global culture:Realigning and Reframing Pan African Resistance

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Chapter Title: Realigning and Reframing Pan African Resistance

Chapter Author(s): Tony Talburt Book Title: Fight for Freedom

Book Subtitle: Black Resistance and Identity

Book Editor(s): MOUSSA TRAORÉ and TONY TALBURT

Published by: Sub-Saharan Publishers

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvh8r2hp.13

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CHAPTER NINE

Realigning and Reframing Pan African Resistance Tony Talburt

Introduction The broad-based Pan African ideology and movement can be considered as one of the most universally organised and sustained forms of Black resistance that was established to counteract the European control, dominance and exploitation of Black people in the modern era. These were more than Black resistance campaigns. At the heart of many of these initiatives, was a strong desire to assert, reinforce and retain aspects of Black identity and independence in the face of the prevailing Eurocentric systems. In much of the literature on Pan Africanism, however, the focus is very often centred on the twentieth century initiatives, campaigns and ideologies propounded by such leading personalities as: Henry Sylvester Williams, Marcus Garvey, William Dubois or Kwame Nkrumah. As a consequence, many aspects of Pan Africanism, as well as the individuals involved in such initiatives during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, throughout the African Diaspora, have been largely ignored. The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to examine two major features within the Pan African tradition which were clearly present prior to the twentieth century, and which most people today would regard

to Africa ideologies and campaigns, while the second issue is

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225FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

the use of religion as vehicles through which to engage in Black resistance. This chapter considers whether discussions about these movements and initiatives should be much more explicit in acknowledging this early period in their contextualisation of this important Black resistance ideology.

In order to fully understand and appreciate the very idea of Pan Africanism prior to the twentieth century, it is important to

interpretations. What becomes clear from this is that whilst there is more of a general agreement regarding what constitutes Pan Africanism, the main point of departure centres upon arriving at a consensus as to when it was started. Ali Mazrui regarded Pan Africanism as the ideas to liberate Africa from European political, economic and socio-cultural control and to provide a movement to demonstrate the ability of Africans to govern themselves and contribute to world civilisation which he said had emerged within the African Diaspora (Mazrui, 1999, p. 706). Pan Africanism was, therefore, the idea of redemption of Africa to provide freedom for Black people and led to the development of a number of international Black movements for freedom. This movement, he asserts, reached its peak during the period 1900 to

Dubois and others in Europe and the United States (Mazrui, 1999, p. 706). Therefore, Mazuri, in common with a number of other writers (discussed below), considered Pan Africanism within the context of the twentieth century. He pointed out that from the 1930s until the 1960s the single most important factor which drove or motivated the Pan African ideology was the notion of an anti colonial struggle. This drive was facilitated by the large number of Africans who were demanding political and economic independence and who had gone to live, work or study in Europe and the USA. This was especially true for the French North African colonies and the Belgian colonies. For example during the

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226 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

Algerian War of Independence, there were some four hundred

Another major writer on Pan-Africanism, Vernon McKay (1963) divided the Pan African movement into four phases; 1900-1945 when it was dominated by African Americans and Caribbean people; 1945-1958 when it was dominated by African nationalists who were still under colonial rule whose aim was political sovereignty; 1958-1959 when President Nkrumah emerged as

emerging which ended Nkrumah’s dominance and led to the creation of rival Pan African initiatives (McKay, 1963, p. 94). The idea was to bring people of African descent much closer together (McKay, 1963, p. 98). Therefore, as far as Mckay was concerned,

century movements seeking to improve the general civil liberties and human rights of Black people.

Apter and Coleman (1962) in their study on the evolution of

‘exiled Africans’ who found themselves in America and Europe. They organised ad hoc meetings and conferences, student groups, cultural associations, and also called for the independence of Africa itself. The second phase was the establishment of nationalist

a wider African unity following the achievement of political independence (Apter and Coleman, 1962, p. 84). By making reference to the exiled Africans, the authors implicitly suggest that

twentieth century.

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227FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

John Davis explained that the interest of the American Negro in Pan Africanism was not only long-standing, but went back to

(Davis, 1962, p. 31). In the introduction to the book Pan Africanism Reconsidered (1962), the concept was described as the rallying slogan, the springboard, the ideological vehicle for the common

to advance the cause of Africa and Africans. Furthermore, it was pointed out that in its initiation, Pan Africanists were primarily interested in improving the conditions under which most Africans

changed to a more militant programme of nationalism and African independence (American Society of African Culture, 1962, p. 5).

