Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade (1791)/Chapter 1
The Trade for Slaves, (says Mr. Kiernan) in the River Senegal, was chiefly with the Moors, on the Northern banks, who got them very often by war, and not seldom by kidnapping; that is, lying in wait near a village, where there was no open war, and seizing whom they could.
He has often heard of villages, and seen the remains of such, broken up by making the people slaves.
That the Moors used to cross the Senegal to catch the negroes was spoken of at Fort Louis as notorious; and he has seen instances of it where the persons so taken were ransomed.
General Rooke says, that kidnapping took place in the neighbourhood of Goree. It was spoken of as a common practice. It was reckoned disgraceful there, but he cannot speak of the opinion about it on the Continent. He remembers two or three instances of negroes being brought to Goree, who had been kidnapped, but he could not discover by whom. At their own request he immediately sent them back.
Mr. Dalrymple found that the great droves (called Cassellas or Caravans) of slaves brought from inland, by way of Galam, to Senegal and Gambia, were prisoners of War. Those sold to vessels at Goree, and near it, were procured either by the grand pillage, the lesser pillage, or by robbery of individuals, or in consequence of crimes. The grand pillage is executed by the king's soldiers, from three hundred to three thousand at a time, who attack and set fire to a village, and seize the inhabitants as they can. The smaller parties generally lie in wait about the villages, and take off all they can surprise; which is also done by individuals, who do not belong to the king, but are private robbers. These sell their prey on the coast, where it is well known no questions as to the means of obtaining it are asked.
As to kidnapping it is so notorious about Goree, that he never heard any person deny it there. Two men while he was there offered a person, a messenger from Senegal to Rusisco, for sale, to the garrison, who even boasted how they had obtained him. Many also were brought to Goree while he was there, procured in the same manner.
These depredations are also practised by the Moors: he saw many slaves in Africa who told him they were taken by them; particularly three, one of whom was a woman, who cried very much, and seemed to be in great distress; the two others were more reconciled to their fate.
Captain Wilson says, that slaves are either procured by intestine wars, or kings breaking up villages, or crimes real or imputed, or kidnapping.
Villages are broken up by the king's troops surrounding them in the night, and seizing such of the inhabitants as suit their purpose. This practice is most common when there is no war with another state.
It is universally acknowledged that free persons are sold for real or imputed crimes, for the benefit of their judges.
Soon after his arrival at Goree, king Damel sent a free man to him for sale, and was to have the price himself. One of the king's guards being asked whether the man was guilty of the crime imputed to him, answered, that was of no consequence, or ever inquired into. Captain Wilson returned the man.
Kidnapping was acknowledged by all he conversed with to be generally prevalent. It is the first principle of the natives, the principle of self-preservation, never to go unarmed, while a slave vessel is on the coast, for fear of being stolen. When he has met them thus armed, and inquired of them, through his interpreter, the reason of it, they have pointed to a French slave-vessel then lying at Portudal, and said their fears arose from that quarter. As a positive instance, he says, a courier of Captain Lacy's, his predecessor, though a Moor, a free man, and one who spoke the French language fluently, was kidnapped as he was travelling on the Continent with dispatches on his Britannick Majesty's account, and sold to a French vessel, from which he, Captain Wilson, after much trouble, actually got him back.
When he presided in a court at Goree, a Maraboo swore, with an energy which evinced the truth of his evidence, that his brother, another Maraboo, had been kidnapped in the act of drinking, a moment known to be sacred by their religion, at the instigation of a former governor, who had taken a dislike to him. This was a matter notorious at Goree.
Mr. Wadstrom knows slaves to be procured between Senegal and Gambia, either by the general pillage or by robbery by individuals, or by stratagem and deceit.
The general pillage is executed by the king's troops on horseback, armed, who seize the unprepared. Mr. Wadstrom, during the week he was at Joal, accompanying one of those embassies which the French governor sends yearly with presents to the black kings, to keep up the slave trade, saw parties sent out for this purpose, by king Barbesin, almost every day, these parties went out generally in the evening, and were armed with bows and arrows, guns, pistols, sabres, and long lances.
The king of Sallum practises the pillage also. Mr. Wadstrom saw twenty-seven slaves from Sallum, twenty-three of whom were women and children, thus taken.He was told also by merchants at Goree, that king Damel practises the pillage in like manner.
