The Lone-star of Liberia: Being the Outcome of Reflections on Our Own People

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Introduction

I WAS quite a child when I read * Uncle Tom's Cabin,' by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, and became enthusiastic for the abolition of slavery. My heart was full of anxious thought on this subject. Later in life the tragedy of * Toussaint UOuverture,' by Lamartine, opened my mind to fresh considerations. After reading it I apprehended that the sons of Ham have precisely the same human, as well as civil, rights as have the sons of Shem and of Japheth. The passionate interest which my uncle, Victor Hugo, took in the fate of the generous but unfortunate John Brown further fixed my attention on this question, which has humanitarian as well as social aspects. And when recently reading books and articles relating to the subject of the emancipation of Africa's sons, I have added indignation to compassion.

It is not right to reduce the ethics of that important question to the proportions of a mere work of mercy. It ought to be regarded as one of the gravest questions of our time — the final blow struck at an old tree, which mould has long invaded and rotted.

This great question of the emancipation of the African race has more than one interesting aspect. Perhaps its most striking feature is its connection with human progress vi INTRODUCTION,

and with advancing Christianity. The Gospel may be a creation or an imitation, but it is certainly full of social and moral principles which are useful and adaptable to the conditions of every period, because they are essentially wise and just. If religion or Christianity means the actual practice of Gospel principles, then even the most advanced man can make no reasonable objection to Christianity.

But things do not seem trending in the direction of the triumph of Gospel principles. Human Governments make their boast of their reverence for religion, and yet they commit all sorts of frauds and crimes against dependent populations, which are the antipodes of the requirements and recommendations of the New Testament.

Both Europeans and Americans may, with the help of Messrs. Froude, Laird Clowes, and H. M. Stanley, regard themselves as the natural and supernatural 'Magisterial Guardians ' of the Ethiopian race, and they may proclaim, with mingled blasphemy and humour, that the Africans — or at least the mass of them — are half brutes and animals. But no right-minded, no fair-thinking man, will follow these writers in so savage and unworthy a conclusion.

The great ' pack-horse ' of the Africophobists is a phrase which occurs in the Old Testament Scriptures : ' And Canaan will be their servant.* Mr. Jos. L. Janvier, a learned doctor and Haytian diplomatist, in one of his remarkable and witty books, has chosen these words for the epigraph : * Hayti et ses Visiteurs.' We are exactly of his opinion. This Bible sentence is a very difficult one to apply in a universal way. The Bible is full of merely personal incidents and personal references, and we have no right to look in every part of it for such perfect and absolute directions as the Gospel alone can afford.*

* But apart from all this : had not Ham had three other sons besides Canaan ? Were not Gush, Mizraim and Phut

INTRODUCTION, vii

Mr. Durham's book, ' The Lone-Star of Liberia,' offers to our consideration a project which I regard as in every way a hopeful one both for the African and for the Caucasian. He pleads for the removal of the slave — enfranchised slave — populations to the republic of Liberia, where there is abundant space for them all, and where a certain population is already established which is doing its best to fashion for itself a civilized life and society and government. The climate of Liberia is good, and the soil is fertile ; and it is an altogether legitimate and reasonable desire on the part of the sons of Ham that they should form a united and independent race on that very same continent from whence their fathers were arbitrarily, cruelly, and in ways involving untold misery and degradation, dragged away.

Mr. Laird Clowes himself, in his 'Black America,' wrote (see the last chapter, * The Ideal Solution ') : * If America would do its duty by the Negroes, those civilized nations which have established themselves in Africa would, in pursuance of their own interests, aid her. Great Britain, France, and Germany would each and all welcome the immigration to their African possessions of large and leavening bodies of American blacks.' Why does not the government at Washington endeavour to carry out this plan, which would be so acceptable to the African, and which would relieve the States of one of their heaviest burdens ? To accomplish the scheme only requires the formation of a vigorous financial executive. I need not say that I do not believe the Government at Washington is disposed to confirm the old Italian motto :

Canaan's elders? Did Noah also curse Cush, Mizraim and Phut? Are Africans, are Ethiopians, the descendants of Canaan ? If they are — we presume, on the authority of the Bible, they are — the descendants also of Canaan's brothers, Cush, Mizraim and Phut, and were they cursed ? \ viii INTRODUCTION.

* Fra il dire e il fare C 6 di mezzo il mare.*

(* Between words and actions there is an ocean.')

