Address to the Legislative Council of Florida on the Subject of Its Colored Population by Zephaniah Kingsley, 1823

Slavery

Plantations

Free blacks

Address to the Territorial Legislative Council of Florida by Zepahaniah Kingsley, a member of the Council and a slaveholder. Kingsley shares his views on the necessity of slavery for Florida's economy and how best to manage the presence of both slaves and free persons of color in the territory.

Kingsley, Zephaniah, 1765-1843

State Library of Florida, Federal Documents Collection

1823

speeches (documents)

eng-US

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Territorial Florida (1821-1845)

Florida

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Slavery And Race Relations

Address to the Legislative Council of Florida on the subject of its Colored population by Z. Kingsley, a Planter of that Territory Si genus humanum et morralia temnitis arma at sperate Deos:/Virg. Do nothing inconsistent with the Divine Law of self preservation. Modesty becomes criminal when not supported by firm Resolution. No subject has ever excited more feeling or animosity of late years among all the sections of the U. States than that of the coloured Population. Proppositions & arguments how it would be best to dispose of it have been presented to the Public under so many different views that it seems hopeless to offer any new argument or to attempt to reconcile all the different feelings & interest upon this very interesting question. But violent and accrimonious feeling has got to such a Pitch that it seems necessary to do something for the preservation of our southern Property which must either rise or fall in value according as this subject is rashly or discreetly disposed of: Some indeed have been of opinion that this is too delicate a subject for public discussion[,] but I doubt very much the good foundation of any Pollicy that shrinks from rigid investigation in every shape[,] for how are we to correct evills without clearly understanding their causes? and liberty is but an empty name a mere burlesque if we fear to speak the truth. The writer of this is well a ware of the difficulty as well as danger he incurs by venturing to obtrude or declare his sentiments upon so delicate a subject and certainly would be deterred from touching it if he was not excited by a strong feeling of self Preservation which overcomes the fear of that danger. He being a Planter in florida whose only dependence for these last 20 years has been in the labor of his slaves, cannot in this case be suspected of any membership or community with manumating societies, nor does he pretend to any great talent or skill as a writer but having travelled in the earlier [years] of his life to Africa and even been concerned in the hideous traffic of slaves, and has either [been] domiciliated in or visited all the west India Collonies[,] where he spent several years also in Cuba and Saint Domingo as well as the main land of south america where both from motives of interest & curiosity he has paid minute attention to those numerous & mixed populations and to their government; moreover having lived originnally in the state of south Carolina he thinks himself competent at least to relate facts which may enable others to compare thes[e] facts and draw conclusions whereby we may Judge of the causes of results obtained by Legislative Acts in some cases so widely different from those obtained in others from the very same materials.

A certain portion or extent of country situated on the Seaboard of the southern states whose climate is unfavourable to the health and production of white people, seems destined by nature to be cultivated & brought into perfective value by the labor of coloured people; of all this portion of territory extending from the capes of Virginia so[u)therly to Cape Florida on the Atlantic coast and perhaps 100 miles back upon an average from the sea, Florida is by far the valuable. This does not arrise from any superiority in the extent or fertility of the soil, for it is perhaps naturally the l[e]ast favoured of the whole in this respect. Its intrinsic value is in the Climate which being warmed by a more vertical sun and containing considerable large bodies of very rich land brings sugar & other Tropical productions to a state of perfection unknown any where else within the United States of which government it has so "lately become a member that men of Capital have hardly as" yet had time to find it out or to appreciate those singular advantages which by slave or colored labor alone can be realised. Happily perhaps for this Territory little has been done as yet "heretofore" in the way of legislation either for the slave or free part of its coloured population of both of which it must necessarily be compounded and upon the discreet government of which its good or bad fortune must entirely depend. It lays now before the members of our Legislature like a gem untouched by the Lapidary according to whose skill it either must become of incomparable value or "an" useless bauble. It therefore behoves those Gentlemen on whose skill so much depends to weigh & consider well the tendency of every movement so that on a subject of such infinite national importance no step may be taken not warranted in all its bearings by well established Presidents [precedents] the salutary consequences of which have been tested both by known consequences and by comparative deductive reasoning. To arrive at which it will be necessary to consider the state of the various surrounding slave Collonies, to take a view of their Political establishment & regulations with their effects & consequences. I believe it is generally admitted that our climate forms an insurmountable barrier to the cultivation of our soil by white People whose health sinks under the toils of agriculture in the Sun, for that reason we have no other alternative but either to abandon it or to employ colloured labourers which must consist of slaves as the class of Free People of colour is not yet suficiently numerous to be hired at reduced wages or such as comport with agricultural economy. This applies to People we are therefore to look for labour to that intrinsically valuable cast of People called Negro Slaves whose productive labour & cheerful obedience has in all cases been measured by the Justice & good treatment of their master who is well renumerated for his kindness by rearing up a permanent & proffitable Estate: with which some of the least informed part of our Northern Neighbours have found great fault but of which I shall take no notice as all the economists who have considered the subject are sensible that it is a necessary condition in our Society

