A Chapter on Slavery

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Contents

CONTENTS.

SECTION I.

general view of the subject — slavery in ancient times — in the middle ages, | 1

SECTION II.

slavery in russia, | |14

SECTION III.

slavery in africa, | |31

SECTION IV.

the republic of liberia, | |61

SECTION V.

|distinct character of the colored race — why the african slave trade has been permitted — emigration of the free blacks to liberia, | |95

SECTION VI.

|slavery in america — its origin — and the probable manner of its removal, | |120

Preface

PREFACE.

This little work is entitled A Chapter on Slavery, because it was originally written as a Chapter of the author's lately published work, God Manifest. The object of that work was to set forth the goodness and wisdom of God, as manifested in his works and Word, and also to explain the reasons for the permission of evil in the world. In elucidating the latter subject, various evils, moral, physical, and social, were cited as examples, and the causes of their permission sought to be made plain. Slavery was one of the evils intended to be dwelt upon, and its origin shown, together with the reasons for its temporary permission, under Divine Providence, and the probable mode of its future removal. But the Chapter, when written out, being found to be quite disproportionate, in length, to its proper place in a work of that general character, it was thought best to omit it from that work, and publish it in a separate form. Hence the present publication.

In treating this interesting subject, the author has striven to speak in a calm and dispassionate manner,—the only way, indeed, in which a matter involving such great and varied interests ought to be spoken of. He has endeavored to look at it not merely from a civil and a moral point of view, but also from a spiritual one—from which it has not, perhaps, been sufficiently contemplated. He has sought to show the workings of a Divine Providence in the permission of negro slavery, the probable object of that permission, and the means already in operation by which the same Providence designs to bring it gradually to an end. He has sought to make the reflecting, and particularly the religious, portion of the community who are interested in this subject, feel and realize—what in principle they must know to be true—that this great concern, affecting, as it does, the welfare of so many millions of human beings, has not been abandoned by an overruling Providence, and is by no means disregarded by a God of goodness—as some in their haste and passion seem to think—but that He is working for it quietly, but effectively, and that in due time He will show His hand, and bring forth the desired result.

Finally, the writer has endeavored, in discussing this somewhat exciting subject, to do justice to all parties concerned: to exonerate the Americans, his countrymen, so far as he thinks they deserve exoneration; to lay upon the European originators of American slavery their due share of the blame; but, especially, to show that in Africa itself is to be sought the true fountain and source of the slavery of Africans in the New World: thus, that negro slavery is but another instance of evil and moral degradation punishing itself. Yet, in conclusion, looking rather to the future than to the present or the past, he has endeavored to hold out the hope of a final deliverance from this evil, and to show the means by which he believes that deliverance is ultimately to be accomplished.

September 24, 1860.

Contents

CONTENTS.

SECTION I.

general view of the subject — slavery in ancient times — in the middle ages, | 1

Section 1

A CHAPTER ON SLAVERY.

SECTION I.

GENERAL VIEW OP THE SUBJECT — SLAVERY IN ANCIENT TIMES — IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

It may seem, to the casual observer, strange and unaccountable, that, if there be a great and overruling Providence, a wise and good Being, the Creator and Father of all, He should suffer any of His intelligent creatures — still more, such numbers of them — to be held in bondage, in absolute subjection to the will and caprice of their fellow-men. He wonders that the God above looks on and suffers such wrongs; he wonders that He does not send down His lightning-bolts, and break their chains in an instant. But one who thinks more deeply will take a wider and a wiser view of the subject. Reflecting on the present nature of man, he perceives that slavery is but one of the great black branches, springing from the poisonous root of evil in the human heart; — that it is one of the direct and natural consequences of man's fall.

