These isolated leaders have been and are becoming the forerunners of the many lesser who must be born out of the uplifted population of their tribes. For until the whole population is so far elevated that the few exceptional real leaders are the spontaneous fruit of the tribal tree, real and permanent progress has not yet been made. But then there will be leadership indeed, because it will be recognized as the result of the native Christian life. Such leadership, in fullest sympathy with the life from which it sprang, will arouse enthusiasm, and, in the Master’s name and power, draw all men to Him. CHAPTER II THE NEGRO IN LIBERIA In the previous chapter, attention was called briefly to the effect, upon the negro races in Africa, of contact with the whites. It was seen that, while the efforts of Christian explorers and missionaries have resulted locally in good to these backward races in their own land, the benefits have been vastly more than offset by the widespread horrors of the white slave-trader and exploiter, and by the harm resulting from the introduction of the liquor and the vices of the white man. But how does it fare with the Negro when his contact with the white race is elsewhere than in Africa? Or what is the result when the Negro in Africa is given an opportunity for self-development under more or less favorable conditions and with only helpful contact with the whites? Of the former condition, the United States accords of course the most illuminating example, while the free colony of Liberia gives the best answer to our second inquiry. These, together with the negro republics of the Island of Haiti will prove the surest guides in our study of what can be made of the Negro and what he can make of himself under varying degrees of contact with the white race; therefore, before turning to our main subject of study, we will consider the Negro in Liberia and in Haiti. On the west coast of Africa, just where the enormous back-head of the continent makes its turn upward, lies the little republic of Liberia. Along this upward waterline of the head, it stretches for about five hundred miles, from the Ivory Coast to Sierra Leone, while its other boundary lines run irregularly into the interior, enclosing an area of 41,000 square miles. In 1816, the American Colonization Society was organized for the purpose of establishing a home, in the land of their forefathers, for the American Negroes who had regained their freedom. Hence the name Liberia, which was given to the small area at first acquired from the natives and later much enlarged. Jehudi Ashmun, an American, is credited with the actual founding of the colony in 1823.