The Gazette

PORTUGUESE AND AMERICAN SLAVERY.

Slavery, similar to peonage in the south, is rampant in the Portuguese islands of St. Thome and Principe, on the west coast of Africa, and has caused three of the largest British cocoa firms to withdraw their patronage, so bad are the conditions prevailing.

The unfortunate creatures (slaves) are brought from the interior of Africa in gangs, chained together, for hundreds of miles along a barren track, where death awaits them from hunger, thirst and disease at every turn. The path through the "Hungry Country" is strewn with bones and skulls. The remnants of gangs are taken to the so-called "emigration agents" established at various points in the country, under Portuguese regulations, and then forwarded to other agents on the coast. The slaves destined for the islands are brought before a Portuguese official, and are asked whether they are willing to work on the island for five years. Not the slightest attention is paid to their answers, and, entering the office as slaves, they are shipped off as "contract laborers." The slaves die on the islands at the rate of one in five every year. At the end of the five years for which they are contracted the survivors are called up before an official and informed that they are contracted for another five years. The last sentence or two of the above is also a true story of southern peonage and the convict-lease system of that section-in free America, if you please.