University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
LIBERIA AS IT IS.

After a pleasant voyage of thirty-five days, Ben
saw the high promontory of Cape Mesurado rising
in bold relief against the clear sky. It was a bright,
sunshiny day in July when the emigrants landed
at the cove near the base of the cape. Polydore
and Nathan were on the beach to great them on
their arrival, and make them feel less like strangers
in a strange land, and they were struck with the
improvement manifest in Polydore's language and
bearing.

The pretty town of Monrovia also excited their
surprise and admiration. Its substantial, well-built
houses, its churches, and its warehouses were superior
to any thing that they had imagined. The

streets were shaded with the singular and beautiful
trees of the tropics, and by many of the houses were
gardens filled with flowers and vegetables.

“Our farm was very near Monrovia,” said Polydore;
“but we found out that the land was better
a little farther from the sea-shore, and so, when Nathan
came, we moved to a place near Caldwell, on
the St. John's River. There's some of the best land
there that I've seen any wheres. It's 'bout nine
mile from here; but I have a wagon, with some little
African ponies, that will soon take us there.”

“Are these houses well furnished?” asked Clara.

“I reckon they are,” replied Polydore; “some of
them are most equal to ol' mast'r's house at home.
Here's one of our newspapers,” continued he, handing
“The Liberia Herald” to Ben; “we've another
one besides that.”

“Is this written by colored men?” asked Ben.

“Yes, po'try and all. Don't you 'member Colin
Teage, that came over here the same time Keziah
and I came? His son, the Reverend Hilary Teage,
is the editor.”

“Yes, I remember it,” said Ben; “he freed himself
and his two children.”

On their ride to Caldwell, their road lay for a little
while along Stockton Creek, the southern fork
of the St. John's. They passed the little village of
New Georgia.

“The people there seem to be paying a good deal
of attention to their land,” said Ben.

“Yes,” replied Nathan, “most all the vegetables
used in Monrovia are raised here. The persons
about here are mostly native Africans, and have
been slaves. If you could only have seen what poor,
mis'able wretches they were when they first came,
you would not have thought they would ever have
had such comfortable homes.”

“Are they considered Liberians?” asked Ben.

“To be sure they are—one of them was sent to
the Legislature a few years ago.”

“This is the St. Paul's,” said Polydore, after a
while.

“What a beautiful river!” exclaimed Clara. “It
is so wide and full of islands. What are all those
strange-looking trees?”

“That tree with the leaves growing out of the
top is the palm. It is the most useful tree in the
world, I think. I can't tell you what the natives
don't do with it. They thatch their houses with its
leaves, and make cloth and ropes out of its bark,
and wine from its sap, and a great many other
things, besides the oil from the nut, which is the
most valuable part of it, and is one of their principal
articles of trade.”

“How do they make it?” asked Ben.

“The natives have a very rough way of managing

it. They dig a square pit in the earth, and fill
it with the palm-nuts, pounded shell and all together;
then the women trample the oil out with their
feet. When they think they have pressed it all out,
they pour water into the pit, and skim off the oil as
it rises with their hands. But in this way, of course,
a great deal of oil is wasted; yet it is wonderful
how much they make. They sell it to the traders
for about thirty-three cents a gallon. You know a
great deal of fine soap is made with palm-oil, and
so it is always in demand. We have presses to use;
and one of our settlers, Mr. Henning, of Bassa, has
invented a machine for extracting the oil from the
kernel. This is much finer than that which is made
from the whole nut. It is as pure as water, and
can be made quite hard. Many persons use it instead
of lard or butter. The common oil makes
very good candles, and can also be burned in lamps.”

“Does Mr. Henning make any money by his oil?”

“It sells for one dollar a gallon, and he can make
ten gallons a day. You can judge for yourself
whether it is profitable or not. The palm is one of
our most common trees, so that nuts can always be
obtained. Do you see that weed growing through
the woods?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” continued Nathan, “that is indigo. It
is a great trouble to the farmers here. We have

the hardest work to get rid of it. It grows every
where, even in the streets. Once Keziah said she
meant to make some use of it, to pay her for all the
labor it had cost her, and she made some very nice
indigo, that my wife dyed these stockings with; but
it was a good deal of trouble, and she has not tried
to make any more. The natives make a fine blue
with it, and at Monrovia they manufacture it a little.
People say a fine living might be made out of
it by those who are willing to take a little pains.”

