John Payne Jackson (25 March 1848 – 1 August 1915) was an Americo-Liberian journalist, born in Liberia who was influential in Lagos, Nigeria around the turn of the 20th century.
[5] At the time the Weekly Record was launched Lagos still had just 35,000 people, but was cosmopolitan and rapidly growing due to trade in palm oil and other products.
Although the largest African ethnic group was Yoruba, there were also repatriate former slaves from Brazil and Sierra Leone, Hausa, Fante, Nupe and many other peoples.
[5] At this time the hypocrisy of the Christian missionaries and the racial bigotry and arrogance of European colonialists were fueling a movement of African cultural and political nationalism, for which Jackson became the main spokesman.
[4] His writing combined incisive rhetoric with broad learning, and used apposite quotations from a wide variety of sources.
After Nana's trial and deportation Jackson kept the issue alive, and backed a campaign for his release, which eventually occurred in 1906.
Jackson was also a great admirer of the Mandingo leader Samori Ture in his resistance to the French, and named his press and his premises at the Marina after Somory.
[15] In the early days Jackson depended on a government contract given to the newspaper by Governor Gilbert Thomas Carter.
[4] Carter's administration subsidised the Lagos Weekly Record at an annual rate of about £150 on the pretext of buying advertising space.
[16] Until Carter left the colony the paper managed to combine an African nationalist message with support for the governor.
[10] During the period before World War I (1914–18) the British were steadily increasing their control of what became the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, and taking power from what had been independent local rulers.
Jackson expressed these concerns eloquently, pointing out that the Europeans were trying to impose their own standards without understanding the situation, and were treating privately held lands as it they were public.
The European point of view is not only given emphasis by both pen and voice but finds expression also in the direction, aim and purpose of civilized life in West Africa vociferously.
[22] Jackson had been influenced by Edward Wilmot Blyden's Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race, with its message of cultural and political nationalism.
He praised traditional values, saying: "there can be no doubt that there is more happiness to be found for man in the simple and contented life of the African than in all the inventions and contrivances of Europe."
Imbued through the course of his training with his conditions of life and surrounding, he is disqualified for fulfilling the first requirement of his existence namely adaptation to environment... out of accord with the fundamental law of man's existence, the Europeanized native is cut off from the springs of human vitality ... and presents the anomaly of a monstrous contradiction upon the fixed order of human life.
... in his thoughtless and persistent pursuit of a life which reason and every other faculty of the human senses tell him is fatal to him, the civilized native is exhibiting a lamentable mental incapacity.
[18] The pioneer African patriot, Edward Wilmot Blyden, called Jackson "an able man" with "very strong race feelings."
This Lagos publicist John Payne Jackson (1848-1915) finds that"after a century of trial it is fitting that the native should call a halt, and in his own interest take stock of the result of this foreign system imposed on him".