Part 22
“Most of the African blacksmiths are acquainted also with the method of smelting gold.” “They likewise draw the gold into wire, and form it into a variety of ornaments, some of which are executed with a great deal of taste and ingenuity.” “I might add, though it is scarce worthy observation, that in Bambarra and Kaarta, the natives make very beautiful baskets, hats, and other articles, both for use and ornament, from rushes, which they stain of different colours; and they contrive also to cover their calabashes with interwoven cane, dyed in the same manner,”—(p. 285.)
“It seems to be the universal wish of mankind to spend the evening of their days where they spent their infancy. The poor Negro feels this desire in its full force. To him, no water is sweet but what is drawn from his own well; and no tree has so cool and pleasant a shade as the tabba tree of his native village. When war compels him to abandon the delightful spot in which he first drew his breath, and seek for safety in some other kingdom, his time is spent in talking about the country of his ancestors; and no sooner is peace restored than he turns his back upon the land of strangers, rebuilds with haste his fallen walls, and exults to see the smoke ascend from his native village.”—(p. 292.)
“It was not possible for me to behold the wonderful fertility of the soil, the vast herds of cattle, proper both for labour and food, and a variety of other circumstances favourable to colonization and agriculture; and reflect withal, on the means which presented themselves of a vast inland navigation, without lamenting that a country, so abundantly gifted and favoured by nature, should remain in its present savage and neglected state. Much more did I lament that a people, of manners and dispositions so gentle and benevolent, should either be left as they now are, immersed in the gross and uncomfortable blindness of Pagan superstition, or permitted to become converts to a system of bigotry and fanaticism.”—(p. 312.)
“During a wearisome peregrination of more than five hundred British miles, exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun, these poor Slaves, amidst their own infinitely greater sufferings, would commiserate mine; and frequently, of their own accord, bring water to quench my thirst, and at night collect branches and leaves to prepare me a bed in the wilderness.”—(p. 356.)
_Effects of Slave Trade on Administration of Justice. By the Sieur Brüe, Director General of the French Senegal Company, about 1700.—Astley’s Voyages, vol. ii. & iii._
[Sidenote: Astley’s Voyages.]
“Crimes here are seldom punished with death, unless it be treason and murder. For other faults, the usual penalty is banishment, to which end the king generally sells them to the company, and disposes of their effects at his pleasure. In civil cases, the debtor, if unable, is sold with his family and effects, for the payment of the creditor, and the king has his thirds.”—(p. 59.)
Barbot says, that the Negro kings are so absolute, that upon any slight pretence, they order their subjects to be sold for Slaves, without regard to rank or profession. Thus a Marbut was sold to him at Goree by the Alkade of Rio Fresco, by special order of the Damel, for some misdemeanors. This priest was above two months aboard the ship before he would speak one word.”—(_Travels of Barbot_, p. 257.)
“The smallest crimes whatever are punished with banishment.—(p. 315.)
Criminal causes are tried by a public Palaver, or Assembly of the head men of the country, and Slavery is the usual punishment; a circumstance which holds out a strong temptation to prefer false accusations, particularly as the African mode of trial furnishes convenient means of promoting purposes of avarice and oppression.—(_Winterbottom’s Account_, &c. &c.)
Marchais.—In case of the debtor’s insolvency, the king allows the creditor to sell him, his wives, and even his children, for the sum due. Here is also another extraordinary law; if the creditor, before witnesses, three times asks his debt of a person, whom he cannot arrest or sue on account of his dignity or power, and the debtor refuses to pay him, the creditor has a right to seize the first Slave he meets, let him belong to whom he will.
There is but one sort of punishment for offences here, the offender, and all his generation, being made Slaves.
In their proceedings they take no care whether the party be guilty, or deserves to be punished.
[Sidenote: Golberey.]
