Slavery, Childhood, and Abolition in Jamaica, 1788–1838

Colleen Vasconcellos

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780820348032
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Slavery
• Index: Social Sciences

This study examines childhood and slavery in Jamaica from the onset of improved conditions for the island's slaves to the end of all forced or coerced labor throughout the British Caribbean. As Colleen A. Vasconcellos discusses the nature of child development in the plantation complex, she looks at how both colonial Jamaican society and the slave community conceived childhood—and how those ideas changed as the abolitionist movement gained power, the fortunes of planters rose and fell, and the nature of work on Jamaica's estates evolved from slavery to apprenticeship to free labor. Vasconcellos explores the experiences of enslaved children through the lenses of family, resistance, race, status, culture, education, and freedom. In the half-century covered by her study, Jamaican planters alternately saw enslaved children as burdens or investments. At the same time, the childhood experience was shaped by the ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse slave community.

Vasconcellos adds detail and meaning to these tensions by looking, for instance, at enslaved children of color, legally termed mulattos, who had unique ties to both slave and planter families. In addition, she shows how traditions, beliefs, and practices within the slave community undermined planters' efforts to ensure a compliant workforce by instilling Christian values in enslaved children. These are just a few of the ways that Vasconcellos reveals an overlooked childhood—one that was often defined by Jamaican planters but always contested and redefined by the slaves themselves.

1. “To so dark a destiny My lovely babe I’ve borne”: Slavery and Childhood in Jamaica in the Age of Abolition

In his controversial pamphlet entitled An Essay Concerning Slavery, Governor Edward Trelawny wrote in 1745, “It is notorious that in most Plantations more die than are born there.” To illustrate his point he created a fictional dialogue between an officer and a Jamaican planter in which he alleged that harsh treatment, miscarriages, abortions, and promiscuity contributed to the infertility of the enslaved population. While the planter lamented the failure of his estate to increase naturally, the officer offered him insight and advice: “If a little Linnen, or other Necessaries, were given to every Wench that was brought to Bed, and all the barren ones whipt on a certain Day every Year, I fancy the Negroe Ladies would yield better, and at least keep up the present Stock.”1

In Trelawny’s opinion, one that many in his station did not share, Jamaican planters already owned far too many slaves. Furthermore, they neglected and mismanaged their slaves, which provided the impetus for his uncharacteristic plea. Much to the consternation of his constituents, he wrote, “I cou’d wish with all my Heart, that Slavery was abolish’d entirely, and I hope in time it may be so.” Yet, Trelawny realized that ending slavery in the colony would bring ruin to an economy dependent on slave-produced sugar, so he simply asked for abolition of the slave trade and no more: “I shall be content if no more Slaves be imported, and those we have put under good regulations.,—Time will do the rest.”2

As did his thoughts on ending the trade, it is not surprising that Trelawny’s ideas about ameliorating the condition of Jamaica’s slaves fell on deaf ears as well. Although the enslaved population failed to reproduce naturally, Jamaican planters preferred to purchase slaves directly from Africa rather than invest time and money in children who most likely would never reach their full work potential as adults. Once abolitionist threats to the slave trade intensified, however, Jamaican planters gradually acknowledged the value of enslaved children and took stock in Trelawny’s words of warning. In this chapter, I analyze how these changes affected the nature of Jamaican slavery and slave childhood throughout my period of study. By examining slave childhood before and after the abolition of the slave trade, I will consider how these children developed physically and psychologically in the plantation complex. After briefly discussing the development of pro-natal policies during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, I will analyze the outcome of Jamaica’s amelioration policies on the natural increase of the enslaved population. Once British abolitionists succeeded in ending the trade and switched their attention to the institution of slavery itself, enslaved children became more important commodities in Jamaica.

Mortality and Planter Opinion in Early Eighteenth-Century Jamaica

Until the mid-eighteenth century, children were unwanted chattels on Jamaican estates and planters largely discouraged their female slaves from becoming pregnant. “I am aware that there are many planters who do not wish their women to breed,” William Beckford, a prominent Jamaican planter, wrote in 1788, “as there by so much work is lost in their attendance on their infants.”3 It really is no surprise that slave owners felt this way. When even the white population did not increase demographically in this “white man’s graveyard,” why would plantation owners and managers have any reason to believe that natural increase among the enslaved population was ever likely?4 Not only did pregnancy reduce productivity, but planters and estate managers were reluctant to lose enslaved women in childbirth. Instead they felt it more rational to use their enslaved women to their full potential as field laborers, an easily replaceable commodity in this early period. Furthermore, the majority of Jamaica’s enslaved children did not begin work in the labor gangs until at least age five, and then they performed only minor tasks until they joined the first gang in their adolescence. Therefore, planters generally viewed those few children on their estates as financial burdens since they had to be supported without any reciprocal contribution to the plantation economy.

