Liberia <«- 



Joe Harris, of Grand Basa, with the approval of the headmen 

 of his country, ceded to the Liberian colonists a strip of territory 

 at the mouth of the St. John River, as far south as the Bis5 

 (Bissaw) stream, near Basa Point. 



By this and by the preceding agreements entered into by 

 Ayres, the Liberian colony now possessed some sort of political 

 rights to all that part of the Grain Coast between Cape Mount 

 on the north and Grand Basa Point on the south, besides 

 territory up the St. Paul's River, While Ashmun was still in 

 the colony, a (.? Mandingo) chief known on the coast as King 

 "Boatswain" (said to have served in that capacity in British 

 ships) wished to enter into friendly relations with these American 

 strangers. This chief or his father had established a Mandingo 

 colony in the Kondo country at or near the site of the modern 

 town of Boporo.^ The envoys of " King " Boatswain made a 

 treaty with Ashmun on March 14th, 1828. It is by no means 

 certain that the envoys who put their marks to this piece of 

 paper realised its import, or that King Boatswain ratified their 

 action ; but at any rate this treaty conferred on the young 

 colony of Liberia considerable rights over the interior to the 

 north of Cape Mount. 



Not content with mere treaty-making, however, Ashmun 

 obtained the help of three American warships, and conducted 

 an expedition to Trade Town, a slave settlement near the mouth 

 of the New Cess River. Here the Spanish slave traders made 

 a very determined resistance, but without avail. Their " factories " 

 (as these trading estabHshments are called throughout West 

 Africa) were completely destroyed. Ashmun landed on the 

 beach with the armed parties of marines ; the first of the towns 



' Bosan or " Boatswain " was not a chief by descent or inheritance, but an 

 astute trader — probably Mandingo — who gathered around him at Boporo a mixed 

 following of Mandingo, Buzi, Fula, Mamba, Kpwesi, Band!, Gora, Vai, and 

 Gbwalin people. This confederacy went by the name of Kondo. 



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