"To wed or not to wed?": the struggle to define Afro-Jamaican relationships, 1834-1838.

The 1753 Marriage Act can be considered as a first step in the struggle of the rising middle classes in Britain to impose their norm of marriage on the rest of society. (1) It specified that marriage could only take place with banns or a license and parental permission for minors, before witnesses and an authorized clergyman, and that the event should be recorded in a Marriage Register. (2) One of the main aims of the Act was to change the marital lives of the propertied classes. It not only tried to combat the tendency of children of good families to marry contrary to the wishes of their parents but also to protect rich heirs and heiresses from being seduced into a clandestine or runaway marriage with their social or economic inferiors. By the end of the eighteenth century, the propertied classes had come to accept the middle classes' norm of marriage, that is a fully legal and indissoluble marriage in which the couple lived under the same roof, was faithful, and occupied separate spheres and exercised distinct roles. After the turn of the century, they joined the middle classes in their efforts to extend this norm to the lower orders of society. (3) It was largely economic self-interest that underpinned this joint effort. The industrial middle class, for example, hoped that a rise in the marriage rate of the lower orders would lead to an increase in the population. The latter was deemed essential for the future of their economic enterprises as it guaranteed them not only a large supply of labour but also an increased demand for their products. Both groups also hoped that a more stable society would result from the lower classes' adoption of the middle-class marriage ideal. They believed that if the lower classes would make their unions legal and adopt the other attributes, in particular monogamy and the exercise of distinct gender roles, that there would follow a drastic reduction in those lower class vices which upset the stability of society, such as prostitution. (4)

Like so many other contemporary discourses, the discourse about marriage gradually found its way to the periphery, that is British colonial subjects were like their metropolitan counterparts encouraged to conform their relationships to the middle-class ideal. Hence efforts were made in the debate about slavery in the British Caribbean to measure the slaves' relational lives against the metropolitan ideal. (5) Contrary to slaves in the Antebellum south, slaves in the British Caribbean could legally marry, that is the slave laws recognised a marriage performed by an Anglican minister as 'valid in law.' This marriage far from resembled the reciprocal, legal and voluntary contract that couples signed in the metropolitan society. It not only lacked many of the rights and duties stipulated in the metropolitan contract but was also not performed in front of two witnesses. The most striking difference, however, was that a slave couple needed written permission from the owner or if he did not reside on the plantation, the overseer. This and the fact that they had to pay a small fee and undergo a detailed examination by the minister largely explain why so few slaves opted for what is generally referred to as a formal marriage. In Jamaica, for instance, the Anglican Church performed 3,600 marriages between 1808 and 1822 amidst a slave population of 330,000. Most slaves preferred a nonconformist marriage, which required only proof of having been baptised. The Moravians, for example, performed 189 marriages at three of their Jamaican stations between 1827 and 1834. (6)

Two of the main participants in the debate about slavery were keen to see an increase in slave marriages: abolitionists and absentee planters, that is those who owned plantations in the Caribbean but resided in Britain. Their arguments echoed those presented by the propertied and middle classes in the metropolitan society. The abolitionists, for example, were convinced that marriage would improve the slaves' moral behaviour and also prepare them for full freedom. They pointed out that it would inculcate in them virtues, such as soberness and industry, which were expected of inhabitants of free, capitalist societies. They were furthermore of the opinion that a slave marriage could only become "the source of all domestic comfort and social improvement" if it conformed to the metropolitan ideal. (7) Hence they strongly criticised the fact that although regarded as legal, formal slave marriages were not protected against dissolution. Not only could one of the partners abandon the marriage, a planter could also at any time separate a married couple by selling one of the partners. They also objected to the various plantation practices that prevented married couples from living under the same roof, being faithful, occupying separate spheres, and exercising distinct gender roles. For economic and practical reasons, absentee planters did not want to offer slaves the full version of the metropolitan ideal. They were of the opinion that a monogamous and permanent marriage that allowed the partners to carry out distinct gender roles but which was not necessarily legal or co-resident could achieve their aims of increasing the slave population and changing its habits so as to make it more hard-working and docile. (8)

With a few exceptions, resident planters did not favour slave marriage, especially the formal kind. Their attitude was largely informed by the connotation of marriage with freedom and equality. An Anglican marriage was the only legal contract that slaves could engage in. Like all social contracts, it presupposed a degree of individual autonomy and rights. Thus by exchanging obedience and protection, a formal marriage affirmed the slaves' individuality and humanity. (9) In doing so, it undermined the resident planters' project of increasing their wealth which was completely based on the idea that slaves were nothing but chattel and were fully under their control. It is not surprising then to find island legislatures, which were largely made up of resident planters, strongly objecting to the Imperial Government's repeated requests in the mid-1820s to adopt measures to increase the formal slave marriage rate, such as "exempting from future labour in the field, the mother of a given number of children born in wedlock." The Jamaican House of Assembly, for instance, only adopted a clause to increase the formal marriage rate after it had been dissolved by the Governor. The clause did little to increase the formal marriage rate as it did away with the marriage fee but kept firmly in place the most pressing obstacle to formal marriage: written permission. (10)

