The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 | Page 9

and down before the public gaze, being stopped now and again by some of the spectators and examined exactly as a horse dealer would examine the points of a horse before buying the animal at any of the public horse-marts in England. The sight was sickening. Some of the girls were terrified, others were silent and sad. Every movement was watched by the captives, anxious to know their present fate. My own face blushed with anger as I stood helpless by and saw those sweet, dark-skinned, wooly-headed Soudanese sold into slavery.
"Our hearts have ached as we have heard from time to time from the lips of slaves of the indescribable horrors of the journeys across desert plains, cramped in pain, parched with thirst, and suffocated in panniers, their food a handful of maize. Again, we have sickened at the sight of murdered corpses, left by the wayside to the vulture and the burning rays of the African sun, and we have prayed, perhaps as never before, to the God of justice to stop these cruel practices."
Tunis and Algiers have also been great receptacles for the slaves of the Sudan. Describing the slave market at Tunis, Vincent says that it is a courtyard surrounded by arcades, the pillars of which are all of the old Roman fabrication. Around the court are little chambers or cells in which the slaves are kept, the men below, the women in the story above.
According to the statement of Barard, in 1906, Negro slavery is still prevalent throughout Marocco, and Negro women still populate the harems. "In the towns and plains, the present generations are pretty strongly colored by their infusion of black blood. But the mountainous tribes who represent three fourths of a Maroccan population have kept themselves almost free from mixture; white or blond, they always resemble, by the color of their skin or texture of hair, the Europeans of Germany or France rather than the Mediterraneans of Spain and Italy." In Tunis the open sale of slaves is pretty well suppressed, but in a modified form the trade continues. Vivian says: "By resorting to fictitious marriages, and other subterfuges, the owner of a harem may procure as many slaves as he pleases, and, once he has got them into his house, no one can possibly interfere to release them. Slaves can, of course, escape and claim protection from the Consulates, but, as a matter of fact, they are generally quite contented with their position and know that such action would only involve them in ruin." In all of the Barbary States the slave trade is at the present time under prohibition, although it has not been effectively suppressed in any of them. According to a recent statement in the Anti-slavery Reporter, "a sale of slaves among which some white women and children were included, took place in a Fondak (an enclosure for accommodation of travelers and animals) in Tangier in April last (1906) and the sale was reported in a local newspaper, Al Moghreb Al Aksa." In July of the same year it was reported that a young black girl had been brought to the city and sold as a slave. The sultan had issued orders to the customs officers and at the various ports to prevent the transport of slaves by sea, and in event of any person discovered to be bringing slaves by sea, to punish him and free the slaves in his possession.
In July, 1906, the Anti-slavery Society of Italy published the particulars of a Turkish ship which left the port of Bengazi (Tripoli) for Constantinople with six slaves on board. Through the activity of the Society's agent the vessel was boarded and the slaves liberated.
Within the last decade the traffic in slaves across the desert has been limited to routes between the Niger and Marocco, and between Kuka and Tripoli. At the present time there are probably no regular slave routes across the desert. Owing to the activity of European consuls in Northwest Africa caravans have a precarious existence and no safe markets.
"Only a few years ago," says the Anti-slavery Reporter, "Timbuctu, the famous trade metropolis of Central Africa, was also the most active center of the slave trade. French occupation (1894) has put an end to that traffic, and it is extending the pax Gallica throughout the vast and fertile territory of the Niger where formerly anarchy and brutality reigned."[14]
JEROME DOWD,
Professor in the University of Oklahoma.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nieboer, "Slavery as an Industrial System," 257-348.
[2] "The Ewé Speaking Peoples," 222.
[3] "Historical Researches," 181.
[4] "Narrative of an American Sailor," 55.
[5] "Travels in North and Central Africa," II, 379.
[6] "Reise von Mittelmeer nach dem Tshad-See," I, 344.
[7] "Travels Through the Interior of Africa," 490.
[8] "An Account of the Empire of Morocco," 282.
[9] Ibid., 288.
[10] "Account of the Empire of Morocco," 292.
[11] Ibid.,