again issued, burning, and plundering, and massacreing, with remorseless fury, wherever they directed their march. The white inhabitants being at length wearied and harassed by this savage warfare, and in continual danger from their barbarous enemies, and the government seeing no likelihood of being able to drive them from their haunts and compel them to surrender, a treaty was concldded with them by Governor Trelawny, by which they were declared free, and certain tracts of land were assigned to them. They were to be entirely subject to the laws and government of the whites; only, in petty cases, they might decide their own differences, subject, however, to the control of a white superintendent. It was also stipulated, that they should assist the whites in pursuing and reclaiming all runaway slaves, who might have fled into the woods, for each of whom, when brought in, they were to receive a stipulated reward. And, shocking to relate, the instructions not unfrequently were to bring in the fugitive slaves, dead or alive; so that it was no unusual thing for a party of Maroons to take the least troublesome method of earning their reward; namely,bring ing in the head, instead of the living body, of the unfortunate delinquent. The Maroons were also to assist the whites in all contests either with foreign or domestic enemies. The Maroons continued peaceable until 1795, when an unfortunate event occurred which kindled an alarming and destructive rebellion. Two Trelawny Town Maroons (the most numerous and formidable tribe, or township, in the island,) were convicted by the magistrates of the parish of St. James of stealing a hog from a white settler, and were sentenced for this crime to be publicly whipped by the work house driver. Their townsmen were indignant at this ignominious sentence they said, that if the white people had put their companions to death, they would not have complained; but to disgrace and degrade them by a punishment inflicted only on slaves, was such an injury and insult to the whole tribe as could only be atoned for by a retributive vengeance. The first signal of war was the disastrous overthrow of Col.Sanford's corps of light dragoons (the 20th regiment), reinforced by a party of mounted militia, in all about 400 men, by an ambuscade of the Maroons, in a defile between the old and new Maroon towns. This officer unfortunately pushed on farther than his orders directed, and, through bis temerity and imprudence, perished, with thirty of his party, by a close and deadly fire from an unseen enemy. The affair was but of a few minutes, and, had the courage of the insurgents been equal to their activity and skill as marksmen, it is probable that not one of the party would have escaped. The next signal defeat of the whites was that of a detachment of the 83d regiment and a party of the Accompong Town Maroons, commanded by Col. Fitch, wherein that officer, eight soldiers of the 83d, Captain Brisset of Fort Charlotte, and two of the friendly Maroons, were killed, and fourteen of the party wounded. It is here to be remarked, that the Accompong-town Maroons, not being implicated in the quarrel of the insurgent tribe, joined the whites, in virtue of the treaty made with their forefathers by Governor Trelawny. But they were at best a doubtful and unwilling ally, and after this defeat, they retired to their town, and refused to fight any more,-a resolution which the whites were not in a condition to oppose; glad, indeed, in the then posture of their affairs, to secure their neutrality. The insurgent Maroons now formed themselves into different parties, each commanded by some daring and skilful captain, and attacked the whites at different points. Their policy was, not openly to face the parties of their adversaries, but to cut them off in detail. By means of their scouts and spies, they learnt the route of small detachments and escorts, which they ambushed and destroyed. On one occasion they killed every man of a detachment of regulars, convoying provisions to one of the posts. Their parties spread among the remoter settlements, where there were no troops stationed, reducing the buildings to ashes, and massa ereing the inhabitants,-too often under circumstances of the most savage barbarity. Terror and dismay now began to spread among the whites: great numbers of them had perished, while it was not distinctly ascertained that a single Maroon had fallen in action; such negroes as had been killed, in surprising their encampments, being fugitive slaves who had joined them, or been forced into their service,and made scouts and sentinels of. It was, in short, found that the whole military strength of the island was not a match for this handful of Maroons and fearful auguries began to be entertained as to the issue of the contest. In this state of affairs, Lord Balcarras, with the advice of his council, and the earnest recommendation of the principal inhabitants, resolved to send to the island of Cuba for blood-hounds, for