Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1854-08-30

AFRICANS AT HOME. The last Quarterly Review
contains article this subject which we have
read with considerable interest. The writer gives an
account of the social and moral condition of the
groes inhabiting the gold coast and the adjoining
countries at the time they were first discovered by
the Portuguese, and compares their condition then
with what it is now, as given by Mr. John Beechanl,
of the London Wesleyan Mission. The comparison
shows that though they haze had intercourse with
the civilized nations of the earth for four centuries
though missionaries have labored earnestly and zeal
ously in their behalf, their condition remains the
same In fact, cannot conceive how it could have
been at any time than what it is represented
to be now by this article as given by Mr.. Beecham,
the concluding portion of which we give below:
Scarcely has one of their barbarous and bloody
customs been abandoned, from the earliest period
of which anything is known of them. They still
pave their court yards palaces and the streets
market places of their villages or towns with the
skulls of those butchered in war, at feaSts funerals,
sacrifices to Bossum. Still their wives and
slaves buried alive, with the deceased husband
and master When Adahanzen died, two hundred
and eighty of his wives butchered before the
arrival of his successor: which put stop to it only
to increase the flow of blood and the number of
deaths in other ways. The remaining living wives
were buried alive! amidst dancing singing and be-
wailing, the noise of horns, drums, muskets yels,
groanS and screenings; the women marching by
headless trunks bedaubed themselves with earth and
blood. Their victims marched along with large
knives passed through their cheeks. The execution
struggle for the bloody Offices while the victims
familiar with the horrid sacrifice to show terror
to imagine that all not it should be. Their
hands were first chopped off, and then their heads
soaoed off, to prolong the amusement. Even some
who assisted to fill the grave hustled in alive
in order to add to the sport soemnty of the scene
Upon the death of Kings brother four thousand
victims were thus sacrificed. These ceremonies are
often repeated, and hundreds slaughtered at every
rehearsal. Upon the death of king of Ashantee,
general massacre takes place. in which there can
be no computation of the victims
At their Yam customs, " Mr.. Bowdtch witness
ed spectaces of the most appalling kind Every ca
boccer, noble, sacrificed slave he entered the
gate. Heads and skulls formed the ornaments of
their professions Hundreds slain and the stream
ing and steaming blood of the victims was mingled
in vast brass pan, with various vegetable and ami
NAL matter, fresh well as putrid to compose a
powerful fetiche At these customs the same scenes
of butchery and slaughter occur. The Kings exc
cutioners traverse the city killing all they meet The
next day desolation reigns the land The King
during the bloody saturnalls looked eagerly and
danced in his chair with delight.
The King of Dahomey paves the approaches to
his residence and ornaments the battlements of his
palace with the skulls of his victims; and the great
etache tree at Badagry has its wide spread limbs la
den with human carcasses and limbs There the
want of chastity is disgrace, and the priests are
employed as pimps. Murder, adultery and thieverv
says Bosnian, are here sins.
The case of Quaque, given by our author shows
how vain is the hope of efecting national reoene
ration by the education of Africans to the Christian
Ministry. In fifty years residence at Cape Coast |
Castle he gained over not one of his countrymen
and dying, showed his confidence still reposed in his
tetaehe, and not in Christian rites Well might Mr. |
Beecham remark that the of this individual |
furnishes matter for grave consideration on the part
OF those who are anxious to promote the enlighten-
ment and elevation of Africa"
The picture given above is a gloomy one, and !
shows that there no hope of the negroes of Africa
emerging OF themselves, or even by constant inter
course with civilized nations, from barbarism into
civilization -''O