THE

AFRICAN REPOSITORY.

Vol. xxxviii.] WASHINGTON, JULY, 1862.

[No. 7

ON THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA,

ITS PRODUCTS AND RESOURCES.

BY GERARD RALSTON, Consul General for Liberia, (London.) A paper read before the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, May 21st, 1862.

LORD ALFRED S. CHURCHILL, M. P., IN THE CHAIR.

(Reprinted from the Journal of the Society of Arts, London, May 23, 1862.)

The small Republic of Liberia, founded by the benevolence of the American Colonization Society on the West Coast of Africa some 40 years ago, for the purpose of furnishing an asylum to the free people of colour in the United States, who, from the unfortunate prejudice against blacks, cannot live happily in their native land, and which has since become the asylum of the recaptured Africans taken out of the slave ships by the American cruisers for suppressing the slave trade, is becoming so interesting and important a community, that I beg to give a concise account of its present condition and its prospects, with the desire of attracting the benevolent regards of all Christian people, but particularly of the British nation, towards the young and rising State.

Liberia (the land of the free,) on the west coast of Africa, is a place of refuge for those poor negroes who, not comfortably situated in their native country, have migrated from Virginia, Ohio, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and other States of the Union. These negroes have been aided by the benevolence of the American Colonization Society, at Washington, to remove to the coast of Guinea, where, after undergoing a variety of hardships and afflictions incident to settling in a savage region, they have formed themselves into a respectable commonwealth, numbering some 500,000 souls, of whom

about 484,000 are aboriginal inhabitants of the country, and about 16,000 Americo-Liberians. Their form of government is that of a Republic-having an elected President, and two houses (Senate and House of Bepresentatives) of the legislature. The Vice-President and President are elected for two years, the House of Representatives for two years, and the Senate for four years. There are 13 members of the Lower House and 8 of the Upper House; each county sending two members to the Senate. Hereafter, as the population augments, each 10,000 persons will be entitled to an additional representative. The Vice-President must be 35 years of age, and have real property of the value of 600 dollars; and, in the case of the absence or death of the President, he serves as President. He is also President of the Senate, which, in addition to being one of the branches of the Legislature, is a Council for the President of the Republic, he being required to submit treaties for ratification and appointments to public office for confirmation. The President must be 35 years of age, and have property 600 dollars. The judicial power is vested in a supreme court, and such subordinate courts as the Legislature may from time to time establish.

Liberia is situated on that part of the coast of Guinea called the Grain coast (most fertile in rice,) having for its south-eastern boundary the San Pedro River, 78 miles east of Cape Palmas, and running along the coast to the mouth of the Shebar river, 125 miles northwest of Monrovia; it has about 600 miles of coast line, and extends back about 100 miles on an average, but with the facility of almost indefinite extension into the interior, the natives everywhere manifesting the greatest desire that treaties should be formed with them, so that the limits of the Republic may be extended over all the neighboring districts. The Liberian territory has been purchased by more than twenty treaties, and in all cases the natives have freely parted with their titles for a satisfactory price. The chief solicitude has been to purchase the line of sea-coast, so as to connect the different settlements under one government, and to exclude the slave trade, which formerly was most extensively carried on at Cape Mesurado, Tradetown, Little Bassa, Digby, New Sesters, Gallinas, and other places at present within the Republic, but now happily excludedexcept in a recent instance at Gallinas, under peculiar circumstances. The country lately devastated by the infamous slave traders, is now being cultivated and enriched by peaceful agriculture and extending It furnishes a home to the defenceless natives who have fled for protection from slavery and death, liable to be inflicted upon them by their own ruthless chiefs. The natives know that within Liberian jurisdiction they are secure from the liability of being seized and sold into slavery.

commerce.

