i24 ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO. 



Africa, fitted up to carry 47,146 slaves. Slaves were counted 

 important property by English families; many of them owned 

 estates in the West Indies, and brought home from thence negroes 

 for domestic servants. London newspapers of 1772 openly adver- 

 tised black boys and girls for sale. An auction advertisement reads : 



''Five pipes of raisin wine, two boxes of bottled whisky, six 

 sacks of flour, three negro men, two negro women, two negro boys, 

 one negro girl." 



In 1772, owing to great agitation, all slaves in the British Isles 

 were set free. This did not stop the slave-trade, though it granted 

 liberty, and the first result was to fill the streets of London with 

 negro beggars. To relieve them, a plan for a colony of freed slaves 

 was projected; four hundred liberated slaves were sent to Sierra 

 Leone, where Hawkins had kidnapped the first slave cargo; many 

 others later went thither, and the Sierra Leone Company was 

 founded in 1791, "to introduce trade industry, and Christian 

 knowledge." 



LIBERIA THE AMERICAN COLONY IN AFRICA. 



Lying between the fifth and eighth degrees of north latitude 

 on the west coast of Africa is the little negro republic of Liberia. 

 Its coast line is about three hundred miles, and its domain extends 

 two hundred and fifty miles into the interior, so that its territory 

 includes, perhaps, 75,000 square miles. 



It owes its existence to good men in America, both north and 

 south, who many years ago felt that the freed people of the United 

 States should have a place in the land of their fathers, where they 

 could have the opportunity and satisfaction of building a nation of 

 their own, which should demonstrate the capacity of the negro for 

 nation building, and also open the way for his having a share in the 

 civilization and redemption of the African continent. 



There are now in the republic about 24,000 American-Liber- 

 ians, speaking, of course, the English language; and perhaps 

 1,000,000 native Africans. The former are emigrants from the 

 United States, or their descendants; and the latter are made up of 

 various tribes of aborigines, speaking many dialects, acknowledging 



