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Show 136 ON THE SLAVERY AND CoMMERcr: C H A P. III. When the wretched Africans are thus put into the hands of the .fecond receivers, they are conveyed to the plantations, where they are totally confidered as cattle, or beojls of labour; their very children, if any fhould be born to them in that fituation, being previoully dell:ined to the condition of their parents. But here a queflion m·itcs, which will interrupt the thread of the narration for a little time, viz. how £1r their deJcendants, who compofe the fifth order of flaves, are jull:ly reduced to fcrvitude, and upon what principles the r eceivers defend their conduct. Authors have been at great pains to inquire, why, in the ancient fcrvitude, the child has uniformly followed the condition of the mother. But we conceive that they .would have fitVed themfclves much trouble, and have done th emfdves more credit, if infie~d of endeavouring to reconcile the cull:om with heathen notions, or their own laboured conjectures, they had fl>ewn its inconfill:ency with reafon and nature, and its repugnancy to common juflicc. Suffice it to fay, that the whole theory of the ancients, with refpect to the defcen-dant& oF THE HuMAN SPECIES. 137 dants of !laves, may be reduced to this principle, " that as the paren ts, by becoming propn·ty, were wholly confidered as cattle, their children, like the progeny of " cattle, inherited their parental lot." Such alfo is the excufe of the tyrannical receivers before- mentioned. They allege, that they have purchafed the parents, that they can fell and difpofc of them as they pleafe, that they pofiefs them under the fiune laws and limitations as their cattle, and that their children, like the progeny of thefe, become their property by birth. But the abfurdity of the argument will immediately appear. It depends wholly on the fuppofition, that the parents are brutes. If they are brutes, we !hall inll:antly ceafe to contend: if they are nJCit, which we think it not difficult to prove, the argument mull: immediately fall, as we have already !hewn that there cannot jull:ly be any property whatever in the human.JPecies. It has appeared alfo, in the fecond part of this Etiay, that as nature made every man's body and mind his 07vn, fo no jufl perfon can be reduced to !lavery againll: his own co'!J(nt. Do the unfortunate ofrspring ever |
