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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
Aaron Belisarius Cosimo Sibthorpe, a village school teacher who wrote the first history of Sierra Leone, was a man of mystery, a magus. So he seems to have seen himself. The dead, he wrote, have vanished into oblivion,
Except the historian, that monarch of the past, using his noblest privileges, when he takes a survey of his dominions, has only to touch the ruins and dead bodies with his pen, in order to rebuild the palaces, and resuscitate the men. At his voice, like that of the Deity, the dry bones re-unite, the living flesh again covers them, brilliant dresses again clothe them; and in that immense Jehoshaphat (Joel iii, 2, 12), where the children of three thousand years are collected, his own caprice alone regulates his choice, and he has only to announce the names of those Maroons, or those Settlers he requires, to behold them start forth from their tombs, remove the folds of their grave-clothes with their own hands, and answer like Lazarus to our blessed Saviour, ‘Here am I, Lord! what dost thou want with me?’
Here is a powerful, original image. The historian peremptorily calls up the dead from the “immense Jehoshaphat”—the valley where they all lie gathered together to await the judgment of God—choosing anyone he wants, and at his call they are obliged to rise and answer him obediently, as Lazarus answered Jesus. If only for this image Sibthorpe deserves our wonder and gratitude.
This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Biennial Conference of the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom at the University of Birmingham, September 1990. It supersedes a well-meaning but patronizing article, “A. B. C. Sibthorpe: a neglected historian” which I published in Sierra Leone Studies, ns 10 (1958): 99-109.
1. The Artisan (Freetown), 22.2.1885.
2. Sibthorpe, A. B. C., The History of Sierra Leone (3d ed.: London, 1906), 166.Google Scholar
3. Hair, P. E. H., “A Reference to A. B. C. Sibthorpe,” Sierra Leone Studies, ns 18 (1966): 69–70.Google Scholar
4. Sibthorpe, , History (1906), 119–20.Google Scholar
5. Fyfe, Christopher, Africanus Horton (New York, 1972), 127.Google Scholar
6. Sibthorp gained notoriety as the first of the Anglican clergy to join the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Tractarian movement. He then rejoined the Church of England but ultimately went back to the Roman Catholics. His brother Colonel Charles Sibthorp was also notorious—a noisy, xenophobic backbench Tory MP, beloved of cartoonists for his outlandish dress. See Sykes, Christopher, Two Studies in Loyalty (London, 1953).Google Scholar
7. For Sibthorpe's, educational career see his History (1906), 162-72, 182–85.Google Scholar
8. Industrial Exhibition at Sierra Leone (London, 1865), 73.Google Scholar
9. Sibthorpe, A. B. C., The History of Sierra Leone (2d ed: London, 1881), 74.Google Scholar
10. Sierra Leone Weekly News (Freetown) (subsequently SLWN), 28.11.1908.
11. Sibthorpe, , History (1881), 74.Google Scholar
12. Horton, James Africanus B., West African Countries and Peoples (2d. ed.: Edinburgh, 1969), 83.Google Scholar
13. Sibthorpe, , History (1881), iii.Google Scholar
14. Ibid., 78.
15. 4 (1872), 704; I am grateful to Professor Jacob Ajayi who over thirty years ago called my attention to this work.
16. Sibthorpe, , History (1881), 57.Google Scholar
17. Ibid., 65.
18. Ibid., 69.
19. Ibid., 71.
20. Ibid., 86.
21. Fyfe, Christopher, “Agricultural Dreams in Nineteenth Century West Africa” in Stone, J. C., ed., Experts in Africa (Aberdeen, 1980), 7–11.Google Scholar
22. Sibthorpe, , History (1881), 80.Google Scholar
23. Ibid., 83.
24. University of Birmingham, University Library, CMS Archives, CAI/0200/5, Sibthorpe to Spain, 17.3.1879.
25. Sibthorpe, A. B. C., The Geography of Sierra Leone (2d ed.: London, 1881), 13–14.Google Scholar
26. CAI/0200/2, Spain to Longman, 22.11.1878.
27. CAI/0200/5, Sibthorpe to Spain, 17.3.1879.
28. Ibid.
29. Sibthorpe, , History (1881), 83.Google Scholar
30. Sierra Leone Government Archives, Local 307/1879; Governor's Letter Book, 28.11.1879.
31. Sibthorpe, A. B. C., The Geography of the Surrounding Territories of Sierra Leone (London, 1892)Google Scholar, endpapers.
32. Methodist Herald (Freetown), 25.4.1884.
33. SLWN, 21.2.1885.
34. Catalog enclosed in PRO, CO 267/389, Crooks 232, 13.5.1891; Sibthorpe, , History (1906), 103.Google Scholar
35. Memorial of the Jubilee of Her Majesty's Reign and of the Centenary of Sierra Leone, 1887 (London, 1887) 120.Google Scholar
36. The Day Spring and Sierra Leone Reporter (Freetown), 8.1.1869, 15.1.1869.
37. The Artisan (Freetown), 25.2.1885.
38. Ibid., 25.2.1885-27.5.1885.
39. Winterbottom, Thomas, An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone (London, 1803) 1: 136.Google Scholar
40. The Artisan, 24.6.1885-22.9.1888. As The Artisan appeared irregularly this comprised 17 instalments.
41. Ibid., Supplement No. 4, August 1884; 24.9.1884.
42. Sibthorpe, , Geography Surrounding, 25.Google Scholar
43. The Artisan, Supplement No. 4, August 1884.
44. Fyfe, Christopher, A History of Sierra Leone (London, 1962), 618–19Google Scholar; idem., “1787-1887-1987,” Africa, 57 (1987): 415.
