History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880
Chapter 7 : It is a mistaken notion that has obtained for many years, that the Negro in Africa is ph

It is a mistaken notion that has obtained for many years, that the Negro in Africa is physically the most loathsome of all mankind. True, the Negro has been deformed by degradation and abuse; but this is not his normal condition. We have seen native Africans who were jet black, woolly-haired, and yet possessing fine teeth, beautiful features, tall, graceful, and athletic.

"In reference to the status of the Africans among the nations of the earth, we have seen nothing to justify the notion that they are of a different 'breed' or 'species'

from the most civilized. The African is a man with every attribute of human kind. Centuries of barbarism have had the same deteriorating effects on Africans as Prichard describes them to have had on certain of the Irish who were driven, some generations back, to the hills in Ulster and Connaught; and these depressing influences have had such moral and physical effects on some tribes, that ages probably will be required to undo what ages have done. This degradation, however, would hardly be given as a reason for holding any race in bondage, unless the advocate had sunk morally to the same low state. Apart from the frightful loss of life in the process by which, it is pretended, the Negroes are better provided for than in a state of liberty in their own country, it is this very system that perpetuates, if not causes, the unhappy condition with which the comparative comfort of some of them in slavery is contrasted.

"Ethnologists reckon the African as by no means the lowest of the human family. He is nearly as strong physically as the European; and, as a race, is wonderfully persistent among the nations of the earth. Neither the diseases nor the ardent spirits which proved so fatal to North-American Indians, South-Sea Islanders, and Australians, seem capable of annihilating the Negroes. Even when subjected to that system so destructive to human life, by which they are torn from their native soil, they spring up irrepressibly, and darken half the new continent. They are gifted by nature with physical strength capable of withstanding the sorest privations, and a lightheartedness which, as a sort of compensation, enables them to make the best of the worst situations. It is like that power which the human frame possesses of withstanding heat, and to an extent which we should never have known, had not an adventurous surgeon gone into an oven, and burnt his fingers with his own watch. The Africans have wonderfully borne up under unnatural conditions that would have proved fatal to most races.

"It is remarkable that the power of resistance under calamity, or, as some would say, adaptation for a life of servitude, is peculiar only to certain tribes on the continent of Africa. Climate cannot be made to account for the fact that many would pine in a state of slavery, or voluntarily perish. No Krooman can be converted into a slave, and yet he is an inhabitant of the low, unhealthy west coast; nor can any of the Zulu or Kaffir tribes be reduced to bondage, though all these live on comparatively elevated regions. We have heard it stated by men familiar with some of the Kaffirs, that a blow, given even in play by a European, must be returned. A love of liberty is observable in all who have the Zulu blood, as the Makololo, the Watuta, and probably the Masai. But blood does not explain the fact. A beautiful Barotse woman at NHLe, on refusing to marry a man whom she did not like, was in a pet given by the headman to some Mambari slave-traders from Benguela. Seeing her fate, she seized one of their spears, and, stabbing herself, fell down dead."[80]

Dr. David Livingstone is certainly ent.i.tled to our utmost confidence in all matters that he writes about. Mr. Archibald Forbes says he has seen Africans dead upon the field of battle that would measure nine feet, and it was only a few months ago that we had the privilege of seeing a Zulu who was eight feet and eleven inches in height. As to the beauty of the Negro, nearly all African travellers agree.

"But if the women of Africa are brutal, the men of Africa are feminine. Their faces are smooth; their b.r.e.a.s.t.s are frequently as full as those of European women; their voices are never gruff or deep; their fingers are long; and they can be very proud of their rosy nails. While the women are nearly always ill-shaped after their girlhood, the men have gracefully moulded limbs, and always after a feminine type,--the arms rounded, the legs elegantly formed, without too much muscular development, and the feet delicate and small.

"When I first went ash.o.r.e on Africa, viz., at Bathurst, I thought all the men who pa.s.sed me, covered in their long robes, were women, till I saw one of the latter s.e.x, and was thereby disenchanted.

"While no African's face ever yet reminded me of a man whom I had known in England, I saw again and again faces which reminded me of women; and on one occasion, in Angola, being about to chastise a _carregadore_, he sank on his knees as I raised my stick, clasped his hands, and looked up imploringly toward me,--was so like a young lady I had once felt an affection for, that, in spite of myself, I flung the stick away, fearing to commit a sacrilege.

