The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1866-11-22
EFFECTs OF EMANCIPATION.

If like causes will produce like effects, then it is
not difficult to predict what the agricultural pros
poets of the South will be under the free negro
labor system. The Abolitionsts have asserted and
still assert, that as soon the negroes get accus
toned to their freedom, they will go to work and
raise as fu crops as they did when they were slaves
| Some Southern men have fallen into the same de-
lusion, and predict that the South will be more
prosperous under the present conditions of the
black race. Unfortunately. for these gentlemen,
facts are stubborn things, and facts belle their as
sertions. In forccasting the labor problem Of the
South, one well authenticated fact is worth thou.
sand theories. Have slaves ever heretofore been
emancipated, and have they worked as we'll after
their liberation as they did before? Let US see.
The Island of Jamaica, one of the possessions of
Great Britain in the West Indies, was formerly
worked by slave labor, and was one Of the largest
sugar.producing spots on the globe. Over thirty
years ago the emancipation idea seized upon and
crazed the British Parliament, just as it has done
the American Congress, and under the infatuation
the negroes Of Jamaica were freed. Now, the soil
of Jamaica is just as FERTILE and the climate as ge
nial as they were prior to emancipation, and we
are anxious to know whether the negroes have
worked as well and produced as much since they
we're freed Us they did before. The answer to this
enquiry will enable the Southern people to deter
mine pretty certainly how far they can rely upon
freed negro labor to cultivate their lands, surely
and proftably.
Here is the result of emancipation after thirty
years trial in jamaica as reported by the Colonial
Standard:
"The fact is there that we now produce just less
than one-ffth what we did sixty years ago, and
that too with larger present population, and the
true causes are that the aborers having been ren-
dered impracticable by mischievous teachings,
have withdrawn from the labor market, and that
many have sought other means of living, and have
realized sort Of savage independence, beyond
which their untutored nature teaches them to wish
for nothing; that considerable numbers have be-
come thoroughly demoralized, and live by depre-
dation, and that many still taught to consider
the large propretors as their natural enemies, and
will only work for them when they cannot help
themselves. The Anh Slavery Reporter says that
out of $780, 900 people, 10000 only labor estates,
and the 10000 are SO Independent that, according
to the report of the Royal Commissioners, they
work only one-third of the time which they ought
to devote to labor
Now, here is the truth told by an unwilling wit
ness for the British we're all anxious that emanci-
patton should prove q success. An experiment of
thirty years has convinced them that free-negro
labor is a failure the negroes have neither i'm
proved in intelligence habits of industry. Does
not the statement of the Standard coincide with the
experience and observation of every Southern
planter since emancipation was consummated in the
South? If the negro he's gone from bad to worse
in Jamaica, during thirty years of freedom, is it
not safe to conclude that he will do so here? And
yet, men who aspire to the dignity of Statesmen in
sist upon wrecking the nation if the negroes are
not Immediately granted full social and political
equality with the whites.