The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

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The raiding troops, after having been on the campaign for nearly a
month, returned with 2,000 captives, who marched in front of the
column, the men, women, old and young, almost all nude, or half clad
in ragged blue cloth, and the children piled upon the camels. The
women were groaning, and the children crying, while the men, though
seemingly more resigned, bore bloody marks upon their backs made by
the whips. The convoy was marched to the palace, where its arrival was
announced to the Sultan by a band of musicians. The Sultan
complimented the chief, examined the slaves and ordered them to the
slave market; and the next morning the caravan leaders were invited to
come and make their purchases.

After the slave-trading was over, it was necessary to purchase
supplies of corn, millet, dried meat, butter and flour for three
months, also to purchase camels and hide-tents. Daumas's caravan,
which set out from Metlily with only 64 camels and sixteen men, had
now increased to 400 slaves and nearly 600 camels.

A caravan from Tuat, which had joined that of Daumas, had augmented in
the same proportions. It had bought 1,500 slaves and its camels had
increased to 2,000. These two caravans waited two days to be joined by
three others which had penetrated farther to the south. It was
desirable that all of the caravans recross the desert together in
order better to resist attacks from the Tuaregs, Tibbus, and other
highwaymen of that region.

The slaves had to be watched very closely, since believing that they
were to be eaten by the white men, they were ready to take any chance
of escaping. The women were tied in twos by the feet, and the men tied
eight or ten together, each with his neck in an iron collar, to which
was attached a short chain which held the hand of each slave at the
height of his chest. At night Daumas fastened to his wrist the chains
which bound all of his slaves together so that the least movement
would wake him.

In a short time the three expected caravans arrived. One had
originally come from Ghedames, one from Ghat and one from Fezzan. The
first had gone as far as Nupe. It brought back 3,000 slaves and 3,500
camels. The second had gone to Kano and returned with 400 or 500
slaves and 700 or 800 camels. The third returned from Sokoto, and had
about the same number of slaves and camels as the second.

After the proper ceremonies of farewell at the palace of the Sultan,
the camels were loaded, and the children placed upon the baggage. The
Negro men, chained together, were placed in the middle of each
caravan, and the women were grouped eight or ten together, and guarded
by a man with a whip. The signal was given, and the great combined
caravans, consisting in all of about 6,000 slaves and 7,500 camels,
started on their homeward march.

But suddenly there was a mighty noise of crying and groaning, of
calling at each other and bidding farewell to friends. Some were so
overcome at the fear of being eaten that they rolled upon the ground
and absolutely refused to walk. Nothing could persuade them to get up
until a guard came along with his great whip which brought blood at
each lash. As the great army passed through the gate of the city, an
officer of the Sultan examined every slave to be sure none was a
Fellatah, Mohammedan, or Jew. The Ghat caravan happened to have among
its slaves a Fellatah, who was at once discovered and set free. At
the first camp, says Daumas, "Each caravan established its bivouac
separately, and as soon as the camels were crouched, and after having
chained our Negro women by the feet and in groups of eight or ten, we
forced our Negro men to aid us, with the left hand which we had left
free, to unload our baggage, to arrange it in a circle and to stretch
in the center the tents which we had brought from Katsena. Two or
three of the oldest women that we had not put in chains, but who had
always had their two feet fettered, were directed to prepare our
supper. We ate in groups of four. This sad supper over, we placed the
guards around our camp, and made the slave women and men sleep as
before said."[12]

The next day the caravans were obliged to stop in consequence of a
Negro woman who gave birth to a child. This stop, however, was not
very lengthy. In a few hours she and her infant were placed upon a
camel and the caravan went forward. When the camp was pitched for the
next night, the leader, in making his rounds, ordered that the young
Negro mother be left unshackled, and that she be given some meat for
supper and allowed to sleep warmly upon a mat. But during the night,
when everything was quiet, the mother put her infant in a basket
filled with ostrich feathers, placed it upon her head, and made her
escape.

Next morning, upon discovering her flight, several bands of men were
sent out in different directions to find her. One of these, after a
few hours of search, found her in a thicket nursing her child. She was
led back to the camp, and two gun-shots recalled the other bands, and
the caravans then resumed their march. The caravans stopped at
Aghezeur to replenish their provisions and make repairs; and up to
that time none of the people had died, and only one camel was lost.