The 1831-32 slave revolt in Jamaica and the abolitionist campaign that followed it convinced the Imperial Government that emancipation could no longer be averted. It set up a Parliamentary Committee that inquired into the state of slavery and reported on the best way to free the slaves. It took, however, another massive abolitionist campaign before the Government passed the Abolition of Slavery Act (hereafter, Imperial Abolition Act) in August 1833. This Act, which was a mixture of various plans put forward between May and August by members of the Colonial Office and the Cabinet, set aside a special fund of [pounds sterling]20 million as compensation to the West India planters and stipulated that from August 1834 onwards all children under six would be free, while the other slaves would be apprenticed to their former masters for a period of four to six years, depending on whether they were domestics or field slaves. The Apprenticeship System had to ensure a peaceful transition from slavery to a free-labour economy. Based on the assumption that a desire for luxury could replace the work-or-starve incentive, the Act included provisions that had to make the ex-slaves discontent with a mere level of self-subsistence and expand their material aspirations. For example, it stipulated that ex-slaves would be free labourers for one-fourth of the week, during which time they could earn wages by selling their labour or work on their provision grounds, that is the half acre of land on which they grew most of their staple foods and which was usually located at some distance from the plantation. The administration of the System was given to a corps of Special Magistrates (hereafter, S.M.s), recruited from outside the planting class and paid by Great Britain. They were to stand between the planters and the apprentices and provide a basis for mutual confidence that would last beyond the period of Apprenticeship. (11) This administration met the wishes of the Colonial Office and the abolitionists. The former was eager to see that the colonies continued to enrich the mother country. The work of the S.M.s would enable the continuation of plantation production upon full freedom as they taught, mostly through punishments, apprentices to fulfil their labour duties and planters to become fair employers. The abolitionists hoped that by giving S.M.s. the weighty task of punishing apprentices who failed to carry out their duties, the Apprenticeship System would free the slaves from arbitrary, personal and physical dominion, while at the same time promoting their self-discipline, individual responsibility and human betterment. (12)

Considering that the framers of the Abolition Act aimed to turn the slaves into free-wage labourers and that they were exposed to a discourse of marriage which argued that society as a whole would be better off, economically and socially, if the working classes adopted the middle-class marriage ideal, one would expect the Abolition Act to contain provisions that would facilitate an increase in the formal marriage rate and enable apprentices to conform their relationships to the metropolitan, middle-class ideal. One would also expect similar provisions in the local abolition acts that the island legislatures had to draw up to give effect to the Abolition Act. The planters and other members in these legislatures, whose livelihoods depended not simply on the continuation of the plantation system after August 1834 but also on a sustained level of output, could considerably gain from an increase in marriages. As mentioned, the Apprenticeship System took away the planters' power to punish their workers. As a result, an incentive other than the whip had to be found to make apprentices work as hard as during slavery but one which also had to ensure that they would stay on the plantations as waged labourers upon full freedom in 1840. A marriage which lived up to the metropolitan ideal could help to instil such an incentive in the apprentices, mainly because it gave husbands and wives distinct roles. To live up to his role as the provider of the family, an apprenticed husband would, for example, use his one-fourth of the week to raise food on the provision grounds or hire himself out to obtain the money necessary to procure clothing and other items for his wife and children. (13)

This study concentrates on Jamaica, as contemporary assessments of the workings of the Apprenticeship System predominantly provided evidence relating to this island. (14) Its main aim is to determine whether the Imperial Government and the Jamaican planting class advocated the metropolitan marriage ideal. It tries to achieve this first of all by analysing those provisions in the Imperial and local Abolition Act that affected the ability of the apprentices to live up to the attributes of the ideal. And secondly, by examining not only the implementation of these provisions on the estates but also a number of legal and extra-legal practices adopted by planters after August 1834 that affected the relational lives of the apprentices. A further aim is to test a thesis put forward in the recent scholarship on the Apprenticeship System. By concentrating on the experiences of the apprentices rather than on the policymakers in the metropolitan society and the planters in the colonies, recent studies have argued that the Apprenticeship System was "slavery by another name." (15) This study tries to see whether Afro-Jamaicans experienced a deterioration in their conditions after August 1834 by comparing the ability of the slaves to live up to the metropolitan marriage ideal with that of the apprentices.

The study is divided into four parts. The first sketches the relational lives of the slaves. It indicates that both plantation practices and the slaves' African past led to unions which reflected only a few attributes of the metropolitan ideal. The second part analyses the Imperial and the local Abolition Act. The third part concentrates on the level of the plantations. It makes use of statements by apprentices to illustrate that planters did not always interpret the provisions in the local Abolition Act to the letter and that this as well as new work and punishment practices, made it difficult for apprentices to live up to the metropolitan ideal. In 1837, Governor Lionel Smith ordered S.M.s Daughtrey and Gordon to examine the conditions in the workhouse of St. Ann's. The S.M.s had to ascertain the truth regarding allegations of abuse in this workhouse made in a pamphlet published by the abolitionists, entitled 'A Narrative of Events since the First of August 1834' by James Williams (1837). (16) Although the statements of the fifty apprentices interviewed by Daughtrey and Gordon concentrate on the conditions in the workhouse, they do provide valuable information about life on the plantations. Another important source of information that the third part relies on are the quarterly reports that the S.M.s had to submit to the Governor and correspondence between the Governor and the Colonial Office. These indicate most clearly that the Colonial Office gradually tried to persuade the planting class to recognize the apprentices' right to conform their relations to the metropolitan ideal. The last part is a conclusion which tries to explain first of all why the Imperial Government and the Jamaican planting class did little to enable apprentices to live up to the metropolitan ideal and secondly, why in spite of all the rhetoric of rights and freedom, the Apprenticeship System ended up as a system that was not markedly different from slavery.

I

Following the example of Americans scholars of slavery, such as Herbert Gutman, historians of Caribbean slavery wrote in the 1970s and 1980s extensively on the nature of the slave family. Their studies concluded that family life was the norm for Caribbean slaves and that the nuclear household was the most common family type. Barry Higman, for instance, found that half of the couples on three Jamaican estates formed a nuclear unit, consisting of a man, a woman and their children, which was not necessarily a co-resident unit. (17) Higman concluded furthermore that few slave relationships were solemnized. As indicated in the foregoing, a blessing by an Anglican minister did not guarantee the stability of a slave marriage. Until 1827, a formally married couple could as easily be separated by sale as any other couple. That year, the House of Assembly adopted, as a result of pressure by the Imperial Government, an amendment to the slave law that stipulated that "families of slaves levied on are not to be separated." As it did not, as in some other colonies, prohibit the separation of husbands from wives by sale, gift or bequest, many slaves experienced in the years leading up to the Apprenticeship System the separation from their loved ones. In case one of the partners was sold to a distant plantation, the relationship usually broke up. (18)

