The Sugar Estate: Canto Ii Poem by Juan Francisco Manzano

WHOEVER spent a night on an estate
In time of crop, and had endured of late
Fatigue and toil, that amply might dispose
A weary trav'ller to enjoy repose,
And roused at midnight, heard the frightful bell,
The dismal conch's loud blast at change of spell,
The crack of whips, the hurried tramp of men,
The creaking mill, the drivers' threats, and then
The sudden scream, the savage bloodhounds growl,
The shout prolonged, the 'stokers' ceaseless howl;
All the dread noise that's requisite to keep
The jaded cattle and the slaves from sleep;
To rouse the weak, to drown the women's cries,
And cause one deaf'ning uproar to uprise.
Whoever found this tumult at its height,
This Cuban Babel's strife at dead of night;
Whoever listened to these horrid sounds,
And might not deem, hell had enlarged her bounds,
Made this plantation part of her domain,
And giv'n its owner, slaves, and lust of gain.


Loathing the couch itself, whereon I lay,
With thankful breast I hailed the break of day,


And breathed more freely when I reached the door;
'Twas joy to feel, I ne'er should enter more.
The waning stars were yet in the grey sky,
The morning dawn just peering forth on high,
Yet all is bustle round the mill-house walls,
The slave still trembles, and the lash still falls.
The drowsy negroes haggard, spent, and worn,
Like drunken men reel past; and night and morn
Brings no repose, but one unbroken chain
Of fruitless toil, of weariness and pain.


The mayoral who oversees the band,
Before me now is standing, whip in hand,
The straw-hat slouching o'er his olive face,
Sturdy in figure, active in his pace;
Nor coat nor waistcoat incommode his breast,
He walks erect, expands his ample chest,
Displays a tawdry brooch of ample size,
Large silver buckles in each brace likewise;
A long strait sword with hilt of plated brass,
And rings and trinkets too like all his class.
What means this sword that dangles at his side?
Those blood-hounds too; what evils can betide?
A man of peace, a simple overseer,
A 'mayoral,' who has no cause to fear.
All in his mien and manner bears the brand
Of might unquestioned, uncontrolled command.
The bold regard, the fixed and searching glance
Of one who dealt but little in romance.


With all due awe and reverence possest,
This worthy person gravely I addrest,
Named what I wished to see, how far I came,
And all except my unimportant aim.
The man for one who held a despot's sway,
Was frank and almost civil in his way.
Freely complied with every wish exprest,
Unveiled the secrets of this shrine unblest.
And spoke of horrors here, as things well-known,
And deeds, of course, that ev'ry day were done.
Here were two hundred negroes, great and small,
The full-grown gang two hundred strong--they call
The female slaves, of ev'ry age--they own
Are short of fifty, or a fourth alone,
Of these, not one was married by a priest,
Or saw one either Sabbath-day or feast;
No sacred rite, no sacrament was known,
The pagans christened and the burial done,
The law, to its strict letter was obeyed;
The farce was over and the fees were paid.
Here, with two hundred working men, last year,
They boast they made two thousand boxes clear
Of first-class sugar--and the boast is one
That tells a tale of murder largely done.


The deaths they tell you of the slaves, are here
Some ten per cent, and sometimes twelve a year.
A fair consumption too of human life,
Where wholesale slaughter shows no martial strife.
But then, perhaps, the births were in excess;
Alas! the births each year are less and less.
Three in the last twelve months, and two of these
Had died, because the mothers did not please
To rear up slaves; and they preferred to see
Their children dead before their face, e're they
Would give their young 'negritos' to the kind
Indulgent masters which they are said to find.


Jamaica bondsmen in 'the good old times,'
Of our West Indian cruelties and crimes,
Were pretty hardly worked, both old and young,
Yet here is an amount of labour, wrung
From Cuban slaves, just double that of ours,
And nearly twice the sum of working hours;
For here the grasping master still must have
Just thrice the produce from each working slave.
All to the charge of British planters laid,
Compared with this--is thrown into the shade,
And yields the bad pre-eminence in crime
To Spanish guilt in ev'ry tropic clime.

What does it matter here, how many lives
Are lost in labour, while the planter thrives,
The Bozal market happily is nigh,
And there the planter finds a fresh supply:
'Tis cheaper far to buy new strength, we're told,
Than spare the spent, or husband out the old;
'Tis not a plan by which a planter saves,
To purchase females, or to rear up slaves.
But times there are, when one has listened long
And heard atrocious things, as if no wrong
Was done the ear, or offered to the heart,
That silence seems at last, a felon's part.


