Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1849-12-22
West India Emancipation.

Eleven years ago, all the slaves in the
British West India lslands-some 100000
in number-were eniancipated uncondition-
ally. The event was celebrated peacefully,
aud generally with outward religious obser-
vances and thanksgiving. Since that time,
each returning year has witnessed the cele-
bration of this act, by the friends of Freedom
in various sections of this country, as well as
in Great Britain. One of the papers in the
planting interest in those islands-occupying
the same relation to the whole people there,
that Calhoun's organ, the Charleston Mercu-
ry, does to the people of the United States
has continually been publishing false ac-
counts of the evil workings of emancipation.
A large meeting of shareholders at Mobile,
Alabama, TO respond to the Southern Adj
dress of Calhoun, also urges the failure of
the West India experiment, as an argument
against emancipation. The Kingston (Ja-
maica) Journal, the leading paper in those
islands, says in reply
The allusion to the British West Indies is
most unfortunate, inasmuch as the condition
of those colonies f~alsifies all the statements
and predictions of these Southern members.
Who will look at this island, for example,
and say "the existing relation between the
free and servile races cannot be separated"
and the races "cannot live together in peace,
or harmony, or to their mutual advantage p
Where is the man, however favorably in
clined toward the much-loved system of the
Southern States of America, or prejudiced
against the dark-hued inhabitants of that
portion of the Union, or of this colony, who
will be bold enough to assert that "wretch-
edness and misery and desolation" nave been
the result of emancipation? But the South
ern members appeared to feel that their
ground was not safe under them. Hence
they tell their constituents, that "since the
emancipation" the British government Z" has
kept up a sufficient military and naval force
to keep the blacks in awe, and u large mum
Der of mag istrates, constables and other civil
officers to keep order in the towns and on
plantations, and enforce respect to their for
mer owners" 1t is very evident from this
observation that they knew nothing of the
rue state of affairs in the West Indies, and,
if they do, have purposely misrepresented
them. There has been a very large diminu-
ton of both the military and naval forces in
the West Indies since the abolition of slave
ny. Some years ago the regular troops in
this island alone amounted to from eight to
ten thousand men. Now, we believe, there
Hre not two thousand in it. As to the naval
forces, those who knew POrt-ROyal during
the palniy days of Slavery, and look at it al
present, can say whether there has been a
falling off in this department of our defence.
During slavery, every rural parish had foul
or five constables, and the towns a large
number, the total of which, we have nc
doubt, would he found fully equal to the
number of police now employed for. the
preservation of the peace. Some three hun,
drcd and fifty of these are divided among
twenty-five parishes, and a population up.
ward of 100000 souls, TO keep ORDER" al
these Southern members say, sin the towns
and OH plantations, and enforce respect tC
former OWNERS" But there is no police on
the plantations, nor any necessity for them
and what will appear most astonishing to
Southern alarmists, "tlc social and political
superiority of education and talent" is still
preserved. The Southern memhers ofCon.
gress, after crowding "A lot of misstatements
into very nearly as many lines, thus wind NJ
their a~llusin1s 10 the West Indies: But not
wlths.anding all this, the British West Indii
possessions are ruined, Impoverished, misera
BILE, wretched, and destined probably to bc
abandoned TO the black race" This, many
of our readers will think, is going aheat
rather too f~ast-ruming to a conclusion
much too rapidly. Our reply is, 1t is no
true; there never was a period in the histor,
of the British West Indies, in which life anc
property were more secure, and peace ant
quiet more universal, or a better feeling ex
listed between all classes of the community.
NEGRO CHRISTIANS IN GEoR1IA.-A bill
has been introduced into the Legislature o
Georgia, TO prevent the Assembling of ne
groes for religious worship unless conduct
ed by white persons, aud to prevent the Ii
ccnsing negroes as preachers i'll Putnam Co.
II will probably be applied to the whole
TT - .f5au3i
. The cuBA ESPBDtrIoN.-A letter from Wash,
ington, in the Philadelphia Bulletin, says IL
/" am assured, from a source which YOU car