OUR OPPORTUNITY IN THE WEST INDIES S. P. G Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES OUR OPPORTUNITY IN THE WEST INDIES Those who intend to lead a Study Circle ( n this book are asked to apply for an Enrolment Card to the Secretary, Study Department, S.P.G., 15 Tu/ton Street, Westminster, S.W., from whom ' Assignments,' price id., and ' Suggestions to Leaders,' price zd., may be obtained. INDIAN HOUSE AND GROUP OF AKAWOIS INDIANS OUR OPPORTUNITY IN THE WEST INDIES BY BENJAMIN G. O'RORKE, M.A. CHAPLAIN TO THE FORCES ILLUSTRATED PUBLISHED BY THE Uig for i\t propagation of % <$osptl in Jfomgn TUFTON STREET, WESTMINSTER. S.W. 1913 !3V ax 45" NOTE THIS book, which is intended primarily for the use of Missionary Study Circles, deals chiefly with the work of the Anglican Church in the West Indies and British Guiana. Each chapter has been read and (with the consent of the writer) revised by a committee composed of persons who have had experience in the conduct of Study Circles. The responsibility for the issue of the book, as it now appears, belongs to the Society by which it is published. In the production of the illustrations the Society acknowledges its indebtedness to Mr. A. E. Aspinall the Secretary of the West Indian Committee, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Messrs. G. Duckworth & Co., and the Church Missionary Society. S.P.G. EDITORIAL SECRETARY. December 1913. 1019320 CONTENTS IHAPTER PAGE 1. THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND . . . . Q II. IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY . . . . . 24 III. JAMAICA . . . . . . . . 43 IV. THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA . . 65 V. BARBADOS AND THE WINDWARD ISLANDS . . 89 VI. ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, AND TRINIDAD . in INDEX . 135 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS INDIAN HOUSE AND GROUP OF AKAWOIS INDIANS Frontispiece CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS , . . .To face page 10 GENERAL CODRINGTON . . . ' . ' . 10 MAP OF THE WEST INDIES ..... 14 A TYPICAL SCENE IN JAMAICA . . . ,, 1 8 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE . . , 36 THOMAS CLARKSON .*.... 36 T. POWELL BUXTON ..... 36 AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE: ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, KINGSTON, JAMAICA . 44 Two CHURCH WORKERS IN THE WEST INDIES ,, 50 BISHOP LIPSCOMB ....<. 60 BISHOP NUTTALL ..... 60 BISHOP RAWLE . . . . . . 60 BISHOP AUSTIN ...... 60 NASSAU SPONGE MARKET . . ... ,, 68 RAKING SALT ...... ,, 72 SALT READY FOR CARTING .... ,, 72 THE OLD CHURCH AT LONG BAY, ANDROS Is. 80 BOY SCOUTS, LIMON, HONDURAS ... 80 MAKING THE PANAMA CANAL ... 86 CODRINGTON COLLEGE, BARBADOS . 90 ORINOCO INDIANS ..... 118 THE MISSION HOUSE, EUPUKARI ... 124 BREAKING COCOA IN TRINIDAD 128 OUR OPPORTUNITY IN THE WEST INDIES CHAPTER I THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND OUR opportunity in the West Indies. How Christopher Columbus would have envied it ! His opportunity had to be created, besought on bended knee, waited for during seventeen discouraging years. But at last it came. Picture the daring pioneer as he stands on the shore ready to embark from the coast of Spain with his 120 companions. They have made their confession, received the Sacrament, and the tiny squadron is waiting to carry them off to the great unknown. We will leave them there for a while. Columbus, tall, dignified, muscular ; with hair white at the early age of thirty ; with face freckled and ruddy ; with an aquiline nose and the mien of a deter- mined pioneer, and yet, withal, gifted with a manner kindly and persuasive such was the man who was de- stined to electrify the world. Tradition has it that he was (4 M (i) O. 19747) 9 io THE WEST INDIES born about 1436, at Genoa, the son of a wool-carder. A sailor from the age of fifteen, he early became possessed with the idea that, the world being a sphere, India could be reached by boldly turning the prow due westwards. He made his plans carefully and sought a patron to equip him with an expedition to carry them out. He sent his brother Bartholomew to lay the scheme before Henry VII of England, while he himself worked and begged his way first to John II of Portugal and then to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The two latter kept him in suspense for five years before undertaking what appeared so visionary a project. The sea has perils enough to-day, even for a Dread- nought or a Titanic, but in those early days, great as were the real dangers, the imaginary were greater. Columbus had but a conjectural map and an unreliable compass. It seemed to men as wild a quest as it would be at the present day for an airman to launch forth in search of a distant star. Three ships were placed at his disposal, provisioned for one year. They were of small size, probably not more than 100 tons burden each. The vessel, the Santa Maria, which Columbus himself commanded, was the only one of the three decked throughout, and her full strength was sixteen persons. The other two were light barques, called caravels, and were decked fore and aft but not amidships, the stem and stern rising high in the water. The total number of adventurers who made up the expedition was 120, as we have seen. A special pardon was granted to persons under sentence taking service on so hazardous a voyage, consequently the majority of the crew con- THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND n sisted of criminals and runaway debtors the only volunteers Columbus was able to obtain. The first voyage We return now to the shore where the anchors were weighed, August 3, 1492. It was a Friday, a day, as it proved, of happy omen. They steered for the Canary Islands, and thence westward, but whither ? Days were to come when all but the leader would give way to despair. More than once the crew were tempted to throw the Admiral, as they now called Columbus, overboard, and return with the tale that he fell into the sea while gazing at the stars. At last, however, one happy night Columbus caught sight of a light glimmering in the distance, and next morning one of the party saw land. An old historian discerned in this light in the midst of darkness an emblem of the spiritual light about to be introduced among the barbarous inhabitants. Land The landing was a red-letter day in the annals of history, and was worthily celebrated. It was on October 12, 1492 again a Friday that Columbus, clad in armour, over which hung a crimson scarf, landed on the island, accompanied by the captains of the other two vessels. He held aloft the royal banner of Spain, while a crowd of simple islanders looked on in amaze- ment. His first act on touching land was to fall down on his knees, kiss the earth, and render thanks to God 12 THE WEST INDIES with tears of joy. Then, rising, he drew his sword, took possession of the island in the name of the Spanish monarchs, and called it San Salvador, in gratitude for his deliverance from the sea. It is situated in the Bahamas, and its native name was Guanahani. 1 The inhabitants What sort of people were the inhabitants ? Let the Admiral himself tell us the impression they made upon him : ' Because they had much friendship for us, and because I knew that they were people that would deli ver themselves better to the Christian faith, and be con- verted more through love than force, I gave them some coloured caps and some strings of glass beads, and many other things of little value, with which they were delighted, and were so entirely ours that it was a marvel to see. The same afterwards came swimming to the ship's boats and brought us parrots, cotton threads in balls, darts, and many others things, and bartered them with us for things which we gave them. In fine, they took and gave all of whatever they had with good- will.' Then he goes on to say that they were well made, their hair straight like horsehair, their colour yellow ; and that they painted themselves, being entirely naked. They carried no arms, and seemed not to understand the use of them. He concludes his description of them by saying they ought to make good 1 Its present name according to tradition is Cat Island ; but some say it was Watling Island at which Columbus first touched, a place which derives its name from a notorious buccaneer. THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 13 servants, probably meaning slaves ; but he adds that they would be easy to convert to the Christian faith, for they quickly repeated all that was said to them, and appeared, at first, to have no creed of their own. And what impression, on the other hand, did these strange beings make upon the natives ? At first, they thought that they had issued from the deep during the night. On second thoughts, when they beheld them closely, with their glittering steel and booming guns, they decided they must have descended from above, armed with thunder and lightning. On a still closer acquaintance they once more changed their minds, as we shall see. The islands themselves for they found there were many were sublimely beautiful, and the Spaniards made two important discoveries upon them, They found the inhabitants indulging in a ' fumigation ' of a peculiar kind ; they imbibed smoke into the mouth through a charred stick. 1 It was caused by burning certain herbs wrapped in a dry leaf, called ' tabaco.' Las Casas, the historian, mentions that the natives said it took away fatigue, and that he had known Spaniards adopt the same habit, who, when reproved, replied that it was not in their power to leave it off. ' I do not know,' he adds naively, ' what savour or profit they found in them.' Financially and commercially his nation found immense profit in this discovery ; far more, indeed, than in the other discovery namely, the existence of gold mines. 1 This stick was shaped like a catapult, the forked ends being inserted in the nostrils. I 4 THE WEST INDIES ' Indians ' and the West Indies Proceeding southwards, the Admiral touched at Cuba, which he was confident was the main land of India. Hence he began to call the natives of the islands ' Indians,' a name which has clung to them ever since. Hence, too, the islands themselves came to be known as ' West Indies.' 1 His next discovery was the island of Hayti, to which he gave the name of Hispaniola, on account of its resemblance to the more beautiful pro- vinces of Spain. It proved to be a central point of the whole of the New World, and a base for future discovery and conquest. Here he was received with the utmost cordiality by the cacique, or chief, Guacanagari, whose innate gentleness and goodness of heart were character- istic of the inhabitants as a whole. A touching exhibi- tion of this trait was given when on Christmas Day Columbus was wrecked on the cacique's coast. The natives, instead of seizing the chance of looting, went out in their canoes and lent assistance to the white men. The cacique himself stood guard over the rescued goods. Columbus, who was moved to the heart, thus expresses himself : ' They are a loving, uncovetous people, so docile in all things, that I assure your High- nesses I believe in all the world there is not a better people, or a better country ; they love their neigh- bours as themselves, and they have the sweetest and gentlest way of talking in the world, and always with a smile.' 1 Their other name, ' Antilles,' was given them because Columbus on his arrival was supposed to have reached the fabled country of Antilla, which found an uncertain place on old maps of the world. THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 15 The first settlement Having found ' such goodwill and such gold/ the Admiral resolved to establish a settlement there. He regarded the loss of his vessel as providential, ordained in order that the true faith might be preached in that country. With the timber of the wreck he built a fort, and, leaving behind forty of his men, he set sail for Spain. He bade these men keep continually in mind the opinion the natives had hitherto formed of them namely, that they had dropped down in their midst direct from heaven. Let them not undeceive their unsophisticated minds. In his desire to preserve a good understanding with the natives, Columbus reminds us of David Livingstone. As for the forty men left behind, we are told that they were the pick of the expedition. Alas, for the remainder of them ! Home again A wonderful reception awaited Columbus when he reached Spain on March 15, 1493 (a Friday once more), after an absence of seven months and a half. Such a triumphal procession had seldom, if ever, been seen. Did he not carry in trail behind him not human captives but the sea and its terrors and dread of the fabled ' Beyond ' ? A ' Te Deum ' fitly closed the day. He had brought back nine natives to teach them the Spanish language and the Christian faith, so that they might return as interpreters to the Spaniards, and as missionaries to their heathen kinsmen. One of them died shortly after his baptism, and, according to the T 6 THE WEST INDIES belief of the age, was held to be the first of the New World to enter heaven. II The second voyage Columbus had been only six months in Spain when he was ready to embark again. There was no need this time to hold out inducements to volunteers. It was an honour, the chance of a lifetime. The 1500 who made up the party expected, every man of them, to come back laden with riches. They took in addition twelve missionaries, under the charge of a Benedictine monk, Bernard Buil, specially appointed by the Pope. It was not likely that so large a body of men, whose chief trait was ambition, would take kindly to the leader- ship of one whom they regarded as an upstart foreigner. Indeed, before they sailed we find them quick to magnify, and even to manufacture, trifling grievances. Fresh discoveries The journey was none the less a successful one. In less than two months they sighted an island. It being a Sunday they gave it the name of Dominica. Proceeding, they discovered and christened Maria Galante and then Guadeloupe. In the latter island they found human flesh roasting at a camp fire, and learnt that the natives were cannibals. These proved to be the ferocious race of Caribs. Columbus had now reached the beautiful cluster of islands called the Antilles which form a semicircle in the Caribbean Sea. Passing and naming Montserrat, Antigua, St. Martin, Santa THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 17 Cruz, San Juan (afterwards called Porto Rico), and The Virgin Islands they arrived at Hispaniola. The fate of the settlement How eagerly they looked out for a welcome from the forty stalwarts left behind, and for news of their doings ! But there was no answering call from the fort as they approached it, and the fort itself was a ruin. On landing their suspicions were confirmed. The whole colony had been exterminated. Not a man survived to tell the tale. They soon learnt that when the restraining hand of Columbus had gone, the colonists had thrown all self-control to the winds, and by their licentious conduct had converted their friendly hosts into vindictive enemies, who, in desperation, had rid the island of their presence. Such is the story of the first European settlement in the New World. This was a bad beginning, and the sequel was worse. The new-comers had arrived, not to work for their daily bread, but merely to pick up gold and live at ease. They expected to find gold on the seashore, and food awaiting them in every field. They found that neither the one nor the other was to be had without strenuous toil. Columbus shared the common disappointment. A proposal was now seriously mooted to enrich them- selves and their sovereigns by establishing a traffic in human beings. In his anxiety to pay the expenses of the colony and to provide a revenue for the crown, he recommended that the cannibals of the Caribbean islands should be captured and sold as slaves, or ex- changed with merchants for live stock and other i8 THE WEST INDIES necessaries of life ; and it should be remembered that Columbus was fully convinced that the benefits of this scheme would be mutual, nay, perhaps the advantage m his eyes lay all on the side of the savage ; for was it not a cheap price for them to pay for the privilege of Christian instruction ? Moreover, they would represent souls rescued from perdition. It should also be borne in mind that the times in which he lived afforded an excuse for his action, since public opinion did not frown on slavery then as it does now. Arawaks and Caribs Columbus modified his opinion with regard to the peaceable qualities of the Arawaks, as the islanders at Hispaniola were called. He found them to be capable of showing fight when aroused by their fierce neighbours the Caribs. Yet, generally speaking, they were mild and gentle. 1 Their religious belief was of a simple nature. They believed in one Supreme Being Who lived above them somewhere beyond the sky, immortal, omnipotent, and invisible. They prayed to Him, sending their prayers by messenger spirits called zemes. Each cacique, each tribe, and each individual had a particular zeme as a guardian angel. A warrior when preparing for battle would bind an image of his zeme upon his forehead as a charm against danger. To lose this image spelt terrible misfortune to the owner, and his luck could not turn until he recovered it or stole one from someone else. These people had their 1 It is supposed that Robinson Crusoe's Friday was an Arawak who had escaped from the Caribs in Trinidad. THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 19 own tradition concerning the origin of the world. They taught how man first made his appearance scrambling out of a cave, the tall men out of a large hole, and the small from a crevice in the rock. One poor man, so ran the story, stayed out too long fishing and was changed into a bird, whose plaintive note was still to be heard, and Columbus mistook it for the nightingale. They had their own tale, too, of the deluge ; and as to a future life, they held that the spirits of men after death were reunited, in shady regions, amidst unspeakable delights, to the spirits of those they loved best on earth. The discovery of Jamaica Resuming his travels on May 3, 1493, Columbus discovered Jamaica. Two days before he reached it he was charmed with the sight of the blue mountains and the majestic forests. He described the natives as more ingenious and more warlike than those of Cuba and Hispaniola. He was much struck with their canoes, hollowed out of a single tree, 1 one of which measured ninety-six feet. He was, however, disappointed in his hopes of finding gold. He sailed round the island, and on the banks of one of the rivers a solemn Mass was celebrated. The cacique wished to accompany him to Spain, but was not permitted to do so. The gold of that land And now the Admiral's health broke down. Return- ing to Hispaniola he found his colony thoroughly dis- 1 Generally a silk-cotton tree. B 2 20 THE WEST INDIES organised during his absence, and the natives decimated through the skirmishes which had taken place between them and the Spaniards. The plots against his own authority had reached a crisis and caused his return to Spain, where he arrived, after an absence of two years and a half, in March 1496. He was able to make the bare announcement that gold had been discovered ; and, as if by way of proof, a facetious captain of one of his vessels gave out that he had actually brought home ' gold in bars.' But when his cargo was examined it was found to consist of Indians confined within bars, whose sale would eventually realise gold ! His country- men were too much disappointed to appreciate this pleasantry. A profitable exchange Two incidents which occurred about this time throw light upon life in the West Indies. In the first place, 300 slaves reached Spain from Hispaniola in 1496 ; and in 1497 Hispaniola became the dumping-ground for Spanish criminals. In other words, free men were dispatched to the Christian country for slavery, and jail-birds to the savage land for freedom. The exchange was characteristic of the age. A loyal friend The other incident was a happier one. A rebellion had taken place under the leadership of Guarionex, a cacique. It was soon quelled, and Guarionex was made a prisoner. He fled for refuge to the territory of Maiobonex, a highland cacique. Thereupon Bartholo- THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 21 mew Columbus, brother of the Admiral, went in pursuit, and intimated to Maiobonex that he had no quarrel with him provided that he gave up the fugitive. This, however, he bravely declined to do, and proved himself a veritable Jonathan to his David. Nor would he relent even when his villages were burnt over his head. His own people besought him to yield, but his loyalty to his friend was stronger than his love of freedom, of home, and of life itself. Guarionex sought to solve the difficulty by fleeing from his protection. The two caciques were at last captured and confined together in the same prison. Natives capable of such gallantry were not lacking in the highest qualities. in The third voyage All this was happening while Columbus was in Spain. In May 1498 he began his third voyage. On July 31 from the mast-head of his ship were descried three mountains rising above the horizon. ' La Trinidad !' said Columbus, with a reference to the Holy Trinity, and the island has borne that name ever since. Continuing, on Wednesday, August i, he beheld for the first time the continent of America. 1 He supposed it to be another island, and gave it the name of Zeta. He was not long, however, in reaching the conclusion that the land must be a continent, 1 He was not the first, however, to sight the mainland, Sebastian Cabot having discovered the northern continent in 1497. The continent derives its name from a Florentine merchant, Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed thither in 1499. 22 THE WEST INDIES that it was indeed the shore of the earthly Paradise, and that the River Orinoco was one of the four great rivers which water the garden of Eden. He erected a great cross on the shore and claimed it in the name of Christ and of his royal patrons, as was his wont everywhere. Columbus had now ceased to be the idol of Spain. Accusations from the West Indies, mingling with jealousies in the homeland, led to his downfall. In 1500 he found himself superseded, and was sent home in chains he who in Tennyson's words had ' unchained the Atlantic sea for all the world to come.' Much as they chafed his flesh, they galled his heart still more. Never again was he allowed to resume his authority in Hispaniola. When he returned westwards on a fresh expedition it was with instructions to give that island a wide berth. IV The last voyage In July 1502 he passed Jamaica, and sailed thence to the coast of Honduras. Turning southwards at Cape Gracios a Dios (which means, Thanks be to God), he searched for an outlet through the isthmus of Panama into the Indian ocean, but finding none shaped his course once more for Jamaica. Here he spent twelve anxious months, his ship having been wrecked, until by the gallantry of a loyal friend he was rescued. On November 7, 1504, the discoverer of the New World reached Spain in so sorry a plight that the heart of his bitterest foe must have been touched. The only THE DISCOVERY OF THE LAND 23 voyage which remained for him was to that land from whose bourne no traveller returns. Upon this he embarked on Ascension Day 1506, being about seventy years of age. It is fitting to begin our studies on the West Indies with the career of Columbus. He possessed the two great qualifications of vision and courage. He saw a great opportunity, and had the courage to embrace it. He built upon no other man's foundation, but laid foundations for other men to build upon. He looked to God for inspiration, and depended upon Him for guidance. At a banquet in his honour, a jealous courtier once asked him whether he thought that, in case he had not been the discoverer of the Indies, there would have been lacking men capable of the enterprise. Taking an egg, he invited the company to make it stand upon one end. When they failed he quietly took it, dented one end, and left it standing on the broken part ; illustrating in this simple manner that when he had once shown the way to the New World, nothing was easier than to follow it. BOOKS OF REFERENCE ' Life of Christopher Columbus.' ' The Church in Greater Britain.' Chapter VI. G. R. Wynne. (S.P.G. is. 6d. net). ' The West Indies and the Spanish Main.' James Rodway. (Story of the Nations Series. Unwin. 