The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-03-14

II Talk with the Richest and Most Powerful


Man in Central Africa.
Brussels Letter in New York sun.
Before Lieutenant Becker left Africa,
where he had spent three years, he had
long talk with the famous Tippu Tip, the
richest man in Central Africa, on the slave
trade in the Dark Continent. Few people
in Europe who read of him have any con-
ceptiop of the power and wealth this man
has acquired during his twenty-five years
in Central Africa. On Reclus's map con-
siderable part of the eastern. territory of
the. Congo State is. indicated as THE Do
mense operations of this princely trader
may be gathered from the size of
the caravan he was taking to Fan
Zibar 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 thousand
armed slaves to guard his ivory. His ivory
porters numbered :, 900 slaves, each of whom
carried tusk. The property he was tax
ing, to the coast included, therefore, 1000
cession stretched for miles along the narrow
roadway, and no such enormous caravan
had ever before been seen in equatorial
Africa.
ness in his defense of slavery. white
men," he said have very incorrect ideas of
our manners and customs. They have the
etirontery to propose to abolish at once in
other lands institutions which quite recent
~ tiOurished in their own. / am told that
ago, nearly all common people were slaves,
and great misery has befallen them since
they became their own masters.
What is the difference between a slave
and servants The servant is free ard
may leave his master when he pleases. So
may my slaves. i have no guards to keep
them from deserving me. They are too well
content with their lot to run away. If l
were unjust to them, perhaps they might
flee. But, how would that help thems They
would simply fall once more into the power
of their equals to be sold again, to be NAL
treated, TO be killed, perhaps, or to toll,
very likely twice as. hard as they did be-
fore.
"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 abOmnlable yoke of
negro tyrant for the protecting care of an
Arab master, whose gion 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 serv-
ants.
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
DetUeT IOT UDtUl I'D ldll lIlUO our uduuS UQdu
into. those of tribal enemies, who kill or
further degrade. them. Ii yOu call it i'm
moral to compel men to work for their
bread, men who would rather steal it than
win ii honorably, would like to ask ON
what basis your morality resist
If all the savages and canibals of Africa
could be reduced to slavery their children
would some day constitute nations and
would bless us for lifting ITEM out of a
state of savagery. The slave trade exists
har in ha int and tho fri
himself does not wish to suppress it. He
would sell himself if he were emancipated
Freedom for him means nothing more than
license to steal. to kill; to get drunk. You
come here with your theories from Europe,
but l tell you the facts as they exist in
Africa"
Lieutenant Becker says the Arabs in the
lake regions no longer send out slave-steal-
ing expeditions, but only buy the slaves
that are brought to their markets. We
know, however. that they stimulate slave
hunting and all it's horrors by the large
markets for slaves which they maintain.
Tippu lib did not speak of the inhuman
and murderous aspects of the slave trade.
1t must DO admitted. however, that in
Africa there is force in some of his argu-
ments. Becker says: Between the happy,
faithful, and devoted slaves of Tippu lib,
and the wretched men-slayers and cattle
thieves we meet here In q free condition, no
comparison can be made"
The fact that this same Tippu lib is now
In the service of a white government, and
subsidized for the express purpose of stop
ping slave raids and compelling his Arab
brethren to submit to the new regime intro
duced from Europe is not so strange as it
appears. This powerful person is a consist
ent Tippu lib man every time. His chief
interest is ivory, and the great cost of send
ing tnsks 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 it without cooperating with
the whites. For this reason he promised to
stop slave raidng and to restore order in
the Stanley Falls district, and he has
done it.