The Dallas express. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970, 1922-07-29
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Taking up the bloody slkein of the
slave traffic where we left it
in our last article. we note at the be-
ginning Of the 18th century this awful
! trade had reached staggering proper
tions-the European nations vyine
with each other in the number OF
black people captured and transported
to the New World. Between the heart
less semi-savage Arab and the mer-
cenary European, who had by this
time become blinded to every human
impulse and thought only of the
whole scheme in the light of gold and
silver. the poor black man passed
miserable existance. The English
ing hold of this new line of commerce.
the slave. but by the dawn of this
period they had fully committed them
selves to the slave policy and of the
more than 10000 Negroes torn from
their homes each year, the British
brought more than half of them away.
At first the slaves were captured
chiefly on the Gambia and other riv-
ers of Sierra Leone and from the
Gold Coast where they were supplied
by the Dutch through their never
ending ware with the Ashanti people
but as the demand for Sieve labor in
creased new and richer iields We're
tapped in the Portuguese Angola Pos
sessions and the regions of zambezi.
and the net work Of swampy regions
now known as the Niger river AS /
live in these surroundings, as every
black man must live who considers
them, 1t is impossible to interpret the
work of Providence in 1t all, unless
there L. something better for the
Negro some where. While sailing along
this historic Coast, one seems to feel
as all his people felt there centuries ago
4. III alao IL.
human history was being enacted and
recorded in the annals of man. One
can almost hear the echoes from the
cries of frantic mothers, despite the
lapse Of years, as they wore being
torn away from their children and
other family ties being broken never
to be mended. You will find all these
human feelings In the breast 81 the
average heather. When the whole West
Coast was alive with slave hunters
and cargoes were moving In vast num-
bers carrying their victims to all
parts OF the New World. reaction be-
gan. Slowly there grew up in en-
gland, in Denmark and even in Amer
lea, the feeling that there was some
thing radically wrong In a system
that thrust such untold misery upon
human beings as the slave trade did
upon the Africans. ! am unable to be-
lieve that this feeling did not from
the beginning haunt the more con-
scientious among the slave dealers
and slave holders-the fact that many
men when dying liberated their slaves
seems an argument in favor of that
impression. Despite efforts to the
contrary. these people could not es-
cape the conviction that the Negro
was truly a species OF the human
family. But this was put to the final
test by thousands OF whites and In
the black man was low
err in the scale of human development
tho fact that he could interbreed
with all other races of men, and learn
to speak their language gave fim his
place in the human family. But this
fellow feeling only found expression
here and there in a few individuals
L was about the close Of the 18th
century before II began to approach
ny thing like national proportions in