EDWARD BLYDEN AND THE CONCEPT OF

AFRICAN PERSONALITY
by M. Yu. FRENKEL
Africa Institute, Moscow

UNTIL THE 1960S it was generally believed that African nationalism had taken
shape after the First World War, with its main tenets formulated by Negroes
from the United States and the West Indies.1 However, studies undertaken
in recent years call for a more accurate definition, as it has become apparent
that some of the major features of present-day African nationalist ideology were
evolved by Africans on the African continent in the second half of the nineteenth
century; and a major contribution to the formulation of the concepts of early
African nationalism was made by Edward Wilmot Blyden.*
In his writings Blyden covered many aspects of African nationalism such as
the common destiny of the Negro peoples, the distinctive mentality of the
African, the place held by religion in bis life, the 'immanently socialist' nature
of African society, and the concept of 'Africa for Africans'. It is only natural
that his work, ignored in the colonial period, has now come to the fore. Several
publications devoted to him have been published in recent years.8 Special
credit for rediscovering Blyden goes to Edith Holden, the grand-daughter of
Rev. John P. Knox, who was Blyden's first teacher. Miss Holden is not a
professional Africanist, but it was her publications of 1940 and 1966 that

Dr M. Yu. Frenkel is a senior research worker of the Africa Institute, Academy of Sciences
of the USSR. His inn in sphere of interests is the formation of African nationalism.
Among his many publications is a work (in Russian) on United States and Liberia: the
Negro problem in the USA and the formation of the Republic of Liberia (Moscow, 1964).
1. J. S. Coleman, Background to Nigerian Nationalism (California UP, 1958) pp. 411-12;
and Pan-Africanism Reconsidered (Berkeley UP, 1962) pp. 84-85; 1.1. Potekhin\ Introduc-
tion to W. E. B. DuBois, Afrika. Ocherk po istorii Afrikanskogo continenta iyego obitateley
(Moscow, 1961), pp. 14-15 (in Russian); Africa. Enziclopedicheskiy spravochmc (Moscow,
1963), voL 2, p. 135 (in Russian).
2. E. W. Blyden (1832-1912), born in the West Indies, was of Ibo descent. In 1850 he
emigrated to Liberia where he was educated. He became a prominent statesman of
Liberia (Ambassador and Foreign Minister) and well-known author (90 works, including
15 books and pamphlets), and died in Sierra Leone, where he spent his last years.
3. W. D. Jones, 'Blyden, Gladstone and the War', Journal of Negro History, vol. 139,
1964 pp. 57-73,; R. July, 'Nineteenth Century Negritude: Blyden', Journal of African
History, 5, 1964, 1, pp. 73-86; H. R. Lynch, "The Native Pastorate Controversy and
Cultural Ethnocentrism in Sierra Leone, 1871-74', Journal of African History, 5, 1964,
pp. 395-413; H. R. Lynch, 'Edward W. Blyden: Pioneer West African Nationalist',
Journal of African History, 6, 1965, 3, pp. 373-78; H. R. Lynch, 'The Attitude of
Edward W. Blyden to European Imperialism in Africa', Journal of the Historical Society
of Nigeria, vol. I l l , 1965, 2, pp. 249-60; H. R. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Pan-
Negro Patriot, 1832-1912 (London, 1967); P. O. Osebede, 'Edward Wilmot Blyden
(1832-1912) as a Pan-African Theorist', Sierra Leone Studies: New Series, July 1969,
25, pp. 14-23.
277
278 AFRICAN AFFAIKS

revived interest in Blyden.* His activities, indeed, were so multifarious that

they are bound to engage the attention of scholars for a long time to come. In
this article the author proposes to discuss Blyden's role in advancing the concept
of the African personality and the principles of cultural nationalism.

