High character of Governor Roberts--Suspected Slaver--Dinner on
shore--Facts and remarks relative to the slave trade--British
philanthropy--Original cost of a slave--Anchor at Sinoe--Peculiarities and
distinctive characteristics of the Fishmen and Bushmen--The King of
Appollonia--Religion and morality among the natives--Influence of the
women.
_November_ 3.--Ashore, botanizing. In this region, where all the plants
are strange, and many of them beautiful, it is easy work to form a
collection. With a Kroo-boy to carry my book, I cut leaves and flowers as
they came to hand.
4.--Governor Roberts, General Lewis, and Doctor Day, dined with us in the
ward-room. The Governor is certainly no ordinary person. In every
situation, as judge, ruler, and private gentleman, he sustains himself
creditably, and is always unexceptionable. His deportment is dignified,
quiet, and sensible. He has been tried in war as well as in peace, has
seen a good share of fighting, and has invariably been cool, brave, and
successful. He is a native of Virginia, and came from thence in 1828. The
friends of Colonization can hardly adduce a stronger argument in favor of
their enterprise, than that it has redeemed such a man as Governor Roberts
from servitude, and afforded him the opportunity (which was all he needed)
of displaying his high natural gifts, and applying them to the benefit of
his race.
To-night we had a Kroo-dance on the forecastle. It was an uncouth and
peculiar spectacle, characterized by singing, stamping, and clapping of
hands, with a great display of agility. National dances might be taken as
no bad standard of the comparative civilisation of different countries. A
gracefully quiet dance is the latest flower of high refinement.
5.--Two vessels descried standing in; and bets were five to one that they
were the Macedonian and Decatur. It proved otherwise; they were a British
gun-brig and French merchant-schooner.
8.--It has been raining for three days, almost incessantly. No Macedonian
yet.
10.--Dined on shore. Our captain and five officers, the master and surgeon
of an English merchantman, and the captain of the French schooner, were of
the party. It was a pleasant dinner. The conversation turned principally
upon the trade and customs of the coast. The slave-trade was freely
discussed; and the subject had a peculiar interest, under the
circumstances, because this identical Frenchman, at table with us, is
suspected to have some connection with it. It is merely a surmise. The
French captain speaks a little English; but, after dinner, as a matter of
courtesy, we all adopted his native language. Our friend Colonel Hicks, as
usual, did most of the talking; he is as shrewd, agreeable, and
instructive a companion, as may often be met with in any society.
The dinner-conversation, above alluded to, suggests some remarks in
reference to the slave-trade. There is great discrepancy in the various
estimates as to the number of slaves annually exported from Africa. Some
authorities rate it as high as half a million. Captain Bosanquet, R.N.,
estimates that fifteen thousand are annually sent to the West Indies, and
a greater number to Arabia, all of which are from Portuguese settlements.
He affirms that the trade has increased very much between the years 1832
and 1839, and particularly in the latter part of that period; an effect
naturally consequent upon the great number of captures made by the English
cruisers. A trader, for instance, contracting to introduce a given number
of slaves into Cuba, must purchase more on the coast to make up for those
lost by capture. Captain Brodhead, another British officer, says that the
number of slaves carried off is grossly exaggerated, and that the English
papers told of thousands being shipped from a port, where he lay at anchor
during the period indicated, and for fifty days before and afterwards; in
all which time, not a slave vessel came in sight. Doctor Madden states,
that, during his residence in Cuba, the number of slaves annually imported
was twenty-five thousand. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton calls it one hundred
and fifteen thousand! Her Majesty's Commissioners say that the number is
as well known as any other statistical point, and that it does not exceed
fifteen thousand. The slave-trade rose to a great height in 1836, owing
principally to the high price of colonial produce. I was in Cuba in that
year, and witnessed the great activity that prevailed in buying negroes,
and forming plantations, especially those of sugar. The prices have since
fallen, and the slave-trade decreased, on the plain principle of political
economy, that the demand regulates the supply.
