“He was succeeded by Ngola Chilvagni, a warlike and cruel prince, who carried his victorious arms within a few leagues of Loando. * * * Intoxicated with success, he fancied himself a God, and claimed divine honours. * * * Ngingha was elected his successor, a prince of so cruel a disposition that all his subjects wished his death; which, happily for them, soon arrived. Nevertheless, he was buried with the usual pomp, with the usual number of sacrifices. His son and successor, Bandi Angola, discovered a disposition still more cruel than his father’s. * * * To counteract these and other idolatrous rites, and to soften that barbarity of manners which so generally prevailed, the Portuguese, when they established themselves in the country, (1578,) were at great pains to introduce the invaluable blessings of Christianity. * * * so that from the year 1580 to 1590, we are informed, no less a number than 20,000 were converted and publicly professed Christianity.” * *
“Her remains were no sooner deposited beside her sisters, in the church which she had built, than Mona Zingha declared his abhorrence to Christianity, and revived the horrid Giagan rites. Five women, of the first rank, were by his orders buried in the queen’s grave, and upwards of forty persons of distinction were next sacrificed. * * * He wrote the viceroy at Loando, that he had abjured the Christian religion, which he said he had formerly embraced merely out of respect * * * to his queen, and that he now returned to the ancient sect of the Giagas. That there might remain no doubt of his sincerity in that declaration, he followed it with the sacrifice of a great number of victims, in honour of their bloody and idolatrous rites, with the destruction of all Christian churches and chapels, and with the persecution of the Christians in all parts of his kingdom.”
And we may here remark that even the nations of the coast could never be persuaded to abolish human sacrifice, nor to the introduction of Christianity, to any extent, until after the introduction of the slave-trade with christian nations. See also Osborn’s Collection of Travels, vol. ii. p. 537; Mod. Universal Hist. vol. 43; and Edin. Encyc. vol. ii. pp. 107, 109, 110, 113.
Over two hundred years ago, and during the reign of Charles I. of England, Sir Thomas Herbert, (not Lord Edward Herbert, who wrote a deistical book, entitled, “Truth,”) a gentleman of most elevated connection, and a scholar devoted to science and general literature, with a mind adorned by poetry and influenced by the strongest impulses of human sympathy; and one, of whom Lord Fairfax said,
“He travelled, not with lucre sotted,
But went for knowledge—and he got it!”
This author, in his Tour in Africa, writes thus: “The inhabitants here along the Golden coast of Guinea, and Benin, bounded with Tombotu, (Timbuctoo,) Gualata, and Mellis, and watered by the great river Niger, but, especially in the Mediterranean (inland) parts, know no God, nor are at all willing to be instructed by nature—“Scire nihil jucundissimum.” Howbeit the Divel, who will not want his ceremonie, has infused prodigious idolatry into their hearts, enough to relish his pallet, and aggrandize their tortures, where he gets power to fry their souls, as the raging sun has scorched their cole-black carcasses. * * * Those countries are full of black-skinned wretches, rich in earth, as abounding with the best minerals and with elephants, but miserable in Demonomy. * * * Let one character serve for all. For colour they resemble chimney-sweepers; unlike them in this, they are of no profession, except rapine and villany make one; for here, Demonis omnia plena. * * * But in Loango and the Anziqui the people are little other than divels incarnate; not satisfied with nature’s treasures, as gold, precious stones, flesh in variety, and the like; the destruction of men and women neighbouring them, whose dead carcasses they devour with a vulture relish and appetite; whom if they miss, they serve their friends such scurvy sauce, butchering them, and thinking they excuse all in a compliment that they know no better way to express love than in making two bodies in one, by an inseparable union; yea, some, as some report, proffering themselves to the shambles, accordingly are disjointed and set to sale upon the stalls. * * * The natives of Africa being propagated from Cham, both in their visages and natures, seem to inherit his malediction. * * * They are very brutes. A dog was of that value here that twenty salvages (slaves) have been exchanged for one of them; but of late years the exchange here made for negroes, to transport into the Cariba isles and continent of America, is become a considerable trade.”
It will be remembered how great have been the exertions of the British Government to abolish totally the slave-trade in Africa. A great number of slave ships were captured, and the negroes found on board sent to Sierra Leone. Strong hopes were entertained that “poor, suffering Africa” was about to be civilized.
We quote from the Hibernian Auxiliary Missionary Report, Christian Observer, 1820, pages 888 and 889:
“The slave-trade, which like the (fabled) upas, blasts all that is wholesome in its vicinity, has, in one important instance, been here overruled for good. It has been made the means of assembling on one spot, and that on a Christian soil, individuals from almost every nation of the western coast of Africa. It has been made the means of introducing to civilization and religion many hundreds from the interior of that vast continent, who had never seen the face of a white man, nor heard the name of Jesus. And it will be made the means under God of sending to the nations beyond the Niger and the Zaire, native missionaries who will preach the Redeemer in the utmost parts of the country, and enable their countrymen to hear in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. European avarice and native profligacy leave no part of Africa unexplored for victims; and these slaves, rescued by our cruisers, and landed on the shores of our colony, are received by our missionaries and placed in their schools.”