The original settlers landed in Liberia and hoisted the American flag on the 25th April, 1822, at Cape Mesurado, where Monrovia, the capital was established, and they continued under the fostering care of the American Colonization Society until the 24th day of August, 1847, 25 years, when they were proclaimed a free and independent

State, with the sanction of the parent Society, and were regularly installed as the Republic of Liberia. England and France soon welcomed this small state into the family of nations by making treaties of amity, commerce, and navigation with her. These friendly examples being imitated by other powers, it follows that Liberia is acknowledged, and has treaty relations with some of the most respectable States of the world situated in Europe and America. It is deeply to be regretted that the United States, the fatherland of Liberians, has not yet acknowledged the young Republic. It is to be hoped that since the power has passed out of the hands of the pro-slavery party in America, that Liberian independence will soon be acknowledged by the 12th nation of the world. The Republic of Africa will, no doubt, soon be acknowledged by the mighty Republic of America. Though Liberia was established on the Coast of Africa as an asylum for the free coloured people of the United States, it was not intended to confine the object merely to the deportation of persons previously free. On the contrary, many slaves were emancipated expressly for emigration to Liberia, and a number of benevolent and kind masters (I will mention only one name, John McDonough, New Orleans), and particularly mistresses (I will confine myself to naming three excellent women, Miss Margaret Mercer, of Virginia, Mrs. Reed, of Mississippi, and Miss Mattie Griffith, of Louisville, Kentucky, who manumitted all her slaves when she came of age, two or three years ago this beautiful and noble minded young lady was in London last year), could be mentioned who not only made great sacrifices, but nearly pauperised themselves by giving up their property in slaves, and also by furnishing them the means of comfortably reaching the colony by a long sea passage, and providing for their welfare after their arrival in their future homes. Upwards of 6000 persons were in this category, most of whom, and their descendants, have since become valuable and useful citizens of this little state, who if they had continued in the land of their birth would have remained depressed as an inferior caste. repulsed from the society of the white race, and excluded from all but the most menial and least lucrative employments. With the natural aspirations of free men, and finding all the circumstances surrounding them in their new homes so favourable for the development of the industry, talents, and enterprise they possessed, we have witnessed all the success which was to be expected. We find them changed from the careless, listless beings they were in America into the pains-taking, industrious, and energetic citizens of Liberia. It would be easy to mention the names of numerous persons of Liberia who would do credit, by their respectable characters, their wealth, and their general success, to almost any civilized community, who owed their prosperity exclusively to the education of circumstances they found in Liberia, but who would, if they had remained in their native land, under the prejudices and the depressing circumstances surrounding them, have continued mere drones and nobodies. These people were early taught to govern themselves. The white governors sent out by the American Colonization Society had the good sense to take pains to select the most re

spectable of the coloured people to aid in administering the affairs of the infant colony, and the training of Lot Carey, Elijah Johnson, John B. Russwurm, and J. J. Roberts, and others that could be named, was so good that on the death of the lamented Buchanan, in 1841, (the last of the white governors) it was resolved that all in authority hereafter should be coloured persons, and Mr. Roberts was made the governor, and continued so for six years, and on the independence of the state being proclaimed, and the Republic of Liberia instituted, Mr. Roberts was elected President, and on three subsequent occasions he was re-elected President, thus serving eight years as chief of the Republic, and previously six years as governor, making a total service of 14 years as chief magistrate of Liberia.*

His excellent successor, the actual President, Stephen Allen Benson, came from Maryland at the early age of 6 years, and, having gone through all the varied vicissitudes, among others, of being a prisoner when very young among the aborigines, then being a successful merchant, then being a member of the Legislature as Senator, then Judge, then Vice-President of the Republic and, of course, President of the Senate, and occasionally Military Commander of the volunteer countrymen in resisting the attacks of the natives, became President of the Republic, and, having served 3 terms of 2 years each, was inaugurated for a 4th term last January, and, on the completion of 8 years of service as President, he will probably retire to his large coffee estate at Bassa, and hereafter some of my present audience may have the pleasure of partaking of probably the best coffee produced in the world from his plantation.

