leophold - Blogs - TheBlackList Pub2024-03-28T12:04:40Zhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/leopholdReverend William Sheppard: Missionary and Man of Principleshttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/reverend-william-sheppard-missionary-and-man-of-principles2012-03-12T02:59:31.000Z2012-03-12T02:59:31.000ZTheBlackList-Publisherhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/TheBlackListPublisher<div><p><strong>by <a href="http://aol.com" target="_blank">Adib Rashad</a> ~</strong></p>
<div><p><br /> From the founding of Liberia in 1821 until the 1920s, the major influence of<br />Black Americans on Africa came from Black missionaries. The Colonization<br />movement gave birth to the Black missionary tradition and to the theory of<br />"providential design," which taught that Black slaves were brought to the<br />United States and Christianized and educated so that they might be able to<br />send their children back to redeem Africa.<br /><br />Missionaries seemed to believe that Blacks could withstand the African<br />climate and resist the diseases of Africa better than Caucasians.<br />Furthermore, evangelical clergymen believed that Africans could be converted<br />more easily by Black than Caucasian missionaries.<br />Paradoxically, the Black missionary movement was almost always intermixed<br />with a spirit of Pan-Africanism. Africa presented Black Americans with a<br />chance to emigrate, to prosper, to reconnect with their African heritage, and<br />to Christianize their African brothers and sisters; it also presented them<br />with an opportunity to assist Africans to rise economically.<br /><br />Additionally, Black Americans believed it was God's design that educated<br />Blacks should return to Africa and develop it for the future. Bishop Henry<br />McNeal Turner and his newspaper, "Voice of The People," continually preached<br />this message of "providential design" and emigrationism:<br />The Negro race has as much chance in the United States ... of being a man<br />... as a frog has in a snake den... Emigrate and gradually return to the land of<br />our ancestors... The Negro was brought here in the providence of God to<br />learn obedience, to work, to sing, to pray, to preach, to acquire education ...<br />and imbibe the principles of civilization as a whole, and then to return to<br />Africa, the land of his fathers, and bring her his millions.<br /><br />After the American Baptists, the next major American missionary effort in<br />Africa--particularly the Congo--was undertaken by the Southern Presbyterian<br />Church; initiated by Reverend William H. Sheppard. Sheppard, a native of<br />Virginia and a graduate of Hampton Institute and Tuscaloosa Theological<br />Institute, had aspired from childhood to be a missionary to Africa. At the<br />age of twenty-three he was eager to serve in Africa, but the church's<br />leadership believed Blacks were incapable of learning foreign languages,<br />insisted that he be accompanied by a Caucasian cleric. Sheppard waited for<br />two years; in the interim, he served as a minister in Atlanta, where he<br />acquired a reputation for intelligence, bravery, and vigor.<br /><br />Finally, the church sent Reverend Samuel Lapsley, son of Alabama<br />slaveholders, to accompany Sheppard to the Congo Free State. This was an<br />area that was unpenetrated by Christianity, and was under the personal rule<br />of Belgium's King Leopold II.<br /><br />Although one was the descendant of slaves and the other of slave owners, the<br />historical records indicate that they hit it off well.<br />On April 18, 1891, the two missionaries arrived at the village of Luebo,<br />where they founded their mission; they bought nine acres of land from a local<br />tribe with $1.60 worth of cowrie shells and brass wire. Once they completed<br />their preparations, the two young missionaries headed up the Kasai River to<br />find converts.<br /><br />Samuel Lapsley's letters to the United States always rang with the utmost of<br />respect and admiration for William Sheppard. He pointed out that the tribes<br />in the Congo were very respectful of Sheppard because of his "bright and even<br />temper," his "unusual graces," and "strong points of character." Lapsley<br />continually "thanked God for Sheppard's presence."<br /><br />Sheppard was the first Black American missionary in the Congo. He mostly<br />wrote of the Africans he encountered with reverence and high regard.