The Northfield Mount Hermon Journal for the Humanities

The

Northfield Mount Hermon Journal for the Humanities Number 1—July 2013

From the Editor Introduction Rhode Island’s Rebellion: A Crisis in Constitutional Government

Grant A. Gonzalez Peter H. Weis

Erik J. Chaput

Mount Hermon’s African Students, 1898–1918

Sean P. Foley

Authenticity in Slave Narratives: Examining the Role of Authorship by Exploring the Value of Slave Narratives as Literary Texts

Janae A. Peters

The Northfield Mount Hermon Journal for the Humanities

w Published by Northfield Mount Hermon Mount Hermon, Massachusetts

Editorial Board Grant Gonzalez History Teacher, Northfield Mount Hermon David Williard, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, University of St. Thomas Khristina Gonzalez, Ph.D. Associate Director of the Writing Center, Princeton University

Layout designed by Harry van Baaren

Table of Contents

From the Editor Grant Gonzalez

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Introduction Peter H. Weis

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Rhode Island’s Rebellion: A Crisis in Constitutional Government Erik J. Chaput

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Mount Hermon’s African Students, 1898–1918 Sean Foley

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Authenticity in Slave Narratives: Examining the Role of Authorship by Exploring the Value of Slave Narratives as Literary Texts Janae Peters

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Grant Gonzalez: From the Editor

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his journal was conceived on a minibus carrying an NMH study abroad group from the central Anatolian city of Konya to the adjacent Mediterranean city of Izmir. During the long ride across the Turkish countryside, I returned to recent conversations with colleagues back home regarding our responsibilities for teaching good writing and developing research skills. As secondary-school teachers, our primary responsibilities reside, of course, with our students. Yet, we remember that our own intellectual development is a necessary and essential part of our ability to function in that role as stewards of education.

As faculty members in the humanities, we have each developed these skills through our own work and educational experiences. All NMH teachers continue to read and research within our disciplines, and many deliver guest lectures on their areas of study. Some of us maintain online blogs to which we contribute short opinion pieces or offer news analysis. Though that medium is expedient and valuable in its reach, it does not offer an avenue for us to revisit our own academic interests in depth. The opportunities to craft full-length, scholarly articles that reflect our academic passions and original research within the community remain all too limited. Beginning with this inaugural edition of the NMH Journal for the Humanities, we strive to provide a platform for faculty members to share their innovative research—and thereby, to develop as educators—for years to come.

I would like to thank the authors of our three initial articles, Erik Chaput, Sean Foley, and Janae Peters. Amidst their many other responsibilities during the school year, they found time to attend to multiple revisions of their essays. Additionally, our two outside editors, Khristina Gonzalez and David Williard, of Princeton University and the University of St. Thomas, respectively, signed on to this venture without hesitation and absent any expectations save for the promotion of research in their

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academic fields. Lastly, the support we received from our institution, most notably from Hugh Silbaugh, Dean of Faculty, and from Cheri Cross, Jennifer Sutton, and Harry van Baaren, proved integral throughout the journal’s development. The journey from conception to completion of this first edition may have been just as bumpy at times as that ride across the Anatolian heartland, but it was equally compelling and worthwhile.

w Grant Gonzalez is a member of the History and Social Science Department, and also teaches Arabic at Northfield Mount Hermon. After graduating from the College of William and Mary, Grant earned an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2008. Since arriving at NMH in the fall of 2008, Grant has been privileged to study, teach, and lead student trips throughout the Middle East and East Africa, including Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Somaliland, and Qatar. This summer, Grant will be teaching at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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Peter H. Weis ’78: Introduction

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hether or not they are aware of it, the current faculty of Northfield Mount Hermon are heirs to a tradition of scholarly publishing. The school’s library bears witness, and is leavened with the scholarship of her teachers. Beginning with a series of treatises on women’s health issues by Dr. Emma Angell, second principal at the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies, through the theological writings of James McConaughy and Dr. Rachel King, to Dr. David R. Porter’s musings on education and William R. Morrow’s observations on the theater, those who’ve followed the dictum of Chaucer’s clerk, “gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche,” (“General Prologue,” Canterbury Tales, line 310) have often found time in the midst of the hurly-burly pace of boarding school life to spread their teaching and learning beyond the classroom.

Or we might say not that they “have found the time,” but rather, that the time somehow found them. A word of explanation is in order. In college, I recall our freshman seminar struggling to make sense of a passage in Aristotle when someone cried out in exasperation, “Why would anybody want to write this, anyway?” Without missing a beat, the tutor, a great bear of a man who did not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise, replied, “Aristotle didn’t write this because he wanted to, he wrote it because he had to.” You must understand that the tutor was not confusing the third-century B.C. philosopher with the modern-day tenure-track university professor whose mantra has become “publish or perish.” The demand to write, he suggested, was not external, but internal; somewhere, in the depths of Aristotle’s mind or soul, were ideas that demanded thoughtful sharing. What follows, then, is a series of articles written not to fulfill the requirements of professional advancement, but to answer questions that have in one way or another haunted their authors. In the very best sense of the word this is an amateur publication, with its roots firmly planted in love.

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While the authors here pursued their interests, it has been my pleasant duty to explore the world of independent school archives to find another example of such an undertaking. And though other institutions, most notably Choate Rosemary Hall, have produced literary journals with some regularity or of some duration, apparently no other school has attempted to produce a scholarly journal worthy of the term serial. At least not in the last century or so. A final observation, then. While the scholars whose work appears below are part of a fine tradition of thinkers, writers, and teachers at Northfield Mount Hermon, they are embarking on a venture that may well be the first of its kind in the world of the independent school. Time and other like-minded teachers will demonstrate whether this venture is a successful one.

For now, we wish it bon chance.

w Peter H. Weis ’78 is the Northfield Mount Hermon Archivist. The son of longtime mathematics teacher, Robert P. Weis, Peter began his apprenticeship at the age of 2 when his family took up residence here. Peter earned a bachelor’s in liberal arts at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico (1984). Graduate school brought him back to the archival sciences, earning a master’s in public history from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1997) and a master’s in library science from the State University of New York at Albany (1998). In fall 1999, Peter returned here for a one-year appointment as archivist. More than a decade later, he still delights in both the school and his work. His articles on school history appear regularly in the alumni magazine, and he is a contributor to the recently published book on the school’s history, Lift Thine Eyes.

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Erik J. Chaput: Rhode Island’s Rebellion: A Crisis in Constitutional Government

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n 1842, the small state of Rhode Island was torn between rival governors, separate legislative assemblies, warring militias, and two competing visions of the nature of American constitutionalism. One vision held that a majority of the people possessed the right to alter or abolish their system of government, regardless of procedures provided by the existing government; the other vision was predicated on the rule of law and the belief that a government could only be amended through prescribed legal means. Although relatively obscure to most Americans and many historians, Providence attorney Thomas Wilson Dorr’s attempt at political reform was the most daring attempt in early America to unseat a sitting government and replace it with an entirely new enterprise.1 “In the small state of Rhode Island, with a population of about 100,000, there are at this moment two Governors, two Senates, two Houses of Representatives and other things in proportion—a clear exemplification of Jefferson’s maxim that ‘the world is governed too much,’” declared the Charleston Mercury in April 1842.2 Dorr’s ideology—the right of the people to alter or abolish their form of government—captures not only the continued salience of revolutionary constitutionalism in the antebellum period, but also the continued problem of a sizable dependent population in a republican body politic and the growing antebellum sectional tensions. If the disenfranchised majority of Rhode Islanders under Dorr’s instruction “could form a constitution without leave of their masters,” then the black “majority of South Carolina might do the same and the peculiar institution would be over-

Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005), 543, 539. For a review of the literature on the Dorr Rebellion, see Erik J. Chaput, “The Rhode Island Question: The Career of a Debate,” Rhode Island History (Winter 2009), 47–76.

1

Charleston Mercury, April 27, 1842.

2

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thrown,” proclaimed the New York abolitionist editor William Goodell.3 Southerners were convinced of two things in May 1842: that Thomas Dorr was ready to die for his cause and supposedly aiding him in his efforts were New England abolitionists.4 On one side of the Rhode Island constitutional divide stood the “People’s Governor,” Thomas Dorr, whose reform effort was predicated on the belief that the people possessed an inherent right, as Thomas Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence, to revise their constitutions whenever they chose. Dorr urged his followers not to rely on the court system for a redress of their grievances. He asked what if the “judges should decide that the People in a state have no right to alter or amend their institutions, without the authority of the legislature.” An adverse decision would “abrogate the Declaration of Independence and the American system.”5 On the other side stood the aptly named Law and Order Party, as it was known in conservative circles. The party was a coalition of urban Whigs and rural Democrats led by the other man claiming to be governor of Rhode Island, Samuel Ward King.6 Both sides clashed over the role of the people in the American political order.

According to Ohio Democratic senator William Allen, the “Rhode Island Question” was “infinitely more important than any question of a bank, a tariff, or any question of national policy which can arise under our form of government.”7 Whigs and Democrats were often at odds concerning the people’s sovereignty. Most Democrats, especially those from north of the Mason-Dixon Line, considered the people’s sovereignty to be a sacred part of the political order. “So stupid are the Whig editors in their hatred of all popular movements, calculated to enlarge and strengthen the basis of Democracy, that they seldom stop to investigate the nature…of any dispute between the people and corporate money or arbitrary power,” declared the Cincinnati

3

William Goodell, The Rights and Wrongs of Rhode Island (New York, 1842), 16.

See Erik J. Chaput, “Proslavery and Antislavery Politics in Rhode Island’s 1842 Dorr Rebellion,” The New England Quarterly 85 (December 2012), 658–94.

4

TWD to William Simons, November 11, 1842. Rider Collection, Dorr Correspondence (Box 5, folder 17). John Hay Library, Brown University.

5

Contrary to the national trend of the Jacksonian Democratic Party, large numbers of Rhode Island Democrats continued to affirm their support for the yeoman farmer and opposed large-scale political reform that would enfranchise propertyless workers.

6

Congressional Globe (May 17, 1842), 506.

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Daily Enquirer.8 The majority of Whigs were apprehensive about forcefully invoking the people and majoritarianism, as were the Democrats. A great divide separated the Whigs and the Democrats on the nature of political democracy.9 The origins of Rhode Island’s brief but tumultuous insurrection lay deep in the state’s history. Beginning in 1776, all of the original 13 colonies, except Connecticut and Rhode Island, wrote new constitutions and set up representative governments. The political question that prompted Thomas Dorr to move from a war of words to the field of battle involved the continued reliance on the 1663 royal charter as the state’s governing document. The charter vested almost total authority in the General Assembly, with the executive and judiciary relegated to subservient positions. Second, the charter immutably fixed representation in the legislature at two seats for every town except for three towns (including Providence) that had four and Newport, which had six seats. Finally, the charter restricted suffrage to those men possessing real estate (figure set at $134 in 1798), thereby disenfranchising most of the population from the commercial and manufacturing districts who were renting their dwellings.10 In percentage terms, fewer people could vote in Rhode Island in 1840 than during the Revolutionary period. Nearly 80 percent of Rhode Island’s white male citizens, despite a freehold requirement, could vote in the mid- to late 18th century. The charter had allowed Rhode Island to become the leading pillar of democratic self-government in the colonies and in the early republic. By 1840, however, the number of eligible voters had dropped to approximately 40 percent. According to Dorr’s estimates, more than 24,000 white males were “deprived of the right of suffrage.”11

Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, May 6, 1842.

8

See John Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Commerce and Compromise, 1820–1850 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 296–97. On the Democratic Party, see Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s classic work, The Age of Jackson (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1945). On the Whigs, see Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

9

See Patrick T. Conley’s magisterial Democracy in Decline: Rhode Island’s Constitutional Development, 1776–1841 (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Society Publications, 1977).

10

TWD to Amos Kendall, September 24, 1840. Rider Collection, Dorr Correspondence (Box 3, folder 9).

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Since the Assembly was elected by Rhode Island’s wealthy landowners, it proved unwilling to take any action on behalf of the landless workforce in the industrial centers. In keeping with the popular nativist political sentiments that would culminate in the Know-Nothing movement of the 1850s, Dorr’s opponents played upon fears of native-born Protestants by informing them that liberal suffrage provisions would pave the way for the political ascendancy of Irish Catholic immigrants. One popular broadside warned “that to give the vote to naturalized citizens would place civil and political institutions…under the control of the Pope…through the medium of Thousands of Naturalized Foreign Catholics.”12 An ally in the coastal community of Tiverton informed Dorr in March 1842 that the “right to exclude naturalized citizens” was very strong in his town. “Men were called upon not to vote for a constitution but to vote against Irishmen.”13 Old-stock Protestant opponents of Dorr warned that the poor, immigrant laboring classes would take over the state if the People’s Constitution went into effect.

Dorr’s goal was to see that the concerns of Rhode Island’s laboring classes were protected against the privileges of the conservative Whig ruling elite and a small but powerful cohort of conservative rural Democrats. However, to any casual observer of Rhode Island’s pre–Civil War political culture, it was not evident that Thomas Dorr was destined to lead a revolt against the ruling authorities of his native state.

Dorr was born in Providence in November 1805, the eldest of seven children of Sullivan Dorr, a wealthy merchant, and Lydia Allen, a prominent socialite who could trace her lineage back to a companion of Roger Williams, the state’s founder. Dorr received the best education money could buy in early-19th-century America, studying at the Latin Grammar School in Providence before moving on to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and then to Harvard College. Dorr began his studies in Cambridge at the tender age of 13. He graduated four years later near the top of his class. After Harvard, Dorr studied law in New York City under Chancellor James Kent, the most renowned state-level jurist in the country. Dorr then opened up a legal practice on College Street in Providence for a few years.

“Native American Citizens! Read and Take Warning!” (March, 1842) reprinted in Patrick T. Conley, Democracy in Decline, 308.

12

Joshua Rathbun to TWD, March 25, 1842. Rider Collection, Dorr Correspondence (Box 4, folder 4).

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However, the restless young Dorr was not ready to settle down. He left Rhode Island to take a tour of the United States, traveling as far south as New Orleans. After his trip, Dorr elected to live in Brooklyn, New York, for a year and a half, where he practiced law briefly. In the spring of 1833, Dorr returned to Rhode Island and resumed his legal practice on College Street. The following year, he was elected to the state legislature and made a name for himself as a reformer in America’s first age of great reform activity. Dorr quickly became connected with the Constitutional Party, a third-party effort dedicated to revising the state’s archaic form of government. In the economic realm, Dorr drafted and secured the enactment of the first statute in any state providing for governmental regulation of state-chartered banks. He also worked for the abolishment of imprisonment for debt. Dorr’s efforts saved Rhode Island from the worst effects of the onslaught of the financial panic that gripped the United States in 1837–1840. In the realm of public education, Dorr served as president of the Providence School Committee, implementing major reforms in the realm of teacher training and certification.

By the end of the 1830s, Dorr was a major player in the New England abolitionist movement, serving on the executive committee of the Rhode Island Anti-Slavery Society, along with serving as a delegate to the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society held in New York City in 1838 and 1839. In 1837 and 1839, Dorr ran as an anti-slavery Democrat for Congress. He received ringing endorsements from the two leading abolitionist papers in the country—Nathan Rogers’s Herald of Freedom and William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator. However, the endorsements cost him white conservative votes and led to a loss at the polls. By 1840, Dorr no longer attended abolitionist meetings. He had emerged as the leader of the Equal Rights wing of the Rhode Island Democratic Party and would soon take over the state Democratic committee.

Bolstered by the political activism connected with the Log Cabin and Hard Cider presidential campaign of 1840, members of the Rhode Island Suffrage Association were more determined than ever to enact reform. In 1836, roughly 57 percent of the eligible national electorate voted in the presidential election. Four years later, more than 80 percent cast a ballot, although the majority of Rhode Islanders were prevented from casting a ballot. In its first issue, on November 20, 1840, the New Age and Constitutional Advocate, the organ of the Suffrage Association, called for 12

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universal suffrage. The General Assembly, however, continued to ignore the reformers’ petitions and fed the sense of injustice by levying criminal penalties on anyone refusing militia service.

