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During the past thirty years there have been outbreaks throughout the African continent. As recently as 1915 a fanatical form of Ethiopianism broke out in Nyassaland which lies north-east of Rhodesia, under the sponsorship of John Chilembwe, a negro preacher who had been educated in the United States. The natives rose, killed a number of white men and carried off the women.
You see, Prester John was a good argument for him, for he had been a Christian as well as a great potentate. 'For years there has been plenty of this talk in South Africa, chiefly among Christian Kaffirs. It is what they call "Ethiopianism," and American negroes are the chief apostles. For myself, I always thought the thing perfectly harmless.
Surely the most potent possible corrective for the sort of half rebel influence that has grown or is growing up in Africa under the name of Ethiopianism, as well as for much of the strange uneasiness among the dumb masses of India, is the complete organization of native races under leaders who, whilst of their own people, are devoted to the highest ethical aims, and stand in happy subjection to men of other lands who have given them a training in discipline and unity which does not contemplate bloodshed.
Reported Ben Butler, the ex-general, and now lawyer, of New Orleans, where he attached to himself an infamous notoriety, that will never desert him "The Beast," as Brick Pomeroy, the western wit, calls him pelting his prosy platitudes and muddy language at the New York "rowdies," who responded with a more practical shower, of dead cats, and eggs that had seen their better days: reported Frederick Douglas, the tinted expounder of "advanced Ethiopianism," who regularly tells his audiences of sympathising abolitioners that he had been "bought for three thousand dollars when a slave" a precious deal more than he was worth, to judge by his appearance although, he somehow always forgets to speak of the present price he asks, for his "vote and interest!"
The finale begins with a touch of Ethiopianism that is perhaps unconscious. The whole movement is very original and quaint. Goldmark's music shows a steady development from a conservative simplicity to a modern elaborateness, a development thoroughly to be commended if it does not lead into obscurity.
Wardlaw admitted this, but said that there might be other kinds of leaders. He had been reading a lot about Ethiopianism, which educated American negroes had been trying to preach in South Africa. He did not see why a kind of bastard Christianity should not be the motive of a rising. 'The Kaffir finds it an easy job to mix up Christian emotion and pagan practice.
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