BLACK MAN'S LAND
Black Man's Land is primarily Africa south of the Sahara Desert. Here
dwell the bulk of all the 150,000,000 black men on earth. The negro and
negroid population of Africa is estimated at about
120,000,000--four-fifths of the black race-total. Besides its African
nucleus the black race has two distant outposts: the one in Australasia,
the other in the Americas. The Eastern blacks are found mainly in the
archipelagoes lying between the Asiatic land-mass and Australia. They are
the Oriental survivors of the black belt which in very ancient times
stretched uninterruptedly from Africa across southern Asia to the Pacific
Ocean. The Asiatic blacks were overwhelmed by other races ages ago, and
only a few wild tribes like the "Negritos" of the Philippines and the
jungle-dwellers of Indo-China and southern India survive as genuine
negroid stocks. All the peoples of southern Asia, however, are darkened by
this ancient negroid strain. The peoples of south India are notably tinged
with black blood. As for the pure blacks of the Australasian
archipelagoes, they are so few in numbers (about 3,000,000) and so low in
type that they are of negligible importance. Quite otherwise are the
blacks of the Far West. In the western hemisphere there are some
25,000,000 persons of more or less mixed black blood, brought thither in
modern times as slaves by the white conquerors of the New World. Still,
whatever may be the destiny of these transplanted black folk, the black
man's chief significance, from the world aspect, must remain bound up with
the great nucleus of negro population in the African homeland.
Black Africa, as I have said, lies south of the Sahara Desert. Here the
negro has dwelt for unnumbered ages. The key-note of black history, like
yellow history, has been isolation. Cut off from the Mediterranean by the
desert which he had no means of crossing, and bounded elsewhere by oceans
which he had no skill in navigating, the black man vegetated in savage
obscurity, his habitat being well named the "Dark Continent."
Until the white tide began breaking on its sea-fronts four centuries ago,
the black world's only external stimuli had come from brown men landing on
its eastern coasts or ascending the valley of the Nile. As time passed,
both brown and white pressures became more intense, albeit the browns long
led in the process of penetration. Advancing from the east and trickling
across the desert from the north, Arab or Arabized adventurers conquered
black Africa to the equator; and this political subjugation had also a
racial side, for the conquerors sowed their blood freely and set a
brownish stamp on many regions. As for the whites, they long remained mere
birds of passage. Half a century ago they possessed little more than
trading-posts along the littorals, their only real settlement lying in the
extreme south.
Then, suddenly, all was changed. In the closing decades of the nineteenth
century, Europe turned its gaze full upon the Dark Continent, and within a
generation Africa was partitioned between the European Powers. Negro and
Arab alike fell under European domination. Only minute Liberia and remote
Abyssinia retained a qualified independence. Furthermore, white settlement
also made distinct progress. The tropical bulk of Africa defied white
colonization, but the continent's northern and southern extremities were
climatically "white man's country." Accordingly, there are to-day nearly a
million whites settled along the Algerian and Tunisian seaboard, while in
South Africa, Dutch and British blood has built up a powerful commonwealth
containing fully one and one-half million white souls. In Africa, unlike
Asia, the European has taken root, and has thus gained at least local
tenures of a fundamental nature.
The crux of the African problem therefore resolves itself into the
question whether the white man, through consolidated racial holds north
and south, will be able to perpetuate his present political control over
the intermediate continental mass which climate debars him from
populating. This is a matter of great importance, for Africa is a land of
enormous potential wealth, the natural source of Europe's tropical raw
materials and foodstuffs. Whether Europe is to retain possession depends,
in the last analysis, on the character of the inhabitants. It is, then,
to the nature of the black man and his connection with the brown world
that we must direct our attention.
From the first glance we see that, in the negro, we are in the presence of
a being differing profoundly not merely from the white man but also from
those human types which we discovered in our surveys of the brown and
yellow worlds. The black man is, indeed, sharply differentiated from the
other branches of mankind. His outstanding quality is superabundant animal
vitality. In this he easily surpasses all other races. To it he owes his
intense emotionalism. To it, again, is due his extreme fecundity, the
negro being the quickest of breeders. This abounding vitality shows in
many other ways, such as the negro's ability to survive harsh conditions
of slavery under which other races have soon succumbed. Lastly, in ethnic
crossings, the negro strikingly displays his prepotency, for black blood,
once entering a human stock, seems never really bred out again.