A call in the New Age on August 26, 1841, for citizens to assemble in convention read: “Every American male citizen, twenty-one years of age and upwards, who has resided in this state one year, preceding the election of delegates, shall vote for delegates to the convention, called by the state committee to be held at the state house in Providence on the first Monday in October next.”14 The word “white” was left out of the call. However, on election day in August, officials in Providence’s sixth ward turned away a black man who attempted to cast a ballot.15 On October 8, Dorr was presented with a memorial from Providence’s black community that explicitly linked suffrage with the privileges and immunities of citizenship.16 The word “white,” however, was retained by a vote of 46 to 18.17 The majority of the delegates, excluding Dorr, came to support black disenfranchisement out of ingrained racial prejudice, along with the fear of alienating southern politicians who could potentially assist the cause of the People’s Government in Congress and cost it white votes in Rhode Island. On November 18, at Dorr’s urging, a motion carried to have the word “white” revisited in the first election.18 A clause was inserted to submit the question of black suffrage to the people after the constitution had been adopted.19 When the ballots were finally counted in early January 1842, the People’s Constitution had been approved by an overwhelming majority. Despite the efforts of New England’s abolitionists, the constitution was ratified by a vote of 13,944 in favor, with just 52 opposed. However, charter government supporters boycotted the referendum.20 The constitution extended the vote to adult white male Americans who had New Age and Constitutional Advocate, August 26, 1841.

14

Providence Journal, August 30, 1841.

15

Report of U.S. House of Representatives, Interference of the Executive in the Affairs of Rhode Island, 29th Cong., 1st sess., 1844, Rept. 546, pp. 111–13.

16

New Age and Constitutional Advocate, October 22, 1841, Providence Journal, October 11, 1841, and National Anti-Slavery Standard, September 30 and October 21, 1841.

17

New Age and Constitutional Advocate, November 19, 1841.

18

Ibid.

19

Burke’s Report, 205.

20

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lived in the state for one year—and increased representation ratios for Providence and the larger towns. It also provided for a secret ballot, voter registration before elections, and an independent judiciary. The New Age declared that the constitution “ought to be and is the paramount law and Constitution of the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”21 The legally elected governor, Samuel Ward King, and the General Assembly did not recognize this new constitution and took action to protect their hold on governmental power. The state supreme court issued an advisory opinion in March that declared the People’s Constitution illegal and said any attempt to enforce it would be considered an act of treason. When Governor King sought a promise of military support from President John Tyler, events quickly assumed a more ominous cast. 22 The charter government enacted a law on April 2 making it a treasonable offense, punishable by life imprisonment, to support or to participate in the government under the People’s Constitution. To the Dorrites this statute confirmed the illegitimacy of the established government, and they labeled it the “Algerine law” after the despotic regimes of North Africa. On April 18, 1842, Dorr was elected governor under the People’s Constitution. On May 3, he was sworn in as the “People’s Governor.”

Shortly after his inauguration, Dorr made an abortive effort to garner political support in the halls of power in Washington, D.C. Northern Democratic senators, such as Silas Wright Jr. of New York and Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire, had an eye to run on a presidential ticket with John Calhoun and were apprehensive about vocally supporting Dorr because it would cost them support within the party. The Rhode Island constitutional crisis occurred at a time when the South was feeling increasingly vulnerable to New England abolitionist attacks upon their peculiar institution. In May 1842, in the midst of the rebellion he was leading against the sitting Rhode Island government, Dorr came to recognize this. In a letter to his close friend Aaron White Jr., Dorr stated that his Jeffersonian doctrine of the people’s sovereignty could be construed to include all men and thus would give white southerners the New Age and Constitutional Advocate, January 14, 1841.

21

Tyler to King, April 11, 1842, in Lyon G. Tyler (ed.), Letters and Times of the Tylers (Richmond, VA, 1885), II:194–96.

22

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false impression that he meant to include slaves in his definition of “the people.”23 To one southern Whig politician, Dorr was supposedly a past “president of an abolition society” and a supporter of “the doctrine” that “a majority, without regard to color or condition,” had “at any time a right to overturn the existing government.”24 Dorr’s past connection to the New England abolitionist movement led many to fear that he would encourage bondsmen to rise up against their masters. Despite all of the race baiting and fear mongering, Dorr was not deterred. There would be no compromise.

On May 17, Dorr wrote a letter to Maine governor John Fairfield asking him to bring what was becoming known as the “Rhode Island Question” before the Maine legislature in order to solicit support for the reform cause. A majority report delivered by a special committee formed to review the struggle in Rhode Island concluded that “when it is manifest, to the general government, that an absolute majority of the whole people of any state in the Union have, in any manner, deliberately abolished their form of government, and instituted a new one that is not inconsistent with the constitution of the United States, it is the duty of the general government to recognize the authorities established under it.”25 In his letter to Fairfield, Dorr dwelled at length on the illegal conduct of President John Tyler. Dorr was adamant that the domestic insurrection clause in the Constitution (Article IV, Section 4) could not be applied to the People’s Government because it was a just and “peaceful” assemblage.26 He changed his mind quickly on this last point, because on the night of May 18, a band of Dorrites trained several cannons on the state arsenal in Providence, where a large contingent of charter militia troops were stationed. Dorr’s brothers, Sullivan and Henry Dorr, his uncle, Crawford Allen, and his brother-in-law, Samuel Ames, who all disagreed with the young Dorr’s resort to violence, were inside. Thankfully, TWD to White, May 12, 1842. Rider Collection, Dorr Correspondence (Box 4, folder 12).

23

William Graham to Paul Cameron, May 20, 1842. Cameron Family Papers. Records of the Antebellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War (Series J—microfilm). American Antiquarian Society.

24

Report of Joint Select Committee to which was referred the Governor’s Message Transmitting a Communication from His Excellency Thomas W. Dorr, Governor of the State of Rhode Island (chaired by Ephraim Smart), May 28, 1842. Maine State Archives.

25

TWD to John Fairfield, May 17, 1842. Maine State Archives. Dorr wrote a similar letter to Connecticut governor Chauncey Cleveland on May 13. See TWD to Cleveland, May 13, 1842. Rider Collection, Dorr Correspondence (Box 4, folder 11).

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the cannons never fired because a light rain prevented Dorr’s men from lighting the cords. Dorr promptly fled into the night. His uncles drove him out of town the next morning so he would not be killed by the charter government militias.

By the end of May, Dorr was in New York City, hiding out amongst radical Democrats, including Levi Slamm, the editor of the Democratic Republican New Era. The People’s Governor remained resolute in his conviction that even though the “arsenal was not captured on the 18th of May,” the People’s Constitution had not “been disposed of by the fate of arms.” The constitution “was now the property of the individual members of the state, until dispensed with by the whole People.” Nothing short of the “principles of the American Independence” was at stake.27 Less than a week after the arsenal fiasco, former president Andrew Jackson, in keeping with his long-held conviction in majority rule, sided with Dorr in a letter to Francis P. Blair.

Jackson boldly declared: “The people are the sovereign power and agreeable to our system, they have a right to alter and amend their system of Government when a majority wills it, as a majority have the right to rule.”28 In a speech in October 1842, Henry Clay, the perennial Whig candidate for the presidency, attacked Jackson’s belief in majority rule and raised the specter of a race war if it was adopted. If slaves were suddenly free, Clay warned, they would “insist upon another part of the same Declaration”—the right to alter and amend their form of government, as Dorr “and his deluded [white] democratic followers recently did in Rhode Island; according to which, an undefined majority have at their pleasure the right to subvert an existing government, and institute a new one in its place, then the whites would be brought in complete subjection to the blacks!”29 Despite the rhetorical support from Old Hickory, the Dorrites were finally defeated one month later in the small village of Chepachet in northern Rhode Island. Doing what he was becoming particularly skilled at, Dorr once again fled into the night.

Quotes from Dorr’s “Notes on the state of the People’s Constitution” at the Gilder Lehrman Collection in New York City.

27

Jackson to Blair, May 23, 1842, in John Spencer Bassett (ed.), Correspondence of Andrew Jackson (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1933), VI:153.

28

“Speech in Richmond, Indiana,” October 1, 1842, in Robert Seager, (ed.), The Papers of Henry Clay (Lexington, KY: University of Press of Kentucky, 1988), 9:780.

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This time Dorr headed north to New Hampshire, where he resided under the protection of Democratic governor Henry Hubbard. When Dorr’s short-lived rebellion was put down and his followers thrown in jail, women formed benevolent associations, staged rallies, organized large clambakes to raise funds, and petitioned the General Assembly for liberation of the male reformers. The Ladies Free Suffrage Association of Pawtucket stipulated in their bylaws that “no lady shall become a member who shall refuse, at any time, to own her principles,” or refuse to “defend the name and character of Governor Dorr.”30 Though Rhode Island women never asserted a claim to suffrage, their political activism illustrated how female political activity was growing in the years before the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. This political consciousness is clearly demonstrated by their alignment with the northern Democracy. In an editorial in the Republican Herald in November 1843, Providence’s Catharine Williams explicitly linked the reform cause in Rhode Island with the Democratic Party and chastised the conduct of the state’s Whigs.31 While Dorr was in exile in New Hampshire, Rhode Islanders once again went to the polls to vote on a constitution. The document contained a one-year residency requirement for freeholders and a two-year residency requirement for native-born citizens who did not own land but owned $134 worth of real property. The latter provision would enable artisans, mechanics, and shopkeepers—many of whom supported Dorr—to vote. However, naturalized citizens still needed to own $134 of landed property in order to exercise the ballot. The constitution was ratified in November 1842 by a vote of 7,024 to 51. Despite the margin of victory, the turnout was far below the numbers that voted for the People’s Constitution in December 1841.

With the adoption of a modern constitution and the dwindling spirit of reform in the state, Dorr returned to Rhode Island in October 1843 and gave himself up to the charter authorities at the office of the Republican Herald. He was quickly put on trial for treason against the state. In a trial that lasted several weeks, Dorr was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor. At the conclusion of his trial, Dorr made an impassioned plea: “From the sentence of the court I appeal to the People of our State and of our Country. They shall decide between us. I commit myself Bay State Democrat, October 5, 1842.

30

Republican Herald, November 25, 1843.

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without distrust to their final award.”32 Quickly, people across the nation who were sympathetic to his cause began clamoring for Dorr’s release from the state prison in Providence. The northern Democratic tagline for the 1844 presidential election was “Polk, Dallas, and the Liberation of Dorr.” In June 1845, exactly one year to the day after Dorr entered the state prison in Providence, he was freed.

In 1851, the Rhode Island General Assembly restored Dorr’s civil and political rights, and three years later his conviction for treason was reversed. The following year, Dorr actively supported his good friend Franklin Pierce in the presidential contest. Dorr was an ardent supporter of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act and its use of popular sovereignty as a cure for the sectional problems that plagued the country. Dorr died in the bedroom where he grew up in his parents’ elegant home on the east side of Providence in December 1854, a year before Kansas delved into a bloodbath. After “Bloody Kansas,” many northerners came to a realization that Dorr never did in his lifetime: democracy included a moral component that was at odds with majoritarianism. In the end, it would take the loss of more than 600,000 lives to settle this crisis of American democracy.

w Erik J. Chaput earned his Ph.D. in Early American History from Syracuse University in 2011. He taught American and World History at Northfield Mount Hermon from 2010-2012. He is the author of The People’s Martyr: Thomas Wilson Dorr and His 1842 Rhode Island Rebellion (University Press of Kansas, 2013). In 2012, Chaput collaborated with long-time NMH faculty member Jim Shea to write Rhode Island and the Establishment Clause: A Curriculum Guide for Secondary Educators, which can be found online at: http://www.rihs.org/establishment clause.html. The author dedicates this article to his friend and fellow Rhode Islander Bill Batty ’59.

Quoted in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review (July 1844), 125.

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Sean Foley: Mount Hermon’s African Students, 1898–1918 Introduction Mount Hermon Boys’ School, established in 1881 by the renowned evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–1899), graduated its first black student in 1889.

Rev. Thomas N. Baker, a former slave, went on to receive a Ph.D. from Yale, and was the first beneficiary of what was a strong tradition of providing opportunity for dispossessed minorities in the school’s fledgling years. Between 1898 and 1918, at the height of New Imperialism, Mount Hermon received four students from Africa.

Two were from Natal, South Africa, and two from Grand Cess, Liberia: Pixley Ka Isaka Seme (1898–1902, class of 1902) and Arthur Bidewell Langa (1910–1911) traveled from the Inanda Mission Station on Africa’s southeast coast, and Plenyono Gbe Wolo (1910–1913, class of 1913) and Ko Wle Gbi Donma (1912–1918, class of 1918) both hailed from Krutown on Africa’s northwest coast.

The historical record indicates extensive networks of communication spanning the Atlantic centered around these students, usually with missionaries as liaisons.

School administrators, teachers, benefactors, family relations, and students themselves were all connected through correspondence. These information networks reveal that an array of individuals acted in concert to place students at Mount Hermon, and that the exchange of information and materials necessary to the students’ placement—and in many ways their success at completing their schooling—was largely out of the hands of the students; an unequal power relationship indicative of the imperial system. In broad strokes, the prevailing objective was for students to receive a Christian education in order to have a positive impact on their African homeland, but there was a spectrum of motivations underlying this common goal.

Ultimately, students were able to assert their own agendas and consequently, in the case of Mount Hermon’s African students, cultural imperialism was by no means unilateral and was in fact empowering to students.

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As members of the elite, the students who arrived at Mount Hermon were viewed as prime candidates to spread the Christian message in their homelands. At the same time, their status afforded them access to the all-important information networks and left them more able to take advantage of the opportunities presented by these networks. While the larger power structures that motivated their study abroad should be considered imperial, the students not only voluntarily participated but actively sought out this education as their own prerogative. While evidence about students’ personal evolution and possible crises of identity is scanty and these travails cannot be ruled out, all students looked back on their time at Mount Hermon positively and it seems to have led to personal betterment in a variety of ways. Indeed, though students were usually supported by benefactors drawn to the idea of facilitating the Christian education of African elites in America, the students themselves were able to simultaneously advance their own secular agenda; they sought practical, scientific higher education that would afford them the ability to have greater control over the sociopolitical environment in which they existed.

Motivations for Study Abroad As Ronald Robinson notes in his essay “Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: A Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration,” local groups were essential to European control in Africa. Colonial administrators worked hand in hand with native leaders, adapting policies to local conditions while offering new sources of power to the indigenous elite. Though not perfectly congruous (as the colonial administration was not closely involved), the families of the two students from Natal were part of a similar mechanism, as they operated under the auspices of the American Zulu Mission (AZM)—more precisely, the Inanda Mission Station— and the pastors Daniel Lindley and Stephen Clapp Pixley. In the same vein, the two students from Grand Cess were affiliated with the Methodist Mission and its leaders, especially Mary Sharp. Part of the benefit of the relationships forged with these Americans was the ability to gain an advantage in terms of education, which is generally viewed by scholars as one of the most significant and distinctive traits of elites.1 For the students from South Africa, this was an important part of jockeying Donn M. Kurtz II, “Education and Elite Integration in Nigeria.” Comparative Education Review 17, no. 1 (February 01, 1973), 58, Accessed April 2, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1186845; Kurtz also points to the following scholars for further reading: J.E. Goldthorpe, An African Elite (Nairobi: Oxford University Press,

1

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for power in the colonial system; for those from Liberia, it was equally important in being able to compete with the Americo-Liberian elites.

Even given these reasons, it nevertheless seems strange that young adults living in Natal and Grand Cess should strive to attend a school in rural Massachusetts roughly 90 miles west-northwest of Boston. It seems hard to imagine that these young adults could so readily perceive these broader dynamics. There were, however, some more tangible reasons that they ended up at Mount Hermon. The first few have to do with “push” factors in their native lands.

