Calumny Refuted by Facts From Liberia

Оглавление

Wilson Armistead. Calumny Refuted by Facts From Liberia

NOTICE TO THE READER

CALUMNY REFUTED, ETC., ETC

Отрывок из книги

Amidst the numerous attempts to depreciate the character of the Negro, by exhibiting it as inferior and incapable of improvement, it is desirable to adduce evidence of an opposite nature, and to show that circumstances operate no less powerfully on the Sable inhabitants of a tropical climate, than on the natives of more northern latitudes, in which opportunities have been employed to remove the ignorance of uncivilised man, and to invest him with the glorious light of religion and science. How have they raised the brutal to the rational – the degraded to the noble – the idolatrous to the Christian character! What was once the condition of Druidical Britain, when, in the most barbarous manner, parents sacrificed their offspring to senseless deities? And to what can her present position amongst the nations be attributed, but to that expansion of knowledge, human and divine, with which she has been pre-eminently favoured?

The false philosophy which has imputed to the Negro a constitutional inferiority, is amply refuted by facts. There is not only abundant evidence, that the African is susceptible of all the finest feelings of our nature, but that his intellectual capacity, under circumstances more favourable than have generally fallen to his lot, will bear a comparison with that of any other portion of our species.

.....

The present governor of Liberia, J. J. Roberts, under discouraging circumstances, left Virginia some ten or twelve years ago, and, unaided by any culture beyond that attainable on the spot, has placed himself among the most prominent of the citizens of the new Republic. His correspondence with the commanders of British cruisers on the coast of Africa, and his state papers, exhibit a superior force of character and diplomatic ability. The inaugural address, annual messages, and speeches of this Coloured statesman, before a Coloured Legislature, are highly interesting and satisfactory.

I was much gratified in reading, a short time ago, a speech delivered in 1846, at Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, by Hilary Teage, a Coloured senator of the infant Republic. Independent of its embracing a beautiful exposition of the history, trials, exertions, and aspirations of the Coloured colonists, it is a continued flow of eloquence, whilst it breathes throughout a truly Christian spirit. When I read it, I concluded the speaker must be a "classical scholar," probably a "graduate in some eastern college." To my surprise, I afterwards ascertained, he had never even seen a college, his father having been a Slave in Virginia, which place Hilary Teage left when very young, and went to Liberia, where he received his education. Here he made rapid advances in learning, soon overcoming the difficulties of several languages, both ancient and modern.

.....