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Wanted-Leaders!
_A Study of Negro Development_
_By_
The Rt. Rev. Theodore DuBose Bratton, D. D.
_Bishop of Mississippi_
PRESIDING BISHOP AND COUNCIL
Department of Missions and Church Extension
281 Fourth Avenue New York
1922
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE NEGRO IN AFRICA 5
II. THE NEGRO IN LIBERIA 35
III. THE NEGRO IN HAITI 63
IV. THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN IN AMERICA 91
V. THE PERIOD OF WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION 123
VI. THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO 143
VII. THE CHRISTIAN DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEGRO 173
VIII. WHAT OF THE FUTURE? 211
APPENDIX 231
BIBLIOGRAPHY 251
WANTED-LEADERS!
_A Study of Negro Development_
CHAPTER I
THE NEGRO IN AFRICA
The Africa of five hundred years ago, when the modern nations first
dipped into its wild and troubled life, presented at least as
great a variety of racial characteristics as any other continent.
Natural barriers; climatic influences; the recurring desert, swamp,
and prairie areas;—all tended to segregate the tribes, and to fix
widely different physical characteristics. The ancient Empires of
the Mediterranean had left the posterity of their mixed families,
and the tradition of their mingled religions, on the borders of that
great sea. Inevitably these exercised more or less of influence on
the backward people to the South of them, tingeing their blood, their
characteristics, and their religion, though in a way difficult to
define and to a degree which baffles measurement. Where effects have
been in the making for many centuries and are remote from the causes,
the links between them are not easily traceable. It is only in modern
times that Mohammedanism, for example, has pushed its conquests much
below the great desert region. In the time of the slave traffic, the
Mediterranean influence must have penetrated to only a comparatively
short distance up the Nile and down the western coast, while very
gradually diffusing itself through the north Sudan area. In general,
we may approach the study of the Negro in Africa with little thought
of this outside influence, noting it only where marked traces are
discovered either from ancient or modern sources.
Various students of the negro peoples have divided them into
families; but the divisions vary, and no fixed terminology has become
so dominant as to command common consent. For our purpose, the four
Families hereafter described comprise the African Negroes. A minute
study of these families will reveal many tribal subdivisions, each
with distinguishing traits—physical, mental and moral—developed by
environment, and yet plainly traceable to common family origins. Such
a minute study is not our purpose, and we shall limit our view to the
four Families in whose development we are especially interested.
=I. The Negrito Family.= In this Family are three distinct though
kindred tribes—the Pygmies, the Bushmen, and the Hottentots—supposed
to be the original inhabitants of Africa. As these tribes are only
remotely represented in America, they may be dismissed with short
notice.
They are all of small stature, ranging in height from four to five
feet, and are early mentioned by the Greek and Roman historians,
whose stories of the dwarf Pygmies were treated as traveller’s tales
until the discoveries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
proved the so-called fables of Homer, Aristotle, and Pliny to be
true. From the nomadic, forest-dwelling Pygmies of central Africa,
with their low mental and social development, there is a distinct
advance in their nearest kinsmen, the Bushmen of the desert regions
scattered throughout this same area. Among them, music is a distinct
form of expression, and they exhibit a degree of artistic ability
in the depicting of animal figures and even of scenes from their
marauding life. More developed still, are the Hottentots of the
South. In mental and moral character, as well as in mechanical
ingenuity, they surpass their kinsmen. Language is still meager in
power of expression, but the Hottentot _kraal_ or village community
represents a much higher stage of social life than is found among
the Pygmies or the Bushmen. Religiously, too, the Hottentot is on a
higher plane than the related tribes.
The effect of European settlement in the land of the Bushmen and
Hottentots has been disastrous to these wild people. Dr. Bryce says,
“Along the south bank of the Orange River and to the north of it,
small tribes, substantially identical with the Hottentots, still
wander over the arid wilderness. But in the settled parts of the
colony, the Hottentot, of whom we used to hear so much, and, at one
time, feared so much, has vanished more completely than has the Red
Indian from the Atlantic States of America.” The Pygmies are still
remote from the white man’s influence. Is it this alone that saves
them from a like fate?
=II. The Sudan Family.= These occupy almost the entire Sudan country,
which is the widest part of Africa, south of the Sahara Desert, and
extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Abyssinian highlands on the
east. “The whole Sudan is full of animal excitement. There is never a
dull hour for man or beast. All is conflict, noise and motion. Even
at night there is no repose or solitude.” Most of the great rivers
have their source in this region, in which also are found many lakes
teeming with life. Over much of this area, nature provides all the
necessities of life; literally so, since clothing is not so classed,
the climate favoring the unchanging garb of nature.
