University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
LIFE IN THE NEW SETTLEMENT.

Cape Mesurado is a bold promontory, rising at its
highest point two hundred and fifty feet above the
level of the sea. At the time when the emigrants
landed upon it, it was covered with lofty forest trees
and thick undergrowth.

Selecting a hill near the Mesurado River, and
about two miles from the coast, they began resolutely
clearing places here and there, where they
might erect temporary cabins until they obtained
leisure and means to build dwellings that would
better deserve the name of houses. Their little
clearing was afterward named Monrovia, in honor
of James Monroe, then President of the United
States; and this collection of huts, formed in trembling
haste by the little band of defenseless colonists,

is now a flourishing town, the metropolis of the
African republic, with streets regularly laid out
and named, with a State House, a prison, and three
churches, all substantial stone buildings, with
schools, dwelling-houses, stores, and warehouses,
many of which are built of stone or brick.

But not without toil, privation, and danger has
this state of things been achieved; and though many
of those who bore the brunt of the battle are now
reaping the fruit of their victory, and they who
went “forth weeping bearing precious seed,” have
returned with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with
them, yet others have been called to receive their
reward in another world.

April, the month when the settlers commenced
their work, is generally called, in that part of Africa,
the tornado month, from the violent gusts of wind
and rain that occur during it; and in May the rainy
season often commences, continuing for six months,
with an interruption of a few weeks in July and
August. Though at first this season was dreaded
as the most unhealthy one, it was found by long
experience to be less trying to a new-comer than
the debilitating heat of “the dries,” as the other
months are generally called.

But to preserve health, shelter from the rain is
imperatively demanded, and therefore the colonists
labored with little rest until they had erected thirty

huts. For the first two or three months after their
arrival at Cape Mesurado, the little band were left
to their own resources, one of their number, Elijah
Johnson, being appointed to take charge of their
temporal interests; while Lott Cary, who was every
thing by turns as necessity demanded—carpenter,
wood-cutter, soldier, a successful physician, and a
devoted missionary—officiated as their pastor.

Providentially, while thus defenseless, the natives
were withheld from harming, or even threatening
them. it was not until after the arrival of the new
agent, Mr. Ashmun, who well deserves the name
he earned, by his untiring exertions, of “the founder
of Liberia,” that the savages around them began
to show symptoms of hostility.

Dissatisfied with the sale of that valuable tract
of land to a people opposed to the trade that was
their chief source of income, the natives determined
to destroy them utterly—to leave no vestige on that
blood-stained, tear-washed coast of the little band
of Christians who had brought with them the law
of love, against whose silent eloquence their selfish
hearts rose in fiendish hatred.

Mr. Ashmun landed, with his young wife and several
emigrants, in August. He was then but twenty-eight.
He had been a student all his life, and
came out to Africa to preach the Gospel of peace
and good-will. But hardly had he arrived, before

he was called upon to lay aside all his previous habits,
and become a soldier, an engineer, and a commander.

Of the one hundred and thirty emigrants who
then composed the village of Monrovia, only thirty-five
could bear arms, and many of these knew nothing
about their management. He spent his days
in training this undisciplined company; in directing
the building of a stockade around the settlement;
in placing in the best position the six cannon,
almost their only reliable means of defense, humanly
speaking; and in encouraging and strengthening
those under his care by his example and prayers.
He had the thickets around Monrovia cleared away,
that they might afford the enemy no shelter; appointed
a night-watch; and his discerning eye and
cool judgment foresaw and provided against every
emergency.

Yet during this time his wife died, and often his
whole nights were passed in the delirium of fever.
But when the morning came, laying aside his sorrow
and forgetting his weakness, he would wrap
himself in his cloak, and go forth to the work that
so imperatively demanded his care.

The emigrants played their part manfully. Lott
Cary, with his clear mind and undaunted resolution,
and Elijah Johnson, who had been a soldier in
early life, and afterward distinguished himself by

his bravery and skill in the combats that followed
their early settlement in Liberia, were strong arms
of support to the young missionary.