Authorities in a country like America are not disposed to make promises only for that kind of people who can be contented with chaff. Why, then, when the question has been before it of helping to create a powerful black republic in Liberia, has it not brought the matter to an issue ? Can it be that these excellent * Magisterial Guardians ' have such an amount of love to their black brethren that they are afraid of exposing them to the perils of a new-born independence ? What a wonderful solicitude !

Mr. F. A. Durham, the author of this book, is animated by the eagerness of youth and the ardour of patriotic longings to secure the autonomy of his race. He mentions several distinguished men and women who belong to the race, and judging by the rapid yet great attainments and capabilities of these Ethiopians, we may reasonably hope soon to see all the progeny of Ham — all the descendants of Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan — fairly civilized. But ought not the enterprise of securing that civilization to be placed in the hands of the Africans themselves ; that is, in the hands of those who are already in the forward rank, and have shown talent for learning, ability to fill civil and governmental offices, and capacity for good citizenship ?

Our own convictions are, in relation to the social movement, that the next stage of the world's progress will witness the triumph of Christian Socialism. But at the same time we admit that Africans, if they remain as they are now, cannot hope to march under the flag of the new social system. They must go through every phase of civil and national organization. Their aspirations towards une patrie, and their wish to gain autonomy, are, however, praiseworthy, and indicate

INTRODUCTION. ix

awakening intelligence in them. Therefore we think that every man who values his own national liberties ought to sympathize with and support the Africans in their enterprise, which is in itself, and cannot fail to prove in its results, an advancement for the race in social and national life, in all that properly goes into the term * civilizatioa' We shall never, of course, expect, request, or call in the sympathy and support of men like a messenger of the Times^ or a great representative of Downing Street, and consequently our beliefs are not likely to be placed in either * Black America' or 'Darkest Africa.' Let us hope that H. M. Stanley has learned a useful lesson by falling from general enthusiasm into general reprobation ; but the lesson was a severe one for the public, as reminding them that sober mistrust of people wha come with wonderful tales from far countries is no unnecessary precaution. There is in Stanley's story matter enough to arouse our indignation, and indignation is not always a vain sentiment. I might call slavery itself a prime mover in modern civilization, for the indignation which this long and grave infamy has generated has been the great stimulant in the struggle which has at last resulted in the African enfranchisement. Independence and autonomy will now follow, and when these come they will prove to benefit not only those directly interested, but also the whole civilized races.

The author of * The Lone-Star of Liberia ' in his third chapter gives a painful exhibition of the gross immoralities of well-known people who have.not black skins. His story is not new — there is nothing new that is true — but the terrible record will call attention to the unreasonableness of Caucasian blame of African immorality. The Africans made their escape from the debasing conditions of slavery only very recently, and it is altogether unreasonable to expect from them a perfection which Caucasians, who have

Preface

vsions and libels cast on the African Race by ! Clowes in his * Black America/ first issued in Ills year (1891) by Messrs. Cassell and Co., impose on me the duty of repelling and re- Having dealt with Laird Clowes at length \ hich this is meant to be the preface, I have so far as his (Laird Clowes) relations with mcemed. Yet I cannot forbear mentioning I , one of the greatest poets, and Herodotus,

I. <tory' — mighty and illustrious Greeks of

»r -have eulogized and made immortal —

n^ 1 Herodotus in history — the Ethiopian

•.^ "lowes and Mr. James Anthony Froude,

versally known ev^n in Great Britain

who are manifestly ignorant concern-

ve thought fit to vilify it. They are

o Homer and Herodotus in intel-

V are but as pigmies before these

nobleness of soul towards their

w-men does not seem to be theirs.

accomplishments of Closyes and

irticularly, as British literati, we

that this great writer does not iS'- xii PREFACE,

always prove the great man in his estimate of other races than his own. There is often an important distinction between the great author and the great man. Two of the greatest writers the white man's world produced in the eighteenth century were Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau. But they were men whose nobility of character bore no comparison with the greatness of their intellectual or their literary power.

II. While this work is a criticism of these critics, it is also meant to be a summary of the history of the Ethiopian Race in Western Africa. No person can be properly termed educated who knows little or nothing of the history of his own race and of his own country. The African or other Ethiopian reader who reads Liberian Blyden's * Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race,' will have more thati a fair knowledge of the History of his Race and Fatherland \ and I venture to hope that this work will be found a not unsuitable appendix or supplement to that work.

