Anthony Benezet

“ To what end do we profess a religion whose dictates we so flagrantly violate? Wherefore have we that pattern of goodness and humanity, if we refuse to follow it? How long shall we continue a practice, which policy rejects, justice condemns, and piety dissuades? Shall the Americans persist in a conduct, which cannot be justified; or persevere in oppression from which their hearts must recoil? If the barbarous Africans shall continue to enslave each other, let the dæmon slavery remain among them, that their crime may include its own punishment. ”

“ Since our English law is so truly valuable for its justice, how can they overlook these barbarous deaths of the unhappy Africans without trial, or due proof of their being guilty, of crimes adequate to their punishment? Why are those masters of vessels, (who are often not the most tender and considerate of men) thus suffered to be the sovereign arbiters of the lives of the miserable Negroes, and allowed, with impunity, thus to destroy, may I not say, murder28 their fellow-creatures, and that by means so cruel as cannot be even related but with shame and horror? ”

“ The Author of a pamphlet, lately printed in London, entituled, An Essay in Vindication of the continental Colonies of America, writes, ‘That the bondage we have imposed on the Africans, is absolutely repugnant to justice.32 That it is highly inconsistent with civil policy: First, as it tends to suppress all improvements in arts and sciences; without which it is morally impossible that any nation should be happy or powerful. Secondly, as it may deprave the minds of the freemen; steeling their hearts against the laudable feelings of virtue and humanity. ”

“ They will not allow them to have any claim to human privileges, or scarce, indeed, to be regarded as the work of God. Though it was consistent with the justice of our Maker to pronounce the sentence on our common parent, and through him on all succeeding generations, That he and they should eat their bread by the sweat of their brow; yet does it not stand recorded by the same Eternal Truth, That the Labourer is worthy of his Hire? It cannot be allowed in natural justice, that there should be a servitude without condition: A cruel endless servitude. ”

“ Britons boast themselves to be a generous, humane people, who have a true sense of the importance of Liberty; but is this a true character, whilst that barbarous, savage Slave-Trade, with all its attendant horrors, receives countenance and protection from the Legislature, whereby so many Thousand lives are yearly sacrificed? Do we indeed believe the truths declared in the Gospel? ”

“ Some who have only seen Negroes in an abject state of slavery, broken-spirited and dejected, knowing nothing of their situation in their native country, may apprehend, that they are naturally insensible of the benefits of Liberty, being destitute and miserable in every respect, and that our suffering them to live amongst us (as the Gibeonites of old were permitted to live with the Israelites) though even on more oppressive terms, is to them a favour ”

“ Besides, no man has a right to acquire or to purchase them; men and their Liberty, are not either saleable or purchaseable: One therefore has no body but himself to blame, in case he shall find himself deprived of a man, whom he thought he had, by buying for a price,30 made his own; for he dealt in a Trade which was illicit, and was prohibited by the most obvious dictates of humanity. For these reasons, every one of those unfortunate men, who are pretended to be slaves, has a right to be declared free, for he never lost his Liberty, he could not lose it ”

“ He is the Father of men; and do you think he will not resent such treatment of his offspring, whom he hath so loved, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, might not perish, but have everlasting life? This love of God to man, revealed in the gospel, is a great aggravation of your guilt; for if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. ”

“ And may not conscience tell you, that it is for your inhumanity to the souls and bodies of men?—To go as pirates and catch up poor Negroes, or people of another land, that never forfeited Life or Liberty, and to make them Slaves and sell them, is one of the worst kind of Thievery in the world; and such persons are to be taken for the common Enemies of mankind; and they that buy them, and use them as beasts, for their meer commodity,38 and betray, or destroy, or neglect their souls, are fitter to be called devils than Christians. ”

“ Those who are acquainted with the Trade agree, that many Negroes on the sea-coast, who have been corrupted by their intercourse and converse with the European Factors, have learnt to stick at no act of cruelty for gain. These make it a practice to steal abundance of little Blacks of both sexes, when found on the roads or in the fields, where their parents keep them all day to watch the corn, &c. Some authors say, the Negroe Factors go six or seven hundred miles up the country with goods, bought from the Europeans, where markets of men are kept in the same manner as those of beasts with us. ”

“ Great numbers have also frequently been killed, and some deliberately put to death under the greatest torture, when they have attempted to rise, in order to free themselves from their present misery, and the slavery designed them. ”

“ It might be also shewn, that it destroys the bonds of natural affection and interest, whereby mankind in general are united; that it introduces idleness, discourages marriage, corrupts the youth, ruins and debauches morals, excites continual apprehensions of dangers, and frequent alarms, to which the Whites are necessarily exposed from so great an increase of a People, that, by their Bondage and Oppressions, become natural enemies, yet, at the same time, are filling the places and eating the bread of those who would be the Support and Security of the Country. ”

“ Although it is highly probable that in a country which is more than three thousand miles in extent from north to south, and as much from east to west, there will be barren parts, and many inhabitants more uncivilized and barbarous than others; as is the case in all other countries: yet, from the most authentic accounts, the inhabitants of Guinea appear, generally speaking, to be an industrious, humane, sociable people, whose capacities are naturally as enlarged, and as open to improvement, as those of the Europeans ”

