A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade: Addressed to the freeholders and other inhabitants of YorkshireWilberforce, William
History
A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade: Addressed to the freeholders and other inhabitants of Yorkshire
Wilberforce, William
Antislavery movements -- Great Britain; Slave trade -- Great Britain
But the second kind of warfare, called Tegria, which means, we are told,
plundering or stealing, and which appears to be no other than the
practice of predatory expeditions, is that to which the Slave market is
indebted for its chief supplies, and which most clearly explains the
nature and effect of the Slave Trade. Mr. Parke indeed tells us, that
this species of warfare arises from a sort of hereditary feud, which
subsists between the inhabitants of neighbouring nations or districts.
If we take into the account that the avowed compiler of Mr. Parke’s
work, the patron to whose good will he looked for the recompense of all
his labours, was one of the warmest and most active opposers of the
abolition of the Slave Trade, we shall not wonder that the fact alone is
stated, without being traced to it’s original cause. This however is a
case, if such a case ever existed, in which the features of the
offspring might alone enable us to recognise the rightful parent. But in
truth we know from positive testimony, that though hereditary feuds of
the deadliest malignity are but too surely generated by these predatory
expeditions, and consequently that hatred and revenge may sometimes have
a share in producing a continued course of them, yet that, speaking
generally, the grand operating motive from which they are undertaken,
and to which therefore, as their primary cause, they may be referred, is
the desire of obtaining Slaves. “These predatory expeditions,” Mr. Parke
tells us, “are of all dimensions, from 500 horsemen, headed by the son
of the king of the country; to a single individual, armed with his bow
and arrow, who conceals himself among the bushes, until some young or
unarmed person passes by. He then, tyger-like, springs upon his prey,
drags his victim into the thicket, and at night _carries him off as a
slave_.” (Vide note, p. 19). “These incursions,” Mr. Parke goes on to
inform us, “are generally conducted with great secresy; a few resolute
individuals, led by some person of enterprize and courage, march quietly
through the woods, surprize in the night some unprotected village, and
_carry off the inhabitants_, (vide note, p. 19) and their effects,
before their neighbours can come to their assistance.”—“One morning,”
says Mr. Parke, “during my residence at Kamalia, we were all much
alarmed by a party of this kind. The prince of Focladoo’s son, with a
strong party of horse, passed secretly through the woods, a little to
the southward, and the next morning plundered three towns belonging to a
powerful chief of Jollonkadoo. The success of this expedition encouraged
the governor of another town to make a second inroad on a part of the
same country. Having assembled about 200 of his people, he passed the
river in the night, and _carried off a great number of prisoners_. (Vide
note, p. 19). _Several of the inhabitants_ who had escaped these
attacks, were _afterwards seized_ by the Mandingoes (_another people_,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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