The Journal of Negro History Volume V Part 5

After a residence of several years in England, Hill was sent by the Anti-Slavery Society on a visit to San Domingo, chiefly for the purpose of ascertaining by personal observation and inquiry what was the actual social and political condition of the people of that island.[5] But his commission had a more extensive object than that attached to it, which, however, directed him to obtain besides all the information he possibly could concerning the natural resources of every part of the country through which he was to travel. San Domingo was then under the wise and able rule of President Boyer, the whole island forming one undivided republic, enjoying internal tranquillity, and being in a comparatively flourishing condition. On his way from England to Port-au-Prince, where he arrived on the sixteenth of June, 1830, Hill visited France staying there a few months. He spent nearly two years in San Domingo travelling incessantly and making notes about everything. He has left more than one sketch-book full of sketches showing a knowledge of perspective, a keen eye for the picturesque and a true artist's feeling. He sailed from San Domingo for England on the third of May, 1832, and then for Jamaica a few months after, never again to quit his native country. In that year he was made justice of the peace for Trelawny.

He was never greedy for money and seems to have been ill-paid for his labors in San Domingo. Upon his return to Jamaica either on that account or from motives of policy he ceased all communication with the Anti-Slavery Society, and only now and then did he write to one or two of its members, and even then more as personal friends than as old political allies.

On the third of February, 1834, Hill was appointed one of a number of forty stipendiary magistrates whose duty it was to adjudicate between the former slaveholders and their "apprentices."[6] This appointment he held until the first of January, 1872. In this connection it may be interesting to quote the opinion of Hill expressed by the Rev. James Thome and J. H. Kimball, who in 1838 published for the American Anti-Slavery Society an account of _Emanc.i.p.ation in the West Indies: a six months' tour in Antigua, Barbadoes and Jamaica in the year 1837_.

They say: "We spent nearly a day with Richard Hill, Esq., the secretary of the special magistrates' departments, of whom we have already spoken. He is a colored gentleman, and in every respect the n.o.blest man, white or black, whom we met in the West Indies. He is highly intelligent and of fine moral feelings. His manners are free and una.s.suming, and his language in conversation fluent and well chosen.... He is at the head of the special magistrates (of whom there are sixty (_sic_) in this island) and all the correspondence between them and the governor is carried on through him. The station he holds is a very important one, and the business connected with it is of a character and extent that, were he not a man of superior abilities, he could not sustain. He is highly respected by the government in the island and at home, and possesses the esteem of his fellow citizens of all colors. He a.s.sociates with persons of the highest rank, dining and attending parties at the government house with all the aristocracy of Jamaica. We had the pleasure of spending an evening with him at the solicitor general's. Though an African sun has burnt a deep tinge on him he is truly one of nature's n.o.bleman. His demeanor is such, so dignified, yet so bland and amiable, that no one can help respecting him."[7]

Hill represented St. James and afterwards Trelawny in the House of a.s.sembly which sat from October 24, 1837, to November 3, 1838, and during that time he served on several important committees, notably one appointed to inquire into the state of the several courts of justice in the island. But the fact that he unsuccessfully contested the representation of Port Royal in November, 1838, may have had something to do with his withdrawal from political strife. About 1840 he was offered the governorship of St. Lucia, but his love for his native island caused him to decline the offer. He was in 1855 nominated a member of the Privy Council which post he held only about ten years.

His political career was ended early in life, and the remainder of his days were pa.s.sed in retirement at Spanish-Town where he had taken up his abode upon being appointed stipendiary magistrate. He occupied his time with his daily official duties and literary work and seldom left home except for change of air at the sea side, to visit some intimate friend in Kingston, or perhaps to take the chair at some missionary gathering, or to join in the deliberations of a committee meeting. In 1847 Hill acted as Agent General of Immigration, and in December of that year he submitted an interesting report to the a.s.sembly.

