Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade (1791)/Chapter 10
If there be any of the slaves happier in the colonies than they were at home, they must be such as were formerly slaves in their own country; and if so, the African must be shewn to be more oppressive than the colonial slavery.
This, however, is so far from being the case, that, as Mr. H. Ross observes, though on another occasion, any comparison between the state of the two is an [1] insult to common sense. The slaves in Africa are mentioned by Mr. Towne as never ill used by their own people. They are treated, says Mr. Keirnan, as Europeans treat people of their own family. They are described again by Hall and Dalrymple as eating and drinking with their Masters. Captain Wllson says also they live with their masters, and are not distinguishable from them. Mr. Falconbridge never saw any whom by their treatment he could say were slaves. Mr. Wadstrom speaks of them as well used, and Mr. Morley as treated with kindness, and better than in the West Indies.
Now, if the lives of the slaves in Africa should be so much happier (as may be seen by comparing the above accounts with those in Chap. IV.) than the lives of the slaves in the European colonies, it will not be doubted that freemen in the former parts of the world must be happier than slaves in the latter.
Though the observations already made might be sufficient (both with respect to such as having been originally freemen, and such as having been originally [2] slaves in their own country, are sent to the European colonies) to disprove the assertion insinuated in the title to this chapter, yet as there are other very strong proofs in the evidence, it would be unpardonable not to cite them in the present case.
Mr. M. Cook has often heard Africans in the West Indies express their praise of their own country and their regret at leaving it. Lieutenant Davison observes it is common for sick Africans to say, with pleasure, they are going to die, and are going home from this Buccra (or White man's) country. It is also notorious that the Africans, when brought into the colonies, frequently destroy themselves. Dr. Harrison, Coor, M. Terry, Cook, Fitzmaurice, Clappeson, Baillie, Dalrymple, Davison, Dean of Middleham, Captain Ross, and Woolrich, all agree in this fact. The causes of it are described in general to be ill treatment, the desire of returning home, and the preference of death to life when in the situation of slaves, all of which are so many proofs of their superiour happiness in their own country. It is also very remarkable, as we find from Mr. Coor, that these acts of desperation should have been so frequent as to have occasioned it to have passed into an observation, "that the Gold coast negroes, when driven to despair, always cut their throats, and those of the most inland country mostly hang themselves.
To give a few extracts from the evidences on this occasion. A negro boy of his, says Dr. Harrison, detested slavery so much that he refused all support, which brought on a dropsy that killed him. Another negro, who had been a great man in his own country, refused to work for any white man, and being therefore punished by the overseer, he desired him to tell his master that he would be a slave to no man. His master ordered him to be removed to another estate. His hands were tied behind him, and in going over a bridge he jumped into the water and appeared no more. These are two facts of Dr. Harrison's own knowledge, out of a great many which he cannot now recollect.
Mr. Fitzmaurice has known too many suicides, among new negroes especially, both by hanging themselves and dirt-eating, which they knew to be fatal. He lost one year twelve new negroes by it, though he fed them well. On his remonstrating they constantly told him they preferred dying to living. A great proportion of the new negroes that go on sugar estates, die in this way.
A planter, says Mr. Woolrich, purchased six men slaves out of a Guinea ship, and put them on a small island to plant cotton. They had a white man with them as overseer, who left them of a Saturday night. There were no white inhabitants on the island. On the Monday following the overseer returned, when he found all the six hanging near together in the woods. Mr. Woolrich often inquired of the most sensible negroes what could be the cause of such actions, and the answer was, "that they would rather die than live in the situation they were in."
As the last proof in the evidence, and that an irrefragable one, how much happier the Africans are in their own country than in the colonies, may be adduced the great joy which is discovered at their funerals by their fellow-slaves, and which joy is said to proceed from the idea that the deceased are returning home.
Mr. Douglas saw three funerals of Guinea slaves in the West Indies. At these funerals, says he, they sing, and are merry, and, naming the deceased, say, he is gone to Guinea.
Great rejoicings, says Cook, are made by African negroes at the funerals of each other, from a belief that the deceased are gone to their own country again.
African negroes, says Forster, shewed the most extravagant joy at their friends funerals, from believing the deceased gone back to their country.
Captain Wilson confirms the above by stating, that he never saw any signs of happiness among the imported slaves, except at their funerals, when they shew extravagant joy, from a persuasion that the deceased is escaped from slavery to his own country. Captain Wilson, however, does not stop here, for he goes on to declare, that in Africa their funerals are attended with the most mournful cries.
It is impossible to conclude this chapter better than by an extract from the evidence of Mr. Dalrymple.—That gentleman says, he might have had the means of putting his estate in Grenada under cultivation, as he might have had slaves from the house of Backhouse and Tarlton, but having had an opportunity, when on the coast of Africa, of knowing how happy the negroes were in their own country, and knowing the unjustifiable means by which they were made slaves there, their cruel usage when on board ship, and their severe usage when in the West Indies, he could not consistently with his ideas of what was right, purchase any slaves, and particularly as he did not intend to remain on the plantation himself.
- ↑ Some have even gone so far as to say that they are happier than the labouring poor of this country: but it has been most amply refuted by Woolrich, Captain Wilson, Jeffreys, Rees, Dean of Middleham, and H. Ross, the latter of whom, though he compared the different circumstances in their respective situations at the request of the Committee, prefaced it by saying, that any comparison between the state of the two was an insult to common sense.
- ↑ Very few slaves in the West Indies are such as have been slaves in Africa, for says Dalrymple and Wadstrom, there are very few slaves in Africa at all, and those who have them, says Morley, do not like to sell them.