The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1914-03-26
SLAVE TAKING
IN EAST AFRICA
IS DECREASING
DEFENSE FOR THE GERMAN col.
oNIEs THERE, HOWEVER, DE-
CLARED THAT IMMEDIATE
ABOLITION WOULD LEAD TO
NATIVE uPRlsINGs.

Berlin, March ga brief defend
| ing slavery for the colonies. declaring
that its immediate abolition would lead
to native risings, is handed in by the
governor Of German East Africa, DR..
Schnee. In response to a resolution
passed by the Reichstag last year,
calling for the termination Of house
| hold slavery by January /, 1920, DR..
Schnee has reported that there are
about $4,000 slaves in the colony at
present-many of them captives in
wars as late as 1905 and 1906 while
others are being imported even to-
day from Portuguese East Africa and
British Cape Colony. But the num-
Der is steadily growing less.
A law passed a few years ago lib
crates all children of household
slaves born after 1905; deaths are fur
Their reducing the number Of slaves:
many are able to buy their liberty
from sums ranging from 81 to SIS and
in addition many owners are volun-
tari1y giving their slaves freedom.
The governor predicts that slavery
practically viii have ceased to exist
without further restrictive measures
by 1880 and pleads against setting any
fixed date for a general emancipa ton,
which he declares would ruin many
plantatione-s, provoke rebellion among
the native farmers and cost the gov
eminent at least $2,0o0,000 to idemnify
owners for the loss of their prop
erty.
The governor uses arguments that
had familiar ring in the United
States sixty years ago. He says that
the negro by no means feels the lack
Of personal liberty as hardship, that
the slavery is a decidedly patriarchal
character, that the labor exacted is
light, that they are given certain days
each week to cultivate their own lit
tie garden. BY a general emancipa-
ton the aged slaves, who are now fed
and sheltered by thir owners when no
longer able to work, would be thrown
destitute upon the world
In discussion Of the report in the
budget committee of the Reichstag the
socialists and clericals sharply criti-
cized the attitude Of the government
behind which, they averred, was the
Of the plantation owners.
seeking a cheap supply of labor. Ad-
vertisements from colonial newspa-
pers, offering to sell or buy slaves
were read by the socialists, who de-
clared that the government was favor
Ing and even promoting the slave
trade, and a clerical leader alleged
that German planters organize regular
manhunts to get labor for their plan
tatfons. DR.. Solf, secretary of the state
for the colonies, admitted that the |
law has beer Interpreted to justify |
recruiting Of native labor |
for plantations and that grave in |
of the law had been COM |
mitted by native soldiers with the |
and consent OF their white |
officers.
The native population Of Africa is |
1t best steadily shrinking under con
tact with the white man. 1t has been |
thought that under the influence of |
white civilization, the cessation of the |
continual tribal wars and the intro
1uction Of scientific medical methods |
he negro population in Africa would |
grow rapidly. Diederich Westermann, |
professor at the Oriental Seminary Of |
he Berlin University, declares on the
contrary that the depopulation is
teady and rapid. He cites the report |
# a Catholic missionary, Father van
Ter Burgt, who after % years work
n German East Africa found that the
native population in that time had de-
;rea sed third If not half. Infant
leath rates Of from AZ to so per cent
md a surprisingly low birth rate are
actors which missionaries observed in
Togo, the Cameroons and other Afri-
an colonies as we'll as German East
Africa.