Sugar in the Blood

by Andrea Stuart

  The D’Egville case had particular impact and resonance because it hinged on an issue that was the subject of heated political debate in the region: a slave’s inability to give testimony in court. This law, which was currently under attack by the abolitionists, was the product of one of the fundamental beliefs of slave society, that blacks were stupid, feckless and inherently dishonest and thus could not reliably provide evidence. But recent events were making this proscription more and more insupportable. The freed coloureds had already won the right to give testimony as a result of the part they played in the restoration of order after Bussa’s Rebellion. And it was becoming clear that the thousands of black soldiers now fighting—and dying—for the British Empire in the New World could not in all justice be excluded from this right. But of course the planters fretted. The issue presented them with an unpleasant dilemma: if the free people of colour and the soldiers were regarded as sensible and intelligent enough to give testimony, surely the right had to be extended to all people of colour in the region? Inevitably, the law was fervently resisted.

  In 1826 Robert Cooper’s wife, Mary Ashby, died. It is impossible to know exactly what Robert Cooper felt. Despite his other liaisons, their marriage had endured for thirty years, and she had borne him a precious son. Without her, he would never have got his hands on Burkes or developed into the notable planter he had become. Whatever his feelings about her passing, it was undoubtedly the end of an era.

  One of the changes precipitated by his wife’s death was that Robert Cooper could finally live openly with his mistress Mary Anne and their large brood. It was a new beginning for them. In the past she must have felt sidelined, even hidden away, but now she could be a visible presence at Burkes. We can only wonder at the popular reaction to Robert Cooper when he appeared openly in Oistins with his coloured consort and their children. Marriage was not an option, of course; the legal and social taboos against such an act were still insurmountable. Despite the length and stability of their relationship, she was destined to remain his concubine.

  Such long-term relationships between white men and free mixed-race women were so common in the Spanish and French colonies, such as Louisiana, Haiti and New Orleans, that they became standardized. A conventional betrothal was not a possibility in these societies, since matrimony across the colour line was illegal according to the Code Noir, just as it was prohibited in the other sugar colonies. Instead of marriage, there was plaçage, which comes from the French word placer, meaning “to place with.” It had emerged in the very earliest days of the colonies, when it was difficult to tempt young European women to follow men to these tropical wildernesses. But it had latterly evolved into an extra-legal system to protect women of colour in their relationships with white men, which were known among the black population as marriages de la main gauche or left-hand marriages.

  Whereas in the past women in these unions had no protection when the white men who had kept them either got married or found another lover, this system meant that men had certain obligations to their mixed-race lovers, whether or not the relationship endured. The man was expected to provide a house, an annual allowance, and a commitment to educate any offspring they might produce. In return the woman gave him her love and devotion and was expected to be a combination of sensual courtesan, solicitous confidante and warm companion. A man who reneged on his commitments would find it impossible to attract another Creole companion; and his reputation was besmirched, even among the white population. That these rules emerged at all was not just a sign of how ubiquitous these arrangements were, but also an indication of the power of the free coloured communities in these societies, and their growing social and political power to protect their own members.

  Though less formalized, such relationships were just as common in the English-speaking islands. So concubinage emerged as a way of describing long-term relationships that existed outside the legal framework. Mary Anne would have understood all this; she knew that marriage and social respectability could never be the end point of her relationship with Robert Cooper. But though they were unable to wed, Mary Anne and Robert Cooper lived a married life in all but name. With Mary Ashby’s death, Mary Anne and her children were able to live on a more secure and public footing, and to have greater expectations and hopes for the future.

  In that same year, 1826, the legal landscape for the slaves on the island was also shifting. In response to the revival of the abolition movement, the planters had initially been bullish. The Barbadian slave owners, whom the historian Hilary Beckles characterized as being “perhaps the most conservative in the region,” argued that their own reform measures, which had led to higher life expectancy among their slaves, meant that emancipation was unnecessary. But this did not appease the activists and soon the planters were on the defensive. Under pressure from the Colonial Office, the Barbadians finally passed an act “to consolidate and improve” the slaves’ position, granting them the right “to own property” and offering “a reduction in manumission fees.” They were also extended the privilege “of giving evidence in court in all cases,” which was just twelve months too late to save D’Egville’s life. To the planters, this seemed an enormous concession, but since the bill still upheld the slave owners’ rights in many areas—including the crucial entitlement to be able to put to death any slave who threatened the life of a white person, a law that had excused any number of unjustified slave deaths—it was seen by the abolitionists as too little, too late.

  The movement’s official policy of “gradualism” clearly was not working. And during this period the grass roots were growing increasingly fractious, as Clarkson noted in his diary: “Everywhere people are asking me about immediate abolition, and whether that would not be best … and whether they should not leave off West India sugar.” Unable to mediate these differences, there was another lull in the movement, until they built up a new head of steam. Meanwhile John Clarkson, the younger brother of Thomas Clarkson, died, and radicalized many more ordinary people with his famous last words. Lying in bed listening to yet another account about the terrible conditions in the West Indies, he is reported to have lamented: “It is dreadful to think after my brother and his friends have been labouring for forty years, that such things should still be.”

