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Notes on Negro American Influences on the Emergence of African Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

George Shepperson
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Extract

The claims of no people…are respected by any nation until they are presented in a national capacity. (Martin R. Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered, Philadelphia, 1852, p. 210.)

…it is not so much Afro-Americans that we want as Africans. (Casely Hayford, Ethiopia Unbound, London, 1911, p. 173.)

…on us too depends in a large degree the attitude of Europe towards the teeming millions of Asia and Africa. (William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, ‘The Present Outlook for the Dark Races of Mankind’, African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Philadelphia, XVI, 1900, pp. 102–3.)

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , July 1960 , pp. 299 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

1 With the exception of Ira, De A. Reid'sThe Negro Immigrant (New York, 1939), there has been almost no serious study of West Indian Negro influence on Negro Americans.Google Scholar

2 Southern Workman (Hampton, Va.), 1883, 9.Google Scholar See also Blyden, Edward, The African Problem and other Discourses delivered in America in 1890 (London, 1890).Google Scholar

3 Hayford, Casely, Ethiopia Unbound (London, 1911), 163:Google Scholarcf. Hayford's, introduction to Africa and the Africans. Proceedings…of a Banquet…to Edward W. Blyden, Ll.D., by West Africans in London (London, 1903), especially p. 18.Google Scholar See also Coleman, James S., Nigeria (Berkeley, 1958), 175–6, 183–4, 452–3;Google ScholarCoppin, L. J., Unwritten History (Philadelphia, 1919), 316–17.Google Scholar

4 Powell, Clayton Snr, Against the Tide (1938), 70–1.Google Scholar See also Cronon, Edmund D., Black Moses (Madison, 1955).Google Scholar

5 Illustrated Missionary News (London, 1897), 70–2, 105, 113; New York Age, 12 August 1922, ‘African Colonization Schemes’.Google Scholar

6 Thomas, A. C. Terry, The History of the African Orthodox Church (New York, 1956).Google Scholar See also Cronon, , op. cit. 69, 103, 160, 178–80, 189;Google ScholarThe African Yearly Register, ed. Skota, T. D. Mweli (Johannesburg, 1932), 128, 172, etc.Google ScholarMcGuire, G. A. (misspelt as ‘Maguire’) is now immortalized as an ‘American Negro’ in Historical Survey of the Origins and Growth of Mau Mau (Cmnd. 1030, London, 1960), 173: cf. also pp. 45, 174–5, 178.Google Scholar

7 An Appeal addressed to the Friends of the African Race (c. 1896), 30, in Church of Scotland Papers, Miscellaneous Bundle, Pamphlets No. 1, National Library of Scotland.Google Scholar

8 Murphy, Edgar Gardner, The Basis of Ascendency (New York, 1909), 42.Google Scholar

9 E.g. Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, ed. Foner, Philip S. (New York, 1950), II, 251–4, 387–8, 441–6.Google Scholar

10 Says, John, U.S. agent for liberated Africans in Liberia: Rhodes House Library, Mic. Afr. 349, Roll 10.Google Scholar

11 Schuyler, George S., Slaves To-day (New York, 1931);Google ScholarJohnson, Charles S. (Negro American member of 1930 League of Nations Commission on Forced Labour in Liberia), Bitter Canaan, unpublished typescript in C. S. Johnson papers, Fisk University.Google Scholar But cf. Azikiwe, N., Liberia in World Politics (London, 1934), 233 et seq.Google Scholar

12 Delany, Martin R., Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party (New York, 1981), 24.Google Scholar

13 Ibid. 23.

14 Liberia (London, 1906), 368–70.Google Scholar

15 Delany, , op. cit. 52.Google Scholar

16 Ibid. 61. See also Shepperson, George and Price, Thomas, Independent African. (Edinburgh, 1958), 504.Google Scholar

17 Crumrnell's life is one of the great missed opportunities of American biographers, although most of his papers are conveniently collected in the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library. There is a brief sketch in Ferris, William H., Alexander Crummell (Washington, D.C., 1920).Google Scholar See also the moving tribute in ch. XII, of Du Bois's, W. E. B.The Souls of Black Folk (New York, 1955 reprint).Google ScholarAn example of Crummell's interest in Africa is his The Future of Africa (New York, 1862).Google Scholar

18 A good example of modern criticisms is Glicksberg's, Charles I. ‘Negro Americans and the African Dream’, Phylon (Atlanta, Ga.), VIII, 4, 323–30.Google Scholar

