Alexander Crummell

“ And therefore I have thought that in every way, it would be far better for men leaving this country for Africa to join their fortunes with us in Liberia. Our training, habits, customs, education, and political experience, have made us—it is not, it is true, a dignified mode of expression, but I have used it in private, and may be pardoned its use here—they have made us "Black Yankees;" and I feel assured that in Liberia, we shall find a more congenial field, better appliances, a government more suitable to our antecedents, better fitted to a youthful nation and an aspiring emigrant population ”

“ When I landed on the shores of Liberia, eight years ago, not a pound of sugar was exported from the land; I doubt whether as much as a pound was then made for home consumption. But, sir, since those days life, and energy, and power have been thrown into this branch of industry. The forest has been levelled; broad fields have been cleared; and hundreds of acres of sugar-cane have been planted, cut down, manufactured into sugar, and replanted again, and again, and again. Taking the Republic in the aggregate, we have between five and six hundred acres of land appropriated to the growth of cane. ”

“ And hence I feel desirous that those enterprising and Christian men here, who are looking abroad for new homes, and other fields of labor, should join us in Africa, for the regeneration of that continent. My own desire, moreover, is that instead of scattering ourselves thousands of miles apart along the coast, we should rather concentrate our parties and our powers. Of course, I cannot say a word in the abstract, against the mission which draws many men, and some of my own personal friends, to Abbeokuta. ”

“ The freed black man of America is, I feel assured, a superior man, in the points I have mentioned, to the Russian, to the Polander, to the Hungarian, to the Italian. Notwithstanding our trials and burdens, we have been enabled to reach a clearer knowledge of free government than they, and to secure a nobler fitness for its requirements, duties, and guarantees. I speak from the facts which have fallen under my observation, among my brethren in Africa. ”

“ Added to this, are the schools, exclusively for natives, under missionary direction, all which agencies are bringing forward a large class of natives of the soil, English-speaking in tongue, and civilized in habits and manners. Some of these already approach our own civilization. Many of them are respectable citizens in our towns and neighborhoods; men who not long since were heathen, but having been brought up in American families, are now civilized men. They live in our towns and villages; they go to our schools; they visit our families; they pay taxes; and they marry among our people. ”

“ All along the coast and in the interior, from Sherbro River to Cape Lahou, our merchants have set up their trading factories among the natives. This trade is a trade in Camwood, Ivory, Gold, Country Cloths, and especially in Palm Oil. In order to carry on this trade our citizens need the service, coastwise, of sloops and schooners, and those whose ambition has stretched beyond the home trade, have bought for themselves brigs and barks for foreign trade. And thus the merchants of Liberia are owners of quite a respectable commercial fleet. ”

“ Their habits, civilized necessities, and acquired wants assimilate to ours. Vessels sailing from American ports loaded with provisions, on reaching our coast, find a ready market in native towns, as well as among our civilized settlers. They buy meat, and fish, and sugar, and molasses, as well as cloth, tobacco, and beads. And thus, in these and various other ways, our different settlements are diffusing a civilizing influence among our native population, and gradually bringing them up to our standard of civility. ”

“ And this chiefly because the need of Africa—her need of civilized emigrants—is great, and because educated free colored men are the fit agents to effect the regeneration of Africa. We cannot, it is true, make great pretensions; our training and culture have been exceedingly imperfect. ”

“ These form an important and valuable accession to our population. You know, sir, that our population is often set down at 15,000 persons; but this by no means does us justice. That is very likely our emigrant population: but for every American citizen, you may safely put down another, either native or Congo, who has been trained in our families or schools, and who form, in the aggregate, an equal population to our own. ”

“ Paul's River have thirty acres under cultivation, some forty, some sixty. This year there is unusual activity among the planters. Sugar-making is no longer an experiment among them; they have put forth their effort and it has succeeded; the market has welcomed their contribution, and they have made money. This stimulant has incited them to nobler efforts, and I have no doubt that some half-dozen men on the St. Paul's will, this year, enlarge their respective farms to one hundred acres each. ”

“ We too have learned the advantage, and have risen to the elevation of all those great legal charters which interest men in government, and which make government subserve the best interests and desires of its citizens. ”

“ Take next those items which pertain to the best and most abiding interests of man, those which pertain to civilisation—I-mean schools and religion. Through the provident care of the several denominations of Christians in the United States, all our settlements are provided with schools, and opportunity for securing a common education is afforded to a goodly portion of our population. ”

“ In a day or two we readied the settlement at Passa, and there we found a small emit trading, owned by another fellow-citizen. We went to Junk, and there we saw the fine steam saw-mill of Payne and Yates, their yard filled with plank, and a long distance along the banks multitudes of logs, Avhich are furnished them by the enterprising natives there, for their mill. ”

“ The Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal missions have each their schools in all of our larger towns. In these schools are gathered together, under teachers of, in the main, respectable acquirements, our civilized children. But they are not exclusive. Numbers of native children, servants on the farms and in the families of our citizens, are also received in these schools. The Sunday-schools receive a much larger number of natives and Congoes for instruction, and the churches are ofttimes filled with them. ”

“ There is also another large class of natives who live among us constantly: the youth who have been apprenticed to our families, have grown up in our midst, and who have been brought, more or less thoroughly, into civilized habits. ”

“ Various reasons can be given for this, some arising from the state of the country; some from the condition and character of the people; especially from the fact that the acquisitive principle is latent, reserved, and sluggish in many men in the land ”