EMANCIPATION IN JAMAICA.; NUMBER SIX. THE OLD PLANTOCRACY

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception 

KINGSTON, Jamaica, January, 1800. 

The Planters of Jamaica constitute no longer the over-ruling oligarchy, or "Plantocracy," that they once actually were, and are still somewhat insolently designated in the bitterness of party spirit Poverty may not have humbled their pride or changed their belief; in their own homes and on their own estates, and in public whenever an opportunity offers, they wage, under different guises the old war against free labor. But as a political body, with power to sway the destinies of the island, they no longer live. One after another the relics of the system of coercion to which they clung have been swept away. Their complaints have been disregarded -- their petitions have been ungranted -- until, in despair or disgust, they have almost altogether retired from the contest, and left the field open to their undisguised and uncompromising opponents.

The Planters of Jamaica, it may be thought, have not had a full measure of justice meted out to them. They, especially, and far beyond all other West India planters, have had to bear the brunt of the Anti-Slavery attack. But this is not a little owing to the persistency of their own hostile attitude, to their misrepresentations, to the selfishness of their aims, and to the mistakes of their policy.

It is a curious and instructive study to track the decline of the old West Indian plantocracy; and though I have attempted such an invidious task in a former letter from Barbados, I must, to make myself understood, attempt it again with special regard to the Jamaica proprietary. Throughout many changes, social and political, the same selfishness will be found at the root of all their schemes; the same disregard of truth in their statements; the same opposition to popular freedom, progress and enlightenment in their acts. It was on the grounds of humanity that, in the commencement of the present century, they opposed the abolition of the Slave-trade. They urged that there was an annual decrease of two and a half per cent, among the negroes, and that if the same quantity of labor should continue to be exacted as the number of slaves diminished, the loss would be greater every year, and would augment with accelerated rapidity. The unfriendliness of Slavery to population was a strong argument in the mouths of slave traders. If the Slave-trade was abolished the sugar estates of Jamaica, it was prophesied, would be dismantled within thirty years, and the 130,000 negroes, then engaged in the culture of the cane, would be utterly extinct! The planters of the day, when they petitioned Parliament, based their grounds for r[???]dress on the expense of the Slave system which prevented them from competing, without a constant supply of fresh labor, with those colonies and countries in which the African Slave-trade had not been abolished.

Twenty-five years later -- when Parliament, in obedience to the tremendous pressure of public opinion at home, formally declared its determination to abolish Slavery in the West Indies -- the planters essayed to demonstrate the cheapness of slave labor as compared with the free labor about about to be introduced. Emancipation, they said, would ruin them, and preclude any competition with countries where Slavery continued to exist It is not to be wondered at that the planter thus argued. He was the owner of the slaves who cultivated his property. It was a matter of doubt whether he would be compensated for them at all in the event of abolition. Under the old regime be was not compelled to make the weekly disbursements that the new order of things would demand; and he could still go on hoping that a rise in sugar would furnish him with means to liquidate his most pressing debts. He dreaded a change that would certainly expose his bankruptcy.

During all this time the prosperity of Jamaica was on the decline. The exportation of sugar had gradually decreased from 150,000 hhds., in 1805, to 86,000 hhds. in 1833. It was not emancipation or the thought of emancipation that dragged down the island so suddenly from the pinnacle of its prosperity. The deterioration progressed slowly. Between the years 1814 and 1832 the coffee crop was also reduced one-half; and during the fifty years that preceded emancipation it is estimated that 200 sugar estates were abandoned. The planters say that the fear of impending abolition induced them to withdraw capital from their estates. But abolition was not dreamt of when the decline of Jamaica set in. While the Slave-trade was yet in operation over 100 properties had been deserted -- deserted, too, for the same cause that compelled their desertion in later years -- debt and want of capital.

