ect of
philanthropists and negrophilists everywhere. To import them for years,
however, into quiet places, evading with impunity the penalty of the
law, and the ranting of the thin-skinned sympathizers with Africa, was
gradually to popularize the traffic by creating a demand for laborers,
and thus to pave the way for the _gradual revival of the slave trade_.
To this end, a few men, bold and energetic, determined, ten or twelve
years ago [1848 or 1850], to commence the business of importing negroes,
slowly at first, but surely; and for this purpose they selected a few
secluded places on the coast of Florida, Georgia and Texas, for the
purpose of concealing their stock until it could be sold out. Without
specifying other places, let me draw your attention to a deep and abrupt
pocket or indentation in the coast of Texas, about thirty miles from
Brazos Santiago. Into this pocket a slaver could run at any hour of the
night, because there was no hindrance at the entrance, and here she
could discharge her cargo of movables upon the projecting bluff, and
again proceed to sea inside of three hours. The live stock thus landed
could be marched a short distance across the main island, over a porous
soil which refuses to retain the recent foot-prints, until they were
again placed in boats, and were concealed upon some of the innumerable
little islands which thicken on the waters of the Laguna in the rear.
These islands, being covered with a thick growth of bushes and grass,
offer an inscrutable hiding place for the 'black diamonds.'"[47] These
methods became, however, toward 1860, too slow for the radicals, and the
trade grew more defiant and open. The yacht "Wanderer," arrested on
suspicion in New York and released, landed in Georgia six months later
four hundred and twenty slaves, who were never recovered.[48] The
Augusta _Despatch_ says: "Citizens of our city are probably interested
in the enterprise. It is hinted that this is the third cargo landed by
the same company, during the last six months."[49] Two parties of
Africans were brought into Mobile with impunity. One bark, strongly
suspected of having landed a cargo of slaves, was seized on the Florida
coast; another vessel was reported to be landing slaves near Mobile; a
letter from Jacksonville, Florida, stated that a bark had left there for
Africa to ship a cargo for Florida and Georgia.[50] Stephen A. Douglas
said "that there was not the shadow of doubt that the Slave-trade h