Evansville daily journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1863-1866, 1866-01-01

Much has been written And 80
on the West Indian Dutc6dfiei,
mhile but little il actually known
aa 10 the eausea which led to them. Ii
would certainly be more reasonable TO
MAJ send opinion, especially as the En-
RIiah press seem 20 much divided on the
d1sbiect. Ii Ia well known fact that
Englishmen generally are 20 ignorant
1of che naturs Of their foreign posses
sions, and have shown 30 little skin ia
past timea in their goyeEpmept that GER
lain class oftheir home philosophers and
those who have travelled extensively ia
foreign landssunite IN opinion that Eng
land scarcely deserves the possession of
colonies. They are just finding oat now
how little they know of their West In
dian possessions. Most Of them have a.
uague notion that Jamaica is a very
! beautiful island, the soil of which 10
90 rich that, to use Barke's pretty simile
as applied 10 India, ID is bnt necessary
to 'stickle it withia hoe audit will laugh
with a harvest
] They have, besides, special reason
for thinking much of Jamaica; we are
apt to prize that which hascost us dear
~. -
5 Thirty years ego, England made a
noble selfsacriGce for the purpose of
.abolishing slavery thronghout the island
1.-The payment of noless sum than sew
en- millions sterling, to effect that pur-
pose. serving as fhe test measure of her
philanthropy. Freedom in civil sense,
|. even to the possession of vote and the
rightiof sitting In the local legislation,
was accorded to the liberated negroes;
and schools having been established and
missionaries sent ont, &C., &c, they had
perhaps right to conclude that they
had done their duty towards that favored
land.
Rudely, however, have they been star
tied out Of their salf-eomplacent dream,
and this supposed happy colony has
been the scene of buh heries at which
humanity ahudders.
Il Those atrocities have been avenged
with stern and bloody hand; and the
revolt having been suppressed we turn
from our horror and hewilderment to the
no less bewildering query as to what can
have been the real origin of the out
break; and here we are peculiarly at
fault.
a porticn4of. The British press point
20 the fact as a proof of the inherent
barbarism OF the African race This
has been 40 warmly rebutted In our own
country by that section of the newspaper
rasrx ruvhS kfrvr4
eral Government during the late war.
Some Of the English newspapers, not
unlike portion Of our own, are more
denunciatorY than judicial, and declare
that the Jamaica negroes were always a
discontented and dangerous race They
! had been made by government the equal
of the white man, and after being petted
and pampered to the utmost, ii was
found that it only made chem more inso-
Eflent, and they would not work ii they
could possibly do without 1t, while
others contend that il Ia from the differ
ence and antagonism Of race alone that
| the difficulties pr0csaded. The writer
recollects well that al first, many of the
leading journals OF Englan6 discounted
largely the alleged atrocities, and
4 t4O9k4b bA6 kGGAk&t Ia huGi4 y 6S Ouiy VI
friRhten the Republicans of the United
States with the Frankenstein monster
created by emancipation, whilst the
London Daily Neps denounced the Col
onial Government as d wretched system
which had failed to impart either the
energy Of freedom to the negro, or the
protection of slavery, and believes that
the blacks have been goaded by starva.
ton into the riot which had sprung
from the dispair Of starving men, who
must have bread or die.
Most of the journals land they are
not few, who take this last view, de-
nounce the seventies attendant on the
suppression of the revolt, and regard the
retribution an entirely too severe, and
call imperatively for an enquiry, and an
| enquiry they will undoubtedly have, as
soon as Parliament meets; and till then
the best-because the most moderate
eourse, 10 TO form no decisive opinion.
As to the alleged seventies in putting
down the revolt, we scarcely think that
q strong case can be made out. Prompt
severity, under such circumstances, ia
often real kindness. Ii does not do to
be too nice in handing furniture when
house is on FIRE, and revolution, very
many of us practically know, is not to be
| extinguished by .rose-water. a
The old system of military domino
tion on the island, has been superseded
| by the more liberal principle Of simply
aEording facilities for the development
of their resources, and leaving to the
colonists themselves the almost absolute
fright Of self government, and therefore
the reputed conspiracy to murder every
white ON the island on certain day,
lends some little confirmation to the be-
lief that the negroes must have had
grievances with which we may hereafter
become acquainted.
ONE WHO READS.
New HARMONY, Dec. %, 1865.