I am one of that unfortunate race of men, who are distinguished from the
rest of the human species, by a black skin and wooly hair--disadvantages
of very little moment in themselves, but which prove to us a source of
greatest misery, because there are men, who will not be persuaded that
it is possible for a human soul to be lodged within a sable body. The
West Indian planters could not, if they thought us men, so wantonly
spill our blood; nor could the natives of this land of liberty, deeming
us of the same species with themselves, submit to be instrumental in
enslaving us, or think us proper subjects of a sordid commerce. Yet,
strong as the prejudices against us are, it will not, I hope on this
side of the Atlantic, be considered as a crime, for a poor African not
to confess himself a being of an inferior order to those, who happen to
be of a different colour from himself; or be thought very presumptuous,
in one who is but a negro, to offer to the happy subjects of this free
government, some reflections upon the wretched condition of his
countrymen. They will not, I trust, think worse of my brethren, for
being discontented with so hard a lot as that of slavery; nor disown me
for their fellow-creature, merely because I deeply feel the unmerited
sufferings which my countrymen endure.
It is neither the vanity of being an author, nor a sudden and capricious
gust of humanity, which has prompted this present design. It has long been
conceived and long been the principal subject of my thoughts. Ever since an
indulgent master rewarded my youthful services with freedom and supplied me
at a very early age with the means of acquiring knowledge, I have laboured
to understand the true principles, on which the liberties of mankind are
founded, and to possess myself of the language of this country, in order to
plead the cause of those who were once my fellow slaves, and if possible to
make my freedom, in some degree, the instrument of their deliverance.
The first thing then, which seems necessary, in order to remove those
prejudices, which are so unjustly entertained against us, is to prove
that we are men--a truth which is difficult of proof, only because it is
difficult to imagine, by what argument it can be combatted. Can it be
contended that a difference of colour alone can constitute a difference of
species?--if not in what single circumstance are we different from the rest
of mankind? what variety is there in our organization? what inferiority
of art in the fashoning of our bodies? what imperfection in the faculties
of our minds?--Has not a negro eyes? has not a negro hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions?--fed with the same food; hurt
with the same weapons; subject to the same diseases; healed by the same
means; warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a white man? if
you prick us, do we not bleed? if you poison us, do we not die? are we not
exposed to all the same wants? do we not feel all the same sentiments--are
we not capable of all the same exertions--and are we not entitled to all
the same rights, as other men?
Yes--and it is said we are men, it is true; but that we are men, addicted
to more and worse vices, than those of any other complexion; and such is
the innate perverseness of our minds, that nature seems to have marked us
out for slavery.--Such is the apology perpetually made for our masters, and
the justification offered for that universal proscription, under which we
labour.
But, I supplicate our enemies to be, though for the first time, just in
their proceedings toward us, and to establish the fact before, they attempt
to draw any conclusions from it. Nor let them imagine that this can be
done, by merely asserting that such is our universal character. It is
the character, I grant, that our inhuman masters have agreed to give us,
and which they have so industriously and too successfully propagated, in
order to palliate their own guilt, by blackening the helpless victims of
it, and to disguise their own cruelty under the semblance of justice. Let
the natural depravity of our character be proved--not by appealing to
declamatory invectives, and interested representations, but by showing that
a greater proportion of crimes have been committed by the wronged slaves of
the plantation, than by the luxurous inhabitants of Europe, who are happily
strangers to those aggravated provocations, by which our passions are every
day irritated and incensed. Show us, that, of the multitude of negroes, who
have within a few years transported themselves to this country,[8] and who
are abandoned to themselves; who are corrupted by example, prompted by
penury, and instigated by the memory of their wrongs to the commission of
crime--shew us, I say (and the demonstration, if it be possible, cannot be
difficult) that a greater proportion of these, than of white men have
fallen under the animadversions of justice, and have been sacrificed to
your laws. Though avarice may slander and insult our misery, and though
poets heighten the horror of their fables, by representing us as monsters
of vice--the fact is, that, if treated like other men, and admitted to a
participation of their rights, we should differ from them in nothing,
perhaps, but in our possessing stronger passions, nicer sensibility, and
more enthusiastic virtue.
Before so harsh a decision was pronounced upon our nature, we might have
expected--if sad experience had not taught us, to expect nothing but
injustice from our adversaries--that some pains would have been taken,
to ascertain, what our nature is; and that we should have been considered,
as we are found in our native woods, and not as we now are--altered and
perverted by an inhuman political institution. But, instead of this, we
are examined, not by philosophers, but by interested traders: not as
nature formed us, but as man has depraved us--and from such an inquiry,
prosecuted under such circumstances, the perverseness of our dispositions
is said to be established. Cruel that you are! you make us slaves; you
implant in our minds all the vices, which are in some degree, inseparable
from that condition; and you then impiously impute to nature, and to God,
the origin of those vices, to which you alone have given birth; and punish
in us the crimes, of which you are yourselves the authors.
