Thesis on R H Nassau by RW Teeuwissen

ROBERT HAMILL NASSAU 1835 - 1921

PRESBYTERIAN PIONEER MISSIONARY

TO EQUATORIAL WEST AFRICA

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A Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the

Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

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In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Theology

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Raymond W. Teeuwissen

May 1973

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Preface VII

Chapter

I. PREPARATION, SERVICE, AND RETIREMENT

OF ROBERT HAMILL NASSAU 1

INTRODUCTION 1

CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, AND SCHOOLING (1835-1861) 2

Birth and Family 2

Lawrenceville, New Jersey 5

Princeton University 7

Princeton Theological Seminary 11

University of Pennsylvania Medical School 13

Licensure, Ordination, and Appointment 15

Summary 16

CAREER IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER (1861-1906) 16

Corisco Island and Marriage (1861-1864) 16

Benita and Death of Mary Cloyd Latta Nassau

(1865-1871) 21

First Furlough (1871-1874) 26

Ogooué: Belambla and Kângwe (1874-1880) 27

Second Furlough and Second Marriage (1880-1881) 31

Ogooué: Talaguga and Death of Mary

Brunette Foster Nassau (1881-1891) 32

Chapter Page

Third Furlough (1891-1893) 37

Baraka at Libreville (1893-1899) 38

Fourth Furlough (1899-1900) 40

Batanga and Baraka Again (1900-1903) 41

Fifth and Unplanned Furlough (1903-1904) 42

Final Stay at Batanga (1904-1906) 43

RETIREMENT ( 1906 -1921) 45

Florida (1907-1908) 45

Ambler, Pennsylvania (1908-1921) 46

Death (1921) 50

II MANY-SIDED ACTIVITIES OF R. H. NASSAU 52

INTRODUCTION 52

DR. R. H. NASSAU, M. D. 54

NASSAU, THE LINGUIST 60

THE WOULD-BE EXPLORER 65

FRIEND OF SCIENTISTS 71

HISTORIAN, CHRONICLER, AND BIOGRAPHER 78

TELLER OF AFRICAN TALES 83

AUTHOR OF FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA 88

PLEADER FOR INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL 94

SUMMARY 98

III. THEOLOGY, ATTITUDES. AND BELIEFS OF R. H. NASSAU 99

INTRODUCTION 99

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES AND THEOLOGY 99

Chapter Page

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHMANSHIP 105 AVERSION TO ROMANISM 108

INTERDENOMINATIONAL FELLOWSHIP 117

NASSAU AND THE AMERICAN BLACKS 120

NASSAU AND THE AFRICANS 125

CAPTAINS AND TRADERS 131

SUMMARY 135

IV. MISSIONARY COLLEAGUES AND BOARD SECRETARIES 137

INTRODUCTION 137

UP TO THE 1891 TURNING POINT 138

The Turning Point 141

ANYENTYUWE 142

Early Contacts and Anyentyuwe’s Letter of 1881 143

The Intervening Years 147

A Governess not a Servant 150

Trips to Liverpool and Last Contacts 153

CHARGES AND ATTACKS 156

Sources of Information 160

Dr. Good’s Letter and the 1893 Mission Meeting 161

The 1895 and 1899 Letters of Secretaries

Gillespie and Brown 167

Mission Actions of 1899 and 1900 170

Forced Out and Allowed Back 175

Chapter Page

Resignation Tendered 182

The Sequel 183

SUMMARY 184

V. CONCLUSION 186

APPENDIX A. WORKS BY ROBERT HAMILL NASSAU 190

APPENDIX B. HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 196

MAP 201

BIBLIOGRAPHY 202

VII

PREFACE

During 1959-1963. while the author was the Commission Representative for West Africa, of the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, his travels brought him one day to what is now Equatorial Guinea.

Submitting to the West African health rule calling for an afternoon siesta, he went upstairs to rest in an ancient mission house. There he found a two-inch thick, coverless, old volume. The first and last pages had disappeared, but there were enough left of the original seven hundred and eight, to occupy the siesta time. That day, a desire was born to know more about Robert Hamill Nassau: this thesis is the result of

that search.

How was it possible that a mission field executive to West Africa had never before seen a copy of My Ogowe 1 and had virtually never heard of Dr. Nassau? In his book, The Words of God in an African Forest, W. Reginald Wheeler devoted a dozen pages to Nassau, and gave him the same attention he gave to George Paull and Adolphus C. Good.2 Books, however, have been written about the latter two.3 Why none on Dr. Nassau? Was it

1 Robert Hamill Nassau, My Ogowe (New York: Neal Publishing Co., 1914).

2 W. Reginald Wheeler, The Words of God in an African Forest (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1931), pp. 56-104 .

3 Samuel Wilson, George Paull of Benita (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1872), and Ellen C. Parsons, A Life for Africa (2 nd ed. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1900).

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because Paull and Good died young, and Nassau lived to be eighty-five? The more this writer found out about his subject, the more he discovered was still to be learned. The question kept coming back, “Why is Nassau the forgotten pioneer?”

One world famous figure, however, did not forget Nassau.

When this writer first visited Lambaréné, where Robert Hamill Nassau pioneered, he approached Dr. Albert Schweitzer, “Docteur, I did not come here because of you.” And in answer to the surprised look the visitor continued, “I came here because of Dr. Nassau!” Schweitzer’s humble reply was, “Ah, you are an American who knows about Nassau!” A guide was provided to help climb up Kângwe Hill where Nassau had built a house.4 A prized possession now is a letter, discovered after the death of “Le Grand Docteur,” containing the words, “I have always considered myself to be, somewhat, the successor to Dr. Nassau.”5

It was Schweitzer’s election as honorary Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1962, that prompted Dr. Fred B. Rogers, M.D., to present an excellent paper on Dr. Nassau before the Section on Medical history of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The study was published in a scientific journal.6 It remains, to date, the only detailed

4 Charles R. Joy and Melvin Arnold, The Africa of Albert Schweitzer (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), p. 20.

5 Letter from Dr. Albert Schweitzer, dated 29 November, 1949 to Miss Esther Foster (The writer’s private collection). The French original reads, “Toujours , je me sens un peu le successeur du Dr. Nassau.”

6 Fred B. Rogers, “Robert Hamill Nassau (1835-1921): Apostle to Africa,” Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 30: 150-56, January, 1963.

writing dealing with Dr. Nassau to have appeared in print. After Dr. Schweitzer’s first visit to the United States in the summer of 1949, Werner K. Gottstein, wrote an article on Schweitzer in which he claims that the famous doctor modestly expressed his regret that the name of Nassau was forgotten by American biographers. Mr. Gottstein concluded by expressing the hope that some poet would dramatize the story of the American and Alsatian pioneers.7 For Schweitzer this has been done, time and again.

When the occasion of a study furlough, approved by the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations, finally gave this writer time to try to answer the questions: “Who was Nassau? Why is he not better known?” the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary accepted the subject for a thesis for the Master of Theology degree. It was then learned, in the fall of 1969, that an African pastor had become engaged in writing a doctoral dissertation on Nassau’s philosophy of mission.8 Only in 1968 had the attention of this Cameroun professor of theology been drawn to R. H. Nassau by Dr. Andrew E. Murray of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania.9 Long conversations

7 Werner K. Gottstein, “Albert Schweitzer and America,”

American-German Review, XVI (April, 1950), pp. 5-8 and 31.

8 David J. Mandeng, “The Philosophy of Mission of Robert Hamill Nassau in the Contemporary World.” (Unpublished Doctor’s dissertation, Temple University, 1970. Published on demand by University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

9 Op. cit., p. 3 of unnumbered Preface.

with David Mandeng, and friendly exchange of information, enhanced

the desire to make a thorough study centered on the questions stated above.

The limitations placed upon a Master of Theology thesis leave the author with the unpleasant knowledge that every aspect treated still contains unexplored avenues to additional information. New documents are still being discovered.10 It was only a dozen years ago that the two thousand-page manuscript of Nassau’s autobiography and thirty-three volumes of his private diaries from 1880-1919) were given to Speer Memorial Library in Princeton. It is possible that still earlier diaries may yet be discovered. To our knowledge only Dr. David J. Mandeng and the present writer have been able to give time to a study of these primary sources.

Nassau’s several published books have become collector’s items but can be found in a few libraries.11 His numerous articles, however, appeared in such a wide variety of periodicals, during six decades, that it has not, as yet, been possible to compile a complete bibliography of these.

10 Letter from Mrs. Lois Johnson McNeill, dated April 14, 1970 to the writer. She had just obtained, “...the original handwritten Minutes of the Corisco, and the Corisco-Gaboon, Mission 1856-71, 72-77, 85-95, 95-02. Much of it is in Dr. Nassau’s handwriting. ...we are to deliver them to the Historical Society.”

11 Few indeed. Only Speer Memorial Library and Vail Memorial Library at Lincoln University have complete collections of all of Nassau’s printed publications since he regularly presented copies to those libraries. The most complete collection in private hands is probably that of the author. It is destined for a library in West Africa. In order to help other researchers, a complete list of Nassau’s published works is given in Appendix A.

The records of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions covering the period during which Nassau served are available on microfilm at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, so this researcher discovered, some important items either were not preserved or were deliberately removed. This will necessitate further, intricate, investigation.

A time extension for additional research, beyond the year of residence spent at Louisville and in the United States, enabled the author to locate valuable letters written by Dr. Nassau in the archives of the Paris Evangelical Missions Society and the John Holt & Company, Liverpool, England.

For this thesis sufficient material has been found to present the long and unique career of Robert Hamill Nassau, (Chapter I); his amazing variety of talents and interests, (Chapter II); his beliefs and attitudes, which set him apart from his contemporaries, (Chapter III); his conflict with his colleagues and the Board secretaries leading to his resignation, (Chapter IV); and his passing into oblivion (Conclusion).

This pursuit of knowledge, and the results brought together here, could never have been achieved without the friendly help of those who have carried on where Nassau labored: from the concerned fraternal workers, at Benita, urging me to take a siesta,to the retired missionary at Swarthmore, responding to my request for information, and many others. Some statements could not have been included without the information provided by African friends and scholars, at work or themselves engaged in study, in Africa, Europe, or the

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United States of America.

An expression of gratitude should go to the staffs of the Speer Memorial Library of Princeton Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian Historical Society, to librarians at Lincoln University, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania. I enjoyed the help of Monsieur E. Kruger of the Paris Mission, and Mademoiselle M.-A. Menier of the Archives Nationales Section Outre-mer in Paris, where the Brazza researchers Henri Brunschwig, Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch and Jean-Claude Nardin graciously answered questions. In Liverpool, Mr. J. I. Holt himself took the trouble to carry boxes containing archives, and displayed to this American the same kindness his grandfather and grand-uncle so often extended to their friend Dr. Nassau.

How, however, can a writer express his feeling toward the grandchildren, relatives-in-law, and other descendants of Robert Hamill Nassau, who so warmly welcomed the unknown visitor and then shared with him their memories, manuscripts, and mementos ? Perhaps he may say that at times he feels he has become part of the great Nassau tribe.

Finally, respectful thanks are due to the Committee which allowed me “free rein” during what one of the gentlemen called “your year with Nassau,” but which, with their indulgence, lasted several years.

CHAPTER I

PREPARATION, SERVICE, AND RETIREMENT OF ROBERT HAMILL NASSAU

INTRODUCTION

Extensive research would probably confirm that few, if any, of Robert Hamill Nassau’s contemporaries who were sent to Africa by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions took with them, by the fact of birth and family ties, such prestigious heritage and training. To these qualifications should be added the fact that he attended some of the best schools of his time. Twice, through marriage, he augmented the Nassau and Hamill family honors with those of the Latta and Foster families. That this heritage and training were apparent in Nassau can be confirmed from a statement made to him many years later by a layman who had long served as a captain on mission vessels, “You are of gentle birth.”l No doubt Nassau appreciated this heritage and was proud of the families to which he belonged, and the schools he had attended.

Having determined in advance to do everything he could to survive in Africa, where his friends anticipated his early death,

l Robert Hamill Nassau, “My Retirement from the West Africa Mission”

(unpublished typescript, 1915; document in private collection

of Miss Dorothy Patten Nassau, Philadelphia), p. 24.

Nassau came to be proud also of his long record of service. In 1915 he wrote, “... when I left Africa in 1906 there were only two white missionaries in that entire continent who had a longer record than I: one in South Africa, the other in Egypt; both of them located climatically better than I.” 2 Nassau had fourteen additional years of life in America, after his forced withdrawal from the field where he had hoped to be able to die at his task in Africa; and these years provided him the occasion to produce some of his finest writing. In literary output he surpassed all of his colleagues.

This first chapter purports to give the basic data concerning the three major divisions of the long life of R. H. Nassau: preparation, service, and retirement.

CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, AND SCHOOLING (1835-1861)

Birth and Family

Robert Hamill was born at Montgomery Square, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, on the Sabbath day, October 11, 1835. At the time of his birth, his parents already had five children. Five more were to be born later. All but one of these eleven children grew into adulthood.3 He was ten years

2 Robert Hamill Nassau, “A Medical Course that was Worth While,” The Alumni Register, University of Pennsylvania, 17: 588,May, 1915.

3 Information giving names and birth dates is taken from a genealogical chart of the family of Robert Hamill of Bush Mills, Country Antrim, Ireland. (Possession of Miss Ruth Foster of Bay Head, New Jersey ).

of age when one of his brothers died at birth. Robert Hamill was usually called Hamill by his relatives.

One of Hamill’s sisters was two years older than he; another two years younger. Apparently because of this, Hamill had less association with his brothers. Of the brothers, Charles was seven years younger than Hamill, while William was three and one half years older. William became a doctor. Another brother, Joseph, was nearly nine when Robert Hamill was born. Joseph was a senior in Princeton Seminary when Nassau entered Princeton University.4

The second child in the family was Isabella Ann, Hamill’s senior by six years. She was almost forty when she went to Africa as a missionary and had a remarkable career there until her death.5 She often resided at the same station with her brother.

Another sister, Mary Elizabeth, died at the age of twenty-seven and was unmarried. The other seven brothers and

4 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Personal Recollections of Princeton Undergraduate Life, II. The College in the Fifties,” The Princeton Alumni Weekly, 16: 457, February 23, 1916.

5 Samuel McLanahan, Isabella A. Nassau of Africa (Philadelphia: The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church, (n.d.)), p. 6. Miss Nassau can be considered as a pioneer in theological training in West Africa. The 16-page booklet mentioned above contains her life story and was published after she died at Batanga in 1906.

sisters all married; and they provided the two members of the family who labored in Africa with numerous in-laws, nieces, and with whom they could visit during furloughs or to whom they might write. Two of Hamill’s sisters married Presbyterian ministers.

The father of this family was the Reverend Charles William Nassau, D.D. He was a graduate of Princeton Seminary and a descendant of the elder branch of the German von Nassau family. On one occasion, when Dr. Nassau was showing an African the chapter on William the Silent, in a history of the Netherlands, he claimed kinship to the most illustrious of all Nassaus.6

On his mother’s side R. H. Nassau descended from the Scotch-Irish O’ Hamill family of County Antrim, Ireland. His parents married in 1826. Father Hamill was an Elder. His mother’s maiden name was Hannah Hamill. Hannah’s three living brothers became Presbyterian ministers, and one of her sisters married a minister! The other sister married a Benjamin Davis, and their son, who was about Hamill’s age, became a United States Army General.7 Since Dr. Nassau himself had wanted to be a soldier,8 Charles Lukens Davis became his favorite cousin. Another very special cousin, who was also on the Hamill side, was Hugh Henderson Hamill. This man was a lawyer; and, although he was

6 Robert Hamill Nassau, My Ogowe (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1914), p. 273.

7 Genealogical chart.

8 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 12.

sixteen years younger than Nassau, was to play an important role when

Nassau was having difficulties with his career.9

Shortly before his twenty-first birthday, and after he spent his first week at Princeton Theological Seminary, Hamill wrote to his father, “... I can never love you sufficiently for your good, and venerate you for your great qualities. This is my regret.” The letter continues with a moving poem addressed his mother. Hamill may have venerated his father, but his mother he loved intensely. The strong mother-son attachment is expressed in the fifth couplet:

You taught my lips prayer, Mother,

And, your “missionary son”

Remembers Bible tales, Mother

Oft told when day was done.

And, with your holy words, you were

My prayerful Mother.

and in the closing couplet:

Led heav’nward by you, Mother,

I must lead others there,

And I will bless you, Mother,

If God my life shall spare,

In the walks of Heav’n, I’ll meet you,

My dear good Mother. 10

Lawrenceville, New Jersey

The influence of the maternal side on Hamill was increased by two brothers of his mother. These uncles, who were ministers, had become educators in charge of the Lawrenceville Schools at

9 Nassau, “My Retirement”, p. 4.

10 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Autobiography” (MS, Speer Memorial Library, Princeton, N. J.), pp. 83- 84.

Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and they provided the opportunity for the Rev. C. W. Nassau to acquire a Female Seminary there.11

Father Nassau had not been able to remain long in the ministry because of illness. For a while he was associated with Marion College in Hannibal, Missouri, as professor of Hebrew. When things did not work out the family returned East after two years. Since he was gifted in languages, Dr. Charles W. Nassau was asked, two years later, to become professor of ancient languages at Lafayette College. Consequently, Hamill also lived in Easton, Pennsylvania from 1841-1850. His schooling had been at home and in the family; but he enrolled as a Freshman at Lafayette College on his fourteenth birthday. It was the same year in which his father assumed the Presidency of the College; a position he only maintained during one year.12

When the family settled at Lawrenceville, Hamill was sent for one year to his uncles’ Lawrenceville School. This was a new experience, because the young President’s son had had little contact with other boys. At Lafayette, he recalled, “My playmates had been girls ... Even there, [at Lawrenceville] I had made chums with but few; and had only one fight.”13

11 “Nassau, Charles William, D. D.”, Encyclopaedia of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Alfred Nevin (ed.)(Philadelphia: Presbyterian Encyclopaedia Publishing Co., 1884), p. 560.

12 David Bishop Skillman, The Biography of a College, Vol. I(Easton, Pa,: Lafayette College, 1932), pp. 190-96.

13 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Personal Recollections of Undergraduate life, II-The College in the Fifties,” The Princeton Alumni Weekly, 16: 457, 23 February 1916.

He did so well scholastically, however, that he was selected to deliver the valedictory at the end of September, 1851; and for that he postponed his entry into Princeton University two months.14

After Nassau graduated from the University in 1854, and before entering the Seminary, he taught for two years in his uncles’ school.15 Nassau was a lad of fifteen when he arrived in Lawrenceville. During all his years away at school he was far from there, and he came to consider it as home. It was the place in America to which he was most attached. It is there that he was buried, in the Nassau family plot.

Princeton University

It was a mother’s boy, wearing a jacket which caused other students to twit him about his dress, who at the age of sixteen enrolled as a sophomore at Princeton University, in the fall of 1851. But his anxious parents had arranged for his protection, Hamill was granted permission to room with his older brother, Joseph, then a senior at the nearby Seminary.16

This however, does not appear to have resulted in a deep

14 Ibid.

15 Robert Hamill Nassau file. Information in Nassau’s own hand, p. 3. Central file; deceased missionaries.

(United Presbyterian Church, U. S. S., The Program Agency, New York).

16 Nassau, “Personal Recollections,”loc. cit.

relationship between the two. Later Nassau revealed that he was closest to his brother, William, the one who did not profess to be an active Christian. 17

Since he lived at the Seminary during his first year at the University, Nassau found more friends among future ministers than among college students. During the years that followed, while a junior and senior, he lived at the University, but maintained his Seminary friendships. Later while he himself attended the Seminary he added new friendships. But when he taught at Lawrenceville, he also kept close contacts with the Seminary. The result was that he could pride himself in knowing scores of Presbyterian ministers personally; and it has already been mentioned how he was related to many through family ties. These student friendships contributed greatly to making Dr. Nassau a well-known figure in the Presbyterian Church.

Brought up in an academic environment and by nature interested in studies, Nassau developed a strong loyalty to the schools he attended and he remained active as an alumnus. As often as possible he attended homecomings or class reunions. Hamill was glad he escaped hazing by arriving late at Princeton University.18 Though he sought most of his friends among Seminarians, Nassau nevertheless developed a close friendship with a limited number of university classmates, and for some

17 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 675.

18 Nassau, “Personal Recollections,” loc. cit.

he had a profound admiration. Fifty years after graduation he was so thrilled at leading the Commencement parade in June 1904, that he called the experience a rejuvenation. He wrote an amusing and touching description of the event, and when friends asked him to publish it he did so.19

Nassau was a good student, but only one man ever made mathematics even slightly attractive to him. 20 It was in a class of astronomical mathematics that he had a most bitter experience. The incident is worth relating, because it is typical of the unbending spirit he was to reveal:

The lesson that day was unusually difficult; two others of our best men fumbled. “They afterward asked the professor to grant them a second trial, by which to reinstate themselves. He consented. I was too proud to ask and accepted my failure. (Italics mine.)

As a result, in the year’s average I was listed almost halfway down the class. ...The final class standing was made by taking an average of each one’s grades during the entire college course. Under that rule, notwithstanding my excellent grades in all other branches, that one dreadful failure in mathematics in my junior year brought me down to fifteenth in the Class of eighty members.21

At the age of eighty he was still smarting under the disappointment which his proud spirit had kept him from averting. Later in life that same inflexible spirit again and again darkened his days.

Languages came easily to Nassau and he had ambition for

19 Robert Hamill Nassau, “My Rejuvenation,” The Westminster, June 24, 1905. pp. 9-11.

20 Nassau, “Personal Recollections,” p. 458. 21 Ibid., p. 459.

oratory and composition. Since the age of twelve, he had attempted essays and even poetry. The joy which he experienced in attending the college lectures on belles lettres and the English classics helped to develop his variety of styles and contributed to his prolific writing. He wrote some articles for the Nassau Lit under the pseudonym of “Amiot.”22

He was probably one of those who during his sophomore year secretly engaged in printing a humorous paper, “The Nassau Rake”. For he states that the best men of the class were on the editorial committee.23 Sports in those days were not developed to the extent they were later, but Hamill was good at jumping; and he claimed that his skill at it, twenty-five years later in Africa, once saved his life.24

During his student days Nassau was well aware that there existed something known as feminine beauty. His close relationship to his mother, and the fact that his playmates had been girls did not lead him to seek male friends. He admits there were few men he ever loved.25 But he remembered that one of the older students, “brought his beautiful sister to my father’s female seminary” and he noticed that when the Maryland gentlemen brought their sisters and other female relatives, “those ladies were always the belles of the occasion.”26 Hamill had

22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., p. 458. 24 Ibid.

25 Nassau, “My Retirement,” p. 3.

26 Nassau, “Personal Recollections,” p. 459.

an advantage over his classmates, for he could write “When I wished female society I walked the five miles to my home in Lawrenceville where I could spend the evening with my sisters and some of the pupils of my father’s ...”27 During the two years that followed his college graduation while he taught his uncles’ pupils he probably continued to observe those attending the female seminary. It was with one of the young teachers, however that Nassau became infatuated. In his “Autobiography” he speaks movingly of the one he only designates as “The Lady of Worship.” She was older and she may never have realized the intensity of the young man’s feelings for her. While working as a student in Missouri during the summer of 1857, Hamill was informed of her wedding. Extremely downcast, he wrote a poem expressing his feelings of utter hopelessness and despair.28 It may have been as a result of this deception that he accepted going out as a single missionary.

All during the remainder of his life, in his books, and diaries, Nassau never ceased to pay tribute to female beauty encountered or observed, at receptions, on ships, or in church gatherings!

Princeton Theological Seminary

Hamill probably realized that upon graduation from

27 Ibid.

28 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 78-79 and pp. 104-5.

Princeton University he was too young to enter the Seminary. Yet, the decision to teach at Lawrenceville had not been his own. It may have been because of the Southern beauty he had observed among his friends’ sisters that he had accepted the suggestion of one of his professors to teach in the South as a private tutor. He had forgotten, however, that he was still only nineteen and he had failed to consult his father about the job!29 So it was arranged for him to teach at Lawrenceville instead.

Two years later, in October 1856, he began his seminary career which followed a normal course. It was spent in an environment with which Hamill and his family were familiar, and to which he would, in later years, return again and again: Princeton Theological Seminary. Its professors and presidents, during his lifetime, were to be close personal friends. The academic work was not difficult for him and by the time he graduated in May 1859, he had meanwhile also obtained the Master of Arts degree from Princeton University in 1857.30

In addition to his class work, during the first year, he writes that, “My growing interest in the Negro Race took me to the Sabbath School of the colored church, the Witherspoon Presbyterian.”31 Nassau’s roommate was his cousin R.

29 Nassau, “Personal Recollections,” p. 459.

30 Mentioned in a curriculum vitae in his own hand. Robert Hamill

Nassau file, Alumni Records, University Archives. University of Pennsylvania.

31 Nassau, “Personal Recollections,” p. 460.

Hamill Davis and together during one summer they set out for Western Missouri and adjacent parts of Kansas to engage in door to door selling of religious literature for the Presbyterian Board of Publications.32

After his second year in the seminary, he served as a missionary of the Philadelphia Sabbath Association operating on the Pennsylvania Canal between Columbia and Harrisburg.33 In addition to showing interest in the Foreign Missionary Society of the Seminary, his interest in the Blacks made him join a group of inquiry on “Sailors, Soldiers, and Negroes.” He regretted that the group was quite neglected.34

University of Pennsylvania Medical School

One might have expected young Nassau, confident of his academic record, and remembering that he had spent two years in teaching and had given two summers to worthwhile home mission service, to be impatient and anxious to sail at once for Africa. Here, however, we encounter one of his particular traits: his determined thoroughness in preparation. Considering the taunts of acquaintances, suggesting that he was a fool to go to Africa because of the health hazards there, he “... quietly

32 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 93-94. It was while applying for this position that he asked to be sent to the “most difficult field”. Dr. Rodgers was under the impression that this referred to Africa, but Dr. Mandeng, in Appendix B of his doctoral dissertation, pp. 335-338 makes the matter clear that it did not.

33 Ibid., p. 116.

34 Ibid., p. 114.

determined not to die.”35 Self-assured, he wrote, looking back in 1915:

I had obtained the impression that the excellent men and women who had died, after only a year or two of work in Africa, while worthy of all praise for their zeal and devotion, had sadly erred in failing to recognize and obey

the first law of physical life, i.e., adaptation to one’s environment

...I thought that my life would be more useful and would accomplish more in a long service by a cautious tread than by a spectacular rush that would end in a tragic death in a few years.36

In order to achieve such long service Nassau also determined to study medicine. So without wasting any time, the very next day after graduation at Princeton he began daily lessons in medicine with Dr. White, the Lawrenceville, N. J. village doctor.37 By fall 1859 he enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and in view of his previous training which included Latin and Greek, obtained permission to graduate with the M.D. degree in less than two years in 1861. He was not, however, to practice medicine in the United States. 38 There is every reason to believe he abided by this rule.

Nassau extended to the University of Pennsylvania the same loyalty as to the other schools he attended, and in due time contributed numerous scientific specimens to the Philadelphia institution. In turn, during a furlough in 1891, the University

35 Robert Hamill Nassau, “A Medical Course that was Worth While” Alumni Register, University of Pennsylvania, 17:1586, May 1915.

36 Ibid., pp. 586-87.

37 Ibid., p. 587.

38 Ibid., p. 588.

honored him with the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology.39

Licensure, Ordination and Appointment

Meanwhile, the young Presbyterian candidate for foreign service had also followed correct ecclesiastical procedure. Robert Hamill had been taken under the care of the Presbytery of New Brunswick and was licensed at the First Presbyterian Church of Shrewsbury, New Jersey, on April 29, 1859. 40 Two years later, on April 17, 1861, he was ordained to the ministry at the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury, New Jersey. 41

Secretary J. L. Wilson of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions at first hoped to send Hamill to pioneer in a new field, in East Africa. So Nassau at once undertook a study of the area. Then financial difficulties made the plan impossible, and a letter came from the Mission House in New York announcing his appointment to the Corisco Mission.42 There remained only the material preparations for the ocean voyage, the packing of goods and the breaking of the many ties.

39 Robert Hamill Nassau file, Alumni Records, University Archives University of Pennsylvania.

Often the letters D.D. were placed after his name, but whenever he could Nassau would correct these to S. T. D. as his degree appears in the University of Pennsylvania General Alumni Catalogue.

40 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p, 129.

41 Ibid., p, 151.

42 Ibid., pp, 141 and 150.

Summary

Robert Hamill Nassau, bound for Equatorial West Africa at the age of twenty-five took with him, not only a mother’s prayers for her “missionary son,” but the finest and most complete training to be had in the United States at that time, in addition to the cultural heritage and Christian affection of two prominent Presbyterian families and scores of friends. He was determined to put to use each talent and gift that his family, youth, and training had given him, for the people he was setting out to encounter.

CAREER IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER (1861-1906)

Corisco Island and Marriage (1861-1864)

Nassau sailed directly for Africa from New York City on Tuesday 2 July 1861 on the little brig, the “Ocean Eagle.” The young and eager missionary at once continued his training. One of his fellow-passengers was a senior missionary, the Rev. James L. Mackey, who began to teach him the Benga language. Upon arrival on little Corisco Island 43 near the equator on Thursday, 12 September, Nassau could converse so well with the natives that they at once enthusiastically accepted him as an “interested friend”. 44

43 See Appendix B and Map.

44 Robert Hamill Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907), p.V.

Less than a year before, on 1 August 1860, a young lady teacher had set sail for the same place on the same ship.45 It is likely that she was on hand to greet the young minister she had but casually met the eve before leaving New York.46 Contacts were inevitable between Robert Hamill Nassau and Miss Mary Cloyd Latta. She and some others were assigned as teachers to the school for girls at Evangasimba,47 to which the new arrival was assigned as superintendent. His additional duties were to teach candidates for the ministry, to preach at Ugobi,48 and last but not least, to visit the mainland out-stations.49 These had been gradually established since the work began in 1850. No missionaries, however, had ever resided permanently at any one of them.

Mary Latta’s father, who died before she was five, had been a medical doctor. He was the son of a Presbyterian minister and the grandson of the Rev. James Latta, D.D.50 who came from Ireland as a youth. Dr. Latta was a member of the First General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and its fifth Moderator in 1793.51 So, like Robert Hamill Nassau, Mary Cloyd Latta had

45 Robert Hamill Nassau, Crowned in Palm-Land (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott

& Co., 1874). p. 650

44 Ibid., p. 106. 47 See Appendix B and Map.

48 See Appendix B and Map.

49 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 198-9.

50 Nassau, “Crowned”, pp. 13-14.

51 “Latta, James, D.D.”, Encyclopaedia of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Alfred Nevin (ed.)

( Philadelphia:Presbyterian Encyclopaedia Publishing Co., 1884), p. 417.

numerous ministerial relatives.52 They soon discovered that they had other common interests, not the least of which was a burning desire to leave Corisco in order to establish work on the mainland. 53 They were married on Wednesday, 17 September 1862 by the Rev. William Walker, who came from Gabon to perform the ceremony. 54

Like many of their older colleagues, the Nassaus soon realized that in Equatorial Africa the price of parenthood in those days would mean long and painful separations from each other.55 Before they celebrated their first anniversary Mary returned to the United States. When Nassau first saw his son William Latta the baby was already seven months old.56

During his wife’s absence, the husband established a unique friendship. Unfortunately it was tragically brief. In May 1864 a new missionary arrived on the island, a twenty-seven year old fellow Pennsylvanian: the Reverend George Paull.57 This welcome reinforcement allowed the weakened Mackey to leave at once for a sorely needed rest.58 The two young colleagues

52 “Latta, Rev. James,” “Latta, Rev. John Ewing,” “Latta, William, D.D.,” and “Latta, Rev. William Wilson,” Ibid.,

53 Nassau, Crowned, pp. 118-19 54 Ibid., p. 108

55 Ibid., p, 121.

56 Ibid., p. 146 and p, 157.

57 Samuel Wilson, George Paull of Benita, West Africa ( Philadelphia:

Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1872) , p. 5 and p.101.

58 Nassau, op. cit., p, 146.

were the only male missionaries on the island, and their friendship grew stronger and stronger during the weeks and months that followed. Dr. Nassau cared for George Paull during his attacks of fever.59 He invited him to take part in the outings he organized for the girls’ school.60

Together, while on a trip to the mainland, they selected the site for the first Presbyterian station on the Equatorial Coast.61 The idea of this advance excited Nassau greatly, the more so because he knew his eagerness to move to the mainland was shared by Mary. Yet, when on 4 January 1865 the Mission Meeting took the final decision for the move, he had to overcome a bitter deception. There were just not enough missionaries and funds available to allow both young men to go. And so the one with a wife and baby had to remain on Corisco.62 Nassau saw the honor of being first go to his younger friend. He felt no jealousy, but how he had longed to share that honor.

Three months later his friend was brought back to the island sick, and died on 14 May.63 Nassau could not help but think that if he had only been able to persuade the Mission to allow him to go along, Paull would not have died.64 It

59 Wilson, op. cit., p. 117 60 Ibid., p. 135.

61 Ibid., pp. 224-250 62 Nassau, Crowned, pp. 169-70.

63 Wilson, op. cit., p. 280

64 Robert Hamill Nassau, “A History of the West Africa Mission,”

(MS,Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia), p. 39.

convinced him that no new station should be opened by one man alone. Yet he himself, because of the constant failure of the Church to send enough help - all the while insisting on advance - was also to be alone, on three occasions, while establishing new stations.

