Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1878 — STANLEY. [ARTICLE]

STANLEY.

His Wars With the Blacks of Interior Africa. [From Harper’s Magazine for October.] Of Stanley’s wars much has been written. Various Englishmen, from Lord Derby down, have expressed an opinion upon these conflicts, and the discussion bids fair to become a permanent chapter in African literature. The American observer will notice that at the time Stanley was adding fame to the names of the British Princess Beatrice and the future British Queen Alexandra, by giving these names to two important discoveries in Africa, Lord Derby was issuing orders to the British Consuls to prevent his carrying the British flag. This reminds us of Columbus returning home in chains a prisoner to the King to whose empire he had added continental dominion. It was rumored that Stanley was to be arrested when he came to the coast, if ever he did come; and the New York Herald,, as his employer and champion, went so far as to advance his American citizenship as a reason why he should not be arrested without at least a protest from the American Government. But, as it happened that Stanley did return to British soil an honored guest on a British man-of-war aiyl not a prisoner, and as the first to welcome him was the Prince of Wales, we may be justified in assuming that Lord Derby’s action was an impulse based upon incorrect information, and never a serious purpose of Hie Government. Of course, if Stanley could have crossed the African continent without harming any one, his taking of life would have been massacre. The history of African exploration, like that of exploration in our own Indian territories, is, unhappily, the history of continued xWir. In our country white men were slain to gratify a savage’s craving for blood. In many parts of Africa men are slain for food. Stanley, a good part of his time, was moving among people who would have killed him and his whole command, as our Indians kill the buffalo, namely, to eat them. “I don’t choose,” said Livingstone, “to be made meat for black men.” This -was one of the reasons why that gentle soul refused to go into the Congo country; and it was in the Congo country that Stanley fought most of his battles. We think the law of self-defense can be put on no higher ground than the dislike to be killed and eaten by your enemy. In other regions Stanley fought to save himself from being killed and his army robbed. His expedition w’as a tempting one to the black men. He carried his army chest with him in the shape of beads and cloths and wire and cowries, aud articles of merchandise, which much the currency of his command as the greenbacks with which we paid our armies during the war. We take it no prudent commander would allow his army chest to be carried away without defending it, especially if he depended upon it, as Stanley did, for all his supplies. It was his army chest, and contained his provisions. He could only live by buying from the people, and he could only buy with his supplies. In some cases the people were in fear of the slave-traders. Stanley may have been attacked under the impression that he was coming t® carry off men and women and children into slavery. If this led to the loss of life, then we must all lament it, but the blame is not upon Stanley, but upon the odious system which European civilization planted in Africa, which still flourishes, but which no one has done so much to destroy as our explorer. In all these savage countries the traveler is subject to one of those sudden, lawless gusts of passion which fell upon Capt. Cook in the Pacific and deprived science and humanity of that intrepid and glorious life. The difference between Stanley and Capt. Cook is that Stanley killed his assailants. If Capt. Cook had been so fortunate, w e question if Lord Chatham would have been so eager to deprive him of his flag as Lord Derby was to withdraw from Stanley the flag which was the emblem of the English fraction of his ‘expedition.