"Ladies on reading this will open their eyes, and suppose that either I have very bad taste, or that I am writing fiction. But I can a.s.sure them that among the Angolas, and the Mpongwe, and the Mandingoes, and the Fula, I have seen men whose form and features would disgrace no petticoats,--not even satin ones at a drawing-room.

"While the women are stupid, sulky, and phlegmatic, the men are vivacious, timid, inquisitive, and garrulous beyond belief. They make excellent domestic servants, are cleanly, and even tedious in the nicety with which they arrange dishes on a table or clothes on a bed. They have also their friends.h.i.+ps after the manner of woman, embracing one another, sleeping on the same mat, telling one another their secrets, betraying them, and getting terribly jealous of one another (from pecuniary motives) when they happen to serve the same master.

"They have none of that austerity, that reserve, that pertinacity, that perseverance, that strong-headed stubborn determination, or that ferocious courage, which are the common attributes of our s.e.x. They have, on the other hand, that delicate tact, that intuition, that nervous imagination, that quick perception of character, which have become the proverbial characteristics of cultivated women.

They know how to render themselves impenetrable; and if they desire to be perfidious, they wear a mask which few eyes can see through, while at the same time a certain sameness of purpose models their character in similar moulds. Their nature is an enigma: but solve it, and you have solved the race. They are inordinately vain: they buy looking-gla.s.ses; they will pa.s.s hours at their toilet, in which their wives must act as _femmes de chambre_; they will spend all their money on ornaments and dress, in which they can display a charming taste. They are fond of music, of dancing, and are not insensible to the beauties of nature. They are indolent, and have little ambition except to be admired and well spoken of. They are so sensitive that a harsh word will rankle in then hearts, and make them unhappy for a length of time; and they will strip themselves to pay the _grills_ for their flattery, and to escape their satire. Though naturally timid, and loath to shed blood, they witness without horror the most revolting spectacles which their religion sanctions; and, though awed by us their superiors, a real injury will transform their natures, and they will take a speedy and merciless revenge.

"According to popular belief, the Africans are treacherous and hostile. The fact is, that all Africans are supposed to be Negroes, and that which is criminal is ever a.s.sociated with that which is hideous. But, with the exception of some Mohammedan tribes toward the north, one may travel all over Africa without risking one's life. They may detain you, they may rob you, if you are rich; they may insult you, and refuse to let you enter their country, if you are poor: but your life is always safe till you sacrifice it by some imprudence.

"In ancient times the blacks were known to be so gentle to strangers that many believed that the G.o.ds sprang from them.

Homer sings of the Ocean, father of the G.o.ds; and says that, when Jupiter wishes to take a holiday, he visits the sea, and goes to the banquets of the blacks,--a people humble, courteous, and devout."[81]

We have quoted thus extensively from Mr. Reade because he has given a fair account of the peoples he met. He is a good writer, but sometimes gets real funny!

It is a fact that all uncivilized races are warlike. The tribes of Africa are a vast standing army. Fighting seems to be their employment. We went into this matter of armies so thoroughly in the fourth chapter that we shall not have much to say here. The bow and arrow, the spear and a.s.sagai were the primitive weapons of African warriors; but they have learned the use of fire-arms within the last quarter of a century. The s.h.i.+eld and a.s.sagai are not, however, done away with. The young Prince Napoleon, whose dreadful death the reader may recall, was slain by an a.s.sagai. These armies are officered, disciplined, and drilled to great perfection, as the French and English troops have abundant reason to know.

"The Zulu tribes are remarkable for being the only people in that part of Africa who have practised war in an European sense of the word. The other tribes are very good at bush fighting, and are exceedingly crafty at taking an enemy unawares, and coming on him before he is prepared for them.

Guerilla warfare is, in fact, their only mode of waging battle; and, as is necessarily the case in such warfare, more depends on the exertion of individual combatants than on the scientific combinations of ma.s.ses. But the Zulu tribe have, since the time of Dhaka, the great inventor of military tactics, carried on war in a manner approaching the notions of civilization.

