Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/152

( 118 ) slaves, all of which are so many proofs of their superiour [sic] happiness in their own country. It is also very remarkable, as we find from Mr. Coor, that these acts of desperation should have been so frequent as to have occasioned it to have passed into an observation, "that the Gold coast negroes, when driven to despair, always cut their throats, and those of the most inland country mostly hang themselves.

To give a few extracts from the evidences on this occasion. A negro boy of his, says Dr. Harrison, detested slavery so much that he refused all support, which brought on a dropsy that killed him. Another negro, who had been a great man in his own country, refused to work for any white man, and being therefore punished by the overseer, he desired him to tell his master that he would be a slave to no man. His master ordered him to be removed to another estate. His hands were tied behind him, and in going over a bridge he jumped into the water and appeared no more. These are two facts of Dr. Harrison's own knowledge, out of a great many which he cannot now recollect.

Mr. Fitzmaurice has known too many suicides, among new negroes especially, both by hanging themselves and dirt-eating, which they knew to be fatal. He lost one year twelve new negroes by it, though he fed them well. On his remonstrating they constantly told him they preferred dying to living. A great proportion of the new negroes that go on sugar estates, die in this way.

A planter, says Mr. Woolrich, purchased six men slaves out of a Guinea ship, and put them on a small island to plant cotton. They had a white man with them as overseer, who left them of a Saturday night. There were no white inhabitants on the island. On the Monday following the overseer returned, when he found all the six hanging near together in the woods. Mr. Woolrich often inquired of the most sensible negroes what