According to Thompson, the Pan Africanist movement was dominated by intellectuals or, at the very least, ‘budding intellectuals’ who spent a great deal of their time researching or sharing their experiences of the African experience in relation to European exploitation. These people could be found in the USA, the Caribbean, Britain and France (Thompson, 1969, p. 23). The list of personalities that Thompson then mentions consisted of such Pan-African heavy weights as the French-speaking Leopold Senghor, Cheikh Anta Diop and Aimé Césaire. The Anglophone

such as Kwame Nkrumah. Whilst very few would argue against the names included in this list, the issue is that they were all personalities of the twentieth century.

According to the Directorate of Information and Communication of the African Union (AU) in their 20th special edition of the AU Echo

that encourages the solidarity of Africans world wide. It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social and political progress and aims to ‘unify and uplift’ people of African descent.

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228 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

The ideology asserts that the fates of all African peoples and countries are intertwined. At its core Pan Africanism is a belief that African peoples, both on the continent and in the Diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny. Although some of these writers did not make it explicit, it is clear that there was some recognition of active Black communities in America, the Caribbean and Europe which had organised some level of resistance against the various forms of discrimination they were experiencing prior to the year 1900. It is in this sense, therefore

self-expression and self-organisation of the African peoples and expresses their resistance to Eurocentrism (Campbell, 1994, p. 285).

Although not focusing on the period before the year 1900, Campbell made a very important point in declaring that Pan

itself in village communities and has been disseminated through oral history, songs, stories, dances and other cultural media’ (Campbell, 1994, p. 288). Furthermore, Apter and Coleman added,

Black people to engage in any meaningful Pan African resistance campaigns in Africa itself. As a consequence, it was Africans abroad

early Black organisations did not ‘espouse nationalism or racial agitation’ but rather focused on ameliorating the lives of Black people living abroad through ‘persuasion and petition’ (Apter and Coleman, 1962, p. 85). Similarly, Dubois was quoted as saying: the idea of one Africa to unite the thoughts and ideals of all native peoples of the Dark Continent belongs to the twentieth century and stems naturally from the West Indies and the United States (Thompson, 1969, p. 23). He might certainly have a point about the American and Caribbean involvement, but the movement had its roots in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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229FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

Very importantly, it should be stressed at this juncture that, not every Black struggle against European domination or control should be subsumed under the heading Pan Africanism. A central feature of Pan Africanism is the fact that they are organised and sustained campaigns of resistance with the main objective being

the freedom of a people. From the preceding discussion, therefore, it becomes clear that there are certain common factors which help

Pan African resistance.

There are at least three key features which lie at the heart of most Pan African campaigns. First, there is a rejection of the European systems of colonialism, slavery and other forms of European political, economic and cultural discrimination and oppression. Secondly, there is an organised and sustained campaign of resistance or rebellion against the main institutions and systems of colonial governments often resulting in the establishment of alternative Black-based ideologies and organisations. These Pan African struggles, though often championed by a particular individual, have as their core value and purpose, a collective struggle rather than an individually focused engagement, thereby

or Black community. Thirdly, there is a desire to reconnect with Africa whether in the physical sense or spiritually. This is often based on the need of Black people in the Diaspora to not only relink with Africa, but also to re-assert pride in their own Blackness and identity and, therefore, posit a more African-centred world view

to establish alternative organisations to counteract the more exclusive and mainstream European models. A Pan African struggle should, at the very least, accept the idea of the African brotherhood of nations and common identity with its peoples

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230 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

whether they are on the African continent or within the Diaspora. Furthermore, those not directly involved in the same struggle, should be able to draw inspiration from such Black struggles. From the foregoing, we can claim, that Pan Africanism, in its broadest sense, refers to the establishment of Black organisations, campaigns or ideologies which seek to challenge particular aspects

Africans whether on the continent or in the African Diaspora. It

Black pride and identity through the establishment of alternative ideologies and organisations.

In this sense, therefore, Pan-African resistance is closely associated with, or organised through, the use of pressure groups. Wherever they exist, pressure groups or interests groups seek to

particular issue, or they seek to put pressure on the authorities to

In many instances, members of the Black community formed their

particular aspect or feature of Pan Africanism highlighted above. Some of the leading Pan Africanists such as Williams, Garvey or Dubois were all associated with particular pressure groups; Pan- African Association, Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and Niagara Movement respectively. In each case, these Black organisations were established to raise public awareness as

governments so as to implement change.