The Sudan country is divided into geographical zones named after
the chief product of each. The equatorial and torrid belt—the
so-called Banana Zone—abounds in fruits as well as game; next above
is the Millet Zone, with its combined trees and grain-fields,
millet, sorghum, etc., providing edible vegetation corresponding
to our wheat, corn, and rice; next above is the Cattle Zone, a
prairie-country, rich in grasses, its fertile lands inviting
agricultural pursuits; above this, and blending into the Sahara
Desert, is the Camel Zone of which no further mention need be made.
The estimated 80,000,000 people of the Sudan Family are divided
into three fairly distinct types: (1) The Negritians, a primitive
and numerous negro race which claims our chief interest because it
provided most of our American Negroes. (2) The Fellatahs, a mixture
of Negritian and Berber, the latter a branch of the Hamitic family.
This mingling has produced a fairly distinct ruling class. (3) The
Arab toward the eastern section of the Sudan, who also intermingled
with the Negritians, and became the ruling class of the region to the
eastward.
Each of these types, with its many tribes, inhabits sections of the
three climatic or geographical zones of the Sudan—the so-called
Banana, Millet, and Cattle Zones—and, since the climate and products
of the zones determine the main characteristics of the people, we
follow the zones in studying the people.
The characteristics of life, as well as the industries, everywhere
vary with the changing physical geography of a people’s habitat;
it is natural, therefore, to find a general and decided ascent
in industrial life from the tropical Banana Zone up to the more
temperate Millet, and again up to the Cattle Zone.
(1) The hot, humid atmosphere of the Banana Zone, and the abundant,
never-failing fruits of nature supplied without the necessity of
human culture, have developed a thriftless people, in whom the
absence of food-problems has bred an hereditary distaste for exertion
of any kind. Here and there may be found patches of corn, yams,
and ground nuts, planted by the women and slaves, and requiring
little culture. Fishing, perhaps the most leisurely of all sports,
is indulged in; but hunting is little followed, human flesh being
preferred; for the people of this zone are cannibals. The making
of implements of warfare is probably done by the men; but, where
slavery is the habit, no doubt most manual labor is the task of the
slaves—the booty of war which seems to be the chief pastime.
Polygamy is universal, family life is loose, and the standards of
chastity are correspondingly low. Wives are bought or captured; and,
since frequent wars lessen the male population, women are numerous
and cheap. The prevailing standard is unmoral rather than immoral.
Chastity is a matter of respecting the property of others, and
unchastity is punished because it is a violation of this respect for
private property. Women are always property, first of their parents,
and then of their husbands or owners.
(2) Passing northward into the Millet Zone, the tropical forests
give place to alternate woods and prairies which commence at about
the 11th parallel of north latitude. Here is the great agricultural
region, grains and nut trees taking the place of the fruits and
shrubs. In addition, cotton for clothing and other uses has been
grown for many centuries, though, until recent years, for domestic
consumption only. Domestic animals—cattle, sheep, asses, pigs,
etc.—are in use, and wild animals and birds abound. The latter are
both a source of food and also of peril; and, in the crop-season,
slaves are employed to save the produce from enemies on land and in
air. The problem of life in the Millet Zone is far more difficult
than in the Banana, for man must labor for his food, till the soil,
and store up the crops. In many places wells must be dug through
solid rock to supply water for men, domestic animals, and fowls. In
still others, wood must be hauled over long distances.
Necessity has stimulated quite a remarkable development of the
industrial arts. Potters and carpenters fashion urns and bins for
storing and protecting grain and other produce. Smiths smelt iron,
with charcoal as the fuel; make hoes, axes, knives, and other
utensils. Leather workers dress and dye hides, fashioning them
into shoes, cloaks, shields, water-vessels, etc. In one district,
the people have learned to make and to color glass; in another, to
manufacture soap. The weaving of cotton cloth and dyeing have been
practiced for many centuries.
All the arts, agricultural and industrial, declined during the
flourishing days of the slave-trade, when the selling of captive
slaves furnished the conquerors an easy road to wealth and to the
possession of much that their own labor alone had formerly provided.
Gold is an important commodity and, stored in quills, is used as a
medium of exchange; but, strangely enough, it seems only in more
modern times to have been fashioned into coins.
The labor is divided into well-defined crafts. Besides those already
mentioned, there are tailors, musicians, architects who are also
builders, barbers who also extract teeth, and even manicurists.
