lio
APPENDIX TO EEPOßT FROM SELECT COMMITTEE
Appendix, No. 6.
LETTER from the Vicar of Bradford, late Bishop of Mauritius, to the Chairman
(handed in by the Chairman), dated 27 July 1871.
Appendix, No. 6.
Vicarage, Bradford, York,
Mydearbir, 27 July 1871.
I HAVE been so deeply impresseu with the proofs of the misery and loss of human life
inflicted by the East African slave trade which were brought before me in various ways
during nearly 13 years of residence in Mauritius, and visits to the Seychelles and other
islands in the Indian Ocean, that I feel constrained to address you on the subject, in your
connection with the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to consider’it.
Personal intercourse with ex-slaves in all parts of Mauritius, and the Seychelles Islands,
brought out evidence of the most startling character of the atrocities perpetrated by those
who conducted the slave trade before the abolition of slavery. One old man had carried
with him through life the burden of the recollection, that when torn away from his mother
as a child, he did not cry, because those who cried were killed ; but that in his heart he had
cried a great deal; and with some variety of detail the account generally given of the
manner and circumstances of their capture, and of the number of those who were slain
was sadly simihir in most cases. Until 1860,1 and those who laboured with me fm their good
derived comfort from the thought that we were ministering to the wants and sorrows of a
generation which was passing away, leaving their places to he filled up by those who had
been born in a land of freedom.
But on returning to Mauritius early in 1861 I found that a large number of rescued
slaves, between 400 and 500, had been landed there, taken from the brigantine ‘‘ Immunnelá ”
and from that time until the close of 1867, when I left the Colony, there was a repetition of
such arrivals at Port Louis, and at Port Victoria in the Seychelles, which revived the
memory oí the traffic in slaves of former times, and supplied proof, as painful as it was
emphatic, thnt the atrocities of former years were re-enacted on the eastern side of the
Continent of Africa, the merchants being chiefly Arabs, whose principal emporium for the
sale of their victims was Makhedah.
From minute and repeated conversations with the rescued slaves I find that the accounts
given in a book published by Sir Fowell Buxton, 32 years ago, can be paralleled in almost
every respect.
The de>ciiption of the sudden attack on the villages by night ; the capture of the inhabitants
; the slaughter of those who were too old to be of use; and the ruthless tearing away
of the children and young people, is too generally given, and is too consistent with the fact
of the arrival of large cargoe-=, mostly of children or very young persons, to admit of
doubt on the matter.
Then the miseries of the downward march, described so fully by Dr. Livingstone, and
confirmed by the revolting account published in the Blue Book, in 1867. While the intolerable
sufferings of the fold or pen into which they are put have been described in a published
pamphlet as they were told to me by its author, whose views on the slave trade
differed widely from mine.
“ Then they were as naked as on the day of their birtli ; some of them with a lono- fork
attached to their neck, so arranger! that it was impossible for them to step forward
others were chained together in parcels (ff 20 . . . The keeper of this den utters á
hoarse cry ; it is the order for the merchandise to stand up ; but many do not obey. The
chains are too short ; the dead and the dying prevent the living from rising. The dead
can say nothing, but what do the dying say ? They say that they are dyino- of huno-er
Let us look at some of the details : Who is the creature that holds tightly iif her arufs a
shapeless object, covered with filthy leaves ? On looking close you see it is a woman
holding to her dried-up breast the child of which she has just been delivered . . And
the man who is working with his hands a piece of mud, uhich he is continually puttin«- to
his eye, what is the matter with him? Our guide tells us ‘ He is a troublesome fellow who
set a bad example by throwing himself at my feei this morning, and savins- with a loud
voice, “ I am dying of hunger !” I gave him a blow which burst his eye ; he Is henceforth
good for nothing;’ and he added, with a sinister look, ^ He won’t be hungry long.’”
But one of the most touching proofs of the misery attending this iniquitous traffic is
supplied by the fact of the large number of deaths which often take place among the
liberated children and youths of both sexes, even after they have had the kind treatment
which is given them on board British men-of-war ; and, notvvitlistanding every attention
given them, after their landing, in the Government asylum, or by the masters to whom
they become engaged as domestic servants. A gentleman residing near me in Mauritius
lost
