The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-11-04
THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA.
EFFECTs OF THE ABOLITION POLICY or THE
BRITISH GOVERNMENT

with bare equality of civil and political rights, but
aspire to their exclusive enjoyment Not content
with acquiring lands by free sale and purchase, and
by squattng on tracts which twenty years ago were
valuable plantations, though now abandoned TO the
first conner they wish to force the proprietors Of the
estates still under cultivation to dispose Of the
mains of their property exclusively in favor of the
colored "sops of the soil " menacng the colony, in
the event of continued recusancy, with the fate OF
Hayti.
For many years the negroes have enjoyed all those
advantages over the whites which are the unavoid-
able results of their numerical superiority in coun
try governed under very liberal representative
stituton. Negroes and mulattoes fill majority Of
the public offices and if there still of the
most important places held by whites, it is in some
cases, because the incmnbents date from period
antecedent to the emancipation, and in others, be-
cause individuals Of the fashionable color with any
thing like the Indispensable qualifications of men
tai character are not readily found. WHEREVER they
do possess education and ability they obtain
preference. do not say that this is the deliberate
policy of the British government and its representa-
tives here it may well be the natural consequence
of the predomnance of the colored people at the
hustings and in the Legislature, the colonial govern
ment being what is here called parliamentary"
The little influence and respectabty retained by
the whites being derived from their superior Wealth
and intelligence, the leading spirits among the .co-
ored party" have always endcavored 10 effect the
overthrow of the former at the expense of the agr
cultural and commercial interests of the island and
with that yiew have either legisated against prop
erty refused to legslate when protection was re.
quired and as magistrates have used all their au-
thority in favor of vagrancy and crime, all in the
hope of driving away the remaining whites. In the
fuilment of this scheme their progress has been
wonderful yet still too gradual to comport with
their impatience j s orginators are growing old,
and some of Them like Moses, have died before en-
terng the promised land. nuclber of whites still
cling to their possessions here, drowning wroches
catch at sraws hence the wrath of the coldred pdl-
cians, which occasionally awells too high to be re-
strained by prudential considerations.
Some idea may be formed Of the extent to which
the colored people carry their preensons as well
as of the intensity of their hatred for the whites,
when it is known that the senior editor of the news
paper which threatens the colony with the fate Of
Hayti is (although mulatto) the governors first
minister, Tor chairman OF the executive commit
tee, president of the priyy council, member of the
Legislative council, custos rotulorum of the coun-
try, and mayor of the city of Kingston |;
while his partner (also colorea man is
Der both of the privy and legislative councils,
justice of the peace in several counties, alderman OF
Kingston, lighthouse commissioner, Nc, &c. The
senior editor virtually governs the island in his
pacy of first minister and, president of the prvy
council, he would in of the death of the gov
ernor and lieutenant governor, or the absence OF
one and death of the other succeed without dispute
to the chief executive power. As these editors and
other colored men not satisfied with their pres
ent position. it is fair to presume that nothing short
of the expulsion of the whites their determination
will do for them
| wish it were il my power in a few words, with
out dwelling too long most unpleasant subject,
to convey to you adequate idea of the poverty,
misery and degradation which the emancipation of
the slaves has brought npon a country which the
anti slavery papers in the United States basey rep
resent rs an example for emulation | cannot think
of these shameless falsehOods without feeling an In
dgnation which it would ill-becomc me to express in
adequate language. i am induced to bring the sub
ect before you by observing in the colonial newspa
pers extracts from some anti-slavery publication re-
specting Jamaica which has recently appeared in the
United States
that the idle dissolutc, and criminal population OF
Kingston presents All unfavorable contrast to that of
the country. In the interior, where the whites are
thny scattered, the police insufficient, where exam
pie for good is wanting, where the means u subsst
for man in savage state is abundantly provi-
ded by the liberal hand of nature, the negroes give
themselves up to African idleness, obscenity, and
vice, without the shadow of restraint which exists
in towns and disease, the consequence of their
crimes and carclessness is gradually thinning their
numbers. ! have Just returned from a visit in the
Parish of Metcalfe oe of the most fertile and once
of the most ourisng agricultural districts of the
island. spent some days on what was once coffee
plantation producing from seventy to one hundred
hogsheads of coffee. 1t is now overgrown with wood
and almost impenerablc Jungle, the exuberant pro-
duction of fertile soil abandoned to the culture Of
nature and the whole district is so infested with
the svertck as to have become almost uninllabita-
ble From the property referred to may be seen five
coffee plantations or rather the ruined mansions Of
five abandoned coffee plantations, which gave
an income to their respective OF from two to
five thousand pounds year. Not coffee tree is
cultivated IN the disrict the proprietors have
gone some of them in great poverty in Eng
land some have died beggars and others have left
the country sunk into obscurity somewhere; no
one knows what has become of them. Their sue
cessors--the ncgroes--with abundance Of the finest
possible soil around them which they can cultivate
for their own profit live in sgualid idleness prefer
ring to sleep in the and satisfy the cravings Of
hunger with wild fruits to the easy labor required
for the cultivation of garden yegetables--articles
now in great demand at high prices in the towns.
Such is the dearth there of every article requiring
the most trining exerton of forethought and indus
try that | was compelled to bring from Kingston u
horse loaded with 4ne,ican corn, intended for the
own consumption
The silver-tick which / have mentioned above,
was little known in the island in the days OF cul-
tivators that the oldest inhabitants are in general to-
tally unacquanted with il.
This island like Trinidad and British Guiana, is
about to set on foot plan of immigration from In
la and perhaps China, in order to supply the de-
iciency of labor suffered by agriculturists. There
could not be better proof of the worthessness OF
the negro as a free aborer. No such deficiency ex-
sted prior to the emancipation, although twice the
number of estates now worked were then in full
cultivation, and although the present agricultural
md other industrial products of the island are but
, third of what they then were. You will under
stand the cause of the deficiency of labor now un-
existing when informed that the labo,
-ers on the plantations have not vet turned out for