123 School Work

apprenticeship system was the last stage of slavery reather than he first stage of freedom

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  "The great problem to be solved in drawing up any plan for the emancipation of the slaves in our colonies is to devise some mode of inducing them when relieved from the fear of the driver and his whip to undergo regular and continuous labour". While efforts to solve these problems accompanied by the intransigence of the planters might have led the apprenticeship system to be mistaken for a last stage of slavery, it was predominantly a first stage of freedom both in the British West Indies and in Cuba.
  Both the British apprenticeship and the Cuban Patronato were "interval[s] intended to facilitate the creation of social and economic machinery that would perpetuate the established order". Each territory made attempts to enforce laws that represented a departure from slavery. For example, the power of the planters was reduced in both territories by the implementation of a system whereby justices of the peace were put in place to oversee this intermediary period. In the British West Indies they were called stipendary magistrates and they were responsible for the protection of the apprentices against overwork, maltreatment and abuse. In Cuba, the equivalent of the stipendary was the Junta. Primary authority rested with the Junta and slaves could appeal their cases to them. The attitudes of these justices, when positive, represented an important sign that society was on the road to becoming a free society.
  The apprenticeship in Cuba revolutionised the relationship between the planter and his apprentice, it changed it from a planter-slave relationship to an
  employer-employee relationship by stating that all labour was paid labour and by giving the apprentice the right to choose for whom he worked...