After a month's traveling they reached "Ogla d'Assaoua," which was a
rendezvous for all the marauding bands that returned from the Sudan.
It was particularly dangerous for the reason that it was the point at
which groups of caravans divided and proceeded in different directions
across the desert, and some of the independent caravans had to pass
near the Tuareg nomads.

"None of our slaves," says Daumas, "I am sure, will ever forget this
stop, for it was there that they were for the first time given their
liberty after being in irons a month. The men and women danced all day
after the fashion of their own country, until they fell prostrated
with heat and fatigue. Even those whose legs and necks had been made
sore from the chains took an active part in this fatiguing exercise,
and all came to kiss our hands and to prostrate themselves at our feet
and to sprinkle them with sand. We were careful not to interrupt this
feast of good augury. It was the first proof to us that they had at
last accepted their lot, and we had no longer to fear they would dream
of escaping as they were so far from the Sudan and in the very middle
of the desert.... From that day all were sincerely attached to us, and
our joy was not less than theirs, for the continued watch which had
been imposed upon us had been frightfully fatiguing. They helped us to
load and unload our camels, to guide them en route, to stretch our
tents, and to bring wood and water, labors which we alone had
performed for a month. Finally we could lie down and sleep in
peace."[13] At an early hour the next morning the tents were folded
and the several caravans parted company. One went eastward through
Ghat to Ghedames, accompanied as far as Ghat by another whose wares
were sold in Fezzan and to other caravans coming from Murzuk. Another
went eastward directly to Fezzan, where its merchandise was to be
distributed to points in Tunis, Tripoli and Egypt. Daumas and his
companion caravan of Tuat struck out to the northwest for the oasis of
Tuat.

Two thirds of the camels bought by Daumas in the Sudan died before he
reached "Isalab" (Ain Salah?), as they could not stand the hardship of
the journey, especially the chilly and damp nights of the desert.
Arriving at Metlily the Arab merchants repaired to a mosque and
thanked God for His protection.

III. REGION OF NORTHWEST AFRICA AND THE DESERT OF SAHARA. HARDSHIP OF
THE DESERT ROUTE

In 1850 Barth estimated the number of slaves carried across the desert
from Kuka at 5,000 per annum, and in 1865 Rohlfs estimated the number
at 10,000. A British Blue Book of 1873 estimated that the Mohammedan
States of North Africa absorbed annually one million slaves.

The mortality in crossing the desert was frightful. Denham saw near a
well in the Tibbu country 100 skeletons of Negroes who had perished
from hunger and thirst. In his travels he saw a skeleton every few
miles, and for several days he passed from sixty to ninety skeletons
per day. Sometimes a whole caravan perished, consisting of as many as
2,000 persons and 1,800 camels. The Negroes composing the caravans
often had to walk and carry heavy loads. Rohlfs says that if one did
not know the route of their pilgrimage he could find the way by the
bones that lie to the right and left of the path. When he was passing
through Murzuk in 1865, he gave medical aid to a slave dealer who was
very ill, and, in compensation, received a boy about seven or eight
years old. The boy had traveled four months across the desert from
Lake Chad. He knew nothing of his home country, had even forgotten his
mother tongue, and could jabber only some fragments of speech picked
up from the other slaves of the caravan. As a result of the long
journey he was emaciated to a skeleton and so enfeebled that he could
scarcely stand up. He crawled on all fours and kissed the hand of his
new master, and the first words he uttered were "I am hungry." The boy
prospered and followed Rohlfs to Berlin. Thomson, in his travels,
mentions having met a caravan of forty slave-girls crossing the Atlas
Mountains on its way to Marocco. "A few were on camel-back, but most
of them trudged on foot, their appearance telling of the frightful
hardships of the desert route. Hardly a rag covered their swarthy
forms." Marocco used to be the destination of most of the slaves
transported across the desert. About twenty-five years ago the center
of the traffic in that state was Sidi Hamed ibu Musa, seven days
journey south of Mogador where a great yearly festival was held. The
slaves were forwarded thence in gangs to different towns, especially
to Marocco City, and Mequinez. Writing in 1897, Vincent says the slave
trade is as active as ever at Mequinez and Marocco City. The slaves
were sold on Fridays in the public markets of the interior, but never
publicly at any of the seaports, owing to the adverse European
influence. There is a large traffic at Fez, but Marocco City is the
great mart for them, where one may see frequently men, women and
children sold at one time. Marakesh was once a chief market in
Marocco. In 1892 a caravan from Timbuktu reached that city with no
less than 4,000 slaves, chiefly boys and girls whose price ranged from
ten to fourteen pounds per head. As many as 800 were sold there within
ten days to buyers from Riff, Tafilett and other remote parts of the
empire. A writer in the _Anti-slavery Reporter_, December, 1895, said:
"Few people know the true state of affairs in Marocco; only those who
live in daily touch with the common life of the people really get to
understand the pernicious and soul-destroying system of human
flesh-traffic as carried on in the public markets of the interior.
Having resided and traveled extensively in Marocco for some seven
years, I feel constrained to bear witness against the whole gang of
Arab slave-raiders and buyers of poor little innocent boys and girls.