“Does cotton grow here?” asked Ben.

“Yes; there are several kinds of native cotton.
It grows much higher than ours, and is a tree rather
than a plant. Junius, who has been traveling
about a great deal in the interior, says that he has
stood under a cotton-tree whose branches were so
heavy with their bolls that they had to be supported
by sticks. He says that the cotton was as good
as any he ever saw. The natives manufacture it
for themselves. We have never tried cultivating it
enough to know whether it will be profitable to us
or not. Keziah has one small tree on her place, and
she gets cotton enough from that to knit all the
stockings her family need during the year, and she
has quite a large one.”

“There is one thing in its favor here,” said Ben;
“there are no frosts to ruin the crop.”

“Yes,” replied Nathan, “the plants will live and

yield a good crop for six or seven years, with but little
trouble besides what is necessary in picking it.”

“I thought this was the rainy season,” said Clara;
“but the sun has been shining all day.”

“This is what we call `the middle dries.' It is
the pleasantest time of the year, and one of the
most healthy. I am glad you came during this season.
We shall not have much more rain now till
September.”

“Is it never any warmer than it is now?” asked
Clara; for the cool breeze that blew so refreshingly
over her face was very unlike the scorching heat
she had expected to find.

“Yes; our warmest weather is in January and
February. That seemed mighty strange to me
when I first came over here, and I have hardly got
used to it yet. In January we have a very dry
spell, and if it were not for the sea-breeze, we should
suffer from the heat. But yet our thermometer has
never risen above ninety degrees, and it is often
much warmer than that in Virginia.”

“I see a great many rice fields along here,” said
Ben; “I suppose you have a plenty of that.”

“Yes; but the natives raise the most of it. They
take very little trouble with it. They just scratch
the ground and throw the seed in, some time in
April generally, and by August the rice can be harvested.
The crops are very abundant, and, though

the Africans will not work on their farms more than
three or four months in the year, they raise much
more than they need. Many of these little dwellings
and farms along this river belong to the natives;
and we find we can get our rice from them
cheaper than if we sowed it ourselves. Some of the
farmers are beginning to cultivate it a little.”

It was night—one of those beautiful moonlight
nights of the tropics when every thing seems bathed
in a flood of silver light—before the travelers reached
Polydore's farm, where they were to remain until
they had decided where they would make their
future home.

They had only time to observe that the house, a
low building of one story, but covering quite a large
space of ground, had a pleasant, well-shaded look
of coolness and comfort, when they were surrounded
by so eager a group of welcomers, that they had no
opportunity to notice any thing farther. Sally and
all her children had come over from Nathan's place,
and Polydore's brother had joined them, with his
family, evidently looking upon the new-comers as
old acquaintances. Keziah's adopted children were
also there. One of them was married, and settled
on an adjoining place; the other was still a member
of Keziah's family.

Ben and Clara were too much occupied in asking
and answering questions of personal interest to gain

many new ideas on the subject of Liberian affairs;
but the next morning Keziah took them over her
farm, and showed them her arrangements with no
little pride. Nathan had warned Ben beforehand
not to think that every place in Liberia was as well
attended to as Keziah's.

“They might be, easily,” said he, “for every settler
has the same chance; but some folks are lazy,
and won't take the least trouble. They seem to
think they oughtn't to be expected to do any thing
but open their mouths, and the food will drop into
them, ready cooked.”

“You know,” said Keziah, “that every single
man receives five acres of good land when he comes
here. He can have a town lot, if he prefers it. If
he is married, and has a family, more land is given
to him; but never more than ten acres. If he would
like a larger farm, there is plenty of land to be
bought for a dollar or two an acre. We only have
ten acres, though, and find we can raise a great
deal more than we want from them. Nathan has
more. He has a little coffee plantation that he is
very proud of.”

“What is this?” asked Ben.

“That is our sugar-mill. Polydore made it himself.
We make all our own sugar and molasses,
and generally have some to sell, though we only
plant one acre in sugar-cane. It grows very high.

Some people who came from Louisiana say it is
a great deal larger here than they ever saw it
there.

