instead of being a useful member of society, be 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 I
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 d 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 a slave was to procure a slave fo r
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 ox-hide 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. I t 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