The essential principle of evil is self-love — a preference of self to others; as the essential principle of in power. It is simply the result of circumstances so operating as to permit that natural love of rule, which exists in every unregenerate heart, to carry itself into act and unrestrained indulgence. Hence we may expect to find the custom of slavery existing from very ancient times. For as soon as evil was born in the human heart, that self-love, which is its essential principle, would begin to show itself in the desire to bring others into subjection and servitude. The father would tyrannize over his children, the older brother over the younger ones, the stronger over the weaker. The patriarch would seek to exercise absolute sway over his family and dependents; and in the contests, which self-love would soon cause to arise between one shepherd and another, captives would be taken, who would at once be made slaves, — that is, would be compelled to remain in subjection to their conqueror, and labor for his comfort and at his pleasure. Wherever might is made the only law of right, a state of slavery at once ensues. Then, as communities became enlarged, and small kingdoms established, the king or ruler would be the master of his subjects, holding their property and lives at his disposal Such, we know, is the state of nearly all Oriental countries to this day: the inhabitants are all in a manner slaves, — the king is their general master. The example set by the superior would be followed by inferiors: each subject would, in his turn, have slaves, as many as he was able to procure and support. These would be captives taken in war, or sometimes insolvent debtors, or, in fine, any persons whom superior wealth or power could bring into one's possession. Thus slavery, beginning in early times, would become at length a general and almost universal institution. This view we find borne out by all historical testimony. "Slavery and the slave-trade," says an eminent historian, "are older than the records of human society. They are found to have existed wherever the savage hunter began to assume the habits of pastoral or agricultural life; and with the exception of Australasia, they have extended to every portion of the globe. They pervaded every nation of civilized antiquity. The earliest glimpses of Egyptian history exhibit pictures of bondage; the oldest monuments of human labor on the Egyptian soil are evidently the results of slave-labor. The founder of the Jewish nation was a slave-holder and a purchaser of slaves. Every patriarch was lord in his own household. The Hebrews, when they burst the bond of their own thraldom, carried with them beyond the desert the institution of slavery. Slavery planted itself even in the Promised Land. The Hebrew father might doom his daughter to bondage; the wife and children and posterity of the emancipated slave remained the property of the master and his heirs. It is even probable, that, at a later period, a man's family might be sold for the payment of his debts. The countries that bordered on Palestine were equally familiar with domestic servitude; and, like Babylon, Tyre also, the oldest and most famous commercial city of Phœnicia, was a market for the 'persons of men.' The Scythians of the desert had already established slavery throughout the plains and forests of the unknown North. "Old as are the traditions of Greece, the existence of slavery is still older. The wrath of Achilles grew out of the quarrel for a slave; the Grecian dames had crowds of servile attendants; the heroes before Troy made incursions into the neighboring villages and towns, to enslave the inhabitants. Greek pirates, roving, like the corsairs of Barbary, in quest of men, laid the foundations of Greek commerce; each commercial town was a slave-mart; and every cottage near the sea-side was in danger from the kidnapper. Greeks enslaved each other. The Grecian city, that made war on its neighbor city, exulted in its captives as a source of profit; the hero of Macedon sold men of his own kindred and language into hopeless slavery. The idea of universal free labor had not been generated. Aristotle had written that all mankind were brothers; yet the thought of equal enfranchisement never presented itself to his sagacious understanding. In every Grecian republic slavery was an indispensable element.

"The wide diffusion of bondage throughout the dominions of Rome, and the extreme severities of the Roman law towards the slave, contributed to hasten the fall of the Roman commonwealth. The power of the father to sell his children, of the creditor to sell his insolvent debtor, of the warrior to sell his captive, carried the influence of the institution into the bosom of every Roman family, into the conditions of every contract, into the heart of every unhappy land that was invaded by the Roman eagle. The slave-markets of Rome were filled with men of every complexion and of every clime.

