Volume Three—Chapter Thirty Seven.

Operation of Legitimate Commerce upon the Slave-Trade in North-Eastern Africa.

A review of the nature and actual extent of slavery in Christian Abyssinia, where the exile is sold and purchased—of the circumstances attending his loss of liberty in the countries whence he is stolen and exported—and of the various causes and passions that conspire to favour the continuance of the internal commerce in human flesh—leads naturally to the consideration of the remedy. This is no new subject. It is one which has been illustrated by the eloquence of British senators, and by the pen of many private philanthropists, who have devoted their energies to the restitution of the lost rights of man, and have sought, under God’s blessing, to dry up the baneful springs that for so many ages have filled to overflowing the fountain of African misery.

Bondage has been shown to arise in wars and intestine feuds, and to be nurtured by evil passions, by avarice, and by worldly interest. The excitement and delight of the foray, the surprise, and the captivity which follows, are by all tribes in Africa regarded as the highest themes of their glory. The gratification of power, sensuality, and revenge, are difficult of eradication; and the easy though infamous acquisition of property, is a permanent incentive to violence of all kinds. The interests, also, by which the diabolical and debasing traffic is supported are not those of a few individuals. It is interwoven with the government, the commerce, the wants, and the revenues of many nations. The tribe that mourns to-day the loss of its young men and maidens, is ready on the morrow with heart and hand to carry on amongst others the work of captivity; and the victor of one hour may be vanquished the next. The kings and rulers of the land profit by the transit of slave caravans through their dominions—the countries all derive gain from the inhuman barter—the intermediate clans have each their share in the traffic—the merchant on the sea-coast drives a most profitable trade—and the lazy Arab to whom the wretched beings are finally consigned, has existed too long in a state of utter indolence and inactivity, willingly to assist himself many of the ordinary laborious avocations of life.

Commerce being a school for the improvement of nations, it may safely be anticipated that the important treaty concluded by Great Britain with the king of Shoa will tend to the temporal and intellectual advancement of the now ignorant and degraded natives of the north-eastern interior, in proportion to the extent of their intercourse with enlightened Europeans. The supply of foreign manufactures, which the African deems indispensable, has always been, and still is, exclusively in the hands of Mohammadan merchants, declared slave-dealers, who will receive human beings only in exchange for their wares. A strong inducement to the continuance of the traffic will therefore be removed by the visits of men whose tacit example, without any declamation against slavery, cannot fail to have a beneficial influence upon untutored races, who have hitherto been taught and compelled to believe that their wants cannot be supplied unless through the medium of the barter of their fellow-creatures. The restoration of tranquillity to the provinces, which can alone be effected by a legal trade, must have the important result of putting an end to the exportation of slaves, which is here liable not only to the same objections as on the western coast, but to the still greater evil, that the victims carried away are chiefly Christians, who inevitably lose in Arabia not only their liberty but also their religion.

The Mohammadan dealer being solely dependent for his supply of European manufactures on the brokers located in various parts of the coast—keen, artful, and rapacious Banians—he must speedily be driven from the market by the British merchant, who will at the same time create numberless new wants, to satisfy which the native will be goaded to industrious habits. The majority, both of people and rulers, will soon be enabled to comprehend the disadvantage of a trade which swallows up the flower of the population; and will open their eyes to the fact, that temporal wealth, far from being diminished, as they now believe, by the operation of such a measure, would in reality be much augmented. They will at the same time perceive that the regular supply of European trinkets, so inestimable in their eyes, depends in a principal measure upon the tranquillity of the country; and since slaves are no longer in demand as an article of barter, they will generally be better disposed to permit and to bring about that state of peace and quietude which is so essential to mercantile pursuits.

