"تجارة الرقيق في شرق أفريقيا" [‎٦‎٦] (١٠٨/٧٥)

66
industry and enterprise ? and in establishing friendly relations
with the surrounding native tribes.
But as we have to deal with a still existing Slave Trade, it
will not be out of place to remind our readers what that coast
was before the extinction of the trade.
A late senior officer of the West African Squadron thus
describes the extent of the coast on which the Slave Trade
formerly prevailed, and the consequent extinction of legitimate
commerce—-
" Until 1840 the slave trade had beea carried on to its full extent
along the greater part of the sea-board of Western Africa—from the
river Gambia, in the north, to Little Tish Eay, in latitude 15°
south—subject only to such slight checks as it received from the
operations of our squadron.
At this time the legitimate commerce of West Africa was com
paratively trifling in amount; in many places entirely unknown, it
was in others feebly striving for existence against the baneful
influence of its barbarous rival.
u The interior of the continent was devastated by cruel and bloody
wars carried on by one tribe against another, solely for the purpose of
procuring captives for sale. The shores presented the melancholy
spectacle of crowded barracoons, filled with unhappy wretches, who
had been driven down in chains, hundreds of miles from the interior."^
As a contrast, let us turn to a letter from Bishop, then the
Rev. S. Crowther ; written in 1852 from Lagos.
Sept. 22. Our little schooner anchored off the place from which I
was shipped for the Brazils in 1822, thirty years ago. I could well
call to recollection many places I knew during my captivity, so I
went over these spots where slave barracoons used to be. Eut what
a difference ! Some of the spots are now converted into plantations of
maize and cassava; and sheds, built on others, are filled with casks of
palm oil and other merchandize, instead of slaves in chains and irons
agony and despair ■ The resources of the country are being called
torth since the abolition of the slave trade at this place.
" I can assure you from personal knowledge, and from the expressed
admission of many chiefs in this part of the country, that the abolition
of the slave trade at Lagos, and they hoped from Whydah also, was
the greatest deliverance that ever was wrought on behalf of this
country. The barriers which had been put between one tribe and
SlaveTrade ' b y a late Senior Officer of the Squadron.