The Future of Africa

Front matter

the

FUTURE OF AFRICA:

being

Chapter I.

THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN LIBERIA.

Delivered before the citizens of Maryland County, Cape Palmas, Liberia, July 20, 1860, being the day of National Independence. Also in the Hall of Representatives, Monrovia, February, 1861.

"Language, in connection with reason, to which it gives its proper activity use and ornament, raises man above the lower orders of animals and in proportion as it is polished and refined, contributes greatly, with other causes, to exalt one nation above another, in the scale of civilization and intellectual dignity."—Anon

"Our language is a part, and a most important part, of our country. … Nobody who is aware how a nation's feelings and opinions, and whatever characterizes it, are interwoven with its language by myriads of imperceptible fibres, will run the risk of severing them. Nobody who has a due reverence for … his own spiritual being, which has been mainly trained and fashioned by his native language—nobody who rightly appreciates what a momentous thing it is to keep the unity of a people entire and unbroken, to preserve and foster all its national recollections, what a glorious and inestimable blessing it is to 'speak the tongue that Shakspeare spake,' will ever wish to trim that tongue according to any arbitrary theory."—Rev. J. C. Hare.

"So may we hope to be ourselves guardians of its purity, and not corrupters of it; to introduce, it may be, others into an intelligent knowledge of that with which we shall have ourselves more than a merely superficial acquaintance—to bequeath it to those who come after us not worse than we received it ourselves."—Dean Trench.

ADDRESS.

Two years ago to-day, when we were assembled together here, as now, to celebrate our National Anniversary, I was called up, after the orator of the day, to make a few remarks. And perhaps some, who are here, may remember that, in setting forth a few of the advantages we pilgrims to these shores possess, for a noble national growth and for future superiority; I pointed out among other providential events the fact, that the exile of our fathers from their African homes to America, had given us, their children, at least this one item of compensation, namely, the possession of the Anglo-Saxon tongue; that this language put us in a position which none other on the globe could give us; and that it was impossible to estimate too highly, the prerogatives and the elevation the Almighty has bestowed upon us, in our having as our own, the speech of Chaucer and Shakspeare, of Milton and Wordsworth, of Bacon and Burke, of Franklin and Webster. My remarks were unpremeditated, and they passed from my thoughts as the meeting was dismissed, and we went forth to the festivities of the day. Eat it happened that, shortly afterwards, I had occasion to seek health by a journey up the Cavalla. There, on the banks of that noble river, fully 80 miles from the ocean, I met with hospitality from a native trader, a man who presented all the signs of civilization, and who spoke with remarkable clearness and precision, the English language. The incident struck me with surprise, and started a crowd of thoughts and suggestions concerning the future; among these came back the lost and forgotten words of our Anniversary of 1858. More than once since, in conversations, speeches, and sermons, have I expressed the ripened convictions which that occurrence created in my mind; and the other day, after I received the invitation to speak before you on this occasion, I concluded to take this for the subject of remark: "The English: Language in Liberia."

I shall have to ask your patience this day; for, owing to that fatality of tardiness which seems to govern some of our jmblic movements, I have had but a fortnight to prepare for this duty, and hence I cannot be as brief as is desirable. I shall have to ask your attention also, for I can promise you nothing more than a dry detail of facts.

I trust, however, that I may be able to suggest a few thoughts which may be fitted to illustrate the responsibilities of our lot in this land, and to show forth the nature and the seriousness of the duties which arise out of it.

