It is by the assistance of African free labour, and by the judicious and just application thereof, both in Africa and in the West Indian colonies, that the victory of free labour over slave labour, freedom over slavery, can be achieved and maintained.
The abundant population of Africa, properly directed, and a small portion gradually taken from judiciously selected districts of that continent, and under proper regulations, will be found sufficient to cultivate, not only her own fertile fields, but also to supply in adequate numbers free labourers to maintain the cultivation of the British West Indian colonies. It must always be borne in mind, that in the maintenance of cultivation, civilization, and industry, in those possessions, the cultivation, industry, and civilization of Africa depend. The cause of both is henceforth the same, and cannot, and ought not, and must not be separated. Whatever sources the West Indian colonies may and must look to for immediate relief, it is in civilized and enlightened Africa that they can only depend for a future and permanent support. Abandon this principle and this course, and the error committed will, at an early day, be fatal and final.
Yet if the labour of Africa is continued to be abstracted to any considerable extent by Europeans, and from any points except from free European settlements in Africa, in order to cultivate other quarters of the world, all hope of improving the condition of Africa is at an end; because the abstraction of such labour can only be obtained by the continuation of internal slavery and a slave trade within Africa; because labour, if generally abstracted from Africa as heretofore, whether in freemen or slaves, will tend to enhance the cost of that which remains to such an extent, as will render it all but impossible for any industrious capitalist, whether European or native, to extend and maintain successfully cultivation in Africa.
Had the 9,000,000 of slaves which, from first to last, have been torn from Africa to cultivate America, been employed in their native land, supported by European (British) capital, and guided by British intelligence, how much more beneficial and secure than it is, would every thing have been to Africa, to England, and to the world?
Europe has been acting wrong: let her not continue in error; and, at the same time, let England meet and grapple with the question with enlarged and liberal views—views that look to future times and future circumstances—views such as England ought to entertain, and such as Great Britain only can yet see carried into effect.
We first established cultivation in the West Indies by a population not natives of the soil, but which required to be imported from another and distant quarter of the globe. This, politically and commercially speaking, was a great error; but it has been committed, and it would be a greater error to leave those people, now free British subjects, and the large British capital there vested, to decay, misery, and general deterioration. They must be supported, and it is fortunate that they can be supported, through their present difficulties, without inflicting a grievous wrong on Africa, by taking her children from her by wholesale to cultivate distant and foreign lands.
If European nations generally adopt the system of transporting labourers as freemen from Africa, then Africa would continue to be as much distressed, tortured, and oppressed, as ever she has been; while with the great strength of slave labour which those vast and fertile countries, Brazils, Cuba, &c., possess, they would, by the unlimited introduction of people called free from Africa, but which, once got into their power, they could coerce to labour for stated hire, overwhelm by increased production all the British colonies both in the west and in the east.
Such abstraction of the African population from their country, would give a fearful impulse to an internal slave trade in Africa. The unfeeling chiefs on the coast, the most profligate, debased, and ferocious of mankind, would by fraud, force, or purchase, in the character of emigration agents, drag as many to the coast as they pleased and might be wanted; and while they did not actually sell, nor the European, technically speaking, buy, the people so brought from interior parts, these chiefs, by simply fixing high port charges and fiscal regulations for revenue purposes, would obtain from the transfer of the people—a transfer which these people could not resist or oppose—a much higher income than they before received from the bona fide sale of slaves; and with which income they could, and they would, purchase European articles from European traders, to enable them to furnish additional and future supplies.
In this way, millions after millions of Africans—for millions after millions would most unquestionably be demanded—would certainly be carried away. The poor creatures, unable to pay their own passage, would no more be their own masters from the moment they got on board the foreign ship, than if they were really slaves.
Such a traffic as this on the part of foreign nations, Great Britain could neither denounce nor oppose while she herself resorted to a similar course. In one way only she could reasonably resist and oppose it; namely, by urging that she only took people from her own African settlements, which are free, to her West Indian settlements, which are free also; while foreign nations, such as Brazils, had no possessions of any kind on the coast of Africa, and at the same time retained slavery in their dominions. Great Britain could only urge this plea in opposition to such proceedings on the part of other powers; but would such reasoning, however proper and just, be admitted or listened to? I do not think that it would. The consequences of the adoption of such a course by the nation alluded to, or by any other European power which has Tropical colonies, (France, Spain, Denmark, and Holland have,) will prove fatal to the best interests of Great Britain.