How many Africans, both educated and uneducated, there are who foolishly believe that the Ethiopian Race has not produced even one truly eminent scholar, or philosopher, or soldier, simply because they do not happen to know of any ! There are too many, unfortunately, who prefer to remain in ignorance ; while there are many more who, although they do not know of one remarkable African, take no pains to find out for themselves what every intelligent African should find out and know concerning his own people. This work will, it is hoped, supply a long-felt deficiency. And at the same time it would be well for those who disparage my people — the African Race — to read these * Reflections on Our Own People,' and also Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden's 'Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race,'* before rushing to any

♦ A larger and more exhaustive work than Dr. Blyden's is Africo-American Colonel the Honourable George W. William's

PREFA CE. xiii

hasty conclusions, which are the untrustworthy consequence of incomplete and misguided researches, which have not duly revealed the achievements performed by the Africans through their eminent soldiers, governors, and literati. It is easy to argue that as Africa has never produced any great men, the Ethiopian Race must be inferior to the Caucasian.

After having fully exposed, refuted, and corrected the mistakes and misrepresentations of Mr. W. Laird Clowes, I have thought it advisable to point out to the African in the United States of North America, and to other non-Liberian Africans generally, what an important and advantageous thing it is for them to have a Free and Independent African Fatherland in Republican Liberia.

The African will and can learn the language of, and dress like, his white governor ; but he cannot, and will never be, Caucasianized. It is impossible. History shows no precedent of a subject race becoming thoroughly like their rulers, when those rulers happen to belong to an essentially different race. The African will always be an African. His nature and racial instincts will always remain what they are to-day. On the other hand, the Caucasian will always be a Caucasian. His racial peculiarities or characteristics will remain the same. And it is better, in the interests of humanity as a whole, that the races should keep their distinctions. It is ' kismet.* We all know that the white man has been on the Gold Coast more than 400 years, but has not the Gold Coaster just the same peculiarities or

* History of the Ethiopian Race in America,' in two volumes, from 161 9 to 1800, and from 1800 to 1880, published by G. P. Putnam's sons. We would certainly recommend that, as well as the Honourable Liberian Blyden's work, to the self-respecting, and only to the self-respecting African, for close attention and study.

xiv PREFA CE.

racial characteristics as his forefathers had before him ? The European has failed to Europeanize him. Nor could the African Africanize the Caucasian were he to try to.

The African subject of the Caucasian has qualities which he cannot develop in the land of the white man and the stranger. He can only develop in a free and independent Fatherland of his own. Where can the African develop ihem so well as in Liberia ?

Is Liberia improving ? It has been shown that it is. But if that be not so, and the West African Republic is either stationary or retrograding, why does not the non-Liberian African hurry to the rescue of Liberia and make it progress?

As long as the African remains under white rule, so long will he be subjected to inconveniences and disadvantages. What the white man says, the average African, be he educated or uneducated, with charming simplicity implicitly believes in. The white man tells the black man that God is white and the Devil black, and the average African unreasoningly accepts that doctrine. The Liberian, the Haytian, and the Dominican, as a matter of course, know better. They have more sense. They reason for themselves, and do not allow the white man to lay down the law for them in this and other like matters.

There are Africans (I mean, of course, those living under and subject to the white man) who fervently wish they had never been born black, and who deem it the greatest privilege to have white associates. Vanity is a sin, they say, but I think it is better for a black man to be vain of his skin than wish he had never been born black. When a man wishes that he had never been born an African, he must, of course, be ashamed of a fellow-African whenever he sees him, particularly if he happens to be dwelling in a country where the whites are either in equal proportion to blacks, or in a large majority, and are the rulers.

PREFA CE. XV

Liberian Blyden, in his 'Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race,' forcibly calls one's attention to the cringing and servile attitude of the subject black towards the ruling white ; and I am of opinion that Blyden is justified in so writing. It is only too true. It is true not only of the uneducated, but even of the educated, African living beneath the sway of the European and the American.

There is another equally important matter which Mr. Blyden forcibly brings home to one's mind. He asserts that the Africans who were transported to the American Continent (the West Indies included) as slaves were not as a rule of the very best stamp or class. And I think he is certainly justified in making that assertion. I must be understood as interpreting his meaning in this way : The Africans as a whole are not satisfied with their position under the rule of the white. But does he not continue to remain under the rule of the white, while Liberia has been free and independent since 1847 ? The British African grumbles. He wants Home Rule and Representation. There are in Liberia Independence pure and simple, an elective Congress, and a full-fiedged Government. The British, like the American African, is free to go where he lists. Still, Liberia has no charms for him. The American African sees his kinsmen and comrades daily lynched in the United States ; does he make any vigorous and manly efforts to quit America, and be free and independent in Liberia ? Neither the American nor the British Africans, nor any other non-Liberian Africans subject to white rule, do anything of the kind.

