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By the Rivers of Water: A Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey
In early November 1834, an aristocratic young couple from Savannah and South Carolina sailed from New York and began a strange seventeen year odyssey in West Africa. Leighton and Jane Wilson sailed along what was for them an exotic coastline, visited cities and villages, and sometimes ventured up great rivers and followed ancient paths. Along the way they encountered not only many diverse landscapes, peoples, and cultures, but also many individuals on their own odysseys -- including Paul Sansay, a former slave from Savannah; Mworeh Mah, a brilliant Grebo leader, and his beautiful daughter, Mary Clealand, at Cape Palmas; and King Glass and the wise and humorous Toko in Gabon. Leighton and Jane Wilson had freed their inherited slaves, and were to become the most influential American missionaries in West Africa during the first half of the nineteenth century. While Jane established schools, Leighton fought the international slave trade and the imperialism of colonization. He translated portions of the Bible into Grebo and Mpongwe and thereby helped to lay the foundation for the emergence of an indigenous African Christianity.
The Wilsons returned to New York because of ill health, but their odyssey was not over. Living in the booming American metropolis, the Wilsons welcomed into their handsome home visitors from around the world as they worked for the rapidly expanding Protestant mission movement. As the Civil War approached, however, they heard the siren voice of their Southern homeland calling from deep within their memories. They sought to resist its seductions, but the call became more insistent and, finally, irresistible. In spite of their years of fighting slavery, they gave themselves to a history and a people committed to maintaining slavery and its deep oppression -- both an act of deep love for a place and people, and the desertion of a moral vision.
A sweeping transatlantic story of good intentions and bitter consequences, By the Rivers of Water reveals two distant worlds linked by deep faiths.
The Wilsons returned to New York because of ill health, but their odyssey was not over. Living in the booming American metropolis, the Wilsons welcomed into their handsome home visitors from around the world as they worked for the rapidly expanding Protestant mission movement. As the Civil War approached, however, they heard the siren voice of their Southern homeland calling from deep within their memories. They sought to resist its seductions, but the call became more insistent and, finally, irresistible. In spite of their years of fighting slavery, they gave themselves to a history and a people committed to maintaining slavery and its deep oppression -- both an act of deep love for a place and people, and the desertion of a moral vision.
A sweeping transatlantic story of good intentions and bitter consequences, By the Rivers of Water reveals two distant worlds linked by deep faiths.
488 pages, Hardcover
First published October 8, 2013
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July 28, 2013
The Colonization Movement in the United States is an important stage in the history of slavery and American racism, but it often gets only a brief note in survey histories of the United States. The American Colonization Society, founded in 1816, promoted the founding of colonies in Western Africa, where freed African slaves and their descendants could live lives as free peoples, outside of the specter of slavery in the United States. This Society helped to send freed blacks to Western Africa, eventually founding Liberia in 1847.
Like so many aspects of American history, the story of the Colonization Movement is marked by deep veins of racism. Some abolitionists and clergy opposed slavery, but questioned whether freed slaves could live as productive, integrated, respected members in American society. And some proponents of slavery feared that the existence of any free African-Americans would undercut the institution of slavery, provoking much-feared slave rebellions and riots.
In By the Rivers of Water: A Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey, Erskine Clarke beautifully and sensitively tells the story of the Colonization Movement, the deep divisions of racism in the US, and the complex beliefs of some white Southerners through the lives of John Leighton Wilson and his wife Jane Bayard Wilson. The Wilsons were born to slaveholding families in Georgia and South Carolina, but followed their religious beliefs to serve as Protestant missionaries in West Africa, arriving in 1834 and living and working there for 17 years, when poor health forced them to return to the United States.
Erskine Clarke writes in his introduction that his focus as a historian is not simply to record facts, but to hear and represent "individual voices" from many different cultures: Gullah slaves and members of Grebo and Mpongwe tribes; Presbyterian missionaries and colonial authorities; white slaveowners and abolitionists; and former friends from the North and the South divided by the anguished divisions of the US Civil War. And he succeeds brilliantly. Clarke utilizes anthropological and archaeological sources and perspectives, as well as delving into more traditional historical documents, especially letters written by John Leighton Wilson. He writes with sensitivity of the clash of religious and cultural beliefs as well-meaning missionaries confront and attempt to form relationships with members of different African tribes. He traces the conflicts among the settlers of these colonies, the missionaries, and the Grebo and Mpongwe peoples. And he tells about the Wilsons' experiences as they built up missions in Cape Palmas among the Grebo, and on the Gabon estuary among the Mpongwe.
