Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West AfricaHarvard University Press, 2009 M06 1 - 291 pages 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. |
Contents
xiii | |
1 | |
2 | |
3 | |
6 | |
9 | |
The American Factor | 11 |
The Frame of Interpretation | 16 |
Change in the Old Order | 140 |
Brokers or Collaborators? | 142 |
Thomas Jefferson Bowen and the Manifest Middle Class | 145 |
Crowther and the Niger Expedition | 150 |
The Niger Mission Resumed | 161 |
Antislavery and Its New Friends | 165 |
The Native Pastorate and Its Nemesis | 167 |
Anatomy of a Cause | 170 |
Historiography | 19 |
The American Slave Corridor and the New African Potential | 22 |
The Historical Significance of Olaudah Equiano | 24 |
Antislavery and Black Loyalists in the American Revolution | 31 |
The Black Poor in London | 40 |
The Sierra Leone Resettlement Plan | 41 |
Antislavery and Early Colonization in America | 45 |
Moving Antislavery to Africa | 50 |
Freedom and the Evangelical Convergence | 53 |
Upsetting the Natural Order | 55 |
Pushing at the Boundaries | 59 |
A Plantation of Religion and the Enterprise Culture in Africa | 66 |
Antislavery and Antistructure | 69 |
David George | 74 |
Moses Wilkinson | 80 |
The Countess of Huntingdons Connexion | 85 |
Paul Cuffee | 88 |
The Voluntarist Impulse | 101 |
Christianity and Antinomianism | 103 |
Abolition and the Cause of Recaptive Africans | 110 |
Christendom Revisited | 113 |
Recaptives and the New Society | 122 |
The Example of Samuel Ajayi Crowther | 126 |
The Strange Career of John Ezzidio | 129 |
The Niger Expedition Missionary Imperatives and African Ferment | 139 |
Debacle | 175 |
Reaction and Resistance | 177 |
American Colonization and the Founding of Liberia | 182 |
Colonization Sentiments | 183 |
Purse and Principle | 185 |
The Humanitarian Motive and the Evangelical Impulse | 187 |
Americas Spiritual Kingdom | 192 |
Mission of Inquiry | 194 |
American Colonization and the Founding of Liberia 197 | 197 |
Fact and Fiction | 198 |
Privatization of Public Responsibility | 203 |
Lott Carey and Liberia | 210 |
Expansion and Exclusion | 212 |
Black Ideology | 221 |
Conclusion | 238 |
Antislavery | 239 |
Antistructure | 240 |
The American Factor | 241 |
Crowther the CMS and Evangelical Religion | 243 |
New World Lessons | 246 |
Notes | 251 |
Sources | 281 |
283 | |
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Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa Lamin Sanneh No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
Abeokuta abolition African American agents Ajayi American Colonization Society antislavery and antistructure antislavery movement arrived authority Badagry Baptist Black Loyalists Blyden British Carey cause chiefly chiefs Christendom Cited in ibid civilization Clarkson Crowther Crummell culture David George Davies Delany doctrine emancipation emigration England enterprise established Europe European evangelical example Ezzidio former slaves free blacks free colony freedom Freetown Fyfe governor History human idea Igbo indigenous John King Lagos land leadership Liberia liberty London MacCarthy matter Methodist Missionary Society moral Muslim native Negro Niger Mission Nigeria Nova Scotia Nova Scotian official Olaudah Equiano Paul Cuffe Paul Cuffee petition political preacher preaching Quaker race recaptives religion religious repr Revolution rulers Samuel Samuel Ajayi Crowther Samuel Crowther scheme settlement settlers Sierra Leone Sierra Leone Company slave trade slavery social spirit Thomas tion Townsend University Press Venn West Africa wrote York Yoruba