. James Morton (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819), p. 41.

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thing gained in the step of civilization; for artificial wants must beget industry to have them supplied; - and speaking on this topic, the costly turbans, handkerchiefs, & gowns of the black, & brown population, certainly were calculated to raise ideas of wonder in a new comer. Some of the Blacks, I was assured, wd. expend as much as 2/6 and 51. for merely putting on a turban, or headdress! - Many of them wore kid shoes - silk stockings, - bonnets, and smart parasols! - When would an English peasant's wife come so attired? If she could, she wd. have more regard to her own station, than do so. - But Miss "Therese", - cannot bear to be eclipsed by the squat beauty of a neighbouring "yard", - (as the negro always denominates a town house); and Snowdrop "Angel Agatha", - will not yield the palm to brown "Therese". Talking of names, these most incongruous appellatives must force a smile from dullness itself. Only think, of finding "Scipio" a groom, "Caesar Augustus" a cabin boy; - "Moses" instead of legislating, heading the "vine gang"; - and "Euphrosyne" sweeping out the Kitchen! As if in actual mockery, "Cupid" is personified by the ugliest urchin on the estate; and "the Graces," - by wooly headed, thick lipped, squabby apologies of humanity whose very gestures provoke a roar. " Venus" has been arraigned before me, for pummelling "Vulcan," - with fists that might stand comparison with the "Game Chickens," "Placide", is the cognomen of as veritable a Vixen, as ever tormented a driver's life out; - nor dare he now "cowskin" her for her impertinence, for he carries no cart-whip.96 Many of these people are intelligent, and excel in {telling a story, - or as Jack phrases it} "spinning a yarn". Any one who has served as a Magistrate must know this to the cost of his time, & patience; - to say nothing of the utter disregard of all truth, which he must be compelled to hear sworn to. They appear to consider it meritorious to bamboozle, instead of enlightening their Judge, & he will require a sharp eye & ear to detect their byeplay, and fallacies; - Every look, & word of his are watched, before the cautious negro gives response. I took a pleasure in drawing out the aged, & acute ones; - in listening to their details of early life, - and the progressive advances they had witnessed of English supremacy. On the estate we lived on, there was one old "lady," (as 96. During slavery, of course, the driver, or head slave appointed by the slaveowner to oversee the field labourers, was responsible for administering most of the whippings that were so common in controlling and coercing labour on the sugar estates. The Abolition Act, however, specifically prohibited anyone other than the special magistrates from authorizing or inflicting whipping as a punishment for apprentices who had been formally adjudged guilty of violating the terms of their apprenticeship, and mandated that only male apprentices be disciplined in this way. (See Clause 30 in Appendix 1.)

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the Negroes invariably speak of each other) who had beheld many of the horrors of the last insurrection of the Caribs, of which she had a lively recollection. Another octogenarian negro on a Windward property, was a boy, when the rebellion against the British Government, by the natives, brought on the first Carib war in April 1772.97 He distinctly remembered when the English settlements extended only to the river Coubaimarou, windward; and the successive capture of the isle, by the French in 1779, and its restoration to Great Britain, in 1783. Hitherto, the planters had directed their attention solely to the cultivation of coffee, tobacco, - & cotton; but cane plants were then brought from the neighbouring islands; and the making of sugar was entered upon with activity.98 Of all this, he spoke with lively eagerness. Dorsetshire Hill, (on which a fort stood, destroyed in the hurricane of 1831) so memorable for the defeat, and death ofChatoyer, the Carib chief, in March 1795; - the singular, & lovely district of Marriaqua; - the Vigie ridge; - & Warrawaron Valley, - localities intimately connected with the history of that sanguinary epoch, - were within an easy ride of our abode, & often visited. - Up the Warrawaron Valley, my Judicial functions called me weekly; and many were the anecdotes of public and personal privation, which I heard from actors in that contest. Food, which the Negroes had refused with disgust, - was greedily seized upon by the military, & Volunteers, and cooked into a kind of soup; and the excesses of the Brigands to such prisoners as fell into their hands, were frightful in the extreme. One gentleman was actually chopped in pieces, by being passed between the cylinders of a sugar mill. Venemous [sic] serpents were even 97. After St. Vincent was ceded to Great Britain at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War (1756-63), planters sought to acquire land and expand cultivation throughout the island, a policy that increasingly infringed on the fertile region to windward inhabited by the island's Carib population. The British authorities construed Carib resistance to the invasion of their territory as rebellion, and this resulted in the commencement of the First Carib War in April 1772. The treaty signed the following February marking the cessation of hostilities, recognized British sovereignty over the entire island, but granted to the Caribs, in perpetuity, certain lands in St. Vincent's northeast quadrant. Shephard's Historical Account of St. Vincent (pp. 27-36) provides details of the war, as well as the full text of the 1773 treaty. 98. Even after St. Vincent was again restored to Great Britain in 1783, the British authorities and the island's British inhabitants continued to harbour resentment towards the Caribs for allying with the French during their occupation, and for committing what Shephard called "a variety of excesses . . . against the English" at that time (Historical Account of St. Vincent, p. 51). Nevertheless, for the following decade the island was tranquil and prospered with the increased importation of slaves and escalating sugar production, although the expansion of the crop's cultivation made the acquisition of Carib lands ever more attractive to the planters. In the mid 1790s, however, a rebellion by the Caribs, which exploited the tensions between St. Vincent's British and French settlers that grew out of unrest precipitated by the French and Haitian Revolutions, resulted in the outbreak of the Second Carib War (1795-96).

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introduced by them from St. Lucia - but fortunately were discovered & killed. Nor were these attrocities [sic] confined to the Caribs alone; too often their French allies participated in their outrages; - Forgetful alike of their oaths of allegiance to the British Government, - and the usages of war among civilized nations, they tolerated outrages revolting to think of. It is certainly a surprising fact, that so insignificant a body as the Caribs amounted to when finally transported to the island of Rattan in the bay of Honduras, (being in all 5080, men, women, & Children) in March 1797, should for 2 years have baffled the energies of Great Britain! It speaks little for the military skill of the Generals employed, - even allowing that the localities of the isle are favourable to a Guerilla warfare. With their extinction as a warlike nation, - every energy seems to have expired: The few Caribs who are allowed to exist in the Northern quarter, (which is designated by their name), are a wretched remnant - weak in body as in mind; with an innate abhorrence of labour, - looking upon idleness as the summum bonum of life. They are still divided into Yellow, & Black Caribs; - the latter being sprung from the aborigines, and Negroe slaves shipwrecked on the island towards the end of the 17th Century. The Black Caribs have abandoned the fashion of flattening their childrens [sic] foreheads by compressing them between two boards soon after birth. This, - not less than colour, strikingly characterised the Junior race. Being passionately fond of spirits, the planters occasionally succeed in rousing them from their torpid state by the temptation of rum; when they will assist in shipping off the sugars from estates. In every other respect they are useless to themselves or others. At Baker's ridge, where stood the camp of Marinier, the French General in command of the united forces of French & Carib, the son of the proprietor had built a rustic box, which commanded a delicious prospect of the windward coast; & looked down upon the wild & wooded acclivities between it and Dorsetshire Hill, on the one side, - Fairbairn's ridge, and the oft contested Vigie, on the other. I have spent many pleasant hours {in the month of May} in having the localities pointed out to me by the worthy proprietor, who had been himself an actor in the momentous actions which each spot recalled to mind. From that we occupied, the enemy were accustomed to fire across the valley at the post on Dorsetshire Hill, and Miller's redoubt; and the shot occasionally flying over the former, lodged in the town to the great consternation of the citizens. When Dorsetshire Hill, was stormed in the night of 14th March 1795, my informant - then a young militiaman, - was one of the assailants. A coloured man of St. Kitt's, having

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effected his escape from the rebel force on the hill, informed a picket stationed on McKays hill, just above Kingstown, that they were surfeiting themselves with the plunder of provisions & liquors, they had seized in their windward march. He was immediately carried to Governor Seton, who had retired with the archives of the Colony to Berkshire fort; a council of war was held, and at midnight attack resolved upon. In the then condition of the forces this seemed a visionary resolution; for the Garrison consisted, of but 1 Serjeant & 10 privs. of the Royal American regiment, & 1 captain & 27 artillery men: At this juncture a company of the 46th regt. arrived from Martinique; some seamen & marines of the Zebra and Roebuck sloops of war volunteered their services; and with the militia, (mustering only 93 muskets) marched from Sion Hill at midnight. They had nearly reached the enemy unperceived, when the charasteric [sic] thoughtlessness of the tars, swearing to the enemy to Come on, - caused a discovery; & they poured forth in great numbers with a general volley. Not a shot was returned till the gallant little band were within twenty yards of their foe; then they threw in their fire with destructive effect, - charged, - & in a few minutes were in possession of the post, - the enemy flying in every direction, many who escaped bayonet or ball, being dashed to pieces over the precipices in their rear. - My informant was within two rank & file of the cruel Carib Commander in Chief, - Chatoyer, when he fell. Major Leith of the Militia advanced upon him, crying out "you him Chatoyer?" - "Oui B " was the response, accompanied by a thrust of his sword, which was parried; five bayonets being dashed into the sanguinary monster's breast at the same moment. As he fell, the Major stripped him of the silver gorget & sword which had been presented to him by His Majesty William 4th when a midshipman on the West India station." It were vain, as I have elsewhere remarked, to form an hypothesis of the Negro's qualities, - so singular a compound is he of good & evil. His utter indifference to veracity, and to "taking", or petty larceny (for these people cannot conceive it theft) - is too palpable not to force itself on the most indifferent observer. They act on the principle, that whatever is "Massa's" is theirs; purloining the clothes, and acting the part of their Masters; is a common trick; galloping his horses when he is believed to be asleep, another.100 Often, & often again, have I heard the most solemn invocations 99. The information Anderson provides on the 1795 Carib War supplements the detailed description of the conflict given in Shephard's Historical Account of St. Vincent. 100. Theft was endemic to black slavery in the Americas, and Anderson's observations

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of the Almighty's name to the truth of a statement, the real nature of which I have only discovered at a long interval afterwards, through some quarrel of the confederated parties. "When rogues differ honest men get their own";101 And the most effectual method of discovering crime, among a gang, when no one wd. reveal, - was, I found, - to mulct the whole, by stopping their free days: The innocent then began to comment upon the guilty for their common mishap; - a retort followed; - words arose; & in the end, some party denounced the guilty, - who were punished; whilst the sentence was remitted to the rest.102 This was peculiarly the case where defalcations of property - such as oats missed from the stable - meat from the larder - vegetables from the kitchen garden, etc. occurred. I remember a quarrel between man & wife, (or reputed wife, - ) where both parties had given way to the most savage fury, & wreaked their vengeance alike on each other, & their furniture, - in the course of examination into which, it turned out that a broken wrist, for which the woman had been confined for months to the sick house as for an accident, according to her own tale, - was now disclosed by her to have been a purposely intended injury, given by her husband with some hard instrument, with the intent to break her arm! Unfortunately, the about the proclivity of apprentices to steal are virtually identical to the comments of those who observed the phenomenon during the era of slavery. Anderson's statement "that whatever is 'Massa's' is theirs," echoes John Stewart's assertion that "what I take from my master, being for my use, who am his slave, or property, he loses nothing by its transfer" (Stewart, A View of Jamaica, p. 294), was a common attitude among sugar plantation slaves. Without, of course, losing sight of the fact that many thefts were direct responses to deprivation and want, recent scholarship has established how thefts perpetrated by slaves functioned as a mode of resistance to slavery, while making a significant contribution to the independent economic systems slaves managed to develop. The close parallels between proclivities and rationales of stealing by St. Vincent's labouring population as slaves and as apprentices thus provides additional evidence that they perceived the Apprenticeship not as a transition from slavery to freedom, but as an extension of their bondage. See Alex Lichtenstein, "'That Disposition to Theft, with Which They Have Been Branded': Moral Economy, Slave Management, and the Law," Journal of Social History 21, no. 3 (1988): 413-40; and McDonald, Economy and Material Culture, chapters 1 and 2. 101. Anderson uses a variant of the expression, "when rogues fall out, honest men come by their own," attributed to Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676). 102. Here again Anderson's actions overstepped his authority (see footnote 54), since nowhere in his charge as a special magistrate was he at liberty to punish large numbers of innocent people in a disciplinary proceeding. (It is particularly telling the extent to which his actions resonate of the capricious discipline of plantation slavery, rather than of the British legal system that should have guided his deliberations.) Furthermore, in this case, Anderson took these steps in an attempt to discover the perpetrators of transgressions that appear to have fallen outwith his purview as a special magistrate. Indeed, Anderson must have been referring to incidents similar to those discussed in footnote 54, at which time, in dealing with "crimes of a very serious nature," he noted that "the entire gangs of Arno's Vale, Struan, & Cane Hall, were brought up" before him. Anderson to Tyler, 24 February 1838, CO 260/56.

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wretches in these paroxisms [sic] of rage vent their ire alike on their innocent offspring, as on themselves. I have seen children's ears bitten thro' by their infuriated parents when either punishing them, or fighting with each other; and women without arms, - these having been obliged to be amputated to prevent mortification from their husbands' teeth. Even Brothers and sisters are equally cruel to each other. In fact neither, Negro, nor Coloured people can restrain themselves when once they give way to passion. It is the virulence of the demon worked up into Human form! And with respect to the correction of children, - it cannot be called such, - it is brutality. Their love & their hatred is always in extremes: I have known a negro exhibit feelings honorable to the maternal charastic [sic] where a child has been sick - & the same person to shut up her helpless charge in her hut alone & unprotected, for nearly two days (when it was discovered by the neighbours - ) that she might attend a distant dance. One serious omission has been made in the Emancipation act; and that is a compulsory power on the apprentices to earn sufficiencies of food, bodily & mental for their free offspring, by their own, or their free children's labour. At present sooner than let these embrace the seeds of honesty & industrious habits, they allow them to perish like brutes of the fields! Government must legislate in time, for the brief space between [sic] & the years 1838 & 1840 will require preparation. The humanity of the planters has hitherto alone kept numbers of these free younglings in existence by having their ailments looked after, in spite of the parents. When I say the Negroes are accessory to the mortality of their offspring, I do not mean to prefer a charge, which has, erroneously, been brought, {as the Magistrates [sic] returns shew} against them, of culpable indifference or neglect. - On the contrary, parental ties are as strongly marked among Blacks, as among Whites: What I reprobate, is an ignorant fondness, which induces Mothers to keep their children at home in idleness, from the dread of their encountering the same harsh ordeal of manual labour thro' which they themselves passed, shd. they apprentice them out, while it may be, they have not provisions adequate to their support! and again, - the quackery, equally kind, but destructive, - lavished on sick infants, in preference to seeking advice of the Estate's Physician!103 103. Testifying in 1842 before a House of Commons Select Committee, Hay McDowell Grant, who managed a St. Vincent sugar estate from 1831 to 1841, recalled "very few instances, I do not know myself of one, but I think there are very few instances of children who were emancipated in August 1834, being engaged in field labour; they seem to consider them a superior class, they term them free children." Woodville Marshall avers that "free children's

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"Crop over", - is a species of harvest home given by the proprietor, or manager of an Estate, to the negroes on the termination of their agricultural labours. Cutting canes commences about New Year, and is completed by the middle or end of June. Planting canes begins in the early part of December; land having been some weeks before hoe ploughed, and divided into square holes for the reception of the plants. The first crop I saw commemorated, was on a Windward estate; towards the close of May, and from having read such extravagant accounts of the "politeness & decorum" of such assemblages, - as well as of the "muslin dresses," "slips," "silk stockings, & coloured kid shoes," of the young debutantes, I was grievously disappointed.104 A numerous band of blacks of both sexes, with coloured prints & handkerchiefs for banners, marshalled in an adjoining field, & proceeded to the Manager's house, beating the gumba, - or tom-tom; a discordant drum formed of sheepskin stretched over a barrel; - Two or three tambourines, and as many calibashes hollowed out, & filled with stones, which the women rattled, as infants do their toys, - formed the musical strength of the corps. Many of the women were decked in gaudy Madras handkerchiefs round their heads; their gowns were white; - trimmed it is true, - but in the most vulgar, & shewy manner, with glaring ribands, - and pieces of tape, - instead of silk. Enormous beads of various hues, and qualities, graced their ebony necks, - but not one had a shoe on! and it was observed that not a single male wore even a pair of white trowsers: They were clad in their coarsest bamboo clothing, apprehensive as I was told, of getting the former spoilt when the grog wd. begin to circulate - And yet to their credit, be it remarked the negroes are generally an extremely sober race, "as much so as the Spaniards, the steadiest peasantry in Europe," said a gentleman to me, who knew both well. Altogether the scene was a shewy - but outre piece of coarse buffoonery. Every trait strongly indicated their African origin; - the barbarian was visible throughout. The dancing bore no earthly resemblance to any acknowledged measure: The drummers & tambourine men beat their instruments with their hands & fingers extended, - with ferocious activity, nodding their heads with every thump, & cheering on the dancers to greater exertions; whilst the girls flourished labour was never surrendered" by their parents, despite threats or inducements from the planters, or coaxing by the special magistrates. House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1842, vol. 13, p. 26; Marshall, "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands," p. 211. 104. The accounts to which Anderson refers are from Carmichael, Domestic Manners, vol. 1, pp. 142-60, and vol. 2, pp. 284-302.

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their calibashes, and the whole mob yelled a discordant scream at the utmost pitch of their lungs, the sole tenor of which consisted in {yaw yaws} "Quilibee - Quilibee," - as two couples - and occasionally one, - {flourished} sidled before each other in a see-sawing shuffle, the woman hopping on one toe, & throwing out her "seat of honor" with great vehemence, as she brought the other foot to her relief. Figure there was none; - as to pas de deux, and French quadrilles, no negro here, had any notion: Others may be more fortunate in seeing these, - (since the dance is the soul [sic] absorbing passion of the Black;) - the present were untutored gambols of the uninstructed Savage. Repeated opportunities subsequently, - but confirmed what I here describe: - mo' I was told that when night comes on, & they dance in the hall by permission of their employer, the labrs. exhibit costlier clothes with more refined decorum of demeanour: Whenever I saw them their scream was pitched at the highest key; in fact noise is a concomitant Negroes cannot dispense with any where. Even in the field when conversing, their voices & gestures are those of people in a passion. It is requisite to direct them also sharply, for unless you do, they dont [sic] conceive you to be in earnest. Be civil, but distant, & you are respected: Approach familiarity - & Sambo is insolent. This tendency, - and the want of bells, may account for the loud tone in which domestics are addressed; I never had reason to believe such address arose from unkindness. On the contrary, they speak to their superiors in St. Vincent with a freedom wd. astonish an Englishman, and they fondle {& address} children before their parents as familiarly as if they were their own. - They are attached, but injudicious nurses. The rudeness of their instruments betrays the total insensibility of the Black population to the charms of sound. People will differ: Some will have it the negroes possess a fine ear: So far as my humble observation went they impressed me with the belief that of melody they have no idea: None of them are ever seen, as are the peasantry of Southern Europe, playing on the guitar, the flute, or violin, - or chaunting their national songs, when the day's labours are over. A nasal beetling drone sometimes comes up from their huts on a Sunday evening, and this is an attempt at a hymn: any profane airs they try are Scottish or Irish - but in so sharp a key, as to be unpleasant to the listener.105 They delight in making songs expressive of 105. In his study of Jamaican slavery, Orlando Patterson noted that "the free coloured and many of the Creole slaves who consciously sought to assimilate the culture of the whites tended to imbibe Scottish customs, especially in the area of recreation." Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery: An Analysis of the Origins, Development and Structure of Negro Slave Society in Jamaica (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1967), pp. 45-46.

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approval, or contempt, - (as the case may be, - ) both of their superiors, & equals, - but these are burlesque in point of composition, at the best. Be they singing, or working, - all their movements betray a languid indolence, a total absence of interest, - in what they perform. In their agricultural labours, they raise & let fall their hoes with a feebleness that would amuse a British labourer. This may in some degree arise from the enervating influence of the climate; for Europeans after a short residence, experience its debilitating effects. They soon require a greater extension of repose than formerly; - and even on going early to rest, one's slumbers are disturbed & restless; so that it is early dawn, - or "cock crow", ere sound & healthy sleep steeps the senses in forgetfulness. From the same cause, a West Indian residence is highly inimical to study. A few hours reading may be snatched in the morning, - but the forenoon has its cares; and when evening is come, & the labours of the dining room are got over, - instead of settling oneself snugly down to an amusing, or instructive author, - the faculties are so relaxed that the only resource we are willing, or able to fly to, - is our bed. The brief, and stilly moments which precede Sunset are comparatively, known to few, and these must dine early to enjoy their soothing beauty. With a cigar, and a volume of Byron, - gazing on the beams of light expiring in a profusion of gold & rubied clouds, I have forgot having sat for four or five hours in town, in the steam of a hot, & crowded court {interrogating, & noting down the vexatious and patience-trying suitors [sic] details} where gales are wafted to & fro - but not of "Araby the blest;"106 - and where I have felt overcome by speaking, - heat, & the fetid atmosphere of perspiring Negroes, - (and such an odour!) - to a degree, a native of a Northern region can hardly imagine. And this leads me to say a few words on the official duties of a special Justice. "The nature of the country over which the appd. population are scattered is so mountainous, & in some parts so impracticable" (says Lt. Governor Tyler) "that the difficulties attending the special magistrate in the performance of his duties are not to be described." (Part 3 of Paper relative to abolition of slavery p. 367. printed by order of the House of Commons).107 106. John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book 4, Lines 142-43), "Sabean odours from the spicy shore / Of Araby the Blest." 107. Anderson is quoting here from a letter, dated 24 July 1835, from Tyler to Sir Lionel Smith, then governor of the Windward Islands. Smith enclosed a copy of the letter in a despatch he sent to Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg, on 4 August 1835, responding to Glenelg's instructions of 15 June 1835, that the appointments of local special magistrates be revoked as quickly as possible in favour of those sent from Britain. While complying with these

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I found the island of St. Vincent, divided into five districts, by an act of the local legislature, (30th Novr. 1835) for the purpose of defining the Jurisdiction of the special Justices, to whom by the Imperial act (3d. & 4th. William 4th. cap 73 - 28 Augt. 1833) exclusive cognizance was given of all matters between Employer & Apprenticed Labourer.108 Six Magistrates presided over these districts.109 The third, or Kingstown district, commencing from the Western boundaries of the Villa Estate, & terminating at the Eastern boundary of Ottley Hall Estate (including the town of New Edin-burgh, -) was assigned to my care. Besides the capital, and Edinburgh, it contained in the rural portion, 13 estates, - embracing a population of 1587 apprentice males & 1608 females; total 3195 apprenticed labourers, exclusive of children. The general return of slaves on the 1st August 1834, in the 5 parishes of St. Vincent, and the adjoining Grenadines, including attached, & unattached children, - were 22,250; - value in Sterling £1,601,307. On 1st January 1834, - the praediah amounted to 18,794; (children being taken into computation) - and the total number of apprenticed labourers therein, on 31st December same year were 16,343. {2959 were children under 6 years, consequently became free - aged & diseased & non-effective 1,198 - (4,157)} On the 31st Decemr. 1835, - the list had fallen to 15,826 - being a decrease of 517; attributable to various causes; many had died - some had become free from having been in England; others had purchased their discharge from apprenticeship.110 The average value of a slave in the colony from 1822 to 1830 was £58.6.8d; and the proportion of the £20,000,000 Sterling of compensation to which she was entitled amounted to instructions, Tyler argued that "the number of paid magistrates (3) now in this colony is insufficient to perform the duties required of them in the absence of the local special magistrates," and recommended "His Majesty's Government to send out without delay additional paid magistrates." In September 1835, Glenelg responded to the imprecations of Smith and Tyler by appointing three more special magistrates, of whom Anderson was one, bringing the island's complement to six. House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1836, vol. 49, p. 367. Appendix 5 describes in detail St. Vincent's judicial divisions (and subsequent subdivisions) and lists all personnel who served there during the Apprenticeship as special magistrates. Maps 4 and 5 show the boundaries of St. Vincent's judicial districts in 1834 and 1836, respectively. 108. See Maps 4 and 5. 109. As of January 1836, the six districts were administered by R. B. Pitman (1st), Edwin Poison (2nd), Anderson (3rd), J. G. Smith (Grenadines), R. Sutherland (4th) and J. J. Tinling (5th). By 1838 Sutherland had replaced Pitman in the 1st District with George Spoug taking over the 4th District, while Major John Colthurst administered the 5th District in place of Tinling, who had been transferred to Barbados. (See Appendix 5.) 110. Appendix 4 contains population statistics for St. Vincent during the era of the Apprenticeship.

TABLE A Compensation awarded for the value of Slaves in six of our principal colonies as appropriated by the Commissioners, under the Act 3d and 4th William IV., cap. 73

Proportion of the Compensation Fund of £20,000,000 allotted to the Colony Divisions Praedial Attached

Praedial Unattached

Non-Praedial

1 2 3 4 5

Compensation for a Slave in each Class Head People Tradesmen Inferior Tradesmen Field Labourers Inferior Field Labourers

1 2 3 4 5

St Vincent

Grenada

St. Lucia

Antigua

£592408.18.0%

616,444.17.7

335,627.15.113/4

425,866. 7. 0%

Jamaica 6,161,927.5.11

British Guiana 4,297,117.10.6

Classes

5 7% 8 8H 8

41. 5. 7% 41. 5. 7% 34. 8. 0'/2 34. 8. O'/i 20.12.10

50. 5.1014 41.18. 2'/2 33.10. 6% 33.10. 6% 16.15. 3'A

34.12. 27. 0. 14. 6. 22.12. 7.12.

0 2'/i 7 31/. 9%

31. 0. 6% 31. 5.11'/4 20.13. 9% 26.12. 2% 12.16. 254

87. 68. 38. 64. 36.

8. 0% 8. OK 0. 0'/4 8. 434 0. 5

Head people Tradesmen Inferior Tradesmen Field Labourers Inferior Field Labourers

39. 9.10% 38. 5. 5% 25.17. 2'/4 35.13. 5'/i 21.12. 3

41. 5. 7% 41. 5. 7% 34. 8. O'/i 34. 8. O'/i 20.12.10

50. 5.10% 41.18. 2'/2 33.10. 6% 33.10. 6% 16.15. 3'/2

35. 2. 25.19. 13. 3. 22.12. 7.15.

5'/2 5% 3 9 2%

31. 0.10 31.11. 2% 20.17.11 26.11. 6 13. 4. 3%

87. 68. 38. 65. 36.

8. 0% 8. OK 0. 0% 4.1014 8. 0'/z

1 Head Tradesmen 2 Inferior Tradesmen 3 Head People employed on Wharfs, Shipping or other avocations 4 Inferior People of the same description 5 Head Domestic Servants 6 Inferior Domestics

43. 7. 814 27. 6. 314 40. 9. 9%

41. 5. 7% 34. 8. 0'/2 41. 5. TA

50. 5.10'/4 33.10. 6% 50. 5.1014

25.15. 7'/j 13.14.9'/2 21.11.7%

30.19. 2 20.11. 5 30. 5. 5'/2

68. 8. O'A 38. 0. 014 87. 8. 0%

27.14. 4%

27.10. 514

33.10. 6%

16.19.11%

22.13. 8%

36.15. 7

36. 6. 7% 22. 8.11

34. 8. O'/i 20.12.10

33.10. 6% 16.14.10'/4

19.16.3% 13. 0. 2'/2

29. 3. I % 19.10.1014

63. 0. 1 35. 9.10%

10.17. 7

10. 6. 5

8. 7. 7%

2. 7.11

5. 9.103/4

19. 0. 0

8.12. 0

8. 7. 7%

0. 0. \Vi

Children under 6 years of age on the 1st August 1834 Aged, diseased, or otherwise non-effective

£

39.19. 40. 3. 26.11. 35.17. 22. 0.

3. 4. 4%

[Printed record glued into manuscript]

4. 6. 8

11. 8. 0

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Over every district, a Special Justice presided, who was to reside within its limits. Twice every week, a petty sessions was held by me at Kingstown; and another in the Country, & every Justice was obliged, once in each fortnight, or oftener, if required, to repair to each estate within his district, to take cognizance of such cases as might there be brought before him. - Every one had to keep a Journal of these cases; and at the end of every month to transmit a duplicate thereof to the Governor. A Police Force was established in each division, - under the particular superintendance [sic] of the Special Justice; - as well as a penal gang which was composed of persons condemned to hard labour by this Magistrate.112 Regulations for the internal discipline of the houses of correction for apprenticed labourers were issued by the Lieut. Governor in the following form. (Take in those of llth May 1836.) Saint Vincent. Regulations for the internal discipline of the Houses of Correction for Apprenticed Labourers. 1. - The Serjeant and three of the Policemen will reside constantly in the Prison; the other will be in attendance upon the Stipendiary Magistrate, who will regulate the tour of duty of the force. 2d. — A Book is to be kept, in which the names of the prisoners are to be entered as they come in, together with the date of admission, name of the estate or person entitled to their services, name of the committing Magistrate, sentence awarded against them, the nature of the offence, and the date of their discharge; and if the latter shall take place previous to the expiration of the whole term of sentence, the reason thereof must be fully stated, under the head of "Remarks" — In which must be noted whether the prisoner was confined in prison before, how often, for what offences, and conduct in prison. 3d. - Immediately on a prisoner being received, strict observation to be made that he is not labouring under any disease, after which the head should be shaved, or hair cut as close as possible, according to the directions of the Special Magistrate, and to be kept in that state* whilst confined to prison. *This was found a most efficacious punisht. the terrors of which were dreaded by both blacks & coloured of either sex - (especially the women 112. Clauses 4, 6, 7 and 8 of "An Act for establishing a Police for the Regulation of Apprenticed Labourers" (reproduced as Appendix 6) describe the duties of the special magistrates, while clauses 18 to 26 delineate the structure and functions of the police force under their charge.

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who tease their wool into ludicrous corkscrew twists meant to resemble curls - ) more than any other.113 4th. - The strictest silence must be imposed upon the Prisoners at all times, under the penalty of an extra spell upon the Tread-mill. 5th. - In order to ensure the full effect of silence upon the prisoners, the Police Force will, in their conversation, avoid all very loud talking or boisterous mirth: the Serjeant will be held responsible for the strictest observance of this regulation. 6th. - Every prisoner shall be placed in confinement at those periods of the twenty-four hours in which he is not employed on the Tread-wheel, or in the Penal gang, or in taking his customary refreshment, excepting those who are condemned to solitary confinement. Strict care must be taken that the male and female prisoners are at all times kept in separate places of confinement. 7th. - Every morning, at day light, the male prisoners are to be taken out, one by one, or more if convenient, and bathed in the river, under the charge of some of the Policemen; at the same time, one of the prisoners, who must do this duty by turns, shall clean out the cells, etc., and fetch water for the establishment. It shall be the duty of the Matron constantly to superintend the female prisoners, and cause strict attention to their cleanliness. 8th. - When any prisoner, who has been sentenced to be flogged, is about to undergo his punishment, the whole of the male prisoners shall be brought out to witness it, and it shall be conducted in the most formal solemn manner possible. Neither the Serjeant of the Police, nor the Privates, are, under any circumstances, to use the cat upon the person of any male prisoner, without the express authority of the Special Magistrate; and, upon no occasion whatever, is the punishment of the cat to be applied to the person of any female prisoner. 9th. - No visitor shall be admitted to any of the prisoners, except in cases of severe sickness; and then the person of the visitor must be searched, in order to prevent the introduction of spirituous liquors into the prison. 10th. - No dogs are to be allowed to come within the prison. 113. This sentence is an annotation written by Anderson on the printed record. Special Magistrate John Colthurst, on the other hand, disavowed the practice. "The shaving of heads," he noted, "I also discontinued as vexatious. This was another of the debasing punishments constantly used in slavery, and was, like all other matters connected, full of evil," he explained, while intimating "his objection to punishments of degrading nature." Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 100.

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llth. - Whenever any prisoner is taken ill, or otherwise requiring Medical attendance, the Doctor appointed to attend the prison should be immediately sent for. Upon every occasion when the Clergyman visits the prison, for the purpose of performing Divine service, or gives generally religious instruction to the prisoners, the Serjeant will take care that every prisoner is present, and that their conduct is orderly and respectful. If any prisoner shall be of a religious persuasion differing from that of the established Church, a minister of such persuasion, at the special request of such prisoner, shall be allowed to visit him or her at proper times. 12th. - These Regulations, with the exception of the 1st, 2d, 5th, and 8th, are to be read to every prisoner on his admission, who must be made to understand them well, in order that he may not plead ignorance as an excuse for breaking through them; and a printed copy be hung up in a conspicuous part of the prison (Signed) Geo. Tyler. Lieutenant-Governor. Reissued in this form, Kingstown, 11th May 1836. J.A.114 To prevent as much as might be, disputes between employer and labr. a General scale of agricultural labour, was also sent forth which the magistrates were to assume as the basis of their Judgements, taking care first, that the labourers were made perfectly aware of its details; and for this purpose a Copy was placed in a conspicuous position on every estate. - The follg. is a transcript, and it will afford an epitome of the economy of a sugar estate, and of the daily calls upon a planter's superintendence. To expatiate at large upon a theme which has received the attention of various authors, enters not into my rambling plan. Whoever wd. be conversant with the husbandry of a Sugar Estate, can have no difficulty in satisfying his curiosity in the pages of Porter, and other writers on Colonial Cultivation. En passant, let me tell you, that the head boilerman levies toll on one's first visit to the boiling house by chalking your shoe, - & demanding garnish;115 this said boiling house being, - the very reverse of what might be expected, - the coolest building on an estate. 114. The last sentence is an annotation written by Anderson on the printed record that he glued into his journal. See also the general set of rules and regulations promulgated in 1838 for all of St. Vincent's jails, houses of correction and other prisons, and reproduced in Appendix 10. 115. Chalking the feet of visitors was customary in West African societies such as the Ibo (see Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart [New York: Anchor, 1959], p. 6). Dr. Earle Kirby of the St. Vincent National Trust points out that it is still practised on the island.

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(Take in Scale of Labour issued 8th April, 1836, amended 19th August 1836) To the Special Magistrates The Lieutenant-Governor has to request the Special Magistrates will alter, within their several Districts, the General Scale of Agricultural Labour, which has been promulgated in this Colony, - in the following items: No. 4, No. 5, No. 6,

Letter C.3 Number of holes to be 105- 83- 67 85-65-65 Letter D., Letter C., Number of cross banks to be 210-166-134 Letter D., 170-30+100 Letter C.} Cross-holing and planting at the same time, Number of holes to be finished in one day 170 - 135 - 110 Letter D., 80 Government House St. Vincent, 19th August 1836116 Government Notice

The following Scale of Labour to be performed by the effective apprenticed Labourers employed upon Cotton Estates within this Government, having been framed by a Committee appointed for that purpose, and approved by his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor and Council, is now promulgated for adoption. By His Excellency's Command S. Osborne Gibbes Government Secretary Government House St. Vincent, 19th August, 1836 Clearing land for holing and planting Digging Cotton holes

8 laborers per acre 500 in stiff land, and 800 on hill sides, for each laborer

116. These were the alterations made to the General Scale of Agricultural Labour issued on 8 April 1836. The complete Scale as initially promulgated is reproduced as Appendix 7. Anderson glued this and the subsequent printed record into his journal.

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Weeding and drawing cotton and corn Weeding and moulding after being drawn Pruning Cotton Picking Cotton Ginning Cotton on foot gin Hand picking Cotton

12 laborers per acre 8 per acre 4 per acre 50 Ibs. each laborer 40 Ibs. white each laborer 30 Ibs. yellow 30 Ibs. white 20 Ibs. yellow

Weeding land for provisions, where there is a considerable quantity of grass, 9 laborers per acre Weeding the same, when in good cultivation, 6 laborers per acre Number of bushels of Indian corn which can be threshed and winnowed by one laborer per day, 8 Number of bushels of Guinea corn which can be threshed and winnowed by one laborer per day, 6 With the close of the month of June, set in those dreadful sheets of rain which periodically inundate Tropical countries and last for the succeeding four or 5 months. Many a time have I shivered under their dismal chill, and wished for a good Northern coal fire. A blanket is very acceptable at night during the wet season. Unlike "an even down pour" in Scotld., - (& it is not to be despised, - ) the heavens then actually vomited torrents, to which the northern shower was but a mimic representation of Nature's wrath. They defied preparation; - now the sky lowered here - while it smiled in another quarter; & again that was darkened, whilst this had cleared. Brooks became streams, & the rivers torrents, - down which carts & mules & negroes, caught in their embrace, were hurried with fearful velocity to the ocean. Yet like Lovers' quarrels, if terrific - these gushes were equally evanescent; & the sun shone forth in all his splendour, & the skies resumed their brilliancy, where but a few moments previously they were obscured by gloom & vapour. How fresh & renovated does every tree, shrub, & sugar cane, then glitter in dewy radiance! And now, on every side, were heard tones of merriment that the last canes had been brought into the mill; & that their busy season was terminated. Right joyous indeed, were the peals of laughter, the rude chorus, and ruder dances of the negroes, as they cracked their whips, shook their calabashes, and whisked in antic gambols which announced that "crop was over". Now, were sported their most humourous

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songs, with many a sly allusion to their late labours, - and to the Judgements of their Magistrate where they had proved remiss. Fat, & sleek they looked, from the invigorating effects of the liquor or syrup with which they are supplied in crop time, & which tho' often swallowed boiling hot, - noways injures the matchless ivory of their teeth.117 If sugar however is innocuous to the negro, - cold is not; I have known many severe cases of toothache among them from this cause. The migass houses exhibited a neat compact appearance - with their piles of fuel ready for the preparation of the next year's sugar. "Migass", be it known is the rind of the cane after it has passed through the mill, - {of a dry, light, & } & is arranged in methodical bundles, within a building appropriated to the purpose, open at both ends; - where after going thro' the process of fermentation, it becomes a light, and easily inflammable substance used for boiling the juice expressed from the cane; and of which, the ashes are applied as manure.118 Valuable indeed is the cane plant to man; - at once offering nutriment to his body - covering to his house, - fuel to his engines, - fodder to cattle, - and fertility to the soil. All along the sea Coast were at this time peculiarly visible the brown, & darkened streaks of mould, which washed from the high grounds by the rain, wound far into the blue expanse of the ocean. - With the intenser heat of the atmosphere, jackspaniards, - woodslaves, - supplejacks, - and other noxious vermin, came forth in more than wonted abundance, - tho' in truth, so overrated are these annoyances, I may mention that in the first 9 months from my arrival I only saw one centipede, but no scorpions; - & with respect to the Jackspaniards, one is reconciled to them, as to the wasp or hornet at home; - if you avoid them, they will not hurt you; shd. you provoke one, it will give you reason to remember its sting.119 Habit renders one 117. Richard Sheridan observes that during slavery, "the sugar harvest from December or January to May and June was a season of relative food abundance . . . due partly to the slaves being permitted to drink liberally of cane juice and chew newly cut canes, partly to the harvesting of ground provisions, and partly to the arrival of many provision ships" after the end of the hurricane season. The "fat & sleek" appearance of field workers at harvest-time both in the era of slavery and, as Anderson observed, during the Apprenticeship, contrasted starkly with their condition during the "hard time" or "hungry season" from July to November when cases of deprivation and malnutrition soared. See Sheridan, Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680-1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 172. 118. Migass is a variant of "bagasse," the term given to dry cane trash. 119. The house lizard received the sobriquet wood-slave in the British West Indies. In Obeah: Witchcraft in the West Indies (1889; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970), Hesketh Bell identified the wood-slave as an "objectionable reptile [that] only comes out at night, and lives in very old wooden buildings." He proceeded to describe it as a "most repulsive object, being a bilious yellowish grey, and covered all over with pimply-looking knobs

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quite indifferent to even the loathsome brown lizard; - the pretty little green ones of that species, are rather attractive, than repulsive in their movements. None of the snakes of St. Vincent are poisonous; they are rarely visible except in the woods, & fly from man. It has been said that the Caribs attempted to introduce the Venemous [sic] serpent of St. Lucie into the Colony, during the last insurrection - with the view of frightening away the planters; - happily their endeavours did not succeed. The variableness of atmosphere was very remarkable during the dogdays. In the morning, we dare not venture forth for fear of rain; - then followed thunder claps, louder & more assimilating to the roll of artillery than any I had heard in Britain, accompanied by brilliant flashes of sheet lightening [sic]: but the forked kind was neither so frequent, nor terrific as at home. Accidents are rare: an unfortunate pasture boy was the only individual killed by the electric fluid in a very severe storm in {August [1836]} the hurricane months. By mid-day again, - the landscape was warped in calm; Earth, skies, - sea, - partake of universal somnibulism [sic]; the very shrubs & trees unmoved by the least breath of wind, stood erect, and still, whilst an overpowering drowsiness seized upon mind & body. A gentleman, who had been a close observer of the weather for many years, informed me that the general average of the thermometer in the shade, was now 85°, - its greatest decrease in any period 76°. Of course, its range varied at times greatly beyond, & beneath this calculation. In the sun, it often mounted up to 110°. Kingstown, - at all times close, - became, especially along the bay, (where a stranger might think the sea breezes tempered the heat) intolerable. The smaller islands of the Grenadines are accordingly sought for, for cooler retreats; in the month of August, in particular. I then spent a few pleasant days in Bequia, the largest of the groupe, - with a brother Magistrate;120 Bequia can boast better roads than St. Vincent, - but its loneliness is sadly impressed on one a few months only from Europe. Without resources from books - or cheerful social intercourse, - the life of a planter at the best, is but an apology for life, anywhere. It may do very well for a man who enters young into its toils; & is not trammelled with too fine feelings to divert his rough - & I will admit patience tried, arduous and excrescences; . . . it is cold and slimy . . . makes a loud clucking noise at night, and wages war on cockroaches" (p. 76). Jack Spaniards are wasps, and Dr. Earle Kirby identifies supplejacks as short-legged lizards (Gymnophthalmus). 120. Anderson's companion would most probably have been John George Smith who had administrative responsibilities for the Grenadines, of which Bequia was one. (See Appendix 5, and Maps 2, 4 and 5.)

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course; - For a gentleman, - in the educated sense of the word, - it must be disgusting by its sameness, - and Vulgarity. The youths who are sent out as overseers - elsewhere "bookkeepers" in spite of never seeing a book, - are, {(though my Countrymen,)} with few exceptions, - untutored in manners, - and of the most mediocre attainments; nor is the treatment they meet with from their superiors, of a kind to improve the one, - or extend the other.121 The mesalliances with coloured housekeepers, and the consequences which these entail on a man, - begin in his subordinate capacity, & attach to him as dead weights when he has emerged from it to be a manager, or even a planter. However successful in life, impress has been thus received, which cannot be shaken off. Public opinion, "the spirit of the age", - is nevertheless silently working its way. The upper ranks no longer succumb to this tyrant custom; - and narrow the entree to their circles to parties so situated. Indeed the present generation are in point of intelligence, and proper feeling, so superior to the past, I do not wonder at the clamour which the old school make at innovation. Every faculty with them was bound up, & wedded in odious attachment to Slavery. - They have lived to witness the overthrow of their fallacious principles. Their power, - which might solace their loneliness - has gone; and with it their rude indulgences; - all in short, - they deemed worth contending for. Yet even they long some day to rest their weary limbs in Britain; they speak of it as their "home;" so different from the inhabitant of Martinique, or Guadaloupe, who in leaving "la belle France," - quitts his back on her for ever, certain of recognizing all his early dreams in his adopted isle of the West. Hence, their European character; {their elegant houses,} and all the realization of domestic Civilization unoperated upon by mere Climate! It is singular that the Negroes in their colloquies likewise refer to England as their "home". As a general rule I wd. remark that Overseers and Managers are white men; one or two instances of coloured persons so acting, cannot be said to affect the universal principle. These owe their elevation, - honourable to themselves & to their employers, - to their individual merits; for it is not to 121. Anderson here was observing a pattern of emigration and employment that originated during the sugar boom in the era of slavery. Many young Britons, especially Scots, who were experiencing deprivation in an economically depressed mother country, were attracted by prospects that working on sugar estates offered, and they journeyed to the West Indies to assume intermediate supervisory positions as overseers and bookkeepers. Few transformed these economically rather precarious jobs into the affluence that could be derived from owning or managing estates, but, as Anderson indicated, even after the decline of sugar's profitability, and the demise of slavery, the lure of the wealth of the West Indies continued to attract young Scotsmen deprived of opportunity at home.

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be disguised, that the Negro detests having a Coloured superintendent of his labour above all things. A manager has few inducements to spend money: He has the run of the estate; - fish, butcher meat, - and vegetables for his table; soap, candles, firewood, and servants for his house; grass, Corn, & grooms for his horse, which is also the estate's property (however many others he may keep); and besides all these comforts, a pipe of wine, and a sufficiency of London stout, frequently come out from his constituent to cheer his heart. I enter not into the minutiae of the scandalous tales of their plucking their constituents in times gone bye, when "tails [sic] of hurricanes" which never befell; - "extra Overseers" who never existed; and "slaves purchased" for pounds Currency, (converted into so many Pounds Sterling',') formed part of a system by which the credulous owner in Britain was cheated by his honest resident Manager! Let us hope, fortune-making by such expedients, is forever exploded! Where one is both Attorney & Manager, - of course his position is greatly enhanced. Nor is an Overseer badly off either; if his salary be not great, - his allowances are considerable; & he is exposed to no company save a fellow overseer taking an occasional Sunday dinner: - But the laborious nature of his duties, and the coarse subordinates he has to overlook, must roughen his sentiments (to use no harsher word); and no man wd. enter a relation on such a career, I shd. imagine, who could get an opening for him in life, in any other capacity. Perhaps with not less astonishment than the accomplished authoress of "Marriage" pictures the high born Earl's daughter to have gazed on the miscalled "Castle" of her Highland husband's father, - {(so very unlike her preconceived notions of feudal Grandeur, - )} must the sensitive European female shrink from her future home, when brought a bride to one of our British West Indian halls!122 Approaching by a road or track which has no parallel save in the remotest regions of the Alps, over which she trembles at every step as she sinks in mire, or pitfalls, - she descends on the summit of a precipice, - climbs up the rude wooden ladder, or stair, - & is ushered into a mean edifice of the same material; brown, & worm eaten, from combined age, mould, & neglect. A common lobby lamp swings overhead from a beam supporter: claps like thunder momentarily shake the rude tenement, as the wind whistles along the Gallery, bursting open doors & window frames. The barenness [sic] around, - sans books, - sans carpets, - fauteuils, - articles of 122. Marriage, a novel written by Susan Ferrier and published in 1819, contains a description of the disillusionment of Lady Juliana, the daughter of the earl of Courtland, when she enters the grim and cheerless Scottish highland home of her husband, Henry Douglas.

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verm,, - & the thousand nicknackeries of an European drawing room inspires but one feeling, - that of desolation. Some cherry tree chairs, - an odd table or two, - & an otoman [sic], or sofa, of ordinary workmanship, form the contrast. From the boiling house where sugar making is in full vigour - is wafted to her nostrils a sickening steam by no means agreable [sic] to untried olifactory [sic] nerves. - But the toils of housekeeping, - the calls upon her patience & temper, the drilling of her black, & coloured {Menage} establishment, - who shall picture, - or pretend to record these? Man has his daily & more active avocations which beguile the tedium of exile; but as the bow cannot always remain strong, nor the lyre be pitched to its highest chord, - so does the mind require relaxation to fit it for severer calls. Woe betide him! then who in the West Indies has no resources within himself; for he will find none without. But with woman, operated upon by the climate, - kept almost a prisoner within doors, & only occasionally paying, or receiving a formal visit, - perhaps without one friend of her own sex to lighten her solitude, - existence is drearier still; - she falls into the universal abhorence [sic] of Creole females to exercise, lolls on a settee all day long in a dreamy, indolent mood, - vegetates a death of life. Not that I mean that happiness is to be found in crowds, - or that life has no nobler ends than to be spent in an unmeaning round of routes, balls, & the frivolities of fashion. Society still has claims on us; but small indeed is the society to be found in St. Vincent! Even the presence of a Garrison, does little to an interchange of mutual attentions, - & with the exception of a solitary intimacy here & there, - the military, citizens, & planters reciprocate no compliments. A newcomer is received so far as a mere call goes, civilly enough: With prudent caution, - the acquaintance rarely goes further, - in town at least, - (and that at a well advanced period -) unless the entrant be particularly recommended. {For my own part, I must gratefully record, that those to whom I thus came introduced, paid the most hospitable attentions to us; - whilst I found one or two exceptions to the general rule among a few others: - To all classes however, I owe thanks for general civility.}I23 As the hot season advances, and the crops are taken off, stock of every kind becomes emaciated, & horses perfectly unmanageable; from the bites

123. Special magistrates faced the problem of identifying and occupying a place within the colony's society. As conceived of by Colonial Secretary Lord Stanley, the magistrates were to be "respectable persons wholly unconnected with the colonies," who would be "uninfluenced by the local assemblies, [and] free from local passion." Quoted in W. L. Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937), pp. 115, 197.

