Admittedly, however, normal domestic slavery in Africa is widely removed from predial slavery with which our school books made us familiar. Eliminating from domestic slavery the sacrifices for which slaves were always, and in some places are still, reserved; eliminating also European demands for labour, the system is not everything that is bad, nor are the chiefs invariably cruel and despotic towards their slaves. It is nevertheless equally true that the frequency of “palavers” which deal with escaping slaves is an evidence that the yoke of slavery is often intolerable, and that in spite of native law, in spite of European law and practice, and still more in spite of the fetish, the slaves attempt, and sometimes make good their escape.
SLAVE CAPTURE
Over large areas in the British colony of Southern Nigeria the police can, and do, recapture and restore such slaves to their owners, and two years ago it came as a shock to many that an escaping slave seeking refuge on the deck of a British Government ship could be forcibly recaptured and restored to his master; not only so, but he was actually flogged by British police for running away! It is, however, not altogether an easy matter to secure recapture of runaway slaves under British law, and therefore to the charge of “running away” is sometimes added larceny—the theft of a canoe or a cloth; the canoe, of course, being the boat by which the wretched slave made good his escape, and the cloth that which he uses to cover his nakedness. The following is a fair specimen of the warrants issued for the recapture of slaves in Southern Nigeria:—
COPY.
| No. | 1881 |
| 74 |
Warrant To Arrest Accused.
Form 2.
In the Native Council of Warri, Southern Nigeria. To..............................Officer of Court.
Whereas Joe of Lagos is accused of the offence of (1) running away from the Head of his House two years ago; (2) Larceny of cloth value 16s., two handkerchiefs, and a canoe. You are hereby commanded to arrest the said Joe of Lagos and to bring him before this Court to answer the said charge.
Issued at Warri, the 28th day of November, 1910.