Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

209

THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

"In the first place they have made it a rule that no person, acknowledged to be in profession with them, shall have any concern in the slave-trade.

"The Quakers began to consider this subject, as a Christian body, so early as in the beginning of the last century. In the year 1727, they passed a public censure upon this trade. In the year 1758, and afterwards in the year 1761, they warned and exhorted all in profession with them, 'to keep their hands clear of this unrighteous gain of oppression.' In the yearly meeting of 1763, they renewed their exhortation in the following words:

"We renew our exhortation, that Friends everywhere be especially careful to keep their hands clear of giving encouragement in any shape to the slave-trade; it being evidently destructive of the natural rights of mankind, who are all ransomed by one Saviour, and visited by one divine light, in order to salvation; a traffic calculated to enrich and aggrandize some upon the miseries of others; in its nature abhorrent to every just and tender sentiment, and contrary to the whole tenor of the gospel.'

"In the same manner from the year 1763, they have publicly manifested a tender concern for the happiness of the injured Africans, and they have not only been vigilant to see that none of their own members were concerned in this nefarious traffic, but they have lent their assistance with other Christians in promoting its discontinuance. "But this character of a benevolent people has been raised higher of late years in the estimation of the public by new circumstances, or by the unanimous and decided part which they have taken as a body, in behalf of the abolition of the slave-trade. For where has the injured African experienced more sympathy than from the hearts of Quakers? In this great cause the Quakers have been singularly conspicuous. They have been actuated, as it were, by one spring. In the different attempts made for the annihilation of this trade, they have come forward with a religious zeal. They were at the original formation of the committee for this important object, where they gave an almost unexampled attendance for years. I mentioned in the preceding volume, that near a century ago, when this question had not awakened the general attention, it had awakened that of the Quakers as a body; and that they had made regulations in their commercial concerns with a view of keeping themselves clear of the blood of this cruel traffic. And from that time to the present day, they have never forgotten this subject. Their yearly epistles notice it, whenever such notice is considered to be useful. And they hold themselves in readiness, on all fit occasions, to unite their efforts for the removal of this great and shocking source of suffering to their fellow-creatures."-Thomas Clarkson's Portraiture of Quakerism.

DR. PRIMATT.

It has pleased God to cover some men with white skins, and others with black; but as there is neither merit nor demerit in complexion, the white man, notwithstanding the barbarity of custom and prejudice, can have no right by virtue of his color to enslave and tyrannize over the black man. For whether a man be white or black, such he is by God's appointment, and, abstractedly considered, is neither a subject for pride, nor an object of contempt.-Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy, and on the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals.

JOHN WESLEY.

That execrable sum of all villanies commonly called the slave-trade. I read of nothing like it in the heathen world, whether ancient or modern. It infinitely exceeds in every instance of barbarity, whatever Christian slaves suffer in Mohammedan countries. His works, Vol. 3, page 341.

At Liverpool, many large ships are now laid up in the docks, which had been employed for many years in buying or stealing Africans, and selling them in America for slaves. The men-butchers have now nothing to do at this laudable occupation. Since the American war broke out, there is no demand for human cattle; so the men of Africa, as well as Europe, may enjoy their native liberty.— Journal for April, 1777.

THOUGHTS ON SLAVERY.

1. Slavery imports an obligation of perpetual service; an obligation which only the consent of the master can dissolve. It generally gives the master an arbitrary power of any correction not affecting life or limb. Sometimes even those are exposed to his will, or protected only by a fine or some slight punishment, too inconsiderable to restrain a master of harsh temper. It creates an incapacity of acquiring any thing, except for the master's benefit. It allows the master to alienate the slave in the same manner as his cows and horses. Lastly, it descends in its full extent, from parent to child, even to the last generation.

2. The slave-trade began in the year 1508, when the Portuguese imported the first negroes into Hispaniola. In 1540, Charles V, then king of Spain, gave positive orders, "THAT ALL THE SLAVES IN THE SPANISH DOMINIONS SHOULD BE SET FREE." This was accordingly done by Lagascar, whom he sent and empowered to free them all. But soon after Lagascar returned to Spain, slavery flourished as before. Afterward other nations, as they acquired possessions in America, followed the example of the Spaniards; and slavery has taken deep root in most of the Ameri can colonies.