The African personality and cultural nationalism

Blyden enunciated the concept of the African personality and the principles
of cultural nationalism in the course of his polemic with the Anthropological
Society of London, which was founded in 1863. Members of the Anthro-
pological Society no doubt contributed to the development of anthropology
and ethnography by undertaking a detailed and concrete description of
peoples and races, but their fundamental concept that every human race
evolved from another, lower race, was racialist in its essence. In the hierarchy
of races based upon this principle, the Negro peoples were placed on the lowest
rung. To corroborate this view, the Society members drew on Darwin's
theory of evolution, though Darwin himself believed all human races to have
sprung from one primordial root.6 Actually the basic ideas of the 'Anthro-
pologists' (sometimes also called 'Social Anthropologists') in many respects
echoed the ideas expressed by the Count de Gobineau in his 'Essay on the
Inequality of the Human Races'.8
The Anthropologists made their appearance on the social arena at a time
when important changes in British imperial policy were just beginning to take
shape. By the late 1860s the movement for colonial expansion was slowly—
though visibly—gaining strength amongst certain groups of informed opinion
in Britain. In general terms, the aim of this movement was to break away from
the free-trade policy associated with the Liberals, which was opposed to un-
restricted imperial expansion.
The Anthropologists sought to provide an ideological basis for adopting a policy
of colonial expansion. In 1863, James Hunt, who was president of the Anthro-
pological Society, delivered a paper entitled' On the Negro's Place in Nature', in
which he alleged that Negroes were mentally inferior to Europeans and should be
classified 'as a dinstinct species from the European'. Other prominent members
of the Society, such as Richard Burton, the well-known explorer and orientalist,
Frederic W. Farrar, the philologist and later Dean of Canterbury, and the
journalist Winwood Reade, concurred with these sentiments.7 Proceeding
4. E. Holden, Story of Blyden (New York, 1940); E. Holden, Blyden of Liberia: an
account of the life and labours of Edward Wibnot Blyden, LLD, as recorded in letters and
in print (New York, 1966). One of the articles about Blyden (by R. J. Smyke) was
entitled 'Blyden Rediscovered'. See Africa Report, vol. 14, May-June 1969, pp. 36-8.
5. Ch. Darvin, Proischojdtniye cheloveka i polovoy otbor. Vyrajemye emotsiy u cheloveka
ijivotnyh, Sochineniya, vol. 5, (Moscow, 1953), pp. 284-85 (in Russian).
6. J. A. Gobineau, Essai sur VinigaUti des races humaines (Paris, 1853-55).
7. Dorothy Helly,'"Informed" Opinion on Tropical Africa in Great Britain 1860-90',
African Affairs, 68, 1969, 272, p. 199. In the 1860s the Anthropological Society had
some 250 members.
 BLYDEN AND THE AFRICAN PERSONALITY 279

from the premise of the natural evolution of one race from another, the Anthro-
pologists asserted that this process could not be accelerated and, consequently,
any notion of promoting civilization in Africa was absurd. Thus Burton
wrote in 1864 that the African did not have 'the latent mental capabilities
ascribed to him by the philanthropists'.8
Blyden challenged this racialist thesis. Even before the founding of the
Anthropological Society, he concluded that the average white man—including
most of the slave traders—did not compare with outstanding men of the Negro
race in mental and moral stature. If equal opportunities were provided for
both races, argued Blyden, the average African would in no way yield to his
white brother.9
The Anthropologists coined the expression' inferior races', which they applied
to all peoples retarded in their development—Africans, of course, included.
Blyden repudiated the validity of this term. In his view, political supremacy
was not natural proof of human supremacy since 'the part of the oppressor is
not less to be despised than the part of the oppressed. ' 10 Neither did he agree
with the idea that race was the decisive factor in historical development, stressing
instead the importance of the natural setting, of favourable or unfavourable
circumstances. Blyden ascribed the retardation of the Negro people to the
unfavourable trend of events, and opposed the Anthropologists thesis of 'the
hierarchy of races': 'No nation or race', he argued, 'has a monopoly of the
channels which lead to the sources of divine grace or spiritual knowledge.'11
Specifically, he attributed the backwardness of nineteenth century Africans
not to their racial specificity but to historical factors, above all to slavery and
the slave trade.
While arguing against the essence of the Anthropologists' theory, Blyden
nevertheless shared their views on a number of issues. Thus, he accepted the
thesis of Gobineau and Burton on the natural enmity of races, an idea he used
in advocating the re-emigration of the American Negroes to Africa.11 Blyden
agreed with the Anthropologists that it was necessary to preserve the biological
purity of each race through its physical segregation from other races. He
believed that the future belonged to 'pure races', and insisted that although
God 'made of one blood all the nations of men', he also ' determined the bounds
of their habitation'.1*
Blyden used the theory of preserving racial purity to justify his critical
attitude to mulattos. Like the Anthropologists, he regarded mulattos as people
with mixed and degenerative racial instincts—weak-willed and immoral. In
8. R. F. Burton, A Miision to Gelele, King of Dahome, vol. II (London, 1864), pp. 200-1.
9. Blyden, A Voice from Bleeding Africa on Behalf of Her Exiled Children (Monrovia,
1856), p. 21.
10. Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (London, 1887), pp. 159-60.
11. Blyden, West Africa before Europe (London, 1905), p. 132; R. July, 'Nineteenth-
Century Nigritude: Blyden', Journal of African History, 5, 1964, 1, p. 75.
12. J. Geisgj Panafrikanismus. Zur Gesckichte der Decolonisation (Frankfurt, 1968),
p. 121.
13. Blyden, Liberia's Offering: Being Addresses, Sermons, etc. (New York, 1862), p. v.
280 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

