For Faith and Freedom
Page 42
CHAPTER XL.
WITH THE HOE.
Before it was daylight we were aroused by the discordant clang of abell: work was about to begin.
In these latitudes there is little twilight; the day begins, asit ends, with a kind of suddenness. I arose, being thus summoned,and looked out. Long rays of light were shooting up the sky fromthe East, and, though the stars were still visible, the day wasfast breaking. In a few moments it became already so light thatI could see across the yard--or what the Italians would callthe piazza--with its ragged bonannow-leaves, the figures of ourfellow-slaves moving about the huts, and hear their voices. Alas!sad and melancholy are the voices of those who work upon hisMajesty's Plantations. Two old negresses went about among thenew-comers, carrying a bucketful of their yellow mess, which theydistributed among us, and giving us to understand that this bowl ofyellow porridge, or loblollie, made out of Indian corn, was all weshould have before dinner. They also gave us to understand in theirbroken English, which is far worse than the jargon talked by some ofour country people, that we should have to prepare our own meals forthe future, and that they would show us how to make this delectablemess.
'Eat it,' said Barnaby; 'a pig is better fed at home. Eat it, Robin,lest thou faint in the sun. Perhaps there will be something betterfor dinner. Heigho! only to think of Mother Rosemary's, where Ithought to lie last night! Patience, lads!'
One would not seem to dwell too long on the simple fare of convicts:therefore I will say, once for all, that our rations consisted ofnothing at all but the Indian meal and of salt beef or salt fish.The old hands and the negro slaves know how to improve their fare inmany ways, and humane masters will give their servants quantitiesof the fruits such as grow here in great abundance--as plantains,lemons, limes, bonannows, guavas, and the like. And many of theblack slaves have small gardens behind their huts, where they growonions, yams, potatoes, and other things which they cultivate onSundays. They are all great thieves also, stealing, whenever theycan, poultry, eggs, and fruit, so that they grow fat and sleek,while the white servants daily grow more meagre, and fall intodiseases by reason of the poorness of their food. Then, as todrink, there are many kinds of drink (apart from the wines ofSpain, Portugal, Canary, Madeira, and France) made in the countryitself, such as mobbie, which is a fermented liquor of potatoes;and perino, from the liquor of chewed cassavy root; punch, which iswater and sugar left to work for ten days; rum, which is distilledin every Ingenio, and is a spirit as strong as brandy, and said tobe more wholesome. Those who have been long in the island, even theservants, though without a penny, know how and where to get thesedrinks; and, since there is no consoler, to the common sort, so goodas strong drink, those who are able to drink every day of thesethings become somewhat reconciled to their lot.
'Come out, ye dogs of rebels and traitors!' It was the loud andharsh voice of the master himself, who thus disturbed us at ourbreakfast. 'Twas his custom thus to rise early, and to witness thebeginning of the day's work. And 'twas his kindly nature whichimpelled him thus to welcome and encourage his newly-bought slaves.'Come out, I say! Ye shall now show of what stuff ye are made.Instead of pulling down your lawful King, ye shall pull up yourlawful master and make him rich. If ye never did a day's work inyour lives, ye shall now learn the how by the must. Come forth, Isay, ye lazy, guzzling skulkers!'
'Ay, ay,' said Barnaby, leisurely scraping his bowl, 'we are like,indeed, to be overfed here.' He rolled sailor fashion out of the hut.
'Barnaby,' I said, 'for God's sake, say nothing to anger the master!There is no help but in patience and in hope.'
So we, too, went forth. The master, red-faced as he was, looked asif he had been drinking already.
'So,' he cried, 'here is the learned physician. Your health,Doctor. And here is the gallant Captain, who was once a sailor.The air of the fields, Captain, will remind you, perchance, of thequarter-deck. This young gentleman looks so gallant and gay that Iwarrant he will ply the hoe with a light and frolick heart. Yourhealths, gentlemen. Hark ye, now. You are come of a good stock,I hear. Therefore have I bought you at a great price, looking toget my money back and more. Some planters would suffer you to lieat your ease cockered up with bonavist and Madeira till the moneycomes. As for me, I shall now show you what you will continue to do,unless the money comes. Therefore you will at once, I doubt not,ask for paper and pen and presently write. Sixty pounds a-piece,gentlemen--not one penny less--will purchase your freedom. Tillthen, the fields. And no difference between white and black; but onewhip for both.'
We made no reply, but took the hoes which were given out to us andmarched with the rest of the melancholy troop.
There were as many blacks as whites. We were divided into gangs;with every gang a driver armed with a whip; and over all theoverseers, who, by their severity, showed their zeal for themaster. The condition of slavery hath in it something devilish, bothfor those who are slaves and those who are masters. The former itdrives into despair, and fills with cunning, dishonesty, treachery,and revenge. Why, the black slaves have been known to rise inrebellion, and while they had the power have inflicted torturesunheard-of upon their masters. The latter it makes cruel andunfeeling; it tempts them continually to sins of all kinds; it putsinto their power the lives, the bodies--nay, the very souls--of thepoor folk whom they buy. I do maintain, and conceal not my opinion,that no man ought, in a Christian country, to be a slave exceptfor a term of years, and then for punishment. I have been myself aslave, and I know the misery and the injustice of the condition.But it is idle to hope that the planters will abandon this means ofcultivating their estates, and it is certain that in hot countriesno man will work except by compulsion.