Robbery was a general way of taking single slaves. He once saw a woman and a boy in the slave-hold at Goree; the latter had been taken by stealth from his parents in the interior parts above Cape Rouge, and he declared, that such robberies were very frequent in his country; the former, at Rusisco, from her husband and children. He could state several instances of such robberies. He very often saw negroes thus taken brought to Goree. Ganna of Dacard was a noted man-stealer, and employed as such by the slave merchants there.
As instances of stratagem employed to obtain slaves, he relates, that a French merchant taking a fancy to a negro, who was on a visit at Dacard, persuaded the village, for a certain price, to seize him. He was accordingly taken from his Wife, who wished to accompany him, but the Frenchman had not merchandize enough to buy both. Mr. Wadstrom saw this negro at Goree, the day he arrived from Dacard, chained, and lying on the ground, exceedingly distressed in his mind.
The king of Sallum also prevailed on a woman to come into his kingdom, and sell him some millet. On her arrival, he seized and sold her to a French officer, with whom Mr. Wadstrom saw this woman every day while at Goree.
Mr. Wadstrom was on the island of St. Louis, up the Senegal also, and on the continent near the river, and says, that all the slaves sold at Senegal, are brought down the river, except those taken by the robbery of the Moors in the neighbourhood, which is sometimes conducted by large parties, in what are called petty wars.
Captain Hills saw while lying between Goree and the continent, the natives, in an evening, often go out in war dresses, as he found to obtain slaves for king Damel, to be sold. The reason was, that the king was then poor, not having received his usual dues from us. He never saw the parties that went out return with slaves, but has often seen slaves in their huts tied back to back. He remembers also, that some robbers once brought him a man bound on board the Zephir, to sell, but he, Capt. Hills, would not buy him, but suffered him to escape.
The natives on the continent opposite to Goree all go armed, he imagines for fear of being taken.
When in the River Gambia, wanting servants on board his ship, he expressed a wish for some volunteers. A black pilot in the boat called two boys who were on shore, carrying baskets of shallots, and asked Capt. Hills if they would do, in which case he would take them off, and bring them to him. This he declined. From the ease with which the pilot did it, he concludes this was customary.
The black pilot said the merchantmen would not refuse such an offer. He apprehends these two boys were free people, from the pilot's mode of speaking, and from his winking, implying, it was an illicit thing.
A boy, whom he bought from the merchants in the same river, had been carried in the night from his father's house, where a skirmish had happened, in which he believes he said both his parents, but he well remembers, one were killed. The boy said many were killed, and some taken.
Mr Ellison spoke the Mundingo language, in consequence of which he has often conversed with slaves from the Gambia, to which river he made three voyages, and they universally informed him, that they had been stolen and sold.
The natives up the river Scassus informed Mr. Bowman, that they had got two women and a girl, whom they then brought him, in a small town which they had surprized in the night; that others had got off, but they expected the rest of the party would bring them in, in two or three days. When these arrived, they brought with them two men whom Mr. Bowman knew, and had traded with formerly; upon questioning them, he discovered the women he had bought to be their wives. Both men and women informed him, that the war-men had taken them while asleep.
The war-men used to go out, Mr. Bowman says, once or twice in eight or ten days, while he was at Scassus. It was their constant way of getting slaves, he believed, because they always came to the factory before setting out, and demanded powder, ball, gun flints, and small shot; also rum, tobacco, and a few other articles. When supplied, they blew the horn, made the war cry, and set off. If they met with no slaves, they would bring him some ivory and camwood. Sometimes he accompanied them a mile or so, and once joined the party, anxious to know by what means they obtained the slaves. Having travelled all day, they came to a small river, when he was told they had but a little way farther to go. Having crossed the river, they stopped till dark. Here Mr. Bowman (it was about the middle of the night) was afraid to go farther, and prevailed on the king's son to leave him a guard of four men. In half an hour he heard the war cry, by which he understood they had reached a town. In about half an hour more they returned, bringing from twenty-five to thirty men, women and children, some at the breast. At this time he saw the town in flames. When they had re-crossed the river, it was just day light, and they reached Scassus about mid-day. The prisoners were carried to different parts of the town. They are usually brought in with strings around their necks, and some have their hands tied across. He never saw any slaves there who had been convicted of crimes.
He has been called up in the night to see fires, and told by the towns people that it was war carrying on.
Whatever rivers he has traded in, such as Sierra Leon, Junk, and little Cape Mount, he has usually passed burnt and deserted villages, and learned from the natives in the boat with him, that war had been there, and the natives had been taken in the manner as before described, and carried to the ships.
