L4 per annum_ 4 0 0
Clothing and Christmas allowance per
annum 1 13 4
----------
21 13 4
----------
Four days' or 36 hours' labor in each
week, at 2s. 1d. per day, or 208
days, at 2s. 1d. 21 13 4
If task-work were adopted, or the day's
labor prolonged to 10-1/2 or 12 hours'
labor, 3 days' or 3-1/2 days' labor
_would suffice_, consequently, the
laborer would have 2 or 3 days
in each week to work for extra
wages.
In addition to the above, say pasturage
for a horse, at 4s. 2d. per week per
annum 10 16 8
Pasturage for an ass, at 2s. 1d. per week
per annum 5 6 4
_Run of pasturage and fruit, for a sow,
barrow, or sholt_; IF RUNG IN THE
NOSE, 10_d. per week_; IF NOT RUNG,
1_s._ 8_d. per week; per annum, at
10d. per week_ 2 3 4
The above charges for pasturage might be paid for either _by additional
labor_ or in money, and to a good head-man they might be granted as a
gratuity, and perhaps an additional acre of land allowed him to
cultivate. It would be desirable that the negroes should, when quite
free, work 11 hours per day in the short days, and 12 hours in the
longer ones. I believe the shortest day's labor in England in the winter
months in 10 hours' actual labor, and 12 hours' in the summer, for which
2 hours they are paid extra wages.
_St. Mary's, 8th June, 1838_. S.R.
The date should not escape notice. By this plan, for a few petty
indulgences, _all of which were professedly granted in the time of
slavery itself_, the master could get the entire labor of the negro, and
_seven or eight pounds per annum besides_! Some may be disposed to
regard this as a mere joke, but we can assure them it was a serious
proposal, and not more monstrous than many things that the planters are
now attempting to put in practice. The idea of actually paying money
wages was horrifying and intolerable to many of the planters; they seem
to have exercised their utmost ingenuity to provide against so dreadful
a result. One who signed himself an "Old Planter" in the _Despatch_,
before the abolition of the apprenticeship, in v
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