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Edward W. Blyden: Pioneer West African Nationalist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Extract

This article examines the various ways by which Edward Wilmot Blyden, the most outstanding Negro intellectual of the nineteenth century, worked for the creation of a West African community, and thereby demonstrates that the idea of a united West Africa is not of twentieth-century origin, as has generally been supposed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

1 Coleman, James, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley, 1963), p. 191;Google ScholarKimble, David, A Political History of Ghana, 1850–1928 (Oxford, 1963), p. 375.Google Scholar

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4 I am, of course, referring to recognized, secular sovereign states, and not to the theocratic states which resulted from the Muslim jihads of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, or any other native African state system.Google Scholar

5 See Lynch, Hollis R., Edward W. Blyden, Pan-Negro Patriot (London, 1966), forthcoming.Google ScholarJuly, Robert W., ‘Nineteenth-century Negritude: Edward W. Blyden’, Journal of African History, V (1964), 1, 73–86.Google Scholar

6 Blyden, Edward W., West Africa Before Europe (London, 1905), pp. 11, 106.Google Scholar

7 Johnston, H. H., Liberia, I (London, 1906), 241.Google Scholar

8 For the early history of the colony see Journal of the Maryland Colonization Society, (Feb. 1850), 129–52.Google Scholar

9 Lynch, Blyden, Ch. 2.Google Scholar

10 Fiftieth Annual Report of the American Colonization Society (Washington, 1867), p. 15;Google ScholarBlyden, Edward V., ‘The Negro in Ancient History’, Methodist Quarterly Review,, LI (Jan. 1869), 92.Google Scholar

11 Blyden, Edward W., Liberia's Offering (New York, 1862), see introduction;Google ScholarAfrican Repository, xxxix (May 1863), 140.Google Scholar

12 The Forty-ninth Annual Report of the American Colonization Society (Washington, 1866), p. 7.Google Scholar

13 Johnston, Liberia, p. 238.Google Scholar

14 Anderson, Benjamin, Narrative of a Journey to Musardu, the capital of the Western Mandingoes (New York, 1870), p. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Johnston, Liberia, p. 252.Google Scholar

16 Anderson, Journey to Musardu, see Appendix.Google Scholar

17 Blyden, Edward W., ‘Mohammedanism in Western Africa’, Methodist Quarterly Review, I, III (Jan. 1871), 74.Google Scholar

18 The People of Africa, A Series of Papers … (New York, 1871), p. 103;Google Scholar also Reade, W. Winwood (who accompanied Blyden), The African Sketch-Book, 11 (London, 1873), 253.Google Scholar

19 New York Colonization Journal, xii (07, 1862);Google ScholarC.O. 267/283, Blackall to Cardwell, 2 Feb. i86. In fact, most of the leading Liberians did not wish to encourage talented Africans from the British colonies for fear that they would compete for top positions in the Republic. For instance, whereas citizenship for American emigrants was automatic, West African emigrants had to spend a three-year naturalization period, see C.O. 267/313, W. W. Reade to Granville, Feb. 1870.Google Scholar

20 See Lynch, Hollis R., ‘The Native Pastorate Controversy and Cultural EthnoCentrism in Sierra Leone, 1871–1874’, Journal of African History, V, 3 (1964), 400–2.Google Scholar

21 West African Reporter, IV (24 Jan. 1877).Google Scholar

22 Blyden, Edward W., Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (London, 1888), 231.Google Scholar

23 Blyden to Coppinger, William, 23 April 1879, American Colonization Society (hereafter A.C.S.) Papers, xix.Google Scholar

24 See Lynch, Blyden, Cn. 7.Google Scholar

25 C.O. 267/312, Blyden to Kennedy, 21 Oct.. 1871. C.O. 267/312, Blyden to Kennedy, 21 Dec.. 1871.Google Scholar

26 C.O. z67/312, Blyden to Pope-Hennessv, 4 Mar. 1872: Report of the expedition to Falaba: C.O. 267/320, No. 6209: Report on the Timbo Expedition.Google Scholar

27 C.O. 267/324 Blyden to Kimberley, 22 Oct. 1873; C.O. 879/8, African No. 82, Blyden to Berkeley, 12 Feb. 1874;Google ScholarHargreaves, John D., Prelude to the Partition of West Africa (London, 1963), p. 169.Google Scholar

28 African Repository, L (Oct. 1874), p. 300.Google Scholar

29 C.O. 267/362, Blyden to Rowe, 22 Oct.. 1885.Google ScholarCf. Fyfe, Christopher, History of Sierra Leone (London, 1962), pp. 401, 455–2.Google Scholar

30 The Diary of a Liberian in America’, Monrovia Observer, III (II 11. 1880).Google Scholar

31 Blyden, Edward W., Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, p. 148.Google Scholar

32 Ibid. p. 124.

33 Blyden, Edward W., West Africa Before Europe (London, 1905), pp. 106. 116.Google Scholar See, too, Roberts, Stephen H., The History of French Colonial Policy, 1870–1925 (London, 1963), pp. 318–36.Google Scholar

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35 Blyden, West Africa Before Europe, passim.Google Scholar

36 Her major works are Travels in West Africa (London, 1897),Google Scholar and West African Studies (London, 1899).Google Scholar

37 See Journal of the African Society, I (10. 1901), No. I.Google Scholar

38 Blyden's writings specifically on Islam in West Africa are as follows: ‘Mohammedanism in West Africa’, Methodist Quarterly Review, LIII (01. 1871), 6278:Google ScholarMohammedanism and the Negro Race’, Fraser' Magazine, New Series, XII (11. 1875), 598675:Google Scholar‘Islam and Race Distinction and The Mohammedans of Nigeria’, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, pp. 277–97, and pp. 350–82 respectively,Google ScholarIslam in the Western Soudan’, Jour. Afr., Soc., II (10. 1902), 1137;Google Scholar and The Koran in Africa’, Jour. Afr. Soc., XIV (01. 1905), 157–71.Google Scholar

