Chapter 7 No.7

The Mode of Trial by Ordeal and Red Water in Africa.-The Wars of its Inhabitants.-The State of Barbarism and Slavery considered.-The Condition of the Africans will not be improved by a late Legislative Act, without further Interference.-Salutary Measures must be adopted towards the Negroes in the Colonies.-A System suggested to abolish Slavery in Africa, and the Slave Trade in general, and to enlarge the intellectual Powers of its Inhabitants.-The proper Positions to effect an Opening to the Interior of Africa, and to display to the World its manifold Resources.

Trial by ordeal in Africa is a punishment for petty thefts and delinquincies. Trial by red water is generally applied to crimes of greater magnitude. After the usual ceremonial of calling a palaver, the operation is performed by heating a piece of iron in the fire, the hand of the accused is dipped into a viscous preparation, and the iron is immediately drawn horizontally over the palm of the hand. If the judges (one of whom is always the executioner) have previously determined, in defiance of all the evidence, to prove the culprit guilty, the consequence is that the flesh is seared; but if they are predisposed to acquit him, the iron is dexterously applied so as to absorb the unctuous surface on the hand without affecting it, and a sentence of not guilty is pronounced.

Trial by red water consists in making the accused drink a quantity of water, into which is infused the poisonous juice of the melley or gris-gris tree; this is prepared by these equitable judges, and applied upon the same fraudulent principles as in the trial by the ordeal of fire; it is, however, less resorted to. If the unhappy object of suspicion is affected in such a manner as they consider as a proof of guilt, his brains are knocked out upon the spot, or the body is so inflated by the pernicious liquid that it bursts. In either of these catastrophes all his family are sold for slaves. Some survive these diabolical expedients of injustice, but the issue is uniformly slavery. When chiefs of influence, guilty of atrocity and fraud, become objects of accusation, the ingredient is of course qualified so as to remove its fatal tendency. Hence justice seldom or ever in this country can punish powerful offenders, or shield the innocence of the weak and unprotected.

The iniquity and oppression sanctioned by these trials, is a dreadful consequence of their avarice and inhumanity, for it is a fact that slaves are created thereby, and human sacrifices offered to that spirit, which they consider as their tutelar guardian: it is a subject which humanity should seriously contemplate in the relinquishment of the slave trade, whether, by the hasty adoption of that measure, before the intellectual powers of the people are improved by civilization, this barbarous evil may not be increased. When I closely enquired of the chiefs and natives relative to these savage customs, they uniformly admitted the fact, "that such live in their country," but with their characteristic dissimulation, always denied having perpetrated these horrid acts, and shifted the diabolical practice to some other nation or tribe, adding, "that only bad men do that thing."

Circumcision is practised among men, and a certain infliction on women, not, however, from religious motives, but to guard against the consequences of a disease not uncommon among them. The infliction upon women is the result of infidelity, or a sacrifice of chastity to loose gratification. As a preliminary, they retire to the bunda, or penitentiary, and are there secluded from all sexual intercourse. When the season of penitence is over, the operation is performed by the rude application of two stones, fashioned and sharpened for the purpose; this obliterates all delinquincy, and on their return to the world they are considered as restored to virgin purity.

Wars in Africa originate from a variety of causes; in forming a correct estimate of these, it is necessary to consider its localities and situation. The inhabitants of this quarter of the earth, more particularly those of the district now under consideration, compose numerous tribes and nations, whose various views and interests excite jealousies and contentions, which, aided by the passions peculiar to a barbarous people, inevitably produce hostilities, and the effusion of human blood.

What we have hitherto known of this country undoubtedly proves that wars are carried on with the most sanguinary violence: their prisoners, by the customs of the country, are consigned to massacre, slavery, and sacrifice,[1] to gratify the avarice, vanity, and cruelty of their chiefs; one of these passions must be predominant, and therefore the question is, which of them is the least pregnant with evil? It cannot admit of a doubt that those who are victims to avarice meet a more mild and humane fate, in falling into the hands of Europeans, than the unhappy portion who are sacrificed to vanity and cruelty; and it is equally true, that since the interior nations have been enabled to exchange their slaves for European merchandize, the number of victims to the latter passion has decreased. I am far from being the advocate of slavery, but I am stating a fact, and leave it to the reader to form his own conclusions. Where confirmed habits and immemorial custom is to be supplanted, it is certainly requisite to be well acquainted with the nature and character of the natives, which I have not here introduced in an exaggerated shape, but infinitely within the bounds of their savage ferocity.

From these sources alone have arisen the expedients attendant upon the slave trade; kidnapping and petty warfare form a very unimportant branch of the barbarism which governs the inhabitants of Africa, and their enslaved condition.

