Africa and the American Flag

by Andrew H. Foote

At this juncture the schooner Euphrates, which had been seized as a slaver, was put in requisition. Being supplied with arms and ammunition, the governor himself, in three hours after the return of the vessels, was aboard, and the schooner sailed for the scene of action. Being a clipper, she soon beat down the coast, and anchored before daylight off Little Bassa. On the morning of the fifth day after the colonial force had marched, a canoe was sent ashore to ascertain the state of things. The rapid daybreak showed that there was work to be done; for as the barracoon, standing in its little patch of clearance in the forest, became distinguishable, the discharge of musketry from without, replied to from within, showed plainly that beleaguering and beleaguered parties, whoever they might be, had watched through the night, to renew their interrupted strife in the morning.

It was a surprise to both parties, to find a well-known slaver at hand, and ready to take a part in the fray. The governor learned by the canoe on its return, that the colonists had seized and were holding the barracoon against the slavers and the chiefs, with the whole hue and cry of the country in arms to help them. These naturally hailed the Euphrates as an ally; and Buchanan foresaw the certainty of a fatal mistake on the part of his people, in case he should land and attempt to march up the beach, with the men he had, under the fire which, without some explanation, would be drawn upon him from the palisades of the barracoon.

In this emergency, an American sailor volunteered to convey the necessary intelligence to the besieged. In pulling off in the Kroomen’s canoe, he necessarily became the object of attention and mistake to both parties. The besiegers rushed down to meet him with a friendly greeting, while Elijah Johnson sent a party to intercept him as an enemy. The sailor’s bearing showed both parties, almost simultaneously, that they were wrong. The enemy, who had seized him, were charged by the colonists. A fellow, grasping a knife to stab him, was knocked down by a shot; the sailor was rescued, and taken into the barracoon.

Buchanan, aware how this would engage the attention of the combatants, had taken the men with him in the two small boats, and was pulling for the shore. The governor’s boat capsized in the surf, but with no other harm than a ducking, he made his way safely to the barracoon. A brisk fight continued for some time; but, at meridian the day following, the indefatigable governor had embarked with the goods seized; and he returned to Monrovia for a fresh supply of ammunition. On his reaching again the scene of action, the refractory chiefs were persuaded to submit. With three of the slavers as prisoners, and about a dozen liberated slaves, he then returned to the capital.

At this period, the Gallinas, at the north of which the Sherboro Island shuts in the wide mouth of the river of the same name, was a den of thieves. Cesters, at the south, was not much better. Governor Buchanan was compelled to lean on the support of the British cruisers. In fact, it is obvious that Liberia could not have been founded earlier than it was, except it had been sustained by some such authority, or directly by that of the United States. An older and firmer condition of the slave-trade influence would have crushed it in its birth. A few of the lawless ruffians, with their well-armed vessels, who once frequented this coast, could easily have done this. For want of an American squadron, the governor assumed an authority to which he was not entitled.

Every thing was reduced to a regular mercantile system in carrying on the slave-trade. We have the schooner “Hugh Boyle,” from New York, with a crew of nine American citizens, coming to the coast, and having as passengers a crew of ten “citizens of the world,” or from somewhere else. She is American, with an American crew and papers, until she gets her slaves on board; then her American citizens become passengers, and the “citizens of the world” take their place as the crew, till she gets her slaves into Cuba.

Governor Buchanan, in one of his dispatches, dated November 6th, 1839, writes: “When at Sierra Leone, I visited a small schooner of one hundred and twenty tons, which was just brought in, with four hundred and twenty-seven slaves on board; and of all scenes of misery I ever saw, this was most overpowering. My cheek tingled with shame and indignation, when I was told that the same vessel, the Mary Cushing, had come on the coast, and was sailed for some time under American colors. When taken, the American captain was on board. He had not arrived when I left Sierra Leone, but the governor, at my instance, promised to send him down here, and deliver him up to me, to be sent to the United States. Is there any hope that our government will hang him?”

It is a question whether Buchanan had, as the agent of a private association, or the agent of the government for recaptured Africans, any right to seize the goods of British traders, or hold in custody the persons of Americans. But the governor was a man for the time and circumstances, as, taking “the responsibility,” he determined to do right, and let the law of nations look out for itself.

CHAPTER XV.

BUCHANAN’S ADMINISTRATION CONTINUED—DEATH OF KING BOATSWAIN—WAR WITH GAYTUMBA—ATTACK ON HEDDINGTON—EXPEDITION OF BUCHANAN AGAINST GAYTUMBA—DEATH OF BUCHANAN—HIS CHARACTER.