The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863, page 9 by Various Authors
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plot, the neat hibiscus hedges, with their gay red flowers, surrounding even the poorer huts, the small cane fields and coffee pieces noticeable at every turn, and the absence of loungers about the cottages, go to make up a very different picture from what has been drawn of Vere. It is plain, then, that the impressions which travellers bring away with them from Jamaica will vary almost to entire opposition, according to the quarters they have visited. Now what is the cause of these glaring contrasts? The negro character is remarkably uniform. If there are great differences among them, every one that knows them will ascribe it to a difference in circumstances. What is the difference then between Metcalfe and Vere? Simply this: Metcalfe is the home of small freeholders; Vere is a sugar parish, where the estates are in prosperous activity. It has been less affected by emancipation than any other parish. In Metcalfe the negroes are independent; in Vere they are completely subject to the planters. It is said that not even an ounce of sugar is permitted to be sold in the parish. All is for exportation. If the writer then attempts to vindicate the character of the blacks from the reproaches of incurable laziness and unthriftiness that have been cast upon it, he wishes it to be understood that he speaks only for the freeholders, who have homes of their own, which they have an inducement to improve and beautify, and who have land of their own which no dishonest motive prompts them to neglect, and for the estate laborers whose condition most nearly resembles theirs. If the blacks on many plantations are little disposed to adorn homes from which they may be ejected at any time; if they are discouraged from the minor industries essential to comfort, lest these should interfere with the grosser labor required of them; if they are kept idle out of crop time for fear they should not be available in crop time; if their mental improvement is discouraged by the planter instinct, unchanged in nature though circumscribed in scope;