Pan African Resistance and Repatriation Prior to the Twentieth Century According to Olisanwuche (1982) the Chicago Congress on Africa which was held in August 1893 was the beginning of Pan- Africanism as a movement. This congress lasted for a whole week. A few years later, partly as a stance against colonialism, Henry

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231FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

in establishing an organisation called the African Association in London on September 24 1897. The organisation aimed to encourage a feeling of unity, to facilitate friendly intercourse among Africans in general, and to promote and protect the interest of Africans in the Diaspora. By June 1900 a Pan African Conference

Pan African meeting actually took place in on 23-25 July, 1900 in Westminster Town Hall. There were thirty two delegates. These two events were seen as the formal starting point of what would later become known as the Pan African movement. In fact, Henry Sylvester Williams is often regarded as the originator of the term Pan African which he used from at least 1897. Although this Pan African meeting in

lived. Its main achievement was the publication called The Pan African and liberty’. It was edited by Henry Sylvester Williams and was supposed to be a monthly publication but never survived a year. By 1902 this Pan African Association had lapsed into obscurity (Olisanwuche, 1989, pp. 46-57). From this standpoint, therefore, it becomes easy to understand why discussions pertaining to Pan Africanism, would have as its starting point, the very late nineteenth century, with a strong focus on the developments in the twentieth.

Whereas the studies outlined above typically describe Pan African resistance as a twentieth century phenomenon, a few

pointed out that the concept itself is one of the least known as well as very vague, due in part, to the reliance on a few short accounts by Dubois and the more detailed works of Padmore. Geiss acknowledged that whilst Pan Africanism may have burst on the global stage in the second half of the twentieth century, its roots could be traced to the late eighteenth century (Geiss, 1969).

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232 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

At the very period when slavery and colonialism were rampant from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, organised Black

groups largely independent of each other but nevertheless

the slaves and ex-slaves in the African Diaspora as well as their immediate descendants established the roots of what would later come to be known as Pan Africanism. It was, as Geiss said, these Black activists in the Americas, Britain and later Africa who were able to articulate the concept of Pan-Africanism and translate it ‘into political agitation and action in the twentieth century’ (Geiss, 1969, p. 188). Starting from the eighteenth century Geiss listed the major fore-runners in this evolution of Pan-African ideology and agitation such as Cugoano and Equiano, through to nineteenth century writers like Horton, and Delaney and twentieth century champions such as Williams, Dubois and Padmore.

Pan-African concept as the intellectual and political movements among Africans and African Americans who regard all peoples of African descent as homogeneous and view Africa as their

independence of, and cultural unity with, Africa and Africans (Geiss, 1974, pp. 3, 4). He also suggested that this was a movement of all ‘coloured and colonial peoples’ which at least embraces the idea of the movement’s universal appeal. In this sense, he saw Pan Africanism as forms of resistance which stood for the economic, technological, social and political modernisation of a whole continent and its calls for equal rights for Africans and people of African descent (Geiss, 1974, p. 5). As far as Geiss was concerned, Pan Africanism was essentially a movement brought about by Black people in the Diaspora who had either been successfully educated or brought up in the Western world and were seeking to emancipate their fellow Black people from the clutches of White supremacy. In this sense, therefore, Pan Africanism was both a

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233FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

liberation movement as well as a means to help assert Black pride and identity.

Geiss referred to the early phase of Pan Africanism prior to the twentieth century as one of ‘proto-Pan Africanism’ (Geiss, 1974, p. 8). He acknowledged that the development of Pan Africanism did not wait until the twentieth century to present itself. In fact, he said that Pan Africanism, as a protest movement of Black people against White domination, cannot be understood without looking at the historical background of the slave trade, slavery and the abolitionist movements.

He regarded the year 1787 as an important point in terms of the roots of Pan-Africanism or what he called the ‘proto-Pan African’ movement for at least four reasons. Firstly, it was because in that year Richard Allen and a number of other religious leaders founded the free African society in a Methodist church in Philadelphia. By 1816 the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) was formed

denomination. Secondly, 1787 was also the year when Prince

equal rights in education. Furthermore he had led a petition on 17

children to be given educational facilities especially because they had been loyally paying their taxes. He was also an advocate of African repatriation and the back to Africa movement. The third reason why 1787 was also considered important was because this was the year when the Society for the abolition of the slave trade, led by William Wilberforce, Granville Sharpe and Thomas Clarkson, was established. This movement, which also included Black activists such as Equiano and Cugoano, was very active in their campaigns against the slave trade. The last reason for the

that time onwards, have a very important symbolic meaning to the

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234 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

African struggle for independence (Geiss, 1974, pp. 34-37). One point which we could certainly add to the list by Geiss was the impact of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804. This remarkable series of events, resulted in a European imposed Black slavocracy being overthrown by its very victims, the Black masses.