"When I first settled in Marocco I met those who denied the existence
of slave-markets but since that time I have seen children, some of
whom were of tender years, as well as very pretty young women, openly
sold in the city of Marocco, and in the towns along the Atlantic
seaboard. It is also of very frequent occurrence to see slaves sold in
Fez, the capital of Northern Marocco.

"The first slave-girls that I actually saw being sold were of various
ages. They had just arrived from the Soudan, a distance by camel,
perhaps, of forty days' journey. Two swarthy-looking men were in
charge of them. The timid little creatures, mute as touching Arabic,
for they had not yet learned to speak in that tongue, were pushed out
by their captors from a horribly dark and noisome dungeon into which
they had been thrust the night before. Then, separately, or two by
two, they were paraded up and down before the public gaze, being
stopped now and again by some of the spectators and examined exactly
as a horse dealer would examine the points of a horse before buying
the animal at any of the public horse-marts in England. The sight was
sickening. Some of the girls were terrified, others were silent and
sad. Every movement was watched by the captives, anxious to know their
present fate. My own face blushed with anger as I stood helpless by
and saw those sweet, dark-skinned, wooly-headed Soudanese sold into
slavery.

"Our hearts have ached as we have heard from time to time from the
lips of slaves of the indescribable horrors of the journeys across
desert plains, cramped in pain, parched with thirst, and suffocated in
panniers, their food a handful of maize. Again, we have sickened at
the sight of murdered corpses, left by the wayside to the vulture and
the burning rays of the African sun, and we have prayed, perhaps as
never before, to the God of justice to stop these cruel practices."

Tunis and Algiers have also been great receptacles for the slaves of
the Sudan. Describing the slave market at Tunis, Vincent says that it
is a courtyard surrounded by arcades, the pillars of which are all of
the old Roman fabrication. Around the court are little chambers or
cells in which the slaves are kept, the men below, the women in the
story above.

According to the statement of Barard, in 1906, Negro slavery is still
prevalent throughout Marocco, and Negro women still populate the
harems. "In the towns and plains, the present generations are pretty
strongly colored by their infusion of black blood. But the
mountainous tribes who represent three fourths of a Maroccan
population have kept themselves almost free from mixture; white or
blond, they always resemble, by the color of their skin or texture of
hair, the Europeans of Germany or France rather than the
Mediterraneans of Spain and Italy." In Tunis the open sale of slaves
is pretty well suppressed, but in a modified form the trade continues.
Vivian says: "By resorting to fictitious marriages, and other
subterfuges, the owner of a harem may procure as many slaves as he
pleases, and, once he has got them into his house, no one can possibly
interfere to release them. Slaves can, of course, escape and claim
protection from the Consulates, but, as a matter of fact, they are
generally quite contented with their position and know that such
action would only involve them in ruin." In all of the Barbary States
the slave trade is at the present time under prohibition, although it
has not been effectively suppressed in any of them. According to a
recent statement in the _Anti-slavery Reporter_, "a sale of slaves
among which some white women and children were included, took place in
a Fondak (an enclosure for accommodation of travelers and animals) in
Tangier in April last (1906) and the sale was reported in a local
newspaper, _Al Moghreb Al Aksa_." In July of the same year it was
reported that a young black girl had been brought to the city and sold
as a slave. The sultan had issued orders to the customs officers and
at the various ports to prevent the transport of slaves by sea, and in
event of any person discovered to be bringing slaves by sea, to punish
him and free the slaves in his possession.

