Liberia ^ 



Liberia was at some unknown period peopled, chiefly from 

 the Niger Plateau on the north, by that black West African 

 type of Negro which is so characteristic of Equatorial Africa, 

 from Uganda westwards to the mouth of the Congo and the 

 mouth of the Gambia. These Negroes are of the same general 

 type as those of the whole West African littoral, from the 

 regions south of the Gambia to Angola. After the big black 

 Negroes had occupied the Equatorial belt of Africa, the African 

 types of Caucasian man began to press westwards from the 

 Nile and southwards from Mauritania, till they had reached the 

 Niger and the Senegal. Many hybrids and intermixtures with 

 the northern fringe of Negroes took place through the ages, 

 forming different types and degrees in physical beauty of yellow 

 men and brown men. 



Remarkable amongst the earliest of those semi-Caucasian 

 races who colonised purely Negro Africa were the Fulas,^ who 

 were probably the result of one of the first invasions of the 

 Western Sahara by the Libyans (Moors) of Northern Africa. 

 The element of Caucasian blood in the Fula people impelled 

 them towards high lands with a relatively cool climate, and 

 these they found on that mountain range and knot of plateaux 

 already alluded to as the head-waters of the Niger. The 

 Fulas (of whom more will be said in this book), though 

 proud of their light colour, did not hesitate to interbreed with 

 Negro women as well as with the carefully guarded females of 

 their own stock. So they gave rise to many further hybrids 

 with the Negro, of dark complexion, but with features showing 

 the intermingling of Caucasian blood. Of such possibly were 

 the Mandingo, the Wolof, the Tukulor. The Mandingo is 

 the most notable of these Negroids, though this race is of 



' It is most convenient to call by this term the Ful, Fulbe, Fellata, Fulani, or 

 Peulh people of Senegambia, Central and Eastern Nigeria. 



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