Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-05-16
T!PPU TIB ON SLAVERY.
A Talk With the Richest and Most Power.
full Man In Central Africa.

ful Man In Central Africa
Before Lieut.. Becker left Africa,
where he had spent three years, he
had long talk with the famous Tippu
| lib. the richest man in Central Africa,
on the slave trade in the Dark Con-
tinent. Few people in Europe who
read of him have any conception of
the power and wealth this man has
I acquired during his twenty-five years
in Central Africa. On Reclus's map
considerable part of the Eastern terri
tory of the Congo State is indicated as
THE Domain of Tippu Tip" Some
| idea of the immense operations of this
| princely trader may be gathered from
the size of the caravan he was taking
to Zanzibar when Becker met him at
Tabora. Some powerful chiefs were
at war in the country through which
he had travelled, and he had with him
a thousand armed slaves to guard his
ivory. His ivory porters numbered
| 1000 slaves, each of whom carried
tusk. The property he was taking to
the coast included, therefore, 1000
tusks of ivory and 5000 slaves. The
procession stretched for miles along
the narrow roadway. and no such
enormous caravan had ever before
been seen in equatorial Africa.
Tippu Tip showed his intellectual
acuteness in his defence of slavery.
"White men," he said, "have very in
correct ideas of our manners and GUS
toms. They have the effrontery to
propose to abolish at once in other
lands institutions which quite recently
| flourished in their own. | am told that
in big country called Russia, some
years ago, nearly all common people
were slaves, and great misery has be-
fallen them since they became their
Own masters.
"What is the difference between a
slave and a servantP The servant is
free and may leave his master when
he pleases. So may my slaves. l
have no guards to keep them from de-
serting me. They are too well content
with their lot to run away. If were
unjust to them, perhaps they might
flee. But how would that help themp
They would simply fall once more into
the power of their equals, to be sold
again, to be maltreated, to be killed,
perhaps, or to toll, very likely twice as
hard as they did before.
'You say it is immoral to own slaves;
that slavery debases men and puts
| them on a level with cattle. Now, it
does not debase a negro to exchange
the abominable yoke of negro tyrant
for the protecting care of an Arab
master, whose religion commands him
to be benevolent and just. You say
the negroes are our brethren. Well,
we treat them quite fraternally, since
we raise our children with theirs. We
are kinder to them than you are to
your lackeys. | would not dare to
treat negro as | have seen white
travellers treat their white servants.
If we buy men it is only because
they are offered to US, and we cannot
procure labor in any other way; and |
am sure it is better for them 60 fall in
to our hands than into those of tribal
enemies, who kill or further degrade
them. If you call it immoral to COM
pei men to work for their bread, men
who would rather steal it than win it
honorably, | would like to ask on what
basis your morality rests.
elf all the savages and cannibals of
Africa could be reduced to slavery their
children would some day constitute
nations, and would bless us for lifting
them out of state of savagery. The
slave trade exists everywhere in the
interior, aud the African himself does
not wish to suppress it. He would sell
himself if he were emancipated. Free
dom for him means nothing more than
license to steal, to kill, to get drunk.
You come here with your theories from
Europe, but [ tell you the facts as they
exist in Africa"
Lieut.. Becker says the Arabs in the
lake regions no longer send out slave
stealing expeditions, but only buy the
slaves that are brought to their mark
cts. We know, however, that they
stimulate slave hunting and all its hor-
rors by the large markets for slaves
which they maintain. Tippu lib did
not speak of the inhuman and murder
Gus aspects of the slave trade. 1t must
be admitted, however, that in Africa
there is force in some of his arguments.
Becker says: Between the happy,
faithful. and devoted slaves of Tippu
lib, and the wretched men slayers
and cattle thieves we meet here in a
free condition, no comparison can be
made"
The fact that this same Tippu lib is
now in the service of white Govern
ment, and subsidized for the express
purpose of stopping slave raids and
compelling his Arab brethren to SUBJ
NIT to the new regime introduced from
Europe is not so strange as 1t appears.
This powerful person is consistent
Tippu lib man every time. His chief
interest is ivory, and the great cost of
sending tusks by porters from the
Congo to Zanzibar has cut sadly into
his profits. He needs the Congo route
to the sea, and he cannot get itwithout
cooperating with the whites. For this
reason he promised to stop slave raid
ing and to restore order in the Stanley
Falls district, and he has done it.