Driven by economic motivations (commerce—the third “C” of the imperial mission), colonial administrations were loath to invest in social welfare such as public education; this was left mostly to missionaries who founded mission schools. All four of the students who eventually attended Mount Hermon also studied at mis1965), p. 76; P. Mercier, “The Evolution of Senegalese Elites,” International Social Science Bulletin 8 (1956): 443; K.A. Busia, “The Present Situation and Aspirations of Elites in the Gold Coast,” International Social Science Bulletin 8 (1956): 430–431; and S. Bangani, “An African Elite in South Africa,” International Social Science Bulletin 8 (1956): 435. Kurtz discusses the role of education in the Nigerian elite, ultimately arguing that its effect was divisive among the legislative elite. On the other hand, Thom Kerstiens (The New Elite in Asia and Africa: A Comparative Study of Indonesia and Ghana (New York: Praeger, 1966), p. 9, 11–12; discussed in Kurtz, “Education and Elite Integration”.) argues that foreign education unified the elite’s Western outlook and expanded their understanding on the international level. Similarly, Penelope Roach (Political Socialization in the New Nations of Africa (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1967), pp.22–23; discussed in Kurtz, “Education and Elite Integration”.) claims that foreign education was the “most important socializing agency,” as it functioned to communicate social and political values, while Hugh and Mable Smythe (The New Nigerian Elite (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960), pp. 63–64; discussed in Kurtz, “Education and Elite Integration”.) observe that foreign education imparted valuable experiences such as interaction with Europeans. Mazi Okoro Ojiaku and Gene Urlansky (“Early Nigerian Response to American Education.” Phylon (1960-) 33, no. 4 (December 01, 1972): 380–88. Accessed April 1, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/273685.), like Kurtz, deal with the Nigerian elite and foreign education, focusing specifically on the reasons for, and response to, American education. Their account is broader in its scope insofar as their study treats the Nigerian elite at large while Kurtz focuses on the legislative cross-section. Ojiaku and Ulansky, like Kersteins, Roach, and the Smythes, by and large focus on the constructive effects of this education while discussing the obstacles that Nigerian students had to overcome in achieving it. Much in the same vein, Barbara Yates (“Educating Congolese Abroad: An Historical Note on African Elites.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 14, no. 1 (1981): 34–64. Accessed March 19, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/218113.) focuses her study on the institutional attitudes toward education in the Belgian Congo. The work of these scholars does a great deal to contextualize the motivations of the actors involved in the students’ networks and the prevailing attitudes toward foreign education in Africa. Robert Trent Vinson and Robert Edgar (“Zulus Abroad: Cultural Representations and Educational Experiences of Zulus in America, 1880–1945.” Journal of Southern African Studies 33, no. 1 (March 01, 2007): 43–62. Accessed March 2, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25065170.), rather than closely studying the effect of foreign education at home, focus on the other side of the Atlantic, discussing the experience of Zulu students abroad.

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sion schools. They were lucky in this sense, for the vast majority of indigenes were unable to receive even this education; nevertheless, the students felt constrained by the lack of opportunity for further study. Langa lamented in a letter to Henry Franklin Cutler, headmaster of Mount Hermon that “Education for the Natives here [Natal] is very poor there is no higher education”2 and Wolo, after graduating from the College of West Africa, still felt the need to enroll in an American preparatory school. In addition to the dearth of educational opportunities, in Natal a series of environmental catastrophes—a locust plague, Rinderpest, and East Coast Fever—during the 1890s and early 1900s may have encouraged families to send their sons abroad.3 Langa remarked on the devastation in a letter to Cutler: “In adding to what I have said, All we zulus are poor. Our cattle are dying, our only thing we depend. Therefore my father is not able to pay me in school and at the same time, it is my wish to come there believing that God will help me to work my way through.”4 Complementing these push factors were a variety of attractive forces. American education was particularly appealing to Africans because it was scientific and practical. Graduates of American schools “were seen as capable of applying science and technology to social problems.”5 This was evidenced by industrious members of the elite who had studied abroad before, such as John Dube, who founded the Ohlange Native Industrial Institute in South Africa in 1901. Indeed, the industrial or agricultural schools such as Hampton and Tuskegee “which combined an ethos of self-help, morality and thrift with the training of teachers, the learning of trades, agricultural production, and domestic science—[were seen by Zulus] as an ideal vehicle for black advancement and helped transfer those standards to South Africa.”6 This is substantiated by the fact that Donma attended St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School in Virginia before making his way to Mount Hermon; that Wolo Arthur Bidewell Langa (ABL) to Henry Franklin Cutler (HFC), June 30, 1909. Student file 6493MH, Northfield Mount Hermon Archives, Gill, MA. (all student files will henceforth be referenced only by the file number).

2

Charles Ballard, “The Repercussions of Rinderpest: Cattle Plague and Peasant Decline in Colonial Natal.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 19, no. 3 (January 01, 1986): 421–450. Accessed April 1, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/218974.

3

ABL to HFC, June 30, 1909, 6493MH.

4

Ojiaku and Olansky, p. 382.

5

Vinson and Edgar, p. 56.

6

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described scientific agriculture as the profession he wished to enter; and that Langa desired to become a doctor. Additional factors motivating these students to study abroad may have included the limited availability of English-speaking educational institutions, the existence of historically black institutions in the United States, and the perception that America’s wealth stemmed from its educational system; however these motives are not substantiated by their student files.7 The missionaries who taught these students desired to train them for missionary work. These designs were universal among the mission organizations and “considerable emphasis” was placed on bringing the plans to fruition.8 In particular, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which had established the American Zulu Mission (AZM) in Natal in 1835 and the Methodist Mission School in Grand Cess in 1889, placed a high premium on training black missionaries. Indeed, Dr. Samuel Hopkins—one of the foundational influences that established the ABCFM in 1810—argued as early as 1770 that black missionaries were essential in Africa. By 1847, the ABCFM claimed “the work of evangelising Western Africa must be mainly upon the colored race. [sic]”9 The arguments behind this policy were mixed, and reflected racism and economic motivations rather than a desire to empower the natives. In the first place, the ABCFM cited the constitutional advantage blacks had over whites in weathering the African climate.10 This advantage was believed to be inherent not only in native Africans, but in African Americans as well, reflecting the hardening of racial categories; race was internalized and was no longer solely determined by geography.11 Economic advantages were also clear: “Native agents offered obvious economies. Europeans were expensive as missionaries in terms of training, conditions of service, and life expectancy; African Americans cost considerably less, while Africans came Ojiaku and Olansky, p. 382–386.

7

David Killingray, “The Black Atlantic Missionary Movement and Africa, 1780s–1920s,”Journal of Religion in Africa 33, no. 1 (February 01, 2003): 15. Accessed April 2, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1581633.

8

Ibid, p.8. It is interesting to note that part of Moody’s motivation for founding Mount Hermon was that he believed poor, disadvantaged young men could more effectively convey the Christian message to their own demographic.

9

Ibid, pp. 8–9, 12.

10

This is touched on in numerous works. For more, see the Concepts of Race in the Nineteenth Century Series, (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2002).

11

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at knock-down prices.”12 It was also widely viewed as advantageous to entrust the civilizing mission to properly trained Africans. This view was championed by Alexander Crummel, whose sermon “How shall Africa be redeemed?” exclaimed that “the sons of Africa themselves must be the agents of Christianity” in what he saw as the vital work of “‘regeneration’ in the continent.”13 These institutional motivations undoubtedly affected the individual work of each of the missionaries who played such a large role in placing the students at Mount Hermon, Stephen Clapp Pixley for Seme, James Dexter Taylor for Langa, J. A. Simpson and Alexander Priestly Camphor for Wolo, and Mary Sharp for Donma. Missionaries such as these, placed in the context of institutional motivations, will undoubtedly be viewed by many as cultural imperialists. However, the students’ own desire to attend Mount Hermon and their collaboration with these missionaries to achieve this end is also apparent.

Also complicit in achieving this end were the families of the students. All of the students came from the regional elite. In the case of Seme and Langa, both were from kholwa (Christian convert) families of the Qadi chiefdom. While Seme’s parents were deceased at the time of his application to Mount Hermon, he was encouraged through the process by his good friend and future brother-in-law, John Dube. Langa’s father, who was intimately connected to the mission church, encouraged him to study abroad. Less is known of Donma’s and Wolo’s families, and it is unclear whether they had similar support and encouragement. Like Seme, Wolo received the assistance and encouragement of a friend, Dihdwo Twe. Wolo then “paid it forward” to Donma, for whom he filled out an application and wrote a recommendation.

Obstacles To and Determinants Of Success Three of the four students graduated Mount Hermon, matriculating to institutions of higher learning. Seme went on to Columbia University, Wolo to Harvard, and Donma to Pennsylvania State University. It is unclear whether Langa, the only one who failed to graduate, went on to higher education. A key question is what contributed to the success of the three graduates, and the relative failure of Langa. The Killingray, p .9.

12

Quoted in ibid, p. 13.

13

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single most important determinant in the success of the students was their ability to secure support from a range of different actors: missionaries, benefactors, and friends who had studied abroad as well. Though the students were interested in self-reliance, the breadth of their support network was crucial to overcoming the numerous obstacles that stood in their path.

Before arriving at Mount Hermon, the students had to overcome institutional resistance to their studying abroad. Ojiaku and Ulansky point to two reasons for this resistance: that the upper echelon of colonial officials failed to understand the role of university education or the importance of the professions for which it prepared students, and because colonial officials believed themselves accountable for the traditional people, a group alien to both students and intellectuals.14 Additionally, in the second half of the 19th century, the American Zulu Mission was resistant to native leadership on some level, preferring instead to instate white supervisors.15 This was true in the case of Stephen Clapp Pixley’s appointment at the Inanda mission station, and though this did not prevent Seme and Langa from studying abroad, it reflects a broader institutional attitude that was partly hostile to their success.

Similarly, the Americo-Liberian elite were hostile to native leadership. Recaptives and their colleagues viewed themselves “as the agents of Christian civilization in an Africa sorely in need,” and any “‘defence of the traditional rulers’ as the proper legates of the British could be nothing but an argument in favor of the unrepentant savagery which, as they rather understandably saw it, had delivered their parents to the slaving ships and enslavement in the Americas.”16 This attitude applied especially to the Kru, of which Wolo and Donma were both a part, because of their prominent role in facilitating the slave trade. All four of the students were able to overcome these obstacles by forging alliances with missionaries, and in the case of all but Langa, by receiving assistance from friends who had studied abroad before.

Important but not essential to the success of these students at Mount Hermon was the material support they received from benefactors. Seme had the greatest number of benefactors with seven, four of whom provided major support for his tuition and board. Langa may have had several benefactors, but there are no records of the Ojiaku and Ulansky, p. 381.

14

Hughes, p. 381.

15

Davidson, pp. 26, 33.

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school receiving money from them. If they did send money or other aid, it must have gone directly to Langa. He was assisted by at least four benefactors (though it seems that none of them gave him truly substantial support), but he may also have been helped by three others. Wolo received substantial support from one benefactor, and also received smaller sums from four others. Donma was lent a small amount of assistance by five donors, and was also given substantial financial support by one other. It is important to note that the vast majority of these benefactors were motivated by Christian beneficence and attracted to the idea of supporting an African student in their Christian endeavors.

While this support was undoubtedly beneficial to the students, it is hard to say whether it determined their success at the school. It is clear that Seme had the most support, but not as clear whether Langa or Donma had the least in terms of total dollar values. It seems likely that the more able students appeared more promising and received more assistance. Both Wolo and Seme exhibited a higher level of literacy and were more highly regarded than Langa and Donma during their time at Mount Hermon. In describing Donma to a colleague, Cutler explained that he was “much the same type of boy as Wolo, although not so far advanced, and apparently not so capable.�17 All the same, Donma graduated Mount Hermon and went on to Penn State. It also seems unfair to say that Langa did not make it through the school for lack of support. Donma paid almost all of his tuition, and all of the young men worked during terms off to defray their expenses.

It also seems unlikely that spending time in America prior to attending Mount Hermon had a significant effect in their success or failure. Seme worked in East Northfield before enrolling, and Donma attended St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School. While longer immersion in American culture and society might have helped Langa adapt to Mount Hermon, Wolo also arrived just before enrolling and did not experience the difficulties Langa did. More than anything, the students were concerned with their financial position, not their cultural difficulties. Even Seme was worried that he would not be able to return to Mount Hermon for the fall of 1899 because he was short on money after working all summer.18

HFC to William Revell Moody, October 28, 1913, 6784MH.

17

Pixley Ka Isaka Seme (PS) to HFC, August 22, 1899, 2488MH.

18

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That being said, race was a dominant theme in this time period, and racism was both an obstacle students had to overcome and one of the important influences they were exposed to. In response to abolitionism that advocated immediate liberation of slaves in the mid-19th century, new and virulent strains of racism emerged in America. Scientific racism, which spread throughout the world, was first touted in America, and the dehumanizing polygenesis theories of figures such as Samuel George Morton were part of a dark but vibrant discourse in American academe.19 A softer racism, falling well short of the egregious and extravagant racism of polygenesis, is visible in the correspondence contained in several of the students’ files, sometimes exhibited by members of the network that supported them. It is difficult to say with any certainty the overarching effects that American racism had on these students, but its prominence in the American imagination must have influenced the students’ experiences. Mount Hermon itself was not bereft of racial tensions. While it appears to have fostered a strong feeling of community and belonging among the African students in this study, it also drew some fierce allegations of closeted racism.

The most forceful example of this is a letter from a graduate of 1902 (the same class as Seme), Richard Birnie: I believe if some one, who knows the inside workings of the office at Mt. Hermon, had the moral courage and manhood to tell the truth, it would transpire that Mt. Hermon does not want to see too many black faces on the campus as it does not look well; and besides it may offend the sensibilities of some southern gentlemen. The usual cringing in the face of southern prejudice. When you [Cutler] stop to consider yourself in the capacity of an educator, and most especially as a Christian educator who likes to talk of the “Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Christ,” you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. Instead of helping the weak and the oppressed, you have joined hands with the oppressor. 20 This letter, penned in 1912, seems at least in part contradicted by the fact that both Donma and Wolo were enrolled in the school that year, but the important fact For more,see Robert Bernasconi, American Theories of Polygenesis, Vol. 1, Concepts of Race in the Nineteenth Century Series, (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2002), and George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914, (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1971).

19

Richard Birnie to HFC, October 15, 1912, 2623MH.

20

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remains that the students of Mount Hermon were at the very least exposed to a heightened racial consciousness.

Arriving at Mount Hermon Just as there were larger dynamics that drew these students abroad and to America, there were others that drew them to Mount Hermon in particular. The reasons for studying in America have already been touched on: push factors at home, their ability to speak English, the scientific practicality of American schooling, the availability of predominantly black institutions, and the belief that America’s wealth flowed from its education system. If these were the only factors motivating these students and their networks, Mount Hermon would not quite have fit the bill.

However, Mount Hermon had another feature that attracted these students and motivated their supporters: its reputation as a Christian educational institution.

The explicit desire for a Christian education is apparent in the applications of all four students. Dihdwo Twe, who filled out Wolo’s application and was also one of the wealthiest Liberians at the time,21 claimed that his reason for sending Wolo to Mount Hermon was “Because I realize that to help our people effectively and successfully our education must be thorough in scientific knowledge and strong in Christian training. I believe and know that he’ll get the right kind of Christian training at Mt. H-.”22 Sukuzwayo Langa, filling out his son’s application, wrote, “To get be instructed so that when he returns, he may be able through Christ to help the Zulu peoples by lifting them up into the light.”23 These quotations reveal not only the religious motivations behind the choice of Mount Hermon, but also the desire to transfer knowledge and culture from America back to Africa. This goal was shared by everyone involved with the students’ education. Mary Sharp ended a letter to Cutler with a summary of the mission: “You have good material, put the Northfield brand upon them, send them home equipped for our king’s service.

Yours be Africa’s Redemption.”24 Twe also published an article: “Liberia: An American Responsibility.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 282 (July 01, 1952): 104-07. Accessed April 19, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1030547.

21

Dihdwo Twe, Application Blank, Mount Hermon Boys’ School, April 25, 1914, 6547MH.

22

Sukuzwayo Langa, Application Blank, Mount Hermon Boys’ School, Aug 10, 1909, 6493MH.

