Stanley's Story; Or, Through the Wilds of Africa: A Thrilling Narrative of His Remarkable Adventures, Terrible Experiences, Wonderful Discoveries and Amazing Achievements in the Dark ContinentFeather, A. G., Col.
History
Stanley's Story; Or, Through the Wilds of Africa: A Thrilling Narrative of His Remarkable Adventures, Terrible Experiences, Wonderful Discoveries and Amazing Achievements in the Dark Continent
Feather, A. G., Col.
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Livingstone, David, 1813-1873; Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton), 1841-1904
While waiting for supplies in Unyanyembe, Dr. Livingstone wrote a second
letter to Mr. James Gordon Bennett, which was principally devoted to the
slave trade of East Africa, to greatly aid in the abolition of which
would be more gratifying to the explorer’s ambition than to discover all
the sources of the Nile. This might well be supposed from what has
already been quoted from Dr. Livingstone’s despatches to his government;
but inasmuch as he here directly appeals to the American people, this
volume would be incomplete without the remarkable and most thrillingly
interesting statements of the letter in question. They were sent by
cable telegram from London and appeared in the “Herald” newspaper of
July 27, 1872:
“At present let me give a glimpse of the slave trade, to which the
search and discovery of most of the Nile fountains have brought me face
to face. The whole traffic, whether by land or ocean, is a gross outrage
on the common law of mankind. It is carried on from age to age, and, in
addition to the evils it inflicts, presents almost insurmountable
obstacles to intercourse between different portions of the human
family. This open sore in the world is partly owing to human cupidity,
partly to the ignorance of the more civilized of mankind of the blight
which lights chiefly on more degraded piracy on the high seas. (_sic._)
It was once as common as slave trading is now, but as it became
thoroughly known the whole civilized world rose against it.
“In now trying to make Eastern African slave trade better known to
Americans, I indulge the hope I am aiding on, though in a small degree,
the good time coming yet when slavery as well as piracy will be chased
from the world. Many have but a faint idea of the evils that trading in
slaves inflicts on the victims and authors of its atrocities. Most
people imagine that negroes, after being brutalized by a long course of
servitude, with but few of the ameliorating influences that elevate the
more favored races, are fair average specimens of the African man. Our
ideas are derived from slaves of the west coast, who have for ages been
subject to domestic bondage and all the depressing agencies of a most
unhealthy climate. These have told most injuriously on their physical
frames, while fraud and the rum trade have ruined their moral natures so
as not to discriminate the difference of the monstrous injustice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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