Kusaimamekirai’s Reviews > Journal of a West India Proprietor: Kept during a Residence in the Island of Jamaica > Status Update

“I have now passed three weeks with my negroes...yet not one man or woman has come to me with a single complaint. On the contrary, all my enquiries have been answered by an assurance that during the two years of my absence my regulations were adhered to most implicitly, and that ‘except for the pleasure of seeing massa’ there was no more difference in treatment than if I had remained on the estate”
Please...

Have to chuckle that no matter how many small rewards Lewis gives his slaves in attempt to get them to work, they still run away, lie, steal, and malinger, all while playing to his vanity by telling him how much they love him. Lewis, like most white men of his day, couldn’t fathom that above all else their slaves resented them and would avoid forced labor by any means necessary

“Mackaroo has not only run away himself, but has carried his wife away with him. This is improving upon the profligacy of British manners with a vengeance. In England, a man only runs away with another person’s wife: but to run away with his own-what depravity!”
Ha!

Much as I don’t care for Mr. Lewis, I have to say that the black men and women on his plantation are definitely growing on me. He seems befuddled that they praise him to high heaven and say how much they want to work for him, then don’t work :)
Some wonderful subversion going on here from them

“The higher classes are all in the utmost alarm at rumors of Wlberforce’s intentions to set the negroes entirely at freedom; the next step would be, in all probability, a general massacre of the whites, and a second part of the horrors of St. Domingo”
More boilerplate stuff from white slave owners. Struggling to see exactly where Lewis is as progressive as he seems to have a reputation for being.

“I cannot conceive; but I am assured, that unless a negro has an interest in telling the truth, he always lies-in order to keep his tongue in practice”

For all of Williams’s concern about the well being of his slaves, he simultaneously seems to hold them in contempt as well. Often accusing them of malingering in the hospital when he believes they are healthy enough to work or their selling provisions for alcohol. Basically the common refrain of many slave owners who chalked up to “laziness” a lack of willingness to do backbreaking labor for free

Have read that this was a thoughtful account of a plantation owner in Jamaica who was troubled by slavery. All I’ve read so far is someone who used vernacular like “massa” in recounting talks with his slaves, talk of how happy they are, and how he contemplated selling one of his favorites cheaply to give him his “freedom” but doesn’t want to set a bad precedent for his other slaves.
Not a great start...

"...He at length ventured to introduce himself, by saying—“Massa not know me; me your slave! ” and really the sound made me feel a pang at the heart. The lad appeared all gaiety and good humor, and his whole countenance expressed anxiety to recommend himself to my notice; but the word 'slave' seemed to imply that, although he did feel pleasure then in serving me, if he had detested me he must have served me still.”

"We succeeded in catching another dolphin today; but he had not a hat on; however, I just asked him whether he happened to have seen mine, but to little purpose; for I found that he could tell me nothing at all about it; so, instead of bothering the poor animal with any more questions, we eat him."