1. Now, in considering this subject, what first arrests attention, is the bare simple fact that here, on this coast, that is, between Gallinas and Cape Pedro, is an organized negro community, republican in form and name; a people possessed of Christian institutions and civilized habits, with this one marked peculiarity, that is, that in color, race, and origin, they are identical with the masses of rude natives around them; and yet speak the refined and cultivated English language—a language alien alike from the speech of their sires and the soil from whence they sprung, and knowing no other. It is hardly possible for us fully to realize these facts. Familiarity with scenes, events, and even truths, tends to lessen the vividness of their impression. But without doubt no thoughtful traveller could contemplate the sight, humble as at present it really is, without marvel and surprise. If a stranger who had never heard of this Republic, but who had sailed forth from his country to visit the homes of West African Pagans, should arrive on our coast; he could not but be struck with the Anglican aspect of our habits and manners, and the distinctness, with indeed undoubted mistakes and blunders, of our English names and utterance. There could be no mistaking the history of this people. The earliest contact with them vouches English antecedents and associations. The harbor master who comes on board is perhaps a Watts or a Lynch; names which have neither a French, a Spanish, nor a German origin. He steps up into the town, asks the names of store-keepers, learns who are the merchants and officials, calls on the President, or Superintendent, or Judge; and although sable are all the faces he meets with, the names are the old familiar ones which he has been accustomed to in the social circles of his home, or on the signs along the streets of New York or London, viz.: the Smiths, (a large family in Liberia as everywhere else in Anglo-Saxondom,) and their broods of cousins, the Johnsons, Thompsons, Robinsons, and Jacksons; then the Browns, the Greens, the [paradoxical] Whites, and the [real] Blacks; the Williamses, Jameses, Paynes, Draytons, Gibsons, Roberts, Yates, Warners, Wilsons, Moores, and that of his Excellency, President Benton.

Not only names, but titles also are equally significant, and show a like origin. The streets are Broad, and Ashmun, and as here, Griswold. The public buildings are a Church, a Seminary, a Senate, and a Court House.

If our visitor enters the residence of a thriving, thoughtful citizen, the same peculiarity strikes him. Every thing, however humble, is of the same Anglo-Saxon type and stamp. On the book-shelves or tables, are Bibles, Prayer or Hymn Books, Hervey's Meditations or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Young's Night Thoughts or Cowper's Poems, Walter Scott's Tales, or Uncle Tom's Cabin. In many places he will find well-used copies of Shakspeare and Milton. Not a few have enriched themselves with the works of Spenser and Wordsworth, Coleridge and Campbell, Longfellow and Bryant, Whittier and Willis, and of that loftiest of all the bards of the day, Alfred Tennyson. Should it happen to be a mail-day, or the "Stevens" has just glided into our waters, he would find at the Post Office, papers from America and En- gland: "The Times," "Illustrated London News," "Daily Advertiser," "The Star," "The Guardian," "The New York Tribune," and "Commercial Advertiser," the "Protestant Churchman," and the "Church Journal." In one heap, "Littell's Living Age;" in another, "Chambers' Journal." Here, "Harper's Monthly;"there, "The Eclectic." Amid the mass of printed matter he would see, ever and anon, more ambitious works: Medical and Scientific Journals, Quarterly Reviews, the "Bibliothœca Sacra," "Blackwood" and other magazines.

Such facts as these, however, do not fully represent the power of the English tongue in our territory. For, while we repress all tendencies to childish vanity and idle exaggeration, we are to consider other telling facts which spring from our character and influence, and which are necessary to a just estimate of the peculiar agency we are now contemplating. And here a number of facts present themselves to our notice. Within a period of thirty years, thousands of heathen children have been placed under the guardianship of our settlers. Many of these have forgotten their native tongue, and know now the English language as their language. As a consequence, there has sprung up, in one generation, within our borders, a mighty army of English-speaking natives, who, as manhood approached, have settled around us in their homes from one end of the land to the other. Many of these take up the dialects of the other tribes in whose neighborhood their masters lived, but even then English is their speech. Thus it is that everywhere in the Republic, from Gallinas to Cape Palmas, one meets with a multitude of natives who have been servants in our Liberian families, and are daily in the utterance of English. A considerable number of these have enjoyed the opportunity of school instruction, and have carried back to the country the ability to read and to write English. In many cases, it is, in truth impossible to say whether their attainments should be suggestive of sorrow or of joy. I have had naked boys working for me on the St. Paul, who, when they wanted any thing, would write a note with as much exactness as I could. We all here know one native man, over the river, who is a leader in Devil-dances, and yet can read and write like a scholar. A friend of mine, travelling in the bush, nigh 200 miles from Monrovia, stopped one night, exhausted, at the hut of a native man, who brought him his own Bible to read, but alas! it was accompanied by a decanter of rum! The moral of such facts I shall not enter upon; but here is the simple fact, that by our presence, though in small numbers, we have already spread abroad, for scores of miles, the English language, written as well as spoken, among this large population of heathen.

