Observations Upon the Windward Coast of Africa: The religion, character, customs, &c. of the natives; with a system upon which they may be civilized, and a knowledge attained of the interior of this extraordinary quarter of the globe; and upon the natural and commercial resources of the country; made in the years 1805 and 1806; with an appendix, containing a letter to Lord Howick, on the most simple and effectual means of abolishing the slave tradeCorry, Joseph
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Observations Upon the Windward Coast of Africa: The religion, character, customs, &c. of the natives; with a system upon which they may be civilized, and a knowledge attained of the interior of this extraordinary quarter of the globe; and upon the natural and commercial resources of the country; made in the years 1805 and 1806; with an appendix, containing a letter to Lord Howick, on the most simple and effectual means of abolishing the slave trade
Corry, Joseph
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Slave trade -- Africa
The colonization of the coast of Africa, in my estimation, is
impracticable, from its climate being uncongenial to the constitution of
Europeans, and from the system of slavery existing among its inhabitants,
without the employment of natives in their present condition. The requisite
authority to establish a system of labour, upon remunerative principles,
and with industrious vigour, cannot otherwise be supported; and a
misapprehension on this principle has been one of the great causes, as I
conceive, of the failure of the Sierra Leone Company in establishing their
agricultural objects. They attempted, in prosecution of their humane
project, an agricultural establishment on the Boolam shore, opposite to
their colony, where they had a choice of good lands: they proceeded upon
the principles of their declaration, "that the military, personal, and
commercial rights of blacks and whites shall be the same, and secured in
the same manner," and in conformity with the act of parliament which
incorporated them, more immediately that clause which relates to labour,
namely, "not to employ any person or persons in a state of slavery in the
service of the said Company;" but they have totally failed; and in one of
their reports, among other reasons, it is acknowledged, that for want of
authority over the free natives whom they employed, their agricultural
establishment on the Boolam shore was unsuccessful. Let not those worthy
and truly respectable characters, whose humanity has induced them to risque
an extensive property _unhappily expended without effect_, here consider
that I mean to militate against their views, but rather may they acquiesce
in the truth, and devise other expedients to promote their beneficent
objects, and to _assimilate the natives_ of the country with their views.
They have not only to lament a nonproductive profusion of their property,
but an _alienation of the natives_, occasioned by a misconception of their
character, by distracted councils, and the narrowed ideas of the agents
they employed to prosecute their humane endeavours, but also by a desolate
waste in their colony, without a regular feature of cultivation in its
vicinity.
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