By the Rivers of Water

by Erskine Clarke

  When they had reached their boat and had made their way down the creek into the river and out into the estuary, Walker found deep satisfaction in being on the open water and feeling the land wind that filled the sail and moved the boat along. When the moon was bright, it built its own world of light and shadows across the estuary, and the trees of the shoreline stood out against their forest background in ways never seen during the day. But when the night was dark or overcast, then the waters seemed part of the sky, and the Mpongwe helmsman used ancient skills to navigate toward Glass’s Town. Walker sometimes stretched out and listened to the sound of water lapping against the boat and to the crew talking as their pipes glowed in the dark. He often dozed until the first hints of the morning began to appear—the sky in the east paled, and through the morning mist egrets flew from their roosts in long, slow lines, and it was day.29

  ON HIS RETURN to Baraka from one of his trips to George’s Town in July 1844, Walker learned that his friend and colleague Benjamin Griswold was very sick. Griswold had himself been on a trip far up the Como River—he had been to Kobangai’s Town, where Leighton had gone with Toko on the Waterwitch. Griswold had come down with a fever and had returned to the mission station at Ozyunga suffering hard chills and a dangerously fluctuating fever. The young abolitionist was expecting to return soon to the United States to continue his study of medicine—he wanted, he said, to be better prepared to serve the mission as a physician. But he did not take care of himself on his return from Kobangai’s Town, and he got up too quickly from his sickbed. When a man was brought to the mission badly cut up from a drunken fight, Griswold had spent the night standing over him and sewing him up. It was too much, and the fever came roaring back with a vengeance. In spite of Leighton’s desperate efforts to treat him, Griswold never recovered.30

  Shortly after he had first arrived in the estuary, Griswold had written that “no one must come to Africa who will shrink from suffering or who is afraid of death.” The young New Englander—who as a student at Yale had been so moved by the prisoners of the slave ship Amistad that he had committed his life to Africa—died on July 7, 1844. He was thirty-three.31

  Griswold’s body was brought to Baraka, where Walker and Leighton made his coffin and laid their friend in it. A large crowd of Mpongwe began to gather for his funeral—Toko and old Glass, schoolchildren and the curious, and those who came out of a polite respect for one who had for a time lived among them. They walked up the hill through the wide street of Glass’s Town to the newly marked off cemetery at Baraka. There they heard Leighton preach the strange message of Christian faith and the hope of a heavenly home, and there they heard the little cluster of Christians—whites and blacks, Americans, Grebo, and Fanti—sing a hymn, and they saw a wooden coffin lowered into the ground and covered with the soil of an African hillside.32

  Chapter Seventeen

  The French: “The Most Dishonest and Shameless People”

  In 1842 when Leighton and the others from Cape Palmas had first sailed around Cape Clara into the broad and beautiful Gabon estuary, they had thought they were entering a region far removed from the colonial interests of Europeans or Americans. They knew that trading vessels from Bristol and London, from New York and Salem, visited the north shore regularly, but the ship captains had no trading houses or permanent presence in the estuary—Captain Lawlin of the Atalanta being a case in point. Leighton and the other travelers also knew from what Lawlin had told them that French merchants—primarily from Bordeaux—had established important contacts and trade with King William on the south shore. What the travelers from Cape Palmas did not know, however, was that the French had larger ambitions for Gabon. For several years, they had been eyeing the estuary and thinking of the important role it could play in their commercial and military plans for West Africa. Merchants in Bordeaux were eager to expand their Africa trade, and the French navy saw the estuary as a fine harbor for a protected naval base. The navy needed such a base in their efforts to intercept any French vessels carrying slaves—the French had outlawed participation by their ships in the international slave trade and would soon abolish slavery in their Caribbean colonies. But the French also wanted such a base for military reasons in case of some future war with the British or the Americans and for their assertion of control over selected regions of West Africa.1

  With these interests in mind, two French warships had sailed around the bar at Cape Clara in March 1838 and had slowly moved along the south shore as its officers and crew observed the terrain and the broad waters of the estuary. Anchoring near King William’s Town, they saw a Portuguese ship loading slaves they had bought from the Mpongwe for the Brazilian market. Since the French navy was primarily concerned with intercepting slavers flying the French flag, they did not disturb the Portuguese, who went about their business of ferrying their wretched captives out to their ships.2

  The French captain went ashore, where he was greeted warmly in French by the king. William was eager for more trade with the French and indicated that he could provide large quantities of ivory and ebony. The king had a brother who had served in the French army, and William, while always ready to trade with any ship that sailed into the estuary, was particularly partial to the French, who had given him the French name “Denis.” The captain was impressed by the king and wrote a report that stressed not only the possibility of trade with him but also the potential of the estuary as a naval base.3

  The French navy returned the next year under the command of Edouard Bouët-Willaumez. He found King William’s Town already occupied “by a population eminently French in language, manners, habits, and sentiments.” He was astonished by the “civilized” ways of the Mpongwe and attributed their sophistication to the long influence of French traders—including French slavers who had once frequented the estuary. Bouët-Willaumez signed a treaty with the king on February 9, 1839, that ceded to the French a strip of low, sandy land along the south shore. As a consequence, George was nominated and made a chevalier of the French Légion d’Honneur. The wily king, however, while wearing his handsome medal, had in fact thwarted French efforts to build a fort on the south shore by ceding them poor and unhealthy land.4