"When the freedom of savage life succeeded in establishing its power on the ruins of the Roman empire, the great swarms of Roman slaves began to disappear; but the middle age witnessed rather a change in the channels of the slave-trade, than a diminution of its evils. The pirate, and the kidnapper, and the conqueror, still continued their pursuits. The Saxon race carried the most repulsive forms of slavery to England, where not half the population could assert a right to freedom, and where the price of a man was but four times the price of an ox. The importation of foreign slaves was freely tolerated; in defiance of severe penalties, the Saxons sold their own kindred into slavery on the Continent; nor could the traffic be checked, till religion, pleading the cause of humanity, made its appeal to conscience. Even after the Conquest, slaves were exported from England to Ireland, till the reign of Henry II., when a national synod of the Irish,—to remove the pretext for an invasion,—decreed the emancipation of all English slaves in the island.

"The German nations made the shores of the Baltic the scenes of the same desolating traffic; and the Dnieper formed the highway on which Russian merchants conveyed to Constantinople the slaves that had been purchased in the markets of Russia. The wretched often submitted to bondage, as the bitter but only refuge from absolute want. But it was the long wars between the German and Slavonic tribes, which imparted to the slave-trade its greatest activity, and filled France and the neighboring states with such numbers of victims that they gave the name of the Slavonic nation to servitude itself; and every country of western Europe still preserves in its language the record of the barbarous traffic in Slaves,"

From the account here given we may see how widespread, both in ancient and in modern times, has been the existence of slavery. And the reason already assigned sufficiently explains a fact which would seem otherwise so strange, viz., that slavery, or the disposition to enslave one's fellow-men, springs directly and naturally from the love of rule, which evil passion is the immediate offspring of that self-love which is the essential principle of evil. Hence we see that slavery has been almost as extensive and as universal as evil itself. Here, then, we have the true answer to the question, "Why does God not at once send down His thunderbolts and break all slave-chains at a blow?—why does He permit such wrongs?" He does not destroy it for the same reason that He does not destroy any other evil and all evils: He permits it for the same reason that He permits the existence of evil at all in the world. The essential reason for the permission of any particular evil is to prevent a greater; and the reason for the permission of sin itself, is because it was the only alternative to the destruction of man's mental liberty, and the consequent non-existence of any rational and intelligent creatures in the universe. The possession of reason or rationality, together with mental liberty, is essential to man as man: without it he would be a stock or a statue, or but as one of the lower animals,—either inanimate or irrational. But rationality and liberty imply the power of thought and of choice—the power to turn to this side or that, to look upward or downward, to turn to God or from God. Turning from God to self, and resting in and depending upon self, at length begat self-dependence, self-love, sin. Thus the possession of reason and mental liberty necessarily implied the possibility of sin or evil. God permitted this possibility to go into actuality, — or in other words, permitted evil, because, as just shown, it could not be prevented without destroying reason and liberty, thus destroying the essential human constitution — humanity itself. And He saw it to be better that there should be some bad humanity, than no humanity at all. He saw it to be better that there should be some evil in the world, than no good; some suffering, than no happiness; better, even, that there should be a hell, than no heaven. For what, after all, is that which is called hell, in its essence? It is simply a perverted mental state, into which the evil have themselves brought themselves. Abusing that mental liberty which is given to every man, they have chosen a perverse course, and adhered to it till it has at length become fixed with them: in the solemn words of Scripture, they have “chosen death rather than life." But shall the millions, and millions, and millions more, of the good, who have lived, and have yet to live in the lapse of coming ages, be deprived of that joyous inheritance which the good Creator has provided for all who will accept of it — simply because some do not choose to have it? Surely, not. The whole scheme of existence, in a word, is this: God, in His infinite love, creates myriads and millions of beings, to the end that He may bless them and make them happy forever. But, in order that they may be gifted with the highest kind of blessing and happiness, — a happiness akin to His own Divine joy, — they must be rational and intelligent creatures, formed, thus, after His own image and likeness. Such a high nature implies mental liberty. Now, those who will not abuse this liberty, but keep themselves in the original and healthful order in which they were created, are capable of receiving the eternal happiness which the good Creator designed for them; but those who, abusing their liberty, pervert and disorder their moral natures, render themselves incapable of receiving it, and, on the contrary, bring themselves into a state of unhappiness. This latter state is what is called hell — the former, heaven.