When the cholera swept over the island in 1851 Hill turned his botanical studies to good account. The saline treatment was then in high esteem; but by means of the bitter-bush, _Eupatorium nervosum_, a shrub not unlike the wild sage in appearance, which grows freely on waste lands, he is said to have alleviated much suffering and saved many lives.

He was Vice-President from 1844 to 1849 of the Jamaica Society for the encouragement of Agriculture and other Arts and Sciences, inst.i.tuted in 1825. In 1849 this Society ceased to exist and in its stead sprang up the Colonial Literary and Heading Society, of which Hill was one of the managing committee. He was one of the nominated members of the then Board of Education. He was a member of the original council of the Royal Agricultural Society of Jamaica, founded in 1843, Vice-President as late as 1857 of the Royal Society of Arts of Jamaica, established in 1854 as the Jamaica Society of Arts, and Vice-President of the Royal Society of Arts and Agriculture, which was the result of the amalgamation of these two societies in 1864. In 1861 he had undertaken to edit jointly with the Rev. James Watson, the Secretary, the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Arts_, to which he contributed various notes. But in the first number of the _Transactions of the Incorporated Royal Society of Arts and Agriculture_ (1867) is the record of a vote of sympathy and regret at his inability to attend through ill-health; and although he contributed articles to the journal he was not able to be present at the meetings. His leisure was devoted to scientific study, especially the ornithology, ichthyology, and anthropology of the West Indies. He never let a single opportunity pa.s.s by, if he could possibly help it, without trying to benefit his country with his ready pen, and he always gave all the encouragement he could to those who seemed at all anxious to study any subject with which he was in the least acquainted. He read some twenty-five lectures in all at various times on various subjects.

On the t.i.tle page of his _Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica_, as well as in his preface, Gosse bears testimony to the a.s.sistance which Hill rendered to him. The appearance of Hill's name on the t.i.tle page ("a.s.sisted by Richard Hill, Esq., Cor. M. Z. S. Lond., Mem. Counc.

Boy. Soc. Agriculture of Jamaica") was, Mr. Edmund Gosse tells us in his memoir of his father, greatly against that modest gentleman's wish. He tells us also that the friendship for Hill was one of the warmest and most intimate friendships of his father's life. The publication of this book was delayed by the fact that every sheet was sent to Spanish Town to be read by Hill.

Hill contributed to several scientific publications both in England and America and by this means became connected with some of the leading learned societies of the world. He was corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London, of the Leeds Inst.i.tute and of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, and he numbered amongst his correspondents Darwin and Poey. Darwin had written in September, 1856, to Gosse for further information with respect to the habits of pigeons and rabbits referred to in his _Sojourn_, and it was at Gosse's suggestion that Darwin wrote to Hill. In a later letter, of April, 1857, he says: "I owe to using your name a most kind and valuable correspondent in Mr.

Hill, of Spanish Town."

The cony of Jamaica, _Capromys brachyurus_, found commonly in his day, but now becoming extinct, was named by Hill in Gosse's _Naturalist's Sojourn_; as well as four birds--three in the _Birds of Jamaica_ and one in the _Annals and Magazine of Natural History_, and two fishes.

One bird (_Mimus hillii_), two fishes and four mollusca, three being Jamaican, were named after Hill.

In addition to his collaboration with Gosse of the _Birds of Jamaica_ and the _Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica_, Hill's best-known literary productions are _A Week at Port Royal_, published at Montego Bay in 1858; _Lights and Shadows of Jamaica History_, published in Kingston in 1859; _Eight Chapters in the History of Jamaica, 1508-1680_, ill.u.s.trating the settlement of the Jews in the island which appeared in 1868; and _The Picaroons of One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago_, which was published in Dublin in 1869.

He contributed, moreover, a large number of articles on natural history subjects to various Jamaica publications too numerous to mention. Some of these were: _The Jamaica Almanacs_; _Transactions of the Jamaica Society of Arts_; _Transactions of the Royal Society of Arts of Jamaica_; _The Jamaica Physical Journal_; _Jamaica Monthly Magazine_; _Jamaica Quarterly Magazine_. In England he contributed to the _Proceedings of the Zoological Society_; and in America to the _Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science_, Philadelphia, and the _Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History_, New York.