The whip carried by the driver is a dreadful instrument, long,thick, and strongly plaited, with a short handle. It is coiled andslung round the shoulders when it is not being used to terrify or topunish, and I know well that its loud crack produces upon the mind asensation of fear and of horror such as the thunder of artillery orthe sight of the enemy charging could never cause even to a coward.The fellows are also extremely dexterous in the use of it; they caninflict a punishment not worse than the flogging of a schoolboy; or,with no greater outward show of strength, they will cut and gash theflesh like a Russian executioner with the cruel instrument whichthey call the knout.
For slight offences, such as laziness or carelessness in the field,the former is administered; but for serious offences, the latter.One sad execution (I cannot call it less) I myself witnessed. Whatthe poor wretch had done I know not, but I can never forget hispiercing shrieks as the whip cut into the bleeding flesh. This isnot punishment: it is savage and revengeful cruelty. Yet the masterand the overseers looked on with callous eyes.
They marched us to a field about half a mile from our village orcamp, and there, drawing us up in line, set us to work. Our taskwas, with the hoe, to dig out square holes, each of the same depthand size, in which the sugar canes are planted, a small piece ofold cane being laid in each. These holes are cut with regularityand exactness, in long lines and equally distant from each other.It is the driver's business to keep all at work at the same rate ofprogress, so that no one should lag behind, no one should stop torest or breathe, no one should do less than his neighbours. The poorwretches, with bent bodies streaming with their exertions, speedilybecome afflicted with a burning thirst; their legs tremble; theirbacks grow stiff and ache; their whole bodies become full of pain;and yet they may not rest nor stand upright to breathe a while, norstop to drink, until the driver calls a halt. From time to time thenegroes--men and women alike--were dragged out of the ranks and laidon the ground three or four at a time, to receive lashes for notmaking the holes deep enough or fast enough. At home one can dailysee the poor creatures flogged in Bridewell; every day there arerogues tied to the cart-wheel and flogged wellnigh to death; buta ploughman is not flogged for the badness of his furrow, nor isa cobbler flogged because he maketh his shoon ill. And our men donot shriek and scream so wildly as the negroes, who are an ignor
antpeople and have never learned the least self-restraint. It washorrid also to see how their bodies were scarred with the marks ofold floggings, and branded with letters to show by whom they hadbeen bought. As for our poor fellows, who had been brave recruitsin Monmouth's army, they trembled at the sight and worked all theharder; yet some of them with the tears in their eyes, to think thatthey should be brought to such a dismal fate and to herd with thesepoor, ignorant, black people.
'Twas the design of the master to set us to the very hardest workfrom the beginning, so that we should be the more anxious to getremission of our pains. For it must not be supposed that allthe work on the estate was so hard and irksome as that with thehoe--which is generally kept for the strongest and hardest of thenegroes, men and women. There are many other employments: some areput to weed the canes, some to fell wood, some to cleave it, someto attend the Ingenio, the boiling-house, the still-house, thecuring-house; some to cut the maize, some to gather provisions, ofbonavist, maize, yams, potatoes, cassavy, and the like. Some tothe smith's forge; some to attend to the oxen and sheep; some tothe camels and assinegoes, and the like: so that, had the masterpleased, he might have set us to work better fitted to Englishgentlemen. Well, his greediness and cruelty were defeated, as youshall presently see. As for the domestic economy of the estate,there were on it five hundred acres of land, of which two hundredwere planted with sugar, eighty for pasture, one hundred andtwenty for wood, thirty for tobacco, five for ginger, and as manyfor cotton-wool, and seventy for provisions--viz. corn, potatoes,plantains, cassavy, and bonavist--with a few for fruit. There wereninety-six negroes, two or three Indian women with their children,and twenty-eight Christian servants, of whom we were three.
At eleven o'clock we were marched back to dinner. At one we went outagain, the sun being at this time of the day very fierce, thoughJanuary is the coldest month in the year. We worked till six o'clockin the evening, when we returned.
'This,' said Robin, with a groan, 'is what we have now to do everyday for ten years.'
'Heart up, lads!' said Barnaby; 'our time will come. Give me time toturn round, as a body may say. Why, the harbour is full of boats.Let me get to the port and look round a bit. If we had any moneynow--but that is past praying for. Courage and patience! Doctor,you hoe too fast: no one looks for zeal. Follow the example of theblack fellows, who think all day long how they shall get off withas little work as possible. As for their lash, I doubt whether theydare to lay it about us, though they may talk. Because you see,even if we do not escape, we shall some time or other, through theRector's efforts, get a pardon, and then we are gentlemen again;and when that moment arrives I will make this master of ours fight,willy-nilly, and I will kill him, d'ye see, before I go home to killBenjamin.'
He then went on to discourse (either with the hope of raising ourspirits or because it cheered his mind just to set them forth) uponhis plans for the means of escape.
'A boat,' he said, 'I can seize. There are many which would serveour purpose. But a boat without victuals would be of little use.One would not be accused of stealing, yet we may have to break intothe store and take therefrom some beef or biscuit. But where tostore our victuals? We may have a voyage of three or four hundredknots before us. That is nothing for a tight little boat when thehurricane season is over. We have no compass either--I must layhands upon a compass. The first Saturday night I will make for theport and cast about. Lift up your head, Robin. Why, man, all badtimes pass if only one hath patience.'
It was this very working in the fields, by which the masterthought to drive us into despair, which caused in the long run ourdeliverance, and that in the most unexpected manner.