Slave-labor is much in demand; for here, as throughout the world,
until modern times, wherever agricultural and mechanical industries
flourished, slavery has prevailed. And just as the ancient and modern
monarchies have depended upon force of arms to supply the slaves
needed, so has it been with the negro monarchies.
Professor Ely, in his _Political Economy_, argues, from this
universal practice doubtless, that slavery is both right and wrong.
“There is a time in human development when slavery represents a
step in human progress, the best and longest that men were able
to take. Such a step is always right. It is wrong, when men have
learned how to do better.” Upon this view of the case, a host of
African explorers and observers have testified to what they regard
as the obvious advantages of the well-nigh universal slave-system
of the more progressive tribes. They testify, too, to its partially
patriarchal character in the agricultural regions, where the use of
slaves, as sacrifices to the gods or offerings upon the death of a
king, is practically never found. As an offset, however, to this
rather roseate picture, is the even more general witness to the fact
that slaves in this zone run away whenever opportunity offers, and,
if chance favors them, well supplied with the goods and cattle of
their masters to comfort them along the way.
The family life of the Millet Zone is decidedly above the standard of
the more tropical tribes. Doubtless the possession of property for
which much labor has been expended, and the necessity to preserve
and to protect it, make for a higher sense of the duties which the
relations of life bring. The women are more nearly equal in number
with the men, and are relatively more valuable, so that a substantial
price must be paid for a wife. The more complicated life, involving
barns, storehouses, etc., enlarges the idea of a home and family.
The care of the domestic animals leads up to the care of the home
inmates, and furniture is more plentiful and comfortable. The settled
life is far more favorable than the nomadic to the accumulation of
household needs and comforts. Life is both more complex and more
expensive. So, in this zone, polygamy gives place to monogamy save in
the case of the kings and the rich, who seem to accumulate wives with
wealth. The stable life tends to strengthen the ties between parents
and children.
(3) The Cattle Zone, north of the Millet, is generally an open
prairie, in which trees are scarce and grass abundant. Here, cattle
and horses abound, many of the former in a wild state, and sheep and
goats thrive. The industries of the Zone also include, to a limited
extent, agriculture and manufacturing. Cattle constitute the wealth
of the country; goats furnish the milk; rice, sweet potatoes, and a
variety of vegetables are the staple foods; cotton and indigo are
raised both for home consumption and for trading.
The city of Timbuctoo is one of the commercial centers of this
Zone. Here quantities of products are exchanged—linen and cotton
cloth, shoes of an ancient pattern, and saddles; iron and copper
implements, woodenware, pottery, etc., and great numbers of cattle.
Slavery furnishes the greater part of the labor in the Cattle Zone;
and here as in the Millet Zone, the slaves generally occupy the
position of serfs to a chief.
Family life is at a decidedly higher stage of development. While
wives are bought, and at a high price, there is a notable exception
in the case of one tribe, according to whose customs daughters are
allowed the right to be wooed, and the privilege of accepting or
rejecting the suitor. Here only, among the many tribes of Negritians,
there is evidence of romantic love so inseparable from marriage in
our own land. In this Zone not a few of the tribes are Mohammedans,
and in these the customs of sex relations and family life are largely
dominated by that religion.
Where the Fellatahs dominate, the cleavage between rich and poor is
very marked, the homes of the former being sometimes almost palatial,
while those of the poor are miserable hovels made of poles, often
with sorghum stalks for rafters, and straw mats for covering, and
side-walls. A variety of architecture and material, however, appears
in the many villages and cities of the Zone, and the daily sweeping
of floors shows a desire for cleanliness unknown to other zones. The
men are the chief supporters of their families, and woman enjoys a
liberty elsewhere universally denied her. She owns her own property
ofttimes; and her own slaves, if the family be rich, to cultivate and
garner her crops. The wife is treated with respect, yet is humble
and submissive, kneeling in obeisance to her husband.
* * * * *
Politically, the governments of the Sudan present much the picture of
the old feudal days of our own ancestors. The king is supreme, and in
him all legislative power is vested, influenced by the local chiefs
of the towns into which the inhabitants are gathered for purposes
of protection. Under the king, a council and chief officers execute
his commands. Each town is administered by its local chief, who is
supreme in his district. All alike furnish soldiers for the king’s
army, and pay tribute to the royal treasury. Below the aristocratic
class are the freemen; and below them the slaves, in castes which
inhibit all incentive to rise in the social scale. However crude,
a system of laws is administered, and trials are conducted by the
local chief or by one of the king’s officers. Appeal can be made
to the king in case decisions are felt to be unjust. Penalties are
irregular, but generally extreme, including beheading or burning
or dismemberment in the case of murder, while severe whipping with
rawhide suffices for lesser offenses.