It was, however, not only planter practices that led to the break-up of slave relationships. Slaves were of the opinion that if a couple did not get along, it was better to separate. Planter and historian Edward Long described in his The History of Jamaica (1774) a ceremony that slaves used to 'celebrate' a divorce. The cotta, that is the circular pad of plantation leaves used to carry things on the head, was cut in two with each party taking half. (19) The slaves' custom of easy divorce was a carry-over from Africa, facilitated by numerous plantation practices, including the practice of separation by sale. Although the slave community did not object to the breaking-up of relations, it did expect the partners, especially the women, to be faithful. (20)

The planters' practice of separating couples when in debt partly explains why between 30 and 50 per cent of all Jamaican slave couples did not co-reside. (21) This high rate of relationships across estates (hereafter, abroad relations) was also the result of slave customs and preferences. Many slave men preferred a partner who lived on another estate so that they would not have to witness their daily abuse, especially their flogging in a semi-naked state before a large congregation of slaves and estate officers. Unequal sex ratios on the estates furthermore forced some slave men and women to seek partners on neighbouring estates. This was especially the case in the years immediately preceding and following the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, when a plantation sex ratio of 118 slave men per 100 slave women was not uncommon. (22) Courtship and marriage rules in the slave community also led many slaves to look for a partner beyond their own plantation. The slave community, for example, not only forbade slaves to marry their siblings but also banned cousin-mating. (23) The numerous occasions for slaves to fall in love with somebody from a neighbouring estate, such as the Sunday market on which slaves from surrounding plantations sold their excess produce or the dances that were held in the slave quarters on Saturday night and during the Christmas holidays, also account for the high rate of abroad relations. Most abroad couples lived only a mile or two apart. They tried to see as much of each other as possible. To visit one another, they needed a ticket written by their owner or overseer, stating the time of departure, the destination and intended arrival back on the plantation. (24) Some planters and overseers were reluctant to give permission, especially if the slave in question was a male as the offspring of his abroad relation belonged to his partner's master. The majority, however, seldom refused to grant permission as they realised that such a course of action could trigger slave resistance. Evidence suggests that slaves in an abroad relation asked for a ticket to visit their loved ones during the weekend but that they visited them often clandestinely during the week. (25)

A small proportion of the relationships on the eve of the Apprenticeship System were mixed, that is they consisted of an enslaved and a free person. The latter was usually a free black or coloured person. There are no statistics available that indicate the extent of such mixed relations. It can be assumed, however, that their number increased in the two decades preceding the abolition of slavery, as natural increase and new legislation which made manumission cheaper and easier to obtain led to a significant increase in the freedmen population, from 7.4 per cent of the total population in 1810 to 10.6 in 1830. (26) The free partner usually desired to purchase his/her partner's freedom because they would then be able to obtain a fully legal marriage, that is a marriage similar to that of the white islanders, rather than the semi-legal marriage allowed under the slave law. (27) Few, however, achieved this aim as planters set very high prices for manumission. The prices were especially high for women because planters would not only lose their labour but also that of their children, as children took the status of the mother. (28) This, however, was not the only difficulty faced by free-enslaved couples. Planters also made it difficult for them to live under the same roof. While some simply forbade free persons to reside on their estates, others allowed them to live in their enslaved partner's hut in return for a high rent. (29)

Both pro-slavery writers and abolitionists suggested that many slave women, including those who had a long-term partner, had sexual relations with white men. The former suggested that most interracial sex was based on consent. They pointed out, for example, that many slave women were the concubines of overseers and bookkeepers. The abolitionists argued that interracial sexual encounters were based on force. In their fictive and non-fictive writings, they provided numerous, often very vivid, accounts of sexual abuse. Robert Badge, for instance, described in his novel Man As He Is (1792) the rape of a domestic slave woman by both her owner and his white servant and her subsequent suicide. Until the late 1980s, many scholars supported the abolitionists' account of interracial sex. (30) More recently, however, it has been argued that a substantial number of slave women actively sought a long-term relationship with a white man in the hope that it would give them material favours, better treatment and would enhance their own and their children's chances of freedom. (31) What has thus far not been disputed, however, is the extent of interracial sex in the island. The number of coloured slaves is usually presented as evidence. In 1817, for instance, 36,000 slaves were listed as coloured. As there were only 30,000 whites (predominantly men) on a total slave population of 300,000 at the time, it has been argued that there was a very high degree of sex across the racial boundaries. (32) Scholars furthermore agree upon the omni-presence of the threat of sexual abuse in slave women's lives. Sexual abuse could take various forms, ranging from bribing slave women into having sex to outright rape. Whatever form, sexual abuse placed an enormous strain on interslave relations. If slave men tried to defend their partner's virtue by attacking the abuser or by complaining about the abuse to the planter or overseer, they ran the risk of a severe punishment. Many planters and overseers did not hesitate to sell such a recalcitrant slave to a distant plantation. Slave men then who did not want to risk the break-up of their relationship had no choice but to endure their partner's abuse. They were furthermore often forced to raise the offspring of the forced sexual encounter which added further strain to the relationship.