In stature he was tall and commanding, though perhaps the comparison of him to Antinous made by the writer of an obituary notice was a little exaggerated. All who knew bore testimony to his generosity, philanthropy, modesty, even temper, and unfailing self-forgetfulness, his kindness of heart, his piety, and his catholicism in matters of religion. A portrait of him executed in oils, it is said, by James Wyeth, an American artist who spent a short season in the island, is in the Jamaica History Gallery at the Inst.i.tute of Jamaica, which also possesses a pencil sketch of him done by himself.

For two or three years before his death Hill suffered from failing eyesight. He died, unmarried, at Spanish Town, on September 28, 1872, at the advanced age of seventy-eight. His remains were followed to the grave by an immense concourse of all cla.s.ses.

FRANK CUNDALL, _Secretary, The Inst.i.tute of Jamaica_

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Taken in great measure from the biographical notice by the writer in the _Journal of the Inst.i.tute of Jamaica_, July, 1896.

[2] For a general sketch of this period see W. J. Gardner's _a History of Jamaica_, pp. 211-317.

[3] This movement had for years been promoted by the heroic few. It was then getting a hearing in Parliament. They first advocated the abolition of the slave trade and then directed attention to slavery.

[4] These contributions closely connected Hill with the men whose new thought revolutionized science a few decades later.

[5] San Domingo was then independent and the success of the free Negroes there would have a direct bearing on the anti-slavery movement, as indifferent white men sometimes contended that the free Negro was a failure.

[6] Slavery in the British West Indies was not actually abolished instantly. Gradual emanc.i.p.ation was the method tried in most parts and even in cases of immediate emanc.i.p.ation the system of apprenticeship which followed was not much better than slavery.

[7] The office of Secretary to the Stipendiary Magistrates was established in order to a.s.sist Governor Sligo to get through the enormous amount of correspondence entailed by the complaints sent to him in connection with the administration of the laws with regard to the apprenticeship system.

THE RELATIONS OF NEGROES AND INDIANS IN Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

One of the longest unwritten chapters of the history of the United States is that treating of the relations of the Negroes and Indians.

The Indians were already here when the white men came and the Negroes brought in soon after to serve as a subject race found among the Indians one of their means of escape. That a larger number of the Negroes did not take refuge among the Indians was due to the ignorance of the blacks as to the geographic situation. Not knowing anything about the country and unacquainted with the language of the white man or that of the Indians, most Negroes dared not venture very far from the plantations on which they lived. Statistics show, however, that in spite of this impediment to the escape of Negroes to Indian communities, a considerable number of blacks availed themselves of this opportunity. From the most northern colonies as far south as Florida there was much contact resulting in the interbreeding of Indians and Negroes.

In no case was this better exemplified than in Ma.s.sachusetts. Because of the cosmopolitan influences in that State where the fur trade, fisheries, and commerce brought the people into contact with a large number of foreigners, the Indian settlements by an infusion of blood from without served as a sort of melting pot in which the Negroes became an important factor. There was extensive miscegenation of the two races after the middle of the seventeenth century. In the course of ten or twelve generations there was an opportunity for "foreign blood early introduced to permeate the whole ma.s.s and when it is considered that the intermixture was constantly kept up from the outside, it is a wonder that Indians of pure native race remained."[1]