19 The best indication of Turner's interest in African colonization is his newspaper, The Voice of the People, 1901–1907 (copy on loan in the library of Morris Brown College, Atlanta, Ga.)Google Scholar See also, for example, Roberts, W. K., An African Canaan for American Negroes (Birmingham, Ala., 1896), 18–19.Google Scholar

20 E.g. Deluding the Negroes: ‘The United States and Congo National Emigration Steamship Company’.Google Scholar A ticket to Africa and a Farm for One Dollar. From ‘The (Washington) Post’, 19 January 1891 (Library of Congress).Google Scholar

21 Voice of the People, op. cit. 33, 1 October 1903, 3, 34 ? November 1903, I; African Methodist Episcopal Church Review (Philadelphia, 1903), xx, 302, ‘Menelik the Negus’.Google Scholar

22 The original letter and a small file about it are in the Carnegie Birthplace Museum, Dunferm line.Google Scholar

23 Booker T. Washington Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as B.T.W.), Container 939, Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1915, E–H: Garvey to Washington, 12 April, 1925.Google Scholar

24 Buell, Raymond Leslie, The Native Problem in Africa (New York, 1928), II, 967.Google Scholar

25 E.g. M. Mokete Manoedi (Basuto), Garvey and Africa (n.d.), in Schomburg Collection, N.Y.Google Scholar

26 The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (Edinburgh, 1957), 45.Google Scholar

27 Coleman, op. cit. 189–91. See also correspondence between Akinambi Agbebi (Lagos Black Star line agent), E. M. E. Agbebi and John Edward Bruce in the John Edward Bruce Papers (hereafter cited as J.E.B.) in the Schomburg Collection, N.Y.Google Scholar

28 Shepperson and Price, op. cit. 435–5, 504; Nyasaland Times, 24 September 1926, 3.Google Scholar

29 Andersson, Efraim, Messianic Popular Movements in the Lower Congo (Uppsala, 1958), 250–6.Google Scholar

30 Shepperson and Price, op. cit. passim.Google Scholar

31 Coppin, L. J., Observations of Persons and Things in South Africa (Philadelphia, n.d.), 8–18.Google ScholarSee also references to James Dwane in the A.M.E. Church Episcopal Handbook, 1900, ed. B. W. Arnett, especially pp. 8–17.Google Scholar

32 His first trip was in 1892: see African Methodist Episcopal Church Review (Philadelphia), 1892, 446–98.Google Scholar

33 Roux, Edward, Time Longer Than Rope (London, 1949), 108, 117–18, 258, 260, 296, 306, 357;Google ScholarShepperson and Price, op. cit. 91–2, 102, 145, 162, 203, 461; Southern Workman (1897), 141–2;Google ScholarDube, John L., A Zulu's Message to Afro-Americans in J.E.B. Papers and A Talk about my Native Land (Rochester, N.Y., 1892).Google Scholar

34 Roux, op. cit. 118–19; Shepperson and Price, op. cit. 202;Google Scholar Sol. Plaatje, T., The Mote and the Beam (New York, 1921) in Howard University Library;Google Scholar Sol. Plaatje, T., Native Life in South Africa (London, 5th edn., n.d.), 16, 286, 368, indicate the influence of W. E. B. Du Bois; Plaatje's pamphlet on the 1913 South African Natives’ Land Act was sent to B. T. Washington's secretary, E. J. Scott, by Plaatje, 27 August 1914 (B.T.W. Papers, Container 13, O–R); J. E. Bruce to Carter G. Woodson, 17 JAnuary 1923, in Carter G. Woodson Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as C.G.W.).Google Scholar

35 Roux, op. cit. 65, 85, 182, 295–6, 299, 301, 306;Google ScholarJabavu, D. D. T., The Black Problem (Lovedale, C.P., 1920), i, 25–96, 103.Google Scholar

