The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 28, February, 1860

After this a good deal of bush-fighting took place. The troops gradually got possession of several Maroon villages, but not till every hut had been burnt by its owner. It was in the height of the rainy season, and, between fire and water, the discomfort of the soldiers was enormous. Meanwhile the Maroons hovered close around them in the woods, heard all their orders, picked off their sentinels, and, penetrating through their lines at night, burned houses and destroyed plantations, far below. The only man who could cope with their peculiar tactics was Major James, the superintendent just removed by government,—and his services were not employed, as he was not trusted. On one occasion, however, he led a volunteer party farther into the mountains than any of the assailants had yet penetrated, guided by tracks known to himself only, and by the smell of the smoke of Maroon fires. After a very exhausting march, including a climb of a hundred and fifty feet up the face of a precipice, he brought them just within the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. "So far," said he, pointing to the entrance, "you may pursue, but no farther; no force can enter here; no white man except myself, or some soldier of the Maroon establishment, has ever gone beyond this. With the greatest difficulty I have penetrated four miles farther, and not ten Maroons have gone so far as that. There are two other ways of getting into the defile, practicable for the Maroons, but not for any one of you. In neither of them can I ascend or descend with my arms, which must be handed to me, step by step, as practised by the Maroons themselves. One of the ways lies to the eastward, and the other to the westward; and they will take care to have both guarded, if they suspect that I am with you; which, from the route you have come to-day, they will. They now see you, and if you advance fifty paces more, they will convince you of it." At this moment a Maroon horn sounded the notes indicating his name, and, as he made no answer, a voice was heard, inquiring if he were among them. "If he is," said the voice, "let him go back, we do not wish to hurt him; but as for the rest of you, come on and try battle, if you choose." But the gentlemen did not choose.

In September the House of Assembly met. Things were looking worse and worse. For five months a handful of negroes and mulattoes had defied the whole force of the island; and they were defending their liberty by precisely the same tactics through which their ancestors had won it. Half a million pounds sterling had been spent within this time, besides the enormous loss incurred by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men from their regular employments. "Cultivation was suspended," says an eye-witness; "the courts of law had long been shut up; and the island at large seemed more like a garrison under the power of law-martial, than a country of agriculture and commerce, of civil judicature, industry, and prosperity." Hundreds of the militia had died of fatigue, large numbers had been shot down, the most daring of the British officers had fallen, while the insurgents had been invariably successful, and not one of them was known to have been killed. Captain Craskell, the banished superintendent, gave it to the Assembly as his opinion, that the whole slave population of the island was in sympathy with the Maroons, and would soon be beyond control. More alarming still, there were rumors of French emissaries behind the scenes; and though these were explained away, the vague terror remained. Indeed, the Lieutenant-Governor announced in his message that he had satisfactory evidence that the French Convention was concerned in the revolt. A French prisoner named Murenson had testified that the French agent at Philadelphia (Fauchet) had secretly sent a hundred and fifty emissaries to the island, and threatened to land fifteen hundred negroes. And though Murenson took it all back at last, yet the Assembly was moved to make a new offer of three hundred dollars for killing or taking a Trelawney Maroon, and a hundred and fifty dollars for killing or taking any fugitive slave who had joined them. They also voted five hundred pounds as a gratuity to the Accompong tribe of Maroons, who had thus far kept out of the insurrection; and various prizes and gratuities were also offered by the different parishes, with the same object of self-protection.

The commander-in-chief being among the killed, Colonel Walpole was promoted in his stead, and brevetted as General, by way of incentive. He found a people in despair, a soldiery thoroughly intimidated, and a treasury, not empty, but useless. But the new general had not served against the Maroons for nothing, and was not ashamed to go to school to his opponents. First, he waited for the dry season; then he directed all his efforts towards cutting off his opponents from water; and, most effectual move of all, he attacked each successive cockpit by dragging up a howitzer, with immense labor, and throwing in shells. Shells were a visitation not dreamed of in Maroon philosophy, and their quaint compliments to their new opponent remain on record. "Damn dat little buckra!" they said; "he cunning more dan dem toder. Dis here da new fashion for fight: him fire big ball arter you, and when big ball 'top, de damn sunting (something) fire arter you again." With which Parthian arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.

But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was thought best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain Colonel Quarrell had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was, since men, however well disciplined, had proved powerless against Maroons, to try a Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The proposition was met, in some quarters, with the strongest hostility. England, it was said, had always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and dastardly for hunting down the natives of that very soil with hounds,—and should England now follow the humiliating example? On the other side, there were plenty who eagerly quoted all known instances of zoölogical warfare: all Oriental nations, for instance, used elephants in war, and no doubt would gladly use lions and tigers, also, but for their extreme carnivorousness, and their painful indifference to the distinction between friend and foe;—why not, then, use these dogs, comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any rate, "something must be done"; the final argument always used, when a bad or desperate project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last to send to Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs, with their accompanying chasseurs, and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed till the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Colonel Quarrell finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples of conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus of popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice were they armed who knew their Quarrell just.

