AFRICAN AFFAIRS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 988, 25 March 1881, Page 3

AFRICAN AFFAIRS.

The first Englishman who took part in the African slave trade was Sir John Hawkins. Ho sailed in 1502 with three ships to Sierra. Leone and obtained “ partly by the svvorde and partly by other moans ” some 000 negroes. Tho first expedition proving so profitable, two years after lie wont on a second, trip to the coast of Guinea, “ going every day on shore to take the inhabitants with burning and spoiling their towns." Elisabeth thought so highly of his achievement that she knighted him—and tho slave trader chose a manacled negro crest. Halykut tells us that the ship in which Hawkins made his second cruise was called “The Jesus.” In this ghastly and scandalous travesty our policy as a people in Africa is disclosed. We have sought the possession of African soil on a hypocritical pies. At first the traffic in human flesh was granted alone to an African Company, but in 1698 the monoply was broken down, and free trade in the descendants of Ham, as some people call them, was thrown open to all British subjects. In the year when William and Mary were made King and Queen, a convention was made between England and Spain for supplying the Spanish West Indian Islands with slaves from Jamaica. As a people we tore from Africa during the last 20 years of the 17th century some 300,U00 negroes. By the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, a stipulation was made which secured to the British Government, for its subjects, a monoply of the supply of slaves to the Spanish Colonies for a period of 30 years. From 1713 to 1743 we couvenanted to bring into the Spanish West Indies 144,000 negroes. In a discussion which took place in the English Parliament in 1750, it was shown that 46,000 negroes were sold annually to English Colonies alone. Bancroft the American declares that in the century preceding the prohibition of the slave trade, by the American Congress, in 1776, the number of negroes imported by the English alone into the Spanish, French, and English Colonies was, on the lowest computation, little less than 3,000,000. He considers those who were thrown into the Atlantic on the voyage to be not less than a quarter of a million. Not only did the English Parliament help to foster the slave trade, but the English Church gave it official recognition. Whitfield was an advocate for the introduction of slavery into Georgia. Gibson, a Bishop of London, declared that “ Christianity and the embracing of the Gospel does not make the least alteration in Civil proj perty,” when York and Talbot, tbo i S English law officers, asserted on this j ■ question that “ baptism made no | change in the legal position of the | I negro." “ The Society for the pro- ; I pogation of the Gospel,” writes j | Lecky, “ sent missionaries to convert ; the free negroes in Guinea, on the : Gold Coast, and in Sierra Leone; l but it was itself a large slave-owuer, possessing numerous slaves on an estate in Bavbadoes.” It will thus be seen that there was no apparent religious impropriety in the name Hawkins gave to his vessel. The long toleration granted to the slave trade, was doubtless due to the pretext of the trader, that his mission was to’ convert the heathen to Christianity, Early in the present century, it will be remembered, we tried to wash the stains of slavery from our hands, and the pretext for meddling in African affairs was altered. As a people we got convinced that tho Christianising of the negro was to us, at least, an impossible feat and so we would strive henceforth to civilize him. Having been prohibited by law from selling his carcase, we would clothe him in our Manchester wares, and take from him his money, instead of his liberty. 4t was absurd for him to wage primitive warfare with his fellows, in these days of culture—he was too far advanced for the use of the spear, the assegai, and the blow pipe—and so we supplied him with gunpowder, and ball, and “ arms of precision.” Of course he had to pay for them—even if lie sold his children to some people less scrupulous, and loss religious than ourselves At least the money would be clean. After a time the conviction dawned upon our minds, that the land held by the African was a valuable commodity. We had bought many millions of the race, and paid for them in goods; we had re-sold them for cash at a high profit. We sold them Sheffield and Manchester goods, and had taken in barter gold dust, gold coin, and ivory. This also was a profitable transaction. We made treaties with them which wc broke, and then, after the manner of Ireland, confiscated their lands. Then came the brilliant idea of taking away from the people the Sheffield goods wo had sold to them, and which they .had paid for—in the hope of further confiscation. Hence tho Basuto war. How the Dutch became mixed up in this scheme of Christian and Calico conquest, and the Boor trouble, wo must defer to another day. In the present time we have no right to ignore, or to forget, the sins of our forefathers.—Wairarapa Standard.