36 A representative list of some of the many South African Africans who visited America or corresponded with Negro Americans might include: The Lincoln University group—22 between 1896 and 1924 and none, apparently, thereafter (figures from an unpublished history of Lincoln University kindly supplied by Dr Horace Mann Bond)—of which one of the most interesting was Livingstone N. Mzimba, son of P. J. Mzimba, separatist church leader (see Lincoln University Herald, Oxford, Pa., XIII, May, 1909, 1–2, and Mzimba, L. N., ‘The African Church’, 86–95, Christianity and the Natives of South Africa, ed. Taylor, J. Dexter, Lovedale, 1927).Google ScholarSoga, A. K., editor of Izwi LaBantu (to Bruce, 23 February 1907, J.E.B. Papers). Representatives of the ‘Ethiopian Church of South Africa’ at 1912 Tuskegee Africa Conference, Reverends Henry Reed and Isaiah Goda Shishuba (C.G.W. Papers, Box 13, galley proof). P. K. Isaka Seme, initiator of the South African Native National Congress (see the reprint of his 1906 olumbia University address, ‘The Regeneration of Africa’, 436–9,Google ScholarFerris, William H., The African Abroad, I, New Haven, 1953).Google ScholarSimango, Columbus Kamba, ‘The African and Civilization’, Southern Workman (Hampton, Va., 1917), 552–5.Google ScholarSomtuuzi, Jeannie, ‘African Contributions to Civilization’, address at 34th annual meeting of the Negro National Baptist Convention, September 1914 (in B.T.W. Papers, Container 12, L—N).Google ScholarNkomo, Simbini Mamba, The Tribal Life of the People of South Africa (Oration delivered at College Commencement, Greenville, Ill., 06, 1917) in Howard University Library. Abraham Le Fleux, ‘who came to London to get justice for land out of which his people had been cheated’ (letters sent by Alice Werner to Carter G. Woodson, C.G.W. Papers, Boxes 4 and 5); etc. It will be noticed that this very brief selection includes one African (P. K. I. Seme) who went to a non-Negro university. In general, such students often had deficiencies in their education made up at Negro American schools and colleges before proceeding to white institutions. A present- day example is Dr Hastings K. Banda, who attended the Negro Wilberforce Academy at Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1928, before he went to Indiana and Chicago Universities.Google Scholar

37 Cf. Smith, C. S. (A.M.E. Church Bishop in South Africa, 1904–6), The Relations of the British Government to the Natives of South Africa (Washington, D.C., 1906), 12–13;Google ScholarSouthern Workman, 1906, 664–5.Google Scholar

38 Reports…relative to ‘Israelites’ at Buihoek and Occurences in May, 1921 (Cape Town, 1921), I;Google ScholarClark, Elmer T., The Small Sects in America (Nashville, 1949), 151–3.Google Scholar

39 Review and Herald (Seventh-day Adventist, Washington, D.C.), 18 November 1902, 17:Google Scholarcf. Shepperon, George, ‘The Literature of British Central Africa’, Rhodes-Livingstone Journal (Manchester, 1958), xxiii, 42.Google Scholar

40 Shepperson and Price, op. cit. 390–1.Google Scholar

41 H. S. Sanford Papers in process at Tennessee State Archives, Nashville: H. M. Stanley to Sanford, Rotterdam, 20 Dec. 1878. See also Leo T. Molloy, Henry Shelton Sanford (Derby, Conn., private print), 27.Google Scholar

42 Sanford Papers: Senator J. T. Morgan to Sanford, 19 ? 1890.Google Scholar

43 Durham, Frederick Alexander, The Lone Star of Liberia (London, 1892), xii.Google Scholar

44 McStallworth, Paul, The United States and the Congo Question, 1884–1914 (Ph.D., Ohio State University, 1954), 196 et seq.;Google ScholarFranklin, John Hope, ‘George Washington Williams, Historian’, Journal of Negro History (Washington, D.C., 1946), XXXI, I, 89–90.Google Scholar

45 Slade, Ruth M., English-Speaking Missions in the Congo Independent State, 1878–1908 (Brussels, 1959), 104–6, 254–6, 368–70;Google ScholarSouthern Workman (1910), 8–12; Africa in the World Democracy…N.A.A.C.P.…6 January 1919 (New York, 1919), 25–6.Google Scholar

46 Barrett, Samuel, A Plea for Unity among American Negroes and the Negroes of the World (Waterloo, Iowa, 1926), 65, copy in Howard University Library;Google ScholarCayton, Horace R. and St Drake, Clair, Black Metropolis (London, 1946), 720.Google Scholar

47 Bontemps, Arna and Conroy, Jack, They Seek a City (New York, 1945), 171;Google ScholarFrench, Sydney H., ‘Chief Sam and His “Back-to-Africa” Movement’, W.P.A. paper, Schomburg Collection, N.Y.; Sierra Leone Weekly News, 23 January 1915, 6–7, 9, 12; Rhodes House Library, Press Cuttings, 1914–1915, ‘Back to Africa’, Anti-Slavery Society Papers; African Times and Orient Review, 7 July, 1914, 380, ‘Accra Native’ letter.Google Scholar

48 Stauffer, Milton, Thinking With Africa (New York, 1927), 154–6.Google ScholarSee also ‘The Contribution of the American Negro to Africa’, Christian Action in Africa, Report of the Church Conference on African Affairs held at Otterbein College, Westerville, Ohio, June 19–25, 1942 (New York, 1942), 140–1.Google Scholar