Perhaps most impressive is Clarke's treatment of John Leighton Wilson, who emerges from this biography as a man whose beliefs represent some crucial conflicts of his time. He was opposed to slavery and took actions to free his slaves and his wife's slaves, but he supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. He supported freedom for slaves, but his characterizations of the African-American settlers and administrators of the colonies closest to his missions reveal his belief that blacks were, in the end, inferior to whites. Wilson undertook studies of various West African languages and took steps to understand Grebo and Mpongwe beliefs and the complexity of changing those beliefs, a more nuanced understanding than many Americans had at this time, but one in which he still privileged a specific Christian belief and culture as the only path for salvation and civilization for any person. Understanding Wilson helps us to understand how deeply racism was ingrained in 19th-century Americans. Clarke follows the Wilsons through their return to the US, through the American Civil War, and into Reconstruction. Their responses to these cataclysmic events and changes provide needed context for any understanding of the complex views on slavery held by some American Southerners.
Clarke's research is extensive, his writing is clear and, at times, beautiful, and his sensitivity to nuance is laudable. I highly recommend this book, which will be published by Basic Books on October 8, 2013, to readers with interests in biography, religious history, the history of American slavery and racism, and the US Civil War.
Like so many aspects of American history, the story of the Colonization Movement is marked by deep veins of racism. Some abolitionists and clergy opposed slavery, but questioned whether freed slaves could live as productive, integrated, respected members in American society. And some proponents of slavery feared that the existence of any free African-Americans would undercut the institution of slavery, provoking much-feared slave rebellions and riots.
In By the Rivers of Water: A Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey, Erskine Clarke beautifully and sensitively tells the story of the Colonization Movement, the deep divisions of racism in the US, and the complex beliefs of some white Southerners through the lives of John Leighton Wilson and his wife Jane Bayard Wilson. The Wilsons were born to slaveholding families in Georgia and South Carolina, but followed their religious beliefs to serve as Protestant missionaries in West Africa, arriving in 1834 and living and working there for 17 years, when poor health forced them to return to the United States.
Erskine Clarke writes in his introduction that his focus as a historian is not simply to record facts, but to hear and represent "individual voices" from many different cultures: Gullah slaves and members of Grebo and Mpongwe tribes; Presbyterian missionaries and colonial authorities; white slaveowners and abolitionists; and former friends from the North and the South divided by the anguished divisions of the US Civil War. And he succeeds brilliantly. Clarke utilizes anthropological and archaeological sources and perspectives, as well as delving into more traditional historical documents, especially letters written by John Leighton Wilson. He writes with sensitivity of the clash of religious and cultural beliefs as well-meaning missionaries confront and attempt to form relationships with members of different African tribes. He traces the conflicts among the settlers of these colonies, the missionaries, and the Grebo and Mpongwe peoples. And he tells about the Wilsons' experiences as they built up missions in Cape Palmas among the Grebo, and on the Gabon estuary among the Mpongwe.
Perhaps most impressive is Clarke's treatment of John Leighton Wilson, who emerges from this biography as a man whose beliefs represent some crucial conflicts of his time. He was opposed to slavery and took actions to free his slaves and his wife's slaves, but he supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. He supported freedom for slaves, but his characterizations of the African-American settlers and administrators of the colonies closest to his missions reveal his belief that blacks were, in the end, inferior to whites. Wilson undertook studies of various West African languages and took steps to understand Grebo and Mpongwe beliefs and the complexity of changing those beliefs, a more nuanced understanding than many Americans had at this time, but one in which he still privileged a specific Christian belief and culture as the only path for salvation and civilization for any person. Understanding Wilson helps us to understand how deeply racism was ingrained in 19th-century Americans. Clarke follows the Wilsons through their return to the US, through the American Civil War, and into Reconstruction. Their responses to these cataclysmic events and changes provide needed context for any understanding of the complex views on slavery held by some American Southerners.
Clarke's research is extensive, his writing is clear and, at times, beautiful, and his sensitivity to nuance is laudable. I highly recommend this book, which will be published by Basic Books on October 8, 2013, to readers with interests in biography, religious history, the history of American slavery and racism, and the US Civil War.
