THE WEST INDIES 379 of economic and social development. During the first half of the eighteenth century the tide of prosperity in the West Indies rose rapidly to the flood. In wealth, as in strategic importance, they surpassed the colonies on the mainland. But by the close of the century the ebb was so pronounced that the planters were in sore financial difficulties.1 Between 1736 and 1784, for example, the exports of rum and sugar from Barbados fell 50 per cent. The question inevitably arises, why did West Indian prosperity reach and pass its zenith whilst the continental colonies continued to wax steadily in wealth and strength? Probably the most important factors, in addition to those already considered, were the limited area of land in the islands and impoverishment of the soil by heavy cropping; over-concentration on sugar production, involving large estates and the increase of black labour at the expense of the white population; foreign competition and fluctuations of prices in the sugar trade; and the devastation wrought by hurricanes, droughts, and earthquakes. The American colonies enjoyed natural conditions not widely different from those of Europe. They had limitless areas of undeveloped lands. They were therefore increasingly able to attract white immigrants suited to a temperate climate, who developed into a distinct and vigorous stock. But the climate of the West Indies is tropical. It was eminently suited to negroes, and when the supply of black labour became plentiful, it inevitably ousted white. The process had been delayed at the beginning by the scarcity of slaves, and the efforts which were made to secure white immigrant labour. Rewards were paid to masters of vessels for each newcomer landed. Indentured labour was supplemented by transported convicts and political prisoners, notably after the 'Fifteen and the 'Forty-five.* Indians, too, made captive on the continent, were sometimes sold as slaves by American governments.5 But neither their labour nor prison labour proved satisfactory." Jamaica and the Leeward Islands had quickly followed the example of Barbados in turning from the cultivation of tobacco and indigo to that of sugar as the staple crop. Abounding prosperity was their reward, but it was not an unmixed blessing. The evil of latifundia was introduced and brought in its train the evils of absenteeism and a decreasing white population. The early settlers and their timeexpired servants had received small grants of land and formed a sturdy yeoman class, increasing the white population and providing a valuable militia and a variety of crops and provisions. But sugar 1 Davy, John, West Indies before and after Emancipation, pp. 6-8; Penson, pp. 174, 175; Parl. Pap. 1807 (65), III, I. Edwards, Bryan, Hist. of the West Indies, 1, 347; C.O. 28, 17 and 24; Pitman, F. W., The Development of the British West Indies, 1700-63, p. 92. Harlow, V. T., Barbados, 1625-85, p. 56. Hist. MSS Comm., Stuart Papers, II, 453, III, 304. 5 Va. Magazine of History, 11, 73; N.C. Col. Rec. 11, IV. • Pitman, p. 56. Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1716, no. 118; Groans of the Plantations, 1689; Harl. Misc. 11, 356, etc. plantations demanded large estates, large capital for the purchase and upkeep of sugar mills and slaves, and a large and cheap supply of manual labour. Unable to provide the necessary capital, the small planters sold their holdings to richer men and emigrated to the mainland. The large estate holders rapidly made fortunes and retired to England, leaving their plantations to be managed by factors and worked by negroes.1 Whilst the white population was thus depleted, the supply of white labour began to fail, partly because profitable land had ceased to be available for indentured servants when they had completed their term of service. Vain endeavours were then made to encourage the importation of white servants. The "Deficiency" laws of Jamaica and similar acts in the Leeward Islands provided, under penalty of a fine, that each planter must keep white servants in fixed proportion to his negroes or acreage.2 But planters preferred to pay the fine, for negro labour for sugar planting was both cheaper and more efficient. Three negroes could be kept for the cost of one white labourer.3 The result of these several causes was that after about 1740 the white population actually declined in Barbados and the Leeward Islands.1 În Barbados the whites numbered 12,528 in 1712, 18,419 in 1762, and 16,187 in 1786. Negro slaves in the same period increased from 41,970 to 70,000, and then decreased. In Jamaica, between 1673 and 1764, the numbers of whites rose from about 8500 to 26,000. But in the same period, the black population increased from 9500 to 140,000 or more. The profits of the sugar industry enabled many landowners to escape from a trying climate and to follow what a governor of Jamaica described as "the usual inclination of the inhabitants, sooner or later to go home". Absenteeism was naturally resented in the islands. In Jamaica and the Leeward Islands non-resident owners of plantations were called upon to pay heavier taxes. Not only were their estates