The African Times Online 1866-1872
Hear the voices of Africans, Afro-Britons, and Africans of the diaspora, prior to the great race by Africans to extend formal colonial rule over much of Africa.
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Independently published newspaper covering topics of interest to
Anglophone African and Anglo-African populations in Britain, the British Empire,
and West Africa
Project Director: Trevor R. Getz,
Associate Professor of History
San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94132
USA
tgetz@sfsu.edu
The African Times is an important source for British, West African, and Atlantic history. However, it has often been difficult to access. The only known hard copy is held in the British Newspaper Library in Colindale, and only two microfilm copies seem to be in existence. It is my hope that the digitization of this important resource will contribute to research and pedagogy of the histories of these regions and networks, and allow us especially to hear the voices of Africans, Afro-Britons, and Africans of the diaspora in the Americas.
Relevant Links
AfricanTimes The volumes are stored as downloadable PDF on
the DIVA system from BSS computing a sharing
system/web-based archive.
Recommendations
regarding the preservation of African culture have been
received during the Heritage Transformation Charter public
consultations currently taking place in the country.
This digital database was developed with the permission of the British Newspaper Library and the assistance of BMI, as well as the financial support of the San Francisco State University department of history. It is presented through the DIVA system developed by BSS computing at San Francisco State University. DIVA is intended to be a collaborative system, and users of The Digital African Times are required to submit research reports of sample assignments in return for rights to use the system. Use is by invitation only.
At this time, only the years 1866-1872 are available online, but we hope to complete the database in the near future, pending the donation of sufficient funds. If you know of any individual or institution that might be willing to donate, please don’t hesitate to tell me.
Brief ‘biographical’ notes: The life and history of The African Times
The African Times began as the newspaper of The African Aid Society The society was begun in Great Britain in 1860, prior to the great race by Africans to extend formal colonial rule over much of Africa. Indeed, in the 1860s many important British politicians and cultural leaders were anti-expansionist, and believed that Africa as a provider of raw materials could best become a significant trading partner for Britain through independent “development”. This economic viewpoint jibed well with humanitarian and religious imperatives of British middle-class liberalism There was thus a great deal of white British support for efforts by Afro-Britons and Africans of the Americas, as well as by western-educated Africans, to modernize Africa economically and to “civilize” Africa culturally. This moment was brief –by the 1880s race had come to dominate the European perspective of Africans just as European armies and administrators were in the process of colonizing African populations. But it was an important moment none-the-less.
The African Aid society was supported by globally-minded Britons such as Henry Christy, Lord Churchill, and Dr. Hodgkin, who were affiliated with the Royal Geographic Society. But its creation was stimulated by the visit to London in 1860 of two Africans of the diaspora: Martin Robison Delany and Robert Campbell (Delaney was born in the Carolinas, Campbell in Jamaica). Both Delany and Campbell supported resettlement projects for Africans in the Americas, and they had returned from Abeokuta (in modern Nigeria) with a treaty signed by a plurality of the states’ leadership and witnessed by Reverend Samuel Crowther, who would be ordained as the first African Anglican Bishop in 1864. The treaty granted land for African-Americans who agreed to respect the laws of the state. In return the settlers agreed to furnish “Intelligence, Education, a Knowledge of the Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, and other Mechanical and Industrial Occupations” in late 1859. It was this treaty that convinced Christy, Churchill, and several Afro-Britons (some of whom were partly resident in Sierra Leone) to develop the..
A.H.M. Kirk-Green explains the objectives of the African Aid Society as follows:
The aims of the African Aid society were, to quote from its articles, “to develop the material resources of Africa, Madagascar and the adjacent Islands; and to promote the Christian civilization of the African races” as a means to accomplish the annihilation of slavery. One of the ways to achieve this purpose was to “assist, by loans and otherwise, Africans willing to emigrate from Canada and other parts to our West Indian Colonies, Liberia, Natal and Africa generally”.
Thus the African Aid Society came to existence within a constellation of other African-focused British societies. Like Anti-Slavery Society and the Aborigines Protection Society, its scope was the formal and informal British empire, and its audience was mainly liberal Britons, although it purported to serve most the interests of Africans. Also like these organizations, it believed in a type of modernization that was akin to westernization: the development of industry, infrastructure, and Christianity in Africa. Its main tool for doing so was economic: the society focused on ending the slave trade by promoting cotton cultivation, and a major effort was aimed at convincing the king of Dahomey to do so. African-American and Afro-Caribbean immigration was conceived to be the linchpin of this effort. The society’s membership also intersected closely with missionary societies such as the London Missionary Society and the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. Moreover, The African Times, as mouthpiece of the society, co-existed with several similar Anglo-African papers, including The Church Missionary Intelligencer, The Sierra Leone Journal, and The Anglo-Colonial (very briefly). The African Aid Society was distinguished in part by being pro-expansionist, and in its early years its leaders promoted schemes to extend British rule in West Africa. Even its Afro-British membership saw the empire as a tool for uplifting Africans.
Among the most important of its leaders was Ferdinand Fitzgerald, who became Secretary of the Society in 1861. An ex-Liberian living in London, Fitzgerald was most responsible for publishing The African Times. He was assisted (perhaps informally) by the Afro-Caribbean lawyer William Rainy, who had worked for the administration of Sierra Leone (in customs & duty) and who during the 1860s returned occasionally to Sierra Leone to start newspapers there. Among those he helped publish were The Sierra Leone Observer and Commercial Advocate, The African Interpreter and Advocate, and The Sierra Leone Journal and Monthly Record of Colonial Affairs.
Under Fitzgerald, the newspaper covered a number of topics of interest to its mainly West African and Afro-British readership. Slavery and abolition were covered, as were the actions of administrators, relations with peoples of the interior, education and infrastructure, and host of other topics. But Fitzgerald became embroiled in issues surrounding the administration of Sierra Leone, and The African Times became controversial as it attacked a number of important African and British leaders. Similarly, administrator John Glover in Lagos began confiscating and slowing delivery of The African Times. In 1866, therefore, the African Aid Society disassociated itself from the paper, leaving Fitzgerald to run it alone.
Loosed from The African Aid Society, The African Times after 1866 became even more closely tied to western-educated West Africans, and thus it became embroiled in affairs like the Fante Confederation schemes of 1868-1873. Although increasingly less pro-colonial, it chose as its main opponents non-British empires and big states of the interior that were increasingly Britain’s opponents in conflict. The paper continued publication, although at times only intermittently, up to December 1902.
Rules of use and citation
By accessing The Digital African Times you agree to the following rules.
1) Access is by invitation only. You agree not to share images, or excerpts thereof, without the express permission of the Project Director. Access for California State University faculty and students is hereby granted. Limited use for educational purposes is granted so long as the permission of the British Newspaper Library, San Francisco State University, and Trevor Getz are acknowledged and use adheres to United States or relevant local rules of fair use.
2) Permission is granted to the Project Director by the British Newspaper Library to maintain digital copies behind password protection on the DIVA system. Permission is not granted to others to maintain digital copies on other computers or systems.
3) By using these files, you agree to submit a research report (if use is for research) or assignment (if use is for pedagogy) to Trevor Getz at tgetz@sfsu.edu. This document will then be appended to the online site for purposes of collaboration
