Twelve months in Madagascar

Throughout our visit we felt that there is one very weak point in Malagasy social life, the system of domestic slavery. We saw it; we touched it at many points; it forced itself continually upon our attention. And we were glad to find that many thoughtful men among the upper classes of Malagasy society feel it to be a serious evil, which must some day be carefully considered by the Malagasy people and be entirely abolished. It is an ancient institution in the island: and as in other lands, for the sake of a present and temporary advantage, it has done, and is still doing, deep and permanent harm. It has been fed from two sources, without and within. From abroad there have been imported into Madagascar a multitude of pure Africans, who have to some extent been absorbed into the community, and have tainted the pure Malagasy blood. Many individuals in the highest Hova families have crisp woolly hair and thick lips, even with the high forehead and straight nose of the Malay races. From within the slave-class has been increased by captives in war from all the native tribes, Hova and Betsileo, as well as Sakalavas; also by the criminal classes, whether condemned for theft and murder, or (in the dark days) for the crime of reading the Word of God. In general slaves are very cheap: they may be purchased for as little as ten dollars, or for as much as forty and fifty. To possess slaves is one sign of respectability: and many a man, especially of Hova blood, who has redeemed himself from bondage, as soon as he can manage it, will buy slaves for himself. The general effect of the system is to degrade labour, to give the community the idea that people of station should not work, but should live on the labour of others. Slaves are held in large numbers by the leaders of society: some individuals own hundreds; and some have even two and three thousand slaves. Many excellent Christians own them: many pastors of churches have them. And the churches and congregations are filled with slaves. The system is local and domestic. Christianity is greatly affecting it and influencing it for good. As a rule it is not harshly administered. Opportunities are of frequent occurrence under which slaves can purchase their freedom either by their own efforts or by loans from their friends. The male slaves too have a great deal of independence both in action and spirit. They are allowed to earn money, to carry burdens to great distances, and to receive the price of their service. Sometimes they give their owners nothing: at other times they agree to give a portion, say half their earnings. Sometimes the owners are hard and selfish and demand the whole. In such cases spirited slaves run off. The country is large and wide: Noman’s land is not distant; and the injured people go to another part of the country and settle in the forests or dig new land. Under the influence of Christianity, and in the absence of any imperative demand for produce of special kinds, this domestic slavery has become serfdom rather than slavery: and there are many points of resemblance between it and the former system of Russia. The most prominent among its evil effects at the present time is that it encourages and increases the general idleness of the community, and renders all labour inefficient; because to such a large extent feudal service, as well as slavery, denies to the man who would be industrious, any large share in the fruits of his industry. As there spread among the community a deeper sense of what is just between man and man, a deeper respect for good women, slave as well as free, and a truer estimate of the worth of men as men, the way will be prepared for a right settlement of these important questions; and the relations of the members of the community to one another will be placed upon a healthy footing.

The system was in a much worse position in former days than it is now. Before Radáma I. inaugurated the great change, the trade in slaves, both for home use and foreign export, was very active. We have already seen how captives in war, even of Hova and Betsileo blood, were fastened in gangs and sent down to Tamatave to be sold to Mauritius and Bourbon, to the Cape and to the West Indies. Radáma, when appealed to by Governor Farquhar, heartily acknowledged the wrong and set himself to remedy it. The “vested interests” among his people were the chief difficulty: but his shrewdness and his strong will carried the day. The Treaty was made: and he and his people steadily kept it. For a while it produced a great change on both coasts, and Mojangá and its neighbours lost a considerable trade. The treaties all broke down in the days of his successor: but when the late Queen Rasoherina in 1865 renewed a Treaty with the English government, among other humane enactments, the clause against the foreign slave trade was again inserted and put in force.

By the Hova Government it is still observed: and there is reason to believe that by the Government and by the officers and people generally any infringement of its stipulations is disapproved. But the territory is larger than the government. Over the unfriendly Sakalavas on the west coast they have no control whatever. The officers in the garrison towns among the friendly tribes apparently tamper with the evil. And individuals are freely named both in Imerina and in the provinces who are said privately to soil their hands with the traffic and to make from it large profits. The Arab and Hindu merchants live on the coast: the Arab dhows run backward and forward between the west coast of the island and Mozambique: they are said to run their vessels, not into Mojangá Bay, but up the deep river Loza, some forty miles to the north, or into the quiet bays away from the Hova towns. And Sir Bartle Frere not only exposed the system, as the result of his inquiries on both sides the Mozambique Channel: but he avers on good grounds that the number of Africans, run in by these vessels, amounts to six thousand a year.

