478 HISTORY 



SLAVE TRADE SURVIVES. 



Daring adventurers kept up the slave trade. Even in the face of the diligent 

 endeavors of the British Empire to apply its laws against the traffic, the 

 promise of gain by the smuggling of slaves into the colonies tempted many to 

 engage in this inhuman business. The islands of the Bahamas with their 

 numerous jutting rocks, and treacherous surrounding seas, lay in the track 

 commonly followed by slavers on their way to certain parts of the slave terri- 

 tory. Navigation through these seas was always attended with great danger 

 and wrecks were frequent. Slave ships were not exempt from these 

 perils. Besides, the vessels of the royal navy patrolled the waters for the 

 apprehension of slavers. Both wreckers and men-of-war continued to bring 

 slavers into the port of Nassau, until long after the abolition of slaver} r in the 

 British colonies. This was the origin of a numerous class of people in the 

 Bahamas who became objects of special care to the Executive, and often of 

 jealousy to the owners of slave property. Naval officers were eager to make 

 such captures, in order to gain the rewards offered for them by the home 

 government. Customs officers were no less eager, on account of the fees that 

 accrued to them on the condemnation of a cargo of captives. 205 



The law regarded those landed on the coasts of British territory as free- 

 men by virtue of their having come to that territory, 204 and the Governor as- 

 sumed the role of guardian of their interests. Some of them were placed in close 

 settlements at different places in the Colony. One cargo of them was placed 

 at Highburn Cay, 34 miles from Nassau. 207 This settlement was to suffer great 

 hardships. The captives were of different tribes of Africans, speaking differ- 

 ent languages. None of them had acquired any facility in the use of English, 

 and there was no means of communication between them. It was soon found 

 that the best plan for civilizing them was by placing them where they would 

 come most into contact with the whites, where they could acquire the tongue 

 of the Bahama Englishmen, and learn also to care for themselves. The 

 drouth of 1833 bore with especial hardship on those settled on small islands. 

 The Highburn Cay settlers were removed to Nassau. 208 Some of the able-bodied 

 men among them were enlisted in the second West Indian regiment, but most of 



"* Ds., S. St., 1832, No. 71. 



206 Smyth's Ds., No. 130, and No. 137, in which there is another reference to the 

 legal opinion on this. 



207 Smyth's Ds., No. 183. 



208 Balfour to Stanley, Nos. 16 and 26. 