The trading schemes of merchants and settlers, is another powerful auxiliary, in disseminating this language.

At every important point on the coast, Liberian, English, and American merchants have, for years, established their factories. Between Cape Palmas and Monrovia, there cannot be less than 30 factories. In each of these depots, some three or four English-speaking persons—Liberians—are living; in a few cases families have made them their permanent abodes; and thus, what with their native servants, the natives in neighboring towns, the more remote natives who flock hitherward for trade, and the few happy cases where pious young men devote a portion of their time to teaching; there is, and has been, a powerful, a wide-spread system in operation for the teaching and extension of English.

Another process has been for some time at work to spread our language. The interior natives have found out that a home in our vicinity is equivalent to an act of emancipation; and, as a consequence, remnants of tribes who for centuries have been the prey of their stronger neighbors, for the slave trade; and boys and men, upwards of 100 miles inland, who have been held in slavery; crowd in upon our neighborhood for freedom. Behind our settlements, on the St. Paul, there is the most heterogeneous mixture conceivable, of divers tribes and families, who have thus sought the protection of our commonwealth. Numbers of the Bassas, Yeys, Deys, Golahs and especially the Pessas, the hereditary slaves of the interior, have thus come to our immediate neighborhoods. Although I am doubtful of the moral effect of this movement upon ourselves, yet I feel no little pride in the fact that this young nation should become, so, a land of refuge, an asylum for the oppressed! And I regard it as a singular providence, that at the very time our government was trumpeted abroad as implicated in the slave trade, our magistrates, in the upper counties, were adjudicating cases of runaway slaves, and declaring to interior slaveholders that, on our soil, they could not reclaim their fugitives!

Just here another important item claims attention, that is the Missionary agency in propagating this language. The reference here will be, chiefly, to the two uppermost counties of Liberia. Their younger sister, Sinou, I am sorry to say, has not, as yet, made any marked impression upon her surrounding heathen; more we believe through youth, and weakness, and suffering, than through indifference or neglect. Missionary operations, though participated in by others, have been chiefly carried on, in Bassa, by the Baptists. The means which have been employed have been preaching and schools. On the St. John's they have had for years a Manual Labor School, instructed by white Missionaries. This school has passed into the hands of a native Teacher, educated at Sierra Leone—a man who is the son of a prominent chieftain, and who possesses unbounded influence, as far as the Bassa tongue reaches. He has, moreover, these three prominent qualities; that is, he is a well-trained English scholar, a thoroughly civilized man, and a decided and well-tried disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. His earnestness is evidenced in the fact that his work is unaided and self-supporting, and numbers of his tribe are glad to send him their children. Besides this means of influence, ministers have been accustomed to visit numerous towns and villages, preaching the Gospel. And thus, by preaching and schools a multitude of the Bassas have gained the English tongue, with many of its ideas and teachings.

The same Anglicizing influence has been carried on, but on a larger scale, in Montserrada County, but mainly through the Methodists; and they have spread our language widely abroad through that county, by the means of native schools, native children in their American schools, and missionaries residing in country towns, teaching and preaching as far back as the Golah tribe, and now among the Veys: native preachers, too, men converted to the faith, and moved by the Spirit to proclaim the glad tidings to their needy parents, brothers, and kin. I must not fail to mention the fact, that, during the last two years, one of their ministers has carried the English tongue some 200 miles in the interior, and has spread it abroad amid the homes of the mild Pessas; thus preparing the way for legitimate trade, for civilization, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by the means of the spoken Word and the English Bible.

Thus, fellow-citizens, by these varied means the English language has been pushing its way among the numerous tribes of our territory. And thus, in a region of not less than 50,000 square miles, there are few places but where an English-speaking traveller can find some person who can talk with him in his own language.

