The Africans Returned by the Niagara; How Southerners Regard a Renewal of the Slave Trade; The Africans at Key West (8/8/1860)

WASHINGTON, Saturday, Aug. 4,1860. The reasons assigned by your telegraphic dispatch, from this city some days ago, for the suppression of Dr. RAINEY's report in regard to the Africans returned by the Niagara, were probably not far from correct ; but there was still another, as I have reason to believe, which had its weight with the Administration. That report, if it truly and fully reflects what its author was known to think and feel, would reveal a state of things on board the Niagara not at all creditable to the officer in command. It is said that that officer was far more careful of his ship than of its cargo, and that from a fastidious regard to neatness, he refused to allow the unfortunate negroes such quarters as were essential to health and comfort. The vessel ran far to the north, and the negroes were exposed on the decks to extremes of heat and cold, which caused many of them to die on the Voyage, and perhaps many others after their arrival on the Coast of Africa. For reasons best known to the Government, it was thought best to suppress these facts, which involved the lives of some scores of wretched Africans; but a humane and Christian public will demand an investigation into the absurd or cruel mismanagement of the business. If the disastrous consequences resulted from mistake, it is due to the author of them that the palliative folly should be made known; but if cruel indifference to the lives of the negroes was the cause, the public will hold the guilty parties responsible.

Here is a link to the Baltimore Daily Exchange newspaper of a few days later in 1860 that mentions that vessels of the United States are conducting most of the slave trade. If I remember correctly, New York City was the center of the slave ship business. I wonder if the New York Times ever mentioned that. Hopefully they did at some time. Here is the link and below it the content of four of the newspaper's articles:

The Baltimore Daily Exchange, August 18, 1860

Paragraph breaks below are mine for readability and the bold red font is mine for emphasis.

BALTIMORE.

SRTURDAY [sic], AUGUST 18, 1860

That the slave trade with Cuba has been prosecuted during the past few years with extraordinary activity, and that nine-tenths of the vessels engaged in this traffic set sail for the Coast of Africa under the flag of the United States, are facts which do not admit of dispute. Not a week passes that we do not hear of vessels being fitted out, either in New York, or in some one or other of the East ern ports, ostensibly for a trading voyage to the gold coast, but, in reality, for the purpose of returning to Cuba with a cargo of Africans.

The expense attendant upon the venture is small; the risk is by no means great, whilst the profits derived from a successful voyage are enormous. Occasionally we hear of a seizure in port under suspicious circumstances, but bonds are promptly given, the vessel is released, and the next account we have of her is that she has been stranded somewhere off the coast of Cuba, after having successfully run the gauntlet of our cruisers and added four or five hundred native Africans to the slave population of the island.

The almost perfect impunity with which these voyages are made has, at length, attracted the attention of the English Government. Lord BROUGHAM has demanded, in the House of Peers, that Spain "shall be compelled to carry out her engagements "for the suppression of the slave-trade." Lord JOHN RUSSELL, on the other hand, seeks to effect the same object in a different and less violent way. In his recent despatch to Lord LYONS he lays down four propositions for the consideration of the parties concerned in putting a stop to the traffic. They are as follows:

1st. An improvement in the laws of the UNITED STATES respecting the equipment of slave ships.

2d. The enactment by Spain of a law enforcing the registration of slaves in Cuba and visiting the purchasers of imported Africans with severe penalties.

3d. A systematic plan of cruising on the Coast of Cuba, by the vessels of the UNITED STATES, Great Britain and Spain.

4th. A plan of Coolie emigration regulated by the agents of European nations in conjunction with the Chinese authorities.

Of all the propositions submitted by Lord JOHN RUSSELL, there is but one which offers any reasonable promise of attaining the end proposed. The laws of the UNITED STATES, in relation to the slave-trade, are stringent enough already. The difficulty lies less with the inefficacy of the laws themselves, than with the execution of them, and more especially is this the case as regards the subordinate officials.— It is very rarely too, that a vessel sails from New York, having in her hold the equipments of a slaver. These are most frequently obtained elsewhere, and however much the nature of her voyage may be suspected, the fact that she has nothing on board but what might be carried by a legitimate trader, renders her detention by the United States Marshal, for more than a brief period, a matter of impossibility.

The enactment of a registration law by Spain, to be applied to the existing slave population of Cuba, would also prove as worthless as the laws at present existing for the prohibition of the slave trade itself. The latter could never have flourished, as it has done, without the connivance of the Cuban authorities, and so long as they wink at the violation of the laws relating to the importation of slaves, they are not likely to exact the penalties incurred by a wanton disregard of the proposed registration law —for a breach of the latter could only take place as a consequence of an infraction of the former.—

Nor are we satisfied that a remedy for the slave trade can be found in the substitution of Coolie labor, under any system which the agents of European nations might agree among themselves to adopt. Their system might work very well in the British West India Islands where the laws that regulate the pay of the Coolies, the number of hours they shall be employed during each day, and the period of service, are rigidly enforced; but no such efficient supervision could be expected in Cuba or Porto Rico. Indeed, from all we know of the Coolie traffic, it is evident that it is open to gross abuses, and it is at least doubtful whether those abuses can be sensibly modified by any arrangement that may lie entered into with the Chinese local authorities.

It seems to be for [in]dentured servant, and of a slave for life, the comparison is altogether in favor of the latter. The price paid for a Coolie laborer, when landed in Cuba, is three hundred dollars. His term of service is limited to seven years, and the employer contracts to pay him four dollars a month, and to furnish him with clothes, shoes, medical attendance, and a generous allowance of food. The price of an imported African ranges from five to eight hundred dollars; the term of service is, of course, unlimited, and except his food, clothing, and medical attendance, be receives nothing. It will be seen from this, that the African is by far the more desirable property of the two, because he is more strictly under the control of his master, and because he is not only a slave for life, but his progeny also. Even if conducted, therefore, under the best auspices, the system of indented apprentices can produce but little effect upon the slave trade, so long as slaves—though purchased originally at a higher price than Coolies—are more profitable, both as laborers costing nothing more than their food and clothing, and from their natural increase.

