William Knibb, missionary in Jamaica. A memoir online

AM KNIBB



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MRS. JOHN JAMES SMITH




AVILLTAM KNIBL.



LLIAM KN1

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s-2 the bands of wickedness, tf o
free, and that ye J i



WILLIAM KNIBB:

MISSIONARY IN JAMAICA



A MEMOIR



BY



MRS. JOHN JAMES SMITH

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A.



; Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to un-io

the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break

every yoke?"



ALEXANDER & SHEPHEARD, FURNIVAL STREET, E.G.

1896.




yniversif^^^^hfr^^u J

Wll



PREFACE.



SINCE the proof sheets of this little book have
come from the printer the writer's attention has
been called to the funeral sermon preached by
the Rev. John Aldis in Maze Pond Chapel on
the occasion of Mr. Knibb's death (November,
1845). A few sentences quoted from it will,
perhaps, form a better preface than any other.

"A little more than one-and-twenty years ago you
might have seen a young man, accompanied by his wife,
going on board a ship. He leaves for a distant island,
to be a schoolmaster, perhaps an assistant preacher of
the Gospel, to ignorant and wretched slaves. A few
friends attend him, who regret his departure, and hope
he may be useful in the humblest rank of missionary
labourers. At home, a widowed mother commends him
^ to GOD, saying in spirit, 'I had rather he died on his
passage than disgrace religion.' To his countrymen
his enterprise is unknown or contemptible. Of his own
denomination but few have ever heard his name. Un-
known, uncared for, he departs unnoticed, as the single
leaf falls in the forest. A few weeks ago he was carried
to his grave. Wise and good men, from the distance
of many miles, were gathered to that solemnity. Ministers
of different denominations officiated at it. Magistrates,
men of wealth and station, were there as mourning a
public calamity. Eight thousand of the grateful poor
hung about that procession. A deep, unutterable grief

282



iv Preface.

saddened every countenance and swelled every heart.
The proud were humble, the noisy quiet, the malignant
kind. One spell-word bound them all : c He is dead ! '
There is much in the interval between that voyage and
that funeral.

"The true leader not only has an intuitive sagacity to
discover the right way, and the promptitude and courage
to advance in it, but the strange power of fascination,
which draws others after him.

" This is the honour we claim for our departed friend ;
or, rather, this is the grace which we conceive our GOD
conferred upon him. He was a leader, and a great one."

Not that Mr. Knibb was alone in the work.
Among his brother missionaries he worked
shoulder to shoulder, but here in England he
was often their spokesman, and had the power to
make his story tell. So he was the most widely-
known and the recognised leader of the movement.

William Knibb " had good tidings of great
joy " for those who walked in darkness " the
glorious Gospel of the blessed God."

The poor people of Jamaica received the
message, many of them, with joy, but as children
needing constant guidance, and very dependent
on the missionary. It was his earnest desire and
constant effort that these babes in Christ should
grow to the stature of a " perfect man in Christ
Jesus ; " and that for all the coloured peasantry
a good primary education should be provided,
such as would help them to gain an honest
livelihood, not only as labourers earning fair
wages, but with opportunity, such as had it in



Preface. v

them, to rise, and there were many capable of
this. And if they maintained themselves they
were also to feel the responsibility of maintaining
their pastors, educated pastors, and of contributing
towards sending to others the Gospel they valued
themselves.

The struggle was hard, both to obtain freedom
and to live through troublous years following,
when, from various circumstances, the times, in
our West Indian colonies, were so bad that some
people began to doubt the expediency of emanci-
pation, but the good fruit has ripened now, and
the desires of William Knibb have largely come
to pass. Nor his desires alone. William Carey,
the wonderful leader of the modern missionary
movement, prayed as well " for the slaves as
for the heathen." Carey went, that being the
path opened to him, to the heathen, but God
answered both his prayers.

The first thought of writing another account of
William Knibb had its birth in the centenary year
of the Baptist Mission. Not a word too much
was said about Carey, but some of those who
remember the Jubilee meetings at Kettering
knew that Mr. Knibb, a Kettering man, had been
on that occasion the centre of interest. It seemed
a sad thing that one who had done so much for
the sons of Africa should pass in any degree out
of memory.

