1846.1 Slaves and Slavery by the horrible oppression of their for- That England," said he, "with colo- and Liverpool, for account of Brit- If any citizen of the United States shall "Seize any negro or mulatto, not held to service or labor by the laws of either of the states or territories of the United States, with intent to make such negro or mulatto a slave, or shall decoy, or forcibly bring or carry, or shall receive, such negro or mulatto on board any such ship or vessel, with intent as aforesaid, such citizen or citizens shall be adjudged a pirate; and on conviction thereof before the Circuit Court of the United States for the district wherein he may be brought or found, shall suffer death." The same penalty is applied to any citizen of the United States serving in a foreign vessel engaged in the slave trade, for account wholly or in part of citizens of the United States. These laws have been effectual in preventing the introduction of blacks into the United States, on any pretence. As the states had been the first to suppress the direct slave trade, so were they the first to declare all enslavement of Africans, piracy. They did not, however, make the seizure of slaves bound to rival countries the pretext for sending those captured blacks to work on their own plantations as apprentices." They, in truth, wished the blacks to remain in their native Africa. Accordingly, no sooner was the law of 1818 passed, than appropriations were made to locate agents on the coast of Africa for the reception of the captured blacks; and recently, in the case of the blacks of the Armistead, who revolted and ran away from their Spanish owners, the United States had them sent back to Africa. 66 This conduct contrasts strongly with that of the English government, which has in fact continued the slave trade down to the present moment, while it has filled the world with its outcries against the United States for not submitting to the right of search. The Spanish and Portuguese, and the Brazils, have made treaties with England from time to time, to abolish the slave trade, and England has assumed the police of the seas to suppress the traffic. Nevertheless, the Brazils and the Spanish colonies have been continued to be supplied with slaves, as have the English colonies, with those which the English cruizers by capture prevented from reaching Cuba or Rio Janeiro. On the coast of Africa the trade has continued to increase, for obvious reasons, viz. the long use of English goods, rum and fire arms, by the Afri cans, has enhanced the demand for those articles, and the only material for supplying the demand is negroes, because the Africans raise nothing to exchange. The numbers of blacks sent to the coast are thus continually auginenting. The effect of the English interference has only been to enhance the sufferings of the slaves, from the means taken to avoid detection by the traders. Money is not known on the coast of Africa, and the blacks are paid for with English cottons, hardware, powder, &c. manufactured in Manchester and known as "coast goods." A vessel from Liverpool arrives with such wares, and an agent makes a bargain for a certain number of blacks to arrive. The caravan makes its appearance from the interior, and the agent inspects the negroes, and chooses those whose health and strength induce him to believe they will outlive the passage, and become profitable to the merchant. Those whose weakly or sickly appearance induce him to believe they will not outlive the voyage, he rejects altogether; and these last are either put out of the way, or are left to perish on the coast by famine and distress. It has been calculated, that whatever may be the number of negroes embarked on the coast, an equal number perish previously at the seizure, on the march, or in the detention. They are now to be embarked, and in this the skill, promptness and good fortune of the dealers are necessary to success. The manner of fitting out vessels for the coast is very complicated. United States vessels of from 150 to 200 tons, from superiority of their build, are selected and chartered at so much per month, to take passengers to, say Cabinda. On the coast a person appears, and offers a sum of money for the vessel, which is accepted. Casks of water, which have been concealed in the sand, are immediately put on board, and covered with mats. The paint and name of the vessel is changed; the passengers that came in her take command as officers and crew; from 500 to 700 blacks are put on board and stowed on the casks; the vessel gets under sail and makes the best of her way to the coast of Brazil, where, if she arrives, her freight is landed. This is the dangerous part of the transaction, and from 1846.] Slaves and Slavery. the time of embarkation to the arrival at Brazil the blacks undergo the greatest sufferings. In the first place, whatever may be the size of the ship, the slave trader always takes on board one-fourth or one-third more negroes than the vessel is capable of holding. That is done, and always has been done, on true arithmetical calculations; it is done on the same calculations as those on which a person sending a pipe of Madeira to the East Indies and back, ships with it a quarter cask to make up the deficiency produced by leakage and evaporation. So with the slave trader; among those whom he selects there will be many whose constitutions show signs of disorders, which may break out and Many prove fatal during the voyage. sink under the inevitable illness produced by the change of climate, the change from exercise to confinement, or by the difference of temperature and other inconveniences which cannot be guarded against. He therefore takes supernumeraries to fill up the vacancies that occur by deaths on the pas If this cargo arrives at Rio, the profit on the whole transaction is immense. On the coast of Africa negroes are paid for in coarse cottons, at the rate of $18 for men and $12 for boys. The cost of 500, at an average of $15, is $7.500, and selling at $200 each in Brazil, amounts to $100,000. When once in Brazil, they are turned on