As I wish to meet and to answer every possible question that may be
asked about this simple enumeration of facts, I find two plausible
interrogations that may with no great impropriety be stated in the
present place.
“How is it possible that captains should be so inattentive to their own
and their employer's interests, as to sacrifice the very men who are to
assist them in the main business of the voyage—or, if headlong cruelty
prompts them to such a hazard, by what means is the complicated
laborious business ever finished?”
Again—“If by some extraneous means the traffic is completed, who are
then to take care of the slaves, and how are the vessels navigated to
the different Western Colonies, to which they are bound?” Of these two
queries the latter I shall reserve to a future discussion, and confine
myself, at present, to the former.
There is on that part of Africa, called the Gold Coast, a race of the
inhabitants, known by the name of Fantees; they are sturdy, animated,
laborious, and full of courage. Many of this nation are reared from
their childhood, in the European vessels that frequent the coast; they
learn their languages, and are practised in all the habits of
seamanship; and more especially all that relate to the business of
_slaving_. Vessels on, or near their own coast, they of course assist
for a stipulated hire: those that are destined for any of the trading
places in the gulph of Benin, or farther down the coast, generally call
here and engage a Fantee mate, boatswain, and crew, from fifteen to
thirty or upwards, according to the size of the vessel. The captain
enters into a written agreement with their king, which is counter-signed
by the English governor, expressing the nature of their service, the
amount of their wages, and an engagement not to carry any of them off to
the West-Indies. To these men the trade is in a good measure indebted
for its existence. When the poor sailors fall off, these hardy natives,
who have every indulgence the captains can allow them, carry on the
business with a vigour and activity, of which the British seamen, from
their ill usage and scanty fare, are incapable.
The manner of trading on every part of the coast differs, I dare say, in
some particulars, but its general nature is pretty much the same: and as
it has been so copiously handled in other publications on this subject,
I shall forbear to speak on that head; reserving a liberty of
animadverting on any thing that may have been but slightly handled.
I am inclined to think, that the method of collecting slaves by war, and
frequent battles, dreadful as that mode may be, is by no means the great
support of the Slave Trade: but that they are procured by the still more
infamous and horrid practice of _kidnapping_.
In Benin, where I was employed, I am certain it was often the case. Our
factory, in which I resided, was at Gatoe, many miles from the sea, in
the heart of the country. I made continual enquiries, but never heard of
any wars. I understood, however, from every thing I could collect, that
they were seized by fraud or violence in the internal parts of the
country, and so transmitted through different hands to the immediate
traders upon the coast.
But to put it out of conjecture, the business was in practice every day
around us. There was a lawless body of men in the kingdom of Benin,
called _Joemen_; who, encouraged by the white traders, erected
themselves into an independent government. Their king, a desperate
fellow, was called _Badjeka_. They had no towns nor villages, but
shifted suddenly, and pitched their temporary huts where they considered
it to be most opportune for their depredations. These banditti bought no
slaves, but they sold multitudes. They had neither settlement nor
plantations, but lived entirely by this horrid species of robbery,
which, in a civilized country, like _Benin_, must have been attended
every day with circumstances of cruelty and distress, beyond any thing
that enthusiasm (for so the adoption of the cause of humanity is called
by the cold-blooded spoilers) has ever yet imagined.
Among the islands and creeks that are numerous about the mouth of the
river _Formosa_, there was also a kind of pirate admiral, distinguished
by the name and title of captain _Lemma-Lemma_. This personage had a
powerful fleet of war canoes, with which he made descents on all parts
of the unprotected coast; he paid no taxes, but declared himself
independent of the king of Benin, whose subjects he carried off for
trade at every opportunity. To this man, and his exertions, we were a
good deal indebted for our cargo.
Whenever we wanted to give the trade a desirable degree of celerity, the
practice was, to declare that a certain number of prime commodities
would be in trade till such a date, (a short one) and no longer;—or,
that the vessel was to sail by such a day, and was to be replaced by no
other for some time. These artifices were sure to produce the effect
proposed: we had soon slaves brought down to us, in great numbers, and
without the intervention of wars or battles.
It has been affirmed by those, who know nothing of the internal policy
and constitution of _Guinea_, but perhaps too much of that of the West
India islands, that though they allow a number of _Africans_ are
annually sacrificed in the act of capture, in the course of the passage,
in the seasoning in the plantations, and a long _et cætera_; yet that
the slavish state of the _survivors_ is infinitely preferable to that
which they experienced in their own country.
The arguments drawn from the unalienable rights and principles of civil
liberty, I leave in the hands of those who have time and abilities to
enforce, and science to illuminate their reasonings—and, thank heaven,
such have engaged in the cause of humanity! My simple observations go no
further than to declare, that through the course of a seafaring life, to
almost all parts of Europe, the West Indies, and North America, I never
saw a happier race of people than those of the kingdom of BENIN.
The subjects of the king of Benin were, during my observations there,
seated in ease and plenty. The slave trade, and its unavoidably bad
effects excepted, every thing bore the appearance of friendship,
tranquillity, and primitive independence. At _Gatoe_ the markets were
regular and well stocked: they teemed with luxuries unknown to the
Europeans. Their fishermen, hunters, and husbandmen, brought in their
stores and delicacies: their smiths, carpenters, weavers, and, believe
me, there are such among them, displayed their curious manufactures.
Fowls, fish, fresh and dried provisions, fruits of the most delicious
kind, various sorts of pepper and spices, potatoes, yams, plantains,
calavances, cocoa nuts, sugar-cane, purslane, calliloo, ocra, palm-wine,
and palm-oil, were in plenty there. These added to native coral, mats of
a most curious texture, Benin and Jaboe cloths of beautiful colours,
ivory, gold-dust, gums, woods, wax, cotton, and other commodities,
proved to a demonstration the inexaustible store of valuable articles,
which they could substitute for the unnatural traffic in human flesh;
and shewed incontestably, that they could improve their produce to a
state worthy the return of British luxuries. The glare and relish of
these luxuries, Sir, now grown essential to them by use, they cannot
easily forego; but if the inhuman process were abolished, they would be
under the necessity, and would be desirous of meeting your exports with
some more valuable and more guiltless branch of trade.