News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1889-02-07
AFRICA'S SLAVE TRADE.
VIVID ACCOUNT OF A RAID in
THE OZARK CONTINENT"
How the Natives Are Caught and
Where They Are Taken


Where They Are Taken
The condition of the interior of Africa,
MS it is now, overrun by the Arab slave
traders, is terrible, says the New York
Worlds Mr.. A. FL. johnson, the best
known of the English modern explorers
of Africa, has furnished vivid accounts
of the slave horrors in that country.
The trading and raiding are chiefly con-
fined to the east central portion of
Africa, and flourish most III the region
south of Lake Tchad and within the
great bend of the Niger. The gr, at
slave markets to-day are in Northern
Africa, Morocco, Tripoli and Fezzan,
and, to lesser degree sin Tunis and
ing from the Niger, the Binne and the
Shasi. From the Western Soudan the
slaves are taken across the Sahara to
Morocco or the Tripolitaine. Timbuc-
too, Murzuk, Ghadames, Tafelit and the
city of Morocco are the distributing
centres for the north of Africa. The
slaves obtained from the upper. basin of
the Nile are sold to the Muhdi, to Egypt,
and are taken across the Red Sea to
Arabia and Persia.
The great bulk of the slaves captured
in the Upper Congo and the equatorial
lakes are bought up by Arab, Swahilt
and Hindoo planters on the Zanzibag
| littoral, and these, since they do nor
| quit Africa, do not run the risk of beinld
recaptured and set free by the cruisers.
A small supply crossed the Mozambique
! Channel to Madagascar and the Comoro
Islands. The slaves dhows captured by
| the British cruisers on the Zanzibar
! coast, between Pangani and Cape
Guardafui, are those despatched to the
Persian Gulf to supply Oman, Persia
and Turkey, and it is now supposed that
very few cargoes get through.
The slave trade is, perhaps, as Mr..
Johnston says, entering upon its final
phase, but it will be years before it is
extinguished. Mr.. Johnston gives q
heartrending description of the way in
| which the slave raids are made in Cen
trail Africa, and his account is worthy of
transcription. Every year, he says, the
slave traders and raiders, mainly Mo
hammodans from the north, centre and
east, penetrate further and further into
the hooks and corners of Negus Africa.
! The Arabs, those pitiless man hunters,
suddenly appear "with their donkeys,
| horses and camels; their long clothes,
their guns, their prayers, their rites, s.
eases and vices, in regions OF the bow
and arrow and the spear, where the hap
py negroes have hitherto led an I'M
ruffied, bucolic existence" Their ad
vent Immediately brings change in
places formerly described as African par
| adises. If the man hunters fear that
! the opposition of district will be too
great they bribe one of the native chiefs
| to lend them assistance, cause q civil
war to break out in the land, and while
the natives are mutually staying and
! devastating the willy Arabs collect their
required number of slaves. "Or," says
! Mr.. Johnston, ''if the native community
| whence they desire to procure their
slaves appears too weak to resist, deter
i mine d onslaught il made. Creeping mp
through the long grass, gliding through
the encompassing belt of forest, select
| ing, no doubt, a time when most of the
fighting men are absent fishing or hunt
ing, the slave raiders suddenly pounce
on the doomed village, which they rap
idly encircle. The loud discharge of
their guns paralyzes the inhabitants
with terror, and the panic is doubtless
added to by the firing of the thatched
huts The few men who attempt an
Intellectual resistance with their spears
and clubs and bows and arrows are pitt
lessly shot down.
"The women, the boys and such
youths or young men as are easily over
powered are speedily secured; their
hands are usually tied behind their
backs. and their necks are invested with
the heavy forked sticks which the
slave-raiders have previously cut and
| brought with them on the backs of their
donkeys or their slave-porters. In ad-
/ L u. clo
are frequently tied together by long
twisted Llama cords, made of the tough
| bush-creepers. The little children are
rarely tied except with their heartstrings.
| Their attachment to their mothers and
the mothers determination not to be
parted from their children combine to
RS long, that is to say, as their poor
| little legs can carry them.
"The Arabs are not generally cruel to
the children. The children, as young
and tractnb,e ('tameableO subjects, are,
from self-interest, looked after with a
certain amount of solicitude; and if their
mothers cannot carry them, and they
cannot keep up with the caravan, they
are placed on the backs of the beasts of
burden / have in this way seen Jum-
ba Kimemeta, great slave-trader of
Eastern Equatorial Africa, transporting
o considerable number of slave children
to the coast The very young babies
are generally left behind unless the
mother when captured has her infant
slung to her back; and after q slave-rald
! has taken place, amid the smoking,
blackened ruins of the house and the
tramped maize-fields, you may see here
and there among the stiffening corpses
of the men and the crouching, dazed, in
articulately moaning old women, fat,
dimpled baby, who, already forgetful OF
the horrors it has scarcely understood,
babbles to itself as it traces with fore
finger the widening flow of its fathers
blood, or whimpers, in desultory man
ner, as it vaguely misses its mother.
The loss of life in Africa from the
raids of the slave traders and from the
subsequent journey to the markets is
terrible. The suffering of the poor vic
tins when on the march is horrible.
"During the first few days." says John
ston, "the loss of life among the slaves
is almost so per cent. The weakly who
fall down by the wayside, and are insen-
sible to blows and exhOrtations to rise,
are either shot or stabbed then and
there or are left to die of starvation and
thirst and the repeated bites of hyenas.
The progress of the caravan, indeed, is
attended (ns have myself seem with n
skulking following of hyenas and jackals
and bolder troop of vultures and Mar
abOu storks.
"Following in the track of Swahili
flave traders in East Africa Ito the south
of Kilinia-njaro), | have on several occa-
siOns come across the half-eaten bodies
of dead slaves, with the slave sticks still
attached to their necks. At the first con
venient halting-place that offers on the
route, such as Taverta, Nyangwe, Kano,
Euka or Timbuktoo, the Arabs stop and
rest and rearrange their caravan. Here
they weed out the weakly and diseased
who are not likely to repay them for
further transport. and these infirm-to
check any temptation on the part of
others 10 'malinger'-are killed and
thrown into the bush, where You, who
may be following the slaves, are led to
discover their remains by the horrible
effiuvia they cause and the maddening
howls and squabbles they give rise to at
night among the hyen"s and jackals.
Here also they proceed to mutilate a
large number of the boys in such bru-
tai and unskillful manner that not few
die in lingering agony from the effects
of the operation.
The Mohammedau East is responsible
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