Until 1826, Jamaican slave women were not protected against the more drastic forms of sexual abuse. In that year the House of Assembly introduced the death sentence for the rape of female slaves. (33) Its aim was not to reduce the extent of miscegenation in the island but to convince the Government and abolitionists at home that the Assembly was willing to ameliorate the condition of the slaves. (34) That not a single white Jamaican appeared in court on account of rape after 1826 should not be seen as an indication that the Act proved to be an effective means to discourage interracial sex. It reflects above all the complicated and lengthy process that slave women had to go through in order to have a white man convicted of rape--a process which offered not only a small chance of success but also involved the risk of corporal punishment if the complaint was proven ungrounded. (35)

Thus as a result of the provisions in the slave law and plantation practices as well as slave customs and preferences, slave relationships did not closely correspond to the metropolitan ideal. Most relationships were not legal or indissoluble and only half were co-resident. Furthermore, the partners did not occupy their 'proper' sphere. Able-bodied slave women spent most of their waking hours in the field or the planter's house rather than in their huts looking after their family's interests. This lack of gendered spheres, however, did not prevent slave or mixed couples from exercising distinct gender roles. While slave men cultivated the vegetable garden surrounding the hut, their partners sold the excess produce that they had together raised on their provision ground. Even those who did not live under the same roof tried to display this attribute. Most men took provisions, such as fish or yam, to their abroad partners, while they in return cooked them a nice dinner or mended their clothing. (36)

As for the attribute of monogamy, recent demographic studies have concluded that after the abolition of the slave trade, few slaves lived in polygamous unions. (37) The monogamy practised by many Jamaican slaves in the early part of the nineteenth century, however, differed from that in the metropolitan society. Their monogamy was a sequential monogamy, that is they did not spend their adult life in one but several successive relationships. (38) The slave community's acceptance of sequential monogamy, and also premarital sex, explains why so many slave women had their first child with one man and the rest of their children several years later with another man with whom they settled for the rest of their lives. (39) The following part will determine whether the Apprenticeship System aimed to prevent sequential monogamy and other 'irregular' features of slave relationships and enable the ex-slaves to acquire those attributes of the metropolitan marriage ideal that they partially or wholly lacked, such as legality and indissolubility.

II

In December 1833, the House of Assembly passed an act (hereafter, First Jamaica Act) which had to carry the Imperial Abolition Act into practical operation. Because the Colonial Office was so anxious to get the cooperation of the planting class in establishing a free-labour society, it approved of this Act in spite of 'various serious defects', such as a clause that allowed planters to imprison apprentices on their estates. It urged the Assembly to remedy such shortcomings by means of an Amending Act. The latter was passed in July 1834 and approved by Governor Sligo in January 1835. It corrected several of the 'defects' but also included provisions that further restricted the rights of the apprentices. The expiration of the Amending Act in December 1835 led to the revival of the First Jamaica Act. In November 1834, the Assembly passed a third Act which was disallowed by the Colonial Office on the grounds that it violated both the spirit and letter of the Abolition Act. It, for example, reintroduced a system of punishment specifically forbidden by the Imperial Abolition Act: the flogging of women. (40)

The Imperial and the local Abolition Act (that is the First Jamaica Act and the Amending Act) did not greatly enhance the apprentices' ability to legalise their relationships as they, like the slave laws, recognized only Anglican marriages as legal. They did, however, make Anglican marriages easier to obtain because they abolished the main obstacles: written permission, the fee and the detailed examination by the minister. (41) This had some effect, as a total of 1,724 Anglican marriages were performed in the first year of the Apprenticeship System. (42) In December 1836, the Assembly adopted a more radical measure to increase legal unions amongst apprentices: recognizing nonconformist marriages as legal. This was not triggered by the planters' economic self-interest but by pressure exerted on them by the Colonial Office. In November 1835, planter Henry Shirley introduced a bill in the Assembly to "enable the dissenting clergy to celebrate marriages." The bill was rejected on the grounds that the initiative for such a bill could only come from the Imperial Government and that it was detrimental to the interests of the Established Church in the island. The real motive behind the rejection, however, was the planters' fear of a drastic loss of control over their labour force. Shirley told the 1836 Select Committee on Negro Apprenticeship in the Colonies (hereafter, 1836 Select Committee) that the bill was "considered to be one which would give the missionaries too much power over the negroes." (43)

The Assembly members who rejected Shirley's bill accused him of being "a great innovator on account of being in advance of the state of feeling in England." (44) Shirley had only moved to Jamaica in 1834. During the last year of his residence in the metropolitan society, he had been exposed to the burgeoning debate about the deficiencies of the 1753 Marriage Act. The Act was amended in 1822 and 1823 so as to prevent an option for divorce via failure to comply absolutely with the Marriage Act's provisions. (45) The public debate about marriage in the early 1830s, however, was not only concerned with the options to dissolve a marriage but also with the reluctance of many people to give up cohabitation. To facilitate an increase in the marriage rate, it was suggested that provisions should be made for civil marriage. (46) The public debate resulted in March 1836 in a new Marriage Act which allowed for both the civil registration of marriages and the legalisation of marriages performed in places of religious worship other than Anglican churches. (47)

It was not only the discussion surrounding this new act that led the Secretary State, Lord Glenelg, to ask the governors of the West India colonies to urge their legislatures to "promptly and diligently apply themselves to the work of maturing a liberal and comprehensive law." His request was also the result of a letter received from the Secretary of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, Mr. Beecham, which mentioned various social problems that had arisen after August 1834 as a result of the continuation of the old marriage laws in the islands. Glenelg was especially keen to see that the legislatures devise a Marriage Act that would legalise not only future but also past nonconformist marriages. To support his case, he first of all pointed out that only few apprentices had access to a formal marriage because there were not many Anglican ministers in the islands and their churches were located far away from the plantations. Secondly, he argued that the nonconformist missionaries were so trusted by the apprentices that they could persuade the apprentices to solemnize their unions and thus bestow "the most essential benefits on society at large." For Glenelg, then, the transformation of the islands from slave to free-labour societies depended heavily on the ability of the apprentices to legalise their relationships. (48)

The report of the 1836 Select Committee put further pressure on the Assembly. Supported by a review of the marriage laws in the islands by the barrister Richard Matthews, it called for a Marriage Act that would allow nonconformist missionaries to solemnize marriages and listed various social and economic advantages attached to such an act. It pointed out, for example, that it would legitimate offspring of nonconformist marriages and hence make them capable of inheriting their parents' property. This was seen as an important requisite for the transformation from a slave to a free-labour society because it would not only bind the children more closely to the land but also provide them with the assets necessary to expand their material aspiration. (49) It is doubtful whether such economic arguments persuaded the Assembly in December 1836 to pass a Marriage Act that went a step further than the Select Committee's recommendation, allowing also for the legalisation of past nonconformist marriages. (50) It is more likely that the Assembly gave in so as to avert a drastic intervention by the Imperial Government in other areas, such as that of the punishment of apprentices, which by this time had led to a huge rift between the Assembly and the Colonial Office. (51) There is no doubt, however, that the Assembly's opposition to the legalisation of nonconformist marriages stemmed from a fear of losing their hold over the apprentices because apprentices would be even more under the influence of the missionaries. The Assembly was also reluctant to pass a new Marriage Act because it implied an extension of the apprentices' legal rights which, of course, would undermine the planters' position of power in the island.