He has also seen such upon the Coast: while trading at Grand Bassau, he went on shore with four black traders to the town a mile off. In the way, there was a town deserted, (with only two or three houses standing) which seemed to have been a large one, as there were two fine plantations of rice ready for cutting down. A little further on they came to another village in much the same state. He was told the first town had been taken by war, there being many ships then lying at Bassau: the people of the other had moved higher up in the country for fear of the white men. In passing along to the trader's town he saw several villages deserted; these the natives said had been destroyed by war, and the people taken out and sold.
Sir George Young found slaves to be procured by war, by crimes, real or imputed, by kidnapping, which is called panyaring, and a fourth mode was the inhabitants of one village seizing those of another weaker village, and selling them to the ships.
He believes, from two instances, that kidnapping was frequently practised up Sierra Leon River. One was that of a beautiful infant boy, which the natives after trying to sell to all the different trading ships came along side his, (the Phœnix) and threatened to toss overboard, if no one would buy it; saying they had panyared it with many other people, but could not sell it, though they had sold the others. He purchased it for some wine.
The second was, a captain of a Liverpool ship had got, as a temporary mistress, a girl from the king of Sierra Leon, and instead of returning her on shore on leaving the coast, as is usually done, he took her away with him. Of this the king complained to Sir George Young very heavily, calling this action panyaring by the whites.
The term panyaring, seemed to be a word generally used all along the coast where he was, not only among the English, but the Portuguese and Dutch.
Capt. Thompson also says, that at Sierra Leon he has often heard the word panyaring; he has heard also that this word, which is used on other parts of the coast, means kidnapping or seizing of men.
Slaves, says Mr. Town, are brought from the country very distant from the coast. The king of Barra informed Mr. Town, that on the arrival of a ship, he has gone three hundred miles up the country with his guards, and driven down captives to the sea-side. From Marraba, king of the Mundingoes, he has heard that they had marched slaves out of the country some hundred miles; that they had gone wood-ranging, to pick up every one they met with, whom they stripped naked, and if men, bound; but if women, brought down loose; this he had from themselves, and also, that they often went to war with the Bullam nation, on purpose to get slaves. They boasted that they should soon have a fine parcel for the shallops, and the success often answered. Mr. Town has seen the prisoners (the men bound, the women and children loose) driven for sale to the water-side. He has also known the natives go in gangs marauding and catching all they could. In the Galenas River he knew four blacks seize a man who had been to the sea-side to sell one or more slaves. This man was returning home with the goods received in exchange for these, and they plundered and stripped him naked, and brought him to the trading shallop, which Mr. Town commanded, and sold him there.
He believes the natives also sometimes become slaves, in consequence of crimes, as well as, that it is no uncommon thing on the coast, to impute crimes falsely for the sake of selling the persons so accused. Several respectable persons at Bance Island, and to windward of it, all told Mr. Town that it was common to bring on [1] palavers to make slaves, and he believes it from the information of the slaves afterwards, when brought down the country and put on board the ships.
Off Piccaninni Sestus, farther down on the Windward Coast, Mr. Dove observed an instance of a girl being kidnapped and brought on board by one Ben Johnson, a black trader, who had scarcely left the ship in his canoe, with the price of her, when another canoe with two black men came in a hurry to the ship, and inquired concerning this girl. Having been allowed to see her, they hurried down to their canoe, and hastily paddled off. Overtaking Ben Johnson, they brought him back to the ship, got him on the quarterdeck, and calling him teefee (which implies thief) to the captain, offered him for sale.— Ben Johnson remonstrated, asking the captain, "if he would buy him whom he knew to be a grand trading man;" to which the captain answered, "if they would sell him, he would certainly buy him, be he what he would," which he accordingly did, and put him into irons immediately with another man. He was led to think, from this instance, that kidnapping was the mode of obtaining slaves upon this part of the coast.
Lieutenant Storey says, that slaves are generally obtained on the Windward coast by marauding parties, from one village to another in the night. He has known canoes come from a distance, and carry off numbers in the night. He has gone into the interior country, between Bassau and the River Sestus; and all the nations there go armed, from the fear of marauding parties, whose pillages in these countries are termed war.
At one time in particular, while Mr. Storey was on the coast, a marauding party from Grand Sestus came in canoes, and attacked Grand Cora in the night, and took off twelve or fourteen of the inhabitants. The canoes of Grand Sestus carry twelve or fourteen men, and with these go a marauding among their neighbours. Mr. Storey has often seen them at sea out of sight of land in the day, and taking the opportunity of night to land where they pleased.