Negro fecundity is a prime factor in Africa's future. In the savage state
which until recently prevailed, black multiplication was kept down by a
wide variety of checks. Both natural and social causes combined to
maintain an extremely high death-rate. The negro's political ineptitude,
never rising above the tribal concept, kept black Africa a mosaic of
peoples, warring savagely among themselves and widely addicted to
cannibalism. Then, too, the native religions were usually sanguinary,
demanding a prodigality of human sacrifices. The killings ordained by
negro wizards and witch-doctors sometimes attained unbelievable
proportions. The combined result of all this was a wastage of life which
in other races would have spelled a declining population. Since the
establishment of white political control, however, these checks on black
fecundity are no longer operative. The white rulers fight filth and
disease, stop tribal wars, and stamp out superstitious abominations. In
consequence, population increases by leaps and bounds, the latent
possibilities being shown in the native reservations in South Africa,
where tribes have increased as much as tenfold in fifty or sixty years. It
is therefore practically certain that the African negroes will multiply
prodigiously in the next few decades.
Now, what will be the attitude of these augmenting black masses toward
white political dominion? To that momentous query no certain answer can be
made. One thing, however, seems clear: the black world's reaction to white
ascendancy will be markedly different from those of the brown and yellow
worlds, because of the profound dissimilarities between negroes and men of
other stocks. To begin with, the black peoples have no historic pasts.
Never having evolved civilizations of their own, they are practically
devoid of that accumulated mass of beliefs, thoughts, and experiences
which render Asiatics so, impenetrable and so hostile to white influences.
Although the white race displays sustained constructive power to an
unrivalled degree, particularly in its Nordic branches, the brown and
yellow peoples have contributed greatly to the civilization of the world
and have profoundly influenced human progress. The negro, on the contrary,
has contributed virtually nothing. Left to himself, he remained a savage,
and in the past his only quickening has been where brown men have imposed
their ideas and altered his blood. The originating powers of the European
and the Asiatic are not in him.
This lack of constructive originality, however, renders the negro
extremely susceptible to external influences. The Asiatic, conscious of
his past and his potentialities, is chary of foreign innovations and
refuses to recognize alien superiority. The negro, having no past,
welcomes novelty and tacitly admits that others are his masters. Both
brown and white men have been so accepted in Africa. The relatively faint
resistance offered by the naturally brave blacks to white and brown
conquest, the ready reception of Christianity and Islam, and the
extraordinary personal ascendancy acquired by individual Arabs and
Europeans, all indicate a willingness to accept foreign tutelage which in
the Asiatic is wholly absent.
The Arab and the European are, in fact, rivals for the mastership of black
Africa. The Arab had a long start, but the European suddenly overtook him
and brought not only the blacks but the African Arabs themselves under his
sway. It remains to be seen whether the Arab, allying himself with the
blacks, can oust his white rival. That some such move will be attempted,
in view of the brown world's renaissance in general and the extraordinary
activity of the Arab peoples in particular, seems a foregone conclusion.
How the matter will work out depends on three things: (1) the brown man's
inherent strength in Africa; (2) the possibilities of black disaffection
against white tutelage; (3) the white man's strength and power of
resistance.
The seat of brown power in Africa is of course the great belt of territory
north of the Sahara. From Egypt to Morocco the inhabitants are Arabized in
culture and Mohammedan in faith, while Arab blood has percolated ever
since the Moslem conquest twelve centuries ago. In the eastern half of
this zone Arabization has been complete, and Egypt, Tripoli, and the Sudan
can be considered as unalterably wedded to the brown Islamic world. The
zone's western half, however, is in different case. The majority of its
inhabitants are Berbers, an ancient stock generally considered white, with
close affinities to the Latin peoples across the Mediterranean. As usual,
blood tells. The Berbers have been under Arab tutelage for over a thousand
years, yet their whole manner of life remains distinct, they have largely
kept their language, and there has been comparatively little
intermarriage. Pure-blooded Arabs abound, but they are still, in a way,
foreigners. To-day the entire region is under white, French, rule.