Clause 9 of the Imperial Abolition Act held out to apprentices in long-term relations the promise of both indissolubility and co-residence. It stipulated that employers could not pass on or transfer the services of an apprentice by "bargain or sale, writ, deed, conveyance, will or descent" if it meant that the apprentice in question would be separated from "his or her Wife or Husband." The First Jamaica Act adopted this clause without any changes. (52) It did not, however, fully protect couples residing on the same estate against separation as it did not contain a provision that allowed apprentices who as a result of a mistake by a S.M. had been separated, to seek redress. The Assembly could also have gone further in ensuring the co-residence of apprenticed couples, by including a provision that would have facilitated the reuniting of abroad couples. Economic and more practical motives explain why it did not. To allow for the co-residence of couples separated during slavery, planters would have had to buy or sell each other's apprentices or alternatively devise complicated exchange arrangements.

The local Abolition Act affected especially the ability of mixed, that is free-apprenticed, couples to live under the same roof. As mentioned, during slavery they were allowed to co-reside in return for a high rent. The Amending Act put an end to this practice. It stipulated that those whose apprenticeship was about to expire, would be given three months' notice to leave "land, dwelling or building" and that refusal to do so, would lead to their ejection by "any two justices as trespassers" and punishment "by a fine not exceeding 10 l., or by imprisonment not exceeding 30 days." (53) If allowed, the third Jamaica Act would have made co-residence even more of a crime for mixed couples. Under clause 5 of this Act, apprentices were to be given a six months' notice to leave the plantation and on the day when their term expired, the nearest S.M. had to literally remove them from the plantation. (54) The remark in this clause that planters would be "relieved from the further maintenance of such apprentices," suggests that the obstacle was driven by a concern about profits. When the three Acts were drawn up, planters regularly expressed the conviction that the Apprenticeship System would result in a 25 per cent decline in output, as apprentices would only work on the plantations three-fourth of the week. (55) It is not surprising then that the Assembly inserted various clauses that served, like the foregoing, to cut production costs. It also tried to sustain planters' profits by adopting clauses that allowed planters to extract extra labour from their workers. Clause 8 of the Amending Act, for example, made it possible to force apprentices who had feigned sickness to repay the time lost. (56) As Seymour Drescher has recently shown, the planters' fears were ungrounded. Although the output of Jamaican plantations fell, the compensation money and the 40 per cent increase in the price of sugar (the island's main crop) in the mid-1830s actually led to a rise in sugar profits. (57)

As mentioned, the First Jamaica Act dashed the hopes of those in abroad relations for co-residence. It also made it generally harder for these couples to spend time together. Clause 27 stipulated that apprentices found wandering beyond the limits of the plantation without a written permission from their owner or overseer would be punished as a 'vagabond'. This implied that those visiting their partner clandestinely risked the chance of being sent to the workhouse for a period of one to four weeks. (58) During slavery, punishment for a clandestine visit was far less drastic. A slave caught during a clandestine visit was regarded as a 'runaway' and brought before two Justices of the Peace, who could order either a severe flogging or confinement to hard labour for a period of up to three months. Hard labour, however, was only resorted to in the case of slaves who had absented themselves for several days or who had regularly been caught without a written permission. (59) Clause 39 also tried to limit clandestine visits, not only by stipulating a severe punishment for those apprehended but also by increasing the chances of getting caught. It allowed for the appointment of apprentices as special constables on the plantations who, under the direction of the owner or overseer, had to confine apprentices found 'loitering' on the plantation until the arrival of a S.M. for a period of up to 24 hours. (60)

Clauses 27 and 39 demonstrate most clearly that the Assembly interpreted the Imperial Abolition Act in such a way as to ensure that planters retained as much of their former power as possible, especially their punitive power. Clause 27 was based on the Draft Circular Order in Council, a guideline given by the Imperial Government to devise the local Abolition Act. The Assembly, however, interpreted the Draft very narrowly. It first of all substituted the word 'district' in the Draft for 'plantation', which meant that abroad couples who resided in the same district could not claim unlimited visiting rights. Secondly, it did not, as the Draft suggested, allow S.M.s to issue written permissions and hence increased the evil which it had set out to remedy: clandestine visits. (61)

Clause 39 was one of several adopted by the Assembly that aimed to undo clause 16 of the Abolition Act, which forbade planters to punish their apprentices "by whipping, beating or imprisonment." (62) Not surprisingly then that the Secretary of State found fault with this clause. He suggested in February 1834 that the Assembly consider an amendment that would make estate constables "independent of the authority of their masters, and limiting the power of imprisonment on estates." (63) The Amending Act did not take this suggestion on board, while the third Jamaica Act made only a slight alteration to the original clause in that it excluded from loiterers, "the wives of apprentices legally married." (64) The Assembly's reluctance to allow for the legalisation of nonconformist marriages, discussed earlier, suggests that this cannot be interpreted as a means adopted by the Assembly to encourage apprentices to legalise their unions. It was nothing more than an attempt to undo rumours in the metropolitan society that Jamaican planters were unwilling to make the Apprenticeship System a success by limiting as much as possible the rights of the apprentices.

