553 HISTORY 



In spite of the adverse conditions, efforts to educate the poorer classes 

 of the Colony were unremitting. With ever low revenues a steady increase 

 in the appropriations was made, in order to keep pace with the growing needs 

 of the educational establishment. A complete change had taken place in the 

 attitude of the legislature towards those who had lately been slaves. For- 

 merly the members of that body had excused themselves from working to 

 ameliorate the condition of this class, and had attempted to lay the respon- 

 sibility for that condition on the mother country; now on the other hand 

 the responsibility was assumed by the colonists, and there came an ever- 

 increasing determination to place before the negroes the best opportunities 

 for amelioration which the Colony, with the limited resources at its command, 

 could furnish. 



Land System. 



While efforts were being made to educate the negroes, it was not for- 

 gotten that provision must be made for their material welfare. As -«,gricul- 

 ture was the principal source of wealth in the Colony, it was necessary to put 

 land into the hands of the emancipated classes. Looking at the whole group 

 of the Bahamas it would appear that here would be a large surface for culti- 

 vation. The Islands are, in places, too barren for profitable cultivation. The 

 coral rock, of which they are formed, is at best covered with only a thin veneer 

 of soil, while in many places it has been washed bare by the rains. The 

 surface of this rock is full of so-called " pot-holes " in which the soil collects. 

 Into these openings plants are set as in flower pots. This thin soil was 

 seriously injured and in many places exhausted, through the over-production 

 of cotton by American royalists who came to the Colony after the American 

 Eevolution. Long before the emancipation of the slaves, these exiled planters 

 had exhausted the best soils of the Colony, after which many of them had 

 emigrated to places where they could carry on more profitable farming. 

 After the emancipation, a new citizenship had arisen and the authori- 

 ties determined to settle them on these same waste lands. A great deal 

 of the land that had been occupied formerly was again in the hands of 

 the Crown, owing to lapsed titles, and was thus available in that sense 

 for settlement. The authorities in the government evidently knew not 

 the experience of former attempts to cultivate these unproductive wastes. 

 Especially was this true of William Colebrooke, who made such exten- 

 sive plans for the settlements of these Africans. Some means had to be 

 provided by which these poor people could maintain themselves. Colebrooke 



