Liberia

Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division

The Present day Maryland county in Liberia has its origins in the first half of the nineteenth century as a colony of African Americans settled under the auspices of the Maryland State Colonization Society. The venture was supported with a generous long-term grant from the state government. Though few black Marylanders would accept the offer of transportation, free land, and assistance getting started, the existence of the place had a significant effect on the debate over slavery in America. Maryland in Liberia also had an important role in the history of West Africa.

In the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, many Americans looked to Africa as a means of dealing with various problems associated with slavery and race. A number of interests and rationales--some of them antagonistic--converged toward the idea of creating African-American colonies in Africa. The more idealistic and philanthropic found an opportunity for a utopian state, based on the classical ideal of an agrarian republic, populated with virtuous, small landholding farmers. They argued that such a state would create a nation for all African Americans, which would expand across Africa, driving away heathenism and slavery. Of course, the venture was quixotic, but the biblical parallels and progressive optimism struck a chord among both black and white Americans.

Early Colonization Efforts
British philanthropists established Sierra Leone, the first such colony, in 1787. Many of the early colonists of the "Province of Freedom," as the place was optimistically called, were African Americans who had run away to the British lines on promise of freedom during the Revolution. Americans in the early nineteenth century flirted with the idea of settling there. The most notable effort was that of Paul Cuffee, a black New Bedford sea captain who paid his own money to transport a group to Sierra Leone in 1815. Few Americans wanted to live under British rule, however.

The emergence of the American Colonization Society in 1816 soon resulted in an effort to establish an American settlement in West Africa. An initial venture in 1820 at Sherbro Island, not far from Sierra Leone, failed--within the first year, most settlers were scattered or dead. A second expedition assisted by the U. S. Navy gained control of Cape Mesurado in 1822. The town of Monrovia, which they established there, became a bustling center of American activity, despite chronic warfare with neighboring African states and devastating mortality from malaria and other disease.

Colony Hardships and Emigration
During the first ten years of its existence, Liberia attracted about 250 Marylanders. This was the third largest group among the 1,500 or so emigrants who came before 1832: Virginians numbered just over 700 and North Carolinians about 400. The Maryland settlers had a hard time adjusting to life in Africa, not only because of disease and environment, but also because of mismanagement by the American Colonization Society. Letters and eyewitness reports received in Maryland were discouraging, leading the Maryland State Colonization Society, the local auxiliary of the American Colonization Society, to think of forming a separate colony for black Marylanders.

Nat Turner's rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia in the summer of 1831 brought on a crisis. The American Colonization Society was inundated with so many emigrants that it nearly went bankrupt arranging their transportation. Members argued publicly whether the Society's purpose was to end slavery in America or help perpetuate it. The Maryland State Colonization Society, newly chartered and financed by the General Assembly, sent two ships with nearly 200 emigrants and supplies to Monrovia. Facilities in Liberia were wholly inadequate and Maryland settlers suffered grievously. During 1833, the State Society made logistical preparations and designed a plan of government and laws for establishing a new settlement. It planned a more compact settlement than Liberia, expressly devoted to agriculture, and sworn to temperance.

The Society chose Cape Palmas as the site for its new colony if they could get it. This was a strategic spot, very nearly the southernmost point on the West African coast, where coasting vessels turned their southeasterly course along the Grain Coast east along the Ivory Coast and on toward the delta of the Niger River. The place had a reputation for healthiness, and the local people, Greboes, reportedly were eager for a foreign settlement, if only thinking of the trade it would bring to them.

Maryland in Liberia
The brig Ann sailed from Baltimore on November 27, 1833, with supplies and 18 settlers under command of Dr. James Hall. The vessel stopped for a few days at Monrovia at the end of January to recruit volunteers to help pioneer the new Maryland settlement, gaining 30, some of whom would later bring their families to the new colony. On February 11, 1834, the Ann anchored at Cape Palmas. Over the next two days James Hall negotiated with the local leader, Pah Nemah, also known as King Freeman, and leaders of neighboring allied states on the "purchase" of their territories for an assortment of trade goods and coin valued at less than $1,500.

Each side walked away from the transaction in the belief of having won a great victory. Greboes had enhanced their lucrative niche as brokers of trade with the interior. They believed that Americans would never expand their agricultural lands very far. The Americans believed they had acquired a vast vacant territory to do with as they pleased, leaving Africans the right to use their towns and farmlands as before. In fact, each side misjudged the intentions and abilities of the other, and the subsequent history of Maryland in Liberia shows how they accommodated each other. Though there were frequent arguments and occasional minor outbreaks of violence, the Marylanders and Africans lived in grudging tolerance for the next 20 years.

The Marylanders laid out a port on Cape Palmas, which they named Harper, for Robert Goodloe Harper, a hero of the Revolution, Congressman, and leader of the colonization movement in Maryland. A road, Maryland Avenue, extended inland along a ridge of low hills. Settler farms were surveyed in five-acre parcels on either side of the main road. On these plots they would grow vegetables and keep livestock for subsistence. They cultivated coffee and experimented with other crops for trade. A stockade fort guarded the eastern boundary of the settlement.

The Maryland State Colonization Society sent just over a thousand emigrants to Cape Palmas between 1834 and 1855. About a hundred others moved to Cape Palmas from Liberia proper during the same period, but because the number of births barely kept up with deaths, and because of the rootlessness and mobility of most settlers, the American population of the colony did not exceed 1,000 in the latter year.

