“It was not possible for me to behold the wonderful fertility of the soil, the vast herds of cattle, proper both for labour and food, and a variety of other circumstances favourable to colonization and agriculture; and reflect withal, on the means which presented themselves of a vast inland navigation, without lamenting that a country, so abundantly gifted and favoured by nature, should remain in its present savage and neglected state. Much more did I lament that a people, of manners and dispositions so gentle and benevolent, should either be left as they now are, immersed in the gross and uncomfortable blindness of Pagan superstition, or permitted to become converts to a system of bigotry and fanaticism.”—(p. 312.)
“During a wearisome peregrination of more than five hundred British miles, exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun, these poor Slaves, amidst their own infinitely greater sufferings, would commiserate mine; and frequently, of their own accord, bring water to quench my thirst, and at night collect branches and leaves to prepare me a bed in the wilderness.”—(p. 356.)
Effects of Slave Trade on Administration of Justice. By the Sieur Brüe, Director General of the French Senegal Company, about 1700.—Astley’s Voyages, vol. ii. & iii.
Astley’s Voyages.
“Crimes here are seldom punished with death, unless it be treason and murder. For other faults, the usual penalty is banishment, to which end the king generally sells them to the company, and disposes of their effects at his pleasure. In civil cases, the debtor, if unable, is sold with his family and effects, for the payment of the creditor, and the king has his thirds.”—(p. 59.)
Barbot says, that the Negro kings are so absolute, that upon any slight pretence, they order their subjects to be sold for Slaves, without regard to rank or profession. Thus a Marbut was sold to him at Goree by the Alkade of Rio Fresco, by special order of the Damel, for some misdemeanors. This priest was above two months aboard the ship before he would speak one word.”—(Travels of Barbot, p. 257.)
“The smallest crimes whatever are punished with banishment.—(p. 315.)
Criminal causes are tried by a public Palaver, or Assembly of the head men of the country, and Slavery is the usual punishment; a circumstance which holds out a strong temptation to prefer false accusations, particularly as the African mode of trial furnishes convenient means of promoting purposes of avarice and oppression.—(Winterbottom’s Account, &c. &c.)
Marchais.—In case of the debtor’s insolvency, the king allows the creditor to sell him, his wives, and even his children, for the sum due. Here is also another extraordinary law; if the creditor, before witnesses, three times asks his debt of a person, whom he cannot arrest or sue on account of his dignity or power, and the debtor refuses to pay him, the creditor has a right to seize the first Slave he meets, let him belong to whom he will.
There is but one sort of punishment for offences here, the offender, and all his generation, being made Slaves.