Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-07-10
From the Cincinnati Gazette
AFRICAN C0MMERCE-ITS INTERNAL
TRADE AND AMERICAN
CONNECTIONS.

Let US look moment at our present connection
with Africa The American enterprise is not
only proverbial, but it deserves its wide repute
There is no place so dark, and difficult, anu dan
gerous, yet known to the foot of man, in which
an American does not seek adventure, and an A
merican merchant sell his merchandise. Accord
ingly, DIR. Livingston says in surprise, that while
there is no E0glish merchants at Loando, there
are two Americans ! But what is Loando 1t is
an old Portuguese settlement on the west coast of
Africa in about deg. south latitude. 1t has
been the size of great slave trade which is
now happily much diminished. The Portuguese
have sought By all manner of restrictions and
discouragemants, to prevent all other nations
trading there or knowing any thing about it.
in fact. little has been known. The adjacent ter
lritores-long since conquered by the Portuguese
constitute the kingdom of Angola. From the
want of energy, and the imposition of various
restriction on foreign trade, the Portuguese power
and commerce have declined. But even here
American enterprise has made its trace The
Americans, says DR.. Livingston, manage to carry
on profitable traffic in cotton cloths, flour and
biscuit. In examining our exports to Africa. at
those ports not excluded in the dominion of Great
Britain, France, spain, or Turkey, we find that
we export to those new and comparatively unim-
portant places, about two and half millions in
value annually.-This is composed chiefly of cot.
ton cloths, flour, biscuit, rum and tobacco The
last two articles are probably used chiefly on the
slave coast The biscuit and cloth sold Nv the
Americans at Loando, are also sold far in the in.
teror-siZ hundred miles back of the coast towns.
This fact is instructive. We soil Cincinnati crack.
ers in China, Cincinnati candy in Greece, and we
may sell them in Africa. Why not?
The next inquiry is, what are or may bo the
products of Africa? If we should sell Africa our
manufactures, what can she, without high civil
2atiUn, return us? The interior OF Central Afri
ca, the land traycrsed by DR.. Livingston. is the
very spot where cottOh coffee and sugar-cane can
be best and easiest raised That it will hereafter
be the place of greatest production for these arti
ces is evident, from a few undeniable facts;
|. African coffee now bears, except perhaps
Mocha, the highest price in England We are
told that nearly all the Liberia Coffee is sent to
Liverpool, because it bears higher price, there
than in New York.
2. The Sugar Cane grows naturally, and with"
out danger of being cut off The Sorqlum, also
Sugar plant of superior variety, is native to tho
country.
3. Cotton is there perennial plant and is sold
in the market of Loando at tlcO cents per pound
Even this is higher than the natives sell it among
themselves. These facts settle the case for Amer.
lean planters, in the future, far as tho Europe
an market is concerned. they cannot compete
with perennial plant raising cotton at two cents
per pound; nor will Europe pay for our cotton ten
or twelve cents, when they get it at fye
Grant that a revolution must occur in the settle,
These facts will make revolution. Plantations
will be made when they will pay high profit
If Americans go there to sell flour and biscuit
they will go there to make cotton. But what will
you do for labor? The best cotton labor in the
world is there, and it can be had better in the
free shan in the slave states. Happily for the
philosophy as well as the happiness of mankind,
on the very spot where the question could be fair
ly tried the freelabor has been found more profit
able than the slave. The question is settled |
The remarks of DR.. Livingston on this subject,
are so interesting, that we quote paragraph for
our readers, most of whom have not seen the
large and authentic work of Livingston.
Speaking Of Sugar and Slavery at Loando, he
says: while here we visited large Sugar man
oiactory belonging to lady, Donna Anna da
Sousa The fiat aluval lands on the banks of the |
Seusa, or Bengo. are well adapted for raising
'ugar'canc. and this lady had a surprising number
1f slaves, but somehow the establishment was far
rom being in flourishing condition. 1t present,
I'd such contrast to the freelabor establishments
'f the mountains, which have since seen, where
With not one.tenth of the number of hands, or
uoh good soil, man of color had in one year
cleared S25, 900 by single crop--that quote the