Algeria, in particular, has been politically French for almost a hundred
years. Europeans have come in and number nearly a million souls. The Arab
element shows itself sullen and refractory, but the Berbers display much
less aversion to French rule, which, as usual, is considerate of native
susceptibilities. The French colonial authorities are alive to the
Berber's ethnic affinities and tactfully seek to stimulate his dormant
white consciousness. In Algeria intermarriage between Europeans and
Berbers has actually begun. Of course the process is merely in its first
stages. Still, the blood is there, the leaven is working, and in time
Northwest Africa may return to the white world, where it was in Roman days
and where it racially belongs. In the anti-European disturbances now
taking place in Algeria and Tunis it is safe to say that the Arab element
is making most of the trouble.
It is Northeast Africa, then, which is the real nucleus of Arabism. Here
Arabism and Islam rule unchecked, and in the preceding chapter we saw how
the Senussi Order was marshalling the fierce nomads of the desert. These
tribesmen are relatively few in numbers, but more splendid fighting
material does not exist in the wide world. Furthermore, the Arab-negroid
peoples which have developed along the southern edge of the desert so
blend the martial qualities of both strains that they frequently display
an almost demoniacal fighting-power. It is Pan-Islamism's hope to use
these Arab or Arabized fanatics as an officers' corps for the black
millions whom it is converting to the faith.
Concerning Islam's steady progress in black Africa there can be no shadow
of a doubt. Every candid European observer tells the same story.
"Mohammedanism," says Sir Charles Elliott, "can still give the natives a
motive for animosity against Europeans and a unity of which they are
otherwise incapable."[52] Twenty years ago another English observer, T. R.
Threlfall, wrote: "Mohammedanism is making marvellous progress in the
interior of Africa. It is crushing paganism out. Against it the Christian
propaganda is a myth.... The rapid spread of militant Mohammedanism among
the savage tribes to the north of the equator is a serious factor in the
fight for racial supremacy in Africa. With very few exceptions the colored
races of Africa are pre-eminently fighters. To them the law of the
stronger is supreme; they have been conquered, and in turn they conquered.
To them the fierce, warlike spirit inherent in Mohammedanism is infinitely
more attractive than is the gentle, peace-loving, high moral standard of
Christianity: hence, the rapid headway the former is making in central
Africa, and the certainty that it will soon spread to the south of the
Zambezi."[53]
The way in which Islam is marching southward is dramatically shown by a
recent incident. A few years ago the British authorities suddenly
discovered that Mohammedanism was pervading Nyassaland. An investigation
brought out the fact that it was the work of Zanzibar Arabs. They began
their propaganda about 1900. Ten years later almost every village in
southern Nyassaland had its Moslem teacher and its mosque-hut. Although
the movement was frankly anti-European, the British authorities did not
dare to check it for fear of repercussions elsewhere. Another interesting
fact, probably not unconnected, is that Nyassaland has lately been the
theatre of an anti-white "Christian" propaganda--the so-called "Ethiopian
Church," of which I shall presently speak.
Islam has thus two avenues of approach to the African negro--his natural
preference for a militant faith and his resentment at white tutelage. It
is the disinclination of the more martial African peoples for a pacific
creed which perhaps accounts for Christianity's slow progress among the
very warlike tribes of South Africa, such as the Zulus and the Matabele.
Islam is as yet unknown south of the Zambezi, but white men universally
dread the possibility of its appearance, fearing its effect upon the
natives. Of course Christianity has made distinct progress in the Dark
Continent. The natives of the South African Union are predominantly
Christianized. In east-central Africa Christianity has also gained many
converts, particularly in Uganda, while on the West African Guinea coast
Christian missions have long been established and have generally succeeded
in keeping Islam away from the seaboard. Certainly, all white men, whether
professing Christians or not, should welcome the success of missionary
efforts in Africa. The degrading fetishism and demonology which sum up the
native pagan cults cannot stand, and all negroes will some day be either
Christians or Moslems. In so far as he is Christianized, the negro's
savage instincts will be restrained and he will be disposed to acquiesce
in white tutelage. In so far as he is Islamized, the negro's warlike
propensities will be inflamed, and he will be used as the tool of Arab
Pan-Islamism seeking to drive the white man from Africa and make the
continent its very own.
