Part 4

The allegations of these persons, even though they had not been effectually disproved by the concurrent testimony of the various classes of witnesses already noticed, carried their refutation on the very face of them. But if any doubts could have been entertained to which of the two accounts most credit was due, to that of men who were still concerned in carrying on the Slave Trade, or had made their fortunes by it, on the one side; and of witnesses on the other, most of whom, highly respectable both in point of rank and character, had no interest at stake either way; these doubts would have been completely removed by another branch of evidence. For, happily for the cause of truth and justice, we were able to adduce, in support of our allegations, the testimony of another set of witnesses, against whom our opponents at least could urge no objections, [Sidenote: Especially by accounts of Africa, published by Slave Traders, and before the Slave Trade had been attacked.] persons in the employ of the African Company or of private merchants, who had been long resident in Africa, for the express purpose of carrying on the Slave Trade, and who, as was formerly mentioned, had published to the world the result of their observations and experience. It might indeed have been feared, that we should be compelled to except against their testimony; and it must be confessed, that for the sake of their own credit, and for that of the occupation by which they had made their fortunes, they would naturally be disposed, even in acknowledging abuses, to touch them with a tender and favourable hand. Yet, however short of the truth we may reasonably suppose their representations to fall, where they are discreditable to the Slave Trade, we find our charges positively and abundantly proved.

[Sidenote: Slave Trade’s cruelty and guilt acknowledged by the parliamentary opposers of the abolition.]

But it is due to our opponents themselves in the House of Commons, excepting only such of them as were personally connected with the places whence the Slave Trade is principally carried on, who are allowed a certain license of speaking and reasoning, on the ground of their being understood to utter the language of their constituents rather than their own; to the rest even of our opponents it is due, to declare, that they never for a moment affected to entertain a doubt of the substantial correctness of our statements. Of the injustice and inhumanity of the Slave Trade, there was but one opinion. The chief advocates for gradual abolition, and even the very few who resisted abolition in any form, reprobated the traffic in the plainest and strongest terms; avowing their firm conviction of its incurable wickedness and cruelty. One of them declared that he knew no language which could add to its horrors; another, that in the pursuit of the general object he felt equally warm with the Abolitionists themselves; another acknowledged the Slave Trade was the disgrace of Great Britain, and the torment of Africa. Whatever might be thought of the consistency of our opponents, who, after thus admitting our premises, stopped short of the conclusions to which such premises might be thought infallibly to lead, it was no great stretch of candour in them to speak in such terms of the Slave Trade, when, so clearly indisputable were it’s nature and effects, that Mr. Bryan Edwards, one of the ablest, and most determined enemies of abolition, while avowedly opposing the measure in an eloquent speech (which was afterwards published by authority) made the following memorable declaration. After having confessed he had not the smallest doubt that [Sidenote: Mr. Bryan Edward’s declaration to the same effect.] “in Africa the effects of the Slave Trade were precisely such as I had represented them to be;” he added, “the whole or the greatest part of that immense continent, is a field of warfare and desolation; a wilderness, in which the inhabitants are wolves towards each other; a scene of oppression, fraud, treachery, and blood.”—“The assertion, that a great many of the slaves are criminals and convicts, is mockery and insult.”

[Sidenote: Pleas against abolition.]

But if the charges which the Abolitionists brought against the Slave Trade were thus clearly proved, you may now be much more disposed to wonder, what arguments could be found sufficiently strong to induce the House of Commons of Great Britain to hesitate, even for a moment, to wipe away so foul a blot from our national character.

The grand operating consideration, which, from the very first discussion of the question in 1791 to the present moment, has prevented the actual abolition of the Slave Trade, though so long a period has elapsed since Mr. Pitt congratulated the House of Commons, the Country, and the World, that “its sentence was sealed, that it had received it’s condemnation,” has undoubtedly been, the persuasion that it’s continuance is necessary to the well-being of our West Indian colonies. We will, therefore, inquire into that necessity. But as several other allegations were set up, and various arguments urged, on the part of the Slave Traders, it may be best to consider, previously, such of them as are included in the African division of the subject, in order to clear the way for what may be termed, the West Indian branch of the subject.

[Sidenote: The Negroes an inferior race.]

