Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1889-10-04
The Benevolent Side Of Slavery.


her OF colored men were persuaded by
white demagogues to prefer a claim in
behalf Of their race for wages earned in
two centuries Of slavery, we suggested
a counter claim based on the civiliza-
ton impaired to them by slavery
Perhaps the subject was too whimsical
to deserve sober treatment, but con-
sidering that ST. many OF the founders
of the Republic we're Shareholders,
and that the thirteen colonies had
slaves when the revolution began and
continued to hold them when the con-
stitutiOn was adopted, and that New
England refused to come into the
which to get her shipping capital out
OF the slave trade, in which it was en-
barked, we thought the good name of
our founders required some vindica-
ten against the modern idea of slavery
and Shareholders.
Phillis Wheatley, negro slave girl
of Boston, native African, addressed Il
poem to General Washington, which
he acknowledged in an autograph.
The slave girl had genius. She was
brought naked to a barracoon on the
slave coast and shipped between decks
on Yankee SLAYER to Boston. But
she lived to write:
TWAS mercy brought me from my native land; ;
Taught my benighteu soul To understand
That there's a God and there's n Savior too.
Once redemption neither sought nor knew
To rid white men OF the multiplied
evils OF being slave holders, it was
necessary to magnify the horrors of
that condition to the slaves. Hence
we had Uncle Toms Cabin" and
Whittier's poetry of the North Star,
the underground railroad, and finally
the clash of arms.
Having gone through the polemical
and martial opinion on the slavery
question why not be philosophical
about it, in justice to our ancestors,
amongst whom the institution existed
at the very time they were fighting to
establish the liberties which we enjoy?
Yet when we attempted this philo-
| sophical treatment We were accused OF
upholding slavery and advocating its
rc-establishment,
Much has been written of its hor-
rors. Wilberforce denounced the slave
trade, which transferred the wild ne
groes from African freedom to bond
age abroad, as the sum of all villain
les" But let us now contrast the ef-
feet of slavery upon our population of
freedmen with the current conditions
of their race in Africa. This contrast
presents the useful and benevolent
side of slavery, and it is worth consid-
ing.
We find in the London papers of
three weeks ago this item of news
from Africa, which furnishes material
which is useful for the contrast we
have suggested.
| BY laten .es from the west coast of Africa
| II is learned that d most revolving sacrifice has
Just taken l.lIre in the interior.
few months ago the old king of Eboe died
abar Went up to pay their respects 10 the new
monarch. They were aware that for short
time after the death of the old King, whose
name was Jinphy. the "Ju Ju" rites were per
i formed but were under the impression that they
were now over.
| The horror of the English traders may be i'm
| agined when they discovered on their arrival al
nies were in full swing. They had been going
on for two months, and already some forty un
fortunate blacks had been sacrificed to appease
the " Ju Ju" dei:ies.
On the arrival of the traders the old king was
still lying in an open grave that had been dug
for him. 1t was large and dccp-largc enough
to accommodate nine of the departed rulers
youngest wives, who had been murdered in the
cruelest manner. Each Of them had had heI
ankles and wrists broken SO that she could
neither walk nor crawl. In this manned con.
dition. and suffering the most excruciating
pain, the poor creatures were placed at the
bottom OF the grave, seven of them lying side
in transverse direction. Then the two re
mining women were laid by his side.
There they were left without food or water to
wait for their kind hberator-death-which
however, it is said did not come to their release
| unit after four or five days of intense suffering
In the meantime four men were stationed
around the grave, armed with clubs. ready to
knock backward any of the women who, des
pite their tortures and pain, might manage to
| crawl 10 the side of the pit.
But this was not all. In other parts OF the
town other human sacrifices were taking place
suspended from various trees were the bodies
OF several men. They, too, were undergoing
agonizihg deaths, holes having been bored
through their feet just by the ankles. Through
| these holes ropes were drawn and the men tied
| to high tree and left to die.
! The traders were also unwilling witnesses OF
another frightfuI sacrificial execution. Motto.
Ing number of natives standing in a group
| they went 10 the spot to see what was going on
| iotheir horror The white men saw native tied
| by the feet and neck. The rope attached to the
| neck was thrown over the limb of tree in one
direction, while that attached 10 the feet was
tled 10 tree in an opposite direction. The
| ropes were then drawn tightly. and when the
| body was nearly torn asunder, a native with a
hatchet struck at the neck severing the head
| from the body. The head was then thrown into
the grave where the king was lying. and the
| body was eaten by the cannibal natives.
| The traders, while i'texpressibly shocked at
| these fendish practices. were powerless to stop
them. as the natives wo I'D not brook the slight
| est Interference with their religious customs .
| and such Interference would have bees under.
taken at the peril of the lives of the white men.
| All they could do was to make their way back
TO Caiabar and await the termination OF these
bloody rites Before leaving they learned that
| seven men would be sacrificed each month
| during the next ten months.
Contrast this picture from the Dark
Continent with the maximum of mis-
cry endured by the African slaves in
the United States, and who shall say
that the condition of the race here,
even in the most sombre crisis of it's
bondage, was not an elevation Overtop-
ping its voluntary and accepted state
in its own habitat?
King Jinphy and his funeral rites is
| nrlu Of nf fr,n,,. 4