Viewing this in the mass of moral evil which disgraces the character of man, it will be found that it is even disproportioned to the estimated population of Africa, which, from the best authority, has been stated at upwards of 160 millions; and to apply the consideration to our own situation, it will be found, that the number of executions and transportations from the United Kingdom, in proportion to its population, is infinitely greater than the number of slaves exported from the shores of Africa, to its numerous inhabitants. Unquestionably the slave trade has extricated a number of human beings from death, whom the horrible sacrifices before described consigned to a barbarous exit, and has been a cause, though an immoral one when applied to Britons, of extricating many victims, who otherwise would have been annually sacrificed: humanity has, therefore, some consolation in this polluted branch of our commerce, which in its nature is barbarous and inhuman.

Theories become extremely dangerous when they are impracticable, or misapplied, and are pernicious in their consequences from the fallacious measures they establish. In Africa crimes are punished by forfeitures, slavery, or death; they are however rare; but accusations are often used to procure slaves, whether for domestic purposes, sale, or sacrifice to their customs. Death, as a punishment, is seldom the penalty of condemnation; and if the culprit is rich, he can purchase his security. The alleged crime of witchcraft, or magic, is a common means by which the chiefs increase their accusations; and, consequently, the number of slaves. Adultery, and other violations of social order, are punished by fine, but absolution is to be obtained by money.

The crimes by which the chiefs obtain the condemnation and disposal of their subjects, are nearly all imaginary; for few exist which, under their laws, are considered as acts of turpitude. The abuse of authority, the action of violent passions, barbarous customs, ferocious habits, and insatiate avarice among the chiefs, augment the number of captives and victims, and the operation of these is much greater in the interior than in the maritime districts; but this leads me to the next part of my subject, namely, that a late legislative act will not, without farther interference, improve the condition of the African.

By the hasty conclusion of that measure, the unhappy African is now abandoned to his fate; and we have surrendered him into the hands of other nations, less acquainted with his character and situation. Former acts of parliament had adopted wise and humane measures to ameliorate the condition of slaves on board British vessls, so that their wants, and even their comforts, were administered with a liberal hand; and much more might have been done to augment these comforts. Instead of now being the object of matured and wise regulations, the captive is exposed to the rapacity of our enemies, who will derive great advantages from our abandonment of the trade, and those who are incompetent, from the want of local knowledge, to ease his shackles, and sooth him in his state of bondage. The magnitude and nature of the disease, required a comprehensive system of policy to eradicate it; and although in its nature and tendency of great moral turpitude, alteratives were required calculated to its inveterate character and established habits. The condition of the African, the probable advantages he was to derive by our abandonment, and the circumstances of commerce, were all considerations of important consequence.

Even virtue itself must modify to its standard many considerations of moral evil, more particularly in a political point of view, that it may the more effectually establish its principles; nor can it, amidst the corruptions of society, exercise at all times its functions with due effect; neither has an instance occurred where its prudence and discretion was more imperiously called upon, than in that now under consideration. It had immemorial custom in Africa to contend with, inveterate barbarism, and savage ferocity. This system had interwoven itself with our commercial existence so closely, as to require the most sagacious policy to eradicate it; at the same time it was the highest consideration for our magnanimity to interfere for that being whose thraldom and calamitous state had so long contributed to our wealth and commercial prosperity, before we abandoned him to contingencies.

Enough may have been said in the foregoing pages, to prove that something yet remains to be done to effect the manumission of the African, and preserve the important branches of commerce, which necessity has allied with the slave trade; and I entreat my readers to give this subject that dispassionate consideration which its merits require, and beg to assure them, that I obtrude my suggestions upon their notice with great submission and diffidence, trusting that what may appear in my system deficient, others more competent will embrace the subject, and excite the beneficence of my country in behalf of the African, promote civilization and Christian society in his country, display its arcana of wealth to the world, and open a path to its commerce, free and unobscured.

The colonization of the coast of Africa, in my estimation, is impracticable, from its climate being uncongenial to the constitution of Europeans, and from the system of slavery existing among its inhabitants, without the employment of natives in their present condition. The requisite authority to establish a system of labour, upon remunerative principles, and with industrious vigour, cannot otherwise be supported; and a misapprehension on this principle has been one of the great causes, as I conceive, of the failure of the Sierra Leone Company in establishing their agricultural objects. They attempted, in prosecution of their humane project, an agricultural establishment on the Boolam shore, opposite to their colony, where they had a choice of good lands: they proceeded upon the principles of their declaration, "that the military, personal, and commercial rights of blacks and whites shall be the same, and secured in the same manner," and in conformity with the act of parliament which incorporated them, more immediately that clause which relates to labour, namely, "not to employ any person or persons in a state of slavery in the service of the said Company;" but they have totally failed; and in one of their reports, among other reasons, it is acknowledged, that for want of authority over the free natives whom they employed, their agricultural establishment on the Boolam shore was unsuccessful. Let not those worthy and truly respectable characters, whose humanity has induced them to risque an extensive property unhappily expended without effect, here consider that I mean to militate against their views, but rather may they acquiesce in the truth, and devise other expedients to promote their beneficent objects, and to assimilate the natives of the country with their views. They have not only to lament a nonproductive profusion of their property, but an alienation of the natives, occasioned by a misconception of their character, by distracted councils, and the narrowed ideas of the agents they employed to prosecute their humane endeavours, but also by a desolate waste in their colony, without a regular feature of cultivation in its vicinity.

