At first, all prisoners taken in war, or in attacks deliberately made
to bring on fighting, were sold, whatever their nation or color. This
was due to the Catholic theory that all unbaptized people were
infidels. But gradually the same religious influence, moved by some
scruples of humanity, made a distinction between negroes and all other
people, allowing only the former to become objects of traffic, because
they were black as well as heathen. Thus early did physiology come to
the aid of religion, notifying the Church of certain physical
peculiarities which seemed to be the trade-marks of the Creator, and
perpetual guaranties, like the color of woods, the odor of gums, the
breadth and bone of draught-cattle, of their availability for the
market. What renown has graced the names of Portuguese adventurers,
and how illustrious does this epoch of the little country's life
appear in history! Rivers, bays, and stormy headlands, long reaches of
gold coast and ivory coast, and countries of palm-oil, and strange
interiors stocked with new forms of existence, and the great route to
India itself, became the charter to a brilliant fame of this mercenary
heroism. Man went as far as he was impelled to go. While the stimulus
continued, and the outlay was more than equalled by the income and the
glory, unexplored regions yielded up their secrets, and the Continent
of Africa was established by this insignificant nation to be for
centuries the vast slave-nursery of the world.
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