49 See, for example, Padmore, op. cit. 89–170;Google ScholarHodgkin, Thomas, Nationalism in Colonial Africa (London, 1956), 21, 23–4, 161, 175, 181–2, 184, 188;Google ScholarCh. de Warnaffe, du Bus, ‘Le mouvement pan-négre aux Etats-Unis et ailleurs’, Congo (Brussels), 05 1922.Google Scholar

50 Du Bois, W. E. B., The World and Africa (New York, 1947), 7;Google ScholarPadmore, George, Pan-Africanism or Communism? (London, 1956), 117–18.Google Scholar The fullest account is Walters, Alexander, My Life and Work (New York, 1917), ch. xx.Google ScholarI am indebted to Mr Harold Isaacs of the Centre for International Studies, Boston, for drawing my attention to Bishop Walters. See also The Times (London, 1900), 24 July, 7, 25 July, 15, 26 July, 11.Google Scholar

51 B.T.W. Papers: Box 917, 1912 Conference, prospectus of Conference for Walters’ paper.Google Scholar

52 Walters, Life, op. cit. 257.Google Scholar

53 In first paragraph of ‘Forethought’ in 1903 ed.: vii in New York, 1953, reprint.

54 J.E.B. Papers: ALS. Ms. 235, 1492, letter of 25 March 1907, ‘the Pan-African League Department of the Niagara Movement’. Cf. Casely Hayford, op. cit. 179.

55 Atlantic Monthly May, 1915, 711.

56 James Weldon Johnson Collection, Yale University, Scrapbook X, see especially clippings for 7 Dec. 1958, and 11 Jan. and 8 Feb. 1919.

57 Op. cit., 15.

58 Broderick, Francis L., W. E. B. Du Bois (Stanford, 1959), 129.Google Scholar

59 Cf. Miller, Kelly, ‘The German Colonies’, Southern Workman (1919), 52–3.Google Scholar

60 (New York, 1918), preface, p. i.

61 Jordan, Lewis Garriett, Pebbles from an African Beach (Philadelphia, 1918), 2.Google Scholar

62 The problem of Negro American relations with French Africans is almost completely unstudied.

63 Du Bois, World and Africa, op. cit. 11. Cf. also Padmore, op. Cit. 122–4;Google ScholarLogan, Rayford W., The African Mandates in World Politics (Washington, D.C., 1948), iv, 42; League of Nations. Mandates. Second Pan-African Congress. August–September, 1921;Google ScholarBeer, George Louis, African Questions at the Path Peace Conference (New York, 1923), 285–6.Google Scholar

64 Logan, Rayford W., ‘The American Negro's View of Africa’, Africa Seen by American Negroes, ed. Davis, John A. (American Society of African Culture, New York, 1958), 220.Google Scholar

65 E.g. C.G.W. Papers: Box 5—from Amanzimtoti Institute, Natal, 53 March, 1917; Box 6—from Kodwo Nsaaku, Gold Coast, 29 April and 21 July, 1923, from Casely Hayford, 15 June 1916, and 11 Nov. 1917, from D. E. Carney, Sierra Leone, 19 Jan. 1921, from W. Esuman-Awira Sekyi, Gold Coast, 14 Oct. 1920, from Dada Adeshigbin, Lagos, to Jan. 1917, from Majola Agbebi, Lagos, 5 July, 1916; Box 16—from Casely Hayford, 7 July 1923, and 4 Jan. 1924, from Dada Adeshigbin, 25 Sept. 1918; etc.

66 C.G.W. Papers: Box 6—from Aggrey, 13 July, 1927.

67 There is a biographical sketch in J.E.B. Papers; see also Ferris, , op. cit. 11, 862–3.Google Scholar

68 Ferris, , op. cit. 11, 865.Google Scholar Cf. also C.G.W. Papers: Box 16—Bruce on Duse Mohammed, 25 Jan. 1922.

69 Blyden, Hayford, Dube items are well indexed in J.E.B. Papers, Schomburg Collection, N.Y.: one interesting item in the Papers is a letter from James Cluny, Sierra Leone, to Blyden, 21 June, 1909, defending clithorodechtomy on ‘nationalist’ lines.

