CHAPTER XXVII 



ANTHROPOLOGY: ORIGIN AND If /STORY OF THE 

 NATIVE RACES OF LIBERIA 



THE greater part of the first volume of this book has been 

 taken up by the history and description of the present 

 condition of some 12,000 to 15,000 Negroes and half- 

 castes of American origin. It is these people, after all, who 

 have given Liberia its name and the special interest that it 

 bears amongst the nations of the world, in that it is an attempt 

 to educate the Negro on reasonable lines to more complete 

 self-government self-government of the white man's and not 

 of the black man's type. But although these 12,000 Negroes 

 from America or of American origin may permeate this country 

 and serve as interpreters of its aspirations and desires in the 

 councils of the world, in the long run the prosperity of Liberia 

 will rest chiefly on the shoulders of its indigenous population. 

 If an estimate may be hazarded that the number of Americo- 

 Liberians at present living in this country is 12,000, then by 

 similar methods of computation the population of indigenous 

 Negroes may be placed at something like t-ivc millions. The 

 calculations of this rough census are based on such in- 

 formation as has been collected from native chiefs, Americo- 

 Liberian officials an .1 traders, the British employes of the 

 Chartered and Rubber Companies, and the reports of I'Yench 

 and British explorers. It was compiled by the author of this 



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