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of mosquitoes, & flies. They will dash into the rivers - (or streams rather, if breadth alone, is taken into account, -) now swelled by frequent showers, - with a velocity which permits not of preparation. These are numerous; and one can rarely go a few miles on any side, without detriment to his white duck trowsers, to a degree wd. shock a Regent street lounger. Very great inconvenience - and even apprehension, - was felt in the Colony at this period from the apathy, or absolute refusal of the appd. labourers to work their provision grounds, or indeed to do work of any kind. Even Grain for poultry was at times not to be had for any sum. In my district, complaints became so frequent, I was under the necessity of making a formal representation to the Lieut.-Governor; & his Excellency visited the refractory valley, and pointed out to the people, the nature of their duties.124 Most of these people were Creole Negroes, - not native Africans. Of the latter, St. Vincent contained numbers; - but they were almost universally instanced by planters, as more docile, hard working people than their more refined brethren; who affect nevertheless to look down upon them, & even to mimick their language, & gesture, as I myself have often heard them do. It wd. be difficult to account for this affected superiority: So it is however, Nevertheless, they were part of a larger island community, with the witting and unwitting actions of themselves and others determining the positions they occupied therein. Insofar as their principal function was to arbitrate between employers and apprentices, special magistrates should have eschewed the company or favours of either group for fear of any consequent bias or influence. More often than not, however, the magistrates, Anderson among them (as is discussed in the introductory essay), gravitated towards the planters, and were willing to accept hospitality and largesse that came in such forms as meals, accommodations, invitations, loans and gifts. To varying degrees, thus, many special magistrates embraced, or were embraced by, planter society, a circumstance that, at the very least, compromised the impartiality, if only in perception, of their deliberations in disputes between apprentices and planters, but could result in such partisanship for the planters as caused them to be labelled "Buckra Magistrates." Some special magistrates, of course, sought more assiduously than others to avoid the potential conflict of interest that close social contact with the planter class could create. Woodville Marshall points out that "toward the planters," Special Magistrate John Colthurst, when serving both in Barbados and St. Vincent, "was constantly on guard . . . keep [ing] social contact with the[m] to a minimum," because he realized that they might use their hospitality "to lure him away from 'the steady course of [his] duty.'" Although Colthurst lamented that many of his fellow magistrates were not similarly motivated, Marshall points out that he himself was not consistent in his actions, since, for example, he accepted the hospitality of, and was on good social terms with, a number of Vincentian planters. Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, pp. 22-23; see also, Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, pp. 220-21. 124. Through the summer of 1836, Anderson's reports to Tyler contained frequent complaints about the conduct of the apprentices under his jurisdiction. On 7 June 1836, he recorded "that the apprentices on several estates have manifested an obstinate indisposition to labour in the field to the extent sanctioned by the new regulations." (These regulations are delineated in Appendix 7.) The following month, Anderson cited "the whole strong gangs of

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the Creole Black scorns the African, - the Brown or Coloured population, Sable Creole; and the White, - did the Coloured Man. More enlightened ideas now prevail; for in June 1836, the first instance was given in this colony, of a respectable, & educated Coloured gentleman, being elected a member of the Assembly, at New Edinr.125 I have already said that petty thefts by negroes, were of common occurrence; a new species of crime has since the apprenticeship, been also manifested, -1 allude to the plundering of the houses, & provision grounds of the more reputable labourers, by the idle, & dissolute of a gang.126 - Formerly, a Master personally inspected his people when a day was given them for the Cultivation of provisions, (to see that they were all provided;} & severely punished any truant or idler: The time of a driver or superintendant [sic] is now too precious to be thrown away, - nor wd. the man be expected to give it up merely to benefit his more lazy companions. Hence the Magistrate has been frequently compelled to form these skulkers into a squad, & force them to work agt. their will for themselves: & afterwards repay by their labour the superintendance [sic] of the driver. Love of change is so deeply rooted in the breast of a Negro that I fear compulsory labour must always be resorted to among the majority of negroes, if we wd. restrain them from vagabondism. Still, the amount of fruit & vegetables brought to market, with abundance of leisure hanging upon their hands, is infinitely less, I am assured, than {during slavery} formerly, when slaves had only one day in the week Arno's Vale, and Cane Hall, on the 2nd and 16th [of June] for rebellious conduct, and careless, indolent work," while subsequently "the whole gangs of Cane Hall, (132 in No.) and Cane Garden point (69 in No.) were indicted of 4th & 20th [of August] for cutting canes; an offence," Anderson lamented, that was "of repeated occurrence of late in [his] district." Despite being punished by Anderson for their actions, the apprentices' behaviour continued to generate complaints by planters and intervention by the special magistrate. Indeed, by December, Anderson reported that "the destruction of the canes still continues," and that he had punished 326 apprentices (of the 351 cases that had come before him), including "the entire gangs of Kingstown Park, Arno's Vale, - Cane Hall, - and Fountain Estates," who had been "convicted of cane stealing, careless work, and insubordinate conduct." Anderson Reports, 7 June 1836, 13 July 1836, and 20 December 1836, CO 260/54. 125. The coloured assemblyman for New Edinburgh was named Hazell. I am grateful to Adrian Eraser of the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies, Murray's Road, Kingstown, for helping me identify him. 126. In his official reports Anderson commented on this phenomenon, noting that the main offences committed by praedial apprentices were "the cutting down of their employers canes, and larcenies from the provision grounds of their fellow labourers." He dealt with the former offence by "the formation of the whole Gang into a watch over the rising canes; relieved at spells," but observed that "if an effectual check however, be not given to the misdemeanours among themselves, I fear the more industrious negroes will be deterred in a great measure, from raising vegetables at all." Anderson Report, 15 November 1836, CO 260/54.

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throughout the year, which they cd. call their own. Those moments due to the rearing of food for their families, are spent in abodes of vice, & debauchery, in Kingstown. Dances are held in these dens, which are resorted to, from far & near; - the wearied assistants making their way back to their estates in time next morning for the six o'C. bell; - but in reality as may be imagined, incapable of work.127 - No license is required to be taken out by the Owner, - & the Police in years back, seem to have winkened [sic] at them. "High life below stairs",128 if reports may be credited, is there enacted to perfection. At one of these nocturnal assemblies, a mottley groupe had congregated, after riding many a mile on their Masters [sic] horses, - (too common a practice by the best servants, - ) leaving the poor beasts streaming with perspiration, to shiver in the dew: Everything went merrily, - a handsome supper covered the board; and each guest addressed his fellow, by the style & name of his Owner. Suddenly a messenger entered in alarm, "Sir - !, Sir - !, your best horse he dead, - he hang him." Bolt went the affrighted company, - bang flew the dishes & bottles, as every one dashed at whatever eatables or drinkables stood near; one carried off a smoking guinea bird, - another seized on a demijohn of rum, - & the table was cleared in a trice. The tidings were too true: A very fine animal had got entangled in the rope by which he was tied, in such a manner, as to choak itself; and the Knight had to learn on the morrow, that one of his best steeds lay dead many miles off, but how? no one of course knew; - {the culprit had managed to get home, - } & "Jumbee" must stand answerable, {for the deed} A convenient fellow is "Jumbee"; a sort of "Elfin", or "Brownie", whose sole delight is mischief, and whose name is an appalling sound to naughty children, or cowardly Africans. Is the larder emptied of its contents? have wine, or porter casks been broached? - "Jumbee" did the deed. Has an apprenticed labr. a grudge against another? He threatens to invoke "Jumbee" to obeah, i.e. - bewitch him. "Jumbee" is an evil genius, or devil, - in whose reality implicit faith is placed. - Midnight trystings of these genii are frequently held; & if noises are heard, you are sure to be told by your servants 127. This was perceived by Anderson as a persistent problem, since the following summer, he recorded "various instances of neglect of duty, indolence, & improper work," attributing "the proximity of the estates in this district to Kingstown, and the facilities of communication with debauched characters thence, as the causes of these misdemeanours." Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55. 128. Here Anderson may have had in mind William Humphrey's 1772 print, High Life Below Stairs, which depicts a black butler fondly embracing a white maid. Alternatively he could have been referring to James Townley's farce of the same title. Townley, High Life Below Stairs: A Farce of Two Acts (London: Newberry et al., 1759).

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"Massa, - em jumbees; - {you no hear?} 'pose Buckra no know."129 But to go back to these Negro parties, - I recollect trying a girl for appearing at one under very provoking circumstances. Her mistress was asked to a friends' [sic] house, and had laid out her gown, necklace, - gold cross - earrings; & other ornaments, preparatory to dressing. Now, it happened that a "coffee dance" was to hold [sic] on a neighbouring estate: Miss Eve thought the opportunity to shine as the belle, too inviting to be resisted; by means of a confederate, she possessed herself of the lady's entire dress, and attended by a Sable admirer, made her curtsey, en grande tenue of European fashion, necklace, earrings, & all! When accused of the theft, she had the effrontery to deny it, turning upon the quibble, that as the articles were "taken" by her associate, and "given" to her, to wear, she was guiltless of purloining them! Of a verity, as an old Military friend said, - a negro wd. make a capital special pleader."130 Yet with all this proneness to picking & stealing, - I never heard of a highway robbery. One may traverse the entire length of St. Vincent, in the dead of night, without fear of personal violence. Some will have it, this proceeds from other causes than rectitude of principle. The Black is by nature, a coward; - he dreads a White man; and even in their own quarrels, they bluster, & talk a great deal, before either ventures on a blow. Burglary is equally uncommon: Some years back the windows & doors of an estate house were never closed night or day; & from the nature of their construction, these present a very feeble barrier, were there villains to try their strength; {for there are no locks - simple bars of wood} wooden staples rudely crossed over each at sunset being the sole resisting power. Sunday is kept with as much respect to outer decorum in St. Vincent, as in England: The Cathedral, Roman Catholic, - and Methodist chapels of 129. Spirits such as jumbies and duppies inhabited the heavily African-influenced world of religious belief, spiritual emanation, and ghost lore, to which many apprentices subscribed. In The Man-of-Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emergence of Creole Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), Roger Abrahams identifies jumbies as "vexing spirits, who, for some reason, were not put into their appropriate resting place in the proper manner. Thus, they continue to wander through the place of the living, causing apprehension to everyone." He adds that "jumbies are not regarded as malevolent spirits so much as troubled ones who cause upset of some sort." Although Abrahams asserts that "today [1983] most Vincentian peasants disavow any belief in jumbies," they can still be found in the folk culture, since he discovered that "nearly everyone has stories on the subject" (pp. 179-80). 130. Anderson's observation here, which is one of many in which he expressed his amazement at the oratorical skills of apprentices with whom he dealt, is remarkably close to a comment made by abolitionists Joseph Sturge and Thomas Harvey that one of the apprentices with whom they spoke in Jamaica "exhibited an ingenious display of special pleading" (The West

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Kingstown are filled with attentive congregations, - the latter to overflowing.131 A most disgusting practice by female apprentices of washing in Greathead's river perfectly naked, in the very face of parties going or returning from Church, has been recently abolished; and except a stray groupe carrying a few fruits, or vegetables, to their friends (for they dare no longer sell on this day),132 - the appearance of the Negroes is that of a well dressed, & wellbehaved peasantry, (making for their several places of worship} It was, I beleive [sic] long a source of regret, that the Established Church had in a manner abandoned the field, to missionaries of the Methodist persuasion; for without derogating from the instruction these conveyed, there is too much reason to apprehend, that in many Colonies, it was mixed up with political feelings inimical to their internal repose. Not many years have fled, since the few members of the Church of England who desired spiritual aid, were glad to seek it in the only place it was to be found, - viz. "the rogues den," or prison, - where the Chaplain weekly officiated to those confined there: Many of the Planters, & residents, were, - and still are, - of Presbyterian sentiments; - and what from the lukewarmness of one, - the hostility of another, - and the indifference of a third set, to all forms whatever, the Lord's day was signalized as a day of any thing, - "but rest": Rural avocations, - a game of billiards, - or convivial parties, wiled away the sluggish hours. This callousness of feeling has gone bye: Government has earnestly turned its attention to the spiritual wants of the West Indies; and the extensive diocese of the Bishop of Barbadoes is yearly visited by his Lordship. Chapels, & schools, are being erected in various parts of St. Vincent; and the Colony enjoys the ministration of five Clergymen of the Established faith. Altho' the numbers of Scottish Presbyterians are great, and may among their ranks claim the most respectable settlers, - they have not as yet succeeded in their attempt to get up a place of worship; - the Roman Catholics, & Methodists, more fortunate, have been generously Indies in 1837, p. 195), and provides a fine insight into the abilities apprentices had developed both in their present circumstances and, of course, in their previous condition of bondage, to manipulate a system where the formal relations of power and control were so disadvantageous to them. 131. Responding in his official monthly report of 30 June 1837 to the question: "What facilities does your district supply for . . . religious instruction? Is the attendance at church . . . equal to the accommodation?" Anderson informed Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, "The church is capable of holding a larger congregation than are usually present." Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55, 339 verso. 132. When slavery ended in 1834, Saturday replaced Sunday as market day (see footnote 23).

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assisted by their brethren of all communions, - the one in erecting, - the other in repairing their respective Chapels. Spirit of Coleridge! thine indignation must now cease;133 - convicts are no longer worked in chains in Kingstown; nay, Planters are even angry with the Special Magistrate, if in the penal gangs who labour on the public highways, any of their apprentices shd. be discerned!134 They dont [sic] like being "affronted" they say. They wish them confined to hard labour within the prison walls. Is this, or is it not, a change of acute feeling to the better? Stagnant as life is here, - its monotony was broken in upon by that still more dreaded foe, - death. Miasma, rising from the swampy ground in the newer part of Kingstown, aided by the intense heat, & heavy rains, caused a fever, (of which I myself had a smart shake): that towards the end of autumn carried off many estimable parties. Short time sufficed: The beautiful girl who in the morning was the delight of a parent's eye, - newly arrived & rich in European accomplishments, - or the veteran soldier inured [sic] to many a clime, - were alike by evening fall committed to their parent earth; - the brief span of the one; - & the lengthened services of the other, existant [sic] only in affection's memory and in that hope which triumphs over the grave.135 Sickness within the Tropics is of brief duration: It is kill or cure; but the convalescent is longer I think of regaining his pristine state, than in Europe; and there is a sense of loneliness, - a want of the courtesies with which the sick bed is attended "in the Old Country", - so oppressively acute to the 133. Anderson here is responding to a comment by Henry Nelson Coleridge, who visited St. Vincent in 1825. "One thing disgusted me much," Coleridge averred, "I allude to the practice of working runaway, riotous or convict slaves in the public street of Kingstown . . . I have all reason," he continued, "to condemn a custom which must wantonly wound the feelings of every Englishman at least, which must be utterly useless to the public, and unspeakably injurious to the moral system of the wretched individual." Coleridge, Six Months in the West Indies in 1825 (New York: G. & C. Carvill, & E. Bliss, & E. White, 1826), p. 108. 134. Clause 26 of St. Vincent's Police Act (reproduced as Appendix 6) directed that the penal gang, "under the superintendence of the serjeant, or in his absence, of some other member of the police, be employed in any laborious work, either upon the public roads or works, or otherwise." 135. The unenviable reputation of Britain's Caribbean colonies as an unhealthy destination for white emigrants was memorialized in a series of sketches (reproduced as Figure 12) depicting the fate of many a "Johnny New-come" who perished shortly after his arrival in the West Indies. William Green echoes Anderson's reflections on the high rates of mortality and morbidity suffered by British migrants to the region during the Apprenticeship years. "Death and disease stalked the [special] magistracy," Green asserted, " 'seasoning fever' was commonly contracted by magistrates newly arrived from Europe." Green, British Slave Emancipation: The Sugar Colonies and the Great Experiment, 1830-1865 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p. 138.

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Figure 12. Johnny New-come gets sick. (Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Jamaica.)

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invalid, as almost to render existence itself a burden. The Native servants are careless, & forgetful of the most ordinary directions; & the Wife, or daughter of the sufferer is worne out by incessant personal attendance in consequence. Pitiable indeed is the poor Batchelor left to the tender mercies of the Blacks! But to digress from man to his works: I am here reminded of what I have omitted hitherto to notice; - that Nature has done everything for this beautiful isle, - he - {man} nothing. What boundless stores of wealth are yet to be unlocked in the interior of forests, now only a prey to woodslaves,136 & other reptiles! How many thousand acres of virgin soil there exist disregarded or unknown; whilst the petty belt presently in cultivation, is exhausted, or cropped beyond its strength? What slovenly, dangerous, & ill formed tracks guide to every one's door! Where is the public monitor? I might ask where? but that too many reminiscences convince me without the aid of Fineagle's artificial code of memory, - public spirit is a commodity of little avail in the West Indies: One wd. imagine that steam navigation would long ago have been appropriated & be now in operation to facilitate mutual intercourse between the islands? No such thing. People will jabber, & talk, and propose this & the other, - but it only needs to have any thing decent in a given proposal to recommend it, to ensure opposition. "Procrastination" moreover, is the order of the day throughout St. Vincent; the officials too, must be flattered, & their patronage secured, if a man desires success. The divisions in Society are such, - private feelings so strong, - as without interest, to entail defeat on the most active minded individual, whether his object be to promote the innocent hilarity of an idle hour, - or the graver, & more ennobling schemes of a philanthropic mind; for seldom is any isle without a clique who arrogate to themselves the exclusive privelege [sic] of judging in their neighbours [sic] affairs, & directing the tone of the Executive. - Well may it be said "one day certifieth another;" for tomorrow is but the dull routine of yesterday. {Cabals,} Scandal, and salt fish, salt fish, and {cabals,} scandal, for breakfast & dinner, dinner & breakfast. - "vitam continet una dies."131 A man comes here as it were to make a shift to live; he is willing to put up with discomfort & inconvenience in the hope of one day being able to make amends by every indulgence which wealth can procure in Britain, for past trials. When I compared what I had been told in Europe of the West Indies, 136. House lizards. (See footnote 119.) 137. Anderson may have had in mind a line from John Keats, Sleep and Poetry, "Stop and consider! life is but a day."

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with what I saw, - truly the details did force themselves home as smacking confoundedly of King Cambyses' vein.138 The Court House I have said, is a substantial edifice. By means of folding doors, the upper storey can be thrown into one, & a really handsome apartment. Many a gay ball was held here in Sir Chas. Brisbane's time;139 and the walls which had echoed to the oratory of a Creolian Demosthenes,140 in the morning, were at night attuned to the sylph like movements of his dark eyed daughters. After upwards of 18 months silence, they again resounded to the inspiring notes of the dance in Febry. 1837, - when the "Bachelors" gathered around them all the beauty of the isle. I saw in these said rooms on two occasions, many hundreds of the most party coloured population imaginable, assembled, - at a charity bazaar. - White, black, brown, creamcoloured, and snuffmixed, - all united in the benevolent endeavour to contribute to the aid of their less fortunate brethren of mankind. The Court itself met at intervals, - "like angel visits few & far between";141 - and so little business seemed to be done, the wonder is how the practitioners at the bar can exist. As in the Mother Country, - the harvest has been reaped; people are getting wiser or poorer; - and the chances of legal gambling are seldomer tried. - The names of ten gentlemen stood upon the roll of advocates and proctors, - but five of these were nonresidents. The profession of barrister and attorney is combined. I disclaim all personal allusions; but the entire framework of the Judicial system throughout the West Indies, has long been a grievance: Were there any doubt of this assertion, the reports of the Commissioners of legal enquiry, and the measures lately introduced into Parliament for its amelioration, would bear me out.142 Men have been advanced to places of trust & honor, {Attorney Generalships} who were adventurers, without professional knowledge: I 138. "I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein," William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Pan I (II, iv). Shakespeare's reference is to the play, A Lamentable Tragedy mixed full of Mirth conteyning the Life of Cambises, King of Percia, written by Thomas Preston, and published in 1569. The "vein" of King Cambyses' speech refers to the bombastic verbal style that characterizes much of the play, and the tone of Anderson's complaint suggests that he was harbouring frustrations and misgivings about taking up the position in St. Vincent, since apparently it was not living up to his expectations of it, based on what he had been told in Britain. 139. Sir Charles Brisbane was named governor of St. Vincent in November 1808, a position he held until his death in November 1829. 140. Athenian statesman and orator (384/383-322 BC). 141. This quotation is taken from Thomas Campbell's poem, Pleasures of Hope (Part 2), "What though my winged hours of bliss/Like angel-visits, few and far between." 142. On 25 March 1836, the House of Commons passed "A Bill, intituled, An Act to make Provision for the better Administration of Justice in certain of His Majesty's West India

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have heard of a mere skipper, { - not here however} promoted by Government patronage to be an Attorney General! & more than one tale is told of barristers successively acting for, and betraying the secrets of either ligitant [sic] in a Contested suit! No esprit du corps animates the practitioner; the sheer gain of fees supersedes the honourable priveleges [sic] of the toga; and retainers of hundreds of pounds Sterling have been asked by and given, to Counsel of the Colonial bar, - (who otherwise wd. not proceed, -) which wd. more than have repaid the services of the most eminent Jurisconsult in Britain. What again can be greater mockery of Justice than to see the Bench graced by four Judges, the Chief of whom alone has been called to the bar? The others may be summoned from their storerooms, or Plantations, to decide, - it is possible, - on causes in which they as parties may have an interest! I do not say they have; I put the case hypothetically: It is with the System - not the men I quarrel. For their gratuitous services, - they often, on the contrary merit commendation. - Appeals from the Supreme Court for civil causes of King's Bench, & Common Pleas, lie to the Court of Error composed of the Governor, & Council. Here again, the same persons may be members of Council, who are also Assistant Justices! and the Governor (always a naval or military officer) is Sole Chancellor! The many intricacies of a Chancery suit must be to him like that celebrated proposition of mathematics to a schoolboy, which he is wont to designate by a word unmeet for eyes, or ears polite. I heard universal satisfaction (I may say) expressed at the proposed introduction of Local and Circuit Judges, from home, & the readiness with which the Legislature came in aid of the measure was creditable to their discernment. These officials will elevate the character of the Bench in the eyes of the community; and by restraining the mere empiric, afford a fair field to the honest practitioner in their Courts. But I hear the sordid plea of economy by the Colonists generally, will retard, - if not finally overturn the beneficial efforts of Government - for it cannot be supposed the Mother Country is alone to bear the burden (as these wd. have it) of the new appointments. It is but justice to both the legal & medical body of St. Colonies" (6 Will. IV) that divided Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada, Tobago, Antigua, Montserrat, St. Kitt's, Nevis, Dominica and the Virgin Islands into two judicial districts, creating a Superior Court for each district. Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada and Tobago were placed under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of His Majesty's Windward Caribbee Islands, while the others came under the Supreme Court of His Majesty's Leeward Caribbee Islands. The bill stipulated the judicial composition, jurisdiction and schedule of the courts, the qualifications, terms of appointment and mandate of the judges, the composition of juries, the appeals process, and the powers that the superior courts held relative to the islands' existing judicial systems. House of Commons: Sessional Papers 1836, vol. 6, pp. 531-40.

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Vincent, to say, that they reckon among their no. gentlemen who have acquired academic honors on the banks of the Cam, & Isis,143 - and have thoroughly studied their professions in the most approved schools in Britain. Negroes are very superstitious: The practice of "Obeah", it is true is rare, & punishable with death, - but still this species of sorcery lingers in the isle, impervious to legal ken, - as the Blacks allow.144 Amulets, composed of horses [sic] shoes, - old bottles, & rags, - or the like, are frequently exposed in provision grounds to scare away depredators.145 A European wd. smile at the terror which threats of revenge darkly insinuated, have over Negroes [sic] untutored minds. They will tell you if you see them drooping, "I go dead lilly while," - adding they are "sweated," - bewitched; but nothing will induce them to disclose the supposed enchanter's name. In vain they resist the spell; reason & religion, are alike insufficient to save the victim; who sinks to the grave, a prey to a diseased Imagination. I have heard of many well attested, & melancholy cases. It may be that real instances of attrocity 143. Anderson's quaint identification for Cambridge and Oxford Universities by the rivers on whose banks they stand. 144. Joseph John Williams, a Jesuit priest who spent considerable time in Jamaica in the early twentieth century observing and analysing that island's African-derived systems of supernatural beliefs and practices, offers some qualification to Anderson's contention that the practice of obeah, a system of witchcraft which both offered its practitioners protection, and enabled them to avenge wrongs, was "rare." In Psychic Phenomena of Jamaica (1934; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979), Williams asserts that "immediately after . . . emancipation, and during the trying days of reconstruction of the entire social order, with a readjustment to conditions that were so vastly different from the accepted status of nearly two hundred years . . . free reign was given to the religious frenzy that brought again into vogue the myalistic spirit [an African-based religious cult] so long repressed." Williams observed that ex-slaves took advantage of their freedom to engage in "long-forbidden joys," while noting that "the outbursts of religious fanaticism became so intermingled with nocturnal saturnalia, that for a time it was difficult to distinguish one from the other . . . Now that the shackles had been stricken from their bodies," he continued, "why not strike the chains from their souls as well? To 'dig up obeah' consequently became widespread and persistent" (p. 89). See also the same author's Voodoos and Obeahs: Phases of West India Witchcraft (1932; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1970), and Bell, Obeah. 145. Anderson's observations closely match the comments made frequently by contemporary observers of slavery in the British West Indies. John Stewart, for example, noted that an obeah fetish, or obi, placed in the gardens or provision grounds of slaves, provided "an excellent guard or watch, scaring away the predatory runaway and midnight plunderer with more effective terror than gins and spring-guns" (A View of the Island of Jamaica, pp. 278-79), while Robert Renny in An History of Jamaica (London: J. Cawthorn, 1807) described the fetish as a jumbled collection of materials such as blood, feathers, parrots' beaks, dogs' and alligators' teeth, broken bottles, grave dirt, rum, and eggshells, that was made up into a bundle and "stuck in the thatch, hung over the door of a hut, or up on the branch of a plantain tree," instilling such fear into thieves that they would "tremble at the very sight of [it]" (p. 172).

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[sic] by poisoned viands, or fruits, - or pounded glass, or noxious juices introduced into liquids, - have begot apprehensions of similar treatment; but in most instances these result only from words. The negroes have recourse also to divination to discover crime. "The Shifter", - is the most ordinary. A Bible and key, or pair of scissors are the instruments. The latter are so turned as to point to the supposed culprit, who is instantly seized; confession is occasionally extorted; but as may be credited, these ordeals are commonly used on innocent parties agt. whom the complainant has a grudge.146 I was once, one of the Bench of Magistrates before whom a Woman swore an affidavit, impeaching her own sister of theft. The charge was so strongly supported, as to warrant the committal of the accused for further investigation; - in the course of which, the truth was discovered, that the accuser had no other grounds to suppose her kinswoman to have been the thief, - than she had been denounced as such by "the shifter", - a circumstance she carefully concealed on the preliminary examination. To commit the accuser for perjury & release the accused was the immediate Judgt. of the Bench. The nearest approach to a case of "Obeah" I ever knew, - was one from a Leeward estate; but the evidence did not warrant the man's committal [sic] for trial for the graver charge. {& I therefore punished him as guilty of a misdemeanour.} This fellow had conducted himself with gross indecency at the funeral of a fellow apprenticed labourer. He first tried to get some of the water in which the body had been washed; and at the Church yard during the celebration of divine service, jumped into the grave - danced upon the coffin, & took up a handful of earth, which he tied in his handkerchief, declaring that certain individuals who had stolen his yams should now "pay for it."147 Extra-ordinary as it may appear, his own daughter, a fine young girl as yet unsuspected, - fell into low spirits, & finally committed suicide. She was the thief! The consolidation of an efficient Police to meet the exigencies which might arise by the rumoured withdrawal of the white, - & the substitution of 146. Hesketh Bell's analysis of obeah in late nineteenth-century Grenada, an island immediately to the south of St. Vincent, described how "The Shifter" worked in detecting thieves. In his example, however, with a copy of Imitation de Jesus Christ by Thomas a Kempis substituting for the Bible, Bell described how "a key is thrust into the volume; the names of all the neighbours of the person consulting are then called out, and the one at which the key drops out is fixed on as the person sought for" (Obeah, p. 67). 147. There can be little doubt that this man's actions were obeah-related, since grave dirt was integral to the ceremonies associated with the fetishistic practices of the religion.

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free black troops, in most of the {Windward} Caribean [sic] islands, became an object of anxiety with their respective executives. In some of course, from their more extended means, & liberal feelings, - these Police Corps were put on a better grounded foundation than in others. After various delays, both houses of the Legislature of St. Vincent, passed a bill early in October [1836]; {(in compliance with His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor's recommendation)} and by the Union of the Ordinary police, with the Stipendiary force, created a body of nine policemen, & a Serjeant, under the control of the Chief Police Constable. A Chief Police Magistrate was also provided for to superintend the whole, - to be ex officio a Justice of the Peace, - and having power to adjudicate in all misdemeanours, breaches of the Peace, & the like offences committed by any class, - into which one Justice could enquire by Common law, - acts of Parliament in force in the Colony, - or local enactments. (Note - An explanatory act was passed some months subsequently, to prevent the concession of such powers interfering with the duties of the Special Justices.) This Magistrate was to sit in town, three days of every week, from 10 A.M. till 2 P.M.; and every fortnight he was to be assisted by 2 other Magistrates in such cases as required a plurality of Justices.148 - His Excellency was pleased to appoint me to this new Office; and the calls upon my time, both as Chief Police Magt. and Special Justice, — left me little leisure for recreation: In attempting to impose order and energy into the Police establishment - and to enforce a rigid attention to the laws: {national characteristics, - and traits were presented under various guises} The irritable passions of negro and mulatto were strikingly exhibited: Their mutual hatred; - their impatience of restraint, - their fiery ebullitions of anger, - and purpose of revenge; - their recklessness of suing out legal redress for expressions the most trivial, - or acts the most unworthy of notice! - And by no class was greater opposition given to the working of the Police bill than the coloured; - because upon many of them fell its first, and heaviest weight. In coloured women's houses were mostly held those nightly orgies & dances, to which all visitors were welcome on paying for their reel, quadrille, - & stimulants; and other offences against the excise, - revenue, public peace & private property were committed by Coloured people. Too 148. These were provisions of "An Act to repeal certain Clauses of Acts, and to provide a Salary for a Police Magistrate, and to consolidate the Police of Kingstown, and of the Third Division of this Island of St. Vincent," that was repealed in May 1838, and replaced by "An Act for the more effectual Administration of Justice in the Office of a Justice of the Peace, and for the Appointment of Police Magistrates and a Constabulary Force in these Islands." House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 36, pp. 459-60. (See footnote 33.)

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long perhaps did unjust prejudice debar this race from the priveleges [sic] of British subjects; but now that these are accorded, - it became them to receive the boon with respect, & gratitude. So far from evincing any such, there is a petulance in the bearing of even the most respectable, which is insufferably disgusting. Forgetful that there is a brand on their {skin} foreheads for the "sins of the fathers visited on the children,"149 - to be counterbalanced only by personal worth, & gentle demeanour, they thrust themselves forward as au fait to every subject; - whilst the canaille exhibit manners, at once arrogant & brutal - coupled with ignorance the most deplorable. They all expect to be addressed as "Gentlemen", - and no affront is so poignant, as any such supposed omission. If the really respected heads of coloured society wd. exert themselves to extend the means of instruction among those over whom they have influence, they wd. be earning for their posterity a more lasting debt of gratitude, than they ever can, by supporting them in pretensions, alike injurious, in a moral, or political light. My fair readers may perhaps be amused by the following morceau of Coloured Creole literature. Orthography & punctuation are both faithfully preserved. To Mr John Anderson chief Police Magistrait Dear Sir I have taking this appertunity of imbraceing to ask you if you will be so kind as to let me have a permit to give a small hop know and then as the Hallerdays is so near i would have to come to you myself but a nail has injure my Feet i will feel very much oblige to you the permit that you can give to me Let me always hold it myself so as to show it to any of the Constable when they come to Break up the Dance Sir i shall see and take care that theire shall Be no noise or any incombrance 1836 December 21th

I remains yours Most humbly Obedient Servant Ann Greeg150

149. "The gods / Visit the sins of the fathers upon the children," Euripides, Phrixus; and "The sins of the fathers are to be laid upon the children," William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (III, v). 150. After transcribing the letter, Anderson glued it into his journal (reproduced as Figure 13).

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Figure 13. Ann Greeg requests a dance permit. {The following coloquy [sic] exhibits their moral & intellectual qualities} This is bad enough; but nothing to what follows. Having occasion one day to ask a coloured woman of the better class, in my Official Capacity, if her son was born in Wedlock"? She exclaimed "No, in Barbadoes. Where's Wedlock?" When made to comprehend the query, she replied, - "That thing was not the fashion in my day, - but since the reform bill, every one gets married: -1 shall do so myself." Of a verity, - the reformers at home never thought of such wonderful effects from their renowned measure "the bill."151 It is astonishing how soon custom reconciles us to habits & feelings the most opposite to our own. Had I - as I was often tempted to do, - given way to this apathetic indifference, I had long ere now have thrown away my pen, and forbore to note down whatever struck me as novel, or remarkable; but I persevered in spite of heat & lassitude, & ennui, in hopes I might amuse friends to whom my rough details might prove an antedote [sic] for an idle hour. And a scene I have just witnessed, comes opportunely to my aid. It certainly illustrates to the fullest extent an important trait of Negro character, wh. I have before touched upon. One was brought to me accused of 151. The woman was presumably referring to the Reform Bill of 1832, although, as Anderson implied, the connection between her marital status and that piece of legislation is obscure.

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stealing a medal belong, to a member of a friendly society. He repelled the charge with ferocity; demanded to "Kiss the book"; & in short uttered blasphemies too horrible to be repeated, whilst the investigation was still pending, - his Master came in, & preferred a fresh charge agt. him, as a runaway. It was substantiated; & no sooner did he receive sentence for being so - than he told the complt. in the first accusation, that if he wd. go to such a place, he wd. find his medal. In 5 minutes afterwards it was exhibited in Court, (the audience laughing} The treatment of children by their parents is unnaturally severe for the veriest trifles; whilst at other periods the same parties exhibit a ridiculous partiality; but towards the children of others, negroes set no bounds in their fury. I will never forget the disgusting details of an assault by a Negress on a child of about 9 years, who was suspected by her of stealing some yams; {of her's [sic]} nor the mangled form of the poor victim! Yet this wretch, when I sent her to stand her trial at the Sessions, - cooly turned up her hypocritical eyes, exclaiming "Oh! Lord! This is the way thy servants are treated! Man judges." (but thou Oh Lord seest.} Christmas passes off without any of the rioting, - & little of the hilarity of past times: Each successive season witnesses the decline of Negro gambols, and Planters' conviviality. A.D. 1837. - The New Year was ushered in by an elegant ball at Government House on 12th day, to which the invitations were very general. For the first time, that I had seen, - the Military appeared, - {en grande tenue} in full uniform. Hitherto, they attended parties in their shell jackets, (the same as when they took their morning rides,) - neither a becoming, nor complimentary dress before ladies. Comfort may make them more supportable; - but if civilians are content to squeeze themselves into long cloth coats, surely their Gallant defenders ought not to repine at playing Mufti for a few hours? {Every thing went off with eclat; and it is only doing justice to say that indeed the urbanity & attention of His Excellency Lieut. Governor Tyler, & his amiable family, - to their guests on all occasions, constituted not the least delightful reminiscences of their hospitality.}152 152. Sir George Tyler (1792-1862), who was the eldest son of Admiral Sir Charles Tyler's second marriage, spent most of his career in the Royal Navy. After losing his right arm in the Battle of Quiberon Bay (1811), he became a commander in 1815, then a captain in 1822. His tenure as lieutenant-governor of St. Vincent (1833-40) was followed by a rear-admiralcy in 1852. Five years before his death, he was promoted to vice-admiral. Tyler and his wife had a large family. Anderson probably deleted this favourable depiction of Tyler after relations between the two men became increasingly strained, as is documented below (pp. 191-93).

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In a valley beneath Greig's ridge, on the Windward Coast, is a small Carib settlement. The descent is tortuous, & none of the easiest; but the ever changing magnificence of the landscape compensates these disadvantages. On the extremity of the ridge, is a "Maroon", or banquetting cottage, of the Proprietor.153 From it, the eye is carried over an extensive range of primeval forest, - mountain, & plain, to the verge of the ocean. One may here fancy themselves in a Northern latitude; both blankets, and a stove being comfortable additions to the wayfarer's luxuries who may tarry a day or two. The huts of these Caribs are outwardly neater, but inwardly greatly beneath them - than those of the Negroes'; the features of the people, - tho' black, - distinct from these; Their hands & feet delicately small. None of them can read, or write; the men for the most part, spend their time in weaving fishing tackle, & the baskets which go by their name; whilst the attention of the women is directed to the culture of their plots of garden ground for home consumption. They bring neither fruits nor vegetables to market. This tribe are all descendants of a venerable Patriarch (recently deceased) who seceeded [sic] from his brethren in the insurrection, - & disclosed important particulars to the British troops. They have remained here, ever since, unmolested, - & are allowed rations by Government, which are distributed to them at stated periods, in Fort Charlotte. As they marry entirely among themselves, they are of course connected by many degrees of relationship; on no account will they form negro alliances. Such as I have met with - especially of the yellow Caribs - have a degree of ferocity & cunning in their features, - with a wild haggard stare, - inexpressibly revolting. The sharpened aspect - elongated eyebrow - & eye - which marks the Esquimaux - as well as the American Indian are strikingly exemplified in the Carib countenance.154 153. Describing "a maroon party" that he attended, Special Magistrate John Colthurst explained "the word maroon, and why these parties are called so. It is taken from the name given to the black insurgents of some of the colonies during slavery, and, from the circumstance of their living in woods and fortresses, these parties (alfresco) derive their name. It is a club of a number of planters who contribute both meat and drink for the occasion, and a most jolly party it usually is." Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 67. 154. Michael Craton refers to this community of Black Caribs in his study of the Second Carib War, noting that "incredibly, a tiny group of Black Caribs somehow remained unmolested on the Upper Massarica and received a grant of land at Greggs in the 1840s." See Michael Craton, Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 207. Craton provides no information, however, on this group's collaboration with the British, and I have been unable to identify the "venerable Patriarch" to whom Anderson referred. Despite Craton's assertion that "they are virtually indistinguishable from other poor black smallholders in the hillier lands beyond the

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When in Marriaqua Valley, - on his way to Greig's ridge, - the tourist must not fail to make a circuit to the celebrated Spa. - It is a calybeate155 of singular efficacy in many complaints; but as I had no occasion to {try its virtues} record how far fame has lied, or told truth, - my undivided attention was given to the unrivalled succession of scenery by which it is approached. For panoramic effect, - softened beauty, - or towering grandeur, & extent, - the capacious tract of Marriaqua is unrivalled perhaps in the world. It is properly speaking a huge bowl or crater of from 25 to 30 miles in circumference - which bursts with electric suddeness [sic] on the sight, as the summit of the Vigie ridge, (forming the outer rim of the circle) is attained. - But one outlet, and that, nearly perpendicular, - exists to this immense amphitheatre; and through it glides the Yambou river: Here is the majestic cabbage tree, mentioned by Mr Sheppard, in his History of St. Vincent, 156 high [sic] by trigonometrical measurement. The imagination will be taxed in vain to discover this passage, if no friendly tongue be near to disclose the Secret. The fiery sun glares his hottest rays into the Valley, yet it is luxuriantly green; - the verdure releived [sic] at intervals by the yellow hue of cane fields. Enter that dark mass of forest beyond, and how changed is the scene! Delicious coolness succeeds intense heat; and the senses yield to the intoxicating reveries of Solitude, enjoyed in the midst of Nature's noblest works, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot."156 - Here is a groupe such as are met with in the Chalets of the Alps, - or in the prairies of an American squatter; - Scattered fields redeemed from the woods, and fenced off by rude logs; - cattle browsing on the hills; - and simple rustic huts, - where a few settlers have located. One of these, - an old Irishman, and a widower, - devotes his lonely days to his dairy, & the rearing of {cattle} stock. The variety, & size of the trees, through whose green alleys we were conducted to the spring, claimed unceasing admiration. Over many of their stems, the wild fig has wound its clustering tendrils, and interlaced the shoots, which descending from the parent trunk, - throw their arms out to the obstruction of the path. In front of the Spa, flows a little stream, deeply tinged with iron ore, beside which on my first visit to "Maroon" we sat down, three in number; - our thoughts carried back to our common plantations" (Craton, Testing the Chains, p. 207), today's descendants of this Black Carib community indeed retain an identification with their forebears. (See Map 1 for the location of the Greiggs Carib settlement.) 155. A misspelling of chalybeate, water that contains a high concentration of iron. 156. Alexander Pope, Translations and Imitations. Eloisa to Abelard, "How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot."

SAINT VINCENT

GENERAL ABSTRACT from the Returns of the Special Magistrates; shewing the number of free Children in the several Divisions of the Colony, on the 1 st August, 1834; the number of Births and Deaths, between the 1 st August, 1834, and the 31 st July, 1836; the consequent increase and decrease, and the total number of free Children in the Colony, on the 31 st July, 1836.

Divisions

Number of free Children on 1st August, 1834

Number of Births, to Number of deaths, to 3 1st July, 1836 3 1st July, 1836

Increase to 3 1st July, 1836

Decrease to 3 1st July, 1836

Males Females Total Males Females Total Males Females Total Males Females Total Males Females Total

Total number of free Children, 3 1st July, 1836 Males Females Total

First

331

354

685

160

129

289

68

60

128

92

69

161

423

423

846

Second

315

319

634

145

125

270

58

49

107

87

76

163

402

395

797

Third

115

122

237

53

48

101

26

19

45

27

29

56

142

151

293

Fourth

not distinguished 275 not distinguished

1 05 not distinguished

6 1 not distinguished

44

not distinguished

319

Fifth

162

148

310

53

56

109

29

19

48

24

37

61

186

185

371

Sixth

175

193

368

70

81

151

30

24

54

40

57

97

215

250

465

TOTAL

2509

1025

Total number of Births in three years, to 31 st July, 1836 .. 1,025 Total number of Deaths, in same period 443 Total increase in two years 582

443

Number of free Children on 1st August, 1834 Increase in two years Total number of free Children, 31st July, 1836

True copy, S. OSBOURNE GIBBES, Govt. Sec.

[Printed record glued into manuscript]

3091

582 2,509 582 3,091

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country by the classic name of "Tiviot", by which the rivulet is known.157 We saw several groupes of "free" children on our route: Let me remind you, that so denominated, are the descendants of appd. labrs. who in August 1834, had not completed the age of six years. A charge - (of a grave, & highly culpable character had it been true,) was made against the parents of such infants, by the House of Assembly, & some Planters, - that since their own Emancipation they had manifested universal & apathetic cruelty to the nurture of these unfortunates.158 From my own enquiries I felt the accusation had been advanced without due consideration. The publication of an official document by the Governt. has set the matter to rest; & proved that this, like many other popular errors had no foundation in fact. I extract it from the Royal Gazette; - a production characterised by considerable editorial talent, - but miserably deficient in paper, topography, & a proper set out. Its meagre sheet reminds one of the pitiful French "gazettes," - or the Antiquarian curiosities of the Elizabethan age, when the Virgin Queen introduced the novel expedient of newspapers to cheer the loyal subjects against the Armada, & Spanish Inquisition! Yet this petty islet boasts three such weekly publications! Of them more anon, - some idle hour. (The foregoing Return was laid before the House of Assembly, during its late session, together with the following despatch from his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor.)'59 Government-House Saint Vincent, 7 March, 1837 "Sir - In consequence of a communication made to me by your Honor, in accordance with directions from the Honorable House of Assembly on the 8th of September last, drawing my attention to the great mortality then prevailing amongst the free children of apprenticed labourers located upon the different Estates in this Island, and especially in the Leeward division, and stating that such mortality arose from the great disinclination on the part of the parents to pay either in money or time for Medical attendance, the Honourable [sic] House being aware that it could not legislate upon the 157. Anderson is referring to the River Teviot in southern Scotland. See Map 1 for locations of places referred to by Anderson in this section. 158. This was probably part of some planter scheme to incorporate the free children into the apprenticeship system, a recourse that the apprenticed parents of these children refused to take. See Marshall, "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands," p. 211-12, and also footnote 103. 159. Anderson glued this printed record into his journal.

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subject, earnestly requested that I would take the subject into my serious consideration. I have to request that you will inform the Honorable House, that measures were adopted by me, as soon as practicable, to ascertain the extent of the evil complained of, and it is now my pleasing duty to lay before the Honourable [sic] House of Assembly an abstract of a Census taken by the Special Magistrates, in each division of the free children that existed on the 1st of August, 1834, together with the increase and decrease of that portion of the population for two years ending 31st July, 1836. This abstract shews that the Honourable [sic] House of Assembly must, at the period of your communication, have been under a wrong impression, as to the fact of great mortality then prevailing, since notwithstanding the disease from Measles which prevailed in the spring of 1835, it would appear that there has been an increase of more than eleven and a half percent, in each year, in that class; a circumstance which will scarcely justify the assumption that great mortality prevailed from the inattention of the Parents. To the fact of such an increase, is added the testimony of each Special Magistrate, who, upon minute enquiry, (with the exception of a few cases, where mothers had not taken their children in what the Doctor conceived proper time, to the Hospital,) reported that no instance had come to their knowledge, of the want of proper attention, on the part of the parents, towards their children, nor was there any example, from which they could draw the slightest inference, that the Parents were destitute of that affection for their children, which is the common attribute of human nature.160 With respect to another point contained in your communication, 'the labour of free children,' I know of no means so calculated to secure that 160. During the last twenty years of slavery, St. Vincent's slave population declined significantly: Robert Montgomery Martin estimated annual population totals for 1812 - 24,920 slaves; 1825 - 23,780 slaves; 1831 - 22,997 slaves; and 1834 - 22,250 slaves, while B. W. Higman has tabulated statistics for 1810 - 27,400 slaves; 1820 - 24,750; 1830 - 23,100; and 1834 - 22,250. These decreases can, in part, be attributed to the pathological demographic characteristic that afflicted almost all British West Indian sugar colonies, where deaths within the slave population outnumbered births. Anderson's comments here suggest that in St. Vincent, as elsewhere in the British Caribbean, the end of slavery transformed the demographics of the island's ex-slave population, which now exhibited a net natural increase in its numbers. See Robert Montgomery Martin, History of the Colonies of the British Empire (London: William Allen and George Routledge, 1843), p. 54; and B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), pp. 68-70. Appendix 4 contains population estimates for St. Vincent during the era of the Apprenticeship.

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desirable end, as fostering and encouraging the increasing confidence which at present happily prevails between the employer and apprentice, and which cannot fail of inculcating by its influence, that moral principle of industry in the children, the accomplishment of which is so essential to the happiness, interest, and welfare of all parties. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant, Geo. Tyler. The Honourable the Speaker of the House of Assembly. "161 Mrs Carmichael inclines to think that the tone of morals in the West Indies among both sexes of Genteel society is stricter than in England.162 I am not going to make mine a cronique scandalense, & a lady is good authority; but setting aside the whispers of rumour's ever varied tongue, - what Country in the world exhibits such an anomolous state of society? Talk of France, or Italy, being noted for the loose lives of their inhabitants? Look at these Colonies! where the lazar spot of bastardy is stamped on the bulk of the population. Enter a house: - half a dozen brown or mustee urchins are squalling, and tumbling in your way; yet no questions are asked, - they are are [sic] consequences of such every day's occurrence no one minds them! And men, of the most rigid decorum, will not hesitate to give a nod, or a "howdye," & - "morrow," - (Creole - "good day," - ) to the mother of this establishment, as if she were a lawfully married wife! Such is the force of a disgusting Custom! Of the myriads of these beings, no provision is being made for their future support, - poor laws must of necessity come into play; or they turn robbers, and depredators! Why this lethargy? When will the Legislatures both of the Mother Country, & Colonies, rouse to the danger? I cannot conceive a situation more distressing than that of a delicate, high minded English girl being subjected to bear the company of a man at a dinner party, or assembly, - whose moral perceptions are blunted, & his taste vitiated, by such a connection. When Sir Ralph Woodford, first went 161. Anderson glued this printed record into his journal. 162. "The immoral habits which I had heard described as existing in the best society even in the West Indies, I nowhere found; and I am inclined to believe that the tone of morals in this respect, among both sexes, is much more really strict than is generally found in what is called genteel society in England: besides, it ought to be recollected, that in Britain much concealed immorality may take place, but in most of the colonies this is impossible, - every thing is known, and speedily rumoured abroad." Carmichael, Domestic Manners, vol. 1, pp. 59-60.