bis opinion, 'the mulatto conceived as he was as a general thing, in violation

of all moral and social laws, has brought to the Negro race nothing but physical
degeneracy, and mental and moral obliquity'. This violent dislike of mulattos
was life-long.14 He opposed J. J. Roberts, Liberia's first president, who was a
mulatto, and attributed that country's failures to the fact that Roberts and some
other liberian leaders were mulattos. Enmity between Africans and mulattos
in Liberia was manifested in the rise of racially based political parties. The
mulattos led by Roberts formed the Republican Party, and the Africans, the
True Whig Party headed by Blyden, S. Benson and A. Crummell.
Thus Blyden, himself on many occasions a victim of racial discrimination,
adopted a frankly racialist attitude to mulattos. In his polemic with the
Anthropologists, Blyden advanced the thesis of a distinctive character of the
Negro race, claiming that 'Europoids' and Negroes 'are not identical . . . they
are distinct but equal' (Blyden's emphasis).18 In another article he expressed
the same idea in the following way: 'Every race has a contribution to make
towards the welfare ofthe whole of mankind that no other race can make.' Accord-
ingly, different races must have different cultures, the sum total of which makes
up human civilization.1* According to Blyden, 'the African is a spiritual and
ministerial race. The European is an imperial and conquering race. He is
by falling the statesman, the soldier, the sailor, the policeman of humanity.
The Negro is the protege, the child, the attendant, the servant, if you like, of
this dominant race. . . .'17 The fallacy of this view is self-evident in our day;
yet Blyden, once he advanced it, held to it with tenacity.
He saw another distinction between Africans and Europeans, which he
believed to be fundamental: the African 'has not in any way oppressed other
races. He has suffered, and that is all.' (Blyden's emphasis).18 Blyden
repeatedly voiced the idea that there was 'Divine Providence' behind the
oppression suffered by Negroes inasmuch as it segregated them from Europeans:
'The Negro is, at this moment, the opposite of the Anglo-Saxon. Those
everywhere serve the world: these everywhere govern the world . . . Africa
is distinguished as having served and suffered. In this, her lot is. . .' (Blyden's
emphasis)19
In describing the distinctions between the two races, Blyden noted that the
character of the European clearly displayed 'forces of vigour, of encroachment,
of violence, of brutality', as well as crude materialism and the cult of science.
The African character, on the other hand, reflected the milder aspects of human
nature—such as spontaneity and goodwill, and a powerful spiritual element
which was sadly lacking in the European. Accordingly, the world needed the
African: 'The harsh and stern fibre of the Caucasian races needs this milder
14. Blyden to Coppinger, 19 October 1874, in E. Holden, Blyden of Liberia, p. 291.
15. Blyden, Christianity, Islam, p. 317.
16. Blyden, The Three Needs of Liberia (London, 1908), p. 31.
17. Blyden to A. F. Beard, 20 October 1899, in E. Holdcn, Blyden of Liberia, p. 699.
18. Blyden, Christianity, Islam, p. 161.
19. Ibid., pp. 138-9.
 BLYDEN AND THE AFRICAN PERSONALITY 281
0
element.'* Busy cities should not, therefore, be built in Africa, because
Africans prefer to live in the countryside and engage in farming He believed
that in the future Europeans would supply Africa with industrial goods, 'while
the African, in the simplicity and purity of rural enterprises, will be able to
cultivate those spiritual elements in humanity which are suppressed, silent and
inactive under the pressure and exigencies of material progress.' Africa would
become the arbiter and mediator between the militant European nations when
their scientific discoveries eventually led to the crisis of their civilization.81
What, then, accounts for Africans being different from Europeans ? Blyden
saw the original source in geographical and climatic factors. Where these
were rigorous, there emerged the European character, enterprising and energetic;
where these were favourable, there emerged the African character, in communion
with nature.*2 The natural environment made it imperative for Africans to
live a communal life. In the course of a long history, certain forms of social
organization had evolved on the African continent, which fully conformed to
the environment: the polygamous family, the rural community, the principle of
mutual aid. 'Now under the African system of communal property and co-
operative effort', wrote Blyden, 'every member of a community has a home
and a sufficiency of food and clothing and other necessaries of life and for life.'
He Likewise sought to prove that in African conditions polygamy and secret
ritualistic societies had their merits.1* African life and customs were the result
of a process of evolution which was still going on. It would be a serious offence
to interrupt it. One could not ignore the institutions that had taken shape in
the course of centuries, under the impact of the climate and other features
specific of the continent. For example, in Europe work was an onerous duty;
in Africa, as Blyden saw it, labour was combined with entertainment and was
more like a public festivity. It was not fortuitous that the African preferred
farming, since 'God made the countryside, and man made the town.**4 In
general, Blyden unhesitatingly asserted that 'the African systems are com-
munistic and cooperative while the European systems are individualistic and
egoistic'; consequently, neither the working class nor the bourgeoisie would
take shape on the African continent, for these were incompatible with such
fundamental institutions of African society as the family, the community, and
cooperative effort.24
Kipling's dictum, 'East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall
meet', was anticipated by Blyden when he drew an equally pessimistic con-
clusion: 'The African is an African, and the European is a European, and will
remain so forever and ever.'
20. Ibid., pp. 127-8.
21. Ibid., p. 126.
22. Blyden, Liberia's Offering, pp. 15, 57.
23. Blyden, African Ltfe and Customs (London, 1908), pp. 9, 29-30, 37-8, 51.
24. The Liberia Recorder, 14 January 1905 (quoted from E. Holden, Blyden of Liberia,
p. 787).
25. Blyden, African Life and Customs, pp. 50-1.
282 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

