Africa and the American Flag

by Andrew H. Foote

From January to September there were nine arrivals of emigrants, which produced a great sensation among the native tribes: they gravely came to the conclusion that rice had given out in America, and suggested to the colonists to send word for the people to plant more, “or black man will have no place for set down.” Dr. Skinner, suffering from ill health, returned to the United States, and the government devolved on A. D. Williams, the vice-agent.

The revenue from imports had disappeared to an extent which the vouchers of the disbursing officers did not explain. The editor of the Herald, after noticing the excitement at that period in the United States, on the passage of the “Sub-Treasury Law,” quaintly remarked that “their treasury was all sub.”

In the year 1837, the Mississippi Society established its new settlement, Greenville, on the Sinoe River. There were, therefore, at this period in Liberia: Monrovia, under the American Colonization Society; Bassa Cove, of the New York and Pennsylvania Societies; Greenville, of the Mississippi Society; and Cape Palmas, of the Maryland Society. These contained ten or twelve towns, and between four and five thousand emigrants.

Here was a mass of conflicting or disconnected organizations, with separate sources of authority, and separate systems of management; without common head or common spirit. Each colony was isolated amid encompassing barbarism, and far more likely, if left to itself, to fall back under the power of that which surrounded it, than to establish good policy or civilization among any portion of the savage African communities with which they were brought in contact. It was anticipated that intercourse and example, and the temptation of profit, would make them slavers; and it was said that they were so. This, although untrue, was perhaps only prevented by a change; for it now became evident, that the existing state of things was unsuitable and dangerous to the objects contemplated.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF LIBERIA—THOMAS H. BUCHANAN—VIEWS OF DIFFERENT PARTIES—DETACHED CONDITION OF THE COLONY—NECESSITY OF UNION—ESTABLISHMENT OF A COMMONWEALTH—USE OF THE AMERICAN FLAG IN THE SLAVE-TRADE—“EUPHRATES”—SLOOP “CAMPBELL”—SLAVERS AT BASSA—EXPEDITION AGAINST THEM—CONFLICT—GALLINAS.

Thomas H. Buchanan, afterwards governor of Liberia when it became a commonwealth, had reached Africa, in 1836, as agent of the New York and Pennsylvania Societies, and had acquired great experience, in establishing and superintending, during two years, the settlement at the Bassa country.

He had thus time to appreciate the condition of things around him, before he was called to the prominent station which he adorned as the first governor of the commonwealth. It needed a keen eye to see light, if any was to be got at all, through the wretched entanglement of interests, vices, associations, colonies, jurisdictions of natives and foreigners, which then existed. It needed great tact, and a strong hand, to bring any thing like order out of such confusion.

The United States had at least three associations at work, besides that of Maryland, each with its own little colony, established in such spots as chance seems to have directed. These occupied three districts of a tolerably definite character. There was the original settlement at Cape Mesurado, with a wing stretching to the north, so as to rest on the expanded lagoon at Cape Mount, and another wing dipping into the Junk River at the south. This was in a measure “the empire state,” containing Monrovia, the capital, and several agricultural villages around it; but the Monrovians and their fellow-colonists were not, on the whole, much given to agricultural pursuits. They were shrewd at driving a trade, and liked better to compete for some gallons of palm oil, or sticks of camwood, than to be doing their duty to their fields and gardens. They had, besides, the politics and the military concerns of the nation to supervise, and were called upon to adjust claims with the neighboring settlements. The Bassa Cove villages, constituting the second district, were settling down and strengthening, after their visitation of violence and rapacity from the natives. Sinoe, the third district, with its fine river and rich lands, had received the settlement at Greenville, then flourishing. These two latter bore a very ill-defined relation to the older station at Monrovia, and to each other. There were in the territories claimed by all of them as having passed justly and by amicable means under their jurisdiction, various native tribes, with their kings and half kings; sometimes wise enough to see the advantages offered to them; sometimes pre-eminently wise in having stipulated, that in return for the territory they gave up, schools should be provided to teach them “sense,” “book;” sometimes sorely perplexed by the new state of things, and always sorely tempted by strong habits, and by people at hand to take advantage of them.

It is to be remarked that between these three settlements there were two intervals of sea-coast, each about one hundred miles, which were foreign in regard to the colonies. There were also battle-fields, where slavers afloat and slavers ashore, with the occasional help of a pirate, and the countenance of Spain and Portugal, were ready to resist colonial authority, and even to withstand the opposition which they might encounter from cruisers and other sources. There were honest traders, also; that is, those who were honest as things went there, dropping their anchor everywhere as they could get purchasers for their rum and gunpowder. Nor had European powers yet made up their minds how the colonies and their claims were to be treated.