At Bance Island, where slavery and agriculture were united under one superintendance in conformity with the established laws of the country, the mechanic arts among the natives have arrived at a greater degree of perfection than any situation I have visited upon the Windward Coast; and had the intellectual powers of their minds been more amply considered and cultivated, they would have exhibited an uncontrovertible example of the capacity and intelligence of the African. Although, as I have previously noticed, a superintendance directed only to the mechanical arts, applied to the local necessities of the Island, has had the most visible effects, yet, in proportion as their privileges have been extended, authority has become more inefficient, and their labour less unproductive in a pecuniary point of view, for want of a previous enlargement of their intellectual powers, and a progressive operation of freedom commensurate thereto.

I can bestow no panegyric adequate to the sense I entertain of that active goodness which prompted the Directors of the Sierra Leone Company to the undertaking I have alluded to; but with all due deference I conceive that they have mistaken the practicable grounds, upon which the seeds of civilization, and the principles of Christianity, can be effectively displayed to the African. The Directors had to contend with a peculiar co-mixture of passions, licentious habits, and hereditary vice; to eradicate these, and to rescue the natives from their natural state, alluring and progressive measures were necessary, founded upon an accurate investigation of their characters and policy, and not by the fulminations of intemperate zealots, and theoretical speculators. The beneficent views of the Sierra Leone Company have been unaccountably perverted, and have been the distorted instruments in prolonging, rather than extirpating, the barbarism of the African: it is therefore a subject of great regret to the benevolent supporters of this establishment, that an unprofitable expenditure of their property is the only existing perpetuity of their humane interference. Will it be found that the Company's agents have introduced the arts of civilization among any tribe or nation in Africa, that they have made any progress in agriculture, although possessing a very extensive tract of fertile lands, or that they have converted them into any of the regular features of cultivation? Have they explored or brought into action any of the attainable and lucrative branches of natural commerce, abounding in the region they inhabit, or do they employ a single ship in a regular trade with the mother country? Will it be found that they have unfolded the doctrines of Christianity, in their native purity and simplicity, to the unenlightened African, or converted, by their preaching and example, any tribe or nation among them?-The spacious waste is destitute of the appearance of domestic industry, or respectable character; it exhibits only a tissue of indolence, hypocritical grimace, petulant and assuming manners, and all the consequences of idleness and corrupted morals. To succeed in this beneficent undertaking, and to expunge the inveterate nature of the African, his prejudices, and inherent customs, progressive approaches upon his present condition are indispensibly requisite, under the attractive influence of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation.

Accidental events, concurring with political causes, frequently render the best concerted measures abortive, and retard their progress, but unquestionably the above-mentioned are the means by which the African may be manumitted, and his condition improved. The wisest laws operate but slowly upon a rude and fierce people, therefore the measures of reformation are not to be successfully performed by a coup-de-main, nor are the hereditary customs of Africa to be erased by the inflammatory declamations of enthusiasm, but by a liberal policy and the ascendency of the polished arts of society. Commerce, the chief means of assembling, and agriculture of assimilating, mankind, must first assume their fascinating and alluring attitudes to the African upon his native plains. Too impetuous and indolent to observe the forms, or enter into the requisite details of business, he contemplates the effect, without investigating the cause; but, when he discovers his own comparative wretchedness, he will be roused from his innate indolence, his powers will be stimulated, and his emulation excited to attain a more exalted state.

Imperceptible and circumspect approach at innovation upon the laws, customs, and country of Africa are indispensibly requisite, its chiefs and head men must be cajoled, their jealousies dextrously allayed, and their sordid avarice flattered by the prospect of superior gain.

During the infancy of colonization, the employment of native labour must be tolerated, as is evident by the unsuccessful attempts of the Sierra Leone Company, and may appear from what I have already urged. Independent of political considerations, of much weight, the uncongeniality of the climate of Africa to the constitution of the European colonist opposes an insurmountable barrier to the exercise of laborious avocations; therefore it is necessary to employ natives, in conformity with the usage of the country; and a recognition of property should exist in their persons; for it is obvious, from experiment, that authority cannot otherwise be established, or the necessary labour performed to produce an adequate return. While this invidious exigency obstructs the immediate manumission of the slave, it does not the less accelerate it, agreeable to the sound and humane policy adapted to his condition; but, on the contrary, is necessary to his complete emancipation; for he must first be taught the nature of the blessings of freedom, his intellectual faculties must be expanded, and the veil of barbarism gradually removed, to prepare him to participate in its enjoyment.

