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Jamaica’s Jubilee 
 
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 WHAT WE ARE 
 
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 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 i. Introductory —Glance at the Past, the Present, and 
 
 the Road for the Future. By Rev. R. Gordon ii 
 
 ii. Jamaica of To-day contrasted with Jamaica as 
 
 F reedom found it : Religious, Moral, Educa¬ 
 tional, Social. By Mr. W. F. Bailey .. 51 
 
 in. Some Hindrances to the Greater Prosperity 
 of Jamaica during the last Fifty Years. 
 
 By Rev. S. J. Washington ... ... 75 
 
 iv. The People of Jamaica described. By Mr. J. 
 
 H. Reid ... ... ... ... ... , 85 
 
 v. Outlook for Jamaica and her People. By Mr. 
 
 R. Dingwall ... ... ... ... 103 
 
 4iil 
 
 
 J 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I n thrusting this little volume upon the attention of the 
 public, we do not think any apology is needed. The 
 occasion demands it. For fifty years have we enjoyed the 
 privileges and advantages of Freedom; and it is but 
 reasonable that we should by some effort of this kind 
 endeavour to examine ourselves as to how we have profited 
 by them, as well as give the world an opportunity of 
 forming a correct opinion of us, the emancipated people of 
 Jamaica and these British West Indies in general. Once 
 and again have others had their say about us; surely the 
 world will not count us presumptuous, if, for once—on an 
 occasion so highly momentous, so deeply interesting—we 
 venture to ask permission to speak for ourselves! 
 
 One of our main objects is to show— directly , by the well- 
 weighed statements herein made, and the facts herein 
 recorded; and indirectly , by the fact of our being now able 
 to supersede the necessity of having any longer another 
 advocate to plead our cause before the world, or another 
 hand to portray us on the canvas—that fifty years of 
 freedom and missionary effort have done something for 
 Jamaica. This too is the reason why, in the compilation 
 of so small a book, we have chosen to distribute the task 
 among five, instead of delegating it into the hands of one. 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 A reviewer of a volume of poems by a black Jamaican 
 author some years ago, said of him, “ He is far beyond the 
 average of his race.” That may have been true of him as 
 a poet; but, understood in any other sense, it would leave 
 on the mind an impression not altogether correct. We 
 wished to avoid that mistake being made with regard to 
 us; so we choseV* for the task; but, unfortunately, one 
 became too ill to perform his part, and the time being too 
 short to assign it to another, who would not have had the 
 subject sufficiently before his mind, that chapter on the 
 “ Road to Further Prosperity and Advancement,” had to be 
 incorporated with the Introduction. We claim, we desire, 
 no such honourable distinction as to be thought exceptions 
 —comets, so to speak—in the negro firmament of the West: 
 no, we rejoice to be able to affirm that there are, in Jamaica 
 and other British West India Islands to-day, scores of men of 
 our race, who might have performed this task fully as well— 
 perhaps better than ourselves. And we rejoice, too, to see 
 in hundreds of the younger generation promising omens of 
 still greater things ! 
 
 It is with the same view also of showing what Freedom 
 and Missions, and latterly our Island Government, have 
 done for the blacks, that we have not included in the 
 number of the writers whose aid we solicited, any of the 
 able coloured gentlemen in the Island, who, we are sure, 
 would gladly have lent a hand. Many would be sure to 
 attribute any excellence in their productions wholly to the 
 admixture, great or small, of European blood in their veins, 
 and utterly ignore the Afric portion ; but our object being 
 to show what cultivation may do for the African race, and 
 so to enlist the sympathies of the world all the more on 
 their behalf, we sincerely hope that all our friends, white 
 and coloured, will be generous enough to grant a full, free, 
 
PREFACE. 9 
 
 and magnanimous pardon to our apparent exclusiveness at 
 this crisis. 
 
 It will be noticed that a good deal of what is said by the 
 writers is more apologetic than exultant in tone. On this 
 we have to say, “ Suffer it to be so now.” We hope, 
 however, that the next Jubilee of Emancipation shall 
 chronicle an improvement so marked, that we shall be 
 able as a people to reject “Apologetics” as an officious 
 and insulting superfluity—we shall need no “Nigrorum 
 Defensor.” 
 
 It will be noticed, too, that here and there, there is a 
 slight over-lapping of thought among the several writers— 
 an occasional reference to the same facts, or expression of 
 the same sentiments, by two or three of them. This was 
 unavoidable, as, except in two cases, the papers were written 
 miles apart, each gentleman completing the part assigned 
 him without knowing or caring to know what his colleague 
 intended to say. And we do not think it undesirable, 
 either; for it only shows how very important such subjects 
 are, how correct are the statements of each, and how much 
 we feel the same on important matters. Now and then the 
 reader will come across a slight sword-play between two of 
 the gentlemen—one making a statement that apparently 
 conflicts with that of another; but in the end they will both 
 be found setting forth different phases of the same truth— 
 no harm whatever in it. 
 
 Finally, we feel assured that the variety of style among the 
 different writers—the rushing, gushing, eloquent torrent of 
 Mr. Gordon; the flowery picturesqueness of Mr. Bailey; the 
 sober, stately, business-like tread of Mr. Washington; the 
 playful yet poignant, felicitous yet striking, touches of Mr. 
 Reid; and—well, it is not easy to be judge and culprit 
 both in one!—whatever judgment Charity may see fit 
 
r -- 
 
 - w. 
 
 
 10 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 to pronounce on her humble servant—this variety, we 
 feel assured, will give an additional relish to the book. 
 
 We make bold to say that it is a book every one should 
 read, and no Jamaican leave unopened; so we launch it 
 forth upon a considerate public, in the earnest hope that it 
 will, in this the Jubilee year of our country’s Emancipation, 
 awaken in the bosoms of our friends in Britain and Jamaica 
 a still livelier interest in us, and evoke still more persistent 
 and hopeful efforts on our behalf; while we trust that the 
 wholesome advice, the faithful admonitions, and the 
 encouraging facts contained in it, will produce their 
 legitimate effect on ourselves, the struggling children of 
 Afric in the West. 
 
 R. DINGWALL. 
 
 
 
JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. — Glance at THE Past, the 
 Present, and the Road for the Future. 
 
 By Rev. R. GORDON. 
 
 I t has repeatedly been asserted that the black 
 population of Jamaica have had no history; and 
 to prove this, arguments like the following have been 
 urged. They have been taunted with the statement 
 that Jamaica is not their country, inasmuch as they 
 are not descendants of the Aborigines ; nor have they 
 any relationship to Great Britain beyond that of 
 British subjects. In turning to Africa and claiming 
 it as their home, they have been asked, how is it 
 they do not speak the language and abide by the 
 customs peculiar to that country ? The Englishman, 
 the German, the Frenchman, the Hindoo, the China¬ 
 man, speaks each the language of his country, and 
 carries with him wherever he goes certain badges 
 distinctive of his nationality. But the black man of 
 Jamaica has no such marks of distinction. Not an 
 Englishman, he speaks, notwithstanding, the English 
 tongue, and moves in society according to the laws 
 
 u^om es*@i«MMsiT imzmr, w&w york 
 
12 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 and requirements of English etiquette. And thus, in 
 view of the colour of his skin, he is not an English¬ 
 man ; with regard to his speech and manners, he is 
 not an African; and since he is not descended from 
 the Aboriginal Indians, he is not a Jamaican. Hence 
 the taunt, “He has no history!” 
 
 It is not our purpose to attempt a refutation of 
 the censorious assertion ; not from the difficulty, but 
 from the non-necessity, of so doing. It is sufficient 
 that he, as the lineal descendant of those who were 
 kidnapped in, and stolen from, their African homes, 
 and, to satisfy the rapacity of a dominant race, 
 brought to this country and here kept for generations 
 in iron bondage,—it is sufficient, we say, that he, as 
 their offspring, stands to-day in the position of a 
 British subject, thereby claiming, and that justly, 
 the interest, sympathy, and protection of those who 
 were instrumental in effecting the expatriation of his 
 ancestors. As a British subject in a British colony, 
 the black man of Jamaica has a history. His ex¬ 
 istence in the island for over two centuries cannot be 
 altogether uneventful. And whether 'tie facts and 
 events recorded are such as to reflect on him 
 creditably or otherwise, depends, in a great measure, 
 on the circumstances into which he has been thrown. 
 
 Characters, we hold, cannot rightly be judged apart 
 from their environments; and to conclude, as some 
 have done—in (what they choose to call) the absence 
 of that social, moral, and intellectual progress, that 
 invariably indicates the existence of national life and 
 activity, and which gives promise of future greatness, 
 —that the Jamaica negro is wholly devoid of those 
 mental and moral qualities so indispensably necessary 
 
GLANCE AT THE PAST. 
 
 13 
 
 to his rise in the scale of true civilisation, is as un¬ 
 reasonable as it is untrue. The questions to be 
 settled are these: Has he been happily positioned 
 since his introduction into this island ? Have his 
 advantages been of the best and most favourable 
 kind ? Has sufficient encouragement been held out 
 to him ? The only answer to these questions that 
 can have any show of fairness and justice, must be 
 in the negative. 
 
 For two hundred years under the galling yoke of 
 slavery, what could be expected but a cru shing out of 
 his manhood—a gradual but certain destruction of 
 every vestige of the principles and lingering virtues 
 that distinguish him even as uncivilized man ? 
 Slavery exerts an admittedly demoralizing influence. 
 Its tendency is to degrade, and not to elevate; to 
 pollute, and not to purify; to imbrute, and not to 
 humanize; to destroy, and not to save. And, 
 writhing under its grinding tortures, unpitied and 
 helpless, it is not to be wondered at that the enslaved 
 and, in consequence, demoralized and dehumanized 
 negro almost ceased to be a man ! Indeed, so far 
 down in the scale of humanity had he been sunk, 
 that his master no longer regarded him as equal, 
 much more superior, to his horse. With nothing in 
 his position to comfort and cheer; with nothing in 
 the near or distant future to inspire or animate; 
 with the very lifeblood of his manhood completely 
 crushed out; it is certainly not surprising to find him 
 where he was when, fifty years ago, emancipation 
 dawned upon him. 
 
 The student of ethnological history does not require 
 to be told that, for centuries together, as if by 
 
14 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 common consent among the other nations of men, 
 
 I the children of Ham were left to their own fate— 
 almost forgotten in the common charity of civilized 
 life. They were universally regarded as a ccurse d by 
 God, and therefore undeserving of human sympathy 
 and effort for the amelioration of their condition. 
 For ages the unhappy Africans were passed over as 
 absolutely unfit for anything but the duties of serfs 
 and vassals. Even the sympathies of Christianity 
 seemed here to be dried up or restrained. It is only 
 
 1 fifty years since the most enlightened Christian 
 nation on the face of the earth ceased altogether her 
 official employment in making merchandise of these 
 “ servants of servants.” For centuries the track of 
 • the slave-ship across the Atlantic was unquestionably 
 marked by blood, by a species of suffering then first 
 developed, by the shark in his scent for human flesh, 
 by degradation and death, by blasphemy braving the 
 / heavens, by a consummation of misery never told, 
 and never to be revealed till the depths of the ocean 
 shall speak, and the records of God in the miseries of 
 the damned shall be read in that great day, when 
 those who were actors in the tragedies of the slave- 
 trade, and perpetrated the horrors, and miseries, and 
 woes of the notorious “ middle-passage,” shall cry 
 out in their eternal agonies. 
 
 Mercy in the human heart, shadowing forth dimly 
 there the impress of Jehovah, seemed, as if by the 
 decree of God, to be for ever turned away from 
 Africa’s poor, unhappy children. “ If God be against 
 them, who can be for them ?” was the principle that 
 appeared to guide the policy of the times : hence, for 
 generations none pleaded for them, none felt for 
 
GLANCE AT THE PAST. 
 
 15 
 
 them. They might, with justice, have appropriated 
 the language of Israel’s sweet bard in his hour of 
 trouble and dejection : “ No man cared for my soul,” 
 no man cared for their lives, no man cared for their 
 spirits, no man cared for their bodies—their spiritual 
 weal, their temporal comfort and prosperity, their 
 social happiness, their national elevation stood far 
 from the thought of any. And as century after 
 century rolled away in the cycles of time, bringing to 
 other nations the amelioration of their condition, in 
 the removal of wrongs, the expulsion of ignorance, 
 the eradication of evil, and thus their intellectual, 
 moral, and social improvement, the darkness appeared 
 to increase in density over the forlorn and forgotten 
 race. Men from civilized countries had made their 
 discovery of the “Dark Continent;” but, instead of 
 bringing a blessing, they went away, and soon returned 
 with manacles, and chains, and prison ships, and 
 greed that succeeded in freezing up at once every 
 genial current of the soul, and developed a cruelty 
 known only in the history of the traffic in human 
 flesh. Yes, Africa and her children seemed to be 
 under sentence of exclusion from mercy, sympathy, 
 and love. Pound in any part of the world, the ban 
 of degradation and scorn was thrown over them. 
 We challenge the mention of another race that has 
 suffered in the same manner and to the same extent 
 as these descendants of Ham; and hence we contend 
 that they more deserve the sympathy and loving 
 help of men of other nationalities, than their cruel 
 censures and heartless criminations. 
 
 And now it might well be asked, Can a people so 
 disadvantageously positioned, so despised, so ridiculed, 
 
16 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 so crushed, be reasonably expected to take any 
 prominent place amongst the nations of the world, 
 or accomplish much, if anything, by way of dis¬ 
 tinguishing themselves? The past of their history 
 presents a dark page, it must be admitted; but is 
 the record always to be written in blood and tears, 
 revealing nothing but wretchedness and woe? We 
 think not. There are not only probabilities , but 
 possibilities , in the negro character, which, we trust, 
 time and favourable circumstances will develop and 
 place beyond the region of uncertainty or doubt. 
 
 But it may be censoriously asked, Is half a 
 century of the enjoyment of freedom and its con¬ 
 comitant privileges not time sufficient to indicate the 
 existence of these possibilities ? The question can be 
 put only by those who view the black man with the 
 jaundiced eye of a partial judgment. It cannot be 
 denied that evil as well as good leaves its consequences 
 behind; and that these are not unfrequently far- 
 reaching in their influence. If it be allowed that 
 slavery is an evil of no ordinary kind—an evil that 
 has the demoralizing and emasculating influence in 
 its very composition—then it must equally be granted 
 that it requires years of careful, patient, and per¬ 
 severing toil, to eradicate the bad propensities, and 
 cure the evil habits, engendered and nourished under 
 its fostering wings. That a nation is not born in a 
 day, is a truth that holds good here. Those who are 
 expecting to find our people higher up the moral, 
 social, and intellectual ladder, have certainly for¬ 
 gotten how many centuries it took other nations and 
 peoples enjoying superior advantages to be what they 
 are to-day: notably, the British nation, now the 
 
GLANCE AT THE PAST. 
 
 17 
 
 foremost, on the whole, in science, art, commerce, 
 literature, and religion. The seeds of evil are not 
 extirpated in a day. Bad habits are not got rid of 
 by one bold and desperate stroke. Engrained as 
 they are in the constitution, they become a second 
 nature, and so require for their complete destruction 
 years and years of patient and persistent effort. And 
 it is only in the total absence of such effort on the 
 part of a people, viewed in connection with the 
 existence of the necessary sympathy, interest, effort, 
 and encouragement manifested by others on their 
 behalf, that censure can be inflicted with any show of 
 reason or justice. 
 
 In view, then, of the time it took, and the struggle . 
 it cost other nations to reach their present status, it 
 is unreasonable and bold not only to expect so much 
 from, but to censure the people of Jamaica for not 
 coming up to expectation. Without feeling satisfied 
 with their attainments, it is, at the same time, a 
 matter of congratulation that they are where they 
 are, especially when we look at their disadvantages 
 and discouragements. Fifty years have wrought 
 changes in them for the better, which may be re¬ 
 garded as earnests of a still brighter and more hopeful 
 future. 
 
 Though guilty of a trespass upon the province of 
 another, I cannot here resist the temptation to give 
 just a passing glance at a few of these changes for the 
 better in the condition of our people, that have been 
 wrought in the course of the last half-century; in 
 order to show that, despite the untutored and de¬ 
 graded condition in which Emancipation found them, 
 the many and serious evils entailed on them by 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 slavery, the incalculable disadvantages and untold 
 discouragements under which they have had to 
 labour as freemen, they have not been insensible to 
 the moral obligation laid upon them as men and as 
 citizens, to avail themselves of the opportunities, and 
 qualify themselves for discharging well the duties of 
 their position in life. They have not been forgetful 
 of the fact that, as free men, they are required to 
 stand side by side with their white neighbours in the 
 battle against wrong, in the maintenance of right, 
 and in the encouragement and promotion of those 
 virtues, qualities, and excellences that characterize a 
 free and civilized people. 
 
 I Intellectually there has been a change for the better. 
 From the various histories that have been written of 
 Jamaica, it may easily be gathered what was the 
 intellectual state of the people at emancipation. 
 With scarce any exception they were grossly ignorant; 
 they possessed, it is true, mental faculties ; but, like 
 the stone in the quarry, the material, though there, 
 lacking the picks and hammer and chisel of the 
 sculptor, remained a useless and ungainly object. It 
 was regarded as an evil and dangerous thing to let 
 any glimmer of light into the gloom of the black 
 man’s ignorance. Emerging from the accursed 
 system with dark minds and blunted faculties, the 
 vast majority were altogether incapable of a full 
 
 ( appreciation of the blessing of education for them¬ 
 selves and their offspring; therefore many of them 
 sank down into a state of listless indifference and de¬ 
 grading vice, and, of course, carried the children along 
 with them. Such was the state of things fifty years 
 
GLANCE AT THE PAST. 
 
 19 
 
 ago. And taking that as an index of what might be 
 expected in the hidden future, the eye of prejudice 
 could see nothing to excite hope and inspire assurance 
 of something better. Indeed, the opinion was un¬ 
 hesitatingly advanced, and that from several quarters, 
 that our people would for ever remain stupid, ignorant, 
 fit only to be “ hewers of wood and drawers of water.” 
 But have facts verified this prediction ? The reply is 
 an unqualified “No!” Whereas there were then 
 a lmos t no sc hools for the education of their children, 
 there are at present under Government inspection 
 723, with 61,571 names on books, and 34,825 in 
 average attendance, showing a percentage of 56.56 in 
 average attendance of the number on books. In 
 addition to these public schools there are a number 
 of others (elementary and high) that are private, 
 besides the Training Colleges—all which have as theirI 
 object the intellectual advancement of the people. 
 And what is yet better is the fact that they are to a 
 large extent made use of; and, as the result, our 
 people are far more intelligent to-day than they were 
 thirty years since. 
 
 Socially, too, there is a change for the better. We 
 would be untrue to our position and unkind to our 
 people, were we here to say anything that would 
 imply that they are already what we would desire them 
 to be in this respect. But we are not now looking at 
 perfection — for where is the nation or people among 
 whom we are to find it ?—we are looking at improve¬ 
 ment. And in spite of the social darkness that is yet 
 apparent, the most biassed observer must, for truth’s 
 sake, be constrained to admit that there are rays of 
 
20 
 
 JAMAICA'S JUBILEE. 
 
 light, which, while helping to reveal the gloom, at the 
 
 I same time serve to inspire and cheer. Concubinage, 
 at least in its unblushing form, is less rife than 
 formerly. Where it is seen, there is more or less of 
 the feeling of shame manifested, and not unfrequently 
 that of dissatisfaction with the condition. Marriage 
 
 ! is held sacred, and the marriage vow respected. The 
 relationships of husband and wife, parent and child, 
 brother and sister, are valued and regarded as tender 
 and helpful. And thus the term “home ” has come 
 to mean something even to the black man. 
 
 It is not, however, my purpose, as it is not my 
 province, to deal at any length with these changes for 
 the better, which belie the biassed predictions of our 
 traducers. In the succeeding papers it will, I doubt 
 not, be ably and clearly shown that things are not 
 just as they were at emancipation. As a people, we 
 
 ( have been more or less alive to the benefits conferred by, 
 and inseparably associated with freedom . We do not 
 make the assertion because insensible of the fact that 
 there is still a lack of many of the qualities and 
 properties of true greatness and genuine nobility. We 
 do not make it because we are ignorant of the exist¬ 
 ence at present among ourselves of certain elements 
 and features of character that unquestionably impede 
 progress under the most favourable circumstances. 
 We do not make it because we believe that we have 
 done all that we could do to improve our condition 
 and render more cheerful the prospect. We do not 
 make it because we wish to leave behind the im¬ 
 pression that there is no more battle to fight, no more 
 race to run, no more enemies to encounter, grapple 
 with, and vanquish. Nay, we are assured that the 
 
GLANCE AT THE PAST. 
 
 21 
 
 race is but begun; that the eyes of our people are but 
 beginning to perceive the privileges held out to, and 
 conferred upon them by emancipation; that there 
 must yet be many a sharp and fierce struggle with 
 conflicting influences for the assertion of our rights,— 
 many a wearying, but persistent and self-denying 
 effort, ere we reach that distinguished and valued 
 position of unquestionable usefulness and universal 
 respect, from which we may look backward with satis- 
 faction and pride, and forward with certainty and 
 assurance,—a position in which our defamers shall be 
 constrained to acknowledge us, as, with themselves, 
 the common denizens of a common world, the children 
 of a common Father, the subjects of a common King, 
 the servants of a common Master; possessing the 
 same rights, entitled to the same privileges, claiming 
 the same regard and affection, and having the same 
 destiny. Convinced of the lack of a great deal on our 
 part, we, at the same time, make the assertion with 
 the belief that it cannot be refuted in the face of the 
 abundant testimony borne to its accuracy by hard 
 facts: the habits and customs of our people are con¬ 
 siderably improved; socially, morally, and religiously, 
 there is a marked difference from what they were half 
 a century ago. 
 
