Dawn in darkest Africa

by John H. Harris

The young medical man hopefully sends in his request for an appointment in the Government service—an appointment which must be paid largely from native taxation. At a later date he receives an official envelope, which he greedily tears open in the presence of the expectant and admiring family. It is the official form, intimating that his services are not wanted!

We all know the reason, why wrap it up in gentle phraseology, the hideous fact is there—the medical service is the monopoly of the whites. Of what avail are degrees of the highest order? What use is it to argue that native medical officers would be less costly? The colour-bar is thrown across the threshold of opportunity in the Gold Coast. The young man himself understands, possibly he may even come to hate the Administration which appears to hate him, and can we be altogether surprised? The old father does not understand it, he is bewildered—the blow that has fallen upon his hopes is a heavy one, and in spite of himself he wonders what is amiss with British justice.

EXPROPRIATION

The island of Lagos, measuring less than 600 square miles, with a population of nearly 80,000, was always congested, but never so badly as it is to-day. By day, and also by night, I have traversed the native quarters and found overcrowding which before long must produce a grave condition in that hub of West Coast commercial activity. Lagos is always hot, always humid, always malodorous to epidemic point, but Lagos, overcrowded though it was, has within recent years seriously added to its congestion by the forcible expropriation of some hundreds of people from the lands they occupied. No doubt a nicely-laid-out race-course is more pleasing to the eye of many British officials: the brightness and neatness of this fenced park is cheering to those who now have a monopoly of this vicinity, but the price paid for such expropriation is a further alienation of native loyalty and goodwill. Somehow the native does not like being driven from his home, even though “Hobson’s” compensation is provided.

VII
RACE PREJUDICE

RACE PREJUDICE AFLOAT

The most lamentable feature which confronts the traveller in British West African colonies to-day is that with the growth of commerce on the one hand, and with the spread of Christian thought on the other, race prejudice is rapidly increasing its hold not only through an ever widening area, but in an intensity which must before many years have passed precipitate a grave condition in the relationship of the two races. The decks of West African liners provide an incomparable mirror for reflecting white opinion upon the shortcomings of the black man. On shore each man is busy with his own affairs and usually meets only men of his own circle, but on board ship one meets every class; moreover, the conditions of travel tend to facilitate a flow of conversation. One sees stretched upon the deck, in every conceivable attitude of comfort and discomfort, all classes of the coast community: the dapper little colonel; the young district commissioner; the army doctor; dealers in oil, ebony and rubber; the Nimrod going out in search of big game, and the missionary going forth in quest of human souls. These varied interests cooped up on the decks under the enervating influence of the tropical sun will with some exceptions share little in common, but that of an indefinable dislike and contempt for that black man they come out to govern or exploit. To the student of human affairs, the conversation is of absorbing interest, revealing as it does every type of thought and superficiality. The loquacious trader, with the experience of but one term, opines with a lofty air that the “nigger” is the very embodiment of Satan. The “gentle” wife of Britain’s representative suggests that the sum of all evils—the native we have half-educated, should be curbed by measures dear to the heart of the short-sighted statesmen of Russia. The sympathetic doctor, with ten years’ practice, looks on and holds his peace, a silent but eloquent censure. The missionary, with longer experience still, likewise says nothing, but listens with pained interest. The deck below is filled with the usual crowd of natives: the tall Fulani trader; the squat Gold Coaster; the Christian servant from Freetown; the devout Mohammedan merchant going up to Kano, possibly on to Mecca. The mammies, too, are there, dressed in skirts of brilliant Manchester print and gaily coloured blouses, outrageous in fit and style. The piccaninnies play their little games and romp round their admiring mammies. Not infrequently a child stands sadly apart, maybe a girl possessing but little in common with the other children, her little head with its pale face is covered with something half-wool, half-hair; she has a father somewhere, possibly amongst that group on the upper deck, but between upper and lower deck a ladder is fixed, down which the white man may go whenever desire prompts him, but up which neither coloured nor quadroon may climb.

But what are these exceptional sins of the coloured man? What are these terrible shortcomings of which he has the absolute monopoly and which call forth bursts of passionate denunciation from the great men of the earth? “An incurable kleptomaniac”—“unspeakably immoral”—“grossly impudent”—“incorrigibly lazy”—are but a few of the sweeping indictments hurled pell-mell at the reputation of the absent and mainly defenceless “prisoner in the dock.” Civilization, which has never robbed the African of his land or its fruits, never bought and sold him, never violated his daughters, but has ever protected him, has ever set before him a perfect standard of Christian practice, should examine these whirling charges in the light of established facts. It cannot be denied that the African frequently breaks the eighth commandment, but there is some evidence that the Almighty had the Anglo-Saxon race in view rather than the African when He gave Moses the ten commandments on Sinai’s mountain.

The following incident will show the prejudice to which the African is subjected: Our vessel was pitching, tossing and rolling her way down the West Coast, most of her passengers too sea-sick to stir far from the upper deck. A steward shuffled his way along endeavouring to balance cups of chicken-broth to tempt the appetite. One of the passengers helping himself, called attention to the lack of spoons. The steward replied: “We are not allowed to bring them, sir; you see there’s niggers aboard this ship!” Though knowing perfectly well that the Kroo boy may not intrude himself upon the upper deck, even the steward seeks to make him responsible for losses more properly attributable to the members of his own staff.