As to specific anti-white sentiments among negroes untouched by Moslem
propaganda, such sentiments undoubtedly exist in many quarters. The
strongest manifestations are in South Africa, where interracial relations
are bad and becoming worse, but there is much diffused, half-articulate
dislike of white men throughout central Africa as well. Devoid though the
African savage is of either national or cultural consciousness, he could
not be expected to welcome a tutelage which imposed many irksome
restrictions upon him. Furthermore, the African negro does seem to possess
a certain rudimentary sense of race-solidarity. The existence of both
these sentiments is proved by the way in which the news of white military
reverses have at once been known and rejoiced in all over black Africa;
spread, it would seem, by those mysterious methods of communication
employed by negroes everywhere and called in our Southern States
"grape-vine telegraph." The Russo-Japanese War, for example, produced all
over the Dark Continent intensely exciting effects.
This generalized anti-white feeling has, during the past decade, taken
tangible form in South Africa. The white population of the Union, though
numbering 1,500,000, is surrounded by a black population four times as
great and increasing more rapidly, while in many sections the whites are
outnumbered ten to one. The result is a state of affairs exactly
paralleling conditions in our own South, the South African whites feeling
obliged to protect their ascendancy by elaborate legal regulations and
social taboos. The negroes have been rapidly growing more restive under
these discriminations, and unpleasant episodes like race-riots, rapings,
and lynchings are increasing in South Africa from year to year.
One of the most significant, not to say ominous, signs of the times is the
"Ethiopian Church" movement. The movement began about fifteen years ago,
some of its founders being Afro-American Methodist preachers--a fact which
throws a curious light on possible American negro reflexes upon their
ancestral homeland. The movement spread rapidly, many native mission
congregations cutting loose from white ecclesiastical control and joining
the negro organization. It also soon displayed frankly anti-white
tendencies, and the government became seriously alarmed at its unsettling
influence upon the native mind. It was suspected of having had a hand in
the Zulu rising which broke out in Natal in 1907 and which was put down
only after many whites and thousands of natives had lost their lives.
Shortly afterward the authorities outlawed the Ethiopian Church and
forbade Afro-American preachers to enter South Africa, but the movement,
though legally suppressed, lived surreptitiously on and appeared in new
quarters.
In 1915 a peculiarly fanatical form of Ethiopianism broke out in
Nyassaland. Its leader was a certain John Chilembwe, an Ethiopian preacher
who had been educated in the United States. His propaganda was bitterly
anti-white, asserting that Africa belonged to the black man, that the
white man was an intruder, and that he ought to be killed off until he
grew discouraged and abandoned the country. Chilembwe plotted a rising all
over Nyassaland, the killing of the white men, and the carrying off of the
white women. In January, 1915, the rising took place. Some plantations
were sacked and several whites killed, their heads being carried to
Chilembwe's "church," where a thanksgiving service for victory was held.
The whites, however, acted with great vigor, the poorly armed insurgents
were quickly scattered, and John Chilembwe himself was soon hunted down
and killed. In itself, the incident was of slight importance, but, taken
in connection with much else, it does not augur well for the future.[54]
An interesting indication of the growing sense of negro race-solidarity
was the "Pan-African Congress" held at Paris early in 1919. Here delegates
from black communities throughout the world gathered to discuss matters of
common interest. Most of the delegates were from Africa and the Americas,
but one delegate from New Guinea was also present, thus representing the
Australasian branch of the black race. The Congress was not largely
attended and was of a somewhat provisional character, but arrangements for
the holding of subsequent congresses were made.
Here, then, is the African problem's present status: To begin with, we
have a rapidly growing black population, increasingly restive under white
tutelage and continually excited by Pan-Islamic propaganda with the
further complication of another anti-white propaganda spread by negro
radicals from America.
