The Abolition of Slavery, by James Townley
Slavery, in various forms, has existed from the earliest periods of historical record. It appears to have originated in the brutal selfishness of lawless power; and though occasionally, and temporarily modified by the influence of civilization, or the impulse of humanity, yet it never received effectual and permanent resistance, except from the authoritative precepts of Divine Revelation, and the mild but energetic principles of the gospel of Christ. The institutes of Moses inculcated kindness and beneficence to those that were in bondage; and taught the Israelites to soften the rigours of servitude by the recollection of their own sufferings in the land of Egypt. Maimonides, one of the most learned and admired of Jewish writers, says, "Our pious ancestors made it a rule to give their slaves a portion of every dish prepared for their own use: nor would they sit down to their meals before they had seen that their servants were properly provided for; considering themselves their natural protectors: remembering what King David said, 'Behold, as the eyes of slaves are directed towards their masters, and as the eyes of the handmaid towards her mistress,' &c. Cruelty and violence characterise heathen idolaters; but the sons of Abraham, the Israelites, whom the Holy (blessed be His name!) has so eminently distinguished by wise and just laws, ought to be kind and compassionate, and as merciful as He of whom it is said, 'He is good to all, and His mercy extends over all His works.'"
On the promulgation of the gospel, the barbarous traffic in human beings was utterly condemned; and in many instances severely prohibited, both by Councils and Christian Sovereigns. The "Ecclesiastical Laws" of Ina, king of the West-Saxons, passed in the year 693, enjoined that, "If a slave work on the Sunday by his lord's command, he shall become a freeman, and the lord pay thirty shillings for a mulct."
Withred, king of Kent, ordained in 696, that, "If a man give freedom to a slave at the altar, his family shall be free; he shall take his liberty and have his goods:" which proves that slaves were allowed to possess property of their own, and were protected in the possession of it, by the highest authority.
By the canons of Wulfred, archbishop of Canterbury, made at a Synod in 816, it was ordered that, at the death of a Bishop, "Every Englishman of his, who had been made a slave in his days, should be set at liberty;" -- and that "Every Prelate and Abbot should set at liberty three slaves, and give three shillings to every one of them;" (a sum equivalent to the purchase of three sheep.)
The "Ecclesiastical Laws" of Alfred, in 877, provided that, "The four Wednesdays in the four Ember-weeks, should be indulged to all slaves, to bestow what time is given to them in God's name, to such as are most beloved by them, or they might on any of these intervals earn by their labour;" and thus acquire property of their own. And in 878 it was added that, "If a lord forced his servant to work on a festival he shall pay a mulct."
In 925, King Athelstan, by the advice of the Archbishop and other functionaries, required that, " Some one should be set at liberty, who for his crimes had been condemned to slavery," and that this should be done "for the mercies of Christ." These laws conclude with the following just and benevolent sentiments: "It is necessary, that every master be compassionate and condescending to his servants, in the most indulgent manner that is possible. The slave and the freeman are equally dear to the Lord God who bought them, and bought them all with the same price: and we are all of necessity servants to God, and He will judge us in the same manner that we on the earth judged them over whom we had a judicial power."
By the canons of Archbishop Anselm, framed at Winchester in the year 1102, the slave-trade was expressly prohibited in the following terms: "That none exercise that wicked Trade, which has hitherto been practised in England, of selling men like beasts."
Several other countries exhibited a similar influence on the minds of the clergy, and other enlightened characters. Eligius, bishop of Noyon in France, who is frequently regarded as the Apostle of Flanders, for his missionary labours during the seventh century, is said to have "often bought twenty, thirty, fifty, nay, whole ship loads of slaves, consisting of men, women, and children, from Germany, Britain, Italy, and the Levant;" and used "to exhort all" who sought instruction from him, "to set their slaves at liberty." His generous zeal was supported by the approbation and piety of Bathildes, consort of Clovis II., an Englishwoman by birth, who had been carried over to France, when young, and sold for a slave, but who, by her virtuous and prudent conduct, had gained universal esteem, and had been raised to royalty, with the approbation of the princes and of the whole kingdom. Louis X., who was crowned in 1315, abolished slavery in France, declaring "all free who lived in that kingdom, according to the spirit of Christianity, which teaches us to treat all men as brethren."
In the year 779, Charlemagne had passed a law, that no slaves should be exported out of his dominions. The enactments of Charlemagne, and the decrees of various Synods on the same subject, expressive of serious disapprobation of slavery, were followed by other princes and ecclesiastical dignitaries; so that Hildebrand, in his Historia Conciliorum, is led to remark that "there was no Council held where the abolition of the slave-trade had not been a serious subject."
To render the manumissions of slaves more impressive and influential, they were sometimes accompanied with ceremonies indicative of emancipation being a religious obligation, enforced by Revelation. In Norway, the law called, "Gulethings Law," enacted that, "The slave should be brought into the church, and the Holy Bible be laid upon his head; which being done he shall be free." "Among our Saxon ancestors, these manumissions, whether procured by themselves or others, were usually recorded," says the Rev. Dr. A. Clarke, "in some holy book, especially in copies of the four Evangelists, which being preserved in the libraries of abbeys, &c. were a continual record; and might at all convenient times be consulted. Several entries of these manumissions exist in a MS. of the four evangelists in the library of Corpus Christi, or Bennet College, Cambridge." Of these he has given several specimens, with verbal translations; it may suffice to copy one of the translations, as an example. "The certificate of a man's having purchased his own freedom. -- Here is witnessed, in this book of Christ, that Aelfwig the Red hath redeemed himself from Abbot Aelfsig, and the whole convent, with one pound. And this is witnessed by the whole convent of Bath.