 But it is in education , as we have already hinted, 
 that the change becomes still more conspicuous. 
 There is not only a marked, but a growing intelli¬ 
 gence as the result of the hundreds of "schools estab¬ 
 lished throughout the land, the light is permeating 
 the gloom, and ignorance is fast receding. At the 
 same rate, especially if aided by the impetus which a 
 compulsory education is calculated to give, we may 
 
22 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 justly hope that the time is not far distant, when the 
 incubus of ignorance shall be lifted from the minds 
 and intellects of our people, and be for ever banished 
 from our island home. Nothing, w T e are convinced, 
 will so successfully operate for our elevation as educa¬ 
 tion. This is not asserted under feelings of prejudice 
 to other means which are important and essential in 
 their collateral and co-operative character and in¬ 
 fluence ; such, for instance, as industry, uprightness, 
 thrift, and economy. Nor do we wish to be understood 
 as saying anything that implies an under-estimate 
 of the Christian religion as a powerful factor in the 
 elevation of a people. The place, power, and influence 
 of them all in helping on the accomplishment of the 
 end aimed at, are acknowledged. And yet we are free 
 to affirm that these are in a measure powerless, 
 independent of education —by which we mean that 
 drawing out, training, and disciplining of the mental 
 faculties and moral powers, without which the work will 
 be but partially done. The place that education oc¬ 
 cupies as a factor in the development of individuals and 
 nations, cannot possibly be filled by any other means 
 or instrument. Its duties cannot be done by proxy. 
 Considering then its importance and position as a 
 means for the promotion of human welfare, and the 
 effects it has already achieved in countries where it 
 has been fairly tried; and seeing the increasing re¬ 
 cognition of its power, and the intelligent appreciation 
 of its usefulness among our people, we are encouraged 
 to look hopefully into the future, and feel confident of 
 a brighter and better prospect than any through 
 which we may have passed. 
 
 There are many, we are aware, who would give the 
 
GLANCE AT THE PAST. 
 
 28 
 
 negative to these prophetic sentiments anent the future 
 of our people, reluctant as they always are to admit 
 that anything good can come out of the children of 
 Ham. They are ready to tell us that there is, on the 
 part of the African, a natural mental incapacity—a 
 lack of grip,—an innate inability to grapple with the 
 more difficult problems of science and art,—a natural 
 tendency to be mean and base and grovelling; and 
 hence, despite all the educational and religious in¬ 
 fluences that might be brought to bear upon them, it 
 will be morally impossible for them to rise much 
 higher in the intellectual, moral, and social scale than 
 they are at present. Where are their inventions and 
 discoveries ? Where are their commercial and mari¬ 
 time enterprises ? Where are their warlike exploits ? 
 Where are their monuments in the temple of Fame ? 
 Where are their colossal cities to tell of their me¬ 
 chanical ingenuity and architectural skill ? These are 
 questions of taunt and reproach that are repeatedly 
 put by the defamers of the African race, who wilfully 
 shut their eyes against the natural disadvantages 
 under which that race has laboured for centuries. 
 
 But is the finger of scorn to be perpetually pointing 
 at them ? Is it everlastingly decreed that they are to 
 be the taunt and by-word of other nationalities ? We 
 think not. There is a divine prediction with regard 
 to their destiny, of a pleasing, encouraging, and 
 stimulating character. They have the special promise 
 of Jehovah anent their coming in due time into the 
 common brotherhood of nations, claiming the same 
 privileges, and enjoying advantages similar to those 
 that have contributed to make these nations what 
 they are. “ Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands 
 
24 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 unto God .” “ Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the 
 
 heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts 
 of the earth for thy possession.” Surely they are 
 included in this prediction and promise ! And has 
 not the church begun earnestly to plead the promise 
 on behalf of the long-oppressed children of Africa? 
 Has she not brought her treasure to their service, 
 and poured out on their behalf her blood like water ? 
 Have not hundreds of her sons been partakers of the 
 sufferings of Christians in labours, sickness, and want, 
 on the shores of their fatherland ? And have not many 
 of them prematurely and painfully surrendered their 
 lives in this our beautiful island home for the spiri¬ 
 tual and eternal welfare of the sable sons and daughters 
 of Africa ? What are all these but indications of an 
 increased interest in their behalf, and presages of 
 their future elevation and prosperity. 
 
 Nor are there wanting tokens of hopeful vitality 
 and energy in themselves, which (excepting the Divine 
 promise) must, after all, be regarded as the most 
 substantial basis of any future operations for their 
 permanent good. There is doubtless a bright future 
 before them! The present generation of them are 
 being educated for a great and noble work. Their 
 fathers and forefathers were brought here as pagans 
 —degraded, enslaved, deprived of some of the vital 
 elements of true manhood. But, through the kind 
 interposition of a merciful God, they have been liber¬ 
 ated, enlightened, and Christianized; and, departing 
 this life, many of them have bequeathed to their 
 children the legacy of freedom, education, and religion, 
 with the earnest request to employ it faithfully and 
 well for the benefit of their children, and children’s 
 
GLANCE AT THE PAST. 
 
 25 
 
 children. Thus, those of them at present enjoying 
 the benefits and influences of civilization are under¬ 
 going education for a great and important work. 
 Receiving the advantages derivable from civilization, 
 they must bear in mind the implied obligation, not 
 only to hand over that civilization to their descendants, 
 but to see that it be settled on the firmest basis 
 possible, so that passing it on, they may do so with 
 the full assurance that, rightly used, it will effect the 
 purpose for which it was bequeathed. 
 
 The superiority on the whole of the present gener¬ 
 ation of our people in secular and religious know¬ 
 ledge, in industry, thrift, and enterprise, in moral 
 courage and perseverance, in unremitted efforts for 
 self-improvement, and in considerable liberality for 
 the benefit of others, is patent and unquestionable; 
 and such as not only to inspire respect and confidence, 
 but hope for their future development in the very 
 qualities so indispensably requisite to the people’s 
 prosperity and comfort. Here, again, we are not to 
 be understood as affirming that our people are all 
 giving absolute satisfaction in these respects. But, 
 looking from the point of comparison , we feel justified 
 in making the assertion. Expecting, as we do, the 
 fulfilment of a glorious prophecy made in favour of 
 the children of Ham—a fulfilment of which we are 
 surrounded by encouraging indications ; and striving, 
 as we are, under great difficulties and with numerous 
 failures, to see that prophecy fulfilled in ourselves; 
 w r e cannot but hail with pleasure and delight anything 
 that betokens an upward and onward movement, such 
 as is the case with the qualities just noted. Their 
 development is yet in the bud, we are aware; their 
 
26 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 practical force and influence are not yet properly 
 exercised and fully felt, we readily admit; but know¬ 
 ing as we do that they possess both singly and con¬ 
 jointly the little germs whence the sturdy tree and 
 attractive fruits must come, we behold with joy, and 
 even with enthusiasm, their very existence, if nothing 
 more. 
 
 To sum up all: Jamaica is at present a Christian 
 island, with missionary and other schools established, 
 if not by law, yet under the patronage of an en¬ 
 lightened Government, which is holding out induce¬ 
 ments of different kinds to our people for the education 
 of their children. Education, long kept out of the reach 
 of our aspiration, so that, like the inviting ham at the 
 point of the greased pole, dangling in all its innocent 
 attractiveness, and saying as it were to the baffled 
 climber, “ Touch me if you dare ! ” it was seen only to 
 be coveted, not enjoyed—education has been given; 
 many have received a fair share of it, and, in seeking 
 the establishment of higher schools, are providing for 
 a better educated race in the next generation. 
 
 With numerous churches and hundreds of preachers, 
 
 ( some of them well-educated and even learned and 
 eloquent; with numbers of students pursuing general 
 and theological studies; with a large proportion of 
 the black population members and adherents of the 
 various Christian churches; with a missionary in¬ 
 terest, if not enthusiasm, hardly surpassed in any 
 land (all things considered); with a love and capacity 
 for learning, which can no longer be doubted or 
 denied; what is there to hinder, let us ask, the future 
 prosperity of our people ? The problem which had 
 
THE PRESENT. 
 
 27 
 
 so long puzzled the brains of charitable and philan¬ 
 thropic men, with regard to the ways and means of 
 elevating the negro, has received solution, so far at 
 least as Jamaica and other British West India Islands 
 are concerned. And we say without hesitation, that 
 our people’s civilization, meaning by that term all 
 the elements of true advancement, must go on. There 
 is nothing from without to retard it, so far as the 
 horizon indicates. If it be hindered, it must be by 
 themselves. Sixty years ago our ancestors were im- 
 bruted and enslaved; and, without one glimmering 
 ray of light in the dark future to excite the faintest 
 spark of hope, they died in misery and despair. That 
 obstacle is now taken out of the way. The numerous 
 concomitants and sickening effects of that awful 
 system have died hard, but are now dead or dying. 
 For long they weighed like a millstone around our 
 necks; but, under the beneficial influences of Chris¬ 
 tianity, these too have been almost wholly removed. 
 
 There remains but one extraneous barrier—if barrier 
 we may regard it, seeing it is not very formidable—- 
 and that is race prejudice . But of this we need not 
 be afraid. The nearer we approach, the more con¬ 
 vinced shall we be that, like Christian’s lions in the 
 Pilgrim's Progress , it is a chained foe. The prospect 
 is fair, and the way is clear. Let us but be true to 
 ourselves, to our children, to our ancestors, who have 
 bequeathed to us a noble and precious legacy; true 
 to the part we are called upon by Providence to play 
 in the great drama of the world’s history; and we 
 may record as a certainty our future success, pros¬ 
 perity, and influence. 
 
 Now there are elements of this success that must 
 
28 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 not be overlooked, undervalued, or neglected. We 
 have been saying that the way to the goal is open, 
 and that if the point be not gained, the fault must lie 
 , with ourselves. What then are the things indis¬ 
 pensably NECESSARY TO OUR SUCCESS? 
 
 First of all, there must be Unity. As a people, 
 we must be united. Tliat unity is strength and 
 division weakness, is a truism which we readily ac¬ 
 knowledge, but are loth practically to endorse. And 
 yet nothing is more calculated to further and sustain 
 our individual and national interests. The want of 
 this important and absolutely essential element is 
 unquestionably one of the weak points in our armour. 
 And it is well for us to understand that so long as 
 this is wanting, so long shall we remain weak and 
 inactive as a people, whatever may be said of the 
 intellectual abilities, religious attainments, moral 
 qualities, or social excellences of individuals. The 
 human body is strong, only when all its members are 
 in health and vigour, and conjointly discharging their 
 functions. The deformed or impaired condition of 
 one (and its consequent inability to fill satisfactorily 
 the place naturally assigned it) tells materially upon 
 the others, however vigorous they may be in them¬ 
 selves. The arms may be ever so muscular and 
 strong, able to bear almost any strain; but if the legs 
 be deformed and weak, they detract unquestionably 
 from the usefulness and efficiency of the arms; and 
 vice versa. So also with peoples and nations. What¬ 
 ever may be the excellences of individuals in the 
 
 ( family, community, or, nation, if they are to rise and 
 come to the front as a body, they must work together. 
 
 It will be observed that we are not here saying 
 
THE PRESENT. 
 
 29 
 
 anything against the possibility of an individual rising , 
 to a position of distinction, influence, and honour, j 
 This is not only a possibility, but an accomplished 
 fact, of which there are numerous confirmatory in¬ 
 stances in almost all nationalities. By dint of energy 
 and perseverance, in addition to acuteness and 
 massiveness of intellect, vigour of mind, and a well- 
 regulated ambition, many a man has raised himself 
 out of the general mass to fill a place of distinct 
 personality. This is witnessed not only among the 
 Anglo-Saxons, but also among the Africans. Here - 
 and there the finger of the biographer, if not the 
 historian, points to a distinguished son of Africa, 
 standing out prominently among the people of his 
 race, as an oasis in a dreary and barren waste. 
 Notably, there is Touissant, the renowned Haytian 1 
 liberator, by whose patriotism, intelligence, skill, and \ 
 military genius, the yoke of French oppression and 
 tyranny was broken, and independence secured to the j 
 people of that sister isle. There is Dr. Sem inqton of 
 America, of extensive erudition and theological lore. * 
 There is Tiyo Soga , the first ordained preacher of the 
 Kaffir race, described as “ A friend of God ; A lover 
 of His Son, inspired by His Spirit; a disciple of His 
 Holy Word; an ardent patriot, a large-hearted philan¬ 
 thropist ; a dutiful son, an affectionate brother, a 
 tender husband, a loving father ; a faithful friend; a 
 learned scholar; an eloquent orator; in manners, a 
 gentleman; a devoted missionary, who spent himself 
 in his Master’s service.” Need we mention the names 
 of Crowther, elder and younger, of West African re¬ 
 putation in connection with the spread of Christianity 
 in the region of the Niger ? Need we go to Liberia or 
 
30 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 . Sierra Leone, and point out eminent politicians, 
 skilful as well as learned doctors, clever lawyers, 
 eloquent and successful preachers ? Were it not invi¬ 
 dious we could name individuals in Jamaica too, of 
 our own “kith and kin,” who stand out conspicuously 
 for learning, devotion to duty, and usefulness, as 
 samples of the capabilities of our race. 
 
 But while these are facts, and we are pleased to 
 note them, it is also no less a fact that they stand 
 alone. These individuals, be it observed, do not 
 carry the race along with them; nay more, it is also 
 a fact—though a lamentable one, which we trust is 
 confined to Jamaica alone—that so far as the good 
 wishes of the bulk of their brethren, and a desire for 
 their upward progress and general welfare, were 
 concerned, they would never have emerged out of the 
 common mass. There is an internal jealousy and 
 clandestine ill-will among many of our people against 
 the men of their own race, that has operated hitherto 
 to the injury of all, in the way of preventing their 
 steady advancement as a civilized people. While the 
 black man has in his upward growth and onward 
 progress to contend against class distinction and race 
 prejudice on the one hand, in Jamaica he has also 
 on the other hand to calculate on the cold indifference, 
 bitter jealousy, and, in many cases, the unrelenting 
 opposition of those of his own skin and race. 
 
 Under such circumstances he deserves special, at 
 any rate more than ordinary, commendation, when, 
 by dint of energy and persevering industry, he reaches 
 a point of acknowledged distinction. And it is to be 
 noticed that his traducers, aware of the opposition he 
 encounters from his own class, do not scruple secretly 
 
THE PRESENT. 
 
 31 
 
 to take advantage of the circumstance to retard his 
 progress. While, then, it is a matter of praise and 
 congratulation to see one here, and another there, of 
 the sons of Africa breaking through the barriers of 
 jealousy and prejudice, and rising to fill positions of 
 responsibility, usefulness, and honour, it must at the 
 same time be regretted that the mass of their country¬ 
 men are still behind, and, in the majority of cases, 
 far down at the bottom of the ladder ; partly because 
 of this jealousy and disunion, and partly because of 
 the cunning efforts of opponents to encourage and 
 foster that jealousy and disunion. 
 
 Let our fellow-countrymen, with eyes open to that 
 jealousy, and with a lively and devoted interest in 
 their own welfare, seek a closer union with one 
 another; let them determine to stand more closely 
 together, and, shoulder to shoulder, continue the 
 battle of life, fighting as one man, in a common cause, 
 for a common interest. This is what other nations 
 have done and are doing: hence their strength, in¬ 
 fluence, and success. The British nation could not 
 be the power it is to-day, but for this union in aim 
 and effort, in instrument and interest. Whatever 
 may be the individual feeling, opinion, or motive of its 
 people, that is not allowed to militate against any¬ 
 thing that concerns the national honour or dishonour, 
 benefit or injury, exaltation or humiliation. What is 
 it but a “ United Ireland” that has kept up for so 
 many years the feverish excitement and anxiety in the 
 mind of Great Britain with regard to the attitude and 
 action of the unmanageable people of the Emerald 
 Isle ? What was it but the spirit of union that 
 carried through a long and weary struggle, but finally 
 
32 
 
 Jamaica's jubilee. 
 
 to a successful issue, the battle for American Inde¬ 
 pendence ? We have but to read the story of the 
 Indian Mutiny, and, despite the sad record it contains 
 of bloody wars and inhuman massacres, we cannot 
 fail to discover the noble elements of national union 
 and genuine patriotism. 
 
 Turning to America again, and viewing the present 
 position and future prospects of the black and coloured 
 race there, since they helped to fight for and gain 
 their freedom, we find that union is one of the main 
 levers by which they are raising themselves gradually 
 but surely into prominence—the basis upon which 
 they expect to build an edifice of national strength 
 and beauty, of power and influence. Certain of de¬ 
 termined opposition on the part of their former slave- 
 masters and their descendants, they have had enough 
 common sense to aim at united effort; and so, have 
 banded themselves together in establishing schools 
 and colleges for their children’s education, and resisted 
 every influence detrimental to their exclusive interest; 
 thereby helping each other to climb the ladder to 
 success. This feeling of unity—this esprit de corps — 
 is the great desideratum with us in Jamaica; and 
 until it is cultivated and brought into active and 
 effective operation, our future must be as comparatively 
 barren of general national results as our past has 
 been; we must, despite all the advantages of education 
 and religion and intercourse with individuals of other 
 nationalities, remain a perfect cipher, a lamentable 
 blank in society. 
 
 Again, if as a people we are to succeed and come to 
 the front, we must be industr ious. It needs no argument 
 to prove that industry, is an element indispensably 
 
— 
 
 THE PEESENT. 33 
 
 necessary to individual, and consequently to national 
 prosperity. We are careful to place individual Gist 
 for, as the general includes the particular, we hold 
 that to look for an industrious people, when families, 
 households, and individuals are given to indolence, is 
 ridiculous. Industry—which consists in the direction 
 of the mind in a straight and steady course toward 
 some good end, without roving or flinching, and 
 drawing after it the active powers in the execution of 
 that aim—is unquestionably the foundation of true and 
 abiding success and prosperity, and is expected of every 
 individual who desires that prosperity. It is not only 
 the instrument of improvement, but the source of 
 pleasure, for nothing is so opposed to the true enjoy¬ 
 ment of life as the relaxed and feeble state of an 
 indolent mind and body. “ He who is a stranger to 
 industry,” says Dr. Blair, “ may possess, but he cannot 
 enjoy. It is labour only that gives a relish to pleasure. 
 It is the indispensable condition of our possessing a 
 sound mind in a sound body. Idleness is so inconsist¬ 
 ent with both, that it is hard to determine whether it 
 is a greater foe to virtue, or to health and happiness. 
 Inactive as it is in itself, its effects are fatally powerful. 
 Though it appears a slowly flowing stream, yet it 
 undermines all that is stable and flourishing. It is 
 like water, which putrefies by stagnation, and then 
 sends off noxious vapours, filling the atmosphere with 
 death.” Such a thing ought then to be despised, 
 hated, and shunned. 
 
 And yet, however much we may regret it, this is an 
 evil from which our people are not all free. There is 
 doubtless something to be said by way of palliation. 
 The fertility of the soil, the facility of supplying the 
 
JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 84 
 
 wants of nature, the absence of the requirements of 
 people in a higher scale of civilization, and the influ¬ 
 ence of climate, have all combined to produce a feeling 
 of lethargy and supineness, if not of entire self- 
 satisfaction and contentment. And thus they have 
 been reproached, vilified, and abused as utterly 
 incapable of anything good or great. “ The people of 
 Jamaica are a lazy set,” is a statement so frequently 
 heard or read as to be now almost proverbial; and 
 what is more annoying is that, with the palpable 
 proofs that may in many cases be adduced in support 
 of it, we cannot altogether gainsay it. We can only 
 rejoice that the sweeping condemnation overdoes 
 itself; as it can be truthfully affirmed of only a 
 portion, and that the smaller portion of the people. 
 Whatever amount of sympathy we may extend to 
 these laggards on account of climatic and other influ¬ 
 ences, must be very limited indeed. While we are 
 assured that any other people, living in the tropics, 
 will yield more or less to these climatic influences and 
 be considerably enervated; while we are certain of 
 finding lazy, indolent individuals among all kindreds 
 and nations on the face of the earth ; while disposed 
 to make all due allowances for their peculiar circum¬ 
 stances, we cannot blind our eyes to the fact that 
 indolence is one of the infirmities of too many of our 
 people. A good many of them are too much contented 
 to remain as they are—satisfied with their condition, 
 so long as its improvement is dependent in any way 
 on hard work and steady persevering industry. 
 
 This aversion to steady , continuous labour is shown 
 not only in connection with work on sugar-estates, 
 but also on grazing pens and small freeholds. Small 
 
THE PRESENT. 
 
 35 
 
 settlers of push and enterprise, who are under the 
 necessity of employing labourers, and willing as well 
 as able to pay for work satisfactorily performed, have 
 repeatedly to make the same complaint as the large 
 landed proprietor anent the inability to obtain con- 
 tinuous labour. Some, it is true, have their own 
 little freeholds and rented plots of ground, that 
 lequire their attention for at least a part of the year • 
 and due allowance must be made for them. But what 
 o the hundreds that have no such possessions? 
 1 hey are the persons against whom we are inveighing 
 as they are those who stand against our national 
 progress and prosperity, as well as subject the entire 
 race to the opprobrium and invectives of our white 
 neighbours. 
 
 And yet even here there are signs of improvement, 
 witnessed in the vastly increased and increasing 
 number of freeholds acquired by our people, in the 
 neat, and commodious cottages erected on them, in 
 the improved apparel of the peasantry, and in the 
 Exodus to Colon, Costa Rica, etc., where work is 
 hard, laborious, and continuous,—a fact known by 
 our people before they emigrate,—and where they 
 are prized as the best labourers. We hail with . 
 peculiar pleasure these signs, believing as we do that I 
 they are indications of a better future. ' 
 
 If we have in these pages spoken plainly and 
 sharply, it is because we desire to show things in 
 their real character, and to make our people see where 
 one of our dangers lies, if by so doing we may be 
 instrumental in arousing them aU to a sense of duty. 
 Let them all enter and persevere in. the same path 
 m which many have begun to walk, and, other things 
 
36 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 equal, we need not fear for the future. Let them 
 guard against sloth and idleness as enemies to 
 their material progress and real happiness. Let them 
 bear in mind that indolence ” is the mother of unquiet¬ 
 ness, disorder, and 'curiosity; sacrilegious in religion, 
 dangerous in science, damnable as to future things, 
 seditious in affairs of state, contrary to the quiet of 
 families, and shameful and infamous to those who 
 are possessed with it.” It is the evil genius that 
 withstands and resists everything ennobling and 
 elevating in the individual, the family, and the state. 
 It is the spirit that weighs down the powers of the 
 brain, however noble these may be in themselves; 
 that spreads the soft carpet and the gentle sward, 
 that invites to meandering streams, and all the tame 
 enjoyments of this life. It is the everlasting grumbler, 
 that never writes a book, that never sings a song, 
 that never perfects an attempt, that never enlarges 
 the boundaries of science, that never ascends a moun¬ 
 tain, that never performs a noble feat. It holds in 
 slavery the popular mind; is at once the master and 
 the sceptre of the tyrant, and the inertia of the human 
 soul. It declares to the listening votary that books, 
 and problems, and poems, and discussions, and the 
 improvement of circumstances, and the bettering of 
 positions, are all full of trouble and anxiety. It 
 persuades its friends to take things coolly, and never 
 to be in any hurry. It puts on a most pleasant and 
 amiable physiognomy, while it speaks of the pleasures 
 of the fireside and the enjoyments of home. It is 
 the siren that has bewitched thousands of individuals 
 in all parts of the world, and eventually led them 
 down to the fathomless abyss of shame, degradation, 
 
THE PRESENT. 
 
