Kentucky Ancestors Genealogical Quarterly of the Kentuckyhistoricalsociety
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Vol. 39, No. 4 Summer 2004 kentucky ancestors genealogical quarterly of the KentuckyHistoricalSociety Kentucky Abstracts from the The Alvey Family of African American Kentucky Statesman, England, Maryland, Immigrants to March 20, 1850 and Kentucky, Liberia, 1820-43 Part Five Vol. 39, No. 4 Summer 2004 kentucky ancestors genealogical quarterly of the KentuckyHistoricalSociety Thomas E. Stephens, Editor kentucky ancestors Dan Bundy, Graphic Design Kent Whitworth, Director James E. Wallace, Assistant Director administration Betty Fugate, Membership Coordinator research and interpretation Nelson L. Dawson, Team Leader management team Kenneth H. Williams, Program Leader Doug Stern, Walter Baker, Lisbon Hardy, Michael Harreld, Lois Mateus, Dr. Thomas D. Clark, C. Michael Davenport, Ted Harris, Ann Maenza, Bud Pogue, Mike Duncan, James E. Wallace, Maj. board of Gen. Verna Fairchild, Mary Helen Miller, Ryan trustees Harris, and Raoul Cunningham Kentucky Ancestors (ISSN-0023-0103) is published quarterly by the Kentucky Historical Society and is distributed free to Society members. Periodical postage paid at Frankfort, Kentucky, and at additional mailing offices. Postmas- ter: Send address changes to Kentucky Ancestors, Kentucky Historical Society, 100 West Broadway, Frankfort, KY 40601-1931. Please direct changes of address and other notices concerning membership or mailings to the Membership De- partment, Kentucky Historical Society, 100 West Broadway, Frankfort, KY 40601-1931; telephone (502) 564-1792. Submissions and correspondence should be directed to: Tom Stephens, editor, Kentucky Ancestors, Kentucky Histori- cal Society, 100 West Broadway, Frankfort, KY 40601-1931. The Kentucky Historical Society, an agency of the Commerce Cabinet, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, or disability, and provides, on request, reasonable accommodations, includ- ing auxiliary aids and services necessary to afford an individual with a disability an equal opportunity to participate in all services, programs, and activities. KentuckyHistoricalSociety contents vol. 39, no. 4/summer 2004 Kentucky African American Immigrants to Liberia, 1820-43 Dr. Adell Patton Jr. .......................................................................................................................... 174 Abstracts from the Kentucky Statesman, March 20, 1850 Transcribed by Thomas H. Appleton Jr................................................................................... 182 The Alvey Family of England, Maryland, and Kentucky, Part Five Robert Lee Alvey Sr........................................................................................................................... 189 Queries .......................................................................................................................................... 203 Book Notes ................................................................................................................................... 205 Announcements ............................................................................................................................. 207 Mystery Album ............................................................................................................................. 208 Surname Index, Volume 39........................................................................................................... 209 on the cover: This detail of an 1870 map by “D. McClelland” shows the settlement sites of freed Kentucky slaves in Liberia. The state sent 193 immigrants to Liberia in 1833 and 1840-41, one of whom—Alfred Francis Russell—served as president of the republic in 1883 and 1884. The sites, shown at center, came to be known as Kentucky and Clay-Ashland. The entire map can be viewed on the American Memory portion of the Library of Congress Web site, www.loc.gov. The article Kentucky African American Immigrants to Liberia, 1820-43, begins on page 174. (Courtesy Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress) Kentucky African American Immigrants to Liberia, 1820-43 By Dr. Adell Patton Jr. Dr. Patton, a 1959 graduate of Kentucky State University in Frankfort, received his Ph.D. in African History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975. He is a professor of history at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Dr. Patton wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Henry E. Cheaney, along with Jennifer Spearman- Simms and Paul Wilmarth, staff members at University of Missouri-St. Louis Faculty Resource Center. The African diaspora remains a neglected theme the first avowed purpose of the ACS was to provide in the genealogy of Kentucky African American support for the