Methods by which

Slaves are supplied.

Wars.

Slave Trade which it contains. Barrow's highly interesting account of the Cape of Good Hope, and his late work, containing the account of the expedition to the Booshuanna country, reflect also much light on the African character, and indirectly on the effects of the Slave Trade.

Let us now proceed to examine what are the principal sources from which the Slave market is furnished with its supplies. The result of that Inquiry will enable us to judge what effect that traffic produces on the happiness of Africa. A very large proportion of the Slaves consists of prisoners of war. But here it becomes advisable to rectify some misconceptions, which have prevailed on this head. The Abolitionists have been represented as maintaining, that in Africa, wars never arise from the various causes whence wars have so commonly originated in the other quarters of the globe; but that they are undertaken solely for the purpose of obtaining captives, who may be afterwards sold for Slaves. In contradiction to this position, various African wars have been cited, which historians state to have arisen from other causes; and it has been denied that wars furnish any considerable supply to the Slave market. Can it be necessary to de

clare,

clare, that the advocates for abolition never made so foolish, as well as so false an assertion, as that which has been thus imputed to them? Africans are men-The same bad passions therefore which have produced wars among other communities of human beings, produce the same wasteful effects in Africa likewise. But it will greatly elucidate this point to state, that, as we are informed by Mr. Parke, who has travelled farther into the interior of Africa than any modern traveller, there are two kinds of war in Africa. The one bears a resemblance to our European contests, is openly avowed, and previously declared. "This class however, we are assured, is "generally terminated in a single campaign. "A battle is fought; the vanquished seldom "think of rallying; the whole inhabitants "become panick struck; and the conquerors "have only to bind their slaves; * ́ ́and carry off their plunder and their victims." These are taken into the country of the in

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* In reading accounts of African wars, the attentive reader will continually meet with expressions such as those here used, which incidentally and undesignedly, and therefore the more strongly prove, that the persons of the natives are regarded as the great booty; and we may therefore not unreasonably infer, that they often constitute the chief inducement for commencing hostilities.

Predatory expeditions.

vader, whence, as opportunities offer, they are, sent to the Slave market.

But the second kind of warfare, called Tegria, which means, we are told, plundering or stealing, and which appears to be no other than the practice of predatory expeditions, is that to which the Slave market is indebted for its chief supplies, and which most clearly explains the nature and effect of the Slave Trade. Mr. Parke indeed tells us, that this species of warfare arises from a sort of hereditary feud, which subsists between the inhabitants of neighbouring nations or districts. If we take into the account that the avowed compiler of Mr. Parke's work, the patron to whose good will he looked for the recompense of all his labours, was one of the warmest and most active opposers of the abolition of the Slave Trade, we shall not wonder that the fact alone is stated, without being traced to it's original cause, This however is a case,

if

such a case ever existed, in which the features. of the offspring might alone enable us to recognise the rightful parent. But in truth we know from positive testimony, that though hereditary feuds of the deadliest malignity are but too surely generated by these predatory expeditions, and consequently that hatred and revenge may some

times have a share in producing a continued course of them, yet that, speaking generally, the grand operating motive from which they are undertaken, and to which therefore, as their primary cause, they may be referred, is the desire of obtaining Slaves. "These predatory expeditions," Mr. Parke tells us, "are of all dimensions, from "500 horsemen, headed by the son of the

king of the country; to a single individual, "armed with his bow and arrow, who con"ceals himself among the bushes, until

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some young or unarmed person passes by. "He then, tyger-like, springs upon his

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prey, drags his victim into the thicket, "and at night carries him off as a slave." (Vide note, p. 19). "These incursions," Mr. Parke goes on to inform us, are generally " conducted with great secresy; a few re“solute individuals, led by some person of "enterprize and courage, march quietly

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through the woods, surprize in the night

some unprotected village, and carry off the "inhabitants, (vide note, p.19) and their ef"fects, before their neighbours can come to "their assistance."" "One morning," says Mr. Parke, "during my residence at Ka"malia, we were all much alarmed by a party of this kind. The prince of. Foc"ladoo's son, with a strong party of horse, passed

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C 3

Predatory expeditions very com

mon.

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"passed secretly through the woods, a little "to the southward, and the next morning plundered three towns belonging to a powerful chief of Jollonkadoo. The success of this expedition encouraged the go66 vernor of another town to make a second "inroad on a part of the same country. Having assembled about 200 of his people, he passed the river in the night, and "carried off a great number of prisoners. (Vide note, p. 19). Several of the inhabitants "who had escaped these attacks, were after"wards seized by the Mandingoes (another

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people, let it be observed) as they wandered "about in the woods, or concealed themselves "in the glens and strong places in the "mountains."

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"These plundering excursions are very. common, and the inhabitants of different "communities watch every opportunity of

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undertaking them."-" They always," as Mr. Parke adds, " produce speedy retalia"tion; and when large parties cannot be "collected for this purpose, a few friends "will combine together, and advance into "the enemy's country, with a view to plun"der, or carry of the inhabitants." (Note, vide pa. 19). Thus hereditary feuds are excited and perpetuated between different

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nations,