PREFACE

...bring its influence to bear in the cause of justice, instead of for the sake of passing fads. I need say nothing more regarding Appendix I; it is a wealth of knowledge concerning a highly developed group of indigenous people of the true Negro lineage In the 19th century, "true Negro" was an ethnological term used to distinguish the indigenous peoples of the West African coast from the Bantu-speaking populations of Central and Southern Africa.. This is particularly valuable because, during recent years, we have been remarkably short on information about the true Negro. It would not be an exaggeration to say that—with the exception of the important series of works by the late Sir A. B. Ellis and a few others (so few that you can count them on the fingers of one hand), as well as Dr. Freeman’s Ashanti and Jaman, published this year—we have had almost no reliable information on these, the most important of the races of Africa, since the eighteenth century.

The general public has been dependent on the work of great East and Central African geographical explorers, such as Dr. Livingstone, Mr. H. M. Stanley, Dr. Gregory, Mr. Scott Elliott, and Sir H. H. Johnston. These are men whose work we cannot value too highly and whom we cannot admire enough; however, when they described Africans, they were not describing Negroes, but rather that great mixture of races existing in Central and East Africa whose main ethnic group is Bantu. To argue from what you know about the Bantu when you are dealing with Negroes is about as reliable and sound as to argue from what you may know about Eastern Europeans when you are dealing with Western Europeans. Nevertheless, this flawed method has been followed in the fields of ethnology The study of the characteristics of various peoples and the differences and relationships between them. and politics with, as might be expected, bad results. I am, therefore, very proud to be permitted by Count original: "M. le Comte" de Cardi to publish his statements on true Negroes. I should add that I have in no way altered them, and he is in no way responsible for any errors that there may be in the portions of this book written by me.