23

Mary Sharp to HFC, March 1, 1911, 6784MH.

24

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At the turn of the century, Mount Hermon was a thoroughly religious institution that encouraged those with a desire for Christian education to apply. In the same vein, drawing African students was in line with the school’s interests to spread the Christian faith, a central tenet of the school’s mission. It was during a summer conference hosted by Dwight Lyman Moody in 1886 that the international Student Volunteer Movement began when one hundred students—the “Mount Hermon Hundred”—signed a pact, pledging, “It is my purpose, if God permit, to become a foreign missionary,” and that they would achieve “The Evangelization of the World in This Generation.”25 The movement would eventually spread, and “by 1911, there were reportedly thirty-four thousand students committed to missionary work and five thousand who had already gone abroad.”26Missionaries were likely acquainted with this movement and also with the Northfield Conferences that birthed it, making Mount Hermon a viable option in their designs to train native Africans for missionary work.

It is also important to note that all of the missionaries who sent students to America were affiliated with the ABCFM and were Americans themselves. In fact, “virtually all of [the American Board missionaries] were from New England”27 and were therefore more likely to know of the range of New England schools of which Mount Hermon was a part. Of similar importance are the religious affiliations of the institutions. The ABCFM was founded as a Congregationalist organization but embraced a variety of denominations (for instance, in Liberia the mission was decidedly Methodist), and Mount Hermon was explicitly nondenominational, also accepting of a variety of Protestant adherents. These liberal attitudes were also present in individuals such as John Dube, who was ordained as a Congregationalist minister, and Percy S. Grant, who was an Episcopalian with a rather close relationship with Congregationalism.

Both Mount Hermon and the ABCFM grew out of the Second and Third Great Awakenings (c. 1800–1870 and 1880s–early 1900s, respectively). The Third Great Awakening in particular was part of a larger movement toward social, political, and Pollock, p. 254.

25

William S. Saunders, “Renewing Souls” in Hamilton, Lift Thine Eyes, p. 90.

26

“American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.” Oklahoma State University. Accessed April 8, 2012. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AM002.html.

27

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economic reform that attempted to redress an extensive spectrum of grievances in the wake of the Gilded Age and the “long depression” that began in 1873. Child labor, public health, women’s suffrage, environmental conservation, corruption, fraud, monopolies, and of course alcohol were all taken up through broad-based social movements. All of these movements were supported by the growth of religious denominations and the spread of evangelism.28 The close linkage of religion and social activism must have been inspiring to the African students who studied at Mount Hermon, and surely influenced the missionaries and benefactors who supported them.

Dwight Lyman Moody was at the vanguard of the Third Great Awakening, and harnessed the religious fervor to fund the building and maintenance of his schools.

The Christian character of Mount Hermon was very much woven into its fabric, as it even received its name from Psalm 133. The Christian mission of the school is also visible in its heavy emphasis on religious study. There were daily chapel exercises and two on Sundays, and students were required to take a Bible class during every term they were enrolled. While it doesn’t seem that the missionaries or most of the benefactors had personal connections to Mount Hermon, they were most likely familiar with Moody, who was recognized as “the world’s most celebrated preacher of his day.” 29 He traveled to Great Britain in 1869 and in 1873–1875 to preach, drawing crowds of fifteen thousand;30 the Northfield Conferences, which ran every summer from 1880 to 1950, drew as many as five thousand people annually.31 Moody is reputed to have saved more than a million souls for Christ.

For more on the Third Great Awakening, see Nathan Hatch’s Democratization of American Christianity (1991), Molly Oshatz’s Slavery and Sin (2011), and Grant Wacker’s Religion in Nineteenth Century America (2000). Hatch explains the rise of a number of popular religious sects at the turn of the 19th century, finding that they shared in common entrepreneurial leaders who built their movements democratically; Dwight Lyman Moody was certainly one of these “take-charge entrepreneurs,” and also exhibited similar concerns as members of the Social Gospel movement, commonly associated with Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch. Oshatz argues that the impetus for these progressive Christian movements lay in earlier antislavery movements; the paradigms formed during the antebellum period incorporated a notion of “social sin” integral to the Third Great Awakening. Wacker offers an expansive account of the many religious movements and their prominent figures, examining D. L. Moody directly.

28

Cate Doty, “The Evangelist,” in Hamilton, Lift Thine Eyes, p. 33.

29

Ibid, p.40.

30

Saunders, “Renewing Souls,” p. 85.

31

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Somewhat secluded from the other schools in the area—Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Williston Northampton, and Deerfield—Northfield and Mount Hermon were founded for different purposes than other New England private schools. The stated purpose of Mount Hermon was “To help young men of very limited means to get an education such as would have done me good when I was their age.”32As such, the school was not intended as a college preparatory institution. Though this slowly changed over time, the students who attended Mount Hermon were usually those who needed rudimentary education, and the average age of the student body was over 20 well into the 1920s, with the minimum age for application being 16. This meant that the school’s target demographic matched well with that of the African students. All had received some education, but required further support; all of them hadn’t the means to attend more expensive schools. Seme was roughly 17 when he enrolled, Langa claimed to be 20, Donma was roughly 19, and Wolo was likely a similar age, though his exact age is unknown.

The same Christian beneficence that helped fund these students’ education also contributed to the financial support of the school they attended. Moody was able to leverage his popularity to secure capital from public figures such as Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., William E. Dodge Sr., James Talcott, G.M. Atwater, and S.H. Greenlief.33 Moody also gained a great deal of money from royalties on his hymnals: “The English edition of the hymnal Sacred Songs and Solos, published in London in 1873, and the American edition that followed, Gospel Hymns, earned more than $357,000 during their first ten years, and an estimated $1.25 million during the first twenty.”34 In conjunction with the heavy evangelical influence on the school were distinctly secular aims. The Schools’ Examination Board of Harvard University reviewed Mount Hermon in 1893, finding that religious thought did not restrict new ideas in education and that “the spirit of Mount Hermon in this respect was distinctly progressive.”35 This, of course, could have been colored by the fact that Harvard was a virtual Unitarian training center, but nonetheless speaks to the school’s multifac Dwight Lyman Moody, quoted on the Mount Hermon Boys’ School letterhead.

32

Karen Lange, “The Founding Decade,” in Hamilton, Lift Thine Eyes, p. 67.

33

Ibid. William S. Saunders argues that the hymnals had earned more than $2 million by 1900.

34

Day, p. 109.

35

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eted purpose, which was to “furnish for earnest Christian young men who desire to serve the Master, opportunities to secure a better preparation for such service, whether in professional or business life, than otherwise would be within their reach.”36 The school certainly represented another chapter in Moody’s career as an evangelist, but also sought to project Christian influence into the secular world. Indeed, the school was a happy medium for the African students who desired to continue their Christian education but wanted to receive a practical education as well.

Although Mount Hermon differed from the industrial schools such as Hampton and Tuskegee that attracted a large number of African students, it embodied many of the values that these schools stood for, especially self-help. One of the distinguishing features of the school that exists to this day is its work program, “for which the school depended almost entirely for its existence.”37 Students worked an average of 13½ hours per week. They “cooked the meals, ran the dining hall and a laundry, helped run the school farm, which included taking care of a large herd of cows and other livestock as well as planting, cultivating, and harvesting, cleaned the buildings and did other plant maintenance, cleared the playing fields and cared for the grounds.”38 Students also engaged in major projects such as clearing out rocks and filling in land to make athletic fields in 1890, damming a brook to create an artificial lake in 1891, and contributing to the construction of the school’s Memorial Chapel, which was completed in 1898. Additionally, more than one-third of the students were self-supporting, a reality made more feasible by the fact that a proportion of the students’ expenses were covered by donations, which drove the cost down.39

Day, p. 105 (emphasis added). To qualify, the school sought to furnish Protestant Christian young men with these opportunities. There was general intolerance toward Catholics. This is evidenced by the fact that it wasn’t until 1967 that the first Catholic priest spoke in the memorial library. In contrast, several rabbis were invited to speak in the 1940s and 1950s.

36

Day, p. 110.

37

Day, p. 110.

38

Day, p. 103. For more on the racial uplift movement, particularly in America, see Jacqueline M. Moore, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift, and Kevin K. Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century.

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The Inanda and Grand Cess Missions The Christian communities at Inanda and Grand Cess featured a complex set of relationships among those that lived within their bounds and those that adhered to more traditional lifeways. This background suggests that the character ambiguities that the work of Shula Marks and Heather Hughes has defined in John Dube also existed in Seme, Langa, Wolo, and Donma to a certain extent. These communities did not exist in isolation, and though their members were often more able to navigate socioeconomic changes and thereby accrue greater wealth than their traditionalist counterparts, they were also well acquainted with indigenous cultures. They retained some old customs to varying degrees and were part of indigenous social structures. For example, Myra Dinnerstein’s article deals with the clash between the AZM and converts who revived African customs such as “lobolo” (brideswealth) in the mid-19th century, and Merran Fraenkel notes that the Christian community in Grand Cess continued to recognize age-set relations and familial duties. At the same time, the Zulu kholwa community referred to traditionalists as “the outside people,”40 and the Christian community in Grand Cess self-consciously dubbed their town “the kwi klo,” or “white man’s town,” where people lived like white men.41 The complexities and contradictions of these relationships engendered ambiguous identities in all of the students who attended Mount Hermon.

The Inanda mission was founded in 1847 by Daniel and Lucy Lindley, and received its first convert, the widow of the Qadi chief, in 1849. James Dube, John Dube’s father, became the pastor of the Inanda church in 1873, which led to a strengthening of the alliance between the mission and the Qadi chief, Mughawe. Stephen Clapp Pixley took over the mission after Lindley’s death, and instituted a somewhat more hardline stance toward convert-traditionalist relations, which led to conflict with Mughawe.42 John Dube and other elites—including the Semes—threw support behind Mughawe, which led to tension between Dube and Pixley. In spite of this history, Pixley was one of Seme’s greatest supporters and collaborated with Dube in placing him at Mount Hermon. This speaks to Pixley’s genuine interest in Seme.

Hughes, p. 447.

40

Fraenkel, p. 157.

41

Hughes, p .454–455.

42

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The Liberian mission began in 1833, but Fraenkel claims that the first American Methodist missionaries only arrived in Grand Cess in 1889. Though the Liberian mission was not Congregationalist, it was still affiliated with the ABCFM. According to Fraenkel, the division between the “Big town,” as the traditionalists called their settlement, and the kwi klo in 1910 was largely precipitated by their presence and tutelage. A strict Methodist observance was instituted in the kwi klo, which emphasized the divide between the communities despite continued practice of some customs. Major figures in the Methodist mission were Dr. A.P. Camphor, an African American missionary who served as principal of the Monrovia Seminary, founded the College of West Africa, and became the first bishop of Africa elected by the United Methodist Church in 1916, and Mary Sharp, who founded the Mary Sharp Memorial Church in 1876. Though missionaries may have only made inroads into Grand Cess in 1889, both Donma and Wolo had contact with older mission institutions: Mary Sharp was personally familiar with both of them, and Wolo was under the instruction of Camphor at the College of West Africa.

Seme The attention historians have given Pixley Ka Isaka Seme dwarfs that devoted to any of the other three students. This is because of his central importance to the history of South Africa and of the African National Congress (ANC). He was the founder of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), the antecedent of the ANC, and served as president of the ANC from 1930 to 1937. His student file was examined for the first time by Richard Rive in 1987, and it was these documents that formed a substantial basis for his collaborative effort with Tim Couzens.

Seme is one of Mount Hermon’s most famous graduates, and his success later on in life is attributable in part to his education there. Christopher Saunders claims that Seme’s Mount Hermon student file is of negligible importance, not only because “many of the documents in ‘the Mount Hermon School file’ are so inconsequential that it may be questioned whether they were worth printing” but also because “Seme’s high school career is…less interesting and important than his career at university.”43 While Saunders makes a convincing argument that Seme’s correspondence with Alain L. Locke is more insightful into his intellectual development Christopher Saunders, pp. 196–197.

43

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than the correspondence in his Mount Hermon file, to say that the file is worthless is a gross overstatement. It is the only record of his earliest years in America, and informs an understanding of the nuances involved in Seme’s early interactions with the imperial system he eventually devoted his life to dismantling.

Seme’s correspondence with Henry Franklin Cutler details a strong affinity for Mount Hermon that reflects a profound influence on his life. In 1904, he wrote to Cutler asking for a subscription to Hermon’s Record of Christian Work in order to stay abreast of the school’s operations abroad, and also claimed, “Mount Hermon will always have a dear spot, in my heart. She told me how to build my life on the rock. I pray that her blessed influence may still be possible for poor boys like me.”44Again, in 1908, Seme wrote , “I hope to visit the USA before I sail for my mother land. In that case I would visit Mt. Hermon.”45 In his own words, Seme felt that his Christian faith became “Much clearer” during his time at Mount Hermon.46 While the student file is not so abounding as to allow one to track all of the ideas that influenced him while he was at Hermon, there are nevertheless important insights into his thoughts. For instance, in 1911, one year before the founding of the SANNC, Seme divulged that “What Africa needs most are christian whitemen and these among us are very few.”47 This interesting reflection reveals the intense ambiguities of his sentiments that were often masked by nationalistic rhetoric during his political career.

Seme’s file also reveals a great deal about the network that brought him to the United States, placing him in a position to attend Columbia University as an undergraduate and Oxford University as a law student. One of the most striking aspects of the record is the collaboration between Dube and Pixley in securing Seme’s education despite their conflicts over the leadership of Inanda. Pixley even cites Dube as an example of the differences an American education might make in Seme’s life.48 Both Dube and Pixley entered their own names as Seme’s guardian,

PS to HFC, December 21, 1904, 2488MH.

44

PS to HFC, September 5, 1908, 2488MH.

45

PS, Survey, 1901, 2488MH.

46

PS to HFC Cutler, January 20, 1911, 2488MH.

47

SCP to HFC, August 13, 1898, 2488MH.

48

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and both contributed half of the funds necessary for Seme’s first year’s study.49 Dube had indicated that he expected his friend Louis Stoiber to pay for Seme’s board and tuition, but Stoiber never seems to have donated to the cause. Instead, when Seme was short on money after the summer of 1899 and did not think he would be able to return to school, help came from other benefactors. While working at The Northfield, a hotel in East Northfield, Seme met Frances L. Stinison, who became aware of his financial woes. She contacted H.B. Silliman, a major donor, who made a gift of $10,000 for a science hall in 1902,50 who in turn forwarded her letter to Cutler. This agitation, along with that of S.C. Pixley, seems to have produced results. In August, Mrs. Elise Smith of Holyoke, Massachusetts, donated the $100 for Seme’s full year of tuition and board, but requested, at the behest of Pixley, that Seme not be told of this development.51 Two months later, A.J. Breinig, the secretary and treasurer for Allentown Manufacturing Co. in Allentown, Pennsylvania, offered to pick up Seme’s bill for the following year. Seme worked for Breinig the summer after he graduated Mount Hermon, just as he worked every summer when his financial fecundity was kept secret from him.

Seme also received more modest support from Harriet Doubleday, who bought him a set of clothes; Miss Crane, about whom little is available in the file; and I.A. Beals, who sent Seme $5 on New Year’s Day 1903. Interestingly enough, Beals also refers to S.C. Pixley as Seme’s uncle. A major reason for the tremendous support Seme received seems to be the impression that he left on those who came into contact with him. Unlike Langa, who would follow him to Mount Hermon, Seme was at every turn admired and supported. Langa, on the other hand, was constantly being drawn into question. The other striking feature is the role of Rev. Pixley, who was almost as much at the center of Seme’s network as Seme himself, especially when it came to raising funds. No other student had quite the same advantage, and Seme seems to have recognized this when he changed his first name to Pixley upon his admission to the school, an honor that the reverend did not seem wholly comfortable with.52 John Langalibalele Dube (JLB) to HFC, September 4, 1898. SCP to HFC, September 5, 1898, 2488MH.

49

New York Times. “Gift to Mount Hermon School.” August 18, 1902, p. 7. Accessed April 2, 2012. http://query. nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A0CE0DA113DEE32A2575BC1A96E9C946397D6CF.

