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Show 12 shall be holden in slavery within any such British colony as aforesaid, shall upon and from and after the said 1st August, become and be to all intents and purposes free, and discharged of and from all manner of slavery, and shall be aosolutely and forever manumitted; and that the children thereafter born to any such persons, and the offspring of such children, shall, in like manner, be free from their birth ; and that from and after the 1st August, 1834, slavery shall be and is hereby utterly and forever abolished and declared unlawful throughout the British colonies, plantations, and possessions abroad.'' The ministers, having estimated the slave products of the colonies in annual exports of sugar, rum, and coffee, at £1,500,000 per annum, estimated the total value of the slave-property at 30,000,000 pounds sterling, and proposed to give the planters, as a compensation for so much of the slaves' time as the act took from them, 20,000,000 pounds sterling, to be divided into nineteen shares for the nineteen colonies, and to be distributed to the owners of slaves by commissioners, whose appointment and duties were regulated by the Act. After much debate, the bill passed by large majorities. The apprenticeship system is understood to have proceeded from Lord Brougham, and was by him urged on his colleagues, who, it is said, were inclined to the policy of immediate emancipation. The colonial legislatures received the act of Parliament with various degrees of displeasure, and, of course, every provision of the bill was criticised with severity. The new relation between the master and the apprentice, it was feared, would be mischievous; for the bill required the appointment of magistrates, who should hear every complaint of the apprentice, and sec that justice was done him. It was feared that the interest of the master and servant would now produce perpetual discord between them. In the island of Antigua, containing 37,000 people, 30,000 13 being negroes, these objections had such weig ht, that the legislature rejected the apprenticeship system, and adopted absolute emancipation. In the other islanc.ls the system of the ministry was accepted. The reception of it by the negro population was equal in nobleness to the deed. 1'he negroes were called together by the missionaries and by the pl~nters, and the news explained to them. On the night of the 31st July, they met everywhere at their churches and chapels, and at midnight, when the clock struck twelve, on their lmees, the silent, weeping assembly became men ; they rose and embraced each other ; they cried, they sung, they prayed, they were wild with joy, but there was no riot, no feasting. I have never read anything in history more touching than the moderation of the negroes. Some American captains left the shore and put to sea, anticipating insurrection and general murder. With far different thoug hts, the negroes spent the hour in their huts and chapels. J will not repeat to you the well-known paragraph, in which Messrs. Thome and Kimball, the corn missioners sent out in the year 18:l7 by the American Antislavery Society, describe the occurrences of that night in the island of Antigua. It has been quoted in every newspaper, and Dr. Channing has given it additional fame. But l must be indulged in quoting a few sentences from the pages that follow it, narrating the behavior of the emancipated people on the next day. ""The first of August carne on Friday, and a release was proclaimed from all work until the next Monday. The day was chiefly spent by the great mass of the negroes in the ch urches and chapels. The clergy and missionaries throughout the island were actively engaged, seizing the • ''Emancipation in the 'rVest. Indies: a Six Months Tour in Antigua, Barba.does, and Jamaica, in the year 1837. Dy J. A. Thome and J. II. Kimball. New York, 1838." -pp. 146, t47. |