The Portland daily press., 1889-11-19
Tho African Slave Trade.

s~HS "Ab oAofSiJ SOHEiOoo nhlCu inCt
yesterday in Brussels, is one of the most i'm
portant gatherings of the times. 1t was only
century ago that the slave trade was put
under the ban by the most civilized nations;
yesterday congress assembled to devise
means to root it out of Its last lurking place,
and in that congress met not only the repre-
sentative of the European states oldest in
civilization, but also the delegates of Persia,
Of the Congo free state. and of Zanzibar.
Against slavery itself the congress will
probably lift no voice, for public sentiment
has always been slower in respect to this
than before the greater horrors of the slave
trade. The Constitution of the United
States while protecting the slave trade only
until 1908 protected the institution of slavery
itself until over half century later. In so
much Of Africa as is dominated by the No
hammedan religion, and Mohammedanism is
making rapid strides in that continent, the
condition of the slave is not one of unmitiga
ted hardship. The Koran inculates kindness
to slaves; the child of the female slave by
her master is free in all Mohammedan coun-
tries; ana the transition from the position of
female slave to that Of lawful wife of her
master is frequent and easy. Among the
barbarous tribes slavery is horrible; but its
horrors would probably be greatly mitigated
by the abolition of the slave trade, with
which it is closely connected. For the Arab
man hunters are not wholly responsible for
the devastations of the traffic any more than
were the company of Ishmaelites from Gile-
ad wholly responsible for the captivity of
Joseph. An eminent authority on African
society has lately written that ii three ne
groes are sent on journey the chances are
that the two will combine and sell the one
into slavery. That is, the trade has bru-
talized people already barbarians, and
when the powerful among these people hold
slaves, their crueltes are almost unmention-
able. King Mtesa, the late monarch of
Uganda, who was regarded by the missiona-
ries as very kind old fellow, as old fellows
90 in Africa, thought nothing of numbering
slaves by the wholesale. If he dreamed of
the gods he would straightway put to death
hundred slaves or so to appease the jeal-
GUS deities. One day he put to death 500
slaves in the morning because he dreamed
Of his father the night before. But
such cruelties are not so much incidents of
the Institution of slavery as they are of the
condition of barbarism for Mtesa was
equally cruel to such of his subjects as fell
In his way. There will be barbarities and
there will be slavery in Africa for many
years to come. and Europe cannot wholly
prevent it, But the slave trade, which is
the one barbarity which is most largely an
Indictment to other barbarities, can probably
be put down; and the congress which met
VQSfQrdQu wi 70 +bo
and obtain the means. According to the
computation of Cardinal Lavigerie, who is
probably the best authority on the subject,
5000 lives are lost every day in connection
with the African slave trade. Whole vii
lagos are raided, the men murdered and the
women and children chained in long files
and started on forced march to a market,
which two-thirds of them never live to reach.
They are prodded with spears and urged on
by the lash until only the strongest survive.
The chain goes from neck to neck, and can
easily be undone if one falls; but the slave
driver prefers to cut off the head of the ex-
hausted wretch as it is the quickest way of
getting rid of the encumbrance. native
youth who was rescued by Cardinal Lavi-
gerle, saw his little sister murdered before
his eyes because she could not keep up with
the line, and was himself sold by the Arab
merchant to native king who wanted fifty
slaves to burn alive for the appeasement of
an evil spirit. 1t is for these Arab "mer-
chants" that the anti-slavery congress pro-
poses to devise measures of suppression.
Various preliminary. suggestions have been
made which the Congress will probably con-
slider. 1t is thought that it would be best to
declare the slave trade piracy: then in addi-
ton trained bodies of men could be sent to
teach the native tribes to defend themselves,
and it is even suggested that negroes from
the United States might bring their superior
education and abilities to the aid of their
hunted brethren. The civilized world will
wait with great interest the outcome of these
deliberations, and with still greater concern
will hope that the great powers that find it
so easy to raise millions to fight one another
may find some way to sacrifice little in a
joint effort to put down the great barbarity
of the AGE