Sugar cultivation, it is hardly necessary to say, to be carried on with profit to the proprietor, and ordinary chances of ultimate success, requires an enormous capital -- not only at the outset, but to provide against the losses that unfavorable seasons very frequently entail. I cannot do better than transfer here, from Mr. EDWARDS' History of the West Indies, a picture of Jamaica sugar cultivation sixty years ago. Himself a planter, a slaveholder, and opposed to the abolition of the Slave-trade, the author represents that the estates at that time were very much understocked with slaves, and speaks of a West-India property "as a species of lottery," giving birth to a spirit of adventure, and awakening extravagant hopes, too frequently terminating in perplexity and disappointment. Mr. EDWARDS proceeds to say:

"The total amount of the annual contingent charges of all kinds (on an estate yielding 200 bids, of sugar) is $#163;2,150, which is precisely one-half the gross returns, leaving the other moiety, or $#163;2,150, and no more, clear profit to the planter, being seven per cent. on his capital, without 5 charging, however, a shilling for making good the decrease of the negroes, or for the wear and tear of the buildings, or making any allowance for dead capital, and supposing, too, that the proprietor resides on the spot; for, if he is absent", he is subject in Jamaica to an annual tax of £6 per cent. on the gross value of his sugar and rum for legal commissions to his agent. With these and other drawbacks, to say nothing of the devastations which are sometimes occasioned by fires and hurricanes, destroying in a few hours the labor of years, it is not wonderful that the profits should frequently dwindle to nothing; or, rather, that a sugar estate, with all its boasted advantages, should sometimes , prove a mill-stone about the neck of its unfortunate proprietor, which is dragging him to destruction. * * * It were to be wished that people would inquire how many unhappy persons have been totally and irretrievably ruined by adventuring in the cultivation of these islands without posscssing any adequate means to support them in such great undertakings. On the failure of some of these unfortunate men, vast estates had money at command; men there are who reflecting on the advantages to be derived from this circumstance, behold a sugar-planter struggling in distress with the same emotions as are felt by the Cornish peasants" in contemplating a shipwreck on the coast and hasten with equal rapaciousness to participate in I tie spoil. Like them, too, they sometimes hold out false lights to lead the unwary adventurer to destruction, more especially if he has anything considerable of his own to set out with. Money is ad[???]eed and encouragement given to a certain point, but a skillful practitioner knows where to stop; he is aware that very large sums must be expended in the purchase of the freehold, and in the first operations of clearing and planting the lands and erecting the buildings, before any return can be made. One-third of the money thus expended he has, perhaps, furnished; but the time soon arrives when a further advance is requisite to give life and activity to the system by the addition of the negroes and the stock. Now then is the moment for oppression, aided by the letter of the law, to reap a golden harvest. It the property answers expectation and the land promise great returns, the sagacious creditor, instead of giving further aid, or leaving his too confident debtor to make the best of his way by his own exertions, pleads a sudden and unexpected emergency, and insists on the immediate repayment of the sum already lent. The law on this occasion is far from being chargeable with delay -- and avarice is inexorable. A sale is hurried on and no bidders appear but the creditor himself. Ready money is required in payment, and every one sees that a further sum will be wanting to make the estate productive. Few therefore have the means, who have even the wish, efficaciously to assist the devoted victim. Thus the creditor gets the estate at his own price, commonly for his first advance, while the miserable debtor has reason to to thank his stars if, consoling himself with only the loss of his own original capital and his labor for a series of years, he escapes a prison for life.... At the same time it cannot be denied that there are creditors, especially among the British merchants, of a different character from these that have been described, who, having advanced their money to resident planters, on the fair ground of reciprocal benefit, have been compelled, much against their inclination, to become planters themselves; being obliged to receive unprofitable West India estates in payment, or lose their money altogether. I have known plantations transferred in this manner which arc a burthen instead of a benefit to the holder; and are kept up solely in the hope that favorable crops, and an advance in the prices of West Indian produce, may some time or other invite purchasers. Thus oppression in one class of creditors, and gross injustice towards another, contribute equally to keep up cultivation in a country where, if the risks and losses are great, the gains are commensurate.... In this, as in all other enterprises where success depends in any degree on human sagacity and prudence,though perhaps not more than one man in fifty comes away fortunate,every sanguine adventurer takes for granted that he shall be that one. Thus his system of life becomes a course of experiments; and if ruin should be the consequence of his rashness, he imputes his misfortune to any cause, rather than to his own want of capacity or foresight."

