First, we observe, that the African race, in the Middle, Western, and more Southern parts of the Continent, have for many centuries, or from time immemorial, been most barbarous and degraded, and in the practice of domestic slavery on the largest scale and in the most inhuman forms, entirely independent of the effects of the slave traffic by exportation from Africa to America. “It is evident,” says Mungo Park, “that the system of slavery which prevails in Africa is of _no modern date_. It probably had its origin in the remote ages of antiquity, before the Mohammedans explored a path across the desert. How far it is maintained and supported by the slave traffic, which for two hundred years the nations of Europe have carried on with the natives of the Coast, it is neither within my province, nor in my power to explain. If my sentiments should be desired concerning the effect of a discontinuance of this commerce on the manners of the natives, _I should have no hesitation in saying_, that in the present unenlightened state of their minds, _my opinion is, the effect would neither be so extensive nor so beneficial as many wise and worthy persons fondly expect_.” Park estimates the domestic slavery of Africa, on an average, at _three fourths_, and Lander at _four fifths_, of the population. Some travellers have gone much higher, and we have seen it put down at _nine tenths_. “In a speech delivered in the British House of Commons, by Mr. Henniker, in 1789, the speaker asserts, that a letter had been received by George III. from one of the most powerful of the African potentates, the Emperor of Dehomey, which exemplifies the notions of the Africans about the right to kill and enslave prisoners of war. He (the Emperor) stated: ‘That as he understood King George was the greatest of white kings, so he thought himself the greatest of black ones.’ He said, that he could lead 500,000 armed men into the field, that being the pursuit to which _all_ his subjects were bred, the women _only_ staying at home to plant and manure the earth. He had himself fought _two hundred and nine battles_, with great reputation and success, and had conquered the great king of Ardah. The king’s head was to this day preserved with the flesh and hair; the heads of his generals were distinguished by being placed on each side of the doors of their Fetiches; with the heads of the inferior officers they paved the space before the doors; and the heads of the common soldiers formed a sort of fringe or outwork round the walls of the palace. Since this war he had experienced the greatest good fortune; and he hoped in good time to be able to complete the outwalls of all his great houses, _to the number of seven, in the same manner_.