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LETTER XXVIII.

ORIGIN OF SLAVERY.

MONSIEUR JULIEN, OF PARIS.

MY DEAR SIR,

Kingston, Sept. 12, 1834.

I am desirous of complying with your request respecting the information you wish for on the subject of slavery, and I am the more anxious to do so, as you intimated in your letter, that the information you seek for, you hope to make subservient to the cause of humanity in your own colonies. I am very sorry to teil you that humanity is still very grossly outraged in them. The more I have inquired of your countrymen here, into the condition of the slaves in your colonies, the more reason I have to believe that your countrymen are not more fit to be trusted with the exercise of unlimited power over their fellow men, than those of any other European nation. In saying this, I do not depend on hear-say evidence only, but on inferences from my own experience; and so far from being influenced by any foolish prejudice against the people I speak of, I assure you all my prepossessions are strongly in favour of that brave and generous nation.

I think it important, that one possessed of so much influence among the leading men of your country should have accurate intelligence of the condition of the slaves in our colonies, under the great change which has lately taken place; and that you should not be imposed upon by names which sound well, but do not signify what they are intended to express. Slavery is to be abolished in our colonies in the year 1840, but in the mean time, it virtually exists under another name, and that name is Apprenticeship. Before I

enter on this subject, I think it advisable to refer to those authorities on which slavery grounds its legal character with us: they are similar to those on which the infamous system rests its "sacred rights" with you; with the difference, that your countrymen have a Pope's bull to refer to, for the first sanction of slavery, while my countrymen have only a King's patent, for the legality of that system with them. We must not, I suppose, put a King in competition with a Pope; but it is possible that the sanction of a Stuart, and that of a Eugenius, are about equally venerated by both our countrymen. The subject of slavery in your colonies must soon force itself on the attention of your government; but neither your government, nor any other, will undertake the removal of any great abuse of privilege or power, that has the hoar of antiquity on the head of its enormities, if it is not impelled by the force of public opinion, and the impulse to its enlightenment be given with an energy that will suffer no ministry to doubt its momentum.

The world, Monsieur Julien, does not understand · that anomaly which characterized the institutions of some of those ancient countries, the people of which were the most jealous of their liberties of all other nations, and the most tyrannical in their treatment to their slaves. We are not living in days of refined barbarity, when liberty requires the foil of slavery to bring out its brightness. We have no feelings in common with the proud oppressors, who denied the possession of natural rights to uncivilized nations; though the countrymen of either of us act in our colonies as if we had: we, however, have taken the first step to redeem our colonial character. Oppression, I believe, is no less hateful to your high-spirited people, than it is detestable to us; and I cannot think the abhorrence the French have shown of it, on a recent memorable occasion, is merely a question of locality, and that despotic tyranny is intolerable in France-but is not only endurable, but justifiable, in Martinique,

The history of slavery in modern times commences in 1442, when the Portuguese received certain negro slaves from the Moors, in lieu of some prisoners of war that had been given up by Prince Henry. About this time the introduction of slaves into Portugal was sanctioned by a bull of Pope Eugenius IV.

In a short time the Portuguese fitted out an expedition for Africa: they built forts along the African coast; and the king of Portugal took the title of the lord of Guinea-he might have added, the king of the kidnappers. The forts were taken by the Dutch in 1638, a little later by the English, and in 1678 by the French-and not only taken, but destroyed. In 1685, the Elector of Brandenburgh established three settlements on the Gold Coast, under the direction of the first chartered company. These settlements proved unsuccessful: in 1717 they were sold to a Dutch company: France again took possession of them and retained them till 1763, when England at that time took possession of Senegal, and confined the French from Cape Blanco to the Gambier. In 1502, the Spaniards in the West Indies having greatly exhausted the native Indian population, began to turn their attention to Africa, for negro slaves to work in the mines; and their attention was directed to it by Las Casas, the amiable bishop of Chiapa, on a very short-sighted notion of philanthropy-that of making distant objects the victims of atrocity, in order to relieve the sufferings of those within his sight. In 1517, the Emperor,' Charles V., granted a patent to some Genoese merchants, for an annual supply of 4000 negroes: from this time, the infamous traffic was regularly established. From the time of the discovery of the New World, Columbus was not only the zealous advocate of slavery, but the actual agent of slavery himself. Almost all his historians attempt to gloss over this disgraceful conduct of the great discoverer, and one of the ablest of them, Washington Irving, among others; he lived, it is said, in a dark age; he conformed only to the spi

rit of the times; he shared the errors of the greatest people of the time, who looked upon pagans as wretches, out of the pale of humanity, whom it was lawful to enslave. All this is not only destitute of truth, but its erroneousness is evident from the very statement of those who make these assertions: Columbus possessed the great faculty of inventive genius, his energy was commensurate with his ambition; and it is evident, from all his stipulations with the courts he treated with, that he was ambitious of wealth and power, as well as glory; but so far from being in advance of the enlightenment of his age, it is plain he was very far behind it. It is a curious fact, that among the very persons whom his historians have branded as ignorant bigots for their enmity to Columbus, were men who had openly denounced slavery, and reprobated the Admiral for the part he had taken in it. The people whose slavery Columbus advocated throughout his whole career, were those very Indians whom he speaks of in his journal written for the perusal of his sovereigns, as a people who love their neighbours as themselves: their discourse is even sweet and gentle, and accompanied by a smile: (and he continues,) I swear to Your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation or a better land." But it was not long before he remitted, says Washington Irving, "with all the gold he could collect, specimens of fruits and valuable plants, 500 Indian captives to be sold as slaves. It is painful. (he adds) to find the glory of Columbus sullied by such violations of the laws of humanity; but the customs of the times must plead his apology."

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But that the people of the times had some feelings of respect for human rights is evident, from the course pursued by Isabella: "the Queen ordered that the Indians should be taken back to their native country." Nevertheless, when he returned to Spain, "he carried with him several Indians, decorated with glittering ornaments, and, amongst them, the brother of Caonabo, on

whom he put a massive collar, and chain of gold weighing 600 castillanos." When the destruction of the Indians began to affect the working of the mines, the same authority tells us, "he proposed to transport to Hispaniola, for a limited term of years, all criminals condemned to banishment or the galleys, excepting such as had committed atrocious crimes." This historian admits his recommendation proved "a fruitful source of misery and disaster to the colony," while Robertson insinuates that judicial decisions at home were influenced by the suggestion of colonization advantages. The soundness of his colonial policy is of a piece with his financial views and theological opinions: of both the latter we have a sample in the following passage from Irving's history: "In his anxiety to lessen the expenses of the colony, and procure revenue to the crown, he recommended that the natives of the Caribbean islands being cannibals, and ferocious invaders of their peaceful neighbours, should be captured, and sold as slaves, or exchanged with merchants for live stock and other necessary supplies." And what is the avowed object of making them slaves?-the making Christians of them! and moreover the acquisition of means, the proposed end of his discoveries, that "should be consecrated to a crusade for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre from the power of the infidels." Was this in the spirit of the tenth or fifteenth century, when unfavourable representations continued to be sent home against him, by the friar Boyle and Margarite. of tyranny and oppression-by Roldan and others, of conferring grants of Indians, male and female, on his favourites? Columbus, after signing a solemn treaty with this same Roldan, "wrote home," says Irving, "by this opportunity, to his sovereigns, giving it as his opinion that the agreement he had made with the rebel's was by no means obligatory to the crown, having been in a manner extorted by violence. He repeated his request, that a learned man might be sent out as a judge, and desired, moreover, that discreet persons

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