Slavery and the slave trade in Africa

by Henry M. Stanley

Attention has been given of late to Morocco. This near neighbor of England is just twenty years behind Zanzibar. The sentiments which the English people expressed at the Mansion House and Stafford House in regard to the slave trade at Zanzibar in 1873-4 are remarkably like those which are uttered to-day respecting Morocco. But it will require something more than diplomatic missions to the court of the Sultan to suppress the Moorish slave trade. Sir John D. Hay, who during his long stay in that country won the titles of the “Mussulman’s Friend” and “Counsellor of the Throne,” was accustomed to make periodical journeys to the Moorish court, and the Sultan used to meet his representations with promises of reform and amendment, but as soon as he set out on his return to Tangier, the native officials would set themselves to undo the good caused by Sir John’s visit. Sir William Kirby Green, his successor, was also successful in eliciting assurances that the trade would be stopped, and now Sir Charles Euan-Smith lately paid a visit, but unfortunately the results have been nil. It is doubtful whether England alone can induce the Sultan and his ministers to press the needed reforms in the face of national opposition, or that anything less than the concerted action of England, France, Germany, and Spain can succeed. A demonstration by England alone, without the cordial assent of the other powers, would doubtless be regarded as a step towards annexation rather than as an expression of the hostility of the British nation to the slave trade. But meantime the importation of negroes from the Nigritian basin and southwestern Soudan into the public slave markets of Morocco will continue until for very shame it will irritate Europe into taking more decided steps in the name of humanity to force the ever-maundering authorities to decree the abolition of the slave trade, and to carry the decree into immediate effect. It is surely high time that the “China of the West,” as it has been called, should be made to feel that its present condition is a standing reproach to Europe. While the heart of Africa responds to the civilizing influences moving from the east and the west and the south, Morocco remains stupidly indifferent and inert, a pitiful example of senility and decay.

The remaining portion of North Africa which still fosters slavery is Tripoli. The occupation of Tunis by France has diverted such traffic in slaves as it maintained to its neighbor. Though the watchfulness of the Mediterranean cruisers renders the trade a precarious one, the small lateen boats are frequently able to sail from such ports as Benghazi, Derna, Solum, etc., with living freight, along the coast to Asia Minor. In the interior, which is inaccessible to travellers, owing to the fanaticism of the Senoussi sect, caravans from Darfoor and Wadai bring large numbers of slaves for the supply of Tripolitan families and Senouissian sanctuaries. The country is of course under Turkish authority, and vizirial letters and firmans have been frequently issued since 1848 forbidding the importation of slaves and all traffic in them, but we might as well expect the Bedouins of Arabia to cease their nomadic life at the bidding of the Pasha of Haleb as the fanatical Mussulmans of the Fezzan to abstain from slavery at the mere command of the Governor of Tripoli.

The descent of the Congo to the Atlantic in 1877 suggested to King Leopold the foundation of a state. The Berlin Conference was a consequence of the success attained by the King. The partition of Southwest Africa among France, Portugal and Belgium inspired the Germans to seek territorial possessions in the Dark Continent, and the movement of Germany excited Great Britain to action, and thus public attention was once more diverted to eastern Africa.

BOY SLAVE

From the Abyssinian frontier as far as the Portuguese possessions, and stretching inland to a line which may roughly be said to be about east longitude 30°, was an area covering about 1,500,000 square miles which belonged to no power. It was agreed that it should be divided into three spheres of influence. The Germans fixed upon the southernmost, the Italians upon the most northern; the British chose the central. Each power contracted to confine its operations within its own sphere, and to proceed to organize and administer it as opportunity offered upon a civilized basis. There was no intention to launch out into any enterprise of conquest, but each power proposed to make its title good by renting or leasing tracts within its sphere from the native princes or tribal chiefs, by making treaties with them for the sovereignty of their lands, in return for annual subsidies and protection from violence, meanwhile being certain of immunity from all interference or opposition from its neighbor.