And now I beg you to notice one point: this English, which we are speaking, and teaching the heathen to speak, is not our native tongue. This Anglo-Saxon language, which is the only language ninety-nine hundredths of us emigrants have ever known, is not the speech of our ancestors. We are here a motley group, composed, without doubt, of persons of almost every tribe in West Africa, from Goree to the Congo. Here are descendants of Jalofs, Fulahs, Mandingoes, Sussus, Timmanees, Veys, Congos; with a large intermixture, everywhere, of Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, Irish, French, and Spanish blood—a slight mingling of the Malayan, and a dash, every now and then, of American Indian. And, perhaps, I would not exaggerate much, if I ended the enumeration of our heterogeneous elements in the words of St. Luke—"Jews and Proselytes, Cretes and Arabians."

And yet they all speak in a foreign tongue, in accents alien from the utterance of their fathers. Our very speech is indicative of sorrowful history; the language we use tells of subjection and of conquest. No people lose entirely their native tongue without the bitter trial of hopeless struggles, bloody strife, heart-breaking despair, agony, and death! Even so we. But this, be it remembered, is a common incident in history, pertaining to almost every nation on earth. Examine all the old histories of men—the histories of Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, and England; and in every case, as in ours, their language reveals the fact of conquest and subjection. But this fact of humiliation seems to have been one of those ordinances of Providence, designed as a means for the introduction of new ideas into the language of a people; or to serve, as the transitional step from low degradation to a higher and nobler civilization.

2. And this remark suggests, in the second place, the query:—"What is the nature, and if any, the advantage of the exchange, we have thus, in God's providence, been led to make?"

The only way in which, in a fit manner, I can answer this question is, by inquiring into the respective values of our native and our acquired tongue. Such a contrast will set before us the problem of "Loss and Gain" which is involved therein. The worth of our fathers' language will, in this way, stand out in distinct comparison with the Anglo-Saxon, our acquired speech. And first, let us speak of the African dialects. I refer now to that particular group of aborigines who dwell in "West Africa, from the Senegal to the Niger, and who have received the distinctive title of "Negro."

"Within this wide extent of territory are grouped a multitude of tribes and natives with various tongues and dialects, which, doubtless, had a common origin, but whose point of affiliation it would be difficult now to discover. But how great soever may be their differences, there are, nevertheless, definite marks of inferiority connected with them all, which place them at the widest distance from civilized languages. Of this whole class of languages, it may be said, in the aggregate that (a) "They are," to use the words of Dr. Leighton "Wilson, "harsh, abrupt, energetic, indistinct in enunciation, meagre in point of words, abound with inarticulate nasal and guttural sounds, possess but few inflections and grammatical forms, and are withal exceedingly difficult of acquisition." This is his description of the Grebo; but it may be taken, I think, as, on the whole, a correct description oi the whole class of dialects which are entitled "Negro." (b) These languages, moreover, are characterized by lowness of ideas. As the speech of rude barbarians, they are marked by brutal and vindictive sentiments, and those principles which show a predominance of the animal propensities, (c) Again, they lack those ideas of virtue, of moral truth, and those distinctions of right and wrong with which we, all our life long, have been familiar, (d) Another marked feature of these languages is the absence of clear ideas of Justice, Law, Human Eights, and Governmental Order, which are so prominent and manifest in civilized countries. And (e) lastly—Those supernal truths of a personal, present Deity, of the moral Government of God, of man's Immortality, of the Judgment, and of Everlasting Blessedness, which regulate the lives of Christians, are either entirely absent, or else exist, and are expressed in an obscure and distorted manner.

