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ABSTRACT
Soon after Emancipation a trio of formerly enslaved preachers relocated to the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. Supported by an American mission organization, their outpost named Kambini became a site of conversion and literacy. A nearby white colleague, Rev. William Wilcox, had another plan. He linked proselytization to the operation of a cashew plantation that used local labor. Having enduring plantation bondage in Mississippi, two of the three Black evangelists wanted to make Kambini a beacon of Christianity that removed the sins of slavery in “Africa … [and the] Southern States.” This article analyzes the resulting conflict between the white and Black missionaries’ aims.
KEYWORDS:
Acknowledgements
I thank the following people for their trenchant insights: the anonymous readers, Natalie Zacek, Richard Elphick, Robert Edgar, Robert Vinson, Robert Houle, Dingani Mthethwa, Sven Beckert, Mxolisi Mchunu, Nadine Zimmerli, George Oberle, Wendi Manuel-Scott, Robert Gordon, Jacob Ntshangase, Eric Allina, Mpumulelo Grootboom, and Nhlanhla Mtaka.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://doi.org/10.1080/14664658.2023.2260170)
Notes
1 Dwight, Sermon Delivered, 23, 26–27; Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism, 3–5; Houle, African Christianity, 8–10.
2 Benjamin Ousley (Ousley), Manhattan, to Judson Smith (Smith), Boston, 24/9/1884; Ousley, Inanda, to Smith, Boston, 25/11/1884; Ousley, Inhambane, to Smith, 22/12/1884; 26/8/1885; Vol. 12, Reel 186 (V12R186), Part 2, ABC: Letters from Missionaries to Africa, 1834–1919, 15.4: Southern Africa, Archives of American Board for Commissioners of Foreign Missions (ABCFM), Houghton Library, Harvard University (hereafter ABCFM HLHU); these archives include a subset, Zulu East Africa. See also Peabody, The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 20, 22, annotated manuscript, D/1/91, A608; American Board Mission Papers (1/ABM); Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository (PAR), KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa (hereafter PAR SA); Jacobs, “A Thought,” 209–14; Gilley, “Mozambique,” 95–96, 98–102; Moses, Afrotopia, 26–33; Gaines, Uplifting the Race, 33–8; Blyden, African Americans and Africa, 20, 29.
3 Ousley, Kambini, to Smith, 3/6/1885; 10/1; 8/2; 1888; V12R186; ABCFM, Central African Mission, 9; ABCFM, Historical Sketch, 37; Myron Pinkerton (Pinkerton), Zanzibar, to John Means (Means), Boston, 28/7/1880; Pinkerton, Inhambane, to Means, 6/10/1880; Pinkerton, Inchanga, to Nathaniel Clark (Clark), Boston, 26/6/1877; 3/3; 4/7; 1879; Vol. 8, Reel 182 (V8R182), Part 2, ABC: Letters from Missionaries to Africa, 1834–1919, 15.4: Southern Africa, ABCFM, HLHU; letters to Smith, Means, Clark, and Elnathan Strong were sent to Boston; Meeting Minutes ECAM, 25/8/1885; Ousley to Smith, 22/12/1884; 3/6; 26/8/1885; 8/2; 10/1/1888; V12R186; Hermann, Joseph Davis, 54.
4 Ousley to Smith, 3/6/1885; 10/1; 8/2; 1888; V12R186; ABCFM, Central African Mission, 8-9; ABCFM, Historical Sketch, 37; Benjamin Ousley, “Life Sketch of Rev. B.F. Ousley,” American Missionary (AmerMiss) 58, 9 (1904), 292. ABCFM, East; Wilcox, Restless Wing, preface (n.p.), 82–5, 132–60, 162–4; Interview William Wilcox, The Christian (London), 25/2/1909, AZM Clippings, 88, A/4/57, 1/ABM, PAR SA. AZM racism: Keto, “Race Relations,” 614, 623–4; Houle, “Brother to Native.” Analysis of “racist personal opinions” that did not prevent white evangelists from valuing “African cultures”: Elphick, Equality of Believers, 34.
5 Booker T. Washington, Bishop Henry Turner, J. Jabavu, and W.E.B. Du Bois, “Report of Pan-African Conference, 23-25 July 1900,” Vol. 142, Colenso Collection, A204, PAR SA; Vinson, Americans are Coming! Fredrickson, White Supremacy; Campbell, Songs of Zion; Olsson, “South in the World”; Zimmerman, Alabama in Africa: Beckert, “Tuskegee to Togo.”
