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Foreign News
May 17, 1843
Vermont Telegraph
Brandon, Rutland County, Vermont
What is this article about?
A visitor to a slave factory near the Gaboon River in Africa describes the anguish of nursing mothers separated from their infants, who are routinely killed by white traders to facilitate the slave trade, highlighting the inhumanity of the practice.
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Now Horror of the Slave Trade
A gentleman recently on the coast of Africa furnished the following horrible account of a peculiar species of iniquity, in connection with the slave trade. It will be read with astonishment even by those who are most familiar with the history of the most detestable traffic that disgraces the human race.
The statement is placed in our hands for publication, and we are willing to be responsible for its literal truth. The writer visited a town near the mouth of the Gaboon river, where he found a slave factory and four hundred and thirty-two slaves.
He says:
"There was one company which particularly arrested my attention and affected my heart. How they came to be chained together, I cannot tell, unless their keepers, yielding to what they supposed an innocent but unmeaning desire, allowed them to be drawn together by their sympathies and misfortunes. The company to which I allude was made up evidently of nursing mothers, who had been bereft of their children. What had become of their infants, was known perhaps, and disregarded by their owner. But not so with them. Their countenances bespoke anguish and bitterness of spirit, which cannot be described. They were heathen mothers, but the flame of maternal affection had been enkindled in their hearts and no calamities or misfortunes, however overwhelming, could extinguish it.
"When infants are born in the barracoon, or when mothers who have them at the breast, are brought there to be sold, those infants because it is inconvenient to keep them in the barracoon, and next to impossible to transport them across the ocean, are subjected to a premature and violent death. I speak advisedly when I affirm that this is a common-place occurrence in the slave trade, and I was upon inquiry, credibly informed, that such had been the case with many of the mothers to whom I refer. The practice then, of immolating infants, is common in Western Africa. Not by the aborigines, for they regard the practice as unnatural and cruel in the extreme—not upon the shrine of a blind and superstitious idolatry, for the idolatrous creed of the African has never reached this climax of absurdity and wickedness. It is done by white men—the nominal representatives of Christianity; and that purely to gratify an insatiable avarice."—N. Y. Observer
A gentleman recently on the coast of Africa furnished the following horrible account of a peculiar species of iniquity, in connection with the slave trade. It will be read with astonishment even by those who are most familiar with the history of the most detestable traffic that disgraces the human race.
The statement is placed in our hands for publication, and we are willing to be responsible for its literal truth. The writer visited a town near the mouth of the Gaboon river, where he found a slave factory and four hundred and thirty-two slaves.
He says:
"There was one company which particularly arrested my attention and affected my heart. How they came to be chained together, I cannot tell, unless their keepers, yielding to what they supposed an innocent but unmeaning desire, allowed them to be drawn together by their sympathies and misfortunes. The company to which I allude was made up evidently of nursing mothers, who had been bereft of their children. What had become of their infants, was known perhaps, and disregarded by their owner. But not so with them. Their countenances bespoke anguish and bitterness of spirit, which cannot be described. They were heathen mothers, but the flame of maternal affection had been enkindled in their hearts and no calamities or misfortunes, however overwhelming, could extinguish it.
"When infants are born in the barracoon, or when mothers who have them at the breast, are brought there to be sold, those infants because it is inconvenient to keep them in the barracoon, and next to impossible to transport them across the ocean, are subjected to a premature and violent death. I speak advisedly when I affirm that this is a common-place occurrence in the slave trade, and I was upon inquiry, credibly informed, that such had been the case with many of the mothers to whom I refer. The practice then, of immolating infants, is common in Western Africa. Not by the aborigines, for they regard the practice as unnatural and cruel in the extreme—not upon the shrine of a blind and superstitious idolatry, for the idolatrous creed of the African has never reached this climax of absurdity and wickedness. It is done by white men—the nominal representatives of Christianity; and that purely to gratify an insatiable avarice."—N. Y. Observer
What sub-type of article is it?
Colonial Affairs
Trade Or Commerce
What keywords are associated?
Slave Trade
Africa Coast
Gaboon River
Nursing Mothers
Infant Killing
White Traders
Where did it happen?
Near The Mouth Of The Gaboon River, Coast Of Africa
Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Near The Mouth Of The Gaboon River, Coast Of Africa
Event Date
Recently
Outcome
infants subjected to premature and violent death; 432 slaves in factory
Event Details
A gentleman visited a slave factory with 432 slaves, observing chained nursing mothers bereft of their children, whose infants are commonly killed by white traders due to inconvenience in the barracoon and transport.