You are not aware perhaps that I have recently established myself and my school in a new settlement. It is somewhat further up the same Saint Paul’s River, but located in a very good place. I continue to make all the improvements I can, and I have quiet hopes for the future. I have now fourteen boys in school and two girls, all of whom are making some progress in reading the word of God. They are all native children, and I willingly labor amongst these little heathens, doing all I can according to your wishes. Last November I took a young American woman, a recent emigrant from Maryland, as my assistant and teacher. But alas she was soon sacrificed to the climate and called home to rest. I have every reason to believe that her journey was a peaceful one. Hers was the third death in the mission in a matter of weeks. We lost a boy with consumption, his malady lingering for a cruel length of time. The other unfortunate one died speedily, being seized with stomach pains at five in the morning, yet he caused such a commotion as to raise the whole village. By dawn he was no more, but his sad demise convinced a handful of our scholars to run off, for the native people among whom we live are still very superstitious. If someone dies suddenly, they are sure that somebody must have bewitched them, and off they will go to the grand devil man of the village who will, in exchange for some small trifle, tell them who it was that bewitched the person that died. This person will then be fed some poison in order to dispatch him for his wrongful deed. This appears to me not an entirely unjust method of administering justice, and one from which we of the so-called civilized world might learn something valuable.
Indeed, the natives are a much-maligned people in this dark and benighted country. Some of our less respectable emigrants find cause to torment and exploit these creatures, rather than try to fuse into their souls the values of American civilization with which their good masters labored to anoint them. In our neighboring settlement, a Mr Charles, an American, his money grown short due to the ruin of his smallholding near Monrovia, borrowed two native boys, informing their fathers that he was going to teach them English. Instead, he cruelly carried them to a slave factory and sold them for the equivalent of twelve dollars. In conversing with the natives, I often ask them how it is they cannot read and write like the white man (they call us all white man), and I generally receive reply that their gods had asked them to choose between the land and their livestock, or books, and they had chosen the former. At this juncture I often protest, and talk about the ingenious nature of native embroidery and craft, my contention being that our God has blessed the native with as much sense as any white man if only they would put this in exercise. The native is generally resigned to finally admitting that this white man does talk true, for I think they have become much fond of me.
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.