Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/144

 his family for witchcraft, (of which he had been accused, out of revenge, by a Cabosheer,) refused all sustenance after he came on board. Early next morning it was found he had attempted to cut his throat. Dr. Trotter sewed up the wound, but the following night the man had not only torn out the sutures, but had made a similar attempt on the other side. From the ragged edges of the wound, and the blood upon his finger ends, it appeared to have been done with his nails, for though strict search was made through all the rooms, no instrument was found. He declared he never would go with white men, uttered incoherent sentences, and looked wishfully at the skies. His hands were secured, but persisting to refuse all sustenance, he died of hunger in eight or ten days. He remembers also an instance of a woman who perished from refusing food: she was repeatedly flogged, and victuals forced into her mouth, but no means could make her swallow it, and she lived for the four last days in a state of torpid insensibility. A man jumped overboard, at Anamabbe, and was drowned. Another also, on the Middle Passage, but he was taken up. A woman also, after having been taken up, was chained for some time to the mizenmast, but being let loose again made a second attempt, was again taken up, and expired under the floggings given her in consequence.

Mr. Wilson, speaking also on the same subject, relates, among many cases where force was necessary to oblige the slaves to take food, that of a young man. He had not been long on board before he perceived him get thin. On inquiry, he found the man had not taken his food, and refused taking any. Mild means were then used to divert him from his resolution, as well as promises that he should have any thing he wished for: but still he refused to eat. They then whipped him with the cat, but this also was ineffectual. He always kept his teeth so fast, that it was impossible to get any thing down. They then endeavored to introduce a speculum oris between them; but the points were too obtuse to enter, and next tried a bolus knife, but with the same effect. In this state he was for four or five days, when he was brought up as dead, to be thrown overboard; but Mr. Wilson finding life still existing, repeated his endeavors, though in vain, and two days afterwards he was brought up again in the same state as before. He then seemed to wish to get up. The crew assisted him, and brought him aft to the fire-place, when, in a feeble voice, in his own tongue, he asked for water, which was given him. Upon this they began to have hopes of dissuading him from his design, but he again shut his teeth as fast as ever, and resolved to die, and on the ninth day from the first refusal he died.

Mr. Wilson says it hurt his feelings much to be obliged to use the cat so frequently to force them to take their food. In the very act of chastisement, they have looked up at him with a smile, and in their own language have said, "presently we shall be no more."

In the same ship a woman found means to convey below the night preceding some rope-yarn, which she tied to the head of the armorer's vise, then in the women's room. She fastened it round her neck, and in the morning was found dead, with her head lying on her shoulder, whence it appeared, she must have