“Here are a few cotton trees,” continued Keziah.
“I suppose, one of these days, we shall raise a great
deal of cotton, for it grows very easily; but we have
hardly tried it fairly yet. And here is my arrow-root.
Did you notice the biscuits we had this morning,
and the bread and cake that were on the table
last night?”

“Yes,” replied Clara; “they were very white
and nice.”

“Well, they were all made of arrow-root. You
see, it can be raised without any trouble hardly, and
when it is ripe, we take the roots and pound them,
and throw them into some water, stirring them
about for some time; then we strain the water
into another tub, and let it stand until the arrow-root
is settled at the bottom of the vessel, and we
keep on washing and straining it until it is perfectly
pure and white. Then we dry it in the sun, and
it is ready for use. It is so easily made, and so
very wholesome, that we use a great deal of it.”

“Do you ever make any to sell?” asked Ben.

“Yes, we sell all we do not want. We have
never planted more than an acre with it, and last
year I made from it fifteen hundred pounds of the
best arrow-root I ever saw. I sold eight hundred

pounds for fifteen cents a pound, and made one
hundred and twenty dollars.

“This is my orchard,” continued Keziah, as they
stood in a little grove of fruit trees. “I am not
going to let you taste much of the fruit now, for
that is the way so many of the emigrants get sick.
Polydore almost died from eating too many bananas
and pine-apples.”

The children found the denial a very hard one.
The orange-trees, laden with their golden fruit
hanging just above their reach, was a strong temptation,
and Keziah could not resist their entreaties.
There were a number of lemon and lime trees, and
many others which the new-comers had never seen
before.

“That is the guava-tree,” said Keziah, pointing
to one about as large as a peach-tree; “and that
other is the mango plum. Those two make the
best preserves I ever tasted. I sent some to Mast'r
Charles, made with my own sugar, and he sent me
back word that they were as nice as any West India
preserve. We have a great many other fruits.
Pine-apples grow wild all through the woods. There
are tamarind-trees all about here, and African cherry
and peach trees; and I have two or three cocoa-nut
and bread-fruit trees growing near my house. In
fact, I can't tell you all the kinds of fruits we have,
for I hardly know them myself yet.

“Here is my vegetable garden,” continued she.
“These are plantains; they are very nice when
they are well cooked, and we are never without
them through the whole year. Those are bananas;
here are my Lima beans. I planted them four
years ago, and there has not been a month since
when I could not gather the greatest abundance of
beans from them. These are sweet potatoes. They
can be raised, like every thing else here, with but
little trouble, and are very fine. We get enough
from this little patch to supply our table nearly the
whole year round.”

“And there are some black-eyed peas,” said Ben.

“Oh yes, we have plenty of them, and Indian
corn too, though some of our folks think it is not
quite as good as what we had in Virginia; but I
don't see much difference in it.”

“What is this tall plant?” asked Ben.

“That is the cassada. The root of it is the part
we use; we generally roast or boil it, and I like it
better than sweet potatoes. The natives almost
live upon it. You see them walking about every
where with a roasted cassada in one hand and a
bunch of bird-pepper in the other, that they use for
seasoning.”

“That must be what I saw the children eating
in New Georgia as we rode through,” said Clara.
“Every one we met seemed to have a long potato

in one hand and something else in the other. What
is bird-pepper?”

“Some people call it African cayenne,” said Keziah.
“It is a kind of pepper that grows all around
here. You can find quantities of it through the
woods about, and good judges say that it is better
than any kind that is raised in other countries. It
would be worth while, they say, to gather it for
exportation. All that any one would have to do
would be to pick the pods when they are ripe, and
spread them out to dry.”

“There seems to be no end to the valuable plants
that are growing wild about Liberia,” said Ben.

“Oh, you have not heard half of them yet,” said
Keziah; “there are ground-nuts that can be gathered
by the barrelful, and very fine ginger growing
in the greatest abundance. We raise a great
deal of it, and make two or three hundred dollars a
year by it. But coffee is, I think, what we shall
find the most profitable. You can find coffee-trees
growing wild through the whole of Liberia. At
Bassa many of the woods are full of coffee thickets;
and by transplanting scions from them, and taking
a little trouble with them, we can make quite a
good income in a few years. Nathan planted five
acres in coffee about six years ago, and last year he
made six hundred dollars by them. Our coffee is
said to be as good as that from Mocha.”

