The Struggle of Identity: A Short Biography of Hans Jürgen Massaquoi

Nothing is as hard as struggling to find one's place in the world around them. The story of Hans Jürgen Massaquoi shows us another side of Nazi Germany, one unknown to many who study the  history of World War II. Perhaps this is due to the minority of people of African descent in Germany or the United States own issues with race in general.         

Kulture Kampf

        When Germany lost her African colonies, thousands of colonists returned home including those who married native Africans. Under the tight restraints of the Treaty of Versailles, France had stationed colonial troops in the western Germany, including troops from Algeria. Many German women founded relationships with the Algerian troops, having children in and out of wedlock. It was those who were born out of wedlock that were derogatorily called “Rhineland Bastards.” Germany was a tumultuous nation under the weak Weimar Republic. Jobs were hard to find and even harder for Blacks and biracial Germans. It was not hard for Germans to attach themselves to promise of a rejuvenated Germany from political extremists. The National Socialists with their large rallies and marches were enticing to a nation pining for its previous militaristic glory. This was how the Nazis were able to gain the popular support of a desperate nation.

                    The parades and rallies did not only entice white Germans, one young Blackman was as well. Hans Jürgen Massaquoi  was born on  January19,1926 in Hamburg, Germany the child of Al-Haj Massaquoi, a Liberian businessman and diplomat, and Bertha Baetz, a German nurse. Massaquoi’s father and mother had lived in luxury prior and after Hans was born. When a political crisis forced his father returned to Liberia, Massaquoi’s mother refused to leave because of Hans health. The decision forced Massaquoi’s mother to return to nursing and for them to move from the palatial villa and into a rough, working-class section of the Hamburg, where street brawls between Communists and National Socialists were a common occurrence.

Massaquoi wearing his Nazi sweater patch

Massaquoi was enamored by the Nazis and to the chagrin of his mother, had a swastika sewn onto his sweater. Massaquoi proclaimed that the National Socialists “put on the best show of all the political parties. There were parades, fireworks and uniforms.” In his autobiography, Destined to Witness, Massaquoi recalled the first time that Hitler's motorcade came to Hamburg, and the excitement he felt as the “Führer” pass. Despite all the excitement, Massaquoi discovered the true nature of the Party.

As a young boy, he dealt with the constant teasing of his class mates who would chant “Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger!” which meant “Negro, Negro chimney sweep!” in spite of the ridicule, Massaquoi did make many friends, but believed he was the only Black in Hamburg even though there were children of the Algerian soldiers. In his father’s house, all of the servants were white and so he thought that Blacks were of a higher social class. Later he discovered that because of his second class racial status, he could not enjoy the privileges his “Nordic” classmates had. Massaquoi could not play at the public playground or join the Hitlerjugend. He was not the direct victim of the regime like many adult Blacks who were forcibly sterilized or put into camps. However in one instance, he was confronted by a staunch Nazi teacher who stated “Don't feel so smug because after we have finished with the Jews, people like you will be next.” While Massaquoi could not attend high school or university, he was able to apprentice under a machinist for three years.

Post-War

After the war, Massaquoi worked as a translator for the occupying British Army and played saxophone in jazz clubs for extra money. He met several African American soldiers who were intrigued by his stories. In 1948, Massaquoi left Germany for Liberia where he experienced the horrifying discrimination of the indigenous Africans by the descendants of American slaves. Two years later, he applied for an US student visa and attended an aviation mechanics school in Chicago. Not that longer after, the Korean War started and Massaquoi received a draft notice. He eagerly enlisted to serve in the prestigious 82^nd Airborne Division because he knew it would accelerate his chance of becoming an American citizen. While he did not see combat overseas, Massaquoi was stationed in the South during the tumultuous pre-civil rights movement. He recalled that, “Even at its worst, the American version of racism seemed much more endurable than the Nazism I had already experienced”

After the Army, Massaquoi enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana to study journalism under the G.I. Bill. He graduated in 1956 and continued his studies at Northwestern University. In 1958, Jet magazine hired Massaquoi as an associate editor. Within a year, he was transferred to Ebony, where he rose to the position of managing editor and was a significant contributor until retiring from Ebony in 1997. As managing editor, Massaquoi met many prominent Blacks, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali, and Elijah Muhammad.

In 1999, Massaquoi published his autobiographical Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany the book was received with great acclaim especially in Massaquoi homeland of Germany. There is an upcoming German two part movie based on the book and Massaquoi amazing experience. Today, Massaquoi is retired and living in New Orleans but is still occasionally contributing to Ebony and speaking about his experience as a Black youth in Nazi Germany.

The Spicer Massacre: a short history

The story of the Spicer Massacre is one of great interest to the descendents of the Greene County's original  settlers.  It has all the classic tales of Native Americans raiding and Colonists surviving the best they could in the wilderness of southwestern Pennsylvania.

 

Prelude

             Chief Logan of the Mingo was on good terms with the English Speaking Colonist west of the Alleghenies. Logan and his hunting party were camped on the west bank of the Ohio at Yellow Creek, (near present day Steubenville, Ohio) and across the river from Baker’s Bottom. On April 30 some members of the hunting party, Chief Logan’s wife Mellana, his brother  Taylaynee (called John Petty by many English speakers), Taylaynee's son, Molnah and Logan's sister, Koonay, who was also the pregnant wife of John Gibson a prominent trader with whom she already had one daughter. The party under Taylaynee behest crossed the river to visit the cabin of Joshua Baker, a settler and rum trader. The visiting Mingo were lured by the promise of whiskey and games. Once the group was in Baker's cabin, 30 frontiersmen, led by Daniel and Jacob Greathouse, crowded in and killed all except the infant child. The bodies of the Mingo victims were mutilated. Jacob Greathouse himself slaughtered Koonay and dissected her belly, removed her unborn son and scalped him.

