Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1819-07-10
EXPOSITION OF SLAVERY.

A SUBSCRIBER.
EXPOSITION OF SLAVERY.
How can forbear to protest
Against the vile practice of men,
Who act as if justice were jest,
And sacrifice mercy for gain!
From Europe to Africa's shore,
Their course they bend over the deep,
To seize on the African poor
In absolute bondage to keep.
: How cruel the means they devise
These victims of woe to procure;
They bride black tyrant to rise,
And seize them by fraud or by lure.
Some awful resistance they meet,
Where thousands lie bleeding in gore;
While others are bound hands and feet,
And brought to Americas shore.
What pen can describe the distress
Those outcasts of men must endure,
When parting with all they possess,
To see and enjoy them no more.
Wives, husbands, relations, and friends,
Shall never each other embrace;
Enslav'd by unmercifur iicnds,
Divestcd of pity and grace,
The Treatment they meet with on board,
VIII nafulN Dear to be told
They're fetter'd with chains, and immur'd
Tween decks, or shut up in the hold
Where many, overwhelmed with grief,
Or anguish that can't be enchlr'd,
Choose death as the only relief
Their case will admit or afford.
When brought to the destined port,
They're set up as sheep to be sold,
Where Christian, or Pagan, or Turk,
May have them for silver or gold.
Then parents and children again
Are torn from each others embrace,
And wives from their husbands detain'd,
No friend to alleviate their case.
Hard labor and paints their lot;
Yea hunger and nalledness too;
In weather too cold or too hot,
No pity to negroes they shew.
Their tasks they must surely fulfil,
Or bear their unmerciul doom;
Their masters most sovereign will
Enforced is, abroad or ut home.
How heinous the crime Of those men
Concern'd in such traffic as this:
.Banditti, compar'd unto them,
Are innocent men, profess.
Of miscreants these are the chiefs,
That the annals of hist'ry untold,
Yet receivers are worse than the thieves;
They encourage them on with their gold.
America answer to this:
Stern justice must have reply;
The blood of the African race
Cries aloud from the earth to the sky.
From Africa's desolate shores,
From the waves of the briny abyss,
From your houses, your lands and your stores
1t cries for an awful redress.
Consider when Britain decreed
To rob you of Justices claim,
Protesting against it with speed,
You fought till you baffied their aim.
IF Africa's sons, in their turn,
Would follow th' example you've set,
I fear your resentment would burn,
And blood in full streams would be let.
Oh when will Columbia purge
Her credit that's avfllly stain'd'
Or when will true freedom emerge
From depths of injustice detan'dl
Americans, prove yourselves true
To titles you fondly engross;
DO justice to Africans too,
Or never of liberty boast.
But what is more shocking than this;
That men who profess to enjoy
The mind of the Author of bliss,
Should slaves in their service employ3
I'm sure from the annals of truth
Not the slightest support can they find;
But error deep rooted in youth,
Is hard to erase from the mind
! do not involve all the states
In the tragcal charge I've composed;
In congress were noble debates,
By men who oppression opposed.
New-England wholly exempt;
With conscience they surely did act
And 9uakers were very intent
To suppress the vile practice in fact
Some others say, but in vain,
That they are the men that oppose
The practice of slavery, most plain
From the pulpit and press do expose.
But ifthey do call it sin,
Such sinners they stn do receive;
Such Boosting is empty as wind,
Their heads contradictions conceive.
Will heaven for ever be deaf
To The groans of the African slavesl
Or must | expose to my death,
The practice of Christian knaves?
o JESUS !-appcar in thy might
Thine arm of omnipotence show;
Restore the oppressed their right,
And save the oppressors from woe.
CHESYER ASHIIEY,