An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African - Thomas Clarkson
Such are the _colonial delights_, by the representation of which
the _receivers_ would persuade us, that the _Africans_ are
taken from their country to a region of conviviality and mirth; and that
like those, who leave their usual places of residence for a summer's
amusement, they are conveyed to the colonies--_to bathe_,--_to
dance_,--_to keep holy-day_,--_to be jovial_.--But there
is something so truly ridiculous in the attempt to impose these scenes
of felicity on the publick, as scenes which fall to the lot of slaves,
that the _receivers_ must have been driven to great extremities, to
hazard them to the eye of censure.
The last point that remains to be considered, is the shameful assertion,
that the _Africans_ are much _happier in the colonies, than in
their own country_. But in what does this superiour happiness
consist? In those real scenes, it must be replied, which have been just
mentioned; for these, by the confession of the receivers, constitute the
happiness they enjoy.--But it has been shewn that these have been
unfairly represented; and, were they realized in the most extensive
latitude, they would not confirm the fact. For if, upon a
recapitulation, it consists in the pleasure of _manumission_, they
surely must have passed their lives in a much more comfortable manner,
who, like the _Africans at home_, have had no occasion for such a
benefit at all. But the _receivers_, we presume, reason upon this
principle, that we never know the value of a blessing but by its loss.
This is generally true: but would any one of them make himself a
_slave_ for years, that he might run the chance of the pleasures of
_manumission_? Or that he might taste the charms of liberty with
_a greater relish_? Nor is the assertion less false in every other
consideration. For if their happiness consists in the few
_holy-days_, which _in the colonies_ they are permitted to
enjoy, what must be their situation _in their own country_, where
the whole year is but one continued holy-day, or cessation from
discipline and fatigue?--If in the possession of _a mean and
contracted spot_, what must be their situation, where a whole region
is their own, producing almost spontaneously the comforts of life, and
requiring for its cultivation none of those hours, which should be
appropriated to _sleep_?--If in the pleasures of the _colonial
dance_, what must it be in _their own country_, where they may
dance for ever; where there is no stated hour to interrupt their
felicity, no intolerable labour immediately to succeed their
recreations, and no overseer to receive them under the discipline of the
lash?--If these therefore are the only circumstances, by which the
assertion can be proved, we may venture to say, without fear of
opposition, that it can never be proved at all.
But these are not the only circumstances. It is said that they are
barbarous at home.--But do you _receivers_ civilize them?--Your
unwillingness to convert them to Christianity, because you suppose you
must use them more kindly when converted, is but a bad argument in
favour of the fact.
It is affirmed again, that their manner of life, and their situation is
such in their own country, that to say they are happy is a jest. "But
who are you, who pretend to judge[103] of another man's happiness? That
state which each man, under the guidance of his maker, forms for
himself, and not one man for another? To know what constitutes mine or
your happiness, is the sole prerogative of him who created us, and cast
us in so various and different moulds. Did your slaves ever complain to
you of their unhappiness, amidst their native woods and desarts? Or,
rather, let me ask, did they ever cease complaining of their condition
under you their lordly masters? Where they see, indeed, the
accommodations of civil life, but see them all pass to others,
themselves unbenefited by them. Be so gracious then, ye petty tyrants
over human freedom, to let your slaves judge for themselves, what it is
which makes their own happiness, and then see whether they do not place
it _in the return to their own country_, rather than in the
contemplation of your grandeur, of which their misery makes so large a
part."
But since you speak with so much confidence on the subject, let us ask
you _receivers_ again, if you have ever been informed by your
unfortunate slaves, that they had no connexions in the country from
which they have forcibly been torn away: or, if you will take upon you
to assert, that they never sigh, when they are alone; or that they never
relate to each other their tales of misery and woe. But you judge of
them, perhaps, in an happy moment, when you are dealing out to them
their provisions for the week; and are but little aware, that, though
the countenance may be cheered with a momentary smile, the heart may be
exquisitely tortured. Were you to shew us, indeed, that there are laws,
subject to no evasion, by which you are obliged to clothe and feed them
in a comfortable manner; were you to shew us that they are
protected[104] at all; or that even _one_ in a _thousand_ of
those masters have suffered death[105], who have been guilty of
_premeditated_ murder to their slaves, you would have a better
claim to our belief: but you can neither produce the instances nor the
laws. The people, of whom you speak, are _slaves_, are your own
_property_, are wholly _at your own disposal_; and this idea
is sufficient to overturn your assertions of their happiness.
