Slavery
Most of the last month has been taken up with writing up historical research—dealing with India and China in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—and has not left much time for blog writing.
It struck me, however, that it is always salutary to bring to the attention of those alive in the present (yourself, dear reader) some of the attitudes that prevailed in the years now gone.
Then again, when I hear and read of what is still going on regarding the affairs of the human species, I'm not sure that anything has changed.
Slavery still flourishes in Europe, Africa, the Middle and Far East, in particular, but some form of it is to be found everywhere (and you don't have to search too hard. [The news today of 13,000 cases of slavery in Britain); the internet full of furious comment.]
It exists in attitudes, particularly among males, outlooks that have been enshrined and pleated into creeds and rituals that don't have much in the form of reasoning to back them up. Slavery exists from the earliest times and riddled all the empires that have risen and fallen from time immemorial.
The little bits of information I have just been dealing with refer to the prevalence of slavery, and the casual manner and attitude towards it that prevailed, in the British East India Company settlements in the mid-eighteenth century, such as Bombay, where concubines and housekeepers were looked upon as slaves.
Meanwhile, in Bengal in the 1790s, a British gentleman, referring to the production of salt said, in all seriousness: 'Salt people must be free at last, for slaves cannot work so cheap as free men. Besides, we ought to give all our subjects liberty.'
Among the Chinese the situation was the same or worse. At Chupchow, a Chinese woman could be purchased for three dollars, and for one dollar at Foochow, when the price of a bullock was seven dollars.
When will the enslavement of women stop —and I am a male, in case anyone wants to know.
Of course Bunce Island, also in Sierra Leone, was a British slave trading post in the 18th century. From its shores, tens of thousands of Africans were forcefully shipped to the American colonies.
Anti-Slavery
Meanwhile, back in Britain in 1791, perhaps spurred by the great insurrection of slaves in French St. Domingo, some members of the British Establishment were rustling up a 'Society for forming a settlement on the coast of Africa', with the intention of doing something to stop the slave trade. They were seeking to form a company for this purpose, under royal charter, for development of a settlement on the island of Bulam and its neighbourhood, on the West African coast of present day Sierra Leone—at present hit by the ebola epidemic.
This enterprise actually went ahead and by 1794 a ship full of settlers had arrived there, where a great many were murdered by locals; and they found the whole area came under Portuguese domination.
In fact, it was a great centre for gathering captured natives together and despatching them by ship to the Western Hemisphere. A large Dutch EastIndiaman ship sitting in Bulam harbour was used by the Portuguese to 'store' the slaves. It was overseen by a 'Factor' who at any one time had around 'six hundred slaves between decks' prepared for embarkation to the West Indies.
The Bulam Company would appear to have tried to emulate the Sierra Leone Company, whose settlement, already set up, lay on the river of that name. The intention of this company was also to abolish the slave trade. It consisted of upwards of two hundred settlers. A hospital and school were set up; and whether or not the locals wanted it, the Christian religion preached; wrongdoers punished with whipping or imprisonment.
See: Joshua Montefiore, 'An Authentic Account of the Late Expedition to Bulam on the Coast of Africa: With a Description ...'(1794).
