Lewis Penick Clinton (also known as Louis Penick Clinton and Prince Somayou Zea Clayou) (born 1865 or 1866) was a Prince of the Bassa people in

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...

(

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...

) and later an

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

missionary and lecturer.The Literary Digest, Volume 15, No 9 (Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1897)
pg. 269
/ref>

Early life

Clinton was born as Prince Somayou Zea Clayou in 1865 or 1866 in Grand Bassa where he was heir to the throne of his grandfather, Zea, the king of the Bassa, a large tribe of two million people in West Africa.Jack Williams ,
Prince Who Wept
(Free Will Baptist Historical Commission) Somayou's father was also a king and Somayou's mother was his father's favorite wife. A rival uncle was seeking the throne, but Somayou was being trained secretly to be a successor until his father died in 1878. Fearing for his life, Somayou fled to the Liberian coast and met an American trader named Clinton, who taught Somayou English. Somayou then was introduced to an Episcopal bishop along the road between

Cape Palmas Cape Palmas is a headland on the extreme southeast end of the coast of Liberia, Africa, at the extreme southwest corner of the northern half of the continent. The Cape itself consists of a small, rocky peninsula connected to the mainland by a s ...

to Cape Mount. The bishop, Lewis Penick, was on his way to found a mission station and Somayou worked with the bishop for five years and adopted the name "Lewis Penick Clinton."

Education in the United States

In 1884 seeking to further his education, Clinton came to the U.S. and studied at

Storer College Storer College was a historically black college in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, that operated from 1867 to 1955. A national icon for Black Americans, in the town where the 'end of American slavery began', as Frederick Douglass famously put i ...

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

for five years starting in the 1880s. By 1890 Clinton had moved to

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

where he completed one year at

Nichols Latin School The Nichols Latin School was a Private university, private University-preparatory school, college preparatory school that operated in the late 19th century to prepare students of both Wealth, affluent and Mixed-income housing, mixed income backgro ...

and then attended

Bates College Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...

and its affiliated

Cobb Divinity School Cobb Divinity School (also known as Bates Theological Seminary or the Free Will Baptist Bible School) was a Baptist theological institute. Founded in 1840, it was a Free Will Baptist graduate school affiliated with several Free Baptist institution ...

for six years. He graduated from

in 1897 with high honors. While at Bates, Clinton was a member of the Polymnian debating society and active in social events and sports, including tennis, and he wrote for the ''

Bates Student ''The Bates Student'', established in 1873, is the newspaper of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, run entirely by students. It is one of the oldest continuously-published college weeklies in the United States and claims to be the oldest co-ed coll ...

''. He paid for his education expenses through lecturing and writing. Clinton acquired knowledge of many languages including English, French, German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Bassa,

Kru KRU was a Malaysian pop boy band formed in 1992. The group comprises three brothers, namely Datuk Norman Abdul Halim, Datuk Yusry Abdul Halim and Edry Abdul Halim'. Apart from revolutionising the Malaysian music scene with their blend of pop ...

, and Vai.

Founding of Liberian mission

In 1898 Clinton was ordained as a Free Will Baptist minister, and he returned to Africa in 1899 to found a mission near Fortsville in Grand Bassa, Liberia helping to educate local men and women and to hopefully regain the throne from his uncle. His mission work was sponsored by the Free Will Baptists in Maine, and Clinton founded a mission station and farm (seventy-five miles east of Monrovia and fifty miles from the coast) upon several hundred acres of land granted by the Bassa people and Liberian government, and he was later assisted by another Storer alumnus, Rev. A.K. Peabody.Minutes of the General Conference of Free Baptists- v. 27-32, Morning Star Publishing House
pg 84-87
/ref> The mission grew to contain dormitories and farms, and provided agricultural, mechanical and spiritual training in English (because the Bassa written language had not yet been created and translated), and in addition to the native Bassa, many

Americo-Liberians Americo-Liberian people or Congo people or Congau people in Liberian English,Cooper, Helene, ''The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood'' (United States: Simon and Schuster, 2008), p. 6 are a Liberian ethnic group of Afr ...

also sent their children to his school. By 1917 the

Northern Baptist Convention The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a mainline/evangelical Baptist Christian denomination within the United States. The denomination maintains headquarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The organization is usually considered mainli ...

(formerly Free Will) sent Bates professor, Lyman Jordan, to formally dedicate the Bible Industrial Academy at the mission. In 1910 Clinton temporarily returned to the United States to lecture about his work, including a talk the Baptists at

Ocean Park, Maine Ocean Park is a village in the town of Old Orchard Beach in York County, Maine, United States. A historic family style summer community affiliated with the Free Will Baptists, the community is located in southern Old Orchard Beach on Saco Bay. O ...

and another at

Clark University Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research universities in the ...

in Massachusetts entitled "The Hinterland of Liberia."''The Journal of Race Development v. 1 ''(Clark University (Worcester, Mass.), 1911)
pg. 254
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clinton, Lewis Penick African royalty American people of Liberian descent Baptist missionaries in Liberia Free Will Baptists Bates College alumni African-American Baptist ministers Baptist ministers from the United States Bassa people (Liberia) 1860s births Year of death missing People from Grand Bassa County Storer College alumni