Chapter XI (2)

The slave, on the other hand, has lost by not being exported. It is the same in the Oil rivers of West Africa, where in 1838 Sir T. Fowell Buxton proposed to substitute for illegal and injurious, harmless and profitable trade leading to ‘Christianity, which would call forth the capabilities of the soul, and elevate the savage mind.’ It was expected that at Benin, for instance, man would become too valuable as a labourer to be sold as a chattel. Unhappily the reverse took place; man became so cheap, that to work and to starve him to death paid better than to feed him. A fresh gang could be purchased for a few shillings, and the price of provisions was of far more importance than the value of life. The Buxtonian idea was founded upon simple ignorance of Africa, and upon the ill-judged assertion that slavery was caused by foreigners. The internal wars, whose main object is capturing serviles, are the normal state of Blackland society; they continued and they will continue, whether slavers touch the coast or not. Briefly, the results to the captive are now not sale, but slaughter or sacrifice in the interior, and death by starvation upon the coast.

When I visited Zanzibar, in 1857, the English public, periodically stimulated by the Liberal press, had split up, on the subject of the African slave trade, into two sets of opinions, both honestly believed in, both diametrically opposed to each other, and both somewhat in extremes. The one sanguinely represented it as crushed, and congratulated the nation upon having dealt its death-blow to a system which was rotting the roots of prosperity and progress. The others despondently declared that, although in some places the snake was scotched, yet that it was nowhere killed; they proved that whilst slavery had increased in horrors, the result of our interference, yet the average quantity of the wretched merchandise had not been diminished; they opined that nothing save the special interposition of Providence could end that which had so long baffled many best efforts; and being well acquainted with details, they maintained that the average opinion was a mere pandering to popularity at the expense of truth. And, when weary of the self-glorifying theme whose novelty had engrossed the attention of their fathers, the public readily attributed selfish motives to those who would enliven their zeal.

Fact, as usual, lay between the two assertions, but the inner working of the slave-abolition measures was known only to few, and those few hardly cared to speak out. England, ripe for free labour, had resolved to throw off the African; she kicked away, to use a popular phrase, the ladder by which she had risen, and she made slavery, for which she had shed her best blood in the days of Queen Anne, the sum of all villanies in the reign of King George. This was natural. The steps by which nations attain to the summit of civilization appear, as they are beheld from above, gradations of mere barbarism: to revert to them would be as possible as to enjoy the nursery tales which enlivened our childhood.

Other European peoples were not in the condition of England to dispense with slave labour, but the termination of a long continental war was made the inducement to sign abolition treaties. All were so much waste- paper, not being based upon public opinion. As long as Cuba and the slave-importers of the Western world required (A.D. 1830-57) an annual supply of 100,000 men, their demands were supplied. Neither the word piracy, nor the prospect of hanging from the yard-arm—a remedy more virulent than the disease—could deter adventurers from engaging in a trade where a ‘pretty girl’ was to be ‘bought for a few rolls of tobacco, fathoms of flannel, and pieces of calico,’ and whose profits were estimated at 200 per cent. As long as sugar, tobacco, and dollars increase, so long will the desire for more support the means by which the supply may be increased. Of old one cargo run home out of three paid: presently one in four was found sufficient. The losses, however, added greatly to the misery of the slave; ships were built with 18 inches between decks, one pint of water ahead was served out per diem, and five wretches were stowed away instead of two. With curious contradiction and ‘wrong-headedness,’ these evils, caused by an abolitionary squadron, were quoted against the slaver, as if the diabolical malignity of the latter could be gratified only by destroying his own property.

It was soon discovered that the slaves, being often condemned criminals,[121] could not be returned under pain of death to their homes. The natural result was to disembark them free upon English ground, and thus certain British colonies were amply supplied with the hands of which their government was depriving foreign powers. This proceeding added jealousy to the ill-will with which our ‘meddling and muddling’ philanthropy was regarded. But both those chiefly concerned— the slaver and anti-slaver—gained; for the former the price of his wares was kept up, whilst the latter made not a little political capital out of his position. Slave exportation might at once have been crushed at head-quarters: Madrid could have ended it in Cuba; Lisbon, and Rio de Janeiro, in Africa and in the Brazil; it was, however, judged best to let it die quietly, and to make as much use as possible of its dying throes. Some five years ago, after defying for a generation the squadrons of civilized Europe and the United States, it perished of itself, and to-morrow it would revive if the old conditions of its existence could be restored.

