The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-22 00:00:00

they are never instructed in religion by priest or layman except on
the state of (some rare phenomenon in Cuba) a pious planter, a
scrupulous master, and a Christian man. As to the complaint of
insufficiency of food, the Syndic of course acts on the general
opinion that it is the interest of an owner to feed his slaves well,
and to clothe them also for the sake of the preservation of their
he elth and strength. This sounds well, and it passes for the truth
with thousands of people not only in Cuba but in England. This
is an argument stated and re-stated hundreds of times in answer to
the ordinary charges of ill-treatment brought against slave owners,
namely, that it is the interest of a man to give good treatment to
the beast (and " pari passu," to the slave) he keeps for use, or sale.
or hire. No doubt it is his duty, but is it his interest, according
to his ideas, to do this ? Is it the supposed interest of the owners
of our own miserable hacks to treat the animal thus which he lets
on hire or rides on daily, or rather, can you persuade the great body
of horse.dcalers it is their interest to do this ? Unquestionably you
cannot. They act on the principle that a quick return of the
money outlaid on horse-flesh, no matter how great the wear and
tear of the property that is worked or hired, is better than mode-
rate work with small gain, and a longer use of the means from
which that return is derived. Why, we might as well go to Con-
nemara or the shores of Imuca, and talk to Mr. Richard Martin's
venerable ghost of the humanity of the treatment of the hackney-
coach horse-owners in Ei:gland on the ground of their interests.
That honest ghost, if ghosts in Ireland do speak, as they
are said to do, would tell you that these persons
deny it is their interest to spare their horses, and admit It
is their interest to get the greatest possible quantity of work in
the shortest space of time from their hacks, and when they are
worked off them legs to purchase new ones. In fact, it is on this
very principle the fast mail coaches are horsed and run. But I
have heard it said, however they may work them, it surely is their
interest to fed them wed. To this I answer, the universal feeling
of the tribe is this, their true interest is to keep them cheaply.
True it is, if they gave them Ira ble the quantity of good hard pro.
vender, they would at last perhaps double the length of time, and
do half as much more work ; but you cannot persuade these men you
understand their interests better than they do, you flay indee.; easily
persuade the owner of a stud of race-horses of the soundness of your
opinion, but the high-blood lacers that belong in England to gen.
tleman on the turf, in proportion to the hacks and stage.horses, are
about in the same ratio as the stares in Cuba .belonging to intelligent,
consicterete, humane ptoprimors, are to the wretched negrocs in the
rands of unthinkine, unprincipled, and grasping owners. But what
says the creole expounder of the Spanish 'aw on this subject of the most
important privilege conferred on the slaves. We believe he says
that a slave not having undergone bad treatment on the part of his
owner, and having administered to him food, clothing, and religious
instt uction, he cannot compel his master to sell him to another. So
much for the benefit of the parchment privileges of tie slaves of
Cuba. And now for their moral condition and the administration
of the laws affecting it on the high authority of the work published
with the sanction and at the expense of the Real Audiencia of
Cuba. "As amongst the Romans (says the 'author) there could be
no marriage solemnized except amongst citizens, the union of the
slaves was accomplished by concubinage, and the children followed
the condition of the mother ; our district law has adopted the same
system (nucstra ley de partida ha adoptado la misma disposicion!, and
when recently coartation was established, the question was discussed
if the infant of a slave coartada should enjoy the same privilege as
the mother, but the doubt has ceased since the publication of the
Royal Cedula of the 10th February, 1789, in which we find the
point in question definitely settled." There can be no doubt of the
express meaning of the Royal law on this subject being what it is
described, and there is unfortunately no doubt that the slaves of
Cuba have none of the rights of citizens, that they are not suffered
to marry, and that a general system of concubinage is that which
the Christian law of the Partida sanctions in Cuba, and to which it
condemns nearly half a million of human beings. Here I take leave
of the Cuban exposition of the Spanish laws for the amelioration of
slavery. No one cats dispute the authority of the treatise I have
referred to, for the express sanction of the Real Audiencia is prefixed
to it. It was with no little difficulty I procured a copy of that
work, for 1 have already stated it is not allowed to fall into the
hands of strangers. I now proceed to show the extraordinary
delusion which has been practised not only on foreigners who have
visited the Spanish colonies, but even sought to be practised on our
Government, and on the agents of it. It is no wonder, indeed,
Sir, if the wotld have been imposed on by the specious benevolence
of the Spanish laws that have never been carried into execution, or
are capable of enforcement in any country where slavery exists, and
where the interests arising from it are prosperous. And if the
only result of the years of turmoil and painful inquiry I have passed
through in the West Indies were productive of no other ad-
vantage than the experience which enables me to address
these observations to you, 1 would fain hope that I have
made the best use of my time, and the opportunities
afforded me by my position, that it was possible for me to make
in enabling me to disabuse the minds of men like you of an
opinion so erroneously entertained that slavery in the Spanish
colonies is mild in its character, and that the fact of its lenity is
to be established by the laws and ordinances of the Sovereigns of
Spain. But on this subject I trust briefly refer to another source of
information. In the year 1824 Mr. Secretary Canning addressed a
despatch to the Chief Commissioner at the Havana, desiring to
be furnished with information on the subject of the manurnissian
of slaves in the Spanish colonies, and enclosing a metr.orandum
V hick had be: n presented to our Government at that period when
the question of gradual emancipation in our colonies was forcing
itself on the attention of Ministers. The document enclosed is in
the fallowing terms :—" That slaves (namely, those in the Spanish
colonies) are generally appraised at four hundred dollars ; that a
save paying down the fourth part of his value, or one hundred
dollars, immediately acquires a right to be coartado—that is, that
he can work out, paying Its master three reals de vellon or lets
a.day, until he can make a further deposit ; or, if the master re.
