Part 6

10. The Republic is now in telegraphic connection with the outside world. Gerard tells us that “the _German-South-American Telegraph Society_, with a capital stock of 30,000,000 marks, has recently laid a cable at Monrovia which will place the negro capital hereafter in rapid communication with the civilized world. Up to this time telegraphic messages addressed to Liberia were delivered at Freetown, and there were entrusted to the ordinary postal service, upon the semi-monthly mail-boats conducting business between Sierra Leone and the Grain Coast. Constructed by the North German Marine Cable Factory of Nordenham-am-Weser, the cable, destined to draw the little Guinean Republic from its isolation, starts from Emden, passes under sea to the island Borkum, connects at Teneriffe, in order then to reach Monrovia, from whence it is finally directed to Pernambuco, the terminal point of the line. On the other hand, the _South American Cable Co._ of London, a French society with a French director and supported by French capital, has obtained a concession with a view to the establishment of a submarine cable connecting Conakry (Guinea) with Grand Bassam (Ivory Coast), touching at Monrovia, and it is interesting to notice in passing that there has been arranged, in connection with this matter, between Germany and France a friendly relationship permitting the German cable to touch at Brest, allowing the French installation to be accomplished through the German cable, and obliging the two rival companies to have similar tariffs and giving each of them the right of using the apparatus of the other in case of the breaking of its own connection. It is also to the French government that the exclusive right has been given of establishing a _wireless telegraph station_ which will connect Monrovia with the Eiffel Tower via Dakar and Casablanca, while posts, constructed at Conakry, Tabou, and Cotonou will give origin to radio-telegraphic connections between Liberia, French Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and Dahomey; the importance of this project, to-day in course of execution, will escape no one, since one will understand that there is question here of installing the Marconi system in Madagascar and at Timbuctu, and of thus enclosing the whole black continent in a network of rapid communication of which France alone will have control.”

All three of these enterprises have been successfully carried through, and to-day Liberia is in easy connection with every part of the civilized world. It is a notable step forward.

11. Five lines of steamers make regular stops upon the coast of Liberia. Chief of these is the great Woermann Line, of Hamburg. Two regular sailings weekly in both directions touch at Monrovia. Next in importance are the British steamships controlled by Elder Dempster and Co. They have a combination consisting of the African Steamship Co. and the British African Steam-Navigation Co. These boats make two weekly sailings from Liverpool and one monthly sailing from Hamburg. Nor are these the only landings made by these lines at Liberian ports. It is probable that the Woermann Line makes three hundred calls annually, and the Elder Dempster Lines two hundred and fifty, at Liberian ports. A recent arrangement which, if given fair attention, promises a notable development, has been entered into between these two companies, whereby every two months a boat sails from New York to Monrovia and return; The English and German lines alternate in supplying this steamer. Besides these two lines of chief importance, three other lines make stops at Monrovia--the _Spanish Trans-Atlantic Co._, of Barcelona, _Fraissinet and Co._, of Marseilles, France, and the _Belgian Maritime Co. of Congo_, from Antwerp.

12. Considering the dangers of its coast, the light-house service of the Republic is far from satisfactory. The old light-house at Monrovia, for years a disgrace, has been replaced by a more modern apparatus; at Grand Bassa a light-house was erected at the private expense of Mr. S. G. Harmon, a successful Liberian merchant, now the Vice-President of the Republic; at Cape Palmas a good light-house has been erected, visible at all times to a distance of six miles--this cost about $9000 and was a gift from the French authorities. It is somewhat doubtful whether it was good policy to accept a gift from a neighbor, who has made definite efforts to crowd Liberians out of the Cavalla River, which forms the natural boundary between the Grain Coast (Liberia) and the Ivory Coast (French).

13. The whole west coast of Africa has for centuries depended only on foreign trade. Portuguese, Dutch, French, English, Germans, have all played their part. Most of these nations still have interests in that portion of the world. So far as the Liberian Republic is concerned, representatives of foreign houses have numerous trading-posts upon its coast. The house of A. Woermann has factories at Monrovia, Cape Mount, Bassa, Sinoe, and Cape Palmas. J. W. West (Hamburg) is established at Monrovia, Cape Mount, Grand Bassa, and Sinoe. Wiechers and Helm are at Monrovia and Cape Palmas. Wooden and Co. (Liverpool), Patterson and Zachonis (Liverpool), Vietor and Huber, C. F. Wilhelm Jantzen (Hamburg), and the American Trading Co. (established only in 1911), are among those who trade in Liberia.

