SACRIFICE OF LIFE.-- No less than six vessels have left New York within two weeks for the coast of Africa for cargoes of slaves. One of those terrible wholesale massacres that occasionally occur in the prosecution of this monstrous traffic is graphically described in a letter from St. Paul De Loando, on the African coast, dated Feb. 21st:--

"The principal bit of news is the loss of one of our Baltimore slavers, as fine looking a clipper built hermaphrodite brig as ever was seen in these waters. On the 10th of this month, as her Majesty's steamer Gloucester was cruising to the southward cape Lopez, they made a sail to leeward. They immediately put her before the wind to give chase, which manoeuvre the fellow observing, he immediately followed suit, with a view of rounding cape Lopez, and probably escaping after nightfall, by running into some of the small rivers inside of the Bight of Biafra. He proved himself a match, however, for his vessel sailed like a witch and gained on the steamer nearly the whole day, when, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, the Portuguese steamer Tagus hove in sight on the weather bow, thus cutting off the fellow's chance of rounding the cape. Seeing his chance thus lost, he stood her directly on to the rocks of the cape. As the brig struck, and was overwhelmed by the breakers, the miserable creatures on board, probably to the number of five hundred, set up a howl of despair that could be heard even above the roaring of the hungry sea. But is was too dark, by that time, to see much, and beyond human skill or power to aid the drowning wretches, so that they soon must have met their doom, for on the next morning the beach inside of the rocks, was strewn with corpses and fragments of the wreck. Nothing was found, however, to reveal the name of the slaver, or any other information concerning him, save that to the practiced seaman she proved of Baltimore built. The monsters who manned the vessel are supposed to have escaped in their boat before she struck, and must have gained the shore, as a boat somewhat stove was discovered on the beach with the oars near by. A good prize was thus lost, and what is worse, probably five hundred human beings were launched into eternity."
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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There is currently no available "Beginner" label. The following is the default level label: The importation of slaves directly from Africa to the United States was outlawed by Congress in 1808, the first year allowed by the Constitution. By then many southern states had found it more profitable to sell their "excess" slave population domestically rather than to pay for the importation of slaves from Africa. The other slave societies of the Western Hemisphere continued importing slaves. All the Spanish-speaking Latin American countries that gained their independence from Spain in the period from 1815 to 1821 abolished slavery, leaving only the United States, Cuba, and Brazil as slaveowning societies. Importation into Cuba and Brazil continued but antislavery activists continued their pressure in Great Britain. In the 1830s the British navy was used to stop slavers of all nations from leaving Africa, with a fair amount of success. American ships continued participating in the slave trade, although the number steadily decreased as getting their goods to market became increasingly difficult. The illegal importation of slaves continued and illegal slaves were landed in the south as late as the 1850s. There exists little documentation of this trade though. This article was a part of the American antislavery movement which continued to publicize all known incidents of slavery from Africa.

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