Geiss was not alone in making this kind of proposition. Tony Martin (2012) in the preface to his book, pointed out that although the concept was coined by Henry Sylvester Williams in 1897 when he established the Pan African Association which met in London, what Williams established was the ‘popularisation of an expression.’ The concept had been established long before ‘without

makes a similar point with regard to the fact that discussons about African nationalism actually started in the nineteenth century by writers such as Edward Blyden and James Africanus Beale Horton, amongs others, and extended to twentieth century writers like Kwame Nkrumah and Amilcar Cabral (Falola, 2013, p. 102).

Additionally, Vincent Bakpetu Thompson (1969) in the opening page of his introduction to his work declared that the seeds of Pan Africanism go back to the centuries of slave trading. He, however, like many other writers on this topic, then focused

pertaining to the seeds of the movement prior to 1900. Geiss, also made reference to a proposed organisation in 1859 partly at the request of Thomas Hodgkin who suggested to Thomas Hughes at Cape Coast, Ghana, that there had been a meeting in that year to create an association of Africans, West Indians, and Afro Americans. Interestingly enough, the proposed name of this organisation included the key words ‘African Association.’ Even though the proposed association never materialised, this clearly demonstrates that there were people who were thinking seriously about such a Pan African organisation (Geiss, 1974).

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235FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

One of the features of the Pan African movement has been the desire on the part of Africans in the Diaspora to relink with Africa. During the period of slavery and colonialism there was, among some Back people, the overwhelming desire to actually make

with the African Continent. In this sense there was a need to organise initiatives to reconnect and even repatriate to Africa. These kinds of initiatives were often popularly labelled as ‘back to Africa’ campaigns. Chevannes, quite rightly asserted that the doctrine of repatriation is kindred to a lineage of ideas and forms of actions four hundred years old (Chevannes, 1995, p.1). These ideas were, as a few of the studies in this chapter suggest, closely linked to the onset of European slavery and colonialism and did not wait until Garvey popularised the concept in the twentieth century. Chevannes speaks of an ‘idealisation of Africa’ which was

before, not only in Jamaica, where he focused much of his work, but also in the wider African

physical need to return or repatriate to Africa as an ‘ideal home,’

to a symbolic point of reference denoting a sense of identity. Furthermore, Geiss pointed out that just as America had used

the Monroe Doctrine of the 1820s to declare to the world that Americas was for Americans, so, some Black people had, in the same nineteenth century, declared that Africa was for the Africans (Geiss, 1974, p. 41). According to Fryer, it was Martin Delaney, an

the phrase, ‘Africa for the Africans’ (Fryer, 1984, p. 273). From as early as 1861 a meeting had taken place in London involving twelve people to discuss plans for the collaboration between British abolitionists, Africans, African Americans and Haitians

up an initiative voluntary re-emigration to Africa to help build up

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236 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

a modern nation on African soil and for the halting of European imperialism. According to Delaney, his policy and thinking was that Africa should be for the African race and for Black men to rule them (Geiss, 1969, p. 190). Although this particular expedition failed to materialise, it was important in terms of the formulation

repatriation of Black people to Africa. Even though Dr Martin Delaney is often considered as one of

the earliest architects of the back to Africa campaigns, there were a number of other notable Black people involved in repatriation

Leone and, in 1815 actually succeeded in transporting thirty eight

advocate of the idea of Black people repatriating to Africa during the period 1890s-1920s. William Henry Ellis led an expedition to Ethiopia in 1903 and Alfred Charles Sam of Oklahoma sought to link his back to Africa initiative, with his Akim Trading Company in Ghana in 1912 (Thompson, 1969, pp. 6, 7).

Martin (2012) also supports this point by pointing out that from the moment some Africans were separated from their homeland, there was a longing and desire to return. This is why a physical return or a symbolic reconnection to Africa is such a key feature of the Pan African struggle. Black people in the Americas and Britain had been, from as early as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, organising campaigns, or actively pursuing or considering the

of Ghana are good examples of this. This was a crucial point that Traoré made in is chapters on maronage, in which there was a longing or desire on the part of some Caribbean slaves and ex- slaves to return or relink with Africa.

