Day 17. Arrival in Hell

Henry Beckles and Sarah Gall could not have picked a worse time to send their boys to Barbados. As news of a series of troubles filtered back to Demerara they must have been in a constant state of worry. How the boys were affected we can only guess. Their first six months on the island must have been something like the following.
_________________________________________________________________________________

July 1816

Land was announced from the masthead and the boys scampered on deck for their first view of the island. It was nearly nightfall. The ebbing light of the sun brought the ragged silhouette of the island into view on the horizon only to disappear as the last rays of the sun disappeared. 

 “Thank the Lord”. William expressed the relief all three boys felt at the impending end of their journey. The boys had cursed their ill fortune in travelling in such poor weather. The journey that should have taken just a matter of days turned into a voyage of two weeks and the boys were weak from their retching caused by the constant movement of the overloaded ship and poor food.

William and Henry sought solace in the lines from Ligon’s history of Barbados which their father had often quoted from memory: 

Being now come in sight of this happy Iland, the neerer we came, the more beautifull it appeared to our eyes; for that being in it selfe extreamly beautifull, was best discern’d, and best judg’d of, when our eyes became full Masters of the object. There we saw the high, large, and lofty Trees, with their spreading Branches, and flourishing tops, seem’d to be beholding to the earth and roots, that gave them such plenty of sap for their nourishment, as to grow to that perfection of beauty and largenesse. Whilst they, in gratitude, return their cool shade, to secure and shelter them from the Suns heat, which, without it, would scorch and drie away. So that bounty and goodnesse in the one, and gratefulnesse in the other, serve to make up this beauty, which otherwise would lie empty & waste. And truly these vegetatives, may teach both the sensible and reasonable Creatures, what it is that makes up wealth, beauty, and all harmony in that Leviathan, a well governed Common-wealth...

Thanks to the full moon the ship was able to anchor in Carlisle Bay before midnight. In the morning all the passengers were up on deck and those returning to Barbados greeted the familiar appearance of a well known shore.  For the boys they were seeing the fertile island for the first time. The view of  the island from their anchorage in the bay was very beautiful. There were ridges and hills stretching as far as they could see - nothing like the flatness of the Demerara coastal plain. But it was not until later in the morning that the Falcon was able to up anchor from Carlisle Bay and make for the shelter of the harbour and tie up along the quayside in Bridgetown.

Compared to the town they had left the boys would have been  amazed at the well built and modern town in front of them with buildings built of the local white coral stone rather than wood following the great fire of 1766. The tall tower of the cathedral church and the brightly painted storehouses on the quay were quite unlike anything they had seen in Demerara. 

As they clambered down to the quayside, the breeze blew strong smells of dust, goats and molasses into their unaccustomed nostrils. The people passing them were more sullen than usual and lacked the inquisitiveness even to glance at them; too busy to do anything other than to get on with their daily tasks. 

The island was still in shock after the recent slave revolt, now known as the Bussa Rebellion. The slave rebellion had been short-lived and it had been effectively quashed by the local plantation owner’s militia and the British troops garrisoned outside Bridgetown. 

The soldiers had still  been engaged in mopping up operations until mid-July when martial law was rescinded.  About 50 slaves had died in the three days of open rebellion but many were to die later. A further 140 had been executed during the three months of martial law and after later trials a further 70 were sentenced to death and 123 sentenced to transportation.

There was no-one waiting for them to disembark and they made a sorry site sitting in dismay on the quayside waiting for their travelling trunk to be unloaded. The post rebellion feeling of the black population did not lead to any offers of help being proffered to the brothers. One white visitor to Barbados at the time had stated that “the disposition of the slaves in general is very bad. They are sullen and sulky and seem to cherish feelings of deep revenge.” 

The Creole Quaco, a strong 45 year old Barbadian born gang leader from their cousin Mr Cook’s estate, turned up leading a very irritable donkey which had clearly not enjoyed the long journey into town and was not looking forward to the return bearing the Gall baggage. The journey to Spencer’s took them across the bridge into the well settled land towards the Garrison and then inland up the escarpment and through some of the most ravished parts of the island where a quarter of the cane fields had been destroyed by arson. They had to pass through Bayley’s where two of the very few white men had been killed. They arrived at their aunt’s plantation house in Christchurch parish to find it battened down and much of the equipment strewn around in disarray. This was not so much the result of the rebellion but more the dereliction of neglect.  

