SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 259 



though generally tractable and patient, lazy slaves, need- 

 ing to be driven to work, and, unlike the Coromantees, 

 only to be kept at it by driving. They are capable of 

 great endurance under a burning sun. 



The Ashantees, who inhabit an interior portion of the 

 north of Africa, have ever been the most powerful and 

 warlike tribe of negroes on that continent. They have 

 frequently defied the scientific and destructive means of 

 European warfare, and during the prevalence of the un- 

 controlled slave trade, were the principal instruments to 

 supply the hordes of slaves that were shipped from the 

 upper Guinea coast. It was through the agency of this 

 tribe that Spain derived her supplies to fill the celebrated 

 Assiento Contracts she made with Portugal, France and 

 England, to supply their American colonies with negro 

 slaves. 



But notwithstanding their power and warlike disposi- 

 tion, many of them suffered the same fate they were so 

 anxious to inflict upon their weaker neighbors — their 

 Christian allies never hesitating to purchase whatever 

 was offered with a black skin, without inquiring whether 

 he was friend or foe. 



The Ashantees, Foutis, Sulemas and Dahomans, are 

 similar in leading characteristics as slaves to the Eboes 

 and Mongullas. 



There are also some tribes of African negroes that are 

 so low in the scale of civilization, that they are rejected 

 as worthless, even by the West India planter, where they 

 are not even required to learn the art of any thing more 

 scientific than digging up the ground with a hoe, to pre- 

 pare it for the crop of sugar-cane ; for thus thousands of 

 acres are prepared where the use of a plow is unknown. 



These beings — I can hardly call them human — in their 

 native country, live in the wild jungles, without fire, 

 without clothing of any kind and without habitations, 

 and upon such food as nature provides for them without 

 labor. They are about four feet high, the head strongly 

 resembling in shape that of the ourang-outang, and hav- 

 ing a profusion of hair on the body and limbs. 



