?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(MURRAY, Sir GEORGE, British Colonial Secretary.) Letter Signed, concerning the 1823 uprising and the slave and free black populations of the British West Indies, addressed to Murray. Written by Lieut. Col. Alen, an officer of the 55th Regiment stationed in Demerara during the slave uprisings of 1823. Approximately 1100 words written in a neat, legible hand on 7 tall folio sheets, docketed on an 8th on 18th June, 1828, Dublin, 7 March 1824
Lieutenant Alen is apparently adding to a previous report on the general condition of the free blacks in the West Indies. He makes a number of substantive suggestions to address the injustices imposed on them by the planters. There are several headings: "Cultivation of the Soil," "Indemnification," and "Colonial Organization." Among them, fair pay for labor and emancipation: "upon emancipation, being granted, the colonies would require a new code of laws--the colonial assemblies re-organized-the courts of justice and the police establishment placed on a more respectable footing--the cart whip abolished." He suggests the gradual replacement of two West India Regiments, and the formation of black militias, to be chosen from "Men of colour of unexceptionable (sic) character." While the uprising shook Great Britain to its roots and brought about substantive changes in the way both free blacks and slaves were treated, the rallying cry of the free black activists of the islands was "Revolution, not reform." Sir George Murray took part in a parliamentary debate to put an end to slavery in the West Indies on July 13, 1830. The motion was defeated. See Ragatz, page 424.
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