Africa and the American Flag

by Andrew H. Foote

The Portuguese founded cities and missions. A more extensive authority was gained by them over great and populous regions, both on the eastern and western shores, than has been attained by any other people. The title of “Lord of Guinea” was fairly claimed for the King of Portugal, by the establishment of this sovereign’s supremacy over various native kingdoms. But Portugal wanted the light and strength of a nation—a righteous and intelligent policy.

The establishments on the east coast now scarcely keep their ground, ever shrinking before the barbarian and the Arab. St. Paul de Loando, on the southwest coast, is shrivelled down from its former greatness. Both regions have rich capabilities; both might have extended a useful influence, until they met and embraced in the centre, uniting these vast regions with the great movements of human progress; but they clung to the slave-trade, and its curse has clung to them.

They misunderstood human nature, and overlooked its high destiny. Of the Spaniards and Portuguese concerned in slaving, Captain Dunlop, of the British Navy, long attached to the English squadron on the African coast, says: “They speak of the African as a brute, who is only fit to be made a slave of, and say that it is quite chimerical and absurd in us to attempt to put down the trade, or to defend men who were only born to be slaves.”

Other nations only founded slave factories. Every thing peculiar to this influence was bad. Compared with the ounces of gold and tusks of ivory which drew the cupidity of early navigators, there arose everywhere a traffic, far more rapid, but it was that of cruelty, bringing with it vice. Brandy and arms, drunkenness and war, followed as the remuneration of rapine and slaving. The gross vices of Europe added to the mischief. Legitimate trade, which might have flourished for centuries, withered; and the rank which the white man held among the natives, made him a source of wide corruption. Little good could come out of the state of society in Europe during the last century, for little good was in it. This state of things has improved.

The three nations whose interference seems likely to have a conspicuous effect upon the interests of Africa in the future, are France, England, and the United States.

France will have all the Mediterranean shore, and the caravan trade across the deserts. But this will diminish in activity and value, as the trade of the other shores extends, and as the way across from them to the interior becomes easier. No great influence can, therefore, be in this way exercised over the prosperity of the African people.

England holds the south; but the natives around the Cape of Good Hope are greatly isolated from the interior by deserts and climates hostile to European life. Democracy has a footing there, inasmuch as Dutch colonists have retired from under English jurisdiction, and formed a government for themselves, which has been acknowledged by England. After suffering, and trial, and privation shall have taught independence of thought and patriotism, a respectable confederacy of states may be formed in these regions.

Every effort that is just and suitable, is made to extend English influence along the shores of negro lands. The expenditure in endeavoring to extirpate the slave-trade is very great; and great devotedness and heroism have been seen in attempts to explore the interior. Both objects are drawing towards completion; but the permanently beneficial influence of England rests on the establishment of Sierra Leone and the extended coasting trade, arising from the semi-monthly line of English steamers which touch there.

England has established twenty-four treaties with native kings, chiefs, or powers, for the suppression of the slave-trade; seventeen of these are with chiefs whose territories have fallen under the influence of the Republic of Liberia and Cape Palmas. The influence of these governments has now replaced that of England, by sweeping the slave-trade from their territory of about six hundred miles. The great proportion of recaptured slaves, chiefly men and boys, who have been thrown into the population of Sierra Leone, has loaded it heavily. Of these, altogether not less than sixty thousand have, at different times, been introduced; yet, with the original colonists—the Novascotians, Canadians and the Maroons from Jamaica—the whole do not now extend beyond forty-five thousand; still, Sierra Leone has long been a focus of good emanations. It embraces a territory small compared with Liberia. The government is repressive of native energy, on account of the constant superintendence of white men, and the subordination of the colony to a distant and negligent government.

One momentous effect of its influence, however, has come permanently forward, tending to carry rapid improvement widely over the western regions of Africa. These recaptured slaves, and their descendants, many of them, are returning to their native lands, elevated in character by the instruction they have received. Three thousand of them are now settled among their brethren of the Yoruba tribe, near the mouth of the Niger, and there, superintended by two or three missionaries, are sending abroad, by their influence and example, the light of Divine truth.