the purpose of employing them against the rebellious Maroons-a new and terrible expedient, which nothing but dire necessity could have induced his lordship to have recourse to. His object was to terrify the Maroons into submission,by the introduction of these animals, and thus save the country, and put a stop to the horrible barbarities of those savages. He judged right as to the effect these canine allies would produce. The exaggerated accounts which some runaway slaves conveyed to the Maroons of the strength and ferocity of the dogs struck them with terror in a short time after their introduction, a party of forty Maroons came in and surrendered themselves; and in two months after, (March 18th, 1796,) the whole surrendered, by capitulation, to General Walpole. The terms were, that their lives should be spared, and that they should be suffered to remain in the country, under the whites, as before. This last article the governor and assembly conceived to be highly impolitic, and they therefore refused to ratify it. It was justly considered, that, tho' these people would remain for a time, from compulsion, apparently submissive and peaceable, they would yet brood over their hatred to the whites, and secretly meditate a future and signal vengeance, when some fit opportunity offered. They were, therefore, transported, at the expence of the island, to Nova-Scotia, and subsequently, as the climate of that region was too cold for them, to Sierra Leone, in Africa. FACE OF THE COUNTRY. At present there are in Jamaica About 350,000 slaves, 300,000 head of stock, and the annual average produce may be about 130,000 hogsheads of sugar, 60,000 puncheons of rum, and 18,000,000 lbs. of coffee, &c. There is no island in the West Indies so diversified in its surface as Jamaica. Its mountains, its precipitous rocks, its countless hills, valleys, and glades-its lofty, rugged, and abrupt ascents-its deep ravines, caverns, and cockpits--its thick-planted majestic woods-its numerous rivers, cascades, and mountain-streams, dashing through this wildness of nature-give to the interior a diversity and grandeur of appearance not to be found, perhaps, in any other island of similar extent. On descending towards the sea-shore, the scenery becomes less bold and stupendous, though still finely relieved by the varied surface of the country, by woods, fields, and luxuriant pastures of Guinea grass, beautifully shaded by the finest trees, displaying every tint of green. From the higher eminences is beheld the more level country below, covered with extensive cane-fields, intermixed with pastures, tufts of wood, and dwellings, stretching to the sea shore, which is fringed with mangroves, and here and there enlivened with tufts and groves of cocoa-nut, palmeto, and cabbage-trees. DISEASES. The most common diseases in Jamaica are, malignant epidemic fever, commonly called yellow fever, common bilious fever, typhus fever, and intermittent fever, dysentery, pleurisy, and liver complaint. Of all the diseases of this country, the most violent and fatal is the malignant epidemic fever. Its ravages are at times as rapid and destructive as those of the plague. It is most fatal to new-comers; persons long resident in the island, and consequently inured to the climate, generally escape it, while hundreds of the former are former are perishing around them. It is attended by a highly inflammatory febrile affection of the whole system, with a particular determination to the head, violent headache, nausea and irritation of the stomach, restlessness, pain and weakness of the spine, delirium, and an utter prostration of strength. In two or three days, if the febrile and inflammatory symptoms be not in some measure subdued, the patient is cut off, though a few may linger somewhat longer. Youth, strength, the most robust frame, avail not in withstanding this terrible foe; on these it operates most violently and rapidly. It is a curious fact, that the negroes and people of colour are not subject to the attacks of this epidemic. While the malady is raging in its greatest height among the whites, both of the first named classes may be perfectly healthy; while, on the other hand, the whites may be healthy when fever prevails among the negroes. The people of colour are by far the most healthy and hardy of the three classes. SUGAR PLANTATIONS. On most of the sugar plantations in Jamaica there is a variety of soils, but some have a far greater diversity than others. It is not unusual to find within the boundaries of one estate, almost all the different soils of the country; while others contain only two or three kinds. The soils adapted to the sugar-cane are the various rich loams and moulds, and clay with a superstratum of mould. The former are turned up with the hoe, about four inches below the surface of the earth, and formed into ridges, called cane holes---in the spaces between which (four feet in breadth) the canes are planted. The clay soil is usually turned