-#» 



The Founding of Liberia 



the settlement of American freed slaves.^ P'or this cession of land 

 Ayres paid to the chiefs the following goods : — Six muskets, 

 one small barrel of powder, six iron bars, ten iron pots, one 

 barrel of beads, two casks of tobacco, twelve knives, twelve forks 

 and twelve spoons, one small barrel of nails, one box of tobacco 

 pipes, three looking-glasses, four umbrellas, three walking-sticks, 

 one box of soap, one barrel of rum, four hats, three pairs of 

 shoes, six pieces of blue baft, three pieces of white calico. 

 In addition, the purchasers bound themselves to pay when they 

 could : six iron bars, twelve guns (probably long Danes), three 

 barrels of powder, twelve plates, twelve knives, twelve forks, 

 twenty hats, five barrels of salt beef, five barrels of salt pork, 

 twelve barrels of ships' biscuit, twelve glass decanters, twelve 

 wineglasses, and fifty pairs of boots. 



The native chiefs, after their fashion, recked little of the 

 consequences which might follow the signing of this deed and 

 the acceptance of the part payment. They probably thought, 

 if they looked at all to the future, that these eccentric persons — 

 enthusiastic, thin, fever-stricken white men, who loathed drink, 

 debauchery, and the slave trade,^ and English-speaking Christian 

 Negroes dressed in European fashion— merely wished to settle 

 here and there along the coast and start some novel commerce 

 no doubt profitable to one or other party. They certainly did 

 not realise that they were " selling their country." 



On the other hand, the colonists as implicitly believed they had 

 purchased a section of the Grain Coast. Possibly they excused 

 themselves for the modest value of the purchase price ^ by the 

 belief that they would never have occasion to turn the indigenes 



' This very unreal concession was afterwards made actual by Ashman's 

 agreements in 1825. 



^ At that date a very new type in West Africa. 



* The chiefs of Mesurado afterwards complained that the supplementary goods 

 mentioned in the above list were not paid in full, 



VOL. I 129 9 



