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540  DOUGLASS' MONTHLY.  October, 1861

WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION---CELEBRATION IN LEEDS, ENGLAND.

[From the Leeds Mercury, August 3d, 1861.]

The twenty-seventh anniversary of the emancipation of the slaves in our West Indian possessions was celebrated on Thursday evening, by a meeting held in the Music Hall, under the auspices of the Leeds Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society.  There was a crowded audience, and the proceedings derived their chief interest from the presence of several gentlemen of color, who were expected to address the meeting.  The Rev. Dr. Crofts was called upon to preside, and there were also present the Rev. A. Mursell, of Manchester ; the Rev. F. Edwards, B.A., Rev. N. Brown ; Mr. Councillor Carter, Mr. E. Morgan, Mr. Whiting, Mr. John Andrew, Jr., Mr. Pullan, Mr. George Flint, and Mr. James Walker, the hon. Secretaries ; Mr. W. H. Day, M.A., Rev. W. Troy, Rev. W. Mitchell, and Mr. R. M. Johnson, all colored gentlemen from America ; and a large number of ministers and delegates attending the Methodist Free Church Assembly, now being held in Leeds. After singing and prayer, 

The CHAIRMAN observed that they were met to commemorate one of the proudest days in British history–that of the emancipation of her slaves. (Applause.)  It was long their boast before that period that no slave could breathe in England, but alas ! there were thousands in our colonies who were held in the iron grasp of slavery, and who had to suffer all the giant evils connected with that hell-born system.  But England had wiped away the blot from her escutcheon, and it was now the duty of Englishmen to seek to free from thraldom every brother in the earth, be the color of his skin what it may.  (Hear, hear)  At the present moment there were four millions of human beings enduring the vilest system of slavery that the world ever saw.  Americans boasted of their Christianity, but what kind of Christianity was that which could hold these human beings in bondage ?  He had no faith in the present struggle in America.  Some people thought that the Northern States were fighting against the South to put down slavery.  This was not the case, but he trusted that something would turn up by which the slaves would obtain their liberty. (Cheers.)  The Chairman adverted to his own experience in Canada, where he had himself seen the horrors of slavery, and briefly explained the object of the visit of the gentlemen of color to his country.

Mr. W. H. Day, M.A., of Chatham, Canada West, (President of the General Board of Commissioners of the colored people, who sent out the Niger Valley exploring expedition,) was then introduced, and delivered an address characterized by great power and eloquence.  After some introductory remarks, he said he loved to go back to the time when the 800,000 slaves in the West Indies were emancipated ; just twenty-seven years ago they received this boon of liberty.  They were told that, gathering gin their houses for prayer, they erected their Ebenezers to God for their deliverance, and in solemn silence for the few moments before twelve o'clock they thanked Him for the blessing of liberty that was to descend upon them.  There were those who asked why they held such a celebration as that ?  First, he replied, because the work done on the 1st of August, 1834 was for apex, the crowning point, of the efforts for the abolition of slavery in those countries which were under British rule.  It was not the first time that England had stepped forward and given liberty to the slave, for so far back as 1772 it was decided by Lord Mansfield that the law of this country was so incompatible with slavery that is a man brought his slave, here, though only for a temporary purpose, that slave was entitled to his liberty.  The result of the movement in opposition to this evil was gradually developed, first in the abolition of the slave trade, which had a quasi recognition by the law, and then in the year 1834, by the 800,000 slaves in the West Indies being converted from things into free men, women and children. (Cheers.)  And what had this accomplished ?  He answered briefly–if it were not sufficient to have made these 800,000 into men–that the people, as the result, had wonderfully improved in morals–and if no other result had followed the act of England, that would be sufficient to compensate for the labor expended upon it.  But, more than that, crime had wonderfully diminished in every one of the islands–and, thirdly, the social condition of the inhabitants had immensely improved.  Marriages were common now, whereas before they were uncommon ; indeed, slavery practically denied the right of a slave to marry ; it struck down all the relationships of marriage, and erected in its stead simply and solely the will of the master. 

With regard to the material prosperity of the country, all properties were now cultivated at a lower cost than under slavery.  (Hear, hear.)  Slavery was not merely an impoverishing, but a costly institution, and in Jamaica it was peculiarly costly, because the owners generally lived away from their property, and in their stead overseers, headmen, and others, had to be employed, and paid before they came to the ordinary laborers, and this of course rendered cultivation more costly and the profits less.  Now, however, the state of things had changed, and they were justified in saying that properties, which were losing matters before, were being cultivated profitably and at less expense than under slavery.  It might not be known that slavery was not so impoverishing that everywhere it cursed the soil upon which it was found.  He had stood on the borders of the Ohio river, and looked over into the slave land of Kentucky ; he had seen the slaves driven from morning to night by the lash of the overseer, and in connection with this he saw the bare brown fields, altho' the labor was demanded at the price of the blood of the victim ; but as he turned round he found on the free side of the river even the rock covered with vineyards, reminding him of the south of France.  (Cheers.)  And why, except that one was the land of slavery and the other of liberty ?  (Hear, hear.)  Take Arkansas and Michigan–one a slave and the other a free State–both admitted into the Union in the same year.  How was it that in the race for supremacy Michigan, the free State, had outstripped Arkansas, the slave State ? In Virginia too, where slavery existed, land sold at four dollars an acre, but in Pennsylvania, only divided from it by an imaginary line, free land sold for fifty dollars an acre.  What was his argument ?–that slavery impoverished the soil–(hear, hear)–and it did seem as if God had written it with His own almighty hand that the blood of the slave should be a blast to the soil, and that the slave's tramp should tread out the earth's vitality. (Hear.)