“I wonder more people don't go into the business,”
said Ben.

“They are just beginning to understand it,” said
Keziah. “Judge Benson, of Bassa, has twenty acres
of coffee. There are seven thousand trees on them,
and from many of these he can get six pounds of
berries a year.”

“That does not seem much to get from a tree,”
observed Clara.

“It is a very fair quantity,” said Keziah; “they
often do not yield as much as that; though I have one
tree that I gathered twenty pounds from last year.”

“How long do they continue to bear?”

“From ten to twenty years; and I will promise
you that, if you will devote three of your ten acres
to coffee, you will be able to support yourselves entirely,
clothe yourselves, and put your children to
school with the produce of the seven acres, and be
able to lay by all the money you get from your coffee-trees.”

“How much ought that to be?”

“Why, at first it will not be much; but after
they begin to bear well, which will be in six years,
you ought to make at the very least three hundred
dollars a year.

“Besides all these,” continued Keziah, “the bean
that castor-oil is made from grows wild here, and
the Croton oil is made from the seeds of one of our

bushes. We have a great many valuable trees, too,
that a settler might make a good deal of money by
cutting, besides doing the country a good service;
for the more it is cleared the healthier it grows.”

“What are the trees?” asked Ben.

“Besides the palm, the most valuable of all—
and, by-the-way, did you observe our candles last
night?”

“Yes, they were quite good.”

“They were made of palm-oil. Well, besides
the palm, there is the Cam wood. That does not
grow much near the coast; the natives generally
cut it, and bring it down here to exchange it for
what they want. It is used for dyeing, and is very
valuable. The gum-elastic-tree, and the trees that
gum Arabic, and the copaiva balsam, and frankincense
are obtained from, all grow around here; and
there are many kinds of timber that are useful for
building.”

“You seem to have a great deal of poultry,” said
Clara.

“Yes, we have more chickens, and ducks, and
geese than we care about, and lately we have begun
to raise turkeys. We have a good many sheep
and goats too.”

“Have you any cows?”

“Oh yes; but they do not give as much milk as
those in America. We have some small native

oxen that we use for plowing, and find that they do
very well. The people in the interior bring us down
plenty of beef, so that we seldom take the trouble
to raise any ourselves. We could easily do it if we
wished. We have plenty of pigs, and all the care
we have to take of them is to keep them from
straying.”

“I am almost afraid to walk through this long
grass,” said Clara; “for I heard, before I came here,
that Liberia was full of poisonous snakes. Have
you ever seen any?”

“I used to see one occasionally when I first came
up here from Monrovia, but I haven't found one
for a long time; and there never have been half so
many as there were in Virginia. Don't you remember
how many rattlesnakes Polydore killed in one
year there? and the copperheads and moccasins we
used to see?”

“But you have a great many insects?” said
Clara.

“Yes, we have, to be sure, and they give us
some trouble; and the woods are full of monkeys,
that do a good deal of mischief sometimes; but the
more settled the country gets, the less we are annoyed
by any thing of that kind.”

“What pretty bushes these are,” said Clara.
“That is my fence,” replied Keziah; “you see I
have only a small place, and I wanted to keep it

as nice as possible; so Polydore found those bushes
in the woods, and we made a hedge all around our
farm with them. It looks very pretty, and, besides,
it never needs any repairs.”

“Do you and Polydore keep the farm in order
yourselves?” asked Ben.

“Oh no. I never do any thing but give my
opinion now and then. There are plenty of natives
that are glad to help us, and think a shilling a day
a great deal.”

“By the time they had examined Keziah's place
in all its details, the sun was so warm that she
thought it unsafe for them to expose themselves to
its influence longer. After dinner, in which a
nicely cured ham, and plump turkey, and sweet
potatoes showed their familiar faces amid a variety
of strange vegetables, Keziah left her guests to attend
to her school.

This consisted of about a dozen native children,
and a few women whom she had collected, and
was teaching to read and sew. The African girl
whom she had brought up taught them in the
morning, and Keziah usually devoted an hour or
two in the afternoon to them, being regarded by
these ignorant and docile children of the forest as a
wonder in learning and skill.