Proceeding from the premise that all races 'are distinct but equal', Blyden
became convinced that the main task for Africans was to preserve the distinctive
features of their continent by any means: 'Every race, it is now being recog-
nized, has a soul, and the soul of the race finds expression in its institutions, and
to kill those institutions is to kill the soul—a terrible homicide.>2a He perceived
the mortal danger threatening African culture. Centuries of slavery and the
slave trade had dealt a crushing blow to the morale of Africans, breeding fatalism
and lack of confidence. He saw for himself that the Europeans' ill-will vis-d-vis
Africans grew over the years. He noticed that the first European travellers—
men like Park, dapperton and Denham—reported objective information on
Africa, and about Africans and their culture, because their minds were rela-
tively unbiassed. They set down what they actually saw. The explorers who
followed deliberately misrepresented the African character.17

' Spiritual decolonization'

As the partition of Africa began, the threat to its distinctive features increased
immeasurably. Blyden wrote with disgust that the colonialists had fully
vindicated the principle that 'in all imperial races there is an element of the
wild beast' Another way of putting it was that ' God had put a whip in the
hand of every white man to flog the Negro.>28 A cult of cruelty, of arrogance,
of the parade of European achievements and the disparagement of African
civilization—these were the keynotes of the colonialist policy pursued by the
foreign invaders. He noted with anxiety that the colonialists had worked out
an insidious system so as to discredit the African character in the eyes of the
world while implanting in the African himself an inferiority complex. It all
began, according to Blyden, with text-books presenting the African as a funny,
inept creature. Similar representations poured from the pages of newspapers
and books. It was hardly surprising that Europeans developed a feeling of
superiority whereas Africans gradually became accustomed to the idea of their
racial inferiority.29
The education of Africans in Europe served the same purpose. In Europe,
Africans learned about London and Paris but were told nothing about Segu
and Lagos. They were taught 'to admire and revere', and began 'to copy and
imitate' Europeans, and shared 'the fate of all copyists and imitators', acquiring
and retaining 'a practical inferiority'. Afrit-am assimilated many things in
Europe, including poetry, philosophy and history—but this history presented
the record of the triumphs of Europeans and the humiliation of Africans.80
This deliberate policy of the colonialists had harmful effects; many educated
Africans came to regard themselves as Europeans and some of them, after their
26. Blyden, West Africa before Europe, p. 140.
27. Blyden, The Aims and Methods of a Liberal Education for Africans (s.l.) 1881 ,p. 12.
28. Blyden, Christianity, Islam, pp. 337, 340.
29. Ibid., p. 38.
30. Ibid., pp. 88, 105.
 BLYDEN AND THE AFRICAN PERSONALITY 283

