Wesley Corpus

From this time slavery was nearly extinct till the commencement of the sixteenth century, when the discovery of America, and of the western and eastern coasts of Africa, gave occasion to the revival of it. It took its rise from the Portuguese, who, to supply the Spaniards with men to cultivate their new possessions in America, procured Negroes from Africa, whom they sold for slaves to the American Spaniards. This began in the year 1508, when they imported the first Negroes into Hispaniola. In 1540, Charles the Fifth, then King of Spain, determined to put an end to Negro slavery; giving positive orders that all the Negro slaves in the Spanish dominions should be set free. And this was accordingly done by Lagasca, whom he sent and empowered to free them all, on condition of continuing to labour for their masters. But soon after Lagasca returned to Spain, slavery returned and flourished as before. After wards, other nations, as they acquired possessions in America, followed the examples of the Spaniards; and slavery has taken deep root in most of our American colonies. II. Such is the nature of slavery; such the beginning of Negro slavery in America. But some may desire to know what kind of country it is from which the Negroes are brought; what sort of men, of what temper and behaviour are they in their own country; and in what manner they are generally procured, carried to, and treated in, America. 1. And, First, what kind of country is that from whence they are brought? Is it so remarkably horrid, dreary, and barren, that it is a kindness to deliver them out of it? I believe many have apprehended so; but it is an entire mistake, if we may give credit to those who have lived many years therein, and could have no motive to misrepresent it. 2. That part of Africa whence the Negroes are brought, commonly known by the name of Guinea, extends along the coast, in the whole, between three and four thousand miles. From the river Senegal, seventeen degrees north of the line, to Cape Sierra-Leone, it contains seven hundred miles. Thence it runs eastward about fifteen hundred miles, including the Grain Coast, the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast, and the Slave Coast, with the large kingdom of Benin.