A memoir of Granville Sharp/Appendix 3

by Charles Stuart

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and galling oppression, was discovered in the woody mountains of Trelawny, in Jamaica; their number was nine men, eight women, and four children.

It appears that several years had elapsed, since the first of them had found shelter in those wild mountain glens, and that from time to time, one and another had been providentially added to their number. The evidence from which this account is taken, is that of their enemies, the slave gazettes of the island. They are accused of no crime, except the act of flying from oppression—fabricated, against all righteousness into a crime, by the mischief-making laws (Psalms xciv. 20—22.) of the nefarious slave-code. They seem to have lived soberly, industriously and affectionately together, hurting no one, unknown to the world, and all their wish, to remain unknown. They had cleared, of its heavy timber, and cultivated (part of it to great perfection,) about two hundred acres. They had "pigs and poultry," and were well supplied with clothing; for they sold or bartered their surplus productions, which were considerable, through their friends, amongst the slaves of the neighboring plantations; thus conducing to supply their vicinity with cheap and wholesome food. They had built a little village, containing a kind of council or meeting house of hewn cedar, and they called it "We no sen', you no come." The slave gazettes scoff at this title. To me, it is one of the most appropriate and affecting that my imagination could conceive. "We no sen', you no come"—as if they had said, "While we can remain concealed from you, white men, slave masters, you will not come like the hurricane, to sweep us to death—we know you, white men, slave masters; our only safety from you is concealment—if discovered, we are lost!" Such was the title which nature, writhing under recent outrage and with danger of death, growling all round, had taught them! How fearful and odious was the truth of the lesson!

In 1804, they were discovered. The white men came—their fields were destroyed—their village was burnt—and they were hunted to death or to bondage!!! Where is the man, with a man's heart, who would not have died with them, a thousand times rather than to have partaken of crowns of tyrant glory, or of mines of slaveholders' wealth, by aiding to verify the soul-moving title of their harmless hamlet, "We no sen', you no come."

NO. 3.

Sierra Leone has now (1835) been in operation nearly fifty years (from 1787.) It has been in a flourishing condition about thirty years. Prior to the formation of "The African Institution," in 1807, the Sierra Leone Company had "ascertained the power of introducing agriculture, friendly commerce and freedom itself into Africa. It had shown that all the various natural products brought from the West Indies, might be raised on the African soil; that the native chiefs might be made to perceive the full interests of peaceful communication; and that negroes in a state of freedom, might be habituated to labor in the fields, and were capable of being governed by mild laws, without whips, tortures or chains to enforce submission to civil authority." Twenty years have elapsed, since the proof has been complete, that native Africans or negroes, do not need even an hour's drilling by slavery, to prepare them for liberty; since, from the moment, that they are landed from the slave ships, and placed under the protection and coercion of the equitable laws of the settlement, their behaviour has always been, as a body, singularly inoffensive, submissive and affectionate; and their industry, equal to any thing which could have been expected from any body of men in their circumstances. Of this, upwards of twenty thousand, are the living evidences. Nearly twenty years have elapsed, since they have had Christian missionaries, amongst them, of the noblest stamp, who have lived and died for them, and some of whose services have been eminently blessed. And both the local and national governments have been full of law and of regulations and exertion against the African slave trade. Yet, it has been recently ascertained, that Sierra Leone itself has been (clandestinely indeed, yet to an extent almost incredible to those who have not explored the evidence) a nursery for the African slave trade; and it is a simple fact, of which none need be ignorant, that the missionary influence of Sierra Leone, upon Africa—Yes, even upon the immediately adjoining districts of Africa, up to this day, is next to nothing!!

What sanity then, is there in expecting that Liberia, or that any other, not strictly speaking missionary settlement on the coast of Africa, shall be of a higher character, or exercise a happier influence while slavery remains! except indeed there be sense in the colonization logic, viz. either, that transporting annually thousands or tens of thousands of "the most corrupt, depraved and abandoned people of the United States," as colonizationists call them, to Liberia, will civilize Africa!! or, that making a careful selection, from this reputed mass of corruption, for the sake of Africa, and consequently sending away only one in a hundred or less, the whole mass will be eventually removed, and thus disgorge the United States of the outraged class, which the color-phobiasts nauseate. This subject may afford edification perhaps to young moralists and mathematicians by being offered to their notice in the following form,

QUESTIONS FOR EXERCISE AT LEISURE HOURS.

1. How long will it take an individual or a nation to conquer prejudices, by continuing to practice and excuse them;—substituting general acknowledgements of their guilt, for immediately and thoroughly repudiating them?

2. How long will it take to civilize an uncultivated people, by deluging them, with myriads of the most corrupt, depraved and abandoned inhabitants of a civilized state?

3. How long will it take to christianize heathen nations, by sending the most corrupt, depraved and abandoned people of the United States, as missionaries to them?

4. If instruction be requisite in order to prepare the enslaved Americans for benefiting Africa; and if the slave laws, generally render their instruction impossible, while they remain slaves, how long will it take to prepare them, they remaining slaves?

5. How long will it take to remove between two and three millions of Americans to Africa, said to be the most corrupt as a body of all others, by making a careful selection before they are removed, and sending those only, who seem to be well qualified to benefit Africa?—or, in other words, how long will it take to clear away a forest of noxious plants, by removing only, the few healthful shrubs which adorn it?

6. How long will it take to remove to Africa, say, 2,500,000 Americans, with their annual increase of 60,000, by sending away a few hundreds or thousands yearly?—or, if a society remove 3000 Americans to Africa in ten years, how many years will it take the same society to remove 2,500,000 increasing annually at the rate of 60,000?

7. If, out of a vast multitude of corrupt, depraved and abandoned people as they are reported, the few hundreds or thousands only are removed, who are really of a superior stamp, how will the separation be effected which is said to be indispensable to the prosperity of the United States?

8. If the good go, and the bad only remain, how will the United States be benefited?

9. If the bad also, who are said to be the vast majority, be sent to Africa, how will Africa be benefited?—or, can we sanely expect, that an uncivilized and heathen people will be disposed to deal with them more justly, or be able to manage them more easily, than the civilized and enlightened people of the United States?

10. If benevolence to Africa be our motive, can we send the worst part of our population thither?

11. If benevolence to ourselves be our motive, can we send away the best of that worst part, leaving the worst without any leaven of good, to putrify and rankle amongst us?

12. If benevolence to that worst part, be our motive, can we send them away from our liberty, and our light, and our laws, and our power, and our benevolence, to a foreign uncivilized and heathen land?

13. If gratification of prejudice be our motive, how much better is it, to yield to prejudice than to crucify it?—to flatter, than to give it no quarter?

14. If it be true, that every sinner must repent or perish, what must be the fate of those who strive to put away the annoyance produced by an evil, without repenting of the sin which produces it?

AGAIN.

15. How long will it take to abolish the slave trade, while slavery, its always prolific source and its giant support, keeps up the demand for slaves.

16. What country has ever got rid of trading in slaves, prior to the abolition of slavery?

17. What country has ever abolished the foreign slave trade, without substituting an internal slave trade, and without continuing to traffic internally in slaves, as long as slavery lasted?