to sugar and coffee plantations, and treated as the interests of the owners, who pay so high for them, dictate. When they leave the coast, however, they have to run the gauntlet of the cruisers of all nations, particularly the English, whose officers have their wits sharpened by the prize-money they obtain, per capita, of the captured slaves. These poor wretches on board the English men of war suffer horrors quite as great as those they endured on board the slavers. The Rev. P. S. Hill, chaplain of H. M. ship Cleopatra, has published an account of 400 taken by that vessel in 1843. She was fifty days getting to the Cape with the victims, and during that time 177 of them died from the treatment they received from their liberators, who enslaved them finally as laborers in the English colonies at the Cape. Until very recently, the rule was to carry the liberated slaves to the British colonies, and sell them into slavery for a term of years, to pay the expenses of their liberation. By this operation a double purpose was served. The English officers got their reward, and the English plantations a fresh supply of laborers. The whole operation to the poor black was only the difference of serving on an English plantation instead of a Brazilian one. No doubt the cause of humanity was essentially promoted by the change in the destination. Under such circumstances, it is not to be wondered at, that slavers going in should never be captured. In that case, the English goods which furnish the means of buying the blacks would be forfeited. The officer would get no prize-money, and the English plantations no appren tices. This system of "apprentices," or rather the name, appears to have been changed of late, and they are now called "immigrants." The plan appears to be to carry the captured blacks to the English settlements in Africa, and then the naked savage, trembling with the dread of going back to be devoured or left to perishi on the coast, is asked to emigrate to the English West Indies, where they are hired by planters as voluntary immigrants, on plans of the most improved philanthropy. The emigration of Indian Coolies to the West Indian islands, has also been encouraged by the English_government, under certain restraints. Emigration takes place from the English possessions only, and when arrived at their destination, they enter into terms with the planters. When entered upon an estate, they cannot again leave without a certificate from the employer, giving a strict account of their conduct while in his employ. This certificate may be withheld from the poor Indian or negro until it suits the caprice or convenience of the employer, depriving him in the meantime of all means of subsistence. This is but one instance of the justice of the Cooley system. Many such evidences can be produced, which stamps it as one of the blackest and worst species of slavery, fostered and encouraged by the philanthropy and love Great Britain bears to the human race. On the arrival of a cargo of Coolies at Trinidad, a few weeks since, scenes occurred of the most atro cious cruelty and inhumanity-husbands separated from their wives, parents from their children, brothers from their sisters, and all family ties ruptured and disregarded by the sympathisers of the black race. As another evidence, we give a few of the rules lately adopted by the Governor of Trinidad: "1. It is recommended that no manager should allow Coolies to go on leave, without furnishing them with a ticket sigued by himself, specifying the name, period of leave, and locality to be visited. "4.-Coolies, whose contract bas expired, and who refuse to renew with their late employers, are, notwithstanding, not to quit their estates until they he first furnished with discharged certificates, in which the due adjustment of their accounts is to be noted, together with any particularly had or good conduct, for which they may, during the year, have been remarkable." These are the free laborers of Great Britain. The idea of the voluntary emigration of blacks and Coolies to a country of which they never heard the existence, is sufficiently absurd in itself. So sensible is the English government of the equivocal position it occupies in relation to this palpable renewal of the slave trade, that on occasion of the debate on the sugar duties in July last. Sir Robert Peel remarked, that to grant to planters the right to engage the immigrants on the coast of Africa instead of at the islands after they arrive, would give rise to the suspicion of a revival of the slave trade. Here, it will be observed, all the distinction arises from the engaging the blacks after their arrival or before they embark. The result is the same as that for which the slave trade was first commenced, viz: to supply the English West Indies with compulsory laborers. Mr. Entwistle remarked in the House of Commons: "It appeared to have been admitted on all hands that there existed a strong and increasing necessity for immigration of labor into the West India colouies, and that without it they could not successfully culti vate their estates, or compete with the introduction of foreign sugars, either free grown or slave labor. It would then appear to be necessary that until such immigration of labor coud take place, there should be a greater amount of protection given to them than afterwards." In relation to this system, the following resolution was offered at the London Anti-Slavery Society: That this meeting, whilst objecting to the various clonial and governmental schemes already propounded for supplying the British colonies with laborers, admit the wisdom and necessity, so long as the present plan is permitted to exist, of cou fining immigration from Africa to the West India colonies strictly to the British settlements under the control of government. That this meeting, however, offer their decided protest against the regulation which authorizes the shipment of male laborers alone to these colonies, as manifestly injurious to the moral elevation and religious culture both of the emigrants themselves and the emancipated