The Foreign Service Journal, November 2020

70 NOVEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL in Bermuda, who died on Sept. 11, 1853; James Tobut, consul at St. Thomas, then part of the Danish Virgin Islands, who died on Dec. 26, 1858; William Little, consul in Panama City, who died on Jan. 29, 1867; Louis Prevost, consul in Guayaquil, who died on May 23, 1867; and Elphus Rogers, consul in Veracruz, Mexico, who died on Aug. 1, 1881. In Brazil, both William Stapp, who passed away on April 13, 1860, and William R. Williams, consul in Pará, who died on Sept. 25, 1862, were felled by the disease. Ailments referred to as “tropical disease,” “tropical fever” or merely “fever” also claimed the lives of several consuls and diplomats. As mentioned previously, Consul to Canton (Guangzhou) Samuel Shaw died at sea on May 30, 1794, near the Cape of Good Hope. William Tudor, chargé d’affaires in Rio de Janeiro, died of “fever” on March 9, 1830. Richard Belt, con- sul in Matamoros, died of “epidemic fever” on Oct. 11, 1844. Hector Ames, consul in Acapulco, Mexico, died of “fever of the country” on May 16, 1853. Samuel Collings, consul in Tangier, at the time one of the most important posts in the world, died on June 15, 1855, from “African fever.” Consul to La Unión, El Salvador, William McCracken died from “congestive fever” on July 7, 1857. Frank Frye, consul in Ruatán (now Roatán), Honduras, died of “fever” on Feb. 10, 1879. Seth Ledyard Phelps, minister to Peru, died of Oroya fever on June 24, 1885. Moses Hopkins, minister to Liberia, died of “African fever” on Aug. 3, 1886. One of the pioneering African American diplomats, Alex- ander Clark, also died of fever, while representing the United States as minister in Monrovia on May 31, 1891. A native of Pennsylvania, Clark had settled in what became Muscatine, Iowa, where he worked as a barber and operated a lumberyard. At the outset of the Civil War, Clark, as a sergeant major, helped organize the 1st Iowa Volunteers of African Descent. Clark and his son both graduated from the University of Iowa law school, the first African Americans to do so. Clark also operated the Chicago Conservator newspaper, speaking out on civil rights MOSES A. HOPKINS Tropical Fever – Liberia 1886 M oses Aaron Hopkins was born into slavery in Virginia on Dec. 25, 1846. During the Civil War he worked as a cook in Union Army camps. After learning to read at age 20, he graduated from Lin- coln University near Oxford, Pennsylvania, and went on to become the first Black graduate of Auburn Theological Seminary in Auburn, New York. He later settled in Franklinton, North Carolina, where he established a church and a school. Hopkins was appointed U.S. minister (ambas- sador) to Liberia in 1885. He died there of “African fever” on or about Aug. 3, 1886. He was one of four U.S. ministers to Liberia who died of tropical disease between 1882 and 1893. Moses Hopkins was one of the most recent discoveries of an overlooked diplomat, but this brief biographical note is exemplary of the compelling stories behind the new names for the Memorial Plaques. —John K. Naland Like most of those commemorated on the AFSA plaques in the 19th century, the vast majority of the overlooked consuls and diplomats died of disease.