45. West African Reporter (Freetown), 16.6.1880; Freetown Express (Freetown) 4.1.1884.
46. Sierra Leone Church Times (Freetown), 6.1.1886.
47. Sierra Leone Government Archives, Sierra Leone Annual Blue Book, 1891; SLWN, 17.2.1884.
48. SLWN, 20.2.1886.
49. Ibid., 20.9.1890; Sierra Leone Times (Freetown), 30.7.1892; SLWN, 17.2.1894.
50. Sibthorpe, , Geography Surrounding, iii.Google Scholar
51. SLWN, 17.2.1894.
52. Sibthorpe, , Geography Surrounding, 9.Google Scholar
53. Ibid., 29.
54. SLWN, 2.3.1895; 1.6.1895.
55. Ibid., 18.2.1893. Emphasis in original.
56. The Church Missionary Intelligencer (ns), 4 (1873), 227. Emphasis in original.
57. Sibthorpe, A. B. C., Bible Review of Reviews, The Discovery of the Lost Ten Tribes, Yorubas or Akus (Cline Town, 1909), v.Google Scholar
58. We should not, however, forget the Arabic-language African historians who several centuries earlier had incorporated oral records into the Tarikh al-Fattash and Tarikh as-Sudan.
59. SLWN, 25.2.1893; Robin Law, who has been very helpful to me in trying to elucidate Sibthorpe's Dahomey and Yoruba histories, points out that this is the earliest version of the Yoruba trans-Saharan migration myth. See his “How Truly Traditional is Our Traditional History?” HA, 11 (1984):199–205.Google Scholar
60. SLWN, 11.3.1893.
61. Ibid., 22.4.1893.
62. Ibid., 1.4.1893, 22.4.1893.
63. I am grateful to Robin Law for pointing this out to me.
64. For Johnson's account of the fate suffered by the people of Ota see Johnson, Samuel, The History of the Yorubas (Lagos, 1921), 226.Google Scholar
65. Here I am grateful to Ray Jenkins who has helped me with his encyclope¬dic knowledge of Gold Coast history.
66. Sibthorpe may well have inserted the parenthetic “Dahomean” himself to support his belief in their Dahomean origin.
67. SLWN, 13.5.1893.
68. Anuman, Jacob Benjamin, The Gold Coast Guide for the Year 1895-96 (London, 1896), 23.Google Scholar
69. I looked through several encyclopedias—Rees, Abraham, The Cyclopaedia or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences & Literature (London, 1819)Google Scholar, The Penny Cyclopaedia (London, 1837)Google Scholar, and successive volumes of Chambers and the Britannica, for even though Sibthorpe would not have had access to these tomes, they might have proved the sources used by publications that he did have access to. But they did not.
70. SLWN, 22.7.1893.
71. Ibid., 2.9.1893.
72. Ibid., 16.9.1893-18.11.1893.
73. Ibid., 24.2.1894.
74. Ibid., 31.3.1894.
75. Ibid., 7.4.1894.
76. Ibid., 21.4.1894.
77. Ibid., 28.4.1894.
78. Ibid., 26.5.1894.
79. Ibid., 2.6.1894, 9.6.1894, 16.6.1894.
80. Ibid., 11.8.1894.
81. Ibid., 21.9.1894.
82. Ibid., 17.2.1894.
83. Ibid., 11.2.1897.
84. The third edition of the History was reprinted by Frank Cass in 1970 as the fourth edition.
85. A. B. C. Sibthorpe, The Geography of Sierra Leone (3d ed.: London, 1906), preface.
86. Ibid., 32.
87. Sibthorpe, , History, (1906), 89.Google Scholar
88. The copy in the Sierra Leone National Museum has the frontispiece, but it does not appear in the copy in the library of the Royal Commonwealth Society, London. The British Library and National Library of Scotland have no copies. The frontispiece was not reproduced in the 1970 reprint.
89. Sibthorpe, , History (1906), 105, 135.Google Scholar
90. Ibid., 128; see also Fyfe, , History, 577.Google Scholar
91. Ibid., 156.
92. Ibid., 218.
93. Sibthorpe's Oration on the Centenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade by the English Government (London, 1907), iv.Google Scholar
94. SLWN, 10.8.1907.
95. For whom see Hopkins, A. G., “Peter Thomas” in Julien, Charles-André, ed., Les Africains (Paris, 1977), ix, 297–329.Google Scholar
96. SLWN, 17.10.1908.
97. Sibthorpe, , Bible Review, 9.Google Scholar Emphasis in original.
98. Ibid., 21, 52.
99. Edwards, Paul, ed., The Life of Olaudah Equiano (London, 1969) 1: 38.Google Scholar
100. Horton, , West African Countries, 168.Google Scholar
101. Sibthorpe, , History (1906), iv.Google Scholar
102. Ibid., 215.
103. SLWN, 12.6.1909.
104. Ibid., 28.11.1908.
105. Ibid., 24.6.1916.
106. Ibid., 29.7.1916.
107. The Artisan, Supplement No. 4, August 1884.
108. Sibthorpe, , History (1881), 74Google Scholar, and quoted on p. 5 sup.
