By the Rivers of Water by Erskine Clarke

Author:Erskine Clarke [Clarke, Erskine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780465037698
Publisher: Basic Books

LEIGHTON WAS DEEPLY impressed by the Mpongwe during his early years at Baraka. He had seen much of the West Coast of Africa, from Sierra Leone in the north to the Gabon Estuary in the south. He had met the tall and handsome Mandingos and Vai in the north; he knew and admired the Kru, with their knowledge of sailing and their reliable character; he had gone ashore through the heavy surf at Cape Lahu on the Ivory Coast and had walked its city streets and talked with its leading merchants; he had visited the old slave fort at Elmina, and had seen its surrounding town and fishing fleet from atop its high walls; and he had spent time at Cape Coast among the Fanti. He knew about the Ashanti and Dahomey kingdoms, with their astonishing military and political power, and had talked with those who had visited their capitals; and he had seen Accra and visited the islands of Fernando Po, St. Thomas, and Corisco. And, of course, he knew the Grebo—King Freeman and Ballah and William Davis and all the others among whom he and Jane had lived and worked for seven years. Yet when he thought of all of these different places and these different peoples who lived along the coast with their different languages and different traditions and customs, he thought the Mpongwe were the most sophisticated and hospitable.20

Not long after first stepping ashore at Glass’s Town, he wrote that from a social point of view, the Mpongwe were elevated far above any people he had yet encountered or heard about along the whole West Coast of Africa. They were, he said, decidedly civil and kind, and he thought them remarkably generous. “There is seldom a day,” he said, “when I do not receive a present of a basket of groundnuts, sugar cane, fufu or something of the kind.” For someone who had lived for years among the Grebo and who had sailed with sea captains trading along the coast, he was pleasantly surprised that the gifts were given without any expectation of a return. Not that the Grebo and others had been stingy, but when gifts were given by them, gifts were expected in return.21

Leighton was impressed as well by the linguistic abilities of the Mpongwe—some Mpongwe traders knew not only the languages of surrounding peoples but also several European languages. Leighton noted that one trader, named Cringy, “speaks English, French, Portuguese, and at least half a dozen native languages with wonderful ease. He is perfectly familiar with the peculiar habits, feelings, and customs of all these nations, and he can act the Frenchman, the Spaniard, or the Englishman, just as circumstances may demand, without any apparent effort.” William Walker and Benjamin Griswold expressed in their letters and journals similar positive perceptions of the people of the estuary.22

Leighton, Walker, and Griswold had good reasons to praise the Mpongwe—they wanted, after all, the decision to establish a new mission at Baraka to appear wise and prudent.

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