On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
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
whom they practised . , Not many months before this , a man wa& tried for the- same crime , found guilty and hung ; but whether he had beenchris *
tened , I cannot say . This disease may have no cause ** but their own superstitious fears , " which fears , however , spring" from ignorance , which nothing , I imagine , but education can
cure . They maintain , naturally enough , that the white man believes in Obiah as firmly a 3 themselves ; because , while he affects to call it a mere superstition , he punishes its professors either with death or transportation . I am no advocate for the
postponement of Negro improvement , as Euelpis appears to think ; on the contrary , if he will turn to my second letter , ( pp . 297—299 , ) he will see that I allow something to the exertions of the Missionaries ; and , I think , produce sufficient proof to shew that even
ray own labours were not wholly unproductive . I own , however , that I am of opinion that all that progress is not made which people in general are apt to imagine . The Missionaries undoubtedly create a high degree of religious fervour in the minds of their converts , the tendency of which is on
the whole beneficial ; but they give them no knowledge : and if they did , they would be unfitting them for that station in life which they are born to fill . Get the government and the planters to admit of the poor
creatures being made free as speedily as they can be prepared for it , and education and evangelization will become sound policy , and be sure to gain the prompt and zealous patronage of all the best friends to the Blacks . But
belore this can be expected , the public must be furnished with a full and candid statement of affairs as they now- exist in the West Indies . The Missionaries talk about marrying the slaves , but , in point of fact , they do no such thing : they may , by a religious service , add a decree ot aoiemuity to the bargain whiih is made
between Quarnina and Qn ^ sheba ; but they < £ ap cUfr no more : the bargain , not be&KT legal , may be broken oy a
third peiwn 33 soon as fo ^ g formed . The falsely called wife ma # be abused in a thousand vyays , and the pretended husband qpujd get no repress ; for , prpperjly sneaking , he has no right to . her , she ia the property of another
Untitled Article
person , and so will all her offspring be . The person of the inan is , ' of course , in the same predicanieat with that of the woman . I well remember hearing an overseer threaten to flog a Negro slave for presuming to send
the woman , whom he called his wife , to his ground in her master ' s time . Now , however hard this case may seem to a person altogether unacquainted with the management of a sugar estate , the overseer did nothing more than what he was compelled to
do - , and had he actually punished the man , I see not how his employer could have complained . Persons whose senses are paralyzed , and whose understandings are stupified , may put up with the above treatment ,
with a little grumbling , but if they were properly enlightened by education and Christianity , what would their feelings be ? It should never be forgotten , that the converted Negroes are , unless they use violence , as far from freedom as the unconverted : I
might say farther , for if their religion has the effect of rendering them more attentive to their master ' s work , he will , for a very obvious reason , be the less willing to let them go . In the towns , in vvhich the Methodist chapels are chiefly situated , there are a great number of Blacks and Brown 3 or free
condition , amongst whom the Missionaries may undoubtedly make themselves very useful : but as to the slaves on estates , I cannot see of what avail their presence in the island can be to them . I can , indeed , assure Euelpis , that when I was in Jamaica this
difficulty was felt by the Missionaries themselves , one of whom confessed to me , that he saw no prospect of gaining any ground on estates . He mentioned one in particular , which hq
was iri the habit of visiting , where he owned that he had no hope of his labours turning to any good account unless they should have the effect of inducing a few individuals to attend the chapel in the town . He said he
had known an instance of a Dissenting Minister ' s settling on an estate , not far from Kingston , for the sole
purpose of promoting the religious welfare of the slaves ; biit that the minister soon saw " the necessity of resigning his post , his labours proving almost , if not altogether , : in valtf : I then informed him that ! intended to
Untitled Article
to Sluves in the fPexl Jndibs . 763
Untitled Article
VOL . XVII . 5 D
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1822, page 753, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2519/page/33/
-