55.) ' Historical Geography of the British Colonies.' Vol. II. The West Indies. C. P. Lucas. (Clarendon Press. 75. 6d.) Historical Sketch, The West Indies. (S.P.G. id.) ' Life of Las Casas.' A. Helps. (G. Bell. is. net.) 'On Sea and Land.' H. W. Case. (Morgan and Scott.) ' The British West Indies.' A. E. Aspinall. (Pitman. 75. 6d. net.) CHAPTER II IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY ON their discovery by Christopher Columbus, the islands of the West Indies were naturally claimed as Spanish possessions. But one by one they have been taken from, or have revolted from, the Spanish throne ; and now they are either independent or have become colonies of other nations. Cuba and Hayti, the largest of the group, are independent republics ; Porto Rico, the next in size, is an American colony ; Guadeloupe and Martinique are French ; St. Thomas and a few small islands are Danish ; St. Martin and four others belong to the Dutch. The remainder are English, namely, Jamaica, Trinidad (the fourth and fifth in size), Barbados, and the Bahamas ; the Windward Islands (St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and the Grenadines), the Leeward Islands (Antigua, Dominica, Montserrat, Nevis, St. Kitts, and the Virgin Islands), and many smaller islands. The Spaniards and the French have disputed our right tune after time, except in the case of Barbados, and the inhabitants in the early days of colonisation must have been greatly puzzled at the frequency with which they changed masters. So much for our domains in the West Indies. We 24 IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 25 will now deal with our fellow-subjects there : what manner of men they are, how they came there, and how we have acted towards them. Our opportunity can best be considered after we have looked our obligations in the face. The present races of black and coloured people are the descendants of those whom we shall describe in this chapter. The sugar-cane and the slave-trade Europeans sought in the West the fabled Eldorado, or lake of golden sands. Curiously enough, they brought their Eldorado with them, in the shape of the sugar- cane, which was originally introduced from the East by the Portuguese. It speedily created an industry on a large scale, and to work it the plantation system was adopted. It proved a bitter-sweet root, from which alike the wealth and the misfortune of the islands have chiefly sprung ; for it involved another importation labourers to work it. The white men were few, and unfitted by nature for the work, the gentle Arawaks were physically weak, and the man-eating Caribs were too intractable. In the solution % of the problem the Portuguese again led the way. On the continent of Africa they found labourers in abundance. Other nations ourselves in particular were not slow in following their lead ; indeed, it must be acknowledged that for more than two centuries we were the chief slave-trading nation in Europe. Thus were the system of slavery and the trade in slaves introduced into the West Indies. 26 THE WEST INDIES The history of slavery The origin of slavery, in the form in which we are concerned with it, dates back to 1442, when some Moors were brought as prisoners of war to Portugal. The celebrated Prince Henry promptly ordered them to be sent back, and in exchange for the Moors he was given ' ten blacks and a quantity of gold dust.' Eventually a Papal bull was issued authorising the opening of a slave-market at Lisbon. The avarice of men was aroused, and ships were fitted out in pursuit of a traffic which had begun to prove lucrative. A few years later (1502) the Spaniards began to employ slaves in Hispaniola. At first this was for- bidden by the court, then it was officially authorised, and finally it was carried on at the instigation of a Bishop, the famous Las Casas, friend and protector of the Indians, of whom mention was made in our first chapter. His beloved Indians were so used to the enjoyment of liberty that servitude to them was intoler- able ; whereas in the case of the Africans, servitude made little difference to their traditional circum- stances : it involved a change of scene and a change of masters, but that was all. England and the slave-trade In 1562 an Act of Parliament legalised in England the purchase of negroes, and the first to avail himself of the Act was Elizabeth's noted admiral, John Hawkins. IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 27 He sailed for Sierra Leone that very year, and ' got into his possession ' three hundred negroes, ' partly by the sword, and partly by other means.' He shipped them off to Hayti, where they were sold. He then returned to England, after ' a very prosperous voyage ' in other words, a very wealthy man. He soon followed this by another prosperous voyage, the names of two of his ships being the Jesus and the John Baptist. ' In regard to Hawkins,' says the temperate historian of the West Indies, Bryan Edwards (himself a holder of slaves), ' he was, I admit, a murderer and a robber. He made a third voyage to Africa for the same purpose, which, as the reader will not be sorry to find, terminated miserably, and put a stop for some years to any more piratical expeditions to the coast of Africa.' As time went on, however, and Englishmen established plantations in the West Indies, royal charters were granted, first by James I, in 1618, and then by Charles I, in 1631, to commercial companies for the supply of slaves to those colonies. And when private adventurers began illicitly to engage in the business, forts were erected on the west coast of Africa. There were forty or more, mostly British, the remains of which can be seen to this day. A third exclusive company had at its head the king's brother, the Duke of York. The last of these companies, chartered in 1672, was dignified with the title of the Royal African Company, the king himself being a shareholder. With the Revolution in 1688, and the advent of William and Mary, a change came over the situation. Exclusive companies of all kinds were abolished, and the African 28 THE WEST INDIES trade became free and open. It continued thus with but trifling modifications until, a century later, Wilber- force appeared upon the scene. What happened then we shall see in due course. During the two hundred years under review the number of slaves imported into British colonies exceeded 2,000,000. At the close of the eighteenth century, shortly before the abolition of the slave-trade, the total population of the islands was computed to be 65,000 whites and 455,000 blacks. Thus the blacks out- numbered the whites by seven to one. Every English- man of consequence had property in slaves at that time. In 1771 the following advertisement of an auction appeared in one of the newspapers : ' Two boxes of bottled cyder, six sacks of flour, three negro men, two negro women, two negro boys, one negro girl.' And the following is a bill of lading : ' Shipped by the grace of God, in good order and well-conditioned . . . twenty- four prime slaves, six prime women slaves, marked and numbered as in the margin,' with a reference to the marks branded on the body. Do we recoil with horror ? It is by no means certain that had we lived in those days we should not our- selves have been warm advocates of the ' traffic,' as were many devoted Christians. Only a few could see any harm in it. Our own ' Good Queen Bess,' though not in favour of the trade, permitted Hawkins, when she knighted him, to adopt the disgusting crest of ' a negro manacled,' and Cromwell, the Puritan, renewed the charter sanctioning the trade which he found in vogue. The Baptists and Moravians, communities IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 29 renowned for their strictness, were on its side and were themselves slave-holders. Even the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, when the Codrington Trust came into its hands, making it the owners of hundreds of slaves, felt it more humane to retain and treat them well than to set them free. Little did people at home know what went on across the sea, or what kind of men they were who administered their affairs for them. The experiences of an English merchant, John Newton, who was engaged in a subordinate position in collecting slaves on the west coast, will throw a light upon the times and upon the narrative which is to follow. A notable slave-trader Newton, who had been brought up as a sailor, one day missed his ship, and was impressed into the Navy at a time when the French fleets were hovering round our coasts. Influence acquired for him the rank of midshipman, but he was speedily reduced, in the presence of the whole crew, for desertion. Eventually he found himself, in 1745, on the West African coast, where he entered the services of a slave merchant. Sick at heart and in body, ' my bed,' he wrote to a friend, ' was a mat spread upon a board or chest, and a log of wood was my pillow. When my fever left me I would gladly have eaten, but no one gave unto me. My distress at times was so great as to compel me to go by night and pull up roots in the plantation. . . . When my master returned, a brother-trader persuaded him that I was unfaithful, and that I stole his goods in 30 THE WEST INDIES the night. This was almost the only vice I could not justly be charged with. However, I was condemned without evidence. From that time, whenever he left the vessel I was locked upon deck, with a pint of rice for my day's allowance. ' My whole suit was a shirt and a pair of trousers, a cotton handkerchief instead of a cap, a cotton cloth about two yards long to supply the want of upper garments ; and thus accoutred, I have been exposed for twenty, thirty, and perhaps forty hours together, in incessant rains, without the least shelter, when my master was on shore.' Sad and alone, at the dead of night he would wash his one shirt on the rocks, putting it on wet that it might dry while he slept. When ashore, on the approach of a white man, he would hide himself in the woods for shame. At length he was found by a shipmaster who had sailed to West Africa with a commission to bring the prodigal home. Even then, nothing short of a made- up story, that a relative had left him a legacy, prevailed upon him to go. The ship which carried him home nearly foundered, and he, the Jonah on board, narrowly escaped the fate of Jonah. John Newton, the prodigal, lived to redeem those wanderings in the far country ; to become the friend and adviser of the champion whom God raised up to abolish the slave-trade ; and, still more wonderful, to be the inspired writer of the hymn, ' How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear.' l 1 Other famous hymns by John Newton are Nos. 527, 545, 551, in Hymns A. and M. IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 31 The shipping of the slaves v t What of the slaves who passed through the hands of such as John Newton on the West Coast ? It was affirmed, and with a certain amount of truth, that the future in store compared quite favourably with the past from which they had escaped, and that if they had not been sold as slaves they would have been slain as prisoners of war. Be that as it may, heart-rending accounts have come down to us of the sufferings on the voyage, from which death mercifully relieved from four to fifteen out of every hundred. This voyage across the Atlantic, from West Africa to the West Indies, was called the ' middle passage.' It is on record that a slave-ship lost fifty-five of its human cargo in seventeen days ; that they were stowed between decks under grated hatchways ; that they sat between one another's legs, with no possibility of changing their position day or night; and that their breasts were branded by a red-hot iron with the marks of their owners. The selling of the slaves When they arrived at their destination, being ' wearied out with confinement at sea,' writes Bryan Edwards, who often witnessed the sight, ' they com- monly express great eagerness to be sold ; presenting themselves with cheerfulness and alacrity for selection, mortified and disappointed when refused.' 32 THE WEST INDIES The treatment of the slaves The slave's lot and daily routine varied according to the tenderness or hardness of the master's heart, or that of his agent. At the best it was strenuous. At the worst his work continued for nineteen hours a day ; and at times, in the crop season, it might extend throughout the night. Slaves usually lived in wooden huts of irregular formation near their work. They were expected to raise their own provisions a task to which their weekly ' day of rest ' was devoted. As for clothes, such as they required were doled out annually. They were not allowed to marry ; nor does the thought of marriage as a state to which they might or ought to aspire seem to have entered their heads. They were, of course, devoid of any elevating influences such as art and literature, or even of elementary education. Worse still, the consolation of the Christian religion was withheld from them. At a later date, early in the nineteenth century, when missionaries were at work, one manager is reported to have put all his negroes in the stocks on Sunday, in order to prevent their attending chapel. Slavery and Christianity A writer named Ligon, in a contemporary account of the early days of Barbados, mentions that he had a negro servant allotted to him, who asked him to make him a Christian. ' I promised/ says Ligon, ' to do my best endeavour.' I spoke to the Master of the Plantation, IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 33 and told him that poor Sambo desired much to be made a Christian. But his answer was that ' the people of that Hand were governed by the Laues of England, and by those Lawes we could not make a Christian a slave.' I told him that my request was far different from that, for I desired to make a slave a Christian. His answer was that ' it was true, there was a difference in that : But, being once a Christian, he could no more account him a slave, and so lose the hold they had of them as slaves, by making them Christians ; and by that means should open such a gap, as all the planters in the Hand would curse him. So I was struck dumb, and poor Sambo kept quite out of Church ; as ingenious, and as good a natur'd soul as ever wore black, or eat green ! ' If this negro was ingenious, so were the planters in their invention of pleas to support such an argument as the above. They remind us of the modern objections to Missions which are common to-day. The one we have just quoted may be termed the theological argument : Christianity and slavery were incompatible. True, but then Christianity could be dispensed with, whereas slavery, of course, could not ! This was supported by the Biblical argument : were not the heathen neigh- bours of the ' chosen people ' to be trodden down and driven out, or at least converted into hewers of wood and drawers of water ? There was also the devotional argument : it was a slight upon Christian worship ; for Christianity could not be honoured by ' adding involun- tary proselytes,' and compulsory conversion they held to be a ' shameful hypocrisy.' And if this had an 34 THE WEST INDIES uncertain sound on the lips of men like themselves, at any rate the industrial argument could not fail to go home : it might lead ' to notions of equality ' on the part of a slave towards his owner. Finally, for those to whom it might appeal (and they were many) there was the racial argument : that the negro, though he belonged to the genus man, did not belong to the same species as the white man, and that the hereditary religions of each were what Providence intended for them. A curious deduction was made from these premises, viz. that a slave could not give evidence in a court of law because he was not a Christian ! It was in the interests of the owners that their slaves were kept in good health ; just as a sportsman, with no particular fondness for animals, will see that his horses and dogs are not neglected. It is refreshing to read that women, childen, and the aged were often generously provided for, and that the planters could boast that they had no ' paupers." II Abolition of the slave-trade ' When the tale of bricks is doubled, then appeareth Moses.' Man's extremity is God's opportunity. The cries that rose to heaven from beneath the tropical sun, and often from under the lash, were not in vain. When the eighteenth century drew to a close the day of Abolition was not far away. The agitation to put down the slavery extended over a period of fifty years, in which three land- marks stand out : one at each end, and one midway IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 35 between. In 1783 the first Society for the abolition of the trade was established ; in 1807 came Abolition the half-way house, and in 1833 Emancipation, the crowning height in the uphill climb. Abolition and Emancipation are often confused, and treated as though they were identical. So too are the terms Slave-trade and Slavery. The fact is that trade in slaves from Africa for the colonies was abolished more than twenty-five years before the slaves who were actually at work were emancipated. The narrative of the events in the campaign will help to make clear the distinction between the two words and the two epochs. The name of Granville Sharp, a clerk in a government office, is generally associated with the events which led up to the first step ; William Wilberforce was the hero of the second ; and Powell Buxton of the third. Other names which the world will never allow to be forgotten also figure conspicuously. Let us see how these brave men embraced their opportunity. Embraced it ! let us rather say battled for it, wrenched it from unwilling hands ; and having grasped it clung to it till a victory was theirs, which was one of the most glorious in our annals. William Wilberforce Born in 1759, and educated at Cambridge, Wilber- force became a Member of Parliament at the age of twenty-one, as did also his friend Pitt, who was born in the same year. A few years later he was spending a holiday in France, when a clergyman friend, Isaac C2 36 THE WEST INDIES Milner, saved him from falling over a precipice. The same friend was used by God to rescue him from falling down another a moral precipice, towards which his popular traits and early habits seemed to be drawing him. ' Sitting up all night singing/ ' danced till five in the morning,' are fair samples of his life, as chronicled in his diary, until he placed himself under Milner's guidance. The reading of Dodridge's ' Rise and Progess of Religion ' was the turning-point in his life ; and under a tree at Keston he dedicated his life to God, and in particular to the campaign against the traffic in human flesh and blood. From a child he had been opposed to it, but now, having ' entered into the liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free, he advanced from feeling to action.' ' Up early and prayed,' ' out before six, and made the fields my oratory,' are now entries in his diary. It was on Good Friday, 1786, in his twenty-seventh year, that he made his first Communion. Having put his hand to the plough he never looked back. At this time the spirit of religion slumbered in England. It was Wilberforce's ambition to do in the aristocratic circle what Wesley had accomplished among the multitude. ' So you wish,' said a nobleman whose house he visited, ' to be a reformer of men's morals. Look then, and see what is the end of such reformers,' pointing as he spoke to a picture of the Crucifixion the very scene that had inspired the crusade upon which he had now set out. The achievement of Granville Sharp, already WILLIAM WILBERFORCE THOMAS CLARKSON T. POWELL BUXTON IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 37 alluded to, was the obtaining of a pronouncement by the Lord Chief Justice that slavery in England was illegal. ' As soon as any slave sets his foot on English ground he becomes free.' This happened in 1772, but it had no effect whatever on the slave-trade abroad. In 1785 the subject for the Latin Essay at Cambridge was the question, ' Is it right to make slaves of others against their will ? ' The winner of the prize was Thomas Clarkson, who republished his Essay in English, and it played no small part in the controversy of the next twenty years. When Wilberforce's conversion took place, he felt impelled to pay two visits. One was to his friend and parliamentary colleague, Pitt. ' He tried,' wrote Wil- berforce, ' to reason me out of my convictions, but soon found himself unable to combat their correctness.' Though they did not share Wilberforce's religious views, Pitt, Fox, and Burke became sturdy allies in his campaign. The other visit was to John Newton ; to John Newton, whom we left, thirty-seven years back, a prodigal just returned from a slave-raiding career on the west coast of Africa. In the meantime he had become another man ; had given up the sea ; had taught him- self Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; had been ordained now for twenty-one years, and when Wilberforce called upon him was vicar of St. Mary Woolnoth, at the corner of Lombard Street. ' After walking about the square once or twice before I could persuade myself, I called upon old Newton was much affected in conversing 38 THE WEST INDIES with him something very pleasing and unaffected in him,' so wrote Wilberforce in his diary. Newton con- firmed him in the project he had at heart, and his wise counsel helped to shape his policy for the future. The ' white negroes ' A meeting of twelve men was held, of whom Granville Sharp was elected chairman, and of whom all but two were Quakers. Wilberforce soon became the leader of these patient, resolute men ' white negroes ' as they were called who were solemnly pledged to the cause of the slaves. Burke had already given some attention to the question, but, great statesman as he was, had abandoned all attempts to deal with it. ' There was no example upon record of any such achievement.' The hour awaited the man. The man was Wilberforce. He came forward with every advantage of rank and intellectual equipment, but, although young, he was not physically strong. All through his long life he had to battle with ill-health ; and it was in spite of the hindrances of a delicate con- stitution that his labours were performed. At this time the leading physicians of the day pronounced ' that he had not the stamina to last a fortnight.' The slave-trade in Parliament In 1789 Wilberforce made his first great speech in the House of Commons on the subject. ' I came to town,' he wrote, ' sadly unfit for work, but was enabled IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 39 to make my motion so as to give satisfaction three hours and a half. I had not prepared my language, or even gone over all my matter, but being well acquainted with the whole subject I managed to get on.' ' I managed to get on,' was his own verdict. Let us see what others had to say. ' It equalled anything he had heard in modern times/ was what Burke said of it, ' and was not perhaps to be surpassed in the remains of Grecian eloquence.' ' One of the ablest and most eloquent speeches that was ever heard in that or in any other place,' said Bishop Porteus of London. From Boswell we get a picture of the orator himself, at the age of twenty-five, speaking in the open air at a political meeting. ' I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table ' (Wilberforce was very slight of stature) ; ' but, as I listened, he grew, and grew, until the shrimp became a whale.' The slave-holders were strong enough to get the matter postponed till after the examination of witnesses. The collection and marshalling of facts kept Wilberforce and his friends fully occupied during the three years before the question came up again. For months he gave nine hours a day to the task. In 1791 the House again debated upon it. At this point a memorable message reached Wilberforce from the death-bed of John Wesley, possibly the very last words the great evangelist ever wrote. After