The English cruisers are doubtless very active in the pursuit of vessels
engaged in this traffic. The approbation of government and the public (to
say nothing of £5 head-money for every slave recaptured, and the increased
chance of promotion to vacancies caused by death) is a strong inducement
to vigilance. But, however benevolent may be the motives that influence
the action of Great Britain, in reference to the slave-trade, there is the
grossest cruelty and injustice in carrying out her views. Attempts are now
being made to transport the rescued slaves in great numbers to the British
West India islands, at the expense of government. It is boldly
recommended, by men of high standing in England, to carry them all thither
at once. The effect of such a measure, gloss it over as you may, would be
to increase the black labor of the British islands, by just so much as is
deducted from the number of slaves, intended for the Spanish or Brazilian
possessions. "The sure cure for the slave-trade" says Mr. Laird, "is in
our own hands. It lies in producing cheaper commodities by free labor, in
our own colonies." And, to accomplish this desirable end, England will
seize upon the liberated Africans and land them in her West India islands,
with the alternative of adding their toil to the amount of her colonial
labor, or of perishing by starvation. How much better will their condition
be, as apprentices in Trinidad or Jamaica, than as slaves in Cuba?
Infinitely more wretched! English philanthropy cuts a very suspicious
figure, when, not content with neglecting the welfare of those whom she
undertakes to protect, she thus attempts to made them subservient to
national aggrandizement. The fate of the rescued slaves is scarcely better
than that of the crews of the captured slave-vessels. The latter are
landed on the nearest point of the African coast, where death by
starvation or fever almost certainly awaits them.
I am desirous to put the best construction possible on the conduct as well
of nations as of individuals, and never to entertain that cold scepticism
which explains away all generosity and philanthropy on motives of selfish
policy. But it is difficult to give unlimited faith to the ardent and
disinterested desire professed by England, to put a period to the
slave-trade. If sincere, why does she not, as she readily might, induce
Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, to declare the traffic piratical? And again,
why is not her own strength so directed as to give the trade a death-blow
at once? There are but two places between Sierra Leone and Accra, a
distance of one thousand miles, whence slaves are exported. One is
Gallinas; the other New Sesters. The English keep a cruiser off each of
these rivers. Slavers run in, take their cargoes of human flesh and blood,
and push off. If the cruiser can capture the vessels, the captors receive
£5 per head for the slaves on board, and the government has more
"emigrants" for its West India possessions. Now, were the cruisers to
anchor at the mouths of these two rivers, the slavers would be prevented
from putting to sea with their cargoes, and the trade at those places be
inevitably stopped. But, in this case, where would be the head-money and
the emigrants?
It has been asserted that the colonists of Liberia favor the slave-trade.
This is not true. The only places where the traffic is carried on, north
of the line, are in the neighborhood of the most powerful English
settlements on the whole coast; while even British authority does not
pretend that the vicinity of the American colonies is polluted by it.
Individuals among the colonists, unprincipled men, may, in a very few
instances, from love of gain, have given assistance to slavers, by
supplying goods or provisions at high prices. But this must have been done
secretly, or the law would have taken hold of them. Slavers, no doubt,
have often watered at Monrovia, but never when their character was known.
On the other hand, the slave stations at St. Paul's river, at Bassa, and
at Junk, have undeniably been broken up by the presence of the colonists.
Even if destitute of sympathy for fellow-men of their own race and hue,
and regardless of their deep stake in the preservation of their character,
the evident fact is, that self-interest would prompt the inhabitants of
Liberia to oppose the slave-trade in their vicinity. Wherever the slaver
comes, he purchases large quantities of rice at extravagant rates, thus
curtailing the supply to the colonist, and enhancing the price. Moreover,
the natives, always preferring the excitement of war to the labors of
peace, neglect the culture of the earth, and have no camwood nor palm-oil
to offer to the honest trader, who consequently finds neither buyers nor
sellers among them.
The truth is, the slave-traders can dispense with assistance from the
Liberian colonists. They procure goods, and everything necessary to their
trade, at Sierra Leone, or from any English or American vessel on the
coast. If the merchantmen find a good market for their cargoes, they are
satisfied, whatever be the character of their customers. This is well
understood and openly avowed here. The English have no right to taunt the
Americans, nor to claim higher integrity on their own part. They lend
precisely the same indirect aid to the traffic that the Americans do, and
furnish everything except vessels, which likewise they would supply, if
they could build them. It is the policy of the English ship-masters on the
coast to represent the Americans as engaged in the slave-trade; for if, by
such accusations, they can induce British or American men-of-war to detain
and examine the fair trader, they thus rid themselves of troublesome
rivals.