Late in the afternoon she walked over with Ben
and Clara to Nathan's place. On their way they

passed a farm, where every thing seemed to be
growing in wild luxuriance, certainly, but very
much at its own will and pleasure.

“That belongs to Polydore's brother,” said Keziah;
“we can't make him believe that it is at all
worth while to take the least trouble to keep things
in order. He thinks if he makes as much as he
and his family want off his place, he does all that
is necessary. But he is very much improved since
he came here. At first he wouldn't work at all,
but said it was the women's place to do all the
planting and raising the vegetables.”

They reached at last a substantial farm-house,
standing in the midst of a well-cleared and cultivated
plantation of about forty acres, which Keziah
informed them, belonged to Nathan. The order
and neatness in which the whole place was kept,
and its flourishing condition, filled Ben with admiration.

“It looks just like him,” said he; “I always
knew if Nathan had a fair chance he would be a
rich man.”

Keziah informed them that, besides attending to
his farm, he preached every Sunday to the natives,
and had collected from among them quite a large
Sunday-school.

“The Africans are mighty curious to know how
to read,” said she; “they think that it is the book

learning that makes us so much ahead of them in
every thing. One of their kings, Joe Harris, said
that `God made first white man, den black man;
den God held out both his hands—book in one, rice
and palm oil in other. White man choose book,
black man choose rice and palm-oil. Book tell white
man how to get every thing else; black man never
get nothin' but rice and palm-oil.”'

“Have you good schools here?” asked Clara.

“Yes, we have very good schools, and they are all
free. They are supported by the different churches
and societies in America. There is one at Monrovia
that people say is equal to any common school the
white folks have at home. We have three high
schools, perhaps more, for I remember, when I was
last at Monrovia, they said there were to be two
more established; and we are trying to get up a
college.”

In talking with Nathan, Ben asked him if he had
ever wished to go back to America.

“Never for one minute,” said Nathan, with energy;
“the first moment I stepped my foot on Liberia,
I felt like a different man; and if I had known that
I should have died in the first six months, I would
not have regretted my coming. It is a blessed thing
to be able to bring up a family of children where
they need not be ashamed of their color, and where
their feelings as well as their rights are respected.

Besides, they have such a good opportunity to make
something of themselves here. I intend this little
fellow,” said Nathan, putting his hand on the head
of a bright-looking boy about ten years old, “to
be a senator or a judge, if not a president. He is a
native Liberian, and I mean him to show the world
what stuff they are made of.”

“You seem to be quite proud of Liberia,” said
Ben, smiling.

“To be sure I am,” replied Nathan. “When I
think how little while it is since we have been any
thing at all, I am surprised at the improvement we
have made. I do not believe there ever was a nation
before that has grown so rapidly. And the
natives look up to us as something wonderful. Soon
after I first came here, one of the kings, Long Peter
they call him, said to Junius,

“`Here am I and my tribe, always afraid lest the
bigger kings get mad, or get poor, or want goods;
then they come pounce on us, steal us, handcuff
us, whip us, sells us slaves over the seas. Now
settlers no such fear. Here I, my tribe, Devil
King make us drink sassy-water—we die—we
don't want to die—we die—settlers don't drink
sassy-water—I'll be settlers—I'll be.' And he
was almost beside himself with joy when we consented
to receive him and his people under our protection.”

“Don't these natives give you any trouble?”
asked Ben.

“Very seldom. Last November Cresson, or, as
the natives call it, Fishtown, was attacked for the
second time by Grando, the chief of the tribe of
Fishmen, and afterward they made an attempt on
Bassa Cove; but President Roberts went to the
assistance of the people with some men, and the
natives fled directly. Such things are very uncommon
though, and the Africans are generally urged
on by the traders. In this part of the country there
is not the slightest danger, and in fact nowhere but
in the extreme outskirts.”

The next day was Sunday, and the new-comers
were taken to a plain but comfortably-thatched
church, where they heard a very good sermon from
a missionary in the morning, and one in the afternoon
from a colored clergyman. The Sunday-schools
were well attended by the natives as well as the
Liberians, and among the congregation Nathan
pointed out to Ben several, who, he said, were converted
Africans. One of them was a teacher in the
Sunday-school, and also officiated occasionally as a
missionary.

