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All can certify that this colony, intended as a 'model of policy, and founded with the object of promoting African improvement, has been the greatest obstacle to progress. She fought to keep every advantage to herself, and she succeeded in securing a monopoly of 'recaptives, who were more wanted elsewhere.
The liberateds, called by the people 'Cruits, and officially 'recaptives, soon became an important factor. In 1811 they numbered 2,500 out of 4,500; and between June 1819 and January 1833 they totalled 27,167 hands. They are now represented by about seventeen chief, and two hundred minor, tribes. A hundred languages, according to Mr.
The Church Missionary Society, founded in 1799, sent out, five years afterwards, its first representatives, MM. Renner and Hartwig, Germans supported by English funds. In 1816 they devoted themselves steadily to converting the 'recaptives, and many of them, together with their wives, fell bravely at their posts. In twenty years thirty-seven out of seventy died or were invalided.
Had the 'colony-born' or older families, the 'King-yard men, or recaptives, and the creoles, or children of liberated Africans, been apprenticed and compelled to labour, the colony would have become a flourishing item of the empire. Now it is the mere ruin of an emporium; and the people, born and bred to do nothing, cannot prevail upon themselves to work.
They have not improved in demeanour during the last twenty years. Even then the 'liberateds' and 'recaptives, chiefly Akus and Ibos, had begun the 'high jinks, which we shall find at their highest in Sierra Leone. They had organised 'Companies, the worst of trade-unions, elected headmen, indulged in strikes, and more than once had come into serious collision with the military.
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