An entrance to countries now only accessible by means of commerce, and at the pace of a merchant caravan, will thus be afforded, and a friendly understanding established, which may be expected to pave the way to the introduction of more effectual measures towards decreasing the supply of slaves in the quarters whence they are derived. European commerce conveying the strongest tacit argument against the traffic in human flesh, so long the staple business of all, must favour the speedy formation of advantageous treaties with many native chiefs for its entire suppression within their dominions—treaties which could not be proposed without prejudice so long as the slave-trade, deeply rooted, continues so intimately connected with the habits, pursuits, and interests of the whole population. Time is of course requisite to bring about the consummation desired to mercantile enterprise. The avarice of some of the more ignorant and degraded potentates may long induce them to retain the emoluments arising from the sale of their subjects, notwithstanding the more than equivalent revenues afforded by legitimate transit duties; but as establishments which are now fostered and fattened on the hotbed of slavery become gradually extinguished, the nefarious traffic cannot fail, in equal proportion, to disappear before the golden wand of commerce.

In all those interior countries to the south, whence slaves are principally drawn, the mass of the miserable population would hail the advent of European intervention, towards the preservation of their liberty. The Christian would find repose beneath the treaty concluded by the white man, and the wild Galla would cease to have an interest in the continual hostilities which now supply the market with human beings.

It might reasonably be conjectured, that if it be practicable to conclude an anti-slavery treaty with any African ruler, it must be especially so with one professing the tenets of the Christian faith, and who may thus be supposed capable of receiving moral arguments—with a despot whose every will is law, who is guided chiefly by avarice and by self-interest, and who considers that the importation of slaves has a tendency to introduce heathenish ceremonies among his subjects. Sáhela Selássie is already fully sensible of the possibility of dispensing with slavery as a domestic institution, by the adoption of European machinery, and of the practice of other Abyssinian states, where money is dispensed to the visitor in lieu of dirgo, or daily maintenance. His superstitions may be worked upon with the best effect by the fear of entailing the curses and imprecations of many thousand enslaved fellow-creatures who annually pass through his dominions; and his eyes have been opened to the fact, that the whole of these wretched beings become converts to Mohammadanism—a faith upon which every Abyssinian looks down with abhorrence. The same voice that at European intercession commanded the release of many hundred Galla prisoners of war, could at once order the abrogation of domestic slavery within the kingdom; but its abolition before the establishment of British commerce shall have rendered His Majesty independent of the slave-dealing Ada?el would be delusive. It would do harm instead of doing good; and whilst it led to little actual reduction of human misery, it would arouse the worst passions of the entire surrounding Mohammadan population. For Shoa is at this moment solely dependent upon the Danákil trader, not only for every description of foreign merchandise, but also for salt, which here constitutes the chief circulating medium of the realm; and the first inducement to the importation of this indispensable commodity, is found in the great profits derived from the traffic in slaves purchased at Abd el Russool.

In Shoa, too, every Christian subject is more or less interested in the continuance of slave importations; and notwithstanding that the trammels of the despot, who receives unbounded homage, render each in fact a bondsman, he is in no danger of being kidnapped and driven into slavery. No one would dare to disobey the royal fiat; but, involving as it must great personal hardship to all, it could not fail to be attended with universal loss of popularity to the monarch. No such difficulty would attend the formation of a treaty of suppression in the northern provinces of Christian Abyssinia, where slavery in the true acceptation of the term has no existence, excepting in so far as it is carried on by the Moslem traders, of whom both ruler and people are comparatively independent. Thus in Gondar and Tigré, where domestic slavery is neither practised nor advocated by prince or subject, the external traffic might readily be crushed, and with the greatest advantage, through the friendly sentiments entertained by the present patriarch.

The spiritual influence exerted by Abba Salama over the mind of all classes, high as well as low—the spell by which he holds his supreme power—is acknowledged by every province, however remote, which constitutes a remnant of the ancient Ethiopic empire. Access to hitherto sealed portions of the interior, by which the objects of humanity would not less be forwarded than those of commerce, science, and geography, can thus readily be obtained through his assistance. They offer gold in return for the blessings of Christianity and civilisation, and are believed to be accessible also from the coast of the Indian ocean. But it ought not to be forgotten in England, that, independently of other considerations, the surest hopes of working any favourable change in the present degraded state of the Abyssinian church, or of substantially promoting the views of philanthropy in Ethiopia Proper, must be considered to rest solely upon the good feeling, the potent influence, and the professed assistance of his holiness the Abuna, and that one better disposed is not likely ever to fill the episcopal throne at Gondar.