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Show 70 NOTES ON. character of the "picked men" on the shores of Liberia. wa.s formed in slavery to ;t race composed of " stern, inflexible, energetic clements," to which had '~been entrusted the destinies of tho world, during its pioneer period of struggle and conflict." (p. 302.) And this is "undoubtedly true. Yet it is a truth entirely lost sight of by the opponents of slavCI·y,, if, indeed, they were ever aware of it. They speak of the poor African as "Forced from homo nnd n.ll its pleasures," just as if he ever had a home, or even tho idea of one. They seem to look on Africa as a paradise, with the golden age of pastoral innocence nnd simplicity still lingering among its inhabitants, though long since gone from tho rest of the earth. If the reader has heretofore indulged in such a dream, let him turn to A ppcndix, B., and he will there find what will dissipate it forever. llobbes, in his Leviathan, (Pt. i. ch. 18,) thus describes the condition of Europe in the Middle Ages:-" No arta, no letters, no society,-a.nd which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poo1·, nasty, brutish and short." And it must be owned that tberc is too much truth in the description. Yet Europe in the Middle Ages was paradise, compared with Western Africa in all ages tbat we have any knowledge of her, the present included. She is the darkest of those "dark places of the earth" which, t.he Psalmist tells us, "arc full of the hu.bitations of cruelty." I have spoken of the sla.ve traific as nn accursed trn:flic, (Note 3,) but it is because of the cruelty with which it is carried on. rl1o stow human beings "in a sitting postu"!·c, wedged in between cnch othrrs' legs, in a spu,cc bctwP.cn decks only tl!rcc feet and a quarter hig b, with no air but what is ndmit.tcd through the grated hatchways, through which tlJCir fooJ is pasted to them," and to keep them thua U~CLE TOM'::l CAI.:lN. 71 cramped up for weeks, and even months, together, i.-:~ a dee~ I that one would suppose none but a devil would be guilty of; and they who do it, deserve the same treatment in return: hanging is too good for them. ·why! even the Guinea pigs arc not thus stowed away; if they were, they would die ou tlw voyage. Dut if the s1a.vc traffic were carried on without cruclty,if the negroes were as comfortably accommodated on board the slave ships, as the lrish and the Germans are in our emigrant vessels, then the sktvc traffic, so far from being accurscU, would be a positive blessing to tltem. * 'l'he slave, thus brought under the control of a Christian master, would be as much better off th:m. he was under his savage master in Africa, as the German or Irish peasant in this country is better ofr than he was in his native land. Nay, taking into consiJera.tion his own improvement ami that of his postcrity,- thcir gradual civilization and Cbristianization,-and .)Je would be far the greater gainer of the two. As to the slaNe trade severing family tics, it is all, to usc St. Clare's expression, "humbug:" there arc no family tics, among the 'Vcstcrn Africans, that. arc ;:rt all regarded by themselves. PHents sell their own children, and husbands tl1cir wives, without compunction. (Sec Appendix, B.) Indeed, properly speaking, there arc no husbands and wives ; the marri:.tgc relation, us we understand it, is unknown among them : its place is supplied by a temporary concubinage; the man can put away the woman at any time, for any reason, or for no rea3on at all. As to the sla.ve trade reducing free men to slavery, ordinarily, it is not true; most of the natives of Africa arc born *Or rather, it ~eould be P. blessing to them, but for tho fact Umt whC'ro thoro is o. fresh supply from Afric11 at c' loUJrate, tho owner cnn nfford to work up his hands, and, in .some casc.s, docs actually work them up. |