Page:Contending Forces by Pauline Hopkins.djvu/20

 march of progress, which the most enlightened nations are unconsciously forced to make by the great law of advancement; “for the civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded.”

In this bill of gradual emancipation certain conditions were proposed. All slaves were entitled to be known as apprenticed laborers, and to acquire thereby all the rights and privileges of freemen. “These conditions were that prædials should owe three-fourths of the profits of their labors to their masters for six years, and the non-prædials for four years. The other fourth of the apprentice’s time was to be his own, which he might sell to his master or to other persons; and at the end of the term of years fixed, he should be free.”

In the winter of 1790, when these important changes in the life of the Negro in the West Indies were pending, many planters were following the course of events with great anxiety. Many feared that in the end their slaves would be taken from them without recompense, and thereby render them and their families destitute. Among these planters was the family of Charles Montfort, of the island of Bermuda.

Bermuda’s fifteen square miles of area lays six hundred miles from the nearest American