For in Africa, not only the effects of the insolvent, but even the insolvent himself, is sold, to satisfy the lawful demands of his creditors.
"The fourth cause above enumerated is the commission of crimes to which the laws of the country have affixed slavery as a punishment.
"When" a freeman has become a slave by any one of the causes before mentioned, he generally continues so for life, and his children they are born of an enslaved mother) are brought up in the same state of servitude."[1]
In regard to the treatment of the slaves in Africa, the same author, in addition to the general remarks already quoted, presents some occasional pictures, such as follow (he is describing some of the Moorish tribes on the southern border of the Great Desert): —
"The employment of the women varies according to their degrees of opulence. Queen Fatima and a few others of high rank, like the great ladies in some parts of Europe, pass their time chiefly in conversing with their visitors, performing their devotions, or admiring their charms in a looking-glass. The women of inferior class employ themselves in different domestic duties.
- ↑ Park's Travels, chap. Another traveler, Bruce, bears striking and painful testimony in regard to the trade in children on the northeastern coast of Africa, in the neighborhood of Abyssinia. "This town (Dixan)," says he, "consists of Moors and Christians, and is very well peopled; yet the only trade of either is a very extraordinary one — that of selling children. The Christians bring such as they have stolen in Abyssinia to Dixan; and the Moors, receiving them there, carry them to a sure market at Masuah, whence they are sent to Arabia or India." He says, in another place, "About 500 of these unfortunate pe0p1e are annually exported from Masuah to Arabia; of whom 300 are pagans from the market at Gondar, the other 200 are Christian children kidnapped." — Sir Francis Head's Life of Bruce, chap. x., p. 201.
