Wilmington, Del. 12 July 1862.

MY DEAR SIR:—
Our common friend Charles Reason showed me, the other day, your no
tice of my book, and I have to thank for you the same. Critics have their
own will, and their own way, and it is useless to attempt to interfere with
them; there is however one single point which I must call your attention to,
that is, the tacit charge of disingenuousness which concludes the article.
You say that I say one thing to the people of Liberia respecting progress
and improvement—that my tale is different in New York. You refer to my
speech in New York¹Alexander Crummell’s speech “The Progress and Prospects of the Republic of Liberia” was given at the annual meeting of the New York State Colonization Society on 9 May 1861. Alexander Crummell, The Future of Africa (New York, 1862), 133; Gregory U. Rigsby, (Westport, Conn., 1987), 112; Ripley, , 1:146-48. where I declare the fact of great growth and expan
sion in Liberia, you quote in contrast, another speech (in Liberia,) where
I say that we are as “yet hardly productive certainly not self supporting.”

I must say that you are exceedingly unfair, and radically unjust to
me, and yet I do not think you intended to be. Now my dear sir, go back
to my book, look at the date of my speech in Monrovia,²Crummell is referring to his speech “The Duty of a Rising Christian State,” delivered before the Common Council and members of the public in Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, on 26 July 1855. Crummell, , 57. when I told my countrymen of their weakness and unproductiveness. It was the year 1855,
at which time there was not a single pound of sugar manufactured in the
whole country,³Liberian farmers began to cultivate cane sugar crops for profit in 1841 when Governor Thomas Buchanan appointed a white man to supervise production at the Bushrod Island Public Farm in Monrovia, resulting in the manufacture of several thousands of pounds of sugar. It soon became a popular export, but the production of sugar was labor intensive. Livestock carried the harvested cane to the mill and propelled the heavy mill rollers that extracted the juice from the stalks. A breed of livestock was needed that was not susceptible to fatal forms of malaria. Since livestock and equipment were expensive, sugar production was mostly controlled by a small group of wealthy Americo-Liberian farmers. W. R. Aykroyd, (Chicago, 1967), 23; William E. Allen, “Historical Methodology and Writing the Liberian Past: The Case of Agriculture in the Nineteenth Century,” , 32:21-39 (2005).³ nor a single sugar mill in the land!⁴Sugar production rose in the 1840s and 1850s when the Liberian government elected to subsidize the purchase of additional sugar mills. A report published in the African Repository indicates that it was the leading cultivated product in 1862. Sugar exports for the fiscal year ending 30 September were 14,892 pounds, with another 31,331 pounds exported in the next six months. African Repository, 39:257-67; Aykroyd, , 23; Allen, “Historical Methodology and Writing the Liberian Past,” 32:21—39.

I made my other speech affirming progress, improvement, and grow
ing wealth in Liberia in 1861. What are the facts of the case? Why hun
dreds of acres of land are planted with sugar cane and have been cut and
the cane manufactured into sugar since the former speech of 1855. Last
year besides the home supply and sale to the British, French and other
settlements on the coast, we shipped in two vessels, 22 hhds⁵An abbreviation for the term “hogshead,”’ a large cask for storing liquids with a standard capacity of sixty-three gallons. in each for
England and America. We have now some 25 mills in operation,⁶According to reports written by J. W. Lugenbeel and G. S. Stockwell in 1868, sugarcane, although suitable to the climate, was not a major crop in Liberia, because of competition from West Indian sugar plantations. Consequently, there were four steam sugar mills in 1863. G. S. Stockwell and J. W. Lugenbeel, (New York, 1868), 43, 197. and yet last year at the grinding season, large quantities of cane had to be left
untouched.—Twelve sugar mills are gone out this year, and four of them
were shipped a fortnight ago—The Coffee trade⁷The volcanic soil and tropical climate of Liberia were particularly well suited to tree
producing crops such as coffee. Liberian coffee trees (Coffea liberica), indigenous to the plains and forests of Western Africa, produced prolific crops of beans. Wanting to capitalize on this commodity, early African American settlers planted and cultivated Liberian coffee trees and sold their yields to trading vessels in the coastal port of Monrovia. The introduction of a device invented by Edward Morris, of Philadelphia, that separated the beans from their hulls further increased production. Coffee commerce steadily increased from 1850 to 1870 as a result of increased production and demand as well as trade agreements between Liberia, the United States, the British government, the Netherlands, Italy, and Denmark; it then began to decline in 1876, finally collapsing in the 1880s. San Francisco , 10 December 1876; D. Morris, (Kingston, Jamaica, 1881), 2, 14; Nelson, , 164; Allen, “Historical Methodology and Writing the Liberian Past,” 32:21-39. has so increased that
arrangements are already made to introduce machinery into the country
to supersede our slow hand labor. I beg you to notice here the fact that all

this machinery has been bought by our own planters, and that most of the
money for it, is the proceeds of successful ventures in sugar manufactur
ing since the year 1856[.] And I declare that I know of no growth any
where in the world comparable to this. I know nothing in history equal to
it. It has been my great privilege in God’s providence, to see with my own
eyes, this wonderful development during the period of six years, on Afri
can soil, and by the sons of Africa in their own country. And now I claim
that there is no discrepancy whatever, no contradiction in my speeches.
They are perfectly reconcilable, because the contrast is history—but his
tory crowded into a brief period of time.

You will be glad to hear of the warm and cordial greeting President
Benson⁸Stephen Allen Benson (1816-65), born a free black in the United States, emigrated from Maryland to Liberia in 1822. Benson served in the Liberian militia, and then served in political positions, such as secretary to Commonwealth governor Thomas Buchanan. In 1855, he was elected the second president of Liberia and served from 1856 to 1864. Throughout his term as president, international trade increased, the first modern hospital was established, and Liberia College opened. In recognition of Liberia’s political progress under Benson, Belgium, Denmark, the United States, Italy, Norway, and Sweden all officially recognized the African nation. Benson also was Liberia’s first president capable of speaking multiple indigenous languages, including Bassa. D. Ellwood Dunn, Amos J. Beyan, and Carl Patrick Burrowes, eds., , 2d ed. (Lanham,
Md., 2001), 37-38. received in England. On the 26th of June, a splendid banquet was
given him at Willis’ Hall,⁹The banquet for President Benson was held on Friday, 27 June 1862, and attended by approximately two hundred people. Lord Brougham held the event at the Willis’s Rooms, also known as the Almack’s Assembly Rooms, a longtime London social club. Edinburgh Caledonian Mercury, 30 June 1862; London Daily News, 30 June 1862; Bristol Mercury, 5 July 1862; London Penny Illustrated Paper, 5 July 1862. presided over by Lord Brougham.¹⁰Henry Peter Brougham. He has
been invited by many of the nobility to their estates, and been received
with great consideration and respect, at several of the great societies. He
sailed for the United States on the 5th of July,¹¹No record confirming this date has been located, but Benson wrote a letter to a Philadelphia newspaper in April 1862, stating his intention to travel to the United States after his trip to Europe. Philadelphia North American and United States Gazette, 14 May 1862.
¹¹ and I look for him next
week. I hear that he is likely to receive attentions from eminent persons in
this country. While here we shall conclude a treaty with the United States.

Most cordially yours,
ALEX. CRUMMELL.

PLSr: DM, 5:695 (August 1862).