by Colin Grant
At Cape Palmas, Williams struggled to contain his disgust as he observed how ‘a vessel approached and began to transfer recruited workers … each boat brought 35 or 40 Kroomen packed as closely as chocolates in a box … [with] anxious and inquiring glances.’ Williams concluded, ‘Here was a scene, then, equal to anything in the slave trade, with but one element unsupplied – no chains about their necks.’17 No one, least of all Leopold II, paid much attention to Williams’s complaint. But lovers of literature would read of European excesses in the Congo a few years later when they were rendered, almost as a fable and with such polished revulsion, in the melancholic thoughts of Joseph Conrad, in his novella Heart of Darkness. ‘They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got,’ Conrad’s narrator observes. ‘It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind … not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.’ Europeans did not flinch much at the excesses and barbarities committed on their behalf but, rather, in an absence of individual restraint, decided on a course of regulation.
The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 was an attempt by the German Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck, to referee the great carve-up of the continent, but his blueprint had never fully satisfied the rapacious instincts of the rival European powers. At the height of the Great War, in 1917, Sir Harry Johnston, a former diplomat and stranger to discretion, bluntly stated his estimation that the conflict ‘was really fought over African questions’, with Germany seeking to enlarge its influence on the continent by wresting Morocco from the French, and the Congo from the French and Portuguese. In the pages of the London Sphere, Johnston went on to elaborate on the achievable outcomes for the war, speculating that, ‘Rightly governed, Africa will … repay the cost of our struggle with Germany’.18 Johnston’s prophecy would be tested two years later at the Paris Peace Conference, where, following Germany’s defeat in the Great War, the fate of its possessions in Africa – German East Africa, as well as German South-West Africa (Namibia), Cameroon and Togo – was to be decided. With France especially in a vengeful mood, it was a safe bet that Germany would be forced to forfeit her African territories. In Marcus Garvey’s conception, there was no better time for Negroes to stake a claim on the ancestral homelands that were about to come on the market.
To broadcast to the thousands whom he could now confidently expect to throng the UNIA meetings, Marcus Garvey once again booked the one venue in Harlem that was both large enough and just about affordable (costing $50 an hour), to meet his needs. The payment would be met by the UNIA president calling for a silver collection at the end of the evening. Each booking was now followed up by a visit from the authorities, and the proprietor, whose antipathy towards the movement deepened with each engagement, was hesitant. But Garvey found the businessman’s feelings of guilt could be assuaged by agreeing to a price hike of another $10.
The Palace Casino, built in 1914 as a barn-shaped hall with an enormous floorspace (170 feet long) on 135th Street and Madison Avenue, was popular with Harlem’s revellers, especially the risqué dancers of the turkey trot and black bottom. The sight of these sinners emulating crazed turkeys caused Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Snr to lament that ‘the Negro race is dancing itself to death … [and] grace and modesty are becoming rare virtues’.19 When it wasn’t scandalising pastors with its modern dance craze, the Palace Casino also doubled up, some evenings, as a basketball gymnasium. But for much of 1918 and 1919, the casino was the preferred venue of choice for Marcus Garvey’s rather more virtuous massed meetings – open to all, but turkey trotters and black bottomers were advised to leave their dancing shoes at home. The entire front page of the 1 December 1918 edition of the Negro World was given over to the forthcoming Paris Peace Conference and a request for the upstanding men and women of the Negro race to attend the Palace Casino theatre.
Air whirred round the pipes of the theatre’s organ, as if yet undecided about how and when to turn itself into music. It settled into the half-familiar tune, not convincingly so, that did the job of passing time before the main event. Even though it was midwinter, many in the audience had brought along fans. In ones and twos, now, they began to flap, as more and more people streamed through the doors and the temperature rose from the body heat of several thousand excited souls. They’d come in answer to Marcus Garvey’s call to assemble on the eve of the international conference. There was serious business to attend to: the membership that night was charged with the solemn responsibility of electing delegates to travel to Versailles to press the claim for Negro nation status.
Elizier Cadet sat in the front row. He looked unusually apprehensive. The young Haitian immigrant, with untroubled eyes and a face in which a smile seemed permanently trapped, had travelled up from West Virginia for the meeting. Cadet could be forgiven for being anxious. He’d been nominated by Garvey and was about to hear the outcome of the vote. But in reality, it was a foregone conclusion. Once caught up in Garvey’s whirlwind, proximity to the man marked for greatness – at a time when the race was crying out for a leader who could get things done – brought swift rewards. Even so, Cadet marvelled at the speed of his own ascendancy within the movement. One moment he was an occasional reader of the Negro World; then he’d plucked up courage and written a letter to the paper denouncing the mendacity of the US military occupation of Haiti.20 The letter had caught the editor’s eye, and the next moment Cadet had been nominated as an interpreter to the prospective delegates, articulating the aspirations of 12 million black Americans at the great palace of Versailles – and all this before his twenty-first birthday. As was then said jokingly, Marcus Garvey was the kind of man whom his followers ‘would bend over blackwards’ to support, and the youngster was determined to live up to the faith Garvey had placed in him. If he could pull it off, it’d be an extraordinary feat. Cadet would be relying on his fluent French, limitless enthusiasm and boyish charm to aid the delegates; he’d not yet be able to draw on the influence of Damballah (the serpent god) or the psychic and mystical skills that he would, in later life, become famous for as a vodun high priest.
