Liberia 



<*- 



re-marry with the Negro and fuse by degrees into a purely- 

 Negro community, or he must take his part with one or other 

 of the white peoples. Pride in his white parentage may stand 

 in the way of his marrying a Negro wife, in which case his 

 place is not in Liberia or in any other part of tropical Africa. 

 The caste prejudice of the Northern European may reject for 

 a long time to come any absorption of the Quadroon into the 

 white community. In Spanish and Portuguese America, where 

 these prejudices are scarcely existent, lies perhaps the best chance 

 for these Negro hybrids in the future. Gradually they will 

 fuse with the Southern European element and that mixture of 

 Mongolian blood represented by the American Indian ; and a 

 strong composite race may yet arise which by continued physical 

 im.provement will acquire an ever clearer skin — unless in the 

 course of centuries the admiration of humanity should once 

 more gravitate towards a darker ideal instead of a pink and 

 white complexion. 



But even the pure-blooded Negroes of American origin — 

 that is to say, born in America, perhaps bred in America for 

 several generations — have not withstood triumphantly the severe 

 test of the Liberian climate. They have been far more subject 

 to attacks of malarial fever than the indigenous blacks, and 

 are prone at the same time to European diseases not yet 

 endemic in Tropical Africa, The only remedy for this lies in 

 marriage with the indigenous peoples. No American Negro 

 need scorn alliance with a Mandingo woman or even with some 

 of the Vai. The Mandingo race ought to become the backbone 

 of the Liberian Republic. Even the people of Basa and the 

 Kru country not infrequently present comely types in both 

 men and women ; yet there is nearly always a grotesque appear- 

 ance in these unmixed negroes ; whereas there is a something 

 about the Mandingo people that checks the white man's sneer 



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