De la protection accordée aux esclaves contre les violences ou les cruautés de leurs maîtres, par le

CHAP. 20: > On the protection granted to slaves against the violence or cruelty of their masters, by the governments of the mother countries.

When most of the European governments authorized their subjects to place living human beings among their merchandise, and thus classified men, children, and women in the rank of things, they foresaw, no doubt, a portion of the violence and crimes that would result from this new regime: in order to reassure their consciences in this regard, several tried to draw limits to the power of masters over their slaves; some left to the colonial authorities, composed of masters, the care of limiting their own power themselves.

It has often happened that one has judged the morals of the masters and the lot of the slaves by the regulations intended to limit the power and determine the duties of the former with regard to the latter: in this case, as in many others, descriptions have been taken for realities, and words for powers. I have shown, in the preceding chapters, that the lot of the slaves depends above all on the kind of occupation to which they are employed, on the proportion that exists between the number of free individuals and the number of enslaved individuals, and on the action that the nations among which slavery is abolished exercise on those among which it still exists. I have also shown that there is little violence or cruelty from which a master abstains for fear of fines or punishments, whenever he is not restrained by his moral character or by the forces that act immediately upon him. From these facts, one can draw the conclusion that, if the regulations sent by the governments of Europe to their colonies do not arrive accompanied by a power more energetic and more active than that of the masters, they have no influence on their morals, nor on the lot of the slaves.

There are few travelers, in fact, who have not observed the inefficacy, and one can even say the complete nullity of these regulations. The Dutch government had forbidden, under penalty of a fine, the murder or assassination of slaves in all its colonies: we have seen, however, that at the Cape of Good Hope and at Surinam, a master who murders his slave incurs no penalty, and that, if he murders the slave of another, his only penalty is to pay his value; in these colonies, the very magistrates who make regulations for the protection of the enslaved population are the first to violate them [382].

In the English colonies, the regulations made by the local authorities or by the government of the mother country have not much more force, whenever their purpose is to moderate the action that the masters exercise over their slaves; the inefficacy of these regulations is a continual subject of complaint for the members of the societies that have been formed for the protection and emancipation of the slaves [383].

In Louisiana, regulations of this nature have had no more effect; not only have they not sheltered the slaves from arbitrary punishments, but they have not even guaranteed them the food or clothing that had been judged to be their due [384].

The Spanish colonies, which were those where the government of the mother country had done the most for the protection of the slaves, have experienced no advantage from the regulations that have been given to them; the men who have most admired these regulations in theory have recognized that in practice they have been without effect [385].

If one should be surprised at anything here, it would not be at the inefficacy of the regulations sent to the possessors of slaves by the governments of the mother countries, it would be at the confidence that these regulations have inspired in those who made or solicited them. A law, as I have already said, is only power; it is a force that subjugates opposing forces; but a government does not multiply power according to its desires; it does not dispatch it by letter, as a merchant dispatches an invoice or samples of merchandise. It can send orders everywhere, but for these orders to be executed, the agents to whom it entrusts their execution must have the desire to have them executed; it is also necessary that these agents not encounter an opposing power that is more energetic and more persevering than their own.

When a population is divided into two fractions, and the larger is considered the property of the smaller, it is not possible to set limits to the power of the latter over the former, unless one destroys the principle that was its basis. In the system of slavery, as in the system of property, one begins by establishing that the master can do with his slave or his thing whatever is not forbidden to him by the laws. Having laid down this maxim, one tries to give some limits to the absolute power that one has established or whose existence one has recognized: one fixes, for example, the number of whip blows that it will be permissible to give to the slave for each offense; one determines the ration of food that must be granted to him, and the days of rest he must enjoy. But, as such a regulation is always terminated by the expressed or implied clause that whatever is not forbidden to the master is permitted to him, the domain of the arbitrary remains so vast that the limits that have been placed on it produce no good: the possessor of men inflicts in one form the punishment that was forbidden to him in another. A few examples will better illustrate how illusory these supposed boundaries placed on the power of masters are.

