A tour through ... Jamaica ... in ... 1823

Front matter

JAMAICA fUR B 0 UP. , 117 ,) A.TÆA 1 CA, d il S r 3 K F 0 K E S U liaiS PI . Fu-biislie d ij tfimt-c, Glarl_e,Ta.vistoc!t S* Cavom Garden . ■Vet sage 22/ ■ A TOUR THROUGH THl^SsLAND OF JAMAICA, FROM THE WESTERN TO THE EASTERN END, IN THE YEAR 1823. BY CYNRIC R. WILLIAMS. LONDON : PRINTED FOR HUNT AND CLARKE, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. MDCCCXXVI. LONDON : PRINTED BY C. H. REYNELL, BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE.

Preface

. Notwithstanding the many publications which have appeared on the subject of Slave Emancipation, and the interest that has arisen out of that subject among almost all classes of the English people, yet few persons, even of those who have taken the greatest share in the disquisitions which it has caused, seem to be at all informed of the general state of society in the West India Islands. By the general state of society, it is meant to include the habits and manners of all ranks, from the rich slave owner to his slave ; and although the author did not set out with this intention, the following pages will enable the reader to form a pretty correct idea of these

PREFACE.

. habits and manners. The public, or a por tion of it, will have an opportunity of learn ing that negro slaves are not worked and flogged alternately, at the option and ca price of their masters, as many good chris tians imagine, who have signed petitions for emancipating them; that they have their pastimes as well as toils, their pleasures as well as pains ; and that they smile as often, and laugh as heartily, as the labouring people of this or any equally happy country. ' At the same time it is to be feared that the general reader will be displeased at the too frequent declamations against the Reformers of Transatlantic morals and politics, (the very subversion of slave policy is their avowed object) ; but he will recollect that the wealth of the rich, in the colonies, is slaves, secured to them in the first place by the laws of England; and that to tamper

PREFACE.

V with the feelings of these slaves must pro duce alarm, consternation, and hatred in the minds of their owners, mingled with no small portion of indignation at what they consider ignorance and presumption on the part of the Reformers ; whether with or without justice, is not here to be argued. Let him imagine a band of the most con scientious, religious, church-going people in England exerting their influence, moral, political, and spiritual, to prevail on all that part of the community which has no pro perty in land, to petition the government to pass an agrarian law for the benefit of the lowest class, and let him see that this band have every chance of success ; — he will forgive the irritated feelings of the Jamaica planters. Much has been done to temper or modify their language ; to have suppressed it altogether, would have been an injustice to ° i ol Jjo the colonists. ,. VI

PREFACE.

. Some explanation seems likewise necessary for the coarseness of the negro expressions, and for the nonsense into which they torture texts of scripture, and scraps of the church service. It must, perhaps, suffice to say, that all has been done in this picture from the life ; and that without it the general reader would not have a correct idea of the subject intended to be represented. The author him self disavows every intention of attempting ridicule on these occasions, and appeals for the fidelity of his picture to the proprietors and dwellers in Jamaica. PAGE 1 7 10 CONTENTS.

Chapter I

Ai-rival at Falmouth in Jamaica. — Lodging-house of Miss Vidal ; reservoir of water ; negroes purchasing finery for the Christmas holidays with doubloons. — Orange grove ; sugar grinding, boiling, and still-houses. -

Chapter II

Description of an old planter and the society at his house ; singing and dancing. ._..__.._

Chapter III

North wind; hills of Cuba visible. — A Jamaica breakfast.— Feld work ; two nepgroes flogged, one for stealing a lamb to pay for a Bible, the other a woman, for beating a girl ; her speech to the driver or flogger ; naked children in trays under the trees ; the driver's bamboo staff filled with grog ; "phalanx of children with their gouvernante dine on cow-skin broth contents. VIII r.si.p. 16

Chapter IV

A great many of the negroes are Christians legally married ; customs of those married after their own fashion. — Inheritance and disposal of property. — A negro claims compensation for a tree planted by his grand father. — Their morality not improved by their religion ; Quamina's plea for not paying an old debt. — Puntees of no avail now. — Naked children.