Such, then, we see, is the reason for the permission of evil in general. Slavery, as one of the natural fruits of evil — the natural offspring of man's selfishness and sin — was necessarily permitted also: the tree must bring forth its own fruit.

For that social disease, however, the Savior, when he came into the world, brought a remedy, which, in his Divine wisdom, he knew would be gradually but certainly effectual. He did not violently attack the institution of slavery, though existing all around him, and indeed throughout the known world, at that time; he made no Open assault upon it, for “he knew what was in man," — he knew better how to reach the human heart. He laid down a great law, the law of love: “Whatsoever ye would that. men should do to you, do ye even so to them." As this seed of heavenly truth became sown, and took root in the human heart, and expanded and grew, he knew that it would gradually up-root and cast out the weeds—he knew that selfish and evil passions could not endure its celestial atmosphere, and that the poisonous fruits and flowers of those Upas trees would one by one wither and drop off. This would be the case, both individually and nationally. As the individual received into his mind the law of love, and, aided by the Divine strength, strove to bring that law into action, and thus sought to do to others as he would wish others to do to him,— he could not wilfully hold his fellow-man in slavish bondage, feast indolently on the fruits of another's toil, and deprive his brother of that liberty which was to himself so dear: the law of love forbade it. Again, as a nation, or political society (which is, in fact, but an aggregate of individuals), became impressed with the same thought, and imbued with the same spirit, it would not willingly suffer any institution or order of things to exist within its bosom, which stood Opposed to that Divine principle. It would freely and of its own accord, and without any need of violence or assault from without, throw out from its midst those bonds, which, while they enchained others, were also fetters on itself, and clogs to its own prosperity and peace. It would do so, however, not merely from policy or from selfish calculation of effects and consequences, but from high principle. The national heart, impressed with the great law, "love thy neighbor as thyself," could not bear to see men within its borders oppressed and trodden down under the feet of fellow-men,—slaves to another's will, toiling day and night for another's advantage. The injustice of such a state of things would. strike them forcibly: the public conscience, enlightened from above, could not endure this wrong, and they would meet together and resolve, with one heart and one voice, to put an end to it. And, in that State or Nation, slavery would cease. And thus would the ball of light and heavenly fire roll on from nation to nation, dissipating the dark stains of slavery as it went, till at length the whole earth would be purified; and then would this orb of ours go glittering on its way through the heavens, worthy to be looked upon by angels’ eyes.

This effect the All-Wise Savior foresaw when he announced that law of love: "A new commandment give I unto you, — that ye love one another." And this result, though not yet complete, is, nevertheless, in great part accomplished. Most of Europe is now enfranchised. Greece, which, at the time our Lord was upon earth, was full of slaves, has now not one. Rome, whose "slave-markets," as shown in the testimony before adduced, "were filled with men of every complexion and every clime," has no slave-market now. Other forms of oppression, indeed, yet exist there; but that of domestic servitude, at least, is wanting. Most of the other nations of Europe — Northern Italy, France, Germany, England, which during the middle ages, all contained hordes of bondmen — are now delivered from this evil and purged from this stain. And this is all the direct result of the influence of Christianity, working quietly but deeply in the heart of society; accomplishing its great purposes without' violence or noise or rude attack; acting, not as the storm but as the sunshine, — melting the frosty bonds by the power of love; and by the warmth of genial charity, causing man to cast from him the cloak of selfishness, which the blasts of abuse would 'have only made him wrap more closely about him. Enfranchisement, effected in this gentle and gradual manner, is, like mercy,

"Twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

And this, we are persuaded, is the only way it ever has been or can be accomplished, to the lasting good and advantage of both or either of the parties concerned, the master or the slave.

Section 2

SECTION II.

SLAVERY IN RUSSIA.

