Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/298

ered their Haytian oppressors, and formed themselves into a republic, under the name of Santo Domingo. After various individuals had, for a short period, occupied the presidential chair of the Haytiau republic, the election fell upon General Soulouque, who, in 1849, made an unsuccessful attempt to subjugate the Dominican republic. In the latter part of the same year, however, he ascended the throne of the Haytian republic, under the title of Emperor Faustin I. The independence of the Dominican republic was virtually recognized by Great Britain, by the appointment of a consul to it, in 1849; and it was formally recognized by a treaty of amity and commerce, ratified September 10, 1850. It has also been recognized by France and Denmark; but the Emperor Faustin I. (Soulouque) still refused to recognize its independence.

The present population of the whole island is estimated at 950,000. The effective force of the llaytian army is estimated at 40,000 men, and that of the navy 15 small vessels and 1000 men. Hayti now possesses an established system of government, an established system of education, a literature, commerce, manufactures, a rich and cultivated class in society. In the short space of half a century, it has raised itself from the depths and degradation of servitude to the condition of a flourishing and respectable state. Slavery has been eradicated in the new world from the very spot of its origin.

 

CHAPTER XVII.

African Slave Trade after its Nominal Abolition.

State of the slave-trade since its nominal abolition. — Numbers imported and losses on the passage. — Increased horrors of the trade. — Scenes on board a captured slaver in Sierra Leone. — The Progresso. — Walsh's description of a slaver in 1829. — The trade in 1820. — The slave-trade in Cuba — officers of government interested in it. — Efforts of Spain insincere. — Slave barracoons near Governor's palace — conduct of the inmates. The Bozals. — Bryan Edwards' description of natives of Gold Coast — their courage and endurance. — Number of slaves landed at Rio in 1838 — barracoons at Rio — government tax. — Slave-trade Insurance — Courts of Mixed Commission — their proceedings at Sierra Leone in 1838. — Joint stock slave-trade companies at Rio. — The Cruisers — intercepted letters. — Mortality of the trade. — Abuses of the American flag. — Consul Trist and British commissioners. — Correspondence of American Ministers to Brazil, Mr. Todd, Mr. Profit, Mr. Wise. — Extracts from Parliamentary papers. — Full list of Conventions and Treaties made by England for suppression of Slave-trade.

To import negroes as slaves from Africa is now illegal, according to the laws of civilized nations. Those nations which keep up slavery, such as Brazil, Cuba and the United States, are supposed to breed all the slaves they require, within their own territories. But such is not the fact. The slave-trade is not yet suppressed; and the immese labors of philanthropists and statesmen, the struggles and negotiations of half a century, have not been crowned with per