Lott Cary - Colony of Liberia

Colony of Liberia

By 1821, Cary had accumulated a sum to pay his own expenses as a member of the colony sent to the African coast. In cooperation with the First Baptist Church of Richmond, the American Baptist Foreign Missions Society, and the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society, of which he was a founder, Cary became the first black American missionary to Africa.

In the new colony of Liberia, Cary served the leadership as a counselor, physician, and pastor. His second wife died shortly after they arrived in Africa. In 1825, the New York Observer noted that he had, at Cape Mesurado, since lost a third wife, "the daughter of Richard Sampson, from Petersburg, Virginia. He established Providence Baptist Church in Monrovia, and several schools. In 1826, he was elected vice-agent of the ACS.

Early life in the Colony of Liberia was full of danger. Native Africans resisted the colonization and expansion by the American settlers, which resulted in many armed conflicts between them. The colonists were also at risk of attack from slave traders, who would have sold them into slavery.

In August 1828, Cary became acting governor of Liberia. He had been designated the successor by the previous governor, who died. Later that year Cary's role in Liberia was cut short. He died on November 10, 1828, two days after an accident while making bullets. Expecting an attack by slave traders, Cary and other men were making bullet cartridges. An explosion of materials fatally injured Cary and seven of his companions.