BOOK IV. CHAP. III. Mandingoes, or Natives of the Windward Coast.-Mahometans.-Their wars, manners, and perfons.-Koromantyn Negroes, or Natives of the Gold Coaft.-Their ferocioufnefs of difpofition difplayed by an account of the Negro rebellion in Jamaica in 1760.-Their national manners, wars, and fuperftitions.-Natives of Whidah or Fida. Their good qualities.-Nagoes.-Negroes from Benin.-Perfons and tempers.--Canibals.Natives of Kongo and Angola.-Survey of the character and difpofitions of Negroes in a state of flavery. MOST, if not all, the nations that inhabit that part of Africa which lies to the northward and eastward of Sierra Leone, are Mahometans; and following the means of converfion prescribed by their prophet, are, as we are told, perpetually at war with fuch of the furrounding nations as refufe to adopt their religious tenets. The prifoners taken in thefe religious wars furnish, I doubt not, great part of the flaves which are exported from the factories on the Windward coaft; and it is probable that death would be the fate of moft of the captives, if purchafers were not to be met with. But the Mandingoes have frequent wars with each other, as well as with fuch nations as they confider enemies of their faith; and I am afraid that fome of thefe wars arife from motives even lefs juftifiable than religious zeal. An old and faithful faithful Mandingo fervant, who ftands at my elbow CHAP. while I write this, relates that being fent by his father to vifit a diftant relation in a country wherein the Portuguese had a fettlement, a fray happened in the village in which he refided; that many people were killed, and others taken prifoners, and he himfelf was feized and carried off in the fkirmish; not, as he conceives, by a foreign enemy, but by fome of the natives of the place; and being fent down a river in a canoe, was fold to the captain of the fhip that brought him to Jamaica. Of his national cuftoms and manners he remembers but little, being, at the time of his captivity, but a youth. He relates, that the natives practife circumcifion, and that he himself has undergone that operation; and he has not forgot the morning and evening prayer which his father taught him; in proof of this affertion, he chants, in an audible and fhrill tone, a sentence that I conceive to be part of the Alcoran, La illa, ill lilla ! *, which he fays they fing aloud at the first appearance of the new moon. He relates, moreover, that in his own country Friday was conftantly made a day of ftri&t fafting. It was almoft a fin, he obferves, on that day, to fwallow his fpittle,fuch is his expreffion. Befides this man, I had once another Mandingo fervant, who could write, with great beauty and exactnefs, the Arabic alphabet, and fome paffages from the Alcoran. Whether his learning extended any further, I had no opportunity of being informed, as he died foon after he came into my poffeffion. The advantage poffeffed by a few of these people, of being able to read and write, is a circumftance on which the Mandingo Negroes in *There is no God, but God. the BOOK IV. the West Indies pride themselves greatly among the rest of the flaves; over whom they confider that they poffefs a marked fuperiority; and in truth they difplay fuch gentlenefs of difpofition and demeanour, as would feem the refult of early education and difcipline, were it not that, generally fpeaking, they are more prone to theft than any of the African tribes. It has been fuppofed that this propensity, among other vices, is natural to a ftate of flavery, which degrades and corrupts the human mind in a deplorable manner; but why the Mandingoes fhould have become more vicious in this refpect than the reft of the Natives of Africa in the fame condition of life, is a queftion I cannot answer. In their complexions and perfons, the Mandingoes are easily to be diftinguifhed from fuch of the Africans as are born nearer to the equator; but they confift nevertheless of very diftinct tribes, fome of which are remarkably tall and black, and there is one tribe among them (called alfo the Phulies) that seems to me to constitute the link between the Moors and Negroes properly fo called. They are of a lefs gloffy black than the Gold Coaft Negroes; and their hair, though bushy and crifped, is not woolly, but foft and filky to the touch. Neither have the Mandingoes, in common, the thick lips and flat nofes of the more fouthern Natives; and they are, in a great degree, exempt from that ftrong and fetid odour, which exhales from the fkin of most of the latter; but in general they are not well adapted for hard labour. After all, they differ lefs in their perfons, than in the qualities of the mind, from the Natives of the Gold Coaft; who may be said to constitute the genuine and original unmixed Negro, both in perfon and character. The The circumstances which diftinguifh the Ko- CHAP. romantyn, or Gold Coast, Negroes, from all III. others, are firmnefs both of body and mind; a ferocioufnefs of difpofition; but withal, activity, courage, and a ftubbornnefs, or what an ancient Roman would have deemed an elevation, of foul, which prompts them to enterprizes of difficulty and danger; and enables them to meet death, in its most horrible fhape, with fortitude or indifference. They fometimes take to labour with great promptitude and alacrity, and have conftitutions well adapted for it; for many of them have undoubtedly been flaves in Africa:-I have interrogated great numbers on this fubject, and although fome of them afferted they were born free, who as it was afterwards proved by the tef timony of their own relations, were actually fold as flaves by their mafters; others frankly con feffed to me that they had no claim to freedom in their own country, and were fold either to pay the debts, or to expiate the crimes, of their owners. On the other hand, the Gold Coast being inhabited by various different tribes which are engaged in perpetual warfare and hoftility with each other, there cannot be a doubt that many of the captives taken in battle, and fold in the European fettlements, were of free condition in their native country, and perhaps the owners of flaves themselves. It is not wonderful that fuch men fhould endeavour, even by means the most defperate, to regain the freedom of which they have been deprived; nor do I conceive that any further circumftances are neceffary to prompt them to action, than that of being fold into captivity in a distant country. I mean only to ftate facts as I find them. Such I well know was the origin of the Negro rebellion which happened in Jamaica in 1760. It arofe at the instigation of a Koromantyn BOOK Koromantyn Negro of the name of Tacky, who IV. had been a chief in Guiney; and it broke out on the Frontier plantation in St. Mary's parifh, belonging to the late Ballard Beckford, and the adjoining eftate of Trinity, the property of my deceafed relation and benefactor Zachary Bayly. On thofe plantations were upwards of 100 Gold Coaft Negroes newly imported, and I do not believe that an individual amongst them had received the leaft fhadow of ill treatment from the time of their arrival there. Concerning thofe on the Trinity eftate, I can pronounce of my own knowledge that they were under the government of an overfeer of fingular tendernefs and humanity. His name was Abraham Fletcher, and let it be remembered, in juftice even to the rebels, and as a leffon to other overfeers, that his life was fpared from refpect to his virtues. The infurgents had heard of his character from the other Negroes, and fuffered him to pafs through them unmolested-this fact appeared in evidence. Having collected themfelves into a body about one o'clock in the morning, they proceeded to the fort at Port Maria; killed the centinel, and provided themfelves with as great a quantity of arms and ammunition as they could conveniently difpofe of. Being by this time joined by a number of their countrymen from the neighbouring plantations, they marched up the high road that led to the interior parts of the country, carrying death and defolation as they went. At Ballard's Valley they furrounded the overfeer's house about four in the morning, in which eight or ten White people were in bed, every one of whom they butchered in the most favage manner, and literally drank their blood mixed with rum. At Efher, and other eftates, they exhibited the fame tragedy; and then fet fire to the buildings and canes. |