Africa and the American Flag

by Andrew H. Foote

The vegetable articles of export are of great value. Cotton may be produced in unlimited abundance. The African dye-stuffs are already recognized as extensive and valuable articles of commerce. Indigo is used extensively by the natives. When we recollect that the vast trade of Bengal in this article has been created within the memory of men still living, and that India possesses no natural advantages beyond those of Africa, we may infer what a profusion of wealth might be poured rapidly over Africa by peace and good government.

Gums, of various kinds, constitute a branch of trade which may be considered as only commencing. The extensive employment of india-rubber, and the knowledge of gutta-percha, are only a few years old. Africa gives promise of a large supply of such articles. Its caoutchouc has already been introduced into the arts.[2] It may be long before the natural sources of supply found in its marshy forests can be exhausted. Be that as it may; when men are induced, as perhaps they soon will be, to substitute regular cultivation for the wild and more irregular modes of procuring articles which are becoming every day of more essential importance, Africa may take a great share in the means adopted to supply them.

Palm-oil has become pre-eminently an object of attention. The modes of procuring it are very rude and wasteful. The palm-nuts are generally left for a day or two, heaped together in a hole dug in the ground. They are then trodden by the women, till they form a greasy pulp; out of this the oil is rudely strained through their fingers, or water is run into the hole to float the oil, and it is skimmed off with their hands into a calabash. In Benin they employ the better mode of boiling it off. The oil occurs in a kind of pulp surrounding the seed, as is the case with the eatable part of the common date; it is evident, therefore, that more suitable modes of producing it may be put in practice.

What may be done in the production of sugar and coffee, no man can tell. James Macqueen, who has, during great part of his life, devoted his attention to the condition and interests of Africa, gave evidence before a committee of the British House of Peers, in 1850, to the following effect: “There is scarcely any tropical production known in the world, which does not come to perfection in Africa. There are many productions which are peculiarly her own. The dye-stuffs and dye-woods are superior to any which are known in any other quarter of the world, inasmuch as they resist both acids and light, things which we know no other dye-stuffs, from any other parts of the world, can resist. Then there is the article of sugar, that can be produced in every part of Africa to an unlimited extent. There is cotton also, above all things—cotton of a quality so fine; it is finer cotton than any description of cotton we know of in the world. Common cotton in Africa I have seen, and had in my possession, which was equal to the finest quality of American cotton.

“Egyptian cotton is not so good as the cotton away to the south; but the cotton produced in the southern parts of Africa is peculiarly fine. Africa is a most extraordinary country. In the eastern horn of Africa, which you think to be a desolate wilderness, there is the finest country, and the finest climate I know. I know of none in South America equal to the climate of the country in the northeastern horn of Africa. It is a very elevated country; and on the upper regions you have all the fruits, and flowers, and grain of Europe growing; and in the valleys you have the finest fruits of the torrid zone. The whole country is covered with myrrh and frankincense; it is covered with flocks and herds; it produces abundance of the finest grain. Near Brasa, for instance, on the river Webbe, you can purchase as much fine wheat for a dollar as will serve a man for a year. All kinds of European grain flourish there. In Enarea and Kaffa, the whole country is covered with coffee; it is the original country of the coffee. You can purchase an ass’s load (200 lbs.) of coffee in the berry for about a dollar. The greater portion of the coffee that we receive from Mocha, is actually African coffee, produced in that part.”

[2] The Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, who was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, at Cape Palmas and at the Gaboon River for more than twenty years, first called attention to a vine, or creeper, as affording india-rubber. It is now collected from this plant in the Gaboon district; and two or three cargoes have already been shipped to this country, with a prospect of its becoming a lucrative article of trade. We may look to intelligent missionaries, like Mr. Wilson, for securing such benefits to traffic and art, as well as to science and literature. We are glad to learn that he contemplates an extended work on Africa, which will no doubt be highly acceptable to the public.

CHAPTER VII.

EUROPEAN COLONIES—PORTUGUESE—REMAINING INFLUENCE OF THE PORTUGUESE—SLAVE FACTORIES—ENGLISH COLONIES—TREATIES WITH THE NATIVE CHIEFS—INFLUENCE OF SIERRA LEONE—DESTRUCTION OF BARRACOONS—INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND—CHIEFS ON THE COAST—ASHANTEE—KING OF DAHOMEY.

The Portuguese commercial discoverers having succeeded those of France, and founded trading establishments on the coast of Africa, were driven from the sea-shore by the rivalry and power of the Dutch and the English, about the year 1604. They retired into the interior, and commingled with the negroes. From their intermarriages arose a race of mulattoes, who have long exercised considerable influence. As early as 1667, this influence had become detrimental to commerce and discovery. They closed against others the entrances to the great region of more elevated lands, and carried on trade, without rivals, from Benin to Senegambia, over two thousand miles. They had generally little chapels near their houses, and spared no pains to make proselytes.

How much might these men have done for the good of Africa and the progress of the world! Following their lines of commerce, and cresting the high lands, which feed, with rains and rivulets, the Gambia and the Niger, as well as the streams by which they dwell, they might have saved two centuries of doubt and hazardous attempts, and much sacrifice of good and talented men. They might earlier have let in Christian civilization to repel the Moslem and redeem the negro. Portuguese influence is gone, and has left the world little reason to regret its extinction. On the rising and almost impervious forest-lands which are at the distance of from twenty to fifty miles back from the coast, these Portuguese mulattoes are still found, watching for their monopoly, with the same jealous exclusiveness as of old. These forests thus inhabited, form, at present, a serious obstacle to the extension of the influence of Liberia. An enterprising people, however, occupying the great tracts of cleared lands along the coast, which constitute the actual territories of the republic, will, with the progress of the settlements, and the increase of their power, soon be enabled, notwithstanding the short navigable distance of the rivers, to open communication with the far interior.