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White Roots: Written and Oral Testimony on the “First” Mr. Rogers*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Adam Jones
Adam Jones*
Affiliation:
Frobenius-Institut, Frankfurt am Main
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Extract

Three descent groups in southern Sierra Leone derive their names from Englishmen who married African women in the late seventeenth century: the Caulkers of Shenge, the Tuckers of Gbap, and the Rogerses of Kpaka chiefdom. The names Caulker, Tucker, and Rogers occur frequently in the records of the Royal African Company T70 series and each group retains traditions about its English ancestor. Previous attempts to correlate this written and oral testimony have not been very successful. In this article I shall discuss the Rogerses, dealing first with the written material and then with their oral (or quasi-oral) traditions, which I collected in 1977–78.

From the 1620s onwards, a series of English companies had agents in the Sherbro area. The main item purchased was camwood, especially from the Bum Kittam River. Sloops were also sent to Cape Mount to buy ivory and cotton textiles (cloths, shirts and breeches, which were resold at Sherbro and further north). The slave trade was of marginal importance in this area until the mid-eighteenth century.

The Royal African Company entered the Sherbro trade in 1678. At first its base was on the mainland, but in 1688 it was transferred to York Island, where a weak stone fort was built. From 1689 to 1700 the company's Sherbro agent controlled trade at Sierra Leone as well as at Sherbro. The Sherbro fort also generally had at least three or four outfactories.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 10 , 1983 , pp. 151 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1983

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Footnotes

*

This is a revised version of a chapter in my Ph.D. thesis, “A History of the Galinhas Country, Sierra Leone, c. 1650-1890” (University of Birmingham, 1979). I am grateful to John Fage for his criticisms, to Gisela Wittner for redrawing the maps, and to the people of Kpaka chiefdom for their information and hospitality.

References

Notes

1. See Jones, Adam, “A Preliminary Investigation of Oral Traditions in the Galinhas Area of Sierra Leone” (typescript, 1979: copies deposited at the Centre of West African Studies University of Birmingham, and the Institute of African Studies, University of Sierra Leone).Google Scholar

2. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1669-74 (London, 1889), 412–13Google Scholar; T70/3, 6, 11, 50, 362, 363, 587, 878, and 1211, passim. PRO, London.

3. T70/11 pp. 101-09, 162-63; T70/50 ff. 108-09; T70/51 ff. 37v-42; T70/1445 f. 54

4. T70/10 p. 56; T70/11 p. 168; T70/14 ff. 57v-60v.

5. Donnan, Elizabeth, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America (4 vols.: Washington, 1930–1935), 1: 421–29Google Scholar; Davies, K.G., The Royal African Company (London, 1957), 135–51.Google Scholar

6. T70/544 pp. 165-6, memoranda dated 7-8 January 1665/6; T70/10 f. 4, Rogers 5 August 1678 to RAC.

7. T70/10 ff. 56-58, Piatt, 3 March 1681 - 24 November 1681 to RAC; T70/361, loose paper dated 22 July 1681; T70/587, memoranda dated 27 February 1680/1 and 18 November 1681; T70/877.

8. T70/11 pp. 160-62, Piatt, 9 March 1685/86 and 17 March 1687/88 to RAC; T70/1441 and 1445, “Lists of the Living and the Dead” sub 19 February 1694 and 10 July 1713; T70/52, RAC, 31 March 1713, to Clark; T70/588, 879, and 880.

9. T70/144, “Lists of the Living and the Dead” sub 10 March 1687/88 and 22 October 1688; T70/11 p. 164, Gibson, 20 November 1690 to RAC.

10. T70/881; T70/590, memorandum dated 16 December 1699.

11. Rodney, Walter, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast 1545-1800 (Oxford, 1970), 217Google Scholar; T70/14 f. 64, Freeman and Glynn, 29 April 1704, to RAC.

12. T70/163, RAC, 13 September 1692, to Gibson.

13. T70/51 ff. 72V-74, RAC, 31 October 1700, to Coates, Goff, and Richardson. Rodney, (History, 217Google Scholar) misread “Saml.” as “Lame.”

