Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1860-11-10
SLAVERY IN THE WEST INDIES.

1t requires no great foresight to perceive that
great contest is approaching on the subject of slay
cry and the slave trade. The battle OF the negro
will have to be fought by the phianthropists witha
great dimnuton Of prestige, the result of falslfed
predictions and blasted hopes. The Broughams and
Wiberforces of the present day will have to adopt
a somewhat humber tone The manifestoes OF
Exeter, Hall must for once be defensive and apollo
getic, for the world is now wiser than when the
pulpit and platform resounded with indignant ap-
peals to humanity fiye-and-twenty years ago. The
touching descriptions of philanthropc novel writers
will 60 for little now as far as regards our own
colonies. Those who are old enough may recollect
the traditional portraits Of West India pro2rietors
their wives and children, which are to be found IN
the ssmoral tales of the last generation The own
er of Jamaica property was always lying on sofa,
drinking sangares and swearing at Sambo, line
mulatto youth, whose quvering lips and flashing
eye told how much he felt The lady Of the house,
always represented as faded beauty with her brow
wreathed with pearls was, of course, being tanned
by two female slaves whose delicate forms bore re-
cent traces of the LASH The youthful heir wandered
about the house exercising whip given oy MS
mother, expressly to beat the little negroes with
faithful and pious Pompey, exposed to every kind
Of ill-usage because Dinah, who loved hlnl-oh, now
feryently would not listen to the humanity pro
posals of Drive the overseer completed the picture:
By such representations as these body OF as nara
working and loyal subjects as England ever possess
sed, were held up to obloquy, and negro emancipa.
ton was effected without regard to the interests OF
men who were popularity supposed to be reveling in
ill-gotten grains But politicians and the public,
and the friends of the slaves themselves, have
now begun to see matters in a clearer light.
Our own colonies are impoverished, but the
sum of slavery is not diminished; it has only
been transferred from to more graspng,
pitti,ess and inscriptions hands, Never was the
prospect of emancipation more distant than now
that foreign shareholders establishing monopo-
" of all the great staples of tropical produce
The island which in the oden times supplied so
much sugar. coffee and cotton are going out OF cul-
tivation while Cuba, the United States and Brazil
are every day extending the area of their cutlYa-
ton and the number Of their slaves. So valuable,
indeed is the slave in Cuba that in spite of treaties
and penal laws, cruisers and blockades, thousands
of Africans yearly carried across the Atlantic to
work on the sugar and tobacco plantations. The
wealth of the island is such that, in spite of mis-
government oppressive taxes, and Spanish army
of 25 900 men, its proprietors among the richest
in the world As to the United States, it is indeed,
folly to expect any thing from that quarter Slav-
cry on the North American continent has extended,
is extending will extend. As long as the supplies
Of cotton are below the demand in all the markets
of the world so long will slave labor be too valuable
to be parted with. Even the northern slave States
which but a few years ago were discussing the
gradual abandonment of the system, are now silent
about abolition immediate or prospective. The
slaves present the great perhaps their greatest
source of wealth. If they cannot cultivate their
own land, they breed negroes to supply the new
plantations in the South. 1t may be declared that
the attacks of Aboltionsts and The interference of
the North are the cause of this determination up
hold slavery; but no sensible man will believe that
mere irritation and obstnacy could lead to such
great results. The existence of slavery is an eco
nomical question: and so long the system is prof
liable we cannot doubt that it will be maintained
fha ha said with IN Rrazl
where the institution prevails which features Of
cruelty unknown even in the worst of times under
English rule.
Now, to these countries we have given a monopo-
" of products which the chef basis Of our in
dustry or among the chief sources Of our revenue.
They are becoming rich, powerful, arrogant every
day less inclined to be guided by English counsels
or moved by English interference With all the
readiness which sefnterest induces they have learn
ed the arguments against limiting slavery and slave
importation, from mshaps, our acknowledge
ment of failure from their prosperity, and from
our dependence upon them. They have the law Of
nations their side, and may quote it in answer to
any assertion Of rights to interfere in the cause
of humanity. They are free nations and Africa is
free coast. Negroes are necessary to raise the cot
ton, sugar. coffee, and tobacco, which the world
wants. The white man cannot work under trop-
ical sum- and unless the African be used laborer
the farest regions of the New World must remain
desert In fine negroes must be had at any cost
and no nation has a right to impose IFS own scru-
pulosity en- other free communities Ii England has
ruined her colonies there is no reason why she
should seek to check the progress Of the whole
American continent Such is the kind of reasoning
which is becoming more and more common every
day; and we may depend upon it that in some form
under pretext the slave owners of the other
hemisphere will again attempt to obtain supply of
negroes from the coast of Africa. The recent i'm
portation into the French colonies has naturally
aroused their attention. and it is wonder that
hear it asked why few cargoes of such "emgrants"
could not be brought to New Orleans or Savannah,
there to be settled according to the domestic inst
tutions of the State. With this renewed vitality of
slavery owing to the rapidly increasing value of the
slave, we have to deal.
And it is not by preaching, or protesting, or
threatening, or denouncing that the objects Of hu-
manity be attained. The last generation were
content to be merely destructive; they broke down
the slave system in the West Indies without at
tempting to replace it by better and the conse-
quence has been the multiplication of the former
evils, and deepening of the guilt, in which we in
directly participate of the slave-raised
produce. After twenty years experience we are
now called upon to provide remedy. On all sides
we hear the same cry, the colonies are perishing
for want of sufficient labor.-LOndon Times
p