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New Light on the Pan-African Association: Part II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Gwilym Colenso  and
Christopher Saunders
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Extract

In the first part of this article we showed that evidence from the Colenso papers, held at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House in Oxford, together with other sources, throws new light on the role of Frank Colenso, the second son of Bishop Colenso, in the African Association, the Pan-African Conference of 1900 and the Pan-African Association (PAA) that grew out of the conference. We now consider the part played by Frank Colenso in the dissolution of the PAA in 1901 while its secretary, Henry Sylvester Williams [see fig 1], was in the Caribbean. We are able to throw new light on the attempt by Williams to revive the organisation and offer an alternative interpretation to that provided in the contemporary record of the dissolution that most historians have relied on.

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Articles
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African Research and Documentation , Volume 108 , 2008 , pp. 89 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2008

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Footnotes

1

Thanks to Lucy McCann, Marion Lowman, John Pinfold, and Dr. Charles Swaisland for advice and assistance in the preparation of this article.

References

“New light on the Pan-African Association: Part I” (hereafter NL Pt I), African Research and Documentation, No. 107 (2008).Google Scholar
It is not clear whether the action taken to dissolve the PAA in 1901 took formal effect. Some writers suggest it continued until 1902.Google Scholar
Sivagurunathan, Shivani, “Pan-Africanism” in Dabydeen, David, John, Gilmore, Jones, Cecily (eds.) The Oxford companion to Black British history (Oxford, 2007), pp 359-361; Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The history of black people in Britain, (London, 1984); P. Olisanwuche Esedebe, Pan-Africanism, The Idea and Movement 1776 - 1963, (Washington, D. C, 1982); Owen Charles Mathurin, Henry Sylvester Williams and the Origins of the Pan-African movement 1869 - 1911, (London, 1976); J. R. Hooker, Henry Sylvester Williams, Imperial Pan-Africanist, (London, 1975); Imanuel Geiss, The Pan-Africanist Movement: A history of Pan-Africanism in America, Europe and Africa, ([1968] 1974); Clarence G.Contee, Henry Sylvester Williams and the origins of organisational Pan-Africanism 1897-1902 (Washington, D. C, 1973).Google Scholar
Fryer, op. cit., p. 286.Google Scholar
Sivagurunathan, op. cit., pp. 359-61.Google Scholar
Mathurin, op. cit., p.104. No other references have been found to this change of name but the suggestion is relevant to a discussion below on British versus American influence within the PAA.Google Scholar
Contee, Henry Sylvester Williams, p. 19.Google Scholar
The exception is Mathurin who also cites issues of the Jamaica Advocate for August and September 1901. See Mathurin, op. cit., pp. 104-5.Google Scholar
Now listed in the British Library newspaper collection, this issue was reported as mislaid when recently requested. The authors are indebted to Professor David Killingray for making us aware of the copy at Rhodes House. Geiss speculates that there may have been other issues (op. cit., p.195, n.101). Mathurin confirms this (op. cit., p. 108) and the Port of Spain Mirror, 16 December 1901, carries a review of the second issue.Google Scholar
The Pan-African, vol 1, no.1 (October 1901), p. 4, quoted in its fullest form by Hooker, Henry Sylvester Williams, pp. 57-8.Google Scholar
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Frank Colenso (FEC) to Sylvester Williams (HSW), 17th April 1901, Rhodes House (RH), MSS. Afr. s.1285/16, f.267. Frank Colenso often used the Oxford and Cambridge Club as his correspondence address.Google Scholar
Bishop Walters (BpW) to FEC, 11 Sept 1901, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/16, f.268. The card is postmarked at 2.30 A.M. 13th September giving Frank Colenso little notice of the meeting that day!Google Scholar
“After we parted on Friday I felt much regret at the prospect of my colleague and myself having no further opportunity of discussing personally with you…” FEC to BpW, 15 Sept 1901, RH, MSS. Afr. s. 1285/16, ff.263-7.Google Scholar