and if that condition is comfortable & justly Dealt with perhaps it may bear comparison with the lowest agricultural conditions of countries or even may deserve a preference for although I beleave it to be a fact generally allowed the darkness of complexion measures the capacity for enduring heat and the suns Rays yet it is likewise admitted that very few People will labour to a greater extent than that to which their necessities oblige them or rather that their toils are measured by the comparative comfort they expect to derive from them: however to set all metaphysical queries at rest by Palpable facts, Our Population consists and to do well must consist of three classes or casts of people. First those called white or without mixture of African blood secondly free People of colour who are either black or sprung from coloured women & white men & lastly the most numerous valuable & Productive class the Slaves, mostly Black: Indians & other mixtures are too few to be noticed. In some of the colonies the coloured population bears a proportion to the white of ten to one or more and in others much less still instances of disturbance or revolt are rare: In two instances not very long ago viz: Barbadoes & Demara both were traced to sources of delusion by Fanatical Preachers but were easily put down by the united force of the whites & free collored people whose interest were equally concerned in preserving peace and good order indeed it allways has been the uniform pollicy in all slave colonies to attach the Free people of valor [color] to the side of the whites so that both may be united and have one common Interest in keeping the slave Caste in subordination as their condition of not holding Property. However justly they may be other wise treated as slaves will in all cases require more or less constraint but moderation & justice which should be governing principals in every man entrusted with despotic power when added to the stronger influence the free people of Color naturally have over the slaves arrising from connection. Color common origin when added to good precept & example renders the slaves perfectly tractable & obedient and such is the entire confidence between all the casts that you will hardly find a hall door locked in the night on any of the foreign Plantations few of which have less than 500 slaves & I have known many instances especially among the Dutch Colonies where only one white individual resided on a large Plantation: I must observe that many of the Headmen & principal Drivers & mechanic are liberally treated and there is no law to hinder any slave having the means from geting his freedom. It will naturally be asked what are the great temptations held out to the free Coloured population to induce them to place themselves on the side of the white? It is answered: Interest! Their person are secured from insult and their Property which they can hold in their own names of any kind or to any amount. They have Perfect & undisturbed enjoyment of all moral and municipal Rights except that of being eligible to Public offices. They are rich, well educated,

Respected holding slaves & real Property and perform all the millitary & other duties of Yeomanry in other Countries. One law is peculiarly encouraging to them and exists either in law or fact generally viz. the white children of a free Quartroon are recognised as white by law. It is but a few years say 1812 when about 50 colored militia inhabitants of this then Province saved by their Bravery and fidelity the City of St. Augustine from being taken & Plundered. This one circumstance proves that they can be made very serviceable and surely if we have it in our Power to attach them to our Interest as friends it would be very impolite [impolitic] to make such Laws as would render them Enemies. In short I consider that our personal safety as well as the permanent condition of our Slave property is intimately connected with and depends much upon our good pollicy in making it the interest of our free colored population to be attached to good order and have a friendly feeling towards the white population. If we have no need of their help as soldiers, let them remain rather as friends in case of need for fear a day might come when they might be wanted by us or even induced to take part against us. It must make a very great odds in our peace of mind & personall security as well as in our physical strength as a community, whether by our pollicy we make it the Interest of a large & effective body of men to be our friends & firmly attached to us by the same interest and whom we are obliged to suffer to live among us; or by our want of Pollicy not only to detach and neutralize this body of people but to make these our decided Enemies by degrading them to the rank of our slaves & only waiting to pour down upon us a full measure of retribution fo our injustice. For I believe it is allowed by all philosophers to be axiom in morality That every evill inflicted is exactly measured by a respondent quantity of resentment. The Laws of some older and more Powerful neighbouring states may be brought in opposition to this kind of Policy, but I believe that no beneficial effect or good tendency can be adduced as testimony of the wisdom of these laws & enactments which are in discreet [direct] opposition to civil liberty and the economy of self Preservation: as the conscious fear of revolt and the Military Government of those places abund[an]tly testify and precariously accomplish by fear of the Bayonet what might be naturally, permanently & pleasantly accomplished by the wise & unchangeable Laws of self preservation besides this: Pollicy that might be safe or merely tolerated in communities possessing a large Proportion of cool & healthy back country well calculated for the production of white People who are all ways at hand ready to put down any disturbance that might happen or to receive or protect the sea board inhabitants in case of war would in no way apply to our situation or correspond with our prosperity or even existence as an independent community: We have no back country or mountains to Shelter us we are nearly surrounded by the ocean, our being & prosperity must depend upon our own good Policy & wisdom in cultivating friendship

