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Théophilus Conneau: The Saga of a Tale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Bruce L. Mouser
Bruce L. Mouser*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse
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Extract

Rare has been the book on Africa that has acquired a history and become the subject of study in its own right. One such is the autobiography of Théophilus Conneau, a slave dealer of French and Italian background, who lived on the west coast of Africa during the 1830s and 1840s. Various accounts of Conneau's experiences in Guinea and Liberia have been translated into four languages, and were even incorporated into a successful novel in 1933, on which was based a motion picture. The latest version of Conneau's life story (and the occasion for this paper) was published as recently as 1976.

Conneau's story first came to press in 1854 through the editorial assistance and skill of Brantz Mayer, a lecturer, author, and journalist of the Baltimore area, known principally for his writings about Latin America. Having obtained experience and contacts with publishers by editing manuscripts and letters, Mayer was a valuable asset to a new author in 1853. Recently discovered letters from Conneau to Mayer and Mayer's own account of the relationship between them suggest an interesting beginning for this literary enterprise. Conneau found himself in 1853 in Baltimore where he met James Hall, whom he had known previously in Liberia. Hall had been an enthusiastic supporter of the Maryland settlement for freed Blacks at Cape Palmas and had served as that settlement's first governor from 1833 to 1836. Concluding that Conneau's story of a repentant slave trader would be of value to the cause of anti-slavery and black emigration from the United States to Africa, Hall suggested that Conneau write his memoirs and introduced him to Mayer.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 6 , 1979 , pp. 97 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1979

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References

NOTES

1. Conneau, Théophilus, A Slaver's Log Book, or 20 Years' Residence in Africa (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976)Google Scholar, here-after cited A Slaver's Log Book.

2. Mayer, Brantz, Captain Canot; or. Twenty Years of an African Slaver; Being an Account of his Career and Adventures on the Coast, in the Interior, on Shipboard, and in the West Indies. Written Out and Edited from the Captain's Journals, Memoranda and Conversations by Brantz Mayer (New York, 1854)Google Scholar, hereafter cited Captain Canot (Mayer). See also Mayer, Brantz, Memoirs of a Slave-Trader [by] Theodore Canot. Written Out by Brantz Mayer and now [abridged and] edited by Lawrence, A.W. (London, 1929), p. 13Google Scholar, hereafter cited Memoirs (Lawrence).

3. Conneau, , A Slaver's Log Book, p. 299Google Scholar, and Mayer, Brantz, Adventures of an African Slaver … Now Edited with an Introduction by Malcolm Cowley (New York: 1928), xxGoogle Scholar, hereafter cited Adventures (Cowley).

4. See Campbell, Penelope, Maryland in Africa: The Maryland State Colonization Society, 1831-1857 (Urbana, 1971), pp. 70–91Google Scholar, for an analysis of Hall's administration in Liberia.

5. Letters from Conneau to Mayer, dated 9 January 1854 and 3 April 1854, in Conneau, , A Slaver's Log Book, pp. 351–53.Google Scholar

6. In his personal library only two of over 1900 titles related to Africa. See Mayer, Brantz, Catalogue of a Choice Collection of Books (New York, 1870), pp. 9, 21.Google Scholar

7. Bouge, L.J., “Théophile Conneau alias Theodore Canot,” Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer (1953), p. 249.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., pp. 252-53.

9. The exact dates of Conneau's residence in the Rio Pongo are unclear. Findlay to Hay, 16 December 1831, CO267/110, PRO, and Findlay to Hay, 6 May 1833, C0267/119, PRO, suggest that Conneau entered the river trade in 1831.

10. Debien, G., “Théodore Canot condamné comme négrier en 1834,” Revue française d'histoire d'outre mer, 57(1969), pp. 216, 223–24.Google Scholar

11. The best account of Conneau's activities on the Liberian coast is Holsoe, Svend E., “Theodore Canot at Cape Mount, 1841-1847,” Liberian Studies Journal, 4(1972), pp. 163–81.Google Scholar

12. George Read to Secretary of the Navy, 12 May 1847 and 31 March 1847, U.S. African Squadron Papers, U.S. National Archives Microfilm 89, Roll 103; New York Daily Tribune, 19 April 1848, 20 April 1848.

