Read Ebook: A short sketch of the evidence for the abolition of the slave trade delivered before a committee of the House of Commons by Crafton William Bell

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

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Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

SHORT SKETCH

THE EVIDENCE

FOR THE

ABOLITION

OF THE

SLAVE TRADE,

TO WHICH IS ADDED, A

Recommendation of the Subject

TO THE

SERIOUS ATTENTION

PEOPLE IN GENERAL.

"ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER YE WOULD THAT MEN SHOULD DO TO YOU, DO YE EVEN SO TO THEM," Matt. chap. vii. ver. 12.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Evidence delivered before the Select Committee of the House of Commons is very voluminous, occupying two thousand pages in folio. But a judicious Abstract and Arrangement of the Evidence, on the Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, has been published, and in a short compass, contains the evidence of well informed persons on that subject.

'Whereas the extreme cruelty and inhumanity of the managers, overseers, and book-keepers of estates, have frequently driven slaves into the woods, and occasioned rebellions, internal insurrections, &c. And whereas also it frequently happens, that slaves come to their deaths by hasty and severe blows and other improper treatment of overseers and book-keepers, in the heat of passion; and when such accidents do happen, the victims are entered in the plantation-books, as having died of convulsions, fits, or other causes not to be accounted for; and to conceal the real truth of the cause of the death of such slave or slaves, he or they is or are immediately put under ground, &c. Other preambles of a similar complexion, respecting the lodging, food, and clothes of negroes, are here to be met with. We also find that run-away negroes, when advertised, are described by the various brands upon their shoulders, breasts, cheeks, and foreheads. A woman is described with a wooden leg; a man as having both his ears cropt, and another by his nose and ears being cut off.' Cornwall Chronicle, Nov. 7, 1789. Other instances occur within the year 1791.

Under this head, we learn that Kidnapping, or as the natives call it, Panyaring, is very common, that war is made on purpose to procure slaves. The king's soldiers set fire to villages in the night, and seize the wretched inhabitants as they attempt to escape from the flames, and many perish, either by the fire or sword, in the execution of this horrid purpose. A Boy, who was carried away in the night from his father's house, says, he believes both his parents were killed, he is sure that one was, and that many others were killed and some taken. Various instances are mentioned of consummate treachery employed in making captives. Kidnapping is professionally followed; large parties go up the country three hundred miles to drive down captives--they go a wood-ranging, and pick up every one they meet, and strip them naked. The purchasers generally say, they do not care how the sellers come by their slaves. Many are sold for crimes falsely imputed; the Judges participate in the profits of the sale, and are therefore strongly induced to condemn the innocent. Crimes are invented and multiplied for the purpose of traffic. The great men dress up and employ women, to entice young men to be connected with them, that they may be convicted of adultery and sold. The slaves are separated without the least regard to ties of consanguinity, or the pathetic expostulations and remonstrances of nature. When slave-ships are on the Coast the natives go armed, but are no where safe. The man, invited to drink with his neighbour, on rising to go, is seized by two of them and a large dog: and this mode of seizure is common.

The term war, in Africa, is used in general to signify pillage; and when many towns are seen blazing in the night, the natives say war is carrying on.

The Traders advance goods to Chiefs to induce them to seize their subjects or neighbours. Capt. Patterson set two villages at variance, and brought prisoners from both sides. It is not uncommon to make the natives drunk, and then buy them. General Rooke says, that it was proposed to him by three English captains of ships, to kidnap a hundred, or a hundred and fifty men, women, and children, king Damel's subjects, who had come to Goree in consequence of the friendly intercourse between him and Damel: He refused and was much shocked by the proposition. They said such things had been done by a former governor. Two men, black traders, were invited on board, intoxicated, and captured when asleep. The Gregson's people, in running down the coast, kidnapped thirty-two of the natives. The Dobson's boat of Liverpool had stolen a man and woman; the captain on the remonstrance of Capt. Briggs, who told him, there would be no more trade if he did not deliver up his two captives, restored them; upon which the natives loaded a boat with yams, goats, fowls, honey, and palm wine, and would take nothing for them,--a striking instance of forgiveness of injuries, and of unmerited kindness!