6 Jacobs, “Women Missionaries,” 381–6; Jacobs, Black Americans and the Missionary Movement; Jacobs, African Nexus; Ousley, “Life Sketch”; Ousley to Smith, 25/11; Ousley to Strong, 24/3; 1884; V12R186; AmerMiss, 34, 8 (1880), 229–30.
7 Campbell, Songs of Zion, ix–xi, 87, 111, 113–115, 140, 211, 216, 247, 269–70; pathbreaking studies pre- and post-Campbell include Chirenje, Ethiopianism and Cabrita, People's Zion.
8 Vinson, Americans are Coming! 2–8, 30, 77.
9 Daily American (Nashville), 9/3/1887; Barnes, Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic, 1,4, 122–31.
10 Alonzo Edmiston went to Alabama’s Stillman and Tuskegee institutes. Althea Brown graduated from Fisk. Hill explains that the couple merged industrial education and classical studies for the benefit of African people. Edmistons' educational resources from Stillman, Tuskegee, and Fisk: Hill, Higher Mission, 2–4, 13, 30, 35, 45, 54, 57–62, 75, 102.
11 Houle, African Christianity; Healy-Clancy, World of Their Own; Jorgensen, “American Zulu”; Arndt, Divided by the Word.
12 Pinkerton endorsed the British view of the Anglo-Zulu War as a contest between white civilization and African savagery: Pinkerton to Clark, 3/3; 9/4; 4/7; 1879; Pinkerton, Chicago, to Means, 20/2/1880; V8R182; Missionary Herald (MHerald) 77, 3 (1881), 89; Campbell, Songs of Zion, 111; Cope, Ploughshares of War, 36. Pinkerton linked “Umzila mission” success to British intervention in ways that were similar to his brethren in the 1830s, who begged the English navy to rescue them from Zulu King Dingane’s attack on Port Natal. ABCFM evangelists returned to destroyed outposts bolstered by a stipend from Cape officials who expected the Americans to use the Bible to keep “savages quiet”: Lt-Governor Maitland, Cape Town, to Secretary of State, London, 17/6/1844, Enclosure 1, General Dispatches: Governor-Secretary of State, 1844-1846, Government House (GH) 23/15, Cape Town, Western Cape Archives (KAB); Western Cape Province, South Africa; Aldin Grout (AGrout), Umvoti, to Captain Garden, 28/3/1853, W. R. Morrison Papers, MS46, Sol Plaatjie Public Library, Kimberley, Northern Cape Province, South Africa.
13 Pinkerton to Clark, 3/3; 4/7; 9/4; 10/12; 1879; V8R182; ABCFM, Historical Sketch, 13–15; MHerald 77, 3 (1881), 89.
14 When an Angolan king threatened the WCAM, Miller attributed the aggression to rumors that Americans kidnapped “the young,” implying that this assumption was not unreasonable: Miller, Bihe, Angola, Report to Hampton Institute, reprinted in Southern Workman, 1/3/1881. Miller may have been an emancipated slave of Ovimbundu (ethnic) descent: Davis IV, “Beer, Blood and the Bible,” 11, 90–1.
15 Miller, Benguela, Angola, to anonymous, Hampton, 11/8/1884, in Southern Workman, 1/11/1884; Miller, Bailundu, Angola, to Samuel Armstrong, Hampton, 25/6/1883, in the Southern Workman, 1/12/1883; Soremekun, “Board Missions in Angola,” 74; MHerald 79, 10 (1883), 272; Spivey, Schooling for the New Slavery, 17. During the early 1880s, Nathaniel Clark, ABCFM’s Corresponding Secretary responsible for the expansion of “self-support[ing] . . . churches,” broadened mission school instruction to encompass vocational training, but did not call this approach industrial education: Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 224–5. Black missionaries in twentieth-century colonial Africa increasingly adopted industrial education: Elphick, Equality of Believers, 134–5; Barnes, Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic; Hill, Higher Mission.
16 Conroy-Krutz, Christian Imperialism, 47, 151–67, 178; Jorgenson, “American Zulu,” 244–7. Before going to Africa, Wilson manumitted many of the bondspeople he owned, but not his enslaved boy attendant, whose family resided in “one of the free [US] States.” This child was to be shipped to Liberia against his will and in an apparent display of defiance the child exhibited “a disposition to be vicious” that caused complications, Wilson told associates: John Wilson, Gaboon River, to Rufus Anderson (Anderson), Boston, 23/1/1843; reprinted in DuBose, Memoirs of Rev. John Leighton Wilson, 100–3, 104, 137; Wilson, Western Africa, 506; Soremekun, “Religion and Politics in Angola,” 342; Ball, “Three Crosses,” 340.