"Their men are organized into regiments, each subdivided into companies, and each commanded by its own chief, or colonel; while the king, as commanding general, leads his forces to war, disposes them in battle-array, and personally directs their movements. They give an enemy notice that they are about to match against him, and boldly meet him in the open field. There is a military etiquette about them which some of our own people have been slow to understand. They once sent a message to the English commander that they would 'come and breakfast with him.' He thought it was only a joke, and was very much surprised when the Kaffirs, true to their promise, came pouring like a torrent over the hills, leaving him barely time to get his men under arms before the dark enemies arrived."[82]

And there are some legends told about African wars that would put the "Arabian Nights" to the blush.[83]

In Africa, as in districts of Germany and Holland, woman is burdened with agricultural duties. The soil of Africa is very rich,[84] and consequently Nature furnishes her untutored children with much spontaneous vegetation. It is a rather remarkable fact, that the average African warrior thinks it a degradation for him to engage in agriculture. He will fell trees, and help move a village, but _will not_ go into the field to work. The women--generally the married ones--do the gardening. They carry the seed on their heads in a large basket, a hoe on their shoulder, and a baby slung on the back. They scatter the seed over the ground, and then break up the earth to the depth of three or four inches.

"Four or five gardens are often to be seen round a kraal, each situated so as to suit some particular plant. Various kinds of crops are cultivated by the Kaffirs, the princ.i.p.al being maize, millet, pumpkins, and a kind of spurious sugar-cane in great use throughout Southern Africa, and popularly known by the name of 'sweet-reed.' The two former const.i.tute, however, the necessaries of life, the latter belonging rather to the cla.s.s of luxuries. The maize, or, as it is popularly called when the pods are severed from the stem, 'mealies,' is the very staff of life to a Kaffir; as it is from the mealies that is made the thick porridge on which the Kaffir chiefly lives. If a European hires a Kaffir, whether as guide, servant, or hunter, he is obliged to supply him with a stipulated quant.i.ty of food, of which the maize forms the chief ingredient. Indeed, so long as the native of Southern Africa can get plenty of porridge and sour milk, he is perfectly satisfied with his lot. When ripe, the ears of maize are removed from the stem, the leafy envelope is stripped off, and they are hung in pairs over sticks until they are dry enough to be taken to the storehouse."[85]

The cattle are cared for by the men, and women are not allowed to engage in the hunt for wild animals. The cattle among the mountain and sandstone tribes are of a fine stock, but those of the tribes in the alluvia, like their owners, are small and sickly.

The African pays more attention to his weapons of offensive warfare than he does to his wives; but in many instances he is quite skilful in the handicrafts.

"The Ishogo people are noted throughout the neighboring tribes for the superior quality and fineness of the _bongos_, or pieces of gra.s.s-cloth, which they manufacture.

They are industrious and skilful weavers. In walking down the main street of Mokenga, a number of _ouandjas_, or houses without walls are seen, each containing four or five looms, with the weavers seated before them weaving the cloth. In the middle of the floor of the _ouandjay_ a wood-fire is seen burning; and the weavers, as you pa.s.s by, are sure to be seen smoking their pipes, and chatting to one another whilst going on with their work. The weavers are all men, and it is men also who st.i.tch the _bongos_ together to make _denguis_ or robes of them; the st.i.tches are not very close together, nor is the thread very fine, but the work is very neat and regular, and the needles are of their own manufacture. The _bongos_ are very often striped, and sometimes made even in check patterns; this is done by their dyeing some of the threads of the warp, or of both warp and woof, with various simple colors; the dyes are all made of decoctions of different kinds of wood, except for black, when a kind of iron ore is used. The _bongos_ are employed as money in this put of Africa. Although called gra.s.s-cloth by me, the material is not made of gra.s.s, but of the delicate and firm cuticle of palm leaflets, stripped off in a dexterous manner with the fingers."[86]

Nearly all his mechanical genius seems to be exhausted in the perfection of his implements of war, and Dr. Livingstone is of the opinion, that when a certain perfection in the arts is reached, the natives pause. This, we think, is owing to their far remove from other nations. Livingstone says,--

"The races of this continent seem to have advanced to a certain point and no farther; their progress in the arts of working iron and copper, in pottery, basket-making, spinning, weaving, making nets, fish-hooks, spears, axes, knives, needles, and other things, whether originally invented by this people or communicated by another instructor, appears to have remained in the same rude state for a great number of centuries. This apparent stagnation of mind in certain nations we cannot understand, but, since we have in the latter ages of the world made what we consider great progress in the arts, we have unconsciously got into the way of speaking of some other races in much the same tone as that used by the Celestials in the Flowery Land.

