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. Those
of the first description are by far the most numerous, for prisoners
taken in war (at least such as are taken in open and declared war,
when one kingdom avows hostilities against another) are generally of
this description. The comparatively small proportion of free people
to the enslaved throughout Africa has already been noticed:
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