"If,"
says he, "you will take care not to speak to them of their return to
slavery, but talk to them about their liberty, you may with this latter
word chain them down to their labour. How did Toussaint succeed? How did
I succeed also before his time in the plain of the Cul de Sac, and on
the Plantation Gouraud, more than eight months after liberty had been
granted (by Polverel) to the slaves? Let those who knew me at that time,
and even the Blacks themselves, be asked. They will all reply, that _not
a single Negro_ upon that plantation, consisting of more than four
hundred and fifty labourers, _refused to work_; and yet this plantation
was thought to be under the worst discipline, and the slaves the most
idle, of any in the plain. I, myself, inspired the same activity into
three other plantations, of which I had the management."
The above account is far beyond any thing that could have been
expected. Indeed, it is most gratifying. We find that the liberated
Negroes, _both in the South and the West_, continued to work upon their
_old plantations_, and for their _old masters_; that there was also _a
spirit of industry_ among them, and that they gave no uneasiness to
their employers; for they are described as continuing to work _as
quietly as before_. Such was the conduct of the Negroes for the first
nine months after their liberation, or up to the middle of 1794. Let us
pursue the subject, and see how they conducted themselves after this
period.
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