Miss Kingsley says: “An American magazine the other day announced, in a shocked way, that I could evidently ‘swear like a trooper.’ I cannot think where it got the idea from.”[[8]] I can. And I venture the simple guess that the editor had read Miss Kingsley’s books—for instance, the interesting preface to West African Studies.
[8]. West African Studies, p. 299.
But there are several more serious phases of this want of sympathy with the spirit of Christianity which would militate against Miss Kingsley’s competence as a critic of missions, namely, her avowed belief in slavery, in polygamy, and in the liquor traffic. Miss Kingsley, after contending that domestic slavery is “for divers reasons essential to the well-being of Africa,” appends the following opinion in a foot-note: “I am of the opinion that the suppression of the export slave trade to the Americas was a grave mistake.”[[9]] Even more vehemently does Miss Kingsley defend native polygamy; and still more vehemently the liquor traffic.
[9]. Travels in West Africa, p. 514.
We are grateful for the perfect frankness with which she expresses her views on these three subjects, as it makes it an easier task to discredit her opinion on Christian missions; for, in this day and generation, to believe in these three social evils of Africa and at the same time to believe in missions were impossible. If these are not evils it is a foregone conclusion that the missionary, who is fighting them to the death, is doing more harm than good, is wasting both blood and money, and is at the best a “well-meaning fool.”
Miss Kingsley assures us that she went to Africa in the belief that the missionary represented everything that was good and the trader everything that was evil. But on shipboard, long before she reached Africa, when Miss Kingsley was mistaken for a missionary she thought it the greatest joke of modern times—and I rather agree with her. This is the one joke that she repeats with infinite laughter every time that it occurs. Her laughter of course measures her inward sense of utter incongruity and want of sympathy. Her fellow passengers knew her attitude before she reached the first African port.
Another marked feature about Miss Kingsley’s books is the author’s want of sympathy for the sufferings of the natives, and her want of pity when they bleed under the cruel lash of the white man. Though written by a woman, they are books without tears.
For instance, a story of heartrending wrong and suffering was told me by a trader of Fernando Po, who, although he had been on the coast for years, and, one would think, had been hardened by cruel sights, was yet deeply affected as he related it. I was able to verify it afterwards. It was a story of the cruelty of Portuguese planters to certain Krumen, whom by a false contract they enticed to San Thomé Island and then compelled them to remain and labour on the coco plantations as slaves. The conduct of the Portuguese in Africa justifies the opinion of the Kruman, who says: “God done make white man and God done make black man but dem debil done make Portuguee.” These enslaved Krumen, watching their opportunity, after two years escaped from San Thomé in canoes by night. They did not know that they were one hundred and fifty miles from the mainland, and they hoped that by some unforeseen means they might reach their own country. They all perished; most of them by hunger and thirst. After many days one or two canoes drifted to Fernando Po. In these the men were still alive—but scarcely alive, and they died after being rescued.
This story Miss Kingsley tells, in substance, though in abridged form, and with no comment except the following apology for the Portuguese: “My Portuguese friends assure me that there never was a thought of permanently detaining the boys, and that they were only just keeping them until other labourers arrived to take their place on the plantation. I quite believe them, for I have seen too much of the Portuguese in Africa to believe that they would in a wholesale way be cruel to natives.”[[10]] Surely the quality of Miss Kingsley’s charity is not strained! I scarcely know a white man in West Africa who would offer any apology for those men, or who would call them his “friends.” If the poor Krumen had been captured, Miss Kingsley’s friends would probably have flogged them to death. As a matter of fact, there are always a number of escaped slaves leading a wretched existence in the deep forest of San Thomé. And the Portuguese have been known to go hunting them as we would hunt wild animals. They sometimes find them hiding in the tops of the tall trees, and it is considered uncommonly fine sport to shoot them in the trees and bring them crashing to the ground.
[10]. Travels in West Africa, p. 49.