  But the more staid elements of the abolitionist movement were still dragging their feet. And so the following year, George Stephen, son of James, formed a new subcommittee that would become known as the Agency Anti-slavery Committee. He hired six full-time “lecturers,” who were paid £200 annually to travel around the country stirring up public opinion. Soon the number of anti-slavery groups around the country soared to more than 1,200. The news of the revitalized movement gave heart to the West Indian slaves, who increasingly resisted their enslavement by hatching more conspiracies and running away more frequently.

  Getting rid of slavery was proving a more difficult task than getting rid of the slave trade. A lot of this had to do with class. Those involved in the trade tended to be from lower down the social scale, “roughnecks” who wouldn’t be welcome in the more salubrious drawing rooms of the metropolis. The planters, on the other hand, were from the same caste as many of the country’s legislators, and indeed many had close friendships with top-ranking abolitionists such as William Wilberforce. The power of the West India lobby had also grown even stronger. The historian Robin Blackburn notes that in the House of Commons in the years 1828–32, the number of West Indian Members of Parliament was as high as fifty-six; and there were even more in the House of Lords. So although the countdown to abolition was under way, it was still being resisted at every point.

  Once again the most dramatic moments in the political life of the region coincided with a natural disaster, when another terrible hurricane devastated Barbados in August 1831. Known as “The Great Barbados Hurricane,” it was what would today be classified as a category four storm, almost as terrible as the one that hit the island in Robert Cooper’s youth. Winds of up to 130 miles per hour slamm
ed into the island, levelling the capital and causing widespread damage. The dead, who totalled 1,500, perished because they were either crushed beneath collapsed buildings or swept away in the seventeen-foot waves. As the hurricane moved on during 11, 12 and 13 August, the populace noticed a strange and amazing visual disturbance in the atmosphere. They claimed that “the sun took on a decidedly blue appearance, giving off an eerie blue light when it shone into rooms and other enclosed places.” The hurricane, which raged for six days, swept through the Caribbean, laying waste to Cuba and Puerto Rico before crossing over to the American mainland, lashing Louisiana and Florida among other states.

  The damage wrought by this horrendous hurricane compelled the British government to authorize a loan of £500,000 for its colonies in the region. In Barbados, Robert Cooper was actively involved in rebuilding Foundation School, which had been completely destroyed by the storm. At a meeting led by the Colonel on 22 August 1831, the Christ Church Vestry addressed the need to find “the best and most economical means of preparing a place in which Divine service might be regularly performed.” This was a problem across the island since, in the eleven parishes, seven churches were totally destroyed and four others were damaged to some extent. The committee moved to find an alternative place of worship and to start raising funds for the repair of the parish church. They also agreed to provide the church warden, the Reverend Dr. Orderson, himself a vestryman, with alternative living arrangements, and to assist those who had been injured or made homeless as a result of the “late awful hurricane.”

  Just as the islanders were recovering from the impact of the storm, news came of a revolt in Jamaica. It was incited in part by a period of unusual sickness and distress brought on by poor rainfall and reduced crops. But it was also a result of the widespread belief that they would soon get their “freedom papers” from England. When the governor denied this rumour and told the slaves that they would not get an extra day’s holiday despite the fact that Christmas that year fell on a Sunday, the enslaved population was enraged. The result was the “Christmas Rebellion,” otherwise known as the Baptist War or the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831–32. It was led by a charismatic slave called Samuel Sharpe, also known variously as “Daddy” or “Schoolmaster,” who as well as being literate and a great orator was also a deacon of the Baptist church. One missionary described him as “the most intelligent and remarkable slave I had ever met with.”

  Originally planned as a peaceful sit-in, the revolt soon took on a life of its own and became the greatest slave rebellion the British Caribbean had ever witnessed. The fighters were so disciplined that they had their own uniforms (blue jackets and black cross-belts). It began a couple of days after Christmas at the Kensington great house in St. James in the north of the island. The unrest soon spread to the neighbouring parish, and as many as 40,000 of Jamaica’s 300,000 slaves were swept up in the conflict. One onlooker noted that the rebels seemed to be animated with a rare passion. One female slave converted to the cause declared, just before she was shot: “I know I shall die for it but my children shall be free!”

  It took more than a month to subdue the rebels, and at its end 200 slaves and fourteen whites had died. At least another 400 slaves were killed in reprisals afterwards. In Montego Bay the Methodist missionary Henry Bleby described the executions:

  Generally four, seldom less than three, were hung at once. The bodies remained stiffening in the breeze … Other victims would then be brought out and strung up in their place, and cut down in their turn to make room for more; the whole heap of bodies remaining just as they fell, until the workhouse negroes came in the evening and took them away to cast them into a pit dug for the purpose, a little distance out of the town.