According to the first authentic census of Ma.s.sachusetts, published in 1765, all of the counties of the State except Hampshire, Hampden, and Franklin had both a Negro and Indian population. Barnstable had 231 Negroes and 515 Indians; Berkshire had 88 Negroes and 221 Indians; Bristol, 287 Negroes and 106 Indians; Dukes, 46 Negroes and 313 Indians; Ess.e.x, 1070 Negroes and 8 Indians; Middles.e.x, 860 Negroes and 45 Indians; Nantucket, 44 Negroes and 227 Indians; Suffolk, 844 Negroes and 37 Indians; Worcester, 267 Negroes and 34 Indians, making a total of 4900 Negroes and 1697 Indians.[2] After a careful survey of the Indian situation in 1861, however, it was discovered that only a part of these Indians had retained their peculiar characteristics and these had been finally reduced to a few reservations known as the following: Chappequidd.i.c.k, Christiantown, Gay Head, Marshpee, Herring Pond, Natick, Punkapog, Fall River, Ha.s.sanamisco, and Dudley. There were other Indians at Yarmouth, Dartmouth, Tumpum, Deep Bottom, Middleborough, and a few scattered.[3]

The Indians were generally neglected for the reason that they were considered beyond the pale of Christianity, despite professions to the contrary. As a matter of fact, being wards of the State they were scantily provided for and their fundamental needs were generally neglected. They were offered few opportunities for mental, moral, or religious improvement for the reason that the missionary spirit which characterized Cotton Mather and John Eliot no longer existed. Only a small sum was raised or appropriated for their rudimentary education and with the exception of what could be done with the "Williams Fund"

of Harvard College there was little effort made for their evangelization. Left thus to themselves, the Indians developed into a state within a state.

When, therefore, the Negroes became conscious of the wrongs they suffered in slavery, a few early learned to take refuge among the Indians and even after they were freed in Ma.s.sachusetts their social proscription was such among the whites that some free people of color preferred the hard life among the Indians to the whiffs and scorns of race prejudice in the seats of Christian civilization. Coming into contact there with foreigners, who found it convenient to move among these morally weak people, the Negroes served as important factors in the melting pot in which the Indians were remade and introduced to American life as whites and blacks. Referring to the moral condition of the Fall River Indians, as a case in evidence, an investigator reported in 1861 that in two families there were twelve cases of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy and in one of them it was said that, of eight children, the paternity was apparently about equally divided among the Indian, Negro, and white races.[4]

The reports on the state of the Indians always disclosed the presence and the influence of Negroes among them. "Of the publishments of colored persons interested and the early records of Dartmouth," said J. M. Earle in 1861, "by far the larger proportion of those of them were Negro men to Indian women. In Yarmouth a large portion of those of Indian descent have intermarried with whites until their progeny has become white, their social relations are with those of that color and they are mingled with the general community having lost their ident.i.ty as a distinct portion of the Ha.s.sanamiscoes and it would have been a fortunate thing for all if it had been so with them all. But the mixture in most of the tribes has been more with the Negro race than with the white until that blood probably predominates though there are still a considerable number who have the prominent characteristics of the Indians--the lank, glossy, black hair, the high cheek bones--the bright dark eye and other features peculiar to the race."[5]

Investigating the Indians of Gay Head in 1861, John M. Earle observed that the people of Gay Head, like those of other plantations, were a mixture of the red, white and black races. They had also "an infusion of the blood of the chivalry of the South as well as of the Portuguese and Dutch, as might be inferred from the names of Randolph, Madison, Corsa, Sylvia and Vanderhoop being found among them."[6] The admixture was much like that on the other plantations with perhaps a less infusion of the African than in some of them. A few were so strongly marked with Indian characteristics as to lead one to conclude that they are very nearly of pure blood, but there were none so nearly white as in some of the other tribes.

It appeared that these people had lived without the law, so to speak, in Ma.s.sachusetts because of their refusal to accept certain regulations which the State desired to impose upon them. By the act of June 25, 1811, the governor was authorized to appoint three persons to be guardians of the Indian, Mulatto and Negro proprietors of Gay Head, which guardians, in addition to the usual powers given to functionaries in such cases, were empowered to take into their possession the lands of Indians, and allot to the several Indians such part of the lands as should be sufficient for their improvement from time to time. The act further provided for the discontinuance or removal of the guardians at the discretion of the governor and council.[7] Under this act three guardians were appointed and in 1814 the Indians became dissatisfied with their guardians, who resigned, and the guardianship disappeared.

