Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1889 — SLAVE TRADE IN FULL BLAST. [ARTICLE]

SLAVE TRADE IN FULL BLAST.

Boldness es the Trade In Zanzibar— Backed by a Powerful English Firm. - Letters from Zanzibar report that the buying and selling of human chattels in the streets of that city are being carried on with scarcely an attempt at;conceal ment. Weekly markets are held, at which the slaves are boldly exposed to the gaze of intending buyers, and, in many cases, .each slave carries a placard suspended from his neck, upon which is written the price at which he can be bought. The women are not usually ticketed in this way, but are sold for what they will fetch, the ordinary price being from £6 to £lO each, if they are youug. The merchants who carry on the traffic are all Arabs, but it appears to be well unden food in Zanzibar that a rich firm of traders, every member of which hails from England, furnish all the capital to conduct the business, and that by far the largest share of their immense yearly profits is derived from this traffic. All the local officials of Zanzibar are said to be in the pay of this firm, who purchase immunity by bribing the author ities, from the highest to the lowest, and so complete is their influence that no complaint receives the slightest attention. To illustrate the openness with which the traffic is carried on, it is pointed out that the receipts of slaves every week are publicly announced by placards upon the walls of the houses. The letters complain that the representatives in Zanzibar of the different European governments appear to take no interest whatever in these matters.