s#- The Founding of Liberia 



himself greatly in the colonisation project, and had suggested 

 them, both in the councils of the Colonisation Society and 

 in the Senate of the United States.^ 



Gurley returned to America August 2lnd, 1824. So good 

 were the reports that followed from Liberia that his measures 

 were not long in receiving the ratification both of the American 

 Colonisation Society and of the United States Government, 

 and this ratification of the constitution and the name of Liberia 

 was conveyed to Monrovia March 14th, 1825, by the U.S.A. 

 ship Hunter, this vessel also bringing at the same time about 

 sixty-six fresh colonists. 



Ashmun had at the advice of Mr. Gurley resumed his 

 holiday at the Cape Verde Islands, leaving the direction of the 

 colony during his absence to Dr. Randall ; but he soon returned 

 to Liberia, and busied himself with increasing the lawful bounds 

 of the settlement ; that is to say, not wishing to lock up the 

 colonists within the limits of the township of Monrovia, he 

 proceeded to find strips of country where they could be 

 scattered to their own advantage. Bushrod Island (of which, 

 however, the Liberians have made very little use down to the 

 present day) was definitely taken over from the natives,^ and 

 Ashmun secured a right to plant colonists along the St. Paul's 

 River, up to about twenty miles from its mouth, where the last 

 rapids closed navigability seaward. To this end he concluded 

 a treaty or alliance on May nth, 1825, with the chiefs Peter, 

 Long Peter, Gouverneur, Yoda, and Jimmy. Near the spot 

 where the Stockton Creek branches off from the St. Paul's 



* After Harper has been named the principal settlement in Maryland, on Cape 

 Palmas. 



^ Ashmun distinctly writes that this took place by an agreement concluded 

 with "old King Peter" on May nth, 1825. Wauwermans, writing in 1885, states 

 that it was purchased from " its native owner, Mary Mackenzie, on December 15th, 

 1827." I cannot find any other mention of Mary Mackenzie, who, if she existed, 

 was possibly the mulatto daughter of a British trader. 



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