50

Elise Smith to Dwight Lyman Moody, October 24, 1899, 6493MH.

51

SCP to HFC, August 13, 1898, 2488MH.

52

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Excluding these exceptional features, Seme shared a great deal in common with the other students. He attended Amanzimtoti before Mount Hermon, and shared the desire for a scientific education, especially when he first began his tenure at Mount Hermon. That year, he indicated on a student survey that he hoped to enter the field of medicine. In his second year, his sights were set on becoming a missionary.

In his third year, he wrote that he was undecided about his career path, and in his last year he simply left the field blank.53 This development reflects a growing independence from his mentors Dube and Pixley. Dube likely encouraged the practical career path of medicine, while Pixley from the start had hoped Seme would become “a Christian teacher for our Zulu people.”54 Seme’s changing self-perception is also visible in his addition of “Ka Isaka,” son of Isaac, to his name. It is a most poetic twist that he adopted the name of an American missionary while “Africanizing” his father’s very Western name before assuming it. At the same time, Seme also requested “the best new colored fellow”55 for a roommate his last term, and if there wasn’t one he would prefer no roommate at all. This hints at a vague stirring of his later Pan-Africanism, or perhaps to the growing race consciousness that he would later propound in “The Regeneration of Africa,” an oratory that won him the Curtis Medal at Columbia University.

Langa Arthur Bidewell Langa is the only one of the four African students who did not graduate from Mount Hermon or, it appears, go on to higher education. Thus, he is something of an outlier in this small study and deserves more careful attention than the other students. On one level, Langa’s relative failure speaks to the imperial system at work: Langa was less compliant than the other three students, and was in a sense a victim of his inability to fit into the required mold. Asserting his individual aims over those of the school once he arrived, he was not invited back. However, his bullheadedness and the continued assistance he received from missionaries despite numerous transgressions suggest that it was in fact Langa who refused to partake in the multilateral negotiations that were available to him.

PS, Survey, 1901, 2488MH.

53

SCP to HFC, August 13, 1898, 2488MH.

54

PS to Professor Dickerson, August 22, 1901, 2488MH.

55

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He was only at Mount Hermon for two terms from 1910 to 1911, but for a person who attended the school for so short a period of time his student file is incredibly robust. Part of this is because of the awkward positions he continually put himself in, but also because he had incredible energy. He tried to juggle as much as he could at any one time, and the result was a great deal of correspondence about a variety of projects. Unfortunately for him, his singular lack of focus also resulted in paralysis, preventing him from reaching any of his goals. In spite of this, he never ceased struggling to shape his environment to his will and to achieve his goals.

There is a sense of urgency that pervades his record—he constantly tried to accelerate his progress through school in order to reach his final destination.

Langa’s plans for his final destination were clear from the start. Like the other students, he sought a higher-quality, scientific education. His ultimate goal was to become a doctor, and help his people in doing so: “Before telling you something else, I must tell you why I want to come there. The reason I want to be a doctor.

The other I want to get higher education. These reasons are partly the only reasons why I want to come there.”56 His father, Sukuzwayo Langa, had similar designs for his son’s future. When filling out the application blank for entry into Mount Hermon, his reasons for sending him to the school were, “To get an education that will help him and his people. To study higher branches.”57 Sukuzwayo was a lay pastor and served one of the “native churches” in Natal,58 but also appears to have been a somewhat wealthy farmer.59 Bidewell not only shared many of his father’s goals, but also possessed the same Christian zeal. When discussing his reasons for becoming a doctor, he claimed, “My purpose in life is to be a doctor so that through Christ, I may be able to bring ABL to HFC, June 30 1909, 6493MH.

56

Sukuzwayo Langa, Application Blank, Mount Hermon Boys’ School, Aug 10, 1909, 6493MH.

57

James Dexter Taylor (JDT) to HFC, April 26 1909, 6493.

58

As Heather Hughes notes, the term “farmer” was of cultural as well as economic significance, “deliberately chosen to distinguish them from ‘Native cultivators’ (a term in general use to describe traditionalist agriculture), thereby associating themselves with other commercial (white) farmers.” Both Langa and Seme were defined as “farmers” on their application blanks, Langa being so defined by his father, and Seme by Dube. Though the test group is too small to be of statistical significance in affirming Hughes’s assertion, it is interesting that both Wolo and Donma were not listed as farmers on their application blanks, and that on the blank filled in by S. C. Pixley, Seme’s occupation was that of a “‘Cowboy.’” Of course, Sukuzwayo’s desire to affiliate his son with the West is ever visible in his name.

59

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those I shall work to them to Christ etc.” 60 His father’s commitment to the American Zulu Mission won the support of James Dexter Taylor, a missionary affiliated with the ABCFM.61 Taylor facilitated Langa’s entry into Mount Hermon by acting as a liaison between him and Cutler, also forwarding him catalog and application materials. In 1909, when Langa’s entry was first secured, Taylor was living in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was undoubtedly very familiar with Mount Hermon and Moody’s legacy. He knew of Pixley Seme’s tenure at Mount Hermon, and used the fact that Langa also attended Amanzimtoti as an angle to have him accepted to Mount Hermon.62 Though it would have been advantageous to have Taylor in the vicinity of the school while Langa was there, Taylor returned to South Africa soon after Langa arrived in the States, and was unable to help him navigate the new place. Taylor nevertheless stayed in contact with Langa and lent him support from a distance.

Bidewell was very much his own man, and never fully acquiesced to the desires of his father, Taylor, his teachers, or other influences he came into contact with. He represented an amalgamation of identities and asserted them all at once, though never seemed to fully reconcile them. In one letter he argued that, based on Zulu traditions, he should be called Bidewell, his very Western name: I wish you would call me Bidewell for none of you is able to say “Langa” correctly. It is a zulu name and you often pronounce it with English inflection which does not suit it. Moreover a Zulu is not to be called by the last name till he is over or 30 years old. The last name does not suit me now. There ought not to be confusion about it since it is right. But I wish you will call me by my first name Bidewell. [sic] 63

ABL to HFC, June 30 1909, 6493MH.

60

Taylor was also the author of several books and articles including The American Board Mission in South Africa; A Sketch of Seventy-Five Years (Durban: John Singleton & Sons, 1911), Amanzimtoti: The Hampton of Natal, (ABCFM: 1918), and “The Problems of Zulu Bible Revision.” The article is available in Harvard University’s Houghton Library, ABCFM African Missions Record.

61

JDT to HFC, April 26, 1909, 6493MH.

62

ABL to unknown, September 15, 1910, 6493MH. Seeing that Cutler wrote a note on this letter, it is certain that it came across his desk. However, the original recipient is unknown. It is addressed to “Nkosazana,” which, if directed at Cutler, would have been quite a caustic jab.

63

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At the bottom of this letter, Cutler scrawled “Will use Langa.” This wouldn’t be the last time that Langa would chafe under Cutler’s authority. At times, these conflicts were fairly benign, such as when Langa appealed to enliven the Christmas celebration at Mount Hermon.64 At other times, the exchanges were more severe, such as when Langa avidly promoted his “illustrated history of the Anglo-Boer War.” It is highly likely that Langa knew of Pixley Seme, and it seems as if he fashioned himself in Seme’s image to some degree. Langa’s desire to give his Anglo-Boer War presentation might well have been influenced by the fact that Seme was commissioned by the New York Board of Education Public Lecture Bureau to deliver public oratories on “Life in Zululand” in 1906. Instead of bringing Langa fame, though, his presentation sparked some of the fiercer conflicts with Cutler. At first, the issue was giving the lecture on campus impromptu. In the first instance he attempted to commandeer a lecture hall during a required study hour,65 and another time he attempted to secure one of the two largest venues on campus on short notice—for that very evening. These paled in comparison to another incident, when Langa asked to give his presentation in Amherst. He claimed that J.D. Taylor had put him in contact with Rev. W.L. Anderson, who desired him to visit and “have a talk.” On a Thursday, Langa penned a letter that reached Cutler the following day, and asked for permission to leave that weekend for his lecture. It is unclear whether Cutler gave him permission or if Langa simply left campus without it, but he made it down to Amherst only to find a thoroughly befuddled Rev. Anderson, who hadn’t expected Langa to come.66 This event highlights Langa’s peculiar character: he was whimsical and impulsive, but at times he was thoroughly dedicated and driven. With the lofty goals he set for himself—in 1911 he wrote to Cutler that he wanted to enroll in Harvard or Columbia in “the fall of 1914 taking a six years course leading to A.B. and M.D. degrees”67—he was hard pressed to overcome his impulsive side.

ABL to HFC, December 24, 1910, 6493MH.

64

ABL to HFC, September 17, 1910, 6493MH.

65

Wilbert L. Anderson to HFC, December 14, 1910, 6498MH. This letter is quite comical, but due to limited space was not included in this essay.

66

ABL to HFC, September 4, 1911, 6498MH.

67

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The dubious aspects of Langa’s intellect and character show through early on in the historical record. Writing to Cutler from the Adams Mission School in Natal, Langa’s prose is clearly deficient. A number of his sentences are grammatically indecipherable and unintelligible. He is nevertheless incredibly verbose, composing long, rambling, and often circular letters in his scrawling script. This contrasts sharply with Seme’s succinct, thoughtful correspondence. Langa also makes some strange statements in his early letters to Cutler, claiming for instance that “I delayed in writing to you because your letter came while I had cut myself in a way that I couldn’t walk for three weeks.”68 It is never clear what the connection between walking and letter writing is. After being accepted for admission in the fall of 1909, Langa planned to set out for America at the end of July but never arrived. He finally contacted Cutler on January 6, 1910, with a frantic letter about his misfortunes, or “despairs” as he called them. These despairs were that he was “not properly prepared” to board the steamer that would carry him the first leg of the trip, and that Mr. Taylor “doubted as to my admittance to school…and he earnestly beg me to stay one year here and come there next September.” 69 In addition to deflecting the responsibility, Langa also begs Cutler’s forgiveness; “I most respectfully, sincerely beg you to earnestly pardon me….It shall be my freedom if you will pardon my enchained soul.”70 When Langa finally landed in America, he delayed his arrival to Mount Hermon even further by staying three days longer in South Hampton and New York than he had originally planned, also losing all his money on Ellis Island.71 Luckily for him, he was rescued by “Rev. James,” who also made him a small gift of money. James— possibly James Taylor, though this is unlikely—is otherwise absent from the record but was one of Langa’s most important benefactors.

Even if other benefactors materialized for Langa, it seems doubtful that he would have succeeded at Mount Hermon. Nevertheless, the lack of support is noticeable.

What complicates matters in discerning just how much support he actually had is that Langa seems to also be misinformed, confused, or lying about the support he ABL to HFC, June 30, 1909, 6493MH.

68

ABL to HFC, January 6, 1909, 6493MH.

69

Ibid.

70

ABL to HFC, August 29, 1910, 6493MH.

71

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was to receive. He claimed that he would receive money for books from a teacher, but asks the school to help him until the money arrives—it’s never clear that it in fact came through.72 Similarly, he is always expecting money from South Africa but conjures up reasons for it not arriving: “I should think that perhaps he thought of not selling his crops in the during the last two months as things are so cheap then that a person hardly gets any gain for his work. [sic]”73 Again, in September 1911, after his second and final term at Mount Hermon, he claims to have received word of money being sent from his father by way of Rev. C.N. Ransom, but if it ever did arrive he didn’t use it to reenroll at Hermon and instead went to find work in Boston. When Langa’s plans in Boston go awry and he attempts to gain reentry to Hermon, he again claims that there is money en route, this time via Rev. Herbert D. Gallandet, associate minister of the Central Congo Church.74 Of course, with incomplete records it is impossible to know if his claims were truthful. His decision to find work in Boston was also complicated, and involved his earnest desire to accelerate his education: “In no other way I can advance myself quicker than going to school eight months and work every summer. So I thought I might take this possible chance of going to school in Boston since I am unable to go to Hermon.”75 His decision to leave for Boston was also influenced by the work he was doing to pay for his education. He was employed in Scituate, Massachusetts, as a servant for William L. Burrage. In a letter to Cutler, he voiced his frustrations with being unable to study because of the long hours he worked.

Though he received aid in Boston from his friends at the ABCFM, particularly Rev. G.A. Wilder, who housed him, and Rev. Bell, who tried to find him work and have him accepted to another school, Langa was unable to make things work. Part of the reason for this was racism, which inhibited his ability to find work. Dr. Bell, in trying to secure Langa a job, noted: Dr. Berry of Worcester, to whom I wrote in Langa’s behalf, has tried to get a position for Langa in the City Hospital there, but he writes to the effect ABL to unknown, September 7, 1910, 6493MH.

72

ABL to HFC, December 8, 1910, 6493MH.

73

ABL to HFC, May 16, 1911, 6493MH.

74

ABL to HFC, September 4, 1911, 6493MH.

75

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that the prejudice of the patients against the employment of a colored orderly in the Hospital would be so great that it would be quite unwise to make the experiment. Dr. Berry reflects the superintendent’s views and not his own. There seems to be no opening for Langa at present.76 A softer racism was also apparent in William Burrage, who claimed that Langa’s “plans for a higher education have led him to adopt—probably with the feeling of self-protection—deceitful tactics that a Caucasian does not altogether appreciate.

He made a clandestine visit to Boston on September 6.”77 Facing the dire straits that his impatience led him into and realizing that he might have erred, Langa made plans to return to Hermon. However, he soon found himself in New York, living at the YMCA on West 53rd Street and working as a longshoreman. The move, in line with Langa’s character, was impulsive: Rev. Bell wrote Cutler in August, asking “whereabouts of that big Zulu named Arthur Bidewell Langa,”78 whom he had lost sight of. Mount Hermon never received the money he claimed would be delivered by Rev. Gallandet, and Cutler advised Langa to attend another school. Nevertheless, Langa remained fond of the school, writing to Cutler that “I am, indeed, very much sorry that I have lost Mt. Hermon. It is a thing that I never dreamed of….I realize how much Mt. Hermon meant to me. I greatly appreciate the kindness and treatment I have received from the school.”79 Having been turned away from Mount Hermon, Langa attempted to enroll in Benedict College, Clark College, and Oberlin Academy. While, as Vinson and Edgar note, a 1936 enquiry as to Langa’s fate by his former teacher Albert LeRoy did not yield any immediate clues as to Langa’s whereabouts, it’s also not clear that the paper trail ends at Mount Hermon. In the correspondence between Cutler and R.V. Hill, the secretary of the principal at Oberlin Academy, Ohio, it seems as if Langa was indeed admitted to the academy: “ We hope that what you say with reference to his earnestness is true, and that we can be of service to him in carrying out his

Rev. Bell to HFC, September 26, 1911, 6493MH.

76

William L. Burrage to HFC, September 16, 1991, 6493MH.

77

Rev. Bell to HFC, August 22, 1912, 6493MH.

78

ABL to HFC, September 13, 1912, 6493MH.

79

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plans.”80 Oberlin Academy was experiencing a steep decline in its number of applicants at the time Langa was applying; in fact, the school closed soon thereafter, the class of 1916 being the last to graduate. Additionally, Oberlin Academy was the preparatory school for Oberlin College, which has a long history of black education.81 It isn’t out of the question that they accepted Langa on Cutler’s recommendation, and if so, further information may be available in the Oberlin College Archives.82 Wolo Plenyono Gbe Wolo spent only three terms at Mount Hermon before matriculating to Harvard University in 1913, where he proved to be so advanced in his studies of English that he was exempted from the second semester of the freshman course.83 Languages were a specialty of his, as he had knowledge of Kru, English, Latin, Greek, French, and German.84 He later received degrees from Union Theological Seminary and Columbia Teachers College before returning to Liberia, where he taught as a professor at Liberia College and eventually practiced law.85 Wolo’s record speaks for itself. He was ardent and industrious, thoroughly interested in learning and driven by his Christian convictions. His success at Mount Hermon and beyond is attributable to his character, his prior level of education, and the constant support of his network, the head of which was Rev. Percy S. Grant.