The English government has limited to twenty-five the number of whip blows that a master can inflict on a slave in a given time; but it has determined neither the nature of the offenses for which this penalty would be inflicted, nor the mode of conviction, nor the dimensions of the whip, nor the force of the arm that would inflict the punishment. A master can therefore, without going beyond the terms of the regulation, indulge in appalling cruelties toward each of his slaves; for, twenty-five carter's whip blows, applied by a vigorous arm to a weak child, a convalescing invalid, or a pregnant woman, are more than enough to kill them; the same torment inflicted on the strongest man and repeated as often as the regulation permits, can make life so unbearable that death is considered a blessing. This punishment, moreover, does not exclude all the others; the brutality of a possessor of men can manifest itself in a thousand ways: it can be exercised by threats, by insults, by blows, by excessive labor, by imprisonment in dungeons, and by a multitude of other means.Even if it were possible to mathematically calculate the force of the whip blows a master can inflict upon a slave in a given time, one would fall into a very grave error by imagining that cruelty consists merely in the intensity of the punishment, considered in itself. What makes a punishment just or cruel, moderate or atrocious, is less the force of the chastisement than the proportion between the punishment and the nature of the offense; it is the justice or injustice of the punishment inflicted. If a master gives twenty-five lashes to a slave guilty of cruelty toward a fellow slave, the punishment may be considered moderate. If he inflicts the same chastisement for a slight negligence, the punishment will be severe. If he inflicts it upon a convalescent who has worked according to his strength, but not according to his owner's desires, the punishment will be cruel. Finally, it will be a revolting atrocity if it is inflicted upon a slave for having fulfilled a duty; if it is inflicted, for example, on a mother who has stopped her work to help her child, or on a young girl for not having submitted to prostitution, or on a father for having tried to protect his daughter or his wife.

The obligation to have the punishment carried out in the presence of a free man, and to draw up an official record of it, is no guarantee either: since the master has the choice of witness and can insert whatever motive he pleases to assign to his vengeance in his official record, one can have no certainty about the number of lashes that were inflicted, nor about the reasons for which they were given.

Fixing the amounts of food and clothing to be distributed to the slaves is not much more profitable to them than fixing the number of lashes. Age, sex, health, sickness, and the kind of work performed singularly modify the need one has for food. Moreover, it is not enough to determine the quantity; it would also be necessary to fix the quality. A master who had taken an antipathy to some of his slaves, or who wished to be rid of them because they were no longer of any use to him, could give them such food that in a short time he would lead them to the grave.

But what renders the regulations sent by the mother countries to their colonies, and even those made by the colonial authorities, especially ineffective is the impossibility of ensuring their execution.

For orders or prohibitions to be observed, the individuals to whom they are addressed must be disposed to submit to them voluntarily—that is, they must have ideas and passions that conform to the passions and ideas of those by whom the prohibitions were made or the orders were given; or else, the authors of these orders or prohibitions must have the means to convict and punish the infractors. If the execution of orders that European governments issue to their European subjects meets with few obstacles, it is first because these orders are generally in conformity with the views of a more or less considerable part of the population; second, because there exist, throughout the entire territory, numerous judicial, administrative, and military agents; and finally, because it is easy to find witnesses to convict the infractors, accusers to prosecute them, judges to condemn them, and forces to punish them.

