496 HISTORY 



law, in the courts, and in his relations with his employer, and he was henceforth 

 to be considered as a part of the Colony, affected by things undertaken and done 

 in the name of the State. He was nominally placed on an equal footing with 

 the most privileged persons in the Colony. In practice we shall find that he 

 did come into the enjoyment of rights gradually, and that recognition, except 

 social, was granted him. He could now hold real and personal property with 

 all their attendant rights, and could sue, or be sued, in the courts of law and 

 equity.^^ These things were guaranteed and recognized at the beginning of 

 the apprenticeship period ; some other rights were, however, withheld for a time. 

 The legislature persisted in denying them to apprentices and only late in 

 the apprenticeship period did it finally grant them. It was thus with the 

 right to personal freedom. The auxiliary abolition act bound the apprentice 

 to the plantation where he was employed, allowing him to leave it, as of old, 

 only with the consent of his master. Even on the disallowance by the British 

 Ministry,'^' the same provision was reenacted to keep the apprentices on the 

 plantations where they belonged,"^'' except on holidays and Sundays, when, 

 according to superimposed regulation, they were allowed a certain latitude to 

 attend religious services.""" This remained the rule until the year 1837 when 

 at last the master's pass card was expressly declared to be no longer necessary 

 to enable the apprentice to go freely from place to place at any time " day or 

 night, except during the hours of compulsory labor." "" Confinement of ap- 

 prentices for safe-custody was limited to cases in which other subjects of the* 

 Crown could be confined. °^ 



From another important point of view this Colony insisted on further 

 restricting personal liberty. There seemed to be a fear that, on the emergence 

 of this poor people into the state of freedom, there would be a tendency to 

 wanton idleness and mischief -making. Steps were taken to forestall any such 

 tendency. A vagrancy law was passed in the year 1833,^' when the members of 



^»M William IV, 21. 



■^ Sess. P., 1834, 50 (part 2), p. 253 (59), Ds. of Secretary Rice to Balfour. 



^=•=5 William IV, 8 (8). 



^'^S and 4 William IV, 73 (21). 



-'"I Vic, 19 (22). There is reason to believe that this regulation was enforced 

 as persistently as its retention on the statute books demanded. There was 

 always the fear that the negroes might assemble to concoct dangerous plots, or to 

 rise in insurrection, if they were allowed to go as they pleased. There was also 

 a desire to have the negroes, whether slaves or apprentices, in their places at all 

 times. 



-'^5 William IV, 8 (1). 



'•"> 4 William IV, 2, passed Nov. 12, 1833. 



