It is worthy of note that even in Park’s time the chief article of export is slaves. Accustomed as we are in these days to denounce in the strongest terms this vile traffic, and to brand as the most degraded and brutal of their race those who engage in it, it is difficult to realise that less than a century ago we ourselves were the chief traffickers in human flesh and blood. How little this horrible trade touched the conscience of the individual or of the country at large is sufficiently shown by Park’s own narrative. We seek there in vain for a word of condemnation, or the indication of a consciousness that there was any iniquity in it. Not, be it noted, for lack of knowledge of the attendant cruelties or even through lack of pity for the victims. On the contrary, he describes “the poor wretches while waiting shipment kept constantly fettered two and two together, and employed in the labours of the field; and, I am sorry to add, very scantily fed, as well as harshly treated.”
Later on he accompanied a slave caravan on its way to the coast. With simple naturalness he tells the whole story of the horrors of the route, describing the fetters and chains, the frightful marches, with heavy loads, under a sweltering sun, and with starvation rations; the whip mercilessly applied to the weary to stimulate them to further exertions, and the knife placed to the throat of the hopelessly exhausted, at once to rid them of pain and their drivers of a burden--“an operation I did not wish to see, and therefore marched on.”
He is quite aware that all these horrors are perpetrated that a European market may be supplied. He knows also what has preceded the slave path, and yet, incredible as it may seem, not one indignant protest is drawn from him, not one appeal to Christian Europe, not even a word of commendation of the work already inaugurated for its suppression. Quite the opposite, in fact, on which point let Park speak for himself. “How far it (slavery) is maintained and supported by the slave traffic, which for two hundred years the nations of Europe have carried on with the natives of the coast, it is neither within my province nor in my power to explain. If my sentiments should be required concerning the effect which a discontinuance of that commerce would produce on the manners of the natives, I should have no hesitation in observing that in the present unenlightened state of their minds my opinion is, the effect would neither be so extensive or beneficial as many wise and worthy persons fondly expect.”