Stanley in Africa

An extensive district on the western coast of Africa, between Sierra Leone and Cape Coast Castle received the name of Liberia, from the circumstance of its being colonized by liberated slaves and free persons of color from America. On the 22d of November, 1888, the secretary of the Manchester Geographical Society read an interesting paper contributed by the Hon. G. B. Gudgeon, consul-general for Liberia in London. The following is an extract: “It was stated that the famous negro republic of Liberia was founded by the American Colonization Society in 1822. The work of civilizing and Christianizing the inhabitants of that almost unknown country was entirely carried on for more than twenty years by this society. The missions established along the coast and at various points inland had developed into Liberia’s prosperous towns and settlements. It became an independent state in 1847. Nearly 2,000,000 souls were subject to the rule of the Liberian Republic, consisting of about 40,000 freed slaves and their descendants, the remainder belonging to numerous aboriginal tribes. While the state possessed a seaboard of 500 miles and an interior extending over 200 miles, she had acquired no territory except by treaty, purchase, exchange, or barter. Bishop Taylor had described the country as healthy and its climate salubrious and enjoyable, without a plague of flies and with few mosquitoes. Many travelers had confirmed the bishop’s testimony. The Republic of Liberia stood before the world as the realization of the dreams of the founders of the American Colonization Society, and in many respects more than the realization. Far beyond the recognized limits of the country, and hundreds of miles away from the coast, the effects of American civilization were to be witnessed. Men of color entirely governed the republic, and if any proof were wanting of the capacity of freedmen to govern, Liberia was an interesting illustration. The ability, learning, and skill of many of Liberia’s citizens were found in their code of laws, which for humanity, justice, and morality no other country could excel. The English tongue is spoken throughout the republic except among the native tribes not yet civilized; but among these too it is making good progress.”

Rev. S. L. Johnson, who recently visited Liberia, says: “The scenery along the coast of Liberia, from Cape Mount to the Gulf of Guinea, a distance of about 600 miles, is exceedingly grand. A few miles from the coast the country rises to hills, with gigantic trees, presenting a panorama that can only be described by a skilful artist.

“Monrovia is the capital of the republic. It rests on a beautiful hill overlooking the sea, surrounded by trees. There are many fine buildings in the city, which are creditable to the Monrovian people. The president’s house is built of brick, as are also many of the buildings; others are built of stone. The wharves face the sea, where there are colored firms doing business with England, Germany, and America.

“Mr. Sherman does a large business with England and America. After my return to England I wrote to Mr. Sherman for information regarding the articles of trade. This is the answer: – ‘The articles of trade are palm-oil, palm kernels, coffee, ivory, camwood, ginger, and rubber. Many of our merchants do a business of $100,000 to $150,000 a year. A vessel left here for New York on the 7th inst., with a cargo of $50,000 worth, collected within two months. In this cargo were 118,000 pounds of coffee.’

“The soil of Liberia is extremely fertile, and produces all kinds of tropical fruits, sugar-cane, indigo, Indian corn, rice, cotton, cocoa, peanuts, and coffee, the latter the finest in the world. Vegetables are cultivated with great success. There are to be found the finest dye-woods, ebony, gum plant, and the gigantic palm-trees, which produce the palm-oil. On my way to England from Africa 1,500 casks were shipt on the same steamer to Liverpool, a good share of it being from the coast of Liberia. Goats, swine, sheep, cattle, and fowls, all thrive in Liberia.

“This republic has a glorious work to accomplish in the future. It will undoubtedly be in time, the most prosperous state on the west coast of Africa. With the civil, social, and religious advantages she enjoys, she must succeed. The annexation of the kingdom of Medina, with five hundred thousand inhabitants, and her wide and fertile domain, extending over two hundred miles into the interior, will no doubt inspire renewed energy in giving fuller opportunities for the advancement of the Gospel, as well as an open door for civilization and commerce.

“Much zeal and perseverance have been displayed throughout the republic. Fine churches, school buildings, and a college are to be seen in Monrovia.

