Introduction
Pan-Africanism: An Unlikely Beginning
Political Movements are always the children of their era's troubles. For the Black African, the late 19th century was a time of relentless degradation as their continent was conquered and portioned by European colonialists, it is only natural therefore that there emerged in reaction a political current of black cultural nationalism. The idea of Black unity, of an innate pan-national African Character, and of the importance of cultural resistance to imperialism emerged however not within the native Kingdoms themselves, which often had their own strong national identities but, instead, within the children of the diaspora.
It was in Liberia, and in particular within the radical thinkers of the True Whig Party, that the philosophy of first generation pan-Africanism would first emerge. It consisted of three main tenets. First: The Black Race had an innate identity that transcended language, religion and national loyalties but was fundamentally different from that of Europeans. It was important that Black Africans did not attempt to become like Europeans but retained their own cultural purity. Second: That the Black Race was innately cooperative, unlike the more individualistic European. Communal property and co-operative effort was a fundamental part of the African Character and so segregation by class was an unnatural European imposition. Third: That the Black Race should be united, that any borders between them were artificial.
This was a radical and novel philosophy for the 1860s, but to an extent it's own founders, Blyden and Roye, were far more conservative than we would assume from later history. The Liberia Herald, the principle organ of the True Whig's message, would often make pro colonial arguments on the basis that West Africa united under British Rule and so no longer divided by artificial borders was a step forward. While Blyden controversially refused to so much as support the Union in the American Civil War, he did not cheer for the 15th amendment because he viewed the idea of black men gaining rights within western societies as a fatal mistake. In his eyes, a poor man in British Lagos who remained culturally African was better off than a free rich man in America who thought like a European.
Edward Roye was also a strange man to start a movement that became so associated with communalism, he was, when he founded the True Whigs, probably the richest black man in the world. Roye was born in Newark, Ohio, the son of a runaway slave from Kentucky. He worked as a school teacher and then a buyer and seller of real estate before emigrating to Liberia in 1846, having beaten his head against the glass ceiling of white supremacist America. Unlike many new arrivals in Liberia, who were destitute and poor, Roye came with goods to sell and money to invest. Within a year he was one of the leading merchants in Monrovia, and launched the first international shipping line under the Liberian Flag, which soon operated on three continents and undercut European merchants by selling Africa goods directly in New York and Paris. Roye's success saw him invited into the Monrovian elite, he joined the masons and served as both speaker of the house and chief justice.
From the outside there was nothing particularly unusual about his situation. Monrovia was dominated by a rich elite, who controlled trade and thus enforced political control. Each district had a big man who inevitably served as boss, judge and senator as Roye had done, and a multitude of poorer farm workers who were firmly under their thumb. Liberia was very much a society that worked for men like Roye. And yet, he would soon attempt to overthrow it.
His motives for the radical actions he undertook in the late 1860s are somewhat opaque and clouded by later hagiography. A part of it was quite simply racial resentment, Roye was black rather than mixed race as a lot of the other elite was, he was welcomed into some extent but he never felt like one of them, he married a woman as dark skinned as he himself was. A part of it was also genuinely political disagreement, Liberia's relationship with the native African's was frankly terrible, something Roye and Blyden blamed on an elite who were far more interested in America and Europe than actually attempting to build relationships in the African interior. And, as later actions and his own interpretation of collective ownership would prove, a part of it was his own economic interests. Roye knew that his advantages as a shipping merchant would soon disappear as Europeans more firmly established themselves in Africa, to stay still would be death. To remain dominant, he needed to bring the rural Kru people on board, to stop them dodging Liberian tariffs and selling directly to European traders, he needed railways built to link Monrovia firmly to the Mande cities in the interior and he needed investment in educating their workforce. The other merchant elites, however, had no desire to make such radical changes when things were currently working for them.
And one must always account for personal ambition. Roye had hit the limits for how far he could rise within the limits of the Republican Party, the President was out of his reach, but by running a rival party, the party of those who the Republicans had alienated, the up-country farmer's, the middling classes and the new arrivals, he could make it all the way. A rich mogul running a spite campaign against the elite that had not, quite, accepted him, inevitably had to adapt populist rhetoric to get elected and thus for simple realpolitik reasons he had to turn to Blyden and the Herald, as the only genuine voice of the opposition.
It was not the most promising start for a revolution and in 1867, when the True Whigs first began to emerge as a serious force, it's doubtful that anyone could have seen what would become of this new party.