Meanwhile the savages were gathering in numbers
around them, and they nightly lay down to
sleep with the dread upon their hearts of awaking
to the horror of a midnight attack. But this was
spared them. The assault so long threatened came
at last, but in the early morning. While hourly
expecting it, Mr. Ashmun assembled his little army,
and addressed a few words of advice and encouragement
to them. He ended by saying,

“War is now inevitable. The safety of our
property, our settlement, our families, our lives,
depends, under God, upon your courage and firmness.
Let every post and every individual be able
to confide in the firm support of every other. Let
every man act as if the whole defense depended
upon his single arm. May no coward disgrace our
ranks. The cause is God's and our country's, and
we may rely upon the blessing of Almighty God to
succeed our efforts. We are weak. He is strong.
Trust in Him.”

Neither the confidence the leader placed in his
soldiers, nor the faith he showed in God's protecting
care, proved unwarranted. One Monday morning
in November, the savages, who had been hovering
like swarms of locusts for several days around the

settlement, suddenly rushed upon a post left unguarded
for a few minutes. Their sudden onset,
their numbers, and their horrid yells, struck a
momentary panic into the hearts of the defenders,
and they turned to flee. But Mr. Ashmun and
Lott Cary met them, and, with unflinching courage,
rallied and led them back to the attack. The
cannons, instantly brought into action, did great
execution. The savages were appalled at the number
of wounded and dead that fell around them,
and when Elijah Johnson, with a few musketeers,
attacked them on their flank, they were filled with
consternation. With another yell they fled into
the recesses of the forest, and left the settlers to
count their losses and bury their dead. But so
engrossed were they in preparing against a second
attack, which they hourly dreaded, that it was not
until the next day they had time to perform this
last sad duty.

Not more than seventeen men had been engaged
in this defense, while the assailants might be counted
by hundreds; yet in half an hour the settlers could
look far around them, and see no enemy. Was not
the hand of the Lord in this?

A few weeks' rest was given to them; but early
in December, that loveliest of months in Liberia,
the natives gathered again, and, armed with muskets,
again attacked the settlement on each side.

The battle raged for an hour and a half. Four
times were the enemy repulsed with great slaughter,
and four times they rallied to the attack. At
last, seized with terror at the destruction the cannon
made in their ranks, and at the courage of the
little band who so resolutely defied them, they fled
through the forest to their different tribes, carrying
with them such accounts of the bravery and strange
superiority of the settlers, that it was long before
they were again molested. On the contrary, the
kings of the tribes around them, of the Veys, the
Deys, the Greboes, the Queahs, and many others,
sought an alliance with those who had shown themselves
so strong in their own defense.

Mr. Ashmun, in speaking of his little army, said
that “not the most veteran troops could have behaved
with more coolness, nor shown greater firmness
than the settlers on this occasion;” and Elijah
Johnson earned for himself the title of hero, which
he still retains.

While still ignorant that their second contest was
to be their last important one for many years, and
not knowing how soon or when another attack might
be expected, they learned to their dismay that their
ammunition was almost exhausted. They had been,
of course, unable to till the land or raise the necessary
provision, easy as it is to provide for the wants
of the body in Africa, and their bread and meat,

though sparingly consumed, would last but little
longer, and, for want of surgical instruments, the
wounded suffered exceedingly.

Yet even in this time of distress their faith did
not falter, and the confidence they retained through
every thing that the course they had taken was the
wisest for them, and would be proved to be so in the
end, sustained them.

“There never has been an hour or a minute,”
said Lott Cary, with great emphasis, “no, not even
when the balls were flying around my head, when
I could wish myself back in America again.”

While in this urgent need, a false alarm during
the night led them to fire one of their cannon.
When they discovered their mistake, they bitterly
regretted that they had thus wasted a part of their
small store of ammunition. But they soon found
that they could hardly have used it to a better purpose.
A British schooner was just rounding the
cape as that cannon broke upon the stillness of the
night. Thinking it a signal of distress, some of
the crew were sent on shore early in the morning,
and discovered this “little band of brave men, contending
for life amid privations, poverty, sickness,
and death, surrounded by barbarous tribes thirsting
for their blood.”

The officers of the vessel generously gave them
all the assistance in their power, and Major Laing,

the distinguished African traveler, who was on
board, offered to use his influence to propitiate the
neighboring chiefs. In this he was successful, the
bravery of the colonists having already awed them,
and the settlers were afterward left almost undisturbed,
with the exception of a short interval, when
Mr. Ashmun's health obliged him to leave them.

