THE

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER.

No. 92.]

JANUARY 1832.

[VOL. v. No. 1.

I. NEW SLAVE CODE: ORDER IN COUNCIL OF NOVEMBER 2, 1831. 1. Protectors of slaves; 2. Sunday markets and labour; 3. Driving whip; 4. Arbitrary punishment; 5. Illegal or cruel punishment; 6. Malicious complaints; 7. Records of punishment; 8. Marriage; 9. Rights of property; 10. Separation of families; 11. Manumission; 12. Presumptions of slavery; 13. Evidence; 14. Food; 15. Duration of labour; 16. Clothing, &c.; 17. Religious worship; 18. Medical aid; 19. Miscellaneous rules; Conclusion.

II. INSTRUCTIONS OF VISCOUNT GODERICH TO GOVERNORS
OF COLONIES.

III. RECENT INTELLIGENCE FROM JAMAICA.
IV.-CAPE OF GOOD HOPE; FREE LABOUR.

I. NEW SLAVE CODE.-ORDER IN COUNCIL OF Nov. 2. 1831. In our third volume, No. 58, we took occasion to analyse an Order in Council, issued on the 3rd of February, 1830, for ameliorating the condition of the slaves in the Crown Colonies, commenting upon some of its provisions with feelings of regret and disappointment. A new Order, framed on the basis of the former, but greatly modifying, and we must add, materially improving its general tenor, has recently appeared. It bears date the 2nd of November 1831, and has already, we believe, been transmitted as an actual law to the Governors of those Colonies, viz. Demerara and Berbice, (now forming one Colony under the name of British Guiana,) Trinidad, St. Lucia, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Mauritius. We proceed to give an abstract of its provisions, with such observations as they appear to call for.

I. PROTECTORS, AND ASSISTANT PROTECTORS.-§. I.—XXVI. The first twenty-six clauses are occupied in regulating the important offices of PROTECTORS and ASSISTANT PROTECTORS of SLAVES; in prescribing their duties; and in arming them with the needful authority for duly executing their various functions. The improvements in this part of the Slave Code are highly important, and seem to proceed on a careful review of the obstacles which have hitherto frustrated the benevolent intentions of the Government in appointing these officers.

Whoever has perused with attention the various reports which have been made to the Secretary of State, by the Protectors of Slaves in the several Crown Colonies, will know how to appreciate the changes which have been introduced into the present Order, and which we shall now specify.

1. Not only all Protectors, but all Assistant Protectors also, are now debarred, on pain de facto of loss of office, from being, in their

B

own right or in that of their wives, the owners of any slave, or having any interest in, or any security upon any slave or in any land cultivated by the labour of slaves; and from being or acting as manager, overseer, agent, guardian, trustee, or attorney, for any such estate, or for any slaves. They are further debarred from hiring or employing any slave for domestic service, unless it shall first be made to appear, to the satisfaction of the Governor, that it is not in their power to hire free persons to perform domestic services.* (§. VII.)

2. Power is given by this Order to every Protector, or Assistant Protector, to enter, from time to time, and whenever he shall see occasion, upon any plantation cultivated, in whole or in part, by slaves, or into any house or hut inhabited by slaves, for the purpose of communicating with any slave, on any such plantation, or in any such house; and if any person shall, by force, or menace, or other unlawful means, prevent or oppose the entry, or the continuance, of any Protector, thereupon or therein, so long as he may deem it expedient to remain; or oppose or prevent his communicating with any such slave; then the person, so offending, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour. (§. XI.)

3. Slaves are at all times authorized to resort to the Protector to lay their complaints before him, or to apply to him in any matter relating to the duties of his office; and such slaves, so resorting, or returning to their abode after so resorting, though found without a pass or ticket from their manager, permitting their absence, shall not, for the want of such pass, be liable to any punishment, any law or usage to the contrary notwithstanding;-Provided nevertheless that nothing herein contained shall authorise any such absence of any such slave without a pass, unless such slave shall first have applied for a pass to the manager and shall have failed to obtain the same from him. (§. XIII.) And any person who, by force, or menace, or any other means, shall prevent slaves from resorting to the Protector, or shall punish them for so resorting, or for any complaint or application they shall make to the Protector, such person shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour. (§. XIV.)

