And, First, to the captains employed in this trade. Most of you know the country
of Guinea; several parts of it, at least, between the river Senegal and the
kingdom of Angola. Perhaps, now, by your means part of it is become a dreary,
uncultivated wilderness, the inhabitants being all murdered or carried away, so
that there are none left to till the ground. But you well know how populous, how
fruitful, how pleasant it was a few years ago. You know, the peoplewere not
stupid, not wanting in sense, considering the few means of improvement they
enjoyed. Neither did you find them savage, fierce, cruel, treacherous, or unkind
to strangers. On the contrary, they were, in most parts, a sensible and
ingenious people. They were kind and friendly, courteous and obliging, and
remarkably fair and just in their dealings. Such are the men whom you hire their
own countrymen to tear away from this lovely country; part by stealth, part by
force, part made captives in those wars which you raise or foment on purpose.
You have seen them torn. away,--children from their parents, parents from their
children; husbands from their wives, wives from their beloved husbands, brethren
and sisters from each other. You have dragged them who had never done you any
wrong, perhaps in chains, from their native shore. You have forced them into
your ships like an herd of swine,-them who had souls immortal as your own; only
some of them leaped into the sea, and resolutely stayed under water, till they
could suffer no more from you. You have stowed them together as close as ever
tehy could lie, without any regard either to decency or convenience. And when
many of them had been poisoned by foul air, or had sunk under various hardships,
you have seen their remains delivered to the deep, till the sea should give up
his dead. You have carried the survivors into the vilest slavery, never to end
but with life; such slavery as is not found among the Turks at Algiers, no, nor
among the Heathens in America.And this equally concerns every gentleman that has an estate in our American plantations; yea, all slave-holders, of whatever rank and degree; seeing men-buyers are exactly on a level with men-stealers. Indeed you say, "I pay honestly for my goods; and I am not concerned to know how they are come by." Nay, but you are; you are deeply concerned to know they are honestly come by. Otherwise you are a partaker with a thief, and are not a jot honester than him., But you know they are not honestly come by; you know they are procured by means nothing near so innocent as picking of pockets, house-breaking, or robbery upon the highway. You know they are procured by a deliberate series of more complicated villany (of fraud, robbery, and murder) than was ever practised either by Mahometans or Pagans.
You therefore are guilty, yea, principally guilty, of all these frauds, robberies, and murders. You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion; they would not stir a step without you; therefore, the blood of all these wretches who die before their time, whether in their country or elsew , here, lies upon your head... - O, whatever it costs, put a stop to its cry before it be too late: Instantly, at any price, were it the half of your goods, deliver thyself from blood-guiltiness! ... Do not hire another to shed blood; do not pay him for doing it! Whether you are a Christian or no, show yourself a man! ...
Perhaps you will say, "I do not buy any Negroes; I only use those left me by my father." So far is well; but is it enough to satisfy your own conscience? Had your father, have you, has any man living, a right to use another as a slave? ... It cannot be, that either war, or contract, can give any man such a property in another as he has in his sheep and oxen. Much less is it possible, that any child of man should ever be born a slave. Liberty is the right of every human creature, as soon he breathes the vital air; and no human law can deprive him of that right which he derives from the law of nature. ... Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is, to every child of man, to every partaker of human nature. Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his own voluntary choice. ...
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From Thoughts Upon Slavery, 1774.
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