Captain Canot; Or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver
like a storming army. We waited for the succeeding lull. All hands
laid still,--not a word was spoken or paddle dipped. Then came the
next enormous swell under our stern;--the oars flew like
lightning;--the canoe rose as a feather on the crest of the surf;--in
a moment she shot through the cleft and reposed in smooth water near
the shore. As we sped through the gap, I might have touched the rocks
on both sides with my extended arms!
Such is the skill and daring of Kroomen.
FOOTNOTE:
[D] These Bagers are remarkable for their honesty, as I was convinced
by several anecdotes related, during my stay in this village, by my
trading clerk. He took me to a neighboring lemon-tree, and exhibited
an English brass steelyard hanging on its branches, which had been
left there by a mulatto merchant from Sierra Leone, who died in the
town on a trading trip. This article, with a chest half full of goods,
deposited in the "palaver-house," had been kept securely more than
twelve years in expectation that some of his friends would send for
them from the colony. The Bagers, I was told, have no _jujus_,
_fetiches_, or _gree-grees_;--they worship no god or evil
spirit;--their dead are buried without tears or ceremony;--and their
hereafter in eternal oblivion.
The males of this tribe are of middling size and deep black color;
broad-shouldered, but neither brave nor warlike. They keep aloof from
other tribes, and by a Fullah law, are protected from foreign violence
in consequence of their occupation as salt-makers, which is regarded
by the interior natives as one of the most useful trades. Their
fondness for palm-oil and the little work they are compelled to
perform, make them generally indolent. Their dress is a single
handkerchief, or a strip of country cloth four or five inches wide,
most carefully put on.
The young women have none of the sylphlike appearance of the
Mandingoes or Soosoos. They work hard and use palm-oil plentifully
both internally and externally, so that their relaxed flesh is bloated
like blubber. Both sexes shave their heads, and adorn their noses and
lower lips with rings, while they penetrate their ears with porcupine
quills or sticks. _They neither sell nor buy each other_, though they
acquire children of both sexes from other tribes, and adopt them into
their own, or dispose of them if not suitable. Their avails of work
are commonly divided; so the Bagers may be said to resemble the
Mormons in polygamy, the Fourierites in community, but to exceed both
in honesty!
I am sorry that their nobler characteristics have so few imitators
among the other tribes of Africa.
CHAPTER XV.
When the rains began to slacken, a petty caravan now and then
straggled towards the coast; but, as I was only a new comer in the
region, and not possessed of abundant means, I enjoyed a slender share
of the trade. Still I consoled myself with the hope of better luck in
the dry season.
In the mean time, however, I not only heard of Joseph's safe arrival
at Matanzas, but received a clerk whom he dispatched to dwell in
Kambia while I visited the interior. Moreover, I built a boat, and
sent her to Sierra Leone with a cargo of palm-oil, to be exchanged for
British goods; and, finally, during my perfect leisure, I went to work
with diligence _to study_ the trade in which fortune seemed to have
cast my lot.
It would be a task of many pages if I attempted to give a full account
of the origin and causes of _slavery in Africa_. As a national
institution, it seems to have existed always. Africans have been
bondsmen every where: and the oldest monuments bear their images
linked with menial toils and absolute servitude. Still, I have no
hesitation in saying, that three fourths of the slaves _sent abroad_
from Africa are the fruit of native wars, fomented by the avarice and
temptation of our own race. I cannot exculpate any commercial nation
from this sweeping censure. We stimulate the negro's passions by the
introduction of wants and fancies never dreamed of by the simple
native, while slavery was an institution of domestic need and comfort
alone. But what was once a luxury has now ripened into an absolute
necessity; so that MAN, _in truth, has become the coin of Africa, and
the "legal tender" of a brutal trade_.
England, to-day, with all her philanthropy, sends, under the cross of
St. George, to convenient magazines of _lawful commerce_ on the coast,
her Birmingham muskets, Manchester cottons, and Liverpool lead, all of
which are righteously swapped at Sierra Leone, Acra, and on the Gold
coast, for Spanish or Brazilian bills on London. Yet, what British
merchant does not know the traffic on which those bills are founded,
and for whose support his wares are purchased? France, with her
_bonnet rouge_ and fraternity, dispatches her Rouen cottons,
Marseilles brandies, flimsy taffetas, and indescribable variety of
tinsel gewgaws. Philosophic Germany demands a slice for her
looking-glasses and beads; while multitudes of our own worthy traders,
who would hang a slaver as a pirate _when caught_, do not hesitate to
supply him indirectly with tobacco, powder, cotton, Yankee rum, and
New England notions, in order to bait the trap in which he _may_ be
caught! It is the temptation of these things, I repeat, that feeds the
slave-making wars of Africa, and forms the human basis of those
admirable bills of exchange.
I did not intend to write a homily on Ethiopian commerce when I begun
this chapter; but, on reviewing the substantial motives of the
traffic, I could not escape a statement which tells its own tale, and
is as unquestionable as the facts of verified history.