17 In detailing the “climate” hazards, Lindley boasted that his prior American experiences enabled him to survive Lourenço Marques. He had ministered to Presbyterian slaveowners in North Carolina and visited his wife's family in the (malarial) low country, where people knew how to evade tropical diseases. Interestingly, Lindley did not mention a supplier of Mozambican ivory, King Dingane, or the punishments this Zulu monarch exacted on Portuguese authority after being cheated of the “saguate”—a gift honoring his status. In 1833, Dingane attacked the ungrateful governor Dionísio Ribeiro. Zulu soldiers killed Ribeiro, removed his heart, and toted it 600 kilometers to their capital: Daniel Lindley (Lindley), Bethelsdorp (Cape), to Anderson, 31/12/1838; Lindley and Henry Venable, Port Natal, to Anderson, 16/9/1837; Aldin Grout (AGrout), Holden, Massachusetts, to Anderson, 27/6/1838; Vols. 1-2 [Vol. 179], Reel 174; ABCFM, HLHU; AGrout, Cape Town, to Elnathan Davis, 12/3/1835, Aldin Grout Papers (MS 797), Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries; Smith, Life and Times of Daniel Lindley, 30–61, 413–20; Chewins, “Stealing Dingane's Title.”
18 Pinkerton to Clark, 10/12/1879; Pinkerton to Means, 20/2; 10/3; 1880; V8R182. Erskine believed Mzila’s father, Soshangane, was Zulu but this Gaza ancestor came from the Nxumalo clan which allied with the Ndwandwe polity, a rival of King Shaka: Erskine, “Journey to Umzila's,” 45, 70, 98; Wright, “Rediscovering the Ndwandwe,” 217–38; Harries, Work, Culture, 3–4, 19–27, 69.
19 During Pinkerton’s journey, he wrote that isiZulu was the lingua franca of Gazaland. A variant of that language was spoken in Mzila’s court: Pinkerton to Clark, 26/6/1877; 3/3; 4/7; 1879; Pinkerton to Means, 28/5; 24/8; 6, 22/10; 1880; V8R182; MHerald 77, 3 (1881), 88–94; Means, Umzila’s Kingdom, 4, 16; ABCFM, Central African Mission, 3–5, 19. AZM knowledge of isiZulu language: Arndt, Divided by the Word, 1–37, 121–55.
20 Wilcox, African Jungle, 5; Erwin Richard (Richards), Inhambane, to Means, 14/4; 10/5; 16/ 6; 1881; Richards, Inanda, to Means, 4/1; 23/6; 1882; V12R186; Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 326-27; ABCFM, East Central African, 6; Allina, Slavery by Any Other Name, 20.
21 Wilcox, African Jungle, 17; Gilley, “Mozambique,” 95; ABCFM, Central African Mission, 6–8. Outlawed by the Iberian Crown in 1878, slave trading continued to stimulate the Mozambican economy because Portuguese administrators, on the sly, benefited from the banned commerce. They were loath to embargo ships transporting captives to Indian Ocean-island plantations, after pocketing bribes from boat captains: Campbell, “East African Slave,” 16; Harries, “Slavery, Social Incorporation.”
22 Ousley, “Life Sketch,” 292; Ousley to Smith, 25/11; Ousley to Strong, 24/3; 1884; V12R186; AmerMiss, 34, 8 (1880), 229–30; Mather, Who’s Who of the Colored, 209. Ousley’s mother was Charlotte Riggins; he was named after his father.
