Of society, he not only became a useless burden to
the community, but a plotter and intriguer, imbued with a deadly hatred
to the white man who had generously declared him free.
Now, as the negro was originally imported as a labourer, but now refuses
to labour, it is self-evident that he is a lamentable failure. Either he
must be compelled to work, by some stringent law against vagrancy, or
those beautiful countries that prospered under the conditions of negro
forced industry must yield to ruin, under negro freedom and idle
independence. For an example of the results look to St. Domingo!
Under peculiar guidance, and subject to a certain restraint, the negro
may be an important and most useful being; but if treated as an
Englishman, he will affect the vices but none of the virtues of
civilization, and his natural good qualities will be lost in his
attempts to become a "white man."
Revenons a nos moutons noirs. It was amusing to watch the change that
took place in a slave that had been civilized (?) by the slave-traders.
Among their parties there were many blacks who had been captured, and
who enjoyed the life of slave-hunting - nothing appeared so easy as to
become professional in cattle razzias and kidnapping human beings, and
the first act of the slave was to procure a slave for himself! All the
best slave-hunters, and the boldest and most energetic scoundrels, were
the negroes who had at one time themselves been kidnapped. These fellows
aped a great and ridiculous importance. On the march they would seldom
condescend to carry their own guns; a little slave boy invariably
attended to his master, keeping close to his heels, and trotting along
on foot during a long march, carrying a musket much longer than himself:
a woman generally carried a basket with a cooking-pot, and a gourd of
water and provisions, while a hired native carried the soldier's change
of clothes and oxhide upon which he slept. Thus the man who had been
kidnapped became the kidnapper, and the slave became the master, the
only difference between him and the Arab being an absurd notion of his
own dignity. It was in vain that I attempted to reason with them against
the principles of slavery: they thought it wrong when they were
themselves the sufferers, but were always ready to indulge in it when
the preponderance of power lay upon their side.
Among Ibrahim's people, there was a black named Ibrahimawa. This fellow
was a native of Bornu, and had been taken when a boy of twelve years old
and sold at Constantinople; he formerly belonged to Mehemet Ali Pasha;
he had been to London and Paris, and during the Crimean war he was at
Kertch.
