There is on that part of Africa, called the Gold Coast, a race of the inhabitants, known by the name of Fantees; they are sturdy, animated, laborious, and full of courage. Many of this nation are reared from their childhood, in the European vessels that frequent the coast; they learn their languages, and are practised in all the habits of seamanship; and more especially all that relate to the business of slaving. Vessels on, or near their own coast, they of course assist for a stipulated hire: those that are destined for any of the trading places in the gulph of Benin, or farther down the coast, generally call here and engage a Fantee mate, boatswain, and crew, from fifteen to thirty or upwards, according to the size of the vessel. The captain enters into a written agreement with their king, which is counter-signed by the English governor, expressing the nature of their service, the amount of their wages, and an engagement not to carry any of them off to the West-Indies. To these men the trade is in a good measure indebted for its existence. When the poor sailors fall off, these hardy natives, who have every indulgence the captains can allow them, carry on the business with a vigour and activity, of which the British seamen, from their ill usage and scanty fare, are incapable.
The manner of trading on every part of the coast differs, I dare say, in some particulars, but its general nature is pretty much the same: and as it has been so copiously handled in other publications on this subject, I shall forbear to speak on that head; reserving a liberty of animadverting on any thing that may have been but slightly handled.
I am inclined to think, that the method of collecting slaves by war, and frequent battles, dreadful as that mode may be, is by no means the great support of the Slave Trade: but that they are procured by the still more infamous and horrid practice of kidnapping.
In Benin, where I was employed, I am certain it was often the case. Our factory, in which I resided, was at Gatoe, many miles from the sea, in the heart of the country. I made continual enquiries, but never heard of any wars. I understood, however, from every thing I could collect, that they were seized by fraud or violence in the internal parts of the country, and so transmitted through different hands to the immediate traders upon the coast.
But to put it out of conjecture, the business was in practice every day around us. There was a lawless body of men in the kingdom of Benin, called Joemen; who, encouraged by the white traders, erected themselves into an independent government. Their king, a desperate fellow, was called Badjeka. They had no towns nor villages, but shifted suddenly, and pitched their temporary huts where they considered it to be most opportune for their depredations. These banditti bought no slaves, but they sold multitudes. They had neither settlement nor plantations, but lived entirely by this horrid species of robbery, which, in a civilized country, like Benin, must have been attended every day with circumstances of cruelty and distress, beyond any thing that enthusiasm (for so the adoption of the cause of humanity is called by the cold-blooded spoilers) has ever yet imagined.
Among the islands and creeks that are numerous about the mouth of the river Formosa, there was also a kind of pirate admiral, distinguished by the name and title of captain Lemma-Lemma. This personage had a powerful fleet of war canoes, with which he made descents on all parts of the unprotected coast; he paid no taxes, but declared himself independent of the king of Benin, whose subjects he carried off for trade at every opportunity. To this man, and his exertions, we were a good deal indebted for our cargo.
Whenever we wanted to give the trade a desirable degree of celerity, the practice was, to declare that a certain number of prime commodities would be in trade till such a date, (a short one) and no longer;—or, that the vessel was to sail by such a day, and was to be replaced by no other for some time. These artifices were sure to produce the effect proposed: we had soon slaves brought down to us, in great numbers, and without the intervention of wars or battles.
It has been affirmed by those, who know nothing of the internal policy and constitution of Guinea, but perhaps too much of that of the West India islands, that though they allow a number of Africans are annually sacrificed in the act of capture, in the course of the passage, in the seasoning in the plantations, and a long et cætera; yet that the slavish state of the survivors is infinitely preferable to that which they experienced in their own country.
The arguments drawn from the unalienable rights and principles of civil liberty, I leave in the hands of those who have time and abilities to enforce, and science to illuminate their reasonings—and, thank heaven, such have engaged in the cause of humanity! My simple observations go no further than to declare, that through the course of a seafaring life, to almost all parts of Europe, the West Indies, and North America, I never saw a happier race of people than those of the kingdom of Benin.
The subjects of the king of Benin were, during my observations there, seated in ease and plenty. The slave trade, and its unavoidably bad effects excepted, every thing bore the appearance of friendship, tranquillity, and primitive independence. At Gatoe the markets were regular and well stocked: they teemed with luxuries unknown to the Europeans. Their fishermen, hunters, and husbandmen, brought in their stores and delicacies: their smiths, carpenters, weavers, and, believe me, there are such among them, displayed their curious manufactures. Fowls, fish, fresh and dried provisions, fruits of the most delicious kind, various sorts of pepper and spices, potatoes, yams, plantains, calavances, cocoa nuts, sugar-cane, purslane, calliloo, ocra, palm-wine, and palm-oil, were in plenty there. These added to native coral, mats of a most curious texture, Benin and Jaboe cloths of beautiful colours, ivory, gold-dust, gums, woods, wax, cotton, and other commodities, proved to a demonstration the inexaustible store of valuable articles, which they could substitute for the unnatural traffic in human flesh; and shewed incontestably, that they could improve their produce to a state worthy the return of British luxuries. The glare and relish of these luxuries, Sir, now grown essential to them by use, they cannot easily forego; but if the inhuman process were abolished, they would be under the necessity, and would be desirous of meeting your exports with some more valuable and more guiltless branch of trade.