The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1903-06-05
WILL STOP SLAVE RAIDING.
Great Britain Makes War Upon thu
oveIshndowins EVIL OF the
Central Soudan.

Within the past three months Brit
ish troops unaer Sir Francis Lugard
have put an end to the supremacy of
the sultan of Sokoto, east of the Niger.
river, in the central Soudan. They
have also occupied the famous town of
hano and subjected its Sultan. The
British flag is now supreme in the
great country of the Hausa tribes be-H
tween the Niger and Lake Tchad, says
the New York Sun.
One of the most significant announce
ments ina long time relating to At
RIGA is the statement in the London
Times that the British now propose to
make ar end, once for all, to slave raid
ing and the slave traffic throughout
the Hausa country.
The oyershadowing evil of the cen
trail Soudan is slave raiding and the
traffic in slaves. Up to this year, the
evil has seen entirely unchecked by
any Caucasian influence; and there is
probably no other part of Africa Of
equal size where the slave trade in
recent years has fourished as in the
Hausa country.
Most of the slaves are obtained, not
from outside of Hausaland, but, from
Hausa villages and towns. The cap
tors belong to the same tribe and a
as the persons they enslave. The re-
suit is that the country has practically
been in a condition of perpetual civil
war.
A petty sultan at any time is likely
to receive a message from his superior
lord ordering him to send at once a GER
tain number of slaves on pain of hav-
in his w towns raided. He accord
ingly selects some village within his
territory OF outside of it, against which
he quietlysends a force large enough
to overcome all resistance, attacks
the town, and carries off the inhabit-
ants.
Those who resist are killed on the
spot, and the remainder are marched
away in letters. Many of them have
been included in the. annual tribute
payable to the sultan of Sokoto, while
others are sent to some central slave
market to be sold or taken back to the
town of their captors.
When G.. II. Robinson Travelled in
Hausaland a few years ago he said
that about 1000 saves were brought
into Kano on a single occasion, as a re-
suit of a slave-raiding expedition. Be-
tween Kano and Bida he passed a
large number of towns and villages
that had recently been destroyed, and
whose Inhabitants had been sold as
slaves. This was done, not by foreign
Invaders, but by the sultan in whose
territory the towns were included.
He found that slaves are to a large
extent the currency of the country. A
native who is about to travel usually
takes with him slaves proportionatei in
number to the length of his journey.
After travelling perhaps 100 miles, he
will sell a slave and thentravel another
100 miles, when he will sell a second,
and thus by the time he returns home
he will have sold all his slaves and de-
voted the money to paying the ex-
pense Of his journey.
The maximum price for a 14-year-old
girl in Kano is about $35 to $50. A.
young man of 1s brings about $50, a
man of 80 about $2O-the price decreas-
ing as the age advances.
This is one of the more thickly peo-
pied parts of Afsica, and it will be a
great blessing to the hundreds of thou
sands when the terrible evil of slave
raiding is thoroughly suppressed. Life
is not secure in Hausaland. Few per-
sons know whether they will continue.
to have a home, a family and liberty
from one weeks end to another.
The certainty that the British have
the power and the intention to sup
press this terrible evil betokens bet
ter days and more prosperous and
peaceful times for this region, which,
in spite of the barbarism from which
it has suffered, is in many respects
more highly developed than most parts
of tropical Africa.
Sad Story OF Success.