Robert Wilson Shufeldt

“ In this centennial year, the proudest anniversary in recorded history, which proclaims in trumpet tones the triumphant fact that a government by the people and for the people is not only the best but the stablest on earth, let us extend to our own offspring the right hand of fellowship, and declare by every legitimate means we will help her forward in that career which has led us to our present proud pre-eminence. ”

“ It is in vain that we appeal to patriotism; it is in vain that we utter the truism that no nation can be truly great without an external commerce. Our merchants cross the sea, and point with complacency to the foreign flag waving over their heads, and bring back their goods in foreign bottoms, without any sense of the shame that ensues.
It would also be utilizing the navy, which, in time of peace, could find no nobler employment. It would, indeed, be but a continuation of the aid which the Navy has heretofore given to Liberia, and a new title to its claim of guardianship. ”

“ The surf roars at its base and the water of the Mesurado river breaks over the bar by its side—the canoe of the native glides through the surf over this bar and lands you with wonderful safety at Monrovia, which lies just behind the cape by the side of the river.
In the growth of a new nation, in its consolidation and crystalization, time forms no just measure of progress. Not to go back, to stem the adverse tide, to wait, is absolutely to advance. To be where you were, after years of struggles against obstacles almost insurmountable, is a point gained, and a success accomplished. ”

“ If Liberia is a weak and myopic child, it is not ours to look calmly upon her attempts to walk alone, guessing cruelly as to the chances of her making a safe journey, but it is ours by kind words to encourage her heart and to lead her by the hand until age shall bring strength to her feet and clearness to her vision. ”

“ Events are rapidly shaping themselves, and at this present moment we hardly know how swiftly we are approaching the crisis which is to determine the question of color—of equal rights to all men, without regard to color, in the administration of the Government of this country. While, therefore, we remember Liberia, let us not forget ourselves, or the day may come when she can point out to us the fatal rock upon which we split. ”

“ If we, gentlemen, have real faith in our own institutions, we must also have faith in the institutions of our little sister Republic. And in order to form an unbiased opinion we must lose sight of the question of color. Fortunately for the future of Liberia, the homogeneousness of her population removes one of her greatest dangers. In our own country the question of caste is yet to be fought out, and in my opinion upon its result will depend the permanence of our own Government and the stability of our own institutions. ”

“ God measures people for Himself. He is patient because He is Eternal. Fifty years in the life of a nation born under such adverse circumstances, struggling under poverty and obliquy—predicted a failure by the prophets of caste, checked and thwarted by the priests and politicians of conservatism, unaided, uncheered, born in a wilderness, surrounded, hemmed in by barbarism while just emerging from barbarism itself—fifty years in the life of such a nation is but a moment of time in the Providence of God. ”

“ The destiny of Liberia depends on the conquest of these two opposing forces. Will she? Will she? She must meet and conquer morally and physically these antagonistic ideas or see herself swept into the sea; but I have faith that she will conquer in the name of God and with the aid of America. We know that God will not fail them; let us see to it that America does not fold her arms and turn upon these struggling people the cold shoulder of indifference.
The other tribes that come under the jurisdiction of the Government of Liberia are the Veys, the Pessehs, the Barlines, and the Bassas. ”

“ The Government of the United States can give to Liberia no material aid. We cannot pay her debts nor fight her battles. We can throw over her the mantle of our protection. We can say that we will not see her absorbed by any European Power, nor obliterated by any savage horde; but, after all, Liberia must work out her own salvation.
“Who would be free—themselves must strike the blow.” So I would say to Liberians: The history of your country is full of instances of heroism in conflict with savages; of suffering from scarcity of food ”

“ That this intervention will be effectual not only in suppressing the natives, but indirectly in suppressing the zeal of the white traders, I have not the slightest doubt. This assistance to Liberia is of a temporary nature; what she needs and what we need is a permanent naval force on her Coast, and she has almost a right to demand it; for Liberia is our only colony, the only off-shoot of the parent stem, the only American outpost on the confines of barbarism; it is our duty to protect her for the sake of our institutions and for the sake of our religion. ”

“ Liberia came into existence as a nation preceded by no war; she was born of no internecine strife, but in harmony with her mission she declared herself free and independent, and was gracefully acknowledged as such by the Great Powers of the world—the mother country alone hesitating to receive as an equal her neglected child—and in an humble and lowly manner, becoming her color and condition, she peacefully and quietly took her back seat in the family of nations. I say that Liberia has a government apparently stable. ”

“ We are bound to [19] help them by all the considerations that have force with men and nations. By interest and by sympathy we are bound. By interest, because Liberia, the only American colony on the West Coast of Africa, once strong and resting under the protection of the American flag, would open to us the inexhaustible riches of Africa, and in so doing would revive the lost glories of American commerce, which, to our national shame and disgrace, has almost faded from the seas. By sympathy, because of the close parallel between their history and our own. ”

“ Travelers in Africa agree upon the fact that Mahomedanism is spreading over that land with marvelous strides. I ask your attention to this religious phenomenon in connection with the prospects of Liberia as a Christian community. If you believe that Christianity is to be the religion of the future in Africa, essential not only to her salvation but to her temporal welfare, then I beg you to consider Liberia as an important bulwark against the encroachment of the followers of the Prophet, and as a point from whence to start Christian propagandism into the heart of Africa. ”

