University of Johannesburg History 2A 2023

The long-distance trade comprised three major routes. The first, which eventually drew British government attention to the area, directed slaves across the Atlantic to the Americas, mainly to Brazil

Christianity was first introduced to South Africa in the 1600s

t, more truthful, more sober, or more virtuous than their Pagan brethren. I founcl that my Christian servants, although they believed in Jesus, and refused to work on the Sabbath, ancl sang hymiis in a very high falsetto voice, made mental reservations about the eighth commandment; and their wives, according to all that I heard ancl saw, were equally ready to infringe the sev

sulting in manufacturing the male converts into thieves and liars, and the female into prostitutes; secondly, that the Christian missionaries had entirely failed in making any real converts; leaving us the inference that the negro, owing to some hitherto unknown peculiarity, i

We are also told the negroes have become industrious, and skilled so far in various trades, as masons, carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, etc, that upwards of six hundred maintain themselves, "relieving the government from all expense on their personal account." Many of their heathenish customs have been forsaken ; " not an oath had been heard in the town for a twelvemonth, nor had any been seen drunk; attend? ance on public worship is regular and l

The Report of the year 1822 is equally favourable. The Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, at the September quarter sessions, observed " That ten years ago, when the population was only 4000, forty cases were in the calendar for trial, now the population is upwards of 16,000, there are only six. It is remarkable that not a single case for trial is from any of the villages under the superintendence of a missionary or schoolmaster."|| At these quarter sessions some of the liberated Africans sat as jurors, "to the entire satisfaction of those concerned."^" The reports of the African Institution for 1821, 1822, and 18213, and other public documents, all speak favourably of the progress commercially and moral

No one will be rash enough, I presume, to say that God created these wretched creatures in order to punish them hereafter ; ancl I have already shown that Christian missions do not tend to elevate them in the moral scale.

Mr. Dibley remarked, that it was generally agreed that the differ? ences of belief among Christian missionaries was a great cause of their failure