Page:The slave trade of east Africa.djvu/28

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24

APPENDIX.


Note A.

Extract from Pamphlet on the Slave Trade of East Africa, published by the Church Missionary Society in 1868.

Having thus examined the present condition and circumstances of the East Coast Slave-trade, and the reasons assignable for its existence, let us proceed to the consideration of some means which may be adopted in mitigation of the evils brought on Africa by that trade, or, as suggested by the Bishop of Mauritius, the employment by Christian charity of the same means on the East Coast as have been so successful on the West, in bringing good out of the evil of slavery. The conditions of the inland slave trade on the East Coast are now precisely the same as those of the old West Coast traffic once were; and although the same responsibility and condemnation may not rest on England with regard to the East as pressed so heavily on her with regard to the West, yet the call upon Christian England's sympathy and help is as urgent and pressing from the East as it was from the West Coast of that unhappy land. If the Christianity of England cannot at once put a stop, either by treaty or armed force, to the infamous traffic, it can yet use for the East Coast the same means as have been so signally blessed for the elevation of the African race at Sierra Leone and other West Coast stations. The history of Mission work at Sierra Leone is the lesson whose results must guide any similar attempt on the East Coast. As an abstract proposition, it cannot be denied that the diffusion of light and knowledge, and instruction in agriculture, and enterprise and commerce, will put an end to the traffic in slaves anywhere; but the question to be considered is, how to begin. Notwithstanding the general familiarity with the history of the colony of Sierra Leone, it may be useful to embody in this paper a few of the salient points of that history, whose conditions find an analogy in the past and present circumstances of the East Coast. And, first, we find a common point in the fact that discovery and travel were closely followed by missionary enterprise. No sooner was the West Coast at all opened up, than missionary enterprise was attracted to the Guinea Coast and the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, and between 1768 and 1798 fifteen Missionaries were sent out, of whom but one returned home. In 1804 the first Missionaries of the Church Missionary