Amelioration proposals

British amelioration

The abolitionists had also begun implementing the second phase of their plan. Amelioration, as the
word implies, was an attempt to improve the conditions of the enslaved Africans, as the abolitionists
worked towards freeing them completely.

At first, the planters strongly resisted all such attempts, based on the concept that if you give
someone an inch, that person take a yard.

In 1816, Jamaica had already passed the consolidated Slave Law. This mandated that slaves should
have Sunday off work, as well as one other day every fortnight to do their own planting. They were to
have at least 26 days off work every year, and not made to mill cane between 7 pm on Saturday and 5
am on Monday. Their work day was also to be no longer than 5 am to 7 pm, with 30 minutes for
breakfast and a two-hour lunch break. This however, still meant a 12- hour work day, six days a week.
How strictly the new law was enforced is not certain.

In 1823, the British abolitionists formed a new organization, called the Society for the Gradual
Abolition of Slavery. Their plan was to campaign for an immediate improvement in the conditions of
enslaved Africans and then to get slavery completely abolished. By now experienced from their
campaign against the slave trade, the abolitionists were able to set up over 200 branches of the new
society in a year. By then, Parliament had received 750 petitions calling for the abolition of slavery, so
the MPs knew that a significant number of votes depended on what position they took on the slavery
question.

The British Caribbean planters soon realized that public opinion was not on their side, and that they
might also lose the support of MPs if and when anti-slavery legislation came to Parliament. So they
changed strategy and decided to propose amelioration to Parliament themselves. Their
representatives in London sent their policy suggestions to the colonial Secretary, who accepted them
and forwarded a despatch to the legislative assemblies of the self-governing colonies. In crown
colonies, where as the title suggests the crown ruled more directly through its appointed governor
and a council of nominated members loyal to the British government, the policy was simply
implemented by an order.

These were some of the proposals made.

No slave women should be whipped

A male slave who was to be whipped should be given one days notice before the punishment
was administered.

All floggings which exceeded three strokes were to be recorded by estate officials and the
records submitted every three months to a magistrate.

Slave families were not to be split up by traders selling family members to different owners.

Slave could not be sold to pay of debts.

 Planters were no longer to frustrate or prevent the missionaries or other clergy from preaching
to the slaves, so the Africans could be converted to Christianity.

Slaves should have a legal right to give evidence in court, once sponsored by a member of the
clergy.

Many of these same proposals had been made before by the British government at the end of the
18th century, but the planters had ignored them even when they became law. Now, although the
amelioration proposals had been made by wealthy absentee planters living in England, the planter
assemblies in Jamaica, Barbados, Dominica and St. Vincent resisted the policy. They agreed to put into
law just some of the proposals. They refused outright to let any enslaved person testify in court and
they made the teaching of Christianity to slaves subject to so many regulations that it would have
been virtually impossible for any missionary to do so. For example, the Jamaican assembly forbid any
missionary from collecting a fee from the enslaved Africans for religious instruction, on the basis that,
Under pretence of offerings and contributions, large sums of money have been extorted by designing
men professing to be leaders of religion. No services were allowed between sunset and sunrise, even
though the slaves worked for most of the daylight hours. Enslaved Africans who were discovered
preaching without their owners permission could be flogged.

The planters, however, defiantly re-enacted the law and set up a committee to investigate the
activities of missionaries. Members of this committee harassed various missionary groups and then
wrote a report in which they accused missionaries of causing unrest in the colony and tricking people
into giving them money. This report was sent to the British government, which ignored it. The report
caused a backlash, however, because it started a rumour among the enslaved Africans that they had
been freed by the British government but the planters were hiding document. When a slave revolt
erupted in Jamaica after 25 December 1831, the planters, apparently believing their own propaganda,
arrested several missionaries and put them on trial. They also destroyed several of their church
buildings.

Yet the missionaries, far from causing the uprising, had actually tried to stop it. One preacher, William
Knibb, tried to prevent his congregation of slaves from joining the rebellion, telling them that there
was no truth to the remour that they had been freed by the King of England.

This violence against missionaries in Jamaica and other colonies further lowered public opinion in
England against the Caribbean planters and their representatives. This was because the Non-
conformist churches, who sent out most of these missionaries to the colonies, also had a significant
membership in England. The British congregations made contributions to the missionaries work in
the Caribbean and saw the preaching of Christianity to the Africans as a divine obligation which they
should support. People who had not been moved by the issue of slavery were now outraged at the
treatment of the missionaries. It was ironic that amelioration had been proposed by absentee owners
representing the West Indies in London, and the planters in the colonies scuttled the proposals.