Nassau wrote that his friend was “...a most noble character, with a rare combination of strength and amiability, of apostolic labor and deep spirituality.” 65 and in an article sent to The Foreign Missionary he cried out:

Oh ! Why did the Lord break down our pleasant vine?

I have asked many time. I have heard only one answer -

“what I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know

hereafter.” 66

Then continued:

It was my lot to go a week afterward and close the mission premises, and gather our dead brother’s personal effects. The people were in sorrow’s darkness. The inquirers and Christians seemed stricken numb with dumb astonishment at their loss. They followed my steps as if expecting in some unlooked for way help, and for the hundreth [sic] time asked - “Would another white man come?” I hoped so: “When would he come?” I could not tell. 67

65 Robert Hamill Nassau, Historical Sketch of the Missions in Africa

(Philadelphia Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian

Church, 1881), p. 18.

66 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Geography of Corisco Mission Stations.

VI. Benita Station,” The Foreign Missionary, 24: 297, May, 1866.

67 Ibid.

Benita and Death of Mary Cloyd Latta Nassau (1865-1871)

Five months later Nassau was himself at work on the mainland teaching a class for “... those who had been awakened by my beloved predecessor’s preaching; to which others were constantly added.”68

Four years after his arrival in Africa, Robert Hamill Nassau was now in charge of his own station which came to be known as Benita.69 At Mbâde,70 not far from the original bamboo house, built for George Paull, a sturdier addition had been built for the Nassaus.71 Though Paull had only lived there three months Nassau never ceased to refer to the work at Benita as that of his predecessor. When on 12 July 1866 a second Nassau son was born he was named George Paull.72 Whatever dreams his father may have had of that boy some day preaching the Gospel in Africa, replacing the friend for whom he was named, they were shattered seventeen months later when baby Paull died in 1867.73

Before moving from Corisco Hamill and Mary had accepted the customary necessity of sending Willie to the United States. Colleagues had taken the sixteenth-month old child with them. 74

68 Robert Hamill Nassau, Corisco Days (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1892), p. 123.

69 See Appendix B and Map.

70 See Appendix B and Map.

71 Nassau, Crowned, p. 234.

72 Ibid., pp. 233-34.

73 Ibid., p. 247.

74 Ibid., p. 174.

This enabled Mrs. Nassau at their arrival at Benita to take a large part in the development and growth of the work, especially translating hymns into Benga.75 On 11 December 1865 a church had been formed with Nassau as pastor; it was the second organized congregation in the Mission, the first one on the mainland.76

The need for more missionaries was constant. As early as the end of 1865, Mary Nassau had written home, “We occasionally speak of going to America at some future time; Hamill thinks in two years or less, but does not want to leave until this station can be supplied with one or two families.” 77

Miss Isabella A. Nassau, Hamill’s older sister, who had arrived on Corisco earlier that year, joined the work at Benita in the fall of 1868.78 A second house was built for her some two miles distant; 79 it became known as Bolondo.80 Much as the arrival of his sister was appreciated it still was not what Nassau had been hoping for. True, the Mission was now established on the mainland and the work was progressing but what of the people inland? When would someone be available to go upstream? Early in 1869 hopes ran high due to the arrival

75 Nassau, Historical Sketch, p, 19.

76 Robert Hamill Nassau, A History of the Presbytery of Corisco (Trenton: Albert Brandt, Jr.,1888), pp. 8-9.

77 Nassau, Crowned, p. 211.

78 Ibid., p. 271.

79 Ibid., pp. 275-76.

80 See Appendix B and Map.

at Benita of the Rev, and Mrs. Solomon Reutlinger.81 Those hopes, however, were dashed in July, when Nassau’s colleague was brought back from a trip up the Rio Benito,82 dying of erysipelas. They were to have made the exploratory trip together, but again shortage of missionaries had made that impossible.83

On 12 November 1868 a third son was born; 84 and there followed a very happy time in February when the Rev. and Mrs. William Walker came from Gabon 85 to baptize Charles Francis.86

The work at Libreville 87 had been established in 1842 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions of Boston. So Walker was a Congregationalist, but most of the missionaries serving that Board in Gabon had been, or were, Presbyterian.88 Cordial relationships existed between the Corisco and Gabon Missions. In September 1870 when Mrs. Nassau became very ill and weak, her husband decided to attempt to send her to England, he tried first to take her by sailboat to Libreville, in order to leave her and Charley with the Gabon friends until she could embark.89 Before they reached Baraka,90

81 Op. cit., p. 2850

82 See Appendix B under Benita and Map.

83 Nassau, Corisco Days, pp. 113-21.

84 Genealogical chart.

85 See Appendix B.

86 Nassau, Crowned, p. 287.

87 See Appendix B and Map.

88 Nassau, Historical Sketch, p. 9

89 Nassau, Crowned, pp. 337-54.

90 See Appendix B and Map.

however, on 10 September at night in the small boat Mary Nassau died.91 Two days later her husband conducted her funeral, and with their little son nearby, “... drove the twelve nails to their places.”92

Meanwhile, the Walkers needed desperately to go home for a rest. Their associates, the Rev. and Mrs. Albert Bushnell, on furlough in the United States, were not due back soon. There was real danger that with the Walker’s departure the Mission might be lost. The French were in control of the territory and it was not beyond imagination to consider a take-over of the “abandoned property” by French Jesuits, if left unattended.93 Early in 1871 Dr. Nassau realized there was little hope for advance inland, at that time, because of lack of men. He also faced the problem of what to do with his motherless Charley. He considered the importance of “holding” Baraka and knew that the A. B. C. F. M. work in Gabon was soon to unite with the Presbyterian Corisco Mission. So Nassau suggested to the Walkers that, if they would leave and take Charles with them to America, he and Sister Bella, would move to Baraka, temporarily closing Benita.94 There was no other solution.

For several months, until the return of Dr. and Mrs. Bushnell to Baraka in June 1871, Hamill and Isabella Nassau

91 Op. cit., p. 346.

92 Ibid., pp. 353-54.

93 Nassau, “History,” p. 45.

94 Ibid.

were the only protestant missionaries, where at one time there had been as many as ten residing on Corisco; as many as five stationed at Benita; and usually half a dozen assigned to Baraka.95

Nassau was now thirty-five years old, and had been in Africa nearly a decade, he had lost his closest friend and the son he named for him, he had lost the wife who shared his love for the Africans and who had urged him on from the island to the mainland, and who would have rejoiced to push forward with him to the interior. A page was being turned.

At Libreville, Nassau was charmed by the advanced civilization there: the French military presence and the well-developed Baraka station appealed to him, he became impressed with the superiority of the Mpongwe people living there who had had long contacts with Europeans, he observed the well-known beauty of the Mpongwe women, particularly of two sisters, now in their teens, and who he had come to know when they were about five and seven years old. That was in 1861 when he had first visited Baraka.96 From now on Libreville, and the two sisters, were to become more and more part of his life. Above all else, however, he learned at Libreville that to the south there was a river: the Ogooué. One day he would

95 Nassau, Corisco Days, p. 154.

96 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Two Women, the Lives of Two African Christians,”MS (Vail Memorial Library, Lincoln University, 1911), p. 3.

refer to it as “My Ogowe.”97

First Furlough (1871-1874)

When the Bushnells returned and Nassau could leave he had been away from America for more than ten years. He spent his furlough learning to know his two small sons and visiting his numerous relatives; he frequently spoke on Africa and wrote the life-story of his wife.

A most significant conversation took place in New York during the furlough when Nassau listened to Secretary Ellinwood urge:

All these thirty years you missionaries have been hanging on only to the edge of the continent. Why don’t You go ahead inland? ... The Church at home will not be satisfied with that explanation, [ i.e. that tribal trade monopolies would result in boycott of travel ], nor will it cordially support the work, unless a demonstration is made to prove progress.98

These words were like offering candy to a child. Nassau continues:

A spirit of adventure that, from boyhood, had made me wish to be a soldier, had always quickened my pulses at thought of the interior. I enjoyed the idea of itineration, and forest-travel, and camp-fires. And I replied, “Dr. Ellinwood, the Gaboon, the Muni and Benito rivers have been tried in vain, as pathways to the Interior. When my furlough is ended, I am willing to attempt a route by the Ogowe River but, I do not think the Mission will permit me.”99

97 See Appendix B, and Map. Except for direct quotations this paper uses for geographical names the spelling as used today, hence Ogooué, and not Ogowe. Names no longer current are spelled as they were by Nassau.

98 Nassau, My Ogowe, p.12

99 Ibid.

By the time he sailed back to Africa, in the Spring of 1874, he was assured of both Board and Mission approval for his great adventure. His sons remained behind in the care of two separate families. On that score too he was free to give himself to his pioneering plans.

Ogooué: Belambla and Kângwe (1874-1880)

It is well to remember that the pace of mission activities in Nassau’s time was slower than in the early twentieth century. By the end of his first year back in Africa, Nassau had still not been able to select a definite site for his new station. He had spent the latter part of 1874 exploring the river beyond Lambaréné,100 but had been unable to decide

on a location. He also gave some time to helping his sister at Benita.

Finally, in September 1875. Dr. Nassau could leave Chief Kama’s place, where he had been living.101 He had purchased a piece of land from the Chief on the river bank one hundred and thirty miles up the Ogooué. The place was called Belambla. 102

He had selected the site because it was located among the Bakele. Nassau had been told that the Dikele tribal language had much in common with Benga which language he knew

100 See Appendix B and Map.

101 Nassau, op. cit., p. 100.

102 See Appendix B and Map.

well.103 On the other hand, he did not believe he had learned sufficient Mpongwe, the Libreville language used up and down the river. During all this time the pioneering missionary could not have carried on the work he did, had it not been for faithful Kombe helpers who had come with him from the Benita coast.104 He was able to recruit Galwas from the local river tribes to help with his building plans. As soon as he was

installed in a temporary hut of his own, his procedure was to start, at once, with the construction of something more permanent. There were many interruptions, however. Trips to the coast were time-consuming but imperative in order to secure supplies. Happily they also brought him -- at work alone -- back into contact with fellow missionaries, at Libreville and Corisco, during Presbytery and Mission meetings.

Nassau’s joy at the completion of his second Ogooué house was saddened at the thought that one of the doors he used had been the front door of his first African home at Evangasimba.

Removal of the missionaries from the island to the mainland had resulted in the tearing down of many buildings; materials were too scarce to be left behind.105 The new house, however, contained so many attractive items that it proved to be too much of a temptation to the Bakele people. Though, during his forced absences, Nassau left the house in care of

103 Nassau, op. cit., p. 39.

104 Ibid., p. 87.

105 Ibid., p. 144.

trusted natives, it was first plundered, and on a second occasion was nearly torn down. Reluctantly the pioneer had to convince himself that he had made a mistake; the site was not ideal.106

As he traveled up and down the river, Nassau had often looked longingly at a certain hilltop.107 To his regret it was twenty-five miles less inland from where he had attempted to settle.108 On the other hand, it was near several trading houses. The place was called Kângwe 109 near Lambaréné. When he moved to that hilltop in 1876, however, there was a more important reason for locating there than the proximity of traders. For some reason Nassau had come to believe that the Galwa people of Kângwe would respond better to the Gospel than had the Bakele. The latter, after more than two years, were still not showing much response. 110

The work developed well during the three years that followed. Nassau had the joy of seeing his sister come to live with him. All the while continuing her special task of training men for the ministry she opened a girls’ school.111 Her brother supervised the start of a boys’ school and regularly returned to Belambla, which he did not want to give up completely. He also visited scores of other villages up and down the river and along the shores of the lakes. To his delight and comfort, one

106 Ibid., Chapters XIV-XV.

107 Ibid., pp. 52. 156, 159.

108 Ibid., p. 167.

109 See Appendix B and Map.

110 Nassau, op. cit., p. 167.

111 Ibid., p. 231.

of the two Mpongwe sisters he had learned to know at Baraka, came to live at one of the trading posts where her husband was at work.112 One year after Nassau started pioneering along the Ogooué, Count Savorgnan de Brazza, the French explorer, made his first trip to the area. The two men became friends and exchanged visits.113

Best of all, there were converts. Nassau, the missionary, was able to accompany several converts to Baraka for baptism; in July 1879 Presbytery authorized the establishment of the First Ogooué Church. At last there was a group Nassau could consider as his own. He wrote:

A written request to Presbytery, “signed by four members of Gaboon Church and two of Benita Church, residing permanently in the Ogove,” was granted at meeting of July 21st, 1879. The organization of the church,

... was affected November 28th, 1879, with those six

applicants, and H. M. Bacheler, D.D., ... who offered his

certificate of membership ... and who accepted the office

of Ruling Elder, ... next day, ten candidates for baptism

were examined, [ no longer at the Coast ] of whom three

were received. Five of those six who signed ... were

the first Ogove converts, ... 114

The arrival of Dr. and Mrs. Henry M. Bacheler meant more than just the acquisition of an Elder for the young church. Robert Hamill Nassau and his sister Isabella could now begin to think seriously of a furlough, especially when Mrs. Jennie Lush Smith came to carry on Miss Nassau’s work. 115 As they

112 Ibid., p. 272.

113 Ibid., Chapter XVIII, passim.

114 Nassau, Corisco Days, pp. 169-70.

115 Nassau, My Ogowe p. 326.

prepared to leave, construction was underway on a good-sized church building at Andende,116 as the lower part of the station was called.

Second Furlough and Second Marriage (1880-1881)

Rarely was a furlough filled with such multiplicity and variety of activities. During the some eighteen months Nassau remained in the United States, he delivered nearly two hundred addresses, considered an undisclosed number of ladies as possible wives, finally married one, and during many months suffered greatly due to a physical ailment necessitating medical attention. All this is extensively recorded in My Ogowe.117

Fortunately, the long ocean voyage back to Africa, via Europe, allowed him some time for a honeymoon. His bride, Mary Brunette Foster, was thirty years old, fifteen years younger than her husband. They sailed two days after the wedding took place at Lakewood, New Jersey. The day after the wedding, on their way to Philadelphia to embark, they crowded a speaking engagement at a New Jersey Synodical meeting into their schedule.118

Mary Foster’s father, the Reverend Julius Foster, had been pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Towanda, Pennsylvania.

116 See Appendix B and Map.

117 Nassau, op. cit., Chapter XIX.

118 Robert Hamill Nassau The Path She Trod (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1909), p. 42.

Nassau remembered having once seen him at the family home at Easton. And he could “... recall the urbanity that softened the dignity and the courteous smile that prevented ...” his boyish fear. 119 When Mary was seven she had lost her mother and when she was fourteen, her father. She had but one older brother. For a while she lived at the home of an uncle, the Rev. Isaac Todd; he performed the wedding ceremony on Monday, October 10, 1881. 120 During her years as a young teacher Miss Foster had been active in church, and had several ministers as close friends. She was a talented person, who had herself been considering missionary service before Dr. Nassau proposed to her. The Woman’s Board had decided to appoint her to Persia.121 With her at his side Nassau now looked forward to a new time of service and to moving still farther up the Ogooué.

Ogooué: Talaguga and Death of Mary Brunette Foster Nassau (1881-1891)

Now that others had followed Nassau at Kângwe and Andende, the pioneer delighted in being able to push on inland again. He set about looking for a new site beyond his first location at Belambla. Sixty-five miles up river still farther into the Fang area he found Talaguga.122 Mary remained at Kângwe and learned the pain of long weeks of separation.

119 Ibid., p. 9.

120 Ibid., p. 39

121 Ibid., p. 29.

122 See Appendix B and Map, Nassau, My Ogowe, Chapter XXI.

Nassau, as he had done twice before, first directed the construction of a temporary hut; and, when it was finished, he brought his wife to live where no white person had ever resided. His thoughts, however, were already preoccupied with a more worthy house. He hoped to install Mary there before the birth of the first white child in the Ogooué.123

Unfortunate delays kept him from completing what he called “Mary’s House,” and on 8 August 1884, after she gave birth to a little girl, Mrs. Nassau died.124 Not a single white woman colleague had been able to come to their aid, during the final days of her confinement. Nobody was present to comfort Nassau. Not quite fifty years old, a widower for the second time, he was left with an infant girl in his arms. One idea now became an obsession: he would not part with the child. Together with his wife, he had talked about his sons. They had been handed over to others at such a tender age that when he met them during furloughs they hardly knew their father. He had promised his second wife that he would never do that again. Nassau then determined very resolutely to keep his daughter with him till she reached the age of seven.125 Moreover, he had decided to prove that in his beloved tropics both motherhood and infant-survival were not impossible for white missionaries and their children. The births of George

123 Nassau, Path, p. 123

124 Ibid., p. 177.

125 Ibid. and Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 639.

Paull, Charles Francis, and now Mary Brunette had shown that birth was possible; and now he would show that white babies could also be reared in Equatorial Africa!126

With his habitual determination Dr. Nassau now gave himself to the double task: pioneer up the river and care for his child. He had always thought of Talaguga as but a midway station to a far more important one to be built later, still farther inland.

As at Benita and then at Kângwe, sister Bella was once again assigned to her brother’s station. She was no help, however, with his mother-task. Unmarried and fifty-six years old, Miss Nassau had many gifts, but, in the opinion of her brother, “... knew nothing about babies.”127 She became the hostess in the new house that was to have been Mary’s.

Nassau was caught in the dilemma of having committed himself to keep his child with him and unable to procure white help, he naturally turned to Africans for assistance. Like in everything else, he sought for the best, though not necessarily succeeding. By the time little Mary was four her father had obtained for her care, at first, the help of a very competent Benga person and then in two years’ time eight successive Galwa young women which he considered very incompetent.128

126 Nassau, “A Medical Course,” pp. 588-89.

127 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 472.

128 Ibid., pp. 515-516.

At last, he found what seemed an ideal solution. During the service of the incompetent ones, Nassau had often given thought to calling on one of the two Mpongwe sisters which he had known for years. At first this did not succeed but when it did, it brought him tremendous relief and a new lease on life. Anyentyuwe came to Talaguga to be Mary’s governess. She brought her daughter Iga, about the age of little Mary, with her. She was not married. In December 1889 his sister was compelled to leave on furlough. Nassau could not hope for a replacement for her and would have to carry on by himself at Talaguga. What about the governess? After he gave the question much careful thought he decided to maintain Anyentyuwe in his employ.129 This grave decision and his subsequent treatment of her created, for years to come, alienation between him and many colleagues.

Meanwhile, other difficulties, were building up for the entire work in the French occupied territory. Severe restrictions were being enforced against the use of anything but French in teaching the natives. No non-French were allowed to go beyond the N’Djolé 130 government post, up the river from Talaguga.131 This latter measure hurt Nassau more than the school restrictions since it severely curtailed his pioneering plans.

129 Ibid., pp. 639-40.

130 See Appendix B and Map.

131 Nassau, op. cit., p. 450.

Halfway measures had been tried, for several years, by the Presbyterian Mission to meet the French demands; one was the hiring of French Protestants to assist with teaching.132 Gradually a strong sentiment developed in favor of handing the work over to the French Protestant Mission Society.133

One of the most ardent promoters of this plan was an energetic young colleague named Adolphus Clemens Good. Nassau had first met him while he was still a student at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. He had started his missionary work at Baraka, in 1882, and then replaced Dr. Nassau at Kângwe. Dr. Good was twenty years younger than the Ogooué Pioneer and as eager for his “own” field as Nassau had been when he left Corisco for Benita and Baraka for the Ogooué.134 For young Good the future of the mission - there was no doubt in his mind - lay inland from Batanga,135 the new station north of Benita. There, in Cameroun,136 the Germans - Protestants! - were in control.137 They would certainly be more tolerant of American Presbyterians. Jesuit influence and French

132 Ellen C. Parsons A Life for Africa (2nd, ed. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1900), p. 115.

133 Ibid., p. 98.

134 Ibid., pp. 168-69.

135 See Appendix B and Map.

136 See Appendix B and Map.

137 W. Reginald Wheeler, The Words of God in An African Forest (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1931, p. 79.

restrictions made advance up the Ogooué less and less likely. Good’s zeal for advance, so much like Nassau’s a generation before, soon revealed that the two men were too much alike, in many ways, to get along well.

Two French missionaries had already arrived to inspect the field, and were temporarily helping the mission at Kângwe, as a weary Nassau prepared for furlough.138 He had witnessed ten years of advance and growth on the Ogooué. Would he return there? His term which began as he brought his young bride up the river he loved ended with the selling of his Talaguga household goods. Nassau dreaded the long sea-voyage because of his proneness to seasickness,139 and wanted his girl to be well attended to during the trip. So he arranged for Anyentyuwe and Iga to accompany him and his daughter as far as England.140

Third Furlough (1891-1893)

The first news Dr. Nassau received upon his arrival in Philadelphia in May 1891 was that of the death of his favorite brother William, a doctor in Iowa.141 Nassau had been thinking of leaving his daughter Mary with him.142 Much had changed during his ten-year absence. His eldest son was

138 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 587.

139 Ibid., p. 272.

140 Ibid., p. 693.

141 Ibid., p. 699.

142 Ibid., p. 675.

now married, and his second son about to finish medical school. Although Nassau did not lack for relatives and friends, he appears to have been long in deciding, and oft disappointed, in his plans for finding a home for Mary. Finally, he decided to leave her with a cousin of her mother, the Rev. Frank Todd, Presbyterian minister in Monroeton, Pa.143 His years of loneliness in Africa seem to have made it hard for him to find advisers; he himself admitted having but few intimate friends when needing to discuss personal matters.144

As during the previous furloughs, he was in constant demand as a speaker and found time to work on a revision of Mackey’s Benga grammar. For a while he was in doubt about his return to Africa. His return was delayed for six months.145 Then the problems, however, were resolved and a date was set for his return.

Baraka at Libreville (1893-1699)

The Mission assigned Dr. Nassau to Baraka, the oldest American station in the area. Its nearness to the Ogooué reminded him frequently of the fact that others had taken over his work; at least he had the satisfaction of being able to revisit the river stations and of being welcomed there by the

143 Nassau, “Autobiography”, pp. 920, 924, and 940.

144 Nassau, “My Retirement”, p. 3.

145 Nassau,”Autobiography”, p. 947.

French missionaries.146 During the years of his stay at Baraka he was the principal missionary but Baraka was no longer the principal station. Some of the French teachers engaged to help teach in their language lived there, but Nassau’s knowledge of French was not enough for him to have close contacts. Moreover, some of the Frenchmen were not always of the same opinion as to conduct (wine) as the Americans.147 Nassau obtained much enjoyment from his pastoral work among the Mpongwe; and Anyentyuwe had found work in Libreville. At Angom,148 the Rev. and Mrs. Arthur W. Marling were at work among the Fang, and his contacts with them were pleasant, but in 1896 Mr. Marling died.149 He was delighted, in 1895, when the British explorer and traveler, Mary H. Kingsley, was in and out of Libreville during several months, and he was able to assist her.150 He carried on translation work, and was usually called upon to act as Stated Clerk of Presbytery.151

Yet, unmistakably, “The missions’ tide of interest had turned to its northern end at Batanga.”152 Even his sister

146 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 700.

147 Parsons, A Life, p. 116.

148 See Appendix B and Map.

149 Nassau, “History,” p. 66. Information concerning years of service, Christian names, etc., pertaining to Presbyterian missionaries has been taken from Arthur Judson Brown, One Hundred Years. (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1936), pp. 1097-98.

150 Mary H. Kingsley, West African Studies (London Macmillan and Co., 1899), p. 89.

151 Nassau, History Corisco, p. 26.

152 Nassau “History,” p. 68.

Isabella had been assigned there, and was to remain there till her death in 1906.153

Fourth Furlough (1899-1900)

Early in 1899 Nassau arrived back in the United States. He was anxious to see his fourteen-year old daughter. Moreover, he had conceived a delightful plan. During the summer he intended to take Mary on a trip to Europe. There she would meet her former governess Anyentyuwe. This African woman, after all, was the only “mother” Mary had known, and, at Baraka, Anyentyuwe had often expressed to Nassau her desire to see Mary again.154 Sad news, however, awaited father and daughter upon their arrival in Liverpool. The dentist who had been caring for Anyentyuwe while she awaited the Nassaus, had discovered that she had leprosy. Instead of going on the proposed trip through Europe with Mary and Dr. Nassau she had to hasten back to Libreville.155

The furlough, however, did not bring only sadness. Miss Kingley’s writings placed Dr. Nassau’s name before many who had paid little attention to him. Robert E. Speer, a new Board secretary, urged the veteran missionary to write a book, or books, in order to share with others his vast knowledge

153 McLanahan, Isabella, p. 8.

154 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Two Women: The Lives of Two Native African Christians (Unpublished MS, Lincoln University, 1911), p. 34.

155 Ibid., p. 35.

of Africa.156 When Nassau sailed back to that continent, it was his understanding that this writing would be his major responsibility.

Batanga and Baraka again (1900-1903)

During his furlough, however, the missionaries had decided at the powerful annual Mission Meeting that Dr. Nassau should take on pastoral responsibility for the church at Batanga. The work in the interior was demanding more and more workers, and some expressed dismay at the fact that Nassau was being urged to spend time in writing a book on African “folk-lore.” Nevertheless, after moving his belongings from Baraka to Batanga and bidding farewell to his Mpongwe friends, Nassau was able to settle down to work on his book on fetichism. He was not averse to assuming the pastoral assignment at Batanga, as well, and engaged willingly with the African elders in the tedious work of correcting the membership rolls.157 It was the largest church in the Mission.

He watched, more or less passively, as wave after wave of new, young missionaries arrived, heading for the interior, to Bulu-land in Cameroun. He could never get himself to follow the overland road, opened up by Dr. A. C. Good’s pioneering

156 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1244 1/2, a letter from Robert E. Speer, dated 4 November 1899.

157 Nassau’s personal report, for 1900. Microfilm Series, Africa: Reports 1900-05 Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. Board of Foreign Missions, vol. 10 (part 1), Reel 239.

(Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia). Hereafter this series is cited as PCUSABFM.

and there is no record of his ever having gone there.

In December, Mission Meeting invited him to spend some months at Baraka, where his ministry was needed. During a siege of illness, however, tensions between him and the other missionaries resulted in his being forcibly sent home for alleged medical reasons.158

Fifth and Unplanned Furlough (1903-1904)

Much as he did not desire this furlough, it, nevertheless, brought Nassau some special enjoyment. His ill health was quickly restored, and he saw his book, Fetichism in West Africa, come from the press. Also, it was during this furlough that he was able to participate in the fiftieth reunion of his Princeton University Class, leading the parade. It was one of the happiest experiences of his life.159

Sad news, however, came from Baraka. Toward the end of 1903 a letter arrived informing him of the death of his longtime friend Anyentyuwe.160 Through an unfortunate move made by Secretary A. J. Brown, the question of his return to Africa became a matter of long and painful discussion.161

158 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 1451-58.

159 See p. 9.

160 Op. cit., p. 1483.

161 Letter from Secretary A. J. Brown to R. H. Nassau dated 7 October 1903. PCUSABFM. Africa letters Vol. 8 (part 2), Reel 238, letter 10.

When he finally sailed in the fall of 1904, he took with him a third set of grave stones to cover a woman’s resting place. After delivering these to Baraka, he again settled at Batanga.162

Final Stay at Batanga (1904-1906)

Shortly after Nassau’s return to Cameroun, an unusual event took place. For the first time since the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions commenced sending missionaries to Equatorial West Africa in 1850, a Secretary from the New York office was sent to inspect the field.163 The attitude of Dr. A. W. Halsey, however, and his presence and interventions at the Mission Meeting held in February 1905, were such that Dr. R. H. Nassau felt himself obligated to tender his resignation. It was accepted by the West Africa Mission. 164

While he awaited action from New York, after his proffered withdrawal, Nassau continued his pastoral work at Batanga. At the end of the year he had still not heard from the Board and attended the Mission Meeting at Baraka, but did not participate.165 Early in 1906, more than thirty years after he had pioneered there, Robert Hamill Nassau made his

162 Letters from Dr. Nassau to daughter Mary. Letter dated 4 Nov. 1904.

(Collection of Miss D.P. Nassau, Philadelphia).

163 Nassau, “History”, p. 109.

164 Nassau, “My Retirement,” pp. 9-10.

165 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1593.

last trip up the Ogooué. He wrote that, “... those French brethren converted [it] into a continuous ovation.”166 In the spring he finally returned to America, still not having heard from the Presbyterian Board whether or not his resignation had been accepted. So he considered himself on furlough and hoped against hope that it would not be accepted, but that he would again be allowed to return.167

On 3 December 1906, nearly two years after Dr. Nassau’s resignation had been presented at Batanga, it was accepted in New York. After a formal statement of that fact the letter he received continued, quoting the action:

The Committee and Council wish to place on record

their appreciation of Dr. Nassau’s long and eminent service. Going to Africa in 1861, he has labored with single-hearted and self-sacrificing devotion. He has done much and suffered much in the cause of Christ. We assure him of our high personal regard, our confidence

in his Christian character, ...168

Thus ended, against Dr. Nassau’s desire, the longest relationship any one missionary ever sent to Africa during the nineteenth century, had with the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. It had lasted over forty-five years. 169 When he first sailed to Africa, the work had been confined to one small island, five miles long, and a few outposts on the mainland.

166 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 700.

167 Nassau, “My Retirement,” p. 29.

168 Ibid., p. 31.

169 Brown, One Hundred Years, pp. 1096-97.

When he left he had seen the work extend more than two hundred miles into the interior, along the Ogooué; and several hundred miles along the coast, from Baraka to Batanga. From there its penetration into Cameroun was still continuing. Corisco Presbytery had grown from one organized church to a dozen. He witnessed and was part of the beginnings of what are today autonomous churches in three different independent countries.170

RETIREMENT (1906-1921)

The septuagenarian who had pleaded in vain to be allowed to return to Africa, where he felt he could have served “... at least five, and probably ten more years,”171 was in no mood to sit down and relax. Dr. Nassau applied to the Board of Home Missions, asking that he be sent to Porto Rico; but he was turned down, for fear that he would be unable to learn Spanish.172

Florida (1907-1908)

Although the Reverend R. H. Nassau had never served as a pastor in the United States, he was at once ready to

170 The Iglesia Evangélica Presbyteriana en Guinea Equatorial; the Eglise Evangélique du Gabon and the Eglise Presbytérienne Camerounaise. See also Appendix B.

171 Nassau, “My Retirement,” p. 29.

172 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1697 and insert 1697A.

accept a call to serve under the Board of Home Missions in Florida.173 The principal church was in Starke, and there were two smaller ones in Waldo and Hawthorne.174 After some seven months, however, Dr. Nassau felt that he was perhaps not the man to build up those small churches. In his “Autobiography” he listed for himself a number of reasons for leaving and mentioned last, but not least the problem of racism. Citing the unpleasant remarks he had to listen to, he wrote:

One day, one of my prominent members told me, with

apparent approbation, of the lynching of a Negro, in the

town, some years before. I could not remain there, and

be true to myself.175

Ambler, Pennsylvania (1908-1921)

In 1910 Robert Hamill Nassau entered the Mercer Home for Presbyterian Ministers at Ambler, Pennsylvania; a move he had already been contemplating for some years.176 Before going to the Home he may have thought of other possibilities. His daughter Mary was still unmarried and working in New York City; but he must have considered himself unable to make a home for her. He had, during furloughs, spent months at a time with his eldest son; but he had also experienced the inconveniences of such arrangements. He wrote in a letter to his daughter, that he could not again consider marriage for

173 Ibid., p. 1718.

174 Ibid., pp. 1724-25.

175 Ibid., p. 1766.

176 Rogers, “Robert Hamill Nassau,” p. 154.

financial reason.177

Robert Hamill Nassau, who, as a young student at Princeton University learned the enjoyment of female companionship when he visited with the girls of his father’s school, still felt the need for such friendship, also in retirement. After the death of Anyentyuwe, his diaries frequently mention his visits to Miss Isabella Gummere.178 He sent her the first copy of his book, Fetichism in West Africa, to come off the press.179 Happily, Ambler was not far from Trenton, New Jersey, where Miss Gummere lived at the home of her widowed sister. During the decade he spent at Mercer Home, he was constantly traveling to Philadelphia for he was ever glad to leave the institution.180 His two sons were living there. There were many Presbyterian events to attend, such as the annual meetings of the Presbyterian Historical Society, monthly ministerial meetings, and many others.181

177 Letter from Dr. Nassau to daughter Mary, dated 24

April 1907. (Collection of Miss D. P. Nassau, Philadelphia).

178 Miss Isabella Gummere (1854-1927) was a younger sister of Elizabeth Drinker Gummere who married Dr. Nassau’s cousin Hugh H. Hamill. Her brother, Samuel René Gummere, was American Minister to Morocco. Information from a letter to the writer from Mr. Barker Gummere, dated 6 December 1972.

179 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1521.

180 Robert Hamill Nassau, “diary,” 33 Vols. (1880-1919). (MS, Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary) Vol. 33. p. 23.

181 Ibid., passim.

At the Broad Street station, in Philadelphia, he could purchase flowers, and upon arrival, in Trenton, before checking in at the hotel deliver them to the address, where later he would spend hours visiting with Miss Gummere and reading to her.182 She belonged to a prominent Trenton family, and she had traveled to North Africa, and made long visits to Europe and England.183

Nassau had first met Miss Gummere at the home of his cousin in 1893, during a furlough after the death of his second wife.184 He had been charmed by her singing of Scotch ballads.185 Nowhere, in all his writings, does he mention that she became nearly totally blind at the age of nineteen.186

After the years of suffering and personal tragedy, Nassau found companionship, affection, and intellectual stimulation during the visits to Trenton. He needed courage to remain in the confining retirement home and to produce the several volumes he wrote after retirement.