While Jamaican planters and estate managers discouraged enslaved women from having children, the hard labor, harsh treatment, and low birth rates endemic on the plantations made any natural increase impossible. James Ramsay, who witnessed slave life on British West Indian plantations firsthand for twenty years, wrote in 1784, “It is not an unusual thing to lose in one year . . . ten, twelve, nay, as far as twenty, by fevers, fluxes, dropsies, the effect of too much work, and too little food and care.”5 Archival evidence supports Ramsay’s claims, showing that any increase on the island’s estates came largely from the purchase of Africans imported to the island.6 Although thirty-five children were born on Spring Vale Pen in the parish of St. James between 1791 and 1800, forty-eight slaves died, motivating the purchase of seventy Africans during this nine-year period.7 Worthy Park Estate in St. Catherine is an even better example: forty-eight children were born on the estate from 1792 to 1796, but 137 slaves died. Yet, despite this natural decrease, Worthy Park’s enslaved population increased from 357 slaves in 1792 to 470 slaves in 1796.8 Unfortunately, figures such as these are unavailable for other Jamaican plantations, as bookkeepers annually recorded only the overall number of slaves on their estates, indicating that estate managers and bookkeepers cared little about the birth and death of enslaved children. Records like these offer little insight into the nature of childbirth or infant and child mortality on Jamaican estates during these early years.

Despite minimal quantitative evidence, we do know that very few children during this early period were strong enough at birth to survive even the first few months of life. Life on a Jamaican plantation was incredibly hard for enslaved women and took a devastating toll on their bodies. Pregnant or not, enslaved women worked an average of twelve hours each day in the fields, sharing the same difficult labor as enslaved men. Others performed backbreaking labor as washerwomen, weavers, and water carriers either on Jamaican estates or in the urban areas.9 Whether working in the fields or as domestics, enslaved women suffered from the general weakness and frailty associated with an inadequate and vitamin-deficient diet, little or no prenatal care, excessive exertion, and Draconian physical abuse. Pregnancy and childbirth did not guarantee immunity from their plantation duties, and most enslaved women worked until a few days before their due dates only to return to work a few days after giving birth.10 Others gave birth in the fields, as was the case with Ellen, a woman belonging to Egypt Estate in Westmoreland. In September 1759, the estate overseer Thomas Thistlewood noted that Ellen’s child died from “the hurt it rec’d When it fell from her.”11 Pregnancy did not guarantee immunity from harsh punishment, and it was not until the last years of slavery that Jamaican law lightened punishments and prohibited the flogging of enslaved women.12

The absence of pro-natal policies, adequate medical care, work reduction, and a nutritional diet all worked against pregnant slaves and their unborn children. Some women died in childbirth or soon after; others miscarried or were forced into an early labor, only to give birth to stillborn children. Michael Craton and Kenneth Morgan have both estimated that only 1 out of every 4.6 children born to enslaved women in Jamaica were live births.13 Most enslaved women who experienced successful births delivered severely malnourished and unhealthy children with little chance of survival. According to Barry Higman, as many as 50 percent of all children born during this period died in the first nine days of life.14 More recent figures by Morgan show an 80 percent mortality rate among newborns during the first two weeks of life in the eighteenth century, dropping to 50 percent in the nineteenth century.15 Breastfeeding did little to alleviate the situation, as enslaved children fed only on vitamin-deficient milk for up to three years.16 Once weaned, a diet high in starch and low in protein further exacerbated their nutritional deficiencies. Therefore, both mother and child often lacked sufficient levels of calcium, magnesium, and thiamin crucial to a healthy diet.17 Those children who did not die of malnourishment or starvation often succumbed to fevers or respiratory infections. Consequently, only half of enslaved children survived past age five.18

Despite such high infant and child mortality, a few slave owners placed a value on enslaved children before any abolitionist petitions came before Parliament. John Poole, an attorney for Hope Estate in St. Andrew, was distressed when he learned that the estate discontinued the practice of providing enslaved children with meals in 1774. Although Hope Estate lacked sufficient provisions to continue feeding each child, Poole ordered that the practice be resumed, and even went so far as to make arrangements to purchase the necessary goods in Kingston. “This you are sensible will be a little Expensive,” he wrote in a letter to Richard Elletson, owner of the estate, in January 1775, “but I know you had rather allow it than give up a Custom so human and beneficial in all respects.”19 Two years later, Hope Estate discontinued the practice again. This time it was Anna Eliza Elletson, Richard Elletson’s widow, who wrote to Poole: “I beg you will order it to be reviv’d, and also that particular care may be taken of the breeding women, and their Children, for you well know, that on the number, and health of the Negroes, Depends the Success of a Plantation.”20 In 1778, she angrily wrote Poole again, concerned that “the increase of the Negroes, is by no means proportionable to the decrease, I know not how to account for this.”21 Whether or not the meals resumed, we do not know; this second note suggests that they did, but the damage caused by malnutrition was too severe to be reversed.

Other Jamaican planters felt the same wa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. “To so dark a destiny My lovely babe I’ve borne”: Slavery and Childhood in Jamaica in the Age of Abolition
• 2. “The child whom many fathers share, Hath seldom known a father’s care”: Miscegenation and Childhood in Jamaican Slave Society
• 3. “Train up a child in the way he should go”: Childhood and Education in the Jamaican Slave Community
• 4. “That iniquitous law”: The Apprenticeship and Emancipation of Jamaica’s Enslaved Children
• Conclusions
• Notes
• References
• Index