Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1857-10-01

anu every Sto"u Pois'"' niaie VI ieu'aie'
must be present, or subject themselves to
the suspicion of having been kept away by
guilty conscience. The performance is
kept up till midnight, when Mumbo sudden.
ly springs with the agility of the tiger on the
offender, and chastises her most souudly, a.
midst the shouts and laughter of the multi
tude, in which the other women join more
heartily than anybody else; with the view,
no doubt, of raising themselves above the
suspicion of such infdelity."
There is general belief, throughout West
ern Africa, in witchcraft, which is a capital
offence, and is punished in murderous man.
ner, by the redwood ordeal, which is simply
bringing the offender who is charged with
bewitching somebody, before an assembly of
the people, and forcing him to drink poi
sonous decoction of water from the redwood,
which generally produces death; aud his
death is evidence of his guilt. Often this
ordeal is resorted to against the innocent, to
crafty the worst passions in the accuser.-
Should the accused escape death by any
means, the prosecutor must submit to the
same ordeal which is fortunately some
check to this bloody superstition. Such are
some of the customs which, with Incidence,
theft, lying and csnnibalism. make the ma
tive African the most corrupt and degraded
human being on earth and missionary labor
has done but little in four hundred years to
Christianize, civilize or reform him and ne
yer will effect much while he remains on his
native soil. What is the prospect when after
400 years of Gospel preaching there, they eat
each other, like delicious morsels rolled on
their tongues; when a subject may have a
thousand wives, and king six thousand, as
Mr.. Wilson said of the king of Loango;
and when the king of Dehoui has an army
of 5000 stalwart women, whom he compels
to guard him and fight for him on the battle
field? 1t is recorded by Mr.. Wilson, that
in recent war against the city Of Abeokuta,
the Dehoman king would have lost his life,
or been captured, ''if it had not been for the
desperate and almost frantic fury with which
his Amazons defended his person." These
female warriors, as is the custom with the
men, wear no clothing, no dress, except a
small cotton shawl or napkin, tied round the
waist, falling down and covering little more
than mother Ewes fig leaves. Nearly naked,
without Notifications except the breastworks
which nature has bestowed on them, these
women, with savage ferocity, apparently
without sense of fear, because without the
mental capacity to appreciate danger. have
scarce thought but how to kill, and though
wild as tigresses, fight with almost the effect
of Roman Legion-a barbarian wonder! !
But these people must and will be Chris
tianized, because it is the will of God; and
He has graciously made the white man in
strumental in bringing thousands of them
from their bondage and barbarism in Africa,
and introducing them here to mild, humane
servitude, under Christian masters In the
Minutes of the last South Carolina Confer
ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church, it
is reported that 100000 negroes live in the
range of its ministry, and Of that number
As, 900 are church members-nearly one
fourth of the whole number; that missiona-
ry labor is employed on $50 plantations;
and that $50, 1000 had been appropriated the
year before, for this good work. In the
language of the Report of the Managers of
Missions, GAS Christianity was slow to pen
citrate barbarism, God has brought barbarism
to Christianity, that the Christian slave might
be made happier than an African king. -
And yet the false philanthropy of the North
would deprive our slaves of their happy con-
dtion and prospects here, to send them back,
to Africa.
1t is not proposed in re-opeuing the Afri-
can slave trade, to institute anew the system
of kidnapping, once practised, but to estab-
lish lawful commercei in purchasing forfair
market value in Africa, such slaves as are
held by masters there; and surely no one
will say that it is wrong to purchase slave
from barbarous tyrant in Guinea or Kongo,
to bring him hither, where he will have
good Christian owner, who will instruct him
and provide for all his wants, and especially
endeavor to illuminate the midnight dark
ness of his soul with rays of blissful light.
If we are wrong to do this, we are equally
or more wrong to buy slaves from each other
in America. All that has been said of the
horrors of the middle passage, would be a
voided in lawful trade, since, by the en-
poyment of steamships, doubtless manned
by abolitionists, negroes may be comfortably
brought in short time across the Atlantic,
to our shores.
We see that re-opening the African slave
trade is consistent with Christianity and ben
eGcial to the African and now let us con-
slider the benefits which will result from it to
the Caucasian race; and especially to the
Southern section of the United States.
1t is indispensably necessary to have more
slave labor to develop the agricultural and
other resources of the Southern States, and
to elevate our sections to the highest condi-
ton of which it is capable, in wealth, intel
ligence and power. The slaveholding States
contain an area of 100000 of square miles,
or 64O, 100000 of acres. Of this vast ter
ritory, only one acre in ten has been i'm
proved, (see census Of la5O,) and this i'm
proved land embraces all that has been mere
ly fenced and used for uncleared PASTURE
Only 5000, 900 of acres are planted in cot