Page 233: “Monday, June 14th.—The governor’s old wife returned from
Boossa this morning, whither she had gone in quest of three female
slaves who had fled from her about a fortnight since. She has brought
her fugitives back with her, and they are now confined in irons.”
Page 272: “Both these days the men have been entering the city; and they
have brought with them only between forty and fifty slaves.”
Page 278: “The chief benefits resulting to Bello from the success of the
rebels, were a half-yearly tribute, which the magia agreed to pay him in
slaves.”
Page 282: “At Yaooris.—And many thousands of his men, fearing no law,
and having no ostensible employment, are scattered over the face of the
whole country. They commit all sorts of crimes; they plunder, they burn,
they destroy, and even murder, and are not accountable to any earthly
tribunal for their actions.”
Page 312: “At Boossa.—The manners of the Africans too, are hostile to
the interest and advancement of woman, and she is very rarely placed on
an equality with her husband.”
Page 228: “A man is at liberty to return his wife to her parents at any
time, and without adducing any reason.”
Page 345: “The Sheikh of Bornou has recently issued a proclamation, that
no slaves from the interior countries are to be sent for sale farther
west than Wowow,—so that none will be sent in future from thence to the
seaside. The greatest and most profitable market for slaves is said to
be at Timbuctoo, whither their owners at present transport them to sell
to the Arabs, who take them over the deserts of Tahara and Libya to sell
in the Barbary States. An Arab has informed us that many of his
countrymen trade as far as Turkey, in Europe, with their slaves, where
they dispose of them for two hundred and fifty dollars each. * * *
Perhaps it would be speaking within compass to say that four-fifths of
the whole population of this country, (the Eboe,) likewise every other
hereabouts, are slaves.”
Vol. ii. page 208: “It may appear strange that I should dwell so long on
this subject, for it seems quite natural that every one, even the most
thoughtless barbarian, would feel at least some slight emotion on being
exiled from his native land and enslaved; but so far is this from being
the case, that Africans, generally speaking, betray the most perfect
indifference on losing their liberty and being deprived of their
relatives; while love of country is seemingly as great a stranger to
their breasts as social tenderness and domestic affection. We have seen
many thousands of slaves; some of them more intelligent than others; but
the poor little fat woman whom I have mentioned,—the associate of beasts
and wallowing in filth,—whose countenance would seem to indicate only
listnessness, stupidity, and perhaps idiotism, without the smallest
symptom of intelligence—she alone has shown any thing like regret on
gazing on her native land for the last time.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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