October 13, 1865
From the African Repository, is a brief article by Dr. Livingston, the American explorer. He responds to a question he is often asked: “What sort of people are those you wander amongst?” Here are some excerpts from his response: “they are very far from being savages… quite mild and hospitable … it is the duty of each man in the village to give every stranger his supper…they are involved cultivating the soil…they manufacture excellent iron and copper …they do not understand where all the black people that are carried away go to.. thousand are taken away annually, and you cannot go anywhere without meeting with slave parties…they imagine that the white people eat them. They look upon us as cannibals, and we look upon them as savages. If we take an impartial view both, we shall find that they are better than each imagine one another to be.”
Comments are closed.