Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c.,&c.,&c.
Mr. Hibbard to Mr. Seward
Sir: I have the honor to report my
restoration to health, and consequent return to Sierra Leone, the
seat of my official duties.
There has been no seizure or trial here before the “mixed courts” of
vessels engaged in the slave trade since the condemnation of the
Spanish ship America on the 25th of August, 1864. The net proceeds
of her demolished hull and cargo amounted to £1,068 6s. 4½d.
With regard to the slave trade, the most economical, speedy, and
beneficent mode of suppressing it is clearly by negotiation with the
native tribes, as suggested in our report to the Department of
State, bearing date the 21st day of February, 1864, to which report
I would most earnestly and respectfully call attention, that
immediate action may be taken by the government of the United
States, in conjunction with England and Liberia, to open
negotiations with the tribes and nationalities of Africa,
introducing among them agriculture, together with the several trades
and arts, essential to a civil state of society.
That it is the duty of civil governments to redeem
from savage life barbaric nations is a principle long since
settled by the people of the United States, incorporated in their
policy, enlightened as beneficent, and carried into practice by her
laws and government.
The civilization of Africa is and must be the work of nations. No
societies, combinations of societies, or individual efforts, can do
it. United national action alone can insure success. France and
England now have large commercial interests with Africa. The
consumption in [Page 660] Africa of
American products is large, and yet Africa, vast and rich, is at
this moment nearly unknown. Our knowledge of Africa is confined to a
small line of sea-coast.
Wars, savage, cruel, and destructive, are still waged by the natives
and petty tribes for conquest, plunder, and the capture of prisoners
to be sold into slavery. Since June last a tract of country twenty
miles inland, one hundred and twenty miles along the coast line, and
one hundred miles interiorly along the Menicourre, Founcariah, and
Berreerie rivers, has been the scene of these savage wars. The
number of towns burned and totally destroyed cannot be stated by the
best informed, but were said to be too numerous to mention; more
than 700 lives have been sacrificed, 5,000 prisoners taken and sold
into slavery; many of the trading factories along these rivers have
been plundered and burned—about £30,000 of European property
destroyed. Thousands of men, women, and children who fled from towns
and took refuge in the bush are supposed to have starved to death.
The trade of these rivers, exporting annually heretofore over
£200,000 of native products, is entirely suspended, if not
destroyed. This trade is at all times confined to a narrow strip of
territory bordering the sea. Interior nations are not permitted to
exchange their products with Europeans, or approach the coast for
purposes of trade, or any other purpose. The
power of England, as at present exerted, does not give adequate
protection even to the traders of their own country along the coast.
Wars are still waged; are now being carried on for the purpose of
capturing slaves, to be sold to the foreign trader. These vessels
have been captured and tried before the vice-admiral court here
within the past years: The Melvina alias
Charles, seized by her Britannic Majesty’s ship Dart, August, 1864,
and condemned; the Ricardo Schmidt, seized in this port in August,
1864, and restored; a schooner, name unknown, seized December, 1864,
by her Britannic Majesty’s ship Pandora and destroyed at sea.
The 5,000 prisoners captured in the wars now waging within twenty
miles of Sierra Leone have or will undoubtedly seek a foreign
market.
Sierra Leone cannot strictly be termed a British colony, except in
its government, its populace being purely African, and mostly
recaptured slaves. It has been subject to British rule for some
seventy years, and yet the plough has never been introduced, and is
now not known or used. The inhabitants are as ignorant of all the
arts known to civilized societies as the Bush people, except a few
who have been taught to read and write by the missionaries. The
white trader remains only for trade; intending soon to leave. He
refuses to do anything for the permanent good of the black race. Of
course no amelioration of the slave trade or of the present
condition of African civilization in the present mode of action can
be anticipated or hoped for. A thousand years may elapse with the
appliances of civilization now at work, and Africa would remain the
same, as little known and as savage as she now is; her great wealth
undeveloped; her great territory unexplored. The combined
negotiation and action of nations, I again express, can alone rescue
Africa from her present savage state, or plant civil institutions
upon her soil.
I have the honor to be, Mr. Secretary of State, your obedient and
humble servant,
T. R. HIBBARD, Arbitrator Mixed
Courts.
Hon. William H. Seward, &c.,&c.,&c.