14. A number of development companies have at different times been formed with the intention of exploiting the black Republic. Many of these have been fraudulent enterprises and have come to nothing; some, started in good faith, have failed; a few--a very few out of many--have developed promisingly. The English _Liberian Rubber Corporation_ has a farm of 1000 acres with 150,000 rubber-trees already planted; this was begun in 1904 and has now reached the period of yielding; in 1912 it was expected that it would prove a paying proposition. _The Liberian Trading Co._ (English) are exporting mahogany and other valuable woods. They are opening commercial houses in different parts of the country and seeking concessions from the government to open roads. _The Liberian Development Co._ (English) discovered gold and diamonds in 1908 and are now importing heavy machinery to work their mines, together with materials for a railway to them, and have already laid part of the railway; this is probably the company to which my correspondent, already quoted, refers. One of the latest of the development companies is the _Liberian-American Produce Co._, which was chartered in 1910 by the national legislature with the approval of the president of the Republic for a period of sixty years. It was given large and varied powers, among them being the right to build for itself or for the government, roads, bridges, harbor-improvements, railways, etc.; and the company was granted a concession of a hundred square miles with the privilege of taking up this land in any sized blocks, anywhere in the country by simply filing in the State Department a description of the lands thus taken up. The company has already selected four square miles of land containing mineral deposits, and plans to start active operations in trade, agriculture, and mining.

15. As the subject of the financial outlook of the Republic will come up again for consideration, we are here only completing our descriptive picture of the Republic. She has long been in debt; her resources have been mortgaged; her customs-houses have been in the hands of receivers. She has recently consolidated all her debts, foreign and domestic, and has secured a loan through the kind offices of the United States of $1,700,000. This loan has been guaranteed by the customs-house receipts, and the customs-service is now under the direction of an international receivership.

HISTORY

Africa is the Land of Black Men, and to Africa they must and will come.--JOHN KIZELL.

Tell my brethren to come--not to fear--this land is good--it only wants men to possess it.--DANIEL COKER.

1821-1828.

The American Colonization Society was founded in Washington in December, 1816. To it Liberia is due. On the 23rd of December, 1816, the legislature of Virginia requested the governor of the state to correspond with the President of the United States “for the purpose of obtaining a territory on the coast of Africa, or at some other place not within any of the states, or territorial governments of the United States, to serve as an asylum for such persons of color as are now free, and may desire the same, and for those who may hereafter be emancipated within this commonwealth.” A few days after this a meeting was held at Washington to which persons interested were invited. Bushrod Washington presided; Mr. Clay, Mr. Randolph, and others took part in the discussions which ensued and which resulted in the organization of the American Colonization Society. Judge Washington was chosen president, a board of twelve managers were selected, together with seventeen vice-presidents from various states. The object of the Society was clearly set forth in the first and second articles of its constitution. “Article 1. This society shall be called The American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States. Article 2. The object to which attention is to be exclusively directed, is to promote and execute a plan of colonizing (with their consent) the free people of color residing in our country, in Africa, or such other place as Congress shall deem most expedient. And the Society shall act to effect this object in co-operation with the general government and such of the states as may adopt regulations on the subject.”

We do not desire in the least to minimize the good, either of the intent or result, of the American Colonization Society. It is, however, only just to say that it was not a purely benevolent organization. Its membership included different classes. Of this Jay says: “First, such as sincerely desire to afford the free blacks an asylum from the oppression they suffer here, and by their means to extend to Africa the blessings of Christianity and civilization, and who at the same time flatter themselves that colonization will have a salutary influence in accelerating the abolition of slavery; Secondly, such as expect to enhance the value and security of slave property, by removing the free blacks; and Thirdly, such as seek relief from a bad population, without the trouble and expense of improving it.” As a matter of fact, the American Colonization Society was largely an organization of slave holders. Judge Washington was a southern man; of the seventeen vice-presidents twelve were from slave states; of the twelve managers all were slave holders. Through a period of years the American Colonization Society and the Abolition Societies of the United States waged a furious conflict. The real purpose of the organization was to get rid of the free blacks at any cost, and the attitude of its members toward free blacks was repeatedly expressed in the strongest terms. Thus, General Harper, to whom the names Liberia and Monrovia were due, said: “Free blacks are a greater nuisance than even slaves themselves.” Mercer, a vice-president of the Society, spoke of them as a “horde of miserable people,--the objects of universal suspicion,--subsisting by plunder.” Henry Clay, an original member of the Society and for many years vice-president, said: “Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored--contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them.” Again Clay said: “Of all the descriptions of our population, and of either portion of the African race, the free persons of color are by far, as a class, the most corrupt, depraved, and abandoned.” And yet these excellent gentlemen repeatedly stated that in sending free black men to Africa, they were actually combatting the slave trade and Christianizing the natives. Clay himself said, in the same speech in which he referred to the free blacks as “corrupt, depraved, abandoned.” * * * “The Society proposes to send out not one or two pious members of Christianity into a foreign land; but to transport annually, for an indefinite number of years, in one view of its scheme, 6,000, in another, 56,000 missionaries of the descendants of Africa itself, to communicate the benefits of our religion and the arts.” Stripped of all pretense, the facts were that the free blacks of the day were not wanted in America, and that they must somehow be got rid of; accordingly they were dumped upon the African west coast.

