Haiti

The central Sudan appeared to be one vast hunting-ground. Captives were brought thence to the slave market of Kuka in Bornu, where, after being bought by dealers, they were, to the number of about io,000 annually, marched across the Sahara to Murzuk in Fezzan, from which place they were distributed to the northern and eastern Mediterranean coasts. Their sufferings on the route were dreadful ; many succumbed and were abandoned. Rohlfs informs us that "any one who did not know the way" by which the caravans passed "would only have to follow the bones which lie right and left of the track." Negroes were also brought to Morocco from the western Sudan and from Timbuktu. The centre of the traffic in Morocco was Sidi Hamed ibn Musa, seven days' journey south of Mogador, where a great yearly fair was held. The slaves were forwarded thence in gangs to different towns, especially to Marrakesh, Fez and Mequinez. About 4,000 were thus annually imported, and an ad valorem duty was levied by the sultan, which produced about £4,800 of annual revenue. The control now exercised by the French over the greater part of the western Sudan has deprived Morocco of its chief sources of supply. The basin of the Upper Nile, extending to the great lakes, was another region infested by the slave trade; the slaves were either smuggled into Egypt or sent by the Red sea to Turkey. The khedive Ismail in 1869 appointed Sir Samuel Baker to the command of a large force with which he was "to strike a direct blow at the slave trade in its distant nest." The work begun by him was continued by Col. C. G. Gordon (1874-79), but under the Mandi and the Khalifa the slave trade was revived. Since the reconquest of the eastern Sudan by an Anglo-Egyptian force in 1898 effective measures have been taken to suppress slave raiding and as far as possible slavery itself. The conquest of the central Sudan States by France—completed in 1910 by the subjugation on Wadai—has practically ended the caravan trade in slaves across the Sahara.

Benghazi in Cyrenaica long remained a port for the surrepti tious export of slaves, but the assertion of Italian sovereignty over Tripoli and its hinterland has effectually killed the traffic.

The Berlin and Brussels Acts.

The export from Zanzibar to Arabia and the Persian gulf persisted till the close of the century, and it was mainly with a view to the suppression of this traffic that a conference of the Powers signatory to the Berlin Act (to whom were added Persia, Zanzibar and the Congo Free State) was summoned at the instance of Queen Victoria to assemble at Brussels in 1889. The Berlin Conference of 1885 had been primarily concerned with the political and commercial relations of the Powers which were engaged in the "scramble for Africa." Its scope was limited to "the Conventional basin of the Congo," and in only two of its 38 articles was the subject of slavery referred to. In these (articles 6 and 9) the "Powers exercising sovereign rights or influence" within this zone, pledged themselves "to help in suppressing slavery and the slave trade."

The Brussels Conference, on the other hand, was solely directed to "putting an end to the crimes and devastations engendered by the traffic in African slaves, protecting effectively the aboriginal populations of Africa, and insuring for that vast continent the benefits of peace and civilization." It was recognized that "the maritime zone in which the slave trade still exists" had shifted from the west to the east coast of Africa, and that zone, in which special regulations as to rights of search, etc., were laid down, was defined as extending "between the coasts of the Indian ocean, including those of the Persian gulf, and of the Red sea from Beluchistan to Quillimane" a port in Portuguese East Africa S. lat. 18°, and thence southwards to S. lat. 26° and east wards so as to include Madagascar. The general act, prefaced by the words "In the name of Almighty God," dealt in its too articles with measures for the suppression of the slave trade by sea and land, the restriction of the import of arms of precision, and ammunition between lat. 20° N. and lat. 22° S. of spirituous liquor with Africa. It marked a new era in the international recognition of the responsibilities of the civilized Powers towards the subject races. As early as 1873 Sir John British consul-general in Zanzibar, had succeeded in inducing the sultan to declare that the export of slaves from the mainland was illegal, and in 1876 an edict was issued prohibiting their arrival at the coast from the interior. The edicts were, however, disregarded.

For over half a century Great Britain had maintained a squadron in East-African waters for the suppression of the trade, but in 1883 H.M.S. "London," and her fleet of small vessels, adapted for pursuing the slave-dhows into the creeks and shallow waters, was withdrawn, and three vice-consuls (one in Lake Nyasa and two on the coast) were substituted, Naval action had proved wholly inadequate, and very costly both in lives and money, but British war-vessels continued to capture slave-dhows. Nor were the pledges of the signatory Powers to the Berlin Act, productive of any tangible results, for it was estimated that not 5% of the slaves exported were rescued.

The partition of Africa between the European Powers which took place at this time, rendered obsolete the provisions of the Brussels Act in so far as they related to the establishment of cities of refuge for fugitive slaves, armed vessels on the great lakes and fortified posts. With the assumption of control by Europe in Africa, the overseas slave trade rapidly came to an end except as regards Abyssinia, the only country which maintained its independence under its traditional rulers. It was in evidence before the slavery committee of the League of Nations in 1926 (see p. 786) that a considerable traffic in slaves from that country to the Hedjaz (Arabia) was still carried on, her Government being powerless to stop it.