Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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We Can Never Sufficiently Praise The Legislative Wisdom Of The New
Republics Of Spanish America Which, Since Their Birth, Have Been
Seriously Intent On The Total Extinction Of Slavery.
That vast portion
of the earth has, in this respect, an immense advantage over the
southern part of the
United States, where the whites, during the
struggle with England, established liberty for their own profit, and
where the slave population, to the number of 1,600,000, augments still
more rapidly than the whites.* (* In 1769, forty-six years before the
declaration of the Congress at Vienna, and thirty-eight years before
the abolition of the slave-trade, decreed in London and at Washington,
the Chamber of Representatives of Massachusetts had declared itself
against "the unnatural and unwarrantable custom of enslaving mankind."
See Walsh's Appeal to the United States, 1819 page 312. The Spanish
writer, Avendano, was perhaps the first who declaimed forcibly not
only against the slave-trade, abhorred even by the Afghans
(Elphinstone's Journey to Cabul page 245), but against slavery in
general, and "all the iniquitous sources of colonial wealth."
Thesaurus Ind. tom. 1 tit. 9 cap. 2.) If civilization, instead of
extending, were to change its place; if, after great and deplorable
convulsions in Europe, America, between Cape Hatteras and the
Missouri, were to become the principal seat of the light of
Christianity, what a spectacle would be presented by that centre of
civilization, where, in the sanctuary of liberty, we could attend a
sale of negroes after the death of a master, and hear the sobbings of
parents who are separated from their children! Let us hope that the
generous principles which have so long animated the legislatures of
the northern parts of the United States will extend by degrees
southward and towards those western regions where, by the effect of an
imprudent and fatal law, slavery and its iniquities have passed the
chain of the Alleghenies and the banks of the Mississippi: let us hope
that the force of public opinion, the progress of knowledge, the
softening of manners, the legislation of the new continental republics
and the great and happy event of the recognition of Hayti by the
French government, will, either from motives of prudence and fear, or
from more noble and disinterested sentiments, exercise a happy
influence on the amelioration of the state of the blacks in the rest
of the West Indies, in the Carolinas, Guiana, and Brazil.
In order to slacken gradually the bonds of slavery the laws against
the slave-trade must be most strictly enforced, and punishments
inflicted for their infringement; mixed tribunals must be formed, and
the right of search exercised with equitable reciprocity. It is
melancholy to learn that, owing to the culpable indifference of some
of the governments of Europe, the slave-trade (more cruel from having
become more secret) has dragged from Africa, within ten years, almost
the same number of negroes as before 1807; but we must not from this
fact infer the inutility, or, as the secret partisans of slavery
assert, the practical impossibility of the beneficent measures adopted
first by Denmark, the United States and Great Britain, and
successively by all the rest of Europe. What passed from 1807 till the
time when France recovered possession of her ancient colonies, and
what passes in our days in nations whose governments sincerely desire
the abolition of the slave-trade and its abominable practices, proves
the fallacy of this conclusion. Besides, is it reasonable to compare
numerically the importation of slaves in 1825 and in 1806? With the
activity prevailing in every enterprise of industry, what an increase
would the importation of negroes have taken in the English West Indies
and the southern provinces of the United States if the slave-trade,
entirely free, had continued to supply new slaves, and had rendered
the care of their preservation and the increase of the old population,
superfluous? Can we believe that the English trade would have been
limited, as in 1806, to the sale of 53,000 slaves; and that of the
United States, to the sale of 15,000? It is pretty well ascertained
that the English islands received in the 106 years preceding 1786 more
than 2,130,000 negroes, forcibly carried from the coast of Africa. At
the period of the French revolution, the slave-trade furnished
(according to Mr. Norris) 74,000 slaves annually, of which the English
colonies absorbed 38,000, and the French 20,000. It would be easy to
prove that the whole of the West Indian archipelago, which now
comprises scarcely 2,400,000 negroes and mulattoes (free and slaves),
received, from 1670 to 1825, nearly 5,000,000 of Africans. These
revolting calculations respecting the consumption of the human species
do not include the number of unfortunate slaves who have perished in
the passage or have been thrown into the sea as damaged merchandize.*
(* Volume 7 page 151. See also the eloquent speech of the Duke de
Broglie, March 28th, 1822 pages 40, 43 and 96.) By how many thousands
must we have augmented the loss, if the two nations most distinguished
for ardour and intelligence in the development of commerce and
industry, the English and the inhabitants of the United States, had
continued, from 1807, to carry on the trade as freely as some other
nations of Europe? Sad experience has proved how much the treaties of
the 15th July, 1814, and of the 22nd January, 1815, by which Spain and
Portugal reserved to themselves the trade in blacks during a certain
number of years, have been fatal to humanity.
The local authorities, or rather the rich proprietors, forming the
Ayuntamiento of the Havannah, the Consulado and the Patriotic Society,
have on several occasions shown a disposition favourable to the
amelioration of the condition of the slaves.* (* Dicen nuestros Indios
del Rio Caura cuando se confiesan que ya entienden que es pecado
corner carne humana; pero piden qua se les permita desacostumbrarse
poco a poco; quieren comer la carne humana una vez al mes, despues
cada tres meses, hasta qua sin sentirlo pierdan la costumbre.
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