often extravagantly managed and their negroes brutally treated by their overseers, but the owners drew large sums from the islands. Pitt, in 1789, estimated the annual amount at £4,000,000. This steady drain of money accentuated one of the many difficulties which hampered trade, the want of a plentiful and stable medium of exchange. Lack of currency in the Leeward Islands caused all business to be done in terms of produce. In Barbados, after issues of paper currency, not properly secured, had temporarily ruined credit and raised prices, payments were generally made in sugar.' Jamaica for a time drew ample bullion from her trade with Spanish America, 1 Brit. Mus., Sloane MSS, 3662, f. 59 a; Thomason Tracts, 669 (11), (115); Harlow, p. 43; C.O. 28, 21, Y. 10, etc. 2 Acts of Jamaica; C.O. 137, 10-23; 152, 12-15. Edwards, 1, 347; C.O. 152, 14-28, and 28, 27-32. • Pitman, p. 38. 3 C.O. 1, 37, no. 48. Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1714-15, no. 588. ? Rose, J. H., William Pitt and the Great War, p. 370. 8 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1716, no. 120. • Ibid. 1706–8, no. 1176. ABSENTEE LANDLORDS 381 but interruptions of that trade, especially after 1737, caused money to be so scarce that goods could only be paid for by goods.1 On the other hand, the absentee landlords were able to exert considerable influence on British politics, and by their wealth and power to procure legislation favourable to the West Indies, even though it were contrary to the interests of the other colonies. Together with the merchants who traded with the islands, they formed a "West India interest", discussed politics and business with their fellows at the Jamaica Coffee House, and bought rotten boroughs at the elections.2 The outstanding achievements of this West India interest were the passing of the Molasses Act in 1733, in spite of the protests of the "Bread Colonies", and its extension in 1764; the granting of direct trade to Europe in 1739; and the defeat of the proposal to raise the tax on imported sugar in 1744. The Molasses Act was intended to secure to the British West Indies the monopoly of the supply of sugar both to the American colonies and Great Britain. The same eagerness to secure a monopoly of the sugar market had long been a source of jealousy between the islands themselves. They always scented danger in the development of a rival island. The 41 per cent. duty on exports from Barbados and the Leeward Islands, besides being a grievance because it was not applied to the defence of those islands and was a handicap in competing with foreign sugar, was also a cause of jealousy, since it was not paid by Jamaica. Perhaps the most deplorable effect of absenteeism was that it deprived the islands of men of the most cultivated and responsible type. This was doubly disastrous in a community based on slave labour. Progress in political and social life was accordingly not commensurate with the wealth produced. Barbados could boast of only four small towns, the houses of which were mean, and the punch houses and taverns sordid. Resident planters lived, indeed, in considerable luxury in large country houses, surrounded by leafy avenues. But gambling, drunkenness and feasting were the leading features of their social life.4 The colonisation of the West Indies had no basis in a religious movement like the exodus to New England. Anglicanism prevailed, but Anglican ministers paid little attention to their duties. There were few Quakers or Dissenters. Codrington College, in Barbados, founded by the will of Governor Christopher Codrington and begun in 1716, was the most notable school in the West Indies. Yet at its most flourishing period (c. 1750) less than fifty scholars attended it. There were, of course, some elementary schools in the islands. But 1 C.O. 137, 17; 391, 44; Brit. Mus., Add. MSS, 19049; Long, E., Jamaica, 1, 530; Pitman, p. 146. Short Account of the Interest and Conduct of the Jamaica Planters, 1754; and Penson, pp. 176– 4 Schomburgk, Sir R., Hist. of Barbados, p. 111. 182. 3 C.O. 5, 1093, f. 178. * C.O. 28, 50; Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1707, etc.; Leslie, C., Account of Jamaica, pp. 30, 46. learning, like religion, was at a low ebb. The ordinary planters were content that their sons should receive the most rudimentary education. The richer sort were taught by tutors and then sent to the English schools, universities, or Inns of Court.1 The first printing press was set up in Jamaica in 1718. The Weekly Jamaica Courant is said to have been first published at Kingston in 1722,2 more than nine years before the first issue of the Barbados Gazette,3 if that date is correct. The varied climate and soil of Jamaica, stretching up from the sea to the high limestone ranges of the Blue Mountains, not only yielded a great variety of produce, but also enabled the planters to follow the pursuits of English country gentlemen. They rode, fished, and shot amidst their pastures, and indulged in sumptuous hospitality in which wine and brandy figured largely. Their houses were for the most part one-storied dwellings of wood, designed to withstand