We might believe that the trade is no longer carried on; that this buying and this selling of human creatures has ceased: it is not so, and that is what the reader must know if he wishes to become more deeply interested in the second part of this history. He must learn what these men-hunts actually are still, these hunts which threaten to depopulate a whole continent for the maintenance of a few slave colonies; where and how these barbarous captures are executed; how much blood they cost; how they provoke incendiarism and ; finally, for whose profit they are made.
It is in the fifteenth century only that we see the trade in blacks carried on for the first time. under what circumstances it was established:
The Mussulmans, after being expelled from Spain, took refuge beyond the Strait on the coast of Africa. The , who then occupied that part of the coast, pursued them with fury. A certain number of those were made prisoners and brought back to Portugal. Reduced to slavery, they constituted the first of African slaves which has been formed in Western Europe since the Era.
But those Mussulmans belonged, for the most part, to rich families, who wished to buy them back for gold. The Portuguese refused to accept a , however large it might be. They had only to make foreign gold. What they lacked were the arms so indispensable then for the work of the growing colonies, and, to say it all, the arms of the slave.
The Mussulman families, being unable to buy back their captive relatives, then offered to exchange them for a much larger number of black Africans, whom it was only too easy to carry off. The offer was accepted by the Portuguese, who found that exchange to their advantage, and thus the slave trade was founded in Europe.
Toward the end of the sixteenth century this traffic was generally admitted, and it was not repugnant to the still barbarous manners. All the States protected it so as to more rapidly and more surely the of the New World. In fact, the slaves of black origin could resist the climate, where the badly whites, still unfit to support the heat of intertropical climates, would have perished by thousands. The transport of negroes to the American colonies was then carried on regularly by special , and this branch of transatlantic commerce led to the creation of important stations on different points of the African coast. The "merchandise" cost little in the country of production, and the returns were considerable.
But, necessary as was the foundation of the colonies beyond the sea from all points of view, it could not those markets for human flesh. Generous voices soon made themselves heard, which protested against the trade in blacks, and demanded from the European governments a decree of abolition in the name of the principles of humanity.
In 1751, the Quakers put themselves at the head of the abolition movement, even in the heart of that North America where, a hundred years later, the War of Secession was to burst , to which this question of slavery was not a foreign one. Different States in the North—Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania—decreed the abolition of the slave trade, and freed the slaves brought to their territories at great expense.
But the campaign commenced by the Quakers did not limit itself to the northern provinces of the New World. Slaveholders were warmly attacked beyond the Atlantic. France and England, more particularly, recruited for this just cause. "Let the colonies perish rather than a principle!" Such was the generous command which through all the Old World, and, in spite of the great political and commercial interests engaged in the question, it was effectively transmitted through Europe.
The was given. In 1807, England abolished the slave-trade in her colonies, and France followed her example in 1814. The two powerful nations exchanged a treaty on this subject—a treaty confirmed by Napoleon during the Hundred Days.
However, that was as yet only a theoretical declaration. The slave-ships did not cease to cross the seas, and to dispose of their "ebony " in colonial ports.
More practical measures must be taken in order to put an end to this commerce. The United States, in 1820, and England, in 1824, declared the slave trade an act of , and those who practised it pirates. As such, they drew on themselves the penalty of death, and they were pursued to the end. France soon adhered to the new treaty; but the States of South America, and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, did not join in the Act of Abolition. The exportation of blacks then continued to their profit, notwithstanding the right of search generally recognized, which was limited to the verification of the flag of suspicious vessels.
Meanwhile, the new Law of Abolition had not a retroactive effect. No more new slaves were made, but the old ones had not yet recovered their liberty.
It was under those circumstances that England set an example. In May, 1833, a general declaration all the blacks in the colonies of Great Britain, and in August, 1838, six hundred and seventy thousand slaves were declared free.
Ten years later, in 1848, the Republic emancipated the slaves of the French colonies, say about two hundred and sixty thousand blacks. In 1861, the war which broke out between the Federals and Confederates, of the United States, finishing the work of , extended it to all North America.
The three great powers had then this work of humanity. At the present hour, the trade is no longer carried on, except for the benefit of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and to satisfy the wants of the populations of the Orient, Turks, or Arabs. Brazil, if she has not yet restored her old slaves to liberty, at least no longer receives new ones, and the children of the blacks are born free there.
It is in the interior of Africa, in the of those wars, waged by the African chiefs among themselves for this man-hunt, that entire tribes are reduced to slavery. Two opposite directions are then given to the : one to the west, toward the Portuguese colony of Angola; the other to the east, on the Mozambique. Of these unfortunate beings, of whom only a small portion arrive at their destination, some are exported, it may be to Cuba, it may be to Madagascar; others to the Arab or Turkish provinces of Asia, to Mecca, or to Muscat. The English and French cruisers can only prevent this traffic to a small extent, as it is so difficult to obtain an effective surveillance over such far-extended coasts.
But the figures of these odious exportations, are they still considerable?
Yes! The number of slaves who arrive at the coast is estimated at not less than eighty thousand; and this number, it appears, only represents the tenth of natives massacred.
After these dreadful butcheries the fields are , the burnt villages are without inhabitants, the rivers carry down dead bodies, deer occupy the country. Livingstone, the day after one of these men-hunts, no longer recognized the provinces he had visited a few months before. All the other travelers—Grant, Speke, Burton, Cameron, and Stanley—do not speak otherwise of this wooded plateau of Central Africa, the principal theater of the wars between the chiefs. In the region of the great lakes, over all that vast country which feeds the market of Zanzibar, in Bornou and Fezzan, farther south, on the banks of the Nyassa and the Zambesi, farther west, in the districts of the upper Zaire, which the daring Stanley has just crossed, is seen the same spectacle—ruins, , depopulation. Then will slavery in Africa only end with the of the black race; and will it be with this race as it is with the Australian race, or the race in New Holland?
But the market of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies will close some day. That will be wanting. nations can no longer tolerate the slave trade!
Yes, without doubt; and this year even, 1878, ought to see the of all the slaves still possessed by Christian States. However, for long years to come the Mussulman nations will maintain this traffic, which depopulates the African continent. It is for them, in fact, that the most important emigration of the blacks is made, as the number of natives snatched from their provinces and brought to the eastern coast exceeds forty thousand. Long before the expedition to Egypt the negroes of the Seunaar were sold by thousands to the negroes of the Darfour, and reciprocally. General Bonaparte was able to buy a pretty large number of these blacks, of whom he made organized soldiers, like the Mamelukes. Since then, during this century, of which four-fifths have now passed away, commerce in slaves has not diminished in Africa. On the contrary.
And, in fact, Islamism is favorable to the slave trade. The black slave must replace the white slave of former times, in Turkish provinces. So of every origin pursue this execrable traffic on a large scale. They thus carry a supplement of population to those races, which are dying out and will disappear some day, because they do not
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CHAPTER XVIII. THE TERRIBLE WORD.
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CHAPTER II. HARRIS AND NEGORO.
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