Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/82

 Lindsay, who was satisfied with a cargo of but fiftysix, was wholly inadequate to the growing demand,

The first change in the trade was relatively a mild one. Slavers had never been very scrupulous about the title which a seller claimed when a slave was offered, but there are cases on record where slavers refused to buy when it was learned that men offered as slaves were really free and had been kidnapped. When the demand became eager, after 1750, the captains let it be known that every soul offered, if physically sound, would be taken and no questions asked. Slaves, too, had been purchased almost exclusively of chiefs and headmen, and it had been a daylight trade. Now anybody might bring a slave at any time of the night and get a good price for him.

Straightway the people of the coast who, in the ordinary course of their lives would never have owned a slave, began bringing slaves to the ships. Two or three would paddle off in a canoe at night, bringing one that was bound and gagged, and the purchase of those who were manifestly kidnapped became the regular custom of the trade. Alexander Falconbridge, the slaver surgeon already quoted, said that in his time (during the latter part of the century) the majority of the slaves with whom he talked had been kidnapped. He gave many instances of which he had personal knowledge, by way of illustration. A woman was invited by a neighbor to come in for a visit one evening. As soon as she entered the hut two men in waiting bound her and carried her on board ship. A father and his son, while planting yams, were seized by men who came from the brush. A man