igS 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[September i, 1883. 



all the hard work of the plantation, the life-sapping 

 toil, leavino th>it wliich is easy to the colonist or free 

 labourer. IJo one who has only seen the city slavea 

 can form an idea of a herd of slaves being lecl oS to 

 their works nor can tell the sensation of meeting a 

 half-hundred human beings homewards turning after a 

 hard day in the sun, each carrying wood to serve for 

 thefnod.oooking, each on meeting you folding his hands 

 and abjectly begging your Idessing in Christ's name. 

 On they come, otie straggling behind the other, the 

 young and still strong in front, the old and feeble and 

 the vvomen, with their little ones bound to their 

 waists, toiling far behind. 



A good defence of slavery cannot be given, for by it a 

 ■way 13 left open for the almost unrestrained exercise 

 of the passions of the owner ; but, as in all systems 

 where men govern, in some cases the governed are 

 much better treated than in others, according to the 

 temperament of the Governor, so in Brazil are there 

 many hundreds of humane masters whose bondage is 

 more suave than the vaunted freedom of many a farm 

 laliourer or toiler in the mines of Europe. These are 

 th-( masters who will be the heralds of the day of 

 emancipation, seeing that they, wishmg in their hearts 

 for the freedom of the slaves, are only awaiting some 

 reasonable means to bring it about, being men of 

 like minds to those who in 1871 passed the law of 

 freedom from birth. 



The total abolition of slavery in Brazil cannot be ac- 

 complished without bringing with it most serious con- 

 sequences to the tiuanciai prosperity of the country ; 

 hence the wild abolitionist who shouts for emancip- 

 ation without showing the way or aiding in anything, 

 rather obstructing by his noisiness, will never attain 

 to the end he pietends to long for. This assertion 

 will doubtless rouse much opposition, but it will re- 

 main unanswerable so long as the abolitionist lives 

 on the fruit gained by the sweat of present or former 

 slaves' brows, or on the gains accumulated by the 

 sale of his own slaves, or on the pi-oceeds of similar 

 sales by his father or his grandfathers. 



Slavery, unfortunately for the Brazilians, is wedded 

 to their lives and customs, so that when abolition is 

 talked of then must the whole body of the nation be 

 prepared to bear part of tlie burden, and not thrust 

 it on to the few owners of slaves, who may have bought 

 them from the abolitionist himself, his father, or his 

 grandfathers. This is a point the enthusiast or the 

 youthful emancipator fails to see ; he only sees the 

 consummated facts of the abolition of slavery by the 

 Entdish in one case, and the confiscation for political 

 purposes of the slave property of the Southerners by the 

 men of the Northern part of the United States in 18G3. 

 Before entering, therefore, into the question as to 

 how Brazil is to bring about the emsiucipalion of her 

 slaves it will be well to examine the plans adopted by 

 other nations, ever bearing in remem'n-auce the fact that 

 whereas the sons of European nations had other homes 

 to retreat to, or send their families to, and be sup- 

 ported by, when they found insupportable the trials 

 and troubles generated by the bulk of the society in 

 which they lived being suddenly equipped with free- 

 dom, a power it know not before, and was as equally 

 unfitted to use, the Brazilians, on the contrary, after 

 cm.moipation will have to renuain — men, women, and 

 cliildren — to bear the brunt, a fact in itself enough 

 to place the question for Brazil on quite another 

 footing. So important, indeed, is this point, that all 

 considerations ot emancipation must gyrate about it 

 as one of the great centre thoughts. 



The English, attir many years of dtbating, emancip- 

 ated their slaves by the most simple method, that of 

 paying their owners the value ot them. This for rich 

 Enrdatd was possible, seeing that the proportion of 

 slaves to free persons of the Empire was not very 

 great— the number of slaves being probably under 



800,000, which would be about one slave to every 40 

 free English-speaking persons, a proportion so compar- 

 atively small that the burden on the nation could hardly 

 be considered heavy ; on the other hand, Brazil 

 has today upwards of 1,100,000 slaves and a free 

 population ot about 9,000,000, which is in proportion 

 of one slave to less than nine persons, and which would 

 even if emancipation were possible by payment, be an 

 enormous burden in itself, apart from other consider- 

 ations to be made further on. 



The places principally affected by the English eman- 

 cipation were Jamaica, Barbados, and other West 

 Indian posses'^ion'!. As to Jamaica, its history is well 

 known, being on. of gridual decline in prosperity from 

 the date of the promulgation of eraancipatiiu for 15 

 or 20 years, since when it has recovered its former 

 prosperity. The chief decline was between 1834 and 

 1844, a period of ten years immediatelv after the 

 emancipation, during which time the trade of the island 

 fell off more than 50 per cent. The Barb.ados and the 

 other islands did not sufifer so seriously, owing to being 

 very much smaller, and having less unoccupied land 

 for negroes to squat upon ; to which must be added the 

 foresight of some of the masters, who had all the bana- 

 nas and other fruit trees cut down, so that the eman- 

 cipated slaves were from the very day of their freedom 

 obliged to work to live, the masters possessing the 

 money and still ret.ainiug the land. If this destroying 

 of fruit trees and roots was impossible in the Island of 

 Jamaica, how much less possible would it be in the 

 Empire of Brazil, with its thousands upon thousands of 

 unexplored miles abounding in game, rich in soil 

 full of edible roots and fruits, watered by magni- 

 ficent rivers abounding in fish, a hiding ground 

 where nations could hide and could "thrive 

 unseen. 



The next emancipation to be considered is that of 

 the United States in 1863. This, however, cannot be 

 received as having been dictated by humanitarian feel- 

 ings or principles, it being simply a confiscation of 

 slave property by the Northern party for purely political 

 advantages during the civil struggle, to see whether 

 things should remain as defined at the time of the 

 secession of theStites from f^ngland or if a new mode 

 of Government should be inaugurated. The old style 

 jell before the rushing flood of democracy, and the 

 world is now asked to admire the beneficent effects of 

 the confiscation in 1S63; bat before the stupendous 

 growth of the present apparent prosperity of the States 

 began to appear there were dark d.ays of weeping, and 

 sorrow, and desolation, when the lands formerly tilled 

 by the slaves rolled back into the forest and jungle, 

 when the unfortunate ex-master had to sit almost 

 starving on the burnt threshold of his but lately 

 flourishing liom. stead. This interregnum of darkness, 

 this starving of former proprietors, forgotten by the 

 ingoing thousands from over-crowded Europe, is now 

 all transformed, and the land is brighter than ever 

 it was ; but there is a bitterness in the lunuth after 

 telling of the confiscation, after telling of the widows' 

 tears, and the slow starving of the orphan for ten long 

 ye.irs. Blot out the memory of this interregnum, speak 

 of the States with slaves be'ore ISfil, and span over 

 01 1S71, then can the States bj held up to the 

 yriizilians as a model to encourage them to make 

 one fell swoop on to the system of slavery ; 

 but, so long as memory serves her end, so long will 

 the case of emancipition in the Sjutheru S a.es of 

 North America be a warning to Brazil to be pru;ient 

 and cautious. The States, with all their lioh soil and 

 their thousand mines, could never have paid in cash 

 for the redemption of their slaves as the Euglish dd 

 without having created a burden heavier than their 

 war debt ; hence they chose the dlortest way, which 

 was to throw the burden on to the weaker and oblige 

 him to boar it. In this they were right, before the 