quite his service, he can oblige the man to work for him, paying
the slave one real ; thus a deposit of two hundred dollars gives the
slave a right to two seals daily ; of three hundred, three rests, and
thus till the completion of the payment of ti,e whole sum in which
he had been appraised. A dollar is worth eight reels r r
(Vide Slave-Trade Reports, 18.24.'25, Class A., page 63.) In the
first pl .ee, the common error with respect to the meaning of the
term of co.mtacion, which I have already referred to. is pointed
out in the reference made t the question of paying down one-fourth
past of the value of the slave. The next error .s in the statement
that a dare coartado has the right to work out or to leave his
master's service, paying him wages in a certain proportion to the
sum still due fur his liberty, the law treatise 1 have so largely
quitted explicitly denytitg that the slave has any such right against
the consent of his master. The next error is, that there is any law
which compels the master to pay wages in any proportion to what.
ever sum the slave may have paid in part liquidation of the price of
freedom. The Chief Commissioner replied to Mr. Canning's in..
gutsy, October 8, 1824, stating that he hail consulted the most
able lawyers and Government authorities on the subject of manu-
mission, and encloses a memorandum—a most valuable caper—
though by no means to be considered as practically applicable to
the attainable privileges of prcdial slaves, and that distinction is
not sufficiently drawn in the document, but oily slightly, and very
slightly, alluded to at the end of the memorandum. Nevertheless,
the extent and accuracy of information that it is so difficult to pro-
cure on this subject, is surprising to me ; and in referring to it I
have only to entreat attention to this point, that the information
has reference to what the laws decree, and not to the practical
working of them; and when it refers to the latter, tile experience
adduced is entirely if their execution in towns and cities, and espe-
cially at the seat of Government, the Havana. Mr. Kilbre, the
Commissioner, informs Mr. Canning that •he has be.n wrongly in-
formed that slaves are valued at any fixed price for "come :clots ;"
that he has known one sell for 1,000 dollars, but that the tribunals
discountenance excessive valuation ; that the average valuation of
full_grown negroes on estates is 500 dollars; that house-slaves are
valued at six, and mechanics to still higher prices; that the state-
ment is incorrect in asserting "if the master require the service
of his coartado slave, he can oblige the man to work, pay-
ing the slave a certain sum," the fact being, that in all
cases the master is entitled to the service of his slave,
whether coartado or not, without any remuneration whatever.
That the wages of a common field labourer is about four seals a
day, (there being :eight seals " depeata," and twenty reels " de
vellon" to the dollar, the writer of the memorandum previously
referred to having colifounded these) and, uoreover, that the negro
is fed and clothed, and that as mechanics earn from a dollar and a
quarter to three dollars a day, consequently, a coartado slaves, who
works out is able to pay his master the daily quota proportion ed to
his price, and to lay by something towards the further attainment
of his liberty. That the regulations fbr ameliorating the condition
of slaves are founded principally on custom which has acquired the
force of law, many of which are confirmed by Royal Decrees.