This is a picture of Jamaica cultivation sixty years ago, when sugar was sold for treble the price that it will now command. Nor is it so unlike the cultivation of the present day that it cannot be recognized, for half a century has brought to the Jamaica planter but little knowledge of the labor-saving arts. The evils, however, which were then only taking root, have since overshadowed the Island. Hypothecation, rendered necessary by the expenses of the Slave system, and the extravagance of the planters, increased so fast that nine out of ten estates, at the time of Emancipation, were mortgaged far beyond their value. The creditors were English merchants who vainly tried to keep up the cultivation of the property that reverted to them. How could they do so? Estates that yielded an average annual income of seven per cent., with the proprietor resident, could not, with the proprietor absent, pay attorneys and overseer, and still be worked at a profit. Many proprietors tried the impossible experiment and failed, while their agents and overseers made money, or ultimately bought in the estate at a nominal cost. Many proprietors have since tried the experiment, and have failed, and will continue to fail as long as they neglect the common teachings of experience. They will attribute their failure to any but the right cause. They shut their eyes to the fact that, in times past and in times present, the successful estates in Jamaica have always had, and have still, resident proprietors. Absenteeism, it is true, is lees prevalent now than it was about the period of Emancipation. A resident proprietor may be found to-day for every non-resident But the seeds of the evil were sown years and years ago, and the fruit must be reaped. No country, since the world was made, were its resources tenfold greater than those of Jamaica, could continue to prosper with the large body of its landed proprietary permanent absentees. And even those who were nominally residents usually passed half the year in Europe, and spent their money there. England was always their home, and Jamaica merely a place out of which the most was to be made. I feel it almost a p[???]agiarism to enumerate these causes of the decline of Jamaica, they have been so often[???] spoken of by other writers -- they are so perfectly obvious to any unprejudiced inquirer after truth, They were evils sufficiently serious to ruin the Island had Emancipation never taken place. They exhausted capital and destroyed credit, and without these it would be impossible for any country to flourish. Since Emancipation, this want of capital has been the chief cause of an unceasing depression. The sum received by the planter for his slaves was insufficient to pay off his mortgages; he had no money to improve his estate or keep it up in bare cultivation; he had no money to keep roads in repair or build tramways; he had no money to pay for labor; he had no money to meet misfortune. What was the inevitable consequence? His mortgages were foreclosed; he reduced his cultivation; he sold small lots to settlers to meet pressing wants; the roads were so bad that the transportation of sugar to the shipping port became one of his heaviest items of expenditure; the laborers whom he neglected to pay went elsewhere; the day of misfortune came and overwhelmed him with ruin. He was bankrupt before Emancipation; but it was Emancipation hat [???]ore down the veil which concealed his wretched poverty. I speak generally, for I do not doubt that there were many exceptional cases. Many of the three hundred estates in cultivation at the present day are exceptions. There were planters who continued to cultivate sugar after Emancipation -- who were successful then and are successful still -- and since 1853, when the general abandonment of estates may be said to have ceased in Jamaica, the number of these successful planters has considerably increased. I need not pause to explain that they were all man of capital, and that their properties were economically managed, for both assertions are proved to demonstration by the fact that only first-class estates arc in cultivation to-day. 

ut the old Plantocracy steadily and fatally ignored, in early as in later times, the real causes of the island's decline. They shrunk from the idea of putting their own shoulders to the wheel. In the days of their prosperity they never faced labor; in the days of their adversity they did not face misfortune.

If they thought freedom the worst system of labor in the world, their manhood should have taught them to make the most of what was done and could never again be undone. They would not give it a fair trial, but preferred to gee their heritage pass away without a living struggle to redeem it. They have complained loudly enough, and have waited in the modest expectation that the Government of England would wrong the people of England to relieve them. They expected a restoration of protective duties on sugar, and the imposition of a heavy tax on the British nation, in order that they, who gave nothing in return, might live in sumptuous and easy luxury. They have iterated and reiterated the false accusation that the negro won't work, in order to raise up a seeming justification for themselves, and they have done all they could to bring him again under a yoke of coercion. By these means they succeeded in keeping morbidly alive the Anti-Slavery spirit of the British people, and of fanning into flame a philanthropic zeal that, I do not hesitate to say, has proved injurious to the best interests of Jamaica. If, instead of toying to create sympathy for their class by the false assertion that the negro would neither work for love or money, they had simply urged a want of labor, there cannot be a doubt that, like the Mauritius, Guiana, or Trinidad, Jamaica at this day would have an ample population.