There was another great and important thing which had been accomplished ; freedom had stepped in and stopped the overwhelming loss of human life.  Slavery not merely impoverished the land, but it worked up the men, women, and children.  In Saint Ann's, in 1817, the number of slaves returned was 347,230, but in 1838, when freedom really commenced (the four years of apprenticeship which began in 1834, having then terminated) there were only 310,368, or a decrease in the twenty-one years before freedom of 36,862 human beings, instead of an increase, as there ought to have been, of 100,000.  Freedom stepped in and stopped that enormous decrease of human life–(applause)–and now they found the people increasing in proportion and in numbers more and more every year, just as they were progressing in other respects.  He felt, therefore, that they had a right to meet to celebrate the great work which was accomplished twenty-seven years ago.  Not only for this purpose did they meet, but in the hope, if possible, of interesting their hearts in the welfare of the four millions of human beings, who were now suffering in the United States all the horrors and cruelties of the crowning despotism the world ever saw; and also to obtain their sympathy in their efforts to break down the slave system in America.  (Cheers.)

Mr. Day detailed at some length the indignities which were suffered by the colored population even in the free States ; and after an eloquent denunciation of the cruelties of slavery, he said the question was, how were they to reach the system ?  They proposed to  do so by means of the free fugitive slaves, and he would tell them briefly how.  Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Troy, one at Toronto, and the other at Windsor, were engaged preaching the Gospel, and also in supplying the bodily wants of those who escaped from slavery ;–and Mr. Johnson expected to be a medical missionary amongst the same people.  They were now trying, by means of schools, chapels, the printing press, &c., to lift up these fugitive slaves, 50,000 of whom had gone into Canada.  From them they hoped to obtain a sufficient number of pioneers, who, with the lamp of liberty and the light of God's Gospel, should go into Africa, the land of their fathers, and through the cotton, and palm oil, and dyewoods of that country lift up the African continent, and in a few years produce a supply of cotton to set off against the America slave-grown cotton.  They had sent Commissioners into Africa–colored men–who had been warmly received.  They had made a treaty with the kings and chiefs of Abbeokuta and the neighboring country for the land they required.  They found a cotton country ten times as large in extent as that of the United States.  (Hear, hear.)  They also found that two crops could be grown yearly, instead of one ; and that the plant required setting only once every seven years, instead of, as in the United States, every year.  They also found a very industrious people, who did not require the lash to induce them to labor.  Their Commissioners, moreover, found thirty-five miles of corn fields, stretching beyond like their grand western prairies, and showing the unbounded industry of the population.– If they were thus enable to create another cotton market, the price of cotton must come down ; and if they were enabled to reduce it, say 1d. per lb., the slave-owners would be unable profitably to cultivate it.  This was their plan ; it might appear a long way round, but he believed it practicable, and, if carried out, would strike a fatal blow at the existence of slavery.  (Applause.)  Mr. Day concluded by proposing the following resolution :

That this meeting, while commemorating the abolition of slavery in our West Indian Colonies, desires to express its conviction that this great experiment was a wise and righteous act–as the present improved condition and the cheering prospects of our West Indian possessions most fully and satisfactorily show–and would urge the consideration of this great fact upon those countries where slavery still exists, inasmuch as it furnishes a powerful and conclusive argument in favor of emancipation.

Rev. A. Mursell seconded the resolution, expressing briefly his deep sympathy in the cause of emancipation, and his condemnation of those who, by their conduct and conversation, even in free England, appeared to countenance the horrors of slavery.  He stated that Mr. Troy had intended to come to England by the Cunard line of steamers, but learning that he would be unable to dine with the white passengers, he refused to submit to the indignity, and made the voyage by a Scotch line of steamers, which knew no distinction between black and white.  (Cheers.)

Mr. R. M. JOHNSON, at present at the Edinburgh University, but who was expelled from the medical College of the States in consequence of his color, supported the resolution, but confined his remarks to a comparison of the advantages enjoyed under the British constitution over a republican form of Government.  (Applause).

The resolution having be carried,

The REV. W. MITCHELL, a colored minister to the fugitive slaves in Toronto, moved

That the destitute condition of the fugitive slaves who are constantly reaching Canada demands the sympathy and help of all the friends of freedom; and this meeting would especially 

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