American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa

by Arwen P. Mohun

This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa.
 
Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his career circulating among the eastern United States, the cities and courts of Europe, and the African continent, as he served the US State Department at some points and King Leopold of Belgium at others. A freelance imperialist, he implemented the schemes of American investors and the Congo Free State alike. Without men like him, Africa’s history might have unfolded very differently. How did an ordinary son of a Washington bookseller become the agent of American corporate greed and European imperial ambition? Why did he choose to act in ways that ranged from thoughtless and amoral to criminal and unforgivable?
 
With unblinking clarity and precision, historian Arwen P. Mohun interrogates the life and actions of her great-grandfather in American Imperialist . She seeks not to excuse the man known as Dorsey but to understand how individual ambition and imperial lust fueled each other, to catastrophic ends. Ultimately, she offers a nuanced portrait of how her great-grandfather’s pursuit of career success and financial security for his family came at a tragic cost to countless Africans.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

328 pages, Hardcover

First published November 16, 2023

Reviews

[Elizabeth Higginbotham · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequences in the Scramble for Africa by Arwen P. Mohun is a biography that pulls together many themes. Writing about her grandfather, R. Dorsey Mohun, born in 1864, and the extended Dorsey-Mohun family is complex. The Dorsey and Mohun families were Catholics living in the Washington D.C. area using connections with government officials to craft a life. When his own father dies in 1879, as the oldest son he is pushed into a breadwinner role, his mother secured a position in the State, War, and Navy Building. His life takes him around the globe, connected with imperialist projects. Failed canal building in Nicaragua, but then on to Europe and Africa. His quest for success involves leaving the country and intimately involved with King Leopold and the Belgium Congo.

Growing up on novels about adventures in Africa, Dorsey Mohun sees the reality, which is not pretty, but people working in conditions with minimal infrastructure to extract resources out of the continent. Moving between Europe, where there are many luxuries, to the rugged terrain less developed in parts of Africa, especially the Congo. Mohun begins a long relationship with King Leopold, but also worked for the state department Zanzibar. Yet, he keeps coming back to King Leopold and is involved in building a telegraph line as well as plans to extract resources for companies that represent Britian and the United States.

Mohun is not alone, there are other Americans and Europeans who are explorers, adventurers, and working to secure resources. This means hiring men to transport then and their supplies in hostile territories. Initially the goal was moving out the Arabs who were known for enslaving people in Congo, but the newcomers are no better—employing coercive means to secure the labor of people. The work that goes on in industrializing Africa is not pretty and the people who profit are not the African people. Many flee their communities rather than work, so the displacement of people is serious.

In this hostile territory, enemies and illnesses take the lives of many. Some come to see the evil in King Leopold’s plans. So, while initially comrades, some begin to reveal the horrors of oppression. Mohun, always looking for contract work, become an apologist for King Leopold that does lead to other employment opportunities. King Leopold dies and leave the Congo to the people of Belgium, but much is shattered by World War I.

Mohun’s work while it does not make him wealthy, he is able to secure some security for his family. The years of illnesses means he dies in 1915. A complex story to tell, but the author Arwen Mohun does an excellent job in looking at the Gilding Age coming to an end and the choices men have to make to support their families. Often believing that what they are doing is good. Yet the circumstances do not bring out the best in men.

[Halston Lim · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Review!

Here is a very readable and informative history of American and European exploitation in 19th century Africa. The book is packed with vivid accounts from primary sources, mostly letters written by Richard Mohun, the authors great grandfather.

In describing how human enslavement and violence came to be at massive scale, the author strikes a balance between the role of individual moral failure and the greed of society at large driven by capitalism and heroics.

Would recommend to any American interested in the history of our nation and how America projected white supremacy abroad in aftermath of the Civil War