stay in England, even attempted to talk with other Africans through an interpre-
ter.31
Urgent measures were needed to protect the African heritage. In 1872
Blyden advanced the slogan 'spiritual decolonization'. He called upon the
Africans to shake off the spiritual bondage to which the assimilation of European
culture had doomed them. This threat loomed particularly large in the case
of educated Africans who admired the achievements of alien Western civiliza-
tion and accepted them at their face value: 'The slavery of the mind is far more
destructive than that of the body.>32
In emphasizing the inherent difference between the Negro and the European
races, he introduced the term 'African personality', to express the unique
features and distinctive psychology of the African. He used this expression
for the first time when speaking in Freetown in May 1893.33
Blyden gradually formulated the fundamental propositions of his concept
of African cultural nationalism. These can be summarized as follows:
(1) the Negro race has past achievements to its credit;
(2) Africa is the continent where Africans and Negroes from the United
States and the West Indies will revive their greatness;
(3) Africa has unique social institutions, especially the community which is
best suited to the distinctive features of the continent. Collective work and
distribution of the produce according to the people's needs are communist ideals
implemented by the community in the sphere of production. The extended
family and polygamy offer the best solution of social problems—also within
the framework of the community;
(4) Africans have inherent abilities which distinguish them from all the
other peoples, and which make up the 'African personality'.
In our time the ideas of cultural nationalism are part and parcel of the ideology
of African nationalism, and of the doctrine of nigritude in particular. Nigritude
is now seen to harbour a violent protest against the intrusion of European
culture, a striving to safeguard distinctive African features and herald their
coming triumph. In other words, nigritude is regarded as the ideology of the
rising nation which tends to over-emphasize its distinctive character so as to
31. Lagos Times, 26 July 1882, cjuoted by E. A. Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on
Modern Nigeria, 1842-1914: a political and social analysis (London, 1966), p. 245.
32. Blyden to Pope-Hennessy, 11 December 1872, in Blyden, Letters with Pope-Hennessy
on the Wat African University (Freetown, 1872), p. 13. Professor J. F. Ade Ajayi
suggests that Blyden's slogan 'spiritual decolonization' marked the beginning of African
nationalism. See J. F. A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-91: the making of a
new elite (London, 1965), p. 266. However, it appears that African nationalism began
to take shape at an earlier date—certainly some of its tenets were formulated before
Blyden's time by Samuel Crowther, George Johnson and James Horton, not to mention
the founders of the states of Liberia and Sierra Leone. But Ajayi is right to stress the
importance of Blyden's notion of 'spiritual decolonization' in the emergence of African
nationalism. For the ideas of Crowther, Johnson and Horton, see M. Yu. Frenkel,
U istokov sovrtmamoy afrikanskoy obschestvennoy misfy, in Peoples of Asia and Africa,
1970, N 6, pp. 56-65 (in Russian).
33. Sierra Leone Times, 27 May 1893.
284 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

set itself apart from other nations.34 Those who are familiar with the ideas of
nigritude as expounded, for instance, by Leopold Sedar Senghor, know that its
high-lights are an emphasis on preserving the distinctive character of African
culture and the African personality, on the predominance of spiritual elements
in the character of the African, and on his affinity with nature and with God.
The parallel between the fundamental principles of Senghor's nigritude and
Blyden's concept of the African personality is striking.

Blyden's campaign in Sierra Leone

The concept of cultural nationalism led Blyden to this significant conclusion:
the basic task facing Africans was to preserve the distinctive culture and features
of their race. This, in his opinion, was more important than all the other goals,
including political independence.
Thus began Blyden's persistent struggle over many years to preserve the distinc-
tive features of Africans. Initially he sought to achieve this goal in Sierra Leone,
where he lived from 1871 to 1874. The slogan' spiritual decolonization' was the
prologue to one of the first political campaigns in West Africa, giving an impetus
to the rise of nationalist sentiments which crystallized in the protest against the
attempts to europeanize Africans.
Blyden came to Sierra Leone to work for the Church Missionary Society,
hoping to change the approach of the missionaries to their endeavours. He
expected to arouse among the whites respect for African institutions, to persuade
them to hand over management of church affairs to Africans, and to extend
missionary activity into the interior. His efforts, however, were unrewarding:
' I find that there is not much sympathy here for the study of native languages
or for the interior enterprise,'8* and after three months he was removed from
office on a trumped-up charge. But the unfriendly attitude of the European
missionaries enhanced the sympathy of Sierra Leonean Africans for Blyden and
his ideas. With their assistance he published the first issue of the Negro
newspaper on 17 April 1872. He said with justified pride that 'not one
European has given anything towards establishing the paper.' 88 It was an
exclusively African enterprise, financed by five merchants, S. Boyle, W. Grant,
T. Sawyerr, T. Bright and T. J. Macaulay.
The Negro may in a certain sense be regarded as one of the first expressions
of Pan-Africanism. Blyden took the word 'Negro', previously a derogatory
term, and made it the symbol of unity.37 This is how he explained the title
of the newspaper:
34. I. Kohrij Natsumalniy charakter—mif Hi realnost ?, in Inostrannaya literature, 1968,
N 9, p. 224 (in Russian).
35. Blyden to Venn, 16 October 1871, CMS CAJO,, in Lynch, 'The Native Pastorate
Controversy and Cultural Ethnocentrism in Sierra Leone, 1871-74', Journal of African
History, voL 5, 1964, 3, p. 399.
36. Blyden to Venn, 17 April 1872, CAx/O,,, in E. Holden, Blyden of Liberia, p. 233.
37. Blyden insisted on the word 'Negro being spelt with a capital letter, and similarly
the names of other peoples and races.
 BLYDEN AND THE AFRICAN PERSONALITY 285