Now, instead of a language characterized by such rude and inferior features as these, ice have been brought to the heritage of the English language. Negro as we are by blood and constitution, we have been, as a people, for generations in the habitual utterance of Anglo-Saxon speech. This fact is now historical. The space of time it covers runs over 200 years. There are emigrants in this country from the Carolinas and Georgia, who, in some cases, come closer to the Fatherland; but more than a moiety of the people of this country have come from Maryland and Virginia, and I have no doubt that there are scores, not to say hundreds of them, who are unable to trace back their sires to Africa. I know that in my own ease, my maternal ancestors have trod American soil, and therefore have used the English language wellnigh as long as any descendants of the early settlers of the Empire State. And, doubtless, this is true of multitudes of the sons of Africa, who are settled abroad in the divers homes of the white man, on the American continent.

At the present day, be it remembered, there are 10,000,000 of the sons of Africa alien from this continent. They live on the main land, and on the islands of North and South America. Most of them are subjects of European and American Governments. One growing prominent section of them is an independent Republic. They speak Danish, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and English; the English-speaking potion of them, however, is about equal to all the rest together. The sons of Africa under the Americans, added to those protected by the British flag, number 5,000,000.

Now what is the peculiar advantage which Anglo-Africans have gamed by the loss of their mother tongue? In order to answer this query, we must present those direct and collateral lingual elements in which reside the worth and value of the English language, especially in contrast with the defective elements of the African dialects.

I shall not of course venture, to any extent, upon the etymological peculiarities of the English language; for even if I had time, I lack the learning and ability for such disquisition. Moreover the thoughts presented on such a day as this, should have a force and significance pertaining to national growth and a people's improvement. I shall therefore point out some of those peculiarities of the English language which, seem to me specially deserving notice, in this country, and which call for the peculiar attention of thoughtful patriotic minds among us.

The English language then, I apprehend, is marked by these prominent peculiarities:—(a) It is a language of unusual force and power. This, I know, is an elemental excellence which does not pertain, immediately, to this day's discussion; but I venture to present it, inasmuch as you will see presently, it has much to do with the genius and spirit of a language. The English is composed chiefly of simple, terse, and forcible, one and two-syllabled words; which make it incomparable for simplicity and intelligibleness. The bulk of these words are the rich remains of the old Saxon tongue, which is the main stream, whence has flowed over to us the affluence of the English language. It is this clement which gives it force, precision, directness, and boldness; making it a fit channel for the decided thoughts of men of common sense, of honest minds, and downright character. Let any one take up the Bible, the Prayer-Book, a volume of Hymns of any class of Christians, the common proverbs, the popular savings,—which strike deep into the hearts of men and flow over in their common spontaneous utterances; and he will see everywhere these features of force, perspicuity, and directness. Nor is it wanting in beauty, elegance, and majesty; for, to a considerable extent, this same Saxon element furnishes these qualities; but the English, being a composite language, these attractive and commanding elements are bestowed upon it, in fulness, by those other affluent streams which contribute to its wealth, and which go to make up its "well of English undefiled." (b) Again, the English language is characteristically the language of freedom. I know that there is a sense in which this love of liberty is inwrought in the very fibre and substance of the body and blood of all people; but the flame burns dimly in some races; it is a fitful fire in some others; and in many inferior people it is the flickering light of a dying candle. But in the English races it is an ardent, healthy, vital, irrepressible flame; and withal normal and orderly in its development. Go back to the early periods of this people's history, to the times when the whole of Europe seemed lost in the night of ignorance, and dead to the faintest pulses of liberty;—trace the stream of their descent from the days of Alfred to the present time, and mark how they have ever, in law, legislation and religion, in poetry and oratory, in philosophy and literature, assumed that oppression was an abnormal and a monstrous thing! How, when borne down by tyrannous restraint, or lawless, arbitrary rule, discontent and resistance have—

"Moved in the chambers of their soul."

How, when misrule became organic, and seated tyranny unreasoning and obstinate, they have demonstrated to all the world, how trilling a thing is the tenure of tyrants, how resistless and invincible is the free spirit of a nation!

And now look at this people—scattered, in our own day, all over the globe, in the Great Republic, in numerous settlements, and great colonies, themselves the germs of mighty empires; see how they have carried with them everywhere, on earth, the same high, masterful, majestic spirit of freedom, which gave their ancestors, for long generations, in their island home—

—"the thews of Anakim, The pulses of a Titan's heart;"

and which makes them giants among whatever people they settle, whether in America, India, or Africa, distancing all other rivalries and competitors.