23 B.F. Ousley, “A Town of Colored People in Mississippi,” AmerMiss 58, 9 (1904), 295; Ousley, “Life Sketch,” 292, 304.
24 Manning, “Working for Citizenship,” 190–3; Ousley, “Life Sketch,” 293; Taylor, Embattled Freedom.
25 Benjamin Ousley, “Life Sketch,” 293; AmerMiss 46, 9 (1892), 304; AmerMiss 39, 3 (1885), 82; AmerMiss 46, 10 (1892), 340; African Repository, 57, 8 (1881), 109; Ousley paid tuition with a loan from the American Missionary Association: Thomas Steward, Nashville, to Benjamin Ousley, Glencoe, Mississippi, 20/5/[1874], American Missionary Association Archives, 1839-1882 (AMAA), Amistad Research Center, Tulane University (ARCTU), New Orleans; Zion's Herald (Boston), 83, 5 (1905), 140; Ousley to Smith, 16/12/1885, V12R186. The AMA also subsidized Howard University and Hampton Institute: Richardson, Christian Reconstruction, 123, 134, 293; Engs, Educating the Disfranchised, 69-73; Washington learned his precepts from Armstrong as a member of the Hampton class of 1875: Spivey, Schooling for New Slavery, 52-53; Elphick, Equality of Believers, 134-35; Barnes, Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic, 48-49, 85-86. Hoping to be remembered by “his General,” Miller sent fan mail to Armstrong that narrated Congregational proselytizing in Southern Africa, a subject they both knew well. Armstrong came of age in a Maui ABCFM household with his pastor father keeping abreast of Board evangelists in Natal: Carton, “From Hampton,” 62-63; Beyer, “Connection of Samuel Chapman Armstrong.”
26 Daily American, 27/5/1881.
27 Maxfield, “Organic Sin,” 111–12. The ABCFM was reluctant, even after the Civil War, to alienate donors of the Southern plantocracy: Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 206; Ousley, “Life Sketch,” 293; Cannon, Record of Service, 26–39.
28 The money Ousley earned for cleaning Oberlin’s Council Hall, a center of theological discourse, helped cover his seminary costs: Ousley, Oberlin, to Rev. Roy, New York, 6/10/1882, AMAA, ARCTU.
29 Ousley to Strong, 24/3; 24/5; 1884; Richards to Means, 23/6/1882; the AZM considered posting Pixley to the Gaza “kingdom”: Richards to Means, 14/4/1881; V12R186; AmerMiss 39, 3 (1885), 82; Pinkerton supported John Nembula’s enrollment in Pixley’s Natal “normal” school: Pinkerton, Umtwalumi, to Clark, 17/7/1875; 6/1/1873; Stephen Pixley, Lindley, Natal, to Clark, 18/1/1878; V8R182; Etherington, Preachers, Peasants, 1–5; Houle, African Christianity, 62, Jackson, “Experimentation of Nembula,” 8–20; Vinson and Edgar, “Zulus Abroad,” 56; Digby, “Early Black Doctors,” 448.
30 The historical record is not forthcoming about why Ousley came to the attention of the Board.
31 New York Times, 10/11/1883; Washington Post, 4/11/1883; lynching: New York Times, 13/8/1883; Washington Post, 13/8/1883; Chicago Daily Tribune, 14/8/1883. Congress investigated the Danville shooting and issued a major report as Ousley graduated from Oberlin: Senate, US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Privileges and Elections: Alleged Outrages in Virginia, May 27, 1884 (48th Congress, 1st Session, Report 579), LIII-LV, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LCDC); Dailey, “Deference and Violence,” 560–1, 564; Hahn, Nation Under Our Feet, 404, 410. Oberlin alumni and Black student links to Danville: Fairchild, Oberlin the Colony and College, 168; Oberlin College, Seventy-Fifth Anniversary, 504, 734; Minority Student Records Oberlin College, https://libguides.oberlin.edu/c.php?g=1103249&p=8043468, accessed 14/5/2021; Oberlin Review 21, 30 (1894), 11. Confederate-occupied Danville sheltered Jefferson Davis after he fled Richmond, Virginia, in 1865.
32 Ousley to Strong, 24/5; 5/6; 1884; Ousley to Smith, 8/2/1888; V12R186.
33 Ousley to Strong, 24/5/1884, V12R186; Henrietta Ousley (HOusley), Kambini, to Fisk, Nashville, 11/11/1886; reprinted in Daily American, 14/2/1887; Henrietta Bailey, “A Study of the Negro Family,” no. 268, Questionnaire 1905, Department of Social Science, Fisk University, Moorland-Spingarn (Library) Research Center, Howard University, Washington, DC (I thank Robert Vinson for this source); Cleveland Gazette, 23/8; 13/9; 1884; Grimshaw, Paths of Duty, xxi–xxii, 113. In Henrietta Ousley’s ABCFM application, pragmatic reasons are given for her decision to join the ECAM. She singled out Benjamin Ousley’s proposal to “share with him the life of a foreign missionary”: Jacobs, “Women Missionaries,” 382–3. The Ousley-Bailey union epitomized Black American marriage as a “first rite” of freedom: Hunter, Bound in Wedlock, 123.
34 Ousley, Oberlin, to Strong, 5/6/1884; Ousley to Smith, 25/10/1886; V12R186; AmerMiss 46, 9 (1892), 304–5; Chapman, History of Knox, 203–11.
