CHAPTER XI 



GOVERNORS OF LIBERIA 



IN January, 1836, as related in the last chapter, Thomas 

 Buchanan, a citizen of Philadelphia, a white American, and 

 a cousin of James Buchanan, afterwards President of the 

 United States, came out as an envoy of the Colonisation Societies 

 of New York and Pennsylvania to Monrovia, and amongst other 

 things built the first lighthouse on Cape Mesurado. He went 

 on to Grand Basa, and spent the year 1837 as administrator of 

 the little group of settlements of Edina, Port Cresson, and 

 Basa Cove. In 1B39 he was sent to Monrovia as the first 

 '* Governor " of Liberia under the new constitution, relieving 

 from his post of agent Mr. Anthony D. Williams. 



From 1838 to 1840 the country at the back of Monrovia 

 was convulsed by constant warfare between the Gora and De 

 tribes, in which the Gora people were eventually victorious, the 

 Des ever since having taken an inferior position and become a 

 dwindling tribe. This warfare was not at first especially directed 

 against the American settlers, though it did considerable damage 

 to their little colonies, and under Williams's timid rule they 

 were powerless to impose peace by force of arms. But when 

 Buchanan took up the reins of government, he resolved to put 

 an end to this disorder, the more so as the chieftain of Boporo 

 had constituted himself the champion of the Gora people, and in 

 his defeat of the Des had glanced aside to attack those Liberians 

 who were settled along the St. Paul's River. These settlers had, 



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