The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1853-01-19

to that II no other benefit were anticipated from
snelr extension, that this Alone would constitute oil
all-Powerful motive What object in life. ia this
country,or in any country can individual of Afr
can descent propose to himself at all t. be COM ared
with that OF forming in his own person part of
that noble line of defence by which the sEofes Hf
MS native land to be forever barred against the
desolating traffic?
But great as is the Importance of this object.
yie'os In lnterestto another connected with 1t,
put lar more comprehensive and moffiehtous, and
that is, the civilization of Africa. The condition
o! the African cohtfhght IL fepreach to the civ;
cation OF the world With an extent nearly three
Zines that Of Europe-a considerable portion of the
known regions of great fertility -teemine with
vegetable and animal ife-traversed by lofty
ranges OF mountains which send down from their
sides the tributaries of noble riversconnected by
the mediterranean on the north, both with the an
Gent and modern culture of Europe-the western
shores reposing on the Atlantic ocean, the 81 eat
highway Of civilization the southeastern running
within near proximity to our own continent
the eastern coasts spread out TO the commerce Of
India and the whole Oriental Worthwhile the Red
Sea and the Nile throw open the approaches of the
Asiatic continent-it would seem that by natural
endowments and geographical position It was
destined TO be the emporium and garden of the
earth. Man only thfoaghout these vast regions
has rsmaihed in arrears in the great progress of
humanity; and instead of keeping pace with his
fellow men in other parts of the world, to have
been 30 much depressed by various causes of
degeneracy, as finally to have come under a sus-
picion of natural inferiority, in which must own
have no belief.
/ have no doubt, that among the Numerous
races of Africa as of the other continents, there
are great diversities of intelligence; from the
warlike, polite tribes of the Central plateau, to
the broken-down,s enfeebled hordes on the banks
Of the Congo, and the saualid, scarcely human
Hottsntot. But it may be doubted whether
this difference is greater than between the Lap
lander, the Gipsy, the Camuc, on the one hand,
and the best and brightest specimens of humanity
to be found in Europe and America, on the other.
What, then, is the cause of the continued un-
civilization of Africa? And, without pretending
TO pry toe ctritu5iy into the mysteries of Provi-
dehce, it appears to me that sufficient cause may
be found in some peculiar circumstances in the
history and geography of this continent. 1t seems
law of human progress, which however difficult
to explain is too we'll sustained by facts to be
doubted, that the first advances out of barbarism
must be made under the influence of culture
from abroad. Thus the germs of Improvement
were brought from Egypt and Syria to Greece;
north of Europe; from Europe to America, as they
are now on their way from our continent to the
remotest islands of the Pacific. To what extent
the aboriginal clement shall be borne down and
overpowered by the foreign influences, or enter
into kindly combination with them, depends upon
the moral and intellectual development of both
parties The native may be so apt for inn
provement as to harmonize promptly and kindly
with the cultivated strangers. This was the case
with the early Greeks; or the disparity may be SO
great that no kindly union between them is prac-
ticable, and the native tribes slowly and silently
retreat before the newcomers. This has been the
case with the native races of our own continent,
who have found 1t all but impossible to embrace
our civilization.
Now. in reference to this law of our social ma :
ture the difficulty in Africa has been twofold:
first, that the other quarters of the GLOBE who had
obtained the start IN the race of improvement, and
might have proved the instructors and guides of
the native races, were all deeply concerned in
traffic with the continent of Africa, which, in
stead of tending, like other branches of com.
merce, to Mutual improvement, and especially to
the elevation Of the inferior party is of all barbar
zng agents the most poisonous and deadly. In this
way foreign trade, which has usually been the me-
dunn through which the more cultivated foreign
race has gradually introduced itself to mutually
beneficial intercourse with the less advanced tribes
has been to Africa, from the dawn of history to the
present day, the apowerful agent of eternal civil
war. anarchy, and eocial disorganization This
has been one cause OF her making 80 little pro-
gress in civilization. Another is her climate;
her mighty equatorial expanse-a more exten-
sive tract of land between the tropics than in
all the rest of the globe; her fervid vertical
sun, burning down upon the rank vegetation of
her fertile plains, and rendering her shores and
watercourses pestiterous to foreign constitution.
This peculiar geographical character seems again
to shut her out from the ordinary approaches of
civilization. Common inducements of CONNER
cial gain are too weak to tempt the merchant to
these feverous districts. Nothing but taste for
adventure approaching to mania attracts the trav-
eller; and when Christian benevoence lures the
devoted missionary TO- this field Of labor it lures
him too often to HE doom. Here, then, we see q
union of influences which seem to seal the fate of
unhappy Africa as an abomination Of desolation..
But now mark and reverence the Providence of
God, educing out OF these natural disadvantages of
climate, Disadvantages to mans apprehension y
an ia he peI,
trade-out OF these seemingly hopeless elements of
physical and moral evil-out of long cycles of suf-
ferng and crime, of violence and retribution such
as history can nowhere Notwithstanding, l say,
from these elements, by the blessed alchemy of
Christian benevolencc, the means of the ultimate
of Africa.
The aroused conscience of chr istendom denounces
the slave trade, but not till it has existed for three
centuries, and filed portion of the western hem
isphere with FIVE or ak millions o f the descendants
of Africa, of whom about million and half, in
the islands and on the continent, have from time
to time become free. Though born and reared
under circumstances unfavorable to mental
culture, yet still partaking in the main
and amply qualified Liberia
has shown, to convey those blessings to the native
land OF their fathers. Thus at the moment when
the work itself is ready to be. commenced, the
opinion that the same Providence which has mr. mr.
ranged or permitted this mysterious sequence of
events, is calling and inviting them to the auspi.
cious work? All other means have been tried in
vain. Private adventure has miscarried; strength,
and courage, and endurance, almost superhuman,
have ianguishcd and broken down; we'll appointed
expenditures, fitted out under the auspices of
powerful associations and powerful governments,
have ended in calamitous failure; and it 10
proved at last shat the Caucasian race cannot
achieve this lei deferred work. When that last
noble ex petition which sent out from Eng
land, think in the year 1871, under the highest
auspices, to found agricultural setIee mt in the
interior of Africa, assembled the Niger, every white
man out of one hundred and fifty sickened; all
but two or three-if my memory serves NEEDED;
while OF their dark-skinned associates, also one
hundred and fifty in number with all the added la
Dor and anxiety that deyolved upon, hem, few only
were sick, and they individuals who had passed
years in temperate climate, and not one died. |
say again. sir, you Caucasian; you proud Anglo
Saxon you self sufficient, all attempting white
man, then, you cannot civilze Africa. You have
sabdued and appropriated Europe; the native races
are melting before you in America the untime-
Iy SHOWS of April before vernal sun; you have
possessed yourself of India; you menace China
and Japan; the remotest isles Of the Pacific are
not distant enough to escape your grasp, nor in
Significant enough to elude your notico-but Cen
trail Africa confronts you and bids you def
ance Your squadrons may range or blockade
her coast; but neither on the errands of peace or
the errands of war can you penetrate to the inte
rior. The God of Nature, no doubt for wise pur-
poses, however inscrutable, has drawn across the
chlei lnlets a Gordon you cannot break through
You may hover on the coast, but you dare not set
loot shore. sits DOrfrpaa a the unde-