May 29, 2017
Description: In early November 1834, an aristocratic young couple from Savannah and South Carolina sailed from New York and began a strange seventeen year odyssey in West Africa. Leighton and Jane Wilson sailed along what was for them an exotic coastline, visited cities and villages, and sometimes ventured up great rivers and followed ancient paths. Along the way they encountered not only many diverse landscapes, peoples, and cultures, but also many individuals on their own odysseys--including Paul Sansay, a former slave from Savannah; Mworeh Mah, a brilliant Grebo leader, and his beautiful daughter, Mary Clealand, at Cape Palmas; and King Glass and the wise and humorous Toko in Gabon. Leighton and Jane Wilson had freed their inherited slaves, and were to become the most influential American missionaries in West Africa during the first half of the nineteenth century. While Jane established schools, Leighton fought the international slave trade and the imperialism of colonization. He translated portions of the Bible into Grebo and Mpongwe and thereby helped to lay the foundation for the emergence of an indigenous African Christianity.
The Wilsons returned to New York because of ill health, but their odyssey was not over. Living in the booming American metropolis, the Wilsons welcomed into their handsome home visitors from around the world as they worked for the rapidly expanding Protestant mission movement. As the Civil War approached, however, they heard the siren voice of their Southern homeland calling from deep within their memories. They sought to resist its seductions, but the call became more insistent and, finally, irresistible. In spite of their years of fighting slavery, they gave themselves to a history and a people committed to maintaining slavery and its deep oppression—both an act of deep love for a place and people, and the desertion of a moral vision.
A sweeping transatlantic story of good intentions and bitter consequences, By the Rivers of Water reveals two distant worlds linked by deep faiths.
I had this set up ready to go, went to boil the kettle and the rug had been pulled. Didn't realise there was a time lapse thing on NetGalley... oooops. And what a corker it looked too.
The Wilsons returned to New York because of ill health, but their odyssey was not over. Living in the booming American metropolis, the Wilsons welcomed into their handsome home visitors from around the world as they worked for the rapidly expanding Protestant mission movement. As the Civil War approached, however, they heard the siren voice of their Southern homeland calling from deep within their memories. They sought to resist its seductions, but the call became more insistent and, finally, irresistible. In spite of their years of fighting slavery, they gave themselves to a history and a people committed to maintaining slavery and its deep oppression—both an act of deep love for a place and people, and the desertion of a moral vision.
A sweeping transatlantic story of good intentions and bitter consequences, By the Rivers of Water reveals two distant worlds linked by deep faiths.
I had this set up ready to go, went to boil the kettle and the rug had been pulled. Didn't realise there was a time lapse thing on NetGalley... oooops. And what a corker it looked too.
August 3, 2014
What a great conclusion to my "good reads" of 2013. This book is not only a great addition to American and West African historical reads, but also great narrative nonfiction. Georgia and South Carolina Low country meets the West African coast: specifically Liberia and Gabon. It is a book I will remember, a book I will revisit as I revisit my own history, a book I will reference.
The narrative here is not one that is too strange to me--being born and raised in Liberia where I already knew of the foundation of my native land--and yet it is a story of novelty. I once lived in Savannah and visited the Gullah-Geechee people of Savannah that Clarke mentions when he describes the slaves who had kept their West African culture even as they lived in slave cabins in Georgia, the same ones who left on ships headed to Liberia to start a new life. How could that be, that such history and way of life was preserved, I wondered, as I walked around their tiny community and took notes in their museums, watched the video of their oyster-catching history and spoke to an older man who was born and raised there and could speak the dialect that Erskine Clarke mentions in this book of Atlantic Odyssey.
Here is a story of bewilderment and moral compromise. John Leighton and his wife Jane Wilson, native Southerners, abolitionists, and missionaries, moved to Cape Palmas in Liberia to build schools and conduct outreach as part of the Maryland Colony. At this time, the slave trade in America was being abolished slowly, but freed slaves were either told to leave the states they were born in (forsaking family) or they were not allowed to travel between states. A decision had to be made. Abolitionists favored Africa as a way to have freed slaves live better lives. Ex-slave owners wanted freed African Americans gone. So it was that colonization societies came about. While societies like the American Colonization Society were composed of a mixture of abolitionists and racist Americans, colonies like the Maryland Colonization Society, were formed by one group whose objectives were to "whiten" America. This book talks specifically about that colonization society--not the others such as the Virginia colony founded by the Virginia Colonization Society.
