William Henry Sheppard (March 8, 1865 – November 25, 1927) was one of the earliest African Americans to become a missionary for the Presbyterian Church. He spent 20 years in Africa, primarily in and around the Congo Free State, and is best known for his efforts to publicize the atrocities committed against the Kuba and other Congolese peoples by King Leopold II's Force Publique.
Sheppard's efforts contributed to the contemporary debate on European colonialism and imperialism in the region, particularly among those of the African-American community. However, it has been noted that he traditionally received little attention in literature on the subject.
Early life and education
Sheppard was born in Waynesboro, Virginia, on March 8, 1865, to William Henry Sheppard, Sr. and Fannie Frances Sheppard (née Martin), a free "dark mulatto", a month before the end of the American Civil War. No records exist to confirm William Sr.'s status as a slave or freedman, but it has been speculated that he may have been among the slaves forced to serve the Confederacy as Union troops marched upon the South. William Sr. was a barber, and the family has been described as the closest to middle class that blacks could have achieved given the time and place.
At age twelve, William Jr. became a stable boy for a white family several miles away while continuing to attend school; he remembered his two-year stay fondly and maintained written correspondence with the family for many years. Sheppard next worked as a waiter to put himself through the newly created Hampton Institute, where Booker T. Washington was among his instructors in a program that allowed students to work during the day and attend classes at night. A significant influence on his appreciation for native cultures was the "Curiosity Room", in which the school's founder maintained a collection of Native Hawaiian and Native American works of art. Later in life he would collect artifacts from the Congo, specifically those of the Kuba, and bring them back for this room, as evidenced by his letters home, such as "[i]t was on the first of September, 1890 that William H. Sheppard addressed a letter to General Samuel Armstrong, Hampton, From Stanley Pool, Africa, that he had many artifacts, spears, idols, etc., and he was '...saving them for the Curiosity Room at Hampton'".
After graduation, Sheppard was recommended for admittance to Tuscaloosa Theological Institute, present-day Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which in 1959 dedicated its library in Sheppard's honor.) He met Lucy Gantt near the end of his time at Tuscaloosa Theological Institute, and the two became engaged but did not marry until ten years later. Sheppard developed an interest in preaching in Africa, and was supported in this endeavor by Charles Stillman, the institute's founder. The Southern Presbyterian Church, however, had yet to establish its mission in the Congo.
Career
Sheppard was ordained in 1888 and served as pastor at a church in Atlanta, but did not adapt well to the life of an urban black in a heavily segregated area of the Southern United States. After two years of writing to the Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Board in Baltimore, inquiring about starting a mission in Africa. Frustrated by the vague rationale in the rejection letters he received, Sheppard took a train to Baltimore, where he asked the chairman in person and was politely told that the board would not send a black man to Africa without a white supervisor.
Samuel Lapsley, an eager but inexperienced white man from a wealthy family, intervened to offer his support, enabling Sheppard's journey to Africa. They "inaugurated the unique principle of sending out together, with equal ecclesiastical rights and, as far as possible, in equal numbers, white and colored workers".
Mission with Lapsley
Sheppard and Lapsley's activities in Africa were enabled by the very man whose atrocities Sheppard would later attempt to expose. The pair traveled to London in 1890 en route to the Congo; while there, Lapsley met General Henry Shelton Sanford, an American ally of King Leopold II and friend of a friend of Lapsley's father. Sanford promised to do "everything in his power" to help the pair, even arranging an audience with King Leopold when Lapsley visited him in Belgium. Neither the secular Sanford nor the Catholic Leopold were interested in the Presbyterians' work. Leopold was eager to make inroads into his newly acquired territory, both to begin the process of "civilizing" the natives and to legitimize his rule. The missionaries were, however, oblivious of Leopold's motives.