“ I mean no disrespect to the people of Great Britain when I say that the British trader on the Coast of Africa is among the most grasping and unscrupulous of men. He has succeeded the Frenchman, the Spaniard, and the Portuguese, those reckless factors in the prosecution of the slave trade, and substituted a trade in rum, tobacco, and gunpowder, a trade not quite so baneful in its immediate results, but as pernicious as it dares to be in the logic of events. These articles the native [14] is eager to buy and the trader anxious to sell. ”

“ Like our own, the Government of Liberia is based upon the will of the people, and although sometimes swayed from the path of wisdom by popular clamor, it in the main has been administered for the good of the people. Resting as it is upon education, secular and religious, it possesses a constantly increasing tendency toward perfect excellence and consequent permanence. ”

“ I do not mean to compare this colonist with the great domineering, self-asserting, self-dependent Anglo-Saxon, who bullies and conquers and rules wherever he emigrates, but I do mean to say that Liberia and its inhabitants will compare, and favorably, too, with the towns and the people scattered over Central and South America and Mexico, settled by the Spaniard, the Italian, and the Frenchman. ”

“ Along the streets and by-ways of Monrovia are to be seen the ordinary variety of human beings, young and old, rich and poor, sick and well. You note the absence of grogshops and the presence of churches. Like pilgrims as they are, or were, the prevailing and controlling sentiment of the community is a religious one. To land upon a foreign shore, to cut one’s self off from kith and kin, to plunge into a wilderness, needs faith absolute, vital, in the personality of God and in Divine protection. ”

“ Like us, they went forth from a land where they could no longer remain with honor; to battle for the dear sake of freedom, with poverty, with privation, with hostile savages, and with all the thousand difficulties of an unknown and barbarous land. Like us, they struggled, if not with oppression, still under neglect, and, like us, they conquered. ”

“ The merchantman would follow the man-of-war, and thus the initial step would be taken in securing the trade of Liberia to our own country. I see no other way at present of inaugurating a direct trade with Liberia; for our commercial pride has fallen so low, and our capital has become so timid, that it dares not and cares not to venture upon the sea. ”

“ He advised them to build blockhouses as our forefathers did in the olden time; to become accustomed to the use of arms, to organize at every settlement, and learn not only to repel attack but to assume the offensive, thereby instilling into the surrounding savages that wholesome fear which is the greatest safeguard.
Be brave also in the face of nature as well as in the face of the native; attack your forests, clear away the wilderness before you. Agriculture is the handmaid of commerce. You cannot have one without the other. The tiller of the soil is the nobleman of the land. ”

“ The Christian virtues of Admiral Foote are the property of the country, his professional qualities are the inheritance of the Navy—these will be remembered as long as we have a Country to defend or a Navy to defend it. ”

“ To reach the “heach,” as they call it, to open trade with the white man is the great object of their ambition. To occupy the “heach,” therefore, to present there the bold front of Christianity, is to set back the tide of Mahomedanism and to bring within the peaceful influence of Christianity the pagan when, after his struggles, he reaches the sea.
Among the other tribes living in the Liberian territory is the Grebo. This tribe occupies the land in the immediate vicinity of Cape Palmas and is the one now threatening that portion of the Republic with a war of extermination. ”

“ I found the climate of Liberia decidedly improved since my first visit. As the land is cleared miasmatic influences become less fatal. To the native-born Liberian it is as healthful as any tropical country. The emigrant takes his risks as any of us do who migrate from a temperate to a torrid zone. The white man has no business in Africa. ”

“ Liberia is now bounded on its northern and southern limits by British territory, but the trader, not content with this stealing as it were in the rear of Liberian settlements with his contraband products, is enticing the willing native to trade in violation of the laws of the Republic, and inducing him to believe that if the poor and defenseless Liberian settler can be driven from his home, the trader can sell his goods without restriction and at half the price ”

“ The concurrent testimony of these distinguished officers and thoughtful men, embracing the period from the foundation of the colony to the time of our civil war, express not only the hope, but the belief that Liberia, poor and weak as she is, yet possesses many of the elements of national wealth and strength, and proves beyond cavil the progress and the permanence of that Republic. ”

“ I mean the warm, sympathetic intervention which will say to all the world, that, happen what may, the United States of America will see to it that no power on earth shall obliterate from the map of Africa the infant Republic of Liberia. ”

“ Years ago I saw indicated everywhere that innate consciousness of inferiority, that deprecating humility which came of their birth—emigrants from the slave cabins in our own country—that absence of independent thought, that shrinking humility which feared to give an opinion ”

“ Should any United States citizens suffer loss, in person or property, [20] from violence by the aboriginal inhabitants, and the Government of the Republic of Liberia should not be able to bring the aggressor to justice, the United States Government engages, a requisition having been first made therefor by the Liberian Government, to lend such aid as may be required. ”

“ Their love for us is strong. Like most strong affections, ill-treatment only seems to augment its force. Their confidence in us, though so abused, is still unabated. Can we, in this their hour of need and danger, coldly pass by on the other side? ”

“ One by one its dark superstitions will disappear in the everincreasing light, until in the brightness of mid-day the Sun of Righteousness will cast His beneficent rays on the whole area of that broad and benighted land. ”

“ I found the people industrious and happy, apparently in the enjoyment of every domestic comfort, and some of the most opulent having many of the luxuries and elegancies of more famed and refined regions. ”