The Slave Trade. The Brazilian slave traders on the coast of Africa, buy their slaves of the negro princes on the coast – they are mostly prisoners of war, who were formerly slain after being captured, but are now reserved to be sold to the slave dealers. Many of the active princes, for the sake of the gain which this traffic affords, are in the habit of entrapping and seizing negroes of all other tribes, to swell the number of their victims. The price paid to these black princes for an adult slave is usually about five dollars, in blue cloth or trinkets, and the average price at which they sell in Brazil is about $480. The immense profit renders the slave traders regardless of human lives; one slave in every ten, if brought to Cuba or Brazil, yields an ample return; and the number of slaves taken from the west coast of Africa, by the Brazilian and Spanish fast sailing schooners, notwithstanding the vigilance of the English cruisers, now reaches 150,000 a year.
(Liberator, April 12, 1844, pg 4)
