January i8, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



47 



is carried on with foreigners ; where fire-arms have been substi- 

 tuted for the bow and spear. Next comes the Mohammedan, and 

 last of all, on the shores of the Mediterranean, the civilization of 

 the French and English. 



It is a curious fact that many tribes that had made considerable 

 advance in manufacturing iron and copper, have for some time 

 ceased manufacturing ; and that some have retrograded, and have 

 lost some of the arts they formerly possessed. This decline appar- 

 ently took place after the Mohammedans had conquered North 

 Africa, and sent their traders among the Negro tribes, who sold 

 the few articles the Negro needed cheaper than they could manu- 

 facture them, and therefore gave up their own manufactures. Such 

 was the effect of free trade on interior Africa. The Mohammedans 

 also manufacture less than formerly, depending more and more 

 upon European manufactures. The enterprise of the white races 

 defies native competition, and stifles attempts at native manufac- 

 tures : there is therefore in all Africa a great falling-off in the 

 progress of outward culture, and the last traces of home industries 

 are rapidly disappearing. 



Slave-Trade. 



One of the departments of this society is the geography of life* 

 At the head of all life stands man : it is therefore within our prov- 

 ince to investigate those questions which more intimately concern 

 and influence his welfare. 



Slavery and the slave-trade have, within the last two hundred 

 years, affected African life more than all other influences combined ; 

 and this trade, with all its sinister effects, instead of diminishing, is 

 ever increasing. It has had a marked effect not only on the per- 

 sonal and tribal characters of the inhabitants, but on their social 

 organization, and on the whole industrial and economic Hfe of the 

 ■country. It has not only utterly destroyed many tribes, but it 

 ihas made the condition of all the other tribes one of restless an- 

 archy and insecurity. It has been the great curse of Africa, and 

 ifor its existence the Christian nations of Europe have been and are 

 largely responsible. The temper and disposition of the Negro 

 make him a most useful slave. He can endure continuous hard 

 labor, live on little, has a cheerful disposition, and rarely rises 

 against his master. 



There are two kinds of slavery, — home and foreign. The first 

 'has always prevailed in Africa. Prisoners taken in war are either 

 sacrificed, eaten, or made slaves. Slavery is also a punishment for 

 •certain offences, while in some tribes men frequently sell them- 

 selves, or by some act become slaves. These slaves are of the 

 same race and civilization as their masters. They are usually well 

 treated, regarded as members of the family, to whom a son or 

 daughter may be given in marriage, the master often preferring to 

 keep his daughter in the family to marrying her to a stranger. 

 This slavery is a national institution of native growth. It is said 

 one half of the inhabitants are slaves to the other half. The hor- 

 rors of the slave-trade are unknown in this kind of slavery. 



In the other case the slave is torn from his home, carried to peo- 

 ple, countries, and climates with which he is unfamiliar, and to 

 scenes and civilization which are uncongenial, where he is the 

 slave of a master of a different color and of another and higher 

 civilization, where the master and slave have nothing in common. 

 The Spaniards made slaves of the Indians of America, but they 

 were incapable of work, unfitted for slavery, and rapidly faded 

 away. In pity for the Indians, the Africans were brought to sup- 

 ply their places. Their ability to labor was proved, and they were 

 soon in great demand. 



The slave-trade, as a regular commercial business, is said to 

 have originated from a patent of Charles V. to one of his favorites, 

 _granting the exclusive right to transport 4,000 Negroes annually to 

 the Spanish possessions in America. The patent was sold to some 

 ■Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats. The business was profita- 

 ble ; and respectable companies were formed in other countries to 

 carry on a trade, protected and sometimes subsidized by the gov- 

 ernment. 



In 1619 a Dutch company sent a cargo of slaves to Jamestown, 

 Va., and thus slavery commenced in the United States. The Par- 

 liament of Great Britain incorporated the African Company of 

 England ; and by the Treaty of Utrecht, A.D. 171 5, a contract for 



supplying the Spanish colonies with slaves was transferred to Great 

 Britain, and sold to the English African Company, which held the 

 monopoly for over thirty years. 



The Portuguese Company of Guinea, in 1701, contracted to fur- 

 nish 10,000 "tonnes" of Negroes a year for the Spanish Main. 

