Page 137 - Transcriptions d'actes notariés - Tome 20 - 1682-1686

serviinde lasiing for seven or at Iea8t five yeara. These unfonunai~
are as oilen as not compelled to comrnttnce a hrsh period of alavery as
soon as ihry havc finished their tirs! ierm oi erviinde, and no maiier
whai prelexls or reasons iheir masrers allcge in order to prolong tbeir
bondage, the Judges never qucslion ihcm. Iudd, if ihis Island were
utlacked the ninsiers would have lheir handa full lor the= men would
cer~aiuly iurn ~lieir weapone aguiiist ihcm and join the invadela if ouly
to recover I heir ireedoni.!l*)
As a freqnent visitor to tlie Britisli West lndies Labat Iiad aniple
opportnnity to eonipare slavery in the British and Freneh possesoion~.
Ori tlie wlinle he felt tliat the French treaied their slave* better. For
one thing lie remarked that the Protestant clergymen in the British
possessions neither inetruct their slaves nor baptize hem. In fact Father
Lahat thought that the Negroes on an island like Barbados, for example,
were regarded more as beasts and allnwed any sort of eoiiduct so long as
they did their work pi,opei.ly. He thought: as wcll, that there were niore
#lave revolts in the Briti~h Islands of the Wezt Indies thaii iii the Freiieh.
Yet in al1 fairiiess he admitted that similar revolts occurred oeeasiorially
in ~he French Islarids. With a ieniarkable insight irito hiimaii nature
Father Labat wriiie ihis ~ipiifieani sentence, "lt is indeed triie that the
desire for Jreeilom anil revenge i.i cotnmtin in al1 humaiiity and to obtein
it a man will rommit any ~rirne.""~
The Dijmiriican Friai heliebetl ihat the belter trcatment the French
slaie owners accririleil heir Negrti 1lave3 rjprang from their Catholic
religion, and i he re5irictiona imposed iipon Catliolic slave owners by the
olave code 01 Canon Lalr.

Iii eontrast to the Freiieh Dominican Friar is Williani Bosman,
Chie] Agctit Lit the Diitch at Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coaet, West
Alrica. He was iti cliarge cif the Diitch itiieresis in Wcsr Africa Ior a
period roughly ftlini 16<11 tli 1705. The book which he had puhlirjhed
called, A ,+'eic anrl Accrrruie Description O/ ille Coast of Guinea divided
inio ~he Golrl, ~he Slntlc and ltlur) Coa.cr, is in reality a series of lengthy
letteis wrrlten home to un uncle in the Netherlands who was eleo a
director of the Dutch West India Conipany. Bosman, who like Lahat,
was a disoerning observer, had soniething to sa y regardiiig the motivatiori
for Europeans to work arid live ori the West Coast of Airica. The mciiive
quite irankly was unabashed grecd. He recogriized the terrihle fatalities
amonest the white officials, but made the philosophical remark thnt it
is over the dead that men are promoted. He admiiied candidly that
it rvas great riches which uiged his people ori. "Howcver, the nioney
we get here is indeed hardly enough acquired, if you eoiiaider we etake
our best pledge, that is, Our lives, in order to obtain ii."l1:)

(ln) ldem, p. 125.
(11) ldem, p. 128.
(12) Boemen, William, A Neui oird Accurnîe Description of the Coati 01 Guinco
Dividecl in& ih Gold, the Slave ad the Iuory Comts, iranslaied, London.
Prinied for Jamm Knsplon al the Crown, and Dsniel Miduinter ai the Roae
and C~own, in Sr. Paul's Cliurchyard, 1705, Lelter VITI, p. 108.