These same Chinese antic.i.p.ated us in several most important discoveries, by as many centuries as we may have preceded others. In the knowledge of the properties of the magnet, the composition of gunpowder, the invention of printing, the manufacture of porcelain, of silk, and in the progress of literature, they were before us. But then the power of making further discoveries was arrested, and a stagnation of the intellect prevented their advancing in the path of improvement or invention."

Mr. Wood says,--

"The natives of Southern Africa are wonderful proficients in forging iron; and, indeed, a decided capability for the blacksmith's art seems to be inherent in the natives of Africa, from north to south, and from east to west. None of the tribes can do very much with the iron, but the little which they require is worked in perfection. As in the case with all uncivilized beings, the whole treasures of the art are lavished on their weapons; and so, if we wish to see what an African savage can do with iron, we must look at his spears, knives, and arrows--the latter, indeed, being but spears in miniature."

The blacksmith, then, is a person of some consequence in his village.

He gives shape and point to the weapons by which game is to be secured and battles won. All seek his favor.

"Among the Kaffirs, a blacksmith is a man of considerable importance, and is much respected by the tribe. He will not profane the mystery of his craft by allowing uninitiated eyes to inspect his various processes, and therefore carries on his operations at some distance from the kraal. His first care is to prepare the bellows. The form which he uses prevails over a very large portion of Africa, and is seen, with some few modifications, even among the many islands of Polynesia. It consists of two leathern sacks, at the upper end of which is a handle. To the lower end of each sack is attached the hollow horns of some animal, that of the cow or eland being most commonly used; and when the bags are alternately inflated and compressed, the air pa.s.ses out through the two horns.

"Of course the heat of the fire would destroy the horns if they were allowed to come in contact with it; and they are therefore inserted, not into the fire, but into an earthenware tube which communicates with the fire. The use of valves is unknown; but as the two horns do not open into the fire, but into the tube, the fire is not drawn into the bellows as would otherwise be the case. This arrangement, however, causes considerable waste of air, so that the bellows-blower is obliged to work much harder than would be the case if he were provided with an instrument that could conduct the blast directly to its destination. The ancient Egyptians used a bellows of precisely similar construction, except that they did not work them entirely by hand. They stood with one foot on each sack, and blew the fire by alternately pressing on them with the feet, and raising them by means of a cord fastened to their upper ends.

"When the blacksmith is about to set to work, he digs a hole in the ground, in which the fire is placed; and then sinks the earthenware tube in a sloping direction, so that the lower end opens at the bottom of the hole, while the upper end projects above the level of the ground. The two horns are next inserted into the upper end of the earthenware tube; and the bellows are then fastened in their places, so that the sacks are conveniently disposed for the hands of the operator, who sits between them. A charcoal-fire is then laid in the hole, and is soon brought to a powerful heat by means of the bellows. A larger stone serves the purpose of an anvil, and a smaller stone does duty for a hammer.

Sometimes the hammer is made of a conical piece of iron, but in most cases a stone is considered sufficient. The rough work of hammering the iron into shape is generally done by the chief blacksmith's a.s.sistants, of whom he has several, all of whom will pound away at the iron in regular succession. The shaping and finis.h.i.+ng the article is reserved by the smith for himself. The other tools are few and simple, and consist of punches and rude pinchers made of two rods of iron.

"With these instruments the Kaffir smith can cast bra.s.s into various ornaments, Sometimes he pours it into a cylindrical mould, so as to make a bar from which bracelets and similar ornaments can be hammered, and sometimes he makes studs and k.n.o.bs by forming their shape in clay moulds."[87]

Verily, the day will come when these warlike tribes shall beat their spears into pruning-hooks, and their a.s.sagais into ploughshares, and shall learn war no more! The skill and cunning of their artificers shall be consecrated to the higher and n.o.bler ends of civilization, and the noise of battle shall die amid the music of a varied industry!

FOOTNOTES:

[68] Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi, pp. 216, 217.

[69] Ashango Land, pp. 288, 289, 291, 292.

[70] Western Africa, p. 257 _sq._

[71] Through the Dark Continent, vol. i. p. 489.

[72] Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. i. chap, vii.

[73] Equatorial Africa, pp. 377, 378.

[74] Savage Africa, p. 216.

[75] Expedition to Zambesi, pp. 626, 627.

[76] Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi, pp. 307, 308.

[77] Savage Africa, p. 219.

[78] See Savage Africa, p. 207. Livingstone's Life-Work, pp. 47, 48.

Uncivilized Races of Men, vol. 1. pp. 71-86; also Du Chaillu and Denham and Clappterton.