 The higher the civilization, the more cruel the master ; and in no 

 country does the slave seem to have fared worse than in Jamaica, 

 for while the slave-trade lasted the slaves were worked to death. 

 In one hundred years prior to 1807, when the slave-trade was 

 abolished, 270,000 female, and 330,000 male slaves, or 600,000 in 

 all, were imported into Jamaica. If the slave population had in- 

 creased as the Negroes have increased in Jamaica since the Eman- 

 cipation, the number in 1807 should have exceeded 1,000,000 : it 

 was in reality only 320,000. Although the slave-trade was abol- 

 ished, it was still carried on clandestinely. When slavery was 

 abolished in 1837, the Negro population was 300,000: in 1881 it 

 was 600,000. Since the abolition of slavery, work has almost en- 

 tirely ceased ; and Jamaica, from being one of the wealthiest of 

 islands, has become one of the poorest. But the Negro population, 

 instead of decreasing as in slavery times, has rapidly increased. 



It is impossible to ascertain the number of slaves imported into 

 America. The estimates vary from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000. The 

 larger number is probably an underestimate. These figures do 

 not represent the number shipped from Africa, for I2i per cent 

 were lost on the passage, one-third more in the " process of sea- 

 soning;" so that, out of 100 shipped from Africa, not more than 

 50 lived to be effective laborers. 



Livingstone, who studied the question of slavery most carefully, 

 estimated, that, for every slave exported, not less than five were 

 slain or perished, and that in some cases only one in ten lived to 

 reach America. If the lowest estimate is taken, then not less than 

 20,000,000 Negroes were taken prisoners or slain to furnish slaves 

 to America. No wonder that many parts of Africa were depopu- 

 lated. 



Though the slave-trade with America has been suppressed, 

 thousands are annually stolen and sold as slaves in Persia, Arabia, 

 Turkey, and central and northern Africa. Wherever Mohamme- 

 danism is the religion, there slavery exists ; and to supply the de- 

 mand the slave-trade is carried on more extensively and more cru- 

 elly to-day than at any previous time. The great harvest-field for 

 slaves is in Central Africa, between 10° south and 10° north lati- 

 tude. From this region caravans of slaves are sent to ports on the 

 Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, and thence shipped to Indo-China, 

 the Persian Gulf, Arabia, Turkey in Asia, and even to Mesopota- 

 mia, wherever Mussulmans are found. The English at Suakin are 

 a constant hinderance to this traffic ; and therefore Osman Digma 

 has so often within the past five years attacked Suakin, and en- 

 deavored to take it from the English to hold it as a port from 

 which to ship slaves to Arabia. Other caravans are driven across 

 the desert to Egypt, Morocco, and the Barbary States. Portu- 

 guese slave-traders are found in Central Africa, and, though con- 

 trary to law, deal in slaves, and own and work them in large num- 

 bers. Cameron says that Alrez, a Portuguese trader, owned 500 

 slaves, and that to obtain them, ten villages, having each from too 

 to 200 souls, were destroyed ; and of those not taken, some per- 

 ished in the flames, others of want, or were killed by wild beasts. 

 Cameron says, " I do not hesitate to affirm that the worst Arabs 

 are angels of mercy in comparison to the Portuguese and their 

 agents. If I had not seen it, I could not believe that there could 

 exist men so brutal and cruel, and with such gayety of heart." 

 Livingstone says, " I can consign most disagreeable recollections 

 to oblivion, but the slavery scenes come back unbidden, and make 

 me start up at night horrified by their vividness." 



If the chief or pacha of a tribe is called upon for tribute by his 

 superior, if he wishes to build a new palace, to furnish his harem, 

 or fill an empty treasury, he sends his soldiers, armed with guns 

 and ammunition, against a Negro tribe armed with bows and 

 spears, and captures slaves enough to supply his wants. 



The territory from which slaves are captured is continually e.\- 

 tending ; for, as soon as the European traveller has opened a new 

 route into the interior, he is followed by the Arab trader, who set- 

 tles down, cultivates the ground, buys ivory (each pair of tusks 

 worth about S500 at Zanzibar or Cairo); who invites others to come , 



