Wars in Africa originate from a variety of causes; in forming a correct estimate of these, it is necessary to consider its localities and situation. The inhabitants of this quarter of the earth, more particularly those of the district now under consideration, compose numerous tribes and nations, whose various views and interests excite jealousies and contentions, which, aided by the passions peculiar to a barbarous people, inevitably produce hostilities, and the effusion of human blood.
What we have hitherto known of this country undoubtedly proves that wars are carried on with the most sanguinary violence: their prisoners, by the customs of the country, are consigned to massacre, slavery, and sacrifice,[[1]] to gratify the avarice, vanity, and cruelty of their chiefs; one of these passions must be predominant, and therefore the question is, which of them is the least pregnant with evil? It cannot admit of a doubt that those who are victims to avarice meet a more mild and humane fate, in falling into the hands of Europeans, than the unhappy portion who are sacrificed to vanity and cruelty; and it is equally true, that since the interior nations have been enabled to exchange their slaves for European merchandize, the number of victims to the latter passion has decreased. I am far from being the advocate of slavery, but I am stating a fact, and leave it to the reader to form his own conclusions. Where confirmed habits and immemorial custom is to be supplanted, it is certainly requisite to be well acquainted with the nature and character of the natives, which I have not here introduced in an exaggerated shape, but infinitely within the bounds of their savage ferocity.
From these sources alone have arisen the expedients attendant upon the slave trade; kidnapping and petty warfare form a very unimportant branch of the barbarism which governs the inhabitants of Africa, and their enslaved condition.
Viewing this in the mass of moral evil which disgraces the character of man, it will be found that it is even disproportioned to the estimated population of Africa, which, from the best authority, has been stated at upwards of 160 millions; and to apply the consideration to our own situation, it will be found, that the number of executions and transportations from the United Kingdom, in proportion to its population, is infinitely greater than the number of slaves exported from the shores of Africa, to its numerous inhabitants. Unquestionably the slave trade has extricated a number of human beings from death, whom the horrible sacrifices before described consigned to a barbarous exit, and has been a cause, though an immoral one when applied to Britons, of extricating many victims, who otherwise would have been annually sacrificed: humanity has, therefore, some consolation in this polluted branch of our commerce, which in its nature is barbarous and inhuman.
Theories become extremely dangerous when they are impracticable, or misapplied, and are pernicious in their consequences from the fallacious measures they establish. In Africa crimes are punished by forfeitures, slavery, or death; they are however rare; but accusations are often used to procure slaves, whether for domestic purposes, sale, or sacrifice to their customs. Death, as a punishment, is seldom the penalty of condemnation; and if the culprit is rich, he can purchase his security. The alleged crime of witchcraft, or magic, is a common means by which the chiefs increase their accusations; and, consequently, the number of slaves. Adultery, and other violations of social order, are punished by fine, but absolution is to be obtained by money.
The crimes by which the chiefs obtain the condemnation and disposal of their subjects, are nearly all imaginary; for few exist which, under their laws, are considered as acts of turpitude. The abuse of authority, the action of violent passions, barbarous customs, ferocious habits, and insatiate avarice among the chiefs, augment the number of captives and victims, and the operation of these is much greater in the interior than in the maritime districts; but this leads me to the next part of my subject, namely, that a late legislative act will not, without farther interference, improve the condition of the African.
By the hasty conclusion of that measure, the unhappy African is now abandoned to his fate; and we have surrendered him into the hands of other nations, less acquainted with his character and situation. Former acts of parliament had adopted wise and humane measures to ameliorate the condition of slaves on board British vessls, so that their wants, and even their comforts, were administered with a liberal hand; and much more might have been done to augment these comforts. Instead of now being the object of matured and wise regulations, the captive is exposed to the rapacity of our enemies, who will derive great advantages from our abandonment of the trade, and those who are incompetent, from the want of local knowledge, to ease his shackles, and sooth him in his state of bondage. The magnitude and nature of the disease, required a comprehensive system of policy to eradicate it; and although in its nature and tendency of great moral turpitude, alteratives were required calculated to its inveterate character and established habits. The condition of the African, the probable advantages he was to derive by our abandonment, and the circumstances of commerce, were all considerations of important consequence.
Even virtue itself must modify to its standard many considerations of moral evil, more particularly in a political point of view, that it may the more effectually establish its principles; nor can it, amidst the corruptions of society, exercise at all times its functions with due effect; neither has an instance occurred where its prudence and discretion was more imperiously called upon, than in that now under consideration. It had immemorial custom in Africa to contend with, inveterate barbarism, and savage ferocity. This system had interwoven itself with our commercial existence so closely, as to require the most sagacious policy to eradicate it; at the same time it was the highest consideration for our magnanimity to interfere for that being whose thraldom and calamitous state had so long contributed to our wealth and commercial prosperity, before we abandoned him to contingencies.
Enough may have been said in the foregoing pages, to prove that something yet remains to be done to effect the manumission of the African, and preserve the important branches of commerce, which necessity has allied with the slave trade; and I entreat my readers to give this subject that dispassionate consideration which its merits require, and beg to assure them, that I obtrude my suggestions upon their notice with great submission and diffidence, trusting that what may appear in my system deficient, others more competent will embrace the subject, and excite the beneficence of my country in behalf of the African, promote civilization and Christian society in his country, display its arcana of wealth to the world, and open a path to its commerce, free and unobscured.
The colonization of the coast of Africa, in my estimation, is impracticable, from its climate being uncongenial to the constitution of Europeans, and from the system of slavery existing among its inhabitants, without the employment of natives in their present condition. The requisite authority to establish a system of labour, upon remunerative principles, and with industrious vigour, cannot otherwise be supported; and a misapprehension on this principle has been one of the great causes, as I conceive, of the failure of the Sierra Leone Company in establishing their agricultural objects. They attempted, in prosecution of their humane project, an agricultural establishment on the Boolam shore, opposite to their colony, where they had a choice of good lands: they proceeded upon the principles of their declaration, "that the military, personal, and commercial rights of blacks and whites shall be the same, and secured in the same manner," and in conformity with the act of parliament which incorporated them, more immediately that clause which relates to labour, namely, "not to employ any person or persons in a state of slavery in the service of the said Company;" but they have totally failed; and in one of their reports, among other reasons, it is acknowledged, that for want of authority over the free natives whom they employed, their agricultural establishment on the Boolam shore was unsuccessful. Let not those worthy and truly respectable characters, whose humanity has induced them to risque an extensive property unhappily expended without effect, here consider that I mean to militate against their views, but rather may they acquiesce in the truth, and devise other expedients to promote their beneficent objects, and to assimilate the natives of the country with their views. They have not only to lament a nonproductive profusion of their property, but an alienation of the natives, occasioned by a misconception of their character, by distracted councils, and the narrowed ideas of the agents they employed to prosecute their humane endeavours, but also by a desolate waste in their colony, without a regular feature of cultivation in its vicinity.