Those who are acquainted with the Trade agree, that many Negroes on the sea-coast, who have been corrupted by their intercourse and converse with the European Factors, have learnt to stick at no act of cruelty for gain. These make it a practice to steal abundance of little Blacks of both sexes, when found on the roads or in the fields, where their parents keep them all day to watch the corn, &c. Some authors say, the Negroe Factors go six or seven hundred miles up the country with goods, bought from the Europeans, where markets of men are kept in the same manner as those of beasts with us. When the poor slaves, whether brought from far or near, come to the sea-shore, they are stripped naked, and strictly examined by the European Surgeons, both men and women, without the least distinction or modesty; those which are approved as good, are marked with a red-hot iron with the ship’s mark; after which they are put on board the vessels, the men being shackled with irons two and two together. Reader, bring the matter home, and consider whether any situation in life can be more completely miserable than that of those distressed captives. When we reflect, that each individual of this number had some tender attachment which was broken by this cruel separation; some parent or wife, who had not an opportunity of mingling tears in a parting embrace; perhaps some infant or aged parent whom his labour was to feed and vigilance protect; themselves under the dreadful apprehension of an unknown perpetual slavery; pent up within the narrow confines of a vessel, sometimes six or seven hundred together, where they lie as close as possible. Under these complicated distresses they are often reduced to a state of desperation, wherein many have leaped into the sea, and have kept themselves under water till they were drowned; others have starved themselves to death, for the prevention whereof some masters of vessels have cut off the legs and arms of a number of those poor desperate creatures, to terrify the rest. Great numbers have also frequently been killed, and some deliberately put to death under the greatest torture, when they have attempted to rise, in order to free themselves from their present misery, and the slavery designed them. An instance of the last kind appears particularly in an account given by the master of a vessel, who brought a cargo of slaves to Barbadoes; indeed it appears so irreconcileable to the common dictates of humanity, that one would doubt the truth of it, had it not been related by a serious person of undoubted credit, who had it from the captain’s own mouth. Upon an inquiry, What had been the success of his voyage? he answered, ‘That he had found it a difficult matter to set the negroes a fighting with each other, in order to procure the number he wanted; but that when he had obtained this end, and had got his vessel filled with slaves, a new difficulty arose from their refusal to take food; those desperate creatures chusing rather to die with hunger, than to be carried from their native country.’ Upon a farther inquiry, by what means he had prevailed upon them to forego this desperate resolution? he answered, ‘That he obliged all the negroes to come upon deck, where they persisted in their resolution of not taking food, he caused his sailors to lay hold upon one of the most obstinate, and chopt the poor creature into small pieces, forcing some of the others to eat a part of the mangled body; withal swearing to the survivors, that he would use them all, one after the other, in the same manner, if they did not consent to eat.’ This horrid execution he applauded as a good act, it having had the desired effect, in bringing them to take food.
A similar case is mentioned in Astley’s Collection of Voyages, by John Atkins, Surgeon on board Admiral Ogle’s squadron, ‘Of one Harding, mailer of a vessel, in which several of the men-slaves, and a woman-slave, had attempted to rise, in order to recover their liberty; some of whom the master, of his own authority, sentenced to cruel death; making them first eat the heart and liver of one of those he killed. The woman he hoisted by the thumbs; whipped and slashed with knives before the other slaves, till she died.’
As detestable and shocking as this may appear to such, whose hearts are not yet hardened by the practice of that cruelty, which the love of wealth, by degrees, introduceth into the human mind; it will not be strange to those who have been concerned or employed in the Trade. Now here arises a necessary query to those who hold the balance and sword of justice; and who must account to God for the use they have made of it. Since our English law is so truly valuable for its justice, how can they overlook these barbarous deaths of the unhappy Africans without trial, or due proof of their being guilty, of crimes adequate to their punishment? Why are those masters of vessels, (who are often not the most tender and considerate of men) thus suffered to be the sovereign arbiters of the lives of the miserable Negroes, and allowed, with impunity, thus to destroy, may I not say, murder their fellow-creatures, and that by means so cruel as cannot be even related but with shame and horror?