But we shall now mention a circumstance, which, in the present case,
will have more weight than all the arguments which have hitherto been
advanced. It is an opinion, which the _Africans_ universally
entertain, that, as soon as death shall release them from the hands of
their oppressors, they shall immediately be wafted back to their native
plains, there to exist again, to enjoy the sight of their beloved
countrymen, and to spend the whole of their new existence in scenes of
tranquillity and delight; and so powerfully does this notion operate
upon them, as to drive them frequently to the horrid extremity of
putting a period to their lives. Now if these suicides are frequent,
(which no person can deny) what are they but a proof, that the situation
of those who destroy themselves must have been insupportably wretched:
and if the thought of returning to their country after death, _when
they have experienced the colonial joys_, constitutes their supreme
felicity, what are they but a proof, that they think there is as much
difference between the two situations, as there is between misery and
delight?
Nor is the assertion of the _receivers_ less liable to a refutation
in the instance of those, who terminate their own existence, than of
those, whom nature releases from their persecutions. They die with a
smile upon their face, and their funerals are attended by a vast
concourse of their countrymen, with every possible demonstration of
joy[106]. But why this unusual mirth, if their departed brother has left
an happy place? Or if he has been taken from the care of an indulgent
master, who consulted his pleasures, and administered to his wants? But
alas, it arises from hence, that _he is gone to his happy country_:
a circumstance, sufficient of itself, to silence a myriad of those
specious arguments, which the imagination has been racked, and will
always be racked to produce, in favour of a system of tyranny and
oppression.
It remains only, that we should now conclude the chapter with a fact,
which will shew that the account, which we have given of the situation
of slaves, is strictly true, and will refute at the same time all the
arguments which have hitherto been, and may yet be brought by the
_receivers_, to prove that their treatment is humane. In one of the
western colonies of the Europeans, [107]six hundred and fifty thousand
slaves were imported within an hundred years; at the expiration of which
time, their whole posterity were found to amount to one hundred and
forty thousand. This fact will ascertain the treatment of itself. For
how shamefully must these unfortunate people have been oppressed? What a
dreadful havock must famine, fatigue, and cruelty, have made among them,
when we consider, that the descendants of _six hundred and fifty
thousand_ people in the prime of life, gradually imported within a
century, are less numerous than those, which only _ten thousand_[108]
would have produced in the same period, under common advantages,
and in a country congenial to their constitutions?
But the _receivers_ have probably great merit on the occasion. Let
us therefore set it down to their humanity. Let us suppose for once,
that this incredible waste of the human species proceeds from a
benevolent design; that, sensible of the miseries of a servile state,
they resolve to wear out, as fast as they possibly can, their
unfortunate slaves, that their miseries may the sooner end, and that a
wretched posterity may be prevented from sharing their parental
condition. Now, whether this is the plan of reasoning which the
_receivers_ adopt, we cannot take upon us to decide; but true it
is, that the effect produced is exactly the same, as if they had
reasoned wholly on this _benevolent_ principle.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 097: The articles of war are frequently read at the head of
every regiment in the service, stating those particular actions which
are to be considered as crimes.]
[Footnote 098: We cannot omit here to mention one of the customs, which
has been often brought as a palliation of slavery, and which prevailed
but a little time ago, and we are doubtful whether it does not prevail
now, in the metropolis of this country, of kidnapping men for the
service of the East-India Company. Every subject, as long as he behaves
well, has a right to the protection of government; and the tacit
permission of such a scene of iniquity, when it becomes known, is as
much a breach of duty in government, as the conduct of those subjects,
who, on other occasions, would be termed, and punished as, rebellious.]
