A state of subordination and certain inequalities of rank and
condition are inevitable in every stage of civil society;
But when
the subordination is carried to so great a length that the persons
and services of one part of the community are entirely at the
disposal of another part, it may then be denominated a state of
slavery, and in this condition of life a great body of the negro
inhabitants of Africa have continued from the most early period of
their history, with this aggravation, that their children are born
to no other inheritance.
The slaves in Africa, I suppose, are nearly in the proportion of
three to one to the freemen. They claim no reward for their
services except food and clothing, and are treated with kindness or
severity, according to the good or bad disposition of their masters.
Custom, however, has established certain rules with regard to the
treatment of slaves, which it is thought dishonourable to violate.
Thus the domestic slaves, or such as are born in a man's own house,
are treated with more lenity than those which are purchased with
money. The authority of the master over the domestic slave, as I
have elsewhere observed, extends only to reasonable correction; for
the master cannot sell his domestic, without having first brought
him to a public trial before the chief men of the place. But these
restrictions on the power of the master extend not to the care of
prisoners taken in war, nor to that of slaves purchased with money.
All these unfortunate beings are considered as strangers and
foreigners, who have no right to the protection of the law, and may
be treated with severity, or sold to a stranger, according to the
pleasure of their owners. There are, indeed, regular markets, where
slaves of this description are bought and sold, and the value of a
slave, in the eye of an African purchaser, increases in proportion
to his distance from his native kingdom: for when slaves are only a
few days' journey from the place of their nativity they frequently
effect their escape; but when one or more kingdoms intervene, escape
being more difficult, they are more readily reconciled to their
situation. On this account the unhappy slave is frequently
transferred from one dealer to another, until he has lost all hopes
of returning to his native kingdom. The slaves which are purchased
by the Europeans on the coast are chiefly of this description. A
few of them are collected in the petty wars, hereafter to be
described, which take place near the coast, but by far the greater
number are brought down in large caravans from the inland countries,
of which many are unknown, even by name, to the Europeans. The
slaves which are thus brought from the interior may be divided into
two distinct classes - first, such as were slaves from their birth,
having been born of enslaved mothers; secondly, such as were born
free, but who afterwards, by whatever means, became slaves.
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