Such, then, may be said to be the _predominating_ influence that
supports the African slave-trade; yet, if commerce of all kinds were
forbidden with that continent, the customs and laws of the natives
would still encourage slavery as a domestic affair, though, of course,
in a very modified degree. The rancorous family quarrels among tribes
and parts of tribes, will always promote conflicts that resemble the
forays of our feudal ancestors, while the captives made therein will
invariably become serfs.
Besides this, the financial genius of Africa, instead of devising
bank notes or the precious metals as a circulating medium, has from
time immemorial, declared that a human creature,--_the true
representative and embodiment of labor_,--is the most valuable article
on earth. A man, therefore, becomes the standard of prices. A slave is
a note of hand, that may be discounted or pawned; he is a bill of
exchange that carries himself to his destination and pays a debt
bodily; he is a tax that walks corporeally into the chieftain's
treasury. Thus, slavery is not likely to be surrendered by the negroes
themselves as a national institution. Their social interests will
continue to maintain hereditary bondage; they will send the felon and
the captive to foreign _barracoons_; and they will sentence to
domestic servitude the orphans of culprits, disorderly children,
gamblers, witches, vagrants, cripples, insolvents, the deaf, the mute,
the barren, and the faithless. Five-sixths of the population is in
chains.[3]
To facilitate the sale of these various unfortunates or malefactors,
there exists among the Africans a numerous class of brokers, who are
as skilful in their traffic as the jockeys of civilized lands. These
adroit scoundrels rove the country in search of objects to suit
different patrons. They supply the body-guard of princes; procure
especial tribes for personal attendants; furnish laborers for farms;
fill the _harems_ of debauchees; pay or collect debts in flesh; and in
cases of emergency take the place of bailiffs, to kidnap under the
name of sequestration. If a native king lacks cloth, arms, powder,
balls, tobacco, rum, or salt, and does not trade personally with the
factories on the beach, he employs one of these dexterous gentry to
effect the barter; and thus both British cotton and Yankee rum ascend
the rivers from the second hands into which they have passed, while
the slave approaches the coast to become the ebony basis of a bill of
exchange!
It has sometimes struck me as odd, how the extremes of society almost
meet on similar principles; and how much some African short-comings
resemble the conceded civilizations of other lands!
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Dr. Lugenbeel's "Sketches of Liberia.": 1853. p. 45, 2d ed.
CHAPTER XVI.
The month of November, 1827, brought the wished-for "dry season;" and
with it came a message from the leader of a caravan, that, at the full
of the moon, he would halt in my village with all the produce he could
impress. The runner represented his master as bearing a missive from
his beloved nephew Ahmah-de-Bellah, and declared that he only lingered
on the path to swell his caravan for the profit of my coffers.
I did not let the day pass before I sent an interpreter to greet my
promised guest with suitable presents; while I took advantage of his
delay to build a neat cottage for his reception, inasmuch as no Fullah
Mahometan will abide beneath the same roof with an infidel. I
furnished the establishment, according to their taste, with green
hides and several fresh mats.
True to his word, Mami-de-Yong made known his arrival in my
neighborhood on the day when the planet attained its full diameter.
The moment the pious Mussulman, from the high hills in the rear of my
settlement, espied the river winding to the sea, he turned to the
east, and raising his arms to heaven, and extending them towards
Mecca, gave thanks for his safe arrival on the beach. After repeated
genuflections, in which the earth was touched by his prostrate
forehead, he arose, and taking the path towards Kambia, struck up a
loud chant in honor of the prophet, in which he was joined by the
interminable procession.
It was quite an imposing sight--this Oriental parade and barbaric
pomp. My native landlord, proud of the occasion, as well as of his
Mahometan progenitors, joined in the display. As the train approached
my establishment, I ordered repeated salutes in honor of the stranger,
and as I had no minstrels or music to welcome the Fullah, I commanded
my master of ceremonies to conceal the deficiency by plenty of smoke
and a dozen more rounds of rattling musketry.
This was the first caravan and the first leader of absolutely royal
pretensions that visited my settlement; so I lined my piazza with
mats, put a body-guard under arms behind me, decorated the front with
fancy flags, and opposite the stool where I took my seat, caused a
pure white sheepskin of finest wool to be spread for the accommodation
of the noble savage. Advancing to the steps of my dwelling, I stood
uncovered as the Fullah approached and tendered me a silver-mounted
gazelle-horn snuff-box--the credential by which Ahmah-de-Bellah had
agreed to certify the mission. Receiving the token with a _salaam_, I
carried it reverently to my forehead, and passed it to Ali-Ninpha,
who, on this occasion, played the part of my scribe. The ceremony
over, we took him by the hands and led him to his allotted sheepskin,
while, with a bow, I returned to my stool.
According to "country custom," Mami-de-Yong then began the _dantica_,
or exposition of purposes, first of all invoking ALLAH to witness his
honor and sincerity. "Not only," said the Mussulman, "am I the bearer
of a greeting from my dear nephew Ahmah-de-Bellah, but I am an envoy
from my royal master the Ali-Mami, of Footha-Yallon, who, at his son's
desire, has sent me with an escort to conduct you on your promised
visit to Timbo. During your absence, my lord has commanded us to dwell
in your stead at Kambia, so that your property may be safe from the
Mulatto Mongo of Bangalang, whose malice towards your person has been