THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA.
The Republic of Liberia lies on the west coast of Africa, and was
settled by emigrants from the United States in 1822.
The founders of this government met with many obstacles: First,
disease; then opposition from the natives; all of which, however, they
heroically overcame.
The territory owned by the Liberian government extends some six hundred
miles along the West African coast, and reaches back indefinitely
towards the interior, the native title to which has been fairly
purchased.
It has brought within its elevating influence at least two hundred
thousand of the native inhabitants, who are gradually acquiring
the arts, comforts, and conveniences of civilized life. It has a
regularly-organized government, modelled after our own, with all the
departments in successful operation. Schools, seminaries, a college,
and some fifty churches, belonging to seven different denominations,
are in a hopeful condition. Towns and cities are being built where
once the slave-trade flourished with all its untold cruelty,
bloodshed, and carnage. Agriculture is extending, and commerce is
increasing. The Republic of Liberia numbers to-day among its civilized
inhabitants, about thirty thousand persons, about fifteen thousand of
which are American Liberians; that is, those who have emigrated from
the United States with their descendants. More than three hundred
thousand aborigines reside within the territory of Liberia, and
are brought more or less directly under the influence and control
of her civilized institutions. There are churches in the Republic,
representing different denominations, with their Sunday Schools and
Bible classes, and contributing something every week for missionary
purposes. The exports in the year 1866, amounted to about three hundred
thousand dollars.
The undeveloped capacities for trade, no one can estimate. With a most
prolific soil, and a climate capable of producing almost every variety
of tropical fruit, the resources of the land are beyond computation. A
sea-coast line, six hundred miles in length, and an interior stretching
indefinitely into the heart of the country, offer the most splendid
facilities for foreign commerce.
For a thousand miles along the coast, and two hundred miles inland,
the influence of the government has been brought to bear upon domestic
slavery among the natives, and upon the extirpation of the slave-trade,
until both have ceased to exist.
The interior presents a country inviting in all its aspects; a fine,
rolling country, abounding in streams and rivulets; forests of timber
in great variety, abundance, and usefulness; and I have no doubt quite
salubrious, being free from the miasmatic influences of the mangrove
swamps near the coast.
The commercial resources of Liberia, even at the present time, though
scarcely commenced to be developed, are of sufficient importance to
induce foreigners, American and European, to locate in the Republic
for the purposes of trade; and the agricultural and commercial sources
of wealth in Western and Central Africa are far beyond the most
carefully-studied speculation of those even who are best acquainted
with the nature and capacity of the country. The development of these
will continue to progress, and must, in the very nature of things,
secure to Liberia great commercial importance; and this will bring her
citizens into such business relations with the people of other portions
of the world as will insure to them that consideration which wealth,
learning, and moral worth never fail to inspire.
From the beginning, the people of Liberia, with a commendable zeal
and firmness, pursued a steady purpose towards the fulfilment of the
great object of their mission to Africa. They have established on her
shores an asylum free from political oppression, and from all the
disabilities of an unholy prejudice; they have aided essentially in
extirpating the slave-trade from the whole line of her western coast;
they have introduced the blessings of civilization and Christianity
among her heathen population, and by their entire freedom from all
insubordination, or disregard of lawful authority, and by their
successful diplomacy with England, France, and Spain, on matters
involving very perplexing international questions, they have indicated
some ability, at least for self-government and the management of their
own public affairs.
The banks of the St. Paul’s, St. John’s, Sinoe, and Farmington Rivers,
and of the River Cavalla, now teeming with civilized life and industry,
presenting to view comfortable Christian homes, inviting school-houses
and imposing church edifices, but for the founding of Liberia would
have remained until this day studded with slave-barracoons, the
theatres of indescribable suffering, wickedness, and shocking deaths.
Liberia is gradually growing in the elements of national stability. The
natural riches of that region are enormous, and are such as, sooner
or later, will support a commerce, to which that at present existing
on the coast is merely fractional. The Liberians own and run a fleet
of “coasters,” collecting palm-oil, cam-wood, ivory, gold-dust, and
other commodities. A schooner of eighty tons was built, costing eleven
thousand dollars, and loaded in the autumn of 1866, at New York, from
money and the proceeds of African produce sent for that purpose by an
enterprising merchant of Grand Bassa County.
A firm at Monrovia are having a vessel built in one of the ship-yards
of New York to cost fifteen thousand dollars.
An intelligent friend has given us the following as an approximate
estimate of the sugar-crop on the St. Paul’s in 1866: “Sharp, one
hundred and twenty thousand pounds; Cooper, thirty thousand pounds;
Anderson, thirty-five thousand pounds; Howland, forty thousand pounds;
Roe, thirty thousand pounds; sundry smaller farmers, one hundred and
fifty thousand; total, five hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds.
The coffee-crop also is considerable, though we are not able to state
how much.”
During the year 1866, not less than six hundred tons of cam-wood,
twelve hundred tons of palm-oil, and two hundred tons of palm-kernels,
were included in the exports of the Republic. And these articles of
commercial enterprise and wealth are capable of being increased to
almost any extent.
The Colonization Society, under whose auspices the colony of Liberia
was instituted, was, as the writer verily believes, inimical to the
freedom of the American slaves, and therefore brought down upon it
the just condemnation of the American abolitionists, and consequently
placed the people in a critical position; I mean the colonists. But
from the moment that the Liberians in 1847 established a Republic,
unfurled their national banner to the breeze, and began to manage their
own affairs, we then said, “Cursed be the hand of ours that shall throw
a stone at our brother.”
Fortunately, for the colony, many of the emigrants were men of more
than ordinary ability; men who went out with a double purpose; first,
to seek homes for themselves and families out of the reach of the
American prejudice; second, to carry the gospel of civilization to
their brethren. These men had the needed grit and enthusiasm.
Moles, Teage, and Johnson, are names that we in our boyhood learned to
respect and love. Roberts, Benson, Warner, Crummell, and James, men of
more recent times, have done much to give Liberia her deservedly high
reputation.
With a government modelled after our own constitution and laws, that
are an honor to any people, and administered by men of the genius
and ability which characterizes the present ruling power, Liberia is
destined to hold an influential place in the history of nations. Her
splendid resources will yet be developed; her broad rivers will be
traversed by the steamship, and her fertile plains will yet resound
to the thunder of the locomotive. The telegraph wire will yet catch
up African news and deposit it in the Corn Exchange, London, and Wall
Street, New York.
That moral wilderness is yet to blossom with the noblest fruits of
civilization and the sweetest flowers of religion. She will yet have
her literature, her historians and her poets. Splendid cities will rise
where now there are nothing but dark jungles.