the least surprised. If we were told that the freed men
would not work on the old estates,--that the products were falling
off,--that the emancipated slaves were not willing to work at all,--that
they were idle, and were growing constantly more ignorant and corrupt in
morals, and useless to the world,--we should sigh, but say,--"It is the
natural retribution for injustice. These are the harvests of slavery."

But if--contrary to our expectation--the results of this emancipation
were entirely different: if the freed man produced more than the
slave,--if he was more industrious, more active, more laborious and
self-dependent,--if he even labored for his former master for hire,--if
the latter confessed that the hire of the free man was cheaper than the
ownership of the slave,--if tables of export and import showed that he
added far more to the wealth of the world than ever before,--if the
increasing price of land proved the efficiency of his industry,--if
independent freeholds were created in large numbers since
emancipation,--if additional churches and schools made evident the
improvement of character and the desire of advancement: we should be
obliged to say that there was but one explanation of this most happy and
unexpected improvement, namely,--that the human soul, by virtue of its
very nature and capacities, is somehow adapted to freedom, so that the
most imbruted and degraded is better and more useful, when he cares and
labors for himself, than when another utterly controls him.

_That the negro will not work, unless he is forced to_, is the
strong and almost invincible objection in the minds of multitudes of
persons to emancipation.

What, then, are the facts bearing on this important point? We propose,
under the guidance of candid observers and travellers, such as
Schomburg, Breen, Cochin, Burnley, and, best of all, Sewell, briefly to
examine a field where the experiment has been fairly tried, namely, the
smaller islands of the British West Indies. A full examination of the
larger island, Jamaica,--would of itself demand an entire article, or
even a volume.

The remark is often repeated by West Indian travellers, that no sweeping
conclusions on economical points can ever be true of the West Indies as
a whole,--that each island is distinct from the others, and to be judged
on principles which apply to itself alone. This important fact must be
borne in mind by the reader, in examining the question of the results