At the time that the slave trade had commenced to occupy the mind of the Hawkins malefactors and the British nation under Queen Elizabeth, Barbarossa had already subjected the mulatto King of Morocco to the payment of a tribute of $1,000,000 in gold dust—and 40 Negro merchants without any hesitation helped the king out of the dangers that confronted his people. When the Moor Zegri was humiliated by the Spanish Commander Cisneros in 1499 and the Arab books destroyed in Granada, Marmol states that less than 1,025,000 tomes on religion, politics, jurisprudence, manuscripts illuminated and worked in silver and gold were consigned to the fires. There remained 3,000 Moorish soldiers under command of a Negro captain whose intrepid heroism and valor was shown by the charges and counter charges he was able to repel. When unable to prevent the utter annihilation of his band by superior forces under Cifuentes, the Negro captain refused to surrender and jumped headlong from a fort. (Alcatara's History, Granada, pp. 165-6.) And this happened seven years after the discovery of America by Columbus.
The conditions of the new world were such that the Spaniards who had spent most of their wealth in the unprofitable civil and Arab wars, lost no time after hearing wonderful stories of untold wealth to requisition not only the Negroes of Seville, but to embark in the lucrative enterprise of human Negroes from the West Coast of Africa, and ships which were engaged in man-hunting poured their human freight into Hispaniola. It was not long after that the Spanish Negroes belonging to Diego Columbus, revolted, and the first insurrection, taking place among the very property of the discoverer's offspring, was suppressed by the military after killing the leaders. The prosperity of the colonies soon became apparent in the enormous number of Spanish ships with their precious cargoes arriving in the Spanish ports. The Spanish people were wild and in an ecstasy of joy to engage in the colonial enterprise, and as ships entered upon the perilous voyages of discovery the Africans were gathered to do the work for which no historian or economist has given them the credit which is their due for blazing the path of wealth into which the nations of Europe have ridden upon the lucrative backs of the Africans. The clearing of the forests from dangerous animals and poisonous insects, making with the awakening of each succeeding spring the virgin earth a paradise that has supported millions of European parasites; the working of the mines for precious metals that fed the envy of other powerful nations which questioned the right of the Spaniards to conquest under the banner of the Christian Church, and induced them to scramble and fight for their colonial honors.
No sooner than Santo Domingo was found to be a paradise of wealth than the other islands were made ready for the unwilling African. He was carried to the mainland of Panama, where Balboa was surprised to find a colony of Negroes whose origin has baffled the mind of the most learned men of that age. To this day no solution has been found for the problem of the coming of these Negroes of Quareca. Gomora says, "That Conquistador entered the Province of Quareca; he found no gold, but some blacks who were slaves of the lord of the place. He asked this lord whence he had received them, who replied that men of that color lived near the place, with whom they were constantly at war. "These Negroes," adds Gomora, "exactly resemble those of the Guinea; and no others have since been seen in America. It may be stated here that every hypothesis has been advanced to show that these men must have been people other than Negroes, but since the natives of the kingdoms of Congo and Guinea were known to have enjoyed friendly relations with each other and sailed the rivers in large oared boats, it is very probable that some of them crossed the Atlantic in like manner as the Caribs in their piraguas traveled from the islands to the mainland and vice versa. The nearest distance from Brazil to Africa is along the Tropic of Cancer, and any number of large boats may have lost their bearing in a storm and got ship-wrecked on the American mainland. This hypothesis is well within the range of probability in view of the fact that the trade winds blow from east to west and the Gulf Stream flows rapidly, and is noted for periodical variation in its course.
The Negroes that were originally carried into Santo Domingo from Spain became devoted to the early priests, for it must be conceded that the Jesuits were the friends who maintained a benevolent attitude toward these outcast sons of men. One of these Negroes, known as Estevanico, was the discoverer of the Seven Cities of Cibola, and what is known as Arizona and New Mexico. Negroes were in Mexico with the vanguard of the Spaniards, and to that country must be credited one of the earliest Negro poets. He lived in Mexico City, and was, by trade, a carpenter and maker of artificial flowers, and was always sought by the elite, because of his ready wit and quickness to rhyme on any theme given him.