Chapter V

Christmas day. — Chorus of negroes ; dancing and music ; gombays, bonjaws, drums, &c. — Love dance, Pyrrhic ; costume and ornaments. — Equality among all parties. — Satirical songs of the negroes. — Arrival and surrender of an old runaway. ------ 21

Chapter VI

Ceremony of the Jonkanoo ; a memorial of the escape from the deluge. — Libations on the earth. — Mulattos scorn to mingle with the blacks. — The pious slaves will not dance. — Ingenuity of Quashie in getting a horse from the stable to ride on a visit to his favourite ; he is detected and degraded. — Festivities at the great house. - - -"*"-•- - - - - -25

Chapter VII

I am provided with two negroes and two horses ; one of the former a Methodist, the other a Mussulman : description of them. — Account of my horses, my own costume and travelling equipage. — Bamboos. — Maroon Town; barracks. — Fern tree, the great bombax and bread-nut tree, wild pine, fig tree, and wild vine, called the water-withe -.-30 CONTENTS. IX PAGE 52

Chapter VIII

Only 70 degrees of heat. — Fine climate. — Humming-birds, robin and ringtail pigeons. — Discontent of the negroes. — Insurrections in St. Mary's parish. — Saints, Moravians, Methodist Missionaries ; the mischief produced by these last. — A maniac attempts to poison a preacher ; reasons for his conduct ; flies to the woods ; his mode of life and religious deportment. — Love-feasts of an evening. — Power over the minds of the negroes moderated by the efforts of an Obeah man, his rival. .-......-36

Chapter IX

Creole tongue. — Road from Vaughan's field through rocky ravines. — Woods matted and bound together. — Mocking-bM, pigeons, parrots, and screamingcrickets. — Arrival at the house of Mr. S . Psalm-singing of the house slaves. — Mirth of the brown girls at an accident that occurs ; tricks played on Ebenezer. — Diana. 42

Chapter X

Description of Diana, a pretty Quadroon ; her religion. — Excellent road.— Arrival at the Perm of Mr. Mathews.

Chapter XI

Description of the Perm. — Tanks. — New year's day; a ceremony retained by the nepgroes after the manner of the Adonia mentioned by Plutarch. — A ball in the evening at the house of a Mulatto woman ; a supper ; champaign and noyau. - - - - - X CONTENTS. PAGE 65 70

Chapter XII

Mr. Mathews's plan for the emancipation of Jamaica ; his remarks on Mr. Wilberforce and the Saints. — Quotations from the Bible in defence of slavery as a system. — Comparison of negroes with the labourers of England and Ireland. ------

Chapter XIII

Hauling of the seine. — Breakfast on the sea-shore. — Abdallah converses with a native of Houssa, (his countryman) transported thence for stealing horses. — Ebeneezer moralizes about the quantity of fish caught. — Abdallah threatens to fling him into the sea. — Take my leave of Mr. Mathews ; ride towards Black River. — Fan-palms ninety and one hundred feet high ; sago ; canary-birds ; John-crows feasting on a mule. — Lace made of the bark of a tree. — A Mulatto girl going to complain of a white gentleman's violence, attended by a negro slave of her own ; her remarks about emanci pating slaves without paying for them. — I lodge at a tavern kept by Miss M'Clean, at Black River.

Chapter XIV

Bridge over the river. — Particulars of the complaint preferred by the Mulatto girl. — Pedro Plains ; red dust ; volcanic appearance of the country. — Tanks rendered waterproof by the juice of plantain stalks. — Duppy. — A gentleman and his niece travelling towards Spanish Town for security, in the expectation of the negroes rising. — Remarks on the interference of Messrs. Wilberforce and Buxton. ------ CONTENTS. XI PAGE

Chapter XV

A marshalman shot at by a Paratee brown man, who has lost his negroes by desertion ; threatens to take refuge in the woods with thirty of his fellows, and make war on every preacher and missionary in the Island ; he is a Christian ; his rage and passion. — Herenhausen. — A pet ram killed by mistake for a fat lamb. — Mr. Klopstock. 91

Chapter XVI

Agreeable climate and society. — Account of a Scotch cabin and its inhabitants, compared with a negro house and its contents. — Death of a negro who disposes of his property by a verbal will ; his funeral ; Ebeneezer makes a speech over the grave. - - - - 98

Chapter XVII

A sermon preached by Ebeneezer to Mr. Klopstock's negroes ; indignation and revenge of the black girls. - 107

Chapter XVIII

I quit Herenhausen, and embark with Mr. Mathews in a canoe for Milk River ; pass the rocks called the White Horses, and anchor in Calabash Bay. — Strong sea breeze. — Walk over the Devil's Race. — Long Bay. — Cross five rivers ; alligators, musquitos, mangrove tree ; dreadful fatigue ; climb some rocks from the sea-side, and repose in a negro hut, where we buy a yam and borrow a pot to boil it in ; regain the canoe, and arrive at Milk River. - - - - 114