We then meet with as opposite an exhibition of character as can possibly be conceived: three or four hundred Africans cruelly massacreed or carried off, by means of the treacherous contrivance of six English captains in Old Calabar River. But let us "turn our eyes for relief to some ordinary wickedness": Some consider frauds as a necessary part of the traffic; they put false heads into powder casks, cut off two or three yards from the middle of a piece of cloth, adulterate spirits, and steal back articles given. Besides these, there are others who pay in bottles, which hold but half the contents of the samples shewn; use false steel-yards and weights, and sell such guns as burst on firing; so that many of the natives of the windward coast, are without their fingers and thumbs on this account, and it has become a saying that these guns kill more out of the butt than the muzzle.

On being brought on board, says Dr. Trotter, they shew signs of extreme distress and despair, from a feeling of their situation, and regret at being torn from their friends and connexions. They sometimes dream of being in their own country, and when they awake shew their despair by howling and shrieking in a most dreadful manner. The women go into fits. In the course of the voyage, the slaves are chained to the deck every day from eight in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon. They are fed twice a day with rice, yams, and horse-beans, and now and then a little beef and bread: after each of these two meals they are allowed half a pint of water: and are forced to jump in their irons, which, by the slave dealers, is called making them dance. This exercise frequently occasions the fetters to excoriate their limbs; and, when it is very painful to move at all, they are compelled to dance by a cat-of-nine-tails. The captains order them to sing, and they sing songs of sorrow, the subject of which are their wretched situation, and the idea of never returning home: the witness remembers the very words upon these occasions.

The slaves are so crouded below, that it is impossible to walk among them without treading upon them. Dr. Trotter has seen the slaves drawing their breath with all those laborious and anxious efforts for life, which are observed in expiring animals, subjected by experiment to foul air, or in the exhausted receiver of an air pump: they cry out--'we are dying,' and many are irrecoverably lost by suffocation, having had no previous signs of indisposition. They are closely wedged together, and have not so much room as a man in his coffin, either in length or breadth. They sometimes go down well at night, and are found dead in the morning. Alexander Falconbridge was never among them for ten minutes together below, but his shirt was as wet as if dipped in water. Sometimes the dead and living are found shackled together. They lie on the bare blanks, and the prominent parts of their bones, about the shoulder-blade and knees, have frequently been seen bare. No situation can be conceived so dreadful and disgusting as that of slaves when ill of the flux. In the Alexander the deck was covered with blood and mucus, and resembled a slaughter-house; the stench and foul air were intolerable. The slaves, shackled together, frequently quarrel, and make a great disturbance. Some refuse food and medicine, and declare they want to die. In such cases compulsion is used. The ships are so fitted up as to prevent, by net-work, the slaves jumping overboard; notwithstanding which they often attempt it, and sometimes succeed, shewing signs of exultation in the very jaws of death. Some employ other means to destroy themselves, and others go mad: Some resolve to starve, and means are ineffectually used to wrench open their teeth: they persist in their resolution, and effect their purpose, in spite of the utmost pains to prevent it. When severely chastised for not taking their food they have looked up with a smile and said, "presently we shall be no more." The thumbscrew is an instrument of torture, the application of it sometimes occasions mortifications, of which the negroes die. An instance occurs of the cruelty of a captain to an infant only nine months old, which one would suppose too shocking to be true, were it not corroborated by other specimens of as great cruelty in various parts of the evidence. After a series of tortures the infant expired, and its savage murderer, not yet satiated, would suffer none of the people on deck to throw the body overboard, but called the Mother, the wretched Mother, to perform this last sad office to her murdered child. Unwilling as it might naturally be supposed she was, to comply, "he beat her," regardless of the indignant murmurs of her fettered countrymen, whom in the barbarous plenitude of secure tyranny, he permitted to be spectators of this horrible scene--"he beat her, until he made her take up the child and carry it to the side of the vessel, and then she dropped it into the sea, turning her head another way, that she might not see it!" Another instance occurs in this chapter, not perhaps of more cruelty, though of greater magnitude.

A ship from Africa, with about four hundred slaves on board, struck upon some shoals, called the Morant Keys, distant eleven leagues, S. S. E. off the east end of Jamaica. The officers and seamen of the ship landed in their boats, carrying with them arms and provisions. The slaves were left on board in their irons and shackles. This happened in the night time. When morning came, it was discovered that the negroes had got out of their irons, and were busy making rafts, upon which they placed the women and children; the men, who were capable of swimming, attended upon the rafts, whilst they drifted before the wind towards the island where the seamen had landed. From an apprehension that the negroes would consume the water and provisions which the seamen had landed, they came to the resolution of destroying them, by means of their fire-arms and other weapons. As the poor wretches approached the shore they actually destroyed between three and four hundred of them. Out of the whole cargo only thirty three or thirty four were saved and brought to Kingston, where they were sold at public vendue.

