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.
The necessity of union was a clear case to every man, and Buchanan prepared himself to accomplish it. The Bassa Cove people entertained sentiments not very conciliatory towards the Monrovians. The Mississippi people of Sinoe might come under suspicion next, and no one could imagine how far the evil would extend.
This state of things was clearly understood among the friends of the American Colonization Society and of the State societies, and the corrective was applied. A committee, comprising the names of Charles F. Mercer, Samuel L. Southard, Matthew St. Clair Clark, and Elisha Whittlesey, met at Washington, and drew up a common constitution for the colonies. Mr. Whittlesey moved, and the motion was adopted, “That no white man should become a landholder in Liberia,” and that full rights of citizenship should be enjoyed by colored men alone. Political suffrage was extended to all adult males, and slavery was absolutely prohibited.
This constitution divided the territory into two provinces or counties, and having been acceded to and acted on by the different colonies, superseded and abolished the political relations of the separate establishments to the associations which had preceded it.
The American Colonization Society retained the right to disapprove, or veto, the acts of the local legislature. This last particular, as an indication of national dependence, was the characteristic distinguishing the commonwealth from the republic subsequently established.
The emancipation of the negroes under the English government was now taking effect. The United States government were beginning to realize the expediency of keeping permanently a naval force on the west coast of Africa; and notwithstanding difficulties and apprehensions resting gloomily on the future, Governor Buchanan, on landing with the new constitution, at Monrovia, on the first of April, 1839, seems to have inaugurated a new era for the African race.
He arrived with a full supply of guns and ammunition, furnished mostly from the navy department, besides a large quantity of agricultural implements, and a sugar-mill. The constitution was at once approved by the Monrovians, and in course of time it was accepted by the entire three colonies.
A firm stand was taken against the slave-trade, and the governor succeeded in getting the legislature at Monrovia and the people to back him in efforts to suppress it. His indignant appeals and strong-handed measures had their effect in turning the attention of our government to the use of the American flag in the slave-trade as a protection from British cruisers. Hear him: “The chief obstacle to the success of the very active measures pursued by the British government for the suppression of the slave-trade on the coast, is the American flag. Never was the proud banner of freedom so extensively used by those pirates upon liberty and humanity as at this season.” He did not stop at words. An American schooner named the Euphrates, which had been boarded fifteen times, and three times sent to Sierra Leone, and escaped condemnation on account of her nationality, was brought into Monrovia by a British cruiser, and instantly seized by Governor Buchanan, for the purpose of sending her to the United States for trial, on suspicion of being engaged in the slave-trade.
It may here be remarked that not only this vessel, but the American sloop “Campbell” was also detained, and taken to Governor Buchanan, under similar circumstances. These proceedings were in direct violation of our doctrine as to the inviolability of American vessels by foreign interference; and he had no right to authorize or connive at English cruisers interfering in any degree with such vessels. These circumstances, together with the report of Governor Buchanan, that “The Euphrates is one of a number of vessels, whose names I have forwarded as engaged in the slave-trade, under American colors,” will show the extent to which the American flag has been used in the traffic; and to those who have patriotism and humanity enough to vindicate the rights of that flag against foreign authority, and resist its prostitution to the slave-trade, it will conclusively prove the necessity of a well-appointed American squadron being permanently stationed on the west coast of Africa.
The Euphrates being placed in the hands of Governor Buchanan, who had resolved on sending her to the United States for trial, was made available in a crisis when she proved of singular service as a reformed criminal against her old trade.
A Spanish slaver had established himself at Little Bassa, within fifty miles of the capital. The governor prohibited the purchase of slaves, and ordered the Spaniard off. This he disregarded. An Englishman, in the character of a legal trader, sided with the Spaniard. The governor, on Monday, the 22nd of July, dispatched a force of one hundred men by land to dislodge the slavers and destroy the barracoons. The respectability, or the safety of the colony, which is the same thing, in its dealings with the mass of corrupted barbarians with which it was begirt, required summary measures. Three small schooners were sent down the coast with ammunition to assist the land force at Little Bassa. A fresh southerly wind, however, prevented these vessels from reaching their destination, leaving the land forces in a perilous predicament. Affairs looked gloomy at Monrovia as the schooners returned, after beating in vain for sixty hours.
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.