39 Blyden to Walter Lowrie, 6 Jan. 1877, Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (hereafter P.B.F.M.), XI.Google Scholar

40 Report of the President to the Board of Trustees, Liberia College, Monrovia (Cambridge, Mass., 1882), p. 6.Google Scholar

41 C.O. 147/242, Blyden to Denton, 10 Apr.. 1899; also C.O. 267/472, Blyden to Antrobus, 4 July 1903.Google Scholar

42 Lagos Weekly Record, IX (14 May 1898).Google Scholar

43 C.O. 147/242, Blyden to Denton, 10 Apr.. 1899.Google Scholar

44 C.O. 267/47!, Blyden to Antrobus, 4 July 1903.Google Scholar

46 In his writings Blyden frequently referred to the character of the Negro race, but the phrase ‘African Personality’ was actually first used by him in a lecture entitled ‘Race and Study’ delivered in Freetown on 59 May 5893. See Sierra Leone Times (27 May 1893).Google Scholar

47 For a full discussion of this question see Lynch, Hollis R., ‘The Native Pastorate Controversy, and Cultural Ethno-Centrism in Sierra Leone, 1871–1874’, Jour. Afr. Hut., v (1964), 3, 395–453.Google Scholar

48 Quoted in Ajayi, J. F. A., Christian Missions and the Making of Nigeria (unpublished London Ph.D. Thesis, 1958), p. 611.Google Scholar

49 See Lynch, Blyden, 368–4.Google Scholar

50 Church Missionary Society Archives G3/A3/o4: Davies, J. L. S., Chairman of Lagos Public meeting to Secretaries of the C.M.S., 2. Oct. 1890.Google Scholar

51 Blyden, Edward W., The Return of the Exiles and the West African Church (London, 1898), p. 28.Google Scholar

52 Agbebi, Majola, Inaugural Sermon (New York, 1903), p. 17.Google Scholar See also Webster, James B., The African Churches among the Yoruba (Oxford, 1964), pp. 65–8.Google Scholar

53 West African Reporter, III (26 Dec. 1876).Google Scholar

54 Mohammedanism and the Negro Race’, Fraser's Magazine, New Series, XII (11. 1875), 598615:Google Scholar‘Christianity and the Negro Race’, XIII (May 1876), 554–68, ‘Christian Missions in West Africa’, XIV (Oct. 1876), 504–22, ‘Africa and the Africans’, XVIII (Aug. 1878), 298–325Google Scholar

55 West African Reporter, IV ( Nov. 1887).Google Scholar

56 See Horton, James A. B., West African Countries and Peoples (London, 1868).Google Scholar

57 Fyfe, Sierra Leone, p. 472.Google Scholar

58 Coleman, Nigeria, p. 183.Google Scholar

59 See, e.g., Athenaeum, No. 3122 (27 Aug.. 1887), p. 277;Google ScholarC.M.S. Intelligencer (Nov. 1887), p. 650Google Scholar and Notes and Queries, IV (1887), 429.Google Scholar

60 Blyden to Coppinger, 14 May. 1887, A.C.S. Papers, XXIV.Google Scholar

61 Memorial of the Celebration of the Jubilee of Her Majesty's Reign and of the Centenary of Sierra Leone, 1887 (London, 1887), Appendix 5: pp. 93108.Google Scholar

62 Blyden, Edward W., African Life and Customs (London, 1908), see Preface.Google Scholar

63 Ibid. 37.

64 West African Reporter, VII (19 02. 1881).Google Scholar

65 Blyden, Edward W., ‘Aims and Methods of a Liberal Education for Africans’, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, p. 82.Google Scholar

66 Stevens, J. C. to Wilson, J. C., 18 June 1901, A.C.S. Papers, XXVIII.Google Scholar

67 Liberia Bulletin, No. 9 (Nov. 1896), p. 81.Google Scholar

68 C.O. 147/110/16219, Minutes by Read, H. J., 13 Aug. 1896.Google Scholar

69 Ibid. Blyden to Carter, 10 Nov. 1896.

70 Blyden, Edward W., West Africa Before Europe, introductionGoogle Scholar, and Hayford, J. C. Casely, Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation (London, 1911), p. 163. In the former Casely Hayford wrote: ‘Edward W. Blyden has sought … to reveal everywhere the African Unto himself; to fix his attention upon original ideas and conceptions, as to his place in the economy of the world; to point out to him his work as a race among races of men; lastly, and most important of all, to lead him back to self-respect. He has been the voice of one crying in the wilderness of all these years calling upon all thinking Africans to go back to the rock whence they were hewn by the common fathers of the nations— to drop metaphor, to learn to unlearn all that foreign sophistry has encrusted upon the intelligence of the African. In the latter he wrote that Blyden was a god descended upon earth to teach the Ethiopians anew the way of life. He came not in thunder, or with sound, but in the garb of a humble teacher, a John the Baptist among his brethren, preaching rational and national salvation. From land to land and shore to shore his message was the self-same one, which, interpreted in the language of Christ was: “what shall it profit a race if it shall gain the whole world and lose its soul”.’Google Scholar

71 Azikiwe, Nnamdi, Renascent Africa, p. 98,Google Scholarlsquo;The future of Pan-Africanism’; Presence Africaine, XII (1962), 11.Google Scholar