The "Convention of the friends of African Colonization" asks the North Carolina General Assembly for monetary support for settlements in Liberia. The members represent that "the Colony of Liberia rose into existence as a home for the re-captured Africans restored by the humanity of our Government to their own country, and as a well-organized community of free colored men, prepared and disposed to extend their useful arts, laws, civilization and Christianity, far abroad among the native population of Africa." They cite in particular the Colony of Cape Palmas as "conclusive evidence of what a single state, and by an appropriation of a few thousand dollars annually can accomplish in this cause. A prosperous Colony of about six hundred emigrants has risen, with all the order and institutions of a well organized Society, under the fostering care of the Legislature of Maryland, and citizens of this state, at the cost of less than the establishment of a single plantation of the South." They therefore propose that "an annual appropriation for the present, of even ten thousand dollars, from the Legislature of each State ... would throw a new light of hope and cheerfulness over the settlements of Liberia, and give assurance that Africa herself must rise from ruin, to stand in honor and power among the nations of the world."
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