Political Movements are always the children of their era's troubles. For the Black African, the late 19th century was a time of relentless degradation as their continent was conquered and portioned by European colonialists, it is only natural therefore that there emerged in reaction a political current of black cultural nationalism. The idea of Black unity, of an innate pan-national African Character, and of the importance of cultural resistance to imperialism emerged however not within the native Kingdoms themselves, which often had their own strong national identities but, instead, within the children of the diaspora.
It was in Liberia, and in particular within the radical thinkers of the True Whig Party, that the philosophy of first generation pan-Africanism would first emerge. It consisted of three main tenets. First: The Black Race had an innate identity that transcended language, religion and national loyalties but was fundamentally different from that of Europeans. It was important that Black Africans did not attempt to become like Europeans but retained their own cultural purity. Second: That the Black Race was innately cooperative, unlike the more individualistic European. Communal property and co-operative effort was a fundamental part of the African Character and so segregation by class was an unnatural European imposition. Third: That the Black Race should be united, that any borders between them were artificial.
This was a radical and novel philosophy for the 1860s, but to an extent it's own founders, Blyden and Roye, were far more conservative than we would assume from later history. The Liberia Herald, the principle organ of the True Whig's message, would often make pro colonial arguments on the basis that West Africa united under British Rule and so no longer divided by artificial borders was a step forward. While Blyden controversially refused to so much as support the Union in the American Civil War, he did not cheer for the 15th amendment because he viewed the idea of black men gaining rights within western societies as a fatal mistake. In his eyes, a poor man in British Lagos who remained culturally African was better off than a free rich man in America who thought like a European.
Edward Roye was also a strange man to start a movement that became so associated with communalism, he was, when he founded the True Whigs, probably the richest black man in the world. Roye was born in Newark, Ohio, the son of a runaway slave from Kentucky. He worked as a school teacher and then a buyer and seller of real estate before emigrating to Liberia in 1846, having beaten his head against the glass ceiling of white supremacist America. Unlike many new arrivals in Liberia, who were destitute and poor, Roye came with goods to sell and money to invest. Within a year he was one of the leading merchants in Monrovia, and launched the first international shipping line under the Liberian Flag, which soon operated on three continents and undercut European merchants by selling Africa goods directly in New York and Paris. Roye's success saw him invited into the Monrovian elite, he joined the masons and served as both speaker of the house and chief justice.
From the outside there was nothing particularly unusual about his situation. Monrovia was dominated by a rich elite, who controlled trade and thus enforced political control. Each district had a big man who inevitably served as boss, judge and senator as Roye had done, and a multitude of poorer farm workers who were firmly under their thumb. Liberia was very much a society that worked for men like Roye. And yet, he would soon attempt to overthrow it.
His motives for the radical actions he undertook in the late 1860s are somewhat opaque and clouded by later hagiography. A part of it was quite simply racial resentment, Roye was black rather than mixed race as a lot of the other elite was, he was welcomed into some extent but he never felt like one of them, he married a woman as dark skinned as he himself was. A part of it was also genuinely political disagreement, Liberia's relationship with the native African's was frankly terrible, something Roye and Blyden blamed on an elite who were far more interested in America and Europe than actually attempting to build relationships in the African interior. And, as later actions and his own interpretation of collective ownership would prove, a part of it was his own economic interests. Roye knew that his advantages as a shipping merchant would soon disappear as Europeans more firmly established themselves in Africa, to stay still would be death. To remain dominant, he needed to bring the rural Kru people on board, to stop them dodging Liberian tariffs and selling directly to European traders, he needed railways built to link Monrovia firmly to the Mande cities in the interior and he needed investment in educating their workforce. The other merchant elites, however, had no desire to make such radical changes when things were currently working for them.
And one must always account for personal ambition. Roye had hit the limits for how far he could rise within the limits of the Republican Party, the President was out of his reach, but by running a rival party, the party of those who the Republicans had alienated, the up-country farmer's, the middling classes and the new arrivals, he could make it all the way. A rich mogul running a spite campaign against the elite that had not, quite, accepted him, inevitably had to adapt populist rhetoric to get elected and thus for simple realpolitik reasons he had to turn to Blyden and the Herald, as the only genuine voice of the opposition.
It was not the most promising start for a revolution and in 1867, when the True Whigs first began to emerge as a serious force, it's doubtful that anyone could have seen what would become of this new party.