I should do injustice to truth, if I did not suspend for one moment
the narrative of this Anti-Slavery movement, to exhibit the pointed
parallel then recognized between slavery in Algiers and slavery in our
own country. It belongs to this history. Conscience could not plead for
the emancipation of white fellow-citizens, without confessing in the
heart, perhaps to the world, that every consideration, every argument,
every appeal for the white man, told with equal force for the wretched
colored brother in bonds. Thus the interest awakened for the slave in
Algiers embraced also the slave at home. Sometimes they were said to be
alike in condition; sometimes, indeed, it was openly declared that the
horrors of our American slavery surpassed that of Algiers.
John Wesley, the oracle of Methodism, who had become familiar with
slavery in our Southern States, addressing those engaged in the
negro slave-trade, declared as early as 1774: "You have carried the
survivors into the vilest slavery, never to end but with life,--_such_
_slavery as is not found among the Turks at Algiers_."[107] Another
writer in 1794, when sympathy with the American captives was at its
height, presses the parallel in pungent terms. "For this practice of
buying and selling slaves," he says, "we are not entitled to charge
the Algerines with any exclusive degree of barbarity. The Christians
of Europe and America carry on this commerce one hundred times more
extensively than the Algerines. It has received a recent sanction from
the immaculate Divan of Britain. Nobody seems even to be surprised by
a diabolical kind of advertisements which for some months past have
frequently adorned the newspapers of Philadelphia. The French fugitives
from the West Indies have brought with them a crowd of slaves. These
most injured people sometimes run off, and their master advertises a
reward for apprehending them. At the same time we are commonly informed
that his sacred name is marked in capitals on their breasts,--or, in
plainer terms, it is stamped on that part of the body with a red-hot
iron. Before, therefore, we reprobate the ferocity of the Algerines, we
should inquire whether it is not possible to find in some other region
of this globe a systematic brutality still more disgraceful."[108]
[107] Thoughts upon Slavery (1774), p. 24.
[108] Short Account of Algiers (Philadelphia, 1794), p. 18.
Not long after the address to the clergy by the captives in Algiers,
a voice came from New Hampshire, in a tract entitled "Tyrannical
Libertymen, a Discourse upon Negro Slavery in the United States,
composed at---- in New Hampshire on the late Federal Thanksgiving
Day,"[109] which does not hesitate to brand American slavery in terms
of glowing reprobation. "There was a contribution upon this day," it
says, "for the purpose of redeeming those Americans who are in slavery
at Algiers,--an object worthy of a generous people. Their redemption,
we hope, is not far distant. But should any person contribute money
for this purpose which he had cudgelled out of a negro slave, he would
deserve less applause than an actor in the comedy of Las Casas....
When will Americans show that they are what they affect to be
thought,--friends to the cause of humanity at large, reverers of the
rights of their fellow-creatures? Hitherto we have been oppressors,
nay, murderers!--for many a negro has died by the whip of his master,
and many have lived when death would have been preferable. Surely the
curse of God and the reproach of man is against us. Worse than the
seven plagues of Egypt will befall us. If Algiers shall be punished
seven fold, truly America seventy and seven fold." These words might
not impertinently be uttered in our present debates.
[109] From the Eagle Office, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1795.
To this excitement we are indebted for the story of "The Algerine
Captive," which, though now forgotten, was among the earliest literary
productions of our country, reprinted in London at a time when few
American books were known abroad. Published anonymously, it is
recognized as from the pen of Royall Tyler, afterwards Chief Justice of
Vermont. In the form of a narrative of personal adventures, extending
through two volumes, a slave of Algiers depicts the horrors of his
condition. In this regard it is not unlike the recent story of "Archy
Moore," displaying the horrors of American slavery. The narrator,
while engaged as surgeon on board a ship in the African slave-trade,
has an opportunity which he does not neglect. After describing the
reception of the poor negroes, he says: "I cannot reflect on this
transaction yet, without shuddering. I have deplored my conduct with
tears of anguish; and I pray a merciful God, the Common Parent of the
great family of the universe, who hath made of one flesh and one blood
all nations of the earth, that the miseries, the insults, and cruel
woundings I afterwards received, when a slave myself, may expiate for
the inhumanity I was necessitated to exercise towards these my brethren
of the human race."[110] He further records his meditations and
resolves, while yet a captive of the Algerines. "Grant me," he says,
from the depths of his own misfortune, "once more to taste the freedom
of my native country, and every moment of my life shall be dedicated
to preaching against this detestable commerce. I will fly to our
fellow-citizens in the Southern States; I will, on my knees, conjure
them, in the name of humanity, to abolish a traffic which causes it
to bleed in every pore. If they are deaf to the pleadings of Nature,
I will conjure them, for the sake of consistency, to cease to deprive
their fellow-creatures of freedom, which their writers, their orators,
representatives, senators, and even their constitutions of government,
have declared to be the unalienable birthright of man."[111] This is
sound and significant.