The best means of restoration for him appeared
to be a sea voyage, and reluctantly availing himself
of an opportunity for that purpose, he left the
colony in the charge of Elijah Johnson, to whom it
had been once before intrusted. The natives took
advantage of Ashmun's absence to menace them
with another attack, and Mr. Johnson applied to a
British man-of-war, then in the harbor, for ammunition.
This was freely given, and the captain also
offered his men to aid in the defense, if Mr. Johnson
would grant to England a piece of land large enough
to plant her flag-staff upon, as British troops could
only be called upon to defend the flag and soil of
their country. This Johnson refused. “We do not
want,” said he, “any flag raised here that will cost
us more trouble to pull down than to flog the natives.”

He did not regret this refusal, for the natives
were soon subdued; and when Mr. Ashmun returned,
he found all tranquil.

And, now that peace smiled upon them, they had

time to think of portioning out and cultivating the
land. Keziah, with her usual discrimination, selected
for herself and Polydore, for their interests
were at last united, a fine tract of land, lying a
little out of the village. A thatched cottage was
soon built upon it, and both she and Polydore worked
industriously to clear the land and prepare it for
planting. Like many of the other settlers, their
first attempts were unsuccessful. Whatever they
planted grew as if by magic, and with hardly any
trouble on their part; but just as they were promising
themselves an abundant harvest, legions of
ants, or troops of monkeys, porcupines, or other wild
animals, would in one night lay waste whole acres.

Most of the other colonists were disheartened.
The unsettled life they had lately been leading rendered
them less fitted for steady exertion; and finding
that, by trading with the natives, they could obtain
what was necessary for their subsistence with
much less labor, in the natural desire that all people
share for present ease and self-indulgence, they forgot
their real and permanent good. The more far-sighted
of the emigrants urged in vain upon their companions
the advantages of agriculture. It was not for
some years that they realized its importance, and
only lately has their attention been turned resolutely
to it.

Keziah was one of the few who persevered in endeavoring

to cultivate the land, and every year it
became easier. The little animals that had at first
proved so destructive, disappeared as the forests
were cleared away. Each failure, instead of discouraging
her, was only a new lesson; she learned
from them what seasons were most adapted to certain
grains and vegetables, and what seeds were
best suited to the soil.

All the time she could spare from her own cares
she devoted to teaching the native women and children,
who frequently visited her. The indefatigable
Lott Cary had, with the assistance of another colonist,
already established a missionary school for native
children, thus carrying out one of the principal
objects of the society.

Keziah longed to do the same, but the charge of
the farm engrossed her too much; for, although Polydore
took the labor upon himself, the direction fell
to his wife, who would have been by no means willing
to relinquish it.

Becoming dissatisfied, after a short trial, with this
desultory mode of teaching the natives only when
they chose to attend to her, she determined to adopt
two little native girls, that she might train them
more effectually in her own way. When Keziah
proposed this plan to the savages around her, it was
eagerly embraced, and such a number of children
were offered, that she found her difficulty lay in selecting
and refusing, not in obtaining.

Not long after this addition to her cares, Polydore
returned from the village, already become a place
of some importance, with the news that a slave-ship
had been taken, and that its cargo was about
to be landed at Liberia. The settlers, he said, were
asked to do all that was in their power for the
wretched beings thus thrown upon their charity.

Keziah's heart instantly responded to this appeal,
and she offered to provide food and shelter for four
if they were sent to her. Fortunately, the cargo
was a small one, the ship having been captured before
it was fully loaded, and only two were intrusted
to Keziah's kindness.

More miserable objects had seldom been seen than
were these when they first reached her hospitable
door. Emaciated and trembling, they appeared
hardly able to stand, much less to walk. Indeed,
Polydore had been obliged to carry one of them up
the hill leading to the cottage, for he had fallen from
weakness while attempting to ascend it. But before
the end of a month, Keziah was surprised to
observe the great change that had taken place in
them. In their tall, muscular forms they almost
rivaled Polydore.