That when a slave applies to purchase his liberty, the
master is not allowed to fix an atbitrary price, but if
tie and the slave cannot agree 111)D11 it, two appraisers are
named one by the master and another by the Syndic on the
part of the slave, and if they differ the judge names an umpire,
and in these cases the lave is exempt from the payment of the
Alcahala duty, which is six per cent. on the sale of slaves sold in
%mute real or by public auction. That a master will be compelled
to sell a slave if a purchaser is found to engage to emancipate the
slave at the end of any reasonable time. That ill usage justifies an
application for change of masters. That a slave once emancipa'ed
cannot again be reduced to slavery. That the master having once
given an" escritura de coartacion," binds himself never to demand
more than a stipulated sum, though less than the actual value, has
no relation to the actual price originally paid for him. That the
coartado slave, when his master allows him to work out on hire
is only bound to pay his master one real a day for every hundred dot,
lays in which he is coartado (thus if his appraised price was fou-
hundred dollars, and he had paid one hundred towards his libertyr
he would only have to pay three reels a day to his master),
That a pregnant uegress may emancipate her child even when in the.
womb at the tixeu price of twenty _five dollars, and from the time
of its birth, till it be baptised for fifty dollars. That the system
respecting the Manumission of slaves, although in the country parts
where there are Jew magistrates, there may be, and undoubtedly
there are, many abuses, yet in time Havanah, and other large towns,
and in other populous die acts, it is efficiently observed. And
lastly, on the authority of this able statement of Mr. Kibbe°, the
slave population of the island of Cuba in the year 1824, was 25,000
the free people of colour 115,000, and the whites :290,000. I
have attempted to show you that the system of tnanunaission, and
the regulations in force for ameliorating the condition of the slave
in the Spanish colonies, honourable as the e are to the apparent in-
tentiors of the Spanish government, are of little real benefit to the
prestal slaves, that is, to the gnat body of the slave population in
these colonies. There are exceptions, there are instances it ere
slavery has not rend red masters heedless of all laws human and
Divine, even where their pecuniary interests are concerned But
these are few on the estates. There are instances where the
owners are persons of high rank and wealth and standing in society
—noblemen like the Count Fernandina, and a few others of his
order, where the rights and privileges of the slaves are in some
degree respected. These, men, however, live not on till it property,
and it is only to their occasional visits the slaves on their properties
have to look for justice. It is, as I have said before, in the large
towns alone, and for the new ;medial slaves, that the privileges in
question can be said to be available, and where manumission
can be hoped for, the means acquired of obtaining it, and the
opportunity given of applying for it, and for the redress of any
wrong suffered by a slave. The murder of a slave by a
white man, in no case whatever, is punished with death.
During my residence in Cuba, some of the most atrocious mur-
ders that I ever heard of came to my own immediate knowledge,
the murders of slaves by their masters or mayorals, and cot in any
one instance was the murderer punished, except by imprison-
ment or the payment of costs of suit. During General Facon's
administration of the government in the latter part of the year
1837, in the village of Guanabacoa,a league from the Havana,
where I was then residing, the murder of a slave was perpetrated
by his master, a well known lawyer of the Havana, whoser a no
I consider it my duty to make known, and as faras lies in enss
power, to expose it to the infasny of a notoriety which it is not
in the power of the shackled Press of Cuba to give but
which 1 have reason to believe the Press of Spain will give to tiles. d s-
closures, so t hat thereprobation of his countrymen will reach this g n.
tlemen, whom the laws he outraged were unable to reach or punish.
The name of time murderet is Manchado, and he moves without
reproach in the goodly circles of genteel society at Havana, in
that society where the capitalist who has acquired his riches in the
abominable slave trade, by the especial favour of his sovereign bears
the title of " Excellentissimo," where the prosperous dealer its
human flesh new retired from the trade is a noble of the land,
where the foreign merchant who still pursues the profitable traffic
on the coast is the boon companion of the commercial magistrates
of the place, and where the :gents of foreign governments them
selves are hailed as the private protectors and avowed well wishers
of the interests of the trade. The muscle red slave of the lawyer
Manchado was suspected of stealing some I lasted ornaments belong_
ing to the harness of his master ; the- man denied the charge ; the
customary prccess in such matters to extort a confession frem a
suspected slave was had recourse to. He was put down
and flogged in the presence of his master. The flog_
ging it appeared by the sworn testimony of the with esses
Who were present given before the Commandant of
Guanabacoa, a colonel in the army, a gentleman of the highest
character, commenced at three o'clock, it ceased at six, the man
having literally died under the lash ; a little time before the man
had strengths enough left to cry out lie would conlest
eiexspliireey'd'vitlld dog no more. The master immediately sent for the
receive
Commissary of Police to
his confession ; this officer came,
and st °ore lig don'ts to speak to tihielenbm arnu,tahlemfaosutenrdk
ihciadnttiolteioini
fleeises ;
he said the man had fainted.