suggesting to the young statesman that God had raised him up to be an ' Athanasius contra mundum,' he bade him to be ' not weary in well-doing.' ' If God be for you, who can be against you ? Go on in the name of God, and in the 40 THE WEST INDIES power of His might. That He who hast guided you from your youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all things, is the prayer of your affectionate servant, John Wesley.' The debate was prolonged until 7 A.M., but the ' trade ' triumphed on this occasion by a large majority. The fetters were not to be struck off by one or even two blows. As time went on, the ranks of his opponents were reinforced by the King, George IV, and other members of the royal family. Again and yet again he persevered, pleading earnestly in the House in 1795, in 1796, in 1798, in 1799, but always in vain. Thus did this Moses of the West Indian slaves come forward un- dauntedly, but the vested interest of the slave-dealer and the slave-holder was a Pharaoh hard to persuade. He pleaded for nearly twenty years, yet Pharaoh would not ' let them go.' At length, however, prejudice gradually dissolved before the glowing enthusiasm of Wilberforce, and in 1807 his motion was carried by 283 votes to 16. One of the members moved the House almost to tears as he contrasted the feelings of the invincible Napoleon in all his greatness with those of ' that honoured man, who would this day lay his head upon his pillow and remember that the slave-trade was no more.' Witness the Christian hero in his hour of triumph after the toil of years. ' God can turn the hearts of men,' he wrote in his diary. Some of the friends, who came over to his house to congratulate him, were discussing the names of the ' sixteen miscreants,' when Wilberforce looked up from the note he was writing and IN THE DAYS OF SLAVERY 41 gently rebuked them : ' Never mind the miserable sixteen ; let us think of the glorious 283.' in Emancipation The trade in slaves was abolished, but slavery itself still went on as before ; its years, however, though not yet its days, were numbered. We pass over fourteen years. In 1821 Wilberforce handed on his mantle to a younger man, Thomas Powell Buxton. Who owns 'the slave ? was the burden of his first great speech, delivered in the House in 1823. His argument was witty and unanswerable : ' We have been so long accustomed to talk of " my slave " and " your slave," and what he will fetch if sold, that we are apt to imagine that he is really yours or mine. Here is a certain valuable commodity, and here are two claimants for it, a white man and a black man. What is the commodity in dispute ? The body of the black man. The white man says, "It is mine," and the black man, " It is mine." The claim of the black man is just this Nature gave it him. Will any man say he came by his body in an illegal manner ? Does any man suspect he played the knave and purloined his own limbs ? ' Then we come to the claim of the white man. You received him from your father very good. Your father bought him from a neighbouring planter very good. That planter bought him of a trader in the Kingston slave-market, and that trader bought him of 42 THE WEST INDIES a man-merchant in Africa. So far you are quite safe. But how did the man-merchant acquire him ? He stole him,' Ten more years elapsed. On August 28, 1833, a Bill was passed proposing the emancipation of slaves throughout the British dominions, with a temporary apprenticeship of the slaves to their existing masters, and a vote of twenty millions sterling as compensation for the loss of property. Wilberforce did not live to see this day. He died exactly a month before it. Unable himself to enter ' the promised land,' this Moses of the African Israelites was permitted to mount his Pisgah and view it close at hand. His prayers and his persistence had not proved in vain in the Lord. The day of Emancipation was fixed for August I, 1834. How it was observed in the West Indies we shall see in a later chapter. BOOKS OF REFERENCE The Church in the West Indies.' A.Caldecott. (S.P.C.K. $s.6d.) ' Race Problems.' Speech by the Archbishop of the West Indies. Pan-Anglican Papers. Vol. VI. 'Black Jamaica.' W.P.Livingstone. (S. Low. 6s.) 'Souls of the Black Folk.' W. E. B. Du Bois. 'Up from Slavery.' Booker T. Washington. (Doubleday Page & Co.). 'Mankind and the Church.' Edited by Bishop Montgomery. (Longmans. 75. 6d. net.) Mission Work in the Forests of Guiana.' W.H.Brett. (S.P.C.K.) CHAPTER III JAMAICA JAMAICA is the most picturesque island in the West Indies. Its original name (Xaymaca) means : ' The land of wood and water.' ' The brightest jewel in the British diadem ' is the glowing description of Admiral Rodney. In size it is the largest of our West Indian possessions ; in position it holds a central place in relation to the ring of islands, and stands at the gate of the Panama Canal ; its Bishop is the Primate of the eight dioceses which make up the Province of the West Indies. It is forty-nine miles broad by one hundred and forty-nine miles long, i.e. about twice the area of Lancashire, and its shape on the map resembles one of the turtles which are so numerous in the surrounding ocean. Columbus, the discoverer of Jamaica, when asked by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain what the island looked like, crumpled up a piece of paper, laid it on the table, and said it looked like that ; a graphic description, suggesting ridge after ridge of mountains, crumpled with ravines and valleys. Such is Jamaica, with its lovely Blue Mountains which rise 8000 feet above the sea. 45 44 THE WEST INDIES The country and people We land at Kingston, which is a town that possesses one of the finest and largest harbours in the world. A long and narrow spit of land cuts it off from the ocean, at the extreme point of which lies Port Royal, once the famous haunt of buccaneers. We are now in the business centre of the island, with its parallel streets and fine buildings, its electric tramway cars, and its emporiums or shops which are more American than English. Only a few years have passed since these streets were blocked with debris, and since the buildings were smouldering heaps of ruins. Earthquakes, con- flagrations, and hurricanes have more than once undone man's proudest work in Kingston, but Phoenix-like it has risen from its ashes. A tomb-stone records that a certain Lewis Galdy was swallowed up by one earth- quake shock, and that, before life was extinct, a second shock cast him up again into the sea, whence he escaped by swimming to a boat, which carried him to the shore. He lived for nearly half a century after this adventure, and eventually died a natural death at Port Royal in 1739. Jamaica itself has been swallowed up and restored to life, not once but many times. Twelve miles inland lies Spanish Town, once the capital and still the cathedral city ; but, since Kingston became the business centre, it has dwindled down to the proportions of a village. Passing rapidly through the island we notice the sugar estates, with the canes planted in squares, and we catch the sweet odour from the boilerhouse as the juice is turned into sugar. We JAMAICA 45 notice, too, estates which once were sugar plantations but are now deserted. For sugar is no longer the chief product of Jamaica, bananas having taken its place as the staple trade ; coffee and cocoa are also grown in large quantities. Trade returns tell a story of rising prosperity and promise a future full of hope. So much for the country ; let us now pass on to the people. Where did they come from ? We are struck with the curious fact that the island is inhabited by an imported people who were attracted thither by an imported plant (the sugar-cane). To understand the situation we must go back as far as the records of the island will take us. After its discovery by Columbus in 1494 it remained in the hands of the Spaniards for a century and a half. Few, and for the most part evil, are the records of that period. Historical incidents Spanish occupation. To begin with, the cruelty of the Spaniards soon led to the extermination of the Arawaks, whom they found in possession of the soil. So numerous were these unoffending people that, according to one description, they were ' like ants on an anthill.' As such did the invaders treat them, taking but a short time to stamp them out of exist- ence. The wholesale massacre which marked this period is one of the saddest incidents in the history of mankind. With a strange inconsistency these Spaniards showed as much devotion to the ceremonies of worship as in the destruction of their fellow- 46 THE WEST INDIES creatures. ' With hands reeking with blood they erected temples to the Almighty, imploring mercy for themselves, though they denied it to the victims of their cruelty.' It is supposed that 1,200,000 Arawaks perished in Jamaica and the adjacent islands. The annihilation of the ' Indians ' led to the importation of African slave labour. Nor were the Africans in their turn treated with humanity. According to the Slave Code then in vogue, a slave who failed to perform his allotted task was liable to be buried up to the neck and left to be devoured by insects. On the other hand, it is to the credit of the Spaniards that they introduced the sugar-cane, and with it the source of Jamaica's future greatness. Conquest by Great Britain. The Spanish occu- pation was followed by the British conquest. In 1655 Admiral Penn and General Venables, in the name of Oliver Cromwell, hoisted the English flag over Jamaica, where it flies to this day. It is im- possible to justify the treatment meted out by the conquerors to the Spanish settlers whom they dispossessed. They required them to hand over their slaves and all their effects, and to quit the island. Pleading in vain that they had no place to resort to, many of them perished in the woods. Others joined a band of fugitive negroes in the mountains who became known as ' maroons.' At the time of the British conquest of the island the population probably did not exceed 1500 whites, and about the same number of negroes, among whom it is worthy of note that certain negro priests of the Roman Church were at work. JAMAICA 47 The northern portion of the island was at this time a desert, uncultivated and uninhabited. Nor can we justify our countrymen in another respect. For as the Spanish pioneers had taken delight in building churches, the British puritans gave vent to their religious zeal by destroying them. Having done that, their religious zeal appears to have both satisfied and exhausted itself. The island now needed to be repeopled. With this end in view Cromwell sent out a thousand Irish peasants, and issued orders to Scotland to ' apprehend all known idle, masterless rogues and vagabonds, male and female, and transport them to the island.' His idea no doubt was to ' kill two birds with one stone ' : to clear the home-land of persons whom the careful Protector con- sidered better out of it, and to supply the colony with inhabitants. Whether they wished to go, or whether they were welcome, was no concern of his. These ' white slaves,' however, did not long survive their trans- portation. Menial work under a tropical sun was more than they could endure. There were other settlers from England who came out of their own accord, or at the call of duty, but they were not models of morality. It is true that the expedition of Penn and Venables had included seven ' ministers of religion,' who were probably naval or military chaplains ; but their oppor- tunity was a short one, since they all fell victims to tropical fever. Roughly speaking, the period with which we are now dealing may be summarised under four heads, and if we describe them as three distinct ' ages,' it is not to be 48 THE WEST INDIES thought that they followed one another chronologically ; there was a time when they existed side by side. The wild, free age of the maroons. Reference has already been made to the fugitive maroons, or moun- taineers. The word is derived from the Spanish cimarron (from cima, a mountain- top) . Hence our English word to ' maroon,' which means to set a person on an inhospitable shore and leave him there. The slaves of the Spaniards who went by this name, and such of their masters as joined them in their distant hiding- places, sallied out from time to time to harass the British invaders. It was found impossible either to destroy them or to make friends with them. After this annoyance had continued for eighty years, terms were made by which both sides agreed to live and let live. Settlements were allotted the maroons, and even now they retain their distinctive character while they enjoy the rights of British subjects. The golden age of the buccaneers. Meanwhile a period of prosperity set in, for which the buccaneers were responsible. A buccaneer was a piratical adventurer who preyed on Spanish trade in the West Indies through- out the seventeenth century ; sometimes he is called a freebooter (from his habit of seizing booty free), and sometimes a filibuster (a word of Spanish origin meaning the same thing). He found in Jamaica a land and a people after his own heart. His name of buccaneer he derived from another of his habits the use of a ' buccan,' i.e. a kind of frame for drying and smoking meat, and so preserving it for use on long voyages, much as the Boers use ' biltong ' on the South African veldt. JAMAICA 49 Our own old sea-dogs Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and others were not above this kind of occupa- tion in their campaigns against the Spanish. As Sir Robert Baden-Powell puts it, ' They combined a good deal of piracy with their patriotism.' A tough and rough gang were these buccaneers, and yet, in spite of their lawless vocation, it is on record that the crew of the celebrated Bartholomew Sharp mutinied against him because he would not hold Divine Service on Sundays. The dark age of the slave-holders. Then, again, Jamaica became the mart for supplying foreigners with negroes. It is estimated that during the eighteenth century Great Britain, by means of the West Indies, supplied her rivals and enemies with upwards of 500,000 African negroes. The ordinary price of a slave was 50. The value of the island at the close of the century was assessed on that basis, and as there were 250,000 slaves in Jamaica, it was worth as British property twelve millions and a half. The one hundred and fifty years of Spanish rule resulted, as we have seen, in the annihilation of the aboriginal Indians. It is some comfort to be able to record that such opportunities as the enlightenment of the age, and the possibilities of the circumstances afforded, were turned to account. For instance, an Act passed in 1797 directed the clergy to devote a certain portion of every Sunday to the religious instruction of slaves. In this work the Nonconformist bodies were more conspicu- ously active than the Church, and the feeling of Church- men is mournfully reflected in the fact that the diligence D 50 THE WEST INDIES of a certain clergyman in this direction earned for him the reputation of being ' worse than a Baptist ' ! The Rev. J. B. Ellis, in a recently published work on 'The Diocese of Jamaica/ tells us that the reports which detail the patient labours of missionaries among the slaves contain little or no reference to persecution or hindrance. Some slave-holders indeed themselves took the lead in putting facilities in the way of their slaves' evangelisation. Such missionary reports as exist ' are simple, unadorned records of the doings of self-denying men, working in some obscure corner of the island, living a useful life of uninteresting drudgery, many of them dying at their post with no other conso- lation than the reflection that they had done their duty and made the way easier for others to follow them.' Speaking of their successors at the present day the same writer says : ' When all has been admitted, it remains that much of actual Christian work has been done and, though surroundings and conditions are year by year being made better, is still being done in dull and distant hamlets, in hidden valleys, on mountain sides, in negroes' huts, in dingy mission rooms, in roughly furnished churches, done by men living on a mere pittance of a salary, cheerfully and willingly done, because they feel the doing of it to be a duty. These the quiet, the self-denying, the unnamed workers are the real heroes of the Church in Jamaica.' The modern age of commerce. The year 1912 was one of the most prosperous which Jamaica has known in recent times. Bananas accounted for the larger JAMAICA 51 part of the revenue, sugar came next, then coffee, cocoa, rum, and timber. Fifty-eight per cent, of the colony's exports consist of fruit, and only nine per cent, of sugar. It will interest the reader to know how bananas are grown. After the land has been ploughed, the plants are set in straight rows, ten to fifteen feet apart. At the end of a year the first crop is ready for gathering. Each plant produces one bunch, after which it is worthless, and is cut down and left on the ground to rot. But new suckers are constantly coming up from the root, and three or four of these are allowed to grow. Thus when the first plant is cut down, another is nearly ready to bear, while one or two others are in different stages of growth. This process can be continued for about seven years, by which time the ground is so full of roots that it is necessary to plough it up and re-plant. There are many fine cocoa-nut groves on the island ; but owing to the length of time spent in waiting for the first crop, not so much has been done in cocoa-nut growing as in other industries. The trees seldom bear until seven years old ; but, when once they have begun, they continue to bear for a hundred years, and are a considerable source of wealth. A single tree produces on an average a hundred nuts a year. On the same tree at the same time both blossoms, green fruit, and ripe fruit can be seen. Cocoa-nut trees like the sea air, and are never found far from the coast. It is not generally known that the Panama hat is not made in Panama at all. It is manufactured by hand from a plant which grows in Jamaica. A fine D 2 52 THE WEST INDIES Panama hat, such as may be seen in Piccadilly or the Strand, may take two or three months to make, and it is often made to the tune of a familiar hymn which it is the habit of the young women to chant as their fingers deftly weave the straw. Beliefs and customs Having traced the origin, and briefly sketched the history and industries, of the present inhabitants of the island, we turn to a consideration of some of their beliefs and practices. The census of 1911 reveals the presence of rather less than 900,000 persons, of whom only 15,600 are white ; and whereas the white population is decreasing the black is on the increase. When therefore we speak of the beliefs of the people, we refer to those of the prevailing colour. It is true of Jamaica, as of all our West Indian colonies, that their future lies not so much with the white man or the fairer coloured man, as with the dark masses who are now rapidly winning positions to which twenty years ago they would never have aspired. Obeahism. Although the immigration of Africans has ceased, the degrading superstitions of the earlier immigrants have to some extent survived. The wor- ship of imaginary evil things is one of the existing links with West Africa, the land of their ancestors. Among the heritage of traditional beliefs, witchcraft, or obeah, holds the first place. The voyage across the sea and ' the process of the suns ' has made obeahism a weaker and far less dangerous force than it was, but it is still a power JAMAICA 53 in the island. In its original form it was ' a strange compound a sorcery which took advantage of the nerves of a superstitious people ; a knowledge of the healing powe^ of certain leaves and roots, and of the poisonous power of other vegetable substances ; and a claim to possess some mysterious power, some- times to detect, sometimes to prevent crime, sometimes to kill, sometimes to concoct a harmless love-philtre.' It was accompanied by ' a ritual at once debasing and terrifying.' Jamaica-born wizards, or obeahmen, never attained to the power of their predecessors who were natives of Africa, for the leavening brought about by the Christian faith prevented it from becoming a religion or a creed, and the light which civilisation brings in its train tends to limit its influence. Faith and fear may exist side by side, even in the same breast, but by degrees faith will drive out its rival. On the Gold Coast the various gods have their priests and priestesses, but there is one which has no regular priest. He is a particularly malignant spirit and dwells in the ceiba, or silk-cotton tree. His votary the obeahman can, if he dares, approach his abode and carry away with him a little earth, a few twigs, or a stone, equipped with which he can bewitch a man to death. In Jamaica the obeahman is employed to bring good fortune rather than to work harm. ' He is not so much a terror as a fraud.' The Legislative Council in Jamaica has passed a stringent law against the practice of obeah, and the police themselves negroes have been active in its repression. Illegitimacy. Would that the same progress could 54 THE WEST INDIES be reported with respect to another evil, which is rampant throughout the entire West Indies the ignoring of the marriage tie. It is an undisputed fact that one half of the adult population live together without going through the ceremony of marriage at all. Forty per cent, of the children are born of parents who are not recognised as such in the eyes of the law. Though the Anglican Church frowns upon this condition of life and is fighting hard side by side with all Christian denominations, public opinion winks at it, and there is little sign of progress towards a better and happier state. ' The time has gone by,' says Mr. Ellis, ' when thinking people can complacently take refuge behind the shelter of a system (slavery) which ceased to exist three-quarters of a century ago. This argument has been used as an excuse quite long enough. No one would say a word in extenuation or apology for any improper custom in England because that custom had been permitted before the accession of Queen Victoria.' Where lies the remedy ? It lies in our hands, and indirectly in our own land. ' Ideas travel from one country to another with incredible swiftness,' writes a coloured and cultured gentleman in Jamaica ; ' what is thought to-day in England will be thought to-morrow in Jamaica.' ' The progress of the West Indies will be a progress from without, and the islands will keep in the closest possible touch with western thought and western ideas. Not only politically and commercially, but intellectually and morally, are they bound to Europe and America, and ultimately the ideals of the latter countries must become the ideals of the West Indies.' JAMAICA 55 In other words, the future of marriage in Jamaica will depend upon the future of that institution in more civilised countries. The colour question. One of the happiest omens for the future is the friendly and almost brotherly attitude towards each other of black and white. In the form known in the Southern States of North America and in South Africa, racial feeling may be said hardly to exist in Jamaica. White, black, and coloured are learn- ing to live together in amity, worshipping in the same church, and serving on the same ecclesiastical and public boards. As to employment, alike in the highest positions and the humblest, competence is the test far more than complexion. Statesmen, editors, lawyers, doctors, clergy- men are not limited to any one race. In social life people of refinement and education mix on terms of equality, no matter what their colour. It is not sur- prising if prejudice still lingers in the breast of white men here and there, or misgivings exist in the hearts of those of the darker race. Said a negro maid to her mistress : ' I know we all God's children, so dey tell us in church, an' so I b'lieve, but our ways are not your ways, nor our thoughts your thoughts. De black and de white like de two banks ob a ribber. You may trow bridge ober, but nebber, nebber make de two one.' Such an acknowledgment on black lips is in itself a happy sign, and helps towards