Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1873-03-27
THE SLAVE TRADE;
lao" Dealing In Human Flesh Is Con
daetcd ON tho Nile.


General Kirkham, the English direc-
tor OF the army of the King of Abyssi-
min, has supplied to the London Daily
Telegraph some valuable information
respecting the traffic in slaves still car
rled on between the interior of Africa
and the Turkish Empire. He says:
The Abyssinian Envoy estimates the
slaves carried off from Africa to tho
Arab and Turkish markets at $4,000 to
10000. These unhappy beings arc
taken away ut ages ranging from seven
or eight to sixteen years, older men
and women being found more trouble
some than valuable to tho dealer. They
are brought down from the center OF
the continent and the region of the
White Nile to Kassala; and are hurried
on to the slave market at Metemmeh.
to be resold for shipment to Jedda
Foreign Consuls at Khartoum check,
so tar as they possibly can, the passage
OF slaves down the Nile, while Sir s.
Bakers expedition has done much also
to increase the difficulties which
besot the transit OF slaves along that
route. The Shankelto country and
that OF Woolah Gallas are favorite
grounds for the nefarious and infamous
practice of the traffickers in human be-
lngs-these provinces being close to
Bogos, through which district, since
the annexation by the Khedive slaves
can be safely passed to Massowal,
thence to be shipped to the Arabian
coast. Shankelto is district border
ing on Abyssinia proper, and is inhab-
tied by wandering tribe resembling
gypsies, who are regarded as the Bed
ouins of Abyssinia. Shankelto, accord
ing to Gen. Kirkham, belongs of right
to Abyssinia: and about eighteen
months ago, Prince Kassai had OCCASION
to send down thither one of his Gen.
erals with large force, completely to
devastate tue country for the murders
that were frequently done there on hi.
merchants and priests-there being
churches there for the baptism OF the
people.
The following is the fashion in which
the slave dealers capture their victims:
They go into a village, taking with
them silks, or beads, or bits of tin and
ornaments. They exchange these
things for slaves or whatever they can
get. The merchants send the slaves
quietly away without much trouble,
and eventually they are trained as
Mussulmans. They are taken through
Bogos to Massowah, and they are sent
thence to Jedda, whence they ore sent
to Turkey by land. As for price, if q
female be Of copper color and good
much as s14o, or about e2s~
that is at the market in Metemmeh.
which is o wholesale market. The retail
price is according to the state of the
market in the place to which they are
first taken. When sold in the second
market, they vary in price. If o man
took a fancy to female slave, he would
perhaps give q hundred dollars more
than another man. The Shankeltos
and Calais are much sought after for
their beauty and for their superiority
to the other tribes. A strong boy will
sell for $50 to 500. The girls fetch
more, because they are wanted for the
harem. Traders will take awav girls
when they ean get them. When a
chief makes war on another he makes
it an object to carry off as many girls
as he can. he plumbers the villages
and kidnaps the younger natives, and
sells them, retaining the older ones to
work as his own slaves. These people
are subject to the Abyssinian King,
when he finds it necessary to chastise
them for misdeeds; but, of course,
when his troops leave they are their
own masters again. These things oc.
cur in part of Abyssinia which the
King claims, but not among his Chris.
tian subjects.
When asked whether lie believed that
all the 80, 900 or 81, 600 annual captives
we're taken in the war and sold by the
chiefs who captured them to the
traders, Gen. Kirkham, in substance,
answered: "No. You must understand
that after Mr.. Stanley returned from
the discovery of Livingstone he brought
much to light concerning the slave
trade of East Africa. DR.. Livingstone,
had also informed the Foreign Office
as to the slave.trade going on in the in.
terror. Her Majesty's gun-boats kept
80 close q watch that it was i'm.
possible to get slaves down to the
coast direct; so they take them
through Bogos. At the interview be.
tween the Sultan and Ismail Pasha, when
the latter was made Khedive, an un.
derstanding was, / believe, come to re.
speeding the slave trade. The Mussul-
mans Of Turkey and Egypt must have
a supply of slaves to do their work
for the real Turks will not do any
mental service. These 80, 600 or 80, OO1
slaves are imported and brought up to
the Mohammedan faith and are EN-.
ployed in doing the dirty work. The
slaves that are not taken in war are
battered for with the peasants, who
will steal and sell them. Suppose YOU
are slave merchant, and I know where
there are three or four good LOOKING
girls-I steal them, and sell them to YOU.
One man, who may have children Of
his owe, will go aud steal the children
OF another person, as many as he may
get. The trader has attendants with
him, and mules and camels, and he
knows how to get slaves and carry them
off. The law is SO strict that any man.
whether a Christian or Mohammedan.
found in Abyssinia selling a slave, is
hanged on the first tree, without Judge
or.jury. Whoever catches him hangs
him up, and there is no more about it :
and there he stays until he falls away
piece by piece. So long as Boeos was
in the power of the King::of Abyssinia
they could not go that way. If they
were stopped there they would have to
take another and a dangerous road
across the Wilderness. They are. check
cd on the onehand by the British gun.
boats off Zanzibar, and would be
checked on the other in Bogos.'
If a slave dealer takes slaves from
one village and carries them through
another, the inhabitants of the second
village have generally no chance to
rescue them, because the leaders at.
PENDANTS are numerous and we'll armed.
A single leader will buy, according tc
his means, from fifty to sixty slaves.
aid bring them through the country
in that way. They do not bring down
many at once for fear q white man
should see them and give information
against them, and then they would be
stopped because Ismail Pasha hus
ordered ostensibly that the slave tlade
shall be put down. Gen. Kirkham is
4nreservedly of opinion that the Khe.
IL p