Black Antiguans Seek Equal Opportunities for Employment in 1830

[Free Colored Residents Petition for a Change in the White Servants Act]

[Antigua]

Publication: Antigua and London: 1830.

Notes: A small archive of three manuscript documents prepared by the free colored residents of the island of Antigua, petitioning for additional rights and, in the heart of the proposal, equality with white citizens. The manuscripts, written in 1830, near the end of slavery in the British Empire, also illustrate the twisted morality of enslavement—in part, the free black West Indians are asking for a change in the law to enable them to be hired as overseers on slave plantations.

These documents are part of an archive once owned by the antiquarian Vere Langford Oliver, who collected Caribbean documents and published excerpts and transcripts in several multi-volume works. The background of these documents is laid out in volume I of The History of the Island of Antigua (pp. cli–cliii). In 1828, the leaders of the free colored population on Antigua petitioned the island legislature to make a change in the White Servants Act, which required plantation owners to maintain one white servant for every forty slaves (at the time, the island population was something like 30,000 enslaved people; 4,000 free colored residents; and 2,000 white inhabitants). Planters who did not maintain that ratio had to pay a fine of just over half of an overseer's salary for each missing white servant. Colored servants didn't count, so planters could hire them but would still have to pay the fine. As a result, the petitioners argued, not many colored servants found jobs. They asked that the legislation be changed to a Free Servants Law, treating white and black servants equally. The Antiguan legislature declined to change the law.

In 1830, the free colored population sent their petition to London with Joseph Phillips, a white Englishman who had married a black woman and supported the free colored resident's efforts. Oliver prints the transmittal letter (attributed to Nathaniel Hill but probably actually William Hill) addressed to Robert Stokes, the secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, and the petition signed by 300 colored residents. The location of those documents is not known.

Present here is a letter from Stokes to the abolitionist Dr. Stephen Lushington, transmitting the petition and other documents (this document refers to the author of the letter as Wm. Hill (not Nathaniel). William Hill founded the Antigua Register with William Loving in 1814, the first newspaper on the island. The first signatory of the petition (based on Oliver's transcription) is the Hill of the letter. The second is Loving. Given that William Hill and Loving were business partners and given that Stokes thought the writer was William Hill, I conclude that Oliver misread the name). Stokes attempts to arrange a meeting with Lushington on the subject of the petition and indicates that the petitioners would like him to present it before the House of Commons (he did not). [Letter: dated 8th June 1830; 2 pages on one leaf folded to make four pages; 7-1/4 by 9 inches. Paper watermarked B&T Sweetapple 1828.]

The second document is docketed, "A concise View of the rise and progress of the White Servants Act, and of the chief method resorted to at the present time to defeat its provisions." This document is quite blunt in its criticism of the average white English immigrant to Antigua. With the introduction of sugar cane as a crop and "thousands of Africans as absolute Slaves" as a workforce, "the White Man finding his manual exertions superseded by those of the Slave, became enervated, and abandoned himself to indolence and luxury, which assisted by the fatality of a tropical climate, swept off the majority of that class of persons."

One also senses a certain mockery in the one to forty ratio embedded in the law. The unidentified writer explains that "the then Legislature, calculating that one armed and disciplined European was equal to forty unarmed and ignorant slaves, judged it expedient to pass the first White Servants' Act." [Undated, ca. 1830; 4 pages on a single sheet folded in half. 8 by 12-3/4 inches. Watermarked P Everitt 1828.]

The third document is docketed "Answers to the Objections against the repeal of The White Servants' Act." This unattributed manuscript presents six reasons white Antiguans objected to the repeal of the act and the rebuttal of the "Coloured Population." The final section offers general observations. The majority of this information is not repeated in the published documents. Most compelling today are the claims of the black Antiguans for equality with their white counterparts. For example, "In the relations of private life, and in fulfilling the duties of Citizens and Subjects, no peculiar or specific defects are discernable in the Class to which the Petitioners belong." And, "The Petitioners cannot pass over this opportunity of contrasting their own situations, as regards Respectability, Intelligence, and general Conduct with the class from whence the law compels Proprietors to select Overseers."

The petitioners recognize that "the feeling and bias of Planters will naturally lead them to prefer White servants" and so if a planter hires a colored servant it will be because his is better qualified, "the most alive" to his employer's "pecuniary interest" and "of the most advantage to the moral habits of his Slaves." [Undated; 8 pages on four folded sheets; 7-3/4 by 12-1/2 inches; hinged with a piece of ribbon; watermarked P Everitt 1828.]

PROVENANCE: Jay Kislak

Edition + Condition: Overall very good. Paper somewhat tanned, with old folds. All three document are easily legible.

Item No: #364039

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Status: On Hold