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Updated: May 6, 2025
Vincent, Harvey and Abercrombie came into Carriacou in the Grenadines with a gallant armada; seven ships of the line, thirteen other men-of-war, and nigh 8000 men, including 1500 German jagers, on board. On the 16th they were struggling with currents of the Bocas, piloted by a Mandingo Negro, Alfred Sharper, who died in 1836, 105 years of age.
I took this opportunity to observe to my landlord, that as I did not understand the Serawoolli tongue, I hoped, whatever the men had to say they would speak in Mandingo.
In the administration of justice, some classes of their criminals are sold into slavery, and occasionally a Mandingo would be kidnapped. But there are many Mandingoes who are still pagans, and know nothing of Arabic or commerce, yet who have the excellences of the dominant tribes: these were found in the gangs of the slave-merchant.
You neither feel a burning desire to laugh with, or at him, as in the case of the country folks, nor do you wish to punch his head, and split his coat up his back things you yearn to do to that perfect flower of Sierra Leone culture, who yells your bald name across the street at you, condescendingly informs you that you can go and get letters that are waiting for you, while he smokes his cigar and lolls in the shade, or in some similar way displays his second-hand rubbishy white culture a culture far lower and less dignified than that of either the stately Mandingo or the bush chief.
All these have been related to me in the Mandingo language, with tolerable exactness, by different people; and my surprise was not greater on hearing these accounts from the lips of the Negroes, than theirs, on finding that I was already acquainted with them; for although the Negroes in general have a very great idea of the wealth and power of the Europeans, I am afraid that the Mahomedan converts among them think but very lightly of our superior attainments in religious knowledge.
Without hesitating, Park turned and followed them. They had reached a dark part of the wood when one of them observed in the Mandingo language, "This place will do," and immediately snatched his hat from his head. Feeling that resistance was useless, he allowed them to proceed till they had stripped him quite naked.
When I suggested to a chief of very considerable intelligence, and one of the Foolah king's head men, whom I met in the Rio Pongo, the enormity of their injustice to the surrounding tribes, and how displeasing it was to the God they prayed to, his reply was, "True, this be bad fashion to Foolah, or Mandingo man, but these people we make war against never pray to God, nor do we make war with those who give God Almighty service."
This is a strange bugbear, common to all the Mandingo towns, and much employed by the pagan natives in keeping their women in subjection; for as the kafirs are not restricted in the number of their wives, every one marries as many as he can conveniently maintain and as it frequently happens that the ladies disagree among themselves, family quarrels sometimes rise to such a height, that the authority of the husband can no longer preserve peace in his household.
But Bang was more successful in Eboe and Mandingo, both of which he spoke fluently accomplishments which I ought to have expected, by the by, when I declared he was little skilled in any tongue but English. Large herds of cattle were grazing on the skirts of the wood, and about one hundred mules were scrambling and picking their food in a rocky river course which bisected the valley.
Probably the best that is to say, the least objectionable exemplifications of Islam now to be found in the world are seen in some of the older states of Western Soudan. The Mandingo of the central uplands furnished a better material than the "unspeakable Turk," and it would not be quite fair to ascribe all his present virtues to the Moslem rule.
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