Reinhart: Nederlandse literatuur en slavernij ten tijde van de Verlichting

6.3. The good master: Reinhart and the views on slavery

In Chapter Three I try to reconstruct the reader's expectation of one motif in order to arrive at a hypothetical reception and to trace the possible function of Reinhart as a novel about slavery. I base myself on literary and non-literary texts, from Hugo de Groot, De iure belli ac pacis (1625) to Isaac da Costa Bezwaren tegen de geest der eeuw (1823).

As it is shown, the world of Reinhart is governed by Providence: this certainly holds for slavery. Reinhart who seems to be an enlightened and sensitive human being is totally distressed at his first confrontation with slavery. In unequivocal and powerful terms he speaks of the deprivation of freedom of fellow human beings, of the violation of natural rights, of the injustice committed by Christians even in this age of enlightenment and tolerance! In response to the sad life-story of Violet he shows understanding for slave rebellion which is meant to regain freedom, and he expresses the wish that Christians will finally discard violence and repression, and that humanity and justice shall triumph and that slavery shall be destroyed! Because Reinhart had come to the colony to earn money, he cannot escape from being a slave master himself. In view of this fact he does his best to be a father to his slaves and to treat them in such a way that they no longer experience slavery as a burden. Although he sometimes feels remorse that he is not releasing them from slavery, he relativizes this same freedom strongly by pointing out that ‘freedom’ for most Dutch day-labourers and many East European peasants was but an empty phrase and that because of their troubled existence they would gladly have exchanged this nominal freedom for being unfree under a good master.

His faith supports the acceptance of slavery. Divine Providence itself has determined the fate of individuals and nations and therefore it is also Providence which brought negroes into slavery. This is Reinhart's view and he therefore trusts that having experienced such hardship on earth as slaves they will be amply rewarded in eternal live and that this reward will more than outweigh all the misery suffered on earth.

In an attempt to find out how the motif of slavery, in particular Reinhart's views on slavery and his attitude as a slave master, in the novel were received by the contemporary reader, I try to reconstruct the ‘Erwartungshorizont’ (horizon of expectations) of the above mentioned motif in the years 1791-1792. I investigate in literary and non-literary texts written in Dutch (± 1625-± 1825) the justifications of slavery and the right to freedom, and in particular the motivation of some remarkable items in the novel: the understanding for slave rebellion and slave escape (3.4); the justification of slavery by appealing to Providence (3.5); the acceptance of slavery under a ‘good master’ (3.6); the excuse for slavery by referring to the social abuses in Europe (3.7); the christening of slaves (3.8). In each of these paragraphs I draw up the balance of each of these developments up to the years 1791-1792, in order to obtain an insight into the reader's expectations.

It appears that the defendants of slavery who were in the majority in the 17th century and in the first half of the 18th century appeal to Roman law to justify slavery: one became a slave

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because of social incapacity, in exchange for the death penalty and especially when one had been a prisoner of war. Because it was assumed that African slaves were submitted to slavery for exactly these reasons, slavery became not only accepted but was even considered as being advantageous to all parties concerned.

Slavery was also defended on religious grounds: the negroes supposedly were the descendents of Cham, damned into servitude by Noach. An additional argument was that if heathen negro slaves were to live among Christians they could be brought to embrace the true faith. The fear that one would have to release ‘brothers in the Lord’ was expelled by the onetime negro slave and theology student J.E.J. Capitein who explicitly stated the supremacy of spiritual freedom above bodily freedom with the help of Biblical references. Dit not St. Paul, the apostle, send the converted slave Onesimus who had ran away, back to his master? In reality however, the conversion zeal of Christian traders and Christian colonists was minimal. Only a few ministers ignored these arguments and expressed their disapproval of human trade and the deprivation of freedom.

In the course of the 18th century the above mentioned reasons were contested by writers who joined the ranks of French abolitionists (Montesquieu, Rousseau, Raynal) and their English counterparts (Newton, Falconbridge, Equiano). Factual information about slavery practices increased and the defendants and opponents confronted each other more vehemently.

The work of B. Frossard, translated by Betje Wolff into Dutch, gives the most complete survey of known facts, arguments for and especially against slavery. The work ends as a plea for inmediate abolition of slave trade and gradual abolition of slavery itself.

In literature up to 1750, the motif of slavery hardly played a role. A passionate anti-slavery plea is held, in the spectatorial writing: De Denker (The Thinker) (1764). The spectator publishes a letter supposedly written by an ex-negro slave who sharply denounced the traditional justification of slave trade and slavery and the attitude of colonists. The editor announces to refute the contents and uses for this purpose Montesquieu's satire on negro slavery in his Esprit des lois (Book 15, Chapter 5).

In general slave abuse is condemned in literary texts and a ‘good-mastership’ is propagated. Once in a while ‘good-mastership’ is regarded as a first step in the liberation of slaves (De Perponcher's Rhapsodiën).

The readers of Post's novel must have considered Reinhart's views on slavery and freedom as ‘enlightened’. Reinhart does not recognize any justification of slavery and regards freedom as a natural right. Slave trade and slavery are to him: kidnapping and deprivation of freedom. Therefore slaves cannot be denied the right to regain their freedom. His compassion reminds us of Frossard's.

However, when Reinhart appeals to Providence in order to justify the existence of slavery and when he draws the comparison between a carefree slave existence and the wretched existence of free European day labourers and peasants he lags far behind the ideas of Frossard and he will no doubt have disappointed the expectations of his enlightened readers.

In the eyes of many readers, Reinhart especially fails as a Christian slave master: only two of the forty slaves are christened by him. In this respect he is inferior to the master in De Perponcher's Rhapsodiën, who christens his slaves and gradually prepares them for liberation.

And yet Reinhart's good-mastership is probably considered respectable, the more so when viewed against a background of white misconduct known from literature and reality. For readers with colonial experience or involvement, Reinhart may have surpassed their expectations on this point.

The actual facts regarding the reception of the novel confirm this conjecture: Reinhart's virtuous behaviour as a planter and his ways of dealing with the negro slaves were also considered worth following by other colonists. The novel seems to plead for a decent planter's

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policy which is attainable in the reality of the colonial world: a compromise between the theories of the Old World and the everyday practice of the New World.