EMILY TIPTAFT BANKS - WHITE WOMAN ON THE CONGO

 

Emily & Fanny Tiptaft were born 12 Mar 1865 in London, England, to Herbert Tiptaft and Sarah Braithwaite 14 months after the birth of their stillborn sister, Eliza. Their father, Herbert Tiptaft, was a silver engraver from Kent, England, and their mother was Sarah Braithwaite from Middlesex. The girls were followed by another sister, Agnes (1867), Thomas Herbert (1870), Robert (1871), Jessy (1874), Sidney (1877), Edward (1880), and Thomas William (1892). Thomas Herbert, Sidney, and Thomas William all died within one year of their birth.

By the time Emily was 16, she was a waistcoat maker living at home with her family in Mile End Old Town, London. It was Emily's goal to be a missionary to China. Emily and her twin sister, Fanny, attended religious meetings at one of Dame Agnes Weston's Royal Sailors Rests. There in 1885, through a mutual friend, Fanny met a recently returned missionary to the Congo, Charles Blair Banks. Mr. Banks, a dashing young merchant seaman, had felt the calling to the mission field in 1882 and became allied with the American Baptist Mission Union (ABMU) who sent him to the upper reaches of the Belgian Congo in 1883. Having seen the medical needs of the natives there, he had returned to England to study medicine at the University of London. At a later meeting, he spotted Fanny and went to speak to her. The young woman turned to face him and said, "Sir, I believe you have mistaken me for my sister." It was Emily, not Fanny! A friendship blossomed to courtship and the two were married in Hackney, England, 30 Dec 1886. Emily's mission field was to be the Congo, not China.

Charles and Emily left England 30 Apr 1887 to return to Africa, arriving at Wangata, Etat Independent du Congo many weeks later, on 13 Sep 1887, again under the auspices of the ABMU where they would remain for the following 13 years. They first lived in Wangata in a native clay hut. The natives at first didn't believe she was real, saying that she couldn't be a woman as she was made entirely of cloth. They called her Ndoki (ghost) as she would wear a white dress and a white scarf over her helmet to protect her from the scorching sun. They had never seen a white woman before, let alone one dressed completely in white and they were suspicious and frightened of her. But Emily's tender ways toward them soon earned her the name "White Mama."

 

 

Charles and Emily welcomed their first child, Marguerite, 13 Sep 1888. The natives adored Marguerite, calling her Bona Owa Wangata—child of Wangata, and marveled at her whiteness and beauty. When Marguerite was five months old, Charles and Emily were invited to travel with other missionaries further up the Congo. Suddenly, while passing a village on the riverbank, men in war paint and carrying bows and arrows approached them in their canoes. It was an alarming sign, and the captain of the steamship called out to them that they were just friends. However, the natives paid no attention and began boarding the ship. Emily, holding baby Marguerite, stood bravely on the deck as the chiefs crowded around Emily, staring at the white baby in wonder. After questioning the ship's captain, they seemed satisfied that they were no threat and left the ship to continue steaming up the Congo, with Emily on the prow holding Marguerite and the savage natives watching them until they were out of sight. The unusual sight of a white baby had no doubt saved their lives!

"The Fever" was prevalent in the Congo and in Emily it made no exception. In Jun 1889, after a period of illness that would not seem to abate, Emily and Marguerite returned to England to her family. They were delighted in little Marguerite but were shocked at Emily's sickly appearance. It took her many months of care and treatment before she recovered enough to return to where her heart lay: With Charles and their work with the natives of the Congo. In 1890 she left Marguerite in the care of her parents and sisters and returned to Wangata. Upon meeting Charles she found that he had built them a home in the village of Bolenge, four miles down the river from Wangata. He had built it entirely by hand and surrounded it with acres of cleared ground, shrubbery, and gardens.

