Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-12-15
Jamaicn and the south-A warming.

= however guilty may have been the 10
cal magistrate who inaugurated bloodsheC
: in Jatnsica, no one can read the history O
8 the legislation in that unfortunate island
since the emancipation of the blacks, in
1888, without discovering that the disturb
ing causes of tho late occurrence are i'm.
bedded IN the organic law of the province
a population of four hundred and forty
thousand are governed by two thousand
j five hundred voters. The white race of
Jamaica, arrogating TO themselves all of
e the virtue and all of the intelligence of the
whole population, as do the white race of
the Southern portion of the United States
: to-day have ever retained the power
which they were enabled to obtain under
the slave system, and have organized a
despotism which compares favorabls only
with system of absolute slavery. They.
as American shareholders are now
seeking 70 da ,.a>----ii .s=------~s ~ elic
soil and dictate the products of the
la-a 4 L. sz-haEa disfranchised the weaker
race, although in numbers that race exceeds
them as ten to one; they have assumed
to be the guardians of the public morals,
inficting public whippings upon offending
blacks, whilst paltry fines were assessed
upon white men guilty of similar offences;
they tablished system of so-called ap-
premiership by which black men were
compelled to labor without Just compen-
sation they have held firm hand upon |
the judiciary, by which means Negroes
are denied rights in the courts; they lev
led a discriminating tariff upon articles of |
clothing required by the blacks and thus
reduced them almost to a condition of |
nakedness and finally, as a crowning
tyranny, and one which ex-slaveholders
in our own land are attempting, with all
the energy they are able to command, to
inaugurate, they established system of
Cooley immigration, by which large
number of unfortunate Chinese were in
troduced into the island to enter into un-
equal competition with the already excess
i've supply Of black laborers, and to de-
fray the expenses of which they assessed
tax upon the whole population to the
amount Of two millions Eve hundred
thousand dollars.
Who that juStifes our revolutionary
fathers in resisting trivial tax upon pa
per and tea, and that regards such resist
ance and its results as the workings of tho
imIputable laws devised by the Almighty ,
for the government of the nations of men.
can look upon the condition of affairs
which has existed in Jamaica uninterrupt- !
edly for twenty-seven years, without be-
ing filled with amazement at the fact that
four hundred thousand men have submit
ted so long to such tyranny at the hands
of forty thousand That they have thus
meekly submitted is proof of the gentle
ness of their nature.
Our object in writing this article is to ,
call the attention of the late Shareholders $
Of the Southern States of America TO the L
lesson inculcated by the experience of ia C
muioa. Not q wrong that has been heaped
IpUu bidJk neu IN JamaIca Dut Is now +
being sought to be inflicted upon black L
hSh III thc DOuth-- Iic6 Inc eHJlre llSJ OF |
grievances of which Negroes in Jamaica
Justly complain, be scanned, and coun-
.erpart to each will be found in the regu-
ations sought to be established in f
he late slaveholding States. Let the f
Southern people be not unmindful of the t.
truth that like causes beget like v
effects in all ages and all countries. 1t is a
10 truer that God smote the Egyptians i,
md delivered the Israelites with an out a
stretched arm, and immersed slavehold- d
ng America in a sea of blood until the +
inhabitants thereof were induced to let Il
lis people go free, than that the vengeance s.
If heaven will be visited upon those who
'ppress the weak and defenceless. Can it
'e that nothing sh TT of an overwhelming
of divine wrath such as was in
licted upon the hosts of Pharaoh in the Il
lepths of the Red Sea will awaken the y
people of the South to sense of justice i? n
#, unlike the Egyptians of old, Southern i
askmasters are capable of profting by the
events of the tine, let them look to Ja- L
naica and take warning. d