Selim Aga - Death

Death

Selim Aga spent at least nine last years of his life, 1866–1875, in Liberia. He was engaged in searching for mineral resources, surveying the previously unknown Cavallo River valley. Selim's arrival in Liberia coincided with the beginning of clashes between inland native Africans and the coastal immigrants from the United States. In 1871 secretary of state, Edward Wilmot Blyden, was forced into exile; president, Edward James Roye, was deposed by the mob. Selim was murdered four years later, at a time when he served as an assistant surgeon and was not involved in active politics. According to an obituary published in Liberian Independent December 23, 1875, the Grebo mob leader allowed him time for a Christian prayer, then "chopped his body all over, cut off his head, which he took to his town, and threw the body with a gift into the field."

Read more about this topic:  Selim Aga

Famous quotes containing the word death:

    “It is better to sit down than to stand, it is better to lie down than to sit, but death is the best of all.”
    —Indian proverb, quoted in Sébastien-roch Nicolas de Chamfort, Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 155 (1796, trans. 1926)

    “To die, to sleep—
    No more, and by a sleep to say we end
    The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
    That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
    Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
    To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
    When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
    Must give us pause.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “For man, maximum excitement is the confrontation of death and the skillful defiance of it by watching others fed to it as he survives transfixed with rapture.”
    —Ernest Becker (1924–1974)