Visits, speaking engagements, attendance at meetings,

182 Ibid., pp. 31, 39.

183 Letter from Mr. Barker Gummere.

184 Nassau, “Diary,” Vol. 9, p. 80 (1893).

185 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1471.

186 Information about her blindness given to the writer by Mrs. Bruce Bedford, niece of Miss I. Gummere, in a conversation in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1970, and confirmed in the letter from Mr. Barker Gummere.

writing, and each year the Princeton University and Seminary Commencements kept Nassau filling page after page of his diaries. He read books and papers and noted it all. He wrote numerous letters and recorded those he received.187 Several times he traveled to Battle Creek, Michigan to attend the Conventions of the Medical Missionary Conference.188 In the Philadelphia area it must have become known that there was no person more willing than Dr. Nassau to deliver a stirring address on Africa, be it for a Sunday School Primary Class, midweek prayer group, or vacant pulpit.189

Did the wounds caused by his forced resignation ever heal? In part. Early in 1915 he wrote about those who had forced him out of the Mission. “... most of the laymen ... have themselves left it, for various reasons; and three others, still in the Mission, have told me that they regretted their vote, and are my sincere friends.”190

Dr. Charles R. Erdman, an intimate friend, had written to him on the day after the Board accepted his resignation instead of rejecting it, as Nassau requested, “You know that you are only the dearer to your true friends. They are glad you are to be nearer home, and are to be free from the unkindness which has been shown you, and might await you in Africa.”191

187 Nassau, “Diary,” Vol. 33, passim. (1918-1919).

188 Ibid., Vols. 25-33. passim.

189 Ibid., Vol. 33. pp. 32, 34.

190 Nassau, “My Retirement,” p. 31.

191 Ibid., p. 30.

The Board expressed its “... cordial hope that in his declining years in the homeland, he [might]... enjoy ... quiet opportunity for literary work, for which he [was] ... richly qualified ...”192

Those “declining” years stretched to fourteen. Though he wrote several books during those years, the Board of Foreign Missions does not seem to have taken particular notice of these. At the request of the board he wrote “The History of the West Africa Mission” in 1919. He considered this as his last contribution to Foreign Missions. 193 But it was not published.

One of the last letters Nassau placed in his scrapbook came less than two months before his death. The outstanding Dr. John Timothy Stone wrote, “Thank you for all you wrote, and more still for what you are.” He also added a Bible reference: Philippians l:3-6, the passage which ends with, “.... he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion .....”194

Death (1921)

When death brought completion to Robert Hamill Nassau, on Friday, 6 May 1921, the Philadelphia papers announced a service to be held the following Tuesday, at the Oliver H. Bair Building;

192 Ibid., p. 31.

193 Nassau, “History” p. l.

194 Letter from Dr. J. T. Stone to R. H. Nassau, dated 17 March 1921. R.H. Nassau, Scrapbook, (Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary), p. 246.

and his body was put to rest at Lawrenceville Cemetery.195 There one can read the inscription which says, in part, “... for 45 Years a Faithful Missionary ... at Corisco, Benita, Gaboon, Batanga on the Coast and pioneer of the Ogowe River at Kângwe and Talaguga.” Then follows what this writer surmises Nassau himself suggested, “He preached unto them Jesus and the Resurrection.”196

195 University of Pennsylvania, University Archives. Unidentified newspaper clipping. Robert Hamill Nassau file in Alumni Records.

196 Observed by the writer at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, cemetery.

CHAPTER II

MANY-SIDED ACTIVITIES OF R. H. NASSAU

INTRODUCTION

Robert Hamill Nassau’s preparation and training were of the very best, and he spent an unusual number of years in missionary service followed by more than a decade of activities during retirement. He also made amazing use of his talents and interests. True, in all of this there was, in addition to the desire to serve God, a search for personal satisfaction; but there was also a large measure of altruism and joy in helping others.

Though a doctor, he was not sent out as a medical missionary but he used his skill to heal many, once he began learning an African language, he never stopped until his knowledge became useful through Bible translations, grammars, or primers. When given the chance to pioneer, he felt the urge to explore and might have become famous; but he subordinated that impulse to the work required of him. His inquisitive mind was always gathering facts to share with others, and he made scores of scientists happy with the many specimens he sent to Europe or America.

The literary interests he had as a student were put to work. A sense of history compelled him to put into writing,

with amazing detail, thousands of facts about people, places, and events, a wealth of material for today’s researchers. He felt that he owed the tribute of a book to both his first and second wives in order to comfort relatives and friends. He wrote the story of Anyentyuwe and Ekakise, another African woman, so that what happened to them would not be forgotten. At last he told his own story in an autobiography of more than two thousand pages.

His interest in the Africans made him a listener to their tales and then a careful recorder of their ways and thoughts. Back home he used it all to fascinate hundreds of audiences, and thousands of readers. He let his imagination roam over Africa, and the result was the tenderly moving story of The Youngest King. Urged to do so by others, he extracted out of his lifelong experience a book on fetichism, revealing in it an approach to the African and his religion that only now is coming to be generally accepted.

Once he was gripped by an idea or plan, he pursued it with every effort, at home and abroad, such as the founding of an Industrial School in West Africa.

Having looked at the vastness of his career, the present chapter aims to show the wide scope of Dr. Nassau’s interests and activities. At the close the question again is pressed upon us, “How come this man passed into seeming oblivion?”

DR. R. H. NASSAU, M. D.

All during his career, the Reverend R. H. Nassau was referred to as doctor, and this was not because of his honorary doctorate of sacred theology, but because of his medical degree; yet, he neither was nor wished to be known as a medical missionary. His major activities were always evangelistic and Pastoral, but his medical training, interest, and occasional activities gave the impression, to some, especially after he had left Africa, that he had been sent out as a doctor.

The most prominent of those who had this mistaken understanding was Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Under the impression that Dr. Nassau had been primarily engaged in medical work, Schweitzer upon his arrival in Africa in 1913 wrote a letter to his aged predecessor. He wrote in order to inform him that there was again a doctor at Lambaréné. And he reports, “Great was the joy of Dr. Nassau.”l No trace, to date, has been found in Nassau’s papers or writings of a reference to that letter or to Dr. Schweitzer. Dr. Nassau, of course, died before the one who claimed to be somewhat his successor became world-famous. Dr. Schweitzer, in going to Africa, had assured the Paris Evangelical Missions Society, “... that [he] only wanted to be a doctor.”2 He actually went out with the understanding

1 Albert Schweitzer, Out of My life and Thought (New York: Henry Holt and Co.),

pp. 114, 137.

2 Ibid., p. 138.

that he would not preach.3 The contrary is true of R. H. Nassau, and with all the two may have had in common, there lies the essential difference; Nassau went to preach Christ and the resurrection.4

The impression that Nassau went to Africa to carry on a work of healing is enhanced by the fact that the one person, who in recent years drew attention to him and his work, was Professor Dr. Fred B. Rogers, M. D. of Temple University School of Medicine. Dr. Rogers speaks of Nassau’s “... forty-five years’ service as a medical missionary.”5 In the title of his work he used a better word, he calls him: Apostle to Africa. That would have flattered and embarrassed the missionary, but it is more descriptive of the truth. Even C. P. Groves in his monumental work, The Planting of Christianity in Africa, mistakenly writes that Nassau pioneered in medical work.6 We believe the meticulous Nassau would appreciate this correction. He was a careful writer and author and one gets the impression that he often read with a pen in his hand in

3 Ibid.

4 As indicated on his grave. See p. 51.

5 Fred B. Rogers, “Robert Hamill Nassau (1835-1921) Apostle to Africa,”Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 30:150, January, 1963.

6 Charles Pelham Groves, The Planting of Christianity in Africa, 4 vols. (London: Lutterworth Press, 1948-1959), Vol. IV, p. 48.

order to correct errors in printed materials.7 Among his private papers is a 1914 issue of The Medical Missionary. The magazine contains an editorial with the sentence, “The second meeting was presided over by Dr. Robert H. Nassau, for fifty years a medical missionary of the Presbyterian Board in Western Africa.” A less careful person might have reasoned; there is not much difference between forty-five and fifty. Not so Nassau; no matter how proud he was that he had served longer than any other, he had to correct the error, he crossed out the fifty, and put “45” in the margin. Likewise, with a strong stroke of his pen he struck out “medical,” so that the corrected sentence reads, “... for 45 years a missionary of the Presbyterian Board.”8

Nassau’s not wanting to be listed as a medical missionary did not exclude an active interest in medical missions especially as the emphasis on these developed during the years of his retirement. He enthusiastically participated in several yearly meetings of The Medical Missionary Conference, at Battle Creek, Michigan. It was at one of those that he felt he had

7 The writer has a copy of My Ogowe in which Dr. Nassau corrected scores of factual and typographical errors by hand before presenting it to a friend. Among his private papers are numerous articles and books containing small corrections.

8 Editorial, The Medical Missionary, December 1914, p. 355. Uncatalogued papers at Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary.

obtained most honor.9

R. H. Nassau often expressed the need for missionary doctors, since he did not consider himself as such. He was proud of his M.D. and saw to it that it was placed after his name, along with the S. T. D. He paid tribute to his medical training in “A Medical Course that was Worth While,” an auto-biographical essay in The Alumni Register of the University of Pennsylvania. In it he claims that it was his medical training that kept him alive during so many years of living in hazardous health regions. 10 He also explains that he did not wish to infringe upon the medical profession, and adds that when he was sent out there were no physicians on the field to which he was being sent. 11 In 1892, during one of his furloughs, he was invited to read a paper at the annual meeting of the Academy of Surgery of Philadelphia on, “Observations Upon Native Diseases Seen During Thirty Years’ Residence in Equatorial Africa.” 12 Though his training did not allow him to practice in the United States, he made use of his furloughs to keep

9 Letter from Dr. R. H. Nassau to his daughter Mary, dated February 11, 1910. Private collection of Miss Ruth Foster, Bay Head, New Jersey.

He wrote: “I think I have never been honored as much or by as many people or in such a variety of ways as during those ten days.”

10 Robert Hamill Nassau, “A Medical Course that was Worth While,” The Alumni Register, University of Pennsylvania, 17: 586-589, May, 1915.

11 Ibid., p. 587.

12 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Observations Upon Native Diseases Seen During Thirty Years’ Residence in Equatorial Africa,” The Times and Register, 14: 109-11, January 30, 1892.

informed medically, and on occasion requested permission to observe operations.13 His name appears in the New York Academy of Medicine Library Portrait Catalog.14

He had a particular concern for the health of fellow-missionaries. In Corisco Days, he deplores the number of missionary parents in good health who had to remain in the United States because good health and medical conditions could not be guaranteed for their children.15 As a doctor he was convinced, already in the 1860’s when his boys were born, and in the 1880’s when his wife gave birth to Mary, that medically this was possible in tropical Africa. That he was unable to spare the lives of three loved ones must have been very hard on Nassau, the doctor. He never admitted that he may have been too sure of himself. When his second wife died, he expressed regret that he had not taken training as a surgeon as well.16

Interspersed in his writings, there are numerous references to Nassau’s use of his medical skill. In Crowned in Palm-Land he tells how the island of Corisco suffered far less from a small-pox epidemic than the surrounding areas because

13 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Diary,” 33 vols. (1880-1919). (MS, Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary), Vol. 9

14 New York Academy of Medicine Portrait Catalog, 5 vols. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1960), vol. 4, p. 2903.

15 Robert Hamill Nassau, Corisco Days (Philadelphia Allen, Lane & Scott, 1892), pp. 160-61.

16 Robert Hamill Nassau, The Path She Trod (Philadelphia:

Allen, Lane & Scott, 1909), p. 178.

he had been able to begin vaccinating the inhabitants early with lymph obtained from the arms of the mission boatmen. These had been sent to Gabon to be vaccinated at the mission there.17 At Baraka he regularly treated Anyentyuwe, after she became leprous.18 In My Ogowe he tells of treating Njivo’s ulcerated breast.19 He operated on a trader suffering from gun-shot wounds and saved his life.20

His medical training helped him to make his scientific contributions, and kept him alert to learning about African cures. These he treated with the respect he had toward native customs and beliefs.

Mary Latta Nassau’s father had also been a doctor, and Dr. Nassau encouraged her in the use of certain medical skills she had acquired from making use of his medical library.21 The understandable regret of a pastor-father that neither son went into the ministry was compensated in part when the younger, Charles, became a distinguished Philadelphia surgeon.22

17 Robert Hamill Nassau, Crowned in Palm-Land (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1874), p. 167.

18 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Two Women, the Lives of Two African Christians,” (MS, Vail Memorial Library, Lincoln University 1911).

19 Robert Hamill Nassau, My Ogowe (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1914), p. 276.

20 Nassau, Crowned, pp. 226-31.

21 Ibid., p. 383.

22 Rogers, “Robert Hamill Nassau,” p. 153. On one occasion Dr. Charles F. Nassau operated on his father.

NASSAU, THE LINGUIST

The first language R.H. Nassau learned to use, and to use well, was English. He used it carefully and graciously. His respect for good grammar, correct spelling, and careful punctuation is found even in his most ordinary writing. Elsewhere reference is made to the varieties of his style, both of prose and of poetry. When he reread his own diaries he made slight corrections, added commas, or retraced letters that might be misread. Even letters to his daughter display a careful choice of words. Only when he has reached a very high age does he occasionally skip a word. English and literature were among his favorite subjects.

As was customary during the nineteenth Century, young Hamill was taught Latin and his medical thesis was presented in that language.23 Later he mastered Greek and Hebrew, and he was sufficiently interested in the former to preserve some of his translations from classic authors.24 While in seminary, he took an optional course in Arabic.25 These dead languages,” however, cannot serve as means to communicate, and there are

23 Robert Hamill Nassau, “De Officiis Adipis,” [The Functions of Fat] (MS, University of Pennsylvania, 1861).

24 These are among his papers at Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary.

25 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Autobiography,” (MS, Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary), p. 129.

few references to them in Nassau’s writings.

The African languages, he realized, even before arriving on the field, would be the key to opening the hearts of the natives. Already while selling Bibles, as a student-colporteur in the West, he learned to imitate the speech of the simple folk with which he came into contact.26

He put much ardor into the study of his first African language, Benga, which he had studied on the ship with Mackey. He even became so expert in its use that thirty years later the Mission asked him to publish a revision of his teacher’s grammar. Though he revised it extensively, he had it published as Mackey’s Grammar.27 The Benga hymnbook, Lembo La Benga, contains two hymn translations signed Nassau.28 Most of the New Testament had already been translated into Benga by several different missionaries. After Nassau had become familiar with the language, he was asked to harmonize the Gospels and the Book of Acts for a new edition.29 During many years, he also worked on

26 Ibid., p. 99.

27 Mackey’s Grammar of the Benga-Bantu Language. American Tract Society, 1892), Preface, [p. 1].

28 Lembo La Benga. Hymns in the Benga Language. American Tract Society, [n.d.]).

29 Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Compiled by T.H. Darlow and H.F. Moule. 2 vols. ( London Bible House, 1903-1911), Vol. 1, entries 2038-42, p. 125.

translations of a number of Old Testament books.30 The Benga language remained his first love, and he made an outstanding contribution to it.

Dr. Nassau’s respect for the Africans and their languages was such that he saw no reason why their literary production should be limited to hymnbooks, translated from English, Bibles, and catechisms. He persuaded the first Benga-speaking pastor, the Rev. Ibia J’Ikenge, to write a book in Benga for the people to read. He arranged for it to be printed and published in the United States during his first furlough, under the title The Benga Customs. In order to do so Nassau personally, sought the funds necessary for this novel experiment, and obtained them from the family of his good friend George Paull.31 A second edition, in memory of the author, contains a sketch of his life by Nassau.32 In all likelihood that book was the first ever to be published in an African language in the United States. According to Professor Pierre Alexandre, of the University of Paris, Dr. Nassau was decades ahead of others in

30 Ibid., entries 2037, 2044, 2045. p. 124.

Entry 2036 mentions Romans-Revelation as apparently translated by R. H, Nassau; nowhere, however, have we found reference to this in his writings.

31 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 105.

32 Ibia J’Ikenge , The Benga Customs (2nd ed., New York: American Tract Society, 1902). The first edition was dated 1872, I have never seen a copy. It may have had the title: Customs of the Benga and Neighboring Tribes.

encouraging such writing in an African language.33

Next, Dr. Nassau learned the Mpongwe speech of the coastal tribe of the Libreville region in Gabon. This language could also be used inland, up the Ogooué river, because of the Mpongwe trade-monopoly. The missionaries could easily find helpers to translate it into the lesser tribal languages. Since Mpongwe is as different from Benga as German from English Nassau selected the Bakele tribe among which to begin his work on the Ogooué. Their language, called Dikele, is cognate to Benga.34 The foremost translator of Scriptures into Mpongwe was Dr. Adolphus C. Good. Yet, Nassau became so skilled in that language as well, that he was asked to correct Mpongwe scripture proofs while on furlough during 1891-1893. This he accepted to do, even though he was in disagreement with Good’s orthography and pronunciation marks.35

As mission work developed in the Ogooué interior, the Fang were correctly estimated to be the most numerous, and Nassau felt he had to acquire their language as well. This he did, and it allowed him to write, “... when I left Africa, I was the only one of over forty missionaries who could preach

33 Letter from Professor P. Alexandre to the writer, dated 20 March 1972.

Professor Alexandre who is a specialist in West African languages mentions that a few African texts in Yoruba were printed in Lagos and Abeokuta before 1872, among them a

weekly paper, but nothing that could be called literary, like Benga Customs.

34 Nassau, My Ogowe, pp. 14, 39.

35 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 948.

in each of the three dialects recognised in our field.”36 In 1881, while on his first furlough after having pioneered in the Ogooué, he compiled a Fang primer.37 He carefully gives credit in the preface to the painstaking work of colleagues who worked on Fang word lists and phrases before him, but had not seen their efforts published.38 Perhaps they had not used as much energy to find funds. Nassau obtained the necessary means from the Women’s Foreign Mission Societies in churches in Troy and Albany, N. Y. 39

Nassau realized that his University French and German were insufficient. He spent part of one ocean-voyage, which was his honeymoon with Mary Foster Nassau, in studying French with her.40 During his third furlough he attended French classes in Philadelphia. 41 and when the Mission assigned him to Batanga, where the Germans were in control, he went back to German lessons at the age of sixty-five! 42 He does not, however, appear to have become very fluent in those languages. Or, since he was a perfectionist, he may have preferred not to mention his limited use.

36 Ibid., pp. 1697-98.

37 Robert Hamill Nassau, Fañwe Primer and Vocabulary

(New York: Edward 0. Jenkins, 1881).

38 Ibid., pp. 3-5.

39 Ibid., p. 6.

40 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 360.

41 Nassau, “Autobiography”, p. 614.

42 Ibid., p. 918.

Perhaps Nassau was somewhat excessive in his love for African speech, the correct pronunciation of which he tried to teach the readers of his My Ogowe.43 He was an outstanding linguist and it was unpleasant for him that when he applied for assignment to work in Porto Rico, at the age of seventy, some Board official suggested that perhaps he was too old to acquire Spanish!44

THE WOULD-BE EXPLORER

Dr. Nassau’s medical activities were possible because of his formal medical training and directly related to his missionary work. His study of languages had prepared him for his linguistic endeavors, and these too were of direct worth to the Mission enterprise. The boy, however, whose playmates had been mostly girls, could not claim any special preparation in his youth toward exploring regions of Africa hitherto untraveled by white men. Yet, he had that “spirit of adventure”45 which, coupled to his inquisitive mind made Robert Hamill Nassau profoundly interested in everything taking place on the African Continent. There are three outstanding names among the 19th Century explorers and travelers in Equatorial West Africa. Nassau is not one of these, but according to one of the three, he might well have been!

43 Nassau, My Ogowe, [p.3].

44 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1697.

45 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 12.

The first name is that of the French-born Paul Belloni Du Chaillu who became a United States Citizen.46 Born the same year as Nassau, he accompanied his father to Gabon while still a boy. He was not a political explorer out to establish territorial claims for his adopted country. Du Chaillu was primarily a naturalist and collected thousands of ornithological specimens as he traveled through the Muni, Ogooué, and Rembo river basins.47 He amazed the world by his accounts of gorillas, and Nassau became an interested reader of his books.48 Du Chaillu’s second great voyage took place from 1863 to 1865,49 when Nassau was already in Africa. At that time, however, the missionary was still largely confined in his travels to Corisco and the nearby mainland stations. Though Du Chaillu speaks of Baraka,50 Nassau never met him during his occasional visits there during that period, else he would certainly have mentioned it in his auto-biography. No doubt, Du Chaillu fascinated and probably inspired the young missionary.

The second famous name is that of the Italian-born Count Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, who served the French flag. When the explorer and those accompanying him came up the

46 Adolphus Washington Greely, Explorers and Travellers. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893), p. 331.

47 Ibid.

48 Nassau, op. cit., p. 13.

47 Greely, op. cit., pp. 338-47.

50 Paul Belloni Du Chaillu, Adventures in the Great Forest Equatorial Africa and the Country of the Dwarfs (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890), p. 2.

Ogooué in 1875, Nassau was already established there and had himself gone over some of the terrain, though the French team went much farther inland.51 Brazza was seventeen years younger than Dr. Nassau, but they became friends, exchanged visits, gifts, and messages.52 Brazza became known as the conqueror without sword, and his generally kind attitude toward the Africans must have appealed to the missionary. In a report written by Brazza in 1879. but which remained undiscovered until a few years ago and was published in 1966 we read:

There Mr. Sinclair, representative of the [Hatton & Cookson] trading house, offered us hospitality at the factory. There too we found doctor Nassau and Miss Nassau his sister, protestant missionaries who had established their mission in the lower Ogooué which leads to lake Azingo. They welcomed us with great friendship and lavished on us all the cares needed by the condition of our health.53

In spite of his isolation, or perhaps because of it, Dr. Nassau was unwilling, as opposed to some missionaries, to allow himself to be cut off from what was going on in the world. There were certain areas about which he kept himself well-informed. And so it was that on the occasion of welcoming Brazza, he was first to inform the French explorer of the success of Sir H. M. Stanley’s second great journey, across Africa, from east to west.

51”Brazza,” Grand Larousse Encyclopédique en Dix Volumes,

II, p. 343.

52 Nassau, My Ogowe, pp. 693, 698 and passim.

53 Henri Brunschwig, Brazza Explorateur; L’Ogooué 1875-1879 (Paris and the Hague: Mouton and Co., 1966) , p. 194. The original is in French, the translation mine.

Brazza wrote: “It was there that I learned from Doctor Nassau about the marvelous trip of Stanley and his descent from the Congo across Africa.” 54

Brazza and Nassau frequently met, also, during later years. On one occasion the explorer gave him a dog.55 After he became Governor and resided in Libreville, he reported to Paris, concerning Mary Nassau, that it was possible for a white baby, born on the equator, to be reared there.56

The third name, among famous explorers, to be mentioned in connection with Nassau is that of a spirited British traveler, Mary Henrietta Kingsley. She was the niece of an Anglican Bishop, but cared little for missionaries.57 Yet, when she landed in Gabon in 1895. she met Nassau in Libreville and they at once became great friends.58 She compared her observations with Nassau’s vast experience,59 and he, in turn, was delighted to be of service to the lady by providing her with a little schooner

54 Pierre Savorgnan De Brazza, A transcribed MS in Carton

13 A, uncatalogued Archives of De Brazza. (Paris: Archives

Nationales Collections France Outre-mer), p. 213. Translation

mine. The original French reads: “C’est là que j’appris du

Docteur Nassau le merveilleux voyage de Stanley et sa descente

du Congo à travers l’Afrique.”

55 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 276.

56 Ibid., p. 694. No trace has been found to date of that report.

57 Stephen Gwynn, The Life of Mary Kingsley (London: Macmillan and Co., 1932), p. 127.

58 Cecil Howard, Mary Kingsley (London: Hutchinson, 1957), p. 84.

59 Ibid., p. 158.

for her trips.60 In her first book she wrote of him:

. . . the Doctor . . . made some wonderful journeys hundreds of miles into the interior, where no white man has been since. . . . I deeply regret he has not done more for science and geography. Had he but had Livingstone’s conscientious devotion to taking notes and publishing them, we should know far more than we do at present about the hinterland from Cameroons to the Ogowé,

... Dr. Nassau’s fame would be among the greatest of the few great African explorers - not that he would care a row of pins for that.61 (Italics mine. )

Miss Kingsley had correctly sensed that Nassau was not in search of an explorer’s fame. Nevertheless, he was proud of the fact that in December 1874 he became the first white man to make the overland trip from the Ogooué to Lake Azingo, from there on to Libreville.62

Nassau was also aware that one of his plans might have made him famous. He had befriended the English trader R. B. Walker.63 This man was a member of the Royal Geographical

60 Ibid., p. 159.

61 Mary Henrietta Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London: Macmillan and Co., 1897), p, xxx.

62 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 437-40.

Nassau claims to have presented the French with a map of the area, and says it was published in Paris. To date we have been unable to locate this in any French geographic archives. Dr. Mandeng’s reference in his bibliography to a map of the Ogooué in 1869 cannot possibly have been the one Nassau refers to.

63 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 116.

This agent of Hatton & Cookson had a son by an African wife who became a Roman Catholic priest, and died in 1971, over 90 years of age. Abbé Rapondo-Walker is considered to have been one of the outstanding authorities on Gabon customs, culture,

and beliefs. Nassau probably knew him as a lad. See Bibliography. Also Brunschwig, op. cit., p. 95, note 1.

Society and before leaving Africa, in the seventies, wished to undertake one final explanatory trip. He invited the missionary to accompany him. In his autobiography Nassau writes:

My zeal was fired at the thought of adventure, exploration, and probable missionary extension. Awaiting the consent of my Board, I assented to accompany Mr. Walker.

[ Sec’y Lowrie, of the Board, in his reply to my request, received in April 1876, for a temporary leave of absence ( at no expense to the Board ) refused. I was exceedingly disappointed. Livingstone was none the less a missionary when he took up the role of an explorer. Had I gone on that journey, the Kongo would have been opened, in advance of Stanley; and the Mission might have been the first to enter the region of the (present) Kongo Free State. ] Mr. Walker then gave up his plan, and remained as a trader on the Coast.64

In order to make the position of the Board in New York clear, Secretary John C. Lowrie had written both to Dr. Nassau 65 and to the Gabon and Corisco Mission 66 about Livingstone’s great failure as to spiritual results. The would-be explorer never got over his disappointment, and years later lamented:

O! I thought, science and commerce and politics can

64 Nassau, “Autobiography”, pp. 475-76. Brackets and parentheses are Nassau’s; italics mine.

65 Ibid. In box 2 of the MS of the autobiography, Nassau preserved the letter sent to him by Secretary John C. Lowrie dated 30 August 1876.

66 Letter from Secretary John C. Lowrie to Gaboon and Corisco Mission, dated 30 August 1876. PCUSABFM. Africa: Outgoing letters. Vol. 3, Reel 219, letter 72.

send De Brazza and Ballay and Lenz; why could not my Church have consented to let me go? He [a man telling about the Interior] told me much about the customs of those Interior tribes. I might have been a pioneer to them! Years afterward, other men traveled there, and wrote books, and told of things new to them and to the world, things of which I had known, but had been allowed no opportunity to verify! 67

Nassau found a measure of consolation in being a corresponding member of the American Geographical Society,68 and was delighted when a London friend once invited him to attend a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society.69 Several chapters of his Fetichism in West Africa first appeared in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society.70

FRIEND OF SCIENTISTS

Dr. Nassau struck out the word “medical” in front of the word missionary, after his name, lest people get the wrong impression about his work. He would have been even quicker to remove the word “scientist” if added to his name. Others, however, were so impressed by his contributions to science that some attention should be given to this aspect of his life, though to him it was always incidental.

Though he dreamed of a literary career and never forgot

67 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 143.

68 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 370.

69 Ibid., p. 379.

70 Robert Hamill Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907) , p. xii.

having longed for West Point, the missionary nowhere expresses having had the desire to become a scientist. Nassau’s interest was in people; not in animals, flora, or rock. Still, his ever alert mind did not turn away from these. It was his love for people, this author believes, that led him to make his scientific contributions; he was a friend of scientists. How could it have been otherwise? Among the many people he met in the academic circles of Princeton and Philadelphia there were also numerous men of science. Others, he befriended in England; and he showed an interest in those who crossed his path in Africa.

To please these men he took great pains to provide them with African specimens.

A magazine clipping was found among the papers of the late Miss Mary B. F. Nassau, perhaps of more interest to her than it would have been to her father. The editors used the title “Dr. Nassau as a scientist” and reproduced the following letter:

All the biographies that I have read of Dr. Nassau have neglected the most important part of his labors. I have a long remembrance of him from my school-boy days at Lawrenceville, N. J. This side of his career . . . best known by me was the scientific. . . . His speeches, addresses and sermons were interesting from a scientific point of view. His many published works show the importance of science in his labors. . . . In my contact with him science seemed to be the significant domain of his labors. Take, for instance, his book, entitled “Fetichism in West Africa,” which in quoted by all the modern writers on universal religion as Prof. Irving Fisher, Prof. William James, Prof. Frazier, and others. . . . There are other

books by him as a scientist in the domain of anthropology, as, Where Animals Talk, etc. His autobiography is completed, and will be published later. [It was not.l I thought I would call your attention to this side of his great learning, so that the man may be presented by you in one neglected part of his studies and labors.71

W. C. S., who signed the letter, however, does not prove in any way that Nassau was a genuine scientist. His interests were too varied. His learning in anthropology, for instance, was not acquired through precise scientific research, but accumulated from personal contacts with and interest in the African people, as he states.72

At no time, unlike David Livingstone, did Nassau take time out from direct missionary work, in order to engage in pursuit of science. In this he differed from his younger colleague, Dr. Adolphus Good, engaged scientifically and methodically in collecting entomological specimens.73 Still, the requests and desires of his friends in England and America kept him alert to their needs, and he provided what he could.

71 W. C. S., “Dr. Nassau as a scientist,” The Presbyterian, 91:29, May 26, 1921.

72 Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa, p. X.

73 Ellen C. Parsons, A Life for Africa (2nd ed., New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1900), pp. 291.-98: this Appendix A by W. J. Holland gives a long list of scientific articles based

on entomological specimens sent to the U. S. A. by Dr. Good, and indicates that he did so scientifically, and that money was paid to the Board for this.

In his diaries Nassau frequently mentions the difficulties in arranging for such scientific items to be packed for shipping but there are no references to funds being turned over to him for his work in exchange for what he sent. Only on one occasion, it seems, did he try to make some “profit” on what he brought back from Africa. Apparently left with more elephant and hippo skulls and ivory carvings than necessary for his friends, he went to Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia to offer them for sale; he does not mention the outcome! 74

Like Du Chaillu before him, and others after him, even until modern times,75 Dr. Nassau realized there was great interest in gorillas, awakened by the former’s accounts. He was the first to send an entire skeleton of an adult gorilla to his friend Dr. Norton of Philadelphia.76 He also sent him the first gorilla brains available for microscopic study in this country. For Drs. Joseph Leidy and Thomas H. Montgomery of the University of Pennsylvania, he gathered tropical parasites, insects and reptiles. Among these was the first specimen of an “eyeworm” (Loa loa) to be scientifically studied in the United

74 Nassau, “Diary,” (1892), Vol. 9, p. 64.

75 The Rev. and Mrs. Albert Whiley of the United Presbyterian Church’s mission in Cameroun, in recent years, obtained money for their work among lepers, by raising and

selling baby gorillas to zoos in the U.S.A.

76 “Rev~ R. H. Nassau to Return to Africa,” The Telegraph,[Philadelphia], 1 June 1900.

States;77 and along with the minute worm also two live mandrill monkeys.78 Rogers writes:

A large collection of anthropological specimens gathered in West Africa by Dr. Nassau were exhibited at the Chicago Exposition in 1893. Botanical specimens from Africa were also displayed at Horticultural Hall in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. Today one can see items contributed by Dr. Nassau at Guyot Hall of Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.79

On one of the sheets of a note-pad, preserved at Speer Memorial Library, he wrote: “On return to Africa, observe cases of Hair-Lip (sic) for Dr. AIlis of Presb. Hospital. . . . send tragelaph’s head & horns, to Dr. Abbott at University.”80 The number of persons he attempted to please in such a way is countless.

There is still an unsolved problem related to Robert Hamill Nassau’s contribution to science. In 1893, on the eve of his return to Africa, he was requested to deliver an address on “What Commerce and Science Owe to Missionaries.”81 In that talk, published the following year, he mentions three medicinal

77 Rogers, “Robert Hamill Nassau,” p. 155.

78 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 146.

79 Rogers, loc. cit.

80 Among the uncatalogued items at Speer Memorial Library,

Princeton Theological Seminary.

81 Robert Hamill Nassau, “What Commerce and Science Owe to Missionaries,”

The Missionary Review of the World, April,1894, pp. 285-90.

plants of which he had observed the use during his early career in Africa. Though Nassau does not expressly say so some readers obtained the impression from his remarks that he was the first to introduce these valuable plants to American pharmacopoeia.

