Africa, as agent or agents for receiving the negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, delivered from on board vessels seized in the prosecution of the slavetrade by commanders of the United States’ armed vessels.”
The Rev. Samuel Bacon, on the society’s recommendation, was appointed both Government and colonial agent. Mr. John P. Bankson and Dr. Samuel A. Crozer, agents of the society, were associated with him. The ship Elizabeth was chartered by the United States (Congress had appropriated $100,000) and eighty-six colored emigrants were picked up and carried to Boston. These agreed, “in consideration of their passage and other aid,” to “prepare suitable accommodations for such Africans as might be rescued from the slave-ships by American cruisers.”
On February 6, 1820, the Elizabeth sailed. A landing was made at Sherboro, where a New Bedford negro named Kizel had established a colony of eight families at his own expense. Then “fever made its appearance among the people, who were loud in their complaints,"[1] and with very good reason, too, because twenty-five of them died of it, and Bacon himself fell a victim. The remaining emigrants went to Sierra Leone, and colonization was in a bad way.
But meantime the warship Cyane and others had sent several slavers loaded with wild negroes to the United States for adjudication, and to get rid of those negroes further efforts were made to establish an A frican colony. The Government sent the war schooner Alligator, Captain R. F. Stockton, to explore the African coast, and Captain Stockton selected Cape
- ↑ Foote’s Africa and the American Flag, p. 113, line 18.