“At Nifou, on the coast of Liberia, I counted forty-nine canoes, with two or three men in each, going out fishing. At twenty-five minutes to ten we stopt at Grand Cess, Liberia. Here fifteen canoes came out, with from three to twenty men in each. These belong to the Kru tribe, the aborigines of a part of Liberia. They are a fine-looking people, and very industrious. But for this class of people I do not know what the European traders of the African steamship companies would do. All the steamers reaching Sierra Leone and the coast of Liberia take on board a gang of ‘Kru-men’ to do the work of the ship. One hundred and thirty men were taken on board our steamer to go down the coast to work. Many of them speak broken English well.”

As might be expected, this territory, extending upwards of 300 miles along the coast to Cape Palmas, has been occupied by the American churches – viz. the Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, Protestant Episcopal, and Presbyterian Church (north). Much zeal and perseverance have been displayed in connection with all these agencies, and the result is seen in the parsonages, and places of worship, colleges and school buildings which have been erected in most of the towns and villages in the settlements, and in the improved morals of the people.

For some years past the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church has been gradually reducing the appropriations for the carrying on of the missions from $37,000 to $2,500 – a procedure that has been regarded by the conference in Liberia as inconsistent with the general spirit of the church and the growing interest felt of late years in the evangelization of Africa, and which for a time threatened to result in a severance of the ecclesiastical relations subsisting between the conference and the society. The action of the latter has been dictated solely by an earnest desire to secure in the native churches “the development of a spirit of self-reliance and independence – elements indispensable to a self-perpetuating church in any land.” The General Conference of 1888 changed the name and boundaries of the “Liberian Conference” to the “African Annual Conference” embracing the entire continent of Africa. In the other missions in Liberia there seems also a disposition to rely on foreign aid.

Fernando Po is one of the most important islands on the western coast of Africa, and enjoys many advantages from its peculiar position. It is situated in the Gulf of Guinea, about seventy miles from the coast of Benim. It is thirty miles long and twenty broad; and in its general aspect it is rugged and mountainous in the extreme, though there are some fertile valleys between the mountains, and several promising tracts of land along the shore.

Among the settlers and aborigines of Fernando Po some really useful missionary work has been done at different times, which deserves a passing notice. The first in the field were the agents of the Baptist Missionary Society. They labored for several years among the settlers of all classes with very good results, whilst the English had possession of the island; but when it was given over to the Spaniards, Roman Catholicism was proclaimed to be the established religion of the settlement, and the harshness and persecution with which the Baptist missionaries were treated by the government authorities ended in their removal to the continent. In 1870 – some improvement having taken place in the Spanish government – the Primitive Methodists were induced to commence a mission in Fernando Po, the Rev. Messrs. Burnett and Roe being the first missionaries sent out. They and their successors labored for several years very successfully. In 1879, in consequence of some misunderstanding, the missionaries were again banished from the island. An appeal was at once made to the home authorities, and in the course of a few months they were allowed to return.

This question of conflict between Protestant and Catholic mission work in Africa has, at certain times and in certain places, been serious, and is greatly to be regretted, for it destroys the efficacy of both Churches, and proves a stumbling block to the natives. Pinto speaks of it with amazement, in his trip across the continent. He found places where the natives had been utterly demoralized by the spirit of contention indulged by the two Churches, and where their final answer to his advice to live at peace and deal justly with one another was, that white people might talk that way, but their actions proved that they did not mean what they said.

In former times – notably in the Spanish, French and Portuguese provinces of Africa – the Catholic mission was a part of the political establishment, and it was expected to use its influence to extend and perpetuate the power which protected it. This was equivalent to warning off all competitors as intruders. Happily this condition is undergoing rapid modification.

Similarly, the Protestant mission of other countries was treated as part of the commercial establishment, under the protection of the consul, and of the trading company, to whom the territory was allotted. Its business was therefore, in part, to cultivate the trading spirit and make its success contribute to the wealth of the parent country. This notion, too, is undergoing modification.

All of which is directly in the line of that Christian enterprise so much needed for the conversion of the African heathen.