Russia now remains, we believe, the only nation of Europe that still contains within its borders large numbers of hereditary bondmen. The people, from whom the term Slave was originally derived—the Slavonian or Slavonic race—is still the one, and the only remaining one in Europe, among whom exists the condition of slavery. The number of people there held in bondage is indeed immense and startling to hear. In Russia (including Poland) there are upwards of forty millions of Slaves,—more than ten times the number of those in the United States of America. It is common, indeed, to call these people serfs; but that is only a different term for the same thing—the word serf (from the Latin servus) signifying a slave. As the term serf, however, conveys no very distinct idea to the English mind, we prefer to use one that is clearly defined—viz, slaves; for they are truly slaves. "Slavery," as defined by Paley, "is the obligation to labor for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant:" and such, certainly, is the condition of these 40,000,000 of persons. They toil for a master without compensation; they are his property, and are called things rather than persons; they are bought and sold — usually, though not always, with the land — their price varying from 700 to 2,000 roubles each; they are subject to the master’s absolute will, and may be punished by the lash or in any other manner the master may choose, and to any extent, saving life and limb. They cannot marry but at his pleasure or with his consent. If they run away, they may be pursued and brought back; or if found at any time, even though it be ten years after, they must be returned to the owner. A "fugitive-slave law" is there in full force; and indeed what else is to be expected, Wherever slavery exists at all? If a slave could obtain his freedom, simply by becoming a fugitive, that is, by running away, slavery, of course, could not long continue, whether in Russia or elsewhere. The Russian government, also, interdicts every kind of instruction to the serfs: ignorance is the necessary guard of slavery. Moreover, it is very difficult for the serfs even to purchase their freedom — as the pride of the nobles renders them oftentimes unwilling to sell at any price. There are, indeed, some ameliorating circumstances attending Russian servitude. It is, for instance, forbidden by the Russian law, to announce in the public papers any sale of serfs without lands, or to proceed publicly to such sales at fairs or markets. Proprietors, moreover, cannot divide families, separating husband from wife, or unmarried children from their parents. But notwithstanding these modifications, the condition of this immense and unfortunate class is bad enough.

The abject misery of a great part of her inhabitants was probably a chief cause of the downfall of Poland. It was called a Republic, because the monarchy was elective: but what sort of a republic was that, in which but 100,000 of the citizens were freemen, and the remaining eleven millions, serfs or slaves — whose only spur to industry was the master’s lash? We deplore the misfortunes of that oppressed country, and are apt to wonder that an overruling Providence should permit such wrong. But if we look more deeply into the state of the case, we shall find that in this as in most other instances, it is man’s own evils that bring upon him what are called misfortunes. The partition of Poland could never have taken place had it been united within itself, and had its people been bound together by the firm bands of truth. and justice. Ninety-nine hundredths of the people were bondmen, with no voice whatever in the government, and with no rights to defend. "The Polish serf," says a writer, "drowned in brandy all activity of mind, for his motto was, — ‘Only what I drink is mine.’ At the same time the masters were divided among themselves, engaged in perpetual dissensions, and living in luxury and corruption. The throne was sold to the highest bidder. In its moral tone, too, which aimed at uniting French wit and frivolousness with excess and rudeness, Poland had gone back many steps towards the times of violence. Religious animosities, also, raged through the country. Encroachments were made by the Catholics on the constitutional rights of the Dissidents, that is, the Protestants and Greek Church; and this destruction of religious freedom was a main cause of the civil war which plunged Poland into the wildest disorder, and accelerated the ruin of the state. Russia embraced the cause of the Dissidents; foreign troops laid waste the country; and the lawless conduct of some of the Polish party chiefs excited among the neighboring Powers such a contempt of the natural rights of the Poles, that, to use the expression of Catherine, they deemed Poland. a country in which it was ‘only necessary to stoop to pick up something.’" Such was the distracted state of the nation when the infamous plan of partition was formed by the three neighboring Powers; and this, their own death-warrant, was, under Russian compulsion, signed by the Polish Diet itself. Could any-thing have brought the nation to such ignominy, but their own internal weakness, the result of moral unworthiness? No excuse whatever, indeed, is this for the infamous conduct of the oppressors and partitioners of Poland: the weakness or debased condition of his victim is no justification of the robber. But a true view of the case is highly important, as the means of justifying or explaining to our minds the dispensations or permissions of Divine Providence, which could allow such an unhappy result to be brought about. The original and essential cause, we see, of Poland’s destruction, was her own internal disorder. Thus it is, that moral evil, whether in individuals or in nations, ever leads to physical suffering.

