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Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 Excerpt: ... Palmas and Sierra Leone, is the fertile region formerly known as the Grain Coast. The native inhabitants, though as barbarous in most respects as their neighbours, were somewhat more industrious, and more addicted to agricultural pursuits. The slave dealers, as well as the honest traders who visited the Guinea Coast, were accustomed to purchase here their supplies of rice, and such other provisions as the country afforded. Ihe influence of this trade upon the inhabitants, had it not been counteracted by one more powerful, would have been highly beneficial; but, unhappily, the slave-trade was at the same time carried on here with great activity, and with the usual results. The native population was first demoralised by it, and then nearly exterminated. The destructive effects of the African slave-trade have only of late years become fully known. It is probable that, during the past century, the population of a great part of Africa, and more particularly of the regions near the coast, has been constantly diminishing from this cause alone. In the year 18-23, shortly after the arrival of the first Liberian colonists on the Grain Coast, the governor of the settlement travelled about 150 miles along that coast. There were indications sufficient to shew that the country had formerly been very populous. He found it 'nearly desolated of inhabitants,' and covered with dense forests and almost impervious thickets of brambles. Of one of the streams, on which he had purchased a site for a colonial village, he wrote: 'Along this beautiful river were formerly scattered, in Africa's better days, innumerable hamlets; and till within the last twenty years, nearly the whole river-board, for one or two miles back, was under that slight culture which obtains among the natives ...
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