LIBERIA. 



417 



great abundance, and yield annually an enor- 

 mous growth of nuts and oil. Cam-wood and 

 rubber-trees also abound, and are very valu- 

 able for export. Millions of dollars go annu- 

 ally out of Europe and America to the West 

 Coast ; thousands go to Liberia to purchase 

 palm-oil, palm-nuts, cam-wood, and rubber. 

 Added to this is ivory, one of the most valu- 

 able articles of trade, which lies around in 

 parts of the interior like common rocks. The 

 forests contain different varieties of valuable 

 timber. Growing almost everywhere are ma- 

 hogany, oak, hickory, rose-wood, mulberry, 

 and other valuable trees which could be se- 

 cured easily, and at little cost. There is a 

 great variety of fruit-trees ; oranges, limes, 

 guavas, plantains, pine-apples, sour sops, and 

 others grow everywhere, and are remarked 

 for their delicious flavor. The soil is very 

 rich, and may be cultivated with a stick. If 

 it is simply scratched, and the seed dropped 

 in, there is an abundant harvest. Mx>st of the 

 table vegetables .may be raised, such as Guinea 

 corn, sweet potatoes, beans, tomatoes, okra, 

 watermelons, cabbages, and turnips. The na- 

 tives cultivate a vegetable somewhat like the 

 sweet potato, which they call eddoes, and an- 

 other like the turnip, which they call cassavas. 



The Americo-Africans raise and export prin- 

 cipally coffee and sugar. They could add to 

 these articles ginger, pepper, ground-nuts, in- 

 digo, arrow-root, and cotton, which is found 

 everywhere in a wild state. Enterprise and 

 industry, backed by a little capital, might ac- 

 complish great results here. The coffee of Li- 

 beria is the best in the world. It is indige- 

 nous. Hull, in his work on coffee-culture, gives 

 the Liberian coffee the first place. It is supe- 

 rior to Java and Mocha, both in the size of the 

 berry and the deliciousness of the flavor. 



The Natives. The people are divided into two 

 classes : 1, the aborigines, who are the indig- 

 enous tribes, and the slaves recaptured from 

 slave-ships and returned to Africa; and, 2, the 

 colored colonizers from the United States and 

 the West Indies, and their descendants. The 

 natives, as the aborigines are called, are divided 

 into tribes, named Veys, Mandingoes, Kroos, 

 Golahs, Greboes, Pessehs, Bassos, and Deys. 

 They differ in dialect, as do the people of 

 Great Britain even to-day. The Mandingoes 

 are a tall and sinewy race, while the Kroomen 

 are the sailors, navigating all the steamers and 

 ships that do business in African waters. The 

 Krooman was never a slave ; he was too use- 

 ful to the slave-trader-as a sailor. Every male 

 Kroo has a blue band tattooed upon his fore- 

 head. These tribes dwell in towns, each town 

 having its chief. The houses are neatly con- 

 structed of b.-imboo. The Veys live in conical 

 dwellings, with a porch, in which they usually 

 hang a hammock of their own manufacture. 

 The houses are comparatively neat, and the 

 African wife prides herself on keeping her 

 home tidy and in order. They have their 

 smiths, who work in iron and gold, their 

 VOL. xxvn. 27 A 



weavers of cloth, and their dyers, carpenters, 

 merchants, teachers, doctors, and farmers, and 

 are engaged in many of the pursuits common 

 to our most advanced civilized life. .The food 

 of the natives consists of rice, cassava, beef, 

 mutton, game, tish, palm-oil, and palm-butter; 

 and their drink is water and palm-wine. 



Polygamy and Slavery. Two customs, inter- 

 woven with the warp and woof of their social 

 system, are evils that can not be removed ex- 

 cept by slow, moral processes polygamy and 

 slavery. The former evil is not as wide-spread 

 as one would suppose. The man that wants a 

 girl to wife, must first get together the pur- 

 chase-money in the form of oxen, bullocks, or 

 some other article of trade. A woman has no 

 choice in the matter of marriage. Often she 

 is chosen while still a child. The wife is prop- 

 erty, and is in absolute submission to her hus- 

 band. She never sits down to meals with 

 him, and always treats him as her lord. 



Liberia is the fruit of American colonization. 

 The first practical colonizationist was a negro, 

 Paul Cuffee, of Massachusetts. This bold lead- 

 er, full of zeal for the civilization of Africa, 

 took, in 1815, forty colored persons in his own 

 vessel, at his own expense, from Boston, to 

 Sierra Leone, which was the colony estab- 

 lished on the West African Coast by Great 

 Britain, for the reception of slaves taken from 

 the Americans in the Revolutionary War, The 

 emigrants from the United States and the West 

 Indies and their descendants are called " Li- 

 berians." They were sent out by the Ameri- 

 can Colonization Society. 



Up to Jan. 1, 1867, 13,130 emigrants had 

 gone to Liberia, and the United States Gov- 

 ernment had returned to Africa 5,722 captured 

 slaves. But since 1867 there has been a re- 

 markable decrease in the number of colored 

 people who have left America for Africa. The 

 Colonization Society pays the emigrant's pass- 

 age, and provides for his maintenance for six 

 months. The Government gives every married 

 emigrant twenty-five acres of land, and every 

 single man ten acres. This land is covered 

 with trees and a thick undergrowth, and must 

 be cleared and prepared for planting. Coffee 

 scions must be bought, arid set out, and in 

 three or four years the crop matures. There 

 are no horses or oxen in use. The emigrant 

 must build his house, and must struggle hard, 

 if he would enjoy life. But after ten, twenty, 

 it may be thirty years of earnest effort, he 

 settles down under his own vine and tig-tree a 

 happy, contented, and wealthy farmer. 



The republic is exclusively a negro state. 

 White persons can not now become citizens or 

 hold property in Liberia. It is seriously argued 

 that the country will not prosper until this ob- 

 stacle is removed, and citizenship and the rights 

 of property be opened to all. There is a move- 

 ment on foot to enlarge the privileges of for- 

 eigners, so as to encourage them to make in- 

 vestments. It is proposed to allow them : 

 1. To trade and do business anywhere in the 