If the telegram was sent immediately after the dissolution, Mathurin's timescale would have Williams leaving England after the middle of March, barely allowing him time to reach Jamaica by 28 March, for his first meeting there. It is more likely that he left England earlier in the month. This would be consistent with his spending six weeks in Jamaica, as suggested by Mathurin, before attending a farewell meeting in Kingston on 3 May, It is also consistent with a passenger list which shows a “Mr H S Williams” embarking on the Port Royal at Bristol on 2 March 1901 bound for Kingston, Jamaica, where, according to a newspaper report, he arrived on 16th March. Mathurin may have meant to say that the dissolution took place within a month of William's arrival in Jamaica, rather than his departure from England, or the telegram may have been sent two weeks after the dissolution. Mathurin's claim that Williams only heard about the dissolution when he arrived in Trinidad is not plausible since he attended a farewell meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, on 3 May, over two weeks after Frank Colenso's telegram was sent to him there. See Mathurin, op. cit., pp. 89, 91, 104; Board of Trade passenger list, BT27/345; Gleaner, 18 March 1901, p. 3. The authors are indebted to David Killingray for the latter reference.Google Scholar
The Pan-African, Oct 1901 Vol 1, No.1, p 4, as quoted above.Google Scholar
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The significance attached to this meeting is underlined by the fact that four of the secondary accounts of the dissolution of the PAA refer to a meeting on this date. See Geiss, op. cit., p.196; Hooker, , Henry Sylvester Williams, p. 58; Mathurin, op. cit., p.105; Esedebe, op. cit., p. 47.Google Scholar
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The Pan-African, Oct 1901 Vol 1, No.1, p 4.Google Scholar
He refers to the PAA as “the late Association”. See FEC to BpW, 15 Sept 1901, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285 / 16, ff. 263-266.Google Scholar
“I feel that the way is clear to the establishment in due course, on a workable basis, of such an organisation as the interest of the African races all over the world stand in need of.” Ibid.Google Scholar
Geiss, op. cit., p. 197. Strictly speaking this is not true since, as editor of the Pan-African, it is likely that Sylvester Williams is the author of its article on the dissolution of the PAA.Google Scholar
Ibid, p. 197.Google Scholar
FEC to BpW, 15 Sept 1901, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/16, ff. 263-266.Google Scholar
Williams was in Jamaica from March to May, and in Trinidad from May to July, after which he travelled to and in the US, arriving back in England by early September. See Mathurin, op. cit., pp. 87-101, 104; Hooker, , Henry Sylvester Williams, pp. 31, 39, 40.Google Scholar
Williams began campaigning to set up branches of the PAA in Jamaica without making any reference to the vice president for Jamaica, Henry Richard Cargill but, instead, entered into a business partnership with him exporting bananas from Jamaica to Britain. The business failed. Could the “conduct” which Frank Colenso objected to have been combining private and PAA business (Mathurin refers to the “dual purpose” of the Jamaica part of Williams’ tour of the Caribbean), or the failure to involve the local PAA officer in the attempt to expand the Association in Jamaica? At a meeting on 9th April in Kingston, Jamaica, Daniel Alleyene was described as the president of the Jamaica branch of the PAA, with no reference made to Cargill. See Mathurin, op. cit., pp. 86, 69, 90.Google Scholar
Schneer comments that, “In the Pan-African Association, Williams appears to have become something of a one man band.” Schneer, op. cit., p. 225.Google Scholar
FEC to BpW, 15 Sep 1901, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/16, ff.263-66.Google Scholar
“we may still, I apprehend, need to do something to protect the public in West Africa and elsewhere, from the improper use of the title and method of organisation of the late association.” Ibid. The reason for the reference to West Africa is not immediately evident. It is possible that Frank Colenso thought this would be the next area to receive Williams’ attention.Google Scholar
Ibid.Google Scholar
If Bishop Walters did concur with the views expressed in Frank Colenso's letter to him, this certainly would reflect a change in the way that the bishop viewed the PAA after he sent his card of 11th September to Frank Colenso. Otherwise there would have been no need for their “vehement controversy” on the 13th. Furthermore, in his card, Walters refers to himself as the President of the PAA, in the present tense. Compare this to Frank Colenso's use of the term “late” three times in his letter to refer both to the PAA and to Sylvester Williams’ secretaryship. See Ibid.Google Scholar