13. Adventures (Cowley), pp. 373-74; Commander Foote, Andrew H., Africa and the American Flag (New York; 1854), pp. 319–23Google Scholar; and Deposition of Charles Hamilton, RG21: Records of the U.S. District Court for Maryland (Baltimore), Admiralty case files, U.S. vs. The Brigantine Chatsworth, U.S. National Acrhives. Conneau had an older brother, Henri, whose success in France mirrored, in part, his own in Africa. Henri studied medicine and attached his fortune early to that of the Napoleon family, serving as a foreign secretary to Louis Bonaparte, in exile at Florence. He became a close friend of the young Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte and through the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s remained his advisor. While imprisoned with Louis Napoleon in 1842, Henri received a letter from Théophilus who tried to capitalize on Henri's connections to obtain French protection for his factory in Liberia. Henri in turn wrote to Louis Edouard Bouët-Williaumez, Governor of Senegal, requesting that he investigate Théophilus' circumstances, but in the end nothing was done. For Henri Conneau and Théophilus' attempts to use Henri's position in France, see Cheetham, Frank H., Louis Napoleon and The Genesis of the Second Republic (New York, 1909), pp. 121–22Google Scholar, and Pasquier, R., “A propos de Théodore Canot négrier en Afrique,” Revue français d'histoire d'outre mer, 55(1968), pp. 352–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Debien, , “Théodore Canot,” 215.Google ScholarSmythe, Mabel M., in her introduction to A Slaver's Log Book, iii.Google Scholar thought the name Canot to be “a clever pseudonym … a homonym meaning dinghy in French.” The British, French and American references, however, clearly demonstrate that Others had, as early as 1831, called him by the name which he later used in his book, that is, Theodore Canot.

15. Conneau to Mayer, 3 April 1854 and December 1854, A Slaver's Log Book, pp. 252-53, 359,61.

16. Letters from Henri Conneau to Bouët-Williaumez, 11 October 1842, in Pasquier, , “A propos de Théodore Canot,” pp. 253–54Google Scholar, and Théophilus Conneau to Mayer, 21 April 1854, 26 May 1854, 24 May 1854, A Slaver's Log Book, pp. 353-62, demonstrates that Henri was very much aware of the existence of Théophilus and of his experiences in Africa.

17. Conneau to Mayer, 26 May 1854, ibid., pp. 354-59. Conneau took up his post as collector for the port of Nouméa in 1854 but in 1857 he returned to France because of his failing health, dying three years later. His wife Elisa survived until 1932. Bouge, , “Théophile Conneau,” 254.Google Scholar

18. Conneau to Mayer, 12 June 1854, ibid., pp. 359-61.

19. Captain Canot (Mayer), iv.

20. Ibid., vi.

21. Ibid., v.

22. Johnston, Harry H., Liberia ,(2 vols.: London, 1909), 1: pp. 161–78.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., 1:p. 170.

24. Adventures (Cowley), xviii-xix.

25. Ibid., xv.

26. Ibid., xviii-xix.

27. Ibid., xx-xxi.

28. Ibid., xx.

29. Ibid., xxi.

30. Ibid., 5. Memoirs (Lawrence), p. 5.

31. Ibid., p. 14.

32. Allen, Hervey, Anthony Adverse (New York; 1933).Google Scholar

33. See Lloyd, Christopher, The Navy and the Slave Trade (London, 1968), pp. 33-34, 168.Google Scholar

34. Joseph Hawkins, A History of a Voyage to the Coast of Africa.

35. Spears, John R., The American Slave Trade: An Account of its Origins, Growth and Suppression (New York, 1900), p. 85.Google Scholar

36. Johnston, Liberia, 1, 170.Google Scholar

37. Pope-Hennessy, James, Sins of the Fathers: A Study of the Atlantic Slave Traders, 1441-1807 (London, 1967), pp. 67, 277.Google Scholar

38. Howard, Warren S., American Slavers and the Federal Law, 1837-1862 (Berkeley; 1963), p. 320.Google Scholar

39. See Mouser, Bruce L., “Captain Canot; or, Retrieving Value from the Dubious” (unpublished paper, Fourth Annual Conference on Liberian Studies, 1972).Google Scholar

40. A Slaver's Log Book, iii. Between the Lawrence edition and that of 1976, two translations of the original as edited by Mayer were printed. Abenteuer afrikanischer Sklavenhändler von Kapitän Theodore Canot (Voorburg, 1942)Google Scholar, is most mysterious because, although Conneau would seem ideal to exemplify Nazi racist principles, the book's introduction described the account as little more than an exciting adventure story. Perhaps the Dutch interpreted the understated publication of Conneau as a minor victory against German occupation. See also Ouro, escravos e marfim, as aventures de Théodore Canot, related by Mantz, Robert. Tr. by Santos, Iolanda L. (São Paulo, 1946).Google Scholar

41. Howard S. Mott, Inc., Catalogue No. 195.

42. Ibid.

43. A Slaver's Log Book, vi.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid., vii-viii.

46. Ibid., ix-x.