Читать книгу A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Addressed to the freeholders and other inhabitants of Yorkshire онлайн

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The same picture may appear to claim still greater attention from the hand of Mr. Parke, whose visit is more recent, and whose knowledge of Africa is more extensive.—Speaking of the Foulah nation, who are many of them professed Mahometans, he says, “religious persecution is not known among them, nor is it necessary, for the system of Mahomet is made to extend itself by means abundantly more efficacious. By establishing small schools in the different towns, where many of the Pagan as well as Mahometan children are taught to read the Koran, and instructed in the tenets of the prophet, the Mahometan priests fix a bias on the minds, and form the character of their young disciples, which no accidents of life can ever afterwards remove or alter. Many of these little schools I visited in my progress through the country, and observed with pleasure the great docility, and submissive deportment of the children, and heartily wished they had had better instructors, and a purer religion.” Again, speaking of the Mandingo country, and of other parts of Africa, and of the eagerness which the natives, both Pagan and Mahometan, shew to acquire some knowledge of letters, Mr. Parke speaks out still more intelligibly, and appears feelingly alive to the humiliation of his own religion; and, from motives of christian zeal as well as of humanity, he recommends our endeavouring to introduce the light of true religion into that benighted land.^[9] “Although,” says he, “the negroes in general have a very great idea of the wealth and power of the Europeans, I am afraid that the Mahometan converts among them think but very lightly of our superior attainments in religious knowledge. The white traders in the maritime districts take no pains to counteract this unhappy prejudice.”—“To me, therefore, it was not so much the subject of wonder, as matter of regret, to observe, that while the superstition of Mahomet has in this manner scattered a few faint beams of learning among these poor people, the precious light of Christianity is altogether excluded. I could not but lament, that although the coast of Africa has now been known and frequented by the Europeans for more than two hundred years, yet the negroes still remain entire strangers to the doctrines of our holy religion.”— “The poor Africans, whom we affect to consider as barbarians, look upon us, I fear, as little better than a race of formidable but ignorant Heathens.”