Journal of an African Cruiser: Comprising Sketches of the Canaries, the Cape De Verds, Liberia, Madeira, Sierra Leone, and Other Places of Interest on the West Coast of AfricaBridge, Horatio
History
Journal of an African Cruiser: Comprising Sketches of the Canaries, the Cape De Verds, Liberia, Madeira, Sierra Leone, and Other Places of Interest on the West Coast of Africa
Bridge, Horatio
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Bridge, Horatio, 1806-1893
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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