AFRICA AND THE AFRICANS. 



391 



" That the negro is not incapahle of civilization, 

 has indeed been proved, yet the testimony of Dr. 

 Livingstone would tend to show that education 

 with the negro does not necessarily fit him for 

 helping to elevate his race. Educated blacks from 

 a distance (says Livingstone) ' are to be avoided ; 

 they are expensive, and are too much of gentle- 

 men for your work.' " 



With regard to the character of the " educa- 

 tion " which the negro has received and is now, 

 as a general thing, receiving from his European 

 teacher, and to the estimate which the negro, as 

 he rises in civilization, intelligence, and culture, 

 will put upon that " education," we venture to 

 refer the Reviewer to articles dealing with this 

 subject in Fraser's Magazine for November, 1875, 

 and May and October, 1876. 



Then, as if struck by the injustice of his gen- 

 eral line of argument, the Reviewer believes him- 

 self to have fallen upon instances which must 

 beyond all cavil substantiate his conclusions. He 

 proceeds : 



" If it should be considered unfair to judge of 

 the negro in his present condition in his native 

 land, ruined and demoralized as it undoubtedly is 

 by the slave-trade, no objection can be raised to 

 an inference drawn from his condition as a free 

 man in our colonies, or in those native free states 

 to which he has been consigned by a freedom-lov- 

 ing people. If we look at the present state of 

 Hayti, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, the attempts of 

 the negro at self-government are not encouraging ; 

 these attempts seem generally to end in anarchy , 

 in a burlesque of everything civilized, and con- 

 stant revolutions." 



Then, as if still conscious of the unfairness of 

 his position, the Reviewer adds : 



" It could perhaps, hardly be otherwise ; we can 

 scarcely expect people down-trodden for ages to 

 develop at once on recovering their freedom a love 

 of order and an aptitude for civilization, which have 

 been with us the slow growth of many centuries. 

 All impartial writers are agreed in considering the 

 sudden emancipation of the negro as a great politi- 

 cal blunder." 



But the evil in so-called negro civilized com- 

 munities lies deeper than anything suggested by 

 the Reviewer — deeper than the down-trodden 

 condition for centuries of the people — deeper, far 

 deeper, than their " sudden emancipation." 



Among the evils wrought by the slave-trade, 

 none has been more damaging to Africa and the 

 negro race than the promiscuous manner in which 

 the tribes have been thrown together and con- 

 founded in the lands of their exile. And in deal- 

 ing with the negro question European writers 



overlook this fact altogether. There are negroes 

 and negroes. The numerous tribes inhabiting 

 the vast continent of Africa can no more be re- 

 garded as in every respect equal than the nu- 

 merous peoples of Asia or Europe can be so 

 regarded. There are the same tribal or family 

 varieties among Africans as among Europeans. 

 And the Reviewer does not seem to be ignorant 

 of this. He says: 



" We must not lose sight of the fact that there 

 are many races in Africa — that the typical negro 

 with prognathous jaw and woolly hair, who has 

 been so eagerly sought as a slave in all ages, is 

 quite as distinct from the Caffre and from many of 

 the races described by travelers in the interior, as 

 from the diminutive Bushman, the feeble remnant 

 of an older race now extinct." 



This is true : there are the Foulahs inhabiting 

 the region of the Upper Niger, the Mandingoes, 

 the Housas, the Bornous of Senegambia, the Nu- 

 bas of the Nile region, of Darfoor and Kordofan, 

 the Ashantees, Fantees, Dahomians, Yorubas, and 

 that whole class of tribes occupying the eastern 

 and middle and western portion of the continent 

 north of the equator. Then there are the tribes 

 of Lower Guinea and Angola, so much ridiculed 

 by Winwood Reade and Monteiro ; all these, dif- 

 fering in original bent and traditional instincts' 

 have been carried as slaves to foreign lands and 

 classed as one. And in speaking of them they are 

 frequently characterized in one or two sentenoes. 

 Now, it should be evident that no short descrip- 

 tion can include all these people, no single defini- 

 tion, however comprehensive, can embrace them 

 all. Yet writers are fond of selecting the promi- 

 nent traits of single tribes with which they are 

 best acquainted, and applying them to the whole 

 race. So the Reviewer makes a disparaging in- 

 ference as to the character and capacity of all 

 Africans from the want of success which has at- 

 tended the efforts of so-called negro communities 

 in Christian lands, who under the government of 

 Europeans show no marked ability ; or who, as 

 in the case of Hayti and Liberia, have set up for 

 themselves, as alleged, ill-contrived, unsuitable, 

 or unstable governments. 



In the first place, these negroes, as far as they 

 are purely African, do not represent even the 

 average intellectual or moral qualities of the Af- 

 rican at home. The Africans who were carried 

 into slavery were mostly of the lowest orders — 

 of the criminal and servile classes — the latter of 

 whom had lived for generations at home with 

 " half their worth conveyed away," and who it 

 was not to be supposed would improve in manly 