Wherever the English ruled we have had to combat a very prejudiced and arrogant system of oppression. In the Spanish and French colonies the rule was milder, in consequence of a system of judicial laws which predicated a better understanding as a solution of the complex relations between master and slave. The English have shown by their rule in the Island of Trinidad how much regard they have had for the rights of others guaranteed by treaty. For a case in point we may refer to the treaty of capitulation between the Spaniards and the English that took place February 18th, 1797. Article 12 of this treaty reads: "The colored people, who have been acknowledged as such by the laws of Spain, shall be protected in their liberty, persons and property, like other inhabitants; they taking the oath of allegiance, meaning themselves as becomes good and peaceable subjects of His Britanic Majesty" (16). The way the British respected this "Scrap of Paper" is shown in a book written by a free mulatto, a graduate of the Edinburgh University, and printed in London in 1824. Says this anonymous author: "And even the Spanish governor saw his country about to be divested of a possession she had held ever since the third voyage of Columbus, he did not forget the faith she had plighted to the colored population, but exacted from the invaders security for the continuance of the equality of rights and privileges with the whites by the 12th article of the capitulation" (p. 16).
It would have been a glory to Britain to have emulated in those days the benevolent plan of France and Spain in improving the condition of their slaves; and to open a way for the admission of reason, religion, liberty and law among creatures of our kind who were deprived of every advantage, of every privilege, which as partakers of our common nature they were capable of and entitled to (Ramsay).
We have been instructed to look at the Negro as "idle, worthless, indolent and disloyal," but a careful examination of the West Indies and South America does not show this to be true. Many instances of advancement by hard industry can be noted in any of the many spots of the New World. There is not a single field of industrial activity in which the descendants of the African have not contributed their mite toward an improvement of the conditions which the gold seekers and pleasure hunters were wont to overlook. The commercial activities, the irrigation of fields, the working of the mines where the labor of Negro slaves and free men was paramount, the untold number of ships loaded down with merchandise and precious metals wending their way to Europe to support monarchies and provide pleasure for parasites, all this depended upon the unrequited toil of Negroes, which cannot be computed in dollars and cents because it would form a ladder, like Jacob's, which would reach to the very gates of Heaven.
Under the institution of slavery which curbed the aspirations of the Negro, it was not possible to expect the race to have shown any capacity except for hard labor in the fields which the lash accelerated. In most islands there was nothing else but agriculture fields to be cleared and developed with religion to mitigate and console the workers. The profits which were uppermost in the minds of the masters were gathered regularly and yielded handsomely.
The African people have been one of the earliest acquainted with cotton. A careful examination of available historical material shows that while Europe was still dressing in goat skins and grass goods the Negro peoples of Africa had been using cotton goods. Miss Kingsley relates that the cloth loom was invented by natives of the Eboe tribe, but many varieties of looms were common to the people of the Soudan. The prevailing color of the cloth from Guinea is blue and it is distinctly quaint, so enduring and pleasing that it has been handed down from the hoary ages to the present day. The dyes of the natives obtained from vegetable matter and other unknown primitive processes, have always won the admiration of the appreciative world. Europeans have admired the quality and durability of these cloths. The work of African looms in their primitive frames can be seen in the Museums of Natural History in London, Paris, Berlin and New York. They are indeed fine specimens of African handiwork and authorities have said that they would do credit to any Manchester or Birmingham looms.
It is said that native cloth manufactured at Kano is not very old and that it probably came from the Songhay country, but according to El Bekri, the Arab historian, and other ancient geographers, the art of weaving was very flourishing on the Upper Nile, especially in the town of Silla from very ancient times and as early as the eleventh century, the cotton cloth was called in this region by the same name it bears to this day, namely, "shigge."