The Person Thus Seized On Is Detained
While His Friends Are Sent In Quest Of The Debtor.
When he is found,
a meeting is called of the chief people of the place, and the debtor
is compelled to ransom his friend by fulfilling his engagements.
If
he is unable to do this, his person is immediately secured and sent
down to the Coast, and the other released. If the debtor cannot be
found, the person seized on is obliged to pay double the amount of
the debt, or is himself sold into slavery. I was given to understand,
however, that this part of the law is seldom enforced.
The fourth cause above enumerated, is _the commission of crimes, on which
the laws of the country affix slavery as a punishment_. In Africa, the
only offences of this class are murder, adultery, and witchcraft; and I
am happy to say, that they did not appear to me to be common. In cases of
murder, I was informed, that the nearest relation of the deceased had it
in his power, after conviction, either to kill the offender with his own
hand, or sell him into slavery. When adultery occurs, it is generally
left to the option of the person injured, either to sell the culprit, or
accept such a ransom for him as he may think equivalent to the injury he
has sustained. By witchcraft is meant pretended magic, by which the lives
or health of persons are affected; in other words, it is the
administering of poison. No trial for this offence, however, came under
my observation while I was in Africa, and I therefore suppose that the
crime, and its punishment, occur but very seldom.
When a freeman has become a slave by any one of the causes before
mentioned, he generally continues so for life, and his children (if they
are born of an enslaved mother) are brought up in the same state of
servitude. There are, however, a few instances of slaves obtaining their
freedom, and sometimes even with the consent of their masters; as by
performing some singular piece of service, or by going to battle, and
bringing home two slaves as a ransom; but the common way of regaining
freedom is by escape; and when slaves have once set their minds on
running away, they often succeed. Some of them will wait for years before
an opportunity presents itself, and during that period show no signs of
discontent. In general, it may be remarked, that slaves who come from a
hilly country, and have been much accustomed to hunting and travel, are
more apt to attempt their escape than such as are born in a flat country,
and have been employed in cultivating the land.
Such are the general outlines of that system of slavery which prevails in
Africa; and it is evident, from its nature and extent, that it is a
system of no modern date. It probably had its origin in the remote ages
of antiquity, before the Mahomedans explored a path across the Desert.
How far it is maintained and supported by the slave traffic, which for
two hundred years the nations of Europe have carried on with the natives
of the Coast, it is neither within my province nor in my power to
explain.
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