Page:The slave trade in the congo basin 1890.djvu/36



SUPPRESSION OF SLAVERY

I frequently talked with these people, and explained to them the iniquity of slavery; but they argued:

“We have a great deal of hard work in our trading expeditions to obtain these slaves; why should we leave them all behind us for others who have not worked? We have bought them, they are our slaves, and we have a right to do what we like with them."

The ceremony of execution, with its attendant brutality, ought to be, and can be, stopped. The bloodshed is even greater today than when Stanley first saw these people in 1877; the reason being, as I have before mentioned, that contact with white men has made them richer, and has enabled them to obtain more slaves. The great powers of the civilized world are not discussing the antislavery movement, and if such discussions should result in some united action directed towards the suppression of the trade in the interior, there are a few peculiar features which might be turned to advantage.

First. and most important, this traffic is not complicated by religious fanaticism of any kind.

Second. These people are disunited; every village of fifty or sixty houses is independent of its neighbor, and small family wars are continually taking place.

Third. There is nothing so convincing to the African savage as physical superiority.