CHAPTER V
ON THE SLAVE-COAST
Physical Features of Land and Sea — Peculiarities of the Aborigines and some Characteristics that were not Peculiar to Them — Gathering Slaves for the Market — A Trade that Degenerated from a System of Fair Barter into the Most Atrocious Forms of Piracy Conceivable — Utter Degradation of White Traders — The Slaughter at Calabar — Prices Paid for Slaves — The Barracoons of Pedro Blanco and Da Souza — When Negroes Voluntarily Sold Themselves.
The chief source of supply for the devouring slave-market of the West throughout the whole history of the trade, and practically the only source during the years when the trade was legal, was found along the Atlantic coast of Africa, between Cape Verde, at the north, and Benguela, or Cape St. Martha, at the south. The sea here makes a great scoop into the land, as if the Brazilian part of the South American continent had been broken out of the hollow in the African coast. Two great rivers and a host of smaller streams come down to the sea within its limits, and its contour, as a whole, is that of a mighty gulf, but there is neither bay nor inlet throughout its whole extent that forms a good harbor for shipping. And the off-shore islands, too, are few in number and small in extent. The land at the beach is almost everywhere low, even though hills and mountains may be
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