For many Black people in the Diaspora who were unable to make a physical return to Africa, they at least wanted to be closely

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237FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

Africans. Geiss informs us that such terms as ‘African and Ethiopian’ had been proudly used by former slaves such as Cugoano and Equiano and also African Americans in the nineteenth century. Very importantly, the term was not used in reference to single entities, but to the idea of a much wider collective community of

century Pan African thought. Marable and Mullings (2000)

theorist of Pan Africanism who argued that the Black struggle and resistance should transcend national boundaries (Marable and Mullings, 2000). From the late nineteenth century Blyden advocated the repatriation of Black people from America to Africa. He declared that the Black people needed to be free in body and mind and bid farewell to the scenes of bondage and discipline and return to the land of their fathers where they could achieve larger opportunities and loftier achievements (Marable and Mullings, 2000, p. 152). Even though most of these early initiatives such as

Africa were not totally successful, they should be considered as

widely considered as one of the key features of Pan Africanism. Before concluding this section of the chapter, it is worth making

Sierra Leone. This initiative is not considered in this study as a Black-led campaign to reconnect Black people with the African continent, but demonstrates how the British Government was

According to Walvin (1973) this particular back to Africa plan,

social problems which were closely associated with the Black population. This was supposed to be an opportunity to repatriate Black people to Africa in a society free from the social evils which

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238 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

they were experiencing in Britain. In fact, it was even argued that

mildness of the climate and fertility of the land would help ensure that life would be so much easier there. It was assumed that with

with such basic tools as an axe, a hoe and a pocket knife, to make a very good living (Walvin, 1973, p. 147).

Some seven hundred Black people had signed the agreement to go on this trip to Sierra Leone in 1786. In fact, the government was not pleased that more people had not signed up and serious

found on the streets begging or lurking about the streets under the Vagrant Act (Shyllon, 1977, p. 137). In the end, however, about four hundred of the original number of Black people who had signed up to go on the Sierra Leone expedition, refused to be part of the programme due in part to their doubts over the intentions of the British Government. They also questioned the reasons for the departure as well as expressed fears over their safety and security once in Sierra Leone itself (Shyllon, 1977, p. 137). As Shyllon pointed out, Cugoano had warned that the Sierra Leone expedition failed to really meet the expectations of the Black community in Britain or those in Africa and that it seemed to have been a plan put together in haste and based on racial discrimination (Shyllon, 1977, pp. 138-142).

Notwithstanding the failure of this Sierra Leone campaign, it is evident that many Black people were at least willing to consider the possibility of returning to Africa, but there might have been greater success, if this particular drive had been based on a genuine desire on the part of the Black people to leave Britain, not out of sympathy or to get rid of them, but as a means of turning their backs on an environment which discriminated against so many of them. Had this been the case, they, like the Maroons of the Caribbean, would have escaped from European colonial bondage to establish their own political independence and freedom.

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239FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

The Black-led back to Africa campaigns of the nineteenth

Marcus Garvey’s movement in the twentieth, which also failed to meet this central objective of actually bringing about a large-scale

Pan African campaigns have in common, was their resolution to challenge and resist European control and domination by proclaiming the

the fact that Black people in the relink with Africa in terms of a physical repatriation long before Marcus Garvey popularised this concept in the twentieth century.

Religion, Resistance and Black Identity A central theme which has been discussed in various chapters of this book, for example, Botchway in chapter three and Beckford

communities in Africa as well as the Diaspora used religion as forms of resistance. Indeed, this is the second feature of Pan Africanism which is examined in this section of the chapter. There was a need within the Black communities in Africa, the Americas and Britain to form organised Black-based religious groups and churches to counteract the racial discrimination which prevailed

focused on the desire to improve the conditions under which many within the Black population lived and worked and worshipped in the Americas or Britain. In this regard, the Black populations in the United States as well as in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sought to engage in resistance campaigns

to challenge European domination and control in mainstream religious groups and churches, from which many of them were excluded. Such religious or church groups were very active Black-

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240 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

preserve aspects of Black identity and culture and as such, would Pan African organisations, in much the

same way as some of the Black churches in America still do today. That religion and Black resistance were crucial elements in

the history of the Pan African struggle can hardly be denied. The Pan

African movement from the eighteenth century. As early as 1784,

an African American Baptist preacher, a former slave, founded the

(Nelson, 1994, p. 66). By the 1920s and 1930s many followers of Marcus Garvey and later Rastafarians, would come to see Ethiopia as the land of freedom or a symbolic representation of a safe place of refuge from ‘Babylon’ which was taken, by Rastafarians in particular, to refer to European and colonial systems of political and cultural oppression against Black people.

