Preface to First Edition.
THE Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886, which has brought together in London men of all races and climes, and of almost every degree of civilisation, has been the immediate occasion—not the cause—of the publication of this volume, and it is hoped that the interest in West Africa which may have been awakened by the “Exhibits” from this part of the world may lead many, who might not otherwise have been attracted by the subject, to a perusal of its pages.
The chapters which it contains have, many of them, appeared, at various times, in the shape of articles in English periodicals, or in those of the United States. They are an attempt to deal with the grave questions which affect Africa and the Negro race—to set forth to Africans and to their foreign helpers, secular and religious, some of the conditions of the problem before them, as they have presented themselves to an African who has enjoyed exceptional opportunities of travel and observation in the Eastern and Western hemispheres —in Central Africa, in Egypt and Syria, in Europe, in North and South America, and in the West Indies.
Much has been written about Africa and the African. The character, position and destiny of the Negro race have been discussed by Europeans of every nationality. Travellers from all parts of the civilised world have visited the country, and have furnished facts—or what seemed to be facts—for brilliant essayists and incisive critics. But very little has been written by the African himself of his country and people—very little, that is, which has attracted the attention of the higher class of readers in Europe and America. Africans at home have no problems to solve except those which pertain to their local or domestic affairs. They are not forced, either by intellectual, or by social, or by material exigencies, to take interest in the outside world.
Were it not for foreign interference, they would never, in any numbers, have left their ancestral homes for residences in other lands.
It is different with the outside, especially the European, world. Europe and America, for the multifarious purposes of their complex life and wonderful growth, have, during the last three hundred years, needed the aid of Africa and the African. And in return for the services which, though forced from them, have been effectually rendered, many and noble have been the efforts put forward towards the opening and improvement of the continent, by those who have been benefited by the labours of her children. Religious convictions and philanthropic impulses have induced active and self-denying exertions for the amelioration of the people; but the drawbacks have been, and are still, numerous and diversified.
Two great religious systems are exerting their influence in Africa — Christianity and Mohammedanism. These systems have many things in common. Christians speak of Abraham as “the Father of the Faithful,” and “the pattern of believers,” and Mohammedanism professes to be a revival of the Abrahamic faith and worship. The Koran admits the Divine authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It is with these two great systems in their effect upon the African, through the methods of their respective propagators, that many of the following pages deal.
Another subject dealt with in this book is the important part in the development of Africa that may be played by the settlement therein of civilised and Christian Negroes, drawn from the Western hemisphere. It is now universally admitted that the acclimatisation of Europeans in Tropical Africa is impossible. No Europeans will ever be able to live in the Soudan or Congo and work as farmers, mechanics or labourers. But, without the example of communities engaging steadily in such employments, the task of civilising the natives, in any large numbers, is hopeless. The Republic of Liberia presents an example of the, at least, comparative, success which attends the efforts of civilised Africans living and working in organised communities, with their farms, workshops, stores, school-houses and churches.
The other method, of a few Europeans settled as missionaries, Government officials, or traders, has, so far, made very little impression on the Continent. We have no example in tropical Africa of hundreds of Europeans living together, and engaged in the arts and practices of civilised life. But, even if this were possible, a few hundreds of Europeans could exert no influence capable of spreading civilisation among the millions in Africa, and of developing the industrial and commercial resources of so vast a continent.
The chapters which it contains have, many of them, appeared, at various times, in the shape of articles in English periodicals, or in those of the United States. They are an attempt to deal with the grave questions which affect Africa and the Negro race—to set forth to Africans and to their foreign helpers, secular and religious, some of the conditions of the problem before them, as they have presented themselves to an African who has enjoyed exceptional opportunities of travel and observation in the Eastern and Western hemispheres —in Central Africa, in Egypt and Syria, in Europe, in North and South America, and in the West Indies.
Much has been written about Africa and the African. The character, position and destiny of the Negro race have been discussed by Europeans of every nationality. Travellers from all parts of the civilised world have visited the country, and have furnished facts—or what seemed to be facts—for brilliant essayists and incisive critics. But very little has been written by the African himself of his country and people—very little, that is, which has attracted the attention of the higher class of readers in Europe and America. Africans at home have no problems to solve except those which pertain to their local or domestic affairs. They are not forced, either by intellectual, or by social, or by material exigencies, to take interest in the outside world.
Were it not for foreign interference, they would never, in any numbers, have left their ancestral homes for residences in other lands.
It is different with the outside, especially the European, world. Europe and America, for the multifarious purposes of their complex life and wonderful growth, have, during the last three hundred years, needed the aid of Africa and the African. And in return for the services which, though forced from them, have been effectually rendered, many and noble have been the efforts put forward towards the opening and improvement of the continent, by those who have been benefited by the labours of her children. Religious convictions and philanthropic impulses have induced active and self-denying exertions for the amelioration of the people; but the drawbacks have been, and are still, numerous and diversified.
Two great religious systems are exerting their influence in Africa — Christianity and Mohammedanism. These systems have many things in common. Christians speak of Abraham as “the Father of the Faithful,” and “the pattern of believers,” and Mohammedanism professes to be a revival of the Abrahamic faith and worship. The Koran admits the Divine authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It is with these two great systems in their effect upon the African, through the methods of their respective propagators, that many of the following pages deal.
