Captain Canot; Or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver
In the time of Fana-Toro, Toso was the royal residence where his
majesty played sovereign and protector over six towns and fifteen
villages. His government was generally considered patriarchal. When I
bought Cape Mount, the king numbered "seventy-seven rains," equivalent
to so many years;--he was small, wiry, meagre, erect, and proud of the
respect he universally commanded. His youth was notorious among the
tribes for intrepidity, and I found that he retained towards enemies a
bitter resentment that often led to the commission of atrocious
cruelties.
It was not long after my instalment at the Cape, that I accidentally
witnessed the ferocity of this chief. Some trifling "country affair"
caused me to visit the king; but upon landing at Toso I was told he
was abroad. The manner of my informant, however, satisfied me that the
message was untrue; and accordingly, with the usual confidence of a
"white man" in Africa, I searched his premises till I encountered him
in the "palaver-house." The large inclosure was crammed with a mob of
savages, all in perfect silence around the king, who, in an infuriate
manner, with a bloody, knife in his hand, and a foot on the dead body
of a negro, was addressing the carcass. By his side stood a pot of
hissing oil, in which the heart of his enemy was frying!
My sudden and, perhaps, improper entrance, seemed to exasperate the
infidel, who, calling me to his side, knelt on the corpse, and digging
it repeatedly with his knife, exclaimed with trembling passion, that
it was his bitterest and oldest foe's! For twenty years he had
butchered his people, sold his subjects, violated his daughters, slain
his sons, and burnt his towns;--and with each charge, the savage
enforced his assertion by a stab.
I learned that the slaughtered captive was too brave and wary to be
taken alive in open conflict. He had been kidnapped by treachery, and
as he could not be forced to walk to Toso, the king's trappers had
cooped him in a huge basket, which they bore on their shoulders to the
Cape. No sooner was the brute in his captor's presence, than he broke
a silence of three days by imprecations on Fana-Toro. In a short
space, his fate was decided in the scene I had witnessed, while his
body was immediately burnt to prevent it from taking the form of some
ferocious beast which might vex the remaining years of his royal
executioner!
This was the only instance of Fana-Toro's barbarity that came under my
notice, and in its perpetration he merely followed the example of his
ancestors in obedience to African ferocity. Yet, of his intrepidity
and nobler endurance, I will relate an anecdote which was told me by
reliable persons. Some twenty years before my arrival at the Cape,
large bands of mercenary bushmen had joined his enemies along the
beach, and after desolating his territory, sat down to beleaguer the
stockade of Toso. For many a day thirst and hunger were quietly
suffered under the resolute command of the king, but at length, when
their pangs became unendurable, and the people demanded a surrender,
Fana-Toro strode into the "palaver-house," commanding a _sortie_ with
his famished madmen. The warriors protested against the idea, for
their ammunition was exhausted. Then arose a wild shout for the king's
deposition and the election of a chief to succeed him. A candidate was
instantly found and installed; but no sooner had he been chosen, than
Fana-Toro,--daring the new prince to prove a power of _endurance_
equal to his own,--plunged his finger in a bowl of boiling oil, and
held it over the fire, without moving a muscle, till the flesh was
crisped to the bone.
It is hardly necessary to say that the sovereign was at once restored
to his rights, or that, availing himself of the fresh enthusiasm, he
rushed upon his besiegers, broke their lines, routed the mercenaries,
and compelled his rival to sue for peace. Until the day of his death,
that mutilated hand was the boast of his people.
The Vey people mark with some ceremony the extremes of human
existence--birth and death. Both events are honored with feasting,
drinking, dancing, and firing; and the descendants of the dead
sometimes impoverish, and even ruin themselves, to inter a venerable
parent with pomp.
Prince Gray, the son of Fana-Toro, whom I have already mentioned, died
during my occupation of Cape Mount. I was at Mesurado when the event
happened, but, as soon as I heard it, I resolved to unite with his
relations in the last rites to his memory. Gray was not only a good
negro and kind neighbor, but, as my fast friend in "country matters,"
his death was a personal calamity.
The breath was hardly out of the prince's body, when his sons, who
owned but little property and had no slaves for sale, hastened to my
agent, and pledged their town of Panama for means to defray his
funeral. In the mean time, the corpse, swathed in twenty large country
sheets, and wrapped in twenty pieces of variegated calico, was laid
out in a hut, where it was constantly watched and _smoked_ by three of
the favorite widows.
After two months devotion to moaning and _seasoning_, notice was sent
forty miles round the country, summoning the tribes to the final
ceremony. On the appointed day the corpse was brought from the hut, _a
perfect mass of bacon_. As the procession moved towards the
palaver-house, the prince's twenty wives--almost entirely denuded,
their heads shaved, and their bodies smeared with dust--were seen
following his remains. The eldest spouse appeared covered with
self-inflicted bruises, burns, and gashes--all indications of sorrow
and future uselessness.
The crowd reached the apartment, singing the praises of the defunct in
chorus, when the body was laid on a new mat, covered with his war
shirt, while the parched lump that indicated his head was crowned with
the remains of a fur hat. All the amulets, charms, gree-grees,
fetiches and flummery of the prince were duly bestowed at his sides.