When the ships arrive at their destined ports, the cargo of slaves is sold, either by scramble or vendue. The sale by scramble is described:--"A great number of people come on board with tallies in their hands , and rush through the barricado door with the ferocity of brutes. Some have three or four handkerchiefs tied together, to encircle as many as they think fit for their purpose." This is a very general mode of sale, and so terrifies the poor negroes, that forty or fifty at a time have leaped into the sea; these, however, the witness believes, have been taken up again: the women have got away and run about the town as if they were mad. The slaves sold by public auction or vendue, are generally the refuse, or sickly slaves. These are in such a state of health, that they sell greatly under price. They have been known to be sold for five dollars, a guinea, and even a single dollar each. Some that are deemed not worth buying are left to expire in the place of sale, for nobody gives them any thing to eat or drink, and some of them live three days in that situation! In the sale no care is taken to prevent the reparation of relations; they are separated like sheep and lambs by the butcher. Making the slaves walk the plank, is a term used for throwing them overboard when provisions are scarce. Sometimes the ships lose more than half their cargoes by the small-pox; at others they bury a quarter or one-third on the passage, owing to various other causes of mortality: and it is confessed by the planters, that half the slaves die in the seasoning, after arrival in the West-Indies. Surgeon Wilson says, that of the death of two thirds of those who died in his ship, the primary cause was melancholy. The disorders which carry off the slaves in such numbers, are ascribed by Falconbridge to a diseased mind, sudden transitions from heat to cold, a putrid atmosphere, wallowing in their own excrements, and being shackled together.

The captains, surgeons, &c. who have quitted the African slave-trade, uniformly declare the reason to have been, that they could not conscientiously continue in it: they say, that it is an unnatural, iniquitous, and villainous trade, founded on injustice and treachery; manifestly carried on by oppression and cruelty, and not unfrequently terminating in murder. Capt. Hall says, he quitted it from a conviction that it was perfectly illegal, and founded in blood.

Slaves are either Field Slaves, or in or out Door Slaves.

The field-slaves begin their work at break of day. They work in rows, without exception under the whip of drivers, and the weak are made to keep up with the strong. They continue their labour till sun set. In the intervals they are made to pick grass for the cattle. Cook has known pregnant women worked and flogged a few days before their delivery. Some, however, are a little indulged when in that state. After the month they work with the children on their backs. In the crop-season the labour is of much longer duration. The slaves sometimes work so long that they cannot help sleeping, and then it not unfrequently happens, that their arms are caught in the mill and torn off. They are said to be allowed one day in seven for rest, but this time is necessarily employed in raising food for the other days, and gathering grass for their master's cattle. The best allowance of food is at Barbadoes, which is a pint of grain for twenty four hours, and half a rotten herring when to be had. When the herrings are unfit for the whites, they are bought up by planters for the slaves. Some allow nine pints of corn a week, and about one pound of salt fish, which is the greatest allowance mentioned in the whole course of the evidence. Some have no provision but what they raise themselves, and they are frequently so fatigued by the labour of the rest of the week, as scarcely to be able to work for their own support on the Sunday. And the land allotted them for this purpose is often at the distance of three miles from their houses; it would, however, be quite ample for their support, were they allowed time sufficient for its cultivation. Sometimes when they have been at the pains of clearing their land, their masters take it for canes, and give them wood land instead of it. This hardship some have so taken to heart as to die. Putrid carcases are burnt; if they were buried, the slaves would dig them up and eat them, which would breed distempers among them. They are sometimes driven by extreme hunger to steal at the hazard of their lives. They are badly clothed; one half of them go almost naked. The slaves in general have no bed or bedding at all. Their houses are built with four poles and thatched. They have little or no property. All the evidence agree in answering, that they never knew or heard of a field-slave ever amassing such a sum, as enabled him to purchase his own freedom. The artificers, such as house carpenters, coopers, masons, the drivers and head slaves, are better off. The owners of women let them out for prostitution, and flog them, if they do not bring home full wages.