'It has been called the "Negro" (if any explanation is necessary) because it
is intended to represent and defend the interest of that peculiar type of
humanity known as the Negro with all its affiliated and collected branches
whether on this continent or elsewhere. "West African" was considered
definite enough, but too exclusive for the comprehensive intention entertained
by the promoters of the scheme—viz: to recognize and greet the brotherhood
of the race wherever found.>38
On the occasion of the first anniversary of the newspaper, Blyden stated proudly
that its title was 'approved by all thinking members of the race in West Africa,
in the West Indies, and in the United States.' Indeed the paper had sub-
scribers not only in Africa but also in Britain, the United States and the West
Indies. Unfortunately, only one issue of the Negro is extant—a small four-page
sheet carrying solely local information.89 Blyden's claims to its being a Pan-
African mouthpiece are therefore symbolic rather than realistic; though the
concept of Pun-Africanism as such was not yet formulated, the underlying
ideas were already in the air.
Blyden's efforts to establish a West African university, which date back to
1872, should be regarded as an effort to form a single nation and to promote
the consolidation of the specific features of Africans. Accordingly, he believed
that the faculty membership was to be made up exclusively of Africans and
Negroes. He also wanted to reform fundamentally the system of education
for Africans. In the first place, European textbooks presenting the African as
'a heathen and worse than a heathen—a fool', had to be discarded. Africans
were to be taught how to think, not to imitate.40 Blyden was convinced that
only a drastic transformation of the education system of this type would result
in the shaping of the 'national intellect'. Blyden claimed that Europeans were
wrong in believing that in order to master the achievements of civilization
Africans were to copy Europeans. This did not all imply ignoring the achieve-
ments of European culture, but, in his own words, 'we must show that we are
able to go alone, to carve out our own way.>41 It meant that European learning
was to be adapted to local conditions. The African clergy supported Blyden's
idea of reforming education in Sierra Leone so as to achieve

'such a system as shall free us from the present necessity of contracting foreign
tastes and habits, of importing European conceptions on many subjects into
a sphere in which they are wholly inapplicable and which so far as we are
influenced by them impair our energies and efficiency as a portion of a
distinct family of the human race. >u
38. Lynch,'The Native Pastorate', pp. 401-2.
39. Ibid.
40. Blyden, Christianity, Idem, p. 254.
41. Ibid., p. 90. This echoes the present argument for the Africanization of schools in
many African states.
42. Native Pastors to Johnson, 19 April 1873, CMS CAJC^u, in Lynch, 'The Native
Pastorate', p. 409.
286 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

