West Indian Sketches PDF Download

Excerpt from West-Indian Sketches, Vol. 1: Drawn From Authentic Sources; Punishment of the Maroons of Demarara; From Pinckard's Notes on the West Indies A second edition of Dr. Pinckard's Notes on the West Indies has recently made its appearance. No publication could be more seasonable. It exhibits the impression made on the mind of an intelligent and disinterested spectator, at first evidently prejudiced in favour of West-Indian manners, who has had an opportunity of seeing with his own eyes the real nature and effects of colonial bondage. It seems the more necessary to bring forward to the view of the public, at this particular time, a witness so respectable, and so far removed from any suspicion of partiality or party feeling, as Dr. Pinckard; since, in the warmth of the conflict on West-Indian subjects which is now carrying on, the colonial partizans appear disposed to deny the existence even of the most prominent features of their own system; for example, the practice of driving. We should as soon have expected to hear it denied that a nose formed a part of the human countenance, as that the practice of driving the Negroes at their work by the impulse of the cart-whip, was not generally prevalent in the West Indies. Exceptions from this common rule may doubtless be produced - so may men without noses: but from such rare examples it would be most obviously unfair to object to the general statement. The fact is - a fact capable of the clearest proof from the direct evidence, or the unavoidable concessions, of West-Indians themselves - that the Negroes in general labour under the lash, and are compelled to exertion either by the terror or the actual pain of its infliction. On some future occasion, should it be necessary, a variety of authentic attestations to this fact will be presented to the public view. In the mean time, the testimony of Dr. Pinckard may be regarded as quite decisive. Drivers, of whom there are one or more on all estates, this interesting writer describes to be "Slaves so termed from being promoted to the distinguished office of following their comrades upon all occasions with a whip at their backs, as an English carter follows his horses." In short, it would be as reasonable to deny that slavery exists in the West Indies at all, as to deny that the slaves are compelled to labour by the impulse of the whip. The object of the present paper, however, is not to enter on the discussion of this particular question, but to present the public with one of those graphic representations of West-Indian manners and feelings, in respect to the slave population, with which Dr. Pinckard's work has furnished us, and which relates not to the conduct of an individual, but to the administration of criminal justice, and the judicial proceedings of public functionaries. The letter from which the extract is taken bears date in Demarara, the 16th May, 1796. "I wish I could repeat to you," observes Dr. Pinckard, "as eloquently as I heard it related, the very interesting detail of an expedition sent into the woods against the Bush-negroes, last year, under the command of Major M'Grah and Captain Dougan. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.