THE CURRENT PRICE OF SLAVES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5215, 8 December 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CURRENT PRICE OF SLAVES.

In tho Bine-book just published relating to the slave trade ia foreign countries appear some letters from Mr. Morgan, tho British Consul at BahtA, giving an account of the prices current in slave markets in the year 1875 and the earlier part of 1876. Tho province of Bahia has a total slave population of 178,G8!>, which is larger than that of any other of tho Brazilian provinces except two ; and it may be assumed that the statistics for this region are a fair sign of the demand and supply for slave 3 throughout tho whole of the empire, although it is stated that a great number have been drafted, and are still being drafted, away in the direction of Ilio de Janeiro. The slaves are divided into five clsuneH the highest in rank being those male OeoliM who have a profession, and the lowest those- African females who have none. It does not appear that any Creole females or any Africans of either sex are admitted into the ranks of a profession, and tho price of all these latter classes is consequently very inferior. The highest price for a Creole without a profession seems in tho beginning of 1875 to have been £75, and tho lowest £OO, while the value

of the African males ranged from £6O to £9O, that of females being exactly the same as in the case of Creoles. In the succeeding six months, however, a very different estimate began to be put upon all sorts of Blaves. The Creoles, who could have been bought a short time before for £6O, were no longer sold for less than £75, while the lowest price for a male African rose to as much as £9O, or 50 per cent. Iu the meantime the Creoles, both male and female, began to command occasionally much higher prices than their African rivals, £l2O being paid for them bysome of the purchasers. The inferdnce seems to be that slaveowners had begun to appreciate more fully the versatility of the Creole character, while recognising a dead level of uniformity in that of the " nigger." Whether they wero justified iu doing so we do not pretend to say. The most important and obvious fact of all is that the price increased all round to a very important extent. If any conclusion is capable of being drawn from this fact, it is that the supply of slaves has greatly diminished. This is, at any rate, an encouraging feature in the case, and it is not by any means rendered less so by tho reflection, which is justified by another part of the report, that the decrease was in a great measure owing to the exertions of the British officers in checking aud thwarting the atrocious traffic.