THE DEPENDENCY QUESTION
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DIVERGENT PATHS TO FREEDOM
In Chapter 2 reference was made to a proclamation that
was made at the Caymanas by the Governor, Lord Sligo, on the 2nd May,
1835, manumitting completely all the former slaves there. From that
date, their period of "apprenticeship" was concluded, after
only nine months. This is to be compared with the period of
apprenticeship of the former slaves of Jamaica, which was concluded
on the 1st August, 1838, after four years of it. In Jamaica some of
the grossest abuses took place after the Emancipation proclamation of
1834 during the apprenticeship period. It is therefore of
considerable historical interest and importance to enquire why the
Governor so blessed the Caymanas but did not perform a similar
service for Jamaica. This circumstance is offered here as further
compelling evidence of the Caymanas' status at this period as
submissive to the Governor but not answerable to the laws of Jamaica,
a state of affairs that lasted, as we have seen, from the first steps
taken towards British acquisition of the territory until the Cayman
Islands Act of the Westminster Parliament in 1863.
Many years before Emancipation,
the British Parliament took decisive action to end the acquisition
and transportation of slaves from Africa to British possessions in
the New World. The Abolition Bill was passed in Parliament in 1807
and provided that all trading in African slaves was from the 1st
January 1808 "utterly abolished, prohibited and declared to be
unlawful".4.1
From that time the purchase of slaves from "slavers", i.e.
vessels carrying the human cargo across the seas, was illegal in all
British territories. But without the slave population in all the
territories being registered it would be impossible to ensure
compliance to this law, since other nations, and notably the Spanish,
did not recognize it; so the abolitionists in Britain argued for the
introduction into Parliament of a bill for general registration. To
forestall this the older colonies, Jamaica among them, objecting to
parliamentary interference in their internal affairs, accepted
responsibility for passing slave registration acts of their own.
Jamaica's Registration Act was passed there on the 11 Dec. 1816 and
the first census return consequent to the Act was made on the 28 June
1817.4.2
Registration returns were made through the parish offices
subsequently every three years in order to monitor movements. The
failure to account for any slave by this means could be taken as
evidence of illegal importation. For several years before
Emancipation in 1834, the registration of the slaves in Jamaica had
been virtually complete, apart from the notable exception of the
slave holdings of the Maroon people.
The Maroons were a population of
free Blacks descended from slaves of the Spanish before the British
conquest and settlement in 1655, whom the authorities had never
succeeded in re-enslaving, and who now governed themselves under
broad mandates of superintendence by local civil authorities within
two sizeable sections of the mountainous interior. The relationship
between them and the Governor had been from 1738 governed by the
Maroon Treaties. The provisions of the 1816 Registration Act did not
extend to them, presumably because by post-Treaty law their ownership
of slaves was prohibited.4.3
Such laws were in practice made virtually ineffective. For instance
some of the slaves that had escaped from the estates to Maroon
country (and therefore registered as having escaped) were taken by
the Maroons and retained as slaves. The free Black Maroons like any
other free people of the time became owners of slaves, but not unlike
the Caymanians, as we shall see, their ownership of slaves was not
included by the authorized registration procedure (which the other
slave-owners of Jamaica complied with) in the years preceding the
Emancipation of slaves in 1834. Remarkably however, as the Governor
(the Marquess of Sligo) reports in 1834,
The Maroons are holders of many
slaves, and have never registered them; but regular returns of their
numbers, names, age and sex, have been sent in, as a matter of
course, each session to the Assembly.4.4
Lord Sligo referred to the Maroons in their holding
slaves as in a similar position, though not identical, to the
Caymanians. Neither group had been included in the authorized
registration procedure and this circumstance was now placing their
slaves and their former owners differently from all others because of
the provisions of the Emancipation Act.
