America was discovered in 1492. The part of this new world which was first colonized by the Spaniards, consisted of those islands scattered through the great gap of ocean between North and South America; which, as they were thought to be the outermost individuals of the great Eastern Indies, to which it was the main object of Columbus to effect a western passage, were called the West Indies. When the Spaniards took possession of these islands, they employed the natives, or Indians, as they were called, to do all the heavy kinds of labor for them, such as carrying burdens, digging for gold, &c. In fact, these Indians became slaves of their Spanish conquerors; and it was customary, in assigning lands to a person, to give him, at the same time, all the Indians upon them. Thus, when Bernal Diaz paid his respects to Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, the governor promised him the first Indians he had at his disposal. According to all accounts, never was there a race of men more averse to labor, or constitutionally more unfit for it, than these native Americans. They are described as the most listless, improvident people on the face of the earth, and though capable of much passive endurance, drooped and lost all heart whenever they were put to active labor. Labor, ill-usage, and the small-pox together, carried them off in thousands, and wherever a Spaniard trod, he cleared a space before him, as if he carried a blasting influence in his person. When Albuquerque entered on his office as governor of St. Domingo in 1515, he found that, whereas in 1508 the natives numbered 60,000, they did not then number 14,000. The condition of these poor aborigines under the Spanish colonists became so heart-breaking, that the Dominican priests stepped out in their behalf, asserting them to be free men, and denying the right of the Spaniards to make them slaves. This led to a vehement controversy, which lasted several years, and in which Bartholomew de Las Casas, a benevolent priest, figured most conspicuously as the friend of the Indians. So energetic and persevering was he, that he produced a great impression in their favor upon the Spanish government at home.

Unfortunately, the relaxation in favor of one race of men was procured at the expense of the slavery of another. Whether La Casas himself was led, by his extreme interest in the Indians, to be so inconsistent as to propose the employment of negroes in their stead, or whether the suggestion came from some other person, does not distinctly appear; but it is certain, that what the Spaniards spared the Indians, they inflicted with double rigor upon the negroes. Laborers must be had, and the negroes were the kind of laborers that would suit. As early as 1503, a few negroes had been carried across the Atlantic; and it was found that not only could each of these negroes do as much work as four Indians, but that, while the Indians were fast becoming extinct, the egroes were thriving and propagating wonderfully. The plain inference was, that they should import negroes as fast as possible; and this was accordingly done. "In the year 1510," says the old Spanish historian Herrera, "the king. of Spain ordered fifty slaves to be sent to Hispaniola to work in the gold mines, the natives being looked upon as a weak people, and unfit for labor " And this was but a beginning; for, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Car

dinal Ximenes, ship-load after ship-load of negroes was carried to the West. Indies. We find Charles V. giving one of his Flemish favorites an exclusive right of shipping 4000 negroes to the new world-a monoply which that favorite sold to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats. These merchants organized the traffic; many more than 4000 negroes were required to do the work; and though at first the negroes were exorbitantly dear, they multiplied so fast, and were imported in such quantities, that at last there was a negro for every Spaniard in the colonies; and in whatever new direction the Span iards advanced in their career of conquest, negroes went along with them.