the bridging of the gulf. The life-story of Booker Washington (though he was not a Jamaican) as told by himself in 'Up from Slavery' shows what possibilities lie before those who once were slaves. If sympathy stands on the one bank and 56 THE WEST INDIES humility on the other, the outstretched hands may without difficulty meet across the river. The organisation of the Church We come now to consider the Anglican Church in Jamaica. Its earliest days coincide with the beginning of the reign of Charles II. The first English church was built at St. Jago de la Vega (Spanish Town), on the spot where the present cathedral now stands, which is one of the oldest in the British colonies, and before 1664 six other churches had been built. At that date five clergymen were at work, and the foundations of Church organisation had been laid. The island then formed part of the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, in which it remained until 1824. For many years, it must be confessed, the function of the Church was well described as ' the survival of a harmless home institution which would cease to be tolerated if it showed signs of energy or activity outside its own particular groove.' No such signs, however, endangered its existence until the nineteenth century saw the abolition of the slave- trade (in 1807), since when two main factors have contributed to produce the marvellous revolution which has meanwhile taken place. (a) The first was the arrival of a Bishop in 1824. As early as 1715 the S.P.G. had sought to establish two bishoprics in the West Indies, but without success. Dr. Christopher Lipscomb, the first Bishop of Jamaica bearing in his Christian name a link with the discoverer of the island found forty-five clergy at work, who were liberally maintained by the local government. Troub- JAMAICA 57 lous times, however, awaited him. Abolition had taken place, and emancipation was in the air. Outbreaks were common among the slaves, and ruin seemed to stare the planters in the face. In the midst of such surroundings Bishop Lipscomb set about the organisation of the Church, and thus helped to pave the way for the slaves' hour of freedom which had begun to dawn. The C.M.S. took their share in the task, and so of course did the S.P.G. &: Ten years of strenuous work, and then the day longed-for by the slaves, and dreaded by the masters, arrived. On and after August i, 1834, all slaves were to be regarded as free men. Their freedom, however, did not immediately take effect. An apprenticeship of three years, terminating on August i, 1837, was to precede this. Bishop Lipscomb, preaching at York two years later, describes that red-letter day in Jamaica as being ' Received not by unseemly transports, not by degrading indulgences, not by excess or riot, but by a calm and settled religious feeling, consecrating the glorious day to devotional exercises and evincing the proofs of that Christian faith which so powerfully sustained them under the most difficult of all human trials sudden, temporal prosperity.' It was the same elsewhere, the newly freed slaves giving vent to their feelings in praise and prayer. Truly it was a day of surprises, and a day of opportunity to which the home Church nobly responded. The S.P.G. (aided by a ' King's Letter,' by parliamentary grants, and by the S.P.C.K.) raised nearly 200,000 for the 58 THE WEST INDIES erection of churches, and for the maintenance of clergy and teachers. About this time the C.M.S., pressed by urgent calls in other fields, was obliged to withdraw from the island, after fifteen years of work. All the more did Jamaica need the help of the S.P.G. ' Unless,' urged Bishop Monk in the S.P.G. annual sermon at this critical stage, ' unless means shall be found to instruct in the principles of our holy religion all the negro popula- tion of the West India Islands, the freedom which was intended to be a blessing may prove a curse. A deliver- ance from the restraint of earthly masters may become the means of licentiousness, unless it be attended with such instruction as shall substitute the holy restraints of religion.' (b) The other factor alluded to above was the dis- establishment of the Church, a blow which was marvel- lously over-ruled for good. God gave the leaders courage and wisdom in face of the new situation, and their flocks faith and loyalty to rally around them. The blessings in disguise which came through the move- ment were a new diocesan machinery, a deeper sense of the corporate life of the Church, a wider scope for the enthusiasm of the laity, the exercise of self-reliance and self-denial, and, above all, a demonstration of the inherent strength and vitality of the Church. In the work of reconstruction, the laity of all classes white, black, and coloured worked whole-heartedly together. As members of diocesan synods and of financial boards, as churchwardens and lay readers, they came forward willingly to the help of the Church. JAMAICA 59 Its prominent leaders After Bishop Lipscomb (to go back a few years) came Bishop Spencer, bringing with him experience gained as Bishop of Newfoundland. For eleven years he bore the brunt alone, and then his place was taken by his coadjutor, Bishop Courtenay, who succeeded him and served the diocese for twenty-six years. In his early manhood he had been called to the bar, a training which eminently fitted him to cope with the disestablish- ment crisis that came during his episcopate. He met the altered circumstances thus created in his diocese by summoning his clergy and representative laity in Synod, an institution which has met annually ever since. Ten years later in Enos Nuttall another leader was raised up, who has been spared to hold the reins to this very day. ' The history of the Church of England in Jamaica/ it has been truly said, ' since the year 1880 is synonymous with the biography of the first Arch- bishop of the West Indies.' ' The foremost Englishman in Jamaica to-day,' writes Mr. H. G. de Lisser, a native of the island, in ' Twentieth Century Jamaica,' ' he is not merely the head of his own Church, but is the unofficial head of all the Protestant Churches. He is supremely the type of Englishman who can uphold and cherish the finest ideals of his country while entirely sympathising and identifying himself with the people and the interests of the country which he has made his by adoption. Thus we find that the Anglican Church in Jamaica, once without influence and not deserving it, is to-day the Church of the poor ; a circumstance which Go THE WEST INDIES I attribute mainly to the personality of the man who has been its head for so many years, and to the personal character and influence of those who have so zealously assisted him.' At his forty-third annual synod, held at Kingston in February 1913, the Archbishop revealed some of the steps by which God called him to his present post : ' Towards the close of the year 1862, while preparing for missionary work in China, I received an urgent request to proceed to Jamaica to fill a post which had unex- pectedly become vacant. I accepted what appeared to be a call of duty, and arrived at Kingston on St. Thomas' Day 1862, i.e. fifty years ago. I had cast myself upon the providence of God, and landed in Jamaica a stranger in a strange land. It did not, however, take long to feel at home with the people, and to become interested in all that concerned their welfare. I was attached to the Wesleyan Methodist Mission, in which I worked as an unordained missionary. Having reached the full canonical age I was ordained, by Bishop Courtenay, deacon on February 18, 1866, and priest seven weeks later ; and put in charge of St. George's Church, Kingston, with which I am still legally connected. . . . I trust that I have been divinely guided in a life which has furnished great opportunities of service ; and I have received manifold proofs of the confidence and even the affection of all classes. I should be very ungrateful if I did not to-day heartily thank Almighty God, as I now do, for the manifold blessings which I have received, and for the greatest blessing of all the power to be of some use to others in this land of my adoption.' Space fails us to do more than mention the names of BISHOP LIPSCOMB BISHOP NUTTALL BISHOP RAWLE BISHOP AUSTIN JAMAICA 61 other leaders of the Church, e.g. Bishop Tozer, who preceded Dr. Nuttall, and Bishop Douet and Bishop Joscelyne who worked with him. The machinery of the Church A word must be said about the institutions and organisations which these leaders have brought into existence. These include the Theological College, where the clergy receive their training ; the Deaconess Home, which provides women workers, trains nurses, and carries on a number of girls' schools ; an orphanage ; a Temperance Society ; a Mothers' Union ; a branch of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, as indispensable as the Church of England Men's Society has proved itself at home and in other colonies, and run on similar lines ; and the Home and Foreign Missionary Society. There are at the present time eighty-two clergy at work, but were it not for the lay help available, Divine Service would not be possible, as it now is, in 300 places of worship. The progress of education among the negroes has been assisted by grants-in-aid from Government, training colleges have been founded for men and women teachers, and government scholarships, tenable at the English Universities, are competed for at the secondary schools. Jamaica is one of the places selected by Mr. Rhodes' trustees to receive grants for scholarships under his will. How resourceful the people of Jamaica have proved themselves in times of divine visitation we have already noticed (p. 44). In January 1907, at the time of the 62 THE WEST INDIES great earthquake, the Church took the lead in lending assistance and in setting an example of fortitude. In a few seconds many hundreds of persons were killed, and damage estimated at 2,000,000 was done to buildings. The machinery of the Church was brought temporarily to a standstill, just after it had all but recovered from the effects of a hurricane in which 137 of its buildings had been injured. With undaunted courage Jamaica Churchmen set themselves to raise the 30,000 needed to repair the damage done to church property, in which task they received liberal assistance from England and the United States ; in fact, the sympathy evoked was universal throughout the Anglican communion. Among the ruins of one of the churches a half-crown was found, which the people at once took as a happy omen, and they made it the nucleus of a restora- tion fund. Four years passed before the shattered buildings were ready for consecration in January 1911, when the occasion was worthily celebrated in the presence of representative Bishops from England, Canada, the United States, and those Bishops of the province who were able to be present. Thus was the machinery of the Jamaican Church again set in motion. Characteristics of negro religion By the blessing of God this machinery has been used for the production of Christians of a quite distinctive type. A strong realisation of a personal God, and of His immediate connection with the events of human life is the main characteristic of the negro's Christianity. He JAMAICA 63 sees God in everything as a loving, living, ever-present Father, Who can make all things work for good. Arch- bishop Nuttall tells of a negro child who was in great sorrow because she had lost her dolly. She knelt down and told God about it in these words : ' O God, comfort me, and help me to remember where I left my dolly.' When she awoke next morning she said : ' I have dreamt of my dolly. I know where it is ' ; and she went and found it, and on the spot knelt down again and offered this thanksgiving : ' O God, I thank Thee for showing me where to find my dolly.' ' That illus- trates in a simple form,' says the Archbishop, ' what may be taken as a characteristic of a good negro Christian. It is a phase of Old Testament religion in modern Christian life.' Other characteristics are an emotional element, sometimes, if not rightly directed, showing itself in the superficial features of revivalism ; a loyal sense of brotherhood ; and a strong deference to authority. The future In this survey of Jamaica we looked first at the island itself its appearance, its industries, its destiny ; then we passed to the inhabitants their origin, their history, their beliefs and practices, taking a peep into their hearts and into their homes ; and finally we studied in outline the Church of Jamaica the leading incidents, the prominent men, the agencies at work, and the type of Christian produced. In the story of Jamaica we can read in bold characters the story of most of our West Indian Islands. 64 THE WEST INDIES And what about the future ? The piercing of the Panama Canal, which will unite the two great oceans of the world, the Pacific and the Atlantic, will undoubtedly bring Jamaica into new prominence, and will give that island an immense strategic importance. BOOKS OF REFERENCE 'The Diocese of Jamaica.' J. B. Ellis. (S.P.C.K. 35. net.) ' The Earthquake,' vide Mission Field. March 1907, pp. 75, 91 ; April 1907, p. 98; March 1911, p. 67. ' A Study in Colour.' A. Spinner. (Fisher Unwin. is. 6d.) ' Pocket Guide to West Indies.' A. E. Aspinall. (55. net.) ' Land of Wood and Water.' T. P. George. ' The East and the West. 1 1910, p. 308. Historical Sketch, Jamaica. (S.P.G. id.) ' English Church History of the West Indian Province.' F. P. L. Josa. (S.P.G. 25. 6d. net.) ' The Church of England in Jamaica.' J. B. Ellis. CHAPTER IV THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA I. The Bahamas A CHAIN of five hundred islands seven hundred miles in length ! How extensive a field for missionary enterprise this would appear ! And yet the field is not extensive. For although in the term Bahamas we include this great series of islands lying outside and to the north of the main semicircle of the West Indian archipelago not more than twenty of them are of any size or have any inhabitants. Taking our stand at Nassau, the capital, in the island of New Providence, and looking out upon a sea which varies from turquoise green to deepest blue, let us group the islands, in order that we may the more clearly grasp the conditions under which the missionaries carry on their work. Away to the north are Great Bahama and the Abacos ; to the west, the Biminis and largest of all the Andros Islands ; to the east, Eleuthera ; and stretching out of sight in a south- easterly direction, the Exuma chain and Rum Cay (pronounced key) ; Cat and Watling ; Long, Crooked, and Ragged ; Inagua, Caicos, and Turks. In general features, the Bahamas may be said to 65 E 66 THE WEST INDIES possess length without breadth or height. No mountains arrest the eye, nor are there any rivers. In Inagua there are places on which wild horses or cattle browse; in Andros, forests flourish, as yet all unexplored ; Cat and Watling, though four hundred years have passed, still contest the honour of having been the first to catch the eye of Columbus ; and New Providence attracts to itself the lion's share of commerce from many isles and from the States. Each island has its individuality, its history, its hopes, and its fears; each looks for help and guidance from the Church of Christ. The origin of these islands is a matter of conjecture. Some of the larger ones, it has been thought, are the mountainous plateau of a submerged part of the American continent. Most of the islands are mere coral rocks. These latter, built by the persistent labours of incredible multitudes of tiny creatures, have a charm of their own. And the insects which formed them teach us the significance of the apparently insignificant, and that, however trivial it may appear, no well-directed effort is ever made in vain. Historical incidents Exactly when the Bahamas passed into the hands of the English is also a question upon which there are differences of opinion. The date usually given is 1629, but the year 1666, when 250 settlers emigrated from Bermuda, is probably more correct. The founder of the colony was Captain Sayle, who, driven to land by stress of weather, named the island New Providence, out of gratitude for his deliverance and by way of THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 67 distinguishing it from another island called Providence, off the Mosquito Coast. It became a ' shelter for pirates and a disorderly set of people/ the most notable being a ruffian from Bristol, who, under the name of ' Black Beard,' became a terror in the West Indies. Captain Woodes Rogers, the famous rescuer of Alexander Selkirk from his desert island, was sent out to restore law and order. The claim of Great Britain to possess the Bahamas was challenged by Spain, who alternately captured, lost, and recaptured the islands, until at the peace of 1783 they were finally ceded to Great Britain. About this time a number of American loyalists, on the con- clusion of the War of Independence, sought here a new home for their families and slaves. In 1806 began the present form of government : namely, an administration under a governor, with a legislature modelled upon the English Parliament, thus differing from the government of Jamaica, which is a crown colony. The inhabitants : at home, at work, and at school Of the original population of Arawaks there is no trace. Sad indeed it is to think that these bright, sunny islands, set in the pure blue seas, should ever have been the scene of foul treachery. To the lasting shame of Spain, the guileless Arawaks, to the number of 40,000, were induced to take ship and sail to Hispaniola, where they were assured that they would meet their dead again. In the mines of Hispaniola, B 2 68 THE WEST INDIES under conditions as hateful as they were cruel, this confiding race sickened and died. The present inhabitants consist of whites, blacks, and coloured people. The whites are mainly government officials, merchants, and store-keepers. Those born on the islands are called Conchs, which is the name of a shell-fish that is found there in great abundance. The blacks are the descendants of African slaves. The coloured element and the negroes together outnumber the whites by nearly five to one : of the 59,000 inhabitants at the present day only 12,000 are white, and on only three islands are white people to be found. The Church population is about 15,000. Let us try to picture the life which they lead. In Nassau, where the majority of white folks live, the houses are generally built of white coral lime-stone. They are always large and roomy for the sake of coolness ; and are never more than one storey high, on account of hurricanes which demolish high buildings. As a rule each house stands in its own grounds. All have verandahs which are called in the Bahamas ' piazzas ' where many daily duties are performed. Formerly the people built in the style of the Spanish, latticing up the whole of the frontage to keep out the sun ; but now the wide verandah is preferred, which is suggestive of the South African ' stoep.' Indoors the houses are furnished like comfortable middle-class homes in England. The native houses are small, and are generally built of stone and wood, and, like those of the whites, they stand in their own plots of land ; there are no streets THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 69 with rows of houses such as we have in England. A negro's house, as a rule, has one living-room, two bed- rooms, and a kind of pantry. All cooking work for whites and blacks is done apart from the houses, in small kitchens which are built a short distance away. Most of the huts are thatched with palm-leaves and have no ceilings, the roof being visible inside. White people's houses are roofed with ' shingles,' i.e. wooden tiles which are imported from America. Having visited the native in his home, let us follow him to his work. Three articles in daily use among ourselves provide the majority of the inhabitants with occupation and the Government with most of its revenue, viz. sponges, rope, and salt. Sponges grow chiefly in the shallow waters which lie between Andros Island and Cuba. Fitting out at Nassau for an eight or ten weeks' voyage, we join a crew of about twenty-five ' spongers ' on a schooner. The vessel anchors thirty miles from land. Small boats are lowered, each with two men in them, who search about for the sponges, hook up as many as the boat can carry, and return to the vessel. When the vessel is loaded it returns to land to clean the sponges, which are by no means yet ready for the bath- room. These black, foul, repulsive objects, covered with slime and full of long, grey worms, must first themselves be washed. ' A vessel loaded with this living mass under a burning sun is a thing to be avoided ! But our coloured boys are oblivious to its slimy nastiness. As soon as land is reached the whole load is thrown into an enclosure, where it is left for a week for the worms to die and the slime to be washed off by the tide.' Imagine how 70 THE WEST INDIES difficult and disheartening is the work of a missionary among men engaged in such a trade as this. Taking the whole year through, the men and boys do not spend more than about half a dozen Sundays at home. They are absent for ten or twelve weeks, then home for eight or ten days, then away for another ten weeks, and so throughout the year. ' The fact that the boys and men,' writes a missionary, ' are thus removed from all home and religious in- fluences, causes us to have a large population of densely ignorant, superstitious, and grossly immoral boys and men. Although, when on the sponge voyages, they spend the Sunday at anchor in the creeks or on shore, in the absence of human habitation the boys have nothing to do but to learn bad habits of drinking and swearing, and listen to the immoral stories of the elder men. When they get back to the city of Nassau they are exposed to all sorts of temptations, and after the isolation on the sponge-grounds, it is easily under- stood how soon they go astray. Still, we do what we can for them. While they are at home if only for a week or ten days we try to get hold of them, and prepare them for Baptism and Confirmation. We have clubs, where we gather them together night after night and provide innocent amusements, and in the winter season we keep night schools to teach them to use their Bibles and Prayer Books. Then occasionally we go out to the sponging-grounds and spend a Sunday with them, holding Mission Services on the beach, and sometimes getting together as many as 400 to 500 men and boys at a time. In spite of much disappointment we are THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 71 thankful to acknowledge that God has blessed our work, and we see a change in their general conduct. A few years back Sunday, when on a voyage,- was spent in cleaning sponges, scrubbing vessels, washing clothes, and racing their vessels and betting on the results. Now, you may go out any Sunday to the creeks where they assemble and find what they call " full Church " being kept. That is, Matins, Litany, and actually a sermon ! ' A comparatively new industry is being worked, namely, the cultivation of the sisal hemp for the manu- facture of rope. As this grows and demands increasing labour, more men will be settling on the land instead of roving on the ocean, and consequently the task of the missionary will be easier. Those who live by salt collect sea-water in large shallow reservoirs, where the action of sun and wind evaporates the moisture. The brine which remains is drawn into smaller reservoirs called ' pans,' and there left to ' make ' ; in other words, the crystallisation of the salt commences. In about a month the pan is ready for ' raking.' The brine is drawn off, and bare- footed negroes, armed with huge steel-pronged rakes, break up the salt-cake. They rake it into heaps upon the beach, which becomes like a military camping-ground, studded with miniature marquees and bell tents. The salt is then ready for the warehouse. If now we follow the children as they go to school we find that white children are educated apart from the black and the coloured. At Nassau there is an Anglican school for boys of the white race, and the girls are taught 72 THE WEST INDIES by the Sisters of St. Peter's Community, Horbury ; there is also a Roman Catholic school for girls, and a Methodist College for both boys and girls. All the schools are elementary. When parents can afford it they send both boys and girls either to America or England for higher education. The coloured children are all educated in mixed schools by the Board of Education, whose schools are undenominational, clergy and ministers having the right of entry to teach their respective children. Such schools are now at work in many of the islands, though the whole field is not yet covered. In remote places where there are no board schools, the Church provides small elementary schools. Long before this provision by a Board of Education, the Church gave a free education to the black people in small schools erected throughout the islands. Indeed, for over forty years the Church school was the only means of educating the natives. The S.P.G. began missionary work in the Bahamas as early as the year 1731, the Rev. W. Smith being the Society's first missionary there. Some famous Bishops Having thus rapidly surveyed the islands and those who live there, let us go back to the year 1861, when the Bahamas ceased to be an out-station of the Bishop of Jamaica and became a separate diocese in itself : the diocese of Nassau. Dr. Caulfield, who had done good service as Archdeacon, was appointed as the first Bishop, but within a few months of his consecration RAKING SALT SALT READY FOR CARTING THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 73 he succumbed to yellow fever. The second Bishop was Addington Robert Peel Venables. Born in 1827, ^ e derived his Christian names from his sponsors, Lord Sidmouth and Sir Robert Peel, to whom, when First Lords of the Treasury, his father was private secretary. He was educated at Eton and Exeter College, Oxford. Though intended for a diplo- matic career his thoughts turned to the ministry, and in 1850 he entered Wells Theological College. When he received the call to succeed Bishop Caulfield at Nassau he was thirty-six years of age. He was consecrated at Lambeth in 1863. He soon learnt that a missionary must count neither his life nor his possessions dear unto himself, for the ship which carried his books and baggage foundered, and he lost them all. Dangers and difficult situations were his lot from first to last. Troublous indeed were the times in which the new Bishop's lot was cast. With the cessation of the American Civil War (1865), a loss of trade brought the commerce of Nassau to the verge of ruin. In 1866 two hundred years after the Bahamas became an English settlement a hurricane swept away eleven churches and five schools in a single night. In 1869 came disendowment. Until then a generous Govern- ment had been responsible for the stipends of the Bishop and his clergy, but the time had come when they would have to maintain the work of the Church without state aid. Incumbents were permitted to retain their salaries during their lifetime, but a scheme of re-endowment had at once to be started, and at a time when local resources had dwindled to nothing. 