  Three years later, Bouët-Willaumez returned to the estuary, focusing his attention this time on the north shore with its higher ground and healthier climate. On March 18, 1842, he signed a treaty with Louis, the headman of a village that lay between Glass’s Town and the mouth of the estuary. Louis conveyed to the king of France “full and entire” sovereignty and placed his village under the protection of the French, who were about to begin in earnest their move to control the estuary. The treaty alarmed neighboring towns, whose leaders immediately perceived what the intentions of the French really were.5

  Leighton and Griswold arrived three months later. They made their decision to establish their mission at Baraka without any knowledge of the looming threat to Mpongwe independence. But Glass and Toko knew the threat—they were outraged by Louis’s actions—and their invitation to the Americans to establish a mission was apparently motivated not only by their desire for a school but also by the hope that the Americans might provide some protection from French intrusions.6

  In June 1843, a year after the establishment of Baraka, the French began building a fort at Louis’s village. Toko and Glass saw the fort as an ominous sign of things to come. After talking with them, Walker noted in his diary that they understood the strategic importance of a fort at any one of the towns—it would give the French control of the whole estuary and end the independence of the Mpongwe. The missionaries were themselves soon alarmed by the French move and by its implications for their mission. They had abandoned their work at Cape Palmas because of the interference of the colonial government and their belief that the settlers were hostile to the Grebo and hungry for their land. But any aggression by the little American colony seemed tame compared to the potential for French imperialism in West Africa and the Gabon estuary. Moreover, the missionaries anticipated that
the French would bring Catholic missionaries with them, and they believed that the deep and shared hostilities between Catholics and Protestants would quickly become an inescapable part of the mission effort in the estuary. The question that Leighton and Walker and the others at Baraka consequently faced was how the missionaries of the American Board should respond to the French efforts to take control of the estuary.7

  On the one hand, they knew only too well that they could be accused of meddling in politics if they became directly involved in any conflict between the Mpongwe and the French. This had been the bitter complaint lodged against Leighton and the Episcopalian missionaries at Cape Palmas when they had accused the settlers of unjust treatment of the Grebo. To take a stand on behalf of the indigenous people against powerful external forces invited the charge of intruding into affairs that were none of the business of missionaries, who were supposed to be there solely to evangelize the heathen. On the other hand, they regarded the French moves as the first steps toward an oppressive colonial regime that would overwhelm the people to whom the missionaries were committed and for whom they felt a responsibility.8

  Leighton and the other missionaries tried to avoid any direct confrontation with the French by seeming to be scrupulously neutral in disputes between the Mpongwe and the French. At the same time, however, they provided detailed accounts of French actions to American and British readers and authorities. They hoped to appeal to Christian audiences in America and Britain that were deeply committed to missions, to ending the international slave trade, and to the protection of “the rights of aborigines” who were facing—from the Americas to South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand—the aggression of white settlers.9

  William Walker led the way in implementing this strategy. Two weeks after the French began building their fort at Louis’s village, Walker wrote to the British evangelical abolitionist Thomas Fowell Buxton. A leader of the second generation of British abolitionists, Buxton had skillfully directed the efforts that had led in 1833 to the abolition of slavery within British domains. He had then turned his great energies to “Aborigines’ rights” and had chaired a parliamentary committee to investigate the treatment of indigenous peoples in British overseas settlements. Utilizing missionary reports, he had won some important protections for indigenous peoples of Australia and New Zealand and in particular for the Xhosa and Khoi of South Africa.10

  In his letter to Buxton, Walker described the situation in the estuary and declared that the French were clearly attempting to gain control of the whole area. Glass and other leaders, Walker wrote, “are anxiously enquiring whether England can protect them.” The missionaries could not answer their inquiries, Walker said. He was consequently writing Buxton to ask if the British government could give any protection to the Mpongwe, if they requested it, to ensure that their rights and territory would not be encroached upon.11

  Walker’s concern about the intentions of the French had been heightened when he had spoken to some French officials. They replied to his inquiries by saying they were only doing in Gabon what the American settlers were doing in Liberia! Walker was appalled by the French arrogance. “I once thought,” he wrote in his diary, “that the French had at least a show of honor and manliness. But in their intercourse with this people they have shown themselves the most dishonest and shameless of any people I ever met.” And then he revealed his own deep Protestant prejudices: “But I suppose they are just like all Papists.”12

  While the Mpongwe and the missionaries awaited some word from British friends, the French began to put pressure on Glass and Toko. Gifts were offered to induce them to sign treaties in November 1843, but the old king and the wise Toko refused the enticements and sent them back. So the French waited and made their plans.13

  In March 1844, while Leighton and Walker were visiting King George’s Town, a French trader came to Glass’s Town, spent the night drinking with the old king, and got Glass to sign what Glass thought was a letter of friendship to the French king. The next day, the French commander came to Baraka and told Jane that Glass had signed a treaty ceding sovereignty to the French—the mission, he said, was now under French protection. Toko and the other Mpongwe of Glass’s Town protested vigorously. Glass had been tricked, they said, and anyway, the old king had no right to sign such a document on behalf of his town without the approval of a public assembly. When Leighton and Walker returned, they found the people in an uproar. After listening to the excited accounts of Toko and Glass and others, the missionaries thought the king’s mark had been “obtained by the blackest villainy.” They nevertheless counseled a peaceful protest.

