Journal of an African Cruiser began, not through Horatio Bridge’s volition, but rather at Nathaniel Hawthorne’s behest in 1843. Bridge and Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College together and when Hawthorne heard that his friend Bridge had been assigned as a purser to the USS Saratoga—and that the ship would cruise the west coast of Africa—he suggested that Bridge keep a detailed journal about his travels and experiences. Hawthorne believed that a travel narrative of Africa – particularly one that examined the Liberian colony – would be a commercial success. Bridge agreed on the conditions that Hawthorne would “take the trouble of all editing” and “bring[ing] out the volume.” Additionally, he required that Hawthorne would have “copyright and the sole profit of publication” (Bridge, Personal Recollections). Hawthorne’s motivations for collaborating on the journal with Bridge were both financial and political. Patrick Brancaccio explains that at the time of his work with Bridge, Hawthorne was “still seeking a political appointment and trying to publish a new book. This was one of the most financially trying periods in Hawthorne’s life. Efforts by a number of groups to make him postmaster of Salem had not been successful” (23). He was hoping for a political appointment from the Democratic Party, and believed that a partnership with Bridge, a well-connected democrat, might be useful.
When Bridge returned from his journey, Hawthorne edited and revised the piece, and suggested the manuscript as a book to his friend and publisher Evart Duychinck. In an 1844 letter to Bridge, Hawthorne wrote: “If I mistake not, it will be our best plan, both as regards your glory and my profit, to publish the journal by itself, rather than in a magazine…. Oh, it will be an excellent book,” Later writing, “I am happy to announce that your book is accepted… I have christened the book the Journal of an African Cruiser” (qtd. Brancaccio, 28-9). Duyckinck published the book in June of 1845 with 2,000 copies in its first New York printing—one of which was sent to London for additional printing there. Also published that month, however, was Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. While Narrative became immensely popular, Journal did not receive wide acclaim. It did, however, receive attention within circles debating the “slave problem.”
The concept of colonialism, and repatriation as a solution to the dilemma of slavery, was a greatly contested issue during the period in which Bridge and Hawthorne produced Journal. While the narrator states at the beginning that he is “neither an abolitionist nor a colonizationist,” the text clearly sympathizes with colonization (Bridge, Journal). The narrator states that colonialization allows “true freedom” for the black man and that Liberia may be called “a black man’s paradise” where former slaves are “redeemed from ages of degradation” becoming “happy, healthy, and independent” (Bridge, Journal). As a result, The American Colonization Society included the book in its annual report for 1846 as “one of the most prominent events in the history of colonization” (Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the American Colonization Society, 1846). In addition to this, the Journal was not only reviewed but also extensively extracted in the Aug., Nov., and Dec. issues of the African Repository. The initial notice praises the author’s “graphic and enticing style” and his “well balanced mind.” Wiley and Putnam are also singled out for praise: “We have been anxious that some disinterested person with good sense and cool judgment, should visit Liberia, unconnected with the Society at home, uninfluenced by any party or personal considerations…. We would that all enemies of colonization would read this book”(African Repository, Aug. 1845, (pp. 247-248.)
Two other important works about Liberia were published at this time, David F. Bacon’s Wanderings on the Seas and Shores of Africa (Boston, 1843), and Archibald Alexander’s A History of Colonization of the Western Coast of Africa (Philadelphia, 1846). While Alexander’s account is more or less unbiased, Bacon was a former colonialist who had gone to Africa as physician to Liberia and, during his tenure there, became entirely disillusioned with the concept of repatriation. In his book, he extensively documents why this is, and savagely derides the American Colonization Society.
Journal of An African Cruiser 