The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

crowded down to the beach, the ship’s boat

landed through an ugly surf, and the skipper made his way to a

large tree in the vicinity of the landing-place, where the

governor of the town received him in state, and regaled him

with trade-gin, by no means the most agreeable of all

compounds. The capital was situated at a distance of sixty

miles, and the captain would be carried there in a hammock,

taking with him some handsome silks and other presents for the

king. This monarch lived by hunting his neighbours and by

selling them to Europeans. There was a regular war-season, and

he went out once a year, sometimes in one direction, sometimes

in another. Kings in Africa have frequently a bodyguard of

women.

 

A certain king of Dahomey had developed this institution

into female regiments. These women are nominally the king’s

wives; they are in reality old maids — the only specimens of

the class upon the continent of Africa; they are excellent

soldiers — hardy, savage, and courageous. In the siege of

Abbeokuta, the other day, an Amazon climbed up the wall; her

right arm was cut clean off, and as she fell back she pistolled

a man with her left. When the king returned from his annual

campaign, he sent to all the white men at Whydah, who received

the special title of the “king’s friends,” and invited them up

to witness his “customs” and to purchase his slaves, In the

first place, the king murdered a number of his captives to send

to his father as tokens of regard; and the traders were

mortified to see good flesh and blood being wasted on religion.

However, slaves were always in abundance. They were also

obtained from the settlements upon the coast. The Portuguese

Angola could alone be dignified with the name of colony. The

Dutch, English, and French settlements were merely fortified

factories, half castle, half shop, in which the agents lived,

and in which the dry goods, rum, tobacco, trade powder and

muskets, were stored. There were native traders, who received a

quantity of such goods on trust, and travelled into the

interior till they came to a War-town. They then ordered so

many slaves; and laid down the goods. The chief ordered out the

militia, made a night march, attacked a village just before the

dawn, killed those who resisted, carried off the rest in irons

manufactured at Birmingham, and handed them over to the trader;

who drove them down to the coast. They were then warehoused in

the fort dungeons, or in buildings called “barracoons” prepared

for their reception; and as soon as a vessel was ready they

were marked and shipped. On board they were packed on the lower

deck like herrings in a cask. The cargo supposed that it also resembled

herrings, in being exported as an article of food.

 

The slaves believed that all white men were cannibals; that the

red caps of the trade were dyed in negro blood, and that the

white soap was made of negro brains. So they often refused to

eat; upon which their mouths were forced open with an

instrument known in surgery as speculum oris, and used in cases

of lock-jaw; and by means of this ingenious contrivance they

breakfasted and dined against their will. Exercise also being

conducive to health, they were ordered to jump up and down in

their fetters; and if they declined to do so, the application

of the cat had the desired effect, and made them exercise not

only their limbs, but also their lungs, and so promoted the

circulation of the blood and the digestion of the horse-beans

on which they were fed. Yet such was the obstinacy of these

savage creatures, that many of them sulked themselves to death;

and sometimes, when indulged with an airing on deck, the

ungrateful wretches would jump overboard, and, as they sank,

waved their hands in triumph at having made their escape. On

reaching the West Indies they were put into regular schools of

labour, and gradually broken in; and they then enjoyed the

advantage of dwelling in a Christian land. But their temporal

happiness was not increased. If a lady put her cook into the

oven because the pie was overdone; if a planter soused a slave

in the boiling sugar; if the runaway was hunted with

bloodhounds, and then flogged to pieces and hung alive in

chains; if the poor old worn-out slave was turned adrift to

die, the West Indian laws did not interfere. The slave of a

planter was “his money” it was only when a man killed another

person’s slave that he was punished; and then only by a fine.

It may be said, without exaggeration, that dogs and horses now

receive more protection in the British dominions than negroes

received in the last century.

 

In order to understand how so great a moral revolution has been

wrought we must return for a moment to the Middle Ages. We left

the burgher class in alliance with the kings, possessing

liberal charters, making their own laws, levying their own

taxes, commanding their own troops. Their sons were not always

merchants like themselves: they invaded the intellectual

dominions of the priests: they became lawyers, artists, and

physicians.

 

Then another change took place. Standing armies were invented,

and the middle class were re-enslaved. Their municipal rights

were taken from them; troops were stationed in their towns; the

nobles collected round the king, who could now reward their

loyalty with lucrative and honourable posts, the command of a

regiment, or the administration of a province. Heavy taxes were

imposed on the burghers and the peasants, and these supported

the nobles and clergy who were exempt. Aristocracy and monarchy

became fast friends, and the Crown was protected by the

thunders of the Church.