the frequent earthquakes and hurricanes. They were generally handsomely panelled with mahogany and furnished with a "piazza" for coolness. But the churches were little better than decent houses with small cupolas. Negroes of both sexes were allowed to go naked, except in the towns.4 The destruction of Port Royal by earthquake and fire had occasioned the rise of Kingston. As the headquarters of the West Indian squadron, its importance and riches were enhanced by the wars of the eighteenth century. As a depôt for the slave trade it was affected by the Asiento agreement of 1713; but it reaped a rich harvest as the port of the logwood-cutters of Honduras and Yucatan and of the Spanish-American trade, valued at one and a half millions a year at the beginning of the eighteenth century. For after the Treaty of Utrecht Jamaica became the emporium of the illegal trade by which the Spanish colonies were supplied with British goods. The Asiento ship, which by a series of tricks managed to carry to Porto Bello more goods than half a dozen galleons, always touched at Jamaica. But this profitable trade declined after the middle of the century, when the restrictions upon their colonies were relaxed by the court of Madrid. In 1730 to take a half-way date-exports of sugar, rum and ginger from Jamaica to Great Britain alone were valued at £362,000, apart from minor produce such as cotton, fustick, indigo, pimento, ebony, and lignum vitae. The island possessed 200,000 head of cattle and 400 sugar works, valued at £1000 each. Some of this great wealth was spent in Spanish Town, on the opposite side of the harbour to Kingston. Here the rich planters and merchants had town houses, and attended balls, assemblies and concerts. There was a play-house, 1 C.O. 28, 42; Pitman, p. 24; Leslie, pp. 28 seqq.; Long, 1, 438. 2 Isaiah, Thomas, History of Printing; Cundall, Frank, Press and Printers of Jamaica, etc. 3 Schomburgk, p. 124. Leslie, pp. 28 seqq. Edwards, I, p. 292. A Voyage to S. America, 1735, by Don Juan and Don Antonio de Ulloa, 1, 107. Cf. Hotblack, Kate, Chatham's Colonial Policy, p. 5. 7 C.O. 137, 18, f. 102. REVOLT OF THE MAROONS 383 and the streets were crowded with chariots and coaches. The Jamaicans, too, had their own imitation of "The Wells" at Bath, where they indulged in dancing, music, and card-playing in the intervals of taking the waters.1 It was unhappily almost inevitable that, as the proportion of blacks increased, the planters should become not less but more oppressive, and too often brutal towards their slaves. Fears of insurrection, sometimes justified, sometimes exaggerated, here as on the continent led to cruel legislation, and prompted opposition to all attempts by Wesleyan or Moravian missionaries to educate the negroes and convert them to Christianity, lest a common language and religion should enable them to unite.2 The natural result was a long series of revolts by runaway slaves. To these, in Jamaica, was added the horror of the Maroons. The Maroons were descendants of slaves of the Spaniards who took refuge in the mountains when the English captured the island. Their chief resort was among the Blue Mountains, where they lived in a state of savagery, hunting and raiding neighbouring plantations. Runaway slaves, too, had formed large settlements in the fertile valleys of the midland districts. Both found a skilful leader in the negro Cudjoe, under whom they began to offer an organised resistance. Patrols of planters met with ignominious reverses. Fortified posts, garrisoned with trained whites and free negroes and dogs for watching and tracking, were then established near the rebels' hunting grounds. A few years before, in spite of Governor Hunter's warnings, the Jamaicans had been petitioning for the removal of the two companies of regular soldiers which they described as a standing army. But the very dangerous situation was now saved only by the arrival of two regiments from Gibraltar (1731).3 Later, a couple of hundred Indians, proficient in bush fighting, were brought from the Moskito coast. Nanny, the chief town of the Maroons, was at length captured and destroyed (1734). Four years later Cudjoe was compelled to accept the terms offered by Governor Trelawney. The Maroons were guaranteed their freedom on condition of rendering aid against foreign invasions and insurrections of slaves. They were restricted to definite reserves of land. The last terrible Maroon war in 1795 was the perhaps inevitable result of thus segregating them in settlements isolated from all civilising influences. The Indians of the Moskito coast, which extended from Cape Honduras to St John's River, had always maintained their allegiance to Great Britain.5 A garrison and a civil officer under the government 1 Leslie, pp. 28 seqq.; Neish, G. F., in Journal of Institute of Jamaica, 1895. Debates on the Slave trade, 1806, p. 13; Report of Committee of Privy Council on the Slave trade; Buchner, J. H., The Moravians in Jamaica; Edwards, 1, 487-95. C.O. 137, 19. Ibid. 18-25; Dallas, R. C., History of the Maroons; Pitman, pp. 114 seqq.; Edwards, 1, 522-35. Sloane, Sir Hans, Voyage to Jamaica, etc. p. 76. |