 87 
 
 misery, and woe. Would that all our people saw it in 
 all its deformity, ugliness, and ruinous tendency! 
 For then would they avoid it as they would deadly 
 poison. 
 
 We call upon all our fellow-countrymen, as parents 
 and guardians, as teachers and guides of youth, as 
 responsible citizens, to see to it, that our sons and 
 daughters are early trained to habits of industry, to 
 the value of time, and to the improvement of oppor¬ 
 tunities ; and so to scorn and hate that slothfulness 
 and inattention to one’s interest, that have been an 
 obstacle to our prosperity, a bane to our comfort and 
 happiness, and a curse to our land. Set before them 
 such examples of industry as those with which history 
 abounds,—as, for example, that of Bichard Ark - 
 wright, the petty barber, who rose to the dignity 
 of knighthood, and the accumulation of half a 
 million of money; of Benjamin Franklin , who 
 from an obscure position, by dint of the most remark¬ 
 able industry and perseverance, won for himself a 
 niche in the temple of Fame; of William Gifford , who, 
 from poverty and wretchedness, rose by his industry 
 to be one of the first scholars in Europe; of Stowe , 
 the famous historian ; James Ferguson, the eminent 
 practical philosopher and astronomer, born in a 
 humble station in a small village of Scotland, and 
 who learned to read by merely listening to the 
 instructions which his father communicated to an 
 elder brother. All the school learning he received 
 was confined to three months’ stay within the walls 
 of a grammar school at Keith. Yet by industry and 
 perseverance Ferguson ultimately raised himself to 
 eminence and fame. Let these and other examples 
 
88 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 of industry and diligence be set before our children 
 in proper time, and the results particularly pointed 
 out. Let them know that what persevering industry 
 has done for other individuals and nations, it can do 
 for them; and thus seek to instil and foster in them 
 those habits and principles that will inevitably lead 
 to their rise and prosperity. 
 
 But along with industry, there must be Tact ancl 
 Econom y . An industry that is headlong and unthink¬ 
 ing, precipitate and extravagant, is more detrimental 
 than beneficial. Strength and energy are thus 
 wasted, time thrown away, opportunities lost, and 
 means frittered. And there is such a thing as being 
 “ busy doing nothing,” in other words, laborious 
 idleness . To prevent this waste of time and labour, 
 there must be the nicety of perception as to what is 
 to be done, when to do it, how to do it, and how best 
 to be profited by the results. There is required, 
 therefore, not only the desire and love for the doing 
 of the thing, but a good deal of forethought, weighing 
 of circumstances, and calculation of results; if these 
 be wanting, the enterprise or undertaking may be 
 ever so good and commendable in itself, and pro¬ 
 secuted with ever so much energy, determination, 
 and enthusiasm, but it will fail of producing the 
 good aimed at—at ail events, in the measure con¬ 
 templated. 
 
 Here our people are sadly at fault. While there 
 are a great many who waste their time in idleness, 
 lounging about when they ought to be actively 
 engaged, there are others who are busy employing 
 every moment of their time in some work that ought 
 
THE PRESENT. 
 
 39 
 
 to be useful and profitable, and yet one hardly sees 
 the result on themselves or their children and depend¬ 
 ants. The simple reason of this lies in the absence 
 of that careful forethought and practical calculation 
 that ought invariably to be carried to the performance 
 of any undertaking, or the prosecution of any enter¬ 
 prise. Our people require to be told that random 
 labour is worse than useless, for it is disappointing; 
 and not only that, it exhausts the physical strength 
 and energy without giving any proportionate or 
 corresponding benefit. For want of this tact and 
 proper grasp of the situation, much valuable time is 
 wasted, and little progress made ; and this is notice¬ 
 able in almost every department of business or kind 
 of work in which our people are found engaged. 
 There is little or no thought, deliberation, reason, or 
 judgment brought to bear upon it. The economising 
 of time and energy is entirely foreign to their minds; 
 and thus they toil on vigorously and sometimes with 
 great zeal and enthusiasm, only to suffer sad dis¬ 
 appointment at the end. So, eventually, random 
 labour comes to be no labour at all. A thing not 
 done in the right way may justly be regarded as undone . 
 And this is unquestionably one cause of the constant 
 disagreeableness and interminable quarrels between 
 employers and employed in Jamaica,—a sore point 
 in the labour-question it is. 
 
 Skilled labour must be more valuable, as a matter 
 of course, than unskilled; and while the employed 
 looks at the time and trouble and inconvenience it 
 costs him to have the work accomplished, the 
 employer, who has to pay, looks, of course, at the 
 equivalent of his money, both as to quality and 
 
40 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 quantity, and pays accordingly; which is not unfre- 
 quently to the disappointment of the former, who 
 seldom or never looks at quality in connection with 
 quantity. Let our people learn to give thought, 
 reason, and judgment to their work generally, and 
 endeavour to perform it with skill and taste, looking 
 at their own dual benefit in character and money , as 
 well as the approval and satisfaction of their 
 employers, and we venture to predict that very few 
 of those quarrels and vituperations, that have hitherto 
 disgraced the relation of employer and employed, will 
 again occur : they will be better paid, and so better 
 pleased. 
 
 Then in the matter of Economy our people need 
 wholesome lessons, both in reference to time and 
 f money. With regard to the former, enough has been 
 said under the head of Industry to show how much 
 value should be set upon time. Far too much of 
 it is squandered in Jamaica. Among the sins of the 
 land, for which a great many of our people will be 
 judged, is the waste of time. Often are we pained in 
 seeing the crowds of men, women, and children, 
 hanging about the market-places, streets, and shops 
 —doing nothing! And the pain increases when we 
 find among these loungers and loafers some whose 
 relations are at home diseased and suffering and 
 want-stricken. The redemption of time is a sad 
 lack here; and viewing the matter narrowly, we 
 cannot be surprised, if, as a people, we are still low 
 in the scale of civilization. Time, no less than labour, 
 is money; and if it is wasted in indolence, and 
 probably in mischief, what can be expected but 
 
THE PRESENT. 
 
 41 
 
 degradation, misery, and ruin ? Time is one of the 
 talents given ns to trade with; but, alas! too many 
 forget this, and so are exposing themselves to the 
 fearful sentence—“ Thou wicked and slothful servant.” 
 Eemember, we are responsible to God for every 
 moment of time He has given us. 
 
 With regard to economy in money , there is an 
 obliviousness to responsibility that is as surprising as 
 it is baneful. There is a wanton wastefulness and 
 extravagance in which our people seem to pride 
 themselves. To spend money on trifles and pleasures 
 seems to be the ambition of a great many; and hence 
 they labour, but the fruit of that labour cannot be 
 seen. They obviously forget that “ economy is a 
 sound understanding brought into action; calculation 
 realized ; that it is the doctrine of proportion reduced 
 to practice ; the foreseeing of contingencies, and pro¬ 
 viding against them; the expecting of emergencies, 
 and being prepared to meet them.” The Scotch 
 proverb, “Many a little makes a mickle,” is a good 
 one, and ought to be drilled into our people. Many 
 a penny, aye, half-penny, and farthing too, that is 
 thrown away carelessly because of its smallness and 
 comparative insignificance, would doubtless have 
 helped to procure many a useful article of domestic 
 comfort. There is among us too much extravagance 
 in food, in dress, and in pleasure; and so precious 
 money gained by hard toil is thrown away to the 
 winds. There is no remembrance of a “rainy day” 
 —of sickness, hard-times, and death; so when such 
 emergencies arrive, there is a complete pecuniary 
 helplessness; destitution, and pauperism set in. Our 
 Saviour, be it remembered, taught this same lesson 
 
42 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 of frugality, when after feeding thousands by a 
 miracle, and while possessing the power of feeding 
 the world by a word, He nevertheless commanded 
 His disciples: “ Gather up the fragments, that nothing 
 he lost.” 
 
 Some years ago, it is said, the dust and shavings 
 from a book-bindery where gold leaf was used for the 
 titles on the backs of books, were sent to the gold¬ 
 beaters to be burnt out; and from the little particles 
 that had fallen on the floor, there was got a lump of 
 gold that was valued at twenty pounds ! If our men 
 and women, boys and girls, would save the fragments 
 of their time, they would become learned and wise; 
 if they would but save the fragments of then* money, 
 they might become wealthy and useful; and if they 
 would but save the fragments of their opportunities, 
 they would doubtless accomplish much in the world. 
 It is as right to he economical and saving, as it is wrong 
 to he miserly and mean. It is a duty to save, that we 
 may have to give to those dependent upon us, to the 
 poor and destitute, and back to the God who “daily 
 loadeth us with benefits,’’ for the right performance 
 of which He holds us responsible. 
 
 And yet again, if as a people we are to succeed and 
 come to the front, there must be Godliness. In the 
 strict sense of the term, godliness is that outward 
 deportment which characterizes a heavenly temper : 
 prayer, reading of the Scriptures, public worship, 
 and every religious act, enter into the significance of 
 the term; which, as we have said, supposes a temper 
 of mind not only to delight in, but to profit by, such 
 exercises. It implies Christian morality, in distinc- 
 
THE PRESENT. 
 
 48 
 
 tion from that of the heathen or unbeliever. The 
 godly man does right, not only because it is right, 
 but because it is agreeable to the will of God and 
 the example of the Redeemer. The godly man goes 
 to the sanctuary, and by converse with his Maker 
 assimilates his affections to the character of that 
 Being whom he there worships; and when he leaves 
 the sanctuary, he proves the efficacy of his godliness 
 by his righteous conduct and converse to and with 
 his fellow men. 
 
 “ Righteousness,” we are told by Solomon, 
 “exalteth a nation,” while “ sin is a reproach to 
 any people.” No individual or nation can truly 
 prosper that disregards religion and genuine godli¬ 
 ness. The people that forget and forsake Him, 
 break His laws, dishonour His name, abuse His gifts, 
 and trample on His authority, are’simply using the 
 surest and quickest means to effect their own over¬ 
 throw and ruin. 
 
 The greatest gift of intellect, rank, possession, 
 power, or influence, will of itself effect nothing with¬ 
 out the Divine blessing ; and whether this be enjoyed 
 directly or indirectly, it is indispensable to the matter 
 of lasting success. Both in the ancient and modern 
 world we find that those nations and peoples that 
 serve not God—whatever their advantages of soil, or 
 climate, or intellect, or circumstance—suffer deteriora¬ 
 tion to a greater or less extent, and become wholly or 
 partially impotent and helpless. Witness the case of 
 Greece and Rome, of Egypt and Carthage, of France 
 and apparently Austria. There is no hoping to climb 
 to the top of the ladder without the help of God. 
 Well for us if we bear this in mind. Whatever we 
 
44 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 may gain, if we have not Godliness ,—if we pay no 
 heed to religion, if our lives and conduct are not 
 regulated by the precepts of the Bible; if our 
 characters are not undergoing daily assimilation to 
 that of Christ, the great Pattern, we have nothing at 
 all. Godliness, having promise both of this life and 
 of that which is to come, must be the greatest gain. 
 We may feel that, having it, we have all. Whatso¬ 
 ever drops out of any promise of the Gospel, falls into 
 the lap of the godly ; and to them “ all the promises 
 of God are yea and amen,” everlastingly sealed and 
 sure. Of nothing else in the wide world may it be 
 asserted that it is “profitable for all things .” What 
 one thing in science, or education, or trade, or 
 pleasure—or which of these taken separately or 
 conjointly can be said to yield a profit of universal 
 application—profitable for all things ? Not one. 
 But he who traffics in godliness derives therefrom a 
 sure and constant interest, which tells for good upon 
 name, character, business, and prospects; in a word, 
 it profits him for both worlds. And what is true of 
 the individual is true of the nation, people, or race. 
 
 We are, as a people, looking forward to a bright 
 
 [ future. Mourning over the past, and dissatisfied 
 with the present, we are determined to make the 
 future brighter, better, nobler, and thus more satis¬ 
 factory. Difficulties once formidable are now almost 
 all taken out of the way. The opponents to our 
 national elevation and prosperity are gradually 
 diminishing in number and influence. The sym¬ 
 pathies of the greatest, noblest, and best among the 
 sons and daughters of every civilized nation under 
 heaven are enlisted on our behalf. Is there nothing 
 
THE ROAD FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 45 
 
 in the pleasing fact that to-day the eyes of the whole 
 civilized world are turning to Africa, our fatherland ? 
 With the Divine prediction and promise regarding 
 our future destiny to cheer and encourage, to inspire 
 and animate, what is there to retard progress and 
 hinder growth, save what may be in ourselves? 
 Jealousy, ill-will, covetousness, indolence, self-satis¬ 
 faction, extravagance, ignorance, ungodliness,—these 
 are the real hindrances; let us get rid of them, and 
 the way is as clear as the prospect is inviting. 
 Standing side by side in a common struggle for a 
 common interest, let us have one aim, be actuated by 
 one motive, and pursue one course ; determined that 
 nothing from without or within shall break the rank 
 we have formed for the security, protection, and pro¬ 
 motion of our national interests, rights, and privileges. 
 And in guarding these rights, improving these 
 privileges, and promoting these interests, let us bear 
 in mind continually, we repeat, that in addition to 
 unity, industry, perseverance, tact, economy, and 
 education, there must be Godliness. This is the 
 corner-stone on which the whole building must be 
 reared; without which the entire edifice, however 
 substantial in structure and symmetrical in propor¬ 
 tion, must be weak and temporary. But with it, 
 we can feel calm and tranquil amid the vigour and 
 vehemence of the storm, assured that our house is on 
 the Bock. 
 
 And with regard to the other world, we have it 
 from the lips of Jehovah Himself, that the righteous 
 shall “ shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their 
 Father.” Think, fellow-countrymen, of the glory 
 and joy and felicity implied in this expression, 
 
 - 
 
 L. 
 
46 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 compared with which all earthly grandeur and 
 prosperity dwindle into insignificance ! Look at the 
 purity of the sun. His beams are untouched by all 
 the pollution of this polluted world; and in yonder 
 world, if righteous and godly here, we, too, shall be 
 “ without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.” Look 
 at the usefulness of the sun. He lights distant worlds 
 with his beams, and is the very life of the solar 
 system: the righteous, too, shall serve God and His 
 universe day and night. And how glorious is the 
 sun ! Alone he stands in the heavens, the object of 
 universal admiration! The righteous shall shine for 
 ever, yea, and even brighten as they shine,—“made 
 kings and priests unto God!” The sun has not 
 increased in splendour during these thousands of 
 years, nor does it lighten any more worlds than it 
 did at first; but the righteous shall increase in 
 splendour, advance “ from glory to glory.” In that 
 boundless future they shall brighten their lustre, 
 widen their orbits, extend their influence! And if we 
 but be a godly and righteous people, fearing God 
 and keeping His commandments, whatever may be 
 thought or said of us here, we shall assuredly be 
 numbered at last among those who shall “ shine as 
 the sun,” “ shine as the brightness of the firmament.” 
 Hence stands the Divine prediction to confirm the 
 hope and strengthen the assurance : “ Ethiopia shall 
 soon stretch out her hands unto God! ” And 
 although men and devils be combined in their 
 scornful rage to prevent its fulfilment, let us take 
 comfort from the thought that the words of Jehovah 
 are, like Himself, immutable, and that, in spite of 
 
THE ROAD FOR THE FUTURE. 47 
 
 the fiercest opposition, this prediction shall ultimately 
 be verified ! 
 
 And now, with such a foundation to rest on, let 
 us, countrymen, in this Jubilee Year of Emancipa¬ 
 tion^ set ourselves more "determinedly than ever fo 
 do the work of building up the future of our country, 
 and preparing something for the future historian to 
 put on record concerning us. Let us keep in mind 
 chiefly the young; for they are impressible: the 
 older ones are already petrified. The children are to 
 be the future men and women of the country. What 
 Jamaica is to be socially, intellectually, morally, and 
 religiously, will depend in a large measure on the 
 rising generation. Let us see to it, then, that they 
 are instructed in the right way; that they are 
 trained to habits of industry and thrift; to habits of 
 purity and uprightness ; of unselfishness and love ; of 
 noble-mindedness and courtesy ; to the cultivation of 
 moral and religious principles ; keeping prominently in 
 view the education for eternity. Let us support and 
 encourage our public schools ; and resolve that what¬ 
 ever system of education we may have, the Bible 
 shall not be banished from our schools. Let us see 
 to it that our Sunday schools and churches go hand 
 in hand with our public and private scholastic 
 institutions. Let us never forget that the moral part 
 of our nature must undergo training equally with 
 the intellectual and physical— that to teach the heart 
 is even more important than to teach the head; that 
 the first will give a safe direction to the last, while 
 the last alone will give no holy and blessed influence 
 to the first. Let us never forget that for good or 
 evil the children are growing up around us; for 
 
48 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 good or evil they must be among the men and 
 women who are to give shape to the future of this 
 delightful country; they are to be either blessings or 
 curses to Jamaica. What that future is to be, is a 
 question that particularly concerns us who belong to 
 the country, is a question that the times surround 
 with an awful interest. God only can answer it, as 
 to Him alone is the future or past of the ever¬ 
 present Now, on which He looks perpetually. 
 
 In spite, however, of all that is dark and dis¬ 
 couraging at present, we love to think that our dear 
 Jamaica was made for, and has yet, unfulfilled 
 destinies ! We love to think that her sable children 
 have a right to claim the brotherhood of nations, and 
 admittance to a common inheritance in the New 
 Testament of Christ’s blood. We love to think that 
 we were destined to act a part in the mighty conflict 
 between good and evil among the nationalities of the 
 world, and to do so on the side of truth, righteous¬ 
 ness, and peace. We love to think of a magnificent 
 development of trade, commerce, and industry of 
 every kind, in our island home, linked together by 
 holy ties of brotherhood, united in endearing bonds 
 of interest, stretching from Negril Point to Morant 
 Point—a brotherhood too close to be aggressive, too 
 magnanimous to hurt the weak—just to all, and 
 standing with proud and quiet self-respect, in the 
 consciousness of being defended by a power that even 
 our most deadly enemies cannot resist! We have 
 not the prophetic eye; but is it extravagant to 
 picture the time when this beautiful island of ours 
 shall become a garden of holy beauty and perfection, 
 when all these lovely and fertile spots on her domain 
 

 THE ROAD FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 49 
 
 shall be consecrated by the virtues of our people to 
 the hallowed enjoyments of a religiously happy 
 domestic life ? 
 
 Let our men and women and children be only 
 united in aim and interest ; let them be only in¬ 
 dustrious, brave, honest, religious, intelligent, God¬ 
 fearing, and law-abiding; and in all our villages and 
 hamlets, and cities and towns, we shall behold the 
 spires of churches pointing up to God in still greater 
 number than at present exist; we shall see countless 
 school-houses for the education of our children ; innu¬ 
 merable family altars, at which fathers shall preside as 
 prophets and priests; and around which fond mothers 
 shall gather the offspring of their affection and 
 interest, to tell them of the love and faithfulness of 
 God, and instruct them in the principles of their holy 
 religion ; while the fathers, weary with the fatigue of 
 the day’s hard toil, recline on the ottoman or sofa, 
 listening with pride and pleasure to the wholesome 
 counsels of pious and devoted wives to obedient, 
 loving children, delighted themselves to form part, 
 and to mingle in the happiness, of the children’s 
 circle: where none need want for food and raiment, 
 so bountifully and benevolently shall a kind and good 
 God bless the land and its people, giving ample 
 return for diligent, faithful service ! 
 
 Do you call this a dream ? a great stretch of the 
 imagination ? a thing to exist only in the region of 
 probability ? We think it quite possible; nay, more, 
 we say, it is certain, if only we be faithful to our 
 trust, use well our freedom, rise above the mean and 
 debasing, aspire after the pure, the noble, the ex¬ 
 cellent, and resolve to leave to our children a legacy of 
 
50 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 respectability, usefulness, influence, and virtue, which, 
 like an heirloom, they shall hand down to their 
 children’s children. Thank God! the door is open 
 through which we can march to prosperity and 
 happiness, if not to distinction and fame; and, 
 resolving in this Jubilee Year of our emancipation 
 to throw ourselves more than ever on His divine 
 guidance, and seek more earnestly than hitherto His 
 divine blessing on our efforts, we feel assured of 
 reaching the goal! 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 JAMAICA OF TO-DAY CONTRASTED WITH 
 JAMAICA AS FREEDOM FOUND IT. 
 
 By Mr. W. F. BAILEY. 
 
 -*- 
 
 Religious. 
 
 S tanding upon the platform on which we find our¬ 
 selves after a fifty years’ march, we feel justified 
 in turning our eyes for a moment across the distance 
 over which we have travelled, keeping before our minds 
 the extreme points of that distance; viz., the starting 
 point on the one hand, and the point attained on the 
 other ; in order that in celebrating the Jubilee of our 
 freedom, we may give expression to such feelings as 
 comport with the needs of the case : thus, finding out 
 whether, having a fair amount of progress to score 
 to our credit, we may engage in songs of joy and 
 gratulation ; or whether, seeing too large a preponder¬ 
 ance of lethargy chargeable to us, we shall find it our 
 duty to “ hang our harps upon the willows.” 
 
 A little more than fifty years ago, whilst this lovely 
 “ Isle oj: Springs ” witnessed all the deepest atrocities 
 of slavery—whilst her numerous rivulets, grieved at 
 the barbarities that were practised upon their peaceful 
 banks from day to day, poured forth their waters as 
 tears on behalf of the down-trodden negro, as well as 
 in pity for the heartless, merciless, inhuman oppressor 
 —whilst the sun, as it has ever been wont, gladdened 
 
---•-^ ..——-„a =a 
 
 1 
 
 52 JAMAICA’S JUEILEE. 
 
 a thousand creatures of the brute creation, and ten 
 thousand plants which waved back their gratitude in 
 luxuriant growth, but failed to produce the desired 
 effect upon the heart of man in either scale (for how 
 could the heavy heart of the ill-treated slave he glad ? 
 or how could the guilty conscience of the slave-owner 
 find peace ?)—whilst all was horror around—then it 
 was that the benignant rays of another sun shot their 
 beams upon the chaotic darkness; and the Angel of 
 freedom appearing on the scene, shackles, manacles, 
 and other instruments of torture felt the magic touch 
 of his powerful wand, and sank into the bosom of 
 decay and rust, there to remain, we trust, for ever. 
 Methinks he gently took Jamaica by the hand, and 
 gave her a place among the peoples of the world; 
 while the clarion voice of his mighty trumpet un¬ 
 mistakably gave forth the words: Forward! onward! 
 upward ! 
 