  At the request of the old king and their friend Toko and other headmen, they wrote letters to King Louis Philippe and to Queen Victoria. A British trader, Toko’s friend Captain Samuel Dyer, took the letters and got the marks and wrote the names of over a hundred men in Glass’s Town. When the French commander was shown the letters, he simply dismissed them and said nothing would be retracted. Walker wrote again to Buxton and the Aborigines’ Protection Society, and Leighton wrote the American Board. He asked Rufus Anderson to make some inquiries about American and British attitudes toward French moves in the estuary. But the French were adamant, and when Bouët-Willaumez arrived back in the estuary and was given a letter of protest written by Leighton and Walker at the request of Glass and Toko, he simply tore it up and threw it into the wind and waves. Leighton and Walker went on board Bouët-Willaumez’s ship and told him that since Glass’s Town refused to accept the treaty, they regarded Baraka as under the protection of Glass and not the French. They insisted they were not fomenting resistance but only responding to the request of the people to act as their intermediaries. Bouët-Willaumez was polite but said the treaty was signed and in force. Two days earlier he had signed treaties with all of the other major kings around the estuary acknowledging the sovereignty of France over the two banks of the estuary and all the waters that lapped at their shores. King William and King George were among those who signed. They had all been given many gifts.14

  Still Glass and Toko held out, refusing to give up the independence of Glass’s Town. They were waiting for help from the British and had been encouraged by the arrival of the Decatur, a US sloop-of-war commanded by Walker’s friend Joel Abbott. The commander and some of his officers visited Baraka and dined with the missionaries, and Leighton and Walker, together with Toko, were invited on board the Decatur and sailed with it until it passed the bar at the mouth of the estuary. The Americans seemed to be taking an interest in French moves to control the estuary, and their presence seemed to offer some hope that American warships would act as a brake on French aggression.15

  There had also been a visit from Commodore Josiah Tattnall, a native of Savannah and a friend of Jane’s family. He had refused to “intermeddle in any manner in the affairs of the French and natives,” but he did call on the French commander, who assured him that he had the kindest intentions toward the missionaries. Tattnall also listened closely to what Leighton and Jane told him and reported his conclusions to his commanding officer, Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who wrote the secretary of the navy that France intended not only to control the estuary, but also to prepare the way for a colonial settlement. The estuary, Perry thought, was to be a French naval base, and it would be well situated in the event of any future war with England or the United States.16

  So Glass and Toko stood their ground, hoped they would get some help from the British or Americans, and watched every move by the French. And at Baraka, on the hill above Glass’s Town, the missionaries looked out over the estuary, with its darting Mpongwe sailboats and canoes, its trading ships flying American or British or French flags, and its Portuguese and Spanish slavers. Leighton and the other missionaries once again wondered and worried about how their missionary efforts would be influenced by imperial incursion into West Africa. Meanwhile, the French completed their fort at Louis’s Town, continued to strengthen their presence in the estuary, and planned their next att
empt to get Glass and Toko to accept French authority over the Mpongwe.17

  IN AUGUST 1844—with matters apparently at a stalemate between Glass, Toko, and the French—William Walker left Gabon for a furlough to try to recover his health. He had been suffering repeated bouts with fever, he was lonely and struggling with depression, and he was outraged by the French moves in the estuary.18

  Walker sailed for the United States by way of England. Arriving in Bristol in December, he was quickly invited to stay in the home of the city’s mayor, Richard King, whose business had extensive trade relations with the Mpongwe. Walker found that the mayor and his brother were trying to help the Mpongwe preserve their independence, but the brothers were finding no encouragement from the British Foreign Office. The tall, gangly New England missionary spoke with merchants in the city, went to antislavery meetings, and attended meetings of the Aborigines’ Protection Society. Everywhere he went he spoke about his experiences in Gabon and about the French aggression, and his remarks, he thought, “caused considerable sensation.” He traveled to London with Governor George MacLean of Cape Coast—who had been so kind to Leighton and Jane on their visits to the former slave fort and its surrounding town—and together Walker and MacLean spoke of Africa and the efforts of the British to end the international slave trade. Walker called at the Foreign Office and had an interview with Lord Canning, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs. He gave Canning a full report of how the French were taking control of the estuary and how they had obtained King Glass’s mark through trickery.19

  Everywhere there was much interest in what he had to say, and often outrage over the French aggression, but the official British response to the French moves in the African estuary were cautious. British commercial interests in Gabon did not merit a confrontation with the French. A British warship sailed to the estuary to investigate the situation, but the ship’s officers only promised to use the good offices of their government with the French on behalf of the Mpongwe.20