None of these circumstances is present when it comes to executing the ordinances sent by the governments of the mother countries to the possessors of men in the colonies. There is no identity of sentiment or thought between the one and the other. The masters, having given assets over which they had an incontestable and absolute power in exchange for persons called slaves, claim to exercise over these persons the same power they had over the things by means of which they acquired them. They therefore consider as attacks on their property all the limits that governments aspire to place on their power over the enslaved population, and they feel disposed to resistance, just as we ourselves would be if an attempt were made to strip us of our property. A European governor who arrives in a colony, having in his portfolio a copy of an ordinance intended to protect the slaves, suddenly finds himself surrounded by a population that has, on every point, views and sentiments opposed to the orders he has received. He may have been accompanied by a small number of officers intended to second the execution of these orders; but when these officers have been placed in the parts of the territory where they are to command, each will find himself surrounded by men disposed to resist their designs, to elude them, or at least to do nothing to facilitate their execution. If these envoys are faithful to their duties, they will have the entire race of masters for their enemies, and the goodwill of the slave population will be no compensation for them; they will have to remain sequestered in their homes, and consequently be ignorant of what is happening in the colony. If, on the contrary, they form ties with the possessors of men, their stay among them may become lucrative and pleasant; but then they will have to close their eyes to the violence of which the slaves will be the object.

Let us suppose, however, that an officer sent to a colony remains unshakable in his duties; how will he succeed in having his orders executed? How will he have those masters who do not conform to them punished? How will he know what is happening in the middle of each plantation? The slaves will come to complain, it will be said; but will they have the courage? Will not the degree of arbitrary power that every master can wield be sufficient to frighten the slaves and condemn them to silence? A master can, without incurring any penalty, have twenty-five carter's whip blows given to a slave. Suppose that, finding the punishment too light for the offense he wishes to punish, he has fifty given; will the chastised slave go and complain? He could, no doubt; but after having received fifty lashes for his offense, he will receive three hundred for his denunciation; only, the master will take care, to protect himself from any new denunciation, to distribute them in such a way that they cannot give rise to any complaint; he will give twenty-five, twelve times over. If, after such an experience, the slaves continue to complain that the regulations have not been observed, one must believe that slavery imparts particular virtues, unknown to free men.

I will grant, however, that the degree of arbitrary power left in the hands of the masters, however immense it may be, will not suffice to intimidate the slaves against whom the regulations have been violated. In this supposition, the magistrates sent to the colonies will know of the offenses of the possessors of men against the men possessed; but how will they convict the guilty? Where will they find witnesses? In no colony is the testimony of slaves accepted in court; in some, it has even been refused to accept, against whites, the testimony of free persons who counted among their ancestors some individual of African origin. But, on their plantations, the masters or their agents are surrounded only by slaves; it is slaves who lead the workers into the fields with whips; it is slaves who perform the office of executioners, and sometimes even of surgeons. There will therefore be no way to repress the violence committed by the masters, since there will be no way to convict them of it. One cannot count on the testimony of individuals of purely European origin, first because the punishments are carried out only in the presence of slaves, and second, because the possessors of men are so much in league with one another against the individuals of the slave race that one cannot hope they will ever cooperate in convicting each other.

The men who, in England, are fighting to bring about the gradual abolition of slavery, have understood very well that no progress is to be hoped for as long as there is no way to convict and condemn the possessors of men who abuse their power over the persons possessed to an excess; they have even succeeded in making their government share their conviction. Orders have consequently been dispatched to the governors of the principal colonies, that they should propose to the colonial assemblies to declare slaves capable of bearing witness in court, even against their masters. This proposal has been rejected almost unanimously; the masters have thus placed the colonial magistrates in the impossibility of ever convicting them, and of protecting the slave population.

One cannot doubt either the good intentions of the men who proposed to admit slaves to bear witness in court, or the designs of the men by whom this proposal was rejected; but what one can reasonably doubt is the efficacy of the proposed measure. Slaves, having extremely limited minds, are naturally improvident; it is therefore probable that the first among them who would have been called to court as witnesses would have told the truth, if the masters had sought neither to corrupt them with promises nor to intimidate them with threats. But, having returned to their plantations, the rewards given to false witnesses and the lashes dealt to truthful ones would soon have taught everyone that, for a slave, good and evil are nothing more than what pleases or displeases his owner. The very individual who had consented to expose himself to the hatred and vengeance of his master to make the truth known would not have wanted to expose his children and his wife to it. He would have feared that, by showing himself insensitive to his own suffering, his master would be provoked to punish him by harming those he loves, either by imposing deprivations or labors beyond their strength, or by inflicting unmerited punishments, or by selling them to another master.

