eads; while multitudes of our own worthy traders,
who would hang a slaver as a pirate _when caught_, do not hesitate to
supply him indirectly with tobacco, powder, cotton, Yankee rum, and
New England notions, in order to bait the trap in which he _may_ be
caught! It is the temptation of these things, I repeat, that feeds the
slave-making wars of Africa, and forms the human basis of those
admirable bills of exchange.

I did not intend to write a homily on Ethiopian commerce when I begun
this chapter; but, on reviewing the substantial motives of the
traffic, I could not escape a statement which tells its own tale, and
is as unquestionable as the facts of verified history.

Such, then, may be said to be the _predominating_ influence that
supports the African slave-trade; yet, if commerce of all kinds were
forbidden with that continent, the customs and laws of the natives
would still encourage slavery as a domestic affair, though, of course,
in a very modified degree. The rancorous family quarrels among tribes
and parts of tribes, will always promote conflicts that resemble the
forays of our feudal ancestors, while the captives made therein will
invariably become serfs.

Besides this, the financial genius of Africa, instead of devising
bank notes or the precious metals as a circulating medium, has from
time immemorial, declared that a human creature,--_the true
representative and embodiment of labor_,--is the most valuable article
on earth. A man, therefore, becomes the standard of prices. A slave is
a note of hand, that may be discounted or pawned; he is a bill of
exchange that carries himself to his destination and pays a debt
bodily; he is a tax that walks corporeally into the chieftain's
treasury. Thus, slavery is not likely to be surrendered by the negroes
themselves as a national institution. Their social interests will
continue to maintain hereditary bondage; they will send the felon and
the captive to foreign _barracoons_; and they will sentence to
domestic servitude the orphans of culprits, disorderly children,
gamblers, witches, vagrants, cripples, insolvents, the deaf, the mute,
the barren, and the faithless. Five-sixths of the population is in
chains.[3]

To facilitate the sale of these various unfortunates or malefactors,
there exists among the Africans a numerous class of brokers, who are
as skilful in their traffic as the jockeys of civilized lands. These
adroit scoundrels rove the country in search of o