 

The rebellion of the German monk established an idol of ink and

paper, instead of an idol of painted wood or stone; the

Protestant believed that it was his duty to study the Bible for

himself, and so education was spread throughout the countries

of the Reformed Religion. A desire for knowledge became

general, and the academies of the Jesuits were founded in self-defence. The enlargement of the reading class gave the Book

that power which the pulpit once enjoyed, and in the hands of

Voltaire the Book began to preach. The fallacies of the Syrian

religion were exposed: and with that religion fell the doctrine

of passive obedience and divine right: the doctrine that

unbelievers are the enemies of God: the doctrine that men who

adopt a particular profession are invested with magical powers

which stream into them from other men’s finger ends: the

doctrine that a barbarous legal code was issued vivâ voce by

the Creator of the world. Such notions as these are still held

by thousands in private life, but they no longer enter into the

policy of states or dictate statutes of the realm.

 

Voltaire destroyed the authority of the Church and Rousseau

prepared the way for the destruction of the Crown. He believed

in a dream-land of the past which had never existed: he

appealed to imaginary laws of Nature. Yet these errors were

beneficial in their day. He taught men to yearn for an ideal

state, which they with their own efforts might attain; he

inspired them with the sentiment of Liberty, and with a

reverence for the Law of Right. Virtuous principles, abstract

ideas, the future Deities of men were now for the first time

lifted up to be adored. A thousand hearts palpitated with

excitement; a thousand pens were drawn; the people that

slumbered in sorrow and captivity heard a voice bidding them

arise; they strained, they struggled, and they burst their

bonds. Jacques Bonhomme, who had hitherto gone on all fours,

discovered to his surprise that he also was a biped; the world

became more light; the horizon widened; a new epoch opened for

the human race.

 

The anti-slavery movement, which we shall now briefly sketch,

is merely an episode in that great rebellion against authority

which began in the night of the Middle Ages; which sometimes

assumed the form of religious heresy, sometimes of serf revolt;

which gradually established the municipal cities, and raised

the slave to the position of the tenant; which gained great

victories in the Protestant Reformation, the two English

Revolutions, the American Revolution, and the French

Revolution; which has destroyed the tyranny of governments in

Europe, and which will in time destroy the tyranny of religious

creeds.

 

In the middle of the eighteenth century negro slavery, although

it had frequently been denounced in books, had not attracted

the attention of the English people. To them it was something

in the abstract, something which was done beyond the seas. But

there rose an agitation which brought up its distant horrors in

vivid pictures before the mind, and produced an outcry of anger

and disgust.

 

It had been the custom of the Virginian or West Indian planter,

when he left his tobacco or sugar estate for a holiday in

England, to wear very broad hats and very wide trousers and to

be accompanied by those slaves who used to bring him his coffee

in the early morning, to brush away the blue-tailed fly from

his siesta, and to mix him rum and water when required. The

existence of such attendants was some what anomalous in this

island, and friends would often observe with a knowing air it

was lucky for him that Sambo was not up to English law. That

law, indeed, was undefined. Slavery had existed in England and

had died out of itself, in what manner and at what time no one

could precisely say. It was, however, a popular impression that

no man could be kept as a slave if he were once baptised. The

planters enjoyed the same kind of reputation which the nabobs

afterwards obtained: a yellow skin and a bad heart were at one

time always associated with each other. The negroes were often

encouraged to abscond, and to offer themselves before the font.

They obtained as sponsors respectable well-to-do men, who

declared that they would stand by their god-sons if it came to

a case at law. The planters were in much distress, and in order

to know the worst went to Messrs. York and Talbot, the Attorney

and Solicitor General for the time being, and requested an

opinion. The opinion of York and Talbot was this: that slaves

breathing English air did not become free; that slaves on being

baptised did not become free; and that their masters could

force them back to the plantations when they pleased.

 

The planters, finding that the law was on their side, at once

acted on their opinion. Advertisements appeared in the newspapers

offering rewards for runaway slaves. Negroes might be seen

being dragged along the streets in open day: they were bought

and sold at the Poultry Compter, an old city jail. Free men of

colour were no longer safe; kidnapping became a regular

pursuit.

 

There was a young man named Granville Sharp, whose benevolent

heart was touched to the quick by the abominable scenes which

he had witnessed more than once. He could not believe that such

was really English law. He examined the question for himself,

and, after long search, discovered precedents which overthrew

the opinion of the two great lawyers. He published a pamphlet

in which he stated his case; and not content with writing, he

also acted in the cause, aiding and abetting negroes to escape.

On one occasion a Virginian had disposed of an unruly slave to

a skipper bound for the West Indies. The vessel was lying in

the river; the unfortunate negro was chained to the mast; when

Granville Sharp climbed over the side with a writ of Habeas

Corpus in his hand. James Somerset’s body was given up, and