Not yet Freedom 1830-1842

This year the world marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition on slavery. This momentous occasion in the life of humanity had great implications for our little community, for our society to evolve from slavery. This article, which tells the story of Seychelles at that time, is taken from the book “Hard Time In Pardise” by former journalist William McAteer, published by Pristine. The book is on sale at Antigone Bookshop situated in the Victoria House Arcade.

William McAteer, author of "Hard Times in Paradise".

Not yet Freedom 1830-1842

On 1st February 1835, eighteen months after the passing of the Emancipation Act, slavery was formally abolished in Mauritius. Five days later, Chief Secretary George Dick wrote to Harrison instructing him to inform the slaves of Seychelles, “in the most impressive manner possible”, that they were slaves no longer.

The apparent lack of urgency in implementing the Act matched the modest benefits it actually conferred on the servile population. The manumitted slaves, except for those under seven and over sixty years of age, were now apprentices for the next seven years, legally bound to work for their masters as before. If anything, they were expected to work with even greater willingness, for the Act declared itself in favour of “promoting the Industry of the Manumitted Slaves”.

Arguing in favour of this “industry of freedom”, The Times newspaper pointed out that it was not labour “wrung from the negro by the outrage of corporal punishment, capriciously inflicted on him by the master, but … secured to the master by the control of the law, in like manner as the industry of the labourer in this county who thinks fit to bind himself for a specific period”. Such, indeed, was the intention, although it soon became apparent that apprenticeship in the former slave colonies was a very different thing from what one understood by that term in England. By an Order in Council it was stipulated that praedial apprentices, or those attached to a plantation, and for the most part field hands, would work for seven and a half hours a day, six days a week, with Sundays and holidays free. Those relatively liberal hours were to allow the apprentice time to earn money by working additional hours, or to grow his own crops.

Masters were not required to pay wages, but they had to provide housing, clothing, and food, or, in the absence of the latter, a plot of ground to grow crops. Apprentices who worked extra hours were entitled to receive payment of a shilling an hour. If their master failed to pay them, his goods could be attached. The authorities hoped that, eventually, apprentices would save enough money to buy their freedom. Although the payments were small, some of the more industrious were able to achieve this. According to the slave code of behaviour it was more creditable to buy one’s freedom than to have it granted and woman particularly sought liberty this way. They would often show off their shoes as a sign of freedom, for neither slaves nor apprentices wore shoes.

Slave-owners naturally were bitter at the loss of their human property, but the compulsory apprenticeship scheme and Britain’s agreement to pay generous compensation softened the blow. Compensation varied from colony to colony, but in general a slave-owner could be expected to receive 40 per cent of the declared value of his or her slaves. Harrison had been directed in June 1834 to start collecting evidence from slave sales and transfers to assist the four appraisers to be sent to Seychelles the following June to determine how much each slave was worth. Because slaves had always fetched higher prices in Mauritius, several of the Seychelles slave-owners petitioned the government to evaluate their slaves according to the Mauritius scale, but the Commissioner of Compensation rejected this notion. Records show that slaves in Seychelles were valued at between £80 and £120, and in the final reckoning an average of £30 per slave was paid in both Mauritius and Seychelles, amounting in all to just under £2mn. Planters in the West Indian colonies, owning several hundred thousand slaves compared to Mauritius’s 67,000, received about £18mn, not as much as they had hoped for, but a good deal more than some MPs would have given them.

Most abolitionists were opposed to masters retaining the services of their former slaves for seven years (the original proposal before Parliament had been twelve years), but it is difficult to see how the slaves could have been liberated immediately without causing massive hardship and upheaval in the colonies. It has always been recognized that a master freeing a slave should provide him or her with the means of survival: setting him up in a trade, for example, or with a plot of land or pension; sometimes even with a slave of his own. Of course, if they get away with it, many masters would have readily rid themselves of a slave no longer able to work because of age of infirmity, or too troublesome, and thus difficult to sell.