That the import trade into Madagascar has been active to the present time we can ourselves testify. Not seldom were pure African slaves, knowing but little of the Malagasy tongue, met with in the Capital and other parts of Imerina. The people in general know them as “Mójambíkas.” Still more numerous did we find them in the seven garrison towns in the north-west. Several came round us in Mevatanána. Márovoay was full of them. In Mojangá they form a large portion of the population in the lower town. And they all have a great dislike to the Hovas, whom they regard as the authors of their exile and captivity. The other proof of the activity of the trade is found in the important captures that have been made, since the vessels of the English navy and their crews on boat-service, have been hunting down the slave dhows during the last three years. Capt. Sullivan in his Dhow-chasing on the coast of Africa has testified amply to the reality, the effectiveness and the success of this work. The captures by the Daphne are well known: others of the greatest value were made by the Thetis and the Vulture during the period of our visit.

My colleague and I had just embarked at Mojangá, on board the Malacca, which was ready to sail for Zanzibar, when the Vulture came into the Bay, and we were invited on board. We found the open deck covered with Africans, captured out of a slave-dhow the previous day: and near them, sitting in a corner by themselves, were thirty-seven Arabs, crew and “passengers,” alias slave-dealers, who had had the unhappy people in charge. Commander Brooke welcomed us to his vessel and kindly explained to us what had occurred. He had been cruising about the coast for some time, and several of his boats were away, examining the bays and river mouths to the northward. Yesterday morning they had spied a dhow making for the land, but with little progress, owing to the light wind. His steamer was soon alongside; the flag was hauled down and his men went on board to take possession. Having sent away the crew, they proceeded to open the slaver’s hold. They lifted out several children, and then one of the men said to the officer, “Sir, these are only at the top: there are three tiers of them; and the men and women are at the bottom.” Exhausted, attenuated, wholly unable to stand, the poor creatures were carefully lifted out, one by one, into the boats, were rowed to the Vulture and placed upon her deck. There were two hundred and thirty-six in all: forty-two men, fifty-seven women, and a hundred and thirty-seven children. They had all been packed, like herrings, in the hold of the dhow in a space, a yard and a half high, the little ones at the top. They had been seven days on board; and had been nearly starved. The dhow had all but made good her voyage, when in God’s providence, she was captured and her victims were set free. I had often read of the “horrors of the middle passage:” but they never came home to me as they did then. Poor people! Many of them were injured by their cruel confinement beyond recovery. The Vulture carried them to the English colony in Sechelles: but before their ten days’ voyage was completed, seventeen of them were dead. Since our return to England we have seen with pleasure that the Vulture and her companions have made other captures: that the squadron on the East Coast of Africa has been strengthened: and that the English government and people are determined to have the trade stopped.

Apparently the Madagascar government and people have adopted the same resolve. It was with special satisfaction that only a few weeks ago the friends of the mission received the proclamation issued by the Queen in November last, under which every African slave imported into the island since the date of the treaty in June 1865 has been set free, and is allowed either to remain in Madagascar a free subject, or to return to Africa. If well carried out that arrangement ought to ruin the Arab slave trade in the island and completely stop the importation. We may well hope that in due time the difficult problems connected with the domestic system will also be solved, and the system entirely disappear.

We left Mojangá in the Malacca on Wednesday, August 12th: having been in the island of Madagascar twelve months, wanting two days. What a comfort it was to travel and sleep in a clean, bright English steamer, instead of in close packed canoes and uuswept chapels. I need not describe the journey. I may not dwell on the wide Bays of the north-west coast, the Hova Stations, or the great hills: I cannot describe our visit to the island of Nosibe with its many craters; our run through the Comoro Islands; the beauties of Johannna: and the pleasure we derived from a week’s stay in Zanzibar. Again we touched at Aden, more interesting than ever in its connection with the native navigation of these Eastern Seas; just saw the minarets of Suez and the palaces of Alexandria; skirted the barren shores of Messenia; saw the spires of Loretto; and were rowed along the canals of Venice; and at length were welcomed once more to home and work in London, on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 22nd, after an absence of fifteen months.

My visit to Madagascar not merely afforded me intense pleasure; it gave me a very high idea of the spiritual work going on amongst its people. From reading and correspondence that work had for years appeared to me, as to others, truly marvellous. I found it all that I had hoped, and even more. In certain respects its form differed from what I looked for: the outward civilisation of the Malagasy was less advanced. But the tide of Chrstian life through all the Central Provinces and its offshoots was flowing wider, deeper, stronger than I had imagined. The Christian renovation of the Malagasy people is truly the work of God; and by the direct use of his own instruments, the teaching of the Word, the bestowment of gracious gifts, and the discipline of sorrow, the Holy Ghost has long been leading, not individuals only, but multitudes of the nation toward himself. It was a source of the greatest satisfaction to my colleague and myself that in the spirit and the aims of the four evangelical missions working side by side in Imerina, we found nothing to mar that Divine work, but every thing to carry it forward, in dependence upon the Saviour’s blessing and to his praise. And what we desire and hope for these Malagasy converts is that they may grow up unto the full stature of men in Christ Jesus, not as a branch of any English Church or Denomination, but as a veritable Malagasy Church, organised in a way natural to itself, worshipping God in its own fashion, and offering its own contribution of national life and faith and love at the feet of the Saviour.