74 THE WEST INDIES He went to England to raise funds for his crippled diocese, and on his return; in 1870; he held his first Synod. The Bishop used to call the Bahamas ' the poorest diocese in Christendom,' and he mentions that one of his twelve clergy was in the habit of boiling his coat in logwood dye to give it a fresher look, because he could not afford a new one. The average district of a priest was about equal in area to an English county, and was made up of groups of islands separated by fifty or a hundred miles of sea, which the missionary had to cross as opportunity offered, usually in an open boat. The Bishop took five weeks to visit the charge of one of his clergy ; the missionary at Long Island could not communicate with or hear from the extreme part of his district under five months ; and there were districts which were never reached at all by magistrate, schoolmaster, or priest. Around this diocese Bishop Venables used to cruise ; his work was rendered specially arduous from the fact that he was a bad sailor. His voyages were made in a mission boat, a little schooner of twenty tons burden, which was happily named The Message of Peace. A story is told of the brave efforts of a young woman on the island of Andros to present herself for Con- firmation. On hearing of the Bishop's arrival in the island she set out to walk the rough road of fourteen miles, fording on the way two creeks only to learn that the Bishop had actually started for her village. Back she hastened, but in vain : the Bishop had returned to his head-quarters. Nothing daunted, she THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 75 set out to do the rugged journey a second time, and when she arrived the Confirmation service was just over. The Bishop, however, held a special Confirmation for her. ' It gladdened my heart/ he wrote, ' to mark her reverent behaviour during the service, and to see the tears roll down her cheeks as I addressed her.' That Confirmation cost her a journey of fifty-six miles. By the blessing of God the work made steady progress, in spite of tornadoes which levelled churches, and Acts of Parliament which disendowed them ; and, as for thirteen years he traversed his scattered diocese, the Bishop was rewarded by finding the sacraments in- creasingly valued. The episcopal residence at Nassau takes its name from him, being called Addington House. The Bishop died at Harford in the United States, October 8, 1876, at the early age of forty-nine, and was succeeded by Bishop Cramer- Roberts, who, after hold- ing the see for seven years, was obliged by ill-health to resign. He did good work and was much beloved. The next bishop, Edward Townson Churton, who, though endowed by nature with but a frail constitution -, was a man of robust determination and tenacity of purpose. From a Dover vicarage he was, in 1886, called to Nassau, at the age of forty-six. He used to delight in recalling the fact that his consecration took place on the Feast of St. Matthias, the last of the Apostolic band, a man who is to us a name and nothing more. The Bishop used to describe the life which he and his clergy in the Bahamas lived as one in which there was plenty of ' knocking about,' like a perpetua 1 76 THE WEST INDIES game of base-ball, round and round and so home again. He sought to surround himself with workers who would cheerfully embrace poverty, hard living, and isolation, and instituted for them an annual gathering at his own house for retirement and prayer. Trying voyages and exposure to storm and tropical heat proved more than his weak frame could bear, and after fourteen years of such a life he was compelled to come home and rest. He died at Torquay in 1912, leaving behind him writings which have attained some note. He was succeeded, in 1902, by his Archdeacon and brother, Henry Norris Churton, whose episcopate lasted less than six months. When paying a visit at Ragged Island he found that he needed his Communion vessels, which were on board The Message of Peace two miles out in a rough sea. A strong nor'-easter was blowing, and the boat was overturned. His com- panions succeeded in getting him on to the keel, but another heaving of the ocean enveloped him in the waves, and they never saw him again. Having preceded a Bishop who was drowned within a few months of his consecration (Bishop Chauncy Maples in Nyasaland), it fell to the lot of Wilfrid Bird Hornby to follow another who also was drowned. He had already, after his resignation of the see of Likoma through ill-health, taken temporary duty in the Bahamas in order to assist the first Bishop Chur- ton, hence, on his arrival in 1904, he was no stranger to the diocese. He was the sixth Bishop which the diocese has had in forty-three years, and has been spared to rule the diocese to the present day. What are the THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 77 special conditions, difficulties, encouragements, and needs with which he is confronted ? Present-day conditions The work is simplified by the fact that there is no language difficulty, all the black people speaking English. On the other hand, the distance by sea from one end of the diocese to the other is nearly 650 miles, extending from the Biminis on the west to Turks Islands on the east. The parishes, consequently, are large and unworkable, as they were in the days of Bishop Venables. Let us take a typical example of a priest on an island parish. We will select the traditional San Salvador of Columbus, now called Cat Island. Its shape, like that of Italy, resembles a boot ; its length is sixty miles ; its average breadth four miles. A layman Mr. L. D. Powles, at one time a Circuit Justice in the Bahamas shall be our authority, and his words are of special interest, being those of a Roman Catholic : ' We spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with the Rev. F. B. Matthews. Let me attempt to describe the sort of place an English clergyman, his wife, and two children have to live in to carry on their work. A house larger than, but about on a level with, an English labourer's cottage, containing two rooms and an apology for a study, something like a store-closet. No ceiling ; merely a partition between sitting-room and bedroom ; only a solitary window glazed ; and scarcely one of the little comforts that would be found in the poorest home in England. . . . 78 THE WEST INDIES ^ ' It is no sinecure/ the writer goes on, 'to be rector of a parish sixty miles long by four wide, with seven churches to serve as best you may.' Speaking of the clergy generally, he says : ' They are gaining ground every day among the coloured people. This is not to be wondered at, for, whether one agrees with them or not, it is undeniable that their faith is to be seen in their lives. They live among the people and with them, and there is no thought of a colour line in their hearts, and the people have learnt to love and trust them.' ' There is no thought of a colour line in their hearts ' : but in their longing to be all things to all men they are, alas, obliged to bear it in mind. For the colour question is a very difficult and delicate one in the Bahamas and, as we shall see presentty, in portions of Central America though it is all but solved in Jamaica. In the diocese of Nassau it crops up every- where. Is there a parish reception ? then there must be one for the white and one for the black. The same conditions obtain for Confirmation classes. The fact that at the altar the two races are separated, the white people going up first, the black afterwards, is probably due to deference on the part of the black communicants, and not to any sensitiveness on the part of the whites. Nevertheless, it must be owned that a good deal of prejudice exists on the one side, and of jealousy on the other. The black people long to be white, and every one desires to be lighter than he is. Christian workers do well to ignore this in principle, while they tactfully respect its existence. Again, we take a typical day spent by the Sisters THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 79 of the St. Peter's Community. At present their number is four, but two other ladies live with them to teach in the school. A celebration of the Holy Communion opens the day. Afte"r breakfast two or three little black children appear with messages for the Sister who attends upon the sick, and whose skill outrivals even the reputation of the obeahman. While the housekeeping Sister sallies forth to the market the other two Sisters spend the morning at the school, where forty or fifty white children are educated on High School lines. The afternoons are devoted to visiting the hospital, the lepers, and the various parishes, or to the many visitors who on one errand or another resort to ' The Farm,' as the Sisters' residence is called. Not easy is the perpetual effort to keep from getting slack or impatient for these children of Nature are very prone to slip back into bad ways, and the strain of teaching during the heat of the day is intense. Difficulties Two difficulties which exist in all parts of the Mission field are found here also : those, namely, connected with the supply of men and with the raising of money. At the annual meeting of the Nassau Association in 1913, it was announced that six parishes were vacant, and when we remember that the average size of a parish is about equal to that of an English county we can appreciate the extra work which this implies for men who are already hard worked. Were it not that the diocese is so often undermanned, the money collected would fall short. With a view to meeting 80 THE WEST INDIES money difficulties, every communicant pledges himself to pay Church dues at the rate of gs. a year. The S.P.G. gives a grant of 500, and the Nassau Diocesan Association endeavours to raise another 600. Added to the above difficulties there is the loneli- ness of the clergy in the out-stations ; they count themselves fortunate if they see a brother priest more than once a year, at Synod time. Encouragements There is, however, a bright side to the picture. The work thus beset with difficulties has not been in vain. One rejoices to notice a loosening of the hold which superstition has upon the natives. ' When I began work among them twenty-five years ago/ writes the Rev. F. B. Matthews, ' nearly every sailor went to sea wearing a " witched " waistband made of shark-bones, which was supposed to secure the wearer from ship- wreck. When I left, in 1908, all, as far as I knew, wore some Christian emblem.' They are taught, of course, that Christian symbols are to be used as a reminder and in no sense as a charm. Doubtless the greatest encouragement of all is to be found in the loyal and self-sacrificing body of catechists and lay-workers. There is a roll of 125 of these, who are nearly all of African descent, and who give their services gratuitously. If a parish is vacant, or a clergyman is ill, his place as often as not will be taken by a lay-worker, even if it involves (as it often does) a rough and hazardous journey of many miles. One such devoted catechist of the Berry Islands, Urban THE OLD CHURCH AT LONG BAY, ANDROS ISLAND BOY SCOUTS, LIMOX, HONDURAS THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 81 Johnson by name, was drowned while endeavouring to reach his home in order to hold services on New Year's Day (1913). Another instance of what a God- fearing layman can do is afforded by the life of Arthur Neild, who lived for ten years on Little Abaco. He was Resident Director of a commercial company, and was practically governor of the island. A staunch Churchman, he supplemented the occasional visits of the Mission priest by holding services regularly on Sundays in a carpenter's shop, baptising in cases of emergency, and preparing for Confirmation men and women, whom he sent to be confirmed in Nassau, a hundred miles away. After a long day's work he would visit the sick, and even sit up all night with them. A tap at his window at any hour of the night would ummon the ' boss ' to help whenever his sympathy or advice were required. He raised funds for the erection of a church, but died in 1906, before it was completed, at the age of forty-three. A hopeful sign for the future is that Nassau has its troop of Boy Scouts, who had their first demonstration on Empire Day 1913, beginning with a service at the cathedral. A parable Before we take leave of the Bahamas let us learn the parable of the conch ! The shore is strewn with conch shells. Stoop down and pick up one of them, and perhaps you will find within a pink pearl. Yes, perhaps, for there is no external sign that you have hit upon a treasure. A man may spend his whole life opening 82 THE WEST INDIES conch shells and never find one, and he may find enough to make his fortune in twenty-four hours. They are not found in or about the shell, but buried in the flesh of the creature. A conch suggests to us something else besides a shell. For what saith the Scripture ? ' The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly pearls : who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.' The pearl in a conch is not found in or about the shell. Neither will superficial work avail to disclose the divine in the human. On the contrary, it demands the devotion of a lifetime. In examples of devoted lives the diocese of Nassau is rich, and has been rich in the past. The eight senior clergy have given between them 208 years of service, vary- ing from thirty-eight to twenty years each. These and many others have gone forth, often with their lives in their hands, to ' glorify the Lord in the isles of the sea.' II. British Honduras and Central America As we cross over from the island diocese of Nassau to the mainland diocese of Central America, we notice that the two dioceses have this at least in common, that the supervision of each involves constant travelling by sea. Big liners, small steamships, schooners, sloops, gasoline engines, large and small canoes (' every kind of ship except an airship '), take the place of the graceful Message of Peace as the Bishop of Honduras visits his stations on a coast line of 1200 miles ; in trains, trolleys, and railway carriages, upon horseback and mule- back, and sometimes on foot, he makes his visitations THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 83 up-country. He has perils of waters enough, it may easily be imagined; and, besides these, perils by land, in the shape of earthquakes, floods, and landslides. The lie of the land ' Depths ' is the meaning of the Spanish word ' Honduras.' Its choice was due to the fact that the country bearing this name is situated in the Bay of Honduras, or the Deep Bay. The word applies equally well to the interior, where there are forests of log- wood and mahogany, unsurveyed and unexplored, and which are well-nigh impenetrable. The existence of these forests first attracted Englishmen thither in the old buccaneering days, but now fruit-growing rivals timber-cutting, an industry which has brought to Central America large numbers of negroes from Jamaica. British Honduras, the diocese of which was separated from Jamaica in 1883, is about the size of Wales, and has, therefore, double the area of the Bahamas. Geo- graphically it presents a striking resemblance to the diocese of British Guiana. Both are low-lying countries, with higher ground beyond ; and both have large rivers running parallel to each other. Belize, the largest river in British Honduras, has given an alternative name to the whole colony, just as Demerara has to British Guiana. When we add to British Honduras the six republics of Spanish Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and a portion of Panama, the vast extent of the diocese will be perceived. Once the see was even bigger than it is, for when the Americans, in 1906, undertook the cutting of the Panama Canal the F 2 84 THE WEST INDIES adjoining territory on either side called the canal zone was ceded to the American Church. The proximity to the Panama Canal invests the diocese with a special importance. A scheme is under consideration whereby the foreign jurisdiction of the diocese shall be transferred to the Church of America. The Bishop of Honduras would continue his oversight of the northern part of Central America, retaining his own diocese as at present, but becoming the agent of the American Church at such times as he might go outside the British portion of the diocese. The population In British Honduras itself there are about 40,000 inhabitants, of whom not more than two per cent, are white, the remainder being descendants of the slaves of former days. In the region as a whole, the bulk of the population consists of Spanish Roman Catholics. The Anglican population is composed mainly of negro labourers who have been attracted from Jamaica by the high wages obtainable on the banana plantations and on the Panama Canal works. They come to a place where the standard of morality is low ; where drink, gambling, and lust abound ; and where the prevailing Roman Catholic Church as an aggressive force against evil is ' at its weakest and worst.' These imported labourers are our fellow subjects, and most of them are our fellow churchmen. With no church to go to, and no clergy to minister the means of grace, to marry, visit, and befriend them their lot would indeed be pitiable. The clergy engaged in this work number about fifteen, THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 85 assisted by a few lay-readers and catechists. They have a lonely time, and need to be men of strong character and faith. Their present head is Bishop Farrar, who was formerly in Antigua. He went, in 1912, to British Honduras to act temporarily as the commissary of the Archbishop of the West Indies, and was definitely appointed to the bishopric the next year. The following is an account of a visit paid by an Archdeacon to a village near Port Limon : ' We walked along the shore under cocoa-nut trees to a small house where the catechist lives. On the following morning the people flocked to the little church from miles around. Some came on horse-back and some on foot, but all with bright eager faces. It was a strange sight this wooden church, set in the midst of a palm- forest, all the windows thrown wide open to allow every breath of air to enter. As I marked the earnest, interested attention of these black people my spirit was raised in thankfulness to the Maker of all men Who had put into the heart of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to aid the Mission in these parts, so that even to this isolated spot the Gospel has been brought. I learnt that during the past few years great progress towards civilisation has been made. Before the Mission the people lived in an unmarried state ; now most of them are married. At one time the people were quarrelsome, and used to inflict terrible wounds with the machette a long knife used for agriculture. Now it is seldom a case of this kind is known. They are industrious and thrifty, and take a great interest in their church. They have just bought themselves a small cottage organ. One man of the congregation thought of a plan for raising the funds. He would give away 700 cocoa-nuts 86 THE WEST INDIES on the condition that every person who received 100 promised to obtain 100 more ; out of these 200 they were to extract the oil and sell it. In this way oil was got from 1400 cocoa-nuts, which was sold. With this money they bought the organ. We held a dedica- tion service for it. It was pathetic to see the joy and pride with which these poor folk regarded their little organ. Doubtless they thought there was not so fine an instrument of music in the whole world.' The nature of the problems Two questions which confront the missionary may, perhaps, be described as the Black Problem and the White Peril. In the British West Indies, generally, the former hardly exists at all, though in the Bahamas it reveals itself in a modified form. In America, however, and in the diocese which we are now considering owing chiefly to its more direct contact with the States the problem is acute. We hear a good deal in these days, especially in South Africa, of the Black Peril. Is there not, however, such a thing as the White Peril too ? ' Our main diffi- culty/ writes Bishop Farrar, ' lies in the indifference of our European element. They seem to go to pieces in this atmosphere. They develop livers but not morals, and they see the faults of the coloured people without rousing themselves to help to correct them.' The solution of the problems briefly touched upon above will be found by those who seek it in a Christian spirit. Probably the common Eucharist will bring white and black together more quickly and effectively THE BAHAMAS AND CENTRAL AMERICA 87 than anything else. To bring the two races together in sympathy, is a more important task than to bring the two oceans together. A forecast The Panama Canal, which is to be opened, all being well, on January i, 1915, will mark an epoch in the world's history. The little strip of water, forty-nine miles long which represents the labour of many years, and ' the greatest engineering enterprise in the world ' will alter the face not of this diocese only, but of the entire West Indies. The West Indian Church may one day find itself in the forefront of the world. To-day There is an innate tendency in human nature to postpone a duty to ' a more convenient season ' a tendency to which Central Americans are particularly prone. Hence the coat-of-arms of the diocese showing four banana-leaves, one in each corner, an open Bible in the centre, and underneath, as a motto, ' Hoy, no Man ana,' the English translation of which is, ' To-day, not to-morrow.' In the Bahamas and in Central America there are difficulties which would daunt any heart which is not stayed upon God, and dangers that would appal any but the brave. Yet the Christian soldier seeks no soft and easy campaign. Dangers and difficulties serve to call out his best and summon him to the conflict. If, 88 THE WEST INDIES then, as we have just seen, the line of battle is likely to be in the ' forefront of the world,' how urgent and unique is the opportunity; if the Church in the West Indies is to be prepared when its hour arrives, then the time to come to their aid is ' not To-morrow, but To-day.' BOOKS OF REFERENCE ' Life of Bishop Venables.' F. H. King. ' Women's Work at Nassau.' Mission Field. Sept. 1911, p. 274. ' Salt-raking.' Mission Field. Feb. 1906, p. 52. ' In British Honduras.' Mission Field. March 1908, p. 89. 