We have seen that J.R. Archer met Bishop Walters on a second occasion on 13th September. However, this second meeting took the form of a private impromptu visit rather than a meeting previously arranged or “summoned”.Google Scholar
The article takes up less than half a column in an issue of eight pages, with two columns to a page, carrying other articles up to two pages long on topics certainly no more newsworthy than the dissolution of the PAA. The editorial affirms that the policy of the paper is that, “no other than the Negro can represent the Negro…” For Sylvester Williams’ commitment to the PAA, see the first sentence of the Pan-African article, “The Pan-African Association exists”, quoted above.Google Scholar
See Hooker, , Henry Sylvester Williams, p. 58.Google Scholar
This has puzzled historians of the PAA. As Hooker comments: “the frustrating thing is that nothing else is known about the inside of this affair [the attempt to revive the PAA]. Walters who might have been expected to recall a dramatic dash across the Atlantic to save an endangered organisation indispensable to race advancement, says nothing, perhaps to ‘keep it in the kitchen’, and so away from the white man.” See Hooker, Henry Sylvester Williams, pp. 58-9.Google Scholar
BpW to FEC, 11 Sept 1901, RH, MSS. Afr. s. 1285/16, f.268.Google Scholar
Ibid; FEC to BpW, 15 Sept 1901, RH, MSS. Afr. s.1285/16, ff.263-66.Google Scholar
Hooker, , Henry Sylvester Williams, pp. 58-9.Google Scholar
Mathurin, op. cit., p. 100; Hooker, , Henry Sylvester Williams, p. 54.Google Scholar
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Mathurin, op. cit., pp. 48, 49.Google Scholar
Mathurin, op. cit., pp. 49/50 (quoting from the Report of the Conference), 68; Fryer, op. cit., p. 284.Google Scholar
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As he confirmed to a reporter on the final day of the conference: “My idea… was confined in the first place to the British Colonies, but the scheme developed into a Pan-African one. Our object now is to secure throughout the world the same facilities and privileges for the black as the white man enjoys …” See Westminster Gazette, 26 July 1900, quoted in Fryer, op. cit., p. 285/6.Google Scholar
Mathurin, op. cit., pp. 42, 81.Google Scholar
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Mathurin, op. cit., p. 88. We assume that Dr. Joseph Robert Love is the same person as Dr. R. N. Love reported as elected to the committee in September 1901 for Jamaica. See Pan-African, Oct 1901, quoted in Geiss, op. cit., p. 197, Mathurin, op. cit., p.106, Hooker, Henry Sylvester Williams, p.58. Mathurin follows Love's second initial with “[Sic]”, suggesting the initial is incorrect.Google Scholar
Mathurin, op. cit., p.105, n.8, quoting from the Jamaica Advocate, 31 Aug 1901.Google Scholar
Sylvester Williams was not only the journal's editor (see above n.28); he was also its owner. “It seems … that it had been a private venture that Williams promoted.” See Mathurin, op. cit., p. 107.Google Scholar
Geiss, op. cit., p. 195; Fryer, op. cit., p. 286.Google Scholar
Mathurin, op. cit., p. 107.Google Scholar
Hooker, , Henry Sylvester Williams, p. 56.Google Scholar
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Ibid, p. 106.Google Scholar
Geiss, op. cit., p. 192.Google Scholar
Hooker, , Henry Sylvester Williams, p.58/59. It is significant that the two new committee members who “could be expected to put Africa first” were “close to Williams”. According to Geiss, within a few months the PAA had ceased to exist. See Geiss, op. cit., p. 197.Google Scholar
Geiss, op. cit., p. 194.Google Scholar
Mathurin, op. cit., p.105. For reasons set out in Part I of this article, we suggest that Mathurin may be mistakenly using the title “Dr.” to refer to Frank Colenso. We have seen no evidence to substantiate Mathurin's claim that Dr Colenso renamed the PAA as the “Anglo-African Association” (ibid, p. 105). References to the “late PAA” in Frank Colenso's letter to Walters appear to contradict this proposition. Instead, as we have seen, he advocated a new organisation to benefit “the African races all over the world”. Rather than being Anglo-African this is more akin to the aims and objects of the PAA, quoted above, which referred to “Africans throughout the world”. See n.27 above; FEC to BpW, 15 Sep 1901, RH, MSS. Afr. s. 1285/16, ff.263-66.Google Scholar