The negroes, when whipped, are suspended by the arms, with weights at their feet. They are first whipped with a whip made of cow-skin and afterwards with ebony bushes in order to let out the congealed blood. Dr. Harrison thinks the whipping too severe to be inflicted on any human being: he could lay two or three fingers into the wounds of a man whipped for not coming when he was called. Many receive from one hundred and fifty to two hundred lashes at a time; and in two or three days this is repeated: they wash the raw parts with pickle; this appears from the convulsions it occasions, more cruel than whipping; but it is done to prevent mortification. After severe whipping, they are worked all day without food, except what their friends may give them out of their own poor pittance. They are returned to their stocks at night, and worked next day as before. This cruel treatment his made many commit suicide. Cook has known fourteen slaves, who, in consequence thereof, ran into the woods and cut their throats together. These severe punishments are frequent. The scars made by whipping last to old age. T. Woolrich has seen their backs one undistinguished mass of lumps, holes, and furrows. They sometimes die of mortification of the wounds. A planter flogged his driver to death, and boasted of having so done.

Under the head of Extraordinary Punishments, , mention is made of iron collars with hooks, heavy cattle chains, and a half hundred weight fastened to them, which the negroes are forced to drag after them, when working in the field, suspending by the hands 'till the fingers mortify; flogging with ebony bushes 'till they are forced to go on all fours, unable to get up, being tied up to the branch of a tree, with a heavy weight round the neck, exposed to the noon-day sun--thumb-screws; a man was put on the picket, so long as to occasion a mortification of his foot and hand, on suspicion of robbing his master, a public officer, of a sum of money, which it afterwards appeared, the master had taken himself. Yet the master was privy to the punishment, and the slave had no compensation. He was punished by order of the master, who did not then chuse to make it known that he himself had made use of the money. A girl's ears were nailed to a post, afterwards torn away, and clipt off close to her head, with a pair of large scissors; besides this, she was unmercifully flogged, and all for--BREAKING A PLATE, OR SPILLING A CUP OF TEA! A negro, impelled by hunger, had stolen part of a turkey, his master caused him to be held down, and, with his own hands, took a hammer and punch and knocked out four of his teeth. The hand is cut off if lifted up against a white man, and the leg for running away. A planter sent for a surgeon to cut off the leg of a negro who had run away. On the surgeon's refusing to do it, the planter took an iron bar, and broke the leg in pieces, and then the surgeon took it off. This planter did many such acts of cruelty, and all with impunity. The practice of dropping hot lead upon the negroes, is here mentioned. H. Ross saw a young female suspended by her wrists to a tree, swinging to and fro, while her master applied a lighted torch to the different parts of her writhing body. It was notorious that Ruthie tortured so many of his negroes to death, that he was obliged to sell his estate. Another planter, in the same Island, destroyed forty slaves out of sixty by severity. The rest of the conduct of this infamous wretch was cancelled by the Committee of the House of Commons, as containing circumstances too horrible to be given to the world. We, however, go on to read of knocking on the head and stabbing, of a hot iron forced between the teeth, of a slave thrown into the boiling juice, and killed, of a negro shot and his head cut off. And it appears, that the women, deemed of respectability and rank, not only order and superintend, but sometimes actually inflict with their own hands severe punishments on their slaves.

The offences for which the before-mentioned punishments are inflicted are, not coming into the field in time, not picking a sufficient quantity of grass, not appearing willing to work, when in fact sick and not able; for staying too long on an errand, for not coming immediately when called, for not bringing home the full weekly sum enjoined by their owners; for running away, and for theft, to which they are often driven by hunger.

The slaves have little or no redress against ill-usage of any sort; the laws to restrict punishment are a mere farce, and universally disregarded, or when pretended to be observed they are in divers ways effectually evaded: besides, the evidence of a Black is in no case whatever admitted against a White Man; which circumstance alone is enough to deprive the negroes of all legal protection whatever, were the laws, in other respects, ever so just and salutary. Lieutenant Davidson was so hurt at the severe and frequent whippings of one of the women, that he complained to a magistrate, who said, "he had nothing to do with it."

The particular instances mentioned in the evidence, of slaves dying in consequence of severe and cruel treatment from their masters, were not punished, though generally known; nor do the perpetrators of these barbarities appear to have suffered any disgrace!