This idea of recolonizing black men into Africa is not a new one; as far back as 1773, at which time slavery was common in New England, Dr. Samuel Hopkins became convinced of its wickedness and, with Dr. Stiles (afterwards president of Yale College) made an appeal to the public in behalf of some colored men whom he was preparing to send to Africa as missionaries. The Revolutionary War interfered with his plan. In 1783 Dr. Thornton, of Washington, proposed a colonization scheme and organized about forty New England colored men to go to Africa; his scheme failed for lack of funds. The British Sierra Leone Company in 1786 organized its colony at Sierra Leone for freed blacks. When Thomas Jefferson was President, he made application to the Sierra Leone Company to receive American negroes, but his request failed of effect. From 1800 to 1805 the project of colonization was again discussed. Very interesting was the work of Paul Cuffy, born in New Bedford, Mass., of negro and Indian parents; he was a man of ability, gained considerable wealth, and owned a vessel; he induced about forty persons to embark with him for Sierra Leone in 1815; they were well received and settled permanently in that colony. Paul Cuffy had larger schemes of colonization and planned to transport a considerable number of American negroes to Africa, but died before his plans were realized.

In 1818 the Society sent Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess to seek a suitable location for the colony. Samuel J. Mills was the young man to whom the work of foreign missions of the United States was largely due; after he graduated from college, he planned to establish a colony in the West; he became interested in a seminary for the education of colored men, who should go to Africa as missionaries, at Parsippany, N. J. Mills and Burgess went by way of England, where they called upon various persons of prominence in the hope of receiving information and advice which might be of use to them. They sailed from the Downs, England, in February, 1818, and were in Sierra Leone before the end of March; they examined the conditions there with interest and then, in company with John Kizell and a Mr. Martin, went farther down the coast; they reached Sherbro Island on the first of April and decided to found the settlement there.

This John Kizell, who was with them as adviser and friend, was a black man, a native of the country some leagues in the interior from Sherbro. His father was a chief of some consequence and so was his uncle. They resided at different towns; and when Kizell was yet a boy he was sent by his father on a visit to his uncle who desired to have the boy with him. On the very night of his arrival the house was attacked. A bloody battle ensued in which his uncle and most of his people were killed. Some escaped, the rest were taken prisoners, and among the latter was Kizell. His father made every effort to release him, offering slaves and ground for him; but his enemies declared that they would not give him up for any price, and that they would rather put him to death. He was taken to the Gallinhas, put on board of an English ship, and carried as one of a cargo of slaves to Charleston, S. C.--He arrived at Charleston a few years before that city was taken by Sir Henry Clinton. In consequence of the General’s proclamation, he, with many other slaves, joined the royal standard.--After the war he was remanded to Nova Scotia from which place he came to Africa in 1792. Kizell had established a small colony of colored people on Sherbro Island. He had prospered in trade, built a church, and was preaching to his countrymen.

Having accomplished the purpose of their journey, the commissioners started again for the United States. On the voyage Mills died.

On March 3, 1819, the Congress of the United States passed an act which was of consequence to the cause of African colonization. It provided that the President of the United States should have authority to seize any Africans captured from American or foreign vessels, attempting to introduce them into the United States in violence of law, and to return them to their own country. It provided also for the establishment of a suitable agency on the African coast for the reception, subsistence, and comfort of these persons until they could be returned to their relatives, or provide for their own support. From the time of the passage of this act the government and the Society worked in practical co-operation.

The first shipment of colonists took place in February, 1820, from New York, by the ship _Elizabeth_ which had been chartered by the government. It carried two agents of the United States Government--Rev. Samuel Bacon and John P. Bankson; Dr. Samuel A. Crozer was sent as agent of the American Colonization Society; 88 emigrants accompanied them, who had promised in return for their passage and other aid of the Government, to prepare suitable accommodations for such Africans as the Government might afterwards send. The expedition went at first to Sierra Leone, thence to Sherbro Island, landing at Campelar, the point chosen by Mills and Burgess for settlement. The place was badly selected. Practically the whole company suffered frightfully from fever. Bacon, Bankson, and Crozer, all died, together with many of the colonists.