Wolo attended the Methodist Mission School in Grand Cess, where he was taught

by Mary Sharp, the American missionary who also instructed Donma. Sharp had known him by his Anglicized name, George Wilson, but there is no other record of

R. V. Hill to HFC. September 14, 1912, 6493MH (emphasis added).

80

For more on this, see Roland M. Baumann, Constructing Black Education at Oberlin College: A Documentary History. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.

81

Vinson and Edgar offer an account of Langa’s time at Mount Hermon, but theirs is marred by a factual inaccuracy (claiming he was expelled), and they do not entertain the notion that Langa may have enrolled at Oberlin. Vinson and Edgar, p. 449.

82

C. N. Greenough to HFC, March 4, 1914, 6493MH.

83

“Spring Graduating Class, 1913.” The Hermonite, XXVI, no. 8 (April, 1913), p. 165.

84

A book treating Wolo’s life was published in Liberia. Unfortunately, I have not had access to it: V. E. W. Topor, Plenyono Gbe Wolo: A Symbol of Achievement, (Stella Maris Polytechnic, 1986).

85

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this name being used to refer to him.86 Sharp does not appear to have played a role in Wolo’s network, but the education she helped secure for him must have played a part in his admission to the College of West Africa, from which he graduated in 1908.87 He was taught there by A.P. Camphor who, at the time of Wolo’s application to Mount Hermon, was president of the Central Alabama School in Birmingham. Wolo’s matriculation at the College of West Africa seems to have given him a substantial advantage over the other African students, who had not received a comparable education and were less prepared for their studies in America. More important than Sharp and Camphor was Dihdwo Twe. Twe was a fellow Kru tribesman who had also studied in America, where he met Samuel L. Clemens,88 later to return to Liberia, where he set about the work of sending a few boys and girls, “carefully selected from the leading families of influential centers and royalties…to America and given a strong Christian training.”89 Twe was explicitly attracted to the style of Christian training Mount Hermon had to offer.

While Twe listed Rev. J. A. Simpson as a reference for Wolo, Rev. Percy S. Grant became far more important to Wolo’s success. Twe had been introduced to Percy

by Samuel Clemens, and claimed that “ever since that time he became one of my best friends in America.”90 Grant was in constant contact with Cutler while Wolo attended Mount Hermon, checking up on his performance, encouraging him, and lending him monetary assistance. It is from Grant that we learn of Wolo’s difficulties in coming to America. It was only through the aid of the Liberian government, which bought him a ticket to Hamburg, and the help of the Liberian consulate in Germany, that Wolo arrived at Mount Hermon when he did.91 To Wolo’s credit, he also worked aboard a German freighter washing dishes in support of his passage.92 Once Wolo had arrived, his tuition and board for his first term were paid by Grant, though not without drama. Twe had intimated to Cutler that Grant would be able to support Wolo, but Grant was not aware of this: Mary Sharp to HFC, March 01, 1911, 6547MH.

86

J. H. Reed to HFC, August 17, 1910, 6547MH.

87

Dihdwo Twe to HFC, February 24, 1910, 6547MH.

88

Ibid.

89

Ibid.

90

Percy S. Grant to HFC, September 21, 1910, 6547MH.

91

The Boston Globe. “Boy Comes From Wilds of Africa to Harvard,” September 26, 1913.

92

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I think Dihdwo Twe was a little careless in not letting me understand the extent of the obligations he expected me to assume; for I neither was informed what the coast would be per year or the length of time he expected me to be of assistance to his friend. Twe, I fancy, takes us all for millionaires; as in his letter informing me of Wolo’s coming, he hopes I will send him fertilizer, etc. to the amount of very nearly one hundred dollars. He seems to take it for granted that I will. At this rate my two black friends will be rather an expensive annual annex.93 Grant did, however, follow through and fund Wolo’s education for two out of his three terms. While he did not continue to support for Wolo with large sums after this, he continuously checked up on Wolo and provided smaller gifts. And when Crossley Hall, the largest dormitory on campus, burned down in 1911 and consumed all of Wolo’s affects, Grant was rather sluggish to respond. Though the fire made news in major papers such as the New York Times, it was nearly two weeks before Grant wrote to Cutler to follow up on the incident. J.B. Scott of the ABCFM office in New York wrote to Cutler several months after the fire, having received a letter from Wolo claiming that he had lost a $25 draft (that he had been given by the American Board) in the blaze. Scott worked to see that Wolo received the money, which was eventually restored to him.94 While other students received support from ABCFM missionaries, this is the only record in the files of the ABCFM distributing monetary gifts to one of them; it is unclear how common an occurrence this was. Wolo also received a gift from E.H. Norton of the G. & C. Merriam Co. Norton originally contacted Cutler out of concern over Wolo’s credit.

Norton’s original letter contains a racist undertone, as one of the factors for the concern over Wolo’s credit was that “we presume he is a negro.”95 However, having heard of Wolo’s situation from Cutler, Norton offers to furnish Wolo with a copy of the encyclopedia he ordered at a discount of 30 percent, provided he “treat the matter as to price as strictly confidential.”96

PSG to HFC, September 28, 1910, 6547MH.

93

J. B. Scott to HFC, July 18, 1911, 6547MH.

94

E. H. Norton to HFC, December 3, 1912, 6547MH.

95

E. H. Norton to HFC, December 13, 1912, 6547MH.

96

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While Twe seems to have had plans for Wolo, Percy does not seem to have had any at all. Wolo’s own goals at the time he entered Mount Hermon were unsurprisingly to receive a scientific education. On all three of the student surveys he completed, he listed scientific agriculture as the profession he hoped to enter, and on one survey indicated that he hoped to attend Cornell University, probably their well-established College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.97 His aspirations seem to have carried him in this direction through his early years at Harvard. In 1913 he still claimed that he wanted to return to Liberia as a physicist and chemist.98 As we learn from his correspondence with Cutler and W.R. Moody—D.L. Moody’s son—as well as from his choices for graduate education, he eventually became more interested in the church and academia than in science or its application to social issues.

He also had no interest in politics, writing to Moody that he and his father had decided together that he “would have nothing to do with the governing of Grand Cess,” which was fine with him as his “ambition, for personal reasons, does not lead that way.”99 In the same letter to Moody, he hints at his movement away from mission work and toward law, which increasingly became his focus later on in life.

There is no record of Wolo having any difficulties at Mount Hermon other than the Crossley fire. He remained fond of the place throughout his life, even visiting to give a sermon in the early 1920s.100 He wrote a particularly melancholy and nostalgic letter to Cutler soon after his graduation: I am sending this dollar for the Hermon Church. I have attended chapel for three consecutive Sundays and have discovered that they don’t take up collection at the Harvard Chapel, and I am afraid I might get rusty in giving for Christian work….Well, we are trying to make ends meet somewhere. If we don’t make them meet, I am afraid we won’t know where we are. I think I have written plenty. I’d like to write to you often, but I just hate to bother you with nonsense, for that’s just about all I could write. It makes a great difference when one writes to another school mate. We can be as jocular as we want to; but I do not want to, Plenyono Gbe Wolo (PGW), Survey, October 1911, February 1911, April 1913, 6547MH.

97

The Boston Globe. “Boy Comes From Wilds of Africa to Harvard.” September 26, 1913.

98

PGW to W. R. Moody, December 8, 1925, 6547MH.

99

Paul R. Van Ess to HFC, January 21, 1925, 6547MH.

100

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and can not, play tricks like that on you. So I can’t say when I shall ever write again. Now, about my membership request [Wolo asked that his name be kept on the church membership list to feel as if he was “still a part” of Mount Hermon], I should have said, “provided the church does not raise any serious objection.” Africa is odd, I suppose. I am a “chip off the old block.” [sic]101 The last line seems to be a self-admonition for his gloominess, but is nonetheless an interesting image of Africa that expresses both alienation and an inexorable connection. This was surely all the more strange given the tenuous relationship between native and Americo-Liberians. In any case, this “jocular” letter reflects the difficulties of transitioning to a new place, which surely was made even harder as he had to say farewell to his friend, Donma, who had recently arrived at Mount Hermon.

Donma Ko Wle Gbi Donma, “Koko” to his classmates at Mount Hermon,102 had the great benefit of knowing Wolo, who filled out his application for entry to the school.

He spent 11 terms at the school, much longer than any of the other students, but eventually graduated and moved on to Penn State University in 1918, ultimately becoming a professor of agriculture at South Carolina State A&M. Part of the reason he stayed so long at Mount Hermon was that he did not have the same level of education that many of the other boys had, having worked for some time in the Customs House and then as the “Collector of Cottons.”103 Another reason is that he fell and was hospitalized for roughly a month in 1914.

Of all the students, Donma was certainly the most persistently devoted to the study of scientific agriculture. This is evidenced by his early enrollment at St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School and his later career in academia, and also his responses to student surveys at Mount Hermon, on which he responded that he hoped to enter agriculture as a profession in 1916, 1917, and 1918. Interestingly, his devotion to the field and the socially conscious motivations behind it did not lead him PGW to HFC, October 5, 1913, 6547MH.

101

“Graduating Class of 1918.” The Hermonite, XXXI, no. 18 (June 22, 1918), p. 167.

102

Mary Sharp to HFC, March 01, 1911, 6784MH.

103

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to return to Liberia, even though this was his plan from early on and at the time of his graduation from Mount Hermon: “After completing his college education in America he will return to Liberia to impart his knowledge of Christianity and of scientific agriculture to his countrymen.”104 Like Wolo, Donma was a student of Mary Sharp, who wrote a letter of recommendation to supplement his application. In this letter, Sharp explores some of the dynamics between the Kru and the Americo-Liberians, noting a great amount of prejudice experienced by the Kru, and discusses the history of the Kru as accomplices to Spanish slavers. 105 Sharp had high hopes for Donma and Wolo as future missionaries, partly because she saw the Kru as “the blue bloods of Africa.” 106 While Donma was certainly a Christian, he rarely suggests that his goals or motivations were primarily Christian in nature, although he does write to Cutler in 1911 that Mount Hermon “[is] the place for me to be trained for my people.”107 It is unclear how Donma came to be sponsored by Mrs. Morgan of Hampton, England, but she considered herself his godmother.108 She facilitated his excursion to America and set him up at St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School, a predominantly black institution. It is unclear how long Donma attended St. Paul’s before transferring to Mount Hermon, only that he was detained there longer than initially expected by the principal’s desire to receive consent from Morgan, and because the Bishop of Virginia was visiting; in Donma’s words, the bishop “likes to see me.”109 Morgan supported the transition to Mount Hermon, but was unable to offer more than £3 for his entry.110 Donma supported himself throughout his stint at Mount Hermon, receiving only a book prize at the discretion of Cutler and small donations from an unknown donor ($25) in November of 1917, and the Mount Hermon Church ($25) and a “friend of Mount Hermon” ($2) in 1920, after his graduation. In spite of this, Donma was able to pay his way through all 11 terms at “Graduating Class of 1918,” p. 167.

104

Mary Sharp to HFC, March 01, 1911, 6784MH.

105

Ibid.

106

Ko Wle Gbi Donma (KWGB) to HFC, May 3, 1911, 6784MH.

107

Morgan to HFC, June 7, 1911, 6784MH.

108

Ibid.

109

Morgan to HFC, June 7, 1911, 6784MH.

110

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Mount Hermon, and even helped Wolo pay his expenses at Harvard.111 The greatest charity that Donma received was from the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary. Donma lost complete sight in his left eye in June of 1914, and was hospitalized until the end of July. The Infirmary forgave his debt, a direct consequence of his actions while he was a patient: He watched the caretakers in the ward, and a little later not only took care of his own bed but he helped most efficiently in the care of others. When they needed an extra waiter he volunteered, and later when their regular cook failed them he volunteered his services making use of the experience which he had already had here at Mount Hermon in the kitchen, and rendered most acceptable service. When I wrote to the authorities about his expenses at the Eye and Ear Infirmary, they replied that if there was any money to be paid it would be on their part rather than on the part of Donma as he had been a great help to them, and they did not know what they would do without him when he left.112 While Donma might not have been the same caliber intellect as Wolo or Seme, he certainly left a much better impression than Langa and was thoroughly dedicated to his education. His decision to remain in America rather than returning to Liberia remains a mystery, especially in light of his close friendship with Wolo and the focus of his studies. Perhaps it took a higher level of Christian ardor to return than he possessed.

Conclusion The clearest similarities among the students that traveled from Africa to study at Mount Hermon were their interests and the interests of those in their network.

The students shared a common desire for an education that was at once Christian and scientific so as to be able to serve their kinsmen in “benighted� Africa. For those in their network the desires were similar, but a practical, scientific education was secondary. While these characteristics were in no small part due to the ethos of Unknown to A. P. Fitt, September 25, 1926, 6784MH.

111

Ibid.

112

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Mount Hermon school, studies conducted on a larger scale confirm that these characteristics were common to most students who studied abroad, due at least in part to the nature of the schools these students attended in Africa. Missionaries desired to send the best and the brightest students abroad, and the more able these students were, the more support they were given. The importance of missionaries in facilitating the education of the elite in the West, then, is of central importance. For these reasons, the missionaries may be considered cultural imperialists forming a transatlantic devshirme system, recruiting African janissaries to attend Mount Hermon, their Topkapi Palace, where they were trained to institute a Christian order.

While these allegations are hard to deny, the genuine concern that the missionaries showed toward these students begs a more lenient judgment of their actions. It is also of note that the students, while remaining faithful, also exhibited pride in their heritage and asserted their secular agendas. They were not restricted from achieving their aims or asked to relinquish the link to their past. Indeed, Seme’s success at Columbia University came as he fully embraced his African heritage, extolling its unique history and advocating for its future in “The Regeneration of Africa.”

In the history of New Imperialism there is little to be made light of. Atrocities were abundant, and even today new ones are coming to light.113 The cultural transactions experienced by Mount Hermon’s African students, however, were for the most part positive. Though clearly part of an imperial structure, these transactions ultimately offered students an opportunity for empowerment. While Mount Hermon’s goal in this era was to “fill the gap” of education between boys without means and their wealthier counterparts, it also served, for Seme, Wolo, and Donma, to fill the gap between Africa and the West by offering the variety of experiences they desired and allowing them to navigate it for themselves. It is interesting to note that it was the two most talented of the four who returned to their native land. They were the most empowered by their experiences at Mount Hermon, and this very well could be because they were the ones most able to reconcile the sometimes conflicting layers of their identities. In return for its services, the school hoped these young men would evangelize their communities and project Christianity into secular professional realms, but in reality they had no way to enforce this desire. Students For instance, see Caroline Elkins, “The Colonial Papers: FCO Transparency Is a Carefully Cultivated Myth,” The Guardian, April 17, 2012, accessed April 25, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/ politics/2012/apr/18/colonial-papers-fco-transparency-myth.

113

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were able to take advantage of the system and give teeth to their ambitions, having learned to navigate an increasingly dynamic and integrated world. Mount Hermon asked them to act with humanity but empowered them to act with purpose wholly their own.

w Sean Foley teaches History at Northfield Mount Hermon. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 2010, where he majored in History and Russian & Eastern European Studies. Sean recently was able to apply his knowledge of the area, as he led a student trip to Russia this year. He conducted the research for his essay in this collection as part of his graduate coursework.

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Baumann, Roland M. Constructing Black Education at Oberlin College: A Documentary History. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.

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Carter, Burnham. So Much to Learn: The History of Northfield Mount Hermon School for the One Hundredth Anniversary. Mount Hermon, MA: Northfield Mount Hermon School, 1976.

Coyle, Thomas. The Story of Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon, MA: Mount Hermon Alumni Association, 1906.

Davidson, Basil. “Africa Without History.” In The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State. New York: Random House, 1992.

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Fraenkel, Merran. “Social Change on the Kru Coast of Liberia.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 36, no. 2 (April 01, 1966): 154–72.

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Hamilton, Sally Atwood., ed. Lift Thine Eyes: The Landscape, the Buildings, the Heritage of Northfield Mount Hermon School. Mount Hermon, MA: Northfield Mount Hermon, 2010.

Hughes, Heather. “Doubly Elite: Exploring the Life of John Langalibalele Dube.”