[110] Chap. XXX. Vol. I. p. 193.
[111] Chap. XXXII. Vol. I. p. 213.
Not merely in the productions of literature and in fugitive essays was
such comparison presented; it was set forth on an important occasion in
the history of our country, by one of her most illustrious citizens.
The opportunity occurred in a complaint against England for carrying
away from New York certain negroes, in alleged violation of the treaty
of 1783. In an elaborate paper, John Jay, at that time Secretary for
Foreign Affairs under the Confederation, says: "Whether men can be so
degraded, as, under any circumstances, to be with propriety denominated
_goods and chattels_, and under that idea capable of becoming _booty_,
is a question on which opinions are unfortunately various, even in
countries professing Christianity and respect for the rights of
mankind." He then proceeds in words worthy of special remembrance at
this time: "If a war should take place between France and Algiers, and
in the course of it France should invite the American slaves there to
run away from their masters, and actually receive and protect them in
their camp, what would Congress, and indeed the world, think and say
of France, if, on making peace with Algiers, she should give up those
American slaves to their former Algerine masters? _Is there any other
difference between the two cases than this, namely, that the American
slaves at Algiers are WHITE people, whereas the African slaves
at New York were BLACK people?_" Introducing these sentiments,
the Secretary remarks: "He is aware he is about to say unpopular
things; but higher motives than personal considerations press him to
proceed."[112] Words worthy of John Jay!
[112] Secret Journals of Congrese, 1786, Vol. IV. pp. 274-279.
The same comparison was also instituted by the Abolition Society of
Pennsylvania, in an address to the Convention which framed the National
Constitution. "The sufferings of our American brethren groaning in
captivity at Algiers," it says, "Providence seems to have ordained to
awaken us to a sentiment of the injustice and cruelty of which we are
guilty towards the wretched Africans."[113] Shortly afterwards it
was again brought forward by Dr. Franklin, in an ingenious apologue,
with all his peculiar humor, simplicity, logic, and humanity. As
President of the same Abolition Society which had already addressed the
Convention, he signed a memorial to the earliest Congress under the
Constitution, praying it "to countenance the restoration of liberty
to those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are degraded
into perpetual bondage," and to "step to the _very verge_ of the power
vested in them for _discouraging_ every species of traffic in the
persons of our fellow-men."[114] In the congressional debates on the
presentation of this memorial,--memorable not only for its intrinsic
importance as a guide to the country, but as the final public act of
a chief among the founders of our national institutions,--several
attempts were made to justify slavery and the slave-trade. The last
and almost dying energies of Franklin were excited. In a remarkable
document, written only twenty-four days before his death, and published
in the journals of the time, he gave a parody of a speech actually
delivered in Congress,--transferring the scene to Algiers, and putting
the congressional eloquence in the mouth of a corsair slave-dealer,
inveighing before the Divan against a petition from the Purists or
Abolitionists of Algiers. All the arguments adduced in favor of negro
slavery are applied by the Algerine orator with equal force to justify
the plunder and enslavement of whites.[115] With this protest against a
great wrong, Franklin died.
[113] Brissot's Travels, Letter XXII. Vol. I. p. 253.
[114] Annals of Congress, 1st Cong. 2d Sess. Vol. II. col. 1198.
[115] Sparks's Franklin, Vol. II. p. 517.
Most certainly we are aided in appreciation of American slavery,
when we know that it was likened, by characters like Wesley, Jay, and
Franklin, to the abomination of slavery in Algiers. But whatever may
have been the influence of this parallel on the condition of the black
slaves, it did not check the rising sentiments of the people against
White Slavery.