<br />However, he occasionally echoed the prevailing condescension of white<br />missionaries regarding the so-called "heathenism" of Africa. He, on the<br />other hand, was more mindful and acceptable of the Africans as total human<br />beings. He saw the Congolese as "my people" and eagerly absorbed his<br />surroundings. He wrote this, "We immediately began to study the local<br />language by pointing at objects and writing down the names the villagers<br />gave us." He wrote at another time, "I always wanted to live in Africa, I felt I<br />would be happy, and so I am."<br /><br />Sheppard was a true Christian evangelist and remained one for the twenty<br />years he worked in Africa, and for the duration of his life. He not only<br />loved his assignment, but also the joy of being in Africa with his "people."<br />In early 1892, Lapsley had to go to Boma, the capital, on mission business,<br />and left Sheppard alone for several months on the Kasai. Lapsley never<br />returned; he died of bilious hematuric fever. The Southern Presbyterians<br />were embarrassed to find themselves with a Black man in DE facto command of<br />their new Congo mission, dispatched more white Presbyterians to the Congo.<br />By the time they arrived, Sheppard had had several years<br /> experience in the territory, and had become, according to a Belgian<br />trader, very "popular among the BaKuba whose language he alone speaks of all<br />the Europeans."<br /><br />As indicated, the area where Reverend Sheppard was working bordered on the<br />homeland of the Kuba people. The Kuba were/are among Africa's greatest<br />artists, working in masks, sculpture, textiles, and elaborately carved<br />tools.<br /> Sheppard's collection of Kuba art, much of which ended up at his alma mater<br />in Virginia, was the first significant one acquired by an outsider.<br /><br />Sheppard was always candid to state when some tribal practice--such as human<br />sacrifice--appalled him; however, he always displayed an empathetic,<br />respectful interest in African customs. He was deeply respectful of the<br />Kuba, whom he said, "Make one feel that he has again entered a land of<br />civilization... Perhaps they got their civilization from the Egyptians--or<br />the Egyptians got theirs from the BaKuba!"<br /><br />Sheppard was excited when he saw a Kuba ceremonial cup for drinking palm<br />wine; carved on it was a face with features closely resembling those on<br />ancient Egyptian artifacts. "The cup is made of mahogany," he wrote, "and<br />the face on it seems to verify their tradition that many, many years ago<br />they came from a faraway land."<br /><br />The Kuba Kingdom had been protected from slave-raiders primarily because of<br />its location, which was deep in the Congo's interior. The other factor was<br />their persistence on keeping outsiders at a distance. They cherished their<br />isolation. Belgian traders had been trying for more than a decade to gain<br />entry to the Kuba Kingdom; they had been repeatedly rebuffed. The gifts<br />they sent to the king were always returned.<br /><br />In 1892, Sheppard became the first foreigner to reach the town of Ifuca,<br />seat of the court of the Kuba king, Kot aMbweeky II. The king had repeatedly<br />threatened to decapitate anyone who helped strangers intrude into his land;<br />thus no one dared to give Sheppard directions. For weeks Sheppard secretly<br />followed an ivory caravan heading for the capital, until the king learned of<br />his approach and sent his son, Toen-Zaide, to find and kill the missionary<br />and everyone who had assisted him. Once captured, Sheppard spoke the Kuba<br />language with such skill that even the king was impressed. The Kuba elders<br />decided that Sheppard was a reincarnated spirit. Furthermore, they announced<br />that they knew who he was: Bobe MeKabe, a former king. Sheppard could not<br />convince them otherwise.<br /><br />Sheppard's visit to the Kuba Kingdom was the highlight of his life, and it<br />provided a wealth of information for later scholars.<br /><br />The Kuba had one of Central Africa's most sophisticated political systems.<br />Sheppard remained at the Kuba court for four months, and interested in all<br />he saw, wrote articles on Kuba ancestral rituals, crop yields, court<br />operatives, to the workings of a royal police force that dealt with thefts and other<br />crimes.<br /><br />Sheppard's acute observations won him election to the Royal Geographic<br />Society in London.