To admit persons as witnesses, one must make it their duty to tell the truth, and guarantee that the fulfillment of this duty will not be followed by any penalty; one must furthermore make lying a crime for them, and threaten with more or less severe penalties the individuals who are guilty of this crime. But all these rules, without which no justice would be possible, would be overturned for the slave: for him, the crime would be to tell the truth, for it is the truth that would bring terrible punishments upon him; the duty would be to lie, for it is the lie alone that would be without danger, or that would be followed by a reward. When a government establishes or sanctions slavery, it declares, by this single fact, that the desires and the force of the masters will be the laws of the slaves, and that, consequently, the duty of the latter will be to conform to these desires or to this force. If the same government then wants to impose duties on the enslaved men, if it wants to subject them to other laws, it can do so only by revoking the first; it must place the slaves beyond the reach of any force that would place them in the impossibility of fulfilling the new duties it imposes on them.

But to declare, on the one hand, that the will of the master is the law of the slave, and to subject, on the other hand, the slave to rules or duties that are not the will of the master, is not only to contradict oneself, it is to prepare the slaves for liberty by habituating them to lying and to perjury. Indeed, when two laws or two powers are in direct opposition, the one whose action is the most continuous, the most extensive, and the strongest, soon paralyzes the other. Now, it is evident that the will of the master is for the slave a more continuous, more extensive, and even stronger power than the desires or the will of the public authority. It is more continuous, since it is exercised without respite. It is more extensive, since it reaches the slave in every part of his being and strikes him even through those he holds most dear. It is stronger, since it can make him consider death a blessing. The will of the master is for the slave a law so powerful that it suffices to paralyze all others, those of religion, those of morality, and those of governments.

Peoples of antiquity sometimes felt the necessity of having slaves appear in court as witnesses; but then they took measures to render the will of the masters ineffective. Most often, they subjected the slaves to torture, thus destroying by an energetic and present pain the effects that the fear of a future punishment could produce. Sometimes also they freed the slaves, before imposing on them the duties that the laws prescribe for witnesses. They understood very well that before subjecting men to social laws, it was necessary to remove them from the laws that subjected them to the will of the masters.

Even if the testimony of slaves were admitted, and if it were possible to have some confidence in it, the masters would find in their position, and in the degree of arbitrary power that would be left to them, sufficient means to ensure their impunity. Not all magistrates charged with the prosecution and punishment of offenses can be sent by the government of the mother country. A part must therefore be taken from among the possessors of men, and it is enough that power be given to a few for those to ensure the impunity of all the others.

Finally, a master having the power to lead any of his slaves to any place he deems suitable, having the power to send all others away and to choose the place and time of his vengeance, nothing is easier for him than to get rid of witnesses. If, among us, malefactors thus had the faculty to lure their victims to the places most propitious for the execution of their plans, if they could at the same time choose the most favorable moment for the execution, is it conceivable that it would be easy to convict them, even if our laws on judicial procedure remained as they are? Is it conceivable that crimes would not multiply in a frightening manner, without it being possible, nevertheless, to convict the criminals? The colonists of Surinam who want to be rid of a slave, lure him out to hunt; when they have reached the middle of a forest, they shoot him; then they go and declare that their slave died by accident.

Thus, when a learned observer attests that civil authority is powerless in all that regards domestic slavery, and that nothing is more illusory than the vaunted effect of those laws that prescribe the form of the whip and the number of blows it is permissible to give at a time, not only is one convinced of the truth of this observation by the facts he reports, but one cannot conceive how it could be otherwise [386].