The first object was attained by
enacting that those who had hitherto been slaves should be free; the
third was arrived at by making the freedom thus given, not
instantaneous, but by leading them to it, and preparing them for its
proper and useful enjoyment, by a system of apprenticeship. The slave
was to be apprenticed to his master for seven years, receiving, partly
in money and partly in kind, a certain fair amount of wages, and having
also one-fourth of his time absolutely at his own disposal. And the
second was secured by granting the planters the magnificent sum of
twenty millions of money, as compensation for the injury done to them;
or, in other words, as purchase-money for the property they were
compelled to surrender. The apprenticeship system did not wholly
succeed. The slaves were not sufficiently enlightened to appreciate the
character of the new arrangement; and, as the light in which it appeared
to them was rather that of deferring than of securing their
emancipation, it made them impatient rather than thankful. In the
majority of cases it proved difficult to induce them to work even
three-fourths of their time, and eventually the planters themselves were
driven to the conclusion that it was best to abridge the period of
apprenticeship. By the act of the colonial Legislatures themselves it
was shortened by two years, and the emancipation was completed on the
1st of August, 1838.
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