35 Ousley, Knoxville, Illinois, to Strong, 23/8/1884; Ousley, Manhattan, to Smith, 24/9; 22/12; 1884; Ousley to Strong, 24/3/1884; V12R186; ABCFM, Central African Mission, 3-7. Rev. Ousley would write the Board on behalf of his wife. Records of their African experiences do not contain a collection of letters from Henrietta (Bailey) Ousley. She was a prose stylist, as her few publications and one 1905 research questionnaire make clear: Bailey, “Study of the Negro.” The letters of other AZM wives who wrote the Board are in the ABCFM archives at Harvard University. See for example: Mary Pinkerton, Umzumbe, to Clark, 21/2/1879, V12R182.
36 Ousley to Smith, 25/11/1884; Ousley to Smith, 3/3/1888; V12R186.
37 MHerald 81, 12 (1885), 509; AmerMiss 43, 7 (1889), 185; ABCFM, Central African Mission, 8; Ousley to Smith, 4/2; 3/6; 16/12; 1885; 10/1/1888; V12R18; Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 338.
38 William Wilcox (Wilcox), Pres[ident] East Central African Mission, and Richards, Secretary East Central African Mission, Makodweni, to Smith, 22/9; Wilcox and Richards, to Smith, 16/10; Ousley to Smith, 22/12/1884; 3/6; 19/10; 1885; 15/11/1886; Wilcox occasionally signed “Chairman” after his name: Wilcox to Smith, 24/2/1886; V12R186; MHerald 81, 4 (1885), 136; ABCFM, Historical Sketch, 39; Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 334–5; Harries, Work, Culture, 1, 3–4; Harries, “Exclusion, Classification, and Internal Colonialism,” 83, 86.
39 Ousley to Smith, 22/12/1884, V12R186; MHerald 81, 12 (1885), 508. Pioneering Black American “travelers to South[ern] Africa” grappled with haunting memories of the Middle Passage: Vinson, Americans are Coming! 2–3, 6–7, 77–8; Hartman, “Time of Slavery,” 758–60.
40 Ousley to Smith, 22/12/1884; 4/2; 3/6; 26/8; 1885; 2/8; 26/8; 16/12/1886; 30/5/1889; Ousley, Annual Tabular for the Year East Central African Mission, 31/August-31/December; 1887; Report Wilcox and Richards, to Smith, 22/9/1885; Cetewayo Goba served the ECAM until “fever” (malaria) forced his return to Durban; Richards, Mongwe, to Smith, 3/7/1885; 12/9/1887; Wilcox, Adams, Natal, to Smith, 23/11/1886; V12R186; MHerald 82, 2 (1886) 62; Statement of Zephaniah Goba, 8/11/1937, Estate of Cetywayo Goba Otherwise Known Cetshwayo Klaas Goba, No. 23925; 23925/1936; Master of Supreme Court Estates, PAR SA; Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 249, 347; Hughes, First President, 38; Healy-Clancy, World of Their Own, 50. Maziyana Mdima, a male isiZulu-speaking ECAM helper and lay preacher from Inanda, also worked for Richards.
41 Ousley to Smith, 22/12/1884; 4/2/1885; 3/6; 2/8; 1885; MHerald, 79 11, (1883), 488–9; Wilcox to Smith, 23/11/ 1886; Ousley condemned Portuguese mistreatment of Africans: Ousley to Smith, 8/2/1888; V12R186; AmerMiss 44, 12 (1890), 420; Harries, Work, Culture, 24–5, 41–3, 52–3, 142–3.
42 Ousley to Smith, 3/6; 4/2; 1885; 10/1; 8/2; 1888; Wilcox to Smith, 23/11/1886; ECAM Semi-annual Report Beginning June First and Ending December First, 1886; V12R186; the deeds request extended to Mongwe station.
43 Hughes, First President, 37; Wilcox, “Joint Stock Company Offer Zulu Industrial Improvement Co.,” 1/ABM, PAR SA; Keita, Cemetery Stories; Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 240, 250, 259; Kumalo, “Meeting the Cowboy.”
44 Wilcox, Restless Wing, preface (n.p.), 82–5, 132–64; Stout, Montana, 1125; John Clagett, Last Will and Testament, 17/5/1788; recorded 17/11/1790; folio 428, liber B, Register of Wills, Records Division Montgomery County, Maryland.
45 Stout, Montana, 1125; Smurr, “Jim Crow Out West,” 153–6, 160–3, 167–9; McMillen, “Border State Terror,” 213–15; Behan, “Forgotten Heritage,” 27, 29–30; Wilcox, Restless Wing, preface, 162–4; Davison, “1871: Montana’s Year.”