  The casualties included the rebellion’s leader, Samuel Sharpe. His composure as he was taken to the gallows profoundly impressed the spectators, just as his oft-repeated last words were used to recruit more people to the abolitionists’ cause: “I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery.”

  It was in this strained context of revolt and change that, in 1832, Robert Cooper decided to grant freedom to one of his slave families: Sukey Ann and her four children. This was an interesting decision on his part, since full emancipation was now likely and there was a certain cachet in becoming a freed person before the official date for liberation: Sukey Ann and her children would be classified as free coloureds, rather than just being part of the mass of liberated slaves. But it was still an intrepid move for a planter, since across the Americas the manumission of slaves had been discouraged by the authorities, who feared that if too many slaves were liberated they might destabilize the social order. For many years, freeing a slave had been an expensive gesture that the planter had to justify before a magistrate, usually on the basis that the slave had provided exceptional service.

  Robert Cooper’s decision to manumit Sukey Ann and her children implies a real sentimental attachment, but there might have been other motives: perhaps he felt guilty about replacing her with other women? Pragmatically, it was also now a much more affordable gift. The cost of manumission, which had soared from £300 for females and £200 for males, was now, after the Bussa Rebellion, down to £50 plus a £4 annuity fee for both sexes. In fact, the liberation of female slaves with whom planters had relationships was common. Women made up 60 per cent of those manumitted in Barbados, and the most common reason was as a present to a black concubine by a white planter, which one described as “the only adequate reward for such an endearing service.”

  The document recording Sukey Ann’s freedom reads:

  Know all Men by these Presents, That I Robert Cooper Ashby of the Parish of Christ Church in the island abovesaid, Esquire for divers good Causes and Considerations—me hereunto moving have Manumitted, Emancipated, Enfranchised, Set Free and forever Discharge … from all manner of Slavery, Servitude, and Bondage whatsoever, to me or to any Person or Persons whomsoever, a certain coloured female slave named Sukey Ann and her four children, Sarah Jane, John Richard, Thomas Edmund, Thomas Stephen together with the future issue of the females and the said Slaves and each of them are entirely discharged from all manner of Slavery, Servitude, Bondage, Service and duties to me or any other Person or Persons whomsoever, so as that the said slaves and each of them respectively may henceforth ever have and enjoy absolute Freedom in Person and Property as effectually to all intent and purpose as if they had been born free and had never been slaves.

  In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and Seal the ninth day of July One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty Two.

  After the Christmas Rebellion, the march towards emancipation had become unstoppable: the worst revolt in the history of the English sugar isles had reinforced the abolitionist arguments that slavery was an institution Britain could not afford to maintain. In 1833, a petition signed by 187,157 abolitionist women was presented to Parliament. They focused particularly on the plight of female slaves, reminding the nation’s monarch, Queen Victoria, that women and fellow mothers were being raped, brutalized and sometimes beaten to death. (Though the new queen said very little directly about slavery, she was assumed to be supportive of the abolitionists because of her willingness to entertain blacks and anti-slavery personalities like Harriet Beecher Stowe. And certainly the belief that she was sympathetic to the abolitionist cause did nothing to diminish Victoria’s well-nurtured image as matriarch of the nation.) To bring the point home, the abolitionists produced a new Wedgwood cameo that depicted on this occasion a kneeling woman.

  Their pro-female stance had been buoyed by the fame of The History of Mary Prince (1831), the only memoir of a British West Indian slave woman to be published in that era. Born in 1788, Prince had worked as a household slave in Bermuda and Antigua and in the salt mines on Turk’s Island, where she suffered relentless abuse. She was taken as a slave to London by yet another family in 1828, before escaping to live at a mission house. There she went to work for someone from the anti-slavery league who ar
ranged for the publication of her story. John Wood, the owner who had transported her to London, sued to have her reinstated as his property; but mercifully he lost. Mary, whose back was severely disfigured by an intricate lattice of scars, the product of innumerable whippings, became a living indictment of the evils of slavery, and her book was a powerful plea for the sympathy of the English public: “I feel great sorrow when I hear some people in this country say, that the slaves do not need better usage and do not want to be free … I say, Not so. How can slaves be happy when they have the halter round their neck and the whip upon their back.”

  In the end, the abolition of slavery came about through a combination of events, and the pressure of popular opposition to the practice, whether from slaves themselves or from the abolitionist movement, was only part of it. One major factor was economic, for the financial significance of the colonies that relied upon slavery was beginning to wane. As the historian Robin Blackburn noted, the value of West Indian imports from the mother country was falling, while exports to Asia were rising; so they were no longer such a vital market for English goods. And though the British colonies still produced most of the sugar consumed in the mother country, it was so heavily subsidized that many argued that the British public was propping up the West Indian proprietors. There was also greater competition from cheaper sugar, from places like Cuba. Domestic politics played a role, too. In a Britain beset by internal unrest brought about by the changing conditions of the industrial revolution, throwing the public a bone in the form of the abolition of slavery was a clever way of avoiding greater losses, at a point when the whole colonial system was in decline.