Tell me, Senor! I somewhat calmly said,
Where shall I find the aged negro's shed,
And see the poor old slaves of the estate,
The weak, decrepid, worn-out slaves, whose fate
It is, to feel a master's care at length,
For whom they toiled through life, and spent their strength;
How does it happen, none are to be seen
Unfit for labour, who from age, have been
Exempt from toil and hardship, at the close
Of life, and now entitled to repose?
How does it happen, that the stranger sees
No ransomed nursling on the mother's knees,
No pregnant woman, whom the law doth yield
A month's brief rest, and respite from the field,

No tender children, on the Sabbath-day
Trained to be good, poor things, or taught to pray,
No place of refuge for declining age,
In nature's course, to quit this mortal stage?


I'd always thought that 'mayorals' were folks
Who never laughed or deigned to deal in jokes,
But this man laughed, as if he'd reason, then
Till his great sides with laughter shook again.
At length, somewhat composed, he coolly said,
Who could have put such nonsense in your head?
Who ever heard of negroes getting old,
Or planters suffering female slaves to fold
Their arms, and sit like Creole ladies still,
Or taking pregnant women from the mill?
You've not been long in Cuba, I suppose,
From what you say of Sabbaths and repose,
And paid not much attention, I opine,
To many matters in the planting line?
You have to learn what slaves are worth the score,
What blacks are for, and whose they are, moreo'er!
We purchase slaves to cultivate our plains,
We don't want saints or scholars to cut canes;
We buy a negro for his flesh and bone,
He must have muscle, brains, he need have none.
But where, you ask me, are the poor old slaves?
Where should they be, of course, but in their graves!

We do not send them there before their time,
But let them die, when they are past their prime.
Men who are worked by night as well as day,
Some how or other, live not to be grey
Sink from exhaustion--sicken--droop and die,
And leave the Count another batch to buy;
There's stock abundant in the slave bazaars,
Thanks to the banner of the stripes and stars!
You cannot think, how soon the want of sleep
Breaks down their strength, 'tis well they are so cheap,
Four hours for rest--in time of crop--for five
Or six long months, and few indeed will thrive.


With twenty hours of unremitting toil,
Twelve in the field, and eight in doors, to boil
Or grind the cane--believe me few grow old,
But life is cheap, and sugar, sir,--is gold.
You think our interest is to use our blacks
As careful owners use their costly hacks;
Our interest is to make the most we can
Of every negro in the shortest span.
As for the women, they embroil estates,
There's never peace with them, within your gates:
They're always shamming, skulking from the field,
And most abusive when their backs are wealed.


Sure to be sick when strangers pass this way,
They take advantage of us every way;
For well they know, the Condè cannot bear
The thoughts of flogging while his friends are here.
As for the talk of marriage, you must jest,
What! marry wretched negroes by a priest!
Why, sir, there's not a priest within some ten
Or twelve good leagues of the estate--and, then,
Were one to come, the Count would have to pay;
I marry all the best and cheapest way.
We have not many marriages, 'tis true,
The men are many and the females few.


We stall our negroes as we pen our sheep,
And hold them fast as good stone walls can keep
A negro gang, and ev'ry night you'll find
The 'spell' released, in yonder square confined,
We have, no doubt, our runaways at times,
And flight, you know, we count the worst of crimes.
Slaves who are flogged and worked in chains by day,
Left in the stocks all night--you think would stay
On the estate as soon as they're set free,
And yet the fools again will dare to flee.
We are not always scourging--by the way,
Tuesday in common is our flogging day;
At other times we only use the whip,
To stir the drones and make the young ones skip;

Then as to food, you may be sure we give
Enough, to let the wretched creatures live:
The diet's somewhat slender, there's no doubt,
It would not do, to let them grow too stout;
Nor is it here, nor on estates around,
That fat and saucy negroes may be found.


Nay, said the speaker, in a graver tone,
You seem to hear of things but little known;
Gaze on these wretched negroes as you may,
You've heard but little of their wrongs to-day.
If I must speak still plainer, and must call
Things by their proper names, that must appal:
'Tis not the scourge, or shackle, plague or pest,
That wears the negro out--but want of rest.
Night after night in constant labour past,
Will break down nature, and its strength at last.
Day after day in toil and terror spent,
The slave will sink--and die with our consent;
The four hours' rest another victim gains,
It frees another negro from his chains;
And still we hear from planters o'er and o'er
The solemn lie, that negroes need no more.
You think, no doubt, the mayoral's to blame,
He works the negroes thus, and his the shame;
He plies the whip, and therefore he's the man
That's marked for vengeance, and deserves its ban.

