[1] Leo Africanus says, Book vii., "The King of Borno sent for the
merchants of Barbary, and willed them to bring the great store of
horses; for in this country they used to exchange horses for slaves,
and to give fifteen and sometimes twenty slaves for one horse; and by
this means there were abundance of horses brought; howbeit, the
merchants were constrained to stay for their slaves till the king
returned home with a great number of captives and satisfied his
creditors for their horses." "The king maketh invasions but every year
once, and that at one set and appointed time of the year."--_Geogr.
Hist. of Africa, trans. by Pory, pp. 293, 294, Lon., 1600._
[2] "From Abyssinia, the caravans carry yearly to Cairo nearly two
thousand Negroes, those poor creatures having unfortunately been
captured in war. Most of the chiefs and sovereigns in the interior of
Africa sell or put to death all their prisoners."--_Narrative of a Ten
Years' Residence at Tripoli, p. 185, London, 1816._
[3] Hegel, the distinguished German philosopher, in his Philosophy of
History, says, pp. 102, 103:
An English traveler states that when a war is determined on in
Ashantee, solemn ceremonies precede it. Among other things, the bones
of the king's mother are laved with human blood. As a prelude to the
war, the king ordains an onslaught upon his own metropolis, as if to
excite the due degree of frenzy.
In Dahomey, when the king dies, the bonds of society are loosed; in
his palace begins indiscriminate havoc and disorganization. All the
wives of the king (in Dahomey their number is exactly 3,333) are
massacred, and through the whole town plunder and carnage run riot.
The wives of the king regard their deaths as a necessity; they go
richly attired to meet it. The authorities have to hasten to proclaim
the new governor, simply to put a stop to massacre.
The only essential connection that has existed and continued between
the Negroes and Europeans is that of slavery. In this the Negroes see
nothing unbecoming them; and the English, who have done most for
abolishing the slave trade and slavery, are treated by the Negroes
themselves as enemies. For it is a point of first importance with the
kings to sell their captured enemies, or even their own subjects; and
viewed in the light of such facts, we may conclude _slavery_ to have
been the occasion of the increase of human feeling among Negroes.
Tyranny is regarded as no wrong, and _cannibalism is looked upon as
quite customary and proper_. Among us, instinct deters from it, if we
can speak of instinct at all as appertaining to man. But with the
Negro this is not the case, and the _devouring of human flesh is
altogether consistent with the general principles of the African
race_; to the sensual Negro, human flesh is but an object of
sense,--mere flesh. At the death of a king, hundreds are killed and
eaten; prisoners are butchered, and _their flesh is sold in the
markets_. The victor is accustomed to eat the heart of his slain foe.
When magical rites are performed, it frequently happens that the
sorcerer kills the first that comes in his way, _and divides his body
among the bystanders_.
[4] Says Herder,--But the peculiar formation of the members of the
human body says more than all these; and this appears to me applicable
in the African organization. According to various physiological
observations, the lips, breasts, and private parts, are proportionate
to each other; and as nature, agreeably to the simple principle of her
plastic art, must have conferred on these people, to whom she was
obliged to deny nobler gifts, an ampler measure of sensual enjoyment,
this could not but have appeared to the physiologist. _According to
the rules of physiognomy, thick lips are held to indicate a sensual
disposition_; as thin lips, displaying a slender, rosy line, are
deemed symptoms of chaste and delicate taste; not to mention other
circumstances. _What wonder, then, that in a nation for whom the
sensual appetite is the height of happiness, external marks of it
should appear?_ A Negro child is born white; the skin round the nails,
the nipples, and private parts, first become colored; and the same
consent of parts in the disposition to color is observable in other
nations. _A hundred children are a trifle to a Negro; and an old man
who had not above seventy, lamented his fate with tears._
With this oleaginous organization to sensual pleasure, the profile and
whole frame of the body must alter. _The projection of the mouth would
render the nose short and small, the forehead would incline backwards,
and the face would have at a distance the resemblance of that of an
ape._ Conformably to this would be the position of the neck, the
transition to the occiput, and the elastic structure of the whole
body, which is formed, even to the nose and skin, for sensual, animal
enjoyment.--_Herder's Philosophy of the History of Man, pp. 150, 151.
Translated by Churchill, London, 1800._
[5] Witness the following extract from the Report of the Committee of
the Maryland Legislature in 1860, recommending the discontinuance of
the annual appropriation of $5,000 to the Colonization Society for the
purpose of sending free Negroes back to Africa. It will be seen by
this extract, that the expense of transporting Negroes to Africa is
much greater than I have stated, owing, perhaps, to an extravagant use
or waste of the money by the Colonization Society; for if it costs
$500,000 to transport 300 Negroes, it would certainly cost
$6,668,000,000 to send away the 4,000,000 of Negroes in the United
States. Add to this the value of the Negroes, to be paid in
remuneration to the owners for their property, $2,000,000,000, and the
total cost of purchase and transportation, based upon the experience
and the statistics of the State of Maryland, would be $8,668,000,000!
or more than forty times the amount of all the gold and silver in the
United States! It will be seen that my own is a low estimate compared
with this, and either of those estimates shows the utter futility of
the advocacy of emancipation. That Report says:--
"The passage of the act of 1831, ch. 281, was framed with the design
of removing our free Negroes beyond the limits of this State. But
experience has shown that they will not willingly leave us. That act
has been in operation for twenty-seven years, at an expense to the
State of about $280,000, raised by taxation upon our citizen
population. It is safe to say that $75,000 more has been cleared by
the profits in trade to the coast of Africa in that time; and that
$145,000 has probably been bestowed by voluntary contribution for the
same object--making in all the sum of $500,000. And yet, with all this
vast outlay of money, not over _three hundred free Negroes_ have been
removed. Slaves to a larger number have been set free and sent to
Africa. During the last year not one single free Negro was sent to
Africa from this State. When this law went into effect, we had 52,000
free Negroes in the State; and after a trial of twenty-seven years, we
now have 90,000 or 100,000. The inefficiency of this enterprise being
so obvious to every one of the least reflection, your committee
propose the repeal of all laws taxing the people for colonization
purposes."
[6] Scroeder's Max. of Washington, p. 256.
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Notes:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other
inconsistencies.
The transcriber noted the following issues and made changes as
indicated to the text to correct obvious errors:
1. p. 14, "sieze" changed to "seize"
2. p. 30, "Iagas" changed to "Jagas"
3. p. 30, "Iaga" changed to "Jaga"
4. p. 31, "Macoco" partially illegible, changed to "Macaco"
5. p. 41, "retrogaded" changed to "retrograded"
6. p. 42, "psuedo-" changed to "pseudo-"
7. p. 51, "opprobium" changed to "opprobrium"
8. various, The source document for this ebook contains several
handwritten changes. They have not been incorporated
into this ebook, except as noted above.
9. various, text in bold is marked as *BOLD*.