History of Liberia | Page 9

of the tide, and a period of great prosperity now began. Relay after relay of industrious emigrants arrived; new land was taken up; successful agriculture removed all danger of future failure of food supply; and a flourishing trade was built up at Monrovia. Friendly relations were formed with the natives, and their children taken for instruction into colonial families and schools. New settlements were formed; churches and schools appeared; an efficient militia was organized; printing presses set up and hospitals erected. On every side rapid progress was made. After years of illustrious service Ashmun retired to his home in New Haven, where he died a few days later, on August 25, 1828. Under Dr. Richard Randall and Dr. Mechlin, who successively filled his post, the prosperity of the colony continued undiminished.
The decade after 1832 is marked by the independent action of different State colonization societies. At first generally organized as tributary to the main body, the State societies now began to form distinct settlements at other points on the coast. The Maryland Society first started an important settlement at Cape Palmas, of which we shall make a special study. Bassa Cove was settled by the joint action of the New York and Pennsylvania Societies; Greenville, on the Sinou river, by emigrants from Mississippi; and the Louisiana Society engaged in a similar enterprise. The separate interests of the different settlements at length began in many cases to engender animosity and bad feeling; the need of general laws and supervision was everywhere apparent; and a movement toward a federal union of the colonies was set on foot. A plan was at length agreed upon by all except Maryland, by which the colonies were united into the "Commonwealth of Liberia," whose government was controlled by a Board of Directors composed of Delegates from the State societies. This board at its first meeting drew up a plan of government, and Thomas Buchanan was appointed first Governor of the Commonwealth, 1837. The advantages of the union were soon apparent. The more aggressive native tribes with whom not a little trouble had been experienced, were made to feel the strength of the union; and many of the smaller head-men voluntarily put themselves under the protection of the Government, agreeing to become citizens, with all their subjects, and submit to its laws. The traffic in slaves all along the coast was checked, inter-tribal warfare prevented, and trial by the sassa-wood ordeal abolished wherever colonial influence extended. Mr. Buchanan was the last white man who exercised authority in Liberia. On his death the Lieutenant-Governor, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, succeeded him. Roberts, who afterward became Liberia's most distinguished citizen, was a Virginia Negro, having been born at Norfolk in 1809, and brought up near Petersburg. He obtained a rudimentary education while running a flat-boat on the James and Appomattox Rivers. In 1829 he went with his widowed mother and younger brothers to Liberia, where he rapidly rose to wealth and distinction. As Governor he evinced an efficient statesmanship that promised well for his future career.
Roberts had not long been governor when trouble arose with the British coast-wise traders that gave rise to a most interesting crisis. The Liberian Government in regulating commerce within its jurisdiction had enacted laws imposing duties on all imported goods. The English traders, accustomed for hundreds of years to unrestricted traffic on this very coast, were indignant at the presumption of the upstart colony, and ignored its regulations. The Government protested, but in vain. And at length the little colonial revenue schooner John Seyes, while attempting to enforce the laws at Edina, was actually seized by the stalwart Britisher and dragged before the Admiralty Court at Sierra Leone. A long discussion which would be profitless to follow in detail, ensued. The result was, that the John Seyes was confiscated. The British Government opened a correspondence with the United States, in which it was ascertained that Liberia was not in political dependence upon them. Whereupon the sovereignty of Liberia was promptly denied, her right to acquire or hold territory questioned, and she was given to understand that the operations of British traders would in future be backed by the British navy.
Evidently if Liberia was to maintain and govern her territory something must be done. The Colonization Society while claiming for Liberia the right to exercise sovereign powers, seems to have had the unacknowledged conviction, that England's position, however ungenerous, was logically unassailable. The supreme authority wielded by the Society, its veto power over legislative action, was undoubtedly inconsistent with the idea of a sovereign state. This is clearly apparent from the fact that though there was pressing necessity for a treaty with England, neither the colony nor the Society had power to negotiate it. It was accordingly determined to surrender all control over the colony; and the