In 1906, Dr. W. W. Keen, M. D., LL.D., delivered the Presidential Address before the American Baptist Missionary Union, and in it claims: “. . . [the] Calabar bean, the Kola nut, and Strophantus, valuable remedies, we owe to Dr. Nassau, an African missionary.”82 Frederick Perry Noble who was secretary of the Chicago Congress on Africa at the Columbian Exposition of 1893, wrote the same in 1899 in his The Redemption of Africa.83 At least two other reputable authors printed the same statement, while Nassau was still living.84

To date no scientific nor historic document has been found to establish the truth of their claim on behalf of Dr. Nassau. A careful reading of that particular section of his address, in this writer’s opinion, does not allow the conclusion to be drawn that Nassau was actually the first person to introduce these plants to America. Then, however, the question

82 W. W. Keen, The Service of Missions to Science and Society (Boston: American Baptist Foreign Missions Society,1908), p.10.

83 Frederick Perry Noble, The Redemption of Africa (2 vols., New York: F. H. Revell Co., 1899 , Vol. 1, p. 709.

84 William Herbert Perry Faunce, The Social Aspects of Foreign Missions (New York: Missionary Education Movement, 1914)

James Shepard Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress (3 vols., New York F. H. Revell Co., 190 , Vol. III, p. 435.

arises why the meticulous Nassau, who read so much and can hardly have escaped noticing the claim, did not somewhere, in his autobiography for instance, try to correct the wrong impression given? Was he too flattered to refuse the unearned praise?

Or, was he too modest, in the original address, and should he have claimed more clearly the honor of scientific recognition?

Here are his own words:

Twenty-five years ago I saw my natives at Benita, when they were starting out on a journey to places where they would not expect to obtain hospitality, . . . I observed that they carried with them a certain nut. That nut is the kola, comparatively recently introduced to medicine, and which your druggist will furnish you as a nervine in the form of kola-wine. The nut is gathered in my own forest, canoe-loads of it passing my own door. I knew long ago of the onai poison with which our natives smeared the tips of their little bamboo arrows, but I did not then know what the poison was. ... We found that that onai was a long pod of a vine, which we now know to be strophantus, whose extract within the last few years your physicians have found to be a valuable substitute for or associate with digitalis in its action on the heart. We knew of the bean used in the Calabar region as a test in the native witchcraft ordeal. Introduced to the examination of medical experts in England, an extract has been prepared from it, which in ocular surgery is found as valuable for contracting the pupil of the eye as belladonna is for enlarging it.85

Just before mentioning the three plants, Dr. Nassau specifically gives the name of his friend, Dr. J. L. Wilson, as the one to be thanked for rubber. Since his entire address is a tribute to missionaries, why does he not give the specific names of those who introduced the plants he was talking about? or did he mean that he did?

85 Nassau, op. cit., pp. 286-87.

Perhaps the reason why Nassau was not more explicit in stating his role can be found in the rhetoric he used. He requested his audience to pretend they were non-Christians. He then tried to convince them of the worth of Missions on the ground of what they had added to commerce, to science, to civilization, and finally to philanthropy. Then, in closing, he asked permission: “...to fling aside the covering of Unchristianity, which I cast over you and myself, and emerging from this shameful hour, gladly again open this blessed Bible, joyfully read again the Redeemer’s great command, and appeal to you as Christians.”86 For Nassau, the missionary, no scientific gain or interest could surpass in worth the spreading of the Light of the Gospel.

HISTORIAN, CHRONICLER, AND BIOGRAPHER

Nassau, as historian, was not the kind that delights in delving into the remote past. He had a chronicler’s concern for recording the present for the future. The present which he described was restricted; it did not take into account what was happening all over, but mainly events and situations related to Robert Hamill Nassau. The charge of self-centeredness cannot be refuted. The positive side, however, of this negative aspect is that Nassau’s accounts are first-hand; they contain a wealth of informative details of great value to the researcher

86 Ibid., p. 290.

when cleared of the chaff of an excessive personal approach. At some unknown date in his life Nassau decided to accept the discipline of keeping a diary. Diaries commencing at the year 1880 through part of 1919, two years before his death, are now preserved at Speer Memorial Library. These notebooks do not contain lengthy soliloquies nor introspective descriptions, but short notices concerning events and places, and above all, names of people he met, wrote to, or who sent him letters.

The way in which two of Nassau’s books, The Path She Trod and My Ogowe, are based on the events and details recorded in the diaries from 1880 on, would seem to indicate that similar diaries existed covering the first two decades of his career.

Those notes probably served him when writing Corisco Days and Crowned in Palm-Land. If these could some day, still come to light they would, with the existing ones, provide an incomparable source of information on the early days of the Presbyterian and Evangelical Churches in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroun. There would be enough information to give church historians work for years to come.87

Nassau’s published books alone total more printed page than the combined output of all other West African Presbyterian missionary writers; from John Leighton Wilson’s Western Africa,

87 Confirmation that these diaries did at one time exist

has come to the attention of the writer after the above was

written. Their location, however, is still not known.

published in 1856, 88 to Lois Johnson McNeill’s story of her father, The Great Ngee, which came off the press more than a century later, in 1959.89 A complete tabulation of Nassau’s articles -- a still unfinished task -- would probably indicate that his writings for periodicals, also, outnumber by far those of any other African missionary colleague. An early article appeared in The Foreign Missionary in 1862,90 and one of the last in 1918,91 spanning nearly sixty years of literary productivity.

At the request of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church, Nassau wrote a clear and concise Historical Sketch of the Missions in Africa (under the care of the Presbyterian Board).92 Ever since it was published in 1881 it has helped anyone endeavoring to write on that subject.

A History of the Presbytery of Corisco, which he published privately seven years later,93 is an objective account by one

88 John Leighton Wilson, Western Africa (New York: Harper Brothers, 1856).

89 Lois Johnson McNeill., The Great Ngee ([New York]: Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 1959).

90 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Mourning for the Dead on Corisco,” The Foreign Missionary, 21:149-51, October 1862.

91 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Looking Back on Sixty Years of Christian Life,” The Westminster Teacher, 46: 474-75, September 1918.

92 See Appendix A.

93 See Appendix A.

who was for many years the Presbytery’s stated clerk. When he wrote a more personal account of his first ten years in Africa, in Corisco Days,94 he included, in the back of the book, that same history with a few updated figures. In 1919, many years after he had retired, someone at the Board of Foreign Missions, in New York, asked him to compile a History of the West Africa Mission.95 It was never printed. This writer’s guess is that it was not published because a more appropriate title would have been, Robert

Hamill Nassau’s History of the West African Mission. It was too much to ask of an octogenarian that he relate, with historic objectivity, what he had personally experienced.

The seven hundred and eight pages of My Ogowe contain the names of 64 foreign traders, 33 African chiefs, 25 Nassau relatives, 79 workmen, etc., etc.96 In spite of the many seemingly superfluous details the book received many good reviews when published in 1914. The critic of the New York City Post, however, wrote: “The volume is a portentous example of the necessity of vigorous sifting and sorting of material.”97 One can hardly disagree, but the reviewer in the Portland, Oregon Telegram was also correct, in writing, “In after years this book

94 See Appendix A. 95 See Appendix A.

96 Nassau, My Ogowe, pp.703-08. There they are all listed in the index.

97 Clipping from the New York City Post, August, 1914. Robert Hamill Nassau’s files (Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary).

will be one that writers on African subjects will study.”98

The handwritten manuscript of his autobiography ends unfinished on page 2163 with a reference to Nassau’s 84th birthday, celebrated on October 11, 1919.99 Dr. Nassau intended that the manuscript be given to his close friend, Professor William Libbey, of Princeton University.100 This did not happen, the manuscript found its way to Speer Memorial Library.101

Dr. Nassau, so oft cut off so long from friends and relatives, felt a compulsion to tell others how things had happened, and how he had experienced them. Two books were tributes to his wives: Crowned in Palm-Land was written in 1874, during his furlough after Mary Latta’s death. The Path She Trod was compiled in 1909, so his twenty-five year old

98 Clippings from The Telegram, Portland, Oregon, 27 February, 1915. Ibid.

99 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 2163.

100 This is indicated on shipping labels attached to the six boxes.

101 Professor Libbey did not die till 1927, six years after Dr. Nassau. What may have happened is that Miss Mary B. F. Nassau did not have room for her father’s papers in her New York apartment. She left things in storage, in Trenton, N. J., but when she felt she could no longer afford to pay for this she had them stored in Princeton, at the home of her cousin Walter B. Foster, probably without ever noticing the labels requesting the manuscript go to Professor Libbey. After the death of Mr. Foster his widow requested Mary to dispose of the papers. When she obtained no reply she handed them over to Speer Memorial Library in 1964 with the tacit consent of Mary, still living at the time. Information obtained from Mrs. Walter B. Foster.

Mary could have a picture of her mother.102 And for his daughter he later penned a manuscript recounting the first years of her life.103

TELLER OF AFRICAN TALES

It is certainly true, as Dr. D. J. Mandeng writes in an appendix to his dissertation on Nassau, that he took an apologetic stand in his writings.104 This defensiveness may have marked his chronicling and his biographical writing. It is far less apparent when he is storytelling. Nassau never ceased to tell others about Africa. He did so by mouth and by pen; in articles sent home from the field and through talks and addresses when on furlough. After his retirement it became nearly a full-time occupation. He told about the people he had met, their tragic life stories, their joys; he told about the animals around them; and above all, the stories they had told him, and to which he listened so

avidly and carefully.

One of Dr. Nassau’s grandchildren recalls her painful embarrassment, when her aged grandfather used to come to a

102 Nassau, The Path She Trod, p. 7.

103 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1750.

104 David Jonathan Mandeng, “The Philosophy of Mission of Robert Hamill Nassau in the Contemporary World,” (Unpublished

Doctor’s dissertation, Temple University, 1970. Published on demand by University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan), p. 385.

Philadelphia school, to entertain the little pupils by telling them tales of Africa and, to her horror, put on a lifelike imitation of the gorillas he was describing.105

Nassau’s African stories are very different from the missionary conversion accounts which more pious authors of an earlier, or later, period produced. The closest any one story comes to that style is his book Mawedo, 106 published in 1882, and which he wrote during his second furlough. It is based on real incidents, artfully woven into one fictitious person’s experience. It describes some of the horrible cruelties still practiced during the early years of the Mission on Corisco.

After his retirement, in 1911, he wrote Tales out of School, telling about people he had known at Baraka. He was perhaps aware that people would miss the traditional missionary pathos, so he explains:

Mission Reports are written . . . extracts are printed . . . for information of friends of the cause. Those extracts are true, interesting, and instructive. But they are incomplete. They represent the foreign workers’ point of view. They are like the official circular of the principal of any institution . . . if a visitor could privately meet the pupils . . . he might be given another report -- the pupil’s point of view . . . these Tales give an aspect of occurrences . . . not usually

presented in missionary letters.107

The American Tract Society, however, was not convinced

105 Told to the writer. 106 See Appendix A.

107 Robert Hamill Nassau, Tales out of School (Philadelphia:

Allen, Lane & Scott, 1911), p. 21.

that its reading public cared for that other point of view. The stories of two African women would have to be removed, for they “would injure the cause of Foreign Missions.”108 Nassau then arranged for the book to be published at his own expense and left out the two stories, but entrusted them to posterity and to a time when criticism of missionary conduct might no longer be taboo.109

Some harrowing experiences of his own and of others were brought to light when he published In an Elephant Corral, in 1912. It contains the accurate account of what happened to Nguva.110 He was captured because he exposed the lies of a secret society, Yasi. An armed expedition set out to free him and succeeded. Later the young man became the first African elder, of the first Ogooué church. Reference is made to the same incident in the book Trader Horn, a best-seller a few years after Nassau’s death.111

The care with which Nassau wrote Where Animals Talk, also printed in 1912, was rewarded by a London edition two years later,112 but he himself felt the book had not been

108 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Two Women,” (MS, Vail Memorial Library, Lincoln University), Unnumbered Preface.

109 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 614.

110 Robert Hamill Nassau, In an Elephant Corral (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1912), pp, 15-35.

111 Alfred Aloysius Horn, pseud., Trader Horn (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1927), p. 193.

112 See Appendix A.

well-received.113 It was ahead of its time, and is now sought after by Africanists, because of its careful transcription of the native way of speaking. This style of writing made the volume perhaps difficult to understand for buyers who thought they had purchased a book primarily for children. Instead, it contains profound Bantu wisdom, not always grasped by a superficial reader.

An entirely different style was used by Nassau when he wrote the delightful fantasy, The Youngest King. It was elegantly published in 1911 by The Westminster Press, and intended for the Christmas trade. In this story he did not feel himself torn between historical events and his personal understanding of them; nor was he writing in defense of himself or anyone. Nassau had read in a poem the statement, “I know not where he dwelt, or how He fared to Bethlehem,” concerning the Black King, Gasper.114 This inspired Nassau and he found occasion to pour out his love for the African people. Describing East Africa, where he first thought he would labor, he sends a prince from there to Bethlehem, to place his spear at the feet of the Child. The young man returns to his people, speaking of Peace. But he is rejected by chiefs and priests and he goes

113 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1952.

114 Robert Hamill Nassau, The Youngest King. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1911), p. 7.

to die on the snow covered peaks of the Ruwenzori.115 Before his death, however, the prince’s teaching of the existence of a “Great Spirit, the Creator of all things,” had been firmly taken hold of by his people, though only dimly understood.116

A number of poems which Nassau wrote on various occasions are included in My Ogowe, and though they are not without worth, he can not be called a poet. Nevertheless, he arranged for the publication, in 1911, of an essay written in verse forty years earlier. It is a poetic summary of what he had to tell about the geography, the people, and the problems of Africa and that is its title: Africa. He gives a vision of a freed people on a freed continent (in 1872!) -- freed from superstition. But he also hopes for material progress for the Africans through “forge and rail,” and concludes with the invitation:

“As guests of mine, some day retrace

The Ocean path I’ve come,

A stranger here. You’ll find a place

In Africa, my home.”117

Indeed, once Dr. Nassau left his parents’ home, in 1861, he never had any other home than Africa. That is where he had hoped to die. During his furloughs he never had a

115 Ibid., p. 92.

116 Ibid. Thus Nassau expressed his profound belief that

the African “heathen” were not without the gift of Revelation.

117 Robert Hamill Nassau, Africa (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane

& Scott, 1911), pp. 34-35.

home of his own. Throughout the many years he lived at Ambler, he always referred in his diaries to this home. That is why he never stopped telling about Africa which was his home.

AUTHOR OF FETICHISM IN WEST AFRICA

When Robert Hamill Nassau completed his Fetichism in West Africa in 1904, many of his friends thought the book would bring him lasting fame. The work brought him international acclaim. Strangely enough, the initiative to write the book came from the agnostic Mary Kingsley. She revealed to the English-speaking world his vast knowledge of Fetichism, and his friend William Libbey obtained the interest of Secretary A. W. Halsey.118 It did not, however, come about without difficulty.

A young secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, “a lover of books,”119 had been reading Miss Kingsley’s work, and her praise of Nassau, as an exceptional missionary. When Nassau’s forced furlough in 1899 brought him to the United States he received a letter from Dr. Robert E. Speer, who urged him to consider writing a book as suggested by the British traveler. 120

The enthusiasm engendered for this project in New York,

118 Nassau, Fetichism, pp. x-xi.

119 Mentioned on the dedicatory plaque of the Robert E.

Speer Memorial Library, Princeton, New Jersey.

120 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 1243-44 and inserted p. 1244 1/2, which is a letter from Robert E. Speer dated 4 November 1899.

however, was not shared by Nassau’s colleagues in the Mission.

The Board

“. . . requested Dr. Nassau to prepare a volume

or volumes on the subject [of African fetichism]; and it

directed the West Africa Mission to assign him, on his

return from his furlough to such a form of missionary

work as will give him the necessary leisure and

opportunity.” 121

Nassau had decided that the place where he could best find the conditions required for the task would be Baraka. The Mission, on the contrary, was determined that he return to Batanga. The following was sent to New York:

Without underestimating the value of a book on the West African folk-fore, we suggest that, in this Mission, where the climatic conditions are such that only the minority remain long enough to acquire the language of the people, the Mission being manned for the most part with new missionaries, and that almost every year there is some Station nearly depleted of its force of workers, it is doubtful propriety for a missionary of experience, who has acquired more than one of the native languages, to sit down in the midst of the perishing heathen to write their folklore as his main business. (Italics mine.) We think that this work might be done as an accessory to missionary and religious work, or even after a missionary has retired from the field.122

Dr. Nassau, of course, accepted the assignment to Batanga, but it did not improve his relationship with his colleagues to know that they looked down on his non-pastoral activities. Moreover, during the time he was writing the book,

121 Nassau, Fetichism, p. xi.

122 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 2 of a 3-page typed copy of a letter sent from the field to Dr. A. J. Brown, dated 1 March 1900, and kept by Dr. Nassau with the manuscript.

other charges from his colleagues hung over him.123

Would the book have been better had he been able to work on it at Baraka? Maybe he would have tried to document certain statements more carefully, and he might have been able to present things more scientifically. One may also think that the negative and shortsighted attitude of his fellow missionaries spurred him on to produce his master-piece. In it he reveals the essence of his attitude toward African heathenism, or paganism, or superstition, or idolatry, or by whatever name it may be called. He felt that few of the new missionaries shared his point of view.

Nassau was convinced that back of all the heathenism, underneath it all, there is still the African belief in the Creator. The overgrowth must be cleared away, and then there will be found a prepared soil, responsive to the message of the Gospel.124 For Nassau this is not syncretism not pantheism, but an approach of Christian openness and love toward those who are to be freed from fear. The motivation for the proclamation of the Truth of Christ is not primarily the aggrandizement of Mission, or even of the Church. Its purpose is the saving, not exclusively of souls for eternal life, but also a saving deliverance of the African person.

The book drew the attention of reviewers in several

123 see Chapter IV.

124 Nassau, Fetichism, Chapter II, pp. 26-41.

lands. He was praised for the information he shared from his vast experience, but criticized for his unscientific method and religious presuppositions.125 In spite of this criticism writers dealing, with primitive religions kept quoting from Fetichism in West Africa during the quarter century that followed its publication.126

Nassau’s approach to fetichism as expressed in the book, had not been generally accepted. A British theologian wrote to Dr. Nassau indicating that Andrew Lang, in his Gifford Lectures on the making of religion had been lead “. . . to take the view of Fetichism that you advocate.”127 A letter from the Rev. Samuel J. Lowrie gives a penetrating analysis and a keen understanding of Nassau’s position:

. . . I was glad to meet with several printed notices

of it [the book] that were warmly appreciative of its

value . . . at the sales room . . . I had to wait until

they procured more. . . I was in the class that you

found entertaining views of the religion of the African

races that needed such correction as you have given.

Those notions were too purely contemptuous. (Italics mine.)

You teach us that Fetichism is religion radically deep,

& all pervasive in its surface growth. We must dismiss

our contempt. But by what adversative shall we name

the regard that takes the place of it ? I cannot call it

125 In a review signed M. M. in Année Sociologique 1904-1905,

Emile Durkheim (ed.) (Paris: F. Alcan, 1905), pp. 191-9..

126 Among others: Alfred Cort Haddon, George Washington

Ellis, Friedrich Heiler, Mgr. A. Le Roy, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl,

Geoffrey Parrinder, William I. Thomas. See Bibliography.

127 Nassau, Files containing clippings and letters

Letter to Dr. Nassau from J. E. H. Thompson, Stirling, England,

dated 11 December 1904. (Speer Memorial Library, Princeton

Theological Seminary).

respect, except by a stretch of expression. I am also reluctant to use that word, because those who must exploit what is called comparative religion use it in a sense that accords false religions a respectability that Christianity denies. Paul had no respect for the idolatrous religions of the Gentiles, and conceded no respectability to them. But he was far from treating them with contempt, he treated them with the utmost seriousness; & that is incompatible with contempt. 128

We know of no specific name given by Nassau to his position. To him it seemed to be the only right one and needed no special name. It was consistent with his understanding of the Gospel and his respect and love for the Africans. Dr. D. J. Mandeng, in his doctoral dissertation, makes frequent use of the expression, “The Right Attitude.” Over against the Western individual relationship which is exclusive; the Eastern which is universal, hence inclusive; and the African relationship which he calls communal, and therefore relational, Mandeng advances that Nassau’s “. . . relationship is a relationship of right attitude.”129

Mandeng’s entire Chapter IV is devoted to “Right Attitude Toward Life.”130 He defines right attitude as “. . . a mental disposition through which one sees things as they are, it is a skillful perception to discern the value of these things,

128 Ibid., Letter from Rev. Samuel J. Lowrie, Philadelphia, dated 5 June 1905.

129 Mandeng, “The Philosophy of Mission of Robert Hamill Nassau,” p. 15.

130 Ibid., pp. 177-245.

and a sympathetic feeling to appreciate their worth.” He then suggests that, “Right attitude toward life consists in right attitude toward nature, . . . toward culture, . . . toward people, and grounds of right attitude.”131 While in general agreement with all that Dr.Mandeng advances to show that Robert Hamill Nassau had the “right attitude” one can still ask, “What is the right attitude?” Lowrie, in his letter quoted above, tried to place it between contempt and religious respect. Nassau did not define it.

This writer would like to suggest calling Nassau’s “right attitude,” that of “person-acceptance.” The complete lack of contempt, on the one hand, and the appreciation, on the other hand, which Nassau displayed toward African culture, beliefs, religious forms, language, etcetera, was not the result of a philosophical approach, arrived at during abstract study or scientific laboratory research. It was not a proof-text backed, biblical, take-it-or-leave-it theological position. He had encountered fetichism in people ; his love, concern, and respect for persons, caused him to seek what he could appreciate. All through this chapter we have endeavored to show that his main concern was people.

Once Dr. Nassau had, as it were, “witnessed” to his understanding of fetichism, he did not feel the need to pursue the matter further. For instance, by taking up the subject

131 Ibid., p. 177.

again, more scientifically. Pleased with the success of his book, at least in some circles, he did not return again to the subject. Meanwhile, in spite of the initial interest for the book, it passed into oblivion together with its author.132 It would not surprise some, however, if the current trends in African studios and the mood for “dialogue with living faiths” would not cause a regain of interest for what Nassau wrote at the turn of the century.

PLEADER FOR INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL

The many varied activities, so far presented, on which Dr. Robert Hamill Nassau spent talents, time and energy, along with his routine mission activities, produced immediate tangible results. There was one activity in which he engaged however of which he never saw the concrete result with his own eyes. He was the first missionary in his field to have a vision of an Industrial Mission School in Equatorial West Africa.

Nassau had not shunned to engage himself in building when necessary. But he realized, early in his career, that there were tasks required of missionaries for which through simple ignorance they were ill-fitted.133 Already during his first term together with his colleagues, Loomis, Reutlinger,

132 After 1935 there are practically no more references to his Fetichism in West Africa. The reprint of it in 1969, unfortunately without any introduction, is too recent to evaluate its impact, if any.

133 Nassau, Corisco Days, p.160.

and Menaul, 134 he sought to introduce mechanical teaching in the Corisco Mission.135 When he began pioneering in the Ogooué. However, he felt the need so strongly that he wrote to New York, asking permission to establish an industrial school. Many years later he wrote an article on “Industrial Work in African Mission Fields,” 136 relating how coldly he was turned down by the Board Secretary. The reply was, “Dr. Nassau, I fear that you are becoming secularized. You were sent to preach the Gospel !” He submitted, but wrote back, “Yes, I have preached the Gospel, by all waters, in season and out of season. But I see Gospel in soap, to make people clean; and gospel in a saw mill to make them industrious.”137

That deception took place in 1874. Nearly twenty years later, obstinate by nature and clinging to his vision, he wrote a paper on the subject of an Industrial School, during a furlough. This time the Board Secretary was favorable but he insisted on approval from the field. One member of the Mission opposed the plan and so it failed again.138 “I still wrote, and begged, and prayed,” Nassau adds in his article. Finally, eight

134 Rev. John Menaul for whom later a famous industrial school for Indians was named in New Mexico.

135 Nassau, Ibid.

136 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Industrial Work in African Mission Fields,” The Medical Missionary, 20: 133-35, May 1911.

137 Ibid., p. 134.

138 Ibid.

years later another Secretary said, “Doctor Nassau, you are right. The mission agrees with you. You shall have an industrial school.”139

In his Diary he recalls that it was Mrs. Hoe, who “. . . gave me the money for what is now the James Memorial School at Elat.” 140 In 1934, after Nassau’s death, the Board of Foreign Missions published a pamphlet: Forest and Forge. It mentions Mrs. Hoe, and the one thousand dollars she gave in memory of her brother Frank James, who was killed during an elephant hunt in Africa. It mentions the African tailor who came from the Scotch Mission at Calabar; a suggestion made by Nassau. It mentions the activities of the school: carpentry, (what Nassau wanted in 1868), building and cabinet-making, rattan furniture-making, etc., etc. Nowhere does it mention the name of Nassau! 141.

But there is a moving sequel. Nassau had dreamed of an industrial school in the Ogooué. Its trained workers could then help to build the new stations he envisaged among the populous inland tribes. By the time the Mission and the Board had caught up with his vision, however, the work in the Ogooué had been completely turned over to the French. Nassau was at Batanga which was the gateway to Bululand in Cameroun. He

139 Ibid. 140 Nassau, “Diary,” Vol. 31, p. 5.

141 Anon., Forest and Forge (New York: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 1934), p. 3

briefly dreamed of seeing the school built under his own eyes at the final place where he was serving. Alas, it was to be many miles inland, at Elat, a place Nassau never reached! No wonder he laments in his autobiography, “I have lived twenty years too soon. That is apt to be the fate of inventors and reformers.” 142

In 1930 the French Mission sent Monsieur H. Christen into the interior of Gabon to Oyem 143 to open a new station. When time came to build the American Presbyterian Mission provided the French with funds and, in addition, so Mr. Christen wrote, “. . . trained workmen made our work very easy.”144 From where did these carpenters, cabinetmakers, masons, and headmen comes? The report continues, “They were technical men of value, and they speak well for the Frank James Industrial School where they received their training.”145

In a roundabout way, via a road opened up by Dr. A. I. Good, but due to Dr. R. H. Nassau’s vision, the Fang of the interior were receiving the Gospel through the help of “secular” Christians. And one of the carpenters, among those workers, Ndo Akono, evangelized along with doing his handiwork.146

142 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1620.

143 See Appendix B and Map.

144 Anon., Forest and Forge, p. 12.

145 Ibid.

146 Ibid.

SUMMARY

In the complete outline of Dr. Nassau’s training and long career in Chapter I, exact dates and places helped to guide our course. In the present Chapter, describing the variety and vastness of his interests and activities, a choice had to be made in the illustrative material available; but the many examples left unused would strengthen the contention that the stimulation for all these activities resulted from Nassau’s concern for, and interest in people, in persons. Admittedly, interest and concern were channeled through Robert Hamill Nassau; this he did not attempt to hide. He hated everything that abased man, or worse, woman; therefore, he did not believe in self-abasement. His person-acceptance began with the acceptance of himself. After the panorama of his career and the display of his activities, a closer study of his beliefs is necessary in seeking response to the question, “Why is Nassau unknown, today?” That is the subject of the next chapter.

CHAPTER III

THEOLOGY, ATTITUDES, AND BELIEFS OF R. H. NASSAU

INTRODUCTION

To come to a complete understanding of Robert Hamill Nassau, it is now necessary to turn from his activities to a study of his attitudes and convictions. These, as is the case with strong personalities, ultimately determined his actions and influenced his decisions. Since he was a minister we shall look first at his theology. As a Presbyterian, he was a staunch defender of his denomination and we shall consider his churchmanship. His aversion to Romanism which brought on accusations is looked at in detail, but does not hide his friendship for people of other denominations.

Because, in his opinion, certain accusations resulted from his attitude toward Blacks and Africans, close attention is given to it. Always keenly interested in meeting the people around him, Nassau’s special friendship for sea captains and traders is noted as well.

RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES AND THEOLOGY

Nassau had studied medicine and liked to be called “Doctor Nassau,” but refused to be listed as a medical missionary.

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He studied theology and he was proud of his S. T. D. degree but he would likewise have declined being called a theologian, he undertook his medical studies primarily in order to stay alive; one might say that his theology was intended to keep him alive spiritually, not to be displayed externally.

Though a few manuscript sermons, from his very early years in the ministry, were kept among his private papers, they are not especially noteworthy.1 Nor did Nassau ever try to publish theological writings, or preserve every scrap of sermon outline. In his diaries he lists far more non-theological books as reading material than theological works. These daily jottings reveal no inclination to introspective mysticism, nor listing of Scripture passages on which he may have meditated. Communion services meant much to him, especially when back in the

United States, on 10 April 1881 he described such a service in his diary as “. . . a very blessed meeting, one that I had longed for in Africa; and now Charley [his second son, aged thirteen] had come to the Table, I wish Will [his older son, aged seventeen] would come too!”2

Whenever he was with his sons and later with his daughter he recorded checking on their catechism lessons.3

1 They are at Speer Memorial Library.

2 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Diary,” 33 Vols. (1880-1919) (MS, Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary) Vol. l, p. 65.

3 Ibid., p. 105.

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There were occasions when he mentioned having prayer with his boys or Mary. 4 He expressed concern about what to allow them in the matter of dancing and cards; and the fact that even when he was on furlough he did not have his children living with him did not help to solve that problem.5 He felt no need to force a religious experience upon his children. His own decision for Christ had not been imposed upon him from outside. During his first year at Princeton, while a sophomore, he wrote:

“. . . there came a fearful day in my seventeenth year when I realized that failing to acknowledge Christ publicly I had practically denied him. The saviour lovingly laid his hand on me, as I sank at the foot of a tree in Princeton, and I said: ‘Here, Lord, I give myself away, ’tis all that I can do.’ It was then a joyous privilege to profess publicly my trust in him.”6

That experience resulted in his profession of faith in Christ at the Lawrenceville church in January 1852, he considered that to have been the first crucial step in his spiritual life, and the two others, his entrance into theological seminary and his going as a foreign missionary.7 This he related during a simple emotion filled commemoration held at a meeting of New Brunswick Presbytery. The occasion was the 60th anniversary of his Licensure. Other than on

4 Ibid., Vol. 9, p. 130.

5 Ibid., Vol, l, pp. 73-74.

6 William Porter Lee, “Rev. Hamill Nassau, M. D., S. T. D.,” The Presbyterian, 91:16, May 26, 1921.

7 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Autobiography,” (MS, Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1915), pp. 2152-3.

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such rare occasions he was not given to religious emotionalism. He was not happy in his later years with the exuberance of Christian Endeavor when it first made its appearance; but this did not keep him from accepting invitations to speak before such groups. 8

He did not use alcohol nor tobacco. His objections to tobacco, however, were stronger than to the former because the smell of tobacco made him sick. And when he had occasion to listen to a talk by a lady of the Chicago Anti-Cigarette League he listened with approval.9 Like many others in his day he was a strict observer of the Sabbath and insisted on being able to keep it, even in Africa. When he had been making plans to accompany the explorer Walker on his journey into the interior, Nassau had insisted on and obtained that travel on Sunday be “under only the necessity of saving life or health,” and that he handle no liquor.10

He even appears to have been intransigent on the matter of Sunday observance to the point of being cruel and legalistic. In Corisco Days he printed an account written by his missionary sister. She wrote:

8 Nassau, “Diary,” Vol. 33, p. 27.

9 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1999.

10 Robert Hamill Nassau, My Ogowe (New York: Neal Publishing Co., 1914), p. 116.

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“Now, it is one of Dr. Nassau’s rules with the

people, that, if they wound themselves in working on

the Sabbath, they must not come to him for aid. But

this man was so badly wounded that some of the Christians

came hesitatingly to ask Dr. Nassau if he would go to

his enemy, who desired him to come. [The man had participated

earlier in an attack on Christians who had

opposed a superstitious custom; he was wounded cutting

bamboo on Sunday.] He considered the matter; and

principally because he was his enemy, he went, and

determined to improve the opportunity of impressing

some Christian truths upon his mind. 11

Theologically he followed mainstream Presbyterianism with no inclination to admire Dr. C. A. Briggs the Union Theological Seminary professor who was tried for heresy because of his advanced position with respect to Old Testament criticism.12 When Nassau met the Rev. Dr. Birch at General Assembly, he thanked him for having moved the case of discipline against Professor Briggs. He himself, however, did not seem to care to crusade against heresy, certainly not in his writings.13 He did not mind, on occasion, to accompany a family with which he was staying to revival services.14 Usually, however, he was himself engaged in preaching his own missionary sermons. These he preached with such facility that when he had to preach a non-missionary sermon with only a few notes at hand he was

11 Robert Hamill Nassau, Corisco Days (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1892), p. 91.

12 Arthur Cushman McGiffert, “Briggs, C. A.”, Dictionary of American Biography, III, pp. 40-41.

13 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 915.