The condition of the slave is in nothing more deplorable, than in its being
so unfavorable to the practice of every virtue. The surest foundation of
virtue is love of our fellow creatures; and that affection takes its birth,
in the social relations of men to one another. But to a slave these are
all denied. He never pays or receives the grateful duties of a son--he
never knows or experiences the fond solicitude of a father--the tender
names of husband, of brother, and of friend, are to him unknown. He has no
country to defend and bleed for--he can relieve no sufferings--for he looks
around in vain, to find a being more wretched than himself. He can indulge
no generous sentiment--for he sees himself every hour treated with contempt
and ridiculed, and distinguished from irrational brutes, by nothing but
the severity of punishment. Would it be surprising, if a slave, labouring
under all these disadvantages--oppressed, insulted, scorned, trampled
on--should come at last to despise himself--to believe the calumnies of his
oppressors--and to persuade himself, that it would be against his nature,
to cherish any honourable sentiment or to attempt any virtuous action?
Before you boast of your superiority over us, place some of your own colour
(if you have the heart to do it) in the same situation with us; and see,
whether they have such innate virtue, and such unconquerable vigour of
mind, as to be capable of surmounting such multiplied difficulties, and of
keeping their minds free from the infection of every vice, even under the
oppressive yoke of such a servitude.
But, not satisfied with denying us that indulgence, to which the misery of
our condition gives us so just a claim, our enemies have laid down other
and stricter rules of morality, to judge our actions by, than those by
which the conduct of all other men is tried. Habits, which in all human
beings, except ourselves, are thought innocent, are, in us, deemed criminal
and actions, which are even laudable in white men, become enormous crimes
in negroes. In proportion to our weakness, the strictness of censure is
increased upon us; and as resources are withheld from us, our duties are
multiplied. The terror of punishment is perpetually before our eyes; but we
know not, how to avert it, what rules to act by, or what guides to follow.
We have written laws, indeed, composed in a language we do not understand
and never promulgated: but what avail written laws, when the supreme law,
with us, is the capricious will of our overseers? To obey the dictates of
our own hearts, and to yield to the strong propensities of nature, is often
to incur severe punishment; and by emulating examples which we find
applauded and revered among Europeans, we risk inflaming the wildest wrath
of our inhuman tyrants.
To judge of the truth of these assertions, consult even those milder and
subordinate rules for our conduct, the various codes of your West India
laws--those laws which allow us to be men, whenever they consider us as
victims of their vengeance, but treat us only like a species of living
property, as often as we are to be the objects of their protection--those
laws by which (it may be truly said) that we are bound to suffer, and be
miserable under pain of death. To resent an injury, received from a white
man, though of the lowest rank, and to dare to strike him, though upon the
strongest and grossest provocation, is an enormous crime. To attempt to
escape from the cruelties exercised upon us, by flight, is punished with
mutilation, and sometimes with death. To take arms against masters, whose
cruelties no submission can mitigate, no patience exhaust, and from whom no
other means of deliverance are left, is the most atrocious of all crimes;
and is punished by a gradual death, lengthened out by torments, so
exquisite, that none, but those who have been long familiarized, with West
Indian barbarity, can hear the bare recital of them without horror. And yet
I learn from writers, whom the Europeans hold in the highest esteem, that
treason is a crime, which cannot be committed by a slave against his
master; that a slave stands in no civil relation towards his master, and
owes him no allegiance; that master and slave are in a state of war; and if
the slave take up arms for his deliverance, he acts not only justifiably,
but in obedience to a natural duty, the duty of self-preservation. I read
in authors whom I find venerated by our oppressors, that to deliver one's
self and one's countrymen from tyranny, is an act of the sublimest heroism.
I hear Europeans exalted, as the martyrs of public liberty, the saviours of
their country, and the deliverers of mankind--I see other memories honoured
with statues, and their names immortalized in poetry--and yet when a
generous negro is animated by the same passion which ennobled them,--when
he feels the wrongs of his countrymen as deeply, and attempts to avenge
them as boldly--I see him treated by those same Europeans as the most
execrable of mankind, and led out, amidst curses and insults to undergo a
painful, gradual and ignominious death: And thus the same Briton, who
applauds his own ancestors for attempting to throw off the easy yoke,
imposed on them by the Romans, punishes us, as detested parricides, for
seeking to get free from the cruelest of all tyrannies, and yielding to the
irresistible eloquence of an African Galgacus or Boadicea.
Are then the reason and morality, for which Europeans so highly value
themselves, of a nature so variable and fluctuating, as to change with the
complexion of those, to whom they are applied?--Do rights of nature cease
to be such, when a negro is to enjoy them?--Or does patriotism in the heart
of an African, rankle into treason?
A Free Negro
--_American Museum_, V, 77 et seq., 1789.
REMARKABLE SPEECH OF ADAHOONZOU, KING OF DAHOMEY, AN INTERIOR NATION OF
AFRICA, ON HEARING WHAT WAS PASSING IN ENGLAND RESPECTING THE SLAVE TRADE
I admire the reasoning of the white men; but with all their sense, it does
not appear that they have thoroughly studied the nature of the blacks,
whose disposition differs as much from that of the whites, as their colour.
