increasing price of land proved the efficiency of his industry,--if
independent freeholds were created in large numbers since
emancipation,--if additional churches and schools made evident the
improvement of character and the desire of advancement: we should be
obliged to say that there was but one explanation of this most happy and
unexpected improvement, namely,--that the human soul, by virtue of its
very nature and capacities, is somehow adapted to freedom, so that the
most imbruted and degraded is better and more useful, when he cares and
labors for himself, than when another utterly controls him.

_That the negro will not work, unless he is forced to_, is the
strong and almost invincible objection in the minds of multitudes of
persons to emancipation.

What, then, are the facts bearing on this important point? We propose,
under the guidance of candid observers and travellers, such as
Schomburg, Breen, Cochin, Burnley, and, best of all, Sewell, briefly to
examine a field where the experiment has been fairly tried, namely, the
smaller islands of the British West Indies. A full examination of the
larger island, Jamaica,--would of itself demand an entire article, or
even a volume.

The remark is often repeated by West Indian travellers, that no sweeping
conclusions on economical points can ever be true of the West Indies as
a whole,--that each island is distinct from the others, and to be judged
on principles which apply to itself alone. This important fact must be
borne in mind by the reader, in examining the question of the results of
emancipation in the West Indies.

In BARBADOES the governing peculiarities are the dense population to the