Reference to the Godfather of the African Slave Trade

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/18/2013

Authentic issue of The Connecticut Courant, Hartford, June 20, 1836, 4pp., disbound, VG. From the interior a rare reference to King Boatswain (King Sabsu), in part “... a town belonging to King Softly had been attacked and destroyed by an army of King Boatswain. Boatswain himself being prostrate ... confides his warlike affairs to a distinguished headman named Ynamby ...”Upon taking over the Kingdom of Kondo (Hondo) with some of his Mandingo brethren, Sabsu decided to make his kingdom rich and powerful by trading slaves to Europeans on the coast. Nineteenth Century historians who wrote about West Africa mentioned that King Sabsu was one of the most notorious slave trading kings in Africa. During his reign, Sabsu sold thousands of neighboring tribal people into slavery. He was the godfather of all the petty slave traders on the Liberian coast. Sabsu was a man that the European slave traders could trust to deliver human cargo on time at any cost. He sent gangs of slave hunting mercenaries from Bopulu( Boporu) out to roam deep into the Liberian hinterland as far inland as northern Lofa county and as far west as Sierra Leone for slaves. The main reason Sabsu sold the neighboring tribe’s people was for profit, and also because he hated infidels or unbelievers. In a warped way, he figured that all of this was proper jihad. “This Mandingo king, who was Moslem, had no use for infidels. He raided towns and villages over a 300 mile distance, and sold his victims into slavery. The battle cry among the black Moslems in West Africa, toward infidels or “Caffre” was: "Stand and you are a slave; run and you are a corpse."

Click on a thumbnail above to display a larger image below
Hold down the mouse button and slide side to side to see more thumbnails(if available).