14. T70/3 p. 89, Smith, 29 January 1714/15, to RAC; T70/362, memorandum dated 1 January 1720/21; T70/363, memorandum dated 1 October 1723.

15. T70/60 f. 12, RAC, 21 December 1721, to Plunkett; T70/363 (duplicated in T70/308), memoranda dated 16 July 1722 and 12 September 1722. In return for a promise of camwood, Samuel Rogers obtained an outfit of European clothes and shoes-an indication that he had not “gone native” as far as dress was concerned.

16. T70/362 (duplicated in T70/308), memorandum dated 12 September 1722. Zachary Rogers I had had dealings at Cape Mount forty years earlier: T70/587, memorandum dated 8 December 1681.

17. T70/363, memorandum dated 1 October 1723; T70/60 f. 12, RAC, 21 December 1721, to Plunkett; T70/362, memorandum dated 16 July 1722; T70/1465, Charles, 8 February 1729.

18. T70/60 f. 30, RAC, 18 July 1723, to Archbold.

19. In 1732 Anthony Rogers (one of the company's agents on the Gambia) sent a ship to dispose of her cargo at Sierra Leone and Galinhas: T70/4 f. 69, Rogers, 25 April 1732, to RAC. In 1733 William Whetstone Rogers was sent to Cape Coast as a warehousekeeper: T70/54 f. 108, RAC, 26 July 1733, to Stephens. Neither of these need have been related to the Rogerses at Galinhas and Cape Mount, but it is a curious coincidence that a leading member of the Rogers descent group at Galinhas in the mid-nineteenth century had the middle name Weston: C.M.S. Archive (University of Birmingham), C/A1/0 36, Beale's Journal, entry for 12 March 1850.

20. CO 270/8, Bright's Journal, October 1802. PRO, London.

21. See Jones, , “Galinhas,” 249–51.Google Scholar

22. Roques, James and Luseni, M., “The Origins of the Kpakas or Rogers,” Sierra Leone Studies, 15 (1929), 59–62Google Scholar; Despicht, S.M., “A Short History of the Gallinas Chiefdoms,” Sierra Leone Studies, 21 (1939), 5–13Google Scholar; Morrison, C.R., “The Vai Speaking People of the Southern Province,” Sierra Leone Studies, 22 (1939), 104–09.Google Scholar Roques and Luseni received their information from Momo Kpaka of Mina (the village at the mouth of the Kerefe River, from which most Rogerses claim to originate). Despicht's informants were Jeo Koroma of Koranko and Jaia Massaquoi of Folu, both in what was then Gbema chiefdom, not Kpaka. For later efforts to use these traditions see Rodney, , History, 219Google Scholar; Kup, A.P., A History of Sierra Leone, 1400-1787 (Cambridge, 1961), 149Google Scholar; Fyfe, Christopher, “Rogers, Z.,” in The Encyclopaedia Africana Dictionary of African Biography (Detroit, 1970), 2: 137.Google Scholar

23. The best attempt to interpret the traditions of a similar mulatto family is Priestley's study of the Brews: Priestley, Margaret, West African Trade and Coast Society: a Family Study (London, 1969), 117–28.Google Scholar Far more information, both written and oral, is available on the Brews than on the Rogerses, but there are many parallels between the two cases.

24. The use of English-language surnames as regular equivalents to Vai patronymics (Rogers/Kpaka, Yates/Mendimasa, Freeman/Fahnbulleh) is an old-established custom. Many people also have alternative Vai and English first names. In general (but not in all cases) the English language names are used in English discourse and the Vai in Vai discourse (or, in the case of most of the Rogerses today, Mende discourse). See Smith, M.R., “An Ethnographic Account of Literacy and Written Learning in a Vai Town,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1982, 70n2.Google Scholar

25. Interviews with Alhaji A.T. Rogers (Nyanyahun), 5 December 1977 and Salia Rogers (Mina), 16 December 1977. At Mina I was shown what was held to be the grave of Charles Rogers, on top of which stood a concrete cross, placed (there within the last twenty years. Informants in other villages told me that this grave belonged to Stephen or James Rogers.

