Durham E-Theses Native agency in British West Africa: the development of an idea 1835-65, with special reference to Sierra Leone Farrow, Jill How to cite: Farrow, Jill (1974) Native agency in British West Africa: the development of an idea 1835-65, with special reference to Sierra Leone, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9852/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Native agency in British West Africa: the development of an idea, 1835-65, with special reference to Sierra Leone, Jill Farrow M.A. Thesis, 19"ft- ABSTRACT The failure of the Niger Expedition of 1841 and renewed consciousness of the health hazards of West Afrifia led, in the early l840's,to a revival of the concept of native agency - that is, the idea that Africans should he trained to undertake responsibility for their own affairs, so that European lives could he spared. The development of this concept, discussed by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton in 'The Slave Trade' in 1840, was carried out most vigorously by the major British missionary societies in Sierra Leone, the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) and the Wesleyan Missionary Society (W.M.S.), and, to a lesser extent, by succeeding governments. Henry Venn, at C.M.S., put emphasis on education and, while the Pourah Bay Institution was remodelled, a new G-rammar School was opened in Freetown. In the next decade, a Normal School was founded, experiments took place in cotton growing and boys were sent for naval training, to learn various trades, and into medical training in Britain. In the 1850*3 and early 1860's, Venn turned to the organisation of the Native Pastorate, an African-run Anglican church, inaugurated in 1861• The Wesleyans, working throughout British West Africa, had continued to encourage primary education and had set up their own college at King Tom's Point in Sierra Leone. A few Africans came to England for training, but most learnt the job of teaching or preaching in Africa and, throughout this period, a vigorous African church and education system thrived, sometimes to the dismay of individual missionaries. The government's contribution to education was smaller and concentrated more on formulating policy and encouraging existing mission-based work than on setting up institutions of their own. The Select Committee of 1865 made clear the unwillingness of many officials to spend money on West Africa and pointed out the advances made over the preceding thirty years. Their conclusion was that native agency should soon make it possible for Britain to abandon responsibility for most of West Africa altogether. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VT THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY Chapter VII Chapter VIII THE GOVERNMENT Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION If there is one common denominator amongst the many attitudes towards African enterprise in the nineteenth century, it can probably be summed up in Dr. Johnson's epigram on women preaching; it was not so much amazing that they could do a thing well as that they could do it at all. For those, like Henry Venn at C.M.S., who longed to see Africans developing their potential, this was a source of pleasure and encouragement: to the denigrators of the African, like Sir Richard Burton, it was a cause for cynical amusement. v^he attitude of almost everyone was paternalistic, whether they delighted in what they saw or not. Much of this paternalism sprang from the sense of superiority engendered in Britain by the growth of industry and, with it, the increase in wealth and trade. The possession of a vast network of trading stations and the steady growth of informal empire brought a self-confidence which made it easy to assume that Africans could not develop without European - and preferably British - help. The fact that much of this power and wealth was based on the slave trade, even though Britain had abandoned it in 1808, lent the added impulse of guilt to the cause of aiding Africans and settling them on the road to ordered self-government and prosperity.^ For more general discussion of British attitudes see J.G-allagher and R.Robinson: "Africa.and the Victorians". Chapter I. - 2 - Another source of paternalism lay in the failure of Europeans to appreciate the nature of the tribal societies with which they were dealing. West Africa had no clearly documented history in the sense in which European historians understood the term: hearsay evidence was mistrusted largely because it was not understood and this can be said too of most archaeological and topographical data. Too many Europeans, both those who visited the coast and those who merely pontificated at home, failed to appreciate the complexity of African tribal government. They assumed that African society was •simple' because they knew little about it and could not describe what they knew in terms of European parliamentary traditions. Since most tribal groups indulged in slavery, they could claim that African government was wicked and corrupt. The organization involved in running the slave trade or maintaining power over scattered tribal areas was negated in their minds by the fact that this organization involved death and cruel punishments and even wars. It was thus clear that Africans needed to learn from Europeans how to be orderly and law abiding: they needed the civilising influence of European culture and the economic boost which would come from combining to run model farms and learning trades. This could best be done, in an area of Africa where few Europeans wanted to settle, by training Afrioans to train each other - that is, by the use of - 3 - African or native agency. It is the purpose of this thesis to examine the development of this idea on the thirty years or so between the preparations for the Niger Expedition of 1841 and the Select Committee on West Africa of 1865. Most attention will be given to Sierra Leone, since it wa3 here that native agency, as Europeans saw it, could best be expected to flourish. By 1835, Sierra Leone had been in existence for over forty-five years; the steady influx of freed slaves after 1808 provided a disorientated and grateful population who should be malleable in the hands of their British benefactors. It was, however, to Africans outside British territory that Sir Thomas Powell Buxton turned his attention when, freed from the demands of parliament in 1837, he began to work on the apparent failure of British efforts to stop the slave trade. His ideas were expressed in a series of privately printed pamphlets and published books between August 1838 and 1840, the two sections eventually forming one volume, 'The Slave Trade: A Remedy'. His concern was with slaving in the area of the River Niger and the failure of the naval squadron, set up to waylay slave ships setting out on the Middle Passage, to do its job. "No-one possessing any knowledge or anxiety See P.Curtin: "The Image of Afrioa" (1965) for a most stimulating description of nineteenth century attitudes towards W# Africa. - 4 - on the subject of the Negro race, can fail to lament most deeply the present state of Africa", he wrote in 1838. His remedy involved the diversion of British energies to the establishment of legitimate trade in these areas to undercut the slave trade. Like so many writers on Africa, he produced extensive and enthusiastic evidence of its great resources. Europeans could confidently expect to find a wide range of animals, many species of timber, and such sundries as iron, sugar cane, cotton, tea, indigo, gold dust and coffee. He described Africa as the future "emporium of the world 2 for most, if not all of these articles.1* Africa must not, in Buxton's opinion, rely for salvation from the slave trade solely on the efforts of British naval ships, but on the development of its own resources and its resouroes consisted not only of minerals and foodstuffs, but of people who should be educated and trained to run an orderly society, marked by culture and civilisation. "You will do little," he said in 1838, "unless you elevate the native mind."3 Once Africans had been thoroughly civilised, Europeans could safely withdraw knowing that the slave trade would not revive and that a stable and orderly society would remain. The old methods, devoted to persuading European powers to refrain from the T.P.Buxton: "The Slave Trade" 1838. Preface. 2 Ibid. p.131. 3 Ibid. p.199. - 5 - slave trade for moral reasons, werenrerely scratching the surface of a problem which was deeply rooted in African culture. These ideas were, of course, not new, but they provoked the publication of a series of pamphlets by those who disagreed with Buxton's approaoh.