Campbell goes even further by suggesting that whereas White missionaries were seeking to take part in the civilising aspect of European colonialism and so contribute to the partitioning and subsequent underdevelopment of Africa, Black Christian preachers of the Ethiopianism were doing the opposite. Their central mission was to unite Africans wherever they were, under the umbrella of a religious and political movement which had, as

1994, p. 288). Therefore, evangelical Pan Africanism was a key feature of Black resistance in which people used religion as a form of political protest. This can further be seen from the fact that Marcus Garvey established the African Orthodox Church as an integral part of the UNIA (Martin, 1983). In this way, therefore, the Black churches or evangelical Pan Africanism was concerned with promoting Christianity with a Black political emphasis based

here and now.

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241FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

The presence of such evangelical Pan Africanism was very evident in America in the nineteenth century. Richard Allen was particularly instrumental as one of the founders of the Independent Free African Society in 1787. It is interesting to note that this was also the very year when the Anti-Slavery Society was established in Britain, primarily to put pressure on the government to bring an end to the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Britain. In this same year, a group of Black people in America were establishing campaigns to bring about their own religious or cultural emancipation from White domination. Precisely because of the openly discriminatory practices towards the Black members of the St George’s Methodist Church on Fourth Street, Philadelphia, Richard Allen and others would later form the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1816 (Marable and Mullings, 2000).

Black people in America were actively involved in organised resistance campaigns for their own liberation. These include people like Nat Turner, Frederick Douglas, Martin Delaney and also Joseph Cinque both on board the Amistad in 1839, and even after he landed in America. Black Christian evangelical preachers such as George Alexander McGuire of Antigua who

Church, was associated with the Marcus Garvey Movement and the UNIA (Thompson, 1969, p. 6). Similar to the case of Appiah

Anglican Church and sought to establish, and be involved in a religion which had, as its central mission, the uplifting of Black people. As Thompson importantly points out, the fact that these Christian believers used the name ‘African’ suggests that there

largely in response to the prevailing European domination and racial discrimination towards the Black community in America (Thompson, 1969, pp. 8, 9).

Those individuals, who were not advocating for the establishment of alternative Black-led churches, used the church or

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242 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

Black radicalism across to whole groups or a collectivity of people. In this regard, a Christian minister, Henry Garnet, was also a very active Black anti-slavery campaigner in America and became particularly famous for his controversial speech at the National Negro Convention in 1843 in New York. These meetings had been held to discuss issues of racial equality and the emancipation of the Black slaves in the South of the country. That this convention was actually taking place at all, in the middle of the nineteenth century is testimony in itself of a Pan African spirit of collectively seeking to challenge the discriminatory practises which were prevalent in many of the established or conventional ideologies and policies in America at that time. In this meeting, Garnet

for their freedom. As far as he was concerned, a person’s Christian beliefs did not justify them being obedient to oppressive leaders. It was their duty, therefore, to use every moral, intellectual and physical means available to ensure their prosperity and success, even to the point of death (Marable and Mullings, 2000, p. 60). This very radical, outspoken preacher and activist went on to declare that Black people could plead their own cause and do the work of emancipation themselves. Using a combination of Biblical language contextualised within a political framework, he declared

of blood (Marable and Mullings, 2000, pp. 61, 62). Though Garnet provided no clear cut method of resistance in this delivery, he nonetheless suggested that people should use whatever means necessary to ‘torment the God-cursed slave-holders until they are glad to let you go free’ (Marable and Mullings, 2000, p. 63). These churches in America were important tools in providing information pertaining to Black political consciousness.

Christian religion. Another example of a politically and intellectually Black activist in this regard was Edward Wilmot

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243FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

Blyden (1832-1912) who left St Thomas in what is today the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean in 1850 for Liberia via the United States. He became one of the most distinguished Pan African intellectuals of his day, who amongst other ideas, suggested that Black people should reject thwarted the development of Black people (Blyden, 1992,). In this way, Blyden and some of the other individuals mentioned above, started a movement or Black Theology which has continued to the present day with such studies as Beckford (1998) which posits the view that much of the Christian religion, followed by so many Black people today in Britain, needs to have more of an Afrocentric focus.

