126 ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN NEGRl>. 



office. A few thousand natives have become civiHzed and are a 

 part of the nation. For twenty-five years Liberia was a colony, 

 under the immediate direction of the colonization societies; but in 

 1847 t^^^ nation was formed and received the friendly recognition 

 and good will of other nations. Liberia, Santo Domingo and Hayti 

 are the only nations in the world controlled entirely by negroes. 



To say that the hopes of the friends of the negro as a nation 

 builder have been realized during the past fifty years in Liberia 

 would not be true. On the other hand, to accept the uncharitable 

 and unkind criticisms of the struggling republic, which are heard 

 along the coast from many traders and travelers, and often reiter- 

 ated in Europe and America, would be doing great injustice to the 

 people of Liberia. 



A CONTINENT RICH IN MINERAL WEALTH. 



When we consider the difficulties which these people have had 

 to meet in a new, and, to many, a hostile climate, their lack of wealth 

 and experience in government, surrounded and permeated by multi- 

 tudes of barbarous heathen, and subjected constantly to the unchar- 

 itable criticism of white traders and travelers, the marvel is that so 

 much in the way of efficient government and advance in social con- 

 ditions has been accomplished. 



True, their national domain, rich in minerals and agricultural 

 possibilities, has not even been explored; but it is also true that, 

 until within a very few years, but little advance has been made by 

 other nations on either coast of the continent in extending practical 

 and efficient government among the natives of the interior. 



Away back in the days when most of the world was unknown, 

 instead of being mostly known as it is now, the geographers mak- 

 ing their maps used to decorate the outlying portions with all sorts 

 of strange and fabulous figures. Probably they would not have 

 claimed to believe that the giants and the dwarfs, the headless men 

 and the men with one eye in the middle of their foreheads, the man- 

 eating tree, the unicorns and the centaurs and all the rest of the 

 monsters, really lived there. 



Even to-day we are very prone to imagine all sorts of myster- 