“The Baptist mission among the Bassa tribe has
been for two or three years conducted by a native
African and four native assistants, who were all
educated in Liberia,” said Nathan.

One morning, a few days after Ben's arrival, he
was awakened by the firing of a cannon, and numerous
guns and pistols, at short intervals. He had
been dreaming of America, and sprang up in great
haste, thinking that it was the Fourth of July. He
soon recollected himself, and said with a smile to
Polydore, whom he found out enjoying the cool
morning breeze,

“What does that noise mean? I thought, when
I first woke up, that it was Independence day.”

“So it is,” said Polydore; “it's our Independence
day. The twenty-sixth of July is the day we keep
here. I was in Monrovia last year at this time,
and we had a procession there, and an oration, and
some very good music too. I wish we could have
taken you there to spend the day; but we was
afraid you might be made sick.”

“I do not feel very well this morning,” said Ben;
“my head aches, and I have a little fever.”

“I s'pose you is going to have the 'climating
fever; people generally has it when they fust come
over; but it won't last long if you keep your spirits
up—not more than a week or two. Keziah is a
fust-rate doctor; she has nussed I don't know how
many people through it, and knows jest what to
do.”

“But is there no regular doctor about here?”
asked Ben.

“Oh yes; we has a white doctor and a colored
one. I don't know which is the best, for I's thankful
to say I never needs one; but some folks likes
one best, and some the other.”

Ben's illness lasted only four or five days. At
first it was rather severe, and he was somewhat
alarmed; but Keziah, knowing by experience that
the most effectual cure in such cases was to prevent
the patient from desponding, and to keep his mind
as calm as possible, assured him that he was in no
real danger.

“Just think you are going to get well,” said she,
“and you will sure. I never knew it fail. But
give up, and expect to die, and I don't know nothing
that will do you any good. I know 'zackly how
this fever works, and I tell you if you only keep up
good courage, you will be well in a week.”

Thus encouraged, and with every thing around
him calculated to cheer and animate him, Ben soon
threw off his temporary illness. Clara was even
more fortunate than he; for, being naturally of a
more tranquil temperament, she was less affected
by the change of climate than he had been. Their
children also suffered very little; and within a
month after their landing, Ben and Clara acknowledged
with thankfulness that they had never felt
better in their lives.

“People don't always get off clear with one fit

of sickness,” said Keziah; “sometimes they have
several attacks in the first few months. But, if you
take proper care of yourselves, you won't be likely
to be sick again. People that's imprudent must
suffer for it.”

Ben selected his ten acres as near Polydore's and
Nathan's as he could. A little cottage was put up
for him for fifty dollars, that was amply large enough
for his family.

“The first house I had built,” said Nathan, “cost
only twenty-five dollars, and it lasted me five years.
I thought it was mighty nice then; but we get
proud after we have lived in Liberia a little while.
Don't you notice the difference, Ben, between the
colored people here and in Virginia. I can tell a
man that's been raised in Liberia from an American
as soon as I see him.”

“How?” asked Ben.

“Why, they seem more like men. You know
Ben, you never felt like a man in America.”

“No,” said Ben, with some reluctance; “I used
to try mighty hard, but I never could feel like any
thing but a nigger.”

“Well, here you forget all about your color in a
little while, and every body else that comes here,
white or black, seems to do so too. See if it isn't
so.”

Ben did notice, and by his observations he received

the same impressions so clearly stated by
the Rev. Mr. Gurley, in his report concerning Liberia
to the Senate of the United States, where he
says:

“From personal observation, I may speak with
confidence of the mighty effects wrought upon the
intellect, hopes, and purposes of the authorities and
people of Liberia, by the freedom which has ever
been theirs upon that shore, and by the high position
which they have now taken of national independence.
Some of the most distinguished men in
the republic are among those who went thither in
childhood, have received their entire education in
its schools; and bear in their manners, their whole
deportment, and upon their very aspect, the signs
of a just self-respect, of subdued passions, of virtuous
resolution, and of a mature and well-disciplined
judgment.”