46 Ousley to Smith, 22/12/1884; 3/6; 26/8; 1885; 10/1; 8/2; 1888; V12R186; Williams, Black Americans and the Evangelization, 118. Ousley presented critiques of the plantation to colleagues who believed “the natives” needed work discipline to learn how diligence strengthened piety. This idea informed AZM Rev. Josiah Tyler who contrasted his converts with “negroes” to denote the “former as a race” with the physical and mental potential to survive Western modernity: Tyler, Forty Years, 188–9. The Ousleys came from Black American communities that faced the opinions of Social Darwinists who predicted Africans were headed for extinction: Barnes, Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic, 17.
47 Attentive to the “native role” in station dynamics, the Ousleys allied with a local “chief of Kambini” who gave the couple one “of his [two] huts” and desired to hear “prayers for . . . Gitonga” children: Ousley to Smith, 3/6; 26/8; 19/10; 1885; 20/8/1887; 10/1/1888; 17/10/1889; Nancy Jones (Jones), Kambini, to Smith, 10/1/1889; V12R186; MHerald 82, 2 (1886), 63.
48 Ousley to Smith, 3/6/1885; 10/1; 8/2; 1888; Ousley, Kambini, to Richards [Mongwe], 20/10/1886 (filed 24/7/1889); V12R186; ABCFM, Central African Mission, 9; ABCFM, Historical Sketch, 37; phone communications between Benedict Carton and Eltea Lambert, 29/11; 30/11/2018, Mississippi.
49 Natal Witness, 9/2/1849; Natal Times, 29/8/1851; AGrout, Umvoti, to Anderson, 13/6/1850; Lewis Grout (LGrout), Umsunduzi, to Anderson, 7/2/1851; 7/10/1859; Vol. 5, Reel 176; DLindley, Inanda, to Anderson, 16/10/1855; Vol. 4, Reel 175; General Letter of American Zulu Mission, Port Natal, 10/5/1862, newspaper cuttings, 23/5/1861; Interview Rev. Lewis Grout, ca. 1861; Vol. 6, Reel 177; ABCFM, HLHU; Notes Compiled from Missionary’s Original MS, Sketch of the Origins of the Native Tribes Now Dwelling in the Natal Colony, August 1852, Folder 3, Lewis Grout Personal Papers, GEN ABC 76, HLHU (ABC 76 contains papers that are not microfilmed); Houle, African Christianity, 2, 49, 54; Houle, “Brother to Native,” 48.
50 Wilcox, Restless Wing, 163; Wilcox, African Jungle, 39, 201–4. The Board reported stories published in the Southern Workman, Hampton’s newspaper, about the widowed “Mrs. Armstrong. . . return[ing] to this country” (from Maui) and joining her headmaster son to instruct “the colored race” in Virginia: MHerald 77, 3 (1881), 85. In the twentieth century, the AZM incorporated the “Hampton-Tuskegee idea . . [of] industrial and civilizing ideologies”: Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 350, 453–4.
51 Spivey, Schooling for the New Slavery, 16–18; Barnes, Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic, 47.
52 Wilcox to Smith, 21/11/1986; Report of Makodweni Mission Station Sept. ’85 – Sept. ’86; ECAM Semi-annual Report June First and Ending December First, 1886; V12R186; Gilley, “Mozambique,” 97; ABCFM, Central African Mission, 10–11; MHerald 83, 3 (1887), 92; Interview Wilcox, The Christian, 25/2/1909, AZM Clippings, 88, A/4/57, 1/ABM, PAR SA. Makodweni “inquirers” attended literacy classes: Interview Wilcox, The Christian, 25/2/1909, AZM Clippings, 88, A/4/57, 1/ABM, PAR SA.
53 HOusley to Fisk, 11/11/1886; Daily American, 14/2/1887.
54 Richards to Means, 4/1/1882; Ousley to Smith, 25/10/1886; Gaza regiments destroyed ECAM property and routed colonial troops in 1886. ECAM evangelists escaped this attack by dashing to a ship offshore (their brethren did this during Zulu King Dingane’s reign): Natalian, 13/11/1886; Ousley said Gaza “warriors” were “superior to . . . soldiers . . . with ‘musket[s]’”: Ousley to Smith, 15/11/1886; V12R186; HOusley to Fisk, 11/11/1886; Daily American, 14/2/1887. After King Mzila’s death in late 1884, his successor Gungunhane sent regiments to seize women and children and gift these captives to allies of his deceased father. Gaza raiding in the early years of the ECAM: Newitt, History of Mozambique, 336, 349–53.