Blyden urged that 'an indigenous literature' be created, which would ' silently
but effectively transform the moral and intellectual condition of the people.'
He insisted that the establishment of the university be financed by the colonial
administration, because 'Europeans owe us a great debt, not only for the
unrequited physical labours we have performed . . . we do not simply ask it as
a favour but claim it as a right.>4S
Blyden's programme became the starting point of a persistent struggle. He
was supported by most—but by no means all—of the educated Africans Thus,
while T. J. Macauley supported Blyden and the programme of the Negro,
G. Nicol, who favoured assimilation, maintained that ideas of 'race feeling' and
'national idiosyncracies' were alien to Africans, who, in his opinion, needed ' a
good substantial English school'. A similar attitude was adopted by J. Quaker,
another prominent social figure in Sierra Leone. He wrote:
'The Negro race question and the general tone and spirit of the "Negro"
newspaper have separated Mr Blyden and myself. . . Africa still stands in
need of all the aid she can get from British philanthropists in order to rise
to her proper standard in the scale of humanity. ' u
Blyden's most resolute and inflexible opponent was H. Cheetham, Bishop of
Sierra Leone, for whom Blyden was just a troublemaker. Cheetham thought
that Blyden's presence in the country had 'most important and unfortunate
results on the minds of the native pastors and some of the other upper natives. '**
With regard to Blyden's newspaper Cheetham said: 'National feeling . . . is not
finding expression in the Negro, but the Negro is spreading it on thick before
the people are ready.>46
The Bishop was to some extent right. Blyden's propaganda did stimulate
the rising national awareness among Africans. In Cheetham's own words,
'the great source of evil is Mr Blyden; he has so dwelt upon this race feeling
t h a t . . . a most strong and virulent anti-white feeling has arisen.>47 Cheetham
made all African pastors answer a series of questions to ascertain their attitude
to relations between the whites and the Africans—a sort of loyalty test. The
Africans stated that 'they were not proprietors of the Negro and were not
responsible for opinions expressed therein. But they were true to confess that
James Johnson had done a great service to the pastorate . . .>48 This message,
coined in most evasive terms, meant that the African pastors did not venture
43. The West African University: Correspondence between E. W. Blyden and His Excel-
lency F. Pope-Hemessy (Freetown, 1872), pp. 11,13-14.
44. J. Quaker to Venn, 28 October 1872, CMS CA,/O 17 , and J. Quaker to E. Hutchinson,
15 April 1873, CMS CA,/O178, in R. W. July, The Origins of Modern African Thought
(London, 1968), p. 147.
45. Cheetham to Secretary of the CMS, 9 April 1873, CAJO,^, in Lynch, 'The Native
Pastorate', p. 406.
46. Cheetham to Secretary of the CMS, 13 March 1873—CAJOu., in Lynch, ibid.,
p. 406.
47. Cheetham to Venn, 1 February 1873, CaJOu^, in Lynch, ibid., p. 406.
48. Native Pastors to Bishop Cheetham, 3 April 1873, CMS CAJO,^, in Lynch,
ibid., p. 408.
 BLYDEN AND THE AFRICAN PERSONALITY 287

openly to support Blyden—but by expressing high regard for his associate,

James Johnson, they showed where their sympathies lay.
Needless to say, Cheetham objected unreservedly to the 'scheme for a godless
West African University under Government and Negro control'.49 In 1873
when Blyden applied for the post of Head of the Education Department of
Sierra Leone, Cheetham wrote: 'The Lord guide us in this matter and avert
Mr Blyden getting it.' 60 Blyden's project for a West African university did
not materialize. In 1874 he left for Liberia in a mood of disappointment.
An ebb had set in the nationalist movement; but his idea was eventually realized.
In 1876 Fourah Bay College was affiliated to the University of Durham, which
gave it university status in accordance with British standards.51 Blyden's
propaganda also had other results. To uphold Africans' cultural heritage,
he advanced the proposition that 'you were not intended to ape the European,
[therefore] cultivate a distinct "African Personality",'52 which became an
important element in the spiritual life of West Africa.
In 1887 the Dress Reform Society was founded in Sierra Leone, Its purpose
was to encourage new patterns of national dress, taking into account the changes
that had taken place in Africa after the arrival of Europeans. Its members
argued that the waistcoat, tie, and collar, etc.,—those attributes of Victorian
England—were not suited to the African scene, but, on the other hand, the
traditional African dress also had to be remodelled.53
Similar movements arose in other West African territories, including Nigeria.
In response to Blyden's call, African newspapers printed articles stating that
European civilization threatened to extinguish Negroes as a race: 'We are
Negroes first and Christians afterwards', claimed the Lagos Weekly Record.6*
Educated Africans in Nigeria began to take traditional African names instead
of European. Previously, African Christians had readily adopted European,
names at baptism, and were often proud of them as a token of affiliation to
white society. The situation changed radically: educated Africans gave up
these foreign names which made them 'strangers in their own country'.56
David B. Vincent became Mojola Agbebi; the Rev. J. J. Samuel, Adegboyega
Edun; Joseph Pathagoras Haastrup, Ademuyiwa Haastrup; and George William
Johnson, Oshokale Tejumade Johnson. A campaign on this matter was
launched in the press—any African who refused to change his name was
stigmatized as 'a nondescript, a libel on his country and a blot on
civilization'.68
49. Cheetham to Secretary of the CMS, 9 April 1873, CAJO^., in Lynch, ibid., p. 406.
50. Ibid., p. 410.
51. J. Geiss, Panafrikanismus, p. 123.
52. Lynch, Edtoard Wibnot Blyden, p. 215.
53. Ibid., pp. 218-9.
54. Lagos Weekly Record, 28 November 1891, 27 July 1895, cited in E. A. Ayandele,
77K Missionary Impact, p. 246.
55. Sierra Leone Weekly News, 12 November 1892, Ayandele, The Missionary Impact,
p. 258.
56. Lagos Standard, 13 March 1896, Ayandele, The Missionary Impact, p. 259.
288 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