It is a striking circumstance, that in Africa, before the Slave Trade was introduced, the punishments for offences generally consisted of mulcts or fines, as is evident from the testimony of Artus, Barbot, Ogilby, Bosman, Loyer, Nyendael, and others, and that nobody was mulcted beyond his ability, except by an accumulation of crimes. Murder and sorcery were punished capitally in some of the countries of Africa, but in others, murder and every species of offence had no other punishment than a fine. If people could not pay these fines, they were disposed of in two ways. Some of them were sent into a temporary banishment in Africa; others were sold into home slavery. Debtors also, who refused to pay their debts, or became insolvent, were sold for the benefit of their creditors, in case their relations would not redeem them, and worked for these at their respective homes. But since this trade has been used, says Moore, all _punishments_ are changed into _slavery_: there being _an advantage_ in such condemnation, they _strain_ for crimes _very hard_, in order to get the _benefit of selling the criminal_. Not only murder, theft, and adultery, are punished by selling the criminal for a Slave, but _every trifling_ crime is punished in the same manner.”[61]
Moore gives us a history of some of these crimes. “There was a man, says he, brought to me in Tommany, to be sold, for having stolen a tobacco-pipe. I sent for the alcade, and with much ado persuaded the party aggrieved to accept of a composition, and leave the man free. In Cantore, a man seeing a tyger eating a deer, which he had killed and hung up near his house, fired at the tyger, and the bullet killed a man. The king not only condemned him, but also _his mother_, _three brothers_, and _three sisters_, to be sold. These eight persons were brought down to me at Yamyamacunda. It made my heart ache, says Moore (_for this was in the infancy of the Trade_) to see them, and I did not buy them.” But it appears in the sequel, that this kind action in Moore did not produce the desired end. “For they were sent, says he, further down the river, and sold to some _separate_ traders at Joar, and the king _had the benefit of the goods_ for which they were sold.”
In estimating the revenues of king Forbana, he mentions[62] “the criminals that were sold, _a part of the profit_ of _which_ devolved _upon his majesty_.” [63] “In Africa, says he, crimes are punished either by fines, slavery, or death. _Offences_ are _rare_, but _accusations common_; because the chiefs frequently accuse for the purpose of _condemning_, that _they may be able to procure Slaves_.”
“The crime of magic is that which the Negro kings and chiefs most frequently _cause_ to be preferred against individuals of the lower class, _because this crime is punished by slavery, and consequently produces Slaves_.”
_Evidences examined before the House of Commons._
[Sidenote: House of Commons Evidence.]
[64] Capt. Wilson, of the Royal Navy, says, it is universally acknowledged, and he believes it to be true, that free persons are sold for real or imputed crimes, for the benefit of their judges. Soon after his arrival at Goree, the king of Damel sent a free man to him for sale, and was to have the _price himself_. One of the king’s guards, who came with the man, on being asked whether he was guilty of the crime imputed to him, replied, with great shrewdness—he did not conceive that was ever inquired into, or of any consequence.
[65] Dr. Trotter says, that of the whole cargo, he recollects only three criminals in the ship where he was. One of these had been sold for adultery, and the other for _witchcraft, whose whole family shared his fate_. The first said, he had been decoyed by a woman, who told her husband of the transaction, and he was sentenced to pay a Slave; but, being poor, he was sold himself. Such _stratagems_ are _frequent_. The fourth mate of the ship Brookes was so decoyed, and obliged to pay a Slave, under the threat, that trade would be stopped if he did not. The other had quarrelled with one of the Cabosheers. The Cabosher, in revenge, accused him of witchcraft. In consequence of this accusation he was sold with his family. His mother, wife, and two daughters, were sentenced with him. [Sidenote: House of Commons Evidence.] The women shewed the deepest affliction; the man a sullen melancholy; he refused his food, tore his throat open with his nails, and died.
[66] Lieutenant Simpson, of the Royal Marines, considered two crimes as almost made on purpose to procure Slaves. These were, adultery, and the removal of _Fetiches_, (or of _charms founded on a notion of witchcraft_). As to adultery, he was warned against connecting himself with any woman not pointed out to him, for that the kings _kept several_, who were _sent out to allure the unwary_; and that, if found to be connected with these, he would be seized, and made to pay the price of a man Slave. As to fetiches, consisting of pieces of wood, old pitchers, kettles, &c. laid in the path-ways, he was _warned to avoid displacing_ them, for if he should, the natives, who were on the watch, would seize him, and, as before, exact the price of a man Slave. These baits were laid equally for the natives, as the Europeans; but the former were better acquainted with the law, and consequently more circumspect.
