An accident occurred in landing our merchandise, which will serve to illustrate the character of Blanco. While the hogsheads of tobacco were discharging, our second mate, who suffered from strabismus more painfully than almost any cross-eyed man I ever saw, became excessively provoked with one of the native boatmen who had been employed in the service. It is probable that the negro was insolent, which the mate thought proper to chastise by throwing staves at the Krooman’s head. The negro fled, seeking refuge on the other side of his canoe; but the enraged officer continued the pursuit, and, in his double-sighted blundering, ran against an oar which the persecuted black suddenly lifted in self-defence. I know not whether it was rage or blindness, or both combined, that prevented the American from seeing the blade, but on he dashed, rushing impetuously against the implement, severing his lip with a frightful gash, and knocking four teeth from his upper jaw.
Of course, the luckless negro instantly fled to “the bush;” and, that night, in the agony of delirium, caused by fever and dreaded deformity, the mate terminated his existence by laudanum.
The African law condemns the man who draws blood to a severe fine in slaves, proportioned to the harm that may have been inflicted. Accordingly, the culprit Krooman, innocent as he was of premeditated evil, now lay heavily loaded with irons in Don Pedro’s barracoon, awaiting the sentence which the whites in his service already declared should be death. “He struck a white!” they said, and the wound he inflicted was reported to have caused that white man’s ruin. But, luckily, before the sentence was executed, I came ashore, and, as the transaction occurred in my presence, I ventured to appeal from the verdict of public opinion to Don Pedro, with the hope that I might exculpate the Krooman. My simple and truthful story was sufficient. An order was instantly given for the black’s release, and, in spite of native chiefs and grumbling whites, who were savagely greedy for the fellow’s blood, Don Pedro persisted in his judgment and sent him back on board the “Reaper.”
The character manifested by Blanco on this occasion, and the admirable management of his factory, induced me to seize a favorable moment to offer my services to the mighty trader. They were promptly accepted, and in a short time I was employed as principal in one of Don Pedro’s branches.
The Vey natives on this river and its neighborhood were not numerous before the establishment of Spanish factories, but since 1813, the epoch of the arrival of several Cuban vessels with rich, merchandise, the neighboring tribes flocked to the swampy flats, and as there was much similarity in the language and habits of the natives and emigrants, they soon intermarried and mingled in ownership of the soil.
In proportion as these upstarts were educated in slave-trade under the influence of opulent factors, they greedily acquired the habit of hunting their own kind and abandoned all other occupations but war and kidnapping. As the country was prolific and the trade profitable, the thousands and tens of thousands annually sent abroad from Gallinas, soon began to exhaust the neighborhood; but the appetite for plunder was neither satiated nor stopped by distance, when it became necessary for the neighboring natives to extend their forays and hunts far into the interior. In a few years war raged wherever the influence of this river extended. The slave factories supplied the huntsmen with powder, weapons, and enticing merchandise, so that they fearlessly advanced against ignorant multitudes, who, too silly to comprehend the benefit of alliance, fought the aggressors singly, and, of course, became their prey.
Still, however, the demand increased. Don Pedro and his satellites had struck a vein richer than the gold coast. His flush barracoons became proverbial throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and his look-outs were ceaseless in their signals of approaching vessels. New factories were established, as branches, north and south of the parent den. Mana Rock, Sherbro, Sugarei, Cape Mount, Little Cape Mount, and even Digby, at the door of Monrovia, all had depots and barracoons of slaves belonging to the whites of Gallinas.
But this prosperity did not endure. The torch of discord, in a civil war which was designed for revengeful murder rather than slavery, was kindled by a black Paris, who had deprived his uncle of an Ethiopian Helen. Every bush and hamlet contained its Achilles and Ulysses, and every town rose to the dignity of a Troy.
The geographical configuration of the country, as I have described it, isolated almost every family of note on various branches of the river, so that nearly all were enabled to fortify themselves within their islands or marshy flats. The principal parties in this family feud were the Amarars and Shiakars. Amarar was a native of Shebar, and, through several generations, had Mandingo blood in his veins;—Shiakar, born on the river, considered himself a noble of the land, and being aggressor in this conflict, disputed his prize with the wildest ferocity of a savage. The whites, who are ever on the watch for native quarrels, wisely refrained from partisanship with either of the combatants, but continued to purchase the prisoners brought to their factories by both parties. Many a vessel bore across the Atlantic two inveterate enemies shackled to the same bolt, while others met on the same deck a long-lost child or brother who had been captured in the civil war.
I might fill a volume with the narrative of this horrid conflict before it was terminated by the death of Amarar. For several months this savage had been blockaded in his stockade by Shiakar’s warriors. At length a sortie became indispensable to obtain provisions, but the enemy were too numerous to justify the risk. Upon this, Amarar called his soothsayer, and required him to name a propitious moment for the sally. The oracle retired to his den, and, after suitable incantations, declared that the effort should be made as soon as the hands of Amarar were stained in the blood of his own son. It is said that the prophet intended the victim to be a youthful son of Amarar, who had joined his mother’s family, and was then distant; but the impatient and superstitious savage, seeing a child of his own, two years old, at hand, when the oracle announced the decree, snatched the infant from his mother’s arms, threw it into a rice mortar, and, with a pestle, mashed it to death!