Chapter XIX

I have a violent fever. — Diana comes to nurse me ; her account of herself. - - - - - - CONTENTS. PAGE

Chapter XX

Physicians and their fees. — Sugar-making ; the most fatal business which the Whites follow. — East India sugar. — Mr. Mathews's plan for the improvement of the Island. — My Doctor rejoices that the Americans have fifteen ships of the line. — Negroes to emancipate the Whites. — Rum enough in the Island to resist an invasion. ....---- 134

Chapter XXII

Milk River ; why so called. — A salt spring ; invalids here. — A Moravian missionary takes a fancy to the soul of Diana ; offers me spiritual consolation. — A Jew and a Spanish Catholic make proposals to Diana. — Morality of the natives compared with that of the Londoners and Parisians. — Dialogue between the Moravian and the Catholic. — A pirate vessel j the crew fire at a man who has jumped overboard ; the man escapes and reaches the shore. - 150

Chapter XXIII

The story of Edmund Currie, an Irish sailor and a free-born Briton. — Difference of the Mosiac and Martial Laws as to flogging ; the first, which is the Jamaica, law, allowing only thirty-nine stripes, the latter not confining itself to a thousand. .... 158

Chapter XXIV

Manumission of slaves; its difficulties explained. — Esprit de corps manifested by negroes. — Cruel treatment CONTENTS. PAGE of them very rare. — A pious lady in England directs her attorney to sell the old worn-out slaves and buy young ones ; she makes four of them free ; reasons for not adding to the number of the liberated, who desire to be slaves again. — Arguments for considering as slaves all people of colour, who have no proof of being free. — Condition of the slave compared with that of the militiaman. — Families of slaves sold to gether, or they will not remain with the new pur chaser. — Fifty runaways advertised weekly out of a population of three hundred thousand. — Negroes worked in chains, as galley slaves and convicts in England 171

Chapter XXV

Expense of Milk River tavern. — The Catholic and the Jew jeering the Doctor that the Saints in England, who deny the Pope's supremacy, should induce the English government to interfere with the religion of the Jamaica men, a people five thousand miles distant from them; argument against paying any attention to the inters erence of the Quakers. — Ebeneezer in the stocks at a neighbouring estate ; I get him liberated- 186

Chapter XXVI

I leave Milk River. — A mock-bird renounces his own song to imitate a black parrot ; the Doctor's remark thereon. Conversation between my two servants about faith ; Ebeneezer kicked into the water by his mule. — Fine Penns on the road to Old Harbour. — Guinea corn ; droughts in Vere ; steam-engines ; fine soil ; fine houses inhabited by the attornies. — Old Harbour bay. — Wharfs and stores ; Coratoe hills ; American aloe. — Town of Old Harbour bay. - - ••■- - - CONTENTS. PAGE 201 210

Chapter XXVII

Names of estates, men, and animals. — Rats eaten. — Conversation of some American sailors and two negroes respecting the episcopal dress and the colour ofthe arch enemy. — Juan de Esquivel. - - - - -

Chapter XXVIII

Spanish Town. — Hoax played ofl* upon me by Mr. Mathews ; Ebeneezer takes me for a Quaker, while a negro boy ties a Muscovy drake to the tail of his mule ; he is thrown into a penguin fence and loses his Bible. — No Quakers in Jamaica ; the legislature would compel them to bear-arms for the defence of the island ; hence their vindictive interference in colonial affairs, according to Mr. Mathews. — Rio Cobre. — The king's house; courts of law and House of Assembly ; secretary's office and guard room ; statue of Lord Rodney ; daily market. — Marks of the whip on Ebeneezer ; he conceals the reason for which he has received them.

