Note C.
Slave-factories are established in almost every native village. The kings of Dahomy and Whidáh are the most noted for the infamous trade in slaves. It is usual when the slave-ships lie in the rivers, for a number of canoes to go up the inland: these go in a fleet, with thirty or forty armed natives in each. Every canoe is also furnished with a four or six pounder fastened to her bow. Thus equipped they depart, and are usually absent from eight to fourteen days. It is said they go to fairs held on the banks of the rivers, and at which there is a regular show of slaves. On their return, they generally bring down from eight hundred to a thousand of these captives, for the ships. They lie at the bottom of the canoes, their arms and legs having been bound with ropes of the country. It has been disclosed, by undoubted evidence, that the crews of these canoes go up the rivers till they arrive to a certain distance of a village; they then conceal themselves under the bushes which hang over the water, until the shades of night, when they enter the village and seize the wretched inhabitants, men, women, and children, who have no time to escape.
Nearly three hundred years have the European nations traded with Africa in human flesh, and encouraged in the negro countries, wars, rapine, desolation, and murder. The annual exportation of slaves from this quarter of the globe, has exceeded one hundred thousand; numbers of whom are driven down like sheep, perhaps a thousand miles from the coast, and are generally inhabitants of villages that have been surrounded in the night by armed force, and carried off bound in chains, and sold into perpetual bondage.
A slave-merchant thus wrote to his factor: “You will observe to make a present of five gallons of rum to the Suma, with the usual compliments on the Company’s behalf; and to assure him, and other useful persons near you, of the Company’s intentions to give very great encouragement to trade in those parts, more especially for slaves, dry goods, elephants’ teeth, wax, cotton, &c. and the Company desire me to inform you, that they have settled your commission at five shillings a head, for every merchantable slave, and so in proportion for other articles, in the hope it will encourage you to dispose of their goods to the best advantage.”
Note D.
The following list of African articles, as exhibited to Mr. Pitt and the House of Lords, by Mr. Clarkson, will illustrate the ingenuity of the Africans, and the possibility of making its natural productions a branch of lucrative and legitimate commerce. These articles were contained in a box, formed of four divisions; the first of which was filled with specimens of woods, polished; amongst them, mahogany of five different sorts, tulip and satin-wood, cam and bar-wood, fustic, black and yellow ebony, palm-tree, mangrove, calabash, and date; and also seven species retaining their native names, viz. tumiah, sarnaim, and jimlalié, each of a beautiful yellow; acajou, a deep crimson; bask and quellé for cabinet work; and bentin, the wood of which is used for the native canoes. Various other woods, one of which was a fine purple; and from two others a strong yellow and deep orange, and also a flesh-colour, could be extracted. The second division included ivory; and four species of pepper, the long, the black, the Cayenne, and the Malaguetta: three species of gum, Senegal, copal, and ruber astringes; cinnamon, rice, tobacco, indigo, white and Nankin cotton, Guinea-corn, and millet; three species of beans, of which two were for food, and the other yielding an orange dye: two species of tamarinds, one for food, the other to give whiteness to the teeth: pulse, seeds, and fruits of various sorts; some of the latter of which, Dr. Sparrman had pronounced, from a trial made during his residence in Africa, to be peculiarly valuable as drugs.
The third division contained an African loom, with a spindle and spun cotton round it; cloths of cotton of various kinds, made by the natives, some white, others dyed, and others, in which they had interwoven European silk; cloths and bags of grass, fancifully coloured; ornaments of the same material; ropes made from a species of aloes, and others, remarkably strong, from grass and straw; fine string made of the fibres of the roots of trees: soap of two kinds, one of which was formed from an earthy substance: pipe bowls made of a clay of a brown red, one beautifully ornamented with black devices, burnt in and highly glazed; another from Galám, made of an earth which was richly impregnated with little particles of gold. Trinkets made by the natives from their own gold; knives and daggers formed from bar iron; and various other articles, such as bags, dagger-sheaths, quivers, gris gris, all of leather, of native manufacture, dyed of various colours, and ingeniously sewed together. The fourth division contained the instruments of confinement used on board a slave-ship, to which were added those of punishment used in the colonies; such as iron collars, manacles, scourges, &c.