Besides the slave-trade on the Atlantic, there is another periodical exportation of slaves by caravans from Soudan to the Barbary states and Egypt, the annual number of which is variously estimated at between twenty and thirty thousand. There is also a trade carried on by the subjects of the Itnaum of Muscat, who export slaves in Arab vessels from Zanzibar and other ports of the eastern coast of Africa, to Arabia, Persia, India, Java, and other places. The Portuguese also export slaves from their settlements on the Mozambique coast, to Goa, Diu, and their other Indian possessions.
By a law of the Koran, which, however, is not always observed in all Mohammedan countries,no 31ussulman is allowed to enslave one of his own faith. The Moslem negro kingdoms of Soudan supply the slave trade at the expense of their pagan subjects or neighbours, whom they sell to the Moorish traders. Mohammedan powers will probably never suppress this trade of their own accord.
There is a considerable internal slave-trade in the United States of North America. Negroes are bred and sold in Maryland and Virginia, and some other of the slave-holding states, and carried to the more fertile lands of Alabama, Louisiana, and other southern states. But the attempts of the south, for some time successful, to legalise the recapturing of their escaped slaves in the non.slaveholding states, has at length led to a reaction. On the other hand the election of a presi dent opposed to the views of the slave states, has served as a pretext for the southern states to secede from the Union, and form a new con federacy based on the fullest recognition of slavery as an institution. The issue is however still pending, it being as yet uncertain whether either party will make concessions, or whether or not coercive mea sures will be employed.
It is maintained by some that the African slave-trade cannot be effectually put down by force, and that the only chance of its ultimate suppression is by civilising central Africa, by encouraging agricultural industry and legitimate branches of commerce, and at the same time spreading education and Christianity ; and also by giving the protec tion of the British flag to those ncgroes who would avail themselves of it. It is certain that if other countries will not exert themselves, the abolition must be postponed to this remote period. The Africans sell
men because they have no other means of procuring turopean corn inodities, and there seems no doubt that one result of the slave-trade is to keep central Africa in a state of barbarism. Great hopes are entertained, and a prospect has been afforded, that the influence of com merce will tend to lessen the hateful trade. From the western coast of Africa a large amount of palm-oil is now exported, and as the cultiva tion of the plant, and the production of the oil, will render the profit of the labour more productive to the rulers than the sale of the labourer, it may induce them to discontinue the practice of under taking wars for the purpose of procuring captives for sale. It is also hoped by many that cotton may be successfully raised in Africa.
The amount of the slave population now existing in America is not easily ascertained, In Brazil it is estimated there are 2,000,000 negroes, of whom three-fourths are slaves. The slaves in Cuba, accord ing to the census of 1840, numbered 425,521. In the United States the number of slaves was 3,204,313 by the census of 1850, which is 716,989 more than the number according to the census of 1840; yet ten states which returned slaves in 1840 returned none in 1850, the holding of them having wholly (or virtually) ceased.
Societies for the ultimate and universal abolition of slavery exist in England, France, and the United States, and they publish their reports ; and a congress was held in London, in June, 1840, of delegates from many countries to confer upon the means of effecting it. The American Society has formed a colony called Liheria,near Cape Mesurado, on the west coast of Africa, where negroes who have obtained their freedom in the United States are sent, if they are willing to go [LIBERIA, in Gsoo. Drv.] The English government has a colony for a similar pur pose at Sierra Leone, where negroes who have been seized on board slavers by English cruisers are settled. [Steams LsoNs, in Gem Dtv4 Several thotiaands of negroes who have escaped from slavery in the United States are now settled in Canada, earning a livelihood by their own industry.