338 Timehri. 
subseribed money towards the general undertaking. When the terms 
were concluded no eredit was asked, the money was paid down, some- 
times in bags of silver, wheeled in wheel-barrows to the office of the 
seller. The transport of the property was then passed in the name of 
these men, making them legally the sole owners of the estate, and 
leaving the subscribers, some of whose names were not eyen on record, 
without the slightest legal claim to the property they had paid for.” 
In 1842, 7.¢., four years after emancipation, it is estimated that no 
less than 15,000 aeres of land, for which upward of $250,000 was paid. 
were owned by the freed labourers, and on these lands no less than 15,000 
persons were settled. It is interesting to note that one of the first estates 
purchased was that on which the village of Plaisance was established. 
It was then a cotton estate consisting of 300 acres for which $39,000 
was paid. 
This system of purchasing in community did not prove successful, 
chiefly on account of the want of proper control and supervision and there 
being no combination of labour to work the places, and lastly, to the faet 
that in purchasing the several estates which were formed into these village 
communities, the villagers expended the whole of their capital in effecting 
the purchases and denuded themselves of all their ready money, thus 
leaving nothing with which to improve or carry on their properties. The 
point of this last fact will be more readily appreciated when I state that 
between 1839 and 1854 the emancipated slaves purchased seventeen 
properties which are now the Village Districts of Plaisance, Buxton and 
Friendship. Beterverwagting, Victoria, Golden Grove and Nabaclis, Ann’s 
Grove and Two Friends, Good Intent and Sisters, Bagotville, Stanleytown, 
Den Amstel and Fellowship, Queenstown, and Danielstown for the large 
amount of $332,900 cash. The smallest amounts, viz. $2,000, each were 
paid for Nabaclis and Fellowship and the highest amount $80,000 for 
Friendship. The late Sir A. M. Ashmore—a former Government Secretary 
of this colony—in his memorandum on ‘ Village Administration” says 
“at the outset the inhabitants found themseives face to face with three 
principal difficulties—the difficulty of drainage, the difficulty of title, 
attendant on their having bought in common, estates which they desired 
to hold in severalty, and the difficulty of fulfilling the obligation which 
rested on owners of plantations to maintain the publie road through 
their properties.” While some of the villagers were willing to do their 
share, others would not, and unless the whole system of drainage was 
kept up, it was impossible for the villagers to successfully cultivate their 
lands. The consequence was, that the estates which were well drained 
when purchased, suffered from neglect of the upkeep of the dams and the 
drainage. It was evident that the people were unable to look after 
themselves and exercise that control over one another essential to the 
establishment of prosperous and well-ordered communities. 
In 1844, Mr. Joseph Hanfield, reporting on abandoned estates and 
villages, recommended “the establishment of an appropriate Code of 
