BRAZIL. 



489 



slave may have the wages of his own labor, and he has by law the right of redeemn;g himself 

 on paying the amount of his first cost. There were so many Africans imported before the ex- 

 piration of the time that was to abolish the traffic, that, by a just reaction, the dealers were 

 ruined ; and slaves are now sold on a credit of 10 years. In 1829, upwards of 50,000 were 

 imported into Rio alone.* They preserve the characteristics of their African nations, and the 

 citizens from policy encourage dissensions among them, lest by union they should become too 

 powerful. Obeah-men are less powerful than in the West Indies, but the native princes some- 

 times administer justice, and the Congoes elect a king. Divided as these poor people are, there 

 is one tie, that of fellowship in the greatest sufferings, that is never broken. This is compan- 

 ionship in the slave-ship ; and those who are brought over in the same prison, are brothers for 

 life. The natives of Congo and Angola are the most esteemed, being gentle and strong. The 

 Gaboons are more intractable, and numbers of them sometimes form a resolution to die at once. 

 The slave-market, like the slave-ship, is a place where one may see the extremes of human 



* Dr. Walsh gives the following description of the slave- 

 market, &c. " Round the rooms are benches, on which 

 the elder generally sit, and the middle is occupied by tiie 

 younger, particularly females, who squat on the ground, 

 stowed close together, with their hands and chins resting 

 on their knees. Their only covering is a small girdle of 

 crossbarred cotton tied round the waist. The first time I 

 passed through this street, 1 stood at the bars of the win- 

 dow, looking through, when acigano (a gypsy dealer) came 

 and pressed me to enter. I was particularly attracted by 

 a group of children, one of whom, a young girl, had some- 

 thing very pensive and engaging in her countenance. 

 The cigano, observing me look at her, whipped her up 

 with a long rod, and bade her with a rough voice to come 

 forward. It was quite affecting to see the poor, timid, 

 shrinking child, standing before me in a state the most 

 helpless and forlorn, that ever a being like myself, with a 

 reasonable mind and an immortal soul, could be reduced 

 to. Some of these girls have remarkably sweet and en- 

 gaging countenances. Notwithstanding their dusky hue, 

 they look so modest, gentle, and sensible, that you would 

 not for a moment hesitate to acknowledge, that tliey are 

 endued with a like feeling and a common nature with 

 your own daughters. The men were generally less inter- 

 esting objects than the women ; some were snot black, 

 having a certain ferocity of aspect, that indicated strong 

 and fierce passions, like men who are darkly brooding over 

 some deep-felt wrongs, and meditating revenge. When 

 any one was ordered, he came forward with a sullen in- 

 difference, threw his arms over his head, stamped with his 

 feet, shouted to show the soundness of his lungs, ran up 

 and down the room, and was treated exactly like a horse 

 put through his paces at a repository ; and when done, he 

 was whipped to his stall. 



" Many were lying stretched on the bare boards ; and, 

 among the rest, mothers with young children at their 

 breasts, of which they seemed passionately fond. They 

 were all doomed to remain on the spot, like sheep in a 

 pen, till they were sold; they have no apartment to retire 

 to, no bed to repose on, no covering to protect them ; they 

 Bit naked all day, and lie naked all night on the bare 

 boards or benches. 



" Among the objects that attracted my attention in this 

 place, were some young boys, who seemed to have formed 

 ii society together. I observed several times in passing 

 by, that the same little group was collected near a barred 

 window ; they seemed very fond of each other, and their 

 kindly feelings were never interrupted by peevishness; 

 indeed the temperament of .a negro child is generally so 

 sound, that he is not affected by those little morbid sensa- 

 tions, which are the frequent cause of crossness and ill- 

 temper in our children. 1 do not remember that I ever 

 saw a young black fretful or out of humor. I sometimes 

 brought cakes and fruit in my pocket, and handed them in 

 to the group. It was quite delightful to observe the gene- 

 rous and disinterested manner in which they distributed 

 them. There was no scrambling with one another; no 

 selfish reservation to themselves. The child to whom I 

 happened to give them, took them so gently, looked so 

 thankfully, and distributed them so generously, that 1 



62 



could not help thinking, that God had compensated their 

 dusky hue by a more than usual human portion of amiable 

 qualities. 



" Nothing is more absurd than to say, that the Africans 

 are happy, or reconciled to slavery in America. They 

 seem to have as keen a sense of bondage, and to repine a; 

 bitterly at their lot, as an}' white men in the same state in 

 Africa; indeed, if we might judge from the effects, still 

 more. The harbor is constantly covered with the bodies 

 of blacks, on whom no marks of violence are found, and 

 who are known to have thrown themselves in, to escape 

 from an insupportable life. I have seen them, myself, 

 left by the lide on the strand, and some lying vv'eltering 

 just under our windows. We were eyewitnesses to a very 

 striking and melancholy fact of this kind. One evening, 

 some policemen were conducting a woman to the calabou- 

 fo, along the road leading from Catete. Just when they 

 came opposite our door where there was an open descent 

 to the strand, the woman suddenly rushed down the rocks 

 and cast herself into the sea. The place in which she fell 

 was too shallow to drown her ; so after lying un her face 

 a moment, she again raised herself, and rushing forward 

 into deeper water, she sunk and disappeared. The police- 

 men made no attempt to save her, but Mr. Abercrombie 

 ordered some of the blacks of our house to follow her. 

 They immediately did so, brought her up apparently dead 

 and carried her into our hall. The negroes supposing her 

 to be dead, threw her down on the baie stones, just as they 

 would be treated themselves, and she lay there like any 

 other worthless and despised object : but on examining 

 the poor creature, w-e had reason to suppose it still possible 

 to restore suspended animation ; a bed was therefore 

 brought, on which she was laid, divested of her wet and 

 tatteied garments, and wrapped in a warm blanket; fric- 

 tion and other means were resorted to, and after being 

 persevered in for some time, she showed symptoms of re- 

 turning animation. She was seized with convulsions suc- 

 ceeded by a violent shuddering, when she fell into a slum- 

 ber, from which she awoke in a sensible state. She had 

 been employed in washing, which she willingly performed , 

 but her master treated her with the greatest cruelty and 

 inhumanity, and in proof she showed her arms and side, 

 which were greatly swelled and inflamed from the effect 

 of blows received a few days before. She could endure it 

 no longer, but fled to the wood. Her master immediately 

 gave 16 milreis to the capitao do mato (whose oflice it islo 

 take fugitive slaves); she was pursued and overtaken, 

 and was on her way back, when she conceived such 

 a horror at again returning to encounter the brutality 

 she had before experienced, that she determined not to he 

 brought home alive. She appeared very grateful for the 

 kindness with which she was treated, so different from 

 anything she had experienced in Brazil before ; and pro- 

 posed to do any work with alacrity to which she was put . 

 but when we spoke of her returning to her master, she 

 expressed a degree of horror in her looks and manner, that 

 amounted to distraction, and seemed to think, that she 

 was little indebted to those who saved her life, if she was 

 again to be given up to that suffering, than which loss of 

 life was more tolerable." 



