500 HISTORY 



Other Rights. — Apprentices were allowed certain other rights and privi- 

 leges of British subjects which had been denied to them as slaves. The same 

 spirit on the part of the white inhabitants, that had been shown elsewhere, was 

 shown here. Only after attention had been called to the rigidity of these 

 restrictions,''^'' were they repealed by the Assembly. The auxiliary abolition act 

 of the Bahamas disqualified apprentices for jury service, forbade them to serve 

 as arbitrators, or on appraisements, or to hold elective or other positions in 

 His Majesty's service, Avhereas the home government had only intended in its 

 restrictions to give the apprentices " no military or political authority." "^ 

 These restrictions were later removed in the Bahamas. Military service or 

 service in any civil capacity, to which the governor might call the negroes, was 

 enjoined upon them just as upon other British subjects, provided they did not 

 interfere with the performance of services due to the masters.^^^ 



Eights of Employer. 



The employers still retained many rights over those who had been their 

 slaves. In these relations there was an approach to the English system of 

 apprenticeship in which a young person was bound out for the purpose of 

 learning a trade. The additional restrictions, here due to West Indian race 

 prejudice, varied the adaptation of the system to the Colony. Obligations were 

 mutual between master and apprentice. The master taught the apprentice a 

 trade, which was to the interest of the former as well as of the latter, in return 

 for the use of his services for the whole period. We shall now take up the 

 relations of employer and laborer from the standpoint of the master. 



Property in the services of the apprentice. — The services of the laborer 

 were the property of the master and under certain limitations could be sub- 

 jected to any disposition which the employer could make of other property. 

 The employer was entitled to the services of the apprentice for forty-five hours 

 each week. This rule prevailed in the Bahamas throughout the whole appren- 

 ticeship period.^'" There were restrictions on the employment of certain of the 

 apprentices during this time. Praedials attached could be removed from 

 place to place only with the consent of two or more special justices, even if it 

 were for the purpose of working the lands of the same employer.'^" This kind 



===Sess. P., 1835, 50 (part 2), p. 258. 



^=^Sess. P., loc. cit. Also 4 William IV, 21 (sees. 14, 23 and 51). 



'"4 William IV, 8 (12). 



'="5 William IV, 8 (8). 



^-' Loc. cit.. sec. 10. 



