West India Islands. They were sold on the Exchange and other places of public resort, by parties themselves resident in London, and with as little reserve as they would have been in any of our West India possessions. Such a state of things continued from a very early period up to nearly the end of the last century.1 Long before this trade commenced upon the western coast of Africa, the Mohammedan markets of Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Turkey, Persia, Arabia, and other portions of Asia, had been supplied with slaves from the great hive of Africa. When it commenced we cannot say. Before the days of Abraham doubtless. It has continued to the present time. It is carried on, partly by means of Arab vessels on the northeast coast, and partly by caravans across the desert. The number thus exported is probably 50,000 annually, if not more." 12 Hagg. Adm. Rep. 105; Granville Sharp states, in his Essay on the Just Limitation of Slavery, that three married women were torn violently from their husbands, in London, and quotes an advertisement for a negro boy, "having round his neck a brass collar, with a direction upon it, to a house in Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury Square," p. 34. 2 The reader disposed to examine this branch of the trade more fully, is referred to Buxton's Slave-Trade and Remedy, p. 59, et seq.; Levavasseur's Esclavage de la race noire, 84. K CHAPTER X. THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE. THAT the slave-trade should have been prosecuted so long by Christian nations, is a matter of greater surprise than the united efforts subsequently made for its abolition. In the meantime, there were not wanting those who not only deprecated the trade, but denied the lawfulness of the relation of master and slave. Milton embodied his protest in his immortal poem: "But man over man He made not lord, such title to himself Pope, Cowper, Savage, Thomson, Shenstone, and many others of less reputation, continued the strain thus commenced, and Montgomery devoted an epic poem to the descriptions of the wrongs of "Afric's sons." The prose writers of England, during this period, are equally numerous. And America was not behind in furnishing her voice against the trade. Among the former may be mentioned Baxter, Steele, John Wesley, and Warburton. Among the Americans, Dr. Franklin, Dr. Rush, and William Dillwyn, were among the most prominent. Montesquieu and the Abbé Raynal, awakened the French nation to the importance of the same question. As a body the Quakers, or Society of Friends, were the first to take bold position as to the sinfulness both of the trade and the system. George Fox, and his coworkers on either shore of the Atlantic, early recognized the fact that God was no respecter of persons, and that the souls of Africans were redeemed by a Saviour's blood, as well as those of the descendants of Japhet. It was not surprising then that their zeal should become a fanaticism upon this subject, that has continued to the present day.1 As already observed, the American colonists were the first people, through their legislative bodies, to seek to put an end to the trade with the colonies. No religious zeal, nor Quixotic crusades for universal liberty, prompted them to act; but a sincere self-interest, which dictated this policy, as a preventive against an overflowing black population. The trade, however, was too valuable to British merchants, and too profitable to the British treasury, and hence the royal assent was repeatedly refused.2 We have already seen the action of the Continental Congress, in 1776, and the subsequent adoption into the Constitution of the United States, of the clause limiting the importation to the year 1808, if Congress should see proper. Before the time arrived, viz., in 1807, Congress availed itself of the power granted, and passed an act prohibiting the farther importation of slaves. Before that time, however, Georgia, in 1798, by virtue of her own State sovereignty, incorporated into her State Constitution, a prohibition of future importation into that 'By the laws of Barbadoes, passed 1696, negroes were prohibited from attending the meeting of Quakers, under a penalty of 107., to be recovered of any Quaker present. If the negro belonged to the Quaker, he was forfeited. See Plantation Laws (1704), p. 249. In 1663, Virginia prohibited the introduction of Quakers, under a penalty of 5000 lbs. of tobacco upon the captain of the vessel. Ibid. 52. 2 This was inserted in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, as one of the grievances of the Colonies, but was stricken out, at the instance of the delegation from Georgia. State. South Carolina had preceded her, by a legislative enactment to the same effect. To bring the British mind to such a sense of the evils and sin of the trade, as to induce the nation to forego the benefits arising therefrom, was a much more difficult task; and the fervid zeal of Granville Sharp, the unwearying exertions of Thomas Clarkson, and the powerful appeals and touching eloquence of Wilberforce, but barely effected this object, after a parliamentary struggle continuing through nineteen years. After spending months in preparing the public mind for the effort, the first motion was made in Parliament on the 9th May, 1788 (the year subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States). Defeat attended that, and a similar effort in 1789. The accession of both Pitt and Fox to their ranks in 1790, did not change the result. In 1791, there were arrayed in behalf of the movers, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Grey, Sheridan, Wyndham, Whitbread, Courtnay, Francis, and others; but defeat still awaited them. In the meantime, pamphlets and books had been written. Pictures of slave-ships, delineating the decks and the close confinement, and other "horrors of the middle passage," had been distributed throughout the kingdom. The people had become excited, and voluntarily abandoned, in many places, the uses of sugar and rum. In almost every part of the kingdom, public meetings gave vent to the public voice, demanding the prohibition of the trade.' In 1793, the Commons yielded to the public voice, and passed an act for the gradual abolition of the trade. It was lost in the Lords, by a motion to hear farther evidence, which postponed action till the next session. In 1794, the Commons receded from their position, and left the battle to be fought over again. In 1795, it was again carried in the Commons, and lost in the Lords. The 'See Stuart's Memoir, pp. 51, 52. sessions of 1796, 1798, 1799, still brought defeat to the cause. The years 1797 and 1800, 1801, 1802, and 1803, were allowed to pass without effort in Parliament. In 1804, the bill again passed the Commons, but was lost in the Lords. In 1805, it was again lost in the Commons. In 1806, the measure was brought forward under the auspices of the government, being then under the administration of Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox. During that session an act was passed prohibiting British vessels and British capital from being employed in the foreign slave-trade; and, in 1807, the last struggle was ended by the "Act for the abolition of the slave-trade.”1 It is worthy of remark, that that which Parliament denied to the voice of the excited public, was yielded when that excitement had passed away, and then on the motion of government. When we remember that Fox was the devoted friend of the East India Company, and the fact that, at that time, the project was rife of growing sugar in the East Indies at a less cost than in the West Indies, we may surmise a reason for the final success of the measure, not based either upon philanthropy or justice.❜ In France, Napoleon Bonaparte, upon his return from Elba, in 1815, passed an order for the immediate abolition of the trade. And in the same year, the Congress at Vienna, representing Great Britain, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and France, declared the slave-trade to be "repugnant to the principles of humanity and of universal morality; and that it was the earnest desire of their sovereigns to put an end to a scourge which had so long desolated Africa, degraded Europe, and afflicted humanity." After the restoration of the Bourbons, the decree of Napoleon was re-enacted, and the year 1819 See Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade. A concise history may be found in Rees's Cyclop., Slave-Trade. 2 See Remarks of Bryan Edwards, published in 1794, in History of West Indies, vol. ii, p. 637. |