I think I read what passes in your mind,
You deem our tribe the dregs of human kind;
Men who are formed by nature for this post,
To ev'ry feeling of their species lost.
How little know you of the men who fill
This wretched office, and who loathe it still;
Men who have felt oppression's iron hand,
Or want has driven from their native land,
And forced to take this execrable place
To get their bread; in spite of its disgrace.
Think you we have no feelings for these slaves,
And are the willing instruments of knaves,
Who drains the life's blood of the negroes core,
And leaves the guilt and odium at our door?
Think you, for us there's profit in the gain,
Wrung from the mortal agony and pain,
Of sinking strength, of sickness, and despair
We daily witness, and we must not spare?
Think you, for us there's pleasure in the groans
Of mothers, listening to the piteous moans
Of wailing infants, stretched before their eyes,
They dare not leave the hoe, to hush those cries,
Nor ask the driver for a moment's rest,
To sooth the child, that's screaming for the breast?
These sights and scenes become, no doubt, in time,
Familiar to us, and with some the crime
Finds favour even--but not much with me;
I would not care if ev'ry slave was free,


And ev'ry planter too to toil compelled,
We are their dogs, and worse than dogs are held.


Our despot does not live on his estate,
He loves the town, and there he goes the gait
Of other fools, and thinks that all grandees,
Should lead a life of luxury and ease.
He finds Havana stored with ev'ry vice,
Can feed his pampered senses or entice;
There in his squalid splendour he can move,
Exhaust the passions and imagine love;
Plume up his haughty indigence in smiles,
And waste a harvest on a harlot's wiles.


There he can find among his gay compeers,
Gamblers enough and spendthrifts of his years,
To get a 'montè' up, at noon or night,
And keep the game forbidden out of sight:
There he can stake a crop upon a card,
God help the negroes, if his luck is hard,
For then the Count we're sure to see next day,
The gambler comes, to find fresh funds for play.


The 'mayoral' is summoned to his lord,
The menial comes, uncovered to afford

A strict account of all the sugar made,
That's fit for sale and ready for the trade;
The last year's crop, he's told, will never do,
It must be doubled; or an agent new
Must take his place--and then the debts of old,
The heavy charges on the produce sold,
The merchant's twelve per cent. on each advance
Have swallowed up the funds he got by chance,
Or had received in driblets from the hands
Of knaves, who made their fortunes on his lands;
He must look out, and find a man who'll make
The negroes work and keep the slaves awake;
He'll not be told they can't be worked much more,
They sleep too much, and have no need of four
Or five hours' rest, his neighbours all agree
That slaves in crop can do right well with three.
Sugar he'll have, he cares not how, or by
What cruel means, he gets a new supply;
'Tis idle to remonstrate or resist,
Obey one must, or be at once dismissed.
Think you, indeed, a gamester's heart is made
Of human stuff that's moved by prayers, or swayed
By any earthly influence but one,
The lust of gold, to play for stakes unwon.
The Conde's orders are obeyed, of course,
And these, augmented rigour must enforce:
'Boca abajos,' morning, noon, and night,
Unceasing torture, and unsparing might,


Murmurs arise, and driftless schemes are rife,
Of wild revenge, 'mongst men made sick of life.
And when the outburst comes, what signifies
Who is the victim--so a white man dies.


I know full well the perils of my post,
How many lives its odious tasks have cost!
You see this sword, these blood-hounds at my beck,
I count on these, to keep the slaves in check,
These are the dogs we train to hunt the blacks,
To scent their trail and come upon their tracks,
To run them down and chase the 'cimarone,'
And mangle those who prowl at night alone.
These are our friends and allies, it is fit
That brutes like these should be so, I admit.


Ah, Senor Mio! briefly I replied,
The words you speak are not to be denied;
You know too well your duties, it appears,
For me to question or dispute your fears,
Too well you know the torments you inflict,
For me to doubt the sufferings you depict.
Too well you've done the biddings of your lord,
To fail to be detested and abhorred;
Too much have harassed and opprest the poor,
For me to think your system can endure.


Your fields are fair and fertile, I allow,
But no good man can say--'God speed the plough.'
There's wealth unfailing in your people's toil;
'Twould wrong the poor, to cry--'God bless the soil,'
'Twere asking blood to beg that God would deign
'To give the early and the latter rain,'
One prayer indeed can hardly be supprest,
God help the slave! and pity the opprest.