Take a walk around the settlement at Cape Palmas in Liberia now and you will find it desolate.After years of working in Liberia and Gabon, Leighton and his wife returned to America due to illness. However, when the civil war erupted, they left their home up north and moved down south to fight with their people.
How is it, that a man who fought for years educating Africans and freed slaves, who taught Christianity, who even fought with the newly appointed African-American governor of the colony because he allowed slave ships at the harbor and allegedly didn't care for the natives, would side with the same people who wanted to further the slave movement they started? With all of the explanations of liberty and non-governmental interference of the south, it still didn't make any sense to me. This is the bafflement and hypocrisy that thankfully, Clarke saved for the end of this book. It is a book of inner struggle: a missionary who struggled with himself and his ideals and in the end it seems, he only went to Africa on the basis of Christianity, to arrogantly deliver Africans from "error's chains," when ironically, he also needed deliverance. He wasn't the only one either. The freed slaves who made Liberia their home, and the French colonists of Gabon all struggled with morality in dealing with natives.
For a book that introduces so many characters and historical data, it is written with clarity and ease. Through letters and journals, the book does well to outline historical moments of the slave trade that connects the American south to West Africa, and the past to the present.
My favorite example of the interconnectedness that the book defines, is this chilling moment mentioned in the Epilogue, when Clarke traces the slave cabins of the Gullah Lowcountry in Savannah to a present figurehead:
The narrative here is not one that is too strange to me--being born and raised in Liberia where I already knew of the foundation of my native land--and yet it is a story of novelty. I once lived in Savannah and visited the Gullah-Geechee people of Savannah that Clarke mentions when he describes the slaves who had kept their West African culture even as they lived in slave cabins in Georgia, the same ones who left on ships headed to Liberia to start a new life. How could that be, that such history and way of life was preserved, I wondered, as I walked around their tiny community and took notes in their museums, watched the video of their oyster-catching history and spoke to an older man who was born and raised there and could speak the dialect that Erskine Clarke mentions in this book of Atlantic Odyssey.
Here is a story of bewilderment and moral compromise. John Leighton and his wife Jane Wilson, native Southerners, abolitionists, and missionaries, moved to Cape Palmas in Liberia to build schools and conduct outreach as part of the Maryland Colony. At this time, the slave trade in America was being abolished slowly, but freed slaves were either told to leave the states they were born in (forsaking family) or they were not allowed to travel between states. A decision had to be made. Abolitionists favored Africa as a way to have freed slaves live better lives. Ex-slave owners wanted freed African Americans gone. So it was that colonization societies came about. While societies like the American Colonization Society were composed of a mixture of abolitionists and racist Americans, colonies like the Maryland Colonization Society, were formed by one group whose objectives were to "whiten" America. This book talks specifically about that colonization society--not the others such as the Virginia colony founded by the Virginia Colonization Society.
Take a walk around the settlement at Cape Palmas in Liberia now and you will find it desolate.After years of working in Liberia and Gabon, Leighton and his wife returned to America due to illness. However, when the civil war erupted, they left their home up north and moved down south to fight with their people.
How is it, that a man who fought for years educating Africans and freed slaves, who taught Christianity, who even fought with the newly appointed African-American governor of the colony because he allowed slave ships at the harbor and allegedly didn't care for the natives, would side with the same people who wanted to further the slave movement they started? With all of the explanations of liberty and non-governmental interference of the south, it still didn't make any sense to me. This is the bafflement and hypocrisy that thankfully, Clarke saved for the end of this book. It is a book of inner struggle: a missionary who struggled with himself and his ideals and in the end it seems, he only went to Africa on the basis of Christianity, to arrogantly deliver Africans from "error's chains," when ironically, he also needed deliverance. He wasn't the only one either. The freed slaves who made Liberia their home, and the French colonists of Gabon all struggled with morality in dealing with natives.
For a book that introduces so many characters and historical data, it is written with clarity and ease. Through letters and journals, the book does well to outline historical moments of the slave trade that connects the American south to West Africa, and the past to the present.
