The Anglo-African was a newspaper published in the British Colony of Lagos between 1863 and 1865. It was founded by Jamaican-born American emigrant Robert Campbell using a printing press he had brought from the United States as part of a plan to set up a settlement for black emigrants. The newspaper was opposed by the British governor, Henry Stanhope Freeman, who attempted to impose a tax upon it.
The newspaper was founded by Jamaican-born American emigrant Robert Campbell. He had arrived in Lagos with his family in 1862 intending to establish a settlement at Abeokuta for black emigrants from the United States. With little interest during the American Civil War and with local opposition Campbell gave up his plans and settled in Lagos. [1] : 135 He decided to establish a newspaper using a printing press he had brought for the colony. [1] : 137 The Anglo-African was the first newspaper to be published in Lagos. [2] [1] : 137 The first edition appeared on 6 June 1863, and the paper was published weekly until December 1865. The title reflected Campbell's ethos that the development of Africa must be preceded by the spread of English civilization. The paper found a reasonably large audience in Lagos, particularly among emigrants from the Colony of Sierra Leone. It consisted of four pages of local and international news, short stories, poems, serialized novels and advertisements. [1] : 137
The Anglo-African was opposed by the British authorities in Lagos who feared it would cause ill-feeling between different factions in the colony. The governor of Lagos, Henry Stanhope Freeman, wrote to the Colonial Secretary, Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle, to propose that a punitive tax be introduced on newspapers to hinder its distribution. Freeman cited the effects of local newspapers in Sierra Leone: "Your Grace must be perfectly aware of the unfortunate disputes and ill feeling which the worse than worthless periodicals published at the other Colonies on the Coast have caused: and of the injury done by the foolish and ill-judged articles inserted in a little paper printed by the Missionaries at Abeokuta". Freeman suggested that a single government-controlled newspaper, exempt from the tax, might be established. Newcastle rejected this proposal, noting that a similar scheme in Sierra Leone, in which The New Era had been brought under government control, had led to ill feeling. [1] : 137
Freeman tried to exert some control over The Anglo-African by taking out extensive advertisements within it. In response to complaints that this undermined its independence Campbell wrote that such advertisements would not affect his opinions on matters in the colony. [1] : 138
Dusé Mohamed Ali (دوسي محمد علي) was a Sudanese-Egyptian actor and political activist, who became known for his African nationalism. He was also a playwright, historian, journalist, editor, and publisher. In 1912 he founded the African Times and Orient Review, later revived as the African and Orient Review, which published in total through 1920. He lived and worked mostly in England, alongside the United States and Nigeria respectively. In the latter location, he founded the Comet Press Ltd, and The Comet newspaper in Lagos.
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The back-to-Africa movement was a political movement in the 19th and 20th centuries advocating for a return of the descendants of African American slaves to the African continent. The movement originated from a widespread belief among some European Americans in the 18th and 19th century United States that African Americans would want to return to the continent of Africa. In general, the political movement was an overwhelming failure; very few former slaves wanted to move to Africa. The small number of freed slaves who did settle in Africa—some under duress—initially faced brutal conditions, due to diseases to which they no longer had biological resistance. As the failure became known in the United States in the 1820s, it spawned and energized the radical abolitionist movement. In the 20th century, the Jamaican political activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, members of the Rastafari movement, and other African Americans supported the concept, but few actually left the United States.
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Lagos Colony was a British colonial possession centred on the port of Lagos in what is now southern Nigeria. Lagos was annexed on 6 August 1861 under the threat of force by Commander Beddingfield of HMS Prometheus who was accompanied by the Acting British Consul, William McCoskry. Oba Dosunmu of Lagos resisted the cession for 11 days while facing the threat of violence on Lagos and its people, but capitulated and signed the Lagos Treaty of Cession. Lagos was declared a colony on 5 March 1862. By 1872, Lagos was a cosmopolitan trading centre with a population over 60,000. In the aftermath of prolonged wars between the mainland Yoruba states, the colony established a protectorate over most of Yorubaland between 1890 and 1897. The protectorate was incorporated into the new Southern Nigeria Protectorate in February 1906, and Lagos became the capital of the Protectorate of Nigeria in January 1914. Since then, Lagos has grown to become the largest city in West Africa, with an estimated metropolitan population of over 9,000,000 as of 2011.
Henry Stanhope Freeman was the first Governor of the Lagos Colony, serving from 22 January 1862 to April 1865.
William Rice Mulliner was a British officer who was the acting governor of the Lagos Colony in 1863.
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Ephraim Bacon IV was an American church minister who served as US government agent on the second American Colonization Society expedition to Africa in 1821. The expedition struggled to purchase land in Sierra Leone to found a colony and many of the colonists died from fever. Bacon was affected by the disease and fled the expedition on a British ship to Barbados, later returning to the United States. US Navy officer Robert F. Stockton was sent to take over negotiations and eventually secured land to found a colony that would become Liberia.
Robert Campbell was a Jamaican-born emigrant from the United States to Nigeria. Initially apprenticed to a printer he trained as a teacher in Spanish Town. Finding his salary insufficient in the economic turmoil of post-abolition Jamaica he emigrated to Nicaragua and Panama before settling in New York City in 1853. He found work as a printer before being employed as a science teacher and then assistant principal at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.