Blyden and West African nationalism

Cultural nationalism has played a prominent role in the history of West
Africa. In the nineteenth century capitalist Europe often camouflaged its
imperialistic policies towards Africa under the guise of high-flown argument
about its culture-bearing mission, diluting on the need to carry 'the light of
civilization to backward peoples and races'. The belief in the unquestionable
superiority of European culture was so strong that the ideal of the first African
nationalists, Samuel Crowther and James Horton, was to turn Africa into a
'Black Europe'. To win recognition of the African's equality, they were ready
to adopt an alien culture and denounce their own. It took a man of Blyden's
brilliance to proclaim that the African could in all respects be equal to the
European—and, moreover, remain his true self. Unlike his predecessors,
Blyden did not worship Europe; on the contrary, he admired traditional
African culture. For enslaved and downtrodden people, confidence in their
own creative abilities is all-important.
Cultural nationalism marked the beginning of a new stage in the formation of
African ideology, superseding the assimilation theories of Crowther and Horton.
All prominent leaders in West Africa paid tribute to it. Commencing in 1872,
and especially during the period 1890-1914, many of the attacks of Africans
against the ways of the colonial authorities were launched from the angle of
cultural nationalism. The upsurge of cultural nationalism enabled educated
Africans to head the people's resistance in the field of culture as well as in the
political and economic spheres. Increasingly they spoke on behalf of the people
of the West African coastal towns which had been subjected to the strongest
European influence. It was the educated Africans and not the tribal chiefs
who largely expressed the sentiments of the masses in these areas.
At that stage of cultural nationalism the representatives of the new 61ite—
the Africans who had mastered European culture—began to effect a synthesis
of contemporary African culture, making use of both traditional and European
elements. This was manifested in their dress, their names, the craving for
European learning, the recognition of the monogamous family, and the institu-
tions of ownership and inheritance. But the advocates of cultural nationalism
were unable to break with Europe. Actually—though they would have never
admitted it—they wanted a totally new society to arise in place of traditional
African society. They wanted West Africa to get rid of its isolation, and to
establish contacts with the rest of the world. They favoured changes in the
economy that would result in the Africans producing cotton, cocoa beans, coffee,
rubber, etc., and shipping these goods to Europe. By advocating commodity
production they dealt a blow to traditional African life.
Thus the champions of cultural nationalism sought to preserve the form
while foregoing the content They failed to realize their historic mission of
converting traditional Africa into modern Africa. Irrespective of the national
garb they adopted, they facilitated the exit of old Africa. And this, objectively,
 BLYDEN AND THE AFRICAN PERSONALITY 289

was the progressive role played by cultural nationalism in the nineteenth

century.
Edward Blyden clearly played a prominent part in evolving the principles of
cultural nationalism. But along with original ideas that have retained their
validity for decades, his spiritual heritage contains a number of errors and
misconceptions. His ideas about races and historical development are often
contradictory, hazy and illogical, with strong overtones of mysticism. Blyden
has been rightly charged with lack of consistency. Thus, while railing for the
preservation of the African's distinctive character, he urged re-emigration of
Negroes from the United States, and suggested that the English language; be
made the common language for all of West Africa, that is, he advocated measures
that disrupted the traditional way of life. In his own lifetime Blyden was
criticized for his justification of European conquests. Even then the younger
generation was far more militant; they clamoured for broader political rights
for Africans, a demand which Blyden did not approve. He tried to limit the
national movement to cultural problems, and adopted the stand of conservative
nationalism by upholding all African customs and rites, including polygamy
and the secret ritualistic societies. For this reason he found himself in relative
isolation in his later years.
It should be noted in this connection that in our day some African leaders
would like to isolate their peoples from the rest of mankind, by bringing their
cultural and racial specificity to the forefront. In doing so they deliberately,
or otherwise, resort to some of Blyden's ideas. These attempts at cultural self-
isolation appear even more deleterious for the African peoples today than they did
in Blyden's time. Still, neither the erroneous statements of Blyden's trarhing
nor his racialist attitude to mulattos can cancel his great services to the Negro
race and to all mankind. Blyden was one of the pioneers in the field of funda-
mental research into African sociology, anthropology and history. He was
probably the best-known nineteenth century African leader, and exerted a deep
influence on the spiritual life of Africans in that century. In this Edward
Blyden was surpassed only by William DuBois—but DuBois came in the
twentieth century.