For several days this latter personage had seemed
very much perplexed. His pipe, which was his
great resource in trouble, was in almost constant
use. He would sit for hours smoking and gazing

into the face of the larger of the savages, without
uttering a word. Keziah, meanwhile, was endeavoring
to teach them English, in which she succeeded
but indifferently; but every word they addressed to
each other in their own tongue affected Polydore
strangely. At length, one day when he was left
alone with them, he approached the one who seemed
to interest him so deeply, and addressed a single
word to him. The savage looked up astonished.
Again Polydore repeated the word, as though he
were asking some question. The savage nodded,
and quietly replenishing his pipe, Polydore seated
himself in the door of the cabin, looking steadfastly
in the direction from which he might expect his
wife. He knew that she was gone out on some
business that would detain her several hours longer;
but even watching for her was such a relief to his
mind, that he would have preferred to sit there all
day to any active occupation.

She came at last, just as the sun was shedding
its last faint ray of light. Noticing the wistful
glance he cast upon her, she stopped and asked
him what he wanted.

“Keziah, dat's my brother.”

“What?”

“Dat man yonder is my brother.”

“How do you know?”

“I've 'spected it dis long time since he fust

began to talk. I know'd every word he said, but I
couldn't remember the meanin'; and a little while
ago I called him by his name, not the name de
other nigger calls him, but de name he used to go
by when we was chillun, and he said yes.”

“Does he know who you are?”

“I don't know; I hain't said nothin' to him since.”

Keziah found, on entering her cottage, that the
savage had relapsed into his usual state of apathy.
It was some time before she could induce him even
to try to understand the news she labored to impart
to him. When he did fairly comprehend it, it seemed
to produce but little effect upon him. But both
Polydore and Keziah being unwearying in their
endeavors to instruct him, they soon had the pleasure
of being able to understand his broken English.
From that time his improvement was more rapid.
He consented to take the land usually allotted to
every settler, and they helped him to build a cottage
for himself near them. Whether Keziah's earnest
exhortations, or the silent influence of Polydore's
example had the most effect, can not be known now,
but before three years had passed by they had the
unspeakable delight of welcoming him as a member
of the same fold, and under the same shepherd
with themselves.

“Is not this worth all we have endured since we
came to Africa?” asked Keziah.

And Polydore answered yes with his whole heart.

Meantime, Mr. Ashmun's health had become so
seriously affected, that he was obliged to return to
his native country. The day on which he took his
departure was one of the saddest that has ever
darkened over Liberia. Yet while all crowded
around him, to take a mournful leave of one who
had been their great support through so many trials,
they hardly thought they were bidding him adieu
forever in this world. He only lived to greet once
more his country, and died at New Haven a few
days after he landed. His last prayers were for
Africa, for “the poor people among whom he had
labored.”

Mr. Ashmun had left the colony under the care
of Lott Cary, who continued to manage it with the
same liberal spirit as his predecessor. His main
object was to elevate the moral and intellectual
standard of the African. For this purpose he exerted
himself to establish schools, and labored both as a
pastor over his own church and a missionary to the
heathen around him. He was also energetic and
prudent in his management of the business affairs
of the colony, and it had never been more prosperous
than when it was under his charge.

His horror of the slave-trade, and his resolute determination
to oppose it whenever an opportunity
offered, was the worthy cause of the death of this

truly heroic man. A king of a neighboring tribe
had obtained possession of a factory belonging to
Liberia, and situated a few miles north of Monrovia,
which he had given to a slave-trader. After attempting
uselessly to obtain restitution by pacific
means, Mr. Cary determined to compel the king to
grant his just demand. While engaged in preparing
cartridges to be used for this purpose, one of
the men overturned a candle, which, falling into
some gunpowder, caused it to explode, and several
persons were instantly killed. Lott Cary was one
of the number.

It would seem as though the loss of two persons
of such importance to Liberia as Mr. Ashmun and
Mr. Cary would have been almost irreparable.
Yet, though they were mourned with exceeding
sorrow, and each colonist felt as though some member
of their family had been taken, able men came
forward to supply their place, and the temporal interests
of Liberia seemed unaffected by the change
in the human instruments that controlled them. It
went on increasing steadily, though slowly, in numbers
and in size. Every year added something to
its importance, and saw it elevated a degree higher
in the scale of nations.

Though the ardor of some spirits, that were overzealous
at first, has been dampened by the slowness
of its growth, yet, to its more discerning friends,

this very circumstance has been a cause of gratulation.
For, if the colored people had been poured
into Africa as emigrants have swarmed to our coasts,
received, as they would have been, among savages
and heathen, themselves, many of them, not yet
fixed in their opinions and habits, there would have
been great danger that they would have reverted
to the customs of their fathers, and thus lost all the
benefit of their early training. Now this danger is
past. A Christian nation calls for its wandering
children to come under its protecting care, and the
entreaty can hardly be too readily obeyed.