The Zanzibar slave-depôt is so situated that its market was limited only by the extent of Western Asia. From Ra’as Hafun to the Kilima-ni river was gathered the supply for the Red Sea, for the Persian Gulf, for the Peninsula of Hindostan, and for the extensive regions to the East. A spirited trade was carried on, and few obstacles were placed in its way. The Anglo-India Government did not in this matter rival the zeal of the Home Authorities. It lacked earnestness, judging slavery leniently, and finding the practice conducive to the well-being of its subjects. A squadron of at least four steamers was required: the work was left to a sloop and a corvette stationed in the Persian Gulf, with orders, amongst other things, to arrest slavers. The Cape squadron, whose beat extended to the Equator, rarely visited these seas, and the French ships of war were popularly said to do more harm than good. Even in after years, when a considerable impulse was given to our cruisers, they could capture only 6.6 per cent.: thus, from Zanzibar and Kilwa, in 1867-9 were taken 116 daus carrying 2645 slaves, leaving 37,000 to escape. There were neither special agents nor approvers; steam-launches and crews sufficiently numerous for arduous boat-service were wanting. An infinite deal of nothing in the shape of bescribbled foolscap was collected, by way of sop for the Court of Directors and for Exeter Hall; but the counsels of such authorities as Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton and Capt. Felix Jones, I. N., were passed over with the scant attention of a compliment. The fact is, in British India, as to a certain extent in France, no political capital could be made out of Abolition. Few men retain, after long residence in the East, that lively horror of the institution which distinguishes the home-bred Englishman, and which has arisen partly from his crass ignorance of negro nature and from the misrepresentations of very earnest but also deluded anti-slavers. The Anglo-Indian has seen many a chattel happy and contented, enjoying an enviable lot compared with the poor at home free to starve or to die in the workhouse: possibly he has dined with some emancipated slave: certainly he has heard of Mamluk Beys and purchased Pashas; and, whilst he owns in the abstract that one man has no right to buy another, in practice he is lenient to the ‘patriarchal system.’

The apathy of the Anglo-Indian Government gave the cue to its executive. When it was proposed that the Cutch ‘Nakhodas’ (skippers) should be compelled to keep crew-lists for inspection, some ‘collector’ objected that such men cannot write—surely he must have known that every vessel carries its own ‘Kirani,’ or accountant. That imperium in imperio the Supreme Court, was enough to paralyze the energies of a fleet; the captured slave-dau was carried to Bombay, whence, after a year’s detention by the claws of the law, it was probably restored to its owner. The officers of the Indian Navy would not exercise increased vigilance, necessitating exposure of their men and neglect of other more important duties, when their labours were so likely to be made futile. And as very little prize money was followed by a very large amount of correspondence, slaver-hunting appeared as undesirable to them as to the officers of the French squadron on the West Coast of Africa.

At Zanzibar, where the French Consul, or in his absence the first ‘Drogman’ (like all consuls here, their office is rather political than commercial), could fine and imprison an offender, and even ship off a merchant skipper to the nearest port, the English functionary was a magistrate absolutely without magisterial or criminal jurisdiction. He could not deport an Indian convicted of slave-dealing. Whilst the Arab Courts were not allowed jurisdiction over British subjects, the latter, unless merchant seamen ashore, were not liable to be arrested for felony. All this might easily have been remedied by extending eastward the British Order in Council for the exercise of power and jurisdiction by English functionaries (e.g. Consuls for the Levant), in the Ottoman Dominions (June 19, 1844), and by adding power ashore to Article 124 of Consular Instructions, making offences on the high seas cognizable by the Consul.

Thus, despite Order upon Ordinance, Asia was supplied by the whole slave-coast of Eastern Africa, without hardly the decency of concealment. Boys and girls might be seen on board every native craft freshly trapped in the inner wilds, unable to speak a word of any language but the Zangian, and bearing upon their heads the trade-marks of the Hindu Banyan. The commerce was openly carried on by aliens sailing under British protection. Kidnapping was common and daring, as about Lagos and Badagry. Scarcely a vessel manned by crews from Súr or Ra’as el Khaymah, the greatest ruffians of these pirate seas, left Zanzibar city or mainland without stealing a few negros or negrets. By the temptations of a bottle of rum or of some decoy girl, they were enticed into the house or on board, and they suddenly found themselves safe under hatches: even Arabs, men and women, have been carried off in mistake by these inveterate thieves. A child here worth from £1 5_s._ to £3 would fetch in Persia £14 to £20; hence the practice. And the anti- slave exportation treaties became exactly worth their weight in words, because the sword was known to be sheathed.