It is instructive to contrast the cheap and successful self-government of the Liberians with the expensive and not over successful government of white men in the Colonial establishments of the Europeans on the coast of Africa. White men, soon dying in the ungenial climate of Africa, require large salaries and frequent successors, whilst the blacks, living in a climate far more congenial to them than the temperate zone would be, are long-lived, healthy, and economical administrators of the simple laws of their own framing, which are well adapted to promote the prosperity of their countrymen.

*No more energetic, judicious, and truly respectable and successful chief of a government could have been found, if the world had been searched over, than Mr. Roberts has been. He came from Virginia, at the age of 20, and being educated by circumstances, though not very favourable for literary and scientific development, has proved himself all that his countrymen required in a chief magistrate, and, like the great Iron Duke (as Wellington is called by the Times) of this country, conscientiously performed his duty under all the remarkable conditions of his varied life. On retirement to the ranks of the people, he has again been called on to fill the vastly important office of President of the Liberian College and professor of jurisprudence. He has lately completed the erection of a magnificent college edifice, with the same energy, good sense and success, which characterized his past career. Mr. Roberts proves how much we are the creatures of education and of circumstances. He might have been a menial servant or a barber in Virginia, but he has become an historical character by removal to Liberia. Long may he live to enjoy the respect and grateful affection of his countrymen and the friends of his race.

Liberia has every advantage of climate and of fertility of soil, and of variety of production, to make it a rich and powerful nation. Every species of tropical produce thrives in this country. Rice is abundant, and is cultivated on the high lands as well as on the low grounds near the coast. Indian corn, sweet potatoes, cassada or cassava root, beans, peas, watermelons, pineapples, oranges, lemons, gu avas, mangoes, plantains, bananas, pawpaws, tamarinds, pomegranates, and a great variety of other edibles, afford ample supplies for the tables of the inhabitants and for the demands of shipping. Among other articles which already yield valuable exports, or are likely soon to do so, are coffee, sugar, cotton, ginger, pepper, indigo, ground nuts, arrow-root, palm-oil, ivory, camwood, and other woods for dyeing purposes, as well as for ship and house building, &c. Nearly all these productions are indigenous in this country. The wild coffee tree may frequently be met with in the woods. It is the same species as that ordinarily reared in other parts of the world, but may be much improved by cultivation. Several of the inhabitants have applied themselves to this branch of agriculture, which may be carried on with smaller means than are required for the cultivation of sugar or cotton, though both of these articles, particularly sugar, have been produced with success. Specimens of Liberia coffee which have been sent to the United States and to Europe have been pronounced, by good judges, equal to the best received from Mocha or any part of the coffee-producing world. The civilized population of Liberia is, however, so small [Americo-Liberians only sixteen thousand,] that important exports cannot be expected until greatly increased capital, and a great addition from the free negroes of the United States, shall give a greater command of skilled and industrious settlers who will be fortunate in finding abundance of native laborers at the low rate of three dollars and rations per month all through the country. Liberia is already prepared to receive seven thousand or eight thousand American negroes per annum, and every year will give it increased ability to receive comfortably additional thousands, until twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand emigrants per annum will not be inconvenient. The United States has four millions of slaves and half a million of free negroes. Liberia could receive all of these in the next twenty-five or thirty years with great advantage to both the American and the African Republics.

The charity and liberality of the Liberians have been taxed by the sudden and unexpected landing upon their shores of nearly 5,000 savages, taken from slave-ships within a few months, but such has been the energy of the Government and the well directed efforts of the well-disposed people of Liberia, that the sudden and unexpected addition to their population had been provided for most humanely, and with every prospect that these poor wretches, wrested from the hands of the infamous slave traders, will be reared up to respectability and useful citizenship. An important feature of this new immigration is that it consists principally of young people, mostly boys and girls under twenty years of age, who will be more readily moulded into civilized and useful inhabitants than if they had been of more advanced years.