The light in which the settlers themselves regarded
their enterprise can not be better shown than
by a few extracts from an address they drew up at
a meeting of the citizens of Monrovia, in 1827, five
years after they first landed on the cape. This
was sent to America, to correct some false impressions
that were prevalent there with respect to them.
They say,

“The first thing which caused our voluntary removal
to this country, and which we still regard
with the deepest concern, is liberty—liberty in the
sober, simple, but complete sense of the word; that
liberty of speech, action, and conscience, which distinguishes
the free, enfranchised citizens of a free
state, and that liberty which was denied to us in
America; and now we truly declare to you that

our hopes and expectations in this respect have been
realized.

“Forming a community of our own, in the land
of our forefathers, having the commerce, soil, and
resources of the country at our disposal, we know
nothing of that debasing inferiority with which our
very color stamped us in America. There is nothing
here to create the feeling on our part—nothing
to cherish the feelings of superiority in the minds
of foreigners who visit us. It is this moral emancipation,
this liberation of the mind from worse
than iron fetters, that repays us ten thousand times
over for all that it has cost us, and makes us grateful
to God and our American patrons for the happy
change which has taken place in our situation.

“The true character of the African climate is
not well understood in other countries. Its inhabitants
are as robust, as healthy, as long-lived, to say
the least, as those in any other country. Nothing
like an epidemic has ever appeared in this colony;
nor can we learn from the natives that a sweeping
sickness has ever yet visited this part of the Continent.
But the change from a temperate to a tropical
climate is a great one—too great not to affect
the health more or less, and, in cases of old people
and very young children, often causes death. In
the early years of the colony, want of good houses,
the great fatigues and dangers of the settlers, their

irregular mode of living, and the hardships and discouragements
they met with, greatly helped the
other causes of sickness, and were attended with
great mortality. But we look back to those times
as to a season of trial, long past and nearly forgotten.

“People now arriving have comfortable houses to
receive them; will enjoy the regular attendance of
a physician; will be surrounded and attended by a
healthy, happy people, who have borne the effects
of the climate, who will encourage and fortify them
against that despondency, which alone has carried
off several in the first years of the colony. A more
fertile soil and productive country, so far as it is
cultivated, there is not, we believe, on the face of
the earth. Its hills and plains are covered with a
verdure which never fades.

“Cattle, swine, fowls, ducks, goats, and sheep
thrive without feeding, and require no other care
than to keep them from straying. Cotton, coffee,
indigo, and sugar may be cultivated at pleasure, to
any extent. The same may be said of rice, Indian
corn, millet, and fruits, and vegetables too numerous
to be mentioned.

“Our trade is already valuable, and fast increasing.
It is carried on in the productions of the country—consisting
of rice, palm oil, ivory, tortoise-shell,
dye-woods, gold, hides, wax—and brings us, in return,
the products and manufactures of the four

quarters of the world. Seldom, indeed, is our harbor
free from European and American shipping.

“Not a child or youth but is provided with an
appropriate school. We have a large public library,
court-house, meeting-houses, school-houses, and
fortifications.

“Our houses are built of the same materials, and
furnished in the same style, as in the towns of America.
We have an abundance of good building-stone,
shells for lime, and clay for brick.

“The cheerful abodes of civilization and happiness
which are scattered over this verdant mountain;
the flourishing settlements which are spreading
around it; the sounds of Christian instruction
and scenes of Christian worship which are heard
and seen in this scene of pagan darkness; a thousand
contented freemen united in founding a new
Christian empire, happy themselves, and the instruments
of happiness to others—conclusively testifies
to the wisdom and goodness of the plan of colonization.”

This was the grateful and confident language of
the colonists, while yet in the infancy of their existence,
while savages were lurking around their
outskirts, ready to take advantage of any weak or
unguarded point, and while they were still obliged
to look up to and lean upon the Colonization Society
as their protector and guide.

When, twenty years after, they stood up in the
self-reliance of vigorous youth, and with the consent
of their early guardian, declared themselves an independent
nation, how many more mercies had they
to acknowledge?