¹ A previous version of this article was presented at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Librarian Studies Association at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 8–10 April 1976. I am indebted to the participants in that conference for their comments and suggestions.

Throughout this article the term ‘Liberian’ is used both in its geographic sense, and to refer to black American immigrants to Liberia and their descendants. Such use, and use of the term ‘African’ for the indigenous peoples of Liberia, is not intended to imply any separate nationality or degree of citizenship in the twentieth century.

² Curtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, 1969), 221.Google Scholar

³ For a comparison of the two colonies, see Hargreaves, J. D., ‘African Colonization in the Nineteenth Century: Liberia and Sierra Leone’ Boston University Papers in African History (1964), 57–76.Google Scholar

⁴ For example, see Raymond E. Dumett's excellent study of the evolution of independent coastal traders in Ghana, , ‘John Sarbah, the Elder, and African Mercantile Entrepreneur-ship in the Gold Coast in the late Nineteenth Century’ J. Afr. Hist., xiv, 4 (1973), 653–79.Google Scholar

⁵ Ashmun, Jehudi, ‘Note on Trade by Ashmun’ 1822Google Scholar, included in Gurley, R. R., Life of Jehudi Ashmun, Late Colonial Agent in Liberia (1835; rpt. Freeport, New York, 1971), appendix, 40.Google Scholar

⁶ Ashmun to ——, Dec. 1824, cited in Gurley, , Life of Ashmun, 59.Google Scholar

⁷ Ashmun, , ‘A Memoir of the Exertions and Sufferings of the American Colonists’ cited in ACS, African Repository and Colonial Journal, i–lxviii (1 03 1825–01 1892Google Scholar; rpt. Arbor, Ann, Michigan: University Microfilms, Inc., n.d.; hereafter cited as AR), 11, 4 (June 1826), 114Google Scholar; Gurley, , Life of Ashmun, 185Google Scholar. The exact nature of these vessels, the first documented Liberian coasters, is not known, but probably they were longboats, undecked, of small carrying capacity. Possibly they were obtained from passing foreign merchantmen, or were brought with colonists from the United States.

⁸ Augusta was originally a Baltimore-built brig of 80 to 100 tons burden, probably rerigged at some point in her history as a schooner. ACS, The Annual Reports of the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States (1818–50; rpt. New York: Negro University Press, 1969Google Scholar; hereafter cited as Annual Reports), VII (1823), 27, 55Google Scholar; Ashmun to ——, 15 May 1823, cited in Annual Reports, VII (1823), 71–3.Google Scholar

⁹ Two vessels, for example, were ordered in prefabricated form from the United States in December 1824, and arrived in the colony in 1826. Ashmun to ——, Dec. 1824, cited in Gurley, , Life of Ashmun, 60–1.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ashmun to ——, 31 Dec. 1825, cited in AR, ii, 3 (May 1826), 84.Google Scholar

¹¹ Vessels built for Ashmun at Monrovia included the coasters Catherine, which was named for Ashmun's wife, Mesurado, and possibly the United States.

¹² Starr, Frederick, Liberia: Description, History, Problems (Chicago, 1913), 69Google Scholar; ‘An Ordinance Regulating the Trade of the Colonists of Liberia with the Subjects of King Freeman of Young Sesters’ (26 Nov. 1825)Google Scholar, quoted in Huberich, Charles H., The Political and Legislative History of Liberia (New York, 1947), 11, 1322–3Google Scholar; Ashmun, to ——, 31 Dec. 1825Google Scholar, quoted in AR, ii, 3 (May 1826), n.p.

