The policy of the Grenadian planters in offering low wages—the rate being from 5s. to 5s. 6d. a week—has driven the negroes to their own little properties, and has caused a diminution in the production of sugar on the large organized estates. Yet the production of other smaller articles has greatly increased, and the general well-being of the people is much advanced.
Before 1830 there were no small freeholders; now there are over 2,000. Nearly 7,000 persons live in villages, built since emancipation, and 4,573 pay direct taxes.
Last year there were only 60 paupers on the island, and those were aged and sick persons; only 18 were convicted of felony, 6 of theft, and 2 of other offences. There is an average church-attendance of 8,000, and a school-attendance of 1,600. In 1857, out of 80,000 acres, 43,800 were in a state of cultivation, and 3,800 acres were added to the cultivation of the previous year.
The sugar export of 1857 was only half that of 1831, while the aggregate value of all the exports had risen from £153,175 to £218,352. The imports had risen in the same time from £77,000 to £109,000.6
Tobago also showed a gradual decline before emancipation; and since that event, the production of sugar has fallen off as follows: In 1831-34 it was 99,579 cwt.; 1835-38, 89,332 cwt.; 1839-1845, 52,962 cwt.; 1846, 38,882 cwt.; 1847, 69,240 cwt. One great cause of this decline is the drawing off of capital from the old, worn-out lands to the fresh, rich, and profitable culture of Trinidad, where land is very cheap. Moreover, the climate of Tobago is not entirely favorable to sugar.
Yet a great improvement is manifest among the people. Small proprietors have much increased; even the field-hands now possess houses and lands of their own. There are 2,500 freeholders, and 2,800 tax-payers. The average church-attendance is 41 per cent, of the whole population; the average school-attendance, 1,600. Commerce is rapidly advancing. The imports have risen from £50,307 in 1854 to £59,994 in 1856; and the exports from £49,754 to £79,789 in the same time.
In St. Lucia the planters have followed a more wise and liberal policy towards the emancipated slaves. Better wages have been offered; liberal inducements have been held out to the negroes to cultivate the estates; efforts have been put forth to improve the social and moral condition of the laboring class. Tenancy-at-will is unknown, and the mélairie system (laboring on shares) has been introduced. In other words, the rich and educated have manifested some kind of humane interest for the laborers, and in return the latter have worked well and cheerfully.
Yet, in St. Lucia, as in so many other West India colonies, the financial condition of the planters, at the time of emancipation, was exceedingly embarrassed: their registered debts amounting in 1829, according to Breen, to £1,189,965.
The export of sugar is stated in Cochin’s carefully prepared tables as follows: In the period of slavery, (1831-34,) 57,549 cwt.; during the apprenticeship, (1835-38,) 51,427 cwt.; under free labor, (1839-45,) 57,070 cwt; in 1846, 63,566 cwt.; in 1847, 88,370 cwt.
The imports have not risen till recently, and indicate a greater consumption of articles grown on the island. In 1833,7 they were in value, £108,076; in 1840, £114,537; in 1843, £70,340; in 1851,8 £68,881; in 1857, £90,064.
Of the total value of exports Breen gives tables only to 1843. In that year, they were £96,290 against £71,580 in 1833.
Since emancipation, 2,045 of the negroes have become freeholders, and 4,603 pay direct taxes.
In Trinidad, the question of the effects of emancipation has some peculiar elements. The island is a very large, fertile country, with a sparse population, where of course land is cheap and labor dear. Out of its 1,287,000 acres,9 only some 30,000 are cultivated. Its whole population is but about 80,000, of whom the colored number near 50,000. Emancipation would work upon such a country somewhat as it might on Texas, for instance. There were 11,000 field-hands on the estates when slavery was abolished. The planters undertook to maintain or introduce the tenancy-at-will system, and to reduce the wages below the market-rate. Whenever the negroes retired from the estate-work, they were summarily ejected from their houses and lands, and their little gardens were destroyed. The natural effect of such an injudicious policy was, that the negro preferred squatting on the government lands about him, or buying a small, cheap plot, or hiring a farm, to remaining under the planters, and soon some 7,000 laborers had left the estates.
Many associated the idea of servitude with labor in the fields, and, abandoning agriculture, took to trade in the towns and villages, which they still pursue. Some 4,000 remained on the estates, and have never progressed, like their more independent brethren. The criminal records show a greater proportion of crime among them than among any other class. Of the others, five-sixths became proprietors of farms from one to five acres each, and 4,500 hire themselves occasionally to the estates every year.
One effect of the unfortunate contentions between capital and labor in the island has been, that no general system of public instruction was introduced till recently; education was entirely neglected: though now, under the new system, the people will receive much more general instruction, for which purpose $20,000 were appropriated in 1859.
The public morality under such circumstances is of course of a low order. Out of 136 children born in Port-of-Spain, 100 were illegitimate. The convictions in the island for felony were 63; for misdemeanor, 865; for debt, 230.
The records of material progress show a much better result. The sugar cultivation in the last twenty years has nearly doubled, and the land in cane has risen from 15,000 to 29,000 acres. The production of cocoa has increased, though in a less proportion; while the production and consumption of home necessaries and luxuries have immensely advanced. Great practical improvements are being made everywhere, such as the substitution of steam-power for cattle and water-power. The export of sugar,10 especially since the introduction of Coolie labor, has advanced rapidly. Before emancipation the highest export was 30,000 hhds., equal to 24,000 hhds. at present weight. Late export,—
The molasses trade shows a similar increase. Cocoa, which is entirely a product of negro labor, has advanced from 3,200,000 lbs. before emancipation to 5,200,000 lbs. in 1859.
Leeward Islands. Antigua was almost the first of the British West Indies to emancipate her slaves, and this she had the wisdom to do summarily and at once, without probation or apprenticeship. The consequences have been most happy. She has escaped the vexations and heart-burnings of the other colonies, and has established a better relation between employers and employed. With a small area, a soil not very rich, and a climate not especially adapted to sugar-growing, she has notwithstanding taken a prominent position among the West India islands. The prosperity of the island under free labor has been most encouraging. Of the 70,000 acres, 38,000 are owned by large proprietors, whose estates average 320 acres each. Its only export, with the exception of a little arrow-root, is sugar; of this, the largest crop on record (20,000 hogsheads) has been obtained since the slaves were emancipated. Ten years before emancipation, the average annual export, as given by Sewell, was 12,500 hogsheads, obtained by a field-force of 18,320 hands, of whom one-third were non-effective. From 1840 to 1850, the average was 13,000; from 1850 to 1860, 13,500, of superior weight, with a field-force of 6,000.
The export of sugar, according to Cochin, has been as follows: 1831-34, 180,802 cwt.; 1835-38, 143,878 cwt.; 1839-45, 189,406 cwt.; 1846, 102,644 cwt.; 1847, 200,201 cwt.
Besides this crop, the small proprietors raise arrow-root and provisions.
The imports show the advancing prosperity of the island. From 1822 to 1832, they amounted to £130,000, of which £40,000 were from the United States; in 1856, under free labor, they reached £266,369, of which £106,586 were from the United States,—the American imports being mostly