with those populous, rich & powerfull Establishments which surround us every way. Nature by intersecting our Peninsula with rivers Lakes & innumerable water courses has destined us for a commercial as well as an agricultural people. Our Pollicy must be liberal and such as will meet the approbation of the U. States government & the world without which we never can rise to consequence or be happy in our independence. The example of St. Domingo may be adduced as a circumstance in opposition to this Doctrine of liberal Pollicy to slaves & free colored people. But let it be remembered that the revolt of St. Domingo grew out of the French Revolution by a National Decree of Emancipation even that decree would have resisted the Revolutionary Storm but for the mischevous industry of Commissioners sent out on purpose to enforce the National Decree (Santhonax & Polvorel) and this even would have failed to Revolt the slaves who were finally forced to take up arms by the inhabitants themselves by fighting one against the other. This blind violence of Party feeling is not peculiar to the French. The Inhabitants of St. Domingo were a liberal well educated generous people. We observe sparkling traces of the same spirit of Fanaticism every now & then bursting out among ourselves on that very subject. It is a humiliating proof of human weakness and should serve to warn us of the danger we incur by following our Passions instead of being guided by our reason & discretion. No stronger illustrations can be given of the difficulty of Revolutionising Slaves than was manifested in grand Anse9 upon that very Island while that department was besieged by Generals Toussaint & Rigaud with two Powerful Armies of Blacks their own country men and preceded by all the ordinary inflamatory Proclamations of Freedom. This department was held at that time by the British who occupied the Town of Jerernie. The slaves continued faithfull on the Plantations where they worked and did their duty as usual during several years their Master besides their ordinary tools of agriculture had furnished the men with a Gun Bayonet & Ammunition to defend themselves. I heard of no abuse or disorder committed by the slaves in this situation which continued until the Country was evacuated by the British. I was present a part of the time. The Negroes have been accused of commiting wanton Acts of cruelty during their revolt in St. Domingo, where no doubt many attrocious acts of vengance were commited on both sides but the Negroes had less in their Power than the Whites fighting on a smaller scale & with fewer means and being a war of no quarter on both sides they had fewer victims but to detail those acts of cruelty would be entirely foreign to the intention of this work. I merely wish to shew that Negroes without Law or restraint are no more to be dreaded than the lower orders of Whites under the same circumstance which I have Proved by incontravertible facts in that very lsd. of St. Domingo where after the Revolutionary flame had subsided I lived a long time at Petitgoave where often had occasion

to travel backwards and forwards on horse back sometimes across all over the western & southern part of the island alone with my saddle bags full of specie. The roads through woods & over mountain were full of Negroes mostly armed and sometimes in groups of 30 or 40 who appeared to be without any restraint of law. I never was stopped or insulted by them but treated with the greatest civility throughout and hundreds of Americans can now testify to the same state of things during the Reigns ofToussant & Jean Jacques de Saline & other than I saw I don't say. history informs us that at a former peri'Od the free Colloured people of Brasil aided by the slaves drove out the Dutch; and saved that Collony. Our own History of our Revolution testifies their utility as Soldiers and the History of the later Revolutions which have taken place in South america proves two very encouraging facts to those whose fortune & property consists of slaves or in lands in those sections of our southern country such as florida where white labourers cannot on account of climate or other natural causes be substituted for the Labor of Black or Coloured people. it is this that in all their wars & Revolutions no Revolt or disturbance ever happened among the slaves or various colours or casts of People. Brasil, the most Powerful & Populous & extensive of all European Collonies in America with a prodigious body of free collored people amalgamated with white perfectly united in fighting the Battles of their country & preserving good order among an immense body of slaves Has now become a powerful Empire equal if not superior in natural resources to the U. States. The same good fortune attended Peru where Prodigious Slave Properties were held in Short there has been no Revolt or blood shed any where in South America attending this kind of property which still remains as it was excepting when it was liberated by National acts of emancipation. this Proves that under moderate & prudent management it is the most permanent & indestructable of all other kinds of Property because it renews and takes care of itself and if any accident befals it we shall owe it to our own want of skill in the Science of Government. two requisites are chiefly necessary one is to treat our slaves with justice prudence & moderation. The other is to have the free Colloured Population interested in preserving peace and good order among the slaves and being firmly attached to the side of the whites by having the same Interest. this is easiest done by letting them alone and doing away every fear or idea of Tyrany & oppression or of partial taxes which to say the least of them are unconstitutional therefore unjust for we have just as great a right to make a Law to hang them for being a shade darker than our selves or for being our children as we have to drive them away by our Tyrany

