Often times we have blame the white for every misfortune of the black nation. Today I like us to examine the some of the first free slave victims and their relationship with those they left in Britain or America.
Are the black Americans concern about what happens to Liberia or the black British community concern over Sierra Leon?
Let's look at the history of the two carefully.
The indigenous peoples of Liberia migrated from the north and east between the 12th and 16th centuries AD. Portuguese explorers is said to have established contacts with people of the land later known as "Liberia" as early as 1462.
The area was known as Costa da Pimentia (Pepper Coast) or Grain Coast because of the abundance of melegueta pepper. In 1602 the Dutch established a trading post at Grand Cape Mount but destroyed it a year later.
freed American slaves settlement morovia
In 1663, the British installed trading posts on the Pepper Coast. No further known settlements by non-African colonists occurred along the Grain Coast (an alternative name) until the arrival in 1821 of free blacks from the United States.
From around 1800, in the United States, people opposed to slavery were planning ways to achieve manumission of more slaves and, ultimately, to abolish the institution.
At the same time, slaveholders in the South opposed having free blacks in their midst, as they believed the free people threatened the stability of their slave societies. While mostly freed across the North, former slaves and free blacks suffered considerable discrimination, and some territories and states in the Northwest prohibited migration by free people of color.
Some abolitionists, including distinguished blacks like Paul Cuffee, believed that blacks should return to their homeland. Cuffee’s dream was that free African Americans and freed slaves "could establish a prosperous colony in Africa," one based on emigration and trade.
In 1811, Cuffee founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, a cooperative black group intended to encourage “the Black Settlers of Sierra Leone, and the Natives of Africa generally, in the Cultivation of their Soil, by the Sale of their Produce.”
"Cuffee hoped to send at least one vessel each year to Sierra Leone, transporting African-American settlers and goods to the colony and returning with marketable African products."
The first ship, Mayflower of Liberia (formerly Elizabeth), is said to had departed New York on February 6, 1820, for West Africa carrying 86 settlers. Between 1821 and 1838, the American Colonization Society developed the first settlement, which would be known as Liberia. On July 26, 1847, it declared its independence.
Labels: African History
