Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
or human behaviour and was noted down in the journal with emo-
tionless, clinical detachment:
We have all been so much interested in the advertisements we
read in the daily papers of slaves to be sold or hired, that arrange-
ments were made with a Brazilian gentleman for some of our party to
have an opportunity of seeing the way in which these transactions are
carried on.
Because slave dealing was illegal for British subjects, Tom Bras-
sey and his companions had to pose as American plantation owners
in order to be allowed in the sale room:
They were taken to a small shop in the city, and, after some delay,
were conducted to a room upstairs, where they waited a quarter of
an hour. Twenty-two men and eleven women and children were then
brought in for inspection. They declared themselves suitable for a vari-
ety of occupations, indoor and out, and all appeared to look anxiously
at their possible purchaser, with a view to ascertain what they had to
hope for in the future. One couple, in particular, a brother and sister,
about fourteen and fifteen years old respectively, were most anxious
not to be separated, but to be sold together; and the tiny children
seemed quite frightened at being spoken to or touched by the white
men. Eight men and five women having been specially selected as fit
subjects for further consideration, the visit terminated.
10
British contemporaries penetrating the 'Dark Continent' in the
1870s, such as Livingstone and Stanley, wrote angry, heartrending
prose in denunciation of the traffic in human lives. The Brasseys ob-
served the slave market in Rio, recorded what they saw - and went
on to visit the botanical gardens.
