1799 - A Pan-African Perspective

1799

 

A PAN-AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

 

AFRICA

 

The Rosetta Stone was discovered in Egypt by French army Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard.  Bouchard believed that the three sets of inscriptions in demotic, hieroglyphs and Greek might hold the key to understanding the ancient Egyptian language.

In 1799, one of the most startling archaeological discoveries in the history of mankind was made. In mid-July, in the western Egyptian delta, an officer of engineers in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte, spied a slab of black stone which had been built into an old wall that had been demolished to expand a fort near the town of Rosetta. This officer of engineers, a certain Pierre-Francois Bouchard, was quickly taken aback by the fact that this black stone had writing on it, writing which was not in just one script but in three.

The black granite stone that Bouchard found came to be called the Rosetta Stone, and the French scholars who accompanied Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, immediately recognized its importance. The Rosetta Stone was important because it contained the same message in three scripts, demotic Egyptian, Greek and hieroglyphic Egyptian. At the time of the stone’s discovery, the language of ancient Egypt had been extinct for over a thousand years. With its discovery, for the first time, modern scholars were provided a key to unlocking the mysteries of the ancient Egyptian world.

It would take 20 years for scholars to fully understand the nature of the key and to begin to properly utilize it. However, once they did turn the key, the door to a new world -- the ancient world of Egypt -- was opened to them and with it came a greater understanding of the past.

Johannes van der Kemp, a charismatic religious figure, arrived in Cape Town (March 31). A Dutch missionary ordained by the Church of Scotland, Van der Kemp would work among the Khoikhoi.

Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp (b. May 17, 1747, Rotterdam – d. December 15, 1811, Cape Town) was a military officer, doctor and philosopher who became a missionary in South Africa.

The second son of Cornelius van der Kemp, Rotterdam's leading reformed clergyman, and Anna Maria van Teylingen, he attended the Latin schools of Rotterdam and Dordrecht. He subsequently enrolled at the University of Leiden in 1763 where he studied medicine, but when his elder brother Didericus was appointed as professor of church history he abandoned his studies.

Van der Kemp joined the dragoon guards and fathered an illegitimate child, Johanna (‘Antje’), whom he brought up himself. In 1778 he fell in love with Christina (‘Stijntje’) Frank (d. 1791). He lived with her for a year before being reprimanded by the Prince of Orange on this irregular state of affairs. As a result he both married Stijntje, on 29 May 1779, and quit the army.


Returning to his medical studies again, this time in Edinburgh, he completed his Medical Doctorate within two years. He also prepared for publication a treatise in Latin on cosmology, entitled Parmenides which was published in 1781. He returned to the Netherlands, where he practiced as a doctor first in Middelburg and then near Dordrecht. On June 27, 1791, his wife and daughter Antje were drowned in a yachting accident from which he only just escaped. As a result of this incident he experienced an emotional conversion back to the reformed Christianity of his family.

Van der Kemp served as a medical officer during the revolutionary campaigns in Flanders and then as hospital superintendent at Zwijndrecht, near Dordrecht. Whilst there in 1797 he came to hear of the formation of the London Missionary Society.

After making contact with the London Missionary Society, Van der Kemp helped found the Dutch version, Nederlandsche Zendinggenootschap. He was ordained in London in November 1798 and began recruiting men for the society. He sailed from London in December 1798 as one of the first three agents sent by the society to the Cape colony in South Africa, arriving in March 1799.

Whilst there in 1799, Van der Kemp published the first work in book-form in South Africa, which was an 8-page translation, into Dutch, of the London Missionary Society's letter that he brought out to the inhabitants of the Cape. Printed by V.A. Schoonberg most likely on J.C. Ritters press.

Once in South Africa, after working at Gaika's Kraal near King William's Town he journeyed beyond the eastern frontier of the colony to work among the Xhosa under Chief Ngqika. From the Xhosa he received the name Jank' hanna (‘the bald man’). War between Cape Colony and the Xhosa soon drove him back and from 1801 onwards he worked exclusively within the colony, mainly with dispossessed Khoikhoi. In 1803, he established a mission settlement for vagrant Khoikhoi at Bethelsdorp where local farmers accused him of harboring lawless elements. He countered with a list of alleged ill-treatment of the Khoikhoi by local farmers, but the evidence proved unsatisfactory and the farmers were acquitted.