removal of free born and the newly immigrants to Liberia, West Africa, from 1820 to emancipated from the various slave states to Liberia, 1843. “Diaspora” refers to a scattering or dispersal of which formed auxiliary societies to the ACS. people from their “homeland.” It has three parts: This restructuring of the Haitian social classes and The voluntary or forceful immigration from the its resulting shock waves undermined the confidence “homeland” (some 15 million slaves taken from of the financial systems of Europe in regard to Africa to the Western Hemisphere), the assimilation investing in slavery. The first avowed purpose of the and identity in the alien and oftentimes hostile ACS was to provide support for the removal of the territory, and the “return” to the “homeland,” which free born and newly emancipated from the various can be either psychological or actual physical move- U.S. slave states to Liberia, which formed auxiliary ment. Through time the Kentucky African American societies to the ACS. The Kentucky Colonization immigrants to Liberia experienced all of these Society was formed in 1829, and three years later manifestations. had 31 affiliates, a number exceeded by only Virginia It all began with the formation of the American and Ohio. Colonization Society (ACS) at Washington, D.C., in One Kentucky emigrant to Liberia was Milly 1816. As one may recall, the Haitian Revolution Crawford, an “octoroon” (one-eighth black) from from 1790-1804 not only freed some 500,000 slaves Lexington, who passed through Frankfort on March that resulted in not only the restructuring of the 10, 1833. An example of what has been called the social classes, but in creating the second republic in “Scandalous Paradox,” Crawford wrote that many the Western Hemisphere, it sent shock waves and women were serving as heads of the families that undermined the confidence of the financial systems included children of slave owners.1 of Europe in regard to investing in slavery. Hence, Crawford followed a circuitous route from Ken- tucky to Liberia. From Frankfort, she and her four children—Sinthia, Gibert, George, and Henry—set out for Louisville, where they boarded the river boat Mediterranean. Upon arriving in New Orleans, they were joined by 27 other immigrants, “6 from TN, 19 from OH, 2 from New Orleans.” The group boarded the brig Ajax on April 20, 1833, for Liberia. White missionaries A.H. Savage and H.D. King, agents for the Tennessee Coloniza- tion Society, spearheaded their embarkation: “The cost of the expedition ($5,000) was defrayed by the American Colonization Society with a donation of Cartographic Laboratory, University of Wisconsin-Madison $2,300 from KY Colonization Society. Cholera, West Africa in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth whooping cough, or a bowel disorder forced the brig Centuries to put for many days at a West Indian island and 30 2004 Kentucky Ancestors V39-4 174 Kentucky African American Immigrants to Liberia, continued_______ (mostly children) died during the passage.”2 Ship records show that 119 passengers from Kentucky arrived in Liberia on July 11, 1833: “16 born free, the rest manumitted—24 by Richard Bibb (a white clergyman from Logan Co. who gave them clothes & $400); 12 by William O. Dudley (a planter in Adair Co.); and 7 by Mary O. Wickliffe of Lexington, Kentucky. The settlers were put under quarantine upon arrival by Dr. Mechlin who then sent them to Caldwell & Millsburg on the St. Paul’s River (formerly Bassa country) where 26 soon died, 2 others returned to the US, and 1 migrated to [Freetown] Sierra Leone.”3 Much of this data is reflected in the list. By 1832, Kentucky had a slave population of 170,130, which amounted to 25 percent of the total population.4 The state sent 193 immigrants to Liberia in 1833 and 1840-41, which amounted to Cartographic Laboratory, University of Wisconsin-Madison 4.3 percent of the total.5 Languages and Ethnic Groups in Liberia Although 4,571 emigrants arrived between 1820 and 1843, mortality had reduced the population to left bank of the St. Paul River and Millsberg on the only 1,819 by the latter year, giving the settlement right bank and later at Bassa and Monrovia. its reputation as the “Black Man’s Grave.”6 Monrovia became the capital of Africa’s first republic The Kentucky groups settled at Caldwell on the when Liberia was founded in 1847. Wickliffe-Preston Family Papers, Box 39, University of Kentucky Special Collections and Archives Milly Crawford on her way to Liberia from Lexington Kentucky A letter to Mary Owen Todd Russell Wickliffe March 10 1833 Saterday night My Dear Misstress we have all arrived at frankfort in safety and health little George Lucy and all the chil- dren are well. My dear Misstress how shall we thank you for all your kindness too us. We sometimes despond being all females and children haveing