II. In what manner are they generally procured and treated in America?

1. Part of them by fraud. Captains of ships invited negroes on board, and then carried them away. More have been procured by force. The Christians, so called, landing upon their coasts, seized as many as they found, and transported them to America.

2. It was some time before the Europeans found a more compendious way of procuring African slaves, by prevailing upon them to make war upon each other, and to sell their prisoners. Till then, they seldom had any wars. But the white men taught them drunkenness and avarice, and then hired them to sell one another. Others are stolen. Abundance of little ones of both sexes are stolen away by their neighbors. That their own parents sell them, is utterly false. WHITES, NOT BLACKS, ARE WITHOUT NATURAL AFFECTION,

[blocks in formation]

3. Extract from the journal of a surgeon who went from New York in the slavetrade. "The commander of the vessel sent to acquaint the king that he wanted a cargo of slaves. Some time after, the king sent him word he had not yet met with the desired success. A battle was fought which lasted three days. Four thousand five hundred men were slain upon the spot!" Such is the manner wherein the slaves are procured! THUS THE CHRISTIANS PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE HEATHEN!

4. England supplies her American colonies with slaves, amounting to about a hundred thousand every year. So many are taken aboard the ships; but ten thousand die on the voyage; about a fourth part more die in the seasoning. So that thirty thousand die, that is, are murdered. O earth! O sea! cover not their

blood!

5. The negroes are exposed naked to the examination of their purchasers: then they are separated to see each other no more. They are reduced to a state, scarce any way preferable to beasts of burden. A few yams or potatoes are their food; and two rags their covering. Their sleep is very short, their labor continual and above their strength, so that death sets many of them at liberty before they have lived out half their days. They are attended by overseers, who, if they think them dilatory, or any thing not so well done as it should be, whip them unmercifully; so that you may see their bodies long after wealed and scarred from the shoulders to the waist. Did the Creator intend that the noblest creatures in the visible world should live such a life as this?

6. As to the punishment inflicted on them, they frequently geld them, or chop off half a foot! after they are whipped till they are raw all over, some put pepper and salt upon them; some drop melted wax upon their skin, others cut off their ears, and constrain them to broil and eat them. For rebellion, that is, asserting their native liberty, which they have as much right to as the air they breathe, they fasten them down to the ground with crooked sticks on every limb, and then applying fire to the feet and hands, they burn them gradually to the head!

7. But will not the laws made in the colonies prevent or redress all cruelty and oppression? Take a few of those laws for a specimen, and judge.

In order to rivet the chain of slavery, the law of Virginia ordains-"No slave shall be set free, upon any pretence whatever, except for some meritorious services, to be adjudged and allowed by the Governor and Council; and where any slave shall be set free by his owner, otherwise than is herein directed, the church-wardens of the parish wherein such negro shall reside for the space of one month, are hereby authorized and required, to take up and sell the said negro, by public outcry.”

Will not these lawgivers take effectual care to prevent cruelty and oppression? The law of Jamaica ordains-"Every slave that shall run away, and continue absent from his master twelve months, shall be deemed rebellious ;" and by another law, fifty pounds are allowed to those "who kill or bring in alive, a rebellious slave." So their laws treat these poor men with as little ceremony and consideration as if they were merely brute beasts! But the innocent blood which is shed in consequence of such a detestable law, must call for vengeance on the murderers, abettors and actors of such deliberate wickedness.

But the law of Barbadoes exceeds even this-"If any negro under punishment by his master, or his order, for running away, or any other crime or misdemeanor, shall suffer in life or member, no person whatsoever shall be liable to any fine therefor. But if any man, of wantonness, or only of bloody-mindedness, or cruel intention, wilfully kill a negro of his own"-now observe the severe punishment!" he shall pay into the public treasury, fifteen pounds sterling: and not be liable to any other punishment or forfeiture for the same!"

Nearly allied to this, is that law of Virginia-" After proclamation is issued against slaves that run away, it is lawful for any person whatsoever to kill and destroy such slaves by such ways and means as he shall think fit."