Mr. Falconbridge supposes the slave trade, on these parts to be chiefly supplied by kidnapping. On his second voyage, at Cape Mount and the Windward Coast, a man was brought on board, well known to the captain and his officers, and was purchased. This man said he had been invited one evening to drink with his neighbours. When about to depart, two of them got up to seize him; and he would have escaped, but he was stopped by a large dog. He said this mode of kidnapping was common in his country.
In the same voyage, two black traders came in a canoe, and informed the captain there was trade a little lower down. The Captain went there, and finding no trade, said he would not be made a fool, and therefore detained one of the canoe-men. In about two hours afterwards a very fine man was brought on board, and sold, and the canoe-man was released. He was informed by the black pilot, that this man had been surrounded and seized on the beach, from whence he had been brought to the ship and sold.
Lieutenant Simpson says, from what he saw, he believes the slave trade is the occasion of wars among the natives. From the natives of the Windward Coast he understood that the villages were always at war; and the black traders and others gave as a reason for it, that the kings wanted slaves. If a trading canoe, along-side Mr. Simpson's ship, saw a larger canoe coming from a village they were at war with, they instantly fled; and sometimes without receiving the value of their goods. On inquiry, he learned their reasons to be, that if taken they would have been made slaves.
Mr. How states, that when at Secundee, some order came from Cape Coast Castle. The same afternoon several parties went out armed, and returned the same night with a number of slaves, which were put into the repository of the factory. Next morning he saw people, who came to see the captives, and to request Mr. Marsh, the resident, to release some of their children and relations. Some were released, and part sent off to Cape Coast Castle. He had every reason to believe they had been obtained unfairly as they came at an unseasonable time of the night, and from their parents and friends crying and begging their release. He was told as much from Mr. Marsh himself, who said, he did not mind how they got them, for he purchased them fairly. He cannot tell whether this practice subsisted before; but when he has gone into the woods he has met thirty or forty natives, who fled always at his appearance, although they were armed. Mr. Marsh said, they were afraid of his taking them prisoners.
The same Mr. Marsh made no scruple also of shewing him the stores of the factory. They consisted of different kinds of chains made of iron, as likewise an instrument made of wood, about five inches long, or an inch in diameter, or less, which he was told by Mr. Marsh was thrust into a man's mouth horizontally, and tied behind to prevent him from crying out, when transported at night along the country.
Dr. Trotter says, that the natives of these parts are sometimes slaves from crimes, but the greater part of the slaves are, what are called prisoners of war. Of his whole cargo he recollects only three criminals; two sold for adultery, and one for witchcraft, whose whole family shared his fate. One of the first said he had been decoyed by a woman who had told her husband, and he was sentenced to pay a slave; but being poor, was sold himself. Such stratagems are frequent: the fourth mate of Dr. Trotter's ship was so decoyed, and obliged to pay a slave, under the threat of stopping trade. The last said he had had a quarrel with a Cabosheer (or great man) who in revenge accused him of witchcraft, and sold him and his family for slaves.
Dr. Trotter having often asked Accra, a principal trader at Le Hou, what he meant by prisoners of war, found they were such as were carried off by a set of marauders, who ravage the country for that purpose. The bush-men making war to make trade (that is to make slaves ) was a common way of speaking among the traders. The practice was also confirmed by the slaves on board, who shewed by gestures how the robbers had come upon them; and during their passage from Africa to the West Indies, some of the boy-slaves played a game, which they called slave-taking or bush-fighting; shewing the different manœuvres thereof in leaping, sallying, and retreating. Inquiries of this nature put to women, were answered only by violent bursts of sorrow.
He once saw a black trader send his canoe to take three fishermen employed in the offing, who were immediately brought on board, and put in irons, and about a week afterwards he was paid for them. He remembers another man taken in the same way from on board a canoe along-side. The same trader very frequently sent slaves on board in the night, which, from their own information, he found, were every one of them taken in the neighbourhood of Annamaboe. He remarked, that slaves sent off in the night, were not paid for till they had been some time on board, lest, he thinks, they should be claimed; for some were really restored, one in particular, a boy, was carried on shore by some near relations, which boy told him, he had lived in the neighbourhood of Annamaboe, and was kidnapped.
There were many boys and girls on board Dr. Trotter's ship, who had no relations on board. Many of them told him they had been kidnapped in the neighbourhood of Annamaboe, particularly a girl of about eight years old, who said she had been carried off from her mother by the man who sold her to the ship.