Another subject dealt with in this book is the important part in the development of Africa that may be played by the settlement therein of civilised and Christian Negroes, drawn from the Western hemisphere. It is now universally admitted that the acclimatisation of Europeans in Tropical Africa is impossible. No Europeans will ever be able to live in the Soudan or Congo and work as farmers, mechanics or labourers. But, without the example of communities engaging steadily in such employments, the task of civilising the natives, in any large numbers, is hopeless. The Republic of Liberia presents an example of the, at least, comparative, success which attends the efforts of civilised Africans living and working in organised communities, with their farms, workshops, stores, school-houses and churches.
The other method, of a few Europeans settled as missionaries, Government officials, or traders, has, so far, made very little impression on the Continent. We have no example in tropical Africa of hundreds of Europeans living together, and engaged in the arts and practices of civilised life. But, even if this were possible, a few hundreds of Europeans could exert no influence capable of spreading civilisation among the millions in Africa, and of developing the industrial and commercial resources of so vast a continent.
It is the African converts to Mohammedanism and the Negro colonists from Christian countries, who have, thus far, done most for the permanent advance of civilisation in equatorial Africa; and it is these who seem to me to be the only capable and efficient agencies for the work of African regeneration. Mohammedanism— by its simple, rigid forms of worship, by its literature, its politics, its organised society, its industrial and commercial activities—is rapidly superseding a hoary and pernicious Paganism. The exiled Negro in the Western hemisphere, on the other hand, in spite of slavery, in spite of the bitter prejudices, the dark passions of which he has been the victim, has come under influences which have given him the elements of a nobler civilisation. The seed of a spiritual, intellectual, industrial life has been planted in his bosom, which, when he is transferred to the land of his fathers, will grow up into beauty, expand into flower, and develop into fruit which the world will be glad to welcome.
It is gratifying to know that there are thousands in America looking to Africa as their future home, who have been kept so much apart from the alien race in whose country they live, that their race-strength has not been undermined nor their race-vitality absorbed, by surrounding influences. They will return to their ancestral home bearing, it is true, the marks of slavery to a foreign race, but it will be only a superficial mark. Within they will have the noble and manly traits of those who, while outwardly slaves to foreigners, have been free servants to truth, to Africa, and to the race. They have never been crushed under the pressure, or forced into the mould, of foreign prejudices. Christians and Mohammedans will meet face to face, as they have never confronted each other before, and in a field where there are no other disputants; the professors of each being of the same race, and both believing in their duty to convert the Pagans. And it is an advantage that the Negro Christian who is thus brought into a religious rivalry should be of that class which brings nothing to the conflict but an unwavering belief in the truth of Christianity; for he will confront Mohammedans whose unreasoning adherence to their faith has not been influenced by the disease of European casuistry. The new comer from the West will infuse spiritual life into the formalism of the Muslims, a vital and spontaneous activity into the mechanical regularity of their worship; while the Muslims by their disciplined intellect and respect for order, will confront the pretentions of ignorant and unlettered religious guides, and rebuke the wild impulses of religious fervour, the indifference to learning, the license (mistaken for
liberty) imported from the house of bondage.
It is chiefly to point out these things that the following pages have been written, with the conviction that, if Christianity cannot conquer the whole of Africa—a task which it can never accomplish through European agency alone—it may, by the efforts and influence of its African converts, at least divide the empire of the Continent with Islam; Paganism, with all its horrors and abominations, having been forever abolished.
LIBERIA, WEST AFRICA,
May, 1887.
It is gratifying to know that there are thousands in America looking to Africa as their future home, who have been kept so much apart from the alien race in whose country they live, that their race-strength has not been undermined nor their race-vitality absorbed, by surrounding influences. They will return to their ancestral home bearing, it is true, the marks of slavery to a foreign race, but it will be only a superficial mark. Within they will have the noble and manly traits of those who, while outwardly slaves to foreigners, have been free servants to truth, to Africa, and to the race. They have never been crushed under the pressure, or forced into the mould, of foreign prejudices. Christians and Mohammedans will meet face to face, as they have never confronted each other before, and in a field where there are no other disputants; the professors of each being of the same race, and both believing in their duty to convert the Pagans. And it is an advantage that the Negro Christian who is thus brought into a religious rivalry should be of that class which brings nothing to the conflict but an unwavering belief in the truth of Christianity; for he will confront Mohammedans whose unreasoning adherence to their faith has not been influenced by the disease of European casuistry. The new comer from the West will infuse spiritual life into the formalism of the Muslims, a vital and spontaneous activity into the mechanical regularity of their worship; while the Muslims by their disciplined intellect and respect for order, will confront the pretentions of ignorant and unlettered religious guides, and rebuke the wild impulses of religious fervour, the indifference to learning, the license (mistaken for
liberty) imported from the house of bondage.
It is chiefly to point out these things that the following pages have been written, with the conviction that, if Christianity cannot conquer the whole of Africa—a task which it can never accomplish through European agency alone—it may, by the efforts and influence of its African converts, at least divide the empire of the Continent with Islam; Paganism, with all its horrors and abominations, having been forever abolished.
LIBERIA, WEST AFRICA,
May, 1887.
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