Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/314

 Creole, born in slavery on the island. As applied to negroes, the terms Creole and Bozal are nearly antithetical."

Bryan Edwards, the historian of the West Indies, in describing the characteristics of the various tribes of Western Africa, speaks of the natives of the Gold Coast as constituting the genuine and original unmixed negro, both in person and character. He says "the Koromantyn or Gold Coast negroes are distinguished for firmness both of body and mind; a ferociousness of disposition; but withal activity, courage, and a stubbornness, or what an ancient Roman would have deemed an elevation of soul, which prompts them to enterprizes of difficulty and danger, and enables them to meet death in its most horrible forms with fortitude or indifference. They take to labor with great promptitude and alacrity, and have constitutions well adapted for it. It is not wonderful that such men should endeavor, even by means the most desperate, to regain the freedom of which they have been deprived." The historian describes a rebellion of these negroes which occurred in Jamaica in 1160. A band of about one hundred, newly imported, and led by one of their number who had been a chief in Guinea, having revolted and formed themselves into a body, about one o'clock in the morning proceeded to the fort at Port Maria, killed the sentinel, and provided themselves with arms and ammunition. Here they were joined by their countrymen from other plantations, and marched up the high road that led to the interior of the island, carrying death and desolation as they went. They massacred the whites and mulattoes as they went, and literally drank their blood mixed with rum.

Their chief was killed by one of the parties that went in pursuit of them; and three of the ringleaders were taken. One was condemned to be burnt, and the other two to be hung up alive in irons, and left to perish. The one that was burnt was made to sit on the ground, and his body being chained to an iron stake, the fire was applied to his feet. He uttered not a groan, and saw his legs reduced to ashes with the utmost firmness and composure. After which, one of his arms by some means getting loose, he snatched a brand from the fire that was consuming him, and flung it in the face of the executioner. The two that were hung up alive were indulged at their own request with a hearty meal before they were suspended on the gibbet, which was erected on the Kingston parade. From that time until they expired they never uttered the least complaint, except only of cold in the night, but diverted themselves all day long in discourse with their countrymen, who were permitted to surround the gibbet. The historian says that he visited the gibbet on the seventh day, and while there, he heard them both laugh immoderately at some trifling occurrence. The next morning one of them silently expired, as did the other on the morning of the ninth day.

The British minister at Rio informed Lord Palmerston in 1838, that 36,914 slaves had been imported into that single harbor during the year 1827, and that