On the mainland opposite Fernando Po, and on into the interior, good work has been done. We will speak first of the Old Calabar Mission.

Old Calabar, on an affluent of the Cross river, is a recognized centre of the trade of the Oil river sections. It has a population of 15,000 natives and 150 white. An insight into the characteristics of the natives beyond Old Calabar can best be gotten from the journey of Mr. Johnson up the Cross river in 1888. His object in making an ascent of the river was to treat with the natives and at the same time settle an old quarrel between the Union people and the tribes about Calabar. Stopping, merely to observe that the Kruboys, of whom Mr. Johnson speaks, are the Krumen – Kroomen – of the Liberian coast, among whom Bishop Taylor has, in his four years of African labors, established more than twenty missions, we let the adventurer tell his own story. He says: “Having decided to ascend the Cross river and having no steam launch at my disposal, I was obliged to make the journey in native canoes, of which I hired three, and fitted the largest with a small house in the centre for my lodging. I took with me about thirty Kruboys. These invaluable native workers come from the Liberian coast. Without their aid European enterprise on the west coast of Africa would be at a standstill; for, invariably, the negroes who are indigenous will not undertake any persistent work. The Kruboy is a strong, good tempered, faithful creature; able to row, paddle, carry, dig, wash clothes, or turn his hand to anything – in fact, he is a great deal sharper and more industrious than the average English navvy. My first object in going up the Cross river was to settle an outstanding quarrel between the people of a district called Umon and the natives of Old Calabar. Union is at a distance of about a hundred miles from the sea. The people speak a language quite distinct from the Calabar language. They were, till lately, terribly priest-ridden. Their life was a burden to them, with its load of cruel superstitious practices. The last few years, however, since they have come into contact with the missionaries, the state of affairs has greatly improved. As I appeared in the light of a mediator, I was most warmly welcomed. An imposing fleet of eighty large Calabar canoes reached Umon soon after I arrived, and formed a really pretty sight, as they were all painted in brilliant, but tasteful combinations of color, their little houses hung with bright carpets or leopard skins, each canoe being decorated with gaudy banners. The crews were most fantastically dressed in gorgeous clothes. The beating of drums, blowing of horns, and the firing of guns made a clamor most disturbing to my comfort, which I promptly stopped. I need hardly say that I had the Calabar people all under my control, for there was not only a personal attachment between us, but they knew that I was working in their interest, and the Umon people were much impressed by the way in which my shabby little despatch canoe, with two of my Kruboys in it, could marshal the imposing Calabar fleet.

“As both sides were longing to have their quarrel at an end, and were fully prepared to accept my decision, the conference was a brief one. I decided that it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. I made the Calabar people surrender the Umon captives, and the Umon surrender their Calabar prisoners. Peace was reestablished, trade was resumed, and I was free to continue my journey.

“We next visited the important Akuna-Kuna country, very populous, and inhabited by friendly, industrious people, whose chiefs very promptly and willingly concluded a treaty with the British Government, and loaded me with such an abundance of provisions – bullocks, goats, sheep, fowls, ducks, yams, and Indian corn – that our progress was seriously impeded, our canoes nearly capsized, and my Krumen suffered severely from indigestion.

“Some distance up the river we had rather a ticklish task to perform. Another quarrel, and that a bitter one, had to be settled between the people of Akuna-Kuna and the inhabitants of Iko-Morut. Here I was awkwardly situated. Had I been enabled to travel in a steam-launch, I could have gone safely up the river, or in any direction where there was sufficient water; but traveling simply in native canoes, the inhabitants of these wild countries in the interior, who look on every stranger as an enemy, had no idea that a white man was visiting them, and often proceeded to attack us before I could make myself seen.

