The Hottentots vindicated.
Even the poor calumniated Hottentots, who were long regarded as among the lowest in the scale of being, have at length found respectable and able advocates. Among the many good qualities which the Hottentot possesses, there is one, says Mr. Barrow, of which he is master in an eminent degree, a rigid adherence to truth: he may be considered also as exempt from stealing. Sir James Craig, when he commanded at the Cape, attempted to form an African corps, in defiance of the most confident prediction of the colonists, whose prejudices against the Hottentot race were scarcely less strong than those of Mr. Long himself. “We were told,” says Sir James, “that their propensity to drunkenness was so great, we should never be able to reduce them to order or discipline; and that the habit of roving was so rooted in their disposition, we must expect the whole corps would desert, the moment they had received their clothing.” Both these charges were confuted by experience. Sir James goes on to remark, “Never were people more contented or more grateful for the treatment they now receive. We have upwards of three hundred, who have been with us nine months. It is therefore with the opportunity of knowing them well, that I venture to pronounce them an intelligent race of men. All who bear arms exercise well, and understand, immediately and perfectly, whatever they are taught to perform. Many of them speak English tolerably well. Of all the qualities that can be ascribed to a Hottentot, it will little be expected I should expatiate upon their cleanliness; and yet it is certain, that at this moment our Hottentot parade would not suffer in a comparison with that of some of our regular regiments. They are now likewise cleanly in their persons; the practice of smearing themselves with grease being entirely left off. I have frequently observed them washing themselves in a rivulet, where they could have in view no other object but cleanliness.” The poor Bosjesman Hottentots are also stated as a docile, tractable people, of innocent manners, and beyond expression grateful to their benefactors.
Character of Booshuana and Baroloo natives.
Some later travellers from the Cape of Good Hope, and in the service of Government, have penetrated into the heart of Africa to a great depth, but short of the region in which the Slave Trade prevails, and the account which, both from their own knowledge and from the representations of others, they give of the natives, is still of the same encouraging kind.
Character given of the Negroes by the Abolitionists witnesses.
After these accounts, you will not be surprised to hear, that the representations given of the Africans by the naval officers, and the men of science before alluded to, were highly favourable. One witness spoke of the acuteness of their perceptions; another, of the extent of their memory; a third, of their genius for commerce; others, of their good workmanship in gold, iron, and leather; the peculiarly excellent texture of their cloth, and the beautiful and indelible tincture of their dyes. It was acknowledged that they supplied the ships with many articles of provision, with wood, and water, and other necessaries. Some spoke in high terms of their peaceable disposition; all of their cheerfulness and eminent hospitality.
I have been the more diffuse on this topic, because, though our commercial connection, with Africa be of so old a date, we have scarcely, till of late years, had any authentic account of the interior. In a region so vast, there must be a great variety of nations, and very different accounts may be adduced of particular countries; accounts not always, however, of a very authentic kind. But it is highly encouraging, and it is more than enough to rescue the African race from the unjust and general stigma which has been cast on it, to know, that later travellers who have visited the interior, in parts widely distant from each other, have made such pleasing reports of the intelligence, tempers and dispositions, habits, and manners of the natives of this vast continent.
Yet Africa never was civilized.—Argument resulting from that fact considered.
But, notwithstanding all which has been here adduced in favour of the negro character, I am aware that there exists, not uncommonly, in the minds even of men of understanding and candour, a strong prejudice against the African Negroes, on the ground of their never having advanced to any considerable state of civilization and knowledge, in any period of the world. Let me be permitted, in the first place, to consider that position more particularly. They were always, it is alleged, to a considerable degree barbarous. Still more, in the remotest times to which our accounts extend, slavery, and even a Slave Trade, have been found to prevail in Africa. Hence a presumption arises, that her inhabitants are incapable of civilization, and that Africa cannot much complain of a practice which has become so congenial to her, and which seems to arise, not from European avarice, or cruelty, but rather from the genius and dispositions of her people, or from some incorrigible vice in her system of laws, institutions, and manners.
That Africa, which contains nearly a third of the habitable globe, should never at any period have been reclaimed from a state of comparative barbarism, is, indeed, on the first view, a strange phenomenon. But without stopping to comment on the precision of that reasoning which, on this ground, should argue that it is justifiable for the European nations to make Africa the scene, and her sons the objects of the Slave Trade, we may confidently affirm, that a considerate review of the history, origin, and progress of civilization and the arts, in all ages and countries, will not only explain the difficulty, but will give us good grounds for believing, that, reasoning from experience, the interior of Africa is full as much civilized as any other race of men would have been, if placed in the same situation.