Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861

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Thomas, Charles W. Adventures and Observations on the West Coast of Africa, and its Islands. New York: Derby and Jackson, 1860.

Charles W. Thomas. Adventures and Observations on the West Coast of Africa, and its Islands. New York: Derby and Jackson, 1860. Frontispiece.

Thomas was an unusual author in openly expressing humility before the difficulties of firsthand observation and comprehension during his travels on the west African coast.

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In this review of the domestic, social, civil and religious ideas and institutions of the West Coast of Africa, we do not purpose to bring each tribe under consideration. We have not the means of doing this; nor is it our purpose to look so closely into society, as to pursue the differences or resemblances, which may exist between the more important tribes in thought and conduct, with reference to these relations. We are not sure that it would be profitable to do so, supposing that we were both competent and inclined; but we are neither. Our object is to give the reader a general idea of humanity in Africa, considered in these aspects; what men generally believe, and what they generally practise, in their private and public relations with each other, and how they are affected, morally and intellectually, by both. We caution the reader against expecting much. Our subjects are dark; “the shadowy livery of the burnished sun” covers not only the faces of the Africans, but also their private life and their ideas of government and religion.

The reader cannot be told distinctly what is believed, for the believers have no very distinct belief, and they are slow and disinclined to communicate their impressions; and when they attempt communication they are indistinctly understood, because of the hearer’s ignorance of their weak and idiomatic languages. Nor can he be told much, indeed nothing certainly, of the origin of any of their domestic or evil customs, for they have no history, and their traditions are wholly unreliable. Modified by contact with white men, by the slave-trade, by commerce, by the teachings of missionaries, Mohammedan, Romish, and Protestant, the institutions and ideas of to-day are not those of five centuries ago, nor are they those that will be a century hence. What wonder then, that, with this state of things, the accounts given us of Africa should be so laughably contradictory — accounts too given us by men whom we know to be intelligent and truth-loving? This is necessarily so, because, in practice and belief, it is a land of contradictions. We spent this morning two hours in trying to reconcile Mr. Cruikshank and Rev. Mr. Wilson on one point; namely, as to whether the inhabitants of Upper Guinea worshipped evil spirits or not. They are irreconcilable; yet both of these gentlemen resided eighteen years in Western Africa, and made the habits of the people their study; and they are equally entitled by their intelligence and integrity, to confidence. In this, however, all are agreed, that if the devil had any hand in the creation of man (as hold the Two Seed Baptists), this must be his part of the job. But our business is not to reconcile contradictions which may exist in the ideas of the Africans, or antagonisms in their institutions, but to give a little light, as to what these are; and in doing so we draw upon our own observations, and facts gleaned from missionaries, traders, and late reliable authors.