The Germans were the earliest to commence work. Through the agency of a company they made a treaty with the Sultan of Zanzibar for his long strip of coast land, undertaking to pay him a certain sum per annum for the right of collecting the customs. But the imprudent conduct of the officers, their imperious and peremptory manner of proceeding, impelled the Arabs to attempt to drive them from the coast. At Kilwa, Dar Salaam, Bagamoyo, and Saadani the officers of the German company were attacked; some had to fly, others were massacred, and innocent British missionaries returning home after a long residence in the interior were waylaid and murdered by the excited natives; and the first attempts of German colonization ended disastrously. Naturally the imperial German government could not brook this humiliation, and Major Wissmann, a well-known explorer, was appointed with full powers to suppress the revolt. Within two years the Arabs were crushed, but the German position in East Africa became completely changed in consequence. It had been originally proposed to hold the East African coast by lease from the Sultan, with the view of including the Hinterland as far as Lake Tanganika within the sphere of their colonizing operations when results would permit; but the Germans now claimed nearly the whole of the east coast and east central Africa. This led in 1890 to the Anglo-German Convention, by which the German frontier was drawn south of latitude 1° S., across the Victoria Nyanza, thence east to the Indian Ocean, skirting the northern base of Kilima-Njaro to Wanga, a few miles south of the port of Mombasa. The British territory extended north from Wanga on the sea as far as the mouth of the Juba River, a distance of about 450 miles, thence inland as far as the Congo State. These two great divisions of Africa, now converted into British and German territory, included the major part of the area wherein the slave trade of the east central part of the continent so long flourished. The countries west of Lake Nyassa, extending westward to Portuguese territory and south to the Zambezi, conceded to the great South African Company, absorbed the remainder of the slavery area. These last are under the control of a British commissioner, Mr. H. H. Johnston, to whom is granted an annual subsidy of £10,000 from the South African Company, and who, with the aid of two British gunboats now on their way to Lake Nyassa, must shortly succeed in closing the interior of Africa in that direction to all slave caravans.

Since the Anglo-German Convention the Germans have shown themselves ready and willing to do their part towards the suppression of the slave trade in the same thorough manner that they met the rising of the Arabs. The coast towns are fortified and garrisoned; they are marking their advance towards Lake Tanganika by the erection of military stations; severe regulations have been issued against the importation of arms and gunpowder; the Reichstag has been unstinted in its supplies of money; an experienced administrator, Baron von Soden, has been appointed an imperial commissioner, and scores of qualified subordinates assist him. The Belgian Antislavery Society is sending a steamer, viâ the Congo, Kasai, Sankuru, and Lumami, to Lake Tanganika as a cruiser for that lake; the German Catholic African Society is sending another steamer, in charge of Major von Wissman, viâ the Zambezi, Shiré, Lake Nyassa, and Stevenson Road to Tanganika. These two steamers will effectually prevent slaves being transported across the lake from the eastern part of the Congo State. In German East Africa itself slave hunts have ceased for many years; but it is traversed in several places by slave caravans, principally from the southwest and west. These routes will now be closed by the cruisers on Lakes Nyassa and Tanganika, and the stations along the Stevenson Road. Henceforward we need have no concern about that part of Africa. The northern boundaries, a thousand miles in length, are not so well guarded, though the Germans are engaged in the transport of a steamer to Lake Victoria, and possess three stations along the southwestern shores; but between Lakes Tanganika and Victoria is a broad tract of country which will no doubt have to be watched, lest the slavers, finding this unguarded, may unite in making this a pathway to the coast.

These strategic efforts to the west and southwest of German East Africa, and the continuous upward advance of the stations and flotillas of King Leopold towards the east, limit the operations of the slave-traders to that narrowing and untravelled area lying between Stanley Falls and Lake Tanganika, and will have the effect of determining the Arabs to seek outlets eastward through British East Africa, which, in its present state, is most backward in fulfilling the objects of united Europe. Were it not for the condition that British East Africa is in to-day we could say that the slave trade in equatorial Africa was completely extinguished, and we could almost point to the period wherein even slavery would be extirpated.

The partition of Africa among the European powers, as will have been seen, was the first effective blow dealt to the slave trade in inner Africa. The east coast, whence a few years ago the slavers marched in battalions to scatter over the wide interior of the continent for pillage and devastation, is to-day guarded by garrisons of German and British troops. The island of Zanzibar, where they were equipped for their murderous enterprises, is under the British flag. Trading steamers run up and down the coast; the Tana and Juba rivers are being navigated by British steamers; two lines of stations secure communications inland for 300 miles from the sea. Major von Wissman is advancing upon Lake Tanganika; Herr Boorchert is marching upon Lake Victoria; Captain Williams is holding Uganda. These results have followed very rapidly the political partition of the continent.