On April 7, 1806, Van der Kemp married Sara Janse, a freed slave 45 years his junior, and had four children with her. This situation and his attitudes caused great opposition from within the colony, and he was for a time ordered by the government to leave Bethelsdorp.

Armed with a background in European and classical philology, he pioneered in the study of Xhosa and Khoikhoi languages.

Van der Kemp was recalled to Cape Town by the Governor in 1811 and died soon afterwards.

Sarah Millin, one of the most popular English-language novelists in South Africa during her lifetime wrote The Burning Man about the life of van der Kemp. The life of Johannes van der Kemp during his mission in Bethelsdorp is included in the novel Praying Mantis by André Brink.
 

Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Turks at Aboukir, Egypt (July 24).  However, on August 22, Bonaparte secretly abandoned Egypt for France, leaving Kleber in command.

 

 

A commercial treaty was executed between Morocco and Spain.

 

The United States defaulted on its tribute payments to the Barbary states of Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis.

 

Father Pinto turned Lacerda’s expedition back towards Tete. {See A Christian Perspective.}

 

There was an eruption of Fogo on the Cape Verde Islands.

 

Fogo is the fourth largest island in the Cape Verde archipelago.  Fogo also has the highest point (2,831 meters) among all of the Cape Verde Islands.  Fogo was first known as Sao Filipe, but today it is known as Fogo in reference to the volcanic “fire” of the island. At times the red glow of the central volcano has been a valuable and prominent navigational aid.  The round, rocky cone-shaped island continues to have periodic eruptions.  Some of the more notable activity of the volcano took place in 1680, 1847, and 1951.  The most recent activity was in March 1962.

 

Fogo lies just east of Brava, but it may even be seen from Sao Tiago on a clear day.  It is one of the four members of the Sotavento group of islands.  Fogo was the second island to be settled and its main town and port is still known as Sao Filipe. 

 

The earliest settlement was based on the substantial introduction of slaves from the mainland as early as the late 1460s.  Most land holdings were initially derived as donatarios to settlers related to Prince Fernando.  The settlers grew some agricultural trade items and dealt extensively in slaves.  Most of the first settlers left by the end of the 15^th century and only after 1510 was the island settled more widely.  By 1582, the slave population of the island had reached 2,000 and the relative autonomy in coastal trade gave the island some atmosphere of prosperity. 

 

The volcanic eruptions in various years also caused some shifts in population, usually with temporary relocation to neighboring Brava.  This island has also attracted a number of settlers from Portugal and from the Madeira Islands.  Today Fogo is often regarded as the island of Cape Verdean “first families” since some may still control land held in their families for centuries.

 

Demetrius became the Emperor of Ethiopia.

 

 

 

EUROPE

 

Mungo Park published Travels in the Interior of Africa. {See A Humanist Perspective.}

 

Alexander Pushkin [Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin] (1799-1837), a Russian poet of African descent, was born in Moscow (June 6).  {See also A Humanist Perspective.}  

 

Alexander Pushkin (June 6, 1799 – February 10, 1837) is considered by most authorities to be Russia's greatest poet. Pushkin is best known for his long narrative poems.  However, he is also known for the many beautiful short lyric poems, plays in verse, and prose short stories that he wrote.  Several of his works inspired ballets and operas by some of Russia's greatest composers.

 

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was born in Moscow on June 6, 1799.  One of his great-grandfathers was an Abyssinian (an Ethiopian) courtier to the Russian czar Peter the Great.  Pushkin took great pride in his African ancestry and noble heritage.  Pushkin was the son of Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, a retired army officer and his wife, Nadezhda Osipovna (nee Hannibal).  On his father's side the family lineage can be traced to the fifteenth century when the Pushkins were among the noblest families in Russia.  However, gradually the family lost its wealth and its influence to the point where, by the time Pushkin was born, the family had been relegated to the position of minor nobility of decidedly lesser importance.