classes, among whom, for a time, they will be set tled." By this process England is continually transporting blacks froin Africa to the West Indies. In the interior of Africa, slaves continue to be taken and sold to the traders for Bri tish goods-the sellers not knowing or caring whether they go to English plantations as " emigrants," or Spanish ones as slaves. Those captured by English cruizers, work on English plantations; and those which escape, working on Brazilian plantations. The original captors of the blacks get their pay, and continue to send down slaves to the coast. Nor are the horrors of the trade in any degree diminished in English hands; the proof of this exists in the fact that at the time blacks were imported into the United States, the best authorities placed the whole number which crossed the Atlantic annually, at 80,000. Lord Palmerston recently stated the number now at 150.000 per the interior having increased like the annum. The export of the blacks from staple export of all other countries. One of the earliest and most sincere advocates of the abolition of the slave trade, Sir T. F. Buxton, convinced of the utter hollowness of the British system, retired from it in disgust; and in his history of the slave trade, shows conclusively the utter failure of the whole scheme. He demonstrates that all which England has done has tended to increase slavery. He therefore concludes, that the trade will never be destroyed by the means hitherto devised. The African, until civilized, will never cease to desire arms, ardent spirits, and other luxuries, nor to purchase them in exchange for men, which have ever been the great staple article of exportation from that continent. The true means of repression to be adopted, are to civilize, and Christianize, and colonize Africa, by which the native chiefs would cease to have an interest in dealing in human flesh. The English, and Great Britain are of opinion, that nothing but the grant, on the part of the United States, of the "right of search," is wanting to put an end to the traffic. Cuba is now, and has been for a long time, alive to the evils of the trade. She is suffering in regard to it the same oppression that the United States as colonies suffered from Great Britain, viz. the continuance of the trade in accordance with the policy of the government, in opposition to the wishes of the planters. It has been the custom in the English Parliament to praise the administration of Gen. Valdez, and condemn that of O'Donnel, because it suits party purposes at home. It is not, however, true, that the trade was less under the former than under the latter. Under both it was greater than the planters desired; and in 1844 a memorial went up to the government at Madrid from the planting interests of Cuba for the suppression of the trade. It is curious to compare some passages of that memorial with that of a memorial sent to the English government by the Assembly of Virginia, in 1772. Virginia memorial, 1772. "The importation of slaves into the colony from the coast of Africa, had long been consider ed as a trade of great in humanity, and under its prescut encouragement they had too much rea son to fear would endan Cuba memorial, 1844. "That the trade pre vents immigration of white persons into the island, notwithstanding the great encouragement given to such immigra tios. I would say then, in conclusion, that the con ger the very existence of stitutional government his Majesty's American of Spain, now re-estabdominions that it re- lished on a legal basis tarded their settlement by the Queen's attainwith more useful inhab- ment of her majority, is itants, and the Assembly called upon by the presumed to hope that strongest motives to prothe interests of a few vide for the security of would be disregarded this only remnant of when placed in compe our colonial empire;tition with the secu- that they ought not to rity and happiness of rest satisfied with sendsuch numbers of his ing out to Cuba-as if it were another Oran or Ceuta-a simple milita Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects; and be se ching the Crown to ry chieftain, ignorant and careless of his duty, who can only plunder remove all those restraints on the Governors We would suppose that the Cubans had copied the Virginia memorial. The opposition to the trade in the island is so general, that the continuance of the trade in her case depends upon the mother country in the same manner that that with the English colouies formerly did on the British Parliament. The Junta de Fomento, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Municipality of Havana, have all protested in the strongest terms against the continuance of the trade. The fact is self-evident that the trade there, as in North America, can only reach its termination by the emancipation from the mother country. In the English West Indies, as we have shown, the trade is virtually continued under Parliamentary regulations, from the "necessity of supplying the islands with laborers," and will so continue, as long as those islands are subjected to Imperial rule. It is a singular fact, that a very large annual importation is necessary, to keep up the laboring population of the British islands, because from extreme misery the blacks will not increase. Whether under the name of slaves, apprentices, or immigrants, starvation annually destroys numbers, who are reported dead of "epidemics." Notwithstanding the continual supplies, the number of blacks in the British W. Indies, stood 728,509 in 1823, 696,918 in 1829, and 673,953 were paid for in 1834. If we confrast this with the rapid increase of the numbers in the United States, the physical well-being of the latter demonstrates itself. If the blacks in Africa should increase in the proportion that the slaves of the United States evince, the export of 1,500,000 slaves per annum, Would scarcely create a diminution in their numbers. The increase of the free blacks in the United States, by no means equals that of the slaves. The population, distinguishing the slave from the free states, has been as follows: |