The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1872-03-30

up their limbs under them.
| Upon the expiration of the earlier contracts,
they were SO far observed as to give the laborers
their freedom, when they left the plantations and
resorted 70 the cities and towns 20 pick up a
scsnty living best they could, or if possible es.
cape from the country. This soon produced a
SC .rcity of Labor and the interests of the great
planters required reinstatement of those en-.
titled to their freedom. Whatever their interest
required their money could procure from cor
rupt and unprincipled Captain. General. Ac-
cordinsly he issued decree requiring a renewal
of all expiring contracts for service, thus prac-
tically reducing all who were working under
contracts to state of perpetual slavery. Nor
did those who had already obtained the freedom
to which they were entitled escape bis attention;
for another decree forbade them passports, with
out which no one, bond or free, can leave the
island. What may those freed men expect as
the next step in this fearful drama, where no
more regard is paid to human rights than when
the negro was torn from his home in Africa and
subjected to the middle passage? Why should
the national voice, at whose loud command the
slave trade to these Spanish West India islands
was finally stopped, be now hushsd in silence,
when, if possible, greater outrage is perpetra.
ted upon those who haye been lured to the coun.
try under promise of protection How long
will England whose noble efforts to suppress the
slave trade have cast 40 much lustre upon her
nation Il character. be still now when humanity
again calls aloud for help? Ha, she exhausted her
philanthropy upon the African that she has none
left for the Asiatic? And our own country, too,
shall we be silent when Just across the narrow
channel, and almost in sight of our own sh ores,
this wrong and outrage done upon weakness
which is totally unable to protect itself2 Why
have we freed three millions of our own boad.
men for hum anity's sake? Why have We
spent millions of dollars in sending ships
TO tho coast of Afrc. to prevent these very Gu.
bans from bringing thence the negro to work
their plantations, if we are now to allow them
without remonstrance to practice greater in.
humanity upon the feeble Chinaman who has
attained high degree of civilization which gave
| a relish to the liberty which he enjoyed before
His own government is totally unable to protect
him, else the wrong would never have been per.
pstrated. Shall not then, other nations near at
hand, who have large interests and intercourse
with his own, vndcate these outraged rights
which so loudly appeal to the sense of justice OF
all mankind? If We are quiet now, will not
posterity and the world say that sympathy for
the African was simulated, and all our acts for
his protection on his native soil was part acted
| for some other purpose, or for mere display
| When foreign nations forbade the slave trade to
Span and Portugal, although it may be under
! the shadow of enforced treaties, they, in truth,
wrote chapter in national law for the pro.
lection of human rights everywhere, and that
same law now authorized them to interfere to
prevent the enslavement Of the Cinnamon in
| Cuba rs well as to protect the negro in Africa.
If they will not interfere to set the bondman free
because his bondage in an accomplished fact,
there is no reason why they may not adhere to
the rule which has at last effectually stopped
| the slave trade, that the free man shall not be
| made slave. This 10 a principle which should
now be considered as firmly engrafted into the
| international code, to which all nations should
be compelled to conform by their
neighbors l repeat, has England forgot her
humanity that she shall be silent now ? Has our
| own government 50 exhausted her sympathy for
| the oppressed, that she shall stand languidly by
and SEQ this done with positive indifference ?
What says Mr.. Sumner, the great champion of
human liberty? Where is Wendell Phillips,
that this cry of anguish has not pierced his ear
| Is this republican administration so intent upon
itH own immediate future that it is blind to this
great wrong? Where are all our countrymen,
without regard to class, color or party, that they
raise not even protest against this enhancement
of freemen ? If they could see what have seen
II they could behold long lines Of Chaamen,
chained two and two driven out from the prison
doors like oxen yoked together, to do the public
work, because they dared to say that they we're
| frssmen, and asked their rights rs SUCH and
marched to the field in companies under the
drivers whip, do believe their sense of justice
would be aroused and something would be said
In vindication of outraged human rights.
| The question of the abolition Of slavery on the
Islsnd has been discussed to some extent, aud
since the breaking out of the rebellion, even
some legal steps have been taken in that direc.
tiou, by declaring that children born since 1865
she'll be tree after attaining q certain aye. also
decl.rug slaves past sixty years Of age free; but
how I r these measures have actually taken
effect, can say, and the advantage Of
throwing helpless inf.nts and WORKOUT servants
out Of doors m-y not readily be perceived. This