Therefore it is that we join heartily in the objections which have been offered by many Christian Churches in England, though offered unsuccessfully, against the attempt which has been made to turn aside our Malagasy Churches from their simple faith, and annex them to a foreign institution, the Episcopal Church of England. So far as a Bishopric in Madagascar or the visits of a Bishop from Mauritius, were intended to complete the framework of the Episcopal Churches and congregations gathered in the island, while the necessary arrangements involved no attack upon churches which had long preceded them, the Directors of the London Missionary Society and other Christian men declined to interfere. But established as that Bishopric has now been, in the face of remonstrance, planted as it is in the very midst of our oldest churches, with the avowed purpose of “showing” to those churches “a more excellent way,” the way of the Church of England, they regard it as an intrusion, they regard it as an aggression; they hold it therefore to be an injustice to themselves; and they hold it to be a great wrong to the native churches. If the missionaries of the many churches of Christendom, labouring in foreign countries, have learned one lesson more than another in their common toil, it is this, not to trouble their children in the faith, the converts new from heathenism, with outside questions of church order, but to do their utmost to lead them to the Saviour and the highest forms of inner spiritual life. It cannot therefore be otherwise than a wrong, a hindrance and an “offence” to these “little ones,” when another Englishman enters among these churches and says: “I alone teach and hold Christianity in the true way: your missionaries are not authorised teachers; I cannot worship with them or attend their prayer-meetings; and so long as you do not join me as your Bishop, I cannot worship in your churches or pray with you.” The advocates of this project little know the intensity of disapproval with which it has been regarded by all churches in Great Britain outside their own. I have talked with many laymen of the Church of England respecting the scheme. I have never heard one of them defend or approve it.

I feel objection to it the more strongly, that it ignores entirely the past history of the mission and the mode in which God himself has been dealing with his Malagasy children. Nothing more instructive than that method has been seen in the history of Christianity. He has led them himself; and has guided them, sustained them, moulded them, taught them, in ways so simple, so efficient, so loving, that his work and its fruit are at this hour the joy and the praise of the whole Christian Church. Stereotyped systems seem to me wholly out of place among a people so directed. Indeed stereotyped methods in missionary work ought everywhere to be carefully avoided. “I believe in the Holy Ghost.” I believe that He lives still in the church as the guide and helper of all who work for Him: and that it is when we appeal to Him most fully and cast ourselves upon Him most freely, that He will “make all grace abound” to his children, and varied as the works of creation among which they dwell, He will make the scenes, the history, the fruitfulness of the churches which He gathers around the Cross of Christ.

Let us then fearlessly and lovingly commit these Malagasy converts and churches into His hands. He can preserve them from all evil. He knows them well and has loved them long. He brought their fathers across the sea to raise up a people whose Christian faithfulness all tribes and tongues should know. He formed their land and endowed it with its many rich resources for their good. He pours the sun-flood on the moist, warm earth, breathes over field and forest in the summer days rich airs like fragrant wine, and sends on all the toil and all the prayer of his struggling children Divine benediction and peace. He has never forgotten earing and harvest; he maketh grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man; and fills all hearts with food and gladness throughout the varied seasons of the revolving year. The towering palm with its feathery crown, the massive breadfruit, the lithe bamboo with its trembling leaves, and the tall tree-fern with its shady fronds, grow at His bidding. He clothes the huge timber-trees with moss and lichen, binds together their massive arms with the tough, pliant creeper, or covers them with ferns, or brightens their sombre hue with myriads of orchids and their soft waxy flowers. All living creatures are His daily care: the creeping lizard and the spotted snake, the great spider with his silver coat, and the locust-clouds, whirring as they fly. He made the gentle lemur with its ring of fur, the little aye-aye that gropes for its rich morsels in the darkness, and the huge butterflies which flit joyously in the sun. The forces of nature are under His command. He lays His hand upon the violet lightning; He guides the course of the great waterspouts; forms in the upper sky the rattling hail; and arches the drenched earth with the warm radiance of His promised bow.

He who has given all this, shall He not give still more? “Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” “Man doth not live by bread alone.” From Him came the Gospel which enlightened their fathers, and the faith that led them to accept and obey it. From Him came the priceless privilege of their hard training, their baptism of blood, of fire, and of tears. Thence sprang the manliness of their children, their strong convictions, their clear knowledge, and that firm grasp of the truth from which, like the skin of the chrysalis, idolatry has died away, leaving the nation free to unfold the wings of a new life, to bask in the sunlight of divine love, and breathe the fragrance of the upper air.

The very hairs of their head are all numbered. The Son of God has come down among them, working for them wondrously, living in them, leading them onward. Let us pray for them, and commit them fearlessly into His hands. In the face of all evil powers He has said, “Behold I have refined thee, but not with silver: I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction:” “This people have I formed for myself, they shall shew forth my praise.” Therefore, “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people.” “The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.”