14 Nassau, “Diary,” Vol. 8, p. 93.

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ill at ease. 15

His preaching to the Africans, of which no example has been preserved, must have bee very different. Fortunately for us, in 1899, he summarized a life of proclamation in an article entitled “Sowing Beside All Waters.” It tells in Nassau’s own words how he went about preaching, And it reveals his theological understanding of what he was doing. So it is quoted at length:

Preaching in neither Christian nor heathen countries

is necessarily confined to the platform of a pulpit. . . . Missionaries to . . . Africa do [it] on the streets, in the villages, by boat, canoe, or afoot, or whenever and wherever and however they may find hearers. I look with tender pleasure on my pulpit ministrations to the church

of Corisco, of Benita, of the three Ogowe, and of Gabon . . . in three . . . I had first to gather materials . . . not ready-made . . . but . . . to be found, taught, enlightened, converted, trained, and prepared for baptism. . . . They were the outcome, under the Holy Spirit’s miraculous touch, of words spoken under rain and sun, in health and weariness; standing in the noisy village street, or lying disabled on the thwart a boat; to ears that were simply curious to hear what this white spirit had to tell . . If God has given me the joy of any soul

brought into the kingdom by my hand or voice, I value, as the means used by him, less the decorous church service than the apparently hopeless sowings by all other waters. (Italics mine. ) . . . Itineration. . . reached many . . . not feeling themselves sinners . . . they listened to the white stranger . . . And how that stranger threw all his soul of utterance and instruction and prayer into that his one street sermon! Hoping that the precious word uttered might be carried by the Holy Spirit to those guests’ consciences, and, though perhaps forgotten in life, might even in their dying hour, be savingly remembered. . . how much did they understand? I do not know. How much did they carry away? Enough to save. . . . They would go away, if without faith, at least with knowledge. Giving the knowledge was my business; the working of faith was

15 Ibid., p. 179.

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God’s. I believe he did it. I think I have a larger church membership in Africa whose names and faces I shall not know this side of heaven than of those whom I have actually baptized and enrolled on earth. 16

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHMANSHIP

The Reverend R. H. Nassau may have believed, that by the working of the Holy Spirit, many who heard him preach entered eternal life without having become Presbyterians. That did not mean that he did not do everything possible to make good Presbyterians out of those he baptized and brought into the Church. He had so many Presbyterian ministers and elders among his ancestors and relatives and was so proud of his ties to Presbyterian schools, that he could not have forsaken Presbyterianism had he wanted to. This was not the case. He admired it; he enjoyed it. Not that he went about quoting the Westminster Confession, but he believed that the Presbyterian form of government was superior, especially to Congregationalism and should be propagated. He believed it to be especially effective in matters of discipline. And the concern he expressed against the “severity even to the point of despotism possible under Congregationalism,”17

16 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Sowing Beside All Waters,” The Assembly Herald , June 1899, pp. 344-46.

17 Nassau, Corisco, p. 176.

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originated in his desire to protect the defenseless. He believed that “... the bars and checks of faithfully executed Presbyterianism, “18 could prevent church members from suffering from inconsistency and arbitrary decisions on the part of the ministers.

For years Nassau participated in the administrative life of tiny Corisco Presbytery. According to the thinking of the middle of the 19th century such a Presbytery, even in Africa, could only and best exist by being part of the Synod of New Jersey.19 For Nassau it was obvious that no matter how small the Presbytery may have been it was still a more important body than the Mission; no matter how large the latter. For Presbytery was linked to Synod; and Synod was linked to the General Assembly, the governing body of the Presbyterian Church. The Mission, on the other hand, was related to the Board of Foreign Missions, an agency itself accountable to the General Assembly. Many missionaries never realized the distinction.

Moreover, to Nassau it was important that within the Presbytery the Africans were the equals of the white missionaries. During the first thirty years of Corisco Presbytery, from 1860-1890 the Reverend J’Ikenge held the Moderator’s chair three years. 20 In the Mission, however, even the best of the

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid. , p. 189.

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Africans had no vote.21 That was why for Nassau the authority of Presbytery was more important and why on one occasion he stood up for the rights of the Batanga Church against the Mission.22

Though the African pastors and elders were the equals of their white brethren in the local Presbytery, they were quite unequal when it came to being sent as commissioners to the Synod of New Jersey or to the General Assembly meeting in the U. S. A.23 They just were not sent. This situation gave the ordained missionaries who were home on furlough a better than average attendance record at meetings of the General Assembly. R.H. Nassau attended seven times during his missionary years.24 He immensely enjoyed being there and at three Assemblies he delivered addresses.25 Both when related to Corisco and to New Brunswick Presbyteries he belonged to the Synod of New Jersey and felt greatly honored, in 1892, when he was asked to be its Moderator.26 Robert Hastings Nichols writes that he

21 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Rev. Ibia J’Ikenge,” The Assembly Herald, March 1902, p. 107.

22 Robert Hamill Nassau, “My Retirement from the West Africa Mission,” (Unpublished typescript,1915; document in private collection of Miss Dorothy Patten Nassau, Philadelphia), p. 8.

23 It was not till after World War II that African pastors, who happened to be in the United States, for other reasons, were designated an Commissioners. This made their representativity. somewhat artificial.

24 Detroit, 1872; Baltimore, 1873; Madison, Wisc., 1880; Buffalo, 1881; Portland, 1892; Washington, D. C., 1893; St. Louis,1900

25 Portland, Ore., Washington, D. C., and St. Louis.

26 Robert Hamill Nassau file. Information in Nassau’s own hand, p. 7. Central file, deceased missionaries. (United Presbyterian Church, U. S, A. Program Agency, New York).

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“became a well known and striking figure in ecclesiastical meetings.”27

During sixty-two years Dr. Nassau’s name appeared in the Minutes of the General Assembly of his beloved Presbyterian Church. Three years after his death it appeared again, but now no longer as that of a person, but of a Presbyterian congregation on the Coast of West Africa’s mainland. That Nassau name, however, also disappeared from the Minutes of the General Assembly, for it was last listed there in 1956.28 At that time it was not dropped because of death. The Presbyterian Church which Nassau helped to plant and establish had come of age. The Nassau name now appears in the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Eglise Presbytérienne Camerounaise, and of the Synod of Municam as one of the churches of Corisco-Kribi Presbytery. It is the only church in Cameroun that through its name honors the memory of two white missionaries, Robert Hamill and Isabella Ann Nassau.29

AVERSION TO ROMANISM

R. H. Nassau’s theology was lived out in concern for

27 Robert Hastings Nichols, “Nassau, Robert Hamill,” Dictionary of American Biography, XIII, p. 390.

28 Minutes of the General Assembly.

29 Information received from Dr. David Gelzer of Cameroun via the oral report of Eduma Musambane, who knew both the missionaries during his boyhood, in a letter to the writer dated 25 January 1973.

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people rather than expressed in doctrinal treatises. His Presbyterianism was nourished by his love for the order and the justice which its system provides individuals if rightly administered. Nassau’s deep aversion to Romanism was also largely prompted by the manifestations of injustice and oppression on the part of that Church. Since his attitude toward Romanism became an issue in his conflict with colleagues and Board Secretaries, it must be considered here at some length.

One should remember that during that part of Nassau’s career that covered the second half of the 19th Century his attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church was shared by many Protestants. Presbyterian magazines regularly reported on the oppression of Protestants in Papal Europe, and rejoiced in conversions from Rome.30 Moreover, there was a deliberate Vatican policy, proclaimed in a special Bull, with regard to Protestant Mission work in Central Africa. This touched R. H. Nassau directly. The Bull suggested, “. . . that the movements of the heretics are to be followed up, and their efforts harassed and destroyed.”31 Wheeler reported that one of the reasons why transferal of the Mission from Gabon to German-occupied Cameroun was considered in 1887 was the desire to “. . . be free from the seizure and burning of our people’s

30 “Missionary work in Belgium, 1885”, The Presbyterian Monthly Record, 37:16-17, January, 1886.

31 George Hawker, The Life of George Grenfell (2nd ed. London: Religious Tract Society, 1909), pp. 115-16.

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Bible by Romish priests.” 32 Dr. A. C. Good is quoted as writing “The French priests were manufacturing brandy from the mango. By ‘treating’ parents to rum they swooped scores of children into their schools, baptized them, hung a cross about their neck, and taught them never to listen to a Protestant.”33

The tension and competition that generally existed, however, between Roman Catholic and Protestant missions did not result in a permanent state of war between Nassau and Roman Catholic Missionaries. When Spanish priests followed the arrival of Spanish officials on the island of Corisco during the years 1861 to 1865, , when Nassau lived there, he was not particularly disturbed.34 Word had gotten around that the Spaniards would not try to push out the Protestants as they had done on the much more important island of Fernando Po.35 Nassau mentioned by name the Padres Garcia and Torre with whom he and others of the stations occasionally exchanged visits.36 He quoted, with apparent approval, a letter written by his first wife to

32 W. Reginald Wheeler, The Words of God in an African Forest (New York: Fleming H. Revell. Co., 1931), p. 79.

33 Ellen C. Parsons, A Life for Africa (2nd ed., New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1900), p.1.

34 Nassau, Corisco Days, p. 77.

35 Engelbert Mveng, Histoire du Cameroun (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1963), pp. 460-61,

36 Robert Hamill Nassau, Crowned in Palm-Land (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1874), p. 162.

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a colleague in the States, “A second priest is on the island, but I have not seen him yet. The first has been very friendly, but either his friendliness or his tomatoes have given out.”37 Even more, he indicated that, “There had always been kindly intercourse between us and the Spanish priests, and a sending of favors and assistance in sickness.”38 Nor does the presence of Roman Catholics seem to have disturbed Nassau during his work at Benita. One could speculate that had he not lost his wife Mary Cloyd Latta Nassau, the friendly attitudes developed on Corisco might have continued.

Matters changed considerably, however, when Nassau began pioneering along the Ogooué River and he saw French Romanists following in his footsteps and surrounding him.39 Finally, there was that most bitter experience of all, a double hurt. French xenophobia fanned by Roman Catholic mission imperialism kept him restricted to Talaguga, for he was not allowed to travel further inland. Meanwhile the Roman priests were being helped by the French to go where he had hoped to be first to penetrate.40

True, there was again a Mrs. Nassau, in 1881, but their home life was still not so that she might have invited French priests for social contact which might have overcome Hamill’s hostility. Worse, when at the birth of their daughter

37 Ibid., p. 171.

38 Ibid., p. 215.

39 Nassau, My Ogowe, pp. 428-29.

40 Ibid.

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she lay bleeding to death, the French-imposed restrictions kept him from sending a native to N’Djolé for help, Nassau believed these to be the result of Roman Catholic influence. He might have gone himself and faced no danger, but any African he could have sent would have been shot. So he remained by the dying mother. Twenty-four hours after her death he learned that a French medical doctor had been at the post and might have been able to help save her life.41 Rightly or wrongly, Nassau could not forget that “papal” interference; he did not blame the French, but the Romanists.

The Catholics may not have been directly responsible for the restrictions imposed upon non-French schools, but they profited immensely from those measures. And through those years, Nassau like so many others, witnessed the apparent inexhaustible supply of priests, monks and nuns, while Protestants were forever crying for more helpers. It was hard not to become irritated.

From that time on it was impossible for Nassau to forget or to forgive. While on furlough in 1892, he lived for some time at the home of his son William. Once he received a telegram suggesting he return home a day later. He was disturbed when he realized why. His son and daughter-in-law had planned a party for a Roman priest and knowing

41 Robert Hamill Nassau, The Path She Trod (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1909), pp. 141, 166, 179.

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father’s attitude they had thought it safer to have him out of the way ! He wrote, “I was amazed and intensely grieved. I fear the time has come for me to leave my son’s home. Cousin W. B. Nassau, who had just emerged from Romanism, has told me so much of Romish intrigue and wickedness.” 42

His attitude toward Romanism played a role in the events that led to his being sent home, more or less forcibly, in 1903. He had been asked to return to Baraka for a limited period and while there became ill. His fellow workers there were a rather inexperienced group and some were much younger than Nassau. They called in the French doctor; and after he left, one of the missionaries, Robert Milligan, tried hard to persuade Nassau to go to the government hospital in Libreville. This the sick man only consented to do, providing he would not be under the care of the Roman Catholic nun serving there. In his autobiography he has placed a copy of the lengthy memorandum in which he later explained:

All my life, from childhood, I have detested the R. C. Church, its organization and its orders. My Protestantism is intense. I have never conversed with priest or nun; have avoided even saluting them; and refuse to have anything in any way to do with them. 43

He had forgotten that during his stay on Corisco Island, with Mary Latta, things had not quite been like that.

42 Nassau, “Diary,” Vol. 9, p. 93.

43 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 1451-52.

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He also declared in the memorandum that the Africans had objections to the Government hospital because of the way non-whites were treated by nun and priest. A number of his African female friends and parishioners at Baraka were disturbed at the idea of his going there. (It should be remembered that he was nearly sixty-eight years old and had known some of these women for over twenty-five years.) The more these ladies surrounded him, the more they irritated his young associates.44 When the missionaries succeeded in bringing him to the hospital they were met by the Sister! “. . . she took me to my room she gave the bell I was to ring for food, etc., etc.; she gave all orders to the three young native men. . . I was placed solidly in her hands!” So Nassau lamented.45

Unfortunately this situation caused him to exchange angry words with Mr. Milligan, who concluded Nassau was insane! Meanwhile the sick Nassau, “Passed a wretched night under the abhorred R. C. Insignia.”46 When Milligan returned the next day, and told him that Mrs Cunningham, “... would not refuse [him] ... food, [but] she would give it unwillingly,” Nassau announced that, “. . . rather than stay in that R. C. room, I would creep onto the highway and die there.”47 The unhappy ending was that a few days later Dr. Nassau was forced to take a ship to the United States.

44 Ibid., p. 1453.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid., p. 1454.

47 Ibid., p.1455.

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When, in spite of all that had happened, Nassau returned again to Africa, to Batanga, another incident related to Romanism took place. This was during the visit of Secretary Halsey. In the account which Nassau wrote concerning his withdrawal from the Mission, he quoted from Dr. Halsey’s report to the Board in New York:

Yet he [Nassau] is full of contradiction, I saw him snub a Catholic priest in a way that made me ashamed. I was standing with Dr. Nassau on our Mission property at Bongahele. The Catholic father passed and politely bowed. Dr. Nassau turned away. I felt compelled to return the polite salutation of this brother. The father called on me the next day, and we spent two very pleasant hours in discussing phases of Mission work in which we were both engaged under one common Lord and Master. Our Medical Missionaries at Batanga serve the members of the Catholic Mission without pay, and

the fathers in return keep well supplied the table of the Medical Missionaries with fruits and vegetables. Why Dr. Nassau is thus hostile against this father I cannot tell. The wife of one of the traders asked me the reason why this one of our missionaries was so discourteous while all the others were so extremely Christlike. It is a strange freak in the character of a great man. It is difficult in a few sentences to analyze his character. I believe he is honest. I believe he is pure. I believe he means to do right, but my faith in all these beliefs is sadly shaken by some of his strange actions.” 48

To this and to several other matters in the same document Dr. Nassau gave the following reply, quoted in

48 Nassau, “My Retirement,” p. 13.

The report from which Nassau quoted is: Report on the West Africa Mission.[1905] For the Members of the Board and Executive Council Only. The only copy I have been able to locate is at the Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. On micro film reel 239, Vol. 10 of Africa Reports 1900-1905, however, it starts on the middle of p. 38, and the parts quoted by Nassau are missing.

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extenso, not only because of its bearing on the matter of his attitude toward Romanism, but also because it reveals his way of reasoning:

REPLY: That day Dr. Halsey was my guest, and we were sitting on the little porch that faced the hedge in front of Evangeline Cottage . . . The Roman Catholic priest passed and bowed. My attitude to the Secretary, during all those weeks, had been that of a private to the General of an army. When a General is saluted by a passing company of soldiers, the aide at his side does not join the General in his response to the salute, because it was not made to the aide, but only to the General. So I did not return the priest’s salute, which I considered was intended only for Secretary Halsey. But, it is true also that whenever I met that priest on the paths, I always saluted him; meeting him in the trading-houses, I always talked with him; and I returned the Jesuitically polite call of his Bishop. But I never sought the company of one who was an enemy of our Mission, and who was trying to break up our schools. And certainly I would not call him “brother.” He places a woman in my Master’s throne, by his prayers in Mariolatry. You send missionaries to his Church’s adherents in the Philippines and South America. Also I did not know that it was a tact (shameful if true) that while our needy native fellow-Christians are compelled to pay for every dose of medicine, it should be given free to our Roman Catholic enemies, who always have ample funds.” 49

If confronted with the earlier statement, in which Nassau admitted avoiding saluting Roman Catholics he would probably have indicated then the distinction lay in the fact that he had decided always to salute this particular priest; except on that one unfortunate occasion.

Like in other things, Dr. Nassau remained consistent once he had decided what his attitude would be toward Romanism,

49 Ibid. , p. 14.

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Years after he had left the Mission, he reported in his Diary that, while attending a meeting in Philadelphia of the ministerial society, the speaker, “. . . so praised Cardinal Gibbons and the Roman Church, that I arose and left the room.”50

In the light of the attitudes prevalent in his day and considering the opposition he encountered from Romanism, against the work he cherished and those he loved, his anti-Romanism cannot be considered a major fault.

INTERDENOMINATIONAL FELLOWSHIP

Nassau, as we have seen, avoided contacts with Roman Catholics and he was convinced of the superiority of the Presbyterian system. This did not keep him from seeking, and enjoying, contacts with persons of other Protestant denominations, primarily missionaries and ministers. His career was spent during a half Century when there was not yet much missionary cooperation, but, had there been Nassau would certainly have favored it.

He had already retired when the first great world Missionary Conference took place in Edinburgh, in 1910, but he is listed among those invited to the Ecumenical Missionary Conference held in New York in 1900.51 Also the Medical

50 Nassau, “Diary,” Vol. 33, p. 17.

51 Ecumenical Missionary Conference: New York 1900. 2 vols. (New York: American Tract Society, 1900), vol. 2, p. 408.

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Missionary Conferences he attended with such great pleasure at Battle Creek, Michigan, after his Retirement, brought him in touch with representatives from many denominations.52

During his voyages, like most missionaries traveling along the coast of West Africa during the 19th Century, he learned to know many missionaries from other countries and denominations. These he met on ships or when stopping a few days in various ports. He always expressed satisfaction at such encounters. In turn, he too became well known, so that others have mentioned him in their writings. One such was the Southern Presbyterian Samuel Philips Verner, a layman, who on his way to the Congo, was very much impressed by what Nassau shared with him. He wrote: “I sat charmed with the conversation and manners of this noble man of God, who ranks alone in my esteem

with Dr. John G. Paton, whom I came to know later.”53

In 1876 the American Presbyterians invited fellow workers to a Conference of West Africa Protestant Missionaries held in Gabon to discuss common problems.54 Nassau participated actively and was one of two who prepared the report of the proceedings.5

52 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1997.

53 Samuel P. Verner, Pioneering in Central Africa (Richmond Presbyterian Committee of Publication,1903), pp. 33-34.

54 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 130, and Ade J. F. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1965), p. 222.

55 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 484.

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The most significant fact that has been uncovered, related to Nassau’s acceptance of fellowship with other missions is that he at one time considered joining the Société des Missions Evangéliques de Paris. He addressed a letter to the Reverend Elie Allégret in Paris, in late 1900, several years before his break with the Mission. In it he mentioned a conversation held in the home of the French missionary some two years earlier, and during which he had expressed the thought of leaving the Presbyterian mission.56 He had finally made up his mind to pursue the matter. But, so Allégret wrote to the Director or the French Mission, Nassau also wanted to be free two months each year in order to attend the meetings of Corisco Presbytery.57 He did not mind working for some other Board, but he could not leave the fellowship of his African colleagues. Allégret favored the idea, admitting that Nassau was not an easy man to get along with8

56 Letter from R.H. Nassau to the Rev. Elie Allégret, 29 October 1900. Lettres reçues: Champs des Missions, 1900 Congo [Gabon] ( Société des Missions Evangéliques de Paris.

Archives. Paris).

57 Letter from E. Allégret to the Rev. Mr. Boegner, 20 May 1901. Ibid., 1901.

58 Letter from E. Allégret to the Rev. Mr. Boegner, 29 November 1900. Ibid., 1900.

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NASSAU AND THE AFRICAN BLACKS

The Schweitzer Album shows a beautiful reproduction of a sculptured African slave, part of the Bartholdi monument to a French general in Colmar, France. Dr. Albert Schweitzer claimed it was through it that he was first moved by compassion for the oppressed race. 59 In the case of Nassau the reader must himself imagine a scene which strongly influenced a sensitive young American. Entering Princeton University young Hamill Nassau was attracted to the many students from the Southern States. More than sixty years later he recollects:

I joined them at the favorite trysting-place . . . There conversation ranged over an enormous list of topics, proper and improper. Some young men from the far South, by their unblushing tales gave me my first horror against Negro slavery . . . .” 60

And it has already been mentioned that while in seminary he worked in a colored church.61

To Nassau the Civil War was “the Rebellion,” and when one of his brothers moved to the South, that was enough to make him give up any thought of sending one of his boys to stay there. 62 Returning from a visit to a cousin, he wrote

59 Erica Anderson, The Schweitzer Album (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 26.

60 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Personal Recollections of Princeton Undergraduate Life, II-The College in the Fifties,” The Princeton Alumni Weekly, 16:458, February 23, 1916.

61 Chapter I, p. 12.

62 Nassau, Crowned, p. 176.

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in his Diary that his relative “. . . annoyed me with his objections to missions, and his evident pro slavery and secession feelings.”63 At times the hurt was even closer, and in 1892, while living with his eldest son, he wrote:”Annoyed, at the supper table by Miss S. (of S. Carolina) talk about ‘nigger’ and ‘Yankees,’ and Will’s subservience, to her Southern feeling against the government, and his derision of a race, for which his parents have labored and suffered.”64 He did not think that orthodox theology was an excuse for racism, and was perplexed, on one occasion, after listening to a gentleman, “. . . that one so true as he against Professor Briggs’ theology, should defend slavery and secession.” 65

Nassau was interested in the Freedmen’s movement and in this connection the case of Mrs. Sneed should be mentioned, The woman was a freed slave who had gone to Liberia; and from there, probably widowed, had accompanied her daughter Miss Charity Sneed, to the West Africa Mission. 66 First engaged as a helper, Miss Sneed married the white missionary, H. L. Menkel, captain of the Mission’s ship, and was accepted as a fellow worker. She died in Africa, and after remarriage to a white woman, her husband sent his children to stay in the United States. Thus the aged grandmother was first deprived

63 Nassau, “Diary,” Vol. 9, p. 92.

64 Ibid., p. 32.

65 Ibid., p. 124

66 Nassau, Crowned, p. 244.

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of her daughter whom she had followed to Gabon and then of her grandchildren when they left. She became a lonely person when her son-in-law established a new home. She was far from Liberia far from America. Dr. Nassau, probably using his private funds invited her to return with him to Philadelphia in 1891, when he took his Mary back there. He had made arrangements for the aged lady to enter the Home for Colored People in Philadelphia and regularly visited her. She had helped him with Charles at the death of his first wife. 67

Later Dr. Nassau’s interest in the Blacks in the United States centered around Lincoln University, especially after his return from Africa. Isaac N. Rendall, a Princeton University graduate, who was President of Lincoln from 1865-1906 was his close friend. The school had been established because of the founder’s interest in Dr. J. L. Mackey, the pioneer missionary to Corisco. In 1915 Lincoln Seminary accepted the R.H. Nassau Prize, to be given to the outstanding Senior in the Seminary.68

In his Diaries Nassau reported his visits to Lincoln during his retirement years. Significantly, it was to the library at Lincoln University that he gave the unpublished manuscript of Two Women, he would have been proud of the fact

67 Nassau, My Ogowe pp. 692-93.

68 Information contained in a letter from Dr. Andrew E. Murray to the writer, dated 31 March 1970.

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that an African Lincoln graduate from Cameroun, has produced a doctoral dissertation dealing with his philosophy of Mission.69

Earlier in this study it has been indicated that one reason why Nassau did not care to stay in Florida was because of the racism he encountered there.70 That such racism existed in his country he did not hide from his African friends.71 He did what he could to overcome it on every occasion. Among the letters he kept was one from the wife of Princeton University Professor William Libbey. In it she took the trouble to write to him that her little colored maid had been touched by his kindness while he visited in the Libbey home.72

When the Southern Presbyterian Verner, already mentioned, listened with great interest to what the veteran missionary had to say, he recorded that Nassau “. . . approved of our use of the colored American in our work and regretted that his church did not also utilize their large membership in the South in this way.”73

Wheeler reports that the first American Blacks to be

69 David Jonathan Mandeng, “The Philosophy of Mission of Robert Hamill Nassau in the Contemporary World,” (Unpublished Doctor’s dissertation, Temple University, 1970), p. 380.

70 See chapter I, p. 46.

71 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 640.

72 Letter from Mrs. Mary E. Libbey to R. H. Nassau, dated 3 June 1900. Unclassified letters. ( Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary).

73 Verner, Pioneering in Central Africa, p. 34.

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sent to Equatorial West Africa by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Church sailed in 1928.74 Nassau did not live to see that day; but years before he was already prepared for it. American Negroes had been sent out in the first decades of the 19th century to serve with the Liberia Mission, but the practice was stopped.75 Toward the end of the Century Dr. John Gillespie, the Africa Secretary in New York, inquired from the Mission how American colored missionaries would be received. The majority reaction was negative, but Nassau saw here a unique possibility to unite together in a common service, for the Africa he loved, his fellow American Blacks and his African friends. So he wrote:

“I avail myself of the liberty given for the offering of suggestion anent the proposed American-Negro mission. From what I have seen and heard, I am not surprised that the majority of the Gaboon and Corisco Mission did not favor the coming of Negro Associates. I regret the decision. Myself, I like Negroes as companions: would rather have them than some of the white missionaries I am compelled to associate with. . . . If there is to be a Mission for Negro gentlemen and ladies, let the Northern field of this G. and C. Mission be erected into a separate Mission. And let this Southern portion be carried on and extended by the Negro brethren. In that case I would request to be transferred to and connected with the new Mission.”76

74 W. Reginald Wheeler, The Words of God in an African Forest (New York; Fleming H. Revell. Co., 1931 , p. 46.

75 Ibid., p. 28.

76 Letter from R. H. Nassau to Secretary J. Gillespie, dated 6 August 1895. PCUSABFM. Africa: Incoming letters. Vol. 21, Reel 82, letter 271.

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One can only speculate what the future history of the Mission and the Church in Gabon might have been had Nassau’s suggestion become a reality. He himself did not seem to realize that the presence of a veteran white missionary within an American-Negro Mission would have changed its character. By that time Dr. Nassau had so identified himself with the Africans that the anomaly may not have occurred to him.

NASSAU AND THE AFRICANS

It may have been, in part, adolescent sentiment that moved young Nassau to feel sympathy toward the Blacks in the South. When he arrived in Africa he had become a young man, however, and he approached the people there as fellowmen. He came as their “interested friend.”77

Some thirty-five years later a young medical missionary, Dr. Albert L. Bennett, was also sent out. His wife joined him a year later, but due to her health, both left the field in 1899. On his way home, while stopping in London the young doctor addressed a learned society. There he acknowledged how much he had learned from Dr. Nassau; he called him:

“. . . friend and confrère. . . a veteran missionary . . . always ready to help others who are sufficiently interested (Italics mine.) in the natives to enquire about them. . . . I know of no one. . .more willing or eminently able than he; for imparting

77 Robert Hamill Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904), p. v.

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information regarding the people among whom he has

labored.”78

In the short while that Dr. Bennett had known Nassau at Baraka, he had understood his attitude toward the Africans better than some of his colleagues who spent years with him. Nassau was interested in them as people, hence his respect for them.

Though he cannot be accused of having no concern for their “spiritual welfare”, his expressed distress was against slavery, exploitation and injustice. These evils he also denounced when practiced by Africans against other Africans. During his early career slavery was still practiced among the natives themselves. It was certainly due to his influence that the very first action of the Benita Session in 1865 was to make slave-holding a bar to membership.79

Nassau’s sense of justice was most severely shocked by the indignities inflicted upon African women. His condemnation of polygamy, which was known, was due not so much to a legalistic adherence to the biblical command, but prompted by the indignity, usually accompanying it. It should be noted here what he wrote with respect to his attitude:

“. . , without lowering any of my own standards or ideals, I have learned to look at all questions of ethics, and even of morals, from the native’s point of view. Advancing in that line I had met receptivity, standing

78 Letter from Dr. Albert L. Bennett to R. H. Nassau dated 7 May 1899, unclassified letters. (Speer Memorial Library Princeton Theological Seminary).

79 Nassau, Corisco p. 126.

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thus on a common ground as a friend, I found that

I had more influence in explaining my standard,

than if I had attacked his, as an enemy.”80

Because of this attitude he at times came close to defending certain practices, usually condemned by others, provided they were not degrading. For instance, the “common law” husband-wife arrangements between certain white traders and Mpongwe women which existed at Libreville.81 Likewise, if a woman was in a marriage situation where she was being exploited or unjustly treated, Nassau felt no legalistic necessity for compelling such a person to continue suffering.82

Since most injustice was suffered by women, the impression could arise that Dr. Nassau only defended African women. On several occasions, however, he expressed his indignation because of unjust conduct on the part of missionaries toward African men as well. He denounced the way in which the Rev. William Walker, whom he otherwise much admired, forced the African pastor Ntâkâ Truman to leave the Baraka Church and to go off to serve in the bush.83 Nassau’s treatment of the Africans as persons, of course,

80 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 42.

81 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Two Women,” (unpublished typescript MS, Vail Memorial Library, Lincoln University, 1911), p. 6.

82 Ibid., pp. 44-96.The entire story of Ekakise deals with this problem.

83 Robert Hamill Nassau, “A History of the West Africa Mission,” (unpublished MS, Archives of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia) p. 65.

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went beyond defending them against injustice. He wanted the Africans to be treated as equals. In an article he defended the Rev. Ibia J’Ikenge’s desire to “take from missionary hands the responsibility of the work of the native church”.84 He regretted that the Africa Secretary and the Mission failed to recognize that lbia’s claim for “liberty of action” was an

expression of manliness and his desire to free his people from reliance for support on immoral white trade.85 This Benga minister, nearly a Century ago, wished for his people, “to plant cacao, coffee, cocoanuts, etc., the sale of which would be in their own hands, not subject to the oppressive caprice of foreign rum traders.”86 And Nassau fully agreed. In 1913 when most people accepted colonization as inevitable, Nassau wrote:

Africa is now governed and owned, not by Africans,

but by eight European nations who have simply helped

themselves to great slices. . . . There was none to

resist their encroachments and none to stay their hands,

except the objection of some of the other nations lest

some nation should get more than its share of the

plunder. ...If you were to go there ... and were to

try to buy some land, you would not go to the Africans,

to whom God gave these lands, but to some English or

Belgian or German authority.87

In the same article indicated that it would be

84 Robert Hamill Nassau, Rev. Ibia J’Ikenge, “The Assembly Herald”,

March, 1902, p. 107.

85 Ibid.

86 Ibid.

87 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Conditions of Mission Work in West Africa”, The Medical Missionary, February, 1913, p. 44.

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wrong to go to Africa with a heart filled with antipathy toward the great race.”88 It should be noted that he did not speak about “oppressed” or “benighted” race.

The word Nassau liked to use to describe the attitude to be taken with respect to the Africans was affiliation. He wrote:

They are always respectful and polite, but they

soon learn to fear the dominating and tyrannical spirit,

whereas the spirit of affiliation soon attracts them,

and wins their love and confidence. If we go to them

in this spirit of love and affiliation we can win them.

He was convinced that a different attitude had become dominant in the Presbyterian Mission, starting in the latter decades of the 19th Century. He wrote to a friend in England that some “ ... resented my attitude of Affiliation with the Natives. The present attitude of the mission is that of Domination ( Italics and capitals his.)

Etymologically, of course, the word affiliation contains the meaning of adoption into sonship, and one could claim that it still contained a measure of paternalism. Then it should be understood, as well, that Nassau always placed affiliation in opposition to tyranny and domination. Theologically one should think here of the New Testament concept of sonship as against slavehood.91

88 Ibid., p. 116.

89 Ibid.

90 Letter from R. H. Nassau to Mr. John Holt dated 22 May 1908 (Archives of the John Holt Co., Liverpool, England).

91 Galatians 4:5-7.

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Nassau’s attitude was far from paternalistic, certainly in its pejorative sense usually linked to colonialism. He entered into close fellowship and intimate friendship with Africans that surpassed literal affiliation. He asked affiliation of others, he himself went beyond that. Early in his career, in 1864, he relates a very intimate experience. Feeling depressed and sad he spoke with a “faithful native Christian man” and opened his heart to him about friends and family. He told the glad news of the conversion of one of his brothers. Then shared his concern about another brother, away in the war, not yet converted and for whom he feared. And then he writes :

“To this the African said, ‘Ni Anyambi a hakandi

na ngudi’ ( But God works with power.) I was silent

and rebuked; for he from his trusting heart and with

only the Light of a comparatively few years in the

gospel, had spoken what I should not have forgotten.”92

There, in Part, lies the secret of Nassau’s being accepted by the Africans; he early learned that he too could receive from them. Such is true equality. This equality in relationships led Dr. Nassau to have many true friends among the Africans, and since it was easier for him to befriend women than men, he befriended Njivo and her sister, openly, at Baraka during the first period that he was a widower. And the friendship deepened during the rough years of his early

92 Robert Hamill Nassau, “God’s Workings”, The Foreign Missionary, 23: 151-52.

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pioneering on the Ogooué. “That his attitude and friendship, especially with one of the sisters, would lead to conflict must have been inconceivable to the young missionary. But had he foreseen the conflict, he would not have altered his conduct, so convinced was he of the rightness of his attitude.

That Nassau’s way of treating the Africans like equals did not come that easily to his fellow-workers, especially later ones, may find some justification. Certain families may have needed more privacy in their homes, than the widower Nassau needed. Living alone made it easier for him to welcome the Africans. His single status, during his many travels, inevitably brought him into closer contact with the natives. When Anyentyuwe became his daughter’s governess, and was practically put in charge of his household there must have gradually developed “a different way of life” not experienced by others. Nassau reached the stage where he probably felt more at home among the Africans he had known so long, than in the homes of his changing, younger colleagues. To be with the Africans had become his way of life.