The abolitionists at first had
been willing to test for a number of years whether the institution of
slavery would become acceptable with the notorious African slave
trade abolished. They reasoned that the owners without a ready source
of replacement might treat their valuable property more carefully. It
was hoped also that they would try to settle their slaves in families
in order for more children to be produced, since the external source
of the supply of slaves had been cut off. But disturbing reports
continued to be received in England about the treatment of the
slaves, the general condition of West Indian society and the
persecution of the missionaries on account of the work they had done
among the slaves; and the view that the institution of slavery itself
must be altogether abolished gained ground. Economic forces were also
a consideration. The estates, the backbone of the institution of
slavery, could no longer produce sugar at a reasonable price. The
economic argument for the retention of slavery was thereby
undermined. In 1833 just before he died William Wilberforce was told
that his long labours to change the mind of Parliament on the issue
had not been in vain. The Emancipation Bill was passed by Parliament
on the 29th August 1833, and provided that as from the 1st August
1834, slaves that had
been registered under the Island Acts
were to become apprenticed to their former masters for a number of
years, after which they would be fully free. Slave children under six
years old on the date of Emancipation (1st August 1834) were to be
free immediately. The apprenticeship period to prepare for full
freedom by "promoting the industry of the manumitted slaves"4.5
was considered to be necessary to avoid social disorder such as the
formation of a "jungle" society in the island interior
which would be a major threat to the country concerned, and also to
provide a degree of compensation to the former owners for the
valuable asset which was being forcibly removed from them. However,
after 17 years of registration, Parliament could never countenance
any apprenticing of unregistered slaves, who if any were found on or
after the 1st August 1834 were to go fully free.4.6
In addition to the apprenticeship, compensation for the
removal of their assets would be supplemented by dividing a sum of
£20 million among all the slave owners of the Empire. The
administration of this fund was placed under the control of a body
called the Commissioners of Compensation.
In December 1833 the Governor, the Earl of Mulgrave,
first drew to the attention of the Colonial Secretary, the Rt. Hon.
E.G. Stanley, the pressing need to decide how a registration of the
slaves of Caymanas could be provided for, in order for the owners not
to be left entirely without compensation. The issue was connected to
the dependency question.
The Island of Grand Cayman has
always been so far considered a Dependency of Jamaica that the
Magistrates and Officers of Militia are appointed by the Governor,
but it forms no part of any
parish of Jamaica,
nor are the Inhabitants entitled to vote at any Election for Members
of the Assembly. ...
... The point however which more
immediately presses for a decision is the manner in which the
Registration of their Slaves is to be provided for, in order to
entitle the Masters to the benefit of Compensation. No Office for
that purpose has ever been established on the Island, and as the Laws
of this Government are not binding upon it, their Slaves have of
course never been registered in any Parish of Jamaica; in this
respect therefore they seem to be in the same situation as His
Majesty's Subjects in Honduras, whose case has been specially
provided for in the Act of Parliament for the Abolition of Slavery
...4.7
It is worth our while to pause to take note of the
several significant points made in December 1833 regarding the
dependency question in Lord Mulgrave's letter. These are as follows:-
(1) The extent of the dependency of the Island of Grand
Cayman upon Jamaica is the appointing of the Magistrates and the
Officers of the Militia by the Governor.
(2) The inhabitants of Grand Cayman are not entitled to
vote in any election for members of the Assembly (of Jamaica).
(3) The laws of this Government (of Jamaica) are not
binding upon the Island of Grand Cayman.
Point (3) above provides the explanation of why the fact
that the Caymanas slaves had never been registered could not be
regarded as a straightforward case of delinquency on the part of the
Caymanas slave-owners. The Registration Act of Jamaica would apply to
that Island only and its reach would not include the Caymanas.
As Mr. Lefevre was in the course of succeeding Mr.
Stanley in the post of Colonial Secretary it seems that during the
six weeks or so following receipt of the despatch they both took
counsel from the well-known Mr. James Stephen and from Mr. James
Lewis representing the Commissioners of Compensation about the course
that should be taken. Mr. Stephen (in a note dated the 3 Febr. 1834)
referred to the adoption some years before of Anguilla by the St.
Christopher's Legislature. He considered that by some means - either
by the Jamaica Legislature adopting Cayman in a similar way or by an
Act of Parliament - Law must be made for them by competent authority
by the 1st August 1834. Otherwise, he opined, Cayman could have no
share in the Compensation Fund. Mr. Lewis of the Commissioners of
Compensation, however, in a letter dated the 14th March 1834 offered
a practicable course for Compensation.
... So far as regards the
proceeding under our Commission in respect to the Compensation; you
will recollect that to our letter of the 4 Nov. 1833 to the Governor
of Jamaica, there was added a postscript relating to the Caymanas,
and directing that an Agent should proceed from Jamaica under the
authority of the Assistant Commissioners, to procure a Return of the
Number of Slaves belonging to, or settled in those Islands, and to
ascertain the value or price of Slaves therein within the 8 years
ending on the 31 Decr
1830. - This was done under the impression, that as by the last
clause of the Abolition Act, Islands dependent upon Colonies were to
be deemed part thereof for the purposes of the Act, such a Return
might be perhaps considered as supplementary to the Registration of
the Slaves in Jamaica under the Island Acts, and let in the Caymanas
to a share of the Compensation, altho' not named in their Acts.4.8
Mr. Lefevre, consulting with Mr. Stanley, noted that
since there did not appear to have been any precedent of the Governor
in Council and Assembly of Jamaica legislating for the Caymanas, the
existence of such power of legislation was not free from doubt,
besides which the date of the termination of slavery was approaching
too soon for such legislation to be effected in time for this. He
proposed therefore that
for avoiding all doubt upon the
subject an Act of Parlt
be passed enabling H.M. to unite the Caymanas to Jamaica for the
purposes of legisln
& until that union shall have been made ... to legislate for the
d(ependent) Islands by Order in Council - ...