Immediately Garvey was sighted in the wings of the auditorium the 100-strong choir took up the strains of ‘From Greenland’s Icy Mountain’ – the curious missionary hymn of deliverance adopted and adapted by the UNIA:
From Greenland’s icy mountains
From India’s coral strand,
Where Afric’s sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand;
From many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver
Their land from error’s chain21
There was faint chance of African land being delivered back to the sons and daughters of Afric at the peace conference. Yet Garvey spoke as might a founding father of a new African nation. In doing so, he enlisted the support of several dead white men: America’s revolutionary founding fathers. For was it not Patrick Henry who’d defiantly declared to the British, ‘Give me freedom, or give me death’? Why then should anyone expect such sentiments to be absent amongst black people? Why then should anyone shudder to hear a black man invoke the spirit of America’s violent but honourable beginnings? If it was appropriate for Patrick Henry and George Washington, was it not good enough for the UNIA leader? Garvey also sounded, at least for the benefit of his members, as if he fully expected the Allied forces to hand over Germany’s confiscated African territories to him and the UNIA. But more than America’s founding fathers, Marcus Garvey had the Irish cause and the blood sacrifice of the Easter Rising to thank for his rapidly developing ideology of Black Nationalism.
Irish Nationalists, under the banner of the ‘Irish race at home and abroad’, had long clamoured for an independent homeland. Sinn Feiners would be among those lobbyists raising their voices for the recognition of ‘Ireland for the Irish’, ‘Palestine for the Jews’ and ‘India for the Indians’ at the Peace Conference. At such a pivotal moment the black man was in danger of being left behind. But for months now, M
arcus Garvey had taken his cue from the Irish. He’d invested in a megaphone and secured the use of a car and driver. Almost daily, sweeping through Harlem perched on the running-board of an open-topped Cadillac, with a megaphone to his mouth, he could be heard beseeching his fellow Harlemites, bellowing into the megaphone the slogan that, in the days ahead, would serve as shorthand for his dream: ‘Africa for the Africans: those at home and those abroad.’
Given that the world’s leaders were converging on Paris, and that Versailles was shaping up to be one of the most momentous events in history, it is surprising that Marcus Garvey didn’t suggest himself as a delegate. Perhaps he sensed that such a venture would ultimately prove a fool’s errand. Perhaps the UNIA leader recognised that the claim to the German colonies was only ever a bluff, that once exposed could only end in humiliation. A more compelling explanation for his reticence can be gleaned from totting up the number of UNIA branches that had come into existence by 1919. According to Henrietta Vinton Davis, by September that year there were 7,500 members in New York alone and branches established in 25 states of the Union – so it was beginning to mount a serious challenge to the authority of the rival and older NAACP organisation. With the UNIA still expanding at an extraordinary rate – in need, once more, of a review of its structure – now was not perhaps the best time to relinquish grip of the reins to set up camp in Europe. It seems Garvey decided it was better to let others take their rightful place in Paris; and hopefully to share in some measure of their success.
The ebullient Ida B. Wells jumped up on stage at the Palace Casino and pronounced herself ‘ready to serve the race’. As the applause rang out, Marcus Garvey announced that he was fully behind the people’s choice and was content to endorse her nomination, as well as that of A. Philip Randolph, the impressive editor of the Messenger. The youthful Elizier Cadet was chosen to act as the emissaries’ translator.22
The UNIA was only one of several black welfare groups agitating for a place at the Paris Peace Conference. Marcus Garvey, along with the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Snr and Madam C. J. Walker came together under the umbrella of the International League for Darker People. They would put to one side their small differences and not-so-small egos and pool their resources for the good of the race. The choice of Wells and Randolph as delegates was ratified along with Monroe Trotter and a handful of others. Madam Walker offered to meet the cost of their expedition. In the following days, the elected officials rushed around, excitedly making their preparations. However, the journey to France was dependent on their ability to secure passports and visas, and the authorities were not favourably disposed towards either Wells or Randolph. As each day passed with no sign of the relevant documentation, their anxiety over the soul-sapping bureaucratic delay was eventually replaced by the gloomy realisation that their reputations ensured that the visas would most likely not be granted. Ultimately, the American administration preferred to do business with Negro representatives whom it considered less problematic. Whilst the UNIA delegates, Wells and Randolph, were left clutching their unstamped passports, rival representative Negroes of the calibre of W. E. B. Du Bois of the NAACP and Tuskegee’s Robert Moton were already on the high seas, having secured berths on the same ship, the Orizaba, steaming towards Europe.
