A CENTENARY

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 August 1933, Page 12

A CENTENARY

FREEDOM FOR THE SLAVE The idea that a fellow-human being should by right of capture or purchase become the personal chattel of another, is perhaps as old as the human race, and till comparatively recently had been accepted as one of the facts of everyday life, which attracted no attention. We know that slavery was a regular institution amongst the Jews, and various regulations regarding their treatment have been handed down to us. When the great nations of antiquity went to war, one of the major results of a victory was the number of slaves captured, and they were in those days one of tho most highly prized rewards of the victor. The erection of such mammoth structures as the Pyramids was only possible by the use of slave labour (writes Flinders Barr, in the “Sydney Morning Herald.”) Perhaps nowhere was slave trading more universal than in the British Islands, particularly in Anglo-Saxon days, when Bristol was tho centre of a horrible traffic in slaves, mostly handsome young men and women, particularly the latter. They wore collected from all parts of the country, and exposed in the slave ntiirket. roped together in rows, largo numbers of (hem being sent to Ireland and to the Continent. It is said that Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, induced the Bristol slave-dealers to give up their barbarous trade.

This actual dealing in British flesh ■- and blood .being put a. stop to, there 1 followed the conditions of serfdom x and villenage, when a large number of - the population were slaves, in all but I name —having no rights of any kind, >- either personal or in property. This e continued throughout the Middle Ages, when it gradually disappeared. In e Stubbs’ “Select Charters.” Glanvil, ’ who wrote about 1181, and was one of i- Henry H.’s greatest Ministers, is mentioned as saying: "This must be noted II that no man who is in serfdom can buy 1 his liberty with his own money; for, f even if he had paid the price, he might be recalled to villenage by his lord, r according to the law and custom of . this land; for all the goods of all S serfs are understood to be so far with--0 in the power of his lord that he can 7 not redeem himself from his lord by I any money of his own.” No freed serf was allowed to plead in a court of „ law if his former condition was obn jected to, even if he had been dubbed 0 a knight; but. if any serf ran away >. from his master and remained nilq claimed for a year and a day in any d chartered town, where he had been rei- ceived into some community or guild as a citizen, then that single fact freed if him from villenage. c HARD LOT OF WOMEN t, n Another writer tells us that a female serf’s office was “travaylo. toylynge, L ’- and drudgery.” She was to have plain t‘ coarse food and clothing, and to be e kept low under the yoke of thraldom ’’ and servitude. “A bonde servaunt wo- - man is bought and solde like a beast” l ’ and if any bond servant, man or wol* man, being made free, becomes dis- . orderly, he or she can again be taken into thraldom. “Also a bonde servant e suffrith many wrongs, and is bete with J' roddes. and constrc-yned and helde ’ lowe with diverse and contrarye p charges and travayles amongst 1, wretchydnes and woe.” s All the holders of land, great and y small, including the religious houses, held serfs. Thus in the “Monasticon” b of Dugdale-Cary, we find a note to the 0 effect that on the death of her hus3, band, Gunyora de la Mare gave to .0 the monks of Eynsham “the half hide s ofdand in Eston which Roger the Palit mer of Eston held of me, together with ” the same Roger and all his brood.” d Also we find: “I, William of Dives, , r . have given to the monks of Eynsham s Richard Rowland of Wealde. who was n my born serf, with all his brood.” At d the time the Domesday Book was written, Sir Henry Ellis has stated that the whole population of England amounted to 283,000 people, the villani and other bond servants being more L than 150,000 in number. e As the centuries passed, this cruel c 1 state of servitude gradually wore away; all men in England, became k nominally, equal, and there arose that s great body politic, the Commons of England. Now although no Englishman ? was any lonsev a slave, Englishmen s thought that, it was a very right and proper thing to make slaves of savage and uncivilised races, more particularly the natives of West Africa, e and during the 16th century John Haw--1 kin, of Fly mouth, one of that famous j. family of adventurers, being informed v ‘that negroes were very good merit chandise in Hispaniola, and that stores of negroes might easily be had upon e the coast of Guinea, he resolved withli in himself to make trial thereof.” Thus began the African slave fade, originale ly started to supply slaves to work in t the Spanish possessions in the West e Indies and South America. This trade e assumed large proportions, and Liver--4 pool became its headquarters, and it. a is unfortunately true that that city owed much of its early prosperity to • this commerce in human flesh. In Hie 1 course of lime Britain became poss. sessed of the principal sugar-prodneing 1 West India islands, and negro slave labour to’ work in the canefields beK came, as it was stated, an absolute necessity. In the ton years between • 1795 and 1804, the Liverpool merchants shipped 323,770 slaves from Africa to the West Indies and to the American . cotton plantations. The London share of this traffic was 46,405 slaves, and that of Bristol 10,719. To many serious- ‘ ly minded and humane persons, however, this trade in their fellow beings, and the very idea of slavery, was insupportable. and to obtain its total abolition a small but powerful body of Englishmen, banded themselves together. Their efforts commenced in 1788. and in 1807. ai'tci' a terrible . struggle for nineteen years, their first success arrived in the form of the total prohibition of the trade in slaves within the British Empire, an Act to that effect being passed by Parliament. ’ TOTAL SUPPRESSION AIMED AT 1 The next objects of the Abolitionists were the prohibition of slavery within the British Umpire, the granting of freedom to all slaves in the West Indies and other British colonies, with the compensation of the owners, and the suppression of the slave trade and total abolition of slavery in every part of the world. As may be supposed, this was a colossal task. The people, generally, were apathetic, the King, George 111., and the aristocratic party, were entirely opposed to the upsetting of old ideas; and a still more powerful opposition was encountered from those whose vested interests vvere attacked. After many re- ; verses, the preliminary Act prohibit-

ing slavery in any form within the British Umpire was passed in 1833. though the actual freeing of the 770.280 slaves within the colonies affected by the l-hnaiicipation Act, was not completed till 18-10.

The outstanding name in this long struggle for the freedom of the negro slave, was that of Samuel Wilberforce who was born at Hull on August. 24, 1750. the son of a wealthy merchant of the town, which he afterwards represented in Parliament. He gave his life practically to the anti-slavery cause, and though he did not live to see the fruition of his efforts, yet when he died on July 29, 1833, he had the satisfaction of knowing that the great cause he had fought for so long and strenuously, was won. To-day marks (he centenary of his death. Special celebrations are being held .in his native town of Hull, and in many parts of Hie world. Sir John Harris, the Parliamentary secretary of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines’ Protection Society, in Great Britain, has published an outline of the proposed programme, in which one notes that

during July, every church and chapel in Hull, would devote one Sunday to the subject of slavery, and all the schools wore to be told of the great struggle of 100 years ago. After Britain had freed her slaves, the consciences of other nations began to feel uneasy, more particularly that of Hie United States of America. Though an Abolitionist party had been active there for a long time, it had no weight. So great was the slaveholding interest, in the Southern that the freedom of the negro could not be obtained by sentiment, as in Great Britain —nothing but brute force and a long, costly, and bloody war could gain it for him. Slavery still exists, with many of its horrors, in various parts of the earth, but every year its victims are decreasing, and soon may the whole world be free.