relatives, then offered to exchange them for a much larger number of
black Africans, whom it was only too easy to carry off. The offer
was accepted by the Portuguese, who found that exchange to their
advantage, and thus the slave trade was founded in Europe.

Toward the end of the sixteenth century this odious traffic was
generally admitted, and it was not repugnant to the still barbarous
manners. All the States protected it so as to colonize more rapidly
and more surely the isles of the New World. In fact, the slaves of
black origin could resist the climate, where the badly acclimated
whites, still unfit to support the heat of intertropical climates,
would have perished by thousands. The transport of negroes to the
American colonies was then carried on regularly by special vessels,
and this branch of transatlantic commerce led to the creation of
important stations on different points of the African coast. The
"merchandise" cost little in the country of production, and the
returns were considerable.

But, necessary as was the foundation of the colonies beyond the sea
from all points of view, it could not justify those markets for human
flesh. Generous voices soon made themselves heard, which protested
against the trade in blacks, and demanded from the European
governments a decree of abolition in the name of the principles of
humanity.

In 1751, the Quakers put themselves at the head of the abolition
movement, even in the heart of that North America where, a hundred
years later, the War of Secession was to burst forth, to which this
question of slavery was not a foreign one. Different States in the
North--Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania--decreed the