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Killingray, David. “The Black Atlantic Missionary Movement and Africa, 1780s–1920s.” Journal of Religion in Africa 33, no. 1 (February 01, 2003): 3–31. Accessed April 2, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1581633.

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Marks, Shula. The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa: Class, Nationalism, and the State in Twentieth-Century Natal. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986.

Marks, Shula. “The Ambiguities of Dependence: John L. Dube of Natal.” Journal of Southern African Studies 1, no. 2 (April 01, 1975): 162–80. Accessed March 21, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2636569.

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Janae Peters: Authenticity in Slave Narratives: Examining the Role of Authorship

by Exploring the Value of Slave Narratives as Literary Texts

J

osiah Henson dictated his 1849 narrative to an amanuensis, Samuel Eliot, while Frederick Douglass, one of few literate slaves, wrote his 1845 narrative himself.

In the mid-19th century, both narratives were deemed important, even essential, to the abolitionist agenda and the audience’s understanding of the slave experience, yet Henson’s narrative has fallen outside of the view of scholars and is now considered an inauthentic account. The work and influence of the amanuensis threatens the content enough that many scholars, almost automatically, discount the authenticity of Henson’s text. The problem of authorship most divides the discourses surrounding slave narratives. The value of the content of slave narratives is determined more strongly by who “authored” a text than any other issue in the texts today. The current definition of authorship in slave narratives narrowly relies on the act of writing to define an author. While this definition does make the authentication process less complicated, it devalues certain narratives and does not give enough significance to the problematic condition of illiteracy during slavery that allowed few narrators to actively participate in the current literary discourse. To illuminate the valuable information within and seriousness of these texts, we must engage issues of authorship and authenticity, illustrating both their historical and literary value.

Many slaves’ illiteracy forces numerous valuable accounts of slavery, like Henson’s, outside of the authentic slave-narrative discourse. The current definition of authorship does not sustain these narrators. Broadening our assumptions of authorship to include dictated writing will remind us that many texts have a different type of authorship, and that these different types of authorship help to further enlighten our perspective on slavery and slave narratives. Henson’s rich narratives offer his audience a thorough account of his life as a slave and of his life after he escaped to Canada 56

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in 1830. His accounts give us a peek into the relationship between fugitive slaves in Canada and fugitive slaves in the United States, a relationship best illuminated through the experiences and travels of a participant. Douglass’s narratives tell the American side of the story, but not in relation to Canada. The most we hear about Canada in Douglass’s narrative is, “We had heard of Canada” (Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, 281), though Canada (and the fugitive slaves therein) was intensely involved in the affairs and politics of the American institution of slavery. Without Henson’s texts, readers may not have known about the lives of fugitive slaves in Canada and how many of them still managed to participate in the American abolitionist discourse, despite their status as residents of Canada. Henson’s rich and informative narratives are specific examples of the benefits of a reconsideration of authorship in slave narratives.

The current definition of authorship unproductively distinguishes the value of Josiah Henson’s narratives from Frederick Douglass’s narratives. Striking similarities between Henson’s and Douglass’s narratives connect them, but this project is also concerned with the dissimilarities of the texts, namely, differences in versions of authorship and content. The similarities highlight the need to bring more slave narratives into conversation with each other, but the differences function to individualize the narrators and narratives and illustrate variation in slave experiences, slave life, means of attaining freedom, and politics. The narratives represent two former slaves’ lives from childhood to the time of publication, showing the reader (to the extent that was possible) what was most important to the slaves in their conditions. In the case of Henson and Douglass, the wide-span life stories were made possible, and in turn more authentic, by multiple narratives. Presumably, these narrators and the abolitionists who published and circulated the narratives saw the need for updated life stories and the significance of these narrators’ lives even after they were no longer slaves. Slave narratives, especially multiple narratives, give more life to the idea of a slave’s identity and humanity. However, this idea further complicates the problem of authorship on account of unreliability. Comparing Henson’s second narrative with Douglass’s second narrative allows us to take a narrative that is not widely accepted as authentic and compare it to one that is in order to begin reevaluating what determines a slave narrative’s authenticity.

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Whether authored orally or through writing, the narratives attempted to offer a reliable account to their readers as sources that truthfully conveyed parts of the institution of slavery that were inaccessible to whites. In the introduction to the “Afro-American Autobiography” section in his book To Tell a Free Story, William Andrews, quoting from Hayden White’s historical discourse theory, reminds students and scholars of African American literature that [w]e must remember that in any slave narrative, no matter how verifiable in its particulars, “the facts do not speak for themselves.” It is the narrator, the imputed eye-witness historian, who “speaks on their behalf, and fashions the fragments of the past into a whole whose integrity is—in its representation—a purely discursive one” (Andrews, To Tell a Free Story, 17).

The slave narratives, as part of the most popular literary genre of the mid-19th century, conversed with one another and with the larger literary and political abolitionist discourses. The representations deliberately created an identity for the narrators while also invoking a sense of humanity for their fellow slaves. Each text was a conversation in itself, participating in a larger conversation involving slave literature.

A Proposed Resituation of the Status of Author with Regard to Slave Narratives Portions of Roland Barthes’s argument in his essay “Death of the Author” for a diminished (to put it mildly) importance of the author can offer a deeper understanding of the role of the author in American slave narratives relative to the value of the content of the texts. Arguments for and against the significance of authorship in slave narratives can determine the breadth of the canon and reader exposure. Slave narrative authorship has determined the credibility of the content in the texts since the beginning of their production. Barthes maintains that “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” (Barthes, 1470). The “death of the author” approach does not expand the study of slave narratives; instead, it continues to severely limit their circulation and our awareness of these particularly complicated life stories. Consideration of the relationship between the author and the reader, the reader being most crucial to the reception of the text, forces us to think about 58

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how significant the author actually is to the literary analysis of the content. The author has a function, but not one that hinders our ability to analyze the slave narratives. Exploring the function of the author in a slave narrative allows the reader to investigate the narratives within their multiple contexts, and effectively situates the narratives as more useful literary texts, based on their content, thus illuminating the story that each narrator wanted to make known to the reader.

The reader—then and now—is crucial to the motivations of both the slave and abolitionist authors. Barthes’s argument emphasizes the significance of the reader and content in literary textual relationships, noting, “classical criticism has never paid any attention to the reader; for it, the writer is the only person in literature” (Barthes, 1469), an important observation but not one that warrants the figurative death of the author. Understanding the interdependent trilateral relationship between the slave narrator, the narrative, and the reader provides a more comprehensive examination of all components of the interaction. Instead, I propose that we revise Barthes’s argument to consider the trilateral relationship that would allow us to assess the slave narratives, revealing that, although authorship is the primary determinant of the historical significance of the narratives, consideration of the other aspects—the individual, representative, and structural aspects—of the texts illuminates their complicated importance in deeming a slave narrative a reliable and useful text. While it might seem easier to eliminate authorship as a factor in slave narrative authenticity, the complications surrounding the authors give the narratives more substance.

The production of slave narratives was already filled with so much verification and authentication. The slave narrators, including those who wrote their texts, needed to prove that the events happened. The abolitionists required any type of evidence they could muster to promote these narratives to the readership. Completely eliminating the significance of knowing who was involved in the authoring of a text would squeeze the humanity and identity out of the texts.

We need the complicated author and theories of authorship in order to fully consider slave narratives and the narrators. Applying Barthes’s argument to the slave narratives, as it is, removes the author as an important factor in how the texts should be read.

We should not remove the author from the trilateral relationship. It is more useful to 59

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consider the various ways in which a text can be authored and how the various forms of authorship interact with the text and the reader. Barthes believes the “Author is thought to nourish the book, which is to say that he exists before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it, is in the same relation of antecedence to his work as father to his child” and instead proposes the concept of the modern “scriptor,” who is “born simultaneously with the text” (Barthes, 1468). The concept of a scriptor takes the personality from a narrative; it no longer belongs to a person but to itself. Life stories and life writing depend on that personality to identify the narratives as belonging to someone. In the autobiography genre, knowing the author is crucial to the reader’s experience and the reader’s examination of the texts. For slave narratives specifically, the author indicates the contexts and complications through which the texts emerged, thus affording the reader a sense of heightened involvement in the interpretation of the text. The reader becomes a third-person omniscient point of view, noting key issues and elements of the discourse while learning about the selfhood and life of the slave.

Too little emphasis on the author in slave narrative production threatens to discount the very humanity and identity that most of the narrators attempted to assert. The most significant and personal aspects of slave narratives result from each narrator’s declaration of humanity. African Americans were not considered fully human, which made the act of telling or writing a life story all the more crucial. The questions surrounding a slave’s humanity were highly politicized. Pro-slavery politicians needed to undermine claims of authorship to counter the effective narratives. At the time of the production of most slave narratives, there was very little trust in the validity of any author.

These texts offered individual accounts about the country’s most debated institution, and were highly contested. As far back as Ignatius Sancho’s epistolary autobiography, published in 1782, the reader required sufficient proof that (1) someone could verify his existence, (2) that the subject assisted in the production of his text, and (3) the content in the narrative was accurate and authentic. Sancho’s letters are as close to a narrative as we can get from him, and before the formal prefatory note from the editor, the reader learns that the editor’s “motives for laying [the letters] before the publick [sic] were, the desire of shewing that an untutored African may possess abili60

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ties equal to an European” (Sancho, 4). While Sancho was not a slave in America, his early writings, along with the literature of prominent figures like Olaudah Equiano, afford us insight into early structures of self-fashioning by slaves, problems of verifying an author, and the obstacles against which the narrators faced before they were allowed to will their freedom.

Most slave narratives were supplemented by prefaces and advertisements to verify the existence of the narrators. These supplements highlight the significance of having an author to whom the texts could be credited. Frederick Douglass’s 1845 narrative, the well-known Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, includes a 12-page preface by William Lloyd Garrison, a radical abolitionist and former mentor to Douglass, which substantiates Douglass’s narrative by verifying his humanity and reasons for writing a narrative. The first 11 pages of the preface situate Douglass as a man, remarking that Douglass’s curiosity about abolition “at once brought him into the field of public usefulness, ‘gave the world assurance of a MAN,’ quickened the slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free!” (Douglass, Narrative of the Life, iv), a statement that then verifies his humanity and the significance of the content of the text. Garrison proceeds to give specific examples from Douglass’s life of his humanity and passionate nature, never allowing the reader to forget the circumstances under which slavery leaves its participants. The reader-author-text, and now “extra-author” relationship, is clearly seen through these supplementary documents. These are not self-declarations of humanity, but the presence of prefaces and advertisements in so many slave narratives further reveals the importance of placing a face, an author, alongside a text.

The amanuensis (the “extra author”) poses an interesting problem for authorship in slave narratives. Josiah Henson’s first narrative takes advantage of a common technique in dictated slave narratives. Instead of a long, detailed preface, an advertisement written by his amanuensis, Samuel Eliot., accompanies Henson’s narrative.

Readers might be less likely to consider a narrative that is not written by the slave narrator himself, making the author more dependent on the reader and content of the trilateral relationship than when there is a slave narrative written directly by the 61

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narrator. This is when an active reconsideration of the different types of authorship is most useful for slave narrative study, as it could create a space for those narratives dictated by slaves. If we consider dictated narratives as having two authors, then we can call the advertisement the birth of the amanuensis as an addition to the trilateral relationship, bringing more complication and meaning to the slave narrative as literary text. Eliot writes: The substance of it, therefore, the facts, the reflection, and very often the words, are his; and little more than the structure of the sentences belongs to another…The story has this advantage, that it is not fiction, but fact; and it will be found fruitful in instruction by those who attentively consider its lessons. (Henson, The Life, iii–iv) It was not unusual for amanuenses to almost fully remove themselves from the narrative, so Eliot’s advertisement clearly attempts to give more substance to Josiah Henson’s influence on the narrative, making Henson more of an author for having dictated his life story, in addition to Eliot’s literal authorship for having written the text. Dictated narratives needed a verifiable slave author to assure that they were not fake narratives written by abolitionists to evidence their own arguments for the end of slavery. While Eliot does not particularly verify Henson’s humanity, he does verify Henson as author of the narrative.

As scholars of slave narratives, we should think of all slave narratives as having multiple authors, rather than deem a dictated narrative inauthentic and not valuable enough for academic study. Multiple authorship accounts for the influences of the amanuenses in dictated narratives, and also for the authorship of the influential preface and introduction writers in narratives physically written by slaves. The common denominator in these variations of multiple authorship is influence. The multiple authors were part of the production of the narratives, from serving as amanuenses, publishing the texts, authoring the slave narrators, and selling the texts. Almost every American slave narrative was influenced by the abolitionist agenda, complicating any standard of authenticity placed upon the genre in terms of authorship.

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Approaches to Slave Narratives: Literary Analysis and Historical Authentication Four narratives are credited to Josiah Henson. The first two were published within a decade and the final two appeared almost 30 years after the first. Each of Frederick Douglass’s four narratives was published before each of Henson’s, but within the same time frames. Both slave narrators’ texts underwent considerable revisions, influenced by the climate of the antebellum United States in the mid-19th century, namely, the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s groundbreaking novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. On the surface, the revisions to Henson’s narratives suggest issues of creating a self through writing, authenticity, and audience at a time when the slave was still being dehumanized by the effects of slavery. True for many slave narratives, the surface meanings require analysis in order to see how they all engage with the others.

This examination of the texts and how they functioned within the system in which they were created and published helps us understand how historical, cultural, and political contexts of the mid-19th century influenced (and compelled) slave narrative production and convention.

Exploring Frederick Douglass’s narratives alongside Josiah Henson’s illuminates our understanding of different forms of authorship and what I will call the politics of slave narrative publication. I use “politics” to imply structure, and to illuminate the crafted nature of slave narratives. Douglass’s second narrative underwent significant revisions, though the changes that occurred in Douglass’s narrative were more politically charged than those in Henson’s, which highlights that the “Stowe factor,”1 in all its controversy, stirred up both the literary and political abolitionist discourse.

The audience that Uncle Tom’s Cabin may have helped to create for Douglass’s second narrative may in turn have created an audience for Henson’s second narrative. When Stowe alleges that she bases her best-selling novel off of Josiah Henson’s original narrative, Henson’s narrative comes into close competition with Douglass’s. The “Stowe factor” spotlights Henson and his life, and her novel seems to be responsible for his autobiography’s continued success, while Douglass’s narrative mostly stands alone.

There are many uncertainties concerning Henson’s second edition. Save for the revisions, the text remains virtually the same. But Eliot’s advertisement is not included. Henson’s text seems to have been revised due to popular demand, but there is no official nominal author or amanuensis credited.

1

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But early abolitionist papers suggest that, originally, Stowe’s main character, “Uncle Tom,” was a composite of Josiah Henson and Frederick Douglass and other former slaves. The next question is why, then, did the character “Uncle Tom” come to have a greater connection with Henson than with Douglass? Did Henson’s narrative illustrate some of the same horrors of slavery that Stowe’s novel did? Did Henson’s narrative change to accommodate the stories of Uncle Tom in the novel? And, further, why was this claim so important to both Stowe and Henson, while it seems insignificant to Douglass? Douglass’s literacy was well known and widely acknowledged, and it was known that he had written his narratives himself. He was popular enough that he did not need too much help selling his narratives. Harriet Beecher Stowe was not a slave but an established abolitionist and author. Her authorship provided Henson’s readers with more of an illusion of authorship (authorship here requiring the act of writing and control over the content of the text) than he would have ever had on his own at the time. With Henson being illiterate, his narratives needed more support, and Harriet Beecher Stowe was in the position to provide him with that support.

Narratives that required amanuenses, with the appropriate supplementary documents like letters and advertisements and content that fit well with the content of other slave narratives, were considered authentic at the time they were published and printed. This pointed authentication process made it possible for the narratives of former slaves like Josiah Henson to be granted equal consideration when in competition with narratives written by former slaves like Frederick Douglass as far as popularity and circulation were concerned. The oral narrative was most useful to the abolitionist movement, so the texts were second to the ability of the slave to articulate his experiences to interested audiences. Since then, scholars have become less interested in the oral narrative’s importance as a component of this package. Losing sight of the significance of the oral tradition in the narration of a life is dangerous; most illiterate slaves would have relied on the oral tradition and oral histories passed down from their African ancestors to create the sense of a significant life for themselves.