The advocates for the Slave Trade originally took very high ground; contending, that the Negroes were an inferior race of beings. It is obvious, that, if this were once acknowledged, they might be supposed, no less than their fellow brutes, to have been comprised within the original grant of all inferior creatures to the use and service of man. A position so shameless, and so expressly contradicted by the Holy Scriptures, could not long be maintained in plain terms. But many others, which may not improperly be supposed, from their features, to belong to the same family, were afterwards brought forward. To this class belong the assertions, that, though it might scarcely be justifiable to withhold from the Africans the name of men, yet that they were manifestly inferior to the rest of the human species, both in their intellectual and moral powers. Hence, doubtless, it was, that they never had attained to any height of civilization; whence it was also inferred, that they never could be civilized; that therefore they might be reasonably regarded, as intended by Providence to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water of the species; as a race originally destined to servile offices, and fairly applicable to any purpose by which they might be rendered most subservient to the interest and comfort of the Lords of the Creation. This, indeed, was high ground, as has been already remarked; but it was not injudiciously selected, had it been but tenable; for our opponents well knew, that could they but obtain credit for their representations of the incorrigible stupidity and depravity of the Negro race, our commiseration of them would be proportionably lessened, and then all, except perhaps a few stubborn advocates for justice in the abstract, would be content to leave them to their fate.

It therefore becomes highly interesting, in a practical point of view, to ascertain the real character and qualities, both intellectual and moral, of the natives of Africa; and, remembering the advantages we derived in a former instance, from publications which had appeared before the Slave Trade became a subject of public discussion, we might be disposed to congratulate ourselves in having access, on the present occasion, to a work which was published many years before any proposition had been brought forward for abolishing the Slave Trade. [Sidenote: Mr. Long’s account of the Negro race.] The publication to which I allude is Mr. Long’s elaborate History of Jamaica, a work which has been long regarded as of the highest authority on all West Indian topics. We may consider it as containing a more fair representation of the opinion entertained of the Negroes, and of the estimation in which they were held by the well-informed colonists, than any statements which, having been subsequently made, may be supposed to have received a tincture from that discussion. Mr. Long’s work appeared long before the necessity of vindicating the Slave Trade, and the difficulty of finding arguments for that purpose had driven the enemies of abolition to the unworthy expedient of calumniating the African character. Yet we find this commonly respectable author speaking of the race of Negroes in such terms, as they who have read the more recent accounts of Africa will peruse with astonishment, as well as with disgust. Far be it from me to quote them with any design of injuring the reputation of a work of established credit. But the passages are in several points of view highly important, and well deserving of your most serious consideration.

[Sidenote: Extracts from Long’s History of Jamaica.]

“For my own part (says Mr. Long) I think there are extremely potent reasons for believing that the white and the negro are two distinct species.” “In general (he goes on) the African negroes are void of genius, and seem almost incapable of making any progress in civility or science. They have no plan or system of morality among them. Their barbarity to their children debases their nature even below that of brutes. They have no moral sensations; no taste, but for women, gormandizing and drinking to excess; no wish but to be idle. Their children, from their tenderest years, are suffered to deliver themselves up to all that nature suggests to them. Their houses are miserable cabins. They conceive no pleasure from the most beautiful parts of their country, preferring the most sterile. Their roads, as they call them, are mere sheep paths, twice as long as they need be, and almost impassable. Their country in most parts is one continued wilderness, beset with briars and thorns.

“They use neither carriages nor beasts of burthen. They are represented _by all authors_ as the vilest of the human kind, to which they have little more pretension of resemblance than what arises from their exterior form.

“In so vast a continent as that of Africa, and in so great a variety of climates and provinces, we might expect to find a proportionable diversity among the inhabitants, in regard to their qualifications of body and mind; strength, agility, industry, and dexterity, on the one hand; ingenuity, learning, arts and sciences, on the other. But on the contrary, a general uniformity runs through all these various regions of people; so that if any difference be found, it is only in degrees of the same qualities; and, what is more strange, those of the worst kind; it being a common known proverb, that all people on the globe have some good as well as ill qualities, except the Africans. Whatever great personages this country might anciently have produced, and concerning whom we have no information, they are now everywhere degenerated into a brutish, ignorant, idle, crafty, bloody, thievish, mistrustful, and superstitious people, even in those states where we might expect to find them more polished, humane, docile, and industrious.”—“This brutality somewhat diminishes when they are imported young, after they become habituated to clothing, and a regular discipline of life; but many are never reclaimed, and remain savages, in every sense of the word, to their latest period. We find them marked with the same bestial manners, stupidity, and vices, which debase their brethren on the continent, who seem to be distinguished from the rest of mankind, not in person only, but in possessing in the abstract every species of inherent turpitude that is to be found dispersed at large among the rest of the human creation, with scarce a single feature to extenuate this shade of character, differing in this particular from all other men; for in other countries, the most abandoned villain we ever heard of has rarely, if ever, been known unportioned with some one good quality at least in his composition.”—“Among so great a number of provinces on this extensive continent, and among so many millions of people, we have heard but of one or two insignificant tribes, who comprehended any thing of mechanic arts, or manufacture; and even these, for the most part, are said to perform their work in a very bungling and slovenly manner, perhaps not much better than an oran-outang might with a little pains be brought to do.”