* * * * *
The remaining two great Families—the Gallas and the Bantus—inhabit
eastern and southeastern Africa. They are not so largely represented
in America as their kinsmen already mentioned, and regretfully we
must pass them by with short notice of each.
=III. The Gallas= inhabit the region known as Nubia, lying to the
south and west of Abyssinia, and the region on the two sides of the
White Nile and thence southward almost to Lake Victoria. But it
must be borne in mind that these divisional names are arbitrarily
bestowed upon large groups, comprising millions of people, divided
into scores of tribes, each more or less distinct in size, color,
and social customs. The northern group of tribes have sometimes
been called Nubians. Some of these, in time, became mixed with the
Hamites, and, in ancient times, were dangerous enemies of the Roman
Province of Africanus, and even compelled Diocletian to withdraw
his garrisons from above the cataracts of the Nile. About 550 A. D.
they were converted to Christianity and welded into a great people
under the leadership of Silko. With the coming of the Arabs, they
were gradually subdued, partly by force, still more by amalgamation;
and, by the fourteenth century, they became largely Mohammedan in
religion, while remaining essentially Negro in spite of Arab and
Bosnian infusions. They have oval faces, large black eyes, and
prominent narrow noses; in color, they are dark mahogany or bronze.
Their kinsmen to the East and South are very similar in color and
feature; and both are fine, sturdy types, the women often exceedingly
graceful. Their social and economic life is not unlike that of the
pastoral and agricultural tribes of the Sudan.
The tribes farther south are of a still lighter color, some being
an earthy red, while others, the Mangbattu for example, are of a
lighter tint than perhaps any other tribe of Africa.
=IV. The Bantus= inhabit the vast area from about Lake Victoria,
comprising Eastern Equatorial and South Central Africa. Of the
Equatorial tribes, the Ugandas are generally the finest types and
the most progressive. Stanley tells us that he found them to be fine
craftsmen. Even more than elsewhere, Uganda is a land of musicians,
who have developed a great variety of native musical instruments. The
Congo region also produces a fine race, physically superior to any of
their kinsmen. In the mountains of the region “one sees magnificent
specimens of human beings, both male and female. They are a tall,
powerful people of dark brown color, often with regular features.”
The tribes to the south of the Equator are among the very finest in
general physical and mental development; among them are the Zulus,
the Kaffirs, and others nearly as well known to the general reader.
The Zulus, e. g., are tall, shapely and muscular, and often with
Grecian features, the skin varying from a light clear brown to blue
black. Some of these tribes are highly developed in foresight,
self-control, rational interpretation, and general intelligence. Many
are fearless and brave to the point of foolhardiness, and the stories
of the achievements of some of their warriors read like the tales of
the Scottish chiefs so fascinating to our boyhood.
But we must content ourselves now with these brief comments, adding
a quotation from _The Mind of Primitive Man_, by Boas. “To those
unfamiliar with the products of native African art and industry,
a walk through one of the large museums of Europe would be a
revelation. None of our American museums has made collections that
exhibit this subject in any way worth while. The blacksmith, the
wood carver, the weaver, the potter—these all produce ware original
in form, executed with care, and exhibiting that love of labor and
interest in the results of work, which are apparently so often
lacking among the Negroes in our American surroundings.”
Our studies have revealed, in the negro race, a great variety of
intelligence, often of a very high order; powers of organization of
no slight degree of development; and thrift that has supplied large
cities as trade centers, of which Timbuctoo is, perhaps, chief.
“Neither is the wisdom of the philosopher absent,” says Professor
Boas. “A perusal of any of the collections of African proverbs
that have been published, will demonstrate the homely, practical
philosophy of the Negro, which is often proof of sound feeling and
judgment.”
The religions of the more advanced tribes, though differing in many
of their practical details of application to life, may fairly be
treated as one. It should not surprise us to find that there is no
known tribe in Africa, or elsewhere in the world, which has not a
religion; for God “hath not left Himself without witness” among any
people.
Religion does not begin with the Incarnate Christ. He is not the
first revelation of God, but His last and complete revelation.