It has been difficult not to say more of co-
adjutors, but it has been thought wise to kee



vi Preface.

this effort in so small a compass as to concentrate
the attention on Mr. Knibb, who went through,
and led others through, all the struggle.

Thanks are due and heartily given to the Rev.
John Brown Myers for much valuable assistance ;
to the Rev. Ellis Fray for the loan of his grand-
father's letters ; and to the Rev. D. J. East for
allowing the use of original documents about the
troubled times of 1832, notably the MS. journal
of the Rev. W. Dendy, who arrived just in the
worst of the disturbance. It may be stated that
the form admitting the missionaries to bail and
the subsequent letter setting them free, no charges
having been found against them, are both in
Mr. East's possession.

M. E. S.



CONTENTS.



PAGE
INTRODUCTION Xi



CHAPTER I.

EARLY DAYS I

Kettering. Bristol. Religious decision. Goes out to
Jamaica as a schoolmaster.

CHAPTER II.

FIRST YEARS IN JAMAICA IO

Kingston. Port Royal. Move to Falmouth.
CHAPTER III.

ERUPTION OF THE MORAL AND SOCIAL VOLCANO . . . l6

False reports that the negroes were to be set free. Riots.
Exasperation of the planters. Missionaries arrested and
sent to Montego Bay.

CHAPTER IV.

DISTURBANCES , NOT OVER 3 1

No charges being substantiated against the missionaries,
they are set free. Feeling against them only the more bitter.
Chapels in ruins. Property gone.

CHAPTER V.

" I WILL HAVE SLAVERY DOWN " 38

Mr. Knibb deputed by his brother missionaries to visit
England. He is determined to tell his story fully.



viii Index.



CHAPTER VI.

PAGE
FREEDOM -51

Recommencement of public services. Rebuilding the
chapel at Falmouth. Mode of admitting members.
Pastoral letters.

CHAPTER VII.

WORKING INTO THE NEW CONDITION OF THINGS ... 68
The labour question. Education.

CHAPTER VIII.

VISIT TO ENGLAND, 1840 77

Evil reports. Voyage home. Proposal for a West
African mission.

CHAPTER IX.

ENGLAND, 1842 93

Reports again. Anniversary of the Emancipation in
Jamaica. Mrs. Knibb's house.

CHAPTER X.

JUBILEE OF THE MISSION IOI

Jubilee of the Baptist Missionary Society. Mr. Knibb's
children.

CHAPTER XI.

QUEEN CONSORT AND QUEEN REGENT IOS

Life on the mission stations as reported by Mr. Knibb
to Mrs. Knibb while she was in England.



Index. ix



CHAPTER XII.



ENGLAND FOR THE LAST TIME. . . . . . . 114

Drought and Depression.

CHAPTER XIII.

"IT is ALL RIGHT" ......... 120

November I5th, 1845.

CHAPTER XIV.

AFTERWARDS MRS. KNIBB'S DEATH . . 126



APPENDIX.

CHIEFLY ABOUT MR. BURCHELL I2Q



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.



PORTRATT OF MR. KxiBB . . . . Frontispiece

HOUSE WHERE MR. KXIBB WAS BORN . .3

SAVANNA LA MAR . .11

FALMOUTH BAY 15

MONTEGO BAY 24

Rio BUEXO 52

CHAPEL FALMOUTH, AS IT WAS REBUILT IN 1835 . . . 54

POOL USED BY MR. KXIBB FOR BAPTISMS AT RIVER H.-;AD,

NEAR STEWART TOWN 80

SPECIMEN OF ONE OF THE FREE VILLAGES . . . . 115
MAPS OF STATIONS FORMED UNDER MR. KNIBB'S MINISTRY 123
PORTRAIT OF MRS. KXIBB, TAKEN NOT LONG BEFORE HER

DEATH 127

PORTRAIT OF MK. BURCHELL 133



INTRODUCTION.



JAMAICA has changed little in its external features
since the memorable days which are treated of in
the following pages. There has been no rapid
march of civilisation and commerce converting
sea-board hamlets into grimy ports, and sylvan
scenes into dense masses of smoke-charged
ugliness. The country is as rural and as
lovely as when Knibb saw it, and there are few
signs of the engineer save in the somewhat
scanty but well-kept highways and in the narrow
railroad which threads its course across the
island so deeply imbedded in rich vegetation
that it cannot in any degree mar the beauty in
which it is hidden.

