Prize goods examined

Prize goods examined

Antislavery movements -- England

Slave trade -- Africa

Slave trade -- Great Britain

Slave trade -- West Indies, British

Slavery -- West Indies, British

British anti-slavery broadsheet denouncing the slave trade to the West Indies. The writer calls the enslaved and everything taken from them prize goods. The writer states that those who buy the products slave labor are complicit in the slave trade and the institution of slavery.

Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

ca. 1807

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jpeg

eng

Text

MS 2012.21

Ink on paper

PRIZE GOODS EXAMINED

THE name prize goods is mostly given to goods taken on the seas, by armed vessels of nations at war with each other ; and sold by the captors. Some conscientious people refuse to purchase such goods, because the real owners do not receive the pay ; and because it would be encouraging robbery and murder ; also, becoming parties therein. All goods taken from the real owners, either by fraud or force, are prize goods, whether it be on sea or on land. All who purchase such goods (knowing them to be prize) are parties in the business, giving it count-tenance and substantial support. The persons employed as captors of the human species, who drag the Africans from their homes, and carry them to another country for sale, are guilty of the highest grade of felony ; and the captives so taken, are the highest grade of prize goods. To seize on a man's whole property and make prize of it, is certainly a high act of felony ; but to seize on the man himself, and make prize of him, is still higher. The captive being deprived of his liberty and all the natural rights of man, is compelled to hard labour, by his captor or purchaser : all the proceeds of his labour is taken from him, which is strictly prize goods. The slave being prize goods, his labour is prize goods also. he was made a slave for the sake of the proceeds of his labour, therefore the product of his labour is amongst the highest grade of prize goods. The purchaser of the goods is a party in the slave trade ; his money goes to the West-India planter, and from him to the Guinea merchant. Thus, countenancing and supporting each other, linked together as in a chain, the whole business is pushed on with vigor. The greater the demand is for the produce, the greater is the demand for slaves. The connexion between the slave trade, and the produce of the slaves' labor, is like the connexion between the tree and its fruit, or the root and the branch "If the root be holy, so are the branches." So also if the root be accursed, so are the branches. The root of the slave trade is avarice and luxury : and the trade in the produce of the slaves' labour is supported from the same root, avarice in the merchant, and luxury in the consumer.

Vessels are sometimes taken on the seas laden with the manufactures of Europe, where every one concerned in manufacturing the cargo, has been paid for his labour, and the vessel taken without the loss of any lives ; yet many would refuse to purchase goods so obtained, who would not hesitate to purchase goods extorted from slaves in the West-Indies by violence, injustice, cruelty and bloodshed ; which carries with it a resemblance of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.

There is but right and wrong, good and evil in the world, yet their grades are many. To refuse purchasing acknowledged prize goods, is to refuse being a party in violence and injustice ; also, to bear a testimony against it. Where are cruelty and injustice carried to the same extent that they are in the slave trade? Where is the testimony, that the purchasers and consumers of the fruit of slavery, do bear against it? To answer in truth, we must say, they are all parties in the business and their testimony is for it. The beginners of the slave trade are the merchants who send their ships to Africa, to carry them across the ocean ; and the finishers, are the consumers of their labour ; they are the Alpha and the Omega of the business. The people employed in the Guinea ships, who drag them from their homes, the planters in the islands who purchase them, the merchants who import the produce of the slaves' labour, the retailers and consumers thereof, are all accessaries in the business : they all assist in turning a wheel in that vast and complicated machine of iniquity. This great engine of destruction, is formed of the parts above described ; they are the machine, and contain in themselves the cause of its motion ; they constitute a complete whole. Take from it the consumers, and the whole machine must stop.

The merchant will not import an article for which there is no demand : the slave holder in the islands, will have no disposition to buy slaves, when the fruits of their labour will not sell. The Guinea ships will cease to haunt the coast of Africa in quest of slaves, when there is no demand for them in the islands. Then that fountain of human blood which hath been flowing in Africa so long, would be dried up ; and the carnage and misery attending the traffic in human flesh would cease.

This great fountain of human blood, that hath been flowing on the continent of Africa for ages, whose streams have stained the shores of America, and the West Indies ; is kept in motion, and supported by the consumers of the proceeds of slavery. They are the subscribers that furnish the fund by which the whole business is carried on. A merchant who loads his vessel in the West-Indies with the produce of slavery, does nearly as much at helping forward the slave trade, as him that loads his vessel in Africa with slaves ; they are both twisting the same rope at different ends.

The feasts of the luxurious may be called banquets of human flesh and blood ; and the partakers thereof considered as cannibals, devour-ing their own species ; if we take into consideration the great destruction in Africa, by the warfare carried on in taking slaves ; secondly, in transporting them to the islands in the Guinea ships ; and lastly, in seasoning them ; which is seasoning them to cruel whipping, hunger, and hard labour, which they undergo in the culture of the cane, and the manufacture of sugar, where they are in a few years destroyed.

I believe the whole weight of human beings that have been destroyed in the slave trade, in the cultivation of the cane, and making sugar, would equal one half of the weight of all the sugar that ever came from the West Indies : and may be fairly charged to its account.

How is this vast destruction of the rational creation of God, to be accounted for, to him whose justice is infinite ; who will not behold iniquity with approbation? On whom will the guilt of this great sacrifice to avarice and luxury fall? Certainly on the whole copartnership, who are parties in the business.

Having demonstrated that the West-India produce is prize goods, and the sale of those goods to be the support of the slave trade, and of consequence the purchasers to be parties in the business ; it may not be amiss to observe, that the receiver of stolen goods is said to be equal to the thief. It is something paradoxical that a man will refuse to buy a stolen sheep, or to eat a piece of one that is stolen, and should not have the same scruples respecting a stolen man.

The apostle Paul, in endeavouring to remove the strong Jewish prejudices for the Mosaic Law, said, "Whatsoever is sold in the sham-bles that eat, asking no questions for conscience sake." 1 Cor. x. 25. But that was relative to clean and unclean beasts ; and their manner of killing them ; I have a much better opinion of Paul, than to believe he meant any thing stolen, or taken by robbery and violence from its right owner.

If any one, after having fully considered the slave trade, the manner of their treatment in the West-Indies; and the manner in which the produce of their labour is obtained ; if he feel no doubts about partaking thereof, any more than he would about any thing obtained by the strictest honesty, then I have nothing to say to him ; but if he is fearful and feels doubts that all is not right, I will put him in mind of what Paul says : "He that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith ; for whatsoever is not of faith is sin."