4. Protectors, in all matters relating to the duties of their office, are authorized to require the attendance, at a given time and place, of all persons complained against, or interested in the result of any complaint, or who are supposed capable of giving evidence respecting it, whether such persons be free or slaves, (the summons in the latter case being addressed to the master of the slaves) and, at the given time and place, the Protector may proceed to hear and adjudge the cause, even in the absence of parties who shall be proved to have been duly summoned but who shall refuse or neg ect to attend, unless some reasonable excuse for such non-attendance shall be established to the Protector's satisfaction. The witnesses in such cause,

* This last Provisio is uncalled for, as in every Colony free domestics may be hired. It opens, too, a door to evasion and abuse. Domestic slavery is peculiarly corrupting, and besides this, by compelling the Protectors to resort to the ordinary modes of chastisement, their influence and efficiency may thereby be greatly lessened.

either for or against the complaint, are to be examined on oath, and their depositions taken down in writing, and read over to them, and signed by them. Witnesses refusing to attend, on being duly summoned, may be arrested by warrant of the Protector and brought before him; and when so brought before him, if they shall refuse to be fully examined and to give evidence, they may be committed to the common jail, there to remain till they shall submit to be fully examined; from which jail, however, they may be discharged by the Chief Civil Judge, on proof that the commitment was not legal.-The forms of summonses and of proceedings are annexed to the Order.-Protectors are prohibited from acting as Magistrates, except in the cases prescribed in the preceding clauses. (§. XV.-XXIII.)

5. Protectors shall have notice of all prosecutions against slaves for all capital or transportable offences, and of all suits affecting the freedom and property of slaves, and of all prosecutions for murders, and other offences, committed on the persons of slaves, in the same manner in which notice would be given to the slave if free; and Protectors shall also attend and be present at all such trials, prosecutions, suits, &c.; otherwise all the proceedings that may be taken shall be absolutely null, void, and of no effect, as against such slave. (§. XXIV.)

6. If complaint shall be made to any Protector of any wrong or injury done to a slave; or if such wrong or injury shall come to his knowledge; it shall be his duty to inquire into the case; and if, in the result, it appear to him that any civil or criminal proceeding ought to be instituted, it shall be his duty, and he is required, to institute the same, as the case may be, either in the Slave's name or his own, against any such wrong-doer, and to conduct such proceeding to its close, by himself, or by any advocate or solicitor he may employ for that purpose. (§. XXV.)

7. And when any slave shall come by death in a sudden, violent, or extraordinary manner, the Protector shall hold an inquest on the body of such slave, and shall for this purpose have the same powers as the Coroner of any County in England possesses; and every person, knowing of any such death, is required, under a penalty of ten pounds for every omission or neglect, to use his utmost diligence to give notice thereof to the Protector of the district in which such death shall have happened. (§. XXVI.)

We should have had only to express our satisfaction with these alterations, had it not been for two Provisos, one mentioned in a note on the preceding page, and the other (printed in italics) introduced into the Order at the close of §. XIII. It appears from the papers before us that this Proviso formed no part of the Order as at first framed by Lord Goderich. The draft of it sent, on the 15th September 1830, to the West Indian Agents, with a view to their observations, did not contain it. These gentlemen were sufficiently acute at once to perceive its importance, and the degree in which it would go to weaken all the other provisions, by which effectual protection was intended to be secured to the aggrieved slave;-and yet, the reasons

they assign for requiring this concession appear scarcely to deserve the consideration they have received.

"The permission," they say, "to go at all times (to the Protector to complain) without passes might be perverted to mischievous purposes. A runaway for example, on being asked for a pass, might answer that he was going to the Protector. Whole gangs and the entire population of a district might also go up with perfect impunity, and no check or means appear to be provided to prevent the loss of labour which must result to the proprietor if frivolous complaints are made.” Papers by Command, 1831, p. 148.

To this objection Lord Goderich replies, that although "if the power of resorting to the Protector be not given, the law will obviously lose all its efficacy," he nevertheless "admits without reserve the possibility of abuse." An amendment therefore is introduced, "by which slaves found without a pass are exempted from punishment, only on proof that they had applied to the owner for it, with a view bona fide to prefer a complaint, and had been refused." Ibid. p. 79.