Historians have reached different conclusions in attempting to account for the dissolution of the PAA in terms of the “American-British conflict”. Mathurin associates the dissolution with an Anglo-African alignment and suggests, by implication, that it was instigated by “Dr Colenso”. Hooker, in contrast, argues that Williams could have encountered opposition from the American side of the “American-British conflict” and, while making no mention of any involvement of a Colenso in the dissolution, even hints that Du Bois may have played some part in it, citing an interview with the son of Sylvester Williams who speaks of conflict between his father and “DuBois and all those fellows”. See Mathurin, op. cit., 104/5; Hooker, Henry Sylvester Williams, pp. 58-59.Google Scholar
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These individuals included Saul Msane, Josiah Gumede, Sol Plaatje, and Tengu Jabavu. The latter was one of those reported as elected to the PAA committee on 13th September. 1901, Pan-African, Oct 1901. See Geiss, op. cit., p. 197, Mathurin, op. cit., p.106, Hooker, Henry Sylvester Williams, p. 58. He was offered hospitality by Frank Colenso and his wife in his visit to England. Sophie Colenso to APS undated, RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.18, C/130, f.173. The condolence book for Frank Colenso also records the name of Pixley Seme (signed “P ka Isaka Seme”), who in 1930 was to succeed Josiah Gumede as President of the ANC (Christopher Saunders, Pixley Seme, ODNB, 2006). The present authors intend to examine in a future publication the involvement of Frank Colenso in the 1907 deputation to England led by Josiah Gumede.Google Scholar
Frank Colenso ends a letter to Williams with the curt remark, “How about our compliance with rules re countersignature of order?” FEC to HSW, 21 Jan 1901, RH, Mss. Africa.s.1285/16, f.258. In 1907, Frank Colenso says he warned a visiting Swazi deputation to avoid Sylvester Williams. See FEC to Agnes and Harriette Colenso, 25 Nov 1907, RH, Mss. Afr. s.1285/15, f.125.Google Scholar
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Condolence book for Frank Colenso, RH, Mss.Afr.s.1285/16 (e). For the election of Archer and Unwin, to the PAA committee, see Geiss, op. cit., p.183, 192; Mathurin, op. cit., p. 69.Google Scholar
Archer became mayor of Battersea in 1913 and hence the first person of African descent to hold civic office in Britain. See Fryer, op. cit., p.290. He went on to become the first president of the APU in 1918 and joint chair, with Du Bois, of the 1923 Pan-African Congress, by which time he was “involved at a high level in the Pan-African movement.” See Ramdin, Ron, The making of the Black working class in Britain (1987), p.139. According to another writer, Archer was “A significant force in both the Pan-African and Battersea Labour movements for over a quarter of a century.” Quoted in Fryer, op. cit., p. 290. It may be supposed that his opinion would carry some weight within organisational Pan-Africanism, and that he would not have publicly praised Frank Colenso, if he had thought that the latter had acted contrary to the interests of the movement.Google Scholar
Quoted in Fryer, op. cit., p. 414.Google Scholar
Harriette Colenso to Jane Cobden Unwin, 14 Feb 1897, West Sussex Record Office, Cobden Papers, 972, 501. See letters from Harriette Colenso written from addresses of her brothers in London between 10 May 1895 and 9 Aug 1897, RH, Mss. Afr. s.1286/1b, ff.276-283. Guy, Jeff, The view across the river: Harriette Colenso and the Zulu struggle against Imperialism (Oxford, 2002), pp. 318/9.Google Scholar
Jane Cobden Unwin's record of standing up to men in dominant positions in political organisations suggests that, had she known about Frank Colenso's actions and disagreed with them, she would not have flinched from tackling him about it.Google Scholar
Geiss, op. cit., p. 196. It is likely that all three were living in or near London in 1901.Google Scholar
The other three members were Henry Downing, J.F. Loudin, and Miss Annie J. Cooper. See Walters, op. cit., p. 260; Geiss, op. cit., p. 192; Mathurin, op. cit., p. 69. The PAA headed notepaper names all six executive committee members as confirmed in these texts. See HSW to Travers Buxton, 10 Oct 1900, 6 Feb 1901, RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s.18, C91, ff.9, 10. . Geiss gives Downing's second initial as “R”, Walters on p. 254 as “F” and on p. 260 as “T”, Mathurin and the PAA notepaper as “F”.Google Scholar
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