James Morley, 1760 and 1776.—On pretence of adultery, he remembers a woman sold. He learnt that this was only a pretence, from her own mouth, for she spake good English, and from the respect with which her husband, king Ephraim, treated her, when he came on board; whereas, in real cases of adultery, they are very desperate.
Sir George Young, 1767, 1768, 1771, 1772.—Has always heard, that the sovereign or chief of a district generally derives a certain profit from the sale of Slaves.
[Sidenote: House of Commons Evidence.]
Henry Hew Dalrymple, Esq. 1779.—All crimes, in the parts of Africa he was in, were punished with slavery.
James Towne, 1760, 1767.—He has repeatedly heard, both from the accused and accusers themselves, and he believes it common on the coast, to impute crimes falsely for the sake of having the accused person sold.
_Mode of Warfare, &c._
[Sidenote: Parke.]
The Moors purchase the fire-arms and ammunition from the Europeans in exchange for Negro Slaves, whom they obtain in their predatory excursions.—_Parke’s Travels_.
“Some neighbouring and rebel Negroes plundered a large village belonging to Daisy (the king), and carried off a number of prisoners.”—(p. 110.)
“They accordingly fell upon two of Daisy’s (the king’s) towns, and carried off the whole of the inhabitants.”—(p. 169.)
“I passed, in the course of this day, the ruins of three towns; the inhabitants of which were all carried away by Daisy, king of Kaarta, on the same day that he took and plundered Yamina.”—(p. 230.)
“Mansang separated the remainder of his army into small detachments, ordered them to over-run the country, and seize on the inhabitants before they had time to escape.
“Most of the poor inhabitants of the different towns and villages, being surprized in the night, fell an easy prey.
“Daisy had sent a number of people to plant corn, &c. &c. to supply his army; all these fell into the hands of Sambo Sego; they were afterwards sent in caravans to be sold to the French, on the Senegal.”—(p. 109.)
_African Population._
[Sidenote: Winterbottom.]
Winterbottom’s Travels in Africa.—The towns on the seacoast are in general small, and seldom consist of more than forty or fifty houses; but as we advance inland, they become more populous.—(p. 81.)
The villages near the sea coast not only consist of fewer houses than those more inland, but they also shew less neatness and ingenuity in their construction.—(p. 83.)
Teembo, the capital of the Foola kingdom, is computed to contain about 8,000 inhabitants; Laby, the second in size, has about 5,000; and several of those which I have visited in the Soosoo and Mandingo countries, contain from 1 to 2 or 3,000 inhabitants.—(p. 87.)
_Domestic Slaves State in Africa.—Travels of Moore, a Factor of African Company._
[Sidenote: Astley’s Voyages.]
They seldom sell their family Slaves, except for great crimes.—(vol. iii. p. 242)
Some of them have a good many house Slaves, in which they place a great pride; and these Slaves live so well and easy, that it is hard to know them from their Owners, being often better cloathed; especially the females, who have sometimes coral, amber, and silver necklaces and ornaments to the value of £. 20. or £. 30. sterling.
The author never heard of but one that ever sold a family Slave, except for such crimes as they would have been sold for if they had been free. If one of the family Slaves (where there are many) commits a crime, and the Master sells him for it without the consent of the rest, they will all run away, and be protected in the next kingdom.—(p. 267)
[Sidenote: Winter-]
Winterbottom’s Travels.—Their domestics are in general treated by them with great humanity, and it is not uncommon to see the heir-apparent of a head man sitting down to eat with the meanest of his father’s people, and in no wise distinguished from them by his dress.—(p. 127.)
Captain Wilson, 1783.—The Slaves employed by the Africans live with their Masters, and are so treated as scarcely to be distinguishable from them.
Isaac Parker, 1764.—Dick Ebro’ had many Slaves of his own, whom he employed in cutting wood and fishing, &c. but he treated them always very well.