70 Hayford, Casely, William Waddy Harris (London, 1915), xi–xii.Google Scholar

71 J.E.B. Papers: Aggrey to Bruce, 28 June 1922.

72 There is a brief reference to Agbebi’s paper, ‘The West African Problem’ at the London 1911 First Universal Races Congress (in ed. Spiller, G., Papers on Inter-Racial Problems, London, 1911, 341–8)Google Scholarin Coleman, op. cit. 187. Agbebi remains, however, a neglected pioneer of Nigerian nationalism. In addition to the references below, see Ferris, op. cit. 11, 822, 848; Southern Workman, 1896, 15; An Account of Dr Majola Agbebi's Work in West Africa (n.d.), copy in Howard University Library; African Times and Orient Review (London), Sept. 1912, 92, March 1914, 64;Google ScholarAgbebi, Majola, The Christian Handbook. New Calabar, West Africa (n.d.), copy in Schomburg Collection, N.Y.; letters by and about M. Agbebi and his family in J.E.B. Papers, Schomburg Collection, N.Y.Google Scholar There is a photograph of Agbebi in Jordan, Lewis G., Negro Baptist History, U.S.A. (Nashville, Tenn., 1930).Google Scholar

73 African Times (London), 5 July 1899, quoted in Account of Dr Agbebi's Work, op. cit.Google Scholar

74 Christian (London), 27 Aug. 1903, quoted in Account of Dr Agbebi's Work, op. cit.Google Scholar

75 Agbebi, Majola, Inaugural Sermon. Delivered at the Celebration of the First Anniversary of the ‘African Church’, Lagos, West Africa, December 21, 1902 (copy in Schomburg Collection, N.Y.), 77.Google Scholar

76 Ibid. 27.

77 J.E.B. Papers: A.L.S. Ms. 167 (1493); see also A.8. (1504), 27 Aug. 1907, Agbebi to Bruce.

78 Title page.

79 Smith, Edwin W., Aggrey of Achimota (London, 1929), 721.Google Scholar

80 B.T.W. Papers: Box 1060, 1912 Scrapbook, cutting from South Africa, 16 March, 1912, and The Trailer (West Point, Pa.), 25 April 1972.Google Scholar

81 408. See also Murray, A. Victory, The School in the Rush (London, 1929), 291–310.Google Scholar

82 Blyden, knew better: see his article, ‘The Negro in the United States’, African Methodist Episcopal Church Review (Philadelphia, 1900), XVI, 330.Google Scholar

83 C.G.W. Papers: Box 13, galley proof. B.T.W. Papers: Box 917, Miscellaneous Correspondence (1912), CL, Conference CZ; Box 1060, 1912 Scrapbook. Southern Workman (1912), 347–86. African Times and Orient Review (London, 1912), 1, 1, 9–12.Google ScholarTildsley, Alfred, The Remarkable Work of Dr Mark Hayford (London, 1926), 33.Google Scholar

84 Africa and the American Negro, ed. Bowen, J. W. E. (Atlanta, Ga., 1896), passim.Google Scholar

85 Cf. Washington's opposition to proposed 1935 U.S. Immigration Bill on the grounds that it was likely to keep out African students: B.T.W. Papers, Container 77, 1915.

86 B.T.W. Papers: Personal Correspondence (Container 9), 1914–15, file on Africa Union Company; cf. ‘Afro-Americans and the Gold Coast’, African Times and Orient Review (London, 1914), 21 04, 99–100.Google Scholar

87 Hayford, ‘…marks the beginning of a new era here in the Gold Coast’: B.T.W. Papers, Personal Correspondence (Container 9), 1914–15, extract in letter of Charles W. Chapelle to J. L. Jones, July 1914. Hayford's attitude seems to have changed at the time of the 1912 Tuskegee Africa Conference: see his letter to the Conference in C.G.W. Papers, Box 13, press release of 17 April 1912.

88 See Cronon, , op. cit. 138–69.Google Scholar

89 See Harr, Wilbur C., The Negro as an American Protestant Missionary in Africa (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1945); Shepperson and Price, op. cit. passim;Google ScholarGroves, C. P., The Planting of Christianity in Africa (London, 1958), IV, 62–3, 79–80, 113–14, 128–9, 187. See also ref. 6 above.Google Scholar

90 E. W. Smith, op. cit. 181. See forthcoming paper, George Shepperson, ‘Nyasaland and the Millennium’, Comparative Studies in Society and History; R. L. Buell, op. cit. 11, 603.

91 Ottley, Roi, No Green Pastures (London, 1952), 12.Google Scholar

92 Du Bois, W. E. B., In Battle for Peace (New York, 1952), 154.Google Scholar

93 Two useful guides to present-day Negro American interest in Africa are Africa Seen by American Negroes, op. cit. and Isaacs, Harold R., ‘The American Negro and Africa: Some Notes’, Phylon (Atlanta, Ga., 1959), xx, 3, 219–33.Google Scholar