with a brief notice of the neighbouring tribes, soil, productions, &c. and some observations on the facility of Colonizing that part of Africa, with a View to Cultivation; and the introduction of letters and religion to its inhabitants: but more particularly as the means of gradually abolishing African Slavery relative to an attempt to establish a British Settlement on the Island of Bulama, on the Western Coast of Africa, in the year 1792
with a brief notice of the neighbouring tribes, soil, productions, &c. and some observations on the facility of Colonizing that part of Africa, with a View to Cultivation; and the introduction of letters and religion to its inhabitants: but more particularly as the means of gradually abolishing African Slavery relative to an attempt to establish a British Settlement on the Island of Bulama, on the Western Coast of Africa, in the year 1792
Projekt: Bestände der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden
LDP: Bestände der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Strukturtyp
Monographie
Parlamentsperiode
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Wahlperiode
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Titel
Chapter XI. Advantageous position of the Country sketched in Chapter VIII for the purposes of Cultivation and Commerce — its Colonization proposed — Commodities intended to be there produced ...
African Memoranda. 393 idea to him ; it is not within the limits of possibility for him to comprehend the idea which it is meant to convey ; and of the laws of God be will have as little knowledge. But he will know that it is the custom, and ever has been, in his country, for every man to keep as many wives as he can afford ; and that he is respected in proportion to the number of them which he main tains. Now to insist upon his parting from the cause of his respect, without assigning any comprehensible reason for his so doing, betrays a more barbarous mind than the one intended to be enlightened. If, after this, the same person goes on, and tells the chief, that drunkenness is also a sin, and that he must give up drinking spirits ; in short, that he will not sell him any, nor suffer any to be sold to him for the future ; the chief, who has been accustomed to drink spirits, and to see every one else do the same, when it was to be procured, will begin to think this European a little unreasonable; and will not be desirous of having him for a neighbour. But if the European goes on, and tells him that he must change his religion and become a Chris tian, or else when he dies that he will be roasted like a yam, always in torment but never thoroughly done ; this chief will probably inquire what he means by being a Christian, that he may avoid this roasting. When his European instructor goes on from one dogma to another, all alike unintelligible in the present intellectual state of the chief, till he finishes with the doctrine of the Trinity, the belief in which, he tells this chief, is essential to his salvation: the latter, who thought him un reasonable at first, now thinks him * outrageously so ; and that * If I may»be thought to have spoken too lightly on subjects so serious, my apology •will be found in the contempt and indignation I feel at the ill-directed efforts of those 3E