55 Phipps, William Sheppard, 6–15, 98–103, 112; 15–17, 119, 189–91; Wilson, Western Africa, 506; Campbell, Middle Passages, 165–6; Carton, “From Hampton,” 58, 66–70, Turner, “A ‘Black-White’ Missionary”; Newitt, History of Mozambique, 330–6, 348, 352–62.
56 Daily American, 14/2/1887; MHerald 82, 2 (1886), 63; HOusley to Fisk, 11/11/1886; Jones to Smith, 10/1/1889; V12R186; Flint, Healing Traditions, 126–7, 130–1, 139; Cadwallader and Wilson, “Folklore Medicine,” 217–7; Gomez, Country Marks, 56–7; Mitchem, Folk Healing, 54–8, 135. Benjamin Ousley recognized that enslaved people from southeast Africa shaped Black American cultures: Ousley to Strong, 23/8/1884; Ousley to Smith, 22/12/1884; V12R186. AME African faith healing in antebellum Mississippi: Interview, George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 9/1941, recorded by Dr. Johnson, L. Jones, J. Work, and E. and A. Lomax, Side A and Side B, AFS t4778A, AFS t4779B, Fisk University Mississippi Delta Collection, 1941-1943, AFC 1941/002, American Folklife Center, LCDC.
57 When Henrietta Ousley classified “charms” conferring protection on “the natives,” her descriptions conveyed ethnographic information rather than censure: MHerald, 79 11, (1883), 448-49; Miller, Bailundu, to Samuel Armstrong, Hampton, 25/6/1883 in the Southern Workman, 1/12/1883; Sorekemun, “Board Missions in Angola,” 74; Dulley, “Chronicles of Bailundo,” 732–3.
58 HOusley to Fisk, 11/11/1886; Daily American, 14/2/1887; exasperation emerged in Benjamin Ousley’s circulars to the Board, relating how Henrietta “found . . .[that] females” were “harder to” save because they were “satisfied with their . . . lot” as cultivators: Ousley to Smith, 29/5/1889, V12R186; Jacobs, “A Thought,” 211; Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 348. Benjamin Ousley said polygamy made African women “little more than slaves”: Williams, Black Americans and the Evangelization, 112. Ousley’s list of sins resembled the AZM “Umsunduze Rules” of devout “purity”: Houle, African Christianity, 99–100.
59 ECAM Semi-annual Report June First and December First, 1886; Ousley to Smith, 26/8/1885; V12R186. Scholars researching industrial missions in Portuguese- and British-ruled Southern Africa might compare and contrast the Makodweni cashew farm to the Magomero coffee plantation in Nyasaland (Malawi). In the 1890s Magomero was a site of racist abuse. The “estate” manager William Livingstone, a relative of David Livingstone, was beheaded by workers in a 1915 anti-colonial revolt. This manager had brutally treated Africans and assaulted chained workers: White, Magomero, 82–7. There is no evidence that Rev. Wilcox ever committed such abuses.
60 ECAM Report and Meeting Minutes, Mongwe, to Smith, 25/8/1886; Ousley to Smith, 20/8/1887; 10/1/1888; Ousley, Annual Tabular for the Year East Central African Mission, 31 August–31 December, 1887; V12R186; MHerald 83, 4 (1887), 142; Jorgensen, “American Zulu,” 326-29.
61 ECAM Report and Meeting Minutes, 25/8/1886; Ousley to Strong, 24/5/1884; Ousley to Smith, 23/2; 20/8; 1887; 10/1; 8/2; 3/3; 14/5; 27/8; 13/10; 1888; 19/8; 13/12; 1889; Dr. Binkerhoff, Upper Sandusky, Ohio, to Smith, 13/10/1888; “the [plantation] work” of Makodweni “discontinued” after Wilcox’s resignation: Francis Bates, Mongwe, to Smith, 2/11/1888; V12R186; Gilley, “Mozambique,” 97.
