AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS AFTER FREEDOM. 



By J. Graham Cruickshank. 



By Act of Parliament — 47 Geo. Ill, cap. 36 — the importation of 

 slaves from Africa to the British West Indies was prohibited after March 1, 

 1808. Thus was the door shut through which had passed the entire 

 labour supply of the colonies for upwards of a century and a half. 



On August 1, 1838 — after four years' apprenticeship — the negroes 

 in the West Indies were liberated. Slavery — the most primitive type of 

 labour contract — WdS broken up. Nothing in the nature of compulsory 

 service took its place ; there must be unrestricted freedom. There was. 

 The Freedman of the First of August was Tree to work where he liked, 

 when he liked, or not at all .A number without hesitation, chose the last 

 alternative. Left to themselves they became themselves, and slipped 

 back into Africa. The majority worked fairly well for a year or two. But 

 then the natural result of high wag's showed itself. The freedman's 

 ambitions were few ; and, these satisfied, there was no reason on earth 

 why he should work to the same degree any more. Nor did he. To-day 

 a few hours in the field ; to-morrow (it being a stormy morning) a lounge 

 at home. The more he was paid the less he did ; the less he did the 

 more he was paid. It went round and round in a vicious circle. This 

 was liberty — as unfettered as the most rabid member of the anti-slavery 

 party could want ; but it was not business. Plantation after plantation 

 went to the wall. Outlying estates suffered particularly. The old-time 

 plantation, trim and garden-like, became a tangle of weeds. In many 

 instances even the standing crops could not be taken orl. Canes rotted in 

 the field, and fallen berries blackened the ground beneath the coffee-trees. 

 It was at this date — 1841, three years after "Free fall" — that the 

 African door opened again and let into Guiana a few more blacks from 

 the old, old African Reservoir. 



I. 



The first Immigrants were the Liberated Africans. 



All the old slave-trading Powers — Great Britain, Holland, France, 

 America, Spain, Portugal and latterly Brazil — had renounced slave- 

 trading ; but as regards three of them — Spain, Portugal and Brazil — the 

 renunciation was mainly on paper. A trade was yet carried on in 

 smuggled negroes to which the authorities turned a blind eye. 



The tale of the smuggling of slaves from Africa into Cuba and 

 Brazil — chiefly Brazil which was a straight run across — during the '20's, 

 '30'8, '40's, '50's and '60 : s of last century is a terrible one. 



Fast vessels — specially built for the traffic — crossed to the African 

 Coast, tacked up and down the Bights of Benin and Biafra, stood in 

 when the coast was clear, filled their holds from the barracoon of the 

 black trader, took just enough water and rice and yam as would last the 

 voyage — and made haste for America. 



