insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck
to get air and water. This was opposed by the mate of the slaver, who,
from a feeling that they deserved it, declared they would murder them
all. The officers (of the Eng. ship,) however, persisted, and the poor
beings were all turned up together. It is impossible to conceive the
effect of this eruption; 507 fellow creatures of all ages and sizes,
some children, some adults, old men and women, all in a state of total
nudity, scrambling out together to taste a little pure air and water.
They came swarming up like bees from the aperture of a hive, till the
whole deck was crowded to suffocation, from stem to stern; so that it
was impossible to imagine where they could all have come from, or how
they could all have been stowed away. On looking into the places where
they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides
of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were
lying in nearly a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The
little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death; and when they
were carried on deck, many of them could not stand. After enjoying, for
a short time, the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it
was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful
manner. They all rushed like maniacs toward it. No entreaties, or
threats, or blows could restrain them; they shrieked, and struggled,
and fought with one another, for a drop of this precious liquid, as
if they grew rabid at the sight of it. When the poor creatures were
ordered down again, several of them came, and pressed their heads
against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect
of returning to the horrid place of suffering below."[2]
But the English ship was obliged to release the slaver and abandon to
despair those defenseless victims, as it was found upon examination
that it had not violated a vile privilege then allowed Brazilian ships
to obtain slaves south of a certain line.
It is a humiliating fact that for a period of three centuries the
whole christian world was engaged in plundering a heathen shore of
its inhabitants, speculating in their bodies and souls and spreading
amongst them intemperance, war and all unutterable woes. The history of
this wickedness will never be fully known until the general judgment.
Then will the ocean have a tale to tell of the thousands who were
smothered in the slave prisons which floated upon her bosom, and of the
multiplied thousands who were famished and buried in her deeps. The sea
will send up her witnesses, and Africa, wet with tears and blood, will
bear a testimony before God in that day which will make the ears of all
that hear it to tingle!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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