62 Research into Mr. Johnson’s identity led to Eltea Lambert, a retired Mississippi educator “familiar with Benjamin Forsyth Ousley.” Lambert recalled a family memory of Ousley’s letters from [the] Africa circulating in the town of Mound Bayou. “[F]rom Ousley’s kin,” Lambert learned “that Johnson mentioned was a plantation slave, . . . gone to Africa . . . [and] English churches.” Lambert’s relatives helped establish Mound Bayou’s “Normal Institute, Green Grove . . . First Baptist” church, and Bethel AME: phone communications between Benedict Carton and Eltea Lambert, 29/11; 30/11/2018, Mississippi. Black missionary letters circulating in home networks: Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 105. In London, Rev. Johnson and King Cetshwayo likely spoke through the interpreter Lazarus Xaba, a convert known to ABCFM amakholwa in Inanda and Umtwalumi: Testimony of Lazarus Xaba, 4/5; 9/5/1910, Webb and Wright, James Stuart Archive, 326–30; 352–5, 358; “Cetywayo’s Interviews with the Earl of Kimberley, Colonial Office, London, 7, 15, 17 and 24 August 1882,” Telegrams to and from South Africa, 1 January to 31 December 1882, Colonial Office, CO 879/19/1, National Archives of United Kingdom, London. Queen Victoria interviewed Cetshwayo in August 1882: Theron, “Cetshwayo in Victorian England,” 83–5.
63 Johnson, Twenty-Eight Years a Slave, 98; Killingray, “Black Atlantic Missionary,” 5, 16; Sorekemun, “Board Missions in Angola,” 72–3; Chicago Herald, 15/12/1887; Johnson’s autobiographical oratory: Bailey, “Divided Prism,” 381–4, 399–400. Johnson preached Ethiopianism in America and Africa. US-inspired Ethiopianism in colonial South Africa: Campbell, Songs of Zion, 103–16, 140–52; Chirenje, Ethiopianism and Afro-Americans, 1–2, 14–17, 96–106; Carton and Vinson, “Ethiopia Shall Stretch,” 59–61.
64 HOusley to Fisk, 11/11/1886; Daily American, 14/2/1887; Jones, Memphis, to Smith, 26/9; 5/10; 10/10; 1/11; 14/11; 1887; V12R186; Jacobs, “A Thought,” 209–12; Williams, Black Americans and the Evangelization, 87; Goings and Smith, “Duty of the Hour,” 132–6; Giddings, Ida, A Sword, 49–51, 76, 88–9, 219–21, 236–8. As a child, Wells was enslaved in Mississippi.
65 Jones, Umzumbe, to Smith, 2/5/1888, V12R186; Freeman, 5/2/1898; Daily American, 9/6/1890; The Tennessean, 8/6/1891.
66 Daily American, 9/6/1890; The Tennessean, 8/6/1891; Ousley to Smith, 8/2/1888; 19/8/1889; V12R186; F. S. Tatham, The Race Conflict in South Africa: An Enquiry into the General Question of Native Education (Pietermaritzburg: Munro Bros, 1894), 4-8, 10, 26-7, Vol. 323, Natal Society Special Collection, Alan Paton Centre, University of KwaZulu-Natal Pietermaritzburg, South Africa; Ousley to Smith, 8/2/1888; 19/8/1889; V12R186.
67 AmerMiss 48, 7 (1894), 255; AmerMiss 58, 9 (1904), 300; Freeman, 13/5/1895; Jacobs, “A Thought,” 212–13. Mound Bayou produced cotton, sugar, and millet: Willis, Forgotten Time, 74. The American Missionary Association financed Montgomery: Booker Washington, “A Town Owned by Negroes: Mound Bayou, Miss, An Example of Thrift and Self-government,” World's Work 14 (1907), 9125-34.
68 Freeman, 5/2/1898; Jones to Smith, 10/1/1889; V12R186; Jacobs, “A Thought,” 213–14.
69 Ousley to Smith, 10/1; 8/2; 1888; V12R186.
70 Ousley to Smith, 29/5/1889, V12R186; HOusley to Fisk, 11/11/1886; Daily American, 14/2/1887.
71 Wilcox, Restless Wing, 163; Wilcox, African Jungle, 39, 201–4; HOusley to Fisk, 11/11/1886; Daily American, 14/2/1887.
72 MHerald 81, 12 (1885), 508; Cleveland Gazette, 17/8/1889; Freeman, 17/8/1889; Jacobs, “A Thought,” 213; Ousley, “Life Sketch,” 293; Ousley, Annual View 31 August–31 December, 1887; Ousley to Smith, 22/12/1884; 29/5; 30/5; 1889; V12R186.
73 AmerMiss 48, 7 (1894), 255; Freeman, 13/5/1895; Ousley to Smith, 8/2/1888; 19/8/1889; V12R186.
74 Freeman, 5/2/1898.
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Benedict Carton
Benedict Carton is a faculty member in the African and African American Studies Program and the School of Integrative Studies at George Mason University, Virginia, USA. He is also Associate Director of the Center for Mason Legacies: https://legacies.gmu.edu/