Mr. Stanley, agreeing with this,
noted that he should wish such a Bill prepared without loss of
time.4.9
But Mr. Stanley's wish was not carried out. In a few months Mr.
Stanley, Mr. Lefevre, Mr. Thomas Spring Rice, Lord Aberdeen and Lord
Glenelg passed through the Colonial Office successively as the
Colonial Secretary, and as we have seen4.10,
Lord Aberdeen and Lord Glenelg do not appear to taken Mr. Lefevre's
conclusion that the existence of the power in the Jamaican
legislature for legislating for the Caymanas was doubtful, until Lord
Glenelg was forced to accept that conclusion by the August 1835
foreclosure by the Assembly of any such possibility.
In regard to the Caymanas, the
Commissioners' point of view that a "supplementary" Return
of the number of the slaves under the Commissioners' authority would
permit the owners to receive compensation prevailed. This
supplementary Return was provided for and dated the 2nd April 1834.
It used the same methods and, no doubt, similar forms to the
standards of the regular Jamaican registrations under that Island's
Registration Act, but it is important to understand that the
authority behind it was not the Jamaican Registration Act but the
order of the Commissioners on the authority of the Abolition of
Slavery Act itself, "An Act for the abolition of Slavery
throughout the British Colonies for promoting the Industry of the
Manumitted Slaves and for compensating the persons hitherto entitled
to the services of such Slaves"4.11
In their Petition to the House of Commons that was
forwarded to England in 1838 the Custos, Magistrates and other
inhabitants of the Island of Grand Caymanas recite what was received
and what was withheld and why:-
That this Island not being
connected with Jamaica by legal enactments was never influenced or
regulated by their laws but the inhabitants being unnoticed and left
entirely to their own resources became a law unto themselves and
adopted such rules for the maintenance of good order and the
punishment of vice as were consistent with their knowledge of the
Christian Religion; and for the purpose of carrying on such with some
degree of authority applications were wont to be made for
Magistrates' commissions to the different Governors of Jamaica. This
is the only recognition that has ever taken place.4.12
That your Petitioners by their own industry built
themselves vessels which affording them the means of occasional
intercourse with Jamaica they became possessed of slaves the number
of which at the time of the abolition of slavery amounted to about
one thousand
That the slaves of your Petitioners were liberated on
the first of August one thousand eight hundred and thirty four and
your Petitioners participated in the grant of Twenty Millions voted
by Parliament as compensation for the loss sustained but were in the
month of May one thousand eight hundred and thirty five deprived of
their services for the term of apprenticeship by His Excellency the
Marquis of Sligo then Governor of Jamaica on the ground of their not
having been registered in 1817 and subsequently agreeably to law
That your Petitioners are thus
punished for not obeying a law of which they were ignorant and which
had they known they would have deemed from the situation of the
island already described ... inapplicable to themselves not having
any office of Registry4.13
The new Governor, the Marquess of Sligo, in his letter
to the Rt. Hon. Thomas Spring Rice on the 3 Nov 1834 first responds
to that Colonial Secretary's doubts about the status of the Caymanas
apprentices, and also raises the case of the Maroons and their
slaves, as follows.
I have the honour to acknowledge
the receipt of your Despatch, relative to the apprentices of the
Caymanas, wherein you express considerable doubts whether they are
not free subjects, and in consequence of their non-registration,
absolutely relieved from the apprenticeship. In reply, I have to say,
that I trust the law may not be so interpreted eventually. In the
first place, there having been no law in force in that
Island to render
registration necessary, it appears hard that a decree of the British
Parliament should, without any fault of their own, deprive them of
that very valuable property, the apprenticeship. Their valuation,4.14
though not registered, appears to me to place them in precisely the
same situation as if they had been registered ...
Should, however, the law be
decisive on the point, and that the apprentices are free subjects, I
will of course immediately recall Dr. Hulme from the Caymanas, and
employ him in this Island, where he is much required.4.15
There is another case in this
Island of a nature not precisely the same, but very similar. The
Maroons are holders of many slaves, and have never registered them;
but regular returns of their numbers, names, age and sex, have been
sent in, as a matter of course, each session to the Assembly. The
Board has directed the valuators to make a separate return of these
individuals, detailing the peculiar circumstances of the case, in
order that the matter may be considered by the Central Board at home.
