THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 16, 1996 TAG: 9602140120
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
First they came in small groups, each carrying his or her life's belongings.
Lining up quietly along the Portsmouth waterfront, they presented their papers to local ship captains. The papers usually consisted of a letter authorizing their freedom from a former owner and a receipt for a tariff of $5.00 charged to each single male from 21 to 55.
Even though most of them had just been recently set free, there is no evidence of celebrations or demonstrations of joy of any kind. And even though they were going to their cultural home in Africa, it was a country they knew little about save the stories handed down generation by generation about how their ancestors were bought and sold to European traders along its shore.
For the most part, their names have been lost in time, but we know that among the hundreds who did go were James and Peggy Ben, both doctors; brickmakers Charles Hamblin and George Artis, blacksmiths Willy Brown and Willy Jordan, cooper Henry Bowlin, house carpenter James Cotton, and shoemakers Joshua Gardner, Isaac and Simeon Overton, Willis Scott, Andrew Turner and Hamilton Tann.
Also included were two of Liberia's future political leaders, including Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who served as his adopted home's first president after leading it to independence in 1848, and Anthony W. Gardner, who was elected president in 1879.
This strange scene of former slaves boarding sailing brigs like Captain Cornick's ``Georgiana,'' Captain Matthews' ``Doris,'' Captain Hatton's ``Nautilus'' was repeated often from the 1820s through 1850 when the Portsmouth Colonization Society was at its peak. Their agent, John McPhail, also was a familiar sight along the waterfront during this time as it was his job to keep careful records of each former slave, when and from whom he or she was set free and to which ship each was assigned.
Acting as middle man between the colonization society and the ship captains, McPhail ran a series of announcements in the Beacon, which shed light on how the process operated. For instance, in the Nov. 29, 1825, edition McPhail wrote, ``THE SHIP GEORGIANA, Captain Cornick, is chartered by the aforesaid Society to take Colonists to Liberia, in Africa. As there will be accommodations for more than the number already engaged to go, other Free People of Color, who wish to emigrate, are requested to report themselves immediately, as the ship will be loaded with all possible dispatch.''
Ships like the Georgiana not only carried colonists but also served as a vital communication link between those already settled, those waiting to book passage and those left behind. In the March 24, 1827, edition of the Beacon, McPhail noted that: ``The Liberian Packet Ship Norfolk will depart hence for MONROVIA early in April. Those persons who wish to send goods or letters to their friends at the Colony, can have an opportunity by applying to JOHN McPHAIL, Agent of the Colonization Society.''
Newspaper announcements also tell us how many left on each voyage and who the principal sponsors were.
In fact, in a Jan. 26, 1827, Beacon, we find that the local Society of Friends, or Quakers, was actively buying slaves off farms for transport back to Africa. ``During the present week,'' the announcement reads, ``28 negroes belonging to the Society of Friends, and four who were free, took passage in the brig Doris, Captain Matthews, which will sail shortly for Liberia.''
One of the most revealing articles about the colonization effort here is found in the Dec. 18, 1827, Beacon, which gives more insight and detail about the colonization system and how important Portsmouth was as a hub for the voyage to Africa.
``The brig Nautilus, Capt. Hatton,'' it begins, ``which dropped down to Hampton Roads on Sunday, bound to the American settlement at Monrovia, Africa, carried out an additional one hundred and sixty-four members of that flourishing colony, originally planted by the generosity and heaven-directed exertions of a few benevolent and patriotic individuals; but which has gained advocates and supporters, until there is scarcely a section of our country where efforts are not made to advance its noble purposes.
``By far the greater part of these converts are from the counties of Wayne, Pasquotank and Perquimans, in North Carolina, some of whom have been manumitted by the Society of Friends. Two agents attended them to this place, who, we learn, have amply provided them with everything essential to their comfort on the voyage, and defrayed every attendant expense to their transportation to their new abode. There are also among the emigrants, several from Baltimore and Richmond.''
A tragic ending to this particular voyage was the death of Captain Hatton of illness after landing at Cape Messurado on the coast of Africa.
There is no evidence of the death of any of the passengers, however. Of particular note is how the Beacon referred to the colony at Monrovia as an ``American Settlement.'' Although the article is not signed, it was probably written by a society member or one of the Quaker sponsors whose future aspirations for Monrovia are apparent.
In the first decades after the American Revolution, the colonization movement was popular with both free blacks and local ship captains. One obviously hoped for a better life after being set free; the other was making a handsome profit from passenger rates charged to the society. However, by the 1850s the number of freedmen taking passage to Africa dwindled drastically. For the most part, and despite their circumstances, free blacks by then thought of themselves as Americans first and they would be called upon to pay the price during the Civil War. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
A brigantine leaves Virginia waters for Africa in the 1830s. Its
cargo: recently freed slaves bound for their new home in the colony
of Liberia.
by CNB