No trial for this offence, however, came
under my observation while I was in Africa, and I therefore suppose
that the crime and its punishment occur but very seldom.
When a freeman has become a slave by any one of the causes before
mentioned, he generally continues so for life, and his children (if
they are born of an enslaved mother) are brought up in the same
state of servitude. There are, however, a few instances of slaves
obtaining their freedom, and sometimes even with the consent of
their masters, as by performing some singular piece of service, or
by going to battle and bringing home two slaves as a ransom; but the
common way of regaining freedom is by escape, and when slaves have
once set their minds on running away they often succeed. Some of
them will wait for years before an opportunity presents itself, and
during that period show no signs of discontent. In general, it may
be remarked that slaves who come from a hilly country and have been
much accustomed to hunting and travel, are more apt to attempt to
make their escape than such as are born in a flat country and have
been employed in cultivating the land.
Such are the general outlines of that system of slavery which
prevails in Africa, and it is evident, from its nature and extent,
that it is a system of no modern date. It probably had its origin
in the remote ages of antiquity, before the Mohammedans explored a
path across the desert. How far it is maintained and supported by
the slave traffic which for two hundred years the nations of Europe
have carried on with the natives of the coast, it is neither within
my province nor in my power to explain. If my sentiments should be
required concerning the effect which a discontinuance of that
commerce would produce on the manners of the natives, I should have
no hesitation in observing that, in the present unenlightened state
of their minds, my opinion is, the effect would neither be so
extensive nor beneficial as many wise and worthy persons fondly
expect.
CHAPTER XXIII - GOLD AND IVORY
Those valuable commodities, gold and ivory (the next objects of our
inquiry), have probably been found in Africa from the first ages of
the world. They are reckoned among its most important productions
in the earliest records of its history.
It has been observed that gold is seldom or never discovered except
in mountainous and barren countries - nature, it is said, thus making
amends in one way for her penuriousness in the other. This,
however, is not wholly true.