200 Years of S.P.G.' C. F. Pascoe. (S.P.G. 7*. 6d.) CHAPTER V BARBADOS AND THE WINDWARD ISLANDS I. Barbados PICTURE a low green island, the sea a marvellous blue, and slender palms and tropical verdure crowding down to the water's edge. Peeping through the trees is Bridgetown, the capital, and the name of the island itself is Barbados. That light green beyond represents the island's wealth its sugar-cane crop. Bananas, yams, pineapples, and sweet potatoes are there, too, in abundance. The island is very flat, but lies in terraces ; its highest point is nearly 1500 feet above the sea, and, from its wild and mountainous aspect, is called the Scotland district. The size and shape of Barbados Although in size it is little larger than the Isle of Wight, being twenty-one miles long by fourteen miles broad, it is the most thickly populated spot on the face of the globe. For whereas the Isle of Wight has about 83,000 inhabitants, Barbados contains nearly 200,000. They are mostly blacks, and are descen- dants of West African slaves ; and it is worthy of 89 QO THE WEST INDIES note that when we British first landed there the island was apparently uninhabited. 1 Its shape may be roughly described as a triangle, with the apex pointing to the north-west. Lying further to the east than the rest of the West Indies it is the nearest to the mother country, from which it is separated by 4000 miles at Atlantic Ocean. From Jamaica it is distant 1000 miles, and 400 miles from British Guiana. A flying visit Passing hastily through Bridgetown we look into the cathedral, and are informed that it was built with money raised by a lottery. The font dates from 1680, and has an inscription in Greek letters, which means ' Wash the sin, not merely the face.' From Bridgetown the one line of railway, twenty-four miles in length, runs across to the eastern coast and then turns north- wards to the parish of St. Andrew. An hour's journey by rail brings us to the Windward coast where, situated on the side of a hill overlooking the sea, stands Cod- rington College, one of the most interesting buildings in the whole of the West Indies. We must return to this spot. In the meantime there are three questions to which we require an answer. How came this island into British hands ? How has 1 It is interesting to note how Barbados compares with the great countries of the world as regards population to the square mile. It comes easily first with 1181 persons to the square mile, Belgium being next with 660, the United Kingdom third with 376, then Germany with 311, China with 265, and India with 121. BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 91 the Church of England discharged its trust ? What is our special opportunity at the present time ? (a) Barbados and Great Britain The actual date of the discovery of Barbados is uncertain. It is said to have been visited by the Portuguese in 1536, and was called by them ' Los Bar- budos,' after the bearded fig-trees which they found there. A private expedition, fitted out by Sir Olave Leigh of Kent, in a ship called the Olive Blossome, landed, on its way to Guiana, in 1605. Finding the island uninhabited he erected a cross, and inscribed on a tree the words ' James K. of E. and of this island ' ; he then pursued his voyage. 1 Twenty years passed before a settlement of Englishmen was made. As in its geography, so in its history, Barbados stands apart from the other islands in the Caribbean ring. It is not, as with the rest, a story of rival nations, but of rival Englishmen, alternately dispossessing one another. After a conflict of royal and private claims, proprietary rule gave way to immediate de- pendence upon the crown, and eventually to repre- sentative institutions. It is enough for our purpose to note that the first settlement was founded by a London merchant named Courteen, and that the island was granted by patent to the Earl of Carlisle in 1627, on the ground of his ' laudable and pious design of propagating the Christian religion ' as well as ' of en- larging His Majesty's dominions.' Strict conformity 1 The Olive Blossome is perpetuated on some of the postage stamps of Barbados. 92 THE WEST INDIES to the Church of England was enjoined by law and enforced by fines. Thus read the ordinance : ' That Almighty God be served and glorified, and that He give a blessing to our labours, it is hereby enacted that all masters and overseers of families have prayers openly every morning and evening with his family, upon penalty of 40 Ibs. of sugar, the one half to the informer, the other to the public treasury of the island.' If men could' be made religious by Act of Parliament, Barbados would have been an earthly paradise. But there is another side to the picture. The direction of all Church affairs rested in the hands of the planters, and if there was one thing more than another which they would not tolerate, it was what was termed ' enthusiasm ' in religion. They were the only ' bishops/ in the literal sense of the word which means ' over- seers ' ; and woe betide the clergyman who sought to bring the Gospel within the reach of the negro slaves. So tyrannous was their rule that towards the close of the eighteenth century most of the clergy had left the island, feeling that their position was impossible. At one time, wherever the sacraments were performed, they were performed by the overseers, ' in a kind of profane merriment and derision of the ordinances.' It is something to be thankful for that the British traditions of the island are unbroken. Never has an invader set foot on it. Its settlers have made it their home, and not merely their trading ground, and they have turned every available portion of it to good account. We have already stated that when Bishops were BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 93 appointed for the West Indies, Jamaica and Barbados were the first two dioceses to be formed. The whole of the West Indies were divided between them, and besides the island of Barbados, the diocese of that name embraced what are now the dioceses of British Guiana, the Windward Islands, Antigua, and Trinidad. A fruitful garden If in its history and geography Barbados stands apart from the other Caribbean Islands, in its trade relations it is akin to them. It is like one great garden, no less pleasant than fruitful. It is wholly given to sugar. A few plantations of trees, and an occasional plot of maize or yams, alone vary the monotonous fields of cane, with the chimneys and windmills of the sugar factories rising among them. Sugar is produced not only from cane, but from beet also. In the case of the cane, the first operation consists in pressing out the juice by means of large rollers. The juice is then boiled until the sugar crystallises. The liquid which is drained off is used as ' molasses ' for rum and for fuel. In obtaining the juice from beetroot, the root is mashed to a pulp and the juice pressed out ; or, according to another method, the saccharine matter is extracted by placing the roots in cylinders through which water is forced. Some idea of life on a plantation may be gained from the following experience of a West Indian missionary : ' I am taking my leave on a sugar estate in the house ot one of the overseers. He is an Englishman, and 94 THE WEST INDIES married. Life on a sugar estate is the hardest, most isolated, and fullest of temptations that one can conceive. The overseer's lot is as isolated as anyone's can be. His hours of work are so long, and in all weathers, that he must be tired at the end of the day, especially if he is a fever subject. What seems more natural than a whisky and soda, and then another ? And I don't see what chance he has of going to church more than occasionally ; and seldom to the Holy Communion. When a man has been up at 4 A.M. for six days, he doesn't want to get up for church at 8 o'clock. From what I have seen of a planter's life, I wouldn't send a dog to live it.' With regard to the superstition of the negro labourer, the same writer continues : ' My friend and I were in the field when I asked him why the driver wore one of those round penny mirrors tied to his coat button-hole. He thought that perhaps he used it to see what was going on behind him. So we asked the old man. He said it was for spirits. My friend said, " But you are a Christian, aren't you ? " " Oh yes," said the driver ; " but you still got to look out for spirits." The planter then said, " I didn't know that ; I always thought our Father in Heaven looked after them, and kept His children from harm. Now, how does this mirror keep them off ? " " Well, you see, sir, when the spirit comes to do you anything, he is bound to look into the glass. Then he sees his own two eyes, and as he continues looking, he sees his two eyes melt into one, and he gets afraid and goes away." Among other industries fishing, especially the taking of flying fish, is important ; and there is also a small BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 95 whale fishery. Cotton and bananas are grown, and petroleum exists in small quantities. Here, as else- where in the West Indies, the example of the English- man is either a blessing, or it works incalculable harm. By virtue of his authoritative position his influence is never negligible. (6) The organisation of the church It was a red-letter day when William Hart Coleridge, who was consecrated in 1824, arrived as the first Bishop. A tumultuous welcome was accorded him, the ships- of-war fired salutes, and ' the people broke out into a hundred wild exclamations of joy, uttered with such vehemence that it made me tremble,' records a spectator. ' On the quay, on the wall, on boats, on posts, on the housetops, through doors and through windows, wherever a human foot could stand, was one mass of black faces. As the barge passed slowly along, the emotions of the multitude were absolutely tremendous.' Bishop Coleridge. The seventeen years' episco- pate so auspiciously begun laid the foundations upon which the work has ever since been built. The Bishop divided his scattered islands into rural deaneries, and subsequently into archdeaconries. Through his energy and guidance Codrington College came into being in the form in which its founder intended, as we shall see presently. The greatest monument, however, to Bishop Coleridge is the peaceful and orderly manner in which Emancipation Day (August I, 1838) was celebrated. Though it might have been expected, and it would almost have been pardonable, that such a day 96 THE WEST INDIES should be given up to riot, the very opposite, in fact, was the case. How the day was observed is told by the Bishop : ' I was present ; but there was no gathering that affected the public peace. There was a gathering, but it was a gathering of old and young together, in the house of the common Father of all. It was my peculiar happiness on that memorable day to address a congrega- tion of nearly 4000 persons, of whom more than 3000 were negroes just emancipated. And such was the order, deep attention, and perfect silence, that you might have heard a pin drop. Among this mass were thousands of my African brethren joining with their European brother in offering up their prayers and thanksgiving to the Father, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of all.' It was chiefly owing to the S.P.G., the Bishop adds, that the day was passed in the way he has described. Although, no doubt, indirectly this was true, yet the Bishop's presence had much to do with it. We have it on the authority of an agricultural attorney who was present, that ' the impressive address of the Bishop on the day of liberation tended greatly to tranquilise the minds of the newly liberated people.' How an opportunity was seized The Rev. F. R. Braithwaite, in a letter to Bishop Coleridge, dated at St. Vincent, September i, 1838, gives another account of how that memorable day was spent : ' The ist of August, though ushered in by thunder, BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 97 lightning, and heavy rain, proved from 9 o'clock a fine day. I went from place to place and held services at 9.30, 12.30, 2.30, and 4.30, on each occasion with crowded congregations. The journey was effected in a five-oared canoe, pulled by five volunteers, with strong arms and light hearts. On each occasion I preached from Deut. vi. 12 : " Beware, lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage." First, as to the duration of the bondage ; secondly, as to its nature ; thirdly, as to the method of deliverance likening the four years of probationary apprenticeship to the forty years of probationary wandering. ' I concluded by showing how ungratefully the Jews had met the mercies of God, and how severely that remarkable race had been chastised exhorting my people to make a better use of their blessing. . . . It was a delightful day to me, because I saw before me a double triumph : (i) in effecting the abolition of slavery ; (2) in the sober gladness with which the blessing was received.' When he arrived in the West Indies, Bishop Coleridge found the Church in a disjointed and chaotic condition. He left it in 1841 united in one diocese, and with plans drawn up for its division into three dioceses a division which was at once effected ; for on August 14, 1842, he had the joy of assisting at the consecration of Thomas Parry as Bishop of Barbados, Daniel Gatewood Davis as Bishop of Antigua, and William Piercey Austin as Bishop of Guiana. Bishops T. and H. H. Parry. Bishop Parry guided the Church through a period of steady growth for twenty-eight years. An event of great importance 98 THE WEST INDIES marked his episcopate, viz. the organising of a Society for carrying the Gospel to the portions of West Africa from which so many slaves had been drawn. The prime mover was Richard Rawle a name that will always be honoured in the West Indies and the Society has since been carried on as ' The West Indian African (Rio Pongas) Mission,' in the diocese of Sierra Leone. It was started in the third jubilee of the S.P.G. (1851), and the Church in Barbados took this step ' as a suitable commemoration of the Society's benefits.' The aim was to train Africans, who had become Christians in the West Indies, to go back as missionaries to their own people. During the last six years of his episcopate Bishop Parry lived in England, and his son, Bishop H. H. Parry, took his place and eventually succeeded him ; but his tenure of the see was a short one, as, in 1873, he was appointed to the bishopric of Perth, Australia. Bishop Mitchinson. His successor was a brilliant scholar, Dr. John Mitchinson, of Oxford, who held the see from 1873 to 1881. Just before his appointment, the diocese of Trinidad was carved out of Barbados (1871), and soon afterwards the Windward Islands were made into a separate diocese (1879). The general disestablishing of the Church in the other islands made this latter step inevitable. Barbados continued to be State controlled and State paid, and the two methods of government and finance proved incompatible. The Church in Barbados holds to this day an unique position in the West Indies, since it is still an ' established ' Church, and the stipends of the BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 99 clergy, including those of the Bishop and Archdeacon, are paid from the public treasury. Bishop Mitchinson has now for many years been the Master of Pembroke College, Oxford. His episco- pate is chiefly memorable for the great progress made throughout the island in educational matters, including the affiliation of Codrington College to the University of Durham. Bishop Bree. His place in Barbados was taken by Herbert Bree, who went out in 1882, and held the see up to the time of his death in 1889. His appoint- ment of a coloured priest to one of the rectories drew a strong protest from the islanders. The Bishop remained firm, however, and the wisdom of the step was afterwards admitted. Another event of interest was the consecration of Archdeacon Holme, of St. Kitts, as the first Bishop of Honduras in St. Michael's C athedral,Barbados. Bishop Swaby. The vacancy created by Bishop Bree's death was filled by the translation of Dr. Swaby from British Guiana, the occupant of the see at the present time (1913). (c) Our Opportunity In order to answer our third question : ' What is our special opportunity at the present time ? ' we must return to Codrington College, the picturesque and his- toric building on the east coast. To trace its story from the beginning takes us back to the earliest days of the S.P.G. itself. We have seen above the state of paralysis to which the Church in Barbados was reduced prior to ioo THE WEST INDIES the arrival of the first Bishop. There was one bright exception, however, in the person of a layman, whose memory the Church will always hold in reverence and gratitude. General Codrington. Christopher Codrington, the son of a Captain-General of the Leeward Islands, was born in Barbados in 1668. An undergraduate of Christ Church, Oxford, he became a Fellow of All Souls in 1690. He was an untiring student of the manliest type, and on one occasion he filled the rdle of public orator at the University. It was, however, neither as a scholar nor as a speaker that he achieved his greatest fame, but as a soldier. In 1694 he quitted the peaceful cloisters of his College for the battle-field, and so distinguished himself in Flanders that he was appointed to succeed to his father's command in the West Indies when only thirty years old, with the rank of General. A few years later we find him in retirement on his estates in Barbados, resuming the life of a student. There he died at the early age of forty-two, on Good Friday 1710, leaving behind him ordered plans and ideas, together with the means for carrying them out. For in 1703 he had made a will two years after the founding of the S.P.G. in which he left his two estates in Barbados to that Society. The main provisions were : (i) The plantations were to be continued as before, and 300 negroes at least always to be kept thereon ; and (2) a number of professors and scholars were to be maintained there, all of them to be under monastic vows, with the express purpose of BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 101 studying medicine and divinity, and thus to 'be of service both to the bodies and souls of men.' The Codrington bequest The colony was not sufficiently advanced to avail itself of an educational institution such as this ! Codrington himself was, in fact, a century in front of his time, though, as regards the provisions relating to the slaves, he did but reflect the spirit of the age. Before going further, let us put ourselves in the place of the S.P.G. Standing Committee, and ask, ' Can this trust be accepted ? Can the Society permit itself to be the holder of slaves ? ' This question exercised the minds of religious people both at the time and for many years afterwards, and became pressing during the agitation which was raised by Wilberforce and his friends against the slave-trade. Three courses were open to the Society : (i) They might relinquish the trust, on the ground that it was not right to do evil that good might result. (2) They might set free the slaves. (3) They could make provision for their gradual emancipation, and by the experiment of free labour demonstrate to the colonies that the abolition of slavery could be accomplished without danger to life or property. The first suggestion they put aside, arguing that they would be committing a greater wrong by relinquishing the trust than by accepting it. They believed that the second step would be foUowed by more suffering and crime than had been witnessed under the most galling bondage. Notwithstanding the 102 THE WEST INDIES odium which it brought upon them, the Society adopted the last of these courses : and their consideration for the spiritual and moral welfare of the slaves under their charge proved that African negroes were capable of enlightenment and improvement. Moreover, they introduced an allotment system by which the most deserving received a piece of ground for cultivation in return for their labour on the Estate. Codrington College A hundred and fifty years had yet to elapse before the time was ripe for an institution in any way ap- proaching the intention of the founder. The colony was as yet neither sufficiently large nor sufficiently educated ; it was, consequently, necessary that the training of boys should precede the training of young men. A Grammar School was opened in 1745 and was carried on with success for many years. Bishop Coleridge, soon after his arrival, felt that the time had come to reconstitute the foundation on the original design laid down by Codrington in his will, with necessary modifications, and this happy consummation was brought about in 1830. Fortunately the right man to take charge of it was ready at hand in the person of the Rev. J. H. Finder, who had been the Estate's chaplain since 1818. The new buildings having been completed, the day chosen for the opening of ' Codrington College ' was the anniversary of the opening of the Grammar School, eighty-five years before. There was accom- modation for fifteen students, and the first name which appears on the list is W. W. Jackson, who lived BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 103 to become Bishop of Antigua, and whose son (also a Codringtonian) became the well-known Rector of Exeter College, Oxford. Of the other original students, two hailed from Antigua, one from Trinidad, one from Dominica, and one from Bermuda. Thus the College was carrying out the aim of the founder in helping the whole of the West Indies. It has never confined itself to Barbadians ; and has given equal facilities to all students, no matter what their race or colour. In less than a year a hurricane almost entirely destroyed the College, and, after five years of pioneer work, Finder was compelled to resign. He came to England, and soon after his return became the first Principal of Wells Theological College. During his time at Codrington forty-nine students passed through his hands. Finder's successor was the Rev. H. Jones, in whose time recruits began to come to the College from England. Amongst the latter was W. T. Webb, an Oxford man who left the University before taking his degree. He was the possessor of one lung, and only a portion of that : although he went out to the West Indies ' to die,' we shall read later on of his work in the islands. Richard Rawle. Jones was followed by Richard Rawle (1846-64), whose story must be told in more detail, because he not merely left his mark upon the College, but helped to shape the destiny of the West Indian Church during a period of over forty years. It will appear how he was one of God's chosen instruments to guide that Church through critical times. He was a great man as great in humility as 104 THE WEST INDIES in attainments. ' He was one of my heroes/ said Dean Vaughan. Born in 1812, he graduated at Cambridge in 1835 as Third Wrangler and Fourth Classic. The first sphere in which he consecrated his talents to the Church was an obscure college living (Cheadle), which had been refused