In July, 1906, the Anti-slavery Society of Italy published the
particulars of a Turkish ship which left the port of Bengazi (Tripoli)
for Constantinople with six slaves on board. Through the activity of
the Society's agent the vessel was boarded and the slaves liberated.

Within the last decade the traffic in slaves across the desert has
been limited to routes between the Niger and Marocco, and between Kuka
and Tripoli. At the present time there are probably no regular slave
routes across the desert. Owing to the activity of European consuls in
Northwest Africa caravans have a precarious existence and no safe
markets.

"Only a few years ago," says the _Anti-slavery Reporter_, "Timbuctu,
the famous trade metropolis of Central Africa, was also the most
active center of the slave trade. French occupation (1894) has put an
end to that traffic, and it is extending the _pax Gallica_ throughout
the vast and fertile territory of the Niger where formerly anarchy and
brutality reigned."[14]

JEROME DOWD,

_Professor in the University of Oklahoma._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nieboer, "Slavery as an Industrial System," 257-348.

[2] "The Ewe Speaking Peoples," 222.

[3] "Historical Researches," 181.

[4] "Narrative of an American Sailor," 55.

[5] "Travels in North and Central Africa," II, 379.

[6] "Reise von Mittelmeer nach dem Tshad-See," I, 344.

[7] "Travels Through the Interior of Africa," 490.

[8] "An Account of the Empire of Morocco," 282.

[9] _Ibid._, 288.

[10] "Account of the Empire of Morocco," 292.

[11] _Ibid._, 295.

[12] "Le Grand Desert," 228.

[13] _Ibid._, 251.

[14] "Tunesia and the Modern Barbary Pirates," 65.

THE NEGRO IN THE FIELD OF INVENTION

There is no branch of technical and scientific industry in our country
that is at all comparable in scope and results with the business of
perfecting inventions. These constitute the basis on which nearly all
our great manufacturing enterprises are conducted, both as to the
machinery employed and the articles produced. So vast is the field
covered by inventors, and so industriously do they apply their talent
to it that patents for new and useful inventions are now being granted
them by our government at the rate of more than one hundred a day for
every day that the office is open for business. And when one considers
the enormous part played by American inventors in the economic,
industrial and financial development of our country, it becomes a
matter of importance to ascertain what share in this great work is
done by the American Negro.

The average American seems not to know that the Negro has contributed
very materially to this result. Not knowing it, he does not believe
it, and not believing it he easily advances to the mental attitude of
being ready to assert that the Negro has done absolutely nothing worth
while in the field of invention. This conclusion necessarily grows out
of the traditional attitude of the average American on the question of
the capacity of the Negro for high scientific and technical
achievement. This state of mind on the part of the general public is
not perceptibly changed by the well-authenticated reports now and then
of meritorious inventions in many lines of experiment made by Negroes
in various parts of the country, notwithstanding the fact that these
reports are frequently made through channels that would seem to leave
nothing to doubt.

It has always been and presumably always will be difficult for truth
to outrun a falsehood. One instance of the way in which such false and
erroneous impressions of the Negro's capacity and achievement gain
currency and fix themselves in the public mind is shown sometimes in
the campaign methods of some politicians. One of these, a Marylander,
addressing a political gathering in his native State in behalf of his
own candidacy for Congress, a few years ago declared that the Negro
was not entitled to vote because he had never evinced sufficient
capacity to justify such a privilege, and that not one of the race had
ever yet reached the dignity of an inventor. It is not easy to
understand how a gentleman of the requisite qualifications to
represent an intelligent constituency acceptably in the Congress of
the United States could so palpably pervert the truth in a matter on
which he could so easily have rightly informed himself. At the time
when this statement was made, 1903, in Talbot County, Maryland, there
was on the shelves of the Library of Congress a book[15] containing a
chapter on "The Negro as an Inventor," and citing several hundred
patents granted by our government for inventions by Negroes. And still
another instance is that of a leading newspaper of Richmond, which
some time ago published the bold statement that of the many thousands
of patents granted to the inventors in this country annually not a
single patent had ever been granted to a colored man. These and
similar general statements which make no mention of exceptions admit
of but one interpretation. The wish may be father to the thought, but
the truth is not father to their words.