The African situation is thus somewhat analogous to conditions in Asia.
But the analogy must not be pressed too far. In Asia white hegemony rests
solely on political bases, while the Asiatics themselves, browns and
yellows alike, display constructive power and possess civilizations built
up by their own efforts from the remote past. The Asiatics are to-day once
more displaying their innate capacity by not merely adopting, but
adapting, white ideas and methods. We behold an Asiatic _renaissance_,
whose genuineness is best attested by the fact that there have been
similar movements in past times.
None of this applies to Africa. The black race has never shown real
constructive power. It has never built up a native civilization. Such
progress as certain negro groups have made has been due to external
pressure and has never long outlived that pressure's removal, for the
negro, when left to himself, as in Haiti and Liberia, rapidly reverts to
his ancestral ways. The negro is a facile, even eager, imitator; but
there he stops. He adopts; but he does not adapt, assimilate, and give
forth creatively again.
The whole of history testifies to this truth. As the Englishman Meredith
Townsend says: "None of the black races, whether negro or Australian, have
shown within the historic time the capacity to develop civilization. They
have never passed the boundaries of their own habitats as conquerors, and
never exercised the smallest influence over peoples not black. They have
never founded a stone city, have never built a ship, have never produced a
literature, have never suggested a creed.... There seems to be no reason
for this except race. It is said that the negro has been buried in the
most 'massive' of the four continents, and has been, so to speak, lost to
humanity; but he was always on the Nile, the immediate road to the
Mediterranean, and in West and East Africa he was on the sea. Africa is
probably more fertile, and almost certainly richer than Asia, and is
pierced by rivers as mighty, and some of them at least as navigable. What
could a singularly healthy race, armed with a constitution which resists
the sun and defies malaria, wish for better than to be seated on the Nile,
or the Congo, or the Niger, in numbers amply sufficient to execute any
needed work, from the cutting of forests and the making of roads up to the
building of cities? How was the negro more secluded than the Peruvian; or
why was he 'shut up' worse than the Tartar of Samarcand, who one day shook
himself, gave up all tribal feuds, and, from the Sea of Okhotsk to the
Baltic and southward to the Nerbudda, mastered the world?... The negro
went by himself far beyond the Australian savage. He learned the use of
fire, the fact that sown grain will grow, the value of shelter, the use of
the bow and the canoe, and the good of clothes; but there to all
appearances he stopped, unable, until stimulated by another race like the
Arab, to advance another step."[55]
Unless, then, every lesson of history is to be disregarded, we must
conclude that black Africa is unable to stand alone. The black man's
numbers may increase prodigiously and acquire alien veneers, but the black
man's nature will not change. Black unrest may grow and cause much
trouble. Nevertheless, the white man must stand fast in Africa. No black
"renaissance" impends, and Africa, if abandoned by the whites, would
merely fall beneath the onset of the browns. And that would be a great
calamity. As stated in the preceding chapter, the brown peoples, of
themselves, do not directly menace white race-areas, while Pan-Islamism is
at present an essentially defensive movement. But Islam is militant by
nature, and the Arab is a restless and warlike breed. Pan-Islamism once
possessed of the Dark Continent and fired by militant zealots, might forge
black Africa into a sword of wrath, the executor of sinister adventures.
Fortunately the white man has every reason for keeping a firm hold on
Africa. Not only are its central tropics prime sources of raw materials
and foodstuffs which white direction can alone develop, but to north and
south the white man has struck deep roots into the soil. Both extremities
of the continent are "white man's country," where strong white peoples
should ultimately arise. Two of the chief white Powers, Britain and
France, are pledged to the hilt in this racial task and will spare no
effort to safeguard the heritage of their pioneering children. Brown
influence in Africa is strong, but it is supreme only in the northeast and
its line of communication with the Asiatic homeland runs over the narrow
neck of Suez. Should stern necessity arise, the white world could hold
Suez against Asiatic assault and crush brown resistance in Africa.
In short, the real danger to white control of Africa lies, not in brown
attack or black revolt, but in possible white weakness through chronic
discord within the white world itself. And that subject must be reserved
for later chapters.