No. 327.
Mr. Turner
to Mr. Evarts.
Monrovia, Liberia, February 15, 1878. (Received May 6.)
Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that the American bark Liberia arrived here on the 6th instant, bringing as passengers from New York two commissioners of emigration prospecting for homes for negro citizens of Arkansas who desire to emigrate to Liberia, Mr. Osgood, [Page 524] a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States, and 53 negro emigrants, male and female. The principal number of the emigrants were formerly residents of the States of North Carolina and Mississippi; one or two were from Boston. The commissioners have separated; one will remain in Motserado County and examine the region about Cape Mount and the St. Paul River, the other will visit the sea-coast settlements between this point and Cape Palmas.
Mr. Osgood, the missionary, was formerly a resident of Ohio, and his mission is to Bossorah, a native settlement, said to be 75 miles from the sea-coast, and occupied almost exclusively by the Mandingo tribe of Mohammedan Africans. That Bossorah is situated beyond the malarial influence met upon the sea-coast is a mooted question. It is accepted generally that the African fever can only be contracted by persons who spend nights on the shore; and, as Mr. Osgood did not spend a night on the shore prior to his departure for the interior country, it is believed that African fever was not incipient in his system at the time that gentleman left Monrovia for Bossorah. Hence, it is expected that the result of that gentleman’s experience will go far to settle the question as to how far interiorward from the sea-coast the malarial influence prevails in the atmosphere.
The settlement of that question would, doubtless, have important bearing upon whatsoever effort Liberia may hereafter put forth to extend her commerce and establish new settlements in the more healthful regions said by travelers to be in the interior of Africa. Missionaries of high standing and wide experience with whom I have conversed relative to this subject, express the opinion that the issue of this experiment will also be in some sense influential to determine the action in Liberia of those missionary associations who desire to push forward their labor in that direction. This laudable enterprise to establish a Christian mission at Bossorah, I am informed, was projected by the American Methodist Episcopal Board of Missions, at the instance of Bishop Gilbert Havens, of the church from which that board derives existence.
Almost simultaneous with the departure of the missionary gentleman mentioned above for the new and important field to be established at Bossorah, Bishop Pinnick, of the Episcopal Church of the United States, a native of Virginia, accompanied by two young men, missionaries, from Maryland and South Carolina, respectively, arrived at Monrovia from Cape Palmas, and announced the intention of the Episcopal Church of the United States to begin immediately to establish Christian churches and manual-labor schools in the midst of the interesting and desirable tribes of the Veis-Africans, who have their principal settlement at Cape Mount, 40 miles from Monrovia, but whose commercial and friendly intercourse stretches interiorward beyond Bossorah many miles into the country inhabited by the Mandingoes and other tribes of Mohammedan Africans.
I had the pleasure to present the gentlemen representing the important mission-interest named to His Excellency the President of Liberia. It was a satisfaction that the President received the gentlemen with cordiality of manner, and expressed high approval for the direction selected for these new mission labors in Liberia. The President assured Bishop Pinnick that his application for a grant of land for agricultural and other mission purposes at Cape Mount had failed to occupy the attention of the legislature at the last session thereof, only for want of time before the adjournment, but that he (the bishop) might select 50 acres of land at that point and begin operations without delay, and that at the next session the legislature would confirm the executive grant in [Page 525] that direction. I think the President extended that permission under a provision of the constitution of Liberia which favors the interests of Christian missions in this country.
I have ventured to write somewhat at length upon the subject of these new mission interests, not only because the aggression of Christian missions upon heathenism is always the harbinger of the highest civilization, but because it does not appear to me that any two movements in Liberia made hitherto have been more capable, if strongly supported, of material contribution at one and the same time to the welfare of the aboriginal tribes, and to secure the final permanency of democratic institutions of government in these parts of Western Africa. This effort of those two American churches is a direct assault on Mohammedism and upon the superstitious traditions and fetish worship of the African tribe who dwell in this quarter; meanwhile, if successful in combining with their usual religious and secular training, manual labor, schools for the children of the tribe, there is little reason to doubt that after a few years those schools would furnish Liberia with a desirable class of artisan labor as well as commercial intercourse with those people who dwell far distant in the interior of Africa. It may not be amiss, therefore, to express the hope that these new efforts may be seconded by a corps of thoroughly competent, efficient Christian missionaries and teachers, strong enough in numbers to make effectual lasting impressions for good on the tribe in whose immediate midst the work is necessarily to be done.
I have, &c.,