eeks of
August, 1834, and who was the first special justice to read and explain
the new law to them, had told them that the law gave to them the extra
four and a half hours on the Friday, and some of the proprietors and
managers, who were desirous of preparing their people for the coming
change, had likewise explained it so; but, most unfortunately, the
governor issued a proclamation, justifying the masters in withholding
the four and a half hours on that day, and substituting any other half
day, or by working them eight hours per day, they might deprive them
altogether of the advantage to be derived from the extra time, which, by
the abolition of Sunday marketing, was almost indispensable to people
whose grounds, in some instances, were many miles from their
habitations, and who were above thirty miles from Kingston market, where
prices were fifty per cent. more than the country markets in their favor
for the articles they had to dispose of, and correspondingly lower for
those they had to purchase. To be in time for which market, it was
necessary to walk all Friday night, so that without the use of the
previous half day, they could not procure their provisions, or prepare
themselves for it. The deprivation of the half of Friday was therefore a
serious hardship to them, and this, coupled to the previous assurance of
their masters, and Special Justice Everard, that they were entitled to
it, made them to suspect a fraud was about being practised on them,
which, if they did not resist, would lead to the destruction of the
remaining few privileges they possessed. The resistance was very
general, but without violence; whole gangs leaving the fields on the
afternoon of Friday; refusing to take any other afternoon, and sometimes
leaving the estates for two or three days together. They fortunately had
confidence in me--and I succeeded in restoring order, and all would have
been well,--but the managers, no longer alarmed by the fear of rebellion
or violence, began a system of retaliation and revenge, by withdrawing
cooks, water-carriers, and nurses, from the field, by refusing medicine
and admittance to the hospital to the apprentice children, and by
compelling old and infirm people, who had been allowed to withdraw from
labor, and mothers of six children, who were exempt by the slave law
from hard labor, to come out and work in the field. All this had a
natural tendency to create irritation, and did do so; though, to the
great c