 Before, however, the star of freedom had shed her 
 rays on our lovely land, the beautiful feet- of the 
 “ messengers of peace ” were to be seen casting up 
 and preparing a highway, gathering out the stones 
 and “ lifting up a standard for the people.” 
 
 The indefatigable energies of the Moravians, Bap¬ 
 tists, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians 
 might have been traced—now on the summits of 
 craggy mountains, now in the recesses of valleys and 
 glens, now contending with the cruel oppressor, now 
 pleading with the wretched slave; all which, in the 
 aggregate, formed a fitting harbinger of the day when 
 shameful wrong and merciless injustice would fly 
 before the presence of genuine liberty. 
 
 The result was that the 1st of August, 1838, dawned 
 
 
 
on a people, a few of whom were clothed and in their 
 right mind; proving beyond a doubt the blackness of the 
 lie which made out the negro to be incapable of rising 
 to the level of Divine things. Nay more, some of 
 these had suffered nothing less than sharp persecution 
 for the Word’s sake ; but having tasted the sweetness 
 of religion, they clung to it through good report and evil 
 report. The comparatively wide circulation of copies of 
 the New Testament and the Book of Psalms, together 
 with the press upon the early missionaries for the 
 Gospel, fully justified the remark that freedom found 
 the people of Jamaica hungry for the Word of God. 
 Freedom found in Jamaica a people in some instances 
 able to celebrate their deliverance, not by the hideous, 
 outrageous sports which are the unfailing marks of 
 the barbarian, but by prayer and praise. 
 
 This was achieved, it must be carefully remembered, 
 by only a few devoted servants of God. These were, 
 therefore, unable to span the whole area of 4,198 square 
 miles at once—unable, at a bound, to reach the hearts 
 of the thousands of emancipated human beings— 
 unable, in a day, to counteract the deep-rooted prac¬ 
 tices of heathenism and slavery. Hence, darkness 
 still enshrouded no small portion of the land; super¬ 
 stition still hung her dark pall over the minds of 
 thousands; while the imperfectly developed spiritual 
 vision of many, made them but too ready to seize a 
 phantasm, and associating this with their customs 
 and beliefs in former days, they plunged forward into 
 the perpetration of such deeds as threatened to strike 
 at the very core of religion. 
 
 Churches, indeed, were to be seen rearing their 
 sacred spires here and there like beacons, silently 
 
 
 
 
 
54 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 (yet audibly), seeming to say to those whose feet had 
 lately been unfettered : “ This is the way, walk ye in 
 it! ” But these were far outnumbered by the temples 
 of riot and revelry, not a few of which were to be seen 
 wherever one turned. Whilst holy prayer or sacred 
 praise ascended from a sanctuary here, and received, 
 as it were, a response from another in the far distance, 
 it was no strange thing to find licentious worshippers 
 at the same time crowding the various dancing 
 booths and estate boiling-houses, there giving full 
 expression in words and deeds to the polluted feelings 
 with which their polluted minds were still pregnant. 
 
 Turning from these to those who laid claim to having 
 come from Christian lands, the same scene of black 
 irreligion and horrible disregard for the commands of 
 God meet our gaze. Among these w T e find men who, 
 whilst distinguished from the new freed men by the 
 hue of their skin, also distinguished themselves by 
 moving about with all the display of shameless in¬ 
 fidels,—infidels in practice, if not in theory. With 
 venom in their breath, they walked the land, bidding 
 defiance to religion and its faithful advocates; scorn¬ 
 ing and scoffing at the humble ones who had recently 
 tasted and were enjoying its pleasures, strengthening 
 and confirming those who were engrossed in unbelief 
 and utter disregard for truth. 
 
 But the seed had been deeply and faithfully sown 
 by hands that lacked neither energy nor discretion; 
 and if evil abounded, we feel bold when we say that 
 labour also abounded. 
 
 The few hirelings that crept into the midst of the 
 flock at that crisis—hirelings who would fain “ howl 
 with the wolf, and bleat with the lamb,” did not find 
 
RELIGIOUS. 
 
 55 
 
 themselves in possession of so good a cause as they 
 thought when facing these noble heroes. All honour 
 to them! And here I think it due to these high- 
 souled men to record this, that to their strenuous 
 and unselfish labours in laying the foundation of 
 religion in Jamaica, and to the spirit which animated 
 them may be traced a large share of the success which 
 has attended the cause of religion in this land. If 
 ever the soil of Jamaica had the honour of being trod 
 by men (and women) who were missionaries in the 
 widest sense of the word, it was then. 
 
 And the seed thus sown was not destined to be lost. 
 The ground had been carefully ploughed, and har¬ 
 rowed, and cleared of roots; and these deeds of 
 charity had faith and hope to back them up. Deep 
 down in the measures of meal, the leaven had been 
 carefully embedded; and it would have been just as 
 reasonable to expect that this noble queen of the 
 Antilles could have flown from her centre and hidden 
 herself in oblivion during these fifty years, as to 
 expect that from that seed no fruits should have been 
 gathered, or that the powerful workings of that leaven 
 should have left us nothing to look at but an un¬ 
 leavened lump. 
 
 Fifty years have sped their course since freedom 
 opened the way for religion to run, and now behold 
 the scene! 
 
 Stand with me for a while on one of these verdant I 
 mountain-tops, and cast your eye o’er the landscape. \ 
 ’Tis the holy Sabbath morn. An imposing stillness 
 reigns around. The air seems laden with holy in- , 
 fluences. The balmy breath of the morning sweeps $ 
 by you, producing an unusual delight. Numerous ^ 
 
56 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 cottages surround you—above on the hill, and below 
 in the plain—yet all is calm. All distracting sights 
 and bustling confusion are removed. Do you see in 
 all this anything that satisfies your curiosity as to 
 the progress of religion, or do you still inquire, what 
 has religion done ? Hark ! what is that which peals 
 like music soft and sweet from yon steeple, and is 
 answered by scores of the same strain within no 
 extensive area ? ’Tis the sound of the church bell, 
 which at this time rings out from countless places of 
 worship all over the land. Merrily they chime, while 
 streams and brooklets, rocks, hills, and trees and 
 tuneful birds seem to respond to the sacred sound. 
 
 The bells have ceased, but the ear has still work to 
 do; for the cottages which but a short time ago 
 appeared to be hushed in silence, are now pouring 
 forth their psalms and hymns of praise. Listen to 
 the fervour which is mingled with the clear, ringing 
 voices from those humble dwellings, and say what 
 you think of it. Guided by the sound, turn into one 
 of these, and tell me, whether on entering you do not 
 feel like hearing a voice saying: “ Take off thy shoes 
 from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest 
 is holy ground.” As God’s word is read by all, and 
 the father of the family, or his substitute, pours forth 
 the morning petition on the family altar, say, if 
 you question any longer the triumphs of religion in 
 Jamaica. 
 
 Or turn your eyes on the nimble steps of the many 
 children who, at this early hour (nine o’clock), are 
 hurrying to the house of God, there to engage in the 
 exercises of the early Sabbath class; and when again 
 those sweetly-sounding bells proclaim the hour of 
 
RELIGIOUS. 
 
 57 
 
 public service look within the hundreds of churches 
 and chapels, and meeting-places—from the venerable 
 cat hedral in S panish Town , or the beautifully deco¬ 
 rated places of worship in Ki ngston , to the humblest 
 shelter in the remotest interior—and satisfy yourself 
 that there is a real fulfilment of the words of the 
 memorable William Jameson : “ Knowledge shall bless 
 this people, and holiness adorn them.” 
 
 To these hundreds and thousands of immortal' 
 creatures, the doctrines of pure and undefiled religion 
 are constantly, efficiently, and faithfully taught; and 
 there is no one out of these nearly J500,000 human 
 beings who has not at some time or other heard the 
 love of Jesus proclaimed. 
 
 A noble army of soldiers—many of them tried and 
 true veterans—are to-day to be seen in the field, not 
 counting their lives too dear to be spent in the service 
 of their Master. On viewing the various regiments 
 which compose this glorious army, whom do we find 
 among the ranks wearing the King’s uniform, occupy¬ 
 ing places of distinction, and doing efficient work? 
 The sons of the people who have been declared a thou¬ 
 sand times over to be “ brutes.” Mark the thrilling 
 eloquence, the beauty of style, the sublimity of thought, 
 the burning love, the fiery earnestness which flow 
 from yon pulpit! It comes from the lips and heart 
 of one whose ancestors drank the cup of thraldom to 
 man and to the devil. 
 
 Various The ologi cal Institutions for the training of 
 native ministers in connection^ with their respective 
 denominations have been established, and these have 
 sent out into the vineyard workmen who “ need not 
 to be ashamed,” men who to-day are a blessing to 
 
'-- L - 1 11 1 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 58 
 
 the land, and not a few of whom have borne the light 
 across the raging waves to distant lands of darkness. 
 
 We do admit that much remains to be done in this 
 lovely land, in order that righteousness may take full 
 possession, and that much of what is now merely 
 formal, may be genuine and sincere. But whilst 
 holding the sense of duty and the energy required in 
 the future to push forward this noble cause clearly 
 before our eyes, we may safely look back upon the 
 prosperity which has attended religion during the 
 past, the successes which have crowned all the en¬ 
 terprises connected therewith, and the place which its 
 interests now hold in the noblest and best minds of 
 all classes in the land, and lift our hearts in humble 
 gratitude to our God, while we sing the triumphs of 
 that Gospel which has so sweetened freedom in 
 Jamaica and made it a blessing ; and without which, 
 emancipation from British slavery would have simply 
 left us to be the willing slaves of sin and Satan. 
 
 At the close of fifty years then, while Jamaica 
 rejoices in the possession of such names as “ Home of 
 Plenty,” and “ Paradise of the West,” her children 
 must rejoice that to-day she wears the name and 
 enjoys the privileges in every respect of a Christian 
 land. 
 
 Moral. 
 
 It is said, and rightly said too, of Europeans, that 
 wherever they go they endeavour to rid the country 
 of the dangerous wild beasts with which they come in 
 contact. What is thus said of them in this particular 
 might be said with truth of religion in its sphere. Shin¬ 
 ing into dark corners, and filthy lanes, and wretched 
 
MORAL. 
 
 59 1 
 
 jungles, it purifies the vitiated atmosphere, and 
 changes stagnation and putrefaction into active life, 
 and vigorous health. 
 
 A little more than fifty years ago, no fragrant 
 odour arose from the sinks of vice and immorality 
 which then scattered themselves thickly over this 
 land. Is it very much wonder that such was the 
 case ?—that a people treated in every respect like the 
 beasts of the field should, in the indulgence of their 
 appetites, treat themselves as so many irrational 
 creatures ? Bought, sold, fed, and worked, they 
 could not but regard themselves as on a parallel with 
 their inferior neighbours of the four-footed tribe; and 
 one has only to modify the condition of these latter 
 in order to form an approximate idea of the moral 
 status of the community at this period. 
 
 The efforts of the missionaries had succeeded hero 
 and there in counteracting this state of things, and 
 they would have achieved much more if they had been 
 left to battle against the bare instincts of the unfortu¬ 
 nate slave. But a far more formidable barrier placed 
 itself in opposition to them. 
 
 Glance for a moment at the population of Jamaica,, 
 and you will see at once the monuments of the 
 shameless conduct of men who came to Jamaica leav¬ 
 ing behind them well-regulated families. Like greedy 
 wolves or hunger-stricken hyenas let loose upon a 
 defenceless herd, so these plunged into the midst of 
 an oppressed people, ruining those already ruined, 
 and strengthening in vice and shame those who were 
 born therein. Indeed, the rearing of slaves and the 
 increase of their number being considered of just so- 
 much importance as in dealing with stock, any 
 
60 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 sacrifice of morality on the part of those who should 
 have been at least more decent, would be made, so 
 long as that could be subservient to their ends. 
 
 Thus inured to habits of the blackest sort, it is not 
 to be wondered at that freedom found the moral 
 concerns of Jamaica in a sad condition. 
 
 The labours of devoted ministers of the Gospel 
 were not without their fruits; still Christian marriage 
 was the exception, while unlawful concubinage was 
 the order of the day. Drunkenness, a large share 
 of which was due to the example set by the white popu¬ 
 lation, extended its borders over no mean area, and 
 included not a few. Most tenaciously did those who 
 had just dropped the chains of bondage cling to many 
 of these corrupting practices of immorality. 
 
 But Freedom and Religion were not to unite their 
 efforts in vain on behalf of a people who, though 
 debased, maltreated, and abused, were human beings 
 for all that, and possessed of qualities which only 
 required the free sunshine of liberty and the fostering 
 hand of religion to make them bloom in full luxuri¬ 
 ance, adorning the hearts, minds, and persons of their 
 possessors, and attracting the attention, wonder, and 
 admiration of those who thought them fit for nothing 
 else but the hoe and the whip. 
 
 As early as 1888, almost simultaneous with the 
 trumpet-blast of freedom, were to be seen men 
 exhibiting in truest colours the noble moral virtues 
 of courage, endurance, and fortitude; displaying that 
 nobility of character which made them yield to suffer¬ 
 ing rather than relinquish duty, or conform to the 
 wishes of those who would have them do other than 
 their conscience would allow. 
 
MORAL. 
 
 61 
 
 The rays of the star of Freedom gladdened the 
 countenances and cheered the hearts of women, who 
 hailed with joy the opportunities now afforded them 
 of giving employment to their full and genuine moral 
 worth. Instances of their patient endurance, their 
 unwavering affection, and unmitigated attachment 
 to those causes which appealed to their nobler feelings 
 are to be seen on record in the pages of Jamaica's 
 early freedom. 
 
 And now, after fifty years, turn we to reckon the 
 progress. It is but fair to expect that the lapse of 
 years would have revealed some marked improvement, f 
 But alas! here we have to change the “ pleasant lyre/' 
 and murmur “ heavy notes of sadness.” 
 
 Bather than relaxing its grasp, immorality seems 
 bent on waging a protracted war with those who 
 have set their faces to crush it down. One cannot 
 look around on his own circle of acquaintances—one 
 cannot notice the customs of society in general—one 
 cannot read the Beport of the Begistrar of Births, 
 without feeling bound to confess that the moral 
 status of the land is still capable of vast improve- ! 
 ment. Day by day the traces of this foul monster— 
 immorality—may be seen as it goes stalking through 
 the land; while promising youths and maidens fall 
 victims to its pestiferous breath and its wily grasp ; 
 and relatives and friends see with pain and sorrow 
 their lovely flowers nipped almost in the bud just as 
 they are ready to burst forth in their full beauty. 
 Bendered dexterous by the matured skill of years of 
 activity, it not unfrequently attacks those who have 
 been known to do battle successfully against it for 
 years; and after adroitly and almost imperceptibly 
 
m 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 twining its cord around them, hurls them down to 
 the pit of ruin. Thus are multitudes of Jamaica’s 
 children incessantly handled, and Jamaica’s prospects 
 blighted by the cruel workings of this deadly foe. 
 But happily, that is not the only side to which 
 attention may be directed. If the enemy has been 
 making ravages, he has not been doing so unwatched 
 and unattacked. If the garrison still holds out, it is 
 not because the besieging army has been delinquent; 
 there is every reason to believe that faithful, per¬ 
 sistent labour will have its reward; and the shout 
 which reaches our ears now, announcing the onset 
 to battle, will certainly, ere long, give place to the 
 more cheering war-cry of Victory! The drums are 
 sounding loudly; the soldiers are brave and true; and 
 as the drummers have never been taught to beat a 
 retreat, we calmly rest in this, that the soldiers will 
 either conquer or die. 
 
 Sof ia,) purity movements, with a view to strike 
 immediately at the root of this evil, have been set on 
 foot; and in these, a direct hand to hand combat is 
 being maintained with the enemy. 
 
 Various temperance associations have been formed 
 and are in progress ; and whilst in these, that other 
 demon— drink —has been particularly aimed at, yet 
 the above-mentioned foe is also expected to be brought 
 down from a long shot. 
 
 In a word, no one who is thoroughly acquainted 
 with Jamaica can fail to see that not a little has been 
 accomplished. Those who would carry out the foul 
 practices of immorality find that they must do so at 
 the risk of losing the sunshine of the good graces of 
 society, while the many honourable marriages that 
 
EDUCATIONAL. 
 
 68 
 
 are being regularly solemnized have driven concubin¬ 
 age and its attendant miseries into a comparatively 
 small corner. 
 
 As for that other vice — drun kenne ss—which is 
 bringing so much of distress and suffering to thou¬ 
 sands in other civilized lands, it is pleasing to know 
 that one may tread the soil of Jamaica for years 
 without coming across anything approaching the 
 horrors that are recorded as the outcome of drink in 
 enlightened England, Scotland, and America. Indeed 
 many a grown-up lad or lass has to-day to seek for 
 the definition of a real drunkard in one of the foreign 
 magazines that fall into his or her hand, so very rare 
 is the sight in many parts of our land. 
 
 Whilst, then, we still ardently desire a better state 
 of things, and anxiously await the day when, after 
 much toil, we shall see ourselves nearing the point 
 of perfection, we may with impunity venture the 
 assertion: that in the matter of moral progress 
 Jamaica has not been stationary for fifty years, but 
 something has been clone ! 
 
 Educational. 
 
 In looking at the face of a watch it is no easy task 
 to follow the progress of the hour-hand as it almost 
 imperceptibly describes the arc from hour to hour. 
 Not so with the minute hand, the revolutions of 
 which are subservient to those of the former. 
 
 Thus, while the steady advance of vital religion in 
 this country is not perceivable if measured by days, 
 and weeks, and months; and even baffles sometimes 
 the looker-on, as, at the opening of a new year, he 
 
64 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 looks back to see the results of the past year, and, 
 disappointed, he expresses himself unable to see any¬ 
 thing tangible; education, like a quickly revolving 
 wheel, whose function it is to facilitate the labours 
 of the other massive and more powerful parts of the 
 machinery, is quickly going its rounds, handing out, 
 as it moves, ocular demonstrations, proving irresist¬ 
 ibly that there is no standing-still in this depart¬ 
 ment. 
 
 Look at the other end of the line and see the newly 
 emancipated people—rude, uncouth, uncivilized— 
 utterly unable to relish those delicious sweets with 
 which the educated feast their palates—unable to find 
 any satisfection in those lofty pleasures of knowledge 
 with which improved minds regale themselves. This 
 was not because the slaves lacked the desire to learn, 
 nor because little or no pains, nor energy whatever, 
 had been expended on them. Efforts had been made 
 to impart some instruction to the people by those 
 who fought on the side of the slave during those days 
 of suffering, but slavery had done its worst to coun¬ 
 teract these. Many a time was a victim tortured 
 because he had dared to pick up a piece of waste 
 paper with a view of trying to make out the letter 
 “A” upon it, and not unfrequently cries of agony 
 arose from those whose only crime was that of 
 “ learning to read /” 
 
 But though slavery had done its worst, and had 
 succeeded in keeping the negro ignorant, this it could 
 not accomplish—it could not crush out of him the 
 desire or the ability to learn. 
 
 Who can but feel thrilled with joy at the account of 
 children, youths, fathers, all bending eagerly in the 
 
EDUCATIONAL. 
 
 65 
 
 search for knowledge, as soon as liberty was granted 
 them ? There and then it was seen that the black 
 man was anxious to rise above the brutishness of his 
 situation. 
 
 Such was the soil which Freedom handed over to 
 the nimble plough of Education—a soil which hitherto 
 had produced nothing but briers and thorns, where 
 rank weeds and a labyrinth of brambles bade defiance 
 to the feet of the pioneer—where all that was evil 
 grew apace—yet in the widest sense of the word a 
 fertile soil. 
 
 Finding an open door afforded them when the 
 welcome sound of liberty burst upon their long- 
 expectant ears, the various religious denominations 
 headed the onset, and led the van against the strong¬ 
 holds of ignorance. The Government, after some 
 hesitation and deliberation, stepped in to bring up 
 the rear, and supplement with exceedingly valuable 
 aid the very laudable enterprise. And now, after 
 fifty years, we ask, How has Jamaica profited by 
 these ?—Where is she? 
 
 Whilst she is conscious of her defects—while she 
 keeps ever before her view those heights which she 
 aspires to scale some day—whilst she is not unmind¬ 
 ful that the goal of her wishes is still some distance 
 ahead, she is not altogether ashamed of her situation 
 to-day. In spite of the adverse circumstances through 
 which she has had to hew her way during these fifty 
 years, she feels encouraged to think that she is nearing 
 a point at which she will be able to stand the inspec¬ 
 tion of all who choose to look at her, whether with a 
 friendly eye or otherwise, and her answer to all who 
 may be curious to elicit a reply concerning her 
 
 F 
 
66 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 educational health would be : “ Backward, but rapidly 
 
 improving.” 
 
 Not many years ago, before the necessary advantages 
 had been extended to the people of Jamaica, a trying 
 difficulty was how to obtain efficient teaching power. 
 What do the facts of to-day reveal ? The entire task 
 of moulding and shaping the intellect of the children 
 of our land is at this moment delegated into the 
 hands of the sons and daughters of those who but 
 fifty years ago were regarded as not entitled to the 
 privileges of the bare elements of knowledge. Men 
 and women, zealously alive to their duty, and working 
 with deep conscientiousness, may be seen “ training 
 the young idea how to shoot,” and doing all that 
 opportunities allow them to qualify themselves for the 
 important duties of their profession, and to lay a 
 sound and solid foundation in the minds of those 
 under their charge, so that the land may produce a 
 generation following who shall, to say the least, 
 be able to climb some stairs higher in the grade 
 of civilization and education. These, having had 
 their eyes clearly opened to see the needs of their 
 race, are to-day striving assiduously to contribute 
 their quota in obliterating the calumny heaped upon 
 it in days past, and giving it the place it is destined 
 to hold among the races of mankind. 
 
 , Of the 728 Elementary Schools that are to-day 
 under Government recognition (see Report of Schools 
 for year ending September, 1886), 70 are marked as 
 I. Class; 254 as II. Class; and 859 as III. Class; 
 against one I.; six II.; and eighty-nine III. in 1868, 
 when the system of examination commenced; thus 
 showing an increase of 69 I.; 248 II.; and 270 III. 
 
EDUCATIONAL. 
 