But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it. He sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes, who insisted on fighting everything that came in their way,—first a Spanish schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck across the mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the wealthy Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs and chasseurs, and finally was welcomed to Havana by Don Luis de las Casas, who overlooked, for this occasion only, an injunction of his court against admitting foreigners within his government,—"the only accustomed exception being," as Don Luis courteously assured him, "in favor of foreign traders who came with new negroes." To be sure, the commissioner had not brought any of these commodities, but then he had come to obtain the means of capturing some, and so might pass for an irregular practitioner of the privileged profession.

Accordingly, Don Guillermo Dawes Quarrell (so ran his passport) found no difficulty in obtaining permission from the governor to buy as many dogs as he desired. When, however, he carelessly hinted at the necessity of taking, also, a few men who should have care of the dogs,—this being, after all, the essential part of his expedition,—Don Luis de las Casas put on instantly a double force of courtesy, and assured him of the entire impossibility of recruiting a single Spaniard for English service. Finally, however, he gave permission and passports for six chasseurs. Under cover of this, the commissioner lost no time in enlisting forty; he got them safe to Batabano, but at the last moment, learning the state of affairs, they refused to embark on such very irregular authority. When he had persuaded them, at length, the officer of the fort interposed objections. This was not to be borne, so Don Guillermo bribed him and silenced him; a dragoon was, however, sent to report to the governor; Don Guillermo sent a messenger after him and bribed him, too; and thus, at length, after myriad rebuffs, and after being obliged to spend the last evening at a puppet-show, in which the principal figure was a burlesque on his own personal peculiarities, the weary Don Guillermo, with his crew of renegadoes, and his forty chasseurs and their one hundred and four muzzled dogs, set sail for Jamaica.

These new allies were certainly something formidable, if we may trust the pictures and descriptions in Dallas's History. The chasseur was a tall, meagre, swarthy Spaniard or mulatto, lightly clad in cotton shirt and drawers, with broad straw-hat and moccasins of raw hide; his belt sustaining his long, straight, flat sword or machete, like an iron bar sharpened at one end; and he wore by the same belt three cotton leashes for his three dogs, sometimes held also by chains. The dogs were a fierce breed, crossed between hound and mastiff, never unmuzzled but for attack, and accompanied by smaller dogs called finders. It is no wonder, when these wild and powerful creatures were landed at Montego Bay, that terror ran through the town, doors were everywhere closed and windows crowded, not a negro dared to stir, and the muzzled dogs, infuriated by confinement on shipboard, filled the silent streets with their noisy barking and the rattling of their chains.

How much would have come of all this in actual conflict does not appear. The Maroons had already been persuaded to make peace upon certain conditions and guaranties,—a decision probably accelerated by the terrible rumors of the bloodhounds, though they never saw them. It was the declared opinion of the Assembly, confirmed by that of General Walpole, that "nothing could be clearer than that, if they had been off the island, the rebels could not have been induced to surrender." Nevertheless a treaty was at last made, without the direct intervention of the quadrupeds. Again commissioners went up among the mountains to treat with negotiators at first invisible; again were hats and jackets interchanged, not without coy reluctance on the part of the well-dressed Englishmen; and a solemn agreement was effected. The most essential part of the bargain was a guaranty of continued independence, demanded by the suspicious Maroons. General Walpole, however, promptly pledged himself that no such unfair advantage should be taken of them as had occurred with the hostages previously surrendered, who were placed in irons, nor should any attempt be made to remove them from the island. It is painful to add, that this promise was outrageously violated by the Colonial government, to the lasting grief of General Walpole, on the ground that the Maroons had violated the treaty by a slight want of punctuality in complying with its terms, and by remissness in restoring the fugitive slaves who had taken refuge among them. As many of the tribe as surrendered, therefore, were at once placed in confinement, and ultimately shipped from Port Royal to Halifax, to the number of six hundred, on the 6th of June, 1796. For the credit of English honor, we rejoice to know that General Walpole not merely protested against this utter breach of faith, but indignantly declined the sword of honor which the Assembly voted him in its gratitude, and retired from military service forever.