There are then but two ways in which the slave traffic can be suppressed. The first, and more effectual of all, is that proposed by Lord BROUGHAM. But as the English Government does not appear disposed to resort to extreme measures against Spain, to compel her to carry out her engagements, the only means remaining is to blockade, as against slavers, the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, by an adequate fleet. This is what Lord JOHN RUSSELL proposes shall be done, and this, as we said on Saturday last, is the only mode — the action of Spain herself alone excepted — by which the trade in African slaves can be broken up.

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The speech of Mr. SEWARD, on Tuesday evening, at Boston, indicates that he is at last prepared to assume Mr. LINCOLN'S extreme position on the slavery question. During the past winter, it will be remembered, he explained his political views in the Senate, and it was then supposed that he had determined to recede from the ultra abolitionist doctrines of which he was the champion but a few years since. At the time when he thus addressed the Senate, the country was in a high state of excitement, in consequence of the JOHN BROWN affair, and Republicanism shrunk back abashed and silent, as from one end of the land to the other the people were giving enthusiastic manifestations of their loyalty to the UNION. The sentiments which Mr. SEWARD had been acustomed to avow, were then at a discount, and his argument on the occasion in question so much less extreme and offensive than his party generally had reason to expect, that the more decided portion of it unhesitatingly asserted that their great leader had fallen away from the true faith. But now LINCOLN'S prospect of being President is promising, his principles have been set forth in no equivocal language, and Mr. SEWARD must regain his old ascendancy in the Republican organization, if he expects to influence its councils or share its patronage and power. Hence his speech in Boston. He not only advocates the election of LINCOLN, but he advocates it because his

—"claim to that seat is that he confesses the obligation of that higher law, which the Sage of Quincy proclaimed. and that he avows himself, for weal or woe, for life or death, a soldier on the side of freedom in the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery. This, gentlemen, is mv simple confession. I desire, now, only to say to you that you have arrived at the last stage of this conflict before you reach the triumph which is to inaugurate this great policy into the government of the United States."

Again he says :

"I tell you, fellow citizens, that with this victory comes the end of the power of slavery in the United States.

There is no allusion here to free territories merely — no discussion of any constitutional question — no recognition of the fact that the South has any rights whatever that fanaticism itself is bound to respect. His opposition to slavery is to its existence in the States as well as to its introduction into the Territories, and who can doubt but that his influence, together with that of every man of any consideration in the party would be exerted, not only to prevent the extension of the institution, but also for its suppression? Honestly entertaining these convictions, we cannot but earnestly deprecate the success of the Republican party. We do not look for the dissolution of the Union, which some of our contemporaries so confidently predict, because we are satisfied that when the crisis comes the vast mass of the people, both North and South, will interpose and shatter alike, the schemes of the reckless politicians and the visions of the fanatical dreamers. But that an insidious, or perhaps open assault, will be made by the Republicans upon the institutions of the South, when they once obtain the strength Which the possession of the Federal Government will[? unclear] give them, we do believe, and we still [word unclear] though faintly, that some coalition of parties may be formed by which the will of a majority of the people can be carried out and Mr. LINCOLN S defeat insured.

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THE TEXAS ABOLITION PLOT. —Further developments of the abolition plot in Northern Texas are reported in the Galveston and Houston papers. — Several negroes and white men have been taken up, some on suspicion, others in the very act of incendiarism. The white emissaries have been driven from the State in the absence of legal evidence to convict, though the circumstantial evidence of their guilt was strong, and in some instances, convincing. Apprehension of further danger is now no longer entertained. Vigilance committees and night patrols have been established in the several threatened districts, and the people are now fully prepared to crush out all farther attempts of these abolition outlaws and their unfortunate dupes the negroes.

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THE NEGRO DISTURBANCE AT SOMBRERO ISLAND.—

The Boston Traveler, of the 15th instant, has the following:

We published a few days since an account of a disturbance among the negro guano diggers of the Sombrero Island, situated near Anguilla, in the West Indies. That account stated that Mr. Snow, an overseer, was fatally injured, and that the negroes had obtained possession of the island.

By the arrival at this port of the brig Wm. Mason, Captain Gardner, from St. Martins, via Sombrero Island, July 26, where he touched to land the superintendent of the guano work, Mr. Howard, we have a statement of the speedy quelling of the disturbance, which resulted in nothing very serious.

It appears that the guano deposits of the island are worked by an American company, who have in their employ some two hundred free negroes from the neighboring English settlements. A native of Maine, named Snow, formerly mate of the ship Eastern State, had accepted a position temporarily as overseer. This Snow had occasion to reprove a negro who was shirking, and the result was an assault by the latter upon the former with a large piece of guano, injuring his head badly and breaking out several of his teeth.

The negro was soon after secured and placed in confinement; but the other negroes hearing of it stopped work in a body, assumed a rather threatening attitude, and refused to go to work again unless the prisoner was released. There were three American vessels at the island, and the commanders of these were appealed to by the overseers to aid in restoring order. The captains returned for answer that if their lives were in danger they would land and protect them, but they advised the withholding of food from the negroes until they submitted.

This was done, and the next day work was resumed as usual, though about fifty of the workmen soon after left the island. Mr. Snow was able to write to his friends by the Win. Mason, and was in no danger from his wounds. This island has a large supply of guano, but at, present the amount dug out is less than seventy-five tons per day.

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