by fifty other Fellows of Trinity before the offer came to him. There he acquired those pastoral gifts which made him such a power in his personal dealings with men. ' I have long known,' he wrote to a friend, ' that "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," and that the less the guidance seems to rest with self, the better the warrant for good results.' At the age of thirty-four he went to Barbados, where he found the work in a state of utter neglect half a dozen children straggling in at the negro school ; the Grammar School was reduced to two pupils, and the Sunday school to none. He resolved not to rest until ' the drones had been made to buzz,' in a place which ' ought to be a model of Church efficiency to all the colonies.' At the College itself, only eight students awaited this Cambridge scholar. He summed up the situation by writing good-humouredly to a correspondent at home that the third syllable of Bar- bados was characteristic of the inhabitants as a whole, and he was there to wake them up ! When the numbers at the College had risen to ten there was a prospect of decrease rather than increase, as no more money was forthcoming ; yet he was able to write, ' though upon a small scale, some good is being done.' BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 105 It was said in England that a man like Rawle was wasted in so narrow a sphere, but Rawle never felt himself thrown away, nor doubted that he was in the place where God wanted him. He humbly regarded himself as specially fitted for this task. And what of the results ? ' The making of a few good clergymen for the West Indian dioceses is a sufficient result, and of the kind which I have ever prayed for, viz. that I might be at the bottom of ever so much good, but, like the roots of a tree, out of sight with no visible pro- minence.' It mattered nothing to him whether he was training a white man or a black, for he held that the colour of a man's complexion had no more to do with his character or his intellect than the colour of his hair or his eyes. Of his students, one became a Bishop, three Archdeacons, and another was Dr. Jackson, already referred to as the Rector of an Oxford College. He took as his motto the word ' thorough/ and the result of his work may be attributed, under God's blessing, to his acting on the principle which this involved. For seventeen years he remained at his post, though at one time he resigned it in order to lead the Mission in West Africa an attack of yellow fever, however, preventing the execution of this plan ; in 1859 he was offered, and declined, the bishopric of Antigua. Many years afterwards he accepted the bishopric of Trinidad, and when he could no longer cope with the responsi- bility it entailed, he returned as an old man to Barbados to take up his former work in an honorary capacity. He was weakened by long residence in the tropics, and io6 THE WEST INDIES saddened by the recent death of his wife, but as no one else could be found to fill the principalship at the time, he recognised the Call of God and obeyed. He was spared for only seven months longer, when another and a final call came, which he obeyed more readily than any that had come in the past. His coffin was carried to the foot of the steep hill leading to the cemetery by aged black men, whose places were at that spot to be taken by a relay of younger ones ; but old as they were, heeding neither the scorching sun nor the steepness of the hill, they refused to lay their beloved burden down until its earthly resting-place was reached. Other Principals of Codrington Rawle was succeeded by W. T. Webb, who, with his one lung, had survived nearly twenty years' residence in the island already, and held the principalship for another twenty years. Eventually he returned as a virile old man to England, and accepted a bleak Lin- colnshire living, which he retained for twelve years before he died. His career speaks well for the Bar- badian climate. It was during his time, and through the exertions of Bishop Mitchinson, that the College was affiliated to Durham University. By this means students have been able to obtain the degrees of that University ; the papers are sent out from Durham, the answers examined in Durham, and the student can receive the degree without ever setting foot on English soil. Webb's successor was the Rev. A. Caldecott, now BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 107 a professor at King's College, London. His stay was but a short one, and the names of those who have since held the post of Principal are, Preb. Merrick, Bishop Rawle (for a few months, as we have seen), and Dr. T. H. Bindley. The present head is the Rev. A. H. Anstey, who was formerly Principal of St. Boniface, Warminster. One of its most famous tutors was the late Mr. William Grey (afterwards the Earl of Stamford), who was in the first batch to be licensed as diocesan lay-readers by Dr. Temple in 1891. The Bicentenary In 1910, the bicentenary of the Codrington trust was observed both in Barbados (in April) and in England (in October). Simultaneous services were held in London, Oxford, Wells, and Durham. The College could look back and thank God for a record of 400 students, including Bishops, chief justices, physicians, planters, and men of leading in every colony of the West Indies. The S.P.G. voted a large sum to the College out of its Bicentenary Fund, and signalised the occasion by handing over the local management of the College to the General Synod of the West Indies. Since the bicentenary the College has sprung into new life. Our opportunity at the present time is so to foster and develop its work that it may advance from great things to greater. In an age of enlightenment, a learned ministry and a devoted laity are as essential abroad as at home. io8 THE WEST INDIES II. The Windward Islands The diocese of the Windward Islands, which was formed out of Barbados in 1879, includes St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and the chain of islands stretching between St. Vincent and Grenada, called the Grenadines. Formerly it included Tobago, which now belongs to the diocese of Trinidad. It has its own diocesan organisation, a cathedral chapter, and an episcopal endowment fund, but it has never yet been able to afford a Bishop of its own. The Bishop of Barbados pays periodical visits to the islands, and holds the double see. The story of this diocese is a story of poverty heroically borne. At one time these islands were endowed and wealthy ; to-day they are disendowed and poverty- stricken. There is a lack at once of men, of equipment, and of money. One man has to cope with the work which was formerly done by two, and in some cases by three. A few years ago (1906) a clergyman found himself more than once ' without a penny a week's subsistence beyond the Sunday offertory, which averaged less than four shillings,' pending the arrival of aid from the S.P.G. Although the usual rate of wages is only from half a crown to four shillings and twopence a week for a man, and half these amounts for women, the congrega- tion raised 88 for their own Church purposes in 1909, and managed to spare i for the General Fund of the S.P.G. The S.P.G. has done Mission work in these islands since 1712, and has six clergy working in connection BARBADOS AND WINDWARD ISLANDS 109 with it at the present time. There is a total population of over 180,000, spread over a scattered area of 500 square miles. ' More helpers ' is the burden of their cry. Scholars and saints The heritage of Barbados in the past, and her great need to-day, is tHe saint and the scholar. We have seen how God guided thither such a one Dr. Rawle showing that he was the man He wanted for the work. Doubtless the call was just as clear in the other cases in their different circumstances. Their teaching has laid the foundation, and their example has suggested the superstructure, upon which the Church in the West Indies has for many years been reared. Sound doctrine and accurate knowledge are as essential in a Church as energy and activity. ' There go ten thousand/ a far- seeing student of human affairs once remarked, pointing to an undergraduate at one of our English Universities. The Church needs practical workers, but not those who are ignorant : in order to do work which shall abide they must be instructed workers. People who have ' no time ' for quiet thought and study will quickly join the ranks of the non-effectives. There is no one so forceful, no one so humble, no one so sympathetic as the true student the student who adopts Glad- stone's motto and ' makes his exports balance his imports.' In its limited numbers and in its practical and spiritual aims, Codrington College resembles our modern Study Circle, which influences the many through a chosen few. no THE WEST INDIES The whole story of the College will never be told. The majority of those who have gone forth from its cloisters can only be followed by the imagination. Their names are inscribed on the College roll, but their doings are in the hearts of men. BOOKS OF REFERENCE ' Memoir of Bishop Rawle.' C. J. Blaflf. 1 Bicentenary of Codrington.' Mission Field. Jan. 1910, p. 22 ; Feb. 1910, p. 59 ; April 1910, p. 120 ; Dec. 1911, p. 368. 'Annals of Codrington College.' T. H. Bindley. (West Indian Committee, is. net.) ' Notes upon the Island of Dominica.' S. Grieve. (Black.) 'Handbook of Barbados.' E. G. Sinckler. (Duckworth.) CHAPTER VI ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, AND TRINIDAD !. The diocese of Antigua THE island of Antigua received its name from Columbus, who called it after a church in Seville named Santa Maria la Antigua (pronounced Anteega). One of the things for which it is remarkable is its lack of water, and the. ingenuity which its inhabitants have displayed in overcoming this disadvantage. Curiously enough, the Caribs originally called the island Jamaica, which, in the language of the contemporary Arawaks of the larger islands, meant a ' land of wood and water,' and yet there are no rivers, and hardly any water is to be found except when dug for in wells or collected in tanks. The roof of the cathedral is rented by Govern- ment because of its usefulness for collecting rain, which is stored in underground cisterns. Thus the cathedral, in a literal as well as spiritual sense, helps to bring showers of blessing to the people. Not the roof only but the ground on which the cathedral stands is worthy of our attention, for it witnessed a shedding of blood connected with the notorious name of Governor Park. This man's tragic ii2 THE WEST INDIES end, in the words of Bryan Edwards, 'excited the attention of Europe, and furnished a lesson for his- tory.' An American by birth, a tyrant by nature, he feared neither God nor man. Yet, on account of his exploits under the Duke of Marlborough, whose aide-de-camp he was, he was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands with Antigua as his head- quarters. There he made himself dreaded and hated. To the piteous appeals of the islanders he was deaf ; his recall by the home Government he ignored. At length the inhabitants, convinced that forbearance was a greater crime than resistance, seized him, ' tore him into a thousand pieces, and scattered his reeking limbs in the street.' The handsome stone cathedral is surmounted by two octagonal domes, one at either end. Within, it is fitted with galleries, lined with pitch pine as a precaution against earthquakes, and adorned with many monuments of those who have toiled on the island in days gone by. It is, however, with those who are toiling there now that we are concerned, and not in the Island of Antigua alone, but in the thirteen islands of various nationalities which go to make up the diocese of Antigua including Dominica (pronounced Domineeca), Montserrat, St. Kitts, and Nevis, which are English ; St. Bartholomew (French) ; St. Martin (half Dutch, half French) ; St. Croix and St. Thomas (Danish). So varied are the nationalities to whom the Bishop ministers as he goes on his visitation tours, that within a month he finds himself praying in the State collects on one Sunday for ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 113 King George, on another for King Christian of Denmark, on a third for Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, and on a fourth for the President of the French Republic. The difficulty of ruling a diocese broken up into many parts involves constant travel and great expense. A dream of the Bishop is that some day he will have a yacht for the diocese, which will enable him to get about more quickly and safely. The travelling at times has to be done in small open boats, which add ' perils of waters ' to the difficulties which the Bishop and clergy have to face. The negroes Although the islands contain colonists from many European countries, and a large number of Creoles, no less than eighty-five per cent, of the population consist of negroes, who are freed slaves or descendants of slaves. The work of the parish clergy lies chiefly among these people and mulattoes, who are the off- spring of the black and white races. Here, as elsewhere in the West Indies, the negroes are still in the position of youthful Christians. Nor is their lack of spiritual development to be wondered at when we recollect that their parents in the days of slavery were valued mainly for the price they would fetch, or for the work they could do. Whatever forms of worship and whatever prayers they learned from their masters, they in- corporated with their old African rites and supersti- tions. Hence they retain a reverence for ' jumbies ' and charms, and a belief in their old god Obi. baptismal registers of the eighteenth century H4 THE WEST INDIES show that the rector of a parish could, without apparent inconsistency, be an owner of slaves. The record of the vestry minutes in a certain parish states that the rector refused to visit or baptise slaves without further remuneration, as he had only been employed to minister to the white population. No wonder then that the negro is still morally and spiritually in his childhood, and, like a child, is easily pleased, easily influenced, easily led, and, therefore, easily yields to the tempta- tions and succumbs to the pitfalls of youth. Special failings. Immorality abounds un- checked. Marriage in the days of slavery was, as a rule, prohibited to the slave, and the custom has made slow progress in the days of freedom. We referred to this question when studying Jamaica, and it is only necessary to add here that experience in the diocese of Antigua proves that the negro has shown himself, under good influences, to be the most faithful of husbands and the tenderest and kindest of fathers, and that the women have proved to be equally good wives and mothers. It is encouraging, moreover, to note that in two of the islands of this diocese the baptism of an illegitimate child is a rare occurrence. Another weak point is intemperance, which is rendered the more prevalent on account of the easy access which the native has to ' grog.' In some places, however, he is protected against himself by the low rate of his wages, as he cannot get intoxicated on what he can spare from his daily needs. Temperance Societies are at work, and are training the women and children in the habits of sobriety. In this matter ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 115 employers and social superiors can effect much by their example, as the child-like negro is a born imitator. Drawbacks to progress. Too often the influence of the white man is a hindrance instead of being, as it should be, the greatest help to the missionary. A white man and a Christian should be synonymous terms. The missionary's words may fall unheeded or be forgotten, but the white man's example is remem- bered and followed. This holds true, not in Antigua nor in the West Indies only, but all the world over. Another handicap is created by the conditions of living. A native's house usually consists of a hut containing one or two rooms. In these a man and his wife with five or six children are frequently to be found. Suppose the father or one of the elder children has a desire to improve his education after the day's work is done. In the first place, the only artificial light is furnished by a bottle filled with kerosine from which a wick peers through a piece of tin. In the second place, the student may not be the only inmate of the room, and he will not be allowed to sit up ' wasting oil ' when his elders want to go to sleep. The Church, by means of its adult and juvenile Sunday schools, strives to give them something to think about week by week. It provides the only intellectual stimulus which many have, and they frequently show their appreciation of the help which is thus provided. The most serious drawback of all is, perhaps, the lack of incentive and ambition to rise, which is a result of living in small and poor communities. There can be H 2 n6 THE WEST INDIES no room for expansion in these islands, where life is monotonous, society unchangeable, and where the planter remains a planter, and the labourer a labourer from generation to generation. Points of encouragement. In spite of these circumstances, the negro is by no means hopelessly degraded. His ' unwavering faith in the goodness, love, and mercy of God,' says Canon Watson of the island of St. Croix, ' and his conception of Him as a Father,' are specially noticeable. In 1899 a hurricane devastated the island of Montserrat and ruined every church. When the clergyman was trying to comfort the negro Christians upon the loss of their huts and property, their answer was, ' It is God's doing, and if He didn't spare His own house we mustn't grumble if He didn't spare ours.' If! faith is one of the negro's good traits, self-help is another. Hard pressed as he is, he gives royally of his little. The ordinary weekly subscription in this diocese is id. a week, but in the Danish islands one man, whose daily wage is 10^., spares 2\d. a week for the school in addition to subscriptions for other purposes. The Bishop tells of a church which was built on one of the islands with money received from the labourers on the neighbouring estate, without any help from outside. Bishop Mather, formerly of Antigua, describes the workers in this diocese as ' self-denying, hardworking, and patient, while poor in this world's goods.' Again, he writes ' A horse of some sort is necessary. The clergyman's horse partakes in one respect of its owner's ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 117 character, for it is much on its knees, and usually shows by its ribs that too much attention is not spent upon its food.' The present Bishop, Edward Hutson, was educated in Barbados, and was consecrated at Jamaica in 1911. He is the son of Archdeacon Hutson, who serves under him and has completed sixty years of service as a missionary in the West Indies. II. The diocese of Guiana British Guiana, the solitary foothold of Great Britain on the South American continent, is the largest, the southernmost, and the easternmost of our West Indian colonies. Anthony Trollope called it ' the Elysium of the tropics, the trans- Atlantic Eden.' The Eldorado, or lake of golden sands, in days gone by, it is now known as Demerara, the land of sugar. The Eldorado myth reminds us of that bag of gold which was supposed to await the successful adventurer at the foot of the rainbow. A Spanish soldier, so runs the legend, was set adrift on the Orinoco river. Finding his way back months after- wards he told how he had been taken by Indians to a great inland lake with golden sands, on which stood a vast city roofed with gold. Sir Walter Raleigh was one of those who staked their all in the quest for this fabled treasure. He brought no gold away with him from Guiana, but, like Livingstone in Africa, he left, as a legacy, a kindly feeling towards Englishmen in the hearts of the Indians, which made it easier for others to follow in his tracks. It remained n8 THE WEST INDIES for our own generation to discover that both gold and diamonds are to be found in the country. We, to-day, seek greater treasure still jewels for the crown of Christ, in the shape of human souls : and, as for their hue, does there exist in all the world a region where such variety is to be found ? Here are black people from Africa, brown people from India, yellow people from China, white people from Europe, besides the red-tinted aboriginal inhabitants of the country. The area of British Guiana is slightly less than that of Great Britain. It is divided into three large counties, which derive their names from the three rivers that form their boundaries, viz. Berbice on the east, Demerara in the centre, and Essequibo on the west. The Demerara is about the size of the Thames, and yet it is not half the length of either of the other two rivers. All three of them are blocked by rapids from fifty to a hundred miles inland. In the future the rivers of Guiana may become sources of power almost without limit. The potentialities which lie, for instance, in their falls and rapids should render electric energy available and cheap. The Kaietur Fall, which is five times the height of Niagara, awaits human enterprise, for as yet its power is hardly utilised at all. The inhabited portion of the colony extends along a narrow stretch of coast 200 miles in length, and from one to six miles in depth. Here, within an area of 300 square miles, live more than 300,000 people. Georgetown and New Amsterdam are the only towns of importance. The villages, which alternate with plantations, represent ruined estates of the old planters, ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 119 who, after the emancipation, sold them to the former slaves. Sugar has long since superseded tobacco as the leading industry, and has made the name of Demerara literally a household word. The clergy at work in the diocese number forty, and there are about 100 catechists and schoolmasters. Some notable pioneers An Apostolic Bishop. William Piercy Austin, the first Bishop of Guiana, was consecrated in 1842, before which date the colony formed a rural deanery of the huge diocese of Barbados. He ruled the diocese for fifty years. He stood six feet two inches, and in 1829, while an undergraduate, he was instrumental in organizing the first Oxford and Cambridge boat- race. Queen Victoria at the time of his consecration described him as ' her youngest and handsomest Bishop, ' and eventually appointed him Prelate of the Order of. St. Michael and St. George. In 1831 he arrived in Georgetown in order to fill a gap, without any intention of making it his home, and little dreaming that the greater part of his sixty-one remaining years were to be spent in the colony. When, in 1883, the various dioceses of the West Indies were united into a Province, he became its first Primate, and he was at that time the senior Bishop of the whole English Church. The day of his election was his seventy-sixth birthday, and he lived to guide the Church in the West Indies until he was eighty-five. Towards the end of his life he was able to say that when he was consecrated not one of his fellow-Bishops 120 THE WEST INDIES had been born ! To the end he made his visitations in open boats on the numerous rivers by which alone the interior can be reached, holding confirmations, building churches, and showing himself in his humble way a pattern to his flock. While still in harness he celebrated the jubilee of his episcopate in 1892, even then, in the words of one of his clergy, ' enduring hardness that ought to put to shame the carpet-slipper labours of younger men. ' ' The Apostle of the Indians.' Another house- hold word in Guiana is the name of William Henry Brett, who, during his forty years of service, earned imperishable fame as ' The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana/ Born at Dover in 1818, he was in his early days a tailor's apprentice, and was led to offer himself for missionary work by reading the ' Life of Henry Martyn.' He went to Guiana in 1840, as the first missionary to the Indians to be employed by the S.P.G. He was first sent to establish a Mission in the Pomeroon district, and the tribes to whom he went were described by a magistrate, who was at first unfriendly to missionary effort, as ' the most disorderly people in any part of Guiana.' Murders and