Through the personal message of the Incarnate One correcting errors,
interpreting and confirming mysteries, and thus revealing the
rational in what is inexplicable and indefinable otherwise, comes
the interpretation of man’s natural religion. The fulfilment of all
religion is Jesus Christ; without Whom, religion has ever degenerated
into superstition. In its primary meaning, Religion is the law of
relation—personal relation to all that is outside of self—to God,
to one’s own complex nature, to man, and to the world. And since
the law of relation is personal, it is susceptible of an infinite
variety of interpretations and applications as personality grows
and expands. Upon the growth of the religious sense, therefore,
depends the progress of moral and spiritual character. The source
of enlightenment for the savage is the great Book of Nature, God’s
first volume of His Self-revelation. In the interpretation of this
book, manifold elements enter, combining to yield many lessons from
its living chapters. The initial question of all peoples as they
looked out upon the world has been: Whence came it? And upon the
forces of nature: What are they? In a land filled with wild beasts
and reptiles, visited by storms and floods, subject to earthquakes
and volcanoes, its people a prey to disease and death, what is the
explanation that the African has given? What has he thought of
sun, moon and stars, and of earth itself? It is safe to say that
his answers to these questions have been pretty much what other
primitive peoples have given. If the wind blows, it is a spirit
grown restless; if the lightning flashes, it is the angry hiss of a
malignant spirit; if sun and moon travel through the air, they are
powerful gods, far removed, but remotely affecting the earth; if an
eclipse comes, the gods in anger hide their faces; if wild beasts
roar and serpents hiss, these are the emissaries of evil spirits.
Thus everything that moves is endowed with life and intelligence. The
Eskimo, for instance, is persuaded that a watch is a living thing
because its parts move.
Naturally, the African first feared the mysterious living spirits;
then sought to pacify and bribe by the only offerings valuable in
his own eyes—the food and drink which satisfied and made content.
His idea of spirits was the reflection of his scant knowledge of
himself—a half-true, half-false, canon of interpretation which
becomes wholly false when the other half is unknown or forgotten; for
the idea of self must also be the reflection of God’s knowledge of us
and of His purpose for us and our knowledge of Him.
In many tribes, a belief in a double personality prevails, and this
the African proves by the wandering of oneself when, in the dream of
sleep, he goes upon journeys, meets friends or enemies, engages in
sports, or conflict, and returns, filled with experiences, to the
other self which has been quietly asleep all the while. And because
this dream-self meets, sometimes, the spirits of the dead, therefore
one of these selves must live after death. This gives rise, too, to
the belief that one of these personal spirits is not inseparable from
the body, but may go out at pleasure at any time, and inhabit other
men, or even beasts. This spirit, or _Kra_, makes its exit through
the mouth always, and since these Kras are moving about at large, a
strange Kra may slip into the unoccupied place of another, and cause
no end of mischief; it is important, therefore, not to sleep with the
mouth open.
When a man loses his Kra, illness results, and the witch doctor must
be called in, who brings a good Kra, or dream-soul, in a basket.
If successful in getting this new Kra into the sick man’s mouth,
recovery results. So, too, when the Kra of the dead lingers about
the home, sickness is caused, and only the doctor, by inducing the
Kra to move on to the land of the dead, can thus restore the living
to health. In time, however, among many tribes, the Kra returns
to make his abode in a newborn infant, whose features and actions
disclose the identity of the Kra. Miss Kingsley notes the incident
of an identification. When a baby has grasped a pipe shown him, the
mother is sure that “he is Uncle John. See, he knows his pipe!” The
reader may find some correspondence between this notion of the double
personality and those entertained by the scholarly psychologists of
the Caucasian race in their dissertation upon the supra-normal self,
and like manifestations.
This feature has been dwelt upon because it serves to convey the
point of view of the Negro, surrounded by the spirits of gods and
devils and dead men, and living too; and the spirits of every life
and force of Nature,—a perfect swarm of spirits, nearly all of whom
are busy meddling with the affairs of men, and who must be outwitted
or bribed or won over if disaster is to be avoided. Life is thus a
tragic drama unending, whose comedy, however, is constantly realized
in the outwitting of the cunning spirits, and the overcoming of the
powerful by ingenious strategy.
Every tribe has a secret society, through which every freeman must
pass. In the course of this education, should a boy be found who
can see spirits, he is assigned to the medical profession, and is
apprenticed to a witch-doctor to whom a good fee must be paid,
and who instructs him in the mysteries of the spirit-world. He
accompanies his teacher, picks up his bedside manner, learns to howl
in a professional way, and, if possible, how to simulate epilepsy.
