The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1872-09-19
DIR. LIVINGSTONE AND THE
SLAVE TRADE OF EAST
ERN AFRICA.

IT there were the slightest doubt
of the authenticity of the dispatches
brought by Mr.. Stanley from DR..
Livingstone there is one fact that
would entirely dispel it. Were we
to give to the young traveller the
credit Of the most remarkable inge-
nuity on record as story-teller and
a forger-a combination of Sir John
Vaudeville and Chattert n-we
should still question the possibility
of his Stimulating the zeal which fills
DIR. Livingstone in regard to the
slave trade Of Eastern Africa, OF of
his possessing the knowledge Of the
influence that trade has had upon
the natives of the country. The
deep feeling which fills DIR. Living
stone is peculiarly his own, for no
body else has ever fathomed the char
acter of that traffic, as nobody has
come so near as he to the sources of
the Nile. Btu
We in our generation know only
from history how deep the adherence
was with which the English people
were taught By Wherefore and
Newton and Sharpe and others 10
look upon the slave trade of the west
coast of Africa. Yet their knowl
edge Of it was limited almost to the
''middle passage and it's horrors, or,
if 1t went beyond that, to the infu-
ence of the traffic upon the negroes of
the coast. They knew that the saw
age cupidity of the traders excited
tribes to war upon each other that
they might sell their captives for
slaves hut they did not know, as
Livingstone shows, that the slave
trade has more than temporary atroc-
tiles to answer for; nor did they
know tn t probably the whole struc-
ture of society and the character of
the people Of the interior on the west
side of the continent was completely
changed, as he shows it is changing
in the eastern interior as the trade
works is way inward.
Intense as his desire is to find the
fountains of the Nile, DR.. Living
stones zeal for the suppression of
the slave trade is hardly less. The
sanguinary despotisms of the region
towards the sea, he finds, have
grown up, perhaps in self-defense,
perhaps under the instruction of the
Mohamedan slave-traders, and that
they have taken the place of con-
dition of things of quite another
character. The further he has pen
etrated into the interior the further
behind him does he leave these king
doms, like Abyssinia and Ashantee,
and in their place he finds a simple
and pastoral people, divided into
small tribes under almost patriarchal
rule. little disposed to quarrel or to
the shedding Of blood, and at peace
with each other. 1t is the slave
traders that bring discord among
these quiet and innocent and happy
savages, break up their tribes, and,
according to DR.. Livingstone, COM
pei them for some sort Of self-defense
to reorganize society by combining
and submitting to centralizing rule.
In the lapse Of time great changes
have thus been brought about in ma
tional and individual character, ard,
as an English journal says, "Dr.
Livingstone would seem nearly to
have persuaded himself that the fat
nosed and prognathous negro, who
lis almost exclusively known to Eu-
ropeans, is degeneration from a
higher physical type which has been
produced by the slave trade" Even
such a conclusion will not. perhaps,
seem strange to those who were IA
miliar with slavery in the West In
dies before the slave trade was pro
hibited, where it was remarked that
among fresh importations individuals
were often found who were said to
come FROM the interior of Africa, and
whose noses were not broad and fiat.
nor their lips thick, nor their jaws
projecting.
To make an end Of traffic horri-
bic in itself, and having such disas-
trous results upon the character and