“As soon as we came in sight of the stockaded villages of Iko-Morut, many excited chocolate-colored natives could be seen hurrying along the banks of the stream and posting themselves in ambush behind the trees. Then first one gun, then two, three, four guns went off; then there was a regular hail of slugs and stones, whipping up the surface of the water, and, in one or two cases, whizzing over our canoes. In the face of this warm reception, it would have been impossible to proceed, for, at any moment, a shot might strike our canoes and send them to the bottom. As to returning the fire of these poor, stupid savages, nothing was further from my thoughts. It was always open to me to retreat, and, unless I could proceed peacefully and with a friendly reputation preceding me, it was futile to continue my ascent of the Cross river. So I had the canoes steered to an unoccupied sand-bank in the center of the stream, and as soon as the natives saw that we stopt, they ceased firing. Then I got into my small despatch canoe, with two interpreters, hoisted my white umbrella, and assuming my smile, quietly landed on the crowded beach, to the silent amazement of the natives, who were armed to the teeth. I was conducted to the chief, who, for a long time, could not be prevailed on to see me, on account of my presumed powers to bewitch him; but a little friendly conversation through the red screen of his apartment, and the hint that I had brought a pretty present, reassured him, and we soon made excellent friends.

“To make a long story short; the result of my stay at Iko-Morut was equally satisfactory to that of Umon. I made peace between Akuna-Kuna and Iko-Morut, and the chiefs of the latter place concluded a treaty with me.

“Then on, beyond Iko-Morut, day after day, we paddled up the beautiful stream, sometimes received by the natives in a gush of friendliness, sometimes sullenly avoided, sometimes boisterously attacked. At length, in the heart of the cannibal country, on the outskirts of Atam, where the Cross river attains its furthest reach to the north, our journey came forcibly to an end. I had several times been captured and released, several times fired at and then hugged by those who had attacked me, but the strain was becoming too great for the nerves of my Kruboys.

“As we approached one village, a shot, better directed than usual, went through the roof of my little ark, and though no doubt our ultimate reception at the village would have been the same as at the preceding ones – first sullen hostility, then timid inquiry, and lastly a cordial hand-shaking and hugging, and the giving of presents – still, before this happy consummation should come about, some of us might have been accidentally killed, or our canoes – our only means of regaining civilization – sunk or disabled; consequently I decided to turn back. Then ensued an awful afternoon, when for miles and miles we had to run the gauntlet past populous villages of cannibals, whom we had much difficulty in avoiding on our ascent of the river; and who, taking our retreat for a flight, seemed bent on capturing us or plundering our canoes and eating the wretched Kruboys, who turned blue with fright at the prospect of being eaten, as they desperately paddled down the river past shrieking natives, who waded out into the shallows, or pursued us in canoes. Every now and again we would stick on a sand bank, and the shouts of the natives would come nearer and nearer; then we would get off again, and paddle for our lives; then stick again, and so on, till at last we were out of this savage district. I hesitate to say hostile, for, wherever I landed, or was captured, I was always well treated as soon as they found out what I was like and what my objects were in visiting their country. At length we arrived in the delightful district of Apiapum, where we put up for a week at the clean and comfortable town of Ofurekpe, whose chief and people were some of the nicest, kindliest, most friendly folk I have ever seen in Africa, though they were in their practical way cannibals, like their neighbors – that is to say, they were given to eating the flesh of all whom they might catch in war. I did not here observe that other kind of cannibalism which I have occasionally met on the Upper Cross river, which is of a sentimental character, namely, where the old people of that tribe, when they become toothless and useless, are knocked on the head, smoke-dried, pounded into paste, and re-absorbed into the bosom of the family.”

The Old Calabar Mission originated with the Jamaica Presbytery of what is now the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The first band of missionaries, led by Mr. Hope Waddell, a member of the Jamaica Presbytery, reached their field of labor on the Old Calabar river on April 10th, 1846. They were cordially welcomed by King Eyamba and the chiefs of Duke Town, as also by King Eyo of Creek Town and his chiefs. Suitable sites for mission stations were readily granted. Mr. Waddell held a service with Eyamba and his chiefs the first Sunday after his arrival, and presented the former with a Bible.

Mission houses and schools were in due time erected at both stations, a printing press being also usefully employed in scattering the seeds of Divine truth. At Creek Town the first sermon was preached in the court yard of King Eyo’s palace, the king himself acting as interpreter.