The remaining career of this portion of the Maroons is easily told. They were first dreaded by the inhabitants of Halifax; then welcomed, when seen; and promptly set to work on the citadel, then in process of reconstruction, where the "Maroon Bastion" still remains,—their only visible memorial. Two commissioners had charge of them, one being the redoubtable Colonel Quarrell, and twenty-five thousand pounds were appropriated for their temporary support. Of course they did not prosper; pensioned colonists never do, for they are not compelled into habits of industry. After their delicious life in the mountains of Jamaica, it seemed rather monotonous to dwell upon that barren soil,—for theirs was such that two previous colonies had deserted it,—and in a climate where winter lasts seven months in the year. They had a schoolmaster, and he was also a preacher; but they did not seem to appreciate that luxury of civilization,—utterly refusing, on grounds of conscience, to forsake polygamy, and, on grounds of personal comfort, to listen to the doctrinal discourses of their pastor, who was an ardent Sandemanian. They smoked their pipes during service-time, and left Old Montagu, who still survived, to lend a vicarious attention to the sermon. One discourse he briefly reported as follows, very much to the point:—"Massa parson say no mus tief, no mus meddle wid somebody wife, no mus quarrel, mus set down softly." So they sat down very softly, and showed an extreme unwillingness to get up again. But, not being naturally an idle race, (at least, in Jamaica the objection lay rather on the other side,) they soon grew tired of this inaction. Distrustful of those about them, suspicious of all attempts to scatter them among the community at large, frozen by the climate, and constantly petitioning for removal to a milder one, they finally wearied out all patience. A long dispute ensued between the authorities of Nova Scotia and Jamaica, as to which was properly responsible for their support; and thus the heroic race, that for a century and a half had sustained themselves in freedom in Jamaica, were reduced to the position of troublesome and impracticable paupers, shuttlecocks between two selfish parishes. So passed their unfortunate lives, until, in 1800, their reduced population was transported to Sierra Leone, at a cost of six thousand pounds, since which they disappear from history.

It was judged best not to interfere with those bodies of Maroons which had kept aloof from the late outbreak, as the Accompong settlement, and others. They continued to preserve a qualified independence, and retain it even now. In 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in Jamaica, there were reported sixty families of Maroons as residing at Accompong Town, eighty families at Moore Town, one hundred and ten families at Charles Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall, making two hundred and seventy families in all,—each station being, as of old, under the charge of a superintendent. But there can be little doubt, that, under the influences of freedom, they are rapidly intermingling with the mass of colored population in Jamaica.

The story of the exiled Maroons attracted attention in high quarters, in its time; the wrongs done to them were denounced in Parliament by Sheridan and mourned by Wilberforce; while the employment of bloodhounds against them was vindicated by Dundas, and the whole conduct of the Colonial government defended, through thick and thin, by Bryan Edwards. This thorough partisan even had the assurance to tell Mr. Wilberforce, in Parliament, that he knew the Maroons, from personal knowledge, to be cannibals, and that, if a missionary were sent among them in Nova Scotia, they would immediately eat him; a charge so absurd that he did not venture to repeat it in his History of the West Indies, though his injustice to the Maroons is even there so glaring as to provoke the indignation of the more moderate Dallas. But, in spite of Mr. Edwards, the public indignation ran quite high, in England, against the bloodhounds and their employers, so that the home ministry found it necessary to send a severe reproof to the Colonial government. For a few years the tales of the Maroons thus emerged from mere colonial annals, and found their way into Annual Registers and Parliamentary Debates,—but they have vanished from popular memory now. Their record still retains its interest, however, as that of one of the heroic races of the world; and all the more, because it is with their kindred that this nation has to deal, in solving the tremendous problem of incorporating their liberties with our own. We must remember the story of the Maroons, because we cannot afford to ignore a single historic fact which bears upon a question so momentous.

THE PROFESSOR'S STORY

CHAPTER III.

MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND

Whether the Student advertised for a school, or whether he fell in with the advertisement of a school-committee, is not certain. At any rate, it was not long before he found himself the head of a large district, or, as it was called by the inhabitants, "deestric" school, in the flourishing inland village of Pequawkett, or, as it is commonly spelt, Pigwacket Centre. The natives of this place would be surprised, if they should hear that any of the readers of a periodical published in Boston were unacquainted with so remarkable a locality. As, however, some copies of this periodical may be read at a distance from this distinguished metropolis, it may be well to give a few particulars respecting the place, taken from the Universal Gazetteer.

"Pigwacket, sometimes spelt Pequawkett. A post-village and township in – Co., State of –, situated in a fine agricultural region, 2 thriving villages, Pigwacket Centre and Smithville, 3 churches, several schoolhouses, and many handsome private residences. Mink River runs through the town, navigable for small boats after heavy rains. Muddy Pond at N. E. section, well stocked with horned pouts, eels, and shiners. Products, beef, pork, butter, cheese. Manufactures, shoe-pegs, clothes-pins, and tin-ware. Pop. 1373."