CAPTAINS AND TRADERS

In this study Robert Hamill Nassau’s relationships have been considered to Blacks in America, to Africans, to his scientist friends, and to the explorers he encountered.

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A following chapter will consider Nassau’s contacts with his colleagues and Board Secretaries, but there remains one other group with which he had frequent dealings in Africa. This group was made up of white traders and their young European assistants, and the captains of ocean steamers or river boats. It should be remembered that the areas where Nassau labored, were not inhabited by large groups of white settlers, during the years he was there, as was the case in some parts of Africa.

The traders who imported goods, and the captains of the ships on which the missionaries made their long journeys along the coast, or up and down the Ogooué river, were vital to the life and existence of the missionaries. Nassau understood that these men had not come to equatorial Africa for the same reasons that motivated him and his colleagues. Though there was certainly much in their conduct that he could not accept, his respect for them as persons kept him from looking down upon them as a group. He knew that the missionaries needed the captains end traders more than they needed the missionaries. Nassau seems to have had particularly good relationships with many of these men.

Traders were often entertained in his home.93 Later, when he had left the Ogooué and had no wife, it was he who often sought their company.94

He attempted to understand the position of the Afric

93 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 300.

94 Ibid., p. 498.

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women taken into the homes of the traders so Nassau became very tolerant of such liaisons especially when the relationship lasted over several years. 95

This tolerance did not lessen his indignation at the conduct of those who seemed interested only in passing lust. 96 Nor did he ever condone their rum trade. 97 Were it not for that, he wrote, “ . . . the traders would be a real help to civilization, and missionaries would more enjoy looking at their busy work and visiting, their large homes.”98 In many of those large houses Nassau was a welcome guest. And when one of the traders, a Scots Presbyterian, brought up as a Christian attended church, and even partook of Communion with natives, which few whites did, he became a close friend of Dr. Nassau. 99 This was the Sinclair for whom the hero of the book Trader Horn worked.100 Once, out of respect for one such trader who had been kind to him, Nassau attended a Roman Catholic funeral for the first time in his life. 101

Writing to his daughter Mary he said about one of the

95 Ibid., p. 52.

96 Nassau, “Two Women,” p. 41.

97 Nassau, Crowned, p. 331.

98 Nassau, Corisco Days p. 140.

99 Robert Hamill Nassau, In an Elephant Corral (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1912), p. 23.

100 Alfred Aloysius Horn, pseud., Trader Horn (New York:Simon & Schuster, 1927), p. 130.

101 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 128.

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traders, “I am so free that, without waiting for an invitation, I told him I would take lunch with him.” 10 In another letter he wrote, “Missionaries receive much praise for going into out of the way places. Some of them deservedly. But other people do the same.” 103 He spoke in praise of a young German trader who had his young wife and babe with him.104 He did not envy the Agents who became wealthy. For they had also known privations in their early years. Not all reached the top. The letter continues:

Young clerks start with that hope before them. Many die....[ For one ] young man, no one was found who could conduct a burial service. I do that at Batanga, for any white man, whatever his life may have been. I consider, -- this man was born of Christian parents, -- perhaps he was once a professed Christian, -- he belonged to my race and civilization, -- and I am not his judge, -- with a very slight change I read over him the entire Burial Service. The traders know I do this, and they respect me for it. One of my miss’y associates ( now dead ), instead of doing that, once made an address, a part of which was a repeated expression of uncertainty as to where, in the future world, the deceased was. It was dreadful, I could scarcely sit still in the pulpit. Some of the audience were very bitter afterwards. That address was very tactless. Those men never came to church except to a funeral. They know very well what I think of their sins. I have told them, at proper times in their homes. I did not slap them in their faces, when they happened to come to church. 105

Not all occasions for contact, however were funerals. Whenever he was in Liverpool, Nassau knew he had a welcome at

102 Letter from R.H. Nassau to his daughter Mary, dated 2 November 1904. (Private collection of Miss Dorothy P. Nassau. Philadelphia, pa. ).

103 Idem., dated 25 October 1904.

104 Ibid.

105 Ibid.

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the home of Trader John Holt.106 And when he happened to be there in January 1899, at the time of a gala banquet presented by the Steamship company to local merchants in connection with the launching of a new ship, he was not only invited to attend the twenty-course dinner, but to sit at the head-table, as well, and to pronounce the benediction and make a short speech.107

Nassau never reported any converts among the captains and traders, but they knew him as a missionary who did not despise them, but accepted them as persons. He was certainly not the only one who treated these men in this way, but there must have been others who cringed at his “sitting at meat with sinners.”

SUMMARY

R. H. Nassau was a proud and active Presbyterian churchman, with a theology expressed more in attitudes than in doctrine. His fierce opposition to Romanism resulted from bitter experiences, and was based more on the effects it had on people, than on its formulation. As a Christian he sought fellowship with people from all Protestant horizons.

There was nothing artificial in the way Nassau accepted the Africans and affiliated with them; it was the natural outgrowth of the compassion felt for American Blacks

106 Nassau, “Diary”, Vol. 13, p.97.

107 Ibid., pp. 98-99.

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during his youth, and which after he retired in the States made him an active supporter of Negro higher education. The way in which he refused to tolerate missionary domination of the Africans found its parallel in the way he respected and befriended white traders and captains.

CHAPTER IV

MISSIONARY COLLEAGUES AND BOARD SECRETARIES

INTRODUCTION

We are attempting to know the man Robert Hamill Nassau and his work, and are seeking to understand why his life story was never written. This study so far, has considered his background and training, his career, his talents and interests, his attitudes and beliefs and the resultant relationships to various groups. Nothing yet has indicated why he passed into seeming oblivion. There remains to be considered his relationships, with fellow missionaries and the Secretaries of the Board of Foreign Missions with which he had to deal.

Nearly three decades went by without any major problem in this area. In 1891, however, a turning point was reached as a result of a momentous decision made several years before in 1888, in desperation. It was at that time that Dr. Nassau, refusing to send home his daughter Mary, called Anyentyuwe to his help. A summary of her life story is necessary for the understanding of what follows.

After the turning point mentioned, there ensued an extremely complicated succession of events which this writing tries to untangle and set forth. Through all these Nassau remained obstinately true to himself, as described

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in earlier chapters. A major factor was the visit of Secretary A. W. Halsey to Africa; it forced R.H. Nassau to tender his resignation. He believed it would not be accepted, but it was. In spite of kind words expressed at his leaving, Dr. Nassau remained hurt. The fading out of history of a most remarkable missionary was the result.

UP TO THE 1891 TURNING POINT

No particular tensions or major difficulties between Nassau and his colleagues are reported during his early years of service on Corisco Island and at Benita. On the contrary, there was his moving and remarkable friendship with George Paull. 1 Young Robert Hamill was surrounded by older colleagues, both male and female, and he showed them the courtesy and respect of his upbringing. The arrival of younger colleagues meant new friendships. Due to conditions, alas, only few came, and none like Paull.

Nassau felt the need for fellowship and companionship and did not enjoy loneliness. “I have thirsted, until my eyes paid for the heart’s pain, longing for the joys that come from association with many christians in a christian air”, he wrote in Corisco Days. 2 He did not think location was good for

1 See Chapter I, pp. 18-19.

2 Robert Hamill Nassau, Corisco Days (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1910 ), p. 64.

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missionaries, for they needed :

...a little of that social life and companionship, the lack of whose aid had, too slightly entered into the account of former ill-health. 3

He rejoiced, on Corisco, when the group was:

. . . again large enough for companionship . . . [and] each aroused the other from the depression which isolation induces, and which strips of the energy to move out of a narrow routine into healthful change or even exercise. 4

Yet, later, he was often forced to live in just that kind of

isolation.

During the first period of Nassau’s exploration along

the Ogooué, there was a German colleague, the Rev. William

Schorsch, with whom he had serious difficulties; the man was

mentally deranged. 5 His difficulties were not only with

Nassau, but with others also.

Both books relating the life stories of his wives reported cases of pleasant social intercourse with colleagues. 6 Whenever there was a Mrs. Nassau to act as hostess, missionary colleagues were welcome guests. On one occasion, there occurred an unpleasant experience with a fellow worker. Noticing his wife’s distress, Dr. Nassau, who did not know the ground of the ill will, begged the man to tell what was wrong in order

3 Ibid., p. 155..

4 Robert Hamill Nassau, Crowned in Palm-land (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott. & Co., 1874). pp. 161-62.

5 Robert Hamill Nassau, My Ogowe, (New York: Neale. Publishing Co, 1914), pp. 93-95.

6 Nassau, Crowned, p. 387. Robert Hamill Nassau, The Path She Trod, (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1909), p. 122.

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that he might be able to apologize. 7 While living at Talaguga the Nassaus had no nearby colleagues and visitors were very rare; but they had at times occasion to descend to Kângwe or to Baraka, and no unusually strained relations are reported. If a cloud appeared, Mary Foster Nassau’s sensitiveness helped to drive it away. 8

During those years no Board secretaries from New York ever visited Africa. Contacts with the missionaries were by letter or during furloughs? Since, if all went well, the missionaries remained on the field for many years, or could not go home for lack of replacements, the Secretary in charge when they left often was no longer there when they returned. Nassau had no personal conflicts with the Secretaries during the first thirty years of his ministry. True, he was almost censured by the Secretary John C. Lowrie for wanting an industrial school, 9 and the same refused him permission to engage in a pioneering exploration trip; 10 but Nassau accepted authority, and relationships were not embittered. With Secretary F.F. Ellinwood, who helped him to obtain permission to go into the interior, he had of course no quarrel.

7 Ibid., p. 67.

8 Ibid., p. 124.

9 See Chapter II, p. 95.

10 See Chapter II, p. 70.

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The Turning Point

Three decades of service had come to an end when Nassau decided to take his daughter to the United States in 1891. He had suffered the loss of two wives; then he had pioneered all alone, but with joy; and finally, he had found someone able to help him with Mary. The fifteen years that followed, however, were clouded through troubled relationships with colleagues and Secretaries. The change made his My Ogowe so voluminously defensive; brought him to write his unpublished lengthy autobiography, and to produce a History of the West Africa Mission which remained unpublished. The change is perhaps one reason why nobody dared to undertake to write his biography.

Nassau, however, had not changed. He remained true to himself. The people and circumstances surrounding him had altered. He did not consider himself a sinless, perfect man, but he was unbending, once he had set himself upon a certain course. He could not compromise, when he was convinced he had done no wrong. Female companionship sustained him, but twice he was deprived of a Mary’s gentle but strong influence to help him around obstacles. The loss of his wives prepared the conflict. The one close and intimate friend who might have substituted for their influence was also taken by death. No colleague ever took the place of George Paull.

Left alone with little Mary, and for her sake, he turned for help to Anyentyuwe.

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ANYENTYUWE

The primary source of information about Anyentyuwe is found in the story which Nassau wrote and to which he gave the title, Two Women, the Lives of Two Native African Christians. 11 The Editor of the American Tract Society, to whom the author submitted this manuscript, begged him to suppress it, fearing it would injure the cause of Foreign Missions.12 Nassau’ s purpose in turning his work over to the Library of Lincoln Seminary was certainly not in order to hurt the cause; he did not want the information it contained to be lost. He felt that it could serve two purposes. First, “. . . that real friends of Missions to Africa. . . may pray for missionaries that they may be guided in their dealings with their native Christians”. 13 And, the second purpose, more directly personal:

. . . that my best friends may see why I persistently befriended the woman who had come to my aid at a time of desperate need, as nurse for my child, helping me, as no other woman, native or foreign, had been willing, or eve, competent to do.14

There are also numerous and very explicit statements concerning Anyentyuwe in My Ogowe. She is frequently mentioned in the autobiography and in Nassau’s diaries.

11 The other woman was Ekakise. We are concerned here only with the story of Anyentyuwe.

12 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Two Women, the Lives of Two African Christians” (MS, Vail Memorial Library, Lincoln University), Preface, [n.p.] .

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

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Early contacts and Anyentyuwe’s letter of 1881

It was during his first prolonged stay at Baraka, in 1870, that Nassau learned to know a number of older school girls which he ever gratefully remembered. Among them, “the two Harrington girls, my little friends of eight before.”15 In the absence of the Walkers and Bushnells, veteran missionaries away on furlough, the mission station had been turned over to the young widower and his sister, Miss Nassau.16 Young Njivo and Anyentyuwe lived at the Mission and had already learned to know Dr. Nassau on previous trips when, still working at Corisco or Benita, he had visited Gabon. On such occasions Mrs. Walker had assigned the girls to wait on his room.17 Now he learned to know them better. They were the daughters of an important Mpongwe trader, who had entrusted them to the Mission for their education.18 While the girls were still in their teens, both the father and, a few years later, the mother died.19 The younger, Njivo, married an African trader, and went to live in the Ogooué with her husband, where Nassau in later years often visited her and her family.

An older half-sister, Alida, had been taken on a trip to the United States by Mrs. Bushnell, though the father had

15 Nassau, “Autobiography”, p. 334.

16 See Chapter I, pp. 24-25.

17 Nassau, “Two Women”, pp.2-3.

18 Ibid., p. 1.

19 Ibid., p. 3.

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suggested that Anyentyuwe go.20 Disappointed in Alida, Mrs. Bushnell took the motherless “Janie” to be her daughter. 21 Anyentyuwe, in turn, gave to the missionary lady, “in sickness and health, a daughter’s devotion, by nursing and by many other thoughtful labors that no servant -- only a daughter -- could give.”22 Mrs. Bushnell then gave her even more instruction, hoping to keep her for service in the Mission as a sort of Protestant “Sister of Charity.” 23

Gradually Anyentyuwe’s importance to the work of the Mission was recognized, so that a very small salary was paid to her. In Nassau’s opinion, much less than would have been disbursed had she been hired from the outside.24 Her value to the Mission increased so that her departure would have meant a considerable loss. And so Mrs Bushnell certainly nothing to encourage matrimony. As could be expected, important white officials and traders became interested in the young lady. Her own feelings, however, attracted her to only one; a French West-Indian Creole, accepted by the others as a white man. He offered her honorable marriage, a rare proposal in such cases, and was willing to overcome her objections to his Catholicism by submitting to a Protestant form of wedding. 25

20 Robert Hamill Nassau, Tales Out of School, (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1911) , pp. 116-24.

21 Nassau, “Two Women”, p. 3. Though known to many as “Janie” and called “Ma Janie” by Nassau’s daughter, we shall only use her African name.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., p. 4.

24 Ibid., p. 9.

25 Ibid., p. 7.

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Anyentyuwe kept the proposal from her foster-mother. Strongly inclined to consent, she was nevertheless hesitant. Nassau writes, “Mrs. B. had told her it was wrong for negroes and whites to marry. Janie did not understand this; for, at that very time, a white layman of the Mission was married to a Liberian American-negro lady.”26

It was while Anyentyuwe was struggling with this problem, and had meanwhile reached the age of twenty-six, that she wrote a letter to Dr. Nassau who had gone to the Unites States, determined to bring back a wife. The letter is the only one of Anyentyuwe’s writings to him which Dr. Nassau seems to have preserved. The letter is in English. Nassau added editorial signs, as though he fully expected it to be printed some day. 27

The letter commences:

“Dear Friend,

“I have not written to you in so long a time that I am almost ashamed to do it. It is so long since we heard from each other, that I do not know who wrote last. I was very sorry to hear that you were sick.”

Obviously their friendship had been such that letters had been

26 Ibid. Reference to Charity Sneed, wife of H. Menkel. See Chapter III, p. 121.

27 Letter from Janie Harrington to R.H. Nassau, dated 14 September 1881. Unclassified letters. Dr. Nassau, according to his diaries, received many letters from Anyentyuwe. [Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary].

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exchanged, certainly during the furlough, perhaps even in Africa, while Nassau was pioneering in the Ogooué and Anyentyuwe was at Baraka. It is certainly not exaggerated to think that, during his visits to the Libreville station, the lonely Nassau had taken the “vivacious and brilliant”28 young lady into his confidence, telling her about his boys in America, sharing with her his plans to bring back a wife. She writes, “I go to Mama [Bushnell]29 every time the mail comes to ask about you. I am glad to hear the news that I hoped to hear. I will be very glad to see her.” Apparently news had been sent to Gabon of his intended second marriage.

Had Nassau ever given consideration to asking Anyentyuwe to be his wife ? Probably not at this time. Certainly not if he had known her secret affection for the young West-Indian, whom she feared to marry because of Mrs. Bushnell. Meanwhile, during the furlough, her own struggle had become more difficult.30 She tells her friend, “It is a long time since you went. I hope you will come soon, for I want to see you very much.” Nassau was only to learn much later what her problems were.

Anyentyuwe had the pleasure of meeting the bride. Two days after the Nassaus arrived in Africa, Mrs. Nassau wrote in

28 Nassau, “Two Women”, p. 6.

29 Name and [ ] added by Nassau.

30 Nassau, op. cit., p. 8.

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her diary that she attended a meeting where Janie was present.31 And Nassau added later, when he edited it, “The ‘Janie’ mentioned was the educated native Christian lady, Anyentyuwe, who, seven years later, was to be the protector and governess of Mrs. Nassau’s daughter.”32

Their stay at Baraka, however was brief and busy. They had to unpack their goods and attend the Annual Meetings of Mission and Presbytery;33 when Nassau and his bride sailed up the Ogooué river, less than three weeks later, it is doubtful that Anyentyuwe had found occasion to tell her friend what she had desired to share with him.

The intervening years

It was several years later, so Nassau relates in Two Women, that he learned what had happened. Anyentyuwe’s suitor, the French Creole:

“. . . maddened at her persistent refusal of him, attempted to force her, regardless of her struggles.”34 No pregnancy resulted, but the romance had been marred. Anyentyuwe’s indignation was such that the young man, disappointed, left for France, hoping for a change of heart on her part upon his return. By that time, however, a graver ill had befallen her, (explained below) and “. . . in her distress [ she had ] accepted an alliance, less honorable than

31 Nassau, The Path She Trod, p. 67.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid., pp. 68-72.

34 Nassau, “Two Women”, p. 8.

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what he had offered.”35 Someone had carefully avoided telling her of the young man’s expected return. “She was speechless in her grief,” Nassau writes, and he, “after a short time, finally left Africa a disappointed lover, never expecting to return.”36 And Nassau concludes, “What marring of two lives would have been saved, had she been allowed to accept his honorable offers of years before !”37

As though this indignation was not enough to make Nassau for ever his defender, he also learned of a financial deal whereby a certain amount of money was unjustly held back by the Mission and never returned to Anyentyuwe.38

Nassau attributes a certain carelessness in Anyentyuwe’s conduct to her disenchantment caused by the missionaries’ unjust attitude toward her. This had resulted in her actually being raped by a married African man, in the fall of 1881, just before Nassau’s return with his new wife.39 An altercation with the elderly missionary Walker and with Mrs. Bushnell a few days before the Nassaus left, but of which they were not aware, made Anyentyuwe decide to leave Baraka, where she had been at home for twenty-two years.40 Did she not feel that her friend, going up to the Ogooué, with Mary Nassau, meant that her last support among the white missionaries had moved out of her life ?

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., pp. 13-15.

39 Ibid.,pp. 16-18.

40 Ibid., p. 18.

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Later, in January 1882, Anyentyuwe realized she was pregnant. She found some slight comfort in the fact that Mrs. Bushnell, her “mother”, after listening to her story, believed her; she begged her to return to Baraka and wept with her. Mr. Walker, however refused to believe her. In August, when little Iga was born, the missionary lost no time in summoning Anyentyuwe before the Session; she was suspended from the Table.41

The Rev. Mr. Walker returned to America in 1883; Mrs. Bushnell in 1885. Dr. Nassau was busy in the Ogooué, founding Talaguga station. In 1884 his wife died and he was occupied trying to find competent help to take care of his little “motherless child.” Anyentyuwe had gone her miserable way and was out of touch with Nassau. She lived, in common-law style marriage with several white men, “faithful in those alliances,” according to Nassau’s understanding and explanations.42

Finally, in April 1887, encouraged to do so by Anyentyuwe’s sister Njivo, Nassau tried to reach her by letter, inviting her to come and help him care for Mary.43 That plan of Nassau’s, however, failed.44 During the year that followed she was submitted to still more injustice, this time on the part of some traders, so that she landed in jail. After a while she unconditionally discharged. Mr. Joseph Reading, a

41 Ibid., pp. 19-20.

42 Ibid., p. 22.

43 Ibid.

44 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 579.

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missionary, who was then employing Njivo, urged her to go and assist Dr. Nassau. In July 1888 she reached Talaguga.45

A Governess not a Servant

Nassau’s relief at having found the one person among thousands, suitable to act as mother to his child, was great. So fondly did he remember her from his earlier contacts that when he learned all the details of what she had suffered, his mind was soon made up. He would help her forget the many injustices of the past years. Here follows the description he gave of her:

Anyentyuwe was at that time 35 years old, [1900] but looked younger. She was petite, graceful, and quick in movement; not black, but of dark brown skin; neat, and scrupulously clean; industrious; skilled with her needle; vivacious, making herself a pleasant companion; intelligent and well-informed; an admirable nurse, with knowledge of native medicine ; (Italics mine) of acute perceptions that quickly divined insincerity in others; an efficient administrator; a wise counselor; a devoted friend; magnanimous, even to enemies; extremely kind and affectionate to children; yet able to control them by the sense of power which the presence of a strong character impress. She had little trace of superstition; and was so apparently without native bias, that I thought of her as a foreigner or as one born in a civilized land.46

Life took on new meaning for Nassau. He could again undertake journeys, knowing that during his absence Anyentyuwe would do exactly the right thing for his Mary. Anyentyuwe’s little Iga, just two years older, was a ready playmate for

45 Nassau, “Two Women,” pp. 22-24.

46 Ibid., pp. 30-31.

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Mary. On his trips he could now count on Anyentyuwe to send him notes and letters, telling him how things were going. On some trips, the four traveled together.47 Anyentyuwe had many relatives who visited her, or which she visited.48

All this took place under the eye of Hamill’s older sister who was relieved that she did not have to curtail her missionary work to care for Mary. After some eighteen months, however, Miss Nassau was due to leave on furlough; and a new missionary, Rev. Burgess B. Brier, had not been sent to Talaguga as Nassau had hoped, but to the “new field” in Batanga.49 His remaining alone would create a new situation.

Nassau discussed the problem, at length, with Anyentyuwe. He had no close missionary friend to consult. Dr. A.C. Good, stationed at Kângwe, was on furlough. Moreover, it was the youthful Good who had taken over the Baraka pastorate from Walker in 1883, only a year after his arrival on the field, and had at once changed Anyentyuwe’s suspension from the table into excommunication !50 The only other male missionaries on the field were a layman, Mr. Reading, the minister at Baraka, Rev. William C. Gault and the recently arrived Brier, all three much younger than Nassau. Dr. Nassau reported his own analysis of the situation:

47 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 633.

48 Ibid., p. 588.

49 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 828, 833.

50 Nassau, My Ogowe, pp. 583-84.

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Should I retain Anyentyuwe ? (a) I knew what the heathen would think. They would assume that she was my “wife”. They suspected all missionaries and, would not. have felt hurt if their suspicions were true. So, I did not care for their judgment. (b) I knew what the traders would say. Some of them had their native mistresses, held more or less openly. We had rebuked them. Now, would they point at me? Yes, probably. But, only in rude joke. They knew and respected me; and they would know that their unkind joke was a lie. So, I disregarded them. (c) All the native Christians knew and believed in me. None of them would doubt me; though a few at Gaboon, who were jealous of her, would gossip; the while in their hearts they knew they were false. (d) I did not think of the possibility of any suspicion being, entertained by my mission associates (Italics mine.) 51

What was Anyentyuwe’s attitude? After she had been with Dr. Nassau a full year, she had expressed her desire to be restored into the fellowship of the church. He advised her to make her confession of having lived in irregular matrimony before the Session at Baraka, where she had been excommunicated. At a special meeting of the Session, in November 1881, she was restored under the Rev. W. C. Gault, who had replaced Dr. Good. 52 Consequently, she had certainly no intention of doing anything that would. again cause her to

be excommunicated. She replied:

I know, Dr. Nassau, more and better than even you do, what people will say of us. To those who, as a solution of the situation, will expect you to ask me in marriage, I will say that I would not marry you even if you should ask it. Not because I would not feel honored by the relation; but, only of respect for you. I know perfectly well the American hatred for my race. (Italics mine.) You would be ostracized by your own relatives.

51 Ibid., pp. 639-40.

52 Nassau, “Two Women,” pp. 29-30.

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But, I will stay with you. I love Mary; and you cannot

take care of her, alone. People may say what they please.

Some or the missionaries cannot say of me worse than they

already have done, although I am again in the church. I

think I will be of service to God, if I can be of some

aid to you. 53

Once their minds had been made up, neither was in the habit of changing decisions. Anyentyuwe continued to care for Mary as governess; now also directing Nassau’s household. Then toward the end of 1890, he made the decision to return to the United States, in order to leave Mary there.

Trips to Liverpool and Last Contacts

Nassau habitually had trouble with seasickness.

He could not conceive being able to care for Mary during the seven weeks’ voyage from Africa to Liverpool. So nothing seemed more normal than that he invite Anyentyuwe and Iga to accompany him and Mary as far as England. 54 He saw to it that she and Mrs. Sneed were treated as the equals of white passengers on the ship. 55 And in Liverpool the family of trader John Holt took the African woman and her daughter under their care, till she could return to set up house in Libreville. 56 After his furlough when he was assigned to the pastorate at Baraka, Dr. Nassau helped her with her affairs, among other things with the building of a little house. 57 She, in turn,

53 Nassau, My Ogowe, p. 640.

54 Ibid., p. 693.

55 Ibid., p. 698.

56 Ibid., p. 699.

57 Nassau, “Two Women,” p. 33.

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assisted him in his work. 58 Reactions of jealousy on the part of some of the natives were inevitable, but Nassau had, once and for all, made up his mind that he owed a tremendous debt to the foster-mother of his child. He did not allow gossip to keep him from doing what he thought was right. 59

When, five years later, Nassau returned again to America, in January 1899, he had formulated a happy plan. He would arrange for Anyentyuwe to sail to Liverpool, during the summer vacation. Then he would offer a trip to Europe to his daughter Mary. That way she could once again see her “Ma Janie”, and the governess the child for whom she had done so much, now a young lady. While he passed through England he arranged for dental work, which Anyentyuwe needed, to be taken care of upon her arrival.

Little did Dr. Nassau realize what painful news would be awaiting him and Mary upon their arrival in Liverpool. He bad been concerned about Anyentyuwe’s health and had been treating her. When he left Baraka he had turned her over to the care of a young, medical missionary whom he admired very much. This doctor, like Nassau, failed to come to a definite conclusion about Anyentyuwe’s ailment. When she arrived in England and went to see the dentist he discovered she had

58 Letter from R. H. Nassau to Secretary J. Gillespie dated 7 October 1895. PCUSABFM. Africa. Incoming letters. Gaboon and Corisco Mission, Vol. 21. Reel 82, letter 294.

59 Nassau, “Two Women,” p. 34.

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leprosy. After but the briefest of visits with Mary, she had to hasten back to Gabon, unable to travel to Switzerland with them.

When Nassau returned to the field, the Mission insisted that he go to Batanga, so his visits and contacts with Anyentyuwe became less frequent. 61 He does not seem to have expressed bitterness or regret at this. When, however, in January 1903, invited by the Baraka station, he resided there again for a few months, he rejoiced because it allowed him to question Anyentyuwe about a number of matters he wished to include in the book he was writing on Fetichism. When, in June, he was forced to go to the hospital and sent home against his wishes, he enjoyed the comfort of his last visits with her, though by then she was quite sick. In contrast to the ill-treatment endured from his missionary colleagues, he remembered gratefully her last kindnesses toward him. 62

In November one of the Baraka missionaries, Mrs. Cunningham, sent a letter telling of Anyentyuwe’s death at the age of forty-eight. 63 Her friend, who had known her for forty years, could not grieve, but only rejoice that she was now for ever beyond the reach of human injustice. 64 Her defender, however, was not !

60 Ibid., pp. 34-5.

61 Ibid., p. 35.

62 Nassau, “Autobiography.” p. 1455.

63 Ibid., p. 1483 A.

64 Ibid., p. 1483.

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CHARGES AND ATTACKS

It was necessary, in order to understand the events now to be related to have in mind the very special ties binding Dr. Nassau to Anyentyuwe. It may also be useful to highlight the names of a few fellow missionaries. Dr. Adolphus Clemens Good was some twenty years younger than Dr. Nassau. He arrived in Africa late in 1882 and was placed at Baraka; less than a year later he married a single missionary, who had come out five years earlier. 65 During this time Nassau and his second wife were far up the Ogooué, at Talaguga. Early in 1885 A. C. Good, with wife and son, moved to Kângwe, which had been Nassau’s first real station on the Ogooué. 66 Meanwhile Mrs. Nassau had passed away, and Nassau was at Talaguga with Mary. During the few years following the men had occasion to meet, mostly when Dr. Nassau left Talaguga. Mrs. Good and her son left Gabon for health reasons in 1886.67 When Dr. Good went to England to bring them back, he was invited by the Board to conduct negotiations with the French Mission in Paris. 68 It was obvious that from 1887 on New York was considering Dr. Good as the coming man.

65 W. Reginald Wheeler, The Words of God in an African Forest (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co.,1931), p. 79.

66 Ellen C. Parsons, A Life for Africa ( 2 nd ed., New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1900 ), p. 82.

67 Ibid., pp. 113-14.

68 Ibid., pp. 128-31.

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During his first and only furlough from September 1889 till August 1890. 69 He got to know the new Africa secretary while Nassau was still on the field. Quite naturally he became the leader of the missionary group now augmented by several new appointees. 70 After his return he cannot have had much contact with Nassau; though Good returned to Kângwe, the former left on furlough some four months later. By the time Nassau returned in July 1893, the Goods had moved to Batanga,

and Dr. Good was busy opening up the work in Bulu-land. 71 Their only subsequent meeting was at the annual gathering of missionaries in January 1894, at Batanga. 72 But at that time Dr. Good must have been preoccupied with his wife who once again had to leave Africa because of her health. 73 He decided to stay and allowed her to go home alone with their son, Albert. 74 Dr. Good died in the interior on 13 December of the same year. 75

Attending Good, at the time of his death, was a young

69 Ibid., pp. 128-33.

70 Ibid., p. 131.

71 Ibid., Chapter XI, pp. 184-204.

72 Nassau, “Autobiography”, pp. 1018-21. Nassau, however, makes no direct reference to him, but to his family.

73 Parsons, op. cit., pp., 244-45.

74 Albert returned to Cameroun in 1909, and served there till retirement in 1950. His mother also returned in 1908 and served again till 1921. Dr. Albert Good was unable to give us any personal information concerning R. H. Nassau. He wrote a monumental. 2 vol. work on the Birds of Cameroun.

75 Parsons, op. cit., p. 276.

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lay missionary Edward A. Ford. 76 He had come to the field in 1891 , while Nassau was on furlough, and was station-manager and treasurer at Baraka when Dr. Nassau returned. 77 Undoubtedly Ford had already been influenced by criticism of Nassau, but in addition, it turned out that the two men had little in common. While awaiting the arrival of Nassau to be the pastor at Baraka, Corisco Presbytery had carelessly taken Ford’s enthusiasm as a Christian Endeavor man as fitting him for ministerial duties. Nassau was of a different opinion, and though Ford turned the pastoral work over to Dr. Nassau, he continued to run his own Christian Endeavor, not related to church or session. All this seemed out of order to the Presbyterian Nassau and the Ford group which considered itself made up of special Christians plagued Nassau’s ministerial work at Baraka for a long time. 78 He wrote, “[ Ford ] professed friendship but he was offensively sharp in his criticisms. No young fellow-missionary had ever treated me so.” 79

From then on the men never got along well together. He considered Mr. Ford as the leader of the “Keep-the-Negro- in-his-place” majority in the mission. 80 As late as 1908 he

76 Ibid., p. 288.

77 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 987.

78 Ibid., pp. 988. 992-94.

79 Ibid., p. 1029.

80 Letter from R.H. Nassau to Secretary A. J. Brown dated 6 July 1899. Incoming letters. Gaboon and Corisco Mission, Vol., 26, Reel 85, letter 77.

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wrote to Mr. Holt, “ . . . very distinctly the man Ford , resented my attitude of Affiliation (Italics Nassau’s) with the Natives.” 81

A third missionary who should be mentioned is the Rev. Robert H. Milligan. He served a first term from 1893 to 1895, withdrew and then served again for seven years from 1898 till 1905. At one time appearing to side against Dr. Nassau, 82 he later apologized. 83 Milligan was not married during his stay in Africa, and got to know the people intimately as revealed in the two books he wrote after he left. 84

When Nassau’s difficulties with his colleagues began, the Rev. John Gillespie, D. D. had become the new Africa Secretary in New York. 85 Though Nassau never accused him of unfairness, he realized that the man was a good friend of the leading young, missionary, Dr. A. C. Good. 86 When Dr. Gillespie died it was with much younger Secretary, Dr. A. J. Brown, that Nassau had to deal, which probably did not facilitate

81 Letter from R. H. Nassau to Mr. John Holt dated 22 May 1908. (Archives of the John Holt Co., Liverpool).

82 See what follows in this Chapter.

83 Letter from Rev. R. H. Milligan to R. H. Nassau dated 4 March 1904 and inserted by Nassau in his “Autobiography” as p. 1501. A. B. but still in envelope.