My favorite example of the interconnectedness that the book defines, is this chilling moment mentioned in the Epilogue, when Clarke traces the slave cabins of the Gullah Lowcountry in Savannah to a present figurehead:
In about 1850, in one of the cabins of the settlement, a little boy, Jim Robinson, was born into slavery. After the Civil War, he was one of those who decided to stay in the old settlement, and with his wife, Louiser, they raised their family, while he sharecropped and no doubt kept his eye out for the Klan and other vigilante groups....In 2008, Jim Robinson's great-great-grandaughter, a Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate, returned and spoke at the African Methodist Episcopal church, where her ancestors had once worshipped. Her name was Michelle Obama, and she was campaigning for her husband, Barack Obama, who would shortly be elected president of the United States.
September 11, 2013
Right off the bat, I was made to think while reading this book. The author mentions that when the importation of slaves ended in 1808 in Savannah, the monetary value of current slaves rose. In school, we're never made to think of that type of economic impact of stopping the slave trade. This right here made me like the book right away. I like being made to think of other viewpoints, both positive and negative.
Erksine Clarke is a very descriptive writer, which makes picturing the scenes in the books an easy task. Telling the stories of people to give a history was a smart move and the balance of explaining the times while explaining the daily lives and adventures of the missionaries made it easier for me to stay engaged. When this book comes out in October, you should definitely buy it.
I received a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Erksine Clarke is a very descriptive writer, which makes picturing the scenes in the books an easy task. Telling the stories of people to give a history was a smart move and the balance of explaining the times while explaining the daily lives and adventures of the missionaries made it easier for me to stay engaged. When this book comes out in October, you should definitely buy it.
I received a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
April 9, 2014
This is a book about slavery. Erskine Clarke’s engrossing, elegantly written history of the Wilson Odyssey involves much more than the 17 years they spent in malarial stations of Cape Palrnas, on the southeast coast of Liberia and at Boraka, a onetime slave barrack near Libreville in Gabon. It tells of human nature and the power that cultures and environments have upon it. The book opens with the history of the slaves of the Bayard and Wilson families then goes into the story of John Leighton Wilson, son of a prosperous cotton farmer in the Cypress Swamps of Black river, South Carolina and of Wilson’s wife Jane Bayard, daughter of a cotton and rice plantation family of Savannah, Georgia. In 1831 they left the United States and began missionary service among the Grebo and Mpongwe peoples of West Africa. They had freed their slaves and took with them the Grebo’s that wish to return to Africa. Some stayed at the Black River plantation and the ones in Savannah moved to find work. The book then tells the history of the formation of Liberia by the American former slaves. The Wilson’s would reshape their thinking about human freedom in their years in Africa. They had to deal with their own “missionary hubris,” cultural imperialism, tribal fetishes, incessant warfare among the native people, diseases and interference from mission authorities at home. They return home at the beginning of the Civil war with all its turmoil. I found the epilogue fascinating, as Clarke tells about the offspring of the original people in the story. One I found most interesting was Joe Robinson a slave at the Black River plantation, he chose to stay and work at the plantation when he was given his freedom and later he moved into town and was active with the black church in the town. His children all moved away were educated and had children. Clarke tells of Joe’s great great granddaughter who was educated at Yale and Harvard coming to speak at the Church and visit his grave. She was Michele Obama. Clarke is the Bancroft Prize winner, the most prestigious of the history awards, in 2006. I read this as an audio book downloaded by Audible. Mirron Willis did a good job narrating the book.
February 1, 2014
Right off the bat I want to say that this is a 5 star book. I've never seen or read anything like it. Seriously, it's almost a new genre. It is a history book; it's a missionary biography; it's micro-history; it's expansive history. I've read a lot of missionary biographies; I've read a lot of history books; but I've never read the two genres so closely intertwined.
Clarke wrote a densely-written, historical account of the missionary endeavors of John Leighton and Jane Wilson into West Africa. That's the framework of the book, but it is also an historical documentation of the African-American colonies in Liberia and Gabon, the Gullah people on the coast of Georgia, the beginnings of African-American churches in South Carolina, and an historical look at the Atlantic highway in the years immediately preceding and during the Civil War. Absolutely fascinating.
Leighton and Jane both came from large plantation and slave owning families in the deep south. This is their story of how they came together, and how Jane established schools in Africa, while Leighton fought the International Slave Trade and colonization, and translated portions of the Bible into Grebo and Mpongwe. However, when the Civil War started Leighton and Jane moved to the south to stand with their family.
The author takes Leighton to task for departing from his moral vision after the Civil War. I probably would have cut him more slack. Given the fact that Leighton's family were plantation owners, he had to overcome a lot of cultural biases against going to Africa in the first place. Schools and reading were against the law for slaves, yet he gave his life to those tasks. I guess we all wish that the Civil War didn't produce so much bitterness in the aftermath.