The slaves on Zanzibar Island are roundly estimated, at two-thirds of the population; some travellers increase the number to three-fourths. The annual loss of males by death, export, and desertion, amounted, I was told, to 30 per cent., thus within every fourth year the whole gang upon a plantation required to be renewed. The actual supply necessary for the Island is now estimated at a total varying from 1700 to 6000, and leaving 12,000 to 16,000 for the export slave-market. As usual in Moslem lands, they may be divided into two distinct classes: first, the Muwallid or Mutawallid, the Mazáliyá of the Wasawahili, the famulus or slave born in the family, or rather on the Island; secondly, the captive or imported chattel.

The Muwallid belongs solely to his mother’s owner, who sells him or gives him away at pleasure. Under no circumstances can he claim manumission—one born a slave is a slave for ever, even in the next world, amongst those nations which, like the Dahomans, have a next world. If notoriously ill-treated, however, he may compel his proprietor to dispose of him. Few Arabs behave cruelly to their ‘sons;’ they fear desertion, which here is always easy, and the master, besides being dependent for comfort upon his household, is also held responsible for the misdeeds of his property. He is also probably living in concubinage with the sisters of his slaves, and in this case the latter can take great liberties—they are the most unruly of their kind. I need hardly remark that the issue of a slave-girl by an Arab or by any other ‘Hurr’ (free-born man) has been legitimate in El Islam since the days of Ishmael, inheriting like the son of a lawful wife, and that neither mother nor child can be sold. It is to be regretted that in this matter the Christian did not take example of the Mohammedan.

The domestic slave-girl rarely has issue. This results partly from the malignant unchastity of the race, the women being so to speak in common; and on the same principle we witness the decline and extinction of wild tribes that come in contact with civilized nations. The chief social cause is that the ‘captive’ has no interest in becoming a mother; she will tell you so in the Brazil as in Zanzibar; her progeny by another slave may be sold away from her at any moment, and she obviates the pains and penalties of maternity by the easy process of procuring abortion.

The wild slaves are brought over in daus which carry from 10 to 500 head. Most of those intended for the Island market are comparatively young: the Portuguese settlements at Mozambique give higher prices for able-bodied adults. Since the last treaty the value has more than trebled; what then cost $10 has now risen to $30 to $35. A small boy fresh from the mainland commands from $7 to $15; a girl under 7 or 8 years old, from $10 to $18. The live cargo pays duty to the Zanzibar and Kilwa custom-houses, as at Zayla, Tajurrah, and the slave-exporting harbours of the Red Sea: the sick and the refuse, however, enter free. About 1835 the import duty varied from $0.50 to $4, according to the port whence the ‘black ivory’ was shipped: some races had such an ill fame that only excessive cheapness found purchasers. Presently $2 and at last $1 were levied upon all, good or had. Of late years (1857) the annual maximum collected was $23,000: this enables us to rate the import at an average of 14,000 to 15,000 per annum, the extreme being 9000 or 18,000. In 1860-61 it rose to 19,000, in 1861-62 it fell to 14,000, and in 1862-63 there was a further declension.[122]

The impudence and audacity of the wild slaves almost passes belief. Such is their habit of walking into any open dwelling and carrying off whatever is handy, that no questions are asked about a negro shot or cut down in the act of simple trespass. At night they employ themselves in robbing or smuggling, and at times in firing a house, when they join the crowd and spread the flames for the purpose of plunder. They are armed burglars, and not a few murders are laid at their door. In the plantation they gratify their savage, quarrelsome, and ungovernable tempers, by waging desultory servile wars with neighbouring gangs; hundreds will turn out with knobsticks, stones, and a few muskets, and blaze wildly in the direction of one another: at the first casualty all will run. Some proprietors have had as many as 2000 blacks—not half the number often owned in the Southern United States, and in the Brazil—but at those times the negro was worth only from $3 to $10. They were allowed two days out of the week to fish for themselves, and to work at their own patches of ground.

