Slave Coast

“ No coast is so pestilential as that of Africa, and hence the service was very repulsive and very dangerous. As an improvement on this method of trading, the plan was adopted very early of planting small settlements of Europeans at intervals along the slave-coast, whose business it should be to negotiate with the negroes, stimulate them to activity in their slave-hunting expeditions, purchase the slaves brought in, and warehouse them until the arrival of the ships. ”

“ Numbers of the natives came down to the coast, and kept company with the ship by running along the sandy beach. Along nearly [182] the whole of this coast, it is quite apparent that, if the native chiefs are willing, slavers can easily ship their cargoes; for there are few places where a vessel could not anchor, send the planks of her slave-deck on shore, and with these construct a raft, and warp it, laden with negroes, from the shore to the ship.
In all these parts the slave-dealers must have agents to procure the natives they require to keep up a regular supply for the traffic. ”

“ The schooner Shark, Captain M. C. Perry (a brother of the hero of Lake Erie) , sailed on August 7, 1821, and was on the slave-coast a part of September, all of October, and a part of November. Trenchard of the Cyane reported that there were three hundred slave-ships on the coast. Perry reported, "I could not even hear of an American slaving vessel; and I am fully impressed with the belief that there is not one at present afloat." ”

“ It is extremely difficult to get up these rivers to the places where the slavers lie. The whole coast is intersected by innumerable rivers, with branches pouring into them from every quarter, and communicating with each other by narrow, circuitous and very numerous creeks, bordered on each side with impenetrable thickets of mangroves. ”

“ The cause for the popular esteem of the African coast during the earlier centuries was the intimate connection which the slave trade had with the development of the English plantations in the West Indies. ”

“ If we were able and at liberty to go whithersoever we would, the greater number, willing to leave this community, would prefer Liberia on the coast of Africa. We shall carry your language, your customs, your opinions, and Christianity, to that now desolate shore, and thence they will gradually spread with our growth far into the Continent. The slave-trade, both external and internal, can be abolished only by Settlements on the coast. We foresee that difficulties and dangers await those who emigrate, such as every infant establishment must encounter and endure. ”

“ But now, the enterprise is effected with secrecy and hazard. A wild, uninhabited portion of the coast, where some little bay or sheltering nook exists, is commonly selected by the captain and his confederates. As soon as the vessel is driven close to the beach and anchored, her boats are packed with slaves, while the craft is quickly dismantled to avoid detection from sea or land. The busy skiffs are hurried to and fro incessantly till the cargo is entirely ashore, when the secured gang, led by the captain, and escorted by armed sailors, is rapidly marched to the nearest plantation. ”

“ A large proportion of the people were slaves. Some masters held great numbers; the slavery which existed was a slavery for life, and was of the most despotic and arbitrary character.'
'Cross-examined.-'Witness considers himself as understanding very well the customs and conditions of the Africans among whom he was. Witness did not touch upon the Gold Coast; knows nothing whatever of the Gold Coast or Lucame tribe of Africans; witness was in Liberia, and upon the Slave Coast, and upon the Grain Coast. Besides, the coast of Africa runs a good deal east and west in that portion of it. ”

“ The Gold Coast and Slave Coast, these have the most European factories, and furnish the greatest number of slaves to the Europeans. Exceeding fertile. The country of Axim, and of Ante. Good account of the inland people Great fishery. Extraordinary trade for slaves. The Slave Coast. The kingdom of Whidah. Fruitful and pleasant. The natives kind and obliging. Very populous. Keep regular markets and fairs. Good order therein. Murder, adultery, and theft severely punished. The King's revenues. The principal people have an idea of the true God. Commendable care of the poor. ”

“ With a most prolific soil, and a climate capable of producing almost every variety of tropical fruit, the resources of the land are beyond computation. A sea-coast line, six hundred miles in length, and an interior stretching indefinitely into the heart of the country, offer the most splendid facilities for foreign commerce.
For a thousand miles along the coast, and two hundred miles inland, the influence of the government has been brought to bear upon domestic slavery among the natives, and upon the extirpation of the slave-trade, until both have ceased to exist. ”

“ The first great want of a country has not been attended to, and no development of its vast resources has taken place. The fact, however, of a change from one system of carriage to another, taken in connection with the great depreciation in the price of slaves near this coast, proves the effectiveness of our efforts at repressing the slave-trade on the ocean. ”

“ Of late years the slave-trade from the West Coast has been carried on chiefly by fast steamers, but as the men-of-war engaged in the blockade are also steamers, the slave-dealers have found the trade a losing one, so that on the whole of the West Coast there are very few points from which slaves are shipped. ”

“ The natives, as just observed, are a bold, resolute people. During the last voyage I was upon the coast, I saw a number of negroes in Cape Corse Castle, some of whom were part of the cargo of a ship from London, on whose crew they had risen, and, after killing the captain and most of the sailors, ran the ship on shore ”

“ The Gold Coast negroes scarcely ever refuse any food that is offered them, and they generally eat larger quantities of whatever is placed before them, than any other species of negroes, whom they likewise excel in strength of body and mind. Most of the slaves have such an aversion to the horse-beans, that unless they are narrowly watched, when fed upon deck, they will throw them overboard, or in each other’s faces when they quarrel. ”

