Preface ^ 



for Negro West Africa : preserving all that is good and 

 practical of America's teaching, shedding what is inappropriate, 

 and inventing additional precepts suited to the Negro's mind 

 and body. Personally, the author thinks the main future of 

 those negroes in the United States who cannot be absorbed 

 into the American community without risk of civil war lies 

 in the West Indies and in portions of Tropical South America. 

 He believes they have become too widely separated in physical 

 constitution, in political and commercial ideals from Africa to 

 resume with ease the African citizenship of their forefathers. 

 For good or for ill, they must populate some portion of America, 

 as partners with the white man or as a race by themselves. 

 But amongst their millions some few thousands, now and 

 again^ may choose to try an African career. There is plenty 

 of room for such adventurers within the 43,000 square miles 

 of the Liberian Republic, room and to spare ; for this country, 

 properly tilled and drained, cleared and cultivated, might easily 

 sustain a population of twenty millions. 



The author classes Liberia as an attempt as well as an 

 atonement. It is but a tiny portion of the African continent, 

 soon to be (with the exception of Abyssinia, perhaps) the only 

 truly independent African State which we have set apart for 

 the unfettered development of the black race. We have allowed 

 them to take — which means that we have given them — a little 

 garden in which to show what their husbandry can do. To this 

 careless gift we should at least add Time. We should not 



