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INSCRIBED BY ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE CAPE COLONY (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--LIBERIA.) LATROBE, JOHN HAZLEHURST BONEVAL. Baibli ah Histori (Bible History in the Grebo Language.) Frontispiece and seven full-page wood engravings, with captions in Grebo. 123 pages. 12mo, original cloth-backed marbled paper-covered boards with small printed paper label, chipped resulting in the loss of a few letters; some slight wear to the spine extremities; some very light foxing, otherwise an exceptional copy. Cape Palmas, West Africa: Press of the A. B. C. F. Mission, 1840
first edition, inscribed by john latrobe, one of the founders of the west african colony of maryland in africa: "Mrs. B. Davids from her friend J. Hazlehurst." A Bible history in Grebo, the West African language spoken at Cape Palmas. John Latrobe (1803-1891) and others from Maryland founded the colony in 1834, naming it "Maryland in Africa," with Cape Palmas as its capital. Latrobe, a scholar of African-American history wrote the first biography of Benjamin Banneker. In 1836 the colony appointed its first black governor, John Brown Russwurm (1799-1851) who remained its governor until his death. Russwurm was also the superintendant of education for Liberia in general and it is possible that he might have had something to do with the printing of this little volume. Russwurm had been editor of the Liberia Herald, but resigned in 1835 to protest America's colonization policies. In 1838, when all of the smaller settlements along the coast became part of the larger Liberia, Maryland in Africa remained independent. Instead, in 1841 Maryland in Africa became the "State of Maryland." From the numbering of the plates to match the page locations in the book, and the captions in Grebo, the illustrations for this little Bible history were no doubt made at Cape Palmas. Rare, OCLC locates only two copies. .