 67 
 
 Class schools during nineteen years. The result of' 
 this is felt throughout the land. The growing in¬ 
 telligence of those who have been enabled to share in 
 the benefits of this elementary education is manifest 
 in their appreciation of what is noble and elevating; 
 and the lack of this is by no means the rule. From 
 these elementary schools lads have gone into positions 
 of trust and responsibility ; and there are to be seen 
 at this time occupying no mean situations in life, 
 those who look back to the elementary school as the 
 only place to which they feel themselves indebted for 
 instruction. Leaving a fair margin for exceptions, 
 we assert without feeling any restraint, that Jamaica 
 has succeeded during her fifty years of freedom, in 
 rearing on her soil men and women who do her justice 
 in the burning desire they have to elevate their race 
 and people. The various Training Institutions, feeling 
 the weight and dignity of their positions, are to-day 
 exerting their utmost efforts to send out teachers, who 
 shall be in every way equal to the work entrusted to 
 them. 
 
 But to record that elementary education alone has 
 made progress would be to do Jamaica an incalculable 
 injustice. The soil has been found to be sufficiently 
 favourable to allow the advanced grades of knowledge 
 to thrive luxuriantly. The majority of the students 
 of our Theological Seminaries have shown themselves 
 to be not a whit inferior to their kind brethren from 
 distant lands, if only the same advantages be extended 
 to them; and in practice they fully justify the high 
 testimony borne to their efficiency by their tutors. 
 Pulpits and platforms are to-day filled and occupied by 
 men who have spared and still do spare neither pains, 
 
68 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 time, nor energy in equipping themselves for the 
 dignified work of the Christian ministry. Learning 
 of every kind has given clear indications that it can 
 breathe as freely in Jamaica as anywhere else. There 
 have been horn and nurtured on her shores those 
 whose mental achievements have proved that her 
 genial clime has no deteriorating influence in it. 
 
 The sparkling eyes, intelligent countenances, and 
 clear ideas of not a few infants, youths, and maidens 
 throughout the land are certain proofs that the 
 Educational Department and its authorities have 
 done, and are still doing successful work; while the 
 dissatisfaction which exists in maturer minds—a 
 dissatisfaction' with their own attainments, resulting 
 in the anxiety to see themselves more elevated can¬ 
 not fail to be the means of securing higher results for 
 the future. I have very often conversed with parents 
 who could be regarded as fairly informed, and it is 
 encouraging to see that there is the burning desire to 
 give their children far more than what they possess ; 
 and, in many instances a healthy rivalry may be seen 
 prevailing among parents, though sometimes it may 
 be found mixed with the unwholesome flavour of 
 jealousy. 
 
 What all enlightened minds are agitating for just 
 now, is, that such measures might be taken by the 
 Government as will bring in those who are still under 
 the pall of ignorance; so that within a few more 
 years, when we cast our eyes over our lovely isle, we 
 shall see nothing but intelligence all around. 
 
— 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 SOCIAL. 
 
 69 
 
 Social. 
 
 
 i 
 
 It is an undeniable fact that, deep down in the 
 heart of man, however savage he may be, there are 
 those cords of his higher nature which, under the 
 touch of proper influences, may be made to vibrate 
 in response to similar strains from his fellow-man; 
 thus giving play to one of the most striking differences 
 between himself and the inferior creation, and 
 enabling him to quaff out of the cup of that en¬ 
 joyment which his Maker intended him to derive 
 from the company of his brother man. 
 
 Ere we take our leave of Jamaica for another fifty 
 years, and commit the tale of that period to be told 
 and recorded by the lips and pens of another genera¬ 
 tion, we shall try to view her social aspect as affected 
 by the past fifty years with an eye as strict and im¬ 
 partial as before. One needs not to conjure up the 
 dead of bygone years to get an adequate knowledge of 
 the social affairs of the time when first the driver’s 
 shell gave place to the musical notes of Freedom. 
 
 The vile system of slavery, together with all its 
 viler machinery, was no tender bosom on which 
 society could rest its infant head ; no nursing lap to 
 soothe her ailings, smooth her jarrings, and rock her 
 to peace and quietness; nay, so far from regarding 
 those within its fearful clutch as destined to enjoy 
 the pleasant sunshine of social relationship and its 
 attendant privileges, it wrought with all its might to 
 kill out the germs of that noble bearing which is the 
 rightful inheritance of man; it scattered broadcast, 
 
 
 I 
 
JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 70 
 
 with no parsimonious hand, such seeds as were 
 calculated to baffle for generations the energy, skill, 
 and patience of the noblest philanthropists; . it 
 furnished a fit hot-bed where all those evils which 
 to-day exert such an antagonistic influence on society 
 in its march, could thrive and attain a speedy 
 maturity. One need not feel surprised or dis¬ 
 appointed, then, on learning that a people just lifted 
 out of such depressing circumstances had yet to be 
 taught their duties to themselves and to each other 
 as rational beings. Ignorance of what was right, on 
 the one hand, and blind prejudice on the other, 
 spread their thick mazes in an unbroken network; 
 while the very low standard which regulated the life 
 and conduct of the so-called enlightened foreigners, 
 was in no way a guide by which it might have been 
 hoped these newly-freed people could have steered 
 their course with anything like desirable results. 
 
 Among the peasants many of the corrupt practices 
 which slavery had rendered a necessity were now 
 made a luxury; and not a few felt themselves 
 powerless to resist the habits in which they had been 
 inured. 
 
 The father of a family no longer acknowledging 
 the suzerainty of “ massa,” nor regarding any more 
 the force of the driver’s lash—now far removed from 
 his tenancy—not unfrequently united in himself the 
 three-fold dignity of proprietor, driver, and father, 
 performing the triple function, with this exception, 
 that through ignorance the duties of the last-named 
 were the least performed. Pleasure, when required, 
 was sought; but here, as in other things, the chief 
 actors were those who had been diligent students in 
 
SOCIAL. 
 
 71 
 
 the school of slavery. In short, everything tended to 
 show clearly that the light of education was required 
 to open the eyes of all to the true position they 
 should occupy in the social scale. 
 
 And now, fifty years have passed o’er us, during 
 which time we presume that much has been done, 
 both by example and precept, to assist that inherent 
 ambition to rise, which at the outstart we alleged to 
 be the possession, more or less, in a latent degree, of 
 every man, and which is so manifest in many of the 
 black and coloured population of Jamaica. Again, 
 and for the last time, we summon Jamaica to the 
 bar to give account of her stewardship. 
 
 Noble girl that she is—Queen of the Antilles—it 
 would not be in keeping with her dignified position 
 were she to attempt to conceal her faults, or to 
 pretend to be what she is not. Pacts are the only 
 arguments she assays to bring forward. 
 
 With a veil on her beautiful face she points to 
 filthy lanes, dark corners, remote districts, and 
 neglected villages, where the lowest stratum of her 
 people are to be found. Far removed as these are 
 from every transforming influence, they still indulge 
 in practices which tarnish her name, and on which 
 she dares not gaze with an unveiled eye. The 
 domestic circle, or the sphere of labour, is each con¬ 
 nected with that which makes the blood of her true 
 children almost to clot as they turn their eyes in this 
 direction. Dilapidated huts, where father, mother, 
 grown-up boys and girls, are all huddled together in 
 one room, appeal loudly to the passer-by, and seem 
 to say: “ There is room for improvement here, and 
 occupation more than enough for the diligent worker ; ” 
 
72 
 
 Jamaica’s jubilee. 
 
 while badly-cared-for children—in every respect the 
 objects of pity—figure conspicuously around. A 
 large portion of this state of things is to be found 
 on or within the precincts of sugar estates, where, in 
 many cases, the people are held in a condition of 
 semi-serfdom. That their services might be secured 
 for these estates, land is not sold to them by the 
 proprietors, and all the mean and demoralizing 
 results consequent upon living in this condition stand 
 plainly out, to the disgust and annoyance of all who 
 love the country’s weal. 
 
 This is one of the heavy weights which she has at 
 this time to bear; but when she remembers that 
 many of her seniors are still being grieved by these 
 very troubles, she, with good reason, says that what 
 has taken centuries to purge out of other countries, 
 she could not entirely efface during fifty years. Her 
 eyes being now quite open to her interests, and 
 her mind being quite alive to her value, she is 
 determined to spare no effort to remove whatever is 
 a stain upon her name. She now invites us to listen 
 to the brighter side of her tale. Throughout the 
 length and breadth of her small surface are to be 
 seen numerous townships and villages, isolated 
 dwellings, and thickly-set cottages, all giving marked 
 indications of neatness and regularity. Under the 
 roofs of the poorer classes, the eye accustomed to 
 feast on luxuries may turn aside in proud contempt; 
 but a mind that has been educated to recognize what 
 is good, even though wrapped up in small parcels, 
 cannot fail to be satisfied with the marks of tidiness 
 which make themselves plainly visible. 
 
 A few steps higher, and we reach the platform of 
 
SOCIAL. 
 
 78 
 
 the few who may be styled the 4 4 a ristocra ts ” among 
 the Slacks. Having made the best of such educa¬ 
 tional advantages as were extended to them, and 
 possessing something of wealth, they naturally seize 
 the facilities which a prosperous land affords. Their 
 coffers, however, being not quite so large as those of 
 their white neighbours, that distinguishing plume 
 still remains doing its baneful work. But where evil 
 prejudice has been superseded by Christian deport¬ 
 ment and true nobility on both sides, freedom of 
 intercourse between the opposite colours adds its 
 gracefulness to the social beauty of the land. Here 
 the family circle, together with its rights and 
 privileges, is held as something sacred; while the 
 unremitting care expended in the training of the 
 young cannot but speak loudly and hopefully for the 
 future of Jamaica. Prom beneath the roof of 
 numerous dwellings shine out the beautiful rays of 
 the candle of order and regularity, while the healthy 
 discipline which guides the helm secures to the 
 members of the family the lofty and sublime pleasures 
 of a happy home . 
 
 Outside the warm ring of family relationship the 
 elevated tone which for the most part pervades the 
 upper and middle strata of the community furnishes 
 ample scope for the cultivation of all the graceful 
 social virtues. Mutual Improvement Societies, 
 Beading Clubs, and Christian Associations, all scatter 
 their benefits with a liberal hand to all who are 
 anxious to profit therefrom. Where once the dice- 
 cup was freely wielded are now to be seen newspapers 
 and magazines lending their light to cheer the weari¬ 
 some evening and dull hours of the night; and the 
 

 74 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 very walls which in days past echoed the rude yells 
 of victorious gamblers, now send back the jocular 
 notes of those whose minds are pure and whose 
 employment is noble. 
 
 Seasons of enjoyment such as Christmastide, etc., 
 are times when the musical talent so largely possessed 
 by the natives, and the knowledge daily acquired, 
 unite themselves in providing valuable recreations in 
 the shape of social entertainments and similar means 
 of amusement, in which pleasure and profit go hand 
 in hand. Indeed, a social gathering with exercises 
 of intelligent amusement to wind up the monotony of 
 the year’s routine, has almost come to be an indis¬ 
 pensable requisite; and all less satisfactory engage¬ 
 ments have absolutely no charm for those whose 
 attention is turned in the direction of meeting with 
 their friends for social pleasure. 
 
 Look for a while within one of these commodious 
 buildings, where hundreds are gathered to participate 
 in a day’s entertainment; and as you scan the 
 audience in its holiday attire wearing countenances 
 more or less illuminated by intelligence, while a 
 dignified sense of true liberty reigns o’er all, say if 
 you do not find imprinted on every forehead these 
 words which the pen of fifty years has inscribed, 
 “ Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis.” 
 “ The times are changed, and we are changed with 
 them ! ”—changed with them for the better ! 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOME HINDRANCES TO THE GREATER 
 PROSPERITY OF JAMAICA DURING THE LAST 
 FIFTY YEARS. 
 
 By Rev. S. J. WASHINGTON. 
 
 -*- 
 
 T o all true sons of Jamaica who to-day glory in the 
 position which they occupy as free men and 
 British subjects, this Jubilee of Emancipation ought 
 undoubtedly to be a season of special thanksgiving 
 and holy rejoicing, as an expression of the indebted¬ 
 ness and gratitude to Almighty God felt by us all for 
 that merciful interposition on our fathers’ behalf, but 
 for which the tale told to-day by the last fifty years 
 would doubtless have been a far different one,—one 
 which perhaps the pen of history would have blushed 
 to write. That these fifty years of social liberty and 
 equality, of religious privileges, of educational ad¬ 
 vantages, and of intercourse in various ways with 
 civilized and Christian men, have greatly benefited 
 the masses of Jamaica’s people, is palpable to all 
 intelligent and unprejudiced minds that have been 
 employed in watching the tide of Jamaica’s affairs. 
 For this every heart must beat with gratitude. 
 
 Still we are of opinion that none will deny that, 
 with more facilities and less disadvantages, a far 
 greater degree of prosperity might have been attained, 
 that we would, without a doubt, have advanced much 
 farther, but for certain circumstances which may be 
 
76 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 fitly denominated hindrances . These hindrances have 
 been many and various; and to attempt a reference 
 to them all here would be to frustrate the good in¬ 
 tended. We shall, therefore, only allude to a few— 
 those which we consider of greatest moment, and which 
 we believe a little extra effort might ere long remove. 
 
 1. There is the Want of Enlightenment. We name 
 this first, and, we think, rightly so. A lack of en¬ 
 lightenment on several subjects of vital importance 
 has been one of the chief hindrances to the greater 
 prosperity of the mass of the people of this land. It 
 would be difficult to find a competent judge who 
 would conscientiously negative this statement. 
 
 Prosperity and ignorance are almost as opposed to 
 each other as light and darkness. Success in any 
 undertaking is oftener than otherwise commensurate 
 with the degree and kind of knowledge brought to it 
 by the undertaker. He who possesses much of the 
 requisite knowledge, and uses it aright, will achieve 
 much ; he who possesses little, will achieve little. 
 
 This amply-tested law that the measure of enlighten¬ 
 ment is the measure of prosperity , has, till within a few 
 years, been sadly disregarded in Jamaica. Some of 
 the first things we should have known have been and 
 still are to the vast majority of us nothing better 
 than terrce incognitce —territories unexplored and un¬ 
 known ; and the result is that this Jubilee of 
 Emancipation, while it does chronicle progress , 
 chronicles it in a degree far short of what should 
 else have been the case. Many a man struggling 
 with want to-day would have had enough and to 
 spare had he been blessed with more enlightenment. 
 
 Without attempting to calculate the loss to any 
 
HINDRANCES. 
 
 77 
 
 country accruing from a lack of sufficient general 
 education (and the loss is simply incalculable), let us 
 confine our attention to one subject in which' to be 
 ignorant is a dead loss to Jamaica. Look at our 
 Agriculture. Though it must be conceded that many ' 
 of the people of this island have attained a tolerable 
 degree of prosperity by tilling the soil, yet it must 
 also be acknowledged with equal candour that this 
 success is to be attributed almost entirely to the 
 natural fertility of the land; and that a better 
 knowledge of the nature and management of both 
 soils and plants would have added vastly to such 
 prosperity. But no blame can be laid upon the eman¬ 
 cipated people. It is not easy to acquire knowledge 
 without a teacher. Had circumstances favourable to 
 the acquisition of scientific agriculture been all this 
 while within the reach of the masses, many of them 
 would ere this have in all probability made themselves 
 masters of such means and methods as would turn to 
 valuable account the poorest lands in the country. 
 
 Such knowledge would also have prevented that 
 exhausting system of tillage which has all these ( 
 years been so fearfully impoverishing much of our 
 arable lands. But we have never had an opportunity 
 of acquainting ourselves with this important science. 
 All the agricultural pursuits of this Island have, with 
 very few exceptions, been conducted on the semi- 
 barbarous rather than on the civilized principle. 
 Rich lands are taken up for cultivation, and good 
 crops gathered for a year or two. As soon as there 
 is a sign of exhaustion in these they are deserted for 
 others of a better quality, if obtainable. In some 
 cases the exhausted fields are allowed to “rest ” for 
 
78 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 some years, and gather by natural process what 
 food-elements they can ; then they are again brought 
 under 'cultivation for the production of the same 
 crops, and again doomed to a still speedier abandon¬ 
 ment. Thus hundreds of acres are from time to 
 time abandoned as unproductive,—lands which, in 
 scientific hands, might have been rendered highly 
 remunerative. Had the mass of the people been 
 taught to till the soil on enlightened principles during 
 the past fifty years, every class of the community 
 would have been better off to-day; for the wealth of 
 Jamaica lies in its soil. Our pressing need to-day 
 is not merely education in general, but education in 
 this particular art of getting the most out of our soil. 
 It should be made a special branch of study in all 
 our elementary schools where the children of the 
 peasantry come under tuition. Golden harvests from 
 hitherto unremunerative lands, and richer harvests 
 reaped from those now considered productive, would 
 reward the efforts expended. 
 
 Too much can hardly be said on this matter; for, 
 as we have already remarked, the hope of this 
 country’s temporal prosperity lies in nothing else 
 than its soil. If Jamaica is to lift up its head and 
 take its proper place by the side of its sister colonies, 
 special attention must be paid to that department of 
 knowledge which will lead its people to realize how 
 many thousands of pounds they are day by day 
 literally trampling beneath their feet, whilst in not a 
 few cases they go with down-hanging hands and empty 
 pockets, complaining, “ No money ! nothing to do !” 
 
 Jamaica could afford comfortable subsistence to a 
 population four or five times its present number, if 
 
HINDRANCES. 
 
 79 
 
 the people were but fairly instructed in the science 
 and art of agriculture. Is it too much to say that, 
 under more enlightened management, the country 
 could produce bread-stuffs adequate to a demand 
 even five-fold increased? Is it too much to affirm 
 that such management would not only immensely in¬ 
 crease the quantity, but also vastly improve the 
 quality of all our present agricultural exports ? And 
 is it improbable that such enlightenment would 
 also cause the introduction and cultivation of other 
 articles of exportation ? The amount paid to foreign 
 countries for food during the last fifty years must be 
 frightfully large ! No inconsiderable portion of it, 
 we are fully convinced, would have been saved for the 
 material improvement of this lovely land, had the 
 mass of the people been instructed to till the soil on 
 more enlightened principles. 
 
 Again, the imperfect and unskilful preparation of the 
 greater part of their produce for the market has oper¬ 
 ated with no little banefulness on the prosperity of the 
 people of Jamaica. Their want of acquaintance with the 
 best methods of such preparation prevents them com¬ 
 manding what they would oftentimes find little difficulty 
 in commanding—the highest prices in the market. 
 
 The institution of slavery, from which the 
 liberated people first derived their knowledge of 
 preparing their chief exports, was a system fraught 
 with shameful ignorance and frightful waste in the 
 preparation of articles of commerce; and since its 
 abolition our educators have somehow forgotten this 
 important branch of instruction. The introduction 
 of cheap and effective machinery, bolstered by kind 
 and whole-hearted instruction, would be a boon to 
 
80 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 the Island. That the people are anxious to rise is 
 everywhere patent; hut this want of more enlighten¬ 
 ment in this wide and all-important department of 
 agriculture fetters their aspiring feet. 
 
 2. Another circumstance which has contributed to 
 retard Jamaica’s prosperity is the want of more and 
 better P arochial Roads. Much of the best lands for 
 tillage has not been, and cannot yet be, placed under 
 regular cultivation, on account either of the entire 
 absence of roads, or of the dangerous condition of 
 such as lead to these localities. Much and profitable 
 business, too, in boards, shingles, and lumber of all 
 kinds, has been prevented in several of the parishes 
 from the absolute want of roads, or from the un¬ 
 inviting condition of the existing nominal ones. For 
 the last fifty years thousands of most valuable forest 
 trees have been in the mountainous districts ruthlessly 
 destroyed by cultivators, whilst year by year immense 
 quantities of American lumber are being imported 
 and consumed by the colony. As one travels over 
 such tracts and witnesses what one feels tempted to 
 call cruel waste, he finds that he must exculpate the 
 perpetrators of such crimes ; for neither tenants nor 
 proprietors were favoured with the facilities requisite 
 for the utilization of these valuable materials. And 
 so it comes to pass that one portion of the country is 
 forced to import building material, whilst in another 
 one is sickened at the sight of decaying timber ; one 
 portion of the country can scarce grow enough to eat, 
 whilst in another the difficulty is in disposing of 
 superfluous food. The fruit trade, too, which has 
 within recent years sprung up between Jamaica and 
 America is at present seriously affected by the state 
 
HINDRANCES. 
 
 81 
 
 of our inland roads. Not only are many deterred 
 and others debarred from profiting by it, but those 
 who do attempt it, find that the fruit suffers 
 materially from the rough handling it has undergone 
 in these difficult bridle-tracks. More and better 
 roads are an urgent need, and must prove an ineffable 
 blessing to the Island. 
 
 3. Another hindrance to our great prosperity has 
 been the Want of Economy —a lack of education in the 
 frugal use of money." Man is not instinctively 
 economical. Indeed those who have come in contact 
 with uncivilized man, tell us that in his natural 
 state he has rather a bias in favour of prodigality. 
 In order, therefore, that a people just emerging 
 from an uncivilized condition should acquire habits 
 of frugality, they must have teaching both by 
 example and? precept, so that they may be led to 
 see the necessity of carefully using their daily 
 earnings. Viewing the matter in this light, it is not 
 surprising that the people of Jamaica have been so 
 long in learning the lesson of economy. In the days 
 of slavery they saw nothing but a display of the 
 most spendthrift prodigality in the use of money 
 and property. Waste, not economy, was the order 
 of the day; and it is a wonder that any of them 
 learnt to practise even the simplest thrift. Perhaps 
 the sudden straits into which emancipation cast the 
 majority of these untutored people were the God- 
 appointed means of instilling into them the first 
 principles of economy. But the stern grip of neces¬ 
 sity, was after a while withdrawn, no one thenceforth 
 felt bound to be economical. So the inevitable 
 relapse succeeded. Then even subsequent to the 
 
 a 
 
—- ««*•. 
 
 82 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 abolition of that pernicious system, the social life of 
 the upper classes for a long while continued the 
 same; the newly emancipated people looked up to 
 those into whose likeness they were ambitious to 
 grow, and saw no economy to imitate; so they 
 imitated what they saw. 
 
 It is true that a few kind-hearted and noble-minded 
 missionaries gave their best advice to the people, and 
 that their teachings were not utterly fruitless; but 
 black men are like all other men,—readier to copy 
 what they see than follow what they hear. 
 