This is how, then, I think Dr. Blyden is justified in making that statement. For were the Africans living under Caucasian rule the descendants of men, Africans and Ethiopians, after the type of the Liberians and the Haytians xvi PREFA CE.

and the Abyssinians and others, they would not continue to remain in their present position.

If the so-called leaders of the Africans in the United States of North America had any sense of shame, any spark of manliness, any touch of dignity, they would certainly have marshalled their hosts, after having brought pressure to bear on the Yankee Government for a subsidy, and left America, with her lynchings and other oppressions and persecutions, which is their land of bondage, far behind. Even now it is not too late to do so. The person who is admitted on all sides to be the leading African in the United States of North America is undoubtedly Mr. Frederick Douglass, the American Minister to the Haytian Republic ; while it does not admit of a doubt but that Sir William Conrad Reeves, the Chief Justice of Barbadoes, is the leading British African. I propose to deal with these men, and to refer to their position. I shall take each separately. I take Mr. Frederick Douglass. He is the American Minister to Hayti at present ; when his term is at; an end, he will retire on a pension. He will retire into the obscurity from which he temporarily emerged. The reason for his representing the United States in Hayti is that no white American would accept the post of American Minister to Hayti were it offered to him. Frederick Douglass would not be in his right senses were he to indulge in the idea that some day he will be appointed to represent the United States of North America as American Minister in Europe. He would be in the same demented state were he to believe for a moment that the President of the United States of North America will send for him and charge him with the formation of a Cabinet, or believe for a moment that he will be made a Member of any American Cabinet. Were Mr. Frederick Douglass to come forward some day as a candidate, with

PREFACE, xvii

the view to be elected to the Presidentship of the United States, and to sit in the Chair in which George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and the seventeen other Presidents have sat, he would be promptly arrested by indignant Americans, and be lodged in bedlam as a dangerous lunatic, there to be detained during the President's pleasure.

But what can he not be in the Republic of Liberia, if he becomes a Liberian ? In Liberia he can be President, an ordinary or even chief Member of the Liberian Government. As a Liberian he can also be the Liberian Minister at one of the European Courts, or in the United States of North America.

The Chief Justice of Barbadoes, Sir William Conrad Reeves, Knt. Bach., is himself placed in a predicament similar to that of Mr. Frederick Douglass. When his term as Chief Justice of Barbadoes expires, he will have to retire on a pension. He will not be promoted to the post of Chief Justice of one of the Australasian Colonies, nor will he be promoted to the Chief Justiceship of Newfoundland, or the Dominion of Canada. He would be termed demented were he to apply for the Lord Chief Justiceship of England and Wales, or the Chief Justiceship of Ireland, or the Lord Justice Clerkship of Scotland on the first vacancy; or were he to apply for the post of Lord High Chancellor of England and Wales, and to sit on the woolsack in the House of Lords, or that of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, or the post of Lord Justice General and President of Court of Session of Scotland on the first vacancy. A lunacy commission would be instituted to inquire into the state of his mind, and if he were to be found demented he would be locked up in bedlam * during Her Britannic Majesty's pleasure ' as a dangerous lunatic Reeves cannot aspire to a higher post in the British Isles. But in Liberia xviii PREFACE,

he can be accommodated somehow in the public service. If Douglass and Reeves were to inform the Liberians that they would make use of their name and position, and try their level best to take with them as many Africans to Liberia as were willing to go, would the Liberian Government not compensate Douglass and Reeves for their trouble and time? If not, then I am much mistaken in the Liberian People and Government. But if Frederick Douglass and Reeves were to do so, they would earn immortal renown. Their names would live forever and evermore not only in Liberian, but in other histories and songs. Will they, like Moses and Aaron, do this, or even attempt now to do what they ought to have done long ago ? or will they, from want of genuine ambition and through listless apathy, prefer to remain in obscurity until their Maker calls them unto Himself, when they will sink into the grave in Mother-Earth comparatively unwept, unhonoured and unsung ? I fear that it will be the latter course that they will take. Douglass and Reeves have eyes, and refuse to see ; they have ears, and refuse to hear.

