Cape Mesurado
Cape Mesurado, also called Cape Montserrado, is a headland on the coast of
There is a lighthouse on Cape Mesurado, located in the Mamba Point neighborhood of Monrovia and in the cape's northwestern portion, that was established in 1855. It is currently inactive, although the Liberian government is seeking financial assistance to restore and reactivate the lighthouse.[2]
History
Slave trading post
Because Cape Mesurado was being used as a base for the illegal
: 1145Interference with the illegal slave trade was furthered the following year, when HMS Queen Charlotte of the British West Africa Squadron seized the Le Louis, which was suspected of being engaged in the slave trade.
Settlers had previously landed at Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone, but they were experiencing a high death rate there due to the island's swampy, unhealthy conditions, so, in 1821, the American Colonization Society dispatched a representative, Dr. Eli Ayers, to purchase land farther south down the coast from Sierra Leone that would provide better living conditions.[4]
Foundation of Liberia
With the aid of Robert F. Stockton, a U.S. naval officer, Ayers sought out land to establish a new colony. Stockton led negotiations with leaders of the Dei and Bassa peoples who lived in the area of Cape Mesurado. At first, the local ruler, Zolu Duma (King Peter), was reluctant to surrender their peoples' land to the strangers, but he was forcefully persuaded (some accounts claim at gunpoint) to sell them a "36 mile long and 3 mile wide" strip of coastal land, in exchange for trade goods, supplies, weapons, and rum worth approximately $300 (a considerable sum at the time).[4][5]
The Cape Mesurado colony faced many of the same challenges that had faced the previous colony at Sherbro Island: scarce supplies and swampy, unhealthy conditions. The new colony’s
Climate
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References
- ^ History Of Liberia: A Timeline
- ^ Rowlett, Russ. "Lighthouses of Liberia". The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- JSTOR 20455647. Retrieved 27 February 2016.
- ^ a b "About this Collection | Maps of Liberia, 1830-1870 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress".
- ISBN 9780521335713.
- ^ ISBN 9780312128609.
- ISBN 978-0-8108-6547-1.
- ISBN 978-1-137-01038-4.
- ^ "NASA Earth Observations Data Set Index". NASA. Archived from the original on 6 August 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
External links
- A Dutch account of Cape Mesurado in the 17th century Archived 2008-08-29 at the Wayback Machine