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Brief Sketch on the Life and Character of the Late Hon. Benj. J. K. Anderson, M.A. PH.D. K.C.1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Tim Geysbeek
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Extract

Benjamin Anderson (1835-1910), Liberia's great explorer of the nineteenth century, was at the forefront of encouraging the government to establish a viable economic and political presence in the deep interior. Anderson migrated from Baltimore, Maryland, when he was sixteen years old, and became a three-time Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of the Interior, mathematics professor, official surveyor, diplomat, military officer, and accomplished cartographer. He is most noted for having traveled to the fabled town of Musadu in today's Guinea. Musadu seemed to hold much promise to enrich the young colony because of its supposed natural resources such as gold, a strong political base, and connections to the interior trade routes that extended to the Niger River and beyond.

Primary source information about Anderson's life comes from his own writings, scattered publications, and archival materials. The most complete contemporary account—published here—is an obituary that an unknown author wrote shortly after Anderson died. The obituary was located in the Frederick Starr Papers (Box 9, Folder 9) in the Department of Special Collections at the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library in 2000. It is typed on 8 ½″ × 14″ paper with “Republic of Liberia, Montserrado County, Superintendents Office” pre-printed on the back of each sheet. This paper's title is the same as the original title of the obituary. The document gives several interesting bits of information about Anderson's life that are not found in any other sources, and contains considerable data that can be independently confirmed.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 34 , 2007 , pp. 43 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2007

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Footnotes

1

I thank Grand Valley State University's Department of History and its Faculty Development Center for providing funds so I could present this paper at the Annual Conference of the Liberian Studies Association, Durham, North Carolina, 2004.

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