James Morley, 1760 and 1776.—They treat their Slaves with the greatest kindness, more so than our servants and Slaves in the West Indies.
Henry Hew Dalrymple, Esq. 1779.—Slaves are treated so well, eating and working with their Masters, that they are not distinguishable from free men.
James Kiernan,—Persons of property there have a great number of persons under the denomination of Slaves, whom they treat as Europeans would people of their own family.
[Sidenote: Parke.]
“The Mandingo Master can neither deprive his domestic Slave of life, nor sell him to a stranger, without first calling a palaver on his conduct; or, in other words, bringing him to a public trial.” (p. 23)
“He told me, that he had always behaved towards me as if I had been his father and master.” (p. 68.)
“He sometimes eats out of the same bowl with his camel driver, and reposes himself, during the heat of the day, upon the same bed.”—(p. 155.)
“In all the laborious occupations above described, the Master and his Slaves work together, without distinction of superiority.”
The authority of the Master over the domestic Slaves elsewhere observed, extends only to reasonable correction; for the Master cannot sell his domestic without having first brought him to a public trial before the chief men of the place.”—(p. 286.)
_Bristol Slave Trade formerly.—William of Malmsbury, book ii. ch. 20.—Life of St. Wolstan, Bishop of Worcester._
Directly opposite the Irish coast there is a seaport town called Bristol, the inhabitants of which, as well as others of the English, frequently sail into Ireland on trading speculations. St. Wolstan put an end to a very ancient custom of theirs, in which they had become so hardened, that neither the love of God, nor that of the king (William the Conqueror) had been able to abolish it. For they sold into Ireland, at a profit, people whom they had bought up throughout all England, and they exposed to sale maidens in a state of pregnancy, with whom they made a sort of mock marriages. There you might see with grief, fastened together by ropes, whole rows of wretched beings of both sexes, of elegant forms and in the very bloom of youth, a sight sufficient to excite pity even in Barbarians, daily offered for sale to the first purchaser. Accursed deed! infamous disgrace! that men, acting in a manner which brutal instinct alone would have forbidden, should sell into slavery their relations, nay, even their own offspring; yet, St. Wolstan destroyed at length this inveterate and hereditary custom. The historian goes on to state, that from the effect of religious instruction, the people of Bristol not only renounced this vicious practice themselves, but afforded an example of reform to the rest of England; harsh methods however were resorted to where persuasion was in vain; for one of the inhabitants of Bristol who resisted the good bishop’s reform with peculiar obstinacy, was expelled from the city, and had his eyes put out.
In 1171, on the invasion and conquest of Ireland by Henry II. it was the unanimous judgment of a great ecclesiastical council, called at Armagh, that the event was to be regarded as a providential visitation for their guilt in making Slaves of the English, whether obtained from merchants, robbers, or pirates; and this opinion was regarded as the more probable, because England herself, the natives of which, by a vice common to that nation, had been used to sell their children and nearest relatives, even when not under the pressure of famine or other necessity, had formerly expiated a similar crime by a similar punishment (alluding to the Norman Conquest.) To the honour of the Irish, a resolution was then passed, that throughout the kingdom the English Slaves should be immediately emancipated. I trust their Hibernian descendants, in our day, will shew themselves actuated by a like humane spirit, and that the English will no longer continue subject to that foul stain with which, even in these early days, she was contaminated.
The city of Bristol is once more exempt from the disgrace of being concerned in the traffic of human beings.
FINIS
Printed by Luke Hansard & Sons, near Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Footnote 1:
The Report of the Privy Council to the King in 1788, and still more the Reports of the Committee of the House of Commons, to which had been referred the various petitions for and against the abolition, and in the Appendixes to which is contained the Evidence at length of the Witnesses who were examined on that occasion. For the convenience of those who might not have leisure to peruse so voluminous a mass of evidence, an abridged abstract of it was made. This occupies two small octavo volumes, and is entitled “An Abridgement of the Minutes of the Evidence on the Slave Trade. 1790.” It is to be purchased at Phillips’s, George-yard, Lombard-street.—Various Papers and Accounts, tending to give useful information, have also been laid before the House of Commons from time to time. The titles of these will be found in the House of Commons Journals. See especially a voluminous mass of Papers respecting the Slave Trade, ordered to be printed 8th June 1804; and another very important set of Communications from the West Indies, ordered for printing 25th February 1805. See also two very interesting Reports of the House of Assembly of Jamaica.