 

On his mother's side, Pushkin's great-grandfather was Abram Petrovich Hannibal.  Abram Petrovich Hannibal was the son of an Abysinnian (Ethiopian) prince.  Abram was seized, held as a hostage, and taken to Constantinople by the Turks.  While in Constantinople, Abram was later purchased and brought to Russia by Czar Peter the Great (1706).

 

Because of his unusual talents, Abram achieved a relatively high position at the Court and in the army.  Some biographers of Pushkin profess to see evidence of the Pushkin's African blood in his facial features, in his restless temperament, in his imagination and in his "sense of rhythm".  

 

Pushkin took great pride in his African heritage.  His unfinished historical novel Arap Petra Velikogo (The Negro of Peter the Great) was to be the story of his great grandfather. 

 

Pushkin began writing poetry at the age of 12, about the same time that he started his formal education.  After completing his studies in 1817, Pushkin took a job in the civil service.  However, most of his time was spent participating in the social life of St. Petersburg. 

 

As a child growing up in the Pushkin household, Pushkin encountered domestic turmoil.  His happy go lucky but egotistical father and his domineering mother often left the moody Alexander to himself.  At home French was spoken in the family circle and it was only from servants, his nurse, and occasionally, from his maternal grandmother that Pushkin learned Russian.  In 1811, Alexander was accepted at the Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo, an exclusive government school for young noblemen who were to be educated for civil service and diplomacy.

 

At the Lyceum, Alexander found in the school a substitute for the domestic turmoil at home and formed a strong attachment to the school and his school friends.  The education offered by the Lyceum was remarkably liberal for its time, offering considerable contact with European thought, cultural trends, and tastes.  At the Lyceum, Pushkin's poetic talent was almost immediately recognized by his school mates and his teachers.  Alexander was only fifteen when his first poem was published in the most influential Russian literary magazine, Vestnik Europy (The Messenger of Europe). 

 

In 1817, Pushkin graduated from the Lyceum and received a nominal appointment to the foreign office with the rather insubstantial salary of 700 rubles a year.  Pushkin spent the next three years in St. Petersburg, then the capital of Russia.  In St. Petersburg, Pushkin led a life of debauchery -- a life of little restraint filled with drinking bouts and parties, gambling and duel challenges, and frequent visits to actresses and ladies of the night. 

 

And yet, despite all the distractions, Pushkin was still able to write and to maintain his literary connections and friendships. 

 

Pushkin wrote a number of poems which were critical of the Russian government.   These poems caused the czar's secret police to begin monitoring Pushkin's activities.  In 1820, he was exiled to southern Russia because of his political poetry. 

 

Pushkin had a tendency to ridicule certain factions in verse.  Among his sharp epigrams which circulated in St. Petersburg in manuscript copies were some which unmercifully mocked persons close to the Court.  These epigrams along with Pushkin's Vol'nost (Ode to Freedom), written in 1817, made for powerful expressions of Pushkin's political liberalism and of his association with suspect groups.  These expressions ultimately got Pushkin into serious political difficulty.  Only his influential friends were able to save him from exile in Siberia.

 

In lieu of the Siberian exile, Pushkin was sent to serve in the army corps in southern Russia.  Pushkin left St. Petersburg in May of 1820.  A short time after his departure, his first major poetic success, Ruslan i Ludmila (Ruslan and Ludmila) was published.  Ruslan i Ludmila was an ironic romance which skillfully and with wit used the forms and conventions of the fairy tale, and which was enthusiastically hailed as a work of considerable maturity of poetic expression.

 

Pushkin spent most of his exile in the provincial Bessarabian city of Kishinev.  He hated Kishinev.  Fortunately, he was able to visit the picturesque Caucasus region -- an area of Russia which was at that time inhabited by non-Russian ethnic groups which were largely unaffected by European civilization. 

