Extract of a letter from Barbadoes to a commercial house in
this city; dated April 30, 1838 .
“In my last I alluded to the prospect that slaves,
apprentices on this Island , would all be made free on
the approaching 1st of August. It is now reduced to a certainty that
such will be the case. The Governor, in a special communication to the House of
Assembly; some time since, recommended the measure in the most explicit terms.
The executive council, on the 17 instant, came to an unanimous vote in favor of
it and set forth their reasons, as published in a paper which I send you
herewith. Last of all the House of Assembly, on the 24th inst. after
having laboriously canvassed the whole Island to obtain
possession of the views and feelings of their constituents, appointed a
committee, with “instructions to bring in a bill for the entire emancipation of
all classes of slavery apprentices, on the
first of August 1838 .” I doubt whether any measure ever passed in
this Island has given such general satisfaction as this.
I speak not of the apprentices themselves, of whom there upwards of 80,000 to
be restored to their ‘unalienable rights,’ but of merchants, planters,
proprietors; from all classes there is a general expression of joy and
congratulation.”—New Haven
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| Scene on a West Indian Plantation - Slaves receiving the news of their Emancipation Cassell's Illustrated History of England, . . . 1820-1861 (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863), vol. 3, p. 234 |
Great Post!
ReplyDeleteThank you Gail!
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