A knowledge, also of the dispositions of the prospective patients,
their financial standing, the scandals of the people, is of great
value to the budding doctor. Perhaps this method of practice may seem
absurd; but, in spite of this, many of the doctors possess a fund of
wisdom in dealing with human nature, and also a store of knowledge
of medical herbs, which has been of great value in later times to
the white explorers and missionaries, as well as to the Negroes.
According to the lights which they possess, they are guided often by
the same motives which sway the civilized physician, and apply the
same method of investigation employed by the enlightened scientist.
The most that should be said is that the African doctor is behind
the times. Yet, even here, it is interesting to know, and simple
justice to Africa to repeat the record, that for many centuries men
of the Yoruba tribe have known that smallpox is produced by the
evil god _Shank-panna_ whose agents are _mosquitoes and flies_; and
there are not a few examples of doctors who examine their patients,
locate the disease by scientific diagnosis, and prescribe both diet
and medicine. In general terms, “religion and medicine” are one and
the same in the mind of the African, since all medical practice is
contact with the spirits.
A priestly caste, consisting of three orders, prevails in some of
these tribes. Each order represents a class of gods. Their office
is hereditary, but is replenished through the secret society of
the tribe which forms a school of training for the priest, as for
the doctor. Idols are much used, to whom sacrifices are offered in
worship of the god represented.
The very high development in aesthetics is so conspicuous a
characteristic of the Negro as to make a racial differentiation. No
other race is so musical, no other more given to dancing, no other so
profuse in personal decorations.
The boatman sings all day long, keeping time with his paddle; the
woman pounds grain in time with her chants; the farmer, with his hoe.
Joy, grief, love, pain, are all expressed in spontaneous song. In
some regions, professional musicians chant the chronicles of their
tribes. Sometimes the strolling minstrel sings the folklore, reciting
the experiences of men with animals, of animals with animals, acting
the parts as he sings the story. In writing of these, Miss Kingsley
thus closes her vivid description: “O! that was something like a
song! It would have roused a rock to enthusiasm; a civilized audience
would have smothered its singer with bouquets!”
Dancing, too, is a mode of expressing feeling, almost universal.
Scarcely a night but somewhere in a village the dance is in progress.
Among all people, indeed, the bodily expression of inward emotion
is the natural ritual of communication. The savage does not find
vent for his emotions in the numberless ways acquired by civilized
people—through writing, painting, the drama, discoursive language and
the like; but he combines them all in the dance, just as at other
times they are all expressed in music. It is a mistake to suppose
that his dancing is always sensuous and frivolous. There is enough
of this, it is true; but at times his deepest emotions are also thus
expressed. There is the dance of religious fervor, of preparation for
war, of celebration of victory, of lament for loss, in the planting
time, and in the harvest. Such dances inspire devotion, courage,
industry, patriotism, and tribal unity in a common cause.
But the aesthetics of the Negro are still more vividly and luridly
illustrated in his personal decorations, at all times from a sense
of beauty, sometimes as tribal insignia. Tattooing, in some tribes;
painting, in most of them; the wearing of ornaments on foreheads,
in cheeks or lips or ears or nose; the filing of teeth, or even
the extraction of one or more, are usual forms of decorations.
Body-painting is the practice of the Nile tribes; and, in the west,
the dyeing of hands, feet, eyebrows, and lips. Artistic head-dresses
and the dyeing of hair seem popular among many tribes. In the cotton
area, the use of fancy dyed cloth prevails. The styles are graceful
and picturesque. Where straw goods are made, the head-dress is both
useful and ornamental a high degree.
A natural question is, to what is the backwardness of the Negro in
Africa due? This is not a merely forensic question. To prejudiced
people, it is dismissed as a waste of time, since to such people
the Negro is incapable of anything better. But prejudice is, of all
mental conditions, the least favorable to the satisfactory solution
of any question. Our question has had varying answers from many
students, among which the following, given in Dowd’s _Negro Races_,
seems a conservative mean.
“The backwardness of the Negro in Africa is not due directly to lack
of mental capacity, but to unfavorable environment. If any other race
had peopled Africa in early neolithic times, and remained there until
now, it would have advanced no higher than the present culture-level
of the Negro.”
Africa lies almost wholly in the hot, humid zone of the Tropics,
save for the vast Desert of Sahara to the north. There is, indeed,
another vast area on the temperate side of the Tropic of Capricorn
which, at sight, inspires hope for the development of a rich,
virile civilization; but an examination of the isotherms reveals
conditions uncongenial to the spontaneous development of a high type
of civilization. Even as low as Natal and Cape Colony, the coastal
belt produces tropical fruits like all the rest of Africa. In such
environs the negro tribes lived in isolation from other races; cut
off from the Mediterranean Empire by the Sahara Desert, and from
Europe and Asia by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Whatever stimulus
to development may come from contact with other peoples—and there is
much—was denied to the Negro, save that which arose from inter-racial
conflict among themselves, an unceasing bar to higher development for
any race, and seemingly inseparable from racial isolation.