¹³ Ashmun, to ——, 6 Feb. 1827Google Scholar, cited in AR, iii, 5 (July 1827), 147Google Scholar; Ashmun, to ——, 11 May 1827Google Scholar, cited in AR, iii, 7 (Sept. 1827), 213Google Scholar; Ashmun, to ——, 10 Feb. 1827Google Scholar, cited in AR, iii, 5 (July 1827), 148–9.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See, for example, Annual Reports, xi (1828), 62–3.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Ashmun, to Board of Managers, 31 Dec. 1825Google Scholar, quoted in AR, ii, 3 (May 1826), 94–5.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Henries, A. Doris Banks, The Liberian Nation: A Short History (New York, 1966), 94.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Liberia Herald, Apr. 1838Google Scholar, cited in AR, xiv, 8 (Aug. 1838), 252.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Annual Reports, XI (1827), 62–3Google Scholar; Ashmun, to ——, 28 Nov. 1827Google Scholar, quoted in AR, iv, 1 (Mar. 1828), 21Google Scholar; Mechlin, Joseph to ——, 14 Dec. 1831Google Scholar, cited in AR, viii, 2 (Apr. 1832), 33–4Google Scholar; Holsoe, Svend E., ‘Theodore Canot at Cape Mount, 1841–1847’ Liberian Studies Journal, iv, 2 (1971–1972), 173 n.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ashmun, to ——, 22 Aug. 1824Google Scholar, included in Gurley, , Life of Ashmun, appendix, 49.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ashmun, to ——, 28 Nov. 1827Google Scholar, cited in AR, xiv, ai, cited in Hosloe, Svend E., ‘A Study of the Relations Between Settlers and Indigenous Peoples in Western Liberia, 1821–1827’ Afr. Hist. Stud, iv, 2 (1971), 346.Google Scholar

²¹ Holsoe, , ‘A Study of the Relations Between Settlers and Indigenous Peoples’ 344–5.Google Scholar

²² Liberia Herald, June 1835Google Scholar, quoted in AR, xi, 11 (Nov. 1835), 344.Google Scholar

²³ Annual Reports, xii (1830), 21Google Scholar; ‘An Ordinance Prohibiting Foreigners to trade with the Native Inhabitants of a District of Coast therein Limited, and fixing the Compensation and explaining the Duties of Commission Merchants, 30 June 1827’ quoted in Huberich, , History of Liberia, ii, 1313–4.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ports of entry included Robertsport, Monrovia, Marshall, Grand Bassa, Greenville and Harper. Legislation modifying the port of entry policy added other ports in subsequent years.

²⁵ Sigler, Phil S., The Attitudes of Free Blacks Towards Emigration to Liberia (Ann Arbor, 1969), 30.Google Scholar

²⁶ West, Richard, Back to Africa: A History of Sierra Leone and Liberia (London, 1970), 134Google Scholar; Staudenraus, P. J., The African Colonization Movement (New York, 1961), 154.Google Scholar

²⁷ Extract from the journal of ‘J.F.S., an officer of the U.S. Navy’ 12 Dec. 1833Google Scholar, quoted in AR, x, 10 (Dec. 1834), 312.Google Scholar

²⁸ On 21 Feb. 1824 a newspaper published in Freetown recorded the departure from that port of the schooner FlyFish ‘of the American colony’. No other reference to this vessel has been found. The Royal Gazette; and Sierra Leone Advertiser (Freetown: 1817–1827), vi, 300 (21 Feb. 1824), 240.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ashmun, to ——, 31 Dec. 1825Google Scholar, quoted in AR, ii, 3 (May 1826), 84.Google Scholar

³⁰ Randall, R. to ——, 28 Dec. 1828Google Scholar, cited in AR, v, 1 (March 1829), 8Google Scholar; testimony of J. Jones before the Kentucky Colonization Society, n.d., but late July or August 1834, quoted in AR, x, 7 (Sept. 1834), 210Google Scholar; Colonization Herald, n.d., cited in AR, xiv, 2 (Feb. 1838), 61Google Scholar; DrLugenbeel, to ——, 11 Apr. 1844Google Scholar, cited in AR, xx, 9 (Sept. 1844), 281Google Scholar; Scott, Bishop L. to Corresponding Secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 9 July 1853, cited in AR, xxix, 12 (Dec. 1853), 357.Google Scholar

³¹ For additional data on the size and characteristics of the Liberian fleet, and a listing of all known nineteenth-century Liberian vessels, see the author's forthcoming dissertation from Indiana University, tentatively entitled ‘A History of the Liberian Coasting Trade, 1822–1900’.

