On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
pation ; most are independent , and some have acquired fortunes . Agriculture flourishes no less than commerce , and a spirit of improvement appears to animate all classes . Crime is almost unknown , as might be expected where there is no want , at the same time that the means of improvement are amply provided . A Baptist and a Methodist society have each established a preacher ; five missionaries from the Basle Association are settled there , and there will shortly be one from the Episcopal church , United
States . All this prosperity presupposes harmony among the settlers , and unity and integrity of purpose among their rulers ; and these are so evident in the whole course of their proceedings , that it is no wonder the natives look on with admiration , and are eager to put themselves under the protection of their enlightened neighbours . They have done so to the number of
10 , 000 , carefully preserving an alliance with the settlers , and adopting their customs so far as to participate in the blessings of civilization and religion . And it is but ten years since this territory was wild , desolate , and insalubrious , and only visited for the purpose of kidnapping or purchasing thousands of wretches who had no alternative between slavery and death !
It follows from these facts that the energies of a people can never be estimated till their right position has been found . It may be true that Negroes are invariably inferior to Whites in the countries where they can never feel themselves natives ; but it has not been sufficiently taken into the account what it is that stultifies them . It is no less true that , a fair trial being given , they have been found equal to the difficulties of a very trying
position . They can establish themselves , defend themselves , govern themselves , improve themselves as rapidly and promisingly as if their animal constitution -had been in all respects like that of their former taskmasters . Present to any enlightened judge a report of what has taken place in Liberia , without saying where it was done and who did it , and we question whether he will discover from the narrative that tawny skins prevail in the
settlement . Such an experiment as the one before us operates beneficially to the Negro in two ways . It encourages emancipation in Slave countries , and it elevates the character of the bondmen who remain . Let the way be clear for the removal and prosperous establishment of emancipated Slaves , and many masters will be eager to surrender their irksome charge and their
guilty authority . Let it be seen what the freedman can do from the moment he touches the shores of his own land , and his pining brother on the other side of the Atlantic will no longer hopelessly bend beneath his burden of wrongs . The free Blacks of the United States may speak unmocked of this country , of their people , and its social institutions . The original and conventional differences of which so much has been made will henceforth
fall into gradual disrepute , as absurd and antiquated prejudices , and the first pilgrims to Liberia be eternally honoured as the heralds of a new era of justice and philanthropy .
Untitled Article
760 Liberia .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1831, page 760, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2603/page/36/
-