violence were of frequent occurrence. Among these people Brett set to work. Far from giving him a welcome, they resisted and opposed him in every way in their power. The sorcerers threatened that any who paid heed to him would sicken and die. For five years he waited and worked and prayed. His residence was a tumble-down hut, and tigercats and snakes were the companions of his solitude. At last a sorcerer braved all threats, and, after receiving instruction, was admitted ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 121 into the Church, having received the name of Cornelius. Henceforward the work advanced with leaps and bounds, and the magistrate quoted above was able to report : ' Now the case is reversed. No outrages of any description. The Indians attend Divine Service, they dress neatly, are lawfully married, and as a body there are no people, in point of general conduct, to surpass them. This change was brought about solely by missionary labour.' Let us visit this Mission-station, in the company of one who knows it well at the present day and who writes : ' It is called Cabacaburi, and is situated on the River Pomeroon. At the foot of a hill is a mound, which, when excavated, was found to contain the bones of animals and human beings. The skulls had been cracked open and the larger bones split, evidently to get at the brains and marrow.' This was one of the spots, familiar to readers of ' Robinson Crusoe/ where cannibal feasts were wont to be held in the West Indies. ' On this very spot we now see a church, attended daily by the descendants of these people. ' Such a church, on such a spot, is worthy of being placed alongside of the cathedral in Zanzibar, which stands on the site of what was once a slave-market. Mr. Brett, later in his career, was ordained and con- tinued his work among the Indians until his exhausted health compelled him to seek rest in England, where he died on the day, almost at the hour, on which forty-six years before he had left the shores of England for those of Guiana. In a spirit of touching humility his last words were, ' Gentle Saviour, pass me not by.' 122 THE WEST INDIES W. E. Pierce. Another career, which deserves mention, though short and tragic in contrast to the lengthy and romantic one we have described, is that of the Rev. W. E. Pierce. After serving for some years in Jamaica, he went in 1880 to take up evangelistic work in Guiana, where he founded the Potaro Mission. The following year, when passing one of the falls of the Essequibo river with his wife, four children, and nurse, the boat lurched over on its side, and the party were engulfed in the rushing waters, from which one child alone was rescued. It is supposed that Mr. Pierce was the victim of his own conscientiousness, for he would employ only communicants as his boatmen, whether competent or not, and the accident was due to defective steering, a fault unusual with experienced Indians. It is now time to look more closely at the population of Guiana, which is largely made up of aborigines and of imported coolies. The inhabitants The aboriginal Indian. The historical son of the soil, the real wild Indian, is disappearing from the coast regions. He still exists, however, in the far interior, living in much the same way as he did when America was discovered, except that he does not fight, and that, even though he be a Carib, he does not any longer eat human flesh. The Akawois is a wandering trader, the gypsy of British Guiana. The Warau is a maker of canoes, and lives in huts raised above the mud flats on the stems of the Eta palm, a habit which once ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 123 earned for him the reputation of living in the trees. The Arawak inhabits the creeks not far from the coast. Besides these there are the Macuso, the Wapisiana, and the Arecuna. Practically the entire furniture of an Indian forest- shed or hut consists of nets swung from the rafters and called ' hamakas,' whence we derive our hammock both the word and the article. The staff of life is cassava ; other foods are sweet potatoes, yams, and Indian corn. The woman does all the planting ; the man does the hunting and the fishing. As for his weapons, guns are now common, but the bow and arrow are still used, especially for shooting large fish. The blowpipe with poisoned darts is used for birds and monkeys. Although he is no tiller of the soil, the Indian is by no means useless to the community. As a guide, as a boatman, occasionally as a carrier of loads (if special inducements are held out to him), he is indispensable. Now that the wood-cutter and the gold-digger overrun the country and are driving him into the wilds, it is evident that something must be done for him. The Church is following him ; and, indeed, he is crying out for the ministrations of religion, whereas in earlier days he steeled himself against them. Formerly, for twenty-one years, the Church Missionary Society had a flourishing Mission among the Indians, but pressing calls elsewhere resulted in its withdrawal. At the present time all the outside help which the diocese receives is from the S.P.G. A considerable time must elapse before the work can become self-supporting. The Bishop a few years 124 THE WEST INDIES ago was visiting a new inland clearing and met with a welcome which showed that the Spirit of God was working in the hearts of these people, and that they were alive to the duty of giving as well as receiving in order that the work in their midst may be advanced. The catechist in charge was a pure Arawak, a man who gave up regular employment and accepted a lower wage in order to do Church work among his people. In 1908 the Rev. J. Williams set out to start a Mission in the interior. His long journey was made entirely by water. On the Essequibo river he spent two days in steamers, and three days in boats in which he had to traverse several dangerous cataracts. Mrs. Williams accompanied her husband. The industrial side of the Mission work was in the charge of Mr. J . Martin, formerly a British soldier in Burma, and afterwards a Scripture Reader in the South African war. After several escapes from shipwreck, they reached their destination on the Rupununi river, where the Indians, who proved to be friendly, allowed them to occupy a hut with mud walls and a palm-leaf roof, con- taining two rooms and a tiny kitchen. Until, three months later, they were able to build a Mission house and a church, this hut formed their home. The church is thus described by a lady worker who joined this band of pioneers : ' Our church is very poor. It is under our rooms, and has no seats, windows or doors, only spaces, and a small portion of mud raised up for an altar, which is railed off by a rough piece of wood. The people sit on logs or on the floor. We usually have about a hundred on Sunday. ' ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 125 The work is going ahead, and has grown to such an extent as to cover the whole highlands between the Rupununi and Potaro rivers. By walking more than 400 miles over rough ground and under a tropical sun, Mr. and Mrs. Williams established a chain of nine stations between these two rivers. The Rev. W. G. and Mrs. White have succeeded to the task of carrying on this mission. They are seeking to give the Indians a phonetic script with one sound only to each sign ; to help them in developing their own industries ; to lead them towards a knowledge of God through Christ, and persuade them to abandon their superstitions and the resulting atrocities. Imported coolies. Since the emancipation, British Guiana, like Jamaica and Trinidad, has been obliged to go to the East for labourers. When the negroes were freed they soon began to show an unwillingness to work regularly in the fields and at a fixed wage. Moreover, the negro, as he rose in the scale of civilisation, became ambitious ' to wield the pen rather than the shovel.' Many, as time went on, entered the learned professions, and have proved excellent lawyers, doctors, and ministers of religion. Ruin stared the planters in the face, and they were driven to import coolies from India and China. Their period of indenture was for five years, and at the end of that time the coolies were free to return or to remain, as they preferred. An increasing number have chosen to make the colony their home : over 100,000 East Indians are thus settled in British Guiana. In this way it has come about that the East and the West have met, presenting a new problem with 126 THE WEST INDIES which the Church has to cope. The success which has attended its efforts is a striking testimony to the adapta- bility of the Christian Faith in the diocese. The student of Missions will appreciate the difficulty of ministering at once to Africans, East Indians, Chinese, West Indians, and our own countrymen. East Indians. The transition from the nine- teenth to the twentieth century has shifted the problem from the newly arrived immigrant to his descendant, the Creole, or colonial-born East Indian. In one important respect the work is easier, for the barrier in the shape of caste, which is almost insurmountable in India, does not exist in this land. Travel in a foreign country and observation of other people have the effect of widening the mind. Few, as yet, of the East Indians have become Christians. The main hindrance to the development of missionary work among them is lack of funds. The opportunity is a great and a pressing one. The majority of converts come from the Brahman caste, because it is more enlightened and, therefore, more open to outside influences, although in their native land the opposite is the case. By a flanking movement India itself can thus be at- tacked ; for if this opportunity is utilised, a prejudiced Brahman may return to India a missionary-hearted Christian. Were it not for the annual grant of the S.P.G., little or nothing could be attempted in this direction. The Chinese. Then there are the Chinese. ' I venture to state,' says Archdeacon Josa, of George- town, ' that ninety out of every hundred of our Chinese ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 127 in British Guiana are now Christians.' What kind of Christians do they make ? we ask. ' Not rice-Christians. On the contrary, they are most liberal contributors to all Church funds. They are upright in their dealings, and a Chinese man's word is his bond. I only wish that we had a few more of these good fellows.' The same writer records the following incident : ' Plantation Skeldon is one of the stations where a Mission was started in the 'sixties, and has continued ever since. Of late years the catechist was a man who had certain secular duties, and therefore received a small salary. When leaving the colony he called on the Bishop to bid him good-bye, and, said he, "I have left the money in the bank." " The money ! what money ? " replied the Bishop. The catechist answered, " The salary I have received from the Church I have left in the bank for the benefit of the Church." He had not spent a penny upon himself of the money received for his duties. These had been labours of love, and were sufficient reward in themselves. Men of ability and men filled with the Spirit of God are urgently needed in British Guiana, if this oppor- tunity is not to be allowed to slip past us ; and not men only, but the means to maintain them. HI The diocese of Trinidad In shape and size the island of Trinidad bears a striking resemblance to Wales. It is situated about seven miles from the north coast of South America, and was discovered by Columbus in 1498, and named by him ' La Trinidad,' after the three mountains which 128 THE WEST INDIES he espied from the masthead as he approached its shores. It thereupon became a Spanish colony. A hundred years later it was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, who, like Canon Trotter in later days (though for a different purpose), made it his base for an expedition to the mainland opposite. During three centuries it remained under Spanish rule, and its capital is named Port of Spain. A quarrel having occurred between Spain and Great Britain in 1797, the British fleet under Abercromby attacked and captured Port of Spain, and so Trinidad came into our hands. The population still contains Spanish and French elements, and there is a strong Roman Catholic community. The beauty of the island is described by Kingsley in glowing terms in 'At Last.' Pitch, sugar, and cocoa A stranger is always much interested in the Pitch Lake, a huge country of asphalt some 114 acres in extent, in the south-west corner of the island. The pitch is apparently so solid that people walk and even drive across it. The heaviest cart makes no deeper impression upon it with its wheels than it would on an asphalt road at home in the heat of summer. And yet a massive hole dug out to-day will be filled up again to-morrow by pitch which rises from below. A large amount is used for asphalt work in England. It brings in to the Government of Trinidad an annual income of some 35,000. It was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh and used by him to caulk his'ships. ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 129 Moreover, the cocoa and sugar industries have given Trinidad a world-wide fame. There has been a great increase of late in cocoa-growing, and now the area under cocoa cultivation is nearly double that of sugar. Among large growers are Messrs. Cadbury & Co., whose estates are at Maracas, in the north of the island. Cocoa is prepared from an evergreen plant, the fruit of which is in the form of a pod, resembling in size and shape a small cucumber. Each pod contains a number of seeds closely packed in a pulp. The seeds are separated from the surrounding pulp, and are allowed to undergo fermentation, either in covered barrels or under a layer of earth. During this process they acquire a peculiar flavour, which varies with the method of fermentation used. They are next dried in covered sheds, and are ready for the market. The founding of the diocese Up to the time of disestablishment, Trinidad formed part of the diocese of Barbados. When this occurred, the clergy and laity of Trinidad resolved to have a Bishop of their own the man to whom we have already referred and who was for some time Principal of Codrington College, Richard Rawle. At the time of his election as Bishop he was vicar of Tamworth. Let him tell the story in his own words : ' My leaving Tamworth was brought about by a presentiment that I should have a letter in the morning calling me thence. I made no doubt of it, awoke with the same impression, and found it exactly as expected. It was a letter from Trinidad, which, as I knew the West Indian mail had been delivered two days previous, I 3 o THE WEST INDIES I could not possibly have had a notion of getting by that day's post. It had been inclosed to somebody, and re-posted. The final result was from that moment a certainty. ... It has been my prayer all along to be disposed of by better than my own wisdom ; not to unsettle myself from any post by impatience under troubles or disappointments at results, but to have plain signs given me when a move was to be made.' Although he had refused a bishopric when Antigua was offered him, and the bishopric of New Zealand on Bishop Selwyn's retirement, this summons seemed to him to come from God, and the consecration took place in Lichfield cathedral, on St. Peter's Day, 1872. A great demonstration awaited him at Trinidad, but it is characteristic of the man that he insisted on being received in quite humble fashion. The labouring population was then, as now, a motley of natives drawn by high wages from Hindustan, Madeira, Africa, China, and from other parts of the West Indies. His task was that of a pioneer, but he had a passionate yearning to get at the hearts of his people, and was often to be found in the leper settlement or at the hospital bedside. During the seventeen years of his episcopate he was instrumental in building, or re- building, nine parish churches and twelve mission-halls, largely at his own expense. Even the labours of seventeen years in Barbados and seventeen in Trinidad did not complete the services he rendered in the West Indies, for he returned in his ripe old age to the former sphere, where his grave now summons a younger generation ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 131 to follow in his steps, by the dedication of their talent and substance to the cause of Christ. There have been two Bishops since Dr. Rawle, the present holder of the see being Bishop Welsh. Missionary work As in the other islands, the African slaves brought many of their superstitions with them to Trinidad. For the past eighty years the S.P.G. and the S.P.C.K. have been active in taking the light of the Gospel to these inhabitants of the Dark Continent, and with such success that they may be said to have been brought, at any rate nominally, into the fold of Christ. The Indian immigrants are for the most part Budd- hists or Hindus, but their religion has little vitality. The Trinidad Indian ' will perform his daily functions according to a certain ritual ; he will eat or drink or sit or stand or wash after certain forms. But ask him why, and he knows not ; ceremony and form are left to him, but the life and spirit are gone.' What an opportunity lies before the Church to-day, under God, to bring it about that Trinidad, and the West Indies generally, shall become a centre from which light may radiate upon the immigrants, and from them be reflected upon their native lands. Two outposts Attached to the diocese, but twenty miles to the north-east of Trinidad, is the little island of Tobago, upon which, according to the imagination of Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe was wrecked in 1659, at the age 132 THE WEST INDIES of twenty-seven, and from which he was rescued when he was fifty-four. The descriptions in this immortal work fit the island, and Crusoe's Cave is one of its show places. His man ' Friday ' who is supposed to have hailed from Trinidad was a typical Arawak of those times, and his cannibal foes were typical Caribs. One half of the population of Tobago are members of the Church of England, and though too poor to con- tribute much money, they bring eggs, vegetables, and occasionally a chicken, towards the support of the twelve churches on their island. Another outpost is the region of Venezuela on the mainland, where for the past few years Canon Trotter has been at work among the miners of the Orinoco. He tells a thrilling tale of a ' prospecting ' visit he paid in 1910, hunting out isolated British subjects in that vast country. At Ciudad Bolivar, ja friendly consul placed two large bedrooms at his disposal for a service, the furniture being removed. Nearly 200 trooped in, many of whom had never been at a Church service in their lives, and others never since they came to the country twenty or thirty years before. Nine of them stayed behind for Holy Communion. Passing on, a ride of 135 miles brought him to a mining camp. His was the first visit from an Anglican priest they had ever had, and he was consequently regarded as a ' curiosity.' Here on Good Friday he collected a congregation. One man told him that he had not joined in a Service for thirty-five years. Upon whom does the responsibility for this state of things rest? ANTIGUA, BRITISH GUIANA, TRINIDAD 133 Writing two years later (1912), he describes another of his annual visits to the Orinoco district. On the way the ship struck a rock, and the hold filled in a few minutes. After narrowly escaping drowning, he was exposed to the tropical sun, and without food for the whole day. ' This lost me a Sunday at Bolivar,' is his only remark. After holding a service in a hall used for cock-fighting he was asked to come again, and in order to do so he had to under- take a ride of 250 miles overland, a journey which he was strongly advised not to attempt. 'But I so often hear the word " impossible," ' he writes, ' that I have got to pay little attention to it. 'I made the journey.' A drought rendered it a trying one, and kept him fifteen days in the saddle instead of six or seven. ' This cost me another Sunday ; but/ he adds, ' the journey was worth making.' He concludes his account with these touching words : ' At my age I am now over 70 I cannot look forward to many more, if any, of these long and rough journeys, though I can still keep on the work on the coast as hitherto, and can advise and help a young priest sent out for this and other parts of the work. Three, besides myself, are really needed for Venezuela if our people are really to be shepherded.' With these brave words of a brave man we take leave of the West Indies. ' // our people are to be shepherded 1 ' In our response to this appeal, echoed from each of the eight dioceses, lies our Opportunity in the West Indies. 134 THE WEST INDIES BOOKS OF REFERENCE ' The Land of the Peaks and the Pampas.' Jesse Page. 35. 6d: ' Twenty-five Years in British Guiana.' H. Kirke. ' Mission Work in Guiana.' W. H. Brett. ' Legends and Myths of British Guiana.' W. H: Brett. ' Ten Years in British Guiana:' W. T. Veness. ' The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana.' F. P. L. Josa. (Wells Gardner. 6s.) ' Notes on the History of the Church in Guiana.' T. Farrar. Work among Native Populations in British Guiana.' Mission Field, July 1910, p. 201 ; April 1912, p. 106. ' British Guiana.' Mission Field, July 1906, p. 209 ; May 1909, P- 143- ' A New Mission in British Guiana.' Mission Field, 1909, p. 304. ' Chinese in British Guiana.' Mission Field, Mar. 1906, p. 71. ' Trinidad and its People.' Mission Field, Jan. 1906, p. 201. ' East Indians in Trinidad.' Mission Field, Jan. 1908, p. 7. ' Difficulties in Venezuela.' Mission Field, July 1909, p. 193; Oct. 1910, pp. 289, 294. ' Antigua.' Mission Field, March 1910, p. 85. ' Nevis.' Mission Field, Oct. 1907, p. 314. INDEX ABOLITION and Emancipation, 35 Akawois, 122 America, 21, 55, 62, 82-88 Antigua, 16, 24, 93, 111-17 Antilles, 14, note, 16 Arawaks, 18, 25, 45,67, 123-24 Austin, Bishop, 119 BAHAMAS, 24, 65-82 Bananas, 50, 83 Baptists, 28 Barbados, 24, 32, 89-110 Brett, W H., 120 Buccaneers, 48 Buxton, Fowell, 35, 41-42 CARIBS, 16, 18, 25, 123 C.M.S., 57-58, 124 Chinese, 126 Churton, Bishop E. T., 75 ; Bishop, H. W., 76 Clarkson, T., 37 Cocoa, 51, 128 Codrington College and its founder, 29, 90, 100-7, 109 Coleridge, Bishop, 95 Colour question, 55, 78 Columbus, Christopher, 1-23, 24 Courtenay, Bishop, 59 Cromwell, Oliver, 28, 46, 47 DIFFICULTIES, 53-54, 79, 87, Disestablishment, 58, 73 Dominica, 16, 24, 112 EARTHQUAKES and hurricanes, 44, 62, 68, 73, 116 Education, 72 (s.v. Codrington) Edwards, Bryan, 27, 31 Eldorado, 25, 117 Ellis, J. B., 50, 54 Emancipation Day, 42, 57, 95 FARRAR, BISHOP, 85-86 GRENADA and Grenadines, 24 Guadaloupe, 16, 24 Guiana, 83, 93, 117-27 HAYTI (or Hispaniola), 14, 17, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 67 Honduras, 22, 82-88 Hornby, Bishop, 76 House, a negro's, 69, 115 Hutson, Bishop, 117 ILLEGITIMACY, 53-54 Incidents, striking, 20, 23, 29- 3i, 38-39, 57, 63, 74-75, 81, 85, 116, 124-25, 132-33 Indians, East, 125-26 ' Indies ' and ' Indians,' 14 JAMAICA, 19, 22, 24, 43-64 Josa, Archdeacon, 126 Joscelyne, Bishop, 61 135 I 3 6 INDEX KAIETUR FALLS, 118 LAS CASAS, 13, 26 Leeward Islands, 24 Lipscomb, Bishop, 56, 59 MARTINIQUE, 24 Maroons, 46, 48 Missionary, at home, 77 at work, 50, 79, 93 Mitchinson, Bishop, 98 Montserrat, 16, 24, 112, 116 Moravians, 28 NASSAU, diocese of, 65-82 Nevis, 112 Newton, J., 29-31, 37-38 Nuttall, Archbishop, 59-61, 63 OBEAHISM, 52-53, 113 Objections to Missions, 33-34 Rawle, Bishop, 103-6, 129-31 Religion, negro, 55, 62-63, 94. H3 "Robinson Crusoe," 18, note, 121, 131-32 Roman Catholics, 46, 84, 131- 132 Rupununi Mission, 124 SALT-RAKING, 71 St. Lucia and St. Vincent, 24 St. Kitts, 24, 112 Sharp, Granville, 35, 37 Slavery and Slave-trade, 17, 24-42, 49-50 S.P.G., 29, 56, 58, 85 Sponge-gathering, 69 Sugar, 25, 51, 93, "9, 128 TOBAGO, 131 Trinidad, 18, note, 21, 24, 93, 127-32 Trotter, Canon, 132-33 URGENCY of opportunity, 87 PANAMA, 22, 43, 51, 64, 84, 87 Problems, 53-54, 86, 115 VENABLES, Bishop, 73 Venezuela, 132-33 RALEIGH, SIR W., 49, 117, 128 Virgin Islands, 17, 24 THE END PRINTED BT 8FOTTI3WOODE AMD CO. LTD., COLCHJISTER LONDON AND ETON RtC'DLD-URL IIOCT171 JUNlOBM 001240189 9