The natives are generally favorable to the slave-trade. It brings them
many comforts and luxuries, which the legitimate trade does not supply.
Their argument is, that "if a man goes into the Bush and buys camwood, he
must pay another to bring it to the beach. But if he buy a slave, this
latter commodity will not only walk, but bring a load of camwood on his
back." All slaves exported are Bushmen, many of whom are brought from two
or three hundred miles in the interior. The Fishmen and Kroomen are the
agents between the slave-traders and the interior tribes. They will not
permit the latter to become acquainted with the white men, lest their own
agency and its profits should cease. A slave, once sold, seldom returns to
his home.
If transported to a foreign country, his case is of course hopeless; and
even if recaptured on the coast, his return is almost impossible. His
home, probably, is far distant from the sea. It can only be reached by
traversing the territories of four or five nations, any one of whom would
seize the hapless stranger, and either consign him to slavery among
themselves, or send him again to a market on the coast. Hence, those
recaptured by the English cruisers are either settled at Sierra Leone, or
transported to some other of the colonies of Great Britain.
The price paid to the native agents for a full grown male slave, is about
one musket, twelve pieces of romauls, one cutlass, a demijohn of rum, a
bar of iron, a keg of powder, and ten bars of leaf-tobacco, the whole
amounting to the value of thirty to thirty-five dollars. A female is sold
for about a quarter less; and boys of twelve or thirteen command only a
musket and two pieces of romauls. Slave-vessels go from Havana with
nothing but dollars and doubloons. Other vessels go out with the above
species of goods, and all others requisite for the trade. The slaver buys
the goods on the coast, pays for them with specie, and lands them in
payment for the slaves, money being but little used in traffic with the
natives.
13.--The Decatur arrived this evening, after a passage of thirty days from
Porto Praya. She left the Macedonian on the way, the winds being light,
the current adverse, and the frigate sailing very badly.
17.--The Macedonian arrived.
Coming off from town, to-day, I took a canoe with a couple of Kroomen, who
paddled down the river, till we arrived at a narrow part of the
promontory. On touching the shallows, one of the Kroomen took me on his
back to the dry land. The two then picked up the canoe, carried her across
the cape, perhaps a hundred yards, and launched her, with myself on board,
through the heavy surf.
21.--Sailed at daylight for Sinoe, leaving the Macedonian and Decatur, an
American ship and barque, an English brig, and two Hamburg vessels, at
anchor.
25.--Anchored at Sinoe at noon.
26.--Ashore. Visited Fishtown, a well-built native village, containing
probably four hundred inhabitants. It is within about two hundred yards of
the colonial dwellings. The people are said to have committed many
depredations upon the colonists; and there is an evident intention of
driving them off. This is the tribe with which we are to hold a palaver.
There are two grand divisions of native Africans on the Western Coast, the
Fishmen and the Bushmen; the latter being inhabitants of the interior; and
the former comprising all the tribes along the sea-shore, who gain a
subsistence by fishing, trading between the Bushmen and foreign vessels,
and laboring on shipboard. The Kroomen, so often mentioned, are in some
respects a distinct and separate people; although a large proportion,
probably nine-tenths of those bearing that name, are identical with the
Fishmen. The latter are generally treacherous and deceitful; the Kroomen
are much more honest, but still are not to be trusted without reserve and
discrimination.
The government of these people, and of the natives generally, is nominally
monarchical, but democratic in substance. The regal office appears to be
hereditary in a family, but not to descend according to our ideas of
lineal succession. The power of the king is greatly circumscribed by the
privilege, which every individual in the tribe possesses, of calling a
palaver. If a man deems himself injured, he demands a full discussion of
his rights or wrongs, in presence of the rulers and the tribe. The
head-men sit in judgment, and substantial justice is generally done. There
are persons, celebrated for their power and copiousness of talking, who
appear as counsel in behalf of the respective parties. The more
distinguished of these advocates are sometimes sent for, from a distance
of two or three hundred miles, to speak at a palaver; and, in such cases,
they leave all other employment, and hurry to the scene of action.
