Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/74

Highness, your Grace, your Excellency, your Immensity, your Honor, your Majesty, then first became current in the European world; men grew ashamed of a plain name; and one person could not address another without following the custom of the Syrians, and calling him Rabbi, Master.

It is a calumny to charge the devastation of Italy upon the barbarians. We say again, the large Roman plantations, tilled by slave labor, were the ruin of Italy. Verum con-fitentibus, latifundia Italiam perdidere. From the days of Gracchus, morals, courage, force of character, and agriculture had been declining. The productiveness of the country was constantly diminishing; Italy, for centuries, had not produced corn enough to meet the wants of its inhabitants. Rome was chiefly supplied from Sicily and Africa, and the largest number of its inhabitants had, for centuries, been fed from the public magazines.

The barbarians did not ruin Italy. The Romans themselves ruined it. Slavery had made it a waste and depopulated land, before a Scythian or a Scandinavian had crossed the Alps.

"When Alaric led the Goths into Italy, even after the conquest of Rome, he saw that he could not sustain his army in the beautiful but desert territory, unless he could also conquer Sicily and Africa, whence alone daily bread could be obtained. His successor was, therefore, easily persuaded to abandon the unproductive region, and invade the happier France.

Attila had no other object than a roving pilgrimage after plunder; and as his cupidity was little excited, and the climate was ungenial, the wild, unlettered Calmuck was easily overawed by the Roman priesthood, and diverted from the indigent Italy to the more prosperous North. Rome still remained an object for plunderers, but none of the barbarians were tempted to make Italy the seat of empire, or Rome a metropolis. Slavery had destroyed the democracy, had destroyed the aristocracy, had destroyed the empire; and now at last it left the traces of its ruinous power deeply furrowed on the face of nature herself.

 

CHAPTER VI.

Christian Slavery in Northern Africa.

Barbary — the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals. — Northern Africa annexed to the Greek Empire. — Conquered by the Saracens. — The Spanish Moors pass over to Africa — Their expeditions to plunder the coasts of Spain, and carry off the Christian Span-iards into Slavery. — Cardinal Ximenes invades Barbary, 1509, to release the captives. — Barbarossa, the sea-rover, becomes king of Algiers. — The Christian Slaves build the mole. — Expeditions of Charles V. against the Moors. — Insurrection of the Slaves. — Charles releases 20,000 Christians from Slavery, and carries off 10,000 Mohammedans to be reduced to Slavery in Spain. — The Moors retaliate by seizing 6000 Minorcans for Slaves. — Second expedition of Charles — its disastrous termination — his army destroyed — prisoners sold into Slavery. — The Algerines extend their depredations into the English Channel. — Condition of the Christian slaves in Barbary — treated with more humanity than African slaves among Christians. — Ransom of the slaves by their countrymen. — British Parliament appropriates money for the purpose. — The French send bomb vessels in 1688. — Lord Exmouth in 1816 releases 3000 captives, and puts an end to Christian Slavery in Barbary.

Barbary is the general and somewhat vague denomination adopted by Europeans to designate that part of the northern coast of Africa which, bound-ed on the south by the desert of Sahara, is comprised between the frontiers of