In the cause of truth it is very gratifying to the writer to be able
to show that notwithstanding the frequency and the persistency of
these misrepresentations, the facts are gradually coming to the front
to prove that the Negro not only now but in the remote past exhibited
considerable of the inventive genius which has been so instrumental in
the development of our country. In the ordinary course of
investigation along this particular line the official records of the
U. S. Patent Office must necessarily be referred to in order to
ascertain the number of patents granted either for a given class of
inventors, or to a certain geographical group of citizens, as by State
or nationality, or for a given period of time. But, voluminous as are
these records, and various as are the items they cover, they make
almost no disclosure of the fact that any of the multitude of patents
that are granted daily are for inventions by Negroes. The solitary
exception to this statement is the case of Henry Blair, of Maryland,
to whom were granted two patents on corn harvesters, one in 1834, the
other in 1836. In both cases he is designated in the official records
as a "colored man." To the uninformed this very exception might appear
conclusive, but it is not. It has long been the fixed policy of the
Patent Office to make no distinction as to race in the records of
patents granted to American citizens. All American inventors stand on
a level before the Patent Office. It may perhaps be an open question
whether, in the enforcement of such a policy, the advantages outweigh
the disadvantages as it regards colored inventors.

In the period preceding the Civil War mechanical inventions of merit
by colored persons were not numerous, so far as the investigation has
shown, but this was also true of all classes of inventors of that
time. With the great majority of slaves the question uppermost among
them was how to effect their freedom, and those who were fortunately
gifted with an active intelligence and some vision were, for the most
part, using their mental faculties to devise some plan to interest
others in their efforts for emancipation. This situation would
obviously lend itself more readily to developing literary talent and
oratorical ability than to producing machinists, engineers or
inventors. Hence the preachers and teachers and orators of the colored
race that here and there rose above the masses greatly outnumbered the
inventors. But it should be remembered also in this connection that in
the period just mentioned the mechanical industries of the South were
carried on mostly by slaves, and that bits of history gathered here
and there show that many of the simple mechanical contrivances of the
day were devised by the Negro in his effort to minimize the exactions
of his daily toil. None of these inventions were patented by the
United States as being the inventions of slaves; and it is quite
conceivable that some inventions of value perfected by this class will
be forever lost sight of through the attitude at that time of the
Federal Government on that subject. In 1858 Jeremiah S. Black,
Attorney-General of the United States, confirmed a decision of the
Secretary of the Interior, on appeal from the Commissioner of Patents,
refusing to grant a patent on an invention by a slave, either to the
slave as the inventor, or to the master of the latter, on the ground
that, not being a citizen, the slave could neither contract with the
government nor assign his invention to his master.[16]

Another instance of this sort was an invention on the plantation owned
by Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, President of the late Confederate
States. The Montgomerys, father and sons, were attached to this
family, and some of them made mechanical appliances which were adopted
for use on the estate. One of them in particular, Benjamin T.
Montgomery, father of Isaiah T. Montgomery, founder of the prosperous
Negro Colony of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, invented a boat propeller.
It attracted the favorable attention of Jefferson Davis himself, who
unsuccessfully tried to have it patented. The writer is informed by a
recent letter from Isaiah T. Montgomery that it was Jefferson Davis's
failure in this matter that led him to recommend to the Confederate
Congress the law passed by that body favorable to the grant of patents
for the inventions of slaves. The law was:

"And be it further enacted, that in case the original inventor or
discoverer of the art, machine or improvement for which a patent
is solicited is a slave, the master of such slave may take an
oath that the said slave was the original; and on complying with
the requisites of the law shall receive a patent for said
discovery or invention, and have all the rights to which a
patentee is entitled by law."[17]

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