Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/123

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Natives of Africa equal to the Europeans in capacity.

R. WADSTROM thinks the understandings of the natives of Africa capable of equal improvement with those of the whites, and, as a proof, he states several of the manufactures, which they carry on from the River Senegal to the River Sallum.

Proved by such as have seen them in their own country.

The natives, says he, are particularly skilful in manufacturing gold and iron. The art of working the former, he believes, they derived from the Moors, but they are now almost the sole artists themselves, having never seen but one Moor working in that branch. They are equal to any European goldsmith in filagree or trinket work, and even in other articles, such as buckles, except in the chasses [sic], tongues, and anchors, which they do not manufacture so well. The iron which they forge is on anvils of a remarkable hard and heavy wood, when they cannot get stone for the purpose.

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