Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-10-17
Misfella,,enns.
For the Journal
THE AFRICAN REPUBLIC.-FACTS AND
AN APPEAL FOR AID.

The AFRICAN kEPUBLIC.-FACTH AND
AN APPEAL FOR AID.
Fifty years ago Cl820), the territory of the
Liberia Republic was the principal slave mart
on the west coast of Africa. Spaniards, Gu
bans and Brazilians, to say nothing of Ameri-
cans, We'd with each other in this borrid traf-
fc. A report made to the British Parliament
(in 1879, estimated that more than twenty
thousand slaves were annually shipped from
that western coast. For a thousand miles,
that coast, along the bays, inlets and mouths
OF rivers, was dotted with -baracoons,
and the only human activities seen there were
those employed in catching, branding and
shipping the poor negroes-amid all the hor-
rors of the middle passage, into hopeless
bondage. e Hs
Fifty years ago, Jehudi Ashmun, the found
er and first teacher of the Bangor Theological
Seminary, sailed in the brig Strong, with less
than 100 sable men and women, and planted
the first permanent settlement on Cape Mes
surado. Two parties had sailed before him,
but were repelled from the coast by the pirates
ed at Sierra Leone, the other on Sherbro Is
land, some miles from the coast These par, :
ties, now uniting with Ashmun's company,
formed the germ of the present African Re-
public,-a nationality for the African race.
One hundred and tifty-eight vessels have
carried out emigrants to the number of over
5000. These with their children born there
and educated in the Liberia schools, form q
christian population of about %, 900.
Many of these emigrants were intelligent
christian men and women. They carried with
them the English language, the English bible,
our constitution and all that we have learned
in two hundred years of the practical work.
ings of republican government.
In 1S47, the colonies thus planted, b. :ame
united and independent sovereigntJ, ac-
ers of the world.
What do we see to-day, as the results of
fifty years labor of the Society?
We see the foreign and domestic slave
trade and polygamy utterly abolished on pe
thousand miles of the west coast. We ke
there well-regulated republic, geographs
ically as large as New England, with con-
stitution like our own, wisely administered
by colored men. We see there 10000
Americo-Liberians, in some forty different
settlements; $500 re-captives from slave
ships, ,-civilized, educated in the Liberia
schools, assimilated to christian habits, and
received as citizens into the bosom of the
State. Some of these re-captives are now
effective preachers of the Gospel, and MEN,
bers of the Legislature. We see 6O0,O of
the native population, within the Republic,
eheerfully obedient to its laws,-speaking the
English language, and having already ciyili-
zation of a higher order than that of the
masses of ancient Greece and Rome,-for it
is civilization that is informed and moulded,
to some extent by christianity. We have a
College there, with an able faculty of liberal
ly educated colored men, and forty students
ia the collegiate and preparatory departments
three Academies, and our New England sys-
tenn of District Schools introduced The
steam engine is there the sugar mill and the
printing press, that great instrument of civ
ilization. Two or three newspapers are pub
lished there, edited with ability, in the var-
Gus columns of which we see all the indica-
tions of prosperous and thriving State.
But more, and better still, there are fifty
six churches in Liberia, with over fifteen
thousand communicants-more than one half
of these are converts from the native popula-
tion. We are doing there the Foreign Mis-
sonary work-certainly as fast and effectral-
ly as it is done by any Ecclesiastical Board in
the world. Why, then, should not this cause
have as high place in the sympathies, prayers
and contributions of christians as any Foreign
Missionary Board? We owe greater debt to
the heather of Africa than to any other race;
debt that no arithmetic can compute; a debt
that we shall never pay, for we have inflicted
on the African unutterable wrongs, but God
has opened way in which we may make
some restitution for the wrongs inflicted
More than two thousand of the better class
of Freedmen are waiting for means to take
them to Liberia to spread oun civilization
Among these are twelve or fifteen pastors,
and more than eight hundred commandments.
Every time the Golconda sails, she carries out
one or two of these pastors with their church,
es, or parts of their churches, to spread our
civilization among the 600, 900 natives within
the republic Take an example: the Golcon-
ca sailed from Savannah May, 1868. Besides
some 20 communicates in other churches, she
carried one complete Baptist Church from
Macon, Ga, an educated colored pastor, two
deacons, and some forty members. That
church settles in one of the native towns;
every member of it is practically Mission
ary,-a living illustration of the benefits and
blessings of christian civilization. Here is
organized christianity doing its work much
faster than by the common method of send