Special magistrates were appointed to regulate the apprenticeship scheme, but they were often intimidated by the planters. In Seychelles Wilson, the Protector of Slaves, was appointed a magistrate in January 1835. While the law he had to enforce prescribed light penalties for erring masters, apprentices who broke the rules could find themselves in prison, or even seized up for a flogging. Indolence of carelessness meant an additional fifteen hours of labour. Absence from work for seven and a half hours in any week amounted to desertion, and resulted in a term of imprisonment. If an apprentice was absent for two whole days he or she was officially declared a vagabond, and liable to be jailed for two weeks, with fifteen strokes of the cane; if away for six days the absentee became a runaway, and faced a possible penalty of a month’s jail and thirty lashes.

As in the days of slavery, no apprentices were permitted in town after dark. At Harrison’s request, Mauritius agreed to send a small gun to signal nightfall so that the apprentices would not “compromise themselves”. Several settlers, among them Huteau (who had the concession of Aldabra), wanted to place apprentices on outlying islands. The Governor agreed, but only if it was clearly in the apprentices interest. That this was not always the case is evidenced by the Governor’s refusal to permit one settler, named Albert, to transfer apprentices to certain outlying island for fishing.

As the years passed, concern in Britain that apprenticeship was simply prolonging the reality of slavery appeared increasingly well- founded. In Parliament MPs reminded Ministers of their pledge that the working conditions for apprentices would be no worse than those of a British labourer, whereas reports reaching London indicated the contrary. The government was also reminded of its promise that if masters flouted the law apprenticeship would be abolished. Government spokesmen at first claimed that cruelty was the exception, but this had little impact at the public meetings held all over England to discuss the issue. The fact that slaves were still being shipped illegally from Africa was an additional aggravation. The trade “flourishes to a most fearful extent,” noted The Times of 11 January 1836. In that year Portugal finally prohibited the export of slaves from any of its dominions (it was the last European power to do so), but according to The Times many states, even those that supported anti-slaving legislation, still engaged in it.

France had not yet abolished slavery in its colonies (this did not occur until the Revolution of 1848, which ushered in the Second Republic). The Anglo-French agreement of 1831 had given both countries mutual right of search and seizure of suspect ships, but because of French susceptibilities it was too limited to be effective, and slave captains frequently used the French flag to run slaves into Bourbon, where there was a continuing demand for labour on the sugar plantations. Because of increasing difficulties in shipping slaves from Africa some Bourbon planters cast their eyes towards India, from where they could bring in coolies under contract. These workers, from Pondicherry and Karikal, were slaves in all but name. Mauritius also considered recruiting labour from India as it became clear that the apprenticeship scheme was unlikely to last the full seven years. Increasing desertions and more frequent purchases of freedom, as well as the mounting opposition in Britain to apprenticeship, were warning signs to the planters. Local ordinances were drawn up in 1836 and 1839 to fix the terms for importing Indian labour, but both were disallowed by the Secretary of State, Lord Glenelg, who described them as “in some material respects even less equitable than that of slavery itself”.

In the West Indies, Bermuda and Antigua had set an example by declaring all slaves free immediately. Now, with almost two years of the apprenticeship scheme still to run, the other colonies were being pressured to move to complete freedom. In April 1838, with Jamaica on the point of liberating its apprentices, Glenelg sent Mauritius two dispatches urging the Indian Ocean colony to do the same. These were considered by the Mauritius Council of Government and rejected. In October, two months after apprenticeship ended in Jamaica, Glenelg tried again. Again he was rebuffed.

The following month, and Order in Council was issued by London empowering the Governor to proclaim that apprentices living in Mauritius were, as from 1 February 1839, “absolutely free and discharged of and from the then remaining term of their apprenticeship”. Domestic apprentices were to be freed first, praedials attaining full liberty on 31 March. This news sent shivers of apprehension through the island. Everyone knew that in the wake of freedom came riots and disorder. As one American in Mauritius observed, “all large bodies of men, when all restraint is suddenly withdrawn…. Launch into violent excesses”. Some of those fears were to be realized, when the streets of Port Louis swarmed with apprentices celebrating their freedom, “much to the annoyance to the more quietly disposed population”.