            When Logan heard of the massacre, he was led to believe that Capt. Michael Cresap was responsible for attack. However, many people familiar with the incident (including George Rogers Clark) knew that the Greathouse brothers and their men were the ones who had killed the party. Settlers along the frontiers realized that these killings were likely to provoke the remaining Native nations of the Ohio and Monongahela River regions to attack. Settlers remaining on the frontier immediately sought safety, either in blockhouses or by fleeing eastward across the Monongahela River. Many traveled back across the Allegheny Mountains. Their fear was well founded. Logan and small parties of Shawnee and Mingo soon began striking frontier settlers in revenge for the murders at Yellow Creek. One such attack was on a small farm in modern Greene County, Pennsylvania.

The Attack     

            It was a hot and humid summer day on June 5, 1774, when William Spicer was chopping wood outside his cabin near a stream that flowed into the Big Whitely Creek, a mile south of Willow Tree in Greene Township. His 12 year old daughter, Elizabeth, also known as “Betsy” was ironing clothes while her mother, Lydia and siblings, including 9 year old  William Jr.,  were caring to the duties inside the Spicer cabin. 16 year old Job was out in the cornfield building squirrel traps to keep varmints from devouring their precious food source.  Spicer had heard of the Mingo Chief, Logan, being on the warpath and was planning on fleeing to the local Fort the next day after they secured clothing and supplies. Their delay in travel was a fateful error.

            Spicer heard the Mingo tribesmen approaching and struck his ax in a log and approached  the house  to  get  some  food to offer   to his visitors. Suddenly a harrowing howl was followed by William Spicer being struck by his own ax in the head by one of the warriors who then took his scalp. They fell upon the Spicers, slaying  William’s wife and two of the children that were  inside the house. Betsy still holding her iron grabbed William’s hand with her free hand and fled through the backdoor of the cabin into the forest. In her terror, Betsy only remembers to let loose of the flattening iron once they were deep into the forest. Spicer’s daughter and son fought through the deep woods until they reached a neighboring farmhouse. In their desperation, Betsy and William frantically hollered for help to the    farmers   to    no avail. It was the noise from their frightened pleas that alerted the Mingo warriors to their whereabouts.

            Once caught, Chief Logan took the young Spicer children back to the cabin, where it was discover that the youngest Spicer child was still alive. A tribesman named Snake took hold of the crying infant’s feet and bashed its head against the side of the cabin. Betsy and William were horrified, and Betsy notes that it was an image forever frozen in her memory.  As they left the cabin, the Mingo tribesmen found Job still a field and killed him then took his scalp. During their escape, a company of horses came fluttering down the road seeking information on the commotion near the Spicer cabin. While  hiding  in  a  hollow  overnight,  the  surviving  Spicer children  were  threatened that if they cried for help Chief Logan would kill them as well. Chief Logan then divided his plunder, hiding the excess in the surrounding woodlands and made for the Ohio River.

Life Among the Mingo and After

            While fleeing, the Mingo took good care of Betsy and William, even carrying them when they got tired or at night sleeping with the children in between two warriors to keep them warm.  Once they passed into Ohio through Wheeling, the Spicer children were welcomed into the tribe and treated well. One incident that helped to support this treatment was when Betsy beheld one of the Mingo women wearing her mother’s clothing. When Betsy saw the woman in her mother’s dress she assaulted her violently, tearing the clothes off the Mingo woman’s back. The Mingo people laughed at the sight of the young girl attacking a grown woman and held the event as a great act of heroism.

            During Betsy’s captivity, she learned a great deal about the use and location of herbs and wildflowers in healing the sick. She also picked up the habit of smoking a pipe, a habit that her descendants recall fondly. When Betsy was very old, her granddaughter, Ruth Steele was responsible for filling “a pipe for her and place a coal from the wood fire on it so Grandma could have another smoke.” However, her captivity was short lived. As part of a treaty of the Lord Dunmore War between the Colony of Virginia and Shawnee and Mingo nations, she was returned as a prisoner of war at Muddy Creek on Christmas Day 1774 to Colonel George Wilson.

            William Spicer remained among the Mingo with whom he had a great respect because of his athleticism. He was often the winner of foot races, wrestling matches, shooting contests and “running the gauntlet”, a practice among the natives where a man will run through two lines of other men with clubs or firebrands. When William was about 20, he was called back to Greene County to deal with part of his father’s estate. The Mingo fearing he would leave them, begged for him not to go. William had given his word he would return. After dealing with his father’s estate, he did return to the Mingo and married a woman of the tribe. He became a leader within the Mingo and helped to establish a Mingo Settlement with farms.

            While alive, Betsy visited William and the Mingo often and was treated as tribal royalty. Unfortunately out of jealousy, William was assassinated by a tribe member who poisoned him. Elizabeth Spicer Bowen died in 1845 and is buried in Davistown in Dunkard Township, Greene County, PA.