While these arrangements were making within, his sons stood beneath
an adjoining verandah, to receive the condolences of the invited
guests, who, according to custom, made their bows and deposited a
tribute of rice, palm-oil, palm-wine, or other luxuries, to help out
the merry-making.
When I heard of the prince's death at Monrovia, I resolved not to
return without a testimonial of respect for my ally, and ordered an
enormous coffin to be prepared without delay. In due time the huge
chest was made ready, covered with blue cotton, studded with brass
nails, and adorned with all the gilded ornaments I could find in
Monrovia. Besides this splendid sarcophagus, my craft from the colony
was ballasted with four bullocks and several barrels of rum, as a
contribution to the funeral.
I had timed my arrival at Fanama, so as to reach the landing about ten
o'clock on the morning of burial; and, after a salute from my brazen
guns, I landed the bullocks, liquor, and coffin, and marched toward
the princely gates.
The unexpected appearance of the white friend of their father, lord,
and husband, was greeted by the family with a loud wail, and, as a
mark of respect, I was instantly lifted in the arms of the weeping
women, and deposited on the mat beside the corpse. Here I rested, amid
cries and lamentations, till near noon, when the bullocks were
slaughtered, and their blood offered in wash-bowls to the dead. As
soon as this was over, the shapeless mass was stowed in the coffin
without regard to position, and borne by six carriers to the beach,
where it was buried in a cluster of cotton-woods.
On our return to Fanama from the grave, the eldest son of the deceased
was instantly saluted as prince. From this moment the festivities
began, and, at sundown, the twenty widows reappeared upon the ground,
clad in their choicest raiment, their shaven skulls anointed with oil,
and their limbs loaded with every bead and bracelet they could muster.
Then began the partition of these disconsolate relicts among the royal
family. Six were selected by the new prince, who divided thirteen
among his brothers and kinsmen, but gave his mother to his
father-in-law. As soon as the allotment was over, his highness very
courteously offered me the choice of his _six_, in return for my
gifts; but as I never formed a family tie with natives, I declined the
honor, as altogether too overwhelming!
FOOTNOTE:
[9] See Maryland Colonization Journal, vol. i., n. s., p. 212.
CHAPTER LXXII.
When I was once comfortably installed at my motley establishment, and,
under the management of Colonists, had initiated the native workmen
into tolerable skill with the adze, saw, sledgehammer and forge, I
undertook to build a brig of one hundred tons. In six months, people
came from far and near to behold the mechanical marvels of Cape Mount.
Meanwhile, my plantation went on slowly, while my _garden_ became a
matter of curiosity to all the intelligent coasters and cruisers,
though I could never enlighten the natives as to the value of the
"foreign grass" which I cultivated so diligently. They admired the
symmetry of my beds, the richness of my pine-apples, the luxurious
splendor of my sugar-cane, the abundance of my coffee, and the cool
fragrance of the arbors with which I adorned the lawn; but they would
never admit the use of my exotic vegetables. In order to water my
premises, I turned the channel of a brook, surrounding the garden with
a perfect canal; and, as its sides were completely laced with an
elaborate wicker-work of willows, the aged king and crowds of his
followers came to look upon the Samsonian task as one of the wonders
of Africa. "What is it," exclaimed Fana-Toro, as he beheld the
deflected water-course, "that a white man cannot do!" After this, his
majesty inspected all my plants, and shouted again with surprise at
the toil we underwent to satisfy our appetites. The use or worth of
_flowers_, of which I had a rare and beautiful supply, he could never
divine; but his chief amazement was still devoted to our daily
expenditure of time, strength, and systematic toil, when rice and
palm-oil would grow wild while we were sleeping!
* * * * *
It will be seen from this sketch of my domestic comforts and
employment, that New Florence prospered in every thing but _farming_
and _trade_. At first it was my hope, that two or three years of
perseverance would enable me to open a lawful traffic with the
interior; but I soon discovered that the slave-trade was alone thought
of by the natives, who only bring the neighboring produce to the
beach, when their captives are ready for a market. I came, moreover,
to the conclusion that the interior negroes about Cape Mount had no
commerce with Eastern tribes except for slaves, and consequently that
its small river will never create marts like those which have direct
communications by water with the heart of a rich region, and absorb
its gold, ivory, wax, and hides. To meet these difficulties, I
hastened the building of my vessel _as a coaster_.
About this time, an American craft called the A----, arrived in my
neighborhood. She was loaded with tobacco, calicoes, rum, and powder.
Her captain who was unskilled in coast-trade, and ignorant of Spanish,
engaged me to act as supercargo for him to Gallinas. In a very short
period I disposed of his entire investment. The trim and saucy rig of
this Yankee clipper bewitched the heart of a Spanish trader who
happened to be among the _lagunes_, and an offer was forthwith made,
through me, for her purchase. The bid was accepted at once, and the
day before Christmas fixed as the period of her delivery, after a trip
to the Gaboon.
In contracting to furnish this slaver with a craft and the necessary
apparatus for his cargo, it would be folly for me to deny that I was