In 1828 there was enacted another measure providing that whenever the Indians and people of color at Gay Head should by a vote in town meeting accept that act and should transmit to the governor an attested copy of the vote, the governor might then authorize the guardian to take up his duties at Gay Head, and might upon their request, appoint suitable persons to divide their lands. As the Indians had unpleasant recollections of the guardian-system, they never accepted that proposal. For about thirty years they were without any guardians, and their affairs, except that of the public schools, were left to themselves.

It appears, however, that the mere provision for the appointment of a guardian was not the only objectionable feature of the Act of 1828.

The guardian was given power to "punish, by fine not exceeding twenty dollars, or by solitary imprisonment not exceeding twenty days, any trespa.s.ses, batteries, larcenies under five dollars, gross lewdness and lascivious behavior, disorderly and riotous conduct, and for the sale of spirituous liquors within the territory, or on the lands of these Indians and people of color.[8] The guardian or other justice of the peace might issue his warrant directed to the constable of the Indians and people of color, or other proper officer, to arrest and bring before him, any offender against the provisions of this act; and after judgment, he might order execution to be done by said constable or other proper officer; and if the guardian or other justice of the peace should adjudge any offender to solitary imprisonment, such offender should not, during the term of said imprisonment be visited by, or allowed to speak with any person other than the jailer, or the guardian or justice of the peace or such other person as the guardian or justice of the peace should specially authorize thereto; nor should such offender be allowed any food or drink other than coa.r.s.e bread and water, unless sickness should, in the opinion of a physician, render other sustenance necessary,"[9] "With such a provision in the Act,"

said J. M. Earle, "making a discrimination so odious and unjust, between themselves and other prisoners, the Indians would have been greatly wanting in self-respect had they accepted it. It is a provision disgraceful to the statute book of the State, and discreditable to the civilization of the age. Yet two tribes, the Chappequidd.i.c.k and the Christiantown, were made subject to the provisions of this law, without the power to accept or reject it, and are governed by it to this day"[10] (1861).

The Marshpee tribe doubtless had a larger infusion of Negro blood than any. When the population of this tribe was 327 in 1771, 14 of them were Negroes, married to Indians. In 1832 there were 315 inhabitants, of whom 16 were Negroes. According to the report of the Indian commissioner in 1849 the population was 305 in 1848, of whom 26 were foreigners, all Negroes or mulattoes. The tribe numbered 403 in 1859, "including 32 foreigners, married to natives of the tribe, all Negroes or mulattoes, or various mixtures of Negro, Indian, or white blood--none of them being pure whites."[11]

The Punkapog Tribe of Indians formerly dwelt on a tract of land in Canton, Norfolk County, containing five thousand acres, granted them by the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts. Before 1861, however, they had lost all of this property, the last of it being sold by the guardian, about 1841, in pursuance of a resolve of the legislature. "The full-blood Indians of the tribe," says the report of 1861, "are all extinct. Their descendants, who, like those of all the other tribes in the States, are of various grades of mixtures, of Indian, white, and Negro blood, number, so far as is ascertained one hundred and seventeen persons."[12]

According to the survey made in 1861 the moral condition of the Indians was rather low and it was a regret that the people of color exhibiting generally more moral stamina should be degraded by living among them. Accounting for this condition of Affairs a contemporary said of the low moral condition of the Fall River Indians in 1861: "The prejudice of color and caste, and the social proscription to which the colored people are subjected, has a twofold unfavorable effect upon them; first to detract from their self-respect and so to weaken the moral instincts, and then to throw them into the a.s.sociation of the more dissolute and degraded of other races, where they fall an easy prey to immoral habits. There are, however, in this tribe as well as the others, instances of those who rise above all the evil influences with which they are encompa.s.sed and maintain a good standing, as worthy and respectable members of the community. It would be a cause for gratification, if it could be said truly that these are increasing, or that there was any decided progress in the general character of the tribe. But, from all the evidence that can be gathered, it does not appear that, for the last twelve or fourteen years, there has been much, if any improvement in their moral and social condition,"[13]

The situation in the Ha.s.sanamisco Tribe shows how the Indians in some of these reservations became extinct. Interbreeding with both races they pa.s.sed either to the blacks or to the whites. "But little trace of Indian descent is apparent in the members of this tribe," said J.

