By the Rivers of Water concerns 2 of the most famous African missionaries of the 19th century, a husband and wife team from South Carolina and Georgia. They grew up on remote sea-island plantations in the low country with the Gullah people as their slaves. Disillusioned by slavery they set up the first mission in Liberia, which was a project started by citizens in Maryland to "whiten" the state through reverse-colonization of freed African-Americans back to Africa.

Clarke is a professor and this is a serious history book. It also uses some techniques of narrative (creative) non-fiction. The writing style is curious - the language is at times overwrought like an early 19th century source, but is still understandable. Clarke lapses into cliche about "broad waters" and "Atlantic world" to the point it looses meaning. I looked at the index and counted at least 300 named people, it would have been a better book with fewer people and incidents and more in-depth of the more interesting ones. There is a good sense of change in attitudes about slavery between the 1820s and 1860s. The (largely failed) colonizing of Africa can be seen as part of the working out of the slavery question. How the native African's responded to African-American colonials is a fascinating part of colonial history we don't hear of often. I give great credit to the missionaries for recognizing the mistake early on - colonization is the same evil no matter where or how it happens. ( )

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 ( )

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. ( )

history, nonfiction, published-2013, abandoned, wish-list
Read on September 16, 2013

The Blurb: A sweeping transatlantic story of good intentions and bitter consequences, By the Rivers of Water reveals two distant worlds linked by deep faiths.

This title has been archived by the publisher, so it can no longer be downloaded or sent to Kindle.

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. oooops. And what a corker it looked too. *sigh*

Slavery was a way of life in early 19th-century Georgia. While the wholesale importation of slaves from Africa was officially banned by law by 1807, the subjugation of existing blacks in the South was still legal. The different layers of culture, status, and race blended to create a complicated atmosphere. Erskine Clarke’s By the Rivers of Water details the lives of plantation owners turned missionaries John Leighton and Jane Bayard Wilson to West Africa and how their journey to help others offers new perspective on an old problem.

The Wilsons left the shores of Georgia in November 1834 to establish some of the most influential missionaries on the continent. In their eighteen years in Africa, they built schools, fought the slave trade institution, beat back colonial invaders, and translated the Bible into native languages. John and Jane were both brought up in the Southern slave-owning tradition, but their inability to reconcile owning slaves and the teachings of their faith led them to fight against the prevailing culture.

Aside from the lives of the Wilsons, we also get insight into the fledgling Protestant mission culture, the lives of the Gullah, stories of freed American blacks travelling back to Africa (and creating a new kind of class differential there) as well as bits of the European scramble for African colonies, Grebo and Mpongwe history, and a different side of the American Civil War. The tone is rich, and Clarke’s description of foreign landscapes is among the best I’ve read. His prose easily invites the reader into the narrative even when the story is not so easy to stomach. While the main focus on the missionary work, the background history into Gullah culture gives a voice to a people that have been forgotten for too long. A dense and interesting read. ( )