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Governor to Trinidad, it was all the rage for Gentlemen to exhibit their coppered inamoratas as they drove round the circle of an evening. Sir Ralph put his veto on any man so doing, being received at Government House; & so salutary was this check, that in process of time, the last adherent to the olden fashion, gave in his adhesion, by marrying an interesting European lady.163 Every day's experience impresses the necessity of exalting the moral & intellectual faculties of the population, by the encouragement of Wedlock, - for how can the negro be improved if he sees his white superiors setting him an example in low, & groveling sensuality. Viewed in either a moral or political sense, the formulation of a distinct class possessed of all the vices, and but few of the better qualities of either their White, or Black Progenitors, - cannot be looked upon but as pregnant with evil consequences; - a class, (to whom not inappropriately may be applied the words of Sir N. W. Wraxhall (Posthumous Memoirs I p. 174) "wholly unconscious or ignorant, that liberty cannot be preserved without public morals, & the severe restraints of law, under the strong control of an executive power."164 The law it is to be feared has been but leniently applied as a corrective in times past by the Magistracy: Commercial relations with the men, & liaisons of a tenderer nature with the women, naturally bias the mind, {and great was the odium & opposition which befel [sic] myself for keeping a sharp eye over the brutal & demoralized canaille of Kingstown} No one of course is any time a resident in St. Vincent, without paying a visit to the celebrated extinct volcano, in the N.W. quarter, - the Souffriere.^5 I ascended the mountain from Windward; journeying leisurely from one plantation to another, - & receiving a hearty welcome from the hospitable proprietors. They mix with each other on more friendly, & unceremonious terms than nearer the capital; & there being no inns, the traveller must venture on - & has always found, every private mansion, at his command. From Colonarie to the three Rivers Estate and throughout the same is scenery would rouse the dullest to admiration. Observe those clouds melting into distance over the fantastic forms of vapour created by the illusions of light & shade, - and say could the happiest pencil hope to retain but even one magic tint? But I linger off the main track. - The tunnel at Mount Young, - and a longer one near the sea, - on the Grand Sable property,166 163. Sir Ralph Woodford was governor of Trinidad from 1813 until his death in 1828. 164. Anderson misspelled the name of the author, Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall (1751-1831), Posthumous memoirs of his own time (London: R. Bentley, 1836). 165. See Map 1 for location of La Soufriere. 166. The estate of the Reverend Thomas Alexander Browne.

John Anderson 's Journal

169

will rivet his attention, - as not less, will the burst of the Carib Country, soon after emerging thro' the former, - the stranger's admiration. Georgetown - a desolate hamlet - is no bad epitome of an American backwoods village. It contains a parsonage - grog shop - magistrate's house and treadmill - but no Lawyer. The road up the mountain - if road it can be called - tries a freshman's nerves I am free to confess not a little; & none but horses well inured to such tracks could bear him onwards. A false step would precipitate both rider & quadruped "to abyss profound"; - and as the shrubs, and tangled fret work of the trees almost conceal the ridge along which the pathway is carried, as well as the preciptous [sic] descent beneath, on either side, - it is difficult to force one's way at times. The lady of a Gallant officer of the Garrison some months before, was thrown over the precipice full 40 feet with her horse; {caused by his stumbling;} and miraculously preserved by the tough, & sinuoy nature of the ferns, and parasite plants, which broke her further descent. The rock here is said to be 300 feet perpendicular! Yet with the spirit of a warrior's bride, the undaunted equestrian, insisted, - & succeeded, - in getting on to the Summit! On attaining the bed of the Rabacca or "dry" river, destroyed, in the terrific eruption of 1812, - the cold was so intense as to prevent our party longer keeping their seats; we accordingly dismounted, & toiled our painful way to the edge of the Crater. Clouds of thick vapour now enveloped us, - whilst sharp, & continuous rain penetrated to the skin. Still we persevered in hopes of the storm blowing off, - and when we reached the rim of the tremendous abyss3 - one sheet of mist spread itself over the mighty void beneath. We sat down; and with our feet on the verge of the crater, - discussed some animal comforts, which alternate heat, - cold, fatigue, & wet made extremely palateable: But our journey had been rendered fruitless; - the sublimity of the scene was in great part lost, - and we returned to the appointed resting place for the horses; and thence to our friendly host's, bringing away a plentiful collection of the lichen, mosses, & ferns, which line the hill.167 Along the brink of the gulph, gentlemen have made their way from leeward to windward, - & on horseback too! and more than one adventurous individual has accomplished this daring feat at midnight! Not far from the summit a stone pillar records the unhappy fate of a Serjt. of the 65th infantry, who perished from exhaustion, & cold; and is buried on the spot where his comrades found his lifeless remains. 167. See Map 1 for locations of places referred to by Anderson in this section.

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Between Slavery and Freedom

I saw no rare, or beautiful birds in my excursion: One must visit Trinidad or the Main, to gratify his sight with the luxuriant plumage and innumerable species of the feathered tribes in Tropical Climes. St. Vincent is peculiarly meagre in its ornithology [sic]: The humming bird, brilliant in green and golden hues, seems the most abundant. It varies in size from a quarter of an inch to five inches, & is exquisitely lovely. Of a morning or evening, the shrill note of the mocking bird, reminds the Scotsman of his own mavis, "and its wood notes wild";168 - while Philomel169 may be imagined at evenfall, to pour forth her plaintive melody, - so just, so varied the tone of the mocking bird's pipe! It is the only bird here which vents itself in song; - and readily, as its name denotes, imitates any cry, or noise. If this Colony yields the palm to Guiana, for the number, and beauty of its birds, it happily escapes the scourge of its nozious reptiles. No Cayman,170 or Alligator infests the streams; no Iguana^ - Cebayru, - rattle snake,, or Kunukusi,171 are here, to dart with envenomed, and deadly spring on the unsuspecting traveller. The shark - (especially the great white shark, - ) is the enemy most to be feared, if an individual is fond of bathing, as he prowls about all the bays, and inlets, - and most likely it is the dread of this monster which so generally deters the Colonists from indulging in the luxury of a sea dip. - The negroes have a horror of salt water; should they by any means get wet with it, they lose no time in imersing [sic] themselves in fresh, - that the saline particles may not injure their skin! With early dawn on the first morning of my Colonial residence, I pulled with our boat's crew into a retired nook, and enjoyed the renovating effects of a good plunge into the waves; but I well remember the dread of seeing some such unwelcome visitor, - damped my gratification there, - not less than the Manchineel tree which lined the beach, did ashore; for I was in constant apprehension of the viscus of this Upas Plant172 falling 168. John Milton, L'Allegro (1, 127), "Warble his native wood-notes wild." In Scotland the thrush is called the mavis. 169. The personification of the nightingale. 170. Central and South American alligators. 171. In his study of British Guiana, Dr. Henry Dalton identified as a "very formidable species" of rattlesnake, "the Kunukusi or Courracouchi of the Indians (Crotalus mutus), which is of a yellow colour, with black or brown spots on the back. It is from eight to twelve feet long, and is found in the forests, which is termed bushmaster by the colonists. It is very much dreaded by travellers, and those who have to traverse woods, for it has no rattle by which to warn of its approach." Henry G. Dalton, MD, The History of British Guiana, vol. 2 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman's, 1855), p. 373. The context of Anderson's observations would indicate that the "cebayru" is a type of iguana or the Indian name for one. 172. A Javanese tree whose latex is poisonous. The upas is, however, not related to die manchineel.

John A nderson 's Journal

171

on my skin, & blistering it. Persons who have unwittingly taken shelter under a Manchineel, in a shower, have had reason to rue their want of consideration. The fruit of this tree, although tempting to the eye, - is instantly fatal, if eaten. In colour it resembles the peach, - & like it, contains a stone; whilst the gaudy hue of the flowers, and the dark green of the leaves which encircle the fruit, are calculated to invite the incautious stranger. At noon, a subtle, & pernicious taint is communicated to the Atmosphere, by particles of dust, then emitted by the flowers in every direction. The deleterious qualities of the juice of the Manchineel., suggested to the Aborigines of these islands, the idea of using it as an instrument of warfare: Having collected the vegatative [sic] poison, into a suitable vessel, they allowed it to acquire a gummy consistence, into which they dipped their arrows, - and javelines. Unerring in its purpose, the messenger thus charged, produced instantaneous, & mortal effects. "Well beau," (the familiar address to a young Male Negro, - ) "what's the matter?" exclaimed I to a servant who entered, (just as I conclude this sentence, - ) with a face as long as a barber's pole, - his head tied up with a bandana handkerchief, - and his jacket clasped like a Spanish cloak round his neck, the arms hanging tenantless down his side. "Massa, - me ick - me feber, - kin hurt me too much." S. when commencing a word, is unpronouncable by Blacky: Now, this "fever" attack, is an universal complaint; everything, from a sore thumb to more serious ailment, is "fever" with Mungo, - and treated by his own quack species in pretty much the same way. To say truth, most of these invalids as they wd. be thought, are mere shammers; - their only object being to lay up for a few days after, - or perhaps, preparatory to, - some nocturnal debauch, - or when seized with a fit of the sullens. At no period are females more troublesome in all the vagaries of a whimsical imagination than when they conceive themselves in the way of "adding to their family." Numberless are their expedients then to "sit saftly", in utter inaction. Often & Often again, have I had medical certificates exhibited to me, in my Judicial Capacity, that the host of males & females who have crept into the sick house, to await the Doctor's periodical visit, are perfectly free of disease, & fit for their usual labour: Their end has been gained however; a day or two's respite has been extracted from Buckra "Manager", or "Obsheer"! (Overseer) Joking apart, - it is truly annoying of a morning to find perhaps, not one only, but all your Negro domestics suddenly announcing their incapacity for their duties! - If the economy of an ordinary establishment be thus deranged, - even an uncreolized European

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may imagine the still greater confusion such a tale creates on an estate? There is nothing for it, but to put the best face on the affair, - bestir yourself in their stead, - & wait patiently till the Physician, or time with its load of ennui even to Quashy, - brings relief. Talking of the pretences seized by Negroes for being sick, - none is so readily laid hold of, as a good ducking. They are the veriest cowards in existence in many ways; in none more than being exposed to wet, or cold. I have heard a great stout fellow of a policeman plead as an excuse for not mounting watch, that it rained! A bomb shell fired among a crowd, wd. not make them fly faster, than a torrent opened from the Heavens disperses a timid field gang. Doubtless, such are occasionally seen working in the wet, - but they do so with aversion, & are not kept on, without urgent necessity; & then good, warm liquor (syrup) is passed among them by their employers, to counteract any bad effects. Cutaneous eruptions, - the result of extreme filth, & neglect, - are common among Negroes; - they are not incapacitated thereby from labour (as they would have one believe); on the contrary I have had medical testimony that moderate work rather benefits them. Among a race so indifferent to personal cleanliness, - it was no wonder intelligence of the smallpox having appeared in some of the neighbouring islands spread consternation. The Quarantine laws were put in rigorous force; the guns of Fort Charlotte, and the battery at Cane Garden on the opposite shore brought to bear on any vessel attempting an entrance, - and many a well told shot roused to a full sense of their danger, the fool-hardy tars who were rash enough to disregard the admonitory cannon. - At the moment I am writing (4th March [1837]) with a serene sky, and sea, of unlimited blue, spread like a map before me, - the yellow flag is waving over some unfortunate barks condemned to be sun dried, & rocked, within pistol shot of land. - Talking of disease, - there is a very disgusting one peculiar to Negroes, - the yaws; and another which distends their legs into huge trunks of bloated fat, & corruption, called Elephantiasis. "C'est principalement (says Remont*} dans les parties du globe qui sont asservies a une gouvernment tyrranique, que I'elephantiasis joue un grand role, avec ses alliees les affections lepreuses, et avec ses compagnes les fievres pestilentielles: la sante generale ne va pas avec I'extreme servitude." *Histoire de L'elephantiasis p. 29. 30 par Remont.173 These philosophic remarks are worthy of deep consideration; in free & 173. Anderson misspelled the name of the author, Francois Raymond, Histoire de {'elephantiasis (Lausanne: F. Grasset, 1767).

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flourishing communities such scourges of the human race are unknown; whilst in the West Indies; - in Asia - and indeed throughout all the East; wherever in short, the breath of slavery has cursed the land, - they are of common occurrence. The origin of Elephantiasis may be traced to the undisturbed security with which vermin (jiggers especially) are allowed to breed in the toes, & feet; {and the putridity of the ulcers thence generated} Numbers become lame; - & often incurable. Disorders of the stomach prevail universally brought on by indiscreet mastication of unripe canes - the disease known as mal d'etomac perhaps has its latent origin in the same cause; depression of mind - & unnatural appetite superinducing a fondness for dirt-eating. But above all disgusting sights, is the unfortunate smite [sic] with leprosy. The healthy, shining black skin, (so remarkably opposed to the dingy blanchness of the coloured class) is now streaked with an unnatural, scaly incrustation, which forcibly recalls the divine sentence against him who "went out a leper as white as snow."174 An attempt was made by the Legislature to provide an asylum for these outcasts from humanity, either in some remote spot in St. Vincent proper, or on one of the adjoining islets, called "the Keys"; - like many others the scheme was never realized: and even under the galleries of Kingstown, the charity of the benevolent is occasionally besought by a wandering leper, to support an existence which has no solace on this side of Eternity.175 End of April [1837] Public curiosity has been excited, and all Kingston [sic] is on the qui vive, by H. M. Racehorse now in the bay suddenly slipping her cables, and giving chace [sic] to a suspicious vessel which has crossed the entrance. - "A slaver" "A slaver" is in everyone's mouth, & already have the keen Planters alloted the unfortunates she is supposed to be freighted with, among them.176 174. Anderson's paraphrase of 2 Kings 5:27: "So he went out from his presence a leper, as white as snow." 175. Political inertia in dealing with the the plight of St. Vincent's lepers was not new to the island. Noting leprosy's gradual increase through the last few years of slavery, Charles Shephard criticized "the selfish apathy, which the planters at present indulge in, by whose preponderance in the Legislature, the adoption of those salutary measures, which have frequently been proposed, is prevented." Although conceding that "the days of West Indian prosperity are probably terminated," he chided island authorities for refusing to bear the "moderate expence" required to deal with such "a loathsome and horrid disease." Shephard, Historical Account of St. Vincent, pp. 210-11. Later in the century, lepers were housed in a building in Fort Charlotte. 176. The actions of St. Vincent planters clearly reveal what was a common aspiration among their class throughout the sugar region. As a consequence of their desire to secure additional labour, the British West Indian islands were, in David Murray's words, "not unwilling"

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The Racehorse and another man of war brig, have returned: it was "no go". In place of a Slaver, the ship turns out to be a Spanish Merchantman bound for Angostura on the Main. How the idealists looked! I recur to the Colonial press. - Besides the "Royal St. Vincent Gazette", - we have another "Gazette" also "Royal", but not likewise, - Official. You doubtless remember the facetious pleasantry of old John Clerk, of Parliament House Celebrity, when he towered the Giant of the Scottish Bar, to a certain Wiggling, who maintained, that "also" and "likewise" were synonymous terms? John denied the proposition: - "For instance" (said he) your father's name is — ; so is your's [sic] also, - but you are not like-wise". The "Royal St. Vincent Gazette" published every Saturday, - is patronized by the Local Government. It is decidedly liberal in its principles; & the Selections from the Metropolitan press which it introduces are from the "Atlas",177 - and other Whig papers. Its rival Ex-Official publication comes to receive the liberated Africans, often known as emancipados, taken from illegal slaving vessels bound for Spain's Caribbean colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico that had been captured by the Royal Navy. Indeed, in the 1830s, the islands "were clamouring for a share of the cheap African labour, [while] the squabbling among British colonies over the distribution of the Africans continued well into the 1840s." David R. Murray, Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain and the Abolition of the Cuban Slave Trade (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 240. Howard Johnson, in his study of "The Liberated Africans in the Bahamas, 1811-60," Immigrants and Minorities 1, no. 1 (March 1988): 16-40, shows how emancipados found themselves in "a kind of modified slavery" (p. 31) when distributed among planters and others during the Apprenticeship in that British colony. Had the St Vincent planters been in a position that day to allocate to themselves the labour of Africans on board an illegal slave ship, they would have been obliged to provide "adequate maintenance and protection from injury, in return for moderate but regular labour," which essentially would have meant their integration into the ranks of the praedial apprentices, a "kind of modified slavery" indeed, just as had happened in Trinidad, British Honduras and Grenada, as well as the Bahamas. Murray, Odious Commerce, p. 282; Johnson, "Liberated Africans," p. 31. Planters elsewhere in the Caribbean sugar region were similarly motivated. Murray explains how emancipados became "a new class of slaves" in Cuba (Odious Commerce, pp. 271-97), while Laird Bergad's study of the Matanzas region, Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: The Social and Economic History of Monoculture in Matanzas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), shows that Africans classified as emancipados were usually "entrusted to planters who were obliged to enter into contracts guaranteeing maintenance and wages." Once on the plantations, however, Bergad asserts that "these Africans were treated exactly as ordinary slaves" (p. 203). Similar circumstances prevailed in Puerto Rico. In "The Allocation of Liberated African Labour through the Casa de Beneficiencia: San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1859-1864," Slavery and Abolition 12, no. 3 (December 1991): 200-216, Teresita Martinez Vergne shows that when "on 5 February 1859, the Majesty, a ship whose cargo was rumoured to be almost a thousand Africans, ran aground just off Puerto Rico's eastern coast, . . . landowners in the region rushed to buy more than 300 slaves and to conceal them on their estates" (p. 201), while even the remaining Africans, who were accorded emancipado status, were subordinated within Puerto Rican society. 177. Atlas: A general newspaper and journal of literature, which was published from 1826 to 1862, was a liberal Whig newspaper which drew its reformist political principles primarily from

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out on thursday, & expressed the sentiments of the Executive under the Brisbane administration; an administration, during which, many here are of opinion, the morals of the Colony did not shine with peculiar lustre, {many Colonists seem to think as having been little favourable either to the morals or the pecuniary advantages of the Colony} This latter publication now leads the opposition, - if at times, with advantage to the public, - not without gall. Amusingly enough, it professes to defend the tenets of Toryism! A third Newspaper "The Chronicle", likewise Tory! is the property of, and was started by, the Coloured population; {as the organ of "their order." The less said about such a raficiamento the better; - its articles are truly jumble high sounding words, of His Majesty's English in most admirable mixture admired disorder!) All these Journals are very inferior as respects paper, and printed in bad type. One would imagine their columns wd. at least contain spirited reports of the Colonial Parliament? So far from doing so, the {meagre reports of the} proceedings in the "Honourable House" are the most somniferous articles imaginable!178 Apropos of the house of Assembly, & Board of Council. - The first consists of nineteen; the latter of 13 members, including the Bishop of Barbados, & the Leeward isles. By courtesy, every individual of the Upper House is addressed as junior scions of Nobility are at home: - "the Honble. Mr. — "; the President, as "His Honor". Guiltless of oratorical display, - the debates of the "collected wisdom", do not even exhibit the more homely, but useful qualities of promptitude, and dispatch in business. Hour after hour, - day after day, steal on, - and witness nothing effected, - where there is no lack of work to be performed. To be sure, jorums179 of sangaree to enliven the dull routine of duty, do not now as of yore, progress around the circular table whereat the Sages of the Commons are ensconced, each in his Curile chair;180 or the ideas of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the English utilitarian, philosopher, economist and theoretical jurist. 178. Up until 1836, St. Vincent had only one newspaper, the Royal St. Vincent Gazette; and Weekly Advertiser, but in that year it was joined by the other gazette to which Anderson referred. Both of these newspapers were owned and published by whites, their differing editorial policies reflecting the Whig/Tory rivalries of British politics, with the senior paper being the Tory organ. 1836 was also the inaugural year of the newspaper of the free coloured community, the St. Vincent Chronicle, and Public Gazette, which, in that it was, in Anderson's words, "likewise Tory," shows at least the element of the free coloured community that subscribed to it (and this is likely to have included some of the island's leading free coloureds), aligning itself with the opposition to the Whig administration of Lieutenant-Governor Tyler. See Marshall, The Colthunt Journal, p. 13. 179. Large drinking bowls. 180. Curile is a misspelling of curial, of or pertaining to a court.

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sweep down the Board of the Lords; - but ever and anon, these "adjourn" for half an hour, to "resume"; - and "adjourn" again, till it be time to go to dinner; - these intermediate pauses proving no enemies to lunch, or a "long drink", - as a tumbler of wine & water, porter, swizzel, or grog, is called. Take a sample of the minutes of a Council's Sederunt. "Tuesday 12 o'C. — 183-. Present: The Honble. Z.Y. in the Chair. The Honble. W.X. The Honble. T.S. comes into Council. The Honble. W.X. retires from the Board Absent - A. B. C. D. Moved by the Honble. T.S., - that this Honourable Board do take into consideration A Bill 'for the better supply of animal food to the hungry stomachs of the Lieges of this Colony'. Seconded by the Honble. Z.Y. The Board adjourned for a quarter of an hour. The Board having met, - the second reading of the Bill 'for the better etc.' was gone through. Moved by the Honble. Z.Y. - Seconded by the Honble. T.S. that this bill do pass. The same was passed by the Honble. Board nem. dissen. The page sent to the Honourable House of Assembly accordingly. Adjourned at 25 min. past 12 noon." If this sketch be thought a mere jeu d'esprit, read a St. Vincent Journal, and test the imaginary by a real scene. To say truth, these Lillieputian [sic] Legislatures might, with advantage both to the Colonies, & Mother Country, be done away altogether. - Except for the patronage they give to the home governt. Lieut. Governors could be equally dispensed with. - The framework of such a government impedes - in place of facilitating any measure of local utility. Such is the force of party spirit, that a plan however beneficial, has only to be introduced by one man, - or set of men, - to call down the open hostility, or secret machinations of another, jealous of his zeal, or hostile to his person. There exist not the talent, or scope, - to exhibit the feelings of a Popular House of Commons. - Were a Legislative Council (to be convened by the Governor in Chief alone, who presided over any given number of islands, - ) partly elective, and partly dependant [sic] on the Crown, to supply the place of the present somniferous Potentates, - the

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West Indies wd. feel the benefit of the change; - whether the freedom of the subject, or the decay of favouritism, be taken into view. If the idea of a tiny spot like this, possessing its Governor, and Legislative Bodies, - raise a smile, - how would an European be astonished at the array of Aides-de Camp, - Colonels, - Majors, - Captains, etc. who ring the change in any Assemblage. - These have served, - or are serving, in the — Militia; who (badinage apart, - ) did really effective, & soldierly service, (to the disparagement of professionally, - "better" men) in the Charaib War. As the different quotas of the separate parishes which form the entire body, enjoy but few opportunities of being drilled, & brought to act in concert, their state of discipline, - (taking such disadvantages into consideration, - ) is highly creditable; but the minuter details of accoutrements, clothing, etc. are by no means uniform.181 Red, as a dress, is not a colour, becoming to a Black; and as complexions of different hues dot the varied line, - green seems a more appropriate costume, for a corps, whose warfare if called into action, must necessarily in a Mountainous land, - be that of a Guerilla. Perhaps, in some later day, we may see these Militias exploded, by the substitution of a Gendarmarie - or Mounted Police! who would form the nucleus for all free-men to rally around, shd. an emergency arise. A few brief years, and all will be free; and the apprenticed labourer will then possess that political franchise of which at present it is deemed expedient to deprive him; - & which prevents his being eligible to serve in the Militia, (unless in cases of great emergency to be judged by the Governt. & a Council of war) or to use, or carry arms. All this is well enough, - but aides-de camp] Who are they? and for what purpose created? To the first query gentle Sir, let me reply, there are not less than some efficient 8 or 9, who in that capacity enjoy the enviable sound of "Colonel" when addressed; - besides, I know not how many retired veterans who may claim the same honor, altho' no longer in Sunday trappings of blue and gold, "mimicking the pomp, & circumstance of glorious war".182 All of these Gentlemen are rated as the "military establishment" of the Colony; - there being in reality, but one military man in the list; - the others, good easy souls, are better conversant with the secrets of the counting 181. The island's white male population between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five made up the militia, which in 1830, according to Shephard, contained a 580-man regiment, two 150man King's companies, two 125-man Queen's companies, and a cavalry of 25. Historical Account of St. Vincent, p. 18. 182. William Shakespeare, Othello (III, iii), "Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war."

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house, or the pen of the scribe, - than with the dangers of the field. As individuals, I will say however, there are among them, those who wd. honor any station. But what is their office? To dance attendance on the Lieut. Governor; - to accompany him to church; - to carve on state occasions at his dinner table! Seriously speaking, the whole affair looks very like a comedy, if nothing worse! One Aidecamp [sic] might be well enough; but for a host of Civilians to be marched into a pew on a King's birthday, glittering in feathers, lace, and brass spurs, - not dashing, rattling young fellows, but sober, middle-aged, portly citizens, - pho! "out on't." But our Seniors here, are wonderfully attached to pomp: - For instance, the Chief Justice may be seen on high days, bedizened in a General Officer's uniform, epaulettes, - cocked hat, & sword!183 Government lends its sanction apparently to this military mania; as an order has been received from the King in Council, this month, (June [1837]) that hereafter, all members of the Council, & Civil Servants holding patent offices of the Crown, are to wear a blue coat, embroidered with silver, of pretty much the same pattern, as the uniform of an Attache to an Embassy. In Jamaica, & some other of the larger Islands, the Stipendiaries even figure in the Windsor Uniform & {undress military} forage caps!184 With us luckily, they are left to their own choice in attire. Tired with the oppressive suffocation of the capital, & the everlasting topics on which planters descant, - such as "how many hogsheads did such a piece afford?" - "Is not that a noble ox?" - "Pray, where do you get your saltfish?" etc. etc., - fly with me to the Mountains, and breathe the delicious, - indescribable serenity of existence which in early morn, - or at evening fall, - steals over one, under this delicate, balmy sky. We are now again in the valley of Bucament, sure of a welcome from its kind hearted residents. Turning our backs to the sea, we ascend to its upper glens; and by tortuous, and mazy tracks, wind through the bush. At the "table rock", - an extended surface of stone over which the infuriated waters of the 183. John Peterson was St. Vincent's chief justice from 1831 to 1846. I am grateful to Dr. Earle Kirby for helping me identify him. 184. While governor of Jamaica from 1834 to 1836, for example, Lord Sligo instituted the requirement that the island's special magistrates purchase for themselves, out of their less than generous salary, uniform coats with distinctive red collars and cuffs. Sligo insisted the special magistrates wear these coats at all times, in order "to secure the respect of the negro to the character of that officer as to inform them when they see him riding out that he is one of the persons deputed by law to settle all differences between them and their employers." Sligo's successor as governor, Sir Lionel Smith, however, discontinued the practice. See Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, p. 214.

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"Bucament river" dash in lengthened sheets of foam, - we give our horses breath. Remounting, they struggle over splintered flints, and boughs of trees, to the two wonders of the valley, - "The Moon", and "Paradise". These are great gaps revealing at a glance the entire amphitheatre of the mountains in all their singularly serrated ridges, sloping down like needles into the abyss of forest which shades their base, & sides. From the faintest streak of mellowed sunbeam, to the sombre depth of darkest shade - is every variation of hue. And then the sky overhead! blue, - such a blue! so etherial! [sic] sleeping in such repose. It is indeed a glorious panorama; undisturbed in its solitude by aught but the cooing of the wild pigeons. On the boughs of the lofty trees may be seen the green & yellow striped parrot, peculiar to this isle, of which numbers are here often shot; whilst the wild hog, and agouti, likewise afford amusement to the sportsman. The latter is esteemed a dainty dish by epicures. 26th July [1837] - A day of storm, wind, & rain, betokening hurricane horrors. Happily the damage is not great; and but one vessel is lost, & she a drogher. Barbados has fared worse: Much property has been destroyed, & 23 vessels are foundered or wrecked, with part of their crews. Sunday - July 30th [1837] But a day or two ago, our English arrivals teemed with the rejoicings in honor of the Princess Victoria attaining her Majority! This evening's mail brings intelligence of the death of her Uncle, our beloved Sovereign Wm. the IVth on the 20th June [1837], at Windsor.185 Minute guns to the number of his years announced the melancholy tidings to the Colony. (Monday. [31 July 1837]) A feu dejoie from the garrison, - a royal salute from the Fort, and the gay spectacle of the shipping decorated with innumerable streamers, tell us the British nation again acknowledges the sway of "a Virgin Queen". Seven years ago, I assisted as a Member of the College of Justice,186 at the inauguration of her Predecessor; thus does Providence in unerring wisdom alter the destinies, alike of the great, & of the humble! August 1st 1837. - On the anniversary of the abolition "for ever" of Slavery throughout her wide domain, - is Victoria known here, Queen of a free people. On Saturday follg. (5th [August 1837]) she was proclaimed 185. William IV (1763-1837) ruled from 1830 to 1837. 186. The College of Justice is a distinguished Scottish legal society whose membership is composed of judges, advocates, Writers to the Signet (of which Anderson was one), and solicitors (i.e. lawyers).

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with all the pomp circumstances would allow. Mourning for the late King is officially enjoined - but the appd. labrs. vie in zealous tribute to the Monarch whose mandate burst their fetters. 24th [August 1837] Distressing accounts have arrived from St. Thomas, & St. Kitts, - of the fearful blow on the 26th ulto. [July 1837]; from the former more especially; where fires raised by incendiaries, - as supposed, augmented the terrors of the tempest.187 Upwards of 30 vessels are stranded or lost. From Guiana, the tidings of the fatal ravages of fever, are not less alarming. Among the numbers cut off, I find the name of an old acquaintance, who brought with him from the Scottish bar, talents of no common order, - to be nipped in the full flush of youth, & hope, in the sickly climate of Demerara, after only a few months residence! Charles Macdougal merits this passing memorial. 25th [August 1837] We fear now for ourselves. This day the Wind has veered off to the S.W. and torrents of rain with fierce sweeping gusts have lashed the waves of our bay into foam. 26th [August 1837] The threatened hurricane has lulled; again, the skies are clear, & the sun shines forth in all the joyous radiance of light. So the anti-slaverists are at work to curtail the duration of the Apprenticeship? The eve of a General Election was too favourable a moment for so popular a theme being allowed to slip by!188 John Bull, I dare 187. In Reminiscences of a 40 Years' Residence in the Island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies (Nazareth, Perm.: Senseman & Co., 1838), Johan Peter Nissen gives a dramatic first-hand description of the storm that provides some clarification of Anderson's account. The hurricane occurred on 2 August 1837, not on 26 July, and arsonists apparently were not responsible for the fires that compounded the destruction on St. Thomas. Nissan describes how the storm raged into the night and "at midnight we heard in the streets the horrible shouts of fire! fire!" He noted, however, that "it cannot be certainly ascertained from what cause the fire originated - it commenced in the yard belonging to Drs. Scott and Buchanan, in a wooden magazine, which is mostly filled with iron-ware, paint, wine, oil and unslacked lime. If it was now the rain that put this lime on fire, or if it was the lightning that struck this magazine, one cannot say for certain - but many think that the rain set the lime on fire" (p. 184). In addition, Nissen counted "thirty-six vessels sunk in the harbour, or were stranded" (p. 187). 188. Responding to the increasing public concern over the operation of the Apprenticeship, the Anti-Slavery Society held a meeting at its headquarters in Exeter Hall, London, in the summer of 1837 with the aim of making the Apprenticeship an issue in the upcoming general election. The Society published an Address to the Electors of Great Britain which called on the electorate to support parliamentary candidates sympathetic to their cause, but their lack of success in this effort can be gauged by the fact that Apprenticeship opponent Thomas Powell Buxton lost his seat in the House of Commons. It was not until November 1837, with the formation of the Central Emancipation Committee, and the publication of its journal, The British Emancipator, that an effective political lobby against the Apprenticeship emerged in Britain. See Howard Temperly, British Antislavery, 1833-1870 (London: Longman, 1972).

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say, still smarts for parting with his 20 millions! whilst Johnny Planter is in a fury of rage at the innovators! I have all along believed the Colonial landholders to be putting on only a feigned acquiescence with the new order of things, - and they deserve some credit for the calm veil of their demeanour. - But now they speak out: Accusations of the attrocious [sic] robbery of their influence, and property; - Vaunts of their resources; of the necessity of resistance; - the rebellious spirit of the Canadas extolled, - and vapourings equally silly and absurd, - are rife. This man argues for an alliance with "free America", - where "every one has a right to do with his niggers what he pleases, - without being eternally interfered with by infernal saints;" that personage, - forgetful even of decency, - abuses the late monarch for consenting to the great boon of Emancipation! It seems to me that blame attaches to both. The Colonists were in justice, entitled to remuneration, for having the period of service of their domestics abridged, - and the Mother Country magnanimously gave them such. Twenty millions was the enormous amount. Once settled, it ought to have been paid as cheerfully, as it was, - promptly; the apprenticeship was a part of the Contract, and good faith required, that the limitation of it shd. never more be mooted. The apprentice has no evils to grapple with, that there is not a remedy provided for, by law. {appealing to the Special Magistracy} Of cold blooded tyranny, - in this Colony, at least, - since 1834, not an instance can be produced.189 Yet it cannot be denied, that the Legislative acts for carrying into effect the intentions of the Imperial Park., are defective in the extreme; - one might 189. Anderson's qualification of "in this Colony, at least," indicates that he may have been aware that elsewhere many apprentices had been abused by the "cold blooded tyranny" of their employers. Jamaica, in particular, earned an unenviable reputation for brutal treatment of apprentices which the island's special magistrates, either through their incompetence, or their collusion with planters, failed to check. The publication not only of a pamphlet entitled A narrative of events since the first of August 1834, by James Williams, an apprenticed labourer in Jamaica (London: W. Ball, 1837), which chronicled vicious and repeated beatings of Williams that were neither justified nor followed due process, but also of the "Report from the Select Committee on the Negro Apprenticeship in the Colonies" (House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1836, vol. 15, pp. 1-719) indicated that in parts of the island, especially St. Ann's Parish, the apprentices were languishing under a virtual reign of terror. Subsequently, abolitionists Joseph Sturge and Thomas Harvey published The West Indies in 1837, in which they too provided ample evidence of the abuse and ill-treatment of apprentices, particularly in Jamaica. Jamaica, however, was not the only island so criticized. Sturge and Harvey, as well as two observers from the United States, James A. Thome and J. Horace Kimball in their study, Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the West Indies. A Six Months' Tour in Antigua, Barbados and Jamaica in the Year 1837 (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1838), attacked the Apprenticeship in Barbados for its severity on the apprentices, while there are indications that St. Vincent was itself not exempt from such a charge. In January 1836, for example, Special Magistrate Edwin Poison wrote to Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, explaining why he "was obliged

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almost say, - purposely so. The Jamaica Bill was the model; and how ill disposed the public mind there was, - to the Special Magistracy - needs not comment. To embarass [sic], - not assist these officials in their labours seems the drift of these loosely drawn, & ill defined statutes.190 Again, the landed interest in the Colonies on their part have been greatly benefited by the Compensation fund. A vast amount of debt, & mortgages has been swept off; - litigation stopped; - & the energies of the planters left unfettered for future schemes. Moreover, their right to property in slaves, was one, - however sanctioned by statute, - primarily unjust. It originated with {and was perpetuated by} the Mother Country, - it is true; - but by a singular revolution of sentiment the united voice of the British people spoke out in a tone of indignant abhorence [sic], which threatened at no distant period, to accord universal Emancipation without reference to minor objects of individual loss. The Catholic Question, and the Reform bill, were omens of an advancing spirit the Colonists wd. have done well to study. So long as England remained mistress of the seas, she wd. have quelled their to inflict 647 stripes" of the whip that month on the apprentices under his jurisdiction (Poison to Tyler, 28 January 1836, House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1836, vol. 49, p. 379), whereas J. G. Smith, special magistrate for the Grenadines reported in March of the same year, that he "was obliged to enforce the maximum of fifty stripes [of the whip on] the apprenticed labourer, Adam, [who] is the same man that received fifty stripes, and was sentenced to work on the treadmill for a month" just two months previously. Smith to Tyler, 30 March 1836, House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1836, vol. 49, p. 382. The comprehensive listing of punishments assessed on apprentices by St. Vincent's special magistrates for the ten-month period from August 1835 to May 1836 reproduced in Appendix 11, suggests increasing severity on the part of Anderson and his colleagues, since during this time, the total number of apprentices punished, and especially the number of women involved, rose perceptibly. Anderson himself was probably guilty of excessive severity in punishing apprentices, especially by whipping. As footnote 54 explains, he used the whip to such an extent in disciplining apprentices under his charge, that his superiors demanded an explanation (with which, it transpired, they were not satisfied). 190. Although, like the other colonies, Jamaica would not receive its share of the compensation until passage of an Abolition Act that instituted the Apprenticeship, the island's House of Assembly made their reluctance to pass an Abolition Act clear, and used their control over the process to weight the act's provisions in favour of the employers to such an extent that an abolitionist like George Stephen could, with justification, contend that the Jamaican apprentice "remained an unemancipated prisoner on the estate to which he was attached, substantially liable to the same punishments and labouring under the same incapacity as before, the whip following him at every step, hard labour awaiting him at every turn" (quoted in Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, p. 168). Furthermore, as Anderson pointed out, Jamaica's Abolition Act succeeded in significantly circumscribing the actions and activities of the special magistrates, a circumstance responsible in part for the catalogue of abuse and oppression inflicted on the island's apprentices (see footnote 189). In discussing the particular circumstances of Jamaica, Burn does, however, indicate that other islands could not be absolved of similar criticisms (Emancipation and Apprenticeship, chapters 4 and 5).

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turbulent murmurs in a similar tone of expedient Legislation. In this view, I fear no Creole will coincide: Be it in the climate, - in the system of agricultural labour, - or the esprit du corps, perpetuated from generation to generation of planters, - certain it is, they, - their managers, and subordinates, (often ruder, and as ignorant as the negroes themselves - ) talk of apprenticed labourers as of brute beasts, to be esteemed only by their relative symmetry, - muscle, and strength; not as fellow Creatures entitled to the same priveleges [sic] of freemen here, - or as Christians, to equal hopes hereafter. - Exceptions there may be, - the General portrait is correct. Actual attrocities [sic] I have said, do not occur; but estimate the present improved condition of the peasantry, by the past. There are those yet alive who remember when such incidents I am going to narrate, were not uncommon; - for in the precarious struggles for dominion between the British & French towards the end of the last century, - this isle afforded a ready asylum to desperadoes of either nation, who went & came equally unknown, and unlocked after. For some misdemeanour, a Negro was condemned to punisht. by his Master. It was as singular, as horrible, in its classical barbarity. Like Regulus, the poor creature was immured into a cask, or hogshead; the lid of which being closed down, - the sides were in like manner pierced with sharp nails driven inwards, - and then with its living burden rolled down a precipice! {into the ocean} A Scotsman - (I blush to write it) who resided to Leeward was on another occasion being rowed to Kingstown in his canoe, on board of which was a runaway slave, whose neck for greater security he had encircled with an iron collar, attached to a heavy weight, - which the unfortunate wretch supported in his hands, or on his head, when in motion. As they coasted along, he seized as he conceived, a favourable moment for escape, and leapt into the waves. "Hout away mon" said Sawney, "are ye gaen that gait? then tak it a wi you";191 - & suiting the action to the word, he threw over the ponderous ball - {and the poor slave was sucked into the vortex} the momentary bubble of the water announced that an immortal spirit was struggling to be free. {The reins of authority were too loosely held, to bring retributive Justice on the tyrant} The deed - and the perpetrator became known, but the murderer was never called to account. I might multiply examples of the inhuman cattings at "close quarters" by cartwhips; of the immersions into tubs of water with the head downwards; of the "crook 191. This translates roughly as: "Away with you, man. Is that the way you want to go? Then take it all with you."

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puddings", - "burnings with hot irons", - and other tyrannies exercised by planters, & their servants the managers, & overseers, - but I forbear. - {The heart sickens, [whilst] the blood} At the recital of such horrors, one exclaims with the poet "Obstupui - steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus haesit."192 Thank God, such doings are told & listened to with the same wonderment we lend to the tales of Clanship and feudal strife, - in North Britain. May they never recur; and may the West Indian soil never again be polluted by the attrocities [sic] of a - Hodgel193 Yet there seems a danger arising - & that too from a measure adopted for the prevention of crime, which does not appear to have received that consideration it merits. I allude to the plan of Government of entrusting the future safety of these Colonies to Black Troops in place of the Regular White regiments. The West India Corps composed of these, is recruited almost solely from liberated African slaves; - few, or no free blacks enlisting; and of the combined energy and ferocity with which these Barbarians, - inimical to discipline, - & smarting from supposed wrongs inflicted by the White man, - (for they do not discriminate between their captor, and liberator, -) are capable, - we have had a fearful, and tragic spectacle in the recent revolt in June [1837], by the recruits in Trinidad. Laying other considerations out of view, these Black troops have not the moral courage, arising from discipline, & civilization, however they may possess the physical, - requisite to impress a respect for them in the eyes of the Creole negro population. These are their superiors, and look down on them, as Africans, & Savages; whilst on the other hand, long confirmed habits, & prejudices, - the result of experience, - have stamped the acknowledged superiority of White troops on their minds. With those they fear an encounter however feeble their force. It is not a fair argument to cite the example of the Seapoys in Hindostan, as one proof of the {fidelity and bravery of such} wisdom of the proposed change. - These Seapoys are a mild, & enlightened people, - whose {prejudices are} national feelings are respected, - whilst they are led by experienced British Officers; but the West Indian regiments are formed of the outscourings of condemned vessels, - of individuals, and families having no bond in common, but ferocity of character, and disgust at restraint, or labour. Besides Seapoys 192. In this quotation, which translates as "I was astounded, my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck in my throat," The SEneid (2, 774), Anderson used Virgil's description of the physical effects of fear. 193. In 1812 Arthur Hodge, an sugar estate overseer on the neighbouring island of Tortola, was tried for murdering sixty slaves. He was found guilty, and, despite the jury's recommendation for mercy, was executed.

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have ever been true & faithful: It was exemplified in Barbados on the contrary in the insurrection of 1819, that Black troops fired blank cartridge, in place of ball, when marched against a body of insurgent Negroes.194 Their innate hatred to the White man remained: It may be disguised - but is never eradicated from the Savage breast; and fully was it avowed & boasted of, by Daagas, - alias, Donald Stewart, the ringleader of the Trinidad mutineers. I have just conversed with a gentleman who witnessed his, and his two comrades [sic] execution on the 16th August [1837], Stewart jumped round, and received the fatal volley in the back of his head, the front of which was dashed off, {and the blood spouted from the trunk} as if scalped in the Indian fashion. - I have found a few such excellent remarks in the "Port of Spain Gazette" on this subject, I am tempted to transcribe them. "Stewart's fate suggests many questions. One of them is, how long is it likely to be eligible to keep black regiments in these Colonies? Not after 1840, we will venture to predict. - In contemplating the brief outlines of Daaga's [sic] (Stewart's) story it is impossible not to reflect on the unhappy, we had almost said, accursed state of Africa. Vainly for her has Britain made a sacrifice greater in extent than any History has to record; in vain England attempts to staunch one wound, while a thousand leeches are draining her blood. England forbids the slave-trade - that diabolical traffic flourishes in spite of her. England abolishes slavery in her Colonies, while in Guinea, kidnapping, man hunting, - & Cannabalism [sic] is more rife than ever. Yearly does Great Britain send her zealous missionaries & scientific travellers to be sacrificed on the banks of the Niger & the Congo. Monthly her Valuable troops are transported to perish in the pestilential atmosphere of Sierra Leone; yet Africa is now what she was a century ago, & what she will be a century hence, unless in the meantime it pleases Divine Providence

194. The insurrection to which Anderson referred was Bussa's Rebellion which lasted for three days in April of 1816 (not, as Anderson claimed, 1819). During the uprising, rebel slaves confronted a combined military force of local militia, and imperial troops stationed on the island, whose numbers included black slave soldiers of the First West India Regiment. Some Barbadian planters alleged that during the suppression of the rebellion, the black troops had only fired blanks at slave rebels: their charge, however, had no apparent foundation, although, as Anderson's comments make clear, it retained some currency among those opposed to the use of black troops. The only soldier to be killed during Bussa's Rebellion, at which, in Michael Craton's words, "the decisive fighting . . . was one more case of a rebellion in which blacks were subdued mainly by other blacks" (Craton, Testing the Chains, p. 263), was a black private who had been engaged in the fierce confrontation between armed slaves and the First West India Regiment. See also Hilary McD. Beckles, A History of Barbados: From Amerindian Settlement to Nation-State (London: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 78-85.

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miraculously to interfere on her behalf. Nothing less than a miracle appears to our limited capacity to be likely to turn the hearts of the guilty Children of Negro land, and the more Guilty, because less ignorant Christians!!! that traffic in her blood".195 To add one word, - experience has convinced me that Policemen even, shd. be selected from Europeans - old steady veterans if possible; - for the Negro is incapable of duly appretiating [sic], or executing an order, - besides being from irritability of temper, unfitted for command. I was more fortunate in a second trip to the Souffriere than I had been on my first one in January [1837]. We had meditated an excursion thither last month, but the weather was unpropitious; and on the 22nd of September [1837], - we had both earthquake & storm, - followed by a yet severer blast on the night of the 4th of next month [October 1837]. It was a lovely day in the latter end of October [1837], - when with my wife & children I left Kingstown for the Leeward Coast, in a six oared canoe obligingly sent for us by a young Countryman. Not a ripple was on the sea, which resembled a vast, & placid lake. If I had been frequently before delighted with the scenery of this district, - my feelings of admiration were not lessened by our present visit; and the only thing which detracted from our enjoyment, was the incessant whiz of the mosquitoes, - which abound in more than ordinary numbers. There is something positively luxurious in sitting at one's ease in a large sized Canoe under a Tropical sky, (of which the heat is counteracted by the grateful influence of the bright blue waves, - ) shooting past cliffs, and vallies, of the loveliest hues, and over coral reefs that glimmer in the transparent water, - changing its etherial [sic] shade to green, - whilst the boatmen raise their cheerful chorus of wild African, or Negro song. "Pull mi pretty braves pull, - Yo- Yo- Yo." And then the long grateful quaff of some cooling beverage as they rest on their oars! - a West Indian sun must be felt, to appreciate its welcomed offer! St. Lucia became distinctly visible; and soon after we approached our destination. The first burst of the Souffriere is inexpressibly grand. The white sandy beach, - the yellow cane fields - the green trees - the noble mountains - the gorgeous canopy - the contrast, - & yet the unity pervading the landscape - who shall pourtray [sic] it? Mounting the mules & horses provided for us, we entered the tangled, &

195. In "Rebels with a Cause: The St. Joseph Mutiny of 1837," Slavery and Abolition 12, no. 2 (September 1991): 73-91, Tom August examines the insurrection, led by Daaga, of soldiers of the First West India Regiment stationed in Trinidad.