In the Fifth Chapter, it is proved, by such as have seen them in their own country, that the natives of Africa are equal to the Europeans in their natural capacities, feelings, affections, and moral character. They manufacture gold and iron, in some respects, equal to the European Artists--also cloth and leather with uncommon neatness; the former they die blue, yellow, brown and orange. They are skilled in making indigo and soap, and pottery wares, and prepare salt for their own use from the sea water. They also make ropes with aloes. With respect to their moral character, they are very honest and hospitable: grateful and affectionate, harmless and innocent; punctual in their dealings, and as capable of virtue as the Whites. They are susceptible of all the social virtues: generosity, fidelity, and gratitude, are allowed them by Dr. Stuart. These virtues Dr. Jackson enumerates, and adds charity to all in distress, and a strong attachment on the part of parents to their children. T. Woolrich says, he never knew of an African, who could express himself, that did not believe in the existence of a supreme Being.

In the Sixth and Seventh Chapters it appears that the natives possess industry and a spirit of commerce, sufficient for carrying on a new trade; that their country abounds with, and might easily be made still more productive of, many and various articles of commerce; but that the traffic in slaves is an insuperable impediment to opening a new trade.

It appears by the muster-rolls of Liverpool and Bristol, that in 350 vessels, 12,263 men were employed, out of whom 2643 were lost, that is to say, more than a fifth of the whole number employed, or more than seven in every single voyage, besides nearly one half of those who go out with the ships are constantly left behind.

Capt. Hall says that the crews of the African ships, when they arrive in the West-Indies, are the most miserable objects he ever met with in any country in his life: he does not know a single instance to the contrary. He has frequently seen them with their toes rotted off, their legs swelled to the size of their thighs, and in an ulcerated state all over &c. &c. This account is confirmed by Capt. Hall of the navy. Sir W. Young is of opinion, that a trade to Africa in the natural productions of the country, would not be attended with more inconvenience to the health of the seamen employed in it, than the present West-India Trade.

Sir Geo. Young remarks that a ship of the line might be presently manned by the sailors who wish to escape from the miseries of African ships. One poor young man, when dying in consequence of the ill treatment he had received from the captain, said "I cannot punish him but God will." The sailors when sick are beaten for being lazy, till they die under the blows!

"If this be the real situation of things, how happens it that the objects of such tyranny and oppression should not obtain redress, and that our courts of law should not have to decide upon more cases of this kind, than they have at present?" It is answered, "these objects are generally without friends and money, without which the injured will seek for justice but in vain; and because the peculiarity of their situation is an impediment to their endeavours for redress." Whoever wishes for a more particular answer to this question, may meet with it in "Clarkson's Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave-Trade," from which the question and the above general reply are quoted.

The Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Chapters are on the subjects of negro population in the colonies, and plainly shew that the importation of fresh Africans might immediately be superceded, by the introduction of general good treatment, and of certain salutary regulations therein suggested.

Having thus taken a general view of the most striking features of the evidence for the abolition of the traffic in the human species, as carried on by the English on the coast of Africa, it might not be improper to close it with the declaration of a virtuous and wise Senator, whose indefatigable labours on behalf of the oppressed Africans, cannot fail to insure him the unfeigned respect of every lover of freedom and humanity:

"THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE IS INDISPENSIBLY REQUIRED OF US, NOT ONLY BY RELIGION AND MORALITY, BUT BY EVERY PRINCIPLE OF SOUND POLICY."

It remains now to recommend, as earnestly and as strongly as possible, to the inhabitants of this Land of Freedom individually, a particular and serious attention to THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY, ON EVERY CONSIDERATION OF MORALITY AND JUSTICE, OF PUTTING AN END TO A PRACTICE SO PREGNANT WITH CIRCUMSTANCES OF TERROR AND ALARM TO THIS COUNTRY.

The great leader in the Debates of the House of Commons on this momentous subject has declared--"That interested as he may be supposed to be in the final event of the question, he was comparatively indifferent as to the then decision of the House. Whatever they might do, the people of Great Britain, he was confident, would abolish the slave-trade, when, as would now soon happen, its injustice and cruelty should be fairly laid before them. It was a nest of serpents, which would never have endured so long, but for the darkness in which they lay hid. The light of day would now be let in upon them, and they would vanish from the sight."

FOOTNOTES:

Speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons.

Fox's ditto.

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