Abolitionists Abroad : American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa

by Sanneh, Lamin O.

• ISBN13: 9780674000605
• ISBN10: 0674000609
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-02-25
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

In 1792, nearly 1,200 freed American slaves crossed the Atlantic and established themselves in Freetown, West Africa, a community dedicated to anti-slavery and opposed to the African chieftain hierarchy that was tied to slavery. Thus began an unprecedented movement with critical long-term effects on the evolution of social, religious, and political institutions in modern Africa.Lamin Sanneh's engrossing book narrates the story of freed slaves who led efforts to abolish the slave trade by attacking its base operation: the capture and sale of people by African chiefs. Sanneh's protagonists set out to establish in West Africa colonies founded on equal rights and opportunity for personal enterprise, communities that would be havens for ex-slaves and an example to the rest of Africa. Among the most striking of these leaders is the Nigerian Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a recaptured slave who joined a colony in Sierra Leone and subsequently established satellite communities in Nigeria. The ex-slave repatriates brought with them an evangelical Christianity that encouraged individual spirituality--a revolutionary vision in a land where European missionaries had long assumed they could Christianize the whole society by converting chiefs and rulers.Tracking this potent African American anti-slavery and democratizing movement through the nineteenth century, Lamin Sanneh draws a clear picture of the religious grounding of its conflict with the traditional chieftain authorities. His study recounts a crucial development in the history of West Africa.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(1)
The Transatlantic Corridor	2	(1)
Antislavery	3	(3)
Establishment Structures	6	(3)
Antistructure	9	(2)
The American Factor	11	(5)
The Frame of Interpretation	16	(3)
Historiography	19	(3)
The American Slave Corridor and the New African Potential	22	(44)
The Historical Significance of Olaudah Equiano	24	(7)
Antislavery and Black Loyalists in the American Revolution	31	(9)
The Black Poor in London	40	(1)
The Sierra Leone Resettlement Plan	41	(4)
Antislavery and Early Colonization in America	45	(5)
Thomas Peters: Moving Antislavery to Africa	50	(3)
Freedom and the Evangelical Convergence	53	(2)
Upsetting the Natural Order	55	(4)
New Light Religion: Pushing at the Boundaries	59	(7)
``A Plantation of Religion'' and the Enterprise Culture in Africa	66	(44)
Antislavery and Antistructure	69	(5)
David George	74	(6)
Moses Wilkinson	80	(5)
The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion	85	(3)
Paul Cuffee	88	(13)
The Voluntarist Impulse	101	(2)
Christianity and Antinomianism	103	(7)
Abolition and the Cause of Recaptive Africans	110	(29)
Sir Charles MacCarthy: Christendom Revisited	113	(9)
Recaptives and the New Society	122	(4)
The Example of Samuel Ajayi Crowther	126	(3)
The Strange Career of John Ezzidio	129	(10)
The Niger Expedition, Missionary Imperatives, and African Ferment	139	(43)
Change in the Old Order	140	(2)
Recaptives and the New Middle Class: Brokers or Collaborators?	142	(3)
Thomas Jefferson Bowen and the Manifest Middle Class	145	(5)
Crowther and the Niger Expedition	150	(11)
The Niger Mission Resumed	161	(4)
Antislavery and Its New Friends	165	(2)
The Native Pastorate and Its Nemesis	167	(3)
Martin Delany: Anatomy of a Cause	170	(5)
Debacle	175	(2)
Reaction and Resistance	177	(5)
American Colonization and the Founding of Liberia	182	(56)
Colonization Sentiments	183	(2)
Commercial Motives: Purse and Principle	185	(2)
The Humanitarian Motive and the Evangelical Impulse	187	(5)
Colonization without Empire: America's Spiritual Kingdom	192	(2)
Colonization before Antislavery: Mission of Inquiry	194	(4)
African Resettlement: Fact and Fiction	198	(5)
The Founding of Liberia: Privatization of Public Responsibility	203	(7)
Lott Carey and Liberia	210	(2)
Expansion and Exclusion	212	(9)
Black Ideology	221	(17)
Conclusion	238	(13)
Antislavery	239	(1)
Antistructure	240	(1)
The American Factor	241	(2)
Crowther, the CMS, and Evangelical Religion	243	(1)
Colonialism, Christendom, and the Impact of Antistructure	243	(3)
New World Lessons	246	(5)
Notes	251	(30)
Sources	281	(2)
Index	283