“Ludicrous as the opinion may seem, I do not think that an oran-outang husband would be any dishonour to a Hottentot female.”

“Maize, palm-oil, and a little stinking fish, make up the general bill of fare of the prince and the slave.”

“They esteem the ape species as scarcely their inferiors in humanity.”

“Their hospitality is the result of self-love; they entertain strangers only in hopes of extracting some service or profit from them.”

“Their corporeal sensations are generally of the grossest frame,” &c. &c. &c.

Such is Mr. Long’s portrait of the negro character; such was the state of contempt into which the whole race had fallen, in the estimation of those who had known them chiefly in that condition of wretchedness and degradation into which a long continued course of slavery had depressed them. Can any thing shew more clearly, with what strong prejudices against the negro race, the minds not only of low uneducated men, but of a West Indian, whose authority is great, and whose name stands high among his countrymen, were some years ago at least infected: consequently they prove with what spirit and temper, even well-informed men, among the colonists, entered on the consideration of the various questions involved in the large and complicated discussion concerning the abolition of the Slave Trade.

[Sidenote: The question of highly important practical tendencies.]

But the subject is of the very first importance in another view; for it is a truth so clear, that it would be a mere waste of time to prove it in detail—that our estimate of the intellectual and moral qualities, of the natural and acquired tempers and feelings, and habits, of any class of our fellow creatures, will determine our judgment as to what is necessary to their happiness, and still more as to the treatment they may reasonably claim at our hands. Now it be remembered, the author, whose account of the Africans has been just laid before you, was the very best informed of those on whose views and feelings, respecting the Negroes, our opponents would have had us entirely rely. Must not the representations of such witnesses against the Negroes be received with large abatement, and ought we not to lend ourselves to their suggestions with considerable diffidence? What judgment would they be likely to form of the consideration to which, whether in Africa, on shipboard, or in the West Indies, the negro Slaves were entitled? By how scanty a measure would their comforts be dispensed to them! And when, in answer to our inquiries, we were assured that in these several situations, their treatment was _sufficiently_ mild and humane, and that _due_ attention was paid to their wants and feelings, might we not reasonably receive these assurances with some reserve, on calling to mind that they proceeded from persons whose estimate of _sufficiency_ was drawn from their calculations of what was _due_ to the wants and feelings, the pleasures, and pains of a being little above the brute creation; not, of a Being of talents and passions, of anticipations and recollections, of social and domestic feelings similar to our own?

[Sidenote: Slave Traders account of the Negro character.]

The account given by the witnesses produced by the Slave Traders, of the natural and moral qualities of the Negroes, was of the same unfavourable kind, though considerably less strong in its colouring. I should detain you too long by stating it in detail. It may suffice to mention, in general, that the Africans were represented, in respect to civilization and knowledge, as but very little advanced beyond the rudest state of savage life. The population was said to be thin, their agriculture in the lowest state, their only manufacture a species of coarse mat or cloth. They very rarely used any beasts for draught or burthen, they had no public roads; no knowledge of letters, or apparent sense of their value. But the account of their personal qualities was still more melancholy; because it was such as to leave but slender hopes of their ever emerging out of this dark and barbarous state. The most respectable witnesses produced by the Slave Traders, some of whom had resided among the Africans many years, and on various parts of the coast, declared, that their stupidity, and still more their indolence, were so firmly rooted in their nature, as to be absolutely invincible; and, what may perhaps be justly regarded as indicative of the worst natural disposition, that they were deficient in domestic and parental affection.

