To put down the foreign slave-trade, without first devising honest
occupation for a dense, idle, and mischievous population of Africa,
would seal the death-warrant of every captive who, under the present
system, is preserved as saleable booty. Hence it must be admitted, that
to inculcate industry and to extend cultivation by voluntary labour, are
indispensable stepping-stones towards the ultimate amelioration of a
people who do not at present possess the elements for extended commerce.
To create these would be to change the destinies of the Negro, by
including him within the league of the rights of man; and habits of
industry must rapidly raise him from savage ignorance to that state of
improvement which is essential to fit him for the privileges of a
freeman.
The present very limited exports of this immensely populous continent,
which do not amount in value to those of Cuba, with only twelve hundred
thousand inhabitants, must be reckoned among the chief causes of her
misery and thraldom. Few, if any, of the commodities bartered with
other nations are the production of capital, labour, or industry, and in
the minds of the whole population the ideas of prosperity and of a
slave-trade are inseparable. But if all that is coveted could be placed
within honest reach, in exchange for the produce of the soil, the hands
which should cultivate it will never afterwards be sold.
"Legitimate commerce," writes Sir Fowell Buxton, "would put down the
slave-trade, by demonstrating the superior value of man as a labourer on
the soil, to man as an object of merchandise. If conducted on wise and
equitable principles, it might be the precursor, or rather the
attendant, of civilisation, peace, and Christianity to the
unenlightened, warlike, and heathen tribes, who now so fearfully prey
upon each other to support the slave-markets of the New World; and a
commercial system upon just, liberal, and comprehensive principles,
which guarded the native on the one hand, and secured protection to the
honest trader on the other, would therefore confer the richest blessings
on a country so long desolated and degraded by its intercourse with the
basest and most iniquitous portion of mankind."
The average cost of a seasoned slave in Cuba is 120 pounds sterling; but
it has been seen that in Enarea and other parts of the interior he may
be purchased for ten pieces of salt, equivalent to two shillings and a
penny--for a pair of Birmingham scissors, or even for a few ells of blue
calico. Hence it may be inferred that the hire of the freeman would be
in the same ratio; and if so, it is obvious that this cheap labour,
applied to a soil as productive as any in the world, would ensure to
African tropical produce the superiority in every market to which it
might be introduced.
Able advocates of the cause of humanity have upon these grounds clearly
demonstrated, that, in order to suppress completely the foreign traffic
in human flesh, it is only necessary to raise, in any accessible point
affording the readiest outlet, sugar, coffee, and cotton, and to throw
these yearly into the market of the world, already fully supplied by
expensive slave labour. The creation of this cheap additional produce
would so depress the price current in every other quarter, that the
external slave-trade would no longer be profitable, and would therefore
cease to exist.
The baneful climate of Africa is the obstacle which has hitherto opposed
the introduction of agriculture, and the chief object in seeking
geographical information has been to discover some point whence the
object may be accomplished with safety. That point is presented in the
north-eastern coast, where, from no great distance inland to an unknown
extent, the spontaneous gifts of nature are transcendently abundant--the
people are prepared by misfortune to welcome civilised assistance--the
soil is fertile and productive, and the climate, alpine and salubrious,
is highly congenial to the European constitution.
All these countries are believed to be accessible from the Juba, more
commonly called the Govind, which is said to rise in Abyssinia, and to
be navigable in boats for three months from its mouth. Its _embouchure_
is in the territories of the friendly sheikhs of Brava, seven in number,
the hereditary representatives of seven Arab brothers, who were first
induced to settle on that part of the coast by the lucrative trade in
grain, gold, ambergris, ivory, rhinoceros' horns, and hippopotamus'
teeth. They were formerly under the protection of Portugal; but even
the remembrance of that state of things has nearly passed away from the
present generation. From Mombas, which is the most northern possession
of Syyud Syyud, the Imam of Muscat, the coast as far as the equator is
in occupation of the Sowahili, a quiet and intelligent race of Moorish
origin, and thence to Zeyla, which is now in the hands of Sheikh Ali
Shermarki, the entire population is Somauli. The climate, even so far
south as Mombas, is notoriously good; and the government affords a
striking contrast to that of the western coast, where the regions in
corresponding latitudes are subject to bloody despotism, such as is
submitted to by none but the ignorant savage.