up with the plough, when it is suffered six or more weeks to pulverise, and then formed into cane-holes; after which it is fit for planting. The softer soils may be planted immediately after being turned up; and this rather an advantage than otherwise to such soils. This holing, as it is called, or digging of the land, is the most toilsome work on a plantation. The manure generally made use of, 20 ATHENEUM VOL. 14. is that taken from the cattle-pens, after being properly prepared into a compost by the admixture of ashes, earth, &c. For the clay soils, ashes, marl, and sometimes lime, are used. Three lengths of the top part of the cane, each having three, four, or more germs are laid in each hole, with the germs placed sideways, and covered with a thin layer of earth. The lower and middle parts of the cane, when full-grown, do not produce shoots, so that nothing is lost; the top of the cane, which alone is fit for planting, being unfit for sugar. Good land, well manured, will produce four or five crops, when it is replanted. Very fertile land has been known to produce fifty or more crops, before the introduction of the Bourbon cane—that is, continued for fifty years to reproduce from the original stock; the field being occasionally manured, and supplied with fresh stocks or roots where any have decayed, soon after the field is reaped. The harvest commences at different periods in different districts, the planters being mainly regulated in this by the seasons, or periods of rainy and dry weather. December, January, and February, are the usual times. The canes, when cut down, are tied up into bundles, and conveyed by carts and mules to the mill; where they are passed through iron cylinders, which press out the juice: this is conveyed to the boiling-house, where it is converted into sugar. The molasses is taken to the distilling-house, and, along with the scum from the vessels in which the sugar is boiled, made into rum. stem of the cane, after being expressed, is dried, and used as fuel for boiling the sugar. The operations in the mill and the boiling-house go on both night and day, the negroes being formed into what are called spells, or divisions (two or three, according to their number), which relieve each other in the nocturnal part of the duty. The getting-in of the crops lasts from three to four months. In the meantime, the sugar, when what is called cured, is sent in hogsheads, &c. to the wharves, in waggons drawn by ten or twelve oxen. The A sugar plantation producing two hundred hogsheads of sugar had usual ly about two hundred slaves, a hundred oxen, and fifty mules; but there is no fixing of any precise number of each as generally applicable. What are called laborious estates, that is, having much clay land, and planting much, require a greater proportion of able slaves than others, unless the land is put in (planted) by jobbers. The more distant an estate is from the shipping-place, the more oxen of course are required to convey down the produce; and a property that has a water or a wind-mill does not require half the number of mules that it would with a cattle-mill only. Indeed, a plantation with a good water-mill, and easy-lying fields from which the canes may be carted, scarcely requires any mules. The four great desiderata in settling a sugar plantation are, goodness of soil, easiness of access, convenience of distance from the shipping place, and a stream of water running through the premises. Although an estate may prove very productive without a union of all these advantages, it would be folly to settle upon a tract of land that possessed neither of them. An estate producing 200 hogsheads of sugar, averaging 16 cwt., may be thus valued : One man, more wise and patient than others, kept his stock on hand, borrowing money on it and on his plantation in the meantime, until a sudden and ex. traordinary rise took place, the price being more than quadrupled; by which means he realized a considerable fortune. A coffee plantation does not require half the number of slaves and stock that a sugar estate does, neither is the labour so severe. The soil best adapted to the coffee-tree is a deep brown loam: the trees are planted at the distance of about six feet, and are carefully kept clean and pruned. The season for gathering the berries is from October to January. It is pulped, &c. and dried on terraced platforms, called barbecues. PIMENTO. The season for gathering the pimento is from August to October. The extremities of the branches bearing the spice are broken off when nearly of the full size, but green; for if suffered to become ripe it loses its aromatic quality, and is of no use. It is then picked off from the stems, and dried in the sun, in the same manner as coffee. Jamaica is the only West India island which produces this spice in such abundance as to render it an important article of commerce. SLAVE LAWS. The consolidated slave-laws or code of laws enacted chiefly for the protection of the