The population, however, has increased from
about 400,000 to nearly 650,000, and is composed
of white and coloured people. The former number
only about 15,000 ot the whole, and the latter
call themselves, by way of distinction, " the
people/'

Much the same may be said of some of the
towns. Kingston, it is true, presents a consider-
ably different aspect. A wide, sandy area in the
centre of the city has been converted into an
ornamental public garden ; the streets are now

b 2



xii Introduction.



lighted with gas, and nearly all the public
buildings, churches, and chapels with electric
luminants. The wharfage has been largely
extended for the accommodation of Atlantic and
coasting steamers, which have largely supplanted
sailing ships.

But Old Spanish Town, with its massive public
buildings, relics of ancient dignity, preserves in
semi-slumber a sort of decayed gentility, and makes
one wonder how the people in it live. Falmouth,
too, with its spacious market-place, its quaint
buildings, its military barracks, its malarious
marsh-land, its ubiquitous mosquitoes, and its
doctoring sea-breezes, has just the old face un-
changed which- Knibb knew and loved so welL
And Montego Bay, where some of the leading
and most tragical parts of his life were played,
still nestles semi-circled on the hill slopes, looking
down on a sea of marvellous beauty, with hardly
an added feature or building with which he would
not be familiar. But a line of steamers now
runs between this port and New York ; and Port
Antonio vies with it by another line, especially in
its fruit trade.

The occupation and industries of the people
are not quite as they were. The sugar-growing,
which was formerly the main source of wealth,
is now not of principal importance. One sees,,
indeed, acres and acres of .the sugar-cane which
was once so famous, and here and there, in
the midst, a factory, but the product of this is



Introduction. xiii



not simply the innocent article which serves for
the sweetening of tea, but the far stronger
article which is known as Jamaica rum. One
catches the pungent flavour of it in all parts ot
the island, and is agreeably and thankfully
surprised to find that with this alcoholic com-
modity everywhere plentiful and cheap, there is
comparatively little excess in drinking among
the negroes. But fruit growing now forms a
continually increasing item in the business and
exports of the island, and a large number of
tropical products, such as spices and dye woods,
have been added to that which had once almost a
monopoly.

In many parts, and particularly on the higher
levels, the land is cultivated by small freeholders,
who, with their three or four acres of bananas,
oranges, yams, and prolific mangoes, manage to
maintain themselves and families and to have a
little to spare. They live in a very simple and
somewhat rude style, but all their necessary wants
are supplied, and they are very proud of the inde-
pendence which they have gained. Some of our
most vigorous churches in the island are found
where these men and their households form the
bulk of the membership. The wages paid for field
labour by the larger landowners are so small not
much, if any more, than a shilling a day, that one
is hardly surprised to find the people reluctant to
undertake it if they can turn to anything which is
easier or more remunerative. They prefer naturally



xiv Introduction.



to be their own masters, and work a little plot of
their own, if it is by any means procurable ; and it
may be that from this cause has arisen the complaint
which the planters are constantly making about
the laziness of the negroes. But certainly, if any
trustworthy conclusion could be drawn from a
hurried visit, and what one sees in the course of it >
I should not say they are exceptionally addicted
to that particular vice. I saw hundreds of them,
toiling early and late, under the scorching sun,
in a way of which no British labourer would be
ashamed. But, for the most part, they were work-
ing on their own land, which makes all the
difference.

In the matter of carrying and fetching, however,
the male member of the negro community has still
a few needed lessons to learn. He seems to think
that his work is done when the product is ready
for market, and lays upon his wife the burden of
conveying it thither ; and many a time one's
patience is a little tried, and a feeling of disgust
slightly provoked, by seeing the husband on horse-
back entirely unencumbered, while his gentle
partner trudges wearily at his side for miles,
bowed down undsr a load of fifty or sixty pounds
weight. She takes it cheerfully enough, and so
does he, naturally ; but an Englishman, who looks
upon this unequal division of labour with perhaps
prejudiced eyes, is tempted to revile. This, no
doubt, is a relic of long-established habit dating
from slavery times.



Introduction.