“ Scarce any age or situation is deemed an exception, the price being proportionable. Women sometimes form a part of them, who happen to be so far advanced in their pregnancy, as to be delivered during their journey from the fairs to the coast; and I have frequently seen instances of deliveries on board ship. The slaves purchased at these fairs are only for the supply of the markets at Bonny, and Old and New Calabar.
There is great reason to believe, that most of the negroes shipped off from the coast of Africa, are kidnapped. ”

“ Colonel Rigby, Captains Wilson, Oldfield, and Chapman, and all the most intelligent officers on the Coast, were unanimous in the belief, that one small vessel on the Lake would have decidedly more influence, and do more good in suppressing the slave-trade, than half a dozen men-of-war on the ocean. By judicious operations, therefore, on a small scale inland, little expense would be incurred, and the English slave-trade policy on the East would have the same fair chance of success, as on the West Coast. ”

“ AT the immediate time of which we now write, there had been some very aggravated instances of open resistance to the English and American cruisers on the African station by the slavers who thronged the coast, and the home government had sent out orders embracing extraordinary powers, in order that the first cases that might thenceforth come under the cognizance of the court might lead to such summary treatment of the offenders, as to act as an example for the rest, and thus have a most salutary effect upon the people thus engaged. ”

“ We therefore ultimately came to the conclusion that, the weather being what it was, our friend the Yankee would shape a straight course for Cape Palmas, with the intention of then availing himself of the alternate sea and land-breezes to slip along the coast as far as the Congo—that being the plan very largely followed by slavers on the eastward passage—and that he would only be likely to deviate from that plan in the event of his actually discovering that he was pursued. ”

“ Argument for the United States is that the evidence clearly shows that the voyage for which the bark was fitted and prepared, and which she commenced from the port of New York under a clearance for Cape Palmas, on the western coast of Africa, was undertaken for the purpose and with the intent of engaging in the slave-traffic. ”

“ Arrived on the coast and the port reached, if no man-of-war be on the coast, two hours suffice to place 400 human beings on board. On the slaves being received, the largest men are picked out as head-men, and these dividing the slaves into gangs, according to the size of the vessel, of from ten to twenty, keep them in order. A slave-deck is divided into two unequal parts, the larger for the men, the other for women and children. ”

“ I was informed by a mulatto woman, that she purchased a sick slave at Grenada, upon speculation, for the small sum of one dollar, as the poor wretch was apparently dying of the flux. It seldom happens that any, who are carried ashore in the emaciated state to which they are generally reduced by that disorder, long survive their landing. I once saw sixteen conveyed on shore, and sold in the foregoing manner, the whole of whom died before I left the island, which was within a short time after. ”

“ Those of the American crew who do not die of coast-fever, get back as they can, many of them being compelled to come over in slave-vessels, in order to get back at all. There is evidence in the records of the consulate, of slaves having started two or three times from the shore, and the master and crew from their vessel in their boat, carrying with them the flag and ship's papers; when, the parties becoming frightened, both retroceded; the slaves were returned to the shore, and the American master and crew again went on board the vessel. ”

“ The slave ships infested the harbours of the coast, and if a sail rose upon the horizon it was likely to be a slaver’s sail. Armed bands still forayed into the recesses of Georgia for their loot of beautiful boys and girls, and parents who wished to preserve their daughters from the market would place them, when quite children, in one of the numerous fortified convents which crowned the summits of their native hills. ”

“ On this account, the unhappy slave is frequently transferred from one dealer to another, until he has lost all hopes of returning to his native kingdom. The slaves which are purchased by Europeans on the coast are chiefly of this description. A few of them are collected in the petty wars which take place near the coast, but by far the greater number are brought down in large caravans from the inland countries, of which many are unknown even by name to Europeans. ”

“ Lieutenant Story says that slaves are generally obtained on the Windward coast by marauding parties, from one village to another in the night, He has known canoes come from a distance, and carry off numbers in the night. ”

“ This slaver goes on to say he thinks he will sail off the coast from Chama with about 120 slaves cargo. “We have left about two hundred pound sterg in goods which wont sell here to any profitt. Every man slave that we pay all Goods for here, costs twelve pounds sterg prime. I hope I shall be in Barbadoes ye latter end of June but have not concluded whither we shall go to Jamaica or Virginia; our slaves is mostly large. 60 men and boys, 20 women, the rest boys and girls, but three under four foot high. ”

“ The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror when I was carried on board. I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, ”

“ The Slave River from where it leaves Fort Smith to its embouchure in Great Slave Lake is about two hundred miles long, with an average width of half a mile, except where it expands in its course to enclose islands. The big boat behaves beautifully in the water, and on we slip with no excitement until about five o'clock, when a moose and her calf are espied, well out of range. Each in his narrow cell, we sleep the sleep of the just and wake to find ourselves tied to the bank. ”

“ In fact, the Bushmen fight, travel, steal and trade, while the Kroos and Fishes, who for ages have fringed at least seven hundred miles of African coast, constitute the mariners, without whose skill and boldness slaves would be drugs in caravans or barracoons. And this is especially the case since British, French, and American cruisers have driven the traffic from every nook and corner of the west coast that even resembled a harbor, and forced the slavers to lay in wait in open roadsteads for their prey. ”