Caryl Phillips: Crossing the River

Sadly, not all masters will converse in such a manner with these natives. Only last year, in an attack spurred on by revenge for native depredations upon settlers, the strongest and most populous native town on this part of the coast was taken, burned, and the natives powerfully routed, for they can be very savage when they think they have the advantage. At times like this, it is strange to think that these people of Africa are called our ancestors, for with some of them you may do all you can but they still will be your enemy. For many months now, there has been no sound of war amongst the neighboring tribes, and the affairs of the country appear quite smooth. We are all truly grateful that the war horn is heard no more, and the natives continue to display some friendship, for in this way we might avoid foolish loss of life. It was intended that Africa should be a land of freedom, for where else can the man of color enjoy his liberty? Not in Haiti or in Canada. This land of our forefathers, where many delicious fruits grow, is determined still to attract the noblest minds. If you hear any speaking disrespectful of it, I would be grateful if you would tell them to hush their mouths, for a lazy man, be he a gentleman or otherwise, will not prosper in any country should he determine that he will not work. Further, in this republic the practice is to address me as Mr Williams and not Boy . There are a few white people out here, and they are polite, moving to one side and touching their hats. In Monrovia, I have had occasion to call at their dwellings and to range over the subjects of the day, religious and otherwise. The white man never calls me by anything but my name. I am Mr Williams .

Sadly, I do not enjoy the same happy intercourse with the black emigrants hereabouts. Some emigrants, who styled themselves as lay ministers of the Gospel, asked permission to enter my new settlement and to preach the word of God. They gained admission with my blessing, and with that of the agents of the colony, as my present settlement lies beyond the furthest position in the interior to which we are generally encouraged to travel. However, our relationship soon soured as they took pleasure in forever recounting the number of hopeful converts who resided with them in their previous settlement, and how these converts were now filled with the Holy Ghost, their confidences awakened, and how they had become more friendly by the day. It was as though they made this continual assault upon my person in order to insult what they assumed to be the so-far modest achievements of my present mission. It appeared that amongst their biblical attachments were Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian sentiments, and that so ill-schooled were they that clearly they could not distinguish one variety from the next, but I refrained from raising this subject. That they had truly embraced religion, that they displayed the patience to resist the temptations of the evil one, I did not doubt, but their criticism of my dictatorial manner and their suggestions on the moral value of my behavior proved too much, and, soon after their arrival, I ordered them to withdraw. They did so, but not before they had spread malicious gossip abroad that a child recently delivered to a native woman bore a strong and suspicious likeness to one Nash Williams. I countered, suggesting that this would appear only natural in that we shared the same ancestry, but in the minds of some emigrant farmers, a brace of whose number chose to leave my settlement, it appeared that the seeds of damage that these ministers had so wilfully scattered, were now finally beginning to bear some fruit.

Soon after the expulsion of my ministers of the Gospel , it became clear that I would have to look for one who was willing and able to help me in my labors amongst the heathen flock. To this end, I traveled to Monrovia, where I engaged a young lady who was recently arrived from America, being formerly the property of a Mr Young of Pennsylvania. She informed me that she had come out to Africa last September, and had passed through her acclimatizing fevers very well. She seemed, to my eyes, ably prepared for the business of mission work, having been raised up in one of the best Christian families of America. The young lady returned with me up the Saint Paul’s River, and although clearly a little disenchanted at first casting a glance over our small Christian empire, her eyes soon accustomed themselves to the more primitive conditions of the interior, so much so that she now acts and behaves as though she has known nothing else. I expect to be wedlocked to her in a short time, if life lasts and all things hold out. Perhaps you would be so kind as to send out something to start on in the way of making a living as a newly married couple, for you know that my time is not consumed in speculative affairs which are likely to result in my achieving worldly gains. The colony is not now as flourishing as it was, trade is dull, and the past season very unfavorable to the growth of all our main staffs of life.

As respects coffee, these days it sells at fifty cents per pound, but it grows wild and often natives and monkeys take it. Loaf sugar sells at twenty-eight dollars per hundred. Fresh beef will fetch twelve cents per pound. Cattle sell at fifteen dollars each, sheep two dollars, goats a dollar, hogs at different prices according to size from one dollar to fifteen, ducks at one dollar each, and fowls at two dollars per dozen. Laborers can be hired for twenty cents per day, and a person might have good common people to work the ground and make it as productive as that in America. But one word of explanation as to why such as I, who plant and work the land with application, still struggle, is to be found in the maxim that it is several years before farm land will pay. It has always been so, and so it will remain. There are some that have come to this place that have got rich, and done well, by using the natives as slaves. But invariably this means that the poor, unskilled people who come from America have no chance to make a living, for the natives do all the work. There is little chance for farming at Monrovia, for it is all stones. Out here, in the interior, there is good land, but unless one wishes to administer one’s province in an uncharitable and cruel manner, the times are hard for all who would till the soil honestly.

Dear Father, perhaps you will please send me one bonnet and an umbrella, if you please. And some cloth to make one white frock, as there is none to be found in this country. These things will not prove difficult for you to get, for there is plenty in America and nothing here. Can you please send some valuable books, such as history, and a dictionary, and writing paper and quills or steel pens. Also flour and pork, and other articles you may think will be of service to me, including a hoe, an axe, some trowels and some hammers. If you, or any of your kind family to whom I am already under so many obligations, shall send anything for me, it shall not be misplaced charity, for provision is scarce.

I was very sorry to hear that my mother was dead, but I take great consolation in knowing that she has gone home to rest and we have nothing to do but to prepare to meet her. I am further consoled by your heartbroken intelligence that she died with Jesus in her soul and Heaven in her view, and her confidence well-anchored in the Lord. I have been in Africa a long time and I wish to come home as soon as possible. I wish you to write to me by the first emigrant vessel and let me know on what terms I can come back, and if I will be interrupted by white people. William Young left here shipped aboard a storeship, and I have heard from him twice. He is in Cincinnati acting as a porter in a merchant’s store or warehouse, so it must be possible to successfully return. I would like very much to see you once in the flesh, and this may prove my last chance to cross the Atlantic. It is naturally my full intention to return to Liberia, for it is the best country for the black man that is to be found on the face of the earth. Older nations, with different styles of government, may be slow to acknowledge all that is due to us for whom the golden sun of liberty is newly rising. But Liberia is doing her part in improving human affairs, and stands now tall and proud with other regions of the civilized world.