Emily's sister Fanny came to the lower Congo as a missionary at the beginning of 1891 where she married her long-time beau, Rev. Jack Murphy, the friend who had introduced Charles to Fanny at the Royal Sailors Rest six years earlier. In Mar 1891 Charles and Emily welcomed their second child, Charles Sidney James Banks, to their family and then in May 1892 a second son, Alan Herbert. But the climate had not agreed with Fanny and she suffered recurring fevers. Charles had a furlough due, little Charles had been sick, and Alan was not as strong as he should be, so it was decided they would all return to England, leaving Fanny's husband, Jack, in charge of the mission in Bolenge. Upon their return to London, they found their little Marguerite had grown into a lovely little girl. They went to North Weald on the East Coast of England to rest, as Charles and Emily were both worn down from recurrent attacks of fever. While there, a daughter, Emmaline Frances, was born in Aug 1894.

Charles Blair Banks, abt 1900

 

Charles returned to Bolenge when his furlough was over, and when Emmaline was 8 months old Emily followed. They continued their work until their last child, Kenneth Alexander, was born in Feb 1898. Emily made a final visit to the villages to say her farewells and then returned to England with Charles
following several months later after he prepared the mission for its successor. When he left Africa he knew it was for the last time as the hard life, fevers, and climate had taken their toll. He arrived home in May and spent the summer and autumn reacquainting himself with his children. Despite their long separation from their father, they adored him fiercely. Then in December what began as an attack of rheumatic fever soon revealed a brain clot. On 29 Dec 1900 Charles, knowing the end was near, told a friend, "I long to go, I am so weary; but it does seem selfish to go away and leave Mrs. Banks alone with five children. I must get well to help her." But it was too late. Following 24 hours of unconscious-ness, Charles Blair Banks died at the age of 43.

 

 In 1903 Roger Casement was hired as British consul to the Congo Free State. At the behest of the British government, he investigated stories of murder, mutilations, and atrocities performed on the natives of the Congo under the rule of Belgium’s King Leopold II. Reports were taken from river captains and missionaries, including Emily, of Leopold’s reign of terror in the harvesting and export of rubber to Europe.

Emily’s compelling witness to the barbarities of King Leopold was a powerful testimony in Casement’s report. Her record, as preserved in her diary, recorded one event of 14 Dec 1895 when a mission sentinel brought a woman to Charles carrying a basket of 18 human hands belonging to men, women, and children. The woman confessed she had dropped one along the way and so there should have been 19. The hands were from natives who did not meet the rubber quotas of the Commissaire. If the natives asked for food “they were shot, their huts burnt and all their stuff stolen.” Charles and Emily had heard of the stories of this practice by the Commissaire of their district but it was the first time they had witnessed the gruesome evidence themselves. Upon Charles confronting the Commissaire, he was told that he would “burn out Bolengi if we were not here.” In 1904 Casement presented his report to the British parliament and copies were sent to the Belgian government and its allies. The investigation eventually led to the arrest and punishment of the officials of the Congo Administration of King Leopold, and eventually to Leopold ceding the Congo Free State to the Belgium government in 1908.

 

In 1909 Emily and the children came to America where they met with Emily's sister, Fanny, and her husband, Rev. Jack Murphy. In a letter to friends in England dated 13 Oct 1909, Emily told of her 7,000-mile trip from Bournemouth, England, to Portland, Oregon, where she made her home for the remainder of her life. She returned to the Congo briefly in 1928 for the Congo Protestant Council Jubilee Conference celebrating 50 years of missionary work in the Congo. In her letters home to her children, she described the changes she saw since her first voyage to the deeper reaches of that African river. She reunited with old friends from Bolenge, including the chief of Bolenge from whom Charles purchased the land for the mission station years before. She revisited the home that her sweet Charles had built for her on the river with its acres of gardens and close-cropped lawns. But the reunion was bittersweet in that her Charles could not be with her. He had always planned to visit but it had never come to pass. She continued her missionary work from Portland, Oregon, where she was a member of the Hinson Memorial Baptist Church where she taught the women's bible class for 40 years. She spent the final 14 months of her life in Albany, Oregon, near her son Alan who, in the footsteps of his father, served as a missionary on the Congo with his wife until they died in 1970.

Emily Tiptaft Banks died 9 Oct 1942 in Albany, Oregon, at the age of 87 of heart disease. Her writings culminated in a book, "White Woman on the Congo" by her son, Charles Sidney J. Banks, and published in 1943. This and her writings and stories which have survived show the remarkable courage and faith of our grandmother whom the natives called Mondele bomoto—the White Woman.