And yet a distinct progress is clearly manifested through facts which
stand out in eloquent boldness. On the one hand, we see the Pygmies,
without organization or law or even language save the most meager,
with scarce enough even of settled custom to fix any habits of moral
life. On the other hand, the most advanced tribes of north and east
Africa, like the Yorubas, the Zulus, and the Kaffirs, exhibit a
marked degree of progress. Here are well-defined organizations; codes
of laws which, however they fall short of ours, are actual codes
sufficing for them; moral codes which, however far from the Christian
standard, yet form codes to be obeyed and enforced; a language
(in the case of the Kaffirs) “adequate for the expression of any
ideas whatever”; industries sufficiently developed to meet backward
needs; a highly developed aesthetic sense; enough of self-control to
conserve courage; and a fair degree of steadfastness of purpose.
Among the very highest type, is found the practice of the virtues
of affection, kindness, and mutual helpfulness; of honesty in their
own group, even to punishing the liar—and much more. Who can gainsay
the fact of progress far too great to be overlooked? Who can say
what might have been attained under more favorable conditions? Who
can say what further progress—slow, very slow, and deliberate—awaits
achievements, in view of that which, in the past, has been distinctly
and, in many cases, wholly their very own? It is beside our purpose
to make a comparison of races. Our study is of the Negro himself; and
our findings prove, what naturally would have been expected of God’s
creation, a people _worth while in themselves_.
What has been the effect of the coming of civilized people to these
backward races? The well-nigh universal testimony is proclaimed as
a tragic wail, that contact with the white man has, upon the whole,
been degrading, not elevating to the Negro. And this is consistently
true, though with bright and hopeful exceptions here and there.
From the demoralizing era of the slave-traffic, involving robbing,
cheating, the violation of the most solemn treaties, and the bad
example of private life, up to the settling of the Congo, the one
aim of the white man has been his own profit at whatever cost to
the natives. Certain, and often great, advantages to the Negro have
been sought and gained by the Christian Church and by scientific
efforts; but these are small beside the hurt inflicted by the horde
of profit-seeking, selfish fortune-hunters, to whom the Negro is a
savage of the lower order, to be tramped upon.
To quote Miss Kingsley again: “It is an unfortunate concomitant of
European civilization that its first impress has, almost without
exception, been disastrous to the people of lower degree of culture
than the European standards. For every sincere bearer of the banner
of the Prince of Peace there were a hundred reckless buccaneers,
without one thought of the spiritual or physical welfare of the
‘savage heathen’ whom they met. It is so in the case of Africa.
Down both coasts, the European civilization marched, one missionary
disposed to recognize the brotherhood of man, and a hundred
freebooters insistent that to the victor belong the spoils.” Miss
Kingsley’s language is mild, and is quoted because of its tone.
But happily there is another side here, too, to relieve the tragic
gloom of the picture. Concerning the comparatively large endeavors of
the Christian missionaries of Uganda in East Africa, and of those on
the West Coast, it is most encouraging to be able to quote from Dowd:
“Contact with the Europeans has done much to lift the Waganda
(Uganda) from their savagery. It has diminished wars, human
sacrifices, trial by ordeal; and has reformed the administration of
justice. Many Mission-schools have Christianized and enlightened the
masses. It is claimed that 200,000 (this is eight years ago) of the
natives can read and write. In religious, as in other innovations,
however, the transformation has been too sudden, and not always
adapted to native psychology.”
This is a mere word about a truly great mission, on a nation-wide
scale, whose success constitutes one of the really great romances of
modern times. Unhappily, it does not fall to our lot to relate its
history, but the reader will miss much if he fails to learn the story
as told by the English Church missionaries.
Special attention is called to the closing sentence of the quotation
above; for, in it, the finger is put upon the crux of the problem of
Christian evangelization, whether in Africa or in America, among the
Negroes or the Indians, or wherever one race evangelizes another.
When Bishop Tucker of Uganda writes, one feels himself to be at the
feet of an expert. “Were I asked,” he writes, “to give my opinion
as to what, in my estimation, has most hindered the development
and independence of the native Churches, I should unhesitatingly
answer, that deep-rooted tendency which there is in the Anglo-Saxon
character to Anglicize everything with which it comes in contact.”