[Footnote 099: The expences of every parish are defrayed by a poll-tax
on negroes, to save which they pretend to liberate those who are past
labour; but they still keep them employed in repairing fences, or in
doing some trifling work on a scanty allowance. For to free a
_field-negroe_, so long as he can work, is a maxim, which,
notwithstanding the numerous boasted manumissions, no master _ever
thinks of adopting_ in the colonies.]
[Footnote 100: They must be cultivated always on a _Sunday_, and
frequently in those hours which should be appropriated to _sleep_,
or the wretched possessors must be inevitably _starved_.]
[Footnote 101: They are allowed in general three holy-days at Christmas,
but in Jamaica they have two also at Easter, and two at Whitsuntide: so
that on the largest scale, they have only seven days in a year, or one
day in fifty-two. But this is on a supposition, that the receivers do
not break in upon the afternoons, which they are frequently too apt to
do. If it should be said that Sunday is an holy-day, it is not true; it
is so far an holy-day, that they do not work for their masters; but such
an holy-day, that if they do not employ it in the cultivation of their
little spots, they must _starved_.]
[Footnote 102: These dances are usually in the middle of the night; and
so desirous are these unfortunate people of obtaining but a joyful hour,
that they not only often give up their sleep, but add to the labours of
the day, by going several miles to obtain it.]
[Footnote 103: Bishop of Glocester's sermon, preached before the society
for the propagation of the gospel, at the anniversary meeting, on the
21st of February, 1766.]
[Footnote 104: There is a law, (but let the reader remark, that it
prevails but in _one_ of the colonies), against mutilation. It took
its rise from the frequency of the inhuman practice. But though a master
cannot there chop off the limb of a slave with an axe, he may yet work,
starve, and beat him to death with impunity.]
[Footnote 105: _Two_ instances are recorded by the
_receivers_, out of about _fifty-thousand_, where a white man
has suffered death for the murder of a negroe; but the receivers do not
tell us, that these suffered more because they were the pests of
society, than because the _murder of slaves was a crime_.]
[Footnote 106: A negroe-funeral is considered as a curious sight, and is
attended with singing, dancing, musick, and every circumstance that can
shew the attendants to be happy on the occasion.]
[Footnote 107: In 96 years, ending in 1774, 800,000 slaves had been
imported into the French part of St. Domingo, of which there remained
only 290,000 in 1774. Of this last number only 140,000 were creoles, or
natives of the island, i. e. of 650,000 slaves, the whole posterity were
140,000. _Considerations sur la Colonie de St. Dominique_,(See
errata--should be read as "_St. Domingue_") published by authority
in 1777.]
[Footnote 108: Ten thousand people under fair advantages, and in a soil
congenial to their constitutions, and where the means of subsistence are
easy, should produce in a century 160,000. This is the proportion in
which the Americans increased; and the Africans in their own country
increase in the same, if not in a greater proportion. Now as the climate
of the colonies is as favourable to their health as that of their own
country, the causes of the prodigious decrease in the one, and increase
in the other, will be more conspicuous.]
* * * * *
CHAP. X.
We have now taken a survey of the treatment which the unfortunate
_Africans_ undergo, when they are put into the hands of the
_receivers_. This treatment, by the four first chapters of the
present part of this Essay, appears to be wholly insupportable, and to
be such as no human being can apply to another, without the imputation
of such crimes, as should make him tremble. But as many arguments are
usually advanced by those who have any interest in the practice, by
which they would either exculpate the treatment, or diminish its
severity, we allotted the remaining chapters for their discussion. In
these we considered the probability of such a treatment against the
motives of interest; the credit that was to be given to those
disinterested writers on the subject, who have recorded particular
instances of barbarity; the inferiority of the _Africans_ to the
human species; the comparisons that are generally made with respect to
their situation; the positive scenes of felicity which they are said to
enjoy, and every other argument, in short, that we have found to have
ever been advanced in the defence of slavery. These have been all
considered, and we may venture to pronounce, that, instead of answering
the purpose for which they were intended, they serve only to bring such
circumstances to light, as clearly shew, that if ingenuity were racked
to invent a situation, that would be the most distressing and
insupportable to the human race; it could never invent one, that would
suit the description better, than the--_colonial slavery_.
