Jamaica in 1850 Or, The Effects Of Sixteen Years Of Freedom On A Slave Colony
Author: John Bigelow
Publisher: University of illinois Reviewer: Barbara Nelson
In 1850, Jamaica was thought to be a good source of copper. On his journey to the country in 1850, on the steamship the Empire City, the professional journalist and
anti-slavery activist John Bigelow travelled in the company of several men who planned to engage in
copper mining in the island.
Jamaica in 1850 is Bigelow's
firsthand report on his visit to the island where there was nothing
punctual but the railroad, land and sea breezes, a report that became vitally important in the anti-slavery struggle both in America and Britain.
The book, according to Robert J. Scholnick, a professor of English and American studies at the College of William and Mary, is "recognised as the best book that had been written on the topic to that date, and it has found a place among the important books written about the island."
Scholnick has reinstated the essay and provided a scholarly analysis of Bigelow's work and significance.
Economy collapsed
The economy in Jamaica collapsed after the Jamaican slaves were fully emancipated in 1838. This encouraged some North Americans who defended slavery to convince many people that emancipation there would lead to economic and social chaos.
Further, the view on both sides of the Atlantic was that British emancipation had failed "because of the alleged inferiority of blacks." Jamaica in 1850 challenged that prevailing opinion and "demonstrates that Jamaica's troubles were caused not by lazy blacks but by the incompetence of absentee white planters operating within an obsolete colonial system."
The author, Bigelow, said: "When I joined the New YorkEvening Post we were constantly confronted with the assertion from Southern
statesmen that the Negro was wholly unfit for liberty and (that) the island of Jamaica had gone back almost to barbarism since the Emancipation Act."
Determined to confront the myths surrounding the collapse of the Jamaican economy, he sailed to Jamaica in January, 1850, meanwhile believing that in 20 years time the island would be one of the United States of America. In his opinion, Jamaica would make far more progress if it broke free of its colonial status and looked to the United States as a trading partner and
political model.
On his arrival in Jamaica, Bigelow was impressed with "the striking scenery" around Kingston; amazed that "here, in the depth of winter, orange trees were dropping their fruit, and bananas were ready to be plucked."
Awful sight
He was quite charmed by the beauty of the country. It was "traversed from east to west by a range of mountains and by numerous high ridges intersecting the other range from north to south."
There were no first-class hotels in Kingston then, so travellers stayed at boarding houses. He found the city, with its unpaved streets, "a most undesirable residence." The population then was about 40,000 - 9/10 were coloured; there were a few whites of English descent; many Jews, many babies, children, many old people and there were the coolies whom he described as "the most inveterate mendicants on the island."
Spanish Town was the political centre of the island. The poorer classes of people in the island, he noted, were utterly excluded from all participation.
Absenteeism
Bigelow writes: "It is difficult to exaggerate and yet more difficult to define the poverty and industrial prostration of Jamaica" at that time.
He understood clearly the
problems that faced the country. One problem was the "blighting influence of absenteeism and its tendency to drive from a country its wealth, its intelligence, its ingenuity and its patriotism."
He ascribes much of the distress in the island to absentee ownership and "the degrading estimate placed upon every species of agricultural labour by the white population."
"This unworthy pride on the part of the white people" had an
enervating effect on the former slaves who were revolted from a
service which they thought degraded them.
The planters discouraged sales of land to the Negroes who desired to possess "a little land."
"I was greatly surprised," he writes, "to find that the number of these coloured proprietors is already
considerably over 100,000 and
constantly increasing."
Jamaica in 1850 is easy to read, absorbing and most enlightening. Bigelow was very sympathetic to the cause of the former slaves and offered many suggestions that, he felt, would improve the economy of Jamaica.
Among the suggestions he offered was to let labour be rewarded as it was in the United States, or even in England, and let it be used with the same economy. He felt that the face of Jamaica would change. He also suggested sub-dividing the estates into small properties to increase
production of sugar, or coffee or cotton, and diversifying the produce from the land.
Bigelow, who was born in New York in 1817 into a merchant family, died in 1911. Jamaica in 1850 is considered a brilliant expression of his commitment to freedom,
democracy and racial equality.
Bigelow writes: 'It is
difficult to exaggerate and yet more difficult to define the poverty and industrial
prostration of Jamaica'
