Edward Barron, 1801-1854: Unsung Hero of the Mission to Africa (review)

Father Farragher's biography of Edward Barron, the leader of the American Catholic Church's first mission to Liberia, clearly can be considered a missionary hagiography as Farragher focuses on the events of Barron's life. In that respect, this volume is not a "life and times" that uses biography as a lens through which to examine a specific period.²

The book is divided into five chapters. The first chapter provides extensive information on the Barron family history in County Waterford, Ireland (the family tree would be useful), Edward's formative years and schooling in England, France, and Rome, and his ordination and work at St. John's College in Waterford. Chapter 2 deals with Barron's life from his arrival in Philadelphia as Francis Patrick Kenrick's vicar general in 1837 to his decision to volunteer for the ill-fated mission to Liberia, his arrival at Cape Palmas in February 1842, and his subsequent departure for the United States and Europe two month later to find additional missionaries for the mission. The next chapter follows Barron in his travels through Italy, France, England, and Ireland, his efforts to secure funding and personnel for the mission, his meeting and collaboration with Francis Libermann and the Missionaries of the Immaculate Heart of Mary—seven of whom volunteered for the West African mission, and their departure for Cape Palmas in August 1843. Chapter 4 details the failure of the mission to Liberia including the deaths of seven of the eleven missionaries, the abandonment of Cape Palmas in favor of French trading centers on the West African coast, and Barron's resignation as vicar apostolic. It also briefly discusses developments that resulted in successfully implanting the Catholic Church in West Africa under Libermann's direction. Chapter 5 narrates the events of Barron's return to the United States, his pastoral work in Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Savannah, where he died during a yellow fever epidemic in September 1854.

Farragher's work is the first monographic study related to the church's mission to Liberia in twenty-five years.³ It is exceedingly well researched, as Farragher has consulted numerous archives in Europe and the United States. He did not, however, consult the papers of the American Colonization Society or the Maryland State Colonization Society or standard works on the expatriation of freed American slaves (e.g., P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865, or Penelope Campbell, Maryland in Africa). There is no bibliography, and so the reader must track references through the extensive endnotes following each chapter.

Historians of Africa will be frustrated with Farragher's book. There is virtually no African perspective or cultural context in which to understand European missionaries' responses to African actions. In the few instances where African actions can be read back from missionary records Farragher raises several issues that are significant in studies of religion—particularly Christianity—in Africa but does not engage them meaningfully, such as the issue of African inculturation of Christian doxy and praxis versus "backsliding," or whether missionary presence was the cutting edge for European imperialism and colonialism, or the possibility of African cultural beliefs and practices influencing Europeans and their institutions.

Most problematic, however, is Farragher's contention that Barron was the "unsung hero of the mission to Africa." Given the overwhelming failure of Barron's mission, and the fact that he spent most of his two years as vicar apostolic in Europe, John Kelly of the Diocese of New York—who spent two years developing relatively positive relations with American colonists and local Grebo communities and carrying on the quotidian affairs of the mission—would be a more likely candidate. Farragher contends that Barron was the progenitor of the missiology adopted and implemented with great success by Libermann and the Spiritans across the African continent. If so, this could very well be the greatest contribution of this biography. Unfortunately, Farragher does...