The clauses in the Imperial and local Abolition Act that most affected the ability of couples to live up to the attribute of gendered spheres of authority and activity were those relating to manumission and punishment. Many male apprentices were eager to purchase their partner's freedom so as to enable them to retreat from field work and devote themselves to the concerns of the household. They used their one-fourth of the week to raise the money necessary by hiring themselves out or by working their provision grounds. (65) The Abolition Act tried to facilitate this process by allowing apprentices to purchase their own or somebody else's discharge from the Apprenticeship against the wishes of an employer. (66) The slave laws had only recognised 'voluntary manumission', that is a slave could only obtain his freedom if his owner allowed him (or somebody else) to purchase his freedom or provided for it in his will. (67) The Abolition Act left it to the colonial legislatures to devise an appropriate procedure to determine the purchase sum. The Assembly adopted a valuation procedure for 'involuntary manumissions' that closely mirrored the one used in cases of 'voluntary manumission' during slavery. It involved three valuators: one named by the claimant (the S.M.), one named by the defender (a local magistrate), and one who was supposed to have no interest in either party (another local magistrate). (68) This procedure worked against a fair valuation. Planters were keen to see a high value fixed as it would enable them to hold on to their labour force and hence prevent an even further decline in output. Considering that the two local magistrates were either planters or other members of the local elite whose interests were closely bound up with the continuation of the plantation economy, it is not surprising to find that they joined forces to overrule the low price demanded by the S.M. (69) The prices fixed were so high that very few male apprentices managed to secure their partner's freedom before the Apprenticeship System was abolished. (70) As for 'voluntary manumissions' during the Apprenticeship System, planters only granted this to old and infirm apprentices, that is those whose discharge would not significantly affect the output of their estates. The manumission practices devised by the Assembly then formed another obstacle for apprentices to conform their relations to the metropolitan ideal. They were dictated by economic interests and served to uphold the planters' position of power in the island by keeping the number of freedmen within limits.

As mentioned, only S.M.s had the authority to punish apprentices. The First Jamaica Act stated what punishments a S.M. could order for particular offences. For minor offences, such as "wilful absence for half a day or less," he could order extra labour for the owner in the apprentice's free time. In the case of more drastic offences, such as "insolence or insubordination," he could resort to a severe flogging (only in the case of male apprentices), solitary confinement in the workhouse for a period of up to ten days, and hard labour in the workhouse and/or penal gang. (71) The Amending Act added another punishment. Clause 22 allowed S.M.s to substitute the foregoing punishments by "any given number of hours of work on the treadmill in any house of correction." This clause aimed to give S.M.s an effective means to punish female apprentices, as the Abolition Act specifically forbade their "whipping or beating". (72) These punishments were more severe than those allowed during slavery. For example, under the 1827 Slave Law planters could, for any offence, send their slaves to the workhouse for a period of up to ten days. (73) A S.M. on the other hand, could send an apprentice to the workhouse for a period ranging from one week to three months. Planters, however, seldom sent troublesome slaves to the workhouse. The punishments that they ordered most were: flogging (they could give up to 39 lashes), solitary confinement and placement in the stocks. The Apprenticeship System then led to a different punishment regime in the island. This regime affected the quality of the apprentices' relationships far more than that during slavery, as it impinged upon the time that couples could spend together and prohibited them from exercising their distinct gender roles. For example, men who were sentenced to the workhouse could during that time not provide for their families. Women who were sent to this institution could not properly look after their children's needs. They could take nursing infants with them but had to leave their other children behind on the estate in the care of the father (if he resided on the same estate), grandparents and other relatives and friends.

Time in the workhouse also made it difficult for women to live up to another important attribute of the metropolitan ideal: monogamy. Workhouse officers bribed female inmates into having sex by, for example, promising them extra rations of bread or reducing their time on the treadmill. (74) This, however, was not the only form of sexual abuse that female apprentices experienced. Evidence suggests that the extent of forced interracial sex on the plantations did not decline after 1834. Augustus Beaumont, a proprietor and former member of the House of Assembly, told the 1836 Select Committee, for instance, that "the black woman was [still] looked on as the natural prey of the coarsest lust." (75) It was, however, not only planters and their white employees who sexually abused female apprentices but also men who were appointed to administer the Apprenticeship System. Benjamin McMahon, who worked on various estates in the years immediately preceding and following the Apprenticeship System, mentioned in his Jamaica Plantership (1839) that S.M. Carnaby had not only sent to the workhouse an apprentice who was pregnant with his child but had also raped a young girl during one of his routine visits to Williamsfield estate. (76) S.M.s reported a rapid increase in the number of rape cases that appeared before the grand jury after August 1834. (77) The increase should not be read, however, as an indication that this type of sexual abuse increased during the Apprenticeship System. It merely reflects the female apprentices' awareness of the change in their legal status. It seems that they believed that this change had been accompanied by a transformation of the judiciary and that their accusations would thus receive a more objective hearing than before 1834. This, however, was not the case. The judiciary continued to exist of amateur justices who exercised their duties very much in the same way as during slavery, that is they obstructed the course of justice and dismissed incriminating evidence against white Jamaicans. It is not known how many cases of alleged rape ended in conviction or acquittal. It is likely, however, that most cases, like those dealing with the physical abuse of female apprentices in the workhouse, ended in acquittal, especially if the accused was a planter or another member of the local elite. (78)

The foregoing examination of the legal provisions that had to give effect to the Apprenticeship System shows then that the Imperial Government did very little to enable apprenticed couples to live up to the metropolitan marriage ideal. The Abolition Act that it drew up and the guidelines that it gave to local legislatures only contained provisions that had to facilitate the indissolubility of apprenticed unions and make life easier for abroad couples. Only after a few years, did it undertake action to allow more couples to legalise their unions. The foregoing suggests, in other words, that the Imperial Government regarded the Apprenticeship System far less as a means to lay the foundation for an equal and just society than as a means to ensure the continuation of the plantation economy. The Jamaican planting class was even less inclined than the Imperial Government to make it possible for couples to acquire the attributes of the metropolitan ideal. It tried to limit as much as possible the few enabling provisions in the Imperial Abolition Act and devised a host of provisions that made it extremely hard for apprentices to follow the metropolitan ideal.

