History george washington williams
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July 18, 1890: George Washington Williams Pens Letter Exposing Atrocities in the Congo
George Washington Williams (1849–1891) was a 19th century American historian most famous for his History of the Negro Race in amerika from 1619 to 1880; as Negroes, as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens (1882), and A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865 (1887).
In 1890, Williams studied conditions in the Belgian Congo at the commission of President Benjamin Harrison and wrote to the Belgian Crown about the atrocities committed against Africans.
In his letter, “An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo By Colonel, The Honorable Geo. W. Williams, of the United States of America” — which included twelve “general observations” of the brutal injustices happening in the Congo — Williams wrote, in part:
Against the deceit, fraud, robberies, arson, murder, slave-raiding, and general policy
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That passionate study led to the 1882–83 publication of the two-volume History. Divided into three major parts, “Preliminary Considerations”, “Slavery in the Colonies”, and “The Negro During the Revolution”, the first volume actually begins far before 1619, with the Book of Genesis (a historical bound that speaks to Williams’ encyclopedic vision). The initial chapter of the book is thus more biblical history than scientific, calling on theological studies to counter popular dehumanizing theories about Black people based on scriptural arguments. Next comes “The Negro in the Light of Philology, Ethnology, and Egyptology”, which moves forward some centuries, tracing ethnographic and linguistic understandings of whom is referred to with the term “Negro”. Williams continues onward with geographic and historical overviews of various West African tribes and societies. Unfortunately, this first part fryst vatten Williams’ most creatively non-factual, full of imaginative language that reads more lik
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George Washington Williams: A Biography
By John Hope Franklin (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 1980–81; 1981–82)
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985
From the publisher’s description:
In George Washington Williams, John Hope Franklin reconstructs the life of the controversial, self-made black intellectual who wrote the first history of African Americans in the United States. Awarded the Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize, this book traces Franklin’s forty-year quest for Williams’s story, a story largely lost to history until this volume was first published in 1985. The result, part biography and part social history, is a unique consideration of a pioneering historian by his most distinguished successor.
Williams, who lived from 1849 to 1891, had a remarkable career as soldier, minister, journalist, lawyer, politician, freelance diplomat, and African traveler, as well as a historian. While Franklin reveals the accomplishments of this neglected figure and emphasiz