Page:The American Slave Trade (Spears).djvu/94

 group of islets on each of which was erected the factory of some particular slave-merchant belonging to the grand confederacy. Blanco's establishments were on several of these marshy flats. On one, near the mouth, he had his place of business or trade with foreign vessels, presided over by his principal clerk, an astute and clever gentleman. On another island, more remote, was his residence, where a sister, for a while, shared with Don Pedro his solitary home. Here this man of education and refined address surrounded himself with every luxury that could be purchased in Europe or the Indies, and dwelt in a sort of Oriental but semi-barbarous splendor. Further inland was another islet, devoted to his seraglio, within whose recesses each of his favorites inhabited her separate establishment after the fashion of the natives.

"The barracoons were made of rough poles of the hardest trees, four or six inches in diameter, driven five feet in the ground and clamped together by double rows of iron bars. Their roofs were constructed of similar wood, strongly secured, and overlaid with a thick thatch of long and wiry grass, rendering the interior both dry and cool. Watch-houses, built near the entrance, were tenanted by sentinels, with loaded muskets. Each barracoon was tended by two or four Spaniards or Portuguese, but I have rarely met a more wretched class of human beings. Such were the surroundings of Don Pedro in 1836. Three years later he left the coast forever with a fortune of nearly a million."