84 Bibliography.

85 Parsons, op. cit., p. 99, footnote 2.

86 Robert Hamill Nassau, “Industrial Work in African Mission Fields”, The Medical Missionary, 20: 134, May 1911.

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things. 87 Nassau always remained convinced that Brown should not have consulted the field about his return. 88 And he never seems to have overcome a feeling of having been hurt by Dr. Brown. For some reason Dr. Nassau had great expectations of the new Africa Secretary who took office in 1903, Dr. A. W. Halsey: he disappointed him most bitterly. 89

Sources of Information

Robert Hamill Nassau decided himself that he wanted posterity to have the detailed accounts of his bitter experiences during his last fourteen years of service with the Board of Foreign Missions. But in writing his autobiography based on his recollections and diaries, he did not cover only that period. There is no reason why his account of that period should not be accepted along with the rest. Admittedly, he told the story as he experienced it; he did not give a clinically objective analysis. But he preserved all kinds of documents and original letters in the boxes containing the manuscript, so that the researcher does not simply have to take Nassau’s word

87 Arthur Judson Brown, Memoirs of a Centenarian, William N. Wysham, (ed.) (New York: World Horizons 1957), p. 23.

88 See what follows in this chapter.

89 Robert Hamill Nassau “My Retirement from the West Africa Mission”, (MS Private collection of Miss Dorothy F. Nassau, Philadelphia), p. 3.

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In addition, there are some circumstances that have been consulted, and which substantiate what Nassau wrote. These are in the archives of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, preserved now at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. Unfortunately not all the archives were turned over intact, and significant items have not been found. In addition, through some technical error, the microfilming of some of the letters is so poor as to make them useless for the researcher; and the originals have been destroyed.

Indirect information on Dr. Good can be gathered from Miss Parsons’ story of his short life. Handwritten Minutes of the Corisco, and the Corisco-Gaboon Mission covering some of the years of Nassau’s difficulties came to light in 1970 but could not be examined personally by this writer. 90

Dr. Good’s Letter and the 1893 Mission Meeting

As already indicated, it was Dr. Good who, in 1883, the year after his arrival in Africa as pastor of the Baraka church, had excommunicated Anyentyuwe. At that time he hardly knew his veteran colleague, living far up the river. Several years later, stationed at Kângwe, he learned to know the Nassaus, and after Mary Foster Nassau’s death he knew too that the same Anyentyuwe he had excommunicated had become

90 Fortunately Mrs. Lois Johnson McNeil into whose hands they first came, before turning them over to the Presbyterian Historical Society, kindly provided me with a number of verbatim excerpts.

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little Mary’s governess. It was while Dr. Good was on furlough that Dr. Nassau decided to keep Anyentyuwe in his service even after the departure of his sister. Would Dr. Good have objected to the arrangement had he been on the field? Would he have prevented it?

When in turn, Nassau was in the United States he received a letter from Good after he had been home for more than half a year. Nassau writes:

I replied also, to Mr. Good’s preposterous letter, which while he addressed me as “Dear Brother,” and signed himself as “Sincerely your brother in Christ,” I have always regarded as a cruel assault. Without any basis of which I knew, he “had heard” (not naming his informant) that I intended bringing Mary back to Africa, would build a house for myself, in which I would marry Anyentyuwe !!! Whom, though she had by that time been for three years restored to good and consistent standing in the church, he denounced with the worst terms that can be used against a woman. The only christian portion of his letter was that (properly) he had written to me privately rather than complain to the Board. 91

Surprisingly, however, shortly thereafter Nassau received a letter from Dr. Gillespie delaying his return to Africa for six months. 92 And, in Nassau’s absence, at the Mission Meeting held a few weeks later, the following was inserted into the Minutes:

In view of the large force of unmarried missionaries asked for we urge the Board to adopt the following Rules for the Mission:

1. Any missionary who marries a native woman shall be at

once recalled.

2. No male missionary either single, widower, or one whose wife is not on the field shall be allowed to keep a native woman as housekeeper or domestic in any capacity that could give rise to scandal.93

91 Nassau, “Autobiography.” pp. 946-47. 92 Ibid., p. 947

93 Copied from the Minutes of 1893 by Mrs. McNeil.

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Not until early March did Nassau receive a letter from the Mission, written in January. He comments:

It was a sequel to Mr. Good’s preposterous letter of the preceding Fall. Under his manipulations, a Committee of the Mission, consisting of two ministers and one young layman [ Ford, certainly ] at the annual Meeting in January, under a pretense or “Brotherly love,” were placing a barrier to my return to Africa, under a threat of complaint to the Board because of my “intimacy” in writing letters to my native friend ! It was humiliating and cruel. After the first feeling of depression, I tried to throw it off ... 94

Nassau debated within himself what to do, adding that from childhood a threat always drove him to do what was prohibited. 95 He adds:

I decided to go back to Africa; and that I would, more than ever, seek my companionship, not among my falsely professed white friends, but among the native ones, against whom they had so insultingly protested.

It was a comfort to me, that my friend and successor at Talaguga, the Rev. W. S. Bannerman, in forwarding that letter to me under his capacity of temporary clerk of mission, added a private letter, protesting for his individual self, against it. Also, as far as I was aware, the Board did me the justice to take no action against me, when that letter came to them later, in the Mission’s annual Report.96

It was hard for Nassau to believe that Good had been truthful when he had claimed to have written only privately. His comment, written years later, was, “ His and my relations had been, at least, friendly, but, I knew that, after that absurd, unkind, and unjust letter, on my return to Africa, he and I could not be friends.” 97

94 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 959-60.

95 Ibid., p. 460.

96 Ibid., p. 961.

97 Ibid., p. 947.

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All during this period Nassau continued laborious proofreading of Dr. Good’s Mpongwe Scripture translations. 98 At the end of his furlough he was assigned to Baraka, where Anyentyuwe was living, though he had expected to go to Batanga.

Could the two men have become reconciled, had not an early death removed the younger? A footnote in A Life for Africa reads :

One of his brethren in the mission says: Mr. Good was a man of strong convictions and great tenacity of purpose. He seemed at times,to some of us, almost too positive in insisting upon the adoption of his own views. 99

No doubt, he was much like Nassau, and the latter pays tribute to “his great pioneering work in the interior.” 100 Yet, Nassau had come to the conclusion that Good followed a “hard” line with the Africans. Had he not, in Presbytery, uttered the words “Keep the negroes down!”? 101 It would require more research than the confines of this paper allow to explore fully the differences in attitude toward the Africans between Nassau and Good. Consideration should be given to the fact that when their paths crossed, the elder had lived so closely with the natives during so many years, that he had difficulty

98 Ibid., p. 948.

99 Parsons, op. cit., p. 80.

100 Robert Hamill Nassau, “A History of the West Africa Mission” (MS, Archives of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia), p. 71.

101 Nassau, “Two Women,” p. 29.

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in understanding any other approach than that of complete acceptance and respect. Miss Parsons allows Dr. Good to speak for himself in answering some questions sent from America . To a general inquiry, his reply was:

“The most intelligent Christians here cannot see why they should not have everything we have. They have no national costume, and every one of them would like to have clothes just like ours. ... I saw a young man ready to pay four month’s wages for a clock, for which he had no use whatever . These are illustrations of a prevalent evil. An African wants everything he sees. 102

It is hard to imagine Nassau expressing himself like that. To the question if and when the African church would be able to maintain and propagate itself, Good answered in the affirmative:

“But a people who have been stunted and degraded by thousands of years of heathenism cannot be transformed at once into such Christians as this question contemplates. Growth is a gradual process. It will not be in ten or in fifty years.” 103

Nassau’s insistence that Africans within the Presbytery be treated as equals probably conflicted with Good’s view. Finally, to the question, “Do you not often grow weary and homesick ?” Good gave this significant reply:

“Of course one’s thoughts often turn to friends and scenes in the home land, and one wishes he could, at least for a little time, annihilate space. But I believe, since I came to Africa, there has never been a time when, after balancing the pros and cons, I would not rather remain than go home. I do not mean to say that I like the country or people of Africa as such; (Italics mine) that I enjoy isolation, ill health, living on canned provisions, working where my best efforts are little appreciated.

(Italics mine) I could probably have better health,

102 Parsons, op. cit., p 156.

103 Ibid., p. 157.

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more amusement a better time generally , in America, perhaps a more successful career, regarded from some points of view but I doubt whether, knowing the needs of Africa as I do, I could have an easy conscience if I were to run away from this work. I prefer to stay at my post till the Lord discharges me. Meanwhile, I manage to be fairly comfortable and happy in Africa.” 104

During the months that Nassau was suffering because of the hurt caused by Dr. Good’s letter, and its suggestion that he not return to Africa, he wrote, telling about a trip along the Columbia River, “The hills ... had they been covered by a tropic forest, would have reminded me of the Ogowe at Talaguga; they made me feel homesick.” 105 Good’s acceptance of Africa and the Africans was duty-motivated; for Nassau Africa had become home, the Africans his people.106

104 Ibid., p. 158.

105 Nassau, “Autobiography”, pp. 928-29.

106 In an article “The Missionary and His task -- At Edinburgh and Today,” by G. M. Setiloane, a South African, in The International Review of Mission Jan. 1970, Vol.59, p. 58 we read that docility, gentleness and sympathy “are still the qualities by which missionaries are judged on the ‘field.’ They fail or succeed according to how little or how much these qualities are communicated in their daily contacts. ‘He does

not like us’-- ‘He’s a white man,’ or ‘He is not quite at home with us,’ are peals of the deathknell in an unsuspecting missionary’s career.” The author, the article then says

that trainers of missionaries interpret this to mean that “the people of the younger churches want to be loved to be understood.” That, he explains, is not exactly the case, but what they want is for the expatriates to evince”human” qualities when dealing with them. What the Africans are saying is “We want you to come to us as people,

accepting us equally as people.”

We believe that such was Nassau’s attitude.

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The 1895 and 1899 letters to Secretaries Gillespie and Brown

Dr.Nassau had prepared a statement to be read at the 1894 Mission Meeting, rejecting its reproaches of the previous year.107 It was not necessary, however, to read it since the matter did not come up. He was offered the chairmanship of the Meeting, but declined to accept the honor. 108 When Dr. Good died at the end of the year, he not only left behind an overland road into the interior, but also, so Dr. Nassau felt, a devoted follower, Mr. Ford, eager to continue the leader’s attitudes. 109 Was it Edward Ford who wrote the letter to New York in 1895 to which Dr. Gillespie reacted by writing to Nassau ? 110

Some indication of the content of both letters

can be gathered from Dr. Nassau’s reply to the Secretary:

“The lady, of whom you speak, was never a heathen; is the grandchild of the first converts here. Has served the Mission in various most efficient positions as teacher, nurse, matron, etc. for twenty years in this house, which she regarded as her home, until unjustly driven from it some dozen years ago. . . . One whose truth and honesty is not excelled by any of my fellow-missionaries; whom I regard as the noblest character in this town . . . A high estimate. If it is contravened by any statements that you have from any source whatever, -- white or black, -- I have only to assert that such statements were based on either falsehood, spite, jealousy, suspicion or misrepresentation.

“She is not now, nor has been, resident on these premises, or in my personal employ, as my ‘housekeeper.’ (This sentence underscored, as being important. Probably by Secretary Gillespie.) I would not think it wise to

107 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 1006-8.

108 Ibid., p. 1019.

109 PCUSABFM, cf. p. 154, n.58. p. 154, 58.

110 The writer has been unable to find these letters in the microfilmed archives.

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have any resident unmarried female, -- white or black, -- alone with any man, in this Gaboon. [He may have meant, in distinction to the Ogooué.] She is, as are other women, residing in their villages, in my Mission employ. I can not do the work here without their aid. . . . The Church’s “ good name or my character are not in danger from any native source. No wrong is being done by me to the cause of Christ...” 111

In the same letter Nassau also explains why he cannot comply with a request “you are caused to make of me.” 112 What the request was is not clear, he suggests;

“But it is not necessary that I should thus be driven to the wall. An easy, just, and happy solution will be for the Mission to locate me anywhere else at any other work; no longer compelling me to remain. in the presence of a reproach, of which themselves are the sole cause.” 113

Apparently his defense was accepted, for he remained at Baraka, and in 1899 was on furlough in the United States, preparing Anyentyuwe’s trip to Europe, where he would meet her with his daughter. Like during the previous furlough, however, the matter flared up during his absence from the field. Mr. Ford seems to have sent a letter of resignation, indicating incompatibility with Dr. Nassau as the reason for wanting to leave the Mission. 114 Again, Dr. Nassau’s reply, eight pages, must be quoted at length he writes to Dr. Brown:

111 Letter from R. H. Nassau to Secretary J. Gillespie dated 7 October 1895. PCUSABFM. Incoming letters, Gaboon and Corisco Mission, Vol. 26, Reel 82, letter 294,

112 Ibid.

113 Ibid.

114 Again, the writer could not find the letter from Ford in the microfilmed archives.

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“ Your letter . . . gave me a sleepless night, and brought into my happy furlough the nightmare which I hoped I had forever escaped when I left Africa last December.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . I must regard Mr. Ford’s letter as disingenuous. Diplomatically a good move on his part. He knew, last November, that, on my return to Africa, I would not again locate at Libreville....

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I was willing notwithstanding all I have endured from this young man, to remain in the same Mission ( but not at the same Station ) (Italics Nassau’s) with him. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . Mr. Ford himself has told me that the action in 1893 of himself and two others (now dead, but who made honorable acknowledgements that enabled me to respect their memory ) was at the dictation of the (then) leader of the Mission, - - now dead - - (immediately after that leader’s proposing that the Board should not return me. ) I know also that that leader, out of Meeting, said that the action passed ‘would accomplish his same object.’ ( Italics Nassau’s )” 11

Nassau, however, wrote that he did not want to go back to what happened in 1893, since he did not get to see Dr. Gillespie before he died. He admitted not getting along well with Mr.Ford, but:

“When, occasionally, goaded by him, I have spoken sharply, I have not only apologized in presence of witnesses, but I showed the sincerity of my apology, by acknowledging myself in error.” 116

He accepted Dr. Brown’s request for “counsel” and gave fifteen reasons for insisting that Mr. Ford not resign. He will leave,

115 Letter from R. H. Nassau to Secretary A.J. Brown dated 6 July 1899. See footnote 80. 116 Ibid.

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and go elsewhere, let Ford remain at Baraka. Point 14 is very significant:

“Since the death of Dr. Good , Mr. Ford , is the leader of 2/3 of the Mission, - - the “Keep-the-Negro in-his-place” majority. I am leader of the Negrophiles. I regret the dividing line. The natives all know where each of us men and women stand. But they are most wisely reticent. I did not make the line: though I took up the gauntlet Dr. Good publicly, in presence of the negro brethren threw down before me in Presbytery.” 117

Mission Actions of 1899 and 1900

It was clear in Nassau’s mind that he had indicated that he was willing to leave Baraka, and he had repeated it in his letter to Dr. Brown. He had been asked to write the book, on Fetichism and the Mission was asked to take this into consideration in his assignment. At the annual Meeting held in December 1899, however, while Nassau was still in the U. S. A., he was, assigned to Batanga. 118 The Mission action was in agreement with Nassau’s personal request and had been taken before the Mission had received the request from the Board to take, into consideration the special work Dr. Nassau was being asked to do. Some missionaries however, felt it was necessary to make sure that he would not, somehow, return

117 Ibid. The writer has been unable to find out what exactly happened at the meeting of Presbytery.

118 Nassau, “Autobiography,” Inserted with p. 1278 is a typed copy of the action of the Mission which the Board must have forwarded to Dr. Nassau. It refers to a meeting

held in December 1889, but that is obviously a typographical error for 1899.

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to Baraka, claiming that Nassau had meanwhile written that he would live at Baraka. A letter was sent to Dr. Brown. 119

Four arguments were advanced against allowing Nassau back to Baraka. 1. That it was doubtful propriety for an experienced missionary, “to sit down in the midst of the perishing heathen to write their folk-lore as his main business.” 2. The great need in Batanga. 3. The fact that Nassau’s unfriendly with the missionaries at Gabon made it unwise, and 4. “Dr. Nassau’s relation to a certain native woman of Gaboon has been a standing scandal in that community among both the native

and the European populations.” 120

Carefully the letter continued:

“We neither pronounce Dr. Nassau ‘guilty’ nor ‘not guilty’ of an immoral relation to this woman; but we cannot but recognize the fact that in the community of Gaboon he is believed to be guilty, and also that his conduct has fully justified this impression .” 121

A closing paragraph added that the letter had not been shown to the newly arrived missionaries and was signed by ten persons. The first four to sign were Milligan, Ford, Mrs. Ogden, and Mrs. Gault, all stationed at Baraka. Five others signed, but indicated that they were not cognizant about point 4,

119 Ibid. This insert is a typed copy of a 3 page letter signed by several persons to Dr. A. J. Brown, dated 1 March 1900.

120 Ibid., p. 2 of the inserted letter.

121 Ibid.

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which was the point of the, the whole letter. And Captain Peter Menkel, who had been married to the colored Miss Sneed, added:

“I do not believe that Dr. Nassau has been guilty of immoral conduct , I think it best for the work at Gaboon that he be not sent there unless he marry the woman Jane Harrington. [Anyentyuwe].”122

Dr. Brown at once delayed Nassau’s sailing, 123 and he was invited to meet with the Executive Committee of the Board, and confronted with the letter. 124 He begged permission to go to Baraka, in order, to refute the charges. 125

Dr. Nassau inserted three additional letters in with his autobiography which he received from Dr. A. J. Brown. 126 In the one dated 22 June 1900, the Board Secretary, obviously with reference to the meeting held in New York where Nassau was present said that the Committee voted to make no reference to the whole matter in its report so that it would not become part of the history of his life work. He wrote:

“... But it is only fair that I should tell you, my dear Doctor that while not a single member of the Commit tee believes for a moment that you are guilty of any immorality, it was the unanimous conviction of the Committee that your own statement as to your treatment of the woman, even had there been no letters from the field at all, would have justified the charge of indiscretion...”

Nassau disagreed and continued to write.

123 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1278.

124 Ibid., p. 1279

125 Ibid., P. 1285.

126 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1285. from Dr. A. J. Brown.

Inserted letters from Dr. A.J. Brown.

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Having become understandably somewhat impatient with Nassau’s

letters, and the stubborn attitude he was displaying, Dr. Brown wrote again on 3 July 1900, after repeating that the Board had again voted that he should go to Batanga:

“... The report as now finally adopted, represents the result of three joint meetings of the Board’s Committee on Africa and the Executive Council, and two meeting’s of the Board, beside a great deal of individual thought and prayer. It will be a joy to me if you can accept the decision of the Board in the spirit in which it is made, and act upon the loving advice of Dr. Gillespie’s letter of 1895 . . . . and go back to Africa to the work at the Batanga Station, and in such ways that the unhappy rumors which have given you and us all so much pain will never be revived. ...”

And, finally, after Dr. Nassau had agreed to go to Batanga, which had already been his intention before the attack was made from the field, Dr. Brown wrote on 12 July 1900:

“...I believe with all my heart that you have been wisely guided by the Spirit of God. You can be of great service to the cause of Christ in Batanga.

“And now . . . permit me . . . to express the hope that your relations with the missionaries who addressed the Board regarding you may be amicable? No one of them expressed any personal feeling antagonistic to you. All wrote under what they believed to be a sense of duty. ...”

From then on there came a change in his relationship to the Board. He described it in these terms:

It hurt me, that, for even a single day, they had regarded that libelous Baraka letter as the reason for my going to Batanga or, that it had been given consideration But, I went back to Africa, a different man. For 39 years, I had loved, honored, and served the Board with devotion, patience, and endurance of trials and suffering greater than had fallen on any of my associates. I had done this cheerfully; for I loved the Board personally ... thenceforward, though no less loyal to the Church: loyalty to the Board was no longer personal. . . . Instead of being their loyal friend I was their obedient servant. I had learned my first lesson as to the autocracy of Boards. 127

127 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 1285-86.

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With this changed feeling Dr. Nassau, upon arrival in Africa, went to Baraka, where he had to fetch his belongings, and at once set out to vindicate his honor. In Chapter XXX of his “Autobiography,” he tells how no single accuser could be found to substantiate the statements of the March letter. 128 He decided, at the time of the next annual Meeting to bring charges for slander against the Rev. R. H. Milligan before Presbytery.129 Meanwhile he settled down at Batanga.

Describing what took place after he had both complained to Mission Meeting and lodged his protest with Presbytery, Nassau added, “I felt somewhat of a burden removed.” 130 He had a long talk with the Rev. W. C. Johnston and meditated on certain Scripture passages; after a few days he wrote a letter of forgiveness and withdrew the charge. 131 The recently discovered Minutes of that Mission Meeting confirm what Dr. Nassau wrote. The Resolutions 40 and 41 read:

Resolved that Rev. R. H. Nassau D. D. be reassigned to Batanga. C.[arried] Whereas; the occasion for the protest against Dr. Nassau’s going to Gaboon has been removed by his acceptance on an assignment to Batanga; and Whereas for the above reason those missionaries who made that protest now agree to withdraw it;

Be it resolved that the matter referred to in resolution 39 be dropped from the Mission. (sic)

Carried. 132

128 Ibid pp. 1297-1319.

129 Ibid. p. 1297.

130 Ibid., p. 1329.

131 Ibid., p.1330.

132 Copied from the Minutes of 1900 by Mrs. McNeil.

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Resolution 39 had requested that Nassau present his grounds for charging slander. 133 Prior to the Meetings Dr. Nassau had sent an inquiry to his friend Allégret asking about entering the French Mission.

In a subsequent letter, however, he let it be known that things had worked out better than he expected. 134 Or at least so he thought at the time.

Forced Out and Allowed Back

Two years later, at the Mission Meeting in December 1902, Dr. Nassau had the surprise of hearing R. H. Milligan suggest to him that he return to Baraka ! 135 Mission passed the following Resolution 31:

That R. H. Nassau be assigned to Gaboon that he may employ his time in certain literary work which the Board and the Mission and R.H. Nassau have long desired that he should do. Carried. 136

It could not have been phrased more kindly. Mr. Ford, at the suggestion of Dr. Nassau had moved the treasury of the Mission to Batanga and was stationed there. 137 Dr. Nassau’s return to a Baraka now no longer occupied by his “enemy” appeared as a complete vindication. Since there was a full-time pastor, the Rev. James S. Cunningham, in charge of the church, Nassau was finally able to get on with his writing on Fetichism.

133 Ibid.

134 See Chapter III, p. 119. 135 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1427.

136 Copied from the Minutes of 1902 by Mrs. McNeil.

137 Nassau, op. cit., p. 1378.

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This happy arrangement., however, was again disturbed, six months later. Dr. Nassau became ill. Refusing to go to the French government hospital where he would be in the care of a Roman Catholic nun, he was finally forced to do so by his Baraka station colleagues: the Rev. J. M. Milligan, the Rev. and Mrs. J. S. Cunningham, and Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Adams, who were visiting there. 138 When subsequently he got into a heavy argument at the hospital with Milligan, the latter obtained a statement from the French doctor indicating Nassau had to return, at once, to the United States. Milligan claimed he was insane. Nassau left the hospital and was, at least in his opinion, ill-treated during his last days at Baraka, before sailing. All this he set forth in great detail in a long memorandum to Dr. Brown. 139

A week after Nassau had left, the Station reported to

Dr. Brown in a letter dated June 29th 1903 the action taken

on June 17th:

“WHEREAS: The physician of the Government of the Congo Francais, who has been attending Dr. Nassau in his sickness, has given us a certificate declaring that there would be a real danger to him in prolonging his residence in such a climate as that of the Congo’, and ‘that Dr. Nassau ought to go home by the quickest means possible.’

“RESOLVED: That we advise, insisting upon it if necessary, that Dr. Nassau go home by the English steamer ‘Olenda,’ which will probably be in Gaboon in a few days.” 140

138 Ibid., p, 1451.

139 Ibid., pp. 1451-57. See also Chapter III, p. 114.

140 Nassau, “Autobiography”; Typed copy of action inserted loose in Box 5.

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In October, in behalf of the Board, Dr. Brown wrote to the Mission in Africa, requesting a cabled reply concerning the expediency of Dr. Nassau’s return. 141 The action had been prompted by Nassau’s informing New York that he was ready to return. Nassau considered this inquiry sent to the field as completely wrong. Meanwhile he had been told that there existed a “Cunningham Letter” which Dr. Brown refused to let him see. 142 This letter had, in all likelihood, accompanied the station action. A letter from Milligan to Dr. Brown, in December, gives a clue to its contents: the same remarks concerning Nassau’s visits to Anyentyuwe. Milligan brings in the name of Ford, although he was no longer at Baraka, and puts the blame for what happened in June on the Cunninghams, especially Mrs. Cunningham. He also expresses his surprise that the letter was not shown, or communicated to Dr. Nassau. He thinks that the letter asking the Board to “remonstrate with Dr. Nassau because of his objectionable and offensive relations to certain natives,” should not have been sent in the first place. 143

But the letter had been sent, and the Board had acted, and in December the whole Mission Meeting was given another

141 Letter from Secretary A. J. Brown to the West Africa Mission dated 7 October 1903. PCUSABFM. Africa letters. Vol. 8 (part 2), Reel 238, letter 11.

142 Nassau, op. cit., p. 1473. The writer was unable to find the “Cunningham letter” in the microfilm archives.

143 Letter from Rev. R. H. Milligan to Secretary A. J. Brown dated 22 December 1903. PCUSABFM. Africa letters. Vol. 1, Reel 238, letter 33.

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chance to debate the Nassau issue, in his absence. The reply to New York follows:

Your Committee appointed to frame such answer as might be best to the question Of Dr. Nassau’s return to the field, as raised in Secretary Brown’s letter of Oct. 7th, report as follows; In view of all circumstances we recommend, 1 rst. That a cablegram be sent to the Board saying what shall be equivalent in the code to “Nassau wait.” 2nd. That the following explanatory letter be sent by the first mail. The Mission recognized that while other circumstances might have justified Dr. Nassau’s removal from Baraka station, the urgency of his recent return to America was based only upon the consideration of his ill-health and the statement of the French physician at Gaboon recommending his going to a better climate than that of Africa. The Mission also approved of the return of Dr. Nassau to the field as soon as he may wish and as his condition of health may justify. And in view of certain unpleasant relations in which Dr. Nassau has been involved in past years, the Mission very earnestly desires that on his return to the field he endeavor more earnestly to live in harmony with his fellow-missionaries and to avoid such relations with natives as might cause talk and prove a stumbling block to the cause of Christ. 144

In November, Anyentyuwe, who had been seriously ill, had passed away. The June action of Baraka station, forcing him to leave, had thus deprived Nassau of comforting his friend during her final days, and his last visits to her were still being criticized.

On February 15, 1904, the Board, in turn, also took action. During all this time Dr. Nassau had been detained in the States. The action. summarized, was: 1. To sanction return. 2. To counsel Nassau to seek increased harmony.

144 Mission Meeting Minutes [ 1905 ] PCUSABFM. Africa Minutes. Vol. 9, Reel 239, pp. 15-14 (sic).

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3. To send Secretary Halsey and some Board member to the field. 145

Nassau, understandably, was unhappy with point two and felt that the third point, as formulated, gave the impression that the Halsey visit was directly necessitated by point two. 146 He felt that Dr. Brown’s October letter to the field, asking about his return, should have been rescinded by the Board. He decided to call upon two influential men to defend his cause: the Rev. Charles R. Erdman and his cousin Judge Hugh H. Hamill. 147 With their help he obtained some satisfaction and at a meeting of the Board in March, part of the February action was rescinded so that it would not be interpreted injuriously. Point two, with the exhortation to harmony, was dropped. The decision to send Secretary Halsey to Africa, remained in the record of the February meeting, but the action concerning agreement to Nassau’s return would appear in the March minutes. All this was explained by Dr. Brown in a letter to Dr. Nassau which ended with, “I trust, my dear Doctor, this will be satisfactory to you and that you will feel that you can return to Africa assured of the warm personal regard of the officers and members of the Board.” 148 A long letter was also

145 Nassau, “Autobiography.” Letter to R. H. Nassau from Dr. A. J. Brown dated 16 February 1904 and inserted in Box 5. In it Dr. Brown officially communicated the action.

146 Ibid., pp. 1491 - 92.

147 Ibid., p. 1493.

148 Ibid. Letter from Dr. A. J. Brown to R. H. Nassau, dated 8 March 1904 and inserted in Box 5.

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sent to the Mission, since the February 15 text had already been sent, explaining why it was being rescinded. 149

In both letters, however, the Board’s inquiry sent in October was upheld and justified. Since this was what Nassau objected to most, he began to think of taking the matter to the General Assembly. Together with his cousin he visited the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly who warned, “that the Assembly was . . . accustomed to be dominated by the Boards,” so that little would be gained. 150 Dr. Erdman was also of that opinion, and suggested that it would be best to wait till after the Halsey visit to Africa, but he, at the same time, restated his conviction that Dr. Nassau had done nothing wrong, and concluded;

. . . in case Dr. Brown as an individual, or the mission, or the Board, shall cause you any distress or discomfort, you are to resign at once, and to depend upon your friends here for all needed support and encouragement . . . . whether your connection with the Board is severed now or after your return to Africa. 151

Nassau went to Buffalo in May to attend General Assembly, but did not bring up the issue. 152 Now that he was allowed to go back, he returned to Batanga in November.

149 Letter from Secretary A. J. Brown to the West Africa Mission dated March 7 1904. PCUSABFM. Africa letters. Vol. 8 (part 3), Reel 238, letter 26.

150 Nassau, “Autobiography,” pp. 1500-1501.

151 Ibid. Letter from Dr. Charles R. Erdman to R. H. Nassau dated 19 April 1904. Inserted in Box 5.

152 Nassau, “My Retirement,” p. 4.

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Secretary Halsey’s Visit

When, toward the end of 1904, Dr. A. W. Halsey arrived in Africa as the first Secretary to visit the field Nassau received what he considered the final blow.

Nassau wrote:

When Dr. Halsey was appointed to visit Africa, another member of the Board had also been directed to accompany him. But, that member did not come. Which was unfortunate, both for the Mission and the Secretary. Clothed with absolute power, as we believed him to be, it would have been well that some one should have shared with him the responsibility of collecting evidence. No man, however, great or good, should alone exercise such power. The Supreme Court of the U. S., does not utter its decrees by the testimony of simply one of its Justices. 153

Unwilling, or unable, to accept the fact that the Nassau matter had been considered and dealt with in New York, and no charges retained against the accused, Dr. Halsey diligently collected information concerning Dr. Nassau which he brought, in the form of accusations, first to Nassau himself. 154 He then brought these before the entire Mission. 155 There were three headings: 1. Relations to the natives (moral character). 2. Nassau’s alleged opposition to the Policy of Native Self-Help. 3. Unfraternity. 156 Though Secretary Halsey had himself acquitted him of charges under 1, he nevertheless read them all again in the public meeting.157

153 Nassau, “Autobiography,” p. 1534 1/2.

154 Nassau, “My Retirement,” p. 5.

155 Ibid., p. 10.

156 Ibid., p. 5.

157 Ibid., pp. 8-9.

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Nassau had not been able to convince Halsey that his so-called opposition to the Self-Help was a matter of approach, and not of principle, and so Halsey condemned him on that score. Nassau’s more lenient attitude toward the Africans was at variance with that of his colleagues. 158

As to the charges of unfriendly conduct, none was more ready to admit his guilt than Nassau. But he had hoped for some kind of redress for the slanderous insinuations, repeated over the years since 1892, and which even Secretary Halsey himself lad now rejected. 159

Resignation Tendered

Knowing in advance that he would be accused, if not of one thing than of another, Nassau had agreed with Dr. Halsey to prepare his resignation. He read it after the Secretary’s report on him:

Batanga, Feb’y. 21, 1905

To my Brothers and Sisters of the West Africa Missions

Considering the view, indicated by a considerable portion of your membership, in their unanimous adoption of a certain Report of a Committee of Missions (sic) in December, 1903, signed by Messrs. Fraser, Knauer, and S. F. Johnson:

And considering the feeling since then expressed by members at all Stations, as reported to me by our beloved Secretary, Rev. Dr. Halsey:

I decline to stand in the way of the progress of the Kingdom of Christ, and am unwilling to be even a possible hindrance to a Cause that to me is greater than life.

No one of us is indispensable to that Cause. If the elimination of myself shall prosper it, whatever personal regrets I might feel at not being able to round out my life

158 Ibid., pp. 6, 20.

159 Ibid., p. 6.

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in its service, will be compensated by a gladness at its prosperity, even in other hands.

You will please therefore accept my resignation from membership in the Mission.

