“The Land of Our Fathers”: Black Internationalist Thought and the Congo Free State

Abstract

“The Land of Our Fathers”Black Internationalist Thought and the Congo Free State Jeannette Eileen Jones (bio) In January 1886, D. Augustus Straker, an African American lawyer, published an article in the New York Freeman wherein he reflected on the Berlin Conference on Africa that convened during the winter of 1884/1885. The Kongokonferenz, as Kaiser Wilhelm II and German Chancellor von Bismarck called it, assembled primarily to address European concerns about free trade in the Congo Basin—the world’s second largest river basin—which was replete with rubber plants and other natural resources. One year after the conference, Straker questioned the avowed benevolence of the “scramble for Africa.” He framed the article around the query “Why Are the European Powers Grasping African Territory?” He explained, It is a matter of no small concern to the sons and daughters of Africa, wherever assembled upon the face of the globe, to perceive the deep interest which the civilized powers of the earth are taking in the development of the resources of the “Dark Continent.” These men and women would “observe the attention which said powers seem now ready to give to the civilization of its races,” understanding that “it is a matter of right and duty that we, who are identified with the African race, the native land of our forefathers … should discuss this topic.” Straker believed that the African heritage of Blacks in the West, particularly that of African Americans, positioned them as legitimate stakeholders in any international actions regarding Africa. He offered an assessment of African affairs, querying whether “the insatiable lust for dominion and wealth” or a “Christian duty” to civilize Africans motivated Europeans to colonize the continenttaking special “interest in the Congo Region.”1 [End Page 26] Access to the Congo Basin, via free navigation of the Congo River and its tributaries, could facilitate European access to the lucrative ivory trade and provide European merchants with a direct route to traverse the continent from east to west. The General Act of the Berlin Conference, ratified in 1886, established European and Ottoman spheres of influences in Africa, sanctioned the creation of foreign protectorates and colonies, ensured the free navigation of the Congo and Niger rivers, promoted free trade throughout the Congo Basin, and formally recognized the Congo Free State (État indépendant du Congo) as a sovereign polity. The act couched the actions of its signatories as necessary for “civilizing” and modernizing Africa. Straker believed that if European motives “be the uplifting of Africa from a state of mental darkness, intellectual inanition and commercial stagnation, to the position of a civilized and prosperous state” based on Christian principles and Westerns arts and sciences, then their work was noble. He reasoned, “The conquest of a barbarous people by a civilized power is justifiable through its benefits.” Accordingly, European efforts in Africa would “establish an era in the world’s progress unprecedented in the past.” Whatever European intentions, Straker emphasized that Blacks should not ignore or take an impartial stance toward the African Question. They had to participate in discussions about the future and status of Africa during this pivotal time in “world” history.2 Straker’s comments reveal an awareness of the geopolitical ramifications of imperialism in Africa from a broad perspective, during a period when most black internationalist strategies and efforts regarding the continent focused on Liberia and Sierra Leone. African Americans’ seeming fixation with the republic of Liberia and the British colony of Sierra Leone stemmed from perceptions of these locales as familial and cultural gateways to Africa. Emigration and abolitionist politics linked many African Americans to Americo-Liberians and settlers in Sierra Leone. While a visible number of settlers in Liberia were what Sharla Fett calls “recaptured Africans,” Liberia bore the political, cultural, and familial markers of African Americans. Similarly, Sierra Leone’s importance to American blacks derived from its status as a potential site for black migration to Africa. Black internationalists who paid attention to Liberia did not situate their concerns about the republic in the politics of empire. They did not view Liberia— despite its settler colonial origins—as an US imperial possession. In their minds, Liberia was not...