“ Have not these unfortunate Africans, who meet with the same cruel fate, the same right? are not they men as well as we? and have they not the same sensibility? Let us not, therefore, defend or support an usage, which is contrary to all the Laws of Humanity.’
Francis Hutchinson, also in his System of Moral Philosophy, speaking on the subject of Slavery, says, ‘He who detains another by force in slavery, is always bound to prove31 his title. The Slave sold or carried away into a distant country, must not be obliged to prove a negative, that he never forfeited his Liberty. ”

“ One would imagine, they were framed to be the disgrace of the human species: banished from their Country, and deprived of that blessing, Liberty, on which all other nations set the greatest value, they are in a manner reduced to the condition of beasts of burden. In general a few roots, potatoes especially, are their food; and two rags, which neither screen them from the heat of the day, nor the extraordinary coolness of the night, all their covering; their sleep very short; their labour almost continual ”

“ We also find George Fox, a man of exemplary piety, who was the principal instrument in gathering the religious society of people called Quakers, expressing his concern and fellow-feeling for the bondage of the Negroes: In a discourse taken from his mouth, in Barbadoes, in the Year 1671, says, ‘Consider with yourselves, if you were in the same condition as the Blacks are,—who came strangers to you, and were sold to you as slaves. I say, if this should be the condition of you or yours, you would think it hard measure: Yea, and very great bondage and cruelty. ”

“ Must not even the common feelings of human nature have suffered some grievous change in those men, to be capable of such horrid cruelty towards their fellow-men? If they deserve death, ought not their judges, in the death decreed42 them, always to remember that these their hapless fellow-creatures are men, and themselves professing Christians? ”

“ I fear the generality of you, that own Negroes, are liable to such a charge; for your slaves, I believe, work as hard, if not harder, than the horses whereon you ride. These, after they have done their work, are fed and taken proper care of; but many Negroes, when wearied with labour, in your plantations, have been obliged to grind their own corn, after they return home. Your dogs are caressed and fondled at your table; but your slaves, who are frequently stiled dogs or beasts, have not an equal privilege ”

“ In Barbadoes, and some other of the Islands, six pints of Indian corn and three herrings are reckoned a full weeks allowance for a working slave, and in the System of Geography it is said, That in Jamaica the owners of the Negroe-slaves, set aside for each a parcel of ground, and allow them Sundays to manure it, the produce of which, with sometimes a few herrings, or other salt-fish, is all that is allowed for their support. ”

“ The Truth of this lamentable Complaint is so obvious to persons of candour, under whose notice it hath fallen, that several have lately published their sentiments thereon, as a matter which calls for the most serious consideration of all who are concerned for the civil or religious welfare of their Country. How an evil of so deep a dye, hath so long, not only passed uninterrupted by those in Power, but hath even had their Countenance, is indeed surprising ”

“ Can any human heart, that retains a fellow-feeling for the Sufferings of mankind, be unconcerned at relations of such grievous affliction, to which this oppressed part of our Species are subjected: God gave to man29 dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the cattle, &c. ”

“ It is no less shocking to read the accounts given by Sir Hans Sloane, and others, of the inhuman and unmerciful treatment those Blacks meet with, who survive the seasoning in the Islands, often for transgressions, to which the punishment they receive bears no proportion. ‘And the horrid executions, which are frequently made there upon discovery of the plots laid by the Blacks, for the recovery of their liberty; of some they break the bones, whilst alive, on a wheel; others they burn or rather roast to death ”

“ The violent possessor must, in all cases, shew his title, especially where the old proprietor is well known. In this case each man is the original proprietor of his own Liberty: The proof of his losing it must be incumbent on those, who deprived him of it by force. ”

“ Thus an insatiable desire of gain hath become the principal and moving cause of the most abominable and dreadful scene, that was perhaps ever acted upon the face of the earth; even the power of their Kings hath been made subservient to answer this wicked purpose, instead of being Protectors of their people, these Rulers, allured by the tempting bait laid before them by the European Factors, &c. have invaded the Liberties of their unhappy subjects, and are become their Oppressors. ”

“ And in a printed account of the State of the Negroes in our plantations, it is supposed that a fourth part, more or less, die at the different Islands, in what is called the seasoning. Hence it may be presumed, that, at a moderate computation of the slaves, who are purchased by our African merchants in a year, near thirty thousand die upon the voyage and in the seasoning. Add to this, the prodigious number who are killed in the incursions and intestine wars, by which the Negroes procure the number of slaves wanted to load the vessels. ”

“ They act as though they did not look upon them as a race of human creatures, who have reason, and remembrance of misfortunes; but as beasts, like oxen, who are stubborn, hardy and senseless, fit for burdens, and designed to bear them. ”

“ For negligence only they are unmercifully whipped, till their backs are raw, and then pepper and salt is scattered on the wounds to heighten the pain, and prevent mortification. Is it not a cause of much sorrow and lamentation, that so many poor creatures should be thus racked with excruciating tortures, for crimes which often their tormentors have occasioned? ”

“ Their allowance for clothing in the Islands is seldom more than six yards of10 osenbrigs each year: And in the more northern Colonies, where the piercing westerly winds are long and sensibly felt, these poor Africans suffer much for want of sufficient clothing, indeed some have none till they are able to pay for it by their labour. The time that the Negroes work in the West-Indies, is from day-break till noon ”

“ And as the earth yields all the year round a fresh supply of food, and but little clothing is requisite, by reason of the continual warmth of the climate; the necessaries of life are much easier procured in most parts of Africa, than in our more northern climes. ”