Mr. Falconbridge was assured by the Rev. Philip Quakoo, chaplain at Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast, that the greatest number of slaves were made by kidnapping.
He has heard that the great men on this part of the coast, dress up and employ women, to entice young men to be connected with them, that they may be convicted of adultery and sold.
Lieutenant Simpson heard at Cape Coast Castle, and other parts of the Gold Coast, repeatedly from the black traders, that the slave trade made wars and palavers. Mr. Quakoo, chaplain at Cape Coast Castle, informed him, that wars were made in the interiour parts, for the sole purpose of getting slaves.
There are two crimes on the Gold coast, which seem made on purpose to procure slaves; adultery and the removal of fetiches.[2] As to adultery, he was warned against connecting himself with any woman not pointed out to him, for that the kings kept several who were sent out to allure the unwary, and that, if found to be connected with these, he would be seized, and made to pay the price of a man slave. As to fetiches, consisting of pieces of wood, old pitchers, kettles, and the like, laid in the path-ways, he was warned to avoid displacing them, for if he should, the natives who were on the watch, would seize him, and, as before, exact the price of a man slave. These baits are laid equally for natives and Europeans; but the former are better acquainted with the law, and consequently more upon their guard.
Mr. Ellison says, that while one of the ships he belonged to, viz. the Briton, was lying in Benin river, Capt. Lemma Lemma, a Benin trader, came on board to receive his customs. This man being on the deck, and happening to see a canoe with three people in it, crossing the river, dispatched one of his own canoes to seize and take it. Upon overtaking it, they brought it to the ship. It contained three persons, an old man and a young man and woman. The chief mate bought the two latter, but the former being too old, was refused. Upon this, Lemma ordered the old man into the canoe, where his head was chopped off, and he was thrown overboard. Lemma had many war canoes, some of which had six or eight swivels; he seemed to be feared by the rest of the natives. Mr. Ellison did not see a canoe out on the river while Lemma was there, except this, and if they had known he had been out, they would not have come. He discovered by signs, that the old man killed was the father of the two other negroes, and that they were brought there by force. They were not the subjects of Lemma.
At Bonny, says Mr. Falconbridge, the greatest number of slaves come from inland. Large canoes, some having a three or four pounder lashed on their bows, go to the up country, and in eight or ten days return with great numbers of slaves: he heard once, to the amount of twelve hundred at one time. The people in these canoes have generally cutlasses, and a quantity of muskets, but he cannot tell for what use.
Mr. Falconbridge does not believe that many of these slaves are prisoners of war, as we understand the word war. In Africa, a piratical expedition for making slaves, is termed war. A considerable trader at Bonny explained to him the meaning of this word, and said, that they went in the night, set fire to towns, and caught the people as they fled from the flames. The same trader said, that this practice was very common.
Mr. Falconbridge says also, that in his third voyage, which was to Bonny, a woman was brought on board big with child. As she attracted his notice, he asked her, by means of the interpreter, how she came to be sold. Her reply was, that returning home from a visit, she was seized, and after being passed through various hands, was brought down to the water-side, and sold to a trader, who afterwards sold her to the ship.
In the same voyage an elderly man brought on board said (through the interpreter) that he and his son were seized as they were planting yams, by professed kidnappers, by which he means persons who make kidnapping their constant practice.
On his last voyage, which was also to Bonny, a canoe came along-side his vessel, belonging to a noted trader in slaves, from which a fine stout fellow was handed on board, and sold. Mr. Falconbridge seeing the man amazed and confounded when he discovered himself to be a slave, inquired of him, by means of an interpreter, why he was sold. He replied, that he had had occasion to come to Bonny to this trader's house, who asked if he had ever seen a ship. Replying no, the trader said, he would treat him with the sight of one. The man consenting, said he was thereupon brought on board, and thus treacherously sold. All the slaves Mr. Falconbridge ever talked to by means of interpreters, said they had been stolen.
Mr. Douglas, when ashore at Bonny Point, saw a young woman come out of the wood to the water-side to bathe. Soon afterwards two men came from the wood, seized, bound, and beat her for making resistance, and bringing her to him, Mr. Douglas, desired him to put her on board, which he did; the captain's orders were, when any body brought down slaves, instantly to put them off to the ship.
When a ship arrives at Bonny, the king sends his war canoes up the rivers, where they surprise all they can lay hold of. They had a young man on board, who was thus captured, with his father, mother, and three sisters. The young man afterwards in Jamaica having learnt English, told Mr. Douglas the story, and said it was a common practice. These war canoes are always armed. The king's canoes came with slaves openly in the day; others in the evening, with one or two slaves bound, lying in the boats bottom, covered with matts.
