The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,105 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,105 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4.
all been taught to read, though in many instances they have forgotten all they learned, having no opportunity to improve after they left school.  They enjoy some other comforts peculiar to the Society’s estate.  They have neat cottages built apart—­each on a half-acre lot, which belongs to the apprentice and for the cultivation of which he is a allowed one day out of the five working days.  Another peculiarity is, that the men and women work in separate gangs.

At this estate we procured horses to ride to the College.  We rode by the chapel and school-house belonging to the Society’s estate which are situated on the row of a high hill.  From the same hill we caught a view of Coddrington college, which is situated on a low bottom extending from the foot of the rocky cliff on which we stood to the sea shore, a space of quarter of a mile.  It is a long, narrow, ill-constructed edifice.

We called on the principal, Rev. Mr. Jones, who received us very cordially, and conducted us over the buildings and the grounds connected with them.  The college is large enough to accommodate a hundred students.  It is fitted out with lodging rooms, various professors’ departments, dining hall, chapel, library, and all the appurtenances of a university.  The number of student at the close of the last term was fifteen.

The professors, two in number, are supported by a fund, consisting of L40,000 sterling, which has in part accumulated from the revenue of the estate.

The principal spoke favorably of the operation of the apprenticeship in Barbadoes, and gave the negroes a decided superiority over the lower class of whites.  He had seen only one colored beggar since he came to the island, but he was infested with multitudes of white ones.

It is intended to improve the college buildings as soon as the toil of apprentices on the Society’s estate furnishes the requisite means.  This robbing of God’s image to promote education is horrible enough, taking the wages of slavery to spread the kingdom of Christ!

On re-ascending the hill, we called at the Society’s school.  There are usually in attendance about one hundred children, since the abolition of slavery.  Near the school-house is the chapel of the estate, a neat building, capable of holding three or four hundred people.  Adjacent to the chapel is the burial ground for the negroes belonging to the Society’s estate.  We noticed several neat tombs, which appeared to have been erected only a short time previous.  They were built of brick, and covered over with lime, so as to resemble white marble slabs.  On being told that these were erected by the negroes themselves over the bodies of their friends, we could not fail to note so beautiful an evidence of their civilization and humanity.  We returned to the Society’s estate, where we exchanged our saddles for the phaeton, and proceeded on our eastward tour.

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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.