476 HISTORY 



it on paper, so that it might become generally known. This would doubtless 

 apply to other cases also, which occurred with their consent, or at least without 

 any expression of disapprobation. 



KEMOVING SLAVES FROM ONE ISLAND TO ANOTHER. 



The removal of slaves from one island within the Colony to another was 

 a source of vexation to the colonists, and a thing that caused no little unpleas- 

 antness in their relations with the Governor. The removal of slaves from one 

 British colony to another was regulated by statute of the imperial Parliament. 

 By the same authority removals from one island in the Bahamas to another 

 were made only by special permission in each case. The licenses for this 

 purpose were issued by the Governor, but only on condition that the owner 

 of the slaves to be removed held lands in the island to which the removal was 

 to be made, and was taking them thither for the bona fide purpose of cultivating 

 such lands. 188 The result, as in the case of the registration of slaves, was a 

 great inconvenience to the planters, who had to bear the expense of a trip to 

 Nassau, and a loss of time, in order to transfer a gang of slaves from a 

 plantation on one island to one on another. The worn-out condition of the 

 soils of the Bahamas, the consequent decrease in their productiveness, and 

 the augmented hardship on owners of supporting slaves, whom they could 

 not employ fully, increased the feeling of the people against the vexing regula- 

 tions which Parliament had imposed upon them. 199 There was often great di- 

 versity of employment of slaves in the same gang in this Colony, and the in- 

 terests of the same master often required removals back and forth from island 

 to island during each year. 200 



The people were not disposed to comply with the law on this matter. 



198 Smyth's Ds., No. 63; also No. 216. The Governor gave a mistaken interpreta- 

 tion to the law respecting removals, in his zeal to protect the slaves from injustice. 

 He held that an owner could remove a slave from one island to another, only when 

 he held lands in both islands, the one from which, and the one to which, the re- 

 moval was to be made. He refused to grant licenses to those who could not certify 

 that they held possessions according to his interpretation. During the incumbency 

 of his successor, Lieutenant-Governor Balfour, Lord Stanley corrected the error by 

 his instruction that the ownership of lands on the island, to which the removal was 

 to be made, was sufficient warrant for granting a license for a removal. 



For Secretary Goderich's opinion on the law, see Ds., S. St., 1831, No. 103. The 

 imperial regulation is found in Imp. Stats., 5 Geo. IV, 113. 



189 H. V., 1828, pp. 27-28. Petition asking that the Bahama slaveholders be 

 allowed to remove their slaves to some other colony where they could be profitably 

 employed. 



200 H. V., 1828, p. 79. Also pp. 67 and 73. 