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mazy track, which winds through the thickets of wood, & ferns, and along the edge of giddy heights, - occasionally carried over a narrow ridge bounded by precipices on either side. Happily, shrubs & parasite plants so closely interweave the path, as greatly to lessen the dangerous nature of one's progress. As the summit is neared, the woody region gradually declines, till nothing is seen but a barren heath, covered with volcanic stone, & sand. A neat {wooden} building {stands on the summit} erected by a public spirited individual here affords shelter; but I regret to add, that its evident utility has not preserved it from that wanton spirit of destructiveness, which disgraces our National Character. Four or five steps beyond, you stand at the edge of the Crater. Surprise, - wonder, - & terror, - strike the spectator at this majestic spectacle. Conceive an immense bowl, or cauldron three miles in circumference, - scouped [sic] out of the bosom of mountains 4000 feet above the sea, - the sides of which descend 500 feet in perpendicular rocks into a motionless, - green lake! It suggests the idea of what the dead sea may exhibit. Silence the most profound reigns over this desolate region, - which at one moment we beheld like a map spread before us in all its extent, - and anon, - partially enveloped in clouds of vapour, rolling from peak to peak. About a mile from this, the old crater, - is the new one. The danger of approaching it, is considerably lessened by a tolerable path, which a horse can traverse. The new is less than its neighbour crater; but by many thought more terrific: They are connected by an extremely narrow ledge, across which daring spirits have clambered; using the ridge as a saddle, and working their way with hands, & feet. Our party breakfasted on the top; but I could not look on the victuals without a strong feeling of nausea, & sickness. Equally varied, as magnificent, is the scenery hence visible, {from the Souffriere.} In one quarter the eye is carried over the rich champaigne of the Charib Country; Looking downwards - to the right of the track we had journeyed up, - are seen the huge furrows plowed by the torrents of lava and scoriae, which a tide of liquified fire directed down the Wallibau river, and the ravines of Morne Ronde, in the memorable eruption of 30th April, 1812. To the left, or southward, a range of mountains descends to the sea, darkened in their fantastic defiles, by virgin woods of unknown extent. Conspicuous above the rest is the gigantic Grand-Bon-homme. The Charibs have a settlement at Morne-Ronde, which has made a greater advance to civilized habits, than their brethren in the Northern Quarter. They attend school, & Church; the schoolmaster being also a Charib, and a

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young man of whom I heard several interesting particulars. {Their demeanour, - neatness of attire, - & abodes, were}196 Altogether, this unparalleled scene must delight any one alive to the Majesty of Nature. The Souffriere is a "Lion" which does not on inspection, belie its fame. I call to mind but few, which I have seen, that merit the same commendation. They are widely different in their characters, & the associations which they call up: - The vale of Chamouni in Switzerland; - the first view of Geneva and the Alps, from the Jura Mountains, - the isle of Staffa in the Hebrides; - Saint Peter's Church at Rome, - Edinburgh from the Calton hill; the bay of Dublin, - Menai Bridge; - and the Souffriere of St. Vincent, - will not suffer by familiar acquaintance. I cannot better describe the emotions excited by the first glance of this Volcano, than by the recital of the following circumstance. A gentleman of my acquaintance ascended the mountain about 14 days after the last eruption. The soil was still warm, & every step told a fearful tale of horror. He was accompanied by a young Mulatto, who no sooner was brought to the brink of the abyss, than uttering a shriek, he dashed down the pathway, - & terror smit, - never ceased his progress till he reached the strand at Wallibau, when he dashed into the waves, and swam to the vessel in which his Master had come down! The latter saw distinctly the proceedings of his servant. Some few weeks after our return, a young gentleman who was fool hardy enough to cross from Windward to Leeward at midnight, paid the penalty of his rashness, - falling down one of the numberless precipices. After long & anxious search - his hat, & a letter were found to ratify the fearful tale. The Body was supposed to have submerged under the ever shifting masses of 196. The journal of Special Magistrate John Colthurst provides additional information on this settlement. The village "was situated in a deep dell on the west side of the Soufriere," but he noted that "the huts are not very numerous, and much scattered on each side of this glen." Yellow and Black Caribs (which Anderson distinguished between by defining the latter as "being sprung from the aborigines, and Negroe slaves shipwrecked on the island towards the end of the 17th century" {p. 127}), lived there together "in evident harmony," although the former were fewer in number. As well as visiting several dwellings in the settlement, Colthurst was able to converse with villagers because "they speak English tolerably well." The special magistrate noted his approval of the school that accommodated a total of sixteen girls and boys who were taught "reading and writing, from nine to three o'clock," by a teacher who seemed to Colthurst "to be nearly of pure Carib blood." This man, "who had been brought up at the parish school in Chateaubelair . . . and was evidently fit to instruct," received a salary of "32 dollars a year." Nearby, Colthurst found the wattle and thatch building that served as "the Carib Chapel, capable of accommodating about 50 persons, [where] service is performed . . . once a month by the rector, Mr. Brathwaite, and the school children examined once a fortnight by die school master and the catechist of St. David." Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, pp. 183-85.

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sand; but this opinion proved erroneous, as at a subsequent period a skeleton with the deceased's watch, were found in a thicket into which he had crept for shelter.197 A.D. 1838. Both the old year has closed, & the new one commenced, with a very sickly season. Fever has been generally prevalent, - particularly in town; and fearfully has the death-bell tolled its appalling sound; indeed, so frequently, as at last to be stopped, to check the panic which it could not but excite. Opinions are divided as to the cause of this epidemic? There is little doubt but mephitic vapour is exhaled in quantities from the ill drained swamps to the northward of Kingstown; but there are not wanting many, who ascribe the contagion to the carbon with which the atmosphere is charged, springing from the animal compost & blubber, which has of late been so lavishly introduced as manure. - A medical board has investigated the matter, but their report has not confirmed this popular outcry; differing in this respect with the recorded opinion of several eminent Chemists of London. Yet, in the midst of universal gloom, appd. labourers, & free blacks of both sexes, with their wonted levity, indulged in stolen "hops", & "maroons". How reckless of the consequences to their Masters or Employers, let the following details shew! Improbable as these may appear to an European, I pledge myself they are positive {a strict narrative of) facts. A mercantile gentleman having occasion to call up a domestic at a late hour, discovered to his no small surprise, not only that he was from home, but that his store had been broken open. He repaired to the Police Station, & with the aid of the Serjeant, captured the delinquent, & a fellow servant, dancing amid a promiscuous crowd of all colours in a noted quarter of the town. The greater part fled on the appearance of this Gentleman, & his partner. On the following morning the lads were arraigned before the Magistrates, for theft; & some of their associates as confederates, & receivers of stolen goods. After a long examination the following results were obtained. - The leading culprit (who by the way was the favourite, & trusted body servant of his master, {who had hitherto reposed unbounded trust in his integrity}) had in the forenoon, delivered to another, a basket full of 197. On 21 April 1838, The Barbados Liberal printed the following, which had been extracted from the Royal St. Vincent Gazette: "On Friday last some of the bones of the late Mr. Bartholemew O'Brien were discovered on the borders of Lot No. 14 Estate, at the foot of a precipice. His watch was also found. An Inquest was held and a Verdict of accidental death returned. Nothing beyond what was previously known, viz., the departure of the unfortunate gentlemen in the evening of the 23 November, for the purpose of returning to Wallibou Estate over the Souffriere mountain, transpired at the inquest" (p. 4).

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wine, spirits, and foreign liquers [sic]. He carried it to a second apprentice, who deposited it very slily in the intended ball-room. His master's knives, forks & plates, were also dispatched to a girl with whom he cohabited, & in whose room the greater part were afterwards found, - with wearing apparel, & other property, taken from the same, & divers sources. This prostitute was proved to have worne a white satin gown, trimmed with white, and corresponding finery, at the ball, & to have acted as mistress of the revels; to which (as she said) "married women were not admitted, only young ladies!!" Before going to the place of rendezvous, the servant of the partner of the gentleman I allude to, dressed himself in his master's shirt, silk stockings, and vest, - & hung round his neck a Valuable Gold chain, & eye glass, with which he had also made free; and his partner in guilt having completed his toilet, - the two, by way of enlivening their spirits, drank a bottle of Mr L's champaigne! They then repaired "the happiest of the happy", to the festive scene; the tambourine flourished, - the fiddle scraped, - the triangles chimed, - and "a gentleman" was just handing "port wine and Claret sangaree (so a witness deponed to) to the ladies", - when came the unlucky contretemps which brought the Myrmidon of the Peace as a spectator of their revels. Upwards of a dozen & a half empty Champaigne bottles were found, stowed away by these depredators; - besides spirits, - Various pairs of new shoes, - stockings, - and candles, concealed in the servants' bedroom. It became impossible to calculate the extent of the plunder, or the period of its successful existence. As a climax to the style of the entertainment, it may not be amiss to add, that the youths who thus entertained their "Club," (as the company was denominated) at their employer's expence, issued regular cards of invitation! Some of these were got hold of, & the following is a verbatim transcript. "Mr. Joseph Louis Debuke's compliments to Mr. . Will be happy of his Company to a quadrille party on friday evening the 23rd instant, at the house of Miss Mary Sample the back street Kingston [sic] 20th February 1838 1st Steward - Mr Joe Patterson 2d Steward - Mr Wm. Aberdeen" For this piece of penmanship, as well as for the use of the house, a certain sum had been paid. It may readily be conceived, that for such wickedness & effrontery, the Bench awarded adequate punishment.198 198. An actual copy of the invitation was glued by Anderson into his journal (reproduced as Figure 14). It was addressed to "Mr. Charles Clark."

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Figure 14. An invitation to Joseph Debuke's Quadrille.

The "march of intellect" among the domestics of Kingstown, may be estimated by the circumstance, that one of ours, having been rebuked for staying too late from his work one morning, answered, - "the truth is, I could not get my coffee sooner!!" The public peace was disturbed in March [1838], in a manner too remarkable to be passed over in silence. On Saturday the 17th [March 1838], a party of coloured young men, were {tried by} arraigned before a Bench of six Magistrates, expressly appointed for the purpose, by the Lieut. Governor, for an assault on the Police. After a trial of six hours duration,

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two were unanimously found Guilty of the assault, and adjudged to pay a fine, & undergo ten days hard labour on the treadmill. The others as having been less prominent in the riot, were mulcted in a sum of money. The introduction of "the treadmill" gave great offence to the coloured population, although white sailors & soldiers had been frequently so punished. Accordingly on Monday morning [19 March 1838] at daybreak, a mob of upwards of 1000 persons {composed, - not merely of the refuse of Kingstown, but of wealthy individuals, - assembled} flocked round the Court House, & jail, to prevent the removal of the Prisoners from the latter to the mill, which is in another building; and a party broke open the Cage gate, & assaulted the Policemen stationed there. Note - Will it be credited in Britain that one of the ringleaders was subsequently made Corporal of Police? by the Executive? [Note subsequently appended by Anderson — date unknown] A general riot, ensued, - which was {only} partially quelled by {the Attorney General, the Chief Constable, the Marshall, Colonial Secretary, and other} some gentlemen who had hastened to the scene. - As soon as I was officially apprised of this movement, I rode to the Lieut. Governor's, & made him acquainted with the particulars. His Excellency came into town, - & the mob were allowed to continue in force all day under the windows of Government office, - uttering the most inflammatory & threatening language against the Magistrate's [sic], {of whom I had been one} Towards the afternoon, a deputation from the Coloured population still congregated in great force be it observed, - waited on the Governor with a petition, praying the omission of that part of the sentence, which inflicted hard labour. This petition was received!, - & by his Excellency Captain Tyler referred to the Magistrates; who answered, that having faithfully discharged their duty, they saw no reason to alter their Judgement, and they left His Excy. to deal with the petition as he saw best. This was on the 20th [March 1838] (Tuesday) whilst the crowd again assembled {in great force}. - A writ of habias-corpus [sic], was now moved for by a Barrister before the Chief Justice, - on the plea of some technical error in the commitment; - altho' the Colonial law enacts that no commitment shall be quashed for want of form, provided there be a good Conviction, - which it was not attempted to be denied, there was! And the Magistrates without being apprised of the proceeding, learnt with astonishment that this motion had been acceded to, & the prisoners had been ordered to be released! The mob imagining they had gained the day, & terrified the Government, paraded these youths about in triumph with {great noise} shouts, & cheers; whilst

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the well affected trembled for the consequences. Such supiness [sic] in the Authorities & the Legislature which sat on the 21st March [1838] {1} was never beheld. The news ran like wild-fire over the Colony, & the appd. labrs. every where repeated, that "the Buckra was put down". Nay, the Mulattos openly said, they wd. serve them (the Blacks) as they had done the Whites! For many nights after, mobs {openly} fought in the streets; the spirit of disaffection spread to the {neighbouring estates} neighbourhood, & on one estate I was myself threatened by the people, & three of my Policemen going to enforce the execution of a Warrant, - were driven off by the entire Gang. - To add to the general confusion, - the police force were {weak} few in number, - some ill; & totally incapable of {preserving the public peace} protecting persons, or property; whilst the Magistrates indignant at their decisions being daily subjected to legal subtelty [sic], - refused to act; & I was left {alone} as Police Magistrate without support. {(Where all this may end, no one knows)} Resolved at all events, to show that the functionaries of the law were not to be tamely insulted, I assembled the Police force, & repairing to the refractory estate, with several gentlemen who kindly volunteered their aid, - I tried the rioters - handed over some to the Court of Grand Sessions of the Peace - sentenced {the most culpable} others to various degrees of punishment, and {(in spite of clamour)} safely lodged them in the town Jail. An apology is due you for so much egotism, but it was unavoidable in a statement of particulars.199 At the period of these events, the minds of all classes were not a little disturbed by the mooting of various topics connected with the apprenticeship, in the Mother Country, & the instructions forwarded from thence to the Colonies. Most unwisely, as events have shewn, - the framers of the Emancipation bill made a wide breach between praedial - & wowpraedial 199. In an extensive commentary on the riot, the Royal St. Vincent Gazette; and Weekly Advertiser, the newspaper that represented the Tory interests opposing the present island government, excoriated what it perceived as the weakness of Lieutenant-Governor Tyler and his admininistration, while praising Anderson's actions in arresting and punishing apprentices on the "refractory" plantation, which in fact was Montrose Estate, a St Andrew's Parish sugar property not two miles north of Kingstown. The article, dated 12 April 1838, reported on the disgraceful riots that have lately occurred in this town, and, (a natural consequence from the rioters being permitted to trample upon the laws) the alarming insubordination of the Apprentices upon Montrose and other Estates . . . Were we to detail the scenes that took place before the eyes of his Excellency Lieutenant Governor Tyler, and his timidity upon the occasion, our fellow colonists in the other islands would scarcely believe us, especially as his Excellency wears the uniform of the heroes of Trafalgar, in which conflict his renowned father set him an example of discharging his duty to his country [Tyler's father, Admiral Sir Charles Tyler, was severely wounded in that conflict], which his Excellency has either

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appd. labrs.; - and assigned a longer servitude to the latter [sic - an error by Anderson; should read "former"] class, - (by far the most Industrious & hardworking race) - which naturally created dissatisfaction. The non-praedials grumbled that no allowance had been made to them in the way of indulgences & free days; the praedial complained that he had not only an extended ordeal to go through, but that he bore the heat, & burdens of the day. With an equally shortsighted Policy, - the distinction of these respective grades was not explicity entered in the Registries; these were confined to the name, age, sex, & occupation of every slave on the 1st Augt. 1834; the classification was left to the Assistant Commissioners of Compensation; who returned each estate in a slump, as having so many praediais, so many nonpraedials; - but they never gave in any lists of these, as individuals; and upon a comparison, these Tables of the Commissioners & the Registry were found to be in many instances at total variance! At the llth hour, {Government forwarded} circulars were forwarded to the Special Magistrates, directing them to transmit as soon as possible, a return of the actual no. of apps. in the Colony, distinguishing praedial from non-praedial, with the sex, age, & classification of each. The 4th Clause of the Imperial Abolition Act was to be their guide for classification.200 - This proved a very troublesome & delicate task; and in fact, did not remove the difficulty. For, the Special Justice possessed not the power of assigning the title, or classification of an appd. labr.; that lay with a tribunal, - in St. Vincent particularly, - composed of the Chief Justice, - the Speaker of Assembly, & the forgotten or which he is (most probably from some constitutional defect) incapable of imitating. The police magistrate [Anderson] has manfully discharged his duty, and after enduring many indignities and running many risks, succeeded in taking into custody six of the ringleaders on Montrose Estate, some of whom have been punished, and others have been turned over to the Sessions. Neither Anderson nor the newspaper identified the "several gentlemen who," the Special Magistrate noted, had "kindly volunteered their aid" and had accompanied him to Montrose Estate, but these vigilantes undoubtedly represented the planter class whose interests found expression in the Gazette, which had concluded its analysis of the riot by noting that "a spirit of insubordination is abroad, and which can only be put down by the most energetic measures on the part of the executive, not, however, of Lieut. Governor Tyler, for that is hopeless, but of the Governor in chief [Sir Evan Murray MacGregor, governor of Barbados and the Windward Islands]." 200. This clause, reproduced in Appendix 1, divided the apprentices into three classes (i) agricultural labourers whose "usual" employment as slaves had been working the land of their owners; (ii) agricultural labourers whose "usual" employment as slaves had been working land not belonging to their owners; and (iii) all others whose "usual" employment as slaves did not fall within the first two categories. Categories (i) and (ii) became the praedial apprentices, and category (iii) the non-praedial apprentices.

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Senior Member of Council; - & consequently any one displeased with the arrangement of the Magistrate, could appeal, - & he himself was bound to make the appeal in person, - to this Court. Hence, daily impediments were thrown in the way of an exact, & accurate list of labourers. 201 But independent of these causes, the mode of carrying forward the classifications, - differed in the Crown, & those Colonies which had their own Legislative bodies. - In the latter, the business was entrusted to the Special Magistrates; for the others, Commissioners were to be sent out from England, - or a board of 3 or 4 Magistrates were entrusted with universal power not only to collect the lists but to define the class to which the apprentices belonged. Note. The following are copies of the dispatches sent to Trinidad, & the other Crown Islands.Colonial Office, 15th February, 1838 Sir, - Serious errors having been discovered in several of the Colonies, in the registration of the Apprenticed Laborers as Praedial and Non-Praedial, Her Majesty's Government have judged it proper that a careful examination should be made of the provisions of the several Laws respecting Classification, in order to ascertain whether any new Enactment be requisite for the assertion of the undoubted right of the Apprentice to be placed in that class to which he really belongs. The result is, that the Laws appear to be more or less ambiguous on the question of the right of the Apprentices, after a limited period, to claim a revision of the Lists. It has been thought right that this doubt should be decided in favor of the Apprentices; and Her Majesty has been pleased to give effect to this decision, in those cases in which it was competent for the Queen in Council to legislate. I enclose the Order which has been passed by Her Majesty in Council to carry this measure into operation in Trinidad; and I have to instruct you to 201. Earlier in 1838 Lieutenant-Governor Tyler asked Special Magistrate John Colthurst, who had recently arrived in St. Vincent, "to rectify the classification of all the apprentices" on the island. Colthurst's investigation revealed "the grossest errors and misstatements" particularly regarding the classification of non-praedial apprentices as praedials, and he criticized his fellow magistrates for "overlook[ing] this serious part of their duty," maintaining that "every possible exertion should have been made by them to place every apprentice in their districts in the exact position he had by law a right to occupy." Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, pp. 147-49. While the examples provided by Colthurst of abuses in classification make a compelling argument that special magistrates had been, at the very least, derelict in this important part of their functions, and may well have been guilty of pandering to the desires of planters to boost the numbers of their praedial apprentices, Anderson's frustrations indicate that the cumbersome process he described as having been insituted in St Vincent for the reclassification of apprentices, was also partly responsible.

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take the most effectual means in your power for giving it publicity throughout the Island. It will be your duty to instruct the Special Magistrates in their several Districts to give to the Apprenticed Laborers, collectively and individually, the most distinct intimation of the real nature of the Law, and to afford to every person who may have been erroneously classed, all necessary advice and assistance in bringing forward his claim for the correction of the mistake. You will also consider whether it may not be expedient to assign to some one of the Special Magistrates the duty of exercising a general superintendence over all proceedings of this nature, and of bringing forward for adjudication all applications for the correction of the Lists. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient humble servant, GLENELG. Lieut.-Gov. Sir G. F. Hill, Bart., &C.&C.&G. AT THE COURT AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE, 15th February, 1838. PRESENT, The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty in Council. Whereas, by the third Chapter of an Order made by His late Majesty King William the 4th, in Council, dated the 5th day of June, 1834, entitled "An Order of the King in Council, for giving effect in the Island of Trinidad to the Statute 3d & 4th Wm. IV. c. 73, for the abolition of Slavery" certain Rules and Proceedings are prescribed for dividing the Apprenticed Laborers into the respective classes of "Praedial," "Praedial-un-attached," and "Nonpraedial," and for correcting and recording such classification in the Slave Registry of the Colony. And whereas it is enacted by the 12th article of the same chapter that "during the continuance of the apprenticeship the Slave Registry so corrected as aforesaid shall be deposited amongst the Records of Superior Courts of the Colony; and when any question shall arise respecting the class to which any Apprenticed Laborer belongs, such corrected Registry, or a certified extract thereof, shall be taken as conclusive evidence of the fact." And whereas there is reason to believe that Apprentices, properly "Non-praedial" have been in some instances erroneously registered as "Praedial," and it is expedient that provision should be made for the correction of such erroneous classification in all cases in which the fact can be

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clearly established, any thing contained in the article above cited notwithstanding. It is therefore hereby Ordered by Her Majesty, by and with the advice of Her Privy Council, That whenever there shall appear to a Special Magistrate good grounds for believing that an Apprentice has been erroneously classed, it shall be competent to such Special Justice to submit every such case to the Chief or any other Judge of the Superior Court at Trinidad, together with such proof as may be deemed necessary; and after due notice to the party claiming an interest in the services of such Apprentice, it shall be lawful for the judge to whom the case is submitted to proceed to hear and decide the same in a summary way, and to order such correction to be made in the classification of the Registry as on good and satisfactory evidence he may judge to be right and just; and such order shall have the same effect as if such Apprentice had been originally classed under the amended denomination. And the Right Honorable Lord Glenelg, one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, is to give the necessary directions herein accordingly. C. GREVILLE.202 Whilst on this topic, I feel it a pleasure to record, as creditable alike to these, and to their employers, that in my district, - many apprentices of either sex, - who either are or wd. be entitled to be classed as non-praedials, voluntarily requested to be permitted to remain in the discharge of their duties, till the termination of the apprenticeship in 1840.2031 could simply minute the demand, & the acquiescence of the party interested; as my 202. Anderson glued this printed record into his journal. 203. The principal advantages accruing to praedial apprentices, but denied to their nonpraedial counterparts, lay in the control they exercised over their houses, gardens and provision grounds, and in the right to 134 days (including Saturdays and Sundays) exempt from working for their employers, which many used to advance their independent economic interests. Furthermore, many apprentices were convinced (erroneously, as it turned out) that, with full freedom, they would come into unencumbered possession of the homes and lands that they occupied and worked and which they considered their property, and hence were seeking to secure their claims by keeping their classification as praedials, while the widely held aspiration among apprentices of developing a peasant-style economy on their provision grounds after full emancipation would similarly have impelled them to want to be classified as praedials, and hence be able to stake a claim to the land. Anderson's experiences with reclassification requests found their way into the local press, the conservative, planter-oriented Royal St. Vincent Gazette; and Weekly Advertiser, reporting that We have heard with much pleasure that upon all the estates visited by Mr. Anderson for the purpose of classifying the apprentices, the whole of the non-praedials (with one solitary exception) requested to be classed as praedials. Here then is a large body of these people at once refusing total emancipation and earnestly soliciting to be continued in

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powers as Special Justice wd. then have ceased. Dispatches to prevent the infliction of corporal punishment, as much as might be, - on male offenders; & to insure to mothers the time requisite for attendance on their free infants, - were also at this time received by the Stipendiary Magistracy.204 These were the result of the inflammatory {harangues} language held forth by pseudo-philanthropists at Public meetings in Britain, on the {evils} mischevous [sic] character of the apprenticeship. The statements made on these occasions, as well as in pamphlets, professedly written by parties who had come out to the West Indies to investigate into the working of the system, - were, - I have no hesitation in saying, - (so far as concerns the smaller islands - & especially this one, - ) gratuitous, & libellous fabrications; extremely well calculated for the meridian of Exeter-Hall; and the sympathies of sugar-loving old spinsters, - but destitute of truth.205 And as servitude for a period of two years longer. Surely this is the best answer that can be given to my Lord Glenelg's officious circulars upon the subject of the non praedials, as well as to the vile agitators both in the Mother Country and in the Colonies, who are so very anxious to sever the apprenticeship at once, and it is at the same time highly complimentary to the planters of this Island. Reprinted in the Liberal, Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday, 7 April 1838, p. 3. Hence, twice in a matter of weeks (see also footnote 199) Anderson received praise in the pages of St. Vincent's principal opposition newspaper, and indeed within articles critical both of his immediate superior, Lieutenant-Governor Tyler, and of his patron and head of the Colonial Office, Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg. In the identification Anderson had developed with planter interests (and they with him), for which the two Gazette articles provide clear evidence, lie intimations of the growing antipathy between the special magistrate and the lieutenant-governor that marked the rest of Anderson's tenure on the island. 204. On 11 April 1838, the British Parliament passed "An Act to amend the Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies." Although at this stage, the House of Commons was not prepared to disavow the need for the Apprenticeship, the act they passed sought to correct some of the system's abuses that abolitionist critics had revealed (see footnote 189). The chief provisions of the act (which is reproduced as Appendix 12) included: (i) The governor of each colony regulated hours of work; (ii) Apprentices were entitled to the allowances and perquisites they had received as slaves; (iii) The governor was empowered to regulate treatment of apprentices in jails and workhouses, and special magistrates were to examine these facilities; (iv) Special magistrates could force an employer to pay a fine directly to the apprentice whose abuse occasioned the fine, while two special magistrates could terminate the apprenticeship of an apprentice subjected to an employer's cruel treatment; (v) No female apprentices could be beaten, or placed on the treadmill or penal gang, for breach of the abolition code, nor could male apprentices be whipped for the same offence. (See also Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, p. 355.) Later in his journal, Anderson noted that on a sugar estate he visited, "mothers with infants at the breast... are allowed to remain {at home} an hour later, & to break off an hour earlier," than other field hands (p. 204). 205. Abolitionists Joseph Sturge, Thomas Harvey, William Lloyd, and John Scoble, who represented the Exeter Hall-based British Anti-Slavery Society, journeyed to the West Indies in 1836 to investigate the Apprenticeship. These four men, along with American abolitionists

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such, they have been denounced here by both Houses of the Legislature. A candid enquirer must admit the Colonists have been placed between two fires; between the bigoted & intolerant disciples of the old school of planters on the one hand, - who would hear of no reform, listen to no project for {ameliorating} lightening the {severities of} hardships of slavery; and the equally intemperate & senseless canters who affected pre-eminently to devote themselves to the Negro's cause. Moderate men who wished to approach the innumerable evils of servitude in a fitting mode of dispassionate enquiry, stood aloof; and exasperation & obstinacy - were encountered by {heedless assertion & exaggeration} calumnies equally heedless as dishonest. - These hawkers of pretended oppression never gave a moment's thought to their numerous innocent Countrymen whose lives & property they jeoparded [sic] by their firebrands! They had no sympathies for any but the virtuous apprentice! Now, such attrocities [sic] as flogging women, - letting negroes perish from inanition, & bad treatment, - and then procuring a coroner's inquest to return, "died by the Visitation of God", - have not only not occurred in St. Vincent since the Emancipation from slavery, - but I must pay the Planters the credit of admitting that when the English Newspapers containing these, as well as statements equally startling, said to have been uttered on debates {on Lord Glenelg's} in the House of Lords, were received, - they recoiled with indignation from the Charge; and would, - had they had the power, - have refuted them upon the shoulders of the utterers. If the people of Jamaica, - for they seem to be the foremost implicated - have thrown obstacles in the way; - if they have embarassed [sic] the Special Magistracy in their arduous task; and attempted to pervert the benevolent intentions of the British Legislature, - (as I fear even by the admission of the Colonists, they have;) - why then, let them suffer for their obstinacy, & misconduct; but let not a sweeping accusation of cold blooded James Thome and Horace Kimball travelled extensively throughout the British Caribbean, and their findings, which were quickly put into print, were extremely critical of the system's operation. See Sturge and Harvey, The West Indies in 1837; Thome and Kimball, Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies; John Scoble, British Guiana. Speech delivered at the antislavery meeting in Exeter hall, on Wednesday, the 4th of April 1838 (London: Central Negro Emancipation Committee, 1838); and William Lloyd, Letters from the West Indies, during a visit in the autumn of MDCCCXXXVI, and the spring of MDCCCXXXVII (London: Darton and Harvey, 1839); as well as Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship> pp. 339-40. Again, Anderson's qualification of "as concerns the smaller islands" indicates that he was aware that much of the abolitionist criticism was levelled at the Apprenticeship as it operated in Jamaica, and that he sought to distance that island's experiences from those of the Lesser Antilles. As footnote 189 argues, however, the smaller islands were not exempt from similar indictments.

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cruelty & wrong, go abroad against all the West Indies; agt. the innocent, as well as the guilty.206 The {mooting of the} abbreviation of the apprenticeship, - part of the same clique's policy, - is in exceeding bad taste, - not to say injustice. I have already stated that their ought to have been no distinction between non-praedial, & praedial, in regard to the period of servitude; both ought to have been freed at the same time. But since the Legislature thought otherwise, and extended the duration of the latter to August 1840, - they were bound by every principle of honor, to have kept faith with the Planter. He, in full reliance of having the labours of his apprentice secured to him till then, has made ample provision not only for the cultivation of the latter's provision grounds, but given him time, {which often hangs heavy} besides, - which the negro is commonly, but too happy to sell back.207 This boon wd. certainly not have been accorded, could the employer have dreamt he was to be deprived of his Servant two years before the Stipulated period. The very reason for shortening the probation of the wow-praedial, was, "that he had no days."208 True, - but he generally continued to take if not days, - hours; and these daily; for a more idle, vagabond race than the domestics of St. Vincent do not exist [sic]. Ever on the watch for an excuse to get out, - they care little when they return. I can tell you, my friend, you may sometimes want your dinner till night-fall, or altogether; if your caterer, or cook, takes it into their head to chat with an acquaintance, instead of minding your errand. - Now, the Planter conceives that by the mooting of the question to curtail the apprenticeship - he has been cheated; and is still 206. In using the term "cold blooded cruelty," Anderson is echoing his indictment of the "cold blooded tyranny" (p. 181) that accompanied the Apprenticeship in Jamaica. As footnotes 189, 190 and 205 show, Jamaica earned its reputation for the cruel treatment of apprentices, and for obstructing the efforts of those special magistrates who wanted to be just and evenhanded in arbitrating between apprentices and employers, as well as for the high-handed manner with which the island legislature approached Emancipation and Apprenticeship. As these previous footnotes show, however, Jamaica was not the only British West Indian sugar colony to so pervert the operation of "The Great Experiment." 207. Anderson's comments here seem to be slightly at variance with his earlier observation (p. 90) which noted that "prudent" apprentices were paid for working on their own time for their employers, but criticized the "indolently disposed" apprentices who would not enter into such contracts. Apprentices weighed various considerations in choosing how to dispose of their free time, and their willingness to spend part of it working for pay on their employers' estates was incorporated (and usually given lower priority than suited employers and special magistrates like Anderson) into the economic and social considerations that accompanied their efforts to shape the world in which they would live as free people. (See also footnote 50.) 208. The terms of the Abolition Act, of course, denied non-praedial apprentices the right to the "free days" accorded their praedial counterparts. In compensation, the apprenticeship of non-praedials was to be two years shorter, with its expiration scheduled for 1 August 1838. (See Appendix 1 for the full text of the Abolition Act.)

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further to be duped out of labour he had bona fide calculated on; and can you say, not without reason? Then, again the minds of the field labourers have been excited, and their ideas of subordination unhinged, by the thousand rumours now afloat, upon this topic, - & the proposed bill of Lord Glenelg, - for ameliorating their condition, & giving greater efficacy to the British Statute.209 Artful emissaries are not wanting to encourage this discontent, - & to stir up a resistance to the laws; calculating on the impunity with which recent outrages were suffered to go unchecked by the Executive. This new measure is not required here; the apprenticed labr. is perfectly protected as it is. Its meridian is Jamaica; but I question, if it will be tried even as an experiment? since the Planter, seemingly struck down with the many calumnies {daily} heaped upon him, - seems inclined no longer to resist, but to give way in apathy, or despair. If I prove not a blind prophet, the Various Colonial Legislatures will ere long, of themselves, put an end to the apprenticeship on the 1st August this year [1838]; rather than be forced into a compliance with the propositions which have been launched forth to Parlt. by Lord Brougham.210 A very earnest desire was at this time exhibited by the appd. labrs. to purchase the remainder of their services, & - singular as it may appear, - particularly by the non-praedials.211 Yet it wd. be difficult to say to what these 209. The provisions of "An Act to amend the Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies," passed at the behest of Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg, on 11 April 1838, are discussed in footnote 204, and reproduced in Appendix 12. 210. On 20 February 1838, Lord Brougham, who was sympathetic to the heightened abolitionist criticism of the Apprenticeship that accompanied the findings of Sturge and his fellow investigators, roundly condemned the institution in a speech before the House of Lords, which highlighted the abuse of the system particularly as it was operating in Jamaica. His speech sought not only to provide immediate improvements in the lot of the apprentices (by, for example, imposing a mandatory nine-hour workday that would thus permit praedial apprentices a half-day to themselves each Friday, allowing them time to prepare for Saturday market), and to extend the jurisdiction of the special magistrates and the governors of the colonies, but also to end the Apprenticeship entirely on 1 August 1838. Acknowledging that abuses adversely affecting the apprentices had occurred during the Apprenticeship, particularly in Jamaica, Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg sought to placate Brougham by promising corrective legislation. Hence on 11 April 1838, the House of Commons passed "An Act to amend the Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies," that contained a variety of ameliorative provisions (see footnote 204, and Appendix 12), but not before Brougham's proposal to terminate the Apprenticeship on 1 August had been widely discussed both within and outside Parliament, and had come to a vote in the House of Lords. Although the measure was defeated in the upper house, its political significance, as Anderson's comments make clear, persisted. See Lord Brougham, Lord Brougham's Speech in the House of Lords; and Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, pp. 347-49. 211. Commenting on this phenomenon, Woodville Marshall explains that some apprentices were motivated by the desire to secure "the best legal insurance of their freedom" (Marshall,

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would betake themselves? Often as I have asked the question, I never could obtain a satisfactory answer. - Some few ply the isle as hucksters,212 - but the greater part exist no one knows how. It was in vain, I pointed out to them that in three months, they would be emancipated by law, & that they "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands," p. 214). This would especially have been the case for praedial apprentices who, rumours notwithstanding, had more than two years of apprenticeship yet to serve. (These observations by Anderson on self-purchase pre-dated the May 1838 vote by the St. Vincent legislature to abolish the Apprenticeship as of 1 August of that year.) Other apprentices, no doubt, gained satisfaction from securing their freedom by their own efforts, while yet a third group, made up especially of non-praedials, sought to secure status in post-Apprenticeship St. Vincent through gaining full freedom early. In his official reports some months earlier, however, Anderson claimed the existence of a more insidious motive, asserting that most of the apprentices who had obtained their release, "only exchange one Master for another, as it is notorious they sign articles for a fresh Engagement (often of longer duration than the first) on receiving their discharge. The purchase of his freedom from servitude," Anderson continued, "is no criterion, that the ap[prentice]d labourer has effected his release by his own exertions." Instead, Anderson asserted, "money is lent [the apprentice], on condition that he will serve the lender as his Employer; and a rich planter or an Enemy, has it thus in his power to trepan the servants of his poorer neighbour. By withdrawing his best hands," Anderson posited, "the latter may be reduced to a reliance on the aged, and ignorant." Furthermore, "by severing him from his relatives, - his home, - and the spot connected with his earliest associations," the consequences were also detrimental to the emancipated apprentice, who, according to Anderson, was impelled to such action by a "love of change." Anderson Report, 30 June 1837, CO 260/55. Some months later, Anderson reiterated his complaint that "the practice of lending apprenticed labourers the means of purchasing themselves, on condition of transferring their services to the lender, still continues; and the knowledge that he can always find parties ready to aid him in effecting this illusory emancipation, is pregnant with evil to the apprentice himself." Anderson Report, 22 September 1837, CO 260/55. Anderson indicated, however, that even in what he called the "bonafide" circumstance of an apprentice accumulating sufficient money to secure his release without indebtedness to another employer, the administrative practices adopted in adjudicating his self-purchase petition acted to his detriment. Referring specifically to cases in which an employer and his apprentice could not agree on the latter's value (that is, the value of the labour owed the employer by the apprentice for what remained of his tenure as an apprentice), Anderson referred to the workings of Clause 10 of the St. Vincent Abolition Act (see Appendix 1 for the full text of the Act), which called for an appraiser to arbitrate such disputes, giving him seven days to decide on the amount to be paid. The apprentice then had to pay the stipulated sum immediately, or the proceedings would be invalidated. Anderson explained, however, that to prevent the apprentices from securing their release, a ruse was resorted to whereby "the Chief Justice daily allows the appraisers to retire from Court, (from which they often, are not absent 5 minutes) - and on their return with their valuation, the labourer is called on 'immediately' [the term used in the Act] to pay down his Cash; and if he is not ready, His Honor quashes the proceedings." Anderson claimed "it too frequently happens, that the Planters rigidly exact this enforcement," whereas he felt that "a reasonable period" should be allowed the apprentice who, after all, may have come "from the most remote corner of St. Vincent to Kingstown, where all appraisements are made," to deposit the arbitrated sum. It is an injustice, he concluded, if an apprentice "comes provided with ten doubloons, as the price of freedom, - and he should be valued at twelve, - that because he cannot 'immediately' advance the difference, all his hopes are to be dashed to the ground." Anderson Report, 8 February 1838, CO 260/56. 212. See footnote 53 for a detailed explanation of huckstering.

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had better save their money against a time of need. - All reasoning was fruitless, - they would buy themselves; - "they no go be fuss of Augus nigger;" "no Queen Adel'aide freeman" - was the clenching retort which silenced {all} opposition; meaning thereby that they did not choose to be classed amid the mass, who as a matter of course, without any exertion of their own, were to receive the Legislature's boon in that month. Hence a feeling of superiority, which led to a more aristocratic demeanour even in Blacky! They were told by Coloured people, they wd. associate with them, - but not with the "Adelaide" vulgar!213 Behold a very remarkable revulsion of feeling in these Sentiments! When we first came, nothing was to be heard, but a joyous song of the Negroes, {in which all the praise} wherein the whole merit of their liberation from servitude was ascribed to the Queen Dowager; - I give you a stanza of this favourite air, which, - like all Sambo's compositions, is ludicrous enough Rights and privileges Rights and privileges We shall hab; we shall hab. My fader gave me twenty pound for to dance Queen Adelaide jig. Chorus: Rights and privileges etc. etc. etc. Since I am upon topics connected with a system that will soon be enrolled among others, which "have ceased to be," - let me conduct you for one day over a Sugar Estate in crop time. But first let us have our bath; and whilst the boy is getting ready our horses, we will sip a cup of hot coffee, & dress. - By the bye, - "boy", is the appellative here for any male servant, be he youthful as Adonis, - or venerable as Nestor. "Gunfire" has just 213. The status considerations that impelled some St. Vincent non-praedial (and most likely coloured) apprentices, for whom freedom was but weeks away, to secure their release through self-purchase so late in the Apprenticeship, seem to have been evident elsewhere in the British Caribbean. As K. O. Laurence notes, "both in Trinidad and in Jamaica the expression 'fuss of August nigger' was used by old freedmen to distance themselves from the masses who were freed in 1838." K. O. Laurence, "Comments on the Papers by Green, Marshall, Engerman and Emmer," in Richardson (ed.), Abolition and Its Aftermath, p. 269. Anxieties over status were but one of the manifestations of the profound social turmoil and conflict that characterized the Apprenticeship years in St. Vincent. For a full examination of this topic, see Roderick A. McDonald, "'Birth-Pangs of a New Order': Special Magistrate John Anderson and the Apprenticeship in St. Vincent," in Robert L. Paquette and Stanley L. Engerman (eds.), The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), pp. 324 44.

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pealed, - so we have the benefit of the bracing, delicious morning air; and we start in our jackets, - sending on our baskets with our dress suit, to the house we mean to dine at. - We are off: As we ride up the valley, mark the {faint} safron [sic] streaks of light, gradually tinged into deeper belts of molten gold, which announce the rising of the sun, as he struggles through the vapouring veil which would impede his course. What a magnificent approach is yonder avenue of palms, forty on either side! The mist still conceals the extent of the plain; but now we are on rising ground, and the landscape is all before us, dotted here & there with the mansions of the planters, and the huts of the negroes embowered amid palms, breadfruit, & cocoa nut trees. Hark! A bell is ringing, - and the conch-shell blowing. - It is the call to work. The Negroes are seen slowly wending their way to the field, each in their blue bamboo wrapper, with their hoes over their shoulders. The mule boys are cracking their whips, & flourishing them round their poor Cavalry's heads. Here a cart drawn by a couple of stout oxen, grinds its weary way over the ill-laid and stony road. The driver with his crooked stick, - emblem at once of his authority, & forming a convenient substitute for a chair, {shouts to} points out to the Gang, the nature of their work; whilst they are giggling, and laughing, and talking, in an alto-key of the highest pitch. "How do massa? good morning Massa! How lilly massas? & misses," are showered upon us as we pass by. - There is no sour face among them; and a whip is neither known - nor to be seen. - Indeed, my own Constables were always obliged to carry a "car", when it became necessary to inflict corporal punishment in the country. These people thus turned out at six o'Clock (with the exception of mothers with infants at the breast, who are allowed to remain {at home} an hour later, & to break off an hour earlier) {strike off for} return home to breakfast at 9 o'C. At 10 o'C. they {return to} are again in the field, & labour till noon; from which hour till 2 o'Clock the time is their own; & they dine if disposed, - in the interval; Their duties are resumed at 2 o'C. and concluded at six P.M.; they performing thus 9 hours work, and that for 5 days in each week. How slight a travail in comparison of that exacted from the unfortunates employed in our home manufactories. As I said before, the negroes have moreover 30 days in each year besides Saturdays, & Sundays, to themselves. After six, - the grass cutters on the estates near town, repair there with the bundles for their customers; their wives, - or reputed wives (for Sambo has generally a plurality, whom he changes as whim, or season guides) - cook the family supper, which is always the principal, - & often, the only meal in the 24 hours. The younger,

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& gaier of the gang, either quietly betake themselves to their homes, - or set off to visit a distant sweetheart, or join in some secret "hop". It is now time for breakfast, - I introduce you to a friendly planter, & he greets you heartily. After appeasing your appetite, whetted by your early ride, - we proceed to inspect the buildings. - Going out, we encounter half a dozen little naked black urchins, attended by an old female, from an adjoining building called "the Nursery", - tumbling, & rolling about in every imaginable form, - sleek, & polished as an ivory ball. Nothing so astonished me, when I first came, as the kindness & familiarity with which infants of apprenticed labourers were {allowed to come} treated by their employers. It is a remnant of the "olden time" of slavery, where they even intruded at meals, and were feasted on their Master's knees. As free children, the planters are not obliged to look after these little ones, - but to their honor be it said, I believe they generally do:214 With respect to the adults, - the labourers themselves, - they are bound by law, to see they have every requisite when sick; and on each property there is an hospital, - and one or more sick nurses, as occasion may require. Males & females are separated, - as you will perceive before we leave, if you will look in from the gallery. Possibly you may encounter the Doctor, there; as he regularly comes to each estate twice every week, - or oftener if necessary. Now, for the works. These consist of the mill, - boiling house, - curing house, and still house. A range of sheds defends the carpenters & coopers who are labouring on the hogsheads necessary for the reception of the rum, and sugar. Some mills are worked by water, - a few by mules; - & of late, steam engines have been erected both to Windward, & Leeward. As the mule boys bring up their loads of canes from the field where the gang is at work, - they uncrook them, and tumble them on the ground, - whence they are taken up by the persons whose business it is to feed the mill. Over these an official termed "Mill boatswain" presides, {to keep them to their task} The rollers are placed perpendicularly, three in number close together; the canes are put in at the mouth of the mill, - successively receiving compression between each, - and are taken out by one or more persons stationed on the opposite 214. Although some planters may have been so inclined, others chose to adhere to the letter of the Abolition Act (reproduced as Appendix 1), leaving responsibility for the support of the free children to parents, kin, or other members of the apprentice community, while yet a third group, as Woodville Marshall points out, also "refused to give the allowances to free children; rather they stipulated that these allowances could be earned through labour service performed by the free children or by their mothers." Marshall, "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands," p. 27.

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Figure 15. Holing a cane piece.

Figure 16. Planting the sugar cane.

Figure 17. Cutting the sugar cane.

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Figure 18. A mill yard.

Figure 19. Exterior of a boiling house.

Figure 20. Interior of a boiling house.

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quarter, - whoflingthem - into a sloping trough, - whence they descend into a heap. These heaps of rind, acquire the denomination of "migass" - & are carefully piled in houses adapted for its preservation. Any accident to a migass house, may be attended with most serious results from its inflammable qualities; I once saw one enveloped in flames, - and it would have proved the destruction of a great part of Kingstown, had not the wind shifted. Accidents to the mill feeders are not uncommon, if they be not dextrous. The juice as it is expressed from the cane falls into the mill-bed {capable of containing upwards of 300 gallons} from which it runs along an inclined {wooden} conductor into the Receiver {clarifier or great cistern}, in the boiling house. Follow me there. This is a capacious, & lofty building, - and very cool from the constant circulation of air kept up by the jalousied openings in the roof. The head boilerman advances, - with his apron round his waist, makes you a bow, & chalks your foot, or a board he holds in his hand. This is an indirect appeal to your pocket, with which it wd. seem odd not to comply.215 Made free of the boiling house, look around. From the Receiver, the juice is drawn off into a clarifier holding from 300 to 500 Gallons, - besides which, on the same side of the room, are five or six copper cauldrons, or boilers. {The largest holds from 300 to 500 gallons.} These decrease in size as they approach the fire place, the last & smallest being termed the teach under w. the fire is placed; When the cane juice has been well boiled, it passes from the largest copper to the Teach seriatim; You must be apprised that altho' the fire is below the teach, there is an under current which sweeps the flames the whole length of the entire coppers. A negro stands at each copper, to stir, scum, & ladle the liquor, - and shouts of "fire" "fire", are ever & anon raised to quicken the motions of the fireman if dilatory. When the head boilerman thinks it nearly granulated, he "strikes"; - that is, conveys the liquor in a spout from the "teach", - to a wooden cooler on the opposite side. There are a variety of these, & they will contain each six strikes. The quantity of sugar made in a day, varies on different estates, - from the quality of the canes, - the supply given by the Gang; the dry or damp condition of the fuel, - & the state of the atmosphere. It ranges from one and a half to 3 and even 4 hogsheads. After hardening, the sugar is put into hogsheads pierced in the bottom, - {with several holes} & removed into the curing house. In potting the sugar - the {whole} strength of an estate, mechanics & all assist. The Curing house has an open floor, and the molasses drain off through the holes into the cistern beneath. 215. See footnote 115 for information on this custom.

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Figure 21. Exterior of a distillery.

Figure 22. Interior of a distillery.

Figure 23. Shipping sugar.

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After remaining a fortnight, the sugar is next beaten, or trodden down, till closely packed; - the {head put on the cask} hogsheads are closed, {& shipped off} carted off to some bay, ready for the Droghers, & by them conveyed on board the ships bound for England. Let us now look at the vats containing molasses, skimmings of sugar & water, - prepared for the distillation of rum, - but it is lunch hour - and I spare the process, as perhaps nothing new. We will occupy the time till dinner, with a ride round the estate, & to some of the more remarkable Curiosities of the Neighbourhood. Did you ever see anything more regular, or beautiful, than that field, of young sprouts of cane, each square as exact as if mathematically formed? The work of holing is certainly a pleasant sight to the eye in St. Vincent. Besides the ground annually prepared by hoe ploughing for new plants - a crop of sugar is obtained from the "ratoons", or shoots from the old Canes: In Trinidad, these will yield several crops successively, without manuring as the soil is virgin ground; here, I believe, two are the utmost, for the earth is worn out.216 Having shewn you thro' the indoor labours, - let me (whilst in the field} inform you that where no agreement has been entered into between the Manager & the apprentices for spell work for taking off the crop (in their own hours} the same is regulated by rule. The mill gang is divided into 3 spells. The first commence work at 5 AM; remaining throughout their nine hours till 2 o'C PM, - & having their victuals with them. - The second spell who had commenced their field labour at 6 o'C AM, will have had their hour for breakfast, their 2 hours at noon, & will be prepared to go to their work at 2 o'C to the mill, where they remain until 6 P.M., which will amount to 13 hours [sic]. - The 3rd spell begins work at 5 o'C at the mill the following morning, & are relieved at 2 o'C by the first spell of the preceeding [sic] day. At 6 o'Clock, we are again seated at our hospitable host's. - In addition to the usual liquids, - {wines} we have a sparkling tumbler of hock, and native "spa" water; - almost as good as Byron's, - "hock and seltzer";217 & 216. Figures 15-23 depict slaves in the latter years of slavery at work cultivating and processing the sugar crop in Antigua, a British Leeward Islands colony located about 300 miles north of St. Vincent. Although time and distance separated Antiguan slaves from Vincentian apprentices, their work regimes would have been very similar, and thus the sketches executed by William Clark for his Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (London: Thomas Clay, 1823) are of scenes much like those witnessed and described by Anderson. 217. In enjoining his readers to "Get very drunk, and when / You wake with headache you shall see what then!" Byron recommends as a cure for the hangover:

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after an agreable [sic] evening, we ride home in the solemn tranquillity of the moonlight, our boys walking by our sides, carrying our umbrellas, & baggage. On such an evening, a friend coming off from a vessel where he had dined, told me he heard a report loud as a cannon shot. He feared some accident; but the sailors explained the mystery by pointing to a whale & thrasher, then in active warfare: As the former, writhing from the fierce, & noisy strokes of his antagonist, heaved his unwieldy carcase [sic], in impotent, & angry contortions, {in hopes of escape} - His wareful foe watched his ebbing powers, & rising, with tremendous force, struck him with fatal & decisive effect, {he never rose again} 30th April [1838], Monday. As I conjectured! Barbados has set the example! We have this day intelligence of the island Parlt. having passed resolutions in favor of the measure for the emancipation of praedials on 1st August [1838].218 I had imagined there wd. have been some excitement.

