CHAP. XVIII THE MISSIONARIES AND SLAVERY 381 



missionaries did serious injury to the British cause by their 

 injudicious and illegal interference with the slave-trade. Mr. 

 Mackenzie now complains that " it does not appear to me that 

 missionary societies engaged in missionary work in Africa give 

 that help which they might do to forward the cause of freedom." ^ 

 He also expresses great disappointment at his interview with 

 Mr. Piggott, who as the Administrator of the Company which 

 has purchased the freedom of thousands of slaves, and as the 

 Treasurer of the Financial Committee of the Church Missionary 

 Society's headquarters at Freretown, is not likely to be accused 

 of lack of sympathy with the natives. But the Commissioner 

 reports Mr. Piggott as saying" that "the British East Africa 

 Company had liberated a good many slaves, but the result was 

 unsatisfactory, as they would not work. He was opposed to 

 the abolition of slavery, as the slaves seemed to be perfectly 

 happy, and in his opinion they seemed only fit for bondage. 

 This tale was poured into my ears on several occasions. Mr. 

 Piggott assured me that many missionaries were of his way of 

 thinking, and from what I heard some of them say, his asser- 

 tions were correct as to their opinion." 



The missionaries, in fact, seem now to recognise that 

 domestic slavery is not the unqualified evil they once thought 

 it, and that it is better by the enforcement of existing laws to 

 eradicate the system gradually, rather than by a sudden social 

 revolution to risk the horrors of an East African mutiny. They 

 seem also now to realise the truth that slavery may be regarded 

 as a larval appendage, necessary in a certain stage of national 

 development, and, later on, to be absorbed like the lobes of a 

 larval star-fish, or thrown aside like the shell of a bird's &%%. 

 Rudely to tear off the bands of the young star-fish is fatal to 

 its development, and to help an immature chicken by breaking 

 open its shell is not likely to add to the happiness of the 

 creature, whom the action was intended to aid. 



I regret, therefore, that I cannot represent British East Africa 

 as a land flowing with milk and honey, rich in precious metals, 

 and crowded with a capable and industrious population. On the 



' A Report on Slavery and the Slave Trade in Zanzibar, Pemba, and the Mainland 

 of the British Protectorates of East Africa (1895), p. 22, 

 - Op. cit. p. 13. 