For His sake Yours

Robert Hamill Nassau 160

Nassau admits that he had hoped his “enemies would be touched by the spirit” of his resignation. 161 Rather, there was another spirit among the majority at the Mission Meeting. The Minutes report:

Although we recognize the fact that the Rev. R. H. Nassau, D. D. has given long and self-sacrificing service to Africa yet, in view of his conduct and policy, especially before, but also since, his return to the field from his last furlough; (Altho we believe that he is conscientious, from his point of view, but that point of view being at variance with most of his associates); and in view of his attitude toward his fellow missionaries in disregarding and resenting their admonitions, as contained in the report of the Mission for Dec. 1st, 1903, we the members of the West Africa Mission believing that it is impossible for Dr. Nassau to remain in the Mission and to labor harmoniously and contentedly with its members for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom have, by a vote of 15 to 4, accepted his resignation. 162

The Sequel

With the acceptance of his resignation from the Mission, Nassau’s difficulties with his colleagues could be considered a thing of the past. He still had to deal with the Secretaries. Nassau honestly believed that Dr. Halsey would not allow the

160 Ibid., op. 9-10.

161 Ibid., p. 10.162 Mission Meeting Minutes [1905]. PCUSABFM. Africa Minutes. Vol. 9, 239, p. 20.

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Board in New York to accept the resignation, and thought he had told him so. 163 He spent many months at Batanga, awaiting the decision. 164

When he finally returned home in the Spring of 1906 he was still awaiting a decision. 165 In the fall he wrote a careful analysis, based on Secretary Halsey’s confidential report to the Board, 166 of which he had obtained a copy, and pleaded, for the last time, to be allowed to go back. 167 It was to no avail. On December 4, 1904, the Board stood by Dr. Halsey’s recommendation that Nassau’s resignation be accepted. 168

SUMMARY

Nassau’s determination to remain true to his promise to keep little Mary at his side in Africa, caused him to turn to an African lady friend for help. His treatment of her as a person of equal human value as himself, in spite of her past mistakes, was not the result of his decision, but of the attitudes he had fostered ever since his arrival in Africa. They were

163 Nassau, “My Retirement,” p. 1.

164 Letter from Secretary A. J. Brown to R. H. Nassau dated 13 September 1905. PCUSABFM. Africa letters. Vol. 8 (part 3), Reel 239, letter 1.

165 Nassau, op. cit., p. 1.

166 See Chapter III, p. 115, footnote 48.

167 Nassau, op. cit., p. 29.

168 Ibid., p. 30,

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part of his make-up, even before he came to that Continent.

Determined to stand by a person who had suffered injustice, and considering himself in debt to Anyentyuwe for what she had done for his daughter, Dr. Nassau was ready to face, at first criticism; then slander, and even persecution from missionary colleagues. In their opposition to him they were strengthened by several Board Secretaries; convinced of Nassau’s moral innocence these men were unable effectively defend him. After forty-five years of serving the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions Robert Hamill Nassau was forced to submit his resignation, which his fellow missionaries did not have the charity to reject, nor the Board the courage to decline

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

This study set out to know as much as is possible, or necessary, in order to understand the man, Robert Hamill Nassau, and to seek an answer to the questions why he is not better known and has become the forgotten pioneer of Presbyterian missionary work in Equatorial West Africa.

The information gathered, and organized, concerning his life and career have convinced the writer even more than he suspected when he began his research that Robert Hamill Nassau was the most significant Presbyterian missionary of the second half of the 19th century in the territory where he labored. This is not a moral judgment upon the many others who gave themselves to that area, but who were not permitted, because of illness or early death, to give their full measure.

The significance of Dr. Nassau becomes even more apparent when a study is made of his vast interests and the wide use of his talents in many domains. From this study there emerges a man who was definitely ahead of his time and whose look was forward.

Unable to free himself from seeing things from the point of view of R.H. Nassau, he appears preoccupied with self and could easily be accused of egotism. The study of his attitudes and beliefs, however, reveals that he was really more Interested in helping others than attaining personal

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glory. Allowances should certainly be made here for the tragic personal losses he suffered, especially through the deaths of wives and friend Paull.

From his youth on and from the outset of his career, R. H. Nassau had approached the Blacks of America and the Africans with an acceptance of them as persons which was not always shared, for various reasons, by even devoted missionary colleagues. This attitude, along with an admittedly unbending character, entered forcibly into his personal life in connection with his perhaps mistaken decision to keep daughter Mary at his side. This brought Anyentyuwe into his life, creating a succession of problems from which he could not extricate himself; nor did he wish to do so, for it would have conflicted, in his opinion, with his firm decision to stand by a person who had suffered injustice.

The attacks against him should be seen as coming from a whole new generation of missionaries. Nassau had stayed on too long and had lost all his former associates who could have helped him. The Board Secretaries in New York were unable to prevent the continued abuse against Nassau, in spite of their repeatedly expressed convictions that he was not guilty of the things that were being insinuated. His innate stubbornness of course, complicated things for them, as well as for the host of friends he had acquired during the first thirty years of his career. The Secretaries in New York were certainly relieved when he finally resigned, and so the Board accepted his resignation.

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Hurt, though not bitter, Nassau lived a long time after that resignation and felt compelled to tell it all, in his way. By so doing he must have made it impossible for the Board, or the Church, to give him due recognition. The conflict with some of the colleagues, although, one by one, many changed their attitude toward him for the better, had lasted too long; and the hints at scandal, though each time refuted, must have been enough to frighten off any one who might have cared to put before the Presbyterian reading public a book on Nassau. If such a story of his life had been composed, he would have certainly been as well known today as Dr. A. C. Good.

With respect to Dr. A. C. Good, the conclusion drawn here is not that there is proof that there existed “a keep-the-niggers-down” group. There is proof that Nassau believed there was such a group. The reactions of these missionaries to his friendship with Anyentyuwe, helped him reach that conclusion.

When, like in his own writings, Robert Hamill Nassau looms too large in this study, then the writer must state his conviction gathered from the hours spent in trying to understand this man, that there is something Nassau would have us remember.

One day, after he had shared his feelings with a young missionary on his way to Congo, the latter tried to sum it all up. And so Samuel P. Verner wrote:

. . . Dr. Nassau related a solemn and pathetic incident in his early career He was about to leave New York for Africa, a mere boy. It was at that time when the noted Jubilee singers were starring the country, and he went to

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hear them. One of their songs had a refrain which the singers rendered with peculiar and impressive force:

Oh Lord oh my good Lord, keep me from sinking down, sinking down.

“Many a time,” said he, “in the long, thereafter in the darkness of Africa’s wilds, that sad appeal rang in my ears: Keep me from sinking down!” “Young man,” said Dr. Nassau, fixing his deep gray my on mine, “never forget that prayer.” I never have. 1

What Nassau had tried to tell the young missionary was that all his life he had been living by grace, kept from sinking down.

1 Samuel P. Verner, Pioneering in Central Africa (Richmond: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1903) p. 34.

APPENDIX A

Section 1

A Complete List of Published Works by Robert Hamill Nassau

Africa; An Essay, Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1911. 35 p. illus. 23 cm.

One hundred copies were privately printed and distributed to friends and libraries. The poem was originally written in March, 1872.

Bantu Sociology. Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1914. 40 p. 23 cm.

One hundred copies were privately printed and distributed. It contains 23 short chapters, each dealing with one subject of Bantu life.

Corisco Days: The First Thirty Years of the West Africa Mission.

Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1910. 192 p. 20 cm.

Twenty chapters describe people, places and events related to Nassau’s work before entering the Ogooué. Pages 146-92 contain material also presented in the smaller books, listed below, dealing with the Corisco Presbytery and Mission. Nassau arranged for several hundred copies to be printed and bound, but the book was probably never sold commercially.

Crowned in Palm-land: A Story of African Mission Life. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1874. 390 p. illus. 19 cm.

The story of the life and death of Nassau’s first wife, Mary Cloyd Latta Nassau, with many excerpts from her letters.

Fañwe Primer and Vocabulary. New York: Edward O. Jenkins, 1881. 199 p. 17 cm.

This work is primarily Nassau’s, but contains a historical introduction in which he acknowledges having made use of unpublished materials of others. It was published through the liberality of certain Women’s Foreign Missionary Societies.

Fetichism in West Africa: Forty Years’ Observation of Native Customs and Superstitions. New York; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1904. 389 p. illus. 21 1/2 cm.

Nassau’s most outstanding work. According to information received from Scribner’s, some three thousand copies were printed, bound and sold during the years 1904-1917. Edition used is dated 1907.

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Reprint. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

Unfortunately without an up to date introduction.

The Gaboon and Corisco Mission. New York: Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 1873. 11 p. 23 cm.

Historical Sketch of the Missions in Africa, under the care of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia: Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church, 1881. 24 p. maps. 21 cm.

For many years this was the basic source of information concerning the West Africa Mission.

A History of the Presbytery of Corisco. Trenton, N. J.: Albert Brandt, Jr., 1888. 28 p. 18 cm.

Text also appeared in Corisco Days.

In an Elephant Corral; And other Tales of West African Experiences.

New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1912. 180 p. 18 cm.

Contains many of the incidents Nassau told in public, including that of Nguva’s chain, reference to which is made in Trader Horn.

Mawedo, the Palm-Land Maiden. New York: American Tract Society, 1682. 206 p. illus. 17 cm.

A moving story of slavery as practiced by Africans during Nassau’s early missionary career.

My Ogowe; being a Narrative of Daily Incidents during Sixteen Years in Equatorial-West Africa. New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1914. 708 p. illus. 23 cm.

Nassau’s best known book, containing amazing details about people and events during his pioneering days in Gabon from 1874-1891.

The Path She Trod; A Memorial of Mary Brunette (Foster) Nassau by her Husband. Philadelphia : Allen, Lane & Scott, l909. 204 p. ports. 23 cm.

The story of the life and death of Nassau’s second wife, with many excerpts from her letters and diary. The book was probably never sold commercially.

Tales out of School. Philadelphia; Allen, Lane & Scott, 1911. 153 p. 20 cm.

Schoolgirl tales from Baraka mission station at Libreville, Gabon. Nassau arranged for a few hundred copies to be printed and bound. Probably not sold commercially,

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Where Animals Walk; West African Folk Lore Tales. Boston: Richard G. Badger, Gorham Press, 1912. 250 p. 19 cm. British edition, London: Duckworth & Co., 1914.

Contains much profound Bantu wisdom in over sixty stories told in a style closely following the African way of speaking.

The Youngest King; A Story of the Magi. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1911. 95 p. 19 cm.

A Christmas Story which brings to mind Henry Van Dyke’s

masterpiece. It was Nassau’s only commercial success.

Section 2

A List of Revisions and Translations by Robert Hamill Nassau

The Benga Primer and Hymns. By the Corisco Mission. [Revision by R. H. Nassau ]. New York: American Tract Society, [1881]. 209 p. 18 cm.

Mackey’s Grammar of the Benga-Bantu Language. New York: American Tract Society , 1892. 108 p. 19 cm.

This is a complete revision by Nassau, but he wanted Mackey’s name to remain attached to it.

Benga Old Testament, Part I. New York: American Bible Society, 1898.

Translated by Mrs. C. De Heer with native assistance, and revised by R. H. Nassau.

Benga Old Testament, Part II. New York; American Bible Society, 1899.

Translated by Mrs. C. De Heer with native assistance, and revised by R. H. Nassau.

Benga New Testament, Part II, Romans to Revelation. New York: American Bible Society, 1893.

Apparently translated by R. H. Nassau, and edited by Mrs. C. De Heer. First published in 1872.

Benga Psalter and Malachi. New York. American Bible Society,

Translated apparently by R. H. Nassau.

Hymns in the Benga Language. New York: American Tract Society, n. d.

Contains two hymn translations signed by R. H. Nassau.

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Mpongwe New Testament. New York: American Bible Society, 1893.

Revised throughout by A. C. Good, printed under the care of R. H. Nassau.

Mpongwe Gospels and Acts. New York: American Bible Society, 1881.

Revised and harmonized by R. H. Nassau.

Section 3

Some Unpublished Works by Robert Hamill Nassau

“Autobiography.” 2163 p. in six boxes, 1915. MS, Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary.

Nassau was still working on this in 1919. Due to an error in numbering there are actually 100 pages less. On the other hand many pages have half numbers, etc. Numerous letters, also are inserted in the MS.

“De Officiis Adipis.” [The Functions of Fat]. Unpublished Doctor’s thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1861.

This was written in Latin for the degree of doctor of medicine.

“Diary.” 33 vols. from September 4, 1880 - May 20, 1919. MS, Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary.

“A History of the West Africa Mission.” 147 p. 3 p. unnumbered and 5 numbered A-E, 1919. MS, Archives of the Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.

A number of pages are made up of pages from previously published pamphlets.

“My Retirement from the West Africa Mission.” 31 p. typescript, 1915. Private collection of Miss Dorothy Patten Nassau, Philadelphia.

“Two Women; The Lives of Two Native African Christians.” 95 p. typescript, 1911. MS, Vail Memorial Library, Lincoln University.

Note: An extensive listing of additional unpublished material to be found at Speer Memorial Library is found on pp. 397-98 of Dr. D. J. Mandeng’s dissertation.

194

Section 4

A Partial List of Articles by Robert Hamill Nassau

“African Missionary Isolation,” The Missionary Review of the World, 31: 674-78, September, 1908.

“Bantu Tales,” The Journal of American Folk-Lore, 30: 262, April - June, 1917.

“Batanga Tales” The Journal of American Folk-Lore, 28: 24-51, January - March, 1915.

“Collecting Gorilla Brains,” Science, 19: 240-41, April 29, 1892.

“Conditions of Mission Work in West Africa,” The Medical Missionary, February, 1913, pp. 43-47.

“Geography of Corisco Mission Stations. VI. Benita Station,”

The Foreign Missionary, 24: 296-97, May, 1866.

“God’s Workings,” The Foreign Missionary, 23: 151-52, November, 1864.

“Ibiya, a West African Pastor,” The Missionary Review of the World, 37: 442-44, June, 1914.

“Industrial Work in African Mission Fields,” The Medical Missionary, Vol. 20, May, 1911, pp. 133-35.

“Itongolo - The black Fisherman,” The Mission of theWorld, 39: 507-08, July, 1916.

“Looking Back on Sixty Years of Christian Life,” The Westminster Teacher, 46: 474-75, September, 1918.

“A Medical Course that was Worth While,” The Alumni Register, University of Pennsylvania, 17: 586-89, May, 1915.

“Missionary Life in Africa,” The Presbyterian Journal, February 22, 1894, pp. 115-16.

“Mourning for the Dead on Corisco,” The Foreign Missionary, 21: 149-51, October, 1862.

“My Rejuvenation,” The Westminster, June 24, 1905, pp. 9-11.

195

“Observations Upon Native Diseases Seen During Thirty Years’ Residence in Equatorial Africa,” The Times and Register 14: 109-11, January 30, 1892.

“Personal Recollections of Princeton Undergraduate Life, II - The College in the Fifties” The Princeton Alumni Weekly, 16: 457-60, February 23, 1916.

“Rev. Ibia J’Ikenge,” The Assembly Herald, March, 1902, pp. 106-07

“Spiritual Beings in West Africa. Their Classes and Functions,” Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, 35: 115-24, 1903.

“Some Causes of the Present Improved Health of Missionaries to Africa,” The Missionary Review of the World, 16: 926-29, December, 1893.

“Sowing Beside All Waters,” The Assembly Herald, June, 1899, pp. 344-46. 1

“Unique Aspects of Missions to West Africa,” The Missionary Review of the World, 23: 417-26, June, 1900.

“West African Native Foods,” Journal of the American Medical Association, July 29, l893, pp. 160-61.

“What Commerce and Science Owe to Missionaries,” The Missionary Review of the World, 17: 285-90, April, 1894

196

APPENDIX B

Geographical and Historical Notes on Place Names

Alongo. One of three mission stations on Corisco Island. Located NE. Abandoned when the Presbyterian Mission left the island in 1875. Also spelled Elongo. See map.

Angom. Inland station in Gabon, east of Baraka. Opened in 1881. Never became very important. See map.

Andende. Mission station near Lambaréné on the right bank of the river Ogooué, built in addition to Kângwe located on the hill side. Became more important than Kângwe. See map.

Baraka. First site of the A. B. C. F. M. in Gabon,

selected in 1842. Located near Libreville. Baraka was at

one time a slave-pen, hence its name from barracoon. A mission

church, built in 1890, still serves and was shown on a Gabon

postage stamp. Anyentyuwe’s grave is at Baraka. See map.

Batanga. The first Presbyterian station in what was -then German occupied territory. Opened in 1889. Located near the port of Kribi, at one time a very important harbor. Miss Isabella A. Nassau’s grave is at Batanga. See map.

Belambla. Nassau’s first station on the Ogooué. He abandoned the site after two years for the better location at Kângwe. Also spelled Belambila. See map.

197

Benita. Name given to the main station in Rio Muni, Equatorial Guinea. It was established at Rio Benito at a place then called Bonita. The missionary residences were at Mbâde and Bolondo. See map.

Bolondo. Place of the second missionary residence at Benita station. Gradually, in mission usage, the name Bolondo replaced the use of Benita. Opened in 1869. See map.

Bongahele. Nassau’s small residence at Batanga, located away from the main station, nearer the church, and the people. His last home in Africa. See map.

Cameroun. Once a German colony; Cameroun became a

mandated territory after World War 1. A small part was governed

by Great Britain, the larger by France. Independence from

France came on 1 January, 1960. The following year the former

British Cameroons federated with the Republic of Cameroun.

It is now a United Republic with a population of 5,350,000.

The old German name Kamerun is still used at times. The

Cameroun Presbyterian Church is the main continuation of American

Presbyterian work in West Africa.

Corisco Island. Presbyterian work began here in 1850, after a previous attempt in Liberia. Corisco. located near Gabor), is nevertheless part of Equatorial Guinea. It is approximately three by five miles in size. and fifteen miles from the mainland. The grave of George Paull is still there. See map.

198

Elat and Ebolowa. Elat became the most important station of the Presbyterian Mission in Cameroun after the turn of the century. Ebolowa is the nearby government post which developed into a major community. The Frank James Industrial School is among the many institutions clustered around Elat. The area is inhabited by the large Bulu tribe, and at times called Bulu-land. See map.

Equatorial Guinea. The name now used for the two former Spanish equatorial provinces of Rio Muni and Fernando Po. The island of Fernando Po is to the north, opposite Cameroun and Nigeria. Spanish rule began around 1778, and independence was granted on 12 October, 1968. Of the total population of 282,000 the majority, by far, live in Rio Muni.

Evangasimba. Principal station on Corisco during Nassau’s early career. See map.

Gabon. Portuguese presence and influence started in the area now comprising Gabon in the late XIVth Century. Early in the XIXth Century the French undertook raids against slavers and founded Libreville. Around 1860 the French began to consider exploring the interior by way of the Ogooué, where Nassau pioneered in 1874. Savorgnan de Brazza’s first major exploration up the river was from 1875-1879. Gabon became an independent republic in 17 August 1960. The last American Presbyterian missionary withdrew in 19l3. In former days the country was known as Gaboon. Populations 630,00

199

Kângwe. Name of the hill site, near Lambaréné, where Nassau built his second house in the Ogooué. See map.

Lambaréné. A trader’s settlement and French military post on an island in the Ogooué river. Subsequently the whole

, including the river bank where Kângwe and Andende were located, came to be known as Lamabaréné. It was here, on the river, that Dr. Albert Schweitzer first worked with the Paris Mission, on the former American site, and later built his own independent hospital. See map.

Libreville. French government post, now the capital of Gabon. See map.

Mbâde Name given to the location of the first missionary houses at Benita. The graves of baby George Paull Nassau and Mrs. Mary Cloyd Latta Nassau are there. See map.

N’ Djolé. French military post, up stream from Talaguga. Nassau was not allowed to go beyond Njoli, as he spelled it. See map.

Ogooué River. Spelled Ogowe by Nassau, but also found as Ogovi, Ogove, Ugobai, etc. See map.

Oyem. Station opened by the Paris Evangelical Missions Society with the help of workmen trained at Frank James Industrial School.

200

Talaguga. Nassau’s last residence on the river, and farthest point reached by the American Presbyterians in Gabon. The French moved their station to the island on which N’Djolé is located. At that time the grave of Mrs. Mary Brunette Foster Nassau, originally on the mainland river bank, was also moved to the island. The station is now abandoned. The French spelling is Talagougou. See map.

Ugobi. Third mission station on Corisco Island, located at the southern tip. See map.

202

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Alexandre, Pierre. Langues et Langage en Afrique Noire.

Paris: Payot, 1967.

*Anderson, Llewellyn Kennedy, and W. Sherman Skinner. Bridge to Africa. New York: Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 1952.

Anderson Erica. The Schweitzer Album. New York: Harper and Row, 1965.

*Anon. A Consecrated Life: Albert Bushnell. Auburn, N. Y.:

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* Anon. Forest and Forge; The Frank James Industrial School, Elat, Africa.

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Anon. In Memoriam; Rev. Charles W. Nassau, D. D. New York:

Trow’s Printing and Bookbinding Co., 1879.

* Beanland, Lillian L. African Logs. New York: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 1945.

Bianquis, Jean. Les Origines de la Société des Missions Evangéliques

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Brown, Arthur Judson. Memoirs of a Centenarian. Edited by William N. Wysham. New York: World Horizons, 1957.

_______. One Hundred Years. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1936.

Brunschwig, Henri. Brazza Explorateur; L’Ogooué 1875-1879.

Paris and The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1966.

Campbell, Olwen. Mary Kingsley; a Victorian in the Jungle. London: Methuen & Co., 1957.

Christen, Olga. Le plus beau sourire du monde. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1970..

Clendenen, Claren C. and Peter Duignan, Americans in Black Africa up to 1865. Stanford: Stanford University, The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1964.

Darlington, Charles and Alice Darlington. African Betrayal. New York: David McKay Co., 1968.

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Du Chaillu, Paul Beloni. Adventures in the Great Forest of Equatorial

Africa and the Country of the Dwarfs. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890.

________. Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1861.

Du Plessis, Johannes. The Evangelisation of Pagan Africa. Cape Town: Juta & Co., 1917.

________. Thrice Through the Dark Continent. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1917.

Durkheim, Emile, (ed.) . Année Sociologigue 1904-1905. Paris: F. Alcan, 1905.

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Ellis, George Washington. Negro Culture in West Africa. New York: Neale Publishing, Co., 1914.

Faunce, William Herbert Terry. The Social Aspect of Foreign Missions. New York: Missionary Education Movement, 1914.

Frazer, Sir James G. The Golden Bough. Abridged Edition. New York; Macmillan Go., 1951.

Grébert, Fernand. Au Gabon. Paris: Société des Missions Evangéliques de Paris, 1922.

Greely, Adolphus Washington. Explorers and Travellers. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893.

Groves, Charles Pelham. The Planting of Christianity in Africa. 4 vols. London: Lutterworth Press, 1948-1958.

Gwynn, Stephen. The Life of Mary Kingsley .London: Macmillan and Co., 1932. 1

Haddon, Alfred Cort. Magic and Fetichism. London: Constable & Company, 1910.

Halsey, Abram Woodruff. A Visit to the West Africa Mission. New York: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., [1905].

Hawker, George. The Life of George Grenfell; Congo Missionary and Explorer. 2nd ed. London: Religious Tract Society, 1909.

Heiler. Friedrich. Prayer: a Study in the History and Psychology of Religion. Oxford University Press, 1938.

*Hinkhouse, John Frederick (ed.). “The Beloved;” Charles Warner McCleary. Fairfield, Iowa: Published by Friends, 1909.

Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

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Horn, Alfred Aloysius, pseud. Trader Horn. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1927.

*Horner, Esther D. Jungles Ahead: New York; Friendship Press, 1952.

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205

Howard, Cecil. Mary Kingsley. London. Hutchinson, 1957.

Howe, Russell Warren. Theirs the Darkness. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1956.

J’Ikenge, Ibia. The Benga Customs. 2nd ed. New York: American Tract Society, 1902,

John Holt & Co.; the Early Years of an African Trade, London: Privately printed, 1962.

Jones, Edwin E. The Life of Rowland Hill Evans of Cameroun,

2nd ed. Columbus , Ohio: F. J. Heer Printing Co., 1932.

Joy, Charles R. & Melvin Arnold. The Africa of Albert Schweitzer.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948.

Joy, Charles R. The Wit and Wisdom of Albert Schweitzer.

Edited with an introduction by Charles R. Joy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1949.

Keen, W. W. The Service of Missions to Science and Society.

Boston: American Baptist Foreign Missions Society, 1908.

Kingsley, Mary Henrietta, Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons. London; Macmillan and Co.. 1897.

____________. West African Studies. London. Macmillan and Co., 1899

Lang, Andrew. The Making of Religion. London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898.

Le Roy, Mgr. A, La Religion des Primitifs, Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne & Cie., 1909.

Lévy-Bruhl , Lucien. How Natives Think. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1926.

____________. Primitive Mentality. London; George Allen & Unwin, 1923.

Lewis, Thomas. These Seventy Years; an Autobiography. London: Carey Press, 1930.

*Mackenzie, Jean Kenyon, African Adventures. New York; George H. Doran, 1922,

*___________. African Clearings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924.

206

*___________. An African Trail. West Medford, Mass.: Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions, 1917. of Foreign Missions 1917.

*___________. Black Sheep . Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916.

*___________. The Trader’s Wife. New York: Coward-McCann, 1930.

*___________. (ed.) Friends of Africa. Cambridge, Mass: Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions, 1928.

Marshall, George and David Poling. Schweitzer; a Biography.

Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1971.

Mbiti, John S. African Religions and Philosophies. New York: Anchor Books, 1970.

*___________. Concepts of God in Africa. New York; Praeger, 1970.

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*Milligan, Robert H. The Fetish Folk of West Africa. New Yorks Fleming H. Revell, 1912.

*___________. The Jungle Folk of Africa. 2nd ed. New Yorks Fleming H. Revell, 1908.

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207

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The New York Academy of Medicine Library Portrait Catalog. 5 vols. Boston:, G. K. Hall, 1960.

Nichols, Robert Hastings. “Nassau, Robert Hamill”, Dictionary of American Biography, XIII, 390-91.

Noble, Frederick Perry. The Redemption of Africa. 2 vols. New York; F. H. Revell Co., 1899.

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Parrinder, Geoffrey. African Traditional Religion. London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1954.

*Parsons, Ellen C. A Life for Africa; Adolphus Clemens Good. 2nd ed. New York, Fleming H. Revell,1900.

Pounah, Paul-Vincent. Notre Passé. [Libreville, Gabon]: [Presses de la Société d’Impression Techniques, Paris], [1970].

Preston, Mrs. J. S. Gaboon Stories. New Yorks American Tract Society, 182.

Rapondo-Walker, André & Roger Sillans, Rites et Croyances des Peuples du Gabon. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1962.

*Reading, Joseph H. The Ogowe Band. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Reading and Co., 1890.

*_____________. A Voyage Along. the Western Coast of Newest Africa. Philadelphia: Reading & Co., 1901.

208

*Reyburn, William David. Out of the African Night. New York. Harper & Row, 1968.

*Reyna, David. [William David Reyburn ]. The Bishop of Palaver House. London: Collines, 1970.

Rudin, Harry R. Germans in the Cameroons 1884-1914. London: Jonathan Cape, 1938.

Schweitzer, Albert. African Notebook. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958.

___________. On the Edge of the Primeval Forest, New York: Macmillan Co., 1931.

___________. The Forest Hospital at Lambaréné. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1931.

___________. Out of My Life and Thought. An Autobiography. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1949.

Seaver, George. Albert Schweitzer; the Man and His Mind. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947.

Skillman, David Bishop. The Biography of a College. 2 vols. Easton, Pa.; Lafayette College, 1932.

Smith, Edwin W. (ed. and contributor). African Ideas of God; a Symposium. Revised by E. G. Parrinder, London: Edinburgh House Press, 1950.

Strong, William E. The Story of the American Board. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1910.

Taylor, William. The Flaming Torch in Darkest Africa. New York: Eaton & Mains, 1898.

Thomas, William I. Primitive Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1937.

Thomson, John E. H. Books Which Influenced Our Lord and His Apostles. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891.

Trull, George Harvey. The Tribe of Zambe. New York: Sunday School Dept., Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., 1917.

Veistroffer, Albert. Vingt Ans dans la Brousse Africaine; Souvenirs d’un Ancien Membre de la Mission de Savorgnan de Brazza. Lille, France: Editions du “Mercure de Flandre”, [n.d.].

209

Verner, Samuel P. Pioneering in Central Africa. Richmond: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1903.

Weinstein, Brian. Gabon: Nation-Building on the Ogooué. Cambridge, Mass. : M. I. T. Press, 1966.

*Westervelt, Josephine Hope. Big Hope. Maryville, Tenn.: Maryville College, [ 1949 ].

Wheeler, W. Reginald (ed.). The Crisis Decades 1937-1947. New York: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., 1950.

_________. The Words of God in an African Forest. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1931.

Wilson, John Leighton. Western Africa. New York: Harper Brothers, 1856.

Wilson, R. W. The True Missionary Spirit as Exemplified in the Life and Triumphant Death of John Milton Campbell. George L. Weed, 1847.

*Wilson, Samuel. George Paull of Benita, West Africa. Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1872.

Work, Monroe Nathan. A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America.

New York : H. W. Wilson, 1928.

Young, T. Cullen. African Ways and Wisdom. London: United Society for Literature, 1937.

* Books are by or about members of the Presbyterian West Africa Mission.

B. PERIODICAL ARTICLES

“Dr. Nassau,” The Medical Missionary, February, 1913, pp. 41-42.

Dwyer, William M. “ Man Associated with Trenton Paved the Way for Schweitzer”, Trenton Sunday Times, October 25, 1964.

Editorial. The Medical Missionary, December, 1914, P. 355.

Gottstein, Werner K. “Albert Schweitzer and America,” The American-German Review, April, 1950, pp. 6-8, 31.

210

Krug, Adolph N. “ Bulu Tales from Kamerun, West Africa”, The Journal of American Folk-Lore 25:106-24, April-June, 1912.

Lee, William Porter. “Rev. Hamill Nassau, Mi. D., S. T. D.,” The Presbyterian, 91 : 16, May 26, 1921,

Milligan R. H. “In Darkest Africa”, The Missionary Review of the World, 18:359-65, May, 1895.

“Missionary Work in Belgium, 1885,” The Presbyterian Monthly Record, 37 : 16-17, January, 1886.

“Rev. R. H. Nassau to Return to Africa”, The Telegraph [Philadelphia], June 1, 1900.

“Robert H. Nassau, D. D., M. D.”, The Assembly Herald, May 1899, pp. 261-62.

“Robert Hamill Nassau”, The Lawrentian, Autumn, 1964, p. 8.

Rogers, Fred B. “Robert Hamill Nassau (1835-1921): Apostle to Africa”, Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 30: 150-56, January, 1963.

Schwab, George, “ Bulu Tales,” The Journal of American Folk-Lore, 32: 428-37, July - September, 1919.

_________. “ Bulu Tales”, The Journal of American Folk-Lore, 35:209-15, July- September, 1922.

Setiloane, Gabriel M. “The Missionary and His task -- At Edinburgh and Today”, The International Review of Mission, 59: 55-69, January, 1970.

W. C. S. “Dr. Nassau as a Scientist”, The Presbyterian, 91: 29, May 26, 1921.

White, William P. “A Family Fruitful in Ministers’ Wives”,

Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, 171-77.

C. THESES, LETTERS, RECORDS

Bucher, Henry Hale, Jr. “The Mpongwe Response to the American and French Presence in the Gabon River: 1842 - 1845.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1971.

211

Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine. “ Brazza et la Prise de Possession du Congo; ]a Mission de l’ Ouest Africain (1883-1885).” Unpublished thesis, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 1966.

Horner, Norman Aste. “The Development of an Indigenous Presbyterian Church in the French Cameroun During the Decade 1938 - 1948.” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Kennedy School of Missions, Hartford Seminary, 3.950.

“Protestant and Roman Catholic Missions among the Bantu of Cameroun, a Comparative Study”. Unpublished Doctor’s thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1956.

Mandeng, David Jonathan. “The Philosophy of Mission of Robert Hamill Nassau in the Contemporary World.” Unpublished Doctor’s dissertation, Temple University, 1970. Published on on demand by University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Letters from Dr. R. H. Nassau to his daughter Mary. Private collection of Liss Dorothy Patten Nassau, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Letter from Dr. R. H. Nassau to his daughter Mary. Private collection of Miss Ruth Foster, Bay Head, New Jersey.

Letters from Dr. R. H. Nassau to Mr. John Holt. Archives of the John Holt Company, Liverpool, England.

Letters from Prof. Pierre Alexandre, Dr. David G. Gelzer,

Mr. Barker Gummere, Mrs. Lois Johnson McNeil, Dr. Andrew E. Murray, Albert Schweitzer, and Miss Ali Silver to the writer.

Letter from Dr. Albert Schweitzer to Miss Esther Foster. In the writer’s private collection.

Brazza, Pierre Savorgnan de. Uncatalogued Archives. Archives Nationales Section Outremer. Paris.

Fonds Allégret and Lettres reçues: Champs des Missions.

Archives. Société des Missions Evangéliques de Paris. Paris.

Genealogical chart of the family of Robert Hamill of Bush Mills,

County Antrim, Ireland, Private collection of Miss Ruth Foster, Bay Head, New Jersey.

212

Microfilm Series: Africa Archives. United Presbyterian

Church, U. S. A. Board of Foreign Missions. Presbyterian

Historical Society Philadelphia. Cited as PCUSABFM.

Nassau, Robert Hamill. Unclassified letters sent to him. Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary.

________. Scrapbook containing clippings and letters.

Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary.

________. Files containing clippings, reviews, and letters related to Fetichism in West Africa and My Ogowe. Speer Memorial Library, Princeton Theological Seminary.

Nassau, Robert Hamill file. Alumni Records. The University Archives. University of Pennsylvania.

Nassau, Robert Hamill file. Central File; deceased missionaries. United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. The Program Agency, New York.