& oppression without having committed any crime. We are the causes of their existence and they have natural and certain rights to that existence equal with our selves. we are not obliged to associate with them or with any one whose condition we think inferior to our own but from choice. let them go as they please and come as they please acquire property hold it & enjoy it as they Please. In short all our acts of Legislation should be confined within a proper sphere, and directed to fit objects otherwise we act against ourselves which is allways bad Pollicy never followed by sound Polliticians. If merit consisted in colour a Majority prejudiced in favor of any particular shade might drive out or exterminate the rest to make room for their favorite complexion. This would most likely depend upon what color they had been most used to as custom commonly regulates our degrees of prejudice. Ingenuity has long been racked and all its inventive faculties put in requisition to find out some way of getting entirely rid of the black & colloured population of the U. States. some Mathematicians who depended more on miracle than demonstration and who forgot to compare the bulk of the article with the means of transportation held out the plausibility of an African establishment for getting rid of this great imaginary burthen without first considering that all the suitable lands in Africa (which is a very small proportion) were already thickly settled and occupied from the earliest ages by an agricultural & economical people so that no spare room for new inhabitants existed without displacing an equal numbers of old ones which could only be done by force. Even if the inhabitants had been wandering Tribes like our own of North Ammerica its distance would have precluded the possibility of transportation only on a scale sufficient to answer the purposes of Colonisation & which may yet suit the object of speculation or evaporating a redundance of Missionary Zeal and scouring our Colloured population of idle vagrants which greatly needs. Had the Zealots of Colonization been serious and awake at the last evacuation of the Spanish part of St. Domingo & compromised the Right of settlements with the Haytian chiefs. They then had an opportunity of securing a very respectable Colony of free colored people immediately, which certainly would have rendered that Island more formidable than it otherwise can become in many years and by cultivating the arts & Sciences have made it a much more respectable Neighbourhood than it now is; entirely dependant on a military Government for peace & protection and which It as well as all the new Governments of America needs & must have! otherwise property will not be secure. All or most Political economists are already satisfied from experiment that a secure Government of civil laws without military protection requires a very enlightened state of society to which none of those new Governments of

America can arrive in many years. indeed all Governments hitherto have been supported more or less by fear & force and must be until some mechanical process of education is invented very different from the tedious complicated and expensive modes heretofore adopted. I even doubt whether Mr. Owen's progress in moral improvement at New Harmony will not be too slow to supersede the necessity of penal laws and an efficient Government for a length of time to come. As the only remaining possibility of geting radically & entirely rid of the Colored people of the U. States is by exterminating the whole, we ought before we begin a Job of such importance (for they constitute fully one sixth part of our whole population) consider well how far the approbation of our own citizens and that of lookers on would go along with us and be well assured that we are on the strong side before we begin. otherwise our situation might be dangerous, as we may see by the cause of the Turks & Greeks now before us how far the World can be led by prejudice. Let us even suppose that we can get rid of our own colored population some way or other; Again we look round and see still a greater difficulty to be overcome. For all around us which ever way we turn our faces, colored people still exist, so numerous that perhaps two thirds of all the remaining population of America is more or less composed of them. Whole Armies of Negroes & black Generals from whom we receive Embassadors and with whom we are already linked by Commercial Treaties! We must either continue to be on friendly terms with all these people and treat them as they treat us or we must be in a state of hostility and shut ourselves up in our Forrests & mountains like the Chinese, we would have no commerce for we should have the whole world against us therefore no place to trade to Florida without mountains and all sea bord would be badly off. Even the Island of Haytie of which Neighbour we entertain so poor an opinion would ruin us by blockading our Ports and carrying off our slaves by force, if we were not shielded by the Respectability of the Government of the U. States of which we fortunately are a member. In short there is no back door for us to get out at, we are fixed in Florida with the sea on both sides. We must have slaves to cultivate our lands and free colored people are a necessary consequence of having slaves. We cannot have the one without having the other and we must be there ourselves and do the best we can with them both. If any word, sentence, or allusion in the smallest degree offends any person who reads the foregoing treatise I do assure them that no Offense was intended but merely an investigation of Facts the consideration of which it was hoped might promote the welfare & happiness of the people of Florida. Z. Kingsley