If this then be the case, and if slaves, notwithstanding all the
arguments to the contrary, are exquisitely miserable, we ask you
_receivers, by what right_ you reduce them to so wretched a
situation?
You reply, that you _buy them_; that your _money_ constitutes
your _right_, and that, like all other things which you purchase,
they are wholly at your own disposal.
Upon this principle alone it was, that we professed to view your
treatment, or examine your right, when we said, that "the question[109]
resolved itself into two separate parts for discussion; into the
_African_ commerce, as explained in the history of slavery, and the
subsequent slavery in the colonies, _as founded on the equity of the
commerce_." Now, since it appears that this commerce, upon the
fullest investigation, is contrary to "_the principles[110] of law and
government, the dictates of reason, the common maxims of equity, the
laws of nature, the admonitions of conscience, and, in short, the whole
doctrine of natural religion_," it is evident that the _right_,
which is founded upon it, must be the same; and that if those
things only are lawful in the sight of God, which are either
virtuous in themselves, or proceed from virtuous principles, you _have
no right over them at all_.
You yourselves also confess this. For when we ask you, whether any human
being has a right to sell you, you immediately answer, No; as if nature
revolted at the thought, and as if it was so contradictory to your own
feelings, as not to require consideration. But who are you, that have
this exclusive charter of trading in the liberties of mankind? When did
nature, or rather the Author of nature, make so partial a distinction
between you and them? When did He say, that you should have the
privilege of selling others, and that others should not have the
privilege of selling you?
Now since you confess, that no person whatever has a right to dispose of
you in this manner, you must confess also, that those things are
unlawful to be done to you, which are usually done in consequence of the
sale. Let us suppose then, that in consequence of the _commerce_
you were forced into a ship; that you were conveyed to another country;
that you were sold there; that you were confined to incessant labour;
that you were pinched by continual hunger and thirst; and subject to be
whipped, cut, and mangled at discretion, and all this at the hands of
those, whom you had never offended; would you not think that you had a
right to resist their treatment? Would you not resist it with a safe
conscience? And would you not be surprized, if your resistance should be
termed rebellion?--By the former premises you must answer, yes.--Such
then is the case with the wretched _Africans_. They have a right to
resist your proceedings. They can resist them, and yet they cannot
justly be considered as rebellious. For though we suppose them to have
been guilty of crimes to one another; though we suppose them to have
been the most abandoned and execrable of men, yet are they perfectly
innocent with respect to you _receivers_. You have no right to
touch even the hair of their heads without their own consent. It is not
your money, that can invest you with a right. Human liberty can neither
be bought nor sold. Every lash that you give them is unjust. It is a
lash against nature and religion, and will surely stand recorded against
you, since they are all, with respect to your _impious_ selves, in
a state of nature; in a state of original dissociation; perfectly free.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 109: See Part II Chapter I second paragraph.]
[Footnote 110: See Part II Chapter IX last paragraph.]
* * * * *
CHAP. XI.
Having now considered both the _commerce_ and _slavery_, it
remains only to collect such arguments as are scattered in different
parts of the work, and to make such additional remarks, as present
themselves on the subject.
And first, let us ask you, who have studied the law of nature, and you,
who are learned in the law of the land, if all property must not be
inferiour in its nature to its possessor, or, in other words, (for it is
a case, which every person must bring home to his own breast) if you
suppose that any human being can have _a property in yourselves_?