Ring for your valet - bid him quickly bring Some hock and soda-water, then you'll know A pleasure worthy Xerxes the great king; For not the blest sherbet, sublimed with snow, Nor the first sparkle of the desert-spring, Nor Burgundy in all its sunset glow, After long travel, Ennui, Love, or Slaughter, Vie with that draught of hock and soda-water! Don Juan (canto II, stanzas clxxix, line 7-clxxx, line 8). 218. Yielding to pressure from the British Parliament and Colonial Secretary Lord Glenelg, as well as metropolitan-based abolitionists, the British West Indian colonies who had instituted the Apprenticeship system in 1834 now moved to terminate it. (Neither Antigua nor the Atlantic island of Bermuda had ever instituted the Apprenticeship.) Montserrat, whose legislature had only narrowly approved the adoption of the system four years previously, was the first island to act, voting in November 1837, to end the Apprenticeship as of 1 August 1838. Thereafter, the other islands followed suit, with particular encouragement being given to Barbados and the Windward islands by Governor Sir Evan Murray MacGregor. On 24 April 1838, the Barbados House of Assembly voted to end the Apprenticeship as of 1 August, and legislation to that effect was completed by mid-May. On 11 May, St. Vincent's legislature enacted similar provisions, with Grenada, Tobago and St. Lucia following suit over the next two months. The Leeward islands had taken a similar course, while the largest colonies Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana - who were the most reluctant to give up the system, finally fell into line with the other colonies during the summer months. See Woodville Marshall, "The Termination of the Apprenticeship in Barbados and the Windward Islands: An Essay in Colonial Administration and Politics," Journal of Caribbean History 2, no. 1 (1971): 1-45; Temperly, British Antislavery, pp. 40-41; Burn, Emancipation and Apprenticeship, pp. 333-61. Appendix 13 contains the full text of "An Act to abrogate the Apprenticeship of Praedial Labourers in the Island of Saint Vincent and its Dependencies."

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Quite the contrary: People of all classes have received the news with sullen indifference.219 - Well, the most important experiment ever tried in the civilized world, is now about to be {consummated} put to the test; it is needless to speculate, - we shall soon see if the Negro will voluntarily labour for his bread, & realize the fond expectations of his patrons & admirers? But there is a class, who have been totally overlooked; and yet upon their conduct will depend in a great measure, the future welfare or misery of the Colony; I allude to the free children. Without almost an exception, these are absolute idlers, - brought up in sloth, & ignorance. How they live, their Parents only can tell. They nominally support them, - but their chief subsistence, is plunder. No anxiety is shewn by either Fathers or Mothers for the culture of their minds, - or the acquirement by them of an honest Calling. - "Freedom without industry," - is their baneful motto. Even when sent to School, their Voluntary, or Continuous attendance, cannot be depended on. This has been instanced in the Windward quarter, where Sunday Schools established by Methodist Missionaries, have, from a promising groupe of scholars, fallen to wreck; {a merely nominal list;} owing to the Parents themselves, positively refusing to allow their Children imbibe the seeds of knowledge! During the last year, Governt. intimated its intention of granting a sum of £4,430 Sterling, to defray the expence of building chapels, & churches, in the Colony, provided the Local Legislature wd. contribute a fourth of the like amount; - and the foundation of one church has already been laid at Calliaqua. Schools ought however to precede churches: - The benevolent 219. Anderson's official reports through the summer of 1838 provide additional commentary on apprentices' responses to the termination of the Apprenticeship. On 1 June, he observed that "a sulky, sullen disposition has been manifested" by apprentices in Kingstown and some estates close to the capital, and noted that the prospect of the Apprenticeship ending "begat no emotions of gratitude, or rejoicing," while on 30 June, he blamed the indolence of the apprentices, and "the sullen, incredulous spirit so generally gone abroad," on the approaching end of the system (Anderson Reports, 1 June and 30 June 1838, CO 260/57). I have found no evidence for Burn's contention that apprentices in St. Vincent exhibited "a bored dislike of the change" (Emancipation and Apprenticeship, p. 357). The island's apprentices seem to have been similarly undemonstrative on the day they received full freedom, since in his journal entry for 1 August, Special Magistrate John Colthurst commented on their "solemn tranquility," and noted that "there was not a single revel or absolute merry-making" (Marshall, The Colthurst Journal, p. 227). Similarly, in a letter to Governor MacGregor in Barbados, LieutenantGovernor Tyler remarked on the solemnity of St. Vincent's apprentices on the day the system ended. (See House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 36, p. 145.) Tyler did not comment specifically on the apprentices' response to the speech he gave them on their first day of freedom. (See Appendix 14 for the full text of the "Address of his Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Tyler to the Apprenticed Labourers of St. Vincent upon the Abolition of Apprenticeship in that Colony on the 1st August 1838.")

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intentions of the Mother Country must be aided by the resident gentry; and they cannot do so more effectually than by instituting seminaries where gratuitous education may be had for the rising Generation of all denominations. The {Roman Catholic} Bishop of Agna, Dr. Smith {R.C. Trinidad} when on his episcopal visit to this Colony, lately from Trinidad, set the example in Kingstown.220 To be effectual, the Normal system of Prussia, which makes the attendance of each child, compulsory, - shd. be adopted, & with the seeds of knowledge £ religion must be combined manual & agricultural labour. Compulsory measures are only defensible in extreme cases; - but I think you will agree with me that the condition of these adolescents is one of them. The hitherto degraded pursuit of agriculture {by the Negro} must be rescued from unmerited opprobrium. So low rated is husbandry that the appellative {"You black"} "field nigger," - is the most stinging reproach one apprentice can make to another. Emergencies require a change of councils, - or in the words of the Roman orator, - "semper ad novos casus temporum, novorum consiliorum rationes accomodassae."221 4th May [1838]. "It never rains, but it pours whether it be good, or bad news," says a favourite novelist;222 & the planters seem to find so. Hardly are they made aware that they are about to have the apprentices unreservedly set free, - when the very elements seem to conspire against them. Storms unlike any witnessed for many years have deluged the Colony in every quarter, - for a succession of days. The highways have been destroyed, - cane fields swept away, - stores have been buried by the falling in off [sic] precipitous cliffs, and private property ruined to the amount of many thousand pounds. The (Take in paper apart "May 8th [1838]." P 134.)223

220. On 21 February 1837, Richard Patrick Smith took up his post as bishop of the newly created West Indian Roman Catholic diocese of Agnen (Anderson called it Agna), which was headquartered in Port of Spain, Trinidad. This diocese was short-lived, being declared defunct in 1844. See P. Remigium Ritzier and P. Pirminum Sefrin, Hierarchia Catholica Medii el Recentioris Aevi, vol. 7 (Patavii: Apud Basilicam S. Antonii, 1968), p. 62. 221. In this quotation, which translates as "for a new occasion in a new time, one must adapt oneself to a new plan," Anderson has paraphrased Cicero, "ad novos casus temporum novorum, novorum consiliorum rationes accommodare." See William Robertson, A Dictionary of Latin Phrases (London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1829), p. 796. 222. A quotation from Alain Rene Le Sage, The Adventures of Gil Bias, trans. Benjamin Heath Malkin, vol. 1 (1809; reprint, London: Dent, 1937), p. 30. 223. The journal ends at this point with the insert missing. The Greek word TeAos is written at the foot of a piece of paper glued inside the back cover of the journal. It translates as fulfillment, completion, consummation, result, or end, and although there is no indication of

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context, Anderson may either have been referring to his work on the journal, or the fact that he had no space to write any more in this particular volume. Anderson also made miscellaneous notations on the inside back cover of his journal. These are: "Objections of Planters to new system - depriving them of power" "Jealousy of the Planters to freedom" "Superstition of People" "IndifF6 to money of Cold." "Casting away Clothes" "Currency Money - Dogs etc. reluctance of Servants to disclose Do. for II- Eng. with tradesmen" "negro indolence - deceit - anomalies [sic] - contrariety - impossibility of setting a system" "Servants cursing each other"

APPENDIXES

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APPENDIX 1 ST. VINCENT AN ACT for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of Saint Vincent and its Dependencies, in consideration of Compensation, and for promoting the Industry and good conduct of the Manumitted Slaves.- (Passed 2d April 1834.) Whereas an Act has recently passed the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland, intituled, "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the Manumitted Slaves, and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves:" And whereas in consequence of such Act, it is necessary not only that provision should be made for promoting the industry and securing the good conduct of the persons so to be manumitted, but also that the laws now in force in these Islands should forthwith be adapted to the new state and relations of society which will follow upon such general manumission as aforesaid of the said slaves: And whereas it has been provided in the said recited Act, that the sum of twenty millions pounds sterling should be given to the persons entitled to the services of such slaves, towards compensation for the loss which they will incur by their being deprived of their right to such services: And whereas in consideration of such compensation, it is necessary that a Bill should pass the Legislature of these Islands to effect those purposes: We, Your Majesty's must dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Assembly of the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies, humbly pray Your most Excellent Majesty that it may be enacted, and be it and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That from and after the 1 st day of August 1834, all persons who in conformity with the laws now in force in these Islands shall, on or before the 1st day of August 1834, have been duly registered as slaves, and who on the said 1st day of August 1834, shall be actually within these Islands, and who shall by such registry appear to be on the said 1st day of August 1834 the full age of six years or upwards shall, by force and virtue of this Act, and without the previous execution of any indenture of apprenticeship, or other deed or instrument for that purpose, become and be apprenticed labourers; provided that for the purposes

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aforesaid, every slave belonging to these Islands engaged in his ordinary occupation on the seas, shall be deemed and taken to be within these Islands, to all intents and purposes whatsoever. 2. And be it further enacted, that during the continuance of the apprenticeship of any such apprenticed labourer, such person shall be entitled to the services of such apprenticed labourer as would for the time being have been entitled to his services as a slave if this Act had not been made. 3. Provided also, and be it further enacted, that all slaves within these Islands, who may at any time previous to the passing of this Act have been taken with the consent of their possessors, and all apprenticed labourers who may hereafter, with the like consent, be taken into any part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, shall from and after the passing of this Act be absolutely and entirely free, to all intents and purposes whatsoever. 4. And be it enacted, that all such apprenticed labourers shall, for the purpose of this Act, be divided into three distinct classes; the first of such classes consisting of praedial apprenticed labourers attached to the soil, and comprising all persons, who in their state of slavery were usually employed in agriculture, or in the manufacture of colonial produce or otherwise, upon lands belonging to their owners; the second of such classes consisting of praedial apprenticed labourers not attached to the soil, and comprising all persons who in their state of slavery were usually employed in agriculture, or in the manufacture of colonial produce or otherwise, upon lands not belonging to their owners; and the third of such classes, consisting of non-praedial apprenticed labourers, and comprising all apprenticed labourers not included within either of the two preceding classes: provided always, that no persons of the age of twelve years and upwards shall be included in either of the said two classes of praedial apprenticed labourers, unless such person shall for 12 calendar months at the least next before the passing of the Act of the Imperial Parliament for the Abolition of Slavery, have been habitually employed in agriculture, or in the manufacture of colonial produce, or employed in praedial labour. 5. And be it further enacted, that no person who by virtue of this Act shall become a praedial apprenticed labourer, whether attached or not attached to the soil, shall continue in such apprenticeship beyond the 1st day of August 1840; and that during such apprenticeship, no such praedial labourer, whether attached or not attached to the soil, shall be bound or liable, by virtue of such apprenticeship, to perform any labour in the service of his employer for more than 45 hours in the whole in any one week. 6. And be it further enacted, that no person who by virtue of this Act shall become a non-praedial apprenticed labourer, shall continue in such apprenticeship beyond the 1st day of August 1838.

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7. And be it further enacted, that if before any such apprenticeship shall have expired, the person entitled for and during the remainder of any such term to the services of such apprenticed labourer, shall be desirous to discharge him from such apprenticeship, it shall be lawful for such person so to do by deed poll or instrument in writing, to be by him for that purpose made and executed, and which shall be acknowledged before the register of deeds, and recorded in his office: provided nevertheless, that if any person so discharged from any such apprenticeship by any such voluntary act as aforesaid, shall at that time be of the age of 50 years or upwards, or shall be then labouring under any such disease or mental or bodily infirmity as may render him incapable of earning his subsistence, then and in every such case the person so discharging any such apprenticed labourer as aforesaid, shall continue and be liable to provide for the support and maintenance of such apprenticed labourer during the remaining term of such original apprenticeship, as fully as if such apprenticed labourer had not been discharged therefrom. 8. And to provide for the release of the services of labourers desiring to obtain the same by purchase, in cases where the employers of such labourers may be unwilling or unable to contract for such release, it is hereby further enacted, that if the employer of any apprenticed labourer in any of these Islands, or any person having an interest in any such labourer, shall be unwilling to effect his release, or if the employer or any other person having a charge upon, or interest in, any such labourer, shall be a minor or a married woman, or idiot or lunatic, or if the person entitled to the services of any such labourer shall be absent from these Islands, or if the employer of any such labourer shall demand as the price of his release a greater sum of money than may appear to the special justice to be the fair and just value thereof, then and in each and every of the cases aforesaid, the chief justice of the Island, or in case of his death, absence or disability, the next judge in commission, on application to him for that purpose made by the special justice, shall issue a summons under his hand and seal, requiring the employer of such labourer to appear before him by himself or his agents at some convenient time and place, to be in such summons for that purpose appointed, and notice shall be published by the said special justice in the public Gazette of this Island, of the time and place appointed for the purpose aforesaid, and in such notice all persons having or claiming to have any title or interest to or in the services of the labourer proposed to be released, either in their own right, or as the agents, guardians, trustees or representatives of any other person, shall be required to attend and prefer such claim. 9. And be it further enacted, that at the time appointed for any such meeting as aforesaid, the chief justice or other judge as aforesaid of the Island, in the presence of the special justice of the district in which such labourer is resident, and also in the presence of the employer of the labourer proposed to be released, or his agent, or upon proof being made to him upon oath of the due service and publication of such

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notice as aforesaid, then, if necessary, in the absence of such employer or his agent, shall proceed to hear in a summary way what may be alleged by the said special justice, and by the employer or his agent, or other person claiming any interest in the services of the said labourer proposed to be released and attending in pursuance of any such notice; and the said chief justice or other judge as aforesaid shall require the special justice, and the employer of such labourer or his agent, if attending in pursuance of such notice, each to nominate an appraiser of the value of his services, and the said chief justice or other judge as aforesaid shall himself nominate an umpire between such appraisers; but if such employer or his agent, being duly summoned as aforesaid, shall fail to attend, or attending shall refuse or omit to nominate an appraiser, then the said chief justice or other judge as aforesaid shall not only nominate such umpire as aforesaid, but shall also nominate an appraiser on behalf of such employer or his agent. 10. And be it further enacted, that the appraisers so to be nominated as aforesaid shall be duly sworn by and before the said chief justice or other judge as aforesaid, to make a fair and impartial appraisement of the services of the labourer so proposed to be released, and within seven days next after such their appointment, such appraisers shall make a joint valuation of the said services of the said labourer, and shall certify such their valuation to the said chief justice or other judge as aforesaid, under their hands and seals; and in case such joint certificate shall not be so made and delivered to the said chief justice or other judge as aforesaid within the said term of seven days, then the said umpire, being duly sworn in manner aforesaid, shall within the next succeeding seven days certify his valuation to the said chief justice or other judge as aforesaid; and the valuation to be made in manner aforesaid, either by the said joint appraisers, or in their default by the said umpire, shall be binding and conclusive, and shall be entered and inrolled among the records in the Register's Office of the said Island; and the said labourers whose services are so appraised, shall immediately pay down the whole of their appraisal value in gold and silver money unto the person entitled to receive the same; and if the money be not immediately paid, all the proceedings shall be and are hereby declared to be null and void, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, and the inrolment aforesaid shall not take place. 11. And be it further enacted, that no apprenticed labourers belonging to these Islands, shall be subject or liable to be removed therefrom, and that no praedial apprenticed labourer who may in manner aforesaid, become attached to the soil, shall be subject or liable to perform any labour in the service of his employer except upon or in or about the works and business of the plantations or estates to which such praedial apprenticed labourer shall have been attached, or on which he shall have been usually employed on or previously to the 1st day of August 1834: provided nevertheless, that with the consent in writing of any one of the justices of the peace holding such special commissions as hereinafter mentioned, it shall be lawful

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for the person entitled to the services of any such attached praedial apprenticed labourer, to transfer his services to any other estate or plantation with these Islands to such person belonging; which written consent shall in no case be given, or be of any validity, unless any such justice of the peace shall first have ascertained that such transfer would not have the effect of separating any such attached praedial apprenticed labourer from his or her wife or husband, parent or child, or from any person or persons reputed to bear any such relation to him or her, except with the consent of the party to be removed, and that such transfer would not probably be injurious to the health or welfare of such attached praedial apprenticed labourer; and such consent shall be recorded in a book to be kept by the special justice of the district to which such labourers shall be removed, and which consent shall be in form following:- "These are to certify that upon the application of A.B. for liberty to remove certain praedial attached labourers [naming them] according to the provisions of this Act, I have assented thereto. C.D., Special Justice." 12. And be it further enacted, that the services of all such apprenticed labourers shall and are hereby declared to be real estate, and not chattels, and shall descend unto the heir of the person dying seized thereof according to the custom and manner of inheritance held in fee simple, and widows shall be capable of being endowed thereof: provided always, that any executor or administrator may inventory the said labourers, but not take them into his custody, to the intent that if there be not sufficient goods and chattels to pay the debts of the deceased, the residue of the services of the said labourers shall be taken and sold by such executor or administrator for the payment of the said debts, and be chattels for that purpose, and not otherwise. 13. And be it further enacted and declared, that the right or interest of any employer or employers to and in the services of any such apprenticed labourers as aforesaid, shall pass and be transferable by bargain and sale, contract, deed or conveyance, in the same manner as real estate passes, or is transferred according to the laws of these Islands; provided that no such apprenticed labourer shall, by virtue of any such bargain and sale, contract, deed or conveyance, be subject or liable to be separated from his or her wife or husband, parent or child, or from any person or persons reputed to bear any such relation to him, except with the consent of the party whose services are proposed to be sold or transferred. 14. And be it further enacted, that from and after the 1st day of August 1834, no person whosoever shall on Sunday expose for sale in any market or other place, or in any shop or other place, any goods, wares or merchandise, or provisions, under a penalty not exceeding 5 1. for every offence; provided, that in case the goods or provisions so exposed for sale, shall not exceed in value the sum of 5 1., the same may, in lieu of such penalty, be forfeited by order of any justice of the peace, for the benefit of the poor of the parish in which such offence is committed: And provided also, that nothing herein shall extend to prevent the keeping open of any druggist shop, tavern

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or lodging house, or the sale of bread, fresh meat, fresh fish, or milk on Sunday, such sale, however, not to take place in any town or village during the celebration of divine service therein; and that from and after the 1st day of August 1834, one day in each week shall be given to every praedial labourer: provided, that nothing hereinbefore enacted, shall extend to any domestic work or labour which may be performed by any apprenticed labourers usually employed as domestics or watchmen by day or night, or mariners, nor to any labour performed by any apprenticed labourer in the tending or care of live stock, who shall continue to perform, for the usual periods, and at the usual hours, the duties respectively assigned to them; and except as aforesaid, no apprenticed labourer shall be compelled or compellable to labour on Sundays, except in cases of urgent necessity; in which case it shall be lawful for the owner or other person in management of such property where such necessity shall occur, to require and compel the immediate and continued service of any or all the apprenticed labourers during such emergency: And provided also, that praedial labourers employed in such works of necessity, tending cattle, domestic services, and protecting property, if employed on their own day, shall have some other day in lieu thereof. 15. And whereas, praedial slaves in these Islands are supplied partly by food, and partly by the cultivation of grounds set apart for the growth of provisions; Be it therefore enacted, that during the continuance of such apprenticeship as aforesaid, the person for the time being entitled to the services of every praedial apprenticed labourer shall allow to each and every such praedial apprenticed labourer a sufficient portion of land adapted to the growth of provisions, and at the rate of two pounds of salted fish in each and every week, for his support and maintenance, or some other equivalent, to the satisfaction of the praedial apprenticed labourer; and shall allow to each and every such praedial apprenticed labourer eleven days, to be deducted out of the 45 working hours in each week, over and above the one day allowed in each week and Sundays, in every year, at the discretion of such employer of the said praedial apprenticed labourers or their agent, and as by them may be deemed most advantageous and beneficial to each praedial apprenticed labourers. 16. And whereas it is necessary that proper regulations should be made and established, as to the extent of such provision grounds hereinbefore mentioned, and as to the distance at which such grounds may be so allotted from the ordinary place of abode of such praedial apprenticed labourer; Be it enacted, that for the purposes of this Act, all grounds hitherto allotted to every slave during such his state of slavery for his maintenance and support shall during the term of his apprenticeship, in quantity, quality and locality, be deemed adequate and proper for the maintenance and support of every praedial apprenticed labourer, unless good and sufficient cause be shown to the contrary: provided, and be it enacted, that such praedial or nonpraedial apprenticed labourer shall satisfy, in case of complaint, such special justice that he has kept his ground in a due and proper state of cultivation.

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17. And be it further enacted, that if any apprenticed labourer shall, by wilful neglect or indolence during his own time, suffer his house or provision ground to fall into decay and bad order, it shall and may be lawful for the employer of such apprenticed labourer, with the sanction in writing of any special justice, to be obtained upon proof before him of such neglect or indolence, to put the house or provision ground of such apprenticed labourer into proper order for his comfort and support, and to deduct an equivalent quantity of labour from his own time, not exceeding 15 hours in any one week. 18. And whereas, in certain parts of these Islands, there may not be lands proper for the cultivation of provisions, or by reason of long continuance of dry weather, or other casualty, the grounds hitherto appropriated for negro grounds may be rendered unproductive; Be it enacted, that in such case the master, owner or other person entitled to the service of such apprenticed labourer shall, by some other ways and means, make good and ample provision for all such apprenticed labourers to whose services they shall be entitled, in order that they may be properly supported and maintained, under a penalty not exceeding 40s. for each offence: provided always, that in such case, no diminution of the 45 hours, as hereinbefore mentioned, shall take place. 19. And be it further enacted, That it is and shall be the duty of every employer, or his agent, of apprenticed labourers, and he is hereby required, once in every year to deliver for the use of the labourers, clothing of the following description: - Six yards of oznaburgs, six yards of pennistons, or three yards six-fourths wide cloth for every labourer above 12 years of age, and half the quantity for every labourer under that age, and to each labourer one hat or cap: provided always, that employers may substitute other articles of clothing in lieu of those named, but which shall be in value equal to those mentioned in this clause. 20. And be it further enacted, that every employer of apprenticed labourers shall employ some person duly qualified in the practice of physic and surgery, to attend them as occasion shall require, provided such medical practitioner can be procured; and that when any labourer shall be sick, or unable from any accident or cause whatsoever to perform his usual labour, the employer or his agent shall cause such labourer to be visited by the said medical practitioner, and shall provide such medicines, food and other necessaries as shall be deemed requisite by him; and the said practitioner, as has heretofore been customary, shall keep a book upon each estate, wherein the names of the patients, diseases, and his prescriptions shall be inserted. 21. And be it further enacted, that subject to the obligations imposed by this Act upon such apprenticed labourers as aforesaid, all and every the persons who on the said 1st day of August 1834 shall be holden in slavery within these Islands, shall upon, and from and after the said 1st day of August 1834 become, and be, to all intents and purposes, free and discharged of and from all manner of slavery, and

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shall be absolutely and for ever manumitted; and that the children thereafter to be born to any such persons, and the offspring of such children, shall, in like manner be free from their birth; and that from and after the said 1st day of August 1834, slavery shall be, and is hereby utterly and for ever abolished and declared unlawful throughout these Islands. 22. And be it further enacted, that all persons who shall become apprenticed labourers on the said 1st day of August 1834 shall be, and are hereby declared to be entitled to all the rights and privileges of free persons, except as the same may be restricted by this or any other Act: provided always, that no person who shall become an apprenticed labourer by virtue of such Act, shall have or exercise any political franchise whatsoever by virtue of any property which he may acquire; nor be capable of serving as a juror, or of holding any office except as a constable or beadle; nor shall he be eligible to serve in the militia, unless in cases of great emergency, to be judged of by the Governor and a Council of War, when he shall be compelled to serve with the same liabilities as all other persons. 23. And be it further enacted, that such apprenticed labourers shall not, during the continuance of such of their apprenticeship, be liable to be arrested or imprisoned for debt. 24. And be it further enacted, that all offenders triable under the Act commonly called the Slave Act, and who shall not have been brought to trial before the 1st day of August next, shall and may be proceeded against and punished as the said Act provides, and as if this Act had not been passed. 25. And whereas it may happen that children who have not attained the age of six years on the said 1st day of August 1834, or that children who after that day may be born to any female apprenticed labourers, may not be properly supported by their parents, and that no other person may be disposed voluntarily to undertake the support of such children; Be it therefore enacted, that if any child, who on the said 1st day of August 1834, had not completed his sixth year; or if any child, to which any female apprenticed labourer may give birth on or after the said 1 st day of August 1834, shall be brought before a special justice, and if it shall appear to the satisfaction of such justice, that the parent of any such child is incapable of providing it with an adequate maintenance, and that such child has not completed his age of 12 years, it shall be lawful for such justice, and he is hereby required, on behalf of any such child, to execute an indenture of apprenticeship, thereby binding such child as an apprenticed labourer to the person entitled to the services of the mother of such child, or who had been last entitled to the services of such mother; but in case it shall be made to appear to any such justice that such person aforesaid is unable or unfit to enter into such indenture, and properly to perform the covenants thereof, then it shall be lawful for such justice, and he is hereby required, to bind any such child to

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any other person to be by him for that purpose approved, and who may be willing and able properly to perform such conditions; and the term of such apprenticeship of any such child shall, by such indenture, be limited and made to continue in force until such child shall have completed his twenty-first year, and no longer; and every child so apprenticed as aforesaid by the order of any such justice of the peace aforesaid, shall, during his apprenticeship, be subject to all such and the same rules and regulations respecting the work or labour to be by him done or performed, and respecting the food and other supplies to be to him furnished, as any other such apprenticed labourers as aforesaid. 26. And be it further enacted, that if any apprenticed labourers, being of good health and able to work, and being the father of a child under twelve years of age, shall not make adequate provision for the subsistence of such child, the special justice shall, on due proof, adjudge such labourer to be punished by hard labour, or by hiring him out during his own extra hours, and shall direct his earnings to be applied to the support of such child; and in case any child, so unprovided for as aforesaid, shall have no father living, then the mother, if competent by her labour, shall be compelled to provide for the subsistence of such child, and in default shall be sentenced to hard labour for any term not exceeding 20 days. 27. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that all indentures of apprenticeship of children required by this Act shall be, as nearly as the nature of the case will admit, in conformity with, and upon the same terms and conditions as indentures of apprenticeship of children made in England. 28. And for ensuring the effectual superintendence of the said apprenticed labourers, and the execution of this Act; Be it further enacted, that it shall and may be lawful for His Majesty to issue, or to authorize the Governor, in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty, to issue, under the public seal of these Islands, special commissions to one or more person or persons, constituting him or them a justice or justices of the peace for the whole of these Islands, or for any district within the same, for the special purpose of giving effect to this present Act, and to any laws which may hereafter be made for giving more complete effect to the same; and every person to, or in favour of whom any such commission may be issued, shall, by force and virtue thereof, and without any other qualification, be entitled and competent to act as a justice of the peace within the limits prescribed by such his commission, for such special purposes as aforesaid, but for no other purposes: provided nevertheless, that nothing herein contained shall prevent, or be construed to prevent, any person commissioned as a justice of the peace for such special purpose as aforesaid, from being included in the general commission of the peace for these Islands, in case it shall seem fit to the Governor to address both such special commission and such general commission as aforesaid, in any case to the same person or persons.

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29. And be it further enacted, that the several justices of the peace having special commissions as aforesaid (and no other magistrate or justice of the peace in these Islands), shall have, exercise and enjoy a sole and exclusive jurisdiction over, and shall solely and exclusively take cognizance of all offences committed, or alleged to have been committed, by any such apprenticed labourer, or by his employer, in such their relation to each other, or of the breach, violation or neglect of any of the obligations owed by them to each other, or of any question, matter or thing incident to or arising out of the relations subsisting between such apprenticed labourers and the persons respectively entitled to their services; provided that nothing herein contained shall extend or be construed to extend to abrogate or take away the powers by law vested in the superior courts of civil and criminal justice in these Islands. 30. And be it further enacted, that it shall not be lawful for any person entitled to the services of any such apprenticed labourer, or any other person other than such justices of the peace holding such special commissions as aforesaid, to punish any such apprenticed labourer for any offence by him committed, or alleged to have been committed, by the whipping, beating or imprisonment of his person, or by any other personal or other correction or punishment whatever, or by any addition to the hour of labour hereinbefore limited; nor shall any court, judge or justice of the peace punish any such apprenticed labourer, being a female, for any offence by her committed, by whipping or beating her person: provided always, that nothing in this Act contained shall extend to exempt any apprenticed labourer from the operation of any law or police regulation, for the prevention or punishment of any offence which is or shall hereafter be in force in these Islands, in respect to all other persons of free condition. 31. And be it enacted, that on every plantation the special justices shall appoint one or more of the apprenticed labourers thereon, with the consent of the master or manager, to be constables, who shall be empowered to maintain peace and order on such plantation, under the directions of the proprietor or manager thereof, and to secure and place in confinement any apprenticed labourer who shall commit any offence on such plantation, or any apprenticed labourer not employed on such plantation, who may be found loitering thereon without the knowledge or permission of the proprietor or manager thereof; such apprentice confined as aforesaid, not to be kept in custody longer than shall be necessary to procure the attendance of the special justice: provided always, that if the attendance of a special justice cannot be procured within 24 hours, it shall and may be lawful for the proprietor or manager aforesaid, to order the release of such apprentice so confined as aforesaid, after the expiration of 24 hours: provided nevertheless, that in the event of such an apprentice being discharged as aforesaid, the proprietor or manager shall and he is hereby required to prefer the complaint, on which such apprentice was confined, before the special justice, when he shall next come upon the estate; and provided that nothing

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shall be construed to give to any such constable any power or authority over any of His Majesty's subjects, except such apprenticed labourers. 32. And be it further enacted, that any such special justice may, if he pass sentence of imprisonment or confinement upon any apprenticed labourer, if he shall see fit, direct that such confinement or imprisonment shall take place upon the plantation to which such apprentice shall belong, or be then working upon. 33. And be it further enacted, that the person entitled to the services of any apprenticed labourer working upon or attached to or living at any plantation or settlement upon which there shall be less than 40 apprenticed labourers, shall be at liberty to carry any offending apprentice before any special justice, at the plantation or settlement at which such special justice shall sit, nearest to the place where the offence shall have been committed, or to any place within the district where such special justice shall sit. 34. And whereas it is necessary that proper regulations should be provided for the maintenance of order and good discipline among the said apprenticed labourers, and for ensuring the punctual discharge of the services due by them to their respective employers, and for the prevention and punishment of indolence, or the neglect or improper performance of work by any such apprenticed labourer, and for enforcing the due performance by any such apprenticed labourer of any contract into which he may voluntarily enter for any hired service during the time in which he may not be bound to labour for his employer, and for the prevention and punishment of insolence and insubordination on the part of any such apprenticed labourers towards their employers, and for the prevention and punishment of vagrancy, or of any conduct on the part of any such apprenticed labourers injuring or tending to the injury of the property of any such employer, and for the suppression and punishment of any riot, or combined resistance of the laws on the part of any such apprenticed labourers, and for preventing the escape from these Islands of any such apprenticed labourers during their term of apprenticeship; Be it therefore enacted, that all such offences shall be tried in a summary manner before any justice appointed by special commission. 35. And be it further enacted, that if any apprenticed labourer shall resort to a special justice to complain against his employer, and that such complaint shall be adjudged frivolous or groundless, it shall be lawful for such special justice to punish such complaining parties, by adjudging them to repay double the extent of time which may have been lost to his employer, not exceeding fifteen hours in any one week, or such other punishment by stripes not exceeding twenty. 36. And be it further enacted, that for every hour in which any labourer shall absent himself from the service of his employer without reasonable cause, to be decided by the special justice, he shall be compelled to serve two extra hours: provided, that such extra hours shall not exceed 15 in the whole in any one week.

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37. And be it further enacted, that if any apprenticed labourer shall absent himself for more than six hours in any one week without a reasonable cause, to be decided on by the special justice, he shall be adjudged a deserter; if for two days during one week in like manner, he shall be adjudged a vagabond; if for five days in any one week in like manner, he shall be adjudged a runaway: those adjudged deserters shall be confined to hard labour for any time not exceeding one week; those adjudged vagabonds to hard labour for any time not exceeding two weeks, and to any number of stripes not exceeding 15; and those adjudged runaways to hard labour for any time not exceeding one month, and to any number of stripes not exceeding 30. 38. And be it further enacted, that any apprenticed labourer who shall during his apprenticeship wilfully absent himself from the service of his employer for a period exceeding three months at any one time, may be sentenced by any special justice either to serve his employer after the expiration of his apprenticeship for so long a time as he shall have so absented himself from such service, or to make satisfaction to his employer for the loss sustained by such absence (except so far as he shall have made satisfaction for such absence, either out of such extra hours as aforesaid or otherwise); provided, that such extra service or compensation shall not be compellable after the expiration of seven years next after the termination of the apprenticeship of such apprentice. 39. And be it further enacted, that any apprenticed labourer who shall be found wandering beyond the limits of the plantation of his employer without a written permission from such employer, and who shall not be able to give a satisfactory account of himself, shall be liable to be apprehended, and upon conviction before any special justice aforesaid, shall be adjudged a vagabond and sentenced accordingly: provided, that nothing in this clause contained shall be applied to apprenticed labourers on their way to or from any place of divine worship on Sundays, or to or from market, or at such market or place: provided, that nothing herein contained shall be deemed or construed to abridge or in any wise interfere with the full and free use and enjoyment by such apprentices of the time allotted to them as their own under and by virtue of the provisions of this Act. 40. And be it further enacted, that if any apprenticed labourer shall harbour or conceal a deserter, vagabond or runaway apprenticed labourer, he shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by additional labour, confinement or labour on the treadmill for any number of days not exceeding 20, at the discretion of the special justice. 41. And be it further enacted, that any apprenticed labourer convicted before the special justice of performing his work indolently, carelessly or negligently, shall for the first offence be adjudged to labour in the service of his employer for any time not exceeding 15 hours in the whole in any one week; for the second offence to confinement with hard labour for any time not exceeding one week; for the third or any sub-

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sequent offence, to confinement with hard labour for any time not exceeding two weeks, with whipping not exceeding 20 stripes. 42. And be it further enacted, that any labourer who, by the careless use of fire, shall wilfully endanger the property of his employer or any other person, or who shall wantonly injure the property of his employer or any other person, or who shall ill-use the cattle or other live stock of his employer or any other person, or who shall, by wilful negligence, expose the property of his employer or any other person to any damage or injury, or who shall contumaciously disobey the lawful commands of his employer, shall for every such offence, be adjudged, in the discretion of the justice, either to extra labour in the service of his employer for any time not exceeding 15 hours in the whole in any one week, or to confinement to hard labour for any time not exceeding one month, or to any number of stripes not exceeding 30, or to any two or more such punishments: provided, that this enactment shall not exempt any such labourer from his liability to such actions or prosecutions as other persons of free condition may be subject and liable to, in respect of any such acts by him done or committed; but no such labourer shall be liable to be sued or prosecuted both under this Act, and under any such general laws as aforesaid. 43. And be it further enacted, that any three or more apprenticed labourers who shall agree together to make any resistance to the lawful commands of their employers, or who shall be engaged in a combined and open resistance to such lawful commands, shall be deemed guilty of an unlawful conspiracy, and shall be adjudged to confinement to hard labour for any period not exceeding six months, with whipping not exceeding 39 stripes. 44. And be it further enacted, that any apprenticed labourer who shall be in a state of drunkenness, or who shall be found fighting, or who shall conduct himself in an insolent or insubordinate manner towards his employer, or any person in the immediate superintendence of his labour, shall, for every such offence be liable on conviction to imprisonment with hard labour for any term not exceeding one week, and whipping not exceeding 15 stripes. 45. And be it further enacted, that all the offences specified in the three preceding clauses shall be inquired of by one of the justices having a special commission, unless he shall see cause to refer any case for trial to the court of grand sessions of the peace; and no employer shall be authorized to inflict any corporal punishment on any male apprenticed labourer, nor shall any woman be subject to be punished by whipping for any offence by her committed; but in all cases in which that punishment is authorized, it shall be understood as applying to the case of males only, and that all the offences in respect of which such punishment may be inflicted on any such male offender shall, when committed by women for minor offences, be punished by confinement in the stocks, or solitary confinement for any period not exceeding 10 days, and for heinous offences not otherwise provided for, by hard

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labour on the treadmill not exceeding 30 days, or such other punishment as shall be awarded by the special justice. 46. And be it further enacted, that all other inferior misdemeanors and other crimes committed by apprenticed labourers against each other, or against the person entitled to their services, or against any other person, and not hereinbefore specified, shall be heard and determined before any justice appointed by special commission, reasonable notice of the time and place of such trial being given to the person entitled to the services of the apprentice complained against, where such person so entitled to his services is not the complainant; and such justice upon conviction of such apprentice shall order and direct such punishment to be inflicted as he shall think proper, not exceeding 50 lashes, nor three months' imprisonment to hard labour or 10 days' solitary confinement: provided, that nothing in this clause contained shall be taken to authorize such magistrate to sentence any female apprentice above the age of twelve years to be flogged or beaten: and provided also, that nothing herein contained shall be deemed or taken to deprive any of His Majesty's subjects of their right to proceed against any such apprentice in any of the superior courts of this Island, for remedy against any apprentice for any wrong or injury done or committed to or against the person or property of such subject: and provided also, that when any apprenticed labourer shall be convicted of indolence or neglect, or improper performance of work, the special justice before whom such conviction shall take place, may if he sees fit, sentence the offender either alone or in addition to the punishment by flogging or hard labour hereinbefore directed, to labour for such number of hours or days in his own time for the benefit of the person entitled to his services, as the justice of the case may seem to require, not exceeding 15 hours in any one week. 47. And be it further enacted, that every employer of apprenticed labourers on estates shall intimate to such labourers the commencement and the close of the hours of labour; for which purpose a signal shall be given in such manner as shall, in reference to each estate, have been previously approved of by the special justice of the district; which signal shall always be of such a nature as shall be distinctly visible or audible to the several labourers in the service of such person. 48. And be it further enacted, that every contract between the employer and the apprenticed labourer, for the performance of any specific work as a task and in lieu of the prescribed daily labour, or for the performance of any labour in extra hours, shall only be entered into with the free assent of the latter to the same, and shall not continue in force for more than one year from the date thereof; and if such contract extends beyond the period of fourteen days, it shall be reduced into writing by the employer, and entered in a book to be kept for that purpose on the estate, wherein shall be specified the nature and amount of the extra labour and the amount of the consideration to be given for the same, and the time and manner of payment thereof shall be distinctly expressed; which book it shall be the duty of the special justice to

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inspect as often as he may visit the estate in the execution of his duties: provided always, that every married woman, notwithstanding her coverture, and every child of the age of twelve years and upwards, notwithstanding his infancy, shall be competent to enter into such contracts as aforesaid. 49. And be it further enacted, that no such contract as last aforesaid shall endure or continue in force, or be binding upon the parties entering into the same, or either of them, after the expiration of fourteen days from the making thereof, unless the same shall have been made and entered into by such parties with the approbation of such special justice, or unless, having been entered into in his absence, the same shall be confirmed and approved by him before the expiration of such fourteen days; and every such approbation of any such contract shall be attested by such special justice, under his hand, in the book so to be kept as aforesaid: provided always, that the said special justice, before his approbation of any such contract, shall ascertain that the terms thereof are distinctly understood by the apprenticed labourers entering into the same, and that they have entered into such contract freely and voluntarily, and that the same is not unreasonable or unjust. 50. And be it further enacted, that any apprenticed labourer violating the terms of such contract as aforesaid for task work or for extra service, shall be liable to the same pains and penalties as are hereinbefore provided in respect of the violation by any such labourer of the duties to be by him performed in the discharge of the services owing by him by law to such his employer. 51. And be it further enacted, that all complaints made by any apprenticed labourer against the person entitled to his services, touching any fraud practiced, or refusal to furnish any such apprenticed labourer with sufficiency of provision ground, or of other means of maintenance and support, in cases where such apprentice hath no provision ground, or of illegally and improperly withholding from such apprentice any portion of the time allowed him to cultivate such ground, or of imposing task work on any apprenticed labourer contrary to the provisions of this Act, or of breach of any contract on the part of any person engaging the voluntary services of any apprenticed labourer, or of any cruelty, injustice or other wrong or injury done to or inflicted upon any apprenticed labourer by the person entitled to his services, shall be heard, adjudged and determined before any one or more special justice or justices; and he or they is and are hereby empowered to punish any offender in any of these respects last mentioned with a fine not exceeding 5 1.; and for default of goods and chattels whereon to levy such fine, the offender shall be committed to gaol until he shall pay or satisfy the same, but such imprisonment shall not exceed five days: provided that nothing herein mentioned shall be deemed or taken to bar or destroy the right of any apprenticed labourer to proceed in the superior courts for any wrong or injury done to or committed against his property or person by any person whomsoever.

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52. And be it further enacted, that if any three or more apprenticed labourers shall unite together in any riot or tumultuous assemblage, any justice of the peace who shall be present at the same, shall proclaim, or cause a flag or some other conspicuous signal to be exhibited as a warning to all persons there present to separate and disperse quietly; and all persons who at the expiration of ten minutes from such proclamation, or exhibition of such flag or signal, shall continue present at any such riotous assemblage, shall, on conviction, be liable to imprisonment with hard labour for any time not exceeding twelve months. 53. And be it further enacted, that it shall not be lawful for any apprenticed labourer to keep, use or have in his possession any gunpowder, gun, swords, pistols or fire-arms of any description whatsoever, or any other offensive weapons, unless with the knowledge and consent of his master or manager. 54. And be it further enacted, that every apprentice so offending shall, on conviction before any special justice, be punished with whipping, imprisonment, hard labour in the penal gang or house of correction of the district, or any two or more of those punishments, as may be awarded by such special justice: provided that such whipping shall not exceed 39 lashes, and such imprisonment shall not exceed one month. 55. And be it further enacted, that it shall be lawful for any such master, manager or lawful employer to seize and retain to his own use any gunpowder, guns, swords, pistols or fire-arms of any description whatsoever, or any other offensive weapon unlawfully in the possession of any apprenticed labourer. 56. And whereas it is necessary to prevent secret and unlawful meetings of apprenticed labourers; Be it further enacted, that all such labourers who shall be found at any meeting, formed either for the purpose of administering unlawful oaths or entering into unlawful compacts, or of learning the use of arms, or opposing or resisting any persons employed to apprehend them, or for any other unlawful purpose, such labourers shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of felony, and shall suffer transportation for life, or such other punishment as the court shall direct; and if any other person shall be present at any such meeting, and aiding and assisting in any of the unlawful purposes hereinbefore mentioned, such person shall, upon conviction thereof in the court of grand sessions of the peace, be punished by transportation for life, or fine, or imprisonment with hard labour, or both, as the court shall direct; and if any person, having any knowledge of such unlawful meetings as aforesaid shall not forthwith give information thereof to a justice of the peace, such person shall, on conviction before the court of grand sessions of the peace, suffer such punishment by fine, or imprisonment with hard labour, or both, as the court shall direct. 57. And be it further enacted, that no labourer shall reside beyond the limits of the estate on which he may be resident, on the 1st day of August 1834, without the

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consent in writing of his employer; and if any labourer shall quit or attempt to quit the colony without a passport from the Governor, which shall not be granted without the written consent of his employer, he shall, on conviction, be sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour, for any term not exceeding six months; and any person removing or assisting to remove any labourer as aforesaid, shall, on conviction, be liable to a penalty not exceeding 100 1. currency, or to imprisonment for any time not exceeding 12 months; such fine to be paid to the person entitled to the services of the labourer so removed. 58. And be it further enacted, that any apprenticed labourers who shall or may establish themselves without lawful authority in any part of the colony as a distinct community, habitually abandoning and neglecting to perform the duties imposed on them by law, shall, on conviction before a special justice, be sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for any term not exceeding six months; and, if a male, to whipping, by any number of stripes not exceeding 39; and the said justice shall cause such community to be dislodged, and their habitations to be taken down and removed, if necessary. 59. And be it further enacted, that if any labourer shall, without lawful authority, enter into the possession of any land belonging to His Majesty or to any other person, it shall be the duty of the special justice to dispossess such labourer from such land, and from any buildings erected thereon, and to cause the same, with all the crops growing thereon, to be delivered up to the owner of the land, or in case the owner shall not within one month after such seizure appear and prefer his claim to such land, then the said justice shall order the crops, cattle and other goods seized thereupon, to be sold, and the proceeds of such sales to be paid to the treasurer for the public use; and if such possession was fraudulently taken, or with full knowledge that the party had no claim thereto, such labourer shall be sentenced by the said justice to imprisonment with hard labour for any term not exceeding three months; provided always, that where a labourer shall have been two years in undisturbed possession of any such land, the summary process aforesaid shall not be taken without one month's notice being previously given to the occupant. 60. And be it further enacted, that all apprenticed labourers, whose ordinary occupation is on the sea as fisherman or mariners, shall be registered as such at the office of the special justice by their employer; and any apprenticed labourer engaging in such occupation unknown to his employer, shall be liable to imprisonment with hard labour for any time not exceeding three months. 61. And be it further enacted, that all vessels and boats, not registered under the Navigation Acts, shall be numbered and registered at the office of the special justice, and the number shall be conspicuously painted on the outside of each bow thereof; and the said justice shall be authorized and required to grant a license to keep such vessel or boat, together with her description, the name of the owner, and the place at

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which the same is usually moored or hauled up; and all unlicensed vessels or boats shall be liable to seizure and condemnation by the special justice; and all vessels and boats, moored or hauled up at any place not mentioned in the license, shall be liable to detention by the special justice, until the owner thereof shall have paid a fine of not less than 40 s., nor more than 10 1. currency, and in default of payment within 24 hours, the same shall be sold by order of the special justice. 62. And be it further enacted, that if any person whomsoever shall buy, barter, or truck for, or receive by any means, of or from any apprenticed labourer, sugar, cotton, rum, molasses, cocoa, coffee, charcoal, firewood or other goods or merchandise of any sort, fish, poultry, goats, hogs, grass, fruit and vegetables of any sort excepted, without the knowledge or consent of the employer of such labourer, signified by a note in writing specifying the nature and quantity of the goods, upon complaint made to any justice of the peace, the person so offending shall be bound over to appear at the next sessions of the peace to be held for these Islands; and, upon conviction thereof, such person shall be fined in a sum not exceeding 5 1., or double the value of the goods so clandestinely bought. 63. And be it further enacted, that in all cases where an apprenticed labourer shall have been convicted of an offence punishable by fine under this or any other Act, if he shall be unwilling or unable to pay such fine, it shall be lawful for the court or special justice to sentence such labourer to hard labour, in the proportion of one day for every 5 s. of fine imposed; and in all cases in this Act where hard labour is mentioned, it shall be deemed to be hard labour on the tread-mill in the manner prescribed by the Act for the regulation thereof, or in repairing the public works or highways, or otherwise. 64. And be it further enacted, that all warrants from any justice of the peace, directed to any constable or to the Provost Marshal General, or his lawful deputy, to make levies, or for any other matter whatsoever, shall be duly executed by such constable, the Provost Marshal General, or his lawful deputy under a penalty not exceeding 50 1. current money, to be levied by warrant of any justice whose former warrant he shall neglect or refuse to execute; and if the Provost Marshal General, or his lawful deputy, shall neglect or refuse to perform or execute any of the duties prescribed unto him by this Act, and for which no penalty is declared, he shall forfeit and pay the sum of 50 1. current money for every neglect or refusal, to be levied as aforesaid; and whenever any warrant shall be granted against any apprenticed labourer who cannot be taken, and it should be proved that the employer, attorney or manager of such apprenticed labourer wilfully detained or concealed the said labourer, he shall forfeit any sum not exceeding 100 1. 65. And be it further enacted, that if any special or other justice of the peace shall refuse or neglect, upon application made to him, immediately to take proper measures to apprehend and bring to trial any apprenticed labourer whatsoever, for felony

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or any offence of an inferior nature charged on any such labourer, such justice shall forfeit 50 1. current money, to be recovered in any court of record within these Islands, one moiety whereof shall be paid to the prosecutor or informer, and the other moiety to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, for the public uses of these Islands. 66. And be it further enacted, that all fines and forfeitures laid by this Act shall be deemed and taken to be current money; and where no particular method of recovery of the forfeitures mentioned in this Act is directed, and the same do not amount to more than 5 1. current money, the same shall be recovered before any special justice of the peace by warrant of distress and sale of the offender's goods and chattels, to be applied to the use of the public of these Islands. 67. And for the protection of persons acting in the execution of this Act; Be it further enacted, that all actions and prosecutions to be commenced against any person for any thing done in pursuance of this Act, shall be commenced within 10 calendar months after the act committed, and not otherwise; and notice in writing of such action, and the cause thereof, shall be given to the defendant one calendar month, at least, before the commencement of the action; and in any such action the defendant may plead the general issue, and give this Act and the special matter in evidence at any trial to be had thereupon: and no plaintiff shall recover in any such action if tender of sufficient amends shall have been made before such action brought, or if a sufficient sum of money amends shall have been paid into court after such action brought, by or on behalf of the defendant; and if a verdict shall pass for the defendant, or the plaintiff shall become nonsuit or discontinue any such action after issue joined, or if upon demurrer or otherwise, judgment shall be given against the plaintiff, the defendant shall recover his full costs as between attorney and client, and have the like remedy for the same as any defendant hath by law in other cases. 68. And be it further enacted, that in all cases where words in this Act importing the singular number or the masculine gender only are used, yet the Act shall be understood to include several matters as well as one matter, and several persons as one person, and females as well as males; and the word person shall be construed as applicable to every description of persons whatsoever, unless it be otherwise specially provided, or there be something in the subject or context repugnant to such construction. Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1835, vol. 50, pp. 378-87.