The same great Being formed both; and since it hath seemed convenient for
him to distinguish mankind by opposite complexions, it is a fair conclusion
to presume that there may be as a great a disagreement in the qualitie
of their minds; there is likewise a remarkable difference between the
countries which we inhabit. You, Englishmen, for instance, as I have been
informed, are surrounded by the ocean, and by this situation seem intended
to hold communication with the whole world, which you do, by means of your
ships; whilst we Dahomans, being placed on a large continent, and hemmed in
amidst a variety of other people, of the same complexion, but speaking
different languages, are obliged by the sharpness of our swords, to defend
ourselves from their incursions, and punish the depredations they make on
us. Such conduct in them is productive of incessant wars. Your countrymen,
therefore, who alledge that we go to war for the purpose of supplying your
ships with slaves, are grossly mistaken.
You think you can work a reformation as you call it, in the manners of
the blacks; but you ought to consider the disproportion between the
magnitude of the two countries; and then you will soon be convinced of
the difficulties that must be surmounted, to change the system of such a
vast country as this. We know you are a brave people, and that you might
bring over a great many of the blacks to your opinions, by points of your
bayonets; but to effect this, a great many must be put to death and
numerous cruelties must be committed, which we do not find to have been
the practice of the whites; besides, that this would militate against the
very principle which is professed by those who wish to bring about a
reformation.
In the name of my ancestors and myself, I aver, that no Dahoman ever
embarked in war merely for the sake of procuring wherewithal to purchase
your commodities. I, who have not been long master of this country, have
without thinking of the market, killed many thousands, and I shall kill
many thousands more. When policy or justice requires that men be put to
death, neither silk, nor coral, nor brandy, nor cowries, can be accepted
as substitutes for the blood that ought to be spilt for example sake:
besides if white men chuse to remain at home, and no longer visit this
country for the same purpose that has usually brought them thither, will
black men cease to make war? I answer, by no means, and if there be no
ships to receive their captives, what will become of them? I answer, for
you, they will be put to death. Perhaps you may be asked, how will the
blacks be punished with guns and powder? I reply by another question, had
we not clubs, and bows, and arrows before we knew white men? Did not you
see me make _custom_--annual ceremony--for Weebaigah, the third king of
Dahomey? And did you not observe on the day such ceremony was performing,
that I carried a bow in my hand, and a quiver filled with arrows on my
back? These were the emblems of the times; when, with such weapons, that
brave ancestor fought and conquered all his neighbors. God made war for
all the world; and every kingdom, large or small, has practiced it, more
or less, though perhaps in a manner unlike, and upon different principles.
Did Weebaigah sell slaves? No; his prisoners were all killed to a man.
What else could he have done with them? Was he to let them remain in this
country to cut the throats of his subjects? This would have been wretched
policy indeed; which, had it been adopted, the Dahoman name would have
long ago been extinguished, instead of becoming as it is at this day, the
terror of surrounding nations. What hurts me most is, that some of your
people have maliciously misrepresented us in books, which never die;
alledging that we sell our wives and children for the sake of procuring a
few kegs of brandy. No! We are shamefully belied, and I hope you will
contradict, from my mouth, the scandalous stories that have been
propagated; and tell posterity that we have been abused. We do, indeed,
sell to the white men a part of our prisoners, and we have a right to do
so. Are not all prisoners at the disposal of their captors? and are we to
blame, if we send delinquents to a far country? I have been told you do
the same. If you want no more slaves from us, why cannot you be ingenious
and tell the plain truth; saying that the slaves you have already
purchased are sufficient for the country for which you bought them; or
that the artists who used to make fine things, are all dead, without
having taught anybody to make more? But for a parcel of men, with long
heads, to sit down in England, and frame laws for us, and pretend to
dictate how we are to live, of whom they know nothing, never having been
in a black man's country during the whole course of their lives, is to me
somewhat extraordinary! No doubt they must have been biased by the report
of some one, who had had to do with us; who, for want of a due knowledge
of the treatment of slaves, found that they died on his hands, and that
his money was lost; and seeing that others thrived by the traffic, he
envious of their good luck, has vilified both black and white traders.
You have seen me kill many men at the customs; and you have often observed
delinquents at Grigwhee, and others of my provinces tied, and sent up to
me. I kill them, but do I ever insist on being paid for them? Some heads I
order to be placed at my door, others to be strewed about the market place,
that the people may stumble upon them, when they little expect such a
sight. This gives a grandeur to my customs, far beyond the display of fine
things which I buy; this makes my enemies fear me, and gives me such a name
in the Bush.[9] Besides, if I neglect this indispensable duty, would my
ancestors suffer me to live? would they not trouble me day and night, and
say, that I sent no body to serve them? that I was only solicitous about my
own name, and forgetful of my ancestors? White men are not acquainted with
these circumstances; but I now tell you that you may hear and know, and
inform your countrymen, why customs are made, and will be made, as long as
black men continue to possess their country; the few that can be spared
from this necessary celebration, we sell to the white men; and happy, no
doubt, are such, when they find themselves on the Grigwhee, to be disposed
of to the Europeans. "We shall still drink water," say they to themselves;
"white men will not kill us; and we may even avoid punishment, by serving
our new masters with fidelity."
--_The New York Weekly Magazine_, II, 430, 1792.