Thus did Europe first bring the "glad tidings" to the African. It did not take long to ascertain that the spiritual consolation derived from converting the African to Christianity had its utilitarian counterpart. He made an excellent labourer. Thenceforth every newly-returned caravel brought its quota of miserable captives, and a brisk traffic grew up, Lagos in Southern Portugal becoming the principal slave mart.
That was the first stage. The second began with the discovery of America by Columbus, and of gold in the Island of Haiti, which the Spaniards termed Hispaniola. The aboriginal Caribs and Aranaks proving either intractable or useless as labourers, the Spaniards contracted with the Portuguese for supplies of Africans. Thus, in the opening years of the 16th Century, the black man was transported across the Atlantic and flung into that "New World," where he was fated to suffer such unspeakable agonies and which he has fertilised to such purpose, and for ultimate ends still concealed from the vision of prophecy, with his blood and tears and sweat.
For some years the Spaniards continued to employ the Portuguese as intermediaries for their African slaves. But with the extension of their conquests in the West Indies and on the American mainland, the demand for additional human material to exploit the natural riches of the country, gold and silver, precious stones and spices, waxed incessantly. The Spanish Sovereigns thereupon inaugurated a system of special contracts ("Assiento") which became of international significance, and under which they bestowed from time to time the monopoly of the supply of Africans for their American possessions upon foreign nations, corporations, or individuals, who in turn employed sub-contractors.
In 1562 the first British sub-contractor appeared on the scene in the person of John Hawkins, and with Queen Elizabeth as sleeping partner, embarked on his career of murder and brigandage in the good ship "Jesus," lent him by his Royal confederate. Ten years later Elizabeth knighted him as a reward for his persistent energies—
