UNITY OF THE AFRICAN RACES.
I use the term barbarism in contradistinction to civilization, and very respectfully refer to authorities of repute in justification of this use of the word, both to designate the quality of the thing, and the precise locality of its fittest application; for although Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians and Greeks applied the term barbari to all who spoke a language different from their own; and even the Hindoos used almost the same word to express the quality indicated, differing only by the accidental dissimilarity of the Sanskrit orthography, which makes it varvvarah or varvvaras, we have the authority of Professor Wilson, who says it means "an outcast, and in another sense, woolly or curly haired, as the hair of the African." And for authorities showing the unity of the Negro races, dialects, and languages, in Western, Southern, and Central Africa, I refer to the writings of Progart, Ritter, Oldendorf, Marsden, Bruseiotti, Harves, Grandpre, Vater, Salt, Ludolf, and Oldfield; who, from other motives than those which have prompted the partial accounts of more recent travelers and writers on the subject, have shown conclusively, that the degrees of barbarism existing in the tribes inhabiting the Western and Southern coasts of Africa, and the interior, are, in fact, mere modifications of that same barbarism, produced by local causes, and mitigated only by the force of nature from without, rather than by any inherent quality belonging to any portion of the Negro race. I speak of language as the connecting chain which links together the various African tribes, showing, if not their identity, their immediate connection, and holding to the account of barbarism those exceptions to the rule of barbarism which suggest the pretext for breaking down the barriers which divide barbarism from civilization, and form the basis of all the false philanthropy and efforts of political emancipation which are the curse of the age and country in which we live.
According to Pritchard, and others familiar with the subject, the slaves exported from Congo, which was long the principal resort of the Portuguese traders in black men, have always been regarded by slave-dealers and planters as genuine Negroes. If the physical traits of the Mapoota tribe, who will, as I suppose, be admitted to be undoubtedly of the Kafir race, so fairly represent the Negro character, it will be less difficult to admit that the natives of Mozambique and Congo belong to the same stock. All the inhabitants of the great empire of Congo speak one language, though it is divided into a number of dialects, including the dialect of Loango in the north, that of Congo in the south, and Banda, or idiom of Cassanga, in the interior, forming, collectively, one nearly allied family of languages, or, in fact, one language.