"
The slave book shows that as late as 1780 others of the "elect" of
our own South were publishing advertisements like this, which is one
of the shortest and mildest. It is from a Virginia newspaper: "The
said fellow is outlawed, and I will give ten pounds reward for his
head severed from his body, or forty shillings if brought alive."
At about this same time an English captain threw overboard, chained
together, one hundred and thirty sick slaves. He claimed that had he
not done so the ship's company would have also sickened and died,
and the ship would have been lost, and that, therefore, the
insurance companies should pay for the slaves. The jury agreed with
him, and the Solicitor-General said: "What is all this declamation
about human beings! This is a case of chattels or goods. It is
really so--it is the case of throwing over goods. For the
purpose--the purpose of the insurance, they are goods and property;
whether right or wrong, we have nothing to do with it." In 1807
England declared the slave trade illegal. A year later the United
States followed suit, but although on the seas her frigates chased
the slavers, on shore a part of our people continued to hold slaves,
until the Civil War rescued both them and the slaves.
As early as 1718 Raynal and Diderot estimated that up to that time
there had been exported from Africa to the North and South Americas
nine million slaves. Our own historian, Bancroft, calculated that in
the eighteenth century the English alone imported to the Americas
three million slaves, while another 2,500,000 purchased or kidnapped
on the West Coast were lost in the surf, or on the voyage thrown
into the sea.
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