APPENDIX 2 ST. VINCENT AN ACT to repeal certain Clauses, and to alter and amend an Act intituled "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies, in consideration of Compensation, and for promoting the Industry and good conduct of the manumitted Slaves." Clause 1. WHEREAS it has been deemed expedient to repeal certain pans and to alter and amend other parts of an Act intituled "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies, in consideration of Compensation, and for promoting the Industry and good conduct of the manumitted Slaves." May it therefore please your Majesty, that it may be enacted and ordained, and be it, it is hereby enacted and ordained by the Lieutenant-governor, Council and Assembly of the said Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies, and by authority of the same, that from and after the publication of this Act, the 22d, 25th, 34th, 35th, 45th, 46th, 51st, and 62d clauses of the above mentioned Act for the Abolition of Slavery shall be and are hereby repealed; provided always, that such repeal shall not invalidate or annul any matter or thing heretofore done in pursuance of the said Act. 2. And whereas by the 15th clause of the before recited Act, 11 days are allowed to every praedial apprenticed labourer out of the 45 working hours in each week, over and above the one day allowed each week and Sundays in every year, at the discretion of the employer, and it is expedient to increase the time; be it therefore enacted, that 19 days in addition to the 11, be allowed to each praedial apprenticed labourer during the continuance of his apprenticeship term, at the like discretion of the employer as to the period when such time shall be given, or such an equivalent as may be agreed upon between the apprenticed labourer and his employer: provided that the whole number of days so allowed to the praedial apprenticed labourer shall not exceed three consecutive days in one week. 3. And whereas by the 11th clause of the hereinbefore recited Act, it is amongst other things enacted that the consent in writing of one special justice shall be sufficient to authorize the removal of apprentices, with the consent of the party to be removed, and it is expedient to amend the same; be it therefore enacted, that from

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and after the publication of this Act such part of the said 11th clause as relates to the consent of the party to be removed, shall be and is hereby repealed, and the consent in writing for such removal shall be by two or more special justices, instead of one as heretofore. 4. And be it further enacted, that so much of the 13th clause of the said recited Act as relates to the consent of the party whose services are proposed to be sold or transferred, shall be and is hereby repealed. 5. And whereas it is necessary to define the good and ample provision intended by the 13th clause of the before recited Act, in cases where it may be impracticable to maintain the apprenticed labourers by allotments of land; be it therefore enacted, that in all cases each and every apprenticed labourer above the age of 10 years shall receive in each week not less than four quarts of wheat flour, or of farine, or the flour or meal of Guinea, or Indian corn, or 20 Ibs. of yams or potatoes, and every apprenticed labourer below the age of 10 years shall be supplied with one half of the beforementioned allowance in each week, which allowance shall be delivered to the mother or nurse of every such infant apprenticed labourer. 6. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all persons who became apprenticed labourers on the 1st day of August, 1834, shall be and are hereby declared to be entitled to all the rights and privileges of free persons, except as the same be restricted by this or any other Act passed in conformity with the provisions of the Imperial Act of 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 73: provided always, that no such apprenticed labourer during the time of his apprenticeship shall have or exercise any political franchise whatsoever by virtue of any property which he may acquire, nor be capable of serving as a juror, or of holding any office, except as a constable or beadle, nor shall be eligible to serve in the militia, unless in cases of great emergency to be judged of by the Governor, Lieutenant-governor or person administering the governmental and a council of war, when he shall be compelled to serve with the same liabilities as all others serving in the militia. 7. And whereas it may happen that children who had not attained the age of six years on the 1st day of August 1834, or that children who after that day may have been born, or may hereafter be born to any female apprenticed labourer, may not be properly supported by their parents, and that no other person may be disposed voluntarily to undertake the support of such children, and it is necessary that provision should be made for the maintenance of such children in any such contingency; be it therefore enacted, that if any child who on the said 1st day of August 1834, had not completed his 6th year, or if any child to which any female apprenticed labourer may have given birth on or after the said 1st day of August 1834, or may hereafter give birth to, shall be brought before any special justice, and it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of such justice that any such child is unprovided with an adequate maintenance, and that such child hath not completed his age of 12 years, it shall be

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lawful for such justice, and he is hereby required on behalf of any such child to execute an indenture of apprenticeship, thereby binding such child as an apprenticed labourer to the person or persons entitled to the services of such mother; but in case it shall be made to appear to any such justice that such person aforesaid is unable or unfit to enter into such indenture and properly to perform the conditions thereof, then it shall be lawful for such justice, and he is hereby required by such indenture to bind any such child to any other person to be by him for that purpose approved of, and who may be willing and able properly to perform such conditions, and it shall by every such indenture of apprenticeship be declared whether such child shall thenceforward belong to the class of attached praedial apprenticed labourers, or to the class of unattached praedial apprenticed labourers, or to the class of non-praedial apprenticed labourers, and the term of such apprenticeship of any such child shall by such indenture be limited and made to continue in force until such child shall have completed his 21st year, and no longer; and every child so apprenticed as aforesaid by the order of any such justice as aforesaid, shall during his apprenticeship be subject to all such and the same rules and regulations respecting the work or labour to be by them done or performed, and respecting the food and other supplies to be to him furnished, as any other apprenticed labourer as aforesaid; provided always, that the said indenture of apprenticeship shall contain sufficient words of obligation upon the employer to allow reasonable time and opportunity for the education and religious instruction of such child. 8. And be it further enacted, that all complaints between employer and apprenticed labourer shall be tried in a summary manner by any special justice, and if such justice shall either dismiss the complaint or sanction any compromise between the parties, which he may think just, or convict the party charged, or commit him to prison to take his trial for the imputed offence, or if the complaint shall be dismissed, the justice shall in such his decision, to be in writing, state whether it was so dismissed as being unproved, or as being frivolous and vexatious, or as being malicious; and if any such complaint shall be so dismissed as frivolous and vexatious, the justice may award the complainant, if a labourer, to work in the service of his employer for any time not exceeding in the whole 15 extra hours in any one week; or if the complainant be the employer, the justice may adjudge such employer to the payment of a penalty for the use of the labourer of not less than 10 s., and not greater than 20 s.; and if any such complaint shall be so dismissed as malicious, it shall be competent to such justice, at the instance of the party charged, to adjudge the complainant, if an apprenticed labourer, to imprisonment, with hard labour, for any time not exceeding one month; or if the employer of any such labourer, to a fine not exceeding 40 s., for the benefit of the party charged, which judgment shall be a bar to any suit, action or prosecution against such complainant for calumny, defamation or otherwise, in respect of such his complaint.

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9. And whereas it is expedient that provision should be made, in cases of imprisonment on plantations by the special justice, against the use of unhealthy or otherwise improper places of punishment; be it therefore enacted, that in every such case, the special justice is hereby required and directed to satisfy himself that such places of imprisonment be not unhealthy or otherwise improper places for imprisonment. 10. And be it further enacted, that all offences specified in the 42d, 43d and 44th clauses of the above recited Act for the abolition of slavery shall be inquired of by one of the special justices, unless he shall see cause to refer any case for trial to the court of grand sessions of the peace, and no employer shall be authorized to inflict any corporal punishment on any male apprenticed labourer, nor shall any female be subject to be punished by whipping for any offence by her committed, but in all cases in which that punishment is authorized, it shall be understood as applying to the case of males only, and that all the offences in respect of which such punishment may be inflicted on any such male offender shall, when committed by women, be punished by confinement in the stocks or solitary confinement, for any period not extending 10 days, or by hard labour on the tread-mill, for any period not exceeding 30 days, as the special justice shall direct. 11. And be it further enacted, that when any apprenticed labourer shall be convicted of indolence, or neglect, or improper performance of work, the special justice before whom such conviction shall take place, may, if he sees fit, sentence the offender to corporal punishment, not exceeding 50 stripes, or three months' imprisonment to hard labour, or 10 days solitary confinement, or to labour for such number of hours or days in his own time for the benefit of the person entitled to his services, as the justice of the case may seem to require, not exceeding fifteen hours in any one week: provided always, that nothing herein contained shall be deemed or taken to deprive any of His Majesty's subjects of their right to proceed against any such apprentice in any of the superior courts of this island, for remedy against any apprentice for any wrong or injury done or committed to or against the person or property of such subject. 12. And be it further enacted, that all complaints made by any apprenticed labourer against the person entitled to his services, touching any fraud practiced, or refusal to furnish any such apprenticed labourer with sufficiency of provisiongrounds, or of other means of maintenance and support, in cases where such apprenticed labourer hath no provision-grounds, or of illegally and improperly withholding from such apprentice any portion of the time allowed him to cultivate such grounds, or of imposing task-work on any apprenticed labourer contrary to the provisions of the act or acts regulating the same, or of breach of any contract on the part of any person engaging the voluntary services of any apprenticed labourer, shall be heard, adjudged and determined before any one or more special justices, and he or they are hereby empowered to punish the offender in any of these respects with a

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fine not exceeding 5 1., and for default of goods and chattels whereon to levy such fine the offender to commit to gaol until he shall pay or satisfy the same, but such imprisonment not to exceed five days: provided that nothing herein mentioned shall be deemed or taken to bar or destroy the right of any apprenticed labourer to proceed either civilly or criminally in the superior courts of these islands, for any private wrong or injury done to or committed against his property or person by any person whomsoever, nor to bar or destroy the right of His Majesty to proceed by bill of indictment or information. 13. And be it further enacted, that the punishments enumerated in the 56th clause of the before recited Act for the Abolition of Slavery, shall only be inflicted for the offences therein particularly mentioned and expressed. 14. And be it further enacted, that if any person shall buy, barter or truck for, or receive by any means of or from any apprenticed labourer, sugar, cotton, rum, molasses, cocoa, coffee, charcoal or fire-wood, without the knowledge or consent of the employer of such labourer, signified by a note in writing specifying the nature and quantity of the goods, upon complaint made to any two or more justices, the person so offending shall, on conviction, be fined in any sum not exceeding 5 1. or double the value of the goods so clandestinely bought, to be levied by warrant and sale of the offender's goods, and for default of such goods, the offender shall be imprisoned in the common gaol for any number of days not exceeding five days. Dated at Kingstown this 9th day of September, in the sixth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King William the Fourth, and in the year of our Lord 1835. G.C. Grant, Speaker. Passed the Assembly this 29th July 1835 P. Hobson, Clerk of Assembly. Passed the Council this 29th day of July 1835. John Beresford, Clerk of Council. In accordance with my instructions, I assent to this Bill. George Tyler, Lieutenant-Governor. Assented to by his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, this 9th day of September 1835, and in the sixth year of His Majesty's reign. John Beresford, Public Secretary. Duly published in Kingstown, this 9th day of September 1835. Charles J.F. Hobson Pro. Mar. Gen. (St. Vincent.) - These are to certify that the foregoing is a true and correct copy of an Act intituled "An Act to repeal certain clauses, and to alter and amend an Act

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intituled an Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies, in consideration of Compensation, and for promoting the industry and good conduct of the manumitted Slaves." Assented to by his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, and published in Kingstown the 9th day of this instant month of September.-Given under my hand at the Secretary's Office, Kingstown, in the said Island of St. Vincent, this 15th day of September 1835. John Beresford, Public Secretary. Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1836, vol. 15, pp. 42-45.

APPENDIX 3 ST. VINCENT AN ACT to provide for the general Registration of all slaves belonging to or settled in these Islands - (Passed 19th May 1834). WHEREAS by an Act recently passed the British Parliament, inituled, "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the Manumitted Slaves, and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves," it has become necessary that a general registry of the slaves within these Islands should be made for the purpose of ascertaining the exact number of slaves belonging to or settled on these Islands; Be it therefore enacted, by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Assembly of the Island of St. Vincent and its dependencies, that from and after the 1 st day of August now next ensuing, the several Acts relative to the registry of slaves and all parts thereof shall be wholly repealed, save and except for the punishment of such offences or the recovery and levying of such fines as may have been committed or incurred during the present registry, the said Acts and every of them shall be considered and taken to be in force for the space of twelve calendar months from the said first day of August. 2. And be it further enacted, that the registrar of slaves shall provide at the public expense the necessary books for the registry and enrolment hereinafter directed, in which books shall be entered and registered the names, sexes, ages and occupations of all slaves belonging to or settled in these Islands. 3. And be it further enacted, that between the passing of this Act and the 1st day of June in the present year, every person who shall be possessed of any slaves within these Islands shall upon oath make and deliver to the registrar of slaves a list, in manner and form directed by the schedule hereto annexed, of all slaves owned or possessed by them, whether in their own right or in the right of others, and of whom in particular by name, and which shall contain the names, sexes, ages and occupations of all such slaves. 4. And whereas it will be necessary to ascertain the exact increase and decrease which shall take place in the number of slaves between the said 1st day of June hereinbefore mentioned and the 1 st day of August next; Be it therefore enacted by the

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authority aforesaid, that on or before the 1 st day of August next, a return upon oath shall be made to the registrar of all increase or decrease of slaves which shall have taken place between the said 1 st day of June and the 1 st day of August, specifying the particular cause of increase or decrease, whether by birth, gift, inheritance, purchase, sale, death or otherwise. 5. And be it further enacted, that in case any person or persons whatsoever shall wilfully neglect to give in to the said registrar a list or lists, schedule or schedules of his her or their slave or slaves as directed by this Act, every such person or persons so neglecting shall be liable to all such pains, penalties and forfeitures as are imposed by the Acts of these Islands for the registration of slaves upon any person or persons wilfully guilty of such neglect. 6. And be it further enacted, that in case any person or persons whatsoever shall wilfully insert or cause to be inserted in the list or lists, schedule or schedules of his her or their slave or slaves, so by them given in as directed by this Act to the said registrar the name or names of any slave or slaves who shall not actually and bona fide belong to or be in the possession of the person making such return at the time of making such returns, every person or persons so offending shall upon conviction thereof forfeit and pay for each and every name so falsely inserted as abovesaid, the sum of 100 1. current money of this Island, one moiety thereof to be paid to the informer, and the other moiety to be paid into the public treasury of this Island. 7. And be it further enacted, that the registrar shall do and perform all such acts and things in and about this general registration appointed to be taken by this Act as are required by the several Slave Registry Acts of these Islands to be done and performed at any previous registry or return of slaves; and if the registrar shall omit or neglect to perform any of the duties required of him in and by the said registry Acts of these Islands, or either of them, or if he shall in any matter or thing relating to the general Registry established by this Act be guilty of any offence contrary to the provisions hereof, he shall for every omission, neglect or offence be subject and liable to and shall incur the like fines, forfeitures, pains and penalties as are imposed by the said Registry of Slave Acts, or either of them, for such and the like omission, neglect or offence. 8. And be it further enacted, that as soon as the said returns shall have been made, the registrar shall proceed to register and copy the same, with all convenient speed, in a distinct and legible hand in the books hereinbefore directed, to be kept by him precisely according to the returns given in. 9. And be it further enacted, that as soon as the registrar shall have entered and recorded in the said books the returns made to him, he shall subscribe his name and affix his seal of office thereto, and below his signature shall write the following affidavit, which shall be sworn to by him before the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor in manner following:

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"Before A.B. [inserting the name and title of the Governor or LieutenantGovernor, as the case may be.] "Personally appeared C.D., the registrar of slaves for the Island of St. Vincent and its dependencies, who being duly sworn on the Holy Evangelists, makes oath and says, That he the said C.D. has twice carefully examined and compared all the preceding entries in this book [or this set of books] with all the different returns of slaves delivered to him, first by examining the said entries, while his clerk or assistant read the original returns respectively entered therein, and afterwards by examining the said returns, while his clerk or assistant read the said entries in the book [or set of books] respectively made therefrom; and that he is enabled thereby to depose and does depose that the preceding registry of slaves of the Island of St. Vincent and its dependencies is in all respects correctly and faithfully made." Which affidavit shall be authenticated under the hand of the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor, and the great seal of these Islands, in manner following: "I, E.F. [inserting his name and title of office] do hereby certify, That the above affidavit was duly sworn before me this day of 183 . Witness my hand and great seal of these Islands, this day of One thousand eight hundred and

10. And be it further enacted, that as soon as the registrar shall have completed the registry and sworn to the same in the manner hereinbefore directed, all the books containing registry of slaves shall be by said registrar deposited in the secretary's office of this Island, and a certificate by the secretary subscribed, certifying any copies or extracts from the same, shall be received in all courts and by all judges, magistrates and others in authority within these Islands as sufficient evidence of the authority of said copy, and a sufficient prima facie evidence of the matters so certified, and shall be allowed for each certificate the sum of 3 s. for every 96 words, a figure counting for a word. The Return of A.B. of Slaves, his own property, or the property of others, [as the case may be.]

Appendixes S C H E D U L E NAMES

SEXES.

AGES.

OCCUPATIONS.

Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1835, vol. 50, pp. 387-89.

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APPENDIX 4 The Population of St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship Apprentice Population (1 August 1834): 22,250 Praedial Attached 1. Head People 2. Tradesmen 3. Inferior Tradesmen 4. Field Labourers 5. Inferior Field Labourers

927 268 375 7,622 5,605

Total

14,797

Praedial Unattached 1. Head people 2. Tradesmen 3. Inferior Tradesmen 4. Field Labourers 5. Inferior Field Labourers

23 22 21 268 17 8

Total

512

Total

2,793

Non-Praedial 1. Head Tradesmen 2. Inferior Tradesmen 3. Head people employed on wharfs, shipping or other vocations 4. Inferior people of the same description 5. Head domestic servants 6. Inferior domestics

111 101 246 136 949 1,250

Children under six years of age on 1 August 1834

2,959

Aged, diseased or otherwise non-effective

1,189 TOTAL

Source: House of Commons'. British Sessional Papers, 1835, vol. 50, p. 685.

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Free Coloured Population (1825-1834): ca. 2,824-3,000 Sources: Charles Shephard, An Historical Account of the Island of Saint Vincent (London: W. Nicol, 1831), calling "the returns of the general Population . . . very defective," (p. 14), put the free coloured population of the island at 2,824 in 1825 (Appendix IV, p. iv). Robert Montgomery Martin, History of the Colonies of the British Empire (London: William Allen and George Routledge, 1843), p. 54, cited this figure, as did B. W. Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807-1834 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 433. In Coping with Poverty: Adaptive Strategies in a Caribbean Village (Boulder: Westview, 1987), p. 39, Hymie Rubenstein estimated that there were 3,000 free coloureds in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1834. White Population (1825-1844): ca. 1,268-1,301 Sources: Martin, History of the Colonies of the British Empire, p. 54, used the figure given in Shephard, Historical Account of St. Vincent, Appendix IV, p. iv, in estimating that there were 1,301 whites in St. Vincent in 1825; Rubenstein, Coping with Poverty, p. 39, gives a figure of 1,300 whites on the island in 1834; and John Davy, The West Indies, before and since Slave Emancipation (London: W. and F. G. Cash, 1854), p. 176, said that in 1844 the white population of St. Vincent stood at 1,268.

APPENDIX 5 St. Vincent Special Magistrates, 1834-1838

1834 First (Windward) Division Second (Southern) Division Third (Leeward) Division

R.B. Pitman Thomas St. Glair Robert Sutherland

1836 First District Second District Third District Fourth District Fifth District Sixth District

R.B. Pitman (Robert Sutherland, 1838) Edwin Poison John Anderson Robert Sutherland (George Spoug, 1838) JJ. Tinling (John B. Colthurst, 1838) John George Smith

APPENDIX 6 ST. VINCENT AN ACT for establishing a Police for the Regulation of Apprenticed Labourers, and for carrying into effect certain provisions of an Act, intituled, "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies, in consideration of Compensation, and for promoting the Industry and good conduct of the Manumitted Slaves." - (Passed 23d June 1834.) WHEREAS by an Act recently passed the Imperial Parliament, intituled, "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves, and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves," exclusive cognizance of all matters incident to and arising out of the relation of the apprenticed labourers and their employers, is given to the magistrates to be appointed by virtue of the said Act, and it has become necessary to assign certain limits, and to make provision for the exercise of their jurisdiction, and for ensuring the effectual superintendence of apprenticed labourers; Be it therefore enacted by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Assembly of the Island of St. Vincent and its dependencies, that the Island of St. Vincent and its dependencies be divided into three divisions, to be denominated the first or Windward division, which shall include Charlotte parish; the second or Southern division, which shall include St. George's parish, the Grenadines and that part of St. Andrew's parish, called New Edinburgh; and the third or Leeward division, which shall include St. Patrick and St. David's parish, and that part of St. Andrew's not included in the second or southern division, and that each of the said divisions be subdivided into three judicial districts. 2. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that the boundaries of the judicial districts shall be as follows; namely, in the first or windward division, the first judicial district to be denominated the George Town district, to include that part of Charlotte parish lying between the western boundary of the Fancy Estate and Byera River; the second judicial district to be denominated Colonarie Bay district, to include that part of Charlotte parish lying between Byera River and the northern boundary of the Union estate; the third judicial district to be denominated Biabou district, to include that part of Charlotte parish, lying between the northern

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boundary of the Union estate and Yambou River, together with the northern portion of Marriaqua Valley; in the second or southern division, the first judicial district to be denominated the Calliaqua district, to include that part of St. George's parish lying between Yambou River and the western boundary of the Villa estate, together with the southern portion of Marriaqua Valley; the second judicial district to be denominated the Kingstown district, to include the remaining part of St. George's parish, and that part of St. Andrew's parish called New Edinburgh; the third judicial district to be denominated the Grenadine district, to include Bequia and such of the islands as lie to the northward of Carriacou; in the third or leeward division, the first judicial district to be denominated the Buccament district, to include that part of St. Andrew's parish not included in the second division; the second judicial district to be denominated the Buccament district, to include St. Patrick's parish; and the third judicial district to be denominated the Chateaubelair district, to include St. David's parish. 3. And be it further enacted, that the Governor of this Colony shall be empowered, with the advice and consent of His Majesty's Privy Council of these Islands, to make such alterations in the said limits and boundaries, as may be found by experience to be expedient to the public convenience and advantage, or necessary to carry the purposes and intentions of this Act more fully into effect. 4. And be it further enacted, that a stipendiary justice shall preside over each of the divisions, and shall actually reside within the limits thereof, except prevented by sickness or other reasonable cause to be allowed by the Governor. 5. And that for the purpose of more effectually maintaining the public peace, the Governor shall be empowered to appoint, in each of the said judicial districts, three or more special magistrates, with the same powers and authorities as are given to the stipendiary magistrates. 6. And be it further enacted, that such justices shall on the Saturday in each and every week, or oftener, if necessary, hold a petty session within their divisions and districts, for hearing and deciding upon such cases as may be brought before them; and the stipendiary justice shall once in each fortnight, or oftener if need be, repair to each estate within his division, then and there to take cognizance of such cases as may be brought before him. 7. And be it further enacted, that every stipendiary magistrate shall keep a journal of all cases brought before him, in which he shall enter - 1 st, the date of the complaint; 2d, the name of the complainant; 3d, the substance of the complaint; 4th, the names of the witnesses adduced on either side; 5th, the substance of the evidence; 6th, his decision on the case; 7th, whether the decision has been carried into effect; 8th, any general remarks which he may think desirable.

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8. And be it further enacted, that at the end of each quarter, the stipendiary magistrate shall transmit to the Governor a duplicate of his journal, for the preceding quarter, with an affidavit thereto annexed, to be sworn before any magistrate, to the effect that it has been faithfully kept, with the exception of unintentional errors, it contains a true account of all the proceedings in which the deponent has been engaged as such stipendiary magistrate, during the quarter to which it refers. 9. And be it further enacted, that it shall be the duty of the stipendiary and special justices, on receiving any complaint, to reduce it to writing, and to cause it to be read by, or to read it over to the complainant by whom it shall be then subscribed, when if the complaint shall appear to the justice immaterial and not to deserve further inquiry, he may dismiss the complaint; but if he shall think inquiry necessary, he shall call upon the complainant to make oath that the complaint is true. 10. And be it further enacted, that upon taking any complaint, to the truth of which such oath may have been made as aforesaid, the justice in all cases which impute to the party charged a capital or transportable offence, where there is reason to apprehend that the party charged will endeavour to escape, or when there is reason to apprehend danger to the public peace, shall issue his warrant for the arrest and apprehension of the party charged, and in all other cases the justice shall proceed in the first instance by summons. 11. And be it further enacted, that in all cases in which it may be necessary to adduce witnesses in support of or in answer to any complaint, the stipendiary or special justice shall issue a summons to every such witness; and if any person summoned as aforesaid, shall not appear in obedience to such summons, or appearing, shall refuse to be sworn or examined, or to answer any question proposed to him by such justice, in relation to the matters depending before him, it shall be lawful for such justice to issue his warrant for the arrest and apprehension of such defaulter, or to commit to close custody, there to remain until he shall submit to be sworn and examined, and to make such answers as aforesaid. 12. And be it further enacted, that at the time and place appointed by any such warrant or summons for proceeding upon any complaint, the justice shall in the presence of all parties, first read over the written complaint, and then take down in writing the answer of the party charged, and proceed to examine on oath the party complaining and the witnesses; taking down in writing the deposition of each witness, which shall be read over by or to such witness, and signed by him. 13. And be it further enacted, that the justice may from time to time adjourn any such proceeding for further inquiry, and if necessary commit the party charged to custody, pending such adjournment, or take bail for his appearance; and at the close of the proceedings the justice shall pronounce his decision thereupon, which shall be reduced into writing and subscribed with his hand.

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14. And be it further enacted, that the justice shall either dismiss the complaint, and state in his written decision whether it was dismissed as being unproved, or as frivolous and vexatious or malicious; or sanction any compromise between the parties which he may think just, or convict the party charged, or commit him to prison to take his trial at the court of grand sessions of the peace for the imputed offence. 15. And be it further enacted, that any summons, warrant or order issued by any stipendiary or special justice within his own district, may without further authority be carried into execution in any part of these Islands. 16. And be it further enacted, that if any suit or action shall be commenced against any stipendiary or special justice, in respect of any act, matter or thing by him done, by virtue and in pursuance thereof, the court shall give judgment for the defendant, the plaintiff shall by such judgment be condemned to pay treble costs of suit. 17. And for the protection of all persons acting in the execution of this Act; Be it enacted that all actions and prosecutions to be commenced against any person for any thing done in pursuance of this Act, shall be commenced within six calendar months after the fact committed, and not otherwise; and notice in writing of such action and of the cases thereof shall be given to the defendant, one calendar month at least before the commencement of the action; and in any such action the defendant may plead the general issue and give this Act and the special matter in evidence at any trial to be had thereupon; and no plaintiff shall recover in any such action, if tender of sufficient amends shall have been made before such action brought, or if a sufficient sum of money shall have been paid into court after such action brought, by or on behalf of the defendant; and if a verdict shall pass for the defendant, or the plaintiff shall become nonsuit or discontinue any such action after issue joined, or if upon demurrer or otherwise judgment shall be given against the plaintiff, the defendant shall recover his full costs as between attorney and client, and have the like remedy for the same as any defendant hath by law in other cases. 18. And be it further enacted, that in each of the divisions into which these Islands shall be divided, a police settlement shall be established, and be under the particular superintendence of the stipendiary justice who may for the purposes of this Act be appointed thereto; and that whenever an Act of the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Assembly shall be passed for the purpose, there shall be erected at each of such police settlements such buildings as may be deemed necessary. 19. And be it further enacted, that each police establishment shall consist of one serjeant and four policemen, all able-bodied men, between the ages of 20 and 50 years, to be appointed by the Governor, and liable to be removed by him for bad conduct or inefficiency.

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20. And be it further enacted, that the Serjeants and policemen so to be appointed shall be liable to be suspended from office by the stipendiary justice for the division, subject to the Governor's confirmation or disallowance of such suspension. 21. And be it further enacted, that the Serjeants and policemen of each police settlement shall be annually provided with a uniform, and with such weapons and accoutrements as may be best adapted to the service. 22. And be it further enacted, that the policemen in each police settlement shall receive pay at the rate of 50 1., and the Serjeants 100 1. currency per annum. 23. And be it further enacted, that it shall be the duty of the Serjeants and policemen to carry into execution such orders as they shall receive from any of His Majesty's justices of the peace, or any stipendiary or special magistrate, or special justice, for the prevention and repressing of crime and for enforcing obedience to the laws. 24. And be it further enacted, that the employer of the labourer sentenced to the tread-mill shall pay to the keeper 9 d. currency per day for feeding him; and no fees for commitment and release shall be allowed. 25. And be it further enacted, that at each police settlement shall also be established a penal gang, to be composed of such persons as may be sentenced to labour therein. 26. And be it further enacted, that as often as the stipendiary magistrate of the division shall so direct, the said penal gang shall, under the superintendence of the Serjeant, or in his absence, of some other member of the police, be employed in any laborious work, either upon the public roads or works, or otherwise, as may be deemed expedient, either for the support of the prisoners at such settlement, or for the public advantage. 27. And be it further enacted, that each stipendiary justice shall once in each quarter make to the Governor a report of the effective strength and condition of the police force at each settlement, and of the state of the buildings, and also of the state and conduct of the prisoners therein confined. 28. And be it further enacted, that the stipendiary justice of each division shall from time to time establish all necessary rules for the internal discipline of the said police establishment, for a due separation of prisoners of different sexes, for their religious instruction, for the maintenance of cleanliness, order and sobriety among them, and for the prevention and prompt punishment of any neglect or violation of such rules, which shall be first submitted to and approved of by the Governor; and within the meaning and for the purposes of this Act every person who for the time being shall be in the lawful administration of this government shall be taken to be the Governor thereof.

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29. And be it further enacted, that in all cases where words in this Act importing the singular number or masculine gender only are used, yet the Act shall be understood to include several matters as well as one matter, and several persons as well as one person, and females as well as males; and the word "person" shall be construed as applicable to every description of persons whatsoever, unless it be otherwise specially provided, or there be something in the subject or context repugnant to such construction. 30. And be it further enacted, that this Act shall commence and be in force on, from and after the 1st day of August 1834, and continue until the 1st day of August 1840. ST. VINCENT AN ACT to repeal the 21 st and 22nd Clauses of an Act, inituled, "An Act for establishing a Police for the regulation of Apprenticed Labourers, &c. &c. &c., and to increase the Pay of the Policemen in each Police Settlement." - (Passed 29th December 1834.) WHEREAS it is expedient that the 21st and 22d clauses of an Act for establishing a police for the regulation of apprenticed labours, &c. &c. &c. should be repealed: We, therefore, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Assembly of the Island of St. Vincent and its dependencies, pray Your most Excellent Majesty, that it may be enacted, and be it and it is hereby enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that the said 21st and 22nd clauses of the said Act shall be and the same are hereby repealed accordingly. And be it further enacted, that the policemen in each settlement shall from and after the publication of this Act receive pay at the rate of 80 1., and Serjeants 120 1. currency per annum, each payable monthly, and shall annually provide themselves with a uniform under the direction of the stipendiary magistrates. And be it further enacted, that the Serjeants and policemen of each police settlement shall be provided, at the public expense, with such weapons and accoutrements as may be best adapted to the public service. Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1835, vol. 50, pp. 389-92.

APPENDIX 7 A GENERAL SCALE OF AGRICULTURAL LABOUR To be performed by the effective Apprentices in the Colony of St. Vincent, drawn up by the undersigned, appointed a Committee for that purpose, by his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, and subsequently approved by his Majesty's Council. I. Number of effective Labourers, capable of preparing an acre of land for holing, having to cut or draw the plants, weed the land, and stump out the cane stools

12

II. Number of effective labourers to weed an acre of land not in crop for 12 months

8*

III. Number of Cane stools that an effective labourer can stump out in one day

500, or on very light soil 600

IV. Number of Cane holes each able labourer is capable of digging in one day, in the following descriptions of land and dimensions of hole:

Depth from 8 to 10 inches Dimensions 4 feet square / 5 feet square

A. In light hill side land B. In light sandy soil, or in land from which yams have recently been dug. C. In flat land, not of a stiff clayey nature. D. In flat bottom land, of a stiff clayey nature V. Number of cross banks each labourer can raise in the different descriptions of soil specified in No. IV.:As in A As in B As in C As inD

4ft 4'Aft 5ft 160 140 120 190 160 130 145 130 115 100 90 80

300 340 290 200

280 300 260 170

240 260 230 140

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VI. Cross-holing and planting at the same time.Number of holes each labourer can finish in one day, the plants being previously dropped on the banks, say four or five to each hole in the different descriptions of soil specified in No. IV.:AsinA AsinB AsinC AsinD

280 310 250 160

250 270 230 140

210 230 210 120

VII. Number of Cane holes for which one labourer can drop out plants in a day, 5 to each hole, in land not being previously cross-holed, and the plants placed at convenient distances round the field 5

500

VIII. Number of Cane holes for which one labourer can drop out plants in a day, 5 to each hole, the land having been previously cross holed

370 350

IX. Number of holes each labourer can plant per day, the plants having been previously laid on the banks

430

X. Number of young or effective labourers to weed (for the first time) an acre of young plant Canes, and supply the same with an average of two plants to each Cane hole; the plants being placed conveniently round the field. ~ Not very weedy 10

11

XI. Number of young or effective labourers to weed (for the first time) an acre of young plant Canes, when few or no supplies are required, and the land not very weedy

8

XII. Number of young or effective labourers to weed an acre of young plant Canes on the second or subsequent weeding, few or no supplies required

7

XIII. Number of young or effective labourers to weed an acre of young plant Canes, break down the cross banks, dig out the manure, draw it round the Cane roots, and mould the same

10

Appendixes XIV. Number of young or effective labourers to relieve an acre of ratoon Canes and slightly mould the Cane stools

5

XV. Number of young or effective labourers to relieve and trench between the rows an acre of land, drawing in the cane trash, and slightly covering the same

8

XVI. Number of able labourers capable of hoe-ploughing an acre of Canes in the different descriptions of soil specified in No. IV.:As in A and B AsinC AsinD

11 12 16

XVII. Number of able labourers capable of hoe-ploughing an acre of Canes, the land not having been previously relieved, and not very weedy:As in A and B AsinC AsinD

13 15 17

XVIII. Number of able labourers to weed and mould an acre of ratoon Canes the first time after hoe-ploughing. ~ Not very weedy 8

10

XIX. Number of able labourers to weed and mould an acre of ratoon Canes on the second weeding and stripping at the same time. ~ Not very weedy 8. Land not very weedy 8 [sic]

9

XX. Number of labourers to strip an acre of plant or ratoon Canes not much lodged, and little or no weeding required

5

XXI. Number of labourers to weed an acre of guinea grass

8

XXII. Number of able labourers to raise yam-banks on an acre of land not stiff soil, the Cane stools not previously dug out

18

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XXIII. Number of cart loads of manure which can be sent out by one cart per day to the following distances, allowing three able labourers to load (equally applicable to the carting of Canes), viz.:For a % of a mile '/2 a mile 3 /4 of a mile ~ See note A. at the end XXIV. Number of baskets of manure each young or effective labourer can carry out in one day, in plant or ratoon Canes, the manure being cut up and placed at convenient distances, not exceeding 100 yards

20 15 12

200 to 230

~ See note B. at the end XXV. Number of labourers capable of weeding an acre of plant Canes in one day, and covering in the manure

10

XXVI. Number of labourers capable of moulding a pen 40 feet square in one day, to the depth of three inches, the mould being close to the pen

6

XXVII. Number of able labourers capable of cutting and tying Canes to make one hogshead of Sugar, of 38 inch truss, per day, supposing the land to make IVa to 2!/z hogsheads per acre, Land being under 11/2-6.

5

~ When cutting and tying plants at the same time, one labourer additional XXVIII. Number of labourers required about a set of Sugar works, when one set of coppers only is in use, working for 9 hours viz.: - 1 Mill Boatswain, 1 feeder, 3 Cane carriers, 4 Megass carriers and tyers, 5 Boilers, 3 Firemen and fuel tenders, and 1 young person to clean mill-bed and strainers ~ See note C. at the end

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XXIX. Number of Sugar Hogsheads, Rum or Molasses puncheons, one Cooper is capable of blocking off from undressed staves per week of 5 days 8 to 10 per week XXX. Number of Sugar hogsheads one Cooper is capable of hooping off and putting one head in each, the hogsheads being previously raised

10 per week

XXXI. Number of Sugar hogsheads one Cooper is capable of finishing from undressed staves, putting one head in each

5 per week

XXXII. Number of Rum or Molasses puncheons one Cooper is capable of finishing, the same being previously blocked off

7 per week

XXXIII. Number of Rum or Molasses puncheons a Cooper is capable of finishing from undressed staves per week of 5 days

4 per week

Note A.- Although we have stated a specific number of loads, whether of manure or canes, to be carried out by each cart, it must be evident that this operation depends so much on localhies+ that no rule can be framed to meet every case. Note B.- The preceding note applies even more strongly to the heading out of manure. No rule can possibly be framed to meet the variety of circumstances under which it may be necessary to perform it, from the steepest land in cultivation to that which is nearly level. Our scale refers to land of easy access and acclivity. Note C.- This depends so much on the situation of the Buildings, that no correct scale can possibly be framed to meet every circumstance, more particularly on small properties. PATRICK CRICHTON, Langley Park Estate, Charlotte Parish. (Signed) JAMES PORTER, Mount Pleasant Estate, Parish of St. George. JOHN GORDON, Richmond Estate, St. David's Parish. Approved. (Signed) GEO. TYLER, Lieutenant-Governor. "N.B. In the above scale, the day is considered as being of nine hours" [handwritten notation appended to the text]. * The number "2" was deleted and the handwritten number "8" inserted. + The word "casualties" was deleted and the handwritten word "localities" inserted. Source: CO 260/54, St. Vincent, 1836, Correspondence, Original-Secretary of State, Despatches, 155.

APPENDIX 8 Kingstown Gaol: Description and Regulations GAOL The gaol is under the control of the provost-marshal-general, who appoints the gaoler. It is inspected twice annually by the jurors after the court of grand sessions. The sexes are locked up in different rooms or cells; no other classification observed. Personal cleanliness is not enforced; soap is not allowed; no prison dress, bedding, nor covering provided. Divine service not performed. No books of any description kept at the gaol; at the marshal's office I was shown one, containing date of commitment and discharge; name and age of prisoner; offence and punishment awarded; it is also stated whether the party can read or not, and has paid fees. The marshal charges against the public, 3s. currency for the daily keep of each prisoner; but out of this sum the gaoler's salary is defrayed, which will account for the discrepancy betwixt the charge and allowance to the gaoler for the supply of food. I annex a copy of gaol regulations; none there when I visited; it was said they were in the hands of a printer. GAOL. Parish of St. George Gaol, Kingstown. - The gaol is situated in the immediate vicinity of the last described House of Correction. It has two stories; four airy rooms in the upper, each 20 feet by 14 feet 6 inches, with a gallery in front of the whole length of the building, and eight feet wide; these rooms are reserved for debtors; but if not so occupied, in case of serious illness, a prisoner is removed upstairs from the cells or lower story. Site and Description. - The lower story is divided into four cells, each 12 feet by 18 feet, and 10 feet high, with a gallery in front as above; in these, criminals tried and untried are placed. Cell No. 1, tried prisoners; No. 2, females; No. 3, under sentence of death; No. 4, untried prisoners. The building is surrounded by a wall 14 feet high, topped with broken bottles and glass.

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Officers. - John Bates examined; has been gaoler for a year or more; was appointed by the late provost-marshal, salary 100 pounds currency; has no paid assistant; his family lives within the walls; he makes his nephew assist occasionally in locking up the prisoners, but for this he receives no remuneration. The gaol is almost daily visited by the provost-marshal, and sometimes at night. It has not been officially visited since his appointment, except by members of the committee of public buildings, and solely to inspect the buildings, and twice by the jurors after the court of grand session; has no duty out of gaol. Escapes. - One escape since his appointment; was at that time living alone; was sick, required the aid of a prisoner, who not being locked up, took a board from his bed, placed it against the wall, and escaped; was apprehended next day. Classification. - Only to the extent of locking up the sexes in different rooms. The yard is common to all classes, convicted and untried, males, females, and debtors. Cleanliness. - All prisoners are obliged to wash their clothes and persons on Friday of each week, and may oftener if they like; a reservoir immediately behind the gaol, within the walls, for the purpose; common to all, supplied with water from a well within the walls also. Soap. - None allowed. Prison Dress. - None. Bedding. - None. Food. - Allowed Is. daily (currency), for each criminal, by the provost-marshal, and supplies each with 1 '/a Ib. of bread or yams, or a quart of farine and l/2 Ib. offish; daily quantum of food always the same; but from late provost-marshal received Is. 6d. currency for each; has been promised Is. 3d. currency for this month, and after; debtors provide themselves, or are provided by creditor, at the rate of 2s. currency. N. B. - On 20th December the above statement was corrected by provost-marshal, and Is. 3d. currency admitted to have been received by the gaoler, for each criminal daily, except during one month when the prisoners were numerous. Prisoners. - Ten prisoners now in gaol; they are sometimes employed in breaking stones for the repair of roads; not so at present, as he, the gaoler, is sick and cannot superintend; they are not regularly supplied, and sometimes unemployed for months. Corrected by provost-marshal on 20th; no hard labour within the gaol. Rules. - Never saw any written or printed regulations for his guidance; was verbally instructed, and practices as follows: when a prisoner is committed, until tried, one leg is placed every night in the bilboe irons, fixed at the foot of his bed; never

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deviates from this except in cases of sickness, or order of the provost-marshal, which is generally given after a month if the party is orderly; after conviction abides by the sentence passed. In case of misconduct, places the party in the bilboes, and reports the same to the provost-marshal the same or next day; general period 48 hours; never exceeded three days, and that about two months ago, a notorious character, second consecutive year in confinement. Never inflicted any other punishment; locks up all criminals at five o'clock, P.M.; doors unlocked at six o'clock next morning. From six to ten o'clock employed in cleaning their persons, cells and getting breakfast; ten to four o'clock breaking stones if supplied, otherwise locked up; four to five o'clock released for dinner, which is in the meantime prepared by a prisoner, and at that hour locked up till six o'clock next morning. The above relates to all prisoners, tried or untried, not debtors, nor sentenced to labour on tread-mill. Medical Practitioner. - Visits frequently, and always when sent for; last visit a week ago. Divine Service. - Prayers read every Sunday morning by one of the Mico charity school-masters, by permission of the provost-marshal. No provision made. Books. - Is not in possession of gaol books of any description. No record of medical treatment kept in gaol. Matron. — None.

The gaoler has a comfortable residence within the wall surrounding the gaol; a separate entrance. He corroborates the statements of the prisoners relative to the cells; has, with a calabash or bowl, baled the water out of the cell No. 1; there is a platform in each cell, used as a bed, bilboe irons at the foot, the whole length; at the back of each cell there is a recess, through which a paved gutter or trench passes, from end to end of the gaol; this is used as a privy, it must necessarily be dirty and smell offensively; there is no door betwixt the recess and cell; the gutter is intended to be kept clean by pumping water in at one end from a well in the yard; the pump is at present broken; a rope and bucket used, both nearly useless; there is another privy in the yard within the wall, but detached from the gaol; this also was out of order when I first visited, but it is now floored: the kitchen, which is arched, is not weather-tight; likewise the mason-work within the well is tumbling to pieces. The yard is at present converted into a vegetable garden.

Gaol Regulations. All prisoners confined for debt are placed up stairs. Prisoners in gaol for felonies and misdemeanors to be confined in the cells. No prisoner to have personal communication with any one, unless with the authority of the gaoler: friends admitted to

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visit debtors only from eight to nine o'clock in the morning, and from four to five o'clock in the afternoon. Magistrates and professional gentlemen admitted at all times. All prisoners to be locked up in their proper apartments at six o'clock in the evening. No fire or lights allowed after six o'clock, except in cases of sickness. All prisoners to clean out their own rooms. No clothes or bedding found. Prisoners for felonies are found in provisions, and proper care is taken that they are of good quality; l'/2 Ib. of bread, and '/2 Ib. offish per day, or other provisions in equal proportions. No spirituous liquors allowed to any prisoner. A prisoner being sick, on informing the gaoler, the medical attendant is sent for. No gaming allowed; the gaoler is authorized to take away all cards, dice, &c. Prisoners guilty of flagrant misconduct to be put in solitary confinement. If a prisoner escape through the negligence of the gaoler, he is to pay all expenses incurred in his recaption. No prisoner to be delivered up without a written order from a magistrate. All fees to be paid before the delivery of a prisoner. All prisoners committed, except for debt, to have their hair cut close, for the sake of cleanliness. Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 37, pp. 707-9.