slaves, is a separate code, the result of a more enlightened and humane view of the duties of masters to their slaves, and of the necessity of enforcing the performance of those duties by positive enactments, which has been gradually gaining ground in the West Indies for the last thirty-five yearsbefore which time the condition of the unhappy slave depended in a great measure on the will and pleasure of his master. These laws contain many excellent and humane provisions, which, were they duly carried into execution, would render the condition of the slaves as secure and comfortable as the state and nature of slavery would admit. But there are obstacles to the due execution of those laws which must first be removed ere they can have full efficiency: the principal of these is the abse lute legal nullity of the evidence of a slave against a white man. All trials of slaves, even those for capital offences, are carried on in the petty courts, or quarter-sessions of the respective parishes. These trials are usually conducted with the most perfect regard to impartial justice, and generally with a leaning of mercy towards the delinquent. The court appoints counsel to conduct his defence. When a white man stands accused of the murder of a slave, he is tried in the supreme court, or either of the assizecourts, according to the county in which the murder has been committed. Should he be convicted, he suffers the same penalty of the law as a slave would who had been convicted of killing a white man. The great difficulty is to bring home legal evidence against the former. In 1821, a white man shot a slave, employed along with others by a deputy-marshal to assist in making a levy of slaves belonging to this man, on a writ against him. The evidence of the other slaves so employed was nugatory: and the marshal's follower who headed them, having been convicted of perjury on a former occasion, his evidence was deemed inadmissible by the court. The culprit would accordingly have been acquitted for want of evidence, had it not been for the testimony of two of his own witnesses (his housekeeper and his daughter), who, in their cross-examination, admitted the fact of his having shot the slave, under the impression of its being a justifiable act in defence of his property. On this evidence he was convicted and executed, though recommended to mercy by the jury. His housekeeper and daughter were free persons of colour, a class of people whose evidence some years ago was inadmissible against the whites, a disability since very pro perly removed by the legislature. THE WHITE INHABITANTS. The white inhabitants of Jamaica consist of creoles, or natives of the country, and Europeans. There may be about three of the former to two of the latter. Formerly there was a marked difference in the habits, manners, and mode of life of those two classes, but that no longer generally exists. The primitive creolian customs and manners are fast disappearing, being superseded by the more polished manners of European life. Even within the last fifteen or twenty years a very considerable improvement has taken place in the state of society here. This is owing in a great measure to the now universally prevailing practice of sending the children of both sexes to Great Britain for their education. Wherever slavery exists, there must be many things attending it unfavourable to the improvement of the minds and manners of a people: arbitrary habits are acquired, irritation and violent passions are engendered-partly, indeed, by the perverseness of the slaves, and the feelings are gradually blunted by the constant exercise of a too unrestrained power, and the scenes to which it is continually giving birth. The very children in some families, are so used to see or hear the negro servants whipped, for the offences they commit, that it becomes a sort of amusement to them. It unfortunately happens that the females, as well as the males, are too apt to contract domineering and harsh ideas with respect to their slaves-ideas ill suited to the native softness and humanity of the female heart,-so that the severe and arbitrary mistress will not unfrequently be combined with the affectionate wife, the tender mother, and agreeable companion;-such is the effect of early habits and accustomed prejudices, suffering qualities so anomalous to exist in the same breast. A young lady, while yet a child, has a little negress of her own age pointed out to her as one destined to be her future waiting-maid; her infant mind cannot conceive the harm of a little vexatious tyranny over this sable being, who is her property; and thus are arbitrary ideas gradually engrafted in her nature. Such is the power of habit over the heart, that the woman accustomed to the exercise of severity soon loses all the natural softness of her sex. Nothing was more common formerly than for white mistresses not only to order their slaves to be punished, but personally to see that the punishment was duly inflicted. |