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Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Minutes of the African Civilization Society and other papers of abolitionist Theodore Bourne. 61 items (0.3 linear feet) in one box; only minor wear to the minute book, otherwise condition varies but generally strong. Various places, bulk 1858-1900
Theodore J. Bourne (1822-1910) was a white minister who joined forces with African-American clergymen from the New York area to found the African Civilization Society. The Society hoped to defeat slavery by recruiting African-American settlers to raise cotton in the Niger Valley, creating an alternate source of cotton which would undermine the Southern plantation system. This lot features a remarkable volume which records the earliest minutes of the ACS and its precursor committee from 1858 and 1859, as well as the original manuscript minutes of a visit to London to launch a similar committee there.
The minute book volume contains the original minutes of African Christian Civilization Committee in London dated 23 March to 5 July 1860 (20 unnumbered pages); a contemporary transcript of the minutes of the Provisional Committee for the Evangelization and Civilization of Africa, 26 August 1858 to 18 April 1859 (pages 1-28); the constitution of the African Civilization Society (pages 29-34); and a contemporary transcript of the minutes of the African Civilization Society of New York, 4 November 1858 to 18 April 1859 (pages 35-58). We have been unable to trace the original record of any of these minutes; they do not appear to be published elsewhere.
The London committee meetings were led by Theodore Bourne as secretary of the African Civilization Society of New York. He addressed the "evils of slavery . . . and the strengthened position of slavery, the cause of which was the demand for cotton. . . . So long as England buys slave-grown American cotton, emancipation will be retarded. . . . Cotton can be procured from Africa, which is a vast cotton region. Its people need to be evangelized and civilized, and England is deeply interested to do the work." Bourne named dozens of American supporters including William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Henry Highland Garnet, William Seward, and more. Martin Delany visited the 17 May 1860 meeting as a member of the Niger Valley Exploring Party, and reported at length on his travels in Lagos, Ogbomosho and other large towns: "The king of Ilorin permitted them to see him, which he does not accord to white men."
The African Civilization Society was founded in the Black-majority Weeksville neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY with the intention of uplifting African through religion and trade. Their founder and leading light was Henry Highland Garnet, a Black Presbyterian minister, who is mentioned repeatedly in these pages. The prominent black abolitionist Martin Delany also appears in the first meeting's minutes, which reference "a letter from Dr. Delany . . . stating his views as a member of the exploring party" to the Niger Valley; he was chosen as a member of the party on 20 January 1859. The Rev. John Sella Martin, who had escaped from slavery, was a guest at the 11 November 1858 meeting, where he was asked to go as an agent to the Niger Valley.
Both Garnet and Delaney are mentioned as supporters of the Provisional Committee for the Evangelization and Civilization of Africa. Garnet was named as chairman on 13 September 1858, and hosted at least one meeting at his house, where they aimed to "show that this society was the offspring of a voluntary movement among the descendants of Africa, to bring about the destruction of the slave trade, the expansion of free labor, the elevation of the colored people, the civilization and evangelization of Africa, and the ultimate extinction of American slavery." On 2 October 1858, a letter from Delaney was read, and Garnet "in a forcible address spoke of the claims of Africa upon her children" (see pages 1, 4, 10, 19).
3 memoranda relating to the 1860 London committee were apparently once tucked into the volume: the sign-in sheet for the original 23 March meeting signed by ten attendees; an agenda for the 13 June meeting; and an original draft of the 5 July 1860 resolutions drafted by member Sir Culling Eardley. 3 manuscripts by wife Emeline Johnson Bourne (1828-1906) are included: a short story on the Civil War draft in a fictional Connecticut town titled "The Armless Sleeve"; "Questions on Bible History, Creation to the Flood"; and "Lost and Found: a Story of the War for the Union." Also included in the lot are a graphic "family tree" of America's abolitionist societies; a volume of Bourne's original poetry circa 1853; a cabinet card photo of son Theodore Frederick Bourne, circa 1884; an unsigned draft "Memorial to Congress" from the people of the District of Columbia protesting slavery in the district; and several letters to Bourne dated 1899-1900 from Francis Garrison and William Lloyd Garrison Jr. (sons of the famed abolitionist).
Finally, printed ephemera includes 3 anti-Catholic pamphlets: "Awful Disclosure! Murderers Exposed; Downfall of Popery" (Buffalo, NY, 1845); "Brompton Revelations: An Exposure of . . . English Convent Prisons" (London: Elliot, [1865]); and "[Nunneries in France] . . . Introductory Preface by an American Clergyman" (New York: Wright, Goodhue & Co., [1845]). Also, 3 folders of newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and circular letters, most notably an offprint of Bourne's 1882 article on his father, "Rev. George Bourne, the Pioneer of American Antislavery"; an illustrated 1859 subscription letter for the African Civilization Society signed in type by Bourne and Garnet (one in OCLC, at Samford University); a 4-page tract by Bourne titled "African Evangelization and Civilization" (2 in OCLC); and an 1860 circular letter headed "Hope for Africa" by Garnet and others (none traced in OCLC).
Provenance: by descent to a great-great-great-grandson of Theodore Bourne.