The following extract from the Spanish historian already quoted will show not only that the negroes were very numerous, but that sometimes also they proved refractory, and endeavored to get the upper hand of their masters: "There was so great a number of blacks in the governments of Santa Marta and Venezuela, and so little precaution was used in the management of them, or rather the liberty they had was so great, being allowed the use of arms, which they much delight in, that, prompted by their natural fierceness and arrogance, a small number of the most polished, who valued themselves for their valor and gayety, resolved to rescue themselves from servitude, and become their own masters, believing that they might live at their own will among the Indians. Those few summoning others, who, like a thoughtless brutish people, were not capable of making any reflection, but were always ready at the beck of those of their own color for whom they had any respect or esteem, they readily complied. Assembling to the number of about 250, and repairing to the settlement of New Segovia, they divided themselves into companies, and appointed captains, and saluted one king, who had the most boldness and resolution to assume that title; and he, intimating that they should all be rich, and lords of the country, by destroying the Spaniards, assigned every one the Spanish woman that should fall to his lot, with other such.insolent projects and machinations. The fame of this commotion was soon spread abroad throughout all the cities of those two governments, where preparations. were speedily made for marching against the blacks, as well to prevent their being joined by the rest of their countrymen that were not yet gone to them, as to obviate the many mischiefs which those barbarians might occasion to the country. In the meantime, the inhabitants of Tucuyo sent succors to the city of Segovia, which was but newly founded; and the very night that relief arrived there, the blacks, who had got intelligence of it, resolved to be beforehand with the Spaniards; and in order that, greater forces thus coming in, they might not grow too strong for them, they fell upon those Spaniards, killing five or six of them, and a clergyman. However, the success did not answer their expectation, for the Spaniards being on their guard, readily took the alarm, fought the blacks courageously, and killed a considerable number. The rest, perceiving that their contrivance had miscarried, retired. The next morning Captain James de Lassado arrived there with forty men from the gov ernment of Venezuela, and, judging that no time ought to be lost in that affair, marched against the blacks with the men he had brought, and those

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who were before at New Segovia. Perceiving that they had quitted the post they had first taken, and were retired to a strong place on the mountain, he pursued, overtook, and attacked them; and though they drew up and stood on their defense, he soon routed and put them all to the sword, sparing none but their women and some female Indians they had with them, after which he turned to Segovia, and those provinces were delivered from much uneasiness." The Spaniards did not long remain alone in the guilt of this new traffic. At first the Spaniards had all America to themselves; and as it was in America that negro labor was in demand, the Spaniards alone possessed large numbers of negroes. But other nations come to have colonies in America, and as negroes were found invaluable in the foundation of a new colony, other nations came also to patronize the slave trade. The first recognition of the trade by the English government was in 1562, in the reign of Elizabeth, when an act was passed legalizing the purchase of negroes; yet, as the earlier attempts made by the English to plant colonies in North America were unsuccessful, there did not, for some time after the passing of this act, exist any demand for negroes sufficient to induce the owners of English trading vessels visiting the coast of Africa to make negroes a part of their cargo. It was in the year 1620 that the first negroes were imported into Virginia; and even then it was not an English slave-ship which supplied them, but a Dutch one, which chanced to touch on the coast with some negroes on board bound for the Spanish colonies. These negroes the Virginian planters purchased on trial; and the bargain was found to be so good, that in a short time negroes came to be in great demand in Virginia. Nor were the planters any longer indebted to the chance visits of Dutch ships for a supply of negro-laborers; for the English merchants, vigilant and calculating then as they are now, immediately embarked in the traffic, and instructed the captains of their vessels visiting the African coast to barter for negroes as well as wax and elephants' teeth. In a similar way the French, the Dutch, and all other nations of any commercial importance, came to be involved in the traffic; those who had colonies, to supply the demand there; those who had no colonies, to make money by assisting to supply the demand of the colonies of other countries. Before the middle of the seventeenth century, the African slave-trade was in full vigor; and all Europe was implicated in the buying and selling of negroes.

So universal is the instinct for barter, that the immediate effect of the new and great demand for slaves was to create its own supply. Slavery, as we have said, existed in Negroland from time immemorial, but on a comparatively limited scale. The effect of the demand by the European ships gave an unhappy stimulus to the natural animosities of the various negro tribes skirting the west coast; and, tempted by the clasp-knives, and looking-glasses, and wonderful red cloth, which the white men always brought with them to exchange for slaves, the whole negro population for many miles inland began fighting and kidnapping each other. Not only so, but the interior of the continent itself, the district of Lake Tchad, and the mystic source of the fatal Niger, hitherto untrodden by the foot of a white invader, began to feel the tremor