The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1858-02-23
WESTERN DE MOCRAT.
Charlotte, N c..
From the NV York Express (anti-slavery
THE NEW SLAVE TRADE.

! ton whether the abolition Of African slave
! rv in the British West India Islands, has or
has not resulted in promoting the material
prosperity ofthose regions, is fast becoming
/ to be superseded by a series of practical
| facts, going far to establish striking de-
| ciSion in the negative. In cases of this
| kind, one fact is better than a thousand
I theories. The thousand theories with
which British and American abolitionists
| periodically favor US on the subject to es-
tablish the dplusion that the Emancipation
! Act was great blessing for the emancipa-
ted and emanciPators are pretty summariIy
set aside by the one hard fact that the
! this moment, actually endeavoring to re-
establish the slave trade in their respective
! West India colonies, one under the name
of "Coolie apprenticeship" and the other
under ''African emigration" And what
| the governments are doing, the preponder-
! ating public sentiment in both countries
| apparently sanctions. The leading London
! journals, on this subject, it is we'll known,
! have enumerated views, within the year or
! two past, which we are accustomed to look
| for only in the organs Of public opinion in
! the slave States of the Union. This So
! called "Coolie apprenticeship we have
! often had occasion to show, by disinterest-
! ed witnesses, is. to all intents and purposes
but softer name for the African slave
trade in its most odious features.
The voyage from Asia is often as full of
horrors, and every imaginable species Of
human suffering, as the terrible middle
! passage from Africa; the term apprentices
! ship is used to limit the period of
! service to a given number Of years
/ it is true but when that given
number of years have run their course, the
unhappy Cody is so unfit to be anything
but slave, that he is compelled to remain
one until death releases him from his earthly
/ bondage' The necessity for thus having
recourse to the East Indies, to find a supply
of labor for the West Indies, is found ia
the fact that the free negro of the Antilles
has such constitutional antipathy to in
dustry and habits of thrift that he cannot
be made to develop the resources Of those
magnificent regions. lie cannot be per
suaded to labor but for just enough to ena-
ble him to supply his actual wants from
day to day ; and nature in that climate, is
so generous, that the exercise of but little
j industry is rewarded with the most liberal
returns. No wonder, therefore, that SO
many splendid estates-which yielded
princcly revenues when negro labor was
compulSory-are now going to wreck and
ruin. And no wonder that, with a view to
arrest that wreck and ruin. British and
French utilitaraniSm should after many
years practical experiment of emanclpa-
ton, be now trying to get the better of
British and Frcnce scntimcntal<m.
The French are less scrupulous about
the proposed revival of the slave trade than
the British. Slavery. it will be rcmem-
bercd, was suddenly abolished in all the
French colonies during the revolutionary
fever of 1913. One of the first results was
Il heavy falling off in the sugar crop. The
negro. intoxicated with ''Libertp Equalte,
Fratcrnite,' grew lazy, affected the gentle
man of elegant leisure. and would not work.
In l9i9-'50, the Martinique crop fell short
Of the average production some forty mil
lions of pounds. To make up for the
indolcnce of the emancipated slaves,
and, with the introduction of that species Of
labor, the agricultural thrift of the island
was, in good degree recovered. In 1882
the sugar crop yielded nearly fifty millions;
in $50 nearly ffty-seven. The progress
sion in Guadalupe was similar-the yield
in 1856, noarly forty-six millions. In the
Island of Reunion (Beurbon) the advance
was from fifty eight millions of pounds in
1851 to a hundred and sixteen millions in
1855. For the year 1886, the foreign
commerce of tIe colony (the general move
ment) is reported at a value of sixty millions
of francs,-a 100 per cent, of increase in
five wears Reunion replaces st. Domin go;
/ last March she had thirty five thousand
Coolies in her employ. We obtain these
statistics from an article in the latest num-
Der of Revue des Deux Morides, warmly
advocating the new (slave) system. As
might have been foresecn, this Coole trade
was but the entering wedge for the rees-
tablishmcnt of African Slavery itself.
Hence, some six years since. the General
! Administration of the French Antilles en-
/ tered into a contract with a Marseilles firm,
/ (known as the General Maritime Company
for the introduction of fifteen thousand
coolies in period of four years. This con-
tract had the full sanction of the Imperial
, Government.
| Those four years have come and gone,
! vet it seems not more than six thousand
! have been delivered and the failure to pro-
cure the full supply is probably attributed
to the opposition Of the English authorities
in India, which prohibited the recruiting OF
coolies, except for the Isle of Reunion, and