M. Earle in 1861. "It is most marked in the few who have mixed chiefly with the whites, yet some of these have no perceptible indications of it, and have become identified with the white race. The remainder of the tribe have the distinguishing marks of African descent and mixed African and white, of various grades, from the light quadroon and mulatto, to the apparently nearly pure negro, and, in every successive generation the slight remaining characteristics of the race become less apparent."[14]

Referring to the Yarmouth Indians the investigator informs us that these had tended to go almost altogether over to the white race. "With this exception," said he, "nearly all of his descendants have intermarried with whites, down to the present day, so that they are substantially merged in the general community, having their social relations with white people, with the exception of one or two families."[15] It was observed that in all the families, in which both heads are living, there were only two in which one of them was not pure white, and those having the Indian blood were usually so little colored, that it would hardly be noticed by one not acquainted with the fact. Some of them had but one sixteenth part of Indian blood. Of the two widows found there in 1861 one was the wife of a white man.

The other was a Marshpee Indian whose husband belonged to the Yarmouth tribe and she a.s.sociated with the people of color.

Discussing the Middleborough Indians, the same report said: "They have been, for some time, commingled with them in the same community, generally under as favorable circ.u.mstances, in most respects, as the other colored population of the State, to which they a.s.similate and have not been subjected to the peculiar present disadvantages under which those labor who are residents of the plantations,"[16]

Because of numerous complaints to the effect that the unnecessary restrictions placed on Indians no longer dependents worked a hardship, the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts enacted in 1861 a measure providing that all Indians and descendants of Indians in that State should be placed on the same legal footing as other inhabitants of that Commonwealth, excepting those who were supported or had been, in whole or in part, by the State and excepting also those residing on the Indian plantations of Chappequidd.i.c.k, Christiantown, Gay Head, Marshpee, Herring Pond, Fall River and Dudley tribes or those whose homes were thereon and were only temporarily absent. It further provided that any Indian or person of color, thus denied the right of citizenship but desirous of exercising that privilege might certify the same in writing to the clerk of his town or city, who should make a record of the same and upon the payment of a poll tax should become to all intents and purposes a citizen of the State, but such persons should not return to the legal condition of an Indian. Indians unable to avail themselves of this opportunity remained under a guardian in their former state but by complying with this provision they finally emerged from their tribal state into the large body of citizens.

Giving further consideration to the situation among the Indians, the legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts pa.s.sed in 1869 what is known as _An Act to Enfranchise the Indians of the Commonwealth_. By this measure practically all Indians in that State were made citizens ent.i.tled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities and subject to all the duties and liabilities to which other citizens were ent.i.tled or subject. The same provision was made in the acts of 1884, 1890, 1892 and 1893.[17] With a proviso exempting from attachment or seizure on execution for a debt or liability existing before the pa.s.sage of the law this measure further declared all Indian lands "rightfully held by any Indian in severalty and all such lands which had been or may be set off to any Indian should be and become the property of such person and his heirs in fee simple."[18]

The Indians thereby became vested not only with the rights of any other citizen to sell or control his interest in property whether legal or equitable but were given similar rights in the common lands which were transferable. Prior to this legislation the common lands had been exploited by the State for the benefit of those Indians having the status of wards. Recognizing only equitable rights of ownership in the Indians, the commonwealth kept their property under public guardianship to protect them from the consequences of their own improvidence. Indians had the right immediately to have their share of the common lands of the tribe transferred to them or sold for their special benefit. They were granted also the right to have their share in any funds or other property held in trust for the tribe turned over to them.