A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade / Addressed to the freeholders and other inhabitants of Yorkshire

by William Wilberforce

The account given by the witnesses produced by the Slave Traders, of the natural and moral qualities of the Negroes, was of the same unfavourable kind, though considerably less strong in its colouring. I should detain you too long by stating it in detail. It may suffice to mention, in general, that the Africans were represented, in respect to civilization and knowledge, as but very little advanced beyond the rudest state of savage life. The population was said to be thin, their agriculture in the lowest state, their only manufacture a species of coarse mat or cloth. They very rarely used any beasts for draught or burthen, they had no public roads; no knowledge of letters, or apparent sense of their value. But the account of their personal qualities was still more melancholy; because it was such as to leave but slender hopes of their ever emerging out of this dark and barbarous state. The most respectable witnesses produced by the Slave Traders, some of whom had resided among the Africans many years, and on various parts of the coast, declared, that their stupidity, and still more their indolence, were so firmly rooted in their nature, as to be absolutely invincible; and, what may perhaps be justly regarded as indicative of the worst natural disposition, that they were deficient in domestic and parental affection.

Mr. Bryan Edwards’s account.

Even Mr. Bryan Edwards, though in common more liberal than other defenders of the Slave Trade, gives in his History of the West Indies a highly unfavourable account of the African character. It ought, however, in all fairness, to be urged in his defence, that his judgment of the Negroes was formed under circumstances highly disadvantageous to them; being grounded on what he had known and heard of them in our West India colonies, where their natural character must necessarily have derived a deep taint from the depraving effects of a long continued state of slavery. To this cause, indeed, he himself very frankly ascribes most of the bad qualities which he enumerates. After exhibiting the different shades of character of the Slaves brought from different parts of Africa, he goes on to state, what may be deemed the general properties of the Negro race, and these are of the most debasing and depraving kind. They are in general distrustful and cowardly; falsehood is one of the most prominent features in their character; they are prone to theft; sullen, selfish, unrelenting; and while the softer virtues are seldom found among them, they are so sunk in dissoluteness and licentiousness, that the attempt to introduce the ceremony of marriage among them, would be impracticable to any good purpose. One of the few pleasing traits in their character is their high veneration for old age.

Parke’s character of the Negroes.

After this melancholy picture, it is a relief to the humane mind, to peruse the accounts of the intellectual and moral dispositions and character of the Negroes, which have been given by persons who have had far superior means of information. The chief of them, Mr. Parke, and Mr. Golberry, were also, from their connections, unfriendly to the abolition, and cannot therefore be supposed to be tinctured with any of the prejudices which may be presumed to bias the minds of the avowed advocates of the negro race. It would be a grateful task to lay before you such copious extracts, as would give you a full and minute enumeration of the particulars of the negro character; but my extracts, to do justice to the subject, would almost fill a volume. I must therefore refer you to my appendix for a brief specimen of them, and content myself here with exhibiting the mere outlines of the very different portrait which has been taken of the Negroes, after a more familiar and extended survey of their tempers and conduct.

Mr. Parke represents the Africans of the interior as naturally superior, both in their intellectual and moral endowments, to almost any other uncivilized nation. He speaks in high terms of their powers of ingenuity and invention, of their quickness and cheerfulness; of the value which they set on the learning within their reach, and the price at which they are willing to acquire it for themselves, or their children; of the skill which they display in several arts and manufactures. But the natural character of the Africans rises in our estimation, when, from considering their intellectual, we take a fair survey of their moral qualities; of the reverence for truth in which the children are educated by their mothers, among the Mandingoes, who, let it be observed, constitute the bulk of the inhabitants in all the vast districts of Africa visited by Mr. Parke; of their almost universal benevolence, gentleness, and hospitality; of their courage, and, when they have any adequate motive to prompt them to work, of their industry and perseverance; of their parental and filial tenderness, of their social and domestic affection, of the conjugal fidelity of the women, combined with great cheerfulness and frankness; of the extraordinary attachment of the Negroes to their country and home; in some cases, of their magnanimity, of which two instances are given, scarcely inferior to any thing which is recorded in Greek or Roman story.

Golberry’s character of the Negroes.

Mr. Golberry’s account of the negro character is at least equally favourable. “The Foulahs, he says, are intelligent and industrious, fine, strong, brave men; but, from their habitual commerce with the Moors, they are become savage and cruel. The Mandingoes are well informed, graceful, and active, and, in their mercantile character, clever and indefatigable. The Jaloffs are honest, hospitable, generous, and faithful; their character mild, and inclined to good order and civilization.” Besides this account of particular nations, he observes of the Negroes in general, that they have both taste, ingenuity, and cleverness, and may be reckoned among the most favoured people of nature. They are, perhaps, the most prolific of all the human species, which is probably owing to the moderation they in general observe, in their habits, regimen, and pleasures. He bears, if possible, a still stronger testimony to the benevolence, hospitality, frankness, and generosity of the negro character. The mothers, says he, are passionately fond of their children, and these discover in return great filial tenderness. The women are always kind and attentive.

Mr. Winterbottom’s.

Concerning Mr. Winterbottom’s account, I will here only state, that it corresponds, in the great essentials of character, with the representations already given, though it be perhaps scarcely so favourable to the negro character.