The Freedmen's Book by Lydia Maria Child

Author:Lydia Maria Child [Child, Lydia Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary Collections, General
ISBN: 9781497563667
Google: X5P9oAEACAAJ
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
Published: 2014-04-09T04:18:20+00:00

It is now twenty-seven years since the laborers in the British West Indies have been made entirely free; and the missionaries, the magistrates, and even the masters agree that the laborers are much more faithful and industrious under the new system than they were under the iron rule of Slavery. It is true, some of the old planters growled as long as they lived. They had always predicted that freedom would bring ruin on all classes, and it vexed them to see the negroes behaving so well. They, however, made the most of the fact that there was less sugar made than in former years. It was their own fault. The emancipated slaves wanted to stay and work on the plantations where they had always lived. But the masters could not give up their old habits of meanness and tyranny. Their laborers could scarcely support life with the very small wages they received; and yet they took from them the little patches of provision-ground which they had formerly had, and charged them enormously high rent for their miserable little huts. It seemed as if they wanted to drive them to robbery, that they might say, "We told you it would be so, if you set them free."

But the freedmen disappointed them. Under all discouragements, they persisted in behaving well. When they found that they could not get a living on the old plantations where they wanted to stay, they went to work on railroads, and wherever they could find employment. They laid up as much as they could of their wages, and bought bits of land, on which they built comfortable cabins for themselves, and laid out little gardens. Their wives and children raised poultry and tended a cow, and carried vegetables and butter and eggs to market, in baskets poised on their heads. With the money thus earned they bought more land and added to their little stock of furniture. Though the men received only from eighteen to twenty-four cents a day, out of which they boarded themselves, they were so industrious and saving that in four years the freedmen in Jamaica alone had bought and paid for one hundred thousand acres of land, and put up dwellings thereon. Mr. Phillippo states, that during that time as many as two hundred new villages of freedmen were formed. These villages generally received the names of benefactors, such as Clarkson, Wilberforce, Thompson, &c. To their own little homes they also gave names indicative of their gratitude and contentment. They called them "Save Rent," "A Little of My Own," "Heart's Love," "Liberty and Content," "Happy Retreat," "Jane's Delight," "Thank God to see It," &c.

Mr. Phillippo says:—

"These free villages are regularly laid out. The houses are small, many of them built of stone or wood, with shingled roofs, green blinds, and verandahs, to shield them from the sun. Most of them are neatly thatched, and generally plastered and whitewashed both outside and in. They now have looking-glasses, chairs, and side-boards decorated with pretty articles of glass and crockery.

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