Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/128

 on the watch would seize him, and, as before, exact the price of a man slave. These baits are laid equally for natives and Europeans; but the former are better acquainted with the law, and consequently more upon their guard.

Mr. Ellison says, that while one of the ships he belonged to, viz: the Briton, was lying in Benin river, Capt. Lemma Lemma, a Benin trader, came on board to receive his customs. This man being on the deck, and happening to see a canoe with three people in it crossing the river, dispatched one of his own canoes to seize and take it. Upon overtaking it, they brought it to the ship. It contained three persons, an old man and a young man and woman. The chief mate bought the two latter, but the former being too old, was refused. Upon this, Lemma ordered the old man into the canoe, where his head was chopped off, and he was thrown overboard. Lemma had many war canoes, some of which had six or eight swivels; he seemed to be feared by the rest of the natives. Mr. Ellison did not see a canoe out on the river while Lemma was there, except this, and if they had known he had been out, they would not have come. He discovered by signs, that the old man killed was the father of the two other negroes, and that they were brought there by force. They were not the subjects of Lemma.

At Bonny, says Mr. Falconbridge, the greatest number of slaves come from inland. Large canoes, some having a three or four pounder lashed on their bows, go to the up country, and in eight or ten days return with great numbers of slaves: he heard once, to the amount of 1200 at one time. The people in these canoes have generally cutlasses, and a quantity of muskets, but he cannot tell for what use. Mr. Falconbridge does not believe that many of these slaves are prisoners of war, as we understand the word war. In Africa, a piratical expedition for making slaves is termed war. A considerable trader at Bonny explained to him the meaning of this word, and said that they went in the night, set fire to towns, and caught the people as they fled from the flames. The same trader said that this practice was very common. In the same voyage an elderly man brought on board said (through the interpreter) that he and his son were seized as they were planting yams, by professed kidnappers, by which he means persons who make kidnapping their constant practice. On his last voyage, which was also to Bonny, a canoe came alongside his vessel, belonging to a noted trader in slaves, from which a fine stout fellow was handed on board, and sold. Mr. Falconbridge seeing the man amazed and confounded when he discovered himself to be a slave, inquired of him, by means of an interpreter, why he was sold. He replied, that he had had occasion to come to Bonny to this trader's house, who asked if he had ever seen a ship. Replying no, the trader said he would treat him with the sight of one. The man consented, said he was thereupon brought on board, and thus treacherously sold. All the slaves Mr. Falconbridge ever talked to by means of interpreters, said they had been stolen.

Mr. Douglas, when ashore at Bonny Point, saw a young woman come out of the wood to the water-side to bathe. Soon afterwards two men came from the wood, seized, bound, and beat her for making resistance, and bringing her