The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume IIClarkson, Thomas
History
The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808), Volume II
Clarkson, Thomas
Slave trade -- Africa
That the slaves were exposed to great misery in the islands, was true as
well from inference as from facts: for what might not be expected from the
use of arbitrary power, where the three characters of party, judge, and
executioner were united! The slaves too were more capable on account of
their passions, than the beasts of the field, of exciting the passions of
their tyrants. To what a length the ill treatment of them might be carried,
might be learnt from the instance which General Tottenham mentioned to have
seen in the year 1780 in the streets of Bridge Town, Barbadoes: "A youth
about nineteen (to use his own words in the evidence), entirely naked, with
an iron collar about his neck, having five long projecting spikes. His body
both before and behind, was covered with wounds. His belly and thighs were
almost cut to pieces, with running ulcers all over them; and a finger might
have been laid in some of the weals. He could not sit down, because his
hinder part was mortified; and it was impossible for him to lie down, on
account of the prongs of his collar." He supplicated the General for
relief. The latter asked, who had punished him so dreadfully? The youth
answered, his master had done it. And because he could not work, this same
master, in the same spirit of perversion, which extorts from scripture a
justification of the Slave-trade, had fulfilled the apostolic maxim, that
he should have nothing to eat. The use he meant to make of this instance
was to show the unprotected state of the slaves. What must it be, where
such an instance could pass not only unpunished, but almost unregarded! If,
in the streets of London, but a dog were to be seen lacerated like this
miserable man, how would the cruelty of the wretch be execrated, who had
thus even abused a brute!
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