 

Pushkin's stay in the Caucasus made a deep impression on him and inspired a great deal of his poetry during this time.  During this time period, the poet Lord Byron was also influential and traces of Byron can be found in Pushkin's poetry.

 

Kavkazskii Plennik (The Prisoner of the Caucasus, 1821); Brat'ia Razboiniki (The Robber Brothers, 1822); Bakhchisaraiskii Fontan (The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, 1823); and Cygany (The Gypsies, 1824) are all poems in which the influence of Byron can be found in Pushkin's poetry. 

 

In the particularly poignant tale of Cygany, Pushkin tells the story of a young Russian in search of freedom which, when he finds it among the gypsies, he is unwilling to grant to others.  This ironic twist occurs because the young Russian is simply unable to overcome the corruptive influence of his civilization.

 

In 1823, Pushkin's exile became more enjoyable when he was transferred to Odessa, a large city with a strong European influence.  Also, by 1823, Pushkin began receiving a modest income from his poetry.

 

While in Odessa, Pushkin developed a romantic relationship with a married woman.  He had an affair with the Countess Elizaveta Vorontsova, the wife of the Viceroy. 

 

In 1826, the new czar, Nicholas I, summoned Pushkin to Moscow and gave him a personal pardon.  By this time, Pushkin's reputation had been established  -- he was Russia's leading poet.

 

After his pardon and for the rest of his all too brief life, Pushkin combined writing with historical research.  In 1836, he founded a literary journal called The Contemporary.

 

In 1831, Pushkin married Natalya Goncharovea, a famous beauty.  His wife had a number of male admirers.  His wife's admirers made Pushkin jealous.  Pushkin was especially jealous of a certain Baron Georges d'Anthes, a Frenchman living in Russia.  Pushkin challenged the baron to a duel.  Pushkin was wounded in the duel and died two days later.

 

Pushkin's literary career while short, was prolific and profound.  His most famous poem is Eugene Onegin.  Eugene Onegin is a novel in verse form which was written between the years 1825 and 1832.  The title character is intelligent, good-hearted, and liberal, but he lacks moral discipline and a serious occupation or purpose in life.  As a result, Onegin destroys himself and those around him.  Much of Eugene Onegin deals with Onegin's romantic relationship with a beautiful country girl named Tatyana.  These two characters, the weak Eugene and the sincere, devoted Tatyana, served as models for many characters throughout Russian literature.

 

Pushkin's drama Boris Godunov was written in blank verse in 1825.  Boris Godunov introduced Shakespearean historical tragedy to the Russian stage.  The play tells the story of a czar who is haunted by the guilt over a murder he committed in order to secure the throne. 

 

Pushkin’s legacy rests with his many lyric poems about love, the fear of madness, and the obligation of the poet to lead society to the truth. 

 

Joseph Boulogne Saint-Georges (c. 1739-1799), an Afro-French violinist and composer and, for a time, one of the best swordsman in France, died.  {See also A Humanist Perspective.}

 

Joseph Boulogne (the Chevalier de) Saint-Georges was the son of a former councillor in the Parlement at Metz and a woman of African descent from Guadeloupe.  Moving first from Guadeloupe to Saint Domingue (Haiti), the family settled in Paris in 1749. 

 

At the age of 13, Saint-Georges became a pupil of La Boessiere, a master of arms.  He also studied riding with Dugast at the Tuileries.  Over the years, Saint-Georges became very proficient at both arms and riding.

 

On September 8, 1766, Saint-Georges participated in his first public fencing match in Paris with the renowned Giuseppe Gianfaldoni.  Gianfaldoni won but predicted that Saint-Georges would one day become the finest swordsman in Europe.  Gianfaldoni was right.

 

Besides his expertise in fencing and riding, Saint-Georges excelled in dancing, swimming and skating as well as the violin.

 

Little is known of Saint-Georges’ musical training either as a violinist or composer. It is said that he received some instruction with his father’s plantation manager while the family was in Haiti.  It is also believed that he studied the violin with Leclair and composition with Gossec.  However, whatever the source of his instruction, Saint-Georges excelled at both.