Of late years the Zanzibar serviles have attempted to compete with the honest and hardworking porters of Hazramaut; but they cannot keep their hands from picking and stealing, and thus they have ruined several of their ‘Akidahs,’ or headmen, who rendered themselves responsible to the merchant. Being capable of considerable although desultory exertion, they get a living by day-work on board European ships, and they prefer this employment because they receive rations of rice and treacle, with occasionally a bit of beef or pork. When there is no work upon the plantation its slaves are jobbed at the rate of 8 to 10 pice per diem, and of this sum they receive 2, about the wage of an Indian ‘biggaree.’ Of course they do their best to defraud their masters of the hire.

The following are the distant races of whom a few serviles find their way to Zanzibar.

Circassians and white slave girls being exceedingly rare, are confined to the harems of the rulers. They are brought from Persia, and are as extravagant in tastes as they are expensive in prime cost. A ‘Járiyeh bayza’ soon renders the house of a moderately rich man unendurable.

Abyssinians, or rather Africans from Gurague, Amhara, and the continent north of the parallel of Cape Guardafui, are mostly imported from El Hejaz. Boys and lads range from $50 to $100: girls, from $60 to $150. The former are circumcised, and having a good reputation for honesty, intelligence, and amiability, they are educated as stewards, superintendents, and super-cargos. The latter, though exceedingly addicted to intrigue, are favourites with men, and, it is said, with Arab women.

Galla captives of many tribes, especially of the Arisha and a few of the southern Somal, are shipped from Hafun, Brava, and Hanir or Makdishu. They fetch low prices, and are little prized, being considered roguish and treacherous. In appearance they are savage likenesses of the Abyssinians.

The coast of Zanzibar, which before the days of the Periplus supplied the eastern world with slaves, has of late years been exhausted by over- driving. It may be divided into two sections: the northern country, which exports from Mombasah and the little adjacent harbours as far south as the Pangani river; and the southern regions between Pangani and Kilwa. Details concerning all these servile races will be given when we visit their respective ports.

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Footnote 103:

Further details will be given in Part II. chap. xi.

Footnote 104:

A highly interesting account is given of this almost unknown race by
the Rev. Thomas Wakefield in his ‘Footprints in Eastern Africa, or
Notes of a Visit to the Southern Gallas’ (London, Reed. 1866, pp. 76-
79). We are told that ‘the Gálas never stab a Mlangúlo, but removing
the blades of their spears, they thrash him to death with the shafts
or handles:’ moreover, that ‘the Walangúlo approach a Gála on their
knees, crying, “tiririsho! tiririsho! tiririsho!” until their greeting
is acknowledged by a grunt from their lord or by the latter spitting
out a little saliva!’

Footnote 105:

The curious reader will find it in the Travels of Marco Polo (chap.
xxxvii. note 1, p. 432, of Bohn’s Antiquarian Library).

Footnote 106:

Mr Cooley (Geog. 37) tells us that ‘Conda, in Congoese and also in
Sawahili, means hill.’ It certainly does not in Zanzibar, where Konda
is an adjective, lean or thin. Konde means the fist (in Arabic جِمع
and Khonde is applied to a Shamba or plantation.

Footnote 107:

M. Guillain (Part II. 108) calls the preliminary ceremony ‘Outoumba,’
and I cannot help thinking that he was grossly ‘sold’ by some
exceedingly impudent interpreter.

Footnote 108:

The areca-nut is called in Arabic Fofal, and in Kisawahili Popo: the
betel-nut, Tambul and Tambuli, and the lime Nurah and Choka.

Footnote 109:

This is repeated by my friend (p. 59, The Idol in Horeb: Evidence that
the golden image at Mount Sinai was a cone, and not a calf. London:
Tinsleys, 1871), who, however, informs us that in 1846 Major, now Sir
Henry, Rawlinson agreed with him in saying that, ‘the class of
languages to which the designation Semitic or Semitish is properly
applicable is that comprising the whole of the aboriginal languages of
Asia, Polynesia, and America.’ This latter continent, however, should
not have been included without proofs, and hitherto we have failed to
find them.

Footnote 110:

Grammar of the Baĕlele language, &c., by the Missionaries of the A. B.
C. F. M. Gaboon Station, Western Africa. New York: Pratt, 1854. Also
Grammar of the Mpongwe language, &c., by the same. New York: Snowdon
and Pratt, 1847.

