Slavery
prevented a good example, it hindered justice, it kept down improvement.
If a settler took a fancy to a good-looking girl, he had only to buy
her, and make her his concubine. Instead of correcting the polygamous
habits of the chiefs and others, the Portuguese adopted like habits
themselves. In one thing indeed they were far superior to the Boers--in
their treatment of the children born to them by native mothers. But the
whole system of slavery gendered a blight which nothing could
counteract; to make Africa a prosperous land, liberty must be proclaimed
to the captive, and the slave system, with all its accursed
surroundings, brought conclusively to an end. Writing to Mrs.
Livingstone from Bashinge, 20th March, 1855, he gives, some painful
particulars of the slave-trade. Referring to a slave-agent with whom he
had been, he says:
"This agent is about the same in appearance as Mebalwe, and
speaks Portuguese as the Griquas do Dutch. He has two
chainsful of women going to be sold for the ivory. Formerly
the trade went from the interior into the Portuguese
territory; now it goes the opposite way.
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