Now it is true that a slave who is really a runaway, may plead, if he is challenged, that he is going to the Protector to complain; but any person who has a right to challenge him, has also a right to arrest him, if he sees reason to doubt the truth of the slave's allegation. Having nothing to shew in proof of his statement that he is not a runaway, he may be dealt with as such; and this formidable risk the slave incurs, whenever, driven by the fear of the refusal of a pass from his manager, he ventures to the Protector without it. The risk, therefore, and the inconvenience, are his alone. If he misrepresents his case, he does it at the peril of suffering the penalty of desertion; and considering the jealousy and distrust which prevail, he may expect, if challenged, to be taken up; though by being so taken up, if he has spoken the truth, he will only be brought more certainly on his way to the Protector. Where, then, is the evil?

As to the supposition that either individuals, or whole gangs, or the whole population of a district, may causelessly absent themselves from labour in order to complain, it is to suppose that there is no effective police in Slave Colonies to restrain such causeless absences, and no punishment for false and malicious charges, when they are proved to be false and malicious.

On the other hand is it not an uncalled for, and somewhat dangerous abridgment of the slave's power of access to his Protector, to be obliged to obtain the consent of the wrong-doer before being permitted to go to him? and in practice, it will be found, as past experience founded on the reports of Protectors has clearly shewn, that such an obligation may operate most prejudicially to the slave. Cases may occur, not only where influence or intimidation may be sucessfully employed to prevent very grave cases of complaint from reaching the Protector's ears, but where crime may be added to crime, in order to obviate the risks of investigation. The power of a manager is great and it does seem an anomaly of a singular kind, that the party injured should be made to depend, for the ready means of

redress, on the willingness of the wrong-doer to afford him such means. What a manager may do, in such a case, is painfully exemplified in an affair occurring at the Mauritius, viz.: the case of Francis and Loff, the slaves of Mr. Marchal, in the Protector's latest report from that island, (p. 175, No. 91.) How easily might Mr. Marchal have suppressed all means of detection and punishment by one additional enormity!

II. SUNDAY MARKETS AND SUNDAY LABOUR.—§. XXVII.—XXXV. 1. Sunday Markets are declared to be unlawful, and are henceforth absolutely to cease and determine, and all persons assembling for such markets are to be dispersed by the officers of police, and shall forfeit not less than five, nor more than twenty shillings for every such offence, and the goods of the offenders may be sold, provided they are not redeemed by such offenders for a sum not less than ten, nor more than twenty shillings; one half of such penalty, or of the proceeds of such sale if the goods are sold, being paid for the use of the poor of the place, and the other half to the person making the seizure; it being provided, nevertheless, that nothing is to prevent the sale of medicines, or of provisions consumed in inns, or of certain perishable articles, as milk, fresh meat, fish or bread, on Sunday, between the hours set apart on that day for divine service. (§. XXVII.-XXX.)

2. The Governor of each Colony shall, by proclamation, appoint one day in each week for holding markets at the customary places, and shall determine the hours at which such markets shall be held; and on such weekly market day, it shall not be lawful to seize, in execution on any civil process, any slave resorting to, or being at, or returning from, such market, and every such seizure shall be absolutely null and void. (§. XXXI.)

3. No slave shall be liable to labour for the benefit or advantage of his owner or manager, or of any other person whatsoever, on any Sunday throughout the year; and any person compelling any slave to perform such labour on any Sunday, shall incur a fine of not less than one, nor more than ten pounds; but this prohibition shall not extend to slaves usually employed as domestics, or in the tending or care of cattle; nor to any work of necessity. Under the head, however, of works of necessity, is not to be included any description of agricultural labour, or any labour performed in the manufacture of sugar, rum, molasses, wine, indigo, coffee, or cocoa, unless such labour be undertaken to prevent, or arrest, or remedy the effects of any fire, flood, hurricane, tempest, or such like casualty.

These regulations respecting Sunday, as far as they go, are doubtless very salutary, and a great improvement on the former Order; but still they fall very far short of the justice and necessity of the case.

In the first place, there is no provision for conferring on the slave a right to attend the weekly market. A weekly market-day may be duly appointed by proclamation in every colony; and yet not one slave in that Colony may have the power of attending such market.