The system of colonization which I, with all submission, submit to the legislature, and to my country, is this:

1st. To employ natives in whom a recognition of property shall exist, as unavoidable from the present condition of Africa.

2d. To procure them from as wide an extent of the most powerful nations and tribes upon the sea coast, as is practicable, and from the Slatees or slave merchants from the interior countries.

3d. That a requisite number of these should be fit for the present purposes of labour, and for an immediate initiation into the mechanic arts, as applicable to the local circumstances of the colony, and the useful purposes of life.

4th. That a proportionate number of males and females should form the complement, from the age of 5 to 7 years, and be placed in a seminary of instruction, under the inspection of the government of the colony, and under tutors approved of in England.

5th. That this establishment of a seminary of instruction in Africa, under the administration of the colony, shall have for its bases the initiation of these children, as calculated to their sexes, into the rudiments of letters, religion, and science, and the progressive operation of education adapted to the useful purposes of life.

6th. That when thus prepared, the necessary avocations of domestic economy, agriculture, and mechanics, employ the next period of their existence, under the superintendence of the European colonist.

7th. When arrived at the period of mature years, and thus instructed, to become the object of legislative enquiry and investigation as to their attainments, character, fidelity, and mental improvement.

8th. That such as produce clear testimonials of capacity, knowledge, and acquirement, become immediately objects of manumission.

9th. That all proceedings in this process of education and emancipation, become matters of record in the colony, subject to such control and investigation as his Majesty's Government may, in its wisdom, appoint, from time to time, to guard against the corruption and prejudices of the legislative authority of the colony.

10th. That thus endowed, they are to be dismissed to their respective countries and nations, employed as agents in various capacities of civilized pursuit, and to promote the commercial and agricultural views of the colony, and disseminate their allurements among their tribe, which, under the direction of the unerring dispensations of divine providence, might, in process of time, diffuse civilization and Christianity throughout the utmost region of Africa, its inhabitants become members of civilized and Christian society, and their country, in process of time, be extricated from its barbarism.

It is for the legislature to devise a system adapted to the colonies, calculated to their local situations, and to remove the invidious distinction now subsisting between the African there, and in his native country; by these means the entire Negro race may participate in the blessings of civilization and revealed religion, in every quarter where our extensive dominion and influence exist.

By adopting the first proposition, a sufficient authority would be maintained to enforce the labour necessary to produce profit, and competent to excite emulation, which is a powerful passion in the character of the African; for in every effort he discovers a strong spirit of competition.

Through the medium of the 2d proposition, the natives of an extentive district would be collected under the instruction of the European colonist, and, in process of time, would become the happy instruments of initiating their, tribe or nation into the arts of civilization, and in promoting the commercial interests of the colony, which may eventually be diffused throughout Africa.

By the 3d expedient, an adequate portion of effective labourers would be obtained to commence vigorous operations.

In consequence of the 4th, 5th, and 6th, a portion of children of both sexes would be procured at a moderate rate, in their unadulterated condition, who would be susceptible of any impressions, free from the control of their parents, and the contamination of their example, into whose tender minds might be instilled the principles of moral virtue, religious knowledge, and the civil arts of life.

Through the adoption of the 7th and 8th, the objects of humanity might be realized, and slavery, with the slave trade, make a natural exit from the shores and country of Africa.

By the 9th, the corrupted and interested endeavours of the colonists to retard the work of emancipation would be controlled; and, by the patronage of Government, pecuniary resource and support be obtained, in aid of individual and corporate endeavours, the requisite population from the parent state acquired, and the indispensible authority established to secure success to any further attempts at colonization upon the coast of Africa.

And through the 10th expedient, an extended population would enjoy the advantages of instruction and example, and our ascendency and commerce be increased by a rapid process, which would predispose the natives to throw open the avenues of their country to our enterprize and research.

Thus may the long seclusion of the African from the light of truth and revealed religion be annihilated, his inveterate jealousies allayed, his nature regenerated, and his barbarism fall before the emanations of enlightened existence. In the interim, an unobscured path to the interior of his country will be opened, and our commerce therewith flow through a less polluted channel; while the Negro, now the victim of barbarism in his native land, may be extricated from his thraldom, and received into the circle of civilized life, which he has hitherto been excluded from, and to which providence, without doubt, in its mysterious and incomprehensible administration of human affairs, has designed him to arrive at.

[1]

A portion of them being destined to domestic slavery, as victims to revenge, and as sacrifices to their barbarous customs.

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