Notwithstanding, Maryland had a relatively stable society compared with Liberia. Settlers had much better medical care, which stressed the use of quinine against malaria long before the drug was commonly used for the purpose. The abuse of alcohol was rare. With the exception of the deaths of four settlers in 1838, warfare had no impact on the population until the end of 1856. Settlers farmed, engaged in petty commerce, and increasingly went to sea. They were self-consciously Christian, and churches organized much of the community's social life. A public library, debating society, mutual aid societies, and militia reinforced the American identity of the populace.

Succession of Colony Governors during Challenging Times
James Hall continued as governor of the colony until early 1836. His major achievement was to secure the colony's foothold. He also gained further territories to the east and along the Cavally River, which he explored all the way to its fall line. Arthritis and poor health limited his abilities, however, and the Society was forced to relieve him early in 1836. They sent out Dr. Oliver Holmes, a young dentist from Baltimore who had no previous African experience, to hold the post until a permanent replacement could be secured. Holmes did a creditable job under very difficult circumstances, but he abandoned the colony in September 1836 to go to Monrovia to consult with John Browne Russwurm, just appointed to succeed him.

Russwurm was one-eighth black, the Jamaican son of an American expatriate and an octoroon woman of Port Antonio. He was educated in Canada and Maine and graduated from Bowdoin College with honors in 1826, one of the first two black people ever to graduate from an American College. After a brief, unhappy career as cofounder and editor of Freedom's Journal, the first African-American newspaper in the country, he chose to immigrate to Liberia, where he continued as an editor and engaged in business and politics. Russwurm served as Governor of the Maryland colony in Africa until his death on June 9, 1851. His tenure saw the increase and stabilization of the settler community over the course of 15 years.

His successor was Dr. Samuel Ford McGill, his brother-in-law. McGill was the son of former slaves, born in Baltimore, and moved to Africa as a boy. He returned to America to attend medical school in 1836 and eventually earned a degree from Dartmouth in 1838. McGill devoted his practice to the community at Cape Palmas, but he increasingly became involved in the mercantile business started by his father, which had active contacts in Europe and America. He was the richest citizen of Maryland in Liberia and at odds with the colonial government. McGill was highly capable but extremely unpopular with the citizens of the Maryland colony. He acquiesced in a laissez-faire policy towards trade and relations with African states, and at the same time he continued to pursue his own business interests. He worked strenuously to reduce settler dependence on the Society's assistance and had some success in this.

Unrest and the Push for Self-Rule
By the time of Russwurm's death, new immigration had slowed to a trickle and settlers knew that the existence of Maryland in Liberia as a ward of the Colonization Society could not continue indefinitely. Some advocated union with the newly-formed Republic of Liberia; others thought Maryland should become an independent state. Dr. McGill took the former position, but during his tenure an independence movement developed under the guidance of William Allen Prout, a self-educated former slave from Baltimore. The Maryland State Colonization Society agreed to Prout's plan of government after some negotiation. He led a delegation to Baltimore, and on the twentieth anniversary of the colony's purchase, in February 1854, the Society turned over the colony to settlers. On his return to Harper, Prout was unanimously elected governor.

The Free State of Maryland in Liberia was an exceedingly fragile entity, however. The government's annual budget was on the order of $10,000. A population of less than one thousand Americans presided over some twenty thousand disenfranchised Africans who had fallen into squabbling and warfare with one another. For 18 months, Prout managed to keep peace and carry out a modest foreign policy, but citizens grew restive because there was no marked improvement in their lives. Demagogues among them blamed Prout and roiled others with fear of the surrounding Grebo states. In December 1855, the Lieutenant Governor, Boston Jenkins Drayton, a Baptist minister from South Carolina, led a coup which turned Prout out of office.

Drayton and his supporters secured their takeover in uncontested elections the following June. Drayton believed that God had chosen him to lead a crusade against heathen Africa. On December 12, 1856, he got reports that the Greboes were preparing to attack the Americans. Whether this was true or whether they anticipated an attack from Drayton is unclear. The Governor initiated a bullying negotiation for peace that deteriorated into war on December 24. The Americans routed and burned the principal Grebo town at Cape Palmas. In the following days, Greboes raided and destroyed most of the houses in the settlement. The Marylanders soon ran out of ammunition, and both sides were left destitute and in stalemate.

It so happened that James Hall had returned to Africa while the war was underway at Cape Palmas. When he reached Monrovia, he organized and financed a force of Liberians to restore peace in the Maryland colony, advancing his own money to do so. They were able to accomplish their goal without further bloodshed, taking the Maryland militia out of Drayton's control. Thereupon, the government of Maryland dissolved itself and requested admission into the Republic of Liberia as Maryland County. The Liberian legislature quickly accepted the appeal and Maryland County settled into a quiet existence, its fortunes now linked to those of the larger country.

Wiley, Bell I., ed. Slaves No More: Letters from Liberia, 1833-1869. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, c1980.

Putnam, Lewis H. A review of the cause and the tendency of the issues between the two sections of the country, with a plan to consolidate the views of the people of the United States in favor of emigration to Liberia… Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1859.

Hynson, Jerry M. Maryland Freedom Papers. Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1996.

Beyan, Amos J. The American Colonization Society and the Creation of the Liberian State: A Historical Perspective, 1822-1900. Lanham: University Press of America, c1991.