Chapter XXIX

Mountains of Liguanea, and Blue Mountains ; cool mornings. — Cobbett's letter to Mr. Wilberforce. — The pirate is taken from which Edward Currie had escaped. — I sleep at a lodging house out of town ; dance every night. — Some account of the town of Kingston ; top chaises ; power of the sun ; villas ; harbour. — Port Royal ; Apostle's Battery ; earthquakes ; plantains ; fertility of the soil ; a dinner party. — Mr. Nunnez takes me to a ball of persons of colour; beautiful women ; libertinage equal to that of London. — I settle my affairs with the executors of my deceased relation, and agree to buy two negro children. ... CONTENTS. XV PA OB

Chapter XXX

Half-way tree. — Burial ground.— Mr. Reiterhoffer preaches in a mill-house ; he is a watchmaker. — I leave Kingston ; breakfast at an imi ; reach Yallah's River in the evening. — A large mansion without an inhabitant ; follow a cow through the river ; and sleep at a tavern kept by Miss Cornelia, a black free woman. — Breakfast next morning at an estate on the west side of Morant River. — Two drivers flog a black man laid on the ground; he receives in all thirty-nine stripes for having attempted to poison his master and his family. — Argument for public flogging, and cracking the whip, in preference to using a cat-o'-nine tails or punishing in private. — Morant Bay and shipping. — Church and beautiful estates ; two thousand couples of negroes married here lately according to the English law. — My companion swamped in a quicksand ; his coolness. — Port Morant.— Carrion-crow hills. — Wretched depreciation of rum and sugar. ----- 235

Chapter XXXI

Bath. — I lodge at the house of a white lady ; my dinner ; rain ; botanic garden ; hot spring. — Comparison between the beauties of Jamaica and Great Britain. — Spiritual salutations of Ebeneezer. — Plantain Garden. — Rivers, floods. — Manchioneal harbour; ships tied with ropes to the rocks. - - - - - -247

Chapter XXXII

A dealer in crockery expresses his abhorrence of Methodists and Quakers ; proposes to impeach of high treason ; his reasons for such a proposition ; his CONTENTS. PAGE 258 271 sentiments of the Brewer ; the colonists, the West India merchants. — Return by Plantain Garden to Port Morant. — Fire-flies. — Parson's Hole. — Blue Mountain valley. — Negroes mending the roads in chains ; their crimes ; they quiz me, and pelt Ebeneezer with stones. — A yellow snake ; not poisonous ; eats rats. — A gentleman restored to health by the climate who had burst a blood-vessel in his lungs. — We set out to travel by night to L estate in St. David's. — Cheeses. — Mount Lebanus ; cedars; lands cleared by fire. — Richmond hill. — Confusion in descending a ravine.

Chapter XXXIII

Journey to the Blue Mountain peak. — Telfer's cedar. — Beautiful nights of the tropics. — I stumble over an avalanche of earth ; am saved by my mule ; Mr. Selwyn's mare falls down the ravine, and is killed. — Sleep at Francis's plantation. — Account of our barometer. — Wild cane and Morgan's ivers. — Broken ground; precipices; wild hogs; juniper and Santa Maria trees ; grand and extensive view ; no rocks or stones on the surface of the ground. — Sunset from the eastern peak. — Supper and lodging. — Excessive cold ; height of the Blue Mountain. — Trees and plants.

Chapter XXXIV

Return by Port Morant to Manchioneal. — Port Antonio ; melancholy instance of hydrophobia. — Description of the parish of Portland. — A Maroon town. — Subterranean rivers. — Sea-side jasmin ; lizards ; turtles. — Proserpine's song. — A negro butler, a scholar, and a poet, having been brought up for a Methodist. — Ebe- CONTENTS. XVII VAC, E neezer's extasy and confession ; the black nymphs pelt him with gravel ; his defence of himself. — Coco-nut trees struck by lightning. — Three flags on an iron conductor. -------- 293

Chapter XXXV

Titchfield. — Harbours of Port Antonio; healthy barracks. — Navy Island. — Blue Mountain. — Fort George. — Diana pays me a visit. — An epitome of the life*of a woman of colour ; prejudice against colour ; no misery among such women. — I go to the house of her father ; pass a funeral on the road, and meet an old free woman, a negress, stark naked. ... 303

Chapter XXXVI

Description of a country house. — Pigs. — A planter's mode of passing his time. — Servants ; some particulars relating to them. — Account of a small coffee settlement in the interior. — Rio Grande. — Susanna. — I am taken again for a marshalman. — Battle of the horse and mule. — Description of the coffee planter and his wife ; advice of the latter to Susanna. - - - - 314

Chapter XXXVII

A second expedition to the Blue Mountain, which fails. — Golden Vale, an estate belonging to Greenwich Hospital. — Fires in the wilderness. — An extraordinary tract of country bare of trees — A cascade falling from the eastern peak. — We rush into a river to cool ourselves. -------- CONTENTS. PAPBE 338