It may not be amiss if I venture to hope that these colonial experiments, which have been fostered for the civilization of Africa as well as for the amelioration of the American negro’s lot, will continue to receive the support of all good men. Some persons assert that the race is incapable of self-government beyond the tribal state, and then only through fear; while others allege, that no matter what care may be bestowed on African intellect, it is unable to produce or sustain the highest results of modern civilization. It would not be proper for any one to speak oracularly on this mooted point; yet, in justice to the negroes who never left their forests, as well as to those who have imbibed, for more than a generation, the civilization of Europe or America, I may unhesitatingly say, that the colonial trial has thus far been highly promising. I have often been present at difficult councils and “palavers” among the wild tribes, when questions arose which demanded a calm and skilful judgment, and in almost every instance, the decision was characterized by remarkable good sense and equity. In most of the colonies the men who are intrusted with local control, a few years since were either slaves in America, or employed in menial tasks which it was almost hopeless they could escape. Liberia, at present, may boast of several individuals, who, but for their caste, might adorn society; while they who have personally known Roberts, Lewis, Benedict, J. B. McGill, Teage, Benson of Grand Bassa, and Dr. McGill of Cape Palmas, can bear testimony that nature has endowed numbers of the colored race with the best qualities of humanity.
Nevertheless, the prosperity, endurance and influence of the colonies, are still problems. I am anxious to see the second generation of the colonists in Africa. I wish to know what will be the force and development of the negro mind on its native soil,—civilized, but cut off from all instruction, influence, or association with the white mind. I desire to understand, precisely, whether the negro’s faculties are original or imitative, and consequently, whether he can stand alone in absolute independence, or is only respectable when reflecting a civilization that is cast on him by others.
If the descendants of the present colonists, increased by an immense immigration of all classes and qualities during the next twenty-five years, shall sustain the young nation with that industrial energy and political dignity that mark its population in our day, we shall hail the realized fact with infinite delight. We will rejoice, not only because the emancipated negro may thenceforth possess a realm wherein his rights shall be sacred, but because the civilization with which the colonies must border the African continent, will, year by year, sink deeper and deeper into the heart of the interior, till barbarism and Islamism will fade before the light of Christianity.
But the test and trial have yet to come. The colonist of our time is an exotic under glass,—full, as yet, of sap and stamina drawn from his native America, but nursed with care and exhibited as the efflorescence of modern philanthropy. Let us hope that this wholesome guardianship will not be too soon or suddenly withdrawn by the parent societies; but that, while the state of pupilage shall not be continued till the immigrants and their children are emasculated by lengthened dependence, it will be upheld until the republic shall exhibit such signs of manhood as cannot deceive the least hopeful.
FOOTNOTE:
[H] I wish to confirm and fortify this statement in regard to the value of coffee culture in the colonies, by the observation of Dr. J. W. Lugenbeel, late colonial physician and United States agent in Liberia. The Doctor gave “particular attention to observations and investigations respecting coffee culture in Liberia.” “I have frequently seen,” he says, “isolated trees growing in different parts of Liberia, which yielded from ten to twenty pounds of clean dry coffee at one picking; and, however incredible it may appear, it is a fact that one tree in Monrovia yielded four and a half bushels of coffee in the hull, at one time, which, when dried and shelled, weighed thirty-one pounds. This is the largest quantity I ever heard of, and the largest tree I ever saw, being upwards of twenty feet high and of proportionate dimensions.”
The Doctor is of opinion, however, that as the coffee-tree begins to bear at the end of its fourth year, an average yield at the end of the sixth year may be calculated on of at least four pounds. Three hundred trees may be planted on an acre, giving each twelve feet, and in six years the culture will become profitable as well as easy.