The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 | Page 2

News. By Mrs. Mary E. Nealy, 255
Was He Successful? By Richard B. Kimball, 82, 346, 452, 670
West of the Mississippi, 56
We Two. By Clarence Butler, 591
Whiffs from My Meerschaum. By Lieut. R. A. Wolcott, 704
William Lilly, Astrologer. By H. Wilson, 379
Woman, 105
* * * * *

Number 19 25 Cents
THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.
DEVOTED TO
Literature and National Policy.
JULY, 1863.
NEW YORK: JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET (FOR THE
PROPRIETORS).
HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY. WASHINGTON, D.
C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.
CONTENTS.--No. XIX.
Emancipation in Jamaica. By Rev. C. C. Starbuck, 1
Abijah Witherpee's Retreat, 16
Reason, Rhyme and Rhythm. Compiled and written by Mrs. Martha
Walker Cook, 20
Mrs. Rabotham's Party. By L. V. F. Randolph, 33
Diary of Frances Krasinska, 42
Ladies' Loyal League. By Mrs. O. S. Baker, 51
West of the Mississippi, 56
The Cavalier Theory Refuted. By W. H. Whitmore, 60
The Early Arbutus. By Grace De la Veríte 72
The Third Year of the War. By Hon. Frederick P. Stanton, 73

Was He Successful? By Richard B. Kimball, 82
The Chicago (Illinois) and other Canals. By Hon. Robert J. Walker, 92
Woman, 105
Literary Notices, 114
Editor's Table, 118

This Number of the Continental contains an article by the Hon.
ROBERT J. WALKER, written from Ireland.
All communications, whether concerning MSS. or on business, should
be addressed to
JOHN F. TROW, Publisher, 50 GREENE STREET, NEW YORK.
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by JOHN
F. TROW, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.
JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER.
* * * * *

THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
VOL. IV.--JULY, 1863.--No. I.

EMANCIPATION IN JAMAICA.

The luminous summary of statistical facts published in the March
number of the Atlantic Monthly for 1862, has, in a few pages,
conclusively settled the question whether emancipation in the smaller
islands of the British West Indies has been a success or a failure. It
applies the standard of financial results, which, though the lowest, is
undoubtedly the best; for the defenders of slavery would hardly choose
its moral advantages as their strong position, and if its alleged
economical advantages turn out also an illusion, there is not much to be
said for it. Indeed, of late they have been growing shy of the smaller
islands, which furnish too many weapons for the other side, and too
few for their own; and have chosen rather to divert attention from these
by triumphant clamors about the forlorn condition of Jamaica. This
magnificent island, once the fairest possession of the British crown,
now almost a wilderness, has been the burden of their lamentations
over the fatal workings of emancipation. And truly if emancipation has
really done so much mischief in Jamaica as they claim, it is a most
damaging fact. Testimony of opposite results in the smaller islands
would hardly countervail it. Such testimony would be good to prove
that the freedom of the negro works well in densely peopled insular
communities, where the pressure of population compels industry. The
opponents of emancipation are willing sometimes to acknowledge that
where the laboring population are, as they say, in virtual slavery to the
planters, by the impossibility of obtaining land of their own, their
release from the degradation of being personally owned may act
favorably upon them. But they maintain that where the negro can easily
escape from the control of the planter, as in Jamaica, where plenty of
land is obtainable at low rates, his innate laziness is there invincible.
This very representation I remember to have seen a few years ago in a
Jamaica journal in the planting interest, which maintained that unless
the negroes of that island were also reduced to 'virtual slavery'--using
those very words--by an immense importation of foreign laborers, it
would be impossible to bring them to reasonable terms.
Now the condition of the South is like that of Jamaica, not like that of
the smaller islands. Were the Southern negroes emancipated, and
should they desert the plantations in a body, it is not likely that they
would starve. They could at least support themselves as well as the

white sandhillers, and probably better, considering their previous habits
of work. Besides, as in Jamaica, there would of course be many small
proprietors, who would be ruined by emancipation or before it, and
from whom the negroes could easily procure the few acres apiece that
would be required by the wants of their rude existence. Jamaica, then,
is far nearer a parallel to the South than most of the smaller islands, and
for this reason an inquiry into the true workings of emancipation there
is of prime interest and importance.