Even by Martin Delany’s uncommon standard, 1859 was an eventful year. In early May, Delany departed New York on the Mendi, a ship owned by three Liberian merchants supportive of his efforts to resettle American slaves in West Africa. In early July, he arrived with a small company in Cape Palmas and immediately began addressing crowds of Monrovians who, according to the local newspaper, packed the Methodist Episcopal Church on at least two occasions to hear him advertise “the desire of an African nationality that has brought me to these shores.”1 After one month in Liberia, Delany led an expedition some twelve hundred miles to Yoruba, searching for land in the Niger Valley on which to build a new community. By December, he had negotiated a treaty with the Alake (chief) of Abeokuta designed to establish a settlement for African American emigrants in cooperation with Egba inhabitants of the region.2 In early 1860, he departed for England to lecture and raise funds for the project.