This book shows incredible scholarship and documentation. Nearly every paragraph references letters, books, historical societies, Colonization Papers, court records, archives of churches, etc.
Highly recommended.
Pages: 378, plus 50 pages of documentation
Author: Erskine Clarke
Published: Basic Books, October 2013
Clarke wrote a densely-written, historical account of the missionary endeavors of John Leighton and Jane Wilson into West Africa. That's the framework of the book, but it is also an historical documentation of the African-American colonies in Liberia and Gabon, the Gullah people on the coast of Georgia, the beginnings of African-American churches in South Carolina, and an historical look at the Atlantic highway in the years immediately preceding and during the Civil War. Absolutely fascinating.
Leighton and Jane both came from large plantation and slave owning families in the deep south. This is their story of how they came together, and how Jane established schools in Africa, while Leighton fought the International Slave Trade and colonization, and translated portions of the Bible into Grebo and Mpongwe. However, when the Civil War started Leighton and Jane moved to the south to stand with their family.
The author takes Leighton to task for departing from his moral vision after the Civil War. I probably would have cut him more slack. Given the fact that Leighton's family were plantation owners, he had to overcome a lot of cultural biases against going to Africa in the first place. Schools and reading were against the law for slaves, yet he gave his life to those tasks. I guess we all wish that the Civil War didn't produce so much bitterness in the aftermath.
This book shows incredible scholarship and documentation. Nearly every paragraph references letters, books, historical societies, Colonization Papers, court records, archives of churches, etc.
Highly recommended.
Pages: 378, plus 50 pages of documentation
Author: Erskine Clarke
Published: Basic Books, October 2013
October 8, 2013
This book serves as a dazzling exposition into the ubiquitous stains of slavery upon people of good intent from both races. Central to the story are the lives of John Leighton Wilson and Jane Bayard Wilson who together undertook a missionary voyage to Western Africa. This was the land known as Liberia and designated by Americans as a free African homeland for former slaves. Both Leighton and Jane owned slaves, had fortunes based on slavery, and believed the institution to be wrong.
But this couple were blind to the labors of those who served them. They were supremely naive in their view of the lack of religion in Africa. Both they and their Black counterparts had little awareness of their own assumptions on the superiority of Christianity and western style civilization.
The author, however, has made every effort to meticulously present both viewpoints of each interaction. He presents those subtle influences of language and assumption from the slave culture of the Gullah, in the lowlands of America, to the world of the Grebo and Mpongwe in would be Liberia. He picks up the juxtaposition of the fluid religious view of the Africans meeting the missionaries in 1832 to the doctrine based view of their would be "saviors". As one king in Africa notices, where Americans land, trouble follows. His prose is literate and flowing. The author presents complex material without bogging down the passage of the story.
One can only read this discourse with an eye within. Leighton and Jane had the best if intents, but cultural blindness often tripped them despite their earnest efforts to the contrary. Little has changed in the wages of entitled spoilage of other countries and the wretched mess left from colonizing one world from another. Even without this insight, the richness of the scholarship renders this a book to embrace.
But this couple were blind to the labors of those who served them. They were supremely naive in their view of the lack of religion in Africa. Both they and their Black counterparts had little awareness of their own assumptions on the superiority of Christianity and western style civilization.
The author, however, has made every effort to meticulously present both viewpoints of each interaction. He presents those subtle influences of language and assumption from the slave culture of the Gullah, in the lowlands of America, to the world of the Grebo and Mpongwe in would be Liberia. He picks up the juxtaposition of the fluid religious view of the Africans meeting the missionaries in 1832 to the doctrine based view of their would be "saviors". As one king in Africa notices, where Americans land, trouble follows. His prose is literate and flowing. The author presents complex material without bogging down the passage of the story.
One can only read this discourse with an eye within. Leighton and Jane had the best if intents, but cultural blindness often tripped them despite their earnest efforts to the contrary. Little has changed in the wages of entitled spoilage of other countries and the wretched mess left from colonizing one world from another. Even without this insight, the richness of the scholarship renders this a book to embrace.
September 1, 2013
I was highly intrigued by this book when I first read about it as I have a minor obsession with everything and anything to do with the American Civil War. Admittedly, this is pre-war and gives an insight into the efforts of missionary do-gooders in trying to relocate the African American population back to their 'native' home.