³² Warfare in 1832 involved the colony, De, and Gola. Holsoe, , ‘A Study of the Relations Between Settlers and Indigenous Peoples’ 344–5Google Scholar. In 1833 warfare north of Monrovia involving the Vai resulted in the destruction of Liberian factories at Sowi, near Cape Mount. Liberia Herald, X (1835), 27Google Scholar, cited in Holsoe, Svend E., The Cassava-Leaf People: An Ethnohistorical Study of the Vai People with a Particular Emphasis on the Tewo Chiefdom (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, Inc., 1967), 130Google Scholar. In 1835–6 a visitor to Monrovia noted that war in the Sherbro area created a scarcity of provisions in Liberia. AR, xil, 9 (Sept. 1836), 271Google Scholar. In 1841 warfare between chiefs Bob Grey and Joe Harris and Fishmen south of Monrovia slowed Liberian commerce. Buchanan, Thomas to ——, 6 Apr. 1840Google Scholar, quoted in AR, xvi, 18 (15 Sept. 1840), 277–8.Google Scholar

³³ The vessel lost was the ACS agency schooner Mesurado. Mechlin, Joseph to ——, 30 July 1831Google Scholar, quoted in AR, vii, 9 (Nov. 1831), 264–8Google Scholar; Liberia Herald, Oct. and Nov. 1836Google Scholar, quoted in AR, xiii, 4 (Apr. 1837), 133–4.Google Scholar

³⁴ Colonizationist and journal of Freedom (1833–4; rpt- Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, Inc., n.d.), (Oct. 1833), 182.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ashmun, to ——, 20 May 1827Google Scholar, quoted in AR, iii, 8 (Oct. 1827), 234.Google Scholar

³⁶ Annual Reports, XXIV (1841), 10.Google Scholar

³⁷ Huberich, Charles H., History of Liberia, 1, 518.Google Scholar

³⁸ Francis Devany, quoted in Carey, M., Letters on the Colonization Society and on Us Probable Results (Philadelphia: E. G. Dorsey, 1838), 26.Google Scholar

³⁹ Teage is also commonly spelled Teague in sources. Liberia Herald, xv, 16 (4 June 1847), 63Google Scholar, included in Maryland State Colonization Society, Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the Maryland State Colonization Society (Philadelphia, n.d.Google Scholar; hereafter cited as MSCS Papers), roll 20.

⁴⁰ Roye, Edward J. to ——, 25 May 1847Google Scholar, cited in AR, xxiii, 8 (Aug. 1847), 231.Google Scholar

⁴¹ There has been some dispute about the chronology of coffee exports from Liberia. George W. Brown, for example, maintained that coffee was one of the chief export crops of Liberia in the 1830s and 1840s: see Brown, George W., The Economic History of Liberia (Washington, D.C., 1841), 125Google Scholar. Two other scholars have recently followed Brown's lead in dating. See, for example, Cassell, C. A., Liberia: History of the First African Republic (New York, 1970), IIIGoogle Scholar, and Schulze, Willi, A New Geography of Liberia (London, 1973), 179Google Scholar. Early exports of coffee from colonial Liberia chiefly involved re-exports as ‘Liberian’ of coffee grown elsewhere. See, for example, Bridge, Horatio, Journal of an African Cruiser (New York, 1853), 44Google Scholar. A number of nineteenth-century sources agree that indigenously-grown coffee beans from Liberia were not exported until the late 1850s. See, for example, Newnham to Clarendon, 7 May 1853, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Foreign Office (hereafter cited as FO), 47/9, 23; Cowan, Alexander, Liberia As I Found It in 1858 (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1858), 130Google Scholar; Journal of Commerce, 14 Dec. 1859Google Scholar, cited in AR, xxxviii, 1 (Jan. 1860), 30.Google Scholar

⁴² Williams, Anthony D. to ——, 19 June 1830Google Scholar, quoted in AR, vi, 7 (Sept. 1830), 211.Google Scholar