The youthful Cadet, who was travelling on a Haitian passport, escaped the restrictions placed on his colleagues. And, as far as Garvey was concerned, the great hope of the Negro race now rested on his shoulders. Within a month, Cadet went from interpreter to primary negotiator – an elevation reflected in his eventual title as the UNIA’s new ‘High Commissioner’ to the Peace Conference. Commissioner Cadet was soon showing his skills of ventriloquism. On the eve of his departure, flushed with excitement, he wrote to Henec Dorsinville, a compatriot in Port-au-Prince, with Garveyite flashes of brilliance about the great projects, such as the establishment of a line of ships between the West Indies, America and Africa, that would soon implement the mobilising of all the 400 million Negroes of the world. There were great prospects for both spiritual and material reward, and, with patience, he would earn a share of it. In a letter intercepted by the US Postal Censor, Cadet wrote with premature generosity, offering Dorsinville, not just the position of UNIA representative in Haiti and Panama, ‘but also you shall be our commercial and industrial agent’. The New Negro meant business and former critics were forced to pay attention. The New York Times reported uncritically, ‘The UNIA passed resolutions [which] suggested that the German colonies be turned over to Negroes under the rule of Negroes educated in this country and Europe.’ British Military Intelligence continued to monitor Garvey’s organisation. In a report that it shared with the United States Military Intelligence Division the following year, the British transcribed a speech in which Garvey had rallied his supporters with dreams of Africa: ‘I want you to realise that this is the psychological moment for the organisation … It was the dream of William II for Germany to rule the world from Potsdam or from Berlin. In his dream he saw a great Central Empire … But [as he] declared war, so did he lose the war; and as he lost the war, he lost the vision of a great Central Africa. In his defeat of 1918, the renewed Negro has caught the vision not only of a great Central Africa for the Africans, but a United Africa for the Africans of the World.’23
The details of such a fantastical dream were yet to be worked out. It was the kind of rhetoric that Garvey used to bolster his supporters when there was little sign of social and political equality for the descendants of Africans abroad or self-determination for the majority of Africans on the Continent. The rhetoric did not unduly alarm the British Secret Service at this stage. It succeeded only in irritating prominent Africans such as Senegal’s Blaise Diagne, who considered it risible and an ‘idée insensée’.
Cadet finally set sail towards the end of February, clutching the shopping list of demands, his optimism undiminished by the sad sobering voices, such as Hubert Harrison’s cautioning that he was likely to be reduced to window shopping.
The representatives of thirty-two nations converged on Paris at the start of 1919. ‘Not simply England, Italy and the Great Powers,’ William Du Bois observed, ‘but all the little nations … not only groups, but races – Jews, Indians, Arabs and all Asia’ took up their invitations to secure a place at Versailles, at an event that, if President Wilson was held true to his word, would mark the beginning of a new world order. There could be no lasting peace, Wilson had said in the midst of war, unless it was a peace amongst equals. His statement left little room for caveats or exemptions. The time, therefore, was ripe for equal rights, and especially for racial equality – not just in the view of Du Bois, but also of his looming adversary, Marcus Garvey: it would have been a calamity to have had no Negro representation at this ‘clearing house of Fates, where the accounts of a whole epoch, the deeds and misdeeds of an exhausted civilisation, were to be balanced and squared’. But weeks after the official opening of the Peace Conference (it would stagger on for more than six months) there was no welcoming committee to greet Garvey’s representative as Cadet stepped off the train at Gare du Nord. The red carpet had already been rolled out for more deserving, visiting dignitaries on numerous occasions in recent months, most spectacularly on the day in January when the US President, Wilson Le Juste, had come to town at the start of the conference. Since then hundreds of delegates from around the world had descended on the French capital, together with an army of reporters, monocled diplomats, degraded viziers of defunct principalities, wiry currency speculators, hustlers and hangers-on of every description. Much of Paris was still decked out in bunting, now fraying and weather-worn. An American delegate, James T. Shotwell, recorded in his diary the abundant signs of the war that had just ended; martial law was still in place, gangs of khaki-clad soldiers spilled off the boulevards, captured German cannon lined the Champs-Elysées and a visitor who happened to drop into the Théâtre Fursy would probably have been shocked by the acidity of the political satires, Les Chansonniers de Paris, i
n which ‘Americans were not spared, but it was too funny to be malicious.’24
But despite the welcome signs of the return of a lusty, zestful spirit to post-war Paris, there was sombre work in store for the delegates. After so many millions had died in the war, there was an enormous moral responsibility to realise the great ideals of the Treaty of Versailles. In the months ahead, two fundamental principles would be argued over and voted on: first was the creation of a League of Nations which its architects believed would not govern the fractured world but ‘act as a symbol of … human conscience, however imperfect, to which real governments of existing states can be made answerable for facts which concern the world at large’; and secondly there was the need to establish mandates for the confiscated territories and colonies of the defeated enemy (especially in German Africa) ‘inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions’. The draft clause concluded – and herein lay the rub for Cadet and Garvey – that ‘the tutelage of such people should be instructed by advanced nations’.
