The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1869-08-06
GOOD ADVICE.
viii the Negro Race Heed the Warning.

The Richmond Wing publishes the
following letter written, it says, by a
negro i'm Africa who has lived there
nearly twenty years. We commend il
to the perusal of the colored men OF
Georgia, large majority of whom
need the counsel conveyed to them:
MoNROvA, LIBERIA, Jan. 8, 1869.
have now lived in this home of the
African nearly twenty years; but / have
not forgotten the old scenes in Virginia,
nor the kindness ofmy friends i'm for
mer days. wish it was i'm my power
to return for time, that my voice
might be heard by my brethren of the
Southern States.
/ am anxious for their fate AS
sit here, on the shores of this continent
filled with native black popul alton,
and look across the great waters oveI
your continent filled with white men,
| cannot but be fearful in regard to the
future of the few millions of people OF
my own blood in the South, how left to
their own resources. l see tide oil
white men pouring over those fields
which have heretofore fed them; a tide
coming from the overlooking pOpula-
ton of Northern States and Europe.
remember how that tide, when feeble
and slow, swept off the native Indians,
and now, as it rushes in its might,
what is to shield the transplanted
African from its waves? 1 can think
of but one hope for him.
If, as body, the cOlored people OF
the South shall identify themselves
with the white people who now occupy
and hold the soil, gain their affection
and confidence, and become useful
members of their communities, they
may float above the torrent and still
dwell in peace among the associations
of the past, otherwise they must, in a
lapse of years, be buried beneath it, OF
washed, like drift wood, into the burn
ing zone around the Equator.
And yet the occasional letters and
papers we receive here from the United
States tell us that political demagagues
from the north, peddling politics for
their own profit, are exciting our race
to hostility towards the whites. Ifthey
shall become the dupes of such ennis
saries, their fate is sealed. The scat
tered white men on this continent OF
All1CSt do W Gil
against the native tribes of black men,
with the expectation of meeting any
thing but destruction in the pursuit OF
such folly. l feel some confidence that
the more intelligent portion of the peo-
pie of color will not he led astray by
adventures who will use them while
they reap any personal profit from
pretended friendship, and desert them
when they please. But the ihass have
not had time to learn lessons of politi-
cal wisdom, and the prospect fills me
with sadness. If / could but make
them hear me, would appeal to them
to make common cause with the white
people of their owp land, to take advice
and counsel from such men as have
been known to item through their
lives for their high character and hon
esty and intelligence, to seek the well
fare of the people OH whom they must
depend through all time for their own
prosperity, to do no act which shall
give to the white people just cause for
enmity, and thus identifying them
selves with the communities in which
they dwell, obtain for themselves the
most powerful of allies against those
which threaten their very existence.
Say this much to them for me.
S. w. w.