Page:The future of Africa.djvu/321

Rh population, on the whole, is rising, yea, in some places, rising on the ruins of the planters, This I believe to be a true statement of the case: the black population generally, are advancing, to the disadvantage of the planters. The West Indian party in this country, and the pro-slavery party in the United States, maintain, that emancipation is a failure, and that the black population are fast degenerating into barbarism. As proof of this, they refer to Jamaica:—in the other islands the proprietors have suffered but little; but in Jamaica there has been an almost utter prostration of this class. The inference drawn from this is, that emancipation is a failure. A few items will enable us to see whether this representation is altogether correct: 1. For whose benefit was emancipation effected? For the planting population only, or the black also? The census of the island of Jamaica will help decide this matter, if even the past history and injuries of the Negro race do not. According to the received estimate of 1850, of the 400,000 people in the island, 16,000 were white, and 384,000 black and colored. It is but fair, then, that this large black and colored population should have a very considerable interest in the results of emancipation. 2. Have the black and colored population received any advantage through emancipation? In 1833, they were, nearly all, "chattels," "marketable commodities," poor, penniless,—not even possessing themselves. Is their condition any better now? I answer this question, by quoting from a valuable and impartial work entitled " 1850," by J. Bigelow, Esq., an American gentleman. He says: "I was surprised to find how general was the desire among the Negroes to become possessed of a little land, and upon what sound principles that was based," (see p. 115.) "I was greatly surprised to find the number of these colored proprietors—, and constantly increasing," (p. 116.) "When one reflects that only sixteen years ago there was scarcely a colored landholder upon the island, and that now there are a hundred thousand, it is unnecessary to say that this class of the population appreciate the privileges of free labor, and a homestead, &e.," (p. 116.) "They raise not only what they require for their own consumption, but a surplus which they take to market, &c, &c," (p.117.) "Of course it requires no little self-denial and energy for a Negro, upon the wages now paid in yet it is also the sad fact, that, in some places, they are going down to rain with the proprietors: a ruin, alas! which