APPENDIX 9 Kingstown House of Correction and Treadmill: Description and Regulations Second District, Parish of St. George, House of Correction, Kingstown, 20 December 1838. House of Correction, Kingstown, Site and Description. - Is situated within the precincts, at the back and nearly opposite the centre of Kingstown; is overlooked from the neighboring houses; appears sufficiently airy. The building 61 feet long, and consists of a room 26 feet by 19 feet 6 inches, in which is the treadmill; and two other rooms, each 17 feet by 13 feet; the one appropriated to the use of male, the other, female prisoners. The two latter have an arched roof. In front of this building 12 cells for solitary confinement have been erected; each cell 7 feet by 3 feet 8 inches; they are connected with the main building by a wall at each end, varying from 7 to 9 feet high. Courtyard is 54 feet by 30 feet, for the use of prisoners. The cells seem sufficiently ventilated; they are quite dark. The women's ward sufficiently airy; that in which the men are confined, not so. This is greatly, if not altogether, occasioned by the recent erection of a kitchen within die walls, and against the south side of this ward, which has closed up the aperture intended for ventilation. Officers. - Andrew Parie examined; in charge of the House of Correction since 1825. Salary 150 pounds currency; is also overseer of the town, and superintends water-tanks, pipes, and streets, for which he receives a salary of 200 pounds currency; generally speaking, is employed in the latter service die whole day, except when persons are worked on treadmill; viz., four or six times, 15 minutes each spell; during the negro apprenticeship, had a police constable to assist; at his own expense employs an assistant since 1st August 1838, who resides in the House of Correction, receives prisoners night or day in his absence, and has no duty to perform except tending prisoners. Escapes. - Two within the last 12 months; it is quite easy to get over the walls. Books. - Two. The first shows the name of every prisoner lodged in die House of Correction, and the number of days there confined. The amount charged against the public for keep, is determined by this book, which is inspected quarterly by the com-

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mittee of public accounts. The second shows date of commitment and discharge, name of prisoner and residence, committing magistrate, offence, and punishment awarded. Chains and Fetters. - None. Offences in Prison. - Prisoners, if riotous, are placed in the bilboes; forgiven if penitent next day; otherwise taken before the police magistrate; should any further punishment be awarded, it is stated in writing. Food. - One pint and half of corn, meal, or farine, or a quantity of yams equal in value daily; also one herring, or half a shad, or two and a half pounds of salt fish for seven days, and in that proportion for a less period; charge against the public one shilling currency (5d. sterling) daily, which he ought to receive at the end of each quarter; some times not paid for months after; last account nearly a month over due. Divine Service. - None. Tread-mill. - Constructed in England; length 10 feet, diameter 3 feet 7 inches, depth of tread 5 inches, requires some repairs; machinery to grind corn or oats attached; straps on the bar for the wrists. Watch, Day or Night. - Mr. Young, the person he employs, resides within the House of Correction; no accommodation whatever; sleeps in the treadmill room on a bench. Clothing. - None. Cleanliness. - Formerly he had one or two constables to take charge of the prisoners when they went to wash, at least twice a week; now have none; if there are many prisoners, he is afraid to let them go to the river; those who carry out the tubs every morning, wash if they like; never more than two sent, so the day on which they next wash must depend on the number in custody. Soap. - None allowed. Bilboes. - Bilboes in each ward the whole length of the bed or platform on which prisoners sleep. Separation. - None beyond keeping the males and females in separate wards; tried and untried prisoners together, except sentenced to solitary confinement. Work. - They break stones within the walls, used on the streets or roads. No stated quantity daily; no account kept of the quantity delivered. Medical Practitioner. - Attends when sent for; was here the day before yesterday; prescribed for a man who had fever; has not seen him since; visits without being sent for, perhaps once or twice a week, is very attentive.

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Matron. - None. In cases of serious illness, gets a certificate from the medical practitioner, and takes it to his Excellency the Lieutenant-governor, who orders the release of the prisoner; has done so many times; sick and well in same ward. Visitors. - No admission except in case of serious illness of a prisoner. Rules. - None, since abrogation of apprenticeship; strictly abides by the magistrates' orders, i.e., places a prisoner on treadmill as often as desired in the committal; and when not so employed, he or she breaks stones. One hour for breakfast, nine to ten o'clock; as for dinner, five to six o'clock; the doors are then locked up till half past five or six o'clock next morning, when the rooms are swept out, tubs carried away, after which work on the mill, or stone breaking, commences; this every day, Sundays and holidays excepted. Bedding. - None. Food or Liquors. - Neither admitted, except soup, if sent by a friend to a sick prisoner. Official Visitors. - The House of Correction is inspected twice annually by the jurors after the court of grand sessions; during the negro apprenticeship, the stipendiary justice of the district visited weekly or oftener. Blanket. - Six for the use of prisoners on treadmill; authorized to purchase more if required. Food. - Never inspected; sees it himself, it is wholesome; purchases it as required; and supplied by contract; is cooked by a prisoner. Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 37, pp. 705-6.

APPENDIX 10 Rules and Regulations for the Gaol, Houses of Correction, and other Prisons in the Island of St. Vincent and its Dependencies 1. THE keeper of every gaol, house of correction, or other place for imprisonment, shall be at least 25 years of age; he shall reside within the limits or close adjoining to the building; he shall not be engaged in any manual occupation or trade whatsoever; he shall not sell or traffic, nor derive any benefit or advantage directly or indirectly from the sale, contract, or agreement for the supply of any article whatever to any prisoner. 2. When matrons shall be appointed to the prison, or houses of correction, it shall be their duty to superintend the female prisoners. 3. The keeper shall visit every ward, and see every prisoner, and inspect every cell once at least in every 24 hours; and when he shall visit the female prisoners he shall be accompanied by the matron, or some other female officer of the prison. 4. Every keeper of a prison, or other place of confinement, shall keep a journal in which he shall daily enter the hours at which he has visited and inspected the cells; the date of entry, and discharge; the cause of commitment of each prisoner, and any general remarks which may be requisite; which journal shall be open to the inspector of prisons at all times, and be laid before the court of sessions at each half-yearly meeting of the court. 5. No intercourse shall be permitted between the male and female prisoners; and the prisoners of each sex shall be divided into distinct classes, care being taken that the following classes do not intermix, as far as can be practicable: Debtors, and persons confined for contempt of court, or for want of sureties; prisoners convicted of felony; persons convicted of misdemeanors; prisoners committed on charge or suspicion of any crimes; vagrants. 6. The keeper of every prison shall be authorized to employ any prisoner in the performance of any menial office within the prison, with his consent. 7. It shall be lawful for the keeper of any prison, where prisoners are refractory or disobedient, to confine such prisoner with any other class or description of prisoners, or in any other part of the prison, until he can receive the instructions of the provost-

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marshal general, or person having authority over the place of confinement, to whom he shall apply with as little delay as possible. 8. Female prisoners shall in all cases be attended by female officers. 9. When a chaplain shall be appointed for the gaol, he shall read prayers every Sunday, and visit the sick whenever required. 10. All keepers of prisons shall admit Dissenting ministers or Catholic priests to visit such persons as are not members of the Church of England. 11. Prisoners under the care of the surgeons or physicians shall be allowed such diet as may be directed in writing for them. 12. Prisoners not receiving public allowance, whether confined for debt, or before trial for any alleged crime or offence, shall be allowed to procure for themselves, and to receive at proper hours, any food, bedding, clothing, or other necessaries, subject to a strict examination, in order that extravagance and luxury within the walls of the prisons may be prevented; and when means are provided, every prisoner shall be furnished with suitable bedding and clothing. 13. No prisoner confined under the sentence of any court, or in pursuance of any conviction before any justice, shall receive any food or clothing other than the gaol allowance, except it be under special circumstances, to be judged of by the provostmarshal, or person having authority over the place of confinement. 14. The gates of all prisons are to be opened at six in the morning, and are not to be kept open after six P.M., except in cases of the most urgent necessity, at which hours all persons employed therein must be within the walls. 15. No person to be admitted for the purpose of communicating with prisoners before nine in the morning, nor after four in the afternoon, unless permitted by an order from the provost-marshal, or person having authority over the place of confinement. 16. The wards and ceilings of the wards, cells, rooms, and passages of every prison, shall be white-washed at least every three months, and oftener when requisite. The cells, gutters and privies shall be cleared out daily. 17. No spirituous liquors to be sold or admitted for the use of prisoners, unless by an order from the surgeon or physician in writing, specifying the quantity, and for whose use. 18. No gaming shall on any account be permitted, and the keeper or other officer shall seize and destroy all dice, cards, or other instruments of gaming. No smoking shall be allowed. 19. The medical attendant shall visit the prison three times in every week, and oftener if necessary, and shall keep a journal, in which the names of the patients under his care, and the prescriptions ordered by him, shall be entered, and any

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observations that he may deem requisite; which journal shall be kept in the gaol, and signed by him, and produced to the person having authority over the place of confinement, whenever it shall be required. (Certified.) (Signed) John Beresford, Clerk of Council Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1839, vol. 37, pp. 701-2.

APPENDIX 11 Punishments of Apprentices in St Vincent (1835-36)

Date

Total # of Apprentices in St. Vincent

Total # of Punishments by Special Magistrates

% of Apprentices Punished

August

19,300

189

1.00

4 5 — 86

58

September

19,120

316

1.66

30 — 134

152

October

19,120

627

3.5

46 — 264

317

November

19,300

278

1.40

41 — 117

120

December

19,300

432

2.25

62 — 145

225

Total # of Males Punished Whipped — Other

Total # of Females Punished

1835

1836 January

Not received

February

19,300

496

2.50

85 — 192

219

March

19,300

495

2.50

60—190

245

April

19,300

482

2.50

59—172

251

May

19,300

567

3.00

48 — 245

274

Source: House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1836, vol. 49, p. 436.

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Average # of Stripes when Whipped

Maximum # Maximum Severity of Stripes of Punishment by when Confinement Whipped

Maximum Severity of any other Punishment

25

SO

3 months hard labour on the treadmill

I additional year as an apprentice

20

SO

3 months

6 additional months as an apprentice

29

SO

3 months hard labour on the treadmill

2 months 8 days additional as an apprentice

22

SO

20 nights

3 months on the treadmill

26

SO

2 weeks

30 days on the treadmill

20

SO

14 days solitary

I month hard labour on the treadmill

19

SO

10 days solitary

S weeks hard labour and 30 lashes

17

3S

10 days

20 days hard labour, solitary confinement at night

20

SO

10 days solitary

I month on the treadmill and 30 lashes

APPENDIX 12 AN ACT to amend the Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Colonies 1. Whereas an Act was passed in the fourth year of the reign of his late Majesty, intituled, "An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves:" And whereas, in pursuance of the powers for that purpose in the said Act contained, divers Orders in Council, Ordinances and Acts of Assembly have been made for giving effect to the said Act by supplementary Enactments in the said Colonies: And whereas it hath since appeared that further provisions are necessary for the protection of the apprenticed Labourers in the said Colonies, and for giving full effect to the intent and meaning of the said Act for the Abolition of Slavery; Be it therefore Enacted, by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That it shall be lawful for the Governor of each Colony in which this Act shall be in force to regulate from time to time, by Proclamation, by and with the advice of the Council, the distribution of the hours of legal labour of apprenticed Labourers within such Colony; and that after such Proclamation it shall not be lawful to employ any Apprentice in that Colony, unless by voluntary contract, otherwise than according to such proclaimed regulation: Provided, That no such regulation shall lessen, save as hereinafter provided, the whole amount of weekly labour which may be lawfully required of Apprentices within that Colony. 2. And be it Enacted, That it shall be lawful, by any such Proclamation as aforesaid, to make provision for reckoning as part of the legal time of compulsory labour the time necessary to enable the Apprentices to go, at any rate not exceeding Three Miles by the hour, to and from their labour from and to their respective places of abode, and such necessary times shall be reckoned and allowed accordingly in the whole amount of weekly labour which may be lawfully required of such Apprentices. 3. And whereas provision was made by the said Act of Parliament for securing to apprenticed Labourers during the continuance of their apprenticeship the like food, clothing, lodging, medicine, medical attendance, and other maintenance and allowances which the person or persons for the time being entitled to their services

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was or were required to supply, provide and allow to them whilst in the state of slavery; And whereas in certain cases exemptions from labour, allowances of food or other articles, and other privileges and indulgences, were given to Slaves in the said Colonies either by law or custom, the continuance of which has not been sufficiently provided for by law, and which therefore are not in all cases enjoyed by the said apprenticed Labourers; Be it therefore Enacted, That all exemptions from labour, allowances, privileges and indulgences to which in his or her state of slavery any apprenticed Labourer was or would have been entitled by law, or by any custom established for the space of Three Years at least before the passing of the said Act of Parliament in any of the said Colonies, or in any district or parish thereof, shall, after having been ascertained and declared as hereinafter provided, during the continuance of the said apprenticeship in that Colony, be fully and of right enjoyed by the apprenticed Labourers in such Colony, district or parish respectively; and every person entitled to the services of any apprenticed Labourer who, by himself or herself, or by his or her agent, shall withhold from or not allow to any such Apprentice all such usual exemptions, allowances, privileges and indulgences as aforesaid, shall be liable to the same penalties in all respects as if he or she had not supplied to such Apprentice the allowances which by the said Act of Parliament he or she was required to supply to such Apprentice, unless by voluntary contract, sanctioned by the Special Justice of the District, any other arrangement shall be made between any Employer and his or her Apprentices; and no apprenticed Labourer from whom such allowances shall be withheld, shall be liable to punishment for deficiency of work during the period for which such allowances shall be withheld. 4. And be it Enacted, That it shall be lawful for the Governor of every such Colony, with the advice of his Council, to inquire from time to time, and thereupon for the Governor to declare by Proclamation, what exemptions, allowances, privileges or indulgences have been so established within that Colony, or in any district or parish thereof: and every such Proclamation shall have, the force of law in that Colony. 5. And be it Enacted, That the Proprietor or the representative of the Proprietor of any estate on which any Apprentice shall be confined in any prison, workhouse or hospital by the procurance of such Proprietor, or his or her authorized agent, representative or servant, shall, to the satisfaction of the Special Justice of the district, furnish to every such apprenticed Labourer sufficient food, medicines and other necessaries during the time he or she shall be so confined therein; and every person refusing or neglecting so to do shall be liable to the penalties provided for the punishment of such persons as shall not supply to Apprentices the allowances required by law. 6. And be it Enacted, That in any of the said Colonies in which no provision shall be in force at the time of the proclamation of this Act for the Appointment of an

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Umpire to act in default of the parties whose concurrence is necessary to the completion of the appraisement of the value of the services of any such Apprentice seeking his or her discharge from apprenticeship, or in the case of an alleged excessive valuation of the services of any apprenticed Labourer by such parties, it shall be lawful for the Governor, if he shall think fit, to appoint by warrant under his hand and the public seal of the Colony, so many persons as he shall think necessary to be official Umpires of appraisement in that Colony; and the names and places of the abode of the persons so appointed shall be published in the public Gazette of the Colony: Provided always, That no such official Umpire shall take on himself to act in that capacity until he shall have been sworn before some Justice of the Peace to act fairly and impartially in the execution of his office. 7. And be it Enacted, That in every case in which an appraisement of the sum which ought to be given for the discharge of any Apprentice cannot be completed because of the disagreement or default of the persons appointed to value and appraise the same, according to the laws in force in that Colony before the passing of this Act, or in the case of such excessive valuation as aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the Governor in every Colony in which such official Umpires shall have been appointed under this Act, on the application of any person whose concurrence in the appraisement is necessary to the completion thereof, or of any person interested therein, or of any person on his or her behalf, to direct the valuation to be made by one of the said official Umpires, who shall thereupon proceed to fix a value upon such Apprentice, which valuation shall be binding and conclusive on all parties; and upon the amount of such valuation being paid as by law directed, such Apprentice shall be absolutely discharged from the remainder of his or her term of apprenticeship. 8. And be it Enacted, That in such cases as aforesaid the said official Umpire alone shall have authority and shall be required to give the like notices and to perform all acts and observe all forms necessary for completing the discharge of the said Apprentice, as fully as the persons first appointed for the purpose of completing such discharge had power or were required to do, or as near thereunto as may be; and the Governor, with the advice of his Council, shall have power in every such Colony to make such regulations as may be necessary for adapting the form of procedure in that Colony to the case of an Umpire acting alone in making and completing such appraisement and discharge. 9. And be it Enacted, That no Supervisor or other person in charge of any house of correction, workhouse or other place of confinement shall receive into his custody as a prisoner any person under charge of being a vagrant or runaway Apprentice unless under a warrant of committal to that particular place of confinement, signed by a Justice holding a special commission under the provisions of the said Act of Parliament; any law or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

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10. And be it Enacted, That every Supervisor or person having charge of any place of confinement who shall neglect to advertise the name and description of any apprenticed Labourer committed to such place of confinement as a vagrant or runaway Apprentice, the date of every such committal, and the name of the committing Magistrates, as by law required, or who shall detain, except under legal sentence, any such apprenticed Labourer beyond the time required by law for such advertisement, shall be liable to a penalty, at the discretion of any Two Special Justices before whom he shall be convicted of such offence, not exceeding the rate of One Pound sterling in each case for each day during which he shall have made such default, or shall have illegally detained any such apprenticed Labourer. 11. And be it Declared and Enacted, That every Justice of the Peace holding a Special Commission under the said recited Act of Parliament shall have full power and authority at all times, with such persons as he shall think necessary to take with him, to enter into and upon any plantation or mill, or any lands, building or place whatsoever, at or within which any apprenticed Labourer shall be then employed in any agricultural or manufacturing labour, or into any hospital or place set apart or used for the cure or reception of the sick of or belonging to any plantation or estate, or into any gaol, prison, workhouse, cell or other place within such district or division used, or which such Special Justice shall have reasonable grounds for suspecting to be used, for the custody of any apprenticed Labourer, and there to remain so long as to him shall seem necessary or proper for the purpose of fully investigating any complaints which any such apprenticed Labourer may be desirous to prefer, or of fully examining into the state of any such hospital, gaol, prison, workhouse or cell, or the condition of any apprenticed Labourer confined or being therein, and to examine every Apprentice or other person whom he shall think fit to examine, either alone, or in the presence of such other persons, as to the said Justice shall seem fit; and for the purposes aforesaid or any of them, it shall be lawful for any such Special Justice, and for the persons whom he shall think fit to take with him, to pass and repass across any used path or way. 12. And be it Enacted, That every person who shall obstruct or oppose any such Special Justice exercising or attempting to exercise any of the rights or powers hereby committed to him shall for any such offence be proceeded against, and on conviction thereof shall be punished, in the same manner as any person may now by law be proceeded against and punished in the same Colony for obstructing any Special Justice appointed in pursuance of the said recited Act of Parliament in the discharge of his office. 13. And be it Enacted, That if any Action whatsoever shall at any time after the passing of this Act be brought against any such Special Justice or Justices for any thing done by him or them in the execution of his or their office, it shall be lawful for the Governor, if he shall think fit, to order that the Proceedings in such Action shall

276

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be stayed, and that the Action shall be discontinued, and such Proceedings shall be stayed and such Action discontinued accordingly. 14. And be it Enacted, That it shall be lawful for the Governor, by and with the advice of his Council, in each of the said Colonies, if he shall deem it expedient, for the better protection of the apprenticed Labourer, to make such new or other regulations for the treatment of all apprenticed Labourers during the period of their confinement in any Prison, Workhouse, Hospital, or other place of confinement, as to him shall seem proper, which regulations shall have the force of law. 15. And be it Enacted, That it shall be lawful for any Special Justice or Justices in any of the said Colonies, in every case in which he or they shall have convicted any person or persons of any wrong or injury done to any apprenticed Labourer or Labourers, and shall have adjudged such person or persons respectively to pay any fine or penalty which under any law in force such Justice or Justices is or are authorized to impose, to award the whole or any part of such penalty to the apprenticed Labourer or Labourers against whom the offence in respect of which such conviction shall take place shall have been committed. 16. And for the more effective prevention of cruelty and injustice towards the said apprenticed Labourers, Be it Enacted, That if it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of the Governor of any such Colony that any apprenticed Labourer hath been subjected to any cruelty or any grievous injustice, or wrong done to or inflicted upon him or her, by the person or persons entitled to his or her services, or by the authorized agent, representative or servant of any such person or persons, or in the execution of any punishment inflicted for any offence against the said Act of Parliament, or any Act or Ordinance made in pursuance of the said Act of Parliament, or for the breach of any regulation made for the discipline of any prison, hospital or workhouse, or for any other purpose, it shall be lawful for the Governor, by any order to be for that purpose made by him under his hand, and sealed with the public seal of the Colony, to direct the immediate discharge of any such apprenticed Labourer for his or her remaining term of apprenticeship, which order, being enrolled in the office of the Public Secretary of the Colony, shall thenceforward be a full and sufficient discharge to such Apprentice from his or her remaining term of apprenticeship: Provided always, That no such order shall be made unless the circumstances of any such case shall have been first examined into upon oath by Two Special Justices, nor until the report in writing of such examination by such Special Justices, containing the evidence on which such report is founded, shall have been received by him: Provided also, That notwithstanding any such order for the discharge of any Apprentice, every offending person shall be liable to the like penalties for such cruelty, injustice and wrong as if such order had not been made. 11. And be it Enacted, That in case any apprenticed Labourer shall be discharged by any such order, in consequence of any cruelty, injustice or wrong done to or

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inflicted upon him or her as aforesaid by any person or persons other than the person or persons for the time being entitled to his or her services, the person or persons by whom or by whose procurement such cruelty, injustice or wrong shall have been done or inflicted, shall be liable to pay to the person or persons entitled as aforesaid to the services of such apprenticed Labourer the full value of the services of such apprenticed Labourer during the remaining term or his or her apprenticeship, in case he or she had not been so discharged, which may be recovered by action of debt in any of the courts of law within the Colony. 18. And be it Enacted, That from and after the proclamation of this Act it shall not be lawful to place any Female Apprentice on a treadmill or in the chain or penal gang of any parish, or to punish any Female Apprentice by whipping or beating her person, or by cutting off her hair, for any offence by her committed, or for the breach of any regulation, whether made for the discipline of any prison, hospital or workhouse, or for any other purpose; and that it shall not be lawful to punish any apprenticed Labourer being a Male, by whipping or beating his person, after the Fifteenth day of August in the year One thousand eight hundred and Thirty-eight in any of the said Colonies, except the Island of Mauritius, or after the Fifteenth day of February in the year One thousand eight hundred and Thirty-nine in the Island of Mauritius, against any provision of the said Act of Parliament for the Abolition of Slavery, or against any provision of any Order in Council, Ordinance or Act of Assembly made in pursuance of the said Act of Parliament, or for any offence for which any other person of free condition within the same Colony is not liable to the like punishment; and that from and after the proclamation of this Act, it shall not be lawful to punish any apprenticed Labourer, being a male, by whipping or beating his person for any offence by him committed against or for the breach of any regulation made for the discipline of any prison, hospital or workhouse, unless with the approbation and in the presence of a Special Justice acting under the said recited Act of Parliament. 19. And whereas there is reason to believe that in some of the said Colonies no complete division has been made of the apprenticed Labourers into distinct classes, and that in the divisions which have been made certain Apprentices have been erroneously registered as praedial apprenticed Labourers, and it is necessary that provision should be made for the completion of every incomplete classification, and for the correction of all erroneous classifications; Be it Enacted, That in each of the said Colonies in which at the time of the proclamation of this Act no complete classification shall have been made, or no legal provision shall be in force for revising the classification of the Apprentices in such Colony, it shall be lawful for the Governor thereof, if he shall think fit, by Proclamation, by and with the advice of the Council, to make regulations for the complete classification and effectual revision of the classification, as the case may require, in such Colony, and for this purpose to appoint fit and proper persons having no interest in any such classification to complete such

278

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classification and make such revision, and that the persons so appointed shall have full power to correct all such errors as shall be proved to them to exist in the said classification, and that their decision in each case shall be final, except in the case of appeal as hereinafter provided; provided that no regulation so to be made as aforesaid for such classification or revision shall be repugnant to the said Act of Parliament, and that no person who was of the age of Twelve Years and upwards on the Twenty-eighth day of August in the year One thousand eight hundred and Thirty-three shall be included or retained in either of the classes of Praedial apprenticed Labourers, unless such person shall for Twelve calendar Months at least next before the said Twenty-eighth day of August One thousand eight hundred and Thirty-three have been habitually employed in agriculture or in the manufacture of colonial produce, any subsequent agreement to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided always, That either of the parties to this classification who shall be dissatisfied with the decision of the Revisors, or any other person on his or her behalf, may within One calendar Month after such decision shall have been made, appeal against such decision by petition to the Governor of the Colony, and the Governor of the Colony to whom any such petition may be preferred shall, with the advice of his Council, proceed in a summary way to hear and decide the matter of the petition, and his decision shall be final, subject only to an appeal to Her Majesty in Council. 20. And whereas doubts have arisen respecting the validity of the division of apprenticed Labourers into Three Classes in the Island of Jamaica, by reason that the said division was carried into effect under rules and regulations established by an Act of Assembly which has been disallowed by Her Majesty by the advice of Her Privy Council; Be it therefore Declared and Enacted, That the said classification in the Island of Jamaica shall, for the purpose of such revision, be taken to be valid and effectual, and shall be subject to such revision as is hereinbefore directed. 21. And be it Enacted, That whensoever any Governor shall have put in force any of the special powers conferred upon him by this Act, for the change or completion of any classification, for the discharge of any Apprentice, or for the regulation of any Prison or Workhouse, or for the staying of any legal proceedings, or for the proclamation of any exemptions, allowances, privileges or indulgences, as hereinbefore described, he shall, by the earliest convenient opportunity, transmit to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, a Report of the particulars of all acts so done, and such Report shall be laid upon the Tables of both Houses of Parliament within Forty Days after it shall have been so received, or within Forty Days after the commencement of the then next ensuing Session of Parliament. 22. And be it Enacted, That it shall not be necessary for any apprenticed Labourer to be furnished with a pass or permission of any kind during any time of the day or night which is not part of the legal time of compulsory labour, or which, in the case of voluntary contracts sanctioned according to law, is not part of the time

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during which he or she shall have voluntarily contracted to work for any Employer, but that, except during such times of compulsory or contract labour, every apprenticed Labourer shall be as free to go from place to place on his or her lawful occasion as any other person of free condition, and that all laws repugnant to this provision are hereby repealed: Provided always, That nothing herein contained shall be taken to authorize any proceeding which would be a trespass in any other person of free condition. 23. And be it Enacted, That every person who shall offend against any provision of this Act, for which no penalty is specially provided, and who shall be convicted thereof before a Special Justice, shall be liable to any penalty not exceeding the greatest penalty which a Special Justice is empowered to inflict upon any person entitled to the services of an apprenticed Labourer, or his or her agent or servant, for any violation of the said Act of Parliament, or of any Act of Assembly or Ordinance made in pursuance of the said Act of Parliament. 24. And whereas by an Act of the Governor, Council and Assembly of the Island of Jamaica, passed on the Eighteenth Day of December in the year One thousand eight hundred and Thirty-seven, intituled, "An Act to organize a Police," it is amongst other things enacted, that it shall be the duty of the Police, and they are thereby required, at all times, to take up all vagrants or idle and disorderly persons, and to quell all riots, and disperse all unlawful meetings, and to apprehend all and every person and persons unlawfully armed, or having in his, her or their possession any arms or ammunition without a warrant for that purpose from some Magistrate of the parish in which such persons shall reside, or having in his, her or their possession any quantity of sugar, rum, pimento, coffee or other produce, or any canes, wood or grass, who shall not be able to produce a permit from the proprietor, overseer or other person in charge of the property whereon such produce was grown or manufactured, or otherwise show that he, she or they has or have honestly become possessed of such property, and to carry such person or persons so apprehended before the nearest Justice, who shall examine into the matter, and upon conviction adjudge the party or panics offending to pay a fine not exceeding the sum of Five Pounds, or in failure of payment of such fine, to commit such offender or offenders to labour in the House of Correction for a space of time not exceeding Thirty Days; and it is thereby provided, that in the event of no application from the owner of such produce within Five Days, the same shall be sold by order of such Justice, and one moiety of the proceeds to be paid to the police apprehending such parties, and the other moiety to be appropriated to the poor of the parish in which such condemnation shall take place; and it is thereby also provided, that if the Justice so called upon to adjudicate shall consider the offence to be of too aggravated a nature to be dealt with in such summary manner, he shall commit the offender to be tried at the Quarter Sessions of the parish in which such offence was committed; and it is

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thereby also provided and enacted, that when and so soon as it shall appear that the produce so found in the possession of any such offender, being an apprenticed Labourer under the provisions of the Act for the Abolition of Slavery in the said Island in consideration of Compensation, and for promoting the industry of the manumitted Slaves, and to declare chapter One hundred and fifty-five of the fiftysecond year of King George the Third in force in the said Island, was taken from the premises or is the property of the owner, employer or person entitled to the services of such apprenticed Labourer, then the jurisdiction of the local Justice shall immediately cease, and the offender shall be handed over to the police, to be carried before the Special Justice of the district to which such apprenticed Labourer belongs, to be dealt with according to law: Be it Enacted, That so much as is hereinbefore recited of the said Act of the said Governor, Council and Assembly shall be and the same is hereby repealed, and shall cease to have the force and effect of law within the said Island. 25. And be it Enacted, That the Governor of each of the said Colonies shall cause this Act to be proclaimed within such Colony; and this Act shall come into force within such Colony on a day to be named in the Proclamation; and that so much of all Orders, Ordinances and Acts of Assembly as is inconsistent with this Act shall cease to be in force in each of the said Colonies from the time when this Act shall come into force in such Colony: Provided always, That nothing in this Act contained shall apply to any Colony to which the said Act of Parliament for the Abolition of Slavery does not apply, or in which the apprentices established under the said Act of Parliament shall be already lawfully determined at the time when the Governor shall receive notice of the passing of this Act. 26. And be it Enacted, That all the provisions hereinbefore contained shall continue in force in each of the Colonies in which they shall be so proclaimed until the lawful determination of the said apprenticeship within that Colony, and shall then cease to be of force; except as to any thing done, or any privilege or immunity granted for any thing done, under the authority of this Act, and except so far as any provision of any Law, Ordinance, Order or Act of Assembly is repealed or made of no force by this Act. 27. And whereas in such of the Colonies aforesaid as are subject to the legislative authority of Her Majesty in Council, certain laws were in force at or immediately before the time when the said recited Act came into operation, determining the amount of food and other allowances to be supplied to the persons then held in slavery in the said Colonies respectively: And whereas doubts have arisen whether, consistently with the provisions of the said Act, it is competent to Her Majesty in Council to increase the said scale of Allowances; Be it therefore Declared and Enacted, That it is and shall be competent to Her Majesty in Council, by any Order or Orders in Council for that purpose to be made from time to time, to make such an

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increase of the said scales of Allowances as to Her Majesty in Council shall seem meet; any thing in the said recited Act to the contrary notwithstanding. 28. And whereas under certain of the provisions of the said recited Act, children bound out as apprenticed Labourers before the First day of August One thousand eight hundred and Forty, or apprenticed Labourers, under the sentences or adjudications of the Special Magistrates, may in certain cases be compelled to serve as apprenticed Labourers after the said First day of August One thousand eight hundred and Forty, and it is expedient that the said Act should in this respect be amended; Be it therefore Enacted, That no person shall, by virtue of the said Act, or by virtue of any indenture of apprenticeship entered into by him or her, or on his or her behalf, in pursuance thereof, be liable to serve as an apprenticed Labourer after the First day of February One thousand eight hundred and Forty-one in the Island of Mauritius, or after the First day of August One thousand eight hundred and Forty in any other of the Colonies aforesaid; any thing in the said Act or in any such indenture contained to the contrary notwithstanding. 29. And be it Enacted, That in the construction of this Act the word "Governor" shall be taken to mean every person lawfully charged with the administration of the Government of any such Colony; and the words "Apprentice" and "apprenticed Labourer" shall be taken to mean such persons only as, having been formerly held in slavery, are now Apprentices subject to the provisions of the said recited Act of Parliament, or of any Order in Council, Ordinance or Act of Assembly, made or passed in pursuance thereof; and in British Guiana the Governor and Court of Policy shall exercise all the powers herein given to the Governor with the advice of his Council. 30. And be it Enacted, That this Act may be repealed or amended by any Act to be passed in this Session of Parliament. Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1837-38, vol. 50, pp. 299-309.

APPENDIX 13 AN ACT to abrogate the Apprenticeship of Praedial Labourers in the Island of Saint Vincent and its Dependencies

1. Whereas the praedial labourers in this island and its dependencies are by the laws of the Imperial Parliament and of the said island subject to an apprenticeship until the 1st day of August 1840, which it is expedient to abrogate, we therefore, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lieutenant-governor, Council and Assembly of the island of Saint Vincent and its dependencies, humbly pray your most Excellent Majesty, that it may be enacted, and be it and it is hereby enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all and every the praedial labourers who on the 1 st day of August 1838 shall be subject to apprenticeship within this island and its dependencies, shall upon and from and after the said 1st day of August 1838 become and be to all intents and purposes free and discharged from the obligations which are by law imposed upon them as apprenticed labourers. 2. And be it further enacted, That until the 1st day of August 1839, it shall not be lawful for the owners or directors of plantations to evict or expel any labourer or labourers, person or persons who shall be willing to continue to perform such work as shall be assigned to him, her or them, and shall truly and faithfully perform the same for stipulated wages, or who shall be then labouring under any such disease or mental or bodily infirmity as may render him, her or them incapable of earning his, her or their subsistence, from the habitations or tenements which he, she or they respectively personally occupied in his, her or their state of apprenticeship, except in case of insubordinate, quarrelsome or riotous behavior, or in case of drunkenness, theft, trespass or other gross delinquency on his, her or their part, when it shall be competent to any two or more justices of the peace, upon due and impartial inquiry made into the merits of the complaint, by any authority under their hands and seals, to sanction the expulsion of any such delinquent, but the said owners or directors of plantations shall be and are hereby required to permit and suffer the said labourers and persons to have and enjoy respectively the personal occupation of the said habitations or tenements by way of a temporary and gratuitous accommodation for the

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year ending on the said 1st day of August 1839, and no longer, without any molestation or interruption of or by the said owners or directors of plantations, under a penalty of 5 1. current money for every offence, to be recovered and applied in the manner hereinafter mentioned. 3. And be it further enacted, That from and after the said 1st day of August 1838, all owners or directors of plantations in this colony shall be and are hereby required to supply those persons who shall on the said 1st day of August 1838, be afflicted with any such disease, or mental or bodily infirmity, as may render them permanently incapable of earning their subsistence with such food, clothing, lodging, medicine, medical attendance, and such other maintenance and allowances as by the laws now in force in this colony a master is required to supply to and for any apprenticed labourer being of the same age and sex, and under the same circumstances as such persons shall respectively be, until proper arrangements and due and adequate provision shall be made for their maintenance and relief by the respective parishes, or by some other benevolent and effectual plan in their favour, and no longer, under a penalty of 5 1. current money for every offence, to be recovered and applied in the manner hereinafter mentioned. 4. Provided always, and be it enacted, That in the event of any dispute or difficulty in ascertaining whether any particular individual shall be included in such number of persons, it shall and may be lawful for the parties interested to make their appeal to two or more of the nearest of Her Majesty's justices of the peace, who, taking to their counsel some experienced medical practitioner, shall under their hands and seals make a peremptory and conclusive decision in this behalf. 5. And be it further enacted, That all the penalties imposed by this Act shall and may be proceeded for within the space of one calendar month after the offence shall have been committed, and shall be recovered before any two or more of the nearest justices of the peace, and such justices of the peace are hereby empowered and required, upon complaint to them made, to grant a warrant to bring the offender before them at the time and place in such warrant specified; and if on conviction of such offender, or his or her confession, or on the evidence of any one or more credible witness or witnesses upon oath (which oath such justices of the peace are hereby empowered to administer) any such penalty shall not be forthwith paid, it shall and may be lawful to and for such justices of the peace to levy the same by distress, and for want of distress, to commit every such offender to the common gaol, there to remain without bail or mainprize for any time not exceeding twenty days, unless such penalty and all reasonable charges attending the recovery thereof shall be sooner paid, and all such penalties when so recovered and levied as aforesaid shall be paid into the public treasury to be applied to the general uses of the colony.

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Dated at Kingstown this 11 th day of May, in the first year of the reign of our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, and in the year of our Lord 1838. N. Struth, Speaker. Passed the Assembly this 11th day of May 1838. P. Hepley, Clerk pro. tern. Passed the Council this 11th day of May 1838. G. Van Heyningen, Clerk of the Council. Source: House of Commons: Sessional Papers, 1837-38, vol. 48, pp. 33-34.

APPENDIX 14 Address of his Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Tyler to the Apprenticed Labourers of St. Vincent upon the Abolition of Apprenticeship in that Colony on the 1st August 1838. My Friends, When the Law, which gives you all Freedom, on the 1st of August next was passed, I stated to you, in my address of the 11th of May, that I should visit and explain every thing that will concern you as free people. I am here to-day for that purpose, and I beg you will not only listen with attention to what I say, but if any of you do not fully understand me, you will not hesitate to tell me so, in order that I may satisfy any doubts on your minds. The laws, which will apply to all, whatever may be their station or colour, that require particular notice, are four in number. The first is that which gives you freedom. By the provisions of this Act, after the 1 st of August, your masters cannot lawfully turn you away from the Estate for one year, if you are willing to work for that year for fair and reasonable wages. On the other hand, if he wishes you to remain, and you are unwilling, he cannot oblige you; but remember, the land you cultivate, and the houses you occupy are his, and not yours, and if you will not labour for him, you cannot expect to be allowed to remain on his property. This law likewise obliges the proprietors of estates to take care of the old and the infirm for that year, or until proper provision is made for them; it also gives you time, as well as your masters, to make arrangements for the future. There is no law to fix the price of labour or rate of wages between you; but recollect, when a man pays money for labour, he will only employ those who will work diligently and cheerfully. The next law is for "regulating and determining disputes between masters and servants, and for adjusting and recovering their wages;" by which, when you hire yourselves, you cannot leave your place until the time you agreed to serve is completed, unless it be for some reasonable cause, to be allowed by a magistrate; neither can any employer put away his hired servant before the time for which he or she was engaged without a sufficient warning; if the hiring should be by the year, then three months' warning must be given; and if by the month, then one week's warning. This law applies to domestics as well as labourers, and, in fact, to every hired servant or

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tradesman, whether he is made free on the 1 st of August, whether he purchased his time, or whether he was born free, there is no distinction whatever. When servants leave their employment, they will be entitled to receive from their employer a written character of conduct; every master who refuses to give a servant a character is liable to a fine of 5 1. No one will employ a servant without a character. Any master giving a false character will be punished. This is done that the good and well-disposed may be known and encouraged. The hours of labour are fixed by this law for estates work, namely, from six o'clock in the morning to six at night. The labourer must be at his work at six in the morning; he is allowed one hour for breakfast, and two hours for dinner. If a labourer absents himself from his work without a reasonable cause, to be allowed by a magistrate, he will be liable to lose four dogs (or 6 d.) for every hour absent; and should any servant employed depart without leave, and not return, the master will apply to a magistrate, who is authorized by the law to adjudge imprisonment to hard labour for such wilful breach of contract. All contracts for wages to be made payable in the current coin of the country. Complaints against employers for non-payment of wages, or non-performance of contract, to be settled by any justice of the peace. Servants employed may bargain with their masters for clothing, salt-fish, and medical attendance. These are the principal regulations whereby you and all hired servants are to be governed; and you will perceive there is ample protection for the industrious and well-disposed; but for the lazy and dissolute, what will become of them? They will be without homes or comforts, and will assuredly come within the operation of the next law, which is "An Act for the Punishment of Idle and Disorderly Persons, Rogues and Vagabonds," which declares that every person, being able to maintain himself, herself, or his or her family, by work or labour, and neglecting or refusing so to do, every person found wandering about the highroads, any person found begging about, or causing any child or children to go about begging, every person receiving stolen goods, every person who shall be found wandering upon, or cultivating or using, or trespassing upon the land of any plantation or estate, or any Crown lands, or cutting the wood, or conveying away the produce thereof without the consent of the owner or occupier, shall be deemed an idle and disorderly person, and punished as such by imprisonment and hard labour for any time not exceeding one month. By the other Act "For the appointment of Police Magistrates and a Constabulary Force," you will learn that gentlemen of respectability are appointed, in addition to the magistrates of the country, for the purpose of hearing all complaints against masters as well as servants, whose duty it will be to see and take care that justice is done by the master to the servant, as well as by the servant to the master. So much then for the Acts which apply to all without any exception. Every one must now depend upon his or her own industry and good behaviour for employment. Those who pay attention to the advice I now give them will soon find themselves happy and comfortable, will obey the laws, and be good and faithful subjects to their Sovereign,

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while those who are inclined to idleness and bad habits will soon become destitute, and subject themselves to punishment and disgrace. I speak the truth to you, and nothing but the truth. I have been among you as slaves, as apprentices, and I hope to live some time with you as free people. Be assured nothing will give me more pleasure than to see you all happy and contented. When you become free, I have no doubt the love of change, or some other motive, may induce some of you to remove to other estates than those upon which you at present reside, and that attempts will be made to persuade others to quit this island by the promise of greater wages elsewhere. You will certainly have an undoubted right to go where you please and hire yourselves, but let me caution you about leaving this island for any other. In the first place, there is a law which prohibits any person quitting this colony, who has any one here dependent upon him or her for support, without giving security that the party so left shall not become a burthen to the parish. In the next place, if you do go, you must recollect you go to a strange country; you will have new masters to please, and perhaps different laws to govern you, and above all, if you should go beyond the protection of the British Government, you would run the chance of being carried into foreign settlements, and there sold as slaves. There have been, unhappily, numerous instances of this horrid system of late; therefore, take my advice, think well of these things before you consent to quit St. Vincent. I must now direct your attention to a point that concerns the happiness and welfare of your children as well as yourselves. When your children are capable of receiving instruction, send them to school; when they are old enough, and able to work, train them up to labour and habits of industry, for as you advance in years you will require their assistance to contribute to your maintenance and comfort as well as their own, and this can only be secured by making them labour in early life. Let your children be taught to read the Bible, and they will learn their duty to God, and to be obedient to their parents. If any of you wish for further explanation, ask it. These printed papers which I leave with you contain all I have said. Let those who can read them do so; and let them also read them to those who cannot. Read them over and over again, and you will find that your own happiness and contentment depend entirely on your individual character and exertions, and that you cannot prosper unless your masters prosper also; their estates being well cultivated will alone enable them to pay you wages for your labour. Remember, the strong arm of the law will punish all that misbehave, while it protects and encourages all who are industrious and of good conduct. One word more. The 1 st of August next will be a great and glorious day, a day upon which your masters have made you all as free as themselves, a day which for ever banishes all traces of slavery and bondage from this colony, a day therefore that should be celebrated, not by rioting or drunkenness, but by solemn thanksgiving to God for his merciful great kindness in ordaining such a blessing to his creatures inhabiting this happy and favoured island. Every church and chapel in the colony will be opened on that day;

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make it your duty, therefore, to attend some place of Divine worship, and there humbly thank God for all the mercies and blessings conferred upon you. Shew yourselves grateful to your masters for having made you free two years sooner than the late King William's law did. Continue upon their estates, and work for them willingly and cheerfully for wages. By such orderly and proper conduct you will not only prove yourselves worthy of the boon granted to you by your masters, but you will also prove to our Queen, who is so much interested about you, as well as to the people of England, that you are worthy and grateful for all the kindness that has been shown you, and above all, that you set a just value upon that inestimable blessing, freedom. Source: CO 260/57, St. Vincent, 1838, Correspondence, Original-Secretary of State, Despatches, vol. 2, July-December 1838, Sir E. J. M. McGregor, LieutenantGovernor Tyler, and Miscellaneous, 5-5 verso.

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Articles August, Tom. "Rebels with a Cause: The St. Joseph Mutiny of 1837." Slavery and Abolition 12 (1991): 73-91. Bolland, O. Nigel. "Systems of Domination After Slavery: The Control of Land and Labor in the British West Indies After 1838." Comparative Studies in Society and History 23 (1981): 591-619. . "The Politics of Freedom in the British Caribbean." In The Meaning of Freedom: Economics, Politics and Culture After Slavery, edited by Frank McGlynn and Seymour Drescher, 113-46. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992. Campbell, Carl. "Towards an Imperial Policy for the Education of Negroes in the West Indies after Emancipation." Jamaican Historical Review 1 (1967): 68-102. Caspar, David Barry. "Slavery, Amelioration, and Sunday Markets in Antigua, 1823-1831." Slavery and Abolition 9 (1988): 1-28. Green, William A. "The Apprenticeship in British Guiana, 1834-1838." Caribbean Quarterly 9 (1969): 44-66. Hall, Douglas. "The Apprenticeship Period in Jamaica, 1834-1838." Caribbean Quarterly 3 (1953): 142-66. . "The Flight from the Estates Reconsidered: The British West Indies, 1838-1842. "Journal of Caribbean History 10 and 11 (1978): 7-24. Johnson, Howard. "The Liberated Africans in the Bahamas, 1811-60." Immigrants and Minorities 1 (1988): 16-40. . "A Slow and Extended Abolition: The Case of the Bahamas, 1800-1838." In From Chattel Slaves to Wage Slaves: The Dynamics of Labour Bargaining in the Americas, edited by Mary Turner, 165-81. London: James Currey; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. Laurence, K. O. "Comments on the Papers by Green, Marshall, Engerman and Emmer." In Abolition and Its Aftermath: The Historical Context, edited by David Richardson, 269. London: Frank Cass, 1985. Lichtenstein, Alex. " 'That Disposition to Theft, with Which They Have Been Branded': Moral Economy, Slave Management and the Law." Journal of Social History 21 (1988): 413-40. McDonald, Roderick A. " 'Birth-Pangs of a New Order': Special Magistrate John Anderson and the Apprenticeship in St. Vincent." In The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion, edited by Robert L. Paquette and Stanley L. Engerman, 324-44. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996. . "Urban Crime and Social Control in St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship." In West Indies Accounts: Essays on the History of the British Caribbean and the Atlantic Economy in Honour of Richard Sheridan, edited by R. A. McDonald, 319-42. Mona, Jamaica: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1996. Marshall, Bernard. "Slave Resistance and the White Reaction in the British Windward Islands, 1763-1833." Caribbean Quarterly 28 (1982): 33-46. Marshall, Woodville K. "The Termination of the Apprenticeship in Barbados and the Windward Islands: An Essay in Colonial Administration and Politics." Journal of Caribbean History 2 (1971): 1-45.

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. " 'Vox Populi': The St. Vincent Riots and Disturbances of 1862." In Trade, Government and Society in Caribbean History, 1700-1920: Essays Presented to Douglas Hall, edited by B. W. Higman, 84-115. Kingston, Jamaica: Heinemann, 1983. . "Apprenticeship and Labour Relations in Four Windward Islands." In Abolition and Its Aftermath: The Historical Context, edited by David Richardson, 203-24. London: Frank Cass, 1985. . "Provision Ground and Plantation Labour in Four Windward Islands: Competition for Resources during Slavery." In The Slaves' Economy: Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas, edited by Philip D. Morgan and Ira Berlin, 48-67. London: Frank Cass, 1991. Martinez Vergne, Teresita. "The Allocation of Liberated African Labour through the Casa de Beneficiencia: San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1859-1864." Slavery and Abolition 12 (1991): 200-216. Menezes, M. N. "The Apprenticeship System 1834-1838: A Leap in the Dark." History Gazette 2 (1988): 1-20. Mintz, Sidney, and Douglas Hall. "The Origins of the Jamaican Internal Marketing System." Yale University Publications in Anthropology 57 (1960): 1-26. Simmonds, Lorna. "Slave Higglering in Jamaica, 1780-1834." Jamaica Journal 20 (1987): 31-38. Wilmot, Swithin R. "Not 'Full Free': The Ex-Slaves and the Apprenticeship System in Jamaica, 1834-1838." Jamaica Journal 17 (1984): 2-10. . "Strikes for Freedom: The Ex-Slaves and the Introduction of the Apprenticeship System in the British West Indies." Jamaica Historical Society Bulletin 8 (1984): 333-38. Unpublished Works Bolland, O. Nigel. "The Institutionalization of Planter Hegemony in the Colonial Polity of the British West Indies after 1838." Paper presented at the Twentysecond Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, St. Augustine, Trinidad, 1-6 April 1990. Craig, Susan. "The Popular Struggle to Possess the Land in Tobago, 1838-1855." Paper presented at the Twenty-second Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, St. Augustine, Trinidad, 1-6 April 1990. Higman, B. W. " 'To Begin the World Again': Responses to Emancipation at Friendship and Greenwich Estate, Jamaica." Paper presented at the Twentysecond Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, St. Augustine, Trinidad, 1-6 April 1990. McDonald, Roderick A. "The Journal of John Anderson, St. Vincent Special Magistrate, 1836-1839." Paper presented at the Twenty-second Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, St. Augustine, Trinidad, 1-6 April 1990. . "The Transition from Slavery to Freedom: The Journal of John Anderson, St. Vincent Special Magistrate, 1836-1839." Philadelphia Center for Early

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American Studies Seminar, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 20 April 1990. . "Urban Crime and Social Control in St Vincent during the Apprenticeship." Paper presented at the Twenty-seventh Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Georgetown, Guyana, 2-7 April 1995. Wilmot, Swithin R. "Women and Protest in Jamaica, 1838-1865." Paper presented at the Nineteenth Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Martinique, 13-17 April 1987. . "The Politics of Protest in Free Jamaica: The Kingston Christmas Riots, 1840 and 1841." Paper presented at the Twenty-second Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians, St. Augustine, Trinidad, 1-6 April 1990.