We have seen already some of the ways and means which have been thought fit on such occasions: and many more might be mentioned. One man, when I was abroad, thought fit to roast his slave alive! But if the most natural act of running away from intolerable tyranny deserves such relentless severity, what punishment have those law-makers to expect hereafter, on account of their own enormous offences?

III. This is the plain, unaggravated matter of fact. Such is the manner wherein

our slaves are procured: such the manner wherein they were removed from their native land, and wherein they are treated in our colonies. Can these things be defended on the principles of even heathen honesty? Can they be reconciled, setting the Bible out of the question, with any degree of either justice or mercy?

2. The grand plea is, "They are authorized by law." But can law, human law, change the nature of things? Can it turn darkness into light, or evil into good? By no means. Notwithstanding ten thousand laws, right is right, and wrong is wrong. There must still remain an essential difference between justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy. So that I ask; Who can reconcile this treatment of the slaves, first and last, with either mercy or justice? where is the justice of inflicting the severest evils on those who have done us no wrong? Of depriving those who never injured us in word or deed, of every comfort of life? Of tearing them from their native country, and depriving them of liberty itself; to which an Angolan has the same natural right as an American, and on which he sets as high a value? Where is the justice of taking away the lives of innocent, inoffensive men? Murdering thousands of them in their own land by the hands of their own countrymen; and tens of thousands in that cruel slavery, to which they are so unjustly reduced? 3. But I strike at the root of this complicated villany. I absolutely deny all slaveholding to be consistent with any degree of natural justice. Judge BLACKSTONE has placed this in the clearest light, as follows:

"The three origins of the right of slavery assigned by Justinian are all built upon false foundations. 1. Slavery is said to arise from captivity in war. The conqueror having a right to the life of his captive, if he spares that, has a right to deal with them as he pleases. But this is untrue, that by the laws of nations a man has a right to kill his enemy. He has only a right to kill him in cases of absolute necessity, for self-defence. And it is plain this absolute necessity did not subsist, since he did not kill him, but made him prisoner. War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation. Therefore it gives us no right over prisoners, but to hinder their hurting us by confining them. Much less can it give a right to torture, or kill, or even enslave an enemy, when the war is over. Since therefore the right of making our prisoners slaves, depends on a supposed right of slaughter, that foundation failing, the consequence which is drawn from it must fail likewise. 2. It is said, slavery may begin by one man's selling himself to another. It is true, a man may sell himself to work for another; but he cannot sell himself to be a slave, as above defined. Every sale implies an equivalent given to the seller, in lieu of what he transfers to the buyer. But what equivalent can be given for life or liberty? His property likewise, with the very price which he seems to receive, devolves to his master the moment he becomes his slave: in this case therefore, the buyer gives nothing. Of what validity then can a law be, which destroys the very principle upon which all sales are founded. 3. We are told that men may be born slaves, by being the children of slaves. But this, being built upon the two former false claims, must fall with them. If neither captivity nor contract, by the plain law of nature and reason, can reduce the parent to a state of slavery, much less can they reduce the offspring." It clearly follows, that all slavery is as irreconcileable to justice, as to mercy.

4. That slaveholding is utterly inconsistent with mercy is almost too plain to need a proof. It is said: "These negroes, being prisoners of war, our captains and factors buy them, merely to save them from being put to death. Is not this mercy?" I answer; 1. Did Hawkins, and many others, seize upon men, women, and children, who were at peace in their own fields and houses, merely to save them from death? 2. Was it to save them from death, that they knocked.out the brains of those they could not bring away? 3. Who occasioned and fomented those wars, wherein these poor creatures were taken prisoners? Who excited them by money, by drink, by every possible means to fall upon one another? Was it not themselves? They know in their own consciences it was, if they have any consciences left. 4. To bring the matter to a short issue: Can they say before God, that they ever took a single voyage, or bought a single African from this motive? They cannot. get money, not to save lives, was the whole and sole spring of their motives.

To

5. But if this manner of procuring and treating slaves is not consistent with mercy or justice, yet there is a plea for it which every man of business will acknowledge to be quite sufficient. One meeting an eminent statesmen, in the lobby of the House of Commons said "You have been long talking about justice and equity;

:

JOHN WESLEY.

