Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1908-05-08
TELLS OF SLAVE HORRORS.
General Pienaar Describes Atrocities
in West Africa.

|
The members of the Woman's
Wealth Protective Association were
narrowed by two separate sorrows al
their meeting at the Academy of Medi
cine. DR.. Harriette c. Keatinge read
a paper giving graphic pictures Of
the evils caused by the overcrowding
of the tenement houses of the great
cities. General Pienaar, who has trav.
elled from West Africa to tell England
and America of the Portuguese slave
trade on that coast, related stories oi
the atrocities he had seen that made
the women who heard him sit in hor-
rified silence.
Il know it is not pleasant to you
to hear these things" General Pienaai
said, but feel that l must speak OF
the sufferings of those people, -four
and one-half millions of people, who
have no one to look up to, no one &C
help them. Portugal will not help
them. The owners of the great plan.
tations In Angola and the cocoa islands
OF the coast live in Lisbon, and many
OF them are government officials and
very rich. When they want slaves
they send to the slave traders in An.
COLA. These traders go to the inland
chiefs-the strong chiefs-and these
chiefs send, not their own people, but
the weaker tribes they conquer. The
cattle belonging to these tribes they
keep for themselves; the women they
give to their warriors; the children
they sell to the colonists, and the men
they shackle and ship to the cocoa isl
ands, where the fevers kill them off
by the hundreds in little while.
1T Is this separation of the fam
lilies that is the worst feature of the
slave trade IN Angola. In the Congo
are many atrocities, but there at least
the enslaved families are not separat-
ed.
Il have seen little children whipped
to death. l have seen a man beaten
till he could not stand, because it was
said he refused to work. When |
asked him why he would not work he
showed me his hands. They had been
beaten out of all semblance of human
hands, and why? To make him con-
fess to the crime-of which he was
only suspected-of stealing a bottle
Of brandy
Il have seen a cart loaded with
forty-two little children sold away
from their parents, and when the fran
tic parents tried to get near their chill
dren the drivers took down their long
OK whips and lashed them away. To
show you how much the Portuguese
care for the Kaffirs: When in West
Africa ! spoke to Portuguese about
a Kaffir chief whose head had been
struck of. He laughed.
lis it Kaffir you talk about?' he
said. Why, would rather strike off |
the heads of six Kafir chiefs than
give one kick/to this dog pointing to
the pet dog that lay at his feet. / |
have seen these things of which | tell |
you" General Pienaar added, "and |
am prepared to prove them. 1t would |
be of little use to talk if could not"
General Pienaar held a government |
office in Angola, but when it was found |
that he'was opposed to slave holding
so many attempts were made upon his
life that he was forced to leave the |
place. His mission to England and |
America is to get signatures to a mon
ter petition to be presented to these
governments asking them to bring
PRESSURE upon Portugal to abolish the
lave trade.-New York Tribune.