Africa is as old as Europe, Asia or America—her days as bright, her years as long, and her seasons as refreshing. Why, then, does she linger behind them? They educated themselves; why has she not also done like them? If her children be claiming an equality before the law, should they not be required to show us their equality behind it?
But you are trying, you tell us, an experiment—a point which we concede as readily as you offer it. But in what way are you trying? You are experimenting with the circle of darkness drawn close up around you; for in that darkness, beyond your vision, every experiment which you are attempting has been tried a hundred, and possibly a thousand, times before.
For almost countless centuries, in the high antiquity of the past—as is now shown by monumental Egypt—the negro mingled with the people of the Nile; but was then, as he has ever since been, until madness overthrew modest nature, the slave of a higher order of men.
Rome, at a remove of not less than three thousand years further down the stream of time, and two thousand above the period on which we now stand, also sought his elevation—bore him to the land of the learned; but failed, as all others failed, both before and since, to force the light of civilization and self-supremacy through the thick skull which encompassed his little brain.
The Moors, also, midway between the Romans and the English theorists and their American apes, bore him in triumph to conquered Spain; but failed, as all others failed, to crowd him a single round further up the ladder of light.
Here reason would have been content. But darkness again drew her circle in contraction around the European mind—shut out the light of history—and, accordingly, a new brood of “experimenters” revived the old struggle with patient old Nature’s laws. A religious change had come upon the world, and, as living gods are always more powerful than dead ones, Africa, it was conceived, could be moved by the power of the Cross, where Isis burned her fires in despair, and Jove’s thunders fell harmless at the negro’s feet. Accordingly Portugal, about four centuries ago—then wild with the pomp of a fancied greatness, and stimulated with papal attention (a bull from Pope Martin V)—dashed forth in what she vainly conceived to be a new enterprise in the affairs of the world. It may, in its origin, have been the outshoot of philanthropic desire, but in its continuance, like all other movements of its kindred, swelled with the impulses of fanatical thought, and grew in its energy with the emotions which ultimately gave it force. Expedition after expedition was sent forth—missionaries provided, salaried and commissioned, and “school-marms” drawn from Lisbon, as they are now drawn from the “Hub of the Universe,” to teach the negro idea how to shoot. But, after a long and determined effort, nature over vanity prevailed. African mentality still clung to its old level—instincts ran in their old channels; the white man died, or returned to his native Europe, and all that now remains of the gigantic enterprise are a few moldering ruins, overgrown with brambles, yet to be seen near the mouth of the Congo river.
This, with the wise, would also have determined the measure of might. But, in the variation of creeds and changing dominion of sects, other experimenters also arose, and pressed on in the same display of fancies. Protestant England must needs be as energetic as her Catholic mother, and, in the pomp of an equal vanity, must needs toss her lances into the same mountain. Accordingly the old struggle, under new phases, was again begun, and, through changes, cessations and variations, continued down even to the present time. But, notwithstanding so powerful and continued a struggle, running through three centuries from its beginning, the negro continues to-day as the worshipers of Osiris, on the Nile, fifty centuries ago, found him in his native jungles. He is still a barbarian—runs in his nakedness, feeds on human flesh, worships reptiles, and dignifies the funerals of his princes with the wholesale slaughter of subjects or slaves.
In the first half of the Protestant struggle many enterprises rose and fell, leaving scarcely a shadow behind them. But the one most gigantic—aided by Church and State, and intended not only to civilize, but to anglicise the negro and his continent—has left, like the Catholic effort on the Congo, a few moldering ruins yet to be seen near the mouth of the Niger; but all else has drifted away with the winds. Thus did experiment succeed experiment, and failure succeed failure, until the mind of the learned sickened, while the ignorant as successively thought of experimenting again.
But men of thought finally faltered and reflected, and though they reasoned from various points of view, ultimately united in assuming that nature had not created the negro without at the same time coupling his being with a design. But no design was tangible until the American plantations called for laborers, and the negro was found fitted for the demand. Then opened there, upon the minds of civilized nations, a secret which until then had been wrapped up among the mysteries of the world. It was then seen that the negro as a slave, and the white man as a master, could be united for each other’s good. Consequently a commerce was opened with the African coast, and all Christendom united in commending and approving the trade. A new era thus opened, and all the world said, Amen! But European kings were not then troubled with a republic which, for their own safety, they deemed it best to destroy, nor were white slaves at home controlled by fixing their attentions on black slaves abroad. Interests were different. Europe owned America, and sought its welfare. England was not then an enemy, nor was there a tory party on this side of the water, crushed by a revolution, struggling for resurrection and re-establishment in power.
The slave trade thus encouraged grew into vast proportions, and, by its expansion and appendages of cruelty, swelled from a propriety into a withering curse. But taken as a whole, it has been productive of great good. It civilized America, subdued the forest, and built up the best as well as the last system of civilization which has yet appeared upon the world. The best, because the most harmonious and nearest in conformity to the requisitions of nature’s laws—a system, which, by force of individual capital, existing in slaves, makes population rural, draws it from cities, and plants it upon fields—a system, which scatters concentrated vice and to which poorhouses and penitentiaries are but little known.