AFRICA
We cannot refrain from the insertion of a valuable communication which we find in the Christian
Index, from our esteemed Brother Bowen. It exhibits an interesting fact. The Africans are naturally
confiding and impressible,. Let us hear Bro. Bowen’s testimony:
“If I should roundly affirm that the Africans are not so very barbarous after all, some of
my readers might doubt my accuracy. In some of my lectures, when I have spoken exclusively
of the Central Africans, and have confined myself chiefly to their good qualities, some have not
believed, and others have said, ‘If the Africans are so moral and amiable as that, why send them
the Gospel!’ The same objections have been raised against the lectures of Rev. William H.
Clarke. People have heard in times past, that the Africans were naked savages, cannibals, &c.,
and now when missionaries return and tell the naked truth, they must embitter the pill a little to
make it go down. The truth is, Africa is a vast country, larger than all North America, from the
frozen ocean to the Isthmus, and her people exhibit a vast diversity of character. There may be
cannibals there. I, for one, would scarcely believe it on the oath of a self-conceited, lion-slaying
traveller; for I have been in several ‘cannibal,’ countries, and found the people simple, good-
natured fanners.
The early stories of African barbarism had three sources: 1, The lying propensities of
travellers and slavers; 2, the fact that the coast people everywhere are barbarous; 3, the inference
that the people of the remote interior are much worse. But this inference is now known to be
incorrect. Clapperton, Livingstone, Barth, and in short all who have penetrated into the interior
have testified that the people of those remote regions are far in advance of the coast people, in
everything pertaining to civilization. The barbarians of Africa are only about one-sixth part of
the population. This I repeat on the highest authority of books. My own opinion is that nine-
tenths of the population belong to the so-called category. The romance of African barbarism,
like the story of tailed negroes, must expand its wings and fly away before the light of truth.
Even the coast people are not generally savages, for they live in houses, and support themselves
by fanning, not by the chase. The people of the interior for the most part cultivate the soil with
considerable skill; they dwell in walled towns; they carry on many arts as the smelting and
forging of metals, leather-dressing, spinning, weaving and tailoring, &c.; and finally they are
polite, kind and hospitable to strangers; and often anxious for missionaries to live in their
country.
How is it that every man from Europe and America, who has once lived in Africa is never
satisfied to live elsewhere again? This fact is notorious. The reason of it is, that the Africans are
the most docile, friendly, heart-winning people on the globe. No where else do we see the good
traits of human nature so well developed. I quote the sentiment of Col. Hamilton Smith, a
British officer, and a very respectable writer on Ethnology, when I say, it is impossible to live
among the negroes and not love them. To the missionary they are doubly interesting, because of
the intense eagerness with which they often listen to the Gospel. There is not one missionary
who has every been in the interior, who will deny, or even mitigate, a word that I have written.
Is it likely, now, that the barbarism of these people will prevent the success of missions? But I
will not rest on inferences, I will state facts which have become a part of history and ought to be
universally known.