Russia, too, has herself suffered, and must continue to suffer — internally, at least, if not from any foreign aggression — in consequence of so many of her people being held in bondage. A census of Russia, published about the year 1848, rates the whole population at fifty-three. millions, five hundred thousand souls 3 of which number only eleven millions and a half are free persons — the remaining forty — two millions being serfs or slaves. Of the latter, fifteen millions belong to the crown, and twenty-seven millions to private individuals. Thus, in Russia, only one man in five is free: four — fifths of the inhabitants are slaves What widespread suffering must be the consequence of such a state of things! Slaves to the absolute will of masters, who are, many of them, in a semi-barbarous state, in a severe climate, too, like that of Russia, and with the soil but half-cultivated — What sufferings must the serfs often endure from cold and want, as well as from the cruelty of their masters! "These feudal lords," says Mr. Thompson, "are of extravagant and profligate habits, and occasionally harass their serfs with the most grinding oppression and extortion, while their neglect or inability to provide the stores and magazines directed by the government, reduce their serfs, in unpropitious seasons, to want and the most horrible sufferings from famine. This occurred to a frightful extent in 1840, in the governments of Toula, Riazan, and Kalouga, when the people were driven for subsistence to the bark of trees. The summer of 1839 was so excessively hot, that the parched land yielded no produce, and that of 1840 was so cold and wet, that the crops entirely failed. The consequence was, that the most dreadful distress prevailed, and thousands perished from starvation." Insurrections, also, have occasionally occurred, rivaling the horrors of St. Domingo. "Intoxicated with the belief," says the same writer, "that they might emancipate themselves, they organized a powerful conspiracy; and arming themselves, desolated the country around them with fire and sword, perpetrating horrors not to be exceeded by the sanguinary scenes of St. Domingo, or the worst days of the French Revolution. It is stated that they cut off the legs and arms of their victims, beating them to death with the mutilated members, and stifling their dreadful cries by thrusting the mangled feet into their mouths." Such is the terrible retaliation that sometimes follows a long course of Oppression and wrong.

To Show the summary and arbitrary manner in which the house-serfs are punished for occasional carelessness or neglect, the following circumstance is related by the author already quoted: — "Attached to every house is a man called a dvornik or yard-man, whose duty it is to keep the street clean in front of his master’s house, to scrape the snow from off the pavement, and to strew it with sand, to prevent accidents to foot passengers. The Emperor, in walking the street, slipped and fell. He took down the name of the house he was passing, and going straight to the nearest police-station, directed the dvornik of that house to be seized and flogged. Short was the shrift allowed the offender; a Persian bastinado would not have been more prompt. Surrounded by all the dvorniks of the neighborhood, collected for the purpose of being edified by the example, stood the unfortunate culprit, in the presence of the Whole staff of the police of the district. In the centre of the yard lay a form and two bundles of birchen rods, and all was anxious expectation. At a signal, every head was uncovered, in deference, probably, to the authority represented by the punishment; and though the thermometer was at ten degrees below freezing — point, the offender was seized, stripped, and laid flat on the bench. One man sat on his legs, another held his arms crossed beneath the bench; while, on each side of him, with a bundle of rods under their arms, stood two others, cutting away alternately at him, and exchanging the rods as often as they got dull, until the whole were expended. "Such," says the writer, "is the paternal discipline" of the Russian autocrat. How would this Imperial master feel, if the slight lapses from duty, of which he, as every man, before God is guilty, were as severely visited?