Page:Abstract of the evidence for the abolition of the slave-trade 1791.djvu/34

( 4 ) He was told also by merchants at Goree, that king Damel practises the pillage in like manner.

Robbery was a general way of taking single slaves. He once saw a woman and a boy in the slave-hold at Goree; the latter had been taken by stealth from his parents in the interior parts above Cape Rouge, and he declared, that such robberies were very frequent in his country; the former, at Rusisco, from her husband and children. He could state several instances of such robberies. He very often saw negroes thus taken brought to Goree. Ganna of Dacard was a noted man-stealer, and employed as such by the slave merchants there.

As instances of stratagem employed to obtain slaves, he relates, that a French merchant taking a fancy to a negro, who was on a visit at Dacard, persuaded the village, for a certain price, to seize him. He was accordingly taken from his Wife, who wished to accompany him, but the Frenchman had not merchandize enough to buy both. Mr. Wadstrom saw this negro at Goree, the day he arrived from Dacard, chained, and lying on the ground, exceedingly distressed in his mind.

The king of Sallum also prevailed on a woman to come into his kingdom, and sell him some millet. On her arrival, he seized and sold her to a French officer, with whom Mr. Wadstrom saw this woman every day while at Goree.

Mr. Wadstrom was on the island of St. Louis, up the Senegal also, and on the continent near the river, and says, that all the slaves sold at Senegal, are brought down the river, except those taken by the robbery of the Moors in the neighbourhood, which is sometimes conducted by large parties, in what are called petty wars.

Captain Hills saw while lying between Goree and the continent, the natives, in an evening, often go out in war dresses, as he found to obtain slaves for king Damel, to be sold. The reason was, that the king was then poor, not having received his usual dues from us. He never saw the parties that went out return with slaves, but has often seen slaves in their huts tied back to back. He remembers also, that some robbers once brought him