I was expecting a more fictional style of writing, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it is written in more of a recount style of the lives of the main family, namely Leighton Wilson. The detail and attention paid to the research shone through in every page and was highly informative to read. However, at times this book did have a tendency to drag, and I suspect it is due to the overwhelming attention to small detail. Fabulous if you're using the book as a research project, not so if you're reading out of curiosity into this era of history. In addition, it also occasionally lacked the fine balance between informative on the religious aspect of the missions and preaching through the pages. As a not so religious person, this did become annoying at times, but I could understand why Clarke had this tone in the book.
Overall, an enjoyable, if not very long, book that was incredibly informative and rather enjoyable. The addition of the photographs and personal snippets from letters added a very personal and enjoyable aspect to the tale of the Wilson's.
I was expecting a more fictional style of writing, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it is written in more of a recount style of the lives of the main family, namely Leighton Wilson. The detail and attention paid to the research shone through in every page and was highly informative to read. However, at times this book did have a tendency to drag, and I suspect it is due to the overwhelming attention to small detail. Fabulous if you're using the book as a research project, not so if you're reading out of curiosity into this era of history. In addition, it also occasionally lacked the fine balance between informative on the religious aspect of the missions and preaching through the pages. As a not so religious person, this did become annoying at times, but I could understand why Clarke had this tone in the book.
Overall, an enjoyable, if not very long, book that was incredibly informative and rather enjoyable. The addition of the photographs and personal snippets from letters added a very personal and enjoyable aspect to the tale of the Wilson's.
February 16, 2014
This book feels a lot like a poorly written doctoral dissertation. Dry, not that interesting, no heart. Sorry--but if this keeps you from reading it before our next book club, you come out ahead!!
August 1, 2017
If it was better edited, it would have been a wonderful book. It was an opening work.
August 17, 2021
Well written book full of history I had previously known very little about.
August 10, 2023
This is a very good read, and important if you want to understand the nuances of issues faced in the times of slavery and colonialism. At times it reads like a novel (it could make a great movie), but it is in fact very well-researched and detailed history. Almost every paragraph is footnoted!
November 1, 2013
In 1836, John Leighton Wilson and his wife Jane Bayard volunteered to serve as missionaries in West Africa. Both were from prosperous southern families and both owned slaves. Yet, as staunch Presbyterians, they felt it was their duty to bring Christianity to Africa. They first went to Maryland in Liberia, a settlement of free blacks from the United States. The settlement was backed by the American Colonization Movement whose purpose was to aid free African Americans to return to Africa. The Colonization Movement was not an Abolitionist Movement; rather their goal was to maintain Maryland’s ‘whiteness’.
The purpose of the Missionary Societies, however, was to minister to the African peoples. When friction arose between the settlers and the native Africans, Leighton found himself often in the middle of the frey but his sympathies were almost always on the side of the native Africans. The African Americans had absorbed western values which often clashed with those of the native Africans., especially on issues like land and property rights.
The Wilsons wished to free their own slaves. However, under Georgia law, if a slave was freed, they had to leave the state. Many slaves were married to others on other plantations and, if they left, they would have to leave their families behind. The decision was finally made to allow the slaves the choice. They could come to Liberia, move to another state, or choose to remain a slave but with the option to take their freedom later. Most chose to move to Liberia.
Underneath their actions, however, was a strong seam of racism. When problems arose in Maryland in Liberia, they blamed it on the fact that the Colonization Movement had appointed a ‘coloured man’ as governor. Later, when they were forced to return to the US for health reasons, they opposed the Southern demand for the reintroduction of the international slave trade but considered the election of Abraham Lincoln a sign of northern aggression against the south. When the southern states seceded and Fort Sumter was fired on signaling the beginning of the Civil War, they returned to Georgia to support the Confederacy. When the southern Presbyterian churches decided to also secede from the north and to put forward their declaration that slavery was not in opposition to the word of God, Leighton was one of the signers. Despite his opposition to the international slave trade, Leighton believed that southern whites 'understood' African Americans and their needs and that it should be left up to the southern states to decide how best to deal with the issue of slavery without interference from the north.
