[226] I was present on one occasion at the purchase of some slaves. The person who was chusing those which suited his purpose, singled out among others a handsome woman, and a beautiful boy of about six years old. The woman had been a slave at Loanda upon the coast of Africa, and she spoke a little Portugueze. Whilst the selection was going on, the slave-dealer had happened to leave the room; but after it was concluded he returned, and seeing the persons who had been set apart to be purchased, said, he was sorry the woman and child could not be sold, for they formed part of a lot which could not be separated. The purchaser enquired the reason of the formation of a lot in this instance, and was answered that it consisted of a family, the husband, wife, and three children. The dealer was then requested to point out the individuals which composed it, and they were all bought together. How few slave-merchants would have acted in this manner! The whole family was present during the greatest part of the time, but there was no change of countenance in either the husband or the wife,—both of them understood the Portugueze language; the children were almost too young to know what was about to happen, and besides we spoke in a language which they did not understand. That their parents did feel deeply the separation which they must have apprehended as being upon the point of taking place, I have not the slightest doubt, because I frequently saw these slaves afterwards, and knew how much they were attached to each other and to their children. But whether it proceeded from resignation, from despair, from fear, or from being ashamed to shew what they felt before so many strangers, there was no demonstration of feeling. Negroes may have feelings, and yet not allow the standers-by to know what they feel.
[227] An instance occurred at Liverpool of the attachment of some of these people to their master. At the commencement of the direct trade from Brazil to Great Britain, some small vessels came to Liverpool manned in part with slaves, owing to their masters being ignorant that their arrival upon British ground would make them free. However the men themselves were soon made acquainted with this circumstance, and many of them availed themselves of the advantages which were to be thus obtained. One of the men belonging to a small bark left his vessel, and having entered himself as a seaman on board some other ship, returned to persuade three of his companions to do the same; but he was answered, that they were well treated where they were, had always been used kindly, and therefore had no wish to try any other way of life. These three men returned to Brazil in the bark, and I have heard that they were set at liberty by their master on their arrival there. I hope it was so. When the advocates of slavery relate such stories as these, they give them as tending to prove that slaves in general are happy. Anecdotes of this kind demonstrate individual goodness in the master and individual gratitude in the slave, but they prove nothing generally; they do not affect the great question; that is rested upon grounds which are too deeply fixed to be moved by single instances of evil or of good.
[228] Mr. Edwards mentions some of the Gold coast negroes, or those of the adjacent countries, and gives as an instance the chamba negroes, who follow this custom.
[229] Whilst I resided at Jaguaribe, I heard that two negroes of this nation had murdered a child of three or four years of age, the son or daughter of their master, and that they had been caught in the act of preparing to cook part of the body. The men were carried down to Recife, but the person who informed me of these circumstances did not know what punishment had been inflicted upon them.
[230] I merely state what is the general idea upon the subject in that country, without giving an opinion upon the general question.—Mr. Edwards says that it is a disease and not a habit.—History of the West-Indies, vol. ii. p. 141.
Labat is of opinion, that it is a habit and not a disease.—Nouveau Voyage &c. tom. ii. p. 11.
[231] There was one in 1814, and another in February of the present year, 1816.
[232] Edwards’ History of the West-Indies, vol. ii. p. 64.
[233] The negroes who are obtained in the province of Senegambia, “are known to the West-Indian planters by the general name of Mandingoes.”—History of the West-Indies, vol. ii. p. 50.
“There is a sort of people who travel about in the country, called Mandingo-men; (these are Mahommedans) they do not like to work; they go from place to place; and when they find any chiefs or people whom they think they can make any thing of, they take up their abode for a time with them, and make greegrees, and sometimes cast sand from them, for which they make them pay.”—Correspondence of Mr. John Kizell in the Sixth Report of the Directors of the African Institution, p. 136.