And notice here how this spirit, like the freshets of some mighty Oregon, rises above and flows over their own crude and distorted obliquities. Some of these obliquities are prominent. Of all races of men none, I ween, are so domineering, none have a stronger, more exclusive spirit of caste, none have a more contemptuous dislike of inferiority; and yet in this race the ancient spirit of freedom rises higher than their repugnances. It impels them to conquer even their prejudices: and hence, when chastened and subdued by Christianity, it makes them philanthropic and brotherly. Thus it is that in England this national sentiment would not tolerate the existence of slavery. although it was Negro slavery. Thus in New Zealand and at the Cape of Good Hope, Statesmen, Prelates, Scholars, demand that a low and miserable aboriginal population shall be raised to their own level; and accept, without agonies and convulsions, the providence and destiny, which point plainly to amalgamation. Thus in Canada it bursts forth with zeal and energy for the preservation and enlightenment of the decaying Indian. And thus in the United States, rising above the mastery of a cherished and deep-rooted spirit of caste; outrunning the calculations of cold prudence and prospective result; repressing the inwrought personal feeling of prejudice, it starts into being a mighty religious feeling which demands the destruction of slavery and the emancipation of the Negro! (c) Once more I remark, that the English language is the enshrinemcnt of those great charters of liberty which are essential elements of free governments, and the main guarantees of personal liberty. I refer now to the right of Trial by Jury, the people's right to a participation in Government, Freedom of Speech, and of the Press, the Eight of Petition, Freedom of Religion. And these are special characteristics of the English language. They are rights, which in their full form and rigid features, do not exist among any other people. It is true that they have had historical development: but their seminal principles seem inherent in the constitution of this race. We see in this people, even in their rude con- dition, the roots from which have sprung so fair and so beautiful a tree. And these conserving elements, carefullv guarded, deepened and strengthened in their foundations from age to age, as wisdom and sagacity seemed to dictate; illustrated and eulogized by the highest genius, and the most consummate legal ability; have carried these states, the old country, the Republic of America, and the constitutional colonies of Britain, through many a convulsive political crisis; the ship of state, rocked and tossed by the wild waves of passion, and the agitations of faction; but in the end leaving her to return again to the repose of calm and quiet waters!

In states thus constituted, no matter how deep may be the grievance, how severe the suffering, the obstructive element has to disappear; the disturbing force, whether man or system, must be annihilated!—for freedom is terrible as well as majestic; and the state emerges from the conflict with a fresh acquisition of strength, and with an augmented capacity for a nobler career and loftier attainments. This fact explains the progressive features of all Anglican political society. Revolution seems exoteric to it; but the tide of reform in legal, constitutional, channels, sweeping away obstructive hindrances, goes onward and upward in its course.

I quote here a remark of a distinguished writer, a lady:—"The original propensities of race are never eradicated, and they are nowhere more prominent than in the progress of the social state in France and England. The vivacity and speculative disposition of the Celt, appear in the rapid and violent changes of gov- ernment, and in. the succession of theoretical experiments in France; while in Britain, the deliberate slowness, prudence, and accurate perceptions of the Teuton, are manifest in the gradual improvement and steadiness of their political arrangements." (Here she quotes a passage from Johnson's Physical Atlas.) "The prevalent political sentiment of Great Britain is undoubtedly conservative, in the best sense of the word, with a powerful undercurrent of democratic tendencies which give great power and strength to the political and social body of this country, and make revolutions by physical force almost impossible.… Great Britain is the only country in Europe which has had the good fortune to have all her institutions worked out and framed by her in a strictly organic manner; that is, in accordance with organic wants which require different conditions at different and successive stages of national development—and not by theoretical experiments, as in many other countries, which are still in a state of excitement consequent upon these experiments. The social character of the people of this country, besides the features which they have in common with other nations of Teutonic origin, is, on the whole, domestic, reserved, aristocratic, exclusive."