Would the Asiatic or the European, who had erected the architectural monuments in Africa, have lost their arts? Would they not have originated another as they returned to their original homes? Do the fixed, especially original, arts of a people leave them simply by a change of countries? Certainly not; as among the greatest advantages to be gained by emigration is the arts that are taken by the people to a country. And had the architectures of Africa been an importation, originated by or among any other people than themselves, is it not one of the most striking known to history by ages of experience, that it would have been found in some other country among the descendants of the originators and authors, and not been found in Africa alone, and peculiar to the African race? Were they Persians who had succeeded by conquest in Africa? Were they Greeks under Alexander? Were they Greeks and Romans who made their advent into Egypt with Antony? or those who fled in dismay under Pompey, after the famous defeat of Pharsalia? or Jews under tetrarch governments? Certainly not; as all of them, from the Persian to the Jewish advent, found these arts and sciences there. And is it not known to history that Egypt was the “cradle of the earliest civilization,” propagating the arts and sciences, when the Grecians were an uncivilized people, covering their persons with skins and clothing, anterior to the existence of the she-wolf with Romulus the founder of Rome?
On the invasion of the Saracens, A. C. 146 years, the African library, known as the “Alexandrian Museum,” was known to contain in manuscript seven hundred thousand volumes. The secretiveness of the Africans was a matter of history for ages known to the world, their arts and sciences being held as sacred, and propagated with the greatest caution. The kings and priests were the first recipients; the nobles and gentlemen the other. All Egypt and Ethiopia regarded this library as the “hope and expectation” of their countries.
The value of the collection will be estimated by remembrance of its age and manner of obtaining, printing then being unknown to the world. The age of the library, from its first collections, was coequal with the first dawn of science among them.
And had this immense fountain of knowledge been transmitted to posterity, the African would have had a history and a name. And I repeat, with emphasis, that the loss of the African library was a catastrophe unequalled in the age of the world, as bearing on the destiny of a people and a race.
But the “Museum” was made the centre of attraction; the Saracen invaders surrounded the stupendous edifice; orders were given that not a relic be preserved; the flambeau was the weapon of attack; assault and fire was the command,—when the accumulated literature, art and science, of four thousand years’ collection, sent fire and smoke towards the heavens, more destructive in its consequences than the world had ever before witnessed! The African library, the depository of the earliest germs of social, civil, political, and national progress, the concentrated wisdom of ages, stood in flames! Fourteen days burning, the building in ruins, and the light of science and civilization, for generations, was extinguished, and Africa became a prey to avarice, imposture, and oppression!
So enlightened, polished, and humane were this race, that after the birth of Jesus, subsequent to the downfall of Egypt by the Saracens, the “warning of the Lord to Joseph” was to take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until they are all dead who seek the child’s life. Nor can it be denied that the African race were that which the “Spirit of the Lord” meant, because, notwithstanding Saracen subjugation in Egypt, the African polity, civilization, and humanity still prevailed. Besides, it is a historically known fact that Greeks and Jews were with the Romans in government and sentiments against this Messiah, the promised king of the Jews; all conspiring for his deposition in the event of his coming. It will also be remembered that after the crucifixion and ascension, that Africa was the only country which held prestige enough to send a national representative to “Jerusalem to worship” under the Christian doctrine, as propagated by the scattered and terror-stricken apostles; the Ethiopian eunuch, a man of great authority, and chief lord of her majesty, Queen Candace’s, royal treasury.
One word more, and I close a review already too elaborate; but driven by necessity to the defence of my race, duty compelled me to the point where I cease. Would any other race than the African, in the symbolical statues of the sphinxes, have placed the great head of a negro woman, on the majestic body of a lion, as an ideal representation of their genius?
If it be the “glory of the white race to know that they have had these qualifications in sufficient measure to build upon this continent a great political fabric,” it is also the glory of the black race to know that they have had these qualities in sufficient measure to build a great political fabric long before the whites, imparting to them the first germs of civilization, and enlightening the world by their wisdom. And the most momentous, extraordinary international conspiracy against the African race, which this memento commenced to expose, has never been by convention annulled nor abrogated, and, therefore, still stands optional with either party to continue or withdraw; it is fondly and confidently hoped will not be encouraged nor induced to continue by an equally extraordinary, if not momentous, official denunciation against that race, from the executive of one of the most powerful nations existing on this globe.
And in behalf of my race, once proud, polished, and elevated,—at the feet of whose philosophers the learned and eminent of the world sought wisdom, as did “Herodotus, the father of history,” and others,—may I fondly hope that another generation will not pass away till Africa, in and by her own legitimate children, gives evidence of a national regeneration, breathing forth with fervid and holy aspirations in the religious sentiments of her native heart and beautiful words of one of her own native languages: Bi-Olorum Pellu—“the Lord has been merciful to us.”
And in behalf of my emancipated brethren in America, may the blessings of that God, whose signal promise must and will be fulfilled, despite political official anathema, rest upon the devoted head and in the holy heart of the most eminent prelate, Father Felix, Archbishop of Orleans in France.