Mr. Morley states, that in Old Calabar persons are sold as slaves for adultery and theft. On pretence of adultery, he remembers a woman sold.
He has been told also by the natives at Calabar, that they took slaves in what they call war, which he found was putting the villages in confusion, and catching them as they could. A man on board the ship he was in, shewed how he was taken at night by surprise, and said his wife and children were taken with him, but they were not in the same ship. Mr. Morley had reason to think, from the man's words, that they took nearly the whole village, that is, all those that could not get away.
Captain Hall says, when a ship arrives at Old Calabar, or the River Del-Rey, the traders always go up into the country for slaves. They go in their war canoes, and take with them some goods, which they get previously from the ships.
He has seen from three to ten canoes in a fleet, each with from forty to sixty paddlers, and twenty to thirty traders and other people with muskets, suppose one to each man, with a three or four pounder lashed on the bow of the canoe. They are generally absent from ten days to three weeks, when they return with a number of slaves pinioned, or chained together.
Captain Hall has often asked the mode of procuring slaves inland, and has been told by the traders, that they have been got in war, and sold by the persons taking them.
Mr. J. Parker says, he left the ship to which he belonged at Old Calabar, where being kindly received by the king's son, he staid with him on the continent for five months. During this time he was prevailed upon by the king's son, to accompany him to war.[3] Accordingly, having fitted out and armed the canoes, they went up the river Calabar. In the day time they lay under the bushes when they approached a village, but at night flew up to it, and took hold of every one they could see; these they handcuffed, brought down to the canoes, and so proceeded up the river till they got to the amount of forty-five, with whom they returned to New-town, where sending to the captains of the shipping, they divided them among the ships.
About a fortnight after this expedition, they went again, and were out eight or nine days, plundering other villages higher up the river. They seized on much the same number as before, brought them to New-town, gave the same notice, and disposed of them as before among the ships.
They took man, woman and child, as they could catch them in the houses, and except sucking children, who went with their mothers, there was no care taken to prevent the separation of the children from the parents when sold. When sold to the English merchants they lamented, and cried that they were taken away by force.
The king at Old Calabar was certainly not at war with the people up this river, nor had they made any attack upon him. It happened that slaves were very slack in the back country at that time, and were wanted when he went on these expeditions.Mr. Falconbridge thinks crimes are falsely imputed, for the sake of selling the accused. On the second voyage at the river Ambris, among the slaves brought on board was one who had the craw craw, a kind of itch. He was told by one of the sailors, that this man was fishing in the river, when a king's officer, called Mambooka, wanted brandy and other goods in the boat, but having no slave to buy them with, accused this man of extortion in the sale of his fish, and after some kind of trial on the beach, condemned him to be sold. He was told this by the boat's crew who were ashore when it happened, who told it as of their own knowledge.
Besides the accounts just given, from what the above witnesses saw and heard on the coast of Africa, as to the different methods of making slaves, there are others contained in the evidence, which were learnt from the mouths of the slaves themselves, after their arrival in the West-Indies.
Some of these have informed several of the witnesses on this occasion, that they were taken in war, (Hall and Woolrich) others, that they were taken by surprise in their towns, or while at work in their fields, (Hall) or as they were straggling from their huts, or cultivating their lands, (Dalrymple) or tending their corn: (Woolrich) others, that they were taken by armed canoes up the rivers, (Douglas) others, by stratagem, (Cook) or kidnapped, (Rev. Mr. Davies, Dean of Middleham, Mr. Fitzmaurice) which kidnapping prevailed in the inland parts at a great distance from the shore, (Dr. Harrison) and was with some a professed occupation, and a common practice (Falconbridge and Clappeson.)
- ↑ An African word, which signifies conferences of the natives on any publick subject, or as in this place, accusations and trials.
- ↑ Certain things of various sorts, to which the superstition of the country has ordered, for various reason, an attention to be paid.
- ↑ The reader is earnestly requested to take notice, that the word war, as adopted into the African language, means in general robbery, or a marauding expedition, for the purpose of getting slaves. Two noted black traders are found themselves to have explained the term to two of the Evidences (Trotter, p. 11. Falconbridge, p, 14.) and it appears decidedly by the accounts of Wadstrom, Town, Bowman, Storey, Morley, and J. Parker, that the catching of men is denominated by the Africans to be war.