Let us ask you appraisers, who scientifically know the value of things,
if any human creature is equivalent only to any of the trinkets that you
wear, or at most, to any of the horses that you ride: or in other words,
if you have ever considered the most costly things that you have valued,
as _equivalent to yourselves?_ Let us ask you rationalists, if man,
as a reasonable being, is not _accountable_ for his actions, and
let us put the same question to you, who have studied the divine
writings? Let us ask you parents, if ever you thought that you possessed
an _authority_ as such, or if ever you expected a _duty_ from
your sons; and let us ask you sons, if ever you felt an impulse in your
own breasts to _obey_ your parents. Now, if you should all answer
as we could wish, if you should all answer consistently with reason,
nature, and the revealed voice of God, what a dreadful argument will
present itself against the commerce and slavery of the human species,
when we reflect, that no man whatever can be bought or reduced to the
situation of a slave, _but he must instantly become a brute, he must
instantly be reduced to the value of those things, which were made for
his own use and convenience; he must instantly cease to be accountable
for his actions, and his authority as a parent, and his duty as a son,
must be instantly no more_.
Neither does it escape our notice, when we are speaking of the fatal
wound which every social duty must receive, how considerably
Christianity suffers by the conduct of you _receivers_. For by
prosecuting this impious commerce, you keep the _Africans_ in a
state of perpetual ferocity and barbarism; and by prosecuting it in such
a manner, as must represent your religion, as a system of robbery and
oppression, you not only oppose the propagation of the gospel, as far as
you are able yourselves, but throw the most certain impediments in the
way of others, who might attempt the glorious and important task.
Such also is the effect, which the subsequent slavery in the colonies
must produce. For by your inhuman treatment of the unfortunate
_Africans_ there, you create the same insuperable impediments to a
conversion. For how must they detest the very name of _Christians_,
when you _Christians_ are deformed by so many and dreadful vices?
How must they detest that system of religion, which appears to resist
the natural rights of men, and to give a sanction to brutality and
murder?
But, as we are now mentioning Christianity, we must pause for a little
time, to make a few remarks on the arguments which are usually deduced
from thence by the _receivers_, in defence of their system of
oppression. For the reader may readily suppose, that, if they did not
hesitate to bring the _Old_ Testament in support of their
barbarities, they would hardly let the _New_ escape them.
_St. Paul_, having converted _Onesimus_ to the Christian
faith, who was a fugitive slave of _Philemon_, sent him back to his
master. This circumstance has furnished the _receivers_ with a
plea, that Christianity encourages slavery. But they have not only
strained the passages which they produce in support of their assertions,
but are ignorant of historical facts. The benevolent apostle, in the
letter which he wrote to _Philemon_, the master of _Onesimus_,
addresses him to the following effect: "I send him back to you, but not
in his former capacity[111], _not now as a servant, but above a
servant, a brother beloved_. In this manner I beseech you to receive
him, for though I could _enjoin_ you to do it, yet I had rather it
should be a matter of your _own will_, than of _necessity_."
It appears that the same _Onesimus_, when he was sent back, was no
longer _a slave_, that he was a minister of the gospel, that he was
joined with _Tychicus_ in an ecclesiastical commission to the
church of the _Colossians_, and was afterwards bishop of
_Ephesus_. If language therefore has any meaning, and if history
has recorded a fact which may be believed, there is no case more
opposite to the doctrine of the _receivers_, than this which they
produce in its support.
It is said again, that Christianity, among the many important precepts
which it contains, does not furnish us with one for the abolition of
slavery. But the reason is obvious. Slavery at the time of the
introduction of the gospel was universally prevalent, and if
Christianity had abruptly declared, that the millions of slaves should
have been made free, who were then in the world, it would have been
universally rejected, as containing doctrines that were dangerous, if
not destructive, to society. In order therefore that it might be
universally received, it never meddled, by any positive precept, with
the civil institutions of the times; but though it does not expressly
say, that "you shall neither buy, nor sell, nor possess a slave," it is
evident that, in its general tenour, it sufficiently militates against
the custom.
The first doctrine which it inculcates, is that of _brotherly
love_. It commands good will towards men. It enjoins us to love our
neighbours as ourselves, and to do unto all men, as we would that they
should do unto us. And how can any man fulfil this scheme of universal
benevolence, who reduces an unfortunate person _against his will_,
to the _most insupportable_ of all human conditions; who considers
him as his _private property_, and treats him, not as a brother,
nor as one of the same parentage with himself, but as an _animal of
the brute creation?_