The opinion of Dr. Durbin, well known as one of
the most prominent divines of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, also founded on facts coming under
his own knowledge, should not be without its effect.
In an address to the House of Representatives in
the capital of Pennsylvania, he observed:

“I am a native of, and was reared in a slave
state. I have seen the colored man under all conditions
in this country, from the rice plantations in
Georgia and South Carolina, to the cold regions of

Maine and Canada. I know his position and capabilities
in America; I know he never can obtain
freedom and equality before the law of the Legislature,
and still more imperious law of society; he
can not obtain such freedom and equality as his
heart naturally and justly yearns after. The differences
between his race and ours are such, that
political and social equality is impracticable. What
changes, moral, political, and physical, agents acting
through centuries to come may work out tending
to assimilate the white and colored races, no
man can foresee. We are called on to act under
the present conditions of the case; and to act for
the good of the colored man, and for the honor,
safety, and peace of our country. I say, then,
knowing as I do the positions and capabilities of
the colored man in America, he can not attain to
the functions and enjoyments of a man among us.
He is not, and can not be free in the proper sense
of the word; the pressure that keeps him down is
irresistible; he can not rise to a manly hope or ambition;
he can not develop his powers here, and
show what he could do if circumstances were favorable.
If by industry and good fortune he make
money, and rear a family of sons and daughters in
a respectable manner, where will he find suitable
alliances for them? I need not pursue this subject.
I have talked with such, and found them faint and
discouraged with the prospects before their children.

“But transport these people to Africa, with our
religion, our civilization, though in a low degree,
and our political institutions, and experience has
shown that there they become men, and show themselves
to be men. After large opportunities, and
long and patient observation, I am persuaded that
nowhere else but in Africa is the African a man.
I have reason to know that there he is a man.
Shortly after I went to New York, to take charge
of the missionary affairs of our whole Church, I received
large dispatches from our African mission.
Among them were the minutes of our mission conference
in Liberia, composed wholly of some twenty
colored men; also the annual report of the superintendent
of the mission; together with reports on education,
on Church property, and the extension of
the mission, and on various subjects. Upon opening
the papers, I was struck with the clear, bold
hand in which they were generally written; and,
upon reading a portion of the annual report and
minutes, I was astonished at the perspicuous arrangement
of the matter, and the clear and forcible
language in which it was expressed. I turned to the
clerk, who had been accustomed to see dispatches
from Africa, and asked him if colored men wrote
these papers. He smiled, and replied there is no

white person in the colony, except one lone woman,
Mrs. Wilkins, a martyr to the education of the children
of the colonists. The position, the circumstances
of the African colonist in Liberia make him
a man and give him action. Transplant him there,
and he becomes a man, and takes place among men.
His descendants, in a few generations, may stand
forward grandly in the affairs of this world.”

Ben experienced in his own spirit the invigorating
effects of the moral atmosphere of Liberia. His
ambition once more aroused, and his energy called
into exercise by objects worthy of it, he soon laid
aside the habits of indolence into which he had fallen
during the latter part of his life in Philadelphia,
and set himself so vigorously to work clearing and
cultivating his farm, that eight months after he
landed at Monrovia, he sent word to Mr. Peyton,
through Junius, that “he was living of his own,
enjoying vegetables of his own raising, and that he
and his family had never been in better health or
spirits, and that he was already beginning to feel
proud of being called a Liberian.”

And well might he cherish the title. But thirty
years had passed since the colonists first landed, a
little band of weak men on the coast, and but four
since they became a nation, and already their influence
was felt by nearly a million of people. Wherever
their power extended, the slave-trade died away;

abolished by their firm, though gentle control more
surely and effectually than by all the armaments of
England or America. More than six hundred miles
of a coast once dotted by barracoons, and given up
to that abominable traffic, were now freed from its
accursed influence.

The independence of Liberia had been acknowledged
by Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Prussia.
Its reputation and commerce was rapidly increasing,
and its influence over the natives was astonishing.
Though there were not, in 1852, eight
thousand emigrants in Liberia and the Maryland
colony together, yet they had nearly two hundred
thousand Africans living in their republic and submitting
to their laws. More than three times as
many had given up the slave-trade as the first step
toward becoming their allies. And without being
reproached as an enthusiast, the calmest mind
might regard it as a moral certainty that the time
would come when all Central Africa would look to
Liberia for protection, for instruction, and for laws,
as well as for Christianity.