We are Accessaries by Trade, to all that Cruelty of their Countrymen, which has subjected them to the Condition of Slaves, little better in our Plantations, than that of Cattle; the Rigour of their usage having made some hundreds of them at Jamaica run away into barren Mountains, where they chuse to trust Providence with their Subsistance, rather than their Fellow-Christians (now) in the Plantations.
Slaves differ in their Goodness; those from the Gold Coast are accounted best, being cleaned limbed, and more docible by our Settlements than others; but then they are, for that very reason, more prompt to Revenge, and murder the Instruments of their Slavery, and also apter in the means to compass it.
To Windward they approach in Goodness as is the distance from the Gold Coast; so, as at Gambia, or Sierraleon, to be much better, than at any of the interjacent places.
To Leeward from thence, they alter gradually for the worse; an Angolan Negro is a Proverb for worthlessness; and they mend (if we may call it so) in that way, till you come to the Hottentots, that is, to the Southermost Extremity of Africa.
I have observed how our Trading is managed for Slaves, when obliged to be carried on aboard the Ship.—Where there are Factories, (Gambia, Sierraleon, the Gold Coast, Whydah, Calabar, Cabenda, and Angola,) we are more at large; they are sold in open Market on shore, and examined by us in like manner, as our Brother Trade do Beasts in Smithfield; the Countenance, and Stature, a good Set of Teeth, Pliancy in their Limbs and Joints, and being free of Venereal Taint, are the things inspected, and governs our choice in buying.
The bulk of them are country People, stupid as is their distance from the Converse of the Coast-Negroes, eat all day if Victuals is before them; or if not, let it alone without Complaint; part without Tears with their Wives, Children, and Country, and are more affected with Pain than Death: yet in this indocile State, the Women retain a Modesty, for tho’ stripped of that poor Clout which covers their Privities (as I know the Whydahs generally do) they will keep squatted all day long on board, to hide them.
Whydah Slaves are more subject to Small-Pox, and sore Eyes; other parts to a sleepy Distemper, and to Windward, Exomphalos’s. There are few Instances of Deformity any where; even their Nobles know nothing of chronical Distempers, nor their Ladies, of the Vapours. Their flattish Noses are owing to a continued grubbing in their Infancy against their Mother’s Backs, being tied within the Tomee, whether upon Travel or Business, for a year or two, the time of their sucking.
