Thus it was that Negroes came to America.  Thus it was also, we might say, that the Negro Problem came, though it was not for decades, not until the budding years of American nationality, that the ultimate reaches of the problem were realized.  Those who came were by no means all of exactly the same race stock and language.  Plantations frequently exhibited a variety of customs, and sometimes traditional enemies became brothers in servitude.  The center of the colonial slave-trade was the African coast for about two hundred miles east of the great Niger River.  From this comparatively small region came as many slaves as from all the rest of Africa together.  A number of those who came were of entirely different race stock from the Negroes; some were Moors, and a very few were Malays from Madagascar.

The actual procuring of the slaves was by no means as easy a process as is sometimes supposed.  In general the slave mart brought out the most vicious passions of all who were in any way connected with the traffic.  The captain of a vessel had to resort to various expedients to get his cargo.  His commonest method was to bring with him a variety of gay cloth, cheap ornaments, and whiskey, which he would give in exchange for slaves brought to him.  His task was most simple when a chieftain of one tribe brought to him several hundred prisoners of war.  Ordinarily, however, the work was more toilsome, and kidnapping a favorite method, though individuals were sometimes enticed on vessels.  The work was always dangerous, for the natives along the slave-coast soon became suspicious.  After they had seen some of their tribesmen taken away, they learned not to go unarmed while a slave-vessel was on the coast, and very often there were hand-to-hand encounters.  It was not long before it began to be impressed upon those interested in the trade that it was not good business to place upon the captain of a vessel the responsibility of getting together three or four hundred slaves, and that it would be better if he could find his cargo waiting for him when he came.  Thus arose the so-called factories, which were nothing more than warehouses.  Along the coast were placed small settlements of Europeans, whose business it was to stimulate slave-hunting expeditions, negotiate for slaves brought in, and see that they were kept until the arrival of the ships.  Practically every nation engaged in the traffic planted factories of this kind along the West Coast from Cape Verde to the equator; and thus it was that this part of Africa began to be the most flagrantly exploited region in the world; thus whiskey and all the other vices of civilization began to come to a simple and home-loving people.