Index Aberdeen, William, 190 Aberdeen University Historic Collections, 39 Abolition Act, 9, 29, 31-32, 34, 88n.47, 92n.52, 217-235; amendment to, 82n.35, 88n.47, 198n.204, 201n.210, 272-281. See also Emancipation Abrahams, Roger, 149n.l29 Accidents, 208 Achebe, Chinua, 138n.l 15 Adams, John Wilson, 28 Adelaide, Queen, 52, 86n.44, 203 Adventures of Gil Bias (Le Sage), 213, 213n.220 Aeneid (Virgil), 184, 184n.l92 Africa, 185 Agricultural labour scale, 138-140, 255-259 Alcohol: and drunkenness, 96; as incentive to work, 127; at mealtimes, 65-66, 111-113, 115; and prisons, 137, 268; production of, 209, 210; types of, 113, 113n.80; use by blacks, 131 Allowances: clothing allotments, 44, 82, 82n.35, 87, 87n.45, 97n.55, 223, 272-273; food allotments, 44, 82, 82n.35, 86n.44, 87, 87n.45, 89-90, 89n.48, 222-223, 237, 272-273; housing, 82-84, 82n.35; increases in, 280-281; for infirm apprentices, 282-283; medical care as, 82, 82n.35; and slavery, 86n.44, 89, 89n.48, 97n.55, 198n.204. See also Provision grounds Anderson, Agnes Grant, 56n.3 Anderson, Alexander, 55n.3 Anderson, Elizabeth Mackenzie: arrival in St. Vincent, 61; departure from Scotland, 55; homes of, 8, 67, 67nn. 10-11; marriage to John Anderson, 5; return to Scotland, 8; voyage to St. Vincent, 55-59, 61

Anderson, Francis, 55n.3 Anderson, George, 5, 55n.3 Anderson, Isabel, 4-6, 39, 42 Anderson, Jessie, 5 Anderson, John: and abolition, 9; appointment as special magistrate, 7, 13-15, 22, 55, 248; arrival in St. Vincent, 4, 61; background of, 5; birth of, 5; book about, 4-5; as "Buckra Magistrate," 13, 15, 17-19, 24; criticism of, 17-18; death of, 7-8; departure from Scotland, 43, 55; earnings of, 6; and education of blacks, 108n.72; genealogical work of, 5-6; and George Tyler, 7, 82n.35; homes of, 67, 67nn. 10-11; journal writing of, 11-12, 26, 39-52, 55-214; and juvenile offenders, 23; legal partiality of, 17-19; as linguist, 41; marriage of, 5; and misclassification of apprentices, 195n.201, 197n.203; misgivings about St. Vincent, 153-154, 154n.l38; parties attended by, 115; patronage by Lord Glenelg, 6, 7, 9; as police magistrate, 6-7, 16, 32; public support for, 8-9, 15-16, 198n.203; racial prejudices of, xii-xiii, 12-13, 20-21, 23, 28, 44, 81-88, 91,119-123, 147-150, 158-161, 171-173, 185-186, 189-191,200-201, 203, 204-205; relationship with apprentices, 25-26; relationship with planters, 146n.l23; and responsibilities of special magistrates, 13-15, 22, 31-32, 34, 96n.54, 136; servants of, 100, 100n.61; threats against, 193; transfer of, 7, 17; voyage to St. Vincent, 55-59, 61; workload of, 19-20. See also Journal of John Anderson Anderson, Margaret, 5, 55n.3 Anderson, Mary, 56n.3 Anderson, Peter, 4-5, 39, 55-56n.3 Animals: birds, 78, 170; donkeys, 78; feed-

298

Index

ing of, 79; frogs, 77-78; horses, 123; hummingbirds, 78; lizards, 78, 141-142, 141-142n.ll9, 153; snakes, 126-127, 142. See also Insects Antigua, 210n.216, 211n.218 Anti-Slavery Society, 17, 180n.l88 Apprentices: abuse of, 36, 18In. 189, 198n.204, 276-277; and age, 218-219; and appraisals for self-purchase of apprenticeship contracts, 202n.211, 220; assembly rights of, 232; attitude towards the Apprenticeship, 86-87n.44, 90n.50; British peasantry compared with, 83-85, 83n.38; and children, 24, 130, 130-131n.l03, 161, 165n.l58, 205, 237-238; classification of, 29-30, 194-203, 194n.200, 218, 277-278; commerce regulations for, 240; criticism of program of, 17-18, 100n.60, 121n.92, 181-182, 198-200nn.205-206, 201n.210; and day care for children, 205; definition of, 281; and desertion, 228; dress style of, 87-88, 88n.46; education of, 109; employer responsibility for infirm apprentices, 282-283; exploitation of, 20-22; expulsion from plantations, 282-283; and free time, 88, 90, 129, 194, 197n.203, 200nn.207-208, 204, 222, 230-231; as "Great Experiment," 4; housing of, 83-85, 84nn.39-40; as hucksters, 95-96n.53, 117, 202; and illegal possession of produce, 279-280; and illiteracy, 98, 162; and indolence, 146-148, 146-147n.l24, 148n.l27, 200n.207, 233, 239; legal enforcement of, 225-235; legal remedy for grievances of, 31-32, 231, 238, 275, 276-277; and medical care, 24-25, 205, 223; and militia service, 177, 224, 237; misclassificationof, 195-198, 195n.201, 197-198n.203, 277-278; mobility restrictions on, 228, 278-279; as modified slavery, 174n.l76, 182n.l90; and nudity, 81, 150; and oratory skills, 149, 149-150n. 130; and organized crime, 38; and passports, 233; and Patois, 75; and peasant-style economy, 86-87n.44, 89n.48, 99n.60, 197n.203; and physical or mental infirmity, 219; and police force, 21, 21n.46, 31, 80n.32, 157-158, 186; and political rights, 147, 224, 237; population in St. Vincent in 1834, 24n.56, 246; and property ownership,

xiii, 30, 84n.40, 86-87n.44, 106-107; and prostitution, 98; as real estate, 221; records of, 12n.24; registration of, 242-244; relationship with employers, 25-26; release from, 21-22; and religion, 91-92; runaway apprentices, 274-275; and scale of agricultural labour, 138-140, 255-259; and self-purchase of contract, 201-203, 202n.211, 203n.213, 220, 274; separation of family members, 221; and slave classification, 3n.3; social interaction of, 22-23, 28-30, 98-99, 146-147, 193-194; and social unrest, 15, 26-27, 32-39; tardiness of, 191; termination of, 3, 21, 90-91, 180-181, 180n.l88, 198n.204, 201n.210, 211-212nn.218-219, 276-277, 281, 282-288; terms of, 3-4, 21, 68, 90-91, 95, 147-149, 180-181, 180n.l88, 189-190, 217-225, 272-281; theft by, 128-129, 129n.lOO; transfer of contract of, 220-221, 237; and vagrancy, 274-275; and wages, 25, 25-26n.60; and weapons possession, 232; work ethic of, 85-86; work schedules of, 25-26, 25n.59, 44, 88, 198n.204, 201n.210, 204, 210, 218; and written character of conduct, 286. See also Allowances; Blacks; Crime; Flogging; Free children; Free Coloureds; Non-Praedials; Praedials; Provision grounds; Punishment; Race; Servants Arms possession, 232, 279 Arrack, 113, 113n.80 Arran Island, 56-57 Arson, 105-106, 229 Assemblies, 232, 279 Astronomy, 59, 61 Atlas: A general newspaper and journal of literature, 174, 174-175n. 177 August, Tom, 186n.l95 Bahamas, 174n.l76 Bail, 251 Barbados, 61, 83n.38, 113n.76, 160, 179, 185, 185n.l94, 211n.218 Barrouallie, 7In. 17 Bates, John, 74n.l8 Bathing, 137 Bell, Hesketh, 141-142n.ll9, 157n.l46 Bentham, Jeremy, 175n.l77 Bequia, 142, 142n.l20 Beresford, John, 241, 269

Index Bergad, Laird, 174n.l76 Bermuda, 70-7In. 16, 211n.218 Bible, 173, 173n.l74 Birds, 78, 170 Birth rates. See Population Blacks: John Anderson's depiction of, 65-67, 81-88, 118-123, 128-129, 131-133, 140-141, 147-150, 158-161; Black Caribs, 162n.l54; and clothing, 66, 87-88, 87-88nn.45-46, 90, 124-125, 131-132; and crime, 32-39, 34n.72; disloyalty of, 118; housing of, 83-85; and marriage, 160; and military service, 177, 184-185, 185n.l94, 224; and money, 117-118; music style of, 131-133; Negro balls, 90, 116-117; and nudity, 81; and oratory skills, 149, 149-150n.l30; and Patois, 75, 121; population of, 247; and pregnancy, 171; racial prejudice of, 97-98, 98-99n.58, 146-147, 185, 203, 213; and religion, 91-92; and salt water, 170; and social hierarchy, 29; treatment of other blacks, 105; as washerwomen, 66-67, 67n.9. See also Apprentices; Crime; Flogging; Non-Praedials; Praedials; Provision grounds; Punishment; Servants; Slaves Bligh, William, 69n. 15 Boiling house, 145, 205, 207 Bolland, Nigel, lln.22 Botanic Gardens, 69n. 15 Brathwaite, Rector, 188n.l96 Brisbane, Charles, 120n.91, 154, 154n.l39 British Anti-Slavery Society, 17. See Anti-Slavery Society British Emancipator, 180n.l88 British Honduras, 174n.l76 British Linen Bank, 6n.lO British peasantry, 83-85, 83n.35 Brougham, Lord, 100, 201, 201n.210 Browne, Thomas Alexander, 106, 106n.69, 168n.l66 Buccament valley, 178 "Buckra": "Buckra Magistrates," 13, 15, 17-19, 24, 146n.l23; origination of term, 98n.57; "walking buckra," 123 Burglary. See Theft Burn,W. L., 10, 212n.216 Bussa's Rebellion, 185, 185n.l94 Buxton, Thomas Powell, 121n.92, 180n.l88 Byron, Lord George Gordon, 105, 105n.68, 210-21 ln.217

299

Caddy, John H., 63n.7 Callalou, 84, 85n.43 Calliaqua, 63 Calliaqua Bay, 61, 6In.4 Campbell, Thomas, 154n.l41 Cane. See Sugar cane Cannibalism, 185 Canoes, 186 Carib settlements, 162, 187-188, 188n.l96 Caribwars, 126-128, 126nn.97-98, 128n.99, 162n.l54, 177 Carmichael, Mrs. A. C.: Anderson's knowledge of, 41-42; arrival in St. Vincent, 6In.4; on Creole dinners, 116; and definition of creole, 83; and description of slaves' homes, 85n.41; on door locks, 84n.40; and education of blacks, 107; on laundry, 67n.9; and meat scarcity, 114; and morality in West Indies, 167, 167n.l62; and religiosity of blacks, 92n.51; and servants, 99n.59; and slaves' attitude towards their homes, 84n.40 Cashew punch, 113, 113n.80 Catholic Church. See Roman Catholic Church Central Emancipation Committee, 180n.l88 Chalking of shoes, 138, 138n.ll5, 208, 208n.215 Charity bazaars, 154 Charlotte Parish, 7, 7In. 17 Chatoyer, Carib chief, 126, 128 Children: abuse of, 130, 161; and the Apprenticeship, 130, 130-13 In. 103, 165n.l58; classification of, 238; day care for, 205; and disease, 24; and education, 107-110, 287; flattening heads of, 127; food allowances for, 237; free children, 130, 130-131n.l03, 164-167, 205, 205n.214, 212; as illegitimate, 160, 167-168; and juvenile justice, 23; lightning striking, 142; and medical care, 24-25, 165-166; and nudity, 81; parenting of, 24-25; support of, 24, 130, 205n.214, 224-225, 237-238. See also Free children Chronicle. See St. Vincent Chronicle, and Public Gazette Church. See Religion; and specific churches Church of England, 150 Clark, Charles, 190n.l98 Clark, William, 21 On.216 Clothing: allotments for apprentices, 44,

300

Index

82, 82n.35, 87, 87n.45, 97n.55, 223, 272-273; allotments for slaves, 97n.55; "best clothing," 88; of blacks, 66, 87-88, 87-88nn.45-46, 90, 124-125, 131-132; for colonists, 111; costs of, 125; in courtroom, 97; and Negro balls, 90; for prisoners, 260, 261, 265; theft of, 149; uniforms of civil servants, 178, 178n.l84 Cockroaches, 112, 142n.ll9 Coffee, 126 Coinage. See Money Coleridge, Henry Nelson, 15 In. 133 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 115, 115n.85 College of Justice, 179, 179n.l86 Collins, William, 124n.93 Colonarie, 17, 7In. 17 Colonial Parliament, 175-178 Colthurst, John: on Carib settlements, 188n.l96; on field apprentices, 83n.38; and head-shaving of prisoners, 137n. 113; on hiring out slaves, 101 n.62; and housing costs, 113n.76; jurisdiction of, 134n.l 10; and law and order, 37; on maroons, 162n.l53; and misclassification of apprentices, 195n.201; published journal of, 12n.24; relationship with planters, 146n.l23; and religiosity of blacks, 92n.51; as special magistrate, 248; and termination of the Apprenticeship, 212n.219 Conspiracy, 229 Constables, 80n.31, 226. See also Police force Contracts for selling free time, 230-231 Corporal punishment. See Punishment Costs: of clothing, 125; cost of living in St. Vincent, 117-118; of Emancipation, 134-135; of food, 115; housing costs, 113n.76; for keeping horses, 123-124 Cotton, 126 Couper, William, 55 Court system. See Judicial system Crapauds, 77-78 Craton, Michael, 162n.l54, 185n.l94 Creoles: British peasants compared to, 85; definition of, 82-83; description of, xii; and Europeanization, 69; and food, 79-80, 113-114; and social hierarchy, 29 Crichton, Patrick, 259 Crickets, 74, 74n.22, 77 Crime: abuse of apprentices, 198n.204; arson, 105-106; assault, 191-192; cheating of absentee property owners, 144;

cutting, 147n.l24, 147n. 126; disturbance of peace, 191-192; and divination, 157, 157n.l46; and drunkenness, 96; horse theft, 148; indolence, 146-148, 146-147n.l24, 148n.l27, 233, 239; juvenile offenders, 23; larcenies from provision grounds, 22n.48; murder, 183-184; organized crime, 38; physical fighting, 80, 229; and planter justice, 31-33; postemancipation crime patterns, 32-39; and prisons, 32, 38; as rebellion, 26-27; and Special Magistracy, 32; and superstition, 148-149; tardiness, 191; theft, 68, 95, 95n.53, 128-129, 147-149, 189-190; types of, 34-35; white criminality, 36 Cringle, Tom, 70 "Crop over," 131 Cuba, 174n.l76 Curing house, 205 Currency. See Money Curses, 121-122,214 Cutting cane, 147n.l24 Daaga, 185, 186n.l95. See also Donald Stewart Dances, 89, 90, 116, 116-117, 131-132, 148, 149, 159, 160, 189 De Lamartine, Alphonse, 42, 55, 55n.l Death, 151, 156 Debtors prison, 267, 268 Debuke, Joseph Louis, 190, 191 Demosthenes, 154 Desertion, 228 Disease: and blacks, 171-173; description of generally, 151-153; Elephantiasis, 72; employer responsibilities for infirm apprentices, 282-283; leprosy, 173, 173n.l75; mat d'etomac, 173; measles, 24, 166; smallpox, 172; yellow fever, 40, 180, 189. See also Medical care Distilleries, 209 Disturbance of peace, 191-192 Divination, 157, 157n.l46 Dogs, 137 Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the White, Coloured, and Negro Population of the West Indies (Carmichael), 41-42, 61n.4, 67n.9 Don Juan (Byron), 210-211n.217 Donkeys, 78 Drama, 102 Dream (Byron), 105, 105n.68

Index Dress. See Clothing Drunkenness, 96, 229, 282 Duels, 103 Dunlop, Captain, 55, 56 Dusent, John Roche, 106n.69 Earthquakes, 105, 186 Easter, 124 Edinburgh Saturday Post, 43 Education, 107-110, 108n.72, 150, 212, 213, 287. See also Illiteracy Elegy in a Country Churchyard (Gray), 113n.77 Elephantiasis, 172 Emancipados, 174n.l76 Emancipation: Abolition Act, 9, 29, 31-32, 34, 88n.47, 92n.52, 217-235; amendment to Abolition Act, 82n.35, 88n.47, 198n.204, 201n.210, 272-281; anniversary of, 179-180; in British Caribbean, xi-xiv, 9-11; concept of freedom and, 1 In.22; as "Great Experiment," 4; and planter justice, 31; as political theme, 180n.l88; remuneration paid to slaveowners for emancipated slaves, xi-xii, 134-135, 181-182, 217; and social unrest, 15, 26-27, 32-39; terms of, xi-xii, 3-4, 217-235; in United States, xi, xiii-xiv. See also Apprentices; Non-praedials; Praedials; Slaves Emancipation Day, 3 Employers: and corporal punishment, 239; mediation of apprentice grievances against, 238; and provision grounds, 239-240; responsibility for infirm apprentices, 282-283. See also Planters Epsom salts, 111 Euclid, 118 Euripides, 159n.l49 Feet, chalking of, 138, 138n.ll5, 208, 208n.215 Ferrier, Susan, 144n.l22 Fever. See Disease Fines, 192, 234-235, 275, 279-280. See also Punishment Fireflies, 78 Fires, 105-106, 180, 180n.l87, 229 First Carib War, 126, 126n.97 First West India Regiment, 185, 185n.l94, 186n.l95 Fleming, Kate, 76 Flies, 146

301

Flogging: and Abolition Act, 226; and abuse of apprentices, 181-182n.l89; and ex-slaveowners, 31; for falsely accusing employers, 227; frequency of, 14, 14n.26; for indolence, 239; special magistrate sentences for, 96n.54; and women, 71n.l7, 125n.96, 137, 198n.204, 199, 226, 229-230, 239, 277 Food: allotments for apprentices, 44, 82, 82n.35, 86-87nn.44-45, 87, 89, 89-90, 89n.48, 222-223, 237, 272-273; allotments for slaves, 86n.44, 89, 89n.48; for animals, 123-124; callalou, 84, 85n.43; costs of, 115; Creole dinners, 116; drinks, 111-112; and malnutrition, 141n. 117; meal sizes, 113-114; meat scarcity, 114; milk scarcity, 114; native vegetation, 79-80; for prisoners, 261, 265, 266, 273; and provision ships, 141n.l 17. See also Alcohol; Provision grounds Fort Charlotte: illustration of, 63n.7, 64, 73; location of, 76n.24, 77n.27; and lepers, 173n.l75; and Quarantine laws, 172; and road system, 122; view from, 63,76 Fort Duvernette, 61, 63, 63n.6 France, 167 Fraser, Adrian, 147n.l25 Free children: and abuse, 165; Anderson's prejudice towards, 212; and the Apprenticeship, 130, 130-13 In. 103, 165n.l58; population in St. Vincent in 1836, 164-167; support of, 205, 205n.214. See also Children Free Coloureds: Anderson's description of, xii-xiii; Anderson's opinions of, 13, 44, 45, 46, 49, 98, 102, 118; and apprentices, 28, 49, 193, 203, 203n.213; as a class, 28, 29; and crime, 33, 36-37, 38, 39, 49, 158-160; and Emancipation, 10, 203, 203n.213; and marriage, 160; and the military, 158, 177, 184-185, 186n.l95; and newspapers, 28, 50, 174-175; population in St. Vincent, 166n.l60, 247; and riot in Kingstown, 15, 16,37,51, 103n.65, 191-193, 193n.l99; and sexual relations with whites, 49, 101-102, 143, 167-168; and social activities, 102, 116, 124, 154; and status anxiety, 28, 29, 49; and trade and marketing, 95n.53, 117, 201-202; urban concentration of, 36

302

Index

Free days: delineation of, 88, 204, 222; disposition of, 90, 200n.207; legal delineation of, 236; legal establishment of, 272; and non-praedials, 194, 197n.203, 200n.208; revocation of, 129. See also Work schedules Frogs, 77-78 Furniture: colonists' needs for, 110-111; in slave households, 85n.43 Gaol, See Prisons and Jails Gardens, 79 Gaspar, David Barry, 75n.23 George III, king of Great Britain, 76n.24 Georgetown, 169 Georgia (Virgil), 102, 102n.63 Glenelg, Lord: and amendment of Abolition Act, 201, 201n.209; and Anderson, 14-15, 19; criticism of, 198n.203; and education of blacks, 107-109; and misclassification of apprentices, 196, 198n.203; and revocation of local magistrates, 133-134n. 107; and termination of the Apprenticeship, 21 ln.218; Whig principles of, 103n.65 Goldini, Carlos, 112n.75 Gordon, John, 259 Governor, definition of, 281 Grand Sable, 106n.69, 168 Grand-Bon-homme, 187 Grant, Agnes, 56n.3 Grant, Charles. See Glenelg, Lord Grant, Hay McDowell, 32, 39, 130n.l03 Grasshoppers, 78, 78n.29 Grave dirt, 157, 157n.l47 Gray, Thomas, 113n.77 Gray, William, 8n. 17 Greeg, Ann, 159-160 Green, William, 15In. 135 Greig's Ridge, 77, 77n.26 Grenada, 86n.44, 157n.l46, 174n.l76 Grenadines, 62, 142, 142n.l20 Greville, C., 197 Ground Puppy. See Mole-Crickets Guadaloupe, 143 Guiana, 180, 21 ln.218 Guinea, 185 Guinea birds, 78 Guinea grass, 123 Guy Mannering (Scott), 85n.42 Haiti, 126n.98 Hale, Matthew, 129n.l01

Harris, Lord, 10 Harvey, Thomas, 17, 7In. 17, 149n.l30, 181n.l89, 198-199n.205 Hawes, Benjamin, 32 Hay, Special Justice, 7 Hazel, Assemblyman, 147n.l25 Head shaving, 136-137, 137n.ll3, 277 Henry IV (Shakespeare), 154n.l38 Hepley, P., 284 Higglers. See Hucksters High Life Below Stairs: A Farce in Two Acts (Townley), 148n.l28 High Life Below Stairs (Humphrey), 148n.l28 Highway robbery, 149 Higman, B. W., 24n.56, 87n.44, 166n.l60 Historical Account of St. Vincent (Shephard), 41 Hodge, Arthur, 184, 184n.l93 Honduras, 127 Hope Estate, 77 Horace, 121n.92 Horses, 123, 148 Housing: of Anderson, 8, 67, 67nn. 10-11; apprentices' housing, 82-84, 82n.35, 84nn.39-40; of Carib people, 162; description of, 66, 69, 84n.39; furnishings of, 84-85, 110-111; and hurricanes, 112; lighting for, 112-113; map of Kingstown housing, 70; planters' housing, 144-145; rents for, 113; wooden locks for, 84n.40 Hucksters, 95-96n.53, 117, 202 Hummingbirds, 78, 170 Humphrey, William, 148n.l28 Hurricanes: during Andersons' voyage to St. Vincent, 58, 74n.l9, 109, 126, 180, 180n.l87, 213; damage caused by, 179, 180n.l87, 213; and destruction of St. Thomas, 180, 180n.l87; and fires, 180; and housing design, 112; season of, 141n.ll7, 142. See also Weather Illiteracy, 98, 162. See also Education Illness. See Disease; Medical care Indolence, 146-148, 146-147n.l24, 148n.l27, 200n.207, 233, 239, 286 Insects: crickets, 74, 74n.22, 77; fireflies, 78; flies, 146; grasshoppers, 78, 78n.29; mosquitoes, 78, 111, 112, 146, 186. See also Animals Insolence, 227 Interracial sexual relations, 98n.58, 143

Index Intimations of Immortality (Wordsworth), 124, 124n.94 Inverness Courier, 43 Inverness Lazvyer and his Sons (Anderson), 4-5 Ireland, 83 Italy, 167 Jack Spaniards (wasps), 141, 142n.ll9 Jails. See Prisons and jails Jamaica: abuse of apprentices in, 18 In. 189, 199-200nn.205-206, 201, 201n.210; and African-based religion, 156n.l44; and apprentice property ownership, 86-87n.44; and apprentice self-purchase of contract, 203n.213; housing styles in, 84n.39; Scottish customs of slaves in, 132n.l05; and special magistrates, 182n.l90; and termination of the Apprenticeship, 21 In.218; treadmills in, 7 In. 17; and uniforms of civil servants, 178, 178n.l84 Joe. See Johannes (money) Johannes (money), 120n.91, 121 "Johnny New-come" nickname, 113, 113n.81, 151n.l35, 152 Johnson, Howard, 101n.62, 174n.l76 Journal of John Anderson: content overview, 39-52; excerpt page from, 40, 160; genesis of, 43; literary quotes in, 42; and sobriquets, 98n.56. See also Anderson, John Judicial system, 23, 93, 94, 154-156, 154-155n. 142, 249-253 Jumbies, 148-149, 149n.l29 Justice system. See Judicial system Juvenile justice, 23. See also Judicial system Keats, John, 153n.l37 Kimball, Horace, 17, 199n.205 Kingstown: description of, 63, 65, 69-71, 69n.l2, 74-75; drama offered in, 102; illustration of, 63n.7, 64, 65; jail in, 71, 7In. 17, 74n.l8, 260-266; layout of, 69n.l2; map of, 70; market in, 74-75; police force of, 6-7, 80-81, 80-8lnn.31-34; and prostitution, 98, 101 Kingstown Bay, 76n.24, 122 Kingstown district, 134 Kirby, Earle, 78n.29, 79n.30, 138n.ll5, 178n.l83

303

Labour exemptions, 82-83n.35 Labouchere, Henry, 19 UAllegro (Milton), 170n.l68 Laundry, 66-67, 67n.9, 100 Laurence, K. O., 203n.213 Le Sage, Alain Rene, 213n.220 Legal procedure. See Judicial system Leidlitz powers, 111 Leith, Major, 128 Leprosy, 173, 173n.l75 Leyden,John, 124, 124n.95 Lichtenstein, Alex, 129n.lOO Lightning, 142 Linen, 87n.45 Liquor making, 26 Lizards, 78, 141-142, 141-142n.ll9, 153 Lloyd, William, 17, 198-199n.205 Loitering, 226 Lovat Peerage case, 5, 7 Macdougal, Charles, 180 MacGregor, Evan Murray: and Anderson's death, 8; and Anderson's punitiveness, 14, 96-97n.54; and appointment of police magistrates, 16-17; and riots, 194n.l99; and termination of the Apprenticeship, 21 ln.218 Mackenzie, Alexander, 5, 6n.lO, 106n.69 McDonald, Roderick A., xi, xii, xiii, 80n.32, 84n.40, 88n.46, 96n.53, 100n.60, 129n.lOO, 203n.213 McNeil, Thomas, 87n.44 Madden, R. R., 12n.24 Mail system, 58 Mai d'etomac, 173 Malcolm, Charles, 6n.lO Malnutrition, 141n.ll7 Manchineel trees, 170-171 Man-hunting, 185 Manure, 141, 210 Marquis of Normanby, 18 Market Place: abolition of Sunday market, 75, 75n.23, 88, 221-222; and commerce regulations, 240; description of, 74-75, 75n.23; and illegal possession of produce, 279-280; and permits to sell goods, 234 "Maroons," 162, 162n.l53 Marriage, 160, 168, 204 Marriage (Ferrier), 144n.l22 Marshall, Woodville, 39, 75n.23, 82n.35, 90n.50, 130-131n.l03, 201-202n.211, 205n.214

304

Index

Martin, Robert Montgomery, 24n.56 Martinez Vergne, Teresita, 174n. 176 Martinique, 128, 143 Mauritius, 277 Mbakara, 98n.57 Measles, 24, 166 Medical care: and avoidance of labour, 171; description of generally, 151-153; employer responsibilities for infirm apprentices, 282-283; legal requirements for apprentice care, 272-273; mandated for apprentices, 82, 82n.35, 223; parental resistance to, 24-25, 165-166; on plantations, 205; for prisoners, 138, 265, 268, 273; regulations for, 276. See also Disease Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare), 159n. 149 Metempsicosi (Goldini), 112n.75 Methodist Church, 74, 74n.20, 91, 149-151 Migass, 83, 141n.ll8, 208 Military, 177, 177n.l81, 184-185, 185n.l94, 224, 237 Mills, 205, 207 Milton, John, 170n.l68 Misclassification of apprentices, 195-198, 195n.201, 197-198n.203, 277-278 "Mobee," 112 Modified slavery, 174n. 176 Moet-Wynne, Michael, 69n.l2, 69n.l5 Molasses, 113n.80, 208, 210, 259 Mould, 141 Mole-Crickets, 74, 74n.22 Money, 117-121, 120n.85, 120n.91 Morality, 167-168 Moreton, J. B., 67n.9 MorneRonde, 122, 187 Mortality rates, 24 Mosquitoes, 78, 111, 112, 146, 186 Mount Young, 168 Mudian (Bermudan) women, 70-7In. 16 Mulattoes, 97 Murder, 183-184 Murray, David, 173-174n.l76 Music, 131-133. See also Dances Mustees, 97 Mustiphini, 97 Nanton,J. G., 17 Negro balls, 89, 90, 116-117 New Year's celebrations, 161 Newspapers, 15, 28, 49, 174-175, 175n.l78. See also Royal St. Vincent Gazette; Royal St. Vincent Gazette; and

Weekly Advertiser; St. Vincent Chronicle, and Public Gazette Non-praedials: and child support legislation, 24; as classification, 3, 3n.3, 218; and crime, 38; definition of, 194n.l99; and free days, 194, 197n.203, 200, 200n.208; misclassification of, 195-198, 197-198n.203; request to become praedials, 197-198n.203; and self-purchase of contracts, 201-203, 203n.213; and social hierarchy, 29, 193-194. See also Apprentices; Praedials; Servants Nudity, 81, 150 Obeah, 141-142n.ll9, 156-157, 156-157nn.144-147. See also Religion; Superstition O'Brien, Bartholemew, 189n.l97 Okra, 85n.43 "Old Woman's Point," 77, 77n.27 Organized crime, 38 Osnaburghs, 87, 87n.45 Othello (Shakespeare), 177n.l82 Owia, 122 Parade Ground, 74 Parie, Andrew, 74n.l8, 264 Parties, 90, 116-117, 131-132, 161, 162n.l53, 190, 191 Passions (Collins), 124n.93 Passports, 233 Patois, 75, 121 Patterson, Joe, 190 Patterson, Orlando, 132n.l05 Peasant-style economy, 86-87n.44, 89n.48, 99n.60, 197n.203 Penistone, 87, 87n.45 Permits to sell goods, 234 Peterson, John, 178n. 183 Phrixus (Euripides), 159n.l49 Physical fighting, 80, 229 Pitman, R. B., 134n.l09, 248 Planters: and allowances for slaves and apprentices, 82n.35; apprentices' relationship with, 25-26; character of, 142-143; criminality of, 36; criticism of the Apprenticeship, 181; and expulsion of apprentices, 283; feeding of animals, 79; and food provision for slaves, 86n.44, 89n.48; grievance mediation with apprentices, 238; manipulation of the Apprenticeship, 21-22; planter justice, 31-33; pro-slavery arguments of,

Index 83n.38; purchase of emancipados, 173-174n. 176; remuneration paid for emancipation for slaves, 134-135, 181-182, 217; sexual relations with blacks, 98n.58 Pleasures of Hope (Campbell), 154n.l41 Plundering, 95, 147 Poisonous plants, 170-171 Police force: assault on policemen, 191-193; duties of, 279; establishment of, 6-7, 31, 35, 80n.32, 136; laws on, 7, 16, 36, 81n.33, 236-241, 249-254; magistrates as, 16, 158; organizational structure of, 80-81; racial makeup of, 21, 21n.46, 157-158, 186; reputation of, 80n.31; salaries of constables, 80n.31 Political factionalism, 102-103, 103n.65 Political rights of apprentices, 147, 224, 237 Poison, Edwin, 14, 14n.28, 15, 97n.54, 134n.l09, 181-182n.l89, 248 Polygamy, 204 Pope, Alexander, 163n.l56 Population: apprentice population of St. Vincent in 1834, 24n.56, 246; birth rates, 24; of free children, 164; free coloured population, 166n.l60, 247; of Kingstown district, 134; of St. Vincent, 10n.21, 24n.56, 32, 164, 246-247; slave population, 3, 24n.56, 166n.l60; white population, 166n.l60, 247 Porter, James, 259 Portugal, 120n.85 Praedials: advantages of classification as, 197n.203; and child support legislation, 24; as classification, 3, 3n.3, 218; definition of, 194n.200; emancipation of, 211-212; food provision for, 89-90, 222; and free days, 88, 88n.47, 90, 129, 194, 197n.203, 222; independent economy of, 86-87n.44; and market days, 75n.23; misclassification of, 195-198; population of, 246; and property, 30, 197n.203; relationship with employers, 25-26; and social hierarchy, 29, 193-194; society of, 29-30; work requirements of, 88. See also Apprentices; Non -praedials Preston, Thomas, 154n.l38 Prisons and jails: and alcohol, 268; and books, 262, 264-265; conditions of, 38, 239, 261, 265, 276; and debtors, 267, 268; description of Kingstown facilities, 260, 264; escapes from, 261, 264; and

305

food, 261, 265, 266, 273; head-shaving and, 136; imprisonment rates, 33; keepers of, 267; labour of prisoners, 151, 15In. 133, 265; matrons of, 267; medical care in, 138, 262, 265, 268, 273; prison dress, 260, 261, 265; records of, 267; regulations for, 136-138, 260-269; religious services in, 138, 150, 263, 265, 268; silence in, 137; and soap, 261, 265; special magistrate responsibilities for, 239; wages of superintendents of, 74n.l8 Procrastination, 153 Property: and apprentice independent economy, 86-87n.44; of former slaves, xiii, 30, 84n.40, 106-107; praedials' control over, 30, 197n.203 Prostitution, 98, 101-102 Provision grounds: amulets on, 156; and food allotments, 90; and free days, 88; requirements for, 239-240; and slaves, 86n.44, 88; theft from, 22n.48, 147, 147n.l26. See also Allowances Provision ships, 141 n. 117 Prussia, 213 Puerto Rico, 174n.l76 Punishment: acceptance of, 95; of apprentices, 13-15, 22-24, 37, 38, 226-235; by death, 156; flogging, 14, 14n.26, 31, 71n.l7, 96n.54, 125n.96, 137, 181-182n.l89, 198n.204, 199, 226, 227, 229-230, 239, 277; free days rescinded, 129; head shaving as, 136-137; limitations of, 279; for offenses against apprentices, 231; overturned sentences for, 192-193; and prisons, 32-33, 38; and recidivism, 22, 22n.48; record of, 270-271; riots against, 37; and silence, 137; for vagrancy, 274-275. See also Fines; Treadmill Purchase of apprentice contracts, 219-220 Quadroons, 97 Quarantine laws, 172 Race: Anderson's racial prejudice, xii-xiii, 12-13, 20-21, 23, 28, 44, 81-88, 91, 119-123, 147-150, 158-161, 171-173, 185-186, 189-191, 200-201, 203, 204-205; blacks' racial prejudice, 97-98, 98-99n.58, 146-147, 185, 203, 213; and colour distinctions, 97-99, 98-99n.58, 146-147; interracial sexual relations, 98n.58, 143; and management of sugar

306

Index

plantations, 143-144; and military service, 177, 177n.l81; and police force, 21, 21n.46, 157-158, 186; and social hierarchy, 28-30, 98-99, 146-147 Rain, 140 "Ratoons," 210 Rattan, 127 Raymond, Francois, 172, 172n.l73 Refusal to work, 146-148, 146-147n.l24, 233 Registration of sea vessels, 233-234 Religion: African-influenced religion of apprentices, 149n.l29, 156-157, 156nn.144-145; and Carib people, 188n.l96; church attendance, 124-125, 224; keeping Sunday, 140-150; Obeah, 141-142n.ll9, 156-157, 156nn. 144-146; in prisons, 138, 150, 262, 265, 267; religiosity, 91-92, 92n.51; religious instruction, 287; and superstition, 148-149, 149n.l29. See also specific churches Richard Brown, 55 Riots, 37, 192-193, 193n.l99, 227, 232, 279 Roads: in Bequia, 142; city streets, 66, 69n.l2; country roads, 122-123, 204; as dangerous, 169; hurricane damage to, 213; and prison labour, 151n.l34 Roman Catholic Church, 149-151, 213, 213n.220 Royal St. Vincent Gazette, 50, 103n.65, 174-175n. 178 Royal St. Vincent Gazette; and Weekly Advertiser, 15-16n.31, 50, 103n.65, 165, 174-175n.l78, 189n.l97, 193-194n.l99, 197-198n.203 Rum, 127, 209, 210, 259 Runaway apprentices, 274-275 St. Clair, Thomas, 248 St. George's Cathedral, 73, 74n.l9 St. Kitt's, 127-128, 180 St. Lucia, 61, 127, 142, 186 St. Patrick Parish, 7In. 17 St. Thomas, 180 St. Vincent Chronicle, and Public Gazette, 28, 50, 175, 175n.l78 St. Vincent National Trust, 69n.l5, 138n.ll5 St. Vincent: ceded to Great Britain, 126nn.97-98; cost of living in, 117-118; demographics of, 10n.21; description of,

61, 63-79, 163, 165, 178-179; flower gardens in, 79; fruits native to, 79; judicial system of, 93, 94, 134, 134n.l07, 154-156; maps of, 60, 62, 93, 94; money system of, 119-120, 120n.85; population of, 10n.21, 24n.56, 32, 164, 246-247; population of free children, 164; and procrastination, 153; roads, 66, 122-123, 142; slave population, 3, 24n.56, 166n.l60; snakes in, 126-127; social hierarchy in, 28-30; society of, 102-104, 145, 154; spas in, 163; sugar as dominant theme in, 103; sugar production in, 3; vegetation of, 65, 67, 79-80, 170-171. See also Animals; Insects; Volcanoes; Weather Sample, Mary, 190 "Sangaree," 112 Scale of agricultural labour, 138-140, 255-259 Schools. See Education Scoble,John, 17, 18n.37, 198-199n.205 Scotland: Anderson residences in, 8; Anderson's children in, 6; Andersons' departure from, 43, 55; College of Justice in, 179, 179n.l86; housing in, 83; and migration to West Indies, 143n.l21; slaves' adoption of Scottish customs, 132, 132n. 105; weather in, 140 Scott, Rebecca J., 1 In.22 Scott, Walter, 6, 42, 85n.42 Scottish Muse, An Ode. To lanthe (Leyden), 124, 124n.95 Scottish Society of Antiquaries (SSA), 5 Sea sickness, 38 Seapoys, 184-185 Second Carib War, 126n.98, 162n.l54 Self-hire system, 101n.62 Self-purchase of apprentice contract, 201-203, 202n.211, 203n.213, 274 Servants: and cleaning, 112; and crime, 99; description of, 67-69; hierarchy among, 98-102; as mistresses, 101-102; and racial distinctions, 99; sleeping quarters of, 100; wages of, 100. See also Blacks; Non-praedials Seven Years' War, 126n.97 Shakespeare, William, 154n.l38, 159n.l49, 177n.l82 Shephard, Charles, 32, 41, 66n.8, 74n.l9, 76n.24, 102n.64, 173n.l75 Sheridan, Richard B., 141n.ll7 "Shifters," 157, 157n.l46

Index Sierra Leone, 84n.39 Silk, 111 Sion Lodge, 67n.l 1 Slave Act, 32 Slaves: allowances and perquisites for, 82, 82n.35, 97n.55, 198n.204, 272-273, 280-281; arguments for slavery, 83-84, 83n.38; and "best clothing," 88; classification of, 3, 3n.3; and crime, 32-33; description of homes of, 85n.41; as emancipados, 174n.l76; and flogging, 125n.96; and head shaving, 137n.l 13; head slaves, 125n.96; as hucksters, 95-96n.53; and modified slavery, 174n.l76; murder of, 183-184, 184n. 193; occupations of, 32-33n.68; and planter justice, 31-33; population in St. Vincent, 3, 24n.56, 166n.l60; and provision grounds, 86n.44, 88; punishment of, 31-33, 183-184; registration of, 242-244; remuneration for owners of emancipated slaves, 134-135, 181-182, 217; resistance to slavery, 129n.lOO; Scottish customs adopted by, 132, 132n.l05; self-hire system of, 101n.62; as soldiers, 185n.l94; and theft, 128-129, 128-129n. 100; value of, 134. See also Emancipation Sleep, 133 Sleep and Poetry (Keats), 153n.l37 Sligo, Lord, 178n.l84 Smallpox, 172 Smith, John George, 134n.l09, 142n.l20, 248 Smith, Lionel, 133n.l07, 178n.l84 Smith, Richard Patrick, 213, 213n.220 Snakes, 126-127, 142 Soap, 261 Social hierarchy, 28-30 Social life. See Dances; Parties Solitary confinement, 137, 209, 230, 239 Songs of the Pixies (Coleridge), 115n.85 Sorcery, 156, 156n.l44 Soufriere volcano, 168, 186-189 Souvenirs, impressions, pensees et paysages pendant un voyage en orient (de Lamartine), 42 Spain, 120n.85 Spas, 163 Special Magistracy: and Abolition Act, 31-32; and abuse of apprentices, 18In. 189; appointment of, 8-9, 250-254; and colonial society, 145n.l23;

307

creation of, 4, 92n.52; and difficulties in performing duties, 133; duties of, 136, 136n. 112; and enforcement of Abolition Act, 225-235; immunity of, 275-276; in Jamaica, 182n.l90; judicial districts of, 93, 94; jurisdiction of, 22, 32, 92n.52, 96n.54; and legal procedure, 251-253; listing of, 248; mandate to prosecute infractions of Abolition Act, 234-235; organization of, 134, 136; records of, 12n.24, 250-251; relationship with planters, 146n.l23; responsibilities of, 13-15, 22, 31-32, 34, 96n.54, 136; revocation of local magistrates, 133-134n.l07; salaries of, 6; workload of, 19-20. See also Anderson, John; Colthurst, John; Prisons and jails; Punishment; and other magistrates Spedding, James, 14 Speech: and curses, 121-122, 214; drawling speech, 121; oratory skills of apprentices, 149, 149-150n.l30; Patois, 75, 121 Spoug, George, 134n.l09, 248 Spousal abuse, 129-130 SSA. See Scottish Society of Antiquaries (SSA) Stanley, Lord, 4, 6, 145n.l23 Steam engines, 205 Stephen, George, 182n.l90 Stephen, James, 18-19 Stewart, Donald, 185, 186n.l95. See also Daaga Stewart, John, 129n.lOO, 156n.l45 Still house, 205 Stocks, 23, 229, 239 Storms at sea, 56, 57, 58 Struth, N., 284 Stuart, Charles, 17-18, 18n.37 Sturge, Joseph, 17, 7In. 17, 149n.l30, 181n.l89, 198-199n.205, 201n.210 Sugar cane: cutting cane, 147n.l24, 206; distillation of, 209, 210; as dominating St. Vincent society, 103; harvest of, 140, Hln.l 17; holing cane, 206, 210, 257; and housing, 83-84, 141; illustrations of, 206-207, 209; and migass, 83, Hln.l 18, 208; planting of, 206, 256; production of, 3; shipping sugar, 209; uses for, 141 Sugar plantations: agricultural schedule on, 131; and boiling house, 145; crime on, 26-27, 34-35; and "crop over" parties, 131; and four-day labour week, 75n.23; genesis of, 126; harvest on, 140,

308

Index

141n.ll7; illustrations of, 206-207; operation of, 143-144, 203-210; and remuneration paid to owners for emancipated slaves, 134-135, 181-182, 217; and scale of agricultural labour, 138-140, 255-259; and slavery, 33n.69, 138; smells on, 145; and society, 103, 145; worker housing on, 83-84, 84n.40 Suicide, 157 Summons, 251 Superstition, 148-149, 149n.l29, 156-157. See also Obeah; Religion Supplejacks, 141 Sutherland, Robert, 7In. 17, 74n.l8, 134n.l09, 248 "Table rock," 178 Tamarind juice, 112 Tanias, 84, 85n.43 Tardiness, 191 Taro, 85n.43 Temperature, 59, 142 Temperley, Howard, 18n.37 Theft: of clothing, 149; and expulsion from plantations, 282; of goats, 95; and hucksters, 96n.53; from provision grounds, 22n.48, 147, 147n.l26; by servants, 68, 128-129, 129n.lOO, 147-149, 189-190; and superstition, 148-149 Things Fall Apart (Achebe), 138n. 115 Thome, James, 17 Thomson, Robert, 5 Thorne, James, 199n.205 Tinling, J. J., 134n.l09, 248 Tobacco, 126 Townley, James, 148n.l28 Translations and Imitations. Eloisa to Abelard (Pope), 163n.l56 Transportation, 123, 186. See also Roads Treadmills: description of, 7In. 17, 72, 265; establishment of, 32, 7In. 17; illustration of, 72; in Kingstown, 7In. 17; location of, 71; and punishment, 71, 7In. 17, 72, 74, 137, 192; in St. Vincent, 32; and women, 230, 277 Trinidad: and apprentices' self-purchase of contract, 203n.213; and birds, 170; governors of, 10, 168; and misclassification of apprentices, 195-197; and "modified slavery," 176n.l76; and morality, 168; revolt in, 184-185; and Roman Catholic Church, 213, 213n.220; sugar cane production in, 210

Turama Estate, 106n.69 Turner, Mary, 1 In.22 Tyler, Charles, 161n.l52, 193n.l99 Tyler, George: and John Anderson, xii, 7, 14-16, 82n.35, 97n.54; career of, 161n.l52; correspondence of, 18, 133n.l07; criticism of, 16, 103n.65, 193n.l99, 198n.203; and currency, 120n.85; on difficulties of special magistrates, 133; and education of blacks, 108n.72; and misclassification of apprentices, 195n.201; and police force, 35; and Poison, 181-182n.l89; residence of, 69n.l5, 72; and review of criminal sentences, 192; and riots, 193-194n. 199; and road system, 123; and scale of agricultural labour, 259; speeches of, 285-288; and support of Elizabeth Anderson, 8 Umbrellas, 111,211 Uniforms, 178, 178n.l84 Union Estate, 106n.69 Vagabondism, 147, 286 Vagrancy, 22, 227, 274-275, 279 Van Heyningen, G., 284 Vegetation of St. Vincent, 65, 67, 79-80, 170-171 Victoria, Queen, 179-180 Virgil, 102, 102n.63, 184, 184n.l92 Volcanoes, 168, 186-189 Wages, 6, 25, 25-26n.60, 68, 74n.l8, 80n.31, 100 Warner, Ashton, 97n.55 Wars. See Carib wars Washerwomen, 66-67, 100 Wasps, 141, 142n.ll9 Weapons, 232, 279 Weather: hurricanes, 58, 74n.l9, 109, 112, 126, 141n.ll7, 142, 179, 180, 180n.l87, 213; lightning, 142; rain, 140; storms at sea, 56, 57, 58; temperature, 59, 142; tropical climate, 58, 59 West India Customs and Manners (Moreton), 67n.9 West Indies, 62, 154-156 Whales, 211 White, Frederick, 12n.24 Whites: Anderson's description of, xi, xiii; Anderson's opinions of, 44, 45, 47; Anderson's solidarity with, 27; and

Index crime, 33, 36-37, 38; and Emancipation, 10; and the military, 157-158, 161, 177-178, 184-185; and newspapers, 174-175; and the police, 186; population in St. Vincent, 166n.l60, 247; and racial solidarity, 22; and relations with apprentices, 47; and sexual relations with non-whites, 49, 101-102, 143, 167-168; and sickness, 151-153, 151n.l35, 180, 189; and social activities, 45, 102, 116, 154; and status in St. Vincent, 29, 38, 39, 103n.65. See also Planters Widowhood, 8, 8n.l7 Wilberforce, 28 William IV, king of Great Britain, 128, 179, 179n.l85, 196,288 Williams, Joseph John, 156n.l44 Witchcraft, 156, 156n.l44 Witham, William, 7 Women: and flogging, 7In. 17, 125n.96, 137, 198n.204, 199, 226, 229-230, 239, 277; and head shaving, 136-137n.ll3, 277; imprisonment of, 137, 239; and

309

nudity, 81, 150; as planters' wives, 144-145; and pregnancy, 171; punishment of, 182n.l89, 229-230, 239; and spousal abuse, 129-130; and treadmill, 230, 277; as washerwomen, 66-67, 100; work schedules of, 198n.204, 204 Woodford, Ralph, 167-168, 168n.l63 Wood-slaves (lizards), 141, 141n.ll9, 153 Wordsworth, William, 124, 124n.94 Work schedules: and Abolition Act, 218; and breast-feeding mothers, 198n.204, 204; governor regulation of, 198n.204; legal establishment of, 272; of mill gangs, 210; praedial work schedule, 88, 201n.210, 204; signals for, 230. See also Free days Wraxall, Sir Nathaniel William, 168, 168n.l64 Writers to the Signet, 179n.l86 Yaws, 172 Yellow fever, 40, 180, 189