By the Rivers of Water is a beautifully crafted history of the times with all of its contradictions. Author Erskine Clarke is a Theological historian and he handles all of these contradictions with sensitivity. He recognizes that the people about whom he writes were products of their time while never apologizing for their actions or beliefs. For anyone with an interest in history, this is an elegantly written, well-researched and well-documented portrayal of an important period in American history.
The purpose of the Missionary Societies, however, was to minister to the African peoples. When friction arose between the settlers and the native Africans, Leighton found himself often in the middle of the frey but his sympathies were almost always on the side of the native Africans. The African Americans had absorbed western values which often clashed with those of the native Africans., especially on issues like land and property rights.
The Wilsons wished to free their own slaves. However, under Georgia law, if a slave was freed, they had to leave the state. Many slaves were married to others on other plantations and, if they left, they would have to leave their families behind. The decision was finally made to allow the slaves the choice. They could come to Liberia, move to another state, or choose to remain a slave but with the option to take their freedom later. Most chose to move to Liberia.
Underneath their actions, however, was a strong seam of racism. When problems arose in Maryland in Liberia, they blamed it on the fact that the Colonization Movement had appointed a ‘coloured man’ as governor. Later, when they were forced to return to the US for health reasons, they opposed the Southern demand for the reintroduction of the international slave trade but considered the election of Abraham Lincoln a sign of northern aggression against the south. When the southern states seceded and Fort Sumter was fired on signaling the beginning of the Civil War, they returned to Georgia to support the Confederacy. When the southern Presbyterian churches decided to also secede from the north and to put forward their declaration that slavery was not in opposition to the word of God, Leighton was one of the signers. Despite his opposition to the international slave trade, Leighton believed that southern whites 'understood' African Americans and their needs and that it should be left up to the southern states to decide how best to deal with the issue of slavery without interference from the north.
By the Rivers of Water is a beautifully crafted history of the times with all of its contradictions. Author Erskine Clarke is a Theological historian and he handles all of these contradictions with sensitivity. He recognizes that the people about whom he writes were products of their time while never apologizing for their actions or beliefs. For anyone with an interest in history, this is an elegantly written, well-researched and well-documented portrayal of an important period in American history.
September 30, 2016
I liked this book because it is a secular missionary history and there are not that many of these books out there. This is a very detailed history of a 19th Century missionary couple, Leighton and Jane Wilson, who grew up in the South, later became missionaries to Liberia and Gabon, and returned to the South during the years of the Civil War. The author brings out Leighton's early and strong advocacy for Africans and African-Americans but later shows his later contradictory statements as he settled back in the South and supported the role of white Southerners during the Civil War. As place was important to his discussion of this missionary couple, the author included maps of their Southern homeland and where they served as missionaries. This is a very detailed, well-written history that brought out the many contradictions of missionary life. As a "missionary kid" I appreciated how he did this.
November 20, 2016
John Leighton Wilson’s world was riddled with conflict. It’s there on just about every page of the book. But Clarke wisely refrains from forcing upon his readers an analysis of all the resulting angst. Instead, he presents us with an engaging narrative, told in his own elegant style and in the words of Wilson. The book is thoroughly researched, containing 49 pages of endnotes; yet it is devoid of the dry tone of most scholarly works. Rather, it reads almost like a novel, lulling me into its story, yet never letting me forget the anguish and tragedies that form the core of the book.
April 23, 2015
Thought provoking. Amazing details on life during the beginning of mission movement. Encouraging after all the negative publicity I think of as missions during that time period. Hard decisions that had to be made during that time. It gives a good idea of how we all have a lens in which we see things around us. There was a lot of detail going throughout so wasn't a light read one could pick up randomly. NF
August 15, 2013
The book was fascinating, but from the introductory chapters, I thought the focus would actually be on the Bayard sisters, not on Leighton Wilson. At any rate, I learned much about the time period and it made me want to do my own research to find further information on the colonization societies and missionaries.
September 4, 2014
Excellently written, thoroughly researched. Clarke weaves a fascinating yarn, delving with nuance and complexity into, ultimately, why human beings make some of the surprising and seemingly contradictory decisions they sometimes do. Fascinating look into early missionary culture, and into the complex social structures that were at play during the Civil War.
October 5, 2014
An amazing story. It is nonfiction but told somewhat like a story. Worth hanging in through many names and events of the Protestant mission movement of the 19th century.
November 5, 2016
I really tried to get into it. Got 3/4 of the way thru and can't bear to finish it. It's just so boring. There are very few books that I've never finished in my life. This is one of them.
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