AFRICA AND TEE AFRICANS. 



385 



AFKICA AND THE AFKICANS. 



Bt a Negro (Rev. EDWARD W. BLYDEN). 



THE abolition of slavery in the United States 

 was not an isolated phenomenon. It was an 

 important link in the great chain of events which 

 are leading up to the regeneration of Africa. A 

 negro writer of the present day on Africa and 

 African questions, therefore, can neither forget 

 American slavery nor the great American eman- 

 cipation. He must, ever and anon, like the man- 

 umitted Hebrews of old, recall the "house of 

 bondage," not only as the fons et origo malorum 

 to a large portion of his race, but as the type and 

 representative of all the oppression which has 

 everywhere afflicted the negro in the countries of 

 his exile. He must also remember the great de- 

 liverance, when thi door of his prison-house was 

 forcibly opened and five millions of his race 

 marched out into the open air of personal free- 

 dom, not only as the starting-point for a large 

 section of his people on a loftier and nobler ca- 

 reer, but as an important step toward the ameli- 

 oration and reconstruction of his fatherland — as 

 Heaven's intervention in the solution of a great 

 and intricate problem, as the pledge and proof 

 of God's providential care and beneficent pur- 

 poses for Africa and the African. 



Before the abolition of slavery in the United 

 States, it was generally taken for granted that, 

 as things had been, so far as the negro was con- 

 cerned, so they would continue to be ; that there 

 was no other destiny for Africa than to be the 

 hunting-ground for unprincipled men of all other 

 countries, and no other destiny for the negro 

 than to continue in servitude to the man-hunters 

 and their abettors. And many an intelligent 

 Christian thought he saw in the Bible a clear 

 warrant for this view. 



But hardly had the negro come out of the 

 house of bondage in America, when traditional 

 views on the subject of his destiny began to fade 

 away among the unwholesome superstitions of 

 the past. Events began to direct attention to 

 his ancestral home. The emancipation of mill- 

 ions of people of a foreign and uncongenial race, 

 in a country governed by republican institutions, 

 could not but awaken serious reflections in the 

 minds of the thoughtful. Here was a new prob- 

 lem for solution, and one which, to the minds 

 of many, presented terrible contingencies. They 

 could not conceive of five millions of blacks liv- 



97 



ing among thirty millions of whites in any other 

 relation than that of servitude, especially when 

 servitude had been the uniform antecedent rela- 

 tion. But that relation had been abruptly sev- 

 ered. The five millions of slaves were now free 

 men. 



There were several proposals made for the 

 disposition of this unwelcome and inconvenient 

 element. Many thought that they should be sent 

 to the great West, and be formed into a " Terri- 

 tory" of the United States. Others held that 

 they should be absorbed into the body-politic 

 under reconstruction laws. Others proposed 

 their concentration as free men and independent 

 in the Gulf States. Not a few advocated their 

 deportation to the West Indies, or Central Amer- 

 ica. A small number contended that an endeav- 

 or should be made to return them to the land of 

 their fathers. For several years this last propo- 

 sition was ridiculed and contemned, but it could 

 not long be suppressed. It was founded upon a 

 principle inherent in humanity. It appealed to 

 the irresistible instincts and sympathy of race, 

 and it has recently gained an immense popularity 

 among the blacks. Organizations for emigration 

 to Africa, called " Exodus Associations," are be- 

 ing formed among them. While we write this, 

 we learn that nearly two hundred thousand are 

 ready to leave for Africa. Those of the negroes 

 in the United States who comprehend this move- 

 ment and aid it, and avail themselves of it, will 

 be elevated, and will save their posterity from 

 perpetual degradation, or, possibly, extinction. 

 Those who ignore it, and fight against it, will be 

 baffled and thwarted in all their attempts at ele- 

 vation in the land of their former oppressors, 

 if not crushed by the odds so overwhelmingly 

 against them. 



This is the teaching of all his- 



tory. 



In the mean while, events have been cooperat- 

 ing for the opening of Africa. Scarcely had the 

 emancipation proclamation been promulgated, 

 when Livingstone disappeared from the civilized 

 world, and lost himself in the wilds of Africa, 

 just as the intensest interest had been excited in 

 the work of exploration which, as an humble mis- 

 sionary, he had begun. In attempts to ascertain 

 the whereabouts of the lost traveler, more and 

 more of the country was revealed to the aston- 