26. Pujehun District Office, PCA/357/1, M. Rogers, 6 July 1932, to Provincial Commissioner; Mahamud Rogers, untitled as. in my possession; Mahamud Rogers, “The Origins of the Rogerses: History of Kpaka Chiefdom” (Arabic ms. in the possession of Alhaji A.T. Rogers; English translation in my possession); interviews with Ansumana Kɔnε (Bundokor), 19 January 1978, and Braima G. Rogers (Masam), 3 November 1977.

27. Interviews with B.S. Lansana Bobo Massaquoi (Dumagbe), 17 December 1977; Mohamed Lamin Rogers (Kanayema), 4 December 1977; Momo Kpaka (Njala Kpaka), 14 December 1977; Babadi Caulker (Koranko Kpaka), 26 December 1977; Senesi Kpaka (Liyia), 19-20 November 1977.

28. In the early nineteenth century there were two chiefs called Stephen Rogers (one killed in about 1807, the other living at Liyia from the early 1820s to the 1840s); James Rogers was chief of Liyia in the 1840s and 1850s. Perhaps this helps to explain how the names Stephen and James came to be incorporated into the traditions. Similarly Safa Mewa, the man regarded in oral traditions as the ancestor of Upper Jasende section of Kpaka chiefdom, is known to have been ruling in 1850. Most of the events mentioned in traditions of this area occurred in the mid-nineteenth century; the names of chiefs who were alive then are incorporated into traditions explaining several events that must have occurred much earlier. Something must have been happening in the mid-nineteenth century that implanted the names of that period in the memory more firmly than those of any other period. Perhaps it was the beginnings of a process of state-formation that had this effect. On the other hand, it is quite likely that the same Christian names were used recurrently in different generations: cf. Priestley, , West African Trade, 124.Google Scholar I have found no documentary reference to anyone called Charles Rogers, but the name is quite common today.

29. Kup, , History, 149.Google Scholar Although it is possible that one or two Rogerses did this, there is no documentary proof. No Rogerses are mentioned in a list of people from the Sierra Leone area educated in England: BT6/10, Matthews, 16 April 1788, PRO.

30. The English ancestor of the Clevelands in fact arrived in Africa considerably later than the first of the Rogerses, Tuckers, and Caulkers. The earliest possible reference to him dates from 1738: Moore, Francis, Travels Into the Inland Parts of Africa (London, 1739), 220.Google Scholar

31. T70/591, memorandum dated 1 January 1712/13. Mulattos sometimes adopted the names of more than one white trader: Priestley, , West African Trade, 124.Google Scholar Cf. Hoffer, Carol P., “Acquisition and Exercise of Political Power by a Woman Paramount Chief of the Sherbro People” (Ph.D. dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1971), 109.Google Scholar

32. Roques, and Luseni, , “Origins,” 63.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., 60, with emphasis added. Cf. Despicht, , “Short history,” 6–7.Google Scholar

34. E.g., Interview with Salia Rogers (Mina), 16 December 1977.

35. Sierra Leone Government Archive (Freetown), Liberian Boundary Papers, Harris, 18 July 1878, to Hedds Bond; Despicht, , “Short history,” 9Google Scholar; interviews with Dauda and Fode Massaquoi (Sulima) and Lahai Massaquoi (Juring), 25–26 December 1977.

36. Interviews with Braima G. Rogers (Masam), 3 November 1977; Senesi Kpaka (Liyia), 19-20 November 1977; Ansumana Kɔnε (Bundokɔɔ), 19 January 1978.

37. Creswick, H.C., “Life Amongst the Veys,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society, n.s. 6 (1867), 356.Google Scholar

38. This does not apply to those parts of their traditions that definitely refer to the nineteenth century.

39. As Rodney, , History, 219Google Scholar, argues.

40. Ibid. Fyfe is slightly more cautious. To correct all the errors in Kup's account would require more space and time than it deserves.

41. See Rodney, , History, 217–21.Google Scholar