When the vessels arrive at their destined port in the Colonies, the poor Negroes are to be disposed of to the planters; and here they are again exposed naked, without any distinction of sexes, to the brutal examination of their purchasers; and this, it may well be judged is to many of them another occasion of deep distress, especially to the females. Add to this, that near connections must now again be separated, to go with their several purchasers: In this melancholy scene Mothers are seen hanging over their Daughters, be-dewing their naked breasts with tears, and Daughters clinging to their Parents; not knowing what new stage of distress must follow their separation, or if ever they shall meet again: And here what sympathy, what commiseration are they to expect? why indeed, if they will not separate as readily as their owners think proper, the whipper is called for, and the lash exercised upon their naked bodies, till obliged to part.
Can any human heart, that retains a fellow-feeling for the Sufferings of mankind, be unconcerned at relations of such grievous affliction, to which this oppressed part of our Species are subjected: God gave to man dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle, &c. but imposed no involuntary subjection of one man to another.
The Truth of this Position has of late been clearly set forth by persons of reputation and ability, particularly George Wallis, in his System of the Laws of Scotland, whose sentiments are so worthy the notice of all considerate persons, that I shall here repeat a part of what he has not long since published, concerning the African Trade, viz. ‘If this Trade admits of a moral or a rational justification, every crime, even the most atrocious, may be justified: Government was instituted for the good of mankind. Kings, Princes, Governors, are not proprietors of those who are subjected to their authority, they have not a right to make them miserable. On the contrary, their authority is vested in them, that they may by the just exercise of it, promote the Happiness of their people: Of course, they have not a right to dispose of their Liberty, and to sell them for slaves: Besides, no man has a right to acquire or to purchase them; men and their Liberty, are not either saleable or purchaseable: One therefore has no body but himself to blame, in case he shall find himself deprived of a man, whom he thought he had, by buying for a price, made his own; for he dealt in a Trade which was illicit, and was prohibited by the most obvious dictates of humanity. For these reasons, every one of those unfortunate men, who are pretended to be slaves, has a right to be declared free, for he never lost his Liberty, he could not lose it; his Prince had no power to dispose of him: of course the sale was void. This right he carries about with him, and is entitled every where to get it declared. As soon, therefore, as he comes into a country, in which the Judges are not forgetful of their own humanity, it is their duty to remember that he is a man, and to declare him to be free.—This is the Law of Nature, which is obligatory on all men, at all times, and in all places.—Would not any of us, who should be snatched by Pirates from his native land, think himself cruelly abused, and at all times intitled to be free? Have not these unfortunate Africans, who meet with the same cruel fate, the same right? are not they men as well as we? and have they not the same sensibility? Let us not, therefore, defend or support an usage, which is contrary to all the Laws of Humanity.’
Francis Hutchinson, also in his System of Moral Philosophy, speaking on the subject of Slavery, says, ‘He who detains another by force in slavery, is always bound to prove his title. The Slave sold or carried away into a distant country, must not be obliged to prove a negative, that he never forfeited his Liberty. The violent possessor must, in all cases, shew his title, especially where the old proprietor is well known. In this case each man is the original proprietor of his own Liberty: The proof of his losing it must be incumbent on those, who deprived him of it by force. Strange, (says the same author) that in any nation, where a sense of Liberty prevails, where the Christian religion is professed, custom and high prospect of gain can so stupify the consciences of men, and all sense of natural justice, that they can hear such computation made about the value of their fellow-men and their Liberty, without abhorrence and indignation.’
The noted Baron Montesquieu gives it, as his opinion, in his Spirit of Laws, page 348, ‘That nothing more assimilates a man to a beast than living amongst freemen, himself a slave; such people as these are the natural enemies of society, and their number must always be dangerous.’
The Author of a pamphlet, lately printed in London, entituled, An Essay in Vindication of the continental Colonies of America, writes, ‘That the bondage we have imposed on the Africans, is absolutely repugnant to justice. That it is highly inconsistent with civil policy: First, as it tends to suppress all improvements in arts and sciences; without which it is morally impossible that any nation should be happy or powerful. Secondly, as it may deprave the minds of the freemen; steeling their hearts against the laudable feelings of virtue and humanity. And, lastly, as it endangers the community by the destructive effects of civil commotions: need I add to these (says that author) what every heart, which is not callous to all tender feelings, will readily suggest; that it is shocking to humanity, violative of every generous sentiment, abhorrent utterly from the Christian Religion: for, as Montesquieu very justly observes, We must suppose them not to be men, or a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians.——There cannot be a more dangerous maxim, than that necessity is a plea for injustice. For who shall fix the degree of this necessity? What villain so atrocious, who may not urge this excuse? or, as Milton has happily expressed it,
‘—————————And with necessity,