In the Caribbean there were similar Pan African religious resistance movements, some of which were discussed in Beckford and Charles’ chapter on Jamaica. Wherever the slaves found themselves, many of them resisted the mainstream ideologies and teachings of the Christian religion. Vincent Thompson has correctly pointed out that many slaves resisted the established religious systems and conventions and stuck to their own variations of African worship and religions (Thompson, 1987). Such religious gatherings by Black people were occasions not only to engage in acts of worship, but also to socialise and also

speeches or songs. Thompson, for example, makes mention of the fact that some of the slaves in Africa used satire through songs as a means of engaging in subtle forms of resistance against their

mention of the same practice among the slave populations in

The development of the Myal religion in Jamaica by the middle

to form a religious movement based on the broad association of Pan Africanist ideology. Its prevailing feature was its ability to embrace a wide cross section of the Black population in Jamaica

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244 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

to European conventions. The focus centred on the dominance of

charismatic leaders (Chevannes, 1995, pp. 18-21). John Sayers Orr or the ‘Angel Gabriel’ was described by Martin

as a coloured Guyanese whose ideology included hostility to Roman Catholic ‘popery,’ insistence on the right of free speech and opposition to slavery (Martin, 2012, p.199). Because of his international travel to places like England, the USA as well as Australia, he had an African world view in which he opposed the exploitation being experienced among the poor Black people in Guyana. His criticisms of the Catholic Church and the Portuguese in Guyana, many of whom were Catholic, meant, from the outset,

followers and the Portuguese. Furthermore, Orr was able to mobilise people and, at one time, had ten thousand followers

Brooklyn (Martin, 2012, p. 200). In 1856 in Guyana there were days of widespread riots between the followers of Orr and the Portuguese. Orr was, even though not personally involved in the riots, arrested and later died in Jail in November 1856. For Martin, Black resistance campaigners Like Orr, were part of a larger group of predominantly middle class Black and coloured professional individuals who were conscious of their ‘historical mission of racial uplift’ (Martin, 2012, p. 207).

resistance was not dissimilar to those practices in the Americas. The colonial authorities in Britain were often reluctant to allow Black missionaries to travel from the country to engage in missionary work among fellow Black people in Africa. According to Shyllon, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, had been educating Black young people in Britain from at least the 1750s so that they could go to Africa to help train the Africans in Christian missions (Shyllon, 1977, p. 56). A reading of Equiano’s

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245FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

biography demonstrates the extent to which his own life was one

also for those of his fellow countrymen, and also for the equality of all peoples based on Christian brotherhood. He became a Christian quite early in his life in the Americas and, upon arriving in England, sought to get involved in becoming a missionary to help spread the Christian message in Africa. Although Martin described Equiano, as ‘England’s foremost Black abolitionist’, he

and so was denied this opportunity (Martin, 1983, p. 39).

Cugoano (1757-1791?) whose publication in 1787, ‘Thoughts and

by a Black British person on the topic. He too had a Christian perspective in his writings and anti-slavery campaigns. He, like Equiano, argued from a moral and Christian perspective about the evil associated with slavery and called upon fellow Bible- believing Christians in Britain to treat all peoples, including Black people, with dignity and equality. Cugoano thus became one of

century. Having been kidnapped from what is present day Ghana at about the age of thirteen, he was taken to the Caribbean as a slave before eventually coming to England. His book became a

Cugaono’s brand of Christianity was neither meek nor mild. He used the Bible as a tool with which to both appeal to, as well as

dire possible punishments from God which would befall those engaged in treating Black people unjustly (Cugoano, 1999, p. 79).

Far more radical than Cugoano, was the Jamaican born Robert

of this book; by the early nineteenth century he had joined the outlawed radical Spencean Movement. It was partly because he, like so many of the people mentioned above, had become so

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246 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

disillusioned with Christianity that he was eventually arrested in 1820 for Blasphemy. He became very critical of the Christian religion which seemed to support slavery and discrimination against Black people on the hand one, while openly declaring a message of peace, love and happiness on the other. Although as we have seen, his central mission was linked to the Spencean Movement which was more politically aligned with the ideals of

plight of the Black population in Britain and in his homeland of Jamaica. According to Fryer, up to two hundred people a week

morality, natural philosophy, and politics by this self-taught West Indian’ (Fryer, 1984, p. 223). Although he was at one time a licensed preacher, he was very clearly not always inclined to follow the Christian doctrine of turning the other cheek, in the face of any form of injustice. For example, following the Peterloo disturbances or massacre in Manchester in 1819 where thousands of people had gathered to demand Parliamentary reform, but were met with police or military brutality in which about a dozen of them were killed and several hundreds wonded by these government forces, he suggested people should learn to ‘use the gun, the dagger, the cutlass and the pistol (Fryer, 1984, p. 224).

reistance, he suggestsd that the slaves in Jamaica should go on an annual one hour strike. Wedderburn’s radical views, some of which supported violent actions against the government forces, was the main reason for which he was subsequently arrested and charged with sedition and blasphemy.