...4.16
Lord Sligo's hesitation on the Caymanas apprenticeship
issue was firmly dealt with in the Colonial Office's reply. In a
despatch dated the 16th Feb 1835 Lord Aberdeen confirmed that
unregistered slaves "in the Grand Caymanas as well as in
Jamaica" could not be lawfully treated as apprenticed labourers
from the 1st August 1834. From that day they became absolutely
manumitted, and furthermore,
It is a duty incumbent on His Majesty's Government to
see the letter of the Abolition Act carried into full effect.
However, Lord Aberdeen went on to
explain, the Committee of Compensation did consider the Caymanas as
entitled to a share of the Compensation Fund. Also, in regard to the
unregistered slaves in Jamaica belonging to the Maroons, the
Committee were inclined to hold that the regular annual returns to
the Assembly of these Maroons' slaves might be deemed, when properly
authenticated, to satisfy the Commissioners' rules of entitlement of
the owners to compensation. Lord Aberdeen added what might be a
significant caveat
however:-
Your Lordship will observe, that
the decision of the Commissioners is general, and is capable of
reference to all slaves not illegally held in slavery.4.17
It is left for further examination
elsewhere whether these instructions resulted in the Maroons
receiving compensation for their slaves, or whether it was withheld,
for while it was deemed scarcely questionable that the Caymanas
slaves were "not illegally held" there would appear to be
more room for doubt in the case of the slaves of the Maroons.4.18
Left also is the question of how
and when any former slaves of the Maroons were declared to be
absolutely and unconditionally free, beyond the known fact that after
his Caymanas visit and announcement the Marquess of Sligo wrote to
the Colonial Office of his preparations to make an announcement to
the unregistered Maroon apprentices similar to the one made to those
in the Caymanas. By that time he had already sent letters to the
different Superintendents of Maroons, to the Custodes and to the
Special Magistrates stationed in the neighbourhood of each Maroon
Station.4.19
The Governor after preparing for possible trouble in the
Caymanas by sending ahead a detachment of men of the West India
Regiment and personally travelling there to read the necessary
Proclamation, was to be found on the 2nd May, 1835 in his ship's
Cabin with the Custos Mr. Drayton and some of the leading inhabitants
thus carrying out the "letter of the Abolition Act":-
Whereas the situation of the inhabitants of the Grand
Caymanas having engaged the particular attention of His Majesty's
Government, more especially as to the effect the recent changes under
the laws of the Imperial Parliament have upon the structure of
society in those Islands belonging to Great Britain, w(h)ere slavery
formerly existed; and the opinion of the law officers of the Crown
having been obtained; I have received His Majesty's commands
forthwith to communicate the decision at which they have arrived upon
the question.
The Slavery Abolition Act having declared that all
persons of the age of six or upwards, who, on or before the first of
August 1834, had been duly registered as slaves, should become and be
apprenticed labourers, and such registration not having been adopted
as respects the Islands of the Caymanas, previous to the passing
thereof, such unregistered slaves have in consequence become entitled
to the unqualified enjoyment of their personal freedom: And whereas
it is incumbent on His Majesty's Government to see the letter of the
Slavery Abolition Act carried into full effect, I do hereby, under
the directions of His Majesty's Government, declare and make known,
that all such unregistered slaves at the Islands of the Caymanas,
have become absolutely manumitted, and can no longer be lawfully
treated as apprenticed labourers.
... And I have the satisfaction in
the mean time to make known that the Commissioners for Compensation
in England consider the Caymanas as an appendage to Jamaica, and
entitled to share in the compensation fund, according to the
interests of the respective owners in those Islands.4.20
Here is a good example of the
relationship between the Caymanas and Jamaica being considered in
some way as a dependant one, while at the same time the course of
history from 1831 up to 1863 shows definitively and inexorably that
whatever dependant relation might be considered by observers and
participants to exist, Cayman was "not connected with Jamaica by
legal enactments".4.21
Indeed the lawmakers of Jamaica considered the Caymanas to be a
separate dependency of the Crown.
The end of apprenticeship was
effected in the Caymanas not altogether without upsets and
misunderstandings.4.22
However, these were miniscule compared with the totally different
course of events during the last three years of apprenticeship in
Jamaica, where a protesting Assembly was only forced by the general
swell of opinion in England about its horrors to give in; and so it
was that in Jamaica on the 1st August 1838 full freedom came to
all.4.23