The Spirit of Slavery by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 29, 1871

The Spirit of Slavery.

By Uriah Smith

Slavery is for the present made illegal in this country. This result has been brought about by the force of circumstances rather than by any change of disposition on the part of those who were the former upholders of the system. Should the legal impediments in the way of that system be removed, how long before the shackles would again be riveted with tenfold firmness on the limbs of the slave? The disposition is not eradicated; the opportunity only is wanting; and that when the opportunity shall offer, the system with all its barbarities will be speedily revived, is shown by the readiness with which what is innocently called the Coolie trade, is transformed virtually into slave traffic. The following from the Boston Journal is the too evident testimony upon this point:—

“THE NEW SLAVE TRADE.—The dealing in coolies, which has never yet been properly exposed in all its horrors, is likely to have disastrous effect upon European and American interests in China. The atrocities on board the African slavers were not so great as those reported recently, said to have occurred on the transit from European ports in China to the western coast of South America. The demand in Peru for coolies is very great, and they are not ill-treated there, being set at work upon the simplest processes of agriculture; but the transport agents abuse them beyond measure. They are seduced into emigrating by extravagant promises, and, as they are ignorant and miserably poor, they go in swarms. Once on board ship, they are fastened under hatches, like criminals, and guarded night and day. During the long voyages the suffering becomes intolerable, and the cases of “mutiny,” so called, which have occurred latterly, show that the misery of the transport drove even the patientest race in the world to violent measures. By the time the coolies arrive in Peru they are thoroughly brutalized, and they remain apart from the Peruvian populations, sullen, defiant, meditating outbreak.

The complaints of the Portuguese Consul General at Lima concerning the coolie influx arrived so frequently at the office of the Portuguese Governor in Macao, whence most of the coolies were shipped, that the latter has finally issued an order suspending for the present the transport. The English Minister at Lima was instructed to approve this course of the Portuguese Government, and to hint that England considered the transportation, as it had heretofore been carried on, nothing but a disguised slave trade. The decree of the Governor Macao was hastened by the terrible accident to a coolie transporting vessel in May, when six hundred of the wretched creatures were burned to death, the captain and crew deserting them and leaving the hatches closed when it was known that the ship was on fire and could not last three hours. The English demand that the exporting of coolies be completely stopped, because such abuses as it engenders encourage a state of feeling in China which will, sooner or later, endanger the lives of foreign residents. We have the same considerations, and should be especially careful that no abuse at sea or on land can be registered against us so long as we permit the importation of Chinese labor.” U. S.