213 pray, which is this bill? Equity or justice?" He answered very short and plain"Damn justice; it is necessity." Here also the slaveholder fixes his foot; here he rests the strength of his cause. "If it is not quite right, yet it must be so: there is an absolute necessity for it. It is necessary we should procure slaves; and when we have procured them, it is necessary to use them with severity, considering their stupidity, stubbornness, and wickedness." You stumble at the threshold; I deny that villany is ever necessary. It is impossible that it should ever be necessary for any reasonable creature to violate all the laws of justice, mercy, and truth. No circumstances can make it necessary for a man to burst in sunder all the ties of humanity. It can never be necessary for a rational being to sink himself below a brute. A man can be under no necessity of degrading himself into a wolf. The absurdity of the supposition is so glaring, that one would wonder any one could help seeing it. 6. What is necessary? and to what end? It may be answered; "The whole method now used by the original purchasers of Africans is necessary to the furnishing our colonies yearly with a hundred thousand slaves." I grant this is necessary to that end. But how is that end necessary? How will you prove it necessary that one hundred, that one of those slaves should be procured? "It is necessary to my gaining a hundred thousand pounds." Perhaps so: but how is this necessary ? It is very possible you might be both a better and a happier man, if you had not a quarter of it. I deny that your gaining one thousand is necessary, either to your present or eternal happiness. "But you must allow these slaves are necessary for the cultivation of our islands: inasmuch as white men are not able to labor in hot climates." I answer; 1. It were better that all those islands should remain uncultivated for ever; yea, it were more desirable that they were altogether sunk in the depth of the sea, than that they should be cultivated at so high a price, as the violation of justice, mercy, and truth. 2. But the supposition on which you ground your argument is false. White men are able to labor in hot climates, provided they are temperate both in meat and drink, and that they inure themselves to it by degrees. I speak no more than I know by experience. The summer heat in Georgia is frequently equal to that in Barbadoes, and to that under the line: yet I and my family, eight in number, employed all our spare time there, in felling of trees and clearing of ground, as hard labor as any slave need be employed in. The German family likewise, forty in number, were employed in all manner of labor. This was so far from impairing our health, that we all continued perfectly well, while the idle ones round about us were swept away as with a pestilence. It is not true therefore, that white men are not able to labor, even in hot climates, full as well as black. If they were not, it would be better that none should labor there, that the work should be left undone, than that myriads of innocent men should be murdered, and myriads more dragged into the basest slavery. "But the furnishing us with slaves is necessary for the trade, wealth, and glory of the nation." Better no trade, than trade procured by villany. It is far better to have no wealth, than to gain wealth at the expense of virtue. Better is honest poverty, than all the riches bought by the tears, and sweat, and blood of our fellow-creatures.

7. "When we have slaves, it is necessary to use them with severity." What, to whip them for every petty offence till they are in a gore of blood? To take that opportunity of rubbing pepper and salt into their raw flesh? To drop burning sealing-wax upon their skins? To castrate them? To cut off half their foot with an axe? To hang them on gibbets, that they may die by inches with heat, and hunger, and thirst? To pin them down to the ground, and then burn them by degrees from the feet to the head? To roast them alive? When did a Turk or a heathen find it necessary to use a fellow-creature thus? To what end is this usage necessary? "To prevent their running away, and to keep them constantly to their labor, that they may not idle away their time. So miserably stupid is this race of men, so stubborn and so wicked!" Allowing this, to whom is that stupidity owing? It lies altogether at the door of their inhuman masters, who gave them no means, no opportunity of improving their understanding; and indeed leave them no motive, either from hope or fear to attempt any such thing. They were no way remarkable for stupidity while they remained in Africa. To some of the inhabitants of Europe they are greatly superior. Survey the natives of Benin, and of Lapland. Compare the Samoeids and the Angolans. The African is in no respect inferior to the European. Their stupidity in our colonies is not natural; otherwise than it is the natural effect of their condition. Consequently it is not their fault, but yours: and you must

« PreviousContinue »