A Modern Slavery

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Harper, 1906 - History - 215 pages
 

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Page 111 - The path is strewn with dead men's bones. You see the white thigh-bones lying in front of your feet, and at one side, among the undergrowth, you find the skull. These are the skeletons of slaves who have been unable to keep up with the march, and so were murdered or left to die.
Page 169 - Ju-ju," are rather pleased. All are then ranged up and marched out again, either to the compounds, where they are shut in, or straight to the pier where the lighters, •which are to take them to the ship, lie tossing upon the waves. The climax of the farce has now been reached. The deed of pitiless hypocrisy has been consummated. The requirements of legalized slavery have been satisfied. The government has " redeemed " the slaves which its own Agents have so diligently and so profitably collected....
Page 194 - At landing, a woman has cost the planter as much as two cows, and no good business man would flog a cow to death because she was in calf. The same considerations tend, of course, to prevent all violent acts of cruelty such as might bring death. The cost of slaves is so large, the demand is so much greater than the supply, and the death-rate is so terrible in any case that a good planter's first thought is to do all he can to keep his stock of slaves alive.
Page 203 - The example of Great Britain was gradually followed by the other European states, and some American ones had already taken action of the same kind. The immediate emancipation of the slaves in the French colonies was decreed by the Provisional Government of 1848.
Page 206 - that legal terms make no difference to the truth of things. They forget that slavery is not a matter of discomfort or ill treatment, but of loss of liberty. They forget that it might be better for mankind that the islands should go back to wilderness than that a single slave should toil there. I know the contest is still before us. It is but part of the great contest with capitalism, and in Africa it will be as long and difficult as it was a hundred years ago in other regions of the world.
Page 68 - Till this winter there was оно village left, close upon the road, about a day's trek past Caconda. But when I hoped, to buy a few potatoes or peppers there, I found it abandoned like the rest. Where the road runs, the natives will not stay. Exposed continually to the greed, the violence, and lust of white men and their slaves, they cannot live in peace. Their corn is eaten up, their men are beaten, their women are ravished. If a Portuguese fort is planted in the neighborhood, so much the worse....
Page 182 - ... concubines of planters now. But they cried because they feared they would be separated when they came to land. In the confusion of casting anchor I stood by them unobserved, and in a low voice asked them a few questions in Umbundu, which I had crammed up for the purpose. The answers were brief, in sobbing whispers; sometimes by gestures only. The conversation ran like this: " Why are you here ?" " We were sold to the white men.
Page 165 - Principe !1902) actually repeats the hypocritical fiction about the redemption of slaves. After speaking of the "enormous mortality" on the two islands, the Report continues: " So large a death-rate calls for constant fresh supplies of laborers from Angola, the principal ports from which they are obtained being Benguela, Novo Redondo, and Loanda, where they are ransomed from the black traders who bring them from the far interior." Mr. Consul Nightingale, who wrote the Report, was, of course, perfectly...
Page 28 - November 21, 1878, and the special clauses relating to this province.' " He signs and the benevolent law is satisfied. And then, Mr. Nevinson adds: " If he runs away he will be beaten, and if he could escape to his home ... he would probably be killed, and almost certainly be sold again ( ! ) . In what sense does such a man enter into a free contract for his labor? In what sense, except according to law, does his position differ from a slave? And the law does not count; it is only life that counts....
Page 186 - The Portuguese are certainly doing a marvellous work for Angola and these islands. Call it slavery if you like. Names and systems don't matter. The sum of human happiness is being infinitely increased.

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