Those days are not quite forgotten. One meets
with very old men who remember vividly the
sadness and the cruelty and the horrors of them,
and find a mournful pleasure in going over the
dark recital. Very dear to these old men are the
names of those heroic missionaries who stood up
for the oppressed in those evil times, and hardly
less dear to the middle-aged men, who received
the story direct from their suffering fathers. In
Falmouth, and all around the district, the mention
of Knibb's name brings tears. At Montego Bay
and Mount Carey, Knibb is recalled with profound
feeling, but Burchell's is the name held in greatest
reverence ; while at Spanish Town and in the
south of the island there is no word so potent as
Phillippo.

But the young generation know slavery only
as a fading tradition, a thing of the past with
which they have but a remote historical con-
nection. They do not like to be reminded of
it, and told that their grandsires were bought
and sold like chattels. They have an unques-
tionable pride, which endeavours, as much as
possible, to ignore that humiliation, and, in
speaking to them, one soon learns the wisdom
of touching lightly, if at all, on those ancient
facts. They are glad to be spoken of as free-
born subjects of the Queen. The people, both
young and old in fact, but the young especially,
are British in sentiment though African by race.
They are proud of the empire of which they



xvi Introduction.



form part. The geography of the British Isles
and of the empire is taught in all the
Elementary schools, and the young people
acquire fair knowledge of it; and young
and old are passionately loyal to the Queen.
No assembly in our own land would sing the
National Anthem more enthusiastically than one
hears it in the gatherings of Jamaica people.

The people have made great advance in both
mental and moral qualities since they were
delivered from the degrading bondage by which
body and mind were chained down and aspiration
crushed. The educational system, generously
supported by Government, is now well nigh
universal, and at least brings elementary instruc-
tion within the reach of all. There is, I think,
no compulsory attendance, but the strong senti-
ment in favour of education, and the laudable
ambition of the people to have their children raised
in social status, produce the same or better results
than compulsion. One meets with a considerable
number of older persons who are unable to read
and write, but very few of the younger men and
women, and in a comparatively short time the
illiterate class will have practically ceased to
exist.

These pages show the profound interest which
Knibb took in the matter of education and the
establishment of schools. His far-seeing and
statesman-like mind, while earnestly engaged in
the urgent demands of the moment, was ever busy



Introduction. xvii



laying wise plans for the future. He saw that if
the people were to be really elevated and free,
and the churches intelligent and self-supporting,
secular teaching must go hand in hand with the
religious work. The happy results of his foresight
are everywhere apparent. Nearly all our churches
have their schoolhouse and schoolmaster, which,
with the help of the Government grant, are
sustained by the free-will offerings of the
people ; and my visits to these schools brought
me to the conclusion that the children are
nearly as well taught as, and perhaps more
eager to learn than, the children in our Board
schools at home.

Knibb was equally solicitous about the training
of a native ministry which should gradually take
the place of the European missionary, and the
institution of Calabar College was largely due to
his efforts. In that institution there are now
between thirty and forty students, two-thirds of
whom are being trained as schoolmasters, and the
rest for ministerial work. They are young men
of intelligence and fervent spirit, and in general
ability and culture compare not unfavourably with
the students in our home colleges. The general
maintenance and management of the college are a
charge upon the Jamaica churches, save that the
tutors receive their stipends from the Home
Society.

This is the last remaining burden on the funds
of that Society, the religious work being in all



xviii Introduction.



other respects self-supporting, and we may well
regard that expenditure without distrust when we
consider the admirable part which the college is
taking in supplying the religious needs of the
island. The men trained in it are gradually
displacing the white minister. Two-thirds of the
churches are now happily shepherded by men
of their own colour, and this proportion is
continually increasing. The white ministers are
greatly loved and honoured, and they are in
nearly every instance men whose fine spirit,
temper, and culture would command respect
anywhere. The Jamaica negroes are rapidly
acquiring self-respect. There is great pride of
race, self-dependence, belief in themselves and
in the capabilities of their people. And there
is so much of latent energy and promise in
this feeling that it is welcome to everyone
who takes a large and generous view of their
future.