Footnote 2:
Vide, especially, an Abstract of the Debate on Mr. Wilberforce’s Motion for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1791, and of the Debate on a similar Motion in 1792; both printed for Phillips, George-yard, Lombard-street.
Footnote 3:
Mr. Clarkson’s publications well deserve this epithet, particularly his “Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade.” See also Remarks on the Decision of the House of Commons concerning the Slave Trade, on April 2d, 1792, by the Rev. J. Gisborne.—Much valuable information likewise concerning Africa is contained in Lord Muncaster’s Historical Sketches of the Slave Trade. Again, almost all the principal arguments involved in the discussion concerning the abolition are to be found in Mr. Brougham’s Colonial Policy, stated with that author’s usual ability.—Once more, a valuable Summary of the Arguments in favour of Abolition, and of the answers to the chief allegations of its Opponents (by a writer, whose name, if subjoined to it, would have added great weight to the publication) was published two years ago, printed for Hatchard, and Longman and Rees, entitled, a “_Concise Statement of the Question, regarding the Abolition of the Slave Trade_.” An Appendix, containing much valuable matter, soon after followed. A valuable publication appeared also some years ago, by a Member of the University of Oxford, now become a dignitary of the church. I might specify several others on particular parts of the case. In short, were it as easy to prevail on mankind to read publications which have been some time before the world, as to peruse a new one, my present task might well be spared.
Footnote 4:
In reading accounts of African wars, the attentive reader will continually meet with expressions such as those here used; which incidentally and undesignedly, and therefore the more strongly prove, that the persons of the natives are regarded as the great booty; and we may therefore not unreasonably infer, that they often constitute the chief inducement for commencing hostilities.
Footnote 5:
Vide evidence of Naval Officers, &c. taken before the House of Commons.—Smith also, who visited the coast in the service of the African Company in 1726, says “The Natives who came off to trade with us were mighty timorous of coming aboard, for fear of being panyard.”
Footnote 6:
Vide Nyendael and Artus of Dantzic, in De Bry’s India Orientalis, &c.—Bosman,—Barbot.
Footnote 7:
Moore, many years factor to the African Company, about 1730, says, ‘Since this trade has been used, all punishments are changed into slavery, there being an advantage in such condemnations. They strain for crimes very hard, in order to get the benefit of selling the criminal. Not only murder, theft, and adultery, but every trifling crime is punished by selling the criminal for a Slave.’
Footnote 8:
Vide Smith’s Voyage to Guinea, p. 266.
Footnote 9:
Surely Mr. Parke, when he suggested this, forgot that experience as well as reason teach us, that we must first abolish the Slave Trade before we attempt to diffuse among the Africans the lessons of peace and love; lest we are asked the same well-known question, and receive the same reply, as the Spanish priest from the poor dying Peruvian, when the Spaniards in America were acting on the plan which is here advised, of at once ravaging and converting: “Are there to be any Europeans in this Heaven, where you wish me to secure a place?” Being told yes, “Then it is no place for Peruvians.”
Footnote 10:
This is the more astonishing, because it is mentioned by the older writers as well as by more recent travellers, as Captain Sir G. Young and Sir T. B. Thompson, as a term of which the meaning is clear, and the use perfectly familiar. Thus, as a single instance, Smith, after saying “the natives were afraid of being panyard,” (p. 104.) subjoins the meaning in a note,—“To panyar is to kidnap or steal men. It is a word used all over the Coast of Guinea.”
Footnote 11:
The account given of this Slave trade by an almost contemporary historian, will be found in the Appendix.
Footnote 12:
Atkins was a surgeon in the Royal Navy, who visited all the British Settlements in Africa, with the Swallow and Weymouth men of war, in 1721; and whose account is the more to be credited, from his being a disinterested witness, whose testimony also was given before the justice or humanity of the Slave Trade had been called in question.
Footnote 13: