miles farther down the coast, under the auspices especially
of the New York and Pennsylvania societies, the Grand
Bassa settlements at the mouth of the St. John’s
River, the town Edina being outstanding. Nearly
a hundred miles farther south, at the mouth of the
Sino River, another colony developed as its most important
town Greenville; and as most of the settlers in this
vicinity came from Mississippi, their province became
known as Mississippi in Africa. A hundred miles
farther, on Cape Palmas, just about twenty miles from
the Cavalla River marking the boundary of the French
possessions, developed the town of Harper in what
became known as Maryland in Africa. This colony
was even more aloof than others from the parent settlement
of the American Colonization Society. When the
first colonists arrived at Monrovia in 1831, they
were not very cordially received, there being trouble
about the allotment of land. They waited for some
months for reenforcements and then sailed down the
coast to the vicinity of the Cavalla River, where
they secured land for their future home and where
their distance from the other colonists from America
made it all the more easy for them to cultivate their
tradition of independence.[1] These four ports are
now popularly known as Monrovia, Grand Bassa, Sino,
and Cape Palmas; and to them for general prominence
might now be added Cape Mount, about fifty miles from
Monrovia higher up the coast and just a few miles
from the Mano River, which now marks the boundary between
Sierra Leone and Liberia. In 1838, on a constitution
drawn up by Professor Greenleaf, of Harvard College,
was organized the “Commonwealth of Liberia,”
the government of which was vested in a Board of Directors
composed of delegates from the state societies, and
which included all the settlements except Maryland.
This remote colony, whose seaport is Cape Palmas,
did not join with the others until 1857, ten years
after Liberia had become an independent republic.
When a special company of settlers arrived from Baltimore
and formally occupied Cape Palmas (1834), Dr. James
Hall was governor and he served in this capacity until
1836, when failing health forced him to return to America.
He was succeeded by John B. Russwurm, a young Negro
who had come to Liberia in 1829 for the purpose of
superintending the system of education. The country,
however, was not yet ready for the kind of work he
wanted to do, and in course of time he went into politics.
He served very efficiently as Governor of Maryland
from 1836 to 1851, especially exerting himself to
standardize the currency and to stabilize the revenues.
Five years after his death Maryland suffered greatly
from an attack by the Greboes, twenty-six colonists
being killed. An appeal to Monrovia for help
led to the sending of a company of men and later to
the incorporation of the colony in the Republic.
[Footnote 1: McPherson is especially valuable for his study of the Maryland colony.]