I don't deny that the planters of Jamaica have had misfortunes to contend with. It was their misfortune that they inherited a system of labor that demanded extravagant expenditure. It was their misfortune that Slavery so deeply degraded labor, that, even under Freedom, the effect of such a curse could not speedily be removed. It was their misfortune that, within the century prior to Emancipation, there were over thirty servile insurrections in the Island, each one of which entailed a heavy expense upon the proprietary, and, in some cases, brought them to the verge of ruin. It was their misfortune that, with the rise and progress of the United States, Jamaica lost the prominent position the once occupied as a depot for the trade between Europe and the Spanish Main, and that a large amount of commercial capital was thus withdrawn from the Island. It was their misfortune that their expenses were aggravated by the mistaken policy of the Imperial Government, which placed restrictions and prohibitions on the Colonial trade with the American Republic. It was their misfortune that they were never adequately paid for their slave property. It was their misfortune that they found themselves compelled to mortgage their estates -- that their debts continued to increase -- and that when an unfavorable season overtook them they lifted up their eyes in hopeless bankruptcy. It was their misfortune that among the Island merchants they found too many like those whom, sixty years ago BRYAN EDWARDS likened to Cornish wreckers. It was their misfortune that, between 1815 and 1825, the price of their great staple fell twenty-five per cent. -- that between 1825 and 1835 it fell another twenty-live per cent. -- and that between 1835 and 1850 it fell twenty-live per cent. yet again. It was their misfortune that the British nation would no longer consent to be taxed to support them, and that the protective tariff upon West India sugars should have been abolished by the law of 1846. It was their misfortune to have been distrusted at home and abroad, and to have been the victims of a jealousy that refused for years to Jamaica, alone of all the British West Indies, the privileges and the advantages of a wholesome immigration.

But it was their fault that, under the most expensive system of labor known, they were ever reckless and improvident. It was their fault that they prosecuted a precarious business in the spirit of reckless gamblers. It was their fault that they wasted this substance in riotous living. It was their fault that they obeyed not. the commonest rules of political economy -- that they saved no labor and spared no land. It was their fault that they faced not labor themselves, but were absentees from their estates, and followed a road that could lead to no possible end but ruin. It was their fault that they listened to no warning -- that they heeded not the signs of the times -- that they refused all schemes for gradual emancipation, and even for ameliorating the condition of the slaves, until the crushing weight of public opinion broke the chain of Slavery asunder, and threw suddenly upon their own resources an ignorant and undisplined people. It was their faults of policy and government that drove the Creoles from plantations, that left the population in ignorance, that discouraged education, and kept morality at the lowest ebb. It is their fault that, under a system of freedom from which there is no relapse, they have made no brave attempt to redeem past errors and retrieve past misfortunes, but have been content to bemoan their fate in passive complaint, and to saddle the negro with a ruin for which they themselves are only responsible.

This was the old Plantocracy -- the generous, hospitable, improvident, domineering Plantocracy of Jamaica. Their power no longer predominates. They command no credit and no respect, and they obtain but little sympathy in their misfortune. Even from domestic legislation they have sullenly retired, and their places are being fast filled by the people whom they have so long and so vainly tried to keep down. I am not going to rush into extravagant admiration at the change, or at popular government as developed in Jamaica. The mass of the inhabitants are still too ignorant to exercise the franchise with discretion, and all are more or less imbued with the prejudices of caste. But imperfect and defective as it is, Representative Government in Jamaica is greatly preferable to the oligarchy of a Planter's reign. The interests, moral, political, and educational, of the people, are more cared for, and in their progress, much more than in the success of large plantations, the permanent prosperity of the Island most assuredly depends.

Nor are the new class of resident planters who have appeared in Jamaica within ten years past by any means to be passed over in silence. They work their estates with prudence and economy, though they lack the advantages that latter-day science has given to American and Cuban proprietors. Capital and labor are both needed, but the art of economizing labor is needed still more. A Louisiana planter makes twice the quantity of sugar from an acre of land that a Jamaica planter does. Nevertheless, it is a fact, of which I have had ample proof in all carta of the Island, that many Jamaica planters who look after their own business have relieved their estates from incumbrance, and are, even now, malting handsome fortues. Since 1858 as many properties have been resuscitated as abandoned; and I regard it as one of the most favorable signs of improvement that the work of regeneration, however small its commencement, has been at least inaugurated by NEW MEN. 

W.G.S.