<br /><br />As time progressed, he became even more attached to the Kuba people, he<br />wrote, "I grew very fond of the BaKuba..." He continued, "They were the<br />finest looking race I had seen in Africa, dignified, graceful, courageous,<br />honest, with an open smiling countenance and really hospitable. Their<br />knowledge of weaving, embroidery, wood carving and smelting was the highest<br />in equatorial Africa." The book he later wrote about his experiences in the<br />Congo was entitled "Presbyterian Pioneers in the Congo." He was a valuable,<br />first hand look at one of the last great African kingdoms unchanged by<br />European influence.<br /><br />Sheppard, alone, continued evangelizing among the Kuba and neighboring<br />tribes. I would be remiss by not stating with emphasis that the Kuba were<br />so happy with their way of life, and their customs; they showed very little<br />interest in Christianity. They loved Sheppard, but had an aversion toward<br />Christianity; Sheppard, being a man of principle, did not impose Christianity<br />on them if they were not interested.<br />Sheppard returned to the United States in 1894; he recruited four other<br />Black Christians to the Congo mission, including his new wife. Caucasian clerics,<br />for the most part, avoided the Congo based on the health factors imparted by<br />others. It was that small cadre of Black evangelists who sustained the mission.<br /><br />In 1897 or 1898, the Presbyterian Church sent Reverend William Morrison, a<br />Caucasian from Virginia, to head the Congo mission despite Sheppard's vast<br />experience and knowledge. Sheppard would never regain leadership.<br />Interestingly, Sheppard and Morrison formed an amicable alliance, and this<br />contributed to the growth of the mission. Williams, and later, Morrison<br />played a historic role in exposing King Leopold's immense system of<br />extortion, brutality and murder. In 1876, after years of trying to control<br />the Congo, Leopold formed the International African Association; in 1885, he<br />assumed the title of sovereign of the Congo Free State which was the only<br />European colonial dependency in the hands of a single man rather than a<br />nation.<br /><br />On the world stage, Leopold managed to maintain his control of the Congo by<br />feigning patriarchal benevolence.<br />In actuality, the Congolese were enslaved and forced to collect rubber under<br />heinous conditions. By 1900 the once proud and prosperous Kuba people had<br />been reduced to near starvation as Leopold's soldiers forced them to produce<br />ever greater quantities of rubber at gunpoint and the threat of torture.<br />Reverend Sheppard described the toll taken on the Kuba with these heart<br />wrenching details:<br /><br />These great stalwart men and women, who have from time immemorial been free,<br />cultivating large farms of Indian corn, peas, tobacco, potatoes, trapping<br />elephants for their ivory tusks and leopards for their skins, who have always<br />had their own king and government not to be despised, officers of the law<br />established in every town of the kingdom, these magnificent people, perhaps<br />about 400,000 in number, have entered a new chapter in the history of their<br />tribe. Only a few years ago, travelers through this country found them<br />living in large homes, having from one to four rooms in each house, loving<br />and living happily with their wives and children, one of the most prosperous<br />and intelligent of all the African tribe...<br /><br />But with these last few years how changed they are! Their farms are growing<br />up in weeds and jungle, their king is practically a slave, their houses now<br />are mostly only half-built single rooms and are neglected. The streets of<br />their towns are not clean and well-kept as they once were. Even their<br />children cry for bread.<br /><br />Why this change? You have it in a few words. There are armed sentries of<br />chartered trading companies who force the men and women to spend most of<br />their days and nights in the forests making rubber, and the price they<br />receive is so meager that they cannot live upon it. In the majority of<br />villages these people have not time to listen to the Gospel story, or give<br />an answer concerning their soul's salvation.<br /><br />Sheppard's story was published in January 1908.<br />Sheppard wrote a number of articles about the slaughter of the Kuba and<br />other neighboring tribes. In a church report, he described one massacre of eighty<br />to a hundred villagers.<br /><br />Leopold's "African" raiders had cut off ninety-one right hands to prove to<br />white rubber bosses that punishment had been meted out to the insolent and<br />slothful. This African (Congolese) holocaust killed about twelve million<br />people. In the mean time, Leopold had grown extremely rich from his slave<br />empire while maintaining the facade that he was bringing benevolence and<br />civilization to the savage Congolese.