Measures at once simple and profitable, might therefore be adopted by
the purchase or rent of land on this river, which is conjectured to be
the Gochob, and would seem to promise easy access to the very hotbed of
slavery. It has been well remarked by McQueen, in his Geographical
Survey, that "rivers are the roads in the torrid zone;" and should the
stream now under consideration fortunately prove fitted for navigation,
the introduction through its means of the essential requisites to the
happiness and the emancipation of the now oppressed continent, could not
fail to confer the most inestimable advantages.
The power of Abyssinia, once so extended in this quarter, was known even
to the Delta of the Niger. It was from the sovereigns of Benin that the
Portuguese first heard of the glories of "Prester John;" and as it is
quite certain that a communication did formerly exist, "by a journey of
twenty moons," through the countries in the upper course of the Egyptian
Nile, there seems no reason to doubt that it might be readily renewed.
Of the salubrity of the regions in which all these streams take their
source, no question can be entertained. Ptolemy Euergetes, when
sovereign of Egypt, penetrated to the most southern provinces of
Ethiopia, which he conquered, and he has described his passage to have
been effected, in some parts, over mountains deeply covered with snow.
Those portions of the continent which are blessed with the finest
climate, and with the largest share of natural gifts, and which teem
with a population long ravaged by the inroads of the kidnapper, must be
of all others the most eminently fitted to receive, and the most capable
of bringing to maturity, the seeds which can alone form the elements of
future prosperity. And what nation is better qualified to confer such
inestimable gifts, or more likely to profit by them, when judiciously
bestowed, than Great Britain? The most civilised nations are those
which possess the deepest interest in the spread of civilisation, and
none more than herself are deeply interested in the speedy suppression
of the traffic in human beings.
No beneficial change can ever be anticipated, so long as the population
of the interior remain cut off from all communication with enlightened
nations--so long as they are visited only by the mercenary rover, and
are hemmed in by fanatic powers, whose policy it is to encourage this
monstrous practice. The Mohammadans are not only traders for the sake
of slaves almost exclusively, but they are, as respects the greater
portion of interior Africa, jealous, reckless, commercial rivals. It is
not, therefore, surprising that they should exert all the influence
which they possess from the combination of avarice, ignorance,
prejudice, and religion, to exclude foreign influence; and without
roads, or any efficient means for the conveyance of heavy merchandise,
it is not to be expected that the ignorant despot of the interior will
ever think of making his slaves or his subjects cultivate produce of
great bulk and laborious carriage, in order to procure in exchange
articles which he requires, whilst with very trifling labour and still
more trifling expense, they can be driven even to the most remote
market, and there sold or exchanged.
But few people are more desirous or more capable of trading than the
natives of Africa; and the facility with which factories might be formed
is sufficiently proved by experience in various parts of the continent.
Abundance of land now unoccupied could be purchased or rented at a mere
nominal rate, in positions where the permanent residence of the white
man would be hailed with universal joy, as contributing to the repose of
tribes long harassed and persecuted. The serf would seek honest
employment in the field, and the chiefs of slave-dealing states, gladly
entering into any arrangement for the introduction of wealth and finery,
would, after the establishment of agriculture, no longer find their
interest in the flood of human victims, which is now annually poured
through the highlands of Abyssinia.
I trust that these remarks upon the importance of such a communication
as the Gochob may prove to afford to the countries in which it is
situated, will not be considered either tedious or superfluous. Much
has been written upon the policy which has seen, in many a barbarous
location, the future marts of a boundless and lucrative commerce--the
centres whence its attendant blessings, knowledge, civilisation, and
wealth, would radiate amongst savage hordes. Here are no deserts, but
nations already prepared for improvement, and countries gifted by nature
with a congenial climate, and with a boundless extent of virgin soil,
where the indigo and the tea-plant flourish spontaneously, and where the
growth of the sugarcane and of every other tropical productions may be
carried to an unlimited extent--regions affording grain in vast
superabundance, and rich in valuable staples--cotton, coffee, spices,
ivory, gold dust, peltries, and drugs. But although thus surrounded by
natural wealth, and placed within reach of affluence and happiness, the
denizens of these favoured regions imperatively require the fostering
care of British protection, to become either prosperous, contented, or
free.
Volume 3, Chapter XL.