The Apprenticeship System in the British West Indies

The Apprenticeship System is the name applied to the plan instituted in the interval between slavery and emancipation to prepare the slaves to assume the duties of freemen. While there was a nucleus of Christian slaves who had received some education from the missionaries, the great mass of them had remained non-Christian and illiterate. Consequently, in accordance with the prevailing consensus of opinion, the Imperial Parliament was convinced that it should establish an interim period between abolition and actual liberation to expedite a scheme to ease the burden of mass emancipation. During this period the slaves' workload was to be reduced, thereby providing sufficient time for instruction and conversion.