What to do with African slaves that had achieved their freedom perplexed pre Civil War America. Both abolitoinists and those that still owned slaves agreed passage back to Africa was an option. The state of Maryland, with a large proportion of freed slaves appropriated money to start a Maryland in Africa. What of the Kru people of west Africa who had managed to keep Europeans to trading posts. Perhaps they might view freed American slaves not as long lost brothers but as black faced European invaders. Well some times there needs to be more consultation and the harbor island on the stamp is the perfect place for it. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp displays Providence Island in Monrovia harbor. The first sight of Africa for the African-American colonists. Not much to look at really but reflective of the challenge facing the new arrivals from America and the adjustments to the status quo required by the native Kru people.
Todays stamp is issue A58, a 3 cent stamp issued by Liberia in 1915. It was a two stamp issue in different denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Providence island was a trading post set up the Portuguese. Trading occoured with the native Kru people who were not themselves slaves but traded them. They were a seafaring people and so could come to the island by canoe. The Portuguese built very limited facilities but a fresh water well a stone building some fruit trees and a small pier were the only infrastructure for miles on this area of the African coast. These were just not things built by the Africans for themselves.
The state of Maryland had a high proportion of freed slaves especially around Baltimore. The Haitian Revolution in 1820 and the Nat Turner slave rebellion convinced the then white government that the situation was not sustainable. See this Brazil stamp, https://the-philatelist.com/2019/04/18/brazil-1891-an-elite-overthrow-the-monarchy-to-avoid-a-haitian-outcome/ , that shows the influence of Haiti there. The legislature appropriated money to send free blacks to Africa in a rival to Liberia state of Maryland in Africa. It proved a hard sell to the freed slaves but 4500 were sent to Maryland in Africa by the 1840s. The native Kru people had not been consulted.
Of the 4500 hundred colonists only 1800 survived. The Kru people rose up against the state of Maryland in Africa and stated their alliegance to Great Britain and their desire that Maryland in Africa and Liberia should be merged into neighboring British colony Sierra Leone. This is not really what they wanted but implying Britain was on their side surely must have intimidated. Maryland appealed for help from Liberia and when it arrived the Kru were driven back and Maryland in Africa and Liberia merged with Maryland becoming a county of Liberia. The American state of Maryland was only able to persuade 2 percent of the freed blacks in Maryland to try their luck in Africa.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the survivors of the colonists in Liberia. With no infrastructure and unfriendly natives all around, it is amazing they weren’t just wiped out. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.