 

Saint-Georges made his public debut as a violinist with the Amateurs in 1772, performing violin concertos that he had written for himself.  These concertos, like all his others, seem to have been written to demonstrate Saint-Georges’ prowess with the violin.  The concertos contain violin solos that reveal much about Saint Georges’ capabilities.  The solos make extensive use of the highest positions and require phenomenal dexterity in crossing the strings and in multiple stopping, often in the quickest of tempos.  However, his virtuoso playing was not the only part of his performance.  As his friend Louise Fusil wrote: “The expressivity of his performance was his principal merit.”

 

When Gossec became a director of the Concert Spirituel in 1773, Saint-Georges became the musical director and leader of the Amateurs.  Under Saint-Georges’ leadership, the Amateurs became one of the best orchestras in France.

 

Between 1772 and 1779, Saint-Georges published most of his instrumental music.  He composed quartets for strings and continuo, violin concertos, symphonies concertantes and a pair of symphonies.  It is upon this body of work that Saint-Georges’ reputation as a composer rests.

 

In 1781, the Amateurs were disbanded.  Soon thereafter, Saint-Georges founded the orchestra known as the Concert de la Loge Olympique. As its fame increased, the Concert de la Loge Olympique moved to the prestigious Salle des Gardes in the Tuileries.  It was for this ensemble that the Count of Ogny commissioned Haydn’s Paris symphonies with Saint-Georges as intermediary.

 

In 1785, Saint-Georges moved to London, where he gave exhibition fencing matches at Angelo’s Academy before the Prince of Wales and other dignitaries.  Returning to Paris in 1787, Saint-Georges composed and produced a moderately successful comedy entitled La fille garcon and resumed work with the Loge Olympique.

 

In 1789, the French Revolution began and the Loge Olympique fell upon hard times.  The Loge Olympique was dissolved and Saint-Georges once again moved to England.  However, this time he was in the company of the Duke of Orleans, Philippe Egalite. Again there were fencing matches at Angelo’s Academy and at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton before the Prince of Wales.

 

In 1790, Saint-Georges returned to Paris.  Depressed by the turmoil caused by the Revolution and the loss of his orchestra, Saint-Georges decided to leave the city and tour northern France.  In 1791, Saint-Georges took up official residence in Lille where he became captain of the National Guard.

 

Desiring to take a more active role in the on-going Revolution, Saint-Georges organized a corps of light troops in late summer 1792.  The corps of light troops was to be comprised of 1000 Afro-French and African troops, including the COTW Alexandre Dumas.  Known as the Legion National du Midi, the corps had little military success.  Saint-Georges was relieved of his command and subsequently jailed for eighteen months in a house at Houdainville.  Upon his release, Saint-Georges was forbidden to live in the vicinity of his former comrades.

 

Without any means to his former livelihood, Saint-Georges was reduced to living a vagabond life.  For a time, he returned to Haiti.  However, in 1797, he returned to Paris, where he served briefly as director of a new musical organization, the Cercle de l’Harmonie, in the former residence of the Orleans family.

 

THE AMERICAS

 

By 1799, 141,391 persons of African descent had come to Cuba as slaves. 

 

John Brown Russwurm (1799-1851), the first superintendent of schools in Liberia and Governor of the African colony of Maryland, was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica. {See also A Humanist Perspective.}

 

John Russwurm was the first editor of the Liberia Herald. He was secretary to the agent of the colony of Liberia in the early 1830s and governor of Maryland in Liberia from 1836 to 1851.  Born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, on October 1, 1799, Russwurm went to the United States where he received a degree from Bowdoin College.  Early in his adult life he favored the abolitionist position toward slavery.  He was the co-founder of the first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal. By the late 1820’s Russwurm began to look more and more favorably on the colonization movement.  When, in 1829, he was offered the position of superintendent of schools in Liberia, he accepted and emigrated.  He held concurrently his school position, and served as colonial secretary and editor of the Liberia Herald.  In 1836, he was involved in a dispute with the ACS agent, Ezekiel Skinner, and moved to Maryland in Liberia, where he was appointed governor. The early period of Russwurm’s governorship was relatively peaceful, but difficulties began to mount after 1843, when a conflict broke out between various factions of the Glebo, and these in turn began to affect the relationship between the local peoples and the Maryland colonists.  He died at Harper, Maryland County, on June 17, 1851.

