The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1877-11-08
THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.

IHE OLA 1hADEs
are Disposed Of-The Slave-pens at Ujiji-
furnishing Men, Women and Children.
[stanley's Letter to the New York Herald.l
The subject which choose for this let
ter is one professedly of interest to large
class of Englishmen and Americans,
and, l believe, to many people in Ger
many. 1t is the slave trade in the Afri-
can interior and those who deal in the
traffic and amass wealth out of it. In
giving you an account of its nature
promise you not to indulge my personal
feelings, but to be cool, precise and lit
eral, believing that the letter will have
more effect than if it contained merely
vituperations and objurgations against
the slave-traders.
One has to travel very far in Africa,
from east toward west, before he will
begin to experience that strong antipa-
thetic feeling to the slave-traders so
characteristic in Livingstone; for the
slave trade elsewhere is mostly confined
to small private retail dealings in hui
man flesh between Arab and Arab. Two
or three or half a dozen or a dozen
slaves are exchanged quietly between
traders, as the exigencies of business or
currency require. These few slaves are
perhaps accepted in payment of long
standing debt, or are purchased to COM
plete the number of domestic servants.
The buying and selling of them in such
a quiet, orderly manner does not strike
one as being specially repulsive-rather
more as an exchange from one domes-
tic service to another.
WHOLESALE AND RETAIL.
At Unyanyembe, perhaps, he may see
a sight once in while to provoke in
dignation and disgust. To witness it
daily, however, the traveller must have
sharp eyes and exert himself in hot
climate little more than is desirable
or comfortable. In Uganda the trade
begins to assume a wholesale character,
yet it still retains a business aspect, not
particularly shocking to any great ex-
tent, for the dismalities and heartrend-
ings it provokes are all hushed up long
before the slaves become the property
of the Arabs. The Kings and chiefs, to
whose peculiar tastes such an extensive
and singular trade is owing, have long
ago dried the tears of the captives by
soaring their nerves and severing the
chords of sympathy and of feeling by
cruel means, so that, except in infre-
quent instances, there are no more tears
to be shed or power of wailing left when
they begin to be driven in focks toward
the Arab depots or the coast.
HERDS OF ERoNy SKELETONS
At Ujiji one sees slave market es-
tablished-not a central market, as at
Zanzibar, but in several slave folds or
slave-pens, maintained by degraded half
castles or demoralized Wajiji-whence
they are taken by those in need of slaves
for service or for retail sale. The OBJ
jects of traffic, as they are landed at the
shore of Ujiji, are generally in terri
BILE condition, reduced by hunger to
ebony skeletons attenuated weaklings,
unable to sustain their large, angular
heads. Their voices have quite lost the
manly ring; they are mere whines and
means of desperately sick folks. Scarce
ly one is able to stand upright the back
represents an unstrung bow, with some
thing of the serrated appearance of a
crocodile's chine. Every part of their
frames shows the havoc of hunger, which
has made them lean. wretched and in
firm creatures. Just here l could, if
might, launch out into vigorous abuse
of the authors of these crimes, and they
deserve a thousandfold more denuncia-
ton than can be invented by me or by
any human soul in Europe; but l have
promised to be cool, precise and literal
Yet may say that all the Satanic hos,
protects them, for it must be assuredly
owing to the deep wiles of hell and it,
inhabitants that the people of small
island like Zanzibar are permitted tc
commit crimes such as no European
State understands.
VANISHING WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
The living skeletons described abov,
have all been marched from Marung,
to Ugubha; thence to Ujiji they wer,
crowded in canoes. When our eXpedi
ton crossed over to Ugubha we me
800 slaves of exactly such cast as al
ready described, principally children
and women. do not mean to say tina
these 800 were all skeletonized thus b,
hunger. There were a few-perhaps 80
perhaps more-who still possessed some
what of rotundity in their forms; bu
these, was told by the traders, sus
tanned themselves by assiduous consump
ton of roots, berries, svoided grain, etc
The canoes which brought the expedi
ton to Ugubha returned to Ujiii wit
full cargoes of slaves. Frank Pocock
my European servant, had often rea'
in English journals accounts of tn
treatment and condition of African
slave droves, but until our arrival a
Ugubha he said he never realized in hi
own mind what that treatment reall,