⁴³ Cowan, , Liberia, 54, 81.Google Scholar

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⁴⁵ AR, x, 6(Aug. 1834), 164.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ruffin, Edmund, ‘The Colonization Society and Liberia’ DeBow's Review, 27 o.s., 2, 1–5 n.s. (July–Nov. 1859), 586.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ For a history of Maryland in Africa, see Campbell, Penelope, Maryland in Africa: The Maryland State Colonization Society, 1831–1857 (Ann Arbor, 1967).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ The 1843 census data from Liberia is included in United States Congress, Senate, Senate Executive Document 150: Roll of the Emigrants That Have Been Sent to the Colony of Liberia, Western Africa, by the American Colonization Society and Its Auxiliaries, to September, 1843, Etc., 28th Congress, 2nd Session, 1844–5, Serial 458, 152–414.

⁴⁹ Buchanan, Thomas to ——, 13 Dec. 1840Google Scholar, cited in Huberich, , History of Liberia, 1, 722.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Warner, Daniel B. to McLain, William, 31 Dec. 1850Google Scholar, quoted in AR, xxvii, 4 (Apr. 1851), 100Google Scholar. Warner eventually became President of Liberia.

⁵¹ Buchanan, Thomas to ——, 24 Mar. 1841Google Scholar, quoted in AR, xvii, 14 (15 July 1841), 210–1.Google Scholar

⁵² For an account of the John Seys affair, see Benson, Stephen A. to ——, 16 Apr. 1845Google Scholar, quoted in AR, xxi, 7 (July 1845), 223–4Google Scholar. Benson was the owner of john Seys.

⁵³ AR, xxv, 4 (Apr. 1849), 111–2.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Proclamation of Benson, Stephen A., 8 Apr. 1856Google Scholar, enclosed with Newnham, to Clarendon, , 31 May 1856, FO47/12, 41.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Roberts, Joseph J. to Russell, Lord John, 31 Dec. 1859, FO 47/15, 169.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See the author's forthcoming dissertation for additional data.

⁵⁷ The latter was Seth Grosvenor, which was built in the United States for the Liberian firm of Johnson, Turpin and Dunbar, for use as a coaster and in carrying mail between Liberian settlements. The vessel was active on the Liberian coast in the late 1850s and early 1860s. At least two other steam-powered vessels, one of which was built in Liberia, were owned by Liberians later in the century.

⁵⁸ New Era, n.d., cited in AR, li, 10 (Oct. 1875), 119.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Besides a number of coasters, McGill Brothers' vessels included several trans-Atlantic carriers: James Hall of 80 tons burden, President Benson of 100 tons burden, Moses Sheppard of 113 tons burden, Abraham Lincoln of 90 tons burden, and Summerside of 120 tons burden.

⁶⁰ George G. McGill, patriarch of the McGill family, had himself served as vice-agent of the ACS in 1833.

⁶¹ Sherman and Dimery owned at least six vessels which it operated from its office at Monrovia, maintained several coastal factories, and had commercial ties to the New York firm Yates and Porterfield.

⁶² During most of the decade only the coaster Swallow, a 22-ton schooner owned by the firm H. Cooper and Son, is known to have been active in the coasting trade.

⁶³ By the beginning of the Grebo War, H. W. Dennis, Secretary of the Treasury, informed President Anthony W. Gardner that only $500 in specie remained in the Treasury, and added that public credit was, in his terms, ‘pretty nigh exhausted’. Dennis, H. W. to Gardner, A. W., 15 Oct. 1875Google Scholar, in Republic of Liberia, Archives of the Foreign Ministry (hereafter cited as RL), Treasury Department Correspondence, 1875–1877, 172–3.Google Scholar

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⁸⁰ The African Times, 29 July 1873, 157Google Scholar; The African Times, 26 Feb. 1874, 17.Google Scholar

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⁹¹ See the author's forthcoming dissertation for additional data.

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The figure of 234 vessels excludes lighters, canoes, and similar small craft. Since many Liberian vessels were undoubtedly not mentioned in deeds of registry, newspapers, private correspondence, and other available sources, the Liberian merchant marine was probably of still larger size, perhaps surpassing the figure of 300.

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