While the people are steadily growing in intelli-
gence they seem to have made more rapid strides
in morality and religion. When it is remembered
that emancipation found them in an almost
sickening moral degradation, with no clear
notion of even the elementary virtues, with
the sexual relations depraved, with habits long
established of dishonesty and untruthfulness,
it is almost surprising, and truly gratifying-,
to observe the change for the better which
has been wrought. The members of our



Introduction. xix:



churches especially are in many respects as
exemplary in conduct and character as the
average professor at home. Large numbers
of them, especially of the young people, are
total abstainers, and sobriety is so well-
established among them that cases of church
discipline in which intemperance is involved
are exceedingly rare. If in any one respect
they compare unfavourably with the home
churches, it is in the greater frequency with
which the sin of unchastity has to be dealt
with, though in this particular there is a
continual advance towards better things.

In religious feeling they show all the finer
qualities of the negro race. Their emotions are
easily stirred and easily wrought into enthusiasm ;
their fervour is genuine and deep, and, as long
experience has proved, well sustained. Their
delight in all religious exercises is unmistakable ;
and their joy in the Lord, and in their appreciation
of His undeserved grace, is enough to provoke a-
sense of shame in colder natures, and to bring tears
to the eyes of those who are more sensitive.
Altogether, the religious element is more to them
than it is to the majority of our own people more
in the sense that it occupies a larger proportionate
space in their regards, and enters more largely into
their every-day thoughts.

One of the most welcome features in their Church
life is the part which youth has in it. Most of the
candidates for baptism are of an early age, and



Introduction.



nearly one-third of those who keep the Feast of
Remembrance at the Lord's Table are young men
and women. Equally gratifying is the interest
which all alike take in the spread of the Gospel
through the heathen world. Their missionary
meetings are seasons of profound interest and
unbounded fervour. They have a missionary
society of their own which carries on evangelising
work in those neighbouring islands, where the
people of their own race are either in heathen
darkness, or in the darkness well-nigh as dense
of Romanism in its most superstitious and
degraded form. And the fact that they con-
tribute more than two thousand pounds out of
their very poverty for this work is one of the
most striking testimonies that could be given to
the depth and earnestness of their religious
thoughts.

The Baptist Churches have held their ground
well through all these years, and slowly increased
their membership, but it was not to be expected,
nor was it possible indeed, that the rapid growth
and extension which the early days of the mission
witnessed could be continued.

The statistics of our churches show a membership
of about 37,000, and if to these are added all
those, not church members, who are more or less
associated with them in worship, they may be said
to embrace nearly one-fifth of the entire population.
They stand first in number among the religious
bodies. The Episcopal Church comes next and



Introduction.



then the Wesleyans, while the Independents and
Presbyterians have a smaller but not insignificant
place. Altogether the island is pre-eminently
Christian, the number of habitual church-goers
being far greater in proportion than we are able to
boast of in our own favoured land.

The course of the narrative in the ensuing pages
shows, in pathetic and sympathetic lines, the suffer-
ings and trials in which the work was begun and
carried on a work which has yielded such large
and abiding results. Very literally the people
" received the word in much affliction with joy
of the Holy Ghost/' The missionary was opposed
and reviled, and his hearers threatened and
terrorised and spitefully used at every step, but all
these things eventually worked together for. good.
For, not to speak of the patience and splendid
heroism which \vere developed in the missionaries
by their rough and often tragical experience,
there was another outcome of the persecution
which no policy could have foreseen or planned,
and which favoured immensely the progress of
the work.

The fact that the missionary's presence was
resented, and he himself suspected and hated by
the white planters, and, indeed, the whole white
colony on the island, forced him to throw in his
lot entirely with the suffering coloured population
whom he had come to evangelise. He could not
make his home and friendships or even visiting
acquaintances among the higher class people of



Introduction.



his own race. There was no temptation to dwell
among them, or in any way to prefer their society.
That which the missionary commonly and almost
inevitably does in India, was made impossible in
Jamaica by the incidents of the position. He was
practically ostracised from white society, and all
his sympathies and interests were engaged on the
side of the oppressed negroes. He championed
their cause, defended their rights, pleaded on
behalf of their wrongs, had his house built among
them, shared many of their privations, treated
them as equals and brothers, and was everywhere
regarded as a father and friend. From the first
he won their trust and tearful gratitude, and
they responded with hearts full of love and eagerly
open to his message. The Gospel was presented
to them in its most attractive and persuasive form,
in lives that were embodiments of Christian com-
passion, self-denial, and sweet brotherhood, and
they embraced it with all the swift fervour and
emotion of their nature.