Who will not join in this noble enterprise? What enlightened and high-souled free colored man in America will not come forward and give his aid to this cause, when he once understands it, and sees its grand bearings? Here the work is entirely your own; the white man cannot take part in it, except by sympathy or pecuniary aid — he cannot personally join in this holy crusade against the Powers of Darkness and of African bondage: that climate is his grave — God made it so, but He has made it your healthy and happy home. For He was determined that the gentle African should have a land — and a noble land, too — which the restless white man should not intrude upon, but at the expense of life.[1] Come, then (we would say to the free colored man of America), come and join in this high enterprise which God has committed to you; become His instruments in carrying out the great purpose which the Divine Providence had in view in
- ↑ It is astonishing to observe how many white men have met their death in attempting to explore Africa. First, the distinguished American traveler, Ledyard — whom Park calls his "predecessor" — who died in Egypt at the commencement of his African career. (See Sparks’s Life of Ledyard.) Then Mango Park (on his second journey), together with all his thirty-five companions and attendants — every one perished. Then Park's son, who set out in search of his father; then Harnemann, the German, in Egypt; Nicholls, on the coast of Guinea; Captain Tuckey, on the river Congo; Major Peddie and Captain Campbell; the famous Clapperton, Major Laing, Richard Lander, and a host of others, all met their death. Similar was the fate of the trading expedition, in two steamers, that followed upon Lander’s discovery of the mouth of the Niger: of the crews, only four out of nineteen, in the one vessel, and five out of twenty-nine, in the other, survived. Look, too, at the
slave-trade has been abandoned by the natives, and the peaceable fruits of legitimate commerce established in its place.' Twenty or thirty colonies scattered along the coast would probably put an end to the trade effectually and for ever." — Freeman‘s Plea.