 While then all good and true men must rejoice in | 
 
 the advance that the people of Jamaica have made, 
 it must be admitted that with greater economy that 
 advance would have been greater by far; and though 
 we see with pleasure that the eyes of a goodly number 
 are now being turned to this subject, so intimately 
 connected with our future weal or woe, it is to be 
 regretted that the past has not left us the legacy of 
 a better example, and that the present is so slow to 
 move out of the old rut of prodigality. . J 
 
 4. Another drawback to the prosperity of Jamaica 
 during the period under review has been a want of 
 Capital. When it is remembered that the abolition 
 of slavery in this island was a circumstance which 
 sent the bulk of the population forth into the cold 
 world to begin a new life, either entirely or almost 
 penniless, there can be no good ground for complaint 
 against them if, in the social progress of these fifty 
 years, they have not come quite up to the expectations 
 of a few. Health and strength were all the capital 
 that the vast majority of the people possessed at 
 emancipation. With these they started life quite at 
 
HINDRANCES. 
 
 83 
 
 the foot of the ladder—a ladder by no means easy 
 of ascent, and not unfrequently rendered still more 
 difficult by unfriendly interference direct and indirect. 
 By no means would we ignore the fact that in that 
 dawn of Freedom some worthy sons and daughters 
 of Europe and America, in one way and another, 
 rendered valuable aid to some few of the liberated 
 people. Tools, lands, and occasionally a little money, 
 were advanced by these kind-hearted men and women 
 in various parts of the country to the poor, resource¬ 
 less outcasts. We note this with thankful hearts. 
 All honour to the memory of such sympathising 
 helpers! Heaven bless them, and their children’s 
 children! Would that there were more of this kind 
 of tale to tell! But these were only cases of exception, 
 few and far between. By far the majority of the 
 newly disenthralled community had to climb unaided 
 the slippery uphill path of life. When therefore we 
 attempt to measure the height to which these people 
 have attained we must never forget to measure it by 
 the utterly destitute circumstances with which they 
 started on their social march. And when we thus 
 
 regard them our impartial verdict amounts to this,_ 
 
 That no other people could, under similar circum¬ 
 stances, have reached a greater height on the ladder of 
 social advancement within the same period of time. 
 We assert this with but little fear of contradiction 
 from those who know our circumstances, and who are 
 in any way conversant with universal history and 
 the social progress of present civilized nations ; and 
 we sincerely hope that when the next Jubilee of 
 Emancipation shall dawn upon Jamaica, her increas¬ 
 ing enlightenment, industry, and economy, will have 
 
84 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 almost, if not entirely, rolled out of the way that 
 troublesome hindrance which so many of us still so 
 sadly deplore under the name of Want of Capital . 
 
 Let the present position of the people of Jamaica 
 be used by their friends to stimulate them to press 
 forward all the more perseveringly in their praise¬ 
 worthy efforts to improve not only their moral and 
 religious, hut also their temporal, circumstances; and 
 let all Jamaicans themselves regard the advance 
 which they have, in the face of so many adverse 
 gales, been able to make, as an unmistakable token 
 of still greater social and material progress yet to be 
 made by them, through their untiring energy and the 
 blessing of Almighty God. 
 
CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF JAMAICA DESCRIBED. 
 
 By Mr. J. H. REID. 
 
 -*- 
 
 H istory tells us of a time when Jamaica was peopled 
 by Indians; but however interesting this fact 
 might prove to the inquirer of this nineteenth century, 
 there is not much that is known with certainty about 
 them. They doubtless belonged to the American 
 variety of the human race ; but it was not the concern 
 of those who were the means of making us acquainted 
 with them to ascertain their position in the scale of 
 humanity, and so they were permitted to wave us a 
 long good-bye and pass silently out of sight. 
 
 When the Genoese commodore first crossed the 
 Atlantic, and planted the Spanish flag in the Western 
 world it was also, as far as design was concerned, the 
 first planting of anything Caucasian in what then 
 came to be, and still is, called the New World. Then 
 also for the first time it experienced an admixture of 
 foreign blood. As regards the influence which this 
 admixture exerted on the condition of the people, the 
 inquirer must content himself with such facts as the 
 reservedness of the accounts of that period suffered to 
 come to light, and pass on to study the destinies of 
 our country in the open day of English occupation. 
 
 In furtherance of this object both history and ex¬ 
 perience are at our disposal, bringing the scenes of the 
 past once more into view, that an opportunity may be 
 
86 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 afforded of comparing them with those in course of 
 display, and of recognizing by how much the present 
 is indebted to them. 
 
 One of the most marked results of English occupa¬ 
 tion is the permanent division of the population into 
 three principal classes, each distinct in its origin, and 
 to a certain extent possessing marks of distinction 
 which will continue to exert a mighty influence either 
 for good or evil in the development of our national 
 life, according as they are appreciated and properly 
 moulded, or disregarded and allowed to assume pro¬ 
 portions contorted and abnormal. 
 
 The chief of these classes, as regards power and in¬ 
 fluence, is that represented by the white man, called 
 “Backra” in the every-day language of the people. 
 To this class is referred everything that is worthy in 
 the life of the country. To speak, dress, and live like 
 Backra is the standard up to which all Jamaica desires 
 to reach. “ Whatever the white man does must be 
 right,” is the sentiment of the bulk of the population, 
 and one that sits like a nightmare on the social and 
 moral condition of the country. 
 
 The white man has lived so much before the world 
 that he is in a general way well known. Yet the 
 Jamaica white man has his peculiarities as well as 
 man everywhere under the influence of climate, local 
 needs, blessings, thought, feeling, and every other local 
 influence by which he is surrounded. At once he is 
 the least Jamaican of everything pertaining to the 
 country. He longs to return to England, if he is a 
 native Englishman; and if he is not, he thinks at least 
 he ought to visit that country; and he speaks of it as 
 “ home,” even when he has never had the opportunity 
 
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 
 
 87 
 
 of breathing its atmosphere. There are, however, 
 some families among them, who, on account of their 
 “ stake in the country,” have become identified with 
 this land for generations; but it is for the greater part 
 an identification with the soil , and less so with the 
 people of the land. 
 
 But there are other whites who are never included 
 in the appellation “Backra,” especially when it is used 
 in connection with "intellectual and social greatness. 
 They are described by the term “ white laba,” an 
 abbreviation and corruption of “ white labourer.” To 
 this section belong the later immigrants of English, 
 Irish, and German origin, and a few of Portuguese 
 origin, more commonly called “Poto,” who all take 
 rank side by side of the ordinary peasant, but take 
 advantage of their native connection to appropriate to 
 themselves all they can of the status of their more 
 favoured kindred. 
 
 The next class in point of population and recognized 
 influence is that denominated “ coloured,” consisting 
 of men who at one extreme can be distinguished from 
 the white man in colour only by mathematical rea¬ 
 sonings, or by philosophical tests; and who, except 
 in the matter of favour and general estimation, are in 
 every way equal to their white brethren; and at the 
 other, by some having such a small tinge of whiteness 
 in them, that but for the same aids they could never 
 be known to possess the remotest blood-relationship to 
 the white man, and in other respects have as little in 
 common with him as it is possible to conceive. If 
 “possession” be used as the word indicative of the 
 condition of the white man, “ progression ” may as 
 aptly indicate that of the coloured, or “ brown man,” 
 

 ' — L - ■ . 
 
 88' Jamaica’s jubilee. 
 
 as he is usually styled in Jamaica. It may be re¬ 
 marked, however, that the appellation “ brown man ” 
 is often used in a more limited sense to designate the 
 true mulatto, born of parents one black and the other 
 white. 
 
 If a general description be attempted of this class, 
 much could be said perfectly true of some sections of 
 it, and yet quite inapplicable to others. But this may 
 be said, that they are the most intensely Jamaican of 
 the whole population, and are very sensitive on the 
 subject of colour, and the more so the farther they 
 recede from the white man. This is the representative 
 class, containing in itself specimens of the best, the 
 common, and the worst, in intelligence and wealth. 
 Here Nature directs the negro to seek his truest friends, 
 and here he sometimes finds them ; but more commonly 
 it is here that he finds his bitterest foes. A coloured 
 man generally has no relatives on the mother’s side, 
 and gets the cold shoulder from those on the father’s 
 side. This has led to a certain kind of independence, 
 as decided in its results as it is unique in its origin. 
 He takes his destiny into his own hands, despising the 
 ignorant sympathy of his mother, and defying the 
 studied contempt of his father, at the same time 
 determining to be as good as the best. It shows itself 
 in a certain degree of self-assertion, the more pro¬ 
 nounced as the subject of it is ignorant. 
 
 The third of the representative classes of Jamaica is 
 ; made up of ne groes (“ niggers,” as they are usually 
 \ called). They have - been the subject of such frequent 
 and liberal description, that there is reason for the 
 entertainment of the fear of their being over-described. 
 But in most cases such accounts of them have pro- 
 
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 89 
 
 ceeded either from those who know them but little, or 
 those who are not prepossessed in their favour. 
 
 Three-fourths of the entire population belong to 
 this class; yet so proportionately small is their stake 
 in the country, that they call it “Backra country.” 
 This race is foreign in its origin, and was introduced 
 on this side of the globe as a valuable species of 
 cattle,—not valuable so much as meat, of less value 
 in point of strength, but of greater value on account 
 of its possessing greater docility, and consequently 
 fitter for general usefulness, than other breeds. 
 There is no history to tell—history is ashamed to 
 unfold,vhow these human cattle were treated. They 
 were fed, it is true, not upon ordinary cattle provender 
 at the master’s expense, but upon fodder more suitable 
 to themselves, which they were expected for the most 
 part to provide. They were trained to build their 
 own sheds, and make their own trappings, and where 
 they did not come up to the required standard of 
 utility, they were compelled to make up the deficiency 
 with their blood. Eventually the farmers of these 
 stock discovered that they could make a superior 
 breed of these same cattle by hybridizing with them, 
 and when the hybrid was produced, resembling man 
 in so many features, it was not even then recognized 
 that they possessed some human qualities. Genera¬ 
 tions succeeded each other, and they still remained in 
 stock condition. In the mean time both breeds—the 
 original black, short-maned, and the brown, long¬ 
 maned—struck into the soil, and despite their hard 
 usage defied extermination, and multiplied. 
 
 In process of time men began to feel uncomfortable 
 on the subject of the proper treatment of these animals, 
 
90 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 and at the commencement of the present century the 
 conclusion was arrived at that it was well to promote 
 them both to the position of a lower species of the 
 human race. Hence it has come to pass that 95 per 
 | cent, of the population of Jamaica is of negro origin. 
 
 The great act of elevation took place on the 1st of 
 August, 1888, among the earliest of those public 
 measures which have rendered such glory to the 
 reign of our great Queen and Mother, as to set her in 
 the first place among great rulers, and win for this 
 half century of blessing to the world the appellation 
 of the “ Victorian Age.” On account of that great 
 act thousands have risen and blessed, and many more 
 thousands shall arise and bless, the Great Euler of 
 the Universe, with higher and increasing appreciation, 
 for benefits resulting to the world from the reign of 
 Queen Victoria. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable than the extent to 
 which the transplanting of the black man may be 
 carried, especially in these slave lands of the West. 
 Without care and under very unfavourable circum¬ 
 stances he has propagated his kind. This certainly 
 indicates the possession of an extraordinary amount 
 of vitality, and that is in its turn connected with a 
 strong physical constitution. Brought to the West to 
 supply the place of the extinct or decreasing aborigines, 
 he was subject, if possible, to worse treatment than 
 that which terminated in the extinction of the Indian 
 in some localities. Kidnapped from his native wilds, 
 where for generations he roamed without a care 
 I except that of escaping the murderer’s weapon, a 
 prince, it may be, among his own people, he was put 
 to extremes of toil, refusing to do which, as something 
 
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 
 
 91 
 
 to which he was unaccustomed, he was beaten into 
 the neighbourhood of death and left there to expire. 
 He would even wish for death as preferable to his 
 condition; but the intense hold that life had upon his 
 frame prevented him from dying, and he recovered to 
 meet the same cruel treatment over again. This 
 partly explains the saying in reference to him, “ A 
 nigger will get well anyhow.” 
 
 This soundness of constitution served him in the place 
 of capital, when he was restored to his original freedom, 
 without a thought of compensation for the service of 
 generations, and without as much land of his own as 
 would afford him standing room. By it he was pre¬ 
 served from succumbing to exposure, and the ills 
 consequent upon insufficient and unwholesome food. 
 He counted upon it to provide a home for his family, 
 and to supply that frequently large family with the 
 necessaries of life. It is faithful to him to-day, in the 
 still severe demands upon his physical powers with 
 which he has to cope. And the best of all is that he 
 is conscious of it. Once, when a black man was asked 
 for the source of the capital with which a certain 
 enterprise was to be carried through, he answered, 
 looking upon the back of his clenched fist, “ This skin 
 is money." 
 
 Although the black man has been in his place for 
 generations, blind prejudice (if prejudice is ever blind) 
 prevented his good points from being fully appreciated, 
 and only his failings were set before a world too 
 readily given to censoriousness; the consequence of 
 which was that he was pronounced to be worthless. 
 It remained for the events of the last few years to 
 prove that he is ready to use his physical blessings 
 
92 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 with a view to better his condition. The reason for 
 this mistake, lies chiefly in the fact that those who 
 have hitherto given information on the subject, have 
 seldom come into contact with the best specimens of 
 the free negro man. Such specimens are not to be 
 found, except in very rare instances, in the de¬ 
 moralizing influence and atmosphere of the sugar 
 estates. They are rather to be sought in the quiet 
 retreats of the mountains, where he may be found 
 contending all the year through with the rugged hill¬ 
 sides upon which his provision ground is almost in¬ 
 variably situated (for want of more cultivable land), 
 for the wherewithal to support himself and his 
 family. From the proceeds of that unskilled tillage 
 he has saved enough to purchase the land on which 
 his cottage is erected. The cottage itself bears testi¬ 
 mony to his industry and thrift, and of his deter¬ 
 mination to live an honest and respectable life. 
 
 In disposition the negro man, uninfluenced by 
 exciting causes, is quiet. He is willing to let the 
 world alone, asking only the same kindness in return. 
 He is not given to street brawls, but is rather noisy 
 at his play, of which he is very fond. Once fairly on 
 the swing, he pours his whole nature into that, and 
 for the time is^willing to forego a great deal else. This 
 fondness for play is so characteristic of him, that it 
 peeps out in connection with almost everything in 
 which he is engaged. See him at his toil singing his 
 “hambaho ! ” He works to the astonishment of the 
 beholder, as long as he is excited by his song, by the 
 use of which he has succeeded in reducing his toil to 
 amusement. 
 
 Opportunity may here be taken to combat a state- 
 
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 
 
 98 
 
 ment that has obtained circulation during the past 
 with regard to the disposition of the black man. He 
 has been generally put forth as being set against the 
 prosperity of his fellow, and delighted at standing in 
 the way of his advancement. 
 
 The most wonderful thing about it is that it is 
 implicitly believed by the black man himself. Appear¬ 
 ances have done a deal to support it; but when it is 
 said to be more characteristic of the black man, than 
 of man, regardless of colour or nationality, it is un¬ 
 doubtedly incorrect. To disprove the statement that 
 he is opposed to all prosperity in his brother, it is 
 sufficient to point to the many items of labour, re¬ 
 quiring for their accomplishment the application of 
 greater power than is contained in any single human 
 frame, that have been successfully carried through by 
 the gratuitous united exertion of the black man. A 
 canoe is hollowed out in a valley miles away from the 
 seaside. The mechanical power calculated upon for 
 its transportation to its destination is the labour of a 
 company of men filing down the hillside. But they 
 are not hired hands. They would not choose to do 
 that kind of work for hire. The rollers of wooden 
 sugar mills sometimes measuring twenty inches in 
 diameter, and the timber for the erection of cottages, 
 many of them six inches square and twenty-four feet 
 long, all find their places by such gratuitous labour. 
 
 Placed in comparison with the white man there is 
 the seeming truth; but the difficulty is explained 
 away by the fact that the white man is able, from 
 his available resources, to render a degree of assistance 
 calculated to make an appreciable improvement in 
 the condition of his fellow, and that too, in many 
 
94 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 cases, without inconvenience to himself; while the 
 black man, after he has made what sometimes results to 
 him as a ruinous sacrifice, leaves the person he assists 
 so little improved in circumstances as to be unnoticed 
 by the outside world. The white man, who is our 
 moneyed man, may assist a youth starting in life by 
 employing him in his firm or on his estate, and he 
 thus serves himself while assisting his friend. The 
 black man, on the contrary, is himself in need of a 
 helping hand; and when he decides upon assisting any 
 one, he is obliged to do so out of his own small capital 
 —the only kind of capital at his disposal—the labour 
 of his hands. 
 
 It is not as easy to combat the idea of his being 
 opposed to the advancement of his fellow over himself. 
 It is not so much he, but his education that is in 
 fault. His slave training made him to associate 
 respectability with the possession of a white skin. 
 He has had it instilled into him on the knees of his 
 slave mother, beaten into him by those whose interests 
 demanded it, and he simply remains true to the 
 “ tradition of the elders ” when he looks at it as an 
 unbecoming thing for a negro like himself, brought up 
 before his eyes, whose antecedents were no better than 
 his own (perhaps not so good), to stand forth as a 
 candidate for such consideration and regard. It is 
 thus that the black aspirant after social elevation is 
 met at every step by what he puts down to the 
 account of a grudging and an envious disposition, but 
 what is in reality intended as a rebuke to his spirit of 
 innovation. It is for the rising black man himself 
 to counteract this notion by judicious behaviour. It 
 may be laid at his own door that his past attitude 
 
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 
 
 95 
 
 over against his humble brother has tended rather 
 to provoke than to stamp out such a feeling. Should 
 the black man who has risen, learn at the call of 
 duty to live for the benefit of his race, and to put 
 away the desire of being thought a white man, and to 
 be bought out of the ranks of black men, to exemplify 
 in himself what the black man may become—not 
 wasting valuable opportunities in petty contentions 
 on questions of personal dignity, but striving con¬ 
 stantly to establish merit,—the day is fast approach¬ 
 ing when that will be sought for, and neither race 
 nor colour, as the foundation of true respectability. 
 
 Closely allied with the question of natural disposition 
 is that of mental capacity. Indeed they are almost 
 bound up with each other. It may be broadly stated 
 that whatever may be the future development of the 
 negro mind in Jamaica, at present he is pre-eminently 
 a learner. The lever of a liberal education has not 
 been brought sufficiently within his reach to enable 
 him to attempt anything in the direction of originality. 
 The foremost in the ranks have already given evidence 
 of a high receptive capacity, and there is reason to 
 believe that with further advances in education he 
 will evince a corresponding degree of mental activity. 
 Judging by the standards at our disposal, there appears 
 to be, on his part, a marked disinclination to mental 
 effort, owing rather to the conditions of his past history 
 than to any deficiency in mental capacity. It has 
 been thought sufficient for his purposes to be guided 
 by what he has seen, without any question of adapta¬ 
 tion, and here again he surrenders himself to the influ¬ 
 ence of his education. This defect, it is manifest, has 
 stood in the way of his advancement, and the education 
 
96 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 that will benefit him most is that which tends to awaken 
 his dormant mental powers. He is rather apt at imita¬ 
 tion, but is not yet sufficiently inquisitive about the 
 nature of things and the reasons for them. 
 
 One hopeful sign in connection with his mental 
 powers is the possession of a highljjetentiye memory. 
 It is remarkable to what extent this is developed, both 
 in the school-boy and in the aged patriarch. It is an 
 easy thing for the school-boy to memorise the lesson 
 that he has not yet had appointed him, by merely 
 listening to those who are concerned in its preparation 
 or recital; and if he is not carefully watched, he makes 
 use of it to indulge in habits of carelessness. The 
 aged man carries his whole history and that of the 
 times through which he has lived, safely locked up in 
 his memory, and the various details of his business 
 transactions are stored away in the same receptacle, 
 to be ready for use at the time required, with a degree 
 of accuracy truly astonishing. If the educators of the 
 present generation can only succeed in rousing this 
 manifestly powerful, but dormant mind into healthy 
 activity, they will by that means supply to the Jamaica 
 negro the very thing needed to lead him to a recogni¬ 
 tion of his own powers, and to make him stand in his 
 lot worthy of the name of man. Emphatically the 
 greatest present need of the Jamaica negro is mental 
 activity. It is lacking in his social, moral, and reli¬ 
 gious life alike. He is poor, not because he is indolent, 
 but because he is thoughtless. He is morally unstable, 
 not because he is dead to feelings of shame, but because 
 he unthinkingly allows himself to be carried along by 
 the currents that surround him. He does not appear 
 to be deeply religious, because though in his heart he 
 
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 
 
 97 
 
 loves, he does not generally provide for the intelligent 
 manifestation of his affection. 
 
 In his manner the average black man cannot be 
 considered polite—perhaps it could hardly be expected 
 of him, politeness being the result of refinement. He 
 is, however, on the high road leading to it, and his 
 present position is covered by the term “ respectful.” 
 It is a rare thing for a black man to be otherwise to 
 his superiors, even under provocation; and when that 
 superior is a white man, it is not a little provocation 
 that will make him otherwise. In the younger gene¬ 
 ration, there are evidences of a tendency to depart 
 from this principle of forbearance, and, desirable as it 
 may be that servility may be rooted out, there is reason 
 to fear a falling into the other extreme. This refers 
 only to the ordinary. It is gratifying at times to hear 
 the remark made by those who are competent to judge, 
 in reference to individuals who have risen from the 
 ranks into position, “He is a perfect gentleman, despite 
 his skin.” The only drawback in the remark is that 
 it indicates the holding of the opinion that the skin 
 stands in the way of true gentility. 
 
 The living of the black man is on the simplest plan. 
 He takes usually three meals in twenty-four hours. 
 The first is his coffee, with which he takes a bit of 
 bread when that is to be had, or in default of that, a 
 roasted plantain, or something similar, and with that 
 he goes to his work until breakfast time, about ten or 
 eleven o’clock. This meal generally consists of boiled 
 ground provisions, of more than one kind,—yams, 
 cocoas, sweet-potatoes, plantains, chochos, being mixed 
 in the same dish, according as they happen to be at 
 hand at the time. Of flesh, he partakes of salted meat 
 
 H 
 
98 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 and fish in the period of the week between market days, 
 Wednesdays and Saturdays, on which days new sup¬ 
 plies are generally obtained. In towns where there 
 are every-day markets, and in villages near the sea, 
 salted provisions are not largely consumed. The last 
 meal of the day is what he calls his “ dinner,” which 
 he partakes of any time after his return from his day’s 
 work: it may be as early as five, or as late as nine 
 o’clock in the evening. The wife is cook on all these 
 occasions, taking her spell between whiles at the wash- 
 tub, or at the work place, or in whatever department 
 of duty her services may be needed. She—the ordinary 
 ■wife—does not, however, like to join her husband at 
 the family festive hoard. She may be as careful in 
 presenting him his dinner on as neatly spread a table 
 as any one can wish, yet she prefers to eat by herself 
 in the kitchen, or in a corner of the room. It is evident 
 that she does not believe in the equality of the sexes. 
 There are, however, hundreds of families, in which, 
 under the impulse of education, the wife takes her 
 place with conscious pride by the side of her husband, 
 not only at the family board, but in every department 
 of life. In nothing is the benign influence of educa¬ 
 tion more plainly discernible, than in the difference 
 that exists in the conditions of life of those who are 
 either altogether untaught, or else unappreciative on 
 account of their connection with slavery, and those 
 who have grown up under freedom and education. 
 In reference to manners, as in other requirements of 
 civilized existence, it may not be inapt to quote the 
 remark of a black speaker from the platform, “As a 
 community we have not come, but as individuals we 
 have come.” 
 