May Christ strike him blind,
Who this writing perverts."
This was a usual execration at the end of these forms; and was in rhyme in the original Anglo-Saxon.
The Venetians were induced by their maritime situation, and love of gain, to enter extensively into the traffic in slaves, and long continued in the nefarious commerce. At length, by the interference of the Doge, the trade was controlled, and ultimately abolished. In Norway, king Magnus, called the Reformer of the Law, totally abolished slavery in 1270. In Sweden, King Byrger abrogated servitude in the province of Upland, in the year 1295; and in 1335, King Eric Magnusen extended the blessing of liberty to the rest of that kingdom, for the purpose, as he said, of "following God, who has rescued the whole of mankind from slavery."
The adoption of these and other measures of a liberal nature were powerfully sanctioned by the doctrine inculcated by Wycliffe, "the morning star" of the Reformation, "of its being contrary to the principles of the Christian religion, that any one should be a slave." At length, example and principle so far prevailed, that it was adopted as a maxim, that, "A foreign slave as soon as he shall have touched European ground, may that moment be free."
Thus had the slave-trade and slavery become nearly, if not altogether extinct in the countries bearing the name of christian, when they were unhappily again revived, through the discovery of America and of the western and eastern coasts of Africa. This revival of the slave-trade and its attendant cruelties originated with the Portuguese, who, to supply the Spaniards with men to cultivate their new possessions, procured negroes from Africa, whom they sold as slaves to the Spaniards of Hispaniola. This was in 1503. In 1511, Ferdinand V., king of Spain, permitted them to be imported into the American colonies in greater numbers. After his death, a proposal was made for the establishment of a regular system of commerce in the persons of the native Africans, but Cardinal Ximenes, who then held the reins of government, as regent of Spain, refused the proposal, as unlawful; -- a decision worthy of the founder of the University of Alcala de Henarez or Complutum, and the munificent patron of the Complutensian Polyglott. After the death of the cardinal, the Emperor Charles V. granted a patent to a Flemish favourite, containing an exclusive right of importing four thousand Africans into America. He, however, afterwards repented of the inconsiderate act; and in order to put an end to negro slavery in his foreign dominions, ordered that "all slaves in his American islands should be set free." This order was executed by Pedro de Gasca. "But on the return of Gasca to Spain, and the retirement of Charles into a monastery, slavery was revived."
About the same time, the Dominican and Franciscan orders differing in opinion on the consistency of slavery with the principles of the gospel, the former advocating its lawfulness, and the latter denying its accordance with christian principles, they appealed to Pope Leo X., who, much to his honour, declared, "That not only the Christian Religion, but that Nature herself cried out against a state of slavery."
It was about 1551, that the English began trading to Guinea, for gold and elephants' teeth; but the first Englishman who engaged in the negro-trade was Captain (afterwards Sir) John Hawkins, who, assisted by a liberal subscription, fitted out three ships, and sailed to the coast of Guinea, from whence he carried three hundred negro slaves to Hispaniola, in 1562. On his return the queen (Elizabeth) sent for him, and expressed her concern lest any of the Africans should be carried off without their free consent; declaring that "it would be detestable, and call down the vengeance of Heaven on the undertakers."
But the "love of money," which "is the root of all evil," not only led Sir John Hawkins to violate his pledge to the queen, not to continue the trade; but induced many others to enter into it, until slavery in its most atrocious forms, had been introduced into the colonial possessions of almost every European state; -- and the slave trade carried to an unparalleled extent.
The vigorous and successful efforts of a later period to abolish the slave trade, and to extinguish colonial slavery, especially under the British government, commenced with the humane and persevering exertions of that truly christian philanthropist, Granville Sharpe, who to the elegance of the classical scholar, added the various and accurate knowledge of the biblical critic, and the important investigations of extensive legal research. "After a struggle of many years," (says Montgomery, in a note appended to his poem on the Abolition of the Slave trade) "against authority and precedent, he established in our courts of justice, the law of the Constitution, that there are no slaves in England, and that the fact of a negro being found in this country, is of itself a proof that he is a freeman." This great and important decision took place in 1772, and was followed by the disinterested, unwearied, and persevering labours of the venerated Clarkson and Wilberforce, whose generous and unequalled exertions were ultimately crowned by the abolition of the slave trade, by the British Parliament, in 1807: -- an epoch never to be forgotten in the annals of British benevolence. The entire abrogation of slavery in all the colonial possessions of Great Britain, and especially in the West Indies, never ceased to be desired and occasionally advocated, both in the senate and other public assemblies; and although the age and infirmities of the eloquent Wilberforce obliged him to withdraw from Parliament, yet he and his admirable friend Clarkson never ceased to plead the cause of the oppressed African, when opportunities were presented. Divine Providence, however, on the retirement of the former parliamentary friend of negro emancipation from public life, raised up Buxton as the honoured and zealous successor in his laborious career in the British Senate; where, eventually, his great and truly patriotic efforts, supported latterly by the Ministers of the Crown, and several talented noblemen and commoners, have been crowned with triumphant success, by the act of 1833.
"'All hail!' exclaimed the Empress of the sea,
'Thy chains are broken, Africa, be free!'
'All hail!' replied the mourner, 'She who broke
My bonds, shall never wear a stranger's yoke.'
* * * * * *
Friends of the outcast! view the accomplished plan,
The negro towering to the height of man."
James Townley.