The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1883-11-29
The Egyptian Slave Trade.

Our Cairo correspondent mentions the
condemnation of a Slave-dealer who had
offered Soudan woman for sale in
Cairo to three years hard labor
! Egyptians still in the vigor of life re-
member when Nubians, Ahyssinians,
negroes and Circassians used to be
openly bought and sold in the slave
market at Cairo. The convention of
August, 1877, put stop to the worst
abuses of the traffic. But slaves, as we
have seen, are still sold in Cairo. In
spite of the convention, they are still
imported from the hunting-grounds of
the Soudan. From some statements
which have been submitted to us on the
sub ect it appears that there are cOnsid-
erably upward of two hundred slave
! dealers in Cairo alone. Many of these
rascals are Syrians and Greeks. The
| prices for negro girls and boys range
| from 80 to ESQ or $50 a head; Abys-
sinians are worth more; a beauty may
even fetch as much as 9l5O. Before the
year 1877 at least two thousand slaves
were imported yearly into Cairo. Now
the number is much smaller. Habba
/ SOdd-'' ''ebony grain is the slang term
by which slaves are known in the trade.
Anybody, even a European, if he or she
employ the services of an intermediary
in the confidence of the djellab, may
buy, any day, habba soda fresh from
the Soudan, and at the prices quoted
above. Though the greatest scoundrels
unwhipped, these Intermediates are in
teresting people to talk with. They can
talk learncdly about the chief slave
yielding trbes-the Shillooks, the Din
kars, the Noobas, the Bazigars, the
Makerdars-andg give curious anecdotes
about slave characteristics.
Notwithstanding the convention OF
1877, the possession of slaves is legal in
Egypt. The domestic slave is the
Mohammedan equivalent of the Eu-
ropean domestic servant. The sale of
persons who were in domestic slavery
before 1877 is also permitted, but only
{" from family to family" In Egypt
proper this right of sale will, however,
expire next August, and any head of a
household selling his bOndsmen or
bOndswOman after that date will be
triable for "theft with murder" In
the Soudan the same restricted right
of sale will last until August, 1889.
All other kinds of sale are punishable,
alike in the Soudan and Egypt proper,
as "theft with murder Mutilators
of children are punishable as "assas-
SINS To the charge already named.
theft with murder, those persons also
subject themselves who deprive, or are
implicated in depriving. manumitted
Slaves of their letters of enfranchise-
ment. These letters are at once given;
by the Consuls, or the Provincial Gov
ernors. or the directors of the four
slave Bureaux of Egypt. to any slave on
his mere application. This, at any rate,
seems to be the law now, though for
merly it was understood that a slave
could claim manumission only on
grounds of i'll treatment. Lastly de-
tailed register must be kept of the past
and current history of every manumitted
slave. Being presumably unable to
take care of themselves when thrown
suddenly upon the world, freed slaves
must be cared for by and at the expense
of the Government; it is directed that
the women be put to service in "re-
spectacle families" or married to SOL
ders in the army; that the men be
taught trades or employed in the mill
tarv service, and the children be sent to
school. The instructions regarding the
supervision of and provision for manu-
mitted slaves are precise and minute; it
may indeed be said that the slave law
of Egypt is a model of humanity; that
in Mohammedan country it is mar
vel, goes without saying. The above
rules relate to the land trade. The
maritime laws, to which we need only
allude. are also precise and stringent.
Yet, as we have shown above, the trade
survives in spite of both sets of regula-
tions. The truth is that the terrors of
Egyptian law exist chiefly on paper
Cor. London NeUs.