Caryl Phillips - Crossing the River

Now a few words to my dear beloved mother which I trust you will be kind enough to read to her:–

Dear Mother, your advice to me when a child remains in my breast as fresh and as full of wisdom as the day you delivered it. I pray that God will spare you to behold your son’s face once more. I am sorry to inform you of the death of Solomon Charles, whom I believe was known to you in earlier times. Beyond this sad occurrence, there is little further in the way of news. When Sally was asked by your son, ‘How stands it between thee and thy God?’ her answer was, ‘All is clear. I am willing to go.’ Yes, these were her words, but two days before her death. Mother, how stands it with Uncle Daniel? Is he still living, or should I expect to meet him in Heaven? Since I have been in this country, I have been stricken with the African fever on many occasions. I am still not full with health, but I am somewhat improved. Yesterday I moved amongst the natives who labor about my land. They are good workers, although they require a stern and watchful supervision. Now dear mother, I must come to a close in the knowledge that God and Mr Edward Williams will take care of you. Give my respects to all, white and black. I remain your affectionate son, Nash Williams.

Dear Father, I wish you to be so kind as to remember my best respects to my old fellow servants, and any other enquiring friends. Hoping that they will behave themselves to you. If they fail to do so, you must remind them of the many kindnesses that you have showered upon my humble person. You are ever present in my affections. Perhaps you might dispatch some books for my school. Valuable readers are a most necessary part of my mission. Also, I would be glad to learn my true age. When I write again I shall try and send you some curiosities. I subscribe myself a servant of God, and the friend of my fellow men. As this letter will reach you, I hope, by Christmas, I will conclude by wishing your good lady wife and yourself a Merry Christmas, and sincerely hope that you both enjoy many more. Farewell, dear sir, and receive the kindest wishes of your humble servant and affectionate son.

Nash Williams

Saint Paul’s River, Liberia

March 10th, 1839

My Dear Father,

I am taking this favorable opportunity of writing a few hasty lines in the hope that they might be conveyed to you by the departure of the vessel Mathilda which will presently leave these shores for America. Your letter reached me on Feb. 5th, and was read with great joy. I declaimed it aloud to the people here and its kind contents caused some tears to flow. I am sad to learn that your brother has been called to his long and happy home, but reassured by the information that his was only a short illness of ten to twelve hours. That your good lady wife, Amelia, still enjoys rude health must be a great blessing to you. I would be happy if you could give her my regards, and inform her that there are many in this dark country of Liberia for whom she represents the highest achievement in womankind.

Why, dear Father, you chose to ignore my previous letters, you do not indicate. I must assume that this represents your either not receiving them, or your finding their contents so ignorant and poor in expression that you rightly deemed them unworthy of response. Whatever your reasoning, I am overjoyed to receive news of my friends and family, with the one obvious exception. What news for yourself? Mr Lambert has taken an Alabama woman by the name of Bertha, and her son Prince, to live with him in his brick house in Monrovia. It seems he is doing well in business, although this illiterate woman chooses to behave herself improperly. And perhaps you have already heard, by means of some other source, that old brother Taylor and sister Nancy have both lost all religion. The former has in addition turned out to be a great and scandalous drunkard. He is accused of habitual intoxication, much nocturnal revelling, lewdness, and in fact everything that characterizes the immoral man. You may correctly deduce from the above that I have severed all connections with this man. They say that his decline was occasioned by the misfortune of losing his youngest son to a sore mouth.

Of the two new arrivants that you recommended to my care, first good news and then sad. Young Solomon Williams is now comfortably situated here with us. He is working the fields for seventy-five cents a day in the hope that he might one day purchase some farmer’s tools to commence farming for himself. When he first approached my presence, I had no knowledge of him, save the name he bore. After a little discourse I recognized the fellow. At first he tested his freedom, and acted like a young horse out of the stable, but I soon reined him in. He is now learning his trade finely, and is upon the whole a very proper boy. He suits me well, and may one day (if he continues in a sober fashion) make a useful man for our young country. Of the second arrivant, only sad news. After surviving a difficult voyage of forty-nine days, marred by an outbreak of smallpox which took the lives of some thirty persons, he soon departed, but his end was peace. He was taken sick on a Monday and his end was Wednesday. His illness, though severe, was of only three days’ duration when it terminated fatally, his chief complaint being of a pain in the head. He lay in Monrovia and, according to sources, the Reverend visited him each day, and questioned him concerning his soul’s salvation, and whether the way from earth to glory was clear or not, to which he would always answer the same, that his hopes were anchored in Jesus Christ. He was, come Wednesday, perfectly sensible of his death as he fell asleep in Jesus’s arms, never more to have earthly communion with our kind, trusting to that day when we may meet again and grasp hands in friendship in our Father’s kingdom where there shall be no further parting to endure.

You are not aware perhaps that I have recently established myself and my school in a new settlement. It is somewhat further up the same Saint Paul’s River, but located in a very good place. I continue to make all the improvements I can, and I have quiet hopes for the future. I have now fourteen boys in school and two girls, all of whom are making some progress in reading the word of God. They are all native children, and I willingly labor amongst these little heathens, doing all I can according to your wishes. Last November I took a young American woman, a recent emigrant from Maryland, as my assistant and teacher. But alas she was soon sacrificed to the climate and called home to rest. I have every reason to believe that her journey was a peaceful one. Hers was the third death in the mission in a matter of weeks. We lost a boy with consumption, his malady lingering for a cruel length of time. The other unfortunate one died speedily, being seized with stomach pains at five in the morning, yet he caused such a commotion as to raise the whole village. By dawn he was no more, but his sad demise convinced a handful of our scholars to run off, for the native people among whom we live are still very superstitious. If someone dies suddenly, they are sure that somebody must have bewitched them, and off they will go to the grand devil man of the village who will, in exchange for some small trifle, tell them who it was that bewitched the person that died. This person will then be fed some poison in order to dispatch him for his wrongful deed. This appears to me not an entirely unjust method of administering justice, and one from which we of the so-called civilized world might learn something valuable.

Indeed, the natives are a much-maligned people in this dark and benighted country. Some of our less respectable emigrants find cause to torment and exploit these creatures, rather than try to fuse into their souls the values of American civilization with which their good masters labored to anoint them. In our neighboring settlement, a Mr Charles, an American, his money grown short due to the ruin of his smallholding near Monrovia, borrowed two native boys, informing their fathers that he was going to teach them English. Instead, he cruelly carried them to a slave factory and sold them for the equivalent of twelve dollars. In conversing with the natives, I often ask them how it is they cannot read and write like the white man (they call us all white man), and I generally receive reply that their gods had asked them to choose between the land and their livestock, or books, and they had chosen the former. At this juncture I often protest, and talk about the ingenious nature of native embroidery and craft, my contention being that our God has blessed the native with as much sense as any white man if only they would put this in exercise. The native is generally resigned to finally admitting that this white man does talk true, for I think they have become much fond of me.