Memoirs, (chiefly autobiographical), from 1798 to 1886 / edited by his son Thomas More Madden.

  • Richard Robert Madden
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoirs, (chiefly autobiographical), from 1798 to 1886 / edited by his son Thomas More Madden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    the sugar properties being frequently twenty continued hours, for upwards of six months in the year, seldom or never under five, and of the general impression prevailing on this subject, and generally acted on by the proprietors, that four hours’ sleep is sufficient for a slave. Were I to bring these cases before the public, without a shadow of colouring to heighten the effect of the naked outline, so frightful a detail, I am persuaded, would cause people to marvel that such things could be in a Christian land —could occur in the present age—could be done by men who moved in society, who are tolerated in it, and bear the name and wear the garb of gentlemen; by persons, in short, professing the religion of Christ, and daring to couple the sanctity of that name with rapine, murder, and the living death of slavery. [We need not here quote further the account of Dr. Madden’s prolonged inquiry into the working of the slave system throughout Cuba, the general result of which may be gathered from the follow- ing short extracts from two poems of his written in Guba.] THE CUBAN SLAVE-MERCHANT. ****** These naked wretches, wasted as they are, And mark’d with many a recent wound and scar, Are landed boldly on the coast, and soon Are penn’d, like cattle, in the barricone ;* Or ranged in line, are sold by parcel there, Spectres of men ! the picture of despair. Their owner comes, “ the royal merchant ” deigns To view his chatties, and to count his gains. To him what boots it how these slaves were made, What wrongs the poor have suffered by his trade ! To him what boots it, if the sale is good, How many perish’d in the fray of blood ! How many wretched beings in each town Maim’d at the onslaught, or in flight cut down ; How many infants from the breast were torn, And frenzied mothers dragged away forlorn ! To him what boots it how the ship is cramm’d; How many hundreds in the hold are jamm’d; How small the space ; what piteous cries below ; What frightful tumults in that den of woe ; What struggling hands in vain are lifted there ; Or how the lips are parch’d that move in prayer, Or utter imprecations wild and dread, On all around, the dying and the dead. Yet to look down, my God, one instant there, The shrieks and groans of that live mass to hear 1 To breathe that horrid atmosphere, and dwell But for one moment in that human hell 1 » A kind of barracks in which the newly-ijnporled slaves arc placed until they are sold.