There is a subject on which I should like to say a few words here. It is the use of the words Negro and Coloured by Africans, Europeans, and other non-Africans. Ham's descendants are Africans by Nation and Ethiopians by Race, just as the progeny of Japheth are Europeans by Nation and Caucasians by Race. We do not see where the Negro comes in at all. Again, Africans and other Ethiopians are black, as Europeans and other Caucasians are white. Here, also, we do not see where the coloured comes in at all. It seems a pity that Africans should blindly copy everything Europeans and other Caucasians set before them, Africans should be Men, form opinions worthy of Men, and act like Men. I am bound to say, with Reginald Scot, who flourished in

PREFACE, xix

the reign of James the First of England and Ireland, and Sixth of Scotland, * truth must not be measured by time^ for every old opinion is not sound. My great adversaries are young ignorance and old custom,^

I anticipate that many of my readers will find fault with, and object to, many of my utterances in this work. I should like it to be understood that I am not asking for mercy or pardon, or writing in the ' Am I not a man and a Brother ?* strain of the days of slavery, but I am defending and attacking vigorously, squarely and fairly. Not only do I defend my fortifications against the invader, but I assume the offensive and carry on the war in the enemy*s territories. I have written, as a freeman^ not only true facts and justifiable statements as known by me, but I have also given free and independent opinions compatible with the dignity of the freeman and the free-born. But, I ask, what man is there who can honestly and truly say that his writing or writings has or have met with undiluted favour or pleasure anywhere and amongst any people ?

What I think the British or white reader may take objection to chiefly is my third chapter, which deals with Immorahty. But what I have said in the book from beginning to end I stand by and am ready to repeat again. It is a fact that wherever the Africans have come into contact with Caucasian civilization, and lived under Caucasian domination, they (the descendants of Ham) have been contaminated, demoralized, and taught to wallow in the mire of immorality, at the instance of and under the direction of their white and unenviably apt preceptors — their Caucasian civilizers.

There are certain things W. Laird Clowes says in his ' Black America ' which the author of this work has not thought fit to mention in the body of his * Lone-Star of Liberia.'

XX PREFACE.

He tells us, for instance, that the white, or rather he (Laird Clowes) is of opinion that the African 'more nearly approaches the quadrumana than does any other member of the human family; . . . (and that) his (the African's) arms are, on an average, two inches longer than his (Laird Clowes's).' This is the white man's, or, to be more correct, Laird Clowes's, opinion. It is an opinion as false as it is foolish. It is an opinion derived from the mere ipse dixit — the mere assertion of the erratic Charles Robert Darwin. At the same time Laird Clowes is forgetful of the fact that the African has an opinion of his own, and that he (the African) does not entertain and admit for one moment such an absurd and preposterous notion or opinion.

W. Laird Clowes proceeds to say that he, as a white man, is of opinion that the African's * facial angle is about 70 degrees, while his is about 82 degrees'; that *the average weight of his (the African's) brain is ten ounces less than that of people of his (Laird Clowes's) own family'; that the African has * high and prominent cheek-bones ' ; that *his (the African's) cranium is much thicker than Laird Clowes's ' ; that ' his (the African's) head is covered not with hair, but with wool of nearly flat section ' ; that the African's * skin is thicker than W. Laird Clowes's, and that it is velvety and emits a characteristic odour,' unlike that of Laird Clowes, which is perfection ; that * his (the African's) frame, owing to structural peculiarities, is not as erect as W. Laird Clowes, the Times Commissioner's ; that *the cranial sutures of the Negro close up much earlier than those of W. Laird Clowes.'

The reader will have observed that these are all the peculiar and preposterous notions of W. Laird Clowes, who believes that he is perfection itself, and that the African * is everything that is horrid.' How comes W. Laird Clowes to know that the African's facial angle is about

PREFACE. xxi

70 degrees, while his (Laird Clowes's) is about 82 degrees — that the average weight of the African's brain is ten ounces less than that of his (Laird Clowes's) — that the African's cranium and skin are much thicker than those of W. Laird Clowes — that the cranial sutures of the African close up much earlier than those of Laird Clowes? Whence did he derive these preposterous notions? Are these things so because W. Laird Clowes, big with importance and indulging in tall talk, would fain make them so ?

The Caucasian must not try to lay down the law to the African, and force him to believe that he is this while he is that, or that he is that while he is this.

Caucasians know, or ought to know, what their own race is like; while we Africans know better than non- Africans what we are, and what we are not, like. Mr. W. Laird Clowes has an opinion, but the African has and can form another opinion.

And I add that it is preposterous and erroneous for the white man to suppose that the intelligent, self-reliant, and last, not least, self-respecting African will accept any doctrine as to his moral, mental and other peculiarities and capacities as he (the white man) lays it down and interprets, when it is to the disadvantage and detriment of the African.