❖❖❖❖

Aunt Elizabeth had found the running of the estate beyond her frail health and she had nearly given up in her hope that her nephew would send his sons to help manage the daily activity. She had imagined her great nephews as young men ready to take over the running of the estate rather than the weak boys who had not been passed down any knowledge by their grandfather of Barbadian plantation ways. She had removed herself to Bridgetown (before buying a property bounding the Lascelles’ plantation in St. James in 1827). In her absence the estate was being run by James Robinson Cook the husband of a cousin and executor of Elizabeth’s will. It was in his view an unwarranted burden on his time; his main concern was his own land holdings at Cliffs Hall and his 45 slaves.  As the trustee he had been trying to get the family to agree to the employment of an estate manager as the prospect of selling the estate in these troubled times and the uncertainties resulting from what he considered William Wilberforce’s ill-judged abolitionist actions in London had depressed land prices. Every proposal he made to Elizabeth Gall was turned down for one reason or another or indeed no reason at all. On her part, Elizabeth was suspicious of her relative and quite rightly suspected that he was trying to wrest ownership of the estate from her at a knockdown price. 

He was not impressed that she had decided that the thirteen year old William should take over the running of the estate under his tutelage. The fact that William would become the owner of the estate under his aunt’s Will, when she eventually died, meant that he would be expected to teach the lad the various tasks that he had to master if he was truly to become the Master of the estate with its 73 slaves and 21 acres. It also meant that he could no longer “borrow” slaves to work on his own estate to the detriment of the earnings of Spencer’s. For every complaint that Elizabeth had about the fall of production or lack of profits from the estate, James had an answer – the war in Europe; sickness amongst the slaves; recent hurricane or storms; or plant diseases she had never heard of. If Elizabeth demanded an increase in her income James would offer to take off the burden of the estate by purchasing it from her or perhaps buy a particular slave at a price he knew she would refuse. She had lost her strength of body not the soundness of her mind.

❖❖❖❖

The boys awoke on 21^st July 1816 to terrible news from the Reece family, whose estate boundered on Spencer’s. Quaco brought the news that the night before Abraham Reece had been murdered at the hands of black assassins the night before. Abraham had borrowed a white mare from his neighbour Mr Allamby to visit his brothers in St.Thomas. Allamby was hated for his cruelty to his slaves and the savage part he had played in suppressing the rebellion. The men from his field gang had planned to assassinate him in a gulley in Christ Church.  Recognising the horse they had assumed that the rider was Allamby and they had stoned him to death as he entered the gulley, trapped with no means of escape. The first stone had struck the mare which had then reared up throwing Abraham deeper into the gulley. Stunned and bewildered he had tried to crawl up the steep slopes and out of the gulley. He cried for mercy; he cried to his God for deliverance; but neither calls were answered. As he lay in his agony the assassins hit him with sticks and then kicked him and finally crushed his skull. They stripped the body of all clothing and refinements. His body was not identifiable and at first even the constables assumed that the corpse was that of Allanby; for his horse had been trapped in the gulley along with her rider. It was only when Allamby arrived on foot at the Reece house in a foul temper to demand the return of his horse that the truth emerged.

All the boys’ fears were reignited but Quaco insisted that they would be safe enough if they travelled during the day and kept the house shuttered at night. It was a commonly held belief that the revolt had been against the harshness of the conditions in which the slaves were kept and forced to work and they were demanding improvements in their treatment rather than their freedom. That they did not intend to follow the actions of the Haitian rebels who had murdered any white man they had come across was not yet clearly understood. Indeed during the rebellion only three white men had died and they were killed in the fighting rather than in their beds. The Governor and the militia however, convinced themselves that the rebellion was meant to be wider than just to obtain the freedom of all slaves; they alleged that the intention had been to murder white men across the island and they went as far as naming the freed former slaves who were to take over the government of Barbados. They were all executed in that autumn.

❖❖❖❖❖

If the year had started in man made turmoil it ended with natural disaster. In the evening of 15^th September 1816, it blew a gale. On the 17^th a violent shock of an earthquake was experienced in Bridgetown. On 22^nd December 1816, shortly after midnight a shock threatened by its violence and continuous serious shaking further danger. Several dwellings, chiefly in Broad Street were damaged and the effects of the shock were felt over the island and aboard the shipping in Carlisle Bay. Henry and William flung open the green shutters under the Jalousies that covered their window the next morning feeling lucky to be alive. They looked across the fields in front of them and glimpsed the sparkling azure sea. Was this paradise or hell?

Life on the plantation