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On 1 August 1834, Britain abolished slavery in its colonies. While this was greeted with rejoicing by the slaves of the British West Indies, and by British abolitionists, not everyone was happy about it./1
Among those less than happy with Emancipation was the Scots writer Thomas Carlyle. In 1849 he published an essay entitled “An Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question.” Four years later he issued an expanded version with another n-word/2
in the title. He contended that slavery was merely employment for life of inherently inferior people. He declared that they refused paid employment because they could live comfortably on pumpkins./3
This was a horror to him, and he wanted the recently freed black West Indians returned to bondage because it would be morally appropriate for them, and it would revive the plantations of the West Indies./4
In the 1853 “N....r Question,” he interpolated an address to an imaginary “Senator Hickory Buckskin” urging Americans to make slavery “more just” in order to preserve it, proclaiming his sorrow at the thought of/5
a superannuated slave being cast aside to fend for him/herself in old age. Slavery, or serfdom, however was suitable for negroes as they were inherently inferior. The “Demerara n.....r” being scarcely superior to the horse./6
A decade later, the novelist Anthony Trollope visited the West Indies as an emissary of the Royal Mail. He delivered himself of an account of the post-slavery West Indies that echoed Carlyle’s./7
While he did not call for the restoration of slavery, though he contended that slaves in Cuba were not mistreated in any way he could see, he condemned the black people of the West Indies as lazy rascals who/8
refused employment because they could live happily on breadfruit. This led the historian Eric Williams to wonder if Carlyle had planted pumpkins for Trollope to reap breadfruit./9
Trollope condemned the West Indies of being corruptly administered, omitting to mention that the corrupt were exclusively white. He differed from Carlyle on one important point./10
He distinguished the mixed-race from the blacks, calling the former “our cousins,” and believed they could eventually be allowed to take charge of the colonies. This was beyond absurd./11
In 1849 & 1850, Carlyle had been challenged by an anonymous reviewer who called the Occasional Discourse a “true work of the Devil.” This was echoed in an essay by John Stuart Mill, who condemned Carlyle’s racism/12
and contended that the black people of the West Indies were behaving as free people ought. Then came round 2. In October 1865 peasants in eastern Jamaica revolted against the unjust use of the law to punish black/13
people for trying to live outside of white control. The revolt was brutally put down by the governor, Edward John Eyre. Eyre was recalled, and a committee was organized to prosecute Eyre for murdering innocent/14
British subjects. The Jamaica Committee was an honor roll of British science & social thought, including Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, and John Stuart Mill. In response, Carlyle led an Eyre Defense Committee, which praised/15
Eyre for having “saved” Jamaica. This was round 2 of the Carlyle/Mill debate. In 1867, Carlyle published an essay, “Shooting Niagara: And After” in which he contended that British aristocrats should establish colonies of settlement/16
in the West Indian mountains, so that 100K white could dominate 1M blacks. For why this couldn’t have worked, google “White Highlands” & Kenya. Carlyle praised Eyre as the defender of British power in the West Indies./17
Mill argued, as a Member of Parliament, for the punishment of Eyre and led the effort, which failed, to prosecute him. In his Autobiography, he emphasized that his concern was for the abuse of subjects of the Crown/18
a category to which he belonged as an Englishman. It was not primarily about the rights of black folk, “imperative as was that consideration.” That puts him on the side of justice./19
One of the members of the Eyre Defense Committee was the Christian Socialist priest & novelist Charles Kingsley. In 1879, he visited Trinidad where he managed to condemn black indolence while wondering how black roofers/20
could work cheerfully under the blazing son. He did speak positively of some black people, such as the schoolteacher John Joseph Thomas of whose humor he approved. As Thomas was the author of a syntax of Trinidadian/21
French Creole, this wasn’t much of a compliment. In 1887, the journalist & historian James Anthony Froude, a disciple of Carlyle, visited the West Indies. He arrived with a fine set of prejudices & left with them intact./22
One of the most interesting things that happened on this tour was a meeting with some notable Bajans including the then attorney general, later Chief Justice, Sir Conrad Reeves, a man of mixed race./23
Reeves & others urged Froude to challenge a recent book by diplomat Hector St John, which said, inter Alia, that Haitians practiced cannibalism and salted the meat of babies to preserve them for later eating./24
Froude promised to investigate. On the basis of 4 fucking hours in Haiti he stated that he could not believe that a British representative would lie. The rest of the voyage was on that level./25
There were moments of sheer absurdity on his tour. On one occasion, he got his carriage driver lost near Kingston because he was arguing with him about the Rebellion of 1865. On another, he and some/26
officers at the garrison at Newcastle in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica discussed jokingly whether bears should be introduced to the Blue Mountains “where they might dine on the occasional piccaniny.” This is not funny, but is/27
ironic, given his acceptance of the cannibalism libel against Haiti. Froude did not think that slavery was so bad, especially not for West Indian Negroes who were inferior to the Zulus he had encountered/28
some years earlier in South Africa. Speaking of the courteous behavior of the inhabitants of the Jamaican town of Mandeville (note to @wcchen), he declared that it was a beneficial result of slavery./29
Where Carlyle had, 2 generations earlier, drawn the ire of English liberals, Froude drew an altogether different response. The Trinidadian schoolteacher, J J Thomas, mentioned above, travelled to England, wrecking his health in the process,/30
to publish a rebuttal to Froude, calling his account fables, pointing to examples of successful men of color, and roundly condemning Froude’s racism./31
Now, given the consistent description of West Indian indolence & lack of civilization, an innocent person might wonder if there was anything in it. This brings me to the 1 19th century visitor to the British West Indies who listened/32
to the people he wrote about. This was the American journalist William Grant Sewell, who visited the West Indies in 1861. Sewell began his tour in Antigua, convinced he would did emancipation a failure./33
At the end of his tour he left Jamaica a convinced abolitionist. His experience of the West Indies showing him hard-working, dignified, black people enjoying their liberty./34
The 19th century Brits who lamented slavery did one positive thing, they caused black West Indians to speak for themselves and to demand fair treatment for themselves. To Trollope, the idea of/35
black West Indians governing themselves was a horror. Black West Indians, in the 20th century were goaded to seek independence in reaction to the insistence they be kept subjected. Freedom did come./end