A second party was sent out in 1821 in the _Nautilus_, a vessel chartered by the United States Government. It carried two agents of the government--J. B. Winn and Ephraim Bacon--and two agents of the colony--Joseph R. Andrus and Christian Wiltberger. Some emigrants accompanied them. On their arrival at Sierra Leone, the emigrants were left at Fourah Bay, while Bacon and Andrus went on down the coast in search of a suitable situation for settlement.

In this search they went as far as Grand Bassa. Soon after they returned to Sierra Leone, Mr. and Mrs. Bacon were invalided home; shortly afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Winn died of fever; thus Wiltberger was left alone in charge of the settlement, until Dr. Eli Ayres arrived as chief agent of the Society in the autumn. Wiltberger visited Sherbro, and finding the conditions of the settlers serious, he took them with him back to Fourah Bay, Sierra Leone. In December, Capt. Robert F. Stockton, of the _Alligator_, came to the coast with orders to co-operate so far as possible with the agents. Leaving Wiltberger in charge of the colonists at Fourah Bay, Ayres and Stockton made an exploration of the coast. On the 11th they reached Mesurado Bay, and being pleased with the appearance of the district, they sought a palaver with the native chiefs. Making their way through the jungle to the village of the most important chief, they found hundreds of people collected; negotiations were at once begun for land at the mouth of the Mesurado River, upon which a settlement might be made. The business was not conducted without excitement and some danger, but Stockton appears to have been a man of parts, and finally a contract was drawn up and signed by six kings, with their marks, and by Ayres and Stockton. The territory secured included all of the cape, the mouth of the river, and the land for some distance into the interior, although the boundaries were left indefinite.

There was a mulatto trader living in this district, by the name of John S. Mill. His friendship was of importance to the enterprise in those early days. Mill was an African by birth, the son of an English merchant who owned a large trading concern on the coast; he had enjoyed a good English education; he was himself the owner of the smaller of the two islands at the mouth of the Mesurado River, and this island was purchased from him for the use of the colony.

Land having been secured, measures were at once taken to remove the colonists from Fourah Bay to Cape Montserrado. Some of them refused to leave, and remained in Sierra Leone, becoming British subjects. It was January 7, 1822, when the colonists under the leadership of Agent Ayres reached their new home. It was soon learned that King Peter had been condemned by the people for the sale of the land, and that the natives desired that the colonists should leave; the vessel, however, was unloaded and preparations for building houses were made. On account of the threatening attitude of the natives, a palaver was held. There was considerable opposition, but the colonists persisted in their efforts. The month of February was a sickly time, and little was done toward settlement. About the middle of February more settlers came from Fourah Bay, and the place was crowded and in bad condition. Agent Ayres was absent in Sierra Leone, when an incident occurred which might have had serious results for the infant colony. The colonists at this time were living on Perseverance Island. A small vessel, prize to an English schooner, with thirty slaves on board, put in for water at the island. Her cable parting, she drifted ashore and was wrecked. It was the custom of the coast to look upon wrecks as legitimate booty for the people upon whose shore they occurred. King George at once sent his people to take possession of the vessel and the goods, but they were met with resistance by the crew and were repulsed. While the natives were preparing to renew the attack, the Captain sent for help to the colony agent. Though no white man was there in charge, help was promised. A boat was manned and sent to his relief; a brass field piece on the island was brought to bear upon the assailants who were put to rout, with two killed and several wounded. The crew and slaves were brought safely to the land, but the vessel went to pieces and most of the stores and property were lost. The natives were very angry. The next day they resumed the attack, and the British soldiers and one colonist were killed.

On returning from Sierra Leone, April 7, Ayres found the colony in confusion and alarm. The natives had received only a part of the purchased goods for their land. They now refused to receive the balance and insisted on returning what they had received and annulling the transaction. To this the agent would not give consent. They invited him, therefore, to a conference, seized him, and held him until he consented to take back the articles already paid. They insisted that the colonists should leave, but agreed to permit their staying until a purchase could be made elsewhere. Under these circumstances, Agent Ayres appealed to a chief named Boatswain who, after hearing the complaint, decided in favor of the colonists and ordered that the goods should be accepted and the title given. In his decision he said that the bargain had been fair on both sides and that he saw no grounds for rescinding the contract. Turning to King Peter, he remarked: “Having sold your country and accepted payment, you must take the consequences. * * * Let the Americans have their lands immediately. Whoever is not satisfied with my decision, let him tell me so.” To the agents he said: “I promise you protection. If these people give you further disturbance, send for me; and I swear, if they oblige me to come again to quiet them, I will do it by taking their heads from their shoulders, as I did old King George’s, on my last visit to the coast to settle disputes.”