Ink, watercolor, pencil. In 1822, the American Colonization Society established the settlement at Cape Mesurado, later named Monrovia. Among other features, this drawing shows the rectangular houses of the settlers and the circular houses of the indigenous population (Bassa?); churches are also shown. The promontory on the right has a flagpole (another is on the left) and lighthouse. The latter is probably the first lighthouse at Cape Mesurado, erected in 1836. The drawing of Cape Mount does not display man-made features. Sources: Harry Johnston, Liberia (Dodd, Mead, 1906); Richard Hall, On Africís Shore (Baltimore, 2003). See other image references UVA on this site. For background to this and other UVA images, see image reference UVA01.

Drawings of Western Africa (University of Virginia Library, Special Collections, MSS 14357, no. 28).

English

Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

UVA24

Africa--Rivers

"Cape Mount and Cape Mesurado (Monrovia), Liberia, 1840s-1850s", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed September 30, 2023, http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/3163