And recently, upon his visit to America, Dr. King, President of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and formerly Bishop of
Zanzibar, expressed substantially the same judgment.
The reluctance of the white race, whether in England or America, to
permit the negro race to develop his own Christian civilization with
all of racial coloring and aesthetic characteristics, has long been
restively regarded by many of us. Christianity is not a racial,
but a catholic, religion; not obliterating racial characteristics,
but regenerating them. A superficial expression of this is the
assertion so often made, “religion must adapt itself to peoples.”
Christianity is a life, and life is not adaptable, it is adoptable.
Once adopted, it grows and, therefore, takes form. It is the form
that is adaptable; and when the life is permitted to grow normally,
it appropriates and consecrates the form that is adaptable to the
personality that it inhabits.
Christianity is nowhere and at no time to be _adapted_ to anybody;
but anybody may be adapted to Christianity, as the power (not the
form) of its life transforms and transfuses man. Racial traits and
tendencies are so slow to change, that it is a very real question
whether they really do change, or whether they are only modified or
quickened or redirected with the change of environment which new
climes or training, or education produce.
If this be true, the sum total of the process of civilization would
be a Caucasian civilization, and a Negro, and an Indian, no matter
how much each contributed to the other in the fashioning of his own.
Would it not be a great loss to the culture of the human family, if
all the races were to lose their predominant characteristics, and
were to be reduced to a dead medium level? But, thank God, this is
impossible, in spite of the seeming ambition of the Anglo-Saxon to
Anglo-Saxonize all peoples, and of the Teuton to Teutonize the world.
Statesmen may have been sometimes unfortunate in applying the canon
of “self-determination”; but it has its place, in creation, a place
which the God of infinite variety has sanctioned.
A glance now, momentary but very earnestly thoughtful, toward the
concrete fruits of the Christian Mission to Africa, will throw
another ray of light upon our own Mission at home. The picture drawn
by close and sympathetic observers is something like the moving
picture of a continuous drama. In the beginning, the converted,
tutored Negroes were much like children with a new toy among
playmates with none. Artificially trained and educated, moulded in
a strange pattern, they stood aloof from, and above, their less
fortunate old-time fellows, or else reverted to the old type. Vain
and prideful in their new attainments, they looked down with contempt
upon the uninitiated. This, of course, was not always so; but it was,
perhaps, the natural first consequence of a rapid change and too
quickly acquired distinction among their own people.
Exceptions there were among the Europeanized Africans, enough to
encourage hope of the better day. Some there were who would “no more
have dropped their store clothes and gone cannibalizing than we
would.” And the new day slowly came through the gamut of recurring
improvements and relapses which characterizes human progress in every
race. There were the isolated leaders, the greater in their day
because fashioned without a racial mould, to become by God’s grace
the ensigns for the gradual gathering of their several peoples.
“Men of large mould, like the Rev. Thomas J. Marshall, of Porto Novo,
who was born in one of the blackest spots in darkest Africa, and who
has been instrumental in leading a whole people into the knowledge
and practice of Christianity; the Rev. Jacob Anaman, a native
minister of the Gold Coast, who has been made a fellow of the Royal
Geographical Society; Sir Samuel Lewis, Mayor of Freetown, a native
of Sierra Leone, who, in 1893, was appointed a companion of the Order
of St. Michael and St. George, and was recently distinguished by the
Order of Knighthood—the first pure Negro on whom such honor has been
conferred. He is an exemplary follower of the Christ. And Bishop
Crowther, the first of his race to be called to that sacred office,
whose story is known to all the world. Following in his footsteps we
have, at the present time, Bishop Phillips and Oluwole, two excellent
and worthy natives connected with the Church Missionary Society of
the Church of England.” And last, there is to be added to this list,
Bishop Theophilus Momolu Gardiner, of Liberia, a native Bushman,
recently consecrated and charged with the sacred mission of leading
his heathen tribe to the foot of the Cross.
These isolated leaders have been and are becoming the forerunners of
the many lesser who must be born out of the uplifted population of
their tribes. For until the whole population is so far elevated that
the few exceptional real leaders are the spontaneous fruit of the
tribal tree, real and permanent progress has not yet been made. But
then there will be leadership indeed, because it will be recognized
as the result of the native Christian life. Such leadership, in
fullest sympathy with the life from which it sprang, will arouse
enthusiasm, and, in the Master’s name and power, draw all men to
Him.