 

John Seys (1799-1872), an American agent for recaptured Africans (1858-1862) was born in Saint Croix, Virgin Islands.

 

John Seys was the United States consul general and minister resident (1866-1870). Born on the island of Saint Croix, Virgin Islands, he joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church and was ordained a minister in 1829.  He was appointed superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Missions of West Africa in 1834.  He moved to Monrovia but soon became involved in disagreements with the ACS leaders there.  He then organized his own political party, which was referred to as the Seys party, and through his mission newspaper, Africa’s Luminary, he strongly attacked the ACS leaders in Monrovia.  Governor Buchanan’s supporters defeated the Seys party in the elections of 1840, and Seys was forced to leave the country.  He returned to Liberia in 1858, when he served as United States agent, later serving in Liberia as minister resident as well.  He died February 9, 1872. 

 

              

THE UNITED STATES

 

George Washington died leaving a will that freed his slaves upon the death of his wife, Martha.  Washington's will provided that

 

Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all slaves whom I hold in my own right shall receive their freedom.

 

Washington's will also provided for the care of the freed slaves too old to work, and the binding out and education of freed children. Washington also prohibited the sale or transportation out of Virginia of any of his slaves.  Additionally, Washington gave immediate freedom to "my mulatto man, William, calling himself William Lee" and a life annuity of $30 to Lee. {See also A Humanist Perspective.} 

 

African Americans started fires in Fredericksburg and Richmond, Virginia. 

 

A group of African American slaves in Southampton County, Virginia, slew two European Americans who were transporting them.  As an act of reprisal four to ten slaves were executed in retribution. 

 

Absalom Jones led seventy-three others to address a petition to the legislature of Pennsylvania requesting the immediate abolition of slavery.  Jones' group also petitioned Congress to repeal the fugitive slave law and emancipate all African Americans.  This latter petition created an uproar in the House of Representatives. It was charged that the petition was instigated by the Haitian revolutionaries and Jones' contingent were censured for the more inflammatory (liberating) portions of the petition. 

 

Gradual emancipation began in New York and New Jersey.

 

Nathaniel Brander (c.1799-?), the first vice president of the Republic of Liberia, was born in Petersburg, Virginia. {See A Humanist Perspective.}

 

Paul Jennings (1799-1874), an African American slave owned by President James Madison who wrote a memoir about his life in the White House, was born.

 

Paul Jennings (1799 – 1874) was an African-American slave owned by President James Madison, who later purchased his freedom and wrote a short memoir, a first for an occupant of the White House.

Jennings was the son of an English trader, Benjamin Jennings and an African slave. He was described as a "body servant" for Madison, possibly akin to the "body man" for later presidents. Jennings was present when Madison died in 1836. In 1847, he purchased his own freedom from Dolley Madison for $120, having been loaned this money by Daniel Webster. After this time, he worked for Webster, and repaid Webster for the price of his freedom.

During the War of 1812, as British troops were approaching the White House (and were about to set it aflame) Jennings reportedly helped save the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. (The portrait has since been returned to the White House where it currently resides.) Legend has it that he assisted First Lady Dolley Madison in this effort, but in his autobiography, Jennings wrote that instead of the First Lady, it was a French cook and one other person who helped him save the painting.

In 1848, Jennings was one of the organizers of the Pearl incident, an attempt to free seventy-six runaway slaves.

 

 

James Varick's independent African American Methodist congregation organized as a church in New York. 

 

Richard Allen was ordained a deacon of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

 

A young German musician, Gottlieb Graupner, who arrived in South Carolina in 1795, blackened his face and sang African American songs he had heard in Charleston.  He billed himself as “The Gay Negro Boy” in the Federal Street Theater in Boston.  Graupner later organized the Boston Philharmonic Society.