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 99 
 
 The dress of the labourer at his field-work, is the' 
 shirt and trousers; but variety is a prominent feature 
 with regard to the materials from which they are 
 made. Blue jean, or as it is vulgarly called, “ Old 
 iron,” is the most common; but the range is much 
 wider, sometimes taking in very costly materials that 
 have passed their time of probation in the pew. On 
 Sundays and holidays, however, a great deal of 
 attention is paid to the outfit, and everybody endea¬ 
 vours to appear in the most elegant style. In the 
 other sex the same points may be traced, with the 
 addition of a greater tendency to overdress. In dress, 
 as in features, the line of demarcation between 
 
 Quasheba and her mistress is getting fainter every 
 day. She has learned to make her own dresses, and 
 she wears them in defiance of declamations against 
 them from pulpit and platform, because she believes 
 what the copybooks says, “Example speaks louder 
 than words.” No longer do we see rows of meanly 
 clad people in the pews on Sundays, with bare feet, 
 and clothes of coarse materials, as in former days. 
 It cannot be helped, for the progress of the age 
 demands it. 
 
 It has often been remarked that not unfrequently 
 people of genteel appearance may be met on the 
 road neatly dressed, and riding on powerful steeds, 
 who yet live in such wretched hovels that they 
 cannot find in them a peg on which to hang the 
 holiday coat when it is taken off. It is quite true, 
 but that very fact is one of the n any proofs of steady 
 progress. Many a man who commenced life in such 
 a hovel, has, in the spirit of the proverb, stood “ on 
 a crooked stick and cut a straight one,” by living in 
 
100 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 that mean “ save rent,” as such are generally called, 
 while building a far superior abode or gathering 
 together the wherewith to purchase one. 
 
 The typical dwelling of the negro peasant is a 
 building consisting of two sleeping rooms, and a 
 common one for other purposes, generally larger than 
 the rest, called the “hall.” They are variously 
 disposed. Sometimes the building is divided length¬ 
 wise, with the sleeping rooms on one side, either 
 contiguous or separated by an entrance passage of 
 from four to six feet in breadth; or else the division 
 is crosswise, with the sleeping rooms at one end; or 
 it may be into thirds, the two end rooms being for 
 sleeping purposes, and the middle one for general use. 
 But better kinds are now rapidly springing up, in 
 which greater attention is paid to provision for more 
 civilised ways of living. 
 
 Of indoor amusements those which may he consi¬ 
 dered to belong peculiarly to the people are falling fast 
 into disuse. Formerly, while the father and mother 
 might be seen together relating to each other the adven¬ 
 tures of the day, or setting to rights their neighbours 
 private affairs, with about the same degree of charity 
 that is commonly meted out to such subjects, the 
 children might be found gathered together in a corner 
 somewhere, propounding riddles, or playing guessing 
 games, the most common of which was the “ ship- 
 sail,” played by two.' The first, with a few grains of 
 roasted Indian corn enclosed in his hand, says “ Ship 
 sail.” The other replies, “ Sail fast.” The first asks 
 again, “ Ho’ many man ’pon deck?” (How many men 
 upon deck ?) If the other give the number of grains 
 held in the hand, those are given to the successful 
 
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED. 
 
 101 
 
 guesser ; if not, the guesser must give up the number 
 that he called. When they have had their fill of the 
 play, each one eats the grains in his possession. 
 Another modification of the same game is the “ Waggin 
 load,” in which “ Waggin (waggon) load!” “ Dribe 
 off! ” take the place of “ Ship sail! ” “ Sail fast! ” and 
 may be played with any kind of eatables made up 
 into small pieces, or portions, as peppermint, lozenges, 
 etc. But the great pastime was the relation of 
 “ ’Nancy stories,” in which the clever exploits of 
 “Anancie,” a fictitious hero, are set forth. Anancie 
 is the genius of all that is crafty and clever at one 
 extreme, and that is shuffling and ridiculous at the 
 other. In some districts there is still a lingering around 
 the ancient annual “ Jancoonoo ” play, which generally 
 takes place at Christmas time. A Jancoonoo is a minia¬ 
 ture of a mansion, constructed of card-board. From 
 its windows a number of miniature ladies are looking 
 out upon the scenes around. This is borne on the 
 head of the Jancoonoo man, in procession before a 
 company of men and women, all masked. The music 
 for the occasion issues forth from the voices of the 
 “ set girls,” who sing in chorus in response to the 
 “ maam,” accompanied by the beating of the “ coocoo 
 drum,” and the “goombay.” On arriving at the place 
 appointed for the play, the company forms a large 
 circle, in the area of which the Jancoonoo man dances, 
 with a variety of strange antics, until with singing and 
 dancing all are wrought up into a wild frenzy. 
 Wherever two Jancoonoos meet there is generally a 
 fray. It would appear as if the object of a Jancoonoo 
 play originally was the praise of the master or owner 
 of the slaves concerned, and the condemnation of all 
 
- 
 
 
 102 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 others. But this kind of amusement has lost its 
 charm for the intelligent peasantry, and is deservedly 
 discouraged by them. Hence it only exists in the 
 most unenlightened parts. 
 
 These are the three representative classes. The 
 ! influential white man, in possession; the progressive 
 coloured man who is pressing to the front; and the 
 struggling negro in his repressed condition, out of whom 
 others manufacture influence and wealth; but who, 
 with here and there an exception, has not yet secured 
 any for himself. 
 
 ( Besides these there are Hindoo and Chinese coolies, 
 who keep up as far as they are able their native customs 
 and habits, but for which they would simply take their 
 places alongside of those other elements in the general 
 population; some having amassed wealth, and being 
 only prevented from commixture with the wealthy 
 classes by their national tastes ; while the poorer ones 
 are prevented from being lost in the peasantry by the 
 same causes. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA AND HER PEOPLE. 
 
 By Mr. R. Dingwall. 
 
 -- 3 ^- 
 
 T he gentlemen who have preceded me have glanced 
 at Jamaica’s past and depicted Jamaica’s present. 
 It now falls to me to aspire to the enviable position of 
 the prophet of Jamaica’s Future, to gather up and 
 present in a condensed form those elements in the 
 past history and present condition of her people that 
 warrant us to look with hope to her future. With 
 your leave, then, I mount my watch-tower ; and as I 
 gaze into the dimness of futurity, to your question, 
 “What of the night?” I reply, “ The dawn cometh ! 
 The star of hope already shoots above the distant 
 horizon ! Hope for the people of Jamaica !” 
 
 I look at our present circumstances, and I see that 
 they are on the whole working together for good; I 
 look into the history of the past, and therein I find 
 pledges for the future; I look into our people, and I 
 see elements in their constitution and traits in their 
 character, that teem with germs of promise. Even 
 some things in our present circumstances that now 
 appear to be drawbacks, will, I feel confident, prove 
 necessary and important factors in our ultimate 
 development. 
 
 If I were asked, in the first place, What are 
 
104 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 Jamaica's temporal prospects ? my answer would be 
 this : The temporal prospects of Jamaica are as good as 
 they ever were . Our fertile soil, our genial climate, 
 our geographical position, are the inalienable gifts of 
 God. No stranger has ever traversed our island 
 home but has pronounced it a land lovely for its 
 scenery and goodly for its fertility,—a fertility 
 hitherto almost wholly unaided by anything like 
 careful, systematic agriculture. Our staple products 
 could, with care, win the palm in competition; our 
 fruits are unmatched in the delicacy of their flavour ; 
 and with increasing enlightenment as to the best 
 ways and means of improving and increasing the 
 products of our soil, we need fear nought for the 
 future. And here are we—just a stone’s throw from 
 America—America, whose prophets proclaim her a 
 giant in embryo, and, what Jamaica is especially glad 
 of, a giant whose increasingly capacious stomach will 
 always be huge enough to demand all that little 
 Jamaica can produce. Our country is truly “rich in 
 all that flows from Nature’s hand,” the variety of 
 our soil and climate enabling us to surpass most 
 other lands in the variety of the products to which 
 in any emergency we can turn our hands: should 
 one industry fail (despite the fable of puss and fox), 
 we need not be nonplussed. We have but to find the 
 necessary skill and enterprise, and our land will 
 provide us a living. 
 
 Our great desideratum still is more civilization, 
 with its attendant facilities and advantages. Had 
 Jamaica more of these, she would not only vastly 
 improve her present products, but she could also of 
 herself produce at a paying rate much that is now 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 105 
 
 imported. More civilization, again we repeat, that 
 is our crying want; and we rejoice to see it slowly 
 but surely coming. 
 
 Railways are gradually extending; roads are now 
 intersecting hitherto unopened up districts; coaches 
 run where the railway does not; steam communica¬ 
 tion is established round the Island; companies and 
 societies are binding men together in mutual help ; 
 Savings Banks are training the people to economy ; 
 what are these but marks of growing civilization and 
 signs of brightening hope ? 
 
 Then again, intellectual enlightenment is keeping | 
 pace with outward progress. Nothing has borne f 
 more visible fruit than the efforts put forth to en¬ 
 lighten our land; and those who have taken a part 
 in this task are well worthy of a right hearty cheer 
 and a unanimous vote of thanks. Intelligence is 
 spreading ; eyes are being opened ; ambition is being 
 kindled. Multitudes are not content to lie in the 
 dust; and whilst it would be preposterous to expect 
 all to advance at the same rate, and vain to hope that 
 all will rise at once, still there are and will be many 
 out of the mass of their fellows, who, seeing the star 
 of prosperity before them, will follow its silent lead 
 till they reach a well-earned success. Only give a 
 people thorough enlightenment; only let them see 
 what to aim at and how to attain it, and, so long as 
 they are not fearfully destitute of the instincts of 
 humanity, I have little fear for their temporal 
 prosperity. They may not be millionaires, but they 
 will always find food sufficient and raiment convenient. 
 And now that we see schools multiplying, and com¬ 
 petent teachers increasing, and many of the people 
 
106 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 alive to the importance of Education; now that we 
 hear the approaching feet of higher education to fit 
 our lads and lasses for positions hitherto filled chiefly 
 from Europe; now that Government offices are opened 
 up to general competition, and now that a system of 
 compulsory education is being seriously considered 
 by the Legislature, as well as earnestly desired by 
 the country, our hearts may well beat high with 
 hope. Jamaica can find the material; only favour 
 her with the means of preparing and polishing it. 
 
 There is another element of hope, too, in our 
 present circumstances, at which a few very superficial 
 thinkers might perhaps cavil. It is what many so 
 loudly deprecate as “ hard times.” My opinion is 
 that Jamaica has suffered more from her “soft” 
 than from her “hard” times. It is now a well- 
 established and fully recognised biological law, that 
 every animal—human or othenvise—degenerates in pro¬ 
 portion to the degree in which it can live without 
 effort. That activity, so characteristic of genuine life, 
 becomes paralyzed ; there is no stern-voiced necessity 
 to call forth effort and rouse to action; so the very 
 powers and capacities that would have reached to full 
 development in stiffer circumstances, become atrophied, 
 shrivelled, lost: the animal no longer lives—it only 
 exists. The great reason why the savage is what he 
 is to-day, appears with very great probability to have 
 been this : that his forefather, wandering beyond the 
 bourne of pristine civilization, and finding means of 
 easy subsistence in the prolific woods, did not need 
 to toil as heretofore; and the restraints of civilized 
 society being removed, he contented himself with less 
 and rougher clothing and poorer and meaner accom- 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 107 
 
 modation, quietly chose the smoother and less 
 irksome road, and finally became content with what 
 kind nature afforded him; while that same nature 
 with her other hand little by little deprived him of 
 those powers of mind and qualities of soul for which 
 he had no need, and reduced him to what he is— 
 a savage. 
 
 Everyone now knows that in order to a people 
 becoming in any way great there must be more or 
 less difficulty in obtaining a livelihood. If only his 
 land be not quite like that of the frigid zone, from 
 whence considerate Nature seems rather anxious to 
 recall all her offspring, hard times are the best means 
 of developing the latent energy and waking up the 
 dormant powers of man. The prosperous races of 
 the temperate zone need not boast too much. They 
 are largely the creatures of circumstances. The very 
 recurrence of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, 
 forces them to habits of industry, foresight, and 
 thrift, habits which the perpetual summer of the 
 tropics is rather calculated to destroy; their less 
 productive soil develops in them qualities which our 
 too bountiful tropics render almost unnecessary; 
 whilst their denser population occasions a race for 
 life which to us is as yet unknown. No ; hard times 
 are intended by God to be our best friends. That 
 industry, economy, foresight, thoughtfulness, and 
 persistent, dogged energy, that enterprise and in¬ 
 ventiveness which necessity creates, that tact and 
 push which we long to see becoming more wide¬ 
 spread over our land, can be acquired only in the 
 school of stubborn circumstances. Difficulty is the 
 mould in which greatness is cast, the college in 
 
108 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 which heroes are trained. If you want a soft, 
 effeminate, shiftless, lazy, degraded, molluscous, 
 parasitical race, give them an uninterrupted stretch 
 of “ soft ” times, and the work will be done for you. 
 When I read and hear how Jamaica’s “good old 
 days ” were spent, I see that it is the kindness of 
 Providence that has mercifully changed that state of 
 things. If these hard times but help our youth to 
 begin early to think and plan and struggle, Jamaica 
 will have abundant cause to bless God for the way 
 by which He led her. It was Israel that grew up 
 in the unfriendly wilderness, not Israel that sat by 
 the fleshpots of Egypt, who had the hardihood to 
 conquer Canaan. We want our race to be men, not 
 snails; self-sustaining, not parasites; and Providence 
 has kindly come to our aid in the stern but friendly 
 garb of “hard times.” Character is the thing we 
 want, a fully developed, beautifully rounded character; 
 a strong, sterling, manly character; and whatever 
 assists us to this is to be hailed as a timely friend. 
 
 This suggests another element of hope in our pre¬ 
 sent circumstances —Vital religion and morality are on 
 the increase. Naturally, after the deplorable state of 
 things to which fifty years ago put an end, nothing 
 could be expected but a harvest of vice. Slavery has 
 left its cloven hoof-mark upon the soil of our land, 
 and it will take a few generations to obliterate it in 
 toto. But the obliteration has begun. All the good 
 and godly are now intent upon wiping the ugly blot 
 from off our country’s face. The public conscience is 
 becoming more sensitive—the sense of sin slowly in¬ 
 creasing ; and, contrasting the present with the past, 
 that is saying much. The Gospel is being faithfully 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 109 
 
 preached by a large body of earnest men in language 
 intelligible to the vast majority—a majority that 
 education is rapidly increasing; and the Gospel is a 
 power that the history of the world has tested. 
 Wherever it is faithfully preached and consistently 
 lived, no iniquity can thrive for a very long while. 
 Silently, but surely, it purifies and sweetens the 
 breath of society. With the help of her handmaid 
 Education, this omnipotent Gospel will yet make our 
 moral atmosphere as pure and balmy as the breezes 
 that fan our hills. Already there are numerous well- 
 regulated Christian families (to me one of the prime 
 outward and visible signs of hope for our future) 
 scattered over the land—families in which the young 
 are carefully guided into virtue’s narrow way; are 
 taught to scorn the base and abominate the foul, 
 and grow with such moral stamina within them as 
 must contribute materially to form the back-bone of 
 Jamaica’s strength. Whilst we seek to do our utmost 
 to reclaim the lost, let our foremost aim be to create, 
 encourage, foster, and increase these well-regulated 
 Christian families in the land—these nurseries of 
 Jamaica’s future, where are sown in the fertile soil of 
 childhood and youth those seeds that in due time 
 spring up into nobility, purity, goodness, and strength. 
 
 One thing, however, we will do well to keep in 
 mind : The character of a people, like the character 
 of the individual, is a thing of tardy growth. No 
 sudden leap, no growth per saltum, so to speak, is to 
 be expected. The constitution of nature forbids it; 
 the history of the world forbids it: we must work 
 and wait. And when we look at the results already 
 attained in Jamaica and other West Indian islands, 
 
110 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 amid circumstances of such complicated difficulty, we 
 can predict with tolerable certainty that a generation 
 or two will find us at a height not altogether de¬ 
 spicable in the scale of moral life. It took centuries 
 to mould and consolidate the character, such as it is, 
 of the present Christian nations. We do not hope to 
 spend all that time under the sculptor’s chisel before 
 we reach their present condition ; our moulding will 
 take less time, our growth will prove less tardy, for 
 our infancy is being matured amidst more favourable 
 circumstances than theirs was: still the hoped-for 
 development cannot be the work of a day. 
 
 A very encouraging fact, too, is that we are not an 
 irreligiously constituted people. We can be impressed 
 and moved by the voice of religion. Our religious 
 soil is virgin—not yet worn out, not yet overrun with 
 the weeds and briars of scepticism and infidelity, as 
 is the case with many in lands longer under the 
 Gospel plough. Our religious tide is just rising, whilst 
 that of some seems ebbing. Long may we be saved 
 from that wisdom that is wiser than God ! We are 
 naturally religious—may we be increasingly so! There 
 are some who would divorce religion from morality; 
 but none of that cold, icy morality for us. We want 
 a warm, pulsating, living morality derived from a 
 vital union with Him who said, “I am the Life;” 
 and to this divine morality we shall attain, so long 
 as this glorious Gospel continues to leaven our land. 
 
 Up to this we have been looking at the prospects 
 of Jamaica as a colony, and were just beginning to 
 glide insensibly into that wider question, which, at 
 this the Jubilee of Emancipation, must force itself 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 upon every interested mind —The prospects of that race 
 whose liberation we this year commemorate. And I feel 
 confident that, for this and other reasons besides, we. 
 shall receive the kind indulgence of every reader when 
 we beg leave to confine our attention for a moment 
 to what we emphatically call “ our race.” Britain, 
 Germany, France, America, and other nations have 
 already achieved much in the world’s development 
 and progress, and are destined to still further great¬ 
 ness and usefulness. But the people of Africa, whose 
 children we are, have except in the earlier ages of the 
 world’s history, as yet achieved nothing. The tide of 
 new life which Christianity brought into the world 
 has just begun to reach us. We are in every way still 
 far down in the scale of human life, development, 
 and usefulness. No wonder that our thoughts must 
 frequently revert to ourselves. Then again, we form 
 the bulk by far of Jamaica’s people. Jamaica is 
 emphatically ours. Britain owns it, it is true; but 
 surely Britain will never think that God has given 
 her vast possessions and mighty influence only for 
 herself. The more she realizes that she is a tool—an 
 honoured tool—in the hands of a Providence “ won¬ 
 derful in counsel, excellent in working ”—a favoured 
 instrument in the hands of an all-wise God for the 
 salvation and elevation of the world,—the more will 
 she eventually have fulfilled her mission. The Jewish 
 nation failed to realize this, and so they have been 
 quietly dropped, coolly laid aside by God for the 
 present, and others employed in their stead. They 
 thought that God’s unparalleled favour towards them 
 was all for their own sakes, when He was all the 
 while intending to instil into them this lesson so 
 
 
112 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 beautifully expressed by one of their own prophets, 
 Isaiah : “ This people have I formed for Myself; they 
 shall show forth My praise.” Let the British people 
 realize their true calling—to be the benefactors of 
 mankind—to enlighten, elevate, and save the other 
 nations still in darkness and degradation ; and they 
 will find at last that the principle laid down by Christ 
 is a universal law : “ Whosoever shall seek to save his 
 life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life 
 shall preserve it.” “ There is that scattereth, and yet 
 increaseth ; there is that withholdeth more than is 
 meet, and it tendeth to poverty.” “ It is more blessed 
 to give than to receive.” No nation was ever made 
 for itself: it was made for the purposes of God. And 
 any nation that endeavours to contravene the Divine 
 purpose by living only for itself—that refuses to flow out 
 like a beneficent river, dispensing blessings through 
 a barren world, will find at last that the curse of 
 stagnation has converted it into a putrid pool. 
 Britain owns that she may bless us; and we now ask 
 her and her children to consider us for a moment, so 
 that rekindled hopefulness may infuse rekindled life 
 and energy, and zeal, and perseverance, into her 
 laudable efforts on the behalf of Africa’s children. 
 
 No one can look at the past fifty years of the history 
 of the half-million and more who form the people 
 proper of Jamaica, and not register “progress.” 
 Qualify it by whatever adjective he chooses—“ great,” 
 “remarkable,” “tolerable,” or “little,”—he must 
 call it progress. And when he looks at the countless 
 difficulties in the face of which this progress has been 
 made, I am afraid he will have to say “ remarkable ” 
 rather than “tolerable.” Indeed, I have never come 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 ns 
 
 away from the reading of any book descriptive of 
 Jamaica as Freedom found it, but I have beheld those 
 scarred old warriors—our grandfathers who came out 
 of slavery and made men of themselves—rising grander 
 and greater in my eyes ! Think of it! All these 
 people—dark, and, but for the efforts of never-to-be- 
 forgotten missionaries, totally degraded—turned out 
 of slavery without a foot of land to call their own, not 
 a penny of help granted them by the hand of benevo¬ 
 lence,—not like the emigrants from Europe, who 
 came and got settled under easier circumstances,— 
 hated with a bitter hatred by those whose chattels 
 they had ceased to be; encouraged by none save some 
 of the friends of Christianity; loaded with every 
 calumny that scorn and enmity could devise; dis¬ 
 couraged by prophecies that even hardened Ahah 
 never heard from Micaiah;—and yet in spite of all 
 this—the wishes of enemies and the fears of friends, 
 the pressure of adverse circumstances, and the lack of 
 every facility—these people contrived, by persevering 
 toil and heroic self-denial, to get themselves for the 
 most part decently clothed, housed, and settled; 
 became owners of their own freeholds, bought with the 
 sweat of .their brow ; got their minds so far enlightened 
 —many of them—as to read and write with tolerable 
 ease; and thus far proved the way for the generation 
 to come; with the result that to-day the peasantry of 
 Jamaica as a whole can in many respects compare not 
 too unfavourably with countries that have been in¬ 
 finitely longer under the hand of civilization ! Think 
 of this, I say, and tell me if there must not be in a 
 people like this elements that warrant us to hope for 
 their future! 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 JAMAICA'S JUBILEE. 
 
