Letter to the Lord Glenelg ... containing a report, from personal observation, on the working of the new system in the British West India colonies / [John Innes].

  • Innes, John, Esq.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Lord Glenelg ... containing a report, from personal observation, on the working of the new system in the British West India colonies / [John Innes]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    . JAMAICA. 10] respectable families there, it is earnestly to he hoped that this will never in future be lost sight of. From the great importance of this island it must be the anxious desire of his Majesty’s government to adopt such measures as may make freedom a blessing to those on whoni it is conferred, and a benefit to the mother country. To afford evena chance of such result, the measures must be prompt and efficient, for 1] will not conceal from your Lord- ship that the difficulties to be overcome are of a formidable character. In this island the free ne- negroes will have opportunities of gratifying a pro- pensity to idleness beyond those presented in the other British West India islands. There is a super- abundance of land, adapted for raising provisions, that may be purchased for about twenty shillings currency per acre, and two acres are sufficient, with about twelve days’ labour, to yield provisions for a family for a year: besides which there are nearly -boundless tracts of unappropriated land, on which negroes may squat themselves, unless extraordinary means be employed to prevent it. It is supposed that this island contains about five million acres, of which only 2,333,180 are appropriated (that being the quantity on which the land tax is paid) whilst quit-rent has been paid on no more than 2,303,313 of the 2,333,180. Consequently there will be great difficulty in keeping idle negroes from squatting, and limiting their labour to the pro- curing -of bare subsistence. The abstraction of
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