The illustrated London news . demned slave trade ; and, had no other considerationprevailed, a mere regard to the inhumanity inherent in thesystem may well have sufficed to induce Napoleon to decree itstotal and permanent suppression. But, in reality, the immigration from the eastern coast ofAfrica, even if it could have been carried out with little personalsuffering by, and less personal wrong to, the immigrants them-selves, became responsible for practices along the coast and reach-ing far into the interior which are justly looked upon as con-stituting the direst curse which cleaves to the s
The illustrated London news . demned slave trade ; and, had no other considerationprevailed, a mere regard to the inhumanity inherent in thesystem may well have sufficed to induce Napoleon to decree itstotal and permanent suppression. But, in reality, the immigration from the eastern coast ofAfrica, even if it could have been carried out with little personalsuffering by, and less personal wrong to, the immigrants them-selves, became responsible for practices along the coast and reach-ing far into the interior which are justly looked upon as con-stituting the direst curse which cleaves to the slave trade premium paid for a limited contract, putting the negro intothe planters possession for a term of years, was precisely thesame in amount as the purchase-money paid down by theSpaniard or Portuguese for a slave outright; and it can hardlybe matter of surprise that the swarthy natives, wholly unskilledin drawing fine distinctions, failed to detect the ibetween the one transaction and the other. The French i. 48 THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS grant waB, to their apprehension, identical with the Spanishalave, and tbe one consequently was to be obtained by the samemeans, carried to the coast by the same machinery, and madeover to his master in tbe same unceremonious fashion, and forthe same amonnt of profit, as the other. Now, we unhappilyknow too well what this process invariably and inevitably im-plies. It involves bitter hostilities between tribe and tribe,sndden attacks on village by village, a normal condition ofIshmaelitic warfare, in which each mans hand is against every-one, and everyones band against him. It implies a perpetualreign of suspicion and terror, the neglect of all legitimate trade,and in the long run the perpetration of probably a dozenmurders for every living and healthy victim handed over to theslave-dealer. This terrible social disorganisation was as activelypromoted by tbe French system of contract as by the moreopen ByBtem of Blave dealing
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookidillustratedl, bookyear1842