 But an objector might say, “ Oh ! after all, this 
 may have been but the impulse of the moment, an 
 extraordinary result produced by the concurrence of 
 special circumstances; it contains no guarantee for 
 the future; the tide of retrogression may soon (if it 
 has not already) set in.” I reply: Even granting 
 the extraordinary circumstances which called forth 
 the effort, the fact still remains that we as a people 
 can put forth effort— can toil, endure, economise, 
 aspire, and win our aim at last. The qualities, you 
 must grant, are in us. A worthless people would 
 have preferred to sink back into voluntary serfdom, 
 caring nought for the bondage so long as they had 
 the garlic and the onions and the fleshpots of Egypt. 
 But no; the spirit of independence sustained our 
 fathers, and crushed the very thought of a willing 
 servitude. But more. That these results were not 
 the outcome of a momentary impulse is clearly to be 
 seen in the fact that the children and grandchildren 
 of these early heroes are prospering still to-day. 
 
 A pity that their fathers had not sufficient enlight¬ 
 enment to know the best uses of money or the best 
 means of securing and economising it. Some of them 
 lost their earnings through the craft and dishonesty of 
 men whom they trusted only too implicitly; whilst 
 others, not seeing the need of money after their few 
 wants had been supplied, lost many an opportunity of 
 acquiring a competency, misspent their means, and 
 naturally relaxed their efforts; for who will toil 
 without some desired end in view ? No man ever yet 
 loved toil simply and purely for its own sake. All the 
 activity in Europe and America is not due to a blind 
 love of ceaseless toil. No; it is due to the fact that 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 115 
 
 the people are enlightened enough to see with appre¬ 
 ciation the good that is ahead of them, and the pathway 
 by which they may reach the envied mountain-top. 
 Enlighten a people, and give them opportunity; and 
 then if they are content to lie in ashes, they are not 
 worth your powder and shot. A pity, I say, that our 
 fathers had not the light that we are now beginning 
 to enjoy ! The result now is that we their children, 
 with very few exceptions, start life with scarce a 
 shilling in our pockets: we have all to be purely self- 
 made men; and yet we are succeeding—slowly yet 
 surely succeeding ! Certainly there must be some¬ 
 thing good in us, whatever that something may be! 
 Really it does seem as if there were a strange vitality 
 in our race! We seem born to live! Other savage 
 nations have perished under oppression, and vanished 
 before the advance of civilization; but, in the most 
 inhospitable climates of the globe, the children of 
 Africa have lived and increased through centuries of 
 barbarism and oppression; they have been translated 
 into distant lands and different climates, and there 
 treated as anything but men and women; and yet 
 they have lived, and instead of being crushed beneath 
 the tread of advancing civilization, they have joined 
 the ranks of progress, and are to-day marching after 
 the nations already in the van. Surely there must 
 be a destiny for a people who can pass with such 
 hardihood through such a fiery furnace ! Even if I 
 had sprung from an alien race, I would have been 
 constrained to utter over their heads a fervent “ God 
 bless them ! ” And had I but the trumpet tongue to 
 sound it in the ears of those in civilized Europe and 
 America who have to do with this interesting race, I 
 
116 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 should most fervently entreat them all, “Deal kindly, 
 deal gently with the children of Africa, remembering 
 the history of their past, and considering the circum¬ 
 stances of their present.” And while it chills our 
 blood to hear of the havoc that that accursed drink 
 traffic is beginning to play in our fatherland, the pain 
 is mitigated by the pleasure derived from the thought 
 that so many noble heads and hearts and hands, both 
 in Europe and America, are now being turned to the 
 salvation and elevation of Africa’s sons and daughters. 
 The efforts they put forth are not lost, neither are 
 they spent upon ungrateful hearts. No; as a people 
 we are very sensitive to genuine kindness. Some of 
 us are keen enough to see through the false; but 
 wherever we can discover an unselfish desire to benefit 
 us, the gratitude and love of our bosoms are simply 
 unbounded. Grateful hearts, if nothing else, will be 
 the reward of the unselfish abettors of our cause. 
 But there has been and will ever be something more. 
 There will be the sweet reward of successful toil ; for 
 the material on which the labour is expended is not 
 worthless. There are qualities in us that, properly 
 developed, ought to make us a useful factor in the 
 world’s future. 
 
 In the first place, We are not destitute of Ambition . 
 We are guilty of the desire for self-improvement. 
 
 } We are the victims of a salutary discontent, which so 
 long as it sees an attainable good, is restless till it 
 has done its utmost to attain it. Place us in any 
 position, and our desire is to do our best. If we can 
 walk, we are (many of us, at least) not content to 
 creep; if we may fly, we are not content to walk. 
 Some call us imitative. Well, we shall not refuse the 
 
OUTLOOK FOB JAMAICA. 
 
 117 
 
 epithet, A wise imitation is nothing to be ashamed 
 of. In the child stage imitation must precede creation 
 and invention. Whether circumstances will chain us 
 to the ground for ever, time will tell; but one thing is 
 certain—we are not a soulless, spiritless race, we are 
 not devoid of the desire to excel; there is within us a 
 latent nobility. Wherever sufficient enlightenment 
 prevails, you will detect ambition twinkling in the 
 eye of the very child in school. Guide that aspiration 
 into a proper channel, and good must result; for, as 
 a distinguished speaker recently said, “Were it not 
 for consecrated ambition, how little real good would 
 have been done in the world! ” 
 
 Again, ive are naturally a cheerful people. I some-) 
 times fear we are a little too light-hearted. We do 
 not readily pine away under adversity. We are 
 possessed of an almost inexhaustible fund of humour. 
 We do not usually sit and brood darkly o’er a wrong. 
 
 If we are only in health, our spirits quickly recover, 
 and our cheerful laugh will ring again. I believe that 
 this has had much to do with our preservation as a 
 race—the power of throwing off the load of care. We 
 can be contented as well as aspiring. 
 
 Yet again, we are not intellectually slow. Our i 
 education seldom, if ever, commences at that early j 
 age at which that of European and American children 
 commences, and is never carried on with the same 
 unbroken regularity; yet it is surprising to see how 
 readily the generality of our children take up the 
 knowledge imparted them. Give them the same care 
 that is now bestowed on children of fully enlightened 
 lands, and they need no whip and spur to ensure an 
 honourable competition. All this is now clearly 
 
118 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 ascertained fact. We have the capacity, we have the 
 spirit; and when we shall have been fully blessed 
 with the opportunity and the means, we shall not be 
 the least among the intellectual races of earth. I 
 have often been struck, too, with the keen insight, the 
 quick perception, and the sound common sense of our 
 people. They are not very long in seeing through a 
 thing that is not absolutely beyond the range of their 
 comprehension. However unlettered they may be, 
 they can think, reason, and judge for themselves. 
 Sharp judges of character they are too; and if any 
 man comes among them, he must be an apt dissimu¬ 
 lator to veil his real character for any length of time. 
 They do not always tell you what they think of you— 
 they are very unwilling to give offence, especially to 
 any above them,—but be sure your character is 
 carefully dissected, cut and carved and secretly served 
 up in the dishes of daily conversation. While you 
 are facing them with actions, many of them are coolly 
 dissecting your motives, and their estimate is seldom 
 far from the truth. 
 
 Multitudes of them again are remarkably industrious 
 \ and persevering. They will toil and save and wait till 
 their goal is reached. And, as I have said before, the 
 more widespread enlightenment becomes, the more 
 general will these qualities be—the more will you find 
 men willing to work and wait and win. But even with 
 the little light and scant opportunity we now possess, 
 if the lives of many of us were to be written, the world 
 would cease to think us a people to be despised. 
 
 I look at elements like these in our constitution and 
 character, and I cannot but argue a hopeful future. 
 If the doctrine of the “survival of the fittest” be 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 119 
 
 true, then I am, on the one hand, inclined to think 
 that the fact of our survival under our numberless 
 disadvantages is, a posteriori , a proof of our being 
 among the “fittest;” and, on the other hand, that 
 the qualities which inhere in us are, a priori , an index 
 that we shall survive, and ultimately come out of the 
 evolutions and revolutions of the future a people 
 needing not to be ashamed. 
 
 But there is still another source from which I draw 
 hope and consolation for the future of our race. 
 Like ancient Israel who, in the midst of crushing 
 circumstances, could feed their hope on the promises 
 of God, we too, the sons and daughters of Africa, 
 can open our Bibles at Psalm ixviii. 81, and kindle 
 our faith and hope at that bright and imperishable 
 word of promise—“ Princes shall come out of Egypt: 
 Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” 
 We turn to Psalm lxxii. 10, and while we read that 
 “ the kings of Tarshish and the isles shall bring 
 presents,” we read also that “ the kings of Sheba and 
 Seba shall offer gifts.” We may not hope for any 
 political revolution that shall set Egypt and the other 
 tribes of Africa at the head of the nations ; but we 
 confidently expect for her sons and daughters that 
 moral regeneration that makes men noble, majestic, 
 princely, and gives weight to any people under the 
 sun. Indeed, I am of opinion that we are slowly but 
 surely advancing towards a period when, not external 
 might, but internal righteousness shall rule the world 
 —when moral considerations shall preponderate and 
 predominate over mere physical prowess—when the 
 whole world shall cry shame at oppression and cruelty 
 —when the moral eye of the world shall flash terror 
 
120 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 into the breast of the mean oppressor—when the 
 people of deepest spiritual insight and greatest moral 
 strength shall have most weight on earth. The prin¬ 
 ciples of Christianity are destined to be the law of the 
 world; and the people that shall live them and embody 
 them most, whatever be their political or numerical 
 status, shall wield the mightiest influence. “ Right¬ 
 eousness exalteth a nation.” If then we have a 
 promise that not only “ Tarshish and the isles” 
 (Europe and her children), but also the semi-Hamitic 
 race of Sheba (Arabia), and the purely Hamitic races 
 of Seba, Egypt, and Ethiopia, who constitute the 
 various tribes of Africa, shall flock to embrace 
 Christianity, we have as much as we need; for the 
 Bible tells us that “ Godliness is profitable unto all 
 things ; having promise of the life that now is, and of 
 that which is to come.” 
 
 But let me stop a moment here, and expose a 
 subtle fallacy, that has somehow insinuated itself 
 into the minds of even enlightened men, yea, even of 
 some true-hearted lovers of Africa. It is this (and, 
 I am sorry to say that I encounter it repeatedly in 
 the course of my reading, unthinkingly uttered by 
 men otherwise clearheaded and accurate),— that some - 
 how or other , some curse or other , more or less shadowy 
 or real , hangs like a cloud over the children of Africa , 
 or haunts their steps like an evil genius; they spring 
 from Ham, and if so the sin of that irreverent son rests 
 like a blight upon all his children. If I should prove to 
 have lived for no other end than to dispel this blind 
 fallacy, and cause the children of Africa to see clearly 
 how they stand, and Africa’s friends to work with no 
 more of this damping, hampering thought still 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 121 
 
 clogging the wheels of their effort, I should die 
 rejoicing that I had not lived in vain. 
 
 Whoever will take the trouble to read Gen. ix. 
 25-27, will not need to be told on whom the curse 
 was pronounced, for in those three verses he will find 
 the name three times repeated—“ Canaan.” If he 
 cannot understand ivhy Ham should sin and the 
 curse be pronounced upon Canaan, he should simply 
 confess his inability, and be dumb. It seems rather 
 bold to assume that Noah made a lapsus linguce , and 
 Moses a lapsus pennce y and to attempt a correction by 
 changing “ Canaan ” into “Ham.” But is it impos¬ 
 sible to find a proper key to unlock this apparent 
 mystery? I trow not. 
 
 1. God is just; and whenever He visits the sins of 
 the fathers upon the children, you may be sure that 
 the children have trod in the footsteps of the father. 
 Ezekiel in chap, xviii. 14-18 lays down this principle. 
 Now Gen. x. 6 tells that Ham had four sons , of 
 whom this Canaan was the youngest. Why he was 
 singled out for the curse is another question. One 
 thing is certain—that Noah passed over the other 
 three and laid the ban on him . Perhaps (only 
 perhaps) being the youngest, his father doted most 
 on him, and, to punish Ham, Noah cursed his 
 favourite son. But I do not believe that the justice 
 of God would have permitted that this be all the 
 reason for such a dire malediction. This younger 
 son must have been a pampered, petted, ill-trained 
 lad, who copied only too well the evil ways of his 
 father. The prophetic eye of the aged patriarch 
 detected in him already the germs of gross corruption; 
 
122 
 
 JAMAICA'S JUBILEE. 
 
 and God guided his tongue to inflict the curse on him 
 just as He afterwards guided Jacob’s hand to confer 
 the chief blessing on Ephraim: “ Cursed be Canaan” 
 —thy youngest son. 
 
 2. God is merciful. In wrath He ever remembers 
 mercy. It would be very unlike God thus to consign 
 a whole race to inevitable ruin. When he foresaw 
 Adam’s fall, He planned to save a people out of the 
 ruined race. When he cast off the Hebrew race, He 
 said—“ A remnant shall be saved.” Now God acts 
 upon principle, and this principle of mercy combined 
 with judgment, runs through all his dealings with 
 man. “ Justice and judgment are the habitation of 
 Thy throne: mercy and truth go before Thy face.” 
 He did not damn the whole race of man, and He did 
 not curse the whole race of Ham. Three branches 
 were reserved for mercy. Cush, Mizraim, and Phut 
 went to magnify His mercy, while Canaan went to 
 magnify His justice. Cush peopled part of Asia and 
 part of Africa; Mizraim peopled Egypt; Phut is 
 believed by some to have been the ancestor of the 
 Moors, and other tribes to the north-west of Africa, 
 while others think him to have been the progenitor 
 of the Kaffirs and other South African tribes. The 
 Arabs are half Hamitic, half Semitic; and indeed so 
 much were the children of Cush mixed up with those 
 of Shem in some parts of Asia, that to-day no man 
 could possibly draw a sharp line between them. So 
 far as Africa, however, is concerned, we know that 
 all her present tribes are the descendants of the 
 three elder sons of Ham. But as for Canaan, like 
 the ten lost tribes of Israel, we know not where to 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 128 
 
 find him: he has long ago perished from the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 8. The Bible actually shows how the curse was 
 executed upon Canaan. It tells us that the great 
 majority of the Canaanites were exterminated by 
 Israel, and the remnant reduced to abject servitude 
 —“ hewers of wood and drawers of water.” Moses 
 wrote this book of Genesis while Israel were on their 
 way to take possession of Canaan. They were going 
 to extirpate—root and branch—the “ seven nations 
 of Canaan/’ and to take their land. God had com¬ 
 manded them to do so. But God would never have 
 commanded a thing apparently so cruel and unjust 
 as to exterminate a people from the face of the earth, 
 sparing none whatever, without making men see His 
 reasons. So, at the very beginning of the book, God 
 directs Moses to show to Israel and to all succeeding 
 generations that these “ seven nations of Canaan,” 
 whom we find so often mentioned in Scripture, and 
 whom, along with the exact boundaries of their land, 
 Moses takes care to specify so early as the 10th 
 chapter of Genesis, had long laid under a curse ; and 
 more, they had never attempted, like repentant 
 Nineveh later on, to do anything to redeem them-, 
 selves from that curse; but rather had so gone on 
 from one degree of wickedness to another, that now 
 when God commanded Israel to blot them out of the 
 book of the living, the cup of their iniquity was full 
 to overflowing. Was it not these very children of 
 Canaan on whom God rained fire and brimstone in 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim? Yet 
 the rest had taken no warning. And now God 
 
124 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 ? 
 
 appoints Israel to execute His wrath, just as He 
 might have sent any plague among them, or another 
 down-pour of fire and brimstone to do the work. 
 Canaan and his race were cursed; they sought not 
 by repentance to escape from the curse; so God 
 swept them away with the besom of destruction, as 
 He had swept away a world by the flood before, and 
 has swept away many a people since. 
 
 What then? Let us hear the conclusion of the 
 whole matter. We have heard a curse pronounced 
 upon Canaan. We have seen the curse executed 
 upon Canaan. God’s justice is satisfied. We have 
 heard no curse pronounced upon the three elder 
 brothers. We have seen no curse executed on them. 
 God interdicted Israel from all intermarriage with 
 Canaan: not so with Egypt. Joseph wedded an 
 Egyptian princess; Solomon was proud of Pharaoh’s 
 daughter. And while God commanded Israel to 
 exterminate Canaan, He punished even the good Josiah 
 with death, because he went, against the mind of God, 
 into conflict with Necho, king of Egypt. Nay, two 
 of these sons of Ham, Cush and Mizraim—Assyro- 
 Babylonia and Egypt—were the first rulers of the 
 world, the most civilized and intellectual in the early 
 ages. To-day these children of Ham number more 
 than 200,000,000; and only want the Gospel to 
 make them a people. And, best of all, they have 
 the plain, explicit word of a God who cannot lie, 
 pronouncing a blessing on their future: “Princes 
 shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch 
 out her hands unto God.” Indeed the Hebrew 
 mentions the two sons by name: 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 125 
 
 Literally — “ There shall come princes out of 
 Mizraim; Cush shall make her hands run unto God. 
 
 What more can we want ? God hath blessed, and 
 who shall reverse it ? Nay, rather, 0 ye sons and 
 daughters of Africa, may we not now turn the scales 
 against those blind or perverse maligners of our race, 
 and say in the language of Scripture, “Cursed is he 
 that curseth us, and blessed is he that blesseth us ” ? 
 God has pronounced on us His Divine benediction, 
 and he that dares utter a malediction fights against 
 God. A fool, a daring fool, to curse whom God hath 
 not cursed, to defy whom God hath not defied ! Lift 
 up thy head, thou child of Africa ; for if there is any 
 that has good ground for hope, thou hast more—at the 
 least, thou hast a ground as good as the best. Thou 
 hast the unchangeable word of God to build thy hopes 
 upon. I may not live to see it; you may not live to 
 behold it; but who can tell ? who can tell ? In the 
 revolutions and developments of the distant future, 
 the first may yet be the last, and the last may yet be 
 the first! “ Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethio¬ 
 
 pia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” 
 
 Already her very helplessness is silent eloquence; 
 her deep-drawn groans, her pleading eyes, her flowing 
 blood, are pleading earnestly, eloquently, and power¬ 
 fully with man; and if with man, how much more 
 with God! Already has Ethiopia begun to stretch 
 forth her hands with her first-fruits to God ! Already 
 has He begun to accept them, a pledge of her latter- 
 day glory! 
 
 And when we look at the ten million of Africa’s 
 children whom human avarice transplanted into these 
 western lands, and see how an allwise God is already 
 
126 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 overruling the whole for good, so that in due time 
 we, the sons and daughters of Africa, may come to 
 he light-bearers to our still benighted fatherland; 
 and when we look again at the power of that Gospel 
 which dashed to the ground the ancient paganism of 
 Greece and Rome, and has made the present Chris¬ 
 tian nations of Europe and America what they are 
 to-day, we see the vista of our own future brightening 
 with hope, and the distant horizon tinted with the 
 beams of our rising sun ! 
 
 What that noble man Henry Ward Beecher uttered 
 respecting the blacks of America, just a little before 
 his faithful tongue was silenced by death, is more or 
 less the case in all those Western Isles that have en¬ 
 joyed for the last fifty years the blessings of liberty 
 and increasing light. He said : “ Have the coloured 
 people of America, the Africans, justified the trust 
 that was put in them for their industry, for their en¬ 
 terprise, and for the accumulation of property ? Yes, 
 they have. They are owning the land ; they are in 
 possession of taxable property to the extent of one 
 hundred and fifty million dollars in the Southern States. 
 They are gaining all the time (more rapidly in some 
 parts than in others), but, on the whole, gaining in 
 thrift, economy, and wise living. Are they making 
 progress in knowledge ? They are—they are out¬ 
 running even their white neighbours. Not only that, 
 they are showing themselves apt; they are civilizable; 
 they are not only susceptible of Christian religion, but 
 they are also susceptible of intellectual culture. They 
 have among them, men, who in the divine art of 
 preaching stand second to none anywhere—white or 
 black. They are showing themselves competent as 
 
OUTLOOK FOR JAMAICA. 
 
 127 
 
 instructors. From one Association—the American 
 Missionary Association—they are sending out every 
 year a thousand men and women educated in our 
 schools that have been built for them, to become 
 teachers, lawyers, doctors, and preachers among their 
 own kind throughout the South. And this is but 
 
 one contribution.With all this experience 
 
 of them in our midst—tried by bondage, tried by war, 
 tried by the poverty of emancipation, tried by schools 
 and opportunities of civilization, tried by the conflicts 
 between them and the whites in all the professions, 
 they have proved themselves to be men fit for the 
 purposes of God in the rising kingdom of God in this 
 world.” 
 
 What more can I say, ye sons of the West and 
 children of Africa, for the confounding of the snarling 
 cynic, and for your encouragement and cheer? All 
 honour and thanks to such noble men, who loved our 
 race and abetted our cause and helped our progress! 
 May they never lose their reward! And may we be so 
 encouraged by the past and nerved for the future, that 
 the next Jubilee of Emancipation shall prove that we 
 have justified to the full the predictions of our friends; 
 and having mounted on a higher pedestal, our own 
 eyes shall discern with clearer vision and ever-widen¬ 
 ing prospect, that there is hope for the people of 
 Jamaica, and hope for the children of Africa! Only 
 let the path to this goal be never absent from our 
 minds—never deserted by our feet;—may we never 
 forget that our path to blessedness, usefulness and 
 honour lies along this line— enlightenment,industry, per¬ 
 severance, thoughtfulness, economy, unity, open-hearted, 
 warm-hearted love for each other, and, last and greatest, 
 
128 
 
 JAMAICA’S JUBILEE. 
 
 the fear of God. Whoever may refuse to fear, love, 
 and serve our God we shall pity and pray for; hut for 
 ourselves, let every man and woman and child whose 
 veins are filled with Afric blood remember that for us 
 there is but one road to success here and bliss here¬ 
 after, and that the safest road and best—“Ethiopia 
 shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God.” 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : KNIGHT, PRINTER, MIDDLE STREET, ALDERSGATE, E.C. 
 
ii 
 
 Date Due 
 
 DEC 5 ’55 
 
 
 
 
 MAY2 O’Pj 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 HM 17 7- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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