The reader may think there is nothing very remarkable implied in this description. If, however, he had read the town-history, by the Rev. Jabez Grubb, he would have learned, that, like the celebrated Little Pedlington, it was distinguished by many very remarkable advantages. Thus:—

"The situation of Pigwacket is eminently beautiful, looking down the lovely valley of Mink River, a tributary of the Musquash. The air is salubrious, and many of the inhabitants have attained great age, several having passed the allotted period of 'three-score years and ten' before succumbing to any of the various 'ills that flesh is heir to.' Widow Comfort Leevins died in 1836, Æt. LXXXVII. years. Venus, an African, died in 1841, supposed to be C. years old. The people are distinguished for intelligence, as has been frequently remarked by eminent lyceum-lecturers, who have invariably spoken in the highest terms of a Pigwacket audience. There is a public library, containing nearly a hundred volumes, free to all subscribers. The preached word is well attended, there is a flourishing temperance society, and the schools are excellent. It is a residence admirably adapted to refined families who relish the beauties of Nature and the charms of society. The Honorable John Smith, formerly a member of the State Senate, was a native of this town."

That is the way they all talk. After all, it is probably pretty much like other inland New England towns in point of "salubrity,"—that is, gives people their choice of dysentery or fever every autumn, with a season-ticket for consumption, good all the year round. And so of the other pretences. "Pigwacket audience," forsooth! Was there ever an audience anywhere, though there wasn't a pair of eyes in it brighter than pickled oysters, that didn't think it was "distinguished for intelligence"?—"The preachéd word"! That means the Rev. Jabez Grubb's sermons. "Temperance society"! "Excellent schools"! Ah, that is just what we were talking about.

The truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, had had a good deal of trouble of late with its schoolmasters. The committee had done their best, but there were a number of well-grown and pretty rough young fellows who had got the upperhand of the masters, and meant to keep it. Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of this fierce democracy. This was a thing that used to be not very uncommon; but in so "intelligent" a community as that of Pigwacket Centre, in an era of public libraries and lyceum-lectures, it was portentous and alarming.

The rebellion began under the ferule of Master Weeks, a slender youth from a country college, under-fed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed, wide-pupilled, half-colored; a common type enough in in-door races, not rich enough to pick and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a good many of this sort in the first teething-time, a few in later childhood, a good many again in early adolescence; but every now and then one runs the gauntlet of her various diseases, or rather forms of one disease, and grows up, as Master Weeks had done.

It was a very foolish thing for him to try to inflict personal punishment on such a lusty young fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one of the "hardest customers" in the way of a rough-and-tumble fight that there were anywhere round. No doubt he had been insolent, but it would have been better to overlook it. It pains me to report the events which took place when the master made his rash attempt to maintain his authority. Abner Briggs, Junior, was a great, hulking fellow, who had been bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to attend school, in order to learn the elegant accomplishments of reading and writing, in which he was sadly deficient. He was in the habit of talking and laughing pretty loud in school-hours, of throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a natural and easy process, of occasional insolence and general negligence. One of the soft, but unpleasant missiles just alluded to, flew by the master's head one morning, and flattened itself against the wall, where it adhered in the form of a convex mass in alto rilievo. The master looked round and saw the young butcher's arm in an attitude which pointed to it unequivocally as the source from which the projectile had taken its flight.

Master Weeks turned pale. He must "lick" Abner Briggs, Junior, or abdicate. So he determined to lick Abner Briggs, Junior.

"Come here, Sir!" he said; "you have insulted me and outraged the decency of the schoolroom often enough! Hold out your hand!"

The young fellow grinned and held it out. The master struck at it with his black ruler, with a will in the blow and a snapping of the eyes, as much as to say that he meant to make him smart this time. The young fellow pulled his hand back as the ruler came down, and the master hit himself a vicious blow with it on the right knee. There are things no man can stand. The master caught the refractory youth by the collar and began shaking him, or rather shaking himself against him.

"Le' go o' that are cŏat, naow," said the fellow, "or I'll make ye! 'T 'll take tew on ye t' handle me, I tell ye, 'n' then ye caänt dew it!"—and the young pupil returned the master's attention by catching hold of his collar.

When it comes to that, the best man, not exactly in the moral sense, but rather in the material, and more especially the muscular point of view, is very apt to have the best of it, irrespectively of the merits of the case. So it happened now. The unfortunate schoolmaster found himself taking the measure of the sanded floor, amid the general uproar of the school. From that moment his ferule was broken, and the school-committee very soon had a vacancy to fill.

Master Pigeon, the successor of Master Weeks, was of better stature, but loosely put together, and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous kind of man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sudden noises, was distressed when he heard a whisper, had a quick, suspicious look, and was always saying, "Hush!" and putting his hands to his ears. The boys were not long in finding out this nervous weakness, of course. In less than a week a regular system of torments was inaugurated, full of the most diabolical malice and ingenuity. The exercises of the conspirators varied from day to day, but consisted mainly of foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, (making it screech on the slate,) falling of heavy books, attacks of coughing, banging of desk-lids, boot-creaking, with sounds as of drawing a cork from time to time, followed by suppressed chuckles.