was to campaign for improvements in the living conditions of the poor White people in Britain and secondly, he was an anti-slavery campaigner. Drawing upon examples from his own experience as an eye witness to the evils of slavery, Wedderburn held meetings

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247FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

where he ‘preached’ and was said to have audiences of up to two hundred people clapping and cheering his speeches. According to one source, Wedderburn was actually planning to ‘incite revolution on the streets of the imperial capital’ (Rice, 2003, p. 11).

and he was actually charged and sentenced by the Lord Chief Justice in 1820 to two years in Dorchester Prison for preaching ‘blasphemous words’ against the Bible and Christianity, the

parents had been mistreated physically at the hands of their White plantation owners and in this sense was certainly one of Britain’s most radical Black anti-slavery campaigner (Hoyles, 2004).

With regard to his campaigns pertaining to the Black population, he was against slavery and colonialism and in this regard, a vocal critic of these systems. He was, for example opposed to the idea of Black Christian missionaries going to the colonies in Africa or the Caribbean to help spread the Christian message (Fryer, 1984, p. 224). Wedderburn, largely through the political group and ideology of Spencean Movement, used this as a vehicle to speak out against the ‘horrors of slavery’ and general injustices being experienced by Black people in Britain and throughout the Caribbean. His call for African unity amidst a common colonial oppressor was captured in this powerful quote in Fryer’s work:

Oh ye Africans and relatives now in bondage to the Christians because you are innocent and poor; receive

give… I am a West Indian, a lover of liberty and would dishonour human nature if I did not shew myself a friend to the liberty of others (Fryer, 1984, p. 225).

In these ways, Wedderburn sought to appeal to the Black community to be aware of the political and economic plight they

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248 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

found themselves in and was prepared to use the language of the Bible and religion as tools in his campaigns.

Rather than accepting the teachings or doctrines of the conventional churches, and being submissive or docile with regard to resisting European colonialism, many Black people were using organised religion as a vehicle of resistance based on their own variation of broad-based African traditions. These were clearly seen both in the twentieth century and also in the two centuries before this. These Black initiatives were evident throughout the African Diaspora and were entirely independent of each other. There were two inter-related reasons which stimulated this interest in establishing Black-based or Pan African religious movements.

and the second was the subsequent breakaway and formation of a radical Black alternative. This is what drove so many Black people to become labelled by the colonial White establishment as ‘radical preachers’ because they used their newly established religious

European slavery, colonialism and discrimination.

Conclusion From the discussions above, two main points have emerged

this chapter has tried to postulate is that many essential features within the Pan African Movement existed in the African Diaspora long before the twentieth century. In fact, the origins of the Pan Africanist Movement has its roots in the very fabric of slave and colonial society and culture which emerged from the sixteenth

operations of exploitations of Africa and Africans on the continent and subsequently in the Americas and Britain. From the outset, Africans everywhere engaged in resistance at every level and through a variety of means. Many of these forms of Black resistance were carefully and systematically organised campaigns targeting

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249FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: BLACK RESISTANCE AND IDENTITY

European systems of slavery and colonialism. These Black resistance campaigns which ensued, focused on alternative Black ideologies and organisations in direct opposition to established Eurocentric systems and values. Some of these Black campaigns also stressed the need for unity as well as calls for a reconnection with, and repatriation to, Africa through various back to Africa campaigns. The fact is, that such initiatives were evident among slaves and their immediate descendants throughout the African Diaspora long before Henry Sylvester Williams coined the phrase ‘pan-African’ at the very end of the nineteenth century.

The second issue which this chapter has demonstrated is that throughout the Black Diaspora, there were numerous groups or individuals who questioned aspect of Eurocentric and exploitative religions which seemed to justify racial discrimination, slavery and colonialism. There was very often a rejection of a particular European model or framework in favour of a more African centred approach. This is why, for example, Blyden and Wedderburn eventually turned their backs on the mainstream Christian religion. In keeping with the spirit and central mission of such twentieth century Black resistance religious and political organisations such as Rastafarianism and Nation of Islam, these eighteenth and nineteenth century church organisations were able to pre-empt and articulate similar sentiments of dissatisfaction and Eurocentric dominance in religion. It seems very clear that Black communities were not only establishing their own ideologies and institutions of resistance through religious organisations, but were doing so from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the foregoing discussion, it becomes evident that Pan-Africanism ought to be examined more within this broader framework incorporating the struggles and campaigns which predate the year 1919 when the

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