In 1831, the Society for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery stepped up its anti-slavery campaign. It had
already won over public opinion, but this did not necessarily mean that Parliament would pass a law
abolishing slavery. The Society realized that what was needed were new MPs who would be prepared
to support such legislation. In England, thanks in large part to the Industrial Revolution, a new class of
powerful men had been created. Previously, landowners were the wealthiest individuals and made up
the ruling class. Part of their power lay in the law which allowed only property owners to vote. Some
MPs had even gained their positions in Parliament through what were called rotten boroughs. These
were areas where few people lived, but where a property owner had the right to appoint in MP.
Several wealthy planters had returned to live in England, purchased such boroughs and appointed an
MP or become one themselves, in order to safetyguard their interests in respect to sugar and other
trade laws.

Now, though, there were people who had become just as rich and influential as the landowners
through manufacturing and trade. These individuals opposed the landowners, not least because they
wanted a different set of laws which would help their businesses. The planters, for example, wanted
their MPs to pass laws which gave British colonies preferred access to the British market, whereas the
businessmen wanted to be free to trade with other countries, since this meant cheaper goods to buy
and sell and more profits for them. The 1830 election in Britain brought in a majority of members who
were prepared to vote against slavery. MPs for for 85 of the rotten boroughs were removed and
replaced by seats in the industrial towns, such as Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. The vote was also
given to townsmen who paid at least 10 in rent annually. This meant that factory owners and
merchants could now vote, and since these people had supported the abolition of slavery, MPs had to
pay attention to their wishes.

The Society pressed its advantage, hiring six lecturers, as well as a panel of effective speakers, to go
around the country giving talks on why slavery should be abolished. In the 1832 elections, the Society
persuaded many of the candidates to support abolition. The first Reform Act was passed in that year.
The planters had now effectively lost political power. They had not adhered to the amelioration
proposals made by their own colleagues in London. They could not lobby the new MPs in Parliament,
who represented industrialists. The public was against them on the issue of slavery, and even
economically, since sugar from the British colonies was more expensive than sugar from Cuba, Brazil
or Mauritius. In the spring of 1833, the Society repeated its petition campaign, getting over 1.3 million
signatures, while the number of its local branches increased to 1,300. A Bill to abolish slavery was
brought to Parliament in May 1833.

The debate over the Bill lasted over three months, with the session becoming one of the longest in
the British Parliaments history. The Bill had four connected principles.

1. All slaves were to be freed at the same time.

2. Most of the former slaves were to become apprentices who would have to work for their former
masters for a fixed number of hours per day for a specified number of years.

3. The slave owners were to be paid a monetary sum as compensation for the loss of their slaves.

4. The money for this payment was to come from raising the duties on sugar from the colonies.

Interestingly, even the MPs who argued against the motion did not bring up the issue of race. This
was in stark contrast to the same debate in 1823, when the Prime Minister George canning had
described black people as being with the form and strength of a man but with the intellect only of a
child. Both the pro-and anti-abolitionists agreed that blacks and whites had the same motivations
and attributes. In debates among legislators in the USA, Africans backwardness and their savage
nature was usually raised by pro-slavery speakers. In Britain, by contrast, race was dismissed even in
the public debate outside Parliament. The Tory Morning Herald newspaper, for example, argued
against the supposed racial inferiority of the negro, while the Westminster Review described ideas of
racial superiority and inferiority as absurd arguments. Also, while the colonial Offices plans for the
freed blacks might have been oppressive, as you will read in chapter 5, their rationale didnt invoke
any stereotypes of race. Where race entered the debate, it was in terms of characteristics. The Tory
leader Robert Peel, for instance, spoke of the distinction of colour, hastening to add that he was not
referring to any inferiority of black to white but was noting a factor that would create problems in
amalgamating the slave population with the free, which did not exist either in any country of Europe
or in any country of the East where slavery was extinguished.

The Emancipation Act was passed in Parliament in August 1833.

French Amelioration

Unlike the British movement, the amelioration measures in the French colonies were driven less by
public opinion and more by political concerns. There were slave rebellion in Martinique in 1822, 1824
and 1833 and, given what had occurred in St. Domingue, the French government decided to try a
policy of amelioration. The tax on manumissions was repealed in 1832, and the procedures were also
simplified, making it easier for blacks to buy their freedom. In 1833, the French government passed a
law making it compulsory to register slaves and, perhaps remembering the St. Domingue planter Le
Jeune, banned any mutilation and branding.

In 1834, which was the same year that the British introduced their apprenticeship proposal, a French
abolition group formed, the Societe francaise pour I abolition de I esclavage. This marked a turning
point in public opinion and in 1835 slavery was outlawed in France (though not in the colonies). By
1840, the Societe was able to get legislation introduced in the French Assembly to abolish slavery. The
law was not passed, but eight years later the French Emancipation Act was finally proclaimed.

The planters had unintentionally helped bring this about because, by displaying their lack of humane
feelings toward the enslaved Africans, they made it apparent that only full abolition could improve
the lot of black people in the Caribbean.