In Seychelles, the approach of Liberation Day had been viewed with equal concern, especially as there were now no British troops on Mahe, the last detachment having been withdrawn because of indiscipline. Instead, the police had been armed with sabers and light muskets. Nevertheless, a group of inhabitants petitioned the Governor to bring the soldiers back. Reluctantly he agreed, stipulating only that the people would have to meet the cost of repairing the barracks. The troops arrived in January 1839, the detachment being provided by the 35th (Royal Sussex) Regiment. The barracks were not yet ready, but Wilson (who by then had succeeded Harrison as Government Agent) was able to quarter the troops in buildings known as the Etablissement Dugand. As it turned out, there was no need for military presence, the Seychelles apprentices, to the “sincere gratification” of the Governor, celebrating their liberation in “a joyful but restrained manner”. With nothing to detain them, the soldiers of the Royal Sussex returned to Mauritius. It was the last time British troops would be stationed in Seychelles until the outbreak of World War II.

After the festivities it had been hoped that the former apprentices would return voluntarily to work. It was not to be. In Mauritius about 5,000 signed one-year contracts, probably because they did not fully understand that they were free, but 1841 none was working in the cane fields. The planters had prepared for this, and already 20,000 labourers from India had arrived, with more on the way. It was the start of a migration from the Indian sub-continent that would change totally the demographic face of the island.

In Seychelles the freed apprentices also abandoned their work places. Why should they labour for the pittance that was offered to them, when they could work for themselves, at their own pace? Their preference was a few days’ labouring hard, to earn just enough to live in idleness for the rest of the month. Many were allowed to squat on their former master’s land, others went off into the mountains, or became fishermen, small traders, or artisans. “They live poorly, and content themselves with little, because they prefer that mode of life which requires the least amount of regular labour.” So stated a report by Mauritius to the Secretary of state, but it could equally well have referred to the former apprentices in Seychelles.

Although the ending of forced labour is sometimes perceived as the cause of Seychelles’ economic decline, that had begun a decade earlier with the collapse of the cotton market. Sugar’s early promise failed to overcome the Mauritian stranglehold on Seychelles exports and, as Harrison had forecast in 1830, “a loss of revenue, non-payment of taxed and general despondency … will be the result”. Many estates were abandoned and the settlers, with their slaves, moved away. During the decade from 1830, the population of the island fell by half, from 8,500 to 4,360, and not surprisingly Seychelles became a “miserable place” for ships calling for refreshment. A little rice was grown, but there were few sheep, fowls, or pigs. Only fish, and the maize that grew plentifully on Silhouette, Marianne, and some of the Amirante island, kept Mahe from starving.

Captain Edward Belcher of HMS sulphur, who visited Mahe in February 1842, found that business had completely stagnated. Money was scarce, bill were not negotiated, and “we even experienced difficulty in arranging for the few supplies obtained”. He attributed lack of labour to the settlers’inability or reluctance to pay, for they “cannot make their minds up to swallow the bitter pill of paying those whose services they still maintain they are entitled”. He saw little likelihood of “this heavy cloud” dispersing. “Unless some speculative characters drop in with their spare thousands, it is very evident that this beautiful and very capable group [of island] will fall into insignificance”. Like their counterparts in Mauritius, the Seychelles settlers had thought of recruiting labour from India, but all request to do so were turned down. The Indian government alarmed at the atrocious conditions experienced by emigrant workers going to Mauritius, had halted the traffic, and it was not until 1842 that it was resumed, under much closer supervision. In contrast to Mauritius, Seychelles began to move towards the cultivation of less labour-intensive crops, and by the early 1840s coconut oil had become the main export. Years later, it was noted that “never since then has Seychelles been able to provide enough food to feed itself.