It would appear that, on other parts of the coast, or farther in the
interior, the native kings possess more power and assume greater state,
than those who have come under my notice. The King of Appollonia,
adjoining Axim Territory, is said to be very rich and powerful. If the
report of his nearest civilized neighbor, the Governor of Axim, is to be
credited, this potentate's house is furnished most sumptuously in the
European style. Gold cups, pitchers, and plates, are used at his table,
with furniture of corresponding magnificence in all the departments of his
household. He possesses vast treasures in bullion and gold dust. The
Governor of Dixcove informed me, that, about four years ago, he
accompanied an English expedition against Appollonia, which is still
claimed by England, although their fort there has been abandoned. On their
approach, the King fled, and left them masters of the place. Some of the
English soldiers opened the sepulchre of the King last deceased, and took
away an unknown amount of gold. Afterwards, by order of the Governor, the
remainder was taken from the grave, amounting to several hundred dollars.
Together with the treasure, numerous articles had been buried, such as a
knife, plate, and cup, swords, guns, cloth, goods of various kinds, and,
in short, every thing that the dead King had required while alive. There
were also four skeletons, two of each sex, buried beneath the royal
coffin. It is said that sixty victims were sacrificed on occasion of the
funeral, of whom only the most distinguished were allowed, even in death,
to approach their master so nearly, and act as his immediate attendants in
the world of spirits. The splendor of an African funeral, on the Gold
Coast, is unparalleled. It is customary for persons of wealth to smear the
corpses of their friends with oil, and then to powder them with gold-dust
from head to foot, so as to produce the appearance of bronzed or golden
statues.
The present King of Appollonia deposited six hundred ounces of gold (about
ten thousand dollars) with the Governor of Cape Coast Castle, as security
for his good behavior. His cellar is well supplied with rare wines, which
he offers liberally to strangers who land at his residence. All these
circumstances, and this barbaric magnificence, indicate a far different
condition from that of the native Kings in the vicinity of Liberia, who
live simply, like their subjects, on vegetables and fish, and one of whom
was proud to array himself in a cast-off garment of my own. Their wealth
consists not in gold, plate, or bullion, but in crockery and earthenware.
Not only the Kings, but all the rich natives, accumulate articles of this
kind, until their dwellings resemble warehouses of crockery. Perhaps fifty
white wash-bowls, with as many pitchers, mugs, and plates, may be seen
around the room; and when these utensils become so numerous as to excite
the envy of the tribe, the owners are said to bury them in the earth. In
the house of King Glass (so named, I presume, from the transparency of his
character), I noticed the first indications of a taste for the Fine Arts.
Seventy coarse colored engravings, glazed and framed, were suspended on
the wall; and, what was most curious, nearly all of them were copies of
the same print, a portrait of King William the Fourth.
It is to be desired that some missionary should give an account of the
degree and kind of natural religion among the native tribes. Their belief
in the efficacy of sassy-wood to discover guilt or innocence, indicates a
faith in an invisible Equity. Some of them, however, select the most
ridiculous of animals, the monkey, as their visible symbol of the Deity;
or, as appears more probable, they stand in spiritual awe of him, from an
idea that the souls of the dead are again embodied in this shape. Under
this impression, they pay a kind of worship to the monkey, and never kill
him near a burial-place; and though, in other situations, they kill and
eat him, they endeavor to propitiate his favor by respectful language, and
the use of charms. Other natives, in the neighborhood of Gaboon, worship
the shark, and throw slaves to him to be devoured.
On the whole, their morality is superior to their religion--at least, as
between members of the same tribe--although they scarcely seem to
acknowledge moral obligations in respect to strangers. Their landmarks,
for instance, are held sacred among the individuals of a tribe. A father
takes his son, and points out the "stake and stones" which mark the
boundary between him and his neighbor. There needs no other registry. Land
passes from sire to son, and is sold and bought with as undisputed and
secure a title as all our deeds and formalities can establish. But,
between different tribes, wars frequently arise on disputed boundary
questions, and in consequence of encroachments made by either party.
"Land-palavers" and "Women-palavers" are the great causes of war. Veracity
seems to be the virtue most indiscriminately practised, as well towards
the stranger as the brother. The natives are cautious as to the accuracy
of the stories which they promulgate, and seldom make a stronger
asseveration than "I tink he be true!" Yet their consciences do not shrink
from the use of falsehood and artifice, where these appear expedient.
