More than one noted historian has said Martin Delany lived several lifetimes rolled into one. His fertile mind and the principled conscience to which he felt absolutely beholden led him across three continents and countless experiences and challenges. This timeline captures the scope of his vast and important odyssey. (NOTE: Capitalized words denote names of major new residences of MRD. Entries within parentheses are "indirect influences" on MRD's life path.)
8/16/1858 MRD writes John Kagi, one of Brown's Harper's Ferry raiders. (MRD, in 1868, said he knew nothing of the plan at Harper's Ferry. Others attending the meeting doubt MRD's claimed ignorance).
MRD is named Commissioner "to explore in Africa, with full power to choose his own colleagues" by the Central Board of the third emigration convention held in Chatham.
"The Weekly Anglo African Magazine" publishes 25 installments of "Blake," according to scholar Floyd Miller, "the first novelistic offering of a black writer to be published in the United States."
"I beg to call your attention to the Story of 'Blake or the Huts of America,' now being published in the 'Anglo African Magazine." MRD letter to William Lloyd Garrison. (MRD lived in New York City then, raising funds for his African voyage).
Delany departs with others from New York harbor to Liberia on the 'Mendi.'
Arrives on shores of Liberia at Cape Palmas.
Arrives in Monrovia three hundred miles from Cape Palmas to the west.
MRD returns to Cape Palmas and explores the Cavalla River.
MRD sails to Lagos and spends the next five weeks there.
MRD travels inland into Yoruba along the Ogun River, as far as the Egba capital of Abbeokuta where he meets his expeditions' fundraiser in England, Robert Campbell, who had come from there.
(10/17/1859 John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry polarizes the slavery debate to the breaking point. In Charles Town, Va., Brown's jailer, John Avis, is a childhood friend of Delany's.
MRD and Robert Campbell sign a treaty with eight chiefs, headed by Ogubonna of Balagun, in Abbeokuta. The chiefs agree "to grant and assign unto the said Commissioners . . .the right and privilege of settling in common with the Egba people on any part of the territory belonging to Abbeokuta, not otherwise occupied." The Commissioners(MRD and Campbell) "agree that the settlers shall bring with them, as an equivalent for the privileges above accorded, intelligence, education, a knowledge of the Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, and other Mechanical and Industrial Occupations which they shall put into immediate operation by improving lands and in other useful vocations." (The treaty was later dissolved due to warfare in the region, subversive opposition by white missionaries and the advent of the Civil War in America).
MRD explores further inland following the old trade route of the Oyo empire, a full 225 miles inland.
MRD sets sail from Lagos to England.
An infuriated American delegation, headed by Augustus Longstreet walks out of the first meeting of the prestigious International Statistical Congress, attended by Prince Albert, after its chairman, Lord Brougham recognized and honored MRD with remarks before the gathering, an opportunity which MRD takes to remind the august body that "I am a man."
MRD arrives home in Chatham from his journey abroad.
(1/9/1861 Shore batteries drive off a federal supply ship heading for Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. After Lincoln's Inaugeral Address in March, Union forces attack the shore batteries. On April 13th, Fort Sumter surrenders, beginning the Civil War).
Settlement expedition of Abbeokuta, though ready with passengers and funding, begins to falter as MRD chooses to stay and seek the emancipation of the enslaved.
The remaining chapters of MRD's book, "Blake" are serialized by Robert Hamilton in his publication, "The Weekly Anglo African."