Letters on West Africa and the Slave Trade. Paul Erdmann Isert�s Journey to Guinea and the Carribean Islands in Columbis (178

Eleventh Letter: St. Criox 12 March 1787

232 LETTERS ON WEST AFRICA AND THE SLAVE TRADE Eleventh Letter Christiansstad on St. Criox in Columbia 12 March 1787 Et moi je dirois à celui qui attenteroit à ma liberté, si vous approchez, je vous poignarde. ’ Rainal1 I am still alive father, and have put behind me an ocean voyage of 1,200 miles. But it was by a hair’s breadth that I still exist! – ‘suffered a ship wreck? Been ill?’ No! Murdered by the hand of an unhappy Black! It was on 7 October last year that I left Africa and boarded the ship ‘Christiansburg’ which sailed that very evening. Picture the tumult in front of a ship of black slaves, a ship which, when used in the king’s service would hold no more than 200 people, now holding more than 452 slaves, who have to be kept in check by 36 Europeans.2 Imagine the sight of such a|| p.306 || multititude of miserable people – some who were by chance born to slave parents; some who were captured in war;some who were stolen and innocent of any crime;some who,for other casual reasons,were sold to the Europeans – all of them now about to be transported in heavy chains from their fatherland to another country which they do not know.Their future cannot possibly hold anything good in store for them when the Europeans use such violent means to secure them. In their own country they have themselves heard such dreadful tales 1 ‘As for me, I shall say to him who would make an attempt on my liberty,‘‘If you approach I shall run you through’’ ’ Raynal, Cf. Preface 1 . 2 Another source gives the number of slaves on this voyage as 457 (Green-Pederson 1973:72). 233 of how the slaves are treated in Columbia that one is appalled when one hears them. I was once asked by a slave, in complete earnest, if the shoes I was wearing had been made of Black skin,since he had observed that they were the same colour as his skin.Others say that we eat the Blacks and make gunpowder of their bones.3 They cannot imagine that they will be used only for the cultivation of fields and other manual labour, since, in order to sustain themselves here, this kind of work requires so few hands and demands so little time that it would be absolutely superfluous to bring ||p. 307|| strangers into the land to do it.4 Furthermore, they give no credence to all the assurances from the Europeans that they are going to be taken to a beautiful country, and other similar cajolery. On the contrary, whenever the opportunity presents itself they take flight or kill themselves, since they fear death far less than slavery inWest India. Indeed, all precautions must be taken to prevent their having the opportunity of committing suicide. For this reason on the French ships they are not even allowed a narrow strip of loincloth for fear they will hang themselves by it, which has in fact happened.5 This prejudice,and the too strict treatment these unfortunates not infrequently are forced to suffer at the hands of barbaric captains, often result in conspiracy among them.They conspire at night that, notwithstanding their chains, they will kill the Europeans whom they so greatly outnumber and let ship drift in to land.Usually this kind of mutiny occurs either while the ship is in the roadstead or during || p.308|| the first day,when the ship is sailing away from 3 The slaves’fear of being eaten,and their blood drunk,’was often cited by the early authors. Cf. Monrad 1822:297. 4 Carried away by his sentiments Isert has made a sweeping statement that ignores the truth. He knew perfectly well that ‘strangers’ were brought in to work the land in Africa.Indeed later in this letter,|| p.340||,he states clearly and unconditionally that the Africans were accustomed to slave trading and that they could not ‘work the fields otherwise than with slaves.’ Following this precept he based his own plantation/colony on the use of slave labour, albeit the cultivation was initially to be for the sole purpose of sustenance. See Editor’s Appendices. 5 Cf. Green–Pedersen 1973: 45,52. ELEVENTH LETTER 234 LETTERS ON WEST AFRICA AND THE SLAVE TRADE the coast. During my stay on the Guinea Coast I have...