Africa and the American Flag

by Andrew H. Foote

It is a necessary element in this proceeding that he be self-governing. It is to the establishment of this point that all men look to decide the dispute, whether negro races are to remain forever degraded or not. Time and patience, however, and much kind watchfulness, may be required before this experiment be deemed conclusive. Let many failures be anticipated ere a certain result is secured. Let no higher claims be made on the negro than on other races. Would a colony of Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Sicilians, if left to themselves, offer a fairer prospect of success than Liberia now offers? Few persons would have confidence in the stability of republican institutions among these races, if so placed.

Let then the black man be judged fairly, and not presumed to have become all at once and by miracle, of a higher order than old historic nations, through many generations of whom the political organization of the world has been slowly developing itself. There will be among them men who are covetous, or men who are tyrannical, or men who would sacrifice the public interests or any others to their own: men who would now go into the slave-trade if they could, or rob hen-roosts, or intrigue for office, or pick pockets, rather than trouble their heads or their hands with more honorable occupations. It should be remembered by visitors that such things will be found in Liberia; not because men are black, but because men are men.

It should not be forgotten that the experiment in respect to this race is essentially a new one. The nonsense about Hannibal, and Terence, and Cyprian, and Augustine, being negro Africans, should have been out of the heads of people long ago. A woolly-headed, flat-nosed African, in ancient times, would have created as great a sensation at the head of an army, or in the chair of a professor, as it would now in the United States or in England. These men were Asiatics or Europeans, rather than Africans: the Great Desert being properly the northern boundary of the African race. The African has never reached in fact, until the settlement of Liberia, a higher rank than a king of Dahomey, or the inventor of the last fashionable grisgris to prevent the devil from stealing sugar-plums. No philosopher among them has caught sight of the mysteries of nature; no poet has illustrated heaven, or earth, or the life of man; no statesman has done any thing to lighten or brighten the links of human policy. In fact, if all that negroes of all generations have ever done, were to be obliterated from recollection forever, the world would lose no great truth, no profitable art, no exemplary form of life. The loss of all that is African would offer no memorable deduction from any thing but the earth’s black catalogue of crimes. Africa is guilty of the slavery under which she suffered; for her people made it, as well as suffered it.

The great experiment, therefore, is as to the effect of instruction given to such a race from a higher one. It has had its success, and promises more. But many patient endeavors must still be used. The heroism of the missionary is still needed. Such men as Mills, Ashmun, Wilson, and Bishop Payne, will be required to give energy to this work in various forms. But there will be henceforth, it is to be hoped, less demand for the exposure of American life. There should be found in the colored people of the United States, with whom the climate agrees, the source of supply for African missions, till, in a few years, Liberia itself send them forth, with words of life to their brethren throughout the length and breadth of the continent.

Like all sinful men, the African needs faith. But you must dig deeper in him, before you find any thing to plant it on. The grain of mustard-seed meets a very hard soil there, and the thorns are deep. It is a conquest to get him to believe that there is any virtue in man. They have never had a Socrates, to talk wisdom to them; nor a Cyrus, who was not a slave-merchant; nor a Pythagoras, to teach that kindness was a virtue. Hence the difficulty which the Christian missionary has had with them, has been to satisfy their minds as to the miraculous phenomenon of there being a good man. It has been always found that there was many a consultation among their sages as to the peculiar trade or purpose the missionary might have in view, in coming as he came; and very generally the more good they saw, the more evil they suspected. The first thing which, in most instances, opened their eyes, has been in his inculcating peace; for they saw no fees coming to him for it, and of course no looking out for plunder.

The civilized world, as well as the savage, need the example of the missionary. The true courage of faith is a blessing to mankind. Besides his devotion to the highest interests of men, the world also owes much to the educated and enlightened missionary, who has not only greatly contributed to the cause of science and literature, but has often been the means of developing the commercial resources of the countries where he has been stationed. Women, with their own peculiar heroism, which consists in fearless tenderness and patience, have also shared in this work of faith. Mrs. Judson is seen wandering through a Burman village teaching the people, with a sick child in her arms, while her husband lies in prison. And Mrs. Wilson, highly cultivated and refined, sacrificing her property, and surrendering a position in the best society of the country, is found teaching negro children in the dull and fetid atmosphere of African schools. This is true heroism, such as the gospel alone can inspire.

Christianity has, with watchful kindness, been seeking to penetrate Africa from various points of the coast. Abyssinia has long professed the Christian faith, although in a corrupt form. Its church, and that of Egypt, must soon fall under the influence of the line of communication through the Red Sea. English missionaries are at Zanzibar, and have brought to light, by their explorations in the interior, the group of mountains which raise their snowy heads south of the equator in that neighborhood. Missionaries from the same country are also to be found at Sierra Leone and in the Bight of Benin. From the extremity of the continent they have, in conjunction with those of five other nations, been penetrating all the interior of the southern angle.

The United States have also missionaries at four or five points. There are those of the Liberian republic, Cape Palmas, and the Mendi mission. In these places different denominations work kindly and earnestly together. The first obvious sign of their presence is peace. Nowhere in the world was this more needed, or more welcome, than in the regions north and east of Liberia, where men, for many years, had had to fight for their own persons, that they might remain their own, and not be sold. Every thing, as might be expected, had fallen into utter confusion. Tribes of historic character were in fragments; towns depopulated, cultivation suspended, and the small knots of families which kept together, were perishing. “The women and children,” says Mr. Thompson, “were often obliged to go out in search of berries and fruits to keep themselves from starving.” To this country, which lies along the sources of the Sierra Leone and the Gallinas rivers on the northern confines of Liberia, the captives on board the Amistad had gone in 1842. But such was the confusion in that quarter, that it was not until 1851, that the missionary found it practicable to commence his efforts for peace. They told Mr. Thompson, “that no one but a white man could have brought it about;” and that “they had long been praying to God to send a white man to stop the war.”

The Gaboon mission, since its disturbance by the French in 1844, has been re-established, and has experienced courteous treatment at the hands of the French authorities. This mission occupies the important position at which the great southern nation and language come in contact with the more energetic men of the equatorial region, and at which great light is likely to be thrown on their relations. The French also have a mission at the Gaboon.

The mission to the Zulus, in the healthy region at the southern end of the Mozambique Channel, was at one time divided between the two branches of that tribe; but in consequence of wars, was afterwards united and established in the colony of Natal. The commercial crisis in the United States in 1837, led to the proposal that this mission should be abandoned. But its influence had been so beneficial, that the Cape colonists and their government proposed to take measures to support it. Circumstances, however, enabled the American Board to decline this proposal, and they continue their operations. An effort is being made by this mission to unite all similarly engaged, in a common and uniform mode of treating the language of the south.