without horror.  And yet I learn from writers, whom the Europeans hold in the highest esteem, that treason is a crime, which cannot be committed by a slave against his master; that a slave stands in no civil relation towards his master, and owes him no allegiance; that master and slave are in a state of war; and if the slave take up arms for his deliverance, he acts not only justifiably, but in obedience to a natural duty, the duty of self-preservation.  I read in authors whom I find venerated by our oppressors, that to deliver one’s self and one’s countrymen from tyranny, is an act of the sublimest heroism.  I hear Europeans exalted, as the martyrs of public liberty, the saviours of their country, and the deliverers of mankind—­I see other memories honoured with statues, and their names immortalized in poetry—­and yet when a generous negro is animated by the same passion which ennobled them,—­when he feels the wrongs of his countrymen as deeply, and attempts to avenge them as boldly—­I see him treated by those same Europeans as the most execrable of mankind, and led out, amidst curses and insults to undergo a painful, gradual and ignominious death:  And thus the same Briton, who applauds his own ancestors for attempting to throw off the easy yoke, imposed on them by the Romans, punishes us, as detested parricides, for seeking to get free from the cruelest of all tyrannies, and yielding to the irresistible eloquence of an African Galgacus or Boadicea.

Are then the reason and morality, for which Europeans so highly value themselves, of a nature so variable and fluctuating, as to change with the complexion of those, to whom they are applied?—­Do rights of nature cease to be such, when a negro is to enjoy them?—­Or does patriotism in the heart of an African, rankle into treason?

A Free Negro
—­American Museum, V, 77 et seq., 1789.

REMARKABLE SPEECH OF ADAHOONZOU, KING OF DAHOMEY, AN INTERIOR NATION OF AFRICA, ON HEARING WHAT WAS PASSING IN ENGLAND RESPECTING THE SLAVE TRADE

I admire the reasoning of the white men; but with all their sense, it does not appear that they have thoroughly studied the nature of the blacks, whose disposition differs as much from that of the whites, as their colour.  The same great Being formed both; and since it hath seemed convenient for him to distinguish mankind by opposite complexions, it is a fair conclusion to presume that there may be as a great a disagreement in the qualitie of their minds; there is likewise a remarkable difference between the countries which we inhabit.  You, Englishmen, for instance, as I have been informed, are surrounded by the ocean, and by this situation seem intended to hold communication with the whole world, which you do, by means of your ships; whilst we Dahomans, being placed on a large continent, and hemmed in amidst a variety of other people, of the same complexion, but speaking different languages, are obliged by the sharpness of our swords, to defend ourselves from their incursions, and punish the depredations they make on us.  Such conduct in them is productive of incessant wars.  Your countrymen, therefore, who alledge that we go to war for the purpose of supplying your ships with slaves, are grossly mistaken.