The Kanzas news., 1857-08-15

O1S eject O1 pfICcS Az4S Dccu Tic Ic-
vival of the slave trade in Cuba. Another
result is to be found In these English,
French and Spanish schemes to remove,
under the name of free emigration, large
| bodies of negroes from the west coast of
| Africa to the English, French and Spanish
sugar islands.
To apply the appellation of free to any
such emigration is the merest delusion in
/ the world. There is a free emigration from
| this country to the United States and Can
Portugal, to South as well as to North
America; and this emigration is free, be-
cause in Europe labor is everywhere free !;
because the emigrants are sufficiently intel
ligent to know what they are about; because
they have reasonable prospect of improving
their own condition; because they are work
ing out what they deem their cwn happiness
| by their own means because no undue
stimulus or temptations are allowed to be
applied to them. But even In the case of
| free emigration from the United Kingdom,
safeguards, protection, stringent laws are
thrown around it, and IN spite of leg1sia-
! ton, great abuses have attended it.
/ But on the west coast of Africa there is /
no corresponding class, no corresponding
intelligence, no corresponding means, no
corresponding inducement, and there caa be
no corresponding protection. There is no
identity of circumstances, and In the Eng
lish sense of the words, there can be no |
free emigration. 1t is either a delusion or
an imposition to speak of such thing
Experience has proved that along the whole
coast there is but one class which viii vol |
unfairly leave their country. That class
are the Kroomen, who seek service in our
shipping in order that they may save lit
tie money, return to their own country and
purchase an additional slave in the shape of
a wife. Beyond and out of the Kroo coast
there never has been any disposition on the
part of the negroes even temporarily to |
Ileave Africa.
We will not discuss the question whether
Christendom ought, because sugar has risen,
to attempt to deport tens of thousands of
Africans under any appellation to its sugar
fields in the Antilles, or how far the 18th
century In doing so would differ from the
10Th, which in carrying negroes to ST. Do
mingo and Brazil, deluded itself into the
belief that it was engaged in missionary
enterprise, and conveying the unhappy
Africans from paganism and misery tol
Christianity and happiness. 1t may even
be, as the advocates of the West India body
contend, that streams of free labor flowing
from Africa to the sugar colonies and back
again to Africa would confer great benefits
on Africa. That is no doubt very pretty
picture; but We are called upon to consider
realities, not to gaze on canvas. The first
all-essential point in the plan is the freedom
of the required emigration, and there the
scheme will be found wholly and entirely
to break down.
Except IN the English and perhaps in the
French settlements on the West coast of
Africa, the labor of the coast is all more or
less slave labor. Not the cruel, demorali
zing, brutal labor of the colonies of Chris
tian States; not slavery directed to one sole,
selfish purpose-the production of a single
article of large foreign demand; but sla-
very suited to the condition and states of
African society, where the slave and the
master live on terms of comparative equal
ity, are of kindred tastes, habits, intelli-
gence, and are occupied in the same avoca-
tions. Slavery of this kind is in short the
form of labor in Western Africa, and al
though it is different in nearly every other
quality and consequence from American sla-
very, it has this common feature, that the
slave is valuable to his master. Now, such
being the condition of labor In Western
Africa, whence is this emigration to come
from?
When Burnby, of Trinidad, ten or twelve
years ago, first proposed that our West In
dian colonies should obtain supplies of labor
f from West Africa, that able man did not
shirk this difficulty. He boldly advocated
that these bondsmen should be purchased
in Africa, and he justified the purchase
there by contending that it would confer
freedom on the Africans in the West Indies.
Does the deputation which lately waited on
!, Lord Palmerston adopt this suggestion of
Mr.. Burnby-does it propose to buy negroes
in Africa in order that it may release them
in Jamaica? Let us understand what the
, proposition really means and involves
! Their great advocate tells US that while
''raw Africans are worth ESQ piece in
: Cuba, they can be had for f7. los. head
on the coast There has then, it would
: seem, been some calculation as to price.
But if single dollar has to be paid for en-
: igrants on the coast, what becomes of free
emigration?
t Consider, too, where it is that the Mar
/ seilles house seeks to fulfil its contract with
2 the French Government. It is at Whydah.
1 Why, Whydah is the port whence the king
: of Dahonny used to export his slaves; it
was one of the greatest slave ports on the
: coast; it was a place defled with iniquity.
? The old machinery is of course in the
r neighborhood, the old spirit hovers about
5 the place. The price of negroes may have
: fallen, but not SO low as to lead to the free
: emigration of single negro.
t Consider, too, the state generally of the
l West Coast. Its trade is increasing with
: rapidity almost unparalleled, not so much
a in the settlement of the European powers as
T In the old seats of the slave trade. The
i price of the great African export, palm oil,
; has risen almost as much as the value of
z sugar The ton which a few Years hack