Thoughts on the necessity of improving the condition of the slaves in the British colonies, with a view to their ultimate emancipation; and on the practicability, the safety, and the advantages of the latter measure / [Thomas Clarkson].

  • Thomas Clarkson
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thoughts on the necessity of improving the condition of the slaves in the British colonies, with a view to their ultimate emancipation; and on the practicability, the safety, and the advantages of the latter measure / [Thomas Clarkson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    IB the West Indian slaves. I admit all this. But 1 never stated, that our West Indian slaves were to be emancipated suddenly, but by degrees. I always took it for granted, that they were to have their preparatory school also. Nor must it be forgotten, as a com¬ parison has been instituted, that if there was less danger in emanci¬ pating the other slaves, because they had received something like a preparatory education for the change, there was far more in another point of view, because they zcere all acquainted zcith, the use of arms. Would our West Indian planters be as much at their ease, as they now are, if their slaves had acquired a knowledge of the use of arms, or would they think them on this account more or less fit for emancipation ? it will be said again, that the fourth case, consisting of the Sierra Leone captured Negroes, is not strictly analogous to the one in point. These may have been slaves but for a short time, previous to their capture upon the ocean, so that they had scarcely been slaves when they were returned to the rank of free men. Little or no change could have been effected in so short an interval in their disposition and their character; and, as they were never carried to the West Indies, so they could not have contracted the bad habits, or the degradation, or the vices, of the slavery there. J t will be contended therefore, that they were better, or less hazard¬ ous, subjects for emancipation, than the slaves in our colonies. Giving to this objection its full weight, the case of the Sierra Leone captured Negroes will nevertheless be found to be a very strong one. They were all Africans. They were all slaves. They must have contracted as mortal a hatred of the whites from their sufferings on board ship by fetters, whips, and suffocation in the hold, as the West Indian slaves from those severities which are at« tached to their bondage on shore. Under these circumstances we find them made free', not after any preparatory discipline, but almost suddenly; and not singly, but in bodies at a time. We find them also settled or made to live under the unnatural govern¬ ment of the whites; and, what is more extraordinary, we find their present number, as compared with that of the whites in the same colony, nearly as one hundred and fifty to one; notwithstanding which superiority fresh emancipations are constantly taking place, as fresh cargoes of captured contrabandists arrive in port. It will be said, lastly, that all the four cases put together prove nothing. They can give us nothing like a positive assurance, that the Negro slaves in our colonies would pass through the ordeal of emancipation without danger to their masters or the community at large. Certainly not. Nor if these instances had been far more numerous than they are, could they, in this world of accidents, have given us a moral certainty of this. They afford us however'
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