The Works Progress Administration’s project seems to have understood the value of oral transmission, but in recent years, though the importance has been acknowledged by scholars, it has not been taken into serious consideration when it comes to declaring the older slave narratives authentic. The orator deserves a distinct place in 64

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the definition of authorship. When a narrator dictates a life story, he is the author of that story, of that experience. When the amanuenses and ghostwriters come into the discussion, we can see them as working with the texts in a way similar to editors as we now know them. This revised definition of authorship considers those external influences on the texts, blurring the lines between autobiographies and biographies and between authentic and inauthentic slave narratives. Revision of the definition of authorship as related to theories of autobiography and, consequently, theories of slave narratives, calls for a further evaluation of authenticity and the problem of slave literature in gaining enough ground to become notable, classic texts, once they are widely studied or considered for study in classrooms.

The historical discourse of slavery initially embraced slave narrative study in the academic setting. One of the foremost pioneers in slave narrative studies was John Blassingame. Blassingame, a prominent American historian who wanted to better understand the American experience, knew that slavery was invaluable to understanding the whole experience. Consequently, he edited one of the first extensive, systematic collections of slave literature, called Slave Testimony. In his preface to that volume, he writes, “it is largely the master’s view of the plantation which has passed as history” (Blassingame, xi). He offers his volumes of slave testimony as a corrective to that tendency. Blassingame’s work was preoccupied with the reliability of narratives and terms of authenticity. He notes that even in the 1960s and 1970s, scholars were looking for the “view as presented through the slave himself.” His impressive collection of slave interviews, letters, speeches, and autobiographies contains documents that span 1736–1938, affording space for various types of documents. Blassingame writes, “[a] single volume encompassing so many varied forms of slave testimony enables the reader to compare one with the other, to determine the reliability of each, and to analyze the complex black response to bondage” (Blassingame, xi). In this statement, Blassingame hints at a crucial issue—the need to bring varied forms of slave literature into discussion.

The historical approach is not encompassing enough to account for the many ways slaves might have authored, despite their circumstances, though the comparison aspect of his suggestion plays an important role. When we engage more closely with 65

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slave literature in current discussions, we will gain a well-formed understanding of what it meant for slaves and ex-slaves to narrate their stories. We might also learn more about what it meant for the amanuenses, editors, and publishers, and obtain a literary (as opposed to a strictly critical) analysis of the content. This understanding would offer slave narratives a more substantially informed discourse within which to situate the texts, contexts, and subtexts with a language and theory of their own. Slave Testimony was published in 1977 and reprinted in 2005, marking both its continued significance to slave narrative scholars and students of African American literature and its stagnant presence. We have not progressed much from the notions of authenticity as outlined in his collection. Blassingame’s preface discusses the importance of verification and accuracy for the study of slave literature as historical documents to be authenticated. He notes that, “the value of any group of documents rests finally on their accuracy…but in determining the truthfulness of slave documents one faces a legion of problems” (Blassingame, xiii). His discussion of accuracy deals with concrete biographical information about the slave, which is where the study of slave narratives as literary texts becomes far more advantageous than studying the texts as historical documents.

Slave narratives are the site of many tensions between literary and historical discourses. The literary analyst might take the abolitionist involvement as a challenge and incorporate it into the reading and analysis. In a similar situation, the historian’s skepticism might leave her in doubt of the authenticity of the entire genre. In a much earlier book, Life and Labor in the Old South, the historian Ulrich B. Phillips doubted the authenticity and reliability of former slaves’ narratives because of all the abolitionist influence to which the texts were subjected. Many historians followed Phillips in thinking that the texts were of little value and “[refused] to read the accounts” (Blassingame, xvii). Blassingame followed historian Stanley Elkins, instead of Phillips, since Blassingame thought it important to read the narratives of former slaves. He works in a completely different direction than Phillips does, and uses both WPA and antebellum narratives. Elkins’s philosophy is more in line with my reasons for undertaking this project. He argues that the “best presumption probably is that none of these observers was lying about the facts as he saw them…much is gained and not much is lost on the provisional operating principle that they were all telling 66

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the truth” (Elkins, 3–4). This presumption situates slave narratives less as historical, completely accurate documents, and more as texts requiring holistic treatment and consideration, stories with different perspectives and experiences that might afford readers a comprehensive view of the slaves’ lives in the context of American society and the American experience.

Concentrating on slave narratives as literary texts welcomes the whole of the complex nature of slave literature, and invites them into a literary discourse in which the authenticity of the narratives is not challenged in the same way as in the historical discourse. Blassingame’s discussion of the ways in which the narratives of fugitive slaves complicate accuracy and authenticity functions to explain the methodology behind the exclusion of many of these narratives in the category of authentic texts. In the case of slave narratives, every dynamic of the text should not have to be verified.

We can study the content and experiences as they are narrated to us in the texts, and, by way of comparison, locate commonalities, distinctions, tropes, themes, and key issues in the literature. Blassingame claims that “one indication of the general reliability of the edited accounts is that antebellum southern whites challenged so few of them” (Blassingame, xxiii). If the accounts were not challenged then and participated in the literary discourse in which they were produced, why have we set so many stipulations on what is considered an authentic and reliable text? Historians who work with slave narratives seem to use the terms “authentic” and “reliable” interchangeably. Reliability suggests a need for accuracy, while authenticity suggests experience and representation, which is why my project employs the term authentic and only uses reliable where a relation to historians’ terms necessitates its use. Authenticity encompasses more than reliability, and given the peculiar nature of slave narratives, each text would serve a better purpose under the umbrella of authentic narratives.

The background information—the textual editing and historical, political, and cultural influences—is essential to the study and analysis of slave narratives. This background information involves exploration of the interdependency of the text and of reader components of the trilateral relationship more with the author, as the author is a large part of this context. Structural analysis of the subject itself (the subject as both the story and the narrator, as the case may be) cannot be an isolated study: it should 67

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be part of a larger approach. Northrop Frye’s essay “The Archetypes of Literature” evaluates different types of critics’ approaches to literature using two forms, a centrifugal and a centripetal approach. The centripetal approach, to which Frye identifies a “more serious group of critics who say: the foreground of criticism is the impact of literature on the reader,” allows us to “base the learning process on a structural analysis of the literary work itself ” (Frye, 1447). There is a recognizable structure to slave narratives, and the pattern of these texts is easily identifiable. Slave narratives draw on other archetypes to create a new pattern that is both like and unlike others yet still manages to be an original amalgamation of archetypes. If we venture to say that all slave narratives are autobiographies, it is important to know the person and the story/content first, bringing in the context soon after.

Structural analysis in slave narratives first tackles the subject of the text and moves outward. Frye argues that structural analysis “in itself is simply a discrete series of analyses based on the mere existence of the literary structure without developing any explanation of how the structure came to be what it was and what its nearest relatives are” (Frye, 1447). A very successful approach would be to keep the centripetal analysis first, and then bring in the centrifugal forces to begin to resolve other issues and questions. As long as the subject of our study remains at the center, we are free to “unravel its complexities” (Frye, 1447), a useful approach for the study of slave narratives. The centripetal approach becomes less productive when exploring the textual interactions in a discourse. The centrifugal approach offers the critical context that enriches structural analysis. For the mid-19th-century slave narratives, like Douglass’s and Henson’s, the structure’s nearest relatives, background information, and historical context are crucial to understanding the multiple versions of their texts and the ways in which they each combated the complexities of authorship.

The literary factor for authorship and content in mid-19th-century slave narratives was Stowe’s novel. Henson’s autobiography was not as popular as Douglass’s until after Stowe’s novel was circulated. The complication of authorship contributes to the unequal popularity of the two narratives. Frederick Douglass writes his own narratives, while Henson never actually writes his own. For the first narrative, as mentioned above, Henson dictates his life story to his amanuensis, Eliot. Stowe’s 68

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and Henson’s editor, John Lobb, ghostwrites Henson’s third and fourth versions of his autobiography. Douglass, in many ways, has more control of his stories, while Henson ultimately has to forfeit most of the control of his narrative to the editors and publishers. Henson’s second version of his narrative does not come with an advertisement by Eliot2. Instead, Harriet Beecher Stowe writes the three-page preface, an addition which surely boosted the circulation of Henson’s narrative. She begins by writing, “[t]he numerous friends of the author of this little work will need no greater recommendation than his name to make it welcome” (Henson, Truth Stranger Than Fiction, iii). Stowe formally gives this text to Henson as the author, even though he did not have the ability to write it himself. In fact, Stowe mentions neither Henson’s connection to Uncle Tom nor any problems with Henson and illiteracy. The preface acknowledges the acceptance of the telling of a story, the oral narrative, as authorship by calling Henson the author. The quality of authorship further proves that the abolitionist definition of authorship was a little broader in the mid-19th century than it is now. Douglass’s second narrative did not need a preface, or William Lloyd Garrison’s endorsement. His second narrative was published after he broke away from Garrison’s form of abolition, a significant factor in the revision of content in this newer version. This narrative’s structure is more sophisticated, with a powerful 15-page introduction by James M’Cune Smith, in which Smith writes, “the real object of that movement is not only to disenthrall, it is, also, to bestow upon the negro the exercise of all those rights, from the possession of which he has been so long debarred” (Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, xvii), and sets out to provide Douglass’s manhood even more credibility. The revisions, the different prefaces and supplements, all function to prove the author of the texts as the slaves to whom they are connected. Without identified authors, the text itself loses power. The reader’s textual experience is subdued without the ability to identify the life stories as belonging to a particular slave with an exceptional story.

William Andrews emphasizes the influence of the editors and the amanuenses, even on texts written by literate former slaves like Frederick Douglass. These other influ There are many uncertainties concerning Henson’s second edition. Save for the revisions, the text remains virtually the same. But Eliot’s advertisement is not included. Henson’s text seems to have been revised due to popular demand, but there is no official nominal author or amanuensis credited.

2

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ences would give narratives written by the narrators the same unreliability as narratives written by amanuenses. Instead of discounting slave narratives altogether, we need to change our standard of authorship to fit the peculiar slave-narrative genre.

Andrews writes, “from a literary standpoint...it is not the moral integrity...that is at issue but the linguistic, structural, and tonal integrity of the narratives they produced” (Andrews, To Tell a Free Story, 20). Though a historian, Andrews seems to understand the usefulness of literary analysis of the slave narratives. He remarks earlier in the book, “the proven reliability of these narratives as sourcebooks of facts about slavery should not cause us to forget that as historical narratives they are subject to the same ‘poetic processes’ of composition as any other works of that kind” (Andrews, To Tell a Free Story, 16). However, consideration of a literary approach from the historians is not enough to properly address the texts and their authors. The literary analysis should come first, with the historical approach seeping through the investigation as part of the centrifugal analysis, allowing the individuals to represent these narratives to their readers in the fashion that they might have originally intended.

Many memoirs and autobiographies of the 20th and 21st centuries are cowritten or dictated to a more able writer to enhance the articulation and the delivery of the content and message of the literature. Yet the essence of the works still relates a “true” experience, a life, as told by the narrator/subject. If these texts can be found under “autobiography” or “memoir” in major bookstores today, why have slave narratives not made that leap? An important question is how many slave narratives are sold in major bookstores in general? And, even more important, how many slave narratives do we regularly find on high school and undergraduate syllabuses? Very few of the thousands of narratives that could be studied make it into the classroom.

There are no widespread efforts to create courses on the slave narrative right now. A literature course on slave narratives offers a more analytical and holistic approach to understanding the craft of the narratives and the experiences depicted in the texts.

This approach makes sense of the revisions to the narratives, which in turn reveal the content in which readers and abolitionists were interested. Knowing what parts of the content with which the abolitionists did not spend a lot of energy engaging illuminates the experiences slave narrators wanted to reveal. There was a craft behind that revelation that only slightly changed with the content-based revisions to the texts.

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Through literary analysis, scholars must be attentive to historical contexts and historical readings of the content of slave narratives. A predominantly historical reading, on the other hand, is not especially open to literary analysis of the composition and content. Historians David Blight and William Andrews come closest to acknowledging a relationship between the literary analysis and historical authenticity of the texts. David Blight discusses the narratives and literary analysis from the perspective of the reader in his introduction to Douglass’s first narrative, stating that “the epic character of individuals who first willed their own freedom, then wrote the story proved irresistible to readers in the American North and in Britain. Those who would never literally see slavery could now find a literary medium through which to observe and perhaps understand it” (Blight, 16). The contemporary readers considered the slave narratives as literary texts, and the texts have been overtaken by historians as historical documents. Blight goes on to say that “we should all be aware of how much we let issues of the present inform, or intrude upon, the texts of the past” (Blight, 19). Blight uses the word “aware” not as a rally for literary analysis, but to suggest that we should pay much attention to context. While historical readings are factual, contextual analysis is informative rather than intrusive. Instead of focusing on a slave narrative’s reliability and authenticity, literary analysis allows each text to speak for itself before having a conversation with the others.

The measures of authenticity of slave narratives proposed by historians prohibit this multiperspectival understanding of slave lives and slave narratives. Slave narratives have been falling in and out of serious study in African American literature since the 1960s, mostly because of issues of reliability as defined by the interests of historians. Many American historians will not read slave narratives if there is no way to determine the accuracy of the texts. In the past, historians have dominated slave narrative research, and in order to reclaim and resituate these texts as significant sources of material that were in dialogue with each other, even within the bounds of a set discourse, a literary approach is necessary. A literary approach to slave narratives considers the content as the crafted art of a genre. It is more important to analyze the content than to judge it false or unreliable, though reliability does have a role in literary analysis. In a disturbing sense, solely judging the reliability of the slave narratives only reinforces the authentication that the blacks went through as slaves. Right/ 71

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wrong, superior/inferior, and authentic/inauthentic binaries of authorship instead of furthering our analysis and understanding of slave narratives prevent us from taking the texts into serious consideration. Those binaries do not cover the gray areas where slave narrative authorship locates itself, and bind the analysis within the same narrow place. Reading slave narratives as literary texts within a literary discourse provides a way to analyze similarities and dissimilarities as well as structure, content, and deviations from the craft. Literary analysis also allows us to consider multiple versions of authorship and multiple audiences as more lenses through which to encounter the slave’s narrative.

Authorship reigns as the most significant component of the intricate authenticity argument for slave narratives; scholars investigate who is responsible for the texts and only then determine the text’s authenticity. Fake slave narratives did exist, but the narratives went through extensive verification during publication and production that were uncovered before they were too widely circulated. Henson’s narrative is different in that it was as popular as Douglass’s when they were in circulation, yet we have allowed his text to be discounted now, solely on the grounds of authorship.

The narrative was valuable to the abolitionist discourse but has not been of enough value to us currently. We should allow texts like Henson’s back into the canon, to support more comprehensive contextual studies of the narratives. Andrews notes that “nineteenth-century whites read slave narratives more to get a firsthand look at the institution of slavery than to become acquainted with an individual slave” (Andrews, To Tell a Free Story, 5). Inviting more slave narratives into the canon and discourse offers us the chance to become acquainted with many more individual slaves, since historians have already granted us a firsthand look at the institution. The slave narrators wanted the reader to know something. Studying more narratives allows us to learn more about individual slaves and their respective processes of asserting their humanity and individuality through limited stories. The hurdle of authorship as a criterion of authenticity produces difficult obstacles for slave narrators and their texts to overcome. As the trouble with defining and determining authorship becomes more sophisticated and complicated, the narratives introduced to the African American literature canon become less representative. However, complicating authorship and authenticity makes the narratives that withstand the arguments and pressures 72

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more accessible, thus allowing scholars an easier approach to the themes and tropes in the texts, in terms to which we are more accustomed.

w Janae Peters, a 2010 graduate of Kenyon College, teaches English at Northfield Mount Hermon. Peters is currently studying for a Master’s of Social Work at Smith College while continuing to teach at NMH.

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