One day, when we had a smooth sea, and moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen, who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings, and jumped into the sea: immediately another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe many more would very soon have done the same, if they had not been prevented by the ship’s crew, who were instantly alarmed. Those of us that were the most active were, in a moment, put down under the deck; and there was such a noise and confusion amongst the people of the ship as I never heard before, to stop her, and get the boat out to go after the slaves. However, two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully, for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate; hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade. – Many a time we were near suffocation, from the want of fresh air, which we were often without for whole days together. This, and the stench of the necessary tubs, carried off many. […] At last we came in sight of the island of Barbadoes, at which the whites on board gave a great shout, and made many signs of joy to us. We did not know what to think of this; but as the vessel drew nearer we plainly saw the harbour, and other ships of different kinds and sizes: and we soon anchored amongst them off Bridge Town. Many merchants and planters now came on board, though it was in the evening. They put us in separate parcels, and examined us attentively. They also made us jump, and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there. We thought by this we should be eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us; and, when soon after we were all put down under the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us, and nothing but bitter cries to be heard all the night from these apprehensions, insomuch that at last the white people got some old slaves from the land to pacify us. They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work, and were soon to go on land, where we should see many of our country people. This report eased us much; and sure enough, soon after we were landed, there came to us Africans of all languages. We were conducted immediately to the merchant’s yard, where we were all pent up together like so many sheep in a fold, without regard to sex or age. […] We were not many days in the merchant’s custody before we were sold after their usual manner, which is this:– On a signal given, (as the beat of a drum), the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little to increase the apprehensions of the terrified Africans, who may well be supposed to consider them as the ministers of that destruction to which they think themselves devoted. In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again … O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God? who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not enough that we are torn from our country and friends to toil for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? … Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or husbands their wives? Surely this is a new refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no advantage to atone for it, thus aggravates distress, and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.
IIB11 William Beckford of Somerley (1744–99) from A Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica
In the context of contemporary globalization, art historians have introduced the concept of the ‘colonial picturesque’ to describe one of the ways in which art was made to serve the cause of empire. Landscape painting, it is argued, sought in effect to domesticate, or at least to render into familiar terms, what were actually often radically unknown or hostile environments, thereby helping to ideologically legitimize the presence of Europeans in them. William Beckford (often known as Beckford of Somerley to differentiate him from his cousin, the writer William Beckford of Fonthill cf. IIA10) was a wealthy plantation owner in Jamaica. In the mid‐1770s he engaged the artist George Robertson to paint pictures of his Jamaican estates, representing them as pastoral, even Arcadian scenes of plenty. Subsequently, however, Beckford incurred debts and had to forfeit his estates and leave the island. It was during this time that he wrote his description of Jamaica and its sugar plantations, in an attempt to recover his fortunes. What is noticeable about his account – in addition, that is, to his relatively untroubled acceptance of slavery – is the way Beckford continually treats the natural environment of Jamaica as a subject for artistic representation, invoking the picturesque nature of the landscape, and frequently making cross‐references to ostensibly similar sites in Britain or Europe, and to paintings by European artists. The present extracts are taken from A Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica, vol. 1, London, 1790, pp. 7–13, 181–2 and 214.
The first appearance of Jamaica presents one of the most grand and lively scenes that the creating hand of Nature can possibly exhibit: mountains of an immense height seem to crush those that are below them; and these are adorned with a foliage as thick as vivid, and no less vivid than continual. The hills, from their summits to the very borders of the sea, are fringed with trees and shrubs of a beautiful shape, and undecaying verdure; you perceive mills, works, and houses, peeping among their branches, or buried amidst their shades.
The sea is, in general, extremely smooth and brilliant; and, before the breeze begins to ripple its glassy surface, is so remarkably transparent, that you can perceive (as if there were no intervening medium) the rocks and sands at a considerable depth; the weeds and coral that adorn the first, and the stars and other testaceous fishes that repose upon the last.
Every passing cloud affords some pleasing variation; and the glowing vapours of the atmosphere, when the sun arises or declines, and when the picturesque and fantastic clouds are reflected in its polished bosom, give an enchanting hue, and such as is only particular to the warmer climates, and which much resemble those saffron skies which so strongly mark the Campania of Rome, and the environs of Naples.
There are many parts of the country that are not much unlike to, nor less romantic than, the most wild and beautiful situations of Frescati, Tivoli, and Albano; and the want of those picturesque and elegant ruins which so much ennoble the landscapes of Italy are made some amends for, in the painter’s eye, by the appearance, the variety, and the number of the buildings. […]
From many situations you have views so much diversified, that, wherever you turn, a new prospect delights the eye, and occasions surprise by the magnificence of the objects, by the depths of shadow or bursts of light, by the observation of gloomy dells or woody plains, of mountain‐torrents, of winding‐streams; of groups of negroes, herds of cattle, passing wains; and by the recurrence of every rural object that imagination can form, or attention discriminate.
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