The natives are not insensible to the advantages of education. They are
fond of having their children in the families of colonists, where they
learn English, and the manners of civilized life, and get plenty to eat.
Probably the parents hope, in this way, to endow their offspring with some
of the advantages which they suppose the white man to possess over the
colored race. So sensible are they of their own inferiority, that if a
person looks sternly in the face of a native, when about to be attacked by
him, and calls out to him loudly, the chances are ten to one that the
native runs away. This effect is analogous to that which the eye of man is
said to exert on the fiercest of savage beasts. The same involuntary and
sad acknowledgment of a lower order of being appears in their whole
intercourse with the whites. Yet such self-abasement is scarcely just; for
the slave-traders, who constitute the specimens of civilized man with whom
the natives have hitherto been most familiar, are by no means on a par
with themselves, in a moral point of view. It is a pity to see such awful
homage rendered to the mere intellect, apart from truth and goodness.
It is a redeeming trait of the native character, so far as it goes, that
women are not wholly without influence in the public councils. If, when a
tribe is debating the expediency of going to war, the women come beneath
the council-tree, and represent the evils that will result, their opinion
will have great weight, and may probably turn the scale in favor of peace.
On the other hand, if the women express a wish that they were men, in
order that they might go to war, the warriors declare for it at once. It
is to be feared, that there is an innate fierceness even in the gentler
sex, which makes them as likely to give their voices for war as for peace.
It is a feminine office and privilege, on the African coast, to torture
prisoners taken in war, by sticking thorns in their flesh, and in various
other modes, before they are put to death. The unfortunate Captain Farwell
underwent three hours of torture, at the hands of the women and children.
So, likewise, did the mate of Captain Burke's vessel, at Sinoe.
The natives are very cruel in their fights, and spare neither age nor sex;
they kill the women and female children, lest they should be the mothers
of future warriors, and the boys, lest they should fight hereafter. If
they take prisoners, it is either to torture them to death, or to sell
them as slaves. The Fishmen have often evinced courage and obstinacy in
war, as was the case in their assaults upon the Liberian settlers, in the
heroic age of the colony, when Ashman and his associates displayed such
warlike ability in defeating them. The Bushmen are as cruel as the former,
but appear to be more cowardly. I have heard the Rev. Mr. Brown, himself
an actor in the scene, relate the story of the fight at Heddington, in
which three colonists, assisted by two women, were attacked at daybreak by
five hundred natives, many of whom were armed with muskets. Zion Harris
and Mr. Demery were the marksmen, while the clergyman assumed the duty of
loading the guns. The natives rushed onward in so dense a crowd, that
almost every bullet and buckshot of the defenders hit its man. The
besieged had but six muskets, one hundred cartridges, and a few charges of
powder. Their external fortifications consisted only of a slight
picket-fence, which might have been thrown down in an instant. But,
fortunately, when there were but three charges of powder left in the
house, a shot killed Gotorap, the chief of the assailants, at whose fall
the whole army fled in dismay. One of the trophies of their defeat was the
kettle which they had brought for the purpose of cooking the missionaries,
and holding a cannibal feast. The battle-field is poetically termed the
bed of honor: but the bravest man might be excused for shrinking from a
burial in his enemy's stomach! Poetry can make nothing of such a fate.
Rude and wretched as is the condition of the natives, it has been affirmed
that many of the Liberian colonists have mingled with them, and preferred
their savage mode of life to the habits of civilisation. Only one instance
of the kind has come to my personal knowledge. We had on board, for two or
three months, a party of Kroomen, among whom was one, dressed like the
rest, but speaking better English. Being questioned, he said that he had
learned English on board of merchant-vessels, where he had been employed
for several years. We took this young man into the ward-room, where he
worked for three months, associating chiefly with the Kroomen on deck,
speaking their language, and perfectly resembling them in his appearance
and general habits. About the time of discharging him, we discovered that
he was a native of North Carolina, had resided many years in Liberia, but,
being idle and vicious, had finally given up the civilized for the savage
state. His real name was Elijah Park; his assumed one, William Henry.