[Sidenote: Mr. Bryan Edwards’s account.]

Even Mr. Bryan Edwards, though in common more liberal than other defenders of the Slave Trade, gives in his History of the West Indies a highly unfavourable account of the African character. It ought, however, in all fairness, to be urged in his defence, that his judgment of the Negroes was formed under circumstances highly disadvantageous to them; being grounded on what he had known and heard of them in our West India colonies, where their natural character must necessarily have derived a deep taint from the depraving effects of a long continued state of slavery. To this cause, indeed, he himself very frankly ascribes most of the bad qualities which he enumerates. After exhibiting the different shades of character of the Slaves brought from different parts of Africa, he goes on to state, what may be deemed the general properties of the Negro race, and these are of the most debasing and depraving kind. They are in general distrustful and cowardly; falsehood is one of the most prominent features in their character; they are prone to theft; sullen, selfish, unrelenting; and while the softer virtues are seldom found among them, they are so sunk in dissoluteness and licentiousness, that the attempt to introduce the ceremony of marriage among them, would be impracticable to any good purpose. One of the few pleasing traits in their character is their high veneration for old age.

[Sidenote: Parke’s character of the Negroes.]

After this melancholy picture, it is a relief to the humane mind, to peruse the accounts of the intellectual and moral dispositions and character of the Negroes, which have been given by persons who have had far superior means of information. The chief of them, Mr. Parke, and Mr. Golberry, were also, from their connections, unfriendly to the abolition, and cannot therefore be supposed to be tinctured with any of the prejudices which may be presumed to bias the minds of the avowed advocates of the negro race. It would be a grateful task to lay before you such copious extracts, as would give you a full and minute enumeration of the particulars of the negro character; but my extracts, to do justice to the subject, would almost fill a volume. I must therefore refer you to my appendix for a brief specimen of them, and content myself here with exhibiting the mere outlines of the very different portrait which has been taken of the Negroes, after a more familiar and extended survey of their tempers and conduct.

Mr. Parke represents the Africans of the interior as naturally superior, both in their intellectual and moral endowments, to almost any other uncivilized nation. He speaks in high terms of their powers of ingenuity and invention, of their quickness and cheerfulness; of the value which they set on the learning within their reach, and the price at which they are willing to acquire it for themselves, or their children; of the skill which they display in several arts and manufactures. But the natural character of the Africans rises in our estimation, when, from considering their intellectual, we take a fair survey of their moral qualities; of the reverence for truth in which the children are educated by their mothers, among the Mandingoes, who, let it be observed, constitute the bulk of the inhabitants in all the vast districts of Africa visited by Mr. Parke; of their almost universal benevolence, gentleness, and hospitality; of their courage, and, when they have any adequate motive to prompt them to work, of their industry and perseverance; of their parental and filial tenderness, of their social and domestic affection, of the conjugal fidelity of the women, combined with great cheerfulness and frankness; of the extraordinary attachment of the Negroes to their country and home; in some cases, of their magnanimity, of which two instances are given, scarcely inferior to any thing which is recorded in Greek or Roman story.

[Sidenote: Golberry’s character of the Negroes.]

Mr. Golberry’s account of the negro character is at least equally favourable. “The Foulahs, he says, are intelligent and industrious, fine, strong, brave men; but, from their habitual commerce with the Moors, they are become savage and cruel. The Mandingoes are well informed, graceful, and active, and, in their mercantile character, clever and indefatigable. The Jaloffs are honest, hospitable, generous, and faithful; their character mild, and inclined to good order and civilization.” Besides this account of particular nations, he observes of the Negroes in general, that they have both taste, ingenuity, and cleverness, and may be reckoned among the most favoured people of nature. They are, perhaps, the most prolific of all the human species, which is probably owing to the moderation they in general observe, in their habits, regimen, and pleasures. He bears, if possible, a still stronger testimony to the benevolence, hospitality, frankness, and generosity of the negro character. The mothers, says he, are passionately fond of their children, and these discover in return great filial tenderness. The women are always kind and attentive.

[Sidenote: Mr. Winterbottom’s.]

Concerning Mr. Winterbottom’s account, I will here only state, that it corresponds, in the great essentials of character, with the representations already given, though it be perhaps scarcely so favourable to the negro character.

[Sidenote: The Hottentots vindicated.]