III

In theory, then, the Apprenticeship System put more obstacles in the way of couples who wanted to live up to the metropolitan marriage ideal than slavery did. Before we can conclude, however, that the Apprenticeship System was "slavery by another name," we have to examine how the above-mentioned legal provisions were implemented on the plantations. It has been suggested above that the manumission clause was interpreted to the letter because it benefited planters both economically and socially. Most clauses, however, were either ignored or only partially lived up to. The first part of this section addresses some violations of the clauses, while the remainder examines a number of work and punishment practices that were adopted on the plantations in the course of the Apprenticeship System. (79) Both had such drastic effects on the apprentices' ability to acquire the attributes of the metropolitan ideal and threatened the more general aims of the Imperial Abolition Act that the Governor and the Colonial Office felt forced to undertake action to undo or modify them.

Under clause 21 of the Amending Act, apprentices who were about to pay off the remainder of their Apprenticeship were given a three months' notice to vacate their dwellings. Some planters could not accept the decline in their power brought about by manumission and refused to grant the three months, which had been designed to enable the apprentice to arrange for alternative accommodation. Peter William Atkinson, an apprentice at Penshurst, was still working off the remainder of his Apprenticeship when out of sheer spite his employer, Mr Senior, demolished his hut. This act put great strain on his abroad marriage. Because his wife could no longer stay over, Atkinson was forced to use part of his free time travelling to and from her estate. This reduced the time he could spend on his provision ground and hence affected his role as provider. It is interesting to note that the demolition of the hut took place while S.M. Rawlinson was on the estate. (80) By turning a blind eye to what was happening, the S.M. allowed Mr. Senior to retain some of his punitive power.

Pretending that the third Act had not been rejected, many planters only allowed "wives of apprentices legally married" to visit their plantations without written permission. The 'loyal' apprentices who served as constables did not hesitate to confine these women so that they could be punished as vagabonds. This violation of the local Abolition Act infuriated Governor Sligo and Secretary of State, Lord Glenelg. In June 1835, they dismissed the planters' claim that it served as a means to increase the marriage rate and "promote the interests of morality." Both men argued that the marriage rate could only increase if apprentices were more exposed to religious instruction and if white islanders gave up their immoral practices, such as the sexual abuse of black women. They told the Assembly that because these requirements were not likely to be met in the near future, planters should treat long-term, stable relations as marriages and therefore allow "an apprentice to admit his concubine to his hut." (81) As this request had little effect, abolitionists and also a number of S.M.s called for an amendment of clause 27 of the First Jamaica Act to ensure that all abroad couples could spend more time together. (82) For various reasons, the Colonial Office refused to order the Assembly to do so. It instead issued a circular to S.M.s, stating that when faced with a case in which a long-term, stable couple was denied access to each other, they ought to rule in favour of the couple. (83)

The Colonial Office undertook similar, ineffective action with regard to the planters' strict interpretation of the manumission clause. As early as October 1835, S.M.s informed Governor Sligo about cases of overvaluation. S.M. Marlton, for example, told him that

  Eliza Lewis was very angry at the valuation, and told me I valued her
  too high purposely to prevent her from going free. I earnestly hope
  some law will be passed to protect the apprentices, for I am satisfied
  the magistrates are valuing in this quarter much higher than formerly
  on some combined opinion. (84)

Although Governor Sligo pointed this out to the Secretary of State soon thereafter, it was not until November 1837 that the Colonial Office tried to remedy the situation. This did not, as S.M. Marlton hoped, take the form of an Imperial Act. Instead, the Secretary of State asked the Assembly, via the Governor, to "adopt some equitable fixed principle for the value of apprentices desirous of purchasing their discharge." (85) Considering what they stood to lose economically and socially, it is not surprising that the Assembly refused Glenelg's request.

The foregoing violations of the local Abolition Act affected only mixed and abroad couples. The changes in work practices that planters adopted on their estates after 1834, on the other hand, affected all couples without distinction. They not only reduced the time that partners could spend together but also made it more difficult for them to exercise their conjugal roles. The local Abolition Act stipulated that field apprentices could work only 40 1/2 hours a week. The freedom that it gave planters to obtain these hours, implied that field workers did not experience a drastic improvement in their ability to live up to the metropolitan marriage ideal after August 1834. (86) Most planters decided to spread those hours over five days and set aside the Saturday for the repaying of labour for minor offences. (87) Field apprentices in both abroad and co-residing relations preferred the nine-hour system, which only a few planters adopted: nine hours on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, four and a half on Friday, and Friday afternoon for the repaying of labour. The nine-hour system allowed field apprentices in abroad relations more time to travel to and be with their loved ones and made it easier for field apprentices in co-residing unions to carry out their gender roles, such as cultivating the provision ground, marketing excess produce, and taking care of the children. (88)

Governor Sligo gradually began to voice his disapproval of the eight-hour system. (89) He was especially concerned about the use of the Saturday to repay labour. This was less triggered, however, by a concern about the male apprentices' ability to provide for their families than a concern about the advancement of morality in the island. He argued that the practice was a major obstacle to the apprentices' church attendance as those male apprentices who repaid labour on Saturday used the Sunday to cultivate their grounds. In the summer of 1836, Sligo undertook action to end the practice. He instructed S.M.s to ask planters who had adopted the eight-hour system to let their apprentices repay labour during the week "before turning out or after turning in." (90) As very few planters positively responded to such requests, Sligo's successor Lionel Smith, instructed by the Colonial Office, asked the Assembly in November 1837 to provide a "stronger definition of working time" in the local Abolition Act. (91)

The extent to which field apprentices could live up to the metropolitan ideal depended not only on the type of work system adopted on their plantation but also on the way in which the field labour force was organised. Task work could improve the quality of apprenticed relationships, especially if tasks were allocated on a weekly rather than a daily basis. If they worked hard enough, apprentices could finish the task by Thursday and thus have the whole Friday and weekend to visit loved ones or devote themselves to their domestic tasks. Most planters, however, continued to organise their field labour force into three gangs, each working a part of the field. The Colonial Office tried to encourage planters to adopt the task system not because it was concerned about the quality of the apprentices' relationships but because task work instilled in the apprentices the internal incentive to work hard and thus helped to transform them into hard-working, free-wage labourers. In December 1837, for example, it instructed S.M.s to "give all the encouragement ... to the system of task-work on mutual agreement of masters and apprentices." (92) Only a few planters were persuaded by the S.M.s. The majority held on to the gang system, justifying it with the argument that it benefited apprentices more than the task system. They mentioned, for instance, that during the rainy season apprentices would need more than 40 1/2 hours to complete a weekly task because rains caused frequent work stoppages. (93) The real reason why planters disapproved of task work is that it reduced their hold over the apprentices. Task labourers spent generally fewer of their waking hours in the presence of their employer and/or his officers than gang labourers and did not, like the latter, work under an ever-present driver, that is a male apprentice who had to ensure that there was no slacking and who reported apprentices who turned up late, were drunk or otherwise failed to fulfil their labour duties to the overseer.

While it was hard for field apprentices to live up to the metropolitan ideal, it was even harder for domestics, who compromised about 25 per cent of the total workforce. The local Abolition Act did not regulate their working hours. As their Apprenticeship was to end two years before field labourers, planters tried to squeeze as much labour out of them as possible, usually giving them Friday and Saturday off one week and only Sunday the next. Domestics had thus less time than field apprentices to carry out their domestic chores and spend time with their partner and children. (94) In addition, they faced a higher risk of separation. Partly as a means to combat a decline in plantation profits, many planters hired domestics out to other plantations or families in town. Many hired-out domestics were forced to live in as their new place of employment was located at a considerable distance. The practice of hiring out domestics then undid the promise of indissolubility held out in the First Jamaica Act. In most cases, the hiring out was illegal. Clause 51 of the First Jamaica Act allowed for private work contracts between planters and apprentices for a period of up to one year, provided they were sanctioned by a S.M. (95) The following statement by Eliza James suggests that the latter provision was not always adhered to:

   My master removed me; I told him I was willing to go; but when I
   found out the distance, and that it was so distressing for me to go
   and see my husband and two of my children whom I left at Valley
   Minor, I begged to be allowed to hire out to myself, which request
   was granted; I was not taken before the special magistrate that he
   might sanction my removal; no special magistrate ever asked me
   whether I was willing to go and live at Owen. (96)

In spite of the illegality of much hiring out and S.M. reports which mentioned the difficulties that living in domestics encountered in launching a complaint of ill-treatment with their S.M., the Governor and Colonial Office did not try to end the practice. (97) It is likely that their inaction stemmed from the fact that contrary to the eight-hour and the gang system, the hiring out of domestics affected only a minority of apprentices and did not endanger the long-term economic aims of the Apprenticeship System.

While some planters, like Eliza James, tried to retain their former social and economic status by avoiding S.M.s, others tried to achieve this aim by actively soliciting their help. Shortly after August 1834, S.M.s were faced with demands from planters that female apprentices pay back time lost in labour, nursing, and looking after sick children. The work was to be carried out during a number of weekends, which of course severely limited the women's ability to exercise their conjugal roles. As the local Abolition Act only allowed them to issue extra labour in the case of "wilful absence", "wilful negligence", "damaging property", "drunkenne's" and "refusing or neglecting any labour required," several S.M.s asked Governor Sligo in October 1835 how to deal with the planters' requests. (98) He informed them that "childbirth and its consequences" should be regarded as "sickness" and that therefore women could not be ordered to pay back time lost in labour and nursing. His remark that they ought to acknowledge claims to repay time lost in caring for a sick infant, demonstrates that during the first half of the Apprenticeship System, Sligo was more concerned about the rights of the planters than the rights of the apprentices. He argued that if S.M.s did not acknowledge this claim, female apprentices would soon find other occasions to evade "the just proportion of labour which it is their duty to give the master." (99) A comprehensive set of instructions for S.M.s, issued in January 1836, shows once more that Sligo gradually realised that Jamaican planters had no intention to make the Apprenticeship System a success. It ordered S.M.s to thoroughly assess the "reality and nature of the illness" of the child and only if they had sufficient evidence that a woman had used her child's illness as an 'excuse for idleness,' could they sentence her to pay back time. (100) The Colonial Office followed the Governor in his defence of the apprentices' rights. In 1837, it ordered Governor Smith to inform S.M.s that they had to "resist every demand upon the services of the mothers which shall have the effect of depriving them of the time or the opportunities requisite for the discharge of their necessary maternal duties." (101)

Planters or their officers tried even harder to persuade S.M.s to issue time in the workhouse for a number of minor offences. Nancy Webb, for example, appeared before S.M. Rawlinson for having verbally assaulted an estate constable. Rawlinson did not allow her to say anything in her defence. He only listened to the planter's representatives--the constable and the overseer--and sentenced her to the workhouse for seven days. This punishment made it extremely difficult for Nancy to look after the needs of her husband Jarvis and her seven, mostly very young, children. (102) The planters' demand for time in the workhouse reflects their inability to come to terms with the change in their social status. They demanded a punishment that was not at all in proportion to the offence and which also endangered their economic enterprises, both in the short and long term. The work required of workhouse inmates, especially the treadmill, was so hard that most apprentices were unable to work for several days upon their return to the plantation. Some were even so badly injured