The mission was reinforced in July, 1847, by the arrival of additional missionaries from Jamaica.

In May previous King Eyamba died. It was the occasion of one of those scenes of cruelty, too common in heathen lands.

Notwithstanding the efforts of the missionaries, no fewer than a hundred victims were sacrificed, among whom were thirty of the king’s wives. Here is the account given of the burial: “The people dug a large hole in one of King Eyamba’s yards, and having decked him in his gayest apparel, with the crown on his head, placed him between two sofas, and laid him in the grave. They killed his personal attendants, umbrella carrier, snuff box bearer, etc., (these the king was supposed to need in the world of spirits), by cutting off their heads, and with their insignia of office threw them in above the body; and after depositing a quantity of chop and of coppers, they cover all carefully up, that no trace of a grave could be seen. Over this spot a quantity of food is daily placed.”

In February, 1850, an Egbo law was passed abolishing the inhuman practice of sacrificing human beings when a king or chief died. It is spoken of as “A good day for Calabar” – “One memorable in the annals of the land.” About the same time the marriage ceremony was introduced – King Eyo having witnessed the first regular marriage.

On the suggestion of Mr. Waddell, their domestic idol, which consisted of a stick surmounted by a human skull and adorned with feathers, was expelled from every house.

The death of King Eyo in December, 1858, put the Egbo law to the test. Much excitement prevailed. Fears were entertained that the old superstition would triumph. Happily no such dreaded result followed. Other heathen practices were one by one abandoned through the influence of the mission.

The mission extended its sphere of operations from time to time – Ikunetu, situated on the Great Cross river, about twenty miles above Creek Town, being occupied in 1856, and Ikorofiong, also on the Cross river, about twenty miles above Ikunetu, in 1858. The Presbytery of Old Calabar was established September 1st, 1858, under the designation of the Presbytery of Biafra.

In 1878 Mr. Thomas Campbell, the European evangelist at Old Town, accompanied by a number of natives, explored in two directions – first in Oban, up the Qua river, and then beyond Nyango, on the Calabar river. Everywhere he was well received by the chiefs and people. On September 6th, 1880, there was an agreement entered into between D. Hopkins, Esq., British consul, and the kings and chiefs of Calabar, in accordance with which a number of superstitious and cruel customs are held as criminal and punishable by law. These include the murder of twin children, human sacrifices, the killing of people accused of witchcraft, the giving of the esere or poison bean, the stripping of helpless women in the public streets, etc., etc.

In the Missionary Record, June, 1881, appears the following intelligence: “The mission which seemed so long fruitless, is now one of the most fruitful in the whole earth. The increasing number and activity of the communicants, the increasing number of students in training as teachers and evangelists, and the manifestations of a Christian liberality not yet reached at home, tell of the changes which the Gospel has wrought. We ploughed in hope: we sowed in tears: and now already we reap in joy. The most recent tidings are the most heart-stirring. A new tribe, which had long resisted our approach, has been visited. They had never seen among them a white man till they looked on the face of the devoted Samuel Edgerly. They invite teachers to settle among them. They offer us suitable sites. The country is far beyond the swamps; it is high and healthy. This favorable entrance was greatly aided by the wise and good King Eyo, who sent a prince to accompany Mr. Edgerly beyond Umon to Akuna Kuna. When the expedition returned and the king heard the result, he gave utterance to one of the noblest of sentiments. ‘God,’ said he, when Mr. Edgerly had told his tale, ‘has unlatched the door, and wishes us to push it open.’”

Such results as have been achieved at the Old Calabar Mission are worth all the money and toil and sacrifice of health and even of life which they have cost.

The mission to the Cameroons was established in 1845 by the Baptist Missionary Society. When the missionaries of that society were expelled from the neighboring island of Fernando Po, where they had been laboring since 1841, they settled among the Isubus at Bimbia, where a mission had previously been projected. The mission was afterwards extended to King Bell’s Town in an easterly direction, the people inhabiting that region being the Dualas. The entire New Testament has been translated into the languages of both tribes.