The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

official duties, he was allowed to con- duct lengthy expeditions into the hin- terlands, sending back both a wide variety of specimens and well-regard- ed reports. Despite poor health, Ellis served with distinction in Monrovia for nearly eight years. In 1903, Roosevelt gave the title of vice consul- general in Monrovia to Alexander Priestly Camphor (1865-1919) of Louisiana, an American minister already living in Liberia, where he served as president of the College of West Africa. Camphor served in his dual capacity until his 1908 return to the United States; he was succeeded as vice consul-general by Texan John H. Reed (b. 1862), who served there for seven years. Roosevelt retained several McKinley appointees at their exist- ing posts, including Williams, Ruffin and Greener, whose tours all ended during Roosevelt’s second term; Furniss (who would soon receive a significant promotion); Jackson, who returned to Cognac in 1908 and remained in France for a total of 16 years; and Livingston, whose Haitian posting ended in 1919. One of the few McKinley appointees not serving past 1904 was Maxwell, who resigned after the appointment of the first U.S. minis- ter to the Dominican Republic that same year. In 1904, Roosevelt also made two significant innovations at Port-au- Prince, first by promoting the long- time vice-consul-general, John B. Terres (d. 1920) of North Carolina — at post since 1880 — to the rank of consul, and then making history by assigning West Point graduate Major Charles Young (1864-1922) of Ohio as the first black U.S. mili- tary attaché. During his second term, begin- ning in 1905, Roosevelt appointed a handful of new African-American consuls, first selecting attorney Herbert Richard Wright (b. 1879) of Iowa as consul in Utila, Honduras. Reassigned in 1908 to Puerto Cabello, Wright remained in Venezuela until his 1917 retirement. Also in 1905, Roosevelt elevated Furniss, then consul in Bahia, to suc- ceed Powell as U.S. minister to Haiti, where he remained until 1913. In 1906, Secretary of State Elihu Root decided to reorganize the nation’s consular service, instituting an entrance examination and raising annual salaries — ranging from $2,000 to $12,000 — in an attempt to attract a higher caliber of applicant. Soon after Root’s recommendations were adopted, Roosevelt named three new black consuls: James Weldon Johnson , who succeeded Peterson in Puerto Cabello; James G. Carter (b. 1870) of Georgia, to succeed Hunt at Tamatave; and Dr. William James Yerby (1867-1950) of Tennessee, to succeed Williams in Freetown. Johnson’s next post was Corinto (1909), while Carter remained at Tamatave until his 1916 transfer to Tananarive. Yerby moved on in 1912 to Dakar, Senegal, as the next post in a lengthy career including postings in La Rochelle and Nantes, France; Oporto, Portugal; and Freetown, Sierra Leone. In 1906, Roosevelt also reas- signed Hunt to Saint-Étienne, while offering a lower-level appointment to Edmond Autex Burrill (b. 1874) of Washington, D.C., a recent grad- uate of the Howard University phar- macy department, as vice consul in Puerto Cabello, under Hunt. Transferred a year later to Saint- Étienne, where he again served as vice consul under Hunt, Burrill resigned in 1912. Of all the appointees during the 12-year period, only four continued their careers into the 1920s. Two went on to enter formal careers as Foreign Service officers, under the terms of the 1924 Rogers Act legisla- tion: Hunt and Yerby, who each served a variety of posts before their retirements in the 1930s. Terres died at his post in Haiti in late 1920, a remarkable four decades after entering government service. Carter remained in Madagascar until 1927, declining the appoint- ment as U.S. minister to Liberia offered him that year by President Calvin Coolidge. Assigned instead as consul to Calais, France, Carter remained there until 1940. After a brief wartime tour as consul at Bordeaux, he returned in 1941 to Madagascar, where he was promot- ed to the rank of consul general before retiring in 1942. Eventually their trail would be followed by many more African- American Foreign Service officers, gradually expanding career horizons well beyond Africa and the Caribbean and their professional responsibilities into all functional specialties. Gibbs and Johnson, among others, penned compelling autobiographies highlighting their adventures abroad. Yet the legacy of these early African-American con- sular officers remains a barely explored, fascinating niche of America’s diplomatic history. 76 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 Teddy Roosevelt was cautious in his appointments of African- American diplomats, but did retain many of McKinley’s choices and appointed a few more.