TO DIRECT LEGITIMATE COMMERCE
First Steps in Political Economy
As the first great national step in political economy, the selection and security of a location to direct and command commerce legitimately carried on, as an export and import metropolis, is essentially necessary. The facilities for a metropolis should be adequate—a rich, fertile, and productive country surrounding it, with some great staple (which the world requires as a commodity) of exportation. A convenient harbor as an outlet and inlet, and natural facilities for improvement, are among the necessary requirements for such a location.
The Basis of a Great Nation—National Wealth
The basis of great nationality depends upon three elementary principles: first, territory; second, population; third, a great staple production either natural or artificial, or both, as a permanent source of wealth; and Africa comprises these to an almost unlimited extent. The continent is five thousand miles from Cape Bon (north) to the Cape of Good Hope (south), and four thousand at its greatest breadth, from Cape Guardifui (east) to Cape de Verde (west), with an average breadth of two thousand five hundred miles, any three thousand of which within the tropics north and south, including the entire longitude, will produce the staple cotton, also sugar cane, coffee, rice, and all the tropical staples, with two hundred millions of natives as an industrial element to work this immense domain. The world is challenged to produce the semblance of a parallel to this. It has no rival in fact.
Advantageous Location
Lagos, at the mouth of the Ogun river in the Bight of Benin, Gulf of Guinea, 6 deg. 31 min. west coast of Africa, 120 miles north-west of the Nun (one of the mouths of the great river Niger) is the place of our location. This was once the greatest slave-trading post on the west coast of Africa, and in possession of the Portuguese—the slavers entering Ako Bay, at the mouth of the Ogun river, lying quite inland, covered behind the island till a favorable opportunity ensued to escape with their cargoes of human beings for America. Wydah, the great slave-port of Dahomi, is but 70 or 80 miles west of Lagos. This city is most favorably located at the mouth of a river which during eight months in the year is a great thoroughfare for native produce, which is now brought down and carried up by native canoes and boats, and quite navigable up to Aro the port of Abbeokuta, a distance of eighty or a hundred miles, for light-draught steamers, such as at no distant day we shall have there. Ako Bay is an arm of the gulf, extending quite inland for three and a half miles, where it spreads out into a great sea, extending north ten to fifteen miles, taking a curve east and south, passing on in a narrow strip for two or three hundred miles, till it joins the Niger at the mouth of the Nun. It is the real harbor of Lagos, and navigable for light-draught vessels, as the Baltimore clippers and all other such slavers, formerly put into it; and Her Majesty's war-steamer Medusa has been in, and H. M.'s cruiser Brun lies continually in the bay opposite the Consulate.
Metropolis
This is the great outlet of the rich valley of the Niger by land, and the only point of the ocean upon which the intelligent and advanced Yorubas are settled. The commerce of this part is very great, being now estimated at ten million pounds sterling. Besides all the rich products, as enumerated in another section, palm oil[7] and ivory are among the great staple products of this rich country. But as every nation, to be potent must have some great source of wealth—which if not natural must be artificial—so Africa has that without which the workshops of Great Britain would become deserted, and the general commerce of the world materially reduced; and Lagos must not only become the outlet and point at which all this commodity must centre, but the great metropolis of this quarter of the world.
Trade of Lagos
The trade of this port now amounts to more than two millions of pounds sterling, or ten millions of dollars, there having been at times as many as sixty vessels in the roadstead.
The merchants and business men of Lagos are principally native black gentlemen, there being but ten white houses in the place—English, German, French, Portuguese, and Sardinian—and all of the clerks are native blacks.
Harbor Improvements
Buoys in the roadstead, lighthouses (two) and wharf improvements at the city in the bay, with steam-tugs or tenders to tow vessels over the Ogun bar-mouth or inlet, are all that we require to make Lagos a desirable seaport, with one of the safest harbors in the world for light-draught vessels.
The fish in these waters are very fine, and Ako is one of the finest natural oyster bays in the world. The shell-fish are generally of good size, frequently large, and finely flavored.
Religious and Philanthropic means
As a religious means, such a position must most largely contribute, by not only giving security to the Missionary cause, but by the actual infusion of a religious social element permanently among the natives of the country; and as a philanthropic, by a permanent check to the slave-trade, and also by its reflex influence on American slavery—not only thus far cutting off the supply, but, also by superseding slavery in the growth and supply of those articles which comprise its great staple and source of wealth—thereby tendering slave labor unprofitable and worthless, as the succeeding section will show.
Stopping the Slave Trade
As to the possibility of putting a stop to the slave-trade, I have only to say, that we do not leave America and go to Africa to be passive spectators of such a policy as traffic in the flesh and blood of our kindred, nor any other species of the human race—more we might say—that we will not live there and permit it. "Self-preservation is the first law of nature," and we go to Africa to be self-sustaining; otherwise we have no business there, or anywhere else, in my opinion. We will bide our time; but the Slave-trade shall not continue!
Means of Doing It
Another important point of attention: that is, the slave-trade ceases in Africa, wherever enlightened Christian civilization gains an influence. And as to the strength and power necessary, we have only to add, that Liberia, with a coast frontier of seven hundred miles, and a sparse population, which at the present only numbers fifteen thousand settlers, has been effective in putting a stop to that infamous traffic along her entire coast. And I here record with pleasure, and state what I know to be the fact, and but simple justice to as noble-hearted antagonists to slavery as live, that the Liberians are uncompromising in their opposition to oppression and the enslavement of their race, or any other part of the human family. I speak of them as a nation or people and ignore entirely their Iscariots, if any there be. What they have accomplished with less means, we, by the help of Providence, may reasonably expect to effect with more—what they did with little, we may do with much. And I speak with confidence when I assert, that if we in this new position but do and act as we are fondly looked to and expected—as I most fondly hope and pray God that, by a prudent, discretionate and well-directed course, dependant upon Him, we may, nay, I am certain we will do—I am sure that there is nothing that may be required to aid in the prosecution and accomplishment of this important and long-desired end, that may not be obtained from the greatest and most potent Christian people and nation that ever graced the world. There is no aid that might be wanted, which may not be obtained through a responsible, just, and equitable negotiation.
Subsidizing the King of Dahomi
There is some talk by Christians and philanthropists in Great Britain of subsidizing the King of Dahomi. I hope for the sake of humanity, our race, and the cause of progressive civilization, this most injurious measure of compensation for wrong, never will be resorted to nor attempted.
To make such an offering just at a time when we are about to establish a policy of self-regeneration in Africa, which may, by example and precept, effectually check forever the nefarious system, and reform the character of these people, would be to offer inducements to that monster to continue, and a license to other petty chiefs to commence the traffic in human beings, to get a reward of subsidy.