Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1881 — THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA [ARTICLE]

THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA

A Disheartening Picture of its Condition. The scheme of colonising Liberia with negroes from America originated some sixty years ago, the American Colonization Society sending out their emigrants in 1820, Short sighted philanthropists expected through it a solution of the American slavery question and also the evangelisation of Western Africa. The American negroes increased much more rapidly, however, than they oould be transported, even if slavery had not been a serious obstade to emigration, and many of those who started to Liberia died on the way or soon after arriving there. The expert ment assumed more and more of an utopian phase, with spasmodic leases of life, as interested persons of some influence have seen fit to associate themselVß with it *ot speak in its favor. In esponse to the printed •

statement of Secretary Goppinger of the American Colonization Society, which would create the impression that Liberia is the promised land to which American should fly, George R. Stetson, *>f Boston,publishes counter assertions, backed up by the testimony of travelers, missionaries and others. From these it seems 20 of the 86 colonists sent out in 1820,and S 7 of the 149 emigrants In 1851 died before

they had been In Africa a year; up to 1859 the Colonization Society had sent out 10,000 emigrants at an expense of $1,800,000, one-half of whom|have died or left the oountry. In 1847, when the Republic was formed, the Africans from America numbered 6,000 and the aborigines 160,000, while in 1878 the figures were respectively 19,000 and 701,000. It is safe to concluded, there-

fore, that the Republic is unhealthyifor American negroes, at least. Slavery is aiwo found in Liberia under a system of‘apprentloeship”or“involuntary servitude,” which the authorities can not destroy. William Nesbit,an Intelligent negro, who has returned irom Liberia, and is now a notary public in Altoona. Pa., says “slavery, as abject and far more merciless than is to be found almost any where else, exists there universally,” the slaves being purchased from their parents fori from ■8 to sls apiece as they become old and big enough to work. The government, entirely in the hands of colored people, is marked with incapacity,! cor ruption, mismanagement and disaster. An English writer, Keith Johnson, an excellent authority on African matters, said in 1872: “In place of having exercised a civilizing influence on the natives, the American negroes seem only to have relapsed into barbarism. The schools are in a most deplorable condition, morality at a low ebb, and the people generally, oppressed with heavy taxes, are lazy and indolent,” The Liberia College, established by Christian philanthropists from 1 Boston and elsewhere some years ago, is a failure, and the buildings, erected at great expense, have been allowed to go to ruin. The pay of laborers is small, while the price of life’s necessaries are high. Domestic animals do not thrive in the Liberian climate, and man has to bear many burdens which in America would be placed upon beasts. 11l feeling is also springing up between the natives and the colonists, and there is a movement among the former to prevent further aggressions on their territory. From piesont appearances It seems very much as if the Liberian colonists, instead of shedding the bright light of; civlization and Christianity upon their barbarian neighbors, were drifting into darkness themselves.