On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
tion from the Report of the Wesleyan Missions to . shew , that there is an estate in Antigua , upon which " the whip is not needful now ; " and another , where " the sound of the whip is now rarely heard /* This , Sir , to a
Jainaica-rnan . is trulv astonishing : Jainaica-rnan , is truly astonishing ; and I can venture to assure . Euelpis , that if the Missionaries can perform euch wonders , without creating in the minds of the Negroes the hope of freedom , they will , by going to Jamaica , meet with the most zealous support
from the planters of that island , who , I am sure , would be glad to throw aside the whip , if they saw they could do it with safety . Besides all this , the Missionaries have schools , in which there are no less than 422 / children ; and if I understand rightly , they are all
Negro slaves . Euelpis must , however , pardon me , if I take leave to doubt , whether they are all of them actually Negro slaves and if they are , whether any of them are taught the dangerous art of reading . As far as Jamaica is concerned , I am next to certain , that the Missionaries have no
such things as schools , in which any thing in the shape of education is attended to . They may teach their victims the Lord ' s Prayer , a few hymns , &c , but , I believe , nothing further . With children of free condition they may act otherwise , but with such happy beings we have now nothing to do .
As far as I could ascertain , my little school in Georgia was the only one ever known in the island , which had for its object the instruction of the Negro slaves in reading ; and I have no reason to believe that any of the planters approved of my plans : many of them I am certain did not . I was
even told by a clergyman , that I was training up those who would act a § officers , at some future time , in the black army . I met with two of the Methodist Missionaries in Montego Bay , both of whom told me they had no opportunity of teaching the slaves to read . A Moravian Missionary , with whom I met about the same
tune , bore the same testimony . There is , indeed , the strongest prejudice among the slave-holders to any thing which is in any way calculated to open the minds of their people . They allow the Negroes to be christened ; but that makes them , if possible , ten-fold blind-
Untitled Article
er than they were before . That th € K Missionaries have 22 , 926 persons under their care , I am not disposed to question , while I must add , that if they are all in a state of slavery , and yet under a course of real religious instruction , they are , in my opinion , in the road to freedom . This I know is
not the general opinion , and I have reason to believe it is not the opinion of the Methodist Missionaries , or of those planters who give them encouragement ; for the latter seem to flatter themselves that the Christian
religion will , virtually , add a new rivet to the fetters of their captives , by bringing into action the doctrine of " passive obedience . ** It is , I believe , very commonly supposed in Jamaica , that the Negroes are an inferior species of the human race , and of the truth of
the doctrine the poor creatures themselves seem not to entertain the slightest doubt . Now , this circumstance has certainly a most powerful tendency to keep them in obedience , and therefore no one thinks of removing it . Ignorance , gross ignorance , is the grand
prop of Negro slavery , and that which has a tendency to remove the one , has a tendency to remove the other . The most complete slave is he or she who has no knowledge beyond that of yielding the most entire obedience to the
mandate of the master . On this ground , I repeat , that the master who is not prepared for the ultimate freedom of his slave , cannot consistently allow him to be taught Christianity , if Christianity be at a ] l calculated to enlarge the mind as well as to touch the
feelings . The picture which Euelpis has given of the moral and mental condition of the slaves in Totfago , would , with a very little alteration , represent that of the slaves in Jamaica . Of the Obiah professors , the Jamaica Negroes still etttertain the most dreadful apprehensions : —indeed , so dreadful ,
that even christening , once a sovereign remedy for this destructive malady , begins to lose its efficacy . In proof of which , I might remark , that the day before I left the island , I attended the trial of a black man and his wife ,
( or rather house-keeper , ) who stood charged with this crime . Ihey were found guilty , and transported tor life . They had both been christened , as well as the unfortunate people on
Untitled Article
752 Mr . Cooper on the Difficulty of gi ® fag Christian Instruction
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1822, page 752, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2519/page/32/
-