Footnote 111:

A Vocabulary of the Malemba and Embomma Languages. (Appendix I.
Tuckey’s Expedition to the River Zaire. London: Murray, 1818.) Also
Fr. B. M. de Cannecatim’s Diccionario da Lingua Bunda. Lisboa, 1804.

Footnote 112:

When travelling in East Africa I took as a base the vocabulary of
Catherine of Russia, and filled it up with five dialects, viz., those
of the Sawahil, Uzaramo, Khutu, Usagara, and Unyamwezi.

Footnote 113:

In these days, however, we cannot say, with the Opener of Inner Africa
(p. 123), ‘The Nilotic family of languages nowhere extends into the
basin of the Nile.’

Footnote 114:

I have sketched the distinguishing points of the Hamitic tongues in my
Preface (p. xxii.) to ‘Wit and Wisdom from West Africa’ (London:
Tinsleys, 1865).

Footnote 115:

Mr Ross Browne has lately been engaged in writing a voluminous report
to the Government at Washington upon the mineral resources of the
Western States of the Union.

Footnote 116:

Messrs Monteiro and Gamitto (O Muata Cazembel, Appendix, 470) doubt
whether the Tete grammar can be reduced to an intelligible system of
verbs. I see no difficulty. Capt. Boteler, R. N. (Appendix, vol. i.
Voyage to Africa, Bentley, 1835) easily collected a ‘Delagoa
Vocabulary’ from George, his interpreter.

Footnote 117:

In Kisawahili reduplication sometimes seriously modifies the root
meaning, e. g. Mbhali means ‘far’ or ‘distant;’ Mbhali-Mbhali is
different or ‘several,’ meaning ‘distinct.’

Footnote 118:

The Tupys of the Brazil, according to the Portuguese, ignored both
sounds—I presume initiative.

Footnote 119:

These are

1. B—an emphatic and explosive perfect-mute, formed by compressing the
lips apparently to the observer’s eye.

2. D—which is half T, formed somewhat like the Arabic Ta (ط) by
touching the lower part of the central upper incisors with the
thickened tongue-tip. Strangers write indifferently Doruma and Toruma,
Taita and Daida.

3. G—harder and more guttural than ours, the tongue root being applied
thickened to the soft palate. An instance is _G_ombe, a large cow
(Gnombe), which Arabs and Europeans pronounce Gombe, meaning a shell.
Incrementation is also effected by simplifying the initial sound, as
Gu, a large foot, from Mgu; Dege, a large bird, from Kdege.

4. J—a semi-liquid: the J is expressed by applying the fore part of
the tongue to the palate, above the incisors closely followed by a
half-articulated Y. It is often confounded with D and Y, e. g. Unguja,
Unguya, and Ungudya, for Ungujya (not Ugúya, as Mr Cooley believes),
and Yambeho or Jambeho for Jyambeho. The sound is not ‘peculiarly
African;’ it exists in Sindi and other tongues, and a likeness to it
occurs at the junction of English words, as ‘pledge you’ Even the
Arabs distinguish it from their common Jim, and it is well worth the
conscientious student’s attention.

5. K—half G, a hardened sound whilst the mid tongue is still applied
to the palate. It might be taken for a corruption of the Arabic Kaf
(ق).

At Mombasah we shall remark other sounds mostly peculiar to the coast
Kisawahili. As a rule, however, the stranger will be understood even
before his tongue has mastered these minutiæ.

Footnote 120:

Nothing can be more erroneous than the following sentence: ‘But the
Mohammedan natives of the Eastern Coasts of Africa, who are
comprehended under the name of Sawáhili, do not pronounce the hard _h_
of the Arabs; the vowels, therefore, between which it stands in their
name, unite to form a diphthong, like the Italian _ai_ or the English
i in wile; and Sawáhili is pronounced Sawïli’ (Inner Africa Laid Open,
p. 88). The Wasawahil merely change the hard Arabic h (ح) into the
softer guttural (ه).

Footnote 121:

I regret to read such statements as the following in the Journal of
the Anthropological Society: ‘It may be asserted, without fear of
exaggeration, that it is to this demand for slaves that are to be
attributed the desultory and bloody wars which are waged in Central
Africa.’ (On the Negro Slaves in Turkey, No. 29, April, 1870.)

Footnote 122:

Concerning Kilwa further details will be found in Vol. II.