Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade (1791)/Chapter 7
Mr. Wadstrom observes of the natives of Africa, that they have an extraordinary genius for commerce, and that their industry is in all regards proportionate to their demands.
Consistently with this idea, we find some of them not only cultivating sufficient provisions for themselves, but an overplus for certain towns (Kiernan, Wadstrom, Wilson, and Howe); others cultivating corn and rice for the shipping that come among them, (Kiernan, Falconbridge, Dove, Bowman, Wadstrom, Hall, Newton); others bringing large bundles of rice on their heads of forty or fifty pounds weight from the inland country to the sea shore, and then travelling back loaded with European goods, (Hall, Storey, Bowman); others going in armed bodies even a month's journey inland with various articles for trade, (Storey); others wooding and watering the ships, (Falconbridge); and others hiring themselves out to the Europeans to work at a low price both in boats and on the shore, (Newton, Sir George Young, and Thompson.)
In short, says Hall, they were never indolent when they could work to advantage. They were willing to do any thing, says Morley, for which they had a prospect of being paid. They were always industrious, says Dalrymple, where there was a demand. Bowman believes they would have put more land into cultivation than they did when he was there, had a greater supply of rice been wanted by the shipping—they told him that they should like to trade more in their own produce; and Falconbridge is so sure, that, if properly encouraged, they would make any change the Europeans pleased, that he is himself going again to Africa to make the experiment.
Mr. Kiernan speaks. in the same terms. They cultivate, says he, cotton, indigo, and tobacco, but this they do for themselves only; for though they are never backward when encouraged, yet the Europeans have encouraged them only to raise provisions, and never the other articles.
It is evident then, from the above accounts, that the want of encouragement is at least one reason why the natives of Africa do not establish a trade in the productions of their own country, as enumerated in the last chapter. Now this want of encouragement we trace from Wadstrom finally to proceed from the trade in slaves, for such constant encouragement he observes is given by the merchants to the slave trade, and the minds of the natives are in consequence so wholly occupied in it, that little or no encouragement remains for the other.
Sir George Young, and Lieutenant Storey, both come to the same conclusion; and Lieutenant Simpson avers, that on repeatedly asking the black traders what they would do if the slave trade were abolished, he was repeatedly answered that they would soon find out another trade.
Mr. Wadstrom also mentions the slave trade as an impediment to a trade in the natural productions of the country, not only because it diminishes the encouragement of the latter, as just explained, but because it subjects the natives, who might be willing to follow it, to be made slaves, for, as he observes, they dare never go out into the fields unless well armed.
Mr. Wadstrom is supported in this second circumstance as a cause by Captain Wilson, who, in giving a reason why the slave trade obstructs the civilization and commerce of the natives, says, they will not for a temporary gratification risque the being kidnapped, and carried into perpetual slavery.
That the slave trade then, either by diminishing the proper encouragement to the natives, or endangering their persons, or by doing both, is the real cause why they do not or cannot exert their industry in cultivating the various articles, which their country has been proved to produce, can be ascertained from facts; for Mr. Dalrymple has remarked, that in those parts of the coast where there is little or no trade for slaves, they are actually more industrious than in those places where the trade is carried on.
Captain Hall says also, that he found cultivation in by far the highest state at the island of Fernandipo, so that the yams, which were the principal produce there, were made to run up like vines upon sticks. But here he observes, first, that the natives had great encouragement, for all the ships from Calabar, Del Rey, and the Cameroons, sent their boats there for these articles, as to the regular market, and, secondly, that they had no trade in slaves.
Mr. Falconbridge also has occasion to observe, that at Bonny, the most considerable place for slaves, there was a time in the late war when the slave trade was so interrupted, as to cease to be carried on, and that on his asking the black traders what they had done during this interval, they answered they had been obliged to cultivate the earth for their support.
Mr. How adds, that he has been almost upon every settlement, that belongs to the English, on the coast of Africa, and that he found the culture always in a higher degree, where there was but little of the slave trade, and just the reverse where the slave trade was carried on more at large.