<br /><br />Sheppard was consistent, along with Morrison, to expose this blatant fiction.<br /> Sheppard's articles about severed hands being smoked over a fire had been<br />one of the most widely quoted pieces of testimony about the Congo. His<br />eyewitness account sparked indignation in the United States Congress and the<br />British Parliament. He was cited by almost every American reformer, Black<br />and Caucasian. Mark Twain, an active opponent of slave labor in the Congo,<br />paraphrased Sheppard's account of the massacres in "King Leopold's<br />Soliloquy," an imaginary monologue by Leopold.<br /><br />Sheppard and Morrison were continual thorns in the side of Leopold.<br />Sheppard was so adamant in his opposition to Leopold that Leopold's rubber company<br />sued him in a Congo court demanding 30,000 Belgian francs for alleged libel.<br />Sheppard declared that if the judge ruled against him, he would "go to prison<br />rather than pay the fine."<br />Because of Sheppard's Christian consciousness and his African<br />humanitarianism, world opinion came to his aid, in the end the court<br />exonerated him.<br /><br />The trial made sensational news in the United States. Under the headlines<br />"American Negro Hero of Congo and First to Inform World of Congo Abuses,"<br />the Boston Herald wrote, "Dr. Sheppard has not only stood before kings, but he<br />has also stood against them. In pursuit of his mission of serving his race<br />in its native land, this son of a slave ... has dared to withstand all the<br />power of Leopold."<br /><br />The notoriety of the case and Sheppard's articles contributed to unending<br />pressures that forced Leopold in 1908 to relinquish the colony over to the<br />Belgian government, ending some of the worst human rights and human abuses<br />of that time.<br /><br />Sheppard returned to the United States and became an honored member of the<br />Black community. He shared speaking platforms with Booker T. Washington and<br />W. E. B. DuBois; however, his greatest legacy remained in Africa and his<br />contribution to the downfall of Leopold.<br />Reverend William Sheppard was a man history should not overlook or neglect.<br />He died at the age of sixty-two, suffering from recurring bouts of malaria.<br />In 1918, eight years after he left the Congo, the mission he helped found at<br />Luebo, with some 1,700 members, became one of the largest Presbyterian<br />churches in the world.<br /><br /><strong>FOOTNOTES:</strong><br /><em>Reverend Sheppard and his wife lost two daughters to malaria in the Congo.</em><br /><em>Sheppard had an affair with a Congolese woman and from that union a son was</em><br /><em>born; the son succeeded him in his mission.</em><br /><em>The Kuba people did resist the Belgians and their African imps, but were</em><br /><em>slaughtered by the thousands.</em><br /><em>George Washington Williams was the first Black American to write and speak</em><br /><em>about the atrocities in the Congo; however, it was Reverend Sheppard who had</em><br /><em>the greatest impact because of his first hand experiences.</em><br /><br /><strong><em>SOURCES:</em></strong><br /><em>The United States and Africa A History, By Peter Duignan and L. H. Gann</em><br /><em>King Leopold's Ghost, By Adam Hochschild</em><br /><em>George Washington Williams, By John Hope Franklin</em><br /><em>The American Legacy Magazine. Winter 1999 article by Mike Tidwell, "The</em><br /><em>Missionary Who Fought a King."</em><br /><em>The Scramble for Africa The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from</em><br /><em>1876 to 1912, By Thomas Pakenham</em><br /><em>Introduction to African Civilizations, By John G. Jackson</em><br /><em>The World and Africa, By W. E. B. DuBois</em><br /><br /></p>
<p><font color="#000000">*=====<br />Adib Rashad (<a href="mailto:RashadM@aol.com">RashadM@aol.com</a>) is an education consultant, education<br />program director, author, and historian. He has lived and taught in<br />West Africa and South East Asia.</font></p>
<p>This article was previously published by theMarcusGarveyBBS (an entity of TheBlackList)<br />and TheBlackList at <a href="http://theblacklist.visibli.com/8561e39728665e6a/?web=9ca29e&dst=http%3A//lists.topica.com/lists/TheBlackList/read">http://lists.topica.com/lists/TheBlackList/read</a></p>
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