Condition of the American Colored Population, and of the Colony at LiberiaAmerican Colonization Society
History
Condition of the American Colored Population, and of the Colony at Liberia
American Colonization Society
African Americans -- Colonization -- Africa; Enslaved persons -- United States -- Social conditions
The commerce of the Colony, in 1831, greatly exceeded that of any
former year; within that period, forty-six vessels visited the port
of Monrovia, and the exports were nearly $90,000. But from the last
Report we learn that, while fifty-nine vessels had visited the port
during the year preceding last May, the exports during the same period,
(consisting chiefly of camwood, ivory, palm-oil, tortoise-shell and
gold,) amounted to $125,549 16--of imports, to $80,000--and the
merchandise and produce on hand on the 1st of January, 1832, to
$47,000. New avenues have been recently opened with the interior
tribes. Caravans from a considerable distance have visited the country.
The Dey people, who number from six to eight thousand, occupying the
coast immediately north of Monrovia, have in treaty agreed to allow a
free passage to the Colony through their territories. There is now a
commercial connexion extending from our settlement even to the borders
of Foota Jallo.
It perhaps sufficiently indicates the moral condition of the Colony,
that three churches have been erected during the past year; and that
there are now six day schools for children, and one evening school
for adults, comprising in all two hundred and twenty-six pupils. Two
female schools, taught by well-qualified teachers, whose salaries are
paid by ladies of Philadelphia, are attended by ninety-nine pupils.
Among the re-captured Africans, also, a school is about to commence,
under the patronage of the same ladies; and a Sunday school already
exists. Towards the foundation of a high school, $2,000 have been
recently given by Mr. Sheldon, of New York, and $400 by the Hon. C.
F. Mercer, of Virginia. The Massachusetts State Society, at its last
annual meeting, voted to appropriate $400 per annum, for the salary
of a competent male instructer at Liberia, and half that sum for a
female. This is well. It is more important to establish thoroughly the
moral and intellectual character of the Colony, and especially of the
rising generation, than even to extend the settlements themselves. The
managers have taken a view of this subject, which merits the warmest
sanction of all the friends of education, the friends of republicanism,
the friends of freedom and truth. Whatever be the _number_ of the
emigrants, let their _character_ be such, or let it be made such, as
may serve fitly for the foundation-stone whereon, in after times, shall
rest the firmest liberties of that continent, and the noblest glory of
this. Slow though the building of the edifice may be,--and so has been
the growth of every empire under heaven,--let it be sure, and let it
be strong. No man will inquire, a century hence, how many colonists
were carried out in any given twelve-mouth. Let it be built for the use
of posterity, and for the praise of history. Let it be raised as the
pyramids were raised, and it shall stand as the pyramids have stood.
The light of orient civilization shall shine again, like the sunrise,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Condition of the American Colored Population, and of the Colony at Liberia — John Shaqi
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